[Proposal]Open Loot Compromise In A PvP System

I posted about this a while ago, but had more developed thought on it and thought I would focus a new thread around it.

My View(Background Thinking)
It seem that there will be a Open PvP System from the videos of dev chats and what not that I have seen with “safe” paths that may not have kewl stuff on them, but will be safe. I also had the opportunity to speak with RG directly about this at a MarkeeDragon SotA roundtable. I wanted Open PvP but only if it held people to the consequences of their actions.

In other words, you can’t go running around killing people, then walk into a town like nothing happened and pick up quests. I hate games where a player can RP a “noble” warrior, and just because he sees an opportunity for some loot, leaves his Role and kills you. I want severe consequences for being a serial murderer. RG basically said they are developing a system for that, but probably not like what I would imagine. I’m fine with that.

Open Loot
That being said... What about Open Loot? I love open loot, and with a system described above… I think it could work just fine. But many are against it because they don’t want to lose everything. At the same time… it doesn’t make sense to me that if a murderer tries to kill me and I win, I can’t loot them.

What if there was a skill, that let people loot, but to and extent.

Inspection Skill
I propose the Inspection Skill. The Inspection Skill is a skill that lets you do what it’s titled… Inspect objects and areas for hidden things. It would work for checking for traps, but also for checking bodies for loot.

When checking a body it calculates where your skill is at and the chances of you successfully seeing something. If successful, the higher your skill the more things you can ‘notice’ on the body.

For example; if I’m low skill, I may only be able to notice what is directly on the person. Maybe Robes, a sword, a backpack. A little higher skill may notice the robes, and the armor under them. Even higher can notice that in the backpack the body has some food, drinks, and bags. Even higher skill can notice what is in the bags.

In this system you would naturally only be able to take non-container items for the skill to make sense. Otherwise if you notice the bags in his backpack, you can just take the bags and it’s useless to hide anything in other bags.

TL;DR
I love Open PvP and Full Loot. Being that Open PvP will be in the game in some form, Looting would be nice. Give us an Inspection Skill that lets you take only what you “Notice” from successful use of the skill, could be a good compromise.

EDIT: This skill could come in handy for the other skill I think would be awesome on a two map system like SotA: Ambush

 

So unless our characters have the skill to loot someone we are pretty much blind after their corpse hits the ground. I dunno, I think people would be pretty miffed if say a thief stole your super Uber Weapon of Insane nastiness you go to kill him then all he had to do was equip it to give you the extra headache of trying to roll the dice to get your weapon back.

 

As long as there is a non-PvP option for players, I don't think a compromise on the PvP end of things needs to be made. If I can choose PvE, but instead choose PvP, then I should be choosing to enter the Open Loot Non-Consensual PvP world that so many pray to have. If there were only one world, which had open PvP, then I think that mechanics like this would be very important for preventing scores of people from becoming PKs (not to say that being a PK in the PvP enabled slider option should be without great risks).

 

For single player offline and using these skills on NPCs, and having them use those skills on you, great, sounds good.
For single player online and using these skills on NPCs, and having them use those skills on you, great, sounds good.
For friends play online, and using these skills both on PCs and NPCs, and having both of them use those skills on you, great, sounds good, (they're your friends, after all.)
For open play online mode, and using these skills on NPCs ONLY, and having them use those skills on you, great, sounds good.

Now, as far as having this in OPO with consensual PVP enabled, there's potentially some economic problems with this idea.

In particular, if you get more resources (at all, in any way) from killing players, versus killing NPCs, and you can kill both at the same rate, then players becomes the most economically viable method of acquiring resources. This has a number of potentially negative consequences, many of which have been explored and demonstrated between 1997 and today in a number of titles.

However, if you get the same amount of resources from killing NPCs as PCs, then I see no issue, strictly from an economic balance perspective.

As far as the inspection skill goes, it's just a minor speedbump. It'll be macro'd to max, and you can presume every PvPer will have it at max as part of their build, to ensure they miss nothing, and obtain the most resources.

To give you an example, let's say if you kill an Orc or other NPC humanoid, you get a broken piece of armor, one, per kill, guaranteed. You can repair and/or salvage that item for resources. Let's say, to keep it simple, you get 1 resource from each NPC humanoid you kill, and it takes you 2 minutes to kill that Orc. In 10 minutes, you collect five resources.

Now, let's say you get 5 resources from every PC you kill, with maxxed inspection skill. That's probably low, given the number of armor and equipment slots, reagents required, etc, but let's say five. So, if you can kill one player per 10 minutes, you still obtain the same amount of resources. If you kill even two players in the same time period, you've obtained 10 resources instead of 5.
Such mechanics, as an economic attractor, prove too effective. There becomes less incentive to hunt NPCs, because PCs are so valuable as resource sources. How is that bad, you ask?

If the goal is to encourage players to participate in OPO-PVP, this seems like it would be fraught with peril. Players would primarily be treated as resource taps/sources, rather than strategic opponents from a combat perspective. As such, the barrier to entry into PvP would be higher, not lower, and as has been demonstrated by many other titles since 1997, your playing PvP customer concurrency numbers would dramatically suffer.

As far as I've seen, all of these full loot discussions boil down to one question for the aggressor/predator: Is your goal to remove your opponent from meaningful strategic combat, or treat them as a resource tap/source? Removing an opponent from meaningful strategic combat does not require full loot. There are a variety of other mechanics, like temporary banishment, that accomplish this without involving loot at all. Treating them as a resource tap means that's the primary reason for the mechanic.
And to those that would glibly respond "Both!": Unfortunately, history has demonstrated that you can make that claim, but in practice, it's only the loot that matters, when it's available.

Of course, this presumes PvP in SotA will actually be meaningful strategic combat, a feature which has yet to be confirmed or enumerated in any level of detail.

 

Exactly how I feel. Only what if you kill the thief? It would be nice to be able to take all their loot. I would be miffed about someone trying to kill me and I win, then after I didn’t voluntarily risk all my stuff, but the person that did, wasn’t at risk of losing much after the attack… Wouldn’t make me happy. Hence I am for full loot with heavy consequences for Murderers.

But my objective in this post was to make a compromise between those who say NO loot, and those that say FULL loot. I think both side would be slightly disappointed but happy that they at least partly got what they wanted.

At the same time I don’t believe the team has made any decision in either way… so it could still go completely one way or the other.

From what the teams descibed, anyone that does not take the "safe" paths of the storyline will be voneteering for PvP. I hope they keep that.

I absolutly HATE the ******** games that are out there and allow a player to click a button to opt out of PvP but they can travel any where they want. They get all the rewards of being non-PvP with out the risk. As they decribed it... stay in PvE areas and no rewards past the storyline, but go in PvP areas and have a chance at rewards outside the storyline but also the risks.... I am happy with.

But yes... best option is open loot. I hope the monsters can loot you like in UO... was an interesting thing to come across a orc with an battle axe and a "fine dress" in his loot.

Your concerns would be valid in a game where PvP with our consiquences existed. However after speaking
with RG, if you murder someone, you will suffer consequences. That kind of changes most of the assumptions in you post. With that said, I wont address your other areas of concern as your opinion may be different with these facts and my address of those concerns may be void and futile.

 

Do those consequences prevent aggressors from killing and looting other players flagged for OPO-PvP?
If not, I think my logic holds up.

 

Sincerely, I don't think a compromise can be reached. In my own case, for example, if you tweak some PvP game or game mode that I currently enjoy and add a 0.1% chance that someone will be able to loot me, I will simply stop playing. If not at first, then the first time I lose something to player looting.

The only "compromises" I might accept are gear destruction that is NOT under the killer's control; or else a system like what GW2 uses for WvW, where killed players are treated as monsters and drop random loot from a loot table, while their inventory and gold are perfectly safe. Both of those are complete subversion of the concept of player looting, though.

 

So you would be fine if I smashed a Uber breastplate off your body that took you a year to get. So long as I didn't get it once you died. You would forfeit an item that would be lost forever instead of someone else having it or you having a friend loot you and get it back?

 

This is the childish attitude that ruins games.

 

The whole "if everything doesn't go my way, I quit" attitude is the same attitude my four year old cousin has about hide and seek..

Why not, instead of quitting, you just get better at the game? Or don't wear the best pve armor you have into a pvp area?

Aka.. Being logical? Maybe?

 

What is the point in labeling his opinion as childish? Some people don't want any risk, and that doesn't make them childish (ofc, if you willingly join full loot open PvP Hide and Seek, then you should be ready for the possibility of failure). It makes them part of a majority of players who don't like being abused by harder-core players. I'm all for the option to engage in open, full loot PvP, but I'm also of the belief that players should be allowed to play the game on their own terms. If someone doesn't want to practice mage combat extensively to own people in PvP, then they shouldn't have to, and if they want to be the very best (like no one ever was), then there should be a slider option that provides that opportunity, and if they want to reference pokemon, then that's fine too.

EDIT: Damnit I wrote this whole comment and then you outsmarted me with a double post! Now I have to rewrite everything.

 

Explained in my last post.
It's not the fact that he doesn't want to PvP or be looted that makes the comment childish.. It's the "if I get looted ill quit the game" (if i dont get my way, ill quit) part.

...come on.

 

Being that it is a proven method in other games(UO for one). Yes it does.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. It doesnt seem like he will last too long in the game if at any moment he doesnt get his way, he will uninstall. :/ Sad.

 

Don't get me wrong, @mordecai! I fully understand where you're coming from. I'm not disagreeing with you at all.

 

I think a lot of people would be upset if they spent a year to get an item and someone managed to kill them and get the benefits of that item without any time invested. So yes, they would rather the item be destroyed than have someone else gain the benefits of it without the work.

That being said, since the best gear would be crafted, if it took a year to get then you still have that year worth of effort, you just need to go re-craft it. The only sticky part might be the craft items, which should NOT be a year-long event to obtain. The skill, recipe, and knowledge gained would still exist.

More and more I'm coming to see why Open PvP with Full Loot might not be bad in SotA, as long as it is kept out of the main story progression areas (and main cities). Still waiting to see an implementation, however, before deciding on that path.

 

Also, explain to me the difference in your armor getting destroyed( and you dying and NOT quitting)

and.. You dying, someone looting your armor, and THEN you quit?

 

Ok, I wasn't sure on your exact meaning. Thanks for clarifying As far as the Respected Fellow Player (I typed that out; no it isn't a filter) goes, I think that most PvE advocates are of a similar opinion, and giving them a non-PvP option seems to take care of everything.

 

Loot dropping only makes sense in a game with perma death. If you come back to life, you should keep your cloths.

I'd be open to the idea of some kind of gathering minigame where you gather stuff and run but may drop what you gathered if you couldn't get away. But again, this is a really limited thing.

 

Explain how it only makes sense w perma death?

 

Nope. A game is meant to be fun, and merely considering the possibility of someone stealing from me, or looting me, frustrates me enough to cancel any fun I could have with the game. And if I'm not having fun, there is no point in actually playing.

In other words, it's not a tantrum. It's a fact statement. A game with player looting is not worth my play time.

The fact the other player gets the items. Depending on how much effort is needed to re-equip I might be OK with complete inventory destruction on death, but I will never be OK with being looted or stolen from.