Hi everybody.
I'm thinking with the new PvPXP system that is coming down the line, that some problems/ideas have popped up about gold hits. This is an idea of mine to deal with the gold hit realm.
First – there are many ways to hide/use gold usefully in the game and minimise hits, so new players should be able to learn how to minimise the damage done to them by gold hits pretty fast. These have been listed many times.
BG has said just hit back when you get hit for gold. Fair enough. But I think that does not cover all eventualities, so I have this proposal.
Second – if XP cannot be taken to grief other players, the next best thing is gold, so we may see an upswing in gold hits. I am not saying XP is/was taken to grief other players primarily. I am just noting from what BG has said that the HCS position seems to be that XP loss via PvP hits has led to a loss of player volume. HCS would like to see less players lost via XP hits, so they are seriously considering a new system of PvP that removes XP loss. That is my inference and my perspective only.
So third – in my view we’ll need a gold hit BB, separate from the PvP XP BB.
Because the PvPXP game will be separate, and have separate and distinct benefits from simple gold hitting. I have ideas about that - but that is for a different thread.
I think in future when you access the attack player menu you should have the option of Gold hit or PvPXP hit. This allows players who don't care about PvPXP rating, but who want to try to make money pvping, to have that freedom. But with that freedom comes possible retribution. For gold hits that comes on a gold hit BB.
How to handle the gold hit BB?
I think, similarly to Yodamus’ idea for the PvPXP BB, that it should be automated.
I think automating the BB is ESSENTIAL to making it work for everyone, and to make make it fair.
Currently many players over many years have asked why they should lose gold twice due to a gold hit, once due to the hit itself, second due to having to pay for a bounty to be posted. The current BB is not that active (dead is a word used many times by many players) – reluctance to pay twice may be part of the reason for that inactivity.
My idea would be that a player is posted to the gold hit BB only after she has hit enough times to SINK X amount of gold. The reward is then posted by the game for this now notorious gold thief. The reward is a % of the amount of gold she has sunk. (say 75%) This means the gold hit BB pays for itself, and gold hits are preserved as a gold sink. Yes, less of a gold sink than now – but I think composing (for instance) more than replaces the gold sink function of gold hits. The only way to know is to try it and see how the gold-FSP market responds.
How much gold needs to be sunk should be based on the gold thief’s level. I think it could be worked out something like this: the gold thief’s level x gold dropped by monster of same level x Y (a random number of monsters of that level killed) = the amount needed to be sunk – as a for instance. The cows could work out a ratio. This could provide an increasing value of gold required to be sunk by gold thieves of increasingly high level, which seems fair to me.
Thieves could work out how much to hit and then stop to avoid being posted which would make their thieving self-regulated. If there is no time limit on crossing the threshold they either stop hitting, or accept an occasional bounty. Again – how frequently this happens in practice could be adjusted if people are being posted too frequently. Some variance could be put into the threshold of when a player is posted to make such calculations difficult to judge. The main point is that is should still be possible for a skilled gold thief to profit by thieving, but it shouldn't be an easy road to travel.
What would the gold thief lose on the gold hit BB?
Why good old XP! I say this only if the attack ranges for current PvP are kept for gold hits in the future system. As levelling out of a gold hitters range would remain a prime strategy, beyond getting rid of all ones gold, to avoid further hits. Therefore the gold hitter losing XP on the BB would help her victims escape her attack range. And there would need to be multiple victims most likely for the gold sink threshold to be hit. If the gold thefts never sink enough gold to trigger a bounty the inference is that the gold thief is not doing enough to break another players game.
Further, to avoid simple repetitive hits for harassment purposes being covered by the excuse of “It was a gold hit – I’m not doing anything wrong!” I would propose that gold hits cannot be undertaken on a player who has on hand say 10% of what they could earn in gold from mobs of their level x their current max stam. So if people do keep their gold levels low – they cannot be hit for any malicious purpose. A gold hit has to be a hit to gain gold, not pester someone. Again – the threshold qualification could be varied, I'm just saying 10% as a starting point, for argument's sake. And yes – this would mean that those guys with 250K stam banks could probably carry quite a lot of gold before being hit – their reward for sinking so many resources into getting such an absurdly large stam bank.
There you have it – my idea for a gold hit bounty board – automated, and activity regulated by the gold hitters themselves.
No counter bounties, before anyone asks. The game has generated the initial bounty. In fact the gold thief has generated her own bounty by stealing and sinking gold. The only person losing XP should be the gold thief. She done the crime, she does the time. (and then gets to earn gold regaining her lost levels! Bonus!)
Yes, this does mean 2 Bounty Boards. One for gold, one for PvP XP. 2 types of BH medal, BH lists etc. etc. (I think all current BH qualifications would count towards BOTH new tallies) Is that workable for HCS? Their call. I think to make things simpler in terms of what is allowed as a PvP hit vs a gold hit this might have a chance of working.
Thank you for reading. This went long, as usual.


