Ashes "But I hate being ganked"

Nanfoodle

I have done a deep dove this week into the PvX in Ashes of Creation. Trying to get ready for Alpha 2. I had no idea how bad corruption system is till just  now. People who join this game for non-consensual PvP will be hurting very quickly. If you are a PvEer and like what you see in this game. Here is whats baked in to protect you. 

The corruption system comes into play, when a person does not want to PvP and someone decides to kill you anyways. Here is what happens to the corrupted player. 

1. Debuff that makes them easier to kill. The more they do this the more stacks of this debuff happens till a level 1 player could pawn them

2. When you willing PvP and you die, you do drop something called glint and a % of your gathering goods. When a corrupted player gets killed, they also drop gear and a greater % of glint and harvested mats. 

3. The above being said, when you are corrupted. You show up as a little red dot on the map that everyone can see. Everyone will be coming for your stuff.

4. When corrupted you can just log off to wait out the corruption. You need to earn exp or die at the hands of a players to remove corruption.
 
5. Corrupted players can not enter safe areas. They must stay in the wilds. 

6. There is skill lines you can progress that make it easier to find, kill and hunt corrupted players. Every player in the game can do this. 

7. There is a bounty system in the game that will reward you for taking out corrupted players. 

8. Corrupted players have all skills related to CC greyed out. They cant CC, snare, root or stun players once they are corrupted. 

EDIT from A2 patch notes Nov 7, 2024. 

9. When you become corrupted you will have a slower movement speed. 

10. New debuff what you attack someone flagged green (non combatant) called "Blight, after kill an non-combatant you will be blighted and gain stocks of corruption faster. 

PvP consensual events like Node wars, castle sieges and caravans will have the corruption system turns off. The game hinders at every turn for non-consensual PvP but rewards people for working together. People supporting each other will make the greatest gains and quickly over power anyone to plays to be a PKer. 

EDIT: Here is the flagging system to help you understand this better. You have 3 statuses 

1. Flagged Purple you are open to any PvP encounter, high risk you lose less on PvP death. You drop glint and you lose some crafting supplies on your person.

2. Flagged Green you wish not to PvP, You drop 2 x Glint and crafting supplies because you are low risk so you lose more on death. 

3. Flagged Red - you have been PKing and now your corrupted, killing a green makes your corrupted and you now drop gear when killed and 4 x more glint and crafting supplies on your person. You are also marked on the map for all to see with a red dot. You are debuffed for every player you kill this way and become easier and easier to kill.  Only way to remove corruption is to stay logged on and gain exp by killing mobs or getting killed by a player.  

You can switch from Green or Purple flagged at will out of combat. 

Dattelis

Nanfoodle said:

8. Corrupted players have all skills related to CC greyed out. They cant CC, snare, root or stun players once they are corrupted.

I doubt that would go live, but its an interesting idea. I think the most they'll end up doing by live is just making your CC not last as long or put a big cd on it.

I dont really care about any of that stuff since this game is notorious for 'subject to change.' No telling how much all of that stuff will change once Alpha 2 finally goes live and has some time into it.

Nanfoodle

Dattelis said:

Nanfoodle said:

8. Corrupted players have all skills related to CC greyed out. They cant CC, snare, root or stun players once they are corrupted.

I doubt that would go live, but its an interesting idea. I think the most they'll end up doing by live is just making your CC not last as long or put a big cd on it.

I dont really care about any of that stuff since this game is notorious for 'subject to change.' No telling how much all of that stuff will change once Alpha 2 finally goes live and has some time into it.

That's from Steven's mouth. Take that for what you will. I hope it all gets implemented. 

Brainy

You are not thinking like a PK.

Account 1 kills newbs doing PVE.

Account 2 kills Account 1 - Nothing lost.  Account 2 gets the bounty.  Thanks for the gold.  Rinse and repeat killing newbs and more bounties please.

Account 2 can be multibox, or just a friend.

As long as you allow corrupted players to remove it through death then this cycle will happen all day.   Keep in mind the player can gank a newb at the time of their choosing.

Quizzical

How well that will work depends tremendously on the details.  How many kills does it take to make you how much weaker?  How many deaths does it take for it to wear off?

Lots of games say that they'll have open PVP with penalties for ganking, but most of them end up being unplayable to pure PVE players.  The only MMORPG that I'm aware of off hand that didn't end up that way is Uncharted Waters Online.  In addition to the various penalties for piracy, it made it really hard for would-be pirates to catch and kill other players.  Among other things:

1)  The oceans are huge, so it's hard to find someone other than by camping at a port or following the routes botters use.

2)  A player who sees you coming can log off before you get there.  You can't stop on a dime, so you'll whiz past his position, then he can log back on a few minutes later and continue after you're gone.

3)  Even if you catch a player and initiate combat, both ships start the battle from a dead stop.  You can't initiate a battle if you're too close, and once a battle starts, if either player leaves the combat circle, the battle ends and you can't attack him again for several minutes.  Meanwhile, larger ships have slower acceleration.  Bring in a huge ship and attack a small ship and he'll zip away from you before you can catch him.  A pirate in a small ship is liable to lose in combat.

Those plus some other features meant that pirates mostly just went after botters.  Botters aren't paying attention and don't try to escape.

cheyane

Doesn't Uncharted Waters Online have a PvE server ? If it does that explains why it didn't fall into the same issues.

I will wait and see how the systems are circumvented during release to decide if I will play. Players always surprise developers with their creative ways.

Scot

Brainy said:

You are not thinking like a PK.

Account 1 kills newbs doing PVE.

Account 2 kills Account 1 - Nothing lost.  Account 2 gets the bounty.  Thanks for the gold.  Rinse and repeat killing newbs and more bounties please.

Account 2 can be multibox, or just a friend.

As long as you allow corrupted players to remove it through death then this cycle will happen all day.   Keep in mind the player can gank a newb at the time of their choosing.

This is a version of this is what I was going to post. Bottom line, no matter what system you use it is not going to be as copper bottomed as having separate zones for PvP. 

harken33

Nanfoodle said:

I have done a deep dove this week into the PvX in Ashes of Creation. Trying to get ready for Alpha 2. I had no idea how bad corruption system is till just  now. People who join this game for non-consensual PvP will be hurting very quickly. If you are a PvEer and like what you see in this game. Here is whats baked in to protect you. 

The corruption system comes into play, when a person does not want to PvP and someone decides to kill you anyways. Here is what happens to the corrupted player. 

1. Debuff that makes them easier to kill. The more they do this the more stacks of this debuff happens till a level 1 player could pawn them

2. When you willing PvP and you die, you do drop something called glint and a % of your gathering goods. When a corrupted player gets killed, they also drop gear and a greater % of glint and harvested mats. 

3. The above being said, when you are corrupted. You show up as a little red dot on the map that everyone can see. Everyone will be coming for your stuff.

4. When corrupted you can just log off to wait out the corruption. You need to earn exp or die at the hands of a players to remove corruption.
 
5. Corrupted players can not enter safe areas. They must stay in the wilds. 

6. There is skill lines you can progress that make it easier to find, kill and hunt corrupted players. Every player in the game can do this. 

7. There is a bounty system in the game that will reward you for taking out corrupted players. 

8. Corrupted players have all skills related to CC greyed out. They cant CC, snare, root or stun players once they are corrupted. 

PvP consensual events like Node wars, castle sieges and caravans will have the corruption system turns off. The game hinders at every turn for non-consensual PvP but rewards people for working together. People supporting each other will make the greatest gains and quickly over power anyone to plays to be a PKer. 

Thanks for posting all this @Nanfoodle , for those of us just following info on this site about Ashes.

I think Brainy is right though, whatever system they implement will be *gamed* and wont have the intended effect. Makes me think of the damn keep trading in Warhammer Online, forces trying to avoid each other to recapture empty keeps and get loot rolls / renown instead of having fun defending or taking occupied keeps.

Has there been a successful ganking deterrent in other PVP games in the last 2 decades?

Maybe these PVP games need to hire the biggest ganking POS they can find and have them review all their ideas to see how they could abuse them. Hmm  probably an idea for a consulting company there

Nanfoodle

I get people always find creative ways to play the way they want. Even if it goes outside the intended game play. Ashes will have something else we have not seen in a MMO for some time. Each server will have live GMs. People doing creative things to break intended game play will be delt with. I am sure as always like any game. This always ends up being a cat and mouse thing. 

Seeing the list of what is baked in, tells me. Pure PKers wont be the standard play. If PKs push that. Think how many people will build of skill lines to deal with them. #6 on the list above. Giving non PKers the advantage always. 

Kyleran

Good to see the Devs in Ashes are at least trying to put limits on ganking.  Will be interesting to see how it all works once testing gets more active.

Dattelis

Nanfoodle said:

I get people always find creative ways to play the way they want. Even if it goes outside the intended game play. Ashes will have something else we have not seen in a MMO for some time. Each server will have live GMs. People doing creative things to break intended game play will be delt with. I am sure as always like any game. This always ends up being a cat and mouse thing. 

Seeing the list of what is baked in, tells me. Pure PKers wont be the standard play. If PKs push that. Think how many people will build of skill lines to deal with them. #6 on the list above. Giving non PKers the advantage always. 

I think the best way to probably deal with it is to leave the debuff but not make it dispellable through death. Either have it wear off over time but you have to be online for the duration to tick down (so if its like 12hrs, your character has to be online for 12hrs), or have it dispellable through an item only sold from a particular npc that isn't tradeable and cost an egregious amount of currency.

As for Steven saying things, the guy has kind of said a lot over the timeline which either ended up getting alters/changed/removed etc. Remember, this game was supposed to come out in like 2021? Or something like that. Sure, the 'world ending' did hamper that, but my main issue of him saying that timeline was he didn't even have quest lines worked on at all when he gave that date, so it was obviously not going to happen. So I'll always take anything he says as 'subject to change.' Especially since I dont want to get burned again after being guilty of putting my faith in Pantheon only to see how its turning out now....

Nanfoodle

Kyleran said:

Good to see the Devs in Ashes are at least trying to put limits on ganking.  Will be interesting to see how it all works once testing gets more active.

I did learn a little more. Killing people does not just give you corruption, you earn stacks of corruption. It takes about an hour of grinding EXP to remove one stack. Getting killed by a player removes just one stack.  

Wargfoot

If you're going to go through all this effort to discourage ganking, then why bother to have it in the game?  It is weird to me to put in a feature, then spend months of development time to convince people not to use it.

*shrug*

Sure, give it another shot.

Tiller

I bet if they made a PvE flag to PvP server it would have most of the players on it and the gankers would start to complain about low numbers on their server and how PvEr carebear ruined the game because they have no easy targets to pick off.

Nanfoodle

Wargfoot said:

If you're going to go through all this effort to discourage ganking, then why bother to have it in the game?  It is weird to me to put in a feature, then spend months of development time to convince people not to use it.

*shrug*

Sure, give it another shot.

Its their risk vs reward system that touches every part of the game. PKing can get you some big rewards but has huge risks if you die to a play and drop gear and 4 x glint and crafting supplies. While PK you get 2 x glint and crafting supplies. You also are 4 x easier to kill if you kill someone and get corruption. 

olepi

Wargfoot said:

If you're going to go through all this effort to discourage ganking, then why bother to have it in the game?  It is weird to me to put in a feature, then spend months of development time to convince people not to use it.

*shrug*

Sure, give it another shot.

I think the reason to put ganking in the game is to satisfy those players who enjoy ruining the gameplay for others. If it was simply that players want to play against other players, then a PvP server or PvP zones does that. Many games have gone that route and have been very successful.

So why not go that route? Because ganking gives people a certain kind of pleasure, the domination of others who don't want to be dominated. It's not PvP they want, they don't get that domination pleasure from killing another player who also wants PvP.

So it's risk vs reward, where the reward only comes from dominating and ruining other player's game time. Of course if you have too much of that then other players simply won't play. 

What if the ganker was set to the level of the player they attack? Minus 10%. That way, gankers would be weaker than anyone they attack. 

Babuinix

Add a strong reputation system along with Jails

Nanfoodle

olepi said:

Wargfoot said:

If you're going to go through all this effort to discourage ganking, then why bother to have it in the game?  It is weird to me to put in a feature, then spend months of development time to convince people not to use it.

*shrug*

Sure, give it another shot.

I think the reason to put ganking in the game is to satisfy those players who enjoy ruining the gameplay for others. If it was simply that players want to play against other players, then a PvP server or PvP zones does that. Many games have gone that route and have been very successful.

So why not go that route? Because ganking gives people a certain kind of pleasure, the domination of others who don't want to be dominated. It's not PvP they want, they don't get that domination pleasure from killing another player who also wants PvP.

So it's risk vs reward, where the reward only comes from dominating and ruining other player's game time. Of course if you have too much of that then other players simply won't play. 

What if the ganker was set to the level of the player they attack? Minus 10%. That way, gankers would be weaker than anyone they attack. 

Also, revenge is a dish best served cold. Nothing feels better then killing the bad guy and getting a little extra loot for doing so =-)

Xiaoki

Nanfoodle said:

Kyleran said:

Good to see the Devs in Ashes are at least trying to put limits on ganking.  Will be interesting to see how it all works once testing gets more active.

I did learn a little more. Killing people does not just give you corruption, you earn stacks of corruption. It takes about an hour of grinding EXP to remove one stack. Getting killed by a player removes just one stack.  

Sounds like a more abusable version of BDOs Karma system.

If you need to die in PvP to remove corruption then just put everything in your bank, then have a friend kill you while you're naked.

Corruption gone.

Whatever they do the players will find ways around it and if the developers get too restrictive then the players will just leave.

Wargfoot

Babuinix said:

Add a strong reputation system along with Jails

Sheriffs and Jails were working well in Fractured Online, and even though the murder hobos cried like children over the system, they still managed to drive away a large swath of the player base.

The problem is 90% of the people who buy the game don't read the box.

I'm not sure developers are aware the extent to which players in a building/crafting/exploration game DO NOT WANT TO PVP.  A small chance of it, even though the bad guys really get beat up for it, isn't enough in their minds - even if the PvE player loses NOTHING, they'll leave the game.

Nanfoodle

Babuinix said:

Add a strong reputation system along with Jails

Anyone can be in game police with this system. There is bounty hunting and a bounty hunting skill tree that will make hunting PKer easier. 

olepi

Wargfoot said:

Babuinix said:

Add a strong reputation system along with Jails

Sheriffs and Jails were working well in Fractured Online, and even though the murder hobos cried like children over the system, they still managed to drive away a large swath of the player base.

The problem is 90% of the people who buy the game don't read the box.

I'm not sure developers are aware the extent to which players in a building/crafting/exploration game DO NOT WANT TO PVP.  A small chance of it, even though the bad guys really get beat up for it, isn't enough in their minds - even if the PvE player loses NOTHING, they'll leave the game.

Not quite. I loved DAOC and had a blast in ESO. I PvP'd a lot in both games. But nobody can gank anybody, except in a PvP zone. I even farmed some PvE in the PvP zone in DAOC just for the fun of it.

It's not PvP that most players object to, it's the ganking. These are not the same two things. I want to PvP and enjoy it a lot, so putting a label that says don't play this game if you don't want to PvP wouldn't apply to me.

No, it's the ganking, not the PvP. "Don't play this game if you don't want forced PvP" would be better.

Kyleran

Wargfoot said:

Babuinix said:

Add a strong reputation system along with Jails

Sheriffs and Jails were working well in Fractured Online, and even though the murder hobos cried like children over the system, they still managed to drive away a large swath of the player base.

The problem is 90% of the people who buy the game don't read the box.

I'm not sure developers are aware the extent to which players in a building/crafting/exploration game DO NOT WANT TO PVP.  A small chance of it, even though the bad guys really get beat up for it, isn't enough in their minds - even if the PvE player loses NOTHING, they'll leave the game.

Because it really isnt nothing that's lost, more like the most precious thing of all....their valuable free time.

I set out every game session with a goal in mind, and anything (wife, child, solar power salesman or ganker) that interferes with the accomplishment of my goal is an irritant or worse.

But like you said, I've learned to read the box first, hence one reason why Fractured never was in my play list.

Scot

The best and simplest solution is to restrict the zones PvP can occur in, that way a studio does not need to produce a page of gobbledegook with a ton of arrows to explain how their tagging system works.

Wargfoot

Scot said:

The best and simplest solution is to restrict the zones PvP can occur in, that way a studio does not need to produce a page of gobbledegook with a ton of arrows to explain how their tagging system works.

I'd like to see guild warfare.

To own/enjoy benefits of a city you must be in a guild:
1: No tax in town for guild members.
2: Guild members can use portals between guild owned towns.
3: When guilds go to war, all members are part of the war.

You can choose to remain outside of a guild (PvE only), and while you have full access to the entire game, the auction houses in town charge a 20% tax and you don't get to use the guild fast travel portals.  You can join a guild once per month.

Angrakhan

Honestly the fact that the developers cannot think through what Brainy posted and many others have posted similarly about the swiss cheese holes in this games corruption system tells me that the developers aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. There's a different in life between intelligence and wisdom. I have no doubt the developers are intelligent. Being able to code C++ requires intelligence to do it well. However, it doesn't mean you have a single shread of wisdom. It takes wisdom to build a PvP game because you have to be able to think like the biggest group of exploiter jackwagons who is just out to ruin everyone's day. What would a whole guild of these people do in your game and what systems are they going to exploit to do it? If you can't put yourself in that mental state you shouldn't be building a PvP game unless you're just going to go full open loot open PvP all the time and accept the fractional player base that comes with it.

The only purpose of the corruption system now is to bait and switch PvE players into joining the game, but they are going to find out very quickly that it was, in fact, a bait and switch.