PVP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost

They also said they were listening to their player base and very little were set in stone.

Feels like i was talking to ears that were shut from the beginning. +700 posts later and nothing i and loads of others were interested to see in the PvP game is here now when it arrived.

To me that say that developers only listen to some players.

 

WoW does have open PvP servers. But that is just how you flag for PvP. WoW open world PvP has zero purpose. Unless you count honor points, which anyone that want honor points knows this is the slowest method ever to get those points.

All WoW's PvP servers do is allow people to attack other people when they are busy doing something else.

SotA has not detailed anything to do with WHY we PvP. This thread is only about how to consent to PvP. We will have to wait on the "Why we PvP" mega thread.

 

I understand why you might feel that way, but this IS the compromise... well the proposed compromise; none of it is set in stone. Frankly, it seems like they've done a great deal with this proposal for the PvP crowd. There is an option to flag open and PvP anywhere. There are multiple avenues for PvP. Heck, they're considering an entire skill set JUST for PvP. They've put out the olive branch and have stated that this is NOT necessarily the final vision. I don't see what else a person could ask for, given the initial vision statement.

 

It says PvP Current thinking.. I have to wait on another thread to explain to me why to PvP now? Are they just making stuff up as they go along?

 

This seems unfair. The community clamors for a statement on the devs' thoughts on PvP. The devs give us a thread devoted to their thought process which is not set in stone and therefore open to OUR influence and they get complaints about that?

I want to take a second and thank the Shroud Dev team again. Thank you for listening. Thank you for keeping us up-to-date. You guys rock!

 

For some things they may be. But the reason we PvP very easily could tie into the story too much to release that kind of information.

Can't let everything out, got to save some of this for release. Or at least closer to it.

 

Not really if you take away something so core then it doesnt matter if the rest is good in my opinion and that is why you CANT please both sides.

 

For some, yes...yourself included.

For others, it's the worst experience possible in a game.

 

I totally agree with you there and if you would have bothered to read it all you would have seen that is why I think only separate servers would work for this would never work for me and i guess others aswell.

 

Some of these ideas are ok, but I have found in the past that just by mixing PVP and PVE rulesets on a single world does more to discourage overall PVP play because players are lazy. It would be far more beneficial to have a separate open world PVP shard, then try and cram PVE/PVP into one shard; or, just make the entire game PVP with a few safe zones.

I don't see a benefit to the ransom as it will likely force players to keep their good gear at home ... if you want to do ransom, then you have to offer a binding system (like EQ) so that some items that the player values can be bound to them and made non lootable.

Death penalties should affect all players at any level. By incurring an experience debt, you are only causing inconveniences to those that are at the top tiers. IMHO, Shadowbane had the best death penalties that I have seen yet in an MMO:

1.) after death you were returned to your last bind point city
2.) a deathshroud timer - that prevented you from being cast upon and from casting spells that grew in length if you had more concurrent deaths. starting time was 2 mins. this really helped in GvG as when a player died, they had to sit out and couldn't instantly rejoin the fray. This helped by removing active players from the battle after their death and keeping them away so that a winner could emerge.
3.) equipment damage - a great money sink
4.) a grave stick that contained none equipped items and non banked money - this made

 

If you are to make a game for all players, then make a slider that goes as far as open world pvp / full loot like UO. People that want a solo game they can play in their own world. The only reason I pledged for this game is to give RG his chance to make a followup to UO. This mean open world pvp / full loot.

I don't want to force anyone playing in this world if they don't enjoy it so make it so that everyone is happy. No compromise in between thought. instanced pvp and honor trophy isn't the solution.

 

But now you're talking about another game; as has been explained multiple times, SotA won't have multiple servers...not like that, at any rate.

 

Full PvP is actually one of the things they do have. I think many people don't really know what Open PvP refers to. It doesn't mean that all people are forced into PvP. It means that you are able to PvP anytime anyplace in the world, and not just guild wars and zones.

They stated they will have open pvp, but it is optional. I know what was said during kickstarter about saying PvP will be optional and nobody will be forced into PvP. That was never in question. You seem to think that I was implying something I was not. You've been critical in each thread about this subject but some of the stuff you've griped about I wasn't advocating in the first place.

****************

1. I don't like the PvP only gear, and skills. Why can't we have the same skills for PvP as for PvM? Although they fixed the gear issue though by stating it can be added to your PVE gear stats. (that was a huge reason for being upset last week because that is exactly why many of us didn't like world of warcraft PvP).
2. I don't like the seemingly mechanical nature of PvP that is proposed. Having to complete some quest to become open PvP but hey at least Open PvP is in the game (make due with what you got).
3. I thing there is a lot of room to improve upon the meaningfulness of PvP so it's not just a bunch of people going out to find other people and kill them. There should be innocents and villians. Those who attack a player that have not committed some kind of criminal act should be flagged a criminal and a murderer if they kill that player. Everybody should be able to attack a murderer and there should be some indicator that this player is a murderer and wanted for his/her crimes...
4. There looting system is creepy. I would much rather settle for an item insurance option instead of this system. If they don't insure the item it gets looted, if they do insure it the winner gets the gold not the item. The loot system is just that creepy.
5. I really dislike the fact that gear plays such an important role in this game. I was hoping for a skill based game where top tier gear is very helpful but isn't absolutely necessary (as was mentioned by the devs a long time ago). Either way it make sense that you might not need to take your prime gear into PvP without risking it being looted. You take good, but replaceable gear into combat (not crap gear like the devs are trying to make it out as just not the Prime gear)... that type of system has and does work.
6. There's other things that bother me but I lost my train of thought so I'll stop here. Is that helpful enough?

 

Some comments on both Abydos' and Ristra's proposed systems

For Ristra's:

I like the idea of the looter being forced to make choices -- given a partly blind list of item names, and making the time to loot depend on the type of item and whether its equipped. I think the same type of thing can be enforced by limiting the looter's carry weight, but this is a good addition to that, in case the devs want to be a little flexible with carry weight. I still think a looter should have to make priorities if he wants to run away quickly and escape to town with the loot, but the process of looting items shouldn't be that easy.

For Abydos':

I also like the idea of the person being looted being forced to make choices on what to protect, if he wants to protect something and giving him a cost for it. I think my suggestion for a mana cost is a good idea, because it gives fighter characters who don't use magic a use for their mana pool -- they wouldn't have much of a use for it otherwise -- and it won't affect mages as much, since they're less likely to equip weapons and armor.

Possibly, if its implemented right from both sides, requiring some choices on both sides, it could work out very much like a poker game : both the looter and the person being looted are making choices against each other. A smart looter can have his choices pay off, and a smart victim can have his choices pay off.

One other point of discussion:

In a lot of older games, you have a choice to bribe an enemy and avoid a fight. Should it be possible to bribe another player to avoid a fight?

 

YES, YOU CAN DO THAT.

 

Just need to post this from the Kickstarter page:

Shroud of the Avatar is the “spiritual successor” to Richard’s previous work in the FRP genre. Our primary objectives are to tell a story even more compelling than Ultimas IV-VII, create a virtual world more interactive than Ultima VII, develop deep rich multi-player capabilities beyond combat akin to Ultima Online, and offer a bold new approach to integrate them with “Selective Multi-Player”.

• Shroud of the Avatar is infused with rich storylines, deeply integrated into game play, developed by Best Selling Author Tracy Hickman and RPG legend Richard Garriott.
• Players will adventure in an interactive world where their choices have consequences, ethical paradoxes give them pause, and they play a vital part in weaving their own story into the immersive world and lore surrounding them.
• Shroud of the Avatar is a Selective Multiplayer game, allowing players to choose how they want to play! Whether in Single-Player Offline mode or any of three online modes, the main quest line will provide greater than 40 hours of focused, story driven content.
• Shroud of the Avatar can be played as an offline DRM free solo experience or online, where our servers will enable player to player transactions, group finding, patching, streaming of dynamic content, and exploit prevention.
• Built using the Unity Game Engine, Shroud of the Avatar will support Win/Mac/Linux for official launch.
• Players can specialize in a wide range of combat and non-combat skills, provided by a robust, classless skill system, and full-featured crafting and housing mechanics. Play the way you want to play, molding your character into the hero, anti-hero, or artisan you want to be!
• Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtue is the first of a 5 game series of full-length, stand-alone games (each using the same game system), referred to as Episodes 1 through 5. Estimated availability of Episode 1, Forsaken Virtues, is October 2014, with Episodes 2 through 5 estimated for subsequent yearly releases.
• Shroud of the Avatar is a “buy-to-play” game that, once purchased, does not require a subscription to play!

So, that one small bit about combat "akin" to UO is the only thing a lot of you have focused on. Sorry, to me that does not mean complete open PvP and Full Loot.
Reading the whole statement and comparing it to the contents of this mega-post IMO Potralarium is on the right track. I see a middle ground being developed that opens up a new experience for all players. Granted this all needs to be coded and tested but it stands to be very different that anything currently out there.

EDIT: and +1 again to Ristra's suggestion.

 

But if you take out all of this "toxic behavior" what does anyone have to gain from fighting another player? A place on a leader board? A shiny? A custom title? If I am a PvE player (which I am) I would be saying "oooh, I gotta get me some of the that!" Not. I'd be all for them getting some special and powerful things because I feel there is more risk that way. I know people are going to quote me and tell me I'm wrong but whatever, I prefaced it with "I believe..." so if you want to argue about it go ahead and waste your time. This system as proposed has no teeth.
I want XP debt and death rebuffs to suck at least as bad as it did in EQ2 at launch. I want penalties so bad that you'll break off at least some of your fights when overmatched because you really don't want to die here. (In PvE too.)
Finally, I'm extremely disappointed in losing only one random item. I really think the looter should pick it if you have to only have it be one. If you insist on it being random, let the loser have half of his randomly selected items be looted. I feel that anything less than 25% is unreasonable.
Most of the map is safe. Anyone who chooses not to flag is safe at least 95% of the time. What more could anyone ask for and still call themselves compromising?

sent from the future using my Coleco Adam

 

Compromise is not whats going on this will never be a game for PK's so instead of staying here being hated on for my opinions im just going to be glad that i helped this game for others but certainly not for me and good luck to you all

 

I am right there with you. Which if you really look at the suggestion I made on looting. It's actually creating the illusion of full loot but not giving full loot. The person looting must think about what they want and go for it, systematically reducing the availability of everything else to be looted due to time constraints.

 

WoW PvP Sucks. Plain and simple. YOU walk up to the person and you do DPS and if two people walk up to the same person that single player always loses. Then you respawn and do it all over again and hope that a pal comes by and you don't lose. Same old repetitive crap. Also it had PvP gear that was only good for PvP (separate from the PvE gear at least SotA heard us last week and changed it to make it a single gear system). Speaking of gear WoW was a truly gear based game and you needed gear to be competative.

UO you could go PvP in your GM made armor and weapons, and if you had enough skill (not just character skills but your own personal skill) you could beat a player who was decked out in awesome magic items. Yes that vanquishing katana would kick your but but if you knew how to PvP you could still take that guy down and take his vanquishing katana. THATS REAL RISK VS REWARD PVP This game is just like world of warcraft. No risk vs reward. This is not a spiritual successor to UO, maybe to ultima but not UO at all. Everybody at those freeshards that LB talked to should stay right where they are.


KEY POINT HERE: See the stuff in purple. That's what people were asking for not this unnecessarily complex PvP system.