viable model for pvp within one's own faction

Post » Mon Jul 02, 2012 1:39 pm

The Trust System
So all out pvp is unfortunately unviable due to douchebags and griefers in general but there is way to get around this. When you join a guild, when you group up, when you share a quest, it is because you trust someone. You trust them not to stab you in the back; this is because that is exactly what they can do when you enter these situations. By only allowing same-faction free pvp in situations where one would normally never have reason to use it, and in situations where it will have real consequences, we make it much less common and much more potent. For example, anyone in the same guild may attempt to kill each other but have no reason to, unless treachery is afoot, or someone has been slighted. Even in this case it is not an immediate or definitive end to the situation because of the organic (not game enforced, but player enforced) consequence of being kicked from the guild, fined, or killed yourself.
Entering a trust group may also enable an untrused group, or only an untrusted group, for example any dunmer in the morag tong would have free pvp against any members of their own faction who are in the dark brotherhood, and vice versa. Ideally, any group markers or pvp flags would be invisible for maximum intrigue and discouragement of random pvp; one could only reliably attack another of their faction after getting to know them as a character and becoming aware of their allegiances, perhaps even making allegiances of their own to suit.
While discouraging same-faction pvp is the idea, at the other end of the spectrum it is possible that guilds would develop which are little more than constant internal battles. In certain circumstances, for example bloodlusting orc war parties, the ever divided great houses of the dunmer, and the politically unstable kingdoms of bretony, this would be acceptable.
The primary intent of this system is allowing for the backstabbing and double-dealing amongst adventurers and mercenaries that we all love reading about in pulp novels throughout the elder scrolls series, without at the same time enabling griefing asshats that would run through town squares killing anyone and everyone they can.
In other words, to make treachery a possibility, but one that requires so much more finesse, forethought, and actual effort than the typical "lol I ganked u" that we are accustomed to in modern mmos.
What say you?
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kyle pinchen
 
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