Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Corruption doesn't just prevent "griefing". It prevents almost all open-world pvp.
vol
Member, Alpha Two
I'd like paint an all too familiar picture.
You and your group have a nice grinding spot going. You've got a rotation down, everything's goin well. In comes another group of equal numbers. They're stealing at least half of your mobs, maybe they even talk some trash.
What do you do?
In most games with open-world pvp, you can bet we're dukin it out. If they want that spot they need to earn it. Pvp ensues, fun times are had.
Not in Ashes. In Ashes, our group has two choices. A, suffer a much less efficient farm and hope they leave because we're managing to kill enough mobs still. B, Leave and find a new spot
Wow doesn't that sound fun and engaging...
But Sup, Ashes has a flag system. What's stopping you from pvping them for the spot?
Thank you for asking. The answer to this is simple.
Corruption!
All the other group needs to do, is nothing. They literally just don't have to fight back. That's it. Unless they counter-flag, which they have no reason to do so, we're forced to do one of the following:
Nothing in this game is currently worth going corrupt for. You gain a PERMANENT PVP DE-BUFF and upon death, lose at least 1-3 pieces of equipped gear.
The other group knows this. They know you don't want to risk going corrupt, so they just call your bluff.
But Sup, surely they also flag!
That'd be nice, but it's not the case. It's much smarter for the other group to let you attack them. It's a win-win for them. Either you stop attacking and they continue whatever they were doing, or you don't stop attacking, one of them dies, and when they kill you after you're corrupt they get your gear.
This is the sad, boring state of the game.
That's just one of many examples of how the corruption system is currently preventing good, fun pvp. In my previous post I listed some reason you'd want to flag on a player. I believe these are all justified and it's hard to argue any of it's "griefing".
None of these interactions currently happen because even all of them combined is not worth losing multiple pieces of gear and gaining blight on your character.
So my solution is this.
This seems like a lot. But all of these combined and I think we could have a game where the extreme current version of corruption isn't needed.
You and your group have a nice grinding spot going. You've got a rotation down, everything's goin well. In comes another group of equal numbers. They're stealing at least half of your mobs, maybe they even talk some trash.
What do you do?
In most games with open-world pvp, you can bet we're dukin it out. If they want that spot they need to earn it. Pvp ensues, fun times are had.
Not in Ashes. In Ashes, our group has two choices. A, suffer a much less efficient farm and hope they leave because we're managing to kill enough mobs still. B, Leave and find a new spot
Wow doesn't that sound fun and engaging...
But Sup, Ashes has a flag system. What's stopping you from pvping them for the spot?
Thank you for asking. The answer to this is simple.
Corruption! All the other group needs to do, is nothing. They literally just don't have to fight back. That's it. Unless they counter-flag, which they have no reason to do so, we're forced to do one of the following:
- Stop attacking them immediately
- Kill them and go corrupt
Nothing in this game is currently worth going corrupt for. You gain a PERMANENT PVP DE-BUFF and upon death, lose at least 1-3 pieces of equipped gear.
The other group knows this. They know you don't want to risk going corrupt, so they just call your bluff.
But Sup, surely they also flag!
That'd be nice, but it's not the case. It's much smarter for the other group to let you attack them. It's a win-win for them. Either you stop attacking and they continue whatever they were doing, or you don't stop attacking, one of them dies, and when they kill you after you're corrupt they get your gear.
This is the sad, boring state of the game.
That's just one of many examples of how the corruption system is currently preventing good, fun pvp. In my previous post I listed some reason you'd want to flag on a player. I believe these are all justified and it's hard to argue any of it's "griefing".
- they move into your farm spot
- they intentional train mobs onto your group
- they're a rival who you know wants to flag on you, so you do it first to get the jump
- they're trash talking
- maybe they've just got items you want
None of these interactions currently happen because even all of them combined is not worth losing multiple pieces of gear and gaining blight on your character.
So my solution is this.
- Add a timer to corruption. Make it increase with corruption levels. Give it a max of 20 or 30 minutes. This turns corruption into a survival game. The more corrupt you are, the less likely you will survive because they timer will be higher
- Remove the debuffs you get when corrupt. The longer you're corrupt, the more people will be hunting you. It's going to feel pretty bad if they catch you because of a bunch of debuffs. On the other side of the coin, it doesn't feel rewarding to kill a corrupt player when they've already been nerfed into the ground.
- Remove the gear-loss penalty. Of everything, this is by far the biggest reason players aren't flagging. It's killed open-world pvp.
- Increase the material drops to 100%. If you've killed a non-flagged player, you lose all of your mats when you die.
- Add currency unique to corruption and bounty hunting. This currency would be used to buy exclusive cosmetics that coincide with whichever path you've chosen. A sweet dark cloak for the corrupt, A shiny knights armor for the bounty hunters. You get the idea. This will incentivize corrupt players to survive and hunters to, well, hunt.
- Add diminishing returns from players you've killed too many times in a certain period of time. This will prevent people from going off into a corner of the map with their friends and farming the unique currencies
- Add level-difference protections. A 10 level cap on flagging would prevent the griefing of lower levels.
- Make NPCs in towns stronger. In other games I've played, PKing in a town was certain death. This would also prevent new players from being targeted. (Like the Asmon situation)
This seems like a lot. But all of these combined and I think we could have a game where the extreme current version of corruption isn't needed.
3
Comments
1. Issue
Combatant status lasts too little.
Reasoning
Along the lines of "looting a body is an aggressive action, therefore looting should flag you as combatant", when someone flags as combatant to loot your body, you take 2 minutes to walk from respawn to your death location and the guy that looted you is already green again, attacking that person is not griefing nor initiation of aggressive action. Attacking the person who looted you is a defensive action and you should not have to risk corruption to get your loot back. Having the combatant status last a ridiculously small amount of time leaves no room for the person who died to go back and fight back without risking corruption.
suggestion
If you flag combatant, it should have a longer period before you go back to green. I would suggest, from my previous experience with this type of system, 5~10 minutes if you haven't killed a person and 15~20 minutes if you killed someone. Of course, the flag shouldn't end when the person logs off. Either the flag should persist and continue after logging off and on after a while, or (preferably) the person shouldn't be able to log off while combatant status persists (if he does, his char remains in the world until the combatant status ends).
2. issue
Red players should be able to fight back.
Reasoning
Right now the situation is once you go red, you either die to a friend or try and clean the corruption. But cleaning the corruption is almost impossible, as you are constantly being attacked by other players. This leaves you in a situation where you either fight back and get more corrupt or just accept death. It's a snowball situation that makes corruption penalties way harsher than death penalties and breaks the balance.
3. issue
Corruption design discourages not only griefing but any amount of non-consensual pvp.
reasoning
While corruption penalties can be reduced to make initial corruption levels less punishing, you still get corrupted from a single kill. There are plenty of scenarios that make isolated PK incidents not be considered griefing. Would killing a guy because he is training mobs on your party be considered griefing? Is killing a guy because he mined a copper node and you want that copper griefing? Is griefing when a dominating guild enforces its rules on its region and kills rule breakers? If that is not griefing, why are you facing the same punishments as griefers?
If you get corrupted from a single kill, then you need to apply an "easy come easy go" design philosophy, making it easy to get corrupted but easy to clean as well (I won't even enter the topic of "easy to get hard to clean" scenario because that is just an unbalanced idea). This creates several issues:
A. Players kill you and clean that corruption before you can return and have a chance to fight back against that player (like the combatant status short-duration design). This way, griefers can actually get away with their killings, while players who are doing so for genuine reasons can be disproportionately punished. It becomes basically "RNG" who gets punished for going corrupt.
B. It becomes really easy for people to karma bomb or reverse grief you if they are 100% certain that if they die to you, you will get corrupt. That way, it's almost always advantageous to let yourself die to get that person corrupt, especially in situations where you don't have a chance and nothing much to lose. I can get into an alt, go train mobs into a party, and I know they won't kill me because they will 100% get corrupted. I can even use this to my favor, by getting my guild mates to sit close to the place and train mobs on my enemies until they get fed up and kill me thinking they can clean the corruption quickly, and having my group gank that group once they kill me and get corrupt. You can say start a guild war but my alt is not on a guild. I could do this without an alt too and temporarily leave the guild.
The certainty of corruption is definitely a tool for toxic behavior in a game designed for emergent OW PvP.
C. Systems like the bounty-hunter become useless. Why do bounty hunters exist if players clean corruption in 5 minutes? Why does bounty-hunter exist if no corrupted player stays corrupted for long?
Especially in a scenario where corrupted players can't fight back. You kill a single person to stop them from training mobs in your party, and now you either die and accept the corrupted death penalties, or you fight back and you get even more corrupted, and eventually die and get even more corrupted death penalties.
Now, I'm not saying no consequences for these isolated PKs. I'm saying we need some leeway before a player is considered corrupt.
Suggestion
I have 2 games, one classic and one more modern, that implemented reasonably successful corruption systems, although flawed in some aspects.:
In Tibia, there were 2 tiers of corruption:
1st tier - You'd get 1st tier corrupted if you killed 3 greens in a day, 5 greens in a week, or 10 greens in a month.
2nd tier - You'd get 2nd tier corrupted if you killed 6 greens in a day, 10 greens in a week, or 20 greens in a month.
Of course, this is a rudimentary system from an older game, but it worked well enough to stop people from karma bombing or reverse griefing, as you didn't know for sure that if you died that person would go corrupt (death penalties were high with exp loss and bag loss). You'd also not know how many deaths you would need to take until that person became corrupted (up to 3) so in normal situations it wasn't worth it to die 3 times to get the person corrupted once, especially since that player would usually be smart and stop killing you if they reach the point of getting corrupted, making you die twice for no benefit.
Another benefit of this system is that players had a limited amount of kills before going corrupt so that they wouldn't waste those kills on random murders. They would use it when it made sense for them and they usually had a reason to spend those kill amounts.
More recently Ravendawn implemented a similar corruption system:
You'd get a set amount of corruption points by killing a green player. Everyone involved in the kill would get points, with the killing blow guy getting more. Level disparities also increased the amount of corruption points you got. You could have a reasonable amount of kills before you started getting corrupted penalties. You could reduce your corruption points by grinding, dying, or killing other corrupted players. The system was punishing enough that griefing was almost inexistent and you could still have open-world PVP fights.
I think the current implementation of corruption points, and long-term blight points is enough to deter griefing. But I believe a "hard to get hard to clean" corruption design is more healthy for the game. Killing green players awards corruption points and blight points, as it is now, but there should be a threshold of points before becoming corrupted.
Let's give an example (Of course the numbers are just for example and they can be tuned as necessary):
A threshold of 1000 corruption points is required before a person is considered corrupted. Each PK kill awards (100*blight_modifier*lvl_disparity_modifier) corruption if you did a killing blow, or [lvl_disparity_modifier*50*(blight_modifier/2)] if you only participated in the kill. The level disparity modifier starts at 1 and increases (1, 1.5, 3, 6, 12, 18) for every 10 levels of disparity (could be more granular, just an example). So if it's you never killed anyone, and you killed a guy your own level, you would get 50 corruption. Killing a guy 30 levels under would get you 300 corruption. Notice that these numbers are first kills, and don't present the blight modifier.
The Blight modifier would work with recency. If you killed one person today, and then 24 hours later you kill another person. You wouldn't get blight. If you killed a person today, and then another in the next 10 minutes, your blight modifier would increase. Basically, your blight number would be dictated on your biggest killing spree in a set amount of time. Your blight number would decrease with time, as long as you don't do any killing sprees that top your current blight number.
In short, the idea is: if you kill a few greens from your level a day, you'd never go corrupt. A person who is engaging in griefing would get corrupted really quickly on account of the blight and level disparity modifiers. The more you kill on a sequence, and the bigger the level disparity, the higher the chances you go corrupt quickly.
This way, with players having more control around how many players they can kill without going corrupt, and giving them some leeway so they can engage in justified murders, you can make corruption much harder to clean, and more punitive, creating room for systems like the bounty hunter and discouraging toxic behavior like reverse griefing and karma bombers who hide behind the certainty of corruption.
The crucial point of this example and this suggestion is the threshold to get corrupted. I strongly suggest a "hard to get hard to clean" design when it comes to corruption and not making players red in the first green player they kill.
4.[ b]Issue[/b]
Corruption penalties should be shared.
Reasoning
If 1 player kills 1 green player, he gets X corruption. If 8 players get together and kill 1 green player, they get total X corruption. If 40 ppl get together and all go around killing solo players, they can still do it 40 times and be at the same corruption level as 1 person killing another. So now there is less risk of going corrupt as you have safety in numbers, and corruption doesn't increase to make up for that.
Additionally, even with the HP bar workaround currently present, it is still fairly simple to let mobs get the last hit on a person. Mob training and mob killing blows are fairly common and a player who does this shouldn't escape the corruption system.
Suggestion
If 8 players attacked and killed 1 player, all 8 should get corruption. The responsible for the killing blow should get a bigger value of corruption and the others should get a reduced but still significant corruption value. It should not be divided as it dilutes the corruption. It should be a fixed value independent of how many ppl participated in the kill. This also helps against ppl leaving players with low HP and letting a mob finish off the player.
Not exactly on corruption but corruption adjacent:
5. Issue
Flagging options are not enough.
Reasoning
Even tho we currently have more options added to the settings menu, to me this is still not enough and done poorly.
I'll give an example of a situation that actually happened to me: I usually leave the "require force flag to hit combatants" off, so I can quickly react to a gank situation in a grinding spot. But war was declared on our guild and we had to quickly move to fight that war. When I got there, there were players from a second guild that wasn't at war with us (guild A was at war with us, but not guild A.2). I had no intention of attacking players of guild A.2, as I would rather they do not participate in the war and if they wanted to attack me they could either also declare war or get corruption. But since I had that option on and they were in the middle, I inevitably flagged when I used AoE abilities. So I kept accidentally flagging until I had to stop in the middle of combat to open my menu and switch settings.
Second example: I enable the "require force flag to hit combatants" for reasons like explained above. And then I am faced with a situation where purple players are ganking me and some of them remain white. So now I have 2 choices: Handicap myself and use single-target only and probably die, or open the menu mid-combat and die and hope to fight the next time.
Suggestion
We should have at least 3 pvp flags: Offensive, defensive, pacific. In offensive, you would hit everyone including greens. On the defensive you would only hit purple and red players, making so you can pvp against consenting players without the risk of going corrupt from accidentally hitting greens. Pacific would be hit no one. A UI element displays the 3 flag options and the one you have selected at the moment should be highlighted. You could add extra flag options as the necessity arises. This would replace the menu settings that we currently have that has the same function but are way less efficient.
These types of decisions are made case-by-case basis, and since they are combat settings, there is no way to go into a menu mid-combat to change them. they need to be a quickly accessible setting to change.
You gain corruption, and your blight increases.
Corruption can be worked off, and your blight count can be reduced.
Neither of these is permanant.
You will be able to fairly easily kill a group and have no permanant repercussions once all planned systems are implemented.
Correct, this is a pvx game where steven has indicated that he wants the majority of pvp to come from opt-in events and consensual pvp where players are willing to flag up and fight. Players still have the option to kill non-combatant players but there will be a penalty for doing so. Right now the penalty is overtuned for alpha so it is impossible to judge the penalty, we need to do this down the road after we have the actual details.
This is the real issue. The one being attacked needs to be forced to choose whether they PvP or don't, i.e., make open world PvP a (veiled) opt-in PvP event.
Simply not responding to the attack is not the same as staying out of the PvP if you are allowed to keep doing what led you to be attacked (training mobs, taking someone's spot, etc.). To keep doing what led you to be attacked should be treated as consenting to the PvP.
Instead of getting an unimmersive pop up asking whether you accept the challenge, you just stay (actively stay) and forcefully accept or you move away. One way this could be implemented is as simple as this:
If any unflagged player stays within 50 meters and within the line of sight of a flagged player (the same one), who is also within their line of sight and no more than 10 levels above them, for 5 consecutive minutes, and that unflagged player has used abilities, gathered materials or has aggroed mobs (as in they were the first to aggro) in the last 2 minutes, they will automatically be flagged as well.
The numbers and the list of PvP-worthy activities (using abilities, gathering, aggroing) should of course be adjusted. However, the long time to automatically flag forces the aggressors to commit and stay flagged for the duration, and gives ample time to the ones attacked to finish what they're doing and move away or decide to fight back. The line of sight requirement prevents making people flag unaware of their aggressors, so the system can't be cheated by making someone flag through walls or while using invisibility. The 10 level max disparity is meant to protect lower levels from being kicked out of their legitimate farming areas. The using abilities/gathering materials/first to aggro requirements prevent you from flagging if you are AFK, if you surrender and stay but stop te activity that led you to being attacked, or if you run away regardless of whether the aggressor is pursuing you.
A solution like this requires the least changes to the current systems and still allows for PK if someone is in a rush to kill or simply not careful.
What you and so many others are doing is attempting to apply PVP mentality and tactics to a PVX game. Larger or stronger groups being able to rule a specific resource or area 24/7 is a PVP thing.
It is not a free-for-all for PVE players or those that are weaker in gear/level/numbers that are trying to catch up when it comes to utilizing the same area zergs or higher levels might have pushed them out of in a pvp game as they can be killed and will be killed more often once the penalty is not intentionally overtuned. It is about risk vs reward and that risk should always fall on the shoulders of those that want to engage in combat with non-combatants. As many of us have already said, that risk is intentionally set high right now for alpha, we do not know what the penalty will be later so it is impossible to judge it right now.
The PVE and/or weaker players(gear, level numbers) do have an incentive to flag up and fight back and that incentive is a lesser death penalty. Currently, that incentive is not taken advantage of very often due to the overtuned penalty that is intentionally in place to prevent PKing during alpha. I think we all need to keep in mind that Steven has repeatedly stated that he wants to balance his PVE and PVP playerbase in this PVX game, and he wants the majority of pvp to come from opt-in events and players that mutually flag for combat in the open world.
1: antagonist players would ruin the game, turning it into anarchy which your average and reasonable player will have nothing to do with.
Basement neck beards are not the life blood of this game, it's the dad gamers with expendable income for the cosmetic store.
They don't mind a fair fight, but they don't care to be unadjusted-Jimny's play thing.
2: IS has given the player the ability to engage in non-con pvp, but it is not the primary or even secondary pvp element in this PVX game. It's the struggle invoked by carving out your existence on Vara, via nodes and caravans.
Those designs don't have pvp penalties because it is a part of the overall struggle, not asshatery against a lone player.
This is such a weird mindset to me, coming from a faction based game where ganking was a core part of pvp. No one complained, no one considered it griefing.
Chopping wood, hitting ore, grinding mobs for drops, etc. These are all activities that progress your character. You're either getting gear, materials to craft better gear, or loot to sell so you can buy better gear.
PvX games shouldn't have zero-risk pathways toward reaching end-game tier loot. And before you argue "But there is risk because people can flag". No. As I explained in great detail, there is currently zero risk despite flagging being an option.
I and others have suggested plenty of completely viable ways to limit 'griefing' while still getting rid of the current corruption penalties. The problem is pve players want a near zero chance of a pvp interaction.
ALL of your comments are based on a system Steven has admitted is intentionally overtuned for alpha, has some current bugs, and some portions of the system are not even implemented yet. You are taking a system we know is not working as intended and implying it won't ever work without even seeing the actual system and penalties that Steven has planned.
Your statement : is partially correct.
Most players would not risk the current intentionally overtuned penalty in alpha which was Stevens intent in intentionally overtuning it for alpha.
I think we need to wait until the system evolves towards Steven's vision (bugs removed, all parts implemented, penalty adjusted) before we start screaming the sky is falling.
I disagree with many of your suggested solutions to a system that is a work in progress but feel it makes little sense in going over every one of these things right now because from my viewpoint, the sky is not falling.
That being said, with too harsh of punishments for even a single kill, corruption penalties are used as a shield to deter PVP.
Under the current system groups can choose to dominate an area through PvP. There are consequences opening up both the potential for maximum XP gain and greater losses. The so often touted support for Risk vs Reward philosophy seems to get set aside when it becomes inconvenient. Under the current system groups dominating a leveling area though PvP will have increasing amounts of corruption which will attract other large groups to attack them for the potential gains. The same situation will occur with high level small groups running off or farming lower level players for materials. Chumming the water for more PvP. Your suggestion more turns AoC into older models of Shadowbane, Darkfall, Mortal Online and other free for all PvP games that quickly rotted from within and drove off their own initial playerbases.
Only suggestion I agree with.
I do think mob leasing needs to be addressed. Also the Alt f4 junk. As well as how short a time you are flagged purple for looting someone's Ash pile. Should leave you flagged for at a minimum 10 min. I would like to see a dot on the map for the person who stole the goods only for the victim. Should be able to get them back and change to boot.