The main resource sink is the gold from the masses of tokens that are dropped. Also, I wouldn't take 100% from the corrupted, just 4 x. Whatever 4 x means.
You claim all the pvp encounters should be done by pvpers for free but forget that corruption is also a pvp encounter which means the green should pvp and not create reds in the first place.
We are at an impass because I see Ashes as a PvX game and you see Ashes as a PvE predominate sandbox. Ultimately, the green does not deserve to be handed the gold back or any other resources.
The main resource sink is the gold from the masses of tokens that are dropped. Also, I wouldn't take 100% from the corrupted, just 4 x. Whatever 4 x means.
Say the red loots 10 branches off a green who had 20 (assuming 50% drop rates). The red would now have to drop 40 branches which they don't have, so they just drop the 10 that they got from the green.
If we get much lower drop rates, then I definitely want way more PKing in the game, cause the price for it would be utterly negligible for the green.
You claim all the pvp encounters should be done by pvpers for free but forget that corruption is also a pvp encounter which means the green should pvp and not create reds in the first place.
That's the difference in our definitions of pvp. For me, pvp is two people fighting each other. And PKing is one dude hitting a wall until it crumbles. Yes, effectively that wall is a player, but there's no reciprocation, so I personally don't see that as "pvp". Which is exactly why one doesn't give you corruption, while the other does.
We are at an impass because I see Ashes as a PvX game and you see Ashes as a PvE predominate sandbox. Ultimately, the green does not deserve to be handed the gold back or any other resources.
Nah, I see it as a pvx game too. I just want all part of that pvx to be as enjoyable as possible to everyone involved. I want PKers to be able to kill quite a few people a day w/o deleting their character in the process. I want pvers to enjoy the game despite of frequent PKs. And I want BHs to be the pvpers who not only benefit from killing reds, but also help the pvers enjoy the game. Ya know, the full circle.
And obviously on top of that there's all kinds of opt-in pvp events/locations in the game.
It's not a full circle though. Bounty Hunters might do nothing else but bounty hunt. Thus, bounty hunting might be their only source of extra income.
The green has no right to take what they haven't earned. Also, how would a bounty hunter even know who the victims are if there is random respawns and a corrupted player has killed mules instead of players?
In my mind, unless it is banked it is not yet owned. In my eyes a player would perhaps turn purple in the next confrontation but in your scenario there would be corruption factories because the green would have lost nothing.
They have systems that support them. We will protect caravans, nodes, ships, guild halls and whatever else those players will require help with.
Pretty much all of those are just pvp encounters, which makes them the main pvp content of the game, so while, yes, they do support greens in a way, they're mainly pvpers' domain.
I do not see why they should also get all the resources back after a bounty hunter has earned those resources.
The only ones who "earned" them are the greens themselves. The red then stole them through a forced kill and the BH then used that forced kill for their own benefit (double btw, if you don't return the resources).
That's like saying "well I stole this money from another robber, so I definitely earned this money". Though if you do think that, well then we just have differing povs (as if this wasn't already apparent )
There's meant to be resources sinks and pvp is a big one.
The only resource sink involved in a kill of a player is the gear decay, because you'll need to use mats to repair it, instead of using those mats for another craft. The loot itself won't be sunk (unless we're talking caravans). It's just a shift of possession.
There are ways to make sure systems arent parasitic in nature.
Such as plunder being flagged as such on a timer and makes it so in the event of a PK, the Corrupted just can't go and mule it over to another character for safe keeping.
Then after a while, a BH kills the Corrupted and a portion of that returns to the Greens who opted not to partake in PvP.
It's not a full circle though. Bounty Hunters might do nothing else but bounty hunt. Thus, bounty hunting might be their only source of extra income.
The green has no right to take what they haven't earned. Also, how would a bounty hunter even know who the victims are if there is random respawns and a corrupted player has killed mules instead of players?
In my mind, unless it is banked it is not yet owned. In my eyes a player would perhaps turn purple in the next confrontation but in your scenario there would be corruption factories because the green would have lost nothing.
Well Solvryn pretty much explained what I was about to say, because I've described my suggestion before in other threads.
The loot would be marked with the victim's name and would be returned to the green through the BH system. All the BH would have to do is to kill the PKer and give the marked loot to an NPC at a node. Btw, the PKer would still drop their own loot too and obviously that remains with the BH. All I want is to only the victim's stuff to be returned to them.
As for the factories, yes there'd be more corruption, because people would kill more readily. But the scale of those factories can just be balanced through the PK counter removal costs (both money and time).
And as I discussed here before, the resources in your storage are just as yours as the ones in your inventory. Mainly because the stuff in your storage can be taken through a siege, so how would it be any different from just someone killing you directly and taking it (well outside of the obvious cost of the siege itself). This is the main reason for me seeing resources being "someone's" as soon as those resources are acquired.
But, as a weaker point of my argument, I mainly want those resources to be marked only after a PK has occurred and not if the victim fought back. Mainly because tying named loots into the bigger pvp systems could lead to other unneeded complexities, due to the very fact I mentioned (stuff will be looted during sieges).
I was more focused on the tokens than the resources. Death is the only way tokens can be lost because gold can not drop and gold can not be taken in a siege. You've fixated on resources rather than the tokens but resources are used differently to gold.
In your system the bounty hunter would have to retrieve the resources for the green player, the green player would have lost nothing and then the bounty hunter would have to buy those resources from the green player for repairs.
I do not see how such a system is fair at all. Why should a none pvx player be given so much in reward for no pvp whatsoever?
I was more focused on the tokens than the resources. Death is the only way tokens can be lost because gold can not drop and gold can not be taken in a siege. You've fixated on resources rather than the tokens but resources are used differently to gold.
In your system the bounty hunter would have to retrieve the resources for the green player, the green player would have lost nothing and then the bounty hunter would have to buy those resources from the green player for repairs.
I do not see how such a system is fair at all. Why should a none pvx player be given so much in reward for no pvp whatsoever?
I think you're forgetting the factor that a Logistics person in their guild just went out and farmed a shit ton of material for their guild and was PK'd.
A portion of that returned to them fulfilled the "Bounty" requirement in order to deter players, it also adds Justice and purpose to the Military nodes.
Not to mention, Corrupted will begin to drop their loot, so its not like a Bounty Hunter is walking away with nothing, they're fulfilling "The Bounty" put on that Corrupt players head instead of just being a PKer themselves and anti-Pking.
I was more focused on the tokens than the resources. Death is the only way tokens can be lost because gold can not drop and gold can not be taken in a siege. You've fixated on resources rather than the tokens but resources are used differently to gold.
In your system the bounty hunter would have to retrieve the resources for the green player, the green player would have lost nothing and then the bounty hunter would have to buy those resources from the green player for repairs.
Do you mean certificates? Cause I include those in the "resources". Just anything that drops from a person is their resource. I should've made that more clear.
The loss for the green player is time out of his preferred content. Especially if that green was farming mobs in a lucrative (at least relative to the green themselves) location. That green player might've lost their farming location because they vacated it through death and now they might have to lose even more time because they need to move to a whole different location.
The BH not only partook in their preferred content (that is the pvp), but also got rewarded for doing so. The reward being anything else that dropped from the PKer and the system-based reward that they'll get for successfully hunting that PKer.
And the PKer obviously got to kill a defenseless victim and could've potentially even gotten away, if they were good enough (though I have a separate suggestion for these situations, but that's beside the point rn).
I do not see how such a system is fair at all. Why should a none pvx player be given so much in reward for no pvp whatsoever?
And what about the PKer? He literally did fuckall in terms of farming mobs, but he potentially got the rewards for it. Hell, he might've gotten multiple hours worth of pve rewards for literally hitting a wall for a minute. How is that fair?
And the BH not only gets rewarded for only doing pvp, but they could potentially get the PKer's gear, which could amount to literal weeks worth of work of several people across several content mediums. Also for just killing a single dude. How in the hell is that any fair?
You seem to really dislike any pvers. And while I do also want everyone to be the ultimate pvxer who pves as much as they pvp - that's a very unreasonable ask of the majority population of the mmo genre. Pvers (and obviously pure artisans) will most likely be the ones producing all the gear and food and potions and whatever else you'd use in your day-to-day gameplay for the pvpers, who will most likely just serve as mercs or just participate in pvp events most of the time. So saying that pvers are all freeloaders, just because they decline to fight back when they're already preoccupied with other content (that they prefer more than the pvp), seems quite unreasonable to me.
The game does not need to cater to such people. Where is the risk to someone who can turn someone corrupted and loses nothing in return?
If a dude is farming the dude should be in a group. I have no pity for money bags who walk alone in a pvx world. Bounty Hunters are pvp players and not care bears for green players.
In my view a guild who allows guild resources to go around unprotected deserve to lose the resources. Same for the merchants and crafters who venture out alone.
The fact remains the gatherers take the risks and I would be a gatherer too. Does that mean I'll be on my tod? No. I'd be with my friends or my guild. It's not wise to keep molly coddling those players who want to be pve only and not pvx.
The game does not need to cater to such people. Where is the risk to someone who can turn someone corrupted and loses nothing in return?
If a dude is farming the dude should be in a group. I have no pity for money bags who walk alone in a pvx world. Bounty Hunters are pvp players and not care bears for green players.
In my view a guild who allows guild resources to go around unprotected deserve to lose the resources. Same for the merchants and crafters who venture out alone.
The fact remains the gatherers take the risks and I would be a gatherer too. Does that mean I'll be on my tod? No. I'd be with my friends or my guild. It's not wise to keep molly coddling those players who want to be pve only and not pvx.
Got it.
Hope this kind of approach doesn't destroy the game in the long run.
The game does not need to cater to such people. Where is the risk to someone who can turn someone corrupted and loses nothing in return?
If a dude is farming the dude should be in a group. I have no pity for money bags who walk alone in a pvx world. Bounty Hunters are pvp players and not care bears for green players.
In my view a guild who allows guild resources to go around unprotected deserve to lose the resources. Same for the merchants and crafters who venture out alone.
The fact remains the gatherers take the risks and I would be a gatherer too. Does that mean I'll be on my tod? No. I'd be with my friends or my guild. It's not wise to keep molly coddling those players who want to be pve only and not pvx.
Seems to me you are focusing on people rather than systems, which as of right now the corruption system offers very little in returning anything back to the game.
Which in turn, will not have very many bounty hunters to begin with.
Completing gameplay loops and making sure there aren't any parasitic designs. Bounty Hunters collect a bounty on a Corrupted, they're already going to loot the corrupteds gear from them and a portion of the plunder as payment. They incur zero risk for hunting bounties and already have a high stakes reward.
The system itself needs to complete a gameplay loop and return something back to the game.
Most Corrupted players are going to go after soft targets which will not be able to win any exchange. Is a level 20 undeserving because a level 50 killed them?
By the time a Corrupted player ends up on a BH bounty, they'll have PK'd and looted many soft targets, not just one or two.
The problem is it's challenging to make accurate estimate of what combat will actually be from showcases of lvl 15 characters against mobs that haven’t been tuned yet, and fundamental combat mechanics are still unfinished/undecided. Basically, what we saw is a very rough draft.
On top of that, because your abilities depend on where you spend ability points, one cleric's combat is going to (sometimes) look different than another’s.
so, if not really a combat demo...we were shown a status effects demo
Right. And to that at least I would say I really liked the direction they were going with that.
Hearing from the combat team in the Dec. Dev Update was helpful. The focus on archetype identity, and how combat feels specifically, was reassuring.
The only thing I can confidently say about combat right now is that it looks interesting
"...Tools to design, designs iterating with authored animations"...that is the problem... not enough authored animations...
This no visual soup thing will probably be an issue if we are focusing on karate positions and what color belt you're wearing as a tell for what's to come.
Bounty Hunters collect a bounty on a Corrupted, they're already going to loot the corrupteds gear from them and a portion of the plunder as payment. They incur zero risk for hunting bounties and already have a high stakes reward.
Unless the hunter becomes the hunted...would be a shame if we had a decoy corrupt player to illuminate brightly on the map...with several other players nearby ready to kill the BH...
Most Corrupted players are going to go after soft targets which will not be able to win any exchange. Is a level 20 undeserving because a level 50 killed them?
Hmm...we may have had different experiences in MMOs. from my experience the players that are running around killing lowbies are a small percentage of the PVPers. In this case since you can be corrupt by killing even people your own level, to say that most corrupted players are going to be people who kill lowbies I don't think will be true.
Bounty Hunters collect a bounty on a Corrupted, they're already going to loot the corrupteds gear from them and a portion of the plunder as payment. They incur zero risk for hunting bounties and already have a high stakes reward.
Unless the hunter becomes the hunted...would be a shame if we had a decoy corrupt player to illuminate brightly on the map...with several other players nearby ready to kill the BH...
Most Corrupted players are going to go after soft targets which will not be able to win any exchange. Is a level 20 undeserving because a level 50 killed them?
Hmm...we may have had different experiences in MMOs. from my experience the players that are running around killing lowbies are a small percentage of the PVPers. In this case since you can be corrupt by killing even people your own level, to say that most corrupted players are going to be people who kill lowbies I don't think will be true.
But I'm excited to give it a try
Well the Corruption system isn't meant to deter good PvP.
But back to the BH viability. They should not be able in 100% of cases to take and give back the resources lost by the green because the PK-ers will have 0 reason to become corrupt.
How do you balance the success rate?
And once that is done, it still means that some greens will not get their resources back.
This would obviously have to be tested. I would personally tweak the amount of corruption gained and corruption lost relative to XP gained. And then counterbalance that against the common distance between any given mob and the nearest node center.
And if the design of how the bounties get given out (if I understand it correctly that is) remains the same, then BHs would have to get their targets at a tavern or a certain NPC only in a lvl4 military node. At which point there's definitely some amount of distance that a BH would have to travel from said tavern/npc to the PKer. And the time of that travel would have to determine how quickly the PKer can remove their corruption through grind.
Military NPCs could give immediate info about any new PKer and might even make announcements in "BH chat" about a new PKer, so anyone in the vicinity of the NPC could quickly get the bounty from them and try to catch the PKer before they remove their corruption. Tavern-based bounties could maybe only work if the PKer was above some corruption threshold (or a PK count one), because taverns would most likely be closer to the killer.
And we could have that only a BH kill would drop the victims resources rather than just any kill, which imo would strengthen the BHs' reputation amongst the people and would decrease the amount of greens just attacking the Red (because some maniacs consider that a bad thing). And again though, the BH still gotta kill the PKer in order to get the resources, which is never assured.
This is just the surface-lvl first-thought kind of design, I'm sure it could be refined into something much better or there might even be able a better way to satisfy all 3 sides of this equation.
The balancing you describe seems good for the corruption level part. There might be other variables to play with too.
But once done, the BH success rate to kill the corrupted one still relies on their presence and desire to do the task.
If their success rate is 100%, there will be no PK-ers. If you manage to find a balancing to reach 50% success, the green can rather flag and get the 50% immediately when he dies.
So 50% is not good either.
What should the BH the success rate be, which makes everyone happy?
The problem I see is that there is no way to balance that as it can fluctuate over time and from server to server. Unless we measure that and dynamically adjust parameters.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
With low subscription cost, high population creating great economic opportunity, and lack of player enforcement capability (limited Pk ability) and reliance on dev for bot enforcement I think botting will be rife!
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
You seem to really dislike any pvers. And while I do also want everyone to be the ultimate pvxer who pves as much as they pvp - that's a very unreasonable ask of the majority population of the mmo genre. Pvers (and obviously pure artisans) will most likely be the ones producing all the gear and food and potions and whatever else you'd use in your day-to-day gameplay for the pvpers, who will most likely just serve as mercs or just participate in pvp events most of the time. So saying that pvers are all freeloaders, just because they decline to fight back when they're already preoccupied with other content (that they prefer more than the pvp), seems quite unreasonable to me.
I think I may be misunderstanding the hypothetical, but...
Dying as a Non-Combatant in PvP is just normal death penalties, so... I don't think it's necessary for resources to returned when a Corrupted dies to a BH. A Corrupted is basically treated like a hostile mob/monster - and we don't expect to have resources returned when a mob/monster is killed.
(I think "freeloader" could be a response to the hypothetical of 100% return of lost resources if someone else kills the Corrupted?)
Seems to me you are focusing on people rather than systems, which as of right now the corruption system offers very little in returning anything back to the game.
Which in turn, will not have very many bounty hunters to begin with.
Completing gameplay loops and making sure there aren't any parasitic designs. Bounty Hunters collect a bounty on a Corrupted, they're already going to loot the corrupteds gear from them and a portion of the plunder as payment. They incur zero risk for hunting bounties and already have a high stakes reward.
The system itself needs to complete a gameplay loop and return something back to the game.
Most Corrupted players are going to go after soft targets which will not be able to win any exchange. Is a level 20 undeserving because a level 50 killed them?
By the time a Corrupted player ends up on a BH bounty, they'll have PK'd and looted many soft targets, not just one or two.
The gear drop chance for corrupted players is only slight. Its never a guarantee. The risks for hunting bounties is being outnumbered, facing your hard counter or simply facing a more skilled opponent - the corrupted player has no loss of efficiency against a bounty hunter. Its as if it was two purples duking it out. I do not know what the bounty quests will state - perhaps very little, however, it is not the bounty hunters who should replenish the lost tokens and resources. No one forces a player not to engage. The environment is a safe environment to flag and lose less resources overall. I would agree with your stance if there was no option of reducing the losses and no option to prevent corruption but there is, thus, it is down to player agency whether a player turns corrupted or how much tokens and resources are lost.
No one drops tokens or resources they don't have in their inventories. At present the bounty hunter doesn't receive all the loot in a corrupted inventory. If the corrupted could lose all the resources and tokens in their inventories there would be no game loop because they simply wouldn't risk going corrupted in the first place.
Seems to me you are focusing on people rather than systems, which as of right now the corruption system offers very little in returning anything back to the game.
Which in turn, will not have very many bounty hunters to begin with.
Completing gameplay loops and making sure there aren't any parasitic designs. Bounty Hunters collect a bounty on a Corrupted, they're already going to loot the corrupteds gear from them and a portion of the plunder as payment. They incur zero risk for hunting bounties and already have a high stakes reward.
The system itself needs to complete a gameplay loop and return something back to the game.
Most Corrupted players are going to go after soft targets which will not be able to win any exchange. Is a level 20 undeserving because a level 50 killed them?
By the time a Corrupted player ends up on a BH bounty, they'll have PK'd and looted many soft targets, not just one or two.
The gear drop chance for corrupted players is only slight. Its never a guarantee. The risks for hunting bounties is being outnumbered, facing your hard counter or simply facing a more skilled opponent - the corrupted player has no loss of efficiency against a bounty hunter. Its as if it was two purples duking it out. I do not know what the bounty quests will state - perhaps very little, however, it is not the bounty hunters who should replenish the lost tokens and resources. No one forces a player not to engage. The environment is a safe environment to flag and lose less resources overall. I would agree with your stance if there was no option of reducing the losses and no option to prevent corruption but there is, thus, it is down to player agency whether a player turns corrupted or how much tokens and resources are lost.
No one drops tokens or resources they don't have in their inventories. At present the bounty hunter doesn't receive all the loot in a corrupted inventory. If the corrupted could lose all the resources and tokens in their inventories there would be no game loop because they simply wouldn't risk going corrupted in the first place.
Which is why on paper the Corruption system is parasitic design in nature even though it’s trying to prevent parasitic behavior.
Gear risk increases as corruption is gained. I think that’s fair. I also think corruption being a sliding scale and harsher for killing lower levels / soft targets who cannot fight back is fair too.
Ignoring stat dampening, I think the risk for making it out with plunder that’s greater than the gear their wearing is also fair, but at that point it should be activating the BH system.
I don’t think the BH system having other PK players just getting free anti-PK has a meaningful loop either.
Which is why if we flag all of the material as Plunder that has a timer, then people getting a portion back pays for the BHs services.
As they’re risking significantly less than the corrupted. Which is just time itself.
Completing loops for these systems are my concern.
I think I may be misunderstanding the hypothetical, but...
Dying as a Non-Combatant in PvP is just normal death penalties, so... I don't think it's necessary for resources to returned when a Corrupted dies to a BH. A Corrupted is basically treated like a hostile mob/monster - and we don't expect to have resources returned when a mob/monster is killed.
(I think "freeloader" could be a response to the hypothetical of 100% return of lost resources if someone else kills the Corrupted?)
But like you like to say yourself, players are much more kill-hungry than mobs. A green player can just run away from a mob if they think the mob will kill them. But running away from a PKer would be more difficult, especially if the PKer attacked while the green was preoccupied with other content.
And if corrupted are meant to just be treated as mobs - why da hell is there a BH system? Any player can just go kill mobs and get the reward from them, so why do we need a whole separate system that, for some reason, gives out additional rewards for killing "mobs"?
If Intrepid decides to remove the BHs completely, I'll live with that. But if they want to keep that system in - I'd expect a much more holistic system that serves all sides of its encounter equation.
I'm not sure why you are trying to reduce the bounty hunter prizes. The situation remains that there is limited fast travel and anyone can kill a red. To place the onus on a bounty hunter would mean less bounty hunters will bother the switch from whatever else they are doing.
You keep mentioning how it's unfair that a green is minding their own business and gets 'attacked and killed' but a whole night might be spent clearing the corruption by a bounty hunter. Thus, the bounty hunter time investment must be worthwhile.
You keep mentioning how it's unfair that a green is minding their own business and gets 'attacked and killed' but a whole night might be spent clearing the corruption by a bounty hunter. Thus, the bounty hunter time investment must be worthwhile.
As I've said before, my suggestion only works (at least as I see it) if the corruption gain values are somewhat low. So that BH would only kill the PKer once before the corruption goes away. It would just be "a single kill = whatever the PKer drops of their own stuff + the system reward for getting the bounty". A few minutes of "work" (not really, because it's pvp which is exactly the content BHs would be looking for) for a potentially substantial reward (not even counting the gear that could drop).
And with more people feeling better about PKing here and there, there's gonna be enough players who get killed by BHs while they have normally stacked inventories on them. While in the current system (well, considering what we know), I'd almost bet that most PKers will just be alt chars with the most basic cheapest gear on them, with 0 droppable items in their inventories and potentially a ton of trash low lvl gear, depending on how the gear drop mechanics work.
I'd bet on that because that is literally how it was in L2 (though it still have "good PKing" too). I've done it myself countless times and I've died to such characters as many times too. If Ashes keeps the super harsh penalties for PKing (mainly talking about the corruption values here) - I'd imagine that the general PKing quantities wouldn't really go down, because anyone who might've normally PKed a dude a day (or less) won't do it, but all the people who'd come to the game purely to fuck shit up won't really be stopped by the system.
There won't be enough BHs across the server to catch the uberPKers, because quantitively there wouldn't be enough "normal" PKers around to justify BHs. And with barely any "law enforcement" the true criminals will only become that much worse.
Well, I brought up the difficulties originally around bounty hunters and corrupted both being attached to a military node. Thankfully, the corruption link to military nodes were removed.
I can't speak for all bounty hunters but most bounty hunters will have the best gear possible before they face a corrupt player. It is true people will game the system but any system will be gamed. If it only takes one death to clear corruption then friends can clear the corruption before bounty hunter is even informed.
A bounty hunter has to flag which means friends of a corrupted player can also kill a bounty hunter. I think I will have to make bounty hunter contacts to be fully operational. The rewards are based on kills not combat. Thus, bounty hunters are already unlikely to group up unless it is imperative.
Well, I brought up the difficulties originally around bounty hunters and corrupted both being attached to a military node. Thankfully, the corruption link to military nodes were removed.
I can't speak for all bounty hunters but most bounty hunters will have the best gear possible before they face a corrupt player. It is true people will game the system but any system will be gamed. If it only takes one death to clear corruption then friends can clear the corruption before bounty hunter is even informed.
A bounty hunter has to flag which means friends of a corrupted player can also kill a bounty hunter. I think I will have to make bounty hunter contacts to be fully operational. The rewards are based on kills not combat. Thus, bounty hunters are already unlikely to group up unless it is imperative.
A bounty hunter does not have to flag because anyone can attack Corrupted players. The difference is bounty hunters will be given corrupted players locations via military node.
I can't speak for all bounty hunters but most bounty hunters will have the best gear possible before they face a corrupt player. It is true people will game the system but any system will be gamed. If it only takes one death to clear corruption then friends can clear the corruption before bounty hunter is even informed.
And this is why I'm gonna be giving a ton of feedback "to prevent party/guild/alliance/raid-mates and people on your friend list from killing you if you're red". They already can't flag on you, so why should they be able to kill you? This is one of the biggest exploits in the system, so I hope that Intrepid has already changed that and just haven't told us.
A bounty hunter has to flag which means friends of a corrupted player can also kill a bounty hunter. I think I will have to make bounty hunter contacts to be fully operational. The rewards are based on kills not combat. Thus, bounty hunters are already unlikely to group up unless it is imperative.
BH flag only against the PKer, so PKer's friends would have to go red themselves if they wanted to help. So while it is possible that they'll try and help somehow, the BH would still have the upper hand.
Also, you gotta think about this in the context of the bigger picture of the game. How would a PKer appear while being in a group? The most likely case is PKs in a dungeon against another group, while the victim group did literally nothing to stop it. And considering that even Dygz said that his party would probably just fight back, I do think that most groups of people would fight back. But even if they don't flag up against the attackers, they'd at least immediately kill the PKer in response (cause it'd still be 7vs1). So in such cases a BH wouldn't even have the time to learn about the PKer.
Most other cases of PKs will probably be amongst solo players or some small group gankers, at which point a well-gear BH would probably easily deal with the PKer (well, relatively speaking). And this would only be more common if the corruption gain is not as huge as it currently seems to be.
Again, this is mainly coming from L2 experience. People would PK here and there, mostly for farming spots (though more often the target would just fight back). There'd always be some uberPKers, but those would usually pick a glass cannon build and try to kill weaker players, so literally anyone with good gear would wipe them easily. L2's corruption gain/removal values were laxer than AoC's are supposed to be, which is why people felt better about PKing more often. But L2 also didn't have a BH system, so all PKers either grinded off their corruption or were killed by normal players that happened to be near the kill spot.
I do think that with a proper design and balance of said design, Ashes could still have those normal somewhat common PKs, while also curbing some of the uberPKers because there'd just be more BHs around to simply prevent huge genocidal runs by those psychos.
I don't know how information will be given when a bounty hunter receives a quest. I believe more details are given the higher up the bounty hunter tree you are.
I also don't know if a world boss or raid boss kill will wipe corruption/ xp debt. Xp debt does affect pve loot drops though.
We are agreed for the need to control the low level gankers but not much of worth would be taken from low levels anyway. What happens if a lvl 25 has killed a load of level 10s but all bounty hunters are level 50. The rewards would be negligible.
Some player killers will kill purely to get bounty hunters to respond. It is a game within a game. There were no rewards from players in SWG Bounty Hunting. I would assume the same in Ashes. However, the system needs to be tested and the exact punishments for corruption are ill defined right now.
We are agreed for the need to control the low level gankers but not much of worth would be taken from low levels anyway. What happens if a lvl 25 has killed a load of level 10s but all bounty hunters are level 50. The rewards would be negligible.
The reward will come from the BH system itself. Now we'll obviously have to learn what those are, but still.
Yeah. I'm hoping bounty hunter quests will give gold, however, the devs prefer tokens (certificates) so I'm not sure how lucrative the process will be. I do hope for a Bounty Hunter preview in a dev stream otherwise it will have to come from A2 tests.
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You claim all the pvp encounters should be done by pvpers for free but forget that corruption is also a pvp encounter which means the green should pvp and not create reds in the first place.
We are at an impass because I see Ashes as a PvX game and you see Ashes as a PvE predominate sandbox. Ultimately, the green does not deserve to be handed the gold back or any other resources.
If we get much lower drop rates, then I definitely want way more PKing in the game, cause the price for it would be utterly negligible for the green. That's the difference in our definitions of pvp. For me, pvp is two people fighting each other. And PKing is one dude hitting a wall until it crumbles. Yes, effectively that wall is a player, but there's no reciprocation, so I personally don't see that as "pvp". Which is exactly why one doesn't give you corruption, while the other does. Nah, I see it as a pvx game too. I just want all part of that pvx to be as enjoyable as possible to everyone involved. I want PKers to be able to kill quite a few people a day w/o deleting their character in the process. I want pvers to enjoy the game despite of frequent PKs. And I want BHs to be the pvpers who not only benefit from killing reds, but also help the pvers enjoy the game. Ya know, the full circle.
And obviously on top of that there's all kinds of opt-in pvp events/locations in the game.
The green has no right to take what they haven't earned. Also, how would a bounty hunter even know who the victims are if there is random respawns and a corrupted player has killed mules instead of players?
In my mind, unless it is banked it is not yet owned. In my eyes a player would perhaps turn purple in the next confrontation but in your scenario there would be corruption factories because the green would have lost nothing.
There are ways to make sure systems arent parasitic in nature.
Such as plunder being flagged as such on a timer and makes it so in the event of a PK, the Corrupted just can't go and mule it over to another character for safe keeping.
Then after a while, a BH kills the Corrupted and a portion of that returns to the Greens who opted not to partake in PvP.
Makes the systems complete.
The loot would be marked with the victim's name and would be returned to the green through the BH system. All the BH would have to do is to kill the PKer and give the marked loot to an NPC at a node. Btw, the PKer would still drop their own loot too and obviously that remains with the BH. All I want is to only the victim's stuff to be returned to them.
As for the factories, yes there'd be more corruption, because people would kill more readily. But the scale of those factories can just be balanced through the PK counter removal costs (both money and time).
And as I discussed here before, the resources in your storage are just as yours as the ones in your inventory. Mainly because the stuff in your storage can be taken through a siege, so how would it be any different from just someone killing you directly and taking it (well outside of the obvious cost of the siege itself). This is the main reason for me seeing resources being "someone's" as soon as those resources are acquired.
But, as a weaker point of my argument, I mainly want those resources to be marked only after a PK has occurred and not if the victim fought back. Mainly because tying named loots into the bigger pvp systems could lead to other unneeded complexities, due to the very fact I mentioned (stuff will be looted during sieges).
In your system the bounty hunter would have to retrieve the resources for the green player, the green player would have lost nothing and then the bounty hunter would have to buy those resources from the green player for repairs.
I do not see how such a system is fair at all. Why should a none pvx player be given so much in reward for no pvp whatsoever?
I think you're forgetting the factor that a Logistics person in their guild just went out and farmed a shit ton of material for their guild and was PK'd.
A portion of that returned to them fulfilled the "Bounty" requirement in order to deter players, it also adds Justice and purpose to the Military nodes.
Not to mention, Corrupted will begin to drop their loot, so its not like a Bounty Hunter is walking away with nothing, they're fulfilling "The Bounty" put on that Corrupt players head instead of just being a PKer themselves and anti-Pking.
The loss for the green player is time out of his preferred content. Especially if that green was farming mobs in a lucrative (at least relative to the green themselves) location. That green player might've lost their farming location because they vacated it through death and now they might have to lose even more time because they need to move to a whole different location.
The BH not only partook in their preferred content (that is the pvp), but also got rewarded for doing so. The reward being anything else that dropped from the PKer and the system-based reward that they'll get for successfully hunting that PKer.
And the PKer obviously got to kill a defenseless victim and could've potentially even gotten away, if they were good enough (though I have a separate suggestion for these situations, but that's beside the point rn). And what about the PKer? He literally did fuckall in terms of farming mobs, but he potentially got the rewards for it. Hell, he might've gotten multiple hours worth of pve rewards for literally hitting a wall for a minute. How is that fair?
And the BH not only gets rewarded for only doing pvp, but they could potentially get the PKer's gear, which could amount to literal weeks worth of work of several people across several content mediums. Also for just killing a single dude. How in the hell is that any fair?
You seem to really dislike any pvers. And while I do also want everyone to be the ultimate pvxer who pves as much as they pvp - that's a very unreasonable ask of the majority population of the mmo genre. Pvers (and obviously pure artisans) will most likely be the ones producing all the gear and food and potions and whatever else you'd use in your day-to-day gameplay for the pvpers, who will most likely just serve as mercs or just participate in pvp events most of the time. So saying that pvers are all freeloaders, just because they decline to fight back when they're already preoccupied with other content (that they prefer more than the pvp), seems quite unreasonable to me.
If a dude is farming the dude should be in a group. I have no pity for money bags who walk alone in a pvx world. Bounty Hunters are pvp players and not care bears for green players.
In my view a guild who allows guild resources to go around unprotected deserve to lose the resources. Same for the merchants and crafters who venture out alone.
The fact remains the gatherers take the risks and I would be a gatherer too. Does that mean I'll be on my tod? No. I'd be with my friends or my guild. It's not wise to keep molly coddling those players who want to be pve only and not pvx.
Hope this kind of approach doesn't destroy the game in the long run.
Seems to me you are focusing on people rather than systems, which as of right now the corruption system offers very little in returning anything back to the game.
Which in turn, will not have very many bounty hunters to begin with.
Completing gameplay loops and making sure there aren't any parasitic designs. Bounty Hunters collect a bounty on a Corrupted, they're already going to loot the corrupteds gear from them and a portion of the plunder as payment. They incur zero risk for hunting bounties and already have a high stakes reward.
The system itself needs to complete a gameplay loop and return something back to the game.
Most Corrupted players are going to go after soft targets which will not be able to win any exchange. Is a level 20 undeserving because a level 50 killed them?
By the time a Corrupted player ends up on a BH bounty, they'll have PK'd and looted many soft targets, not just one or two.
"...Tools to design, designs iterating with authored animations"...that is the problem... not enough authored animations...
This no visual soup thing will probably be an issue if we are focusing on karate positions and what color belt you're wearing as a tell for what's to come.
Unless the hunter becomes the hunted...would be a shame if we had a decoy corrupt player to illuminate brightly on the map...with several other players nearby ready to kill the BH...
Hmm...we may have had different experiences in MMOs. from my experience the players that are running around killing lowbies are a small percentage of the PVPers. In this case since you can be corrupt by killing even people your own level, to say that most corrupted players are going to be people who kill lowbies I don't think will be true.
But I'm excited to give it a try
Well the Corruption system isn't meant to deter good PvP.
The balancing you describe seems good for the corruption level part. There might be other variables to play with too.
But once done, the BH success rate to kill the corrupted one still relies on their presence and desire to do the task.
If their success rate is 100%, there will be no PK-ers. If you manage to find a balancing to reach 50% success, the green can rather flag and get the 50% immediately when he dies.
So 50% is not good either.
What should the BH the success rate be, which makes everyone happy?
The problem I see is that there is no way to balance that as it can fluctuate over time and from server to server. Unless we measure that and dynamically adjust parameters.
Dying as a Non-Combatant in PvP is just normal death penalties, so... I don't think it's necessary for resources to returned when a Corrupted dies to a BH. A Corrupted is basically treated like a hostile mob/monster - and we don't expect to have resources returned when a mob/monster is killed.
(I think "freeloader" could be a response to the hypothetical of 100% return of lost resources if someone else kills the Corrupted?)
The gear drop chance for corrupted players is only slight. Its never a guarantee. The risks for hunting bounties is being outnumbered, facing your hard counter or simply facing a more skilled opponent - the corrupted player has no loss of efficiency against a bounty hunter. Its as if it was two purples duking it out. I do not know what the bounty quests will state - perhaps very little, however, it is not the bounty hunters who should replenish the lost tokens and resources. No one forces a player not to engage. The environment is a safe environment to flag and lose less resources overall. I would agree with your stance if there was no option of reducing the losses and no option to prevent corruption but there is, thus, it is down to player agency whether a player turns corrupted or how much tokens and resources are lost.
No one drops tokens or resources they don't have in their inventories. At present the bounty hunter doesn't receive all the loot in a corrupted inventory. If the corrupted could lose all the resources and tokens in their inventories there would be no game loop because they simply wouldn't risk going corrupted in the first place.
Which is why on paper the Corruption system is parasitic design in nature even though it’s trying to prevent parasitic behavior.
Gear risk increases as corruption is gained. I think that’s fair. I also think corruption being a sliding scale and harsher for killing lower levels / soft targets who cannot fight back is fair too.
Ignoring stat dampening, I think the risk for making it out with plunder that’s greater than the gear their wearing is also fair, but at that point it should be activating the BH system.
I don’t think the BH system having other PK players just getting free anti-PK has a meaningful loop either.
Which is why if we flag all of the material as Plunder that has a timer, then people getting a portion back pays for the BHs services.
As they’re risking significantly less than the corrupted. Which is just time itself.
Completing loops for these systems are my concern.
And if corrupted are meant to just be treated as mobs - why da hell is there a BH system? Any player can just go kill mobs and get the reward from them, so why do we need a whole separate system that, for some reason, gives out additional rewards for killing "mobs"?
If Intrepid decides to remove the BHs completely, I'll live with that. But if they want to keep that system in - I'd expect a much more holistic system that serves all sides of its encounter equation.
You keep mentioning how it's unfair that a green is minding their own business and gets 'attacked and killed' but a whole night might be spent clearing the corruption by a bounty hunter. Thus, the bounty hunter time investment must be worthwhile.
And with more people feeling better about PKing here and there, there's gonna be enough players who get killed by BHs while they have normally stacked inventories on them. While in the current system (well, considering what we know), I'd almost bet that most PKers will just be alt chars with the most basic cheapest gear on them, with 0 droppable items in their inventories and potentially a ton of trash low lvl gear, depending on how the gear drop mechanics work.
I'd bet on that because that is literally how it was in L2 (though it still have "good PKing" too). I've done it myself countless times and I've died to such characters as many times too. If Ashes keeps the super harsh penalties for PKing (mainly talking about the corruption values here) - I'd imagine that the general PKing quantities wouldn't really go down, because anyone who might've normally PKed a dude a day (or less) won't do it, but all the people who'd come to the game purely to fuck shit up won't really be stopped by the system.
There won't be enough BHs across the server to catch the uberPKers, because quantitively there wouldn't be enough "normal" PKers around to justify BHs. And with barely any "law enforcement" the true criminals will only become that much worse.
But that's just a theory. A corrupted theory
I can't speak for all bounty hunters but most bounty hunters will have the best gear possible before they face a corrupt player. It is true people will game the system but any system will be gamed. If it only takes one death to clear corruption then friends can clear the corruption before bounty hunter is even informed.
A bounty hunter has to flag which means friends of a corrupted player can also kill a bounty hunter. I think I will have to make bounty hunter contacts to be fully operational. The rewards are based on kills not combat. Thus, bounty hunters are already unlikely to group up unless it is imperative.
A bounty hunter does not have to flag because anyone can attack Corrupted players. The difference is bounty hunters will be given corrupted players locations via military node.
Also, you gotta think about this in the context of the bigger picture of the game. How would a PKer appear while being in a group? The most likely case is PKs in a dungeon against another group, while the victim group did literally nothing to stop it. And considering that even Dygz said that his party would probably just fight back, I do think that most groups of people would fight back. But even if they don't flag up against the attackers, they'd at least immediately kill the PKer in response (cause it'd still be 7vs1). So in such cases a BH wouldn't even have the time to learn about the PKer.
Most other cases of PKs will probably be amongst solo players or some small group gankers, at which point a well-gear BH would probably easily deal with the PKer (well, relatively speaking). And this would only be more common if the corruption gain is not as huge as it currently seems to be.
Again, this is mainly coming from L2 experience. People would PK here and there, mostly for farming spots (though more often the target would just fight back). There'd always be some uberPKers, but those would usually pick a glass cannon build and try to kill weaker players, so literally anyone with good gear would wipe them easily. L2's corruption gain/removal values were laxer than AoC's are supposed to be, which is why people felt better about PKing more often. But L2 also didn't have a BH system, so all PKers either grinded off their corruption or were killed by normal players that happened to be near the kill spot.
I do think that with a proper design and balance of said design, Ashes could still have those normal somewhat common PKs, while also curbing some of the uberPKers because there'd just be more BHs around to simply prevent huge genocidal runs by those psychos.
I also don't know if a world boss or raid boss kill will wipe corruption/ xp debt. Xp debt does affect pve loot drops though.
We are agreed for the need to control the low level gankers but not much of worth would be taken from low levels anyway. What happens if a lvl 25 has killed a load of level 10s but all bounty hunters are level 50. The rewards would be negligible.
Some player killers will kill purely to get bounty hunters to respond. It is a game within a game. There were no rewards from players in SWG Bounty Hunting. I would assume the same in Ashes. However, the system needs to be tested and the exact punishments for corruption are ill defined right now.