A (hopefully) New Take on Unfair PvP

[Aeruleus]

This was originally posted in the Surrender Guide Thread, which was only semi-appropriate. It's better here. I am simply copying and pasting. This suggestion deals with using the broken and un-used surrender system to help fix PvP.

First post:

You know, PvP is always a tense subject. Namecalling on both sides and various accusations and even complete garbage flying around. However, the fact remains that this game needs players to survive. And a lot of people having very negative experiences with PvP encounters means fewer and fewer players. And regardless of how often the uber-cool, uber-kill you and laugh PvPers say, "quit crying, carebear" or "get over it", the fact is, people won't get over it. They'll quit. And that hurts everyone.

The "just stay out of the red" defense does NOT hold water either. So please stop using it. Yes, a person can usually avoid PvP water. But when you make every effort to keep certain ports red (Port Royal, for example), you lose that defense. Guess what? We have to go places. The new cool-down period helps, but we still have to get places sometimes, believe it or not. So give that a rest. Please.

So, now that that's out of the way, everyone needs to accept that if nothing is done, we will lose players. Regardless of how you feel philosophically about PvP (yes, I do enjoy good, fair PvP), we need to address the problem.

I think the surrender thing is a great idea, just poorly executed. It's hard to make the mechanic work and still be realistic and true. I think we're limiting ourselves in how we're looking at it.

For instance, should a level 50 be able to attack a lvl 1? Yes. There was nothing stopping it from happening in 1720. Should they be praised and heralded as a hero of their country and paraded around and presented to the crown (i.e. Mark of Victory)? I don't think so. I think a mark should not be a foregone conclusion. There should either be a scaling CHANCE of getting a mark, or you should only get one if your enemy would actually present a challenge. That holds for if 6 lvl 50s attack a lvl 1. The higher the attacker to defender ratio is, the lower the challenge, and the lower the chance of a mark should be.

If too many people are too lazy to actually earn a mark rather than gang up on little people, then perhaps there should be other penalties for turning down a surrender. Sure, we can dump our cargo in defiance, but consider this:

In real life, no one HAS to accept a surrender. But in real life, there ARE consequences. Think about this in the context of 1720: As already stated, official vessels would always accept surrender. Even pirates would accept surrender, usually. That's why they designed scary pirate flags with skulls and what not. They HOPED for a quick win. But, if they showed no mercy, they also became more hated and HUNTED. A pirate was just a pirate, but a sadistic person who enjoyed killing for the sake of killing and torturing their victims, etc (some of you bloodthirsty PvPers should take note), gained a reputation. And a higher bounty, more chance that official ships would spend their time in its entirety hunting them down, and a guarantee of no quarter when they were found.

Therefore, I suggest this: find a way to make life harder on those who turn down 100% surrenders. Do you have to accept it? No. Do you face the consequences? Yes, you should. And it could be conceivably anywhere in the game, not just a combat thing. Maybe trouble with merchants. Maybe reputation point losses (even with your home faction, which is perfectly reasonable, since you make them look bad). There are a million things you can do. Make them vulnerable to losing actual money from their wallets in PvP, even, though that's harder to explain... (maybe bribes?). Anyway. Let them have the silly mark, as long as they pay for their dishonorableness in some way.

All that said, it boils down to this: Can I, age 28, 200 lbs, go beat up a 10 year old to watch him bleed and take his lunch money for my collection? Yes. Should I pay for it if I do? Absolutely.

[Aeruleus]

Second Post:

Sorry for the double post, but another thing just occured to me. If a Mark of Victory is not a foregone conclusion, then it leads to an interesting thought process.

When I'm hunting players, I have to make decisions as to whom to attack. Let's say that I'm level 50, and I'm presented with a lvl 48 in a big ship that can defend itself and a level 27 trader, who would be no challenge. If I'm after a mark, I attack the 48, as I'm more likely to earn one. If I'm after cargo, then the level 27 is better, since they'll likely surrender, and even if not, I can pulverize them easily. If I'm after contention or unrest points, then either would work, even if they surrender and I don't get a mark.

That's the thought that occured to me. To get that thought process going, we need these things:

1. Marks are earned based on the battle, not given away like candy.
2. Surrendering counts as defeat. Period, including the possible mark reward and any unrest/contention points. If I can cow a player my level into surrendering to save his ship, then I deserve the recognition it brings.
3. There need to be rewards and penalties. Perhaps instead of a mark reward for accepting a surrender, some other reward, maybe a reputation gain or some other, less-than-a-mark reward that is guaranteed if you accept. If you refuse, you lose their loot, and have the penalties applied.

The rewards and penalties should scale based on the power ratio between the groups. Like, 50 v 48 would mean a decent reward or moderate penalty for accepting/declining a surrender, whereas 50 v 15 would mean a decent reward or severe penalty for the same choice. The reward should gradually increase the closer the levels are, but the penalty should get much more severe as the power gap widens. This encourages and rewards players for attacking players closer to their own ability, and discourages them from ridiculously one-sided matches.

[Aeruleus]

Third Post:

OK, I know. But I'm on a roll, I'm sorry. I had two more thoughts. Well, I'm having a lot of them. But these two warrant posting.

First, a clarification and explanation. I keep saying penalty, but there really should be several. Instead of one really bad penalty, if there are several moderate ones, then there is less chance of players either not caring or finding ways around it. A combination of consequences also adds up better. This way, if for some reason, rejecting the surrender is actually justified (I don't know, maybe you found an enemy SoL and would rather take the penalty and sink it), then it's more of an option. That way, people who only reject for specific, rational reasons are not penalized as severely as those who are just being jerks. A single trespass is different from just being mean as a rule.

Secondly, as one of the penalties, some type of rating system could be implemented to track a person's 'notoriety'. The game could track offenders much as the FBI does, ranking them according to their misdeeds. There would be no direct penalty associated with this ranking, but instead, a reward system for a player who sinks one of these 'public enemies'. Of course, you wouldn't see people from your own nation on the list, since you can't attack them anyway. This would mean that your actions could catch up with you, as more players started to look for you, and pick you out of groups. You wouldn't want to be involved in a port battle if you were on the list, you'd be the prime target. Anyone who sank you would be eligible for a reward of varying quality, depending on how bad you are. They would only get the reward from a kill, though. If you don't accept surrenders, why would anyone accept yours?

I promise I'm going to try to think about something else, its just this has got me going, and I'm facinated by the possibilities...

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[Spinnaker Sam]

Something would have to be done for situations where the attacker is the one that surrenders. Otherwise, I could sail around as a rank 15, attacking rank 50 ships, then offering a surrender. Basically forcing them to accept the surrender or if they reject they get hit with a penalty. Of course , I carry no cargo so I don't actually lose anything and so they don't really gain anything when the do accept. People could really screw over groups of ships if this isn't accounted for.

By rewarding any surrender, you are just increasing the potential for farming the rewards. It would be a simple thing to have a group with multiple alts in different nations, surrendering to each other to obtain the rewards. Which is why the current system doesn't reward surrendering.

[Aeruleus]

You raise an excellent point.

Perhaps that could be remedied by a combination of things.

1. If you reject a surrender that was made by the aggresor, you recieve no penalty. We'd make a small sacrifice in realism, but I firmly believe that if you break into someone's house and they put you in the hospital, its your own fault. They didn't come after you, you went after them. Not particularly realistic, perhaps, but fair.

2. The exploitation thing is a bit harder, since people shall exploit no matter what. They can do it now, using the same model and providing one character with a cheapy ship just to sink him and get a Mark. I say, if they are going to put so much time and effort into it, then there is little chance of stopping them. One way to discourage such things is to make the rewards valid only in red water. Pretty dangerous to try that business there. Besides, if you have a PvP flag up, you are asking to be attacked. Your own fault if someone obliges. Then put a timer on it so that a person cannot recieve rewards from the same victim's surrender more than once in, say, 30 min to an hour. The penalties would still apply, tho. That way, if it's your buddy, you only get rewarded once. If its' an enemy, you get it once, but you can't just refuse the next time if you attack them again. You'd still get hit with the penalty. That also encourages some diversity in the PvP zones, as the people after marks and such would be looking for fresh victims.

As a side thought, the fact that the current system allows Marks regardless of level not only puts a bullseye on young players, but also enables people to exploit easily. Changing that means exploitation is a little tougher. It also means that players would be more likely to find more balanced targets in PvP water. The big guys will go after the big guys for marks. The smaller ones will be safer, and more likely to participate. Therefore, they, too, will find players to fight with. Sure, the big guys will go after the little ones, but only once, and they'll be looking for a surrender, instead of a kill. If the surrender gives comparable results to the winner, then nothing has changed as far as unrest points and xp and bounty goes. That means that things will still progress as normal. In fact, it will progress faster as more players show up to participate. Instead of fear, it will inspire fun. And no worries about having no one to fight with, since, as long as its fair, they probably won't risk losing or gaining unrest points by surrendering too easy. Just imagine, everyone being excited about a port being under attack instead of stressed and dismayed.

[Temujin88]

:/ just dont let ppl see tonnes of cargo....surrenders be much more likely to be accepted that way as you dont know if youve hit the jackpot or your gonna get 2 gravel

[arshraam]

Originally Posted by Temujin88 :/ just dont let ppl see tonnes of cargo....surrenders be much more likely to be accepted that way as you dont know if youve hit the jackpot or your gonna get 2 gravel

I agree. It's kinda stupid to sit there in a San Mateo, which you and the enemy both know is probably fully loaded and not be able to get away with a 25% surrender.

[CaptainKipper]

The whole surrender thing is something i've had on my mind for a while as well, and for the most part agreeing with you.

To me, ANY target on the OS is valid. You're level 50, but a level 19 atlas bark can still do significant economic damage if its allowed to take its cargo to (or from) port. Is it a viable target? Yes, i'm afraid it is. Is it unfair morally? Probably.

In this situation, its much more 'honourable' not to sink the enemy, but to accept the surrender, destroy/steal the cargo, and let the ship on its way, considerably lighter. As well as the reward of protecting your economy, earning some db's from selling those goods yourself, you should get your marks etc. If he surrenders and you don't take it, too bloody right you should find yourself being a more despised by all nations. In the period, a captains honour was as important as anything else - it was a currency he traded on.

Anyway, before I start rambling again, heres a ramble about my thoughts on surrender I posted just yesterday

http://www.burningsea.com/forums/sho...=30261&page=10

[Aeruleus]

That is an excellent point, about any ship being a possible economic threat. Of course, as it stands to my knowledge, there is no way to intercept a ship full of eco bundles consistently anyway. They are usually approaching a peaceful port, so no red zone. But eco bombing is already being addressed, so, it is less of a threat. Of course, if you did attack a lower lvl player with a hold full of eco bundles, then you would get the eco bundles yourself in the surrender. That is enough of a reward, in of itself.

I feel I should clarify something. When I'm talking about surrender, I'm talking about someone striking their colors and giving an unconditional one. No penalties should apply for not taking a 25 or 50%. But if someone offers 100%, and you strike them down in cold blood anyway, then yes, you should be punished. The 25 and 50% surrenders should still be rewarded, so that they retain their usefulness. If a combat career player with a cargo space of 140, which is already carrying ammo and weapons, accepts a 25% surrender from a FT with 2000 tons of goods on board, well, even with the Smuggled Goods skill (halves the amount actually turned over in a surrender) the winner would get 250 tons of spoils! So the 25% and 50% should be viable options. Since I've never seen the surrender work, much less actually had someone use it on me, I have no idea how the loot thing works in such a case. Personally, I think regardless which player you surrender to on an attacking team, your cargo should be added to the loot box and diced like any other loot. That way, 2 enemies might accept the partial surrender, but a group of 6 would want 100%. Either way, any surrender counts equally as far as rewards go, but only rejecting 100% ones would incur a penalty.

[CaptainKipper]

Originally Posted by Aeruleus That is an excellent point, about any ship being a possible economic threat. Of course, as it stands to my knowledge, there is no way to intercept a ship full of eco bundles consistently anyway.

Yes, but you can remove the economic threat via surrender, and the loser doesn't need to lose their ship? I'm not up on my history - only the novel/romanticised version, but i'd like to think (using extremes) a naval 104 capturing a 10/12 gun barque would just confiscate its goods and turn it away, rather than sink it - essentially murdering everyone on board, and its a waste of shot anyway

If same 104 came up against another 104, I think what's going through their mind is capture first, sink second - there'd be no question of allowing it to withdraw (where possible) to fight again another day. A barque isn't a threat, globally - its cargo is. A 104 is most definately a problem.

There should be some way to intercept eco bundles, but thats another issue - as soon as a port goes >500 contention there should be a privateer zone but the mechanics would have to be thrashed out elsewhere.