Problems in PK/guild balance.

[Needs to be edited - that's not an issue. What are the problems that lack of PK/guild balance cause?]

Solution 1: All guilds: update, put in new ratios, perhaps restrict pk-action if you are NOT in-ratio.

Solution 2: Change pkrange: -20/+35, changed by politics but, max. 35 and/or increase pkrange with pk-time/pkills/other methods. Allow the higher player revenge for 24 hours if attacked/killed by the lower level playerkiller.

Solution 3: All guilds: death penalties(maybe remove gfile-penalties entirely?), PK-rewards + a global reward, maybe 1,05x multiplier in gxp which increases by time spent pk by 0,01 until 1,1 or 1,15 cap. — Cens 2010/04/04 03:19

Solution 4 The Paradox idea: something with a near-static base range. (Let’s say 20 levels +/- just for discussion’s sake). You go pk, that’s your PK range. From there your pk range will only ever get bigger. It will get bigger in two ways:

  1. The longer you’re alive, the bigger your range. If you’re surviving set to PK for weeks of playtime then chances are you need more people able to kill you. Your range should swell as you avoid death.
  2. The more you kill, the more people want to kill you. It’s straight forward, you kill an armies peons for long enough and the star soldier shows up to smack you. Ideally, this is where the political variation might come in. Using the alliance status to decide how much to bump your pk range.

Ultimately this would let the pk ranges balance themselves (to a degree). The better you’re doing in PK the more the system will work against you. If you suck, you’re not going to be spanked even more by big huge players. A compromise in my mind. — Paradox 2010/04/04 02:57

Solution 5 Remove “ratios” from advancement, and institute code that restricts all of a player's guild abilities based on their level. — Mreh 2010/04/04 04:06

  1. So how would person get into ratio after that, solo-play? No way to do that, by partying? Heh, cultivate the idea a bit more, imo. — cens 2010/04/08 15:11

Stop striking this out, this isn't the place to be removing issues or considering solutions irrelevant. ADD Your own solutions & issues, comment on others. I suspect you don't understand what Mreh is saying. It isn't a system based on Sard quotas where your guild skills stop working if you don't level, but rather that the maximum effectiveness of your guild skills is bound by your level. (Talk to Mreh for more info, I'm not positive) — Paradox 2010/04/04 13:44

⇒ What Paradox said. Ultimately, you can just keep gexping to your heart's content, gaining guild levels and the like, but your effective guild level (not your actual guild level) is based on your player level. You aren't frozen or prevented from using skills that you are “in ratio” for. — Mreh 2010/04/04 16:52

— IMO, the “progressively more/less” glvl-ratios DONT work. At least in their current form, they have no effect. — Cens 2010/04/04 21:02

Solution 6 continuation of my text from previous section, but regarding PK
I have a few points to make here:

  1. remove pk brackets altogether … if you're pk, you're pk willingly thus accepting the repercussions
  2. remove death penalty altogether thus stimulating pk(and exploration of new territories)
  3. keep items upon death both in PK and death by a monster… for PK find some sort of award to help PKers be better at Pk, but don't punish a loser for losing in a PK match. that way people will go pk more often and without remorse.
  4. creation of specific PK events like CTF, death-match, team deathmatch in specific brackets [20-29, 30-39, etc.] — matas 2010/04/08 13:44
  1. We don't have enough players for this, again these ideas come from WoW, I don't like the idea of level 100 killing a level 20. — cens 2010/04/08 15:11

Acknowledging PK assists as a mudwide statistic:

I feel that it would spice up PK a lot and be very interesting to create a top players list for assists in PK. Every time someone dies in PK and you assisted in killing that player you would get +1 to your assist score. Then that score would be displayed in a top list (1-40) similiar to the current PKbook for bragging rights… and maybe later, rewards? [volrath] 2010/04/08 18:36

If you're looking for more accurate PK statistics why do that? Wouldn't it make more sense and be a near-equivalent effort to track the damage done by each participant in a PK match and assigning rank “points” based on how much you did out of the total fight. I.e. If it took 1,000,000 hp worth of damage from Volrath and Cens to kill Luther over a few hours of running around, and Volrath did 50% of that damage, he gets 50% of the pk “credit”. You could still track who did the “killing blow” and give a bonus for that if you wanted. Hell, having those kind of stats would probably help balance too. — paradox 2010/04/08 19:04

If you're willing to go that far, why not? :-) — cens 2010/04/08 19:55

I definitely like solution 4, the growing pkrange when you manage to stay alive for more and more time. 1 thing that crossed my mind when reading this is that a playerkiller's actions could also affect his or her guild. In both positive and negative ways. Some kind of reward for the complete guild upon killing another player, but at the same time the guild (or a specific part or range of players in that guild) could get some punishment (eg. players within the playerkillers guild that are -10 or +10 levels around his or her level would become 'huntable' ← idea that needs alot of tweaking I know). — temujin 2010/04/26 06:57

Solution 7: Hardcore Mode

Rules:

  1. When you die you are returned to level 1, your skills are reset, your solaris and guild file are removed. Quest information is retained.
  2. Your score is saved and added to a total score.
  3. A hardcore player receives increased experience, guild experience and solaris rates based on their total score.
  4. A hardcore player cannot mechanically or legally share solaris in anyway with a player who is not hardcore.
  5. A hardcore player becomes automatically PK at level 20. Advancement points are established in each guild to prevent further advancement until level 20 is gained.
  6. A hardcore player receives drastically increased rewards for success in PK.
  7. A hardcore player receives the solaris of any hardcore player they kill (including bank account).
  8. A hardcore player is affected by pkrange like normal players except the time modifier increases at a slower rate.

Reasoning:

  1. This makes the stakes higher giving an increased sense of reward and allows for the differences from Rule 3.
  2. To encourage hardcore players from sitting at a level their score is an important factor for helping them recover from a death.
  3. This mechanic could encourage players who do not have as much time to play, people who can't remember their characters information, and people who had characters deleted or banned. The score to rate increase would be efficient at first and as the rate increases more score points are required to increase the rate. In theory they should never cap their rate but have it become incredibly difficult to increase it. The range of the rate should be rather large. I recommend 200%-2000% however this has not been tested and the rate for solaris may not be the same.
  4. The hardcore player would require solaris more quickly then a normal player and thus must generate it faster. The amount they get would be altered after they pick it up. The solaris basically would become another type of solaris that normal players cannot handle or interact with in order to prevent and overflow of solaris in the economy.
  5. This gives hardcore players some breathing room when getting started. A point in each guild will need to be determined as a maximum point of advancement prior to 20.
  6. Because of the risk of death is certain in a PK duel for someone involved PK for a hardcore player must come with increased reward.
  7. This is part of the increased reward. For many players solaris will be a limiting factor in their advancement.
  8. A hardcore player is a target for everyone.

Benefits:

This would basically create an “Arcade” version of the game to play using mechanics already created. This would appeal to people who play more casually or like increased risk.
There would be less emphasis on guild balance as a player could change their guild upon death.
The hardcore score totals can be used to increase competitiveness and an alternate method of dealing out punishment.
People in certain level brackets of the pkrange would have a better chance of getting PKers in that bracket over time.

Problems: 

A point in each guild will need to be determined as a maximum point of advancement prior to 20.

This will be impossible. — Luther 2012/11/26 12:07 

  It's not an impossibility because its in no way intended to make an even playing field for PK at 20. It's just to be fair for people who are newbies so they have a leg to stand on. Glvl 20 in AT, HK, Fremen, Glvl 30 BG, Glvl 200 Ixian, Glvl 15 Tleilax, Glvl 30 BGW, Glvl 300 FS, and for HM you could just put a gxp limit. This is just saying to people "This is as far as you can go safely".