Goblin Squad Member
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The question was asked
How does the Bounty system apply to the Attacker in the wilderness?
To which a game designer and employee of goblinworks replied:
You can Bounty and/or Death Curse anyone who kills you* unless you had one of the mitigating flags when you died (Attacker, Criminal, At War, etc.).
This is a very big leap from earlier blogs that very explicitly stated that kills in the wilderness would not trigger the bounty system.
Fair enough, it's your guys' game.
But there are players already contributing money, several players, who intend to pursue PvP opportunities in the wilderness areas. This latest update from Stephen has made it clear that they can no longer do so without the consequences of the bounty system which, as Ryan Dancey wrote, "will dissuade all but the most hardcore griefers from bothering". When Ryan originally wrote that, it applied to attacking people in lawful ares, but Stephen now tells us it has been expanded everywhere. The question that Stephen was asked above was worded very clearly to put it in the context of a wilderness attack.
So rather than the heavy risk vs reward balance that Ryan described early on:
Of course, those who simply wish to avoid any PvP at all will choose to remain within the very high security zones close to NPC settlements where PvP is effectively impossible. Such players will have fewer opportunities to find adventure or to earn treasure than their braver and less risk-averse peers, but they'll be safe
now we have a situation where someone would have to be insane to bother you outside of town.
Well, good luck with that Goblinworks.
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Now, it's possible that Stephen didn't mean that quite the way he said it, but given all the conversation that's ensued, and that he has remained silent, if that is the case and this has all been a misunderstanding, then consider a second request: put a little more emphasis on your development crew with the importance of giving clear answers and not mistakenly saying the exact opposite of what you meant to say. But I'm sure that's not really the problem, is it?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't see the problem. Not everyone has the capability to get back at someone who killed them themselves, a bounty allows them to do that, particularly wealthy, non combat characters.
It also adds to the meaningfulness. If you're going to attack someone in the wilderness, you better have a good reason and be willing to deal with the possible consequences. That IS risk vs reward.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right, but I could set 1 GP bounties for The Empyrean Legion to collect, and do it over and over and over *forever*, and whoever mugged me will get continuously slaughtered, over them playing a bandit. I'm fine with having bounties work in some areas but not other. Shoot, have it be that plunking down a watch tower creates a radius where it works, suddenly you've got a good reason/method to guard a road. But bounties working everywhere every time, well, that gets rid of a lot of bandits, which reduces the gameplay a good bit.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Honestly I don't see where the issue is. If you think in terms of real life, you get attacked/mugged/whatever (ie killed via PvP IG) you would go and report it to the police (ie place a bounty IG) if you wanted to see something done about it whether it was in the middle of a city or out in the woods.
Now I wouldn't think you should necessarily get flagged as a criminal or whatever other flag might apply out in the wilderness, and I could agree on that point.
In any case, mechanics that *punish* greifing but don't break immersion aren't a bad thing IMHO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the problem is the game was described to us as being a certain way, and no matter how many times people rallied against it, it was to remain that certain way, engendering trust in the devs by the community. Kickstarter comes along, people drop their money on what the game is supposed to be as proclaimed over the past year. New people come along and want the game changed to cater to their preferred style of play, and all of a sudden changes are made that seem minor on the outside, but really just spit in the face of those who have been loyal from the outset, despite promises to keep the vision as it was.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe the fix is one and done with bounties. Meaning one person gets retribution once on his assailant. If a ganker is runnign around killing multiple people for no reason, then he'll have multiple bounties.
So your saying a character gets 5 bounties and is killed/claimed once so they all go away. Hmm that sounds interesting. Might work better.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the problem is the game was described to us as being a certain way, and no matter how many times people rallied against it, it was to remain that certain way, engendering trust in the devs by the community. Kickstarter comes along, people drop their money on what the game is supposed to be as proclaimed over the past year. New people come along and want the game changed to cater to their preferred style of play, and all of a sudden changes are made that seem minor on the outside, but really just spit in the face of those who have been loyal from the outset, despite promises to keep the vision as it was.
They said it's still open to discussion. Seems like everyone is turning around to point the finger at them pretty quick even after they stated this. Should have constructive conversation not accuse them of betraying their supporters before trying to converse about it. That being said the system itself is in development.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the problem is the game was described to us as being a certain way, and no matter how many times people rallied against it, it was to remain that certain way, engendering trust in the devs by the community. Kickstarter comes along, people drop their money on what the game is supposed to be as proclaimed over the past year. New people come along and want the game changed to cater to their preferred style of play, and all of a sudden changes are made that seem minor on the outside, but really just spit in the face of those who have been loyal from the outset, despite promises to keep the vision as it was.They said it's still open to discussion. Seems like everyone is turning around to point the finger at them pretty quick even after they stated this. Should have constructive conversation not accuse them of betraying their supporters before trying to converse about it. That being said the system itself is in development.
But that's the thing: it wasn't open to discussion before. This is the game, it won't be for everyone, but maybe you should try it first. All the backtracking makes it seem like a presidential election is around the corner.
I'm not pointing fingers, I just understand (or feel I do, anyway) where the OP is coming from.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the problem is the game was described to us as being a certain way...
I'm not sure that's true. I don't want to try to go back and find the post that made me realize it, because I have no idea what to search for, but I've had the understanding for a very long time now that being out in the wilderness did not mean that you were free to be randomly killed without repercussions. I've been trying to point this out to people for months.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1 gp bounties assumes that someone will consider it worth collecting. If you're going around killing people in the wilderness, you'll be a target for that anyway, you'll be an outlaw.
As I said before, it means you better have a good reason. Generally societies don't permit you to kill people out in the wilderness any more than in their jurisdiction. "Because I want their stuff" has never been an acceptable reason. If you want it, go to war for it, then they can't put a bounty on you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the problem is the game was described to us as being a certain way...I'm not sure that's true. I don't want to try to go back and find the post that made me realize it, because I have no idea what to search for, but I've had the understanding for a very long time now that being out in the wilderness did not mean that you were free to be randomly killed without repercussions. I've been trying to point this out to people for months.
Very recently in threads active just last week, yourself, Andius, Blaeringr, MicMan(?) Were discussing with newcomers how this wasn't going to be catered to pve and pvp wouldn't be ganking, but meaningful and OPEN. Seems now it's only 'open' through tags, and if an adventurer falls in the forest with no one to hear his death scream, the town crier is calling 'extra extra, read all about it' before you finish rezing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't really see where Blaeringr is coming from. I never got the impression from the Goblinworks team that murdering people in the wilderness could be done with impunity. That was actually something they wanted to curb. Of course, part of that really boils down to the definition of "wilderness." Is wilderness any hex without a settlement or other structure? Is it over 5 hexes from any form of civilization? If it's sufficiently far from civilization I'd be more okay with it, but murder is murder. Even if other PCs/NPCs can't see you attacking someone without provocation, the gods still can.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I had also been under the impression from the early stages that there would be mechanics SPECIFICALLY intended to avoid being killed randomly without repercussions.
It's one thing to get assassinated from a contract but some greifer running around randomly killing people just to kill people should have consequences whether it is in the wild or in a settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Very recently in threads active just last week, yourself, Andius, Blaeringr, MicMan(?) Were discussing with newcomers how this wasn't going to be catered to pve and pvp wouldn't be ganking, but meaningful and OPEN.
That's true.
It's also true that I made those statements all the while fully believing that if I randomly killed someone in the wilderness, then they would be able to place a Bounty on me.
I don't see any contradiction between a Bounty system and Open PvP. For me, the "Open" part means I can be attacked regardless of whether I want to be.
I would also say that the arguments I was making to try to convince people that there wouldn't be "rampant ganking" in fact relied on my understanding that there would be consequences for randomly killing people, regardless of where it happened.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I understand all that. My point was that I think I see where (s)he us coming from, in that things were set one way for a long time, some changes are coming down to areas that were supposed to be locked in, potentially making the game softer and less gritty than advertised, and it might lead to a slippery slope where like war states, assassinations have to be agreed upon by the target (obvious hyperbole).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Would it be ok to let people fairly easily claim wilderness hexes and define them as explicitly lawless "free pvp zones" where they (or anyone) can gank trespassers to their hearts content (for as long as they can control the area)? As long as I get a warning i'm entering claimed territory i can then control my risk.
I would not mind seeing (very small and ineffective) CE settlements sprout regularly in the wilderness and needing to be taken out before too much of the map becomes 'gankland'.
Death curse won't be everyday fare among active pvp'ers. Low reps cannot afford the rep and high reps don't want to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's also true that I made those statements all the while fully believing that if I randomly killed someone in the wilderness, then they would be able to place a Bounty on me.
And it's only today that GW has changed their policy to agree with that. Today alone I have posted many times quotes from their earlier blogs that made it very clear you were wrong. "Were" being the key word there. They have changed their minds though.
They were describing a game where venturing out into the wilderness, where stepping foot outside the city gates brought with it a sense of fear and trepidation. It used to be a game of high risk vs high reward.
Now it's what Nihimon had been hoping for.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would not mind seeing (very small and ineffective) CE settlements sprout regularly in the wilderness and needing to be taken out before too much of the map becomes 'gankland'.
That might be what some people want. Evil or CN groups who make a settlement and declare it LEGAL to kill people within their territory and aren't citizens.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Everywhere they say meaningful interaction. Emphasis on meaningful.
The risk vs reward argument you're making is a one sided one. All the risk on the victim, all the reward to the murderer. How is that risk vs reward? What did the murderer risk?
Bounties means there are consequences and risks to picking the wrong target in the wilderness. That is risk vs reward.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Agree with Jameow, I don't see how having a bounty system for kills in the wilderness makes going out into the wilderness any less risky. You can still get killed and loss gear and/or time.
However, this also places risk on the killer as it should be, they shouldn't just be able to freely run around killing people with no consequence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That is the thing, tho, they couldn't just run around killing people willy nilly. They'd lose reputation, their alignment would start to drift towards CE, and good aligned players would hunt them down just for being evil. The bandits would slowly fall behind, as they can't sell much of their loot, their training is limited by whatever settlement will take them in....
There were penalties. The bounty system just ensures that bandits get hammered after every single kill. If bandits get hit by bounties in the field, then there might need to be a limited number of bounties per kill.
I don't support griefers. But if being a bandit is too insanely hard, then there won't *be* bandits, and thus no need for caravan guards etc etc, outside of war. And since it seems war would have to be mutual (huh?), it pretty much dials down the risk of PvP.
Please note, I've never been a serious PvP player. For the most part, I really enjoy PvE more than PvP. But this game makes PvP matter, and thus I want to try it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps high level (highly skilled) rogues/assassins should have an ability to go incognito for a few minutes. If they get the kill off inside that time, the victim cannot identify them and thus cannot put a bounty on them and not flags are set ONLY when in a wilderness area.
I feel there has to be some element of danger/fear/risk for people to venture into such areas.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There were penalties. The bounty system just ensures that bandits get hammered after every single kill. If bandits get hit by bounties in the field, then there might need to be a limited number of bounties per kill.
I disagree, someone still has to spend the money to place the bounty, not all players are going to do this.
Also, and more importantly, someone has to go kill the person to collect the bounty. If you are in some bandit company it makes it much less enticing for bounty hunters to come after you.
Either way, I don't see this being a limiting factor to bandits/assassins or whatever it's just a method to ensure there are consequences for possible griefing situations. It doesn't stop it, just makes consequences.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Alignment penalties is the COST of an act of murder, not the RISK.
By murdering people you have already agreed to the alignment shift, it's something you're willing to take.
Bandits have bounties on them in just about every medieval/fantasy fiction I know.
If you don't want to be a target, don't go round killing people, unless you have a good reason. People will be after you ANYWAY.
There are plenty of other ways to kill people with none of the penalties, so just don't commit murder if it bothers you.
I wouldn't bother for a 1 gp bounty, would you? Why take that one when I can take one offering 3000?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The risk vs reward argument you're making is a one sided one. All the risk on the victim, all the reward to the murderer. How is that risk vs reward? What did the murderer risk?
Then you misunderstand: the reward they spoke of was of greater treasures to be found and better resource nodes out in the wilds. In exchange for that greater reward, they spoke of the greater risk of PvP out there.
Now it's mostly reward.
And this is coming from someone who had no intention of being a bandit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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They have been recently releasing more and more information that limits Random Player Killing.
I think the information that we had previously, in which an RPKer would be penalized with alignment shifts and a loss of reputation, being condemned to be welcome only in the wretched hives of scum and villiany, was sufficient.
Those were the costs of attempting to be an RPKer.
When they first came out (two or three weeks ago), I was immediately worried about what it would mean for the game.
After about a week, I softened my criticisms and concerns and accepted that those changes were probably for the best. They would (hopefully) attract more of those that had concerns about PvP and discourage would-be griefers from joining the community. A more moderate community would, in turn, foster a healthy anti-griefing attitude (not to say there wasn't already one before; I'm looking at you, Empyrean Order :).
Now, I feel the costs for randomly killing are too great.
Honestly, if bounties can now be placed on anybody not tagged, they may as well just take out non-consensual PvP in total, just as many have asked. My best argument in favor of non-consensual PvP was that it would allow a player some recourse for people griefing (or simply being unreasonable/stubborn) in PvE and would be necessary for the economy. This worked out great because everybody could afford to do this occasionally, even LG paladins. The difference was that LG paladins would likely sacrifice more to try to settle disputes non-violently if at all possible, where Chaotic characters might not bother so much. I thought the distinction elegant.
Now, I imagine players will PvE grief/annoy others with the hopes of goading them into attacking them, at which point they can then throw up bounties and further grief that player.
Granted, the blog post also told us that the rewards of killing another player have also increased, since now you can choose what you wish to loot from amongst their unthreaded equipment and inventory. I would have preferred it the other way because:
1. I thought the low reward / moderate cost scenario was better for unlawful areas and wilderness, as it would allow persons to use the threat of violence when necessary.
2. My personal preference is for RPKing to happen. I want it to be an option that everybody knows is there. Before today, it was also something that everybody knows will destroy them if they use it too frequently.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The same risk to the traveler of being killed by their target or the target's friends, and the risk of having a contract put on them that operates outside regular law enforcement (aka assassination). Banditry was already all about risk. How can you seriously ask what the risk to the murderer is?
They used to be describing a Wild West type game where you had to take the law into your own hands. Now they have taken a marked shift away from that.
This is why we've had all this discussion up til now about the necessity of caravan guards and staking a claim on territory that has good resources in order to set up higher levels of protection.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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You can Bounty and/or Death Curse anyone who kills you* unless you had one of the mitigating flags when you died (Attacker, Criminal, At War, etc.).This is a very big leap from earlier blogs that very explicitly stated that kills in the wilderness would not trigger the bounty system.
Wrong. Full stop. Period.
We have never said that there were no penalties to killing a character in the wilderness. You have read that into statements we've made, but we have never said that (or if we have it was not in a blog, so I don't feel particularly bound by that level of nuance).
The idea of the bounty has been, and always will be that it's a way to make it very dangerous and painful to kill another character. You can easily be stuck with a "whack me" sticker for the rest of your character's life if you pick on someone who can afford to keep the bounty running. Kill with caution.
This is what we said:
Pathfinder Online's bounty system is a lot more selective. When you are murdered—that is, killed unlawfully—you will have the option to place a bounty on your killer's head.
And we said this:
Bounties can only be issued when a character unlawfully kills another. Killing an opponent as a part of a declared war, or in an area that does not have laws against murder, will not trigger the bounty system.
There may be large swathes of the game world that have laws against murder. We have not defined what that is or how that will work. We may declare that a substantial area territory has a "law against murder", and we might change that over time to reflect how the community is playing the game and how much problem we're having with griefers.
And we have said this (or something quite close to this), each and every time we've discussed game mechanics:
The ideas described in this blog represent our current game design ideas and directions. They're subject to change as design progresses and as we get playtest and other feedback about them.
This is change and this is feedback. Nothing is immutable and set in stone. Everything is being discussed constantly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This opposition to bounties relies on the assumption that everyone will just keep putting bounties I. You over and over, costing money, and they those bounties will be worth hunting you down for. Why would they be? Unless you killed a really wealthy merchant, and they probably have better things to do than kill you over and over. Remember you don't actually get anything back for a bounty, just put a price on someone's head.
It adds weight to decision to murder someone.
And if there's a known griefer provoking people into attacking him, who will take the bounty on someone with a good reputation? People who do are likely to lose reputation for being a lowly mercenary.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I too want high risk/high reward, and we don't want to cater to the "griefer" types. I am thinking that with a bit more conversation we can find that happy medium, in fact I think we are probably close. Let's not give up on the discussion, after all, it took quite a while with the whole Capstone issue =)
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Goblin Squad Member
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The economy was also another key point in this matter. Ryan's blog about PFO economy talks about the importance of the risk taking adventurers having to constantly replace their gear and how that would drive the gathering and crafting parts of the economy.
Now it's going more in the direction of theme park MMOs where there's less risk of losing good gear, so the developers have to provide options for better and better and better gear or players will lose that feeling of accomplishment from what they have when everyone else has it. In a sandbox the sense of accomplishment is supposed to come from hanging onto that gear through all the risk.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This opposition to bounties relies on the assumption that everyone will just keep putting bounties I. You over and over, costing money, and they those bounties will be worth hunting you down for. Why would they be? Unless you killed a really wealthy merchant, and they probably have better things to do than kill you over and over. Remember you don't actually get anything back for a bounty, just put a price on someone's head.
It adds weight to decision to murder someone.And if there's a known griefer provoking people into attacking him, who will take the bounty on someone with a good reputation? People who do are likely to lose reputation for being a lowly mercenary.
So you're assuming I can't place a 1 coin bounty on you just so my chartered company can kill you over and over wherever and whenever they want without consequences. And if they place a minimum amount, then my buddies can just reimburse me the cost each time to make sure they can keep having their fun hunting you.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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So you're assuming I can't place a 1 coin bounty on you just so my chartered company can kill you over and over wherever and whenever they want without consequences. And if they place a minimum amount, then my buddies can just reimburse me the cost each time to make sure they can keep having their fun hunting you.
Ok this I can get behind as an opposing point to everything discussed above. There should be some limiting factor on how many times one player can take a bounty on the same character to avoid this reverse greifing.
Edit* Or maybe even limit how many times a member of a company can take a bounty on the same player.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The economy of what? Are you part of a town or not? If you're not, you have limited access to the facilities of that town. If you are part of a town, then there will be rival factions competing for that resource. They can kill you and you can't put a bounty on them.
The criminal element is not at the heart of pvp risk. If you're killing random people for their stuff you are rejecting community, you're either a lone bandit or part of a bandit group. You're an outlaw. You can get killed anyway.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And not just the killer:
You'll be able to put a bounty on any character who inflicted damage on you within a limited time preceding your character's death, and on their companions and those who rendered them assistance, so you can ensure that a gang of criminals suffers as much as a lone assassin.And this point too:
Oh, and one more twist: Each time the bounty is paid, the victim has the option to issue it again. And again. A wealthy victim could maintain the price on the head of a murderer for a very long time—forever, if they like. Murder the wrong person, and you might find your character reduced to a life constantly on the run, or you may need to try to heal the breach via penance and apology (and likely restitution).
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Goblin Squad Member
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The economy of what? Are you part of a town or not? If you're not, you have limited access to the facilities of that town. If you are part of a town, then there will be rival factions competing for that resource. They can kill you and you can't put a bounty on them.
The criminal element is not at the heart of pvp risk. If you're killing random people for their stuff you are rejecting community, you're either a lone bandit or part of a bandit group. You're an outlaw. You can get killed anyway.
I did not say that the killer was to be stimulating the economy, but the target.
People who are healthy parts of vibrant economies go out and take the risk of losing their gear. When they lose that gear in PvP (because scripted PvE encounters are a joke) then they have to buy new gear. That stimulates their economies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you're low rep and low alignment, people can kill you with little penalty anyway, it makes little difference, just gives people an incentive to target you.
Perhaps there should be an increasing value to the bounties of you repeat it, working on some formula that the less you put on, the more it increases, but if you put a high bounty, the amount it increases each time is less. Eg 1gp would become 10, which would become 100, which would become 1000, but if you put 10 000 on someone it goes up to 12000 or something the next time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If that is so, then Lee misunderstood my concern and comment when he replied thusly:
Wrong. Full stop. Period.We have never said that there were no penalties to killing a character in the wilderness. You have read that into statements we've made, but we have never said that (or if we have it was not in a blog, so I don't feel particularly bound by that level of nuance).
The idea of the bounty has been, and always will be that it's a way to make it very dangerous and painful to kill another character. You can easily be stuck with a "whack me" sticker for the rest of your character's life if you pick on someone who can afford to keep the bounty running. Kill with caution.
This is what we said:
Pathfinder Online's bounty system is a lot more selective. When you are murdered—that is, killed unlawfully—you will have the option to place a bounty on your killer's head.And we said this:
Bounties can only be issued when a character unlawfully kills another. Killing an opponent as a part of a declared war, or in an area that does not have laws against murder, will not trigger the bounty system.There may be large swathes of the game world that have laws against murder. We have not defined what that is or how that will work. We may declare that a substantial area territory has a "law against murder", and we might change that over time to reflect how the community is playing the game and how much problem we're having with griefers.
And we have said this (or something quite close to this), each and every time we've discussed game mechanics:
The ideas described in...
Actually as I said twice in this thread I'm looking at divorcing the functionality of an Attacker flag from a Criminal flag, so someone who is attacked in the wilderness would get Attacker but not Criminal so we can keep track of who is starting the fight. Criminal would be used more for breaking laws in settlements. Currently Criminal is sort of doing double duty in its functionality, so breaking off the Attacker functionality seems like a good solution.So any attacker in a wilderness area that is not controlled by any settlement at all will be flagged as a criminal.
That is a very vivid change in the early descriptions of the game concept of one of open PvP where adventure is only for the brave. From what you're saying here, Goblinworks have changed their direction on that big time. To me you're no longer talking about the same game anymore, and that's giving me a lot to think about. But I'm glad to get this information now, rather than after you've taken more of my money.
For a conversation that was clearly explained to him to be in the context of figuring out his response was very misleading.