A guard should NOT be invincible, but THE guard should be.

Gidorick

I've posted this in a few threads about invincible guards and I have come to really like this idea and think it would add quite a bit of fun to the game.

The general idea is that ONE guard shouldn't be invincible but THE guard should be.

Each area should have guards that are powerful for the zone. This would make it so that players in the zone would have difficulty killing the guards, but more power players could easily defeat the guards on duty.

Guard levels per zone

Aldmeri Dominion

• Khenarthi’s Roost (Level 10)
• Auridion (Level 20)
• Grahtwood (Level 30)
• Greenshade (Level 40)
• Malabal Tor (Level 50)
• Reaper’s March (Effective Level 60)

Daggerfall Covenant

• Stros M’kai (Level 10)
• Betnikh (Level 10)
• Glenumbra (Level 20)
• Stormhaven (Level 30)
• Rivenspire (Level 40)
• Alik’r Desert (Level 50)
• Bangkorai (Effective Level 60)

Ebonheart Pact

• Bleakrock Isle (Level 10)
• Bal Foyen (Level 10)
• Stonefalls (Level 20)
• Deshaan (Level 30)
• Shadowfen (Level 40)
• Eastmarch (Level 50)
• The Rift (Effective Level 60)

in the spoiler:
Through conversation it became quite clear that the answer to this dilemma is NOT to add more powerful guards.

Reinforcement Waves
When a player kills one guard they are reinforced with two guards. The death of those two would be reinforced with two each. There would be a total of 3 waves of reinforcements.

• Reinforcement Wave 1: Two guards who are twice the level of the first Guard
• Reinforcement Wave 2: Four guards who are twice the level of the first Reinforcement wave
• Reinforcement Wave 3: Eight guards who are invincible

Reinforcements could be created from the existing guards in the area. This would create buffed guards when one of their comrades are taken down. Eventually fallen guards would have to be replaced with new, spawned guards, but a mechanic of buffing existing guards could create an interesting city dynamic.

Bounty
A player should earn a very high bounty for each guard they kill.

• On-Duty Guard: 5,000 Gold Bounty
• Reinforcement Wave 1: 10,000 Gold Bounty (totaling 20,000 Gold)
• Reinforcement Wave 2: 25,000 Gold Bounty (totaling 100,000 Gold)

A player who manages to kill all guards through wave 2 will have earned a 125,000 Gold Bounty before being killed by one of the invincible guards from wave 3.

Groups of people, and guilds, would inevitably band up to wage war on the guards but would, of course, eventually fall... at which point they would have such incredibly high bounties it would take them forever to pay them off. There may be a few players willing to pretty much destroy their characters for a few kicks and grins but most of us would be deterred by the impact that killing a few guards would have on our character.

My current thoughts on this are:

To have killable guards, there would need to be larger, more dramatic changes to the justice system as a whole... and there would have to be a reason a player would kill a guard instead of just trying to run away. Here are some of my thoughts.

• Maybe killing a guard will set a curse upon the player setting the player's stats at 1/2 of what they are for 10 minutes. Each additional guard they kill would set their stats to 1/2 their current state. A level 50 character would quickly diminish from 50 to 25 to 12 to 6 to 3 to 1... and that's after killing 6 guards. Each time a player kills a guard their time is EXTENDED for 10 minutes... so a level 50 player could be stuck at level 1 for 40 minutes or so.This would discourage players killing guards. and would serve the same function as creating stronger guards... just without actually creating more guards.
• Perhaps killing a guard also reduces a player's bounty to ZERO, but increases the heat so they are Kill on Sight for an even longer period of time... but getting killed by a guard increases the bounty a significant amount. There's a risk and reward there.
• Also, what if getting killed by a guard makes the player loose XP? That could be an interesting mechanic.

All of these would create an incentive to kill guards if you get in trouble but would give the player significant reasons to NOT get killed by a guard.

The point is, I AGREE with the mechanic of THE guard being invincible... I COMPLETELY disagree with the mechanic of A guard being invincible.

Thoughts?

Mantic0r3

love it!

Takhistis

I like it, just would want that if I do manage to kill 1 guard, the others don't spawn immediately, and that I got time to flee. Else it'd still be the same where we would get killed anyway, unless we run very fast and use a lot of stamina potions

Keron

Only one question: What is the incentive for this system as opposed to the invincibility of a single guard?

If I understand your proposal correctly, the idea is that the end result (dead player) is the same, no matter which system you use. It's going to have the same effect that the existing system has: If you get caught, you either pay or run away. Fighting is useless.

Remember that ESO already does have a problem with server performance. For the time being, it is limited to PvP.

With the system you propose, how long do you think it will take until a group of trolls tries to "flood" the city with guards to crash the server?

Rosveen

Keron wrote: »

With the system you propose, how long do you think it will take until a group of trolls tries to "flood" the city with guards to crash the server?

This is why I must say no. Do you realize how many guards people would spawn? It'd get completely out of control. Add the fact that most crimes are commited in the middle of a town...

Gidorick

Takhistis wrote: »

I like it, just would want that if I do manage to kill 1 guard, the others don't spawn immediately, and that I got time to flee. Else it'd still be the same where we would get killed anyway, unless we run very fast and use a lot of stamina potions

I would think they would be "called in" so maybe have them spawn at a set distance from you. 90% of the fights would go like this.

Kill one guard... two come at you.... those catch you and maybe you kill a 2nd... while you're fighting the 3rd guard, the other two from your 2nd kill come up and now you have three on you. Two wailing on you while you try to kill the 2nd guard. Then you die.

vrine

I love this! I think there should be an achievement line for killing guards, too.

Gidorick

Keron wrote: »

Only one question: What is the incentive for this system as opposed to the invincibility of a single guard?

If I understand your proposal correctly, the idea is that the end result (dead player) is the same, no matter which system you use. It's going to have the same effect that the existing system has: If you get caught, you either pay or run away. Fighting is useless.

Remember that ESO already does have a problem with server performance. For the time being, it is limited to PvP.

With the system you propose, how long do you think it will take until a group of trolls tries to "flood" the city with guards to crash the server?

The end result is a more immersive and enjoyable player vs guard experience. Since guards are immortal and bounties are paid anyway why not just have a prompt every single time you steal something:

"You stole! You have a bounty! Want to pay it off now?"

And allow us to pay off our bounty on the spot every time? No? Why not? The end result is the same.

I'm being facetious about that, but your question about why have this mechanic because the "end result is the same" seems about the same type of argument... lets just cut out all game play and make a game where you just choose from prompts.

And the server... yea... well they need to fix that. Poor server performance is absolutely no reason for poor game design. If they ARE hindering the development of the game because of their crap server tech then they might as well hang up ESOs hat right now... game's done.

Gidorick

vrine wrote: »

I love this! I think there should be an achievement line for killing guards, too.

You know... I considered that. If there were, maybe just for killing one guard. We don't want to encourage people to siege on towns.

Sharee

Gidorick wrote: »

why not just have a prompt every single time you steal something:

"You stole! You have a bounty! Want to pay it off now?"

Because
1, you don't have bounty when you steal, you have bounty when you get caught
2, there are 2 different ways to pay it of once you have it, and one of them does not involve losing all stolen items.

Keron

Don't beat the immersion argument to death for everything. Server performance and "should, could, would" do not go together. The system you propose is prone to griefing/exploits thus it is not well enough thought out.

If anything, let the one "invincible" guard be possible to be CC'd but grant him unlimited immunity afterwards. That gives you the chance to run, but if you mess up you are (the forbidden f-word).

Same result, no possible to grief.

Gidorick

Sharee wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

why not just have a prompt every single time you steal something:

"You stole! You have a bounty! Want to pay it off now?"

Because
1, you don't have bounty when you steal, you have bounty when you get caught
2, there are 2 different ways to pay it of once you have it, and one of them does not involve losing all stolen items.

LOL. ok.. let me clarify...

When you get CAUGHT you get the prompt

"You got caught in an illegal act! You have a bounty! Want to pay it off now?"

This option wouldn't have you lose all your items. You would only lose items if you chose NOT to pay the bounty on the spot and get caught.

This is moot anyway... I was being facetious to make a point that "if the end result is the same" is not a valid argument against this system. We are playing a game and this guard mechanic would add to gameplay and give players a fighting chance (literally!) to kill a guard or two and get away.

Gidorick

Keron wrote: »

Don't beat the immersion argument to death for everything. Server performance and "should, could, would" do not go together. The system you propose is prone to griefing/exploits thus it is not well enough thought out.

If anything, let the one "invincible" guard be possible to be CC'd but grant him unlimited immunity afterwards. That gives you the chance to run, but if you mess up you are (the forbidden f-word).

Same result, no possible to grief.

Not really... The issue that people have isn't that they can't escape the guard, it's that they are invincible.

But you ARE right. People would test this system as much as they could (and make their players pretty much unplayable in the process... dem bounties)

If the concern really is that the server would be overloaded This type of system could be implemented so that after a set number of guards are killed... then they are invincible. I was pretty much proposing this anyway with the increase in damage and resilience.

So, say like.. kill one guard... 2 come at you... kill those 2... the following 4 are invincible. Like I said, it would work this way anyway, so might as well design it as such. That way players can't just throw a never ending tide at the guards, load up the server with spawning guards and BOOM.... bring it all down.

WhitePawPrints

I would find it rather annoying to see dozens of guards suddenly spawn and running in the same direction. What would happen to the guards once there was no one else left to kill? Do they just disappear or scatter then disappear?

Would I see the camps of soldiers (where there is usually one or two guards) all of sudden have hundreds?

I can support maybe if a runner went to a barracks to gather more guards. That'd place importance on killing that runner. And there'd only be a certainly amount of guards in that barracks. All depending on the city size, and current state.

Guards should be incredibly difficult to kill, killable all the same. Though if I saw a guild trying to war with guards, in a city then it'd feel... immersion breaking.

Gidorick

WhitePawPrints wrote: »

I would find it rather annoying to see dozens of guards suddenly spawn and running in the same direction. What would happen to the guards once there was no one else left to kill? Do they just disappear or scatter then disappear?

Would I see the camps of soldiers (where there is usually one or two guards) all of sudden have hundreds?

I can support maybe if a runner went to a barracks to gather more guards. That'd place importance on killing that runner. And there'd only be a certainly amount of guards in that barracks. All depending on the city size, and current state.

Guards should be incredibly difficult to kill, killable all the same. Though if I saw a guild trying to war with guards, in a city then it'd feel... immersion breaking.

That's a cool idea. I like the idea of a barracks from which the guards spawn. lol that would be funny to see the rank and file flow out of a door.

bellanca6561n

There should be a larger goal too.

As others have noted doubling systems quickly get out of hand. And players object when their routine business is messed with.

What's the object? Give a very large and organized group of players the ability to turn a town rogue?

And what's rogue status? Does it make containers lootable as they were before version 6?

Or is the goal one of those fighting off waves mechanics where the difficulty increases with each wave?

This scheme really works and has united entire game servers in a single, shared activity for periods of time. It doesn't work so well, however, in leveling games which is why leveling games struggle with large group activities and are instanced out the wazoo.

And if you can, indeed, perform a series of actions that flip the lootable container bit, how will players feel who leveling their stealing and feel they earned their items?

It could work if the vulnerable towns were outlyers - not Davon's Watch or Daggerfall for example - and it was difficult to achieve rogue status.

Large scale open tapped group activity would take place. And if a fixed number of purple items spawned in containers the moment to rogue status was achieved, but only once every 24 hours, that could be interesting.

And it would be a fresh multiplayer activity other than dungeons, world bosses and dolmens in zones.

Gidorick

bellanca6561n wrote: »

There should be a larger goal too.

As others have noted doubling systems quickly get out of hand. And players object when their routine business is messed with.

What's the object? Give a very large and organized group of players the ability to turn a town rogue?

And what's rogue status? Does it make containers lootable as they were before version 6?

Or is the goal one of those fighting off waves mechanics where the difficulty increases with each wave?

This scheme really works and has united entire game servers in a single, shared activity for periods of time. It doesn't work so well, however, in leveling games which is why leveling games struggle with large group activities and are instanced out the wazoo.

And if you can, indeed, perform a series of actions that flip the lootable container bit, how will players feel who leveling their stealing and feel they earned their items?

It could work if the vulnerable towns were outlyers - not Davon's Watch or Daggerfall for example - and it was difficult to achieve rogue status.

Large scale open tapped group activity would take place. And if a fixed number of purple items spawned in containers the moment to rogue status was achieved, but only once every 24 hours, that could be interesting.

And it would be a fresh multiplayer activity other than dungeons, world bosses and dolmens in zones.

Wow... interesting idea! Turning a town rogue. That would have to be designed so it's difficult to do and difficult to keep rogue. Could it work similarly to the Keeps in Cyrodill once it's gone rogue? Instead of other players, you have the NPC guards?

Takhistis

I can see 20man player raids going into town for the sole purpose of killing 50 guards. Sounds fun

TheShadowScout

I love the idea. Of course, I would, having suggested similar in older threads...

But I can see the trouble with huge groups of players trying to kill as many guards as possible too. Because... let's be honest, we all know that would happen...

My secondary suggestion would be, have the guards be technically mortal, same like the pvP guards in Cyrodil, but if you get one down to 25% health they get an instant-kill aedric "Fist of Stendarr" spell to use against their assailant... that way they don't damage immersion with their "invulvnerable" state, and there is an fluff-supported reason for them kicking every evildoers behind...

Saltypretzels

Great idea, but a big guild would grind the server to a halt...

Gidorick

utzpretzels wrote: »

Great idea, but a big guild would grind the server to a halt...

I know this concept couldn't be implemented as is. One guys 10 minute forum post isn't enough to consider all the possibilities, the general idea is the point I'm making: ONE guard shouldn't be invincible but THE guard should be.

Let people kill the guards but make it really REALLY not worth the effort. Making them invincible is a game-design cop-out.

GreySix

So long as you get a bounty of one million gold for killing the first guard (that means every player in on it - a bounty of one million), sure.

Vaerth

Gidorick wrote: »

I've posted this in a few threads about invincible guards and I have come to really like this idea and think it would add quite a bit of fun to the game.

The general idea is that ONE guard shouldn't be invincible but THE guard should be.

A player should be able to kill one guard but then the following events occur:

• Killing that first guard should be a feat in and of itself.
• Kill 1 guard and that guard is replaced with 2 guards that are both more powerful and more resilient than the last.
• Kill 1 guard, Here comes 2 more. Kill those? 4. Those? 8. Those? 16. Manage to kill THOSE? 32.
• Each time a guard is killed, their replacements have 50% more health and can do 25% more damage. The bounty added is also 20% greater. There is no cap on this.

Every guard should be powerful enough that only high level players should even have a shot at killing them.

Most high level players would probably get past killing 2 or 3 guards but by the time they have a dozen guards coming after them... there's no way. Groups of people, and guilds, would band up to wage war on the guards but would eventually fall... at which point they would have such incredibly high bounties it would take them forever to pay them off. There may be a few players willing to pretty much destroy their characters for a few kicks and grins but most of us would be deterred by the impact that killing a few guards would have on our character.

EDIT: There has been some concerns voiced about server load and the possibility of griefing this system where a horde of lower level players would over-run a town, cause dozens upon dozens of guards to spawn, and crash the server. To combat this type of game-play this system could be implemented with a cap.

• Killing that first guard should be a feat in and of itself.
• Kill 1 guard and that guard is replaced with 2 guards that are both more powerful and more resilient than the last.
• Kill 1 guard, Here comes 2 more. Kill those? 4. Those 4? 8. Those 8 guards are invincible... good luck. lol.
• Each time a guard is killed, their replacements have 50% more health and can do 25% more damage. The bounty added is also 20% greater. The cap would end at the 8 invincible guards.

[/edit]

The point is, I AGREE with the mechanic of THE guard being invincible... I COMPLETELY disagree with the mechanic of A guard being invincible.

Thoughts?

We can kill Molag Bal and save Tamriel but not take out a guard in a town, seems pretty lame to me.

Why are all guards Dragonknights by the way?

Gix

Vaerth wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

I've posted this in a few threads about invincible guards and I have come to really like this idea and think it would add quite a bit of fun to the game.

The general idea is that ONE guard shouldn't be invincible but THE guard should be.

A player should be able to kill one guard but then the following events occur:

• Killing that first guard should be a feat in and of itself.
• Kill 1 guard and that guard is replaced with 2 guards that are both more powerful and more resilient than the last.
• Kill 1 guard, Here comes 2 more. Kill those? 4. Those? 8. Those? 16. Manage to kill THOSE? 32.
• Each time a guard is killed, their replacements have 50% more health and can do 25% more damage. The bounty added is also 20% greater. There is no cap on this.

Every guard should be powerful enough that only high level players should even have a shot at killing them.

Most high level players would probably get past killing 2 or 3 guards but by the time they have a dozen guards coming after them... there's no way. Groups of people, and guilds, would band up to wage war on the guards but would eventually fall... at which point they would have such incredibly high bounties it would take them forever to pay them off. There may be a few players willing to pretty much destroy their characters for a few kicks and grins but most of us would be deterred by the impact that killing a few guards would have on our character.

EDIT: There has been some concerns voiced about server load and the possibility of griefing this system where a horde of lower level players would over-run a town, cause dozens upon dozens of guards to spawn, and crash the server. To combat this type of game-play this system could be implemented with a cap.

• Killing that first guard should be a feat in and of itself.
• Kill 1 guard and that guard is replaced with 2 guards that are both more powerful and more resilient than the last.
• Kill 1 guard, Here comes 2 more. Kill those? 4. Those 4? 8. Those 8 guards are invincible... good luck. lol.
• Each time a guard is killed, their replacements have 50% more health and can do 25% more damage. The bounty added is also 20% greater. The cap would end at the 8 invincible guards.

[/edit]

The point is, I AGREE with the mechanic of THE guard being invincible... I COMPLETELY disagree with the mechanic of A guard being invincible.

Thoughts?

We can kill Molag Bal and save Tamriel but not take out a guard in a town, seems pretty lame to me.

Why are all guards Dragonknights by the way?

We can kill Molag Bal because we're the Vestige; a title we gained by being "different" not because of our combat prowess.

"We can solo Molag Bal but it takes 12 of us to defeat the Warrior and Mage constellations in Craglorn, oh noes!" Again.. Vestige.

I think the various kingdoms stationed DragonKnights to fight off the sudden increase of vampires in the areas.

Laerania_ESO

The system is working fine as is, no reason (besides "brilliant" ideas) to convert the cities in zerg fests. If you like zerg fests, stick to Cyrodiil.

GreySix

Laerania_ESO wrote: »

The system is working fine as is, no reason (besides "brilliant" ideas) to convert the cities in zerg fests. If you like zerg fests, stick to Cyrodiil.

Concur. Would agree with the changes only if the Enforcer System were emplaced and criminals could not opt out of it.

Then we'd see much more cautious criminals, and the sociopaths would meet a swift and brutal end.

Endurance

those V14 guards with 5million HP are pretty easy to tank.. just dont have 5 or 6 of them chasing you

Gidorick

Laerania_ESO wrote: »

The system is working fine as is, no reason (besides "brilliant" ideas) to convert the cities in zerg fests. If you like zerg fests, stick to Cyrodiil.

I agree that it's working fine as is but I contest that it could work better. are towns Zerg fests now with killable NPCs?

Rikal

No, please. Like this game needs any more server-side performance issues.

BBSooner

Agreed I like the suggestion and is a fair compromise between "I want to be able to kill guards" and "people shouldn't be able to lock down towns". I do question the type of load this would pout on the server if there were 40 people murdering wave after wave of guards. They should be buffed by the amount of guards near them so killing more than 5 or 7 gets to be more and more impossible.

Gidorick

BBSooner wrote: »

Agreed I like the suggestion and is a fair compromise between "I want to be able to kill guards" and "people shouldn't be able to lock down towns". I do question the type of load this would pout on the server if there were 40 people murdering wave after wave of guards. They should be buffed by the amount of guards near them so killing more than 5 or 7 gets to be more and more impossible.

What if.... The guards that are "pulled" are the existing guards in the area and they just get buffs to the point of invisibility which cools down after the target is dead?

Kill 1 guard. All guards are buffed 50%
Kill another = +50% again
... This occurs for a total of 5 guard deaths then they're all invincible.