Initial concern with the Corruption system

I'd like to begin by saying that I am so very disappointed that I am just discovering this game as of the recent rush of interviews with Steven. I had heard the name floating about, but I had been so disappointed in years of terrible releases that I had lost enthusiasm for the very genre which forged my love of gaming, and not looked to deeply into it in fear of being disappointed again. I do not have that fear any longer.

I'd like to start a discussion about the Corruption system. I agree wholeheartedly that the system is necessary, and I love the implementation of it. A karma system, implemented correctly, serves to bring about excellent player driven content and has limitless replayability. The problem that I see with this implementation, however, is the cumulative stat suppression with increasing Corruption in reference to the Bounty Hunter system.

I find that the stat suppression in reference to noncombatant players to be quite justified, as we all know the dangers that accompany an open world pvp system in regards to griefing; however, I worry that unless there is an exemption put in place that nullifies the stat suppression when engaging in combat with a bounty hunter, the system will lack challenge. The dynamic between Corrupted and Bounty Hunter should be one of danger and excitement, which will be lacking on the side of the Bounty Hunter if he knows going into the encounter that he has a significant advantage against his prey.

It also serves to discourage world pvp on the side of the corrupted in that you can be assured a disadvantage when someone comes to serve you punishment. I don't wish for this to come off as a "I want to grief everyone" post, as I am quite excited to spend my time hunting the Corrupted, but I want to fight my enemy at his best. As a competitive pvper, I see these fights becoming openly one-sided if extreme care is not taken in over-suppressing stats in the case of extreme corruption. Not only that, but the reward for hunting bounties now is less difficult to obtain. We hear Steven tout the risk/reward system in the game, but I see only reward from the perspective of the Bounty Hunter, with less associated risk. And on the note of risk/reward, I've heard very little about there being any incentive to corruption. Will there be "havens" for the corrupted? Nodes which become friendly or offer reward for obtaining corruption? This seems like a system with a lot of room to grow should the developers find inspiration somewhere.

To follow-on with this, I would love to hear of any anti-griefing mechanics that are being divined in order to prevent griefing in the form of forced combatant status. I've heard nothing in regards to what the actual process to engage an enemy is. For example: If I am wandering in the world and come across someone hell bent on forcing a fight with me. With an action combat system, it stands to reason that some attacks will include cleave which is zonal, or area attacks placed on the ground. If I am attacking with a zonal ability, and a combatant flagged player steps into my attack, will I now be flagged as a combatant? Must I first flag in order for my zonal abilities to affect a combatant flagged player? What steps are being taken to ensure that the Corruption system is not subverted entirely by forced combatant flagging?

I am really looking forward to my time as a member of this community. I am more excited for this game than I have been for any other release (sans perhaps Archage) and I hope to contribute some to this amazing project. I hope that we can have a civil discussion about this all, because I feel like it's one of the most promising PvP systems in this game, with so much potential to grow into something truly amazing.

Edit: I apologize if these questions could easily be answered via the wiki. I've been frequenting it all day attempting to answer them for myself, but it seems the hamsters have caught fire with all the hype of the last few days

Cheers,
Snooze

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Comments

Dante

Hello Snooze and welcome!

Everything is still pre-alpha, and everything is still being actively worked on and balanced, but I do see your concern. Though I believe the issue is that continuous player killing is not something ashes is looking to incentivize as far as I'm aware. They give you the option to kill players, though they don't want you going around slaughtering everyone. Killing 1 or 2 people might not do much to your stats, we aren't sure yet as its still in the works, though they seem to make the major debuffs come with killing multiple people in a certain time frame. You'll also be flagged on the map as a corrupted player, have lower stats, chances to drop equipped gear etc. There is a lot in place to make you not want to get very "red".

See someone farming the area you want to farm, or gathering resources you want to gather? Sure, kill them and take over. Go on a 2 hour killing spree killing everyone you see? Not so much.

As far as the cleave abilities, I'd have to assume there is a flagging mechanic otherwise popular areas will just turn into pvp bloodbaths. Havens for corrupted, I don't recall hearing of that, but would be a good idea to at least have somewhere to go if your corrupted instead of just waltzing into town.

Bolobao

Keep in mind,

there is no fast travelling so if someone needs to spawn quite a walks away and you kill them as a one off because they are, for example, blocking a road with a cart. (Archeage reference) They probably won't want to continuously run back and forth just for that.

As i understand it, 1 off kills every now and then won't be very punishing as you can 'clean your record' over time by doing various tasks.

So hopefully, it plays out like that because I understand the pain of people abusing the Archeage criminal points system.

Noaani

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

I worry that unless there is an exemption put in place that nullifies the stat suppression when engaging in combat with a bounty hunter, the system will lack challenge.

This is by design.

Being corrupt isn't supposed to be a way to play the game, it is an outright punishment. If you gain corruption, you do so knowing that you are making yourself very vulnreble to attack from other players, and the only way to get out of that situation is to get rid of that corruption.

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

It also serves to discourage world pvp on the side of the corrupted in that you can be assured a disadvantage when someone comes to serve you punishment. I don't wish for this to come off as a "I want to grief everyone" post, as I am quite excited to spend my time hunting the Corrupted, but I want to fight my enemy at his best. As a competitive pvper, I see these fights becoming openly one-sided if extreme care is not taken in over-suppressing stats in the case of extreme corruption.

Keep in mind, the corruption system is one of four open world PvP systems in Ashes - and is the one that only comes in to play when none of the others do.

The other three are caravans, guild wars and node wars. All three of these are open world PvP based, and participants in these forms of PvP do not stand to gain corruption.

Perhaps another way to look at corruption is that players that have it are actually the lowest of the low - and the game treats them as such.

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

To follow-on with this, I would love to hear of any anti-griefing mechanics that are being divined in order to prevent griefing in the form of forced combatant status. I've heard nothing in regards to what the actual process to engage an enemy is.

You will have to individually mark player characters in order for your attacks to work on them, so there is no chance of a player walking in to your AoE attacks of any form and taking damage from them.

HeyItsSnooze

Dante wrote: »

Killing 1 or 2 people might not do much to your stats, we aren't sure yet as its still in the works, though they seem to make the major debuffs come with killing multiple people in a certain time frame.

Thank you for the response! The reason this crossed my mind was due to a comment Steven made during the Asmond interview yesterday, where he stated that corruption penalties would be scaled based not only on what you mentioned, but also by overall number of PKs. My interpretation of that is if overall PK count is considered, then as you progress through the game the weight of a single PK now becomes more significant later in the game. Where you would have once perhaps only accumulated a small stat debuff for killing a player, that same crime now merits a more significant toll.

noaani wrote: »

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

I worry that unless there is an exemption put in place that nullifies the stat suppression when engaging in combat with a bounty hunter, the system will lack challenge.

This is by design.

Being corrupt isn't supposed to be a way to play the game, it is an outright punishment. If you gain corruption, you do so knowing that you are making yourself very vulnreble to attack from other players, and the only way to get out of that situation is to get rid of that corruption.

I hadn’t really considered that it was just an outright punishment. The inclusion of the bounty hunter role led me to believe that there could be a more involved interplay between corrupted and BH. If it’s meant purely as punishment for PK, then the system would do its job just fine. But if we are having a discussion about it, SHOULD there be more to it than purely punitive? It seems like a system that could evolve into something really beautiful if there were incentive both to being corrupted, and hunting the corrupted. Just a thought.

Noaani

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

But if we are having a discussion about it, SHOULD there be more to it than purely punitive?

No.

That is what the many other forms of PvP in Ashes are there to provide.

Remember, if your node has a reason to want to target another node, your node can declare war on that other node and then corruption doesn't apply.

If your guild has a reason to want to target another guild, your guild can declare war on that other guild and then corruption doesn't apply.

If you come across a player running a caravan and you want to take their stuff, corruption doesn't apply.

If you want to siege a node or castle, corruption doesn't apply.

If you go in to an arena, corruption doesn't apply.

The game doesn't need corruption being an incentive for more PvP - the game has enough of them.

Songcaller

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

I hadn’t really considered that it was just an outright punishment. The inclusion of the bounty hunter role led me to believe that there could be a more involved interplay between corrupted and BH. If it’s meant purely as punishment for PK, then the system would do its job just fine. But if we are having a discussion about it, SHOULD there be more to it than purely punitive? It seems like a system that could evolve into something really beautiful if there were incentive both to being corrupted, and hunting the corrupted. Just a thought.

The incentive to being corrupted would be if a Mega Guild (A Guild which makes other Guilds to amass hundreds or thousands of players) starts taking over and you are effectively an outlaw whether you like it or not. In such a circumstance then people would go corrupted to show disapproval and fight the good fight.

People will also roleplay murders, vagabonds and highwaymen and some will roleplay Bounty Hunters. Roleplay isn't the most popular facet on MMOs but it does have a broader appeal than ganking.

The systems may undergo changes in later Expansions. It might remain the same for life. The penalties are harsh for a reason and although some games have different punishment systems (Like actual jail time which was awesome to see) Ashes is not as complex as those games. It's based on Older Titles but with newer renditions.

Edit: The Beauty is that unlike BDO where Mega Guilds swap the best castles, the Node System means that progress will be lost if Mega Guilds try to cycle ownership. Node Sieges are destructive. Though we might see Castles swapping around a Mega Guild its not clear at present how destructive a castle siege will be. If you have to rebuild the castle after each siege then again this will stop Mega Guilds. Something BDO has failed to do.

Double Edit: Of course, with the buff system for Guilds dependant on player count, it makes it more likely that Mega Guilds will exist, because Mega Guilds love to dominate and will take all the buffs but spread the player counts across multiple guilds. It also means they could potentially siege more Nodes and more Castles per cycle than a traditional guild.

HeyItsSnooze

"Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.[12][13]
Corrupted player's combat penalties do not apply when battling bounty hunters"

I was finally able to access the Corruption wiki page, and found this. In case anyone was wondering, it seems that Steven has already addressed my concern!

Lafi

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

"Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.[12][13]
Corrupted player's combat penalties do not apply when battling bounty hunters"

I was finally able to access the Corruption wiki page, and found this. In case anyone was wondering, it seems that Steven has already addressed my concern!

Lex has been working on upgrading the hardware behind the wiki. glad you found the answer

hopefully the wiki comes up permanently soon for the new people joining our community to find out more on things they're concerned about

HeyItsSnooze

Lafi wrote: »

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

"Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.[12][13]
Corrupted player's combat penalties do not apply when battling bounty hunters"

I was finally able to access the Corruption wiki page, and found this. In case anyone was wondering, it seems that Steven has already addressed my concern!

Lex has been working on upgrading the hardware behind the wiki. glad you found the answer hopefully the wiki comes up permanently soon for the new people joining our community to find out more on things they're concerned about

I hope so! I defend my Master's next Monday, and I will be spending my first week of "vacation" reading every single page of the wiki to get caught up lol!

Lafi

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

Lafi wrote: »

HeyItsSnooze wrote: »

"Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.[12][13]
Corrupted player's combat penalties do not apply when battling bounty hunters"

I was finally able to access the Corruption wiki page, and found this. In case anyone was wondering, it seems that Steven has already addressed my concern!

Lex has been working on upgrading the hardware behind the wiki. glad you found the answer hopefully the wiki comes up permanently soon for the new people joining our community to find out more on things they're concerned about

I hope so! I defend my Master's next Monday, and I will be spending my first week of "vacation" reading every single page of the wiki to get caught up lol!

well, good luck!
throw out more threads for any questions you have. the others are pretty knowledgable of the game..

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