CoV lead designer says dumb shit about pvp

[eldaec]

If I reward the victor in PvP but don't have some penalty for losing, all I'm doing is making a gigantic exploit. The minute something is given as a reward with no risk, some players will exploit it. Two players could easily team up and say "You kill me X times then I'll kill you Y times and we'll both get the rewards." If it were XP, they use it to power level. If it's influence, they use it too buy enhancements (and the other things we're planning for influence). If the reward is minor enough that it doesn't create an exploit, then people will complain that the reward for PvP is worthless.

I'm not sure I understand the "no debt" approach to PvP. People are perfectly willing to accept the risk in PvE, so how is PvP different? Why should attacking another player (and mind you this is a consensual thing) be less risky? At the same time, I do worry about ways PvP debt could be used to grief people. Believe me, this is a thorny issue.

I assume simple reasoning such as average kills per death in pve (four gazillion) vs average kills per death in pvp (one) will eventually kill this absurd nonsense. Also one would hope the fact that failure to achieve goals and need to run back from hospitals is a risk in itself will eventually dawn on the team.

But it does not exactly reassure you that the team knows what it is doing.

[Mesozoic]

Well the problem with his theory is that no one goes into a PvE mission expecting to die.  They all expect to live and to make the mobs die.  The mobs don't care, so its a win-win.

In PvP you know that at least half the people involved are walking dead.  More if its close.  In, say, a 4v4 PvP mission in a game where PvP is well balanced, one team wins by one man.  So 7 of 8 dead.  Now how many 8-man teams would bother to run a PvE mission if they knew (or felt they knew) that 7 of them were gonna die, and that the debt would be greater than the mission xp gain?  Zero.

[jpark]

I have some agreement with the developer on this.  While mortality is much higher in pvp compared to pve - his fundamental point stands - reward without risk is an exploit.

WoW may be a good counterpoint - I understand their pvp system will eventually permit some kind of reward - but currently I have not heard of any penalty.

When he refers to a penalty it may not be prudent to assume that he literally means death in pvp will be penalized as much as a death in pve.

[Mesozoic]

I got it from this:

Why should attacking another player (and mind you this is a consensual thing) be less risky?

But yes, its really too early to tell what exactly he means.

[Fargull]

One thing to point out though, is it at least sounds like they are f'ing thinking about the issues and talking about them in the open, which is not something done often.

I like the discussion and the response.

[Riggswolfe]

If you ever played UO you know he is exactly right. PKs used to powerlevel by killing each other.

[Nebu]

If you ever played UO you know he is exactly right. PKs used to powerlevel by killing each other.

Agree... and they did it in a consequence free environment.  

I don't think his comments are all that far off and I really appreciate that they are making them in the open.  This is one of the best development teams I've seen as far as being able to implement good changes while filtering off the noise from the whining sector of the player base.

[Evil Elvis]

If I reward the victor in PvP but don't have some penalty for losing, all I'm doing is making a gigantic exploit. The minute something is given as a reward with no risk, some players will exploit it. Two players could easily team up and say "You kill me X times then I'll kill you Y times and we'll both get the rewards." If it were XP, they use it to power level. If it's influence, they use it too buy enhancements (and the other things we're planning for influence). If the reward is minor enough that it doesn't create an exploit, then people will complain that the reward for PvP is worthless.

I'm not sure I understand the "no debt" approach to PvP. People are perfectly willing to accept the risk in PvE, so how is PvP different? Why should attacking another player (and mind you this is a consensual thing) be less risky? At the same time, I do worry about ways PvP debt could be used to grief people. Believe me, this is a thorny issue.

I assume simple reasoning such as average kills per death in pve (four gazillion) vs average kills per death in pvp (one) will eventually kill this absurd nonsense. Also one would hope the fact that failure to achieve goals and need to run back from hospitals is a risk in itself will eventually dawn on the team.

But it does not exactly reassure you that the team knows what it is doing.

If by "says dumb shit" you meant "makes a perfectly logical and valid point", I guess you're right.

[Azhrarn]

If they manage to make PvP random somehow where you can't pre-determine your opponents, then this is much less of an issue.  As both sides will always try to kill each other.  For instance, the Guild Wars competitive missions.  But, with pure dueling, the best thing to do is probably base it off of ranking, where it is weighted in such a way as killing someone over and over won't help.

Essentially making the ranking score your experience.  And then base rewards off of your ranks.  Or something.  It's not anything new or original, but addresses the long term punishment issue that exp debt brings about.

[Sky]

If you ever played UO you know he is exactly right. PKs used to powerlevel by killing each other.

I played UO and the Yew Militia used to train regularly to work on member's skills.

Non-roleplayers would call that powerlevelling, I'd call it one of the most sensible, if not the only, sensible advancement system in the genre. DQ and I have discussed it a few times, how everything since UO gives out exp only after the kill. Practice makes perfect, you learn even if you don't kill. So UO's system makes a lot more sense.

But I guess if your game is based around levelling up, you'd consider it an exploit. That's why we need to move beyond levelling up as a core game mechanic and make it a secondary effect of gameplay, like it is in most games.

[eldaec]

There are easier ways to deal with duelling exploits than excessive death penalties.

Daoc's 'don't give further rewards for newly rezzed players' pretty much covers it for instance (some would say even that is overkill).

People need to remember 2 things:

1) Death has an irreducable penalty in lost advancement opportunities and overhead involved in rez or return to location together with rebuffing and reorganising time. This is, in effect, the same penalty as you get in a single player game.

2) The penalty of death, including the time lost mentioned above should not be any higher than the reward gained from a single kill. This is because unlike in pve, the average number of player deaths per kill as exactly one. So, which takes longer, earning the xp granted from a single additional kill, or a rez/return and rebuffing session?

[HaemishM]

I have a big concern with this.

If you punish losses in PVP, NO ONE WILL PVP. It's that fucking simple. PVP is already stigmatized by the absolute inability of many members of the PVP community to control their inner asshole. Most people who participate in PVP will lose more than they win, which is the exact opposite of PVE. Throw a penalty on top of that, and PVP will be dead in the game, similar to the way it was DOA on blue servers in EQ.

Stop worrying about people levelling off of PVP. Who fucking cares, especially if they can't use those levels to kill anyone they want at anytime. If they level to 50 be beating each other senseless for 20 hours straight, they missed the entire point of the game and will leave it soon enough.

[Riggswolfe]

Notice what he said, if he gives rewards with no risk, it is a huge exploit. He's right. One thing PvP players love to talk about is the risk. One reason I suspect most games don't give PvP rewards is this very reason. He's just talking about it out in the open.

At this point as long as I can afford it I'm staying subscribed to CoH. These guys deserve my money more than any other dev team out there.

[Righ]

What Sky said. It's only an exploit if the sole purpose of the game is to grind experience, levels and skills. If there's actually a game buried in there somewhere, it simply becomes an effect of participation. There can be risk without experience loss.

[Raging Turtle]

Stop worrying about people levelling off of PVP. Who fucking cares, especially if they can't use those levels to kill anyone they want at anytime. If they level to 50 be beating each other senseless for 20 hours straight, they missed the entire point of the game and will leave it soon enough.

Following that logic, you'd be in favor of removing any kind of death penalty from PvE?  I'm asking seriously.

[Righ]

I'd be in favor of removing the experience penalties of PvE death. Death in Clan Lord was a game in its own right. You could depart your body, and go to a purgatory, where you had to run around for a while before rejoining the living. Instead of that you could get a healer to revive you - though they might have to find you first, and possibly fight to get to you. It was a great community building exercise, and made being a rescue healer an entertaining profession. It's explained here.

[Viin]

Most games don't have very much of a penalty for PvE death anyways (aside from the fact that you aren't likely to die all that often). I think the point is that when you engage in PvP you are more than likely going to die every time you have a PvP encounter. Seeing that you are not likely to die in a PvE encounter, the penalties for PvP should be less.

It would balance out:

 Less penalty + more often = Less often + more penalty

Heck, I'd be for Perma Death if it fit the game.

But most people don't like dying (period) let alone every 5-10 minutes when involved in a PvP ordeal (guild raid, using SWG as an example here).

Of course, a real PvP game solves this problem by having an instance of combat .. once you're dead you're dead unless you happened to get rezzed by a fellow player. Ala Guild Wars, Counter Strike, Rainbow 6, etc. Works a lot better than the openendedness of MMO's that tack on PvP as an afterthought and nobody ever wins.

[Soukyan]

I have a big concern with this.

If you punish losses in PVP, NO ONE WILL PVP. It's that fucking simple.

Bingo.

And if you don't have a tight level range on PvP, level 50s are gonna be exp griefing people much lower than them... because they can. How about this? If PvP exploit leveling occurs, take away the reward. Or don't give an experience reward for PvP in the first place. Or do like DAoC and make it fairly minimal so it may make a big difference at low levels, but would require much more time and effort at higher levels to gain so it becomes a trivial reward. At the higher levels, realm points are the more important reward and people will get together and "duel" to farm those. The risk of course is such that others may roll up on you while you're trying to farm realm points and you'll have a battle on your hands.

Now I noticed the word consensual in there so if they do a huge risk, then I suppose on the hardcore will bother with it, which is a shame. Granted, the best we can do is speculate at this point, but I think the system he's thinking aloud on is flawed from the start. Rethink the reward and then they may not even need to incur a huge risk for loss.

[Mesozoic]

I understood that PvP would take place in instanced mission zones, where the levels and numbers of the combatants could be controlled.  Not unlike Guild Wars, or the [planned] WoW battlefields.  

I don't see a level 50 having the opportunity to PK lowbies in any PvP scenario that could be called consensual.

[personman]

Non-roleplayers would call that powerlevelling, I'd call it one of the most sensible, if not the only, sensible advancement system in the genre.

Agreed.  I always liked it in UO.  Sparring doesn't strike me as cheating.

I think Cryptic has a point.  What offended me was DAOC's early system that was exploited by "sparring" in the RvR lands but that's because the Mythic's implementation imbalanced entire realms against realms, not 8 against 8.

But I'm a proud carebear.  I'm only interested in PvP where the only differentiator is player skill (not levels, items, etc) and when it has no downside other that how fast can I get back into combat.

It's up to Cryptic to decide if they want to continue the design model of entertainment through constant action, rather than the tired old model of "entertainment" through addictive behavior.

Working off PvP death debt strikes me as once again badly confusing market demographics.  CoH is fun for me because I don't have to worry about all that "virtual world" crap.

[Fargull]

All this mental masturbation is good and all, but kinda pointless till we get better information.  At least it sounds like someone with a clue is at least part of the discussion with in the company itself.  While I would not hazard to guess that they will not make the same mistakes as others in this arena, I do have some jaded faith that they will produce something that is at least 'FUN'.

[Sky]

All this mental masturbation is good and all, but kinda pointless till we get better information.

Where've you been since 1999?

[eldaec]

Reading around other CoV news. Cryptic seem to be going for a novel approach to selling the expansion.

CoV is bought as a standalone game.

If you only wish to play as a Villian you only need buy CoV, no need to pick up CoH.

Single subscription covers ongoing access to both sides, single purchase of CD key activates either heroes or villians on that subscription.

[Fargull]

All this mental masturbation is good and all, but kinda pointless till we get better information.

Where've you been since 1999?

Yeah, Yeah, I know...

And "Reading around other CoV news. Cryptic seem to be going for a novel approach to selling the expansion." that seems very novel.

[Mesozoic]

I already anticipate an overabundance of villains once CoV comes out.  That approach will exacerbate it.  But I guess being outnumbered is the essence of heroism.

[HaemishM]

CoV villains will outnumber CoH heroes at first because it's the newest thing. It's just like when a new server opened up in EQ. The population imbalance will correct itself soon, unless one game or the other is really that much better.

CoH has an audience that will be used to PVE only by the time CoV is released (unless they get the dueling arenas in soon). PVE players are loathe to enter PVP to begin with, as a general rule, unless there are no negative consequences to having done so other than losing. If there is debt for PVP, most players will not use it. Period. They might dabble in it, get their asses kicked, then fuck right back off to the "safe" PVE version of the game.

CoV has a lot of potential to really improve the game, but if not balanced correctly, it will damage the game greatly.

[trias_e]

If you had ever played DAOC, you would know what he said was dumb shit.  There are many ways to get around exploiting pvp systems with reward with incurring penalties.  Having to run from a hospital is punishment enough.

[Jealous Deva]

The COH devs have always been pretty insane about the whole risk vs reward thing.  Ok, lets say you get xp for killing in pvp.  say, killing one person gives you the same xp as a boss.  Why would I bother dueling someone over and over, running back and forth from the hospital to whatever instanced mission, when I can just go to a hazard zone and make 10x that amount of experience in one fight?

It was the same with exemplaring.  Exemplaring is worthless now except just to get TF badges.  Why?  Because debt is the same whether you die exemplaring or playing normally, but exemplared experience only counts for debt removal.  So you exemplar down to play with a friend and die and die you're pretty much fucked.  The dev response to this:  If you didn't lose xp at the normal rate when exemplared people would just exemplar down to remove all their debt with low risk.  Yeah, they would, because that's supposed to be the FUCKING POINT OF EXEMPLARING.

If you get full debt pvping no one will ever do it.  It'll be like the hollows or the shadow shard where aside from a few groups at the entrance the whole zone is empty.  The only way it could possibly work is if it was zero sum.  If 8 people go into a mission and 2 walk out, they damn well better get as much xp as the other 6 lost.  Or there damn better well be realm point type abilities that don't require maxing out your debt bar to get them or give massive rewards if they do (epic pool power level rewards, not this lame crap of 30 sec disorient once every 30 minutes like the accolades do now).

[Sable Blaze]

I thought the point of exemplaring was to be able to play with friends below your level range. Debt removal (such as it is) and influence were just fringe benefits.

Also, I really could not care less about debt. I've had well over 100k on occasion and can get rid of it in an hour or so. Not all ATs can do this, but nevertheless, it's pretty trivial compared to some death penalties. Plus you can always invite a scrapper along to help out. I mean...where are you going when you hit 50? Ummm...like...nowhere. So what's it matter?

[Jealous Deva]

Eh, if you want to play with people under your experience level why wouldn't you just sk them up?  The point of exemplaring is supposed to be for players who want to take a break from grinding to go help out people lower level than them.  Throwing thousands of points of debt onto that as a penalty for dieing when you don't even have all of your powers is pretty much going to remove that aspect of it completely.  Again, if I've got to suffer the same penalty anyway why not just get 3 or 4 high levels together and sk the lower level group of people?

And debt is xp loss sugar coated.  A bubble's debt is half a bubble I wouldn't have to be getting to get to the next level.  When that can mean 2-3 hours more playing time to get to that level yeah that becomes a big deal.

[Big Gulp]

When that can mean 2-3 hours more playing time to get to that level yeah that becomes a big deal.

2-3 hours for half a bubble?  The only way that's even possible is if you wear a hockey helmet, use a drool cup, and take the tiny bus to Stupid Town.

If that's the rate at which you advance you really need to stop bitching about the game and look at what you're doing very, very wrong.

[Merusk]

Eh, if you want to play with people under your experience level why wouldn't you just sk them up?

Here's an example of why.

My wife has a level 23 blaster.  I have a level 25 scrapper, our friends in our SG have a level 40 and a level 30.  It's easier to exemplar the 40 and 30 down to the 23-25 range than to have us Sk up and 2 folks get wasted because they're fighting level 40s at 30 and 29 with far fewer powers.  

Or, as was the case when 2 folks rerolled over Halloween, it was simpler to Exemplar one of us down and join them than try and find random_idiot_006 who would SK the other one up to group with us.

The number of powers available another reason to Exemplar instead of SK. If the L40 friend and my wife get together during the day he'll exemplar instead of SKing her up, because it's easier for him to fight mobs with the same amount of powers as my wife than it is for them to try and make-up for her lack of 20 levels worth of powers and enhancements.

SK is a great tool for one or two people in a 4-6 person group.  As soon as you hit a 1:1 ratio of level unevenness it's better to exemplar down to overcome a lot of this. (If your only goal is to play with friends, that is.)

[tar]

Another benefit to the exemplar system is that the lower level character doesn't miss out on content.

[Glazius]

When that can mean 2-3 hours more playing time to get to that level yeah that becomes a big deal.

2-3 hours for half a bubble?  The only way that's even possible is if you wear a hockey helmet, use a drool cup, and take the tiny bus to Stupid Town.

If that's the rate at which you advance you really need to stop bitching about the game and look at what you're doing very, very wrong.

At the higher levels it's not even half a bubble. More like a fifth.

That may be because I permedebted myself through 34 so I didn't run out of content and got all the debt badges as a result, but I checked the readout after I'd just died and the debt was maybe 2% of my to-next-level XP.

--GF

[Big Gulp]

At the higher levels it's not even half a bubble. More like a fifth.

My main is level 50.  Never, and I mean never, did it take me that long to get XP.  And mind you, I definitely don't have some uber powerbuild.