Pathfinder Online: Help Determine the Future of Shrine Camping

SBFord

Goblinworks' CEO Ryan Dancey has taken to the Pathfinder Online forum to ask players for assistance regarding the issue of shrine camping. In his brief post, Dancey indicates that there are legitimate reasons that shrine camping is acceptable, but realizes that it can also cause issues even in a PvP-centric game world.

It has come to my attention that some players have decided that camping shrines and repeatedly killing respawning characters is acceptable.



There are times when I would agree - open PvP windows in hexes for example. Or when trying to hurt a character that has tresspassed or is misbehaving enough to induce that player to desist or leave. But that is a very arbitrary line that a rule cannot be written that will not be abusable.



I would prefer not to issue a blanket rule against shrine camping. Help me not do that by suggesting a policy that would preserve the strategy without enabling the greif [sic].

What do you think of the issue of shrine camping? First swing by the Pathfinder Online forum to check out the discussion and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks again, Anonymous Tipster!

Ikeda

At least this proves what *##$(!# people can be if you don't give them rules... They used to do this in UO... hated it.  Hated it back then, still hate it now.  Why?  Because 90% of people are cool but the 10% are douches.

Slapshot1188

Pure griefing with no excuse.

 

Amazing that a CEO thinks there are good reasons to spawn camp.  No wonder the game population is so low.

 

TheRabidsmurf

Cure it with shrine guardians that help those with shrine buff but the buff breaks at cast(not during) so it prevents guardian abuse. Or make shrines so plentiful that you have min 3-5 choices. Exploits being called a feature makes it hard to solve.

Dullahan

I really don't understand the complication here.

Binding systems have existed since the dawn of the mmorpg.  You simply allow players to bind to their personal city or a npc city.  If you die in a hex, you go to the nearest shrine.  If you die again at that shrine within a certain time frame, it sends you to home bind point.

Problem solved, free of charge.

Warlyx

inmunity around shrine like aion , however the inmunity is only triggered after death , so ppl cant run to shrines seeking protection

Gadareth

Make shrines a sanctory any and all people who reach a shrine are given a x amount of time PVE flag which means the cannot be attacked nor can they attack. Make the time so its long enough for them to at least make an attempt to get clear or prepare themselves for onslaught.

Elthium

What else did he expect? That people would play nice?

 

He must live in a parallel world.

iixviiiix

Originally posted by Skuall
inmunity around shrine like aion , however the inmunity is only triggered after death , so ppl cant run to shrines seeking protection

It not good "after death". It would be better using "karma" , people who have karma (who go around pk other) don't get protection while people who still innocent get the protect .

Gadareth idea also good , you pay for the shrine to get the protection more level you have , more gold you need to pay . And make sure player can only pay if they don't have any karma.

 

 

Rynthjan

Set a radius around the shrine. Anyone who walks up to it (not respawns there) gets a up pop, where he has to click attacker or defender before he can enter the shrine area. If he clicks attacker he can attack anyone he wants/camp the shrine and gets an attacker marker over his head. If he clicks defender he starts a timer for defending the shrine (10 minutes or something) and can only attack someone with an attacker marker. He gets a small reward for guarding the shrine for the duration plus bounties for any attackers he kills. Walking out and back in lets him restart the timer. Provides a nice incentive for guarding shrines and a reason to hang out in a spot and socialize and still get a small reward if no attackers appear.

Exzyz

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Pure griefing with no excuse.

 

Amazing that a CEO thinks there are good reasons to spawn camp.  No wonder the game population is so low.

 

Game population being low can't have anything to do with the gaming being in alpha?

I do agree that something needs to be changed to stop spawn camping.

 

SpottyGekko

I don't believe there's any possible solution that will satisfy Rian's needs.

 

The people that want to abuse spawn camping will do so, unless the rules simply make it impossible to spawn camp. Those people are not going to "play nice".

 

Rian wants a system where it is still possible to "punish" a player for misdeeds (i.e. to spawn camp that player until they stop or leave the area), but the punishment mechanics must not be abuseable. Good luck with that.

 

The core problem here is that both misdeeds and punishment are value judgements, and will not be defined the same way by all players and in all circumstances. That is why those mechanics can be abused. In RL, people that disrupt a community are either locked-up or killed. In a game, there is no mechanism that will permanently remove disruptive influences, specially if that game is F2P.

itchmon

I think that there should be in-client limitations to spawn camping, griefing keeps regular players off and griefers in when it should be the opposite.

Bluddwolf

What PFO really needs is an upsurge of population, specifically true hard core pvpers, and show them what true ganking and griefing looks like.

If you look at the boards of Albion Online, I can only imagine what 50 players from that game would bring to PFO.

Ozmodan

It is no wonder the game is failing if the devs can't figure this out by themselves, there are plenty of past examples how other studios have fixed this.   They want a pvp game yet they can't figure out a ruleset that players can accept.  They should either find someone that understands how games like this work or just throw in the towel because they seem incapable of doing it themselves.

To the above poster, the people at Albion Online are worse than these developers, another bunch of clueless devs trying to make a pvp game.  There is not much either game will survive.