PK rewards

[Pops]

I was just thinking about how ranking has become an almost unbelievable pain in the ass. Even on surges now, it can be tough to find a decent group. Obviously, the current lack of players is the culprit. The Imms have obviously done as much as they can to make leveling possible (monster potions and whatnot). Unfortunately, that may not be enough. The current system favors OOC groups by default, as they are the only ones that have the ability to log on and know they will be able to accomplish something.

I have a little idea to change that, not sure if it would work, but I figured I'd throw it up there anyway.

Fair Game Kills

The Fair Game system would award a large amount of experience for certain player kills, say between 4 and 10k, depending on level and class disparities. It would work differently for neutral characters than it would for goods and evils.

For good and evil characters the following restrictions would apply:

1. The kill must count as a kill using the graveyard PK rating system for BOTH characters (This would mean no over limit kills would count, no Heralds, big Pk disparities etc.)

2. The characters involved in the kill must be of opposite alignment (To protect the ranking system)

3. The characters involved in the kill must not have been involved in the same Fair Game matchup within the last two ranks. (IE Bob the Paladin and Bill the Dark-knight can only fight each other Fair Game once at thirty six. After that they have to wait till they're both at least rank 38 to fight again for a fair game kill)

4. One cannot get a Fair Game bonus while grouped (though I suppose someone could get the bonus for killing you while YOU were in a group). Obviosly there is still a tag team killing problem but I bet the imms could find a way around that.

5. Fair Game kills can not occur on a surge (same reason as #2)

For neutrals the rules would be:

1. #3 from above

2. #4 from above

3. Your target must have given you defensive PK adrenaline FIRST. (if either of you quit, the Fair Game is off. Note the kill would only be fair game for you.)


One would only be able to tell if another was Fair Game through the consider command. It may be necesary for the loser of a Fair Game kill to lose a modest amount of experience (between 1 and 2K) in order to keep them from "Selling" Kills. Of course that would be suicide and punishable anyway.

*It would encourage player killing at lower ranks (starting at 36)
**It would make ranking easier for experienced players.
***It would make niching nearly impossible

Flame away

[Kalist19]

Nice idea pops. I like it.

[Vertas]

I like it, I think an incentive to keep fifties playing would also be nice. It seems popular to rank a char to fifty and then just get bored with them.

[Rezakhan]

Very good idea. I would say no on the losing 1-2K of experience for getting killed, though--individually, that doesn't seem like much, but if you think about a relative newbie who ranks up to 36ish, he's probably going to die a lot. It's hard enough for a new player to continue ranking past this point, without getting into an artificially large EXP hole. I think you're right that any gaming of the system could be dealt with by Imm staff under existing rules.

[Wholesale Johnson]

Solid! I think this would add a lot of fun to the game.

- Rule 1 for goods/evils should apply to neutrals too.

- I think losing experience would be kind of dumb though - you wouldn't want to discourage PKing at all.

[Davairus]

There was small amount of exp for PK before, and it was taken out to prevent certain abusive behaviours. Which is why your idea flops, by the way, because of abuse. Take for example, someone like Gygh, who is a douchebag 50 everybody can roll over. And that allows someone like Rolf to come along at level 42 (probably after playing 10 hours considering the background of pk'ing before it) and will just suddenly get granted tons of free exp points putting him straight into your pk range. That isnt' a levelling system that favours you, or even ROlf, a player who wants to just "beat the game" and leave.

And discourage pk on surges contradicts your plans completely, if you want people to only play on surges and just grind mobs then this is exactly the way to go about instating it. Surges should remain prime killing times because thats when the most players are around.

Personally I want a game where the pk happens for rp reasons not exp points, and not a game which isnt worth playing for a newbie because levelling off kills is how the vets will treat them.

I am surprised to see so much support for the idea. It makes me wonder if there is any real critical thinking being done here or whether its just a bunch of disatisfied players who dont have as much free time or motivation as it takes to actually level up. Any time I've tried to level characters I've found a way. All it takes is one other person and your pet, and you can get to 42 easily. After that your cabal/friends can slingshot you to 50. You need an OOC group for that? We may have made the levelling easier, but don't push it further than it needs to go. A change in attitude of making the game easy is all bad.

[Pops]

[Davairus]

There's a famous Greek sculptor by the name of Polykleitos. This guy was the absolute master of Greek sculpture. Polykleitos made two sculptures at the same time, and asked his crowd which they preferred. One was beautiful, the other was laughed at. When asked, Polykleitos told the crowd that the beautiful sculpture was his own creation, and for the terrible one, he'd allowed people into his workshop to look at that sculpture and tell him what was wrong with it.. then made all the changes the general public had suggested.

The moral is just because your idea is a turd doesn't make me bitter for saying so. I could implement every change suggested on this forums and I guarantee this game you say you like so much would end up a piece of rubbish. Now I have seen the way you react to feedback from the implementors about your ideas I will be sure to steer clear of responding to them from now on. I am not going to respond like bugs bunny on valium when I read obviously bad ideas getting praised with no devils advocate being played.

[Pops]

Hookay, shoulda kept my mouth shut on that one.

I have this disease where I say whats on my mind before I consider the consequences.

You da boss, Boss

[Davairus]

Theres's two things I've noticed most commonly about people that run into problems ranking.

1. They dont take advantage of the bonus for pets, they want to have a full group, so they just waste time sitting around when they could actually be making solid progress right into the 40's. I'm really quite disappointed by any player I see doing that.

2. They'll make decent allies early on after creating character, but then they're in such a mad rush to exploit the game for exp points as fast as they can, they take any group they find. OOC groups with 1 free spot is like christmas came early to them. But when their IC friend is actually around in normal hours, oops theyre out of group range. Then both players are sitting around moaning their vag's hurt and they can't level because there's nobody in range to group with.

Remember the levelling is dynamic. If we were to wipe the playerbase the same fast-levelling people would shoot quickly to 50 by virtue of playing non-stop, and the same casual people would take forever to get there because of not playing enough and ending up left behind. You could just group with the same people regularly and not have to form a "brand new group" every time you play. ( Obviously this is less an issue if you play a tank or healer class. ) You could work that around surges without stepping OOC at all. And its usually easy to spot the OOC guys that are going to ditch you later. I always made alliances with newb players when I was playing because I was experienced enough to carry the bad group members that nobody was ever interested in inviting, and I knew they would regroup and be unable to speedrank past me.

[Merindol]

Actually Dav has a really great idea there. Making friends with people that are new to the game will help them rank and maybe enjoy it. You just have to be patient when it comes to ranking. I've had no problems ranking to 40 and maybe only play about 15 or so hours a week. I do see your point Paps. Try playing at different times to see what works best for you...

[Erlwith]

Might I also suggest solo play. It doesn't work for a few classes granted, but many classes can easily solo from 1-36 in a relatively short time with just a mercenary pet. You don't have to wait for anyone to log in/wake up/quaff resistance potions/attack or worry about anyone logging off early during your guild reward, quest reward, or surge. Best part about it is the training advantage and gold surplus you'll have at the end. This is an especially good option for those who log on odd hours of the day or don't have much play time, because you always know your time logged in will be productive. You can also solo during the time you spend waiting for other people to group with, fill in those gaps.

[Ceridwel]

[Vertas]

So I take that as a no Dav?

[_Clifton_]

[Erlwith]

If you're cunning enough to grasp the pk system, soloing should be a breeze.

Relatively short time = month or two.

[Davairus]

I've been thinking about my approach to the ideas on the forums and the way it gets interpreted. What you are mistaken about is thinking that all ideas are valuable. Only the good ones are really valuable, the ones you take time to vet yourself before you go posting it. You should be your own hardest critic. You shouldnt recieve criticism you didnt expect.

A very good analogy I think of is the player logboard. If you went posting a log of bashing a newbie there and said "LOL, this is the greatest log EVER!!" the whole community would be calling you a dipshit. Or saying GG abusing a newbie. In fact you can go there and see, it happens frequently, people post the retarded log and the vets chop them down, and they try to argue it, and even more people come out fighting. Its rare that you get a quality log on there. Its the critical comments what are actually extremely common and skew towards being on the unfair side. But all logs are definitely not worth reading. We could go find plenty and say why they're completely unnecessary to have been posted.

My point is that I expect the vast majority of ideas to suck but I'm not discouraging you from posting them. I'm just saying everyone should feel obligated to respond to these shit ideas and try to expose their gaping flaws. Its just the same as you do with the logboard where you want quality. When I have to do it myself, its the same as when the logboard mods moderate - it looks kind of gestapo. So I really don't like sycophants around here.

The attitude we need to have toward idea is to be cynical just like that logboard, not to just throw everything in there for the sake of having news. Remember you also have to convince me to actually take the time to read the post and ultimately code in things ... which I have to admit won't be easy - certainly no more than would you be interested in reading that newb-bashers log. In fact I might be just as annoyed my time was wasted as you. But I'm still reading the board. Peace.

[Pops]

I think part of the problem here is that whatever may be "obvious" to a coding immortal who has in his head a distinctive vision for the product he is responsible for may not be so apparent to a player who is coming to the game from a very different (and lets be honest, far less informed) place.

I had an idea that I thought might work. I didn't really expect it to get coded in, but I took the shot. We all know that in the current environment the game only really gets going at fifty. As far as I (that's me, not anyone else) am concerned, the run up to pinnacle is simply a way to build some pride and accomplishment into your character before you really start getting into it. It's a way to show "Yeah, I know my stuff, I put in the effort, and I'm ready to rock'n roll", as well as a way to give your guy a certain level of "worth". I enjoy ranking up a character as much as the next guy, but in the end my eye is always on the prize. Was I looking for a way to make getting it easier? Well yes, if by easier you mean faster. For me, a two month waiting period to get a pinnacled character seems a little steep. I thought perhaps there were other people here who thought it might be a good idea to give the vets a way to shave that down a bit (ironic thing here is that I doubt any of this would have helped me much personally, the worlds greatest PKer I ain't).

I don't run this game, I don't wanna run this game. I don't think any of the players right now would want that responsibility. If we're shooting idea's up from down here in the rank and file which you feel are stupid, it is your perogative to refrain from implementing them, no matter how much traction they get. That being said, I think its unrealistic to expect simple players to bring the same level of scrutiny to these things that you do. Truth is, we're all playing different games here. You may be looking at how things "should be" or "where your taking the game". We simply respond to what we experience. I don't think much is to be gained by haranging the players about agreeing with someone's crappy idea. From where we sit, most ideas are going to tend to be crappy. What you have to gain by listening to them is an understanding of how we feel about our playing experience at this moment so that you can take that into account when you make whatever decisions it is that you make up there. I cringe every time I read an immortal post which bashes the player base. Whether we deserve it or not, it makes the mud look crappy. If the boss himself thinks his employees suck, who the hell is going to want to buy in to the company?

Keep on keepin on Dav, we do appreciate it.

[Erlwith]

[_Clifton_]