For the sake of clarity: When I say 'you' in this I an not being personal Chazz - read it as 'PvP community', though I will try to use PvP community often to make it clear there are no personal attacks here. I respect your beliefs and your desire to keep the game going. I just happen to fundamentally disagree with you on almost everything here.
Belaric........ You stubborn stubborn man - Listen and most of all Read Carefully here Patronising much? - Not a good opening Chazz. - For any Bounty Hunter in the game to accept a Bounty their must be one placed on the bounty board first. <-------- Read this over and over if need be. <---- You are not helping me with this nice slice of condescension thrown on top. Make your point, don't try to talk down to me. And no that is not insulting you, that is pointing out your tone to me.
Right now - the bounty board allows for soft 10 stam clears or rough 100 stam clears but nobody is really hitting anyone due to lack of gold on hand and lack of incentives around the general area concerning PvP. <------- I hope you understand the point. I understand the point you are trying to make. Actually we have no idea how many gold hits are being made as nobody has any faith in the BB being fair and so may not be posting bounties. Is that clear enough? I'm sorry if I'm being spiky -but you cannot be patronising with each comment and not expect push back. Your point is not established fact. I understand it may be a factor. I say again that people being discouraged from posting and being driven away from taking bounties is a significant part of why the BB is dead. In addition to the gold factor you mentioned. I would like HCS to release the stats on gold hits per day done in the system versus bounties made. (They are a gold sink after all) That would show us if there is a discrepancy as I suspect, or if PvP is as inactive as you say.
If it is as inactive as you say - then - and this is a question you have not answered though I have asked it in a number of ways already - what do PvP players do all day? File their nails? Why do PvP guilds persist and thrive as yours does, if there is no PvP activity?
Cui Bono baby. There has to be some benefit. The established norm has been a dead BB - I must conclude that the PvP community likes it that way. I may be wrong but you have done nothing in your previous answers to dissuade me of that belief.
Does the dead BB actually benefit the PvP community? I think it must or you would not have tolerated it for so long.
But back you your points, I may be getting ahead of myself here.
By allowing a PvP free for all in a " Do what you want system" even where the Bounty Hunter can do as they please No they cannot - they can only do as the poster of the bounty asks. EVER. - Even than they still need to accept the Bounty first. If their is no Bounty - than their is nothing to accept - regardless of how much stam vs XP is lost. So you are saying PvP players will stop playing. No hits of any kind will be made. You'll go on strike. Let's see it. You are making a threat basically that you'll all leave en mass if this idea got implemented. Just because you'll get hit back for making hits and won't be able to counter bounty anymore. This does not square with the years of rhetoric I have heard from the PvP community that levels don't matter and dancing on the BB is fun, that playing a human opponent is much better than 1234R. Currently you don't get to dance on the BB much at all - this idea gives you the chance to do that. All this will do is create a higher incentive to destroy what's left according to the BB there is very little left to destroy, and yet there are still plenty of PvP players in the game. How do those two things square? You have yet to answer that question. - and warn others that if they attempt to play in PvP they are promised to lose their levels NO Matter how well they " TRY " an defend them selves on the bounty board. Lets take this apart a little. You are saying you cannot defend yourselves on the board. (The TRY) in your gray text) I thought the PvP community liked and craved the challenge, that it was part of the fun of PvP for you. Why do you think you will be steamrollered on the board? Is it because the PvP community knows, better than most - how one sided the conflict truly is? You say that they will be promised to lose levels. In the current system people are supposed to lose levels - it is the 'risk' of dropping 5. It is my submission to you that not many levels are being lost at all because the BB is not being used, nor is fit for purpose. This suits the PvP community fine - less risk, more freedom to hit. It just leaves the rest of the community with a bad taste in its mouth. By discouraging people from bountying and driving off BH's the PvP community has removed risk, by an large, from its side of the equation. Risk only exists for those who challenge you on the board. They get delevelled regularly enough - why is what is appropriate for them not good enough for you? Logically No One will PvP and anyone who does will just lose levels and become a Bounty Hunter or pure Leveler and this concept would destroy what's left - Not enhance any of the aspects around it.Not logically at all. Man - if PvP players are actually afraid of conflict and competition why do you do it? Is PvP just a WIN button? Not much more challenging that 1234R hitting the unprepared when you are ready. Monsters get 2% hit chance too.
If you WANT a challenge, if you WANT to show your battle scars, you'll hit anyway. PvP is supposed to be in your blood. We can talk incentives. Take the gold sink out of PvP - have the gold stolen go 100% to the thief. I've mentioned others up thread. Make the bounties to lose multiple levels expensive enough - Chazz your math even if cut in half creates very generous bounties which are affordable to the posters at every level as an incentive for people to BH. And existing PvP players will not only be on the board - you can BH too, and given your experience and skill (which you seem to be downplaying further up this comment) you will be very successful at it. In fact BINGO - I've just seen an abuse you can profit from - a guildie or ally hits someone - gets posted - fat bounty goes up for 3 level loss - you collect it. Your buddy gets the hit - you get the BH gold. The ecosystem thrives - as long as the person posting feels they got their money's worth - and that is where the careful calculation comes in. This system even gives you two forums to show how badass you are and how little you care about levels, how much you enjoy taking on another human opponent. The PvP community is supposed to be the fearless ones - the rest of us are accused of being afraid of the BB, yet you seem convinced that losing 3 levels will be the end of your world.
In fact I'll be honest and say this really irritates me - you Chazz sound uncomfortable in the face of losing up to 3 every time. But we have been told for years that PvP players regularly risk losing 5, it was part of why the PvP community is more badass than the rest of us, unflinching and unafraid. Yes this system increases the likelihood that PvP players will lose levels. It will make the whole community happier and more comfortable with PvP and checks and balances on pvp will enter the game at long last. Currently the PvP community polices the PvP community. That has not inspired trust in the wider community. If you care about the whole community you'll go for it - as you can still hit - you can still dance the BB which is what has been held up as the highest and best form of PvP in game in these forums, and you can still regain those lost levels. Non PvP players have been lectured for years about how regaining levels is no bad thing. Now - in the face of losing up to 3 per bounty, you are backing away from the idea. It is counter to the entire ethos the PvP community has presented over the years. As has been said, in many ways over the years to non-pvp players - sack up and take your hits buddy. You want PvP, you'll get it, and this time it will be Fight Club, not an easy win off an intimidated and cowed populace. I challenge you to go for it. Your community will increase.
Counter bounties are vital - they offer those on the board a means of defense defending yourself on the board is not a means of defence? Counter bounty is not defence - it is retribution - which is rich considering the person on the board is the original aggressor. Do you have a right to retribution when you made the initial hit at your leisure at a time and with the gear and buffs of your choosing? - which even in your idle system I do not see where you get this idleness from - unless you believe the whole Pvp community will leave - I think your view is too bleak, and you are too invested in the current system - no surprise as it gives you advantages in game - can you admit that? Can you admit the current system systematically advantages PvP players who get to hit and counter bounty, 100 stam their enemies, 10 stam their friends - if their friends even get posted. Can you see that this system is unfair to the general population? I'm still not saying it is an evil plot - it is the way the BB has evolved through use, but now it does not work. wouldn't mean much - Just say sure go ahead and Counter Bounty - it doesn't matter when everyone will 100 stam you LOL Sorry Chazz this makes no sense - there would be no counter bounty in my system. <---- Just propose removing PvP from the game altogether and keeping the spare change in ladders - don't paint pretty pictures of a united community in this topic you can't it's unjust - it's unfair - YES it is BIASED - and totally false. That, my friend is your assertion, and I believe it is baseless.There is clearly PvP in my system and incentives can be added to make the initial hits more attractive. Given my suspicion that far more hits are made than get to the BB any added incentives will make PvP more attractive all around. You can benefit from being BH's too, just as I said - at worst the BB would be no more dead than now - and how is that a good thing? I have asked a few times - is the dead BB an advantage to PvP players? I think it is. The PvP community is not willing to admit it.I can't make this point any clearer to you or anyone else. I'm sorry for my lack of communication and limited ability of illustrating a point - a point that is clear - You want to Burn people at the cross for taking part in what maybe an aspect you your self have not totally got involved in, and don't know much about.At last - the I don't PvP argument. I accept that completely - you can ignore my opinions on that basis if you want. And those who read this discussion can come to their own conclusions as to who has the better side of this story. Burn people at the cross - hardly. Punishment for aggressive in game activity - which was what the BB was originally created to do. The PvP community has claimed to be good with losing 5. Sometimes. It seems in practice the risk is very small as so few bounties get posted. Chazz has his reasons for this, I have mine.This way PvP players only lose three, and a fat bounty would be available to your friend to clear it. Not everyone will be able to afford 3 level bounties all the time. More gold enters the system - new players start out trying it and BH's then may switch codes. It seems you want to keep it a closed shop on the BB. I'd like you to be honest about that, as honest as you want me to be about killing PvP. I think it is clear from my ideas that I do not want to kill PvP. I do not think you have convinced me that you do not find a tamed and toothless BB entirely to your and the PvP community's liking.
You think we have a lack of Bounty Hunters or something and the real problem is we have a Lack of People who PvP. If you give more people the chance to BH without being counter bountied off the board you have more people PvPing. QED. Unless PvP player do all decide to stop playing en mass. Cutting off nose to spite face springs to mind - but you would all be free to take that path. We - the Game - The COMMUNITY needs people - more people to take part in this aspect I completely agree.- NOT fall victim to it <----- We can't get people to line up like the Germans did in WWII and expect people to show up. Dude. A reach. Nobody will be lining up - they'll be hitting people - for the gold with more incentives for the THRILL the PvP community insists is so infectious, and yet we do not see any evidence of that on the dead BB. ONE bounty as I type. So do you like the thrill of a skilled opponent, or do you like easy pickings? From this conversation is seems to be the latter, given your conviction that PvP players would be unable to defend themselves on the board. Things don't work like that in the real world or in game and to think so is insane - it's total anarchy What we have now is one special interest group dominating one area of the game - PvP players and the BB - you don't want to give up your monopoly - I am not surprised. This is not anarchy - this would be imposition of laws and customs for all, clear and unambiguous. No more codes, no more unwritten rules, no more Dead BB to hide behind. There is no anarchy when limits are set on punishment. There is no anarchy when the outlaw quite rightly is unable to place a bounty on the agent of the law. There is no anarchy when people at all levels feel the system is FAIR and they no longer have to accept being random victims of PvP attack, suck it up and move along. That is my belief as to the current state of play in the game, and it has been for a very long time., and I feel will hurt the game. You know what I think hurts the game? PvP at low levels - it has been pointed out to me that those are the levels at which the current system breaks even or makes a profit most easily. new player retention is the hardest thing in this game. A few hits early on to retard ability to grow an develop a character will, in today's saturated game market, drive folk away. We are cutting ourselves off at the ankles. And I believe PvP is part of the problem. Crappy map system too. If players at all levels can see that whoever hits them suffers actual, real, adverse consequences as a result of that hit, they will have more faith in the game and keep playing. Why do you refuse to see this? I don't want to ban PvP even at low levels (up to 150) where it might not be such a bad idea - I want more folk to play to demystify it. But making it fairer on both sides is key. You, understandably think that you have surrendered enough over the years. I think the wrong battles have been fought and the wrong changes made. This imaginary system of mine is fair. To everyone. Or at least fairer than we have now. <----- This is not fear of me losing levels - this is common sense - the community doesn't have enough people taking part in PvP now - Than anyone that does PvP you want to burn them on a cross and offer to put their name on a billboard for top rated moron lol LOL! Nice joke! But again I feel you are being hyperbolic. The altenative is now - PvP players get to hit who they want when they want and suffer very little real consequences - it is anarchy - and the PvP community benefits because there is no curb on your actions. Understandably the PvP community likes it this way. the rest of the population, which is slowly withering, does not. And further your lawlewssness may be slowly killing the game from the ground up, just as the BB was slowly killed off. There - I can do hyperbole too - and it might be true! LOL! But even better and what's funnier is you expect people to line up saying here I am wheres the gas I was promised? What's that rule about never invoking the nazi's? You've done it twice by association now. Never a sign of a strong argument. I don't think the people of this game or any other game would go for this idea. I know you mean well dude and it's sort of noble as I know you personally don't mean to harm the game or anyone but it's the road to hell as I've said before. We can agree to disagree. We do.
I'll say it one more time.
IF the PvP community stands by its long enshrined ethos that levels don't matter and can be regained, and IF the PvP community actually walks the walk of saying that they like the challenge and thrill of active player versus active player conflict, THEN they have nothing to fear from my ideas. Play, fight human opponents on the BB, have fun - it might cost you some levels here and there, but they can be regained. More people will PvP as a result.
IF, however, the PvP community likes easy hits on unwilling targets who won't bounty them, likes to win guild wars through the use of allies and the BB, likes to counter bounty and gang up on individuals who hit back, and likes to hide behind unwritten and flexible codes that allow you to justify your passion - which is hitting the unready target, not the prepared opponent, THEN keep the system as it is, but do not expect any respect for it, and do not expect any sympathy when you have the temerity to complain that the BB is dead. You, my friends, made it that way through your own actions - you counter bountied the opposition into submission. You have won. Enjoy the victory.
HCS has the stats. It could put my argument to bed. What is the rate of 100 stam PvP attacks made daily versus the number of bounties posted daily? If there is little discrepancy, then maybe PvP is dead just because, and I am a mad conspiracy theorist - if there is a large discrepancy - then the BB is revealed as unfit for purpose in the current system. Look back over the last few weeks to get a realistic picture of activity - if you can. It may be illuminating.
Finally - Chazz I like you in game and admire your passion. I agree to disagree. On other topics we have and will again agree and work together to make ideas better. This time we have disagreed and made our ideas and positions clearer - even if we cannot reach agreement or fully appreciate the other person's viewpoint. Others can read this and see what they think. HCS can read this and see what they think. You and I both want a healthy thriving community. We will not always be on opposite sides of an argument, and I think that is a strength, not a weakness.
Belaric
- Chazz