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PK Updates: Announce #5364

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  • ElyonElyon

    @Namino they opted in, they know the consequences



    Don't like being killed? Don't kill people.


    And lol re pirates handling their own contracts: if they could they would have. They hired because they all got stomped

  • ShecksShecks

    Honestly logging in today just to have a crapload of fun before all the whining gets this removed.


    This is what I'm reading: Oh no, someone lost 30 seconds worth of bashing exp! Oh no, Mizik got to have fun! Oh no, a character got IC consequences for IC actions (literally murdering people for personal gain). Oh no, Mizik got paid less than one twentieth of the daily free credits for hunting down and killing a player at the behest of pissed off pirates!

    Everything I see there is either fine or awesome.

  • ThaisenThaisen

    Logging in is opting in...you dummies...just don't log in if you don't want to get roflstomped by marks after every bashing run....duh...

  • AdrikAdrik

    "30 seconds of bashing" for a dragon.


    Mysia is for like level 60~70. That's 12% of a level almost.

  • GreysGreys

    I wonder if any groups that have FEELINGS will set up with contracts. The Minia pixies have suffered long enough!

  • GreysGreys

    Also, sounds like will be a sizable faucet just opened up so time to empty the credit market before the price skyrockets.

  • CaliraCalira
    edited August 2021

    @Mizik not everyone has privileged access to the developers. The official statement regarding the new mechanics was "we're not telling you how it works". How is it reasonable to articulate problems and suggest solutions when people don't even know the underlying mechanics?

  • SobriquetSobriquet

    That's been the case for years though. Privileged few who get to test all the new classes and content out, then stomp the shit out of people because they already know all the lines, prio's and tricks of the new class.

    I like this change, although some may point to Sobby being a Mark and expect that, I do have strong reservations that bashing / hunting is pretty much the only way to quickly and consistently level your character and that not everybody fights, in fact Achaea has made great waves in allowing multiple areas of Roleplay outside of PK. So for it to be a "We won't tell you what gives Contracts out in this system" is really not very helpful, even if it does add an element of mystique to it.


    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • MizikMizik

    @Calira I don't accept the lack there of being an excuse to hurl insults and add toxicity.

    image
  • CaliraCalira

    @Mizik that's great, but not relevant to what I posted.

  • ShecksShecks

    May I humbly suggest that due to the AR3 interaction, the command to demote Army members be added to the game? Currently you can Promote but there is no way to demote either yourself or as minister, any member of the army, without them resigning and starting back at AR1 (which is horrible RP for Targossas and Mhaldor at least, if not outright illegal). Not as far as I can tell from the War Ministry and related help files, at least.


    Since people's current rank predates this rule, I think it's only fair - and beyond this point, I also think it's simply needed to be able to demote people for any other reason too, like poor performance, or stepping down from leadership roles in general, or abuse/failure to properly execute the powers of AR3+.

  • GurklukkeGurklukke
    edited August 2021

    I agree with @Moroa , and honestly its something a good portion of the playerbase should really try and embody in this game.

    I never remembered Achaea being such a wallowing pit of petulant children as it is today, the consistent crusades against the administration and gaslighting other players is atrocious.


    If I saw the majority of the people actually contributing to, and playing the game as much as they crusade on the forums and discord, perhaps their complaints about the population lowering would be alleviated.

  • VasherVasher

    I feel like this conversation has highlighted a need for a solution that Lusternia implemented long ago.


    Instead of only have PVP, PVE, and questing as options for character advancement regarding level, they added in influence. This is a non-aggressive form of leveling your character which also enabled them to create a world that does actually feel alive, far more than Achaea. For context, it broke down to several different ways you could influence denizens, you could try to sway them to like you more (decreasing village hate), to give you things (get gold), and a few other options.


    This also enabled village revolts, which was that a village would align itself with organizations, and give them benefits based on what that village produces to help with the trade ministry. Once in awhile, villages would revolt, and cities would need to go influence them towards their city again, and this created an interesting mix of PVP and PVE, with world impacting consequences.


    By comparison, Achaea seems flat and static, there are not meaningful ways to interact with denizens beyond kill them or not, other than the occasional bit of RP that requires admin availability and interest.


    In Lusternia, CTF’s were biweekly at set times, village revolts would happen every few weeks at random times, Islands would also be available to capture for your organization every few weeks through aethercrafting, I feel like what Achaea misses the mark in feeling dangerous or alive is in how static its forms of conflict are. Ultimately, the conflict in Achaea is stale because there are not true objectives to achieve beyond tanking, and most of the time that just results in an unused area of a city being unavailable for a couple of months, it doesn’t feel real or threatening.


    I’m not suggesting that Achaea needs to become Lusternia, and I do like these changes (other than concerns that the oceans change is actually going to discourage combat rather than encourage it, though I do like the change and felt oceans being treacherous always felt weird, I just think you shouldn’t be able to hire for it, because that’s what is going to discourage people)


    Compared to Lusternia, achaea actually does quite a few things a lot better like balancing 1v1 and group combat, the issue is just that balance is wasted because there are so few meaningful forms of conflict.

  • ArgwinArgwin

    The two biggest keys for those who don't want to PK at all would be to, one, vacate their city during a raid, which is crummy but makes sense. Why are you standing around on a guard stack when there are hostile invaders trying to blow up part of your city? And two, knowing which denizens and areas are going to hire on people and under what circumstances. Cities have already compiled some pretty comprehensive hunting guides, so developing high profile guides too shouldn't be too unexpected.

    As a 90% non-combatant I feel like it's still very possible to avoid pk entirely if you want, but the cities will have to step up and help them out a bit to make sure they can meet that goal.

  • EuriceEurice

    @Thaisen

    Alternatively, demolish the hordes of creatures that won't trigger a retribution contract in exactly two weeks time when everybody has thoroughly plumbed the depths of this system and most people know what to habitually avoid if they still insist on not engaging with the game world in the slightest.

  • AssaiAssai

    So, I almost never comment on any changes that are made to Achaea, because for the most part they don't change how I play the game. I am one of the very few people in the game that is a non-combatant. I do not opt-in to combat of any sort, usually not even verbally, because it quite literally gives me a panic attack out of the game. But lately, every time a change to combat (or theft) has come about, there has been an overarching theme that goes with it "the world is not supposed to be safe". I'm sorry, but no. Parts of the world absolutely are not supposed to be safe, and if you opt-in to those parts you should know that your risking your character. But I do not opt-in, I will never opt-in, and now I am being told that I have no choice, because that is the way its going to be.


    Achaea is a Role-Playing game. It says so right in the description on the games front page. It does not describe it as a game where your character is going to be at constant risk of being killed because they stepped into the wrong location at the wrong time, or because a group decided to mass attack everyone standing in an area, regardless of their status in the army or not, or because they were raiding and swept up defenders and bystanders alike and rather than give anyone time to sort themselves out and let the non-combatants get out of the area mindlessly attacked everyone, killing the people that did not defend themselves.


    I hear a lot, in character and out, that my recourse for this is to either log out, sit on a ship, hop in a journal, or otherwise isolate myself from my RP experience in the game because its too much effort to take a moment to consider, "oh, that person isn't in the army, maybe we don't try to kill them?" Or I get told "oh, just learn a little combat, you'll be fine once you learn a little." No. I won't. I will be stuck dealing with the effects of a panic attack for the next however long depending on the severity of the attack. For those who have never felt the effects of a panic attack, please do not tell me that its not a big deal, which I have also heard a number of times, or that perhaps Achaea is not the game for me, because I have a lot of fun in Achaea.


    I rather enjoyed @Synthus's idea of the Pacification collar that he suggested a couple pages back. I know most people probably don't, but I think it would be helpful for those of us who are non-combatants to know that there is actually a consequence in place for people who don't take the few seconds to make sure that they are only going have people who opt-in to combat. At this point though, I'm going to leave it there because this is about as much confrontation as I can handle.

  • ShecksShecks

    @Makarios - may I suggest something along the lines of an IC way to bribe / escape these contracts without PVP, for the small subset of people who fervently wish to avoid any and all instances of PVP interaction?

    Personally I absolutely love this change, and I think it solves a bunch of problems all in one fell swoop, but I definitely empathize with people who simply want nothing to do with PVP, even if they signed up to play a PVP game and that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

  • SynthusSynthus
    edited August 2021

    Y'know, I've tried to avoid talking about this mostly publicly, but I think perspective might add a little levity.


    In January of 2020, I had one of the worse cases of flu I'd ever had in my life. I could not kick it for the better part of a month, lost my voice for a three day period, ran a severe fever for several days, and felt absolutely horrendous the entire time. In may of that year, I had to go to the doctor because I couldn't even manage to walk across the street anymore without feeling like I ran a 5K. The short version of everything we found out wrong with me: moderate anteroseptal myocardial ischemia, nerve damage, acute hypertension II, an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, and another undiagnosed mental illness.

    (For the record, I was also exposed to covid, but we do not know if this instance of illness was covid related or if I was exposed later)


    When I say, "I can't PvP anymore", it's not "I don't want to PvP anymore" - I was actually making progress, learning combat, and generally enjoying building my system before I got sick. Since I've returned, I've tried to dip into PvP a handful of times, and each time I become physically ill with it. It's not the death aspect either, @Adrik can attest, he watched Synthus kill himself in the name of science™, and that I handled absolutely fine. It is the adrenaline and subsequent chest pounding, nausea, vertigo, and feeling like every nerve in my body is on fire that I can't handle. Hell, the first Divine interaction I had, I was sitting at my desk legitimately wondering if I was going to pass out because I could feel my heart in my throat and started feeling that "everything is getting fuzzy and drawing through a straw" feeling.


    Traditionally, PvP has been opt-in, this has been fine! I am sad I don't get to participate anymore, but thems the breaks. Occasionally it's bled over into cases where people that don't opt-in get targeted ( non-combatants getting attacked, theft, etc ), and to me that's not fine. Yes, you can make the argument of "Well, they can talk it out or hire in game," but as someone that now has a very new definition for the term "nerve-wracking", you are putting a lot on the shoulders of someone that's already in a very rough state.


    Now, however, PvE actions are garnering PvP consequences. We aren't talking about actions which are inherently PvP oriented like defiling a shrine or exterminating a forest, we are talking about hunting. We aren't talking about suddenly a pirate bounty hunter strides out to attack you while you're hunting in the Mhojave or Quartz Peak, we're talking about a PvP-focused player hunting down someone for PvE actions. We are talking about a player actively attacking another player who may not engage in PvP because they don't have a choice in the matter.


    As has been stated by others, the hunting areas for non-sentient, non-hiring denizens is skim at best, and would require a massive boost to become a viable route to dragon, or hell, even Logosian for some.


    I'm sorry if wanting to keep PvP and PvE separate isn't considered constructive. For me it's a case that if PvP keeps bleeding over into the game or if Achaea becomes a truly open PvP, then I have to step away. I don't want to, I have loved the interactions I've had so far since my gameplay has been focused on RP and more creative avenues. I've had a wonderful time with every discussion and silly little interaction I've had, and I'm sorry if not wanting to lose that comes off as childish or petulant.

  • CaliraCalira

    @Makarios the idea that adventurers are bloodthirsty nightmares has good potential, but it feels more like a justification than something that's reflected in-game. If that's to be the nature of player characters, I really hope to see it expanded upon going forward. Higher-level adventurers could be met by most NPCs with suspicion by default, while those in Dragonform should inspire open terror. Village feelings could never decay. Phileo could face some sort of retribution for placing credit bounties on the meanest NPCs in the game. There's a lot more here that could be done to make the NPCs seem like they care about being murdered.

  • MakariosMakarios

    @Calira


    I agree we can do more here, though its worth noting my comment here was mostly a relative comparrison - the pirates being criminals and hiring marks isn't suspect because their criminal behaviour is something adventurers partake in on a regular basis too, and usually to significantly higher degrees. Personally quite like a hardcore denizen bounty thing conceptually, maybe we'll talk about that (though there is some inevitable overlap with renown, since a lot of those denizens generate credits in that form already).

This discussion has been closed.