Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Third partying in pvp events and how to "solve" it
Imnotkio
Member, Alpha Two
Third partying in pvp is extremely common in any open-world PVP content. Players can go as they please and interact with anyone they want, whether to help or harm them. THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE. This is part of what makes emergent gameplay so appealing. Is it unfair? As is all non-instanced non-sanitized pvp events. Numbers, gear, and skill are always going to make the encounter unbalanced one way or the other. This is the nature of open-world MMOs with a focus on pvp and player agency.
The issue becomes when this third partying is not accounted for in the game's design and it introduces a break in the flow of gameplay, and dealing with it causes additional issues and headaches.
Issue
Third partying in pvp events (caravans and wars) are not seamlessly integrated into the game's design.
Reasoning
Right now, to deal with third partying in pvp events, you need to go through the flagging system. Currently, people do not become purple when interacting with players during these events.
Let's say players out of the event turn purple if they heal/attack someone during an event. Now, players in the event need to flag for pvp to deal with these third parties. They need to become purple themselves and invite more players to attack them, they need to risk targeting the wrong person and becoming corrupt. They will be attacked by guards if these events are happening near towns. Healers and bards won't be able to heal you unless they flag themselves.
This all creates a bad game experience for players dealing with an already unfair situation. This feels more like a bandaid solution than an actual way to integrate these situations into the gameplay.
Suggestions
Caravan system: Probably the easiest to solve, since it's an event that already anyone can join. If a player helps a defender or harms an attacker, he becomes a defender. If a player helps an attacker or harms the defenders/caravan he becomes an attacker. You could add a clear visual indication for players outside of the event that these players are in a caravan event, and/or add a radius for this to happen, so players can't accidentally be baited into an event they don't want to join/are not aware of.
Guild and node wars (and similar types of content): If a player harms/helps a player involved in a war, he becomes orange or blue only for the players involved in the war (whatever colors you want, just an example) depending on which side he helped/attacked. Blue would be basically to signal to one side of the war that this guy is friendly and helping you. Orange is to signal the other side that this player is interfering against you.
Example: If a player attacks your guild during a guild war, he becomes orange for you. This orange status allows your guild to kill that player without having to flag, just like he would be if he were a participant in the war. You won't become purple if you attack/kill this player and guards won't attack you. This guy won't participate in any objectives and won't count for points for the war, and he will receive regular purple death penalties, but he will be killable just like a war player. This allows for seamless integration for these third parties and removes all the trouble and risk of dealing with the flagging system during this war.
Additional suggestion:
. I think for node and guild wars, guilds/nodes should be allowed to join the war. For instance, guild A is fighting guild B. Guild C asks guild B to join the war. If guild B accepts, the war now becomes guild A vs guild B/C. If guild A wins the war, it receives double the reward (whatever that ends up being). If guild B/C wins, it splits the rewards. The same could work for node wars.
The issue becomes when this third partying is not accounted for in the game's design and it introduces a break in the flow of gameplay, and dealing with it causes additional issues and headaches.
Issue
Third partying in pvp events (caravans and wars) are not seamlessly integrated into the game's design.
Reasoning
Right now, to deal with third partying in pvp events, you need to go through the flagging system. Currently, people do not become purple when interacting with players during these events.
Let's say players out of the event turn purple if they heal/attack someone during an event. Now, players in the event need to flag for pvp to deal with these third parties. They need to become purple themselves and invite more players to attack them, they need to risk targeting the wrong person and becoming corrupt. They will be attacked by guards if these events are happening near towns. Healers and bards won't be able to heal you unless they flag themselves.
This all creates a bad game experience for players dealing with an already unfair situation. This feels more like a bandaid solution than an actual way to integrate these situations into the gameplay.
Suggestions
Caravan system: Probably the easiest to solve, since it's an event that already anyone can join. If a player helps a defender or harms an attacker, he becomes a defender. If a player helps an attacker or harms the defenders/caravan he becomes an attacker. You could add a clear visual indication for players outside of the event that these players are in a caravan event, and/or add a radius for this to happen, so players can't accidentally be baited into an event they don't want to join/are not aware of.
Guild and node wars (and similar types of content): If a player harms/helps a player involved in a war, he becomes orange or blue only for the players involved in the war (whatever colors you want, just an example) depending on which side he helped/attacked. Blue would be basically to signal to one side of the war that this guy is friendly and helping you. Orange is to signal the other side that this player is interfering against you.
Example: If a player attacks your guild during a guild war, he becomes orange for you. This orange status allows your guild to kill that player without having to flag, just like he would be if he were a participant in the war. You won't become purple if you attack/kill this player and guards won't attack you. This guy won't participate in any objectives and won't count for points for the war, and he will receive regular purple death penalties, but he will be killable just like a war player. This allows for seamless integration for these third parties and removes all the trouble and risk of dealing with the flagging system during this war.
Additional suggestion:
. I think for node and guild wars, guilds/nodes should be allowed to join the war. For instance, guild A is fighting guild B. Guild C asks guild B to join the war. If guild B accepts, the war now becomes guild A vs guild B/C. If guild A wins the war, it receives double the reward (whatever that ends up being). If guild B/C wins, it splits the rewards. The same could work for node wars.
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Comments
Players going corrupt by accident just by trying to deal with out-of-war purple players (we had multiple of those today in a war, on both sides). Players not being able to heal other players because they went purple. Out-of-war players taking advantage of the fact that we go purple to fight third parties and sneaking on us. Bad solution.
The way the flagging system is implemented doesn't help either. You have menu settings to tailor the flag to your necessity, but that necessity changes all the time and when it does change you don't have time to go to the menu to change the settings before you start pvping. We need a better way to access these settings (HUD flagging buttons, keybinds)