EQ2 adds Battlegrounds

[Modern Angel]

Jesus, Nerfedalot, shut up.

[Sheepherder]

Pardo said it was hard, not that it damaged PvE.

"a lot of times players who don’t PvP don’t understand why their classes are [nerfed]"

Which is still not the same thing as damaging the PvE game, unless you're being nerfed.  Then it's a tragedy, because you're the only one who plays the game and the other people complaining about being benched from content until they get geared enough to compete with others of your class are actually elaborate Turing machines.

[Koyasha]

Balancing for pvp will always change the pve game, usually in ways that make it less fun.  For example, if we're balancing for pvp, most of the time we really can't have an ability that gives you tremendous defenses at the same time as allowing extremely good offense, even if it's balanced for pve via a long cooldown.  WoW paladins are a good example of this, and how they were forced to add all kinds of limitations to their abilities because their bubble allowed them invulnerability in pvp while they could also throw out a ton of damage.  Did they eventually come out balanced?  I dunno, I guess.  But they did change things that people liked, that would not have had to be changed for pve.

[statisticalfool]

Balancing for pvp will always change the pve game, usually in ways that make it less fun.  For example, if we're balancing for pvp, most of the time we really can't have an ability that gives you tremendous defenses at the same time as allowing extremely good offense, even if it's balanced for pve via a long cooldown.  WoW paladins are a good example of this, and how they were forced to add all kinds of limitations to their abilities because their bubble allowed them invulnerability in pvp while they could also throw out a ton of damage.  Did they eventually come out balanced?  I dunno, I guess.  But they did change things that people liked, that would not have had to be changed for pve.

People don't like change, unless you're buffing their class and nerfing everybody else. Period.

Sure, PVP affects class balance, but if anything, I think it spurred them to tighten class balance a lot more than without out. Remember the good ol' days of: "I guess we have to bring a hunter because they have Tranq shot"? That's the kind of stuff you can get away with much easier without PvP.

[Kageru]

PvP balance is almost always towards homogeneity. For PvE having lots of very different powers is fine because they are being applied cooperatively against an NPC mob that doesn't complain. And having vulnerable cloth classes, support classes or heavily armored melee classes is great because that gives interesting group dynamics. In PvP the balance is far more demanding and discourages from having too many unique abilities or role strengths. So from a PvE view PvP balancing is almost always a negative.

Entire playstyles that are interesting from a PvE perspective (such as crowd control) are disastrous when brought into a PvP perspective.

[statisticalfool]

PvP balance is almost always towards homogeneity. For PvE having lots of very different powers is fine because they are being applied cooperatively against an NPC mob that doesn't complain. And having vulnerable cloth classes, support classes or heavily armored melee classes is great because that gives interesting group dynamics. In PvP the balance is far more demanding and discourages from having too many unique abilities or role strengths. So from a PvE view PvP balancing is almost always a negative.

Entire playstyles that are interesting from a PvE perspective (such as crowd control) are disastrous when brought into a PvP perspective.

I accept this in theory. I'm not sure this works in practice: relative homogenity enables you to have less strict group composition mechanics, and means you don't have to design every boss around the sum total of: "here are all the most degenerate builds: there's the person who can keep 5 adds CC'd indefinitely, so we'll need at least 6 adds to put any pressure on anybody, or we'll need to add immunities" or "here is how we make every class useful: tranq shot!".

This is actually really close of the dynamic/static argument: when classes are more homogenous, it's easier to build dynamic content that hits the sweet spot of difficulty. You can make those characters feel a lot different, or give each one its quirk to make it bring something new to the table. But having the 'diversity' of classes that are so weak that one slash of a boss kills them, and having classes that are so resistant to damage that they can take those slashes quite easily, as long as they have someone to heal them, and hey, tank/dps/heal time.

[Rendakor]

For everyone crying about EQ2 nerfing PVE for PVP's sake: don't spells in EQ2 work differently in PVE and PVP? I remember playing on Nagafen when it first opened, and spells would do X damage in PVE, Y damage in PVP; this allowed them to nerf a class for PVP without impacting PVE performance, and was a really great idea. Did they do away with that, or did everyone here forget/never play EQ2?

[Grimwell]

For everyone crying about EQ2 nerfing PVE for PVP's sake: don't spells in EQ2 work differently in PVE and PVP? I remember playing on Nagafen when it first opened, and spells would do X damage in PVE, Y damage in PVP; this allowed them to nerf a class for PVP without impacting PVE performance, and was a really great idea. Did they do away with that, or did everyone here forget/never play EQ2?

This.

My apologies for not putting the social math together on that one, I assumed it because I live and breathe SOE products.

In EQ2, the abilities work differently between PvE and PvP. They have the exact same name, but the numbers and effects are different. So when they need to tweak the game for PvP balance, it does absolutely nothing to the way abilities work for PvE. The two systems have the same surface (names, icons, rough idea of what a power does) but are different when you go beneath it.

Which might explain why I had a hard time understanding how someone could suggest that a lesson from the NGE applies here. The core game system is not being changed.

People debating the value of spending development on a new PvP addition for a mature game are speaking to a different point. :)

[Sheepherder]

Balancing for pvp will always change the pve game, usually in ways that make it less fun.  For example, if we're balancing for pvp, most of the time we really can't have an ability that gives you tremendous defenses at the same time as allowing extremely good offense, even if it's balanced for pve via a long cooldown.  WoW paladins are a good example of this, and how they were forced to add all kinds of limitations to their abilities because their bubble allowed them invulnerability in pvp while they could also throw out a ton of damage.  Did they eventually come out balanced?  I dunno, I guess.  But they did change things that people liked, that would not have had to be changed for pve.

People like not having trade-offs, they like being the unfettered god of everything they see.

I have a a paladin, they're fine.  An expected side-effect of Divine Shield / Avenging Wrath mutual exclusivity is that people need to be aware of when a boss is going to throw out of of his massive raid damage abilities, need to evaluate whether they may need the bubble to survive, and need to evaluate whether they risk of dying offsets the increased damage in the meantime, and vice versa.  The 50% damage reduction while under the effects of Divine Shield forces them to evaluate whether they really want that shield to go the full length, or whether it's safe to drop it.

Both of these have improved the PvE game, to my way of thinking, because there is an implied player managed risk to hitting the AW button now.  It could conceivably be better if removing either buff triggered a (shortened) wait time, giving the player more control over their exposure to risk (so if you used DS for 2 seconds and dropped it you would have AW back 8 seconds from the initial DS cast as opposed to 18) but either scenario is better than "Press buttan fer moar damage, press udder buttan fer godmode."

[veredus]

Now that these have been out like a month or so (I think anyway), what level ranges are the battlegrounds and most importantly are they any fun? Debating on re-subbing to EQ2 to try these out since I liked the pvp server when it first came out. 

[Count Nerfedalot]

Now that these have been out like a month or so (I think anyway), what level ranges are the battlegrounds and most importantly are they any fun? Debating on re-subbing to EQ2 to try these out since I liked the pvp server when it first came out. 

if it's solely the battlegrounds you are interested in, you may want to wait a bit longer.  We still see messages to the effect that BGs are being disabled until further notice several times a week. 

Of course you're missing out on the chance to be first to do this that or the other, so you'll have to make that call for yourself.

[veredus]

Don't need to be first but I read its for 80+ only. That's kind of a downer since highest level is only 65.

[Sky]

Har har, I've got a level 77 wizard.

Too bad I have zero interest in pvp in EQ2.

[veredus]

I really enjoyed the pvp, at least up until mid 20's (as far as got on the pvp server) but don't really enjoy the pve anymore. Would certainly give it shot again if I could resub and log in and start with the pvp right away. I can't force myself through the parts I don't like anymore to get to the fun, so unless they lower the lvl requirement for it, looks like a pass for me.

[devildog]

I'm sitting in the same boat as a previous poster. I have a couple of 65ish level characters and decided to push them along a little bit to get to the pvp. Yea, it sounds silly to me too. I see a lot of chat about the bgs being down or messages that it is currently disabled. I see some emblem/badge gear for pvp rewards, but it seems a bit too early to try and jump in.

 Being a long-time open world pvp proponent i feel dirty even advocating instanced pvp, but i just don't have the time to jack with spending 3 hours to finally land that all=important open world engagement like i used to. Any more i find myself logging a couple of hours a night on the PS3 playing MW2. Instanced pvp in eq2 would just be a notch above that i think and allow for a little different mix.

 I may wait a bit and see if this even turns out before i try and burn through to 80. For some odd reason this has me missing the old daoc battleground, Thidranki i think it was? Just pop out your alt goof around character and go mess around some tiny keep on an island we mildly care about.