Passive-mode?

[Barbamaus]

The last few patches have brought a lot of attention to pvp and the community's interest in a way to stay safe.
The issue of invulnerable players has been discussed over and over, and there's a countless way to abuse it.
But what if there was a way to meet in the middle? A way to allow players to play safely with some big limitations, so that griefing is not a problem anymore.

Introducing: Passive-Mode. (some of u might have already read it in the patch announcement thread replies)
What does it do? Mainly three things:
1. Makes you unable to engage/be engaged in combat.
2. Makes other players walk through you, just like they walk through your hearthfire, so you can't abuse this to block anyone in any way.
3. Limits your interactions with the world. In simple terms, you'd be limited to walk around, interacting with NPCs and forageables/critters, but very little other than that.

What prevents you from doing? Lots of things:
1. Anything considered a criminal act, including pushing and rummaging.
2. Interact with localized resources. As someone people -somewhat- fight over, it would be unfair to be able to camp it without repercussions.
3. Anything that "alters" the world. Examples include mining, chopping trees, using the destroy action, or building anything from the Build menu. This also prevents a fair amount of griefing.
4. Use large vehicles (or maybe any vehicle?). To prevent bodyblocking with knarrs, snekkjas, wagons and other stuff difficult to destroy or move.
The point here is to have a way for people to do most of their quests in peace (yes, I know some credos require mining or chopping), not have a full PvE experience.
It's debatable if hunting should be allowed in this mode. I don't see a downside to allowing it, but I guess whatever's easier for development works.

How to activate it? Two requirements:
1. Be out of combat.
2. Be at your hearthfire.
Just to be extra safe, add a small timer to it. Maybe 30 seconds or a minute to activate it, to further limit abuse possibilities.
There is an argument to be made about people leaving their invulnerable character afk somewhere as a spy or whatever. If this is truly a problem, I would suggest adding a time limit with a catch. Once the timer runs out (1 hour maybe?), you are forced back to your HF. Then it either deactivates, or it refreshes the timer, whatever works best for development.

How to de-activate it? One requirement:
1. Be at your heartfire.
You'd already be out of combat, so that's a given.
Deactivating should absolutely require a timer. Maybe a 2-3 minutes timer or so. Ideally an amount of time that doesn't make it too annoying to do, but also prevents you from insta-removing it. It being an action requires you to stay on the spot, so you can't just run away from your HF and eventually lose the buff.
Alternatively, as mentioned above, it could auto-deactivate within a time limit, but I strongly believe auto-HF is the way to go for that, to avoid weird shinenigans with people timing their deactivation while close to someone else they plan to attack.

Last thing: I know most likely pvp guys will read this and be against it on principle. I ask you to be a little bit open minded, and look for actual issues with it, rather than just go against the whole concept. I believe I covered most abuse options, but you guys are the experts... I believe many of you are out of touch with the hermit community and don't realise how many players quit or lose interest in the game because of random attacks while forced far away for a quest (especially for Nomad, but not only that).

[mulamishne]

This seems over complicated, tedious to implement, and just overall a pain in the ass.

Just play the game.

[Dawidio123]

What the previous guy said and it only solves the issue of people going to do a quest, what's the point of implementing an overcomplicated system just for that and maybe foraging. And what about horses? Can you ride a horse while in this mode? If not then it's bad even for doing quests, If yes then it's bad because you can use a non-aggroable char to bring you a horse/block/people with it.
Like yeah you can block a lot of things when using it but at some point it just doesn't make sense to have it in the first place except for the very few cases it might be used. Also having players that are non-targetable in mass pvp would seriously be a bitch, you'd see them over the place and wonder if they can be aggrod or no, even if you mark them somehow they'd be a distraction.

[DDDsDD999]

You can just make another thread to suggest changing the game to co-op, it's ok.

[Barbamaus]

What the previous guy said and it only solves the issue of people going to do a quest, what's the point of implementing an overcomplicated system just for that and maybe foraging. And what about horses? Can you ride a horse while in this mode? If not then it's bad even for doing quests, If yes then it's bad because you can use a non-aggroable char to bring you a horse/block/people with it.
Like yeah you can block a lot of things when using it but at some point it just doesn't make sense to have it in the first place except for the very few cases it might be used. Also having players that are non-targetable in mass pvp would seriously be a bitch, you'd see them over the place and wonder if they can be aggrod or no, even if you mark them somehow they'd be a distraction.

You can easily kill a horse, also Raw Hide... so horses are not an issue.

Unfortunately the forum is scarcely populated by hermits and such, so you don't see the potential of it. Most people I played with over the years have at one point or another wished to get something like this. You say foraging and quest is not worth it, I say it is. There isn't really much else you do outside your claim if you're not a pvp fighter. Also this would increase player interaction, since you wouldn't have to run away every time you spot a player on your map.

As for large fights, it's easy to mark them differently. It being a distraction is a non-issue, since you could do the same with random alts. Also I'm 100% sure you'd get some custom client feature to hide passive-mode players as well so you don't see them; considering nobody can ever do pvp without a custom client, i'd say problem solved.

You can just make another thread to suggest changing the game to co-op, it's ok.

It's already co-op.

[Stoneface]

-1, you play the game of life by risk v reward. you simply existing and being unable to be interrupted in your quest for world domination of building useless palisades forever can then never be stopped. You didn't read developer thoughts on PVP. Bad suggestion, PVP is inherent to existence, and your idea is bad, and you should feel bad for not reading the top ten things to not make threads about. (not like im inno of this but, cmon, it is life, humans are a violent breed)

[Stoneface]

Just, be real. Spend time in the game and you'll know how to avoid the whirling clouds of tazmanian devils and play your mostly solo game in peace. Patience grasshoppa

[Stoneface]

Bring your problem solving hat and try to figure out a way to accomplish everything you're asking for.....simply by learning how to be sneaky, avoid the prime time rageaholics, and be more tactic oriented. I've played with a small group or less for every single world since w3. It is SO much more forgiving to be caught pants down now than it was before. Be happy you aren't even experiencing one hundredth of the reeee most of us people playing 10+ years have felt. Walk it off, you'll shake the greenhorn yoke soon enough.

[Stoneface]

You can just make another thread to suggest changing the game to co-op, it's ok.

o wait...isn't that what this is already??

just use some ingame currency or barter for some hired muscle, there is more than one way to cut a tree as the saying goes

[vatas]

If only downside of "passive-mode" is that you can't initiate PvP, why would anyone go outside their walls without it? Even if you're in mood for some sprucecap slaughter, they would all just have "passive-mode" on (unless devs manage to hide it, somehow making sprucecap killing even closer to the analogy of clubbing a baby seal to death.)

While I wouldn't advocate for spending dev time for something like that, I want to give it some time of thought. At minimum, such mechanic should include:

*Players on "passive-mode" can have their inventory confiscated and forced to TP back to their HF
*Something to prevent unlimited cycle of "go be a nuisance" "force someone to evict you" "repeat"