Making Red vs Blue PvP More Fun: Mercy / Forgiveness System

VonNeumann

Apprentice
I know the staff are rolling out lots of changes, but I've been thinking about this for a while, and thought I'd see what people think. I'll probably repost later if this gets buried, or if I make significant changes from feedback.

To preface, I've been playing UO for 10+ years, but only on this server for about a month. I have 2 finished characters that I play so far: A PvM bard and a PK mage.

The goal of this suggested system is to create incentives for reds to res, gate, or not dry loot their victims, hoping to make stat-loss less punishing for merciful reds, and to make getting PKed less punishing for blue characters.

The system introduces 2 new properties attributed to each player: Mercy, and Forgiveness. The values of these properties can just be a % ranging from 0-100, or inactive.

Here is an outline of how the system will work: Red and Blue are the names of the red PK and blue player PKed.

Red kills Blue -> Blue sees Mercy rating (0-100%) of Red upon death. Blue has two options in gump:
Option 1 -> Blue gives Red murder count, Blue loses Forgiveness rating, Red sees they have received a count.
Option 2 -> Blue forgives Red and gives no count, Red sees that Blue has forgiven them, and sees their forgiveness rating (0-100%)
Upon ressing, if Blue chose option 2 (forgive), they are asked in gump "Has Red shown you mercy?" Blue has two options:
Option 1 -> Red was merciful (helped you out in some way, e.g. ressing you, gating you, or not drylooting you)
Red gains Mercy, Blue gains Forgiveness.
Option 2 -> Red was not merciful. Red loses Mercy.

The mercy of a red will affect murder count decay both positively and negatively, and provide a small chance to avoid stat-loss effects:

Mercy% - 50% = % of decay rate increased
[ 60% Mercy would make counts decay 10% faster at 21.6 hours instead of 24, 40% Mercy would make counts decay 10% slow at 26.4 hours instead of 24]
Mercy% - 75% = % chance of avoiding stat loss.
[ 95% Mercy would give a 20% chance of avoiding stat loss if a player turns in their head]

For blue players, high forgiveness = high impact on a reds mercy, when the player decides to not give a count, and claims the red was not merciful.
(Forgiveness% - 50%) * 2 = %increase on mercy rating of PK.
[80% Forgiveness would mean when player does forgive, and red is not merciful, the mercy rating of the red decreases by the standard amount * 160%]

In other words, reds that show mercy and help blues after they PK them will be rewarded with less counts ( = shorter stat loss penalty), and a chance of avoiding stat loss every once in a while. Blues that are more forgiving will have a higher rating shown when they choose to forgive, inclining reds to show mercy, if they care about their mercy rating. Benefits are mutual to both parties. Overall fun is increased. Everybody wins.

Note that this system will only affect blues that choose to not give counts (forgive) and reds that attempt to maintain a high mercy rating. Reds and Blues who do not choose to use the system, i.e. reds that never show mercy, and blues that always give counts, will not be affected by the existence of this system, except for a slower decay of murder counts for reds. (At 50+ counts, what does it matter anyway?)

The system only affects reds with murder counts > 10, and blues who have been PKed by a red 10+ times (forgiven or given counts 10 times), so that players would not easily obtain 100% mercy or forgiveness after 1 kill.
To avoid farming of ratings, a specific pair of players can only affect each other's mercy/forgiveness once every 24 hours.

Shit that's a lot of text. If anyone makes it through this, would be happy to hear comments, feedback, loopholes, and/or insults.
 

Yohee

Expert
That is a spectacular idea. I have two PVP toons (not that I'm any good and I always feel guilty afterwards so neither are even red) but it seems like a great way to add more flexibility to the current system.
 

halygon

Grandmaster
Idk.. Seems a bit complicated for most pvpers. You gotta remember that a good chunk of hardcore pvpers play while they are high as a kite.... Just saying...
 

Yohee

Expert
Hmm. Dunno - don't play high (though often play drunk!). This idea seems to add optional complexity - adding depth to the current system. I'm a newb here so won't profess to understand the finer dynamics of the PVP community - all I can say is that I'd enjoy using the system.
 

halygon

Grandmaster
Hmm. Dunno - don't play high (though often play drunk!). This idea seems to add optional complexity - adding depth to the current system. I'm a newb here so won't profess to understand the finer dynamics of the PVP community - all I can say is that I'd enjoy using the system.
I don't play either but it seems everyone I'm ever in a call with is always one or the other. I'm just looking out for those guys :p
 

VonNeumann

Apprentice
Idk.. Seems a bit complicated for most pvpers. You gotta remember that a good chunk of hardcore pvpers play while they are high as a kite.... Just saying...

It's complicated under the hood, but not very complicated to actual players. And as @Yohee said, it is an optional complexity added to the current system. You can always give counts as a blue, and never help your victims as a PK, and you won't be affected by the existence of this system (aside from longer count decays for PKs ).
 

halygon

Grandmaster
It's complicated under the hood, but not very complicated to actual players. And as @Yohee said, it is an optional complexity added to the current system. You can always give counts as a blue, and never help your victims as a PK, and you won't be affected by the existence of this system (aside from longer count decays for PKs ).
No no, I see what you're trying to do here. I just know that it's typically best to follow the KISS theory (aka Keep It Stupid Simple).

Maybe the current system should be simplified more. Maybe just give the pk the option to pay x gold or be stat'd for like an hour (long enough for the poor blue to finish his farming). But who knows... Ppl seem to like to charge exorbitant amounts to pks.
 

Nubby

Apprentice
F A I L. Mercy system is allowing a red to buy the head back. Being a dick is insta statting. Choose wisely!
 

VonNeumann

Apprentice
F A I L. Mercy system is allowing a red to buy the head back. Being a dick is insta statting. Choose wisely!

Yeah, but this gives you a chance to know whether or not the person you've killed or has killed you is a dick or not. If you are a blue who always gives heads back, it will take many many kills to all the reds on the server before they start realizing you're not going to insta stat them, and respect you for it.
 

Nubby

Apprentice
Yeah and if a gazelle is super nice to all the Lions maybe one day it won't eat them.

The system is in place to penalize player killers, even if temporary it's better than nothing.
 

VonNeumann

Apprentice
Agreed. The current system works great. The proposed system would take nothing away from it. This is just another level of complexity to the current system providing incentives for PKs to res/gate/not dry loot, and blues to not give counts.
 

Ultimecia

Neophyte
I think this system while it sounds nice on paper.. would just be exploited by people if it was ever implemented.

PKs would just kill their buddies and get free mercy lessening their murder count duration. And they would be nice to people with shitty loot.


Here is scenario #1.. PK kills blue guy and then checks his corpse to see he has nothing.. so PK is nice and resses blue guy and gets mercy.

Here is scenario #2.. PK kills same blue guy and then checks his corpse to see he has a +1 taming SS and 5k gold.. PK dry loots then laughs and runs off with phat lewts. Blue guy now feels backstabbed which sucks even worse then just getting pk'd.

Very very veeeeeery rarely I would say the PK would be nice in scenario #2 and give everything back.


I think the only way this would work is if the pk automatically loses their chance to gain mercy if they look at whats on the corpse. There cannot be any looking at the corpse at all! And there would have to be some serious coding to make it so you couldn't just kill your friend and get free mercy.

PKing is PKing.. its not a nice thing to do period. We don't reward our kids for doing bad things and saying sorry. What they did was wrong and they should be punished.
 
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Ultimecia

Neophyte
Maaaaybe this could possibly work if the pk would lose ALL of their acquired mercy and be unable to gain mercy for X amount of time if they killed someone and did not show mercy.. but otherwise no it will without a doubt just be exploited.
 

Ultimecia

Neophyte
How about you can only give 1 mercy or 1 forgiveness per account to a character. This would prevent people from farming/exploiting it... as much.

And if the red does not show mercy they lose ALL of their acquired mercy and cannot gain mercy for 15 days (this MUST be a significant amount of time otherwise the red does not truly deserve forgiveness).

And the red cannot look at the victims corpse whatsoever (better disable auto-open corpse).. otherwise they automatically lose ALL mercy and cannot gain for 15 days (this prevents people giving FALSE mercy to get forgiveness just because they didn't loot you when you had crap loot).

And what would be cool is if they had titles at a high amount of mercy or forgiveness (The Merciful Ultimecia, The Forgiving Ultimecia).

I will support this only IF you add my changes!
 
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