Reds

[Calix]

Does a Felucca only, non-statloss shard need punishment for reds?

Obviously, p25 on OSI shards worked. We'd have to admit though, this was only because 1. Most people were already established and 2. Trammel existed for people to start out, and they could get items of massive value(artifacts) in Doom.

So on a Felucca only shard, do you need some way of punishing/restraining outright murder? I'm obviously naturally inclined against this, but it has to be considered.

It's obviously been tried: IPY2 has Paladins, Detectives & Jail. AI had Jail. AoS didn't have statloss though and would really be against the 'flavour' of the ruleset to introduce it, as well as against most player's wishes.

What happens if you don't have punishment? The best & biggest red guilds control the resource market and kill anyone that tries to end their dominance. Everyone else quits except said dominant guilds, who then quit due to boredom. Shard dies.

So what are the alternatives? An IPY style system. Statloss? Or something new? Az is definitely onto something with the Paladin system. Reds can still murder freely without statloss UNLESS they get caught and killed by a Paladin - in which case they are jailed with the option of Jailbreak, fine, or stat. It's not perfect but something along those lines could be considered. Something tied in with the virtues perhaps, requiring any potential Paladin to maintain high virtues to continue to receive Paladin 'powers'.

Something for me to think about anyway~

[KoKane]

If there is no punishment or deterrents then Red becomes the new blue and guard zones are a minor inconvenience.
Az is indeed on the right path putting the justice in the hands of the players.

[Fatalist]

yeah there absolutely needs to be punishment. Definitely not statloss, it's too easy to gank/kill people in AoS what with dismounts and the increased amount of PvP tools etc.

Reduced damage vs Mobs
Reduced/no chance of rewards from champions/doom mobs etc (scrolls, artis)
Reward for killing the players, more than just insurance, nothing mental but just an incentive to make the player base the primary source of risk for PKers rather than just a coded ruleset. The Paladin/justice system works well, tied in with some kind of bounty system.

Just need to ensure the number of blues far outweighs reds. Besides, since many many people will only have one pvp character, going red is a big commitment in itself.

[Calix]

Ok so brainstorming a bit today and chatting to Oz.

Best idea for a 'main' punishment for reds/reward for killing reds = 4x insure-on-death-costs. So for example, ASHIKATA is killed by the noble ACTUAL FANTASY. 4x the initial insurance cost of the insured items on Ashikata goes to Actual Fantasy. I think this is relatively balanced. It makes playing a red more expensive, more risky, and actually in some ways, more appealing to those that can handle it. It becomes more of a 'hardcore' thing. Not every useless dick could go red and make money from it. It also encourages people to actively hunt down reds for financial gain.

There's obviously other options for a 'main' punishment. Reduced PvM loot and/or damage. Bankers could charge money each week to hold money for reds/outcasts/murderers. I don't think either is as good as the above, though.

Other minor punishments that I'd like to introduce for reds:

Cannot enter GZ(like p25, unlike current UO)
Cannot use player vendors
Cannot use moongates, even whilst dead. (Star-room problem easily overcome)

Thoughts? I know punishments for reds aren't popular with people here, it's OUR playstyle we're interfering with, but a shard without any meaningful punishments for murder = a ghost shard within 2 months. Try to be objective when considering this issue.

[KoKane]

You're keeping item insurance? I thought there would be no insurance :/

[KoKane]

Idea came into my head here so dumping it quickly

What if we replace Insurance with DropLife
Whats DropLife?

Well what if an item could have so many lives before it is lootable?

What. Is. The. Fucking. Point. Its practically temporary blessing.

Well what if you could have a couple lives, like min/max dura. These lives could be kept stocked by a crafter.. but only a dedicated crafter.
What if you needed some consumable item that only dropped if the player who killed the monster or whatever, has x amount of crafting points. Only a crafter could farm them properly - but give TINY % for non crafters to get, so crafters with their fat wallets, can buy them. Ofcourse, adding high gold to this consumption method is essential to counteract the loss of insurance flow.
So a balance must be found between how much gold it costs and stuff. Every time an item is 'supposed' to drop to a corpse, it checks the droplives and if it has any, it doesnt drop but takes a life.
New item in the game - DropLife Deed, adds a life. Rare as fuck it would have to be.

Also, I would suggest an exponential increase in costs to maintain a piece of armour thats constantly getting droplife maintained so one day you're going to have to stop. The better the item though, the more you'll be paying to keep it.

Basically between this idea (its raw atm but if you think its worth more thought it could be fine tuned and worth considering) and the other ones in my other posts, it seems that the more players PvP, the more they will need crafters. Players mentality will evolve to care less about the UBERIST items and more about the action, they will be more willing to part with decent gear and if everyone is winning and losing then gear will circulate.

And the name DropLife would definitely have to be changed lol. I just named it that because it describes what I'm talking about.... a bit.

[Mercury]

aos is insurance. the whole point of taking uo and transitioning to aos was that items now mattered, whether we hated it or not.

for once OZ OF DETH is spot on, i love his suggestion, fits perfectly with people being "hardcore" and "wuss BLUES HAHAHAH U CANT AFFORD TO BE RED NEWB" type uo players. It breeds the ego thing that every pk has ever had, and also satisfys the balance issue of everybody and his dog being red without there being a penalty.

[Superfast Oz]

Too late to think about all that, but I think with AOS insurance is a must. You want to make pvp meaningful, but forcing people to spend endless hours killing mobs just to fund pvp is a sure fire way to bore the crap out of people (hi darkfall).

Anyway, think I've coded in the extra insurance cost for reds, but haven't tested it. I'll do that tomorrow and submit it if it's working alright. It can easily be amended or removed depending on where we go with this.

[Calix]

Insurance def in. However 'trammel' it might be, it's a big part of what people liked about AOS, building the perfect suit, etc. I always liked getting the guaranteed gold for a kill as well:/

[Superfast Oz]

The insurance costs change has been uploaded to the repository. Check it out. It's very easy to change the values/messages if you choose.

[KoKane]

Well just remember the inevitable influx of runics and stuff, if its anything like last time. It begins to lose purpose. Increased insurance probably will be a minor deterrant.


Idea - Scaling insurance costs based on Kill Count?

Although it still depends on population. More players means less time for the same ones to farm a mass of runics etc, so it balances out. As population got lower, a handful of people became wealthier.

[zole]

faction style stat loss based on your short terms?

Short terms are different, and act as a counter. One short term = 10 minutes of stat loss once you res, no way around it. For every short term on top of that, it's an additional minute of stat loss.

So kill the legendary zim zum (who has 60 short term counts) and he has 70 minutes of stat loss. He can still function, obviously, but his killing capacity is greatly decreased.

Also seems like a good counter to pk guilds just dominating spawns. if you can kill them, then you greatly weaken their strength, unlike current uo, where killing someone in a big team fight doesn't mean shit unless you have a chance to loot them or something.

prob abusable but just throwing it out there

[Superfast Oz]

Honestly I'd avoid any form of statloss whatsoever. Part of the fun for me in AOS was dying/going back to spawns straight away. I think you have to punish in AOS terms. I don't see insurance for reds becoming a minor deterrent either. If you're remotely average, you just won't be financially viable as a red at all, so I think it will create a solid basis for who plays what, either pk, anti, or just avoidant.

[Calix]

It's worth thinking about, but yeah, in principle, anything that takes people 'out of the game' for too long isn't conducive to an active PvP scene and you lose the long long fights that are so good around champ spawns especially.

@KoKane, plan is to definitely scale down the runic drops(already lowered on the current test shard) compared to legacy. It was way too easy to get barbed kits etc, in hindsight.

[Night]

Instead of stat (skill) loss you could actually reduce the aos elemental resist cap from 70-65/60 for a short period, so as a red you could go back into a field fight quickly but would be slightly more likely to die.

Another way would be to have a kill/pvp ranking system where if you die more than once in a short space of time you lose a lot of 'street cred' points.

I always thought it would be fun if dead red/pk chars dropped arifax