PK Rules and Consequences

Jacen

I think it's becoming clearer with time that there are PK rules hidden behind the veil of "RP reasoning", and I don't particularly enjoy playing a game where I wager a hard earned resource and don't even know what the rules are. I'm creating this thread for two reasons: First, to try to compile a list of "Do's and Don'ts", acts that have been determined through admin forum posts or issue decisions to be acceptable or against the PK rules, and Second, to determine what the appropriate response is when you've been a victim of a PK offense. There's a very big anti-ISSUE attitude on the forums, but... is this not what ISSUEing is designed for? Especially now that the Mark system is... well, much less effective than it used to be, and it never was guaranteed retribution.

Dunn

I think people need to stop giving a fuck about losing XP.

Game would be so much more fun. (Source: I don't give a fuck, shit or care about XP)

I've experienced people sitting in their city/on their boats simply because of a bounty/contract/someone wanting to kill them. Why stifle your entire game for one death? I don't get it.

@Jhui halp explain how to not care.

Jacen

I agree. Let's remove XP loss. Probably better suited for another thread tho.

Melodie

Dunn said:

I think people need to stop giving a fuck about losing XP.

Game would be so much more fun. (Source: I don't give a fuck, shit or care about XP)

I've experienced people sitting in their city/on their boats simply because of a bounty/contract/someone wanting to kill them. Why stifle your entire game for one death? I don't get it.

@Jhui halp explain how to not care.

Well, I don't think (I hope) most people would hide from a single person trying to hunt them. I know when Cresil made it obvious he was going to jump me, I hid in the city a bit, considered what to do, then just sat on clouds, waited for him to come out, bam, fought, died, done. Basically a duel, except we didn't really agree to a duel physically. You can also ask for duels (I would if for some reason a contract went out against me).

It's a little different when you have a (potential) whole city after you for say, wartime, though.

Bluef

I don't think he's saying let's remove XP loss. I think he's saying, people just need to stop caring so much about the XP loss they suffer. But that may be a very loose paraphrase on my part. 

One of the best things about being a dragon is that I don't care anymore about XP loss because I lose so little and can regain it so quickly. But I wonder if it sometimes has made me blind to the fact that there are people who don't have artefacts and who do have to spend hours bashing to gain a few percentage points. These folks can have that net gain eradicated in a single Pk instance, which does stink and I can empathize with their frustration.

But that's why being a soldier in a city, choosing to defile, raid, commit theft, etc. should always be weighted against the potential consequences. If you're doing it for the "RP" value or because you want to gain city rank, etc. you have no reason to complain about XP loss. Whatever your reason, you made a decision to enter the fray.

Three simple guidelines to a happy PK life:

1. If you choose to enter into conflict, be prepared to lose XP.
   
2. This means that if you lose XP, you really have no one to blame but yourself. 
3. Blaming others will generally only lead to more conflict and XP loss.

Embracing an "XP-loss is okay" mindset will make dying oodles easier to manage emotionally. 

[Edit:  If you've been attacked, then you can either attack back or hire. Those are both appropriate IC responses. Issues are entirely OOC. The reason there is a huge anti-issue attitude is that there is no such thing as an in-character issue, yet far too often an issue is someone's first attempt at resolving a PK conflict instead of the last, meaning there has never been another attempt to resolve the problem in any other way except to try to call in the admins to spank the person who stole away your XP, item, pride or whatever. ]

 

Jhui

Buncha Pussies out there. I tell ya.

Groom one combatant to manage the scrubs and you have yourself a decent military.

Fkin excuses. Imagine that same excuse in a game like halo. No one gives a shit. At least you can role play it mattering here

Nim

See, that's great, but not caring about EXP loss means not caring about EXP, and PvP requires a certain amount of levels, ergo PvP requires EXP. In some fundamental way, "not caring about EXP loss" and "wanting to PvP" are two opposing concepts, unless you can mitigate the EXP loss enough to never threaten your ability to PvP.

I wonder what would happen if EXP loss was not capped, although even if it wasn't, level 105 dragons still have a much larger buffer before they lose PvP effectiveness.

Dunn

@Ayoxele‌

Talk to him, Nim. Guy was destroying good fighters at ~level 50. You may feel that levels are necessary, but Vaehl says fuck you.

Jacen

I've (ashamedly) never played much Halo, but I've played my fair share of CoD, and it was easy not to care about deaths there, because you didn't lose any progress upon dying. Its not like you dropped the grenade launcher and then had to work to get it back, or lost access to cool maps or skills and had to press the A button over and over until you got them back. 

The only thing dying affects in those games is one irrelevant stat: Your KD ratio is ultimately just a badge of honor, its not used to buy or gain access to anything.

There's also the fact that these games are fundamentally different from Achaea, but I'm really not sure how serious your response was in the first place, so I won't delve into that.

Shirszae

I think its pretty stupid to say people should not care about exp, when getting exp is a terrible grind. If you want people to act without constraint, then remove exp loss altogether.

Dunn

Not everyone deserves a trophy. That attitude is terrible. There are downsides to everything. Consequences are the title of the thread, after all.

Jhui

Play your fucking role. If you want glory, take.it. If not play the game towards it. Neither is easy, nor impossible

Nim

Dunn said:

@Ayoxele‌

Talk to him, Nim. Guy was destroying good fighters at ~level 50. You may feel that levels are necessary, but Vaehl says fuck you.

Okay, I will make an alt and go PvP you. If levels don't matter I should have a chance of winning once I reach level 30 or whatever it is (so levels ultimately do matter, but I guess that's more just like a silly extended tutorial than anything else) and get some lesson packages for my class's primary skills.

Jacen

@Bluef sure, its perfectly logical to prepare for and expect retaliation for something you've done. The problem is that we don't know how much retaliation is or isn't appropriate. If the only offensive act I've committed in the last 10 IG years is to use five mhun corpses to defile a shrine, how many deaths have I earned with that act? If I quit my city and join an opposing one, do I deserve 1 death or 30?

In regards to the edit, if you break a PK rule and I'm the victim of whatever you did, why do I have to place my bets on the uncertainty of the Mark system to bring me justice, when I can use the system designed specifically for determining the illegality of actions and their consequences? Why should the admin not be informed when their rules have been broken? 

Bluef

Dunn said:

@Ayoxele‌

Talk to him, Nim. Guy was destroying good fighters at ~level 50. You may feel that levels are necessary, but Vaehl says fuck you.

Vaehl is the exception though, not the rule. Just because he can weave his head around like a cobra and kill people with his funky swerves of doom quicker than most people can prep a limb doesn't mean that levels aren't necessary, especially since many classes I see him destroy on are affliction based, which really doesn't have anything to do with health pools. 

Dunn

Yeaah you actually have to have some PK ability, obviously, but it's doable.

Nim

If levels don't matter, it should require no more combat ability than killing someone at @Penwize's level would, not merely be "doable" or require some particular degree of skill or require a certain style of class.

Dunn

Oh, okay. Why are you arguing as if that levels are the only contributing factor? I'm lost. My point was that levels and XP really don't matter for PvP. In some scenarios, sure, but I've seen low level people participate just fine. I have a few low level characters that I PK with on Imperian and do just fine.

Jarrod

Good rules if you're attacking someone:

• Have a reason in mind before you attack someone
• Have a reason you would stop attacking that person (you kill them, they get away X times, you die)
• If they ask you to stop, either stop, or explain to them what your ^ reason is

Good rules if you're being attacked by someone:

• If you want to issue, wait 12 hours and think about why they attacked you
• Realize you lost nothing permanent
  
• Consider how you can retaliate against them IC
  
• If you still think issuing is the right course, issue at this point

(The above only applies to PK related issues, genuine cases of harassment should be handled immediately)

Rohai

I think part of the issue is, combat is fun and bashing is not. So if you want to have the fun of engaging in combat, you're also dooming yourself do countless hours of more bashing monotony to mitigate the massive xp loss that comes with being an entry-level combatant. That or spend a large amount of IRL $ on artefacts to boost your health and not have to worry about levels, which is not a universally feasible option. As it stands, getting into combat feels downright Sisyphean.

I apologize in advance if this post no longer sounds relevant, I'm posting via mobile.

Nim

Dunn said:

Oh, okay. Why are you arguing as if that levels are the only contributing factor? I'm lost. My point was that levels and XP really don't matter for PvP. In some scenarios, sure, but I've seen low level people participate just fine. I have a few low level characters that I PK with on Imperian and do just fine.

No, I'm arguing exactly that. They're a contributing factor that matter in a number of scenarios, such as being able to survive against any class capable of killing people out with damage, even if the class might normally not be able to against high health targets.

Is PvP on Imperian anything like Achaean PvP? Even though the gameplay mechanics are incredibly similar between IRE games, I've always been under the impression that PvP was fairly different between each.

Jhui

Why do ppl suck at PvP and expect to be the same level as those that don't? 

Jhui

What I'm getting at... Why do ppl that care about PvP care about this so called xp system if they literally don't

Shirszae

Jhui said:

Why do ppl suck at PvP and expect to be the same level as those that don't? 

The problem comes when people who don't suck somehow expect people who do or have at best just a passing interest in PVP to simply 'stop caring.' Its stupid. Maybe you can recoup all your exp trough combat alone, but not everyone can, and not everyone cares to. So, no one expecst any such thing. Just as you should not expect people to not use what they can to defend themselves, such as hiding, calling guards, or whatever else. Maybe we don't get to complain, but neither do you.

edit: typos, emphasis, etc

Iuneos

Is there a better way to get better at PvP then actually doing PvP? If so, I'd love to know because @Isaiah‌ keeps wiping the floor with me

EDIT: Don't want the post to sound whiny, but essentially you have to fight to get better at fighting.  Saying that anyone -should- be good at PK, and trying to get someone to enforce that will ultimately neuter PK itself.  It's the hardest part of the game to be good at, so why should everyone be good at it?  And if someone doesn't want to be part of a fight they might lose, then don't put yourself in that position.  

Jhui

Right. Complaining for call for help is definitely bad. Unless of course both sides are looking for a good fight, but thats generally made clear

Jhui

Iuneos said:

Is there a better way to get better at PvP then actually doing PvP? If so, I'd love to know because @Isaiah‌ keeps wiping the floor with me

EDIT: Don't want the post to sound whiny, but essentially you have to fight to get better at fighting.  Saying that anyone -should- be good at PK, and trying to get someone to enforce that will ultimately neuter PK itself.  It's the hardest part of the game to be good at, so why should everyone be good at it?  And if someone doesn't want to be part of a fight they might lose, then don't put yourself in that position.  

getting better is what you're looking for, right? Then encourage it or don't. I know we encourage it

Iuneos

Yes, what I'm saying is that by hiding behind rules and 'oh you can't do that!' you're just stifling progress.  Also, making PK accessible for anyone to be good at will kind of nullify the entire point of PK, which is essentially being better than someone else.  It's a game where there's clear winners and losers, and you can't make everyone a winner. 

Nim

Iuneos said:

Is there a better way to get better at PvP then actually doing PvP? If so, I'd love to know because @Isaiah‌ keeps wiping the floor with me

Learn how everything works, if you don't already. Having tried to remember how everything works and then realizing my memory is awful, I suggest taking notes, and perhaps updating them as things change.

Think about and discuss strategies/tactics. If people beat you, ask them how they did it, or if you did anything wrong, or how you could improve. Not everyone is so helpful, but some people can be incredibly helpful.

Work on your offense system - make sure you can do things like attack or move or change strategies or defend yourself or whatever else with as little effort as possible, when you're actually fighting, there's no inefficiency there. If it's currently not comfortable, make it so.

Also there's the cynical response of "buy artefacts," but I am consistently told that they don't actually matter, even though I also hear that they actually do matter. This is your decision and your money and/or time, though. If you do buy artefacts, make sure to buy ones that are effective.

Also, knowing how to react defensively is vital in surviving. Mastering your offense is alright, but if you don't know how to survive against someone, you're at best racing against them. This is something you'd probably have to actually practice though, but it does involve a lot of the first two things I said.

oh you were making a point not asking for advice. okay let me append that with the most important advice of all: become really good at freeze tag. I swear it helps with PvP, and I'm not just trying to convince people to learn how to actually play the game so that I have actual competition when I finally start playing Nim again.

Rohai

Iuneos said:

Yes, what I'm saying is that by hiding behind rules and 'oh you can't do that!' you're just stifling progress.  Also, making PK accessible for anyone to be good at will kind of nullify the entire point of PK, which is essentially being better than someone else.  It's a game where there's clear winners and losers, and you can't make everyone a winner. 

Says the guy who blatantly breaks PK rules in order to "win" a fight he already lost...

Iuneos

But what's one death compared to the lesson of "always keep your shield up when you're sitting around"?