In many games, it is standard to present a killer with some sort of trophy (even if inert or invaluable outside of sentimental reasons) when scoring a kill. Star Sonata's own game systems, where Gear Glue or gear dropped when a player died, implemented a crude form of this that kept a lot of killer-style players engaged. I don't see any reason why we can't leverage an existing system (black boxes) to produce PvP trophies. The suggestion is basic: when you die in PvP, you drop a blackbox that only the player who killed you can scoop.
#When killed in PvP, drop a black box for the killer
neat mountain
merry drift
I agree with this, similar to Dog Tags in Tarkov. Would incentivize a little more pvp lol
honest lichen
Does it need to be a drop or an item? I guess you're just after a record of it. But need some way to show it off I guess?
neat mountain
Yes. It can't be understated how important these trophies are to killer-archetype players. Right now, at best, a killer can hope for a screenshot of some salt in a chat or elsewhere.
Trophies are important. The systems to do so already exist within Star Sonata.
Plus, it gives us a historical record of PvP as well.
There are black boxes in the game that are years and years old. Get enough of these and they tell a story. 🙂
I think it helps if the memento is personal to the target, somehow.
honest lichen
I mean -- Let's say we went full hog on this. We could create a pvp kill log. So no "blackboxes" involved. The information could be automatically logged and saved as part of your character, just like skills or other things. There could be a UI for it in the client.
neat mountain
That would be even better.
I was trying to suggest a system that already exists, so as to reduce development effort. Blackboxes are very close to being killmails in their own right.
honest lichen
Yeah, they are.
signal wagon
give us ship wreckage!!
nah i was the one that brought it up in the meeting, i think the end result was jeff didn't like it
neat mountain
I guess that's as official as any. 💀
true vale
I think there was a memory issue with storing and loading too many black boxes
quaint gorge
Just not inspiring - black boxes were created to explain why bases blew up and a list of inventory.
neat mountain
A personalized ship fragment would also be fine
true vale
Maybe we can just fix glory
lone escarp
I think a kill log or something like that would be more than enough
neat mountain
Glory is too impersonal. You can't show where you got or lost glory easily.
signal wagon
yea just a basic "you killed x on x team at x date
neat mountain
A good trophy is easy to link to a player.
signal wagon
nothing complex
neat mountain
(It need not be a physical item. It's just a token you can present as evidence that it happened.)
signal wagon
bonus points if you can get the ss client to screenshot the moment when it happens 😉
honest lichen
Just not inspiring - black boxes were created to explain why bases blew up and a...
All it is though is an item which can store some text. All the interaction you have with a blackbox is generic features we reuse elsewhere.
true vale
If it's just a token with no names attached that's no different
signal wagon
runelite (one of the offical clients for osrs) has automatic screenshots for events like that
honest lichen
"offical" 🤔
honest lichen
Lol. GG HD plugin
neat mountain
I think adding some sort of trophy would improve PvP in a way that is hard to articulate. It's an intangible --- the sensation of there being no reward for PvP has more to do with the lack of evidence that the PvP happened at all, and less to do with the monetary compensation.
signal wagon
its cool to look back at the history
this suggestion does something similar, something more sophisticated than gg 20 stacks
but a homage to the good ol days
neat mountain
In SS, it's quite possible to die, get back in your ship, and pretend nothing ever happened. There are huge fights in this game with likely close to zero evidence they ever took place.
I think that's a loss, in a way.
honest lichen
nah i was the one that brought it up in the meeting, i think the end result was ...
Do you recall why Jeff didn't like it?
signal wagon
nah he didn't really elaborate
we could try to raise it again
with pvp being one of the focuses atm he might be more inclined to listen
honest lichen
Yeah, could do.
signal wagon
quaint gorge
Item spam
signal wagon
automated screenshots!!!
quaint gorge
Not that kind of game
signal wagon
there's very little pvp in ss, thats not a viable excuse imo
quaint gorge
Jeff said UI or website would be better
true vale
I still like the idea of reworking glory. Maybe add a glory log that tracks your glory sources
signal wagon
my bindo storage has way more items in it than pvp for a few unis would generate. lmao
honest lichen
Jeff said UI or website would be better
I'll do it?
signal wagon
sounds good
lone escarp
I think using the current glory system would be good, and expanding it into a log that keeps track of how you gain or lose glory.
quaint gorge
As long as it's not an item
honest lichen
Let me just add it to my list right at the bottom, lol.
quaint gorge
I think using the current glory system would be good, and expanding it into a lo...
This was what was highlighted ideally
neat mountain
The main requirement is that there's a record of who killed who, when, and where. You can add additional details like what ships were involved to make it more spicy, but even the basics would do more for PvP than any other change in the last 10 years of SS.
A trophy is a PvP reward. It's the PvP reward, in many cases.
honest lichen
Is there a purpose to the glory though, if you have the log?
true vale
The glory is just a number to glance at and get an idea
neat mountain
Glory is like a score. The issue is that Glory, being impersonal, is extremely easy to game.
It's obvious if you are killing yourself if the trophy specifies that.
honest lichen
Yeah, just farm an alt for it, lol.
But then the trophies need to be public in some way.
To verify.
true vale
Hold bases on low level alts, farm glory
neat mountain
A trophy of you killing your own character is worthless, because you can't show it off.
These things do not need to have any in-game value whatsoever
honest lichen
A trophy of you killing your own character is worthless, because you can't show ...
Only if someone knows it's your character.
But, not really what I wanted to get at.
neat mountain
You could make a Discord channel that just posts kills from in-game using a bot, maybe with some sort of delay
😄
But I'm sure that would get abused at some point
quaint gorge
That'd be funny
honest lichen
If I have 200 glory, but 100 of them are farmed from alts. Unless you look at the trophies, no one is going to know. Enabling looking at the trophies requires sharing that information publicly in some way where all of them that can reviewed.
quaint gorge
Oh I remember
neat mountain
Bobbo, I think you have the right idea of what a system like this entails
quaint gorge
Meeting was to just add kills to event chat
neat mountain
I mean, even that would be more than what we have right now.
true vale
Chat messages are temporary though
quaint gorge
Not as exciting but that was the short term thing
neat mountain
This is low hanging fruit. It will do more for PvP than any other change in the past decade or more, even if you keep it simple.
Sometimes simple things add a lot to a game.
true vale
What are you going to do with it, take a screenshot?
neat mountain
Sure. That's something. Screenshots, however, are less juicy than a public record.
signal wagon
right now there's nothing to screenshot besides the person in a spirit or pod
since even tchat doesn't show your own kills lol
quaint gorge
Yeah event chat of player kills (not ai) would be good
honest lichen
I think maybe as a MVP. Add a recent kill log, just going back through the 25 most recent kills in AI bases. And then a kill log tab in the character dialog where you can see your entire history.
quaint gorge
That'd be cool too
signal wagon
sounds good
true vale
25 most recent kills, globally?
signal wagon
any record at all > none
honest lichen
25 most recent kills, globally?
Yeah
neat mountain
Just be aware that if you update global kills real time, you can basically reveal player's locations to other players for PvP-related purposes.
That might be OK, though
quaint gorge
Ew
honest lichen
Only if we show the location though?
true vale
Maybe give it a delay
true vale
It shows online status
neat mountain
The location is important, to be honest. It helps establish context.
true vale
I wouldn't mind showing location if the delay was long enough
honest lichen
Although I guess it's actually not that bad.
neat mountain
I mean, if you show the location without a delay, it's a way of escalating PvP
Like, people could sit there and watch the feed, then head to where the action is
honest lichen
We had similar conversations about the emp system
signal wagon
being able to login and check the bulletin board would be interesting as well, for non pvpers
you'd be able to kind of check up on the activity, gauge if pirates are active recently
and it'd be a talking point for people to engage with
honest lichen
Yeah.
signal wagon
definitely would give people a way to notice deadly pirates or active wars/bvbs
honest lichen
Maybe rather than 25 most recent then, 25 most recent up to a week or so.
So if the list is empty, you know there's not much going on
neat mountain
Players in EVE do this constantly using kill heat maps, which the game itself provides
It's one of the main anti-piracy tools for content runners
I'm all about stealing good ideas. 😄
signal wagon
runescape tracks a permanent kills/deaths record per char for pvp area
quaint gorge
MVP is probably just an event chat message tbh
signal wagon
doesn't care who you kill, but it does track it
neat mountain
It would add so much. The game would instantly appear more alive to new players that dock and see the kill records, PvPers would have something to gloat about, content runners can predict danger using the records
signal wagon
that would also be better than te nothing we currently have
neat mountain
Like, the number of positives here are insane
true vale
A heat map for pvp activity would be neat
neat mountain
Home sweet Home 💀
true vale
Maybe sone kind of filter for the in game map that adds a color to hot gals
signal wagon
i like the idea of 25 to 50 of the most recent kills on a list somewhere.
show player name/team killed player name/team in x galaxy on date
honest lichen
What information would you want to see in the log (MVP or otherwise)?
neat mountain
I would keep it simple.
quaint gorge
Location is a bit weird.
neat mountain
Location is an important part of the context of a kill. Removing it removes a lot.
true vale
Maybe it can include assists? If other players contributed damage to the kill
signal wagon
yea, need it for context
quaint gorge
Its not really immersive to have something tell you fights. And it drives weird behaviors.
signal wagon
immersive lol
not having a single clue of whats going on in the universe around you isn't very immersive either 😉
neat mountain
EVE online, the greatest space sandbox ever implemented, does this. It tells you exactly where the kill happened, who was involved, their setups, blood type, etc.
honest lichen
So, victim, your team, their team, location?
quaint gorge
Takes forever to get anywhere in eve
signal wagon
sounds like a good basic start
quaint gorge
Not really same thing
signal wagon
we can expand it later on if things go well bobbo
honest lichen
Takes forever to get anywhere in eve
Sure, but it's useful for us to see what places are PvP hot spots.
quaint gorge
I disagree there. That's the system directing then instead of players
honest lichen
I disagree there. That's the system directing then instead of players
I meant for us internally.
quaint gorge
Location wouldn't be public?
neat mountain
You could be more vague and state the layer
honest lichen
Location wouldn't be public?
I think we could, or could not, share it, or be vague about it (e.g., just give the layer name).
quaint gorge
Layer is probably okay
signal wagon
i mean if possible you could let the killer "claim" the kill on the board and make more info public
neat mountain
You can evolve a system like this to be delightfully detailed and complex. I would just keep it simple for the first iteration
honest lichen
Yeah
true vale
Could we have separate boards per layer maybe?
honest lichen
Probably not worth
neat mountain
You'd need a huge amount of PvP activity in a game to justify that.
honest lichen
Yeah
signal wagon
if it worked like the current scoreboards where you can click "show more" to see older kills
start with 10 or 25 or whatever, and let us expand
until whatever the cutoff would be
that'd be cool
then maybe end of uni you can post all of the kills this uni
as a recording/history thing
true vale
A sorting feature or a filter. Like you want to search for a specific player, team, layer, etc.
signal wagon
i love games that info dump during resets
while ppl wait on patches, give them things to read
this boss was killed x times
x player got x kills
this many augs were dropped this uni
quaint gorge
That's pretty data intensive
quaint gorge
Some of it
honest lichen
Well, I've typed stuff up in my to do list.
signal wagon
so post some of it 😉
soon jey will hvae the player scoreboards back
we could start tracking player kills on that too lol
honest lichen
soon jey will hvae the player scoreboards back
Soon™️
true vale
I know some games that give players a yearly stats dump for fun
neat mountain
@honest lichen You're the best. It's sometimes easy to forget how connected each of the player archetypes are. I think there will be a chain reaction from doing something like this that can do a lot of good for the game, even if it sounds ominous at first.
Like, people need stuff to talk about in-game. A kill feed? That's social gossip 101
true vale
Given we have everyone's emails we could auto generate it and send it
honest lichen
Lol
signal wagon
uhh
honest lichen
Yeah
signal wagon
so we can track it easier later
emails should be for game promotions 😉
like hey we released a new zone, or reworked a class
big stuff
or SPEX
soon tm
last i knew spex was done, that'd be a good one to email people about
being able to login lapsed p2ps as f2p, try the game again, maybe farm credits and buy spex
seems good
quaint gorge
We probably going to slow roll SPEX so it doesn't break all at once
Especially with real money involved
honest lichen
Not really topical.
quaint gorge
Also yeah
signal wagon
you right
bobbo where pvp record
name it something paxian themed
keep it thematic
neat mountain
Assuming this is happening, I'm super excited for this. If Bartle was right about anything at all, the positive effects this will have on the game will be substantial.
It's a small thing but it goes a long way.
honest lichen
bobbo where pvp record
it here
quaint gorge
Bobbo's list is 10 miles long. Don't expect fast movement
honest lichen
eyy we got the funny number
signal wagon
contradicting yourself just for fun? i see
quaint gorge
I meant in general. We re still manpower chokepointed
honest lichen
The thing is I fill my list with stuff like "This'd be cool" and it's like, two weeks work or whatever for that one thing.
neat mountain
I think the return on investment for a feature like this is borderline illegal for the time you need to implement it.
Again, it will do more for PvP than any change in probably the last 10 years
signal wagon
it brings back the trophy feeling of gear glue
honest lichen
Again, it will do more for PvP than any change in probably the last 10 years
If it doesn't you're KoS.
signal wagon
without bringing back gear glue
jira loves being kos bobbo. i doubt you can dent him though 😉
quaint gorge
DevAbuse
honest lichen
I'll use my Mad Scientist.
neat mountain
I literally volunteer
honest lichen
lel
neat mountain
If you implement this, you can come kill me and get the first entry on it
nova oracle
What about a systemwide “shout”. “Player x defeated player y in galaxy insert name here”. Some games do that. Of course that might discourage scared players from heading that way
honest lichen
If we done a system wide shout with the galaxy, we'd be broadcasting locations which might not be ideal.
quaint gorge
Yeah.
signal wagon
ye already discussed, slight delay good
neat mountain
It does not need to be a long delay. Just long enough that every fight doesn't instantly turn into a dogpile with every PvPer in the game beelining it to that system.
(It might be desirable for that to happen eventually, just not immediately, maybe.)
honest lichen
lol
signal wagon
anything dying should be like a blood scent activation, everyone runs there to fight lol
neat mountain
Well, the cool thing is that Bobbo's proposal covers that as well
signal wagon
yea, can eventually do that
neat mountain
Plus you can easily see if a big fleet battle is happening somewhere
signal wagon
no delay and layer specific
nova oracle
Having every pvper beeline would make for interesting battles
signal wagon
if they weren't already on the same team i'd agree xd
neat mountain
The long term effects will be positive. I'm strongly convinced.
harsh tusk
Eve style killboard
lone escarp
You know what would be even better? If killing someone in PvP counted as 3 deaths. And as long as someone that hasn't already killed them doesn't participate in killing them again, it will count as 3 deaths again.
signal wagon
thats not at all what this suggestion is about lol
we're asking for a killboard, not make pvp more punishing
quaint gorge
Yeah not a fan
nova oracle
As lemon said if all the pvpers are on one team why bother. Most of you don’t want pvp at all. Too many of you rage log if you get pvped. A lot of discord tears get shed. PvP is just… fun. Griefing is stupid.
neat mountain
I still think that some sort of kill trophy is a good idea. 🙂
quiet forge
As lemon said if all the pvpers are on one team why bother. Most of you don’t w...
That's the thing though; PvP is fun for you. It's not fun for me, simply because I do not care and wish to engage in it. Thats the base issue always, who gets to impose their wishes onto others. Do people have to accept being mauled by angry PvP'ers when travelling around in their AppWard, or do PvP'ers have to let peaceful players doodle past without being able to assault. I think SS has a pretty fair middle-ground on PvP where if you don't want to engage in PvP you can mostly avoid it. Anyway, sorry for that little sidestep in this thread 😄
nova oracle
Pvp. It’s not for everyone. I’m not sure I’m adequate to mollify your concerns having been on the receiving end of an whooping and the giving end before. My opinion is what deters most people from it is when those few who sit and grief people do so much griefing it becomes unfun for the one dying and they think long and hard about logging in again
I was pretty excited about this new emp system because in the past you had to prove you could hold on to being emperor. It was a let down due to lack of opposition. This isn’t an election or participation trophy event. It’s pixel battle for a title very few on this game have gotten. So it should be looked on as a pretty nice feather in the hat
leaden raven
Could we have this discussion had elsewhere? Let's try to stay on the topic of something happening when players die in pvp e.g. a black box or a killboard
compact depot
I agree with the black box idea and relate it directly to dog tags in Tarkov.
They should be pretty worthless to sell (so as not to encourage a mass PVP onset). Just a trophy item and memorabilia
harsh tusk
I vote for an Eve style PvP killboard. Is there a negative to this happening?
lone escarp
It's called time required to implement
harsh tusk
Are you able to speculate on the effort required? The kill BB seems to utilise existing game mechanics? Could a killboard not just be fed by event chat or something?
honest lichen
For what I pinned, probably a week or two of work for me.
lone escarp
But it's not going to be done in a week or two, he's working on other stuff.
neat mountain
I vote for an Eve style PvP killboard. Is there a negative to this happening?
It's important to note that players, not CCP, implemented the kill boards
honest lichen
Yeah, last dev meeting I basically laid out my plans for the next like six months, lol.
neat mountain
The original eve killboards had you manually upload the killmails
It wasn't until later on that they made an API for them
If the data becomes easily available to us as players, we will make one
harsh tusk
Ooh yeh I remember that... Manually uploading after a big fleet battle
honest lichen
Man, so 2004s.
harsh tusk
If the data becomes easily available to us as players, we *will* make one
Is the data there in a presentable way that we could access?
neat mountain
Right now, there is zero data
that's the reason this suggestion exists
😄
There's like, informal screenshots of event chat or people in spirits, and glory, which is useless for telling any sort of story
honest lichen
nice rhyme
harsh tusk
But the game captures the data somewhere right to present the "X killed y" in event chat and trigger the gain/loss of glory?
honest lichen
Yeah, but aside from things like our activity log (as in "the logs" when we investigate bugs or exploits) it's almost immediately discarded.
harsh tusk
Instead of discarded, could it be exported to a community owned database?
honest lichen
I just added a thing to also have it on the webserver, so you can write bots or whatever to grab it.
lone escarp
ETA: 2024
honest lichen
Shhhhh
lone escarp
I'm just trying to set reasonable expectations
harsh tusk
I was expecting 2026>
honest lichen
@neat mountain If you're happy with all this, could we perhaps close this thread so we can stop having the same conversations over and over? :P