Is PvP flagging discouraged intentionally?

I would not say dead. I would say ignored. if you click on the members online you can see what the devs are looking at. I see them looking at the pvp threads. They see them. They just ignore them. But if its a thread about wanting an deco item or an wearable then for sure they see those threads. And yes, I have messaged the devs, numerous times. It seems that I am invisible.

 

That's fine, but there will be less people flagged PvP, therefore less fun for people who enjoy PvP.

I'm happy to have a PvP fight with someone else flagged PvP, even take on someone stronger than me. I just think there's a better way to handle allowing non-pvp people attacking pvp people. At the moment it encourages opportunist cowards who are too scared to flag PvP but are happy to jump on someone who is.

 

I hope this. ESO had to do something similar. Yaaaay.

Also, @Chris mumbled something in Discord about working on a PVP leveling system, similar to what is done in GuildWars 2. I dunno if he was just frustrated or serious; he said it in open chat, so I'm not worried about repeating it here. Any input from devs would be interesting.

 

Thank you, that is good information. Can you maybe start a thread in the feedback forum on this. They might see it there better and comment on it.

 

Although I'm a PVE player I have read this thread with interest, as I think a functioning PVP system is an important component of the game, and needed to support a large player base. However, having seen first hand the extraordinary effort they have put into Blood Bay, it must be pretty disheartening (and unfair) for the devs to read comments like the above. Yes, it is tempting on forums to make exaggerated comments when you feel you are being ignored, but for a post to have influence it must be credible. The above statement is not credible.

 

In your opinion that is. Sure they put time into the scenery, but as explained by many people it will be no good if there is no one to pvp. YMMV

 

Agreed. They obviously care; any statement to the contrary is polemics.

You're free to; feel free to quote me.

 

Well I was not the one who heard it so I cannot really start a thread on hearsay. Again, the part where you think they care and I think they care is opinion. Yours is just as important as mine. I will not say condescending things about your post so please do not say them about mine.

 

EDIT: How can you say they don't care when...Blood Bay? They obviously care. Maybe not as much as YOU want them to, I can't speak to that.

 

I don't agree.
They have paid attention to more than just scenery. Whether you agree with their decisions or not, it is obvious that they have cared enough about PVP to make changes like:
- removing Single Player and Friends Only access to PVP zones
- enabling on-the-spot transition from PVE to PVP by attacking flagged players
- providing an XP bonus for flagging PVP
- providing higher chance of artifact drops in PVP zones

If they didn't care about PVP, they would not have made any changes.

 

its fine to disagree. Im not going to go back and forth with you. We obviously feel different, and thats ok.

 

Blood Bay is an awesome scene - the Ruins and Shardfalls are incredible and I love rotating through all of them - I spend almost all my grind time in forced multiplayer scenes because they're incredibly cool. The mechanics for choice/consequence in PVP though are noticeably absent. If there were choice/consequence mechanics a non-flagged player attacking a flagged player would make a ton more sense. Instead of people seeing it as a cowardly griefing tactic, it would be strategically considered as irregular warfare. The game has a lot of beautiful PVP stuff, and it's not ever going to realize its full potential - unless of course a choice/consequence mechanic is implemented. Factions are required at this point. Real honest to goodness PVP factions - determined by PVP actions... not some carry over from PVE but factions born from PVP choice/consequence mechanics.

 

It's easy to say don't exaggerate or feel passionately... I actually programmed for EA, then for 5 years in freeshards and many other projects and I couldn't even get ONE dev to spare 2 minutes to answer a simple question in IMs.

And furthermore a question that was asked not in my name but by a 3000+ playerbase that wanted very much to be part of this adventure.

I sadly had only bad news : not only we've been ignored, we've been all put in the same bag (griefers and roleplayers alike) and actually been HATED openly in chat and many, many forum threads. People think that because we like conflict in our game, and chaos, its that because we have some hidden motive and our twisted personality can be belittled, ridiculed even.

The conclusion is always the same, when the logic becomes too strong and people realize how much we've shot ourselves in the foot, the discomfort takes over and the threads are being closed ON DEMAND, by the same detractors that are still feeling *censored* over griefing that happened over 10 years ago. I don't call it being tidy, I call it turning the blind eye, and so it is with PvP flagging. All justifications point to the oracle, which is almost admitting programmer laziness, at least in appearance.

To put it even more rationally, its fine to say : "We're fine with the current trammel playerbase, they are motivated have enough funding to give us so we'll put 100% of priority on them and push back real pvp mechanics until EP2."

That would have need to happen in one of the almost hundred of threads where we were discussing about a possibility in the far future that our niche playstyles (siege and perma death, factions etc...) could be attended to.

But that is NOT what happened, the truth was obscured, the avatar was shrouded and gently asked to please NOT be himself and stop troubling peace and order lest he be exiled, and replaced. That is felt deeply...

Thats part of the hidden story line too ? Maybe, but in the remaining loyal playerbase, noone gives a rats *censored* what happened to the stranger, so the point is lost on everyone but the occult inclined. And understandably they are confused as to the real purpose of this masquerade, I've even been asked why I hadn't been banned yet.

There is a reason for my annoying persistence here, I carry a precious gem within me, I hence hold many here in high esteem or I would already be gone. So many see only the negative while my heart is full of gratitude and admiration for what I see here.

A very strong message, very little transparency and professionalism from portalarium on this particular issue. I cannot remain silent because those it hurts most are defenseless, it makes some turn to the dark side.

I have NO complaint on service, art direction, even community managing. I have been treated with respect, as long as I don't pursue meta-physic truth.

But then again, it does not only happen here, its a trend, its yolo, its DLMB, its TLR.

It's not a spiritual successor, think its unfair ?

Life is unfair...

I write from the heart, in a flow, and while I am aware of my mediocrity and irrelevance to the times, I carry on in search of wisdom.

Often just one silly comment by a dev in those threads would have ended all speculation, shown clear vision and promise for the future. We are not at the stage where hope is not enough, OUR vision : the united states of PvP is strong with passion and unconditional love, forgiveness.

I don't take myself too seriously in all this, which I have preached by example through auto-censorship and numerous forum fastings

I just hope to bring people together, one would need to be really numb to their empathic feeling not to realise how many are hurting in the current situation, we've alienated perfectly good prospective players with the irrational goal of chasing away a few bad apples.

The internet sometimes does that... but I still think we can catch up and save the furniture

 

I hope they don't else it makes playing the game and raising skills for pvp relatively unimportant. What they would be much better doing is making a system where the very good/less good can play together and help each other. Factions where all can get involved and be useful and share any acclaim. Be disappointed if they go this route mentioned....

 

Darkstarr said PVP and PVE will not get seperated. I doubt they go down that route, as they have not evough development time to do that. Give players the power to create and spark conflict over resources, zone controls or just basic chaos - order battles.. It is better than any Battleground ever created. People who played vanilla WoW know that Tarren Mills was the best PVP content WoW ever had, but they decided to go another route. I doubt though that Portalarium can produce the amount of structured PVP content, WoW had to create to make it successful.

Power to the players.. it was claimed this is going to be a sandbox after all.

 

Yes indeed it was!!! The flow back and forth there was just epic at time.

We have a map that maybe isn't the same as there( actually it just came about it was just a small part of a big normal area to begin with i think) but all you really need is a couple of close spawn points for differing sides and an area in between to fight over for a fun and interesting break from the norm. Blood bay would be ideal, maybe a little close together, personally id set the towns further back, a flat area between each and the bridge and a spawn point in each town. Once a bridge has been breached you have an area of conflict before the town gets overrun. Even in its present state it would work, all you need is two opposing teams, a couple of own team spawn points and hey presto you got fun content for basically free. I wouldn't want this as the only pvp in the game but it would be great for a pvp fix/release of energies/fun!

I cant see why anyone would produce battlegrounds/structured pvp over just taking a bit of time and implementing something into the world, take a little more time embedding something into the world, give the players the ability to MAKE the story and then hardly ever have to develop much for it again. In fact id say with the way the world is setup here, especially with instanced zones and also the control points it is IDEAL and a true benefit to going the instanced route they have taken. Let the players make the story and then they will not have to listen to players eating x,y,z content or battlegrounds need updating yabba yabba. Players of all levels will be of use in a guild/faction that can control territory, the big guns wont be the only ones needed and will not win against opposing factions if more than just plain 1v1 combat is implemented.

 

I wonder if any of these scenes could handle more than a dozen people. We should have a Blood Bay day and see how many people we can cram into one instance before the server melts. I've been so hopeful and wanting for factions and choice/consequence mechanics that I completely overlooked the possibly that it might not be achievable due to technical limiters.

 

I've seen far more than that at a meeting in PaxLair, so it can be done. Depends on the scene I guess.

 

Were they engaged in combat? When I was helping Berek plan the boss battles he changed from assaulting the bosses to assaulting dev spawned mini-bosses because the boss scenes get all wonky if there are too many people there - too many being 16.

 

Blood bay was a little laggy with all there for the event, it didn't help that someone spawned a dragon in the town either However i play from Europe and i suspect my framerate was one of the worst, it was playable and lots more could be done to make it more manageable i feel. You will never have 50 v 50 in this game, but scenes of conflict could have a cap put on players of each faction, so a max of X for both sides. If there team B attacking teams A base in scene X, and you cant get in to defend...either wait to get a spot or head off to teams B base and attack that, relieving pressure and what not. It could be quite easily managed. In fact if a number of instant faction buffs could be put in place around the world, easy to capture but gives a nice advantage, then other members of the faction who can be involved in THE BATTLE can still be helping out capping these other resources which help the main fight. Even with limits to amount of players in a scene this can be negated with some clever design encouraging players to not group in massive groups and to split into smaller more manageable sizes and thus still be helping out their team...Doesn't need or is wanted to be sieges with 100 players, less tactical, more lag, to much instant death, less fun...