Use of Justice Virtue - Proposal

This post is to discuss and see interest in the idea of using the Justice Virtue for the possible feature suggested below:

1. Justice Virtue is tiered just like Compassion and Sacrifice
2. How you gain Justice virtue (to be discussed)
3. use of Justice Virtue will allow a victim to challenge a murderer to a 1v1 duel at Brit or Moongate dueling arena if victim was recently murdered (within last 2 mins). and Victim does not get to rez first.
4. Justice virtue can be used maximum of 3 times per week at max level, 2 times per week at medium level, and once per week at beginning tier.

Scenario 1 - Victim wins duel
Victim gains head of murderer (put in their backpack), and then both parties are returned to 'safe' zones (randomized to prevent abuse by 'stalking' the pk's possible location).
Both parties in this case receive all their items back (pk gets all his gear, victim gets all his gear)

Scenario 2 - Murderer prevails again
Pk receive head of victim, and perhaps a change to loot victim's corpse?
Both parties are then returned to a safe zone (randomzied to prevent abuse by stalking pks possible safe zone)


Requirements:
This could only be invoked by a BLUE player who is killed by a RED player within 2 minutes of death, and before blue player is rezzed. (there should not be any chance that a blue can use this to 'retaliate' against the red. But challenge them to a 1v1 no rules duel)

Red player would NOT get a chance to opt out. If you decided to murder somebody, you need to wonder if it is worth your risk to be challenged.

Blue player cannot have any short term murder counts. (this could be resolved by fixing it so that killing any blue player sets your justice virtue to 0). Blue players would still be able to 'kill' blue griefers, but if they chose to, they would opt out of the justice virtue until the short terms are cleared.


ready, set, DEBATE!

Ideas for gaining justice:

1. return the head of a current PK to any guard at Yew's Court of Truth compound. You get the bounty (if any) plus a set amount of Justice Virtue points

2. Randomized spawning Brigand/Assassin NPC's linked to Court of Truth message board which stealth around in the world. These NPC's would be a higher level of difficult to kill and would only be attackable and would only aggro somebody who 'accepted' the bounty quest. Return the head of the NPC to the Court of Truth

Seems interesting and I definitely agree that the Justice Virtue could be applied to some sort of benefit versus murderers.

I don't agree that the murderer cannot opt out of such a scenario. Unless of course on loss, there is no statloss. If they made their kill and got away clean, there should be no forcing them into a box to potentially get killed (this is their worst possible place to fight), with statloss.

If it's a no loss game, aside from head/bounty(?) then perhaps I could see that being feasible. They already had the chance to loot when the murder took place, so no looting in or after the match.

Perhaps invoking Justice, if you've built up enough, you could get a report of where murders have happened in the last 15 minutes or so, but no more recent than 5 minutes (enough time for a loot/escape).

Maybe at a high level a platinum reward for actually slaying a murderer and putting them in statloss of 20 counts or higher (read = not worth it to self-farm), if you turn in their head for bounty?

I agree 100%. Stat-loss would have to be suspended so that there could be no opting out, but also no abuse of the system to 'bait' Pk's in the stat loss.

this would also be an excellent use of the Battle Arena's that Telamon worked so hard to implement.

The only problem i see with that is if the blue who was killed invoked the justice virtue right after death and you had no time or chance to loot the body, so if the red wins the 1v1 they should get the right to loot the body.

Also since this is the justice virtue why not gain in the virtue by turning in the heads of reds that would make PVP blues go out hunting reds themselves.

Given your scenarios and requirements, it seems a red would always have to wait 2min before looting a blue victim's corpse. Otherwise the red may loot weapons/armor, thus sending the blue into a duel without said items.

The only problem with this is how is a bard going to challenge a PK to an arena battle and even hope to win that encounter?

I like the idea snaggle had for the means in which to gain Justice, collecting reds heads would get blues more interested in hunting PK's, but there would have to be some other use for Justice as a virtue because IMO having a PvM toon challenge a PvP toon to arena combat does not seem to be a benefit to the individual seeking Justice. Getting PK'd twice would simply add insult to injury.

Interesting idea, but a few logistical issues.

1) if I just died, won't I be relatively naked when entering the duel arena?
2) if I just died, what are the odds I'll be able to prevail in a duel anyways?


Here is what I would propose:

a) Justice is gained by things like setting prisoners free (those lizardman camps and such). Maybe some other ways too. Has to be feasible for a non-combat player to accumulate. Also 50% of the gold in the chest will go towards your justice bounty.
b) When killed by a murderer, you have 5 minutes per Justice level to challenge the murderer to a duel. However, you have a choice. You can either compete in the duel yourself, or you can target a "champion" to fight on your behalf. The champion would need to be a player onscreen with you, with equal to or more justice than you. You could use IRC to call out your location and look for volunteers. Town criers could potentially announce as well: "Attention: Dalavar has been slain by the vile Jo Mamma, and seeks a champion to enact Justice. Dalavar is in <region> at <coordinates>".
c) the duel takes place
d) if the victim or champion wins, they each get half of the bounty on the murderer, plus normal loot from their corpse. And they each get half the bounty from the lizardman chests and whatever else were used to gain the virtue. (If the victim fights the murderer themselves, they of course get both halves of each). There is no stat loss from such duels as this.
e) if the murderer wins, he gains the loot from the corpse. And the victim and champion lose 2 total levels of Justice virtue. (One each if they're different people; 2 levels from the victim if he duels himself).

Biggest logistical issue with this is a murderer would need to remain online for 15 minutes after their last kill to ensure they wouldn't be pulled into a duel. Theoretically I guess they could just empty their pack and log off, and not really risk anything but their bounty being reset.

EDITED to add the in-game message.

I like the champion idea, send out a hail as an in-game message giving the town and character seeking Justice's position allowing those who wish to duel the PK a reasonable amount of time to respond.

The only problem is if the PK has a chance to opt out of the duel, as should be allowed, then what would the repercussions be?

The PK should have a choice in the matter, but there should be consequences. Double the incentive making the PK a more attractive target for PK hunters?

I still like snaggle's idea too as another means of obtaining Justice, there needs to be an incentive for people to actively pursue PK's and not just a bounty system which simply offers gold. A few minutes farming more than makes up for risking your own head hunting PK's.

The community at large could police itself and the virtues could very well be a means to do it, but there needs to be incentive for people to go out hunting PK's other than a gold reward bounty system.

With the right incentive I can see dungeons becoming not just a hot spot for gold farming PvMers but a hunting ground for PK hunters as well, setting up ambushes for would be PK's or mounting dungeon sweeps/patrols. At the very least PvMers can be satisfied that if they get ganked they may receive some form of Justice. The server would benefit because PvMers would get a means to "get back at those bad PK's" and PvPers can actually benefit in that they can get rewarded for engaging in "meaningful" PvP.

Since someone brought at bard trying to fight a pk what about even adding to the system to where if the said bard has enough justice(maybe the highest tier) then in that case maybe give them an option (only once per week) say if they are killed in a dungeon and only a dungeon they get to keep their farmed gold but all of their belongings can be looted. That way they can decide if the amount of gold they have is worth using their justice virtue.

Just another thought

That might be ok but what the murder system has lacked ever since the OSI days is a system in which the community can police itself.

With multiple accounts the Pk has the advantage of being self-sufficient and picking and choosing their areas of attack.

What is lacking is the incentive for players to be motivated to actually hunt PK's down rather than just accepting it as "part of the game".

PvPers complain about not enough PVP and the PvMers complain about getting ganked and each seems to cause it's share of unhappy players.

If an incentive was offered that allowed hunting PK's to be a worthwhile endeavor than as I said both sides benefit. There would PvP for those in that camp and the PvMers would benefit because the dungeons would be a little safer.

PKing would be as it should be for a murderer, a risky affair that requires the utmost skill, practice and planning, because when you have a bunch of PK hunters out there "actively" looking for you better be bringing your "A" game when rolling those bards.

Very true and that is what makes it fun. I use to love running around destard and the brit split getting chased by multiple people. I remember one time getting chased by a mage and 2 dexxers running up the road waiting for bandages when next thing I know Im dead cause I ran by another mage who finished me off with a flamestrike.

Why should that be allowed? Justice isn't optional, it's justice.

Also, love the in-game message idea. Edited my original post to include.

Agreed. This would have to be non-optional if invoked. It wasn't optional for the victim to decide whether or not they were mowed down. It just needs to be tailored so that it doesn't turn into a way to 'bait' a PK character into a guaranteed losing situation. Then we'd see complete deterrent to a valid playstyle.

I like the idea of promoting a champion.

The way I envisioned this playing out is that getting the Justice Virtue would be a little more difficult to attain, so that not every blue would be running around loaded up on Justice Juice. Perhaps instead of the 'victim' choosing to exact justice or choosing a champion, the player who is hopped up on justice could invoke this right for themselves or elect to 'stand' in for somebody else by targeting their corpse or being in party status with the victim.

We also have to keep in mind that a BLUE character does not inherent mean a virtuous or valiant character. To me, a Blue is just a person who isn't red yet or who isn't red on that current character. There really isn't a classification to identify 'pure' or 'virtuous' characters who choose to go a step beyond 'just not currently a criminal'. I think that is where UO kind of missed a big opportunity. There should be a criminal status above blue (the white knight) that you can only have if you meet certain criteria one of which is 'never' having killed a blue.

I like your idea Jupiter, that way those that make it their mission to hunt PK's and load up on the Justice Virtue can deliver vengeance in the form of retribution by clicking on the corpse of a fallen character who has been PK'd.

Allow a ghost to send out a plea (in-game message gump that appears when you die) that only those with so much Justice accumulated will be able to see. The "white knight" will appear at the scene of the crime, click the corpse and at that time the duel option becomes available.

I still feel that the PK should be able to opt out of the duel once challenged but at that time his "bounty" (or whatever special incentive is agreed upon for killing PK's) is increased, the PK loses the abilty to recall or gate and cannot log off until the timer expires. The only issue with this is if the PK gates to his house and sets up in his house until the timer expires.

I still feel there needs to be incentive to hunt PK's in-game as well, perhaps offer points of Justice as well as a special reward system for killing so many PK's, this could give rise to a sort of "Knights of Justice" class and even a bounty hunter type class.

I think I left out a lot of what I was thinking. I tend to do that. But I imagined if invoked, the items would be returned to you (kind of how the Sacrifice virtue works). So you wouldn't be naked. you would have the items on you.

as for your second question, it is probable that you might lose again, but I'd argue that a significant portion of PK activity is gank squad which means, most players are losing because of no chance at a fair fight not because they didn't have a chance 1v1. But I do agree many of the Pks tend to be top PvP'ers too.

I like this. but i think the window should be very narrow, no longer than the crime status otherwise, people will devise strategies (i.e. the matron de winter stacking up murder gumps and then clicking 'yes' to them all at once while the blue is in town) in order to pull pks out of a fight at an inopportune moment. The decision to invoke justice should demand immediate action. So i'm thinking the champion or the justicer would need proximity to the victim. I think this would also support more player interaction. Where PvP'ers might start accompanying PvM'ers while they hunt.

The kind of interaction I'm seeing here is a form of contract of some sort, where the PvM'er highers a Justice person to guard them while they hunt.

I like the idea of an alert system for the top tier justicers to get a notice of a crime.

Gaining points in the Justice Virtue still needs to be discussed. Hunting PK's and turning in their heads could be a source of this, but I always look at this as easily farmable (i.e. make a red alt, kill him a lot). There would have to be a way to prevent this, because the only valid PK head should be one you hunted and killed, not one that you farmed.

For this it would have to be a pk that has a current bounty on their head. I know there would still be a way around this but if it was enough of a bounty to count it might stop the farming of it. Or the current bounty would have to be for that day or week after that certain amount of time they time out of the current bounty system although you would still receive the bounty if you kill them just no Justice points

I think you're on to something there snaggle

I would feel more encouraged to place bounties on pk's heads if i knew it had potential merit.