Simple list of fixes for pvp, most of which that do not touch pve.

[heyytoi]

Meanwhile, I have to shut off my volume when entering a lowbie tavern so that I am not hearing constant spell spam.

Must really be a pain :P

[zarthak]

This has been posted in another thread, but deserves a thread on its own for some discussion.

I believe it's fairly simple to make pvp work well. It requires disabling of some of the overpowered spells and abilities in public areas. Mind you that this has been done for spells as for example firewall and bladebarrier already. This means that codewise it is a trivial task, as the functionality for disabling spells and abilities is already there. Most of the changes I propose hence do not affect PvE (except for, as someone pointed out, in the public instances for Mabar and Crystal cove).


Non-pve affecting changes
Below I wrote down a list of abilities that should be disabled for sure, together with a small motivation between brackers. The following spells/abilities should be disabled in public/brawling areas:

-(Past life) magic missile (auto aim spells that do 200-300 dmg are by no means fair)
-Meteor swarm (the spell does too much damage, and can't be dodged properly because pvp areas are too small)
-Imbue slaying arrow (500 dmg attacks from range that are hard to dodge? It spoils pvp. Manyshot is a strong enough ability for rangers to be viable in pvp.)
-The new cleric spell (100 dmg a tick that can't be mitigated and dodged is a bit too much)
-Any insta-kill ability (vorpals, fod, implosion are not that great for the fun factor of pvp)
-Song of capering (bards still get to fascinate, but 1 minute of almost irresistable dancing takes the cake)

I might have forgotten some spells that are somewhat overpowered in pvp, but this should cover most of it.


Pve affecting changes
Some other suggestions that should make pvp more balanced, but that will affect pve are the following:

-Guards should do half damage on a save, or have increased procrate but lower damage. (600 damage lightning strikes and 450 disintegrates are not exactly my idea of fun)
-Reduce the number of charges on a pale lavender ioun stone to 25. (As the ioun stone is a bit overpowered, and some of my changes reduce the ability of casters to empty an ioun stone, the charges of the ioun stone should be reduced)


As I stated, most of these changes are quite simple and do not affect pve. They help to balance pvp, without hurting anyone else. What I would like to see in the discussion is critique on the proposed changes. I'm interested as well in other potential fixes. Keep in mind that your fixes for pvp should not influence pve play. What I DON'T want to see is remarks such as "pvp shouldn't be part of DDO", as it's really not the point of this thread.

IF u dont think that that stuff in pvp is fun then u must be a gimpy low lvl that cant kill stuf cuz u dont lvl

[Kevorkian]

IF u dont think that that stuff in pvp is fun then u must be a gimpy low lvl that cant kill stuf cuz u dont lvl

Actually he's on your side, trying to improve pvp.

Also he probably has more capped toons than you do. I know he plays at least 2 healers, a tank, a bard, a wizard and a monk all capped. Plus any characters he is riding the TR train on.

And a bonus also, he has enough of a grasp of the English language to complete a sentence without devolving to Pidgin.

[MrChipinator]

I feel that casters in PvP need to be tweaked. Being a TR'd caster and healer I can speak with assurance, that frankly we're overpowered. I feel that just like how Firewall is blocked in PvP, so too should be Ice Storm and other persisting AoE's. Secondly, the u9 spells for arcanes can be resisted, but the divine version has no resistances against, nor protections. Sorcerer Savants are easily able to do 1000+ damage with a single spell, and if any server has a bunch of arrogant Sorcs (go figure) who wipe PvP with a single spell, is unfair for the melee and caster alike. I also have the TR missiles, from wizard past life that is, and while I understand while those could be abused, I find them being abused so much less than most of the Sorcerer abilities and new spells.

The main problem I see is that many of the abilities for the "player" toons, were/are designed to go up against mobs with hundreds of HP. They were designed for pve, and so implementing them into pvp without affecting it causes these imbalances.

[mahiro37]

IF u dont think that that stuff in pvp is fun then u must be a gimpy low lvl that cant kill stuf cuz u dont lvl

Now THAT is the grammar, attitude, and spelling I have come to expect from a Pit brawler.

(Unless you were being intentionally facetious, in which case I retract my statement and apologize)

[fuzzy1guy]

Being able to enter pvp at all should cost 1000 tp as a one time cost per character.

These funds will directly determine how much dev time to spend on pvp.


Honestly theres SO much that needs done in this game. And i don't count pvp as one of them. Let the pvp players pay for a share of dev time directly if it's that important.


(Altho i dont think it will happen. Given your list of 'fixes' you don't seem to want anything in pvp that you don't have yourself. And im sure someone will complain about those abilities or items you use too. )

Pvp in ddo is like slapping the 'fat free' label on a bottle of water. Adding things for the sake of being able to say 'yeah we have that too!'. Makes no sense adding things where they don't belong. Or are wanted it seems.

[Delt]

the winning team was not the server's best PvPers...

Your momma...

Oh wait, none of us had divines with wizzie PLs, so maybe fair.




As to the OP, my thoughts (and I believe your suggestions are overkill):

- Wizzie PL missles should be stopped with the appropiate buff, but they shouldn't be disabled (I've never been a fan of straight up immunity buffs but these are the existing DnD rules).

-Meteor swarm is very easy to dodge. Get better, don't ask for disabling.

-Imbue slaying arrow isn't a huge problem. Manyshot, coupled with high STR, is more scary than the proc - simply because you need serious DR (or AC) to survive. 99% of AA's are just puzzles waiting to be figured out and not a big deal.

-DoTs are a bit silly.

-All insta-kill abilities have an immunity counter, with the exception of maybe TtS.

-Bard Skills are annoying...but so what, most can't finish the job lol.

-Guards have never 1 shotted any of my melees in pvp. Perhaps you should get more Hp or pray for better luck.

-Pale Lavender is fine as-is. It's a must-have pvp item, sadly, but I see no pressing reason to alter it.

......

I want improvements/additions before nerfs/removal. But that's me.

[avery61]

IF u dont think that that stuff in pvp is fun then u must be a gimpy low lvl that cant kill stuf cuz u dont lvl

This, to me, is your typical PVP'er. Immature at best and constantly whining. I am not in favor of using any resources to improve PVP play, leave it like it is and spend any of the money/time on non-pvp content.

[stretchcore]

I think that before any balancing is done, remaining PrEs and classes should be completed. Not much point balancing something now that needs to be changed later on when they finish off the last touches for PVE. Not calling for a flat out get rid of PvP, more a postponing on it.

PvP adventure packs would, however, be a great earner for turbine, providing they're willing to devote a sizeable chunk of hardware to it. Lag and pathing issues for summons and pets is a big enough problem in PvE play, let alone PvE.

Despite my own personal taste in gaming, if more people do PvP and pay for the privilege, that means less stress on the rest of us who subscribe, and who might feel hard done by if developer time is focused on other areas than PvE. After all, anyone regardless of account status can PvP in the lobster, but not everyone can go do level 20 raids.

[fuzzy1guy]

The neg rep is a pefect example of pvp 'style'.
Thanks for proving my point.
You want it. You want it only your way. Everyone else is a noob and wrong. And you don't want to pay for it.


And you wonder why people don't want more of it in ddo.

[Delt]

The neg rep is a pefect example of pvp 'style'.
Thanks for proving my point.
You want it. You want it only your way. Everyone else is a noob and wrong. And you don't want to pay for it.


And you wonder why people don't want more of it in ddo.

Nothing you say here makes sense. I'm impressed...sorta.

[ddoplayer064]

Waste of resources.

[Forzah]

Also he probably has more capped toons than you do. I know he plays at least 2 healers, a tank, a bard, a wizard and a monk all capped. Plus any characters he is riding the TR train on.

You must be confusing me with someone else; I only got a capped barbarian, cleric and a TR'ed sorc (Ragehead, Ephandriel and Forzaa). But thanks for the support.




Have to admit I kinda lost track of this thread, I only noticed this thread because someone gave me neg rep now, 5 months after the initial post in this thread. Looking back, most of the suggestions seem to be feasible to implement, and hardly a "Waste of resources", to quote ddoplayer064. I've seen some game coding for a mod I worked for, and disabling certain abilities in the brawling area must be trivial. The functionality is already coded (firewall, as an example). It would require the spells that we want to disable to inherit the "cannot use in brawl area" property of firewall. As I see it, this looks like adding one simple line of code. This makes the resources argument void.



@Delt/display:
Try to look at the bigger picture here, rather than telling people to get more hp, learn to dodge meteor swarm, or use other stuff to mitigate the damage. Of course, most of your suggestions are helpful (and I'm using most of them). However, they do not improve balance. A system in which there is both ranged and close combat, will always favor the ranged attacker. The ranged can simply stay out of range of the melee. My changes are such that either of the classes has a good chance of winning. Of course, some characters will still be stronger than others, but this will bring them more in line.



P.s. My barb has about 700 hp raged, evasion with over 40 reflex and a pale lavender ioun stone. I don't have that much trouble in pvp versus casters. Fvs and arcane archer give me trouble occasionaly. The favoured soul can keep kiting me, and while they do pretty low damage, in the long run they will get me. Against arcane archers I can only shieldblock while they are using manyshot... and when manyshot is over I try to rush and kill them (if I dont get a slayer arrow in my face). The changes I propose are for the better of the game, not necessarily for my self (as I got a divine and arcane as well).

[Cogdoc]

IF u dont think that that stuff in pvp is fun then u must be a gimpy low lvl that cant kill stuf cuz u dont lvl

Oh I recognize this style from my wow years. Reminds me of this: PvP is fine, L2P.

Cogdoc

[Templarion]

The sad thing about PvP in this game is that there is SO much potential yet realized. As I was reffing the event set up by Purgatory, I was intrigued and interested. To date, I have been against PvP, and yet I could see and hear that you guys were having fun.

PvP could be better developed and be a marketing point.

The challenge system could be greatly improved upon.

They could incorporate PvPvE, where 2 teams try to reach a quest objective in opposition to each other. Imagine Inferno where mobs you kill on one side appear on the other. Now, what if you and your friends were in a similar quest where mobs you killed on your side appeared on the other, traps you disabled appeared on the other... etc. Might add a new wrinkle to quests and liven things up.

What if you could play the opposition in a quest, like Gladewatch Outpost. You are defending a stronghold from attackers who are an opposing team.

What if you could enter the Stash, your team vs a friends team and then mobs start dropping in... wave after wave. The winner is the team with the most kills.

What if all public areas were set up to enable PvP via a check box in the UI. Such characters, so flagged, can be attacked at any given moment, only by another character so flagged. The fight could continue from one house to another.

Lots of potential to improve PvP. It could be, or have an aspect, that could appeal to a great majority of the game.

Well written! I have always been little confused why DDO players are so much against PvP. After all, nothing is more fun than to compete against real human players instead of stupid AI.

[Forzah]

I would like to add that spell absorption has to be fixed:

-Meteor swarm should only take 10 charges for the whole spell, not 10 for each meteor that hits you.
-Divine punishment, eledars surge and niacs biting cold should only take 5 charges, not 10.
-Magic missiles should only take the corresponding charge for the full spell, not for each individual missile.

But I guess this will be quite difficult to implement.

[gloopygloop]

This has been posted in another thread, but deserves a thread on its own for some discussion.

I believe it's fairly simple to make pvp work well. It requires disabling of some of the overpowered spells and abilities in public areas. Mind you that this has been done for spells as for example firewall and bladebarrier already. This means that codewise it is a trivial task, as the functionality for disabling spells and abilities is already there. Most of the changes I propose hence do not affect PvE (except for, as someone pointed out, in the public instances for Mabar and Crystal cove).


Non-pve affecting changes
Below I wrote down a list of abilities that should be disabled for sure, together with a small motivation between brackers. The following spells/abilities should be disabled in public/brawling areas:

-(Past life) magic missile (auto aim spells that do 200-300 dmg are by no means fair)
-Meteor swarm (the spell does too much damage, and can't be dodged properly because pvp areas are too small)
-Imbue slaying arrow (500 dmg attacks from range that are hard to dodge? It spoils pvp. Manyshot is a strong enough ability for rangers to be viable in pvp.)
-The new cleric spell (100 dmg a tick that can't be mitigated and dodged is a bit too much)
-Any insta-kill ability (vorpals, fod, implosion are not that great for the fun factor of pvp)
-Song of capering (bards still get to fascinate, but 1 minute of almost irresistable dancing takes the cake)

I might have forgotten some spells that are somewhat overpowered in pvp, but this should cover most of it.


Pve affecting changes
Some other suggestions that should make pvp more balanced, but that will affect pve are the following:

-Guards should do half damage on a save, or have increased procrate but lower damage. (600 damage lightning strikes and 450 disintegrates are not exactly my idea of fun)
-Reduce the number of charges on a pale lavender ioun stone to 25. (As the ioun stone is a bit overpowered, and some of my changes reduce the ability of casters to empty an ioun stone, the charges of the ioun stone should be reduced)


As I stated, most of these changes are quite simple and do not affect pve. They help to balance pvp, without hurting anyone else. What I would like to see in the discussion is critique on the proposed changes. I'm interested as well in other potential fixes. Keep in mind that your fixes for pvp should not influence pve play. What I DON'T want to see is remarks such as "pvp shouldn't be part of DDO", as it's really not the point of this thread.

I personally believe that the correct balance for PvP is to allow all class abilities to be used, because anything less is not actually PvP. It's just some bastardized version of my character vs. some bastardized version of your character with only a tenuous connection to the PvE experience.

The only limitation that should exist in PvP as far as I'm concerned is the existing anti-griefing rule that you must kill your opponent if you do something to disable them for a long period of time (because dying isn't neccesarily fun, but you can come back to life immedaitely afterwards) and that any spell or abilties that cause a significant amount of lag for the rest of the game should not be allowed.

And even with that last limitation, I only include that because I don't want to see any more lag added to DDO and not because I think that lag-creating spells and abilities are somehow "overpowered".

[Forzah]

I personally believe that the correct balance for PvP is to allow all class abilities to be used, because anything less is not actually PvP. It's just some bastardized version of my character vs. some bastardized version of your character with only a tenuous connection to the PvE experience.

The only limitation that should exist in PvP as far as I'm concerned is the existing anti-griefing rule that you must kill your opponent if you do something to disable them for a long period of time (because dying isn't neccesarily fun, but you can come back to life immedaitely afterwards) and that any spell or abilties that cause a significant amount of lag for the rest of the game should not be allowed.

And even with that last limitation, I only include that because I don't want to see any more lag added to DDO and not because I think that lag-creating spells and abilities are somehow "overpowered".

Good thought. You mean ice storm and meteor swarm here, right?

edit: My posts are constructive and my changes do not change the game for non-pvp'ers. Why do people keep handing out negative reputation for something that does not hurt them?

[MartinusWyllt]

I actually might step into a pvp area that was for pet-on-pet fights.

[learst]

The neg rep is a pefect example of pvp 'style'.
Thanks for proving my point.
You want it. You want it only your way. Everyone else is a noob and wrong. And you don't want to pay for it.

And you wonder why people don't want more of it in ddo.

Not entirely, from your initial post - how are you assuming that folks who PvP don't help to pay the bills?

PvP in this game is very contained away from PvP, and does not affect PvE. I've never grasp the concept of why PvP is always shot down instantly by other folks who say it wastes Dev time etc

You know what I think are a waste of time? Crafting, cosmetics, guild ships, and yes, PvP too. Because I don't quite like those things and prefer to focus on other content in the game. But I don't go around in those threads to show my displeasure at how much these folks are "wasting" Dev time with their ideas, suggestions or complains. And it's likely some of these players who do crafting and go on guild ships are F2P too.

The entire premise of "wasting Dev time" is false because not everyone shares the same idea on the importance of certain things. Unless the folks who claim others are "wasting Dev time" drops enough money to keep the game going, the opinion of other players in the game are also valid.