[Poll] If there were substantial changes would you do it?

I voted yes - I would PvP if it was meaningful, rewarding, and less punitive. But I guess we all have different definitions of what that means.
For me, if PvP has barriers for entry including gear/money loss, I'll likely never do it.
If PvP only rewards the people who are extremely good at it, and there's nothing given at all for just participating, you'll find less and less people willing to participate as getting facerolled repeatedly isn't really fun. Sure, winners should get stuff faster, winning should have a point. But if the loser is just wasting their time, eventually they'll stop showing up to lose.

I'm not a fan of putting rare/special/only-obtainable-through-pvp stuff that is good for PvE in pvp forced zones, because it essentially is making PvP required. Get rid of PvP's downsides and that's less of an issue. A lot of games solve this problem by having pvp rewards actually benefit pvp and not be appealing for pve purposes which tends to be a decent route to go.

If we keep having gear damage, reagent use, consumables use, etc. with nothing gained I can't see pvp thriving or appealing to anyone but the people who love pvp for pvp's sake.

 

PVP Should have rewards. Having ransoms is great, quite a lot of people in this game give back loot, especially if you are a new player/new to pvp. Your ransoms shouldnt be worth more then 5k. The only exception to your ransom being that high is if someone takes a Warlocks Chain, A Cabalist hood, or any other artifact with huge value. When you pvp you should have all of your valuable things in multiple stacks that way your ransoms don't get expensive. You can also create a loot bag that has tons of junk in it that weighs less then 0.5 for each item and has less then 100 value for each item. If you have a loot bag with 150 items, or if you have a chest with 300 junk items, roughly 80% of the time if and when you die (assuming the person does NOT give your ransom back) your ransom will be less then 1k anyways, so it doesn't cost you much. If 1k IGG is alot to you, then you shouldn't be doing PVP anyways. Most builds right now are fine for pvp. Some things can be adjusted, like maybe a little bit of a crit damage nerf on archers, maybe changes with magic and melee. And you don't need that high of a level character. You can compete with the top pvpers with a level 100 character pretty well. Thats 125 million xp at level 100. If you want to be a top pvper you really only need 200 million xp, any more then that starts to become a stretch. By then your skills will be very high, and it will cost tons of xp just to get one level that your xp starts to become almost irrelevant. If you are under level 100 you are most likely pretty new, and you shouldnt try and become a pvp god soon. Even if you can only play for a hour each day, it takes less then 15 minutes to do a upper tears run and get 1 million xp. And then you have 45 minutes to do whatever. Thats 4 months to get to about level 100 from level 0. And thats assuming you only get 1 million xp per day. It doesn't take much to progress in this game. If you have been playing for 4 months, and you arent atleast level 95+, you don't play enough and you shouldn't be trying to be good in this game. You can have success with any build in this game against any other build. To everyone complaining they cant kill archers or mages because they are a melee, PLEASE know what you are talking about. Any melee in heavy armor can easily catch up to archers and mages. There are literally 2 damn skills meant for this. And guess what they are called???? Body Slam and Knight's Grace. Body slam is a ranged engagement that stuns the enemy. Perfect for catching up to ANYONE. And knights grace INSTANTLY removes Stuns, bleed effects, AND slows! You can always use a wolf speed potions that costs 50 gold for +2 Move Speed, and you can use the fleet flute, which is another +3 Move Speed! You can move as fast as any archer or mage, negate their slows, engage them with a ranged stun that brings you to the target, then go behind them while they are stunned and start pounding on them for the additional damage from behind. Simple as that.

 

You literally just spelled out all the reasons PvP'ers don't have anyone to fight, but said it all like it's a good thing.

 

Yeah, you kinda make the point. Yes, risk can be mitigated - but having 15 minutes of inventory management, locking and unlocking of gear, fiddling with decks, and moving crap around before and after any pvp session (during which you may not even encounter anyone) is a big turn off. Basically having to undermine yourself and your capability by banking/boxing/packing up gear so you aren't even at full strength is a big put off.

Unless a player does the inventory management hassle, ransoms are significantly more than 1k.
And its the principle of the thing more than anything. Unless you're a very confident PvPer, you're going to be paying that ransom over, and over, and over again . You get nothing for PvPing - no pvp gains or progression of any kind. You are basically paying money to engage in an activity that yields no benefit. Kinda like grinding UT if the mobs gave no experience or loot. Why would you bother? Except in this case, you'd have to pay each time you stepped in there, to grind for no experience and no loot.

Until a system is conceived that is fun and rewarding for both the cat and the mouse, the mice are staying home.

 

I think it is somehow off topic but might still help to understand the style to play of others and their impression about PvP.
I think I was around lvl 70 during the PvP event and my daily income must have been between 1000 and 1500 gold (already including the oracle gift). Might sound not a hell of a lot and there are two simply reasons…first I normally just sell the found armor/weapons but not the other items and second I do not grind that much.
I guess most of the daily money went into crafting supplies or small purchases and that way it was more likely to have just a few hundred gold in my pocket than a few thousands. Wealth is a very subjective term and I guess for a less active avatar someone with 100k gold is a very wealthy avatar while from the point of view of an active avatar someone with 100k gold is dirt poor.

The lost items were not that good as they were self-crafted but it took some time to replace them and paying the ransom would have been the easier way.
Paying e.g. 8k for all items would have taken some time to collect but you do not have that time as it seems you just have at max some hours to pay the ransom.
And yes of course looting your own gravestone is an option…but just if you can reach it. A grave standing in a ring of fire + a meteor shower of a high leveled avatar is unreachable for a low level avatar as you are already dead before you can loot the gravestone…even more unreachable if you do not wear gear.

And the info to place a lot of garbage in your inventory is…well…clearly showing that there is something wrong with PvP. If that would be intended why isn’t the Oracle dumping 40 * 1 gold crap items in your inventory on switching to PvP?
And yes of course there would be also the possibility to wear just addOn gear but this sounds similar wrong as the other workaround.
This might be efficient workarounds but I honestly think changing this system to not need some weird need-to-know makeshifts would be a better solution.

 

Took the words right out of my mouth, @Mhtic - talk about hitting the nail on the head.
Who wants to take part in PvP when that kind of crap happens all the time.
Not me !
I play for fun, not childish aggression and rezkills.

 

Body parts gotten from pvp could be used to either make the incoming mannequins or likely better to allow the making of an additional mannequin with a copied player head and nameplate of those that you have killed. You could have all your fallen enemies dressed as you wish and posed in your trophy room...that's got to be fun

 

Well definitely lvl 70 it's not a good lvl for join pvp, pvp is an endgame content in this game. Like others explained with a lvl 100 and correct build with correct gear you can join pvp, Lvl 100 needs around 2 month to reach for the average player, let's say 4 months for casuals, and 1 month for hardcore grinders.
As other people said there are other barriers to enter pvp that affect all the player, like inventory management, lack of rewards but high reagent/repair cost, lack of system that allow casuals to play ( ex. Battleground tied per lvl ).
Btw you misunderstood me, ransom doesn't fade after a random time, it is a specific time: you have 2 min to claim it from the ground, if an enemy claim it you have 24h to pay it back, not a random time.
Btw i dunno if you are a new player but lvl 70 with 1600 gold in inventory seems Yes, you can gain much more money per hour even with a lvl 70 if you go in the proper zones.
I am not saying this system works fine and it's good as it is, definitely need a polish and this is what we are asking for, just trying to explain you that you shouldn't be worried about ransoms, there are lot of workarounds to do for avoid it.

 

To be fair, to my notice rezkills are not a frequent thing in SotA. We have a mature player base and the majority of players do not enjoy bullying others.

Or what about essences? Can't we gather essences of other players' toons to create totems from them and make clones of these toons spawn in our dungeons?

But exactly that's what is needed. Don't make it endgame content. Make group PvP easier where everyone can contribute and learn. Make crits less severe, so even 500hp character is not likely to be killed with one hit.

About the ransoms: I always felt that scenes with different rules are needed. From no-ransom scenes over only-consumables-ransom scenes over current-system-scenes over drop-one-equipped-item-scenes up to full loot scenes. And let owners of PvP towns select the level of ransom for their town.

Also, please, all you max efficient players, acknowledge that there are players that do not want to play that way. And that therefore at lvl 100 walk around with less than 200k gold in their pockets. Also, please consider that even 2k ransoms become heavy if you die several times in a row. And consider how unfair it actually is for the newer and less skilled PvPer, that leaves all valuables in the bank, knowing that ransoming them would hurt, if those that outmatch them easily anyways due to experience and adventurer/skill level can afford to wear those cabalist hoods, warlock chains, lich rings, and whatnot, because 1) they know it is unlikely that they will die and 2) they can afford to pay the ransom if they do.

I think everyone should ask themselves the question: Do you want a small, elitist club of people that are worthy playing your game? Or do you want to be open, get rid of unneccessary thresholds and help others ease into your game so you'll have more people to play with?

Imagine there may be people that simply don't want to grind in order to join the party. Please don't pull the "If you don't want to work hard/invest, you don't deserve..." thing. I wonder if people that say such things are bored singles, teenagers, retirees? I have a demanding job, a family with young children, and a house with garden to take care of. When I play, I want to unwind and enjoy. Not work a second job in my freetime. I totally totally hate the grind. There are many days where I don't kill a single NPC, because I'm simply not in the mood for it. Been playing for 2 years and only in the past three months or so started even going to UT, not because it's fun but because I got fed up with always getting my ass handed to me. If there's those of you that tell me that some of this game's content should be off-limits to me because I don't want to invest many hours of work during the few hours where I can be in the game and not mainly afk, perhaps I should really stop wanting these things, or start looking for a new game.

 

As @Helvig Ingvildsdottir already said your assumption about the needed time to reach lvl 100 is not necessarily correct as I will show you with myself as example.
I’m no new avatar as I’m active since FinalWipe (July 2016) and even before but I’m still below lvl 90. I know there was, are and will be several possibilities to gain fast exp but that’s not the way I would like to play SotA as it’s not my goal in game to get as fast as possible a high level....I simply have other priorities.

In my experience PvP was very rare just endgame and a high level and good gear helped to win PvP fights but doesn't predetermined the outcome.
I guess currently we all have the same basic problem with PvP. I wouldn’t mind joining PvP if I had occasionally a chance to win while not ruining myself when trying and you would have a lot of “victims” you most of the time can smash but not always.
But as there is no expectable reward and just losses on my side there is no reason why I or others should join and thus the group of avatars doing PvP is smaller as it could be.
If there is currently a need to be at least lvl 100 to participate in PvP this seems to be a waste of possibilities as this means interested avatars have to wait a long time till they can join and thus might leave the game way before reaching that line.
And for the ones who are not that much interested in PvP it would help to offer continuously and right from the start incentives to join PvP as this way it would be more likely that they will stick with it...but to be interesting for a larger group the rules of PvP have to change.

 

So it seems there are at least two major sticking points that are the point of discussion and disagreement. I will propose simple solutions.

1) PVP vs PVE content/zones and rewards.

I propose no strictly PVP zones. If flagged and taking the risk you should get 20/25 pct more xp and double the resources/chance for high end level drops. Just add it to the zone entering options like we have for location entrance.

2)Ransom

I am still a newb in the PVP arena with only a dozen battles or so but it’s a pain to carry junk on you for fear of expensive ransom costs. I propose a flat 1k per item obtained when killed. A week ransom time should suffice. If you cannot make 2k in 30 minutes or less you need advice on what and where to farm.

This proposal should give everyone a chance to bring their best gear to the battle. Why else grind without and end game and the adrenaline rush that comes from it. Maybe I am an eternal optimist but I see the day soon when we have our Zerg battles with objectives/rewards and glory. How can you not imagine the experience. It can be done and we can find a middle ground in our community.

R/Boris/El Pirata/Black Sails Forever

P.S. @Chris ; I will keep calling you out on the status of “Groups of Parties” until we get a definitive answer or do you fear another big battle “grins”.

 

If you give additional loot to PVP and/or more PVP specific zones (The Fall) there will be an imbalance and open opportunity for exploitation.

A high end PVPer or PVP group would maintain constant control of PVP specific zones and create an imbalance of loot. Such zones would be open to exploitation and griefing in a variety of ways.

If you give rewards for PVP kills, this too can be exploited. PVPers will group up and kill each other to gain the rewards. People would have alternate characters, they kill themselves to grind for PVP loot.

The last PVP sponsored event The Grand Duke's Tournament had accusations of exploitation and cheating. The winning team "exploited" a gaming mechanic to win, according to many. We could barely field 5 teams for the event originally planned for 8 or more. Even with the winning team being GIVEN prizes valued at over a $1000 USD. (Tax Free City Lot Deed, COTO's, Cloaks, prestige!) which ironically immediately after winning the team tried to sell for RMT!!!! Only 25 people from the ENTIRE SERVER participated in the Officially Sponsored, highly advertised, Developer Supported PVP only event!!!! (5 teams of 5).

Focus on perfecting the PVE game and increasing population. PVP content will only push people away and remove resources from far more important aspects of SOTA development. A small but vocal component push for more PVP rewards primarily to exploit it. A small group of people with limited experience in PVP support more PVP rewards but don't realize the dangers it brings to this game.

The PVP arenas set up like Fortnite content failed to bring in new players and they are barely used, wasted development resources.

Personally I would love a PVP game like SOTA but I've been around long enough to understand the issues and problems associated with the content. The most successful MMOs currently have a focus on PVE with small parts of the game including PVP and usually totally separated from the main game. WoW, Everquest, LOTRO, Final Fantasy, Guild Wars, Ultima Online, to name a few.

PVP in SOTA opens up a Pandora's Box and this game and it's community can't afford to pay the price.

 

no man, you are pushing for anti-pvp for have a better chance to expliot it.we are not chris.

 

- PVP destroys any kind of exploit or botting action since even other players can police it
- A high level PVPer can be killed by 3-4 low level people and a PVP group cannot mantain any kind of control of a PVP zone, it never happened and never will happen
- There is more than one and only unique pvp zone in game so what you said just doesn't fit
- PVPers can't kill each other to get loots if the loots are given by high end mobs in PVP zones
- The community is larger enough to support large scale and pvp objective (I'm sure you haven't seen or participated in the battle of New Heaven, of Dragomir mori and the events of Travian), if there was a pvp contest with exceptional rewards i would be there so that fictitious empty pvp contest of which you speak perhaps does not even exist.
- If there were pvp exploits it would be the fault of bad design choices/bug as if there were crafting exploits (and there have been and have been actively abused without anyone shooting crap about crafting requesting that the development of crafting be stopped or even eliminated from the game)
- Games with the highest population numbers have devoted half or all their work to pvp (easy to understand why sota is in the current situation), there is no pve only sandbox mmorpg that has been successful, I could instead mention a few pvp only that have had it.
- The PVP arena like Fortnite failed because it has design issues, bad rewards, long waiting times and no queue system not for sure because people don't want to do pvp.
- The mentioned Pandora's box was opened when they decided to put Private mode into the game this is what has caused and continues to cause most of the serious exploits and inflation, for sure not PVP.

PS: How you can see more than half of the sample of players who participated here is interested in pvp. The fairy tale of less than 10% of the population would be interested in PVP belongs to some years ago.
This large slice of players is saying aloud that if the pvp were changed they would do it willingly, and out of the game there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who would come back or start to play if this happens.

 

I have a saying..."If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, shoot it" So I am not typically the guy in the boardroom that folks compliment for politeness, but like you, I appreciate it when others are worthy of such praise and still manage to portray the reality of the situation

 

And because of that, how many new hardcore PvP'ers, at this stage of the game, are going to get there once they find out they can't compete until they've been playing for months?

That's why OT at the very least needs to level players UP as well as down. And we need a similar system to level the playing field for events, governor controls. Until that happens it's going to be lonely at the top.

 

Even if every mmo game i played, even full pvp games, requires a minimum grinding and character progression before to be competitive in PVP, i am not saying this is the right thing to do, the game is not mine and i didn't design it . I am just highlighiting how pvp in sota works and why many people are not involved in it, there are lot of way to do it easier, but people don't know.
Said that, there are lot of things they can do using tools we already have, obsidian trial tied by level (or skill level), this doens't mean everyone has skill capped to 100, this is just a lazy solution, maybe adding a lvl or skill lvl requirment before to join, like "you need to be below ALVL 100 to join this", if you are higher you shouldn't be able to enter and you should be able to join another version.

Everything can be exploited if the game desing is bad, like it happened with crafting many times, with nodes, mobs and chests: this is not caused by the community that wants to exploit, in every game you will find someone trying to exploiting broken stuffs, it is the job of devs to make systems not exploitable, you can't delete a system cause there is risk of exploits, you should rather delete the game at this point.


About the Duke's Tournament, i attended it, and my group took 2nd place against the group accused to "exploit" so i know excatly what happened:
1st the event wasn't organized by Portalarium, but by CM from Travian, which didn't have at all support from devs and didn't know at all game mechanics and which skill was bugged/expolitable ( because this wasn't his role, being a CM )
2nd They didn't exploit something labeled as bugged, they just used an unfortunately "intended" game mechanic, which was unbalanced, not bugged, but devs weren't aware since we discovered it during the tournament: they simply used temna Xbow, wich strikes 3 times with autoattack, using unicorn poisons ( they were recently added to the game ) with it. Simply when devs added poisons to bow forgot to balance every single bow and game mechanic related to this, this is a dev's error, not a player exploit.
3rd Yes we had just 25 players attending it, it was a 5v5 so not easy to create a team, simply cause people don't do everyday PVP, because there is no reason and meaning to do it ( the usual snake who eat his tail ), that tournament instead, drove some pvers to create PVP build and attend it cause there was a good prize ( so a good meaning to do it). ( some example: Mac and Armaleon were there too, and they are pretty much PVE mostly players, also they performed realy good in that tournament ).
4th IF devs had help Travian CM, instead to take distance from him, to organize the PVP tournament it would be probably much better, since devs should be the ones who know game mechanics, game rules, skills, unbalancing, and whatever is needed to know when you organize a PVP tournament.
5th Jade, Kelly O'Shay and Lao Tzu from EVL guild are running a PVP tournament 1v1 from a long time, giving prizes provided by themselves, and they, being just players, manage pretty good the tournament, being careful to any kind of possible exploits, banning unbalanced and bugged skills, and creating a great ruleset, if devs aren't able to do this, or simply don't want to do it, it's not players' fault.

What i would like to see is more interest in PVP by devs since this is a part of the game too, advertised in the main page, or simply tell us PVPer go play another game cause this is a purely PVE game.

 

Re: that tournament, the thing that sucked the most IMO was the person pick pocketing. My buddy lost 50,000 gold worth of gear.

I get that people say they are RPing a thief, but in the RP a caught pickpocket should be stuck in jail for years of game time, assets seized, no chance to make a new character. Or have their hands cut off.

Then it would be legit. Until then I am always wary of PvP events after that just because I know you can get away with pick pocketing with no real consequence.

 

Still bad game design, since it was an official event, devs could simply disable picpocketing into that place during the time of the event, is it so hard to disable 1 skill in 1 place for a couple of hours? But again, devs simply avoided to help in an event labeled as official in the game forum and left Cerus ( a community manager and not a dev ) alone doing the dirty job.

 

BTW regarding the thing that Unity limits performances in PVP and large scale battles, just check the 2nd part of this video.



Performance problems during large scale battles are not an unity problem, not an engine problem, is a known issue in every mmorpg and in 99% of modern engines.
As you can see it happens even on WOW using a rtx 2080 GPU, it is simply a problem with which you have to live together in an online game, there are no miracle solutions at the moment.