Great ideas I think. I kinda like the wound thing I must say!arcon wrote:
I agree with a lot of what you are saying but I don't think eliminating PvP would change it. Instead I think a change to the death penalty, something that would be time based instead of xp based. If you "die" in battle you recieve a wound to a part of your body which will hinder you in someway for 2 weeks(?). Lets say you lose the use of a arm for two weeks or you hurt your leg which makes you get tired more often or a wound to your body making you fight slower. All of these things would heal with time. During that time you can still play but with a small penalty. You will recover automatically after two(?) weeks.
You wouldn't loose any hard earned xp and if you are mostly interested in rp or talking to people you will hardly notice it.
But the PvP is a important part of the game. If you join a guild with a natural enemy you should be a bit nervous seeing them in the same area as you or you should be able to attack them for some old crime they might have commited. It is a important part of rp.
For example, I am in a team fighting Haradrims I should be a bit nervous if I see Fluffy or some other nazgul awake. It is a bit of the charm of fighting them. Maybe we are making a trap to kill one or maybe we are just wreckless thrillseekers? The possibility should be there I feel.
We do need something to take away the importance of grinding especially once you reach high(?) levels. This game needs to open its door to more types of players and they need to feel welcome as well. Now days if you don't grind you will never grow. So some kind of endgame that is based on size so not so huge players also could enjoy it. Something that can give perks and not xp.
Raids on different cities is one idea. Sparkle and Calathin for everyone, MT and Palanthas for goodies to defend and maybe evils to assist the raiders, MM and Neraka for evils to defend and this time the goodies could take advantage of it.
Treasure hunts with map pieces, one piece/hint leads you to another. Maybe some NPC holds a piece and you need to gather a team to kill him. But the hunts should be cross Genesis and not just in one domain.
Arena tournaments with wizards helping out with the rewards.
And I am sure a lot more people have ideas for more mini events and endgame things.
And I dont agree with Amorana about any penalty is bad. I understand your thinking, but I think there is a balance to find. In my opinion all games need a penalty of some kind. The best games find the balance between a penalty you'd prefer avoiding, but one that's still worth risking.
And it doesnt have to be complicated:
An example is for instance most "ladder" systems in matchup based games. Be that Starcraft or Chess. You lose a game, you lose ranking. You win a game, and you gain ranking. But usually you gain MORE when you win, than you lose when you lose. So it means even if you're pretty mediocre you're still gaining ranking points, although slower than if you're good, but you're still making progress. And, you dont want to lose. You'd prefer not to. But since 1 win equals maybe 3 or 4 losses, its worth more to win, so you have no problem risking losing.
Or another example is the ever popular "endless levels" games. Like Candy Crush or Cut the Rope etc. If you fail a level you have to restart it, so by "losing the game" you lost the 10 minutes just spent and you you feel "Aw, I was so close!". And the you have another go. You dont WANT to fail the level because if you do you have to restart, but you dont have to restart the entire game. Just one level. So it's and ok risk. Because if you win you get to the next level! If you on the other hand had to start from the beginning of the game each time you failed a level, then the risk for failing a level would be much greater than the reward for winning. So if you managed to complete 38 levels why risk another attempt just to hit 39? 38 is pretty good. Its better than most your friends! So you dont play. Too risky.
So... key for good PVP in my opinion is finding that balance in our game. Where the penalty is annoying, but not so annoying you dont wanna risk it to get the nice reward if you win.
Our system (with death penalty) has little reward but a big penalty. But it has a reward nonetheless, which meant some people would actually risk it to set their enemy back to "punish them". Which is a type of reward. Some guilds also implement rewards. Like they decide they want to kill someone, and if you manage to do it, you can bask in the "glory" of being the one who did it. Maybe even get a promotion in your guild if you're lucky. In the past this "glory" part was a big reward. So big it meant having the report of YOU killing someone on the Alliance homepage was definitely worth the risk of dying. For instance. Or simply getting a reputation of being a big bad pfighter. It was something cool. We had this "fame" reward, that outweighed the risk of dying. (And we also had Internet latency (LAG) that made PVP much more possible).
Today? Well. The fame is gone for the most part. Now if you get known as a pkiller youre not famous. Youre infamous. People think you're destroying the game. Making players leave. And so on. We have for the most part no real reward anymore, except the "punish your enemy thing". Or any player implemented reward, like stuff in guilds, or a bounty, etc.
Removing death penalty? Well I think it accomplishes simply removing one of the few rewards we have now. The "punish your enemy" type of reward. So we're left with even fewer rewards. No penalty true. But that also means we removed the excitement part, and the reward in surviving a PVP encounter.
No I really think a balance where we have a penalty that provides excitement, and a reward that outweighs the risk involved. Then we would have a playground where people would WANT to PVP. And rewards doesnt have to be a super complicated coded system either. Maybe just a "newspaper" logging kills and perhaps some type of top list would be perfectly fine for a "fame" type of reward. It could really be started by a player too. If someone wanted to make PVP rewarding. There is a bounty system as well, that has worked. I think we have a coded system too, not sure if it still works though? The penalty part probably needs to be coded though... and some type of coded reward system would probably be good to get things started too... but I think we players can do a lot too.
BUT! Size difference and lack of PVP tools is still in the way of fun PVP... but well, one step at a time. It seems like this penalty part is the main topic right now. Since it's the thing that's currently being experimented with.
