Middle Ground :- Banditry

[Etherdrifter]

Currently in salem the majority of people, when met with negative action from another player, lose everything. Their home and their progress (forcing a fresh start).

This suggestion aims to :

1. Make murder a more costly course of action (the loss of a main character is not easy to replace)
2. Encourage banditry, light raiding rather than total destruction
3. Give alternatives to murder, forcing the victim to make a choice.
4. Provide pvp experiences with strangers that are not decimating.
5. Stem the flow of ragequits.


Skill Adjustments :

All players with murder will now obtain banditry.

Murder now requires banditry and 100 C&D, 70 Fai&Wis, 80 L&L

Outright murder (without any scents) places a debuff on a player. I would suggest something that lasts 3-4 days and is relative to the strength of the character murdered.


New Skills :

Banditry
Requires : (same pre-requisites as murder has at the moment but with frontier and wilderness at 60 instead of the 40 L&L)
Effect : Unlocks Mug
Notes : Mug is a "money or your life" option, if a player has over 150 silver within their inventory all of their silver is given to their mugger and they are teleported to boston with 0.1 blood. Otherwise they are killed. Leaves a scent.

Raiding
Requires : Banditry, 80C&D, 50 Fai&Wis, 80 Frontier and wilderness
Effects : Unlocks raid
Notes : When raid is used on an unconscious player the victim is given a choice, your land or your life. Land : If the victim has a claim worth over a certain amount per month (and has at least one months silver within) the victims claim is drained of silver and cannot be refilled for 24 hours, the attacker is also given a unique tracking option for 1 hour pointing to their victim's home and gains 10% of the silver from the claimstone. If the victim does not meet the land requirements, they are killed. Life : The victim is murdered. Leaves a scent.


Conclusion : Murder is still there, hopefully making you think a bit more before you use it. Other options are there (which offer you a decent personal gain). It will likely encourage people to carry money with them to prevent a low level murder, it will also encourage people to village up to protect their claims against raiding.

[iotuegli]

mmm if i have a claim big enough i can "give" it to the guy who KOed me? and if i only have a little 5x5 claim? omg i'm going to die... poor newbies

[Dallane]

sounds stupid and unnecessary and ultimately does nothing to fix the problem you think is there that isn't.

[Spazzmaticus]

Personally I'd like to see more incentives in either acting non-violently or fighting in random skirmishes that don't by necessity result in murder. As it is, running away from people is always the best strategy as opposed to talking or engaging in combat. That fosters a very anti-social game world and also give no real benefit to fighting without alts.
Not quite sure that the proposed changes would really alter the dynamics of the game if you take murder alts into consideration, though.

[Etherdrifter]

fix the problem you think is there that isn't.

Oh my gods, you are right. There is no problem at all. Salem is the most successful mmorpg around.

http://www.webatrocity.com/salem/poptrack.php

Next time you speak do make sure you are talking about something you understand. For the good of all of us, except the ones who left because of people such as yourself

[Dallane]

fix the problem you think is there that isn't.

Oh my gods, you are right. There is no problem at all. Salem is the most successful mmorpg around.

http://www.webatrocity.com/salem/poptrack.php

Next time you speak do make sure you are talking about something you understand. For the good of all of us, except the ones who left because of people such as yourself

I'm sure the thin skinned people knowingly playing a PERMADEATH game are leaving faster because of pvp and not glaring issues elsewhere.

[Borgins]

Yeah I have to agree, this game is advertised as crafting and permadeath I don't think anybody is leaving because they can die.

[Dallane]

Yeah I have to agree, this game is advertised as crafting and permadeath I don't think anybody is leaving because they can die.

Exactly thank you

[Eniac]

No just, just no. The skills of murder are perfect the way they are right now.

[kruskdamangled]

I actually think that just limiting it to Silver creates a problem.
I'd also include inventory items in general, and clothes.
Many clothing ensembles with good artifacts and lots of them are worth more than silver.
People just don't carry it around all the time anyway.
It would also "save" puny newb characters because the bandit would beat them up, rifle their pockets, and then take clothes or something, but not kill you.

Thinking about Mount and Blade, a game in which you can get robbed, maybe you only randomly lose one, or a randomly determined number of items you are wearing when someone does this to you.

So they can still screw you, but they take a much less severe count, and get Stuff.

This would encourage people to at least keep SOME money on them, and wear SOMETHING, and not just go around like a naked jackass.
You'd be risking something in a conflict, but not necessarily your character, but also potentially gaining something if you beat someone up and robbed them.

Maybe their could be a precedence order on "jacking people". If someone had absolutely nothing, it wouldn't be possible, or it would just kill them, and the top thing would just be Silver, so someone could go around with money just as a "don't kill me MAN" buffer, but not risk their clothes because the most you could get was the silver. It could really be weighted to either prefer giving the mugger the most valuable, or least valuable stuff first.

But yeah, I'm thinking Silver would be a first good step because it's logical, and portable. Or you could just say "this clothing item/artifact is worth X silver in the system". Ergo, the mug option will prefer stealing it".

I mean, whatever works best, really. My main attraction to some combination of clothes and silver is that it's something you bet in that kind of potential encounter, and a potential goody that people get for mugging you, that doesn't involve as severe a count as killing you. I mean, people might want to kill you, yeah, but that would be more a pure spite thing, or something to use on an enemy of yourself or your town. You take the serious heat for really screwing someone/eliminating a serious enemy.

You want petty profit, just mug them.

Hell, we could change the current system to "everyone can jack you if you are unconcious, and they can take EVERYTHING" or "people with the right skills can do it". Then they could have an option to just leave you be and let you go back to the capital or your plot and not take a count for murdering you just because they wanted to rifle your pockets and maybe take your pants.

Or can people already take equipped items? The wiki suggests this is not possible if you are knocked out, but I know it's wrong fairly often.