Varying length of flagged time

This came up in a nearby thread.

We know that right now a flagged player will stay flagged for 90 seconds after their last pvp interaction. And we know that players of any lvl can just attack flagged players of any other lvl.

But what if the length of your flag depended on the difference between your lvl and the lvl of the player who had the biggest difference in lvl with yours during your pvp interaction? You'd still be free to attack any flagged player, but if you, as a lvl50, attacked a lvl20 player - you'd stay flagged for, say, 4 minutes.

This would mainly address any potential problems that could rise up from people of widely ranging lvls existing in the same location (due to how nodes will work). With adventure lvls being separated from the artisan ones, there's a chance that a low lvl gatherer might have some super valuable resources on them. The corruption already addresses the higher reward (and the power difference) of killing such a lowbie as a high lvl player, but I think that varying flag times could address the "bait them to flag with another lowbie and then kill them with a high lvl char" problem too.

So what do yall think? Do you think this is too carebear-friendly? Do you not even consider this an issue? Do you have another solution for this issue (if you see it as one)?

Make it so that if you flag and hit a green player your flag length stacks by all the stuff you do to them until they flag back, too.

It's like Corruption-lite.

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Two lowbies might be fighting for their own reasons and having a grand ol' time of doing it. But then a random highbie runs by, sees them, and thinks to themselves "why not just kill them and run on?" The highbie kills both lowbies with no problem, ruining their pvp experience and creating an imbalance in that location (if it was a dungeon room or a resource spawn spot).

Making that highbie remain flagged for longer could help friends/guildmates/good citizens to enact revenge on the highbie if the lowbies shout about it in chat. And if it was a random foreigner doing it, the local citizens who love pvp would gladly punish him for messing up the lowbies experience.

More pvp for the people, more risk for doing shitty stuff, more localized socialization.

Azherae wrote: »

Make it so that if you flag and hit a green player your flag length stacks by all the stuff you do to them until they flag back, too.

It's like Corruption-lite.

Yep, would definitely be a nice way to increase the risk of kill-less griefing of greens. If you're feeling so strong and mighty that you keep attacking a passive victim - I'm sure you'd be completely fine if another strong person comes and fights you instead.

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Yes, if the balancing between lvls allows those lowbies to fight and potentially even kill the highbie - great, let them do it. But if the highbie was just too strong - those lowbies got their experience ruined.

It's about risk/reward and a bit of moral correctness. Those lowbies could be fighting over a valuable resource and one of them could be holding onto a lot of it. The lowbies are at the same lvl and are both willing to fight for their right to the resource. The game is working as intended and working amazingly. But then comes a third party that's completely outside of the lowbies' realm, kills both, loots whatever they can and moves on w/o even caring. Absolutely no risk, but potentially a huge reward.

The moral part comes from just a dick-dude running around as a highbie and looking for flagged lowbies to attack. He's not looking for reward, but just to spoil the fun of people who're willing to fight back (which might already be a rarity).

In both of those cases I see no reason for the highbie to get a higher risk for their actions. They either got a big reward, so risk is justified, or they're just messing with people for no real reason so punishing them seems justified too. Though again, in both cases it's just dudes looking for pvp, who seem to be completely fine with flagging up against anyone - so why not give them what they want, while also helping others have some good pvp too, all while promoting cross-lvl socialization (lowbies asking for help and highbies having fun while providing it).

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But both of those cases (the equal 3rd or the equal party) are "fair" within their current progression stage. Killing a dude who's the same lvl as the both of you would be way easier than trying to kill a highbie who deals 1/4-1/3 of your hp per hit. And fighting a whole party is always difficult/impossible, so it is what it is.

Though I could see a "people in a party attacking a solo player = longer flag" too But I'd be more lenient on that particular matter, just because I'd prefer if most people were at least slightly pushed towards always being in a group. And losing a pvp fight against a group is exactly that push.

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I definitely support the design of lvl mid 20s being able to fight a lvl50 on even a semi-equal grounds. And if that will be the case I'd definitely have way less issues with the system (not like I have too many rn).

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Yep

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The main problem that I see with this is the flag bait actions by a highbie, especially if we won't be able to see lvl differences in-game. Though I definitely see what you're saying and if powerlvl scaling allows lowbies to kill a highbie within reasonable time then, yeah, there'd have to be a consideration for this interaction.

Though I do find it kinda ironic that this comment comes from you You like to say that you'd rather avoid pvp if you're not in the mood and/or you'd rather put corruption onto the attacker to prevent them from attacking you in the nearest future, yet here you are planning on flagging back against an attacking person.

If anything, I'd say this is an indicator that there could definitely be a problem with the powerlvl differences. If even you're more ready to fight a lowbie in pvp, then what about pretty much everyone else who're more pvp-leaning from the start.

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There's always gonna be a "attacked a green" flagged person in pvp interactions. I think making them go back to town would be going a bit too far. And if repeated attacks increase your flag time to several minutes - that's already longer than what you'd need to get to the nearest node center, so in a way it's even more dangerous (cause you can be attacked in the city).

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So I think I mentioned a while back that I have a different concept of how these systems need to work to promote PvP 'properly', and it didn't work in Ashes.

This is the closest to 'it working in Ashes', that's why I mentioned that.

I don't necessarily think we need to hard-punish a player who is 'just a PvP type player' who enjoys fighting in any way. But there IS still always an element of 'honor vs dishonor' in these fights. Not to say at all that 'dishonor' is to be treated as a 'bad thing' here. It's simply the difference between a player choosing 'let's have the fairest fight possible' as opposed to ''I'm going to take every advantage I possibly can".

I feel there IS a sort of situation in which a player would be deterred from 'blasting a gatherer out of nowhere with their biggest spell' if doing so would result in like a 6-10 minute duration on their Purple status. The problem I see that would remain unaddressed from 'my system' is that this is still too global.

I would at least want some method of the game 'tracking who was involved'. In short, that there's a concept of 'Purple to you' vs 'Green to you', or 'hate mechanics' and so on (so that healing people, fighting in party, etc, all work properly).

Fortunately the system converts directly. Just tie it to the remaining HP of the player after you hit them, and keep track of total done so you could compare it between the involved targets, the same way one would keep track of 'enmity' on mobs. So if two level 20 purples are fighting, and a level 50 comes up and AoEs them both, this is what happens:

Lv20A and lv20B were fighting pretty even, and there's some calculation that means their 'flagged time' stays close to normal as a result of this very even fight, tracked in much the same way that mob aggro is, but for individual players, the same way as for individual mobs.

Lv50A comes up and AoEs them both while they are having this fair fight, but assume they either 'never hit the player back' or just die (and therefore never hit back).

Lv50A is not CORRUPT at this point. The lv20s were purple. Fair game. But because neither of them ever damaged Lv50A to 'lower the value', that player now has some massive stack of 'Flagged Time' from that double kill and can't turn back green for another 15-20 minutes.

If the two ignore the interloper and continue to have their own fight normally, the Lv50 can wander off, but they still take forever to turn back green. If the Lv20s decide 'let's join forces and kill this fool and go back to our own fight after', now every hit they land is lowering that number on the Lv50 and even if the Lv50 still WINS in the end, they got their PvP, and if the fight was even close to fair, they aren't flagged for as long after it. Add a second lv50 healer if you like, use the 'aggro/hate/threat' mechanics, and that player now also builds up the same 'number' every time they heal the lv50 attacker that started this. So they also can't unflag too fast, despite never doing any damage.

Again, the system doesn't 'convert well', because Ashes and my stuff aren't parallel enough, but the principle is the same. There's a gauge that measures 'how hard you hit someone who was not in a party that was fighting you'. If it's the same as the basic 'threat table', there's minimal harm here.

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Yeah, I also doubt that it'll survive. But even outside of that, having just a timer would be harsher than just "reach town" imo. If crossing a full node takes around 5 minutes, then you're always <5m from a node center, so it's easier to get there than outlive ~5m of being flagged. And if you're right next to the city (and in-city deaths are not a thing) - you'd be locked to staying in the city in fear of dying.

But ultimately it's all just alpha2 testing.

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Sure, parties works too. It technically 'solves' my main problem with THAT.

Party A meets party B, party A flags up and bursts down Party B's Tank instantly in a surprise attack while Party B is fighting some PvE target.

Instead of 'ok, one of them is Red now' or worse 'All of Party B flags up but it's too late and their Tank also flags up but dies and then they just lose the battle anyway and Party A is fine' or even the 'Party A got lucky and Party B's Tank died to the PvE Target so no one has any corruption or additional risk'...

We get 'all of Party A has some extra Flagged Time for the way they started that fight' (since the built up time from Party B's Tank can't necessarily be erased easily by Party B's fight, and Party B might choose not to fight back at all).

I can't think of anyone this bothers, that I 'don't want to have to deal with it'.

All the perma-flag style players who just like 'winning PvP regardless of starting conditions, the 'Purps', get that playstyle they've been asking about. People who don't actually have that style and just want to 'exploit the systems' will have to deal with being flagged. The 'loser/victim' (depending on the situation) gets their rematch. No one sits around thinking "Well I might as well let this person kill me because they happened to poke me at the wrong time".