PvP areas, instance size, and rankings?

I think we can all agree there will be PvP areas (hopefully a majority of the game but that's been discussed ad nauseum) and I want to drum up conversation about how the 'open to all' setting will match players. During one of the interviews I thought the instance size was projected to be ~100 but has anyone seen anything more definitive? If this is the case and none of my friends are currently in any instance of a dungeon but I want to play with people who will I be paired with? The game should know how "good" you are and put you with the appropriate group. As LB stated new players need to be protected and I think it is equally as important to protect people as they grow into the game.

What not have an in game ranking system?

1. Players are matched with near equals, preventing players from feeling overwhelmed by pros.
2. Facilitate instance grouping, which needs to be done anyways IMO.
3. Everyone loves a high score list, even those that say they don't would if they were #1.

Instead of having a "starting line" for once you're no longer a newbie and thrown to the wolves I think a ranking facilitates the protection while encouraging progression balance we're trying to get.

 

nope, we do not all agree on PvP only areas =p . Many players still hope for a filter solution to opt PvP out, like said on reddit
Also: wrong subforum!

 

I agree with Andy, to the point I won't even create an online character unless I can have complete protection against PvP. I'm just not interested in any game where I can be subject to non-consensual PvP.

As for number of players in an instance, nothing definitive, and even Portalarium is unlikely to have a definitive number until Alpha/Beta as the devs need to see how the game works with large numbers of players in the same place. I'm not even sure we will reach 100 players - but that is per hex of the overland map, so a reasonably small area; as a comparison, WoW itself usually has less than a few dozen players in any single small area, even on populous servers, except for special occasions (like Oondasta), and actually lags like crazy or even crashes if it reaches a couple hundred players fighting in a small area (as anyone that experienced the Wintergrasp/Nortrend crashes every 2 hours back when WotLK was released, or the recent Oondasta crashes/lags, knows).

 

Andreas - you're not paying attention if you haven't realized some areas will be PvP. These areas may not be necessary to complete the game in the single player mode but they will exist, just how many is the question.

Silent Strider - to say an instance is just a hex of the overland map is too simplistic of a view. A gypsy camp may be a single hex as well as a dungeon entrance. I think you'd be extremely naive to think that the fighting world is scaled to the actual hex. That is the one of the beauty features of the two layered map. With that in mind I can promise you that there were more than 100 people in most dungeons during peak hours in any popular MMO so this is an issue.

 

The dynamic sharding restricts the set of people you interact with to "dozens".

 

I would like to see certain areas designed as PvP mini-game scenarios. Raid the campsite, stop the caravan, capture the sheep, whatever. Objective based.

Basically I see some find of tagging by guild / faction / quest / virtue that puts people on one side of the objectives or the other.

I've never played LoL myself, but I would take all the inspiration from them I could. It's clearly tremendously popular and even played professionally. I like WoW battlegrounds, other than the gear gap.

3 Sided fights would be interesting as well. DaoC and GW2 have been very successful PvP wise using this mechanic.

 

@PrimeRib - I like your ideas and encourage the PvP mini-game scenarios and LoL type guild combat but there is one element that's missing, total surprise. I'd like to see at least one area that is basically a full out brawl so bring some friends

Flanking, defensive position, and other strategies can be nearly perfected in any game where you essentially line up against the other opponent. All that is thrown out the window when there is total mayhem and that always leads to something exciting, plus it gives other strategies a chance to be experimented with and evaluated. Nothing is worse than a game that lives too long and everyone eventually adopts the same play style. In this case you're essentially playing against yourself as you already know what you're both trying to do but now you're playing to determine who can push those buttons faster. Yes this can be fun for a bit but once the realization that you're doing the same thing over and over again finally hits you it isn't nearly as fun. PvP should sometimes be dynamic and surprising while other times order and rule (eg. tournaments) are necessary. Please consider both.

 

As far as your group goes I don't want to just pair up with people around my same skill level.
UO was nice cause you can bring a someone who just had his character created into hard dungeons.
Usually you let him stay near the back and let him have fun getting loot. Or you could help him by healing him all the time.
But the main thing is if you join a Guild your going to want to hunt with them and not have your whole guild split up by what level they are at.
But yea if people want to join group hunts by level then there should be a way to do that too.

 

@Illesac
Tactical situations should be basically balanced. Strategic ones are about creating imbalances.
A castle siege should be imbalanced all over the place. The goal is about misdirection. You fake the attack 3 weeks in a row and then half the server logs in to crush your opponent. The #2 guild leads a fake advance from one side and actually send everyone to help the #3 guild take the castle.

 

A question that needs to be addressed is how many per fight per hex.

Let's say there is a 12 Max hex. I have 7 party members inside the hex and you have 9 party members that really don't want us there.

This is where i'm lost. It's hard to discuss much until we know how this works.

We really don't have a clue how combat will work. How will it work? With duel maps it would almost have to be a new instance that allows players to join in. Unless you "tackle" people into a hex. What keeps players from leaving the hex?

We are all arguing about something neither side knows anything about. The only references we have are from games that are not like this one, as far as we know.

A lot of false hopes and fears are materializing.

We need more info!

 

@jondavis - completely agree that anyone on your friends list should be admitted to your instance automatically. The ranking system would be used when joining an existing instance in open play mode.

@Acrylic300 - it is my understanding that a single hex can lead to multiple instances of the same area, with the exception of rare spawns which I still haven't a clue about how they'll address if 'dozens' is the upper limit) of an area. In your case the 9 party members would spawn their own instance thus never coming across the 7 party members. This doesn't lend itself well to PvP so the max needs to be much higher. Even if it is dozens I think LB and group are severely underestimating the epic battles that people will want to participate but hopefully we can show them during the beta.

How does the game group me if I want to play a particular instance with people but none of my friends are in this hex area. We already know they have a plan on how to do this grouping so we may as well discuss it. The only options I see to do groupings are:
1. Random
2. Ranking
3. Rudimentary - drop people in until a hex is full or try to keep all instances balanced
4. Player selection

While I like a ranking system to help determine my group, giving players selection could open some interesting game mechanics. You could have the ability to see if warring guild members or players with counties (I know there may not be PKs but this would be a good counter measure to consider). Additionally if you were a trained scout you may be able to see more details about the players in the instance. Could be interesting...

 

I would like to see the guild/PvP zones one giant area...Along with that multiple people per tile. Hopefully, they can break 100.

 

It would be nice to know if they can weave different sized hexes together or if they all have to be the same size. I have no understanding of programing.

 

A hex is a unit area, a hexagon. They are all necessarily identical in order to be able to fit together, like cells in the honeycomb of a bee hive.

 

@Acrylic300 - I'm not sure why you're talking about the hexes this much because I just see them as portals from the overview map to the actual gameplay. I don't expect fighting to occur in the overview but mainly a travel map for all intents and purposes.

 

Since the overland map is not 1:1 with the zoomed map, it is possible for the zoomed hexes to be any size desired. The zoomed (detailed) map doesn't even need to be hex shaped.

 

mah eyes hurt... tmtr

there is just so much speculation about how PVP will be handled here as this is a completely new model (WTG RG! innovting again!) and we can blahblah all we want, but please don't get heated and hateful. I like the terms "red" & "blue" from the UO school of thought, but we could go so far as to say PVP and NPVP... I think that works.

What would suffice to say is that regardless of how this mechanic will be handled, it will always be the Players' Choice to partake or not. What the devs are attempting to do is build mechanics - which personally I think should be minimal so as to keep that feel of an open world rather than create a closed & instanced one [personally HATE instancing!] which really is not realistic. Putting the power to the Players (as I'm seeing more of recently in the industry) is going to lead to new gaming systems (meaning programming) outside of any model we are all used to and familiar with.

With that said, I think it would be clumsy for NPVP characters to be "invisible" to the PVPers - that is just plain silly and breaks the immersive aspect of community gaming. Perhaps a solution would be to have PVPers view the non-combatants differently (ie, they are shrouded by some sort of energy field) that if attacked will not harm a PVPer, but send him/her sailing away - kinda like reactive armor with a shove. Or maybe even if a PVPer should attempt to hit a NPVPer, they are instantly flagged as a criminal and are open for beatings from others, including the would-be NPVP victim. Any attempt to hit the NPVPers would result in lower damage rates, but the assaulting PVPer would incur double damage. Something to make is really not worthwhile to go and hit on an obvious NPVP character.

Just thoughts.... still has the "danger" of the game without giving in all the way to one school of thought or the other. These ideas are borrowed from existing game systems or things I've tinkered with on my own. I'm curious and excited to see how the Portalarium team will do this.

 

Instances never had any interest to me. I want to roam an open land for pvp. Not group up with a bunch of people in avprepared pvp match with all there friends. I'm always ready. I don't want to pvp people that get ready for pvp then go out strapped. Always pvp or nothing

 

@Red I agree. I hope the vast majority of pvp is done in open land, roaming around and surprised. the instanced and battleground pvp you find in most MMORPGs are boring to me. it's all expected.

 

@Illesac

I was asking about hex sizes because if the sizes can be varied then high traffic areas could be allocated more space for bigger PvP battles.