What Heron missed is we werent tlkaing about simply 'running into that player again' we were tlkaing about hunting.. maliciously... lol..
pvping low lvls isnt harasment.. harasment is camping their bind point.. lol.. or killing them.. letting them respawn.. and hunting them down again.. come on now heron.. u know what this means..
PKs and Level Restrictions
Isn't one key to the problem that the city defender NPCs are worth lots of XPs?
So basically you encourage players at certain levels to raid the cities for lots of XPs. AND certain player types WILL kill everything in sight regardless of level. I have seen such players camp out in city areas for over an hour. BUT perhaps their motivation is the respawning NPC defender XPs more than griefing.
Possible solution:
Set NOOB respawns in smaller villages where defenders are tough but not worth much in XPs. Or maybe even set negative XPs on those NPCs to REALLY discourage raids (simulates cost of conquest is more than worth).
Have regional capitals more oriented toward higher level characters and their adventure areas and put the NPC defender XPs there.
So basically you encourage players at certain levels to raid the cities for lots of XPs. AND certain player types WILL kill everything in sight regardless of level. I have seen such players camp out in city areas for over an hour. BUT perhaps their motivation is the respawning NPC defender XPs more than griefing.
Possible solution:
Set NOOB respawns in smaller villages where defenders are tough but not worth much in XPs. Or maybe even set negative XPs on those NPCs to REALLY discourage raids (simulates cost of conquest is more than worth).
Have regional capitals more oriented toward higher level characters and their adventure areas and put the NPC defender XPs there.
A solution to this is to simply make the areas where the rifts are non-pvp. This would work in some areas, but not others (or some changes could be made to make it work. Primarily, you'd need to make sure that rifts were in buildings in a factions stronghold and not in a larger area where PVP could/should legitimately occur.
Maybe this has been discussed before (haven't been reading the forums for a long time), but it seems to me at a minimum that the "nuetral" areas should be non-pvp, double so for neutral areas with rifts. There is no legitimate reason for someone to need to attack someone in the Hightop Inn in Avendale for example. How about the Inn in Black Hills? You can bind there. What if someone decides to come along and kill you over and over? You should be "safe" in those locations.
Simply move all rifts into buildings that contain *nothing* but the rift, with no NPCs of worth to kill, and the problem just goes away. It becomes very hard for someone to grief you or bind-camp you. You can find a way out if you need to.
Just a thought.
Maybe this has been discussed before (haven't been reading the forums for a long time), but it seems to me at a minimum that the "nuetral" areas should be non-pvp, double so for neutral areas with rifts. There is no legitimate reason for someone to need to attack someone in the Hightop Inn in Avendale for example. How about the Inn in Black Hills? You can bind there. What if someone decides to come along and kill you over and over? You should be "safe" in those locations.
Simply move all rifts into buildings that contain *nothing* but the rift, with no NPCs of worth to kill, and the problem just goes away. It becomes very hard for someone to grief you or bind-camp you. You can find a way out if you need to.
Just a thought.
You have a point but also over-optimism.
You usually don't get killed by people sitting on the actual respawn points. In fact hunting player respawns is only a bit of sport on the side for these folk. They are in town to hunt NPC city defenders for XPs. Cities as currently defined are rich, dense hunting grounds for 12-17 level characters as well as NOOB respawn area and main shopping area.
It is when you leave the small respawn room or the building area to go out into town that you run into raiders who kill you on sight. Area of effect spells can kill even in non-PvP areas and are often used in twon assaults.
At best simply setting non-PvP at the center of town just moves the player problem to the exit to the next area out -- should raider decide to camp for a bit of sport. True if you stay in town you avoid PK by a player or parties you have no chance against -- but you can't really earn XPs or play the game either.
Solution: Wide separation of opportunities for XPs for high level characters from most low-level areas and travel routes. Few high level characters are going to spend much time in areas where there isn't much chance for gaining XPs. NOOB respawn grounds should be in out of the way villages on the route to nowhere important with tough defenders who aren't worth XP/gold squat to higher level characters. The defenders need to be tough enough to control NOOB parties and fend off monsters who follow NOOBs back to town.
You usually don't get killed by people sitting on the actual respawn points. In fact hunting player respawns is only a bit of sport on the side for these folk. They are in town to hunt NPC city defenders for XPs. Cities as currently defined are rich, dense hunting grounds for 12-17 level characters as well as NOOB respawn area and main shopping area.
It is when you leave the small respawn room or the building area to go out into town that you run into raiders who kill you on sight. Area of effect spells can kill even in non-PvP areas and are often used in twon assaults.
At best simply setting non-PvP at the center of town just moves the player problem to the exit to the next area out -- should raider decide to camp for a bit of sport. True if you stay in town you avoid PK by a player or parties you have no chance against -- but you can't really earn XPs or play the game either.
Solution: Wide separation of opportunities for XPs for high level characters from most low-level areas and travel routes. Few high level characters are going to spend much time in areas where there isn't much chance for gaining XPs. NOOB respawn grounds should be in out of the way villages on the route to nowhere important with tough defenders who aren't worth XP/gold squat to higher level characters. The defenders need to be tough enough to control NOOB parties and fend off monsters who follow NOOBs back to town.
If it isn't clear, I meant that the farther the respawn point from where a higher level character can earn decent experience points the less likely they are to visit and camp out.
A minimum buffer thickness of 4-5 areas that are "XP dead to higher levels than the city design" is probably required around each lower level town. The current generally wild and wooly areas would then lie between these cities buffer zones. Mostly we have this now except there is tasty XP rich center in the from of the city and area defenders.
Not every respawn point needs to be totally safe, just the initial NOOB respawn points and one appropriate to every player level in each faction. But even for unprotected respawn points, there shouldn't be any incentive for lingering or frequent visits. So a vacant area like Grey Shores might not 100% safe but the chances of enemies camping out for hours at a time is reason small.
Ideally higher levels will also have complete shopping facilities elsewhere to encourage them to always bind elsewhere. As I undestand that is true in some cases for some factions...but not yet always.
Nor should any desirable routes pass through or near the default NOOB respawn area. So really each city/village probably should only provide support appropriate to a range of 6-7 levels and then be surrounded by layers or rings of areas only yielding good XPs for 3-4 levels. So each faction would have at least 3 cities/villages to divide up the character range between 1-20 for more balanced play. The upper level characters in each city would have to work the areas between their current cities and the next for XPs. The lower level cities might somehow be more closely matched for lower level faction vs faction conflict.
A minimum buffer thickness of 4-5 areas that are "XP dead to higher levels than the city design" is probably required around each lower level town. The current generally wild and wooly areas would then lie between these cities buffer zones. Mostly we have this now except there is tasty XP rich center in the from of the city and area defenders.
Not every respawn point needs to be totally safe, just the initial NOOB respawn points and one appropriate to every player level in each faction. But even for unprotected respawn points, there shouldn't be any incentive for lingering or frequent visits. So a vacant area like Grey Shores might not 100% safe but the chances of enemies camping out for hours at a time is reason small.
Ideally higher levels will also have complete shopping facilities elsewhere to encourage them to always bind elsewhere. As I undestand that is true in some cases for some factions...but not yet always.
Nor should any desirable routes pass through or near the default NOOB respawn area. So really each city/village probably should only provide support appropriate to a range of 6-7 levels and then be surrounded by layers or rings of areas only yielding good XPs for 3-4 levels. So each faction would have at least 3 cities/villages to divide up the character range between 1-20 for more balanced play. The upper level characters in each city would have to work the areas between their current cities and the next for XPs. The lower level cities might somehow be more closely matched for lower level faction vs faction conflict.
Hmmm... That'll probably eat up too much territory though, and probably wont help much anyway. To be perfectly honest, I've yet to run into anyone who just randomly attacked someone because they were an enemy faction. I know this may change as we move through beta, but this seems to have held true in most areas.
I kinda see it the other way around. I don't have a problem with conflicts occuring in cities. After all, part of the point is to raid your enemy's cities. Allowing PvP in the cities and "target" buildings (where the named NPCs are that drop stuff) seems natural. You want the players to be able to defend their turf, right?
The areas in between really should not be hotbeds of PvP action, and so far haven't been. Most people just kinda pass eachother and say hello while continuing on their way. Honestly, how much effort has anyone put into killing people out in the middle of no where? Also, it's kinda hard to "grief" that way since we're talking about semi-random encounters anyway. If I travel 4 zones away from my bind spot and someone PKs me, I'll just head a different direction to hunt when I respawn. No biggie. Heck. It probably quickened my travel back to somewhere I can sell stuff.
I think the goal is to allow PvP in cities but make it so that people can avoid it if they want (at least making it so someone has to go out of their way to kill them). Putting rifts in small buildings in each city, with non-pvp set there allows folks to at least respawn safely. Placing those buildings in areas close to exits to the town, while not terribly close to major targets for enemy factions would help as well, but is not totally necessary. I was playing a young drow last week, and someone was smaking the guards around. This was happening right outside the respawn building (Legion Barracks). While I suppose that person could have stopped to kill me, she didn't Why bother? Not that I hung around though, and certainly if I'd stopped to help the guards (such as my level 4 guy could!), I would have deserved any smackdown that came my way. As it happened, I just went the other way and stayed clear of the conflict and never had any problems.
I'm just of the opinion that we should allow PvP as much as possible, with policing only in the worst occasions. However, I think making the respawn points both non-targets and non-pvp will at least allow someone the opportunity to avoid PvP if they want to. If someone camps your bind spot, you have no choice in the matter at all. You can't chose to invis past, or run the other way. You're just stuck until the other person gets bored of killing you. We can't assume DMs will be on at all times to police that kind of grief, and IMO, that's the only PvP griefing that's *really* bad. I can work around anything else just by going somewhere else...
I kinda see it the other way around. I don't have a problem with conflicts occuring in cities. After all, part of the point is to raid your enemy's cities. Allowing PvP in the cities and "target" buildings (where the named NPCs are that drop stuff) seems natural. You want the players to be able to defend their turf, right?
The areas in between really should not be hotbeds of PvP action, and so far haven't been. Most people just kinda pass eachother and say hello while continuing on their way. Honestly, how much effort has anyone put into killing people out in the middle of no where? Also, it's kinda hard to "grief" that way since we're talking about semi-random encounters anyway. If I travel 4 zones away from my bind spot and someone PKs me, I'll just head a different direction to hunt when I respawn. No biggie. Heck. It probably quickened my travel back to somewhere I can sell stuff.
I think the goal is to allow PvP in cities but make it so that people can avoid it if they want (at least making it so someone has to go out of their way to kill them). Putting rifts in small buildings in each city, with non-pvp set there allows folks to at least respawn safely. Placing those buildings in areas close to exits to the town, while not terribly close to major targets for enemy factions would help as well, but is not totally necessary. I was playing a young drow last week, and someone was smaking the guards around. This was happening right outside the respawn building (Legion Barracks). While I suppose that person could have stopped to kill me, she didn't Why bother? Not that I hung around though, and certainly if I'd stopped to help the guards (such as my level 4 guy could!), I would have deserved any smackdown that came my way. As it happened, I just went the other way and stayed clear of the conflict and never had any problems.
I'm just of the opinion that we should allow PvP as much as possible, with policing only in the worst occasions. However, I think making the respawn points both non-targets and non-pvp will at least allow someone the opportunity to avoid PvP if they want to. If someone camps your bind spot, you have no choice in the matter at all. You can't chose to invis past, or run the other way. You're just stuck until the other person gets bored of killing you. We can't assume DMs will be on at all times to police that kind of grief, and IMO, that's the only PvP griefing that's *really* bad. I can work around anything else just by going somewhere else...
Eat up territory? The land is all virtual and takes little hard drive space.
But what percentage of the time do you see serious player defense of cities though?
High levels generally aren't respawning in cities being raided, only NOOBs. Nor do many high levels regularly visit their own cities except a few to craft. And NOOBs don't stand much of a chance conducting a raid themselves.
I've seen dozens of city raids but only about 4 times when players fought the invaders. And 3 of those times it was NOOBs who didn't have enough sense to run. And the higher level types proceeded to complain bitterly about the NOOBs attacking them while involved with mobs of NPC guards. Maybe that is a valid point of view if you are playing NC and trial by single combat concepts.
I agree the city defense scenario is a great idea. BUT only where the clashing levels are similar. I know many people have a problem with that idea because they would constantly be at risk of meeting their match and for no XPs.
My experience has been that city or out of town makes no difference. If not involved in a fight already about 30% of the opposite faction will take a swipe at you if they are higher level and you don't run quickly enough. That is to say most will continue whatever they were doing if you don't provoke and the remainder won't waste much time chasing you. But hesitate or get cause in open ground and that 30% will take you down. OKies seem to be the worst about that.
But what percentage of the time do you see serious player defense of cities though?
High levels generally aren't respawning in cities being raided, only NOOBs. Nor do many high levels regularly visit their own cities except a few to craft. And NOOBs don't stand much of a chance conducting a raid themselves.
I've seen dozens of city raids but only about 4 times when players fought the invaders. And 3 of those times it was NOOBs who didn't have enough sense to run. And the higher level types proceeded to complain bitterly about the NOOBs attacking them while involved with mobs of NPC guards. Maybe that is a valid point of view if you are playing NC and trial by single combat concepts.
I agree the city defense scenario is a great idea. BUT only where the clashing levels are similar. I know many people have a problem with that idea because they would constantly be at risk of meeting their match and for no XPs.
My experience has been that city or out of town makes no difference. If not involved in a fight already about 30% of the opposite faction will take a swipe at you if they are higher level and you don't run quickly enough. That is to say most will continue whatever they were doing if you don't provoke and the remainder won't waste much time chasing you. But hesitate or get cause in open ground and that 30% will take you down. OKies seem to be the worst about that.
Last edited by Mortree on Sat Jun 19, 2004 5:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have player defense of NOOB oriented towns, mid-range (8-14 level) towns, and high level cities?
Places where the level differences of respawn (most likely player defender) and raiders is not so great?
Places where the highest level type is less likely to hold a serious grudge over XP loss when players join the NPC mob in town defense? (Because the XP amount at risk for a 7th level vs 3rd levle player is not quite so different as 14th level versus 3rd.)
Still there will always be a few players for which the real issue is control of server usage and who feel having a high level character gives them absolute right of way.
Places where the level differences of respawn (most likely player defender) and raiders is not so great?
Places where the highest level type is less likely to hold a serious grudge over XP loss when players join the NPC mob in town defense? (Because the XP amount at risk for a 7th level vs 3rd levle player is not quite so different as 14th level versus 3rd.)
Still there will always be a few players for which the real issue is control of server usage and who feel having a high level character gives them absolute right of way.
It's not about hard drive space. It's about cpu cycles and memory. How many factions are there? Each one has a starting city. You called for 4-5 zones around each starting city that were buffers where no-pvp could be done. Um... that's setting aside virtual real estate that's larger then a lot of total mods out there!Mortree wrote:Eat up territory? The land is all virtual and takes little hard drive space.
One of the whole points to this mod is the factions and the fact that they are in opposition to eachother. This concept allowed the Devs to incorporate a lot of things that were already there in NS3 and transplant them into NS4. Boss mobs that folks used to raid are now "leaders" of various factions. If you take away the ability to raid them, you've reduced the number of places people can go in the game at various levels. You have to add that somewhere else. Allowing PvP in starting cities kills two birds with one stone (and after all, part of the point is conflict between factions. It would be silly if you couldn't actually fight the other faction, right?).
The mod is not focused on PvP, but PvP is allowed. It's more of a realistic flavor that's been added then a primary focus. You're supposed to be targeting the other guys faction. And if he wants to defend that faction, he can. Or not. As he chooses.
You are correct that pretty much no one hangs around their home cities. But I think that a lot of people see that as a flaw already though. There's been lots of calls for giving players reasons to need to travel back to their home cities. Right now, there are none. The starting cities have the most limited gear and trade, so everyone moves away from them and never comes back. But if the Devs do implement faction/race based tradeskills, gear, and quests, you'll see a lot more higher level people traveling back to their faction's headquarters. And when that happens, and someone is trying to raid that area, you will see conflict occur.
It's a matter for the Devs to decide. If they want to just leave the starting cities as a place for newbs to start their characters in saftey with no threats to them, then your suggestion works just fine. If they intend to eventualy make people have reasons to travel to their home cities often, then they most definiately do *not* want to make them safe buffer areas for new characters.
Remember. We've got only about 1/2 the tradeskill stuff in the game, less then 1/5th of the job stuff in the game, and pretty much none of the quest stuff implemented yet. It could end up being a very different game in 6 months then it is today.
Personally. I really do hope they go the route of encouraging higher level characters to need to operate out of their home cities to some extent. I personally don't find random fighting in zones for no reason other then the other guy shows up in red to be particularly enjoyable. The key that will make faction fighting "fun" to me is the home cities. Otherwise, it's just random PvP...
Wakboth wrote:It's not about hard drive space. It's about cpu cycles and memory. How many factions are there? Each one has a starting city. You called for 4-5 zones around each starting city that were buffers where no-pvp could be done. Um... that's setting aside virtual real estate that's larger then a lot of total mods out there!
Not to mention protected zones suck. Lame players exploit that stuff like crazy. Doing hostile things without repercussions just isn't fair.
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Dorian_ertymexx
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Cheers, RumblingSky, for your entry. Well said.
The most common, and silly, excuse against PK-limitations (there is a good suggestion for rules on this forum, I cannot recall the name of the entry) is that it is not realistic.
But if realism is God, then why do the invaders of a city even leave? Stay at a bindpoint, kill all that come through and settle in the city. After all, war is not about pointless massacre, it is about economical or political gain. Terrotorial gain is both. So logic dictates that bindpoint-camping should be a rule, not a gamer-crime, and one that gives lots of prestige.
It would also make for a heck of a boring game.
I will look up the title of the suggested rules pronto. They would indeed make PK-ing more fair.
The most common, and silly, excuse against PK-limitations (there is a good suggestion for rules on this forum, I cannot recall the name of the entry) is that it is not realistic.
But if realism is God, then why do the invaders of a city even leave? Stay at a bindpoint, kill all that come through and settle in the city. After all, war is not about pointless massacre, it is about economical or political gain. Terrotorial gain is both. So logic dictates that bindpoint-camping should be a rule, not a gamer-crime, and one that gives lots of prestige.
It would also make for a heck of a boring game.
I will look up the title of the suggested rules pronto. They would indeed make PK-ing more fair.
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Mad_Bovine
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- Joined: Sun Jun 27, 2004 4:03 pm
Personally, I see the whole PvP thing as unbalanced to a degree. Even when someone is greifing, the other high levels don't try and help out the newbie, because there is nothing in it for them. What I would like to see to help correct this would be that if you PK someone from a different faction inside your own faction's stronghold you get XP for it. Take for example, a level 20 raids AO. He has no problem wtih the guards and any random newbs/lowbies that happen to be in SLeeth at the time. One of the lowbies shouts out that there is someone raiding Sleeth. Suddenly, the higher levels that are AO take an interest, since if they kill that level 20 they will xp equal to killing, say a CR 30 monster. This would actually encourage faction play in three ways.
1. Lowbies/Newbies can actually help out in the defense of their home by letting the high levels that might not be at home know that a raid is going on.
2. High levels would actually want to go back to their strongholds every now and then for the chance to get some good xp. Also the high levels will actually help to eliminate greifers by killing them and sending them back to their spawns.
3. There would suddenyl be a true risk to raiding another faction, you might get ganged up on by several high levels giving you a far worse chance of suceeding.
Just my thoughts.
1. Lowbies/Newbies can actually help out in the defense of their home by letting the high levels that might not be at home know that a raid is going on.
2. High levels would actually want to go back to their strongholds every now and then for the chance to get some good xp. Also the high levels will actually help to eliminate greifers by killing them and sending them back to their spawns.
3. There would suddenyl be a true risk to raiding another faction, you might get ganged up on by several high levels giving you a far worse chance of suceeding.
Just my thoughts.
Think you are lazy?
I once coded a 1300+ line library in C++ to avoid having to write 200 lines of code.
Bringing laziness to a whole new level
I once coded a 1300+ line library in C++ to avoid having to write 200 lines of code.
Bringing laziness to a whole new level
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EvanFallen
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