Looting in PVP

[Ironwood]

Was it something about fucking Asians ?

[Koyasha]

Bar the assholes who enjoy taking people's stuff, the problem maybe people are able to endless comeback to fight so death is trivial.  If you have had zone locks with substantial timers upon death than people could keep their stuff but they couldn't comeback harass you over and over again.

While not entirely on the topic of PvP looting, this I think is a good idea.  If in WoW, for example, when I kill you, you go to the graveyard...next time I kill you, you don't go to that graveyard, but the next nearest one.  And so on and so forth (if you happened to keep coming back and being killed in the same place) until you're spawning so far away that by the time you get back to me, the timer has been reset and the cycle starts over again.

That one facet alone would add huge amounts of meaning to PvP in WoW while preserving the whole 'no-consequences' factor that makes it popular enough to have so many players.  Killing people would in effect be like taking territory, because each time they die they're forced to respawn further away, thus giving you more undisturbed time in the territory you've claimed.  Right now, the only way to do that is basically to camp a person until they decide to leave or bring friends.  I know it would satisfy a lot of my desire for there to be some sort of meaning to my victory (or loss).

[Stephen Zepp]

Bar the assholes who enjoy taking people's stuff, the problem maybe people are able to endless comeback to fight so death is trivial.  If you have had zone locks with substantial timers upon death than people could keep their stuff but they couldn't comeback harass you over and over again.

While not entirely on the topic of PvP looting, this I think is a good idea.  If in WoW, for example, when I kill you, you go to the graveyard...next time I kill you, you don't go to that graveyard, but the next nearest one.  And so on and so forth (if you happened to keep coming back and being killed in the same place) until you're spawning so far away that by the time you get back to me, the timer has been reset and the cycle starts over again.

That one facet alone would add huge amounts of meaning to PvP in WoW while preserving the whole 'no-consequences' factor that makes it popular enough to have so many players.  Killing people would in effect be like taking territory, because each time they die they're forced to respawn further away, thus giving you more undisturbed time in the territory you've claimed.  Right now, the only way to do that is basically to camp a person until they decide to leave or bring friends.  I know it would satisfy a lot of my desire for there to be some sort of meaning to my victory (or loss).

Except that since everyone demands "instant travel gratification" in today's MMO's, respawning "farther away" is meaningless.

These are the types of game design meta-issues that players simply don't think about when they demand certain features in a game without taking into account the overall big picture. Instant travel gratification takes away at least 4 different positive conflict management systems that could be used to make PvP popular for both "factions" (FFA, Controlled), but just that one small "requirement" takes it all away.

[Koyasha]

True, but WoW doesn't have much instant travel there..  Relatively quick travel sure, but it's not instant.  Takes 1-3 minutes to cross most zones, even flying.  Longer if you're riding epic mounts, and can take quite some time to get across a zone on foot.  If we have a fight at the Zoram Strand, for instance, and you get knocked to the nearest graveyard (South Darkshore), then the next time you get knocked to Astranaar graveyard, and the third time you get knocked to the graveyard near Splintertree Post, and the fourth time you get knocked to a graveyard in the Barrens...the travel time, even if you're Horde and can fly directly to the Zoram Strand, is going to be enough to notice.  Blizzard seems to be keeping travel fast enough to keep major complaints about the slowness down, while still making it slow enough to be meaningful.  Hard balance to find, I'm sure, but it does seem to exist.

[Surlyboi]

Was it something about fucking Asians ?

Well, that or the inability to do so, so why not just shoot at them instead?

[WindupAtheist]

All they would really need to do is bump up the existing "You've died too much lately, now you must wait two minutes to rez!" timer to make you people happy.  As it is, I'm convinced that "meaningful" PVP is for suckers and catasses anymore.

[stray]

As it is, I'm convinced that "meaningful" PVP is for suckers and catasses anymore.

I don't really care one way or another on all the details for individuals (corpse looting, rezzing, flagging, individual rewards, etc..). If it was up to me, a game wouldn't have any valuable loot at all. None. That, in turn, would shut out anyone whining about or striving for that bullshit.

"Meaningful" mmo pvp to me is world effects and conquest. Something that plays on the whole persistency idea, but applied to battles. Persistency is what's meaningful to me. I'm not really asking for anything more than people who ask for, say, a deep player economy (in a sense, that too is persistent, world pvp). Hell, I'm asking less than that even (i.e. nothing as intrusive and wide reaching as an economy can be).

[Venkman]

Exactly.

Diky and gear are bad for "meaningful" PvP. It's why I like WoW's BGs. It's an alternative way to play the game everyone is there to play: achievement. "Meaningful" PvP is Eve (when the devs aren't cheating) and SB, real impact on others.

It has been proven that a lot don't want that level of immersion, but it's also been proven there's more than enough to make a good amount of money from them. How many subs is Eve up to now to boast 30k concurrency? 150k? 160? If EQ2 was around that, I'd be surprised, and that one cost way more to make.

If we have a fight at the Zoram Strand, for instance, and you get knocked to the nearest graveyard (South Darkshore), then the next time you get knocked to Astranaar graveyard, and the third time you get knocked to the graveyard near Splintertree Post, and the fourth time you get knocked to a graveyard in the Barrens...

Yea, but you first had to allow that to happen, which means you were running a scientific experiment or being way too tenacious :)

[Slayerik]

All they would really need to do is bump up the existing "You've died too much lately, now you must wait two minutes to rez!" timer to make you people happy.  As it is, I'm convinced that "meaningful" PVP is for suckers and catasses anymore.

And this has changed from the last 5 years you have been preaching it? ;)

[slog]

Bar the assholes who enjoy taking people's stuff, the problem maybe people are able to endless comeback to fight so death is trivial.  If you have had zone locks with substantial timers upon death than people could keep their stuff but they couldn't comeback harass you over and over again.

While not entirely on the topic of PvP looting, this I think is a good idea.  If in WoW, for example, when I kill you, you go to the graveyard...next time I kill you, you don't go to that graveyard, but the next nearest one.  And so on and so forth (if you happened to keep coming back and being killed in the same place) until you're spawning so far away that by the time you get back to me, the timer has been reset and the cycle starts over again.

That one facet alone would add huge amounts of meaning to PvP in WoW while preserving the whole 'no-consequences' factor that makes it popular enough to have so many players.  Killing people would in effect be like taking territory, because each time they die they're forced to respawn further away, thus giving you more undisturbed time in the territory you've claimed.  Right now, the only way to do that is basically to camp a person until they decide to leave or bring friends.  I know it would satisfy a lot of my desire for there to be some sort of meaning to my victory (or loss).

Except that since everyone demands "instant travel gratification" in today's MMO's, respawning "farther away" is meaningless.

These are the types of game design meta-issues that players simply don't think about when they demand certain features in a game without taking into account the overall big picture. Instant travel gratification takes away at least 4 different positive conflict management systems that could be used to make PvP popular for both "factions" (FFA, Controlled), but just that one small "requirement" takes it all away.

We think about them.  We reject long travel times cause they are not fun.  If you think you can make long travel times fun, then by all means, put them back in. 

[Nebu]

We think about them.  We reject long travel times cause they are not fun.  If you think you can make long travel times fun, then by all means, put them back in. 

Long travel times in and of themself are not fun.  They do add elements to games that have value to many.  Long travel creates an economic dynamic, can occasionally add a regional feel (especially in games like ATitD), and can also add to risk/reward or cost/benefit aspects of games. 

Noone enjoys running for hours, but like it or not it does affect in-game mechanics. 

[tazelbain]

Definitely leaving people staring at a static screen for an extend period of time is unacceptable.  At least if death kicks some half way across the continent with no way to quickly get back, they can still do stuff and go some where else to fight.  Maybe we should put the timer on, is not on the zones, but the faster travel to the zones.  While the timer is place no spawns; no mounts; no teleports into that zone. You have to hoof it back. And if you die in an area with a timer, the timer is reset and you get a timer on the area you spawned from.

Another way would be no fast travel except by player made buildings.  If you don't like that some is repeatedly spawning in a zone, kill the spawn point.

[Jayce]

We think about them.  We reject long travel times cause they are not fun.  If you think you can make long travel times fun, then by all means, put them back in. 

I sort of agree with Nebu.  I don't know which "we" Slog is speaking of, but in my case, I've always thought that travel times add something to games.  There is a value in just being somewhere when there's travel times involved, and there is no way to create the sense of territory, for example like Eve has, without barriers to travel.

These games are somewhat about achievement, and if travelling somewhere is a mini-achievement, then the game is better.  I don't think you can extrapolate that to say "harder travel always equals better"; there's a sweet spot.  To make it even more difficult to design, the sweet spot varies from game to game.

edit: reword

[Afropuff]

I buy it too Jayce.  If I just want to zerg and frag, I'll buy one of the shooters.

[pxib]

I think it's worthwhile to contrast (get ready for it) Puzzle Pirates and Eve.

In both of them characters interested in trading goods spend a lot of time shuttling ships between distant locations. In Eve a player arranges necessary escort and then they hit autopilot together. Some scant attention is paid every time they approach or leave a jumpgate (watching for attacks, managing micro warp drive)... but they can spend the rest of the time checking prices or chatting ingame(or watching TV or reading a book). It is a largely passive experience.

In Puzzle Pirates travel time exists only where ships are involved. Players can travel between islands (or onto moving ships) instantly. While a ship is moving it has a lot of maintainance required (carpentry, bilging, sails, and largely optional navigation) just to keep the thing going at a good speed. Players have less time to chat during travel, but they have a lot to do. Along the way the team may encounter other pirates (both NPCs and players) who want to steal their goods. This too depends upon their gameplay skill (carpentry, biling, sails, cannons, combat navigation, and swordfighting) and provides opportunity for great reward along the way. Crew are functionally hired on a contract basis and can be paid a percentage of the booty. Stores of rum and cannonballs must be maintained. There is a light economics game to simply keeping trips profitable.

To be pithy, in Eve travel time is just a delay... it's the tedious thing you do between periods of having fun in order to extend your gameplay. In Puzzle Pirates, traveling is the game.

[slog]

I buy it too Jayce.  If I just want to zerg and frag, I'll buy one of the shooters.

Ya right.  Fight for 30 seconds, get killed, run 20 minutes back to the fight, get killed in 28 seconds, run another 20 minutes.  Not happening for 99.99% of MMOG players. 

[WindupAtheist]

Then we need some XP loss and corpse runs for "meaningful" PVE.

/sadf

[Jayce]

I buy it too Jayce.  If I just want to zerg and frag, I'll buy one of the shooters.

Ya right.  Fight for 30 seconds, get killed, run 20 minutes back to the fight, get killed in 28 seconds, run another 20 minutes.  Not happening for 99.99% of MMOG players. 

I can agree with you, Slog, if that's the ratio.  Reminds me of early DAOC:  run 30 mins out to the frontier, then die from a ranger/scout/whatever you never saw in one shot.

However, I submit it's the ratio that's the problem, not the exact numbers.  If the average (not particularly skilled) player fights for 10 minutes then has to run for 20, it's worth it for a lot more people.  If the average player fights for 10 seconds and runs 20 minutes, I think it's safe to say most people are out.

I do note that no current or past MMOG (that I know of) has this depth of combat.  You're either alive or dead, at full capacity or zero.  I think a lot of things would make more sense if there were shades of gray in there.


As an aside, my original comment was about travel times in general, not about their applicability as a PvP death penalty.  I think the two questions are totally different.

[Valmorian]

However, I submit it's the ratio that's the problem, not the exact numbers.  If the average (not particularly skilled) player fights for 10 minutes then has to run for 20, it's worth it for a lot more people.  If the average player fights for 10 seconds and runs 20 minutes, I think it's safe to say most people are out.

I think the number of people who would be willing to "run" for 20 minutes to play for 10 would be far less than what you seem to hope for.

[WindupAtheist]

I'll run for 20 minutes to get to the other side of a continent so I can spend an hour crawling a dungeon with some guildmates, but not for anything less.  Jayce, are you mad?

[Nija]

I tried that "Run for 20 minutes die in 4 seconds" thing the first week of WW2O release. Except it was more like, "Sit on a tank and ride for 20 minutes. See a fight. They might be on your side, they might not be. Who knows? You then jump off the tank and start shooting, running out of ammo 45 seconds later. Unsure if you killed anyone. You then get bored and log out, never to return."

[Koyasha]

Well part of the point of the knock them further away each time idea is so that they won't come back to the same place.  So that you can win the fight and wind up 'owning' that area for a while.  Battlegrounds are great when you just plain want to pvp directly, and they serve that purpose perfectly, providing a fight, victory conditions, and minimal delay to get back into the fight.  World pvp on the other hand isn't the kind of thing you want people getting back into the fight on.  Why?  No victory conditions.  In my opinion, a fight that goes on until one side gets bored and quits is a failure to both sides.  The 'winner' doesn't feel like they won, especially not through skill, effort, or luck, and the loser feels like it was a complete waste of time.  Not to mention the 'winner' is basically 'whoever can tolerate the repetitive fight>die>respawn>fight>kill>fight>die>respawn...the longest.  So the purpose of the fight should be to essentially get rid of your enemy.  That can lead to many many things..  Successfully capturing and holding an enemy town, for example (yes, until you get bored, but at least there's a point where you can say, I WON, because you stood there totally unchallenged, having driven all enemies away), taking over a zone, etc.  You can essentially 'own' territory, since the enmy can't just stand up and attack you again.

In effect, looting works in a similar way.  You lose gear.  Therefore, you can't afford to keep charging into battle, therefore, when the enemy wins, you need to go away.  In significant part it's about establishing victory conditions in open world pvp.

[Jayce]

I'll run for 20 minutes to get to the other side of a continent so I can spend an hour crawling a dungeon with some guildmates, but not for anything less.  Jayce, are you mad?

No, but only because you're not the typical PvP player (as sinij and Slayerik like to follow you around and point out :) )


I agree with what Koyasha is saying. There is a fundamental difference between RL PvP and game PvP - in RL, the dead don't get back up.  Short of permadeath, in order to have any similarity with RL models of conquest or resource acquisition, there needs to be some way of introducing attrition.  When someone dies, they should be out of at least THAT fight (if, of course, you aspire to that model).

This is why we introduce "artificial" victory condition in places like WoW battlegrounds or SB towns or EVE POS's or DAOC relic keeps.  Capture the flag three times, you win.  Destroy the enemy's Tree of Life or POS.  But that only really counts in the strategic sense.  Tactically, in most games, the dead get right back up and zerg you again.

[Valmorian]

This is why we introduce "artificial" victory condition in places like WoW battlegrounds or SB towns or EVE POS's or DAOC relic keeps.  Capture the flag three times, you win.  Destroy the enemy's Tree of Life or POS.  But that only really counts in the strategic sense.  Tactically, in most games, the dead get right back up and zerg you again.

Actually, they do in all games.  At least, until the person you are "killing" decides to quit and no longer play.  Even online FPS games have rounds where everyone spawns again and the whole thing starts over. 

[Slayerik]

This is why we introduce "artificial" victory condition in places like WoW battlegrounds or SB towns or EVE POS's or DAOC relic keeps.  Capture the flag three times, you win.  Destroy the enemy's Tree of Life or POS.  But that only really counts in the strategic sense.  Tactically, in most games, the dead get right back up and zerg you again.

Actually, they do in all games.  At least, until the person you are "killing" decides to quit and no longer play.  Even online FPS games have rounds where everyone spawns again and the whole thing starts over. 

There is no persistance in FPSes, besides stats stored by the server. You should be put out of the fight when you die in any meaningful PVP. Ressing is OK if you hold the field at the end of a fight, IMO. Make it mean something. And drop some loot for me to pick up while you are at it ;)

[Valmorian]

There is no persistance in FPSes, besides stats stored by the server. You should be put out of the fight when you die in any meaningful PVP.

Sure there's persistence.  It's just that the persistence is in the skill of the player.  Much like the persistence in any board game that requires skill.  Those players that have memorized the map, have learned the proper twich skills, etc, carry that into each match. 

As for whether you should be put out of the fight when you die in "meaningful" PvP, well, "meaningful" is completely subjective, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many PvP games where you AREN'T put out of the fight when you die.  Even WoW, with it's non-death penalty forces a rez-run method.

Ressing is OK if you hold the field at the end of a fight, IMO. Make it mean something. And drop some loot for me to pick up while you are at it ;)

Again, "meaning" is something that must be supplied from the player.  For many, the fact that they beat you is all the "meaning" they need.

[Slayerik]

There is no persistance in FPSes, besides stats stored by the server. You should be put out of the fight when you die in any meaningful PVP.

Sure there's persistence.  It's just that the persistence is in the skill of the player.  Much like the persistence in any board game that requires skill.  Those players that have memorized the map, have learned the proper twich skills, etc, carry that into each match. 

As for whether you should be put out of the fight when you die in "meaningful" PvP, well, "meaningful" is completely subjective, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many PvP games where you AREN'T put out of the fight when you die.  Even WoW, with it's non-death penalty forces a rez-run method.

Ressing is OK if you hold the field at the end of a fight, IMO. Make it mean something. And drop some loot for me to pick up while you are at it ;)

Again, "meaning" is something that must be supplied from the player.  For many, the fact that they beat you is all the "meaning" they need.

Using that logic, every game has a persistance. When talking about MMO PVP, lets not try to nitpick the word persistance. There is no world persistance in FPSes. Come on, you can do better than that.

I do concede the "meaningful pvp" part though, as you are correct.

[Valmorian]

Using that logic, every game has a persistance. When talking about MMO PVP, lets not try to nitpick the word persistance. There is no world persistance in FPSes. Come on, you can do better than that.

The persistence I am referring to is the only persistence that exists in context of PvP: Ability.  In MMORPGs, where skill often takes a back seat to the numbers attached to your character, then persistence is all about the equipment and experience points your character has obtained.  In a FPS, the persistence is more a quality that is obtained by the player, as I get repeatedly shown every time I try to play a FPS that has experienced players on it.

As for "World Persistence", well, I'm not aware of any game that has any real lasting "world persistence" with the possible exceptions of Eve and Shadowbane.  I don't know many companies that would be clamboring to get a product out that did as poorly as Shadowbane, and Eve is it's own beast. 

Of course, world persistence has nothing to do with whether I drop loot when my character dies..

[Morat20]

Using that logic, every game has a persistance. When talking about MMO PVP, lets not try to nitpick the word persistance. There is no world persistance in FPSes. Come on, you can do better than that.

The persistence I am referring to is the only persistence that exists in context of PvP: Ability.  In MMORPGs, where skill often takes a back seat to the numbers attached to your character, then persistence is all about the equipment and experience points your character has obtained.  In a FPS, the persistence is more a quality that is obtained by the player, as I get repeatedly shown every time I try to play a FPS that has experienced players on it.

So knowing how to properly outfit a character, utilize game mechanics for maximum results -- that's not "skill". But your reflexes and learned muscle reactions (or map memorization skills) are?

I think you're overlooking the skill required for MMORPGs -- it takes skill to become a rich trader in EVE. It took skill to become a noteworthy amorsmith in SWG. It takes skill to be a top-end PvP player in WoW -- starting with what gear to where wear, and how to get maximum utility out of it. (Some classes -- like rogue -- can take even more, depending on how it's played).

Ability means many things.

[Nebu]

So knowing how to properly outfit a character, utilize game mechanics for maximum results -- that's not "skill". But your reflexes and learned muscle reactions (or map memorization skills) are?

I think you're overlooking the skill required for MMORPGs -- it takes skill to become a rich trader in EVE. It took skill to become a noteworthy amorsmith in SWG. It takes skill to be a top-end PvP player in WoW -- starting with what gear to where, and how to get maximum utility out of it. (Some classes -- like rogue -- can take even more, depending on how it's played).

Ability means many things.

You nailed it on the head.  I think that FPS players tend to also be the more vocal PvP advocates and thus associate twitch with skill rather than realizing that there are MANY skills that contribute to PvP success. 

[Valmorian]

So knowing how to properly outfit a character, utilize game mechanics for maximum results -- that's not "skill". But your reflexes and learned muscle reactions (or map memorization skills) are?

Huh?  You're talking completely around the point.  I'm not discounting "skill" in the context of MMORPGs, I'm pointing out that PvP persistence exists in all manner of games to some extent.  You carry things from one round to the next, even if those things are improving skills.  The player I've competed with in the last 10 games of Carcassonne is going to take the knowledge gained from those games and use it in the next ones.

But even ignoring that, SURELY you can see the difference in what "skill" means between these two types of games?

In Level based/equipment based MMORPGs, there can be no doubt that personal skill of the sort you are referring to is overshadowed by the underlying mechanics.  You can be the most skilled level 10 warrior in WoW in the context of knowing what equipment you should have and being able to use your abilities, and a button-mashing level 60 character will cream you.   On the other hand, I've personally witnessed very skilled FPS players utterly destroy players who had them vastly outranked in weapons and armor.

[Jayce]

Using that logic, every game has a persistance. When talking about MMO PVP, lets not try to nitpick the word persistance. There is no world persistance in FPSes. Come on, you can do better than that.

The persistence I am referring to is the only persistence that exists in context of PvP: Ability. 

No, you're nitpicking the word persistence as Slayerik accused you of.  You can't just redefine it to mean whatever you want, in this case, skill.

Let's get simple:  some games, mostly FPSes, have areas that are reset to a base state every 10 minutes or so.  MMOGS have areas that persist from day to day unless someone changes something.  They can do this when you are offline and the changes persist until you go reconquer the territory.  If you drop a frozen corpse, it will be there for some amount of time regardless of whether you are logged in or not, and no one hits a switch periodically to reset the universe.

That's what we are talking about when we say persistence.  If you say that the person behind the keyboard is the persistence, then the term becomes meaningless, because I don't know a lot of games that are not played by humans.

[Valmorian]

No, you're nitpicking the word persistence as Slayerik accused you of.  You can't just redefine it to mean whatever you want, in this case, skill.

I'm talking about persistence in the state of that which affects player effectiveness.  The discussion was around making PvP "meaningful" by virtue of improving your situation in a permanent state.  If you are going to disregard personal skill as an example of persistent improvement, then very little if ANY persistence exists in games outside of MMORPGs, sure.  You're just ignoring a huge persistent factor in PvP success.  Either you try hard to isolate personal skill from success in a game, or you acknowledge it and it becomes an important part of PvP "persistence".

Basically, if player skill is important, then it should be considered at least as an important part of "persistence" as gaining a powerful sword in an MMORPG is.

Let's get simple:  some games, mostly FPSes, have areas that are reset to a base state every 10 minutes or so.  MMOGS have areas that persist from day to day unless someone changes something.  They can do this when you are offline and the changes persist until you go reconquer the territory.  If you drop a frozen corpse, it will be there for some amount of time regardless of whether you are logged in or not, and no one hits a switch periodically to reset the universe.

That's what we are talking about when we say persistence.  If you say that the person behind the keyboard is the persistence, then the term becomes meaningless, because I don't know a lot of games that are not played by humans.

Here's the quote I was responding to: "There is no persistance in FPSes, besides stats stored by the server. You should be put out of the fight when you die in any meaningful PVP. Ressing is OK if you hold the field at the end of a fight, IMO. Make it mean something. And drop some loot for me to pick up while you are at it"

Being put out of the fight when you die ALREADY HAPPENS in many FPSes.  Indeed if "persistence" means what you are suggesting, then being put out of the fight has nothing to do with persistence at ALL.  There are no games where people are permanently put out of the contest forever.  They can always play another game.  Furthermore, they will have improved at the game through lessons learned in previous ones.

If all that Slayerik meant by persistence was what you are indicating, then he already has a number of MMORPGs to select from that do what he wants.


By the way, just because that type of persistence would apply accross the board to all games (which isn't true, games of pure chance would have effectively NO persistence between instances.) doesn't make it meaningless.

[slog]

This thread has devolved into pure stupidity. 

Not that the whole topic wasn't retarded to begin with.  Looting of items that players consider worthwhile just isn't going happen.

[Slayerik]

This thread has devolved into pure stupidity. 

Not that the whole topic wasn't retarded to begin with.  Looting of items that players consider worthwhile just isn't going happen.

Tell that to the guy I looted a Covert Ops II cloak off of in Eve.

Next.