Can Sandbox Open PVP MMOs be accessible for both PVE and Casual audiences? Aka Solving Griefing

DDSequelPls · April 2020

Just to clarify PVP means anything that negatively affects another player's toon (death, theft, kidnap, etc.) and not the player themselves. Also, this was posted on /r/MMORPG but there's not a lot of decent answers to fight open PVP griefing so far

So I've been stuck at home with nothing to do, and been binging a bunch of MMO design content from Raph Koster, Nerdslayer, MassivelyOP, some MMO and RPG-focused forums. What initially started from figuring out keeping and growing an MMO community led to thinking about a hybrid between action and tab-target combat (AA:U), and if a shooter-tab target hybrid (The Repopulation or Tabula Rasa) could work. Add in ability-queue (KotOR) and auto-battle (FFXII Gambits) for good measure for people not physically able to do twitchy combat. Naturally, this led me to debate with myself between vertical and horizontal progression, and landing on somewhere in between being the best option for PVP and PVE without the need to introduce stat normalization. Abilities and classes came up during the "debate," of course (SWG's initial and early plans for the Jedi are interesting, though. Might be a good way to balance magic, melee, and ranged in a mixed progression game). Job-switching and initial profession archetypes seem to be a good answer (FFXIV/SWG-ish)

This incidentally led me back to sandboxes. Guild or Faction territory control? Region-based or global reputation? Trial and jury system? Should combat and reputation levels always be visible or only consensually between players? Player housing, BDO-style, or instanced housing? Trickle up or trickle down economics? Possible money sinks. How to retain a playerbase without releasing content every few months or every year. Are procedurally generated (which isn't the same as random) and player generated one-time quests good enough after the introductory and profession quests? Can worldbuilding occur without a main quest or NPC dialogue? Can a typical MMO layout (finite ground surrounded by infinite water and arbitrary boundaries) work in a seamless ground-to-space game? Open, zoned, or instanced PVP? Consensual or opt-in world PVP? Can a F2P game survive on a sandbox model without an optional subscription or cash shop?

All these questions led me to one big question that hasn't been solved yet as far as I know of. Can a Sandbox Open PVP MMO be accessible and welcoming enough to PVE and casual players? It can be accessible enough, but can it be welcoming? ArcheAge's criminal system (including trial and jury) is pretty fun as a roleplayer, bur as a casual? Eh, not really. I just lost my progress if I died or I'm wasting time if I get caught. As of right now, I think a majority of open PVP games are partial loot or full loot games, so that's not at all welcoming to a casual audience. However, some of the casual audience seems to be eating up survival games, maybe due to the non-persistent nature of these games? Server wipes and more servers to play on might be a factor. Games with persistency tend to not have heavy PVP elements in them, whatever heavy means to you. I thought about partial loot, but what about casuals who only want to run trade routes and not engage in combat? When they die, they lose all of their progress and have to run back to their caravan, not guaranteeing their goods' safety. Maybe an insurance system like Escape From Tarkov would help. When someone steals from a player-built house, what about the casual home-owner who kept their most-prized weapon at its minimum repair durability? They should have rented an apartment in one of the player-made or developer-made cities (mix of BDO and SWG).

Anyways, I thought that a more strict version of Ultima Online's blue-grey-red reputation system was a good starting point. Trying to solve the issue of griefers and PKers was my top priority here. Sorry pirates and thieves, but trying to bring back a sense of community is important right now. Well, for me anyways. Too many MMOs are glorified single-player RPGs. Don't know if it changed, but I'm always looking for a sandbox MMO to replace or blend the initial vision for Star Wars Galaxies and ArcheAge.

Players who commit a non-consensual action that negatively affects another player's toon lose all of their items upon death. Victims of these actions lose nothing unless they tag themselves as open PVP at a certain NPC or before they log in or something like that. Maybe victims of theft get their items back in the mail in a partial/full loot game when the aggressor dies. If the aggressor had nothing on them other than their equipment, then would losing stuff from their bank on death, losing experience and combat levels, or raising their tax rate on money sinks be an effective deterrent? They'd have to work hard to be where they were at before starting their PK shenanigans. Is that why open PVP games fail at retaining a casual audience? No strong enough repercussions for griefers or protections for victims?

tl;dr Would punishing non-consensual PVP aggressors through "tangible" losses and "rewarding" their victims be a solution to retain a PVE and casual audience while keeping the open PVP community happy? Just trying to solve griefing and PKs.

Iselin · April 2020

Sounds to me like what you really want is the possibility of OWPvP, presumably for its realism factor, but you don't want the actual reality of it by imposing penalties that are so harsh that the PvP would just be more theoretical possibility than actual.

PvPers wouldn't play that game and many PvErs wouldn't trust that they'd be safe enough even with all the harsh and complex safeguards so they wouldn't play either.

I've been an advocate for segregation of the the two types of combat for a long time. It's only in games that do it that way that I have ever seen all types of players content with the design.

As to PvP corpse looting, I've never understood the appeal to loot what the other player actually has on him. Would it be less satisfying to get RNG generated loot from another player's corpse of a quality and level dependent on the corpse's level and rank?

I guess I'm not much of a gambler because I don't get any extra buzz for fear of losing my stuff. It's just annoying. Loot reward for the kill I do like but it doesn't need to be the player's actual belongings.

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

@Iselin

It's not just for the added realism factor. How else is a true (or at least more true) role-playing game going to be developed online without incredibly advanced AI?

Amaranthar · April 2020

DDSequelPls said:

Just to clarify PVP means anything that negatively affects another player's toon (death, theft, kidnap, etc.) and not the player themselves. Also, this was posted on /r/MMORPG but there's not a lot of decent answers to fight open PVP griefing so far
So I've been stuck at home with nothing to do, and been binging a bunch of MMO design content from Raph Koster, Nerdslayer, MassivelyOP, some MMO and RPG-focused forums. What initially started from figuring out keeping and growing an MMO community led to thinking about a hybrid between action and tab-target combat (AA:U), and if a shooter-tab target hybrid (The Repopulation or Tabula Rasa) could work. Add in ability-queue (KotOR) and auto-battle (FFXII Gambits) for good measure for people not physically able to do twitchy combat. Naturally, this led me to debate with myself between vertical and horizontal progression, and landing on somewhere in between being the best option for PVP and PVE without the need to introduce stat normalization. Abilities and classes came up during the "debate," of course (SWG's initial and early plans for the Jedi are interesting, though. Might be a good way to balance magic, melee, and ranged in a mixed progression game). Job-switching and initial profession archetypes seem to be a good answer (FFXIV/SWG-ish)
This incidentally led me back to sandboxes. Guild or Faction territory control? Region-based or global reputation? Trial and jury system? Should combat and reputation levels always be visible or only consensually between players? Player housing, BDO-style, or instanced housing? Trickle up or trickle down economics? Possible money sinks. How to retain a playerbase without releasing content every few months or every year. Are procedurally generated (which isn't the same as random) and player generated one-time quests good enough after the introductory and profession quests? Can worldbuilding occur without a main quest or NPC dialogue? Can a typical MMO layout (finite ground surrounded by infinite water and arbitrary boundaries) work in a seamless ground-to-space game? Open, zoned, or instanced PVP? Consensual or opt-in world PVP? Can a F2P game survive on a sandbox model without an optional subscription or cash shop?
All these questions led me to one big question that hasn't been solved yet as far as I know of. Can a Sandbox Open PVP MMO be accessible and welcoming enough to PVE and casual players? It can be accessible enough, but can it be welcoming? ArcheAge's criminal system (including trial and jury) is pretty fun as a roleplayer, bur as a casual? Eh, not really. I just lost my progress if I died or I'm wasting time if I get caught. As of right now, I think a majority of open PVP games are partial loot or full loot games, so that's not at all welcoming to a casual audience. However, some of the casual audience seems to be eating up survival games, maybe due to the non-persistent nature of these games? Server wipes and more servers to play on might be a factor. Games with persistency tend to not have heavy PVP elements in them, whatever heavy means to you. I thought about partial loot, but what about casuals who only want to run trade routes and not engage in combat? When they die, they lose all of their progress and have to run back to their caravan, not guaranteeing their goods' safety. Maybe an insurance system like Escape From Tarkov would help. When someone steals from a player-built house, what about the casual home-owner who kept their most-prized weapon at its minimum repair durability? They should have rented an apartment in one of the player-made or developer-made cities (mix of BDO and SWG).
Anyways, I thought that a more strict version of Ultima Online's blue-grey-red reputation system was a good starting point. Trying to solve the issue of griefers and PKers was my top priority here. Sorry pirates and thieves, but trying to bring back a sense of community is important right now. Well, for me anyways. Too many MMOs are glorified single-player RPGs. Don't know if it changed, but I'm always looking for a sandbox MMO to replace or blend the initial vision for Star Wars Galaxies and ArcheAge.
Players who commit a non-consensual action that negatively affects another player's toon lose all of their items upon death. Victims of these actions lose nothing unless they tag themselves as open PVP at a certain NPC or before they log in or something like that. Maybe victims of theft get their items back in the mail in a partial/full loot game when the aggressor dies. If the aggressor had nothing on them other than their equipment, then would losing stuff from their bank on death, losing experience and combat levels, or raising their tax rate on money sinks be an effective deterrent? They'd have to work hard to be where they were at before starting their PK shenanigans. Is that why open PVP games fail at retaining a casual audience? No strong enough repercussions for griefers or protections for victims?
tl;dr Would punishing non-consensual PVP aggressors through "tangible" losses and "rewarding" their victims be a solution to retain a PVE and casual audience while keeping the open PVP community happy? Just trying to solve griefing and PKs.

If they got no loot when they PK someone (attacking/killing an "innocent" player) then of course they would not be happy.
That's no solution for them. But before they leave the game, if they can't convince the Devs to change that, you can bet your arse they'd go on a full out rampage just for spite.

Iselin · April 2020

Ancient_Exile said:

@Iselin

It's not for the added realism factor. How else is a true (or at least more true) role-playing game going to be developed online without incredibly advanced AI?

So it's not about realism it's about true RPG? Care to explain the difference?

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

No huge power gaps. Limited/realistic vertical progression. Horizontal progression that unlocks new options. Limited/realistic advantages gained by gear/equipment and items. Magic and Divine/Infernal power would also have their limits.

Most of the progression would be focused on gaining social, economic, political, or military ranks within a chosen faction. Reputation/Renown/Infamy/Influence would be very important factors. Players would also have the ability to acquire property, buy or construct buildings, and hire & acquire NPC hirelings and subordinates.

The talents, skills, and abilities of player characters should also be able to atrophy/regress if they aren't used enough.

Social status, wealth, political influence, and military rank could also be reduced or lost based on the player's decisions and actions.

Player characters could also gain or lose favor with deities and/or other supernatural forces in the game world.

bcbully · April 2020

Griefing... not as long as this is someone’s mind frame

ChildoftheShadows · April 2020

If you want an MMO players to have free will to be able to kill any other player at any time, even with consequences, then someone will do it. If it's possible, someone will use it as a tool to either grief someone else or abuse the system for some kind of gain. Not everyone, mind you, as most of the people I know or ever played with did not kill indiscriminately, but it doesn't take many to be a problem.

There has to be some kind of artificial blocker that prevents it from happening be it guards, or some kind of magical aura of protection, whatever, before you'll get the casuals and PVE players to come in and actually enjoy it. DAOC had separate areas for PVE and PVP. I see nothing wrong with this, but it does "break" the rule set out for free will.

Otherwise you're just going to have to accept that the game is very niche and will not likely have a large population and most definitely will not have casual pve players.

Eve Online is an example with multiple counters.

It has guards that almost instantly kill for any aggression in high sec.
It's massive so players can play in complete isolation.
Stations can be used completely safely and many people simply play the market all day.
Small ships are uncatchable in high sec and hard to catch in low.
Alignment system, and probably other things I could think of in time.

So it's very possible to avoid pvp all together in Eve. However Eve is unique in the way it's constructed and you're not likely going to have much of that possibility in a fantasy style game or any ground based game for that matter, if that's what you are leaning toward.

@Ancient_Exile if it's not realism you're going for and simply role playing then why do these actions require player to player interaction? Thievery, murder, or any negative action could be player to npc like in a single player game, but with the same consequences. Want to be a thief? Learn to pickpocket merchants and take the risk of being jailed, killed, or exiled. Feel like killing a banker? Do it and lose faction standing. All kinds of possibilities that anyone would be fine with having in their game.

Don't get me wrong I love pvp MMOs, but I just don't think it's possible to combine open world pvp and casual pve players while actually expecting many to stick around.

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

Possible Types of Significant Penalties for Griefers/Frequent Abusers:

1) Prison with or without the possibility of Escapes & Breakouts

2) Stat, equipment, wealth, and/or property loss

3) Reputation loss

4) I may be forgetting something at the moment.

In order for a game world to be more realistic, players should be allowed/not discouraged from evil alignments, criminals, and villains. We have enough MMORPGs where everyone's basically on the same side and pursuing the same goals. As far as player interaction goes, we generally only have the option to cooperate or not. The ability to compete with other players with largely absent from these games. Except for perhaps in limited PVP areas or instances which little to no effect on the game world. (Of course, the outcome of PVE battles also have little to no lasting effect on the game world.) To me, these types of games are usually bland, repetitive, predictable, and sterile.

I would very much like for an MMORPG to exist that featured a dynamic, persistent, open game world. Without or mostly without instances. One in which Player Character, Non-Player Character, and Mob decisions could effect and change the game world for the better or worse, for good or evil.

I believe one of the goals of a rule-set in a functional Faction-based PVE/PVP Sandbox MMORPG would be to encourage/train players to generally only kill other player characters when there was a reason for it. This reason or (number of reasons) could be based on what faction to which they belonged as well their alignment, race, class (pre-determined or chosen by developing certain skills & abilities), attributes, and personality. The players would be encouraged to take into account the goals, needs, and desires of their faction, allies, and their own character. To actually even ROLE-PLAY their character. Choices & actions with meaningful consequences (positive or negative) with evident/palpable risk vs reward certainly factor into that. Some choices/actions would be intended to help their own faction, allies, or themselves, while other actions might seek solely to harm opposing factions, enemies, and other player characters. Though those seemingly different sets of choices/actions would often be intertwined.

If a player wants to play an insane murderous psychopath, fine. But he or she will probably find it very difficult to find friends willing to help them in that case. Unless he or she happens to worship a mad, insane, chaotic god or demon of darkness. But even then, such an entity would likely be highly unreliable and untrustworthy.

Players should also be able to choose to play and progress while playing non-combat roles. Not everyone should be forced to be an adventurer, soldier, criminal, villain, or any other sort of combatant. Whether or not PVP should be optional should be optional for these player characters is up for debate. In any case, they should be able to travel with relative safety in the territory controlled by their own faction. But when traveling to other cities or provinces controlled by an allied faction, they may need to pass through less populated/less guarded/less patrolled and/or wilderness regions. In that case, they would probably want to travel in a caravan. Such as a merchant caravan with guards. Players could also play merchants who hired or retained the services of guards. These guards could be Player Characters and/or Non-Player Characters.

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

Iselin said:

Ancient_Exile said:

@Iselin

It's not for the added realism factor. How else is a true (or at least more true) role-playing game going to be developed online without incredibly advanced AI?

So it's not about realism it's about true RPG? Care to explain the difference?

Sorry. I meant to write that it's not just for the added realism factor.

Ungood · April 2020

There is a long answer..

there is also a short answer..

They both amount to "Aww hell naw"

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

ChildoftheShadows said:

If you want an MMO players to have free will to be able to kill any other player at any time, even with consequences, then someone will do it. If it's possible, someone will use it as a tool to either grief someone else or abuse the system for some kind of gain. Not everyone, mind you, as most of the people I know or ever played with did not kill indiscriminately, but it doesn't take many to be a problem.

There has to be some kind of artificial blocker that prevents it from happening be it guards, or some kind of magical aura of protection, whatever, before you'll get the casuals and PVE players to come in and actually enjoy it. DAOC had separate areas for PVE and PVP. I see nothing wrong with this, but it does "break" the rule set out for free will.

Otherwise you're just going to have to accept that the game is very niche and will not likely have a large population and most definitely will not have casual pve players.

Eve Online is an example with multiple counters.
It has guards that almost instantly kill for any aggression in high sec.
It's massive so players can play in complete isolation.
Stations can be used completely safely and many people simply play the market all day.
Small ships are uncatchable in high sec and hard to catch in low.
Alignment system, and probably other things I could think of in time.

So it's very possible to avoid pvp all together in Eve. However Eve is unique in the way it's constructed and you're not likely going to have much of that possibility in a fantasy style game or any ground based game for that matter, if that's what you are leaning toward.

@Ancient_Exile if it's not realism you're going for and simply role playing then why do these actions require player to player interaction? Thievery, murder, or any negative action could be player to npc like in a single player game, but with the same consequences. Want to be a thief? Learn to pickpocket merchants and take the risk of being jailed, killed, or exiled. Feel like killing a banker? Do it and lose faction standing. All kinds of possibilities that anyone would be fine with having in their game.

Don't get me wrong I love pvp MMOs, but I just don't think it's possible to combine open world pvp and casual pve players while actually expecting many to stick around.

Again, sorry. I meant to write that it's not just for the added realism factor.

Also, something I wanted to say in relation to people who like PVP MMORPGs with large combat power gaps. If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

Iselin · April 2020

Ancient_Exile said:

Also, something I wanted to say in relation to people who like PVP MMORPGs with large combat power gaps. If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

No one with any sense designs that type of PvP MMO any longer. The last two major MMOs with PvP released in the recent past past, GW2 and ESO, had level normalization, A.K.A. level scaling, to minimize the power gap in the PvP zones.

There were still individual differences based on gear, skill unlocks and of course experience but nothing like the lowbee ganking nightmare scenarios seen in WOW and other crap PvP games - the games that PvP phobes think of when they think about PvP and try to figure out penalties to stop asshats.

It's a waste of time to try to resolve a problem in what is already the shittiest type of PvP around.

It's like some of you guys haven't played good, fair PvP in the games that do it right yet you spend hours trying to fix the games with PvP so shitty that they're best just ignored.

ChildoftheShadows · April 2020

Ancient_Exile said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

If you want an MMO players to have free will to be able to kill any other player at any time, even with consequences, then someone will do it. If it's possible, someone will use it as a tool to either grief someone else or abuse the system for some kind of gain. Not everyone, mind you, as most of the people I know or ever played with did not kill indiscriminately, but it doesn't take many to be a problem.

There has to be some kind of artificial blocker that prevents it from happening be it guards, or some kind of magical aura of protection, whatever, before you'll get the casuals and PVE players to come in and actually enjoy it. DAOC had separate areas for PVE and PVP. I see nothing wrong with this, but it does "break" the rule set out for free will.

Otherwise you're just going to have to accept that the game is very niche and will not likely have a large population and most definitely will not have casual pve players.

Eve Online is an example with multiple counters.
It has guards that almost instantly kill for any aggression in high sec.
It's massive so players can play in complete isolation.
Stations can be used completely safely and many people simply play the market all day.
Small ships are uncatchable in high sec and hard to catch in low.
Alignment system, and probably other things I could think of in time.

So it's very possible to avoid pvp all together in Eve. However Eve is unique in the way it's constructed and you're not likely going to have much of that possibility in a fantasy style game or any ground based game for that matter, if that's what you are leaning toward.

@Ancient_Exile if it's not realism you're going for and simply role playing then why do these actions require player to player interaction? Thievery, murder, or any negative action could be player to npc like in a single player game, but with the same consequences. Want to be a thief? Learn to pickpocket merchants and take the risk of being jailed, killed, or exiled. Feel like killing a banker? Do it and lose faction standing. All kinds of possibilities that anyone would be fine with having in their game.

Don't get me wrong I love pvp MMOs, but I just don't think it's possible to combine open world pvp and casual pve players while actually expecting many to stick around.

Again, sorry. I meant to write that it's not just for the added realism factor.

Also, something I wanted to say in relation to people who like PVP MMORPGs with large combat power gaps. If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

The desire for me when it comes to big power gaps is my personal feeling of progression and my accomplishments. If I know I'm not going to be able to beat a veteran player then I'm fine with that. That is what a player needs to consider when playing these games.

If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

This is part of the conundrum I talked about above. You either need to accept its a possibility or create rules around it.

Your idea around it is removing this gap, well in my experience this doesn't work. Rise of Agon all but eliminated character progression making it possible to reach what vets considered "fully viable" in a couple weeks. The result was that the skill level of the player still mattered more so new players were still getting killed easily. They ended up needing to tweak the alignment system and added in some safe areas to try to deter it still.

The problem is people stopped going out into the world if they didn't need to progress. Soon many quit because they were bored. There was still plenty of things people could do like collect materials for a house, collect house items, gear dropped and wore out so people needed to harvest and farm materials, but it wasn't enough, it wasn't the main driving force people needed or wanted to get out into the world. That was character progression.

In hindsight they should have kept the long progression and only introduced the safe areas. People would have been out in the world gaining skills and the more powerful they got the further into the danger areas they would have went.

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

Iselin said:

Ancient_Exile said:

Also, something I wanted to say in relation to people who like PVP MMORPGs with large combat power gaps. If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

No one with any sense designs that type of PvP MMO any longer. The last two major MMOs with PvP released in the recent past past, GW2 and ESO, had level normalization, A.K.A. level scaling, to minimize the power gap in the PvP zones.

There were still individual differences based on gear, skill unlocks and of course experience but nothing like the lowbee ganking nightmare scenarios seen in WOW and other crap PvP games - the games that PvP phobes think of when they think about PvP and try to figure out penalties to stop asshats.

It's a waste of time to try to resolve a problem in what is already the shittiest type of PvP around.

It's like some of you guys haven't played good, fair PvP in the games that do it right yet you spend hours trying to fix the games with PvP so shitty that they're best just ignored.

"There were still individual differences based on gear, skill unlocks"

I don't want much difference based on gear either. I want advantages that can be gained from gear to be limited/more realistic. There would be no need for level scaling in the kind of game I'm thinking of. A top tier veteran player could still be challenged while trying to fight 10-20 mobs or noobs solo. There would be no character levels. Only skill, ability, proficiency, and talent levels. And those levels would have more realistic limits. No more 40th level goblins and wolves being more powerful than 25 or 30th level dragons. That's just stupid.

Iselin · April 2020

Ancient_Exile said:

Iselin said:

Ancient_Exile said:

Also, something I wanted to say in relation to people who like PVP MMORPGs with large combat power gaps. If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

No one with any sense designs that type of PvP MMO any longer. The last two major MMOs with PvP released in the recent past past, GW2 and ESO, had level normalization, A.K.A. level scaling, to minimize the power gap in the PvP zones.

There were still individual differences based on gear, skill unlocks and of course experience but nothing like the lowbee ganking nightmare scenarios seen in WOW and other crap PvP games - the games that PvP phobes think of when they think about PvP and try to figure out penalties to stop asshats.

It's a waste of time to try to resolve a problem in what is already the shittiest type of PvP around.

It's like some of you guys haven't played good, fair PvP in the games that do it right yet you spend hours trying to fix the games with PvP so shitty that they're best just ignored.

"There were still individual differences based on gear, skill unlocks"

I don't want much difference based on gear either. I want advantages that can be gained from gear to be limited/more realistic. There would be no need for level scaling in the kind of game I'm thinking of. A top tier veteran player could still be challenged while trying to fight 10-20 mobs or noobs solo. There would be no character levels. Only skill, ability, proficiency, and talent levels. And those levels would have more realistic limits. No more 40th level goblins and wolves being more powerful than 25 or 30th level dragons. That's just stupid.

Well the difference is that I do play actual games that exist

DDSequelPls · April 2020

Iselin said:

Sounds to me like what you really want is the possibility of OWPvP, presumably for its realism factor, but you don't want the actual reality of it by imposing penalties that are so harsh that the PvP would just be more theoretical possibility than actual.

PvPers wouldn't play that game and many PvErs wouldn't trust that they'd be safe enough even with all the harsh and complex safeguards so they wouldn't play either.

I've been an advocate for segregation of the the two types of combat for a long time. It's only in games that do it that way that I have ever seen all types of players content with the design.

As to PvP corpse looting, I've never understood the appeal to loot what the other player actually has on him. Would it be less satisfying to get RNG generated loot from another player's corpse of a quality and level dependent on the corpse's level and rank?

I guess I'm not much of a gambler because I don't get any extra buzz for fear of losing my stuff. It's just annoying. Loot reward for the kill I do like but it doesn't need to be the player's actual belongings.

I personally don't mind any loot open PVP, but my friends are mainly PVE people. They've vehemetly stayed away from any game that doesn't have an opt-out for PVP, leaving me playing ArcheAge and EVE by myself. Realism doesn't really matter to me. I just like options in games. Emergence is one of the most interesting things in gaming, imo.

Is penalizing the aggressor not an option to prevent griefing? I'm not worried about PVP and PVE communities interacting with each other or not. Just want to see if open world PVP can work for the PVE community and casuals. We all know one of the main reasons PVE and casuals leave these types of games is the griefing.

Amaranthar said:

If they got no loot when they PK someone (attacking/killing an "innocent" player) then of course they would not be happy.
That's no solution for them. But before they leave the game, if they can't convince the Devs to change that, you can bet your arse they'd go on a full out rampage just for spite.

But for griefers, their incentive isn't the loot. It's the thrill of causing someone else to be dissatisfied, annoyed, or some other negative emotion just because they can do it. Most MMOs are terrible at deterring griefers, even those with a prison system. They can just bypass that by idling with a macro while doing something else.

ChildoftheShadows said:

If you want an MMO players to have free will to be able to kill any other player at any time, even with consequences, then someone will do it. If it's possible, someone will use it as a tool to either grief someone else or abuse the system for some kind of gain. Not everyone, mind you, as most of the people I know or ever played with did not kill indiscriminately, but it doesn't take many to be a problem.

Don't get me wrong I love pvp MMOs, but I just don't think it's possible to combine open world pvp and casual pve players while actually expecting many to stick around.

Of course someone will kill in an open PVP game, but is it possible to impose consequences in a way that discourages someone from participating in nonconsensual PK, thereby reducing Ultima Online-style griefing (waiting at the edge of town and murdering new players)?

Ancient_Exile said:

Possible Types of Significant Penalties for Griefers/Frequent Abusers:

1) Prison with or without the possibility of Escapes & Breakouts

2) Stat, equipment, wealth, and/or property loss

3) Reputation loss

4) I may be forgetting something at the moment.

In order for a game world to be more realistic, players should be allowed/not discouraged from evil alignments, criminals, and villains.

If a player wants to play an insane murderous psychopath, fine. But he or she will probably find it very difficult to find friends willing to help them in that case.

If we go towards realism with regards to alignment, somewhat similar to Ultima Online, we get griefers that ruin the game for a vast majority of new players. Then we get back to the classic sheep and wolf paradigm. Obviously not healthy for an open PVP game.

By playing a murderous psychopath, the player needs to know the consequence of being antisocial, much like criminals in the real world. Most do what they do because they have no other easy choice, while others do what they do because of their personality or mental health. Griefers want to grief? When they die or get caught, they have no easy way to grief once they respawn or are freed. Might ruin criminal roleplaying, but griefing is discouraged.

Quizzical · April 2020

Yes, and not just in theory. Uncharted Waters Online actually did it. How, you ask?

1) The penalties for piracy are really harsh. Most ports in the world won't accept you. You're free for everyone else to attack without them facing any piracy penalties, and indeed, they'll win a bounty if they sink you. And if you want to get rid of your red name and not be a pirate anymore, you'll likely have to spend hours at sea in which you're fair game for anyone else to attack.

2) Being a successful pirate almost requires you to be a whale. There are so many things working against you that if you're not a whale, it's going to be very hard to be a pirate for all that long without going broke. So that means that there aren't very many pirates at a time.

3) Pirates can't hide. Players have a command to list everyone online in their zone. Non-pirates can hide from this list. Pirates can't. If you're a pirate, everyone in your zone knows that you're there. They don't necessarily know exactly where you are, but they know that you're there.

4) It's nearly impossible to catch someone who is actively trying not to get caught. If a level 60 pirate attacks a level 30 player who is playing defensively, that usually won't end with the pirate winning. It will usually end with the low level player escaping and then the pirate being unable to attack him again for an extended period of time. Pirates may prefer to attack botters, as they aren't able to fight back effectively.

5) While most of the oceans are intermittently open to PVP, there are safe zones. Everywhere on land is safe from non-consensual PVP, as is most of Europe (basically, the starting areas).

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

ChildoftheShadows said:

Ancient_Exile said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

If you want an MMO players to have free will to be able to kill any other player at any time, even with consequences, then someone will do it. If it's possible, someone will use it as a tool to either grief someone else or abuse the system for some kind of gain. Not everyone, mind you, as most of the people I know or ever played with did not kill indiscriminately, but it doesn't take many to be a problem.

There has to be some kind of artificial blocker that prevents it from happening be it guards, or some kind of magical aura of protection, whatever, before you'll get the casuals and PVE players to come in and actually enjoy it. DAOC had separate areas for PVE and PVP. I see nothing wrong with this, but it does "break" the rule set out for free will.

Otherwise you're just going to have to accept that the game is very niche and will not likely have a large population and most definitely will not have casual pve players.

Eve Online is an example with multiple counters.
It has guards that almost instantly kill for any aggression in high sec.
It's massive so players can play in complete isolation.
Stations can be used completely safely and many people simply play the market all day.
Small ships are uncatchable in high sec and hard to catch in low.
Alignment system, and probably other things I could think of in time.

So it's very possible to avoid pvp all together in Eve. However Eve is unique in the way it's constructed and you're not likely going to have much of that possibility in a fantasy style game or any ground based game for that matter, if that's what you are leaning toward.

@Ancient_Exile if it's not realism you're going for and simply role playing then why do these actions require player to player interaction? Thievery, murder, or any negative action could be player to npc like in a single player game, but with the same consequences. Want to be a thief? Learn to pickpocket merchants and take the risk of being jailed, killed, or exiled. Feel like killing a banker? Do it and lose faction standing. All kinds of possibilities that anyone would be fine with having in their game.

Don't get me wrong I love pvp MMOs, but I just don't think it's possible to combine open world pvp and casual pve players while actually expecting many to stick around.

Again, sorry. I meant to write that it's not just for the added realism factor.

Also, something I wanted to say in relation to people who like PVP MMORPGs with large combat power gaps. If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

The desire for me when it comes to big power gaps is my personal feeling of progression and my accomplishments. If I know I'm not going to be able to beat a veteran player then I'm fine with that. That is what a player needs to consider when playing these games.
If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

This is part of the conundrum I talked about above. You either need to accept its a possibility or create rules around it.

Your idea around it is removing this gap, well in my experience this doesn't work. Rise of Agon all but eliminated character progression making it possible to reach what vets considered "fully viable" in a couple weeks. The result was that the skill level of the player still mattered more so new players were still getting killed easily. They ended up needing to tweak the alignment system and added in some safe areas to try to deter it still.

The problem is people stopped going out into the world if they didn't need to progress. Soon many quit because they were bored. There was still plenty of things people could do like collect materials for a house, collect house items, gear dropped and wore out so people needed to harvest and farm materials, but it wasn't enough, it wasn't the main driving force people needed or wanted to get out into the world. That was character progression.

In hindsight they should have kept the long progression and only introduced the safe areas. People would have been out in the world gaining skills and the more powerful they got the further into the danger areas they would have went.

Yes, that is what a player needs to consider when playing those kind of unimaginative PVP games that safely stay within the Skinner Box Final Fantasy/Dragon Warrior/Everquest/World of Warcraft design and mentality. Even most or the vast majority of Sandbox MMORPGs usually retain the out of control vertical Combat Power progression plus the dependency on gear to increase player character Combat Power.

Did Rise of Agon have Faction-based PVP with territory control (fighting over resources, settlements, forts, strategic locations, trade routes, etc.) all over the game world map in limited battlefield/contested zones/areas?

Did Rise of Agon have the ability for player characters to increase their social, economic, political, and military rank within their faction?

Did Rise of Agon feature the ability for player characters to lose or gain reputation/favor with their faction? Were player characters able to become Renowned or Infamous within a Province/Territory or larger Region (group of Provinces/Territories). Could player characters use their Social/Economic/Political/Military Influence to effect the game world in any way?

Did Rise of Again allow for player characters to gain or lose favor/reputation with deities. Deities who could actually interact with game world, player characters, non-player character, and mobs?

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

Iselin said:

Ancient_Exile said:

Iselin said:

Ancient_Exile said:

Also, something I wanted to say in relation to people who like PVP MMORPGs with large combat power gaps. If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

No one with any sense designs that type of PvP MMO any longer. The last two major MMOs with PvP released in the recent past past, GW2 and ESO, had level normalization, A.K.A. level scaling, to minimize the power gap in the PvP zones.

There were still individual differences based on gear, skill unlocks and of course experience but nothing like the lowbee ganking nightmare scenarios seen in WOW and other crap PvP games - the games that PvP phobes think of when they think about PvP and try to figure out penalties to stop asshats.

It's a waste of time to try to resolve a problem in what is already the shittiest type of PvP around.

It's like some of you guys haven't played good, fair PvP in the games that do it right yet you spend hours trying to fix the games with PvP so shitty that they're best just ignored.

"There were still individual differences based on gear, skill unlocks"

I don't want much difference based on gear either. I want advantages that can be gained from gear to be limited/more realistic. There would be no need for level scaling in the kind of game I'm thinking of. A top tier veteran player could still be challenged while trying to fight 10-20 mobs or noobs solo. There would be no character levels. Only skill, ability, proficiency, and talent levels. And those levels would have more realistic limits. No more 40th level goblins and wolves being more powerful than 25 or 30th level dragons. That's just stupid.

Well the difference is that I do play actual games that exist

I am playing a Multi-Player online Role-Playing gacha game called Raid: Shadow Legends at the moment. I suppose I enjoy it a bit because it feels like my choices matter a little more than in most or even the majority of MMORPGs. I've been trying to play DDO a bit, but I'm not really all that into it. I've tried pretty much every popular MMORPG out there that I've felt like I might have any desire to play. But I either didn't like them that all much or got sick and tired of them eventually.

ChildoftheShadows · April 2020

Ancient_Exile said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

Ancient_Exile said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

If you want an MMO players to have free will to be able to kill any other player at any time, even with consequences, then someone will do it. If it's possible, someone will use it as a tool to either grief someone else or abuse the system for some kind of gain. Not everyone, mind you, as most of the people I know or ever played with did not kill indiscriminately, but it doesn't take many to be a problem.

There has to be some kind of artificial blocker that prevents it from happening be it guards, or some kind of magical aura of protection, whatever, before you'll get the casuals and PVE players to come in and actually enjoy it. DAOC had separate areas for PVE and PVP. I see nothing wrong with this, but it does "break" the rule set out for free will.

Otherwise you're just going to have to accept that the game is very niche and will not likely have a large population and most definitely will not have casual pve players.

Eve Online is an example with multiple counters.
It has guards that almost instantly kill for any aggression in high sec.
It's massive so players can play in complete isolation.
Stations can be used completely safely and many people simply play the market all day.
Small ships are uncatchable in high sec and hard to catch in low.
Alignment system, and probably other things I could think of in time.

So it's very possible to avoid pvp all together in Eve. However Eve is unique in the way it's constructed and you're not likely going to have much of that possibility in a fantasy style game or any ground based game for that matter, if that's what you are leaning toward.

@Ancient_Exile if it's not realism you're going for and simply role playing then why do these actions require player to player interaction? Thievery, murder, or any negative action could be player to npc like in a single player game, but with the same consequences. Want to be a thief? Learn to pickpocket merchants and take the risk of being jailed, killed, or exiled. Feel like killing a banker? Do it and lose faction standing. All kinds of possibilities that anyone would be fine with having in their game.

Don't get me wrong I love pvp MMOs, but I just don't think it's possible to combine open world pvp and casual pve players while actually expecting many to stick around.

Again, sorry. I meant to write that it's not just for the added realism factor.

Also, something I wanted to say in relation to people who like PVP MMORPGs with large combat power gaps. If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

The desire for me when it comes to big power gaps is my personal feeling of progression and my accomplishments. If I know I'm not going to be able to beat a veteran player then I'm fine with that. That is what a player needs to consider when playing these games.
If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

This is part of the conundrum I talked about above. You either need to accept its a possibility or create rules around it.

Your idea around it is removing this gap, well in my experience this doesn't work. Rise of Agon all but eliminated character progression making it possible to reach what vets considered "fully viable" in a couple weeks. The result was that the skill level of the player still mattered more so new players were still getting killed easily. They ended up needing to tweak the alignment system and added in some safe areas to try to deter it still.

The problem is people stopped going out into the world if they didn't need to progress. Soon many quit because they were bored. There was still plenty of things people could do like collect materials for a house, collect house items, gear dropped and wore out so people needed to harvest and farm materials, but it wasn't enough, it wasn't the main driving force people needed or wanted to get out into the world. That was character progression.

In hindsight they should have kept the long progression and only introduced the safe areas. People would have been out in the world gaining skills and the more powerful they got the further into the danger areas they would have went.

Yes, that is what a player needs to consider when playing those kind of unimaginative PVP games that safely stay within the Skinner Box Final Fantasy/Dragon Warrior/Everquest/World of Warcraft design and mentality. Even most or the vast majority of Sandbox MMORPGs usually retain the out of control vertical Combat Power progression plus the dependency on gear to increase player character Combat Power.

Did Rise of Agon have Faction-based PVP with territory control (fighting over resources, settlements, forts, strategic locations, trade routes, etc.) all over the game world map in limited battlefield/contested zones/areas?

Did Rise of Agon have the ability for player characters to increase their social, economic, political, and military rank within their faction?

Did Rise of Agon feature the ability for player characters to lose or gain reputation/favor with their faction? Were player characters able to become Renowned or Infamous within a Province/Territory or larger Region (group of Provinces/Territories). Could player characters use their Social/Economic/Political/Military Influence to effect the game world in any way?

Did Rise of Again allow for player characters to gain or lose favor/reputation with deities. Deities who could actually interact with game world, player characters, non-player character, and mobs?

I guess if you keep piling on requirements for this mythical game you'll always be right /shrug

ChildoftheShadows · April 2020

Quizzical said:

Yes, and not just in theory. Uncharted Waters Online actually did it. How, you ask?

1) The penalties for piracy are really harsh. Most ports in the world won't accept you. You're free for everyone else to attack without them facing any piracy penalties, and indeed, they'll win a bounty if they sink you. And if you want to get rid of your red name and not be a pirate anymore, you'll likely have to spend hours at sea in which you're fair game for anyone else to attack.

2) Being a successful pirate almost requires you to be a whale. There are so many things working against you that if you're not a whale, it's going to be very hard to be a pirate for all that long without going broke. So that means that there aren't very many pirates at a time.

3) Pirates can't hide. Players have a command to list everyone online in their zone. Non-pirates can hide from this list. Pirates can't. If you're a pirate, everyone in your zone knows that you're there. They don't necessarily know exactly where you are, but they know that you're there.

4) It's nearly impossible to catch someone who is actively trying not to get caught. If a level 60 pirate attacks a level 30 player who is playing defensively, that usually won't end with the pirate winning. It will usually end with the low level player escaping and then the pirate being unable to attack him again for an extended period of time. Pirates may prefer to attack botters, as they aren't able to fight back effectively.

5) While most of the oceans are intermittently open to PVP, there are safe zones. Everywhere on land is safe from non-consensual PVP, as is most of Europe (basically, the starting areas).

I've never played. I tried once, but something about the style drove me away ... I can't remember exactly and will have to give it another try to see. I have some questions.

Is it full open world pvp or are there safe zones?
How hard is it for someone to create a new or, alternatively, have an alt (multiple alts?) for the sole purpose of griefing or farming other players?
Do you think these things actual work against the type of player people are referring to, or is it perhaps the game itself tends to not draw them and instead draws the role player or sensible player who isn't going to go out of the way to find exploits in the system?

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

ChildoftheShadows said:

Ancient_Exile said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

Ancient_Exile said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

If you want an MMO players to have free will to be able to kill any other player at any time, even with consequences, then someone will do it. If it's possible, someone will use it as a tool to either grief someone else or abuse the system for some kind of gain. Not everyone, mind you, as most of the people I know or ever played with did not kill indiscriminately, but it doesn't take many to be a problem.

There has to be some kind of artificial blocker that prevents it from happening be it guards, or some kind of magical aura of protection, whatever, before you'll get the casuals and PVE players to come in and actually enjoy it. DAOC had separate areas for PVE and PVP. I see nothing wrong with this, but it does "break" the rule set out for free will.

Otherwise you're just going to have to accept that the game is very niche and will not likely have a large population and most definitely will not have casual pve players.

Eve Online is an example with multiple counters.
It has guards that almost instantly kill for any aggression in high sec.
It's massive so players can play in complete isolation.
Stations can be used completely safely and many people simply play the market all day.
Small ships are uncatchable in high sec and hard to catch in low.
Alignment system, and probably other things I could think of in time.

So it's very possible to avoid pvp all together in Eve. However Eve is unique in the way it's constructed and you're not likely going to have much of that possibility in a fantasy style game or any ground based game for that matter, if that's what you are leaning toward.

@Ancient_Exile if it's not realism you're going for and simply role playing then why do these actions require player to player interaction? Thievery, murder, or any negative action could be player to npc like in a single player game, but with the same consequences. Want to be a thief? Learn to pickpocket merchants and take the risk of being jailed, killed, or exiled. Feel like killing a banker? Do it and lose faction standing. All kinds of possibilities that anyone would be fine with having in their game.

Don't get me wrong I love pvp MMOs, but I just don't think it's possible to combine open world pvp and casual pve players while actually expecting many to stick around.

Again, sorry. I meant to write that it's not just for the added realism factor.

Also, something I wanted to say in relation to people who like PVP MMORPGs with large combat power gaps. If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

The desire for me when it comes to big power gaps is my personal feeling of progression and my accomplishments. If I know I'm not going to be able to beat a veteran player then I'm fine with that. That is what a player needs to consider when playing these games.
If some of these people like to play these games because it gives them the ability to prey on the weak and be able to win battles without requiring any sort of skill at playing their character, do we really want those kind of players in our game anyway?

This is part of the conundrum I talked about above. You either need to accept its a possibility or create rules around it.

Your idea around it is removing this gap, well in my experience this doesn't work. Rise of Agon all but eliminated character progression making it possible to reach what vets considered "fully viable" in a couple weeks. The result was that the skill level of the player still mattered more so new players were still getting killed easily. They ended up needing to tweak the alignment system and added in some safe areas to try to deter it still.

The problem is people stopped going out into the world if they didn't need to progress. Soon many quit because they were bored. There was still plenty of things people could do like collect materials for a house, collect house items, gear dropped and wore out so people needed to harvest and farm materials, but it wasn't enough, it wasn't the main driving force people needed or wanted to get out into the world. That was character progression.

In hindsight they should have kept the long progression and only introduced the safe areas. People would have been out in the world gaining skills and the more powerful they got the further into the danger areas they would have went.

Yes, that is what a player needs to consider when playing those kind of unimaginative PVP games that safely stay within the Skinner Box Final Fantasy/Dragon Warrior/Everquest/World of Warcraft design and mentality. Even most or the vast majority of Sandbox MMORPGs usually retain the out of control vertical Combat Power progression plus the dependency on gear to increase player character Combat Power.

Did Rise of Agon have Faction-based PVP with territory control (fighting over resources, settlements, forts, strategic locations, trade routes, etc.) all over the game world map in limited battlefield/contested zones/areas?

Did Rise of Agon have the ability for player characters to increase their social, economic, political, and military rank within their faction?

Did Rise of Agon feature the ability for player characters to lose or gain reputation/favor with their faction? Were player characters able to become Renowned or Infamous within a Province/Territory or larger Region (group of Provinces/Territories). Could player characters use their Social/Economic/Political/Military Influence to effect the game world in any way?

Did Rise of Again allow for player characters to gain or lose favor/reputation with deities. Deities who could actually interact with game world, player characters, non-player character, and mobs?

I guess if you keep piling on requirements for this mythical game you'll always be right /shrug

Mythical? There's no reason a game like I'm describing cannot be made.

EDIT: Also, winning debates here on this forum is not my principal goal. Primarily, I want to get a game made that I would actually enjoy playing for years (or even decades) as opposed to a few weeks to a few months.

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

@DDSequelPls

1) There can be many safer or safer areas for PVPers to play in. Provinces ruled over by a PC's (Player Character's) faction (and provinces ruled over by friendly/allied factions) can have NPC guardposts, towers, aeries, forts, walled settlements/towns/cities, castles, and NPC guarded campsites to which PCs can run for protection. The province can also be roamed by NPC scouts and patrols. Even NPC aerial patrols such as griffon, wyvern, or even dragon riders could occasionally be roaming the skies. A PC of an evil alignment or belonging to an opposing/enemy faction could have a very difficult time getting far into enemy territory. Though there could still be the possibility of sneaking in for a skilled and experienced player. (The same would hold true for a PC of good alignment trying to enter a province/territory ruled over by an opposing faction.) Disguises (natural or magical) could also possibly be used by a PC that was too Renowned or Infamous to escape detection.

2) Bounties could be placed on Griefers by PCs or NPC factions. A Bounty Master could hand out quests/missions.

3) If a PC gains too many negative reputation points with a faction (becomes Infamous), an NPC faction could actually send out NPC soldiers or assassins to hunt down a PC.

4) PCs should not be able to kill the same PC more than once every 1-3 hours. Maybe 4. Obviously, it is not realistic to be able to kill the same person over and over and over anyway. Only Griefers who had attained very bad Reputations or PCs fighting on designated battlefields/contested (PVP) areas would be exempt from this rule.

5) If Deities played an active role in the game world, they could also send out supernatural subordinates to hound PCs who had offended their worshipers. Of course, this could be true for evil as well as good gods. Perhaps deities could also choose to intervene in battles being waged by their most favored devotees. There could even be battles where deities intervened on both sides of a battle whether that was battle was between a PC(s) and a PC(s), NPC(s), or Mob(s).

Ancient_Exile · April 2020

Amaranthar said:

DDSequelPls said:

Just to clarify PVP means anything that negatively affects another player's toon (death, theft, kidnap, etc.) and not the player themselves. Also, this was posted on /r/MMORPG but there's not a lot of decent answers to fight open PVP griefing so far
So I've been stuck at home with nothing to do, and been binging a bunch of MMO design content from Raph Koster, Nerdslayer, MassivelyOP, some MMO and RPG-focused forums. What initially started from figuring out keeping and growing an MMO community led to thinking about a hybrid between action and tab-target combat (AA:U), and if a shooter-tab target hybrid (The Repopulation or Tabula Rasa) could work. Add in ability-queue (KotOR) and auto-battle (FFXII Gambits) for good measure for people not physically able to do twitchy combat. Naturally, this led me to debate with myself between vertical and horizontal progression, and landing on somewhere in between being the best option for PVP and PVE without the need to introduce stat normalization. Abilities and classes came up during the "debate," of course (SWG's initial and early plans for the Jedi are interesting, though. Might be a good way to balance magic, melee, and ranged in a mixed progression game). Job-switching and initial profession archetypes seem to be a good answer (FFXIV/SWG-ish)
This incidentally led me back to sandboxes. Guild or Faction territory control? Region-based or global reputation? Trial and jury system? Should combat and reputation levels always be visible or only consensually between players? Player housing, BDO-style, or instanced housing? Trickle up or trickle down economics? Possible money sinks. How to retain a playerbase without releasing content every few months or every year. Are procedurally generated (which isn't the same as random) and player generated one-time quests good enough after the introductory and profession quests? Can worldbuilding occur without a main quest or NPC dialogue? Can a typical MMO layout (finite ground surrounded by infinite water and arbitrary boundaries) work in a seamless ground-to-space game? Open, zoned, or instanced PVP? Consensual or opt-in world PVP? Can a F2P game survive on a sandbox model without an optional subscription or cash shop?
All these questions led me to one big question that hasn't been solved yet as far as I know of. Can a Sandbox Open PVP MMO be accessible and welcoming enough to PVE and casual players? It can be accessible enough, but can it be welcoming? ArcheAge's criminal system (including trial and jury) is pretty fun as a roleplayer, bur as a casual? Eh, not really. I just lost my progress if I died or I'm wasting time if I get caught. As of right now, I think a majority of open PVP games are partial loot or full loot games, so that's not at all welcoming to a casual audience. However, some of the casual audience seems to be eating up survival games, maybe due to the non-persistent nature of these games? Server wipes and more servers to play on might be a factor. Games with persistency tend to not have heavy PVP elements in them, whatever heavy means to you. I thought about partial loot, but what about casuals who only want to run trade routes and not engage in combat? When they die, they lose all of their progress and have to run back to their caravan, not guaranteeing their goods' safety. Maybe an insurance system like Escape From Tarkov would help. When someone steals from a player-built house, what about the casual home-owner who kept their most-prized weapon at its minimum repair durability? They should have rented an apartment in one of the player-made or developer-made cities (mix of BDO and SWG).
Anyways, I thought that a more strict version of Ultima Online's blue-grey-red reputation system was a good starting point. Trying to solve the issue of griefers and PKers was my top priority here. Sorry pirates and thieves, but trying to bring back a sense of community is important right now. Well, for me anyways. Too many MMOs are glorified single-player RPGs. Don't know if it changed, but I'm always looking for a sandbox MMO to replace or blend the initial vision for Star Wars Galaxies and ArcheAge.
Players who commit a non-consensual action that negatively affects another player's toon lose all of their items upon death. Victims of these actions lose nothing unless they tag themselves as open PVP at a certain NPC or before they log in or something like that. Maybe victims of theft get their items back in the mail in a partial/full loot game when the aggressor dies. If the aggressor had nothing on them other than their equipment, then would losing stuff from their bank on death, losing experience and combat levels, or raising their tax rate on money sinks be an effective deterrent? They'd have to work hard to be where they were at before starting their PK shenanigans. Is that why open PVP games fail at retaining a casual audience? No strong enough repercussions for griefers or protections for victims?
tl;dr Would punishing non-consensual PVP aggressors through "tangible" losses and "rewarding" their victims be a solution to retain a PVE and casual audience while keeping the open PVP community happy? Just trying to solve griefing and PKs.

If they got no loot when they PK someone (attacking/killing an "innocent" player) then of course they would not be happy.
That's no solution for them. But before they leave the game, if they can't convince the Devs to change that, you can bet your arse they'd go on a full out rampage just for spite.

Whether or not looting another player character is allowed might be related to how easy/difficult it is to obtain decent gear in a game and how large a role gear has in the power level and playability of a character. Personally, I'm an advocate of game designs which place more emphasis on the skill, ability, proficiency, and talent levels of characters as opposed to gear levels. I think gear levels/stat bonuses on gear should be limited. I really don't see any reason why players couldn't loot money from each other as players usually have access to banks where they can store their wealth. Items can also be stored in banks and homes. So players might want to be careful about how much money and the type/number of items they carry if their character is going to be somewhere where he/she is in danger of getting killed by other player characters.

However, as opposed to looting gear, players could also loot medals from each other. Maybe one medal per win. Medals could be used to gain more reputation with a player character's faction and/or to upgrade various things that would be useful to a character.

Sandmanjw · April 2020

Make anyone that wants to play at being evil or pirate, (always the excuse i hear we want to "role-play" bad guys) types roll hardcore, perma-death on dying.

After first attack on any innocent person ( one that has not attacked or is in enemy faction) is permanently made red to all and perma-death forever.

Anything less is always going to be easily worked/gamed around to be made so that it is not worth the effort for normal pve players to put up with any type of loot/loss in games.

You want to play like a pirate,thief,murderer? Then take the consequences that that brings for real. Makes zero sense to have rules protect people that want to play by breaking all the rules...let me put bounty or hire people to track them down and when they die that's it...no coming back for that character.

How many people that claim they want to "role-play" bad guys will that game attract???

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Can Sandbox Open PVP MMOs be accessible for both PVE and Casual audiences? Aka Solving Griefing

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Can Sandbox Open PVP MMOs be accessible for both PVE and Casual audiences? Aka Solving Griefing

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