I won't go into details as of what Battle Fatigue is in real life, although THIS sums it up pretty nicely.
The TL ; DR version, is that a person loses efficiency, in a statistical way, depending on the amount of battle and / or injuries they have accumulated (along with other things, that are too dark to elaborate).
This can be emulated with a Trauma mechanism in the game, so death has some consequences that go beyond material loss and punish people who actually went looking for trouble, as well as make assassins something more than just glorified bounty hunters.
This suggestion covers :
1. The logic behind it. 2. The suggestion of a powers system on a timer. 3. Ways to overcome it faster via emergent gameplay and player interaction.
Without further ado, here we go.
1. The Logic Behind It.
Discouraging mindless PvP and turning the game into a bloodbath. While a Bounty System is welcome as a precaution, as a good fella in Discord pointed out "I am not worried about the Bounty System, it will only bring more content for me as a PvPer, it's a reward for PKing people more than anything".
So how do you make that person think twice before going after you? What prevents them from going into a killing spree?
That would be a skillpoints loss system, right?
Well, wrong. Skillpoints are like your money in-game, they are there as a "save" button, they are there to signify your progress and "power", in an abstract way. They should be secured.
But what if there was a way to take away efficiency, without taking away skillpoints? And well, money are meant to be spent anyways.
That would be the Trauma mechanic.
2. Powers on a Timer.
If a person dies once, they suffer a Trauma debuff, that is chipping away a percentage of their attributes, which are linked to the skill training system, as skills are operating on increasing the bonuses of a person's attributes, while attributes are there to justify how fast a person learns skills and what skills they can learn.
For this suggestion, the percentage loss for the first death off of a person's attributes, is 1%. I know it sounds very small, but it's for ease of understanding more than anything.
When a person dies, they suffer the Battle Trauma debuff, which is on a timer of 10 minutes. It sounds very little for one death, BUT, if you die again within that timer, your Trauma increases in duration and intensity.
The equation for the timer is :
(BattleFatigue-Timer)^(times of death)
While the Efficiency Loss beyond the first death, is :
[ (Efficiency Loss Percentage) + 2(times of death) ] / 100
This means for the first death, the equation is :
(10 minutes)^1
Timer is 10 minutes. No biggie, 10 minutes with 1% attributes loss. That will make your 100 Strength character have 99 Strength, who cares, right? Well, thing is, certain skills, require certain attributes, and attiributes assuming the Devs went the EVE way) take time to learn depending on your attributes. So a 1%, equates to a certain extension of the training timer to fill up.
But if you die AGAIN (somehow you fell off the stairs or something, I'm a Twerkmotor, not a fortune teller) within 10 minutes, the timer begins to look something like this :
(10 Minutes)^2
[1 + 2(2) ] / 100
So, you got 100 minutes of Trauma, at 5% efficiency ratio. It's still fine, it's 1 hour 40 minutes of 5% less effciency, it's not something devastating, it's not the end of the world. Maybe you'll log out anyways, and by the morning you will be feeling fiiiiiiiiine.
But somehow, you die again within the timer ( Fail Hard 2 : Fail Harder , Evil Stair had its way again).
Timer begins to look something more like ... erm, this :
(10 minutes)^3
[1+ 2(3) ] / 100
I'll save you the hassle, that timer is about 2/3 of a day long and it is for a 7% efficiency loss. You might say, "that's not too bad, it's only 7%", but then again, that equates to skill training taking longer, so that one week, is more like 2 weeks more on a high level skill. It is punishing :|
But for some unknown reason, you went for the lucky 4th time in a row and died.
That would be 1 week worth of trauma, for 9% efficiency loss.
But no worries, Emergent Gameplay is here for you. Time to get to the Doc Mitchell's house to patch your noggins up (if you get the referrence, you are Cazador-proof then).
3. Ways to overcome it faster via emergent gameplay and player interaction.
Many a person in these forums, have asked if they can build medical centers. Well, with the Trauma suggestion, they can be part of the gameplay in more ways than just a med-kit vending machine.
A medical skills trained person, has the ability to reduce or even remove the Trauma, via the level of their training and of course, the material costs behind it, either by producing medicine that can counteract the effects of Battle Fatigue that cost a lot, depending on their effectiveness, or via Elements that heal the injured fella.
The twist is, Doctors can only affect Physical attributes, like strength, endurance, agility and dexterity.
But I hear you say "but what about Mental attributes?".
Enter the Bar. No really, there should be bar in the game :|
Not exactly bars, but alcohol can be used to reduce the Trauma timer for Mental attributes, like memory, charisma, intelligence and perception. The twist is, you can't get too much alcohol at once, otherwise you get poison damage (because logic) and also, you get withdrawl, which affects your physical attributes in a very very minor way compared to Trauma.
This will reinforce the social aspect of the game, having people take time to chill as they wait for their Trauma debuff to wear off, possibly in a bar in-game, or by drinking on their own. Can't force people to have social interactions if they don't want to.
Afterthoughts.
This will also create venues for players of more ... RPish backgrounds, to have a legit reason for being in a bar, rather than w/e RP people do ( I don't know, I'm not a turbonerd :| ) , as well as hospitals being legit places to be built and of course, NOT being attacked via interfactional agreements on Laws of War (if there are any).
This opens up also the economic and politic aspect of the game. Logistics for war, take a whole new meaning. A person that does not die and has a high KD, becomes recognised in their organisation as Cost Efficient, as that guy or gal is melting people without dying, not requiring new armor every time after dying and of course, not costing a heckton on Trauma therapy, not to mention, their character being drunk or in alcohol withdrawl debuff, that needs another medicine to make it go away.
This also opens up the Drugs Industry in the game. Drugs are much cheaper to make than high-tech medicine, but they cause you SEVERE withdrawl effects (gotta send the message out there people, not everything is as harmless as weed). The Empire of Baconstone, may have an issue with its troops being unreliable bacause of them drugs they use to avoid paying for real medicine that's non-addictive, therefore banning them, thus needing them smugglers to fly in to capitalise in that sweet sweet revenue of illegal tradings. It's far more a legit and organic way of banning drugs in-game, rather than "I wantz drugz illegalz by Devz".
Politics though are not limited to that. The good ol' tactic of "STORM THAT HILL, THROW MORE MEAT INTO THE ENEMY'S GRINDER" takes in DIMINISHING RETURNS. Every time your soldiers die, they lose their armor, and they lose efficiency. You may have the money to support their armors, but the medicine costs begin to pile up.
Defenders become more weary and they are on an efficiency level as well.
If a faction relies in attrition warfare, they will have to tax people who are not in their fleets or armies, thus politics, take off on a whole new level, as people start protesting on the Protection Bubbles having more Rent, sales taxes going up and in general, Emergent Gameplay of rebellions.
My name is Last and I'm an alcoholic.
I see so many nice people on here introducing themselves, I figured it was time I did. I'm really looking forward to this game. I'm an asshole. I plan to rob, steal and kill and just be a general douche. I enjoy good old fashion pvp and even more I enjoy non consensual pvp. If there's a way to piss people off...I'm all over it. I also like exploring, building and the color green. I'm pretty new around here but I hope to get to know some of you guys really well. I love you guys:) jk but for real.
Found out about this game yesterday - I had been watching some E3 trailers which got me thinking about games I really used to enjoy playing and it got me reminiscing about Star Wars Galaxies. This in turn led me to research some up and coming MMO games and I landed here.
I'm mainly excited about the player driven aspects of the economy and city building (generally anything non-combat), but most of all just wanting a solid community!
Speak to you all soon
Found out about this game yesterday - I had been watching some E3 trailers which got me thinking about games I really used to enjoy playing and it got me reminiscing about Star Wars Galaxies. This in turn led me to research some up and coming MMO games and I landed here.
I'm mainly excited about the player driven aspects of the economy and city building (generally anything non-combat), but most of all just wanting a solid community!
Speak to you all soon
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