A Karma system?

[Sakiro A.]

This may have been discussed in a previous topic, whether or not it had the same idea.

A lot of us hate the idea of pvp other than inside some arena, and some of us like it. Maybe there is a good solution. We could have a Karma system, on the scale from 0 to 100. The first use of it would be to tell who to avoid, because perhaps it can show the person\'s karma ranking in their name or something. But here is why it could possibly be a good solution for the whole pvp problem:

1) People with a very high karma, like a perfect 100, would be untouchable, at least from other players outside of an arena. If players don\'t want to be killed by other players than they should simply not kill any players.

2) Karma lowers by 10s when you kill someone, and if your karma is below or at 10 then you get some sort of heavy penalty. For example, maybe your level temporarily goes down to 10th it\'s original until your karma again raises above 10.

3) Karma would slowly raise by 1 if you haven\'t killed anyone in some time.

4) Karma is -not- effected by anything other than killing a player. If we make karma effected by anything else it will defeat the perpose.

Anyway, there you have it. A perfectly logical method for solving the pvp problem, at least I think so. The only thing to be worked out is what noobs should start with. It can\'t very well be 100 because then no one would be able to kill anyone and the whole system would be useless.

[Andvari]

I like the idea of being able to be mugged or attacked in back alleys or off in a bad district but in the middle of the crowd it should give you a message like not a good idea or something.  Which QFG used when you tried to attack npcs.

[Sakiro A.]

Er, that really doesn\'t have anything to do with the system I was talking about. I\'m more concerned with how pvp will be handled, not where it\'ll be handled. If, that is, the devs ever decided to add it outside of an arena, in the event they found a good system for it to follow.

[sashok]

I like the idea, but, there should be areas like evil places where karma doesn\'t apply.

[Solaire]

Waaaa Sakiro, i love your idea. It is indeed a great solution, to the problem. I hope the devs have an openmind for this thing, because imo it is indeed the solution to the pvp thing. No-one would be able to kill and keep killing.

Only one small question: what happens if someone happens to be an assassin for profession ?

[DizzleCorinthos]

How about this instead?

To become a PK/PvP person, you must do a ritual at a temple in some location, (ideally there would be multiple places you can do this).  Wouldnt be too expensive to do, only an item of moderate accessibility would be required.  You do this ritual and you are able to kill other players and receive damage from other players.

Assassins would be required to do this ritual as part of their \'training\'.

[sashok]

Thats similar to EQ, where you have a priest you can talk to and turn PvP, I think that\'s bad. The Karma sounds much better.   But like I said there should be places that Karma can\'t reach, like evil forests, evil guilds, caves, etc.

[DizzleCorinthos]

Can anyone tell me the point of having a numerical karma system in place?  Wouldnt you just go from like:

Good
kinda good
neutral
kinda bad
evil

Why have the numbers?  You\'re basically describing alignment.

[hook]

just a question... in what point does that system differe from the reputation system? ...just asking, no accusitions

[Sakiro A.]

Because the reputation system is based on the social structure of the game, meaning it has much more to do with NPCs, simulated society, geographic location, jobs, etc. The Karma system, on the other hand, is a universal system which should be applied at all places equally, and it\'s soul purpose is to manage pvp outside of controlled areas. Similar means, different ends. Also, karma would probably be far less permanent than reputation (not meaning it\'ll be quick to change, it\'ll probably take a good couple of real life hours to regain the karma you lost by killing one person).

As for the idea of areas where karma doesn\'t apply: I only feel this should be true in places where no player is allowed to kill another player no matter what. Such areas would probably be needed even if the karma system was installed. I disagree with the idea of \'evil places\' because the karma solution is geared for open-ended game style which probably should stay, for the most part, constant, even in wickedly evil areas. Such areas could do just as well by having extra nasty monsters. But then, I couldn\'t know unless it was tried, it could end up working well.

Something tells me that players who play assassins will be given simulated quests killing NPCs much more often than playing actual players, so that\'s probably not much of a problem. When assassins do kill other players then it probably won\'t be often enough to warrent a really low karma, at least not below 10. People can still probably kill one or two players a day while still keeping it managable. The karma system is set up to make sure people don\'t abuse pvp, like killing 10 people a day, which sounds like a really busy assassin to me.

DizzleCorinthos: Actually I think it makes more sense to rank karma by numbers and reputation by titles, seeing how karma is more of an actual stat and reputation just seems more like political jargon (not implying I don\'t like the reputation idea; I do).

[Solaire]

Well, I\'m absolutely in favor of this karmaa system. what does the rest think ? Would you like to see this implemented or not ? Why would or wouldn\'t you want it in the game ?

[Sakiro A.]

If you feel the devs should read this thread then feel free to rate it so they might have a better chance of seeing it. Thanks for your support, and feel free to give any kind of ideas, suggestions, or questions on the system. I\'d just like to see a good solution to pvp implemented without having to take it out completely.

[Badakai]

I dunno. The current system seems kinda flawed. For example:

I\'m a lvl 50 character. I\'m having a REALLY bad day. So I decide to take it out on the n00bs. I kill 9 low-lvl n00bs in a row. With that system of yours it would mean I still am lvl 5. Let\'s kill some more newly arrived punching bags, since it can\'t get any lower.

So the PvP becomes a problem again.

/EDIT: just thought of this: If your weapons are stats-dependent, it would be effective (or at least more effective) since you can\'t yield your favo weapon...
And I wouldn\'t think of keeping a spare lvl5 weapon filling my precious inventory...

[Solaire]

Yup that\'s a great idea. Karma is a \"spiritual\" thing right ? You could make it like this: for every person you kill, you get serious equipment flaws (on top of the leveldowns). with that you couldn\'t kill more than one or two players, before even becoming seriously threatend by a noob\'s pointy stick.

[Sakiro A.]

Originally posted by Badakai
I dunno. The current system seems kinda flawed. For example:

I\'m a lvl 50 character. I\'m having a REALLY bad day. So I decide to take it out on the n00bs. I kill 9 low-lvl n00bs in a row. With that system of yours it would mean I still am lvl 5. Let\'s kill some more newly arrived punching bags, since it can\'t get any lower.

So the PvP becomes a problem again.

/EDIT: just thought of this: If your weapons are stats-dependent, it would be effective (or at least more effective) since you can\'t yield your favo weapon...
And I wouldn\'t think of keeping a spare lvl5 weapon filling my precious inventory...

The main technicality with the system thus far is that we haven\'t decided what we should do with noobs yet. The Karma system isn\'t exactly designed to exclusively protect those new to the game, though that\'s important, so we\'ll have to figure out that also.

It might be a good idea to make it so if you get a 0 alignment you go to lvl 1, temporarily of course. Weapon/armor/accessory limitations may apply as well, as Solaire suggested.