Let's discuss Death and PvP

[Mr_Bober]

Premise: I don't have a solution. I'd like this thread to become a community effort to look for a way to improve how PvP and Death work.

Note: to makes things easier, I'll be referring to experienced PvP players as "VETS", and to unexperienced ones as "NOOBS"

A little recap of how things work right now:
- If your SHP get to 0, but you HHP don't, you are KO. While KO, you have "KO Protection", meaning you can't get attacked any further.
- If your HHP get to 0 with the same attack that takes you to 0 SHP, you're dead. KO protection won't kick in, since you technically are killed outright, not knocked out.
- In order to engage in PvP, you need the Rage skill.
- The Murder skill allows you to turn on "Murderous Rage", which allows you to do more damage but you lose your KO protection. It also allows you to attack KO players if they also lost their KO protection due to Murderous Rage.

What are the consequence of this?
- VETS fight each others without using Murderous Rage, which means nobody ever dies.
- NOOBS can still be -somewhat easily- get killed outright by VETS, ignoring KO protection.
This means PvP is only truly damaging to NOOBS, while VETS only lose their gear.

What has been tried in the past?
- No KO protection at all. Everyone could be killed, making PvP more dangerous. The main issue was that lots of NOOBs got killed "for the lulz", leading to many players quitting the game.
- Losing KO protection when buying Murder. VETS would just buy Rage and ignore Murder for the most part, not solving the issue of VETS being "unkillable".
- Losing KO protection when buying Rage. VETS would wait to buy Rage until the second they truly needed it, or abuse Pclaims to be able to siege without needing Rage.
And probably more stuff I'm forgetting about.

Someone suggested to turn PvP off completely, unless you buy Rage. This brings a bunch of issues, including people using naked alts as unkillable human walls.

So what can we do in order to make PvP more deadly for VETS, but safer (or as safe as it is now) for NOOBs? I'm open to suggestions.

One thing that came to mind is the following:
- You permanently lose KOP (at least against Players) when buying Rage.
- Rage takes (e.g.) 24 IRL hours to "activate", meaning you can't buy it and attack straight away.
- Siege engines require Siegecraft [which already requires Rage] to be operated.
- Possible extra: you can't be killed if you don't have Rage. If you would get outright killed, you instead drop to 1HHP. [Leeches shouldn't kill you either, leaving you at 1HHP]

Thoughts?

[SnuggleSnail]

lmao stop

[MightySheep]

thats a really long winded way of saying turn perma death back on which im in favor of
+1

[wonder-ass]

hey look guys i can be immortal again in pvp

[vatas]

I don't know who originally wrote this but SnuggleSnail posted it on another thread, it's extremely relevant.

The actual strat was to make a Pclaim outside somebody's base, put a ram on it, then fight them using chin up. They had to have rage to aggro you, or you'd just ram down their wall. You could aggro them off of Pclaim if they tried to destroy the ram without fighting you. If you lose, you come back the next day and do it again. If they lose they die, and their base gets destroyed. I think I killed more relevant characters in world 11 without rage than any other world with rage.

Haha world 11 was some silly fun

If not having Rage makes you unkillable, VETS will definitely exploit the hell out of it.

[Glorthan]

What are the consequence of this?
- VETS fight each others without using Murderous Rage, which means nobody ever dies.
- NOOBS can still be -somewhat easily- get killed outright by VETS, ignoring KO protection.
This means PvP is only truly damaging to NOOBS, while VETS only lose their gear.

I'd be interested to hear how the "noobs" are dying so easily. Even with murderous rage it's very hard to kill someone. I know of many people knocked out by raiders (even some "top tier" players) but none killed except by their own stupidity or from water in this world.

One thing that came to mind is the following:
- You permanently lose KOP (at least against Players) when buying Rage. this was terrible before, and it will be terrible again
- Rage takes (e.g.) 24 IRL hours to "activate", meaning you can't buy it and attack straight away. this is completely horrific? what the fuck?
- Siege engines require Siegecraft [which already requires Rage] to be operated. This is what alts are for, yes. Siegecraft alts existed before as well when stupid requirements that gimped your character to get it were in place.
- Possible extra: you can't be killed if you don't have Rage. If you would get outright killed, you instead drop to 1HHP. [Leeches shouldn't kill you either, leaving you at 1HHP] devs don't like the idea of opt in permadeath, much to the detriment of the casual playerbase.

What's actually wrong with the current system? Other than perhaps defenses being a bit too strong, which ties into the combat system more generally.

[Mr_Bober]

Finally some feedback.

I don't know who originally wrote this but SnuggleSnail posted it on another thread, it's extremely relevant.

The actual strat was to make a Pclaim outside somebody's base, put a ram on it, then fight them using chin up. They had to have rage to aggro you, or you'd just ram down their wall. You could aggro them off of Pclaim if they tried to destroy the ram without fighting you. If you lose, you come back the next day and do it again. If they lose they die, and their base gets destroyed. I think I killed more relevant characters in world 11 without rage than any other world with rage.

Haha world 11 was some silly fun

Yes, that's one of the comments that made me realise how much we need this to be an open discussion, rather than devs trying something out. We can look for a system together that works, and having feedback from vets is a good way to start and see what the flaws would be.

If not having Rage makes you unkillable, VETS will definitely exploit the hell out of it.

I thought this might come out, which is why I've written it as a "possible extra". So let's remove that, and keep the current "KOP" for those without Rage.

I'd be interested to hear how the "noobs" are dying so easily. Even with murderous rage it's very hard to kill someone.

Not easily per-se, but it's way easier to one-shot a noob than a VET. Simply because of the amount of dmg you can do, and the low amount of MHP they have.

- You permanently lose KOP (at least against Players) when buying Rage. this was terrible before, and it will be terrible again

Why was it so bad? Rage is not required for anything non-PvP related. You can enjoy the rest of the game without ever buying it. OR you can opt to join the PvP side and do it at your own risk.

Rage takes (e.g.) 24 IRL hours to "activate", meaning you can't buy it and attack straight away. this is completely horrific? what the fuck?

Why do you find it so bad? It would affect you only once, when you buy the skill, and it would prevent people from keeping LPs ready until they want to attack someone, buying rage that very moment.

Siege engines require Siegecraft [which already requires Rage] to be operated. This is what alts are for, yes. Siegecraft alts existed before as well when stupid requirements that gimped your character to get it were in place.

Fair, any idea how to get around this problem?

Possible extra: you can't be killed if you don't have Rage. If you would get outright killed, you instead drop to 1HHP. [Leeches shouldn't kill you either, leaving you at 1HHP] devs don't like the idea of opt in permadeath, much to the detriment of the casual playerbase.

Exploitable and devs are against it? Great, let's not add it.

What's actually wrong with the current system? Other than perhaps defenses being a bit too strong, which ties into the combat system more generally.

The fact that, as stated before, PvP has become mostly non-lethal to VETS. Look around C&I and you'll see plenty of complains about how impossible it has become to kill someone, especially those stronger than you, no matter how well you play it.

What would your suggestions be?

[Apocoreo]

What if you could walk through player without rage, and their skeletons. Building and using rams could require rage as well. Characters without rage could still be KO'd. If people like this idea there's secondary issues to discuss, like you can still kill by doing enough grievous damage on your last hit, or KOing over and over. Don't think the latter is necessarily bad.

Also I don't think stronger people being able to kill weaker is a concern, rather the strong being unable to kill each other.