well, how would you suggest they fix it? killing a player is basically creating a pk'ed/pk'er relationship. How do you take into account that one pk'er is avenging someone whereas another pk'er is just killing a player for giggles?
That's one ofthe things I don't like about penalties for pk'ers. If I want to avenge someone or give as good as I got, I then become a pk'er.
Which goes back to the fact that it's hard to make a game discern morality. The only absolute is that one player is killing antother player.
Don't know that this is impossible to solve. Didn't LIneage 2 discern between PKers and White Knights, such that PKers were flagged red and anyone could retaliate against a red player without penalty?
That's true. My question is more about pk'ing someone who is a notorious pk'er. So, let's say I am pk'ed. No big deal but I want to exact vengeance. Now let's say I don't see my attacker until a week passes and he is white. I either pk him and become red or wait until he is red again.
Maybe that's the only solution, i have to wait until he is an outlaw and incurs the penalties of being an outlaw.
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Games mock RL where a someone in the west with access to sattelites and missiles can ganks someone else in a dusty village in the east that barely has half a candle.
Ganking can be prevented by harsh limitations to gaming mechanics. But the ballance needs to be very delicately handled. EVE is an example of a good and bad solution. 0.0 is good, if you go there you know what risk you take. Empire is bad, you have semi poor concord and a bunch of griefers mollesting newbies who simply don't know game rules that well. So CCP in way managed to find a good solution and screw it up big time at the same time.
It's up to game developers to find this ballance, not up to players. So far gaming companies have shown little intelligence in solving this dilema.
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
Games mock RL where a someone in the west with access to sattelites and missiles can ganks someone else in a dusty village in the east that barely has half a candle.
Ganking can be prevented by harsh limitations to gaming mechanics. But the ballance needs to be very delicately handled. EVE is an example of a good and bad solution. 0.0 is good, if you go there you know what risk you take. Empire is bad, you have semi poor concord and a bunch of griefers mollesting newbies who simply don't know game rules that well. So CCP in way managed to find a good solution and screw it up big time at the same time.
It's up to game developers to find this ballance, not up to players. So far gaming companies have shown little intelligence in solving this dilema.
Originally posted by LucioonAgain I wanted to Emphasis on the DEATH PENALTY FOR ALL PKersPVP is Dueling, you can do it anywhere, you can even have events in arenas where DEATH is allowed if you decided to turn it on for extra carnage, but its an agreeable duel.Ganking is attacking another player without their prior consent, therefore its called PKing, and that should give you the Ultimate punishment, Perma Death aka Hardcore Mode.Guild vs Guild, you can turn on Hardcore mode or not, for that something extra.But when against PK guilds, its Perma death for one ( evil villans) , and respawning gods for the Heroes.I believe all PKer, Gankers, Corpse Campers, and PVPers will agree that this is acceptable, because thats the thrill that PKers live for, thrill of Perma Death of their characters if you are good enough to take me on. And all that much sweeter when they escape.
Do you understand how easy it would be to perma kill an innocent player with your idea. I would just have to piss you like no other to the point you loose your temper and attack me, then i would proceed to perma kill you and laugh at your carebearness. This is exactly how tagging work in all open world pvp game, and why this system lead to trash talking, exploiting mechanism and poor pvp experience overall.
Why make a pvp game if you want to forbid people to pvp, this make just no sense at all to begin with. If you want to let people pvp, just let them do so (why i like GW2 pvp format better actually).
@Sovrath: I'm not a dev, but some system went off like allowing to kill a few time but not a ton of time (murder count), but the efficiency of this system was really bad. But i personally prefer putting pvp into the faction format, there is no tagging in faction system since they are enemy by default, and it's your choice to be part of a faction or not. GW2 also work on a similar concept of "not tagging player" and faction, pvp is just pvp, if you don't want it don't play it, but then GW2 is not a real open world pvp system, they also dealt with killing low level since they are all max level in pvp. I'm pretty sure a dev could find a way through that and keep an open world pvp setting, you would just need a good brainstorming that's all. Honestly ganking is a very psychological aspect, you can deal with it and still allow people to kill each other, imo it all depend how you present the game.
And Sovrath about your vengeance case, in Uo you had a memory system for theif, if someone stole you something and you caught him doing so, he would be tagged as enemy to you (perma grey back then) and be a free kill each time you saw him, was quiet fun honestly. Really they are plenty of system, i don't think they miss honestly, they just need to be done in a game that want to achieve that. Most open world pvp game want to attract the mmo ffa crew, that's all it is about really and sadly (my opinion naturally).
@Axehilt L2 had no pking going around (you could go red and pk, but nobody did it), L2 was all about guild vs guilds. Everyone can kill a red, that system was always the case even in UO (l2 took the system from Uo), just like Darkfall and most OWpvp mmo around, red are free kill since ever. But in L2 red would drop their gear that cost every peny they made in game, so nobody pked or was doing it naked (only red would drop their gear in pvp).
I personally think Eve already accomplished this. There will always be those gankers who will do whatever they can to greif players but that is just that, they are the pirates, and the game is harsh for them vs the carebear who likes to trott along singing 'row row row your boat'.
Originally posted by Arskaaa "when players learned tacticks in dungeon/raids, its bread".
Is it possible to have a true open-world PvP system without ganking? And if so, how could it be accomplished?
Not quite the right question Cres.
Warhammer had the "Chicken" mechanic (for instance) the enforced level-appropriate use of zones fairly well. Of course it's possible to have a gank-free system.
The question, always, is "Is the Cure worse than the Disease?"
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Is it possible to have a true open-world PvP system without ganking? And if so, how could it be accomplished?
Not quite the right question Cres.
Warhammer had the "Chicken" mechanic (for instance) the enforced level-appropriate use of zones fairly well. Of course it's possible to have a gank-free system.
The question, always, is "Is the Cure worse than the Disease?"
IceWhite hit the nail on the head there.
One thing that almost every solution offered in this thread overlooks is that open world PVP almost always exists so that the players can achieve specific goals in and through conflict in the environment. The player conditions that allow for invulnerability, protection or advantage will be the ones that the PVPers use as they are the most logical to use.
Honestly, if a particular condition gave you a legitimate advantage in the global PVP gameplay - newbie status, gear type, special flag, harsher penalty for opponent - wouldn't you use it?
And the more depth the PVP gameplay has, the more these contrived barriers create loopholes and exploitable situations, partially because, as Disdena pointed out, computers (and other players for that matter) cannot reliably discern intent.
This was a huge debate a few years ago in PotBS, where some players wanted immunity for new characters or low level ships that sail through PVP zones safely to do their quests. On paper, that seems like a great idea, however all it really does it bypass a good portion of the conquest and control mechanics by allowing invulnerable spying and completely safe transportation of supplies through enemy lines.
In EVE Online, the economy is a massive part of the PVP game, so any remotely intelligent player would just use a character that meets the conditions for safety in order to gather intel, move goods around, manipulate the market, bypass blockades or infiltrate enemy territory.
I think Sov said it best that it's probably more sensible for people who don't like world PVP to just play a game that doesn't have it rather than look for ways to break the core gameplay to cater to their personal dislike for it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
When MMORPGs first became popular with the release of UO...I think that many of us had a dream of how the PvP in the game would work. We thought that PvP would help support the whole ideal of a virtual world. Feuds would be born, mighty heroes would rise to defeat villians, wicked people would methodically plot robberies or murders, while peacekeepers tried to stop them. And every aspect of these scenarios would have created by players...it would have been marvelous.
But this isn't really what happened. What happened, was ganking. Many players quickly learned that the benefits of rampant player killing far outweighed the penalties, and since UO was basically just a game, many people had no moral qualms with mass murder. So the strong preyed upon the weak, and I think the dream was killed. Instead of really interesting scenarios playing out, players were just constantly in fear of a "PK" killing them and then mocking them in l33t sp34k while they were essentially minding their own business.
And that brings me to the question I would like to pose for discussion.
Is it possible to have a true open-world PvP system without ganking? And if so, how could it be accomplished?
I don't think we have ever seen an open-world PvP system that really "works" in that it makes the original dream of open-world PvP supporting the virtual world come true. Every open-world PvP system I have seen either devolves into ganking, or is so limited that the open-world PvP system basically boils down to specific areas where people go to kill each other.
PvP "zones" are a popular "solution" to the ganking problem, and while they can be fun, they don't really accomplish the goal that I think open-world PvP was originally intended for. So I would like to stay away from people saying that they are the solution.
First of all, UO was not what I would call popular. It never went much above 100k subs, untill Tramel opened up. Alot of fans say Ttamel ruined UO bit in all fairness it actually grew in popularity...hence the next few years saw PvE MMO's come out.
To answer your question though; Emphatically NO. Open World PvP is never and has never been condusive to gank free zones.
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TL:DR – Pvp sucks unless it is done right but no system to date works. Maybe not even the system I am implementing. It has been discussed and refined considerably.
There will never be a way to completely deter open world ‘ganking’ as you call it. No matter what system is in place there will always be some form of characters taking advantage of the social rules, game rules. As in life there will never be a means to deter murder so a ‘virtual world’ or a game you could not expect it to NOT exist. Since a virtual world has no means to relly punish a murderer there is little course od action anyone can take to stop it.
However, there has never been a system to encourage fair game play and also allow murder and yet deter plain problem characters who like to continually disrupt the game play of others. In past and present games there have been systems implemented but the systems have been flawed in one way or another.
I do have a system that will, in my view, help keep open world FFA from becoming a rampant epidemic but it will not completely deter problem characters either. It will discourage them them though and cause them a lot of hardship if they so choose this path. Although the problem characters will eventually find themselves out of the game so to speak it will not completely remove them form the world because they will still be able to make a new character. As I said murders exist in real life and will continue to exist in games and virtual worlds so one must accept this when they join any game that has FFA PvP design.
Now my entire system for your thoughts and comments and flames.
In my virtual world which is a MOVW (Massively Online Virtual World) the characters ( I prefer to call them characters rather than players), NPCs, Mobs all have factions in varying degrees. The factions are Neutral, PvP communistic and PvP fascist for the characters.
The Neutral can remain neutral and not partake of open world PvP except in war areas where they are seen as hostile to everyone except neutrals and those that they are grouped with.
In open world PvP they can not engage any player versus player conflict except through consented duels or arena game play. However through their quest dialogs and actions toward the NPCs they can become FFA PvP or through their actions in the war zones. In war zones Neutrals are considered mercenaries so they do play a bigger role than one my think since they can turn the tied of battles by taking sides.
In other words they really have to be careful how they do their quest dialogs and who they kill in a war zone because they can paint themselves into a situation where they could switch their faction to a FFA PvP and once they are FFA PvP they loose the Neutral faction (account wide) which they can NEVER get back. It is a choice they make through their actions and the consequence is the account switches faction and all their account characters switch their faction. Faction switching happens over time and is not instant so they have opportunity to adjust their actions and yes they can to some degree abuse the system.
The biggest benefit for a Neutral player is that they can travel much more of the open world than those that choose to ‘take sides’ but they will not be given assignments of the opposite faction quest system or own property in the other realms. If they don’t want to get flagged FFA PvP then they best stay clean.
Now those that choose to partake of open world PvP from get go have gained a benefit of being buffed with the artifacts their faction has control of and access to deep parts of the world where even neutral could not travel. Of course they have to still gain status in the world but they do have access to these havens.
In the world they are free to attack anyone, except neutral of course because Neutral are not flagged PvP except in the previous rules, but if they attack their own faction members they will gain faction in the opposite alignment. They gain faction in the opposite alignment for attacking their own faster than they gain killing the opposition so it becomes more and more difficult to wipe the slate and the slate never clears except by working it off. The defender will never gain faction in the opposite alignment so the defender is free to ,well defend themselves except if the other faction is involved.
If they gain enough of this faction then they will switch factions (again account wide) and when they switch factions they will become hostile to all NPCs and their now old faction. Now they still have to work off the murder debt so they are either forced to hunt their old faction members or do assignments in the new faction.
If they again start attacking characters in this new faction they will start to accumulate a bounty (account wide) and be considered a felon. Once this bounty raises high enough they will start to become hostile to everyone and open game until they wipe the slate. If they die there is a chance they will die permanently. In other words they can become infamous and a problem to the game community which has no means to control the problem character.
This system is not going to completely deter problem characters but it give freedom to murder in a characters role and not cause those that want to partake of the world in its design sense problems.
This system is also implemented in guilds and alliances so those in your guilds can switch the guilds faction. Yes you can ally with the opposition and they will be seen as friendly but attackable.
For any PVP to work in mmorpgs in their current form everyone MUST play by the same rules.
But game after game no matter the pvp type, a certain group gets to exploit or cheat or play in a manner not intended and then keep their artificial strength, while the "fix" equals 5 times more grinding for everyone else. Or a purchase in the item shop to speed the progress. Either way it equals more money (time).
Same rules for everyone, in any pvp. You will see something amazing happen then, people just accept it and play the damn game. If the rules are broken you make it right. Common sense?
CCP does a decent job with appearing to be fair, and their players handle the people that cry themselves. Aventurine did it bad and everyone bailed. I wont even mention the themepark pvp that supposed to be better and what the masses want. (lol bribes)
I would start there, no point spending resources "fixing' the wrong problem, and blaming the wrong people.
There is no ganker problem, the problem is it's not a game.
Funny thing is there are people who would disagree.
That's true. My question is more about pk'ing someone who is a notorious pk'er. So, let's say I am pk'ed. No big deal but I want to exact vengeance. Now let's say I don't see my attacker until a week passes and he is white. I either pk him and become red or wait until he is red again.
Maybe that's the only solution, i have to wait until he is an outlaw and incurs the penalties of being an outlaw.
Yeah, and certainly a game could get more indepth regarding how long being an outlaw sticks with you. (And potentially provide lengthy "penance" activities to work off your outlaw status.)
I mean I find that type of PVP terrible, so I'm not advocating it, but I do see solutions (for those actually interested in that type of PVP.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I was never saying that I didn't want to allow one player to gank another, ever...I'm just saying that it needs to be controlled, WAY more than it is now if the original "dream" is to ever be achieved. Yes, we need villians, but we can't have the world be 60% villianous mass murderers.
Villiany needs to have a much higher price, and be much more difficult than it is now. As it stands now, in almost every FFA PvP game, it is much more profitable to be a ganker than anything else. So it's no surprise that they devolve into gankfests.
I dunno, to me this still sounds like having your cake and eating it. The allure of an open PvP world is that it's dangerous and you can't let your guard down. Let's say someone's been killed a few times and they're at the point where they feel getting jumped by the same guy would be "excessive". Do they deserve to be free from that danger?
Actually, let me go all out with a (horrible) hypothetical solution. I think that might demonstrate the point I'm trying to make a little more clearly. Give everyone the ability to toggle PvP off on a person by person basis. If you feel that it's inappropriate for someone to attack you, you type /unpvp Disdena or whatever, and they can't interact with you anymore. This is immediately recognizable as a bad solution because people would be able to bow out of every fight, even the appropriate ones. Wait, what's "appropriate"? If the attacked player thinks the attack is inappropriate, isn't that enough? Isn't that what we're talking about solving: stopping people from inappropriately attacking?
The root of the problem is that Player A thinks he should be able to attack Player B, and Player B doesn't think he should be able to be attacked by Player A (at least not without severe consequence). As long as this gap remains, there is no possible system that will work. You need the entire playerbase to be in agreement on what's okay in PvP and what's not, and that is next to impossible.
I was never saying that I didn't want to allow one player to gank another, ever...I'm just saying that it needs to be controlled, WAY more than it is now if the original "dream" is to ever be achieved. Yes, we need villians, but we can't have the world be 60% villianous mass murderers.
Villiany needs to have a much higher price, and be much more difficult than it is now. As it stands now, in almost every FFA PvP game, it is much more profitable to be a ganker than anything else. So it's no surprise that they devolve into gankfests.
I dunno, to me this still sounds like having your cake and eating it. The allure of an open PvP world is that it's dangerous and you can't let your guard down. Let's say someone's been killed a few times and they're at the point where they feel getting jumped by the same guy would be "excessive". Do they deserve to be free from that danger?
Actually, let me go all out with a (horrible) hypothetical solution. I think that might demonstrate the point I'm trying to make a little more clearly. Give everyone the ability to toggle PvP off on a person by person basis. If you feel that it's inappropriate for someone to attack you, you type /unpvp Disdena or whatever, and they can't interact with you anymore. This is immediately recognizable as a bad solution because people would be able to bow out of every fight, even the appropriate ones. Wait, what's "appropriate"? If the attacked player thinks the attack is inappropriate, isn't that enough? Isn't that what we're talking about solving: stopping people from inappropriately attacking?
The root of the problem is that Player A thinks he should be able to attack Player B, and Player B doesn't think he should be able to be attacked by Player A (at least not without severe consequence). As long as this gap remains, there is no possible system that will work. You need the entire playerbase to be in agreement on what's okay in PvP and what's not, and that is next to impossible.
The root of the problem is people know pvp is fought on the forums. You cant win in the game by defeating the other side, the devs wont let you, or the TOP RATED are the biggest cheaters. Or people who seem to play games for a living.(QA KIDS?) To win you go to the forums and screw the other side by changing the game via tears.
DUH.
It's not a game is the problem. If it was a game, people would just play it.
Stop calling it pvp maybe and call it a fixed e-sport. Thats what everyone wants right? An open world e-sport that the devs determine who wins? Thats what you're trying to sell is it not?
No, "ganking" cannot ever be gotten rid of. Regardless of what system you set up there will alway be 12 year old boys (mentally) who think it's hilarious to kill someone much lower than themselves. I've played many open pvp games that have had systems similar to many of those brought up.
I've played a game that had a "muderer's row" list with bounties and a top bounty hunter list. This did nothing to deter ganking.
I've played a game where you could optionally turn off pvp. But it was server wide and had a 24 hour cool down. Gankers just exploited it.
For those that say it's part of game play and it's about area control and such. Yes that is true in games where the defeated might drop items or gold or both. There is a potential reward for pk'ing. But what kind of reward could a high level player possibly get from a low level in that situation? What about games that don't have that mechanic? And what about repeatedly killing the same player?
It is possible. But there has to be real consequences for player killing. Most games that have open world PvP either have heavy handed restrictions or end up as gank fests.
Something like an outlaw system, where if you kill too many players you become exiled from the main cities and hostile to any city guards, forced to live with no amenities. Able to be killed by other players with no penalty to them (and full loot rights). Also if they make it so the only way to return to a law abiding citizen is to hunt down other exiles and collect bounties.
Killing someone for no reason shouldnt be encouraged in games, there is a penalty in real life, and games should imitate that, otherwise people will act like dicks, simply because they can. I mean yeah, killing someone you meet is always an option, but there should be serious consequences to such actions.
Some would argue that the penatly is incurring the wrath of an opposing alliance. I mean "World War I" right?
I still maintain that ffa pvp is absolutely never an issue if the people who understand and want ffa pvp in its current incarnation are playing.
It's very difficult to lend credence to people who have no business playing an ffa pvp game and yet they play it and complain.
I don't mean to sound harsh nor do I mean to sound rude but why are people playing games that have rulesets that they don't like?
if i don't like tackle football I don't play tackle football.
I don't go around joining a game and then start complaining that i'm being tackled.
That is very presumptuous of you. I have played FFA in quite a few MMOs and enjoyed it. But people saying that guilds / players should police others is just silly. It never happens because there are no real consequences to death in these games. There is also no consequence to killing other players repeatedly.
You don't look at someones guild tag and go 'Oh I had better not attack them'. You just attack every single person you see that isnt in your group or a friend. It isnt realistic at all, its like everyone is hell bent on the genocide of other heroes so that they can be the only one. Like Highlander or something.
Of course it's possible, they're even examples of games that made it work.
There's however one big problem, and it's one of perception and marketing. When you have an open world PvP game where "ganking" is rather limited you easily lose a lot of potential customers. You lose the people that don't like PvP because there's still open world PvP in the game and you lose the people that like PvP because there's not enough of it.
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Ooh, a new idea! How 'bout a radar? Just see where enemies are. It would kill stalking, decrease fog of war etc. but wouldn't it also prevent ganking?
I like that idea. Also if your in PVE combat it locks you from entering PVP until 30 seconds after the fight. That way you don't get the idiots you wait until a mob gets your life down to 50% before they jump in and finish you off. 30 seconds gives you options either run or QT or heal and fight.
Originally posted by LucioonAgain I wanted to Emphasis on the DEATH PENALTY FOR ALL PKersPVP is Dueling, you can do it anywhere, you can even have events in arenas where DEATH is allowed if you decided to turn it on for extra carnage, but its an agreeable duel.Ganking is attacking another player without their prior consent, therefore its called PKing, and that should give you the Ultimate punishment, Perma Death aka Hardcore Mode.Guild vs Guild, you can turn on Hardcore mode or not, for that something extra.But when against PK guilds, its Perma death for one ( evil villans) , and respawning gods for the Heroes.I believe all PKer, Gankers, Corpse Campers, and PVPers will agree that this is acceptable, because thats the thrill that PKers live for, thrill of Perma Death of their characters if you are good enough to take me on. And all that much sweeter when they escape.
Do you understand how easy it would be to perma kill an innocent player with your idea. I would just have to piss you like no other to the point you loose your temper and attack me, then i would proceed to perma kill you and laugh at your carebearness. This is exactly how tagging work in all open world pvp game, and why this system lead to trash talking, exploiting mechanism and poor pvp experience overall.
Why make a pvp game if you want to forbid people to pvp, this make just no sense at all to begin with. If you want to let people pvp, just let them do so (why i like GW2 pvp format better actually).
@Sovrath: I'm not a dev, but some system went off like allowing to kill a few time but not a ton of time (murder count), but the efficiency of this system was really bad. But i personally prefer putting pvp into the faction format, there is no tagging in faction system since they are enemy by default, and it's your choice to be part of a faction or not. GW2 also work on a similar concept of "not tagging player" and faction, pvp is just pvp, if you don't want it don't play it, but then GW2 is not a real open world pvp system, they also dealt with killing low level since they are all max level in pvp. I'm pretty sure a dev could find a way through that and keep an open world pvp setting, you would just need a good brainstorming that's all. Honestly ganking is a very psychological aspect, you can deal with it and still allow people to kill each other, imo it all depend how you present the game.
And Sovrath about your vengeance case, in Uo you had a memory system for theif, if someone stole you something and you caught him doing so, he would be tagged as enemy to you (perma grey back then) and be a free kill each time you saw him, was quiet fun honestly. Really they are plenty of system, i don't think they miss honestly, they just need to be done in a game that want to achieve that. Most open world pvp game want to attract the mmo ffa crew, that's all it is about really and sadly (my opinion naturally).
@Axehilt L2 had no pking going around (you could go red and pk, but nobody did it), L2 was all about guild vs guilds. Everyone can kill a red, that system was always the case even in UO (l2 took the system from Uo), just like Darkfall and most OWpvp mmo around, red are free kill since ever. But in L2 red would drop their gear that cost every peny they made in game, so nobody pked or was doing it naked (only red would drop their gear in pvp).
I think you are misunderstanding my idea,
When you decided to kill a player, there is no innocence in it at all, you are trying to kill a player whom is pissing you off, that itself is a act of murder.
There are tools in every MMO to ignore a player because they piss you off, or you can put them on an HIT list for other PKer to take them out. But the PKing itself is an risk.
IF the rules were already set that if you PK an player without consent, you turn on your hardcore mode, why the hell would you attack an player when they are ready to face you head on and you get killed.
Thats what hunters are for in my previous post, Provoking a player to attack you is a skill that should be praised, tagging is an tactic in killing players without making yourself an PKer.
And with an Bounty system, any one timer PK can still get rid of their Hardcore status so whats so innocent in deciding in killing a player.
Having Perma death for Pkers, you are promoting Pking, you are actually telling players that if you want to show your uberness, do it, if you can't do it solo, do it as an Pk guild, bring friends to watch your back, but watch yourself, they might just turn around and kill you too because they want your bounty.
And it also promotes Anti-Pk Guilds to form so that they can hunt the PKers
What this system does is make all the people whom are not ready to become Pkers to think twice before they do.
Like I also explained, PVP still exists as Friendly Duels if you want, or Guild vs Guild duels where there is no perma death or bad blood, its more of an organized war.
The points you brought out is the exact reason why FFA PVP never gets fixed, because there are many that is not ready for the True PKing experience and the thrill of death at their footsteps and the thrill of not knowing who you can trust and who you cant.
BTW with my system of Perma-death, you can even set up mechanics where people can put hit lists out, for those willing to take the risk and for the rewards listed, or use an System where if my target is level 20 and the price is only 10000, if i succeed, the target loses 1 level when succeeded, but if you do 100000 gold as reward, and you succeeded, the target loses 10 level of life, but lets put an time limit on it where the target must log in 48 hours of game time or something like that, and if that time limit passes, the Target gets 20% of the gold that was put up for his demise.
Its all about promoting PK to PK, promoting Hunters to hunt the PK, promoting world wide PKing. Because Perma Death is not preventing PKing, its actually helping control the quality of the PK experience.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Originally posted by zymurgeist Is ganking even much of a problem? That was the good and bad part about Shadowbane. Consequences was the good thing. If you annoy me how about I bring about fifty of my best friends to your (ingame) house and burn it down. Most people will probably just quit the game instead of fighting back. That's the bad thing.
For any game there's going to be a small group of people who don't like the game's mechanics, but want to play the game anyway. There are people who want open world pvp in TSW or GW2. There are people who want three faction style RvR in WoW. I would be really surprised if there weren't people who played Shadowbane and just wanted to build houses.
I don't have an explanation for this.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
TL:DR – Pvp sucks unless it is done right but no system to date works. Maybe not even the system I am implementing. It has been discussed and refined considerably.
So you're saying world PVP sucks unless it's done right and no system to date has done it right?
...well I suppose I'd agree with that. Don't really see your system changing it though. The fundamental criticisms of world PVP are probably only going to be solved by having it not be world PVP.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Answer to the OP... everything is possible so why not. However Engine should be modified in some way so that ganked person is not in disadvantage. Even then you may have people looking every other way to exploit system, so it need to be well thought-out.
Everything is possible i say.. it just takes some coding and production skills.
EDIT: Ok, i may correct myself... open world PvP is not theoretically possible without it. People love to and WILL gank if given a chance. However it can be modified to not be pain in the rear for ganked player.
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2 Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
To achieve this, you would need to have a built in "justice" system that is very harsh to mindless killers and also not able to be exploited to make people murderers against their will (I think notably about DFO and MO here, both totally failed this).
Murderers should have nowhere to go, city guards should attack them on sight, if they want a shelter they will have to find it somewhere in the wilds, they can buy at no shop, use no bank, and can't trade with any other characters except other outlaws (to avoid the "alt on other account goes shopping" system). Want it harsh, want to be an asshat and grief/gank... so be it, but you have to pay a very harsh prize for it, a bit like in real life.
So they can eventually have their own bandit camp, trade with each other (resources they collected in the wilds or by murdering people), but they have access to no facility non-murderers have access to.
Also, if caught murdering by a guard, they are sent for a short duration prison time and stripped of all their gear, and released in prisoner rags, their eventual stolen good being automatically returned to the ganked person, so that they aren't tempted to camp newbie zones despite the guards.
Faction vs faction wars, guild vs guild wars and conscensual duels would of course not be affected.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
To achieve this, you would need to have a built in "justice" system that is very harsh to mindless killers.
Really kind of a silly thing to hope for.
I mean, in the ultimate sandbox, you could reasonably expect medeival justice as the result of setting off on a murder spree--realistic, good for immersion. Bunch of big guys grab you as you're walking to the stable, thump you, "try" you, and cut your head off. Not an MMO death, a perma-death.
But PvP players don't want consequences. And who the hell wants to play a game that punishes you? (I know, hush up EQ fans). PvP players want a silly-season world where you can get away with any degree of violence, and the worst consequence ever is a corpse run.
In order for PvP to be fun, the degree/frequency of violence must by kept high and the consequences minimal. Else there's little point for a game to even install it as a feature.
In the Early Middle Ages, the Germanic Kingdoms generally punished murder with a fine approximately equal to the income the murdered person might expect to get in three years. Double that for a king. The amount for a woman was half to double that of a man for the same rank. Later in the Middle Ages, murder was generally a capital offense, and the punishment was execution.
Mind you, we might be williing to toss them into the stocks and pelt them with some virtual fruit. But don't let Mom see Little Johnny serving out that sentence, or lawsuits will result because you're "damaging his little psyche (or is it psycho?)".
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
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That's true. My question is more about pk'ing someone who is a notorious pk'er. So, let's say I am pk'ed. No big deal but I want to exact vengeance. Now let's say I don't see my attacker until a week passes and he is white. I either pk him and become red or wait until he is red again.
Maybe that's the only solution, i have to wait until he is an outlaw and incurs the penalties of being an outlaw.
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Games mock RL where a someone in the west with access to sattelites and missiles can ganks someone else in a dusty village in the east that barely has half a candle.
Ganking can be prevented by harsh limitations to gaming mechanics. But the ballance needs to be very delicately handled. EVE is an example of a good and bad solution. 0.0 is good, if you go there you know what risk you take. Empire is bad, you have semi poor concord and a bunch of griefers mollesting newbies who simply don't know game rules that well. So CCP in way managed to find a good solution and screw it up big time at the same time.
It's up to game developers to find this ballance, not up to players. So far gaming companies have shown little intelligence in solving this dilema.
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Missile has "PWN3D" written on it
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It is possible. Read my blog from 2 years ago. If you don't want to read the whole thing, scroll to the PvP section:
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/joeballs/052010/6185_The-mosscovered-genre
Do you understand how easy it would be to perma kill an innocent player with your idea. I would just have to piss you like no other to the point you loose your temper and attack me, then i would proceed to perma kill you and laugh at your carebearness. This is exactly how tagging work in all open world pvp game, and why this system lead to trash talking, exploiting mechanism and poor pvp experience overall.
Why make a pvp game if you want to forbid people to pvp, this make just no sense at all to begin with. If you want to let people pvp, just let them do so (why i like GW2 pvp format better actually).
@Sovrath: I'm not a dev, but some system went off like allowing to kill a few time but not a ton of time (murder count), but the efficiency of this system was really bad. But i personally prefer putting pvp into the faction format, there is no tagging in faction system since they are enemy by default, and it's your choice to be part of a faction or not. GW2 also work on a similar concept of "not tagging player" and faction, pvp is just pvp, if you don't want it don't play it, but then GW2 is not a real open world pvp system, they also dealt with killing low level since they are all max level in pvp. I'm pretty sure a dev could find a way through that and keep an open world pvp setting, you would just need a good brainstorming that's all. Honestly ganking is a very psychological aspect, you can deal with it and still allow people to kill each other, imo it all depend how you present the game.
And Sovrath about your vengeance case, in Uo you had a memory system for theif, if someone stole you something and you caught him doing so, he would be tagged as enemy to you (perma grey back then) and be a free kill each time you saw him, was quiet fun honestly. Really they are plenty of system, i don't think they miss honestly, they just need to be done in a game that want to achieve that. Most open world pvp game want to attract the mmo ffa crew, that's all it is about really and sadly (my opinion naturally).
@Axehilt L2 had no pking going around (you could go red and pk, but nobody did it), L2 was all about guild vs guilds. Everyone can kill a red, that system was always the case even in UO (l2 took the system from Uo), just like Darkfall and most OWpvp mmo around, red are free kill since ever. But in L2 red would drop their gear that cost every peny they made in game, so nobody pked or was doing it naked (only red would drop their gear in pvp).
I personally think Eve already accomplished this. There will always be those gankers who will do whatever they can to greif players but that is just that, they are the pirates, and the game is harsh for them vs the carebear who likes to trott along singing 'row row row your boat'.
Originally posted by Arskaaa
"when players learned tacticks in dungeon/raids, its bread".
Not quite the right question Cres.
Warhammer had the "Chicken" mechanic (for instance) the enforced level-appropriate use of zones fairly well. Of course it's possible to have a gank-free system.
The question, always, is "Is the Cure worse than the Disease?"
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
IceWhite hit the nail on the head there.
One thing that almost every solution offered in this thread overlooks is that open world PVP almost always exists so that the players can achieve specific goals in and through conflict in the environment. The player conditions that allow for invulnerability, protection or advantage will be the ones that the PVPers use as they are the most logical to use.
Honestly, if a particular condition gave you a legitimate advantage in the global PVP gameplay - newbie status, gear type, special flag, harsher penalty for opponent - wouldn't you use it?
And the more depth the PVP gameplay has, the more these contrived barriers create loopholes and exploitable situations, partially because, as Disdena pointed out, computers (and other players for that matter) cannot reliably discern intent.
This was a huge debate a few years ago in PotBS, where some players wanted immunity for new characters or low level ships that sail through PVP zones safely to do their quests. On paper, that seems like a great idea, however all it really does it bypass a good portion of the conquest and control mechanics by allowing invulnerable spying and completely safe transportation of supplies through enemy lines.
In EVE Online, the economy is a massive part of the PVP game, so any remotely intelligent player would just use a character that meets the conditions for safety in order to gather intel, move goods around, manipulate the market, bypass blockades or infiltrate enemy territory.
I think Sov said it best that it's probably more sensible for people who don't like world PVP to just play a game that doesn't have it rather than look for ways to break the core gameplay to cater to their personal dislike for it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
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First of all, UO was not what I would call popular. It never went much above 100k subs, untill Tramel opened up. Alot of fans say Ttamel ruined UO bit in all fairness it actually grew in popularity...hence the next few years saw PvE MMO's come out.
To answer your question though; Emphatically NO. Open World PvP is never and has never been condusive to gank free zones.
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Now those that choose to partake of open world PvP from get go have gained a benefit of being buffed with the artifacts their faction has control of and access to deep parts of the world where even neutral could not travel. Of course they have to still gain status in the world but they do have access to these havens.
This system is also implemented in guilds and alliances so those in your guilds can switch the guilds faction. Yes you can ally with the opposition and they will be seen as friendly but attackable.
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For any PVP to work in mmorpgs in their current form everyone MUST play by the same rules.
But game after game no matter the pvp type, a certain group gets to exploit or cheat or play in a manner not intended and then keep their artificial strength, while the "fix" equals 5 times more grinding for everyone else. Or a purchase in the item shop to speed the progress. Either way it equals more money (time).
Same rules for everyone, in any pvp. You will see something amazing happen then, people just accept it and play the damn game. If the rules are broken you make it right. Common sense?
CCP does a decent job with appearing to be fair, and their players handle the people that cry themselves. Aventurine did it bad and everyone bailed. I wont even mention the themepark pvp that supposed to be better and what the masses want. (lol bribes)
I would start there, no point spending resources "fixing' the wrong problem, and blaming the wrong people.
There is no ganker problem, the problem is it's not a game.
Funny thing is there are people who would disagree.
Yeah, and certainly a game could get more indepth regarding how long being an outlaw sticks with you. (And potentially provide lengthy "penance" activities to work off your outlaw status.)
I mean I find that type of PVP terrible, so I'm not advocating it, but I do see solutions (for those actually interested in that type of PVP.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I dunno, to me this still sounds like having your cake and eating it. The allure of an open PvP world is that it's dangerous and you can't let your guard down. Let's say someone's been killed a few times and they're at the point where they feel getting jumped by the same guy would be "excessive". Do they deserve to be free from that danger?
Actually, let me go all out with a (horrible) hypothetical solution. I think that might demonstrate the point I'm trying to make a little more clearly. Give everyone the ability to toggle PvP off on a person by person basis. If you feel that it's inappropriate for someone to attack you, you type /unpvp Disdena or whatever, and they can't interact with you anymore. This is immediately recognizable as a bad solution because people would be able to bow out of every fight, even the appropriate ones. Wait, what's "appropriate"? If the attacked player thinks the attack is inappropriate, isn't that enough? Isn't that what we're talking about solving: stopping people from inappropriately attacking?
The root of the problem is that Player A thinks he should be able to attack Player B, and Player B doesn't think he should be able to be attacked by Player A (at least not without severe consequence). As long as this gap remains, there is no possible system that will work. You need the entire playerbase to be in agreement on what's okay in PvP and what's not, and that is next to impossible.
The root of the problem is people know pvp is fought on the forums. You cant win in the game by defeating the other side, the devs wont let you, or the TOP RATED are the biggest cheaters. Or people who seem to play games for a living.(QA KIDS?) To win you go to the forums and screw the other side by changing the game via tears.
DUH.
It's not a game is the problem. If it was a game, people would just play it.
Stop calling it pvp maybe and call it a fixed e-sport. Thats what everyone wants right? An open world e-sport that the devs determine who wins? Thats what you're trying to sell is it not?
No, "ganking" cannot ever be gotten rid of. Regardless of what system you set up there will alway be 12 year old boys (mentally) who think it's hilarious to kill someone much lower than themselves. I've played many open pvp games that have had systems similar to many of those brought up.
I've played a game that had a "muderer's row" list with bounties and a top bounty hunter list. This did nothing to deter ganking.
I've played a game where you could optionally turn off pvp. But it was server wide and had a 24 hour cool down. Gankers just exploited it.
For those that say it's part of game play and it's about area control and such. Yes that is true in games where the defeated might drop items or gold or both. There is a potential reward for pk'ing. But what kind of reward could a high level player possibly get from a low level in that situation? What about games that don't have that mechanic? And what about repeatedly killing the same player?
That is very presumptuous of you. I have played FFA in quite a few MMOs and enjoyed it. But people saying that guilds / players should police others is just silly. It never happens because there are no real consequences to death in these games. There is also no consequence to killing other players repeatedly.
You don't look at someones guild tag and go 'Oh I had better not attack them'. You just attack every single person you see that isnt in your group or a friend. It isnt realistic at all, its like everyone is hell bent on the genocide of other heroes so that they can be the only one. Like Highlander or something.
Of course it's possible, they're even examples of games that made it work.
There's however one big problem, and it's one of perception and marketing. When you have an open world PvP game where "ganking" is rather limited you easily lose a lot of potential customers. You lose the people that don't like PvP because there's still open world PvP in the game and you lose the people that like PvP because there's not enough of it.
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No, Open world PVP is in its nature a gank fest.
Human nature.
I like that idea. Also if your in PVE combat it locks you from entering PVP until 30 seconds after the fight. That way you don't get the idiots you wait until a mob gets your life down to 50% before they jump in and finish you off. 30 seconds gives you options either run or QT or heal and fight.
I think you are misunderstanding my idea,
When you decided to kill a player, there is no innocence in it at all, you are trying to kill a player whom is pissing you off, that itself is a act of murder.
There are tools in every MMO to ignore a player because they piss you off, or you can put them on an HIT list for other PKer to take them out. But the PKing itself is an risk.
IF the rules were already set that if you PK an player without consent, you turn on your hardcore mode, why the hell would you attack an player when they are ready to face you head on and you get killed.
Thats what hunters are for in my previous post, Provoking a player to attack you is a skill that should be praised, tagging is an tactic in killing players without making yourself an PKer.
And with an Bounty system, any one timer PK can still get rid of their Hardcore status so whats so innocent in deciding in killing a player.
Having Perma death for Pkers, you are promoting Pking, you are actually telling players that if you want to show your uberness, do it, if you can't do it solo, do it as an Pk guild, bring friends to watch your back, but watch yourself, they might just turn around and kill you too because they want your bounty.
And it also promotes Anti-Pk Guilds to form so that they can hunt the PKers
What this system does is make all the people whom are not ready to become Pkers to think twice before they do.
Like I also explained, PVP still exists as Friendly Duels if you want, or Guild vs Guild duels where there is no perma death or bad blood, its more of an organized war.
The points you brought out is the exact reason why FFA PVP never gets fixed, because there are many that is not ready for the True PKing experience and the thrill of death at their footsteps and the thrill of not knowing who you can trust and who you cant.
BTW with my system of Perma-death, you can even set up mechanics where people can put hit lists out, for those willing to take the risk and for the rewards listed, or use an System where if my target is level 20 and the price is only 10000, if i succeed, the target loses 1 level when succeeded, but if you do 100000 gold as reward, and you succeeded, the target loses 10 level of life, but lets put an time limit on it where the target must log in 48 hours of game time or something like that, and if that time limit passes, the Target gets 20% of the gold that was put up for his demise.
Its all about promoting PK to PK, promoting Hunters to hunt the PK, promoting world wide PKing. Because Perma Death is not preventing PKing, its actually helping control the quality of the PK experience.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
For any game there's going to be a small group of people who don't like the game's mechanics, but want to play the game anyway. There are people who want open world pvp in TSW or GW2. There are people who want three faction style RvR in WoW. I would be really surprised if there weren't people who played Shadowbane and just wanted to build houses.
I don't have an explanation for this.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
So you're saying world PVP sucks unless it's done right and no system to date has done it right?
...well I suppose I'd agree with that. Don't really see your system changing it though. The fundamental criticisms of world PVP are probably only going to be solved by having it not be world PVP.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Answer to the OP... everything is possible so why not. However Engine should be modified in some way so that ganked person is not in disadvantage. Even then you may have people looking every other way to exploit system, so it need to be well thought-out.
Everything is possible i say.. it just takes some coding and production skills.
EDIT: Ok, i may correct myself... open world PvP is not theoretically possible without it. People love to and WILL gank if given a chance. However it can be modified to not be pain in the rear for ganked player.
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2
Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
To achieve this, you would need to have a built in "justice" system that is very harsh to mindless killers and also not able to be exploited to make people murderers against their will (I think notably about DFO and MO here, both totally failed this).
Murderers should have nowhere to go, city guards should attack them on sight, if they want a shelter they will have to find it somewhere in the wilds, they can buy at no shop, use no bank, and can't trade with any other characters except other outlaws (to avoid the "alt on other account goes shopping" system). Want it harsh, want to be an asshat and grief/gank... so be it, but you have to pay a very harsh prize for it, a bit like in real life.
So they can eventually have their own bandit camp, trade with each other (resources they collected in the wilds or by murdering people), but they have access to no facility non-murderers have access to.
Also, if caught murdering by a guard, they are sent for a short duration prison time and stripped of all their gear, and released in prisoner rags, their eventual stolen good being automatically returned to the ganked person, so that they aren't tempted to camp newbie zones despite the guards.
Faction vs faction wars, guild vs guild wars and conscensual duels would of course not be affected.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Really kind of a silly thing to hope for.
I mean, in the ultimate sandbox, you could reasonably expect medeival justice as the result of setting off on a murder spree--realistic, good for immersion. Bunch of big guys grab you as you're walking to the stable, thump you, "try" you, and cut your head off. Not an MMO death, a perma-death.
But PvP players don't want consequences. And who the hell wants to play a game that punishes you? (I know, hush up EQ fans). PvP players want a silly-season world where you can get away with any degree of violence, and the worst consequence ever is a corpse run.
In order for PvP to be fun, the degree/frequency of violence must by kept high and the consequences minimal. Else there's little point for a game to even install it as a feature.
In the Early Middle Ages, the Germanic Kingdoms generally punished murder with a fine approximately equal to the income the murdered person might expect to get in three years. Double that for a king. The amount for a woman was half to double that of a man for the same rank.
Later in the Middle Ages, murder was generally a capital offense, and the punishment was execution.
Mind you, we might be williing to toss them into the stocks and pelt them with some virtual fruit. But don't let Mom see Little Johnny serving out that sentence, or lawsuits will result because you're "damaging his little psyche (or is it psycho?)".
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.