PvP Kills VS PKing

It's obvious to me that the biggest area of disagreement between players is the area of PvP and PKing. Some people want to be able to PK and others simply want to be free to play the game without people constantly interfering by killing them again and again. I believe that there is only one solution which will accomadate both parties without interfering with anyone's free wills. It is the same solution that we use in the real world to deter the corruption of society.

If you have a problem with injustice you need to implement a justice system. Many people object to this notion, but I think if they experience what I have in mind they would find that it actually enhances the game experience for both parties rather than retracting from it.

So here is what I propose.

There should be a difference between willing PvP combat and PKing (murder)
When a player goes around murdering other players who are not willingly engaging in PvP combat, it should be murder, and there needs to be some risk of getting caught and a consequence for the action just like the way we deter immorality in real life. This will actually enhance the experience for the PKer because it will add more challenge and risk,... and challenge and risk ='s fun. I keep hearing all the PK advocates say this over and over, so lets give them what they want.

I propose that when a player is flagged as a PKer,... bounty hunter quests start going up for that player, with rewards proportionate to how many points they have racked up by PKing. Once they are caught they should be tried in a tribunal and sentenced to Jail time based on their PK points. Once in Jail, they are trapped in a cell and if they log on for the next few days they will still be in jail. This might make them think twice about PKing or learn to be better at it. I don't have all the details worked out, but there should definitely be some way to get away with PKing just to make it more interesting. Perhaps if you PK when there are no witnesses it doesn't rack points.... this could organically create safe zones and risk zones without actually setting boundaries for it.

The whole process of being in Jail could be something that is fun and interesting also and could be something very new that no other game has tried before.
(jail breaks? riots? bribing the judges? etc...) Anyways.... its something to think about.... I personally think it is brilliant and am surprised it hasn't been tried before.

 

It could make a person check to see if you are wanting to do PvP or if you are opting out before they kill you because of the risk of not being able to play for a few days.

 

I like the idea of a prison system. It could be a whole game within a game. Once you kill someone and get caught you get a life sentence. Now you get to "play" out your sentence and the rest of us don't have to bother with you ever again. You might even get free time in the "yard" and can go around shanking each other since PKers like killing each other so much.

I think you are on to something here!

Daniello

 

I can see them implementing a witness system. If there is witness to a kill it is murder. To avoid having witnesses you must then kill everyone who saw you kill.

Witness would probably need to be limited to players grouped with the person you are killing and NPCs as I can imagine it being rather annoying that every random person be considered a witness, even your potential friends. NPCs would probably need to make it clear they witnessed the crime whether it be them attacking the PK or yelling in fear or for help and even possibly running for help. Maybe the NPCs could even be difficult to catch when they run for help.

This coupled with roaming NPCs/guards/rangers whatever, could give Non-pvpers some safety as in order to be a PKers it at least challenging to some extent.

 

it was already said, that you can't turn on and off PvP whenever you want (think it was something like only in safe havens).

To your proposal: As long as nobody is forced to play with PKs, I have nothing against it. What I don't want see, is give players (mostly player groups) the ability to kill and rob players, that play online, want to enjoy the storyline, crafting, social aspects and housing, but don't want to participate on non consensual PvP. Richard himself said, that player killers were one of the main reasons, why people left Ultima Online. And I can absolutely see why.

For players, that want to play Full PvP, there will be the Full PvP and Full Loot Option in the PvP Guilds for the 2Mio stretch goal. And when you are in a PvP guild, you will most probably never see Non PvP players again outside of towns, that don't want to see you. So they won't brake your immersion. Other players will be able to play selective PvP (arenas were confirmed today by Chris Spears; and special quests, that flag you as prey, etc.).

And for people, that don't like guilds, my suggestion would be, to include some general guilds/alignments, etc., that everyone can join. And one of them should be Full PvP. So there would be enough players, that opted in PvP (regardless whether they want to actively seek PvP or just live in an exciting world, where you can be killed by evil players)

 

Players are smart. They optimize. They'll try a lot of things once for the thrill, but over time it really comes down to game theory and risk vs reward.

If you have a zero sum game where both players start with 1 and the PKer ends up with 2 if he wins, with the sheep having 0, at some point the sheep will stop playing the game.

Adding penalties to the system makes it negative sum. The sheep doesn't get PKd as much and the PK nets out zero or little reward. But ultimately both players dont really like this game and probably wont play.

The goal of consensual PvP is to make a positive sum game which is generally pareto superior. Both players are slightly better off having played it vs not having played it but their skill determines the reward.

e.g.
I can make 100 gold / day gathering stuff in a zone with no PvP
I can make between 50 and 250 gold / day gathering in a zone flagged for PvP depending on how good I am at fighting off / otherwise avoiding the PK. And at my skill level, this number tends to be better than 100.

You can make the system more complex with more parties and more penalties, but you have to look at it from every players point of view as to why he or she should play this game.

 

I hope the game does not include any "prison" that has the effect of making the game de facto unplayable for more than a few minutes. It is a penalty that will substantially outweigh just about any potential reward involved.

It might be possible to design a system that is actually fun (and not just an arbitrarily harsh punishment for the "wrong" kind of play), but I doubt it. I hope and assume the devs won't seriously entertain forced jailtime.

 

I do agree that a prison system is bad because anything that effectively prevents you from playing the game is not good for the game itself.

I would much rather see features that make it difficult to survive as a PK for instance, if you kill someone and there is a witness they cry for help and you have a certain amount of time to escape or silence the witness otherwise help could come in the form of NPCs or PCs. Killing a person with witness could send everyone nearby that is a PvPers a notification and general location on the map of the incident.

What you end up with is player policing players. Eventually you will have players waiting for the notifications so they can track them down.

 

My preference is simply to make PKing hard work, through a mix of balance and realism. If players aren't overpowered then attacking another player, even a newbie, is a risk. If they have to worry about having food and sleep, setting up camp, etc. they have to take breaks from PKing.

If its hard work to be a PKer, as I described, I don't care if they exist, or if they loot all your items off your body.

In that case, a PKer just is forced to become a type of role-playing character -- a brigand -- and fit into the role-playing world accordingly. The PKer/brigand will want to team up with other brigands to camp together, stage raids and ambushes etc.

The big problem that leads to things like griefing is the PKer isn't role-playing, he just has a bunch of overpowered loot, nothing substantial to lose, and nothing else to do with his game time except PK. Force the PKer to role-play, it will solve a lot of problems.

i.e. make the gameplay as far from an action-RPG as possible.

 

If you add in a prison system, you have to add in a way to shorten sentences or escape from prison. Maybe we should stop thinking of the prison systems we have now and think of what a world stricken with dragons and necromancers do for prison.

My vote is you get sent to something like the Mountains of Freedom in Serpent Isle. PK a lot and you have to go into the MoF. Go there often and you'll get better at getting out faster, but it will still take some time. Of course, the PKer will have lost items due to dying or getting captured, so the loss of the PKer will be greater than that of his victims, but he can get multiple victims before he gets caught, so it may even out in some player's eyes.

Oooh! You could have a "Judgement" spell that you cast on a player and if they die with it on them, they get sent to a Spirit Courtroom where sentence is carried out based on their crimes. You could make it so killing someone who hasn't killed anyone else causes negative karma and the only way to negate negative karma is to either kill someone with worse karma than you or die and be judged. Make it so the worse your karma is, the further in the MoF you'll spawn. Also, killing another player in the MoF doesn't net you any physical rewards, but either moves you closer to the exit or somehow helps you escape faster. Even better, make strong monsters called Reapers stalk the halls of the MoF, and they will follow you slow enough that they won't be on your heels all the time, but fast enough that you can't ditch them. Then, you just add a mechanic that makes them change targets if another player is disabled and closer. This gives the "Don't outrun the bear, just outrun the fat guy" mentality in this very PvP oriented area.

Most of all, make the MoF fun, but not productive. No experience gain, nor item drops. Also, you could make it so players in MoF are all on equal footing with no gear nor personal stats. They are Spirits, after all.

What do you guys think?

 

what if you're a new character and you're attacked by a high level character and the game adjust you to equal level to the character attacking you so you have a chance to survive against the attacker making it a higher risk for the PKer

 

@ChosenPredator

In GuildWars2, they build a really sophisticated system to upgrade and downgrade players. And then everyone just blew through the content in a few days. (Warhammer did something similar.) The better answer is to really not have levels. It simply doesn't add anything to the game and creates these imbalances. Either the imbalances are a permanent part of the game (e.g. old school Korean grinder games), or they're a temporary until you've played through the get to the end game. It's really better just to put people and the end game.


I think this thread has been answered many times. I simply don't see PKs existing because, since anyone can opt out of PvP, it's all really consensual. There will be people that will be evil to you and you will be evil to them.

 

"what if you?re a new character and you?re attacked by a high level character and the game adjust you to equal level to the character attacking you so you have a chance to survive against the attacker making it a higher risk for the PKer"

The game would probably never put you in the same instance together. The game tries to put players together in a way that makes sense. Your example doesn't make sense as a reasonable combination, so the game should never let it happen.