The Obsidian Trial - PVP Play Tests June 29!

As soon as I saw who was at the Obsidian Trial, I was like okay, not going. lol

 

Spent a few hours in there today ... must say it was really really fun ... got 16 confirmed kills..that includes The Antrax ( caught him with 50 hp) .

 

@Serafina

Some thoughts from a n00b and practice dummy in PvP zones. Actually, that's offensive to practice dummies.

I have to admit. I don't care how much I died, it was fun. A month from now, I doubt that will be the case for me. So imagine you have one month to grab the attention of n00bs. <cough>Sheep.</cough>

First, there is a major problem with stuns. I would imagine this would apply to free-for-all PvP zones, or Guild v. Guild PvP zones or anything in-between. I saw other people in Zone chat complain/confirm the same thing - so this is not anecdotal in the sense of "my" experience only. Back-to-back stuns suck. It is not a problem of Player A stuns, Player B stuns and the system sees "one" stun, and a trigger is not set off to prevent multiple stuns in succession without ANY pause (other than the animation of getting up or being un-stunned, and then immediately being stunned again). There were situations where the SAME PLAYER did back to back Lightnings on me and kept me stunned for two "cycles" (let's call them cycles).

What's worse IS the Player A/B scenario. In one situation I (and this is anecdotal), I was stunned (in a generic sense) FOUR times IN A ROW. Dead. My original impression of combat in general was that if you (or an NPC mob) were stunned, there was a "buff" that prevented further stuns for a few seconds. Maybe I am wrong? Maybe this applied only to NPC's. Which sucks. NPC's are better than us "hoomanz"?

Anyway. Sorry to rant. But it did suck. Check the logs. If I died in the a.m./p.m. sessions 20 times, almost all were from multiple successive stuns or general CC.

Now, I could totally respect Player A doing a Type 1 Stun, then Player B coming and doing a Type 2 stun and I am screwed (and likely dead) for two cycles. Not totally happy with that, but logically, I can live with it. But two bites at the apple from both is death even for the higher-end players.

I imagine it would be impossible to treat stuns differently if this is how it is in the game generally. But if there is something askew, maybe, hopefully, adjust it to something approximating fairness?

Second, I had challenged a known PvP-er who was raising the alarm on people grouping in a free-for-all zone. I mentioned that people are free to do all in that zone as a quip (still true). But in the p.m. session, a bunch of guildmates were in the zone. They were blue to me. While I could still target and damage them, I could see the point of how people could "group". This just made it easier (you'd have to be color-blind not to see the advantage of who is on your "side"). Maybe make it so that everyone is red? It sound miniscule, but might go a long way. Yes, I could still damage my guildie, but seeing him blue made it easier in the heat of battle to avoid hitting him. In a FFA zone this seems unfair.

Third, and finally: I love the zone into a rotunda with multiple doorways to port into the actual PvP zone. However, I could follow a player into the doorway they select a second after them without them being aware. I then appear behind them in the PvP zone and I could get the drop on them (critical if you see # 1 above and get stunned-stunned-stunned). Shouldn't the spawns need to be random in a FFA zone? I began to think that maybe it was designed with teams in mind, but it may need to be altered for FFA.

And to fully digress, there was a Gamasutra article that re-printed one of Raph Koster's "essays" from his recent book. A nice read on PvP for everyone who enjoyed or didn't enjoy the Obsidian Trials.

 

A kill is a kill... I'd retire on top and never fight him again

I do agree that the crowd control resist seemed broken.

 

Honestly, this gets me excited for the prospect of Castle Defense. Now if only there were a way to get this to work in a POT.