Healthy changes to Notoriety and policy on future changes in general.

[wreckognize]

Posting this to once-and-for-all find the most reasonable method for reducing Blue PKing from it's former state, as well as to hopefully figure out a solid policy that will help protect the shard from player frustration related population loss.

Although many forum users may not share the common goal of making UO:F balanced in a way that is fun for everyone, I hope that we can all discuss this without classless childish behaviour, de-railing or namecalling, because doing so is essential to population growth in a game we all love to play that has also had it's stuggles over the years.

I see UO:F as an opportunity to keep UO alive and see no reason why it can't be the platform that accomplishes this, except for a lack of solid policy governing the way changes are made to the game.

I would like to see a policy that any change MUST be polled, and debated before any changes are made to PvP mechanics, and that any idea that is being debated be done so in as unbiased a way as possible. I think this is best accomplished when no staff member is also a player of the server, however I realize that UO developers are in short supply and thus we have to make some allowances in this regard.

One change that happened here was that players were suddenly not able to recall if they were attacked and had any murder counts. It was changed and then staff finally posted an official thread about it after some people who noticed it began to complain.

I believe this change was made with the intention of reducing the amount of Blue PKing that was happening back when there were little consequences for doing so.

One thing that is different on UO Forever than most shards is that murder counts decay in 24 hours of in game time (used to not have to be logged on, and yes that lead to a ton of PKing.) Whereas on other shards the decay is 48 hours, typically with the option for 8 hour short terms which are generally used on shards with statloss. So of course this is largely to blame for the amount of Blue PKing that was happening.

The problem I have with the current mechanics are that we have developed a plague of players who roll around newbie dungeons with 5+ PK characters, with tracking, basically slaughtering any new players they come across. The game has a harsh learning curve when it comes to PvP, and in order for newer players to learn PvP they have to practice it, which sometimes means they will take the odd murder count as it's more likely for them to actually fight when they think they have a chance at winning. Whereas if they are attacked, especially when attacked by a group of players, they are way more likely to simply recall.

The current mechanics will not allow a player to recall if they are attacked. 9 times out of 10, a solo farming new player who hasn't had the chance, or maybe doesn't have the skills yet to be invited into a guild, will try and recall when he sees red players coming onto his screen. Maybe 10 times out of 10. Now, from an honor in pvp standpoint, having players who are trying to recall being killed while they're not even fighting is a joke, and that's what the current mechanics promote. Justice via game mechanics instead of a more honorable method.

Moreover, keep in mind that it can take a brand new player to UO *years* to learn how to set up hotkeys, or even configure their computer for the type of performance they would need to outrun people. Trying to use multiple clients is also a challenge primarily because of a bug in windows 7 which will crash the game client (whitescreening) every time you try to toggle between them. But you can rest assured that the first thing that they learn how to do in this game is cast recall, and that's why the current mechanics need to be revised.

The current mechanics also empower reds who are at the top end of the learning curve already. If you are a blue who has a murder count, maybe from two weeks ago if you only log on once a day for a couple hours, and you attack a red player, and he calls in his friends, you have no choice but to die on a server with heat-seeking purple pots that doesn't let you recall if you have the skill to pull it off.

The truth is, UO:F has a variety of players at each end of the learning curve, and for UO itself to survive it's important that in this situation, we try to find a balance that is benefitial to everyone when deciding what mechanics to implement. In order to find that balance, the best method is to put the proposed changes up for discussion with the entire community so that we can gain perspective from all players before deciding what to do.

Now I will propose some changes that I believe are more friendly to everyone, and also promote skill and honor in PvP more than the current ones. Please point it out if you do not think these changes accomplish that, and why not, so that it can be debated.

1) Revert the current mechanics, add 24 extra hours, (totaling 48) per murder count.

2) Revert the current mechanics, triple the amount of time it takes to cast a recall when a player has one or more murder counts and is attacked.

IMO under no circumstances should being attacked by a player cause the inability to recall completely. The reason being that agressors always have the benefit of the element of surprise, and therefore should have enough skill combined with that advantage to get the kill, on a full loot shard. By changing the consequences and notoriety you've really changed the game from Ultima into GTA. In UO there's a recall spell. Plan your attacks accordingly. If you are frustrated that people see your red come on screen and are able to get away, there's a player solution for you: Stealth.

The only positive thing that comes out of the current mechanics is that it helps force players into large groups, which helps us rival other games which have large groups as well. But I think there's better ways to accomplish that. Reduce the amount of gold a player can make solo, and increase the amount of gold a player can make when in a group, so that even with a split, they're still making more when working together. But don't try and accomplish it by allowing veteran players to shoot fish in a barrel. That's what this change really is. I've already had to explain the mechanics to several new and returning players, just like I had to constantly on uoforever, so for me this is a huge step backwards and I'm really just not impressed with it.

TL;DR: In UO there's a recall spell. Plan your attacks accordingly. In case you haven't read the OP, please don't reply.

 

[Bromista]

There could be some interesting things in there but at a glance I don't see mention of me. I am both saddened and disappointed by this.

Yeah I could live with travel spells having a delay if murder counts > 0

Maybe even extend the time to work off counts.

Either or, within reason. Would definitely curb noto pking.

 

[wreckognize]

Personally I'm more into the increase in murder count decay, rather than making recall cast time 3x longer.

It still gives consequences for your actions, and limits them, but without having to alter spells. Having spells be consistent in their usage is helpful to newer players especially.

You could increase the decay rate on murder counts, AND increase the speed of recall cast for everyone, and then it would still be a consistent speed so new players could at least learn when and how to cast it and be able to rely on that. But in that case I would say to double it, not triple it.

Also increasing the murder count decay rate doesn't favor anyone in PvP. Players who utilize the element of surprise are still able to do so, but less often, and players who are being attacked still have the option to recall away, if they can.

 

[wreckognize]

Obviously the notoriety for Red players would remain the same. (I can't remember they were unable to before the changes, but I think they weren't able to recall/gate when attacked before the changes anyways.)

The reasoning behind this is that if you are playing a red character, then you're there to fight anyways. It's kind of hard to utilize the element of surprise on somebody who is already there expecting a fight. Note that most reds also have the advantage of primarily fighting PvM characters.

I just don't see the point in punishing blue players as if they were murderers when they aren't. Murderer in Ultima means you've killed 5 players. That's what players who are returning to ultima are expecting. That's really what makes the current changes so cheap.

You basically have the same exact consequences here as a red player does but before you're even red. You're attackable by anyone, but in the rare case you actually defeat someone who had the element of surprise when they attacked you, you just don't get the murder count. But what difference does that make when you're already being treated the same as a red anyways?

Cmon guys, let's get this fixed.

 

[MrTodd]

Sounds a good idea, but if you take into account how the majority of the blue PKing goes around, it's not that good, since some guilds would greatly benefit from it.

You either get a red character to pk and face the risk of statloss or get a blue and face the risks of not being able to recall..

And if you're ganked, accept it, it's a part of every mmo, and the losses in uo aren't that big..

I mean, take the most used template, 50 each reg, barbed armor, 50 bandages, 20 of each potions.. Nothing all that expensive..

I feel for dexxers because their gear is kinda expensive, but it's a trade off for the farming potential of a dexxer vs a mage..

Tbh I feel that this topic is just an excuse to get blue pking somewhat viable and to make easier to keep a red squad flagged without dieing and loosing mage loot..

Oh, btw as I said before, there's no such thing as an accidental murder, and if you have a count, you deserved and it means you're ready to face the consequences of having murder counts.. And the difference between a red is that you can give murder counts to whoever killed you and ofc you don't get stated.

Sent from my mobile

 

[wreckognize]

Alright, I'll bite. One thing you say is that some guilds ''would greatly benefit from'' this, but then you also say that death in UO doesn't lead to big losses... How again are they greatly benefiting if they're not really getting anything good?

And not to mention that I can think of a few crews that are also greatly benefiting from the current mechanics.

Regardless, you disagree based souly on the opinion that blue PKing will be worse than it is now. Noted. It might be, but the point is that it won't be as bad as it was before the changes. And there's still the listed benefits I mentioned to new players, and the fact that it will no longer benefit reds.

I'm going to propose a third option here.

3) revert the current mechanics to what they were before. Implement a rule that anyone with a murder count is no longer able to recall or enter a gate that leads into a dungeon.

Now this might be an idea worth looking into. With this suggetion, the recall spell won't be changed in terms of PvP. You can still use it to avoid a fight that you have no chance in hell of winning. New players will be learning about this now without having to die to figure it out, because the recall spell won't work when they're safe inside their house, or town, instead of when they're being attacked in the dungeon holding their hard earned gold.

Thoughts? @halygon ?

 

[halygon]

Alright, I'll bite. One thing you say is that some guilds ''would greatly benefit from'' this, but then you also say that death in UO doesn't lead to big losses... How again are they greatly benefiting if they're not really getting anything good?

And not to mention that I can think of a few crews that are also greatly benefiting from the current mechanics.

Regardless, you disagree based souly on the opinion that blue PKing will be worse than it is now. Noted. It might be, but the point is that it won't be as bad as it was before the changes. And there's still the listed benefits I mentioned to new players, and the fact that it will no longer benefit reds.

I'm going to propose a third option here.

3) revert the current mechanics to what they were before. Implement a rule that anyone with a murder count is no longer able to recall or enter a gate that leads into a dungeon.

Now this might be an idea worth looking into. With this suggetion, the recall spell won't be changed in terms of PvP. You can still use it to avoid a fight that you have no chance in hell of winning. New players will be learning about this now without having to die to figure it out, because the recall spell won't work when they're safe inside their house, or town, instead of when they're being attacked in the dungeon holding their hard earned gold.

Thoughts? @halygon ?

I guess I am not getting what the current issue is that you are trying to resolve. We implemented this new rule to curb blue pking and to give a little more meaning to receiving a murder count.

It sounds like the issue you are expressing is that folks who have a murder count for some specific scenarios are getting the brunt of this rule and being abused because they cannot recall.

I have been playing here a long time and I have never gotten a murder count that I did not deserve. Up till this rule, it was meaningless unless I turned red.

I think the three options you identified would have their own issues similar to how you feel about the current rule. I am not won over yet that we need to change anything. I am open to change and suggesting it to the dev staff if there is good reasoning behind it.

 

[wreckognize]

Not gonna be that easy, sorry. If you're having a hard time understanding what the issues are with the current mechanics, all you need to do is re-read the OP and subsequent posts because the reasoning is there already and sound. I've given you my best efforts for a better UO:F overall, all Im asking is that you give me yours as well, if that is truly what you want.

But just to clarify:

It's hard on new players, where my solutions are not. The mechanics behind the recall spell are altered in a way where new players couldn't possibly know to test something like that for themselves, unless we're expecting them to dig as deeply as they need to to find the noto changes thread.

It's a custom mechanic that returning players are not going to know about, without seriously digging to find out about it from the forums, until it gets them killed while they're reading the message at the bottom of their screen indicating that they can't recall. My solutions prevent that scenario.

It benefits Red players, who shouldn't have the benefit of having their prey unable to recall because they already have the element of surprise.

It's nice that you think that the options I've identified would have their own issues similiar to how I feel about the current mechanics, but can you think of anything specific? You're asking me for reason, and yet not giving me any reason to change my opinion whatsoever.

You say you're open to ideas, and if this is true then why have you neglected to post your opinion about my suggestion to introduce a policy on how changes are made? As player relations staff, it's your responsibility to speak on that topic, so it's interesting that you have chosen to ignore it completely in your reply.

In all fairness, because these changes were implemented without debate, the thing to do would be to revert the changes and open the topic back up for debate. So why does it seem like you're saying that I need to ''win you over'' before you'll be willing to debate this in depth and with specific reasons as to why or why not? Is this your shard?

You say this was already debated to it's fullest, however I've shown that there are problems with the mechanics that deserve a second look, and now that the majority of UOF players have had a taste of this, who may not have played uoforever, we should be able to discuss it again without having the ideas shut down or brushed off like you have done in previous replies.

I'm looking for specific reasoning as to why you feel that the current mechanics are better than the suggested ones. I hope you will do so to prove that you are really open to new ideas.

 

[Guwap]

Confusing to new players?

Probably, but aren't most things that are specific to this server? If new players don't read the forums or ask questions in IRC (or join a guild) they'll likely be in the dark about more than just noto changes.

Benefits red players?

Bit of a stretch. The blue with a count can still run away, providing he isn't getting ganked by a whole squad...which in that case a recall probably wouldn't save him. Plus those blues have to knowingly take a murder count for this to affect them.

This is not to say that Hanes's idea is a bad one, I just don't see a problem with the current system to warrant a change. All it takes is one count to learn about noto effects even if you don't read the forums. Then it's just a few hours to work off that count. Extending murder count time doesn't sound half bad to me, but I'd keep the "no recalling" feature.

 

[wreckognize]

To anyone that thinks that the custom notoriety changes were implemented in a professional manner that ensured all new players would be made aware of them prior to finding out the hard way, they weren't plain and simple. Note that the only means of which staff ever produced to inform players of these custom changes can be found about 800 pages back in the Player vs Player section. Not in the patch notes anywhere, and no information in the game itself, despite my best efforts in that thread when this first came up to do so.

Even after it was ''fully debated,'' a simple suggestion to enter it into patch notes and clarify the new custom mechanics in game was also brushed off in the same fashion as these new suggested changes have been thusfar. This is really proving my point overall that changes that are implemented regarding PvP mechanics need to be discussed, especially when the person changing them is a PvPer on the shard who apparently cheats (was caught cheating)...

In fact if you actually read the patch notes, they have honestly nothing to do with the current PvP mechanics on this server whatsoever. I'm really trying not to complain about this, as I for one am very grateful that we have as much developer attention on this shard as we do, and understand that it is a free use server. However it still proves my point about PvP changes being openly discussed before implementation, when we can't even be bothered to properly notify people about the changes.

A large portion of the playerbase in UO is here for the PvP, making it the most important subject when it comes to changes. Staff can still introduce custom content that is not PvP related, for all anyone cares. But when they start implementing stealth changes, like this or the housing mechanics for reds, without a word? Then it becomes a problem. And it is a problem that I would like to see fixed.

 

[wreckognize]

Confusing to new players?

Probably, but aren't most things that are specific to this server? If new players don't read the forums or ask questions in IRC (or join a guild) they'll likely be in the dark about more than just noto changes.

Please note the above post which outlines how because these are custom PvP changes to a game that is over 15 years old that they deserved to be mentioned in patch notes, instead of 800 pages back in the wrong section and with no in game indication, even after being suggested to do so by a player during the debate we had after implementation....

Benefits red players?

Bit of a stretch. The blue with a count can still run away, providing he isn't getting ganked by a whole squad...which in that case a recall probably wouldn't save him. Plus those blues have to knowingly take a murder count for this to affect them.

This is not to say that Hanes's idea is a bad one, I just don't see a problem with the current system to warrant a change. All it takes is one count to learn about noto effects even if you don't read the forums. Then it's just a few hours to work off that count. Extending murder count time doesn't sound half bad to me, but I'd keep the "no recalling" feature.

You just said it yourself dood... Blue with a count can still run away, providing he isn't getting ganked by a whole squad (frequent occurance here)

Which is the problem. He can't run from a squad, especially a good one using cutoff runes. He also can't recall, and your saying ''that's a-ok because he probably wouldn't be able to pull it off anyways'' which isn't even true. Not to mention the fact that red players can easily open up a gate right beside the player while he's farming and start pouring out.

These are called ''game balance issues'' and they are in fact the only thing that could possibly warrant a change to the mechanics. PvP is simply uninteresting and out of the reach of a large portion of players here who aren't vocal on the forums, aren't yet in any guild, don't like being in guilds, dont yet understand factions and/or simply haven't had 15 years of practice in PvP.

It's all because we decided to take one giant leap forward instead of baby steps when considering methods for solving the problem with Blue PKs, which only became a problem because of the short and uncommon cooldown for murder counts which was never fixed. Changing these poorly devised notoriety mechanics wouldn't even be as necessery if there wasn't a certain group of self proclaimed ''real reds'' rolling through the newbie dungeon with 5 reds and tracking, dirting newbies all day long. But most people on the forums are in that group and so their goal is to keep things exactly how they are.

Again, if you can think of a specific reason why my changes are not superior to the current mechanics then please post it, otherwise you'll just be discrediting yourself in this discussion.

 

[halygon]

Not gonna be that easy, sorry. If you're having a hard time understanding what the issues are with the current mechanics, all you need to do is re-read the OP and subsequent posts because the reasoning is there already and sound. I've given you my best efforts for a better UO:F overall, all Im asking is that you give me yours as well, if that is truly what you want.

But just to clarify:

It's hard on new players, where my solutions are not. The mechanics behind the recall spell are altered in a way where new players couldn't possibly know to test something like that for themselves, unless we're expecting them to dig as deeply as they need to to find the noto changes thread.

It's a custom mechanic that returning players are not going to know about, without seriously digging to find out about it from the forums, until it gets them killed while they're reading the message at the bottom of their screen indicating that they can't recall. My solutions prevent that scenario.

It benefits Red players, who shouldn't have the benefit of having their prey unable to recall because they already have the element of surprise.

It's nice that you think that the options I've identified would have their own issues similiar to how I feel about the current mechanics, but can you think of anything specific? You're asking me for reason, and yet not giving me any reason to change my opinion whatsoever.

You say you're open to ideas, and if this is true then why have you neglected to post your opinion about my suggestion to introduce a policy on how changes are made? As player relations staff, it's your responsibility to speak on that topic, so it's interesting that you have chosen to ignore it completely in your reply.

In all fairness, because these changes were implemented without debate, the thing to do would be to revert the changes and open the topic back up for debate. So why does it seem like you're saying that I need to ''win you over'' before you'll be willing to debate this in depth and with specific reasons as to why or why not? Is this your shard?

You say this was already debated to it's fullest, however I've shown that there are problems with the mechanics that deserve a second look, and now that the majority of UOF players have had a taste of this, who may not have played uoforever, we should be able to discuss it again without having the ideas shut down or brushed off like you have done in previous replies.

I'm looking for specific reasoning as to why you feel that the current mechanics are better than the suggested ones. I hope you will do so to prove that you are really open to new ideas.

I think my previous post was pretty good considering it was done on my phone... Here is one from my actual PC.

To start off, you have a valid point that the notoriety change thread is hard to find. Due to this, I have moved it into the Patch Notes forum here: http://www.uoforum.com/threads/notoriety-changes.67199/ Anyone looking in the patch notes will be able to easily find it.

UO is UO and has a steep learning curve. We cannot progress UOF without making changes to the original configuration on OSI or other freeshards. Anyone moving to UOF will need to learn some new things. Changes like these notoriety ones are a good example. A couple other examples would be:

• Navel combat
• Met Pets
• Meta Talismans
• Faction Specific enhancements
• etc

The good thing here is it only takes one death to learn it, if it was not read about in advance. Many of the above UOF specific things are not even that easy to learn. I don't think anyone, new player or old would know everything about UO or UOF when first starting here.

Let me also point out that this is not a democracy, changes are made as seen fit by Shane and the dev staff. They are very open to community suggestions and ideas (hence this forum), but ultimately what is changed is not decided by the players - we do not need a debate about every change that is to be implemented.

So here are my thoughts on each of your ideas...

1) Revert the current mechanics, add 24 extra hours, (totaling 48) per murder count.

I am not sure how adding extra hours to a count will be much of a punishment. For those that want to burn off counts, will just have that character logged in on a different client window while they play. Without the current mechanics, this would not be much of a deterrent to reds or blue PKs. For those wanting to turn blue, they really only need to join factions or wait it out.

2) Revert the current mechanics, triple the amount of time it takes to cast a recall when a player has one or more murder counts and is attacked.

This isn't a bad idea TBH, but it would pretty much ensure blue PKs would be a problem again as they would need to wait 4 more seconds to finish off a recall. 6 seconds is nothing compared to 2 minutes as it is now. But lets say we don't care about blue PKs. If someone had to wait 6 seconds for a recall to be cast, it would be so easy to interrupt that no one being attacked would be able to get a recall off anyways unless they got away from the PKs. If they got away from the PKs to cast a 6 second spell, then they really aren't in too much trouble anyways.

3) revert the current mechanics to what they were before. Implement a rule that anyone with a murder count is no longer able to recall or enter a gate that leads into a dungeon.

Not sure I understand this one. So they would need to walk through the dungeon entrance and then couldn't ever recall/gate out? This sounds like overkill. This pretty much ensures that PKs cannot enter or leave a dungeon without going through it from the entrance and non-PKs that have a couple counts (or just one) would have to do the same. We WANT people to actually go to dungeons, not avoid them because they have a murder count.

 

[wreckognize]

I think my previous post was pretty good considering it was done on my phone... Here is one from my actual PC.

To start off, you have a valid point that the notoriety change thread is hard to find. Due to this, I have moved it into the Patch Notes forum here: http://www.uoforum.com/threads/notoriety-changes.67199/ Anyone looking in the patch notes will be able to easily find it.

Thank you! It really is a start, but I want to point out that I was very vocal about this, in the noto change thread and several other threads. I really had to pry at staff with a crowbar to get this changed, and feel like it was merely because instead of taking an unbiased look at the subject, you've continually taken a defensive standpoint here and it's caused me to burn several hours in game explaining these mechanics to new players who could have easily read about it and would have in many cases. I was just speaking with a new player, @leetstreet who said that he spent several hours reading about the UO:F custom changes before ever making his first character. So this will definitely make the change less of a problem for many players.

The good thing here is it only takes one death to learn it, if it was not read about in advance. Many of the above UOF specific things are not even that easy to learn. I don't think anyone, new player or old would know everything about UO or UOF when first starting here.

This just isn't true. Just because they died because they couldn't recall doesn't automatically mean they understand why at all! They literally need to read it or have it explained to them before understanding what is going on, because the message in the game doesn't explain it. I remember when I first came back to UO it was on uoforever, and it took me at least a year, being a solo player who never knew there was a forum at all, before someone explained it to me. I thought it was simply how it worked, that I couldn't recall from a fight.

UO is UO and has a steep learning curve. We cannot progress UOF without making changes to the original configuration on OSI or other freeshards. Anyone moving to UOF will need to learn some new things. Changes like these notoriety ones are a good example. A couple other examples would be:

• Navel combat
• Met Pets
• Meta Talismans
• Faction Specific enhancements
• etc

None of the above listed content is an altered PvP mechanic from the UO:R era. Like I said, changes can be made that are unrelated to UO:R era based PvP without previous discussion with the playerbase and nobody has any problems with that. But there is a large portion of the playerbase who comes to freeshards to play this era and so anything related to the PvP mechanics should be discussed. At least, I see no reason why it should be solely left up to a group of 5 people when 500 are currently active daily. 500 heads are better than 5.

Let me also point out that this is not a democracy, changes are made as seen fit by Shane and the dev staff. They are very open to community suggestions and ideas (hence this forum), but ultimately what is changed is not decided by the players - we do not need a debate about every change that is to be implemented.

I agree a democracy isn't the best fit for a freeshard, however not when it comes to game balance. Maybe when it comes to deciding who gets banned and who doesn't, or who gets to be staff or doesn't, but that's about as far as it goes IMO.

I am not sure how adding extra hours to a count will be much of a punishment. For those that want to burn off counts, will just have that character logged in on a different client window while they play. Without the current mechanics, this would not be much of a deterrent to reds or blue PKs. For those wanting to turn blue, they really only need to join factions or wait it out.

The punishment for the blue PK commiting the murder is that they turn grey and are able to be freely attacked by everyone. That alone is enough of a punishment, and the 48 hours is double the amount that it currently is. In reverse, I don't BPK on my PvM character, but Im still able to get 8 counts without going red every 4 days on my other two characters, and then log onto my alt Blue PK on my PvM characters account while I sleep, and burn another murder count every 3 days. Thats 9 murder counts every 4 days. This suggestion cuts that number down to 4 people every 4 days, and mind you Red players are still not able to recall when aggroed, given what I have written above.

This isn't a bad idea TBH, but it would pretty much ensure blue PKs would be a problem again as they would need to wait 4 more seconds to finish off a recall. 6 seconds is nothing compared to 2 minutes as it is now. But lets say we don't care about blue PKs. If someone had to wait 6 seconds for a recall to be cast, it would be so easy to interrupt that no one being attacked would be able to get a recall off anyways unless they got away from the PKs. If they got away from the PKs to cast a 6 second spell, then they really aren't in too much trouble anyways.

Pretty much all of this is conjecture. It's your opinion that being able to pull of a 6 second recall means that the red attackers are garbage and wouldn't be able to pull the kill off either way. A scribe could easily do this against two mages, and any melee attacks or bow attacks are subject to missing half the time (lol im giving you a break on the hit chance rate just to be nice, btw) which means that half the time they're going to pull off the recall assuming that the player casts when he sees attackers or reds come onto the edge of his screen.

It's also your opinion that it would ensure blue pking being a problem, which it may, but the question was would it be as bad as before, and it wouldn't, because at least some people who knew about it wouldn't want the penalty, which didn't exist before. Though I agree that I don't really like this suggestion as much as the others.

Not sure I understand this one. So they would need to walk through the dungeon entrance and then couldn't ever recall/gate out? This sounds like overkill. This pretty much ensures that PKs cannot enter or leave a dungeon without going through it from the entrance and non-PKs that have a couple counts (or just one) would have to do the same. We WANT people to actually go to dungeons, not avoid them because they have a murder count.

No they could still recall out fine, just not in. And no gating in.

Let's be honest, when I'm rolling around my PvM character, if I see someone I don't like I am always ready to gate in another two characters who are blue that can gate right to them and take them down, and I can do this twice per day. The current changes in reality DO NOTHING to curb blue pking compared to any other shard given the short murder count cooldown, or compared to my suggestions. They've only prevented some newer players and those who don't have the PC performance or ability to multiclient from escaping certain death. The only thing that has changed is that now zergs have an easier time taking down PvMers or the unwilling, period. People who are using 3 clients to burn murder counts all day every day and not PvMing at all are still able to get the same 4 murder counts every 4 days, per character. That's 12 counts every 4 days lol.

Furthermore, any Blue PKs who suddenly can't recall into a dungeon on their PvM character is probably not going to want to do it again. And for everyone who doesn't PvM and still BPKs on 3 accounts, this is more of a punishment, in the sense that it largely takes away from the speed in which they can get to their prey. The easiest prey of course being PvMers deep in dungeons.

You're saying you want people in dungeons, and this helps that too. It helps ensure that the people inside the dungeons are no longer dead every time they go there. That's how this suggestion curbs blue PKing.

Maybe it would be more reasonable if ONLY players with 1-4 murder counts could not recall into a dungeon, but red players still could? After all, they are way more risks to being red, like stat, attackable by anyone, etc. Also because you could easily scout the entrance with an alt for your pvm character and recall when you see them enter, and that doesn't really promote healthy PvP action in UO.

Given everything, I think I would like to put in one final revised change to the current Notoriety mechanics.

Final suggestion:

-Revert the current mechanics to the former.
-Ensure Red players are unable to recall for 2 mins after being attacked, or attacking.
-Any player with 1-4 murder counts is now unable to recall or gate travel into a dungeon. ''The walk of shame'' is fitting.
-Players with 1-4 murder counts will get the message ''you have committed a murder but are not yet a murderer, and cannot enter a dungeon using a gate or recall spell. (or more 'ye ol' english' style message indicating the same thing)
-Murder count timer remains at 24 hours for one murder count, so that players who wish to be able to enter a dungeon, but have a murder count, can do so sooner than later. *Note they can still enter dungeons by walking in, and ghost scouting doesn't really work well for Blue pks.
-Recall timer for aggroed characters with 1 or more murder counts has double the normal recall timer.


I feel that this is better than the current mechanics because:

-It will eliminate a lot of running across the map, being done by PvMers with Reds chasing them.
-Half as much BPKing in the sense that now players can only get 1 murder count per day if they are trying to utilize the recall or gate spell to get to their target quickly. This should eliminate half of the BPKing being done by players who primarily play weekends, but are still able to keep their characters online while they are working.
-This doesn't empower mass-murderers who are currently empowered by being able to zerg anyone with a murder count utilizing both advantages of the element of surprise AND the fact that player are unable to recall, many of which will still try to, rather than fighting for their lives or running, despite our best efforts to inform them of the current mechanics.
-Players are more likely to not want to BPK if it makes their character less mobile, especially those who are in guilds that do champs that are indoors. (which I believe were causing the BPK issue in the first place)
-It's still less of a punishment than the current mechanics, especially for newer players, who are still learning to PvP and are benefitting from the education gained by picking their battles, since they're more likely to actually stay and fight when they think they have a chance.

I feel that this is not better than the current mechanics because:

I can't really think of anything. I've never felt that on a UO:R based 'pre-trammel' that there should be more of a punishment for BPKs than simply turning criminal at the time of the attack, and thus being attackable by anyone and unable to recall if their plan goes south. UO is UO indeed, and that's exactly why I feel this way, and play this shard. However I will admit that because of the nature of UO:F custom content, there is more to this server than there was back then. One example is that players are able to get relics worth 10 million gold from doing champs. This is really the only reason I think that having extra punishment for BPKs is needed here. This problem is solved by the above solution, which has more to offer than the current mechanics in terms of fairness in PvP.

To add to this, I really can't see players quitting the shard over the suggested mechanics. But I can see players quitting the shard after being zerged several times and not being able to recall. It just makes players who aren't ready for that kind of battle, or factons, feel powerless that they don't have the ability to recall away from massively outnumbering forces when it's their only option, and only because they engaged in PvP that they were more capable of doing without dying, and possibly winning.

By forcing players to only learn PvP through fighting greys or joining factions, and not attacking the occasional blue, we're really limiting a newbs ability to learn as fast as they normally could through typical UO:R era PvP. Hence, one of the biggest flaws in the current structure is that it slows the process of getting from one end of the learning curve to the other, and demoralizes players from wanting to PvP in general, or ever become a PK.

Thoughts?

 

[MrTodd]

Didn't read everything, but let me add this: I saw 5 of 12kills (blues pvmers) recall thru a dump in dungeons...

Sent from my mobile

 

[wreckognize]

not sure what your point is or what you're saying really.

 

[MrTodd]

Almost half of the people we attacked was able to flee by recalling when they saw us..

Sent from my mobile

 

[wreckognize]

Let me also point out that this is not a democracy, changes are made as seen fit by Shane and the dev staff. They are very open to community suggestions and ideas (hence this forum), but ultimately what is changed is not decided by the players - we do not need a debate about every change that is to be implemented.

I feel pretty strongly against this to be honest. Not when it comes to custom content, but when it comes to altering PvP related mechanics, especially once the server is already 3 years old almost. I mean, as far as custom content goes, like the naval system etc, this is shanes baby and he can add all that kind of stuff all day long.

But when it comes to PvP mechanics, many people came here for the UO:R mechanics plain and simple. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Staff decides one day that this is now a mountless server. Everyone is kicked off their mounts and unable to remount them.
Staff decides one day that explosion spell delay is now 6 seconds.
Staff decides one day that this is now a perma statloss shard...
Staff decided one day that nobody can recall, regardless of murder counts, if they are attacked.
Staff feels we're all better off if trammel is added...
Staff decides to make every npc have a chance to reveal hidden players within a certain range.

Sure, some of these ideas are far fetched. Some of them actually happened, and even though the changes were reverted, we still lost players over it that haven't returned like Gimpcent or bobby. I'm sure they felt that they were oppressed simply because they logged on, invested their time and due to their impact on the game, changes were made and now they just don't trust the staff.

This is the reason that we need a policy that governs changes to PvP mechanics and rules, so that players can feel comfortable playing how they want to play, under the mechanics that exist or have existed if they are able to do so without breaking the rules. If people don't feel like they're investing their time on a solid server that's going to be there for them to play how they want in the future, then they aren't going to come here.

This really can't be strictly a facism in this regard, it just doesn't work that way. And it shouldn't, just because not everyone is paying for the host, or doing the development. How many examples of shards that have failed because of one person developing and changing mechanics without talking or listening to the playerbase about it? I can think of lots. Lets raise the bar in this regard.

 

[wreckognize]

Almost half of the people we attacked was able to flee by recalling when they saw us..

Sent from my mobile

You must be in EQMS. If you're simply running everyone in a group into a fight and not leaving hidden characters at strategic places to help get the job done or walling, or dispelling gates, then your subject to your own mistakes.

In the same regard, the leader of EQMS was very frustrated that he couldn't kill red aggressors before they entered a house and got to safety. So he cried about it and eventually it was changed, even if the changes were reverted. But did he ever leave invisible characters outside of the house? Or get someone to use energy fields or hidden characters to block the teleporters? No.

His whole plan is just to run everyone in one big pack and that's just not strategic enough to work under the current mechanics. He cried and whined about changes and somehow he got his way in the end instead of needing to adapt. Before EQMS arrived, players were less organized in the group zerg sense, but still far better at using cutoffs, walls, fields and invisible characters than they are today. And tbh the shard is suffering because of it. Now that we've catered to them, we've probably lost some of the types of players who I would prefer to have here. But of course, this all isn't without it's upsides... just wondering if there's a light in the end of the tunnel for everyone who liked PvP more when this was UO:F and not uoforever.

 

[Bromista]

I'm a pretty verbose motherfucker at times so I don't want this to come off as a "you just can't/won't/are too stupid to read it all" comment-inducing thing to say...but I've found that when I have to use so many words when much fewer would do I'm usually getting a little too far away from an idea that is easy and reasonable to implement. If you have to go to those kind of lengths to defend an argument you need to simplify it.

Like, here's a good way to tackle some of the criticism of the idea:

If blue, murder counts burn in 36 hours.

If red, murder counts burn in 12 hours.

This way if a player commits to being red and commits to the risk involved they should benefit when working off counts to lessen the effects. Duration of stat loss or cost to buy back head. Introduced fix buyback rate with a reasonable cap to make sure the system has an influence on the decision.

Same general system, newb-friendly. Not much is being tweaked.

Where are we at currently with ping-ponging and perma-red? That was introduced briefly and taken away right? That could be re-visited...if you have 3 ping-pongs resulting in perma red players are gonna think twice about going on killing sprees at RDAs and champs. That's the thing I'd like to see curbed the most...the shitty blue pk'ing at the end of end-game PvM scenarios. The fighting should take place on PvP chars and that kind of change would promote that.

 

[wreckognize]

Kind of off topic, and damn you sure used a lot of conversational foreplay before getting to the point (hate to de-rail my own thread here after all that talk about being civilized lol but damn bro) but to be honest there are some flaws in your suggestion.

Firstly, many red players don't even want their murder counts to wear off at all. They'd rather see an accurate number when considering their sins. I remember when it was stealth implemented that murder counts were halved when a red player was statted, and while the idea behind it had merit, where they wouldn't have as long of statloss the next time they were statted, there were quite a few upset players over it.

Again this is another example of an idea that could have been discussed and polled and we might have found a solution, like adding the ability to toggle murder count decay on/off.

Pretty much going to guess that the perma-red changes were removed along with the rest of the murder system changes, but yes it would be nice to have some clarification on that. Regardless it's off topic so that's all I'll say on that.

So you're saying that you think it would be beneficial to add 12 hours to the existing murder decay rate into the proposed final suggestion?

I'm not sure I agree. Yes, it would help to remove some extra blue PKing on top of the posted idea. However I feel as though Blue PKs are already disadvantaged enough by not being able to recall into dungeons, which from a PvP standpoint means that in the case that they die during their second murder attempt before their first count is removed, it increases the time that they need to get restocked and back to the area. That on top of the chance that dying during PvM like champs is also a pain, or if they need to recall from a zerg attacking them at a champ, which could cost them a powerscroll or relic if they die during the boss fight and can't get restocked with reds hovering over them at the rez anhk.

That's pretty much why I didn't include any increase to the decay rate for murder counts in my final suggestion.