Protection Zone (PZ) Lock for Space and other PVP areas

In lieu of me getting PK'ed in space and losing some neurostims (my fault for not double checking), I am making this suggestion thread for PVP. I'm piggy backing this off of another game that I used to play with some minor tweaks, but I feel like it might be a good addition to Entropia, and that is the skull system.

While lootable and PVP areas are clearly marked and can be avoided, I think it would be a good addition to implement a skull system with an intertwined PZ lock. I think everyone should try PVP and it should be a part of the game, but it can be limited a bit to allow a more friendly environment. This skull system will allow people who get unsuspectingly killed in space or pvp to fight and get their revenge and/or items back, and prevent the people who only camp other players in PvP. Here is how it would roughly work:

All areas that not PVP are considered to be Protection Zone areas and no PVP is allowed within them. All other areas are PVP zones.

Whenever a player attacks another player in a PVP zone, the attacking player should be marked with a small skull (or other icon) next to their name and be locked out of all protection zone areas for X amount of time (PZ lock) and restricted from logging off (logout lock).

• If they only attack a player and do not kill them, then the skull goes away and PZ & logout lock is lifted after 60 seconds if not being attacked by another player.
• If the attacking player shoots and kills another player, they are tagged with the skull and are PZ locked for lets say.. 15 minutes.
• Any player that attacks a skulled player does not obtain a skull for doing so, but still get PZ locked (60 seconds for attacking but not killing, 15 minutes PZ lock for revenge killing).

Skull Types:

• White skull: A player will get white skull if they attack or kill another player. If they only attack, the skull will remain until the PZ lock is gone. However, if they kill another player, they will get white skull for 15 minutes, and every offense against other players during that time will reset the time, so player killers will have to wait another 15 minutes.
• Red skull: A player will receive a red skull if they kill
  
  • Three or more unmarked characters in one day (24 hours),
  • Five or more unmarked characters in one week (7 days),
  • or Ten or more unmarked characters in one month (30 days).
  An additional death penalty with a red skull will be applied. Red skulls go away after 7 consecutive days without any additional kills on unmarked characters. If an unmarked character is killed, the counter is reset.
• Black skull: Black skulls will appear when a player kills double the amount of players needed to attain a red skull. A player gets a black skull if they kill:
  
  • Six or more unmarked characters in one day (24 hours),
  • Ten or more unmarked characters in one week (7 days), or
  • Twenty or more unmarked characters in one month (30 days).
  A heavier death penalty with a black skull will be applied. Black skulls go away after 21 consecutive days without any additional kills on unmarked characters and are replaced with red skulls. Then the red skull rules apply. If an unmarked character is killed, the counter is reset.

Skull Penalties:

• White skull: No additional death penalty applied. Death remains as is today.
• Red skull: If a player has a red skull and has been killed, the player will receive a 30% movement speed debuff for 24 hours (movement debuff to avatar and when using vehicles).
• Black skull: If a player has a red skull and has been killed, the player will receive a 50% movement speed debuff for 48 hours (movement debuff to avatar and when using vehicles) and a 25% health debuff.

A lot of times, when someone is killed in PvP, they do not even have a chance to fight and get their stuff back because the attacker simply TPs out of PvP or flies away into a safe zone. This will level the playing field and reduce the guerilla warefare that exists in PvP today. If people want to PvP, so be it. But the predator better be ready to flex their skills and defend themselves once the become the prey.

Thoughts?


PS: The original skull system I referenced this idea from is from the game called Tibia. Their skull system is defined here: http://tibia.wikia.com/wiki/Skull_System

lets go for the full system PK'd with Black skull = all items lootable

otherwise, yeah good idea

The Jetman said:

lets go for the full system PK'd with Black skull = all items lootable

otherwise, yeah good idea

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Lol, I thought about it but I can only imagine that being a shit storm and a headache for a RCE game. I think those debuffs are harsh as it is.. imagine having to walk EVERYWHERE all the time for 3 weeks and have only 75% max hp the whole time..

BUMP

Looking for some criticism or feedback around this

Sounds like it would require a lot of complicated coding for such a system. Im not a gaming programmer so this is guess on my part.

just go even further. no protection zones, pvp everywhere like now and no more warps possible. so people who wanne travel with lots of stuff have to pay people to protect them. motherships could then be used at normal travel speed and can hire protectors. we would get epic space battles then.

Yoshii Lem said:

Sounds like it would require a lot of complicated coding for such a system. Im not a gaming programmer so this is guess on my part.

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Eh, it does require programming but its not overly complex.

The PVP vs non pvp zones are already programmed so that is done. They also have ways to block people out of land areas (such as when an event is going on and you're not registered you can't enter), so that coding needs to be copied for PZ lock and it's done, which will prevent a skull player from entering a non pvp zone. The only 'new' code is making the skull appear next to the name, defining the rules around when they appear/disappear, and applying the debuff on death if you have red or black skull. Nothing super complex and most of the code is already in game and functioning properly.

Hypnotyk said:

Looking for some criticism or feedback around this

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Hiya. It's quite a detailed idea, so I would want to widen the effects analysis too, based on features in place (or not) at the moment. My first thought is on radar: as we don't have any out-of-sight detection in our MA version of space, I'd assume that hiding would be a lot easier if a pirate wished to do so after a good looter, or so.
We also have no official speed variations, or rather, apart from the unl quads and red ones, bog standard quads are the fastest vehicles, so it should be easy to run uncatchably into deep space anyway for a while.

Also, dying at the hands of a space mob: would loot be safe and the avatar would simply have to wait for revive to be accessible?
Plus, does being on motherships/finders count as being in PVP or not?

You can argue your case either way, of course - I'd just like to know more about how you view the wider picture resulting from the idea.
Overall, I like it when ideas are put forward, so am happy to give you a bit of feedback

edit: I also like it when ideas take ease of programming into account. I agree that it should not be difficult, and that the mechanisms already exist.

Great post so far Questions answered below...

jetsina said:

My first thought is on radar: as we don't have any out-of-sight detection in our MA version of space, I'd assume that hiding would be a lot easier if a pirate wished to do so after a good looter, or so.

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This is perfectly okay for them to kill someone, run and hide until skull wears off, and then return back to safe zone. We don't want to kill off PvP, we just want to level the playing field. Now a PK'er can kill someone and then immediately run to a safe zone to drop off goods, then go back to PKing. You can't even repair your ship in time to get back out into space to fight for your goods back before the PK'er is next to you in storage. If they were in PZ lock, at least you know the PKer is out in PvP SOMEWHERE for the next 15 minutes.

jetsina said:

Also, dying at the hands of a space mob: would loot be safe and the avatar would simply have to wait for revive to be accessible?

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No, the PK'er would lose all stackables to the game if they die with a skull, same as if they were to get killed by another PK'er. There is no safe loot when dying while skulled.

jetsina said:

Plus, does being on motherships/finders count as being in PVP or not?

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PVP zones are defined by geographical locations in game, not vehicles. I am not sure how privateers/MS work and if they allow PvP while being on board/inside them, but if it allowed then a red/black skulled player killed inside a MS while in a lootable PvP zone should be lootable. I don't think pvp is allowed inside the ships though as far as I know.

Bump for more ideas

Hypnotyk said:

Bump for more ideas

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ok then. Good answers so far, by the way.
My take on a level playing field is not that all paths should be level, but that there are balances.

At the moment, privateers and motherships are non-pvp environments, but the avatars in them will be ejected defenceless into pvp if the ship is destroyed.
The easiest logic to follow with the skulls suggestion is that skulled characters cannot enter priv/M-ships. For various reasons I don't think it would be practicable to prevent a ship with a skulled character on board from entering safe space at SS, so if skulled characters did have access, their safety would be similar to now, except that a bigger ship is needed (=organisation and investment).
Banning skulled characters, would, however, also mean they couldn't warp, with a possible exception of in red quads.

I'm just saying what options I think are programmably open here, not what I would suggest or not...

Moving on to a new thought, if I read correctly, if a red or black skulled player is killed, they would be effectively out of the pirating game for 21 or 28 days due to their speed punishment - unless they could serve as a gunner or repairer on a bigger ship, depending on the choices made above.
A: that might be a bit much!
B: the ongoing problem of alts would become even hotter.....

I've already written several times that I think the best platform approach is to allow some form of alt-play(=multi-character), but to have disadvantages too, such as a food consumption requirement system.
It doesn't have to become pay-to-play that way if gathering enough food for an avatar takes 20 mins a day or so (or can be bought). Unfortunately, that idea also ends up closeish to the discredited "jobs plan", but it is still part of an overall picture which I have. Anyway, that's a different topic as such, but I think lots of ideas need to be viewed in relation to oneanother!

I'll leave my thoughts at that for now, as part of the thought-bump you asked for

Great response!

For the first section, I agree with you. If a privateer/MS is a non-pvp zone, a skulled player with PZ lock (important) is not allowed on it. I do believe that a skulled player (red or black) SHOULD be allowed on a MS/privateer as long as they are not PZ locked from attacking and/or killing a player.

jetsina said:

Moving on to a new thought, if I read correctly, if a red or black skulled player is killed, they would be effectively out of the pirating game for 21 or 28 days due to their speed punishment - unless they could serve as a gunner or repairer on a bigger ship, depending on the choices made above.
A: that might be a bit much!
B: the ongoing problem of alts would become even hotter.....

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Actually, if you read my punishment section closely, you will see the debuff only occurs when a skulled player is killed. I do think that there should be a passive debuff though because with the way I currently listed out the debuffs, if a pirate is using some sort of hack/advantage that allows them to rarely/never die, then the skull system is not doing its job.

Current proposal:

Red skull: If a player has a red skull and has been killed, the player will receive a 30% movement speed debuff for 24 hours (movement debuff to avatar and when using vehicles).
Black skull: If a player has a red skull and has been killed, the player will receive a 50% movement speed debuff for 48 hours (movement debuff to avatar and when using vehicles) and a 25% health debuff.

Click to expand...

New Proposal:
Passive Debuffs for skulled avatars:
White skull: None
Red skull: -5% Movement Speed debuff
Black skull: -10% Movement Speed debuff

Debuffs on Death for skulled avatars:
White skull: None
Red skull: If a player has a red skull and has been killed, the player will receive a 30% movement speed debuff for 24 hours (movement debuff to avatar and when using vehicles).
Black skull: If a player has a red skull and has been killed, the player will receive a 50% movement speed debuff for 48 hours (movement debuff to avatar and when using vehicles) and a 25% health debuff.

BUMP

Negative Zone.

1000 Kill in less than a week and you get TPd to "The Negative Zone" (I would call it hell, but one of the Planet Partners already took that name...)

Storywise, the Negative zone is rumored to be a small dimensional prison that souls of colonists who commit the worst sins against other colonists end up...

Basically it'd be a small mini-map with some weird/scary/other dimensional background, etc. about the size of Monria. On each end of the map would be TPs to any of the Planet's Space Stations, so it'd sort of be like a miniature version of space, but to activate any of these free TPs you'd have to reach a certain level of 'atonement' by getting so many kills on other colonists in the negative zone... or something else, such as so many kills of mega-monsters in the negative zone, etc. Creatures in here should be massive demons that have special loot pools that are uber rare... but that are hard to kill... something like level 1000 creatures... basically it'd be a pvp for the baddest asses in game so that they can cage fight one another and not mess with the lower level civilization for a while as they try to do whatever it is they do in there...

mastermesh said:

1000 Kill in less than a week and you get TPd to "The Negative Zone" (I would call it hell, but one of the Planet Partners already took that name...)

Storywise, the Negative zone is rumored to be a small dimensional prison that souls of colonists who commit the worst sins against other colonists end up...

Basically it'd be a small mini-map with some weird/scary/other dimensional background, etc. about the size of Monria. On each end of the map would be TPs to any of the Planet's Space Stations, so it'd sort of be like a miniature version of space, but to activate any of these free TPs you'd have to reach a certain level of 'atonement' by getting so many kills on other colonists in the negative zone... or something else, such as so many kills of mega-monsters in the negative zone, etc. Creatures in here should be massive demons that have special loot pools that are uber rare... but that are hard to kill... something like level 1000 creatures... basically it'd be a pvp for the baddest asses in game so that they can cage fight one another and not mess with the lower level civilization for a while as they try to do whatever it is they do in there...

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Sounds good, a lot of kills tho, perhaps 100 kills or maybe allow paid entry

There is one major problem with this idea.

There is no TT in PvP zone, so someone getting a black skulls has no chance of buying new ammo.

If 10 days passed and he accidently shots another non marked ava, the timer gets reset, even longer without option to buy ammo.

For that reason its a bad idea.

If PvP trades would be possible in space this problem could be solved, but this is not possible.

Sadly have to say its a bad idea, although I like the idea in general.

BUMP

Also..

GoNi said:

There is one major problem with this idea.

There is no TT in PvP zone, so someone getting a black skulls has no chance of buying new ammo.

If 10 days passed and he accidently shots another non marked ava, the timer gets reset, even longer without option to buy ammo.

For that reason its a bad idea.

If PvP trades would be possible in space this problem could be solved, but this is not possible.

Sadly have to say its a bad idea, although I like the idea in general.

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First, I don't think anyone accidentally shoots someone in space. At least I would find that very difficult to do and unbelievable really.

Second, there is a difference between the counter for the skull and the protection zone/logoff lock.

Say I am a bad person and I have killed enough people to get a black skull. I haven't played for 10 days left, so now I only have 20 days left until my black skull becomes a red skull. I log in, I automatically have a -10% movement speed debuff until my black skull goes away. However, I own a quad wing equus so I decide I want to keep killing in space because I just don't care. I fly into space and I am already moving at -10% movement speed. I spot a quad wing player and I chase after him. I attack him once or twice and he gets away. Since I shot someone and didn't kill them, I have a 60 second protection zone and logout lock.. meaning for 60 seconds I cannot enter any PZ or log off safely. If I do not attack anyone else or get attacked, then this lock goes away after 60 seconds and I can freely enter back into the space station or any other PZ, or logoff if I choose to do so. Since I did not kill him, my black skull counter is still at 20 days left.

60 seconds have passed and I am now free to enter a PZ again. I go and buy more ammo, and head back out to pvp space. I spot a noob flying a sleip and I chase him down, shoot him and kill him. Since I attacked and killed a player while being black skulled, my black skull counter has now been reset to 30 days, and I have a 15 minute protection zone and logout lock as a penalty for killing a player. Furthermore, I now have a debuff of 50% movement speed for the next 48 hours, and a 25% health debuff. This 48 hour active debuff is only reset by killing another player within the 48 hour window, which would also reset the counter for my black skull.

If I fly around for 15 minutes after killing the noob in the sleip and no one kills me, the PZ lock and logoff lock are lifted and I can safely return to the space station. I will continue to have the 50% movement speed and 25% health debuff for the next 48 hours though, and obviously the black skull.

Hope that makes sense and clears some things up!

BUMP

Let's keep the ideas flowing!

Ok, missunderstood, thought if you have a skull you can´t enter any safe zone.

GoNi said:

Ok, missunderstood, thought if you have a skull you can´t enter any safe zone.

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Nope Only if you have an active protection or logout lock due to attacking or killing a player

BUMP