WAR - another newsletter - more RvR, less sport PvP

[HaemishM]

You want to know what meaningful PVP means?

It means marriages ending in divorce. It means normally rational people burning themselves to the wick end by staying up until 4 in the morning on a workday just to make sure your shit is still there when you login the next day. It means normally rational people screaming at the top of their lungs at each other, at their computers and at random dev 01 because something is so broke it can't be fixed. It means useless asshat investment bankers turn into raging douchebag haxX0rZ because it gives their guild one iota of advantage. It means entire guilds of friends become pus-oozing thundercunts to each other over the blame game.

Fuck your "meaningful PVP." Adding excessive meaning to PVP is sure to lead to very bad things for the people who are not willing or able to dedicate their lives to one game and one game only until they have to be committed by their family because cockroaches have nested in their ears. Meaningful PVP is for single people who have no desire to do anything useful outside of the game. It's also sure to make the losers quit sooner rather than later.

Now, PVP could certainly stand to have some more permanence than say WoW battlegrounds. Establishing supply lines of NPC vassals that follow along behind your army on siege would be an interesting addition, NPC vassals that fight for shit and can be attacked by your enemies. Protecting those and being able to attack those could make defense fun and worthwhile.

[Triforcer]

Are you speaking in the abstract, or do you think WAR's keep/capital siege system is too permanent?  Really, must MMO developers assume that seeing another's guild banner on a keep will whip the other 99% of the population into unstoppable gibbering rage?

[HaemishM]

Are you speaking in the abstract, or do you think WAR's keep/capital siege system is too permanent? 

Don't know enough about it to comment, but since Mythic is doing the game, I'm assuming most hardcore PVPers (read crotchpheasants) will think it isn't permanent enough.

[Xanthippe]

Now, PVP could certainly stand to have some more permanence than say WoW battlegrounds. Establishing supply lines of NPC vassals that follow along behind your army on siege would be an interesting addition, NPC vassals that fight for shit and can be attacked by your enemies. Protecting those and being able to attack those could make defense fun and worthwhile.

Yep.

I wish there was some system for espionage.  Have any mmo's had such a thing yet?

[Mrbloodworth]

Now, PVP could certainly stand to have some more permanence than say WoW battlegrounds. Establishing supply lines of NPC vassals that follow along behind your army on siege would be an interesting addition, NPC vassals that fight for shit and can be attacked by your enemies. Protecting those and being able to attack those could make defense fun and worthwhile.

Yep.

I wish there was some system for espionage.  Have any mmo's had such a thing yet?

Thats called ALTS, or Ventrillo.

[Xanthippe]

Heh.  I didn't mean an espionage metagame but some espionage mechanism in the game.

[Mrbloodworth]

Heh.  I didn't mean an espionage metagame but some espionage mechanism in the game.

I know. 

[eldaec]

Now, PVP could certainly stand to have some more permanence than say WoW battlegrounds. Establishing supply lines of NPC vassals that follow along behind your army on siege would be an interesting addition, NPC vassals that fight for shit and can be attacked by your enemies. Protecting those and being able to attack those could make defense fun and worthwhile.

Yep.

I wish there was some system for espionage.  Have any mmo's had such a thing yet?

EVE does, don't know about SB?

In daoc it was normal to use stealthers to monitor activity at the gates and within keeps when planning serious attacks (assuming you didn't have a dirty cross-realming level 1 alt).

There was also a supply line system that dictated how far upfield allied players could port in.

[Nevermore]

You want to know what meaningful PVP Raids means?

It means marriages ending in divorce. It means normally rational people burning themselves to the wick end by staying up until 4 in the morning on a workday just to make sure your shit is still there when you login the next day. It means normally rational people screaming at the top of their lungs at each other, at their computers and at random dev 01 because something is so broke it can't be fixed. It means useless asshat investment bankers turn into raging douchebag haxX0rZ because it gives their guild one iota of advantage. It means entire guilds of friends become pus-oozing thundercunts to each other over the blame game.

That's hardly unique to PvP.  In my experience there's far more drama and vitriol with roots in the PvE game than PvP.  Sure PvP can generate much angst and gnashing of teeth but it typically isn't the same kind long lasting, people-breaking clusterfucks you find in PvE drama.  Compare DAoC PvP vs EQ1 PvE dramas, for example.  Now I never played SB.exe and never got involved in the alliance crap in Eve because that kind of involvement in PvP never appealed to me.  I may hate on Mythic for a lot of crap they did in DAoC, but I'll give credit where credit is due and say they had about the right amount of 'meaning' in their RvR.  People who take things way too seriously will pull their crap in pretty much any activity, whether is PvP, PvE, English football or fucked up parents living their lives through their precious little wonder-athlete kids.  News flash: People suck.

[HaemishM]

Sure PvP can generate much angst and gnashing of teeth but it typically isn't the same kind long lasting, people-breaking clusterfucks you find in PvE drama.  Compare DAoC PvP vs EQ1 PvE dramas, for example. 

No, I'd say it's about equal. The raiding game that causes such PVE drama is just as fucked as PVP with mearning, mainly because all of it is balanced towards the hardcore catass with more time to obsess about games than "normal people."

[Mrbloodworth]

Im going to go with HaemishM's definition. As it seems to be what most people mean by "Meaningful PvP", at least in the mmorpg scene.

To put it simpler, someone needs to not enjoy the game, and or be upset.

[Ratman_tf]

No, meaningful PvP can be something as simple as a leaderboard, or shiny hat that says "You're a special snowflake"

Fuck the catasses. They exist to drag everyone else's fun down the path of grind anyway.

[Triforcer]

Im going to go with HaemishM's definition. As it seems to be what most people mean by "Meaningful PvP", at least in the mmorpg scene.

To put it simpler, someone needs to not enjoy the game, and or be upset.

Has a time machine taken us back to the SWG pre-beta boards circa 2001?  I thought we were past all this nincompoopery by now.  Why do we have to assume that any success by an opposing party has to result in the loser screeching like a small, spoiled child?

[Venkman]

It's not how they lost. It's what.

SB losses are worse the generic eSport PvP losses by far. But at least with SB you had a strong enough guild or alliance and you got your stuff back quick, and you went into the entire experience eyes wide open. Because if you didn't have an alliance or guild or didn't know what was going on, you were roadkill or hours from quiting.

This I think makes Raiding actually worse. With that you've up against 20-75 other people vying for some type of loot. And no matter who wins, 20-90% of the other people there aren't getting something. So even if it isn't wipe after wipe of collective time loss, it's still collective time loss for the people who didn't win. Worse, it's time loss in an absolutely repetitive activity where the only thing that is ever different is whether someone misses a beat on their heal rotation. It's as close to a pure skinner box this genre has, which is something something in a genre so full of near passes at them.

At least with PvP things can change.

Except in WoW AV BGs...

[Johny Cee]

This I think makes Raiding actually worse. With that you've up against 20-75 other people vying for some type of loot. And no matter who wins, 20-90% of the other people there aren't getting something. So even if it isn't wipe after wipe of collective time loss, it's still collective time loss for the people who didn't win. Worse, it's time loss in an absolutely repetitive activity where the only thing that is ever different is whether someone misses a beat on their heal rotation. It's as close to a pure skinner box this genre has, which is something something in a genre so full of near passes at them.

The problem with this is assuming people are going into the activity thinking they are sure to get an item,  and than feeling fucked over because they got nothing.  Players know the rate of drops,  and will know the number of other classes to potentially bid on an item.  I find it hard to believe that they don't discount the rate of return by percentage chance of success, where success is "kill boss", "item drops", and "successfully bid on item".


The item really doesn't matter that much to people, anyway, which is the biggest fallacy in this line of reasoning.  If the encounters/raids were pure drudgery players would stop raiding no matter how shiny the loot (see DAoC and ToA). 

You need a reward and a mildly engaging/entertaining encounter to enable the whole raid metagame: people want to lead/be respected and renowned, others want to be part of a successful group, others want to be seen as supporting and helping their fellow players, some just want to be set apart as better than other players for some arbitrary reason, some people just like to do things with their friends.

[KyanMehwulfe]

Meaningful PvP for me has always been as simple as AC Darktide. If you had the force to claim a plot of land (town, dungeon, spawn, whatever) as your own -- it was. Until someone came along who could take it away. There were many issues with the PvP in AC (level disparity, etc.) but the base equation was FFA and the only reward to winning was that you had that location for as long as you could hold it.

Rules on PvP are like cooks in the kitchen, too many and you spoil it.

There's a sort of crude and raw appeal to something as simple as that.

Where the risk (of threatening that crude appeal) seems to come is in the demand/need for 'systems'. It exists in all elements of the genre, really. A system to measure guilds; a system to measure progress; and, of course, one to measure war or conflict -- et cetera. Not a demand without merit, mind you; it's a RPG genre after all. But often it seems that games can get carried away with their systems and forget about that raw and crude appeal you described, or even expect the system to carry the lack of that appeal.

I think in my own examples of my favorite world PvP, what makes them appealing to me is that I enjoyed them in their most basic form, and any systems compliment the experience (rather than carried it or existed -as- the experience itself). So with the example of DAOC (and I think your AC example would work, too, had they sort of complimented your experience later), I enjoyed it at release in its most basic state of just realms fighting over land; then when they fixed/added realm points or keeps, those things complimented the basic elements of realm pride and realm land.

At least for me, personally, and only early on. How that changed for many, especially later with the growth of 8-mans/etc, is a different matter (one of sustainability, among other things, though that can tie back into the demand for systems as well).

[Hoax]

The only valid thing DAOC  gets credit for is having a system wherein small scale pvp groups could flourish despite the zergs.  Everyone cries about play2crush but honestly the problem isn't the crushing as much as the binary system in a game like SB.

Have's:
Castle, fully ranked trainers, fully ranked and stocked vendors, secure tol, relatively secured hunting/farming grounds.

Have not's:
Nothing, bootsey castle, hodge podge of shit vendors, waiting to get steamrolled.

There was no way to operate independently, or wage guerilla warfare without doing the shell ToL game, you couldnt get out from under the gold farming reqs and nothing stopped alliances from just adding more and more and more guilds to their banner beyond human pride and ego. 

To me those were the issues, not the crushing but the fact that being crushed meant you had to either give up your identity and move up the alliance size ladder or accept that that same zerg could come back and steamroll you anytime.

[Simond]

The only valid thing DAOC  gets credit for is having a system wherein small scale pvp groups could flourish despite the zergs.  Everyone cries about play2crush but honestly the problem isn't the crushing as much as the binary system in a game like SB.

Have's:
Castle, fully ranked trainers, fully ranked and stocked vendors, secure tol, relatively secured hunting/farming grounds.

Have not's:
Nothing, bootsey castle, hodge podge of shit vendors, waiting to get steamrolled.

There was no way to operate independently, or wage guerilla warfare without doing the shell ToL game, you couldnt get out from under the gold farming reqs and nothing stopped alliances from just adding more and more and more guilds to their banner beyond human pride and ego. 

To me those were the issues, not the crushing but the fact that being crushed meant you had to either give up your identity and move up the alliance size ladder or accept that that same zerg could come back and steamroll you anytime.

...which is what most people mean when they want their PvP to have meaning.

[Triforcer]

The only valid thing DAOC  gets credit for is having a system wherein small scale pvp groups could flourish despite the zergs.  Everyone cries about play2crush but honestly the problem isn't the crushing as much as the binary system in a game like SB.

Have's:
Castle, fully ranked trainers, fully ranked and stocked vendors, secure tol, relatively secured hunting/farming grounds.

Have not's:
Nothing, bootsey castle, hodge podge of shit vendors, waiting to get steamrolled.

There was no way to operate independently, or wage guerilla warfare without doing the shell ToL game, you couldnt get out from under the gold farming reqs and nothing stopped alliances from just adding more and more and more guilds to their banner beyond human pride and ego. 

To me those were the issues, not the crushing but the fact that being crushed meant you had to either give up your identity and move up the alliance size ladder or accept that that same zerg could come back and steamroll you anytime.

...which is what most people mean when they want their PvP to have meaning.

Umm, not at all.  Who here is claiming that only SB-style PvP is meaningful?  We're talking about DAoC and WAR, both of which people here are classifying as "meaningful" and both of which aren't that harsh. 

[Grimwell]

I firmly believe that the more systems you put into a PvP equation, the worse it gets.

[Mrbloodworth]

I firmly believe that the more systems you put into a PvP equation, the worse it gets.

Care to expand on that?

[HaemishM]

I firmly believe that the more systems you put into a PvP equation, the worse it gets.

So that would include a system for building supply lines to make sieges? Or hell, siege systems for attacking castles and such?

[slog]

I firmly believe that the more systems you put into a PvP equation, the worse it gets.

I disagree.

anexample:
Shadowbane added resource mines, which were a huge success in giving people stuff to fight over.

[slog]

  Who here is claiming that only SB-style PvP is meaningful?  We're talking about DAoC and WAR, both of which people here are classifying as "meaningful" and both of which aren't that harsh. 

As a former Hardcore PvPer (my claim to fame is my guild was on the Shadowbane Box), I think I can speak to this.

Meaningful PvP is defined by many hardcore folks as: "PvP where the result of your combat has an actual semi-permanent effect on the game world"

DAOC would not qualify, because no matter what you do, the world never actually changes.  In Shadowbane, you could lose your city, all your equipment, and everything you built.  (Note: this may not be a good thing)

[HRose]

Meaningful PvP is defined by many hardcore folks as: "PvP where the result of your combat has an actual semi-permanent effect on the game world"

DAOC would not qualify, because no matter what you do, the world never actually changes.

It's the exact opposite.

DAoC's PvP is qualified as meaningful because there are systems, hooked to the world, that do change. The fact that you can conquer, upgrade a keep, buy guards, tear down walls, use siege weapons... All this is about the world reacting.

Even if the impact is semi-permanent and not definitive.

Adding supply lines (which is one idea I share and there's a long post I wrote that is in the other development forum) is just about adding more layers to the RvR (plotting, cutting them down, defending, ambushing, patrolling). More strategy and more "game" to it that makes it different from redundant ganking groups roaming around to collect points.

Meaningful PvP means that there are systems that give depth and strategy to PvP and move it away from just a points collection.

My overall idea has always been quite simple: add elements of RTS (either real RTS or games like Civ) and territorial conquest to a RvR game. Where you set up bots/NPCs to gather resources and create supply lines, while players do the fighting and use these "toys" to give depth to the PvP.

Eve-Online does something of this. It's a PvP with many systems hooked to it. I'm rather sure those systems make Eve-Online PvP better, not worse.

[slog]

Meaningful PvP is defined by many hardcore folks as: "PvP where the result of your combat has an actual semi-permanent effect on the game world"

DAOC would not qualify, because no matter what you do, the world never actually changes.

It's the exact opposite.

DAoC's PvP is qualified as meaningful because there are systems, hooked to the world, that do change. The fact that you can conquer, upgrade a keep, buy guards, tear down walls, use siege weapons... All this is about the world reacting.

Even if the impact is semi-permanent and not definitive.

Adding supply lines (which is one idea I share and there's a long post I wrote that is in the other development forum) is just about adding more layers to the RvR (plotting, cutting them down, defending, ambushing, patrolling). More strategy and more "game" to it that makes it different from redundant ganking groups roaming around to collect points.

Meaningful PvP means that there are systems that give depth and strategy to PvP and move it away from just a points collection.

My overall idea has always been quite simple: add elements of RTS (either real RTS or games like Civ) and territorial conquest to a RvR game. Where you set up bots/NPCs to gather resources and create supply lines, while players do the fighting and use these "toys" to give depth to the PvP.

Eve-Online does something of this. It's a PvP with many systems hooked to it. I'm rather sure those systems make Eve-Online PvP better, not worse.

As usual, you took what was written, completely ignored it's intent,and substituted the points you wanted to get across.

GG

[Ratman_tf]

As usual, you took what was written, completely ignored it's intent,and substituted the points you wanted to get across.

GG

You might have just described 90% of the posts here.

[Xanthippe]

Meaningful PvP is defined by many hardcore folks as: "PvP where the result of your combat has an actual semi-permanent effect on the game world"

DAOC would not qualify, because no matter what you do, the world never actually changes.  In Shadowbane, you could lose your city, all your equipment, and everything you built.  (Note: this may not be a good thing)

Temporary changes can make pvp meaningful (for me, who's only hardcore casual) - like  realm wide buffs or getting control of an instance (Darkness Falls).

[HRose]

As usual, you took what was written, completely ignored it's intent,and substituted the points you wanted to get across.

Nope, it's the intent to be wrong.

Meaningful PvP can't correspond only to players losing weeks and months of progress, being kicked repeatedly in the nuts and hours upon hours to only achieve something.

That just means that you confuse meaningful PvP with plain bad game design.

It's the exact equivalent of catass PvE players saying that "meaningful PvE" is equal of months upon months of experience grinds and farming and harsh death penalties.

"Meaningful PvE" gave us Vanguard. PvP is already so poorly considered that we don't need an equivalent.

[IainC]

Much as it pains me to do so I have to agree with HRose.
For PvP to be meaningful it simply has to have noticeable consequences beyond the individuals involved. Whether it's permanent or temporary isn't really important as long as some exterior system takes account of the fact that you have won and the other guy lost.

Hardcore PvPers can define what the hell they like, they don't become right by default.

[HRose]

Much as it pains me to do so I have to agree with HRose.
For PvP to be meaningful it simply has to have noticeable consequences beyond the individuals involved. Whether it's permanent or temporary isn't really important as long as some exterior system takes account of the fact that you have won and the other guy lost.

A better definition is about not thinking about permanency or transitoriness and think instead about *consequences*.

DAoC had PvP with consequences. If you conquer a keep, it's yours, if you lose it, the enemy has it till you take it back. This means that the world has a developing sense, even if these elements are still transitory (and sporadic).

The difference is from instanced PvP, where the instance reset along with the consequences of the victory. You conquer and defend something, but that terrain is then reset without an action from the enemy. And all the gaemplay is forgotten and without a continuity.

THAT's meaningful PvP. PvP with a continuity.

Then we can argue Warhammer way to intend RvR. That has consequences (as the front line progresses through maps as a realm charts a better performance than the other), but also has instances that reset, and so without "solid" entities to fight for.

It's a PvP with consequences, but where these consequences come out of a leader board, and not from the battle on a persistent territory.

[lac]

Right, just to make this clear from my end of the spectrum: PvP is meaningful when you feel like 'hah, I got him good'.
I don't give a crap if the '23rd etage of the rosetta tower' opens if I kill 400 more people or whatever remote secondary consequence happens because some developer thought would be cool.
Its PVP, there are no secondary consequences when you go toe to toe, when I pvp I want to feel like an awesome young god when I kill someone and I want the many deaths I had to suffer before my 'moment de gloire' to feel inconsequential.
Good PvP is about that instant satisfaction you get when you make that kill. Its about getting right back into the action when you're snuffed and do more harm, and if that all leads to virtual property gains or whatever thats cool but inconsequential to the basic fun you want to have when you go on your killing spree.

[Ratman_tf]

Right, just to make this clear from my end of the spectrum: PvP is meaningful when you feel like 'hah, I got him good'.
I don't give a crap if the '23rd etage of the rosetta tower' opens if I kill 400 more people or whatever secondary consequence happens because some developer thought would be cool.
Its PVP, there are no secondary consequences, I want to feel like an awesome young god when I kill someone and I want the many deaths I had to suffer before my 'moment de gloire' to feel inconsequential. That can't be that hard, now can it?

See, that's great. But for me personally, it's about teamwork. (Lol, WoW battlegrounds, lol) Wether I kill Bob over there or he kills me is secondary to my team winning. (I noticed that's a big strategy in AB. You got to keep the other team fighting instead of taking nodes...)

So my ability to defeat another player is a means to an end (a team victory) to me.

[slog]

As usual, you took what was written, completely ignored it's intent,and substituted the points you wanted to get across.

Nope, it's the intent to be wrong.

Meaningful PvP can't correspond only to players losing weeks and months of progress, being kicked repeatedly in the nuts and hours upon hours to only achieve something.

That just means that you confuse meaningful PvP with plain bad game design.

It's the exact equivalent of catass PvE players saying that "meaningful PvE" is equal of months upon months of experience grinds and farming and harsh death penalties.

"Meaningful PvE" gave us Vanguard. PvP is already so poorly considered that we don't need an equivalent.

I didnt write about what you think meaningfull pvp is.  I wrote about Hardcore PvPers

[Venkman]

See, I don't get how your use of "semi permanent" is any different from taking, controlling, upgrading, and losing Keeps in DAoC. The only variance is the length of time of "semi". If the game can take a Keep from you through some arbitrary means (like a WoW BG reset timer), then it's not meaningful. But if the only way to lose one you've gained is through your own inaction (didn't pay upkeep, chose not to guard) or through the action of other players, then that's meaningful.

It's not so long a distance from DAoC Keeps through SB cities to Eve POSes. I really think it's overthinking it to try and draw distinctions.