Lords of Death Forums Lords of Death Forums LoD General Discussion FFA Item Loot PVP Sandbox Games

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/12/20/some-assembly-required-yet-another-ffa-pvp-sandbox/

Interesting article.

I for one enjoy roaming around killing absolutely anyone I want to without consequence, but at the same time, I also believe that for games to be successful they need to attract enough "sheep" for the "wolves" to feed on. I believe this is Darkfall's downfall. There's not enough PVE/Roleplay/Crafting, etc. to attract the PVE sandbox sheep and we are left with a game full of wolves that fight each other for no apparent reason other than the sake of fighting. It’s also the reason the community is absolutely toxic. Not enough carebears in the community to dilute out all of the killers.

An alignment system like Darkfall 1 is okay, but is able to be abused. I remember early Darkfall trying to jump in the way of someone's mana missle so they would grey flag so I could kill them without consequence. I realize later on basically everyone was red but then what's the point of having the system in the first place? Now we have DFUW that completely removed the system in favor of safe zones. Both are flawed, I think DFUW's is worse with safe zones though. Sandboxes shouldn't have RESTRICTIONS, but as the article said, some rules are a good idea.

I think EVE probably has the best safezone mechanics in that you aren't restricted from attacking someone in high security space, but the "guards" are most likely going to fuck you up if you decide to try it. Low security space is like the wild west, no guards to save you, but it's also where all of the valuables are. It's an ingenious system really. Crafters can hang out in high security space and do their thing and people willing to take the risk can go into low sec space to gather the high value materials and sell them to the guys in high security space that want to just craft all day. Pirates can hang out in low security space and jack the PVE folks with enough stones to venture into low security space. It's PERFECT.

So why can't we get a system like that in a game that doesn't have the shitty combat that EVE has?

I can't stand games where you get a stat penalty for being a red. If I'm red then I shouldn't be able to go where the law is without them coming after me. I gotta hang out where the law won't dare to come. But a stat penalty? C'mon. A lot of the Korean/Asian MMO’s like the blue/red system while giving red’s stat penalties. I believe Albion also has this system. Mortal Online has a similar red system. Is it not bad enough I’m branded as a murderer and will be attacked while outnumbered (because that’s what sheep do, gang up on a few wolves) but you have to put me at a stat advantage too?!?!

Since UO was a few years before I started playing MMORPG's, the best FFA PVP where you had both sheep and wolves was EQ Rallos Zek. +90% of the server were "anti-pk" and would rather craft and PVE. I was in the minority who were branded "PK's" and would be attacked on sight by "anti-pk's". Well, our political stance was KOS, but few had the balls to oppose us without a significant numbers advantage. EQ Rallos Zek is the only game I remember that had FFA PVP with Item Loot that had significantly more sheep than wolves, and it was because of all of the other things the game had to offer in the PVE/Crafting realm. I think another major factor is there weren’t so many choices of games back in 1999 like we have now so it is increasingly harder to attract sheep to a game that may contain wolves.

So while many think that Darkfall (or other FFA PVP Sandbox Games like it) needs to fix a slew of other issues I think its real problem is not appealing to a wide enough audience. It could do so with some rules (NOT restrictions) put into place to protect the PVE/CRAFTERS a bit, but it really needs content to attract the PVE/CRAFTER types in the first place.

I'll continue to keep an eye out for another game besides Eve that may be able to accomplish this, but I won't hold my breath.

I think with UO it was really the only game out of its kind. The sheep had to play. Until fucking trammel killed it! God, I miss that game...

I found the article in the post above linked in this article:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/01/17/...-pvp/#continued

I didn't play SWG at all. After reading this article I assume that there was a PVP flag that you could toggle on/off. If you're a republic player that attacks a imperial NPC during a quest, you get flagged for PVP for 10-15 minutes.

The problem with a system like this is that it's more of a RESTRICTION than a rule. People can choose to leave their PVP flag off and I am RESTRICTED from attacking them.

I think a better way (not perfect) is the whole blue/red system where everyone is blue until they kill enough people to become grey. If you commit a "red" action, you become "grey" for 10-15 minutes which means blues can kill you without consequence. This has it's flaws of course but is still better than a PVP on/off toggle that is more of a restriction than a rule.

One idea to counteract the whole blue jumps in front of another blue while fighting to turn him grey would be to have the first hit from a blue vs. another blue not turn him "grey". I'm sure it would be abused by having 10 guys hit the same guy all at once to kill him, but someone is going to get the kill shot and take an alignment hit for it. You could also put in place a system like Mortal Online had that once you are killed, anyone that did damage to you in the last few minutes you are given the option to assign an alignment hit to them as well. This of course can be exploited also by blue naked people who will jump in front of you, take damage, suicide, then assign an alignment penalty to you.

No real solid answer to an alignment system in a game with FPS style aiming at least. Tab target would be pretty easy.

Same with EQ Rallos Zek really. There weren't any other choices.

For a game to accomplish this now it's going to need BETTER PVE/CRAFTING than other games as well as a good FFA PVP ruleset in order to attract sheep and wolves. That would be quite an accomplishment to have GREAT PVE/CRAFTING and good FFA PVP.

Should also add that EQ suffered a similar fate. The introduction of the NEXUS (safe zone) in the Luclin expansion as well as the increase in NO-DROP (unlootable) gear really killed it.

What you're describing is pretty much what UO did. You would flag grey when you attacked a blue player (or stole from them). At that point, you could be attacked/killed with no consequence. Many players (myself included) would flag grey on purpose and then walk into town so people would attack me. The general idea was that you'd be outnumbered badly, but if you were smart, you could run and bait a player or 2 far enough away from their buddies to kill them. You could flag grey by healing a red player, which is what we most often did. We'd have the reds hanging out outside town, heal them, turn grey, run inside the city and draw out a crowd of attackers and then engage them with the reds. The good old bait tactic, still alive and well in MMO's today.

UO also had long term and short term murder counts. Short term was for stat loss and long term was for being red. I actually enjoyed stat loss penalty because it made you that much more choosy about your battles and you wanna talk about an adrenaline rush? How about running from a group that outnumbers you 3 to 1 or more and knowing if you die, your toon is basically toast and you'll have to re-roll. Also, stat loss only last 8 hours per murder count. So if you logged your dude in all day while you went to work, you'd tick off a stat loss murder count or 2 per day.

I wish more people were cool with full loot open world. I got 2 RL buddies to start playing Rust this week. My one buddy is like me, enjoys full loot. He got his brother to play too, but didn't explain the system. You should have heard him in coms when he realized he will lose all his stuff when he dies.

Also, they found some server where the admins helped them out because they were new. Dude took us to this ridiculous 30 story tall metal tower the admins had constructed up in the hills. As he's giving us stuff from his 20 loot crates, I said to my buddies in mumble, "Dude, this guy only has 1 door protecting his shit. I'm going farm to till I get the C4 blue print and come back tonight and blow his door and take ALL this shit." My one buddy was laughing his ass off, but his brother was like "Dude, he helped us, that's messed up!"

I guess it's just a difference in mentality. I'm free to be whoever I want in video games and in my world, if it's not tagged LoD, it's a target. If you want to call it role playing, I guess you'd call it role playing an evil bastard. lol. Sadly, most people want to make friends online and build carebear cities and trade and craft. Barf.

Mortal Online copied the murder count system that UO had. It was the same way. I'd sit inside a house while AFK to get rid of the murder counts and stat loss. The system of waiting it out AFK seems dumb to me. One improvement to that system would be to have some kind of PVE quest that you can do to regain alignment. Paying gold would be another way. You shouldn't just be able to wait it out.

Stat loss shouldn't be part of it though. Being red just means you can't go where the law is!

Yeah - Rust is another example of a game that won't attract sheep.

Have you played it yet? I disagree strongly. There is no real grind and the house-building aspect of the game can be quite addicting. It's like tower defense. Should attract a lot of people.

Rust is essentially: UO + Counterstrike + Keep Defense

It needs more endgame content / things to do, but I don't understand how someone could claim to love open world, full loot PvP and yet not like Rust. You farm briefly and then roam around the woods looking for people to kill / houses to loot.