Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
For sure, assumptions need to be made to fill in gaps we don't have better information for. As I said though, the equation seems reasonable.
Its worth pointing out to some people though, that some of the values you have entered in to the equation do themselves warrant an equation.
An example of this would be your π variable.
You put it in as 0.7, which again is a reasonable assumption. However, this value would be changed based on your proximity to a viable grinding spot (this distance would also alter your X variable), and how well trafficked the area between where you are and where that spot is. Another factor in relation to determining π is the proximity to a node with a large number of bounty hunters. If there are ko such nodes near by, your π value would be higher.
I'm not necessarily aiming the above at you, or at the equation. I'm assuming you understand all of these things just fine. However, it seems that jot everyone does.
An estimate that takes these things in to account is fine (and is all that we can do eight now anyway). I am simply pointing out to others that there are many more minor factors within some of the individual variables given.
My thoughts exactly ^_^ This was an intense but nevertheless very interesting read! I love the thought and effort you put into this post, @Goalid !!
Math impresses me because I suck at math ( ͡^ ͜ʖ ͡^)
Sure, all I mean is that corruption isn't meant to prevent all unwanted PvP.
Why did Newton develop calculus? Because he loved math? No! Because he wanted to do physics
That is clear by the design. If you want to prevent all unwanted PvP, you make unwanted PvP impossible.
If all unwanted PvP is prevented, there is no need for a penalty.
Purpose 1 is false. The purpose is to deter players who mindlessly kill and grief other players for not express purpose other than their own enjoyment.
"You have a 25% chance of dropping a random gear piece if you die under any corruption." and
"we'll consider grinding off experience debt to provide no gold income.";
or abstract and/or unpredictable variables like:
"W is the loot value a PKer expects to gain"
"P is the psychological value of going corrupt"
"L is the value of the items you may lose upon death"
"C is the opportunity cost of grinding off corruption"
"X is the opportunity cost of grinding off experience debt"
"π is our chance of total survival while we work off all our corruption"
"1-π represents our chance of dying while corrupt".
As for the "loopholes":
"So, they have an alt or friend kill them right after they go corrupt. You will certainly die, so you will undergo the full penalty of experience debt and item durability loss, but otherwise, you are lowering the chance of losing your stolen materials to zero, as well as the possibility of losing the materials/gear on your person."
No, even tho you can succeed, you aren't "lowering he chance of losing your stolen materials to zero" you are in a open world, unless in a extremely wide open playerless place there might be BHs or other players lurking in the shadows watching which can kill you faster than your friend/alt or simple.kill your friend/alt.
This "loophole" is definitely a standard as it was in lineage 2, but, as Azherae implied Group play is the evolved version of that "loophole" which is more likely to be considered a loophole as having an entire group protecting your Corruption adventures profit fiesta, as they can even protect you for possible long enough for you to grindout the corruption and even aid you if you have to standoff like healing you or CCing your enemies.
An actual loophole is having other people loot the target you just PKed, as the loot instantly becomes secured
In my opinion, your solution is convoluted, dramatically nerfs the possible rewards (while not nerfing the already high risk but increases it) and doesn't deal with both loopholes presented.
What i propose as solutions for both loopholes is:
Loot from a player Pked, can only be looted by the killer or the victim(atleast 5 min loot protection from other players). To deal with securing loot with alt/friend/group.
and
Bounty hunters receving a skill/sytem that Marks corrupted players when engaging with them, that makes no non-Corrupted player able to positively interact(heals and buffs) with the corrupted target and no non-corrupted player able to negatively interact(Cause damage or CC) with the bounty hunter.
Basically, forcing a group or players that enables a corrupted player to also be corrupted themselves in order to protect the corrupted player from bounty hunters.
Aren't we all sinners?
It is indeed a theoretical example, in a world where we have literally zero data for how the costs will be weighed. When that data is available, you can use more practical examples. But the equation itself is fine, and having "abstract or unpredictable variables" is exactly the kind of thing we want so you can just plug in the costs when we get them in A2.
The costs are indeed not zero, but much lower. You'll find similar results with only a 1% chance of dying to others in the open world. My fault for being imprecise. And I agree that having others loot items or protecting you is a better way to lower the costs of corruption when you think you can get away with it. Or if you can just switch off the gear you're wearing while you grind it off to prevent your gear from being stolen.
Sure it's convoluted, but so is the corruption system itself. It deals with all the loopholes, since the corruption is directly on the item, so you can't use a roundabout method of having a friend pick up a blood-stained material or gear piece after killing you, or them just picking the items up instead of you. A point I should have made more clear is that the system can both be used for the gear you would have dropped if you died while corrupt, and the materials you stole.
So the killer just picks up the items and then you kill them. Now the killer dropped them and you pick them up, so I don't see that solving the issue at all. Whenever you don't place a form of corruption on items, there will always be these loopholes. Also, we're ignoring the more important cost of the possibility of dropping gear while corrupt, which is the main reason people will kill each other. In truth, that's a far more important part of my blood-stained system.
Why shouldn't a corrupted player's friends be able to help? If there's a group of people the bounty hunters need to fight, then there should be plenty of bounty hunters to do so.
A major issue in this discussion at this point is in the assumptions made in the OP.
the assumption of a 25% drop rate on items if you have one kill worth of corruption may well be fine as an assumption for discussing the potential value of attacking a player for profit, but when you start to talk about new systems being added, such assumptions need to not be made.
The reason for this is fairly obvious. Item drop chance after a single corruption kill will be zero.
There are a number of implications to that above statement, most of which have an impact on the need (or perceived need) of any additional system.
Perhaps the best way to put it though, is that item loss is not the primary penalty associated with corruption. If item loss were supposed to be the primary penalty, it would be triggered as soon as you gain corruption.
The primary penalty is the time it takes to get fighting fit.
For those who don’t know, the primary reward to being Corrupted, is that your targets cannot flag as Combatants by hitting you, meaning you will always get full (PvE) resource drops from the players you kill.
This also means that you should ALWAYS fight back against attacks from Corrupted players as you stand to gain a lot from them. Double the percentage of resources they’d get from you, a chance for their gear to drop, they get respawned at a random point in the node meaning less chance they can bum-rush it back to your location for a rematch.
Corruption has to be somewhat of a playstyle to be profitable, but I’m assuming most of that is going to (attempt to) take place on alts to gank post-raid groups for their rare materials or on rare resource spawns. But eventually the bodycount will make even a kill or two of corruption too much of a detriment to be effective in combat.
Non-Combatants will not flag as combatant when attacking Corrupted.
Combatants - players already flagged as Combatant - will still be flagged as Combatant if they attack a Corrupted and are killed by the Corrupted, meaning half the resources dropped than from a Non-Combatant.
No.
Because I don't care about rewards. What I care about is not being attacked by players when I'm not in the mood for PvP combat. Which means if I'm a non-combatant, the best thing to do is to let the Corrupted kill me.
First off - that ends the combat encounter more quickly.
Secondly - it results in the Corrupted gaining a higher Corruption score and more penalties.
Corruption is not intended to be a playstyle. Nor is it intended to be profitable.
I agree with you that it's unlikely that 1 PK will have you dropping gear, so the costs of your first pk are far less than I've made them out to be in the example. But, when you have enough PKs on your character, then you're getting higher amounts of corruption for each additional PK: https://discordapp.com/channels/256164085366915072/256164085366915072/735143303473004596
So, we can expect players who are trying to gain a profit by going corrupt a lot of the time, will have gradually increasing costs, which means we should be accounting for players reaching higher rates of corruption. And so it isn't pointless to try and prevent avoiding those higher costs, and that "gear loss" cost isn't secondary to the corruption system.
You can also easily put in a PK multiplier for corruption in the equation
Dygz, this is just your preference, not what's been talked about in the game design. Sometimes it will be profitable to steal mats and go corrupt, or monopolize a resource by going corrupt. It's a PvX game, sometimes you may not want to PvP, but PvP is still part of the game.
Depends on how often you can run the quest proposed to lower the PK count, we both really don't know the extent to it I guess. But, I'm just too hyped for the game to not want to think about the proposed systems until we get A2, which who knows how far away that is.
Steven has spoken to this multiple times. Corruption is indeed not a playstyle that is favored. "All stick, no carrot" was one of the earliest quotes. But I'll leave this one here.
You're not going to see griefing in the game very often; and that's because our flagging system. The corruption mechanics are based around disincentivizing a griefer or PKer but still offering the opportunity, should the occasion arise, where the benefits outweigh the risk, you have the ability to do so. If you gain corruption, which is killing a non-combatant - a player who is not fighting back basically - if you gain that corruption, your world has changed. It is not going to be a very beneficial place to be and you have the potential of losing your gear. Your combat efficacy decreases based on the amount of corruption you accrue. It is a comfortable balance between player agency and grief and basically removing player agency for other players.[50] – Steven Sharif
This has been an ongoing topic for the entirety of development and is not likely to die down anytime soon. The one thing that has been consistent throughout is Intrepid's response when asked to clarify mechanics and intent. Those that want that "PK life" from whatever game nostalgia they are coming from will most likely not find it here.
Notice how he does mention in your own quote "where the benefits outweigh the risks". And he initially specified as well that he wants to prevent griefing, which the corruption system DOES prevent, just not the statement "Corruption is not intended to be a playstyle. Nor is it intended to be profitable." There's no basis to that belief from the statements we have.
Steven will always cater to his audience, so when he talks to someone who's worried about open world PvP, mysteriously the costs of corruption are emphasized by Steven. But when he's on stream with Shroud and Summit1g, and Summit says "dying to remove corruption is the bitch way" all of a sudden we get an emphasis on removing corruption by killing mobs and having a "fun" game mechanic by avoiding bounty hunters. Very mysterious, if you can figure out why he does that I'm all ears.
But listen to this full section:
Steven is literally asked "why would one go corrupt?" And he gives the exact example I used, killing a master gatherer for rare resources. Then he also gives the classic Lineage 2 example of killing someone in order to keep a mob grinding area all for yourself. So this is very much a part of the game.
For people who are not interested in participating in PvP combat, they have the option to remain as a combatant and penalize their opponent with Corruption if they are killed and looted while flagged as a Non-Combatant.
So, no, it does not means that players should ALWAYS fight back against attacks from Corrupted players as because they stand to gain a lot from them Corrupted players.
People who don't particularly enjoy PvP combat will frequently choose to not fight back in order to deter unwanted PvP both from the current opponent and from others who may soon stumble upon them assume they are currently interested in more PvP combat because they are flagged as a Combatant.
Just as some people will sometimes choose to kill Non-Combatants regardless of the consequences, some people will sometimes choose to remain as Non-Combatants regardless of the consequences.
You, Goalid, may be obsessed with profit and material gain such that you will ALWAYS fight back against attacks from Corrupted players because you stand to gain a lot from them, but that truly is just your preference. It's a very subjective opinion, rather than an objective perspective.
Steven has stated that going Corrupt is not intended to be a playstyle.
Going Corrupt is an option one can take occasionally - but is designed to be penalized heavily enough that it's not a desirable playstyle.
Having an opportunity to sometimes go Corrupt is not the same thing as supporting being Corrupt as a playstyle.
Yep. And I will have the option to penalize a player who forces me to participate in PvP when I choose not to flag as a combatant.
Sometimes people will rationally choose to go Corrupt even when it's not profitable.
Seems like you're now saying that this topic should be "When is it Profitable go Corrupt?"
You're the one who said it's never profitable to go corrupt. So yes, since you brought up accounting profit specifically, I will reference accounting profit. And you are simply wrong, Steven has said that it will be worth going corrupt to steal very rare resources, and to keep a hunting ground for yourself.
@Goalid
Again, I'm not aware of anyone believing that Corruption is intended to prevent all unwanted PvP.
We understand from dev quotes similar to the one unknownsystemerror posted and from the video you posted (which most of us have seen before) that people will sometimes choose to go Corrupt in order to gain some resource they covet.
And, we already understand Corruption is not intended to be so debilitating that people never choose that option.
You begin this topic with a couple of strawman fallacies. And, apparently, a major bias about profit that is not objective.
What strawman fallacies? Where did I say "so and so is wrong because they are stupid". I'd like to see a single example.
Again, you are the one that brought up accounting profit, saying that it will never be profitable to go corrupt, and you are simply wrong about that given what Steven has said. It's not some obsession with accounting profit on my part, in the equation I include the "pleasure" of going corrupt, because some people will want to go corrupt at a monetary loss.
AFAIK, I did not state anything like "it's never profitable to go Corrupt."
I don't even know what you mean by "accounting profit". That is not a concept I brought up or addressed AFAIK.
Steven has said that sometimes people will want to go Corrupt in order to gain some resource(s). Yes. We know.
That is an option; not a playstyle.
"So and so is wrong because they are stupid" is an ad hominem fallacy; not a strawman fallacy.
Google is your friend.
No. You are just repeating strawman fallacies.
I did not bring up "accounting profit". And I did not say that it will never be profitable to go Corrupt.
Pretty sure I'm not wrong about what Steven has said, but at this point, I'm not confident you can correctly mirror back what I stated Steven said.
Accounting profit is the net income from an activity, subtracted by the dollar costs. It's just a monetary value, which is what I think you were accusing me of being hyper-focused on. Which is not the case, I include other values in the decision to go corrupt, aka just the enjoyment of going corrupt.
Accounting profit doesn't include opportunity costs either though, so I was a bit imprecise.
You said "Nor is it [corruption] intended to be profitable." To me that's saying the devs are designing the game so you can't make a monetary profit from corruption, so my use of the word "never" is warranted.
At this moment, I could see going corrupt as being a playstyle, not just a rare option. You find out where the rarest resources have spawned on the server, camp that area, and kill master gatherers for their materials. You grind off the corruption in between PKs and do some quests to lower your PK score. You enjoy that because it's fun, and use the profit from your activities to enhance your gear. Seems reasonable to me from what we've been told about corruption, it's not like you're spawn camping someone or griefing them.
Yes I mixed up strawman with ad hominem, may the Gods judge me for my 6:30 AM mix up.
That is what you inferred, but it's not what I stated or meant.
I did not use the word can't. I did not use the word never.
Corruption is not intended by the devs to be a profitable playstyle. The mechanic is designed to disincentivize PKing as a playstyle.
The design does allow for people to sometimes choose to go Corrupt in order to acquire a few resources they desire at the moment.
"I don't care about the other consequences right now because I want this particular thing more."
That is not the intended design. I underlined the key sentences in Steven's quote, so I don't understand how I can be wrong about that:
"You're not going to see griefing in the game very often..."
"The corruption mechanics are based around disincentivizing a griefer or PKer but still offering the opportunity..."
We can expect the devs to ramp up the Corruption penalties such that players will not consider camping rare resources to be fun for very long.
Steven's quote states "griefer or PKer", so while the rare resource may not be griefing, technically, it is still PKing. And Steven is designing the Corruption mechanic to disincentivize chronic PKing, as suggested in your example.
Steven's example is a hunting ground in a dungeon that takes an hour for a group to fight their way down to; not as a general area where Master Gatherers will be farming.
Why do you believe I'm hyper-focused on profit then? If you think I'm missing a fundamental part to my equation or reasoning, please inform me. And I honestly mean that, it's not meant as a challenge.
Here is the meat of our disagreement. How often is "sometimes"? We both don't truly know, but nothing I've heard from Steven or the devs seems to indicate that you couldn't make a playstyle based off fighting for rare materials. When I've asked for quotes from the devs saying this playstyle will be unviable, usually the devs are referring to corruption preventing a player from going on a pointless murder spree or griefing a player.
Yes I see the quote Dygz, I just don't believe that proves the point you're trying to make. Corruption disincentivizes PKing, but nowhere in the quote does is say that the incentives of PKing, like stealing mats, are eclipsed by the disincentives, even long term. That's the part you're assuming is in the quotes.
That is how you can be wrong about that.
Could a player potentially undertake such activities multiple times per day in Ashes? Well, yes, obviously. if they have time to work off corruption and lower their PK count, that is absolutely a viable thing to do.
I would argue that gaining corruption several times in a play session for profit to be considered a playstyle, as it is a deliberate gameplay decision.
I honestly can't see at all how you could disagree with that.
The kind of thing Steven is talking about in terms of the quote above about griefing is something like me just following you around, attacking and killing you every single time I am able to. That is griefing, and isn't a viable way to play Ashes because the corruption system absolutely will cause me issues.
However, that isn't what the OP is talking about.
I haven't commented on your equation.
Based on Steven's quote, sometimes equals not very often.
I'm not assuming anything. The context of Steven's quote is disincentivizing PKing such that it does not happen very often. Same for what Steven states in the video you posted.
Corruption offers the opportunity to PK - such that the frequency is not very often, but not prevented entirely.
The underlined quote very clearly states "griefer or PKer".
It does not only mention griefing. You add stuff to other people's comments that they did not say. And you also ignore key statements that people said.
Disincentivize does not mean prevent all occurrences - it means making the consequences debilitating enough that people rarely choose the option.
Steven has said that Karma in Lineage 2 was debilitating enough that it was rare to see players flagged red.
And he has said he designed Corruption to be even more debilitating than Karma.
I am not going to take the time...yet... to research the quotes where Steven explains that Corrupt players are basically monsters who will not have save havens that support players choosing to have fun PKing for more than short periods of time. It is not intended for players to choose being a monster as a playstyle.
And, you can expect the devs to attempt to eradicate loopholes to the intended purpose of Corruption.
I'm attempting to model the expected value or "utility" of the decision to go corrupt. To do that, you add up all the expected benefits to corruption, and then subtract them by the expected costs (which include opportunity costs) from corruption. If you're in the positive we can say your decision to go corrupt is "economically profitable" aka worth it based off that player's utility scale. So yes, the entire post is about making a model of when a player will go corrupt.
Ok, disincentive doesn't mean "making the consequences debilitating enough that people rarely choose the option." There are costs to going corrupt, that doesn't mean the costs are insurmountable. Steven was using the word "PKer" in your quote interchangeably with "griefer".
You told me yesterday, "Always best to review the original source in order to understand the proper context."
Ok, here's the video link to that quote, where Steven is directly asked about how the game is going to prevent griefing.
I think anyone who listens the entire quote comes away with that Steven was only talking about griefing, no matter how much you want to twist the quote to mean all PKing.
In the interview with Summit1g and Shroud, Steven doesn't say that PKing will occur rarely for profit, he simply states that it will be worth PKing to steal gatherables or keep a hunting grounds, like what would happen in L2. I don't have a single quote so far of Steven saying that the game will prevent corrupt players from stealing rare materials as a playstyle.
Steven outright says in the video with Summit1g that it will be worth going corrupt for rare materials. Not because you covet those rare materials irrationally, but because the materials will be worth a lot. Corrupt players don't need safe havens, they just need to grind off PK counts and corruption. Which the game is planned to allow them to do. So, then you can make a playstyle out of going corrupt for rare materials.