Mutual Hostile, or Hostile Timer?

[Kasreyn]

I'll try to get to them in order, because I've got a lot of ideas:

To Grumpy: How about instead, you can create two different types of character at startup? One has no hostile button and can NEVER be damaged by spells or effects of players. The other has a hostile button and can be hostiled without warning, no 10 second limit, etc. The hostile player option should IMO be unlocked by your very first multiplayer Diablo slaying ever with that D2 game (to keep total newbies out of the PKing environment).

To Gnollguy: The PK/NoPK flag at game creation would be another wonderful solution, but as Taidashar mentions, wouldn't allow you to hostile lamers, beggars, leechers, drop thieves, etc. If I'd thought of it, I'd have added the "noPK game" option to the poll. As to the kick feature, I've mentioned in another thread that you would require the person kicking to be in town, and maybe also force a 5 second timer before they can kick anyone, to prevent drop-kicking. (kicking to steal drops) =P

Taidashar: Instead of hostiling someone to shut them up, use the Squelch feature, which already exists. It has the added advantage of not requiring any further attention to be paid to the moron in question. Ignore such people long enough and they go away.

LOL @ Tameolta! Funny idea, but an interesting one. Another silly suggestion: As long as you are hostile, you cannot interact with townies at all. Click them and nothing happens.

Ghostiger: Problem with what you say is, in D2 at the moment, there are pretty much two ways to build a character, PvP and PvM. And PvP vs PvM pretty much IS a "sucker punch", as you say, even WITH the 10 second limit. PvP builds will always dominate PvM builds in PvP conflict - so where's the fairness in PvM builds being subject to random attack by PvP builds they don't have a hope of defeating? Player vs. player is totally broken in D2 *except* for duelling, which my mutual hostile button would leave in the game.

To everyone: here's my view of how D2 should be arranged with regard to all these ideas. On game creation, the creator can choose "Coop" or "Wild" games. Each has significant differences:

In Coop games, going hostile requires mutual selection (allowing duels, but removing all other forms of PvP aggression). Additionally, the game creator will have two buttons available to him: Kick and Ban. After clicking each, he clicks on the name of the player he wants to Kick or Ban. Kick removes a character from the game, instantly, for a 2 minute timer; if they had a corpse in the game, it remains for 2 minutes, then goes to their current location. Ban removes a character permanently from the game, sending his corpse with him. There will also be an Unban button next to Ban, allowing unbanning of banned characters (if a mistake was made, or the banner changes his mind). Finally, there may be a button to ban all characters from the same account (don't know what it'd be called), or maybe Ban would do that anyway (you generally only Ban someone because he's behaving like an asshole, not because his character is unacceptable).

In Wild games, anyone can go hostile on anyone, with a 10 second timer required; there is no mutual requirement. However, in Wild games, the game creator has no kick or ban features available to him - the only way to get rid of griefers is to hostile them and eject them by force.

I'm hoping I've got these two options balanced enough that there would be enough people wanting to play in each. Comments?

-Kasreyn