[MUD-Dev] PvP Systems

[John Buehler]

This may well be something that has been presented, considered and
rejected in the past, but I'm still hunting for PvP systems that work.
'Working' means that players may engage in 'conflict actions' such
that they are entertaining for all concerned.

The idea is little more than a more granular treatment of PvP switches.

'Conflict actions' are any action that the game can detect that one
player might not enjoy another player directing at them.  The
traditional example here is killing.  My character walks up to your
character and kills it.  You weren't the least bit interested in that
interaction, so it shouldn't have been allowed in the first place.  A
coarse PvP switch states whether a player can participate in ANY
'conflict actions'.  Finer-grained switches permit a range of
'conflict actions' that players can make these declarations about.

The following are examples of 'conflict actions':

  1. Altering the set of a character's possessions.  This can include
  removal and addition.  Scenarios include stealing, corpse looting,
  planting evidence on someone, looking through somebody's backpack
  without them having to take it off, etc.

  2. Physical control over another character.  Scenarios include
  physical restraint, tackling, arm wrestling, fist fights, wrestling,
  etc.

  3. Damaging another character.  Scenarios include duels, wars,
  banditry, assassination, etc.  Depending on the type of character
  capabilities, damage can take on many forms, including limiting
  senses (blinding, deafening, stunning), limiting effectiveness
  (weakness) and so on.  Each of these groups could be controlled
  using a distinct switch to control the severity of PvP interactions.

The reason for having a range of such actions is so that players can
resolve conflicts (or initiate them) at the level that they and their
prospective opponents are interested in.  This means that players
might be perfectly willing to get into a bar fight, but have no
interest in dueling or thieving, etc.

Switches would be created for each logical area of conflict actions.
Further, the switches would not be limited to all/none with respect to
the set of players.  Each player can indicate which players they are
interested in engaging in 'conflict actions' with.  This permits
players to craft the sort of game that they are after and with WHOM
they want.

Switches have three settings: yes, no and maybe.  The 'maybe' setting
indicates that if you want to initiate a conflict with another player,
you must use the 'ask' mechanism.  I have no idea what form this
takes, but it undoubtedly requires some form of character
confrontation (e.g. a challenge) with a subsequent use of a game
feature that formally transitions the conflict settings for the
challenged party to 'yes' temporarily.

Grouping mechanisms would fit into the whole scheme as well.  If you
belong to a guild, you are subject to the guild's settings for
'conflict actions'.  If you have explicitly said that you aren't
interested in any conflict with the leader of the opposing guild, but
your guild has gone to war with the opposing guild, you are subject to
the settings that permit the greatest conflict.  If you have
explicitly said that you are interested in conflict with the leader of
the opposing guild, but your guild has said that they are not
interested in any conflict, your personal settings will dominate.

Conflict must be bilateral.  You can only declare your intentions (or
inherit a group or groups' intentions).  Unless the named players or
groups of players reciprocate, no conflict is possible.  Partial
reciprocation is permitted.  So if I say I'm interested in all styles
of conflict with you, but you say that you're only interested in
roughhousing, as with bar fights, then that's all that I can initiate
against you - or you against me.  If I have a 'maybe' setting and you
have a 'yes' setting, I must still use the 'ask' mechanism so as to
avoid everyone using the 'maybe' setting in order to initiate attacks,
while the 'yes' players have to ask me before they attack.  It follows
the least common denominator approach in any case.

Changes to settings take place after a time delay.  Once you declare
interest in changing your conflict settings in any way, shape or form,
there is a delay of time before they come into effect.  This time
delay should be on the order of an hour.

In the spirit of character perceptions being an important game system,
a character should be able to see the potential for conflict with any
given character that it can perceive.  In EverQuest, those who have
turned on the all-or-nothing PvP flag have their character names show
up in a distinct color.  While I dislike the whole floating billboard
approach, I do want to see some kind of indication along these lines.

Unfortunately, this 'simple' approach is insufficient to deal with one
general scenario: lawful acts that use conflict actions.  For example,
my friends and I are at my home or on my land, and we're having a
discussion.  Somebody decides that they are going to walk onto my land
with all their conflict switches set to 'no' so that they can spy on
us.  That says that they don't want any conflict and they aren't going
to initiate any.  Yet they're on my land, spying on us.  This should
have the effect of introducing a request for conflict by the 'all-no'
guy.  So in the very least, some spatial mechanism will also have to
be put into place that affects player conflict settings.  There should
probably also be a temporal element, so that if I rent a room, I have
the right to eject anyone who comes barging in on me.

This can be extended to actions as well.  If I have 'assault' set to
'no', but 'theft' set to 'yes', when someone tries to steal from me,
the law system for that area may permit me to assault just that one
guy.  This is a dangerous mechanism because it results in elevation of
hostilities, which might have been the player's original intentions -
to start small and get the victim to get into a fight or a duel.  If
the elevations happen automatically, this would definitely be a
problem.  If they happen only by the victim initiating the elevations,
then it should be controllable.

A member of the justice system may always have approval by all players
up to the limit of the law.  So if you are a member of the law, you
may have the right to assault anyone you want - as well as other
rights.  If you are a member of the law system, you are trusted by the
game to conduct yourself reasonably.

This may come across as more complex than it is, but the question for
those of you who waded through this long post is: do you see scenarios
where this system is simply going to produce undesireable outcomes?
Are there too many opportunities for players to get their settings
wrong and have some terrible result?  Will it be too complex for
players to figure out how to get the effects that they're after?  And
so on.

All constructive commentary is welcome.

JB

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