Discuss: Changes To PK Guidance & Helpfile

[Master Color]

While killing someone is the best way of eliminating their negative influence on my plans for world domination, I will do it.

When I can trust people to get the hint that maybe they should stop pushing their luck, I won't have to kill them.

Knowing this and knowing that this is the attitude of some players: Why the fuck should I put any time into this dead game?

[Dresan]

Stuff

I don't agree with many of your point.

I understand and appreciate the sentiment but the expectations don't really match with reality of the game.
 
There is also the assumption that 'PK' is the only thing that can 'ruin' a player's experience but a number people do store or suicide when their character has been full looted or has been horribly humiliated. The 'no rape' policy is there for a reason and people have been asking for the ability to take an eye, ear, and probably a left nut for years, lol.

Ultimately, I am okay with the hard swing at the moment because from experience its fairly easy to course correct as needed later with in the game. The PK rules are not 'new', they have existed in principle for a long time but have historically only been enforced by staff for a small group of players like sponsored roles. The hope is for that consideration and care to be extended to everyone, particularly the most vulnerable in our community.

If you play long enough you generally don't care about being killed and many of us do play characters which certainly deserve being hunted and killed.People should still expect to die and sometimes it will suck.

[CirclelessBard]

While killing someone is the best way of eliminating their negative influence on my plans for world domination, I will do it.

When I can trust people to get the hint that maybe they should stop pushing their luck, I won't have to kill them.

Knowing this and knowing that this is the attitude of some players: Why the fuck should I put any time into this dead game?

Setting aside that the quote is taken out of context (Tuannon goes on to write "To the point, I applaud the dialogue of more closure around role ending scenarios, it was about fifteen years over due really"), that's rather the point of the PvP guidelines: to ensure the players of those killed in PvP situations don't feel like their time has been wasted, and do feel like the ending of their character's story is satisfying. To achieve that, the guidelines offer a means of pushing that ending out as long as possible by instructing players to find alternative means of conflict resolution and/or escalation before they decide to have their PC murder another.

[Master Color]

Nothing was taken out of context. I'm responding to the words on the screen.

The only context here is that there are people here bending over backwards to try to assure to me that the players here are mature and responsible. That they will try to roll with the punches and tell stories with me. Meanwhile, I'm seeing posts that are telling me the opposite.

[Cowboy]

Murder-Corruption-Betrayal and PK

One on one confrontations on the sands is a great place for mercy, maiming or whatever.

Murder for hire.  Twenty large to kill an aid.  No further info as to why.  Bad place for mercy.

The boss told me to the "kill the fecker, so I did".  I don't know why I did it, I did as I was told.  Bad place for mercy.

Expect death.  Mistakes you make.  Mistakes other make.  Death traps.  Two meks.  Once I started to understand character deaths as new starts for other characters, it became easier to not take it personal.  Nor waste time ruminating about it.

[Lizzie]

Murder-Corruption-Betrayal and PK

One on one confrontations on the sands is a great place for mercy, maiming or whatever.

Murder for hire.  Twenty large to kill an aid.  No further info as to why.  Bad place for mercy.

The boss told me to the "kill the fecker, so I did".  I don't know why I did it, I did as I was told.  Bad place for mercy.

Expect death.  Mistakes you make.  Mistakes other make.  Death traps.  Two meks.  Once I started to understand character deaths as new starts for other characters, it became easier to not take it personal.  Nor waste time ruminating about it.

Yup. Pretty sure your character killed mine because of a "boss told me" situation, back in the days of Special Ops.  I absolutely never took it personally and thought the whole situation was crazy (and fun in a "my character is gonna die no matter how far I try to run" kind of way).  The mdesc masks - I wish weren't mdesc masks. But it didn't take away from the death at all.

[eska]

While killing someone is the best way of eliminating their negative influence on my plans for world domination, I will do it.

When I can trust people to get the hint that maybe they should stop pushing their luck, I won't have to kill them.

Knowing this and knowing that this is the attitude of some players: Why the fuck should I put any time into this dead game?

Noone forces you to put any time into this game.

Nothing was taken out of context. I'm responding to the words on the screen.

The only context here is that there are people here bending over backwards to try to assure to me that the players here are mature and responsible. That they will try to roll with the punches and tell stories with me. Meanwhile, I'm seeing posts that are telling me the opposite.

In my case, I am not trying to assure you to anything. We are all trying to create our -own- stories. If our stories go in the same path, we are good IG, if not, bye bye to one of us IG. Even though you as a player are not happy with that, it is not your place to call me immature and irresponsible.

[CirclelessBard]

Mod note:
I removed a post that was breaking the Community Rules.
Please carry on with the discussion. Thank you!

[Roon]

I think it's all a matter of the game's general culture, and the issue can be fixed that way. Not to heap all the responsibility onto staff, but for a long time, it seemed like they didn't care very much when someone was being really "unsporting" in PvP. People simply got away with it consequence-free. On top of that, I believe it's fair to say that Armageddon sucked as a game for quite a while, and this exacerbated people's lack of respect for their fellow players. If a lot of players feel like the game has let them down, it's easier for them to justify being a brat and disrespecting other people's time and effort.

If seasons live up to what's being promised, these things will probably change. Staff has said in no uncertain terms that they'll care about the way players conduct themselves in PvP, and their general approach to running the game should bring sweeping improvements to the playerbase's general enjoyment of it. Provided that this becomes reality and not just empty promises, I think there'll be a marked reduction in people who seemingly play only for the joy of PKing and don't care if their methods ruin the game for others.

This game accommodates methods of PvP that don't really leave room for much of a scene. You can't expect someone to send out a bunch of cinematic emotes before backstabbing you from stealth, and if someone's shooting at you from a distance, they don't have the option to interact with you at all. In such cases, there can be no burden on the killer to provide a fun scene for the victim. What's much more important is restraint, and having a meaningful reason for killing someone in the first place.

If I'm going to lose my character in a minute, it really doesn't matter to me if it's prefaced by a pretty emote or some dramatic last words. What matters is that it was a believable consequence of something that actually happened and could realistically make my character a target for murder, not just somebody who enjoys the act of ending other players' characters and does it for little to no reason. The latter has been far too common in recent years, and it hasn't felt like staff cared a whole lot about that.

[Riev]

When people are frustrated and ask something like "If this is the case, why should I put my time into this game" I think it should absolutely be taken into consideration that we all enjoy and want to play this game.

Telling someone that "nobody forces you to play" and "if you don't like it, don't play" is the absolute worst way to respond to people.

Can we keep the PvP in game, please, and not on the discussion board?

[Armaddict]

So I'm pretty sure I've been vocal enough about my stance that it goes without saying, unpopular as it is; death is good for the game.  The longer your PC lives, the worse the death is, almost unilaterally unless you get extremely lucky.  That isn't because of griefers, or bad roleplayers, or murderhobos, or any of that labeling that gets thrown around.  It's because this game, by design, does not make room for the 'glorious' death, or 'hopeful' death.  You have oppressive regimes, you have strong npcs, you have other players, and you have code mistakes that you make.  None of those are going to by nature, give you strong scenes in coded death.

So we, as a community, try to control what we can, to make it better. But make no mistake, in a permadeath game, -every character you apply for is also an application to lose that character.  It's a healthy thought to have in mind.  Anyway, as far as making it better, the natural focus is on PvP.

PvP is not -terrible- in the game, it's actually comparable to other games.  The difference is that it's not 'highly discouraged' or 'regulated', like in many RPIs who don't want to deal with this exact fiasco and worry about combat balancing this heavily, but it's still permadeath, unlike other games where the common behavior becomes to sit on your death cam and teabag you just to make it known that they outplayed you and you suck.

However.  Just because it isn't -terrible- doesn't mean it doesn't have -really big shortcomings-. 

When you go to a business meeting in the game, you enter the apartment, and then a hooded figure you weren't expecting to be present closes the door behind you and locks it, does your adrenaline start pumping?  Do you start using the Way to find out who you can tell, so that if they -do- kill you, at least someone knows?  Do you immediately enter into high-gear roleplaying mode when your fingers start shaking?

When you're sitting at a table with a templar and they order their half-giant to guard the exit, and starts talking about the things you've done and twisting them up into their reasons for why you're going to die, but you agree with none of them, does anything they say make it justified and feel good?  Does it feel like a better scene when it's clear that some politicking happened to pin a bunch of really bad things you didn't think you had anything to do with on you?

These are both opportunities for the killer to have to give you a real scene, but that bar of 'making your death feel better' is a -really high bar- by nature of the game. 

When you flip it around, and you realize that in case A, maybe-killer is now worried about whether he has the time to give you a scene before you alert the entire known...or maybe you're a -way- better fighter and he needs the jump on you to even have a chance to succeed.  Maybe his fingers have been shaking from the moment that you said you'd be arriving.  Maybe right now, he's actually terrified that -he- is making the big fuck-up that will result in -his- death, either now or in the near future.

In case B, that templar has a serious risk/reward dilemma going on.  They don't KNOW that you did these things.  Or they might be completely in the dark, being manipulated themselves.  They've tried to communicate the motivations before you die.  They, too, are worried about making a large mistake, but from what they've heard and been reported...there is a strong possibility of x things, and just leaving you alone is a serious hole in their plans if they're true.  That's a ton of risk for -their- story.  So they end yours.

And such is how deaths occur often in real life.  Such is how death, by nature, is.  The only place where this really steers away from that is in the retelling of stories as far as histories, the movies, and literature, which are kind of the same thing.

I apologize for the long windedness, but let me bring this back around.  So in terms of this documentation, if you were looking for less death, or good death, I don't think this is really it.  I think it urges players to not feel that fear as strongly as impulse tells them to so that they can take measured responses instead of knee-jerk ones.  But more than anything, I think it's saying 'If at all possible, make it so that they could have their death story retold'.  It doesn't mean it's always possible.  It doesn't mean that story will spread like wildfire.  It doesn't mean death will suddenly feel good.

But it means try to make death scenes better.  That's it.  I think higher expectation has a whooooole lot of baggage that gets carried on with it and will require a lot more than just some documentation and casual turd-slinging (by vagueness or direct) by the community.

I think making this always-present-but-now-documented idea known and what small changes we can make, like better recourses for combat (i.e. the mercy discussion) are big deals in themselves, and you shouldn't really knock them so hard for what they are.  Big steps.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Also it is more toxic to call the playerbase of Arm toxic.

Ah yes, pointing out the problem is of course the real problem.

[chrisdcoulombe]

Staff could bring back the mask that hide mdesc to solve this issue.

This should be an ability linked to assassination techniques(backstab or sap) which only lasts for a couple minutes after performing the attack or be an assassin skill that activates for a limited time after attacking from stealth.

It should not be an item that freely allow people to act like fools without IC consequences.

Thats an awesome idea.  It makes more sense too.  If you only get the chance to glance at someone you may not recognize them if they are masked and cloaked, but if you are around them for any length of time, you would notice their mannerisms and the way they move and recognize them as someone you know or have seen before.

[Roon]

One of the big problems with combat is that if you can't either instakill someone or actively prevent them from getting away, it's far too easy for the target to just type flee and run way the hell away before anyone can do anything about it. In nearly all cases, as soon as someone flees, they are 100% safe and their opponent has no chance of catching them again. If someone backstabs you down to 1 health, you can flee and run from one end of Allanak to the other before the attacker can act again. For all intents and purposes, we all carry The One Ring and the only way we die is if we don't have a chance to slip it on our finger.

Due to the near-impossibility of killing anyone without either huge bursts of damage that end them before they can react or a locked door to keep them from getting away, players will always resort to one of those things, and they're both kind of unsatisfying. It reduces the list of "things that are viable" to a very small number. Without one of those modi operandi available to you, you pretty much can't kill anyone. As such, players tend to design their characters with this in mind, at least when they're playing a concept that might end up having to kill somebody for one reason or another.

Over the years, various changes to the code have made it exceedingly difficult to become exceptionally skilled in the conventional DIKU melee combat skills. It is still possible, but most characters never have the opportunity to pursue it because they simply don't happen to be clanned with some old badass who's willing to spar them up (which will be even more rare in seasons, don't forget) or have knowledge of - and willingness to abuse - some very twinky methods that will get you in trouble if caught.

But you know what's pretty easy? Maxing out sap or archery or fireball, or rolling absolutely incredible strength and etwo'ing a club, or whatever else the "PvP meta" revolves around. So people resort to these, because they're accessible and they work even if you got stuck at journeyman weapon skills. And when you kill someone that way, they're not very likely to feel like it was a cool death. They probably died faster than they could type out a response.

Meanwhile, if you did make an effort to make it cinematic and go "Harhar, time to die! I've got you now! Revenge is finally in my grasp!" they will, in my experience, usually respond with: west west west west north north east east north north close door lock door. So, this game barely leaves room for cinematic deaths.

[Dresan]

Stuff

I agree there are a number of improvement that the game can make in terms of code to further support the RP and gameplay, however I have to admit that in the last couple years a number of significant changes to code have been made that have left me rather impressed. For example, the combat changes including those made to to stun weapons were very important for future improvements to overall experience. 

Unlike other games, code is often where this Mud has excelled at a bit more than other places and where I am often least concerned about. I think to both its merit and demerit this game tends to move slower in terms of policy and culture changes. I have faith as time passes more improvements will come that will address concerns around mercy and consequences of deadly combat beyond just full out knock out or death.

Some of those things mentioned here on issues with health regen and overall combat discussed further here:

• Health regen idea
• Legacy combat system

[Bogre]

If you play long enough you generally don't care about being killed and many of us do play characters which certainly deserve being hunted and killed.People should still expect to die and sometimes it will suck.

I think this is very untrue. Many of us who have played an exceptionally long time, who play characters that are often long lived and definitely have a lot of work put into them creatively generally care a lot about being killed. I might not care that it ends in a sensible manner, or that occasionally it is senseless or you might not know all the details. But that's not really the issue- it's that many times recently I have felt like there was zero consideration on the other player's part - the max karma race PC that subdued my 3 hour old char still wearing newbie clothes and started hammering into them, getting clan dumped and initiated on so NPCs could kill my character, in absentia incrimination...and in this thread you can see a lot of people who feel similarly.

I'm not against PVP, conflict, or PK. But when it's the first, fast, and most common options players choose, it's really a driver to either avoid interacting with other PCs, figuring out some other way to avoid the grief, or, like some have posted, not feeling a desire to play because of the concern some members of the community don't care about how they kick around in the sandbox.

I'm with ERS on this - yeah, you can play a raging sociopath who PK's everyone they see indiscriminately, and gloat in how 'IC' that is. But should you? That's the real question here. Is that useful for the game? Is it fun for someone on the receiving end? What does it add to a collaborative story other than one person's 'I wanted to play a serial killer and it was IC for me to PK lots of people'.

[Kavrick]

It is kinda sad to see that there's pushback against the idea of 'be considerate to your fellow players'. I understand a lot of people who seem to not like the idea of PK rules are some of the more dug-in, long-time players, but whether you agree with it or not, there are reasons why Armageddon has a reputation for being toxic among the mud community. This game is a collaborative effort, 'love thy neighbour' is an attitude that benefits literally everyone who plays the game. This coarse, un-empathetic attitude towards other players is self-destructive and does nothing but push people away from the game, old and new.

I keep seeing the strawman that's supposed to imply that people don't want PKing to exist, but nobody in this thread once has said that they think PKing shouldn't be apart of armageddon. People are just saying that you should look for alternative answers to a problem first, and that if you do decide to PK someone, at least make the roleplay experience on the receiving end be a good one.

And to add onto the above, I don't know how many Armageddon players have played other RP games that have PvP, but this is basically the standard in all of them. The idea that you should be responsible and think about the person behind the character you're killing when you do it is only a completely alien idea to the Armageddon playerbase, and even the staff have acknowledged this when you read through the new rules. The new rules are incredibly reasonable and well-written.

[Halaster]

I'm with ERS on this - yeah, you can play a raging sociopath who PK's everyone they see indiscriminately, and gloat in how 'IC' that is. But should you? That's the real question here. Is that useful for the game? Is it fun for someone on the receiving end? What does it add to a collaborative story other than one person's 'I wanted to play a serial killer and it was IC for me to PK lots of people'.

This is an excellent way to word the spirit of what we're trying to accomplish.  It is consideration for other players' stories and their time, but it doesn't mean you can't kill them.

[Agent_137]

a measured response

Well put. And Usiku said this was the 1st step and the easiest step because it doesn't require code changes. The level of interest in improvements and change on the staff side is noticeably higher than even when I was staffing in 2023.

One thing that you and Roon both touched on is the prisoner's dilemma. And I saw it a lot staffing Crimson Wind. Putting your character at a coded disadvantage in the hope the other party will do the same for mutual benefit is precisely the prisoner's dilemma. And the key assumption in the prisoner's dilemma is that the prisoners cannot communicate with each other before they make the decision.

One good way to break that limitation is giving everyone threaten and evade https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58925.0.html so players can queue up their action and be safe to type out emotes and says. Another way would be some way to communicate an OOC truce that pauses coded actions. And something I've seen in other muds is an engagement system such that being in a room isn't the same as being in melee with everyone else in the room. I'm happy that coded improvements here sound like they're now on the scale of sometime instead of on the scale of never.

[eska]

The new rules are incredibly reasonable and well-written.

That is why I said there are rules and trust the staff.

Even though I sound like a player who kills other PCs, in my many years of playing time I killed less PCs than the count of my PCs which ended up PKed.
I am not arguing that one should kill in every opportunity. But when I read posts in this thread, I kinda feel that there are people who support the idea in every situation one should give the other party another chance first. There are situations where you can choose to do it. However, this should not become a rule for PK. If you need to die and you die, just go with it.

In one case, a red robed killed my Guilder PC in a locked room using his half-giant guard to subdue me. I was furious like hell, because I was loyal and other shit and he gave me lame excuses for the murder. He probably had his own reasons. I just gave a quick break to smoke a cigarette and started creating the next character. Did I do so because I was satisfied with how well the scene played? No. My PC was supposed to die sooner or later, or I was gonna store it at some point. So I didn't report this PK.
Another hunter I played was killed at Abili Pah by two desert elves when resting. They jumped at me out of the blue and I had no weapons drawn. I panicked, instead of fleeing I drew my weapons, got bashed and mantis head in a minute. They probably planned their attack, wayed their timing, used thinks and feels. I never saw any part of it. For them it was a well-played scene. For me it was mantis head in a minute. I was furious and angry. Smoked a cigarette and went for the next character. I didn't report this PK as well.

What my point by giving these examples is, we shouldn't restrict PK in game. If one thinks that they got killed by a "toxic" player, they can report it and let the staff take care of that player. Most of those "toxic" players and staff has already be driven away. So trust your staff now.

We all want this game to continue and grow. We cannot succeed it, if we cannot trust each other and the staff.

[Kavrick]

We all want this game to continue and grow. We cannot succeed it, if we cannot trust each other and the staff.

It doesn't help the trust situation when you have some people in the community that say 'as long as pking is an easy solution to my problems, I'll do it'.

[eska]

We all want this game to continue and grow. We cannot succeed it, if we cannot trust each other and the staff.

It doesn't help the trust situation when you have some people in the community that say 'as long as pking is an easy solution to my problems, I'll do it'.

Don't just read the last sentence please.

On the other hand, what is wrong with 'as long as PKing is an easy solution to my problems, I'll do it'? This is the main reason for a death in Zalanthas, and this is valid RP.
Is there someone causing me problems? Yes.
Will they stop anytime soon? No.
Can I kill them or get them killed? Yes.
Mantis head for them, no more headache for me. The problem is solved.

[Kavrick]

Don't just read the last sentence please.

On the other hand, what is wrong with 'as long as PKing is an easy solution to my problems, I'll do it'? This is the main reason for a death in Zalanthas, and this is valid RP.
Is there someone causing me problems? Yes.
Will they stop anytime soon? No.
Can I kill them or get them killed? Yes.
Mantis head for them, no more headache for me. The problem is solved.

I read the entire thing, I just didn't have anything to say about the rest. I'm not looking to talk in circles, and I'm not trying to be rude on that, I've just already talked a lot in this thread.
Also valid rp isn't always good rp, you should always strive to be better, especially if the bare minimum of being 'valid' creates a negative experience for other people. It's valid for me to swear at a child who's being annoying, that doesn't mean I should do it.

[Cowboy]

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should!!! My wife's go to saying.  Works well in real life as well as Armageddon.

[Patuk]

What my point by giving these examples is, we shouldn't restrict PK in game.

Well that seems a little-

If one thinks that they got killed by a "toxic" player, they can report it and let the staff take care of that player.

Oh, so it should have some restrictions. Cool. Now we're just discussing the particulars, which is part of what's been going on in this thread.

Most of those "toxic" players and staff has already be driven away. So trust your staff now.

Get me a piece of that crystal ball of yours, man, because I'd love to be as much of a psychic as you are. How do you know this? How does anyone?