Unofficial "Iron Man" Permadeath Challenge

[Tsugumori]

Is there some sort of tracker for picking up items of the ground? When I tried this the other day, it seemed inevitable that you'd accidentally click on something that wasn't yours - I'd just immediately drop it if it happened.

Notoriety was an interesting thing to track, also - otherwise you could theoretically grind pigs infinitely to level 70/70 (Sounds super fun, doesn't it?)

...Well it'd be to 50/50 (+ any bonus levels you might get)

[Aedorn]

Right now /behaviorreport identifies (seemingly) all storage as "account-shared". That means if you use storage via Marna, Joeh, etc, then it's basically showing that you took it out of the actual account wide storage and not just character storage.

Does this mean I need to start over? As in, does this get added when the action happens, or is it added separately so a fix to the command would also fix the count retroactively?

Edit: Someone else just checked, and it seems the actual account-wide storage doesn't count towards this.

[Tiamat]

Ninja'd be Aedorn. But EDIT 2 is relevant and hasn't been said yet I think.

So a quick warning/bug: The /behaviorreport command counts every stroage EXCEPT the actual account shared storage... as account shared storage.

EDIT: Fiore, whose iron man character is Aedorn had their counter go up after using Marna's and Joeh's storage. We then confirmed Hulon changed it too. The account-shared did not, as I said, so I am assuming it is programmed in as opposite of what it intended.

EDIT 2: Was thinking, does /tip (player) (amount) effect the competition? I think it should. I know the reward is only bragging rights, but still, some people take competitions very seriously. That said, in order to prevent griefing, I guess that would take a toggle so that you couldn't "accidently" receive tips.

[ShieldBreaker]

...

EDIT 2: Was thinking, does /tip (player) (amount) effect the competition? I think it should. I know the reward is only bragging rights, but still, some people take competitions very seriously.

Interesting, tipping would have to be handled very carefully, If it was a yes/no, then a player could be knocked out of the running by someone doing a Pennoc Quest. If we can see the amount that was tipped in the report, the maker would have to figure out what was reasonable amount to be randomly tipped as part of the challenge. And then hope someone isn't randomly tipping all new players over that amount just to knock out competitors. Obviously the main concern is that a player just get tips from an alt or friends and boost their working capital to help them win.

[Citan]

Tipping isn't counted at the moment, because I didn't have an immediately-available way to prevent griefing. I may just add a special command for this sort of challenge, like "/challengemode" or something, and if you activate it, you can't be /tipped, and you can't pick up items that you didn't drop, to prevent that sort of griefing also. But for now, honor mode not to accept /tips!

Since the tracker for taking items from shared storage is bugged, we'll ignore that one for this little contest; you can use storage and not get disqualified. (And just don't cheat by taking items from shared account chest/guild chest!)

Let's say the contest ends at 23:59 GMT on February 14.

[Hood]

23:59 GMT = 18:59 EST

Follow-up question regarding grouping: It's obvious to me that grouping with a high-level player is a violation of the integrity of the challenge, but to others it probably seems like the perfect opportunity to "play2win" (cheat).

Open Discussion:
I'd be okay with grouping with a fellow challenger, because we'd both have a risk (if I trust them not to sabotage me). I see the merit of allowing grouping because then the mode promotes group play. I even understand that this is a great test challenge, and have grace for its first iteration.

In the future I think challenges should be designated as a Team or Solo challenge so that people understand when grouping is allowed and when it isn't allowed. At the same time, 2 players who aren't grouped and attack the same monster STILL share XP. What do you guys think? What can we do to address this issue in the challenges?

[cratoh]

Should be just run off of endurance maybe. Cos could get max level in no time with a power leveller assistance.

[Niph]

It's not possible to detect all outside help you can get. I could, for instance, clear the way to a boss with one account, clear adds, maybe even damage the boss to 90% and quit the game, then the character in challenge mode on second account steps up and finish the kill. He would get the notoriety, and how can you prevent or detect that without also allowing people to grief you?

In practice, I think we should not have challenges to be "the best", but to show achievements, such as reaching 50/50 in any two combat skills. It can be done the cheat way, but what's the point of cheating if you can't really brag about it because a dozen or so other people succeeded too?

If there is to be challenges with direct character comparison, it must be in situation where the number of players is limited (think single player games). P:G doesn't have instances. However, one could design an area where only a limited number of people can play, such as a steward near a door that teleports you and your group behind the door if the group is 3 or less people (for instance), and the room is empty. This requires coding support, but then you could definitely measure your success with other players. The thing is, there is no direct connection with the iron man challenge we're talking about.

So in the end I don't think electing a best player for this kind of challenge is possible without leaving the suspicion of cheats, but if a bar is set, and you win if you hit the bar, like 50/50 in combat skills, that could work well.

[Oxlazr]

I don't think these challenges shouldn't exist merely because there's potential for cheaters - there's very little incentive for players to cheat when there's no rewards regardless.

I will say, though, that I don't particularly like having short time-caps on these sorts of things, given not everyone can play all day & be competitive due to time constraints.

At anyrate, I'm not grouping with - anyone - for this trial challenge.

Side note, though - We've had a test server in the past - maybe that test server could also be the challenge server to encourage people to play it on before patches hit the live servers (particularly useful if there's major overhauls). It's also a good way for veteran players to pick up bugs and stuff they wouldn't normally notice (while newbies may glance over not recognising it as a bug) as well as addressing balance issues (in particular, by seeing what skills people tend to level in certain challenges)

[Cocytus]

Not going to bother trying to level another guy after this.
Sword/Psych 19/18
Endurance 13
Notoriety 9 (380/500)

Died to the Mangler, in hindsight I should have saved my bacon for running away. Oh well.