Will we see player looting in alpha?


Pathfinder Online

Goblin Squad Member

Being that this is an integral part of what I would consider MVP, I'm curious if we will get a chance to test it during alpha?

On a side note, what is the purpose of Rotter's Hole, if you still can not train low rep characters there?

Goblin Squad Member

Yeah. If people are concerned about range farming ogres messing with the MVP economy let's talk about the lack of gear loss and no good reason to PvP until the war of towers.

It's an economy of all faucets and no drains. What we would see without it is everyone coming into the WoT with absolutely massive stockpiles of gear because up until that point they will only be gaining loot. Not losing any of it. That will suck bad for month 2 and 3 EEers.


I doubt we will see corpses in general.

The War of Towers dilemma is an issue. They could make some of the hexes free-for-all. Put some good stuff there, let people fight over it. At least something...

I can't imagine that would be so hard. I would like to see rep free pvp everywhere on the map except within a few hexes of a settlement.

Another plus of having some pvp hexes (even if they randomly are chosen each day) would be to get everyone good and mad at each other so that when war of Towers comes there isn't gonna be a NAP.

Goblin Squad Member

I don't think we will get a chance to test this during Alpha - in a blog about EE when mentioning implementing the second half of the map later, they indicated that the only fear a caravan (or single player carrying infinite goods, lolencumbrance) would have to fear from death was durability loss.

That to me indicated that it wouldn't be in at the start of EE, let alone Alpha.

Goblin Squad Member

Personally I would be content to see gear loss without looting in MVP. The loss is more important than the loot.

Goblin Squad Member

For me, not having looting is not having a purpose for PvP. Not having the risk of being looted, is not having risk at all.

If all PFO amounts to is a harvesting and crafting sim, for weeks or even months, wow that will be lame. The PVE is not enough to sustain interest, and it is not designed to do so.

I'm hoping that there will be a substantial PvP risk vs. reward system within the first 6 months.

Looting
Item destruction
Item decay
Item repair
Item crafting
Item sales

All are a part of a complex system that would truly make PFO stand out among other MMOs, and draw up equally with EvE.


I believe info on Looting will be in the next blog post.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ric3?So-things-I-need-to-know-about-Golgotha-P VP

Ryan posted there.

Goblin Squad Member

I think the most broken thing in game at present related to potential PvP is the way your character appears in game (and seems selectable) while you are still at the "loading terrain" screen.

This effectively gives other players in the area about a 10 second warning that a player is logging in and the location they will spawn.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

KoTC Edam Neadenil wrote:

I think the most broken thing in game at present related to potential PvP is the way your character appears in game (and seems selectable) while you are still at the "loading terrain" screen.

This effectively gives other players in the area about a 10 second warning that a player is logging in and the location they will spawn.

Can the spawning player be attacked while still loading terrain? If so, that will become a high priority fix for a lot of players.

Goblin Squad Member

@Bluddwolf

Ah. I suppose I can see that for you. I'm sure how you see that all I need for PvP to have meaning to me is an avenue that allows me to kill my enemies and the ability to destroy their items though. The loot, if I don't just trash it, is a bonus.

Goblin Squad Member

KarlBob wrote:
KoTC Edam Neadenil wrote:

I think the most broken thing in game at present related to potential PvP is the way your character appears in game (and seems selectable) while you are still at the "loading terrain" screen.

This effectively gives other players in the area about a 10 second warning that a player is logging in and the location they will spawn.

Can the spawning player be attacked while still loading terrain? If so, that will become a high priority fix for a lot of players.

Have not tried. Doubt it.

They can be selected I believe. Which means you could sit there and spam '1' until they do become attackable.

Goblin Squad Member

How often is one going to be logging in in such vicinity to an enemy?

Goblin Squad Member

The frequency won't be quite as important to you if you are the one to whom it happens. Even if they only get to use it once, losing durability on all your threaded goods, and losing anything that wasn't banked, is bad enough if logging in leaves you helpless. I wouldn't say it qualifies as "most broken," but it concerns me a little.


Andius the Afflicted wrote:

Yeah. If people are concerned about range farming ogres messing with the MVP economy let's talk about the lack of gear loss and no good reason to PvP until the war of towers.

It's an economy of all faucets and no drains. What we would see without it is everyone coming into the WoT with absolutely massive stockpiles of gear because up until that point they will only be gaining loot. Not losing any of it. That will suck bad for month 2 and 3 EEers.

This kind of thing is why I've been warning about starting EE without completed systems. You get imbalances in the player-content systems that can only be rectified with a wipe later, which any developer is very reluctant to do with paying customers. So, it either ends up completely imbalanced and a wipe is necessary, or it ends up only partially imbalanced certain aspects of the game are heavily biased towards whoever was able to take advantage of inadequacies in incomplete systems.


Bluddwolf wrote:

For me, not having looting is not having a purpose for PvP. Not having the risk of being looted, is not having risk at all.

If all PFO amounts to is a harvesting and crafting sim, for weeks or even months, wow that will be lame. The PVE is not enough to sustain interest, and it is not designed to do so.

I definitely hear you on this Bluddwolf. PFO is going to have severe trouble retaining any decent number of subscribers in a "harvesting and crafting sim" in which the PvE is preliminary and wasn't a focal point.

Goblin Squad Member

Looking at the new "loot dead player corpse" policy, it appears at first glance that your corpse stays for 30 minutes while anyone and everyone can loot it and get a share of what is on it until there is nothing unteathered left. I am going to assume, because the blog didn't specify (unless I missed it), that this occurs whether a player or a mob kills you. So, you could be minding your own business, run across some enemies too tough for you (easily done), die and be a lootable corpse for anyone who either runs across your body or observes the death (or even helps it along). If said looter didn't cause your death then he/she won't get hit by negative reputation. Easy way to grief others and suffer no penalty.

That 30 minute window? It can take as long as an hour or more to get back to your last known location, assuming you remember the spot. I hope a pin appears only for the player who died so they know exactly where to run.

Note: this is the sort of griefing that ruined Ultima Online, that and the hacks. (This statement shows my age. Yes, I have been around playing games for that long and longer.)

Also, I notice that you don't actually need to offer a loot incentive for griefing. Merely killing new players enough times that their items decay to unusability is enough to drive them off the game. I am sure that a number of posters and readers on these forums have figured that out already. I haven't seen anyone mention this. (I am not saying that no one did, just didn't see a post regarding this).

I am just trying to point out concerns not posted openly by others, not attempting to be confontational.

Goblin Squad Member

@Dark Sasha

You and I define griefing very differently. It's sucks to get looted because you overextended yourself in PvE but it's not griefing.

That said. Usually when I loot someone that I didn't kill I PM them and offer them their stuff back unless I have something against them or their group. Did you consider that aspect?

CEO, Goblinworks

@Dark Sasha - right now, the only reason you should be killed by random mobs is inattention. You can run fast enough that they can't hurt you and even if you get hit by a few rooting attacks you can usually still get away.

If you get killed by a mob you purposefully engaged and someone else gets to loot your corpse because you took on too much risk, that's the game working as intended.

You currently respawn at the closest shrine. You're never more than a hex away from your corpse and on average half a hex. So it should take at most a few minutes to get back to your husk.

When we implement the option to respawn in a Settlement rather than the nearest Shrine, you'll have a meaningful choice to make, which is the game working as intended.

Goblin Squad Member

I'm with Andius. This is a game about the struggle for success. They're offering you the choice to res at the nearest point, which shouldn't be more than 5 minutes from your body, along with a pointer to get there. anyone who loses all their stuff without having been taken out by a killer it will likely be because they chose to abandon it, probably because they were reckless and wandered to close to a mob they don't want to try again.

Goblin Squad Member

@Dark Sasha, I would add that folks who loot your corpse without "looting rights" will be flagged as Criminals.

Goblin Squad Member

Don't forget, as well, that Goblinworks will have GMs available for you to report to if you believe you've been a victim of griefing. We've been promised attention will be specifically paid to those reports, as one of Goblinworks' plans is to convince griefers that PFO is absolutely a game which they don't wish to play.

Goblin Squad Member

T7V Jazzlvraz wrote:
Don't forget, as well, that Goblinworks will have GMs available for you to report to if you believe you've been a victim of griefing. We've been promised attention will be specifically paid to those reports, as one of Goblinworks' plans is to convince griefers that PFO is absolutely a game which they don't wish to play.

Don't encourage them.

Ryan Dancey wrote:

@Dark Sasha - right now, the only reason you should be killed by random mobs is inattention. You can run fast enough that they can't hurt you and even if you get hit by a few rooting attacks you can usually still get away.

If you get killed by a mob you purposefully engaged and someone else gets to loot your corpse because you took on too much risk, that's the game working as intended.

If someone loots your body because you took on too much risk don't waste your time and the time of the GMs submitting a ticket you've been griefed. You haven't, and nobody is going to do anything about it.

CEO, Goblinworks

@Nihimon - I don't think that will be a part of this initial deployment of husks.

Goblin Squad Member

Andius the Afflicted wrote:
Don't encourage them.

We also know that inappropriate, repeated reports of griefing will themselves be considered griefing. Everyone should judge carefully.

Goblin Squad Member

T7V Jazzlvraz wrote:
Andius the Afflicted wrote:
Don't encourage them.
We also know that inappropriate, repeated reports of griefing will themselves be considered griefing. Everyone should judge carefully.

Just another good reason not to encourage someone to report a behavior which the head developer has been so gracious as to tell us will not be considered griefing. I would hate to see people get in trouble with the GMs because they have false notions in their head put there by the community.

I would hope someone who has been in this community as long as you would have come to understand by now "Any action which hurt's your chracter" =/= griefing and be above encouraging such false lines of thought.

Goblin Squad Member

I also didn't--and still don't--perceive that I gave any encouragement to reporting in this situation. I don't perceive this specific case as griefing; I, however, thought, and think, it's appropriate to inform folks who may not know that they'll have recourse in the general case.

EDIT: Unfortunately, I missed, by five minutes, the window to make that more clear in my initial post.

Goblin Squad Member

I am personally not concerned with corpse looting being in too soon, but I also don't see the faucets turned on too high right now as the crafting time for decent Tier 1 gear is still very long, severely limiting gear creation by time alone. Raw mats and refined mats are another story and will likely accumulate pretty quickly early on. I am sure GW will be monitoring the inventories of items for balance.

I would like to see the banks, auction houses, and some of the settlement, company, and commerce features in game at the earliest time. Earlier than the looting, but looting should be in fairly early since it will be in integral part of the game, and game balance.


I'm very interested to see how this change affects PvP in the game as it currently exists as well as how PvP will be in EE and when the game is released. I think GW has a very tough (but by no means impossible) job making PvP an important part of the game while making griefing something that doesn't go hand in hand with PvP.

While there are some clear examples of things are and are not griefing, I think there's a lot of gray area as well and I'll be curious to see how these things shake out.

I don't have any problem with PvP being an important aspect of the game, but there seems to be a sizable number of people that hope it isn't the main focus of the game (or, if it is, it's done in a way that makes sense in the world, not just random groups 'ganking newbs' endlessly). Until the feud system and other aspects get implemented, it's impossible to know how these things will pan out, but it should be fun to see how they are implemented and how things evolve.

Goblin Squad Member

Hardin Steele wrote:
I would like to see the banks, auction houses, and some of the settlement, company, and commerce features in game at the earliest time. Earlier than the looting, but looting should be in fairly early since it will be in integral part of the game, and game balance.

Banks are supposed to be in tomorrow's update.

Goblin Squad Member

Upon rereading my post I see I failed to make it clear what I think griefing entails. I do not think that all corpse looting is griefing. I definitely do not think that all player verus player conflict is griefing. This is in part what PFO was designed to encourage. In my opinion this is all a part of what will become the grand story of the region in which the game is played.

I count as griefing the deliberate attempt to attack new players because the aggressive players can, because they find this sort of thing fun, or for the expressed purpose to drive them off the game. I believe it would be easy to do this by means of tricks such as attacks just as new players attempt to enter or exit towns, such that their equipment degrades more rapidly, too rapidly to replace by crafting or trading means.

I see it also as certain unscrupulous opportunists who take advantage of a player fighting random mobs and contributing to their death by various tricks, not all of which may be apparent until they are tried. And then, looting the player's corpse once the "mob" kills them.

It would be fairly simple for a large and aggressive group to hamper smaller settlements in the above fashion by causing them to give up. This would be unfortunate to lose players in this manner and even worse because they feel their concerns are disregarded as trivial by both the aggressive players and by the Gobinworks team.

It is a concern of mine mainly because I have given what I consider to not be a trivial amount of money to see this project through to the finished product. I did this because I see this game has tremendous potential for roleplay immersion and enjoyment.

Settlement versus settlement fighting is a good way to go about crafting a story, a history, and eventually a legend of the great and the infamous, of settlements and kingdoms rising and falling. I don't want it to die quickly due to new players and small companies giving up. I caution against seeing this as a good thing.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Dark Sasha, Goblinworks seems to share many aspects of your view of griefing, based on multiple blog posts and many, many forum posts. They've said in the past that they'll never write a strict definition of griefing, because they want to use a flexible, "I know it when I see it," approach. A group that set out to drive new players away from the game would definitely draw their attention, whether the methodology was outright attacking new characters, or drawing enraged monsters across their path.

If people are driven away from the game by grief tactics, Goblinworks loses money, and it endangers the game they've spent a ton of time and energy creating.

I suggest two things: 1. We trust Goblinworks to be on the lookout for griefing, and 2. We report it when we see it, because they can't watch everything all the time.

This isn't UO, and it's trying not to replicate the griefing aspects of EVE Online. Let's give it a try, and see whether we can have player corpse looting without too much griefing.

Goblin Squad Member

Always interesting to hear different people's take on things. Big variables in how I approach situations are going to be the relationship between our settlements (ally, neutral, enemy), whose hex are you in, and how much of an advantage for myself I can wrangle out of whatever situation you are in. If you die in a "PVE activity" and you're not an ally, i certainly consider finders keepers fair, or possibly finders fee for guarding your corpse till you get back if I'm feeling charitable. If you are taking resources that I believe are due my settlement or could harm my settlement, I don't consider it griefing just as I don't consider looting griefing, but I certainly consider it a contestable act and not a PVE activity. Gathering is PvP in this game of settlement conflict, IMHO

Lots of way to view things :D

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