Don't loot my armor and you might just stimulate the economy!

is it really that expensive to ransom good gear back? The only risk is loosing gold, right? Or am I missing something?

 

It's not super expensive - it's more that people aren't willing to risk losing it ... and lots of people feel looting is unbalanced to begin with since store bought gear is protected and can't be looted. People aren't comfortable with the system the way it is and they don't want to take any risk in losing their gear - right now, I'd say the risk of losing equipped gear is the single biggest blocker to getting people flagging for PVP.

 

I'd have to agree with that sentiment. The way the crafting system is, making anything worth keeping is such a huge investment of time, mats, and frustration, I don't even want to sell anything much less turn it over to someone who just stomped me.

I had thought you have the option of ransoming an item before someone has the option to take it.. but I sense that is not the case.

 

1. You can ransom the items! You have two hours to do so. Then you get into the gold cost of buying them back.

 

I dont have any issue with loosing equipment because i had been used to loose ALL of it when dying. What i wont support in any way is "pay to win" or "pay to keep your stuff".

// Armar

 

Actually you pretty much have to unstack reagents or anything else you need in combat to stay in pvp battles. If you lose a whole stack of anything to ransom you then need to leave the fight to get more. If they are unstacked you can just jump back into the fight without messing with the Oracle.

Do you mean gold? Cause as long as you have gold you can NEVER lose anything other than gold in pvp under the current system. Unless I'm missing something.

 

So you think people are misinformed and they don't understand the mechanics so they just think they can lose their gear in pvp?

Cause there is no debate about this - with gold on hand, there is no risk at all to lose gear or anything other than gold to a ransom.

 

I have a better than ok understanding of the ransom system. There's a comfort level for folks that want to get into PVP and if they get caught with a 10k gold ransom - that will result in someone losing their stuff. I was well into the adventure level 70ies range before I was able to maintain enough gold to answer ransoms on the fly - but that's just me. Some people are much better at playing the economy in game and will always have gold on hand.

As unstacking goes - I actually wrote a guide I know how to mitigate my inventory pretty well - but most people don't. And honestly, it's not fun - mitigating an inventory isn't fun at all and 99.99% of the playerbase won't ever do it. And no one should be expected to - because it's not fun. It's a bandage some players are willing to apply because they (we) believe the ransom system is broken - so we mitigate our inventories.

 

ok so my confusion was warranted... there is absolutely no risk of loosing anything but some gold to ransom. I think if you get this message out there, you will see more pvp tagged people.

 

That's definitely the message, but it only applies to people that are dialed into PVP and the ransom system.
Because you can still lose your stuff:

• if you don't pay the ransom - it's not automatic - you have to know to pay it... so that's one hurdle
• if you're looted by a thief - you'd never even know there was a ransom pending unless you're already in the habit of checking your Oracle UI for pending ransoms
• and a million other things - game crashes, real life, network problems, etc...

There are some practices that are better than others when you're flagged... like never going AFK in a scene and always having 50k gold on your person and keeping your inventory unstacked and wearing add-on store or pledge armor (it's protected).

If the goal for PVP right now is participation - loot and the ransom mechanics are blocking people from entry. Doesn't matter if we get the word out - all it takes is one dude screaming about quitting because he lost his pants while he was flagged and PVP gets nerfed into the dark ages.

People need to feel confidence in game mechanics when they flag - they need that warm fuzzy feeling that their PVP experience will be fun (win or lose) or they just won't flag.

 

Sure, you are right. Here is some info to get out there.

*If you have junk equipment in your inventory, it can get chosen as the loot item for the equipment piece!!!*

This means that if you have 100 lesser wands on you and you die, there is a very high chance a lesser wand is what they will get for the loot and not your good gear!!!

 

And even when your gear is chosen, the bounties still aren't that high. I've had a bunch of ransoms and never had one over 2500 gold. They're usually around 700-900.

You would have to be carrying something you shouldn't be (like a house deed ) to get a really high bounty. As long as you are careful they really aren't bad at all.

 

Yes that's right. And the bounty for junk is around 500 gold (if you did not want to give up your skull.)

 

so, here's my experience today as a noob pvp running about. Actually our whole group was in a pvp zone. Someone showed up and stomped us good using death and chaos trees. Not unexpected, we were spread out and prepped for pve. I died in what seemed like 2 shots. ressed at the ankh and got the message my bow and arrows were available for ransom. Got my stuff back for 600+ gold. Then he killed us again, then res-killed us two more times. That sucked. Had to pay another 700 gold for my bow but the other two things were crap loot so I didn't ransom those back.

So the cost was 1300 gold and a bit of humiliation... and some inconvenience. I really didn't get much from the experience compelling me to flag pvp some more. 2-shotted and owned, maybe motivation to get better... multiple res-killing for yourself and the gal you invited along, not so much.

 

How big was the group?

 

I think we had 4 or 5 in the group.

 

There are only a couple players brazen enough to take on groups while they're solo - and those guys are ridiculously high level mages. Even the most dialed in groups with roles that cooperate and resources like Discord for voice coordination will get pwn'd until their resists and attunements are trained up... that's just part of the mechanics here.

I've never been a fan of rez kills - but I have learned a few tricks on how to manage them. If you know the scene and your group is coordinating over voice, you can use static rez locations to bait really high level PKers... one simple move is to have your tank resurrect first and engage while you bring in your healers and ranged fighters from the rear and flank. Be sure to get between the scene exit and the mage if you're going to do this though - they will run once the fight looks like it's no longer an easy win.

I get why people want to quit PVP after this sort of experience. The stupid Oracle ransom system literally forces you to sit around and unstack and load your inventory with crap and trash equipables so when you get rez-ganked you can stay in the game.

 

This is accurate. Thing is, not everyone has that kind of money to spare if what they want to do is PvP.

The system practically encourages you to carry around addonStore gear if you want to participate in PvP. If mostly every PvPer is doing this, how can anyone believe that the system is remotely "okay"?

 

That's not what I'm seeing from my experience. People starting out in pvp and players that don't want to risk much may be using pledge items and gear that is protected, but you are seriously handicapping yourself because the majority I have fought against are in high end gear.

As for not having enough money to pvp, with just the handouts from the Oracle, even a completely new person could have enough gold in a week or 2 to be able to pay a couple ransoms and at least try it out.

Sure it needs some work, but I think it's the misconceptions of the system that are scaring people away, not the cost.

 

Im sorry, but Gix is right. The example you gave actually proves it.

So, xxxxx player saves up for a week for the gold to PvP (which means they are a low level player), walk into a PvP zone, gets killed by the usual lvl 100 player roaming the zone for a noob like that, pays the oracle and 10 minutes later goes out farming gold for another week to "try it again".


PvP how its designed right now in this game is ridiculous. Sure, the oracle hit is not bad... only if you take off your good armor and put on crud or store based novalty items. Then one has to do something like fill their bags full of 300 books to the oracle picks the books. Then they must build a weak reagent free deck. Then they may be ready to PvP... only to go out and get wacked by Joe 100 lvl PvP'er who is 20+ levels above them (since levels matter so much) with good gear on since they are high level and almost untouchable.

Whats clear is that this seems like it is the final game design at least until SOTA v 1.1... this is how it may be for years.