Bounty Hunting & Jails - Official Feedback Thread

[Nekrage]

Let me start off by saying this. If you know me you may dislike or even hate me but you know I truly care for Fractured and want to see it succeed.

Ok. Lets get started.

PROBLEM: The MINIMUM sentence for turning criminal is 24 HOURS. Twenty. Four. HOURS.

You have not killed a single player yet. No crime at all. Yet you are already getting a TWENTY FOUR HOUR sentence for a single death. If you keep this broken system, criminals need the option to gain POSITIVE KARMA to avoid sentence time on death.

• A player logs in on Friday night and gets a 24-48 hours sentence.
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  *What does this player do if they have no other option but to wait out the entire sentence?
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  I can tell you the most likely scenario: He spends his weekend playing something else and potentially never comes back. Every second someone plays another game is a chance they realize they are having more fun in this game rather than Fractured. I can tell you 100% without a doubt that I would be having more fun in quite literally any other game other than Fractured when the only available content in Fractured is sitting in a jail cell.

SOLUTION: Remove the jail system entirely. I propose a system that alerts all Sheriffs to the location of recent criminal attacks. Just like the legends appear with a red ! mark on the map, add a map logo to show the location of the attack. Sheriffs gather their groups and the hunt commences. The criminal player(s) can quickly find themselves outnumbered and quite dead. This promotes MORE player interaction and PvP and adds more danger to Evil players. A group of bounty hunters and do-gooders hunting down bandits? That sounds awesome and I would actually consider playing as a Sheriff permanently with this system.

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT should be the design goal. Reward the good players but don't punish the criminals.
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SHERIFF STATUS: The fact that any good player can become a Sheriff at any time means that....THEY ALL WILL BE. There is nothing special about being a Sheriff because it's available to everyone. Why would you not take Sheriff status when it can ONLY help you? Extra gold baby!

SHERIFF SOLUTION: Require a certain amount of criminal kills to rank up to the Sheriff rank.
Ever play Classic WoW? The honor system ranks players up depending on how much honor they get. They increase in ranks on the weekly reset day(Tuesdays) if they obtained enough honor to do so. There is a limit to how many players can HOLD each rank(only impacts the higher ranks). Ranks decay over time if the players are no longer reaching the required honor goal.
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Spacing for and easy read.
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There are game studios that design their games to be as addictive as possible in order to keep their players....well...playing. Psychologists have been hired to support this exact goal (right Epic Games? lol.

What Fractured is doing with this system is literally the exact opposite and it's the worst possible thing you could do for the health of your game.

Currently the system deals in absolutes. There is no reason to be a criminal when the potential loss is infinitely greater than the potential gain.

With the system as it is you are hurting both the criminals AND the good players that want to fight criminals. Why? Because criminals have literally called it quits already, either swapping to good or just leaving the game(I would name drop the players I know of but this post is not about insulting people and I actually agree with their choice).

• I question why this system was added to the game in this alpha when there is literally no other PvP option in the game other than to be a criminal. No factions. No militias(lets be real that's not a thing anymore as I have spent over 50 hours in game at this point and have seen literally 0 players in a militia). It seems like the right thing to do would have been to wait for the demon planet then add the jails to the human planet.

Locking players out of playing the game is essentially the same as having instanced content in Fractured. You removed those players from the world. They are no longer contributing to gameplay. No longer participating in anything meaningful.

One final statement: Players playing Evil are not evil in real life. Stop making them out to be bad human beings. It's a playstyle and it's an important part of Fractured's social dynamic. Without them how are you going to be the bounty hunter you always dreamed of being?

Future video to come on this as I am a better talker than a typer. I am up for a community discussion video where we all talk about the pros and cons of the system.

[GreatValdus]

@OlivePit actually you could just let them play at will with some limitations, for example the inability to flag as evil (so that they can't commit more crimes) and "selling" stuff to city markets without getting money for that, to simulate forced labor.

[LonelyCookie]

Extra idea from Fractured discord:

Lootability based on red names in your vicinity. One bad guy => more loot open. Loads of bad guys => very little to no loot available from the body. Very effective at stopping zergs.

(I still stand by the idea of mixed variant of a partial loot for Syndesia as described in https://forum.fracturedmmo.com/topic/13812/change-to-syndesia-the-true-mix-of-pve-and-pvp , but this sounded like a good idea to include here as well, just dont pollute Proms thread with too much arguing about it)

[Kralith]

@Nekrage i can agree in parts with you, as you point out important things.
I have some thoughst about your points, maybe also some questions that just can answer Jacopo in an live Q&A.

For first, we need to point out, that we just speak about Syndesia.
The Jail-System would not be a thing at Tartaros, since there are all evil and not for Arboreus, since there will an evil one not be able to stay.

So we are in a world, where PVE and PVP hits each other.
In Future, the evil ones (aka Demons) will not be at Syndesia for a long time and the rest is just figthing in smalls wars all around the planet to get areas controlled.
So when we talk about someone who want to turn into an evil one, it will be a criminal, a player who likes to steal and to murder no matter if there is any honor in it.
If you decide to be honorless, there should be a punishment.
Different to be just involved in area fights with others, means if you invade an controlled area or declare a siege.
At this point i am a bit disappointed, since the "controlling an area" is litterally not existing. You have no indicator if an intruder took your stuff from your area or someone who is belonging to you. But well, thats a different point i think.

Whats about to point out the PVP options in general, the need for a real goal for being in a militia?
I think most people just don't chose a militia, because they just don't see a sense in it.
Being a criminal sounds way more interesting, because it sounds like you can be an outlaw, can PVP whenever you want and killing whoever you want. What a fun to kill over and over the small girl on the green field, just because she was too far out of her house.

If we had a real and understandable sense for Militias and a benefit from it, then there wouldn't be a need for being a criminal, except you really want to be bad.
But if you decide to be a real cool bad ass criminal, you should be aware, that it can lead to some serious consequences.

All in all, it will need from the side of the studio a good description, that people being able to know, what they can expect.

Now lets look to the jail time.
I know that system from Salem the Game.
If you did something criminal, you could go to the stocks. No matter if you just was stealing by accident, because you didn't noticed the chest was on a claim or if you murdered someone, you left a scent and if this someone found, you could get placed on the stocks for 24 hours. Visible for each in the maintown. People could whip you or throw tomatoes on you. Earliest release time was after 4 hours and you had to pay gold. And your character was the whole time "online". In a permadeath game.
Well, short side view. Back to Fractured.
You can be immediately free, if you pay yourself out or a friend is doing that. So it isn't an absolute excluding the player.
Also if you watched the Criminals, how they ganked around every people who came by, they surely collected this way thousands of gold coins, so it should be an easy thing to pay the prison to get released.

The Reason for Jail...
Yes, in this case you are absolutely right and Harley also pointed that out, it can't be fair, if someone just flagged hisself and get killed after he steps out of the town and need to sit in jail for 24 hours, even he didn't anything bad.
But we should maybe think about, that maybe not the jail system, aka prison is the problem here, but the criminal flag itself. Being a RED shouldn't mean in general you are eligible for sending into the jail. But a criminal act should make you valid for a bounty hunter.
You steal something out of a box, you maybe will be catchable for an hour or if you are far enough from the area where the theft was performed.
You killed a innocent child playing in front of the house, you will be catchable for 24 hours.
You killed another RED one, you will be maybe just catchable for 10 Minutes.
You will be not catchable, if you fight in a declared war as a militia member and you was fighting with another militia.
Well, it was just some examples, but i guess you got what i mean.

Is it fair?
I think yes.
Your argument about "oh they get taken out" is literally the fear they have to live with.
Alone walking good aligned player need to run, if they see REDs, because they get killed and lose all their stuff they was collecting for hours.
Alone walking bad aligned and flagged player need to run, not to go to jail and lose hours of gameplay.
Sounds quite fair for me, just the amount needs to be a bit more adjusted.

Sheriffs
I think yes, for that it should be a restriction, that not everyone will be one.
Maybe combine it with a malus, i am just not quite sure, what exactly it could be, to prevent everyone from being a Sheriff.
To bind it on the amount of killed criminals, i think isn't the right way. Because does it mean meanwhile the criminal can't get jailed? I think that would be wrong.
I think everyone should be able to be a "Sheriff", the criminal already has the benefit from it to be able to see who can jail you and who not and for this reason being able to avoid you.
As i said, some kind of malus would prevent, that all people just chose to be a Bounty-Hunter.

"No PVP, i left the server"-Crying
Just to say, before people started to figure out about the Bounty Hunting System and REDs was killing just for fun each one they found, a very good amount of PVE player already droped the game, because it was unplayble in their eyes and not worth it to play a game, where they can't do a shit except to sit in the border of a town and doing nothing.
Here we are, both sides sound frustrated. And both sides will get the bill next week, when the plots going poof and nobody is online anymore to test the system entirely.

Now i am coming. A totally PVP Noob, a pacifist even ingame/incharacter, a carebear and a flower picker. And what should i say about these "Meh, i am leaving"s?
Everyone, if PVE or PVP who is crying now and leaving the game is in my eyes a wimp, a pussy, a child that didn't got their icecream from Mommy.
Instead of being constructive and helping the Dev-Team with feedback, they just cry at our shoulder and in our ear, that the system is so bad and they drop the game... and they don't realize it is a fucking Alpha, and who else, if not THEY are able to be involved in shaping the game with THEIR feedback about, what is going wrong.

And at the end there are just the "Nekrages" and "Kraliths" (no exclusive calling, just an example for PVP side and PVE side) who say something, after they had "fun" for some days to argue to their people please to test this damn game to make it better.

Okay, i think enough rage, otherwise the novell would become a serie.

[Ostaff]

I posted this in the other thread.... but thought it would work well here since this is the official one....

As long as there is PvP allowed, there should be nothing to keep people from going that route... and they shouldn't be forced to stay away from it. Which is why I came up with the levels of looting options which will allow a person to say just how far they want to go with PvP and sticks with the "risk/rewards". The greater the risk, the chance of the greater reward, but if you don't go that risk you can never get that full reward.

They could implement a looting system where each player chooses their looting style (full loot, no loot, one item, gear only, random item) and when a player is killed the "lesser" looting system would be used. In other words, if one person have "One Item" loot and was killed by a "Full Loot" then only 1 item would be taken, if the 1 loot person killed the full loot still only 1 item would be taken. However, if two full loot players fought, then the winner would have "full loot" ability.
It doesn't stop someone from being killed. But mobs can kill a player just as easily. Allowing loot settings allows a non-combatant to keep their loot that they farmed hours for. Also..loot options should be just like alignment settings... either a one time deal or only changeable at shrines/jails.

Personally, I think the bail time/amount plus loot options would be a good fit. However, the time and bond cost needs to be balanced a lot better than it is, and if the loot option is implemented, then the bail time/bond would drastically decrease in cost.

In regards to wagons.. I think they pretty much should be able to be stolen in full.

[d3Sync]

There are some good points in this thread.

I think most of us agree that the current jail system is not working.

The sentencing for jail time is bad, especially for new evil players. If you keep the jail, those punishments need to scale with the crime. Both time and gold.

I really do hesitate when confronted with the idea of removing the jail completely. I feel that it's really a difficult problem to solve, given the situation we find ourselves in.

I personally believe that the current system is broken. And we are debating over systems that don't even exist, but are required to exist to get a clear picture of the problem. So a lot of us are left in the dark.

I have a serious dislike for the good/evil alignment system being toggled. This is a personal opinion. I agree with Nekrage about criminals being able to gain positive karma to reduce sentencing time and bail cost. But I also believe that all players should be able to gain and/or lose karma based on their own personal actions over time.

Thinking out loud here.

I'm trying to wrap my head around how this would work. And I'm also trying to see it from both sides. The purpose of this test is to try and find flaws in the crime system and the siege system. Will we even get to the siege system?

Do I listen to the PvP'er crowd, saying it's too harsh?
Do I listen to the PvE'er crowd, saying it's not enough?

Does that mean the punishment is just right? Probably not.

I don't believe that it's a valid point to suggest large swaths of the player base will quit the game due to being jailed. Let's assume that the developers will properly adjust the punishment to fit the crime. They also have to make it absolutely clear that if they die as an evil player, there will be harsh punishments. And this needs to be done long before the player gets to that point. See my dislike for the toggled good/evil system.

The Sheriff system that Nekrage suggests is a miss for me, to be honest. Evil groups will just adjust. They will flow through an area, and then leave. The Sheriffs will show up and no one will be there. So a dynamic system, like Legends, won't really do much. It's a waste of development time. Cool gimmick? Sure. A solution to our problem? Not in my opinion.

I'd do something like.. First, separate the criminal system and karma system. I think they fundamentally oppose each other as one system.

You'd still have a karma system from -10,000 to +10,000, or whatever arbitrary amount you'd like it to be. But it has nothing to do with what color represents your status in the game world. It may affect the deity system though, I fully expect.

Beastmen start at +10,000
At -1 karma, can toggle Abomination
If so, loses access to Arboreus permanently

Demons start at -10,000
At +1 karma, can toggle Angel
If so, loses access to Tartaros permenently

Humans start at 0
At -10,000 karma, can toggle Lich
Loses access to Arboreus

We all know Liches are evil. Let's not play games.
But Liches can, through the power of magic, REVERT!
Yay! Or let's say, extend their life and regain human appearance to please the RP crowd.

Can't lower karma on Arboreus
Can raise/lower karma on Syndesia
Can't raise karma on Tartaros, unless you are positively aligned.

All non-criminals and non-murderers are BLUE

Implement a criminal status, ala Ultima Online.
Add a list of petty crimes. If you commit these crimes, you'll be a 'criminal' (GREY) for a short period of time. For instance, stealing a cart, looting a player corpse, or attacking someone. It does not apply to Arboreus or Tartaros. There would be no repercussion for killing a criminal. Safe zones no longer apply to you when you have the criminal status.

Add a murder system, ala Ultima Online. Allow for murderers to reduce their murder count by playing the game. And possibly even allowing them to lower their count by giving gifts to gods, such as gold. If you are a murderer, you can be attacked anywhere. Safe zones no longer apply to you in Syndesia. Not a city. Not your plot. If you want to play as a true RED, then you need to respect the decision that you made to kill other players, repeatedly.

For reference, Ultima Online had a system where if you kill a player, you become a criminal. Your murder count is now 1. You can work that off over a certain amount of time, say 8 hours in-game. If you kill again before the time was up, your murder count is now 2, and your in-game time to work it off is now higher. Say 12 hours. If you reach 5, you become RED.

Edit - Forgot to mention that once you work off your murder counts, you become GREY for a short period of time, before returning to BLUE (innocent). Not super relevant, but figured I'd mention it anyways.

Also Edit - Knocking out a player would be a crime. You can loot their INVENTORY and be a criminal. If you want their equipped gear, you must kill them and you'll be awarded a murder count for doing so. Here is the partial loot system that a lot of you are advocating for.

The jail system now kicks in. Sheriffs get to have fun. I like the idea being pushed around to limit them. Sounds fine. Punishments scale appropriately to the crimes. You might be able to keep them on the light side, considering the nature of being a true murderer. You are never safe.

A few adjustments may need to be made to city governance.

Sieges should be done by waging war on another city, or another guild. It shouldn't involve 'good' or 'evil'. Karma loss/gain should be suspended in a siege or raid.

We've fixed new players accidentally serving huge penalties by pushing the murderer game play to end-game. We've eliminated 'evil' player zergs to a degree. Though they will always exist. We've allowed for truly neutral, opportunistic combat situations with the criminal system, by making petty crimes common, but with light penalties. We've allowed all players to raise and lower their karma based on their actions, within their race restrictions. The evil/neutral/good world structure remains intact. This will not affect the player economy in a serious way. At least I don't think so.

The PvP crowd will HATE it. But if they want to be a true badass, then they either need to deal with it, or go to Tartaros and allow the design of the developers to work properly.

What Syndesia needs, is a full Tartaros. We need the demons to make their weekly incursions impactful. Which means we need the majority of you fighting each other, rather than fighting us.

One of the greatest games I've played from a PvP standpoint was Dark Age of Camelot. The factions did not interact with each other often. Not only that, but the races are unique, so fighting completely unique and alien players created a sense of fear and awe. The player staring back at you from across the battlefield did not look like you. They didn't play like you. That created a sense of rivalry.

I think the reality is, that whatever the solution is, it has to include players of all rulesets. All playing within their own environments. Occasionally mixing.

I also am entirely aware that the system I propose is highly unlikely, as it requires a pretty lengthy rework. So keep that in mind when responding.

Also, I purposely didn't go into any of those ideas in depth. Nor did I really think about them in depth. They may not work either. I have no idea.

[Ostaff]

Another solution is to do what AoC is doing and having the pvp flags toggled manually only.. if a player does not toggle their pvp flag on and the attacker still kills them, then that attacker gets major penalties, if on the other hand the player does toggle their flag then no penalties are aquired.

[Rife]

Remove jail time. You should never "punish" people by disallowing them from playing the game.

Rather force people to pay. Balance the jail system by the bounty payments.

When people get jailed, they either :
i) Payout their bail by themselves
ii) Wait for friend to pay the bail
iii) Get out of jail and collect money to pay the bail. When they choose the 3rd option, they basically have an unremovable "Prisoner" or "Debtor" status where they cannot engage in any sorts of pvp until they collect enough money to pay their bail. Similar to young player status

[spoletta]

The following proposal is based on the concept that the devs don't have infinite time to dedicate to this system, so our suggestions should be easy to implement.

We have some quite different opinions on this topic, but I guess that we all agree on the point that the minimum penalty is too high and that we would like a bit more flexibility in "Evilness".
The risk vs reward is present currently, but it is very binary. By being red you risk a lot for a lot of reward. Many would probably like the option to be evil but with less reward and less risk.
There are also a few players which would want pvp kills to be less punishing and less rewarding, tipically by implementing partial looting. Personally when I hear talks of partial looting in a full loot game, I die a little inside, but in this particular case I think that we can find a match.

In particular, I suggest the following:

Allow an action from a Red player to rummage through the belongings of a knocked down player. This doesn't open a loot window, but just rewards the Red player with half the gold in that player's bag. Most importantly, this happens without the player getting killed, just knocked down. The Red player loses karma when doing this, but a lot less than performing a murder.

This small change actually has a lot of effects, because we are now distinguishing between the archetypes of "bandit" and "murderer". You can be a red player which goes around assaulting and robbing as a style of play, without fully murdering, but still looking for a good fight. Maybe stealing some carts while at it. Such a red player when he is finally taken down will have a low penalty, since he was less oppressive on the other players.
You can obviously still be a murderer with the same current system, which is fine. You choose the most evil route and want the highest rewards, so when you get killed, you suffer harsh consequences.

Being assaulted by a bandit means losing half your gold and part of your health bar. You keep your equip, half your gold and your loot. It is far less crippling and I think that it meets the needs of the pve/pvp crowd.

In addition to this, the action of knocking down a player should give a karma penalty which depends on how purple was the health bar of that player. The weaker he was, the more "evil" it is to attack them, since it is more crippling for them. Attacking someone at full health bar and robbing them of some gold is a lesser evil, since the player will then just keep doing what he was already doing. Instead if the player was at 30% purple health bar before the assault, it means that you attacked a weak target (less risk for you) and that he now probably has to go back (more crippling), which means that you lose more karma.

Now, we can talk about a less punishing system for the not so evil players. The current jail system is fine for any karma lower than -3k. At -3k it should correctly start from 24h, since you most likely murdered someone or robbed a lot of people (Any act of murdering shall immediately set you to at least -3k, because you are now a murderer).

If you are not evil enough when caught, the jail system is not good.
If we implement something like 500 gold and 2 hours, hunting them will not be worthwile for the Sheriff, which means that we will miss the sheriff/bandit player interaction. As such, the gold penalty imposed should be still be quite high even at low evil levels, but you are not sent to jail, you can play normally. Your bounty is posted outside the jail and you can pay it by yourself or others can do it, like the current system. You have 1 week to pay it. If you don't or if you ever set yourself evil again in that time, your karma becomes immediately -3k minus your previous karma, which means that if you are caught again there are at least 24 hours of jail waiting for you.

So, all in all this system introduces with relatively few changes (mostly numerical changes and re using what is already there) a way for players to play the non consensual pvp part of the game without suffering the very harsh consequences of the current jail system, while being less oppressive on the victims. The old system is still in place for those players that wish to be very evil and cause big troubles for the victims.

[LonelyCookie]

What I find shocking in some (or in my eyes even most) of the feedback is the complete disregard for the killed while crying about a jailed killer. You get all up in arms about "muh poor criminal buddy quit because 24h jail boohoo" but seem noone here gives a flying fuck about (way more common) the killed who quits after 3 days of grinding and getting killed. Some of you really need to wake up for gods sake. Criminal system shouldnt promote criminals, but to protect others against criminals while just kinda allowing criminals to be a thing. Stop treating Syndesia with the Tartaros-mindset.

Criminals quitting because they cant handle repurcussions of any sort isnt games problem, its problem of the criminals for picking the wrong planet.

edit: Yes, im honestly getting frustrated with Fractured and all this crap at this point. I know Prom said no namecalling, but jesus, some of the feedback is like demons trying to have a second planet.

[trik]

Jail system seems fine, penalties should be steep. I honestly don't care if people can't handle the consequences of their own actions, quit then.

[Nekrage]

@trik said in Bounty Hunting & Jails - Official Feedback Thread:

Jail system seems fine, penalties should be steep. I honestly don't care if people can't handle the consequences of their own actions, quit then.

This is the kind of person that does not care for the longevity of the game.

Exactly the kind of person we should not be listening to.

[trik]

@Nekrage

I've played enough PvP MMOs to know that PKs drive off the bulk of the pop unless you curb them. This game has an advertised FFA world for people to do just that. Treating the middle ground like an FFA ruleset is mind boggling nonsense.

[Nekrage]

@trik said in Bounty Hunting & Jails - Official Feedback Thread:

@Nekrage

I've played enough PvP MMOs to know that PKs drive off the bulk of the pop unless you curb them. This game has an advertised FFA world for people to do just that. Treating the middle ground like an FFA ruleset is mind boggling nonsense.

It should absolutely NOT be a FFA world for the middle ground and I am absolutely not suggesting that.

[trik]

@Nekrage

It's never worked, harsh penalties need to be implemented for a middle ground ruleset. Devs need to stick to their guns on their design decisions. Removing jail all together is a terrible plan.

[Nekrage]

@trik Just can't agree.

Would restate my stance but I will just say "scroll up" instead. lol.

[trik]

@Nekrage

I never understand this, they are docking you time for PKing people only if you get caught correct? What's wrong with that, whats the cumulative time you cost people that you killed to earn that bounty? I've asked this on many forums and in many games back to UO in 97, why is your time more valuable than mine? When you are brought to justice you should suffer a time sink that I lost. Who do you think you are elevating your time above others?

[trik]

@Nekrage

Is it elitist snobbery that makes you think your time is more precious than everyone else you victimize in game?

[LonelyCookie]

@trik said in Bounty Hunting & Jails - Official Feedback Thread:

@Nekrage

I never understand this, they are docking you time for PKing people only if you get caught correct? What's wrong with that, whats the cumulative time you cost people that you killed to earn that bounty? I've asked this on many forums and in many games back to UO in 97, why is your time more valuable than mine? When you are brought to justice you should suffer a time sink that I lost. Who do you think you are elevating your time above others?

Thank god, finally someone said it. Why is "your" (criminal) time sacred and cant be taken away, but everyone elses days can be wasted for "your" (criminal) pleasure by the dozens while "you" (criminal) do you fancy 1hour murder-adventure?

[Nekrage]

@trik Don't play this social justice bullshit with me.

No one is claiming their time is more valuable than others. I never advocated for no penalty.

You also have no idea what the fuck you are talking about because you get a 24 hour sentence for literally ZERO KILLS. ZERO CRIMES.

Don't talk about shit you have no knowledge of.