Thoughts and opinons on SL/FS system

[FatDogg]

Ok, I've had a few scuffles and brawls since I started playing Neocron oh so long ago and I have heard some complaints recently about the SL and FS system and PvP combat. I'm not sure I agree with alot of the statements people have made in the past from the PKers, Carebears, PvPers, Opfighters, Runners, and just plain gamers because I think most people have a skewed view on how the game is balanced and haven't tried to understand why the system works the way it does. So I decided to have an experiment.

This started when I gr to an unsafe place and see if I would get killed and additionally how many times I will get pked before these guys let me pass. Now these runners were obviously GR Camping waiting to pk guys and hack their stuff. All of them had red SL and where from the other city. Alot of peoples first thought is like jeez what asses these guys are. I just thought that its funny that these guys are like highway robbers murdering people for cash. I mean, combat characters get their money off of killing something and if they are "evil" by the reading from their soullight it makes sense that they would kill anything that gr'd in.

This brings me to my thoughts on what soullight means less in the RP sense and more in the sense of the fact that this game is supposed to be both an RPG and simultaeously FPSish. Bottom line is this: If you have red soullight for any reason other than from a bug you have chosen to be engaged in PvP at any time by any person. The FS loss for killing friendlies/neutrals is minimal (more on that point later) so you have blantantly told everyone that you are now a target to be blasted at with little to no reprocussions.

The next step was going to a hunting zone generally populated by enemies and seeing how they react to me showing up there to xp in the cave. As luck would have it my tank and and a ppu friend run into an apu/ppu team. I saw somebody on local when I enter and ask on zone what faction they are and of course the apu comes hauling towards us with his HL glowing furiously. Now most of us guys who go to dungeons like this and get in these skirmishes don't care what the outcome really is when stuff like this happens, it isn't a personal fight, its about trying to get the area to xp at that time and the NC vs. DoY fight. My real question is why do people get less personally angry and frustrated at little fights like this than when they either get jumped and killed or engaged with a "pker"?

Finally I get my ppu to follow me around as I kill people in plaza till I turn red and the copbots start blasting me. It was good fun to be a so called pker for about 3 minutes. I killed probly 5 different people, one guy twice because he asked me to :rolleyes:. Now I am red and I hear a call go over the alliance chanel saying my name, my red sl and my location. This is good fun, I've participated in the zerging/lynching that happens to pker's and enemies who are in PP so I've now had my chance to see the other side of the story of the sometimes looked down at and sometimes glorified pker. I have to say it has changed alot of my thoughts on how FS and SL matter to combat chars vs. skillers etc.

I have to say I think I've realized that alot of the times in the past I have taken attacks on my in game character entirely too personally, and I think some of us have forgotten that this is supposed to just be a game for your enjoyment and it of course it has its good points like chasing after guys in DoY Bombers, Op Fights, and hanging out in the general atmosphere of the game; it also has the bad side like FRE's, Bugs, and "Those Bastardly (insert faction) Who Always Are Killing the Noobs and Driving Costumers Away"©. I've seen people leave, come back, get pissed about items, lose drones, reroll, leave again, never return, and on and on but in the end; I think we need to remember that this isn't real life, that we need to take everything that happens in game with a grain of salt and remember that we have all met cool people in this game while we've been playing it or we wouldn't still be here.

Its a game, have fun.

thoughts, comments, questions, ideas?

P.S. I think the system works well like it is.

[Selendor]

Good post. I think its a really tough system to get right but they've had a good go at it.

However, what I think it really needs is the addition of a clan war system, so that people can consenually fight without soulight loss even if they on the same side. We've only been asking for this for 2 years, so expect it in 2007.

[Dominus]

Well I was hunting with a clan mate of mine having just made the clan the same day, and there was a low level character who had his LE out too. The clanmate I was hunting with was also quite low and the other guy opened fire on him damaging him quite a lot, so I came along and then the guy took soem shots at me.

So he continued and we killed him, causing me to drop from 50 SL to -6, so isn't this a little unfair? If anyones seen him the guy who we killed is called "Peter Griffon"

[Crest]

All true, its a game and treat it as such ...

But SL should not drop from +100 to -5 with one friendly encounter.
Faction Symp should have a cap to points IE Kill anti you get the same points for pro... At presnt this works until you got -100 for anti, you still gain pro

Any SL system will be better than the one we have ....


Guys want to kill and go red, then they should be able to but at same time, those who make a mistake should not have a problem rectifying it ...

I don't care too much about SL, I was happy to go from -32 to +38 from monday till sunfay, then some guy doing a BD epic kill came along and tried to take me, I killed him, he was TS and +38 went to -5 again ... now it take 43 missions (if you do missions) to get back 38, and 1 kill to loose it ... some perspective there please

Never mind 100 to -5 I went through , same concept 105 missions to get back up for 1 kill to loose

Well I was hunting with a clan mate of mine having just made the clan the same day, and there was a low level character who had his LE out too. The clanmate I was hunting with was also quite low and the other guy opened fire on him damaging him quite a lot, so I came along and then the guy took soem shots at me.

So he continued and we killed him, causing me to drop from 50 SL to -6, so isn't this a little unfair? If anyones seen him the guy who we killed is called "Peter Griffon"

Name and shame is not welcome on forums, this is not the City mercs hit list. If you had the ability to kill him, you also have the ability to walk away ....

Same time, Given the fonts, its sometimes hard to make out rank, and If you pull your le out, you are saying you are ready to fight mobs and runners, especially when you seem to have a clan backing ... You are responsible for your actions, as much as this guy is for his .... As it stands he died, you lieved but took teh hit for it

[boombang]

I still think the best addition to the entire game would be a "red" system where anyone attacking you would automatically appear red to you, and you could kill then with no SL or FS loss.

[Sakletare]

I still think the best addition to the entire game would be a "red" system where anyone attacking you would automatically appear red to you, and you could kill then with no SL or FS loss.
Yes please.

[djskum]

Oh and CM's FUBAR'd ATM.

DjSKum

[Spermy]

Symps are relatively okay I suppose... I wish (OH HOW I WISH!) allies couldn't target allies - much like an LE kind of thing - because I'm sick to the back teeth of allied killing.

Soullight is a bit irritating at the mo - because in a lot of cases, if some ass hat decides to kick your ass - there's nothing you can do to stop him without recieving a soullight hit.

You could always wait for him to kill you - and he'd recieve th SL hit, but to be honest - who wants to be the idiot asking for pokes just because he didn't click the fire button.

[FatDogg]

If I recall correctly, and I very well may not, back in beta for nc 1 there was a system where if somebody shoots you first you don't lose SL but I'm not sure what happened to it... I do agree with that concept though...

[hegemon]

What I've noticed through all the newbiesh mistakes and observations is that the SL system is too quick to punish and too quick to redeem intentional bad behavior. The damage from one simple mistake costs almost (relatively speaking) as much to repair as weeks of "bad" behavior (bad as in "behavior that gives SL penalties").

I think the problem lies in the direct manipulation of SL. Actions shouldn't affect SL directly, only indirectly. Long term good behavior should make your SL go up more when you do good things and only slightly down when you do bad things and vice versa for long term bad behavior.

I sat down for an hour and tried to implement a simple and robust system for how I think this should work.

Here's how it works in general. There are two counters behind the scenes: "goodness" and "badness". Goodness is counted up every time you do something good and counted down every time you do something bad. Badness is counted up every time you do something bad and counted down every time you do something good. Every deed that affects soullight then uses goodness and badness to decide how much soullight should change. If you have more badness than goodness you won't receive any soullight bonus until your badness is lower than goodness (a bad person doing good deeds is just hypocritical until proven otherwise ;)).

The result of those experiments is here: http://www.furrylogic.net/~art/foo.php
There are some earlier experiments in there. Just look at the link for the source code to see how it works.

I've tought out some more complicated schemes to make this even more robust, but they would require too much computing power on the server, so I discarded the idea.

Ps. Damn you for forcing me to work in php to make this comprehensible for anyone else.

[Darken]

Symps are relatively okay I suppose... I wish (OH HOW I WISH!) allies couldn't target allies - much like an LE kind of thing - because I'm sick to the back teeth of allied killing.

This would take the fun and all that prickling atmosphere out of the game, when like theres differences between 2 Clans about something and their allied.

Both dont want to have a war between allies, but they both dont just want to take what happened.


omgr awr

[boombang]

because I'm sick to the back teeth of allied killing.

try having your brother "borrow" your account and go and totally own a whole clan with just your melee tank and a ppu - then wonder why you get KOS'd all the time :confused:

[Smock]

Aout the "ally attacked me and I killed him, now I lost SL" issue...

Another MMORGP (Wont tell which one, U'd laugh) solved it by making the attacked's name flash blue for a while. During that time anyone could kill him without "SL" loss.

Simple, yet efective...

[BlackDove]

Bad as it is
Whatever hippy (Chose that one because it's such a good option)

[Lachlan]

Here's how it works in general. There are two counters behind the scenes: "goodness" and "badness". Goodness is counted up every time you do something good and counted down every time you do something bad. Badness is counted up every time you do something bad and counted down every time you do something good. Every deed that affects soullight then uses goodness and badness to decide how much soullight should change. If you have more badness than goodness you won't receive any soullight bonus until your badness is lower than goodness (a bad person doing good deeds is just hypocritical until proven otherwise ;)).
I like this. ALOT. I would only change the "scale" of the SL gain/loss relative to the good/bad counters. It makes a lot of sense, but we still shouldn't allow anyone to gank 200 people before their SL goes red. It should happen within 3-4, but allow the SL to regain faster if they are generally do good.

[Spermy]

I'll cross thread here and show you what My team and I are doing for haven.

Character Ratings.

Works a little like soullight. You get a rank based on how you are percieved Lawful/Deviant etc on a sliding scale of +/-100
Replenishes to zero over time at both sides of the scale - so if you want to keep the perks of having a high Rating - Eg access to certain areas - maybe city security stations (to use the shops there selling to higher ratings with special items)
you have to keep performing - IN NC at 100 SL you can rest on your laurels and enjoy it. In Haven, you have to continually impress or be overlooked - they want consistent performers, not one time heroes.

On the negative scale - you can access the seedier areas - like the hornets nest, where the black market is rampant - drug dealers and illegal weapons traders/ smugglers - the scope for this is amazing! This is my department and I'm going to love it!

Only negative ratings can access freely - goody two shoes or people in the pay of the 'feds aren't going to get out alive.
Neg Ratings mean you won't be safe in the cities, but you get access to certain "Illegal" weapons and substances. These illegal weapons are going to be a bit more powerful than the average weapons - because they are illegal. It gives you an incentive to get on the wrong side of the law - downside is that while you have this really nice - shiny weapon.


A) you're a wanted man and your going to need a good weapon to stay alive.

B) People are going to want to take said weapon from your lifeless bod.

Crims also get access to drugs to temporarily boost stats.



So each side of the coin has it's perks.



Here's how you gain and lose ratings.

Points are gained for missions, people can give you points much like karma on forums. (but we're not too sure about this - It could work.)

Points are gained for killing Negs ( criminals)

Points are lost for using an illegal weapon on ANYONE. ( they're illegal remember) - only minor points loss though - so it's possible to be a maverick - Working for the law - but using illegal means - that way - you still get status as a highly rated public hero, even if you methods are somewhat frowned upon.

Points are lost for killing positive ratings ( citizens,NPCs etc.)

GMs will be able to allocate points for upstanding citizens or dirty players, so if there's exploitation going on in the city - they won't live to see the rewards when people see that they're a criminal.


Taken from my posts on the Exiles forums - where I keep a regular journal of our progress for people who are interested in what goes into making a game.

Oh... and it actually works.