A plea to take a chance (discussing PvP, thieves, etc)

"I'd love for open-world PvP, but have serious consequences that make would-be villains stop in their tracks and think, "...is it really worth it to do this?"

I do not believe this is what most 'evil' characters want - I think they want the joy of being bad and getting the rewards of that "playstyle". They want to be the cause of others unhappiness. They want to build themselves up by tearing others down. They want high reward/low risk and to gloat about it.

Do I think *every* person who wants to roleplay an 'evil' character is like that? Nope. But I bet it's the majority.

 

Good, even more the reason to do it. It would deter every moron who just wants to prey on others with no consequence. If you want to go around murdering people, you will have serious consequences. Do i think it should be your character gets deleted by being put to death? Yes, that would be cool, but is a bit of a stretch. However, there has to be some legit consequences for villains that could be put into place to allow for open-world PvP.

If someone wants to play the villain but whines about the consequences, then too bad, that's what you get for murdering players or robbing them as a thief. This, coming from a thief/murderer.

 

This can't work. People that have the "sheep" mentality - in other words, people that dislike getting into conflict with other real persons - wouldn't be able to hunt the thieves, or enjoy it even if they did hunt. In any game that would require the players to become the hunters in order to have fun, those people have no place at all.

It's why the kind of atmosphere UO had at the start will never return. Nowadays the "sheep" have many MMO options where the game prevents them from ever being hunted, so they don't have to put up with any game where they are hunted.

SotA is going for the next best thing: allowing players to set for themselves if they want to be available for PvP or not, and using instancing so everyone you see has chosen the same.

Look at https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=3955 ; this is the official info on how the multiplayer modes work.

AFAIK, offline characters will be permanently locked offline (to avoid issues with hacked characters, cheats, etc). But online characters will be able to change between solo, friends only, and open play modes more or less at will. And, for open play (AKA pseudo MMO mode), characters will be able to enable or disable PvP within certain limitations.

 

If you really do want to discuss PvP consequences, though, Shinobi, I'll offer this as a starting point...

In IRC, we've talked about this too many times, but during one conversation, this mechanism was offered:

Failing at player conflict results in temporary banishment.

So what does that mean, exactly? The idea is that if you become good enough to actually try and steal from other pvp-enabled characters, in a civilization-hex (such as a village, town or city) and/or the adjacent housing hexes, and you get caught, you're banished at least. Additionally, a fine or other penalty may be imposed, but banishment at the minimum.
It means you're removed from and cannot re-enter that hex (from the overland map) for a period of time. What that time is would depend on the crime, time since last offense, and if your reputation precedes you (you've been caught before, in this hex). But something like 10 minutes as a starting point seems reasonable, given there are going to be many thousands of hexes for EP1 launch.

Now, you could expand the idea to wilderness player conflict. One of the chief complaints regarding open world pvp consequences (or lack thereof) is that players often can be returned to the field of battle within a very short period of time. Ok, so make it so that if you die, you can't enter the hex where you perished for 10 minutes. If you die within a certain period of time, again, increase it to 20 minutes, or some other increment up to a maximum. It means removing a player is a strategic move. If 10 minutes is found to be insufficient, increase the minimum banishment time.

So, to be clear, you can go anywhere else in the game, but not that land hex, for that time. Additionally, you can be temporarily banished from more than one land hex, concurrently.

Setting aside looting and stat loss, and experience loss, and skill loss, and all other punitive potential mechanics, would you accept such a mechanic as part of pvp-enabled player conflict, in SotA, Shinobi?

 

@vjek

I wouldn't really call that enough. Do you know how many hexes there are going to be? So many... This is the equivalent of you can't go to town... for a while.... all a PK would do is move to the other hex next to the town. And so on, and so on... It's not actually penalizing them in any meaningful way.

 

Actually, that almost makes sense but not really. For the sake of the roleplaying aspect, i'm 100% for tossing my thieving-ass in a small jail cell for 1 in-game hour, if not longer. That's a cool mechanic that makes sense. Give the player maybe like a book to write in or something while he's in there, allow for visitors to come hang out and talk to you while you sit in jail...THAT would be a fun consequence that's solid enough for a thief to debate whether or not to steal something on a whim. Maybe even make it longer sentences for repeat offenders.

As for murderers though, it'd have to be something more severe...not sure what though.

 

That's fair, and that was going to be my next question, is that enough? However, there could be differing time penalties depending on how you died, to whom you died, who you attacked, who you tried to steal from, and so on.

Now, consider what I've outlined above, but change the banishment time to one RL week.
And, further, as an optional feature, if you are caught in any player conflict action (failed theft, observed killing) the entire region banishes you, so it's not just one hex, it's all village, town, city and adjacent housing hexes in the region. Is that enough?

Similarly, for wilderness player conflict, the time could be one hour as a minimum banishment time for death at the hands of any other player. For some, that might be too harsh, though.

I don't disagree other punitive mechanics may be necessary, but this one mechanic could be not enough for some players, and too much for others.

 

The problem with jail is it makes players want to logout. And they would. This mechanic let's them continue playing, but still offers a deterrent for immediate re-offense. Jail may be offered as an optional punishment, though, I just don't think very many players would choose it.

As has been pointed out by Portalarium several times now, "realism" vs. gameplay is an exercise in compromise. Jail is definitely one of those cases.

 

It'd be in-game time, such as the disguise kits in UO. They worked for 2 in-game hours. Like i said before, i'd want something that is a real consequence. Saying, "ok so you stole the item, you can't go to this town for this amount of time, but feel free to go to the other towns!" wouldn't really work. If people don't want to be stuck in a jail cell for an hour (or multiple hours eventually), then be more selective about what you steal, or become a better thief and don't get caught. Rather than limiting what can be stolen and such with something like insurance, make a stronger consequence. Toss me in jail, please.

 

@shinobi in game jail time fails because while it makes the character stay in jail for x amount of time, the player is free to go about and do whatever they want. So I could log on, go to bed, and when I wake up, I'm out of jail. I'll I've done is use up server cycles from other players.

@vjek a week wouldn't really be long enough. Most people can only log in on the weekend, so a week of is a case of "That's fine, I was about to bail for the week anyway."

 

PvP is in every game and in many forms, i dont think that feature alone was why this thread was created.

Being able to fully play the bad guy and consequences like old felucca would be a better description. Having game mechanisms that not fully allow that kind of roleplay is not something i would like to see in SOTA.

 

Being able to roleplay a bad character is way more important then any realism. In what fantasy game did you ever encounter full realism?

UO statloss was close to a deleted character. Many did actually delete their PK:s when they had that many murdercounts.

 

Do you think most people are "Role-playing" their evil characters? That hasn't been my experience. But beyond that, that's my point.

So we have to introduce balance and saying that the good guys should just take it because that's how it would be in real life. But if we want to go down that road, then what I said above applies. That's how it would go in 'real' life. We've already stepped off the side of pure realism, so now we have to talk about balance. You can't just open up the floodgates on evil and think it will magically balance out. You have to understand that certain mechanics of making this a game and keeping the good guys coming back to achieve their goals are working for the bad guys. The difference being that the good guys are ruining the day for virtual monsters and the bad guys are ruining it for real people.

So what's the line? Where is it fair? And once you figure that out, you have to answer... for who? And then it all falls apart. Everyone has a different idea of where the 'fair' line is. So the best thing to do is just try to allow some in game balancing, but for those who don't like the system, they just don't participate. By doing that, the team can make the system that does exist far more... realistic... for the good guys because those who don't find it fair, don't have to join in, and the bad guys can have a lot easier time being evil.

 

Why not put us thieves in jail, banish us from certain hex's for "x" amount of time, but allow us to barter freedom with the victim?

If we are caught red handed and/or killed in the act of thievery the stolen item rubber bands to the victim, and we lose 10-15%skills and pay a fine. If we are successful in our theft then the victim can hire a player/npc detective to track us down or a band of player/ npc mercenaries and put a time limit on the case. If we make it through the timer of real game time without being captured the item is ours. Server message to the thief "made it away clean", server message to victim "the trail runs cold". Until that timer runs out the item cannot be dropped/traded except into the thief's bank. The timer only runs down when the thief is in game. If we are captured by the victim/his band of npc/non-npc crew put us in jail and demand the trinket back. Should we produce this trinket from our bank boxes/person and return it to the player we pay our fine and go about our business with skill penalty. If we fail to return the trinket wipe all skills from my character, charge me a fine and put me in the stocks for a real week. Make the fine large enough to cover detective/mercenary expenses plus x%. If you cannot pay the fine your character is wiped of all skills/stats/bonus and you are left naked in the wilderness with nothing plus the ability to not return to that hex for 1 month. Left with nothing but your name, and maybe a new thief brand/scar. The more often you are caught the heftier the fine becomes, and the easier it is for guards to spot you.
I would love that risk.

All that is needed is a timer/victim name on stolen items with a rubber band effect on death or item drop.
Optional *timer can be lengthened or shortened depending on the Hired detective/mercenaries contract.
(Some players may not care i made off with a healing potion, but I think players should be able to up the timer if I stole your "Super sword/armour/life changing item)

And if the heats on me and I can't shake the detectives/mercs I can always drop the item as a surrender. The item rubber-bands to the victims backpack/bank and I take a skill loss/ x amount of time banished from that hex.

I would much prefer the theft and the honest chance of me being caught/killed then being scammed by a friend with no chance of recourse.

 

I suggest that any thief that is caught gets permanently marked as a thief, get caught again, lose a hand and thieving become twice the risk. Get caught a third time and you're player is executed, i.e. your credit card banned from further accounts. Now that is a bit more fair and realistic. After all, if you steal something from me that took me a year to acquire, shouldn't the penalty be as onerous as my loss?

 

Outright nonsense. Ban a character for playing the game as designed? Don't be absurd.

 

Yeah, I don't agree with banning.

 

The OP himself states I personally would love to be thrown into a world that could be extremely unforgiving.And goes on to suggest permadeath. He's asking for real consequence. I think we can agree that being able to simply recreate a character doesn't create much consequence.

 

Really? Losing a character you might have spent months/years on gone forever. Would beyond suck, banning the entire account/credit card is nuts. Why would you want to implement a system where you would lose subscribers?

 

Then you should say something like, "if you wish to be thrown into a world that is extremely unforgiving, then...". That makes it clear that you are not suggesting something for SotA as it exists. If you are suggesting something for SotA as it exists, then my original opinion holds. Outright nonsense.