[Drealoth]

There is a major problem with your design. You have a game, it's supposed to be fun, and adding mechanics that are not fun will only turn away players, so don't add them. Or, if you are going to add the Killer flag, add a major benefit to it to match the penalty - it's okay to have negatives, as long as there are positives to balance it out.

I assume from your posts that you are not much of a player killer kind of person. I think that the main reason that people like fighting other players is out of the challenge that it provides. Although I haven't played your game, in most games NPC monsters are nothing more than difficult to open treasure chests. You go, you hit them, they hit back, you drink some potions, and continue until one of you dies. Most players are more intelligent than any bot I've yet come across. Your system should provide players with the ability to fight intelligently, so it doesn't become a stat race. Check out God Wars II and one of the Iron Realms games for two excellent (and quite different) player vs. player systems. Think of great board games - Chess and Go come to mind, and great fighting video games like Soul Calibur and Mortal Combat to get an idea of where to go. The great thing about Chess and Go is that they are both very easy to learn how to play, very difficult to master and no two games unfold the same way. Another thing is that there is no luck involved. Certainly you'd want some element of chance in your system (given the franticness of combat), but you should be careful not to let randomness outweigh strategy and tactics.