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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Grudge System - theory crafting
0tee
Member, Alpha Two
Hello everyone,
I love theory-crafting about „small“ gameplay systems so what I have here for you is the „Grudge System“, which is an addition to the OPvP they already have in place. I got the initial idea from the streamer PirateSoftware and expanded on it a lot, to hopefully make it as a reasonable „could work“ feature for the game. First you will read a very short explanation, further down I have the system more in detail. Feel free to give your ideas and feedback! Would you use such a system?
Short explanation:
Someone did you dirty? Denounced you in your hometown? Told everyone you died to that level 2 gremlin last week? Pulled enemies on you to kill you? lootet your dead body? Maybe you just don’t like the way someone looked at you? Beware! You can now have a chance to get back at them!
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What makes this system unique and standalone from the current OPvP System?
How does the system work?
„You can enlist players you see (right clicking their portrait) onto a grudge list (similar to a friends list). This will help you keep track of all the enemies you want to punish.“
„At specific locations in every zone or node you find a NPC where you can buy grudge items. With one of those Items, you can select a name from your grudge list to activate a grudge against that player.“
„You can only have one active grudge and by holding a grudge against someone you both will see each other on the map.“
„You can hunt down your rival and by killing him/ her you get a bonus to the loot (glint) you get for normaly killing a Player.“
How can this system be exploited/ and what solves that?
I love theory-crafting about „small“ gameplay systems so what I have here for you is the „Grudge System“, which is an addition to the OPvP they already have in place. I got the initial idea from the streamer PirateSoftware and expanded on it a lot, to hopefully make it as a reasonable „could work“ feature for the game. First you will read a very short explanation, further down I have the system more in detail. Feel free to give your ideas and feedback! Would you use such a system?
Short explanation:
Someone did you dirty? Denounced you in your hometown? Told everyone you died to that level 2 gremlin last week? Pulled enemies on you to kill you? lootet your dead body? Maybe you just don’t like the way someone looked at you? Beware! You can now have a chance to get back at them!
- You can enlist players you see (right clicking their portrait) onto a grudge list (similar to a friends list). This will help you keep track of all the enemies you want to punish.
- At specific locations in every zone or node you find a NPC where you can buy grudge items. With one of those Items, you can select a name from your grudge list to activate a grudge against that player.
- You can only have one active grudge and by holding a grudge against someone you both will see each other on the map.
- You can hunt down your rival and by killing him/ her, you get a bonus to the loot (glint) you get for normally killing a Player.
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What makes this system unique and standalone from the current OPvP System?
- Right now you can flag up for PvP and attack anyone close to you, however you are not able to get back at someone who killed you/ looted your body and runs away. The only way to have a revenge is by randomly finding the player again.
- The Grudge System gives you the option to create a new PvP interaction with someone.
- It gives players who enjoy OPvP more options and hopefully creates interesting cat and mouse situations.
- Also, this system gives players or guilds who want to be bounty hunters more opportunities to play that way, as it makes it easier for them to carry out bounty missions from other players.
How does the system work?
„You can enlist players you see (right clicking their portrait) onto a grudge list (similar to a friends list). This will help you keep track of all the enemies you want to punish.“
- The other player has to be near you to prevent spamming the system on players across the worldmap.
„At specific locations in every zone or node you find a NPC where you can buy grudge items. With one of those Items, you can select a name from your grudge list to activate a grudge against that player.“
- The usable grudge items are consumables. Right now I have ideas for two of such items, feel free to suggest more. The first item is used to choose a name from your grudge list and activate the grudge (for example, “death note", write the name of the person you hold a grudge against on the note using your blood, then eat it to activate the grudge). The second Item would be an item to protect yourself from grudges for a certain time (for example, „stinky binky“, eat the stinky binky and if you are able to swallow it without vomiting you will be protected against any grudges for a while). You can only activate the grudge protection when you are not in an active grudge.
- Activating the system via an item makes the system more accessible but still some kind of limiting. For activation, some limitations need to be in place. For example: The player to be targeted must be at least 200 meters, but no more than 4 kilometers away. This way you cannot activate a grudge against someone right next to you and it also prevents you from activating a grudge against someone very far away.
- For the NPC selling the grudge Items you could have a shady vendor (maybe even slightly hidden) in every Zone of the map. Also, there could be a building in every node (e.g. „Smuggler’s cave“) when the node reaches a certain level or the mayor builds it.
„You can only have one active grudge and by holding a grudge against someone you both will see each other on the map.“
- It is important that both players see each other on the map. This way it is prevented that the system is exploited to only track players/ caravans/ guilds. It evens out the playing ground.
- I would also make it so that the map marker only updates every 3-5 minutes; this makes the whole cat and mouse more exciting.
„You can hunt down your rival and by killing him/ her you get a bonus to the loot (glint) you get for normaly killing a Player.“
- After activating the grudge you will automatically be PvP flagged until the grudge hunt is over
- There should be a time limit, for example you only have 20 minutes to kill your enemy, if you cant do it in time your grudge will end without a reward.
- The player holding the grudge should be extra rewarded if he/ she was able to kill the target. This way, the target is more motivated to defend off the hitman to deny them the reward.
- You cannot activate a grudge against the same person twice a day. Also, after successfully killing your target they will be deleted from your grudge list and can not be listed again that day
- After someone killed you as a grudge target you cannot be targeted for a grudge for X amount of Time (1-2 hours) from any player.
How can this system be exploited/ and what solves that?
- Famous people/ streamers could get spammed with grudges to grief their playing experience. For non streaming famous individuals it is a bit easier, since they cannot be tracked regarding online times and position on the map through the stream. They probably have less of a Problem. For streamers it's different. On one side the system is probably beneficial for their stream since it makes things more interesting to watch. On the other side it could get annoying, so here are the things that help with that. There are items which gives you grudge protection and after a grudge against you was successful, you cannot be targeted by the same person twice for some time. Since they are PvP flagged when they activate a grudge on you, you could also hire guild mates or people from your chat to protect you.
- Whole guilds could grudge someone to make their life miserable. After a grudge against you is successful you will be protected for some time against grudges from any player.
- Players trading grudges to get extra rewards. Not possible since players killed will never drop extra items, only their owned ones (as far as I understand the current death system).
0
Comments
Otherwise, could be a fun feature for after release.
Thank you for your feedback, I understand the concern, but this scenario is very unlikely to happen the way you described it and the way the system is designed. Let me explain why:
Appreciate your feedback. Just to understand your position here, what exactly do you mean by "opt in .."?
The suggestions of impeding players on the list without actually being anywhere near them seems like a bit much. At that point I would just utilize the guild war system, or the node war system. And if you know their home node, you could at least go look for them there as opposed to being able to B-line to them.
Whether or not they become notified that you have them on your list I am indifferent to.
Thank you for your thoughtful opinion on the system. I totally understand where you're coming from. A simple system for monitoring your enemy's is also a fun and probably easy to implement approach. I really like your idea with having different nameplate colors and listing information about the player, such as their location and guild affiliation.
In my opinion the simple approach would not really lead to the "Darks Souls/ Elden Ring" like OPvP situations I want to create with my idea. I believe players would hardly use the simple system to engage with their rivals in normal OPvP, because the effort to find someone randomly would likely be too much hussle. With the expanded system, ideally additional open PvP situations would arise, for players who want more opportunities for OPvP without being corrupted. However I'm of course not sure if Ashes already has enough variety in OPvP, so that this system isn't needed or used. It's still probably a bit of a niche system anyway.
How about a there just being a grudge tracker which lists settled grudges (kinda like tags from BF series)? Or a bulletin board in settlements. Maybe just a zone wide message if a grudge is settled.
Like your idea is not bad, just more focused on 1v1 scenarios. And this may be abused by large groups to hunt down innocent players.
What intrepid is implementing is Group focused. Like you dont like that guy? Well contact his guild leader and have the result be: either kick the dude from the guild by the leader, or have guild war.
That's the first thing I thought, because such a system would just be a spy tool
I think this idea could be good tough, maybe if someone destroyed your freehold then you would be able to activate the grudge (hate the word tough), or maybe destroyed your ship, or picked your flowers, etc.
By the way, it would be boring chasing one guy in particular in a huge world and you don't even know when he will be online LOL. Also, why adding the hurdles you added to the idea, big problem there: "only twice a day" or "for 20 minutes", "consume an item" etc... so you already created an idea that will have no impact and it's just a chore
No gameplay impact
Idea rating: 1 out of 10
It would be really fun and great if the normal OPvP will play this way, but I´m not sure if a whole node/ guild will decide to go to war just because you have a grudge with someone. Also I´m not sure how often Guild or Node wars will be present, I believe it's not that frequently.
The way I designed the system is: when you activate your grudge you will be PvP flagged, but your target will only be "grudge flagged" so he is not PvP flagged but the grudge hunter will not get corrupted killing the target. This way you can't eficcently hunt them down with a big group since they get corrupted.
But I agree, it's a very niche 1v1 focused system. It's good and apreciated that intrepid is aiming for group content instead.
Thank you for your honest feedback.
I don't see any way it would "steal" possibilities for other system that are not even implemented and announced yet. This is a very weird critique. Also, if they implement a bounty hunt system it would probably be corruption focused (bounty on corrupted players), which this system clearly is not.
This is all I want the system to be, no more no less. You got the point.
I mean it should be obvious that the system works so you can only activate the grudge when the target is online. Also, since you read through my whole text you probably know that you can only activate the grudge when you are a certain distance to the target. This way, yes there is a chase, but it's not as tedious as you describe it and it's part of the gameplay (cat and mouse).
Why does it need to have an impact? It's for gameplay fun and OPvP diversity that's all. It's not set up to be a big or impactful system so that's why it's not. Easy as that.
Since you red through all of my text you should know that some restrictions ("hurdles) are necessary (in every system) so that it cannot be exploited. I have a whole section about the If and why.
A Grunge skill tree for bardes would be hilarious
Yes, I’m one of those people who reads every post, long ones included if the subject is good. So when they go on too long, it can be frustrating. But yours? You caught my interest, so good job!
A few years back, I roleplayed as a bounty hunter in EVE for about 3-4 months, using the locator and kill right systems. The locator system lets NPCs reveal your target's location, while the kill right system allows you to flag someone as a suspect, making them open to attack even in high-security space. So, your idea is quite similar to what’s already in EVE Online. I encountered a variety of situations every day, learning both the strengths and weaknesses of the system, it has weaknesses in most cases.
One good thing about EVE's kill right system is that victims can transfer the kill right to other groups or individuals, so the player who is role playing as hunter can receive many kill rights from many different people and the hunter can spend the day chasing others. This was one of the few strengths of the system.
Traveling in EVE isn’t quick; while there’s some complicated teleportation, it can lead to serious losses. I often spent minutes to an hour reaching my targets, only to find them offline or docked for hours. This is a common situation, and in AoC, a player might also be away or log off right after you’ve made the effort to track them down. Maybe your target in AoC will be afk in his apartment or freehold for hours.
A system like this doesn’t really impact the game world or players’ experiences, it’s just a chance for a kill that might not even happen. I still believe systems like this can be great, but finding a balance of fun and effectiveness is key. There should be meaningful reasons for conflicts, like:
All reasons for conflict should carry weight and have specific time windows to act. It could really enhance the experience!
Well, I won't put much brain effort into this since I doubt Intrepid will implement a system like that unfortunately, I was just giving you a heads up since I have experience doing that kind of thing.
That said I can't endorse the concept as outlined due to the system not deing dependent upon corruption. Simply being able to flag any player in sight for tracking and attack is contrary to the games intended pvp system in my opinion. I like the idea of being able to keep a personal 'revenge' list of other players, like an anti-friends list, but simply keeping the lits and having the character highlighted for you as enemy is the maximum power you can have over players who have not explicitly killed you. So this can effectivly be spun off as a seperate features.
Any legitimate 'grudge' needs to come as a direct result of a player gaining corruption for killing you. A player killed in such a way can be granted some form of grudge token upon revival (possibly requiring them to have been carrying a 'blank' item of this type and thus representing some material investment and preperation on their part, in which case they have a single chance to use it on revival or else keep it blank for future use) which lists the victims name and time of death, and the corrupted players name and provides a read-out of their current level and corruption status, aka it will tell you how much stat-dampeneding they are under and for how long and update in realtime their status on these factors. The grudge paper self deletes upon the corrupted player losing corrupt status.
But I would not give that token any other use for the player in question, I would only make it tradable to a bounty hunter who can then make use of their Bounty hunting powers to track the corrupted player in a more focused and singular manor then the generic 'corruptdar' which is the basis of the current bounty hunter system.
It is also possible that these grudge papers could have more powerful varients (higher cost and crafted by elite scribes) which while activated lengthen the duration of corruption and/or deepen the stat dampening. This would allow certain players, particularly solo players to have a defensive 'bee sting' against PK's and particularly any griefing.
The main issue is having this one-on-one transaction: the victim gives the "token" to the bounty hunter, who might not be online simultaneously with the criminal/corrupt individual; even if the guy is online he may afk the entire day for no reason. Even players in the same timezone don't always play at the same time, and in-game, they may not be in the same region. It is also a chore transferring tokens to bounty hunters, it can be too many clicks and typing. Also, finding a good bounty hunter is another challenge in itself
Then there's also the loot problem, once you kill the target the loot will drop and anyone around will scoop the loot, random people or even the target's friends will save his loot for him.
Trust me, if Intrepid ever has interest in making a good bounty hunter or vendetta systems they would need someone like me to design it, since I have done this enough, I have been in both sides of this coin, I was the hunter and the hunted.
As a conclusion I would personally go with the most suggested idea:
"personal 'revenge' list of other players, like an anti-friends list and having the character highlighted for you "
Simple and easy.
Even though I think my system would be cool, it has some flaws. I originally wanted to create an addition to the other OPvP systems, but my system seems to be too niche and 1v1 focused. It could be used to harass and spy on other players and even tho I tried to hinder that, my system would probably not be used very much otherwise.
There are some cool ideas for a bounty hunting system from the last two commenters, but this was not the intend for my system so I will not comment further on that.