Continuing the discussion from Improvements needed for better PVP:
I’ve been stewing on various parts of the bandit system for a bit, and as long as this thread is a thing, I’ll just throw all my thoughts out there as well. I’m going to start with some issues, then some possible solutions. Clearly, this is mostly from my perspective as a solo PKer, but I hope my experiences aren’t totally different from the norm.
- Issue A: The bandit penalty is inconsistently detrimental. Sometimes, you get a kill deep in the wilds and by the time you’ve navigated most of the aberrations and trash back towards the entrance, your timer is already up. Other times, whoever you killed keeps coming back for more. Your only options are to keep killing them, knowing you’re stuck until they get bored, or try to log out, knowing it’ll be easier to wait out the timer when they’re not around.
- Issue B: Waiting in the wilds is boring. I want to stress how that’s uniquely distressing in VR. Some pancake games have similar penalties (e.g. Eve Online’s low sec timers). However, waiting out a 20 minute timer in those games is a different prospect from waiting in VR. If you have multiple monitors, you browse Reddit or Facebook while you wait. You can quickly go grab a snack to help you pass the time or tend to other brief needs. In VR, all that is comparatively difficult. You could maybe manage to check social media, but tending to other out of VR needs is a whole ordeal, as there’s a great deal of VR equipment attached to you. Which means you wait.
- Issue C: Known bandits get the first strike or a serious advantage (a victim with a bandit status, who will be sent to jail). This is one way the bandit system actually benefits the bandits, which seems like a plain issue.
- Issue D: Fisherpeople and aberration groups are especially vulnerable, making them excellent targets. Unfortunately, being vulnerable, targeted by PKers, and summarily killed is rarely fun (except for the PKers). That’s very much a possible situation you’re opting into by doing those activities, but I’ll list it as an issue and include a possible solution or two.
- Issue E: This something I take issue with, but may be by design, but all world PVP happens in the wilds. There were some changes to make bandits drop things outside the wilds and things like that, but I doubt they have yet to even come into play. Simply put, if you’ve grabbed someones things (and not killed anyone, thus being ignored by guards) and make it outside the wilds, you can already end up basically anywhere after that, making getting caught virtually impossible. If you’re a true bandit, you’re 100% stuck. Guards insta-kill (or near to it) and there’s nowhere that you can sneak by without cheating in some way.
- Issue F: Clearly, bounties are open for abuse, as you can easily just get a friend to kill you and share the bounty. It’s not a problem now, but I’ll include a few solutions,as bounties could be farmed if the system is altered significantly.
Solutions (along with the issue they seek to fix):
- Stable Bounties (A/C): Unlink your bounty amount from your bandit timer. If you kill someone and gain a 100 dram bounty, that is your bounty. On top of this, however, attacking someone with a bounty is not a bandit action. This means that a frequent bandit may wait out their bandit timer and be left with a bounty, leaving them in a more vulnerable position later. Also, a point of UI, since you’ll need to be aware of your bounty, include this in your inventory screen somewhere. This is also foundational to most later suggestions.
- The orange name would now be for people with bounties, but no bandit timers.
- Partial Bounties (F): Give bounties out in pieces, instead of all at once. Base the amount on how much durability is lost by the slain bandit. This mitigates the risk of a long-time bandit cashing out on their entire bounty, since they’ll have to lose a similar amount of dram to repair costs. This could also include total equipment damage if you have a sufficiently high bounty (e.g. greater than 500 dram), resulting in a larger payout for the bounty hunter and a larger repair bill for the bandit.
- Bandit Timer Limits (A/B/D): Limit the bandit timer to 5 minutes, unless your target was a fisherperson or was fighting an aberration at the start of combat, then make it 10 minutes. This would require a flag be set on people fighting aberrations, though it wouldn’t have to be communicated very obviously, since you can already tell when people are fighting aberrations, usually. This is based also on stable bounties, since you don’t want a maximum bounty ruining all the fun of infamy, or a bandit to get off easy.
- Protected Victim Bounties (D): Increase the bounty given for fisherpeople and aberration hunters. Double for fisherpeople, and 50% extra for aberration hunters. Additionally, include a 25% increase for anyone else below level 18. Mostly for theme, as attacking them could also be considered a heinous act on the part of a bandit.
- Peacekeeping (C/E): When a bandit has any bounty, they should be attackable without the attacker becoming a bandit, but instead becoming a “peacekeeper”. When a bandit has a large bounty, open them up to PVP at all times, with the same flag for the attacker. Someone engaging in peacekeeping is open to retaliation (i.e. given a “Peacekeeper” flag), meaning they’re able to be attacked by anyone with a bounty without increasing that bounty. Otherwise, there are no penalties for peacekeeping. You’re not sent to prison and you do not drop items outside of the wilds. Attacking bandits outside the wilds could include a toggle in the menu, separate from the usual “allow attacking players” toggle, to prevent some sort of abuse by bandits for griefing.
- Orange names could be shown only when you can safely attack that player (i.e. any bountied player in the wilds, and any large bountied player outside the wilds).
- Escape The Wilds (B/E): Improve chameleon potions to bypass wilds guards. As long as you’re under the effect of the potion, you are not targeted by wilds guards, as they simply don’t recognize you.
- Note, PVPers are already approaching potion overload, and the chameleon potion is very short duration. This means it’s likely they’ll keep this potion in their inventory, leaving it open to being dropped, adding on to the risks they take when entering the wilds.
- Postable Bounties (related to below): Add a bounty board in Highsteppe. When you’re killed by a bandit, you have a short time (1 hour) to visit Highsteppe, find their name on a list, and post a bounty. This then becomes part of their normal bounty that anyone can get. This could either replace or add onto the normal bounty system; either you still receive a bounty for killing in the wilds or you only receive a bounty when one is posted by a victim.
- If this augments normal bounties, this could be limited to a multiplier (e.g. 4x) of the offending action (i.e. killed normally, giving a 100 dram open bounty, you’re able to post a 400 dram bounty; killed as a fisherperson, giving a 200 dram open bounty, you’re able to post a 800 dram bounty).
- This could also include a system to absolve someone of their bounty (“Forgive Bounty”), if the attack was made in mistake or restitutions were made directly.
- Tradeable Bounties (F): Alternatively, you can use this board to assign responsibility for a bounty to another player. Presumably, this would be someone you trust to honestly track down the bandit. This removes your part of their bounty, except for the person who it is assigned to.
- For example: Seurimas has a 500 dram bounty. Seurimas kills you, giving them a 600 dram bounty (100 extra for killing you). You visit Highsteppe, see their name with the 100 dram bounty for killing you. You select their name, choose “Assign to Player”, and choose a nearby player. Seurimas now has a 500 dram bounty, plus a 100 dram bounty only claimable by that player. If that player kills Seurimas, they get 600 total dram. If anyone besides that player kills Seurimas, they get 500 dram, but the 100 dram bounty still exists and may be claimed later.
- Fellowship Bounties (F): Add a bounty board to the fellowship hall. When you’re killed by a bandit, you have a short time (say, 1 hour) to visit the fellowship hall, find their name on a list on the bounty board, and post a bounty with your own dram. Other players could view a list of all posted bounties in the fellowship hall. Fellowship bounties would be automatically claimed by anyone in your fellowship who kills the target.
- Additionally, you could have an “Assign to Fellowship” option in Highsteppe, for giving the bounty to a particular fellowship (you would need a player in that fellowship nearby), which would operate in a similar way to a bounty posted by someone in that fellowship.
- Tradeable or Fellowship Bounties could be considered “Trusted” bounties, and be paid out completely, even if Partial Bounties were added.
- Restitution (D/F): Players may pay out some multiplier (e.g. 1.5x-4x) of their current total bounty (e.g. including traded and fellowship bounties) at the prison. Doing so would distribute that money to the aggrieved parties. This would give a non-exploitative way for a bandit to be rid of their bounty while also giving some level of good will and happy feelings to the victims. There’s no reason to allow partial restitution. You either come clean completely or not at all.
Non-bounty/Bandit suggestions:
- Resurrection Sickness (A/C): Suggested by Justin above, this could apply to anyone who is killed in the wilds. It could include a freebie death, so you have at least one fair shot at getting revenge.
- Fellowship Wars (C/): Allow a fellowship to declare war on another fellowship. Players in either fellowship may battle without gaining bandit status. This would need to be limited in some way (e.g. dram cost to declaring war, maximum number of wars declared by a fellowship, etc.).
- Wilds Teleportation Device (B): Create a special object in the Wilds which allows, with restrictions, teleportation to another Wilds. Some possibilities:
- Wilds-only portal rituals. Simply, new portal runes to Wilds, only castable in the Wilds. Could require being cast in a certain “stable” position in each Wilds, so you could guess whether someone changed wilds or not.
- “Hot Box” (like hot potato), would be a box residing in one Wilds. By tapping the appropriate runic symbols on this box, you send it to another Wilds, leaving a portal to that Wilds in its place. With a 5 minute portal duration and cooldown, this would signal to players that someone recently used it, give them a chance to follow, and still limit mobility between wilds.
So, yeah, that’s the most of my thinking on the bandit system. A lot of it’s probably been thought of before, but hopefully I’ve presented it in a good way.
Edit: Added Wilds Teleportation, which I forgot previously.