Better PVP for everyone, one step at a time.

They should have wanted to PvP against skilled PvPers. But griefers who didn't have defenseless targets didn't want that. Even people who legitimately enjoyed challenging PvP would no doubt find themselves hamstrung by the systems.

Die once and lose everything, and end up a ghost. There is no rematch. Play just stops there for all parties.

It isn't a model for sustaining combat long term.

 

Check my post edit as I failed to see it changed PvPers to pvpees. Then adjust if needed in your post Andrew. I think you and I saw the same thing.

 

Ha, thanks.

I just explained I completely disagree with this 'theory'. I saw first hand and know people who skilled up and prepped in PvE then jumped over to PvP to attack people with less skills and resources because, frankly, the game is harder in PvP when you are fighting computer content and player content. After the abusers were weakened they would just jump back into PvE and ramp up again.

What ruined the game was that people who wanted other online players to be a part of their online experience as 'player content'(so to speak), got sick of the abuse in the system. They quickly left and it was mostly PvE'ers. The very nature of PvE means they are relying on in-game content, and thus, when they saw the "next thing' jumped ship.

PvE'ers dont 'build' an online experience. It's just that it's hard to build content when you're only consuming it, never providing it. PvP'ers build an online experience. They end up making the game into something new and continue to evolve the game so its always new for them.

I know thats not the case because I was actually involved in the process of abusing that system. I had friends that I would join when they came to PvP that did that exact thing... Skill and gather in PvE, once bulked up, head to PvP. If you were trying to have a gaming experience in PvP, you just couldn't keep up with people, who only had to worry about game content and not worry about player content.. So the PvP'ers left UO. Leaving PvE'ers, then UO saw them leave for the 'next best thing'; because if your only consuming the content in a game and not being a part of it, you have not invested anything in the game other than time. You've created no experience and you cant create any new ones, only the dev team can in that case, youv'e just had experiences and thats it.

But this is one reason I think Port should lock the two "worlds" so to speak(PvP and PvE) from each other. I can see transitioning from PvE to PvP(you want to get a handle on the game first in a controlled manner), but letting people go back and forth is just a recipe for disaster.
Maybe arenas can merge the two worlds as both the PvP'ers and PvE'er would be perpared together for that. But i'm not on board with the whole "Oh boy, I need to skill up, better jump to PvE where I'm safer then skill up, heal up, mana up and jump back into PvP."

 

Wasn't the next big thing free shards of UO?

 

Hey guys had a thought I wanted to get some feedback on. I think this would be a great idea to give incentive to flag for PvP and super, SUPER easy to implement. So why not if your character is flagged for PvP you get something like double the resources when gathering and 50% increased XP from killing monsters. This would mean depending on your mood you could play it safe that day and just gather/farm at normal rates or increase the risk for these added bonuses. However, IF you have your PvP flag on then the loot you gathered would be connected to the zone you were in until you left the zone which then "secures" it in your inventory, as was previously mentioned in this thread. If you are killed, any loot that hasn't been "secured" is lootable by other players.

 

We did want to PvP against skiller pvpers, those battles were the most challenging, most memorable, most frustrating, most everything . . .. which is why we do what we do. The biggest problem that really killed pvp in UO is that there was no serious follow up of quality pvp driven content. Other than champ spawns with powerscrolls, there were no real compelling and 'profitable' (meaning reward for winning other than just player loot or bragging rights) reasons to pvp. Turf Wars? ummm no, that's not what drives us. Once the powerscroll market was saturated and no other pvp content was added, of course the people who played for that gaming style left the game.

As to the pvp jerks issue, someone being a jerk is subjective to the situation. Any time anyone kills you in a pvp zone without you expecting it or wanting it, does that automatically make them a jerk?

This is a step in the right direction. As much as I love the original UO, I agree there should not be full loot. There does not need to be full loot to give pvp'ers what they want. People think they want full loot in order for them to be 'complete' jerks, it's not that they want to loot your bandages, as much as it is the thrill of finding something in your bag that is special and unexpected. It's the thrill of discovery, sort of like digging up that treasure chest, fighting off all the mobs, then springing the lid and seeing what goodies you got.

So ...... here's the outline to quality pvp.

1) Full Loot = No, partial loot, yes. The first step to defining what is lootable is, everything that was harvested or gotten by any means in the current scene. That's easy to do, and easy for everyone to agree on. The insurance system in UO, when it was introduced, actually was not a bad idea, just limit the number of items that you can 'insure' or otherwise mark as not lootable, then everyone can at least protect their armor and weapons they are currently equipping, but if you dropped in with a full bag of other items, well, that just wasn't very smart of you.

2) With looting rules solved, next, the most important thing is to put items/reasons in those zones that are worthy of fighting over. Some of them should be 'harvestable' etc, some of them should be earned by fighting mobs, and some of them could even be puzzle solving rewards, hold the zone/control point for x amount of time rewards, etc. Shouldn't be too hard to figure some things out along those lines, specific to pvp zones.

The champ spawns in UO were actually a great example. Not only did you have to progress the spawn to the end (which could be hard enough itself sometimes), but you had to contend with competing players/guilds who of course would wait until the last moment to swoop in and try to steal the spawn. Anyone who was there on a regular basis, knows how much strategy was involved in defending choke points while killing the champ, sometimes getting wiped and losing control of the spawn only to regroup and come and take it back before the champ died, heal up the champ and take it out ourselves. There were some epic battles in those days. . . but . . after powerscrolls were no longer hot, what came next? . . . . nothing. And most of the pve'ers cried and cried about powerscrolls not being available in Trammel, but in the end, everyone had them and they were cheap and plentiful, because the pvp'ers had a quality reason to go and fight to get them and then transfer them into the world market. Many times, pvp guilds would guard for pve guilds to do the spawns because of the relationships that were built in the game. That's how you overcome obstacles, united we stand, divided we fall.

The problem is, if pve'ers 'want' to include pvp'ers in this game, they 'have' to be open to having at least 'some' items only being available in pvp areas. Otherwise, it all comes back to being worthy of fighting over. PvE dominates the whole game, can't you give up a few slices here and there in the spirit of inclusiveness? or is it an all or nothing proposition for you?

3) There should/could be , a faction system at some point. The factions in UO had their moments, but, there again, no serious follow up content to keep it going. If done right and monitored to keep the sides balanced numbers wise, it is just one more avenue to open up for a 'reason' to pvp. Not everyone will partake, but for those that do, it gives more meaning to pvp. Opposite factions would have the option to fight in areas other than designated pvp zones, and other people who don't wish to be involved, won't be. They will probably enjoy watching though, and will possibly be intrigued/interested enough to learn from it.

4) Perma red system = no. If you want a bunch of pvp jerks, then make them perma criminals, and they have no reason not to be a jerk. Pirates are gonna pirate. I'm not saying there should be no penalty for criminal actions, but once you label someone as something , they are going to mostly act as you would expect them too. Once you go perma red, there usually is no going back, so you play the role that perma red represents . . .

5) Risk vs. Reward - This cannot be emphasized enough. Give pvp'ers rewarding reasons to pvp and they will flock (not withstanding the current adaptation of the combat system, that's a whole different topic) to this game. The Dev's can (and probably really want to) do this, but if the pve'ers are going to refuse any pvp content that is not duplicated in pve, then its just not gonna be the game for pvp'ers to play.

But while i'm at it, I played release 20 and have worked a char up to lvl 46. . . here's my opinion of the combat system (not that anyone asked)

I had a fixed/random hybrid bar with 2 unlocked glyph slots. I played spec'd out first for magic, then ranged, then polearms.

1) shorter cooldowns are needed

2) Combos in some fashion are a must for the locked bar. (if it means that we must go hybrid in order to combo that's fine, but the random glyph slots in that situation need to be changed in some way to allow combo-able glyphs to appear in a reasonably regular fashion.

3) Locked bar penalties need to be removed - the 2 random slots I had, I could spam them over and over as quick as they appeared (which was a lot quicker than the cooldown on my locked slots) and seemed to take much much less focus. The combat system seems to still heavily favor the random system which is bad because:

4) No serious pvp'er wants to fight while having to look at the bar and guess what to use and where it is going to be. That might be fine for pve where you know that the bear is going to 'mostly' stand right there and attack you, but doesn't work real well against intelligent opponents. There is absolutely no way to see what an opponent is doing, know what 'counter' move is needed, then look down at your bar to see if it happens to be available, then mentally connect the slot it is in with the key that needs to be pushed, then physically locate the key (do you play with both hands on all 10 numbers? or do you use one hand to move around?) and push it, by the time all of that happens, how can you expect to 'counter' a move you saw coming in a timely fashion?

5) The interesting part was, with my locked slots, I knew what was where and I actually started to get into the skill tree, first knocking back my opponent, and then using 'pull' to bring him back within range, if he ran off near another mob, i'd follow and use 'whirlwind' (or whatever the name is) to hit both, you know, actually using the skills together to complement each other, with the random slots, i'd just look and see if it was an attack skill or defense, etc and then just spam that key no matter what came up, as long as it was an attack or defense, (i have some potions and heals on there too), never really paying attention to what the skill was or even caring if it complemented what was next. I didn't find that part of it very challenging or rewarding, it just seemed to encourage key spamming till something died.

The real question comes down to whether or not a real community of pvp'ers in this game is wanted. How to make it work well, isn't rocket science. It's not that the community lacks the ability to make it happen, the question is whether the pve community wants to make it happen. Everytime in the past that the Dev's have even hinted at something related to pvp that actually made the pvp'ers think 'hey, that sounds cool', a whole chorus of pve'ers chimed up with ' nooooo, that's not fair'. Examples are: loot specifically only available in pvp zones, thievery, almost 'any' level of player looting, pvp character skill/stat bonuses, etc etc.

See, it's not a matter of 'can' there be better pvp, but can there be better pvp that the pve crowd will accept in a tolerant way.

 

Thats a great solution. PvP'ers, by definition, dont compete with PvE'ers anyway so it doesn't hurt PvE'ers. AND it might actually give the PvE'ers more space when they are gathering their resources cause the PvP'ers wont be needing as much because it a 1.5 multiplier. Not to mention act as an incentive for people to actually play with other players as game content.

 

PVP should be driven by in-game politics. For example, if you can establish 5 to 6 different kingdoms/countries in game. The Game Master can push the politics, say, "the king of kingdom A now is decided to invade kingdom B". The will be subsequent PVP and PVM raiding. In order to defend an output, several squads will be sent to the output to fight against the enemies. It can be a PVM missing where a Boss is either on the defending side or the offending side. The PVM parties will have defeat this Boss to gain control of the outpost. This applies to PVP as well. Teams of players from both sides are sent as the defending and offending team. You have to defeat each other in order to gain control of the output. There could be 10s of this outpost/tower/spot controlling before an all out war can happen. That is, the offending side needs to take controls of, say, 90% of the outpost/spots in order to launch an all out war against its target kingdom. This way, the PVM folks from the in game guilds will protect the kingdom in the PVM way while the PVP folks will defend the country in the PVP way. One can also choose to be both.

This way, in game player hatred is minimized as nothing is personal here. It's not fully up to a group of players to attack players from another nation. It is rather the NPC kings and queens (and the GM behind them) to decide to attack each other. Players are just passively doing their job to fight for the kingdom.

 

It's great if you are a PVP player looking to slaughter some sheep, no so much for the PVE player trying to grind more efficiently with the PVP flag on. Systems like this don't promote new and interesting PVP battles, they merely attempt to transform PVE players into pinatas for PVP players to crack open and harvest after they've gotten stuffed full of goodies.

 

I was there as well, on Catskills as part of a robust and substantial RP scene. As a community we anguished over the decision to move en masse to Trammel. In the end we did. The desire to retain the risk was overshadowed by the desire to avoid the disruption that resulted from uncontrolled PvP. What followed was "controlled" PvP as all the RP guilds declared war on each other. One could still be attacked but there was an implied respect for the other player. Which, in the end, is all many of us really want.

 

Well, you could say the same about high level NPCs. We are assuming they will keep "zoned" Mob skill levels.

 

Nah, same resource gathering same monster xp....get the rewards from battles in pvp.

 

Few mobs will wait for the player to finish harvesting an area and then gank them at the exit, which is what you get when you allow harvesting of the harvesters.

 

Avid UO PVPers will never convince Duke and the like, not that it matters. People usually take the path of least resistance and when a game designer makes an easier path they will usually take it, even if it hurts the game. They would be just as upset if they made the AI too difficult (aka realistic). If a Goblin could stalk you and ,as I suppose a true Goblin would want to do, kill you at the most opportune time they would complain. Spawn it in an area where you could stand within eye sight without them reacting (very unrealistic) they are good. The AI has to be stupid and predictable so that they can play a hero. All this argument would be solved if they just separated Open PVP into thier own instances, like a siege perilous flag with hardcore game rules. You Opt in and move on, don't even have to cross paths with Duke (or that guy that use to have the bear in his sig). Win Win WIn, they aren't delivering on PVP though, just empty promises for a year.

I'm so sad today to see someone else revolutionizing mmorpgs instead of this game.... Chronicles of Elyria looks epic, hope they can deliver. That is way outside the box, they got outside and stomped the box flat and stood on that sad piece of cardboard. Hoorah to them, finally someone with the minerals.

 

That's not entirely true. I note many ways people want to make this a better experience, which in other words means an easier game for PVPers, even in this thread...more exp for kills, more resources it goes on.....

I don't think anyone said in here they want an AI that just stands there...I think you are generalizing in an attempt to cast a negative light on those players that don't share your belief.

 

Rune, PVPers typically don't seek an "easier" game and the above mentioned items are a PVE approach to PVP. I would forgo all content/lvling/quests for good solid challenging pvp any day.

Picking at straws with your second comment. It's logic, basic simple logic. They can make the AI more difficult than a player, it's just a point on a scale and they have in-depth conversations about how hard they can make the Environment before people get frustrated and quit. If you can detect Environment then Environment should detect you (if not before). If PVE was really good then PVP wouldn't be an issue, a Troll or an Orc should be more ruthless than a player (a human), if you get my drift. Environment is not progressing at all in difficulty... Fear had really good smart AI, they would flank you, sneak around corners, esc. You can go to this open field and kill 10 cnt orcs and just wait for them to spawn and engage at your leisure.. Not challenging at all, the fantasy is all in your head and we might as well be reading a book. You want a real challenge pump up the AI. Shall we play a game? This forum is just like Tic Tac Toe.

 

A lot of the arguments on these boards is about making sure PVP has ample reward etc, if you don't want an easier game why do you require more reward? If you sip all the quests and storyline in game why play an rpg for pvp? it isn't nearly as competitive as a fps.

Well, why does the ai have to be that way? I don't look at encounters solely on if I can get a combat rush out of them, I look at them as a lore world item. I shouldn't just be attacking creatures here and there just to build up xp as they respawn around me....this is a horrible game mechanic introduced by the mmo. You never here anyone playing a solo rpg say hey guys I just did some PVE in game, nope you hear them say I just went to the bottom of that dungeon and it had some hard monsters etc.

 

Ill add my two cents here....

I do enjoy pvp but im not a hard core pvper...
some of my fondest memories from uo was resource gathering in fel.

However this is why i will split. pvpers choked the game to death on the server i was mainly and several other servers. we were forced to champ spawn to get scrolls to lvl up to just be competitive in the game. a lot of my friends quit the game after it came apparent that nothing was ever going to be done about the abusive nature of the way the game had turned. most of the mods were part of the red guild's even some of the gm's were part of the red guilds. bottom line is that most pvm's are no match for a solid pvper much less a group of them.

sorry i don't buy all the hogwash about the pvmr's could have don't this or that defended them selves. They could't bottom line is a pvp build is very different than a pvm build. i see people on the forums now talking about being forced to play one way or another to be effective in the game for pvp. same thing goes for pvmer's they dont like pvp don't want to pvp and many of them remember the rampant abuse they received back then and are afraid it will happen again.

Unless pvper's in this game figure out a way to convince the skeptics that pvper's will never be given that kind of ability to grief other players or a way to excel faster in the game by walking over people your desires will never be met. to many people have to many bad memories and blame pvp for part of a ruined experience. to many pvmer's left uo cause they got tired of being abused in a system where they were destined to fail hence why many players wont go back to uo.

I for one mentioned a few ideas before never got any traction but ill put them down here for you again.

if a red blue system was implemented. any red while in pvp controlled points would not receive the xp gains or material boosts that pvp areas gave. nor could they harvest any special materials there. before people get all up in arms here this is why. pvp area's are the pvper's turf. you want to entice people without the (sheep) thinking you are doing it for selfless gains. now so pvper's can get special mats or slightly higher (not as high as pvmers in pvp area's) if they fight in blue controlled area's they get the bonus where blues don't. but that allows any red in a blue controlled area to be attacked by any blue flagged or not. a red would not be able to imitate combat with a blue but once combat was imitated then he could attack them. now i will also stack the deck for the blues to make it more a fair fight. by this if a blue was to attack 1 red out of 5 then only the 1 red would be able to attack back but also if any blue gave aid to a blue ie healed them then they would be flagged for the combat as well. (reds healing reds would have to be discussed im neutral on that but i know some people will be violently opposed)

This system has a chance to work and get approval. it would entice people into pvp area's the risk vs reward while not rewarding people with no risk for rewards. that has always been one of the biggest problems with the risk vs reward system all the risk were taken by the blue's and all the rewards were held by reds who had no risk being in that area.

MEANING FULL PVP .....

there is two problems currently that i believe to be the main issue here that are being over looked.

1) i can gather more resources easier in non pvp area's faster than i can in pvp zone's i have no reason to be there... also (not counting pvper's at here) the mob life is much easier in non pvp area's to survive than the pvp area's. I spent 4 hours straight in a shardfall the other night and not 1 person showed up not 1. (was proving a theory on xp gain, production xp gain, and mats gathered) guess what i got more xp and mats in a non pvp area in the same amount of time.

2a) the active pvp community in this currently is rather small. Add to the fact that most of this pvp community has battled each other more than once at several different tournaments there really is no challenge id say if people were honest most people know where they stand on the imaginary pvp ranking board. i believe this is part of the subconscious need for pvpers to gardner more and more players from the pvmer side of the house to play pvp. they more variety no matter what game u play u kill the same mob over and over again it gets boring guess what that is whats happining now in pvp they are battling the same pvpers over and over and its getting boring.

2b) one of the other problems that i have watched is.... most of the pvp population (not all i said most) is on friendly terms if not friends with most of the other pvper's. it is not uncommon to see 2 flagged pvpers hanging out together in the middle of the street talking to each other, i truly believe that when the game goes live and their is a huge influx of players, pvp will have real meaning but till then its hard to have bitter wars with people u like, trust and or are friends with

 

Roper, Don't blame the imbalanced system on PVP players. They went from open loot and balanced equipment to insurance at the same time as a massive increase in the power of weapons and armor. This greatly changed the PVP experience, the top equipped player would be impossible to beat (even for a dozen poorly equipped players). That was an imbalanced system and it was not originally that out of balance. It was fun if you were on the top fighting against people also top tier, everyone else was a mongbat.

The quality of the game is all down to Mechanics, anything can me made to work and be enjoyable. They can give PVE and PVP everything they want and keep them from ruining each others game play. There is a way, they might not be creative enough to find it though.

PVPers aren't as interested cause this game is not delivering anything noteworthy to PVP and the combat system is a patchwork of combat featured in Anime. I wouldn't be interested in PVP that is so bad that the PVP community has to be concentrated in a zone and lure pve into it just to get a decent population. I believe you aren't understanding the way the server will work though. Take the pvp population you saw on your server and add the pvp population on all the other servers. It's like cross shard play and when your instances can only handle 30 to 120 people it's a non-issue.

Make a awesome siege perilous style open pvp flag and then make it one of the hex instance filters, they will be playing their pvp version of SotA and PVE players wouldn't even know the difference and shouldn't care what the filter ruleset consist of cause it isn't for them. (then they'll say what if I want to PVP!)

Tic, Tac, Toe