PVP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost

This creates "separate server syndrome" I can't play with my friends who are pvp and play with those that aren't. With the current system I can play with all of my friends, which is awesome.

 

I'm not opposed to some sort of full-loot system. Where by opting into full loot you can be looted entirely and someone else can be as well. The problems come in with deciding looting, I think that can be worked out but it is tricky, once you start mixing a single looter and full looter and parties with both it gets iffy. Maybe if they do a system where you join a party the party leader's choices affect you, they are full loot you are now full loot too (Just give good warning prior).

Now the big problem I have with all of these people claiming they want full loot is this: You have no idea how equipment works in this game. There are many systems that may make nobody want full loot, the victims or the people claiming it. Items that are virtually useless due to low durability/repair costs associated, the mentioned affinity system. There are a good reasons not to have it.

Finally, I love gear progression, gear games. Every RPG I play has more powerful equipment, more expensive equipment, it's part of what I enjoy about the game. I don't want to sit through final fantasy using some 1,000 gil armor through most of the game, I want to advance, I want it to be more expensive, more difficult to obtain, I want to save up for 100,000 gil armor and I want it to be quite a bit more powerful than that early level 1,000 gil stuff.

 

I have some fairly strong opinions on PvP and Loot rules, so I figure this would be the best time to air them.

The original post implies players should be penalized through repair penalties and the like. This does not work. It doesn't work in WoW and it won't work here. I think items should degrade over time via use, and possibly become weaker and degrade until they're repaired (not all-or-nothing like WoW and other games use). In fact, they should degrade through regular use, with deeper penalties upon death. In the case of a Full Loot system, this means that you need to repair anything you scavenge, on top of safely carrying valuables through a battlefield or other dangerous territory. This puts a steep price on recovering other's gear. You can't reasonably take gear you can't afford because you won't be able to pay to repair it. If you're an artisan and you can repair it yourself, that's great, and will lower the cost. This is realistic and follows real economics. Someone skilled can use their time, for free, to add extra value to an object. Or you can offload it to someone else who can afford to repair it, but you're going to get less for it. Again, this is realistic, and these sorts of deals happen all the time in real life.

Another stated issue is that of the crafting system. That people will only use low-level gear to avoid the penalty. But that's not true at all. By causing gear to degrade, you constantly give craftsmen something to build. "I'll just use cheap gear" is the sort of thinking a new player will have, but it'll end up being detrimental. It shows that this system hasn't been tested by whoever is deciding these things, because the observations don't show an understanding of real economics. EVE and UO function fine with full loot, and it inspires players to ramp up production. Cheap gear won't be worth the cost of repair. Assuming that the price for repair scales with the power of the gear, but not linearly, we should see a situation where cheap gear is better just ditched because you can buy a new pair for almost the cost of repairing it. Buying ten pairs of cheap gloves might be the same price as one quality pair of gloves, but the total cost to repair them could buy you several more pairs, while the cost of a more expensive item, which might degrade more slowly and be cheaper to fix (not absolute, in terms of percentage) makes it a better bargain. Craftsmen will pump out many pairs of new items, and consume resources to create them, but there'll always be people ordering the better quality stuff.

In Ultima Online, business operated more or less as such: You'd go out to make a profit, sometimes you'd succeed. Some jobs were riskier than others, particularly ones involving PvP. If you got stabbed through the neck and died in the woods, and someone ripped off your awesome Warfork, you'd hopefully get some of your gear back (The attacker would become overburdened with weight if attempting to carry your entire backpack) but likely not your best gear and cash. So you go to your bank, grab some money, and buy a new Warfork. You just wrote off the cost of it as part of doing business. Sometimes you'd lose your gear and it would be unrecoverable. This was rarer, but most people could still recover. The thing is, the sort of people who go around in a full set of gear are the kind of people who can afford to replace it when it's lost or needs maintenance. They're also the kind of people who could lose everything and still get it all back by working for it.

The assumption that people will just use cheap gear is completely off-base. That being said, I don't think gear should exist as a treadmill to better gear. An having Full Loot reinforces that your stuff is replaceable, not unique items. You may not be able to get the exact same thing, but you can certainly replace it. The difference between "cheap gear" and "good gear" can't just be raw stats. Something that costs ten times as much shouldn't be ten times as powerful. It should be tougher and decay slower, it should offer less inconvenience to the user, and it should be somewhat better at what it does. Just using stats is a terrible way to represent this when you can include factors like "swing speed" and other special maneuvers. A skilled player should be able to take on another player with better gear by abusing their mistakes and any flaws in the loadout they're using. Not just by having their damage stat be a bigger number. Again, Full Loot levels the playing field here and it forces the reason someone uses an item and gives it value to be something beyond mere numbers. It also gives different types of items value by making them good against other items.

While I respect the developer's decision to try and balance a PvP system where nobody is forced to participate, but incentives exist to get them to do it anyways, I think the entire ordeal is pointless without Full Loot. PvP is a meaningless endeavor unless we can have battlefields where your gear is up for grabs. What you take out to where should always be a dilemma you face. And yeah, sometimes it means a player will wear cheap gear. I'd probably wear cheap gear to go out and harvest wood because, if I'm ambushed, I'm going to lose my lumber. I don't want to lose my combat gear, either. But I'd also have at least one, if not more, high-end armor sets laying around for a rainy day. If I lose one, I want another. And I want to be prepared for a fight, just not at all times. And if I'm underprepared for a battle, I'll lose. Maybe it would have been worth it to take my best stuff and get an edge. Or maybe I'd have lost more that way. It adds a whole 'nother element to the game that can't be replicated any other way.

TL;DR: Full Loot or GTFO.

 

I live in a country town where if you wander at night or are alone you have a high chance of being robbed/assulted in various ways( we are the stabbing capital of Australia)..the point is, people still live here, there is a chance that your car will be stolen at night, house broken into and so forth. People find a way to live in this danger and work around it.
same with SOTA, we will develop social practices that will,deal with and thrive within what should be a dangerous medieval world.

 

Being an old UO player I was hoping for full loot to create that feeling of immersion. I am currently playing Rust and am loving it. It reminds me so much of the UO days when the heart starts racing when you leave your house. I need that immersion to get excited when I play. I love how in Rust it is possible to blow open a door or wall to raid someone's house. I wish this would be possible in this game so it introduces a house defence meta game. Please guys make it more like old UO.

If there is worry about high end loot being banked then why not copy what Rust does. In Rust when you die and respawn you retain knowledge of blueprints/recipes so you can chop wood/mine ore to rebuild your items and weapons. So what I propose is that in this game the PvE mobs/bosses drop rare recipes that allow one to craft the halberd of force or invulnerable plate etc. This works then to:

1. Everyone to work to obtain the recipes;
2. Craft the weapons/items; and
3. Rebuild after getting looted.

It does turn the game more towards farming and crafting but it means that you can rebuild your weapons because the system/economy revolves around recipes which are never lost.

 

I honestly feel like more people would want full loot than not, the fact that PvP is completely optional. You have said they can interact with areas that are safe zones, not quite sure why they would care if the other areas are full loot open pvp?

 

So what you are saying is unless you actually ruin someone else's playing experience it's not worth it?

In SotA you will get some gold and a trophy, I do not for my life understand why there must be a "I need to punish another player" for the game to be fun.

 

I’m amazed at all the new 1 or 2 post posters that have shown up, interesting. I do find it kind of insulting that for some reason some of you think your opininions are more valid for PVP unless we are hardcore pvpers. I would think anyone who backed the game has every right to voice their concerns/thoughts and it is a bit ignorant to say otherwise. We continue to have this back and forth of sides instead of looking at it as a whole. This whole silly arguement that pver’s are more likely to take offence? Hmmm you basically call someone a newbie/whatever to designate they have no skills and definitely sounds more along the lines as a way to demean them. Keep playing that you don’t understand that, but I’m pretty sure you do.

Mod edited for content.

 

This way of thinking punishes my way of playing. Goes both ways.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

Anyone can explain me that points?
1 - Im still farming, the classic idiot come and start to leave me loot, kill monster before me, destroy some object, take the aggro of some big monster and try to kill me, so in general a player can lame vs me and me apart try to invite him in a stupid duel without full loot what i can do to stop them?
2 - I enter in a dungeon in non PVP AREA flagged PVP and i take the some resource of 1 guy NON FLAGGED PVP that can easily farm and give all their stuff to the other character on their account PVP FLAGGED?
3 - Im alone, i farm a lot in PVE, after some time 1 day when i have a lot of resource i stay in my house, i create a guild, i flag it OPEN PVP, so i gain the access to PVP SKILL/ITEM CREATION, i do all what i need and the day after i leave again the OPEN PVP FLAG FROM THE GUILD? O_O
4 - PVP specific items are necessary for? Do you imagine that me flagged PVP enter in a dungeon with a set of PVE and meanwhile farming i meet a PVP PLAYER with full set PVP?
5 - PVE Player can create the top level item set for PVP player, so that is = to say that everyone must make 2 characther, and for me have no sense to take risk with pvp for gathering resource
6 - Loot a charachter have around 20 item slot, with the chance to loose an item at 50% from equipped we have only 5% of chance to loose a weapon item that usually is the most important for a warrior archer, for mage if not correlated to their handled wand have no sense...
But ok we have the disaventure to loss it... Darkstarr financial society come to you, just pay a quote and you have back your item... dont have money? no problem Darkstarr society offer the most important leasing offer of the market.....
After this last one i dont have the streng to continue my comment....
Only 1 word.. [C E N S O R E D]

Ok now we come back serius.. pls vote UP! for who agree with me and we try to let them to hear our voice..
(sorry for my poor english but i have to less time to read and correct the post)

 

But problem is that SotA are announced as a story driven RPG with multi-player capabilities and not a hard core PvP MMO.

 

Even with 1 character per account alot of people here have enough money for 2 accounts, this is an older generation crowd coming from UO.

Why do we want punishment for death in PvP?

You just died you should be punished... Back when I was a noob in UO I got killed ALL THE TIME, it was so fun. It got to the point that if I was out of town and I saw someone I would actually have my heart race as they moved towards me. Why would u not want a real thrill/scare of being killed/killing.

This is all redundant anyway you are not being FORCED into the pvp enviroment.

 

Once again they are trying to recruit old school ultima onliners, you have to expect for us to get something out of this

 

In PvP zones will be flagged as open PVP, meaning anyone entering that zone is flagged as PVP. The PvP flag (Blessings of the Oracle) means you will be able to engage in PvP every ware with others that have flagged them self.

 

Well they when from story driven RPG with multi-player capabilities and then added some PvP mechanics so they have done some changes.

Edit: And also since they more or less dont mention UO but rather Ultima series means that they are trying to recruit old Ultima players to.

 

No one has fought harder on the "it's more about Ultima as a whole, than Ultima Online specifically" side of the argument than I have, but this statement is a bit much. The design goals focus more on the core Ultima feaures than UO. The missions statement concerns FPRG's more than mmo's, but to say that they are not trying to recruit old UO players is simply untrue.

They ARE trying to recruit old UO players. UO is part of the Ultima series (even if it is only one part) and it's fans deserve to be recognized and ARE being targeted by this campaign.

I may argue when someone tries to call this UO2 or put all the spotlight on UO, but... come on, let's be reasonable here.

 

I'm glad to see them. More new supporters.

Maybe you should work on thickening up your skin. You have never supported PvP, and unless something has changed since the start of the Kickstarter, you won't be participating. As such, their opinions are more valid on PvP, since they plan to take part.

Those who plan to participate, sure. Those who do not, maybe not. You play your game, and PvPers will play our game. If it won't affect you, why complain about it?

Unless it involves involuntary PvP, which is never going to happen, the only people I see taking offense are PvE players. For the most part, PvP players plan to ignore PvE players. I know that is my plan.

Why should you care, if you won't be PvPing anyway?

My compliments to the moderators.

 

Full loot does not take away value because they "bank items" unless there is not enough value in the item to actually use it out in public.

The rarest items were never suspected to be on a corpse (except the rare piece of phoenix armor in UO). On the other hand, the rarest (non weapon/armor items) should likely remain in a bank for safe keeping, unless being transferred between bank and home or bank and a transaction (in which case open it up to possible death) BRING BACK THE PACK ANIMALS!!!!!

Long live Ruffian Class!

 

The "PvP quests" will be contraband quests and stuff... So I guess by accepting contraband it will make you grey and switch you to the open world. Perhaps the quests that a person opts into that happen to be PvP should involve full looting of all the quest-related/specific items and the gold acquired during the PvP quest, and everything else that you bring with you is safe.
So basically... What you had on you when you started the quest(except gold, bandages, potions maybe) is all safe. Then you start killing monsters and gathering material, you can have most of that looted. Like the contraband could be taken, the special resources, and maybe the key to the treasure chest, or the treasure that's in the end of the dungeon. All that is lootable in the PvP quest, but what you brought is not.