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Post by Afara on Aug 31, 2015 18:08:11 GMT
My suggestion for optional PvP is that each player has a PvP mode set.
Modes: * NORMAL (default): The player can not attack another player. The player can be attacked by a player with mode ACTIVE. * ACTIVE: The player can attack other players with mode NORMAL or ACTIVE. * OFF: The player can not attack or be attacked by another player.
Mode changes: * NORMAL->ACTIVE: must be done in town and with a casting time of 10-30 seconds. * ACTIVE->NORMAL: transition can be activated at any time but takes about 1h (any PvP action aborts it) * NORMAL->OFF: must be done in town and with a casting time of 10-30 seconds. * OFF->NORMAL: transition can be activated at any time but takes x days (will miss PvP events and cannot help friends with PvP).
Exceptions: * Contested zones (a few chosen that may change over time, and some end game raid zones) will ignore the mode and PvP will be enabled in any way. * A player with mode NORMAL that is attacked by an ACTIVE player will of course be able to defend him/herself.
Numbers, names and specific conditions can of course be tweaked.
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Post by lateralus on Aug 31, 2015 18:23:40 GMT
I normally dont like the idea of being able to turn off pvp but I think this does a better job than most on paper. I am pro pvp not for the sheer fact of messing up peoples day but the fact that it make the game more fun as a whole and really adds a whole other game to the game. I also think it encourages people to play the game when getting killed. I know when i started rok i got killed quite a bit but it encouraged me to play and get better to get back at them.
This system does a pretty good job of being fair to everyone but I would like to see it push people toward pvp a little more. I would like to see one of two things: 1. Most areas midgame and higher contested zones with the rare exceptions of a low reward zone( exp, gold, etc) non contested rather than only a few contested zones. 2. Pvp rewards. Not exactly for amount of kills but rather while you are active pvp you gain more exp, gold, etc. This way people will want to be active and it rewards those taking a chance.
As for keeping people safe who do not want it. I wouldnt mind seeing a say 10 level cant hit policy (IE level 25 player cant hit a level 14 player).
As I stated in my other post i would like to see a loss of gold and maybe items but thats only if there is a bank/vault system in place.
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Post by xenakis on Aug 31, 2015 18:28:06 GMT
That sounds like a complex thing to program, no? And I'm not sure how that would/could fit in with the ingame lore/role-playing? Is it some sort of law that characters are expected to obey? What about unlawful characters? Etc. Not a bad idea, but I'm wondering how players would deal with this badge system. "Oh, this rude traveler is challenging me to a duel? Wait up, I need to run in town to have my status changed!"My favored option would be to have PvP enabled at all times, except: - against players under a certain level;
- in specific areas, such as cities, some paths where there are guards patrolling (that would be an incentive for players to stay on the roads and not just go in a straight lines until they reach the end of the zone), etc.;
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Post by lateralus on Aug 31, 2015 18:36:04 GMT
That sounds like a complex thing to program, no? And I'm not sure how that would/could fit in with the ingame lore/role-playing? Is it some sort of law that characters are expected to obey? What about unlawful characters? Etc. Not a bad idea, but I'm wondering how players would deal with this badge system. "Oh, this rude traveler is challenging me to a duel? Wait up, I need to run in town to have my status changed!"My favored option would be to have PvP enabled at all times, except: - against players under a certain level;
- in specific areas, such as cities, some paths where there are guards patrolling (that would be an incentive for players to stay on the roads and not just go in a straight lines until they reach the end of the zone), etc.;
I think this would be the easier to program / less confusing option and encourage pvp as well. At the very least it would be a good base to start with and if things got out of hand player killing wise you would already have this in place and could add the other system on top of it. @afara I know you said you have never seen pvp in a mud like this but open world pvp really drove the muds i played rather than discouraged players. This is where guilds come in place as well as anti-pkers for every pker.
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Post by Afara on Aug 31, 2015 18:53:53 GMT
People that like PvP played muds that allowed it and it probably drove those muds. Myself I played a none PvP mud and it was more laid back.
Having many contested zones makes the OFF mode kinda useless when you gain levels.
Maybe the only real options is to have 2 servers. One with PvP and one without?
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Post by lateralus on Aug 31, 2015 19:14:55 GMT
People that like PvP played muds that allowed it and it probably drove those muds. Myself I played a none PvP mud and it was more laid back. Having many contested zones makes the OFF mode kinda useless when you gain levels. Maybe the only real options is to have 2 servers. One with PvP and one without? I think splitting the community should be avoided at any cost. (nightmist did that and it pretty much killed the game) Although we played PVP muds its not all that was happening and like i said for every pker there was an anti pker to help. PVP also created community in many cases. If you look beyond just the player killing of PVP there are tons of benefits. -Players have more incentive to work together or join guilds -Replay-ability instead of a 1 dimensional game driven by AI there is always that human element. -Drives players to become better and invest more time in the game. -Drives players to explore the world rather than just sitting in the easy to get to leveling areas. -Rewards from killing players (gold and maybe item drops) Pvp really does create a whole other game within the game which is why I think its important to have. As for people who want to avoid it thats what guilds exploring and using your class skills are for. I honestly think a level lock as well as starting zones / a few lower rewards zones with pvp disabled should keep things fair. At the very least putting it in and seeing how it works wouldnt hurt you could always put more restrictions on. with the use of vaults / banks you really arnt losing anything at all besides some time if you disable losing exp on player kills. I myself am usually anti pk and love defending those pked by killing the pkers themselves.
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Post by xenakis on Aug 31, 2015 19:15:46 GMT
Maybe the only real options is to have 2 servers. One with PvP and one without? Or some sort of in-between, where a player needs to tick a PvP option when creating a character? Non-PvP chars would be un-PKable yet could not attack another player either. PvP-enabled characters could attack other PvP chars, following the restrictions related to certain no-PvP areas? PvP-enabled characters could have a symbol next to their name to be easily recognizable, and could benefit from a boost in xp/coins when killing mobs and other players?
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Post by lateralus on Aug 31, 2015 19:30:49 GMT
Maybe the only real options is to have 2 servers. One with PvP and one without? Or some sort of in-between, where a player needs to tick a PvP option when creating a character? Non-PvP chars would be un-PKable yet could not attack another player either. PvP-enabled characters could attack other PvP chars, following the restrictions related to certain no-PvP areas? PvP-enabled characters could have a symbol next to their name to be easily recognizable, and could benefit from a boost in xp/coins when killing mobs and other players? Thats actually a pretty sweet idea. I wouldnt mind it being ticked and having to be unticked haha but otherwise it sounds like a pretty good idea. You could even pull some revenue into it by saying the only way to ever change this would be though a PVP change with is say $5-$10 or whatever. I also like the boost of xp/coins for killing mobs and players giving people incentive to stay PVP.
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Post by Afara on Aug 31, 2015 20:03:57 GMT
Or some sort of in-between, where a player needs to tick a PvP option when creating a character? Non-PvP chars would be un-PKable yet could not attack another player either. PvP-enabled characters could attack other PvP chars, following the restrictions related to certain no-PvP areas? PvP-enabled characters could have a symbol next to their name to be easily recognizable, and could benefit from a boost in xp/coins when killing mobs and other players? Thats actually a pretty sweet idea. I wouldnt mind it being ticked and having to be unticked haha but otherwise it sounds like a pretty good idea. You could even pull some revenue into it by saying the only way to ever change this would be though a PVP change with is say $5-$10 or whatever. I also like the boost of xp/coins for killing mobs and players giving people incentive to stay PVP. This is similar to what my starting point was when I started to think about it. I agree that it is more clear/easier/beautiful to only have ON/OFF. But I do think that PvP could be the default and that you have to opt it out. I also think, though not sure, that you should be able to change for your character but that it would require a long transition (days). Also PvP should be encouraged but more in terms of stats, special rewards, pvp ranks etc. Giving more gold to PvP:ers would up set none PvP:ers, but not PvP stats/ranks/pvp special rewards since they do not care about that. Charging for changing PvP mode is indeed interesting.
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Post by zeroun on Sept 1, 2015 0:21:20 GMT
I can definitely see where the concern is from having pure open PvP when some people don't want that. PvP in general just adds an entirely separate dynamic to the game. The sole reason why we loved PvP in RoK so much was because it added an element that created a domino effect of changes to the game. The main thing was it encouraged team play which clans were a large part of. A clan basically defined the type of person you were to others at face value. If you were in a pure PK clan that antagonized everyone, you were quickly put on the KoS list and anytime you were seen at a non safe zone you could almost guarantee you would see 5+ of their clan mates to come take care of you (keep in mind this is when RoK had active players).
I think having no PvP in a game eventually makes it stale and is solely driven on AI. If you were to implement bosses that dropped gear, then you would literally just have people fighting the boss and whoever had the quickest clicks to drop steal it won with no consequences. That's not very exciting.
Now my solution for this problem is this... I say you should be protected from open pvp until about 20-25, then the protection should be taken off. By this time you should have fair grasp of the games mechanics and plenty of abilities to make an escape or somewhat defend yourself from strangers.
-Pros to PvP -Encourages teamwork -Comradery -Excitement -Promotes activity with/against other players
I'm extremely biased to having PvP since that was the biggest factor to what kept me so clingy to RoK to begin with. Anything from moshes, to fighting for oads, huge clan battles, PK, PKKing (Player Killer Kilers). You also had clans in RoK like Defenders of Justice who were strictly PKKers and only killed people who PK'd trying to relinquish some of the stress some people put on newbies. I think it's healthy for a game to have PvP, but this is just my two cents.
You could also make it to where if someone has killed too many players, you could put a bounty on his head which would make bounty hunting a viable way of making gold, items, etc. This could be easily abusable though so it would need some sort of monitoring so people couldn't just spam it. There are ways to make it to where mindless PK'ing is tamable, but don't make things that directly stop it either.
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Post by Afara on Sept 1, 2015 4:18:03 GMT
I agree with all your arguments for PvP. My concern is to frighten people that do not want PvP, cause there lots of those. Even if you do not have to actively engage in PvP and be kinda protected by a guild/clan just the sheer fact that some mud/game listing says PvP will prevent such players from clicking the link to the game.
I have had about 80 players test the game before you ROK guys came and only one has ever asked for PvP, so you might still be a minority around here. Though I agree with most of your points.
To me, splitting the servers or give the option to turn of PvP (even though strongly discouraged through warnings and info), are the only options at my current state of mind.
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Post by lateralus on Sept 1, 2015 6:12:33 GMT
As you can tell I am all for pvp but do respect people wanting to avoid it. As for people being turned off by pvp the same can be said for no pvp or not true world pvp. I know i would never play a game long term that didnt have open world pvp (if i just wanted pve i could play an offline game). I think guilds and teamwork are the best way to avoid it but respect your opinion.
One of the problems with optional PvP I see is people taking advantage of your OFF PvP state. What is to stop an OFF PvP player from healing / helping a pvp player defeat another pvp player? Another thing that has been brought up is the fact of drop stealing or further intruding with players (stealing their monsters buffing monsters against them etc). What is to stop an OFF PvP state templar from spawning some undead monsters and just leaving them on a square to kill the players on that square. If you look at it like that its possible to player kill right now. Hell even as a non spawner you can drag monsters so everyone can pk right now.
As much as PvP is offensive it is also defensive.
My first choice would be open pvp after a certain level and within a certain level range maybe even a limit on how often a player can be killed by another player.
My second choice would be a player option to turn off pvp at character creation / or the toggle system you have (at creation just seems more simple) with maybe half the mid level and on zones marking everyone for pvp. If you want to keep things fair you would probably have to mark players for pvp if they healed, buffed or spawned on pvp enabled characters out of town as well. Then maybe have a 1-3 day delay to turn pvp off or a cash purchase for instant pvp off.
Since you have never played a mud with pvp and this is just testing I think it would be cool to try it open just for a while worse case you could always add the toggle. I really dont see a reason why we couldnt try and test it both ways for a trial period and then see what everyone thinks and go from there.
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Post by xenakis on Sept 1, 2015 12:43:02 GMT
Afara, I understand (and actually appreciate) your concern for non-PvPers.
Yet another idea on how to do this.
I think I saw in the Dev Backlog that there were plans to create more races and classes. Depending on what you had in mind about those and how many of them you plan to implement, perhaps another way to settle PvP would be to have 2 different classes or races which would be non-PvP? Of course it would limit non-PvP players a bit, but they could still have the possibility to play the game. I also like how this could actually tie-in with the actual lore and role-playing. I think the simplest and best way (if you decided to adopt this general idea) would be to do it through classes.
Races It could be 2 special races, 1 for each starting city. Somehow find a way to explain why those targetted creatures have lost the ability to fight with other citizens of the world?
The Toldara non-PvP race could be some sort of uber-pacifists, and their leader could've done some sort of magical deal with the one and was granted the protection of the race in exchange for the promise that they would never attack another player?
The Bargof non-PvP race could have become non-PvP through a curse. They could be Kobolds or something common, with the lore explaining how they were sacrificed/punished by the armies of Bargof when the war ended. Or Shades, some race which could've been TOO strong and too dark and too bloodthirsty during the years of the war that even the other races of Bargof decided to somehow prevent the race's access to PvP.
Classes Since Races and Classes already exist in the game, I'm thinking it could be simplest to allow non-PvP through classes. If I chose a no-PvP race yet chose a class with multi-target attacks, I guess all of that would need to be redone a bit in the code. Building new classes with no-PvP in mind seems more interesting too, as you can think of other ways to make that class interesting to all players. Classes would still be available to all races, which would give non-PvPers a greater diversity.
Ideas : Messengers, Minstrels, Slaves, Loremasters, Shadowdancers, etc.
All in their own ways, such classes could all have a justification as to why they can't/won't PvP. They could all have specific Abilities designed to make their playing experience fun, maybe even some really useful abilities that even PvP players would be jealous of.
So, any thoughts on this?
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Post by Afara on Sept 1, 2015 17:58:34 GMT
I think you are all doing really good at approaching this from different angles, trying to think out side the box is hard.
Binding "PvP Off" to certain classes would require too much work from me, even though I like new ideas. Binding "PvP Off" to a race would require less work (as races doesn't have abilities and quest lines). It would be another way to set the "PvP Off" flag.
About the problems with optional PvP due to people with "PvP off" buffing/helping/training, players that do play PvP. I think most of those issues can be implemented around but there will always be loop-holes as you pointed out. Those would have to be targeted with policies and staff taking action against it.
I'm more and more leaning towards open PvP (is that what you call it?). Maybe with some hard coded limitations like level ranges etc but maybe not. Then what about creating some nice options for those who want to limit their PvP involvement to a minium, like giving some clans/guilds extra benefits in terms of PvP? For example if we have a clan called "The pacifists" that has a real good reputation for very seldom starting PvP battles, and only when very provoked. If that clan was by a council/election/gm chosen as a "good guardian clan/guild" would gain the benefit of looting all gold and maybe many more items from all the players they killed. Then this clan would rarely be attacked since it could backfire hard and people that do not want PvP can join that clan.
Also I would like to have some policies like: you may only kill people within 5 levels from yourself, you may not repeatedly kill the same player over and over again if he is helpless against you. Breaking the policy would result in a punishment. A soft punishment could be that you are marked as WANTED and anyone can kill you and loot more gold/items then usual. Sever breaking of rules would be punished by a GM. With these punishment in place there may not be needed to create hard coded limits for PvP level ranges.
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Post by lateralus on Sept 1, 2015 19:26:15 GMT
I think you are all doing really good at approaching this from different angles, trying to think out side the box is hard. Binding "PvP Off" to certain classes would require too much work from me, even though I like new ideas. Binding "PvP Off" to a race would require less work (as races doesn't have abilities and quest lines). It would be another way to set the "PvP Off" flag. About the problems with optional PvP due to people with "PvP off" buffing/helping/training, players that do play PvP. I think most of those issues can be implemented around but there will always be loop-holes as you pointed out. Those would have to be targeted with policies and staff taking action against it. I'm more and more leaning towards open PvP (is that what you call it?). Maybe with some hard coded limitations like level ranges etc but maybe not. Then what about creating some nice options for those who want to limit their PvP involvement to a minium, like giving some clans/guilds extra benefits in terms of PvP? For example if we have a clan called "The pacifists" that has a real good reputation for very seldom starting PvP battles, and only when very provoked. If that clan was by a council/election/gm chosen as a "good guardian clan/guild" would gain the benefit of looting all gold and maybe many more items from all the players they killed. Then this clan would rarely be attacked since it could backfire hard and people that do not want PvP can join that clan. Also I would like to have some policies like: you may only kill people within 5 levels from yourself, you may not repeatedly kill the same player over and over again if he is helpless against you. Breaking the policy would result in a punishment. A soft punishment could be that you are marked as WANTED and anyone can kill you and loot more gold/items then usual. Sever breaking of rules would be punished by a GM. With these punishment in place there may not be needed to create hard coded limits for PvP level ranges. Yea I am all for those limitations for pkers and benefits for the anti-pkers. Most games that have open PvP also have programmed locks like that to reduce the unfair killing as well as written rules that staff enforce. As for the benefits to players that do not kill maybe the player who attacks first will be set to loose more gold, items, etc for a while? maybe if you attacked or killed a person too many times or a person way under your level you would be set to wanted and city guards / patrollers would attack you if you were seen too. As I said before i expect anti pk guilds to come up side by side with the pk guilds. There is usually a pretty good balance not often do you see people getting picked on and if its bad enough staff usually helps out.
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