My thoughts on Looting

The loss of items is a reasonable risk. I understand not wanting a "full loot" system but to my mind the ransom system is just a blatant, in-your-face and artificial system that amounts to little more than hand-holding. I understand the desire to want to attract players into PvP by reducing risk but I don't believe ransom is the way to go about that.

I would set it up like this.

When you enter PvP you risk up to a certain total value in items based on your level and possibly other factors. The amount looted from you cannot exceed that value over a given amount of time.

Some factors may include total time spent flagged for PvP.. how many engagements you've been in with other players or even the hex you are in. (ie: PvP zones may incur higher risk) So that players who are brand new to PvP risk less.

There could perhaps be a way to lower the total value you risk and there should also be a maximum value at some point.

To the concern of people having their "good" stuff looted. Balancing the total value being risked might allow a player's "good" gear to be worth more than the risk. That is this idea is not without a means to control what is or isn't lootable.

Besides that I also think hardcore PvPers are willing to take greater risks.

An example. Let's say you're level 20 and a regular PvPer. You're risking a 200g value in loot. You get killed. On your person your weapon is worth say.. 150g, you've got 300g in cash.. an item worth 75g and your armor is worth 300g.

If the victor took the 75g item they would not then be able to also take your weapon as that would exceed 200g. But they could take 125g in cash. OR they could take your weapon and 50g in cash.. or just 200g in cash.

Now if you know how much you're risking you could of course game the system to try to make it difficult for the looter but this would become increasingly difficult the more you risk. If you the value at risk was hard to calculate you wouldn't really be able to game the system. (ie encumbrance might act a modifier.. the more you carry.. the more you risk).

This may not be a 'natural' solution but it's not so in-your-face as ransom is and still allows people new to PvP to try it out with low risk. Meanwhile it allows regular PvPers the chance at more loot. Furthermore, looting would not be defeated by an overbearing ransom system.

 

"It was my understanding that there would be no math".
-- Chevy Chase, Saturday Night Live

 

Risk vs Reward. Loot can be based on a rating slider with a minimum of 1 or 2 items ( or gold equivalent ) always up for grabs. You can only gain or lose up to your loot risk level. Using a scale of 1 to 10 then setting the slider to 10 is full loot. If you risk full loot, and kill a player who also has full loot, then you can full loot them. If they are only set to 1 then you only get one or two items. Converseley, setting the loot risk slider to 1 also prevents that player from ever obtaining more than that. So even if the person with a loot risk rating of 1 kills a player with a loot risk rating of 10 the victor can only claim one item due to his/her low loot risk value.

 

in my opinion full loot is needed for a working player driven econom.

so my idea is separate pvpers from pveers by sending them in different instances depending how they are flagged except in town. so pvpers have full loot open pvp

if server is unstable and there are disconnects a lot of time , make it so when your corpse not getting looted you will have the stuff in your inventory when you spawn (the stuff remained untutched in the corpse) so loosing your gear to pve because of disconnect in an emty area will not make you rage





or the matchmaking been made so that,

pve and pvp flagged guys only meet in town

-that there are 2 instances for non pvp and for full loot pvp everywhere .
-that these 2 zones have different housing spots depending if you are pvp flagged or non you will enter them.
-that pve flagged players can trade in town with pvp flagged players but the materials they farmed (get tagged as pve only) so the armors crafted outz of them have only defencives vs mosters but not vs players
-ore and materials out of the pve zones automaticly get flagged pvp only
to make sure the economy not get destoyed in pvp land
- overmap view traveling is only avalible when you are pve flagged.
-in pvp flagged world you would have to pay a lot of gold to use the ingame map area skipping, and mostly use a horse to travel


so they could live together and we get 2 times more house spots on same map size


this post even got likes from pve players

 

I just don't understand why a horse that's been dead for 15 years keeps getting res'd.
Loot on death causes less people to want to PvP. We want more people to want to PvP.
Loot on death causes toxic play, by focusing on bringing harm to individuals, instead of team vs team competition.
Loot on death forces people in turtle mode, gate hopping, rather than trying to accomplish something.
I could go on for days...these arguments have all been made and this is why games don't have loot on death.

PvP should be about a thing.
That thing can be a castle or a mine. Winning makes you, and your team, king of the hill. People are welcome to run, but they lose.
That thing can be mobile, like "grand theft pirate ship."
You can have a game where you have to gather stuff or smuggle stuff, but getting caught only risks some or all of what you were gathering or smuggling.

Anything else just leads to people opting out, toxic play, or both.

 

If I could set my slider to 0 I might take part in the PvP.

I'm not going to loot another player. Ever. Not even just gold. It would make me feel like a thief in real life.

 

Because the ransom system is inherently flawed that's why and I am not content to simply criticize it without offering up my own solution.

Though having started the thread I would have preferred to discuss my idea rather than simply rehash old ones which have been done to death.

Full loot is never going to happen. I think that's been made perfectly clear. The slider idea is interesting but the first question that comes to mind is why would anyone set their slider high? I suppose some people would.

Then have no loot at all. I'd rather have that than ransom. Unfortunately, loot isn't the only thing that will drive people away. Body part trophies and cannibalism will also. But the devs are determined to at least have trophies to start.

If the thinking is that reduced risk will help entice players to PvP then that's exactly what my idea is giving them. little to no PvP experience.. little to no risk. If they enjoy it they'll keep doing it and may be willing to take greater risks.

Highly debatable. In fact, nothing directly causes toxic play. Though giving players the freedom to abuse a system may encourage it. This is what looting rights and PvP flags are for.

It doesn't FORCE people to do anything. If someone is that worried about it they probably wouldn't have PvP turned on to begin with.

If that statement were true there wouldn't be any PvP at all without a castle to take over. People opt out because they don't find it fun. Their reasons are their own. Providing a goal may help but it is neither the beginning or the end.

If your argument is going to be everything PvP causes toxic play than why not cut it out of the game entirely? I think we know it's not going to happen. We also know the Devs want to allow looting. I don't like their solution.. so I am offering my own.

 

At the least maybe have it like one bag that can't be looted.
If you find something valuable put it in there.
But for things like regs, wood, stone, and other things that take up weight and space, these should go into bags that can be looted.
There needs to be danger in moving large amount of goods across the map.
Maybe once you go PVP you get more bags and those bags can be looted.
When your not in PVP you can't hold as many items and thus can't move large quantities around.

 

If I Kill someone ,,,, No angel nor devil on my shoulder Should have any overall impact on what I take from my Victims.

 

I dont like the ransom either but I dont think this is better solution.

 

So in your mind a better solution would be...?

 

There should be an option to decline the ransom. Just as there should be an option to not kill your opponent.

These choices could interact with the virtue system.

 

semms like u are no true pvper , all pvper want full loot when they are fans of ultima because they was crafters aswell , and u can tell what you want the economy will be broken if there is no full loot + the fun when you win , where is the fun by not getting loot

the main pvp gear could and should be easy to get (maybe with resorce camps which can taken over. and super rare ,super expencive gear can be used in an areana minigame where you wont loose your stuff, so the most expencive materials or alloys get some market aswell which would be to sad and expencive for open world pvp

for people not want to loose stuff they could play these minigames or make duels , but open world loot pvp is a must in my opinion to attract the most pvpers. i know it well because i always played with pvpers only.

 

Let's not rehash the full loot / economy argument. Not only do I not buy it but it's off topic and done to death.

 

Party pooper.

 

there are more arguments

how you get rewarded when there is no chance of luck that you can loot someone very rare stuff

its so funny when someone have a vanq axe you cant loot when you kill him, where would be the sense in the game to redo a dungeon ??? when you finished it once if there is no loot???

and it would make most old uo pvp players angry aswell (another argument)

just stay in pve world

you asked how to attract more players to do pvp ?? remove tab target add melee combos and add loot and open world pvp thats what pvpers want (like all uo , mortal online darkfall age of conan players . in age of conan was no loot but i remember nearly all players from my guild would have wished it . there was a group human mandables


they had the most op gear , we didnt had a chance and when you got them once down you coudnt loot there op gear , that ruined the game for some players including me

so they are not overpowered for a small ammount of time till they die but non stop

 

UO had many keyboard targeting commands. Aren't you worried about making UO PvP players angry?

 

its because it was 1994 no other options were possible at this time in an mmo

for the time it was great i woudnt even matter if they would copy over the whole mage book

like mortal online copyd it over from ultima online but made it aiming based xd
and removed auto attacks and added hitboxes and free aiming

i mean even a full plate in mortal have weak spots because you cant wear full plate , it would be too havy so a true pvper see, know it directly and search for its weak spot like the boots, shoulders or arms , which are crafted from animal material to save weight and try prevent hitting your steel torso

 

I just pointed it out to help you make your arguments internally logically consistent. That's more important than you might think.

 

You're preaching to the choir here. I personally prefer 'full loot' with the obvious exceptions. However, it is abundantly clear to me that.. at least for the time being.. that full loot is simply NOT going to happen.

Where we are right now is the ransom system will be tried and needs to fail before they'll try an alternative.

Given their stated goals as I understand them, I present the OP as an alternative. Is it perfect? Unlikely. But it achieves low risk for new PvPers and allows more loot for regular/hardcore PvPers.

To expand further on the idea that characters with little PvP experience have low risk.. you could put a timer on that as well. Requiring you remain an active PvPer to incur a high risk. If you play with your PvP flag turned off for awhile the level of risk goes down.

The range of risk you incur could.. if you wanted could go all the way up to "full loot". This allows full loot for hardcore PvPers while less active PvPers incur lower risk. All based on how much PvP you actually do and where you do it.

I might even extend this to body part trophies / harvesting. At some point once you've incurred enough risk you are harvestable. While a lot of folks wishing to avoid that fate might not do a lot of PvP to begin with. But it allows them to jump into the battlefield from time to time without worrying about getting mutilated.