PVP-Dead.

[Durandal]

This is a topic I've put some serious thought into and have advocated for changes in regards to, many times over the years. We have a serious stigma towards actually shooting each other in this community, in a game which is, mechanically, centered around shooting other people. Or trading to buy things to shoot other people with.That problem is heavily reinforced by the fact that there are actual consequences to death in a meta sense, despite there being no consequences from the lore half of things. It also leads to a dispicable amount of misunderstanding regarding the "PvP = RP" stance. I believe that this stance is true, but I think both sides have forgotten what that actually means. With this in mind, before we delve into the mechanical and meta aspects of this thread, I'm going to get a little philosophical.

PvP = RP was a mantra coined by players who preferred to roleplay their characters through their actions rather than their words. The meaning behind the statement is that a Navy pilot logging on to engage a Xeno with the bare minimum two lines of text is, in fact, a valid way of playing their character. There are many people, myself included, who believe that sitting down and having a conversation with their mortal enemy in about 99% of circumstances is the least in-RP action that they could possibly take. The attitude that this mantra is meant to engender is that more speech oriented roleplayers should not consider their immersion to be broken by more action oriented roleplayers. It was never meant to apply to larger concepts such as fights having lasting IC consequences. Any consequences of a fight are, have been, and will remain under the volition and consent of the battle's defeated parties. There is nothing forcing anyone to kill off their character, wound them, inflict lasting damage upon their ship, et cetera. Likewise, nobody is suggesting that characters should be invincible in roleplay either. Only that such losses be voluntary, as they have always been.

Enter meta.

Despite this correct, sound, and sane philosophy being so prolific throughout Discovery's more combat inclined caste, there's always been an unwillingness of more speech oriented players to adopt the now decade old mantra. It should quickly become apparent to anyone that the only true loss suffered by these players is their removal from the system. Nobody is forced to consider the aftermath of a fight to be valid roleplay, only that the engagement itself be considered valid. No characters, ships, equipment, or credits are lost. The only two deficits possible can be those of the ego and those of time. The former is not something that can be corrected with rules, but the latter is entirely malleable. All that the mechanic of 4.1 serves to accomplish is to stop fights from continuing indefinitely, and even whether or not that's something which should be deemed unacceptable is entirely open to debate. What is not up for debate is the negative consequences that rule 4.1 brings with it, which are as follows.

- Players who are less interested in Freelancer's combat, or were involved in a non-combat activity at the time of being engaged, are effectively locked out of a part of the game, one which will likely be an activity hub.
- Players who are less skilled at Freelancer's combat and wish to improve have less chance to participate and thus improve, while players who are already skilled benefit greatly from their ability to survive.
- As a result of these two earlier points, these two types of players are more likely to engage in maneuvers largely deemed to be in poor spirit by more combat oriented players, such as planetdiving, outnumbering their enemies to the point of creating no-win scenarios for them, or simply logging off rather than choosing to combat a force of equal size. I feel the need to reinforce yet again that this attitude is detrimental to server health, yet nothing has been done to combat it.

The longest a single combat scenario typically lasts on Discovery is at about 45 minutes. For the sake of not rocking the boat simply because I would actually like to see this thread affect change, let's say that we wish for the meta of one group decisively winning a fight rather than engaging in an ongoing battle to remain the status quo. In this scenario, the timer can be safely dropped to 45 minutes. Why the bare minimum of 45? Because instead of providing a negative reinforcement (don't die, don't die, don't die, don't die), it provides positive reinforcement (kill them quickly, kill them quickly, kill them quickly) to the combatants, which I think results in a much more exhilarating experience. It still provides a reward and incentive for putting time and effort into training, and still gives less skilled players a chance to rejoin the battle if the more skilled side does not manage to clean house in the allotted time window.

But I think we ought take this one step further.

While I do think PvP (a game mechanic) locking others out of trading or mining (other game mechanics) is perfectly reasonable, I see no need to apply that to speech. Beyond breaking a certain level of immersion (yes, us PvPers do experience that) by having PvP dead characters undock and speak near them, no harm is actively done by allowing people to remain in the system to engage in speech based roleplay, imploring me to strongly urge the community to back my following proposal.

4.1 If you die whilst in a PVP situation, in any form, you are considered as ''PVP Dead''. A PVP Dead player must:

Leave the system the fight took place in for two hours. You must not carry cargo while doing so and must not engage in any player interaction while you are leaving. Other players must allow a PVP Dead player to leave the system.
Not re-enter the system they died in on any of their characters for two hours.
Not attack the player/players they died to on any of their characters for two hours.

4.1 If you die whilst in a PVP situation, in any form, you are considered as ''PVP Dead'' for 45 minutes, unless a different time period is defined in the system's entry text. A PVP Dead player:

May re-enter the system only to participate in text based roleplay or to spectate an ongoing battle and must not trade or mine.
May be considered a valid combat target after a grace period of 5 minutes after being given a chance to leave the system they were killed in.
Must not enter combat in the system the fight took place in or re-engage the characters they were killed by in any system.

Much time and care was put into articulating the ideas expressed in this post, and while I do value additional input on the matter, I believe the strongest chance for any rework of rule 4.1 will be one proposal backed by the entire community, and I hope I have made a strong case for that proposal being this one in the writing of this text.