PVP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost

Based on numerous comments from many people here who did indeed play UO it seems that no, they did not have fun because of those things. If you specifically did, that's great, but a lot of people have said it would be the opposite of fun FOR THEM.

 

I don't want to step others game play. I want to PvP and PvE.

I don't want complicated multi scenario mechanics.

Same economy..distinct areas:

Majority of the world (80%) is PvE. Its operates in the nerfed risk world that this thread started with.

Rest of the world(20%) is Open PvP, open loot. No special gear, no special resources. The dungeons, town/s, overland mobs etc will be just like the rest of the world...so no reason for anti-pvp players to enter this place at all. No active flagging...you get a warning when you cross into that part of the world and a warning when you leave it.

Guilds, factions and duels would have provided a good transition/practice format for those who want to try PvP but don't want to risk losing everything.

The town/city within the "free world" would function like any other. Guards would still uphold the laws but the would not judge anyone's past. Murders and thieves could openly walk the streets to craft, shop and trade. They can even live there.

Other people could easily travel to the town or city and would be safe within the limits of the city.

Something like this could have met everyone's game playing wants. Instead they remove any real risk from the game. All this talk about how PKs and people who want full risk PvP just want to force their game play onto others and ruin their experience....

Too bad. Really wanted a world where I could access all levels of risk and play, basically just a WoW successor now.

I take back all the negatives I said about 2 servers. I thought there would be compromise.

Please dev team go with 2 servers.

Mod Edited for content

 

Well the same reason why if you want to play black jack and you got 100 bucks in your pocket you bet the full 100 bucks rather than just 20 bucks.

 

I like that old school UO too.
But, if its done correctly im sure we can have a very entertaining purely PvE good/evil system. Not one where you can only kill daemons, dragons, skeletons, zombies and orcs and make a career at being the "good guy". But one where you can join the skeletons, daemons, dragons, zombies, and orcs and raid and plunder villages of innocent NPC's after you have defeated the very tough and challenging guards of the village. Id say that would surely beat having to search for wandering healers all day long.

 

I fail to see how limited looting rules are detrimental to PvP; it doesn't change the active gameplay of PvP whatsoever, regardless of how much of a reward is offered for the result, the fighting between players would play out in the battle system identically.

Sure, it changes encounters that continue beyond a single death drastically, but the other penalties of death sound severe enough to discourage a defeated player from attempting revenge immediately anyway. The best argument I've seen for full loot is Owain's efficient disarming strategy for guild warfare; but that only exists due to the restraints (or lack thereof) of the system, and it's entirely unnecessary if the restraints are different. All of the full loot proponents in this thread lack any solid reasoning for their arguments.

"PvP isn't real PvP unless its full loot"? That's just a ridiculous catchphrase invented in this forum, with no real support with which to stand on. PvP just means playing a game in competition against other people, period.

 

People are equally baffled why anyone would want to.

Let me put it to you this way, using popular memes around here:

Person 1) "I don't want people taking my stuff - it has to be this way "
Person 2) "I want to risk losing my stuff, and I want to take other people's stuff - it has to be this way"

"But it's just pixels."

Different meanings for different people.

 

The problem is really the hardcore crowd. Anyone that is "hardcore" on a feature knows it very hard to get these features into games in a meaningful way to make us happy. I am not a full loot fan (although I would play SOTA without complaint if it had it), but I do like the stick. I want friendly fire, death on hunger/thirst, prone/slowness on fatigue, etc. However, none of these things will be in SOTA. I will admit I am bummed these are not included, but I had no real reason to expect SOTA to have these features. This is something I am used to and I have learned to just make the best of it.

I think the issue is that with the slightest mention on UO there were some assumptions and hopes that the pioneers of the Open PVP/Full Loot game would bring that here as well. Although I think it was clear SOTA would not include those features, it is easy to get over excited especially with some vague comments from the Devs. As such you have people very disappoint especially with some of the high pledge levels.

In the end, I think the PVP "concepts" are well thought out and after they are tested and adjusted I think everyone will find will have fun in SOTA should they decide to still give it a chance. Many of the concepts are very close to rules for the NWN servers I played on, which was what I expected based on the limited information we had before the mega post. I just hope the hardcore PVP/Loot crowd can push past the disappointment and join us in testing and improving the system. I think in the end, although not what they would prefer, I think the game will provide them with many of the same experiences they had with RG's other games.

I do agree with Darkstarr and Chris that the world will be better by bringing all these players together, and I think the proposed system will lead to a more diverse group of players engaging in PVP. I just hope people don't let their emotions pull them away without even trying it out.

 

Hmm... I do not ever recall getting away from a dedicated player-killer in UO. Once one appeared on screen, I was essentially dead.

I will admit it was occasionally entertaining to spend most of my time avoiding them, that being part of the charm of the game, but it did sort of get dull after a while.


The effect essentially pigeonholed me into only playing areas of the game where other users did not frequent (including town, which tended to be filled with idiots in my opinion), which probably added to my growing bored with the game and moving on to Star Wars Galaxies.

 

I'm getting so bored of this, why shouldnt I be able to flag myself for full loot? If only others with full loot on would be able to loot me fully and I only them. Partial lopt for the rest that doesnt want full loot, pve folks still doesnt have to opt in for any of it if they dont want to.

Risking it all is what makes it the most fun for me. This way sounds fair to all partys if you ask me

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

There is no issue with this as far as I can see. I don't know if it would be hard to implement or not. But if the devs can manage it, they probably should. I see no point in limiting consensual behaviors. (Giggety)

 

It sounds like to me that gear will be worth to much to lose.
Once you lose your gear you will no longer be able to play at the right level.

 

CONJECTURE, your Honor!

 

Even still... Should it not be a player's choice to risk that, however ill-advised it may be to do so ?

If a player such as Hettar wants to spend a considerable amount of time rebuilding their equipment roster after a fall, then why restrict them from doing so ?

 

Well if that's true I will be deeply saddened cause this game probably wont be for me, only thing to do is to wait for answers and try it out for our selfs :/ I hate waiting
(im still for dropping it all just dont think eq should be 90% of the character)

 

My bold above for irony. The spell Recall took about a second to cast, and with it you could instantly escape to a location of your choosing. One key press to cast the spell and bring up a targeting cursor, then one mouse click to target rune/book. Over how many occurrences are you saying that you didn't once escape? If what you're saying is accurate, so be it. But based purely on the evidence available, and without impugning your character, this seems to be a good example of the exaggeration about how terrible it was stepping out of town in UO, which is now being used to drum up fear about pvp in sota.

 

Most of this sounds great, I really like that these design decisions and their reasoning are all openly discussed. Only thing that concerns me is.....

Loot & Ransoms:

The idea of being able to randomly lose one of my prized possessions and potentially not have enough money to buy it back worries me. I think it would probably discourage me from taking out my really good gear, or use stuff with low ransom values.

Perhaps there could be a way for players to kind of "insure" the gear they really cannot bear to lose (make it immune from being picked as a ransom item). This could cost a smaller amount for each item and last for a few hours or a day or whatever. This would allow you to prepare for going into dangerous situations, and since you had already paid the risk cost up front, you would not get stuck in a situation where you might lose gear and not be able to raise the cash you need to buy it back.

 

Perhaps my first experience of PvP was in world of warcraft, on a RP-PvE server i am flagged for PvE and in loch modan and then suddely another player nearby used some mindcontrol device on a pvp player
it backfired and made him attack me and i was dead in 1 second or so it feelt.

 

To be fair, they ask for full loot based on conjecture.

 

Dont opt for open pvp and you are good to go there are other means to pvp if you only want to dab your foot in it.

 

Very true. However one required the Fourth Level of Magic to cast that spell (Level Six to mark the rune to begin with), and required that one have time to cast the spell *before* combat was engaged.


By the time my character had reached that proficiency, my attitude towards the other players in the game was pretty much set. I saw no reason to bother with changing my opinion.