Devblog: Improving Demonic Pacts
By [Ankama]WAKFU - ADMINISTRATOR - August 05, 2021, 15:15:00For Update 1.73, we've decided to make multiple significant changes to the Demonic Pact system to give characters more protection against anti-gaming (blocking a target in combat for as long as possible). We're also taking the opportunity to expand on this feature by making it easier to hide in the scenery.
You may recall that Update 1.72.4 applied the following two changes:
- After losing a PvP fight with an active pact, the losing team's characters' pacts are automatically disabled.
This change protects losers of successive attacks by letting them decide when they want to activate a pact again. - Characters with an active pact can no longer be attacked by characters who are more than 50 levels below them.
This change limits the impact of low-level characters who attack other characters with no hope of winning but who want to waste their targets' time.
Shushu Prison
To protect characters from anti-gaming, attackers who lose their pact PvP fight will be sent to a prison in the Shustuft Crust!
There will be different ways for them to get out:
- Collect ore there and place it in a container (this action will take you about 3 to 5 minutes)
- Defeat a Shushu guardian (whose level will match the attacker's)
After getting out of the prison, the character is sent back to their Phoenix.
The goal is to allow "regular" characters to very easily and quickly get out of prison (it should be a minimal constraint), while penalizing "mule" type characters sometimes used to repeatedly attack targets. We're introducing a delay mechanic to deal with this behavior.
An overview of the Shushu Prison (under construction)
Increasing the duration of extraction phases
We want to make extraction a little more dangerous and give hunters enough time to get there when an extraction is going to start.
We are therefore updating these delays:
- Casting a convocation: 10 → 20 seconds; exposes anyone starting a convocation for longer
- Convocation: 2 → 4 minutes; gives hunters more time to prevent an extraction
- Truce: 10 → 30 minutes; limits the number of altars that are active at the same time
- Manual extraction 10 → 20 seconds; exposes anyone attempting to extract for longer
Reducing the period of immunity after activating a pact
To keep this immunity from being used to get near extraction points too effectively, the duration of immunity granted after activating a pact is now 10 seconds (down from 30).
Allowing recall potions
Recall potions may now be used with an active pact.
We believe they currently serve the same purpose as logging in again, and there's no reason to continue banning them.
Visibility of pact inventory management
The icon displayed above characters with an active pact will have a different appearance if their pact inventory is empty or contains something.
This change will reduce the amount of frustrating PvP fights for the attacker (who can't earn any rewards) and for the person who is attacked (who wouldn't have been attacked if the attacker had known there was nothing to earn).
Protection against "infinite" combat
Some players exploit a form of anti-gaming that consists of making a pact battle last for as long as possible to force the opponent to forfeit or waste tons of time.
To prevent this behavior, characters will earn bonuses to MP and damage inflicted each turn in pact battles.
This change should gradually stop players with bad intentions from evading clashes and defeats.
These bonuses may be updated depending on player feedback; we'll pay close attention to ensure that they don't disrupt the flow of pact battles.
Improved management of allies
To enhance allies' capacity to join pact battles, when a character tries to join a team that is limited to the group, the team leader will get a notification informing them of this, and if the leader allows it, the character requesting to join will immediately enter the battle.
Help interface for learning about the feature
Pact statues located in cities will allow you to access a book explaining how the pact system works and the various steps to start an extraction.
Hiding in the scenery
To enable characters to hide in the scenery, we've applied the following two changes:
- The pact icon displayed above characters is now displayed at the same depth as the character. Thus, when a character is hiding behind a scenery element, their pact icon will also be hidden.
- The names of characters with an active pact will no longer be displayed when players use the feature to display the names of all characters present (activated by the V key by default).
We're hoping these two changes will allow players to hide in order to lay an ambush as well as to escape attacks more easily.
A bunch of lvl215, fully geared PvP players camp extraction points. The end.
It is completely uninteresting for anyone below that level to engage in this mechanic because they are going to get their loot stripped from them anyway.
If that is the idea behind Pacts to only be useful to high end players I apologize for my post but I was under the impression a bigger part of the playerbase is supposed to engage with them.
Is there any chance to make the V effect togglable? because it's annoying that you have to hold the button down
so my suggestion is, if you aren't lv 215, and your gear isn't good, forget about even doing demonic pact
First, this is Wild PvP as much as hunting rats with a crossbow from your house window, rather than going into the wild for hunting them. What I would suggest for promoting REAL wild PvP is making the whole cities safe areas. That would promote the "get out there in the wild and search for preys to hunt" rather than the "park your butt in front of the altar and wait for them to come". The further they are from altars, the more rewarding it should be.
Second, the casual player needs more incentive to become the fox just for the joy of the hounds than a "get a small +50% bonus, lose it all yes or yes". Even the Cautious pact is not appealing enough with "earn +25%, lose a 25%". The pacts need to be improved somehow. And no idea, some kind of pact tokens and machine to get exclusive stuff for taking part?
Third, dealing with consecutive attacks. Once you get locked in a fight, it basically means that you can't advance past that point. Some kind of post-combat short-time immunity to prevent new attacks should be added. Nothing too long nor exploitable, just a few seconds of protection.
They might not have some zones unlocked as well.
The way it is right now, the attacking side has nothing to lose!
I suggest to make the attacker lose 10% of their current Kamas if they lose the battle they started.
If that's not enough, maybe downgrade them one level after losing a battle.
So they have to farm a little before they try their next attempt.
Another way to add some risk to attackers is to make them lose one piece of gear they are wearing if they lose the battle.
There are many ways to add some risk to the attacking side with no loot or exp that are just trying to get everything without any risk.