Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-26172435-20180604195559/@comment-26172435-20180911194503

LordOropherMirkwood wrote: have you thought of including bounties as an exception of some sort in pvp free categories? maybe it'd be fun if players that chose to be immune to pvp still can get attacked if someone has a bounty on them, which would avoid players attacking other players for "no reason" (giving them one) Thanks for this suggestion. We discussed it in the team and please read our preliminary conclusions below:

We discussed the way to deal with headhunting quests and PvP Toggling extensively in the past. Eventually we concluded it is always up to the player who accepts a quest to verify whether a potential target is available for PvP or not. This is independent of whether or not the PvP Toggling of the PvP Mode mod is used. Main factor determining the chances of a quester to get a chance to fulfill his headhunting quest is the behaviour of the target. With or without PvP Toggling, targets can remain hidden for a long time, or simply be absent.

You basically propose to force PvP Mode ON as soon as an NPC-quest to hunt him or her is accepted. This would imply that players who choose to not be available for PvP can be forced into PvP whenever they decide to perform PvE and kill some NPCs. One could argue that it is their free chocie not to PvE, but that goes fundamentally against the starting point behind the PvP Toggling mechanic, which is that players should have a full say in when they are available for PvP.

Finally, we suspect that the main effect of the mechanic will eventually be that PvP focussed players will actively seek out and accept headhunting quests for players they know to be weak, unprepared or otherwise generally unavailable for PvP for whatever reason. This breaches the mod's objective to encourage and support a more level playing field, where players who are skilled and interested in PvP are encouraged to fight each other instead of preying on the weak.

This all makes the proposed mechanic comparable to the proposal to force PvP Mode ON at night if a server enables PvP Toggling: the mechanic breaches the underlying basic notion of 'PvP Toggling', which is 'to support consented PvP'.

However, as we do understand, albeit to a limited extent, that there may be players or even server staff willing to use such a 'headhunting override mechanic', we are willing to create a code issue to realise this, but it will be disabled by default. The priority will be low.

''Finally let me respond to the suggestion that players are 'immune' to PvP when their PvP Mode is toggled (or forced) OFF. That is fundamentally incorrect and presents a false view on the intentions of the mod and many players using this. Instead of 'being immune to PvP', we advocate to describe the situation as 'not available for PvP'.''