Request: Choice to remove PVP Protection at character creation

When I say something you disagree with, my words are viewed as less than "pathetic".

Because PVP only needs to work against PVP it doesn't matter at all. When you fight a PVE moster you have your levels, when you fight in PVP you don't. It's actually quite simple. I think there's an added benefit in the fact that it provides more value to PVE too. Because the player that wants only to PVP will not have PVE skill and therefor need to either kill other players that have the stuff they want or buy it from people that have it. Where as the person that can do both will be of more value in more situations. I think that's as it should be.

You shouldn't be so quick to praise me when I say what you agree with and condemn me when I say something you disagree with.

 

Gaining experience in pvp is good, but when I start the game who will I be fighting? Will I be fighting someone that is level 70? If so, how much experience do you think I'll get for being spawn camped?

I actually hate arena style combat - I'm a roleplayer. What I like though is a fair fight. That shouldn't be too much ask for.

I'm always amazed at how people cling to this level system. It's so arbitrary. I mean in pre-alpha we have people that are level 70 to 100 that are literally killing the same dark elves over and over again. Why do those people deserve to have such a huge advantage in pvp? They seem like nice people, and they seem like they would be good to have in a fight. But forgive me if I feel like this a STUPID way to obtain power in a game.

 

Don't feed the tr.....

Oh shoot...he is serious. *SLAP* *SLAP* *SLAP*...............*SLAP*

Ok, so seriously....I'm not entirely against the idea, but it has a lot of implications, even on Story perhaps....however, your motivations for this request:

Your request doesn't solve any of that. Just because you both flag for PvP at character creation doesn't avoid any situation later in the game where another player will be 30 levels above you and gives you a beatdown. Plus, they need to consider that situation during balancing anyways because it will exist no matter how it got there.

I think that's entirely fair, because that person sacrificed the roleplaying experience and actually playing other parts of the game so they can grind. I love crafting as much as anyone else, so I think it's entirely fair that other players will be able to craft everything in the game while I can't because I chose to spend my time to do quests and go exploring instead.

Perhaps what you're really getting at is a PvP mode where there are no levels, no skill points, no XP, nothing. In this PvP mode, everyone has access to all skills from the moment they step into the game. It then boils down to how knowledgeable they are of the skills, how they build their deck and their plate spinning skills. If that's the case...that might be worth exploring. But then I have a corollary request.

By virtue of playing in the game pre-launch, you have an insane advantage over new players who never played previously. So I propose they introduce all new skills that nobody has ever seen before and remove existing ones the night prior to launch. Then and only then will everyone be on an even playing field in this special PvP mode at launch. But then, they need to repeat that every week or month or whatever, when new players complain they hate how others know the game better than them, how others have had more months of playtime than them, that it's unfair that they have to spend all that time learning the game and they want to "even" the playing field again.

Or ya know, we can just all ditch all the skills and whatever and just stick to just the much beloved auto-attack?

 

Fighting/crafting/gathering/"questing", or essentially doing anything other than instantly starting with all the power already are the only ways i can think of to gain power in a game.

Otherwise your not gaining power. You're just there. And now it's an arena game.

The problem is now It's instant maxxed out folks tossed into this new "Arena" with low level folks who feel gypped.

Not to mention the people who enjoy PvP, but dont want to be forced to do it constantly, they now can't compete because they didnt flag perma-PvP when creating their character.

 

The "condemnation" you speak of did not come quick at all.... And the "agreeing" was purely tongue-in-cheek, I assure you.

 

There are now two active ideas that I'm bouncing around, and unless you read every post in the thread it's probably going to be confusing.

Idea #1 (from the OP and 2nd post): Flag yourself as perma pvp at character creation. You could also do this later in the game, but you couldn't go back on that character. What this does is it gives you 100 levels. It's not a bad idea, but there's a better solution that I realized about half way through this thread. See below...

Idea #2: Allow players to flag themselves as pvp at character creation, for convenience. This doesn't do anything to their levels, it's just saving them a trip to the Oracle. ALSO, pvp now works as an automatic "fair playing field" so that anytime you fight another player you're fighting them at the same level. In other words, there are no levels when it comes to pvp. That means "levels" are not a determining factor in any way shape or form. Basically you'd have a fully buffed out "pvp" character from day one. Meaning you could goto any trainer in the game and get whatever skills you wanted for pvp.

This would not be the case for PVE. Those skills would require levels. Now before you say that this would segregate the community, remember this is already a selective multiplayer game and pvp is fully consensual. So all were doing here is saying that IF you choose to engage in pvp, THEN you'll have a fair fight that is devoid of levels traditionally obtained via grinding (which has nothing to do with pvp).

Here's an example:

I just started the game and I'm Level 5. But I could care less about leveling and all I want to do is PVP. I goofed and didn't create my character flagged for pvp, so I run over to the Oracle and drop the pvp protection. Now I can fight anyone that is also flagged as pvp. What's great about this is even though I just started playing the game, the fact that I'm level 5 doesn't matter. In fact it will never matter, because levels are not calculated in ANY pvp combat. So do I still need good gear? Sure. Do I still need to know how to play the game? Of course.

But the part of this that matters is the part where I never have to grind if I don't want to.

 

Ok, well check yourself then because I didn't report the post, but it's certainly reportable. If you disagree that's fine, but calling someone's ideas "pathetic" is not.

 

Tie the first Oracle visit in with the fortune teller style character creation.

Not perma PvP but your first steps in the world will be open PvP if you choose that path.

 

I absolutely love this idea.

I'll create a PVP-only char, free lvl-100, and use it only in Single Player Online to gather very high level resources, without any problem in high-risk areas, one-shotting flesh eaters, chaos demons and dragons.

Then dump what I gather in a chest at home, and use those resources with my other, non-PVP, MPO-only, 5-lvl character.

I have three char slots, how can this possibly go wrong?

I totally adore this idea.

 

I think for this to work, it switches in and out of this mode depending on what you target. If you target another player, it switches to this "re-based" PvP mode with your PvP decks/build so all players are at an even level. If you target a MOB, it switches back to your regular stats that has levels and skill points etc. that you've thus far earned and configured like it does now.

 

Then players will use each other to switch to their super boosted deck, heal up then go back to fighting mobs

The answer is much simpler than that, and its been ignored... you guys are just running around the salt pot on the wound.

 

Or you could just say "We would have to adjust the idea so this couldn't happen". But sure, why not create a snarky post instead? Come on, man.

I even adjusted the idea as I was replying to you above in the thread so there was no reason to take it here.

 

The fundamental flaw of your entire reasoning and thread is that you envision some magical skill that can work for PVP and not work for PVE (or viceversa).

It'll never be the case. The two skills are one, and bound to coexist on a common denominator.

A sword attack is a sword attack (or a fireball or a root or a phoenix bite). Having two parallel systems where a sword attack has a mechanic if the target is a mob, and another mechanic altogether if the target is a player, is so burdensome that I don't even know where to start to demolish it.

So, any refinement of an idea flawed at its root is doomed to fail. Snarky or not, the sooner you accept it, the better for you and for the hard disks of the forum hosting machine.

My first, snarky post was about UT for a reason: only if the entire game is designed, engineered, built and tested as PVP-only, you can find the right balance. In any case you have an environment to fight along other players, your character arsenal will necessarily be at some middle point between the needs of the two. Giving 100 free levels if you declare yourself perma-PVP is not a middle point by any stretch of imagination.

But I don't want to be only destructive. Your concern - while extremely egotistical - has merit, and I want to help.

What if any activation of the PVP-enabling flag - either at char creation or at Oracle - will bring your char instantly at level 20 and disables earning any further XP? And any deactivation bring back to what level you had before and restart the XP gaining? To prevent abuse (or at least reduce it a bit, because it WILL happen), you can flip-flop your flag only once per day.

That's how the whole concept of twinks work: balanced, LOW LEVEL characters devoted to PVP's, battlegrounds, arenas, etc. without having to grind for their levels.

 

If attack = PVP do this...

If attack = PVE do this...

It's not at all burdensome. I'm not much of a coder but I'm pretty sure they could do that today if they wanted. Isn't it just a call to the same object that might be named "PVP modifier" and that would essentially provide a flat variable to EVERYONE that engages in a pvp attack?

That would allow people to swing for 145 points of damage at a Brown Spider, and then swing for 56 points of damage at a player. The system would effectively be adjusting the core combat rule set per attack.

 

Oh, god.

I'm unable to make you think what would happen if you have a skill as a PVPer (at lvl 100), and not the same skill as PVEr (at lvl 5). You'd have two combat bars, depending on the target? Two sets of innates? Two sizes of deck?

No, no, I give up.

Sorry.

 

It's just a database. It doesn't matter technically.

The only concern that seems valid here is whether the player believes it's fun or not. I don't see a problem having a PVP build and a PVE build, that's already going on with players right now. That's why you can have multiple decks AND switch the decks you're using midstream during combat.

I feel like I'm saying "The sky is blue" and you're saying "No it's so much more complicated than that!" and I'm replying "Sure it's complicated behind the scenes but the end result is that the sky is blue". The devs already have the code created to make the sky and to pick its color, all I'm saying is that they could add an IF statement into their logic.

 

Oh no, i remember this argument back from the old days in UO.

Is this the beginning of the annoying justification of afk leveling and use of illegal 3rd party progs?
I hope not.

 

Don't think it would really matter if there was no protection at the start......there is no PvP

 

You'll never hear that justification from me, there's never a good reason to cheat. However, if leveling were fun and not a "grind" then people wouldn't try to avoid it so much. If leveling wasn't required to be PVP competitive, then many people (such as myself) would never do it.

I appreciate the concern you have though, I hated that about UO too.

 

Right now it doesn't matter at all. I assume that will change at launch. You know, when pvp is awesome.