Most of what you put in here [Note: Responding to a post suggesting making spells in spell books lootable in EQ] will not make anyone respect death, it will just make the PKers more motivated to be better at killing than the average player.
And that WILL happen. By the simple expedient that the PKer a) is prepared for it, b) practices all the time, c) intentionally pick targets that they out-level, out-number, etc.
Once that happens, then of course you will have made PKing extremely profitable by allowing the looting of spells and such. WHAM, that's a recipe for instantaneous massive PK. You are creating a uo-like situation where the most profitable thing to do is kill other players.
There's no way that will work to cut down anything. You CANNOT get a player who wins more than he loses to "respect" death. What's to respect? They respect it as a cash generator.
I originally came from a game environment (Neverwinter Nights) that was pretty different from this one (turn based, etc.), but which had a system that was perfectly balanced. Somehow that happened by 75% luck, but it happened. What was done there is not fully applicable to EQ, and would also require some fundamental changes in the EQ concepts, which I don't believe will happen. Also, there were some things about that old system that were more limiting than this new stuff. But the bottom line is that it worked and worked damn well.
I'm going to describe it below so that everyone else can check it out, and think about why it worked and how some customized or altered version of it might work in EQ. These are just the broad parameters that affected who pvped and when, not the elements of actual combat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) PVP was geographically limited.
Until you got into the serious leveling area where no newbie could survive, you just weren't allowed to fight other players. This older game was separated into "zones" just like EQ, and there were simply PVP zones, and non-pvp zones.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) No looting at all was implemented
The enemy could not take valuable and hard-won items from you. Thus you were a) free to wear your best equipment for maximum effectiveness rather than hiding it, and b) free to PVP as much as you liked, working on skill, technique, and strategies without needing to worry about losing your stuff or pissing off someone else in a huge way for taking their stuff.
It also made PVP less heart-pounding than in EQ, which is bad, and less rewarding for the winner than in EQ, which is bad. I’d say that if we took away the item snatching, but left it so that any cash on-hand was taken, it would be a nice compromise. Also maybe flag cash-like items as lootable, even if they were in a bag. Like ore and gemstones, etc. Anything but equipable items, basically. Keep it to one. This keeps things interesting, but takes out the “DAMNIT! I SPENT 15 HOURS GETTING THAT XXX ITEM!”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) On death you stood a chance of randomly losing any UNEQUPPED item (there were no bags)
There was some minor risk and inconvenience to death, making it a real event. But basically your most valuable stuff was either equipped or banked. I like the adapted change to #2 above better than implementing this. However, it did take all profit motive out of PVP while still making players not want to die. This would have a big chilling effect on Pking.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4) No experience loss was implemented in PVP or PVE.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. I guess there’s a place for experience loss to make the game more involving, although it is annoying as hell. It’s just not very related to the faction/pk issues. But I would say in general that EQ’s exp loss in PVE is somewhat a single-player mentality measure. It again puts things in the perspective of “how do we keep them playing against the computer forever?” A question to which I would say there is no good answer. The main purpose of the PVE portion of the game (to me) is to prepare the player to be a good PVP/RP/CHAT/etc. player. Exp loss coupled with LOOONG max times do more harm than good, I think… but I don’t feel SUPER strongly on that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5) On death, you respawned at the start of the zone.
This cut down on Pking cycles by forcing a time-lag before you could get back into the fray. There was no game mechanic that STOPPED it, though, and it did happen. The difference is that in Neverwinter, a gaming community that frowned on “re-entering” as it was called took shape. You could do it, but you were often killed for it by everyone else in the battle, and you got zero respect for any kills based on that. It was still a fun part of the game to do it occasionally, but it was done mostly within an amusing rather than abusive context.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Players harassing other players were addressed by staff
There was a pretty loose definition of “harassment” such that people weren’t constantly whining like “I was killed twice by the same guy in a half hour! That’s harassment!”. But when it got out of hand, it was addressed, and the harassing player was warned.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All I have time for for now.
Regards,
Hedron
The False Prophet
KAAOS
|