PKing: Let's Talk About the State of It

[Lizzie]

My thoughts:
I'd rather be someone's pawn and end up dead by assassination, than dead by spider, or raptor, or war beetle, or random staff-created 20-mob swarm to make stuff interesting for Byn Crew #47789.

I don't really care why my character is being assassinated. Curious to know why, sure. Who wouldn't be! But care? Nah not really. If it's because killing my aide character will inconvenience the templar I work for, that's fine. If it's because my Jaxa Pah boss pissed off the wrong Guild boss, and the Guild wants to send the JP boss a "message," that's okay too.

As long as there's some RP leading to the final scene, and it wasn't just some random drive-by PK, it's all good. If I want to not be someone who ends up an "inconvenience" to someone else, I'll play iso, or I'll play the boss.

Your character's death, if you're doing it RIGHT - will always be an inconvenience to SOMEONE.

[Heade]

My thoughts:
I'd rather be someone's pawn and end up dead by assassination, than dead by spider, or raptor, or war beetle, or random staff-created 20-mob swarm to make stuff interesting for Byn Crew #47789.

I don't really care why my character is being assassinated. Curious to know why, sure. Who wouldn't be! But care? Nah not really. If it's because killing my aide character will inconvenience the templar I work for, that's fine. If it's because my Jaxa Pah boss pissed off the wrong Guild boss, and the Guild wants to send the JP boss a "message," that's okay too.

As long as there's some RP leading to the final scene, and it wasn't just some random drive-by PK, it's all good. If I want to not be someone who ends up an "inconvenience" to someone else, I'll play iso, or I'll play the boss.

Your character's death, if you're doing it RIGHT - will always be an inconvenience to SOMEONE.

I don't always agree with Lizzie, but when I do, it's on being PKed.

[Bebop]

Data:

https://1drv.ms/x/s!AuelAW2dNA8Cg1rCWIPj-POZRF_8
Read only.  Has Unique Logins, New Accounts, Characters Made, Characters rejected.  Jump in.


Numbers
Accounts:


Unique Players:


New accounts signing up have been low past months.  Drama boards draw intrigue.. no drama on /r/mud lately.
Also no stories being told

Summary
Write stories of characters and use logs of characters to bring more players in, bring old players back.
Creative writing best avenue for retention and acquisitions

Mansa this is really interesting.  Can you go back five years to this year?  Curious for my own self.

[Armaddict]

I do not believe the correlation between numbers and PK is so directly linked, but they can be related in another way, which is I think what you're describing.  I am, however, a little wary of the terms provided.  PK-avoidance and so on.

I believe in a healthy, active PvP atmosphere in Armageddon.  I believe being killed by another player is ultimately the best death one can achieve in Armageddon.  I believe that in some arbitrarily high percentage of deaths at the hands of another player, the victim will feel injustice or slighted.  Thus, I do not believe the end result is actually what people should focus on, because having your beloved character, your progress, is ultimately always a hard pill to swallow, even if we acknowledge (some don't) that we are essentially in a heavy roleplaying rogue-like.

What I'd tell you to focus on instead is the manner that leads up to that death.  Something that you really only realize in retrospect.  There are essentially three scenarios; one is the 'surprise' death, which comes out of nowhere and you're not prepared for.  Arguably, these can be incredibly common since they are often impromptu reactions to a given action.  These will be common, and almost without fail, lead to the 'I shouldn't have done that' or 'I should have done this instead' sort of retrospect.  As a player, these are unavoidable, because they are most commonly attributed to reacting as your character would given a condition.

The other two though, are also based on acting in character.  I have two stories to demonstrate these, the first of which will be familiar to people in discord:
--BAD PvP Dynamic
  Playing a raider, I shot a singular arrow at a salter.  I missed.  Within one RL day, there was a literal manhunt for my character by soldiers, bynners, and mages, based off of the rumor alone.  The result was me taking a step back from the game because of the sheer disbelief that a single antagonist move against someone who I later confirmed was unconnected; I stopped playing as much, because it left a bad taste in my mouth, and was essentially a character-death before he'd ever actually earned any true merit of so much attention.  It was a case where the buildup wasn't there.

--GOOD PvP dynamic
  Playing an elf, I made enemies due to a prideful demeanor.  I didn't think it was a particularly big deal, but one of those enemies took it to heart and took the time of using misinformation and lies to rally people against the elf.  I was caught in a shitstorm, and it was a shitstorm that I actively logged into every night, hoping I could make some progress on clearing my name, causing ripples, and essentially fighting back the murderous rampage that awaited me from nearly every city clan.

The difference between the two was escalation.  One of them, it was a knee jerk reaction by bored people, and thus the prospect of death to it seemed shallow, unenjoyable, and led to less playtime.  The other, it was a planned response that was understood, and though death still loomed, it was something that I could actually engage in rather than simply be dogpiled.

Please, continue to foster a PvP environment; Armageddon with a competitive edge is far more driven, far more passionate, and far more delightful to engage in than one where we amiably refuse to cause distress based off of player-consideration.  As I said above, dying to another character means you were truly involved in something, whether it be large scale or small scale.  You've already made your impact.  But when deciding if and when to kill someone, also try to ensure it's in some way where even as an ambush, they could guess that someone wanted them dead.  Make it something that people log in for, rather than leave the game for.

That does not mean you have to laboriously manufacture rivalries and steps and shadow games.  It means that the danger level of the game for that character should rise on an even keel that they can actually engage in and interact through.  Every time they talk about that character to other people while their life goes on, they should feel that rise in intensity, 'My character could very possibly die next time I log in.  They have some serious enemies.'

[Armaddict]

Erm.

That being said, I also highly prefer the death to another character who saw an opportunity to advance their story through my death than to go on in conflict-free life for 40 days of playing time then die to an npc.  Sometimes, I didn't realize it, but I made my character as a stepping stone to another story, and that can be frustrating and satisfying at the same time, being that sudden obstacle to someone else who ends up becoming prominent after they figure out how to get past you.

[mansa]

Data:

https://1drv.ms/x/s!AuelAW2dNA8Cg1rCWIPj-POZRF_8
Read only.  Has Unique Logins, New Accounts, Characters Made, Characters rejected.  Jump in.

Mansa this is really interesting.  Can you go back five years to this year?  Curious for my own self.

Should be a read only link for everyone that goes back approximately 2010.

Give me a bit of time, though.

[Bebop]

Data:

https://1drv.ms/x/s!AuelAW2dNA8Cg1rCWIPj-POZRF_8
Read only.  Has Unique Logins, New Accounts, Characters Made, Characters rejected.  Jump in.

Mansa this is really interesting.  Can you go back five years to this year?  Curious for my own self.

Should be a read only link for everyone that goes back approximately 2010.

Give me a bit of time, though.

Looks like in 2014 there were about 10K unique logins VS this year where there are 8K unique logins.  That's about 1/5th less than what it was in 2014.  I would look in 2013 but there is data missing for the first few months of that year.  However, we can see that in 2013 even with THREE months missing the unique logins by this time of year were about 8700 so I'm guessing for that year around this time they were probably about 10700 if the averages were anything to go off of.

Unique Logins by end of September:

2013 approx 10700
2014 10000
2018  8700

That's a 20% drop.

Character Accounts Created by September:

2014 - 2223
2018  - 1292

That's a 50% drop.

So needless to say, things feel a bit different volume wise.

Armaddict - I see your point but again, this isn't a thread about PK and reacting to it as it is about alternatives to PK and how it can affect  retention and plot and when is too much.

The accountant/number cruncher in me would love to see some numbers on PK vs unique logins to see what that rate of PK is in relation to how many people are actively playing these days.

Anyway, as I stated.  I want to keep the game PVP but I also want to keep it an RP game and make it viable for player driven stories to take root and that's where I'm trying to focus this discussion.

[Miradus]

Wait ... this isn't a thread about PK?

I mean ... you literally put "let's talk about PK" in the title.

Mansa's numbers are fascinating but unless you have a way to tie in less players because of rampant pk then I don't know that's going anywhere.

I do like the thought that some people want to foster a little more RP before the PK axe falls. That's encouraging. I would like to see the conversation develop a little more along those lines.

[Bebop]

Wait ... this isn't a thread about PK

I mean ... you literally put "let's talk about PK" in the title.

Armaddict - I see your point but again, this isn't a thread about PK and reacting to it as it is about alternatives to PK and how it can affect  retention and plot and when is too much.

This is a typo on my part.  I meant to write this isn't about getting PK'd and reacting to it as much as it is about alternative to PK and how it can affection retention and plot and when there is too much PK.  What I was trying to say is I want this less to be about the victims of PK and more about when the arbiters of such are justified and how those arbiters should consider their course of actions or what others they may take for the good of the plot.

Mansa's numbers are fascinating but unless you have a way to tie in less players because of rampant pk then I don't know that's going anywhere.

The accountant/number cruncher in me would love to see some numbers on PK vs unique logins to see what that rate of PK is in relation to how many people are actively playing these days.

I do like the thought that some people want to foster a little more RP before the PK axe falls. That's encouraging. I would like to see the conversation develop a little more along those lines.

Anyway, as I stated.  I want to keep the game PVP but I also want to keep it an RP game and make it viable for player driven stories to take root and that's where I'm trying to focus this discussion.

[number13]

It's a text based game with archaic syntax in 2018. Player numbers are going to drop. The game numbers seem to spike a little when something interesting happens, like the new classes or the super secret role call, and then dwindle back down again. Imho, there needs to be at least 50 players on at peak for the game to be healthy and interesting.

That said... Excessive PKs probably do contribute to the slow and steady erosion of the playerbase from those spikes. For one thing, after death, players must wait until their karma regens to take on certain roles. For another, because the pbase is too small to support two large cities, it's hard to make character divorced entirely from the social situations of your previous. And, it's just plain disheartening to die. There's a period of mourning for the character to be expected.

There's a feedback loop. As we lose players to PKs and other factors, the game world gets smaller and less interesting. More bored people, less players, feeding into more bored people, and more PKs and less players.

There are some things that could be done to make PKing in the middle of a city a more difficult endeavor, and things that could give players more options beyond just killing.  Apartments and taverns are deathtraps instead of sanctuaries.  Potent poisons are too common. Backstab and hide/sneak are too fool-proof. The infiltrator gets master backstab instead of master sap -- I'd personally prefer the option that lets me decide to spare another player.

More important is maybe making PKs not so bad. The karma regen system has it's heart in the right place ... limiting people from rolling endless karma 2/3 powerhouses that should be rare in the world.  But the effect is a disincentive to playing at all.

And while the skill grind is actually not so bad as things stand, it's still disheartening to have to once again train up basic skills in order be effective at your role. (And weapon skills level up glacially or not at all, but that might not be an entirely bad thing) The entire skill system should be overhauled such that if you have a skill, it works well over 50% of the time, at apprentice. A miscreant should be able to confidently pick pockets of small baubles from day one. A crafter should be able to craft from day one.  A day-1 warrior should be able to fight a day-10 warrior without embarrassing himself.

[Marauder Moe]

I dunno, are we losing players because of PKing, though?  That's why I asked about login statistics.  With some staff-side data we might actually be able to answer the problem.  It shouldn't be too hard to detect players who "quit" and see whether or not they were PK'ed around the same time their activity levels dropped off.

Until we have evidence of such a correlation, though, I'm not sure how useful talk of toning down the PK atmosphere is.  After all, our tagline is "Murder, Corruption and-" it's the first one!   

It does also look like the game is in a bit of a recruiting slump.  I agree with Mansa that, anecdotally at least, player stories and logs are a good way to attract people.  Might be worth posting/linking a few in other MUD discussion forums.

[Namino]

I doubt very much that any generalized 'slump' is related directly to PKing. In my experience, which is both extensive and outdated by a couple of months, the vast bulk of players are avoiding player on player conflict that is resolved via combat rather than, say, subterfuge or political maneuvering. It seems unlikely enough people are dying in this way to noticeably reduce the population. There is a good reason for that, as open combat with another player in Armageddon is quite possibly the least satisfying experience I have encountered in any roleplaying game.

That being said I can confirm with absolute certainty that Armageddon is down at least one player due to the state of player on player combat. Namely, myself. I have no ill will regarding it, naturally, but my experiences in that domain ultimately purged me of any motivation to recommit to the game. Here's my insight, though it's mostly echoing what's already been said by Lutagar and others.

Combat code in Armageddon was clearly thoroughly tested on wildlife and in RPTs and the ilk. What is also plainly clear, is that there are enormous exploitable gaps that require quite a bit of player restraint to avoid when two people are fighting one another. Experiences vary, but when you have two 500 hours played characters engaging one another, with the potential risk being permanent loss of one character, it has been amply demonstrated that relying on players to moderate their gamesmanship is not possible.

My personal experience has been one of me attempting to exercise restraint -- letting people go where appropriate -- only to have them diligently apply perraine to 10-15 arrows over the next two OOC days and place them in a quiver with my name on it. I have had physics breaking, reality shattering exploitation of code smashed into me to lethal effect. And while I was never killed in this manner, I did play during the time period in which Whirrans were able to summon people over chasms for instant death by simply knowing their truenames, a state that persisted for some time before being acknowledged as the problem it was and patched out. Exploitative usage of code still persists and enjoys a vigorous prominence in PK.

Satisfying player on player conflict in Armageddon is only achievable when both players are more interested in telling an interesting story than they are with winning, because elsewise the less restrained of the two will smash their instant-win-button dejour and that'll be that. This is all terribly long-winded, but I'll concluded by simply quoting from the closing out requests I had as I was departing the game. I'm not sure if requests are intended to be confidential and I apologize if that is the case.

Needless to say - this has prompted a lot of discussion on the staff side of things.

We're in a bind, however - as this is 'virgin territory' - the use of [skill] in such a way isn't something we've experienced a lot over the history of Armageddon.

The overall feeling is that the skill's utility outside of [its intended purpose] needs to be re-evaluated. We also need to more closely monitor how PCs are using these skills to find out ways to restrict them codedly instead of having to introduce an 'honour system' players need to follow.

It's a sentiment I appreciate from the staff, but I do not envy the person who has to figure out how to fix these skills. In my experience, the combat code as a whole may need to be rewritten from the ground up entirely to avoid these things. But until that happens, PK in Armageddon will be unpleasant.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

Arma is dying from what I can see and it needs 1) new shit 2) revised shit 3) a voting drive 4) a temporary disbanding of the "no advertising" stuff.

I love Arma and I really want it to keep going tbh like damn

But it needs to be freshened up with something big and neatly scrubbing and polishing up some of the really janky 20yo code

But PKing has never been a problem to me unless it's WAAAAAY OOC

Like some shit just riding in and insta killing in the wild with no rp no reason nothing

That's what needs tapping down on

Regular pk? That shit is GREAT

[Nao]

Unique logins are also down because arm dropped off the voting sites. If you look at the 'how players found us' threads from last year, there were dozens (up to 50?) unique logins from players who found us on TMC or TMS. Most of these players did not stick around, but they were definitely inflating the unique login numbers, even if they never made a character.

[Delirium]

(p.s. Don't forget to vote on TMC.)

[seidhr]

Just a friendly reminder that it is never appropriate to call another player's roleplay out onto the carpet, in public, on the GDB, and tell them they need to get gud.

Topic that did so has been moved to moderation.  Plz to not do this again.

[Strongheart]

Huh.. I apologize as that was not my intent

Either way! I just wanted to say that I agree with many of Bebop's points and a few remarks stated here as well.

Keep on PKing but only when it is healthy! PK backed with solid roleplay is what we want and not boring ones with flimsy reasonings behind them.

[Vox]

PK as a subject is a red-herring for player retention, in my opinion. If anything, getting wrecked makes one hop right back into the story by whipping up a new character..

This isn’t a MUSH. If your PC would kill the other player, do it, equivocating to find reasons not to is OOC. The roots of the tree of the playerbase are watered by the blood of the PK’ed.

The real key to player-retention, is active world story-telling coupled with a return of main guild mages.

[najdorf]

Bad PK by an experienced player is the main reason I quit the game last month. I support the idea of an automated/coded solution rather than a staff resolution in the aftermath of the event. You shouldn't walk into the War council guarded by 30 elite soldiers and be able to spam fireball or whatever and PK all players just because the code allows it. It diminishes fun, realism and playibility.

[Vox]

Bad PK by an experienced player is the main reason I quit the game last month. I support the idea of an automated/coded solution rather than a staff resolution in the aftermath of the event. You shouldn't walk into the War council guarded by 30 elite soldiers and be able to spam fireball or whatever and PK all players just because the code allows it. It diminishes fun, realism and playibility.

Rage-Quitting over PK that's deemed by staff as 'fair play', is silly. It's not the player's jobs to decide what's legit or plausible in your highly specific example, it would be staff and if they review the kill and find it fair then let it go and make a new character.. If they find it an exploit or a bug they'll most likely rez you. Otherwise, you died.. get over it.

[najdorf]

Bad PK by an experienced player is the main reason I quit the game last month. I support the idea of an automated/coded solution rather than a staff resolution in the aftermath of the event. You shouldn't walk into the War council guarded by 30 elite soldiers and be able to spam fireball or whatever and PK all players just because the code allows it. It diminishes fun, realism and playibility.

... It's not the player's jobs to decide what's legit or plausible in your highly specific example, it would be staff and if they review the kill and find it fair then let it go and make a new character..

It is as you say, but for me this fundamental is the root cause of many problems.

[Heade]

Bad PK by an experienced player is the main reason I quit the game last month. I support the idea of an automated/coded solution rather than a staff resolution in the aftermath of the event. You shouldn't walk into the War council guarded by 30 elite soldiers and be able to spam fireball or whatever and PK all players just because the code allows it. It diminishes fun, realism and playibility.

I'd just like to point out that you used both a fireball spell and the word "realism" in the same argument.

Elsewhere in this thread, someone made a good point. The problem isn't the PKing in and of itself. It's the fact that when you're engaging in some sort of direct conflict with another player, and you both have 500 hours invested in those characters, that situation by itself promotes using the code to it's greatest advantage to keep from losing your investment. It's going to be a rare player that shows restraint, because doing so represents a major risk to that investment. If it didn't take so long to get characters to that point, people might be willing to take more risks with them, and PKs would sting less.

But on the other side of that same coin, that work...that effort and investment into your character to get them to a point where they're useful is part of what makes PK in arm engaging, impactful, and thrilling. And I don't mean thrilling in the sense that I'm just "thrilled" to PK people, but rather that, when I suddenly find myself as the target of an unexpected assassination attempt, my heartrate literally jumps and my adrenaline starts pumping IRL. It triggers a real-life fight or flight response in me, the player, that simply doesn't occur in PVP in other games, where there is no significant risk of loss. Permadeath is why I play armageddon. I can't complain when it happens, and have never submitted a player complaint against a PC that has killed mine, despite some obvious ones that likely were not RPed well. I always assume those are just random bandits/serial killer types who either wanted my noob boots or just got a kick IC out of killing my PC, which can be a perfectly legitimate thing for a character to do.

Do I support everyone going out and making serial killer PCs? No, not really. But I do think it should be allowed, and as something that is allowed, we as players should accept that it is a thing, in game, and give other players the benefit of the doubt.

I've found character death to be far more palatable since I've adopted character death as a goal for my PCs. My PCs have many and varied plans, and I pursue them. But I as a player also have a goal, and that is a good character death. Sometimes players don't have the political power to murder you with a bunch of RP, because that leaves you time to way others and tell them what is going on, so they have to use poisons and/or coded skills to prevent you from doing that and blowing their cover. And while I'd prefer more RP, I also understand why those particular murders by those groups of characters tend to happen that way.

Templars can afford to RP with you before they PK you. Rinthi assassins really can't, especially if they're not publically known as such. And they have as much a right to play their character to it's fullest as any of us do.

Want more RP before you die? Piss off more Templars/Nobles, and less Elves/Rinthis.

I don't think that PK itself is affecting our player population in any larger degree than it ever has. Do some people quit over it? Sure, but we've always lost players over it. Often on temporary breaks that may even last years.

Instead, I think the population took a big hit from a group of players that chose to create a huge headache for staff with releasing game information and such, which was followed by a lot of player bans, and the closing of Tuluk, shrinking the game world. If you look at logins and dates, I imagine there is a correlation with rapidly falling populations and those events.

I believe those are the two largest events that have had an effect on player population. I imagine that it was the hope of those in charge that the game would eventually recover population lost from those events, but since Arm players have historically been a very dedicated bunch, investing an inordinant amount of time into the game, that hasn't occurred. It's very difficult to replace a player that plays 8 hours a day, regularly. And to have those replacements outpace the player attrition that has always been part of the game is a monumental task, indeed. It's not impossible, I don't think. But it would take work, and quite possibly someone on staff who's sole job was to promote the game and grow the population.

[Strongheart]

It is as you say, but for me this fundamental is the root cause of many problems.

Agreed.

Templars can afford to RP with you before they PK you. Rinthi assassins really can't, especially if they're not publically known as such. And they have as much a right to play their character to it's fullest as any of us do.

Want more RP before you die? Piss off more Templars/Nobles, and less Elves/Rinthis.

I've had a character die to both at the same time due to a very, very unlikely rumor - largest client for Elves/Rinthis are Templars/Nobles. I've had a Rinthi character who literally out of chargen was PKed in the streets which I was okay with because Rinth but still. I've had a character who died to their own clanmate who should not have killed their own blood but did so regardless because of EZ PK.

The point is that while these facilitated some small fraction of RP? It was incredibly easy for these PCs to pull off - my characters being utter underdogs. Search for ALTERNATIVES TO PK! Templars and those in a similar position of power (be it indie or otherwise).

[Strongheart]

PKs can be a true sucker punch to the stomach! Heck, I've went through several PKs that I would consider sub-par but am not currently allowed to disclose. It's stuff like that that genuinely make me want to quit and can you blame me? I have had many opportunities for my character to end another character yet have chosen not to. One character I had killed another because it was the only way my character could live - sort of an initiation thing and after that I realized that PK really isn't for me unless it comes to hiring assassins to face significant threats or when I absolutely need to have my character face another in that way.

Apologies for all the editing but I am just trying to get my points out there and happen to be tired at the moment

I encourage long-lived characters who are undeniably broken when running up against other PCs to do some more world-changing stuff rather than be focused on PKing upstarts. Not that all of them have been or anything! Not trying to vaguebook.. all I am saying is that those with coded power should use it to RP out change. Investigate the Grey or something!! Embark on expeditions into the Silt Sea! Don't get caught up in the drama of what characters are kanking who, etc.

[roughneck]

PK brings the drama and excitement to storylines that has kept me playing for 15+ years. I doubt I'm the only one, so I would say that pk is as much the reason we keep players as lose them. I think more open, exciting, desert pk due to factional conflict would get players more engaged and increase retention.

That being said, I agree that a shitty pk is a bitter experience. More 'no-hide' flag rooms in the city and apartments would make sense to make stealth more realistic and add value to magick stealth ability. But my opinion of shitty pk is different than getting backstabbed in an apartment, those pk's take some skill and planning, and I respect that. Shitty pk is when authority roles use their coded advantage to execute a PC due to a political alliance that exists unexpectedly. These political alliances happen because the player base is small and the world has shrunk rather than because they make sense IG. Everyone knows everyone, which is an experience that gets stale.

Short-term breaks and frustration may be caused by pk's, but boredom and burnout is the real reason why players leave. We play to be entertained, when we get bored or need to prioritize rl, we stop playing.