Make PVP zones worth fighting for (Lunar event suggestion)

I think one reason PVP zones are largely empty is that there's basically 0 incentive to go there. Why take a much higher risk (PVP death) if there's no reward?

How about this : every PVP zone has shards that prevents the Oracle from giving PVP protection (if I remember my lore correctly). What if depending on the current celestial alignement, these shards gain power and give an aura that greatly increases yield in the zone for the night. Thus, on any given night, a given PVP zone has double yield/XP on all nodes and all monsters yield double XP and have a chance at unique drops.

Every night would be an occasion for high rewards, but highly concentrated focused population in a zone, making conflict for those ressources very likely. Organic world PVP at its best IMO!

 

grab the brass ring

 

PvP zones all suffer from the same major problem. Population. There aren't enough PvPers. There are just enough that can show up at any given time however to deter non-PvPers from going into PvP zones. In theory at least, once the game launches commercially we'll have a high enough player population (and therefore enough PvPers) to actually use those areas.

No amount of enticement is going to work on someone who actively wants to avoid PvP. That's just the way it is. There is already supposed to be a higher resource yield and hardcore players already use certain areas and tricks to gain massive amounts of XP without any special conditions.

If you want these zones to be active, there needs to be a reason to go there that you can't fulfill anywhere else. The way to do that is to have events in those zones that have an impact on the world... Especially if that impact is favorable to one group over another, giving those groups a reason to fight over the zone.

 

I don't see why one has to be labeled a PVP'er or PVE'er. I would gladly take the higher risk of gathering/fighting in PVP zones if there was incentive. If not, whats the point? If one wants PVP for PVP's sake you can turn PVP on or participate in PVP organized events. True, organic world PVP has to have something worth fighting for.

That's what made all PVP-on games great. I remember 18 years ago in Asheron's Call's PVP server, warfare and combat happened most often to control the best dungeons & the towns with the best sell prices. Being part of a guild that could hold these spots provided huge advantages, so the results of PVP battles had real meaning. Sure you could fight anywhere in the world, but nobody cared about mediocre areas with nothing special to them worth fighting for. Obviously, this is not a PVP-only server, but the same principle applies to the PVP zones here.

Also, as far as I know, there's nothing special in the current PVP zones (unless its new) except the +25% XP bonus you get for being PVP-on, which you can get anywhere by revoking it from Oracle anyway so there's no reason to go to PVP zones for that.

 

Clarity for starters. Granted a simple identifier doesn't cover the whole range of different people accurately.. but there are those who enjoy PvP and those who dislike it so much as to actively avoid it. Who exactly are we talking about?

You being a classic example of someone who doesn't actively want to avoid PvP.

This would be an example of actually having an effect on the world as opposed to simply personal gain and the sort of thing I was advocating.. That's not what you were initially suggesting in the OP however which was just basically temporary XP and resource yield bonuses.

 

I like this idea a lot.

One of the other problems with PVP zones (imo) is that they're full of PVE crap. PVP is negatively impacted by PVE mobs. Players should be hunting or gathering but not farming. Put resources in that are special and let players gather them up and "get rich" but make the risk of being killed by another player meaningful. Do not put body parts into the ransom system, so when you die your body parts are a reminder that you lost and a score card in-game of who won. Make all the stuff you gathered in the pvp zone lootable.

I think if they made these changes, in conjunction with npc guards in most towns, you'd see huge organic growth in pvp.

@Chris, this is the path

 

So the Highlevels get richer and more highlevel and the low and mid level go blank.

Working Softcap first or do we talk about having all trees high for Attunement and Resistancies, skill all magic schools, Stats at 100+, using 14 Buffs and having +15 gear is the Minimum to have a chance?

The issue with Population isnt fear, it's wisdom that you cannot compete to the actual PvPers.

They should be patient and wait if maybe people are willing to pvp one day they can catch up to them or they just need to pvp among themself.

 

I agree 110% Bowen.

As someone who hates PvP (just not my jam), it already irks me that the PvE story pushes me into PvP scenes to complete it. I understand there are alternatives, but it is still pushing the player, who might not know the alternatives, into one of those zones and it's not right. IMHO.

So you're right. I will exhaust every option and avenue open to me to avoid any PvP. Like you said, "That's just the way it is."

 

Could they make so losing a leg in pvp made you look like you was using a peg leg for 24 hours or something like that?

And main PvP problems for PvP:ers is to find opponents that likes the same kind of PvP they do

And I to hate quest lines forcing into PvP scenes

 

I sense this didn't come out quite right. What exactly should players be hunting again? Where do you draw the line between what's hunting and what's farming?

Are we not shown in the past that resources won't do the job? Resources have zero noticeable impact on the world. So there's no reason for anyone to care about getting them in PvP zones.

@Chris, the 'path' to meaningful PvP is to make it meaningful to the world.. not just the individuals who'd do it anyway.

 

Hunting is PKing. It's going out and ignoring all the mobs so you can find players that are farming and kill them.

Farming is grinding out XP and loot by killing mobs.

The problem with our pvp areas (and flagging) is that they were designed without really understanding how pvp works and doesn't work. Most players don't farm mobs and also pvp, although there are exceptions. Most players would not do that because it puts them at risk. They make tons of noise, they show off visual effects that give away their location, they are often losing health and focus that puts them at a huge disadvantage while also making it likely they will be killed in one hit. So the Shardfalls don't have a lot of traffic because the mobs are just getting in the way. Mobs reveal your hiding places, stop you from gathering resources, and generally ruin pvp.

No, we haven't been shown that. What you're ignoring is that shardfalls and pvp areas don't have anything special or unique in them. Therefore it's just easier to go somewhere else in simple player mode to get that same stuff.

I'm all for making pvp more meaningful by designing larger more deliberate systems, but there's low hanging fruit that we can change within a single month (that which I've outlined above) that will be more organic and immediate.

 

In the past? What resources were put in PVP zones that aren't easily accessible elsewhere, with 10 times less risk? Why would anyone go to a PvP zone to get the same stuff they can gather with 0 risk elsewhere? That's exactly the situation I wish they would correct.

 

I guess i'm the oddball here then

I actually like monsters and ressources in the zones because it's what keeps you going there and adds to the organic feeling of the zone. Sure, you're at a disadvantage if you get jumped, but that's what high risk, high reward is all about. Be prepared

If there's none of that, then it's simply a PvP battleground mini-game, not an organic world PvP zone. Which is fine, like organized tournaments, but just not what I think world PvP zones could be.

 

Actually, there was no in-game system in place to control dungeons or towns. Meaning if nobody was online, the best hunting spots were up for grabs and/or you could sneak into town and sell your stuff at high prices. Fighting and conflict organically arose in zones where personal rewards were the highest. Personal gains at its finest

If all zones were equal, and some of them had 0 risk, why would anyone go to the risky ones for the same or less reward?

 

That's what I get for saying "most". I broke my own rule.

Yes, there are players that like that type of environment and do farm. But I personally do not like it. I feel the risk far out weighs any benefits. I don't feel that it's organic, I feel it's suicide and the result is that you're going to die a lot more than you should.

I also don't believe that a shardfall without mobs is an "arena". The Fall is an arena and it has mobs all over the place. But the Shardfall has resources that really can't be gathered effectively with all the mobs around. That's why I'd love to see a mobless shardfall. I think it would bring the right kind of people to the party and result in organic pvp that is more meaningful and more frequent than anything we have going now.

 

You can't simply remove the PvE movs from Shardfall and expect PvP encounters to balance gathering there. The population is just not high enough. All that will do is allow people to gather materials with almost no risk. Why even risk crap gear when the only thing you will have on you are tools and hundreds of single stack materials? After all, there's nothing guarding those now, and you don't get decay from PvP death...

 

The I submit you are not being clear in your meaning. For shardfalls are arguably both special and unique by their nature and by the increase in resources they've always supposed to have had. So assuming you mean UNIQUE resources.. therein lies another problem. What resource should be unique to a shardfall that a regular non-PvPer should be enticed to collect it?

So far I don't see anything particularly enticing about what's been outlined above.

 

Exactly.. one more reason why increases resources in PvP zones won't bring in non-PvPers to collect it. People have talked about PvP specific resources but that only appeals to PvPers so you'd gain very little from that.

 

The only thing shardfalls offer is slightly and I mean SLIGHTLY more output in nodes. For example, in a 5 skull area you might get 3 maple wood when you cut down a tree. In a shardfall you might get 4! Whoopie!

What I would suggest is making some new resource that could only be used for pvp type weapons and armor. Doesn't work against mobs. I know this makes people say it would fracture the community, but I don't think that would be the case if there were no mobs in pvp areas. Plus we can switch decks.

That's because you're thinking about in terms of being a PVE player that doesn't care about PVP. I wouldn't expect you to want any of this. I would expect you to wish PVP would just go away and not bother you.

 

No it's because I'm thinking about how to entice more people into being interested in PvP in fun and interesting ways. What would make me interested in PvP? Figure that out and implement it and you'll increase the PvP population.. thus more fun PvP for all yes? Whereas you seem to only be thinking about how to get more PvPers to PvP and that's fine but you shouldn't need to entice a player to play the way they want to play. I've never heard of a PvPer needing a reason to PvP before they'll do it. If your issue is simply that not enough people are doing it at all, then you're dealing primarily with a low population problem. The world is simply too large for a pre-commercial population to fill it adequately.

The next problem you're dealing with isn't PvP zones, it's combat mechanics and PvP rules like the ransom system. Just having PvP only zones doesn't do squat.. making them 'special' places for PvPers isn't going to make them so much better and making more of them won't help the current situation either as it only spreads PvPers out more than they already are. (Getting back to the population issue).

Fracturing the community like that wouldn't really happen. But as I said before, making PvP only resources isn't going to increase the number of PvPers. You'll have very small gains if any.

Ok.. the hardcore PvPers will go collect the resources and you see burst in PvP activity. Now that they have the resources.. now what?

Another problem: What is this resource? How will it effect PvP? How long should it last? How will it be balanced? How much should it be worth? Is it sellable to NPCs? How will it be used? What skills are require to collect it? What skills are required to use it? How much XP should it give (collecting/crafting etc) What's the story behind it/Why is it there? Why is it PvP only? How will it effect other systems?

Even a new resource can't be simply thrown in over the course of 1 release.