PVP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost

This.

I PVP in plenty of games. I don't agree with full and open loot. I have stated the reason in other posts. Essentially open loot is not necessarily a PVP enhancement that increases one's time in actual combat. To the contrary, it is a looting enhancement that causes PVPers to have to exit combat and go find replacement gear. That benefits crafters and gear vendors. It does not benefit people who want to maximize their time in PVP combat. Sure, it may add to edge of the seat feeling for a minute while you are in combat, but for every time you lose, you have to go off the battlefield and think about how to replenish your gear. That is time out of PVP. If my goal is to maximize my time in PVP combat, and not have to go find new gear with every loss, that is hardly being casual.

 

For me, in a RPG, PvP whitout Full Loot is a no sens.

 

Lord Beaumaris, somehow I never considered that. Since I plan on being a crafter I guess I should be whole heartedly supporting full loot. Or Rez killing over and over taking one item at a time until full is accomplished.

 

Until they sell the equipment they have looted on their vendors, and undercutting yours because they did not need to take the time or resources to gather. Pretty soon all the venders will be full of looted player gear. Unless it would be considered contraband (stolen goods), then the vendor could not sell such items.

 

I love the idea of contraband. Since everyone is pretty much opting into being looted it seems that shouldn't apply here. I think it would be cool if it were possible to loot other players and gear were somehow marked that way.

 

@Caska & @Lich Lord - Read this thread which discusses those very ideas: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/affinity-and-looting.12880/#post-216774

 

Exactly This.

Looting has little effect on Crafters, unless, for some unfathomable reason, the PvP victors squirrel away their captured equipment in vast undergound warehouses. What primarily drives demand for Crafters is Combat and the subsequent damage to equipment, eventually requiring replacement of said equipment. As a Crafter you should be Against full loot as that will provide the PvP victors with a ready and easily obtainable supply of equipment for resale and the ability to vastly undercut your prices.

 

Thanks for that. I had been trying to ignore the discussions about affinity because I assumed it to mean that the item grows stronger the more you use it. I am not fond of that style of itemization because it kind of thumbs its nose at crafters. I do like the idea of breaking the original owner's affinity for an item to make looting someone a little harder. It might be kind of cool if there were a system that could reward you for winning your stuff back.

For me a zone wide message that said something like:

"The Knight Marshall Caska DiFumarate has recovered her jewel-studded brassiere from the corpse of TimeLord."

would be good enough.

 

If there is no way to reduce looted materials into its basic materials to be used for future crafting, then full loot won't matter much. Also, what's the purpose of having a full loot flag in addition to a PvP flag? If the majority do not select full loot, and you do, what is the result? You can't loot most people, but everybody can loot you? Unless you can only loot others that have the loot flag like you do. It seems like a strange mechanic.

There should be one PvP flag, and one style of looting. We may have to move away from the whole idea of full loot. What I always want to see lootable is a head if you choose to chop up the body. I would also expect to always be able to loot resources of all kinds that have been gathered. Apart from that we might have to deal with a ransom system.

 

I never understand why people who don't want to use a capability argue against the possibility of those who want it being able to have that functionality when it never affects them. I don't see a problem with loot tables going to the lowest common denominator when a PvP encounter is decided. If you don't opt into Full Loot, you just get what you would normally get in the system.
I would even like to see it in PvE. If you have the possibility of losing all of your items to a bear, you should be able to get type of thing you can get from field dressing. Now whether you want to carry it all remains a different story. It could be just as dangerous looting a PvE corpse as a PvP corpse if you follow Ristra's model. Besides, if that mangy bear buried all of your stuff in his den, you could come back and kill him for it.

 

The problem is the solution here. It's clunky. It adds another layer of complexity to be coded into the game. Another layer that could be buggy. Another thing to trouble shoot on top of an existing system.

It's not that I didn't ever wanted full loot. I don't think it is likely to work for the masses in SotA. Although, adding additional flags seems like it would be quite a bit more complicated than you guys seem to think. I don't think we should add that extra complication for the developers of this game. Also it might end up being a seldom used feature... a waste of developer time and resources.

Rather we should try to find a compromise that sets well with most people, and live with it. Regardless none of us are going to get everything we want, but we might get more if we think in terms of compromise and have reasonable expectations. Otherwise you're just going to end up very disapointed when your feature does not get added.

 

...who had it equipped at the time of his death.

 

That's the difference between us I think. I'd rather it just not workout than settle. We suffer every year in the United States with these politicians reaching a compromise. It usually means everyone gets it. I already made everyone mad when I said that I'd prefer that they not even bother adding PvP if they were going to implement it half cocked. The team owes it to themselves to take the time it needs to do it right because they certainly won't have time to do it twice. Even full loot isn't going to happen in Episode 1 but we're thinking about it would be OK to me.

That was just wrong. lol

 

Well so far people are liking their combat system, and the PvP. So what are you going to do when you keep standing firm on a position that isn't going to happen?

Compromise is something that people do for the sake of society. I'm not saying to compromise your spiritual beliefs, I'm saying be flexible and come up with something that is the best for you and the ohters who disagree with you.

A big problem these days, is the art of debate is lost. Some people seem to think that you are either right or wrong. There is no middle ground. Agreeing to disagree is a compromise too, and it is for the better of the two who do it. Try to find some kind of compromise or you will continue to be miserable, to yourself and others around you.

 

LOL, I got everyone mad and said that when it looked like there wouldn't even be open PvP if you weren't in a guild war or something. They were thinking aloud before they even made this megapost. Their original ideas were really restrictive (they must have felt badly for all of the ganking that happened in UO. I never experienced anything remotely like it so I am not certain why they are being so timid about it.) What would I have done? I wouldn't have PvP'd and boxed up the game when I finished the story.

They've gotten a little more comfortable with their ability to keep everyone safe yet give some of us the fear that we crave so PvP doesn't seem as segregated to the point of being the waste of time that it would have been.

I'm not the one who refuses to compromise nor I am not the one parading down the streets saying that this will be yet another RPG they bin because of this or that type of playstyle being catered to. I am not saying that you are either. I just encourage everyone here to stop refusing to even try something. Making blanket statements like "only a few people will use this" or deciding that something is a waste of development resources doesn't help either. This game has so many facets that there are all sorts of things that are the reason that this project attracts them.

Not having full loot isn't a complete deal breaker to me as I've never played a game that had it. If they don't implement it, whatever. I'll probably try another game that does it. I may not even like it. The good thing is that they will probably add something like it during our tests and I can be mad that Isaiah took all of my Spoony action figures and then destroyed them so even if I did manage to beat him in combat they would be gone. Then Chris Spears would say "I told you! Now I will never let you get Spoony action figures in the game!" They are going to watch what we're doing and if things go well, they'll implement them. They keep saying that nothing is off the table (Well, except being able to burn down Silent Strider's house while he's still in it but no one is crying about that either.) On Full Loot, they are pretty much saying "probably not" but giving the eyeroll and a maybe when we keep asking. (If it sucks, they'll probably leave it on for those of us that begged the hardest and make us pick all of our stuff up after everytime we die. Just us though.)

 

In every compromise there are two losers. Neither party is satisfied with the result. Championing compromise simply extends the dissatisfaction endlessly. What we want is Consensus. This is a term that is completely misunderstood by about 98% of people. A true characterization of Consensus is that both parties are winners (and satisfied they got their wishes). Sadly, consensus seekers will never succeed. Make your own conclusions as to the reason why.

Please don't think I am being critical of your points. I just jump in mindlessly whenever compromise is championed. I spent a large part of my career coordinating consensus and just cannot help myself.

 

I guess so, but I think we will end up having to compromise anyway.

 

Aye. Compromise is the soul of Mediocrity.

 

We're supposed to get ghosts so that won't be easy to accomplish, I hope.

 

I agree with this ther should be a loss yes but youre gear should remain yours. Unless u make it like in old uo where running around naked or wearing heavy plate didnt really make a diffrence but crafters wouldnt be happy about that. So yeash lose your regs maybe a fair amount of money but dont touch the gear

I still think uos after aos insurance system was a great idea, if you were shjort on money your gear would still be gone and cut up by a mean red but Im open for new ideas, so far the devs new ideas were great and I really got the feeling they know what they re doing asnd how it should be in the end so I fully trust the devs here