PVP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost

I guess it works as well as one random lootable item as the Devs proposed. It feels a bit artificial to cordon something off because it is a rare or meaningful to the player in any way. We'll see how it plays out; there have been plenty of good ideas on here.

 

I like this in general, but would think that there are a few gotcha's to be considered:
Pledge-items, real cash purchased items, etc. should not be lootable
Have a kind of insurance where the owner gets to insure/bless certain items against theft. Some in game items have an emotional value that no-one but the owner could recognize... Sometimes really silly things too!*)
I also liked the double-down option where a victor can increase the ransom by putting some of his own money on the line, and the victim gets to chose between paying more, or keeping the gold instead of the item looted...

*)before I lost my house on Origin through EA's cock-up, I had 2 gold cheques of 1M gold each on display, which I won in Deal or no deal. Didn't need the gold, so the cheques were worth more to me as a memento than the 2M gold...

 

Too easy to circumvent... 2 accounts, 1 avatar with the majority of my gold, that never leaves the house, one avatar with a fragment, just enough to pay a ransom...

I like the idea, just too hard to implement...

 

Why not a curse for your fave item so if a PKer picks it up they can't run or fight right, then the newb can respawn and hunt down the greedy weakened PKer and perhaps kill them and get the cursed item back?

 

I didn't read every post so it might of been covered but

What happens if I set my house property as inaccessible & flag for pvp, can I shoot arrows at them from the safety of my lot?

 

Words can bring death or life!
Talk too much, and you will eat
everything you say. Proverbs 18:21 ]

Oh! how sweet that would be, Politicians eating everything they said![/quote]

 

I'd expect the guards to ignore that setting in that case...

What I also wondered is how we get to tell whether someone is PvP or not? Names on all the time would be immersion breaking... Click everyone to see their targeting circle color?

 

I like the ghost idea, it removes a lot of exploits.

I don't like the idea of alienating crafters from PvP goods, competition among crafters will keep prices in check and crafters tend to be lovely folk who do great things for the community, lets not alienate them.

The biggie of course is lewwt!

I can see what is trying to be done, but i feel it could be left for the players to determine the depth of their losses.
What could be done to make everybody happy, is to have a tiered looting system, with the lowest being maybe gold, consumables, a single item and the highest tier being full loot.

The victors reward will be based on their tier levels, making it so only two players or groups with the highest tier would be able to full loot eachother, a full loot tier player will only be able to loot the amount set by the other players tier.

I'm sure there are those that will think its unfair if they run around with the highest tier, that they can only loot say a single item as opposed to everything, but in my experience, the majority who would choose the highest tier do so for the thrill and to show they've got some big hairy balls.

When grouped, the same idea behind party leaders that determine whether its pvp or pve could be employed, with the leaders looting tier overriding the other members of the party.

Just my two pennies worth.

 

I think to make the difference between good and junk gear very small is a MUST. Rare items (dropped or crafted) doesn't necessarily need to be more "powerful" having more stats, just need to have an special ability or quality that allow us to craft different combat strategies. Example: a rare leather chest that regenerates life 3 HP per second, but lowers 15% of total HP (necromancer dream to make blood pacts xD). If you dont close the gap between junk and good gear, finally we´ll only see people with the "Better stat" gear going around.


This way People using junk stuff will only be limited to use basic and predictable combat mechanics, and the ones with better (different) gear could use rare strategies to get you in combat xD.

And regarding of disincentivizing players from gear progression. In a mmo the key is that players are avid to live new experiences, not necessarily with more power gear in their hands. In DOTA 2, when i master a character and i think i am done with the game, i just begin to random and i get engaged for few more months mastering a new one xD and that doesnt mean my new character have more stats or power. It is simply a new experience.

 

If you flag for PvP, your property settings should change accordingly.

 

Echoing what appears to be the sentiment of many, I like the system overall. I think the PvP system gives a good compromise which will hopefully keep PvPers happy and not force others to partake if they don't want to.

Again though, the loot/ransom system just seems a bit overly contrived. I can see the thought process behind it but it just seems like a game mechanic which does not actually achieve a lot. Cetainly if you were in a 2-3 hour PvP session and had 10kills and a death or 2 it would all get a bit messy?

What gear is lootable really depends on how powerful gear is. Realistically if a game (any game, hypothetically) had uber powerful gear which was seriously difficult to get then I don't think full loot is 'fair'. I don't think one death shouldn't cost hours upon hours of work.

On the other extreme if gear is cheap and of seriously little benefit then loot is almost pointless anyway.

In any case I think that any consumable items should be looted. Eg: arrows, reagents, gold, bandages, materials (ore, logs etc). I would be happy if this was somewhat capped, but I don't think a cap is necessary. If you wander around PvP flagged with 5000 of each reagent on you well, bad luck!

The problem is this probably advantages warrior-types, who don't have the same reliance on consumable items. Too late on a Friday to think of a solution there!

Overall though... stoked!!

 

Only if we can craft catapults and ballista to counter you! Your house would be in a destroyed state, but all your items would still be inaccessible to PVP, i do think a house should be a safe zone in PVP, and you ask well now my house is in shambles now what? I got your answer right here pay for damages to fix it back, so even though we cannot get your stuff you take a hit as well (even in shambles you would be safe in your house, now you would just have to come up with gold and repair it.

Also id like to point out Ristra's Idea......

Ristras awesome Idea.....

P2 could put the jeweled dagger up for ransom and P1 accepts. P1 could refuse and P2 takes the dagger. Then it's a gamble if the dagger is of value (taken to an NPC for identification or possibly a PvP skill to be used out of combat after looting)
P2 could outright take the dagger and not offer the ransom.

Also i rarely agree with Ristra, but i think the magic on items should be hidden from the killer/pvp victor, and they should have to take a skill cut to increase another skill (Detect Magic, from good Ole D&D days) or have someone thats a friend or go to a mage in a certain town that charges you for these services. (great Idea Ristra! have to give credit where credits due!)

 

To me, this is kind of a genius idea. I think that anytime a developer can squeeze a little more strategy out of a game the better.

I think the system should scale. Raise the stakes in some areas. A list of 10 items with 3 to choose from (or higher) in some areas would allow more of a gamble.


Earlier I voiced my opinion on resources and consumables being the only thing looted (I didn't like it). Maybe it could work in some areas? Different rule sets for different areas might be interesting.

 

C'mon, if I backed your game, there is a reason and it's certainly not to make another mmo we see since 15 years. The community behind you Richard is the crowd that enjoyed UO before trammel and they are here because they want an immersive, dangerous, perilious world living with consequences.

So far all we see in this game development is housing and fluff crap that yes we care for but as a second approach to the game. We don't want another world of warcraft. PVP should be the main focus of your game and build around that.

Will it be worth installing this game at all at release ? I'm starting to think otherwise.

Meldor
Keeper of Magincia !

 

Ideas for an improvement on the ransom system

Player A kills Player B. 3 semi-random items are presented to player A. (The current thinking on minimum-value, chance of it being a bag or worn item, etc are fine to me). One or more of those items might be "trophies" (ears, fingers, etc). If no loot with a ransom above the "trophy value" is in the selection, a trophy replaces one of those items.

Player A gets to pick which 1 of those 3 items he wants to loot*. They are ALWAYS presented to the player in ransom-value order, to make for easy viewing in combat.

In ADDITION: Player A gets 50% of the gold that was being carried, AND 33% of their consumables/resources/reagents.

Trophies cannot be ransomed.
Trophies have a fixed NPC sell value. (so you know you get at least 50g worth of loot from a player carrying junk items only).
Trophies can be used to create a PVP consumable (using your special "avatar" essence/blood against you). The type of trophy determines the exact effect (e.g. ears = reduce incoming damage; fingers = extra outgoing damage). These consumables would work better in PVP than standard PVE consumables.

This will let Player B get back into the fight reasonably soon (not all their gear+potions are gone), and Player A gets Gold (always), Potions (very likely), and sometimes an Item (depending on ransom).
This also adds some value to attacking a person farming resources in a PVP area, but they still keep some of what they farmed.
This also lets PVPers "farm" naked/junk wearing gatherers for trophies to make PVP potions. Naked/junk wearing mages might still be a bit of an issue, but hopefully the devs can somewhat balance that.

* Possible changes to increase the reward could be: If you spend additional time "looting", you can get a 2nd, and eventually the 3rd item as well. In a large battle you're unlikely to get all 3, but cleaning up for extra loot at the end of a battle you can (except for those who have already respawned). This also makes it "less profitable" to kill people right near a respawn area, as their ghost will be able to respawn very quickly! Perhaps a PVP skill decreases the time to get the extra items? (but never makes it "immediately loot all 3")

I'm interested in hearing what the PVPers think of this as a better compromise than the original ransom system plans. Do they feel this offers the risk/reward that they are after?

Just seen this is similar to Ristra's idea The problem with not reading whole threads!

 

Im not sure i like either! Being a PVPr that does not go out to just gank people randomly, personally i probably wouldnt take anything, unless that particular person did something to me or others and i felt they deserved death for that, but at this point ill take what i can get for now. I personally like full loot.

 

Just want to add:

1+ to Ristra's idea.

So is that jeweled dagger worth it? or are those "gems" just some nicely polished colored glass? Where did I put my handy dandy magnifier? Oh, wait...I'm not a gemologist, guess I'll need to wait 'til I get to town to find out. Oh hang on a sec, I have this scroll of true seeing wonder if that will enable me to tell if the gems are real? So much to do, so little time.
Bah! Just let me grab these reagents and be off!

 

Trophies can not have NPC vendor value. This will leave an opening for exploits. Players can kill an alt over and over collecting the trophies.


@ LordEnglish
Trophies cannot be ransomed.
Trophies have a fixed NPC sell value. (so you know you get at least 50g worth of loot from a player carrying junk items only).
Trophies can be used to create a PVP consumable (using your special "avatar" essence/blood against you). The type of trophy determines the exact effect (e.g. ears = reduce incoming damage; fingers = extra outgoing damage). These consumables would work better in PVP than standard PVE consumables.

 

Apparently he doesn't want to make the same game he made 15 yrs ago either. This game is neither another UO or another themepark MMO; it's something that is trying to take the good from both and not the bad.

And this community is made up of a LOT of people, some that are absolutely UO fans that just want an updated version of their beloved game, but not everyone, and not even necessarily a majority. Speak only for yourself when stating "THIS is what the game should be!"

Or, better yet, offer some suggestions on how the dev's ideas can be improved on while still making it fun for everyone instead of just spouting off.

 

Probably would be an easy change to add a "take nothing" option to the box with the 3 lootable items, or you can in my suggestion always pick the lowest value item, as they are presented in order.

We've already been told full loot isn't happening, so I'm brainstorming for compromise ideas here.