Open PvP = gang warfare?

[tazelbain]

My only problem with what sinij said is he still holds on to notion that there is one PvP constituency.   As the PvP becomes more accepted, its stratifying.  Each layer doesn't what exactly the same thing.

[sinij]

Define sports... its difficult but you can easily say that watching the game from your couch is not sport. Same goes for PvP.

[sinij]

You incorporate voice chat into the game

This is entirely another can of worms. Still, isn't it much easier to just give targeting that works to people instead of disabling it and then providing workaround for it? I don't think you can stop focus fire by making targeting system difficult to use.

[Nebu]

Well, I think it's funny that you want skill-based PvP AND /assist in game.  For me, the skill comes in knowing what targets to pick and who to VISUALLY assist without the crutch of a key command.  I guess we just disagree here. 

[tazelbain]

But your problem is you refuse to accept Baseball as a sport because you personally don't like playing Baseball.

[ajax34i]

EVE doesn't have /assist or /target, and people assist-train anyway.   If each blob had the ability to either share their cumulative shields / armor across all members, or to instantly determine who's being targetted and then be able to easily transfer shields/armor to said person, that would probably get rid of assist trains.

I think the problem is that a group in any of these games can pool and coordinate their firepower but not their defenses.

[sinij]

But your problem is you refuse to accept Baseball as a sport because you personally don't like playing Baseball.

Do you think kids playing 'tag you are it' playing sports? It has to meet minimal number of criteria before we can call it sport. Next thing you know we will call Toontown gag system a PvP.

[Nebu]

Do you think kids playing 'tag you are it' playing sports?

If you want to split hairs, tag does fit some definitions of sport (sport: an active diversion requiring physical exertion and competition ).  I doubt most people would consider it sport, but that doesn't really address the question you quoted.

[sinij]

Fine, lets try to define what PvP is...

General:
1) Hostile competition between two or more players resulting in at least one instance of defeat
2) Act of participating in combat with another player(s) with intention of defeating them or denying them an objective

What must be present:
1) Teams
2) Goals
3) Exact loss and victory conditions
4) Combat
5) Spoils and penalties

[Nija]

Why should I care which group of thugs control the Windmill?

You'll care that they hold the windmill because the windmill provides efficiency bonus for their player owned city and NPC-ran farms, as well as providing a water pump of sorts so they can irrigate more of their NPC-driven fields than you can, with your lack of windmill access. They'll also have less NPCs out in the field than you will, because with wind power on their side they can get more done than you can with your army full of water-barrel-carrying NPCs.

They'll also have a lot more invested, with a fully functional irrigation system that took awhile to build. They'll have to spend more time protecting it, because some sabotage could come into play and cause some logistical NPC-slave management issues. If someone took the windmill from them, they'd probably break off the irrigation dikes/aqueduct and start constructing their own. Then you'd be up shit creek with no flowing water and you'd have to allocate more NPCs to field work in order to keep your current standard of living. That could mean less people defending your now unused dike/aqueduct and make it easier for people to sabotage.

If you want REASONS for capture and hold style meaningful PVP I can come up with millions, and I'm sure people can easily add to that list.

[slog]

You'll care that they hold the windmill because the windmill provides efficiency bonus for their player owned city and NPC-ran farms, as well as providing a water pump of sorts so they can irrigate more of their NPC-driven fields than you can, with your lack of windmill access. They'll also have less NPCs out in the field than you will, because with wind power on their side they can get more done than you can with your army full of water-barrel-carrying NPCs.

They'll also have a lot more invested, with a fully functional irrigation system that took awhile to build. They'll have to spend more time protecting it, because some sabotage could come into play and cause some logistical NPC-slave management issues. If someone took the windmill from them, they'd probably break off the irrigation dikes/aqueduct and start constructing their own. Then you'd be up shit creek with no flowing water and you'd have to allocate more NPCs to field work in order to keep your current standard of living. That could mean less people defending your now unused dike/aqueduct and make it easier for people to sabotage.

And then the devs will care when you cancel your subscription because you will keep losing.

We really need to define PvP into 2 catagories:

Catagory 1: PvP games for the hardcore.
Catagory 2: PvP games that have a chance to be profitable. 


Edited for bad grammar

[waylander]

Lum blog

As to my list of lessons for any PvP designer:

1)   Even out playing field – standard gear/level/skills/whatever should be accessible to everyone in reasonable time. Call this ‘golden standard’, make sure its good enough to compete with whatever ‘best’ you put into the game and make sure nobody can be kept from reaching it.
2)   Aim for skill based PvP – you should give players enough options and enough template diversity to avoid cookie-cutter templates and predictable fights. PvP should be about paying attention to what is going on and reacting accordingly as oppose to mashing the same 3 buttons in specific order every time. There should be no ‘best way to fight’, just good counters to your opponent’s attacks.
3)   Slow it down – ideal fight should last at least 15-20 seconds and should consist of at least 5-6 individual actions. You should give enough time to act and react that less-than-ideal connection of 150-200 ping can compete.
4)   Limit effects of focus fire – you will have group warfare in your game and people will get focus fired. If you don’t take steps to prevent it from being instadeath your group warfare will be lousy regardless of how great your 1v1. Good methods to limit focus fire are – short invulnerabilities, damage feedback powers, maximum damage rate or damage saturation, friendly fire and splash damage, collision and line of sight.
5)   Add objectives to fight over – if it is going to be turf wars make sure turf has something desirable. Create few very desirable and tons of less desirable objects to control and make holding more than few highly problematic, this way more groups get a chance at ‘controlling’ something, not just best few.
6)   Add effective power reach where distance matters and adds logistical complications. You should be able to ‘pick up and leave’ and move away from ‘lost cause’ situation. Don’t ever implement instant travel or effective teleportation or summon abilities. It should be very difficult to mover anything but small group over large distances.
7)   Limit how much you can lose if you keep losing. String of bad losses should never put you into situation where you can’t realistically win again.
8)   Limit effective maximum size of any given group of players – make sure that bigger is better but up to a very hard limit and make sure that this limit dictates that there will be a number of different groups on any given server.
9)   Don’t instance – unpredictability of who will show up to any fight is what makes politics important. It puts checks in place on guilds that now have to consider use of their influence and power or face bad odds. It limits 'poor sportsmanship' guilds
10)    Make sure individual effort always matter and that it is possible to solo at all times. You should not be always forced to group to enjoy PvP, so design solo objectives and/or ways to solo. Good way to do it is via stealth classes.
11)    Segregate PvP+ and PvP-, there should be no PvP- players around PvP fights - it leads to all sorts of bad things.
12)    Always remove player from the area after death, there should be no reason whatsoever to linger or come back once fight is done. This will greatly limit all negative post-fight interaction. You do need to have in-game channels for communication, but not trash talking.
13)    Start everyone able to contribute to fighting, even if it is support or mop-up roles

As a PVP guildmaster of a guild that's been around 12 years, I agree with these points except for an /assist type of command.

[sinij]

Catagory 1: PvP games for the hardcore.
Catagory 2: PvP games that have a change to be profitable.

You forgot:
Category 3: WoW clones that have a snowballs chance in hell to be profitable.


As it stands now you have two types of mmorpgs - mega-budget PvE and niche. If you have mega budget, unlimited time and rock-solid publisher (EA need not to apply) that does not force your hand you will be crazy to go for Category 1. On other hand if you are studio trying to make a name for yourself and you decide to tackle PvP you will be insane trying to compete with juggernaut of WoW and water it down for Category 2 or 3.

[waylander]

My only problem with what sinij said is he still holds on to notion that there is one PvP constituency.   As the PvP becomes more accepted, its stratifying.  Each layer doesn't what exactly the same thing.

You have MMORPG's, FPS's, and CORPG's that are the three staples of PVP in gaming. Sinji's post more or less defines a PVP MMORPG.

A CORPG (Guild Wars or Fury) can also incorportate several of these elements, but CORPG's are more or less designed with an Arena/Tournament style end game.  In those games you are more concerned with rankings, stats, or ladders and you generally don't need a large guild to be successful.

In FPS's, you need the latest god level gaming machine or be wtfpwned. Some folks take FPS competition serious, but I personally don't.

[Nija]

And then the devs will care when you cancel your subscription because you will keep losing.

No, you fly back to empire space with what you can and you scheme, regroup, and you get it done.

Or you swallow your pride, ally up with someone you wouldn't normally deal with, and get it done.

Or yeah, you quit. (You don't get it done.)

Or you're a carebear and you make a decent living doing your thing in empire space, where there are windmills that will let you attach your aqueducts, but you'll get less efficiency, and you'll have to pay some kind of windmill tax for using it. But it'd be better than water-bucket runs.

I'd also appreciate it if everyone would quit pretending that they know how to get subscribers. Everyone here, there, and everywhere was so amazingly wrong about WoW we might as well not even talk about subs anymore. Ever.

[sinij]

I'd also appreciate it if everyone would quit pretending that they know how to get subscribers. Everyone here, there, and everywhere was so amazingly wrong about WoW we might as well not even talk about subs anymore. Ever.

Grain of truth in the sea of...

[Morat20]

EVE doesn't have /assist or /target, and people assist-train anyway.   If each blob had the ability to either share their cumulative shields / armor across all members, or to instantly determine who's being targetted and then be able to easily transfer shields/armor to said person, that would probably get rid of assist trains.

I think the problem is that a group in any of these games can pool and coordinate their firepower but not their defenses.

They do have the ability to remote repair and transfer shield and cap energy. It's just the opposing fleets know that, and tend to target such support ships early -- just like in real war.

I've often wondered how often the new drone types (EW drones, repair drones, sentry drones) are used in PvP -- whether they lived up to Dev expectations.

[slog]

No, you fly back to empire space with what you can and you scheme, regroup, and you get it done.

Agreed.  Saw this first hand in SB.  I ran with a small guild called "Fallen Angels" that was horribly outnumberd.  We did very well for about 2 months, then we got hit by your next one:

Or you swallow your pride, ally up with someone you wouldn't normally deal with, and get it done.

 
Giant guilds get formed from the smaller ones. Hope your playstyle fits being a member of a 500 person guild with spam worse than an AOL chatroom.

Or yeah, you quit. (You don't get it done.)

If anything, the lesson from Shadowbane should be "If you don't give your losers a chance to win, they will cancel their sub"  In the system you describe, the losers will have less chance of winning.  That's just not going to work.

Or you're a carebear and you make a decent living doing your thing in empire space, where there are windmills that will let you attach your aqueducts, but you'll get less efficiency, and you'll have to pay some kind of windmill tax for using it. But it'd be better than water-bucket runs.

Wouldn't bother with water-bucket runs at all then. 

I'd also appreciate it if everyone would quit pretending that they know how to get subscribers. Everyone here, there, and everywhere was so amazingly wrong about WoW we might as well not even talk about subs anymore. Ever.

I wasn't wrong :)

[Nebu]

I never tire of the word "carebear".  Every time I see it in a pvp context instead of "carebear" I see "person that has different taste in games than I do and is therefore beneath me in status".  Some people don't happen to like pvp... interestingly, their gaming dollar is worth EXACTLY the same as yours.  Can we grow up and lose the carebear term?  Who gives a shit if people prefer PvE... it has nothing to do with the discussion.  

Sinij has done an excellent job outlining the fix that most mmog-based pvp games need.  I think the two most difficult challenges that exist are a) to make the pvp meaningful without giving too imbalancing an advantage to the victors and b) A way to de-personalize the pvp experience such that it's more about playing the game than it is about assaulting the senses of other players.  If I were to design a pvp system, I'd look hard and long at the 3 games that seemed to be on the right track: Shadowbane, DAoC, and EVE.  

[Nija]

I define "carebears" or "carebearing" as "not taking advantage of the great PVP experiences in a given game".

"Carebearing around Empire" has a great ring to it.

In UO, as I quit early, the term I used was "bank huggers" or something along those lines, relating to the never ending fashion show that went on at the western bank in Britain. I quit pre-tramel, so tramellites or whatever didn't make any sense at the time.

[ajax34i]

I define "carebears" or "carebearing" as "not taking advantage of the great PVP experiences in a given game".

This is usually the effect that the word has on me...

[tazelbain]

Why should I care which group of thugs control the Windmill?

You'll care that they hold the windmill because the windmill provides efficiency bonus for their player owned city and NPC-ran farms, as well as providing a water pump of sorts so they can irrigate more of their NPC-driven fields than you can, with your lack of windmill access. They'll also have less NPCs out in the field than you will, because with wind power on their side they can get more done than you can with your army full of water-barrel-carrying NPCs.

But on the next level why do I care any particular group succeeds or fails.  Sure if there was a F13 guild, I might care if they controlled Windmill because I identify them outside of the game.  But in-game they just another guild in a long list of guilds.

[slog]

Why should I care which group of thugs control the Windmill?

You'll care that they hold the windmill because the windmill provides efficiency bonus for their player owned city and NPC-ran farms, as well as providing a water pump of sorts so they can irrigate more of their NPC-driven fields than you can, with your lack of windmill access. They'll also have less NPCs out in the field than you will, because with wind power on their side they can get more done than you can with your army full of water-barrel-carrying NPCs.

But on the next level why do I care any particular group succeeds or fails.  Sure if there was a F13 guild, I might care if they controlled Windmill because I identify them outside of the game.  But in-game they just another guild in a long list of guilds.

I took it to mean that they will be realitively stonger (and your guild will be relatively weaker).  I also assume there are no fixed sides (he doesn't mention it explicitly, so I could be wrong)

[Lum]

Lum's pvp post read like a PETA barbecue recipe.

So you and your friends aren't going to cheat like baboons inplay a game that I work on?

Can I get that in writing?

[Lum]

My only problem with what sinij said is he still holds on to notion that there is one PvP constituency.   As the PvP becomes more accepted, its stratifying.  Each layer doesn't what exactly the same thing.

Bingo.

[Lum]

Well, I think it's funny that you want skill-based PvP AND /assist in game.  For me, the skill comes in knowing what targets to pick and who to VISUALLY assist without the crutch of a key command.  I guess we just disagree here. 

/assist makes it easier for people to focus-fire on a given target (ironically, something sinij decried in an earlier post, which I agreed with for the most part).

[sinij]

Lum's pvp post read like a PETA barbecue recipe.

So you and your friends aren't going to cheat like baboons inplay a game that I work on?

There is nothing quite as satisfying as digging up old grudges.

[Lum]

Lum's pvp post read like a PETA barbecue recipe.

So you and your friends aren't going to cheat like baboons inplay a game that I work on?

There is nothing quite as satisfying as digging up old grudges.

...save acting on them!

[slog]

Lum's pvp post read like a PETA barbecue recipe.

So you and your friends aren't going to cheat like baboons inplay a game that I work on?

There is nothing quite as satisfying as digging up old grudges.

Old? LC and Nija hack every game they play.  Ask them about duping and teleporting people in SB sometime.  A publisher would be better of prebanning these guys, as they are guaranteed to cost you more in CS then you will ever make from subs with them playing...

[sinij]

Well, I think it's funny that you want skill-based PvP AND /assist in game.  For me, the skill comes in knowing what targets to pick and who to VISUALLY assist without the crutch of a key command.  I guess we just disagree here. 

/assist makes it easier for people to focus-fire on a given target (ironically, something sinij decried in an earlier post, which I agreed with for the most part).

/assist will happen anyways, if you give tools for it in your game it will be more accessible reducing skill gap. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for eliminating assist trains, I just don't see a feasible way to do it. "Knowing your target" is what PUG do, in any organized PvP guild fight you have battle leader giving orders and you follow them. If you remove /assist or even /targ its functionality will be moved to voice chat or 3d-party apps. If you manage to stop it you will have people on the phone conferencing. Focus Fire is very similar in its dynamics to griefing, no matter what you do you can't stop it, you can only hope to lessen its effects.

[sinij]

Old? LC and Nija hack every game they play.  Ask them about duping and teleporting people in SB sometime.  A publisher would be better of prebanning these guys, as they are guaranteed to cost you more in CS then you will ever make from subs with them playing...

Had no displeasure dealing with them in a memorable way but it sounds like ideal guild for beta testing. Send them invite as early as you can and data log *everything* they do, plant a mole, assign Q&A to shadow them if you must. Better start early than fight at putting out fires.

[koboshi]

Well, I think it's funny that you want skill-based PvP AND /assist in game.  For me, the skill comes in knowing what targets to pick and who to VISUALLY assist without the crutch of a key command.  I guess we just disagree here. 

/assist makes it easier for people to focus-fire on a given target (ironically, something sinij decried in an earlier post, which I agreed with for the most part).

/assist will happen anyways, if you give tools for it in your game it will be more accessible reducing skill gap. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for eliminating assist trains, I just don't see a feasible way to do it. "Knowing your target" is what PUG do, in any organized PvP guild fight you have battle leader giving orders and you follow them. If you remove /assist or even /targ its functionality will be moved to voice chat or 3d-party apps. If you manage to stop it you will have people on the phone conferencing. Focus Fire is very similar in its dynamics to griefing, no matter what you do you can't stop it, you can only hope to lessen its effects.

  The point is, as you said, to lessen the effects. Taking auto targeting out of a battle means the players have to communicate.  That’s what we want; it’s what MMOGs are all about.  By removing auto targeting you force the player to engage more fully in the game.  Furthermore you force them into a position where their attention to the game dictates their success.  So that, for example, if a player can’t quickly locate the next target their battle leader orders them to attack, they will have been the cause of their group’s failure.  In other words skill based battles.  Now certainly this isn't the holy grail of PVP, but it is one step in the right direction, and it seems that you would agree to that… in theory.

[sinij]

I do agree with it in theory... my another concern is that there are a lot of lousy players out there. They might be new, they could just suck. With easy interface good leader can still effectively use poor players making them useful grunts. If interface is difficult to use grunts will be useless and you will see only good leaders with top players crushing everything else, making it impossible for anyone else to win.

Lets say 5% of population is excellent PvPers, of this 5% of population you have 1-2% capable battle leaders that can rally people, get them to follow orders and give out good orders. Typically guilds have 'core' members that worked with each other over long time and multiple games and they pick up 'fluff' members in any given title and train them to be good grunts but without investing too much into them. If you make grunts useless (high skill barrier to entry) you will see less of them being used and you will see less training and game dominated by smaller groups of 'never die' players. You will also make it impossible for new players to join your title at a later time.

But again this is all speculative.

I personally think targeting should work in a following way:

1) Leader can place visual marks on any target and declare target's name
2) Grunts can ether type /target 4-5 letter of the name of your enemy or visually find mark and target that way
3) Grunts can type /assist 4-5 letter of the name of your guild mate

With this in mind put Focus Fire preventors in your game, making it likely that effective fighting would require 2-3 simultaneous targets at the same time.

I went through many PvP titles, starting with UO in 98, and was part of PvP guild for most of this time. I will have zero problems following battle leader and finding target regardless of method it uses and my guild will still have assist trains in any game that has targeting. On other side I know many players that would have difficulty even with simple /assist interface if more than one target present at the time. While I like winning I don't feel like not ever being challenged aside from fighting few other long-standing PvP guilds.

[Nebu]

Well, I think it's funny that you want skill-based PvP AND /assist in game.  For me, the skill comes in knowing what targets to pick and who to VISUALLY assist without the crutch of a key command.  I guess we just disagree here. 

/assist makes it easier for people to focus-fire on a given target (ironically, something sinij decried in an earlier post, which I agreed with for the most part).

Exactly.  It takes considerably less skill to spam some /assist key than it does to actually visually assist.  That's why I made the comment. 

[Morat20]

1) Leader can place visual marks on any target and declare target's name

That's a standard Hunter responsibility in WoW raids. Everyone's supposed to /assist off a specific tank or take targets in a specific order (and CT_Raid makes it really easy to do so), but it's generally easier for people to follow the Red Arrow -- don't have to remember the target order. (Which means that stupid hunters can hose the raid -- more than one Mark and things get confusing).

Of course, WoW lets the raid leaders mark targets now too -- but with multiple targets, it's easier just to make sure the Hunters know the order.