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Post Reviving an old PVP incentive idea...with a twist
A fairly long time ago i had an idea for a PVP incentive, i still think it's a good idea even now. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=59016 <-Old thread.

V quoting the old thread OP for clarity. Skip to bottom for the gist.
Moonlightneo wrote:
Someone put a suggestion up for vote for a pvp system similar to a game called Silkroad Online, granted the company behind the game has brutally murdered any chance of an actual playerbase but that's their fault, the system however is very unique in its own way and I want to elaborate this concept In a post, so here.

Goods trading and the 'Merchant' skill: ideally unique commodities would be added to specific areas of the universe, and only those in a industrial freighter and the merchant skill can purchase them through a new unique tab on those bases. For example Paxius could have some kind of cheap alien cider or something that could earn mild profits trading to... Gargan or so. The idea is merchants are vulnerable, they use big, slow unwieldy freighters and won't put up a big fight, they're just meant to trade for profit. The skill itself would only be one, or even zero skillpoints if possible and is trained at a popular trade hub preferably. (could yield exp based on commodities and player level?).

'Pirates' and Commodity Theft:Pirates are, obviously, dangerous predatorial people that steal what isn't there's for their own gain (in this case, profit). Pirates are the Merchants natural enemy, and Merchants generally can't defend against them by themselves. If a pirate puts a Merchant into stasis, the merchants goods are then ripe for the stealing and can be stolen directly via a special tractor beam that takes any Goods related commodities over a period of time. the pirate can then take the goods to a pirate related area and sell it on the black market, it won't get as much as the trader would've(especially if they don't have the Hull for the entirety of the Goods)buy hey, they didn't buy it so it's still profitable.

'Enforcers' and Escorting:Enforcers are the opposite side of the pirates, they can be hired by traders to protect their ship for a cut of the profits, a very simple group. Could be alerted of piracy attempts in nearby galaxies?


The conflict: The idea is, good profit can be made by trading, or escorting a trader successfully, or stealing from them. This causes conflict between the three available sides and promotes at least a little pvp.
Pirates for example, could be alerted of available and profitable thefts, and how protected they are, perhaps even join a form of raid squad in order to oppose it. As well, there could be additional content made for this purpose, such as the AI team controlled areas and such everyone wants, and whose relations could be bettered by trading with (or protecting traders trading with) and give access to racial unique vip shops. Unique Missions could be given out using this feature as a base, IE Gargan may want you to transport 100 Gigantic Pies or something (lol) to a dangerous part of space for a few hundred mil creds, (but costing a portion of the reward in order to accept). Also, pvp between the sides would be fully open in most cases; IE pirates can open fire on any traders and vice versa, Enforcers can open fire on any pirates and vice versa.

Could prove both a credit sink aswell as a profitable aspect, and I believe this is one of the best systems so far in regards to pvp incentives for a game that isn't already highly pvp active, I honestly don't know why I didn't think of it before, guess I haven't played SRO in far too long.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, but these particular skills (Merchant, Pirate, Enforcer) would be interchangeable on a whim, with a bit of a time limit before switching again. So someone protecting Merchants as an Enforcer can change when they want (while not currently hired) to a Pirate and start pirating, or a Merchant to get a feel for trade.

The Objective of this system?
A simple, open area and easy pvp system to at the very least, reignite pvp in all layers of the game and promote open killing for profits, while also adding in a risky method of gaining profit via trade routes from key galaxies. I feel this might work better than the other concepts so far as it doesn't confine pvp to a specific 'new layer' and isn't abusable, thus breathing new life into everyday gameplay.


So basically, this implements 2 Affiliations you can swap between, and an AI Exclusive Affiliation.

Firstly the AI Affiliation.
AI Merchants trade goods from one station to another station at a set distance for money.

Pirates search for and steal goods from merchants, by disabling (killing basically) the merchant ship and taking all the goods they can carry to a black market.
-Pirates should see nearby Merchants on their galaxy map based on their jump distance and the ship tech difference, indicated by a red glow? (Again, Average among all equipped weapons and basic gear). High tech Pirates will have a difficult time seeing low tech Merchants. Pirates are also able to see Enforcers if they are of an Average Tech above their own, the higher, the farther they're forewarned of the danger.

Enforcers protect the Merchants, they also gain some of the profit from Merchants that either Hire them for a specified cut, or that they defend on a whim (the latter yielding much less in most cases), providing the merchant is able to get to their goal safely.
-Enforcers should be able to see nearby Pirates AND Merchants with the same limitations as Pirates, high Tech Enforcers will have a difficult time seeing low tech Pirates and Merchants. The opposite also being true, where Low tech Enforcers can see high tech Pirates from afar.

Ideally all of this would be complemented by missions and other sorts of things that may ignite a skirmish or try to make players clash in the midst of their runs, specifically it would be perfect if a dynamic mission type for this system was implemented

In the end we have a PVP incentive that allows profit, (and thrill), but also includes a risk for the reward and can't be abused for a free currency/commod by killing alts/teamies, because you only get rewards by helping or stealing from Merchant AI.

But wait! I'm not done yet.

This could all tie into the Nexus and where you decide to be a Pirate or an Enforcer.

Initially given two options, the nexus could also introduce and explain the three affiliations, potentially even by issuing the player a quest that demonstrates it with AI over a short distance by making you defend, or find and destroy, a Merchant carrying a tiny amount of goods based on which choice you chose. At the end of The Nexus, you could be issued a second chance to choose which affiliation you wish to fall under.

This in its entirety would begin to reinforce SS as it's advertised; "A Space Trading Game"

EDIT:
Chrono Warrior wrote:
I think this is an interesting idea, however, what if the merchants were simply AI? As the enforcer faction when you run across them they trigger a mission to escort them to their destination automagically like several bosses do. The pirate's role, like you said, would be to destroy these merchants and steal their cargo.

Chrono brought up a good point, and i'd like to reiterate that Merchants would be an AI specific faction, it eliminates problems with possible exploits and the trouble that we'd have if we need to lock players to Industrial Freighters to do Merchant things. Therefore having AI do it randomly would be much better.

I reworded the rest of the post to fit this new vision.

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Last edited by Moonlightneo on Tue Mar 28, 2017 7:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:35 pm
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Post Re: Reviving an old PVP incentive idea...
I think this is an interesting idea, however, what if the merchants were simply AI? As the enforcer faction when you run across them they trigger a mission to escort them to their destination automagically like several bosses do. The pirate's role, like you said, would be to destroy these merchants and steal their cargo. Personally, I think the merchant idea of being a defenseless merchant who has to rely on others to protect him is boring, it isn't very immersive other than the fact that you have to find the best route to make money. If it is an AI, however, it encourages the 2 pvp factions to go at it and it aligns better with the game at the moment in my opinion because currently there are only 2 factions at the beginning. Making the merchants into AI also prevents it from being exploitable. Overall I like this idea because it would bring pvp into the mainstream a bit more and also it would make the factions at the beginning mean something when currently they do not. So aside from the Merchant class thing, it's a +1 from me.

- Chrono

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Tue Mar 28, 2017 6:48 pm
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Post Re: Reviving an old PVP incentive idea...
Actually... that's a very fair point. I can agree with that.

Edit: OP has been edited with the change.

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Tue Mar 28, 2017 7:35 pm
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Post Re: Reviving an old PVP incentive idea...with a twist
The best way to go about this idea is to tie it into many past suggestions from other players and developers.

You have two factions:

->Enforcer Mercenaries

->Rouge Pirate Minions

Something like that. One is sponsored by the "good guys" (Earthforce, Lyceum, Paxians). The other is from the "bad guys" (Various pirate, criminal, and extremist groups).

The key is that neither side is entirely clean. This is a facet you MUST push to get a truly equal representation.

Both sides are competing over resources. This is how you can introduce a controlled form of PVP to the game separate from the territorial battles in Wild Space. You can make this for Earthforce Space (lore wise would be perfect) or Perilous Space (meh).

Objectives to secure, defend, take. Missions to reward players for objective control. Equalizer ships (Tech 0, zero hull, doesn't get exp for AI kill, but Tech 20 power so lower level players can enter the fight) would give people capable warships to compete with upper level players, because a T16 player is going to get their ass kicked by a T22 player.


Tue Mar 28, 2017 8:46 pm
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Post Re: Reviving an old PVP incentive idea...with a twist
im not fully certain what you're asking for that's all that different from my suggestion.

Its much simpler to simply make a(the) pirate/enforcer choice(matter), and have an AI randomly generated here and there at specific tech levels that trade goods for a profit, allow Pirates to steal and trade to illegal markets (ideally an automatically gained mission that points them to a randomly chosen base in unprotected space), and give enforcers a cut of just for protecting (also, ideally a mission).

This can evolve into more features (or to be more lore oriented and heavy) of course, but it's currently simple on purpose; Easier implementation.

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Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:26 pm
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Post Re: Reviving an old PVP incentive idea...with a twist
I'm asking for a Star Sonata version of Eve Online Faction Warfare, a semi-structured pvp system that allows people to jump into pvp without having to link up in wild space with full blown territorial PVB/BVB conflict.

I want both sides to be neither good nor bad because people are not inherently good, nor are they inherently bad. Very few human groups in history are truly evil or completely on the side of good. There are always people that don't fit.

The original idea of Pirates stealing and Enforcers protecting is lame.


Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:46 pm
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Post Re: Reviving an old PVP incentive idea...with a twist
Eh, fair enough. personally idrc how it happens but it's been like, what, 10 years since the games seen actual PvP? idrk, because i personally didn't play back then- but it's been 4 years since i originally brought the old form of this idea to the suggestions board, and i still have yet to see PvP incentive outside of teams and wars.

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Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:01 pm
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Post Re: Reviving an old PVP incentive idea...with a twist
The game has had plenty of pvp. Wars and skirmishes and scuffles have actually increased recently.

However...those wars and fights have been between endgame teams (and one instance of a beatdown on a noob team) if you don't count 13 vs everyone to be real wars. There has been very little conflict between small teams, probably due to the fact that small teams end up being mostly isolated from one another through the giant endgame empires.


Wed Mar 29, 2017 1:07 am
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Post Re: Reviving an old PVP incentive idea...with a twist
That's just it though, i said 'outside of teams and wars'
And afaik that's still true, the most pvp that happens is related to wars OR the player just has a personal vandetta/feels like being a douchebag for no reason and/or because you're on a team they don't like, even if they don't know the slightest flipping fuck who you are.

Don't get me wrong, if i didn't like PvP i wouldnt suggest something like this obviously, but PvP without purpose gets old pretty fast, and isn't fun at all. At least in terms of this suggestion you have equal chance to be an ass and get profit, as you do to be on the recieving end of an ass, and forfeit the profit to them- I'd liken it to playing a competetive game like LoL, where you can't always win but you still play for the thrill, to learn, and to have fun trying. Currently, PvP provides almost no thrill, because more often than not, when it happens it only lasts a few seconds while a large group, or a single player, wipes the floor with people much less geared than themselves and likely aren't even expecting unwarranted slaughter.

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Wed Mar 29, 2017 1:16 am
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