PK Updates: Announce #5364

Gribbit

I mean, it is roleplay...in a roleplaying game *gasp*

Treyal

I don't know necessarily that letting random PvPers go murder PvErs because they killed the wrong mob is particularly compelling conflict, or roleplay.

It's not like this game's combat affords /any/ direct roleplay as part of it. That said, as has been pointed out multiple times, dying is effectively inconsequential, so provided this is fairly restricted, I can't imagine it having any real meaningful impact one way or the other.

If the game really wanted to drive conflict and gasp roleplay, there'd be something more meaningful than giving away a free PK ticket to people who are just bashing. And, hey, I assume this is an initial change ahead of some broader things happening - I guess we'll see.

Ognog

There is a big difference between RP based PK interactions and an everyone's dauntless free for all.

I seriously doubt that the chief of the goblin village or manara burrow would qualify as "high profile denizens". The sky isn't falling on non-com players that just want to hunt. I can't really see this impacting them at all.

The newly clarified HELP PK rules really just boil down to the one principle that has been at the core of this for a while now - don't be a dick. When it comes to PK (and theft), all it takes is to put yourself in the other person's shoes and consider if the interaction has made things more fun and interesting for them (win or lose). Don't go beyond that to the point where you're spoiling their fun. This principle applies equally to those who go too far with PK (or theft) as it does to those who want to issue at the drop of a hat.

The issue system is still there to prevent things from getting out of hand. As far as I can see, it was always intended to be a last resort rather than the first thing one reaches for.

Calira

Nobody would complain if the village leader rounded up a posse and went out to get vengeance on their hated enemies from time to time, @Atalkez, so let's not pretend that anyone is complaining about 'RP in my RP game'. What's objectionable is giving people like you or Aegoth licence to go interrupt them at your leisure, through conflict mechanics that they have no chance at winning with, and did not engage with to get marked in the first place. The people vociferously in favour of it are the marks who want to pop some pinatas, which is fair enough, but don't insult our intelligence by pretending that it's suddenly a pressing concern that NPCs behave like NPCs in a 20-year-old text adventure.

Thaisen

lol roleplay....you can probably count on one hand the number of people excited about the roleplay potential of that change...the rest just want free kills. Kind of like all the randos who all of a sudden joined GOM for the "roleplay"... A+ roleplay.

The change probably won't impact me personally...hell I hunt in treacherous planes very frequently as it is. I just think it is a stupid way to generate conflict....in fact my guess is the only thing it will generate is a wave of issues...

Saonji

It's awfully telling when the only ones really positively reacting to this change, are the PK-happy people anyway.

Also the whole, "Find out in-game what mobs will hire on you" is an objectively terrible thing to do, lol. Sorry random level 70 guy who was just out looking for things to hunt, you attacked the wrong mob now Proficy is coming to kill you. Better luck next time, champ.

Gurklukke

@Veldrin

I found the thief tag intriguing, because you can in all respects be a thief but not be scummy about it.

I have honestly been having a blast, learning how to steal, pickpocket and be sneaky!

I have robbed people, even younger players in recent months, I step away, the tag falls off about the same as infamy, its not terrible, its a consequence for an action. There was a younger Targossian hunting in Azdun, I took a small amount of gold from her and a letter....I felt accomplished doing something.

I had no need for her personal belongings, I sent it back to her and chatted with her a while about the importance of selfishness, and that her things are not for my eyes. I told her to travel safe and was on my way.

To say that all thieves said it was not worth their time is incorrect, like with any part of something you opt into, THE MILITARY INCLUDED, its a line in your honors that says you are willing to fight, just like a thieves line in their honors is a willingness to accept consequences for their actions.

Players that played thieves made a choice, to either continue thieving or quit.

People in the military will have to make a choice, to be soldiers, or non combatants.

Since so many people threw around RL comparisons for theft and multiple threads, I could go on saying that a person enlisted in their City military, is like someone who bought an Army Uniform and Medals at goodwill portraying stolen valor.....did I do it right Discord Mafia?

EDIT: I also didn't read the other two pages of this thread because this community can be absolutely silly sometimes about things. So ....who can I trigger now... NEENER NEENER....

No wait I like Eryl... Um....

More gender options....NOPE.

Issues for Roleplaying... Nevermind

OOC Shouting....DAMN

Shit, I am bad at this.

Jonathin

Never mind.

Archaeon

i like these changes because i want to pad my kdr by killing pk noobs who killed the wrong mob

Atalkez

I don’t care to PK anybody that is just trying to hunt. Make the denizens have their own beefy denizens that go slaughter the people instead. I suggested to Ictinus that Ophal/Lafrin go after people that successfully negate a few of these contracts in a row. “Nobody would complain” is complete bull though. They would absolutely complain at anything that disrupts the status quo, that’s what this community does. I could care less if I get more PKs out of this, I always disliked slaughtering shit on a loop and absolutely nothing happening from it. I also dislike that I have to nod at an Ashtani on the street because I don’t have “cause” as if we’re not supposed to be waging an every day war against their entire existence.

I have wanted something like this for ages, and if you feel your intelligence is insulted because I made a ribbing about RP in an RP game then I really don’t know what to tell you. The complaints I’ve seen so far are all seemingly selfish in nature because heaven forbid they actually have to play the game rather than text monster hunter simulator or Achaea chat box 2006.

Raiya

I like that we're embracing consequences for actions here. Some things may need tweaked later. This npc hiring thing is admittedly perplexing, but yeah.. as @atalkez put it, I'd be more happy about it if it had some kind of npc mark, but I feel maybe it should scale on level and give the person a chance. Not like Z coming at a level 45 player. Though with adventurer marks, it's going to be ridiculous I think having a noncom get contracted for bashing and having someone like Proficy or Farrah show up to cut them down is a bit unbalanced imo.

Shirszae

I am a bit conflicted. On one hand, I like that there is more consequence for hunting sentients. And I won't lie, I like the idea of players being able to fulfill those contracts.

But it does also break the whole bit about bejng able to opt in or not on pk that was brought up in one of the earlier threads.

Maybe some metrics could be used to decide whether an offending player gets a denizen or player mark to hunt them down.

Namino

Ophal or Lafrin taking the contract is ridiculous, no matter how many contracts you nullify. Unlike player vs player contracts, NPCs like that are outside the power scope of what players can reasonably handle. Proficy is way more artefacted than I am but at least he has normally scaling health and damage for those artes.

Sending Ophal or Lafrin after people is literally just zapping them with extra steps.

Shirszae

It also wouldn't make sense. The Dauntless have nothing whatsoever to do with the mark. They are literally an alternative organization that cares nothing for fighting for anyone but themselves and their amusement .

Elyon

@Thaisen ok fine, let's see the ic reasoning

Eurice

It isn't that people can't learn these new conflict mechanics (aka PK) in order to retaliate or defend themselves should they run afoul of a denizen who places contracts. If anything, these all attempt to push motion into the game by actually pitting people against one another.

So many of the arguments in here are binary, acting as if the non-combatants "wronged" by these changes for "just wanting to hunt" can't invest a handful of hours in learning how to defend themselves or actually engage with the game beyond the few dozen skills used in denizen hunting. And moreover, as if there are not already widely available script packages that can give these people a serious chance (on some classes) of owning even the most experienced Mark.

How much clearer does it need to be made that the game is encouraging people to engage in conflict? Do people really not see the writing on the wall?

Shecks

What I don't get is why some folks are in here pretending that deaths matter at all. They don't. They used to sting a tiny bit but these days it basically equates to the cost of starburst inks or grabbing a drink while you sit through the prayer sequence.

Ultimately this is a PVP game. If people don't want to be involved in PVP then that should totally be allowed but making the game default to zero interaction except when both sides mutually agree to stand still and hit each other until one of them dies is OOC, not fun at all, is NOT Achaea, and never has been.

IMO the default should be "Open PK" with specific avenues available for people to opt out. That opinion includes PK rules but also extends to the plethora of fast travel/escapes available (bad), the Mark system (bad), hindrance mechanics (pure RNG, could be better), and near total safety while standing on guard stacks all day.

Absolutely Atalkezs' idea for limited PK attempts per time period is a great one. Could be abused by a group of griefer's but still, the response to peope to trying to kill you should be 1) stop pissing people off, 2) get your friends and fight back, 3) toughen up buttercup, or 4) all of the above.

Issues should be reserved for harassment and OOC problems, pure and simple, which despite what some might think would make EVERYONE (including admin) happier in the end by making the fun both competitively and socially fun again.

Veldrin

@Gurklukke I wish I could just quit the army and not get thrown out of city and house due to a 'Divine Mandate'. I never wanted to join the army in the first place.

Akri

I'd be pretty surprised if the mobs that hire would be anything but honours mobs like Chellen, or rp important mobs you wouldn't generally bash. I think this change can be given a little time to see how it actually plays out in practice, and if it actually does lead to non-dragon non-coms getting hired on, or people getting hired on repeatedly in quick succession, we can bring it up again, no?

I'm not entirely sure how well npc marks would work, though. They'd likely be trivial to defeat/lure to people who can easily defeat them. Or feel unfair, if they are like npc serpents who will backstab you while you bash. Then again, admins managed to make denizens that do full(?) scaling damage in forays, so maybe I'm wrong there.

I like the changes overall, though. I think in general pk would probably feel a little less daunting (hah) if the player community as a whole adopted a "one death settles all debts" stance, so you don't need to worry about counting cause and a non-com who maybe got into something they regret can always just take the one death and then carry on with their day without worrying about twelve more deaths.

Eurice

I also firmly agree with the notion that deaths simply do not matter. Even the past theft controversy highlighted this broadly held opinion by most of the vocal community. The penalties are peanuts and things like triumph experience makes it pretty much trivial to recoup your losses.

Nobody likes losing, but the recourse to that in modern times is simple: start learning how to win.

Tahquil

I like the changes.

I think that the denizen contracts are probably more long the lines of "You have killed a ridiculous X amount of people in this village within a 24 hour span so Daqsool is going to put a contract on you." or "This village just straight up hates you. Contract" instead of you kill this one denizen in the village then contract. (I might be misunderstanding what people are saying. That way you have the option of carefully baancing your village reputation by varying your hunting areas.

I agree with the gripe though, it would be way cooler if they villagers sent denizens out to complete contracts, but not to starve the mark maybe every 5th contract from a specific denizen vilage goes to the adventurer board.

Shecks

It's weird, I assumed the entire purpose of denizen contracts was to give Marks some actual contracts as currently the amount of contracts up is way too low, and also only targets a tiny fraction of the playerbase. Now everyone gets to play the game!

Personally I don't get how dying to an NPC is somehow better than dying to a player so would love if someone could explain how that suggestion makes sense.

Dominius

Two sinister glubbers walk to the Vampire Lord, holding gold to pay for revenge on behalf of their brethren who were slain by Dominius. The Vampire Lord looks confused as two ugly glubbers walk into the room and stand before him with the gold saying: REB....reb...Reb REBBB!!

Namino

Your reputation among the ranks of the contract killers rises.

You have fulfilled the contract on Harenae on behalf of Mysia, and have received 13000 gold.

You just received message #21759 from Achaea. (21.169s)

Alright, what the everloving fuck is this. Let's unpack all this.

Firstly, MYSIA. A level 60-70 zone for relatively inexperienced players. This is a place that is hiring on people. This is the content they want people to avoid if they don't want to get opted into getting PK'd.

Secondly. That island is primarily inhabited by FUCKING PIRATES. Literal criminals. These hapless, innocent criminals who never hurt anyone are hiring champions to avenge their dead? You consider this a breathing world? This is supposed to be plausible RP consequence?

Thirdly, 13,000 gold? For killing a non-com who doesn't know how to defend themselves? This is a fucking joke. Basically headshotting children who dared to bash in a zone recommended to them on AREAS is the best return on being a mark, far more than any player vs player contract. All this despite the tutorial suggesting killing the exact same sorts of NPCs as the Mysian Pirates is a fundamental gameplay loop.

GG.

Delete it and try to rub two brain cells together before implementing stupid systems 'just because you can'. If you want this game to feel like it's part of an interactable world with consequences, consider starting with your core mechanics that built the game up into its murderhobo state, rather than punishing players for participating in the activities you trained them to do for 20 years.

It's 5am and I'm cranky, obviously.

Thaisen

But think of the RP Namino!!!! THE RP!!!

Tahquil

Ohhh. So like, what if this is preceeding influence system?

Elyon

Ok my takeaway from this is that some people don't know the difference between quisalis and ivory marks

Why WOULDN'T pirates hire assassins to slay those who kill them? Why would pirates just accept it?

Namino

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Nobody's saying they can't twist their brains into pretzels to find a reason why **pirates who literally murder people on the seas for a living** wouldn't handle their own murder contracts. I'm sure if we try hard enough we can all come up with an appropriate handwave.

But maybe... just maybe... we shouldn't have a system that drags people unwillingly into content they're not interested in because they dared to participate in other unrelated content that we recommended them try out in the first place.

Eurice

Mizik fulfilled that contract and he's Quisalis. Pirates hiring the Quisalis to tidy up after them is not really that weird and totally in scope for what the changes describe.

Ognog

Pirates of Mysia aren't really what springs to mind when I read "high profile denizens". I was thinking more like Belladona, Maim, Kemnast, Prioska etc. and then perhaps only after a couple of kills in a year.

Not sure this is as advertised.