Open PvP in R13 and the most used exploits

After over a month of testing open PvP, I have noticed the increasing number of PvPers abusing the game systems in unintended ways. At least I hope those were unintended.

First, I would like to mention few things I hope will be fixed:

Lag (and no colisions) is often exploited. Run through enemy as quickly as possible, use death touch (or any othere melee attack), it is unlikely they will be able to use melee attack back.

Another heavily exploited feature of the game is how long it takes to get to combat from NPC chat or crafting station. Particulary popular is attack at people who are changing their skills and do not have full decks. I assume that guards in town will help with this.

Another common exploit is using combat roll to reset auto attack on bow or staff to use more frequent interrupts and deal more damage.

/zone command is frequently used by PKs to get quickly to their victims, but it is used for revenge as well.



Now I have seen things I am not so sure that devs plan to fix, but I hope they are aware of them or will get aware of them and think of something:

People log out and in to avoid death penalty.
Suggested solution: Do not allow logout when in combat/dead. If people quit the game, they will start with death penalty and they cannot start at overland map. (Perhaps there could be 1-24h cooldown on option to start on overland map). They shoudl respawn where would they respawn if they died with whatever penalty should be applied to them.

PvPers track their enemies with friendlist. If you add someone when their are offline or zoning, they will not get notified about that.
Seriously, we need to see who has friended us! And we need enemy list.

Funny thing is, people startted to exploit the Block List. I would not think it is possible, but it is. They add PvPers who can kill them there, so they cannot zone on them or see when they are online. They also get their name removed from the friendlist of people who follow them, without any notice whatsover. After some time, they stop blocking you and friend you, if you are not online, you will not get the message and now only they can track you.
It is really clever, I almost have not noticed this, but I friend PKs I see and I keep their names in separate document, I have noticed that one of my 'friends' was missing and when I tried to add them I have discovered the blocking bit.
We need proper enemy list and blocking should not mean you stop being enemies.

I have noticed PK-guilds employing non PvP spies, presumably in party, following PvPers. I think they serve as beacons of location of victim. You see names of party members through walls across the map. And they can safely scout the terrain and see if more PvPers are around... I am talking about Kinkara here.
I am not really sure what to do about this, because party is not the only issue, it is the cooperation of nonPvPer with PvPers.

Using /stuck or /home commands for instant transport in a scene. Especially /stuck is heavily exploited by few PKs.
People should not be allowed to use /stuck while in combat imho, or only with say 60s countdown of not moving.

Losing target at distance. Dash + disabling arrow is way for some PKs to go, they attack at extremely long range, slow you down, get out of your target range, run around a house, attack you again and once you retarget them they are gone again... It is quite clever really, but the way third person camera works, they can target you and watch you, when you cannot do the same. It is combination of target and third person exploit.
Unless we force everyone into first person view, I am not really sure what to do with this myself. My only suggestion is let the game retarget us players whenever they come back to our target distance (as long as we have not targeted anyone else). Just grey out target name and health/focus stats for while they are out of range.

Using party chat/whisper/teamspeak for long-distance or secret communication.
I do not suppose anything can be done about this, but I think it is worth of mentioning. The most obvious way to exploit this was mentioned before, communication of nonPvPer tracking PvPers and feeding info to his PvP friends.

 

I agree with this post but it is not just confined to PK's. It is used by many different individuals. Exploits are contagious because if one person uses them, then it is an advantage and other people will follow suit until it is fixed. Blaming one subset for using this exploit is wrong in my opinion, I have seen many people use these exploits.

 

I do not want to blame PKs as only people exploiting, it is just I have noticed them to do so and it annoys me as they quite often to use them to my disadvantage.

 

Also...
-Can blink through many of the locked or trigger activated gates, including ones inside compendium.
-Teams of non PVP healers can heal PVP flagged friends with healing burst.

 

ya, well in all reality there are no pk's in SotA, or everyone flagged is a PK. I have witnessed this behavior by pve, by pvp, by "anti-pk", by "pk", almost everyone I know uses the log in and log out feature. Almost everyone uses team speak. Do I think its fair, no, but you better get on board with these things or you wont have a chance unless things change. Just saying. To be honest because I like role play, I find team speak offensive to the game, and it ruins it in many respects because people are talking and coordinating behind the scene instead of playing out your char. people can coordinate attacks that they would not possibly be able to do from a role play perspective, its like a divine power in the role play world. But I am forced to use it because if I dont, I cannot possibly win. Its something that I have to accept.

 

I don't think this is really an exploit. It is more of a side-effect of PvPing in a non-PvP zone.

 

aye, this is true to some extent as well. In the game however, if you are flagged for open pvp, you are in pvp worldwide, so its not really fighting in a non pvp zone that is the issue. There is really nothing you can do about the scouting with a blue char. He most likely is in teamspeak also, just reporting back with his god like powers to mass communicate so everyone can zone in on him at the right time. This will be hopefully null and void when the game is launched and there will be no instant transportation. I do not think the slash commands will be in then. I hope there are not any recall or summon party spells either. This would prevent the mass teleport gank squads and will make traveling in groups more important. It will take awhile for help to come. Even if they call for it in teamspeak.

 

Just to clear terminology... I call people who attack others without provocation PKs. Not all PvPers do that.
That being said I have already agreed that not only PKs do that. It is sad really, we have resurrection spell and hardly anyone uses it.

Yeah but it is side effect providing quite significant advantage and I am not sure we are intended to employ blues or alts to play.

 

I agree. Its peoples desire to win and game the system that causes this, but not much can be done about it. I wish there was a way too also.

Also, just my opinion here....While the common term is Pk I prefer villain or evil character. It sounds so much better than PK or Anti PK hehe. Its just semantics I know. I like to look at it from more of a role-play stance. There are always going to be good and evil in the world, but both are effectively killing each other, so they both are PK.

 

+1 one man's hero is another man's murderer

 

A lot of the concerns have to do with /zone and /stuck and both of those commands will be removed before release. Rest of the concerns I think will be fixed by the devs.

About PvE player scout PvP: I don't think that is a problem once /zone are gone and a algorithm that will try to get PvP and PvE players in different instances are in place.

 

Sorry to jump in but that was something bothering me. That's still planned, right? I thought i read it somewhere, about pvp flagged players never encountering non-pvp flagged players in non-town scenes. I started to think i imagined because haven't read about it for a while... That along with temporal unflagging in parties may solve a lot of issues.

 

Well put @Net,,

I do need to say ,I find the Rez Sickness a complete waist of my time it needs to be removed IMHO. Ahh yes ...Don't forget Blink and the Z axis issue .

 

I agree, if I died and came back to life, the only thing I would require is a cold brew. So perhaps it should be replaced with a temporary drunken state.

 

Do what we did/do... do it all back to them.

When I have someone who doesn't do that to me I don't do it to them... in and out of PvP. I have teamspeak up with Arkah EMPstrike last night and someone asks me for a recipe... I don't know it so I ask Arkah IN GAME and he said over TS3 "Why'd you say my name in game" and then I asked the question IN GAME and never replied to him in TS3... the other party wasn't using TS3 so I didn't use it.

Additionally, coordinated PvP attacks is something you won't get us to stop because you cannot be sure when the other side is or isn't going to do it so we'll always have it available and just avoid target calling until we start to notice them focus firing.

When it comes to the target at distance I'd like to keep that in... gives you a reward for "getting away" even though I hate it.

When it comes to the block list removing friends that's terrible... it should hide their online/offline status but if they unblock you then it should reveal it again... shouldn't remove them from your list.

When it comes to non PvP spies we got sick of that and just started using here in the last week. I personally haven't been the spy but I have used a spy once and it was against someone who did it to me in a prior fight that same day. They can't heal they can only be a beacon... it's frustrating but it's not worth losing the ability to find party members... I think this is a lesser of two evils that we'll have to accept if we don't want to alienate the two types of players from each other... and I personally don't.

When it comes to /stuck exploit that's been frustrating me more than anything and the people who do it we make a point of killing an extra few times. We'll scout and find their home... their spawn in location... and their current location... dispatch 2x the force needed to remove their heads to each location and then kill them as soon as they zone/login for abusing that exploit. It was an oversight and I expect it will get fixed quickly. Once in combat you should not be able to take any minor actions to allow you to teleport home... currently the path of the exploit I've seen is as follows:

Mage Blink onto an object out of LoS of attackers, wait a couple seconds and /home if you're in same zone as your house or /stuck if you're not. The mage blink is the fastest way to drop combat and it's being used heavily by the more frequent PKing grief individuals. We had strangers cheering us on as if we were gladiators in the Colosseum in Rome when we cleared Braemar of the PKers who were exploiting in this fashion... was a great feeling to be appreciated and it felt good to finally be able to get some PK hunting in. I'm not against people being bad I am against them using mechanics against their intent... blink wasn't supposed to be a combat dropper.

Tracking with friends list is fine imo... the /zone is getting removed (PLEASE DO IT SOON!) so it won't be an issue.

I left this for last and my good friend Winfield just recently advised me against this but... I can't help myself. I like to end on the notes that matter the most to me and he says I should start with them because they're topic setters. I'm not a writer so forgive me and let me just emphasize that I think this is the most important fix: If you log out with combat penalty from death OR WHILE IN COMBAT you should login with 2x the combat penalty from death with a refreshed duration (if 30 seconds had expired they come back).

I also think you should be required to log back into the town you just left. I understand this can create a character delete situation but I think the game should be designed toward a stable build ruleset not an alpha build ruleset. During alpha always allowing the overland map is fine but if that stays in release it's going to be the reason PvP doesn't survive in this game. You're allowing any cheater to basically cheat death whenever they want. Those who don't cheat will then be penalized and forced into it. Those who are forced into it will lose the desire to play because they don't want to be bad and they're being forced to be bad... as ceiling cat would say: "TEH BAD GUYZ R BEAN MEEN 2 ME AN UZIN TEH ESCAPE PAPH!"

There can be no player exacted revenge or justice if the PKer doesn't experience the same penalty we do. Either remove the penalty of death or normalize all ways to avoid it. MINIMUM expiration time on this, while logged out, should be 72 hours.

That said, a few other changes need to be made before you take out the "escape" from death penalties...

1. I think the spawned in Avatar should have invulnerability until they do ANYTHING... type in chat... walk... open a menu... move their camera view... anything clears that invulnerability but until then it's there.
2. I think that those who die in duels should not have death penalty
3. I think that those who die to players should have 1/2 the normal duration death penalty so it encourages them to join back into the fight and reduces the amount of time they are "exposed" to spawn campers.

 

Its a little more than semantics for me.

PKer is player killer. straight up, what they do.

Evil does not mean murderer. Moral evil maybe, but not natural evil per se.

Villian also does not mean murderer.

How about just calling them what they are? Murderers?

@Net: Great testing and observation on these issues. This is solid feedback on the current, evil state of PvP.

 

Aye, you could call them that

 

Actually I think we should give thx to people revealing those game flaws. ( we are in testing mode, so I take it easy )
What I just cant understand is players in peace mode are punished when entering combat mode because of cool downs.
Players already in combat mode and full PRESTACKED glyphs is quite annoying, forces PVP flaged people to be all time in combat mode what seems a bit off.

 

One could say that doing the same thing to a murderer does not improve the situation, it makes you the same and perpetuates the situation. Branding justice by force, as you do, is also done by tyrants. Such as Blackthorn in Ultima 5. Lets enforce the virtues with force! If you do not help the citizens I will throw you in jail! I understand what you do though, just making that observation.

 

Why do you think the majority of our guild members have chaos statements?