How much more effort are we going to dump in to pvp development?

@parallelogram
Can you tell us more about the math you did on the API that allowed you to arrive at this conclusion please ?

 

That's great! I read it and it's a great story. So what's wrong with pvp then? I'm confused.

 

Let me mention just a few of the issues:

-Poor PVP Design (Exploits, abuse and other issues of the flagging and zoning system)
-Lack of PVP Contents (Lack of any PVP content other than obsidian trials, no queue system, no arenas, no battleground, no Siege defense, Wrong guild war setup, no Factions, no rewards)
-PVP Zones (All pvp zones are subpar safe private zones in terms of XP and Loots)
-Lack of PVP specific rewards (No pvp specifc items, gems, materials)
-Lack of motivation and sense of belonging
-8 Players party limit
-Broken combat situations untouched in advantage of PVE (Example: Xen bow)
-No official ladder
-No justice system
-No incentives to multiplayer, who plays outside of private mode is drastically disadvantaged

I can go on for hours

As i said i can name over 100+ pvpers i know who left just last year cause lack of pvp and hate in its regards.

PS: PVPER doesn't mean Anti-PVER, most PVPERS do PVE daily, many would just love to do it in a a pvp situation and not be penalized for this.

 

I have some questions on the PvE ONLY content you mention here:

Housing ? PvP'rs don't have houses ?
Specializations ? PvP'rs don't spec ?
Wave battles ? PvP'rs don't raise their xp pool (skills) in UT like everybody else ?
Quality of Life ? Please tell us which QoL changes were made that were disliked by the PvP community ?
NPE ? What's that?
Crown shop work ? That was to remove the appearance of SotA being all about buy, buy, buy with $$ on the web site, and put it all in the crown shop. Had nothing to do with either PvE or PvP.
Seasonal contents ? No PvP'r sought after an Envy Bow, etc ?
Fishing ? I'll give you that one I suppose.
Player dungeons ? You can create a dungeon that's for PvP only, right ? (Not sure on that one)

And please expound a bit, if you wouldn't mind, on the nature of the "blackmail" and "whims" that you say caused the big PvP'r loss?

 

@Antrax is right on many things needed including the limitation on parties. Worse part of a big battle is friendly fire from all on your side on different parties that appear red to you. The day they make the "Groups of Parties" (Lets say up to 5 parties in one) then we will have the big battles that will bring many of those PvPers that left to come back and try it out and maybe bring more from other games. That is what I keep pushing for yet I am only the storyteller who is not at PVP but will not miss a big battle for the pure adrenaline rush. R/Boris

 

I think the key is and always has been that there needs to be coexistence.
PvP as a method of gameplay needs its own rewards/advancement.
A PvPer has to PvE as much as (if not more) than anyone else to get the skills/levels/gear/etc. needed to succeed in PvP.

The solution is not to drag disinterested people into it, that will only upset people who are dead set against PvP (likely due to poor experience with it in other games). If you start making "the best loot" "the best xp" "the rarest stuff" behind a PvP-flag wall, then you are adversely affecting the PvE game and this will, in turn, upset people. Almost all the posts I see to "improve PvP" have the implicit requirement of dragging PVE players into it by making it the most efficient or only path to achieve a certain goal. Such suggestions will always meet heavy resistance.

Instead, PvP advancement or PvP reward systems that improve/effect the PvP metagame would not have this impact and if anything, may entice people to try a system that they've avoided up till now because quite honestly, PvP in its current state has no purpose. Either you're a wolf and kill everyone, and its fun - or, you're not, and flagging pvp just means giving someone money for the annoyance/frustration of being steamrolled by them. That's just got pointless written all over it.

Rethink the ransom nonsense, and you'll draw in a lot more people. At the moment, the cost for entry is too high. When obsidian trials started I thought it was a great idea, if poorly implemented, but you saw a bunch of us who never PvP turn up and give it a go because it wasn't going to cost us thousands of gold in ransoms to be 1-shot by the powerplayers. If it had a reasonable queue/teleport system and didn't require me sitting there twiddling hoping people showed up, I'd probably queue for it pretty frequently. Some people will not PvP regardless - no matter what you do. Making PvP mandatory is going to make a lot of people unhappy. Making PvP scenes have the "best rewards" is essentially making PvP mandatory. This is the wrong direction.

There are loads of potential faction war, guild war, siege zone, etc. etc. type things that could be implemented, with various objectives, daily tasks (kill x players, or harvest x something or other in the pvp scene, or etc) that could be used to progress these factions and encourage people to be out there. But as long as it comes with a ransom price tag you run into this risk vs. reward fallacy. Potential reward is not worth the risk, unless you're one of the top %. So why bother?

I know a lot of you see me as anti-PvP, but I'm really just anti-pointless PvP. PvP in Sota in my experience, outside of organized events, is "kill someone who is trying to do something PvE related" (fight a dragon, do their quest, etc.). That's it. There's no deeper objective, or purpose. Its just griefing. I have no desire to grief, so there's no PvP content for me beyond what players organize. That's what I think is missing here, not finding out more ways to force people to do PvE in a PvP scene.

 

I think with the team this size it would take over a year to build the stuff you are asking for if not longer. Considering what they built so far in this game, that stuff you mentioned would all be incomplete anyways. The reality is this game isn't set up properly for pvp and probably never will be, so the only option would be to find a pure pvp type game. Like EVE, Guild Wars etc. I think anyone who is strictly a pvper would be wasting there time here in this game. I have played EVE for years and still do because it caters more to pvp then pve, when I want to do pve I play SotA.

 

See that's the wrong attitude, You are assuming that i dislike these stuff, NO, i'm saying that since so much time was dedicated to these things i think that now is time to dedicate them to improve even the PVP situation. If even half of the time dedicated to fishing was dedicated to pvp we would have a great PVP in this game and a much higher population.

About your second statement i can mention something recent, lost something like 10 members just from my guild when they made Sieges forced Private and another bunch of people when they discovered that people can farm their dungeons pvp flagged in mp mode and lock the entrance.

-The thing is that they're pushing interested people out of it. Cause Pvpers are forced to play in private mode to get the best benefit in terms of xp and loots.

-Ransoms unfortunately are the only reward for pvp and, you can believe it or no, almost all top pvpers don't loot new entries, anyway Port could even work on a simple system, no ransom loss and gain until you get 100 kills, something like a newbies pvp protection (of course trying to make a non exploitable system).
I'm not just talking about pvp zones btw, all multiplayer zones should give best rewards, Sota has become just a private/easy farming playground. The time has come to stop, the population has reached alarming numbers , at the end only lovers of this type of gameplay will remain and trust me they're not so many, they speak only more and more loudly.

-There are ways to avoid it, for example since the Castle Siege scenario is supposed to give rewards, they can remove ransoms in these scenes.

-You're totally right it's on the pointless part that they should work, cause for any hardcore player the game is pointless.

 

I Disagree 100%:

1) It tooks a year for the fishing system and they did it.
2) Sota is exactly the right game for pvp, just like it was Ultima online.
3) They can't do these things all together, i just mentioned you some but even choosing one and working on it would be a great start.
4) Just looks at others self-proclaimed successors of UO, Albion and LoA, they stolen us tons of players cause they respected both kind of gameplay. Albion has reached crazy numbers.
Any MMORPG worked hard to cover both worlds, pvp and pve, Sota is the only one who focused basically only on PVE, Housing and Social. And this happened thanks to the continuous complaints and impositions of the usual group here on the forum and irl.
SotA can't expect any kind of success until they stop to make the game as the personal easy mode private playground for a little circle of people, we already have the OFFLINE mode for that, and this is not releated just for pvp but for any kind of MMO aspect that is really lacking.

 

I see what you're saying Antrax, I really do. You're right, if they spent time like the fishing it would be pretty darn good. But look at their Q2 list. There is nothing for pvp, episode 2 content should be ramping up soon, so I don't see them doing any pvp work in the future at all. Perhaps the boat has left that port? I dont know, but i feel for you. Only thing I am saying is that if you want a decent pvp experience I doubt you or anyone elese you mentioned will get it in this game. Sorry to say but that's how it looks.

 

I can't know this, but I really hope you're wrong.

 

True, none of us really can know, but the way their schedule is laid out and their commitment to have episode 2 done in 2019, it doesn't look like this would be the year for any pvp enhancements. Hopefully I'm wrong. We could definitely use a lot of the things you listed previously. Only time will tell.

 

The only reason why "private mode" is the most efficient/beneficial is because the zone architecture, spawn density, resource density in open mode are insufficient in almost every scene more than 1 player or small group of players fighting in it. You bring one more player into say, a mine - well, you simply stand around with no ores respawning. Same thing for most adventure scenes, the spawners just don't keep up with players.

So, as you say, people get their own nice private instance, the main reason for which, is so you aren't stood around bored with nothing to fight/gather/do. I am completely in agreement that this is a problem as it discourages all social interaction - not just PvP but you know, meeting new people, making friends, meowing at random strangers, etc.

When it comes to trying and making "group content" we see the same mobs, supersized with more HP and hitting harder (thus recommending a group fight together) but once you take into account the xp/loot split, you're worse off than solo grinding a Tier5 in most cases. And what ends up happening is a small handful of players who can 'solo' the group content get disproportionate rewards and everybody else simply doesn't bother with it.

The problem is lets say you improve it? Make the boss timer 30 seconds on open mode. Then people will park and farm it all day and try to outdo/grief each other to get the kill. In which case it becomes....better to just go do it yourself on private mode. Private mode in this game has solved a lot of problems that plague MMOs, like spawncamping or dealing with rude/obnoxious people. But its created its own problems too. I'm not sure how they can fix it without changing the very fundamentals of the system. I think the way that the loot system works in this game is a big deterrent to cooperation. Games where "everyone who hit the mob gets their own loot/full xp for it" tend to do well in getting players to cooperate - there's simply no disincentive for doing so. More people helping = faster loot for everyone. In Sota, not the case.

Coming back to the pointless vs. meaningful PvP question though - if ransom was off the table, i.e. if I didn't have to do 20 minutes of inventory management and/or pay out tediously farmed gold every time I came up against the 1%ers, I'd joyfully engage in PvP minigames, faction quests, etc. I admit its one of the itches Sota can't scratch for me (the desire for some sort of competitive gameplay.) You have said its not about the ransom - that in fact, a lot of times the ransom isn't even claimed - so why have it? Because its the only reward? ....what if it wasn't? Gaining xp/rep for your faction for killing opposing players or completing objectives while having to sneak by/hide from/evade opposing players would add a whole new progression system and dynamic to the game. I really think Obsidian Trials was the right direction, but most people were put off by "only the overall winner gets anything" so there was no reason to participate unless you could steamroll everyone. But a ransom free team vs. team arena, or faction vs. faction activity, or siege...lots of potential to get people in there because there's nothing to lose.

 

@Antrax Artek

Please explain how forcing Sieges to be private caused PvP'rs to leave SotA ?

How/why is it that PvP'rs are "forced" into private mode to get the most xp and loots ? (And don't you guys still get a 10% xp boost in multiplayer scenes ?)...

 

-They loved to do sieges pvp flagged and fight over sieges for a reward, with forced private they could not do it anymore.

-PVPERS are forced to private cause PVP zones and Multiplayer zones are far away from the rewards of the private farming even counting the boost you mentioned.

 

And they took them to private because some peeps were camping them and taking down the cabalists after others did the work to get them to spawn.
Not sayin' those "cabalist campers" were all PvP, but some of them were.
That's why they went private.
Besides, there's nothing from keeping PvP'rs from fighting over boss's (Torc for example) in any boss scene in multi.

That's experienced by both PvP and PvE, so there's no "favoritism" for PvE there, and you still can get the extra 10% by playing Multiplayer.

 

Constant negative propaganda and constant ranting throughout years whenever a PvP idea or concept was proposed or introduced.

 

Nice of you to chime in with more ambiguity, Earl - but you still haven't answered the question I posed to you.

 

Yeah they really need to focus on increasing mob density in one scene per release for a while, it's bad in almost all scenes older than a year.

 

What do you want Frosty FrostII (sorry, autocorrect on mobile. No disrespect intended)? Want me to pull up old posts where the anti PvP crowd screams down every sensible idea? Or do you just want to provoke me because I dare to chime into a PvP topic? I am not going to do the name and shame game. Search yourself or don't. I can't be bothered.