Arena Season 4 - no more welfare epics

[WindupAtheist]

I don't think any of the scenarios you are mentioned would be happening under the system I am proposing. I am talking being able to cast curse a once every few days, with a fairly low probability of it landing. The idea is not that a gang of low level griefers can reliably wipe out a high level player. But that occasionally the low level player would have the satisfaction of saying "Got you, you *****" when the curse landed. A curse you could use once a week would probably be good enough for that. It just to take the feeling of complete helplessness away, if you don't have a level 70 to log on and take revenge.

Did you ever play UO with it's noto system?  Yes, they will stand in your fire field spells just to give you murder counts.  And what the hell is the need for this system anyway?  Reroll PVE and STFU.

[Tarami]

Call pet control, we got a secular bear that needs tranquilising.

Otherwise I agree. Unless you can gank, what is the point of diku PvP? It's designed to make small boys feel like big boys. Play Quake if you want solely human skill or don't PvP at all.

[Hutch]

Did you ever play UO with it's noto system?  Yes, they will stand in your fire field spells just to give you murder counts.

And then they'll log in with their other 8 level 1 alts. And then they'll log into their second account, which has 10 level 1 alts in it.

There's not just a potential for abuse here; it's a certainty. The CS headaches alone would force a rollback of this system.

[Register]

I agree with WUA, the choice between PVP and PVE servers are available to players, and they can choose (Paid Transfer) to move to a PVE server if they can't take the heat...

But seriously, even on a PVP server you get sheltered from 1-20, and in various towns you have guards to make it harder (not impossible) for gankers to kill you. With zero death penalty (not even durability loss), the worst thing about being ganked is being set back a few mins (running back) and the feeling of injustice (if any).

The thing to note is that many gankers require participation from their victims for them to get their kick. I generally scout around a bit before rezzing to see if I can spot the ganker camping, and if I am ganked again I will take anything from a 5-20min break. Very few gankers have sufficient patience, and even when they are still there its unlikely they can maintain full concentration over time - most of the time I would be able to rez in a slightly out of sight area (behind tree, in crevice etc) and ride away before they realise I am up.

Think about how you can outsmart the gankers - it's an additional challenge and thrill in return for the inconvenience of being ganked that is the essence of PVP servers...

[Valmorian]

Very few gankers have sufficient patience, and even when they are still there its unlikely they can maintain full concentration over time

So very true.. I've never seen a ganker last more than 3-5 minutes trying to camp somebody before they get bored and ride off..

[Merusk]

Very few gankers have sufficient patience, and even when they are still there its unlikely they can maintain full concentration over time

So very true.. I've never seen a ganker last more than 3-5 minutes trying to camp somebody before they get bored and ride off..

Triforcer's mentioned he's waited as long as 20 minutes before.

I've camped two guys for 15-20 minutes before, myself.  Of course, part of that is because I was completing a quest and they were Alliance pests competing with me for limited spawns.

I'm still amazed they didn't coordinate and rez together to kick my ass.  Hunter + Mage of an equivalent level to my druid should have been able to drive me off successfuly.  Instead they just kept rezzing separately until one ran off and the other's level 60 friend finally came to guard his ass.   

[Valmorian]

Triforcer's mentioned he's waited as long as 20 minutes before.
I've camped two guys for 15-20 minutes before, myself.  Of course, part of that is because I was completing a quest and they were Alliance pests competing with me for limited spawns.

The thing is, I don't doubt there is the rare individual that can devote 20 minutes to camping a player's corpse, but that's just not what I've seen to be common on the PvP servers I've played on.  Does it happen?  Perhaps, but it's rare indeed.

[Xanthippe]

I've spent two  hours killing every noob horde in Ashenvale after my daughter was repeatedly ganked leveling.

Yes, I was bored that day.  And when the 70s arrived, it was quite fun to avoid them to continue to kill the little ones.

But I usually don't do that.  20 minutes is all it generally takes to camp a camper until he logs off.

[Threash]

I've heard people say they are never going back to pvp servers after telling me a story about how someone camped them and killed them 17 times while they were trying to quest in a specific area.  If you are being camped LEAVE THE FUCKING AREA, the distance from your corpse at which you can rez makes it impossible to be camped unless you stubbornly try to go about your bussiness as if there wasnt someone around trying to kill you.  The attitude this people have is "im a paying customer and if i want to kill things here then by god i should be able too" while forgetting they signed off on that right when they logged in a pvp server.  Giving level ones a tool to punish level eighties for ganking them is retarded, if you get camped your options should be 1) get someone to protect you and 2) go somewhere else.

[Nebu]

I've heard people say they are never going back to pvp servers after telling me a story about how someone camped them and killed them 17 times while they were trying to quest in a specific area.  If you are being camped LEAVE THE FUCKING AREA, the distance from your corpse at which you can rez makes it impossible to be camped unless you stubbornly try to go about your bussiness as if there wasnt someone around trying to kill you.  The attitude this people have is "im a paying customer and if i want to kill things here then by god i should be able too" while forgetting they signed off on that right when they logged in a pvp server.  Giving level ones a tool to punish level eighties for ganking them is retarded, if you get camped your options should be 1) get someone to protect you and 2) go somewhere else.

Why not decrease the slope of the power curve so that 4 level 20's can have a 50:50 shot at killing one level 70?  If people really play pvp servers for the fights, they should welcome that. 

I've played every MMO on the pvp server when available and WoW had some of the most pathetic pvp'ers I've seen in my history of online gaming.  On the trip from 1-70, I could only remember being hit about 5 times by someone that was a) alone and b) within 3 levels of me.  People play on pvp servers in WoW to level up and crush newbies.  If there's a chance they won't win a fight, most won't bother to even attempt it.  That's why I left the pvp server.  Noone there wanted to engage in interestign pvp outside of the arenas.  Odd considering that's what pvp servers used to be all about.

[Threash]

I've heard people say they are never going back to pvp servers after telling me a story about how someone camped them and killed them 17 times while they were trying to quest in a specific area.  If you are being camped LEAVE THE FUCKING AREA, the distance from your corpse at which you can rez makes it impossible to be camped unless you stubbornly try to go about your bussiness as if there wasnt someone around trying to kill you.  The attitude this people have is "im a paying customer and if i want to kill things here then by god i should be able too" while forgetting they signed off on that right when they logged in a pvp server.  Giving level ones a tool to punish level eighties for ganking them is retarded, if you get camped your options should be 1) get someone to protect you and 2) go somewhere else.

Why not decrease the slope of the power curve so that 4 level 20's can have a 50:50 shot at killing one level 70?  If people really play pvp servers for the fights, they should welcome that. 

That would be great.  SB did this actually, the difference between a level 50 and a level 75 was maybe a 10-15% increase in power depending on class, nobody ever played the lower levels so it wasnt really an issue.

Edit: that would fall under my "get someone to protect you" option.

[Merusk]

the distance from your corpse at which you can rez makes it impossible to be camped unless you stubbornly try to go about your bussiness as if there wasnt someone around trying to kill you. 

Not necessarily.  Druids have an awesome array of tools for camping folks.  I'm amazed more people don't play them instead of rogues after playing one.  Track humans + stealth + root meant that I was able to kill one guy who thought to try and gank me as I was turning in a quest for a good half hour.  He'd do everything he could to try and get away.  Rez as far from his corpse as he could, run, pot-up, try to bandage.  Didn't help.  He eventually logged as a ghost, I suppose, because his corpse was still there when I finally got the drop for the other quest in the area.

[Nebu]

[I'm amazed more people don't play them instead of rogues after playing one.  

They do.  On Venture Co the classes that hit me the majority of the time were rogues, druids, and warlocks.  I think people are onto you.

[Valmorian]

Why not decrease the slope of the power curve so that 4 level 20's can have a 50:50 shot at killing one level 70?  If people really play pvp servers for the fights, they should welcome that. 

Because if the power curve is low enough that a 50 level difference still puts you in the ballpark of the upper level character, then the PvE content becomes trivial.

[Nebu]

Because if the power curve is low enough that a 50 level difference still puts you in the ballpark of the upper level character, then the PvE content becomes trivial.

Are you saying that it's difficult to code players as being on a different power curve (relative to other players) than an NPC?  I'd think that would be relatively easy. 

[Register]

Because if the power curve is low enough that a 50 level difference still puts you in the ballpark of the upper level character, then the PvE content becomes trivial.

Are you saying that it's difficult to code players as being on a different power curve (relative to other players) than an NPC?  I'd think that would be relatively easy. 

I don't think it's easy to code a different power curve vs players that is balanced and not easily abused.

As demoralizing as it is for a low level player who gets ganked by a high level player, I think it will suck more as a high level player who got ganked by a couple of characters less than half his level. The pvp group I ran with in DAOC’s PVP server butchered every solo purple con caster we came across (minus bone dancers) – I don’t feel that it should be doable and so easily done at that.

What about making the 'special curve' work only when attacked one might ask? Then you will have lower level grievers jumping into the AE of higher level characters so that they will get 'activated' and proceed to gank the higher level.

The capacity for gamers to abuse game systems is exponentially multiplied whenever they are given tools that are rife with potential for abuse...

[Fordel]

I've heard people say they are never going back to pvp servers after telling me a story about how someone camped them and killed them 17 times while they were trying to quest in a specific area.  If you are being camped LEAVE THE FUCKING AREA, the distance from your corpse at which you can rez makes it impossible to be camped unless you stubbornly try to go about your bussiness as if there wasnt someone around trying to kill you.  The attitude this people have is "im a paying customer and if i want to kill things here then by god i should be able too" while forgetting they signed off on that right when they logged in a pvp server.  Giving level ones a tool to punish level eighties for ganking them is retarded, if you get camped your options should be 1) get someone to protect you and 2) go somewhere else.

Isn't leaving the PvP server "Going somewhere else" ?

 

[Gobbeldygook]

Are you saying that it's difficult to code players as being on a different power curve (relative to other players) than an NPC?  I'd think that would be relatively easy.

They already did.  The mechanical difference between a level 60 and 65 player is substantially less than the difference a 60 player and a 65 mob.

---

I sometimes organize lowbie zergs in Hillsbrad, particularly when faced with 2 or more high level players.  What I do ask everyone who can to form up, spread out, and spam heals on me.  A half dozen or more lowbies spamming heals on a warrior really does add up over time.  If they stop to kill the lowbies, that means they have to stop damaging me.

[Valmorian]

Are you saying that it's difficult to code players as being on a different power curve (relative to other players) than an NPC?  I'd think that would be relatively easy. 

Sure, but by doing that, you render virtually all equipment upgrades to be pretty much trivial.  If you have 70 levels worth of armor and weapons, and the level 1 armor is almost as good as the level 70 armor, then there's very little incentive to upgrade equipment for PvP. 

Secondly, unless you eliminate world PvP you'll have players exploiting the power difference between PC's and NPC's by using the Mobs as "cover" to do damage to melee characters where they can't be retaliated against for fear of aggroing mobs that will kill them pretty much instantly.

Now, you CAN scale the damage and healing like City of Heroes does (but that doesn't stop the mob problem above) and that's about as close as I've seen to a solution, but it has its problems too. 

Basically, it's not a trivial solution to implement.

[Nebu]

Sure, but by doing that, you render virtually all equipment upgrades to be pretty much trivial. 

Why, exactly, is this a bad thing for pvp?  I'd consider this a very good thing. 

[WindupAtheist]

We're talking Diku.  Without signifigant gear upgrades to drag people kicking-and-screaming into the endgame, the game's entire social and gameplay structure would collapse in a heap of soggy poopsocks.

[Register]

Are you saying that it's difficult to code players as being on a different power curve (relative to other players) than an NPC?  I'd think that would be relatively easy.

They already did.  The mechanical difference between a level 60 and 65 player is substantially less than the difference a 60 player and a 65 mob.

---

I sometimes organize lowbie zergs in Hillsbrad, particularly when faced with 2 or more high level players.  What I do ask everyone who can to form up, spread out, and spam heals on me.  A half dozen or more lowbies spamming heals on a warrior really does add up over time.  If they stop to kill the lowbies, that means they have to stop damaging me.

The difference between a lvl 65 and a 60 is not that great - for non casters. Caster wise there is a very visible increase in the number of resists vs red/skull con players.

But I get the sense that the point being raised earlier was not about a 60 being ganked by a 65, but more along a Lvl 20-30+ being killed by a 60-70. As WOW currently stands, the 60-70 have to be AFK for a 30+ to beat em. Also, at 58-60 and 70 there are significant gear upgrade options that makes the stat difference far greater - the best gear at 69 vs the best gear at 70 is like more than 10 levels apart in gear difference.

[photek]

Even if you're only excluding one class, it's still exclusionary.

It particularly rankles those of us who DO play Hunters.. to the point I've begun looking at other games.   You're going to exclude the class I enjoy playing because you can't wrap your mind around making it work? Fine, I'll find a game that doesn't.*  I can't be alone on this, and since Hunters are THE most played class it's a silly thing for Blizzard to do.

* It shouldn't be THAT fucking hard, either. At it's core, an archer class is a ranged damage dealer that deals "Physical" type damage instead of "magic" type.  For SOME fucking reason this seems to elude most designers and they think "Some kind of 'rogue/ warrior at range' hybrid"  instead of "oh! Mage/ necromancer/ warlock/ whatever with arrows..."

I dont know what realm nor BG you play on, but Hunters are amazing in arena. My main is Warrior and we're ranked 3rd in our BG 3on3 (2409 rating atm) and my Hunter alt is at 2162 2on2, 2133 3on3, 2011 5on5 and this is my alt character. I recommend you speccing properly (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cZEV0oEzMjotMhhrt) and adjusting to the playstyle. With that build, say you go 2on2 with a skilled druid, I guarantee you 2000 rating your first week. A few teams will be problematic for you (Warlock / Druid) (Rogue/XX), but assuming your Druid is extremely talented you are nearly immortal and got tons of CC and will drain things very fast. Also get the scorpid of course with the posion debuff and with improved stings they will rarely get off the Viper Stings. Viper Sting needs to stick on 24/7, get some addons for timerbars.

As you say there is many hunters around and they are overrepresented due to the fact that it is an easy class to play (BM specc in BG's) in PvP, but very hard to perfect. Once you perfect your playstyle with a Druid, work around eachothers diminishing returns and use CC / stings efficiently, you will annihilate the most. Me with my Warrior and Druid (2353 2on2) are chanceless VS this setup. Its almost better to AFK out then fight it cause I will be CCed 24/7. After I pummel, interrupt complete here it goes : 3 cyclones, 3 roots (he will moonfire rank 1 spell reflect), feral charge, scatter shot, freezing trap and restart.

Go practice, don't complain about the class just yet 

[Threash]

Hunters have been at the bottom of the totem pole for every single season so far.  Just because a few of them can reach top rankings doesn't mean its MUCH MUCH harder for a hunter to do it than say a warrior or a druid.  Spec? come on.  The problem is and has always been arena design.  The classes that struggle the most are the ones affected by los the most (hunters, mages, shamans, and paladins) and classes without a get out of jail free card like ice block/bubble/cheat death or even defensive stance and travel form and hunters and shamans are the only ones who overlap those two categories.  At least shamans have the insanely overpowered heroism to assure them at least some measure of representation.  Make the arenas completely wide open like real pvp and you'd see hunters go from bottom of the barrel to one of the top classes in no time.

[Gobbeldygook]

Hunters have been at the bottom of the totem pole for every single season so far.  Just because a few of them can reach top rankings doesn't mean its MUCH MUCH harder for a hunter to do it than say a warrior or a druid.

No, it's because most hunters suck.  We don't call them 'huntards' for nothing.  As a collective whole, hunters are by far the stupidest class in the game and are underrepresented in all content that require you NOT drool on yourself.  The hunters I grab when we need a PUG are a running gag in my guild; they are inevitably HORRIBLE, like sub 500 DPS horrible.

[Merusk]

 

Yeah, it's not a problem with the class.. it's the players. I remember when I failed the test to be able to roll a Lock or a MS warrior. I was crushed, but hey at least I could play a hunter, it said!

Really, sometimes you guys amaze me with your vault-like clarity and reason.

[Gobbeldygook]

Yeah, it's not a problem with the class..it's the players.

This is exactly right.  I'm so glad you're getting it.  Hunters have some abilities that lower their DPS if used improperly.  It's not obvious and since they MAKE OMG BIG NUMBERS POP UP OMG, the hunter thinks they're playing well.  >Here< is Vhairi's 2v2 rating chart.  Note how after 1700, hunters esssentially flatline until 2100.  It's almost as if once you filter out the legions of facerollers, there is a solid population of successful hunters.

[Zetor]

Someone just fell into the sarchasm.

Yeah, it's not a problem with the class.. it's the players. I remember when I failed the test to be able to roll a Lock or a MS warrior. I was crushed, but hey at least I could play a hunter, it said!

Really, sometimes you guys amaze me with your vault-like clarity and reason.

I play a warrior and a lock (I sure got on the overpowered wagon early... back in 2004 :P), and the #1 DPSer in my guild is a hunter. It needs good reflexes / ping to weave shots properly, something most dps classes don't need to do (other than improved slam bloodfrenzy bot MS warriors, but those don't do competitive damage in the first place). Their cc also isn't as "easy" as a mage's, they actually need to keep distance AND stand still while dpsing... etc. As for easymode in pvp... yeah, maybe in BGs, but arenas are a LOS nightmare even for my 'dot and go' warlock.

[disclaimer: I don't play a hunter, but I really don't think it's as much a "lol easymode" class as the WOW forums would have you believe. When I specced 21/40 destruction on my lock, I used a grand total of three buttons for dps, didn't need good timing or anything. That's hard!]


-- Z.

[Gobbeldygook]

I play a warrior and a lock (I sure got on the overpowered wagon early... back in 2004 :P), and the #1 DPSer in my guild is a hunter. It needs good reflexes / ping to weave shots properly,

Does not.  Your hunter is probably a 41/20 BM spec hunter.  He probably presses exactly ONE button to DPS.  It's a macro that looks something like this.

#showtooltip
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast !Auto shot
/cast Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

[Zetor]

I know about the BM macro... but the hunter (she, btw... yes, irl :P) is marksman spec, which has a more complex rotation as I understand. Plus there's a need to manage the pet (pulling back from aoe, using it to save someone or take a hit for the team, etc) also, along with the many different aspects of pet management to optimize performance (resists, trained skills, etc), switching between hawk and viper, stuff like that. Edit: Also misdirects, different sorts of traps, dealing with trap resists, scattering a mob off the healer until the tank can pick it back up, distracting shot juggling a mob when the tank needs a breather, etc.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that WOW forum blahblah like '99% of all hunters suck and their class is ezmode' is just that. Honestly, pvping on my warrior or warlock (well, back when I did) is dead easy, and doesn't need any sort of kiting skills or proper LOS use; pve dpsing is even easier. I don't see how a hunter would be easier than either of those.


-- Z.

[Threash]

Hunters have been at the bottom of the totem pole for every single season so far.  Just because a few of them can reach top rankings doesn't mean its MUCH MUCH harder for a hunter to do it than say a warrior or a druid.

No, it's because most hunters suck.  We don't call them 'huntards' for nothing.  As a collective whole, hunters are by far the stupidest class in the game and are underrepresented in all content that require you NOT drool on yourself.  The hunters I grab when we need a PUG are a running gag in my guild; they are inevitably HORRIBLE, like sub 500 DPS horrible.

Did i wander off into the official wow boards or something? i thought this kinda idiocy was reserved for those places.

[justdave]

Hunters have been at the bottom of the totem pole for every single season so far.  Just because a few of them can reach top rankings doesn't mean its MUCH MUCH harder for a hunter to do it than say a warrior or a druid.

No, it's because most hunters suck.  We don't call them 'huntards''...

Did i wander off into the official wow boards or something? i thought this kinda idiocy was reserved for those places.

It sort of wanders, like sand.

[Valmorian]

Sure, but by doing that, you render virtually all equipment upgrades to be pretty much trivial. 

Why, exactly, is this a bad thing for pvp?  I'd consider this a very good thing. 

You CAN make an MMO work as a PvP environment by eliminating everything that makes them addictive in the PvE sense.  What you are advocating for is effectively an MMO First Person Shooter with swords and sidegraded attributes/equipment.  That might work, but it wouldn't be very compelling for those who are into the PvE 'upgrade' mindset.

[Nebu]

That might work, but it wouldn't be very compelling for those who are into the PvE 'upgrade' mindset.

Which confirms my assertion that PvE-based MMO's, in their current iteration, invariably fail as pvp games. 

Also, I'm not advocating an FPS.  MMO's are very much akin to an FPS/TBS hybrid.  I think they have value in this as a slower paced, strategy based pvp game.  I believe it's possible to have a game with both successful pve as well as pvp, it just hasn't been created yet. 

[Merusk]

WoW *HAD* the right idea initially.  Player and Monster levels are pretty near equal, so fighting a player was supposed to be as hard as fighting a monster, just requiring a better use and understanding of your classes skills. (Since humans aren't idiot AI.)   There's been plenty of stories about guys 3-4 levels lower raping face on lousy PVPers.  However, Blizzard failed as soon as they started giving-in to achiever mentality and mudflation.   When you have a new level 70 with a 96dps weapon and 5khps they're going to be nothing but fodder for the 135dps, 11khps+ guys.

Item-centric PVP is as lame as level-centric PVP.  It's even worse than level-centric PVP in a game where aquiring equipment pairity takes you longer than leveling-up the character in the first place.