Outlaws.  Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, John Dillenger.  What do these people have in common?  They all lived very well off the spoils of their crimes, and in the end all suffered a very harsh fall at the end of it.

That is the appeal of playing the bad guy.  There is easy, big, pay-offs.  But in the end there is a good chance of losing it all.  The concept is that there is a balance between High Risk/High Reward.    This is a balance that in most MMO's that use open PVP i've not seen.  In general, there is High Reward balanced by/minimum risk. 

I would like to see a perma-death system for Outlaws, but one that being perma-killed is not an easy prospect (if you're smart).  Now what this means is that you can jump into PVP to rob and loot, without fear that if the person wins, you are done for good.  That makes for very little fun.  However, after you have done enough crimes, someone may come deliberately looking for you.  In that case, you need to be afraid, very afraid. 

The system would work something like this:

When you kill someone, they get a message telling them that they have the option of reporting this crime.  The window they have for reporting a crime is roughly one-week.  After which time the crime disappears from their log.  To report a crime they have to go to the local law office and report it.  (They also have in their log the option to "Forgive" the crime and delete it.)  To do this they talk to the NPC in the office and they see a pop up window with things like:   "Killed by 1337dude" [Report].  Clicking on the "Report" button would be all that was needed to report the crime.

When anybody has been reported for a crime, the computer will offer up bounties on the person.  The amount of the bounty is determined by the number of crimes reported under that character's name. 

Once a player (or group of players) requests to pick up a bounty they are each given an item to use on that person's corpse.  This item is not a generic "Any wanted person" item.  It is specific to the person being hunted.  I.E. it could be a crystal labeled "Bounty Crystal for 1337dude"

The other characters have to then hunt you down.  Not an easy prospect if you are a smart outlaw.  Once your character is killed, and the item is used on your corpse, your character is permanently killed.

Now i recognize a few weaknesses in this overall concept.  The first is that it will ONLY work, if you are only allowed 1 character per server per account.  2nd is that it is exploitable by someone who dual boxes with multiple accounts.  The hunted player could easily transfer all his ill-gotten gains to his 2nd character and then off himself.  The question comes down to how easy it is to recover that character that you sacrifice to do that.

This is the system concept.  You have the normal high rewards that a full-loot open world PVP system offers, and a very high potential risk.  This risk is a harsh penalty, but one that must be deliberately applied, not one that may hap-hazardly hit you if you jump in to a random fight and hit a lag-spike.

What do you guys think?

Originally posted by robert4818

Outlaws.  Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, John Dillenger.  What do these people have in common?  They all lived very well off the spoils of their crimes, and in the end all suffered a very harsh fall at the end of it.

Only Al Capone of your list had a group which could exact revenge. The rest were truly on their own. Is this suitable for an MMO.. They also didn't meet their end from a server crash, lag or their internet service disrupted from a electrical storm/ pet pulled the plug from the computer, etc.

That is the appeal of playing the bad guy.  There is easy, big, pay-offs.  But in the end there is a good chance of losing it all.  The concept is that there is a balance between High Risk/High Reward.    This is a balance that in most MMO's that use open PVP i've not seen.  In general, there is High Reward balanced by/minimum risk. 

I would like to see a perma-death system for Outlaws, but one that being perma-killed is not an easy prospect (if you're smart).  Now what this means is that you can jump into PVP to rob and loot, without fear that if the person wins, you are done for good.  That makes for very little fun.  However, after you have done enough crimes, someone may come deliberately looking for you.  In that case, you need to be afraid, very afraid. 

The system would work something like this:

When you kill someone, they get a message telling them that they have the option of reporting this crime.  The window they have for reporting a crime is roughly one-week.  After which time the crime disappears from their log.  To report a crime they have to go to the local law office and report it.  (They also have in their log the option to "Forgive" the crime and delete it.)  To do this they talk to the NPC in the office and they see a pop up window with things like:   "Killed by 1337dude" [Report].  Clicking on the "Report" button would be all that was needed to report the crime.

When anybody has been reported for a crime, the computer will offer up bounties on the person.  The amount of the bounty is determined by the number of crimes reported under that character's name. 

If you are dead, can you really report a crime? ;) Just yanking your chain.

Once a player (or group of players) requests to pick up a bounty they are each given an item to use on that person's corpse.  This item is not a generic "Any wanted person" item.  It is specific to the person being hunted.  I.E. it could be a crystal labeled "Bounty Crystal for 1337dude"

The other characters have to then hunt you down.  Not an easy prospect if you are a smart outlaw.  Once your character is killed, and the item is used on your corpse, your character is permanently killed.

Now i recognize a few weaknesses in this overall concept.  The first is that it will ONLY work, if you are only allowed 1 character per server per account.  2nd is that it is exploitable by someone who dual boxes with multiple accounts.  The hunted player could easily transfer all his ill-gotten gains to his 2nd character and then off himself.  The question comes down to how easy it is to recover that character that you sacrifice to do that.

This is the system concept.  You have the normal high rewards that a full-loot open world PVP system offers, and a very high potential risk.  This risk is a harsh penalty, but one that must be deliberately applied, not one that may hap-hazardly hit you if you jump in to a random fight and hit a lag-spike.

What do you guys think?

You want a high risk? How about the game charges you $5 per resurrection of your toon?

What happens when the risk/reward balance goes out of whak is one of two things.   I define risk like this (Consequences & Frequency).  If risk is too high, then people will not take that path at all.  If the risk is too low, then everyone will flock to it because it's "easy".

The above concept uses a very high consequence, that is not very frequent (if you play smart).  If you constantly harrass the exact same spot on the road, then the frequency of facing the consequences goes up dramatically.  However, if you are smart, and travel, that frequency goes down until someone dedicated starts going after you (or someone on your own team turns on you). 

Which one do you want? Allow griefing which will cause players to quit the game, or make the punishment for griefing so harsh that griefers will only take it one time, then quit and go play something else?

Way back when Ashen Empires was in beta (Dransik), they had a system kinda like this. I freaking loved it. It had alignment and the highest alignment you could achieve was Divine, the lowest was Criminal.

I was a Divine PKer.

With the system they had, you could kill someone and not lose your alignment, SO LONG that nobody was around to see you do it. It was just between you and your prey. I used it to my advantage and actually developed a PKing group that would setup in certain areas and each person was only allowed to chase the prey so far, to avoid the other person from seeing if they killed the prey.

In Dransik, when you died you dropped everything in your backpack and a certain % to drop a random item (or 2) from what you were wearing. (best player loot system ever, imho) You were ressed, fully alive no ghost bull****, at the nearest town (I think) and you had to run back to your body before it hit Decay level 2 (or something like that) and if you didn't make it back in time, then your body was free to loot. We had a couple ppl setup for that too, to keep the person away from their body and those ppl didn't care about alignment.

This system was actually what truly truly made me fall in love with MMOs. I even started RPing the PKing and we would only kill people who took a rare trivial item. At the time, it was a Rose. Not worth a damn thing, but only 1 vendor sold the seeds to grow them and he was hard to find.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Which one do you want? Allow griefing which will cause players to quit the game, or make the punishment for griefing so harsh that griefers will only take it one time, then quit and go play something else?

There is a fine line between PKing and Griefing.  It gets hazy at times, but it's there.

If I kill you, and take your stuff, regardless of how "ready" you were or how "unfair" you think that fight was.  Then I am just PK. 

If on the other hand, I continue to kill you, leave your stuff on the ground and force you to watch it decay, with absolutely no intent of actually taking the stuff.  Then I am griefing you.

I am a full believer in the concept of the "Community Policing itself" provided that the community has the tools to actually do so.  This would provide one of those tools.

I normally do NOT play a PK style person.  However with a risk/reward system as the one above, I would be sorely tested to do it.  Knowing that with every kill, I bring myself closer to actually risking my own "life" in the game.

Not the system, but the idea behind it is what mmos need. CONSEQUENCES, how it will be implemented may change, so the simplest pk system around some games (if ur normal u can drop thing, if ur PK u drop A LOT of things) is a beggining, but recent mmo forgot to develop this idead, and the result is an asshole comunity, not just griefers but ks, "non-talking kids" and all other kinds of flamers who hide behing punishless mechanics.

A harsh environment will provide a better game, what education cant provide FEAR will :)

Originally posted by Kenaoshi

Not the system, but the idea behind it is what mmos need. CONSEQUENCES, how it will be implemented may change, so the simplest pk system around some games (if ur normal u can drop thing, if ur PK u drop A LOT of things) is a beggining, but recent mmo forgot to develop this idead, and the result is an asshole comunity, not just griefers but ks, "non-talking kids" and all other kinds of flamers who hide behing punishless mechanics.

A harsh environment will provide a better game, what education cant provide FEAR will :)

You have to be careful when creating a system though.  The higher you make the consequences, the less frequent those consequences should be. 

I believe that an open sandbox world (which is really the only type of rpg game that should have open PVP) NEEDS PK's and Outlaws.  It makes the game interesting.  But the consequences need to be stiff enough that you have to truly weigh the decision to get into it.  If you make a system SO harsh that nobody wants to do it, then there is no point in having the system at all.  If you make the system so light that there are little consequences, then you end up with a Griefer community.

Non-PK players will leave if the community lacks the ability to adequately police themselves.  If you can PK me repeatedly, and force me into playing a PK game when I don't want to, then there needs to be some way in the game for me to adequately respond.

Early AOC had that problem.  It had RAMPANT PK (and at higher levels you couldn't always change instances).  The only thing you could do is defend yourself (if you were lucky).  When all is said and done,  The PK got their fun, by forcing you to play their style.  There were absolutely NO repurcussions that could be done to them.  There was no way for the community to police themselves.  There was no adequate way to strike back at the bad guys.

In Eve, you can strike back at bad guys, and if you are truly determined you can cost them lots of money, and grind them back down to dirt.  It may take a coordinated effort, but it is possible to do.

Originally posted by robert4818

Originally posted by Kenaoshi

Not the system, but the idea behind it is what mmos need. CONSEQUENCES, how it will be implemented may change, so the simplest pk system around some games (if ur normal u can drop thing, if ur PK u drop A LOT of things) is a beggining, but recent mmo forgot to develop this idead, and the result is an asshole comunity, not just griefers but ks, "non-talking kids" and all other kinds of flamers who hide behing punishless mechanics.

A harsh environment will provide a better game, what education cant provide FEAR will :)

 

You have to be careful when creating a system though.  The higher you make the consequences, the less frequent those consequences should be. 

I believe that an open sandbox world (which is really the only type of rpg game that should have open PVP) NEEDS PK's and Outlaws.  It makes the game interesting.  But the consequences need to be stiff enough that you have to truly weigh the decision to get into it.  If you make a system SO harsh that nobody wants to do it, then there is no point in having the system at all.  If you make the system so light that there are little consequences, then you end up with a Griefer community.

Non-PK players will leave if the community lacks the ability to adequately police themselves.  If you can PK me repeatedly, and force me into playing a PK game when I don't want to, then there needs to be some way in the game for me to adequately respond.

Early AOC had that problem.  It had RAMPANT PK (and at higher levels you couldn't always change instances).  The only thing you could do is defend yourself (if you were lucky).  When all is said and done,  The PK got their fun, by forcing you to play their style.  There were absolutely NO repurcussions that could be done to them.  There was no way for the community to police themselves.  There was no adequate way to strike back at the bad guys.

In Eve, you can strike back at bad guys, and if you are truly determined you can cost them lots of money, and grind them back down to dirt.  It may take a coordinated effort, but it is possible to do.

completly agree with u, a balance must be found, thats a matter mmos should had focused all these years, there´s no fun being the hero if thes no villain. And then it comes with skill, a skilled player who choses the pk way know than even him cant go rampant that someday someone will get him and put him to the misery, if a good system is implemented, and the hero will also other duties to do, help farmers, donate gold to the church.., CONSEQUENCES in the overall gameplay can bring this balance, at least in my humble opinion.

Originally posted by robert4818 

In Eve, you can strike back at bad guys, and if you are truly determined you can cost them lots of money, and grind them back down to dirt.  It may take a coordinated effort, but it is possible to do.

The EVE player policing system does not really work when it comes to the smarter and/or more dedicated griefers. There is a ton of loopholes that make 'striking back at the bad guys' impossible or just a waste of time.

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by robert4818 

In Eve, you can strike back at bad guys, and if you are truly determined you can cost them lots of money, and grind them back down to dirt.  It may take a coordinated effort, but it is possible to do.

 

The EVE player policing system does not really work when it comes to the smarter and/or more dedicated griefers. There is a ton of loopholes that make 'striking back at the bad guys' impossible or just a waste of time.

Indeed.  PK Players run riot until they get a lot of reward money on their head, then one of their friends kills them and they split the bounty between them - I've seen that so many times.  They lie low for a while, playing an alt, then rinse and repeat.

I love the idea of Perma death in MMO games, but my fear is always that it will, like in SWG, get removed when to many players starts whining over losing their character.

But a game with a good system in place would be tempting...

Originally posted by robert4818

Now i recognize a few weaknesses in this overall concept.  The first is that it will ONLY work, if you are only allowed 1 character per server per account.  2nd is that it is exploitable by someone who dual boxes with multiple accounts. 

3) exploitable by anyone with friends

4) the system as described simply prints money, artificially inflates the economy

5) historically, people lose faith in the system, as justice a year later is the same as no justice (See: UO and EVE)

6) it has the possibility of becoming perceived as a 'Leaderboard', increasing such behavior

7) It has the possibility of going the other direction and making outlaw careers unappealing and unplayed.

Revenge only works for the amoral and the rich. Well, it also works for the psychotic, but I don't think those are the people any community is looking to attract.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by robert4818

Now i recognize a few weaknesses in this overall concept.  The first is that it will ONLY work, if you are only allowed 1 character per server per account.  2nd is that it is exploitable by someone who dual boxes with multiple accounts. 

 

3) exploitable by anyone with friends

-Possibly, the amount of the exploit is viable will come down to how much time it takes to build up a good character that can even rack up a large bounty.  The biggest exploit would be the transfer of stolen goods. 

4) the system as described simply prints money, artificially inflates the economy. 

Everything in the game prints money.  The concept of bounties will have to be balanced like every other aspect of money input into the economy. 

5) historically, people lose faith in the system, as justice a year later is the same as no justice (See: UO and EVE)

This may be true on an individual level, (especially when you don't remember each person who killed you) but its not true of larger organizations, their members, or those who truly have the big bounties.

6) it has the possibility of becoming perceived as a 'Leaderboard', increasing such behavior

This is true, but I don't see a problem with that.  It'll encourage those inclined to do it, but the higher you are on the leader board, the more apt you are to have someone gunning for you.  And when they take you down, its for good.

7) It has the possibility of going the other direction and making outlaw careers unappealing and unplayed.

It has this possibility, and would need to be balanced just like every other aspect of the game.  I believe that it will make outlaw careers unappealing to the PK-lites, and played only by those with the testicular fortitude to see it through to the end. 

 Revenge only works for the amoral and the rich. Well, it also works for the psychotic, but I don't think those are the people any community is looking to attract.

 I would argue that this system would more emulate the concept of wild west bounty hunters and Posses, instead of the guys just out for revenge.  

 

My question is why would anyone risk loosing their character just to PK someone?

Originally posted by robert4818

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by robert4818

Now i recognize a few weaknesses in this overall concept.  The first is that it will ONLY work, if you are only allowed 1 character per server per account.  2nd is that it is exploitable by someone who dual boxes with multiple accounts. 

 

3) exploitable by anyone with friends

-Possibly, the amount of the exploit is viable will come down to how much time it takes to build up a good character that can even rack up a large bounty. 

Your plan is for a game with a massive leveling curve?

5) historically, people lose faith in the system, as justice a year later is the same as no justice (See: UO and EVE)

This may be true on an individual level, (especially when you don't remember each person who killed you) but its not true of larger organizations, their members, or those who truly have the big bounties.

An example (no anecdotes, please) would help here.

6) it has the possibility of becoming perceived as a 'Leaderboard', increasing such behavior

This is true, but I don't see a problem with that.  It'll encourage those inclined to do it, but the higher you are on the leader board, the more apt you are to have someone gunning for you.  And when they take you down, its for good.

Would like an example here, as well. I'm not familiar with MMOs where that has proven to be true.

 Revenge only works for the amoral and the rich. Well, it also works for the psychotic, but I don't think those are the people any community is looking to attract.

 I would argue that this system would more emulate the concept of wild west bounty hunters and Posses, instead of the guys just out for revenge.  

Anti-PKs, heroes and other paths of chivalry are rather uncommon in MMOs. Other than EVE (and SWG and UO in the past)  does that breed of player still exist, let alone in numbers?

Look, I'm not trying to shoot the idea down or anything, but Bounty Systems simply don't work in MMOs, especially in today's zero-challenge zero-risk market.

If you don't want people playing outlaws then code against it.

If you do want people playing outlaws then manage that expectation in the audience for your game.

I truly recommend you to do some research on previous bounty systems in MMOs so you can better understand how they make for a nice novelty but little else. The best titles to look into are UO, SWG and EVE Online.

The concept is fun in principle but i agree with posters that point out its potential for exploitation. While keeping watch near 24/7 for someone to log in might appeal to some, i would rather be using the time to advance my char. There are just too many "minor" details to flesh out. Perhaps having PK enabled areas of wilderness in between safe zones would better fit the "wild west" model. A party could be hired to guard transports others could try to loot or something... Yes, "guards" could be working with robbers, but then again it could be a trap to collect some bounties and so on... The thing is not having the system depend too much on random logging times but work around windows of oportunity.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by robert4818

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by robert4818

Now i recognize a few weaknesses in this overall concept.  The first is that it will ONLY work, if you are only allowed 1 character per server per account.  2nd is that it is exploitable by someone who dual boxes with multiple accounts. 

 

3) exploitable by anyone with friends

-Possibly, the amount of the exploit is viable will come down to how much time it takes to build up a good character that can even rack up a large bounty. 

Your plan is for a game with a massive leveling curve?

Ideally, a game's powercurve should start out sharp, and then level out dramatically towards the middle.  So on a game that used levels(1-40), you had a sharp exponential powercurve from 1-20, but then the difference between 20 and 40 would be minimal in power.  But the concept is how long does it take a newly created character to be competetive.  It should not be "out of the box" because that lends itself to throw-away characters.  However, it should also NOT be an "End-Game." 

5) historically, people lose faith in the system, as justice a year later is the same as no justice (See: UO and EVE)

This may be true on an individual level, (especially when you don't remember each person who killed you) but its not true of larger organizations, their members, or those who truly have the big bounties.

An example (no anecdotes, please) would help here.

Real world might be a bit difficult, but I'll try.  Take Murder Herd.  They are a large guild of PKs in almost any game they get into.  I may not remember that "Killed You" killed me, but I'll remember that Murder Herd did.  Now the fact that I may never get to collect on "Killed You" for him killing me, sucks.  But I can try to take out as much of Murder Herd as I can.

Plus even KNOWING that there is a system in place to deal with them is good.

6) it has the possibility of becoming perceived as a 'Leaderboard', increasing such behavior

This is true, but I don't see a problem with that.  It'll encourage those inclined to do it, but the higher you are on the leader board, the more apt you are to have someone gunning for you.  And when they take you down, its for good.

Would like an example here, as well. I'm not familiar with MMOs where that has proven to be true.

I'm not too familiar with a game that's got anything like this system in place, so a real world example is hard to come by.

Anecdotally though i'll give you this.  If I want to collect a sizable bounty, I'll look at the bounty boards.  I'll choose the person who'll give me the biggest reward "Player X" is at the top of the board.  He's also been on the forums bragging about how good he is and the size of his bounty.  I collect a group of 5-6 other players who think that it would be good to take him down, and split the cash.  Ideally, the larger the bounty, the larger the group of people will want to take you down for the bounty.

 Revenge only works for the amoral and the rich. Well, it also works for the psychotic, but I don't think those are the people any community is looking to attract.

 I would argue that this system would more emulate the concept of wild west bounty hunters and Posses, instead of the guys just out for revenge.  

Anti-PKs, heroes and other paths of chivalry are rather uncommon in MMOs. Other than EVE (and SWG and UO in the past)  does that breed of player still exist, let alone in numbers?

When was the last time you saw an MMO that even catered to that style of play? I think that with the right gameplay you would draw them in.

 

Look, I'm not trying to shoot the idea down or anything, but Bounty Systems simply don't work in MMOs, especially in today's zero-challenge zero-risk market.

I'm not saying you are.  A bounty system may or may not work.  I'm just trying to toss out an Idea I think could be fun, if implemented properly.  Right now its an idea.  Play-testing, tweaking, and the inevitable collision with the real world would be needed to make it work, and work properly.  I admit that there are flaws (I even mentioned them in the OP) and I am also willing to admit that I don't have the answer to those flaws.  I wouldn't until I started seeing how the system started playing out in a real game.

If you don't want people playing outlaws then code against it.

If you do want people playing outlaws then manage that expectation in the audience for your game.

I want people playing outlaws.  However, I don't want a majority of people playing outlaws.  This is where risk/reward comes in.  Its a balancing act, and one that would not be solved without play-testing various options.

I truly recommend you to do some research on previous bounty systems in MMOs so you can better understand how they make for a nice novelty but little else. The best titles to look into are UO, SWG and EVE Online.

 

 

Originally posted by robert4818        

I want people playing outlaws.  However, I don't want a majority of people playing outlaws.  This is where risk/reward comes in.  Its a balancing act, and one that would not be solved without play-testing various options.

Think of it as a class, because your players most certainly will. If you have a class that is not as equally desirable as all the others, people won't want to play it at all. If it's overpowered, people will want it nerfed. It's easier to pulloff in skill-based MMOs as it is perceived as another profession. In class-restricted MMOs, if it isn't specifically a class, players will have a negative attitude toward it from the start as outlaws "are not how the game is supposed to be played" and "outlaws is another word for griefers" - despite your best efforts to educate them otherwise.:)

One approach that seems to offer reasonable benefit is the 'flagging' that Shadowbane and UO (and EVE to an extent) use. When a person commits certain crimes against you, they are frely attackable to you even in certain areas where attacking is not normally allowed. No one else, neither the other players nor the ones that are the criminals on your list, knows who is on your list or who is flagged to you. This also leads to some intersting scenarios where people have set upon someone in an act of vengeance err... justice... during social events, large gatherings or the center of a safe zone.

Again, I highly recommend researching previous bounty and retribution systems in MMOs so you can see the pros and cons of each. The best titles to look into are UO, SWG and EVE Online.