PVP defaults and other questions answered ? (Dev) Replied

<blockquote>
What they means it that a NPC has no intelligence, it is just number. Your examples of NPC AIs aren?t AIs, they are just number big enough so it is unlikely they will be beaten easily. In the end, they remains to be scripts always running roughly in the same direction.
A player character can deal with his potential lack of big numbers with unpredictability and real strategy, strategy that can change many times more than a NPC.
</blockquote>

Heh, if only this were true. What ends up happening with human behavior is depsite our capacity for emergent behavior in truth after observing a system of variables for sufficient time humans also fall into predictable behavior sets and lack of real strategy.

That is why you see "flavor of the month" builds and fixed rotations/methods even in PvP. There is a reason people talk about "rotations" and "priority trees" when talking about builds. It is also why you see everyone doing the same thing over and over... hey look someone jumping around someone running in a circle, thats original...

Strategy and tactics can be programmed in to NPCs and these days frequently are, keep in mind you compare against older systems. NPCs these days can adapt to human actions and respond to them appropriately, its not just about numbers.

Your statement that humans are harder to beat is simply untrue. I observe it every day... are there rare individuals that are really good at what they do that offer up a true challenge, yes... but most PvP is predictable and easy.... the 'emergent' nature of it consists simply of throwing a large number of divergent systems with fixed patterns in the same space and seeing who wins. I.e. the outcome varies more on luck of the draw in terms of who is fighting whom and environmental instances than actual player skill most of the time. *if that person crits at this time, they will have an advantage, if that one mis-navigates and get caught up in those bushes, this other one will catch up, and so on*

Most NPCs are easy, most PvP PCs are easy... measure the true risk and reward appropriately.

 

when you have:
a) zone with AI controlled enemies;
and
b) exact same zone with the exact same AI controlled enemies, plus the addition of human enemies;

then b) will always be a greater challenge and risk than a) - by defintion. that is unarguable.

so then the basic question is not whether to reward engagement in area b) disproportionately, as the increased reward can be tailored to be proportionate to the increased threat. the question becomes, will design include some areas b) where increased risk is rewarded, and emergent gameplay between players is encouraged, or will design require that areas a) with less risk provide equal reward to areas b), thereby rewarding those lower risk zones disproportionately, and maintaining the stale status quo of theme park mmos.

from the evidence available, it's clear that rg and co want to encourage that emergent gameplay. remember, sanctions for players who do kill others the game considers innocent are in the mix too. i'm confident that the team can come up with a balanced system.

 

@helicon

but you are missing

c) a zone with more or different AI controlled enemies

as a possibility... b and c are not as clearly delineated. There are effective ways to scale difficulty without the inclusion of humans and if they want to play that game in SPO and FPO why prevent them?

 

@ElvishDragon - I guess we just have to agree that we disagree. AI is getting better on that i agree but a AI will never reach the intelligence and adaption of a human being, never. You can make a AI unbeatable if you give him a zillion hp and instakill but how realistic is that?

UO is a old game if we count the time when i was active and AI was thereafter. So in UO i had the real hard fights with human beings, not AI.

When i played WoW AI had become better but still very easy compared to the best humans. You cant actually take the AI bosses in instances since they required good teamplay and less individual skill. No single player took out the instance bosses.

Add players you have to fight to a area of hard AI and you have the hardest area and the best rewards. Playerskill and hi risks have to be promoted. Full loot is also a needed feature in PvP cause without it you have removed a big part of the risk.

And add C) same zone you describe above and human players.

 

I find pvp system of eve online close to perfect. People who don't want pvp and those who do are divided geographically.

There is almost completely safe area, called hi-sec space (about 1000 solar systems or 20% of the map). Those who don't want to take part in pvp, live here. Hi-sec is highly populated and it is trading, manufacturing, mission running (=quest running) center.

Other 80% of the map is area for those (both PvPers and PvEers too!), who don't mind being attacked and are ready to protect themselves and their assets with gunfire. Space which is available for claim by corporations (guilds) is sutuated here.

PvP mechanics has anti-gank techniques called baiting/trapping, so you never know for sure who is hunter and who is a deer.


Eve (unlike thousands of cookie-cutter euro casual and asian grindcore MMOs) has lots of very good and revolutionary solutions, so if you copy or rework some of them, it will be fine.

 

Lol, this thread convinced me to not upgrade my pledge until we have better info about the PvP. No use in having a deed if I'm never going to play online.

I can't speak for others, but my point of view is that I won't, ever, accept being subject to non-consensual PvP (one potential exception: if both there's no death penalty and PvP attacks are guaranteed to be reasonably rare. Then I can just suicide if attacked by a player, rez somewhere else, and ignore the incident). My interest in the online game was mostly based on the assumption I would be able to see every part of the game world, and play every bit of PvE content, without ever being forced to risk PvP; I thought the single player online mode would guarantee me that. If that is not the case I will rather stay offline.

It's not even that I dislike PvP per see; just non-consensual PvP. When the PvP is fully consensual (and reasonably fair) I actually love PvP.

 

@Regi:

EVE is also a game where, judging by the bits of reasonably reliable info I can find, about half the player base never leave those 20% safe sectors, with almost 80% of the players making their "homes" on high sec and playing most of their time there.

While precise data is not that easy to come by, you can get a good idea by looking at player activity in the map; all high sec sectors seem to be always crowded, while it's not uncommon to find empty null sec sectors.

Not sure this is the intent here.

 

I don't think EVE is a good example to bring up when talking about this game. As far as I know, and why I backed the game was because it was a strong story driven game in the spirit of the older Ultimas as well as UO. So..in that case I don't think EVE is comparable.

 

Nice! Pledges have gone up 35k in 24 hours! U

 

@Elvish Dragon:

The way I would prefer to see balance between PvP and PvE, from an economic and progression point of view, would be to keep the rewards identical but make the PvE content reasonably easier *while the player is enabled for PvP*.

This would, at the same time, balance out the challenge (PvE players have a consistent challenge, PvP ones would get lower challenge when not meeting players and higher challenge when they find other players), balance out the progression speed (PvP players would progress faster when not engaging in PvP and, potentially, progress slower when engaging in PvP, which should balance out in the end), and tempt players into accepting PvP risk (for the faster speed in completing the easier PvE challenges, as well as the possibility of completing PvE content they still aren't able to do at the "full difficulty" PvE setting).

 

@Ara

About adding players to my c example... you are missing the point.
No one is arguing that there should be open PvP in a lot if not most of the areas in the OPO mode.

What we are arguing is that there is a /large/ subset of users who want to have nothing to do with PvP.. think of them what you will but provided it doesn't impact your gameplay, why bother restricting them from playing Friends and Friends of Friends online mode without PvP?

My point with the C comment is that difficulty can be scaled to equal things... so say you have a given system in OPO that is a certain amount of risk... that risk can be successfully modeled using just NPCs for the people not in OPO.

As for your supposition about " You can make a AI unbeatable if you give him a zillion hp and instakill but how realistic is that?" That is not what I am talking about. If you like I specified that there were indeed people who have beaten my second example. A handful of players across the whole game have managed to beat him and can do so regularly (Not a fluke)... They are all dedicated PvE groups. They require cooperation and control and such. How is that challenge any less difficult than PvP? I never said anything about a single player... there are multiplayer tuned PvE matches and the FPO mode is designed for groups to play together (only friends). If you think PvP is easier, name one PvPer that can claim he hsa gone up against several hundred attempts on his life and came out defeated only a handful of times. The PvE encounter is /measurably/ more difficult, not opinion, by the pure numbers.

Having fought him, I can tell you his hitpoints have zero to do with it... it is the tactics and how he reacts... coming up with counter tactics reminds me a lot of the time I spent in eve coming up with new PvP tactics and ways to deal with certain kinds of fleets. It is a level of tactics that happens to be lacking in the PvP of that game, but that says more about the game than PvP in general. However good thoughtful risks and challenges can be had with /both/ styles of play.

I prefer games that challenge me on a number of levels not just ones that throw up random pvp attacks at me as a copout to coming up with good content that challenges me indpendant of those pvp attacks. Do I look forward to the pvp attacks as well, hell yes. But some days I just don't want to deal with people so I want to be challenged by the game in other ways those days. Some people don't even like the pvp at all and won't play a game that forces them to do it... why should those people not have an option (that doesn't interfere with your game one dot) that allows them their gameplay style?

 

A player wishing to avoid PvP will always do by choosing a connection to the game that corresponds to their needs.

PS: We dont looking for WoW like Game !

 

@silent - that is an appropriate way to balance things as well... in effect that is what I am saying by measuring risk... if a given area is X as difficult with players and npcs, scale the difficulty up if there are no players by adding better NPCs. Just two ways of saying the same thing.

 

@Abydos: no one, and I mean no one even the most anti-pvp people on this or other threads are arguing for a wow like game. Everyone on both sides is looking to make a better game than any that have come out before. All I am arguing for is to make sure the game works for both camps.

 

@Silent Strider

Well, this isn't a problem. It is common knowledge that majority of ppl are casual pvers.

Accurate data, shots done 5 min ago:

Map for reference, hi-sec is everything blue, green, light-yellow
http://i.imgur.com/M7suxgQ.jpg

Pilots in space in past 30 minutes
http://i.imgur.com/SeqGgQe.jpg

Ships destroyed in last 24 hours
http://i.imgur.com/Ro1iZ09.jpg

Note: approx 2000 of solar systems of wormhole space aren't shown. But they must look like systems with 0 security status.

 

@regi: I think EVE has some good parts to it but we need to also learn from the /many/ failings it has had, not the least of which the open PvP area is a total and complete failure...

The reason I left was the big blue doughnut/napfest that is 0.0. I am not interested in fleet battles between hundreds of capitals... and I am also not interested in small fleet battles where the only targets we find dock up in PoS or Outposts and the only fights we get, they cyno in the capitals.

But I have discussed the failings I see in EVE earlier in the thread and don't feel like rehashing them.

 

@High Baron Elvish Dragon [-=UDIC=-]

THIS part of eve is completely okay, some others are broken.

Blob warfare in 0.0 is easy and boring for majority of participants, and this is as indended to be.

Small gang and solo warfare are for people with an outstanding skill, so no surprice you failed at it.

When eve player leaves to wow, average IQ of both game raises (c)

 

Stop saying that those opposed to total free ganking ability are WoW players, that doesn't make it look like this is an intelligent conversation at all.

 

SotA is not an mmorpg. I think a lot of the fears being generated here is unwarranted. Even with the conditions RG describes players may grow bored from lack of PVP.

 

@REGI

<blockquote>Small gang and solo warfare are for people with an outstanding skill, so no surprice you failed at it.</blockquote>

Wow stow the personal attacks, now. Either that or go read the forum rules, this isn't the eve forums.

Your assumption is completely wrong, I actually helped /teach/ good PvP in a corp that is very highly regarded in EVE (go Agony!). I lived exclusively in NPC 0.0, no mutal aggression pact BS protected me. My killboard was quite contently happy thank you... so stow the attitude and rejoin the conversation m'kay.

I have never played wow, nor do I desire to.. the game actively sickens me.

All I am doing is advocating for a game that will work for people like me who love to PvP as well as people like some of my friends who never want to but would like to group together to complete PvE content.