PK Experience Gain v Loss

Florentino

A potential innovative solution to the various complaints around PK experience loss unpleasantness, etc.

Make the reward for PK (i.e. killing others) give more xp than dying loses xp, scaled inversely to the number of kills on your character (either by some factor/percentage or in tiers) and scaled proportionally to the might, auction escrow, kill count, and kdr of those killed (in some formula). Let those who are not the top dogs gain more from killing so that killing someone like Jhui even once in a day outweighs dying 5 times.

At least something like that in theory, if not the particulars. 

Kerria

So you want the big people to kill the little people more... For more xp

Florentino

No, if you have a high number of kills and you're killing people who have lower might than you, less artefacts, less kill count, and worse kdr you get less experience. So Jhui can kill 5 midbies and gain less experience than they lose, but if a midbie kills Jhui once they'll gain much more experience than they would have lost.

In this system, high-level PKers who don't care about XP are less likely to get issued and get to PK more freely because costs to the victims are lower, and low-level PKers can get into combat more easily without feeling like their investment is being blown.  

Florentino

A way to RP this or justify it logically is "you've already killed the weaklings and learned how to kill the weaklings, the life experience you're gaining from each iteration of killing weaklings is thereby lessened."

Jhui

makes sense

Santar

Shouldn't punish people for doing well at something.

This change is pretty much the exact opposite of what should be done. This game's punishment for death is already basically irrelevant. Xp loss isn't even really a thing as is, and more changes towards leniency would just compound that problem.

Jhui

I would agree, but there are tons of things you just can't handle in the pk scene if you don't invest the time/money in levels/arties.

I'm unsure on the formula for xp gain killing adventurers vs dying but increasing it with the right formula in place could help the smaller people want to get involved before investing 100+hrs.

This essentially means there will be more people for us to kill, which is only a good thing. (for us)

Bukariin

It does kind of sound like you could game the system by dying repeatedly to somebody who can resurrect you (and thus maximize your experience gain/minimize your experience loss later when you might not get rezzed), but since this would be an OOC exploit that would be pretty obvious through deathsight I also don't see it going unpunished.

Florentino

PKers aren't being punished for being good at PK, they're just not being rewarded as much with a resource that's irrelevant to most top-tier PKers (experience) as has been stated by many of them. Experience also doesn't help with PK or contribute to it.

The entertainment value of PK is the reward, along with bragging rights from deathsight and a high KDR or a lot of kills. 

Stuneree

@Jhui‌ How do you feel being the example every single person uses in anything even remotely PvP related?
I might make a montage.

Jhui

Stuneree said:

@Jhui‌ How do you feel being the example every single person uses in anything even remotely PvP related?
I might make a montage.

someone needs to step up to the plate... (don't come back Tanris)

Bukariin

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about the "auction escrow" part.  I know, you can correlate some people with thousands of credits to blow and upper-tier PVPers, but IRE isn't going to approve of something that so directly benefits players for not spending RL money on their game.

Strata

Nim

Santar said:

Shouldn't punish people for doing well at something.

This change is pretty much the exact opposite of what should be done. This game's punishment for death is already basically irrelevant. Xp loss isn't even really a thing as is, and more changes towards leniency would just compound that problem.

1. How is it punishing players if it's been noted that PvP is an EXP dump, and therefore experience gain is mathematically less significant than experience loss, and experience loss is already considered insignificant?

2. How is experience loss no longer a thing?

3. If experience loss already is irrelevant, why keep an irrelevant feature?

4. What problem will be compounded by changes towards leniency? How will this problem be compounded?

5. Is this a change in leniency? It looks to me like it's a shift in leniency, by changing from a positive feedback loop (easy to stay ahead, difficult to get ahead) to a negative feedback loop (hard to stay ahead, easy to have your advantage turned on you), if only at the EXP level, which admittedly is a very silly focus.

Jhaeli

There are also those who are Dragons with a large number of expensive artefacts but who almost never PvP (see a number of Cyrenians). But I assume that's where the K/D ratio, etc., come into play. If something like this were to go in, it'd take a balanced formula, regardless.

I do like the general idea a lot though and it's a good way to open the conversation.

ETA: Actually, just to refute my own point - it should take level into play in general. 100+ Dragons, for example, don't really need XP anymore, not the way a midbie level 80 does, so the rest of the stats don't matter as much. Perhaps it would have to start at level, then consider kill count, K/D ratio, might, etc.

Cahin

Bukariin said:

It does kind of sound like you could game the system by dying repeatedly to somebody who can resurrect you (and thus maximize your experience gain/minimize your experience loss later when you might not get rezzed), but since this would be an OOC exploit that would be pretty obvious through deathsight I also don't see it going unpunished.

It has always been illegal and punishable to farm other consenting adventurers for experience.

Stuneree

@Jhui‌

Melodie

Jhui should print that out and frame it on his wall.

Nim

Jhaeli said:

100+ Dragons, for example, don't really need XP anymore, not the way a midbie level 80 does, so the rest of the stats don't matter as much. Perhaps it would have to start at level, then consider kill count, K/D ratio, might, etc.

Sometimes I wonder if the issue is just that the EXP loss cap is badly placed. I can see a reason for it being there (if you consider EXP loss to be equivalent with time lost, then if there was no cap, extremely high level players like @Penwize might suffer way more time lost per death, simply due to the lack of things worth enough EXP), but I feel like there's probably plenty of high level bashing sites that it's not a big deal for level 90s and possibly 100s as well.

Not that I agree with EXP loss on death, since it's literally crystalized time lost, and also it forces PvP types to engage in PvE combat, which is just not good game design. Like, people were quick as lightning to call the idea that denizens might hire players to defend them or take revenge against prolific bashers terrible, but that's basically the same thing as this, if just reversed.

Strata

Melodie said:

Jhui should print that out and frame it on his wall.

Stuneree probably already has. Every time he throws a dart at it, Jhui gets issued.

Saeva

I think this is an interesting concept. To be fair, once you hit dragon anyways, you're really not gaining much XP of notability anyways. But I like the wheels turning in your head, Florentino.

Eld

The general idea is fine, but probably hard to get the balance right. I feel like a lot of the complaints about xp loss from PK could be mitigated be just adjusting how xp loss scales with level. There's a range of levels in roughly the mid-late 70s to early 80s where the xp loss from one death seems to be disproportionate to the amount of work required to regain it. Get up into the 90s and you're getting to where it's annoying but not as big a deal, and by dragon, one death is pretty insignificant. It doesn't seem like it should be too hard to adjust the curve so that the time required to make up the xp loss from a death by level-appropriate bashing is roughly constant, which seems like it'd help a fair amount.

Of course, there's always the possibility that making that adjustment and balancing it to keep level inflation (for lack of a better term) in check, you'd just end up a much broader range of people complaining about xp loss, but it seems like investigating the simpler solution first would be worthwhile.

Tecton

Eld said:

The general idea is fine, but probably hard to get the balance right. I feel like a lot of the complaints about xp loss from PK could be mitigated be just adjusting how xp loss scales with level. There's a range of levels in roughly the mid-late 70s to early 80s where the xp loss from one death seems to be disproportionate to the amount of work required to regain it. Get up into the 90s and you're getting to where it's annoying but not as big a deal, and by dragon, one death is pretty insignificant. It doesn't seem like it should be too hard to adjust the curve so that the time required to make up the xp loss from a death by level-appropriate bashing is roughly constant, which seems like it'd help a fair amount.

Of course, there's always the possibility that making that adjustment and balancing it to keep level inflation (for lack of a better term) in check, you'd just end up a much broader range of people complaining about xp loss, but it seems like investigating the simpler solution first would be worthwhile.

This is already the case, we just have an upper cap on how much experience you can lose, which is why a dragon will feel a death less, since that upper cap is a smaller percentage of their overall pool.

Eld

Tecton said:

Eld said:

The general idea is fine, but probably hard to get the balance right. I feel like a lot of the complaints about xp loss from PK could be mitigated be just adjusting how xp loss scales with level. There's a range of levels in roughly the mid-late 70s to early 80s where the xp loss from one death seems to be disproportionate to the amount of work required to regain it. Get up into the 90s and you're getting to where it's annoying but not as big a deal, and by dragon, one death is pretty insignificant. It doesn't seem like it should be too hard to adjust the curve so that the time required to make up the xp loss from a death by level-appropriate bashing is roughly constant, which seems like it'd help a fair amount.

Of course, there's always the possibility that making that adjustment and balancing it to keep level inflation (for lack of a better term) in check, you'd just end up a much broader range of people complaining about xp loss, but it seems like investigating the simpler solution first would be worthwhile.

This is already the case, we just have an upper cap on how much experience you can lose, which is why a dragon will feel a death less, since that upper cap is a smaller percentage of their overall pool.

I'm aware that there's a curve and a cap. What I meant to suggest there was to adjust the parameters (the xp loss/level or the cap or both) so that a level 80 doesn't feel a death so much more than a dragon. My impression is that the amount of time it takes a dragon to make up one death's worth of xp loss is much less than what it would take someone at level 80. Am I wrong on that?

Klendathu

Tecton said:

...we just have an upper cap on how much experience you can lose, which is why a dragon will feel a death less, since that upper cap is a smaller percentage of their overall pool.

Make it a set percentage of your current XP - dragons feel death more, lower level players feel death less. That would likely make quite a few of these "XP means nothing to me" arguments stop.

Mishgul

I feel like this is already the case even with the cap, except dragon barely feels it because their overall xp pool is already so huge.

Athelas

All of this is based on the assumption that people issue due to them loosing XP.

I have issued exactly twice in all the time I've ever played Achaea. Both those times were because the offender chose to do PK for the sake of gaining XP, rather than having RP reason for killing.

Seriously, spend some time reading HELP PK and things like HELP THEFT.

I see nothing about XP loss being a justification to ISSUE. Yes, you will have those players that complain about getting killed. This will always be the case, because there are children that play this game, and I'm not being sarcastic here either, I do mean real children. Yes, I do consider teenagers children, regardless of how much they think they know, a level of maturity is often ... lacking.

If a person has valid RP reason for killing, as per HELP THEFT and HELP PK, then stop the complaints and play your character. On the other hand, I do believe anyone doing PK without actually having a solid RP reason BEFORE doing the PK, deserves to be issued and turned into a shrub for an RL day or two.

@Florentino What you are suggesting here, will neither stop the issues, nor prevent PK without RP reason. You are effectively giving all players the justification they need to go on a murderous rampage, without consequence. I think what you are really looking for, is Anarchaea, and that's in another thread.

If you want to actually stop the ISSUES, then get the admins to act on and enforce HELP PK and HELP THEFT.

i.e. @Athelas issuing @Jhui for killing him while @Jhui is raiding Eleusis, is senseless and a good indication that @Athelas should grow up. Especially since he is in the Eleusian Army.

On the other hand, @Athelas issuing @Jhui for killing him while sitting in his grove reading a book, without being a member of the mark and/or having a bounty against him, or @Jhui at least having solid, direct RP reason for the PK, does open @Jhui up for being ISSUED.

DISCLAIMER ONE: The above are examples, from all accounts I have of @Jhui, the character is being played well and with good motivation, and although I've actually had the second situation happen in game, the culprit was not @Jhui.

DISCLAIMER TWO: Is there a price for using @Jhui's name the most, cause I think I'm in the running. Really, if I use @Jhui's name one more time, do I get a prize?

Silas

Masturbatory mentions as well.

Jarrod

Look @Silas, @Jarrod doesn't appreciate you filling these forums with your @crap.

Silas

Masturbatory mentions as well.

ETA: re: the OP: Not a fan. It should be feasible to PK to dragon, and this idea limits it to the godawful bashing grind. It's not a horrible idea, but I don't think xp is the great tipping point in why people issue - it's just a mentality that needs to change and I'm not convinced this will greatly change it.

Wat u do @forums. >:I

Strata

Please, more @political @discussion trying to convince IRE to implement mechanical changes toward our near-future utopia of cupcakes and unicorns. The only thing left will be Cyrene and a stupid goth kid from Hashan.