I think the skill bonuses for player kills shouldn't be based on they type of ship your victim has, but based on the skill of the player that you killed. If I kill a very skilled player with lots of kills, well known throughout VO, even if he's flying a maurader mining ship, I should get more than +100 to combat!

I seriously think the skill bonuses should be worth alot more for PK's, at this point, there's not really any incentive for engaging in PvP combat. I should feel like there's seriously something to gain other than pride for destroying an enemy player. I'd like to see something more like +1000 combat for killing a level 5 or higher player. Grey space would be much more dangerous (as it should be) and even the newer players would try to go out and boost their levels up more quickly by engaging in PvP... perhaps stopping this backrolling plague.

yes.

only reason I have reservations is that I've seen a few people with multipule accounts killing what they refer to as a training bot. And while it's being done now, giving them more points is just going to make the process even faster and you'll have more people at the top levels with little in the way of real skill.

make it like D&D 3.0 challange rating.

when a lvl 1 killes a lvl 1 he gets (say in example) 100
if a lvl 1 killsa a lvl 2 he gets 250
1 vs 3 500
1 vs 4 750
1 v 5 900

an so on so forth.

but if the when the roles are reversed, say a lvl 16 taking out a lvl 1 the get 1 xp ii mean NO SH*T they will win, why bother fighting them. leave them be for some lvl 3 or closer to here lvl. and besides, isn't lvl 16 the highest you can get right now anyway, why would you need more xp.

there thats my 2¢

No it won't john. The bonus doesn't have to be too high and it takes time for the training drone to dock.

I'd like to see this, but somebody really needs to come up with a way to prevent exploits. I have level 6 combat license, and I have a couple friends I'm getting started who're at level 1 combat. Looking at Knight_Of_Order's table, all I have to do is let them kill me say 5 times each, and alright, they can get all the high level goodies.

One possible way to combat that exploit would be to base the XP reward off the ship being flown, rather than the level of the pilot. That way, if I'm letting my friends kill me in a freebus (so I don't lose anything), they don't get much of a reward, but if I'm flying a Valkyrie, they get a decent reward - but I have to rebuy my ship. Even with this though, I think it'd be too easy to exploit.

the problem with doing that apex is that the combat bonus has to be low enough that it isnt significantly faster than gaining XP by botting. If you get +1000 for killing a level 5 player, then what you will find is that people will get together in little bunches and take turns being the "killer" to level up. at +1000 XP a kill, with 3 players, you can gain approx 80,000 XP per person in an hour. thats at 4 kills per minute for the killer. (the other 2 take turns undocking, turboing out past the no fire zone and dying.)
4 kills per minute = 4K XP per minute. 4*20 = 80,000 XP, at which point you switch to the next person.

The only way to prevent this is to add a real penalty for dying, but thats not something that the devs really want. Dying isnt supposed to be a big deal in vendetta.

!!!!! THERE SHOULD BE A PENELTY FOR DIEING !!!!!

Just not any loss of xp or cr. I think the escape pod idea is great and would at least slow down the exploit in question.

Beolach I think has a good idea to prevent this exploit, but not perfect. If some of my better friends were lower leveled I'd be glad to take a free bus (or even something else) and suffer the damage to my kill ratio (even though getting all my PK XP in a low vult already hit it majorly...). I think there should be some balance between the ship and their skill, like if a level 10 is flying a free bus then the experience is much less than if they were in a prom or valk, but this should be done carefully, and would obviously take much more time than either Apex or Beolach's idea (because you'd have to decide on an XP amount for level 1 killing a level 1 in a bus, then killing a level 2 in a bus, etc with all ships availible to a level).

or,

add some sort of depletable pk base score. For instance give everybody 10k once they have progressed to 1 or 2 levels above the normal standard newbie missions.

When you then get killed by somebody your own skill, you lose for instance 850 and the opponent gains 1k. If both die, nobody gains anything. Once you are taking on somebody lesser then you you will get nothing, but here is the twist, the same counts for the reversed option. This to counter low level people badgering high level people and the high level people incurring fines.

Then add some small incentives at for instance 15k, 20k , 30k and 50k xp.

cheers

first off, does licenses really matter that much? sure, you might want to exploit the system but so what?

I'm currently 6/7/8 in the combat stats, but so what? most _good_ players can take me out in a bus if they have to. heck, in six runs against tram (in a frigging Hornet) I hit him like three times, with the ship of my choice. sure, I could have gone for a missile silo 'Rok, but anyone can do that easily enough, they just have to bot a little.

in Vendetta, skill matters. equipment matters only after the skills are similar enough.

now, as for more skill bonus for PKs? either way for me really, but what I'd like to see are rewards that aren't superweapons just handed to you. the best players don't need better weaponry, do they? or what would the good PK-people like as rewards?

Reegarding that pk base score idea: isn't there something called "kill/death ratio" already implemented in the game, that could be used instead somehow ?

Ok I don't see how this would be exploitable if it was done in small amounts. About spellcast's post:
"4 kills per minute = 4K XP per minute. 4*20 = 80,000 XP"
It's not really 80k xp in an hour. First off if the players were grabbing a free bus and then warping to you, whether you were at a gate or an empty sector it would take a little longer than a minute. This doesn't seem like a big deal but it throws off the ratio a bit. Also if one person is going to get the xp for an hour then the others would likely want to have their turns getting the xp. So suppose you did this with four other ppl. It's more like getting 80k xp in 5 hours. Which is not faster than botting at all. Also how are you going to get 4 players to do this when it will destroy their kill/ratio and they have to level up sufficiently to even get a bonus (you can't just kill low levels and get a combat xp bonus). So I think we're all making it harder than it is. I would be happy if the xp was at least double what it is now. Currently it is not exploitable in any sense even if doubled.

p.s. There's not that many players to make it even compare to botting!

/givemoney Devs 2c

terjekv> I'm kinda tired right now, so this might come out more selfish than other posts of mine, but I think I'd be pretty peeved if the valk I wasted 3 days to get could be awarded to one who barely knew how to use it in much less time.

for the kill/death ratio to be an effective measure it would
have to be split into player/bot kills and player/bot deaths

Kix, You dont have to go to an empty sector, just a sector where none of the players are +600 or more. Lots of corporate stations in UIT/Grey space fit the bill for most of the players.

As such, there is no warping, you just have to get to 1500 meters or more from a station, well within the energy capacity of the free bus.

Using the numbers Apex suggested, eg +1000 Xp, my numbers are perfectly valid, using 3 players, which is the best number for the gaining Xp.

To get to 1500 meters from a station after dying takes ~25 seconds, rebuying of ship included. All you do is pick a nice noticable point in the skybox, a sun, a planet, etc, and when you leave the station thats where you head.

2 players, each acting as the targets, can set up so that one person is reaching the killer every 15 seconds or so. since theres no dogfighting, just fly up, turn sideways and die, it doesnt take that long to blow apart a bus. Especially if the killer has a good ship with decent weapons, (a vulture with dual n2's would work) The killer has a few seconds to recharge energy between arrivals, so no problems there.

So, thats how we establish 4 kills per miniute, now that 4000 XP a minute.

4000 X 20 is 80,000 XP (please note thats only 20 minutes, or 1/3rd of an hour) So, since each pilot takes a turn, all 3 pilots gain 80,000 combat Xp in about an hour. We'll actually call it an hour and 15 minutes assuming everyone takes a few short food/phone/bathroom/whatever breaks.

As for the kill/death ratio, who the cares, it doesnt mean anything.

Doubling the current values is an entirely different story, and might be feasable, because even then you arent approaching even 400Xp per kill except in a few rare cases.

Ok ok ok. Here's a completely different approach to it then. How about the amount of xp you get for killing someone is not dependant on levels AT ALL! The only factor is how long someone fights. Of course it has to be exactly matched to the amount of xp you should get in the course of botting (botting very well). And it maxes out at 3 minutes. Let's say every thirty seconds of you fighting, you will get 200xp. Cumulative of course and only gained upon kill. Also you have to wait 2 minutes before killing the same person to get a bonus again. Getting 200xp every 30 seconds is not as much as botting. O wait i'm thinking of light weaps or heavy.... Well still. I don't think it's worth the effort or worth the wait to most players.... Then again i'm probably wrong so please tell me why this is a bad idea :P

/givemoney Devs 2c

Actually, I rather like that method, KixKizzle. I don't know if those numbers would work too well, but something like that might work. The big problem I see is that it would be very difficult to implement. How do we determine when the combat starts? If neither player gets destroyed, how do we determine when it ends?

it's certaintly a more interesting method than just making it based on the level of the player. Beolach has some good points tho, how do you determine "combat". is it from the first shot, the first hit, when does it end if neither one dies. etc.

what happens if one player flees to another sector, does the combat start over again in the new sector, or does it carry over.

i am not agree.
actual xp win is correct.
maybe it could be increased just a lit.

PKing is not XPing.
increase it a lot and it could become an XP exploit...