Discuss: Changes To PK Guidance & Helpfile

[Agent_137]

I'm excited about the changes to PvP policy announced today and detailed here: https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/PvP

As staff, I saw some good kills and bad kills. Reprimands were rare, required lots of staff discussion, multiple player warnings, and still didn't feel right. 

I was hoping to see the possibility of a Rez for a ridiculously poor PK, but I understand that's going to lead to having to say no a lot. 

Any thoughts? Will this improve gameplay? Limit it too much? Change nothing? Is it far enough? Too far?

[Riev]

I see a lot of people justifying it with "They were in my territory" or "Well I'm an elf that hates humans". With this new documentation, considering how few of our newer people understand the documentation and how few of our veterans CARE about the documentation, I don't see it changing.

But giving staff a place to point to when someone really does a shitty kill will be nice. Unfortunately, a very high percentage of the players I know only care about winning the scene.

[Patuk]

Good change. I hope it goes well.

[Dresan]

Any thoughts? Will this improve gameplay? Limit it too much? Change nothing? Is it far enough? Too far?

Its really a wait and see.

After all its not low karma indies randomly killing a PC's lover and friends. In the past, its often been sponsored(non-templar) roles, played by high karma players with the blessing and encouragement of staff just acting totally psychotic and going for the easy kills.

This problem has existed for a very long time and is rooted in Armageddon's community, its culture and even its code.

For example, it would be fairly possible for the combat code to be tweaked to promote coded conflict that is meaningful but not always deadly. For example, allowing more knockouts or  perhaps cause temporary injury if you were severely beaten.  Mercy does not have to be so damn bad and regening to full from certain fights doesn't have to be so instant with just sleep.

[Kavrick]

First step in the right direction. I know older players are going to have trouble adjusting but I honestly don't have much empathy for selfish players who'll kill other PCs just for the thrill of it, if this fucks them over then I'm honestly happy. That honest pettiness aside, It's a very good change, I know Armageddon was originally a hack and slash but everything that points towards more quality and focus on Roleplay is a good thing.

[CirclelessBard]

I was hoping to see the possibility of a Rez for a ridiculously poor PK, but I understand that's going to lead to having to say no a lot. 

I was hoping for this as well. I get why such a decision would be rare if it was a possibility at all, but not making it even a possibility seems like an error. Pre-determining this lack of arbitration may backfire if or when a situation arises where this pre-determination does more harm than good. An example would be a PK that is somehow the result of a typo or mistarget. It's currently not grounds for a resurrection, but at the same time, I wouldn't say that letting such a death stand always shows respect to the storytelling process. It might make storytelling sense in a messy brawl, but not so much if a templar is trying to execute someone and forgets that both the criminal and the templar's aide have obsidian hair.

I'm also assuming/hoping that griefing, while rare, falls under player cheating, which the "help resurrection" file says is potentially grounds for a resurrection.

It's otherwise a great addition to the game's rules and roleplaying standards.

[Master Color]

I find it weak and disappointing.

There is no suggestion of RoE. There is no responsibility for powerful characters to avoid abuse.

[Riev]

I find it weak and disappointing.

There is no suggestion of RoE. There is no responsibility for powerful characters to avoid abuse.

I wrote mine in haste, but this has the spirit of what I wanted to get to.

The rules are great, for people who care about following the rules. While the abuser will be punished, the one who gets abused must simply grin and bear it. With no Rules of Engagement or anything codedly preventing anything, it will always end up with "oops sorry".

Whenever a PC dies, there is a bit of information logged at the time of death. I have seen players move incapacitated PC bodies to a different room just so the kill-room logs as something different. These are the people who "might lose a karma".



Frankly, with staff not playing their own PCs and hopefully spending more time monitoring and playing alongside, this won't be as much of an issue. Its still a wait and see, since most staff are 'new' (or old staff taking new names to cleanse the pallet)

[Krath]

I like the new rules are written...However, if they implemented RoE, way overboard.

[Master Color]

The rules are great, for people who care about following the rules. While the abuser will be punished, the one who gets abused must simply grin and bear it. With no Rules of Engagement or anything codedly preventing anything, it will always end up with "oops sorry".

I'm not even talking about cheaters (though I found out later that most of them were).

Frankly the players that I found to be the most abusive were the ones that were permitted to be so with with explicit staff support.

[Dresan]

I like the new rules are written...However, if they implemented RoE, way overboard.

I tend to agree.

Heck, the game would be a tremendously better place if asshole A just stuck to trying to kill asshole B whom they actually have beef with. Instead of using the conflict as a lame reason to go kill that newbie crafter/newbie recruit who smiled to their enemy once in passing.

That and a hard change to mercy, full prevention of any sort of damage (including spell and poison) to hp beyond 0 from a player who has this toggled on.  Toggled on should be the default and should be reset to default after every login. Oddly I feel a change like this would promote much more conflict and violence in the game, while preventing death. Its win-win.

[Krath]

Yes and yes. 110% yes to the second paragraph.

[Halaster]

I agree with the mercy ideas too.  We'll do -something- with it at some point, hopefully not too far away.  I liked @mansa 's idea of "Tell mother I'm dead", a sort of quasi-dead state where you can still roleplay via say/emote, but can't use the way or move.  You -will- die, but it gives you a few mins to finish out your death scene (or you can opt out with quit death).

It's really a coder bandwidth/priority issue more than anything.  We'll get there!

[Riev]

I'm so sexually pleased at the idea of mercy actually working and forcing someone to actually try and kill a PC.

Unless someone has a problem with the post-kill lag they would have to experience ... but at that point you already won!

[Usiku]

Agreed, we have more ideas we want to work on, but policy and help file changes are things that we can push through ahead of code changes while we wait for code resource and energy on things. Unfortunately the code backlog is always the longest!

The resurrection policy is unfortunately just a result of viability. We have expanded the resurrection policy significantly over the last couple of years and I am always keeping an eye out for opportunities to improve it, but we do have to be very careful with it. In this instance, we simply cannot open the door to staff being expected to be the 'RP judge' on every single PK, it's just not feasible, there is no way for us to be able to make consistent and fair calls on something like that, people would constantly be dead and alive again and dead again, we would be asked to make calls on things we didn't witness or don't have all the information on, we would constantly be trying to assess shades of grey and so on.. it simply isn't possible. Resurrection policy is a tough one, it's something I have spent countless hours thinking about and countless hours debating with fellow staff over (we all care about getting it right). When you really tangle with it objectively from every angle, you can quickly understand how complicated it becomes.

My hope is that, while it might take a little while to fully come into effect, the policy changes alongside the karma changes and general RP expectation across the board will elevate the style of play and attitudes across the game and community and create an overall better environment where having that policy *is* enough.

(or old staff taking new names to cleanse the pallet)

Riev please. This is not a thing.

[Pariah]

I like it, I too throughout the years have seen entirely too many paper thin PK's, I myself tend to PK when required (Ordered by my boss/templar or someone discovers I'm a sekret witch and can't be trusted).

Hopefully this will limit the instances of "I'm a raider, they didn't do what I said, so I killed them." "I'm an elf, they looked at my ears funny." and other silly excuses.  I much prefer to just loot the unconscious body and see what happens to them when they are far from civilization and beat to shit with just their boots.

[Lizzie]

I prefer to keep the "I'm a raider, they didn't do what I said, so I killed them" aspect of the game. It's what I signed up for. It was in the docs and has been in them for decades. I've found too often that people come here thinking "oh they don't really mean that, everyone will roleplay perfectly, we'll get the exact scene we want before death, we'll be able to have closure and if not I'm sure they'll change things for us when we tell them how unfair it is."

That's WAY too high of an expectation for a game that started out as a hack-n-slash and is advertised heavily as an unforgiving world with permadeath.  People should expect the worst *for their characters* and then be happily surprised if their PC's lives exceed those low expectations. It says so in the docs.

I expect my character to be killed, somehow. The moment they show up into the game world they're fair game.  There's no "if/and/but" in that.  I might not like how Amos didn't let me SEE how he was roleplaying my character's death. But the fact that he killed her is fine by me. Apartment-killing is lame, but I figure they would've gotten me on the street instead if that was when they had their opportunity. So again - legit kill, lousy RPed circumstances.

The more we make excuses for the victims, the easier it is for everyone to play the victim and justify their way out of bad behavior, twinkishness, bullying, changing plotlines to suit their own interests, and circumventing the theme of the game to turn it into something it's not.

[Agent_137]

@Lizzie for most people this game is too much work for that low of an expectation for every pc. 


It could be different.  It's why I have long advocated for faster learning and wider advanced start.

[Patuk]

Hold on, hold on, hold up.

In this instance, we simply cannot open the door to staff being expected to be the 'RP judge' on every single PK, it's just not feasible, there is no way for us to be able to make consistent and fair calls on something like that

I distinctly recall past staff members telling us that PK was a once-in-a-week kind of event. With the rules you've made currently, it'll likely be even less. Even if every single PK ended up contested - and they won't - you'd talk about this once a week at the absolute very most.

Is that really the realm of the impossible? One such a talk a week, at absolute most?

[Kavrick]

I prefer to keep the "I'm a raider, they didn't do what I said, so I killed them" aspect of the game. It's what I signed up for. It was in the docs and has been in them for decades. I've found too often that people come here thinking "oh they don't really mean that, everyone will roleplay perfectly, we'll get the exact scene we want before death, we'll be able to have closure and if not I'm sure they'll change things for us when we tell them how unfair it is."

That's WAY too high of an expectation for a game that started out as a hack-n-slash and is advertised heavily as an unforgiving world with permadeath.  People should expect the worst *for their characters* and then be happily surprised if their PC's lives exceed those low expectations. It says so in the docs.

I understand wanting to keep things harsh and lethal, but consider three things.

1. The world is plenty lethal without rocket-tag PvP. Mansa a while ago posted player death causes and PvP was a massive minority, with Carru being the big bad iirc.

2. Armageddon PvP is just plain bad, without even talking about balance it's very easily abusable for the person who instigates. Stealth, magick and even the crimcode (which honestly protects criminals more than victims) can be abused to screw a player who's not playing in an extremely paranoid manner. This isn't even counting the times where I've seen instigators completely ignore both the virtual world and NPCs just because they know staff can't always react. On more than one occasion while playing Two Moons elves, I was attacked in the room right outside the camp, which should have resulted in like 50 elves ganking these raiders.

3. Generally in game-design philosophy, you match high-lethality with short-term character progression. There's a reason why roguelikes are a popular genre, because you go in, level up fast, experience a lot of stuff and die fast. Having high-lethality with a game that expects progression in the days upon days of playtime on a singular character is honestly just incompatible on a fundamental game-design level. Also note that I don't think this means the lethality of Armageddon overall should be reduced, because outside of PvP, I honestly think death is incredibly avoidable once you learn the game and it's dangers. The game is still stupid lethal, but it's more 'play stupid games win stupid prizes' sorts of lethal rather than being completely unfair like PvP.

@Lizzie for most people this game is too much work for that low of an expectation for every pc. 


It could be different.  It's why I have long advocated for faster learning and wider advanced start.

This was posted while I was writing and I just thought it'd be a valid reference of someone else's opinion. Armageddon can be far too much work to also expect people to be ok with dying so easily to PvP. I understand that Arm has a die-hard fanbase of people that play every day and having it be the only game they play, but this isn't a good experience for new players or for players who want to play Arm more casually.

[Pariah]

I do think the new advanced start will be nice, we'll have people who don't have to go through the vulture/chalton/scrab and so on up the line gauntlet for weeks to get survivable.

My only concern is the extreme players, there are some that view PK as something that should never happen, they are too soft, then there are those that think if they type think I want his boots and he doesn't hand them over, they deserve to die, too hard.  But I have faith that we have more people in that "Goldilocks" zone than the polar opposites.

Hold on, hold on, hold up.

In this instance, we simply cannot open the door to staff being expected to be the 'RP judge' on every single PK, it's just not feasible, there is no way for us to be able to make consistent and fair calls on something like that

I distinctly recall past staff members telling us that PK was a once-in-a-week kind of event. With the rules you've made currently, it'll likely be even less. Even if every single PK ended up contested - and they won't - you'd talk about this once a week at the absolute very most.

Is that really the realm of the impossible? One such a talk a week, at absolute most?

I would assume if someone is getting talked to about PK frequency, they are probably doing it too much, but that's just a guess.

[Kavrick]

My only concern is the extreme players, there are some that view PK as something that should never happen, they are too soft, then there are those that think if they type think I want his boots and he doesn't hand them over, they deserve to die, too hard.  But I have faith that we have more people in that "Goldilocks" zone than the polar opposites.

Yeah I do think most people have pretty reasonable views on PKing. I would say both the 'Pks should never happen' and 'Pking should be a core part of the game' crowds are loud minorities. I still think if you mess with the wrong person, get caught up in a plot or have some other good motiviation to kill or be killed, it should be completely fine. But I want something more than 'you didn't empty out your bag for me in the wavy dunes, now I'm gonna kill you on my 3 months played half giant raider'.

[Dresan]

I prefer to keep the "I'm a raider, they didn't do what I said, so I killed them" aspect of the game. It's what I signed up for. It was in the docs and has been in them for decades. I've found too often that people come here thinking "oh they don't really mean that, everyone will roleplay perfectly, we'll get the exact scene we want before death, we'll be able to have closure and if not I'm sure they'll change things for us when we tell them how unfair it is."

If the person doesn't do what the raider says, the raider can beat them to an inch of their life and strip them naked. Its up to the person's abilities and luck to make it back somewhere safe after that. Or the raider could find themselves in an equally tough spot. There is still meaningful consequences that don't always have to devolve to murder.

I think this is enough for most situations but to your point Lizzie, its up to the raider to decide and then justify that repeatedly to staff. I believe murder will still happen in this game, frequently at that, for example if you spit on a templar or noble, expect to die. But i think the biggest change is it should become much more clear on why you died.

Additionally, I think mercy should be split between PC and NPCs at the very least to avoid people forgetting to toggle back after hunting. It also keeps it from being something annoying you have to keep track of. If mercy PC is toggled off, death would happen as it is currently. The choice of killing a PC really happens at that point where you toggle it off.

In terms of resurrection policy, I am actually okay with keeping it as is, it is unfortunately a two way street of abuse here. Its jarring to the narrative to see people who died be rezzed for whatever reason, and I can only see the people getting rezzed are the people that some staff is heartbroken to see die.

[CirclelessBard]

This is a note to state that I removed a post that was off-topic. Please continue this discussion on a very important game policy change. Thank you!

[Delusion]

It is concerning that PCs dying at the hands of other PCs is anticipated to be so frequent that staff won't have time to fairly review it.

We all know about the string of dwarf PCs emerging from the dormitory in the Gaj to kill the first PC they saw sitting at the bar. No amount of karma deductions or bans will stop that style of griefing. The integrity of the game world is damaged more by nonsensical killings than by resurrection. In one case everyone has to awkwardly play around the nonsense and often adjusts their behavior based on the OOC knowledge that the griefing can happen and on what ways. In the other, everyone can accept that an event was retconned and the players of the killer dwarfs won't get the same kick out of it.