Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

Didn't you hear, Drizzt can totally defeat Elminster as a fighter.

My idea of Forgotten Kingdoms is that it's a game--a game shaped and formed by everyone in a nearly democratic fashion. That in mind, I'd be remiss not to cast my vote on this issue:

I think that instant death spells are binary, boring, and anti-fun in general. The only way to make abilities like them work are heavy-handed counters; they're punishments for the people who forgot. They're made to be barely avoided when tossed at a player by a DM. They're made to fail. When they stop failing more often than not, they become poison to a game system about overcoming challenges--because there is no challenge when they succeed for the victor or the victim. It is an abrupt, empty end to what could have been a struggle--a glorious struggle. My suggestion would be to make the counters to them far more widely available.

As for the age old debate of class war, the heart of PvP struggle? I think that one is silly, too. We as a community are designing--we should be held to some standard. Some striving towards balance, some innate and genuine desire to see people of all walks do just as well as the other when it comes to pushing each other around or defending themselves; where the fun and the flavor comes in is how they do it. That's balance. That's design. Telling people to like it or lump it, that they have one option when the caster has many is as near the opposite of good design goals as can be. It alienates people, it adds a nasty burden of force on making friendships, it's plain shitty. That's my two cents.

Hrosskell wrote:I think that instant death spells are binary, boring, and anti-fun in general ... It is an abrupt, empty end to what could have been a struggle--a glorious struggle.

If instant death spells are being thrown around then the time for smotes has passed and we're in coded combat city and that's not a glorious struggle it's an empty spam of combat echoes.

I agree completely with what Solaghar posted earlier, and I'll toss in an example. One of my bard characters got into battle with a fighter a while back and was killed within a few rounds after doing less than 10% damage. How is this situation a 'glorious struggle'? It wasn't, but I found it rewarding and fun because what came before, the RP that lead up that fight, made it worthwhile, and allowed me to act out in a way that was very consistent with the character's personality. If you're not getting anything from the pre-battle RP then that's where the problem lies, not with the way things are resolved via near-mindless code (unless your problem is simply that you dislike losing).

Enig wrote:If instant death spells are being thrown around then the time for smotes has passed and we're in coded combat city and that's not a glorious struggle it's an empty spam of combat echoes.

This holds true pretty much only for fighter and maybe thief. Every other class can make round by round decisions (although sometimes it's hard not to get lost in the combat scroll) that impact the way the fight goes--they have meaningful abilities and spells and have to practice decision making. Even for fighter this could be done, but the most effective path is to not interrupt your autoattacks; I made a post about how this could be changed a long time ago in the interest of being interesting. Still, comparing these two issues to each other only shows me two issues of design that could be addressed (and in similar fashion as they are both lackluster on the involvement side of things), not an excuse to neglect either one.

I'm of the opinion that all characters are not equal, quite like Solaghar. I'm not of the opinion that this fact can't or shouldn't change.

Would it make sense to reduce the xp loss for PK deaths (compared to mob deaths) so people feel more inclined to engage in PVP combat they might lose, or is the issue here more that people feel their high-level fighter shouldn't be so easily defeated by a wizard?

If it's the latter, I tend to feel that it's right that an L50 fighter could die to an L50 wizard in 2 rounds. It's generally accepted that a powerful wizard would have access to forces that could easily defeat a single person holding a sword.

In light of several poorly rp'd pk's I've heard/experienced of late, I'd like to suggest the following:

- That in order to target and kill a character, you must have openly rp'd with that character, not privately with members of the group or individual chars before they joined the rp.

- That you should at least try to do an extensive rp or smoting session with your fellow characters before you try to kill them. Its the least you can do.

- That the targets of the pk, allow you to smote and rp before defensively engaging against you.

- That if you are part of an extensive long term rp or event occurring at the time you try and do pkills with killmode stun to facilitate rp whenever possible.

- That you take the time beforehand to 'ironclad' ooc what the nature of the pk is and assess the needs of all parties involved to ensure that its still in good fun, this is a game afterall.

Now I know that the majority adhere's to this structure, that they remember this is a game and we are here to have fun, that its not a cut throat tournament on the ooc side. These are only suggestions and ideas for the rules. I try to follow these whenever I can, to a degree. I realise that battle is chaotic and spammy but its more about initiating pk with rp than just seemingly going around and killing unawares or with minimal interaction. When people are left miserable, confused and helpless that does not enrich an experience, it makes gamers wary, miserable or turns them to tactics similar to those visited on them, its a vicious cycle. I'd rather rp extensively and lose than be snuffed out immediately. There's a difference. This post and its ideas are my personal opinions.

There are tons of policy line items we could add in here (also being a victim/witness to a couple of these recently) but I'm in favor of less policy, as I feel like too much of a checklist of stipulations bogs down the game, and even has served as justification for some of the poorly RP'd recent PKs. (For example, some interpret the rules now as being able to osay or otell "PK Possible" and believe that's enough.)

Rather than try to improve the letter of the law, I believe it would be better to clarify the spirit of the law. Clarifying why the rules are in place and tackling PK complaints on a case by case basis may be better than treating PK situations like a bucket list which needs to be checked off before one can attack. Stipulations and technicalities, in my opinion, detract from the game by pulling you us of the fantasy we're all creating together.

The spirit of the PK rules seem to be that PK should be the climax (or a climax) to well played RPs between characters. Regardless of if you're a goodie or a villain, there's a certain satisfaction that comes from seeing a story unfold just so. Naturally, winning is fun, losing less so, but I feel like a goodie or villain will feel good about falling in combat to someone who has played their cards right and RP'd the encounter well.

I think the problem in recent PK situations has come to two interpretations of the rules as they stand now.

One school believes that being ICly justifiable with a warning is acceptable. (Letter of the law)

The other school believes that if it's fun RP for both parties PK is acceptable. (Spirit of the law.)

I think that we're probably shooting to be around 75% towards the spirit of the law side of this, after all, losing isn't always fun and in some situations there will be poor losers.

In my opinion, PVP happening quickly because it is ICly justifiable goes against the culture of FK and the reasons we have policy around PK in the first place. While it may make IC sense to spell up and catch a group of people off guard so it's easy to kill all of them, this isn't that kind of MUD. This MUD isn't designed to be a PVP MUD where we're all trying to min-max the best builds. I don't think that IMMs set up long running RPs between groups of people to facilitate quick PKs between those groups - my guess is that it gives them source material to play with outside of grinding against MOBs or engaging in active PVP. The rules, and RPs, and codebase itself all exists to help immerse us in the world we're in and give us more story.

If that's not happening, maybe some good old positive or negative reinforcement depending on how people handle these situations will help steer player behavior in the direction the IMMs and administrators want this to go. But for real - the fewer hard rules or qualifiers or nerfing of abilities we need to accomplish this, the better, as this will bog down the game with complaints of people not fulfilling each line item on the PK checklist and take focus away from the RP of a PVP situation and into the OOC fulfillment of PVP requirements.