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