Triple Softcapped - Add dimishing returns to Combat

[Chakravanti]

the best thing would be if PvP loss didn't necessarily mean death -- if the winner actually had some incentive not to go all the way and instead keep his victim alive.

I have to disagree with this. Permadeath is what makes this game great. But the fac tthat one will suffer this frequently in PvP should be taken into account. PvP charecter development shoudl reflect the combat attrition accrued.

I've been thinking there would be a credo specifically design to be easy to produce but is worthless for doing anything other than equipping it with a ranger gear (for stealth which allows climbing over walls and avoid traps) and a dagger for assasination. It can summon and murder but it's so cheap and worthless in every other respect that the only thing it's good for is doing just this. This means retaliating against an assasin is just futlie.

Perhaps the assasin can only be capable of tracking murder scents. If so I would like to see an equally balanced system of tracking thieves.

With the assasin, a 'Ranger' type would be capable of tracking a thief, summoning them and pilfering through their stuff to get the stolen items back but have an incentive not to leave a murder scent. Naturally the ranger type would reflect more investment and the question would be about if the stuff stolen was worth tracking down. Only a ranger could kill a thief and doing so would probably be a death sentence.

Otoh, it would reflect battle attrition for characters on the field causing your opponents characters to die in GvG would mean that yours still die as well.

[loftar]

I have to disagree with this. Permadeath is what makes this game great. But the fac tthat one will suffer this frequently in PvP should be taken into account.

Hm, well. Obviously, permadeath is an extremely important part of PvP, and it is of course true that it should happen and be taken into account, but I still think that there should be ways to retaliate against people without necessarily having to kill them outright. If for no other reason, then just to have ways of punishing people to differing degrees, so that I can punish a thief less than I can punish a murderer. It just feels too weird how there's no incentive to show any mercy. It may just be a matter of current in-game culture rather than of game mechanics, however.

[Kahim]

Currently if you get stolen from your fist instinct is to steal back or kill the person, most people will kill the person and steal their stuff back if they have the skills. Ive seen Warri let a theif go only to have that theif killed by another person he was stolen from. Their should be crimes yes but then there should always be a diffrent choice then murder. What exactly there are many ideas in the forms but whom to say what is best.

[Chakravanti]

I think it's more a matter of 'gamer culture' than 'in-game culture' if mechanics are to push people toward mercy I should think alternative forms of punishment that benefit the punsiher be implemented.

In archaic ages such as these, 'indentured servitude' was not uncommon. If there was a relatively riskless way to absorb said thief into one's village for a duration that matched the # of theft scents one has which must be paid off with work or finished resources then this might be a different matter.

Unfortunately the major drawback to slavery and imprisonment is that intelligence is a valuable resource in and of itself and what people can learn by hanging about one's village and doing shit and peeking around might be worse than any benefit received by 'forcing' labor which is truly impractical.

Perhaps there might be a way to allow a rnager to not leave scents when stealing back stolen items...or anything else on the claim which has said items. There woudl likely be an exploit there but beyond these things which are not ideal in and of themselves (though may be more refined somehow) I am at a creative roadblock for seeing a method of encouraging mercy.

Furthermore, there is a reason PK is a gamer-culture inclination and I'm not sure discouraging it is really the way to go. Rather, just balance it so that when it occurs the attrition accrued is a reasonable margin of loss rather than raegquit inducing months of labor toilet wash. Honestly I'd like to see MORE PvP & PK.

There is an unconsidered solution however. Rangers who track a thief might get favor from their deity (You spoke a system of this sorts that is akin to AW). I'd think there is probably some thigns to be considered along these lines for a solution to this dilemma of incentive towards a more merciful punishment to thieves & vandals. Though personally I'd liek to see them (or some of them) favor PK.

[Chakravanti]

What exactly there are many ideas in the forms but whom to say what is best.

Actually we're lacking on ideas. If you have them put them out there.

[Jackard]

but I still think that there should be ways to retaliate against people without necessarily having to kill them outright. If for no other reason, then just to have ways of punishing people to differing degrees, so that I can punish a thief less than I can punish a murderer.

so do I

permadeath is a good thing but it shouldnt be taken lightly

[loftar]

The problem with captured players is that I don't see how you'd actually entice them to play while captured. If it could actually be made meaningful to play while captured, there would be many potentially very cool implications of it, like escaping in ingenious ways or having your comrades coming to rescue you or anything. I just don't really see how a character would be meaningful to play in that situation.

[Zizi]

A possible punishment for thieves is fines.

Is there a possible way that a captured thief could have his possessions confiscated? I don't see a way this could currently be done since there is nothing linking players to their possessions. However if this were a future development it would be one approach you could take. The way it is when someone is robbed normally the thief has disposed of the stolen goods so they cannot be recovered. It would seem to me that most players would far rather recover stolen property than get a meaningless revenge. In this scenario someone stealing a gold ring would have to leave a theft scent linked to the ring and the ring itself would continue to have a link to the rightful owner. That way the "value" of the ring could be stripped from the theif even if they would not return the ring when confronted by a ranger.

One difficulty with this would be that I understand the devs do not want to set prices in any way but perhaps an arbitrary price could be set on items based on their q and their materials. It would not actually matter if the price were quite a bit higher than what the stolen property might be sold for. After all, the captured thief would have the option of either returning the goods or paying the fine. Failure to return the stolen goods and inability to pay the fine would leave the thief open to a third, more grevious options, such as maiming - loss of 1/3 of their stealth score, or death.

But probably the biggest problem with this suggestion is that it would involve mega-mega coding and not be a direction the devs want to go.

[Jackard]

The problem with captured players is that I don't see how you'd actually entice them to play while captured. If it could actually be made meaningful to play while captured, there would be many potentially very cool implications of it, like escaping in ingenious ways or having your comrades coming to rescue you or anything. I just don't really see how a character would be meaningful to play in that situation.

Even if nothing special is added to make captured play meaningful - which seems unlikely - it still provides an alternative to killing the guy and opens up emergent gameplay like ransoms or working off debts while under guard until released or being rescued by allies.

[Zizi]

[quote="Chakravanti"] Perhaps you can achieve this with credos by making peasants a class and making them somehow more defensible if they are affiliated with a destructive class that defends them...

... If I am a harvest mooner I want my resources to go to that player NOW so they can protect me now....

I suspect a large number of the Harvest Moon players would rather rely on storage alts to guard their moveable possessions and move on rather than pay what they might regard as extortion. I know I would. This is especially so given that pvp players are in fact useless to the Harvest Moonies. In practice if I get robbed... I get robbed and that's it. Sure some nice Ranger can come around and sniff for scents but my q84 tree has still been cut down. Similarly if some bunch of raiders come by and gak my character, I'm dead. Why would I care about revenge any more than I do when playing Monopoly? Paying protection to Waynesville does not seem to give any protection whatsoever from Caketown, since when the Hordes of Lust Crazed Caketown raiders begin to batter down my pallisade or corner me in my wheat field the Waynesville police force (motto: To protect and to serve) are probably all going to be in class at Dusseldorf University listening to a TA drone on. By the time they do log in... I am well on my way to reduced to a skeleton.

And, no, the solution of locking me up in a labour camp where I would be safe is not one I would be willing to consider, thank you very much.