Better still would be a martial law system in towns (advance to the crackdown).
Enter town borders and any fighting gives a generic TEF to all similar to how the old saber TEF used to work for jedi, this opens people up to attack from all sides and this should also agro local stormtroopers unless the player is a sufficiently high imp rank.
This way towns would be a kind of safe zone as any fighting from any side means free for all attack on them. This would also stop showboating jedi from waving their sabers duelling in starports which alot of players hate.
Only overt players would be able to attack/be attacked within towns (unless players duel) therefore most of the populace will be unaffected. It would also help against gank squads of imperials/rebels controlling a town as once they start fighting they can be attacked by any and all comers.
~ Ani'a L'o ~ Dune Sea Desperadoes Lightsaber ~ ()(ts)() - Tri Sun Shipping ~ YT-2400 "Wandering the galaxy since November 5, 2003"
Oblox wrote: Better still would be a martial law system in towns (advance to the crackdown).
Enter town borders and any fighting gives a generic TEF to all similar to how the old saber TEF used to work for jedi, this opens people up to attack from all sides and this should also agro local stormtroopers unless the player is a sufficiently high imp rank.
This way towns would be a kind of safe zone as any fighting from any side means free for all attack on them. This would also stop showboating jedi from waving their sabers duelling in starports which alot of players hate.
Only overt players would be able to attack/be attacked within towns (unless players duel) therefore most of the populace will be unaffected. It would also help against gank squads of imperials/rebels controlling a town as once they start fighting they can be attacked by any and all comers.
Interesting...altough stormtroopers should also go after high-ranked imperials, or there should be a tradeoff where non-Imperial authorities wouldn't go for high ranked rebels either.
Yeah i was thinking more with the imperial crackdown but it depends which side corsec and RSF type NPC's are classed as aligned to, plus it gives a meaning to faction rank.
After all in the galactic civil war the empire is at the top.
~ Ani'a L'o ~ Dune Sea Desperadoes Lightsaber ~ ()(ts)() - Tri Sun Shipping ~ YT-2400 "Wandering the galaxy since November 5, 2003"
The problem with SWG's "consensual pvp" system is it doesn't work as it is. Pure and simple. It is too complex and over-thought and needs to be simplified. Non-combat zones are "ok" and a lot better than what we have now.
I'd like to direct your attention to another game Eve Online for a great implementation of consensual PvP.
Eve is an MMORPG set in space in a fictional galaxy. Each solar system is given a security rating from 1.0 (safest) to 0.0 (lawless). In systems where the security rating is 0.5 or higher, there is NO PvP unless it is between warring corporations (guilds). If you fire on a player in a high security system Concord (the galactic police) will warp in and destroy your ship. Also there are security turrets and NPC patrols that guard stations and jump gates in order to discourage PvP away from those areas to prevent "clone camping".
Now in 0.4-0.0 space, its pretty much a lawless area where travelling alone could result in a trip to the cloner and the loss of a 100million isk (credits) ship with 400 million in looted modules. Low security space can be solo'd, but its preferable to travel and mine asteroids in groups for protection.
Also when you are the aggressor in non-corp-war PvP your own personal security rating drops. If it drops too far you will find yourself banned from stations in high-sec space AND turrets, Concord and NPC patrols will fire on you. Players like this are pirates and outlaws and have their own subcultures within the game and it creates an exciting dynamic to know that you may get jumped by a gank squad if you stray into non-empire (low sec) space by yourself.
Its possibly the best PvP system I've seen in an MMORPG because of its simplicity. In 3 paragraphs I've explained everything you need to know about PvP; the same can't be done with SWG because of the TEF/overt/covert system.
The SWG PvP system reeks of design-by-committee game development. Its far too complex, confusing, and prone to exploits and greifing.
An idea similar to Eve’s PvP system & the non-combat zones concept would be ideal.
A quick summary:
1. No covert/overt system. You are attackable anywhere at any time…however…
2. Some NPC cities are no-PvP zones. Attacking another player will result in the unkillable, all-powerful local authorities (Stormtroopers, Fed-Dub, Cor-Sec, Rebel Guards, etc.) showing up and pwn-ing the aggressor.
3. Player cities can purchase local police to make their city a no-PvP zone.
4. The surrounding area outside a no-PvP city (2-3km) is part of the no-pvp zone to accommodate crafters and carebears.
5. Exceptions to the no-pvp zones are faction-combat or guild wars. If you are at war, you are attackable by your enemies at any time any where including in their homes but that’s another issue. If you are a rebel, you are attackable by imperials and vice-versa. The GCW isn’t for, and shouldn’t be for carebears. There are NPC quests for people who “don’t want to get involved”. Joining either faction should have consequences, and rewards (factional equipment, reimbursement for equipment and supplies lost to PvP combat, bonus rewards, badges, etc).
6. There could be safe-cities like Theed and Coronet (and the surrounding area) where NO PvP is allowed at all and the aggressor is punished like in a no-PvP zone.
7. A “reputation” system where a negative reputation (gained by ganking in non-faction/non-guild-war PvP) could cause griefers and criminals to be attacked by city guards or refused access to the bazaar or player vendors (an option that can be set by the owner). This reputation would slowly return to a neutral level if the player behaves for a period of time. This opens up another type of Underworld society in the game where criminals would have their own player cities, vendors, and crafters. This can be as simple as a criminal flag set on the character that takes 24 hours to time-out during which time the player has a system-set bounty placed on him/her and is attackable even in no-pvp zones.
Honestly this could be simplified even further just by enacting a reputation/bounty system. Non-faction and non-war PvP (ganking & griefing) would be punished by a negative reputation, loss of access to NPC resources like the Bazaar, NPC cities, clone facilities, medical facilities, Shuttleports and starport as well as player resources (set by the players) in player cities. In addition the worse the reputation, the higher a system-set bounty could be. This bounty would remain in place (even after their reputation improved) until the character is "killed". The bounty would not be collectable by a member of the same faction or guild to prevent exploiting the system.
It truly could be a simple, self-policing system that would discourage the bad apples/hardcore players from ganking newbs or at least keep them in their own criminal underworld in their own cities.
As an added bonus, just imagine the possibilities for a smuggler.....
I am not sure I agree with non combat zones. I think the major problem is lag in these busy areas caused by combat, spam and lots of people. I hate to jump into an area and then take 2 minutes to load and get attacked cause I exceeded the safety timer. I think a more reasonable fix would be to reduce the lag.
This could be done by baring the calling of pets and vehicles and droids in and around SP and Shuttle Ports. Eleiminate shouts and needless spam in these areas as well. It is so frustrating to get endless spam about auctions and the like or just to have a jerk pull his pet and haveit patrol a SP to create lag. These issues need fixing.
Force the DOcs to move outside to buff, maybe even a 50 meter radius or better yet force them to buff in the med center if one is in the town, that is what they are for. I am sorry I have never seen a doc standing at my local bus stop giving flu shots and I know Luke never stopped off at the local SP to get a buff before fighting Vader.
Put some realism back. Force docs to either go outside city limtis and use a droid or go to the med centers to buff, make spammers use the auction channel, i know I use it if I want to buy something if I do not need anything I should not have to put up with endless spam. Maybe set up a daily email that sends out all auctions that a vendor can send txt to or better yet the SOE website we do have one we are all using it now to read this.
This is long but I think my main frustration and many others and will drive me away the fastest is the insane lag that is getting worse right now caused by spammers and the like in and around major chioke points in the game.
My 2 credits worth.
Just my 2 cents
- I support fixing all the existing bugs, starting with the oldest bugs first, fixing the broken professions starting with Smuggler first and the attempt to make SWG a better game, before any new content is added!!!!
when it comes to PvP, the more rules there is, the worst it is. in a full PvP zone there is no griefer or griefed, there is a winner and a loser.
put a rule and one will find a way to use it to grief.
PvP with rules is just a problem with no solution.
in a full PvP world there is no "kill steal" cause if someone do that you just kill him(or be killed) there is no "farming", because is there is a spot to farm, it becomes a spot where guilds fight each other to earn the right to hunt there. ..and so on...
I'm unclear on just what problems you're trying to solve with this...
1. Load killing at shuttleports is already fixed
This is very nice and a good step forward, if it actually works (unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to test it yet).
2. If you're a doc, don't heal overts and you won't get TEFd... it's a simple concept already. Same goes for IDs.
A doctor is supposed to help everyone, he shouldn't care if somebody is overt or not. But the problem is with image designers, or rather overts that need stat migration. This can now only be done in image design salons and takes 10 minutes to accomplish. Each time combat is initiated, the image design action is aborted and you will have to start over, taking another 10 minutes. This is a problem especially for those people, who are forced into PVP/being overt (the only instances of this right now are FRS Jedi and Jedi that are on the Bounty Hunter Terminal).
3. What exactly is the problem with combat going on around city buildings like cantinas?
Clonecamping in clonecenters. Overt people sometimes cannot even make it to the insurance terminals after getting cloned, before they are killed again. Also, combat occuring at starports, med centers, cantinas and such should be prohibited, as there is no logic why authorities would allow that in the first place (on wild worlds like Dathomir there might not be any control over it, but civilized worlds like Naboo or Corellia should really not allow it). Altough I admit having a good barroom brawl in a cantina is a nice touch, you can't really enforce that only melee weapons are being used. Another thing people are complaining about are Jedi showing off at starports and other public places, which is plain wrong. Even non-exhibitionist Jedi sometimes get attacked by a Bounty Hunter in one of these areas and have to defend themselves, thus ticking off many people. Such non-combat zones would solve this as well.
Not trying to degrade your idea at all, in fact it was discussed alot back in beta, but I just don't see compelling reasons to support it.
Interesting, I didn't know it was discussed in beta. Does anybody have links of these beta discussions? Also, I don't see compelling reasons to not support it at all.
Opiacee wrote: when it comes to PvP, the more rules there is, the worst it is. in a full PvP zone there is no griefer or griefed, there is a winner and a loser.
put a rule and one will find a way to use it to grief.
PvP with rules is just a problem with no solution.
in a full PvP world there is no "kill steal" cause if someone do that you just kill him(or be killed) there is no "farming", because is there is a spot to farm, it becomes a spot where guilds fight each other to earn the right to hunt there. ..and so on...
And that's why I miss the old PVP battlefields, in which everybody who entered was really in there to PVP. GCW PVP should be taken there. Perhaps there should even be a whole new planet with only PVP, a huge battlefield where the Rebel Alliance battles the Galactic Empire without there being any PVE missions there that would force mission takers into PVP, just like there is deep space in JTL.
I'm unclear on just what problems you're trying to solve with this...
1. Load killing at shuttleports is already fixed
This is very nice and a good step forward, if it actually works (unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to test it yet).
2. If you're a doc, don't heal overts and you won't get TEFd... it's a simple concept already. Same goes for IDs.
A doctor is supposed to help everyone, he shouldn't care if somebody is overt or not. But the problem is with image designers, or rather overts that need stat migration. This can now only be done in image design salons and takes 10 minutes to accomplish. Each time combat is initiated, the image design action is aborted and you will have to start over, taking another 10 minutes. This is a problem especially for those people, who are forced into PVP/being overt (the only instances of this right now are FRS Jedi and Jedi that are on the Bounty Hunter Terminal).
3. What exactly is the problem with combat going on around city buildings like cantinas?
Clonecamping in clonecenters. Overt people sometimes cannot even make it to the insurance terminals after getting cloned, before they are killed again. Also, combat occuring at starports, med centers, cantinas and such should be prohibited, as there is no logic why authorities would allow that in the first place (on wild worlds like Dathomir there might not be any control over it, but civilized worlds like Naboo or Corellia should really not allow it). Altough I admit having a good barroom brawl in a cantina is a nice touch, you can't really enforce that only melee weapons are being used. Another thing people are complaining about are Jedi showing off at starports and other public places, which is plain wrong. Even non-exhibitionist Jedi sometimes get attacked by a Bounty Hunter in one of these areas and have to defend themselves, thus ticking off many people. Such non-combat zones would solve this as well.
Not trying to degrade your idea at all, in fact it was discussed alot back in beta, but I just don't see compelling reasons to support it.
Interesting, I didn't know it was discussed in beta. Does anybody have links of these beta discussions? Also, I don't see compelling reasons to not support it at all.
Safe zones won't alliviate clone camping. They'll just delay it which is only slightly better.
We do need battlefields back, for reasons you stated, but they need a purpose with ingame effects.
5.Overt inside non-combat zones are not visible as overt on the map
This prevents people from camping the exit spots of these areas because they see a red dot inside and can target it. Targeting via 'TAB' (default key) shouldn't be possible for those either.
Code from current battlefields, where everything inside (and outside, for the poeple inside a non-combat zone) turns white could be used.
