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PVP, Human Psychology, and Making Punishing Systems Feel Good.

FippyFippy Member, Alpha Two
edited November 7 in General Discussion
Good (bad) news everyone! I've had enough play time to have opinions! And given my background in psychology, which is to say that I have a history of training animals IRL and will be generalizing wildly from here on out, I often wonder about what the things we experience in a given day are teaching us about the world. The following is what I've learned of the world of Verra:

1) Death sometimes feels fine, and sometimes it feels really, REALLY bad.
2) PVP sometimes feels good, and sometimes it feel really, REALLY bad.

The GOOD!
-When you and your friend encounter two corrupted players of similar level in the wilds, and you kill them and take their cool green wand, that feels good, especially when one has a name with three K's in a row!
I learned that I can engage in PVP against people who did bad things. Fun!

-When you take a wrong turn and suddenly find yourself face to face with big daddy rock beasts that want to eat your face because you negligently assumed the road would be the safer option to travel, and you frantically flee on your horse but inevitably get knocked off and try to use your charge abilities to GTFO of there, and you almost make it, but then you get *absolutely fucking demolished* that feels... good?!
I learned the game world isn't cut and dry, and I should always be aware because much higher mobs can be ANYWHERE and dang I ALMOST made it away... that was... fun? The 2% experience debt feels very valid here.

The BAD!
- When you are crafting in town and someone 3 levels higher than you comes through and steamrolls you, you gain a 2% experience debt, and you lose a good deal of the crafting materials you just spent an hour gathering, that feels ... really bad. I was res'd by a nearby player after I'd been killed, which was very nice of them, but then about 30 minutes later after I'd done some more crafting, they came back and killed me again. Another 2% debt. Alrighty... this feels... even worse. I wasn't the only one, and 2 hours later the person was still there.

I learned that I should never alt+tab, get up to grab a soda, take a quick bio break, or any other short break. I can never feel safe crafting ever because digging through a crafting menu means not having situational awareness. Maybe I'm not actually interested in the crafting system at all if an hours worth of farming can be erased in seconds. Far from feeling empowered, I felt a complete lack of control or self determination.

So the question becomes, is this what you want players to learn about the game? Depending on the answer to that question, here's some potential solutions to be ignored at your leisure if desired:

1) There are apparently no guards nearby the crafting areas (at least in miraleth) that might take issue with corrupted players attacking people. Perhaps there should be?
2) Guards do not seem to care about the presence of a corrupted player. Perhaps they should?
3) Perhaps town services might be denied to corrupt players? It feels bad watching the guy who killed you walk up to the storage clerk and dump all your things there.
4) I'm hesitant to say that NO experience debt should accrue if you're killed by a corrupt player, but perhaps *diminishing returns* on experience debt if killed by the same corrupted player?
5) Perhaps variable experience debt based on the level of the player that kills you? Equal level fight, 2% debt, sure. a 3 level difference, maybe more like .5%, and a 5 level difference, should there even be a debt at that point?
6) Variable loot loss based on level difference. Does it make sense for a player 5 levels higher than someone to get 25-50% of someone's items?

Final thoughts:
I can learn to avoid areas with high level mobs, get better at dodging and blocking mobs, and fine tune my spec to be a great tank for my friends, but I can't account for some guy that gets their kicks by PKing lowbies for fun at 2am. These types are committed to the trolling, unless I'm to believe that PKing people is a better way to farm crafting reagents... In any case, currently the systems in place meant to discourage that behavior seem to favor engaging in that kind of behavior, and I suspect there will be many iterations of the system to come.

Comments

  • ImnotkioImnotkio Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 2
    A heads up: You can deposit all your materials and use the profession stations without having to carry all that in your inventory, the stations will pull things from your deposit automatically
  • Zapatos80Zapatos80 Member, Alpha Two
    Guards are supposed to kill corrupted players on sight. Also, hopefully, the design is that attacking another player in town, no matter what color you are, should get you immediately piled on by guards. Hopefully they implement this properly soon.
  • TaerrikTaerrik Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Zapatos80 wrote: »
    Guards are supposed to kill corrupted players on sight. Also, hopefully, the design is that attacking another player in town, no matter what color you are, should get you immediately piled on by guards. Hopefully they implement this properly soon.

    I always thought it would be cool if a red player got killed by guards in town, instead of respawning would spend 30 minutes in the stockade before respawning.
    ptZBAr9.png
  • VeeshanVeeshan Member, Alpha Two
    Zapatos80 wrote: »
    Guards are supposed to kill corrupted players on sight. Also, hopefully, the design is that attacking another player in town, no matter what color you are, should get you immediately piled on by guards. Hopefully they implement this properly soon.

    there been alot of town killing this test where guards wont do anthiung however thats not corrupted players it actualy caravan bug where people sign up as defenders theyll be attackable anywhere for anyone who signed up as attacker for like 10 hours due to caravan event system not going away when caravan despawns :P
    i feel that might be the issue here since orange names are rather similiare to red at quick glance
  • DezmerizingDezmerizing Member, Alpha Two
    I had no idea one could PvP in the village nodes and then just kinda walk off.

    I very much doubt that is the way it is supposed to go by design, so its probably a bug where the guards are not reacting as they should. :)
    lizhctbms6kg.png
  • iARNiARN Member, Alpha Two
    Good post, well thought out, reasonable. I think your proposed fixes are reasonable, but hopefully they won't feel necessary if the guards stop sleeping on the job.
  • UboonUboon Member, Alpha Two
    Imnotkio wrote: »
    A heads up: You can deposit all your materials and use the profession stations without having to carry all that in your inventory, the stations will pull things from your deposit automatically

    I tried that but no mats were available while crafting. Perhaps I'm bugged. Will report next time but not sure if this is working as intended. If you have to hold mats in your bags then this does incentivise PvP so perhaps that is the intention.
  • FippyFippy Member, Alpha Two
    Imnotkio wrote: »
    A heads up: You can deposit all your materials and use the profession stations without having to carry all that in your inventory, the stations will pull things from your deposit automatically

    Thanks for this info!



    Uboon wrote: »
    I tried that but no mats were available while crafting. Perhaps I'm bugged. Will report next time but not sure if this is working as intended. If you have to hold mats in your bags then this does incentivise PvP so perhaps that is the intention.

    I think either we're both bugged, or this option doesn't open until level 10 and you're a citizen... what level are you? I was not a citizen of this node that I got ganked at.

  • ImnotkioImnotkio Member, Alpha Two
    This might not be implemented yet, I haven't tested it, but that is the intent.
  • FippyFippy Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 5
    Veeshan wrote: »
    Zapatos80 wrote: »
    Guards are supposed to kill corrupted players on sight. Also, hopefully, the design is that attacking another player in town, no matter what color you are, should get you immediately piled on by guards. Hopefully they implement this properly soon.

    there been alot of town killing this test where guards wont do anthiung however thats not corrupted players it actualy caravan bug where people sign up as defenders theyll be attackable anywhere for anyone who signed up as attacker for like 10 hours due to caravan event system not going away when caravan despawns :P
    i feel that might be the issue here since orange names are rather similiare to red at quick glance

    This player name was definitely red to me, but strangely it was white to my friend who was with me. We had both clicked on a caravan event to be defenders, but could never actually find the caravan, and we moved on. That's a really good idea though. Not sure why the name was red to me and not my friend though as we'd been doing the same caravan.

    Also side note I love your name :P
  • Helios_BlackHelios_Black Member, Alpha Two
    Imnotkio wrote: »
    This might not be implemented yet, I haven't tested it, but that is the intent.

    It is not implemented yet. At this time you need to remove items from storage to craft and there is sometimes a bug that prevents you from removing said items from storage without relogging.
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