A new way of resolving killstealing and more..

[odd2k]

Recently there was a discussion on this in the chat, and I got some ideas. I\'m just gonna blurt this out point by point as short as possible.

- There should be no \"you have to be grouped with xyz to attack\". Everyone can help anyone in combat.
- People should get xp by participating in combat, and not only by killing something. He who gets the killing blow should get more xp, though.
- The first person to initiate an attack on a mob should get to \"claim\" the fight, meaning he/she will get all the loot as well as killing blow xp for claiming the fight. If he/she is in a group, this will be shared with the group.

This way, everone can killsteal if they wish, but it will not be nearly as rewarding (it will probably be more benefitial for the  one who was fighting first, as he\'s just getting help without getting ripped off badly in the xp/loot department. The killstealer gets some xp for helping to fight, but not much. Only for the blows he deals to the creature/mob. This is also essential for someone helping an adventurer who is about to get killed by an aggressive mob.

What do you think?

[Zan]

This would disadvantage a fresh untrained warrior compared to a more experienced one.

Imagine you are new to the game and are fighting a Rat ... say you should normally hit that rat 6 times to kill it, not included blocked or missed attacks. You start an attack on the rat and hit it once but then a much stronger killstealer comes over and smacks the rat just not through the wall with one blow. The rat has 0.1% life left and you as newbie get the killing blow. So when the experiences is divided you get the amount for your first hit and your killing blow while the stronger kill stealer gets all the rest.

This system either only makes sure that weak people can\'t killsteal effectively or it makes as good as no difference between our current system.

Personally I like the way things are but maybe it could be given a better \'RP coat\'. Instead of the out of character \"you have to be grouped with player X to attack\" message it could say something like \"Rat avoids your attack and concentrates on his current threat.\" or \"Player X blocks your attack and tells you to find your own prey.\" also preferably not in big red letters on the screen

[odd2k]

If that proves to be a problem, you could just drop the combat xp for the \"kill stealers\" altogether. If you want to help someone you are not grouped with, you get NOTHING. How\'s that?

[Zan]

Now that would be even better ... providing the one that initiated the attack gets your experience. Else you could still make it very annoying for people to get any experience.

[ramlambmoo]

No, I dislike this idea, because it would advantage the stronger players over the weaker players: The stronger players could go into any fight and take a majority of the experience away.  In the current system, the players with less skills can still claim a monster and kill it at their own pace, at least.

[odd2k]

obviously you didnt read my second post where I said that if that becomes a problem, then killstealers can be given 0% of xp instead.

However, I think it would be a better idea to reduce combat xp drastically, compared to kill xp. That way, if some guy comes and slays your rat in one blow, he only gets about maybe 10-20% of the xp, the rest is yours for claiming the mob and getting the killing blow.

[Seytra]

Thjis sytem can be abused badly to powerlevel: Imagine a new char attack a MOB several leagues off their own. However, an already well-levelled PL kills the MOB easily. Now the new char gets very high XP. The only thing that would actually work AFAICS is that the time the player launches the attack is counted, nothing else. The first one to launch any attack on a MOB will lock out everyone else except when they are grouped.

[r.guppy]

To be honest not very realistic present system.

Lets say i am mister nice guy walk round corner see monster attacking player would help out, expecting nothing but a thank you and on my way.
Now mister nasty same thing except , he would wont something.

My point being both get to fight but only player how starts attack gets anything , hence mister nasty goes and find his own kill to get anything.

Problem solved if it could be done program wise

[Kosh_Dukai]

Newbie: Please Help !!! Anyone help me !!!
Powerbie: I\'ll help\'ya !!! Group me !

...there

Maybe in a group, newbies could get more PPs than powerbies, like tilting the balance towards the newbs a little, PP-wise but keeping the random loot as it is giving them the current option of roll, turn or whatever based loot.

hmm... maybe the group founder could optionally tell the system at group creation to enforce the roll or a turn based group loot !

[Ivniciix]

You should always be able to help another player if you want to...you just shouldn\'t get any experience for it or any looting priveleges. Plain and simple.

[DaveG]

Ok, good ideas here, but un-polished.  Here\'s the idea that I\'ve been working on for a while (bits and pieces in other threads; mostly not posted):

•  Death to the kill-protector
•  EX/PP given per action/attack not first come first serve
•  Looting done based on 3 factors:

a.  First to attack gets precedence

b.  Order of precedence after that is based on contribution to the fight

c.   If there are more people than loot, contributors will be randomly selected after the main ones.  (or possibly, the loot will just \"happen\" to be more items, but less valuable ones, on occasion)

At the end of the fight, when looting is done, the loot window will come up for all involved.  Items are grayed out for all but the current looter (based on above).  Players go in order of precedence (one at a time), and are allowed to loot an amount (with respect to worth, not number of items) based on their contributions. (the carcass does not begin disappearing till done)

•  After all have taken what they will, open looting is allowed on the leftovers until the corpse decomposes.  (fairly quickly)

=> Yes, I know there are severe abuse problems.  Countermeasures:

•  If you think a PLer needs to kill and loot a rat, you\'re mistaken.  If you think a griefer will, you\'re right.  This sort of a problem can only be dealt with by other players.  Thus, if you want a happy world you\'re going to need nice players in it.  If there aren\'t enough decent people to prevent anarchy, so be it.  (see #3 bellow; those\'ll counteract this too)
•  Arguments over stronger mobs will happen.  This system idea is designed to force cooperation, and ban exclusion.
•  The one real threat is stronger players hogging all the experience by killing the thing before a weaker on can draw their weapon.  Ways to deal with this:

a.  If you massacre a monster by being too strong, you\'ll often damage the loot severely.  Thus, the loot hunters would be forced to go where effort is required.

b.  Base experience on time and effort, combined.  =>  EX/PP from massacring a monster would be minimal.  Why would you learn anything if all you did was chop it\'s head off?  You already knew how to do that.

c.  Limited experience from observation.  Observing an action can allow you to learn from it, to some degree.  (Kixie\'s idea in this thread here)
=>  Based on (b) a massacre would give the strong guy next to nothing, and give nearby weak guys a slight amount.  (just enough to be some, but not enough to make it an exploitation risk; yes, it\'d be hard to balance)
[/list]

This idea is not finished.  So, feel free to pick it apart at will.  :)

[odd2k]

This idea is not finished. So, feel free to pick it apart at will.

Don\'t mind if I do

Ok, the problem with killstealing. Its actually two problems: loot and xp. The xp part is no biggie really, a level 10000 uber tank mage wont gain a lot from slaying crickets on the noob field. And the loot, well sometimes you have certain quest items and also items that are needed for crafting that higher levels will collect from monsters that are far inferior to themselves. This means they will usually beat the suckers down with a single hit, stealing it from lower levels that might be fighting it.

so.. I propose that xp, because it\'s generally only of any value to you if the monster was hard to defeat, should be given purely by action/attack/damage inflicted. In other words by each players participation level in combat.

And the loot.. I suggest first to start fight gets everything unless grouped. This is of course not realistic in any way, but it helps a lot of gameplay/balance issues. It\'s a sacrifice to stop a lot of other bad things.

Hm, having people pick one item each until the corpse is empty.. well, the first to pick would get the \"upper hand\" so to speak, but I dont know how else it should be done. Maybe just make it free and have people resolve this in character. If some moron took more than his share of the loot, than thats something that needs to be dealt with internally in the group. And making this possible only increases a player\'s options as well as the general realism.

High level characters hitting mobs so hard loot gets destroyed... No chance, strong people still have control of their strength. even if you have 1000 strength you can kill a rat with a flick of your wrist, you dont have to throw yourself at it with all your force.

Exp based on time and effort.. No, I don\'t like this imo. If you slay a dragon by pricking its toe for two years or by stabbing it in the heart, you still killed a dragon. By using longer time, youre just proving to be less efficient and so I dont see why you would learn more. Plus, it only add to the already complex system. Less is more here, we dont want too much complexity.

Phew, post is getting long by now. Lastly, on having chars gain experience by watching others, I propose this only adds up to their theoretical knowledge of the skill, while they wont learn how to actually use it until they do so for themselves.

[Rerogo]

I think the way loot is parceled out should be similar to the way (I think) a pack of wolves doles out the elk carcass.
The alpha male(attack initiator) gets first pick, then the rest of the people get theirs based on the damage they did to the mob.

[Ivniciix]

Distributing of loot amongst teams in MMORPG\'s is usually handled by a menu available to the guy who formed the team or whoever has been made \"captain\". He can select rotation, Free-for-all or any nubmer of options. Not having this sort of system is just asking for arguments amongst players. Even in Wow, which has a very highly developed loot distribution system, arguments occur really often.

[DaveG]

Originally posted by odd2k
And the loot, well sometimes you have certain quest items and also items that are needed for crafting that higher levels will collect from monsters that are far inferior to themselves.

Yes, 3.a could prevent stronger players from getting loot they validly need.  But, if it\'s only harder to get loot from weaker NPCs, not impossible, it wouldn\'t be too bad.

Originally posted by odd2k
so.. I propose that xp, because it\'s generally only of any value to you if the monster was hard to defeat, should be given purely by action/attack/damage inflicted. In other words by each players participation level in combat.

It depends on how the XP scale is set.  If weaker monsters give out less XP, things are already good.  3.b is an attempt to force even less XP for even stronger players.

Originally posted by odd2k
And the loot.. I suggest first to start fight gets everything unless grouped. This is of course not realistic in any way, but it helps a lot of gameplay/balance issues. It\'s a sacrifice to stop a lot of other bad things.
...
If some moron took more than his share of the loot, than thats something that needs to be dealt with internally in the group. And making this possible only increases a player\'s options as well as the general realism.

I\'m trying to make formal grouping less needed.  I\'d much rather have most hunting be done with informal groups, in an area, where people just attack whatever and this looting/experience system deals out appropriate rewards.

Originally posted by odd2k
High level characters hitting mobs so hard loot gets destroyed... No chance, strong people still have control of their strength. even if you have 1000 strength you can kill a rat with a flick of your wrist, you dont have to throw yourself at it with all your force.

Agreed, but it\'s about the only way to combat loot stealing in weaker areas.  I don\'t think it should always be destroyed, but only a higher chance of doing so.  The only other solution to this problem, is to make weak NPCs always have cheap loot.  There\'d have to be no reason to want the loot.

Originally posted by odd2k
Exp based on time and effort.. No, I don\'t like this imo. If you slay a dragon by pricking its toe for two years or by stabbing it in the heart, you still killed a dragon. By using longer time, youre just proving to be less efficient and so I dont see why you would learn more. Plus, it only add to the already complex system. Less is more here, we dont want too much complexity.

The \"time and effort\" thing was just the explanation.  All I really meant, is that you shouldn\'t get much XP from a quick kill.  Not that a slow kill should give more.

Originally posted by odd2k
Phew, post is getting long by now. Lastly, on having chars gain experience by watching others, I propose this only adds up to their theoretical knowledge of the skill, while they wont learn how to actually use it until they do so for themselves.

Yes, seems good.