Combatant Opt-In

I've been really thinking about how the Corruption system is going to play out and it just seems like an annoyance from a group/guild pvp perspective. What I mean by this is, in the event there are mutual parties roaming for PvP it seems unfair or simply just out of place that the corruption system may play a part in this combat in a negative way. For example if two groups of 16 players are looking for combat and the first group stun locks a target or multiple and they die before they can "fight back" to initiate combatant mode this will cause corruption for 1 (or multiple) players in addition to added death penalties for the dead player(s) - all while it was the intention of all parties involved to engage in combat.

I would like to propose the option to OPT IN to combatant mode at any time to welcome PvP and avoid non-combatant death penalties due to stun lock, low health or other circumstances when being killed by another player.

I really can't see a downside to allowing players to opt-in at will for PvP content. I know for a fact I would likely prefer to be in combatant mode for almost all game play, though if for some reason I didn't want to be I could toggle it just like the heal mechanic to avoid the corruption thing.

Can anyone see a reason not to allow players to opt in to be flagged combatant at will? I would suggest it has the same "cool down" when toggling it as stepping out of normal combat would, what ever that ends up being (2 minutes, 5 minutes 1 hour etc).

Find more posts tagged with

Staff

Comments

Sathrago

Noaani wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Ill be real here, if a green can't flag up against me as purple when i attack them as a corrupted player I am going to FARM the hell out of people like there's no tomorrow.

The way the corruption system as a whole is set up, this kind of thing will be rare.

If someone particularly enjoys it, they will be able to do it - but they will be doing it at an over all loss. I am of the opinion that if someone wants to do this at a loss, then the game should (and currently does) allow them to do it.

Once you go deep in to corruption, there is no real way of escaping the experience debt aspect of it, and if you go deep enough, that aspect of it will be very, very time consuming. That is the real punishment of corruption, not gear loss.

Gear loss is simply there so that people don't put on the best gear possible while going for a murder spree, it isn't there as the punishment.

Betweem the low quality gear you will have on and the corruption based penalties you will have, it will be interesting to see how long people could actually carry on like this though. I'm actually wondering now if the penalty for experience debt and the PvP penalty for corruption stack.

Why would a party of 5 players go "deep" into corruption willingly? Only the player that deals the killing blow will get corruption, and if they just target players around their level they can easily split the corruption between them while also farming out mobs to reduce said corruption.

if green players cant become flagged against a red player there will be issues.

Noaani

Sathrago wrote: »

Why would a party of 5 players go "deep" into corruption willingly?

If you are not talking about going deep in to corruption, then you are basically talking about playing the game normally.

What you see as "issues", I see as the basic gameplay of Ashes.

Sathrago

Noaani wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Why would a party of 5 players go "deep" into corruption willingly?

If you are not talking about going deep in to corruption, then you are basically talking about playing the game normally.

What you see as "issues", I see as the basic gameplay of Ashes.

Huh? In a system supposedly designed to give players the choice between fighting back and trying to run you think its ok for a green to be forced to fight the corrupted player with full penalties even if they decide to fight back?

Noaani

Sathrago wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Why would a party of 5 players go "deep" into corruption willingly?

If you are not talking about going deep in to corruption, then you are basically talking about playing the game normally.

What you see as "issues", I see as the basic gameplay of Ashes.

Huh? In a system supposedly designed to give players the choice between fighting back and trying to run you think its ok for a green to be forced to fight the corrupted player with full penalties even if they decide to fight back?

Yes.

Not every aspect of every system has to be designed from the perspective of the player being attacked.

Once a player is corrupt, they have a penalty in PvP. That is there in part to encourage other players to attack and kill them. The fact that these players don't have the option to flag as combatant and take a half penalty only encourages them to fight back. They may well lose, but that just means that corrupt player gains more corruption, and thus a greater penalty.

Seems to me to be kind of what the whole thing is designed around - hence me not thinking an alteration to that is a good idea.

Tyrantor

Caeryl wrote: »

No. With a toggle, all you do is make non-combatants out to be players who won’t put up a fight when attacked. Without a toggle, an attacker has to weigh the odds of their target being ready to fight back even if that target hasn’t been in recent PvP combat.

Your toggle is not needed to PvP, and it doesn’t provide any positive benefit to the game as a whole.

Let me ask you this, just humor me for a minute. If toggle exists as generally suggested in this thread and there are 100 people in a random hunting ground area/zone how many of them do you believe will be toggled combatant versus non combatant? 50/50 90/10 60/40 other?

Caeryl

Tyrantor wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

No. With a toggle, all you do is make non-combatants out to be players who won’t put up a fight when attacked. Without a toggle, an attacker has to weigh the odds of their target being ready to fight back even if that target hasn’t been in recent PvP combat.

Your toggle is not needed to PvP, and it doesn’t provide any positive benefit to the game as a whole.

Let me ask you this, just humor me for a minute. If toggle exists as generally suggested in this thread and there are 100 people in a random hunting ground area/zone how many of them do you believe will be toggled combatant versus non combatant? 50/50 90/10 60/40 other?

It doesn’t matter. You’re being purposefully obtuse.

The entire premise implies that toggling purple means you are willing to fight back. You yourself have said that you want people to feel invited to attack you knowing they won’t get corruption (aka, purple = will fight back). Do you really, truly not understand how that then creates the assumption that green = won’t fight back?

If purple means you want to fight, then the logical conclusion becomes that green do not want to fight.

Whether that’s true in 100% of the cases or not doesn’t matter. A toggle creates an atmosphere in which greens will be seen as easier targets less willing to fight back.

Tyrantor

I've also said I wouldn't be purple 100% of the time, do you think that means I won't fight back?

I asked you a very simple question. Your refusal to answer it makes me believe you're worried at what your answer would imply.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

I've also said I wouldn't be purple 100% of the time, do you think that means I won't fight back?

Caeryl wrote: »

Whether that’s true in 100% of the cases or not doesn’t matter.

Just saying.

Tyrantor

Noaani wrote: »

Tyrantor wrote: »

I've also said I wouldn't be purple 100% of the time, do you think that means I won't fight back?

Caeryl wrote: »

Whether that’s true in 100% of the cases or not doesn’t matter.

Just saying.

First Noaani if you'd like to jump back into the conversation with me you should pick it up where you and I left off above and not jump into someone elses discussion because you're going to likely derail his response which will further perpetuate him answering my very simple question I posed to him above.

However since you brought it up let me explain this.

Green should look like a player who is neutral and if you actually guestimate an example of how many would be green/purple in a zone of 100 with the toggle you would likely see this. However you both look at this from the perspective of your lone individual self "I'm green I would be viewed as a lamb".

Let me show you just a handful of examples where I may prefer being non-combatant.

1) I am on a quest line that runs me 45 minutes in some direction to speak with a random NPC. If i'm doing this solo I may want to just get it done without engaging in a fight so I'd likely choose to do this as a non combatant.
2) I'm in a dungeon with a guild or random group of 8 players in my party, all of them are non-combatants so I would likely choose to be as well.
3) I want to solo grind some NPCs for xp in some random camp/area while I eat dinner or watch a tv show or pick my nose.
4) I'm in town
5) I'm afk

Now it's fair to say I may choose to be non-combatant for 100 more reasons or not but what I will say is that in all of the scenarios above I would likely fight back minus the afk one.

I think it's fair to reason that other players would likely do the same thing, unless of course they wanted to play the game differently and toggle it more or less who cares. The point being is you are both projecting that green means "soft, easy, not fight back" etc.

Now that you're also here @Noaani creeping on @Caeryl response instead of mine maybe both of you can feel free to share your estimate for how many people would toggle in a random zone of 100 players if the option was available.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

Now it's fair to say I may choose to be non-combatant for 100 more reasons or not but what I will say is that in all of the scenarios above I would likely fight back minus the afk one.

I think you missed what Caeryl was saying, which is something I have been saying for a while as well.

If there are 100 people in an area, and even only 10 of them are flagged as a combatant, that means a player coming in wanting to attack someone for profit or griefing can discount that 10% immediately, and only look at the 90%.

Straight away, that makes each of those other players - the ones not flagged as combatants - 10% more likely to be attacked by this player.

Now, you may well be one of that 90% of players there, but so are all the players that don't particularly want to be attacked right now. By contrast, those 10 players wanting to be attacked straight up won't be attacked by this player.

The more people actually use this system, the worse the game will be for those not using it.

Tyrantor wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Now, it may well turn out that this suggestion would make life harder for people not wanting that PvP - it would make it easier for people wanting to grief others as they can more easily identify those easier targets. However, I am not suggesting that right now because there is no real way to know which way it would go without testing.

What I am saying though, is that it "could" very easily go either way, and so claiming it will go one way as opposed to the other is kind of missing the point.

This is it right here 100%. You know the greatest part about this, even in your worst case scenario above? The corruption system would then work as intended. The "easy" targets would get to choose to fight or die and the griefers would get a fight or corruption. That's it.

You keep looking at things through a micro-lense.

Sure, with this toggle the people not wanting to fight would have the option to fight or die ewhen attacked by others.

What you are missing - and seem to not want to understand (as it would ruin your entire argument if you admitted) is that this system would see these people attacked more. It isn't a case of what they can do each time they are attacked, it is a case of how often they are attacked.

Tyrantor

So in your example there are 10 players flagged for combat and 90 players as non combatants. You're also suggesting a solo player "picking" targets to attack for griefing or profit. Those odds sound really bad 1v90. Now if you're going to suggest well, no the solo guy is just going to seek out solo players to kill, what would stop him from doing this if they were toggled as combatants or not? Or are our 10 toggled combatants also solo players? Would it be fair to reason that those 10 combatants would potentially be toggled as combatants under the current system anyway I mean 10 out of 100 seems reasonable to assume there are that many already fighting in a zone without a toggle no?

Noaani wrote: »

What you are missing - and seem to not want to understand (as it would ruin your entire argument if you admitted) is that this system would see these people attacked more. It isn't a case of what they can do each time they are attacked, it is a case of how often they are attacked.

If they're getting attacked "more" by griefers then that means the corruption system isn't strong handed enough - that simple. The corruption system is actually in place to protect these other 90 people in your example above. It's not the job of players "not flagging" to offer some protective blanked onto others by way of commonality.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

So in your example there are 10 players flagged for combat and 90 players as non combatants. You're also suggesting a solo player "picking" targets to attack for griefing or profit. Those odds sound really bad 1v90. Now if you're going to suggest well, no the solo guy is just going to seek out solo players to kill, what would stop him from doing this if they were toggled as combatants or not? Or are our 10 toggled combatants also solo players? Would it be fair to reason that those 10 combatants would potentially be toggled as combatants under the current system anyway I mean 10 out of 100 seems reasonable to assume there are that many already fighting in a zone without a toggle no?

Noaani wrote: »

What you are missing - and seem to not want to understand (as it would ruin your entire argument if you admitted) is that this system would see these people attacked more. It isn't a case of what they can do each time they are attacked, it is a case of how often they are attacked.

If they're getting attacked "more" by griefers then that means the corruption system isn't strong handed enough - that simple. The corruption system is actually in place to protect these other 90 people in your example above. It's not the job of players "not flagging" to offer some protective blanked onto others by way of commonality.

The 10/90 split was used as an example, and as I said later on, the more people flag as combatant, the worse things get for those that don't.

Your suggestion that this would make things 90v1 is also misplaced, it was you that defined a hunting ground earlier as something that would take potentially 15 minutes to cross. Clearly, this would mean that the vast majority of players in this area won't even know there is PvP happening, let alone be inclined to participate - unless of course you want to change your definition of a hunting ground to assist your current argument.

Your point about them being attacked more meaning the corruption system isn't working is also not accurate - though this is only assuming you accept the basic premise of math.

If I am that player that is going to attack and kill someone for profit, I will do so with the understanding that I can kill a specific number of non-combatants, and am willing to accept the penalties of that.

Remember, the corruption system is not intended to stop people from attacking one or two people.

So, if I enter that hunting ground that you have defined with 100 people, where most can't see the others, then I will specifically look for solo non-combatants to attack, specifically ones that are in an area around a resource I would have use for.

Now, if I assume half of the players I attack will flag up to defend themselves, that means I am going to attack 4 players. This means each player in the hunting ground has a 4% chance to be attacked. Note that if we don't make this assumption, the percentage will be lower, but it will still go up in the following manner - this step is to try and get a realistic example going, rather than being something that materially alters the result.

Now if we take that same scenario, but assume there are 10 people in the area that are flagged as combatant via your toggle, I am now going to attack 4 players out of 90, rather than 4 players out of 100. This means each player now has a 4.44% chance of being attacked, which is higher than 4%, even though the corruption system is still perfoeming it's role perfectly well.

If we were to assume that 20 players were flagged, that percent chance for the remaining player is now 5%, and again, the more people flagged, the higher the chances are of non-combatants being attacked.

Your last thought about it not being the "job" of players to offer protective blankets and such - you are right, it isn't their job. It is the job, in part, of the flagging system - which is what you are trying to alter.

Caeryl

Tyrantor wrote: »

I've also said I wouldn't be purple 100% of the time, do you think that means I won't fight back?

I asked you a very simple question. Your refusal to answer it makes me believe you're worried at what your answer would imply.

I didn’t answer because it has literally no bearing on the discussion. It doesn’t matter if you choose to stay purple for 30minutes or if you never turn green. The presence of a toggle, the proposed intention behind the toggle, means that purple indicates someone willing to fight back.

The obvious logical conclusion after it’s established that players who flag purple will fight back, is that players who do not flag purple probably will not want to fight back.

It shifts the entire atmosphere from “Should I try to attack that gatherer and take their stuff? Is it worth it to take the corruption if I’m able to 100-0 them? Can I take them if they turn and fight?” and “They’re already flagged, maybe that means I caught them with low resources. Where’s the person they were fighting?” to “Hm they’re purple, I’d only get half the stuff even if I do 100-0 them and I know they’ll probably fight back” and “Hell yeah a green, should be easy pickings. If they were good at fighting they’d probably be flagged purple.”

A toggle removes all the context from the flagging system, which offers fairly substantial information when it isn’t the result of a button press, but of actual behavior of the player.

daveywavey

Caeryl wrote: »

It shifts the entire atmosphere from “Should I try to attack that gatherer and take their stuff? Is it worth it to take the corruption if I’m able to 100-0 them? Can I take them if they turn and fight?” and “They’re already flagged, maybe that means I caught them with low resources. Where’s the person they were fighting?” to “Hm they’re purple, I’d only get half the stuff even if I do 100-0 them and I know they’ll probably fight back” and “Hell yeah a green, should be easy pickings. If they were good at fighting they’d probably be flagged purple.”

A toggle removes all the context from the flagging system, which offers fairly substantial information when it isn’t the result of a button press, but of actual behavior of the player.

I get what you're saying there, but couldn't it also introduce:
"Hm, they're purple, so they're obviously expecting to lose so they're trying to protect their fragile loot. Easy pickings."
or
"Hm, they're green, so they know they can defend their loot. They must be a skilled PvPer."

Noaani

daveywavey wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

It shifts the entire atmosphere from “Should I try to attack that gatherer and take their stuff? Is it worth it to take the corruption if I’m able to 100-0 them? Can I take them if they turn and fight?” and “They’re already flagged, maybe that means I caught them with low resources. Where’s the person they were fighting?” to “Hm they’re purple, I’d only get half the stuff even if I do 100-0 them and I know they’ll probably fight back” and “Hell yeah a green, should be easy pickings. If they were good at fighting they’d probably be flagged purple.”

A toggle removes all the context from the flagging system, which offers fairly substantial information when it isn’t the result of a button press, but of actual behavior of the player.

I get what you're saying there, but couldn't it also introduce:
"Hm, they're purple, so they're obviously expecting to lose so they're trying to protect their fragile loot. Easy pickings."
or
"Hm, they're green, so they know they can defend their loot. They must be a skilled PvPer."

From my perspective (as I have been making this same argument for a while), I don't see this happening.

People are not very likely to attempt a double bluff like this, especially not if they actually have something to lose.

If someone is not very good at PvP, and would expect to lose any potential encounter that may be forced on them, their best defence is the corruption system. While it won't work every time, if people in the general area know that killing the player in question will always result in corruption, they are less likely to attack in the first place. The player in question will likely know this, and will not want to flag up to remove that protection.

Anyone that knows this player will look at the fact they have flagged and see nothing other than free loot.

Caeryl

daveywavey wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

It shifts the entire atmosphere from “Should I try to attack that gatherer and take their stuff? Is it worth it to take the corruption if I’m able to 100-0 them? Can I take them if they turn and fight?” and “They’re already flagged, maybe that means I caught them with low resources. Where’s the person they were fighting?” to “Hm they’re purple, I’d only get half the stuff even if I do 100-0 them and I know they’ll probably fight back” and “Hell yeah a green, should be easy pickings. If they were good at fighting they’d probably be flagged purple.”

A toggle removes all the context from the flagging system, which offers fairly substantial information when it isn’t the result of a button press, but of actual behavior of the player.

I get what you're saying there, but couldn't it also introduce:
"Hm, they're purple, so they're obviously expecting to lose so they're trying to protect their fragile loot. Easy pickings."
or
"Hm, they're green, so they know they can defend their loot. They must be a skilled PvPer."

Sure they could possibly maybe mean the opposite of what their toggled state implies, but the majority of cases aren’t going to be double-bluffing like that. All you end up with is players being afraid to stay green because they know it sends a message that they don’t intend to fight back.

If there isn’t a toggle, and you spot a Combatant, you know they’ve been in combat recently, you know they’re willing to fight to either defend or take a resource, and you can surmise that some of their cooldowns are probably still down from the fight they flagged up in.

If you spot a Non-Combatant, you know they have not been in combat recently, you know that they are very likely full health and have all cooldowns ready, and you cannot be sure if they will be eager, reluctant, or unwilling to participate in PvP.

If a toggle exists, none of the above inferences can be made. There would be no way to draw any meaningful information from a player’s current status because it would have been completely detached from player behavior.

Tyrantor

This is hilarious that your stance has been reduced to "but griefers will grief". In the scenario outlined this said griefer is going to seek out solo players, lower level players, small group(s), low health players etc. It honestly wouldn't matter if 90 people were flagged for combat out of 100 or just the 10 in your example. The player who intends to grief will seek out a situation they can win regardless of the flagging. You think that the griefer would be less inclined to attack a combatant flagged player that they can kill, would this not be a free kill, no risk of corruption.

It appears that Intrepid has went to great lengths to limit the inferences you can make by simply looking at a player to determine if you should attack them or not already, it seems like the less inferences you can make because of a toggle would be better for a system that has intentionally hidden information from you for that reason.

The reality is there will be such a small percentage of people intentionally griefing that your argument fails on this premise. The amount of pvp the non-combatant would likely avoid in situations where people freely toggle combatant mode would out weigh any additional risk they might encounter from random griefers. It seems illogical and impractical that anyone looking for easy/free kills would subject themselves to corruption if combatants are available and a target exists that they can kill. In turn this does nothing but protect the non combatants further through the process of risk for corruption.

Noaani wrote: »

So, if I enter that hunting ground that you have defined with 100 people, where most can't see the others, then I will specifically look for solo non-combatants to attack, specifically ones that are in an area around a resource I would have use for.

What would a combatant toggle have to do with this if you're specifically seeking out a "solo" player around a resource? How would 10 combatants in that zone impact your decision to do this?

Noaani wrote: »

Now if we take that same scenario, but assume there are 10 people in the area that are flagged as combatant via your toggle, I am now going to attack 4 players out of 90, rather than 4 players out of 100. This means each player now has a 4.44% chance of being attacked, which is higher than 4%, even though the corruption system is still perfoeming it's role perfectly well.

How does the percentage adjust based on your example it's the same 4 players you're attacking (solo players at resources you want).

Noaani wrote: »

If we were to assume that 20 players were flagged, that percent chance for the remaining player is now 5%, and again, the more people flagged, the higher the chances are of non-combatants being attacked.

Lets assume this and adjust your targets. Instead of the 4 players all being non-combatant now 1 out of the 4 solo players area combatants (20/100 approximation). If you had no risk of corruption do you attack the combatant or just the 3 non combatants? Now even if you attack all 4 of these players now only 3 of them are non-combatant so the percentage of non combatants you attack in a zone of 100 actually decreases.

Percimes

I heard someone mentioning a pie... or possibly a cake?

After 12 pages on this subject here are my observations.

1) You can't assume if someone green or purple wants to fight or will defend themselves before they do so. If a green fight back, no corruption for you. If a green doesn't fight back, either you get corruption or stop your attack and leave. No corruption for you in that case.

2) Bluffing (single/double and more) about your intention will happen. People will try exploit the current expectations and conventions to align with their goals. Greens are perceive as easy targets and get more attacked? Those who want to be attacked will stay green as much as possible. Having a toggle will only make this "strategy" simpler. People tend to leave the greens alone? People will stay green.

3) As much as some pretend that death penalties in random pvp give it meaning and that consequences make it more thrilling, there are so many threads and pages that show how unpalatable it is for others. It will always be tough for the devs to find the balance for their vision.

CROW3

Caeryl wrote: »

The obvious logical conclusion after it’s established that players who flag purple will fight back, is that players who do not flag purple probably will not want to fight back.

That's not a logical conclusion. You're making an specious inference based on the false assumption that a purple flag that fights back is mutually exclusive to a green flag that won't fight back.

There isn't a logical relationship between player 1 who chooses to flag purple and player 2 who chooses to flag green. One possible outcome is that purple will fight back and green will not, but those are not the only outcomes, and therefore can't be a conclusion.

Percimes wrote: »

I heard someone mentioning a pie... or possibly a cake?

There's always plenty of pie to go around. The cake people are over there somewhere doing something forgettable.

Tyrantor

CROW3 wrote: »

There's always plenty of pie to go around. The cake people are over there somewhere doing something forgettable.

How dare you belittle the power of cake. It may be pie season but cake will have it's day again.

Child Item