PvP vs. FvF

[Ubiytza]

Exactly why Rogues, the 4th archetype, are always the weakest or the strongest, depending on game, month of the year and colour of the sky.

[Deyth]

Originally Posted by DonkeyFucker

If it was possible to make a balanced, and self-regulating game do you think it wouldn't have been released by now? Even if the game is relatively balanced, one class will dominate another and the others will bitch and whine thus starting the cycle of nerfs, buffs and rollbacks. There will always be FOTMs and nerfs the month after. MMORPGs will always be filled with inequalities even if they're the slightest advantage, players will gravitate towards that class and devs will start the eternal balancing cycle, that just further FUBARs the game.

Unless a game is made with 3 classes, Mage, Fighter and Priest, where mage always kills fighter, fighter kills priest, and priest kills mage 10 times out of 10 there will always be inequalites. Introduce even 1 more class to the above equation, and the gray line of who kills whom will lead to nerfage of one and buffing of another class.

Up until now they didn't need to because the community was immature but they've exhausted all the basics.

[Niccoli]

Originally Posted by DonkeyFucker

If it was possible to make a balanced, and self-regulating game do you think it wouldn't have been released by now? Even if the game is relatively balanced, one class will dominate another and the others will bitch and whine thus starting the cycle of nerfs, buffs and rollbacks. There will always be FOTMs and nerfs the month after. MMORPGs will always be filled with inequalities even if they're the slightest advantage, players will gravitate towards that class and devs will start the eternal balancing cycle, that just further FUBARs the game.

Unless a game is made with 3 classes, Mage, Fighter and Priest, where mage always kills fighter, fighter kills priest, and priest kills mage 10 times out of 10 there will always be inequalites. Introduce even 1 more class to the above equation, and the gray line of who kills whom will lead to nerfage of one and buffing of another class.

This is why I don't believe a class based game will ever succeed in this. Skill based lets the players figure out what the most powerful is. Sure you end up with templates and everyone starts looking similar, but everyone can be viable and so balance isn't the issue. I think UO showed that skill based works better in this regard.

You might end up with 'swords' as being the all powerful and 'blunt' get the short end of the stick, but a tweak to one skill vs. a class would be an easier undertaking I imagine...

I think the problem is too much control, which really comes back to the idea of FFA. Less control of the game mechanics, more control of the players. Let the players decide how to build their skills, they'll build the 'uber' classes and thats what people will play. If people can relearn skills vs. reroll a whole new character, its much less painful (assuming skill gain isn't a really bad grind).

So why hasn't the game come out yet? I believe its because there is a 'Making MMO's 101' course out there that lists levels and classes as a must to make an MMO. So many games are stuck in this box its pathetic.

[Will]

i agree :\ rvr isn't pvp.

Dunno if nda is still in effect or who actually may browse the combine forum site so~ I don't want to burn future bridges, so i guess i won't comment. Oh damn i think i may of already said too much~

/HIDES

[Deyth]

Originally Posted by willwill

i agree :\ rvr isn't pvp.

Dunno if nda is still in effect or who actually may browse the combine forum site so~ I don't want to burn future bridges, so i guess i won't comment. Oh damn i think i may of already said too much~

/HIDES

Be careful, they actually read this board. I got caught once after I closed a forum and moved some threads to the wrong place.

[Ting]

First off any PvP game is going to have apposing factions, it's what gives us our inherit human nature for conflict and strife. Every PvP game will have FvF it's what sets the balance and boundaries for your PvP environment. You need these boundaries for people to protect their own self interests as well.

This is where your Crucial Conflict Theory is also flawed by design; anytime you force people into conflict when all they serve is their own self interest is an unwillingness to fight. You said it yourself; when most people are presented with a confrontation they will choose to avoid it for fear of loosing something. When both are given a choice and both opt to fight both think they have the upper hand and set the stage for a fun PvP encounter win or loose. Weather you choose to fight in a FvF Zone or choose to fight in a FFA Zone it still applies and is both considered PvP. The game design decides what’s more fun to play.


Your right Catering to guilds and the server politics is really a winning strategy. That is your PR and lifeblood for your game and cannot be ignored no matter how good of a game you design. The biggest problem with guilds is stacking, alliances and population issues that offset servers. That’s where your factions play a role in the balancing and boundaries as I said before. Create a GUILD based faction system in which guilds have little control over. This will prevent stacking but also create temporary alliances for balancing but have the ability to dissolve or change overnight as does the spoils of WAR! You can set a KOS list for your guild but limit it so it doesn't offset the balance. These are theoretical designs that game company’s fail to see and take the easy 1-2-3 faction system and those some lore into it .

I like the idea of fast paced combat. I really hate long drawn out fights with the same people in it. It really does take away the value of the fight when you kill a guy 6 times in 1 fight. The problem is not the dynamics of combat it is the overall strategy of how the combat is played. Game designers are focusing too many resources on individual character game mechanics and character item dependency. They need to focus on the skill involved instead of getting the best loot and button mashing the fotm class. Kiting, Completing group style/spell chains, geographical advantages, element of surprise attacks and hasty retreats are things that really need to be looked at for PvP. I know your asking yourselves retreat? Why? This is PvP.. Well it's simple I have seen many people log after a battle was over, but to keep that battle alive is to keep the fun alive. Giving the ability of a raid leader to have fallback points and be able to call a retreat to it with a 40% Speed boost for 2minutes or a teleport is not unthinkable. It just needs to be designed in a way it cannot be abused.

Fact is we are a small niche in an oversaturated MMO Market. Until we get a PVP Gamer Dev that is skillful and as resourceful as us we will never find the game were looking for. I’ll be goddamn if I spend another $1 to a gook PvP game. Least with the French Ignorance is Bliss. Yes I have my pioneer DnL kit. Besides my Amex Chargeback is very good to me.

[Deyth]

PvP games have opponents but not necessarily defined factions. Two guilds can be friends and then turn into enemies; or at least that's how it should be in a good PvP game.

What unwillingness to fight? If they must conflict in order to advance then they will be willing to fight or they will not advance. The point is to encourage the conflict.

[Shadow]

I've always wanted to see a game implement something like FFXI's renkei chain system into a fast paced pvp game. More coordination is teh win.

[Ting]

Originally Posted by Deyth

What unwillingness to fight? If they must conflict in order to advance then they will be willing to fight or they will not advance. The point is to encourage the conflict.

People will not PvP unless there is a mutual consent to do so; it doesn't matter what reward or environment you put them in. People will only fight if they know they have a chance to win. Forcing people into a conflict they do not desire or can possibly win will result in the unwillingness to fight to preserve their own self interset. Even if it means not advancing and quitting the game, but that would only happen if you gave them no other option to advance their character.

[Unknowing]

Originally Posted by Tingtong

First off any PvP game is going to have apposing factions, it's what gives us our inherit human nature for conflict and strife. Every PvP game will have FvF it's what sets the balance and boundaries for your PvP environment. You need these boundaries for people to protect their own self interests as well.

This is where your Crucial Conflict Theory is also flawed by design; anytime you force people into conflict when all they serve is their own self interest is an unwillingness to fight. You said it yourself; when most people are presented with a confrontation they will choose to avoid it for fear of loosing something. When both are given a choice and both opt to fight both think they have the upper hand and set the stage for a fun PvP encounter win or loose. Weather you choose to fight in a FvF Zone or choose to fight in a FFA Zone it still applies and is both considered PvP. The game design decides what’s more fun to play.


Your right Catering to guilds and the server politics is really a winning strategy. That is your PR and lifeblood for your game and cannot be ignored no matter how good of a game you design. The biggest problem with guilds is stacking, alliances and population issues that offset servers. That’s where your factions play a role in the balancing and boundaries as I said before. Create a GUILD based faction system in which guilds have little control over. This will prevent stacking but also create temporary alliances for balancing but have the ability to dissolve or change overnight as does the spoils of WAR! You can set a KOS list for your guild but limit it so it doesn't offset the balance. These are theoretical designs that game company’s fail to see and take the easy 1-2-3 faction system and those some lore into it .

I like the idea of fast paced combat. I really hate long drawn out fights with the same people in it. It really does take away the value of the fight when you kill a guy 6 times in 1 fight. The problem is not the dynamics of combat it is the overall strategy of how the combat is played. Game designers are focusing too many resources on individual character game mechanics and character item dependency. They need to focus on the skill involved instead of getting the best loot and button mashing the fotm class. Kiting, Completing group style/spell chains, geographical advantages, element of surprise attacks and hasty retreats are things that really need to be looked at for PvP. I know your asking yourselves retreat? Why? This is PvP.. Well it's simple I have seen many people log after a battle was over, but to keep that battle alive is to keep the fun alive. Giving the ability of a raid leader to have fallback points and be able to call a retreat to it with a 40% Speed boost for 2minutes or a teleport is not unthinkable. It just needs to be designed in a way it cannot be abused.

Fact is we are a small niche in an oversaturated MMO Market. Until we get a PVP Gamer Dev that is skillful and as resourceful as us we will never find the game were looking for. I’ll be goddamn if I spend another $1 to a gook PvP game. Least with the French Ignorance is Bliss. Yes I have my pioneer DnL kit. Besides my Amex Chargeback is very good to me.

I really don’t think predefined factions are necessary. If a game gives the power to guilds to be factions themselves, such as giving guilds the power to control areas of importance like resource mines or dungeons, it would create a dynamic, player controlled faction system. Guild relations would be critical to player advancement, giving the game a deep player controlled system. But unfortunately designers at this point are either too afraid to make a game like this or think it too difficult to create, resorting to much easier and accepted predefined static factions.

[Unknowing]

Originally Posted by Tingtong

People will not PvP unless there is a mutual consent to do so; it doesn't matter what reward or environment you put them in. People will only fight if they know they have a chance to win. Forcing people into a conflict they do not desire or can possibly win will result in the unwillingness to fight to preserve their own self interset. Even if it means not advancing and quitting the game, but that would only happen if you gave them no other option to advance their character.

I dont think most would quit if they are forced to fight. It would push people to group and join guilds for protection and advancement. Although the technical implementation wasnt done well, Shadowbane had this part by giving control of areas to player guilds.

[Deyth]

Originally Posted by Tingtong

People will not PvP unless there is a mutual consent to do so; it doesn't matter what reward or environment you put them in. People will only fight if they know they have a chance to win. Forcing people into a conflict they do not desire or can possibly win will result in the unwillingness to fight to preserve their own self interset. Even if it means not advancing and quitting the game, but that would only happen if you gave them no other option to advance their character.

Players do have the option of paying to sit in a safe town all day but who would want that? They can also quit, sure, but PvP isn't for everyone so that'll always be a possibility. As soon as they step out into the world the mutual consent is unnecessary. They can get killed while leveling up or running from one place to another.

Who said they'd have no chance to win? Now you're talking game balance, a different topic entirely. I think players should almost always have the ability to escape combat.

[Ozkar]

Originally Posted by Deyth

Who said they'd have no chance to win? Now you're talking game balance, a different topic entirely. I think players should almost always have the ability to escape combat.

That's a very strong point, and so true. In Shadowbane, as buggy and unstable as it was, I had no worries solo'ing as an Elven Scout. The classes offense was shitty, especially compared to tanks, casters, and assassins. But it was balanced with their Tracking ability. No one could sneak up on me, ever.

[Xsorus]

You will never see another game like Ultima Online do good ever again.

Why is this? Because MMORPGs have evolved by Mudflation over the past couple years, It is nothing more then the Carrot infront of the Horse trick that is running these games.

That didn't work in Ultima Online, because there were not carrots, Gear was easy to come by and it was about fighting and the enviroment.

Frankly, you cannot have that because people who spend 20+ hours getting and item don't want an idiot 2 minutes later to get it by ganking them while they're fighting mobs.

While I enjoy ganking that jack ass 2 feet from me whenever I want, Those same jackasses have just as much fun in an open pvp enviroment ganking people lower level then them and basically being Dicks.

I should probably amend it to say that open pvp doesn't work in a level based game ;o)

But anyway, you also have problems with the major jack ass guild on the server recruiting every noob they can and zerging the competition into the ground.

Its not because they're good, Its because they're throwing so many people at the brick wall it eventually crumbles.

Faction Based systems aren't much better, Look at DAOC, it probably has the best pvp system to date, Its miles ahead of AC and UO in terms of how skilled pvp requires one to be (Don't even begin to claim side stepping spells in AC involved skill)

Despite how great it is, It still suffers from the Zerg Mentality, Some Realms end up more populated then others and they pretty much squash the competition till the Developers step in and control the sitution.

So neither is the best.

Infact if I was making a game, I'd have Faction vs Faction open pvp in a SKILL based non level system.

That is the only way you'll ever fix this sort of thing.

As for Shadowbane, Good idea, badly implemented.

I honestly don't think any of the games right now coming out are going to be that great

DNL for instance is a horrible fucking joke and it will fail badly like SB did.

Honestly the next game i'm looking forward to is Warhammer Online

Sure its going to be DAOC2, but god damn... I'll still take it over any of trashy game there is.

[Xenogrant]

Jackass guilds don't usually last, TR being the only exception in my experience, and tend to implode due to guild leader not loggin in for a week because he has to study for a highschool exam, internal power struggle or an alliance of guilds forming up to speed up their downward spiral. Ganking only affects people who are floaters/soloers who don't have a solid guild with political connections on the server to back them up.

[Ubiytza]

Originally Posted by Xsorus

Sure its going to be DAOC2, but god damn... I'll still take it over any of trashy game there is.

Indeed.

[Xsorus]

I've been playing these games since Beta 2 of UO (thats if you don't count Beta of Diablo similar to this) and I've played UO,AC,EQ,WoW,SB,DAOC and everything..countless RPGS and I can tell you, that the pvp system in DAOC is pretty much it when it comes to getting large amounts of people to play and have fun.

UO is a great game, Probably one of the greatest games ever created, But no one is going to follow its formula anymore.
Skill based game that had no items that relied on the player to police themselves for the longest time, Every game claims they create online worlds, Bullshit.. OSI did it though with UO

UO is the only Online World ever created for an MMORPG

People made their own story line, People pvped, crafted, roleplayed, fought over terrority.

It is what all these games strive to be, But you won't see another game like it ever produced.

EQ made Mudflation standard for these games, and thats what you will get.

EQ made the level based system standard, so thats what you'll see.

In that regards, DAOC pretty much hands everyone their ass in the way their game was setup.

Its pvp system is almost fuckin perfect in my mind, Sure WOW has better 1v1 in my opinion, but DAOC pretty much shit stomps everyone in Group vs Group combat.

Hell even Zerg vs Zerg it probably does better then most out there.

and what made DAOC successful is they combined PVP with no ganking and did well

Sure they've lost population over the years do to Management and such, but that doesn't mean DAOC wasn't successful in what it did.

Specially since it is Mythic after all

I mean Mythic did something few companies could, They came out with a game in a market controlled by Big dogs and did well

OSI had EA backing them
Verant had Sony
Turbine had Microsoft

Mythic has Mythic, and they've actually succeeded.

Infact I guarentee you when Warhammer comes out, It bust the nuts on alot of the competition.

Plus by the time it comes out, WoW will be like 2 years and half years old, and people will be at the point where they wanna try something new

Which is why I think Warhammer will do great, WoW took alot of players from alot of different games, Including daoc, however it brought in an insane amount of new players into this genre

And they'll be looking for something new to play

[Ozkar]

Mythic did well because they ran the perfect scam. They read what everyone wanted, put those desires in their FAQ, then released a game with none of it. Only it took months to hit endgame and realize you had been ass fucked. They counted on the EQ syndrome where after so many hundreds of hours committed to a character, few will break away from the game as long as "promises" are still made in the form of future patches. Mythic sux, and will never release another game that achieves the success of the boxed feces we call DAOC.

[Xsorus]

Ummm, DAOC had nothing like EQ when it was released..

Infact when it was released the end game was pretty much all rvr, Wasn't anything to farm really or do any massive PVE

Wasn't until SI really that you could really nice items, But those items weren't required since SC pretty much capped everything.

TOA is probably what you're refering to, and that is where they took a downward spiral.

DAOC went like Two years being nothing like EQ

That was bad Management though, The guy who took over the game now has been pretty much nailing as far as patches go.

Scott Jennings is his name, He's so far doing a great job, so hopefully they'll put him on Warhammer when it comes out.

My guess is though they'll do the Duo Game pass in my opinion

Get subscription to Warhammer, get one to DAOC as well

[Deyth]

Originally Posted by Xsorus

Ummm, DAOC had nothing like EQ when it was released..

Infact when it was released the end game was pretty much all rvr, Wasn't anything to farm really or do any massive PVE

Wasn't until SI really that you could really nice items, But those items weren't required since SC pretty much capped everything.

TOA is probably what you're refering to, and that is where they took a downward spiral.

DAOC went like Two years being nothing like EQ

That was bad Management though, The guy who took over the game now has been pretty much nailing as far as patches go.

Scott Jennings is his name, He's so far doing a great job, so hopefully they'll put him on Warhammer when it comes out.

My guess is though they'll do the Duo Game pass in my opinion

Get subscription to Warhammer, get one to DAOC as well

Scott says you're confusing him with Walt aka Copper.