by Moorgard on 2001-05-07
Here's Abashi's response to some player concerns on upcoming PvP changes.
I happen to be sitting at home right now reading the emails that have come in, so please permit me to answer a few. I'm probably not going to do it in the same format as Absor so please bear with me
Absor I have to ask the question have you seriously thought about how the 6 level sanctuary system works? This would mean what little risk involved in large money transfers (multiple thousands of pp) will be nullified if the person is below level 6.
I see your point, but we weighed this versus the potential gains, and determined it to be the best course. You'd be surprised how people new to the server are repeatedly bind/spawned camped until they just give up. This will kind of let them get a nice foothold before being thrown into the mix.
I am not sure, but if indeed you are considering a new PvP server, please allow me to give my suggestions: - 1 character only.
Interesting idea - Not for the old servers, but perhaps for the new PvP server. That would certainly address the concern of the gentleman above.
Are spells included in the De-Levevling Code? (ie If I just reached the next tier of spells and die, will I still be able to use the spells I just memorized?)
The ability to cast spells has never been retained by de-leveling in the past. It's really only been effective for melee classes.
Well, I can see how this patch will fix anyone wanting to delevel in the future, but how will it fix those who are currently deleveled?
It's actually a soft skill cap, as opposed to a hard one. In other words, your skill isn't actually reduced, but rather the value used for calculation is reduced. In other words, if you delevel from 50 to 10, you'll fight like a 12. But the moment you make level 11, you'll fight like a 13 because you really have the skill. It's just not being used in the math.
I don't even play on a PVP server but what I thought you probably would have done was make it so a skill would be capped per the level that the player lost to. Meaning, let's say a character at level 7 would have a cap of 50 for dodge. Then the player lost 2 levels and ended up back at 5. By most capping rules, that would mean level 5 would cap at a dodge skill of 40.. so why not just make the skills cap at what their level would normally cap at?
Because we want to go a little easier on people who lost the levels naturally, due to some really bad luck or some really bad choices, which is why we give them the 2 level buffer. I'm sure people in PvP will still delevel those 2 levels, but it really won't matter.
One change I would like to see on PvP teams is faction hits only when you kill someone from the opposite races *in their home town zone*.
Actually that's precisely one of the changes we are working on. It will probably be in the next wave of changes. We're also planning on implementing an "amnesty period" where anyone who lost race-based faction due to PvP and logs in during the period will be set back to non-KOS. The last part isn't guaranteed at present: we have to be sure that we can implement it the way we like.
And yes, this does mean that races with adventure areas inside cities will have an advantage. C'est la vie. It's the cleanest implementation we could come up with.
Since you are allowing Melee to retain 2 levels above them on deaths, when is this feature going to be incorporated into spell casters in order to be able to cast spell circles 2 levels above them if they happen to lose 2 levels for whatever reason?
Never. Sorry.
Do you folks plan on doing anything with guards, pets, and spells?
Currently, you can stand back and sick your pet on people standing by guards, and the guards do nothing.
No, we don't. It's going to continue to be a danger. Of course if you're on a team server, and said location happens to be in a place like West Freeport, the attacker will get a faction-hit for the kill.
If not, are there technical reasons that prevents this?
Yep. NPCs only have so many pieces of information, and can only react to you when you are so far way. Spells that have a range greater than this reaction radius can be used in this manner. If we extend their reaction radius, you'll get the guards "connecting the dots" running through newbie zones killing everything.
Personally, I liked the idea of yellow/white/blue being all in-range, with red and green showing out of range. But I have to admit that the all-even system will add a certain amount of tension to that initial contact. Still, for the lone hunter, this is a bad change. You'll have to start keeping dossiers on your victims.
Exactly why we implemented it. One of the things that makes PvP fun is being unsure of the outcome. There's nothing quite like it.
Absor quick question, if a person de-levels will the damage cap reset? Hence with the new changes will a level 12 de-leveled warrior be able to hit for 50+ damage? Or will his damage cap be that of a level 14 character?
It will be the latter.
Awesome, you guys seem to get better and better at this. My next question is, are you old dogs at this? After all you've been going at it quite a while as far as online gaming goes.
And if so, why are you still pulling new tricks on us?
Rofl. Thanks for the comment
What skills? Are you saying if a level 10 dies repeativly on purpose his or her "Brewing" skill will go down? Or do you mean you would be able to use the "Channel" skill you learned at level 9?
Only skills that figure into your combat effectiveness will be recalculated at a new cap. And just so you know, if it turns out we missed any, they'll be taken care of in a future patch.
I hope to see a change that requires more than n% damage done by a player character to gain looting rights, where n = some number around 50 percent.
Though we like the change, it's not at all likely to happen, as it would require extensive recoding (several man-weeks) of the combat system. As such, PvP kill and loot rights will continue to go off of the final blow.
Have people 'pop' with a buff on that does not stack with anything (like the rez buff) and lasts about a minute. The buff should make them immune to attack (invulnerable) and should wear off if you try to attack or cast (like scale of wolf). That should give the person time to run away, maybe.
This is on our list as well. It may make the next wave. The difficulty is coming up with something that can't be exploited in one way or another.
The end
That pretty much finishes up the comments received on this as of now.
-Gordon
Thanks, Abashi. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to Rallos and plevel my delevelled l33t pk masta, Roxa Urazz, before the patch!