AOC- PvP Info

[Merusk]

Generally one character per account or one character per server breeds multiple accounts per person in my experience.

Yes.. which from a business standpoint companies love.  "What, you're going to pay for 6 accounts a month?! FANTASTIC!"

I despise the mechanic, but I've lived with it unhappily.  I'll tell you for certain it makes me more likely to jump ship for the next new shiny.

[Jimbo]

All the pvp and blah blah talk about how it is awesome sounds great, if you make it that a brand spanking newbie with the lowest gear can gank and kill the elite veteran.

[DarkSign]

All the pvp and blah blah talk about how it is awesome sounds great, if you make it that a brand spanking newbie with the lowest gear can gank and kill the elite veteran.

QFT

If you have a level-less system where everyone starts at an average skill level and progression is a movement towards expertise...especially in an MMOFPS you could have someone 5 seconds from world entry killing an "elite vet"

[Merusk]

All the pvp and blah blah talk about how it is awesome sounds great, if you make it that a brand spanking newbie with the lowest gear can gank and kill the elite veteran.

Never going to happen in an MMO, unless it's PS. If advancement means nothing, then you'll find not enough killers wanting to play it for long.  Socializers and exploerers, perhaps, but that depends on other systems.

Advancement is that thing that everyone likes to publicly kick, but then quietly wishes for when it's gone.

Now, if you want to argue the noob character ganking the old character that's not optimized, feel free.  But an un-optimized older character is still a 'noob' just of a different flavor, and not the 'elite veteran' previously described.

[tmp]

Never going to happen in an MMO, unless it's PS. If advancement means nothing, then you'll find not enough killers wanting to play it for long.  Socializers and exploerers, perhaps, but that depends on other systems.

Wouldn't killers don't give a damn, actually? (did they in UO?) Achievers might scoff at "lack of progress" but these two don't necessarily overleap, e.g. killers in EVE are quite happy to gank people with whatever they have available at given moment...

[Merusk]

If you think UO didn't have Advancement, then we're not even having a conversation yet.

Advancement is NOT limited to Levels & Loot.  If it is, then Eve Has no advancement, either.  Enjoy taking your noob ship to 0.0.

Even hardecore killers don't try that.

[tmp]

If you think UO didn't have Advancement, then we're not even having a conversation yet.

No, i think killers in UO didn't care much about them.

Enjoy taking your noob ship to 0.0.

Even hardecore killers don't try that.

There's probably some goons on this board who will be happy to represent. Others do it too; when you lose your ship in fight in 0.0 and noob ship is all you're left with, that doesn't exactly stop every single player from fighting, some will carry on not giving damn.

edit: it's bit aside from the point though. The point being, if the gear and 'advancement' is limited then it simply means killers are able to kill _anyone regardless of their level and gear_. What makes you think that would discourage said killers from playing, rather than do exactly opposite?

[DrewC]

Generally one character per account or one character per server breeds multiple accounts per person in my experience.

Somewhere an MMO producer just got sexually excited and he's not sure why.

[Merusk]

If you think UO didn't have Advancement, then we're not even having a conversation yet.

No, i think killers in UO didn't care much about them.

Yeah, they didn't care so much that they developed and used the macros to buff out a toon before even thinking about "playing."  Silly me.

Enjoy taking your noob ship to 0.0.

Even hardecore killers don't try that.

There's probably some goons on this board who will be happy to represent. Others do it too; when you lose your ship in fight in 0.0 and noob ship is all you're left with, that doesn't exactly stop every single player from fighting, some will carry on not giving damn.

There's also a vast difference between being in a blob of 300 noob/ early ships vs 50 in other ships (Goons successful strategy), and just wandering there all by yourself.  The statement was made about A noob killing AN elite veteran in the game. Again, that's not happening in any MMO other than PS; attempts to reframe that statement notwithstanding.  You're simply NOT able to kill an "elite veteran" in Eve as a solo noob - the original statement.

edit: it's bit aside from the point though. The point being, if the gear and 'advancement' is limited then it simply means killers are able to kill _anyone regardless of their level and gear_. What makes you think that would discourage said killers from playing, rather than do exactly opposite?

Now, perhaps plenty of folks would be willing to see all EVE's advancement go bye-bye and continue killing.  I'm more willing to bet they'd bugger off. Advancement is part of the hook, and always has been.  And as I said above, killers AREN'T exactly able to kill anyone regardless of level and gear in Eve or any other MMO.  The opportunity is there to work around, or gang-up and dominate that elite player, but that's true of even the "UBER LOOTZ DIKU" games everyone here spews such hate for.  The only difference is if the game world is PvP+ or PVP-voluntary.

[tmp]

Yeah, they didn't care so much that they developed and used the macros to buff out a toon before even thinking about "playing."  Silly me.

We might be thinking of it in two slightly different ways. How do you go from the point that's killers not ignoring the advancement in game to conclusion the advancement is necessary part of the game for these killers to keep playing it? Again, killers specifically as opposed to achievers who are by definition supposed to pay more attention to that particular aspect of game.

"because it's always been a hook in every game" it's questionable when you already accepted possibility the socializers and explorers may not care about this particular hook too much. Why do you think the killers would?

[Venkman]

Never going to happen in an MMO, unless it's PS. If advancement means nothing, then you'll find not enough killers wanting to play it for long.  Socializers and exploerers, perhaps, but that depends on other systems.

Wouldn't killers don't give a damn, actually? (did they in UO?) Achievers might scoff at "lack of progress" but these two don't necessarily overleap, e.g. killers in EVE are quite happy to gank people with whatever they have available at given moment...

Killers require the advancement everyone else does. They can't be very effective otherwise. There's, what, two MMOs that exist at all which do not have some form of measured advancement schema? And I'm not even sure if Underlight is still active anymore.

All four of the much-abused Bartle archetypes require advancement of some form to do their thing if that purported playertype is active in an MMO. You're not going to be a level 1 Explorer for long in WoW. You're not going to explore the ends of the universe in Eve with a Rifter for very long. You can socialize all you want, but if you do that in a MMO, chances are you're doing it while (or between) other things.

Nobody's "just" anything in MMOs, except that we all have some amount of achiever. Or we wouldn't be here.

[tmp]

Killers require the advancement everyone else does. They can't be very effective otherwise.

Yeah, but again, that can be seen as two different things. i.e.:

* i do the treadmill because it's there and i can't do much if i don't
* i won't play this game (for long) if it doesn't have the treadmill

Merusk seems to be saying it's the latter option for killers in MMO. To me it feels rather it's the former case -- they'll do the treadmill if it's there (and bitch about having to spend time in PvE in order to get that done) ... but if the treadmill was removed they couldn't care less about lack of it.

[Merusk]

My reasoning is based primarily on one thing.

If you, REALLY, REALLY don't want the treadmill and just want to defeat folks in head-to-head competition, there's plenty of games NOT mmos that do that.  They're all FPS or "Casual" games like chess, checkers, etc.   Fuck, if you insist on killing folks there's better competition on Consoles these days I hear.

If you're playing an MMO you're in it for more than just the killing/ competition. Most probably the "worldliness," and part of that "world" architecture is advancement of some sort.

[waylander]

Vote For your Preference!!

Funcom is polling the players for how open PVP should be on RP-PVP Servers and regular PVP servers.

[Murgos]

1 on 1 a 1 week old Eve noob in a gank fitted cruiser could take out the most senior vet in a top end fleet fitted sniper battleship without taking a scratch (provided the vet didn't carry light or fast med drones), with the right engagement conditions.  Like say, they both come out of warp at close range to each other.   If the engagement range was large then the BS vet could probably pop the newb in the cruiser before he knew what was happening.

Eve pvp has raised situational awareness and tactical planning to an importance of very high levels.  Something that even UO didn't do that well.

[Slayerik]

They call that a survey?

[waylander]

They call that a survey?

At least they don't beat around the bush and just get straight to the point.

[murdoc]

I wonder what percentage of people will take the PVP/RP-PVP server poll just so they can say that they won't play on a PVP/RP-PVP server.

[Ratman_tf]

My problem isn't with advancement. A BR 20 guy has a significant advantage over a BR 1 guy in Planetside. Especially over the course of an assault, and not just a single duel situation.

My problem is with the concept that higher level = autowin button. That shit is gay no matter how you slice it.

That's why world PvP in WoW sucked balls, and they retreated to the concept of battlegrounds.

[tmp]

My reasoning is based primarily on one thing.

If you, REALLY, REALLY don't want the treadmill and just want to defeat folks in head-to-head competition, there's plenty of games NOT mmos that do that.

I think the mistake in this reasoning is, it excludes the possibility player may genuinely not care if the treadmill is there or isn't. I.e. situation where they will participate in treadmill if it's there, but if it isn't there they won't miss it.

There seriously is room for "who gives a fuck" that sits squarely between the "want" and "do not want". But your reasoning jumps straight from one to the other -- 'they must want it because otherwise they wouldn't want it and then they'd play something else'.

[UnSub]

I wonder what percentage of people will take the PVP/RP-PVP server poll just so they can say that they won't play on a PVP/RP-PVP server.

The problem with that survey is that it's self-selecting - every PvPtard will want to select the most extreme PvP setting they can because that makes them hardcore. The people who don't PvP probably won't click on the link.

If Funcom actually wanted to know this kind of thing for real, they really should have 1) sent out email invitations to a random selection of their forum database so that the responses are less likely to be stacked and 2) have already made the damn decision by now. AoC launches in two months. These kind of decisions aren't polish, they're core gameplay choices.

[cmlancas]

And that's a bad thing for a MMOG company how?

 

[K9]

It's a fair point, the decision on whether or not to have safe havens in a game with collision-detection is pretty big. If you allow PvP anywhere, you need to maintain collision detection in towns to maintain parity; however then you run the risk of people clogging up in corwded areas. I expect they'll take the less "hardcore" route and disable PvP in towns, so that they can also turn collision detection off in those areas.

AoC still seems very wait and see though; FC's strategy of being fairly coy about gameplay details isn't inspiring me to rush forward and jump into the blindly. Although I'm still holding out some faint hope for a bit of  someday.

[UnSub]

And that's a bad thing for a MMOG company how?

 

On one hand: lolFuncom.

On the other: you'd have thought they'd have worked it out by now.

[Nebu]

What is your favorite food?

- Hamburger

- Cheeseburger

Thank you for taking our survey.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah.  All the options suck if you can't or won't eat bread.

[Venkman]

If you're playing an MMO you're in it for more than just the killing/ competition.

I disagree. If you're in it for killing/competition, it's because it's a field of competition that you like over another field of competition. You like how winners are determined over other games. It's sort of what Ratman says, except without the "shit is gay" part.

My problem is with the concept that higher level = autowin button. That shit is gay no matter how you slice it.

MMO PvP competition is as different from FPS PvP competition as Baseball is from the either type of Football. They're both competitive team sporting events. But the needs for success are completely different, have different fans, have different needs, and have different competitors.

[tmp]

MMO PvP competition is as different from FPS PvP competition as Baseball is from the either type of Football. They're both competitive team sporting events. But the needs for success are completely different, have different fans, have different needs, and have different competitors.

That shit is gay, though. To clarify it's not even that higher level = autowin thing, but how the combat equations give artificial modifiers to attack/defense rolls that ensure characters few levels younger can't even hit the higher level thing. It's initially made for PvE i think, to ensure players have zero chance to tack content 'too early' ... which is just as annoying designer's attitude in its own right. Ohnoes you're level 20 in level 25 zone, we better make sure you stand absolutely no chance to do anything here whatsoever even if there's raid worth of you.

[rk47]

sigh, just go back to FPS like Savage 2 to solve it. It's that simple. If you want to make some sort of 'permanency' of the world, you need to make the players feel rewarded for sticking with the game longer than some beginners. That's what levels and exp are for: gratification, makes people wanna grind and pay for the subs. If you have PVP MMOgames where people just login and start owning 1 year vets, i doubt there's gonna be good retention.

Even EVE had to resort to 'passive levelling' to segregate the newcomers and long-time players.

[Xanthippe]

To clarify it's not even that higher level = autowin thing, but how the combat equations give artificial modifiers to attack/defense rolls that ensure characters few levels younger can't even hit the higher level thing. It's initially made for PvE i think, to ensure players have zero chance to tack content 'too early' ... which is just as annoying designer's attitude in its own right. Ohnoes you're level 20 in level 25 zone, we better make sure you stand absolutely no chance to do anything here whatsoever even if there's raid worth of you.

Yes.  Yes yes yes yes yes.

This is perhaps my biggest complaint about level-based games.  That to-hit modifier.

Why can't I even land a hit to scratch a mob for 1hp? 

Surely there are other mechanisms to prevent whatever the hell this is meant to prevent that make more sense.

[tmp]

Even EVE had to resort to 'passive levelling' to segregate the newcomers and long-time players.

Yes, but EVE has enough common sense to let that newbie in Ibis hit the guy who's been playing for 3 years just fine. For all the 5 hp worth of it.

And no one is quitting in disgust over it for some strange reason.

[Jimbo]

sigh, just go back to FPS like Savage 2 to solve it. It's that simple. If you want to make some sort of 'permanency' of the world, you need to make the players feel rewarded for sticking with the game longer than some beginners. That's what levels and exp are for: gratification, makes people wanna grind and pay for the subs. If you have PVP MMOgames where people just login and start owning 1 year vets, i doubt there's gonna be good retention.

Even EVE had to resort to 'passive levelling' to segregate the newcomers and long-time players.

So it isn't about the combat but the fact that you reward time over some other skill.  I would rather it be that you are equal on it, and the more you play at it, the better you become at it.

FPS and RTS/TBS have that type, they let you come in equal, but what you do with the tools given means how well you will do.  The top FPS'er on a server knows that if he does something stupid, he can be owned by someone who out thinked him or her.  But then again, RPG'ers freak out over this, they don't like the idea that someone below them is able to do anything to them.

I also stated my position, since if you are going to let it go wild from the get go, i.e. log in and anyone can gank and loot you anywhere, you better have a way for the newbie to fight back and fight back effectively.  If not, you aren't going to have many people still wanting to play the game after start up (UO after 6 months).  I have noticed that the ones who want the world PvP and loot all, usually aren't into a good fair fight, but want to play the wolf and kill sheep.  I saw this in UO, I saw this on Darktide, I saw this on DAoC (sort of), the higher ups would come in and gank the lower levels, but when higher levels would show up they would run off since the easy kill wasn't easy anymore.

[tmp]

I have noticed that the ones who want the world PvP and loot all, usually aren't into a good fair fight, but want to play the wolf and kill sheep.

[krazyk]

I have given long thought to how to solve the problems of FFA pvp games/servers. What I would like to see is a more refined noob experience that would ease players into the game. I imagine a skill based game with a very steep learning curve. I imagine when you first start out the game you are in the tutorial instance and you have amnesia or something to that effect. You walk up to an npc and start conversing with him, and he asks you what your name is, then he asks you if you remember what your profession was before you lost your memory. Based on this conversation tree you get a few skills (lets say you tell the npc you remember healing people). So the npc gives you a few healing abilities, and sends you on a quest to heal some npcs fighting another npc. After you finish the quest the npc will ask if your memories are coming back to you (if you answer yes he sends you on to the next tutorial, if you answer no you keep doing quests to determine your initial skills based on what kind of archetype you want to play). It is important to note the initial skills the player starts with will not lock him into any specific role long term, but in the short term he would have to specialize in whatever skills he starts in to prevent gimping himself (lets say it takes a week or less to build up these core skills after which he could then diversify, or even respec to have new core skills if he got bored of the ones he started with).

The next thing I would do is introduce the new player to the way the world works (what are the safe areas, what are the not safe areas, how to interact with objects etc.) After the new player has went through all of the basic stuff I would then send them onto a new tutorial that would be more advanced, and would teach the player how they should act during a siege (or whatever the appropriate etiquette is for your end game). In a siege example the player is placed in an instanced zone with npcs trying to siege a fort. If you follow the npc commanders instructions you get credit for accomplishing them (defend this tower, man this siege weapon etc.) This would re-enforce the idea to the player that this is a team based effort, and if he works with the team he gets rewarded, if he chooses to not work with the team he gets nothing. This would hopefully have the effect of getting new players up to speed so they can quickly enter the end game (I recently tried playing EVE, but the tutorials suck ass, and it would be nice to have a tutorial explaining the basics of fleet combat so when the player feels he is ready for fleet combat he can jump in and not feel like a total noob).

So the final thing I would do to encourage guilds to bring new players into the fold is rip off the idea that AC had with the allegiance system. More vassals = more exp for everyone (kind of like an exp pyramid scheme). Maybe even throw in a guild recruitment board at the end of the tutorial, and to take it one step further flag the characters who successfully complete the tutorials so guilds can see who the motivated newbies are versus the ones who can't even bother to learn to play.

To conclude, the overall idea would be to ease new players into the game, give them the tools they need to find like minded people, and have very little grind to get up and running (a linear exp curve to reach x amount of core abilities and then an exponentially harder exp curve after that to become more versatile). Then of course as long as you have safe (relative to other areas, like EVE's empire space) the noobs should be fairly protected and can then ease their way into the game by doing pve missions, until they feel comfortable enough to go fight with the big boys (or they can go right from the tutorial into the wolf den if they are motivated enough). Issues like item loot would depend on how the game's economy is built. I personally like the way the EVE economy, and death penalty works, but other ways could work just as easily (and if not too harsh gain more subs).

[Venkman]

But then again, RPG'ers freak out over this, they don't like the idea that someone below them is able to do anything to them.

This is what makes the audiences different.

I don't think this tells the whole story though. Where does most WoW PvP happen? Where did most DAoC PvP happen? Basically either at the level cap, a level cap (like the level-ranged battlegrounds in both caps), th

What that tells me is that, over time, RPGers don't want level-based PvP. They want PvP when the levels don't matter, as a result of a combination of things:

• Character depth that becomes apparent over time/investment
• A world/theme/lore/style they can care about
• Maximum or at least high-end achievements they can treat as longterm goals
• PvP that adds depth to a world as long as it doesn't impede their progress (bracketed level ranges basically)
• PvP at the end of all levels with some progression still there (when again, levels don't matter).

Now sure, someone's gonna say "I/they love lording over lowbies". But like god-mode in any game, that gets boring after awhile, either as an activity unto itself or because your opponents stop showing up.