Shattered Kingdoms

I mentioned this in a couple other posts, but it wasn’t commented on.
Would you be more inclined to PK more frequently if, during happy hour, PK worked like a “mode kill” duel would work.
If you are killed, you’ll be escorted to the Duelist Guild with all your belongings.

I think that a lot of people want to Pk, but they’re too afraid to lose their gear. So giving them this small window each day would allow the storylines to move forward and would also allow people to learn PK mechanics without the harsh penalty of losing everything.

I’d think that once some people have a bit of PK skill, they’d be more willing to come out and fight when the stakes are higher and jloots can happen.

Vote and discuss.

No.

Then some people would only try to PK during Happy Hour and hide the rest of the time.

No incentives to PK when no one actually dies or loses anything, gear will not be in proper circulation, etc. I feel like it'd only make PK less likely to happen because why PK if you gain nothing from it, even from an RP perspective?

A valid argument.
But PK is fun, even if you have nothing to physically gain.
Some of the most fun I had in PK was Empire vs Ayamao with Brisbald vs Chronis.
We were only taking consumables so that there was some prize in it. But it was about asserting dominance. Not crippling the other person with a jloot.

I agree that the potential for Happy Hour Only PKr’s could be a side-effect if this.
But would you prefer frequent safe PK, with the exceedingly frequent risk-pk? Or would you want rare random 4v1 gangbangs and jloots?

Not really, no. I don't want to spend all kinds of time prepping for a PK and/or using items like wands/scrolls/vials in a PK if I'm getting nothing out of it. Seems rather pointless and a waste of time and resources.

Don't have a strong opinion either way because happy hour is 3:30 am for me, but what if there was some desirable reward for winning, like along the lines of killing warparties? Or access to special shops, like the Dragonslayer's shop?

I feel like less resources would be used during these encounters. Priest healing instead of heal vials. Things of that nature. But you’re right there as well.

I'm ok with it with a stipulation that it Doesnt count towards your hero status.

There's so little PK happening that all that "prep work" just sits in your container and rarely sees action. What's the point of lugging double heals around if you're never going to use them. I've really enjoyed PK with a few different players who I know are going to leave my corpse alone - I feel like I can try hunting them down and engage in a bit of risk without the fear of having to start from scratch if I lose. I feel most of the current pbase has evolved from the "butcher-corpse-j-all" days. 4v1 gangbangs aren't fun for anyone, unless you genuinely have a tiny [REDACTED].

Happy hour is 9:30pm for me which is when I am putting my baby to sleep or spending quality time with my family, so it won't affect me - but I don't see any way in which this is a bad idea. Players who are shy about PK generally haven't experienced a lot of it so one benefits is giving folks the opportunity to learn how to master their class in a low-risk environment. And it absolutely should not affect hero-status, which I generally think is wonky and should probably be discussed in another thread.

Personally I would love to see a mechanic that could make it easier for non-PKers to dip their toes in the water, build up some courage and skill to engage in it more. For years I've wanted to see a way to make PK more approachable for the unskilled PKer.

But I can also see issues from it that others have mentioned above. The existing all-risk PK landscape definitely favors the skilled veteran PKer who knows how to track down the best gear quickly, who has OOC friends who can stock him with consumables and keep their equipment highly enchanted at all times. These benefits can be so overpowering in the PK game that they can make a lot of less-skilled players inclined to run away or try to avoid PK at all costs. Losing all that PK-boosting EQ/consumables/allies can take potential/wannabe PKers out of the PK game for weeks or longer. Unfortunately, it tends to compound; as you lose PK, you become less capable of competing in PK, you lose the ability to hang onto decent (competitive) equipment, you die quicker and more easily every time, you often end up giving up and rolling a new character. I've seen it countless times.

You need advanced, skilled, competent PKers with ambition and greed to drive the train. There needs to be definite, tangible benefits to PK to keep those achievers invested and aggressive. But you also need a playing field that's level and safe enough that the potential/wannabe PKers also have incentive to participate, maintain, and engage.

I didn't cast a vote, because with all my years admin'ing here, I haven't found a solution that benefits both of those constituencies.

I don't really like the idea of non-generalized PK changes personally. If we think PK is too punishing, that's fine, but ideas should be directed at fixing the underlying problems, not trying to carve out exceptions to the problem. PK should be fun, and if it is, participation should flow from that.

If it's too punishing because people don't want to lose their loot, maybe limited looting is an answer? If it's too punishing because a lack of players means it's harder to get back to life, maybe people could be auto-rezzed after a few minutes on PK deaths, but they get double the disorientation or some other kind of spam death limiter

Yed said a lot of what I was thinking already, but I think a lot of the problem is just trying to find any kind of consensus on what the problem is/what is trying to be achieved.

Are we trying to increase participation by people who currently don't PvP? Are we trying to increase participation from casual PvPers? Are we trying to increase the number of 1v1 scenarios? Are we trying to increase the amount of group v group scenarios?

There are about a dozen other questions you could ask, and frankly many of them would receive entirely different answers.