Soul wound - A murder count alternative

[Woody]

In responding to @Kaemik's suggestion on "How to fix the reputation/murder system", I tried to think of an alternative to the murder count system while taking into account their approach of having blue/red status transfer to reputation - which I think is good. It addresses the right problem in terms of encouraging localised reputations, and enabling red & blue dynamics between regions. It however doesn't take into consideration the necessity for immediately felt consequences for impacting upon another player's experience - which is what MC as it stands now should be trying to achieve. In short, a player should feel compelled via the game mechanics to reconsider their intent in RPKing someone, especially against players who are actively blue. Note, this suggestion is similar to the MC system in many ways, but aims to frame it a bit differently.

What are soul wounds?

Soul wounds replace murder count (MC) as a way to imply similar immediately felt repercussions for murdering blue players, without directly affecting city access or red and blue status outside of the reputation system. It is a typical morality system; evil vs good represented as a sliding scale that applies penalties to that player's stats and values upon death (a res sickness of sorts). Having a positive soul is called "Soul potency" and acts as a buffer against soul wounds.

In roleplay terms:
"A soul wound is an ethereal tear in the fabric of ones soul after performing an act that the soul cannot come to bear. A soul wound directly impacts the soul's ability to return to the physical world and that of the amount of lifeforce a priest is able to impart. One's soul is known to be able to become potent enough to bear the weight of soul wounds through devout and lawful dedication."

How are soul wounds displayed?

Replacing Murder Counts on the character sheet, a value between -10 and +10 [20 total] or a visual graphic as a sliding bar from left to right, negative to positive. Players start at 0.

What do soul wounds impact?

The following are some examples of impacts they could have on player stats and values, as well as game mechanics.

Upon death if your Soul Wound value is below 0 the following examples could be applied:

• You lose an additional 5% health, stamina and mana reserves per soul wound (5% of the amount lost at a base of 0).
• Your health, stamina and mana reserve recovery rate from all sources is reduced by 5% per soul wound for ? minutes.
• Resurrection sickness timer penalty is increased by 10% per soul wound (e.g doubled at -10).

Examples of potential impacts outside of death events:

• Criminal flag timer increased by 10% per current soul wound (e.g doubled at -10).
• Stat/exp/attribute gain is decreased by ? per current soul wound.

How are soul wounds applied?

Soul wounds are applied through murder reports.

• -2 for murder (final blow)
• -1 for assisted murder (not the final blow but damaged the player)

Following the same flagging system in game, murdering a Grey or a Red does not apply a soul wound. Furthermore, this would only work if flagging was tied to the reputation system, see here.

Recovering/gaining soul wounds (or soul potency)

Players recover Soul Wounds over time. Players gain Soul Potency which is a buffer to Soul Wounds for extended periods of non murder.

• Soul Wounds (negative values)
  • recover at a rate of +1 every 24-48 hours (offline inclusive)
  • can pay gold tribute to priests in order to recover +1 soul wound.
    • Higher negative values cost larger amounts of gold, to remove -1. Good gold sink
• Soul Potency (neutral or positive values)
  • gain +1 soul potency every ? hours of in-game playtime.

Why is this mechanic necessary?

Sandbox Full loot PvP-MMOs live and die by their ability to retain players outside of their core audience (e.g. people who aren't already invested in this genre). A mechanic such as this that aims to target and provide a form of disincentive for random PKing and that is an immediate consideration, is necessary. On the other hand, reputation should be considered as a slow burn, a grind of sorts that rewards players for dedication to their chosen faction.

The impacts are only felt upon death and do not actively nerf a players stats/skills or ability to be a murderer/outlaw but aims to slow them down upon death and thus spend more resources/time to recover. More or less impacts might be necessary where appropriate to balance this out but for this suggestion, I've left them reasonable.

As mentioned, a fleshed out reputation system as @Kaemik has suggested should be implemented to encourage proper factional/regional reputation with further longer term repercussions for similar behaviour. The blue and red flagging system should be tied to the reputation system and this system should be a hidden personal value for the player's consideration.

Overall, we need to actively seek out ways that we can put emphasis on positive interactions in game whilst disincentivizing mechanics that - yes - while still allowed, impact negatively upon another player's gameplay experience.

EDITS:

- Forgot to add timers on the end of some of the impacts.
- Changed recovery rate to be offline over a longer period
- Added example of effects that could be applied in general (outside of death windows)
- Added considerations of other mechanics

 

[Kaemik]

I'd remove the -1 per 6 hour in-game. This leaves in the horrible mechanic of idling your system with the game on all night to remove murder counts. If it's a time-based removal system it should count you as being in-game for 24-48 hours after your last login and adjust the number of hours for whatever you feel is appropriate under that system. That way active players all bleed them at the same rate but you can't lose a bazillion murder counts if you go on a month-long vacation or something.

Personally though, I prefer as I suggested. Let rep handle the murder system and make all murder counts removable by in-game actions the way rep already does. Making it removable by in-game actions means people who play less can't get away with more murder than people who play more, and there is no such thing as a "free" murder count. Time-based removal results in a dynamic of "Oh I'm low on murder counts. I can afford to spend a couple to gank this guy for his stuff." In addition to the aforementioned system idling problem.

 

[Tzone]

Why do people want to stop pvp? I would instead punish people for dying a lot which the game already does but doesn't do it enough.

 

[Woody]

Why do people want to stop pvp? I would instead punish people for dying a lot which the game already does but doesn't do it enough.

How does this suggestion stop PvP? Further to your point, this would actually punish people for dying a lot!

 

[Rorry]

A

How does this suggestion stop PvP? Further to your point, this would actually punish people for dying a lot!

A group of blue players roll up to siege your house, you kill them all, they give murder counts, res, come back and repeat. I have gotten 30 or 40 in one fight in MO1.
When sieging as well, but you probably think those were justly earned. Even though often sieges are in retaliation for being sieged earlier. The problem with all of these systems is that they are blind, they can't differentiate between motives and circumstances.
They always require you to let every blue member of the other group hit you first, disadvantaging innocence, as well.

 

[TheHeretic]

Why you try to make new system with your vision? Just make a poll for SV to return old flag (bst shit what i see in a games) from MO1

 

[Illuana]

Why do people want to stop pvp? I would instead punish people for dying a lot which the game already does but doesn't do it enough.

I don't think people want to stop PVP, I think they are trying to punish people that do random indiscriminate PK in a way that is appropriate.
I say appropriate because There is a place for PVP, or PK some people have their entire economy based on it, while others go out nad do other things for their prosperity. In a game that is Full loot, full pvp any time, anywhere players must expect pvp or pk... but let's all be realistic here in that some people have a distinct advantage in this regard... Latency for example, a high end rig that just runs better than another, and experience of time in game. These advantages can be dealt with 2 ways from a game perspective.... 1- players have the gitgud mentality and the game dies, or the devs try to balance the game and it lives. Since the devs want to make money off the game as much as possible, I'm sure they would like it to not die as much as possible.

All this being said, People want to enjoy the game and when there are advantages that can't be over come through no fault of your own its not an enjoyable system and people will leave. Trying to fix some of these systems states that people don't want to just leave, they want to enjoy the game, but can't at the current system

 

[Rorry]

I don't think people want to stop PVP, I think they are trying to punish people that do random indiscriminate PK in a way that is appropriate.
I say appropriate because There is a place for PVP, or PK some people have their entire economy based on it, while others go out nad do other things for their prosperity. In a game that is Full loot, full pvp any time, anywhere players must expect pvp or pk... but let's all be realistic here in that some people have a distinct advantage in this regard... Latency for example, a high end rig that just runs better than another, and experience of time in game. These advantages can be dealt with 2 ways from a game perspective.... 1- players have the gitgud mentality and the game dies, or the devs try to balance the game and it lives. Since the devs want to make money off the game as much as possible, I'm sure they would like it to not die as much as possible.

All this being said, People want to enjoy the game and when there are advantages that can't be over come through no fault of your own its not an enjoyable system and people will leave. Trying to fix some of these systems states that people don't want to just leave, they want to enjoy the game, but can't at the current system

The biggest issue is that while it is good to have it cost to gank new players randomly it also bleeds over into other pvp. My group can fight another willing group of equal size and skill and the victor is punished in the same way as the person ganking newbs.

 

[Woody]

The biggest issue is that while it is good to have it cost to gank new players randomly it also bleeds over into other pvp. My group can fight another willing group of equal size and skill and the victor is punished in the same way as the person ganking newbs.

This is where the longer burn mechanics that have a larger impact for established players and groups come into play. I refer to the likes of a functioning reputation system, territory control and guild vs guild conflict. Because in the case of this suggestion, soul wounds are only applied when killing blues.

I can respect that some blue behaviour is still abusable as in order to stop them you have to react by whacking them but, this should be addressed as a separate issue entirely. Furthermore, the Soul Potency portion of this system suggested does provide a potential mechanic to occasionally have to deal with blue players.

 

[Rorry]

This is where the longer burn mechanics that have a larger impact for established players and groups come into play. I refer to the likes of a functioning reputation system, territory control and guild vs guild conflict. Because in the case of this suggestion, soul wounds are only applied when killing blues.

I can respect that some blue behaviour is still abusable as in order to stop them you have to react by whacking them but, this should be addressed as a separate issue entirely. Furthermore, the Soul Potency portion of this system suggested does provide a potential mechanic to occasionally have to deal with blue players.

Still in the case of my earlier example, if I understand your system correctly, for having my keep sieged I am punished for from 30-60 IRL days, and it sounds like I would also have zero reserves after I wait a long time to be able to res. Or pay what I assume would be a large amount of gold.
It doesn't sound appealing, sorry.
Any system that is very harsh must differentiate between types of deaths. I don't know any way this can be done that would work when applied to the whole world.
The best idea that I can think of is to have an area around each guarded town in which characters can be blue and outside of that everyone is grey. Then if someone commits murder inside that zone it would be understood that the consequences would be harsh. Group pvp could then hopefully take place outside of those areas.

 

[Woody]

Still in the case of my earlier example, if I understand your system correctly, for having my keep sieged I am punished for from 30-60 IRL days, and it sounds like I would also have zero reserves after I wait a long time to be able to res. Or pay what I assume would be a large amount of gold.
It doesn't sound appealing, sorry.
Any system that is very harsh must differentiate between types of deaths. I don't know any way this can be done that would work when applied to the whole world.
The best idea that I can think of is to have an area around each guarded town in which characters can be blue and outside of that everyone is grey. Then if someone commits murder inside that zone it would be understood that the consequences would be harsh. Group pvp could then hopefully take place outside of those areas.

In addressing the scenario in your use case, here's an idea of some mechanics that could be implemented to allow you to retaliate freely without MC as far as I can see it:

• All players in the scenario are considered blue.
• You own the property and 4 blues come to siege it.
• At the point in time where your property takes damage from any source of siege mechanic, any player around your property in a radius becomes local/hidden grey to you, excluding guild/alliance members that are present. If innocent bystanders don't wish to be involved they then need to move away. For the remaining players that are either:
  • identifiable as cohorts e.g. in a guild or an alliance
  • a loose group of players (random blue players without a guild)
• You and any friendly house key holders or guild members, are able to attack the instigating players freely without consequence.
  • But only in retaliation - as is the current system of grey flagging.
• The radius around the property remains in place for ? minutes after damage has been applied, resetting upon further damage. Anyone not affiliated with the owner(s) who enters near the property is turned local grey to said owner(s).

Think of stand your ground laws in America strictly applied to the area around your property.

With this in mind, it's obvious that this system of flagging will only ever work in a state of being able to retaliate. There is no feasible solution as far as I know that can ultimately address the intent of one's actions as you've eluded to. I'm still of the belief though that you can implement systems that can work as mechanism to balance out intent and consequence, whilst addressing possible forms of abuse through other additional mechanics (such as detailed above in the scenario).

 

[Rorry]

You are right, that is better. It still has the problem of giving the advantage to the aggressor by requiring the innocent party to wait until their property takes damage to be able to attack.
Rather than having the area be around the house, maybe it should be around the area in the instant a siege engine is placed. It would remove the ability for the home owning group to give murder counts, but it could be an improvement. It could also be used/abused in other circumstances though, as well.
Could make it to where holding boulders or other ammo or having them on your mount makes you grey, but that might be going too far as they wouldn't be able to be stored in town then.

 

[Woody]

You are right, that is better. It still has the problem of giving the advantage to the aggressor by requiring the innocent party to wait until their property takes damage to be able to attack.
Rather than having the area be around the house, maybe it should be around the area in the instant a siege engine is placed. It would remove the ability for the home owning group to give murder counts, but it could be an improvement. It could also be used/abused in other circumstances though, as well.
Could make it to where holding boulders or other ammo or having them on your mount makes you grey, but that might be going too far as they wouldn't be able to be stored in town then.

Yes so to help in this respect you could also have the local grey condition trigger earlier, such as on the presence of siege equipment that comes into the range/radius around the property. Range/radius could be determined by the maximum distance siege equipment can attack that property +20ft or so. The grey radius would still be bound to your property though, not the siege equipment itself (as you don't want siege equipment to be taboo outside of clear intent to siege - e.g. being near someone's property with it)

 

[MolagAmur]

A lot of people have tried to come up with ideas for the murder count rework. I personally wish there was a perfect way to do it so that PvPers still got what they wanted, and people who don't want to PvP as much to get what they want. At the end of the day, I don't think you're going to satisfy everyone. This IS a PvP game. However, I think it has a ton of room for roleplay and "laws" that discourage people from randomly killing someone just for the sake of killing them. Its just a really hard thing to accomplish. I'd say the easiest is to allow guilds to set their own flagging system in their owned territory, and combine that somehow with a reputation system. If a guild that has a "good" repuation as blue players, they receive more gold from house taxes and vendors in their territory if they own a town. This will also make more people want to build houses in their area since.

I personally think negative effects towards your stats is an absolute shit way to punish someone. Statloss in MO1 was just a hassle and didn't prevent anyone from doing anything. It was just annoying. Simple as that. Its a half-baked and lazy idea. People shouldn't be punished for PvP or ganking. Perhaps people should instead be "rewarded" for being a good citizen. (maybe the bounty system will help with that)

Ganks will happen. A lot. Regardless of the suggestions in this post. It just sounds like more of an annoying mechanic that people will just have to deal with. You'll never stop people ganking. There are better ways to make people not want to.

(not trying to sound like a dick btw)

 

[Woody]

A lot of people have tried to come up with ideas for the murder count rework. I personally wish there was a perfect way to do it so that PvPers still got what they wanted, and people who don't want to PvP as much to get what they want. At the end of the day, I don't think you're going to satisfy everyone. This IS a PvP game. However, I think it has a ton of room for roleplay and "laws" that discourage people from randomly killing someone just for the sake of killing them. Its just a really hard thing to accomplish. I'd say the easiest is to allow guilds to set their own flagging system in their owned territory, and combine that somehow with a reputation system. (If a guild that has a "good" repuation as blue players, they receive more gold from taxes and merchants in their territory if they own a town) This will also make more people want to build houses in their area since.

I personally think negative effects towards your stats is an absolute shit way to punish someone. Statloss in MO1 was just a hassle and didn't prevent anyone from doing anything. It was just annoying. Simple as that. Its a half-baked and lazy idea. People shouldn't be punished for PvP or ganking. Perhaps people should instead be "rewarded" for being a good citizen. (maybe the bounty system will help with that)

Ganks will happen. A lot. Regardless of the suggestions in this post. It just sounds like more of an annoying mechanic that people will just have to deal with. You'll never stop people ganking. There are better ways to make people not want to.

(not trying to sound like a dick btw)

Yup and fair enough comments. As you've eluded to, perhaps it could be enough to simply have the positive side of the coin for extended periods of blue behaviour. That way it becomes an incentive, not a punishment.

Either way, here's hoping the combined mechanics the devs are able to implement do provide some basis of balance. We've seen the shortcomings of full-loot PvP sandboxes and while they're fun, the games never last. This game will succeed in it's ability to find the balance between RPK and PvP.

 

[Tzone]

@Woody
Stand your ground is state by state. States that have stand you ground laws almost always have them apply everywhere you are legally allowed to be. Some states you have a duty to retreat even in your own home but thats rare.


As pertains to the game:
I just see soul wounds as very cancerous for the game. Losing stats from dying was a bad thing from the old game that lots of people hated and its gladly not a thing. It wouldn't just drive people away from PvP but from the game itself.

You would have to design a huge complex system with many what if's to defeat killers using blue name status as a weapon against their victims. Even then people will find away around everything. I don't believe its possible to have a fair system to punish people for killing other players. Having murder counts and needing to run from a priest is good enough punishment.

If you die, you die. Its a open world PvP game. Just fight back and if you lose then you lost. Its the game and its great content, if you dont like someone killing you then the players can make their own ingame systems to go after the killers. Rust is doing just find being a full loot sandbox type game.

People try to act like "PK" is some boogy man but how are you even going to PvP if "PK" becomes too penalized. People would just stare at each other and nothing would happen because the penalties for PvP would make them not want to even play the game. Whats going to start a fight if people are too worried about stats to attack and take fancy gear you are wearing or take the farming spot. All of this also doesn't even solve the defenders of attacks having to attack first or let the other opponent land a attack first. I dont even see a PK problem.


My only problems I see are with naked griefers. You kill a player in town and they are right back at it in 20 seconds which a bone tissue sword or a soul bound grief sword. Or even worse a naked mage. If you die in a town you should have a death timer longer then the wild and with increasing length from consecutive deaths a certain time distance apart. I dont even want to kill ungeared and definitely dont want to priest camp but what can you do if a naked spawns up and runs directly over to punch a mercy mode duelist or just to start poking people with his sword. I would say if you do give a spawn timer the spawn needs to be protected some what to be fair and stop camping priest to a degree.


It would incentive players to not hug the towns guard zone and actually fight, keep nakeds from coming back and rejoining after you kill them in group PvP, and delay most forms of griefing in towns.

 

[EZgold]

Just make local grey to the owners anybody close enough to siege. Except declared friendlies/allies. After a 10 seconds warning. Same for exiting the area, 10 seconds to lose the local grey status.

 

[Woody]

@Woody
Stand your ground is state by state. States that have stand you ground laws almost always have them apply everywhere you are legally allowed to be. Some states you have a duty to retreat even in your own home but thats rare.


As pertains to the game:
I just see soul wounds as very cancerous for the game. Losing stats from dying was a bad thing from the old game that lots of people hated and its gladly not a thing. It wouldn't just drive people away from PvP but from the game itself.

You would have to design a huge complex system with many what if's to defeat killers using blue name status as a weapon against their victims. Even then people will find away around everything. I don't believe its possible to have a fair system to punish people for killing other players. Having murder counts and needing to run from a priest is good enough punishment.

If you die, you die. Its a open world PvP game. Just fight back and if you lose then you lost. Its the game and its great content, if you dont like someone killing you then the players can make their own ingame systems to go after the killers. Rust is doing just find being a full loot sandbox type game.

People try to act like "PK" is some boogy man but how are you even going to PvP if "PK" becomes too penalized. People would just stare at each other and nothing would happen because the penalties for PvP would make them not want to even play the game. Whats going to start a fight if people are too worried about stats to attack and take fancy gear you are wearing or take the farming spot. All of this also doesn't even solve the defenders of attacks having to attack first or let the other opponent land a attack first. I dont even see a PK problem.


My only problems I see are with naked griefers. You kill a player in town and they are right back at it in 20 seconds which a bone tissue sword or a soul bound grief sword. Or even worse a naked mage. If you die in a town you should have a death timer longer then the wild and with increasing length from consecutive deaths a certain time distance apart. I dont even want to kill ungeared and definitely dont want to priest camp but what can you do if a naked spawns up and runs directly over to punch a mercy mode duelist or just to start poking people with his sword. I would say if you do give a spawn timer the spawn needs to be protected some what to be fair and stop camping priest to a degree.


It would incentive players to not hug the towns guard zone and actually fight, keep nakeds from coming back and rejoining after you kill them in group PvP, and delay most forms of griefing in towns.

You make good points here and I do respect the sentiment around how it becomes detrimental to PvP to impose too harsh of a penalty. Therefore I accept that this suggestion may very well not be the solution to the problem I'm targeting, which is to disincentivize "RPK" of (newb) blues (aka KoS cus lul I'm bored), in order for the game to help retain a player base (outside of it's core audience) and actually survive in the long term. We've had enough examples of full loot PvP games by now that have failed due to poor new player retention mechanics.

If you die, you die. Its a open world PvP game. Just fight back and if you lose then you lost. Its the game and its great content, if you dont like someone killing you then the players can make their own ingame systems to go after the killers. Rust is doing just find being a full loot sandbox type game.

Rust is at it's core a survival game cantered around PvP but is also considered a KoS fest that lacks any of the intricacies MO2 is trying to achieve (such as proper guild politics, game persistence, and proper territory control). There's a reason the likes of roof campers in Rust are lambasted for sitting in a clan tower all day sniping nakeds'. There's nothing engaging or remotely "PvP" about this behaviour. But Rust players do it anyway because the game is that, a KoS PvP survival game, you see someone or a group and you engage. Servers also only stay populated over the weekend after a reset because of the lack of persistence and the fact that it becomes a level playing field again - that and people have lives/jobs for the time required each reset to get to endgame. Even then after the weekend's over, what's the point, there's no investment in the server you've joined, there's no persistence.

Here's what I mean from 'Rustafied US Main':

I just see soul wounds as very cancerous for the game. Losing stats from dying was a bad thing from the old game that lots of people hated and its gladly not a thing. It wouldn't just drive people away from PvP but from the game itself.

This is why I've suggested only increasing the severity of the recoverable stats that are already impacted when you die (e.g. reserves) and extended it to some timers to give a feeling of a greater penalty for being an RPKer, without going as far as penalising the skilling stats. No-one want's to regrind their skills up - I agree. Also to reiterate, this replaces the red priest mechanic and ties that to Kaemiks reputation idea with regional red/blue status.

People try to act like "PK" is some boogy man but how are you even going to PvP if "PK" becomes too penalized. People would just stare at each other and nothing would happen because the penalties for PvP would make them not want to even play the game. What's going to start a fight if people are too worried about stats to attack and take fancy gear you are wearing or take the farming spot. All of this also doesn't even solve the defenders of attacks having to attack first or let the other opponent land a attack first. I don't even see a PK problem.

We need to look outside the box in this respect because if we're basing it solely on the systems implemented now, then sure I can agree. But we've still not fully realised the already planned systems (reputation is suggested as per OP) such as:

• Territory control
• Guild v Guild flagging and Alliances
• Reputation status impacting regional flagging/access more appropriately

Also, this is targeting protecting players without the fancy gear because surely the reward of the "fancy gear" outweighs having to "potentially" spend a bit longer (using the examples given in the OP) in resting/recovering after your next death. Whereas RPKing/KoSing a blue with shit gear or nothing to gain from doing so is exactly what we should be trying to balance for. I do agree though, tackling all the use cases of when flagging is applied and fairly is always going to be hard to balance (and is still a major flaw in the current implementation).

My only problems I see are with naked griefers. You kill a player in town and they are right back at it in 20 seconds which a bone tissue sword or a soul bound grief sword. Or even worse a naked mage. If you die in a town you should have a death timer longer then the wild and with increasing length from consecutive deaths a certain time distance apart. I dont even want to kill ungeared and definitely dont want to priest camp but what can you do if a naked spawns up and runs directly over to punch a mercy mode duelist or just to start poking people with his sword. I would say if you do give a spawn timer the spawn needs to be protected some what to be fair and stop camping priest to a degree.

This is another issue entirely but I agree, this needs to be addressed e.g:

• Ramping death timers for consecutive deaths in short succession from the same priest etc.
• Soul bound weapons eventually being phased out the longer you play the game - I mean the durability value even now is unbalanced

All in all, you raise good points/concerns!