Changing attitude towards PVP...

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by queenbee, Jul 24, 2021.

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  1. Ysold

    Ysold Avatar

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    I used to enjoy watching the PvP tournaments in old UO (as audience only, of course :) ). I think it's a very good means of showcasing the fun side of PvP and might bring more people to it.
    I read that the arena in Ardoris is broken, but perhaps it is a challenge for decorators to design one in a POT?
     
  2. Vesper

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    Working on the Ardoris arena, it will have working Rez points next release, and we'll test more after that
     
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  3. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

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    This is a good discussion, and thought I'd throw in my perspective on attacking/being attacked in PvP zones while engaging in PvE. I've had a number of folks wait for me to finish killing/skinning the dragons in Grunvauld Shardfall before running in for a fight. I thought it was a kind courtesy and we had a good fight afterwards. I've also had folks run in and kill me mid fight, sometimes before I even noticed they were there, just a few arrows in the back.

    It's probably been frustrating once or twice, especially after making a nice recovery against the dragons or being near killing them. But overall it's added a lot of fun to the zone for me, to the fights. I enjoy being in fights where I don't know what's happening next, when I have to be alert and ready. Even fights where another player never shows up are made more fun just by the threat of it. Sometimes the folks that have killed me have finished off the dragons and taken the skins, sometimes I've been killed mid-skin and then messaged something like "Just saying hi, catch you later" and I could rez up and go grab my loot.

    And that's all it is to me. Different players say hello in different ways in PvP zones. For Grunvauld I usually buff up and charge the dragons, my goal is usually to drop the Young and one of the Ghairmutes before they've all gathered up on me and I have to face their combined damage. Half the time I don't notice if another player is there until I've committed to the charge, at which point stopping or turning back might well be what kills me. So my greeting in that shardfall tends to be a bit sharp and a bit abrupt but it's also a function of my build, my playstyle, my abilities (or lack thereof), and what I personally find fun about PvP.

    For all the variety in how players conduct themselves in PvP there's one overriding trend, they're trying to have a good time. The majority want their opponent to have a good time, if not in any given battle, at least over the course of the war. To me that similarity, the goal of a good time, is greatly serviced by the multitude of playstyles and personalities. Anyway, if anyone sees me flagged, I hope you stop in and say hello.
     
  4. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    This. 100% this.

    I absolutely abhor PVP in SotA, but I've never seen anyone in those PVP zones the few times I've been in there. If I did get killed, so be it, it's just a game as @redfish pointed out and that's the risk associated with being in there. C'est la vie!
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2021
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  5. FBohler

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    You'll probably last less than 5 seconds, stunned down on the ground and confused.
    The meta PvPers will love to have "regular" players be brave enough to face them. You'll be lucky if you scratch them beyond 80% of their total HP.
    Most of the time you'll need to resort to combat logs to even understand what kind of attack killed you. Most of the time they'll jump you with Blink from hundreds of meters away.

    It's just not good fun and there's a reason most of the community just ignore PvP at all. I'm stubborn enough to try it from time to time though lol.
     
  6. Joe Zhudarak

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    SOTA has an awesome classless system if someone cast chaos, air , melee skills, life magic, potions, moon magic, earth, bard,in the same battle its not because is broken system. This is how combat are designed for sota.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2021
  7. queenbee

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    I'm going to generalize by saying that we think too much inside a box. I know I did. As an archer, I'd automatically wear leather armor and use air shield. As a healer, I'd wear cloth armor and equip two wands. If there is an effective tank in the party, the mobs will generally aggro to him and not to me.

    It doesn't work that way in PVP. I'm usually the first one taken out and it wasn't hard to do that wearing cloth armor. So now I'm working on becoming the tankiest fire healer. I'm wearing heavy armor instead of cloth and equipping two spears instead of wands. Hopefully it will take a little more effort to take me down.
     
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  8. FBohler

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    The system is classless, but everybody uses about the same skills in PvP. Blink, Torpid, CF, Confusion, Body Slam.

    Shields are almost unheard of in PvE, but everybody and their uncle wield one for PvP.

    For damage and CC there are a bunch of options, sure, but they do very similar effects basically.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2021
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  9. Joe Zhudarak

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    if the system is classless and a lot buff/debuffs donĀ“t overlap expect your opponent using all of them
     
  10. Vesper

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    I played soccer once in high school gym class. Expect my master class and critique out next year, who wants an advanced copy?
     
  11. Tirrag

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    Some good discussion in here. Wanted to start off by saying PvP in any form is not for me. I don't like the feelings it invokes in me and if there is any form of trash-talking involved, I cannot bring myself to say those kinds of things to another player (whether in "jest" or not) nor do I like to see those things aimed at another player whether they are ok with it or not. Given that, my favorite prey has spawns that reside in PvP zones. Dragons lure me there, not for the loot or the XP but for the fun of slaying a dragon. To me, there is no better solo dragon fight in SotA than taking on the 3 dragons in Grunvald Shardfall all at once.

    I think part of the issue with PvP in SotA isn't PvP, it's that a player will project their own ideals onto what PvP means based on either no PvP experience or other game experience. The entirety of my PvP experience is spending several years playing competition league MechWarrior so I come from a tactics-based team vs team PvP background. The current implementation of PvP is completely open and there is no definition of what it should be (other than completely open). This leaves it up for interpretation by the player, especially for people who haven't been in this type of PvP environment before.

    My first gank experience I remember very clearly. I had just downed the White and started skinning when I was ganked. I have to admit I was very agitated at the timing of this occurrence as I was projecting my own thoughts on what PvP should be in SotA on the situation (ie team play). My response to the PvP players that ganked me (there were 3) was "hope I provided a good enough challenge for you". It wasn't that they killed me, that is the risk I took going into the zone. My issue was _when_ they chose to kill me. It was my interpretation of PvP in SotA that players sought challenging combat (why else would you fight players) and thus why would you kill anyone while they are skinning? It was very eye opening but I quickly formed a better understanding of this open PvP environment. Much like another poster mentioned, you adjust. You find times when you have a higher chance of not seeing anyone in the PvP zone and choose those to enter with an understanding that there are no "rules" no matter how badly you want to project your own rules onto it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2021
  12. Vesper

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    At the same time, it leaves it free for the players to create their own events with scenarios, guidelines and rules too. Which happens often, so that's a plus.
     
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  13. queenbee

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    Flagged zones should give a "If your name isn't Inigo Montoya, prepare to die" warning upon entering.

    On a serious note, the mentality of PVP is not the same as PVE. Be prepared, be alert, and expect the worst. Mobs are predictable, players are not.
     
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  14. Adam Crow

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    I was just thinking about how little I've pvped in this game compared to doing other things. I enjoy pve, trading, deco and chatting with players so I bet over the years I've spent less than 1% of my game time engaging in pvp. But the funny thing is, all of my most fond memories of this game are all pvp encounters.

    One of my favorite memories was when they first introduced pvp flagging, I was following someone around after they ganked me and it lead me to a pve zone. When I entered Lord British was in there and also flagged. We chatted for a minute and he stole a recall scroll off me. I laughed and told him to enjoy the scroll and sent a whisper to the guy I was following around, "hey LB is here at the entrance, come duel me." He quickly made his way to the entrance and destroyed me again for like the 5th time that day. Then he and LB squared off in a pvp stalemate. After a couple minutes it was pretty obvious that LB was set to god mode and was invulnerable, but he couldn't kill Vallo. It was pretty funny thing to watch. I had to log out but Vallo said he eventually just stopped attacking and they ended up chatting for a while.
     
  15. redfish

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    The nature of the class system is one of the many reasons the game is broken for anyone interested in real role-playing.

    Not that you shouldn't be able to RP outside of strict class boundaries, but its way too easy to do so.

    But it leaves a situation where if you are interested in Shroud as a role playing game, and play that way, you handicap yourself as a player and leave yourself prey to PvPers who don't care at all about it. So if you're interest in RP at all, you have to stay out of PvP, because the design of the game is broken in that way.
     
  16. Adam Crow

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    Well I see what you're saying here, but I think that issue goes much further then RP. If you set yourself up completely as a pvp player in this game and you don't choose ranged or polearms you are at a pretty decent disadvantage in pvp. Both those trees have attacks that ignore armor, which no other class can do.
     
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  17. Vesper

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    Do you mean like if you were to refuse to cast any magic or something of the sort?

    Blade can get big dots from rend past armor, Bludgeon can debuff armor like crazy, magic bypasses DR in a sense too.
     
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  18. redfish

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    That's the part that I was addressing when the classless system was mentioned, yea. Although I think more generally, someone who is playing the game in a role-playing mindset isn't going to be that into min/maxing his numbers. The issue isn't necessarily that certain choices are impossible to play if you're really good, but my experience is they're harder. I think they not only make it harder in PvP but also in PvE past a certain level, because I think in some cases the mobs seem balanced by how hard it is for a certain type of player to defeat them. Because a lot of people don't like endless grinding, and don't feel like they're getting anywhere, they're just going to hit a wall at some point and stop leveling up. And people are not going to necessarily party up and then feel they're not contributing to the group.

    Overall, I think PvP isn't fun to many people simply because of this kind of dynamic and the sense that if you go into a PvP zone, you're just sheep for the wolves, and aren't going to end up doing much but hiding and avoiding PvP, unless you get someone to protect you. It isn't the ransom or any other penalty to game puts on you as a player, its that it feels like PvP is just a nuisance. And it isn't that this type of player can't find PvP fun -- and wouldn't find PvP under other circumstances -- its that this style of PvP isn't fun.

    The devs I think intentionally bought into the wolves vs. sheep dynamic because its what a lot of UO PvPers were asking for.

    In general, I've felt along the course of the game development that the devs' way of reconciling different types of gameplay was to treat everybody as separate groups and then make everything voluntary. Give PvPers what they want, and give PvEers what they want, and if PvEers don't want to PvP they don't have to, and if PvPers don't want to PvE they don't have to. Same with multiplayer vs. solo, or RPers vs. socializers, crafters versus deco'ers etc. Over time, this wasn't working out so some groups lost over others, and one of the biggest losers over time was RP, which I think is a shame, because that's what helped bring the different groups together (for those who liked the Ultima games and other classic RPGs, without which we wouldn't have Shroud of the Avatar). In any case, I think the game would have been more fun for largest number of people if the devs were into balancing all of these interests, instead of treating players as distinct groups that could play in their own sandbox and avoid other players if they wanted to and would have options to tune the gameplay to their own preferences. I still think some of the devs original plans for PvP were interesting, like to have PvP at control points and so on.
     
  19. Adam Crow

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    I don't have very much experience in pvp so just going on what I'm told. I'm blades right now and plan on giving pvp a shot once I get use to this build, so I'll see how it goes. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with deck setup and using the chaos and other pvp skills at the right times - but I have a feeling that once you get it all down, those two armor ignoring attacks (puncture/piercing shot) can be pretty helpful compared to the others you mentioned. Aren't there things you can do to remove Rend damage?
     
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  20. CatDude

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    Fortunately, I have not heard of, let alone seen or met, any such personalities within SotA.
     
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