Fixing PvP Through Rewards (Long and Complex Suggestion, Refined)

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This is a reiteration of this thread – http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30987, a thread that dealt with fixing the PvP imbalance by fixing the surrender/reward system. After 5 pages or so of discussion, the idea was refined and polished. I have taken the comments and thoughts from that thread and consolidated them down into one more refined (and a bit long) suggestion.

The main idea, or train of thought, was to fix the PvP system's shortcomings without actually changing the system itself. The mechanics of PvP combat work, but the game rewards the wrong kind of behavior. The idea here is to change how the rewards work, thereby altering player behavior. Hopefully, even if this isn't the end-all solution, it could fix things enough to bring players back while other changes are implemented.

Firstly, I should point out some of the basic things that this solution deals with, and define some things that may otherwise be confusing.

(1) This suggestion is focused on red zones in particular. If some aspects could be fruitfully applied to other PvP situations, like PBs or flags, so be it, but the primary focus is red zone combat.
(2) In most cases, when I say 'surrender' I am mainly talking about 100% surrenders. This can get confusing, so here is the rule of thumb for this thread – you are rewarded equally for accepting any surrender, and only punished for turning down a 100% surrender.
(3) For the most part, this thread is intended to encourage PvP participation, discourage ganking, discourage griefing, and make the whole situation more rewarding and fun for everyone. This is NOT a “carebear” thread, nor is it an “uber-killer” thread. So kindly keep any arguments or name-calling for the other parts of the forum. The ultimate goal is to eliminate what many consider the #1 reason we are losing players, something that hurts us all regardless of your philosophy on PvP in general. That said, let's move on.
(4) This solution sounds complex and detailed. It is, to some degree. But most of it can be implemented without a major overhaul to the game. The reasons I am being specific, and perhaps pedantic, are to eliminate confusion as to what I'm saying and to make it easy for the devs to see exactly what the suggestion would mean.
(5) This is only a suggestion, a line of thought. It is not claimed to be perfect or completely balanced. That is the devs' job. We are all only players.
(6) We are trying to balance realism with good gameplay, with the (rare) tie going to gameplay.

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A. The first part of this suggestion deals with what rewards are given and how they are given when players engage in PvP combat.

1. Players should not receive Marks of Victory (MoVs) from every player they sink. It should have a scaled chance of appearing, 100% if your target was near your strength, 0% if it was substantially weaker than you. The amount of ships on either side also affects this, with the goal being a pretty much even fight, or one where you overcame the odds. Whatever method is used to calculate this 'power ratio' should account for player level AND ship level. (Remember, programming and number crunching are for the devs to do.)

2. All rewards (MoV, XP, money, unrest points, loot, etc) should be scaled to reflect the amount of challenge the opponent presented.

3. Accepting a surrender of any type should yield the exact same rewards that sinking would. You are still the victor, and should be treated as such.

B. The second part of this suggestion deals with the benefits and penalties involved with accepting/rejecting a surrender.

1. Accepting a surrender should yield it's own set of benefits. Particularly reputation gains. Being honorable is something that should earn you a good reputation, if nothing else. Other benefits could be given, too. Several small rewards are more effective and less exploitable than one big reward.

2. Conversely, rejecting an unconditional surrender would inflict penalties. Again, reputation would be the primary tool. The losses would affect your standing with your own faction, as well, since your actions reflect badly on them. It should be entirely possible that a rotten and dishonorable person could lose access to missions, structures, and the AH in his home faction as a result of consistent and unrelenting bad behavior. Other fitting penalties could also be added. Several broad and modest penalties are better than one large one. There may be times when an otherwise honorable person would choose to reject a surrender, and one transgression should not ruin them. On the other hand, people who are insistent on treating their victims unmercifully would eventually bear hefty consequences as the small penalties added up. One idea was to track how 'infamous' or 'notorious' a player was and show the most dishonorable players on a list and give rewards to anyone who sunk them, like a bounty. Or set a threshold that, when crossed, added an icon to the player's name, marking them as 'wanted' or 'hunted'. People with this mark would yield extra rewards when sunk, and refusing their surrender would NOT give a penalty, reflecting the idea of 'reaping what you sow'. If you don't accept surrenders, why should anyone accept your's?

3. Rejecting a 100% surrender would also still mean that you receive no unsecured cargo. It could also mean no bounty, or other loot, besides the possible MoV, but that is open to debate. Realistically, if you send a ship to Davy, you don't really get anything from it, aside from the recognition for the kill.

4. Offering an opponent a surrender would also carry penalties, so as to encourage people who are able to fight back to do so. Again, reputation could be a primary tool for this. This reflects the shame a nation feels upon hearing of a loss. The loss should be scaled so that smaller players can surrender to large ones without much, if any loss. If possible, the game should be able to distinguish when someone offers a surrender without fighting and when they offer one after heavy fighting. Someone who surrenders to an opponent that is of comparable power to themselves (or, god forbid, weaker) without a fight deserves the heavier penalty. Someone who puts up a good fight shouldn't be hit as hard, but should still be hit. This should be easily tracked by when the surrender is offered. If someone surrenders when their structure is less than, say, 15%, then that says that they put up a fight. If the ship in general is above 85%, then they haven't really tried.

5. Conversely, 'going down with the ship', while painful, would score some small bonus, to reflect the galvanizing and inspirational effect you have on your countrymen. Perhaps even a paltry reward for going all the way, though one small enough that it won't encourage people to farm it, or want to be sunk. (Maybe a Mark of Bravery, or something like that if you go down with a ship. Lots of possibilities, all of which would need balance.)

6. Sinking or boarding a ship that HAS NOT offered an UNCONDITIONAL surrender would not be penalized, and would generate the normal rewards, or perhaps better rewards than currently.

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C. The third part of this deals with the effects of fewer ships being sunk. There are multiple ways to deal with the economic impact of fewer ships going down. Here are a couple of examples.

1. Add a 'wear-and-tear' mechanic to the game that affects all players. This should reflect that even if a ship isn't sunk, it does wear out after repeated use/abuse, which is very realistic. No ship should be in perfect condition after a lot of fighting. My personal suggestion was to add a small chance that the max hull value for a ship would be damaged as a result of taking fire in combat. This would happen slowly, so that one combat wouldn't ruin a ship. For example – let's say that a new ship starts with 1000 max hull. It goes through a battle and survives with a hull of 245/1000. Lets say it does this 10 times. After the tenth battle, the player notices that now the hull reads 245/992. This continues over and over, and the max continues it's gradual fall, showing values like 532/976, 745/914, 122/865, 658/804, and so on. In this example, the ship never sank, but became more worn out. With this system, losing a durability point would not reset the max hull to full. Even after being sunk, the max hull would remain at whatever point it is. This way, even if a player never sinks, he still needs to replace his ship eventually, as it gets too hazardous to use. It's unlikely that anyone would take even an SoL out to fight if it's hull said 32/32. [These numbers were to illustrate how the system would work, not hard figures.]

2. Make the environment more dangerous. Give all NPCs heavy round shot to use. Give the special ones bronze. Find some way to make NPCs sink more players. This is questionable, since it is a regressive solution. Meaning, it affects lower level players more than higher level ones.

3. <Insert other idea here...> This is an area we could use more feedback on, though unless I'm mistaken, which I may be, several like the wear-an-tear idea. But, there could be a lot of potential ways to increase the demand for ships, and we could always consider alternatives.

D. The last part of this deals with exploits and griefing. The hard part of this is that, no matter what you do, people will find a way to cheat and will find a way to be jerks. This section deals with things we thought of, but is probably not complete. Generally, all you can do is make it more difficult to get away with stuff, and call it 'good enough'. So, no, these things here aren't perfect. These suggestions are meant to make it very inconvenient to cheat/grief. [Each of these fixes will reference the part in the previous text that it is intended to address.]

1. [B1] “If you reward every surrender, people could exploit it and just go back and forth surrendering to farm the reward.” - There needs to be a timer that prevents you from getting the reward from the same player more than once in a certain span of time. The timer would mean that people simply farming the rewards would have to wait for some amount of time. That becomes tiresome, and would discourage people from farming. Also, remember that this thread is focused on the red zone, and anyone farming anything in a red zone is usually taking a risk already. This also has the secondary effect of encouraging players to find fresh targets in the zone instead of picking on one that they know will surrender to them. Recommend this timer to be set between 30 min and an hour. This does NOT affect the rejection penalty. If you attack someone over and over, each time you reject his surrender is a separate black mark on your record. - - - Final effect: Farming is reduced, and target variety is encouraged. Attacking the same player repeatably is allowed, but dishonorable conduct is still punished.

2. [B2/D1] “If you punish every rejection of a surrender, and only reward the first acceptance, what's to prevent me from sailing around attacking people and surrendering just to make them take the penalty?” - There would be no penalty for rejecting an aggressor's surrender. In this case, the reward would count, along with the timer mentioned in D1, but there would be no penalty. This makes attacking a more risky move, but that offsets the fact that the attacker is the one who 'sets the rules' in combat. The attacker gets to decide who, where, and when, and usually has a plan already in place with allies to assist. It isn't unfair that the attacker take a heavier risk. (This could produce side-effects that are unintentional, like players never wanting to attack without backup, but those effects are moderate. Any feedback or suggestions on this issue would be welcome.)

3. [General] “If an ally joins right before the enemy surrenders, how does it affect the 'power ratio' and the rewards given for his surrender/loss? Or vice versa?” - How the system functions in a group setting is one thing we are still talking about. I think we all agree that all the rewards should be affected by the group size. The 'power ratio' between the attacker and defender often rely greatly on the size and number of their allies. Likewise, the group should function as a whole, as far as receiving rewards and the like. How do we handle things if 4 want to accept the surrender, and 2 don't? The 4 allies that would accept it shouldn't be punished. There are a lot of things to think about when addressing how the group dynamic would affect things. Lots of questions, and this is probably the area we need the most help with.

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Many thanks to the following for helping out with the original thread, and to any who helped that I may have missed.

Spinnaker Sam
CaptainKipper
arshraam
GB
Paul_kingtiger
denmj
foxdelta
Temujin88
ozziefudd

[Aeruleus]

I reserved one too many spaces up front, I'll save this one for stuff we may want to add later.