Goblin Squad Member
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I've just been reading up on the PVP and flagging system over on Goblin works (I know, I'm behind the curve here). I wanted to talk a bit about the concepts of Risk vs Reward and long term consequences for criminal actions.
I'll step into the real world for just a second, and ask, if being a criminal is profitable, why don't more people do it? The answer is that the risk for doing so is, for many people, unacceptably high. Sure, you can rob a bank and get away with 30-40 thousand dollars, but in the process you risk spending a very large amount of time in jail, or even a very permanent vacation in a 6 foot hole. Being a criminal means you have a very high reward potential vs a very high risk potential. You can earn lots and lots of loot, with the risk (generally one that grows higher with every crime) of losing pretty much everything.
When you leave the real world and go back to MMO Land, you end up losing keeping the high reward, but you lose the high risk. There's a very good reason for not killing characters (permanently) or locking them up for long periods of time. Both tend to drive away players. However, I've found that without some level of risk that counters that level of reward, you end up with a very lopsided equation that has more people than "normal" deciding to take up the mantle of criminal. Its simply too lucrative a job in the long term.
I talk about long term risk here, because when you look at short term risk, things look fairly equal. Both players have a chance to live or die, and both stand a chance to lose items upon death. Even if you lopside the short term risk, (say wolf loses 2 items, sheep loses 1 on death) the short term risk is outweighed by long term gain. On top of this the wolf generally takes precautions when hunting to lower his short term risk.
For example, A sheep might be wearing their "Best" gear because they are going to/have been hunting monsters/dungeons for the better part of their gameday. These better items are generally "essential" for this style of play. On the other hand the wolf, knowing the risk he is about to embark on, generally puts on gear that is "good enough", and looks for the best time to strike. Remove any illusions of the Robin Hood walk up. What generally happens is a wait for an opportune time such as after a grueling combat before the strike happens. This greatly lowers the wolfs hunting risk, and helps him build that reward. Will the wolf lose? Yes, but statistically speaking, over the long run, his gain ends up being much more than his loss.
The question then, is how do we fix the long-term risk/reward system so that the high reward of choosing the outlaw life is balanced by some sort of long term risk?
The path they are on is a decent start, but I don't think it works to level out the equation, though unfortunately, I don't have the answers for that problem just yet. The key though is that once flagged criminal/evil, getting killed for those actions (such as through a bounty or a death curse) should really really hurt.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As one who is looking forward to becoming a bandit in PFO, there is one thing to clear up: there are different kinds of banditry possible. Personally I'm aiming for more of the highwayman, charge tolls to travelers for the service I provide in keeping the road clear of unsavory characters. Call it 'stand and deliver', call it ransoming, call it extortion, doesn't much matter. The point is death is an inconvenience that I'd rather not experience nor met out.
This doesn't mean there shouldn't be substantial or long-term risks involved. Bounties could be an unfortunate side effect, resulting in the regrettable demise of certain professionals out to collect them. The fact that the bounty hunters won't stay dead makes it even more of an annoyance. Having death curses that reduce the number of threads available for me to use would be another unfortunate but understandable annoyance. Limited access to markets would mean I would need to rely on mules (be they alts or other players) to get my hard-earned goods to market, and if there are theft flags placed on items those may require the use of a skilled fence or shady dealings with a black market to unload.
Now, as one who relies on the threat of force rather than actual violence to operate, and who does so in the wilds outside of the rule of law, I would expect to avoid some of the less palatable consequences of skulduggery that would normally happen in more civilized climes. As an honorable highwayman all ransoms would be honored, so I would expect that the worst that would happen, under normal circumstances, would be that my likeness and deeds would be spread by my contributors and a sum may be placed on my head.
Those who chose to live and die by the sword, looting and pillaging the hard working travelers, craftsfolk, woodsmen, and explorers are a different breed. They should expect bounties, death curses, and blacklisting as a matter of course, and those that perform their nefarious deeds within civilization should rightly fear legal recourse by way of the gendarme and possibly lynch mobs.
Unfortunately incarceration is not really an option in an MMO, and death itself is really just a minor inconvenience. The sacrifice of reputation to place a death curse on your killer(s) could potentially be a horrible thing for the murderer. If they are prolific enough in their slaughter, death cursing all of their threads away so that when they die they lose everything would be deliciously awful for the blackguard. Using a death curse to sever their respawn location so they have to travel from a less then ideal point would be fantastic too. Most of the truly long-term risks could very well be social. Being forbidden from entering a LG settlement (your ugly mug is plastered all over) could be distressing, especially if the training you need is either there or all the way across the map. I would imagine many of the good markets would be in settlements you can't get into easily, if at all, so buying replacement gear could be a challenge.
Even though I'm headed down the bandit road, I'm all for long-term consequences. Everyone needs to pay the piper for their actions after all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In EVE Online, your Security Status is a global indicator of how well you play with others. If you shoot an unflagged individual in high or low security space, you take a hit. If you kill NPC pirates or turn in certain tags, it goes up. The higher your status is, the slower it rises and the faster it falls. The lower your status, the harder it is to bring it up.
If your security status is somewhat low, faction guards will attack you if you try to travel through high security space. Annoying, but manageable. If it's really low, you'll be flagged for anyone to attack for as long as it stays low.
One of the popular "professions" in EVE Online is the suicide ganker. People who spend all of their time in high security space are (if they don't catch on quickly) misguidedly comfortable about their safety. They'll try to run missions semi-AFK in ships worth billions of ISK, or stuff under-protected hauling vessels full of goods to ship from market to market. In highsec, anyone attacking you without first doing the proper paperwork will be killed in very short order by the space cops. But it turns out that the space cops take varying amounts of time to actually get there, depending on the security level of the system. So the plan is simple: build some ships that can do as much damage in as little time as possible for the least cost as possible. Find a ship carrying enough goods to make losing X of these cheap suicide ships profitable, as determined by an estimate of how much damage the victim can soak up before the cops show up. Sacrifice your ships, have some other guy come in and scoop the loot. If you're lucky and good at math, you profit.
The only "control" for this is that you lose some security status, which makes it hard to get back in to highsec to do it again until you've ground out a bunch of NPC kills. This process of grinding security status and blowing it on a fat, unsuspecting kill can be repeated indefinitely.
I can imagine Space Police Central evaluating visitors to highsec. "Well, this guy has a long record of murdering merchants under our noses at a profit. But on the other hand, he's very dedicated to murdering space pirates too. It's been a while since he's murdered anyone we like, so... ok, he's approved. Let him through."
I'm certainly not against the practice of snaring the unwary where they feel most safe. It's a part of the game. I do, however, have a problem with treating your reputation as a resource that can be spent and replenished routinely, even if it is an annoying grind. People should be allowed to make a few "mistakes" and still recover their reputation, but it feels as though there should be something permanent that dissuades repeat offenses. Hard crime is a valid career path in PFO, but it should be one that only those willing to live with abysmal reputation should practice frequently. Maybe a hidden "meta-reputation" score. Keep track of all the reputation that someone has ever lost, and use some logarithmic function of it to penalize reputation gains. Forever. Hitting minimum reputation once or twice and then climbing back up is fine. But it should get harder to make that climb each time. At some point, the person should resolve to either stop doing things that hurt their reputation, or embrace the low-reputation lifestyle to its fullest.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem with long term risk, is that you don't want to game to become unbearable, you need people paying for the game, and if players are content, you need career evil bastards to play against your godly crusaders. Doing the most heinous things still needs to be fun to the people doing them. This is why I think most games are 'good vs. evil' and not 'crime vs law'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I play criminals in games, because that is the farthest thing that I am in RL.
On games my characters are never driven by the promise of high rewards, only by the rare possibilities of them. The risk is what I really crave. Even if the reward is small, I'd still prefer at least a moderate risk. This is why I think so many are drawn to crime in MMOs, it is just so damned fun.
I have always believed the rogue or thief were the most adventurous classes in fantasy based games, PnP or MMOs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My biggest problem is the implications with training. If it's nigh impossible for the baddies to get up to the same level of training and feat lines as the heroes, after awhile there is no more good vs evil on even footing, it becomes Good beating Evil unless it's evil jumping a newb.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My biggest problem is the implications with training. If it's nigh impossible for the baddies to get up to the same level of training and feat lines as the heroes, after awhile there is no more good vs evil on even footing, it becomes Good beating Evil unless it's evil jumping a newb.
In PFO, criminals, especially thieves and or bandits, don't have to be evil. They will certainly be chaotic and probably neutral. Thieving, Banditry and Stealth skills will likely be chaotic based. Combat skills will likely be neutral. So we will get the most training out of CN settlements.
The fact that we won't have access to the highest training in lawful, good or even evil skills won't really hinder criminals of the thieving professions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My biggest problem is the implications with training. If it's nigh impossible for the baddies to get up to the same level of training and feat lines as the heroes, after awhile there is no more good vs evil on even footing, it becomes Good beating Evil unless it's evil jumping a newb.
It's been said that the best training won't be available in NPC settlements anyway. Evil people will set up settlements for evil purposes that contain helpful training centers offering degrees in the evil arts, including assassination, necromancy, blackguardery, accounting, and so on.
Hey guys. Long time lurker, but PFO is sooo sexy and this is something I have to comment on.
The problem with criminal behavior and risk vs. reward also has to factor in the biggest factor of all - player fun. Not just the criminal's fun either. I've played nearly every single mainstream MMO going back to Meridian 59. I played UO, EQ, WOW, Vanguard, AO... I doubt you can name one I haven't played for at least a few months. Most of them from launch through max level.
In the past, whenever there has been a way for such a thing to be exploited to make other player's lives miserable there have been people willing to do it despite any in game penalties. I actually really enjoy the system Age of Wushu has set up for this. They have a bounty system in place similar to what PFO has said they were going to do. If a player with a bounty is killed with a bad enough 'reputation' the player respawns in a jail. They have to serve a 'sentence' in that jail varying from 15 or 20 minutes all the way up to several hours of in game time. It's the penalty for being a 'bad guy'. This also leads to other cool things, including a guard bribery system and attempted prison breaks.
My point is, there ARE games that have real, legitimate in game penalties for being a bad guy. There are ways to 'game the system' too. I just don't like the idea of a game where, like the OP discussed, there's little or no risk to offset the in game reward...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nothing is going to keep people from being Evil if thats what they want to be.
PFO has to allow people to do this, if thats what they want. It is a sandbox world. The best way to counter this is to be a part of a Good group that hunts down evil people.
The only real Risk for Evil people is Good people.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's been said that the best training won't be available in NPC settlements anyway. Evil people will set up settlements for evil purposes that contain helpful training centers offering degrees in the evil arts, including assassination, necromancy, blackguardery, accounting, and so on.
My biggest problem is the implications with training. If it's nigh impossible for the baddies to get up to the same level of training and feat lines as the heroes, after awhile there is no more good vs evil on even footing, it becomes Good beating Evil unless it's evil jumping a newb.
Not to mention Political Science.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The main risk for evil characters , are other evil characters. The major risk for good characters, are other good characters who think they are defenders of all that is good. The main risk to both good and evil characters alike, are the characters that fancy themselves political figures and or community organizers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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-snip-However, I've found that without some level of risk that counters that level of reward, you end up with a very lopsided equation that has more people than "normal" deciding to take up the mantle of criminal. Its simply too lucrative a job in the long term.-snip-
The question then, is how do we fix the long-term risk/reward system so that the high reward of choosing the outlaw life is balanced by some sort of long term risk?
The path they are on is a decent start, but I don't think it works to level out the equation, though unfortunately, I don't have the answers for that problem just yet. The key though is that once flagged criminal/evil, getting killed for those actions (such as through a bounty or a death curse) should really really hurt.
I enjoyed reading Sintaqx's expectations of playing a bandit. This seems an interesting game experience to me. In fact I like the fact the bandit is providing content for other players, a lot! Instead of mobs, you have player bandits.
As Sintaqx says there will be a range of bandit behaviours likely depending on how much risk and how much heat for reward intended. Ryan provides a few more egs here: Viability of Bandits. As Sintaqx mentions we have Bandits being content (general, war, trade, territory etc) which leads to Bounty content. I think if the Bandits take the "hard line" they then make their own bed so to speak and the Bounty will suitably be larger and the reprisals and defenses suitably higher: Namely they drive the economic cost of operations where they have operated as well as the risks to themselves and the profit margin hence reduces I suspect (eg frequency of opportunity, cost of loss, time taken to land a target etc).
So Bandits I don't see as necessarily a static career, they'll have to be like the jackal living on the fringes and picking the bones from the Rich Man's Table, is the clever way of going about it, unless the Rich Man/Lord Lions decide they want the jackals to harass their enemies and pay for it!? And from Ryan's description the experience sounds like it will involve a lot of effort by players for different scenarios to pull it off successfully. They therefore seem to cater towards very dedicated players and the risk/reward of the bandit seems tied to the risk/reward of the prospectors willing to take ie Controlled Hex -> Wild Hex spectrum, which is precisely how it is INTENDED to work.
So I don't see a problem, on the contrary given the difficulties of progressing if you are a wreckless "bandit" who is CE low rep, you are going to be super content for anything/everyone else?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just a bit more on the blog about being flagged as a criminal:
Outlaw (Chaotic)
The Outlaw flag is for players who want to rob other players, commit acts of banditry, etc. It can be used by chaotic evil players to be brigands, or by chaotic good players to be Robin Hood–style robbers. Outlaws use a new mechanic we are working on developing called stand and deliver, which allows the Outlaw to demand money from their victim through a trade window. If the victim refuses, the Outlaw gets to carry out his threats of force without losing reputation.
- This flag cannot be disabled while Attacker, Criminal, or Heinous (or their 24-hour versions) are active.
While Outlaw is active:
- The player gets more loot when searching PvP kills that goes up each hour up to ten hours.
- The player gets a bonus to Stealth that goes up each hour up to ten hours.
- These bonuses reset to the minimum upon gaining the Attacker flag unless the target was offered and rejected a stand-and-deliver trade within five minutes of the attack.
- If the victim was offered and rejected stand and deliver, the Outlaw loses no reputation for killing the target within five minutes of the rejection.
If the victim and Outlaw completed a stand-and-deliver trade, the Outlaw loses double reputation for killing the target within 20 minutes. (If they pay, you should let them go.)
- When an Outlaw receives a ransom from stand and deliver, they get reputation up to a daily max.
So reputation management might come into it, and the distinctions between those types of Outlaw (robber, bandit, brigand) seem interesting.
The viability of player bandits brings lots of fun and interesting possibilities. I don't deny that, in the least. It also brings a lot of potential for abuse. AS has been proven many times in MMO's, if there is the potential for abuse it WILL be taken advantage of. No matter how small the loophole is, no matter how ridiculously large the amount of hoop jumping required to get there is, people will do it. Worst of all, once the loophole is discovered word will spread and very quickly you will have people emulating it... LOTS of them.
The problem with the system they've proposed(such as the stand and deliver trade for outlaws) is what stops them from having another group they've allied with(maybe even their alts?) down the road a little way? They've had the chance(during the trade) to examine them closely. They know what they're capable of, generally. What stops them from simply using the Outlaw tag to scout for the REAL group of bad guys? Sound far fetched? If you think this, you've never really spent much time playing online games.
The penalty for these things needs to be strict. Painful even - perhaps extreme! If the risks don't SIGNIFICANTLY outweigh the rewards, people will do it for the simple pleasure of ruining someone else's day. Look at real life. Our jails are full of criminals, thieves and murderers all kinds of villains. The majority of them are not mentally ill. Our system of justice metes out harsh penalties for these crimes, up to and including death. People still commit these crimes.
How do you think that in a fantasy RPG, the tiny amount of safeguards that the PFO devs have discussed will come even close to keeping these things under control? I'm interested to hear your responses.
Note:I enjoy open pvp worlds, it brings a lot of fun and interesting possibilities for actually feeling like a hero and dealing with the unfettered scum of humanity - my concern is that most people in the mainstream of MMO's do NOT enjoy this. Even in tabletop, every gamer has played with the guy who wants to steal from the party and snatch stuff behind their backs - it's not much fun, usually, except for the stealer, right up until the party chops him to cutlets for pocketing half the party's loot for the last 15 game sessions... then he's mad at you for reacting so harshly since he's just 'roleplaying how his character would act!'
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Goblin Squad Member
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How do you think that in a fantasy RPG, the tiny amount of safeguards that the PFO devs have discussed will come even close to keeping these things under control? I'm interested to hear your responses.
The Devs have said that banditry is an integral part of the player economy. They have set up the SAD system and the flagging system to encourage banditry, not to curtail it too much.
The limitations are as follows: NPC Starter Areas = No pvp and severely limited crime. Flags to make banditry a crime and punishable by any who pass by. PC Settled hexes can have banditry / theft outlawed and even limit alignments that are likely followed by thieves. The SAD systems gives bandits the option not to kill merchants, for less loot, and reputation boost. Merchants can hire guards (PC and possibly NPC). Merchants can also call for wardens to protect them.
"Tiny amount of safeguards" ...... Really?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually that is a tiny amount of safeguards... but acceptable.
NPC or PC guards are just more to attack and get loot from. NPC starter areas shoud have limited pvp and thats fine.
Making banditry a crime and punishable by anyone doesnt mean much. You can either engage or run from anyone who happens to pass by. No big negative there.
A good Eve Story: A buddy and I were out in low-security space hunting. We went after anyone we could take on or ran from the larger fleets. We came into a system with 5 guys in the same corp. One of them was in a battleship in one of the asteroid belts shooting npc pirates. So we engaged him. He had a massive tank that was tough to break. A minute or so later his other 4 buddies show up to help him. At that point we suspected a trap so we ran... Then we decided, who cares if we lose our ships, lets fight them. We go back to that belt and all of them were still there.
For those that know eve, We were in a Nighthawk (PVE ship really) and a Zealot (PVP ship with a hp tank and no reps.) The guys we were fighting were in a Armageddon (Battleship), Hurricane (Battlecruiser), Harbinger (Battlecruiser), Vexor (Cruiser), and an Omen (Cruiser).
We played it smart and used our range and primaried targets. We ended up killing everything except the Armageddon which ran away. As you can see if you play it right you can beat the odds. Our ships were superior by themselves but when you go against a group like that it can get very dicey. Tactics can beat most odds, and being a criminal doesnt really mean a lot.
Again thats what pvp is about. Take the risk and have fun.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Again thats what pvp is about. Take the risk and have fun.
I think that sums it up for me. If I wanted to play it safe I'd only play PnP where I know who the players are, and by extension, who their characters are. I want to meet and interact with characters who I don't know. I want to be challenged, surprised, and even pissed, and in PFO I want that to occur in the wild, in town, and even when crafting. Banzai!
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Goblin Squad Member
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The viability of player bandits brings lots of fun and interesting possibilities. I don't deny that, in the least. It also brings a lot of potential for abuse.
The problem with the system they've proposed(such as the stand and deliver trade for outlaws) is what stops them from having another group they've allied with(maybe even their alts?) down the road a little way? They've had the chance(during the trade) to examine them closely. They know what they're capable of, generally. What stops them from simply using the Outlaw tag to scout for the REAL group of bad guys? Sound far fetched? If you think this, you've never really spent much time playing online games.
Let's ignore the issue of griefing for now, as a separate discussion, which has had a lot of focus and concentrate on the actual design of "player bandits" how it ideally will work in a self-balancing way and where it's extreme expressions will be.
The way I see it, if it's human-driven, that leads to flexibility, which either leads to griefing or emergent gameplay. Again ignoring the negative side just to keep the discussion on "reasonable players" in focus:
If you have a chartered company that has affiliated members and they have operations to trade and prospect resources, then the big resource of being social is NUMBERS. Once they start generating profits and expanding operations, along come the bandits to skim some cream off the top. So if it's settlement, home hex, the bandits will be wedged into activity party driven by reputation and also given the LOCATION likely outnumbered and not easily able to force a robbery or by doing so they raise the security of the hex. When things go further into wilder hexes, then it's fair game and I think Guards will be the reaction of trade routes; ie this provides good income for guards.
It seems to me the smaller operations either trying to cut costs or start-ups will be easier picking for bandits. Secondly as said, if the bandits are varied and not organised, they'll probably have as much work cutting each other's gains or disputing with each other. Assuming they are well organised, then the counter of several settlements drawing up a some sort of agreement to negate such a threat seems possible (more guards, more bounty-hunters on the books)?
TBH, operations that are well-organised will be a hard nut to crack from the bandit's pov I suspect. Highly active bandits would likely have their alignment shift a lot and consequently but likely be partly successful at robbing smaller fry ie other evil/chaotic aligned players. Bandits might be much more of a political use and also share a wider network in more E/C areas where their presence is more tolerated and less organised action against them? Equally contested wild hexes.
Remember players won't be necessarily going around with best gear all the time. Likely it will be either a tax of the resources or the resources that bandits might prefer the most. Tax seems most sustainable (ie we'll take care of any other bandits attempting to tax... or "the rate just went up!"). Sounds like the bandits that do well will themselves be highly organised with alts and associates all over the map. So in terms of exploits, not sure how it pan out, equally as much as players will find these, I think the Early Enrollment will necessarily need to design around this happening, no doubt.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@AvenaOats
That is a well said description of the bandit dynamic, and very likely the way it will play out.
The way I see banditry, and I do spend a lot of time thinking about it, is as follows:
1. We are a tool against unbalanced forces on the player driven economy. As you describe it, our activitites are a "tax" although I would rather refer to them as a "toll" which is perhaps more accurate.
This "toll" is already partially offset by the Traveler Flag, which will allow the Merchant or Harvester to carry more resources than one not traveling with the flag. I can not imagine anyone choosing not to use the Traveler Flag, it has no negative.
Without the activities of player bandits, there would be too many resources reaching the markets, and resulting in flooding the markets with too much supply and little demand. Merchants and Crafters will be obviously hurt by this, far more than whatever the bandits managed to take from them out in the wilderness.
2. Organized and business minded bandit CCs will be territorial, selective of their targets, and open to accepting contracts by settlements to either grant "safe passage" at lower costs or to attack the competition of that settlement for a fee.
3. Bandits CCs will make excellent caravan guards, knowing all of the ins and outs of the profession. "Yes, I said Profession"
I disagree with the sentiment that banditry is not a viable and long term profession, as it is currently envisioned for PFO.
There are several things for the skeptical to remember. Banditry or theft in general, are considered to be Chaotic in alignment, not Evil. The real measure in PFO is Reputation. If Bandits use the SAD system often enough, they can still create or maintain a reasonably high Reputation.
Another possible misconception is that a Bandit CC will be monolithic in its activities. This I believe may come from comparing Bandits in PFO to Pirates in EVE Online. In EVE, Pirates ended up with a -10 security standing and were therefore locked out of High Security space. This left EVE Pirates little to do other than continued piracy. This will not be the case for Bandits in PFO. Bandits in PFO will also do the other activitites in PFO. We will explore, adventure, craft, TRADE!!, defend settlements against raiding goblins, etc..
The Alternate (Destiny's Twin) Factor:
Even if a Bandit Company finds itself on the truly disadvantged end of the spectrum (Low Reputation, Chaotic, Evil), they can still have an Alternate CC that can supply and support them.
Final note:
I believe that playing a bandit is as much a RP function as it is playing with certain mechanics in the game. The fact that even the devs have said, bandits can be CG, CN, or CE will attest to that. The player will choose which kind of bandit he or she will play.
Interesting responses. The OP was asking about risk vs. reward, though. I have to be honest with you, from the sounds of things it seems to me that there isn't much risk while there's a LOT of rewards to being on the lawless side of things.
That being said, I'm actually fine with that. At some point, I'll likely have an alt - depending on what some of my friends decide, maybe even my main character will be part of the 'criminal underworld'.
My biggest concern is protecting newbies when they're first stepping out of the guarded areas. The biggest problem I've run into with NPC controlled safe areas is that quite often, the best place to make your money, your rep, AND to get your jollies is right outside these areas. Molesting the poor people first setting foot into the 'real world'. Seen it way too many times in other MMO's unfortunately. Just wait long enough that they can't get back to the guards quickly and.... NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!
Poor n00bs.
Another suggestion that I'd like to put forth is something else that(to me at least) was unique and fresh from Age of Wushu. In AoW, when you log out of your character, he's put to work for a business/dojo/noble family in the area he logs out in. They use a character advancement system very like Eve and thus similar to what PFO is looking to use. When you log back in, you get a certain amount of exp, money and so on. But your character is ALWAYS in the game. While you can't be attacked and killed, what they DO allow you to do is kidnap players who are offline... and sell them for money! The kidnapee gets a debuff preventing them from being kidnapped again too soon and depending on who buys you, you get put to work doing other stuff - but you make less money, exp and so forth - your slave labor now.
That aside, it's simply reduces the amount of NPC's that the Devs have to come up with as busy areas are already naturally populated with offline characters all hours of the day and night. It gives the game a feel I've never noticed in an MMO before. When you walk into one of the main 'schools' and the guards are literally players from that school it's actually very cool. There were other things that this led to, cool online versus offline PC interactions. Any of you guys familiar with this system? Maybe I should start a new thread since this is getting a bit off topic, though the idea would be to add another element to 'criminal behavior'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Zanathos,
First, noob characters are protected by several mechaincs of the game.
1. There items will be low quality, and therefore completely threaded. They can not lose gear and so give no profit to attack and steal from.
2. Close to the Starter Settlements, the Warden response will be swiftest. So bandits, foolish enough to try to harvest noobs would be attacked very quickly.
3. There is not as much of a curve between new players and older players as far as skills and the mechanic of those skills are concerned. What I mean is, the newb may have sword fighting skill that is not dramatically less effective then a player that has been around for a year.
The devs have said the the main difference will be that older players will have a greater variety of skills, not necessarly higher quality of skills. This of course remains to be seen, skills have not been revealed yet.
Finally, you may be operating under a different definition of what "griefing" is. Just because you get killed, as soon as you walk out of the door, does not make that "noob grief". It is only griefing if you are repeatedly killed (outside of war), and your corpse is camped.
Remember, newb bandits will likely set up shop, just outside of the new player settlements. They are new also, and will want to test the waters beofre venturing further out into the wilderness themselves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree, Bluddwolf, the bandit slots in nicely in terms of angling between competing powers and I think that's exactly the space they need to be viable. Possibly even going so far as stirring things up between powers, to make for new business partners?! (brick through the window with tied-note: "Al's window repairs: Call 800-xxx now!"
@Zanathos: I think the risk/reward eg the OP uses, mainly looks at bandits perhaps targetting adventuring pve players with their super-pve equipment. So that might be a problem for GW. But I wonder how much: Because they won't be able to gain so much loot off the corpes, they will perhaps be small parties and possibly not using the main traffic routes which a bandit's hide-out is set to detect (if they really want to "hit the vault" so to speak). Again such pve chars would likely be high rep l/g and be able to throw some rep damage at the bandits if they decided to pest them too much.
As per the other egs/scenarios, it seems if bandits are attempting to shave a small margin off, this is good for the economy and good for gameplay. It does not sound easy to be bandit ie the more bandits that hit a small caravan, the smaller the cut per bandit of the seized merchandise plus token valuables from players.
The new player experience does not actually sound too bad with the npc guards and the likihood that Settlement recruitment drives will get to the "noobs" first and teleport/whisk them to safe settlements first, though a scam recruitment sounds quite amusing if possible (Live and learn)!
There's been some voices that bandits won't be viable and others that they will be too viable! I think the reward for bandit work will be:
1) Challenging gameplay (bounties, guards)
2) Varied gameplay with a mix of disreputable sources
3) Crafty gameplay solutions
4) Will fit into most effective for political paymasters - otherwise not sure it will be the most economic activity to pursue as an end itself - but certainly a very active one?
5) Happy to be content for a lot of people
@Zanathos,
First, noob characters are protected by several mechaincs of the game.
1. There items will be low quality, and therefore completely threaded. They can not lose gear and so give no profit to attack and steal from.
2. Close to the Starter Settlements, the Warden response will be swiftest. So bandits, foolish enough to try to harvest noobs would be attacked very quickly.
3. There is not as much of a curve between new players and older players as far as skills and the mechanic of those skills are concerned. What I mean is, the newb may have sword fighting skill that is not dramatically less effective then a player that has been around for a year.
The devs have said the the main difference will be that older players will have a greater variety of skills, not necessarly higher quality of skills. This of course remains to be seen, skills have not been revealed yet.
Finally, you may be operating under a different definition of what "griefing" is. Just because you get killed, as soon as you walk out of the door, does not make that "noob grief". It is only griefing if you are repeatedly killed (outside of war), and your corpse is camped.
Remember, newb bandits will likely set up shop, just outside of the new player settlements. They are new also, and will want to test the waters beofre venturing further out into the wilderness themselves.
I'm quite aware of all of these things. I guess mostly, I'm just hoping that the Devs go into this with an understanding of the ridiculous lengths players will go to make other people's games miserable. Hope for the best, plan for the worst kind of thing. In the 25+ years I've been playing online games(going back to MUD's and Mush's) I've seen way too much of how far people will go in order to game a system. The ridiculous amounts of time and effort they'll put into exploiting the tiniest of loopholes. And too many Game Developers who are supposed to know better and be able to see these holes and not let the Mack truck of d00d griefers ram right through it... continuously. For weeks and months.
I'm terribly excited about PWO. It(and maybe EQ Next) sound like the MMO I've always WANTED someone to make for me to play. Everything about it sounds simply too good to be true. This is the one area I have concerns - not really for myself, I've played too many pvp centric MMO's over the years to let this bug me. But MMO's aren't much fun for me anymore if I can't get my friends to play them with me, and right now even though the majority of them are hardcore PFRPGers most of them heard 'Open PvP system' and I watched their eyes immediately glaze over. I guess I'm hoping to hear or find something besides what's in the GW Blog that I may have missed...
I really don't know why this subject has me actually posting after lurking here for a couple months, now. *shrug*
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Goblin Squad Member
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Banditry or theft in general, are considered to be Chaotic in alignment, not Evil.
This doesn't sound right to me. Perhaps theft isn't "as evil" as murder, but it's still inflicting a degree of suffering on the victim. Maybe that could be scaled by the size of the theft in relation to the wealth of the target, but there should still be some alignment shift towards evil. It should not be a surprise that most of the things that reasonable societies deem criminal are also generally considered evil.
For those who would like to bring up the Robin Hood argument: Robin Hood is considered "good" not because he steals from the rich (which inflicts a small degree of suffering on them), but because he gives to the poor (which provides them with a relatively large benefit) which more than compensates (karmically speaking, at least in the eyes of the poor) for his thefts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Banditry or theft in general, are considered to be Chaotic in alignment, not Evil.This doesn't sound right to me. Perhaps theft isn't "as evil" as murder, but it's still inflicting a degree of suffering on the victim. Maybe that could be scaled by the size of the theft in relation to the wealth of the target, but there should still be some alignment shift towards evil. It should not be a surprise that most of the things that reasonable societies deem criminal are also generally considered evil.
For those who would like to bring up the Robin Hood argument: Robin Hood is considered "good" not because he steals from the rich (which inflicts a small degree of suffering on them), but because he gives to the poor (which provides them with a relatively large benefit) which more than compensates (karmically speaking, at least in the eyes of the poor) for his thefts.
You could argue Robin Hood is attempting to cure the rich of their greed?!
It seems to be "rules vs morality": Rules are either broken or not and depend on the settlement whereas the "morality" can be fuzzy allocation of specific things eg offensive-pvp ie damage to another player (spilling blood in offence) as an instigator will always hit towards evil and also cavorting with evil-r-us groups and activities eg raising undead, desecrating someone holy temple and so on.
@Zanathos - I hope the diversity of settlements (players can find a home that suits them) and social dimension progression aids this. And equally further measures/nets in place around this.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Banditry or theft in general, are considered to be Chaotic in alignment, not Evil.This doesn't sound right to me. Perhaps theft isn't "as evil" as murder, but it's still inflicting a degree of suffering on the victim. Maybe that could be scaled by the size of the theft in relation to the wealth of the target, but there should still be some alignment shift towards evil. It should not be a surprise that most of the things that reasonable societies deem criminal are also generally considered evil.
For those who would like to bring up the Robin Hood argument: Robin Hood is considered "good" not because he steals from the rich (which inflicts a small degree of suffering on them), but because he gives to the poor (which provides them with a relatively large benefit) which more than compensates (karmically speaking, at least in the eyes of the poor) for his thefts.
This argument, that stealing from the poor is more "evil" than stealing from the wealthy is based on the false premise that the poor are inherently more moral, or tht the wealthy are less moral.
Bandits will avoid stealing from the poor, because that is less efficient, expending time for little return. Then we have the next false premise....
PCs are by design, not poor. Any theft from a PC will only involve stealing a portion of what they have harvest or looted from the wilderness or a dungeon. These adventurers and or merchants are at the top of the food chain, so to speak.
If we are to consider karma, than a bandit would sit higher than a merchant or a politician, in the eyes of any class but especially the "poor". These settlements that are run by merchants / politicians will charge transaction fees, training fees and taxes. These fees will hit every member of society, in one way or another.
If you want to make theft an evil act, then I would want taxation to generate the same evil shift. If poverty is a virtue, than any acquisition of wealth and or power is evil. If you have too much wealth, you shift to evil. If you have too much power, you shift to evil. If your settlement or charter company has to much influence, then you shift to evil. Only the meal are pure in this twisted view.
So when I steal from someone, I am guiding them back to a virtuous life. I will be polite, and smile when I rob from them, and they should thank me for my not killing them and taking more. They should also consider that I will be taking far less than the merchants and settlement magistrates, in both the short and long term. When I steal from a merchant, I am helping to keep supply low, and this boosts his profit margin.
So the next time you ponder as to what may shift us from good to neutral to evil, put it in proper perspective. Almost every PvP action in an MMO would then be consider evil, unless you set aside our real world concepts of morality.
I will promise this, for those that are very sensitive towards the "poor". I wil never set out on my day of banditry with a coin in my pocket. This way, if I take anything, I will be taking from someone who as more than I.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think it's not based on morality, but the degree of suffering inflicted.
1 gold from a rich man does very little, 1 gold from a poor man starves a family.
There are no poor characters in an MMO. PCs have access to free money. NPCs don't have any expenses and have unlimited resources. So who exactly ate these virtuous poor?
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Goblin Squad Member
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This argument, that stealing from the poor is more "evil" than stealing from the wealthy is based on the false premise that the poor are inherently more moral, or tht the wealthy are less moral.
What? No, my premise is based on relative impact of the loss on the victim. Besides, the scaling wasn't even the main point.
Bandits will avoid stealing from the poor, because that is less efficient, expending time for little return.
BS. The poor will be much easier to steal from, since they lack the protections of the rich. Bandits might *prefer* to steal from richer targets (naturally), but they'll take whatever they can, if for no other reason than they're bored sitting around waiting for a richer target to come along, or they get frustrated because those rich targets that do come along are too well-protected.
PCs are by design, not poor.
What? Wealth is relative. Since PCs are the only people with measurable wealth in the game, you can only compare PCs with other PCs. Some are richer, some are poorer, ergo there are poor PCs.
If we are to consider karma, than a bandit would sit higher than a merchant or a politician, in the eyes of any class but especially the "poor".
What? Now you're just ranting about some anti-government stuff that is not relevant at all to PFO.
If you want to make theft an evil act, then I would want taxation to generate the same evil shift.
So taking money by force from someone is morally the same as someone contributing money towards the common good of a settlement? Nobody's forcing someone to remain a member of a settlement, after all, I'm sure there will be tax-free settlements in the game.
If poverty is a virtue [consequences based on ridiculous premise snipped]
Nothing at all to do with what I posted.
I will promise this, for those that are very sensitive towards the "poor". I wil never set out on my day of banditry with a coin in my pocket. This way, if I take anything, I will be taking from someone who as more than I.
Clearly, you are unable to distinguish between giving and taking.
Oh and since I'm replying anyways, something that caught my attention earlier in the thread:
Without the activities of player bandits, there would be too many resources reaching the markets, and resulting in flooding the markets with too much supply and little demand.
Complete rubbish. You're assuming that GW is inept and would have to rely on player bandits to balance what they can't.
One can assume that GW will aim for a slight net positive because they want bandits to exist (and don't want them to kill the economy), but that's a far cry from requiring bandits in order to balance the economy. The most definitive thing you could say on the subject is that because bandits will exist (regardless of what GW does, assuming they don't radically alter their open PvP premise), GW will probably aim for a slightly higher resource input than they would otherwise to counteract losses to banditry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Several corrections:
Poorly equipped PCs with little or no wealth will be impossible to steal from because all of their gear will be threaded. So as I had said, the return on the bandit's time spent would be inefficient at best, and a total waste of time at worse.
You may want to believe that taxation is not by force, but that is until you try not to pay them. In game, I think most if not all settlements will charge taxes, fees or tolls for the services that they provide. They will have upkeep or may just look to turn a profit. I'm not saying here won't be some who don't pay the tax, there will be, amount the elite in the settlements power structure.
My anti government rant, as you say, will play itself out in PFO. Just as there are in games like EvE, PFO will have mega settlements. I expect that these settlements will demonstrate their fare share of corruption and oppression (covert perhaps),
Finally, it is impossible to know which came first in GWs view, the bandit as a market manipulation device or the market strong enough to withstand banditry. They have already shown that they seem to value both bandit and merchant, based on the balance found in the flagging system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another suggestion that I'd like to put forth is something else that(to me at least) was unique and fresh from Age of Wushu. In AoW, when you log out of your character, he's put to work for a business/dojo/noble family in the area he logs out in. They use a character advancement system very like Eve and thus similar to what PFO is looking to use. When you log back in, you get a certain amount of exp, money and so on. But your character is ALWAYS in the game. While you can't be attacked and killed, what they DO allow you to do is kidnap players who are offline... and sell them for money! The kidnapee gets a debuff preventing them from being kidnapped again too soon and depending on who buys you, you get put to work doing other stuff - but you make less money, exp and so forth - your slave labor now.
Conceptually, I really like this idea. Especially how it would play out with things like smuggling, espionage and sabotage. The 'attacking' players would have to pit their skills against inactive PCs rather than 'static' NPCs. Would also mean that logging out in your settlement vs some random place now has meaning.
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Goblin Squad Member
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there should be equal gain and loss by being a criminal...otherwise People will do / not do it and it will not be interesting - look at archeage for example...you can become a pirate, but it's not interesting at all because you cant take on any quests anymore at the Point because all hate you...
I think GW has struck that balance with their flagging / SAD system and the alignment and reputation shifts associated with them.
Bandits who use the Outlaw flag and accept Stand and Deliver will shift to Chaotic but not towards Evil and maintain or generate positive reputation for not killing when they could have.
I say "when they could have" because the merchant can see the relative strength of the bandit (s) and would determine that the SAD offer was in his best interest. The bandit would also know, "we could take this merchant if we want to". So the SAD system is really a less violent alternative, where both sides benefit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another suggestion that I'd like to put forth is something else that(to me at least) was unique and fresh from Age of Wushu. In AoW, when you log out of your character, he's put to work for a business/dojo/noble family in the area he logs out in. They use a character advancement system very like Eve and thus similar to what PFO is looking to use. When you log back in, you get a certain amount of exp, money and so on. But your character is ALWAYS in the game. While you can't be attacked and killed, what they DO allow you to do is kidnap players who are offline... and sell them for money! The kidnapee gets a debuff preventing them from being kidnapped again too soon and depending on who buys you, you get put to work doing other stuff - but you make less money, exp and so forth - your slave labor now.Conceptually, I really like this idea. Especially how it would play out with things like smuggling, espionage and sabotage. The 'attacking' players would have to pit their skills against inactive PCs rather than 'static' NPCs. Would also mean that logging out in your settlement vs some random place now has meaning.
Definitely an interesting idea. Going by the discussions in a few other threads, I think people would get annoyed at not being able to do anything to prevent it, short of logging off in their house/tavern etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with wiseman, look at the response that not having an active defense against pick pocketing has. With this idea, they won't even have a passive defense either.
Even if there is no real negative effect to the indentured character, I'm sure screen shots and gloating will take place to rub it into the faces of those that are sensitive to such things.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Poorly equipped PCs with little or no wealth will be impossible to steal from because all of their gear will be threaded. So as I had said, the return on the bandit's time spent would be inefficient at best, and a total waste of time at worse.
Wealth is not strictly measured by someone's equipped gear (especially since, as you well know, it would be sheer folly to walk about with your entire net worth in your inventory). Stealing 100 gold from someone who has 200,000 in the bank is not a big deal for them - stealing that 100 gold from someone who only has 200 gold, a much bigger deal from the perspective of the victim.
You may want to believe that taxation is not by force, but that is until you try not to pay them. In game, I think most if not all settlements will charge taxes, fees or tolls for the services that they provide. They will have upkeep or may just look to turn a profit.
So you agree then that settlements actually provide services for which you're paying, in the form of taxes? And so what part of taxation is theft, exactly? Or put another way, you just want to steal services from settlements as well as stealing gold and gear from players, while trying to portray yourself as somehow heroic and noble for "standing up to the man" on behalf of "oppressed" players everywhere.
My anti government rant, as you say, will play itself out in PFO. Just as there are in games like EvE, PFO will have mega settlements. I expect that these settlements will demonstrate their fare share of corruption and oppression (covert perhaps),
Of course there will be some corruption, as long as there's parasites who feed off the system from the inside, just like there will be parasites who feed off the system from the outside (i.e. bandits like you). But it seems to me that GW is aiming for a different game ethos than EVE, and I for one fervently hope they succeed; both because those players strongly attracted by the EVE ethos (and able/willing to invest themselves) are probably already playing EVE, whereas there's clearly an untapped market for a sandbox MMO which takes a kinder, gentler tack - and also because frankly IMO the EVE ethos is f!~~ing awful, "pardon my French".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, I would love to be able to use disguise, risk trespass flag, and steal services I might not otherwise have access to.
[IC] "I want what you have, and take it for my own". I want free stuff from the sweat of the brows of others, and I rationalize that I'm entitled to it. We are all thieves in one way or another, I'm just being honest about being one."
[OOC]. I'm not hoping for a kinder gentler sand box MMO, I hope for one were EvE is now. I would agree that having an EvE from back in 2003 - 2010 or so might not be balanced enough, but recent changes have allowed to PvE and the PvP crowd not only coexist but become even more symbiotic.
My greatest desire is for banditry to become a form if economic warfare waged by settlements against each other, using the contract system.
Yes I know that I at times defend theft, stealth and other underhanded activities with fervor, and perhaps too much so. I don't always clearly separate my thoughts and my character concept / point of view. But as both a player and a character my hope for a darker side of society in the River Kingdoms is the same.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've been kicking around long term risks associated with banditry and would like to float an idea into the general discussion. One of the more difficult aspects associated with banditry should be the liquidation of their acquisitions. After acquiring equipment or goods through questionable means, those items could be marked/flagged as stolen (perhaps the former owner is presented the option to flag their taken/traded items). The mechanical flag would represent the spread of information about the act. Many times hand-made goods and equipment possess markers that can allow that object to be easily identified on inspection. This extends to the branding of livestock and lumber as well as the manufacture of arms, armor, and consumables.
Items flagged as stolen would not be allowed on the general market. In order to sell these items on the open market, they would need to be processed by someone with the requisite skills to remove the flag. Roles and professions for these would be magistrates, customs officers, or fences. Another option would be to reprocess the goods into salvagable components and manufacture other goods from that, or sell the raw materials themselves. Stolen raw material could not be salvaged to remove the flag, it would need to be used in manufacture to do so.
Player-operated black markets would be another avenue for the liquidation of merchandise. I could see an enterprising, semi-trustworthy individual purchasing illicit goods and then advertising his available wares through back channels (like a website). Smugglers could be utilized to get stolen and illegal goods into settlements where they could be sold on a black market, potentially undercutting the open market. Of course getting caught with stolen goods would probably make a dent in one's 'lawful' standing.