Ok i came back to grieve ... the grievers: with exactly
what i had proposed some time ago:
This is my first attempt at a formal writeup on Status
driven PVP system. I’ll explain how it was originally
implemented and the reasons why. I’ll then describe
how I think this system could be transferred onto an
NWN-permanent world. As we’ll see further there are
some difference between godwars MUD’s and NWN
based PW’s which required some creativity to get
around.
Status is a concept implemented on a certain type of
MUDs, namely Godwars and Dystopia type MUDs.
(Multi User Dungeon= the old skool text based version
of persistent online rpg worlds) The basic idea behind
status is to represent how dangerous a player is in pvp,
a kind of pvp scoreboard. The system can be used as
a mechanism to discourage & penalize grief-pvp, or to
encourage pvp-ers to search challenging targets
amongst pvp active players by rewarding them for
gaining status.
Note: I’ve been scouring the net to find some info on
this pvp-mechanism, but the only info I could find was
the mud’s source code and that’s almost the supreme
example of spaghetti coding… So I’ve contacted a
buddy from my mudding days to make sure I had the
right info from memory. The first part describes the
system behaviour as it is in godwars/dystopia muds.
The second part is meant to help devs in the right
direction.
System behaviour (the rules as they’re applied in
godwars & dystopia)
Each player starts with 0 status.
If a player with 0 status kills another player who
has 0 status. Then the killer gains +1 status and
the victim stays at 0 status. This means you cannot
go lower than 0 status.
If a player with 0 status kills someone with nonzero
status, the killer will gain +1 status and the target
-1 status.
If a player with non-zero status kills another who
has 0 status, then the killer doesn’t gain any status.
If a player with nonzero status kills another who
has nonzero status, the killer gets +1 status, the
victim -1 status.
Whenever a player pvp’s a target which has less
status than himself, It earns him paradox points,
depending on the difference in status between both.
Whenever the paradox points reach a treshold you
are penalized. In godwars this penalty meant that
you were transported to town square, a place anyone
could get to in a few seconds, and mortally wounded
so that anyone could pvp you, plus there was also a
serverwide message informing everyone you were in
centre of town with your pants down… This kind of
penalty can’t be duplicated very easily on NWN servers,
so I’ll let it up the devs to figure out one that they like.
I just wanted to illustrate the severity of the penalty.
We see that killing someone with 0 status results in a
penalty. So if you don’t like to pvp or getting pvp-ed,
you keep your status at 0. This makes that every player
that pvp’s you will get a penalty. If you like pvp you
partially forfeit this protection, because the more status
you have the more people will have no penalty when
they kill you. That’s the price of entering the pvp scene:
you have to accept getting pvp-ed too. The player with
the most status online has none of this protection,
because killing him doesn’t result in a penalty since
by definition everyone’s status will be lower than his.
At this point some people might ask: “but how can I
keep 0 status if I kill someone by accident?” Well in
godwars you had the choice of killing someone or leave
him with negative hp’s until he eventually regenerated
enough hp’s to regain consciousness. To claim a pvp kill
in godwars you first had to bring someone down to
negative hp’s then use a command to decapitate him.
If you didn’t decapitate the victim would get back to
positive hp’s after some time since everyone had
regeneration. This gave the choice of leaving the
sucker behind without encurring paradox points, or
decapitate him anyway and bite the paradox penalty.
How pvp currently is handled in NWN, players don’t
have a choice between incapacitating or killing in pvp.
This can easily lead to the absurd situation where a low
status player attacks a high status player, and the high
status player runs away because he might accidentally
kill the low status guy and get the penalty for killing an
easy target. This is why there needs to be a choice
between incapacitating a player in PVP and actually
claiming the kill. It also makes friendly duels or
tournaments a lot easier since the loser can just wait
out the timer to be revived. How can this choice be given
then? Upon pvp-death (message: ”playersX has killed
playerY”) I I propose to let a timer start, and let that
timer remember the name of player X and Y. If playerX
wants to claim the kill he uses a special item which bring
up a dialog listing the currently running timers that have
his name as killer. Selecting playerY’s name from that
dialog will then claim the kill of playerY, earning playerX
the apropriate status and/or paradox points. If playerX
doesn’t want to claim his ‘kill’, he leaves the corpse behind,
and when the timer runs out playerY should get revived
(preferably not to full health, say 10% of hp’s or so).
The names of the victim needs to be kept by the timer
because the killer might kill several victims and have
multiple timers running in paralel. The name of the killer
also needs to be remembered as a check against
killstealing.
Since there needs to be a way of listing who has how
much status on the server, I suggest to put this functionality
on this item aswell. Getting the list of online players and
displaying the names and status shouldn’t be too hard.
Perhaps this item could also show the faction to where
the player belongs to in the same list, to make it easier
to pick valid pvp targets?
Things to keep in mind:
What if the victim wants to respawn or log off during the
pvp-timer? I don’t see any reason to take away the right
to respawn or log off from the victim at this point. But it
may not affect the right of the killer to claim his kill, so
the timer should simply continue to run it’s course. The
revive procedure at the end of the timer shouldn’t be
aplied in this case of course.
A variant of this system uses status range instead of the
simple check Status(killer) <= Status(victim). Lets say
the size of the range is 5, this means that I can claim
pvp kills of players which are up to 5 status points lower
than me without getting a paradox penalty. Killing
someone which is 6 status points lower than me will get
me a penalty.
As I said before the penalty still has to be defined, but I
suggest to make it in proportion to the difference in status
between killer/victim.
The system can optionally be extended with a bounty
system. Let’s say each faction town has a specific NPC
you can go to to bring up the list on online players, you
can then pick a name and how much money you want to
put on his head. At the time that someone claims the kill
on the player who has a bounty, he collects the bounty,
resetting it to 0. Players should also be able to see a list
of bounties on players currently online, a good place to
do that is in the special item which should display the
status of each player.
ok, it looks much better in word format, if u want a copy
of that -> PM me,.
a 'status' PVP system
a 'status' PVP system
Last edited by nargileh on Wed Oct 06, 2004 3:24 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Re: a 'status' PVP system
In the NWN you can not initiate or participate in dialog while in combat. If there is anything else hostile around after the KO you would not be able claim the kill.nargileh wrote:If playerX wants to claim the kill he uses a special item which bring up a dialog listing the currently running timers that have his name as killer.
When defending your faction city from attack you should not have to concern yourself with who is doing it. Kills in faction cities should be completely left out of this kind of concept. Along with kills in faction outposts. In fact, any kills in what is considered you factions territory should be ignored. Thats the price you pay for invading someone elses land.nargileh wrote:6. Whenever a player pvp’s a target which has less status than himself, It earns him paradox points, depending on the difference in status between both.
Also what happens if your fellow faction members are attacked? You are supposed to ignore their call for aid because the attacker is too low a level?
While this would be a great idea for a free-for-all PvP server, the reward and penalty system really needs to be tied closer to factions and factional alliances.
Although the reward-for-defending-your-faction-city concept has been discussed a lot it is something that is really needed to inspire any kind of large scale faction loyalty.
Each faction could have a city guard job and a faction militia job where job points are earned by defending your city and attacking enemy cities respectively. You could even offer half points for defending you faction ally's city. At each level in these jobs you could gain access to increasingly powerful faction equipment. You could then be equipped like the guards of your city without having to get another character in a different faction to slaughter your guards.
Of course you have all the problems of potential exploitation but any PvP reward and penalty system will have those.
Re: a 'status' PVP system
___________________
Last edited by nargileh on Sun Oct 03, 2004 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
- Looking for group
- Posts: 119
- Joined: Mon May 03, 2004 7:14 am
- Location: The MillyWays. Having dinner at a table near DV.
Another idea is everyone having two titles based on PvP kills, kinda like what they have in UO. Have a 'skill at pvp' title like Novice, Dangerous, Elite based on the number of kills. And have a second title for kills of enemy factions minus the number of same faction/ally kills like Protector, Villan, etc.
So a person with 100+ kills of enemy faction would have a title like Dangerous Protector. And a person with 100+ kills of same faction kills would be like Dangerous Tratior.
I don't have the desire to write up a whole chart if the Devs don't like the Idea, but would be willing to.
Not even sure if that kind of thing is possible in the toolset, having not even looked at it at all.
So a person with 100+ kills of enemy faction would have a title like Dangerous Protector. And a person with 100+ kills of same faction kills would be like Dangerous Tratior.
I don't have the desire to write up a whole chart if the Devs don't like the Idea, but would be willing to.
Not even sure if that kind of thing is possible in the toolset, having not even looked at it at all.
There are 10 types of people in the world.
Those that know binary, and those that don't.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/posting.php
Those that know binary, and those that don't.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/posting.php
I realise I may be way off here but what about a "coup de grace" similar to when a monster/npc has been affected by a sleep spell.
The player has the option of striking the final blow or not which allowed the sleeping monster/npc to "revive". Could something like this be incorporated into a player that has been brought to 0/bleeding to death in a pvp situation?
In essence you would be killing them twice. The first time they hit 0 or -50 for sake of argument and then a period of coup de grace where the player chooses to continue or spare the player. This may go some way towards avoiding accidental attacks/deaths etc.
The player has the option of striking the final blow or not which allowed the sleeping monster/npc to "revive". Could something like this be incorporated into a player that has been brought to 0/bleeding to death in a pvp situation?
In essence you would be killing them twice. The first time they hit 0 or -50 for sake of argument and then a period of coup de grace where the player chooses to continue or spare the player. This may go some way towards avoiding accidental attacks/deaths etc.