pvp'ing mentality

[Davairus]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm in the process of creating a list of issues with the mud, and the plan is to reach some point later where I'll be ready to judge which issues I want to address, then I can spend a day or two knocking off the easy things, implementing the more involved fixes for things that took time to think over, and post out a cumulative note. I've decided that this will be a more effecient way to get through changes than just following whims and the flavour of the month. This doesn't require that I have stopped working on the Keepers cabal (I haven't) or that I have just put aisde things I posted about before forever. I'm just amassing enough to be able to actually post out a decent change note.


Now, as for pking. A description of the issue shall follow and you're invited to weigh in with your opinions on that, and if you like what sort of changes are required. I personally don't see any fast solution to this problem, it will take time. The thread will definitely be easy to go off course so expect moderation...



The issue as I see it, is that there is overall a lack of pk'ing on the game, especially in low levels which is where newcomers can be expected to get into the game. This isn't too bad in principle because a surge can get you to 30 in just a couple hours anyway, but I'm not really sure that everybody gets to do surges. Anyways, the point of having the low levels in the first place is because (I assume) you get a chance to try the skills out and just play with things there before the grand stage. However, what I see is a mentality that lowbie pk is just trash, and characters aren't trying to rp a pk. I've even noticed some characters at level 50 that seem incapable of even dealing with getting pk'ed, because of how little experience of "real AR" (level 50) they have. Most of the pk'ing happens because of cabals.

The record resets at level 36 are required because the low level kills come pretty cheap anyway, but its my opinion that low level pk'ing is not undesirable and I don't wish for it to be interpreted as that way just because the kills dont "count" - if its roleplayed then its just as valid to do there as at 50, and the newbie defence excuse fails because they're better off learning what the game is like before they've wasted 20 hours on it.

Another reason I have felt causing a lack of pk'ing (bigger even thana lowbie pk mentality, since in practice newbies are few -- realistically those "newbies" in your group range are probably vets) may be the "corporation effect". When a corporation starts out they take risks and try new products, and as they get bigger it becomes about the money, not the risking. Similar for a veteran of AR. The goal is for your next chars pk record to be better than the previous character, so you take less risks, which amounts to pk'ing less often. This is something which of course doesnt apply to the best players on the game, since those guys arent actually taking much risks, they own people anyways.

And another issue is just lack of playerbase but I think thats in feedback with lack of pk at low levels. Need the low level pk to get pk'ers interested in playing really.

In any case the "problem" is a lack of pk'ing and a "solution" would be a means of stimulating it. One solution I had in mind was character just dying of old age so you are inclined to actually do something with the time before you run out of it.

[Ergorion]

With respect to lowbie pking: w00t Dks spamming lightning bolt ftw. Chya.


To stimulate more pk, you could let m1co mutli again.


To stimulate pre-50 pks, you could have each pk grant the killer 2500 xp or some good amount of experience.

[Adebaldi]

You can remove the con-loss because now con is actually a useful stat rather than just a ranking one, so if you die your character gets actually weaker.

[Faelon]

While the ideas about Healers gate/word, I would point out that it is completely useless on this thread. You aren't helping.


I like the idea about experience, but the only thing I see coming out of it is people pk'ing to rank. No RP involved. I think some sort of politics would be interesting. Various factions against one another, plotting the demise of the other towns/groups. Almost, a lowbie cabal. Though, we do have race/alignment selections for this, so maybe this is a no go.

[Ergorion]

Again, this all boils down to incentives.


What incentive to lowbies have to pk? Very little.

The equipment they might loot is probably the same as the equipment they're wearing. They have to spend time that they could be spending ranking tracking someone down and killing them for no benefit to themselves, especially pre-36 when it doesn't even get noticed. There is really no reason to pk before level 36 unless some dude is wearing equipment that he really shouldn't be wearing because there is no benefit in the pk rating side, and the death still counts.

Thus, if you want to encourage pking, you'll have to either increase the incentives (hence the xp gain and yes, i see the same problem with people trash pking/multi-killing just to gain levels). Or you will have to lower the costs. Possibly making it so that your deaths pre-level 36 do not count towards your 61 deaths to a condeath. This would really benefit players who want to join the pk scene, but don't have the skills to last it out at the higher ranks.

Another thing that I think is a detriment to the lowbie pking scene is the moves. You really aren't going to get many exciting, multi-area fights pre-level 30 because you can't go anywhere with 184 moves. Maybe you can have the whole movement deal start high at early levels and scale down as you rank. Maybe you can gain 12-15 moves per level from levels 1-25 and then gain 2-3 moves per level as you go from 26-50, or something like that so lowbies can put more distance into their fights and therefore make them more interesting.

Tone down lowbie dk lightning bolt... yeah.

If you want illus/necros pking at lower levels, they're going to have to get some spells that make it possible for them to do so, because right now, illus really don't have the firepower to be a threat until they can dupe things.

I think the whole pk for experience deal would be a nice touch. That would allow you to make some progress on your rank if you're stuck at level 47 and there's not one other person to rank with. Obviously this would have to be tightly policed so that you don't get kalist's fire zrkr multi-killing Stiehl's halfling thief. So perhaps after the first kill, multi-kills actually make you lose experience rather than gain it. So you get 1500 xp for the first kill. 0 xp for the second kill. -1000 for the third kill. -3000 for the fourth kill. Though in this case, some douche bags might run themselves onto your sword so that you get into an xp hole.

[Ceridwel]

Interesting topic. I like some of the ideas so far. Here's what I'm hearing, with some of my thoughts thrown in:

1) Starting the death = con loss at 36th

2) Get experience from killing someone. This has a tonne of potential. You could get more xp for killing someone higher than you, you could lose xp for multikilling someone, you could gain a Juggernaut bonus of some sort - kill the juggernaut in your PK range and the gods grant you a Theran day of Haste, or just xp, or <insert creative idea here>

3) Have a page on the site that ranks pre-36th players. I don't like having to wait until I'm 36th to see how I stand against everyone else.

4) I have dabbled with DKs, they are in fact one of my favourite classes to play, and I have to admit getting lightning bolt so early is imho a major advantage. Having it bumped up to 20th or something makes more sense to me from a balance standpoint.

5) One of the main reasons I have not pk'd as much as done other things in Thera is because I'm not very good at it, so I lose far more often than I win. This is a bad cycle to get in though, because if you don't PK, you don't learn, and if you don't learn, you don't get better, etc. If there was some may to help teach folks how to pk, like a fighting academy (Fight Club, anyone?) or something.

6) While I have been taking more and more risks lately initiating PKs, I notice I'm a horrible chaser. Fights I definitely should have won end up in a draw because I can't find the other guy and get bored. Implementing some sort of spell/potion/scroll so you could see what area your target was in would be cool. Just off the top of my head:

[Olyn]

[TheOneAndOnly]

The spell you described as Mystic Vision is called Clairvoyance and Psi's already got it. Easily negated by sleeping.

[Resatimm]

Yes but remember the flip side to that...

foc 'awaken' Iolo

And if you are quick enough, you can see through his eyes again.

[Xerties]

I'm also down with deaths not causing con loss before 36. That'll also tone down the low level deletes from dying to boogum and encourage people sticking with their characters.

I would also add that another reason you don't see pk at low levels is balance issues. When your drow ninja is running around with 150 hp at level 25 they're not going to risk much pk against people who can dish that out in a round. Same goes for magi.

[Ceridwel]

[Mummy]

Yeah, but if someone agrees to fight you in the arena, they rarely let you live after you've been stunned, sometimes attack you at the entrance, or if you flee out of the arena, sometimes attack you anyways/have friends ready to gang your sorry ass. That's why I almost never accept an arena challenge. Better off elsewhere.

Maybe a place you can't be killed by your opponent or they can't loot you and you don't lose con or something like that? I'd be up for that.

[Ceridwel]

[Ceridwel]

We could take it one step further and make this 'new' arena a free for all...pk ranges don't apply. Another mud I played had a similar arena and it made for hours and hours of fun. Dogpile on Atyrdolm!

[Faelon]

Okay, I don't agree with the 'you can't loot' thing. I think dying is apart of the game and risking your wares is a piece with that. I do think that we should have some sort of arena like described, with no loss of con at death and its a no holds barred arena with no pk ranges. I would like to see it slightly larger, an area into itself. Maybe, in order to get entrance into said arena, you need to pay a weekly fee like protection money from legion.


I like the idea of a place people can go and learn how to pk, especially as most of the somewhat badass (not the REALLY badass ones) players only play a few classes really well and blow donkey balls at everything else. It would be cool to give those players and the new players a place to experiment other than a situation that is going to make them cuss at the screen, delete, and make something they are going to storm around AR with.

The arena doesn't seem a great place to do this because of its relative small size. Its difficult to learn much when running and sleeping/healing is difficult if the other guy doesn't have his head buried straight up his ass.

[Erlwith]

I think the arena is fine as is. If you don't want to lose con, agree duel to the submition or be ready to run when you get at low hp.

I don't see why the arena should be changed to begin with. It sounds like you guys want a practice MUD before you start playing this one, so you can learn how to PK without losing con/eq.

You want to learn to PK, then get some eq and get your ass out there like everyone else has for years.

[_Clifton_]

i think people need to go back to being used to being pk/full looted from the get go. none of this get to 50, then die and be full looted crap. learn how to re-equip starting at level 10, and it's going to be a whole lot easier at level 15. that said, do you part. lowbie pk. full loot.

[Ceridwel]

[Faelon]

The idea was to create incentive to pk. My thought is that lowbies would have more incentive to participate if they had a place they could actually learn how the hell to do that.

I can understand doing it by your boot straps, thats cool too. However, I was trying to be constructive Erlwith and add to the subject at hand.

[Master]

As a newbie, I still (despite all the advice and resources available) suck at PK. If there was a place to practice and/or learn how, I can verify that I would probably be much less inclined to immediately flee when someone attacks me.