Successfully Implimenting a PvP system

[gavagai]

The pvp system i imagine would only be able to happen if team size gets opened up... so a ridiculous amount of players can be on each team... that way you really wouldnt need to fight if you dont want to because you could easily just join a guild and your presence would be enough and if you die you'd just be at a different spot hoping your team wins while you go quest somewhere... and come on how can you be screwed out of not having a guild house? last time i checked no one has a guild house.

You can implement the games and rewards for PvP here like in other games, but they won't be very good. You can get hundreds of players to fight, but the fighting will be unsatisfying. It won't become nuanced and strategic like Shadowbane just because you add 50 more players to the chaos.

Most GvG games allow players of all levels to at least contribute to GvG or PvP. In DDO, there are dramatic imbalances of power, where players frequently 1 shot one another. There's no limit on how many players a Web can snag or a Wail can kill (with a DC of 40, mind you). There's no way a cleric can heal damage from even 1 600DPS attacker. There's only 1 way a character with a +24 to-hit can hit a level DoS with a 65 AC: roll a 1. And so on.

Even if you had 100 versus 100 mass warfare, the quality wouldn't be good. Once people realize the quality isn't good, they won't do that, and will focus on improving their characters.

[Return_To_Forever]

you guys are really kinda looking to far into that. I seriouisly doubt they would use pvp as a basis for earning/upgrading guild housing.

For the new people that were not around when the Sub was released, this is what they did. Each raid had an token attached to it and every time you completed that raid everyone in the party got a token from the chest. You then turned those tokens in from the raid to the guy in the market.

This was a server wide unlock, that involved everyone turning in the raid tokens before the subteranne unlocked. The big barrier dropped right before the entire servers eye's when the last person turned in the last token needed to unlock the raid. Ie: on khyber Kirvan(blazer) was the last token turn in to unlock the sub.

Again, the people who have been around for a long time have stressed soooo much how they hate pvp and it doesnt belong here so I seriously SERIOUSLY doubt they would all of a sudden release a feature that REQUIRED pvp to unlock it or upgrade it.

Personally, I always thought pvp could be made better here, but I didnt want to sit here and slam my head into a wall because other people didnt have the same thoughts about it as me... And well with the reputation system in place all you have to do is mention pvp and get neg repped beyond belief. Then again welcome to the ddo community where if your opinion isnt shared by the large population you get belittled, made fun of and neg rep'ed.

+1

That is the first Rep I have given, but for me, I respect honesty. It shouldn't be about disagreeing and spouting out stereo types, and thinking that all of us Vets feel the same way.(Yes I'm a vet, and know many Vets who enjoy PVP) rep should be about people senselessly trolling, and being rude, or being helpful and honest, and adding to a conversation.

The PVP discussion isn't new among people who would love to see it here, we are the same people who would love to see crafting that really mattered and could be focused on, not that I want to mine ore all day, but someone might, and it opens up the games, game play options, which is only better for the game. We would love to see many things like Targets Targets, branding and select brands, assisting, heal agro and so on.

In general I'm not just for a better pvp system, but for better and more game play options and features in general.

[Ninetoes]

you guys are really kinda looking to far into that. I seriouisly doubt they would use pvp as a basis for earning/upgrading guild housing.

For the new people that were not around when the Sub was released, this is what they did. Each raid had an token attached to it and every time you completed that raid everyone in the party got a token from the chest. You then turned those tokens in from the raid to the guy in the market.

This was a server wide unlock, that involved everyone turning in the raid tokens before the subteranne unlocked. The big barrier dropped right before the entire servers eye's when the last person turned in the last token needed to unlock the raid. Ie: on khyber Kirvan(blazer) was the last token turn in to unlock the sub.

Again, the people who have been around for a long time have stressed soooo much how they hate pvp and it doesnt belong here so I seriously SERIOUSLY doubt they would all of a sudden release a feature that REQUIRED pvp to unlock it or upgrade it.

Personally, I always thought pvp could be made better here, but I didnt want to sit here and slam my head into a wall because other people didnt have the same thoughts about it as me... And well with the reputation system in place all you have to do is mention pvp and get neg repped beyond belief. Then again welcome to the ddo community where if your opinion isnt shared by the large population you get belittled, made fun of and neg rep'ed.

+1. Guys, this is what happens when you just straight don't give a ++TRUNCATED++ about what other people think about you. He doesn't agree with the majority re: topic, however, is mature enough to know he's in the minority and smart enough to not care.

Kudos, and +whatever my weighted rep is worth to someone who has rep turned off

edit: er, when I can rep, that is. Moving on, nothing to see here.

[KKDragonLord]

lol i love this community...

Guys if this guild house thing forces guilds into a pvp that would encourage a tightening of the community and wouldn't screw anyone out of anything.

The pvp system i imagine would only be able to happen if team size gets opened up... so a ridiculous amount of players can be on each team... that way you really wouldnt need to fight if you dont want to because you could easily just join a guild and your presence would be enough and if you die you'd just be at a different spot hoping your team wins while you go quest somewhere... and come on how can you be screwed out of not having a guild house? last time i checked no one has a guild house.

Uh..WHat?

You are not seriously saying that are you?
1st, earning and improving a guild house is certainly not going to be PvP related. Only this uninportant "guild status" thing would have a small probability to have any correlation to PvP.

2nd did you just seriously suppose that it would be ok if we were all "forced" to participate in PvP to have access to something that has been promised and expected by the community as a whole for 3 years?

Im not even questioning the "lack of ingenuity" of the suggestion in regards to the game mechanics
Its just patently absurd you would expect to make everyone else be subjected to your infatuation with PvP when its absolutely clear that this would be an outrageous proposition to inflict upon this game loyal fanbase (to say the least).

Yeah i too like this community, for the exact opposite reason that inspired your sarcastic opening comment, some of us might be "carebears" but at least we make sense.

[Sutekx]

just another ******** move saying: be a in a good guild or be screwed over the new feature. oh wait, you can still buy it in the store even if you suck

Pretty much. F2P model makes money, therefore selling new guild options will make money. But at least unlike some other MMOs, at least they didn't limit the guilds limit of members (that I am aware of, but you can correct me on this, if there is a limit) Where you would have to level the guild up via guild quests, a starting guild in a game would be up to 50 members, then a level 2 guild would have 100, but the company that was selling the game via a online market, did not sell the option, but allow guilds to build up via guild experience by running countless quests over and over to ad nauseam.

[Sutekx]

Re-reading it now i think PvP might be related to the "compete for status" thing (if et all) and completely unrelated to the whole "Guild Rewards & houses" thing.

But tbh, its probably more likely that this status thing relates to
A) percentage of quests completed by guild members or a similar success rating system,
B) a system which measures how helpful certain guilds are to new players, much like a Rep system but with strict limitations to prevent exploits.
or most likely C) none of the above.

I go post by post, so forgive me if I repeat myself. More or less it sounds like it will be quest completion based, like some other MMOs, but this is just theory until it comes out. I do hope they limit it with restrictions, because multiple toons in the same guild can farm it quickly if it is going that route.

[Sutekx]

lol i love this community...


Guys if this guild house thing forces guilds into a pvp that would encourage a tightening of the community and wouldn't screw anyone out of anything.

The pvp system i imagine would only be able to happen if team size gets opened up... so a ridiculous amount of players can be on each team... that way you really wouldnt need to fight if you dont want to because you could easily just join a guild and your presence would be enough and if you die you'd just be at a different spot hoping your team wins while you go quest somewhere... and come on how can you be screwed out of not having a guild house? last time i checked no one has a guild house.

This would be update 4, so we would have to hear from those who have tested this via the beta test servers, but I don't think it will be about PVP, but more or less certain quest completions. But if it is PVP, it will be interesting to see how the community reacts to it. But I don't think it will be about PVP.

[Sutekx]

You and every other Vet/Founder.

It would be my first and last proclamation of 'Doom!" as I hit cancel.

Turbine is WAY smarter then that. They know how we feel about PvP. I would dare say prolly will do with 'credits' from Quests and Raids.

Well backtracking guilds via MyDDO it shows which quests were recently completed, etc. So I would say it may be based on quest completions, not PVP.

[Kyrn]

Always funny to read peoples reaction in this game to PVP. A lot who are so against it, have no solid reasons why not.

The truth is, PVP that matters for PVP, can be implemented without effecting how the PVE works. It can be implemented and balanced as an after thought, they have many examples and general MMO past exp to drawn from.

People like PVP/RVR for a lot of the same reasons, people like good DMs, its not a fight against the same mob, who spawns adds at 75, and starts AoEs at 50, and spawns more adds and chains you at 25, every time you fight them.

No, its a real enemy, who decides, oh they are doing this, so I will do this to counter it, and in turn you have to figure out what would be the right approach from there and so on.

Its all good, hopefully though the Devs are open to the ideas of PVP, it offers alot of playability in online games and would be a great addition to DDO. I mean hopefully they are open to everything that offers more game play options to this game.

And the truth is that it's easier to recreate an MMO with PvP focus from scratch than to attempt to balance an MMO which is already inherently unbalanced (in a good way, mostly).

1) A huge majority of skills, spells, abilities, and class builds are not suited for PvP.
2) It's not just about making the game PvP viable, it's also about adding incentive for PvP. Incentive not just in rewards, but also in penalty.
3) Calling your bluff: Which MMO has implemented and balanced PvP as an afterthought?

[prowessss]

Uh..WHat?

You are not seriously saying that are you?
1st, earning and improving a guild house is certainly not going to be PvP related. Only this uninportant "guild status" thing would have a small probability to have any correlation to PvP.

2nd did you just seriously suppose that it would be ok if we were all "forced" to participate in PvP to have access to something that has been promised and expected by the community as a whole for 3 years?

Im not even questioning the "lack of ingenuity" of the suggestion in regards to the game mechanics
Its just patently absurd you would expect to make everyone else be subjected to your infatuation with PvP when its absolutely clear that this would be an outrageous proposition to inflict upon this game loyal fanbase (to say the least).

Yeah i too like this community, for the exact opposite reason that inspired your sarcastic opening comment, some of us might be "carebears" but at least we make sense.

I wasn't being sarcastic with my opening statement...

People keep mentioning game mechanics.. I seriously doubt anyone who keeps mentioning it has ever had anything to do with the creation of a video game... I'm not going to say I really know a lot about game mechanics because it's been about 6 years since i've been on any games' development team...

I've never been opposed to white dots. The only reason i would not like to see mandatory pvp is because i don't want to lose players...

I would like to address the issue of syncronicity between what players see and what the server sees... This is false. under most pings, there is no difference... sometimes, when there's a lot going on, you'll notice a delay on the combat numbers and what not... but if you pay close attention when it catches up, they're in the same order as they've actually happened... there's very little difference betweeen what the server sees and the player sees... just sometimes the DM is doing a lot of rolls... pvp in the bar... two rangers (as long as they're not multishotting) can tumble around each others shots pretty effectively... if there was an out of sync there'd be a lot of "hey i dodged that arrow, ***!" but there's not.

[Borror0]

Guys if this guild house thing forces guilds into a pvp that would encourage a tightening of the community and wouldn't screw anyone out of anything.

It's a known fact that games with active PvP have worse communities - not better ones.

[William_the_Bat]

It's real simple, a lot of us have played other games, and had our PvE experience mashed because of changes for PvP. More importantly, a lot of us have played other games and had to deal with the worst element of PvP culture polluting our games with trash talk and whatnot.

I played Asheron's Call for 10 years. Yes, the PvP was good, though I never played on Darktide, I did go red on occasion and administer or take a beatdown. But PK -always- trumped PvE when it game to design decisions, and you -must- play it that way in a PvP oriented game, even when it's "PvP optional" like the server I played on (Morningthaw)

As for the over-the-top emotions caused by the mention of PvP, it's not because of the content nerfs, it's almost certainly because of the PvP trash talk and general unpleasant behavior that comes with a PvP crowd.

Look, I'm a carebear and proud. I ran a carebear allegiance (guild) on a carebear server and still had one of the largest allegiances in Asheron's Call. (Blood excepted, obviously) PK was always an afterthought and we attracted people in droves because we were polite and helpful, and had strict rules against cheating and trash talk. Once they put in general chat, most of my allegiance kept it turned off because of the constant PK trash talk. That was not the game we wanted to play.

A lot of the people currently playing DDO are in the same boat. They don't play PvP oriented games because of the community. We pride ourselves on having a mature, polite, and friendly community, and just the thought of doing something that would attract the stereotypical PvP trash talker makes people FREAK OUT.

Bandying the word "carebear" makes you seem like exactly the stereotypical trash talker a lot of people want to avoid, and your little lawyering about how you aren't really calling people that but they are applying it to themselves proves it in the eyes of many. You can talk all you want about how great the Darktide and PvP communities in AC are/were, but many of those of us who played AC did everything possible to avoid the trash talk and politics.

[Hendrik]

Well backtracking guilds via MyDDO it shows which quests were recently completed, etc. So I would say it may be based on quest completions, not PVP.

Exactly.

We have had events where a server had to do Quests to unlock content. Same thing, just Guild based.

Seems reasonable to follow that once again.

[NuclearCoffee]

The worst thing you could do to this game is to add PVP in any way, shape or form, beyond what is already there. Lots of peeps play this game because there is no PvP!!!. Lot of peeps will quit this game if PvP comes to DDO. DnD was meant to bring peeps together not put them against one another. Lack of PvP is why this game is a stand out, lack of PvP is why I'm a VIP. Yes I've played pvp mmos and I dont like them. Quit trying to change the game, go play something else. There plenty of PvP games out there.

[Return_To_Forever]

It's a known fact that games with active PvP have worse communities - not better ones.

I think I missed the known fact part from that blog.

[Return_To_Forever]

The worst thing you could do to this game is to add PVP in any way, shape or form, beyond what is already there. Lots of peeps play this game because there is no PvP!!!. Lot of peeps will quit this game if PvP comes to DDO. DnD was meant to bring peeps together not put them against one another. Lack of PvP is why this game is a stand out, lack of PvP is why I'm a VIP. Yes I've played pvp mmos and I dont like them. Quit trying to change the game, go play something else. There plenty of PvP games out there.

There is already PVP.

[gavagai]

People keep mentioning game mechanics.. I seriously doubt anyone who keeps mentioning it has ever had anything to do with the creation of a video game... I'm not going to say I really know a lot about game mechanics because it's been about 6 years since i've been on any games' development team...

I think I'm the one primarily harping on mechanics. And you're right, I never designed a game. But I think I learned a lot through my involvement with the forums of Shadowbane. The calibrations of classes and abilities are constantly in flux; and one tweak to a root spell, run speed, or access to a self-heal can cause classes to dominate. And in a PvP/GvG game, that kind of domination is not well accepted.

In DDO, the bias of the mechanics are not theoretical but pretty obvious. We know who dominates in PvP. We see how the mechanics play out. And it's not a big deal. A rogue only wins because his opponent was AFK.

As an olive branch, many of these mechanical issues aren't exclusive to PvP: there are many posts on whether we should keep the d20 combat system; about changing Fortification so Devs can make combat more diverse; what to do about insane stacking bonuses to AC and STR; about reducing the focus on DPS so alternative combat forms can become entertaining.

PvP just makes these things more obvious. The Monk's Touch of Death -- 500hps on a hit? Makes sense when fighting a 1,000,000hp boss, but completely misaligned for PvP when most players have less than 500hps. In the opposite direction: Fists of Light? Useless when your opponents are cranking out 400 damage per second. Ask why (probably) less than 1 in 100 level 20 players seriously PvP as a "challenge" rather than to kill time, and the answer is "look at the mechanics."

[Sutekx]

Originally Posted by NuclearCoffee
The worst thing you could do to this game is to add PVP in any way, shape or form, beyond what is already there. Lots of peeps play this game because there is no PvP!!!. Lot of peeps will quit this game if PvP comes to DDO. DnD was meant to bring peeps together not put them against one another. Lack of PvP is why this game is a stand out, lack of PvP is why I'm a VIP. Yes I've played pvp mmos and I dont like them. Quit trying to change the game, go play something else. There plenty of PvP games out there.

There is already PVP.

It's the end of the world as we know it, like the seven seals being broken, except there is no cracker jack prize in the bottom of the box.

To NuclearCoffee: Yes, there is two types of PVP in the game, one is via tavern brawls, other is by individual or party PVP by selecting the option to PVP via clicking on someone and selecting the PVP option. It can be accepted or rejected, if accepted you will be teleported to a PVP arena. The last time I tried the PVP option was when it bugged where once the match was over, whoever was the last person in the arena was stuck in the arena... that was awhile back though.

This is not a PVP based game, but PVE, with the attachment of a PVP option if one choses to do so. Most either don't know about it or do not care about it all together since the majority of the game's focus is on PVE. So are you going to quit now because you now have the knowledge that there is PVP in the game already and has been for some time? I highly doubt it, because it has not changed your experience on playing the game so far while it has been there.

If there would be any changes to PVP, more than likely you would never notice it. I doubt that the devs would start putting a serious focus on PVP anytime soon since the options are in the background, not brought to the forefront where it is in your face. Maybe that is one of the reasons the tavern brawls happen behind closed doors ... The first rule of Fight Club is that you do not talk about Fight Club. It sounds vaguely familar with PVP in DDO ... a taboo to speak of, and frowned upon by a majority of people as seen in this thread along with others buried in the forums.

I can understand the fear of the game dramatically shifting from team play, to rival play via PVP and I do doubt that will ever happen, like most who have played in PVP (turn based or real time) MMOs that there are certain elements we don't want to see because it caused undue stress amongst people and a lot of drama. I for one have been lucky not to run into drama while playing the game. Most people are laid back which is nice, there are some that will stress out when a quest or raid does go south but most will be just disappointed and frustrated (case in point, ran an Epic VoN 1 last night to find out there is a bug where a mephit turns up missing and that does not allow you to complete for end reward) but it was taken in stride and very well I might add all things considered. But that point was also expressed via the blog that Borror0 had posted, it is how the community as a whole acts and there are the wonderful options to squelch players and know not to join a party with someone you would have a conflict with.

[Ashiel_Dragmire]

I've covered this 7 ways to Sunday before and at this point I just don't care to explain why again so I'm just going to say NO!

/notsigned

/nevergoingtosign

/willneverthinkaboutsigning

Is thinking about not signing similar to thinking about signing it, or am I looking into this too deeply?

I think PvP would be nice, but not at the cost of regular content.

[Schmoe]

The best thing to do for PvP is ignore it totally. Everything you do to help PvP will hurt the game overall, the OPs suggestions are evidence of this.

I agree so hard, it hurts.