PVP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost

Unprobable, but not unpossible!
Er, I mean, improbable, but not impossible!

 

Thx a lot for the Ideas Starr however many of them feel strange to me and I dont really like them maybe seeing them in the actual game may change my mind on that.
The one idea I really like is ghosts not being abl to see clearly, but how to make it look like that may be difficult, maybe make it look cloudy and steamy maybe making important or even all monsters competely invisible to ghosts? while making other players show as souls so u wont recognize them ull jst know that there are players there but u cannot recognize who it is. As for scouting important areas is a tough subject maybe lock those areas for ghosts only but just locking revals they are important... maybe ghosts should be in a complete dark world seeing other players as souls or clouds so u can go them to ask for help and healer npcs the same but maybe in a diffrent colours and seperate borders and walls with very dense clouds or somthing. That would allow ghosts to walk the world thou but they wouldnt recongnize anything.

As for deaths and pvp I find many UO free servers (hope I wont get banned for saying that ) actually had some good solutions I find; for example having very small restricted pve areas for starters, where u meet a fair mix of monsters, loot and resources and make the whole rest of the world open pvp maybe with some restrictions to players towns or owners can chose if their player town is open pvp or not. So with the whole world being Open pvp I actually like AOS Insurance system which lets u insure your hard gained armour but not much else and upon death you would have to pay insurance fees, which at 2-3 deaths doesnt hurt much but after dieing repeatly it sums up to dig quite a hole in your bank account.
One major thing speaking aganst this thou is the separation of pvp and pve armour, PVE players would use gear that is more effective against monsters bu wouldnt represent much of a threat to pvp players...
Also with PVP players camping popular hunting grounds they could establish a monopoly which wouldnt be fair either.

The main idea why I didnt like most your your suggestions Starr is the thrill you get hunting at places where u know some PVP players may show up to kill you. Also I think making totally safe areas where u get the same loot as in PVP areas is too much benefiting PVE players as they are more patient doing their PVE and so It may not be punishing enough to just half the loot/resources/monster density. Well you mentioned rarer resources could be found in PVP areas the rest is about balancing it out properly maybe I just got your ideas wrong here.

How about A blue/Red system in which it would be really rewarding for players to kill Reds. So as reds try to find prey in various dungeons, strong pvp able blues on their side would go out hunting for reds and protecting players doing only PVE. ] think the good old bounty system would work well here.

As for the gear Id prefer most gear to be junk with barely any diffence from the gear you could acquire hunting but that would kill the purpose to PVE or craft as you mentioned. So here again it seems to me Insurance would be the best way but being able to insure your whole armour. What I didnt like aboutyour solution Starr (the 50/50 thingy) Is that Id hate to lose a super rare item like artifacts i old uo or pay a ridiculous amount of money for ransom.

So yeah Id vote for the old Insurance system, as much as I hated AOS I think that was a pretty good solution to save the victim from losing his hardly acquired gear but on the other hand award the hunter with a profitable amount of money so reds still have a purpose to hunt. When red die the same insurance would apply to them but in addition you could claim their heads for a large prize money the idea behind is that is rewarding for PVP players to kill many other players to sum up insurance money (players go red being confident in their fighting abilities) and making their heads very valuable (depending on their skills and/or the amount of players killed) which in my oppinion would balance it all out.
Maybe create a special status for players out there only gathering resources like fishermen ^^ or miners. I dont have many ideas here, Lowering Insurance for crafters wouldnt help much because reds would still go after them just for the "fun" of killing/annoy other players or making them invulnerable would be even worse. How about halving Insurance money for crafters (but how does the system make a diffrence from a crafter or lets say a hybrid crafter/warrior to exploit that system) and giving them the option to later in the game when the acquired enough money to buy guards that could chase off reds or buy them time to get away. Or pets that could spy or recognize approaching danger or just naming monsters/players/PVPers in a large radius so the crafter has time to get away (considering crafters get one shooted or close to it)
Distinguishing a crafter from a warrior by analyzing his pack, if the crafter doesnt have full armour equipped or in his pack he will be considered a crafter may be a solution, that again would remove the freedom of wearing armour to defend against monsters, same goes for skills.
Or making a crafter less attractive to hunt due to less possible loot could be a possibility in some cases but again some just like to **** around and just go for the kill...

On the other Hand a miner for example without any gear would just lose his pickaxe and some ore in case he gets killed so they should just try and find more secluted/less popular areas to mine, It would work the same for hunters and fishermen. They could still chose to wear armour and have a few combat skills but they probably wouldnt appose much of a threat to a pure pvper.

Tough subject Im out of ideas for now I hope to get oppinions here ^^
Thx again to Starr first time I experience developers being so close to the comunity I think its amazing wish u only the best so u can focus all your energy on making this game happen same goes to the whole team and the comunity.
Hail the great Lord British thx for making the most awesome games ever I really hope for an Ultima Online 2 here, It seems to go that way in many aspects while other ideas are completely new to me, thats probably the reason I tend to dislike them maybe it will create a positive surprise thou lets see

Have a good one all of u bb

 

P.S.: sorry for the mess and the bad english

 

Nice one I also liked how thieves would steal certain reagents to gain a clear advantage in combat, being initially penalised for chosing thieving skills over more fighting or defensive skills. Traps shouldnt hurt too much thou or make it possible to actually see them without sacrificing an extra skill slot for it. It would be annyoing to constantly being lured into mines or somthing like that. I liked how you could trap containers in UO they were pretty much deadly but looked shady most of the time to players that had previously fell for it. The ability to trap your reagents container would be nice here but again in that case they shouldnt be deadly but hurt for a fair amount making the looter an easy target but not insta kill him.

 

nice ideas here, just make it so only the guy who gets last hit gets aything others are left with lootables like potions gold or junk acquired.

Sorry guys I take all my ideas fro old UO not many to be found in other mmos I played sadly

 

low levels could be used to spy or troll around everyone should be killable

 

I think a fair amount of gold + potions and other useables is a fair trade. Hunting for blues only to avoid farming yourself is just as unfair in my oppinion unless your going to make all gear with barely any stat diffrence but that would kill the purpose to craft and making merchants only characters

 

Lord Spaz
https://shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/unofficial-faq.9626/
Welcome to Shroud of the Avatar!
When first stepping into SotA it can be like stepping onto a very different planet full of changes in our ideas on gaming. But, just like when UO first came out, it can be a very challenging game of discovery where everything is so new "from a new gaming philosophy" that we almost need to change our entire brain in order to fully understand it "and I still don't believe that everyone fully understands this new direction we have here in our SotA"
You will find many things seem normal but have taken on so many more new and deeper meanings. "Deeper Ultima!" that's what it's all about and that link above can fill you in on some of our newer ways around here
"Great Gaming to You Lord Spaz!"
and welcome to our community
~Time Lord~

 

First I must say I am not much of a pvp'er, mostly because I don't have time to play 16 hrs a day 7 days a week to hone skills/ craft mega armor and weapons. I play most games with the idea that I will never be #1 at any part of the game.I find most games are a penalty to those of us that are not " hard core " , but still like these types of games.That being said I like the flagging options.As flagging go and looting could there be a pvp risk/reward system?
for example say 3 lvls of pvp flags 1) basic flag... where the risk is min like gold only and min exp rewards
2) advanced... where the risk is multiple item looting with medium exp rewards
3) war........ where the risk is full looting and max rewards .

Although i have some ideas on how this system work ,ie... lvl3 flag could attack lvl 1 flag (or reverse) but the rewards would only be at lvl 1 flag etc. I dont know if this is a possible solution for hard core versus the more casual player, but it would give everyone the ability to pvp and i think cut down on grief factors as it would be waste of time to attack just for the fact that some will want to just hit weak players all the time.
just my 2 cents.

 

Narrowing down what we call "Loot"


When we speak of "Loot" and looting, we now can only speak of it from a very narrow viewpoint. A viewpoint that comes from the experiences that we have had from other MMO gaming models. What we know of the economy right now and is what I believe to be " a definitive truth", is that "our housing will be more difficult to get as well as maintain"<---<<< No matter what gold amounts we think can be had by looting any other adventurer, "we know that gold will be much harder to come by in the amounts that would allow anyone to easily purchase virtual real estate property". We also can speculate that "something in the world will cost 1 gold" (or 1 whatever)... We can speculate that an average adventurer will be able to afford Portalarium "Row Home Apartment", which I speculate will be about the same price in "loot renting" that we saw in UO basic housing. So, from this perspective, I personally predict that when adventurers get even a small amount of real gold (or purchasing power) that they will be much more motivated to hurry it back to their bank account much more than in past games we all have encountered. If this prediction comes true, then gone will be the days where a single lone adventurer can safely load up to their max weight on gold before heading back to the bank, not because of the risk of being highjacked by some other PvP player, but because when even looting monsters, "the large amounts of loot we have seen in past games simply won't be coming off the monsters to be had". Yet still, we can speculate that an average adventuring or crafting player "will be able to maintain an apartment have enough for basic equipment and eat"<---<<< If they are the average in game playing time
So, given the "mass speculation" with what I have above, we can begin to see where our preconceptions of loot, can be effecting our current looting discussion

"The Value of our world is more in the magic that is in it, more than the things that fill it"
When we look at our ability to loot given such a world's economy, we may be able to begin to see where the current thinking by our Portalarium begins to make more sense, because "the value of our world is more about the magic, than it is about the thing". So, when we are ganked in our PvP and asked if we wish to pay the ransom for what we had lost, this amount will more than likely be more than the average adventurer made from the outing that they had departed on. Yet still, with this same important amount of loot in mind, we can see where the victor in such an encounter has 2 things that can happen; 1) They receive a very handsome sum of loot automatically placed inside their bank account (this is speculation, because it may just appear in their backpack)... or 2) They could have something of an equal value to the ransom amount, that they can then place on their vendor for sale (or sell it personally to someone because everyone will not have a vendor, or melt it down because it was a cheap item from a player who had low valued equipment).

"Ain't no rest for the wicked"
As we can see, either your bank will fill more by the ransom being payed, your blacksmith will have something to smelt, your vendor could become a hot spot for commerce, or your vender could fill, because no one may be buying your goods...
There are no murders in our world, "because if you option in for PvP, then you are one!" with other murders after you ...
That is unless you begin murdering innocent NPCs... but that's another story, for another thread's subject matter

"What a beautiful world that will be!"
~Time Lord~

 

It seems that we are getting ever closer to being able to call this game UO2, what with the people asking for full loot full freedom(which worked so well in the past.). I'm really starting to wonder what the difference from UO there is at this point. Yes, I know that the graphics are different, but the decisions seem to be leading towards the chaos that UO was when it was released. This seems to be at this point basically a mmo with smaller areas.

I'm patiently waiting to see what decisions will be made about combat that sacrifice cool and neat for balance reasons. Too much balance can really stagnate a game.

 

I think you're safe. Very few games stay balanced (even those without PvP.) EQ2 didn't even have PvP for the first few years while combat and crafting were destroyed in the name of balance. Don't blame PvP for stupid dev actions it will happen anyway. These things happen because all of the best laid plans go to hell once more than one person is involved. I guess all there really is to do is hope that everything (single player and multiplayer is awesome when it launches because I have yet to point to an online game that is anything resembling the way it launched.)
The decisions sound nothing like I heard UO was. You have to opt in to almost anything involving another player other than to be able to see their house or let them buy things from your vendor. This game was originally pitched as an MMO that was intimate. I think it still will be. For everyone worried about getting ganked and looted dry, I am worried that I will never see anyone at all. I hardly see anyone outside of the towns during the tests anyway. It will probably be different because the initial content will lead us all to the same places but right now things are pretty lonely unless you want to do emotes in a tavern or craft something.

 

Consensual PvP dude ! Weak up and keep ur head up !

 

UO combat and SotA combat have no similarities.

Death system in SotA have no similarity with the UO system.

There is no comparable alignment system. UO had statloss for PK:s which worked very well. Removed most PK:s and only the really skilled PK:s continued their career.

So there are very few similarities if you compare these features, it is not close to UO2.

Edit: I compare with the UO Renaissance years that had the best combat, alignment and death system of all UO systems (my view of course).

Pre-bought player cities and properties was not something you saw in UO, everyone started at the same position as it should be.

 

always hard to let go you know. But just reading about the project members gives me a safe feeling that this game is going in the right direction, I have bought so many bad and boring games since uo that I became sceptical.
Thx for your reply Time Lord hope to pk u in game jk have a great day sir

 

Not before I PK you first my good friend
We can meet as Brothers in a field of our Blood !
~Time Lord~

 

Cant wait for pk Time Lord too

 

Lets meet at Yew gate guys

 

Thats because most games are such a grind, on the other hand if the isnt a huge grind for powerful items, the players that spend the most hours in the game become bored and eventually quit the game. Ultima Online in its very early days could In my oppinion keep both casual gamers and hardcore gamers intested in the game. The only people that werent happy were the ones that wanted to kill only monsters thats why they implemented the terrible AOS with felucca and trammel. I have nothing against PVEers but the thrill u get hunting outside of safety of guards, I never met that in any other game, I play Diablo on hardcore where death is permanent but guess what? Fighting monsters only with any possible penalty (like perma detah or rly hard mobs) is boring as hell!
Ive tried SWTOR hard raids which requires teamplay and knowledge of boss mechanics and guess what? soooooo booooooooooring. I really think tere shouldnt be to many safe ares in SOTA. Im not a pvper in the first place I certainly learned to enjoy it in Ultima Online.

 

That's easy. Flag yourself for world wide PvP through the Blessing of the Oracle quest and the whole world is unsafe.