The Ultimate PvP System Ideas (FreeWorld)

Draconus · November 2004

For those of you that don't know me my name is Clyde Bielss (CEO MindSurge Entertainment) a developer of the game FreeWorld. First off i would like to mention that FreeWorld is a game that is being made on a 0$ budget, So please do not try to compare us to Multi-Million dollar company's.

This next topic will be on PvP. I want to run this topic a little different then ones i have done in the past. This thread will be a open discussion on how you feel the Ultimate PvP system would be. Please do not post topics about how other games do there systems. I have played many of them and I know how they do them. This is your chance to help build a new system based off of your ideas!!

please try to stay on topic and stay mature in nature.

Xira · November 2004

The problem with not discussing how other's have done it is threefold.

1)Everything has been done before.

Pretty much every PVP system you could imagine has already been tried somewhere or other.

2)You can learn nothing about what did not work without considering what has already failed.

Pretty much no pvp game out there has had Open PVP where it has 'worked'. Various systems of closed PVP have 'worked'.

3)Times have changed.

PKs glorify the old UO PVP system without taking into account that the origonal UO existed in a diffrent environment than now exists. If someone gets ganked and loses something valuable...There's plenty of places for them to go. You CAN'T recreate the origonal UO because the environment that allowed it to thrive does not exist anymore. Try and you'll end up with a UO pvp shard...With a UO pvp shartd population. Various other ideas that have worked in the past will no longer work because the world has changed.

Finwe · November 2004

Open PvP with rewards that would include things like infamy (If you could consider that a reward. Because one of the things it'd include would be fear, which would allow you to do something such as persuade merchants) along with getting loot from kills.

Which could be a penalty against you as well, which dropping loot (obvious penalty) and infamy could cause you to be on bounty hunters list, attacked by city guards, and on a "wanted list" which would cause the player populace to hunt you as well.

If you want some idea's of what new games that will be coming out that'll have forms of PvP, look to Darkfall & Mourning for open PvP, and D&L for faction PvP.

"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didnt exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis

Draconus · November 2004

Originally posted by Finwe

Open PvP with rewards that would include things like infamy (If you could consider that a reward. Because one of the things it'd include would be fear, which would allow you to do something such as persuade merchants) along with getting loot from kills.
Which could be a penalty against you as well, which dropping loot (obvious penalty) and infamy could cause you to be on bounty hunters list, attacked by city guards, and on a "wanted list" which would cause the player populace to hunt you as well.

the idea of fear is nice ill keep this in mind.

im sure there are some other Hard Core PvP players that have ideas for what a new PvP system should be like.

hercules · November 2004

Xira pretty much hit the topic just right for me.

To me PvP in the DAoC style is about the best it ever got.Just need more incentives .

I definately would not want to ever play the UO stlye of PvP and yes there were kill on sight to guards,bounties etc on PKers and it did nothing to stop UO been one big grief environment till they split the world.

Xira · November 2004

The problem with a bounty system and perhaps infamy as an incentive for the player population to hunt down PKs is...

It dosen't work.

Never has, even under the best of circumstances(UO or Starport GE). Generally if a person has a bounty worth taking they are far above average in pvp skill, marking them off limits to the majority of the people who would hunt them. The only way around that is a gank squad, something your game should be designed to discourage.

Among the few players who are capable of taking that uber player with a worthwhile bounty or infamy down a camradrie devlops. Most of the top pvpers will be PKs, it is the nature of the beast, the few non PKs who can PVP well will form various alliances and agreements not to attack such players, ect. The result is a VERY small population willing and able to kill a high infamy/bounty player, the odds of them happening on that one good player on the server who will kill them is very small.

In short: Bounties and Infamy don't work as an incentive for players to hunt down PKs, something else must be done.

I would actually suggest the old Meridian 59 anti-PK system. Every time you kill a player a ghost spawns that hunts you down until it finds you. It is a MOB equal to you in power. So if a person goes on a huge PK spree they must (eventually) deal with an angry mob of ghosts easily capable of killing them.

Xira · November 2004

Originally posted by Rhoklaw
First off, I want to say I am not anti-pvp but what I may discuss could look that way. Now that I got that out of the way, I'll point one major flaw with PvP based games.
1) Hacking and/or 3rd Party Programs
UO, AC, AC2, SB, DAoC and countless other games with PvP or RvR have run into this problem and for some reason, they can't stop it. PvP is a wonderful concept, but unless you can guarantee a 100% hack free game, whats the point.
So I guess if I'm going to supply any advice here to your PvP discussion. That would be to provide such a game, where 3rd party progs or hack progs did not work. Cause if you can't prevent that, it won't matter how innovative your PvP system is.

Heh. My very thought:) In other posts about freeworld they have explicitly mentioned they desire a FPS style combat system..which will require client-side hit detection...With PVP this is just a dhack waiting to happen.

hercules · November 2004

In threads i made last year where we dicussed old UO style of PvP i stated how in 1998 when pvp was becoming so rampant and newbies could not move out of town without been pked some of us formed a pose to chase this pkers.

Out of every 10 alarms we got we caught 1 .Pkers kill newbie steals from newbie runs away or logs.

They never had to come to town so the town guard thing never worked since they could either use an alt or had smiths they knew who were quite willing to take the stuff to them.

There is no real way to stop Pkers once loot is involved and since its the easiest way to make loot its very very attractive to people .

Short of having a GM come and strike them dead only the most careless Pkers get caught.

Once you make bodies lootable there is no system anyone has posted that will work that would seems to be fair.

Basically to be able to get a pker only way is to 1)let his character remain active for at least 30 mins after a kill 2)limit them from leaving a certain area for a period of time.

Otherwise they are mostly uncatchable and i doubt any pk oriented player will agree to this.

Bounties,town gaurds,pose none of this work.

Draconus · November 2004

one thing i can tell you about our PvP system is there will be 2 separate worlds.

a PvE world and a PvP world...instead of having a PvP server and a PvE server that is separate the players will be able to move back and forth between the two.

we have a lot of anti-third party hack code already built into the game. We have been able to stop all speed hacks and memory hacks. Also the game is set up to crash if any third party program tries to effect the main program.

and as far as everyone saying that the hits are detected 100% by the client.....thats not true in our case

Finwe · November 2004

Originally posted by Rhoklaw

1) Hacking and/or 3rd Party Programs
UO, AC, AC2, SB, DAoC and countless other games with PvP or RvR have run into this problem and for some reason, they can't stop it. PvP is a wonderful concept, but unless you can guarantee a 100% hack free game, whats the point.
So I guess if I'm going to supply any advice here to your PvP discussion. That would be to provide such a game, where 3rd party progs or hack progs did not work. Cause if you can't prevent that, it won't matter how innovative your PvP system is.

Rhojan-
Sage of Shadowed Strife

I do agree they are a problem. But truthfully, people that need hacks for them to be successful in PvP are usually defeated quite easily.

AC1 was a good example. There use to be a speedhack, messed around with the latency, made em jump across the map like a bunch of speed-demons. It annoyed me, and I never liked that crap, I never used it. I felt it was a cheap way to win. And it's like cheating in a FPS or RTS, its amusing at first, but it comes down to a challenge, and sort of proving your mettle. And cheating is a lame way to do it, it isn't always about just winning.

And even cheaters always didn't win. Me and my brother would usually play AC1 together and were able to kill speedhackers 30 levels higher then us. Does it make it harder? Yes. Impossible. No.

There will always be cheats, even in PvE games. And the main problem with it all is that the company is all about money. And it will not change until they start dealing with the cheaters.

The only core problem that people contribute to PvP'ers is really nothing but its not their taste. Some like EQ, some like lineage. Some like the sims. Some like quake. Its a market geared towards a certain people.

"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didnt exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis

Draconus · November 2004

Originally posted by Finwe

I do agree they are a problem. But truthfully, people that need hacks for them to be successful in PvP are usually defeated quite easily.
AC1 was a good example. There use to be a speedhack, messed around with the latency, made em jump across the map like a bunch of speed-demons. It annoyed me, and I never liked that crap, I never used it. I felt it was a cheap way to win. And it's like cheating in a FPS or RTS, its amusing at first, but it comes down to a challenge, and sort of proving your mettle. And cheating is a lame way to do it, it isn't always about just winning.
And even cheaters always didn't win. Me and my brother would usually play AC1 together and were able to kill speedhackers 30 levels higher then us. Does it make it harder? Yes. Impossible. No.
There will always be cheats, even in PvE games. And the main problem with it all is that the company is all about money. And it will not change until they start dealing with the cheaters.
The only core problem that people contribute to PvP'ers is really nothing but its not their taste. Some like EQ, some like lineage. Some like the sims. Some like quake. Its a market geared towards a certain people.

"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didnt exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis

i agree with this 100%

I also realize that there are a lot of different types of players so that is why we will be seperating the PvP and PvE worlds but letting people go between the two.

Draconus · November 2004

Originally posted by hercules

In threads i made last year where we dicussed old UO style of PvP i stated how in 1998 when pvp was becoming so rampant and newbies could not move out of town without been pked some of us formed a pose to chase this pkers.
Out of every 10 alarms we got we caught 1 .Pkers kill newbie steals from newbie runs away or logs.
They never had to come to town so the town guard thing never worked since they could either use an alt or had smiths they knew who were quite willing to take the stuff to them.
There is no real way to stop Pkers once loot is involved and since its the easiest way to make loot its very very attractive to people .
Short of having a GM come and strike them dead only the most careless Pkers get caught.
Once you make bodies lootable there is no system anyone has posted that will work that would seems to be fair.
Basically to be able to get a pker only way is to 1)let his character remain active for at least 30 mins after a kill 2)limit them from leaving a certain area for a period of time.
Otherwise they are mostly uncatchable and i doubt any pk oriented player will agree to this.
Bounties,town gaurds,pose none of this work.

I'm not sure at this point if we will let players loot dead body's of players. But if we do i think we will have like one of there items drop at random and not everything they own. Also because the PvP and PvE areas will be separate the people there will be warned ahead of time that they have a chance to lose items. Its a choice to go to a PvP area not something you have to do.

Cyan8313 · November 2004

Well since you need to have areas where you can't fight make sure you have a duel system and party/group duel and perhaps guild duels/wars... If you put in guild wars, one guild declares war on another (does the other/challanged guild have to accept or is it forced ?) and when the war is active they can fight without penalty (besides the normal pvp death penalties) or interferance from guards and the like..

Now if you make it so that the "attacked" guild does not have to accept but only has a little forewarning (12 hours perhaps..) maybe there should be a cost for the attacking guild on a weekly basis or something. And if the attacking guild is 10 times as big the cost would be 10 times as high... To prevent one guild big guild totally destroying anyone they feel like.. And to prevent one guild declaring war on everyone you could make the cost exponetial: 1 war 1 time the cost, 2 wars the cost for the first war times 2, 3 wars the cost for 2 wars times 3 etc...

Maybe have a option that if the attacked guild accepts the challange there is no cost...

And regarding the drop a random item, it would be good if you could have one item that you could "bind" to yourself that would not be droppable so you won't loose that one superexpensive item you use...

Cyan

Durgia · November 2004

To me the best PvP looks something like this...

1) True skill involved, not just game set skill levels etc.
I want to have to better myself and my character to get better in PvP, systems where high level people will always win over low level people are horrible IMO.

2) Extensive Consequences- You can become a feared person or a loved person with economic and relations consequences. A person that always protects newbs and such may be loved, and have access to certain areas or certain items that hated people cannot. Hated people may have access to areas such as black markets and also get items that loved people cannot. None of these items should be really better then the normal person could get though.

3) Newbie protection is a must. Best way I can think of this is NPC guards around spawn areas etc that will protect newbs if attacked.

4) Though many games like the PvE and PvP approach, I personally think that PvP should be everywhere. Certain limiting factors must be in place, consequences, NPC guards on certain areas, and many other things. PvP should be limited by game characters and stories, not by an artificial PvE area.

rathma · November 2004

I don't have much time to post but i'll say this:

Always have a goal to PvP - Set a challenge to the PvP besides killing each other. It will give you more motivation to compete in PvP. This will also allow you to implement more strategy into PvP.

Draconus · November 2004

Originally posted by Cyan8313

Well since you need to have areas where you can't fight make sure you have a duel system and party/group duel and perhaps guild duels/wars... If you put in guild wars, one guild declares war on another (does the other/challanged guild have to accept or is it forced ?) and when the war is active they can fight without penalty (besides the normal pvp death penalties) or interferance from guards and the like..
Now if you make it so that the "attacked" guild does not have to accept but only has a little forewarning (12 hours perhaps..) maybe there should be a cost for the attacking guild on a weekly basis or something. And if the attacking guild is 10 times as big the cost would be 10 times as high... To prevent one guild big guild totally destroying anyone they feel like.. And to prevent one guild declaring war on everyone you could make the cost exponetial: 1 war 1 time the cost, 2 wars the cost for the first war times 2, 3 wars the cost for 2 wars times 3 etc...
Maybe have a option that if the attacked guild accepts the challange there is no cost...
And regarding the drop a random item, it would be good if you could have one item that you could "bind" to yourself that would not be droppable so you won't loose that one superexpensive item you use...
Cyan

I'm glad you bring the point of guild PvP up. We do plan to make it so guilds can declare war on each other and a big part of the Topic has always been if a guild should be forced to except a War. I think your idea that they get a 12 hour warning is good.

i to had concerns about a all powerful PvP Guild. The war up keep charges would be a nice touch but I'm not sure if this would 100% stop the problem ;/ very nice idea

the binded drop item idea is very good as well.

thanks

Draconus · November 2004

Originally posted by Durgia

To me the best PvP looks something like this...
1) True skill involved, not just game set skill levels etc.
I want to have to better myself and my character to get better in PvP, systems where high level people will always win over low level people are horrible IMO.
2) Extensive Consequences- You can become a feared person or a loved person with economic and relations consequences. A person that always protects newbs and such may be loved, and have access to certain areas or certain items that hated people cannot. Hated people may have access to areas such as black markets and also get items that loved people cannot. None of these items should be really better then the normal person could get though.
3) Newbie protection is a must. Best way I can think of this is NPC guards around spawn areas etc that will protect newbs if attacked.
4) Though many games like the PvE and PvP approach, I personally think that PvP should be everywhere. Certain limiting factors must be in place, consequences, NPC guards on certain areas, and many other things. PvP should be limited by game characters and stories, not by an artificial PvE area.

1) this is what freeworld is based off of...so there is no problem with this one

2) how do you tell if someone is protecting a newb? what is stoping guild mates from making newb chars and having a guild mate protect them agianst of people that know about it just so the person defending can get into the areas?

3) the FreeWorld PvP system will be made in a way that even a lvl 1 player could damage a lvl 100 player. We will also add some low lvl restricted area of beginer PvP players if they do not want to go out and fight with the big boys and girls.

4) there will be too full worlds for both PvP and PvE so there is no need to do something like this IMO.

Draconus · November 2004

Originally posted by rathma
Always have a goal to PvP - Set a challenge to the PvP besides killing each other. It will give you more motivation to compete in PvP. This will also allow you to implement more strategy into PvP.

yes i do agree with this.

mindless killing can be fun

BUT it gets old fast.....there needs to be some goals.

JohnnyC · November 2004

meh you've lost my interest already with ur lvl 1 damaging a lvl 100 and your PVP and PVE server...

as he said.. pvp should be everywhere, restrict towns, put guarded areas.. build a sweet.. new.. enviroment..

i wrote out a biiiiiig fat post but it didn't go thru... im not going to bother now lol... the way i see it is PVP servers get shat on.. they get no love

take AC DT for example... anyway.. a pure PVP server makes it boring for me eventully ill just be fighting the same people over n over.. and unless you put the server in melbourne australia ill most likely have no interest in playing on it due to the size of it will be 10% of the size of the carebear server

and 1 damaging lvl 100? wtf? u saying a gank of lvl 1's is gunna come own me? if they're to retarded to go lvl beyond lvl 20 then wtf is their point in playing...

another thing, use a skill system not a lvl base

make profits/progress from killing people

keep a stats or rating system within guild/game

build some sort of faction system which is optional

dunno thats about all i got for now

Draconus · November 2004

well.... lets talk about this based off of real life.

i have a 9 year old son. I'm sure I'm WAY stronger then him and could easily kick hes butt, BUT if he came up and socked me in the nose i would bleed. Also, if a gang of 20 nine year olds came up to me with knives I'm sure i could take out a bunch of them but I'm sure in the end they would kill me.

this is going to be the bases of the PvP.

i also figure that high lvl chars will travel in packs as well. Witch a low lvl group may be able to take down a single high lvl player they would be slaughtered by a high lvl group.

i know this is not a system for everyone...you cant please them all....but i also know there is a large amount of player begging for a PvP system where they are not forced to go lvl grind before they can jump into the action. The FreeWorld PvP system will be set up in a way that you would NEVER have to PvE if you did not want to.

Durgia · November 2004

Originally posted by Draconus

1) this is what freeworld is based off of...so there is no problem with this one
2) how do you tell if someone is protecting a newb? what is stoping guild mates from making newb chars and having a guild mate protect them agianst of people that know about it just so the person defending can get into the areas?
3) the FreeWorld PvP system will be made in a way that even a lvl 1 player could damage a lvl 100 player. We will also add some low lvl restricted area of beginer PvP players if they do not want to go out and fight with the big boys and girls.
4) there will be too full worlds for both PvP and PvE so there is no need to do something like this IMO.

In answer to 2.

This is obviously one of the on going problems I find in MMORPG. As of yet I have not seen any practical ways of fixing it implemented by anyone. However I do feel it is important.

I would hope that you would have a limited number of characters (5-6 at most) and possibly people could exploit this system. There are many ways of attempting to implement it though and I don't know what would be best for your game. Mentor systems work ok but not great. Where if a noob needs help he can get a mentor then rate the mentor.

As for people getting into the areas and then starting killing, thats what you have NPC guard types around. If I go into Noobville and attack a player that is in good relations with that area(all noobs would be with there starting area) then the NPC guards would come kick my but.

In a game I am currently playing if a player attacks another player inside a certain limit of noob areas then the guards will be on them fast. It would be possible to kill 1 noob possibly, but then the guards would chase them off or kill them and they would not be able to get back in without defeating the guards or spending long hours to get back in good standings.

Thats one solution but like I said there are multitudes of ways to make this type of system.

Draconus · November 2004

Originally posted by Durgia
I would hope that you would have a limited number of characters (5-6 at most) and possibly people could exploit this system. There are many ways of attempting to implement it though and I don't know what would be best for your game. Mentor systems work ok but not great. Where if a noob needs help he can get a mentor then rate the mentor.
As for people getting into the areas and then starting killing, thats what you have NPC guard types around. If I go into Noobville and attack a player that is in good relations with that area(all noobs would be with there starting area) then the NPC guards would come kick my but.
In a game I am currently playing if a player attacks another player inside a certain limit of noob areas then the guards will be on them fast. It would be possible to kill 1 noob possibly, but then the guards would chase them off or kill them and they would not be able to get back in without defeating the guards or spending long hours to get back in good standings.

the main base of FreeWorld is "No Limits" so we have unlimited chars. I always hate when there is only a few i can make

would it not be better to encourage guilds to protect there own members? Make some kind of instentive for grouping with low lvl PvP players?

i can see the need for guards in towns and so on to help with newb being gear and so on without worrying about being killed. But as far as open PvP areas there on there own.

methane47 · November 2004

Wow i haven't posted in a longg time... i miss my 5 stars...
ANyways...

What about one of the incentives for PvP being XP. For instance if you PK some of your same lvl.. you get twice the amout of XP if you had killed an NPC of the same lvl.... Here's the catch, implement negative XP. So if you are lvl 100 and you attack a lvl 3/4 of your lvl (lvl 75) you dont get any xp.. but lower than that you start getting negative XP.... So eventually you get a debt... you dont lose lvls.

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"Some people call me the walking plank, 'cuz any where you go... Death is right behind you.."
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Finwe · November 2004

Originally posted by Draconus

well.... lets talk about this based off of real life.
i have a 9 year old son. I'm sure I'm WAY stronger then him and could easily kick hes butt, BUT if he came up and socked me in the nose i would bleed. Also, if a gang of 20 nine year olds came up to me with knives I'm sure i could take out a bunch of them but I'm sure in the end they would kill me.
this is going to be the bases of the PvP.
i also figure that high lvl chars will travel in packs as well. Witch a low lvl group may be able to take down a single high lvl player they would be slaughtered by a high lvl group.
i know this is not a system for everyone...you cant please them all....but i also know there is a large amount of player begging for a PvP system where they are not forced to go lvl grind before they can jump into the action. The FreeWorld PvP system will be set up in a way that you would NEVER have to PvE if you did not want to.

One problem though.

1. This isn't virtual reality. You need a power system to even everything out. When I see virtual reality. Then of course something like that would be possible. And levels wouldn't be necessary.

2. You need to think of it more along the lines of 20 9 year olds with knives. But your some Arnold Schwarzenegger clone with a conan sword. Who's gonna win? I'm assuming Mr. Conan. chop chop.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didnt exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis

"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979

Draconus · November 2004

Originally posted by methane47

What about one of the incentives for PvP being XP. For instance if you PK some of your same lvl.. you get twice the amout of XP if you had killed an NPC of the same lvl.... Here's the catch, implement negative XP. So if you are lvl 100 and you attack a lvl 3/4 of your lvl (lvl 75) you dont get any xp.. but lower than that you start getting negative XP.... So eventually you get a debt... you dont lose lvls.

i think XP incentives would be nice. maybe we could even give out higher amount of XP for players that are killing other players that are closer to your lvl and for killing players WAY above your lvl you get even a great % of XP.

I can see giving 0 XP but I'm not to sure about negative XP....becuase in our system a high lvl player could get trashed by a huge group of lower lvl players. SO, should he be punished for defending him/herself? I can see it hard to code making the server understand if it is a offensive or defensive kill.

methane47 · November 2004

Well how it works is that You simply record who initiated the attack. Or you could use the fame system. So it depends on who is more infamous.

So ok first of all if the high lvl player initiates the attack againsts a low lvl then he will get the penalty.. BUUUTTT
If the low lvl attacks first then you do some calculation.

If ()
-low lvl char is more infamous than high lvl -
If low lvl kills high lvl than they get no benifits from PvP (no double XP or nothing)
If High lvl kills low lvl they get A.I. xp for the kill (no benefit)

-High lvl char is more infamous than low lvl -
If low lvl kills high lvl than they get extra benefits (To amply reward the player)
If high lvl kills low lvl they get no XP.

-Both Same(or very close) lvl infamity(?)
If low lvl kills high lvl than they get normal benefits of PvP
If high lvl kills low lvl they get XP but no benefits.

*NOTE: This only applies when low lvl chars initiate the attack.

In my opinion this (especially the negative XP) makes killing very low lvl chars suck so hopefully taking away that crowd of griefers.
And It encourages lower lvl people to team and kill Pkers.

One more thing about the calculations. Maybe you can make the infamousness(?) of groups comulative.
Not entirely though. So that if you have a group of 20 lvl 1's with infamousness(?) 5 each. Their group fame would be like 90 (minus the highest and lowest fame lvls) or some calculation that doesn't allow huge groups of people to roam without any penalties.

The Fame for a group can be either the highest fame lvl in the group ... or a calculation.... which ever is higher.... i guess... Well you know what i mean.. You have my idea

Click Here --->Just one of those days<--- Click Here
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Donovan --> Wu Name = Violent Knight
Methane47 --> Wu Name = Thunderous Leader
"Some people call me the walking plank, 'cuz any where you go... Death is right behind you.."
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