Template:Player corruption

Corrupted player in the Alpha-1 preview.^[1]

When you gain that corruption you have the potential of losing your completed items, your weapon, your armor, stuff that is very difficult to achieve; and then the other aspect of that is, that in order to deter basically players taking alternate characters and saying this is my PK alt, the more players you kill, the more corruption you gain, the higher your combat efficacy in PVP diminishes. If you're out there and you killed you know 20 players... you will not be able to perform in PVP any longer. You will need to take that character and go work off that corruption. The other aspect of corruption is that if you kill another player, who is a non-combatant and the level disparity between you and that player is great, you will gain a higher amount of corruption from that single kill. To the point where you should not be killing a level one character.^[2] – Steven Sharif

If a combatant (purple) player kills a non-combatant (green) player in PvP, they will be flagged as corrupt (red).^[3]

A player’s corruption score increases with each non-combatant player killed.^[4]^[5]

Reward without risk is meaningless... Corruption is just another word for risk.^[6] – Steven Sharif

The wider the level disparity between the players, the more corruption will be gained.^[4]^[5]

You can't necessarily time perfectly you know the damage or understand even the health of the player. Unless you were in their party you cannot see an opponent's health as well so that's another component that you know adds risk.^[7] – Steven Sharif

Corruption penalties occur as the corruption is gained.^[8] The higher the corruption score:
- The more skill and stat dampening applies (lower health and mana, lower gear proficiency), until the corrupt player ultimately becomes ineffective at combat.^[9] This dampening only affects PvP combat.^[10]
If you go on a murder spree and you have 10 pks under your belt then you might start feeling a significant dampening to your skill effects against other players. I don't want to give necessarily a number or curve for players to extrapolate prior to us having the ability to actually test these ideas and where those numbers are going to lie; but I would say what is the intent behind that dampening: The intent isn't to limit the fun of the player, the intent is to provide a give-and-take or a risk-versus-reward; and the risk of continuing down the road of accruing corruption is not only the loss of your gear and amplified death effects but also your ability to perform in that activity.^[11] – Steven Sharif
- The higher chance of dropping of carried raw materials and gear (Weapons and Armor) when the corrupted player dies.^[4]^[12]
The more corruption you gain, the less effective you become in PvP and there's going to be a certain period at which point you have gained enough corruption that you're going to be gearless and you're also going to have a massive reduction in your PvP efficacy.^[13] – Steven Sharif
Corruption has a visible effect on a player’s appearance.^[14]
If a non-combatant attacks a corrupt player, the non-combatant will not flag as a combatant.^[15]
A corrupt player’s location is revealed to bounty hunters on their world map.^[4]^[3]
Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.^[16]^[17]
- Corrupted player's combat penalties do not apply when battling bounty hunters.^[16]
Player to player trading and the ability to store items in public warehouses is disabled for corrupt players.^[18]
- Corrupt players will be able to utilize private storage in their Freeholds.^[18]

Q: Will there be any large-scale consequences when many players in a group guild region religion etc become corrupted frequently or for an extended period of time?

A: There are not group dynamics or mechanics that revolve around mass murdering people in the world. The corruption system is intended to deter mass murdering, not to provide incentives by which players can go out and gain corruption.^[19] – Steven Sharif

Q: If my guild has no one corrupted and your guild is like always killing people and always corrupted, will your guild have repercussions because they're corrupted versus my guild?

A: No I don't think so either. And the reason why is we want to deter it, but we don't want to make the system meaningless; and if the deterrent becomes too heavy-handed then it's a system without a purpose. And I think that the intent behind the corruption is that like during a rise in passion and like anger and whatever you want to make this decision and do something and you'll suffer the repercussions later. But if those repercussions are just overwhelmingly bad and even anti-social in the sense that like your guild is like hey man you went corrupted and this gives us like corruption points on the guild, and like you're out of here, then people just aren't going to choose to use it; and then at which point might as well just take it out. So I think there's a healthy balance between the type of deterrent used.^[20] – Steven Sharif

↑ Video, May 31, 2020 (5:29).

↑ Podcast, April 23, 2018 (51:31).

↑ ^3.0 ^3.1