Suggested addition to the *Murderer* System

[ViolentBeard]

So we were having a discussion in the Discord about how to make the murderer system a bit more lively (pun intended), and incentivize hunting reds. It boiled down to a pretty nifty way of having reds hunt reds to police themselves, while (the most amazing feat of all) making it all abuse-proof.

To add a pinch of more background to it, one of the motivations to have this discussion at all, is that the red penalties in general are quite weak on this shard (at the lowest 200 gp per active count, and a 24 hour lockout), so that leaves a lot of players wanting for more harsher penalties.

So here's the summary the way I got it:

A) Reds that are killed by other reds always pay the penalties based on their lifetime counts.

B) The gold that is paid goes to the red player that killed the other red.

C) The active counts are not reset upon paying the penalties.

And optionally D) The minimum amount paid if a red is killed by another red is 10k.

So this means that:
- Reds are incentivized to hunt other reds. There's a lot of opportunism here. Another red might be worth a lot of gold.
- No special paladin class needed.
- The gold is on a closed loop system. Killing yourself with an alt doesn't accomplish anything. You would pay money to yourself and your counts would not be reset.
- Might actually revive the whole red system and make more players play reds - you can be both the police and the bad guy in the same time.
- Gives players the juicy feeling of being able to deal out justice to those who have haunted them.
- The option D) is there to prevent people feeling too relaxed by creating just a character with 5 counts to hunt reds.

 

[Dewderonomy]

The penalties are fine. The problem isn't that the penalties are too low, but rather that they reset upon failure. That's the problem; it almost rewards garbage can tier PKers, the ones who are the most likely to prey upon newbies and the helpless, which in turn would kill off potential new players and casuals. The whole point of the system is to make PKers accountable for failing; PKing is an opt-in system: at no point is any player, for any reason, forced to become a red due to playstyle, class/template or progress. In theory, it should be the proverbial "hard mode" but every single UO veteran will tell you that is simply not the case; in fact, a red guild or crew can be extremely profitable while playing their own gameloop if they have an inkling of what they're doing.

If, every time you die, you pay the penalties with no loss of counts, then over time racking up counts on newbies or reskilling would become incredibly cost inefficient; you'd be standing around with 100 counts and every death would cost you 4,000 gold, no small amount on Outlands with its gold flow. It makes the other two options (200 gold for losing aggressive actions on that account) far more attractive if you've been killed a few times one weekend.

I think there is a way to make bounty hunting a thing, personally, but along the lines of 50% of the option chosen (2,000 gold in the 4,000 gold example above). The money would go to the killing blow. And without counts resetting, there is absolutely no reason for a red to agree to it: they would pay 4K to earn 2K, or 2K to earn 1K. There's zero gain. It's a perfect means of incorporating some sort of bounty hunting.

As it stands, though, as much as I love the thought put into the new system, it honestly does nothing to really address reds like it hopes to. Every cool option to attack the meta of red guilds and hot swapping characters after being killed is nullified by the simple fact that counts are reset on failure - a benefit, not a penalty.

 

[Smash]

i had an idea that would keep almost everything as is.

for option 2 and 3 of the system instead of counts being instantly reduced they reduce after a 1/2/3 whatever hour timer. (must be logged in on that character to lower the time)

if you are killed within that time period you pay the full penalty again to resurrect and the timer is reset to full.

this way you arent forcing people to not play how they want to, its not a set timeout no aggressive action but you will force people to self-regulate whether they go back out or not. is it worth going straight back out and paying that penalty if i die? should i hit the brakes for a bit and go do some crafting instead?

whether counts fully reset to 5 or are halved, etc is something i also think needs to be looked at.

 

[Tucan Sam]

Here is my suggestion,

I do like the above Red v. Red, Idea. You could also incorporate some type of Pennants System. Upon death and Rezz (Paying the current fee), you cannot attack a non-aggressor until your pennants is paid.

So, when you rezz you get something similar to a TMap in your bag, the Tmap is blessed, player specific and must be completed before you can become an aggressor again. They will be all Overland Specific and would require you to Kill certain things, collect certain items, travel to different POI, collect enough monster gold to pay your lifetime fee. The entire time you are still red and freely attackable by Reds and Blues. SO. if youre going to interrupt PvMers who dont want to PK and simply fall 99% of the time to Reds this system will interrupt the Reds play style by forcing them to PvM with their PvP build.

Reds wont like it because they have to go PvM. I get it, but PvMer's dont like having to PvP and their time wasted because of the Red. Even the playing field. This may make Red on Red more exciting because of the idea of the payment going to the other red character.

 

[Mercury]

So we were having a discussion in the Discord about how to make the murderer system a bit more lively (pun intended), and incentivize hunting reds. It boiled down to a pretty nifty way of having reds hunt reds to police themselves, while (the most amazing feat of all) making it all abuse-proof.

To add a pinch of more background to it, one of the motivations to have this discussion at all, is that the red penalties in general are quite weak on this shard (at the lowest 200 gp per active count, and a 24 hour lockout), so that leaves a lot of players wanting for more harsher penalties.

So here's the summary the way I got it:

A) Reds that are killed by other reds always pay the penalties based on their lifetime counts.

B) The gold that is paid goes to the red player that killed the other red.

C) The active counts are not reset upon paying the penalties.

And optionally D) The minimum amount paid if a red is killed by another red is 10k.

So this means that:
- Reds are incentivized to hunt other reds. There's a lot of opportunism here. Another red might be worth a lot of gold.
- No special paladin class needed.
- The gold is on a closed loop system. Killing yourself with an alt doesn't accomplish anything. You would pay money to yourself and your counts would not be reset.
- Might actually revive the whole red system and make more players play reds - you can be both the police and the bad guy in the same time.
- Gives players the juicy feeling of being able to deal out justice to those who have haunted them.
- The option D) is there to prevent people feeling too relaxed by creating just a character with 5 counts to hunt reds.

View attachment 150

I dislike this. What if mr newbie bard pulls off a sweet kill on the PK?He gets zero reward.....if you run a system like this, its almost like insurance and should drop to everyone...ie/

Your red
You die
If you choose to ress in a way that pays a penalty, upon ressing, 50% goes to your killer.

However the Admin have clearly stated they do not want a bounty style system. Imo the current flaw is your counts reset.

1. Remove the count reset on paying penalty (stops you going from 2133514246621count notorious murderer to blue in a few days)
2. Charge on ress = (total counts*400) - (counts already paid*400*x%) where X% is a figure determined by how harsh we want the penalty to be for long term killers

Lets not think PKs would suddenly get all righteous and only kill other reds if a system like this existed. That's laughable.

The penalties are in place to make PKing a risky business, you suck you basically cant afford to keep PKing...with pks running rampant youforce pvmers/spawners whatever to leave/quit. You ruin there gaming time, eventually they will leave. Dead shard = no fun for anyone.

 

[ViolentBeard]

So what I am seeing from your replies here so far, is that everyone seems to agree that the current implementation of murderer penalties are too weak, and need to be made harsher. Then everyone has a slightly different suggestion on exactly how to make it more harsh.

One of the issues that at least two of you seem to agree on is that one of the big problems is that the active counts reset on ressurection - there is definately some tweaking to be done there. There are two extremes to that spectrum, the one extreme end is that you always pay based on the long term counts regardless of what killed you - you can even take it one step further and add some sort of cumulative additional gold cost based on how many times you've ressurected. The other end of the extreme spectrum would be to make it easy to reset the active counts, which the current implementation is a good example of - currently it only costs 200 gold per count to reset them at the cheapest tier.

I don't like either of those extreme ends (one is too harsh on the reds, the other is far from harsh enough). So I think there is a middle road that is better for everyone involved. The suggestion in the OP is a middle road in this issue. The reds will - sometimes - be forced to pay based on their lifetime counts. Not always. And Merc, I do not think either that PKs will suddenly become righteous, but I do think that they will be enticed by a nice big reward if they kill another red player, and there are certainly players - like myself - who would play reds solely to hunt other reds.

Other than that, Tucan's suggestion to give them some sort of quest, such as: You cannot pay off the reward with the gold you already have in your bank - you have to complete "a quest" and go out and farm 50,000 gold with your red. It's was pretty interesting, you can't counter the punishment by being rich, you have to go out and do the work. Sort of like a jail system. Hard to get it right of course, but it would definately be something that PKs would want to avoid.

 

[Bacacay]

First of all, I'd like to say that the reason that they don't want a bounty system is that the old system they are familiar with had potential for exploitation, so I don't think it would be a bad idea to suggest one that has no exploitation possible.

I'll just outline my two cents on how we could improve the current system:

- Base cost to rez as a red with 5 counts = 2k. Possibly 1k for option 1, 1.5k for option 2
- The base is modified by 100 gold per 5 lifetime counts (could probably increase this)
- Instead of wiping all counts, divide lifetime counts by 5, and subtract that from current counts.

Examples:

1 5 lifetime, 5 current counts = 2k rez at option 3
2. 100 lifetime counts, 5 current counts = 4k rez at option 3
3. 20 lifetime counts, 20 current counts = 8.4k rez at option 3, 16 counts after rez
4. 100 lifetime counts, 100 current counts = 42k rez at option 3, 80 counts after rez
5. 100 lifetime counts, 20 current counts = 10k rez at option 3, 5 counts after rez
6. 500 lifetime counts, 5 current counts = 12k rez at option 3
7. 500 lifetime counts, 100 current counts = 50k rez at option 3, 5 counts after rez

Might have gotten something wrong with my shitmath but I should be close at least. Hopefully not too complicated, but the point is the more you kill long-term the harsher initial penalty you are going to get based on lifetime counts, but are not at the same time stuck in a loop of paying extremely high penalty if you die again after that, at least not for the long-term. I tried several different iterations, but I think this will work best. Now I know what this looks like. High lifetime counts still takes away basically all of your counts if you have much less current counts. While it may seem "light" that someone with 500 lifetimes and 100 counts can pay 50k once and be free of all his current counts, his base rez cost is 12k at that point. And the base cost in itself should mean that even at 5 counts it isn't a free ride to rez, and since this is also modified by the lifetime, the base cost will increase more and more depending on lifetime. Might need to modify the idea somewhat but I think this is onto something.

As for the whole idea of a bounty system, it could just be that since there is a base penalty, the whole of the red penalty when paid can go to whoever killed them. There is an issue with that however, as a PK could purposefully die to mobs if you rely on the "killshot" to determine where the money goes. If anything it should be some kind of tracking where the killshot gives you the full amount, but if the pk dies to anything else while flagged in pvp with someone, they could be instead paid a percentage based on how much damage they did. This idea might be overly complicated though.

EDIT: As an addendum to the bounty idea, could probably keep it at 50% of the penalty paid instead of full to prevent any real abuse of having your friend kill you and then giving you back the money.

 

[Dewderonomy]

You guys are seriously overcomplicating this. lol

 

[Bacacay]

You guys are seriously overcomplicating this. lol

Maybe, but maybe this does need some overcomplication to fix the issue. lol. What I plotted out is kind of a middleground solution to what most people were complaining about.

 

[Dewderonomy]

Maybe, but maybe this does need some overcomplication to fix the issue. lol. What I plotted out is kind of a middleground solution to what most people were complaining about.

I feel the three options work just fine, if there are no count wipes upon death. That means the more you kill, the more you pay when you die. If you stop PKing, either because you can't afford it or you want to drop your counts a bit, then the system has worked to deter rampant PKing. With 200 gold and aggression lock (whatever that entails), that's 20,000 gold if you're at 100 counts - not particularly difficult to get to if you roll in a pack of 10 ganking any blue that moves. And that's with the additional lockout; it'd be 40,000 gold if they went with a gold-only punishment. I'd say that's penalty enough.

 

[Bacacay]

I feel the three options work just fine, if there are no count wipes upon death. That means the more you kill, the more you pay when you die. If you stop PKing, either because you can't afford it or you want to drop your counts a bit, then the system has worked to deter rampant PKing. With 200 gold and aggression lock (whatever that entails), that's 20,000 gold if you're at 100 counts - not particularly difficult to get to if you roll in a pack of 10 ganking any blue that moves. And that's with the additional lockout; it'd be 40,000 gold if they went with a gold-only punishment. I'd say that's penalty enough.

But at the same time that has the potential to hurt the solo pk playstyle too much, because of the fact that any death to anything means you have to pay your penalty to rez, unlike old statloss where someone needed to turn in your head. If it happens multiple times at high counts, that's when it becomes a problem. When it's going to cost more to keep playing a high count character, you'll end up just deleting instead. And for the record, it's actually pretty easy to die here even without stun, unless you play like a total coward and are literally the worst pk ever, cuz you never stay on screen long enough to do anything.

That's why I pitched that "overcomplicated" idea. Every death costs something, but it isn't crazy. Low counts and low lifetime means you pay a relatively small amount, and the more lifetime counts you have, the more you start paying at 5 count deaths. Getting large amounts of counts is still punished, and the constant increase from lifetime means the base cost will increase over the life of the server if you keep playing the same character. The closer your lifetime is to your current counts, the more you will have to pay on every death because you'll get less count wipes. This presumably means it would be a good idea to let some counts decay and stop pking if you can't afford the next death, but gives a little more breathing room than having to pay the exact same huge amount for a large number of counts on every death. With all of this, ontop of a bounty system, this means that you can "farm" gold from bad pks if they keep coming at you with low count characters and keep dying. Sure, maybe this is more complicated than most pk systems, but it's not THAT complicated.

 

[Bacacay]

And if that's still too complicated, I can simplify it in another way: Keep the count wipe, make the base cost to rez 5k at 5 counts and add the other penalties onto that. Whatever the base could be is debatable. Going by the gold rate here it would still be painful, but not overly so.

 

[Dewderonomy]

We already know the vast majority of PKers don't roll just one red, and most PKers aren't solo, either. Keeping it simple helps players understand the system and anticipate/weigh the consequences, both blues/antis and reds alike.

As for my comment, I wasn't just speaking to you, but all these ideas: quests, counters, red v red incentives, etc. The system as outlined (and coded, GUI'd and so on) works just fine, at least in theory. Until the count wipe, which practically rewards failure instead of continuing to punish it. Even losing some counts isn't that big of a deal, like half of your counts at 100+ (to a minimum of 50). The point I think that is clear in all of this is the current penalty system isn't enough, not because it doesn't attack the meta, but because after a single death the penalty practically ceases to exist until multiple successes are made to, again, nullify it down the line. The server's already filled with exceptions and custom rules as it is, the current red system being among them.

Now, I could go into that further, but you said something that cinches this for me: the solo red.

How many times do we tell PvMers they need to "team up to avoid being PK'd"? How often do we criticize them for not grouping? They're expected to team up and split rewards/loot, to travel in numbers to dissuade murderers or be better able to defend themselves, but we coddle the solo PKer? C'mon. The solo PKer takes the risk - if he wants to make the kill by himself, he needs to be far more of a hunter than just running around looking for easy pickings. We also need to think about what's going to actually hurt the server: zerging shitfits of garbage tier reds ganking people 10v1. Those are the ones that will completely devastate a server's population beyond recompense.

If they're constantly getting killed, maybe butchering players isn't for them, the whole "can't do the time, don't do the crime" concept.

 

[Bacacay]

We already know the vast majority of PKers don't roll just one red, and most PKers aren't solo, either. Keeping it simple helps players understand the system and anticipate/weigh the consequences, both blues/antis and reds alike.

As for my comment, I wasn't just speaking to you, but all these ideas: quests, counters, red v red incentives, etc. The system as outlined (and coded, GUI'd and so on) works just fine, at least in theory. Until the count wipe, which practically rewards failure instead of continuing to punish it. Even losing some counts isn't that big of a deal, like half of your counts at 100+ (to a minimum of 50). The point I think that is clear in all of this is the current penalty system isn't enough, not because it doesn't attack the meta, but because after a single death the penalty practically ceases to exist until multiple successes are made to, again, nullify it down the line. The server's already filled with exceptions and custom rules as it is, the current red system being among them.

Now, I could go into that further, but you said something that cinches this for me: the solo red.

How many times do we tell PvMers they need to "team up to avoid being PK'd"? How often do we criticize them for not grouping? They're expected to team up and split rewards/loot, to travel in numbers to dissuade murderers or be better able to defend themselves, but we coddle the solo PKer? C'mon. The solo PKer takes the risk - if he wants to make the kill by himself, he needs to be far more of a hunter than just running around looking for easy pickings. We also need to think about what's going to actually hurt the server: zerging shitfits of garbage tier reds ganking people 10v1. Those are the ones that will completely devastate a server's population beyond recompense.

If they're constantly getting killed, maybe butchering players isn't for them, the whole "can't do the time, don't do the crime" concept.

Fair enough. Personally I wouldn't mind if we ignored all of this and simply did wipe half of the counts instead. I know some guys would still complain about it, but I don't care enough to as long you're not shelling out 50k on every death on a long running character.

As to the whole "pvmers should group" thing, for me it was always the fact that they simply tend to be not only less experienced with the game (especially if they are vocal about issues they are having with pks) and hence could use some help from another player, but that their template in itself is too much of a disadvantage to not have some support if shit hits the fan. Needless to say, I think it would be in our best interest if we had more solo and small groups of pks, and the way 10 pks all get 200-400 gold (and the relative scarcity of that gold) for a count for killing one newb does help with that to some degree.

 

[Mercury]

Bacacay your suggestion is just another version of mine, in effect, long term counts still have an effect. That effect should increase the penalty.
OR
The penalty for dying is cleared as it is currently, but that option is far more expensive. Its not the standard ress choice, its one you make once in a blue moon as you know it will cost you bigtime. And the cheaper options don't clear counts, or give you extended lockouts like 3 days or whatever. (however I'm against stopping people doing what they want - this is sandbox)

 

[biorhythm]

when person is murdered they can pay gold to place a bounty on their killer. That bounty grows as more people add money to the bounty pot.

when the PKer is killed he has to pay his total bounty. The person who kills the PKer gets half the bounty.

So if a PKer has 10murders with a 40k bounty, even if he uses an alt to kill him and cash in the bounty he still loses 20k.

The PKer is forced to pay the bounty when he dies. If he is unable to; he takes 30% stat loss and 30% skill loss to combat skills until he pays off the bounty.



simple


edit: if this isn't too complicated for people to wrap their heads around. you can then add a base added 250 gold fee added to the total bounty on every murder. This gold does not go towards anyone receiving bounty rewards, just goes to the total bounty gold the PKer has to pay when he dies. This 250gold fee is to discourage people from rez killing people or griefing noobs as their will be some repercussion for doing so.

 

[Owyn]

^ this is too easily abused. Kill yourself, have a friend kill you etc.

 

[reb]

im that friendly neighbothood solo pk, i dont dryloot, i dont harass, i do it all for the thrill for both parties, will even res and chat if i dont become the hunted instantly.
ive pked in a group a couple of times and it was awful, the victims had no chance and it just felt lame.

now i wish there was a way to punish the group pk lamers a little more than one solo red but a system like that is really hard to figure out.

i felt the current system was fine, at least for me alone.
im sure powergamers will feel like the gold fee is a joke because they play a lot and are rich but for me its going to be really hard to sustain one char when i have to pay 5k everytime i get outnumbered and chased down.

the best part i found was the opt out choice, im ok with not playing for a day or more if i mess up. i cannot play everyday anyway.
how much does it hurt the rich guys?
how does that help vs zerging?
thanks for no statloss anyway.

 

[Dewderonomy]

Let's assume that we nix the count wiping (or at least do something like halving counts at 100+ down to a minimum at 50):

how much does it hurt the rich guys?
how does that help vs zerging?

It adds up - quickly. Every death, for any reason, costs. Lose connection and die to a mongbat - pay up. Get a dragon breath to the face in the middle of your 15 zerging turboshitters - pay up. Get reskilled? Pay up, again. It isn't like UOF where a buddy can lol, grab your head and trash it; you pay up at the moment of res for the amount of counts you had at the moment of death.

This will have a profound impact on zerging reds who are garbage but win with numbers over time. In a lot of these scenarios, smaller teams of antis and blues do kill several reds before being chased off or killed themselves. This becomes cumulative as it isn't as simple as "switch to another red while you burn off temporary statloss". If they aren't making money (which a lot of these guys don't, they log in and go zerging), that means their contributions to PKing must outweigh their costs for failures as the zergfit must continuously pay the fees for their members' failures. That has significant psychological effects on the morale of a group, first and foremost, along with the fact money making is about 50-75% of what it is on most shards.

That being said, as a solo red, you must be the hunter, as solo reds were always meant to be. I was solo for pretty much all of my time on UO official during the eras where PKing was an option, and the skills there weren't mechanical, but mental. It wasn't about out PvPing the opponent, but outsmarting them, catching them off guard, getting their stuff and booking it before reinforcements arrived or they got to a safe place. I think that still exists here, but at the end of the day, you're still PKing players and enforcing your playstyle on them and changing what they do with their time online; they should have the opportunity to change what you do with your time as well. If you don't loot and are an "honorable PKer" or whatever, you can build your reputation to where people won't count you so that you don't loot them, and cut down on the costs over time. That's where the social meta and the sandbox nature of UO shines anyway.

 

[Arthrutus]

An idea I had was this:

The game will have "Player Bounties," where players can place bounties on other players. When placing a bounty, players must also offer a decided amount of gold as a reward. This gold goes to the killer of the person with a bounty on their head. Killers must drop the head of that person into a bounty box in order to collect the bounty reward. However, this may not be popular among the general audience since alt accounts can take advantage of this. BUT, it's a great addition for role-players. These bounties can be placed on BOTH blue and red players.

The game will also have "Automated Bounties," which is determined by how many murder counts amassed. For every murder count, an amount of 1,000* gold is added onto the murderer's bounty. In the event that a hero slays this murderer, the hero MUST either trade the head back to the murderer for a fee, trade it to other players, use it for decoration, trash it, or drop the murderer's head into the bounty box. Dropping the murderer's head into the bounty box will prompt the murderer to pay 1,500* gold per murder count.

For example, upon dropping the head of a murderer with 5 murder counts into the bounty box, the murderer will be prompted to pay 7,500 gold. Upon the completion of paying 7,500 gold, the hero who dropped the head into the bounty box is then eligible to claim 5,000 gold. The hero cannot claim the gold before the murderer pays their portion of the bounty. This prevents abuse on many spectrums. Since there is also a negative gold influx of 2,500, it removes the incentive to use alternative accounts to harvest gold. The automated bounty system also needs money to operate too!

* Estimated amount and not final.

All characters on a single account could be considered "related" to each other. Thus, inappropriate actions initiated by one character will have an effect towards the other characters on that account. Upon dropping of the head into the bounty box AND every time the murderer logs in, the murderer will be prompted to pay their portion of the bounty. If the murderer cannot afford or refuses to pay off their portion of the bounty, then certain debuffs are applied until they are able to. Unfortunately, the hero who killed the murderer and dropped the murderer's head into the bounty box MUST wait until the murderer pays off their portion of the bounty. This is to prevent abuse. It should be noted that other accounts/characters/players/friends can help the murderer pay off their portion of the bounty by giving them gold.

Murderer-specific debuffs due to inability to pay off their portion of the bounty include:
- Murderer takes increased damage from other players. (Due to the inability to pay your bills, your spirit remains crushed.)
- Murderer deals reduced damage to other players. (Due to the inability to pay your bills, your spirit remains crushed.)
- Player deletion is denied until bounty paid off. (Prevents an easy way out.)

Account-wide debuffs due to inability to pay off the portion of the bounty include:
- Murder counts do not decay.
- Access to city vendors and player vendors is denied. (Now who would want to serve the relations of a MURDERER?)
- Skill and stat gain stopped.
- If bounty is not paid in full within 2 weeks, all characters on the same account as the murderer begin to experience permanent skill and stat loss. (E.g. Each character on the account experiences 1.0 loss in a random skill and 1 loss in a random stat every week.)

* Murderers with an ongoing automated bounty on their head will NOT be able to access city vendors or player vendors. (Other account characters will still be able to.)

Murderers who pay off their portion of the bounty will not have any gold assigned to their bounty until they begin murdering innocent people again. They also will not have gold added to their bounties if they kill innocents out of self defense (E.g. blue attacks first).

Some may think these rules are a little harsh. However, they are realistic and possibly effective.