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Not really. There are several games out there that have open PvP, and many of the people who prefer that style are playing them. The thing is that nowhere near as many people prefer that style of game, so those games that cater to these players are not as well-known or wildly successful with massive subscriber bases as the more popular PvE games.
Well, a good majority of people seem to dislike those types of games here. How do you back this statement up?
I care about seeing the River Kingdoms as a living, breathing, animated world on my PC.
I care about Risk = Reward, not grind = reward.
Are you still trying to champion the notion that in a sandbox game the grind of an MMO is replaced by risk?
All that happens is that one type of grind is replaced by another, in any MMO. This is the nature of MMORPGs because they depend upon the players having a reason to come back to the game day after day, week after week, month after month, and this is accomplished by giving the players something to grind on.
What you really mean to say is that you care about having a grind you personally enjoy vs a grind you do not.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I didn't want to post in any of the existing threads because they've mostly become deadlocked around folks saying the same things to each other without much chance of interesting dialog. So I felt that the chances that readers would see my comments would be better if I started a new thread.
First, there's no hard & fast definition of "griefing" that will satisfy everyone. For some, any limit to their activities is too restrictive, and to others, any non-consensual interaction is too permissive. Where you fall on that continuum is really a matter of personal choice, not definition.
I can tell you that in Pathfinder Online you will be involved in non-consensual interaction with other players on a regular basis.
That is not to say that unlimited poor behavior will be tolerated. There are three ways that behavior can be limited:
1: Game Mechanics - the game itself can establish limits on what can and cannot be done. It can also establish punishments for doing things that are considered poor behavior even if it does not outright restrict them.
2: Community Management - the humans who watch over the game can act to force certain kinds of behavior to cease when they are petitioned for help. Those same humans can escalate the matter to the point where a repeat or particularly egregious offender's accounts are closed.(*)
3: Social Engineering - the humans who play within the game can act to enforce certain norms of behavior by providing and withholding access to shared community resources in response to character behavior.
It is not our intention to create an "anything goes" world where players are subjected to endless scams, ganks, and immersion breaking behavior.
It is our intention to apply some of the real world lessons learned in our major cities by focusing on "broken windows" - that is, stopping minor transgressions of our social behavior policies before they escalate out of hand. It is my opinion that doing so will reduce antisocial behavior substantially. People who want to be...
Mr. Dancey,
First I wanted to thank you for posting your thoughts and plans for the development of the Pathfinder online game.“I can tell you that in Pathfinder Online you will be involved in non-consensual interaction with other players on a regular basis.”
Thank you for putting this on the table right in the beginning. Unfortunately, this premise, for me as a potential player, is a major red flag.
The Pathfinder RPG is at its heart a cooperative game not a competitive game. It is a game where the GM sets the "stage" the story, and his characters the players and their PCs put together a group of characters that specialize in a particular area of expertise. By working together they can overcome the obstacles the GM puts in front of the group. I feel that, well my opinion is that, PVP fundamentally changes this cooperative nature of the Pathfinder RPG. It turns it into a competitive game. But then again this is only my opinion.
“I'm especially concerned with ensuring that new players are able to learn how to play the game, gain some mastery of basic gameplay features, have some fun, and have a great experience without having to worry about someone intentionally ruining it for them by scamming them, killing them, taunting them, or otherwise disrupting their attention which should be focused on dealing with the sensory overload of going into a new virtual world.
I'm secondarily concerned with ensuring that people who choose a low risk / low reward course of play are able to do so without regular interruption by those seeking to gain enjoyment from interfering with them as they go about their business.”
I am glad to hear that this is a big concern. Thank you for letting us know about your concerns. Unfortunately Eve online does not have a good reputation.. While I have not played the game personally, I have heard from my friends who have played, that it is not a game I would enjoy. They have shared plenty of stories about scams and being ganked. Granted these are stories, and not first hand experiences. So I am worried and would hope not to see another Eve online. I am sure your intention is not to create a medieval version of that game but something new.
“What I want is for people to clearly know that the more risk they accept, the higher the rewards they may be able to achieve, and to be able to assess the risk of the area they are in and the actions they are taking with reasonable ease. Nobody should be surprised to discover they're in a PvP free-for-all subject to being attacked by hordes of well-prepared opponents. On the other hand, it should be clear to those same players that if they really want to find those super-rare resources, or track down that really tough monster, or explore beyond a border claimed and patrolled by hostile forces, that they're accepting the risk that entails.”
While I agree and like the idea that there are more dangerous areas and risky areas, the rewards should be greater. However this does not need to be a PVP free for all. There are already built in means of increasing risk without resorting to PVP. The level system for instance with high- level monsters, and threats, does a fine job at increasing threat. Another way to introduce risk is to use the good old Wandering Monster Table…..and to include a variety of CR monsters on the table. If the monsters are randomly generated of such a table, there can be plenty of risk, especially if there is a chance a hill giant, or other high Cr monster can randomly appear.
Perhaps a simple solution is to provide servers that are non-consensual PVP oriented and others that are consensual PVP oriented. And others that are PVE oriented.
“That is not to say that unlimited poor behavior will be tolerated. There are three ways that behavior can be limited:
1: Game Mechanics - the game itself can establish limits on what can and cannot be done. It can also establish punishments for doing things that are considered poor behavior even if it does not outright restrict them.
2: Community Management - the humans who watch over the game can act to force certain kinds of behavior to cease when they are petitioned for help. Those same humans can escalate the matter to the point where a repeat or particularly egregious offender's accounts are closed.(*)
3: Social Engineering - the humans who play within the game can act to enforce certain norms of behavior by providing and withholding access to shared community resources in response to character behavior.
It is not our intention to create an "anything goes" world where players are subjected to endless scams, ganks, and immersion breaking behavior.”
While I am glad to hear unlimited poor behavior will not be tolerated of the three mechanisms you have mentioned the only mechanism that I think might work would be the game mechanics.
I would worry that in terms of community management, or the people who manage the game, that the “offences” would quickly outstrip the managers ability to arbitrate and deal with players and their characters antics..
I admit your third point: Social engineering- I would have the least faith in. I think the blanket of anonymity the internet provides, enables, much like the anonymity of a mob, permits people to do many things they would not normally do. I think it allows them to vent some of their worst impulses. So unfortunately I have very little faith in “player community enforcement”.
I suppose my main sticking point is the non-consensual PVP component.
Again thank you for letting your thoughts and plans for the Pathfinder game known. While the non-consensual PVP gives me serious pause, and makes me wonder if the Pathfinder online game will be for me, I do appreciate your intentions to make sure the Pathfinder game is something many players can enjoy.
I will be following the progress of the game development because I am interested.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I wish you and Goblin works the best of luck
Sincerely,
Myles Crocker
Goblinworks Founder
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I care about seeing the River Kingdoms as a living, breathing, animated world on my PC.
I care about Risk = Reward, not grind = reward.Are you still trying to champion the notion that in a sandbox game the grind of an MMO is replaced by risk?
All that happens is that one type of grind is replaced by another, in any MMO. This is the nature of MMORPGs because they depend upon the players having a reason to come back to the game day after day, week after week, month after month, and this is accomplished by giving the players something to grind on.
What you really mean to say is that you care about having a grind you personally enjoy vs a grind you do not.
Thank you for telling me what I mean.
It has nothing to do with sandbox or themepark. They are nothing more than buzzwords to explain how much content is in one or the other.I am trying to point out that the Risk comes from looting. With full or partial loot systems, you are risking your backpack full of gear to get better quality goods. The further you venture from the safety net, the harder it becomes to recover your losses, that is the risk you take. Your corpse may never even get looted. It might just add to a dragons hoard.
Those that do not want to risk, should not get the same rewards as those that do. THAT is what I am saying.
Players that hide behind guards or instance portals deserve a reward fitting for their risk. I am not saying they should miss out on anything. Everything is available to them inside their little safety net. The resources and items just wont be as valuable as the stuff that's in higher demand.
How can someone that risks nothing be rewarded as the people that risk everything. History dictates that the majority of humans will always take the path of least resistance. This would make the high risk areas obsolete and the game will just be another clone in a sea of clones.
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Goblinworks Founder
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The problem is, how do you create a system where people will want to keep playing despite the fact that they risk losing even more time than a player death would normally cause?At this point, the importance of gear becomes a primary factor in whether or not these losses are acceptable. If gear can separate players in any sort of meaningful way, then losing gear upon death means that only the most ruthless, early starting PvP players will have the top gear, which means that new players start off at a MASSIVE disadvantage, and may not be capable of ever reaching any meaningful level of power without being hand-held by higher level players, at which point they're simply grinding to a level where they'll be able to defend themselves, in which case the risk doesn't equal the reward (the reward being viability).
If gear is unimportant, or the combat is almost entirely skill-based, then there isn't any element of Reward in the PvP combat. You go kill a guy... to get his new sword that really doesn't improve any aspect of your character, at which point the reward does not equal the risk.
In either case, in order for the risk to equal the reward, players have to be able to defeat opponents with at least moderately better resources than they have, at least in a corpse-loot system, which naturally creates a ladder of successful and unsuccessful players. What are the unsuccessful players going to do? They can't be competitive, because they are far outgunned by the top players, and they can't do PvE, because the top players can just kill them and take anything they might earn. Even then, using the Risk=Reward model as you've presented it, primarily PvE players in this scenario would never be able to compete once the top PvP players secured their places, because the gear in PvE wouldn't be as effective.
The easiest way to solve these issues is to either:
A) Remove non-consensual PvPor
B) Create a skill-based combat system where survival is not gear dependent, and both victory and defeat present rewards that are worth the risk involved in the form of experience, money, or resources for both parties.
You make some very good points. I'll try to answer them all with my own opinion on how I feel they should be addressed.
First I will address the itemization. Gear should not segregate the players to the point that they are useless without it. In a skill based system nobody should be at a complete disadvantage in a David and Goliath situation. There are no levels so there is no need for hand holding by higher level, nor should there be a fear of higher level players.
I don't want to say that gear should be unimportant, but It shouldn't be AS important as it is in DikuMUD systems. A player in the best gear available should be no match for a mob of unskilled players. Some of the unskilled might die in the process but they should eventually overwhelm them. On the other side of that coin, that very same mob of unskilled players should be no match for adventuring into the wilderness without equipment (and the skills to use them).
There needs to be a point in time where gear is not the be-all-end-all reward. There are far greater rewards than this. Think of what would be rewarding in a non-material sense if there were no class or levels.
Knowledge is the best reward anyone can be granted. Knowledge is power. Knowledge cannot be looted from your corpse. Knowledge is something that can be easy or hard to come by. It could be as simple as knowing how to bake a cake, it could be something as powerful as a spell that allows you to teleport, it could be the secret password that grants access to a lost city. New skills can be far more potent than a combustible longsword. In a skill-based system, the rarest and most valuable of commodities should be skills, not gear. Gear should be a means to an end, not the end of the means.
What happens if magical items in Golarion had a finite lifespan?
If they had charges that depleted with each proc or use?
What if there was a way to recharge them, but nobody knew how?
What if the only way to learn that skill was in a crumbling script hidden deep within the trap filled recesses of an ancient Ziggurat that nobody has discovered yet?
Reward is dictated by supply and demand. If someone printed enough money so everyone had billions of dollars it would make money worthless no? The price of commodities would inflate and match the new value of the money no?
Being looted should be the risk. It should not be the reward.
The reward should be knowledge, not gear.
What knowledge does one gain for murdering innocents? maybe a bit in human anatomy.
What knowledge would an adventurer gain from spelunking through an ancient cavern, dungeon or tomb?
He could have the only clue that leads to discovering how to forge dragon scales into armor.
He could discover the 12 secret herbs and spices (that's right.. twelve!) to the Colonels Kyonin Fried Cockatrice.
He could meet an undead warlord that teaches him a special combat feat.
He could learn to fight in complete darkness.
He could discover a spell that turns people to stone.
Yes that player killer might kill you and steal the trinkets you found in the tomb. Assuming this is what happens, you still come out ahead with whatever knowledge you acquired while on your journey.
If you want to consider this on a much much larger scale with hundreds of goons that already have an established empire and roam the River Kingdoms killing and stealing what they want. What is to stop them from dominating everything in their path? It should not be possible for one guild to dominate the whole server by violence alone.
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First off, let me say that I agree with the idea that knowledge should be a reward. Learning new skills, getting better at old ones... if you're GOING to have non-consensual PvP, this seems like the way to go. That way, even if you lose a fight, your skill with your weapons, armor, spells, etc. still increased, so there is something to work towards. Plus, it makes sparring a feasible pastime, and actually provides benefits.
My only concern is that, well... this is the internet. Yes, knowledge is useful, and the idea of having special gems of information tucked away at the bottom of the world is an AWESOME, fun idea... but what happens when that knowledge eventually gets out? I mean, the game world is a much more finite space than the real world, and people are bound to figure pretty much all there is to figure out (as far as PvE content is concerned). Today's secrets are tomorrow's common knowledge. That's an AWFUL lot of content to make.
I also agree that gear should not be the end to the means, and that removing the emphasis on gear progression would be key to making non-consensual PvP bearable for those that would not normally consider it. However, even considering that, you still run into the problem of providing for people who don't wish to risk non-consensual PvP, which (I think) is solved by a suggestion I made in another thread, wherein each hub of civilization has a "safe" zone, in which non-consensual PvP is completely prohibited, and contains several low-risk, low-reward areas of exploration which allow for interesting scenarios and learning, while allowing open areas to be more dangerous, and hence, more rewarding. This would also allow for fundamental resource gathering, as well as providing a way for players to replace lost gear in a relatively safe environment. Granted, even if I were to accept Open PvP, I still totally reject the idea of looting other players. Losing is the punishment for not being skilled enough to beat your opponent. Having your favorite sword, the first one you ever made, taken away from you is just adding insult to injury.
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Goblinworks Founder
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Granted, even if I were to accept Open PvP, I still totally reject the idea of looting other players. Losing is the punishment for not being skilled enough to beat your opponent. Having your favorite sword, the first one you ever made, taken away from you is just adding insult to injury.
I'm only quoting this portion because it is something I want to address. I'm glad that we can actually have a conversation about this without it resorting to flaming each other and name calling. I agree with the rest of your post and I also consider them to be valid concerns that should be addressed.
Now on to the quote. I don't believe that losing is punishment, nor do I consider having your inventory ripe for the picking to be a punishment If the game can deliver it in the right manner. I definitely understand the sentimental value you would attach to your first ever sword and that you would want to keep it. We can only surmise what Ryan and the rest of his team have in store with regard to full or partial looting. Maybe they will allow players to choose a few items to be locked and unable to be looted.
Maybe a non-aggressor is only under partial loot rules while an aggressor or serial criminal would be under the full loot rules. (I am hoping that this is the case)
To use your favorite sword for an example in a worst case scenario.
Let us assume that there is full loot in effect, your character is killed on his way back from an expedition. Your favorite sword is taken among other things. You aren't the best of fighters but you have plenty of money safely secured in the bank. You create a bounty quest with the reward of 50 gold measures to the person who returns your sword, with an extra 50 measures if there is proof of the thief's demise.
Note: I know I get carried away with things that do not exist like bounty systems or quest creation tools. I keep using them in examples though, just in case.
Davor and Elth both touch on some of my concerns.
One concern is that I'll basically have no chance against other players because the ones out hunting me will have better gear and their character will have higher skills, not to mention the player skill someone far more practiced in PvP than I will have. I might theoretically be able to fight back, but my chances of prevailing would be almost nil. Taken to an extreme, I am concerned that this situation will evolve to the point where nobody should dare set foot outside the "safe" zones unless their character is maxed out because the people waiting for them are also maxed out.
Another concern is that you'll have large guilds basically dominate all of the map outside the safe-zones and and ruthlessly crush anyone who tries to enter "their" territory without an army. This would effectively mean locking any individual player that isn't a member of one of those guilds away from all of that territory.
In both cases, what I'm concerned about is that non-consentual PvP is basically just going to lock all but the top PvP players and/or large guilds into the safe zones and away from the "good stuff".
This makes me wonder what provisions they're going to make for stealth and other PvP-avoidance methods. Will I have a big red name floating above my head thwarting any attempt I may make to hide in some bushes or under water when an enemy comes past? Will I be able to have some kind of stealth or camouflage skill that will let me conceal myself from other players so I can infiltrate hostile territory? Will I be able to fly, adding a third dimension for the PKs to have to cover? Will there be clouds for me to fly in for concealment? Will I be able to teleport past all the PKs to a spot I've scryed and want to go to or teleport back to the safe zone the minute I mine the unobtanium so some jerk can't come along and take it from me? Will I be able to lie down in a ditch to hide?
This also makes me wonder about the scale of the map. The more space there is, the easier it will be to hide from people trying to hunt you down. If the forest containing the special herbs for the fried cockatrice recipe is a few hundred yards across, it will be pretty easy for PKs to hunt down anyone trying to get some. If it's 10 miles across, they'll have a much harder time (or need more people and even a guild may have trouble policing it on a continual basis).
I am hoping that the design of the this game is such that if a massive guild (or correlation of multiple guilds) were to create a "warmachine" that it would not be able to sustain itself. Resources for repair and upkeep of buildings, siege equipment and regular military equipment should tax the empire hard enough that they cannot sustain a huge warring empire for long.
For stealth and PvP avoidance methods, the abilities you mentioned can be just as devastating in reverse. Age of Conan allowed every class the ability to stealth. It helped in avoiding PKs to some extent, but it also allowed the PK's to hide and wait for you. I am not a fan of stealth or flying for any prolonged amount of time in MMO's (And I always play thief/rogue characters). I believe stealth should merely lower the aggro radius of NPC's if you travel outside their line of sight and should have no effect on players. A stationary camouflage skill with a cast bar would be fair but I am not a fan of invisible stealth (again my personal opinion here). I have no problem with invisibility spells as they have a finite duration, and I also do not consider teleporting to be a problem as long as it is a very rare spell to acquire and hard to teach.
I am basing most of my opinions on the assumption that the scale of the map will be much larger than your average themepark game. This is specifically so people can avoid PK's if they go off the beaten path.
That being said, the game will be set in River Kingdoms. There will undoubtedly be lots of choke points at Fjords and bridges crossing the river systems. Some of these may have high security provided by NPC or Friendly Player factions, others may be the perfect position to ambush merchant wagons (so merchants best pay well for protection).
All we can do is share our concerns and suggest ideas to Goblinworks how to combat the ones we have. I know for a fact that Developers read suggestive threads for ideas themselves. You never know when someone is going to produce a genius idea that nobody has thought of. They may not always be possible, but they might plant the seed of another similar idea that is possible.
Presumably, that will be locked to the character. For instance, a player may be able to look on the internet and find out that the password to the dwarven mine is the elven word for "friend", but unless the character has completed the quest (or whatever) where you find that out, they can't actually use that knowledge and the door won't open for them. Or they won't have the fried cockatrice recipe in their cookbook. Or whatever.
Or the password in question may not actually "exist" in words as we know them. Like an attunement from the old school raids in EQ or WOW, it just enables your character access. It would merely be a trigger that requires certain conditions to be present. It doesn't have to even be a quest, it could just be that your character figured out a RNG puzzle.
I think long term consequences and the relationship between the killer, the killed, and the community is missing from this discussion.
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Excellent questions in all and I really hope that the team are reading this thread right now.
Out of time.. I might come back and edit further if I have a chance.
I cleaned up some posts. Behave like adults, please.
Goblin Squad Member
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I think this would have to mean that when you logout your toon stays persistent so the gear and person can be reached.
So that he can bee killed and looted while he can't do anything?
I hope your connection is very good and never drop you and that Goblinwork servers will be extremely reliable or a DC will mean a big loss.
@Elth
You can suggest any bounty system where the player killers will not benefit for the bounty? Either being him the one that will deliver the looted sword for the money or having an alt kill him and deliver the sword and his head?
He only need to get a bounty high enough to cover for his resurrection cost. All he get above that is gravy.
At the same time the one placing the bounties need to make it higher than the value of the sword or almost no one will return it.
Basically, a bounties system will finance the Player Killers.
In theory the exact opposite of what we want to do.
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Goblinworks Founder
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One of the things that keeps coming to mind as I read the various threads about PvP is that a lot of the PvP system sounds like its set up to finance PvPers. Suggestions that have come up include paying someone to protect you during travel, paying bounties to people to hunt down someone who ganks you, ally yourself with some guild for protection (including whatever price (monetary or otherwise) the guild chooses to charge for that), partial or full loot allowing the PvP victor to fill their pockets at least a bit and so on.
I just spent the better part of an hour responding to both Diego and Max only to have Firefox crash as I hit submit. I really had some good ideas (what i thought of them anyway)....
The bounty idea was related to items being marked as stolen.. NPC's can trace where the player that stole the item is located and where the item currently is... player pays to return item... pays extra to kill the thief and steal an extra item without consequence. It was in much better detail as a post that takes an hour to write would be. FML
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Goblin Squad Member
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Your idea has some possibility. I will note some possible drawback I am seeing, but that don't mean I am dismissing it as a bad suggestion.
While paying NPC for the item retrieval would avoid the "finance Player Killers" problem, I think PvPers would scream bloody murder if something like that was implemented.
I have doubt even about PvErs loving it. I have already seen people putting or manipulating stuff in you loot in a way that would mark you as a thief (they were using a bug, but it required years to be patched as for a long time no one outside the circle of people using it had an idea of how it worked).
I am fairly sure that if there will be a way to rouse NPCs against players we will have hundred (if not thousands) of players trying to find ways to get them to attack innocent people.
I am reasonably sure that Ryan know about the bounty problem and the aforementioned trick to mark someone as a thief, as both were EVE problems. So hopefully he can take your idea and make it workable without the added risks.
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Goblinworks Founder
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Your idea has some possibility. I will note some possible drawback I am seeing, but that don't mean I am dismissing it as a bad suggestion.
While paying NPC for the item retrieval would avoid the "finance Player Killers" problem, I think PvPers would scream bloody murder if something like that was implemented.
I have doubt even about PvErs loving it. I have already seen people putting or manipulating stuff in you loot in a way that would mark you as a thief (they were using a bug, but it required years to be patched as for a long time no one outside the circle of people using it had an idea of how it worked).
I am fairly sure that if there will be a way to rouse NPCs against players we will have hundred (if not thousands) of players trying to find ways to get them to attack innocent people.
I am reasonably sure that Ryan know about the bounty problem and the aforementioned trick to mark someone as a thief, as both were EVE problems. So hopefully he can take your idea and make it workable without the added risks.
I really wish that my original post didn't get lost. I don't have the patience to write it all up again. You made a point about PvPers screaming if something like this were implemented. My hope is that the game of thrones that will be taking place between rival kingdoms should provide more than enough encouragement for PvPers to flock to.
Ryan has mentioned a well known problem in one of his previous posts that many rules can just be easily exploited should a player truly put their mind to it. It happens in EvE and even happens in games like Age of Conan.
The idea of items being marked as stolen comes from The Elder Scrolls games. When you pick pocket an NPC the stolen items are highlighted red. If one of the city watch catches up to you, they take back the stolen items and either throw you in jail, make you pay a fine or have a chance to bribe them.
Now I am only being hopeful here, but ideally PFO could use a three-pronged approach against the PK Looting problems.
First there would be the severe penalty that outweighs the benefit of the loot should you get caught.
Second would be by encouraging PvP and PK orientated players to take part in the much larger scale PvP. If they prefer smaller group or 1 on 1 skirmish, then this should be catered to by the warring nations. let it require small commando groups or infiltrators to sneak behind enemy lines.
Third and Final approach is what Ryan has mentioned before. Serious Anti-Social behavior will not be tolerated and can lead to a time out or permanent ban. It only needs to be stated in the Terms of Agreement.
Take into account that any punishments given should be heavy enough to outweight the fun of griefing others...which is a challenge in and of itself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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True - so much that no successful game has ever found it worth to install such punishments and instead just either made it useless to engage in or even outright disallowed non-consensual PvP.
RD has stated that players will have to engage into non-consensual interaction on a regular basis - which might mean PvP.
SKR has said that there will be no harsh penalties on top of the chance to be stomped as soon as you snoop by the gate solo(I guess just as EVE, PFO will simply not be very solo friendly).
Fair enough, "noone" wants "harsh" penalties. But between harsh penalties and no penalties there should exist a middle ground. Being back into action 30s later is simply stupid and promotes stupid behavior that - at least for me - makes the game unfun.
PvP needs to be consensual whether it is an area or a pop-up box or both.
If it is not, the PvE lovers will not play and personally I do not want to be jumped when I have 50 million windows open conducting character maintenance that is sometimes necessary when on the move.
In my LOTRO kin, only a handful of us PvP, the rest do not and refuse to. In addition, they only play Free Peoples of Middle Earth while I play on the side of Sauron as a Warg Stalker. So when I am in the PvP area, playing my warg, I am part of an Australian PvP Tribe (kin\guild).
I am new to MMO's, I only started playing LotRO a month ago. A couple of nights ago I jumped into the PvP section of the game, Playing an Orc It was fun and at first a bit hard, as a Free Peoples fellowship jumped me while I was solo questing and I could not run fast enough. When I did join a warband we were all so uncoordinated that same group ended us in about 3 mins.... I did lure one Freep into a group of AI Trolls that was very funny... The point is we all chose to be in that area and the "risks" were spelled out very clearly you kill a Freep your reputation goes up you die you go back to the spawn point and suffer a few penalties for a while. When the Trolls assisted in smashing the Freep for me, I got some arms and legs to eat and some broken equipment - that I could trade in. From what I could see the Freep didn't loose anything.
I will happily go back for and play a Creep (bad guy) in LotRO as it was a challenge and a lot of fun, although I would take my usual fellowship with me this time as we are getting ok working as a team.
I think that an opportunity for players to be able to play monsters in Pathfinder on-line would make it a lot of fun. Being able to earn rep and move up and play higher level CR monsters would make it much more of a challenge to players than just facing a predictable AI over and over again.
OT: Anderlorn what server do you play on...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Players should also be free from metagame harassment of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political or religious affiliation, favorite college football team, or participation in other MMOs. Taking someone's off-line world into our on-line world will be totally unacceptable and we'll have a very low tolerance for those who break those rules.
I was going to favorite this post... but then I read this...
Does... does this mean you respect them? Does this mean you condone this kind of behavior? Are you going to allow this!? SUNDEVILS!? REALLY!?
But they painted our big white -A- *green*! How can you defend that! We will not submit! We will not surrender! Wildcats! Wildcats! UofA!
;p
More seriously, it's good to see that you guys are both tongue-in-cheek and capable of recognizing threats to player enjoyment. There are people who play MMOs who are more fragile than your average picnic-basket-stealing-bear, and they genuinely bleed when you puncture their egos. They come to MMOs for escapism and enjoyment while reaching out to a group of people that theoretically have something in common with them, and being slapped down by some fourteen-year-old-tool-who-needs-his-bottom-warmed is not cool. And generally leads to me cuddling for fourty-five minutes and making everything OK again. A robust player-support system and live GMs sounds like what you're talking about, and that's worth two whole internets to me, Ryan.
*three thumbs up*
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Well. I dont have a lot of experience with mmo's in general. I play DDO and enjoy it, but its the only one. it has PvP in consensual mode only. But anyway.... As a long time pen and paper player i wouldnt object to the PvP and looting and such if they had true crafting rules like PnP. I know it sems unrelated, but think on a wizard crafter who makes REALLY powerful items or ( and depends on rules sets on how they are identified and such,lacking in the games i have played) items that SEEM really powerful, but are cursed with all the rules that go with cursed items. kill me take my stuff! just try to sell the +2 backbiter longsword, or use your own uber weapon next time in combat. could be fun. Now honestly i prolly wouldnt bother doing that but i like the idea......it would require too many fiddly bits with the game mechanics but as a DM it would be oh so enjoyable. just my two cents. I am gonna try PFO regardless, mostly cause i am huge PF fan.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm a fan of the cursed item system, and it was actually brought up before. I believe it is in the 4th blog, "To Live or Die in the River Kingdoms", discussion thread.
I want killing another play and looting them to have a bad side outside of law systems/mechanics. Killing and/or looting someone in 'Wild' territory should still have high risk. The only way to safely kill and/or other players is to bring along best item disenchanter in the game, and hope he is more powerful than the best curser, because 'on pickup' could be a curse activation. Finding and removing a curse should be harder and require more skill training than cursing the item.
This is not as much about stopping killing, as it is stopping the destruction of an entire inventory. Ryan described looting a corpse as a lottery, I would like that lottery to include negative possibilities no matter where you are.
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Goblin Squad Member
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With the influx of new people to this board, I think this needs to come out of hiding.
It's a good post, I had read it, but forgotten to add it into consideration.
Players should be able to operate in an area of risk/reward that makes them feel most comfortable.
Risk increases the sense of adventure and if there are various risky areas by reputation or otherwise, that caters to more possibilities for the players.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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i only have one question for the pve crowd (aka carebears ,diminishing how it may sound)
why do you play MMORPGs ?As far as i am concerned it means massively multiplayer online role playing game.
massively multiplayer , massively , mass .
if you can play for 2 hours a month ,buy skyrim
if you want to play solo at off hours , buy skyrim
if you want to play in co-op mode with 3 friends fighting the scripted AI
buy wowif you want to chat with your friends and click at plants etc , i heard farm ville does that.
not all shoes fit all feet.
the point is there are a lot of games out there .the mmo genre was made in an attempt to have games that feel like a world .it is about immersion.
mmo is not co-op.it is not an irc channel either .many people come from wow or similar "mmo" games unable to understand probably what it means
-mmo
-sandbox
-open worldand they try to change the game to fit their views.I hope goblinworks can deliver an AAA quality sandbox mmo , so that i can play and enjoy the risks and the adventures.The rest of the people can buy wow , i heard it is pretty consensual and convenient and user friendly .you can play 30 minutes a day , do your daily quests , and join the "i found you some friends" raid on weekend. you collect "high five" badges and at the end you get a shiny epix tinfoil hat. thank you
With all due respect, this is pretty harsh, and frankly quite unfair. It seems to me to demonstrate precisely the attitude which causes the concerns I have about PvP...namely "I can kill you ha ha and I will again and again just because I feel like it ha ha and if you don't like it, go play WoW hardy har har".
If I were to lash out in kind, I might say something like "if all you want to do is fight with other people, get a job, or get married, or at least get out of your parents' basement once in a while". But, that would probably be pretty unfair too :)
So let's keep this an objective and constructive conversation, shall we?
Most of the concerns about PvP I've seen posted don't advocate a complete restriction against it, but rather express concerns about PFO devolving into a gank-fest where only the strongest (or quickest twitch fingers) survive. If that's what you're advocating, then I believe there are few on these boards (even those in favor of PvP) who'd support your position.
I think most would agree with you on one very important point though. I certainly do. We all want a game everyone can enjoy. And it must be recognized that not everyone enjoys PvP. I think the developers' goal here is to make a game that appeals to as wide an audience as possible, including those of us who 1) don't particularly like PvP, 2) understand there's a development vision of a large, dynamic and immersive world for PFO, 3) understand that this vision includes PvP for various reasons which are discussed at length elswhere, 3) are willing to accept PvP with the hope that it will at most be simply an element of a much larger game, not the central tenet.
If PvP does become the central tenet of PFO, then yes, I agree with you on another point...many of us should, and undoubtedly will leave for other pastures.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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..snip This is not as much about stopping killing, as it is stopping the destruction of an entire inventory. Ryan described looting a corpse as a lottery, I would like that lottery to include negative possibilities no matter where you are.
You raise an excellent point Valkenr...something I haven't quite got my hands around completely...
I can understand someone reaping a reward for winning a PvP encounter (and as an aside, being averse to PvP, I am 100 perecent in favor of anything that adds risk to it). But why is it necessary for a character's entire inventory to be lost if someone loots their corpse. I would rather see a system where...ok fine, you lost the fight so you lose an item or two from your inventory...but the rest of it will still be there for you when you do manage to make it back to your corpse. Why delete the rest of it automatically?
Is this mechanic intended to function as a way to remove stuff from the world...sort of an economic balancing factor? I can see the need for such factors, but man...triggering it by way of an event that has already kind of sucked just adds salt to the wound...
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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@insorrow - the scenario you present (negative tone aside) is a perfectly reasonable one.
My point, and I think that of most of the PvP-averse presence on these forums, is this: we're willing to accept a PFO world where getting killed while flower-gathering is a possibility. We are simply expressing our hope that the game design (along with the user community aka content) will be such that it is generally the exception, not the norm.
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Goblin Squad Member
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-snip-But why is it necessary for a character's entire inventory to be lost if someone loots their corpse. I would rather see a system where...ok fine, you lost the fight so you lose an item or two from your inventory...but the rest of it will still be there for you when you do manage to make it back to your corpse. Why delete the rest of it automatically?-snip-
I have to rely on memory when last read this GW blog post. I think it's a system where:
attacker: wins: Can get x1 item off the corpse (random) = small reward for banditry
defender: losses: If in a team time for team to protect corpse until can run back ~ influences a fight, influences what players take with them, influences "good idea to group" when adventuring
However, if the defender does not recover corpse, then losses all = larger risk. But the attacker does not get this so no big reward for relying on this gameplay for gains ie it's more likely a random encounter with a solo player = worth the risk/reward to attack. A group who you have no other interest in, that is perhaps not worth it.
I think it's intended to stack up a bit like this. For sure lossing your inventory is bad, but:
1) You can choose what you take
2) You only loose the inventory not what you were holding
3) If grouped up less likely to attract unwanted attention
4) Frequency therefore should not be too high unless you enjoy lone wolfing it.
So there's plenty of caveats and contexts to lossing inventory that put it less probably than it may intially seem. Plues guess it also acts as a sink also and that means work for crafters again. And also, there is some real risk to dying albeit you still have chances to avoid it. :)
-snip- -cry at the forums and rage quit then go back to wow-snip-
I appreciate what you are saying is logical. And emphatic statements are intended to get the message across; a priori - sandbox = interactions/freedsoms and risk/rewards which don't occur so much with themepark.
But I think the real issue people have is a bit like eg
Freemium/IAP = nickel & dime customers (a lot of mmorpgs it certainly does)/"pay to win".
I think if implemented well can be a good thing.
Eg "open pvp" = FFA pvp/gankfest (eg's darkfall, "other reputations of")
Whereas open pvp to me = secure zones, npc marshalls, player reputation, risk-reward spectrum + more dynamic interactions of players.
Unfortunately even if mmorpgs implement well, there still the bad apple players to deal with also (gold farmers, gankers etc).
At Eaghen
In world where most gear is crafted by players , item loss needs to be in place in some way. Its not that bad to lose your stuff in such econamy even its full loot loss which PO wont be. Gear is easy to replace and keeping mutiple sets in your bank helps alot. The item loss helps keep the player driven econamy going.
As far as griefing goes, PO is going to be using the EVE online system for keeping the kind of behavior in check and its a system that works. Attacks raely happen in areas that has high security and PVE players can thrive and do the things they want to do in EVE. You are however never completely safe but if you dont go into lawless lands in PO you dont have to worry very much about pvp.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You raise an excellent point Valkenr...something I haven't quite got my hands around completely...
I can understand someone reaping a reward for winning a PvP encounter (and as an aside, being averse to PvP, I am 100 perecent in favor of anything that adds risk to it). But why is it necessary for a character's entire inventory to be lost if someone loots their corpse. I would rather see a system where...ok fine, you lost the fight so you lose an item or two from your inventory...but the rest of it will still be there for you when you do manage to make it back to your corpse. Why delete the rest of it automatically?
Is this mechanic intended to function as a way to remove stuff from the world...sort of an economic balancing factor? I can see the need for such factors, but man...triggering it by way of an event that has already kind of sucked just adds salt to the wound...
It's an intelligence system if anything else. The people that absolutely hate OPvP games are usually the ones that try and have too much at once. They need to be banking items constantly, and not carrying 30 days work around with them. PFO dulls the impact, but it still keeps players in check. The longer you wait to bank your items, the higher the risk becomes.
Keep in mind, that if you are doing anything really worthwhile that would be putting lots of rare items into your inventory, you will be most likely in a group. The game will be designed around team play.
I'm guessing a lot of people are looking at this issue with the mindset of a themepark game, where you usually have a handful of irreplaceable items in your bag, but when everything important is going likely be crafted, replacement isn't a huge deal.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The last issue of course is the blobbing concern. If people working together is synergistic and productive then more is always better and in a very short time there will only be a few huge entities and this is a balance issue the developers will have to put a lot of thought into combating. Beyond a certain point additional people in an organization will have to 'cost' more (in some fashion) then any possible gain could be. Not an easy challenge to address.
Yes, I think Ryan has mentioned along the lines "biggest group wins" is something to avoid (ie stable dominant state of game = boring!). It will be interesting if the different hierarchies of social organisation come into to play from party- - -> kingdom. Initially kingdoms due to high cooperation required will be peaceful areas to begin with I'd safely assume (...).
I think different levels of gameplay has been mentioned hence wars = economically risky.
Also ideally there will be different stages of player dominion vs wilderness across the entire map and if they expand it "eternal frontier" also should stimulate variety depending on the rate added.