Ability to hunt/track other players.

If there's a concept of two (or more) civilizations with friendly territory and hostile territory, then I support the idea of making the hostile territory actually hostile. And the more "bad stuff" you do in hostile territory, the more difficult it is for you to continue doing so. Aion was a good example of how to implement this.

 

I would avoid server generated bounty amounts. If you don't have any money or items in your bank, you can't put a bounty on someone, and he gets away with it scott free. It's that simple. The main reason for this is to avoid having to come up with a complex mechanism to keep someone from using it to game the system. Suppose you're some gold farmer just looking to generate tons of gold. So you get a couple of accounts, and then you have those accounts take turns killing each other until a good number of bounties have been built up on both, then they bring in their "bounty" character to collect all the bounties for them. Bounty character waits until other players aren't in the area, then the characters with the bounties log back in, bounty hunter character ganks them repeatedly (once for each bounty) and collects all the server generated loot. Set up a bot to do this automatically and you have a never-ending gold farm. Any system where the server is generating money you have to jump through hoops to keep the farmers from gaming it. Requiring that the player killed put up the bounty is the absolute simplest way to prevent any sort of system abuse from happening.

It wouldn't even have to be that complex. If player A PK's player B, the server could do a very simple check to say, "Does Player A's inventory contain a bounty sheet with Player B's ID on it?"

I don't know which side of the fence I'm on with this one. On the one hand, yes, a bounty hunter MAY have multiple individuals hunting him simultaneously, but if he's geared up the assassin skills (and if he's not, he deserves what he gets), he should be able to avoid them for the requisite amount of time. I suspect that once he's killed one time, the bounty hunter will have a recall rune set to all the local bounty boards so he can quickly port back and turn it in, which will call off all other bounty hunters for that particular bounty. (The first one to turn in the ear gets the bounty.) So chances are very strong that after one death, the other bounty hunters will be called off long before he even has a chance to ressurrect. Then there's the fact that if he's PKing an innocent, then he's the one breaking the law. Why should the innocent's skill loss be higher than the one killing him?

The concept here is to reduce "harassment" PK'ing, and make PKing a more immersive part of the game without removing it all together.

 

I think bounties are a good idea, but not as a game generated reward, which is just another gold faucet, or even as a player generated award, both of which can be gamed and abused. The main benefit of a bounty system would be to prod the server matching system to match you and the target up. Otherwise, if you are hunting a particular person rather than just PKs in general, if the server doesn't place you in the same instance, how would you ever find them?

If the reward to pay the bounty would come from gold submitted by players, then all a PK has to do is have a confederate kill them, collect the bounty, which is then split. If the game generates the reward, the same think can happen, and the bounty system becomes yet another inflationary gold faucet.

To prevent this form of abuse, people have suggested stat/skill loss as a means to discourage it. I do not agree with stat/skill loss as a punishment for players who are playing the game within established rules. Consider the following scenario. If PKs have a city similar to Bucc's Den in UO that they control, there should be a mirror system by which the PKs can put out a 'contract' on another player, murder for hire. So, Templar Assassiin puts a contract out on Javin, and to prevent Javin from having a friend kill him to collect the bounty, Javin suffers stat/skill loss upon death. Would people still be just as excited about stat/skill loss as a part of the bounties/contracts system?

If full loot is in the game, then you also get all the possessions the wanted person has on them, and that can't be gamed by the target of the bounty, and it doesn't represent a gold faucet. Their loot is your reward.

How rewards are granted is the point where bounty systems break down. They are too easily abused. It is simpler to limit the reward for killing the criminal to what they are carrying at the time of death, and let full loot supply the reward. You'll never get rich from being a bounty hunter, but full loot as a bounty cannot be abused.

 

I actually REALLY like the idea of putting out a contract on a person. And yes, even when there's a skill loss involved. See, I'm 100% about a game having ZERO moderators. I believe in the perfect game, the players will be able to police themselves. Unfortunately, we don't live in a world where everything's sunshine and rainbows, and everyone plays within the "rules" of the game. We live in a world where people are annoying for the sake of being annoying. 10 year olds stand by the bank and swear at people, people make crude, vulgar, and outright racist comments because they think it makes them look mature, and people with zero chance to defend themselves get PK'd repeatedly because people are simply jerks. Some players are simply toxic. Tattling to the mods clearly does nothing to curb this behavior, and a look into literally any existing MMO will prove that. Your options are:

a.) Ignore the player in question. The problem with this is then the chat is filled with people responding to THEM, and it's just as annoying. And you can't exactly ignore everyone.​

b.) Cry to a moderator, and wait for hours to days to get the "we'll look into it" response.​

​

This is literally every single MMO in existence. My solution? Put the power to police in the hands of the players themselves.

Owain, you keep arguing that there should be zero repercussions for "murder" in the game since it's "part of the game." I don't understand why you think repurcussions for murder can't be "part of the game?" Why can't it be "part of the game" to discourage immoral behavior (which is the entire point of Role Playing Games, no? How can you play the "role" of a murderer if in the game being a murderer isn't a bad thing?) You keep making extreme comparasons stating that people who uphold the virtues should have the same "punishments" as PK's. It simply doesn't make logical sense to me. There's just no way we're ever going to agree that in a role-playing game, murder should not be role played as being a bad thing. There are plenty (1000's) of games out there for people who want to PK other players with zero consequences. SotA, I would hope, is not trying to emulate WoW here.

If you had a "bounty" system, I would also use it as something of a money-sink for the game. Server takes a 10% cut, perhaps, for the bounty. But putting a "hit" on someone would be significantly more expensive (it is, after all, ILLEGAL to put a hit out on someone, so should carry a heavier penalty.) So if you put a "hit" on someone the server may take as much as 50% of the bounty. (Obviously, the devs would have to find the working balance there.) But I like the idea of being able to put a hit on someone a lot.

 

I didnt get it. who's the jerk? The guy who repeatedly goes to a place where he gets killed?

 

What if game generated bounties were for title and prestige/fame instead of gold?

 

Prolly the state should put bounties on people based on the severity of their crimes.
People can add to these bounties. Or maybe not. I don't know.

 

I not saying there should be zero repercussions for murder. Far from it. I object to the game inflicting those repercussions. Open PvP in SotA is a multiplayer affair, and instead of the game doing jobs players should be doing, players should be the ones providing the repercussions.

SotA is supposed to be based on the Virtues, whatever those might be. So, as players who are supposed to be upholding the virtues, doesn't that demand that players take an active role to support and defend those Virtues? How supportive of the virtues are you if you would sit idely by, and permit murderers to walk amongst you? "It's not my job", some might say. "I'm too busy. Let the game punish the evil doers. I don't believe in full loot, even if it means disarming a murderer because it seems too much like mugging", or something.

At some point, players should be willing to play the game, and not let the game play the game for them.

 

I haven't really been keeping up with the thread so I won't comment actual ideas put forth. I will comment on the player vs NPC "reprocussions".. in that I think there should be both. Inside the world there is no such thing as players and NPCs.. there are only people... a criminal is a criminal and law enforcement is not going to ignore a criminal because of some excuse (being a player rather than an NPC) that in their mind doesn't really exist. It just wouldn't make any logical sense.

That said there should plenty of lawless areas where NPC law enforcement generally wouldn't go and there may be criminals known for being so dangerous they shouldn't try to deal with alone.

I'm all for player involvement.. but you have to ask in any given situation whether or not the lack of NPC involvement makes sense.

 

Having the ability to hunt down or put a bounty on the head of another player should be supported by the game mechanics. This is to say that the game should not just allow it, it should also include mechanics that make it easier to perform.

The largest problem that a system like this would have is the systems abuse. Steps must be taken to ensure that innocent players are not hunted down and killed for sport (or to grief).

 

The problem I have with having the game enforce things like this is that this is something that should exclusively be a PvP activity. PKs can ONLY operate if they are flagged for open PvP. It's part of the reason open PvP will exist at all in SotA. Why even have open PvP if you are going to include design elements that don't involve PvP?

As it is, law enforcement doesn't ignore the criminals, but as in the 7th or 8th century, the reach of the law was pretty much limited to enforcing peace in towns, which is why outlaws and highway robbers and such were able to exist. The Sherriff of Nottingham didn't have the manpower to dig Robin Hood out of Sherwood Forest, and so bounties were placed on the heads of outlaws, and anyone could kill them and claim the bounty.

This is the model SotA should adopt. Guards keep the peace within the towns, but outside towns, in the open PvP mode, players should enforce the laws by engaging in open PvP. That is why the mode exists. If you can't be bothered to participate in open PvP in the open PvP mode, why would you flag yourself for open PvP in the first place?

 

Here it sounds like we're in rabid agreement. I believe the guards should have some function of keeping the peace within town, but outside of town, NPCs shouldn't have a whole lot to do (except perhaps a rare random encounter with a wandering paladin NPC perhaps, just to keep it interesting) with the PvP part of the gameplay. But this is also why I would like the bounty/assassin system. It would encourage the PvPers to find each other with a mechanic other than, "Join a guild. Now your guild wants to find and kill this other guild for no particular reason." Assassin's guilds, and Bounty Hunters guilds would just form organically, and no game mechanics would be necessary to set them up.

 

[quote="Javin, post: 48953, member: 7491]"It would encourage the PvPers to find each other with a mechanic other than, "Join a guild. Now your guild wants to find and kill this other guild for no particular reason." Assassin's guilds, and Bounty Hunters guilds would just form organically, and no game mechanics would be necessary to set them up.[/quote]
Although I hope guild wars will be part of SotA, in the case of PKs, players that murder other players without cause and who are flagged as criminals by the game as a direct result of their wilful violation of the Virtues, this seems to me to be far more than PvPers fighting other players for no particular reason.[/quote]

Again, this goes back to the very foundation of Shroud of the Avatar, supporting and defending the Virtues. What better way to do that than to hunt down and destroy the worst violators of those Virtues?

 

I'm really having trouble understanding where our disagreement is here, Owain. You're essentially saying precisely what I'm saying, but saying you disagree with me in the same token. You're the single vote against the bounty system, but it sounds like you repeatedly support a bounty system... I'm confused.

 

It seems we are both confused. You say things like "Join a guild. Now your guild wants to find and kill this other guild for no particular reason", but hunting criminals is the furthest thing there could be from hunting other players for no particular reason.

The reason I voted down the bounty system deals with the reward structure, as I mentioned earlier. If the bounty system operated solely to ensure that the server matches you with the target of your bounty, that's fine. Accepting the bounty mean you have a commision from the Crown to hunt and kill the person, legally. I see it as a Letter of Marque. If the bounty system offers a payment of some kind, I think that system will be abused by players having partners killing them to collect the bounty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

 

So it seems we're in agreement on both counts. For the first, I believe this system would organically create guilds. See, in the old UO, there was no real reason for two guilds to go to war (guilds weren't even introduced until late in the game, though). You would join a guild, and then your guild would "agree" to go to war with another guild for no particular reason. Then the two guilds had carte blanche to kill each other with impunity. It simply didn't make sense.

With this bounty hunter/assassin system, you would now have an actual REASON for the guilds to form, and it'd be obvious why they are on polar opposite ends. Plus, you'd get varying flavors of guilds. Some assassin guilds would be pirates, others would be highwaymen, some would be straight-out assassins for hire... Then you'd have the other end of the spectrum: Guilds forming to go after the bad guys. (Which is essentially the reason guilds in medieval times really would've formed anyway. Link-minded people banding together for a purpose, whether it be good or bad). Some of those guilds would have a personal hatred for a specific guild on the other end, so would target them specifically (perhaps owning boats and specifically going after pirates for example). However, the devs wouldn't have to create these mechanics in the game (ie: creating an assassin's guild with quests) but rather the guilds would just naturally and organically form because of the players themselves. Full immersion.

As for the "payment of some kind" I agree that it will be abused (no way around it) but this abuse can be significantly mitigated. Making the skill loss a part of the game, for example, helps to mitigate the problem significantly. A PK who has his buddy gank him for the rewards that are on him still takes a skill loss for the death, resulting in a weaker "PK" that now has to grind up his skills again before going after the next innocent. If he's an assassin for hire, then that skill loss likely won't be worth the tradeoff of the few gold his target put on his head. (This is also why I don't think the server should be paying the bounty. That would turn the system into a gold farm instead of a gold sink). What's more is that patterns like this will be the exception, not the rule. The nature of this system makes the cat-and-mouse hunt as much fun as the PK itself. Particularly if you're setting traps for those hunting you. Imagine being a hardened assassin with a series of newbie bounty hunters after you, and picking them off one at a time...

If it takes, say, 1 hour's worth of work to grind your skill levels back up after being killed, is a few gold coins placed on your head going to be WORTH letting your buddy kill you? Highly unlikely. So that's where the players themselves will have to figure out the balance. How much of a bounty is too much? How much do you think makes it worth having his buddy kill him? Numerous small bounties are far more devastating to the would-be assassin. Bounty hunters would probably hunt these guys for free, so a large bounty isn't necessary. And they'll probably loot more valuable stuff off their targets anyway. The bounties placed on them are a token. Something so the player can say, "Yeah, this guy ganked me, and I paid to send these guys after him..." It's something the folks who like the danger and excitement of the PvP environment can do without having to run out and hunt down the guys themselves. Kind of a, "at least I could do something about it" feeling.

And again with the gold-sink concept, if you wanted to place a contract out on someone who HADN'T broken the law, you'd have to go into the more "seedy" parts of town to find a "contracts for hire" board or something. Maybe talk to a sleezy bartender. Then, to prevent the system from being grossly abused (and also allowing it to be a money sink for the server) you have the server take a large percentage of the "bounty" for that. The natural economy that will form will naturally prevent this sort of system from being abused if it runs off of percentages. (The right balance of those percentages will have to be determined by the devs by simply watching metrics on how the system is used).

 

Great thread Javin! I've been against a bounty system (voted no before reading this thread) for a long time due to exploitability, but you've clearly put some time and effort into this, and the results are impressive. I have one concern, from my inner PvPer: If I want to kill people, but specifically want to do it in a semi-consensual open PvP manner (the equivalent of going to bucs den), will there be any way to limit the bounty system so that people don't place bounties on me for losing fights that they intended on being in (assume that they were attacked first, despite wanting to enter combat)?

 

Dueling would certainly be permissible I would think, as well as "guild warring" would not cause bounties. And I don't see why there couldn't be areas that are "bounty free" zones so long as they are limited to small sections, just like they would be in real life. I could even see making certain objects only obtainable in these dangerous cities. Imagine if you could only purchase Black Pearl in Buc's Den. But it's a lawless, violent city, so perhaps you're willing to pay premium to purchase it off of a player's vendor in a safer area. Still, a lot would have to simply depend on what the end result is that the devs want vs. what they see. If making an area "bounty free" also makes it a slaughter zone, making it so it's a ghost town run by just one tiny guild that holds the town hostage, it may not be worth what is added. But mechanics could likely mitigate that as well. For instance, have bounty free zones work on the old-school UO "murder" flag system. You turn red for murdering someone, but they don't get the option to put a bounty on you. But it DOES still make you open game for anyone who happens to be standing nearby. You'd have SOME semblance of "justice", but still, it'd be a pretty dangerous place to hang out.