Avenger ideas

Kali

Basically, I don't think the avenger system in its current form is very good at all, and I talked with a few friends to come up with some ideas for ways I think it could be approved!

- Defending yourself when you're attacked in non-org enemy territory (ie, hunting kephera or illithoid) shouldn't give suspect status if you kill your attacker, or clear your attacker's suspect status if they recently killed you elsewhere on prime.

- Killing beasts on prime should give suspect/avenger. (Currently you can just kill beasts and run off with no mechanical consequences.)

- if you've been recently killed by someone and choose to attack them back, your suspect status shouldn't go away on the first attack - it should last until you actually get a kill.

-I think coupled with the above, you should be able to choose an assassin to kill the person who killed you for you, if you're not a skilled combatant and would rather take immediate action instead of sitting on suspect status.

- Would also be neat if antagonistic/griefy actions like chopping trees/destroying statues in enemy org territory, killing players outside of conflict events (except in defense of your own org's territory), killing org-loyal denizens, etc would reduce the time on your suspect statuses, so that the more often someone raids or jumps people, the more often they can be freely killed on prime. 


I'd love to know what people think, and if they had any other ideas as to how the clunky avenger system could be fixed up!

Alexandria

I like your ideas. I don't have anything else to add right now. As it stands, Avenger is fairly pointless and has been for a very long time.

Feoragan

At the very least, only people with a stake in the domain should be able to defend it without consequences.

Raimari

I would rather just remove the Avenger system, personally.

Literally every other game has the, "Don't attack someone on 'prime' without a valid reason. No, being a city enemy isn't a valid reason." clause and it works perfectly fine.

While most people still stick to the same mindset here, it's been a pretty recurring thing where once every few months you get someone who goes around attacking whoever they like, because of the god-awful "They can only kill you once every 30 days scot free" system that's resulted in more than a few people just stopping playing. No, I'm not gonna just let them kill me. That's a moronic idea.

Kali

I do think having a degree of mechanical protection against PK is important - deciding to remove that in favour of RP-based stuff and issues would result in some people getting griefed out of existence (more than they already are, mind.) Also, it'd be incredibly awful for certain prime based conflict quests, like the inner sea stuff. As someone who played in Celest for a long time, I find things like the cay to be incredibly tedious without having people being able to kill me repeatedly while trying to do it for something like 'Well, you're trying to corrupt/cleanse the inner sea' 

Raimari

Kali said:

deciding to remove that in favour of RP-based stuff and issues would result in some people getting griefed out of existence

That's kind of fallacious.

I also don't agree on the latter part of your response. Conflict-based quests, by their very definition, should generate conflict. If they're not, then they're a failure and should be looked at.

Kali

I shouldn't be allowed to format anything ever on the forums because it always goes sideways for me. But anyway, I don't think it's super fallacious to say that some people (I'm going to use Feoragan as an example, no offense meant!) Would probably have it a lot worse if they could be freely killed anywhere, and then have it justified with roleplay.

Also with the inner sea quests, there's a handful of them. They're tied in with the Mag and Celest epics, and they do generate conflict - questing based conflict, not pk conflict. Adding on a layer of people nosing around looking for justifiable pk opportunities would not be an enjoyable addition to an already frustrating and tedious part of the game.

Raimari

Kali said:

 Would probably have it a lot worse if they could be freely killed anywhere, and then have it justified with roleplay.

You're again stretching towards a slippery slope of something that doesn't happen literally anywhere I've already mentioned. If the game was built around hypothetical "what if?"s then we'd have nothing whatsoever.

Your example is not a very good one. He's an extremely antagonistic person; you're damn right someone who is constantly pissing people off should be able to be killed for it. But no, because of the awful Avenger system you have to a) Deal with it, b) Kill him when he goes to enemy territory/off-plane (which is never) or c) Snub him (I shouldn't have to explain why this one is dumb).

Nobody said people should be able to be "freely killed". Justifying it with RP isn't as simple as, "He's an enemy and was wandering near my city yesterday." Reasons like that don't fly. Just like "They were doing Cay earlier" wouldn't fly.

Feoragan

I mean, the best hunting places are always going to be enemy/unprotected territory. 

At least 13 quest areas are "unsafe" currently to anyone who is enemied to all 3 IHC orgs. Theoretically this could switch around or the balance could shift and this would still be unfun.

Notable, the people who'd kill me would kill literally anyone else if they could get away with it, and have done so.

Maligorn

Raimari said:

I would rather just remove the Avenger system, personally.

Literally every other game has the, "Don't attack someone on 'prime' without a valid reason. No, being a city enemy isn't a valid reason." clause and it works perfectly fine.

I remember the culture shock when I tried out Starmourn. "No PK unless you have a reason (being a serial killer is not a reason!)". I really think it's asinine. I hate the idea that you'd have to come up with a sound logical argument just to attack some jabroni in enemy territory. example:You're killing/have killed kephera? A kepheran matriarch of sorts that literally lives in the Master Complex under the Ruhao Cathedral taught Hallifax how to Tessenchi. I'm going to punish you for killing her people until you go get amnesty. -I- know why I'd theoretically be ganking someone in the Hives. But I shouldn't have to explain it. Imagine the extra work you pile onto the admin who would have to sift through disputes.

The lax PK rules in Lusternia do a great job of mitigating that insufferably smug "you can't touch me" attitude that I've encountered in both Starmourn and Aetolia because of their comparatively restrictive rules. I don't want people like that and I don't want to breed that culture.

I think at least 4 orgs in the game have completed all their timequake research. Timequakes might not be as frequently contested as they are now in the near future; now's not the time to be restricting PvP.

Maligorn

Anyway, I more or less agree with OP, except for the third bullet point.

Raimari

Maligorn said:

But I shouldn't have to explain it. Imagine the extra work you pile onto the admin who would have to sift through disputes.

You could just tell someone why you killed/attacked them if they ask, not everyone knows the history of everything. Interaction is kind of a big premise of these games, after all.

Neither of the games you mentioned has any sort of "can't touch me" attitude, considering being antagonistic is a perfectly valid reason to go and kill someone. Whereas the Avenger system does piss all to someone who doesn't care about dying.

Kali

Raimari said:

Maligorn said:

But I shouldn't have to explain it. Imagine the extra work you pile onto the admin who would have to sift through disputes.

You could just tell someone why you killed/attacked them if they ask, not everyone knows the history of everything. Interaction is kind of a big premise of these games, after all.

Neither of the games you mentioned has any sort of "can't touch me" attitude, considering being antagonistic is a perfectly valid reason to go and kill someone. Whereas the Avenger system does piss all to someone who doesn't care about dying.

Getting avengered also peaces you, so it can take you completely out of conflict events for a while - it's not just death at the time of the person's choosing.

Keegan

Firstly, I oppose on all fronts. I like PVP. If anything the game needs more of it, not less. As it is if I go anywhere to start something I'm already doing so at an immensely massive disadvantage and know that when I enter.

Secondly point three makes no sense. 

Point five is okay, but seems pretty whatever. I'm the primary agent of chaos in the world and nobody has suspect on me, I have suspect on x people. All the reductions in my suspect time wouldn't change anything.

Xenthos

The biggest gripe I have with avenger is that it has no real differentiation between NPC enemy territory and player org territory.

If you are hunting illithoids/kepherans and someone attacks you, your only reasonable choice is to run away.  If you successfully defend yourself, you get suspect on the person who attacked you and then you're SOL.  But... it's not their territory, and it was their choice to attack you.

My preference would be for player-org territory to remain the way it is (we don't need to discourage self-defense even more), but rework NPC org territory.  Attacking someone enemied to the NPC org should do a two-way declare, so both sides are free to fight each other all they want.  Sure, the target can still choose to run away, but at least then it would be a choice instead of the only option.

Keegan

I agree with the neutral territory thing Xenthos mentioned with the following stipulations:

Only the party defending the natural territory can be PK DEFENDED. Anyone else enemied to the territory but attacking the defender is declaring as per usual.
 
For disambiguation:
A is enemied to Kethera. B goes to gank A in the hives. C, regardless of whether or not they are enemied to Kethera cannot defend A. They must declare B.  (This is how the game currently operates, don't change this).

Death to either party with the above rules in mind should not produce a PK suspect and should immediately dissolve a PK suspect on aggressive action on their respective parts. Hitting someone in enemied territory, even NPC, should disregard existing statuses and dissolve them on retaliation hits as per current functionality. 

Tl;dr:
Basically same rules but neither side gets suspect.

Kali

I also want to say that I didn't mean for any of my ideas to come across as intended to restrict prime pvp more than it is already. My original hope was to clean up some holes in the system and to make it less likely for someone to just sit on suspect status, by either making it go away faster for people involved in non-event conflict, or by giving better pk options for using that suspect status. 

The third point may not have been that well thought out, but the original intent was to discourage the person who was attacked in retaliation from being able to vamoose after the first attack, and lose their suspect status.

Edit: Maybe as an alternative, a sort of 'challenge' command which can be used with suspect status, which would keep either player from leaving the immediate area until one of them is dead, or a certain amount of time has passed.

Kethaera

Keegan said:

 
For disambiguation:
A is enemied to Kethera. B goes to gank A in the hives. C, regardless of whether or not they are enemied to Kethera cannot defend A. They must declare B.  (This is how the game currently operates, don't change this).

What'd I do? 

I'm generally opposed to any system that allows someone to troll others without repercussions, which the Avenger does. I like that, comparatively, Lusternia has less restrictive rules for pk than Aetolia, but there's still people who will sit on prime and taunt you for being unable to attack them. Yes, one could snub them, but that's an ooc solution for what should be an ic conflict(unless it becomes harassment, of course). Worse when they're doing it in an area that should be a legitimate conflict area, depending on the circumstances(various conflict quests). 

Feoragan

Well, you can attack people on prime once every 30 days, and, realistically, if you're a part of this issue, more than once every 30 days.

I don't know if there really should be "conflict areas" in that way. Quests should be a back and forth thing, not... Sit on a mob and kill anyone who tries to quest at it. There are things like paranoia influencing for that, which is underused and exists purely to troll people who want to quest.

And... Really, in response to Keegan... Personally, I don't mind if the attacking person DOESN'T get Avenger, but someone defending another who's been attacked and the person being attacked should definitely not be treated as aggressors by Avenger.

To put the absurdity of how this works into context...

Say you're Mangagoran, and you, for some reason, have found yourself an enemy of Hallifax. You go to a place to quest happily with one of your allies. You even get amnesty for the area because you want to join in. Then...? Someone, a ten man gank squad from Gaudiguch comes in and just puts you down. Now, Gaudiguch are an enemy of Hallifax, but enemy territory doesn't care ONE BIT about this. In fact, they'll even kill your Hallifaxian friend too, despite literally being in his territory, because he tried to defend you. Your amnesty? Doesn't matter at all.

Welcome to this absurd system and this absurd example, which, while unlikely, is entirely possible. Or, well, it be if Crux had players like that. 

Keegan

Kethaera said:

Keegan said:

 
For disambiguation:
A is enemied to Kethera. B goes to gank A in the hives. C, regardless of whether or not they are enemied to Kethera cannot defend A. They must declare B.  (This is how the game currently operates, don't change this).

What'd I do? 

I'm generally opposed to any system that allows someone to troll others without repercussions, which the Avenger does. I like that, comparatively, Lusternia has less restrictive rules for pk than Aetolia, but there's still people who will sit on prime and taunt you for being unable to attack them. Yes, one could snub them, but that's an ooc solution for what should be an ic conflict(unless it becomes harassment, of course). Worse when they're doing it in an area that should be a legitimate conflict area, depending on the circumstances(various conflict quests). 

In all honesty I wrote this at 4 AM and spent 2 minutes convincing myself it was 'Kethera' and not 'Kephera'.