PVP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost

Good point, this can probably be fixed behind the scenes for diminishing returns based on how often a character has died (Hey it will take time for those ears to grow back!)

 

Right now I'm going over any and every way I could possibly exploit any of these rules. I hope I don't seem to be picking peoples ideas apart.

The whole Mega Posted PvP system seems pretty tight. I'm not sure about the loot system.

What if they go out of their way ...not to have the ransom?

As a solution, a minimum bank balance to PvP and then a flat fee for losing depending on the area. I know it sounds cheezy, but it's all I've got.

 

You're being rude. I'm also beyond sick of people telling everyone else that pre-trammel UO are the real community. I don't know what else to say here without being equally rude. So.....

 

I'm a PvE player but I would be quite happy with full loot on death with NPC chars, Its only being ganked by PKer's that's a pain.
I think they should give everyone 2 character slots then if you only want PvE that's what you would go for, but if you want to try out PvP you have the choice to set one for PvP.
If you go for PvP then that's a separate list that the game matches you too so the only players you will ever meet are PvP your 2nd char could be PvE using other matching criteria.
No swopping over of characters between PvP to PvE once you make the choice of PvP that's the only way you can play it, if you decide you don't want PvP you have to delete the character and create one for PvE

 

Sigh.... That's not true at all. There are a lot of people here who have only played the Ultima games. UO is but a small part of RG's resume in gaming.

 

As far as the trophies go, I would love to see some sort of physical representation on a players avatar if they didn't buy back the trophy.

If someone gets your eye as a trophy, your avatar shows a scarred empty eye socket. If someone takes your ear, you are missing an ear and you have a yucky scar on the side of your head.

Either you pay the ransom and fix it immediately or you have to buy healing over time from a healer in town to repair the damage.

I also like @Ristra idea for looting, but I still think that certain parts of a player should be unavailable. I don't think that main body armor or leggings should be available as this is very difficult to put on and off. Other areas are just too difficult to quickly search and since we know that a ghost will rez on a timeline, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that a body could be searched so absolutely.

Maybe a looting skill? The higher the looting skill the better or more you can loot from a body. Might also allow the looter to identify a magic item, not what it does but that it is or is not magical. That would be a pretty good PvP only skill.

 

I'm pretty happy how you have things flushed out so far. Never been a big fan of experience debt but it's workable.

 

DarkStarr,
First and foremost thank you guys for taking the time to listen and really hash out these ideas as they are dear to our hearts and passion. To begin, I agree with others that the random loot and ranson system does not seem immersive. If people are consenting to PVP it seems they should really be engaging the full monty. The primary argument I saw was the worry about it trivializing gear or causing people to bank all of the nice items in fear of losing them.

• If venturing into a PVP zone and consenting, well that might just be a wise idea. Second, does this loss not promote or create an economy for crafters?
• Could the resources these more PVE oriented people are seeking out in the PVP zones provides materials to create items that are more valuable than the goods they have? As in they have risk, but the reward is higher?

I was an adamant player of U.O. and I may be biased; but the system of red/blue/grey there was very simple and still to this day attractive. I think the issue is that the risk/reward for that system was not balanced. The blue and grey side of things worked quite nicely, but the risk of being a red or murderer was really of little consequence. Worst case you macro'd some time off at your house and got rid of the murder counts or stat loss. I think a steeper penalty or even a fluctuating penalty would be a good implementation. What I mean by fluctuating is to devise a way to track the amount of murderers or poll public opinion on murderers and L.B. could simply implement stiffer punishments or laws until this percentage goes down. I.E. heavier stat loss penalty, require the player to perform more virtuous acts in order to work off the unscrupulous debts, make large fiscal donations to new players, conquer certain heroic tasks in PVE content.

• In society these deviations in "normal" behavior are just that deviations from the central bell curve. They should be kept in check by a system that keeps their percentages low and adjusts based on what society allows.
• As the population of the games grows, so can the murderous population, this does not mean we cannot have abnormalities. The objective is to scale the risk vs. reward so that it encourages players to go with what they value. Using a system how I mentioned above can in a sense create the best of both worlds by giving the PVP players their cake, but letting the PVE fellows eat some too.
• A system as mentioned above could blend the two populations as you desire instead of segregating them, which does create a dull game.

Good luck in your conundrum and I hope I can be of service.

P.S. I forgot to mention, I love dungeon crawling, and that is one thing I look forward to doing with my wife and in general. I know it can be a pain to deal with people "ganking" and griefing you, but that is why I stress making the reward great. Second, I look forward to a good rumble and getting the heart pumping. My favorite in UO was a GM Bard, healer, hider that would just make it such a pain in the arse for PKers that I was simply not worth the time to try and kill; often it led to their own demise from mobs just killing them, a quick flick of the harp and I was profiting off of dead monsters and dead PKer corpses

 

Number one - I want to be able to drop items anywhere on the ground. With collision would be nice.
Number two - I want a criminal system.
I put my money on this game but if they mess up both of these I probably will move on and try something else.

 

Is someone planning on dropping chairs and stools all over the land?

j/k

 

It might give me time to leave the mine before someone gets in.

 

You better not be dropping stools everywhere! Yuck. Use the outhouse!

 

I think this is a thing we will be getting, with a few limitations that have not yet been discussed.

At least, I seem to recall mention of this feature in one of the summaries for releases 5 through 7...

 

I would just dig a hole in the ground but I don't think we can do that either.

 

PvPers who want this game to be built from a core of pvp.. Well.. You're wrong.

PvP should be an addition in a game, not a core. never build a game with focus of pvp, it will never end upp good.
Name ONE PvP Focused game that has been successfull over a long period of time, Please. I dare you.

 

This is about PvP and Death. A criminal system does fall into PvP but it can be PvE also. I think a criminal system would have its own mega thread. It's not required here. (but I do understand your interest)

• Blessings of the Oracle (Open PVP): We are intrigued by the idea of weaving PVP into the lore, so a current idea is that players can complete a task / quest for the Oracle that will flag them as open PVP. Likewise they can have this flag removed by completing a task / quest for the Oracle. The Oracle is neutral (but judgmental) so this is a great way for us to provide a neutral way to get to Open PVP vs. having to set up factions, track blue reds, etc. Players who are in Open PVP (Blessed and Guilds flagged Open PVP) will be able to PVP with each other whenever they encounter each other, even in towns (but guards can, and will, react). Blessed Avatars may also gain access to PVP specific skills and the ability to craft PVP enchantments/enhancements.

This tells me that they are incorporating a moral system into the PvP system. They just didn't detail it. (Possibly gives away story elements they are keeping to themselves) A criminal system is likely.

 

Eve isn't focused and built around a pvp concept. League of Legends, DoTA, Counter Strike, Battlefield, call of duty are. I don't know of any long term succesful MMOs that are centered around pvp that have lasted... The one I played was Warhammer Online.

Even archeage is scaling back its open world pvp http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/02/17/archeage-fansite-compiles-the-games-current-problems/

 

Exactly, there are none.
UO Freeshards doesnt count, they are like mushrooms that pop up everywhere, last a couple of years and then are gone.
Warhammer Online and Matrix Online were focused on PvP, and they both had some kind of world records in least amount of uptime, no?

 

Everything sounds great, including item loss.

 

wow isn't centered around pvp either... mostly end game is raid focused with some pvp in bg's and arenas, but in my experience raiding was the most popular content. World pvp doesn't really exist even in open pvp servers (which I play on)