Goblin Squad Member
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How about allowing lethal and non-lethal damage?
This is an idea that came about from our chats about PvP. There are many who do not want open-PvP due to the threat posed by joy gankers; others feel limiting PvP artificially limits a world that is suppose to be immersive and feel real. Both sides have points, but because of my playstyle, I hope to find a group that plays like myself and go build a town somewhere out away from civilization, I need to be able to use the threat of violence to defend myself and/or my friends and our endeavors.
So, even though I fail at PvP, I fall into category asking for open-PvP as I feel the threat of violence can also be used to keep harassers at bay. Someone mentioned that I then am becoming a ganker if I do that by limiting someone elses fun. I agree that technically that may be so, but I feel I am justified not only because the person who I use violence on would have been warned several times before we use violence, after they die they are welcome to come back and get their stuff, and perhaps most importantly, as RP I feel my character would be justified in its actions.
All of this discussion did give me a cool idea though. Why not allow non-lethal combat? This would add a whole new dynamic to the game, one that does not exist in any game currently.
HOW IT WOULD WORK:
Non-Lethal damage would be toggled on the UI and play out exactly like lethal combat. However, the player is not dead. They can be looted and treated as if they were, but they see a cool down that is dependent upon how poorly they loose their CON roll and how much damage beyond zero they took.
At the end of the cool down they would "awake" with a fraction of their HP, but no other detrimental effects.
By allowing players to carry corpses or bodies, this allows me to defend our property by non-lethally subduing an intruder and carrying it away from our holdings.
It provides all the threat of violence in the name of defense without the negatives of loosing levels, stats, loot, and/or whatever and the cost of having to pay a priest to restore them. Sometimes you don't want to really hurt people, you only want them to leave you alone.
+1 to that (I already suggested, in a another thread, that been killed in a place such a town could be managed as a "very bad beat")
Goblinworks Founder
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I like the concept.
I have been following Guild Wars 2 for a few months now and their combat system automatically has players in an incapacitated state upon reaching 0 health. Other players can then revive the player (via a cast bar timer) but enemy players can also choose to kill the player while they are in an incapacitated state. I would like to see a cross between guildwars2 and age of conan, players incapacitated at 0 health, spare them or do an age of conan style fatality. If I am playing Chaotic Neutral I might just flip a coin to decide.
It might not be as complex as your idea, but I would be in favor of either. I'm not sure as to what kind of characters I might play in PFO, there might be a time I want to play a Robin Hood style highwayman or bushranger that robs merchants and couriers without murdering them. I might get attacked by a player killer and turn the battle against them only to spare his life at the end (not like it would matter though as they'd probably attack as soon as I turn my back)
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In the table if one non-lethel damage exceeds their remaining hp they fall unconcious untill that damage has healed to less then their remaining hp.
Also there are weapons and rules for non-lethal in the books. Also looting an unconcious person should not result in the remaining inventory being destroyed.
Just cause I want to knock you out and take you to the middle of a giant maze and have you wake up there doesn't mean I wanted it to be difficult to kill you.
Besides isn't assault and theft a lesser crime then murder?
Deleted! My mistake.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just cause I want to knock you out and take you to the middle of a giant maze and have you wake up there doesn't mean I wanted it to be difficult to kill you.
Besides isn't assault and theft a lesser crime then murder?
in MMO terms, it depends if murder includes theft. if killing someone only sends them to respawn point, it has much less effect than taking their stuff.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I never saw a benefit to this the first time this topic came up, and still don't now, especially the carrying the unconscious around part. That to me is open for so much more abuse then killing ever had, under the guise of being "nice". First off the reactions to it cannot be any less then death. "OK I technically didn't kill him you see, I just knocked him unconcious and left him in the middle of thousand bear field!, you can't blame me that the bears ate him". Or drop him off on a road you know bandits are known to strike etc...
Odds are a killer is traveling light, the only loot-able/lose-able items an intelligent killer would be carrying, would be the spoils from his last murder and maybe some potions that he was unable to drink, so killing him/looting his body is both morally sound and appropriate. Knocking someone unconscious on the other hand is a huge delay to them getting back to playing. If you are going to be able to take him anywhere, you are looking at a minimum 5 minutes of unconsciousness, few people would want that under any circumstance. Want the high moral ground? Yell "Leave this area now or prepare to die" before you charge them.
Want to kill someone to make a point? bring a cleric, Killing and then resurrecting someone has minimal ill effects and would show off your muscle rather nicely, without forcing them to wait 5-15 minutes for you to carry them off. For me I can't think of any situation where I would rather be unconscious for 5-30 minutes rather then just being killed outright, it sounds to me like a very evil way of being "good".
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I was seriously exaggerating what should be able to an unconcious person to make point about killing clear. Obviously I failed that.
I do not in anyway want killing people to be any harder then is already the case but if I use the weapons and spells with non-letthal effects it is harder to win for one but two it is better for all involved. Technically following pnp rules it is harder to simply knock one cold then to kill them so if one takes the effort them the benifits should reflect this, and as I would expect it to be implemented would have those benefits for both atkr and victim.
Reviving would take less time, require no travel, and inventory would be intact minus what was looted.
The attacker gets less criminal time for commiting an action that is better for the victim.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was seriously exaggerating what should be able to an unconcious person to make point about killing clear. Obviously I failed that.
I do not in anyway want killing people to be any harder then is already the case but if I use the weapons and spells with non-letthal effects it is harder to win for one but two it is better for all involved. Technically following pnp rules it is harder to simply knock one cold then to kill them so if one takes the effort them the benifits should reflect this, and as I would expect it to be implemented would have those benefits for both atkr and victim.
Reviving would take less time, require no travel, and inventory would be intact minus what was looted.
The attacker gets less criminal time for commiting an action that is better for the victim.
If someone is knocked unconscious by person X, and then killed by person Y how would that be handled? Does person X get the full penalty for murder because if not person X can abuse it to get kills without being blamed for the kills. If so person Y can abuse it, by killing the unconscious person and then killing X for any reward of killing a criminal, or simply do it to make the person get in more trouble then they intended.
Secondly how long should unconscious last? and what is to stop someone from waiting for you to get up, then knocking you out or killing you again (and if you say you can't be looted by the same person twice, what if he called friends over after knocking you out).
Honestly I cannot quite fathom a situation where being knocked out would be favorable to just getting killed, you may lose what you collected on that trip, but when you die, you are respawned in a safe location. Being knocked out you are either granting the person immunity in enemy territory (which also could be abused by his friend knocking him out before he goes into combat), or if you don't make him immune you can keep him in torture for a very long time and slowly obtain everything he is carrying. I could fill a book with abuses, but not a paragraph of benefits for this mechanic.
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Well. It shouldn't last long, but not matter what you do someone is going to be like you write several books about how to break the game. We should focus on those who want to play the game not on those who want to play break the game. Some considerations should be made yes but not to the extent of removing vast amounts of potential fun and rp.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We should focus on those who want to play the game not on those who want to play break the game. Some considerations should be made yes but not to the extent of removing vast amounts of potential fun and rp.
Oh how I wish we could!
I would love to see many, many things that I think would be awesome from an RP perspective, and would be just great if everyone was interested in playing the game fairly and positively.
Unfortunately, it is absolutely vital that the developers try to be as aware as possible of how the game systems might be abused. There will still be creative griefers that find ways to manipulate the game, but it needs to be fought as much as possible.
Unintended Consequences can destroy the game, so it's vitally important to try to see as many as possible before implementation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I never saw a benefit to this the first time this topic came up, and still don't now, especially the carrying the unconscious around part. That to me is open for so much more abuse then killing ever had, under the guise of being "nice". First off the reactions to it cannot be any less then death. "OK I technically didn't kill him you see, I just knocked him unconcious and left him in the middle of thousand bear field!, you can't blame me that the bears ate him". Or drop him off on a road you know bandits are known to strike etc...
Odds are a killer is traveling light, the only loot-able/lose-able items an intelligent killer would be carrying, would be the spoils from his last murder and maybe some potions that he was unable to drink, so killing him/looting his body is both morally sound and appropriate. Knocking someone unconscious on the other hand is a huge delay to them getting back to playing. If you are going to be able to take him anywhere, you are looking at a minimum 5 minutes of unconsciousness, few people would want that under any circumstance. Want the high moral ground? Yell "Leave this area now or prepare to die" before you charge them.
Want to kill someone to make a point? bring a cleric, Killing and then resurrecting someone has minimal ill effects and would show off your muscle rather nicely, without forcing them to wait 5-15 minutes for you to carry them off. For me I can't think of any situation where I would rather be unconscious for 5-30 minutes rather then just being killed outright, it sounds to me like a very evil way of being "good".
Well, my initial thought when I made this thread was maximizing my characters options. I was trying to think of all the characters I have played my P&P game with (even those used by other players) and what dynamics would be necessary to create and play them.
One of the most fun characters I have had in my party was a pacifist monk...he was only sort of a pacifist. He refused to kill anything on ethical grounds, but he would defend himself with non-lethal means. The internal party debates where interesting.
I would like this possibility, but I also agree that other dynamics are more important. I only offered the thread to spark discussion.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think that a well-implemented system for knocking creatures out would be a great addition to the perfect MMO.
The perfect MMO would also have a lot of features that are literally mathematically impossible with the current technology (predictive behavior, NPCs indistinguishable from PCs), and many, many more that are technically possible but NP-hard (using physics to model the effects of damage: an arrow to the wing nerve of a flying dragon being one example), and an uncountably infinite number of features that simply provide too little benefit for their cost (creating sane behavior for a bear that has been knocked unconscious and later wakes up).
Great feature, but it shouldn't be exemplified anytime soon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that a well-implemented system for knocking creatures out would be a great addition to the perfect MMO.
The perfect MMO would also have a lot of features that are literally mathematically impossible with the current technology (predictive behavior, NPCs indistinguishable from PCs), and many, many more that are technically possible but NP-hard (using physics to model the effects of damage: an arrow to the wing nerve of a flying dragon being one example), and an uncountably infinite number of features that simply provide too little benefit for their cost (creating sane behavior for a bear that has been knocked unconscious and later wakes up).
Great feature, but it shouldn't be exemplified anytime soon.
I think at this point I agree...at the least I think other features are much more important (for me this most importantly includes personal and clan crafting and social engineering features)