Dealing with random player killing in an open-world PvP MMO.

For such an ambitious player-driven MMO as Ashes, the presence of random player killing (RPK) poses a challenge.
How do you allow for player agency while protecting new / weak players?

On one hand, giving players the agency to dish out justice in blood makes the world much more interactive and unpredictable, as your reputation and behavior may have dire consequences.

However, the challenge is that this level of PvP-interactivity, typically also gives rise to RPKs. Some of which intentionally grief, and others who just PvP indiscriminately.

The corruption system is already a great safety mechanism against this. However, with player-interaction at the heart of Ashes it would be great to see additional counter-RPK mechanisms that are driven by the players themselves.
Bounty hunters as planned, are a great first step.

However, bounty hunting only taps into monetary motivation. It'd be great to provide tools by which guilds and players may establish a reputation of benevolence and fairness. If Newbie Joe can report a RPK or griefer to the local guild, then it puts justice back into the hands of players. If the game tracks and incentivizes such player-driven justice, then guilds may want their territory to garner a reputation as a safe haven with just proceedings.

If Anti-PKing or peacekeeping is made worthwhile in this sense, we'll be encouraging the community to respond to griefing or bad behavior organically.

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fathergoose

Imo there needs to be a rewarding system in place for protecting others, not a punishing system for killing others. People who want to be outlaws are going to attack for reasons outside of reward anyway, but usually negative reputation effects are so penalizing that you eliminate an entire factor of the open world.

Whether it's merchant discounts for tiers of positive reputation, unique titles, or whatever sounds best. I just think "punish the bad guys" has been done to death and never quite feels that good, imo.

Dolyem

primagoosa wrote: »

Imo there needs to be a rewarding system in place for protecting others, not a punishing system for killing others. People who want to be outlaws are going to attack for reasons outside of reward anyway, but usually negative reputation effects are so penalizing that you eliminate an entire factor of the open world.

Whether it's merchant discounts for tiers of positive reputation, unique titles, or whatever sounds best. I just think "punish the bad guys" has been done to death and never quite feels that good, imo.

only problem with that is people would exploit it by voluntarily farming each other for those rewards. Punishment is a better prevention less likely to be exploited

fathergoose

Dolyem wrote: »

primagoosa wrote: »

Imo there needs to be a rewarding system in place for protecting others, not a punishing system for killing others. People who want to be outlaws are going to attack for reasons outside of reward anyway, but usually negative reputation effects are so penalizing that you eliminate an entire factor of the open world.

Whether it's merchant discounts for tiers of positive reputation, unique titles, or whatever sounds best. I just think "punish the bad guys" has been done to death and never quite feels that good, imo.

only problem with that is people would exploit it by voluntarily farming each other for those rewards. Punishment is a better prevention less likely to be exploited

To me, that's just a lack of vision/imagination. If trading is biased towards negative rep then they'll just dig each other into holes. If people level alts to be farmed by friends, maybe make the rep account based instead of character, like how BDO treats your account like a family of chars.

I would just rather see a more active ecosystem of owpvp than one that just ends up dying because attacking anyone is too punishing to be worth it.

Hurf Derfman

Oh just let this thread die already 😂
Everything that needs to be said has been said.

Gaming has already been scientifically proven to be a boon to human psychology despite what conservative/Karen's want to say about it in order to build a soap box to stand upon for political purposes.

Noaani

jubilum wrote: »

I have and after several visits and several hundred dollar we came to the conclusion that my views and concerns were perfectly normal on this subject.

Assuming this is true, get a better therapist.

The one you have now is more interested in allowing you to self affirm as opposed to helping you deal with issues.

Self affirmation doesn't deal with issues, it allows you to live with them easier. This should only be applied to issues that only affect you personally.

However, since games are often used as a way to help people deal with PTSD, I dont for even a second believe you are being honest here.

Dolyem

primagoosa wrote: »

Dolyem wrote: »

primagoosa wrote: »

Imo there needs to be a rewarding system in place for protecting others, not a punishing system for killing others. People who want to be outlaws are going to attack for reasons outside of reward anyway, but usually negative reputation effects are so penalizing that you eliminate an entire factor of the open world.

Whether it's merchant discounts for tiers of positive reputation, unique titles, or whatever sounds best. I just think "punish the bad guys" has been done to death and never quite feels that good, imo.

only problem with that is people would exploit it by voluntarily farming each other for those rewards. Punishment is a better prevention less likely to be exploited

To me, that's just a lack of vision/imagination. If trading is biased towards negative rep then they'll just dig each other into holes. If people level alts to be farmed by friends, maybe make the rep account based instead of character, like how BDO treats your account like a family of chars.

I would just rather see a more active ecosystem of owpvp than one that just ends up dying because attacking anyone is too punishing to be worth it.

then people will just make more accounts, its not a lack of imagination its just a better way to keep people from exploiting while still keeping playing from griefing as much. There will be plenty of open world pvp, corruption is just to reduce griefing, you will still have plenty of people who fight back, bounty hunt, raid/defend caravans, siege, etc. It is a PvX game after all.

Dolyem

Hurf Derfman wrote: »

Oh just let this thread die already 😂
Everything that needs to be said has been said.

Gaming has already been scientifically proven to be a boon to human psychology despite what conservative/Karen's want to say about it in order to build a soap box to stand upon for political purposes.

I actually enjoy seeing people attempt to argue that intrepid should completely strip down every system in this game just so people can opt out of pvp.

Moid

There’s a real risk to a game with unrestricted PvP. Those people you “elites” call care-bears pay subscriptions also and they happen to be the vast majority of gamers and thus by far the greatest revenue stream. A game with little revenue will be a short lived game and the graveyard of MMOs is vast.

What I’ve never understood, because it’s completely illogical, is why you “elites” have problems with the care-bears having their PvE fun. It’s as if you “elites” are little tyrants and want to force everyone to play the way you want to play. Oh but I do understand the mindset to some extent, you “elites” want a target rich environment so you can have more fun at others’ expense.

The logical problem you obviously have, well not obvious to you, is that your target rich environment won’t remain target rich for long. Care-bears won’t stick around for long after getting repeatedly ganked. For some reason you “elites” don’t understand that.

Mojottv

I think a lot of peoples understanding of open world pvp and gankink, comes from Wow and other RvR games, where basically other faction could come to your hunting grounds and could kill you with impunity. THey would just go around set area and wipe everyone. That's not how games with guild based pvp system works, especially ones that have systems similar to corruption. As these type of games are least restrictive in terms of both doing pvp and avoiding it. The only way you could get freely killed are pvp events (sieges, caravan etc) and guild wars. So if you dont like pvp, dont go to these events, if your guild has a lot of active wars, leave the guild. RvR games dont have these options, as you cant switch your faction etc.

Other open world pvp that occurs is player vs player or party vs party, and its mainly due to social interactions between the two. If you cant share the hunting spot, said something not nice etc etc. So theres really really low chance of getting just randomly geting pk'd, usually because the guy is leaving the game or something...so theres plenty of avenues for carebears to avoid pvp and be carebears.

Bricktop

Dolyem wrote: »

Hurf Derfman wrote: »

Oh just let this thread die already 😂
Everything that needs to be said has been said.

Gaming has already been scientifically proven to be a boon to human psychology despite what conservative/Karen's want to say about it in order to build a soap box to stand upon for political purposes.

I actually enjoy seeing people attempt to argue that intrepid should completely strip down every system in this game just so people can opt out of pvp.

I don't. It hurts my heart.

Moid wrote: »

There’s a real risk to a game with unrestricted PvP. Those people you “elites” call care-bears pay subscriptions also and they happen to be the vast majority of gamers and thus by far the greatest revenue stream. A game with little revenue will be a short lived game and the graveyard of MMOs is vast.

What I’ve never understood, because it’s completely illogical, is why you “elites” have problems with the care-bears having their PvE fun. It’s as if you “elites” are little tyrants and want to force everyone to play the way you want to play. Oh but I do understand the mindset to some extent, you “elites” want a target rich environment so you can have more fun at others’ expense.

The logical problem you obviously have, well not obvious to you, is that your target rich environment won’t remain target rich for long. Care-bears won’t stick around for long after getting repeatedly ganked. For some reason you “elites” don’t understand that.

No everybody perfectly understands that. That doesn't mean the entire game should be changed around to prevent people from quitting the game. A game that tries to make everybody happy ends up making nobody happy. Just take a quick gander at New World for your proof. This isn't even an unrestricted PvP game, you have the corruption system there to prevent people from being griefed. All the top gear comes from WORLD bosses, and some people are advocating they come out of instances. Do you not see how this hurts the game? I want everybody to have as much PvE fun as possible in the open world and not in an instance. Nobody wants to stop PvErs from having fun. However if they claim that instances are the ONLY way they can have fun, without EVER seeing the open world content, well quite frankly I become very suspect of their true intentions.

I like killing bosses too. Instances allow players to skip all the politics, dangers, and player driven interactions of an open world game. The least amount of instancing in the game the better off it will be. If you are a massive PvEr and all you want to do is hide in instanced dungeons and PvE all day this is simply not going to be a very fun game for you. You WILL have the possibility of having to PvP almost all the time. It doesn't make us bad people for trying to point this out to them. They really should just go play something else if the game launches and the PvE content it isn't good enough for them, no?

Players will need to be able to do both to achieve success in Ashes of Creation. PvP to secure PvE farm spots. PvP to siege down a node.PvP to secure caravans routes to craft gear. PvP to secure world bosses to get the best gear in the game. If people don't want to PvP AT ALL like I see some of these people saying, why are they even here?

I have no idea why this thread has gone on for as long as it has. You "deal with random player killing in an MMO" by just getting over it and doing something else with your time if it bothers you.

Dolyem

Moid wrote: »

There’s a real risk to a game with unrestricted PvP. Those people you “elites” call care-bears pay subscriptions also and they happen to be the vast majority of gamers and thus by far the greatest revenue stream. A game with little revenue will be a short lived game and the graveyard of MMOs is vast.

What I’ve never understood, because it’s completely illogical, is why you “elites” have problems with the care-bears having their PvE fun. It’s as if you “elites” are little tyrants and want to force everyone to play the way you want to play. Oh but I do understand the mindset to some extent, you “elites” want a target rich environment so you can have more fun at others’ expense.

The logical problem you obviously have, well not obvious to you, is that your target rich environment won’t remain target rich for long. Care-bears won’t stick around for long after getting repeatedly ganked. For some reason you “elites” don’t understand that.

"Those people you “elites” call care-bears pay subscriptions also and they happen to be the vast majority of gamers and thus by far the greatest revenue stream."
They can choose whether or not to play a pvp game or not, it isn't forced on them. That being said, there are plenty of pvp oriented players out there to fuel and play this game, the beauty of it though is there are also plenty of PvE players who enjoy risk vs reward in open world environments who will also gladly jump at the chance to play this game. It is PvX, so there is something for everyone, except maybe "carebears" who don't like the idea of risks.

" “elites” have problems with the care-bears having their PvE fun. It’s as if you “elites” are little tyrants and want to force everyone to play the way you want to play."
We don't want to force anyone to play something they don't want to, the irony is we don't want a game, designed for our playstyle, to be gutted and changed in a way that would force us to play the way carebears want to play... see the hypocrisy there?

"your target rich environment won’t remain target rich for long. Care-bears won’t stick around for long after getting repeatedly ganked. For some reason you “elites” don’t understand that."
I mean, what clearly is obvious, but isn't obvious to the carebear community is that this entire game is designed around things most of you don't want to play...so why are you even here? Players who enjoy the types of systems this game is implementing want likeminded players, not carebears looking to turn it into a copy of retail WoW. If you want a new Carebear MMO, go elsewhere, because this is open world PvX, not PVE. But if you stick around, accept that you will be playing a game where you can be ganked, you will be required to do pvp content, and there is no off-switch to any of it except to fight back.

fathergoose

Moid wrote: »

Those people you “elites” call care-bears pay subscriptions also and they happen to be the vast majority of gamers and thus by far the greatest revenue stream. A game with little revenue will be a short lived game and the graveyard of MMOs is vast.

This is often the first step in the "Redesign the Game for Us" playbook. In every other scenario, people complain that games suffer because they are trying to make money instead of a good game. If you want to cater to the greatest revenue stream, you'll add some P2W because whales will prop you up incredibly.

No one wants that though, so you can't fall back on this as a strong foundation for an argument.

Moid wrote: »

What I’ve never understood, because it’s completely illogical, is why you “elites” have problems with the care-bears having their PvE fun. It’s as if you “elites” are little tyrants and want to force everyone to play the way you want to play. Oh but I do understand the mindset to some extent, you “elites” want a target rich environment so you can have more fun at others’ expense.

Step 2: turning the argument around as if by design, PvE fun was supposed to be protected and anyone for open world PvP is trying to take their fun away. The truth is, often people like you are the ones coming in and trying to dictate how people can play the game.

You don't actually get to make that argument either. As an example, I don't like to gank people in the open world but I thoroughly enjoy the thrill of the possibility that I'll be ganked.

Moid wrote: »

The logical problem you obviously have, well not obvious to you, is that your target rich environment won’t remain target rich for long. Care-bears won’t stick around for long after getting repeatedly ganked. For some reason you “elites” don’t understand that.

Again, threatening the longevity of the game and arguing that the game could make more money if designed a certain way. Of course it could.

But you haven't actually argued why it would make the game better. Should people who do not look for protection in guilds or groups be catered to in an open world MMO? Truly?

Voidwalkers

The longer this thread gets, the more confused I am.

While the debate of "whether open world pvp is good or bad for a game" can probably go on forever and it seems neither of the for/against camp will ever be able to convince the other ... what has confused me is ...

I wonder, those of you who are against open world pvp (non-consensual included), what have brought you to Ashes, an upcoming open-world PvX MMORPG?

A lot of the safe haven features you guys' been arguing for (consensual pvp ONLY, and instanced pve safe from hostile player interference), are already available in existing major MMOs like WoW & GW2.

What are you looking for in Ashes that WoW & GW2 couldn't provide?

Kneczhevo

@Moid

I heard "l337est and Carebear" three times. So, here I am.

Amazing how people like throwing these terms around, as if they are insults. Talk about being an Elitest. OMG!

Using Carebear as a defense, in a clearly stated PvP game, is really moot. If PvX is not your thing (Yes, I used that term. Clearly some do not understand it.) there are a plithora of solo RPGs for you. Don't come to a clearly stated game, and want changes, like a troll.

Lastly, don't speak for a community with your single voice. You don't speak for me. I'm leetest like that.

Edit: And quit making us Carebears look bad. It only makes "your" argument look bad for "us".

Moid

Well I got plenty of typical responses from the “elites” and one a little less typical. I’m not going to take the time to respond to each as some simply aren’t worth the time.

It’s interesting how defensive the “elites” here are about their game. They read into my post that I want to force people to play or force people to play a specific way. I never suggested that.

You “elites” feel as though if people have an option to PvE in a PvP-free zone that will disrupt your game which is precisely what I was getting at in the first place. Someone PvEing where you cannot gank them doesn’t diminish your game in any way. Good luck getting through to you.

Giving others an option is clearly forcing a different play style on you. Why do the “elites” have so much difficultly understanding how stupid that statement is?

“Elites” want it your way, you want a pure game and that’s the only acceptable design. A design which gives people options pollutes your precious game. The cries of, “there are already other games out there with designs like that” made me reach for the cheese.

One even asked why people who would be accepting of a non-PvX design would even be here when there are so many other available options. I suppose the person asking that question found games without imperfections. Why aren’t we all playing Doom or Chess?

I knew when I posted the “elites” would be up in arms. I’ve been around long enough to know a bit about PvP “elites”. Despite that experience it’s still pretty strange to see the inevitable nonsensical irrational replies.

The one thing I’ll never be able to understand is the fact that the “elites” refuse to accept the fact that a PvX game will be a very short lived game. It has been tried before and while the servers attract attention at launch they always die rapidly. The same thing will happen with AoC if the developers go that direction because designing a system to prevent grief-ganking is extraordinarily difficult to get right, so much so that the feat has never been accomplished to date.

Mojottv

Moid wrote: »

Well I got plenty of typical responses from the “elites” and one a little less typical. I’m not going to take the time to respond to each as some simply aren’t worth the time.

It’s interesting how defensive the “elites” here are about their game. They read into my post that I want to force people to play or force people to play a specific way. I never suggested that.

You “elites” feel as though if people have an option to PvE in a PvP-free zone that will disrupt your game which is precisely what I was getting at in the first place. Someone PvEing where you cannot gank them doesn’t diminish your game in any way. Good luck getting through to you.

Giving others an option is clearly forcing a different play style on you. Why do the “elites” have so much difficultly understanding how stupid that statement is?

“Elites” want it your way, you want a pure game and that’s the only acceptable design. A design which gives people options pollutes your precious game. The cries of, “there are already other games out there with designs like that” made me reach for the cheese.

One even asked why people who would be accepting of a non-PvX design would even be here when there are so many other available options. I suppose the person asking that question found games without imperfections. Why aren’t we all playing Doom or Chess?

I knew when I posted the “elites” would be up in arms. I’ve been around long enough to know a bit about PvP “elites”. Despite that experience it’s still pretty strange to see the inevitable nonsensical irrational replies.

The one thing I’ll never be able to understand is the fact that the “elites” refuse to accept the fact that a PvX game will be a very short lived game. It has been tried before and while the servers attract attention at launch they always die rapidly. The same thing will happen with AoC if the developers go that direction because designing a system to prevent grief-ganking is extraordinarily difficult to get right, so much so that the feat has never been accomplished to date.

Dude i really dont know who are you calling elites here

most of people against your ideas, are people who came here for pvx game. PVP free zones kind of goes against core design of the game, and it might not be obvious, but it does destroy whole games idea. What i like about games like AOC is that they are least restrictive games, where you can actually do what you want. PVP free zone, is a zone where there's restriction for PVP and i dont like restrictions.

There are much more WOW clones that failed miserably, than there are PVX games. And most recent PVX games, which are quite old, they still are going, some of them not as well as they should have been, but simply due to P2W and not the fact that its PVX

Dolyem

@Moid Listen man, if you can't understand that you are trying to force players to play a certain way I don't know what to tell you. You are trying to change an entire games systems to suit your playstyle, if this was being marketed as a PvE game and us "Elites" ,as you love to call PvPers, were trying to force it into a mandatory PvP or PvX game, we would be the ones forcing you to change to our playstyle. And that isn't the right thing to do because that goes against the developers vision. So try to really think for a moment so you can try to understand that what you are advocating for is that steven and the entire development team should scrap their vision and completely restructure the game, just so you don't have to worry about getting ganked... and that isn't cool man.

Voidwalkers

Moid wrote: »

... They read into my post that I want to force people to play or force people to play a specific way. I never suggested that ...
... The cries of, “there are already other games out there with designs like that” ...

... One even asked why people who would be accepting of a non-PvX design would even be here when there are so many other available options. I suppose the person asking that question found games without imperfections ...

... that a PvX game will be a very short lived game. It has been tried before and while the servers attract attention at launch they always die rapidly. The same thing will happen with AoC if the developers go that direction because designing a system to prevent grief-ganking is extraordinarily difficult to get right, so much so that the feat has never been accomplished to date.

Ok this is what I have left after attempting to filter out the emotion-loaded junk, name-calling fillers, and out-of-scope arguments unrelated to mmorpg from your post. Please try to be concise and to the point next time, nobody cares about your cheese.

Anyway, let me try to get this right ... So the imperfections in other existing mmorpgs, which match your playstyle, have motivated you to look for another potentially less imperfect game. But instead of finding a new game that suits you, your search has led you to Ashes, an upcoming open world PvX mmorpg that does not match your playstyle ... ? Weird enough.

If I was in your situation, I would've just moved on to continue my hunt for the ideal game. But instead, you've signed up for an Intrepid account, found a flaming thread on the forum which happened to be about open pvp, dropped your own facts, and labeled people whom you disagreed with as "elites" or "tyrants". Why? To ... enlighten everyone and make them see things your way?? I guess?

That's what I'm confused and curious about. What have brought you (and others) to Ashes? Why even bother to sign up and participate in Ashes' forum if you don't like its PvX gameplay?

Are you trying to influence ppl (devs included), potentially changing Ashes' gameplay, so it would fit your style? That makes this statement ...

... They read into my post that I want to force people to play or force people to play a specific way. I never suggested that ...

... invalid, because now you ARE trying to force many of us to either leave or play a game that would be vastly different from what has originally brought us here.

Or are you sincerely worried about the future of Ashes and Intrepid? Because based on your own facts all PvX mmorpg will rapidly die out after launch? Well in that case don't waste your time on the forums, by all means please contact the Intrepid team directly. They may thank you for enlightening them and saving them from an impending disaster.

Paradise2

Voidwalkers wrote: »

The longer this thread gets, the more confused I am.

While the debate of "whether open world pvp is good or bad for a game" can probably go on forever and it seems neither of the for/against camp will ever be able to convince the other ... what has confused me is ...

I wonder, those of you who are against open world pvp (non-consensual included), what have brought you to Ashes, an upcoming open-world PvX MMORPG?

A lot of the safe haven features you guys' been arguing for (consensual pvp ONLY, and instanced pve safe from hostile player interference), are already available in existing major MMOs like WoW & GW2.

What are you looking for in Ashes that WoW & GW2 couldn't provide?

That's a good point. There is already an abundance of MMOs who cater heavily to this themepark audience, whereas most big PvP games are either MOBAs, FPS or Battle Royale.

If a PvP MMO could appeal to the latter audience, that'd be a huge influx of players.

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