Insurance ?

I've been thinking about a possibility for this that is less overpowering, more relistic, and involves some strategic decisions:
A Holdout skill and a Search skill

A player can use the holdout skill to hide objects in their inventory. It will mark the item as "Hidden" and remember the skill level it was hidden with, adding a penalty for each additional item as you run out of good places to hide them.
If you use or equip the item, it immediately becomes unhidden.

If the player dies, when their opponent tries to loot them, it checks makes a check based on their search score and the item Holdout score to determine the chance that they can loot the item. If the two scores are even, it should be roughly a 50% chance, though a 0 vs 100 should still have some chance.

This system seems more interesting than insurance as it requires decisions from the player (what order to hide in, whether to put skill points in Holdout or a skill that could help avoiding dying, whether to use an item and risk it being looted, etc). It's also a good deal more realistic to make it so people may not find hidden items than the idea that insurance someone magically prevents them from being taken, plus it's not a guarantee.

 

@Rydel, This is a way better system then Insurance.

They could counteract each other.
I'd almost rather have it so the looter loses some fighting skill points by becoming a good looter whereas the one who hid something doesn't not lose that much skill.

Maybe the holdout skill is more based on how many items you want to hide.

 

I'm not in favor of Insurance. Why should I be in favor of 'the skill du jour'? I fail to see where any skill is involved here, other than it's a McGuffin to allow people to keep their stuff.

No nonsense skills, please.

 

@Owain: the more i read some of these guy's responses, the more i hope mr garriott, does what he wants to do with the money, mechanics wise....

These people continue to beg for another clone of the already abundant item based, no loot mmo's out there just go download one, quit trying to destroy the game before it's built.

 

Perhaps we could do away with item insurance, and just prescribe all those worried about such things a can of in-game androgel, just a suggestion

 

I think what the Felucca junkies are forgetting is that this isn't the next Ultima Online.

So, Guerrilla, you say "just go download one" with regards to "another clone of the already abundant item based no loot MMOs"...

well, go play UO. There are free shards out there that are Pre AOS.

why cater to the people who want the most penalizing forms of game play?

You have to meet in the middle. Understand that not everyone playing wants to put up with that crap, but still wants to socialize and play online and go on adventures.


I like the idea of a PVP gear tab and a PVE gear tab where one can drop and the other can't. That seems pretty reasonable. And then, if you've got PVP toggled on and you start fighting, your armor switches over to the PVP suit.


It's clear some people just want to compete/battle/do the usual. It's a broken record. Half the time I killed people on UO, I just left their crap on their body. What the heck am I going to do with a bag of regs, and some casting equipment? I swing axes around.



People argue that it is more realistic to have it this way.


Well, how about things that are stolen off corpses be flagged with their original owners name, so when the guards or bounty hunters kill the murderers, all of that stuff is taken away from their inventory or bank account, and sent back to the original owner?

That seems pretty fair/realistic.

and how about the murderers have some serious difficulty in getting around and dealing with life once they become a thieving murderer?

Wanted posters. Intelligent guards that charge/attack/apprehend on sight!

Seems good to me.

What some people seem to forget is that the penalties for being a red on UO weren't that severe. I mean, you could stand right outside the guard zones and wave to people.

I'd like to see wandering patrols that will attempt to apprehend murderers and thieves. Forget this "you have left the protection of the town guards. You're totally screwed now!" business.

Medieval police, riding through the wilderness on patrol, hunting down the criminals.

That would be awesome.

 

I like the above idea.

A number of single player RPGs I've played handle "stolen" loot by tagging it as stolen. It could have many consequences; the most common one was that "stolen" loot could only be sold to specific "fence" merchants, which typically pay half or less of what a legitimate merchant would pay for the same item. Another common consequence is that, if caught (killed?) by a guard, every bit of stolen gear would be removed. Some games even went as far as making guards attack on sight if the player was blatantly using a piece of stolen gear.

This improves the realism and balances out stealing to not be overpowered.

Note, though, that I only support full loot if it's opt-in in some way, with both the looter and the looted player having previously consented, in some way, to the player looting mechanism.

 

I like Arkhan's idea too. Although if said murderer puts my gear in a trophy case / bank, then I have no shot at getting it back (unless the return policy applied to those locations as well).

 

Well most criminals could not live in town so I guess they can bury it or hide it at their camp.

 

I've noticed that some people show a notorious attachment towards gear by making it an ?eternal? extension of their characters... Sadly, this is an after-effect of the ?hardcore-gear-grind syndrome? many games today have left people experiencing... Such mentality can be tolerated in games where gear takes about 6 months to get (no one is masochist enough to be willing to lose items that take that long to get ? completely ridiculous standard of today?s gaming industry).. but if the game mechanics allow it (and there are no reason why it shouldn?t), and make gear obtainable a lot easier than the standard of current MMO games, then why not enjoy a game that has this sense of realism? It provides a realistic approach of the consequences of ?dying.? Gear Loss can offer an opportunity for additional value and meaning to the concept of gear itself. The fact that it can?t be taken for granted adds such a substance to it that when one?s avatar holds a sword, one knows it is ?the sword? and I need to take care of it as a valuable tool?

There is a similar issue regarding equipment durability... I am one who agrees that equipment should break. Why? There are some reasons why but to name a few that overlap with one another, 1) it aids as a stimulus in the game world?s economy (to keep the world constantly needing more gear to be crafted/hunted) and 2) gives crafters a constant cyclic refresh in the world's inventory (providing the need for more items to be made).. What is important to consider is "why" it should break and based on ?what? conditions. If one repairs and takes the time to care for ?x? pair of gloves, they will not break (this also displays some realism about the items one owns and the care one provides for one?s equipment). But if one uses it for what could be considered a decent amount of time (or carelessly in the real world, however you want to word it) without repairing, then it should eventually break. At that point, the ball is on one?s court and it was one's responsibility and one's actions alone the reason why it happened..

Gear overall is just a tool that decreases one?s ?physical? hardship while on an adventure, a random reward (to an extent - not becoming the end-game/purpose of playing) to the avatar while hunting and shouldn?t be taken for granted as part of the avatar ?eternal? essence.. It needs to have value and meaning purer than it stats or protective/offensive qualities.. And avatars should care for their equipment knowing it is not eternal but a temporary tool that if one wants to keep, one must survive or repair constantly (now.. repairing can?t be eternal either.. and such mechanic would motivate the economy in its own way as well.. but I will leave that for another thread...)

 

I do not have much to add to what has been said so far, only that I am not a fan of item insurance, and hope that it does not make it into the game. I likewise very much hope the devs steer clear of any trace of making this a gear-based game, and there are no uber swords, or anything else, in the game (with no exceptions).

As has been stated, offline play is not an issue, as, presumably, a player can simply load a saved game. As far as online plays goes, losing gear to PKs and during PvP should only be an issue to those who choose such a play-style. With regard to the other modes, I would argue that full loot is necessary even in a PvE context.

@Owain's posts best summarize my view on the issue. The above post by @Grimric as well, and a few others.

 

All gear should break.


I think if a murderer is turned in, their "houses" and such should be searched for equipment tied to another player.

It's like when they imprison a criminal and search their apartment and find tons more incriminating evidence.


Would make criminal characters harder to play, and in a good way.

 

"Will it be in this game? and what do you all think about it?"

If it's in-game, I hope to see it entirely player-run with the insurer able to make a profit or a loss on insuring other players' gear. This could be a very interesting tie in to the crafting system, where crafters can tag items they make with X number of replacements if the sword breaks/gets lost. The crafter could then make a separate "bank vault" and store the replacement items in there for their customers to claim. Hmm this could be interesting. But please, no Lord British bailouts for insurance companies that are "too big to fail!"

 

Insurance nah better get running shoes, but back in 1999 with the clean up in uo you did had the chance to get a item bless with 500k tickets , perhaps a verry hard to obtain bless deed would be better

 

I'll add a vote for no insurance, but yes to cost prohibitive binding. From what's been described gear in this game will have unique qualities, and if full loot is used that just means your interesting items will sit in a bank gathering dust. Even bound items should still wear out from use, though.

 

Quick answer to OP.... NO there should NOT be item insurance in SotA.

Why? I understand this isn't Ultima Online, totally ok with that, but item insurance is basically what repair costs are in modern MMORPGs. They are so unimaginative and are oftentimes an unnoticeable consequence to dying, which just doesn't feel right. As Owain has pointed out, having to replace your items keeps crafters busy and a constant market for goods. It's a tad early to get on this subject as we don't know what consequences await dying, but I'll still toss out a blurb.

If you have your Sword of Intended Jealousy, you "know" people will look at it, covet it, desire it, talk about it.... but they will also want to take it! This is an open world old school fantasy game and if you wish to flaunt your status, you need to be able to back it up, either with your own skills or a group of friends. Obviously, all this pertains to Open PvP PoIs so you KNOW you were going into a situation that you might lose your items. If you want to go to town and show off your Sword of Intended Jealousy, by all means, go for it. The town guards should be able to protect you but...... you never know.

What if you were in an Open PvP PoI and a theif of cunning abilities was able to disarm you, snoop through your backpack and grab the Sword of Intended Jealousy from you?

 

Exactly why, if there's open looting and thieving as a forced part for engaging in PvP, I will never engage in PvP at all.

SotA will have some things that, from the point of view of making players accept harsh mechanics, are huge downsides: consensual PvP, plus single player online and offline modes.

If a player dislikes any aspect of how PvP works he can just choose to never engage in PvP. By never engaging in PvP the player is free from most, if not all, unwanted interactions with other players; in your example, he could be showing his Sword of Intended Jealousy as much as he wanted, with no way at all for other players to take the Sword by force or guile.

If a player otherwise likes the game, but dislike some aspect of dealing with other players, he can just retreat into single player online, where he can experience most, if not all, of the game content without ever having to worry how his interactions with other players will go.

By the same token, if the player dislikes more fundamental rules - say, the PvE death penalty itself, or even the way competing for housing works - he can play in single player offline mode, where he can mod the game to his liking, save scum, or even outright cheat.

In short, the game content in SotA can't be held hostage to force players to accept unpopular mechanics the way it can be done in other MMOs. Add something unpopular to PvP - and I do think player looting would be unpopular - and, instead of making players accept it as a required toll for seeing the content, you will have players simply dropping out of PvP - or perhaps even dropping out of the online mode at all - while still being able to see the content.

For my part, if there is a PvP mode that appeases me - fully consensual, little to no penalty for death - expect to see me take part in it a lot. If all PvP have elements that I dislike, though, don't expect to ever see me take part in it. And I really doubt I'm alone in this.

 

If you don't want to accept any risk for PvPing, I would just say don't PvP then.

It's as if saying you're going to take up boxing but don't want to get punched in the face. You step into the ring, you know what you're getting into. If you get knocked out, you're going to maybe lose a little pride/dignity but you get back up, train harder and continue fighting. Because there is NO Open World PvP (per se) you know that by entering a Point of Interest that has a big red flag, and even has a warning prompt before going in, you're going to want to be prepared. Not only PvPers would go in there though, I could see a scenario where gatherers/crafters provide services but also have a chance of being attacked by the "opposing faction" in that PoI scenario. I actually just got a good idea but will type it up elsewhere.... *chuckles*. Back to the point of insurance...

The whole mentality of "if I don't like it, it's not my way, I flat out refuse to participate" just oozes of perceived entitlement which is a whole issue of its own. As you pointed out, there are plenty of ways to not engage with other players (which is great for people that would rather not or just play with friends). You still do risk being killed by a monster and it looting some of your items, as humanoids (orcs, trolls, etc.) tend to do.

 

I would like to add that I read Arkhan's idea of items being tagged to their original owners and being mailed to them if discovered... perhaps at a fee to the medieval police. There should obviously be ways of getting back your items but they should also be affordable to replace. Second and third suits of armor/weapons/reagents. This life is rough.

 

Which is exactly what I'm saying. If PvP brings risks that I'm unwilling to face, I just won't engage in PvP.

You know, those kinds of friendly, or at least organized, fights always have rules. In Box, for example, there is no kicking, no hitting a downed opponent, no hitting below the belt, etc. PvP is similar, there are always rules, though the rules themselves might be different in different games, or even different PvP modes in the same game.

What I'm doing is merely looking for some PvP with rules I can live with. I'm not asking for all PvP to be without consequences, I merely want there to be some kind of PvP that is mostly consequences-free, so I can engage in that.

In other words, I don't care if some kind of PvP has full loot and harsh consequences for defeat, or even if that is the default for SotA's PvP. But I would really appreciate if some kind of mostly consequences-free PvP was also in the game, so I could engage in PvP in a way I can actually enjoy.

For a game, though, it's completely proper. It's a leisure activity we are paying for the privilege of engaging in; thus, there is no reason for a player to engage in any element of a game that he doesn't actually enjoys, specially if he can, somehow, just opt out of that element.

Which is why I pointed out that players can flee to PvE, to SPO, and to Offline modes. In Offline mode we will likely be able to use save scumming to nullify any and all consequences for defeat, as well as mod the death penalties away if we don't like them. So, players will be able to escape even PvE penalties if they don't agree with them, though doing this will require going to offline mode.

Also, I was pointing that, due to all the way players can flee mechanics they don't like and still see the content, adding unpopular mechanics is more prone to drive players away to game modes where they don't have to face that mechanic. It's my own case, at least: if I can interact with other players under rules I can like, I will do so; but if the rules I have to accept in order to interact with other players are not to my liking, I will just start changing modes until I get one where I can like the rules, even if that mode is playing offline with appropriate mods.

BTW, when taken together with the stated intent by RG, and the dev team as a whole, to convince as many players as possible to play online, in OPO, this points to the need of the rules to be agreeable for as many players as possible in order for that objective to be met.