Arelith

This is a bit of a contentious topic, but I've been internally chewing on it for a minute and thought I'd post my thoughts.

As it currently stands, I have yet to see the corpse bashing / head collection mechanics used for much of anything beyond borderline griefing. This is doubly unpleasant when you can't remove the remains of a corpsebashed player, so they remain until the next server reset in high traffic areas. I sure I am far from the only person to be handed/delivered their own head after getting owned in PVP, or to have their corpse bashed in the Hub.

I think two changes could improve things immensely:

1) The addition of a command similar to -cleanup, perhaps called -dispose or something, that allows you to remove corpsebashed remains.

2) The replacement of player heads on a corpsebashed body with...something? Perhaps an ear item tied to that race, or something of that nature.

Strongly agree. I think it’s an outdated mechanic, that doesn’t add anything but awkward moments. The victim knows they died, the killer knows they got the victim, as do the witnesses.. why do random by passers need to see and be able to identify these mutilated remains. Let them be cleaned up, if we need to keep the remains as evidence of mutilation. Then keep bloodstains after the body is removed.

Furthermore, in places like Cordor, it’s rather jarring as a guard, for instance, to not be able to clear up remains and be accused of keeping the city in unsanitary conditions.

Leave blood, scorch marks, signs of battle.. sure.. but bashed up, headless corpses that people can identify at a casual glance? Nah. The point of bashing to destroy a body, not put a label on it.

I strongly agree with everything that has been said. I've never seen anything good come from making a destroyed corpse a permanent landmark so far.

I also agree with this. In most of my experiences with Corpse Bashing it's a simple boasting / griefing tool. But I completely understand being able to take a memento from your enemy for various RP reasons after killing them. I know there have been discussions about this in the past and ideas thrown around. Some really great ones too from memory.

Logically it just makes no sense to take someone's head and then see them walking around with it very much in tact. A missing finger perhaps? An ear? Lock of hair, piece of their cloak or something. Whatever. Leaving corpses in the cities and not being able to move them and having people tell you how terrible the local guards are for letting corpses just lay around just feels very deflating.

Anyway, improvements in this system would definitely be great to see!

Entirely agree.

There is basically no value to this system at all, other than to create awkward nonsense RP that makes it harder to take death seriously. It's very frustrating to not be able to clean up bodies in your town and just have to awkwardly brush it off if people ask.

Taking heads is also really... Weird, even goodly characters just hack off someone's head to show around and this is a strange thing to do. Should really be ears if you want a trinket.

But the biggest issue is the bodies not disappearing until a reset, this is just extremely jarring and immersion breaking especially when the character walks past it later.

+1

Doesn't need to be a command. You can bash mob bones to get rid of them, same could be true for bashed player corpses.

And regarding heads... I think they do serve a purpose, as a proof of killing someone. But perhaps they should be only transferable using headbangs out of a characters inventory to avoid griefing like behavior.

i've always wondered why the heads weren't instead just generic tokens called "proof of victory against [charname]" or something.

I agree with everything above.

I've always found it strange that my characters skull can be paraded around while being physically there as well IC.

I personally fully believe corpsebashing shouldn't be a thing at all because the only thing it does is preventing the defeated player from getting raised and ensures they get rez sickness forced upon them. Which for some of the not so perfect builds can very well mean being relegated to kick the can around for two hours when they had different plans and for someone with only so much gaming time, that sucks sucks sucks.

I suppose it also prevents people from getting raised mid combat but that already is a rule infraction and I am not sure people should be able to be outright griefed to make sure that rule can't be broken. Because frankly, I don't see much purpose in it besides being able to double down on the player that loses.
I've had one situation recently where I got ordered to drop a corpse I was gonna carry out of a dungeon only so they'd bash it. Tell me what the point there is other than being a douche on purpose.

And no, it makes absolutely zero sense to parade body parts around when the PC in question is still able to get raised.

If dead PCs can't be bashed - they can be raised, dropped in a container as to not clog the floor or will simply vanish if the player decides to revive. That should be more than sufficient.

+1 from me, and last I checked a lot of the DM team. At least for the 'severed heads' thing. It'd be great if it were changed to a finger! (or even an ear? A finger would work better imo)

I personally fully believe corpsebashing shouldn't be a thing at all because the only thing it does is preventing the defeated player from getting raised and ensures they get rez sickness forced upon them. Which for some of the not so perfect builds can very well mean being relegated to kick the can around for two hours when they had different plans and for someone with only so much gaming time, that sucks sucks sucks.

My argument for bashing though is this: Sometimes a pc will absolutly positivly concretly want another pc gone, dead, ended and will do all they can to make this happen (Note I think this should be rare, but it does happen.) When that's the case, they will, ICly, do all they can to prevent a raise. Which is fine. Under the current system this means bashing.

When you are bashed you get a message saying 'your corpse as been destroyed.' This is useful on an ooc side, because it tells me that there's no point to wait around for a raise and that respawning is my only option. This is useful.

Without this feedback, I'd probably sit around the fugue for ages in the hope that I might be raised, whilst said person would do all they can to make sure that such doesn't happen. So unless tells are exchanged (which can be a dodgy thing, whilst emotions are running high from pvp) this can lead to a grand waste of everyones time.

That's why I don't mind bashing. Though I dislike the severed head sitaution. The body situation... I'm mixed on? Over all I would like a way to clean it up I think. On the other hand, it can work as a way to dissuade the 'victim' of the bashing to return to the same site... eh. As I say, mixed on that one.

noticed a new thing to losing pvp without actually dying maybe because of subdual but it was a version of rez sickness, where you could heal or be healed by kits but you could not cast spells and had inverse apr stats and a AC dumped to 9.

Maybe this could be the normal where if hit again while "dead on the floor" you drop an ear finger etc but not the head or a bashable body when sent to the fugue.

This would keep the getting back into combat after death fix in place, and solve the head bash issue while still leaving a trophy of the kill.

This also would fix the OOC of wondering if a raise was coming, as if you are sent to the fugue you know you have to spawn. while just being "dead on the ground" means you can be raised or rezzed.

Replacing heads with ears and making bashed corpses bashable too, to get rid of them? I like that, it'd be a big improvement.

Hard agree on making the skeletons bashable.

Honestly, I think it could be cool if bashed corpses dropped several monetarily-worthless body parts--perhaps ear, eye, heart, and finger. I have bashed some corpses before as a part of RP to represent removing body parts for Evil Purposes :TM: (incidentally, all "found" corpses where, as far as I could tell, the players were no longer online so resurrection was no longer an issue anyway), and being able to take something other than a head would have been fantastic rather than just miming it. But that's probably just a "me" thing!

Suggestion after reading this discussion:

Why not make it then, that you can corpsebash, but the skeleton (and the head) disappear should the person get rezzed by going through the respawner and taking the penalty?

If they stay dead, skeleton and head remain.

Yes, cross-server issues and glitches, but it’s at least a possible solution

I'd like to chime in the idea of being able to clean up bashed corpses is appealing to me.

There's been some days in the hub where you have like 2-5 player skeletons just sitting around in the hub and there's nothing you can do about it.

Avoiding the hub area is also not really an option in the UD for most people, since everything is central to the hub, so if someone drags your body to the hub to "Put you on display" despite you not dying there, or just randomly bashing random bodies, it leads to some weirdness that just doesn't make sense.

I'm going to play the devil's advocate because frankly I don't like the idea of death meaning even less than it does now.

Heads exist to identify the person you killed. Not ears, or fingers, or whatever small collectibles you want that have no meaning except the number of them you got.

Heads were deliberately weighted and cumbersome, and rot, to prevent head collectors. Do you really think ear collections or finger collections won't exist if you do this?

Also, I like the skeletons hanging around the hub. It's a friendly reminder that the hub isn't friendly. It's a place full of monsters and demons.

If people don't like seeing their own corpses displayed, maybe don't hang around. In fact, don't you lose stats after death as a way to discourage you from actually going back to the place where you died. Hells, you shouldn't even be on as that character.

But instead you want there to be even less impact for death. You choose to ignore it, to go back to the hub where you clearly know your body is on display, and completely disregard the fact that you lost.

I vote NO on this.

Love getting rid of the head in exchange for a finger idea. Would also allow one to RP the loss of the digit (if they wanted) vs say RPing a headless horseman.

I think bashing corpses is fine, though would add it would be great to be able to remove the remains after to avoid player griefing etc in high traffic areas. They know they won, you know you lost, and all the public boards declare your humiliating defeat at their hands. Having the remains fixed in place until the next reset seems a bit too much.

IanPatron wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 5:05 pm
But instead you want there to be even less impact for death. You choose to ignore it, to go back to the hub where you clearly know your body is on display, and completely disregard the fact that you lost.

I thought of this for a while, then realised, people DO go back as you say.. and it's not just them that has to deal with the awkwardness, it's everyone else who seems them next to the body.

If people are treating death cheaply, we should come up with another way of dealing with it, but this current mechanic is awkward and makes little sense.

As for the the Hub being filled with skeletons? Sure.. I guess.. But they still shouldn't be identifiable. And what about surface towns or towns? It makes no sense for the high street in Guldorand or Cordor to just leave a rotting body in the street for days at a time. That RP is worse.

Agreed, remove the heads. I'd be curious to hear if any good roleplay has come from the item. Anyone about to argue that selling heads in a shop or making hub posts about a head collection is good roleplay should consider if they're really making an argument for keeping the mechanic.

Killer: I killed Bob like you asked, here is his head as proof.

Doesn't need to be a formal assassin either as they have their own mechanics.

Also seems in line how we treat NPC bosses with heads being the standard ID/trophy method.

I would rather the remains go poof though and if someone wanted to make a destroyable placeable/fixture (that doesn't leave remains) of an impaled head using it they could. It would let the killer make a grisly statement if desired but someone that opposed it could destroy it.

Without the remains persisting, I'm worried a lot of players sweep their defeat under the rug. If everyone saw your corpse bashed remains in the Hub, it's next to impossible to refuse it ever happened.

From a roleplay perspective, it is always strange to have multiple heads from the same character just laying around or have some guy walk past his own bone pile.

I can't say I'd miss if it it's gone, as "I defeated John Paladin in Place" is enough for me.

Ork wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 10:37 pm Without the remains persisting, I'm worried a lot of players sweep their defeat under the rug. If everyone saw your corpse bashed remains in the Hub, it's next to impossible to refuse it ever happened.

I get that concern though honestly if someone pulled that move I would just write them off as not being worth wasting time on ever again.

At the same time PVP with big story consequences should usually have witnesses right? I mean it's rarely going to be 1 on 1 in the shadows unless it's perhaps an assassin. Point being there should be more to the victory than collecting heads.

+1
Agreed with OP and supplanting posts.

Those who treat death cheaply will do so regardlessly if their head is on public display or not. That is a player attitude issue, not a mechanical one.