[MMORPG] The Lost Concepts of PvP

[Caliane]

Originally Posted by needraRZ

>It was rare that people when around jumping people because they /shouts
>across the zone and the offending player would quickly be hunted down

This.

I'll give the example of Rallos Zek in EQ. This was a pure PVP server. Yet PVP was actually pretty rare. In fact, on introduction of the Bazaar there was more PVP in the arena than the rest of the world.

Why?

Because PVP had repercussions. If a player chose to be a PK then it was a lifestyle choice. They quickly gained a reputation, and eventually notoriety. As a mostly PVE player there were PKS I hated, and some I feared when I noticed them zone in if I was trying to PVE.

BUT. The fact that they were branded outlaws restricted their movements. It was a choice with penalties. And for this reason the server was not a gankfest.

For me, the net result was a very dangerous and real feeling world. Even better the politics between raiding guilds was very very interesting. A full scale war had serious consequences (esp. for PVE progress). I was in several 'council' discussions debating terms for war or peace. Fun times.

Same goes for EVE. I made a different choice in EVE and went pure pirate, roaming low sec space a few weeks after starting with my friends RPing pirates and blowing people up

Pvp penalties discourage active pvping. End of story.

Yes, on the rare occurrence of a real pvp battle in an open pvp game, the quality of that pvp might be superior.
But, every imbalance is magnified, every exploit, every number advantage, server instability, all play into making taking that step into an active fight a dangerous step, regardless of your own confidence in your ability.
In the end, even "hardcore" pvpers, often end up in stand offs, hidingi n towns, or running back to packs of their friends instead of actually fighting.
And this is BORING.

I am a pvper first and foremost in mmorpgs.
And I will take nonstop pvp in a "carebear" game with no penalties, so that each and every potential combatant is fearless in facing me, then once every 2 months someone has the balls to fight me in a "hardcore" one.
Because the only other option is just to gank people preoccupied for my "kills". And thats not exactly entertaining either.

[Inconsiderable]

Originally Posted by Caliane

Pvp penalties discourage active pvping. End of story.

Oh look, someone found out how Risk vs Reward works...


...not.

[Mkopec1]

There is nothing wrong with PvP based around the idea of battlegrounds and such, ala WoW and soon to be WAR. Its mindless entertainment with no risk and always a reward at the end. You can also partake in these PvP scrimmages within minutes or even seconds of joining and they only take about 15-30min which is also great. One could argue that this is PvP in its purest form, no one fears losing anything so they go all out every time.

Sure you might not call this hardcor PvP, but fuck, its damn fun. I still log on to WoW and play out a few BGS every now and then because to me it just does not get old. Fuck I have played so many AV and AB and WSG you would think that one would be sick at the mere thought of doing one again, but somethign draws me back, because, well, its fucking fun and different every time.

I have also played Shadowbane (release and server reset in march)which was the closest thing to UO, from what I have heard, and while also fun, there was many nights (most) you logged on and you simply had nothing to do because of the nature of PvP in that game. Sure you could form up a group and wander the hot spots for a bit of conflict, but day to day Shadowbane just got boring as hell. I think I ended up having like 3 accounts filled with R6-7 characrters. The sieges and mine fights were dammn fun though. And the politics between western and asian guilds and players were also awesome. But sadly the game was missing something. The log in and do somethign meaningful for a hour game was just not there. And I just dont find myself having 3 hours of time to log on and hope and wait some shit goes down for 20 min for my entertainment pleasure every night.

This is why I enjoy BG's. You can log in, get your PvP on for 30 min or hour and have some fun without sitting around for hours just hoping some shit goes down. (Never played EvE but I heard it had this similar problem).

The looting thing is also a farce as Shadowbane showed. People just did not travel with anything. They would have summon bots evrywhere to bank their shit every 15 min. It was very rare, if ever, that you actually killed someone and he had something of any value. It was just an added annoyance which made you bank your shit every ten minutes.

[Vorph]

Originally Posted by Ogun Nagoura

PVP needs to be removed from top end MMO's

A-fucking-men to that, sir.

I'm all for making PVP-centric games like WAR, so that I can 1) avoid them and 2) avoid the people who play them. Hell, I might even give a good one a try, since I really do like PVP when it's done right. I just think PVP [and more importantly, PVPers] ruins everything it touches.

[Kiroy]

May have been said already but every mmo should have pvp rules similar to eve and what I think AO had (didn't play).

A player can do everything thing they want to get max lvl and raid and such in no pvp zones, but the farther out from cities you go the more pvp zones there are and they'd have better rewards then non-pvp zones. Make it so it works for all levels (probably would be lots of zones) and bam - good pvp game.

[EmiliaEQ]

MMO PvP = Ganking or Zeging
Real PvP = Counterstrike (which is what blizzard tried to do with BGs)

EQ1 Bluebie PvP = Griefing / Training / Ksing / Cockblocking
EQ1 Red PvP = Retarded Gankaholic Clusterfuck

[Man0warr]

EQ1 Red PvP = Retarded Gankaholic Clusterfuck

Couldn't be more wrong, about Rallos Zek atleast.

DAOC early RVR was a retarded zerg gankfest though.

[dechire]

i agree with EmiliaEQ, Vorph et cetera

PvP in mmos needs a purpose and that purpose is not to waste my time. Sure their should be some MMOs out their with that kind of PVP system and i believe there are. The problem for western audiences is that most people really dont want FFA pvp where they can lose their shit. Its all be explained over and over, people work for a living they don't really want some zit faced kid standing on their corpses taking the stuff they have. So in turn all the western developed MMOs react to this general feeling of their audience.

Most of you pvp players would agree with this if there was a game out that did this currently, you just don't realize it. You've had one too many sips of the nostalgia glass of UO when you were 15 and running game on peeps.

[voodoochile78]

Originally Posted by Inconsiderable

Sadly I do consider myself a PvPer - which is a large difference. Its like Melodic Death/Black Metal (depending on band) and Viking Metal.

Does anyone else know what this means?

[Inconsiderable]

Originally Posted by EmiliaEQ

MMO PvP = Ganking or Zeging

I am a PvPer and I look down on both things you call PvP. Play a real pvp game before you talk like the shit you see in PvE games is real PvP.

[Stosh]

Originally Posted by Tullaeniel

The major problem with PvP the op is talking about is there are two mindsets when I think of PvP. When some people see PvP they think a meaningful and balanced PvP system. Shit I think most players would be all for it if done right. However, the problem that comes up is a shit load of people don't want a meaningful or competitive PvP experience what they really mean by PvP is that they want to Gank people.

The type of PvP the op is talking about comes at the expense of others most of the time. In the current world of MMO settings you cannot have PvP of this nature and get a large playerbase behind it. After the third time Little Timmy losses his shit because while he's at 10% health grinding away on gnolls some shitstick decides he wants to "PvP"/"Gank" making Timmy not only have to regrind but maybe go back and regear just to finish the quest he was on. He's going to quit and not look back. As they stand now in most games you just die or maybe lose some XP which can mean minutes or hours depending on the game, but at least they aren't pushed a step backwards to add insult to injury.

Hell I can barely count the times in open world WoW I've had people attack me on a somewhat even playing field. Typically most players will avoid you until they are assured a victory then attack, if this is the type of PvP that turns people on then more power to you. I just don't think that many people would get behind a system of that nature. If people were by and large pretty cool and wanted a fair setting maybe but I'm willing to bet a large portion would enjoy that type of game play just to fuck people over. As some of the other posts have suggested there could be alternatives such as prestige items like ears from diablo as an example; which were previously pointed out. Or a separate loot table for PvP that come only from players, it could be like each player you kills drops a piece of cloth and you need one from 40 different players to make a PvP tunic or some shit.

I can give another couple of examples as to why most people wouldn't want to have shit looted when they died. Let me ask this and we'll use WoW's loot as a example. Do you think someone with lets say a pair or Warglaives which took a shitload of effort to get should be obtained by some cocksucker who decided to attack UberRouge_001 while he was finishing an elite quest in Nagrad? Should items that in some cases took months of effort be erased in 10 seconds because they were able to kill a character?

I agree with so much of this.

I suck at 1v1 PVP, but I play on PvP servers because as a general rule, WoW PVP servers have larger numbers of players who are also good at PVE. Therefore its in my best interest to play on a PVP server to be able to have a large selection of good PVE guilds.

As far as I am concerned, realm vs realm isn't even real PvP. RvR is simply a "if it's red, it's dead" mentality. There's no thought, and no real risk involved.
No matter how much of an asshole you are in WoW, at the end of the day you can gate back to the safety of a city and go about your business without ever having to 'look behind your back'.

In my experience, the people I most want to kill are members of my realm and because of RvR, I can't. The number of times I've cleared mobs to get to a named quest mob, or to a treasure chest and had an enemy come along and steal it are miniscule compared to the times that a member of my faction has done that to me.

[CnCGOD]

Originally Posted by Vorph

A-fucking-men to that, sir.

I'm all for making PVP-centric games like WAR, so that I can 1) avoid them and 2) avoid the people who play them. Hell, I might even give a good one a try, since I really do like PVP when it's done right. I just think PVP [and more importantly, PVPers] ruins everything it touches.

Ok you can have Candyland (TM) Online where everyone dances together in a circle of love. While gamers that enjoy (GASP) competition can have real games that don't protect your ePeen with eWhiteGloves.

Killing scripted monsters only lasts so long in fun. Fighting someone with a brain will always be better.

[CnCGOD]

Originally Posted by dechire

Most of you pvp players would agree with this if there was a game out that did this currently, you just don't realize it. You've had one too many sips of the nostalgia glass of UO when you were 15 and running game on peeps.

The PvP in UO gave actions a major penalty. Ganking lowbies meant that higher level antis would run over you and take YOUR stuff. Being a pk was a major decision that wasn't to be taken lightly... the rewards as such were better but the risks were just as high.


Modern games seem to replace risk vs reward with time vs reward. Its sad

[Vorph]

Originally Posted by CnCGOD

Ok you can have Candyland (TM) Online where everyone dances together in a circle of love. While gamers that enjoy (GASP) competition can have real games that don't protect your ePeen with eWhiteGloves.

Thanks for an excellent example for my earlier point about players I wish to avoid entirely.

Killing scripted monsters only lasts so long in fun. Fighting someone with a brain will always be better.

To you. If I want to fight someone with a 'brain' (and I do hope you use that term to describe MMO PVP loosely) then I'll play a FPS. The only time I can say I actually have enjoyed PVP in a MMO is DAOC from beta through the first 90 days or so of release. Then Mythic started reading the endless river of tears from whining PVP faggots over on VN boards and proceeded to excise everything good out of the game.

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by Vorph

Thanks for an excellent example for my earlier point about players I wish to avoid entirely.

To you. If I want to fight someone with a 'brain' (and I do hope you use that term to describe MMO PVP loosely) then I'll play a FPS. The only time I can say I actually have enjoyed PVP in a MMO is DAOC from beta through the first 90 days or so of release. Then Mythic started reading the endless river of tears from whining PVP faggots over on VN boards and proceeded to excise everything good out of the game.

PvP in a FPS and PvP in a MMORPG are vastly different things, and the crowds that enjoy them might be different. It's unfair to say "If I want to PvP I'll just play a FPS." There's a lot about PvP MMOs that a FPS will never have.

In saying this, this thread is not entirely about penalties per se. What if killing players in PvP drops their "ear" like Diablo? Then players could create houses of their kill trophies? Has nothing to do with the gameplay, but I wouldn't be surprised if many "old-school penalty" PvPers liked the idea.