Better open PvP systems for EQ2 or WoW

[HRose]

Yes, armchair design once again. But this time it's SHORT. No TL, DR this time. Kay?

GOAL:
A PvP model that would blend at best with a PvE game. Where one part isn't detrimental to the other and with a goal to create a system that is fun, deep and still easily approachable for non-hardcore players.

Something that could be enjoyable for the majority of the players instead of a small niche.

This is a new PvP system imagined to be plugged directly in either EQ2 or WoW. So this time you don't need to imagine complicated game schemes that I designed in my head. You just need to pick the game you are more familiar with and imagine this simple idea plugged in.

In the case of WoW I need to override some rules in order to plug my system:
- The Honor System is discarded
- No more points will be awarded for a PvP kill, exactly as it happened before the Honor System was patched in
- The Honor System will be replaced with a new one where you can "spend" PvP points to buy: armor, weapons, crafting recipes, crafting resources, consumables, epic mounts, whatever. And even repairs, reagents and griffin flights. Get more PvP points = get more "currency" to buy this stuff. Pretty straightforward.

In EQ2, also some rules need to be overridden (from their announced plan):
- No xp debt. no Looting of items or gold.
- No restrictions to who you can attack.
- Rewards following the same scheme explained above.

This is the idea. In the shortest way possible I could manage to put it:

- The contested zones have one conquerable "hotspot" each. The players can organize and go cap one, putting their guild flag on it. The hotspots don't have any NPCs defending them, just players. Once capped all the kills taking place in the proximity of the hotspot will be worth PvP points. Encouraging the PvP action to move away from the PvE hubs (villages, towns, camp spots), so without disrupting the gameplay of those who don't want to bother.

The longer version is on my site, explaining the details and the reasonings behind, but here you have already all the essential.

[Backov]

HRose, you have some good ideas.

http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/

[mouselock]

A) You could include an unobtrusive URL to your website somewhere in a link if you want people to read the longer version.

B) The synopsis sounds amazingly like DAoC's frontier system. What's the difference? Lack of any PvE safe zones mainly?

[Mark Asher]

The problem with contested zones is that the servers have a population imbalance. Life on my server would be alliance dominating contested zones.

As to earning PvP points to spend, all you're doing is replacing a ladder system with an XP rewards system, with XP in this case being points from PvP kills. I'd prefer both, actually. I like the idea of a ranking system, but I'd also like a system that rewarded cumulative kills. In a way, the PvP factions already do this.

[Gordon Cameron]

What if you actually hard-coded server balance? I.e., if difference between 2 factions exceeds X amount, it is impossible to create characters of the larger faction (at least ones which aren't alts of the same account) until the difference is decreased?

I'm sure it would annoy lots of individuals, but as a "brute force" solution, would it have any effectiveness?

[VegasRobb]

Originally Posted by Backov

HRose, you have some good ideas.

http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/

http://sonyonline.recruitmax.com/candidate/

[JM]

Isn't points-for-kills just another grind?

[TheWombat]

The loot, exp and exp debt mechanic, though, is something I actually like. In the EQ2 beta, on which the NDA has now been lifted, it works like that (though admittedly as things are in flux as you'd expect, this may change). You kill someone who is within the level range for that zone, and who qualifies as an "honorable" kill (health above 80% when you first tap him), you get a portion of his carried money and a chance at a non-attuned (non-soulbound for you WoW mavens) item in inventory (not equipped) that is of Treasured value or lower (i.e., a green item at best).

The other night, in a huge battle in Thundering Steppes, a large group of Freeport scum attacked our freedom-loving Qeynosians, outnumbering us somewhat. The fight raged up the pass from the docks towards the Antonica gate, surging at one point to the gates themselves, where we rallied to throw them back to the pass.

Chests of loot were dropping all over. I had one gold to start with, and ended up with substantially less, though my exp and status gain outweighed the minor coin loss. I gained a few crappy items and lost a bone I had picked up (vendor trash). My exp debt for the night was neglible, even though I died a lot (even playing a Conjuror, my main class, it's different in PvP with spells doing different damage, and taunting and agro working differently). It was an absolute blast though--the risk of losing stuff, the thrill of looting an enemy, the tangible reward/penalty mechanic...sweetness.

Now, in a "real world" situation, where you are playing characters you will keep and not throw-away GM buffed placeholders, yeah, I can see how you might resent losing money or items. And if Mythic can give you experience gains but no experience loss in PvP, I guess SOE could too. But the way PvP works in EQII as of now, with it ranging over the whole gameworld, I think the mechanic of exp gain/loss works pretty well. I suspect when the servers launch for real most folks will realize that it's better to level and take the PvP as it comes than it is to go hunting, at least at low levels, so the pitched battles will be fewer at first.

One thing that is also good is that I've seen a lilttle asymmetrical PvP--higher vs. lower level--and so far it seems level is not an absolute bar to effectiveness. In other words, it does indeed seem like multiple lower level toons could take higher level toons, though the impact of gear is not yet clear as everyone has essentially the buffer-provided stuff.

They still need to test real asymmetrical PvP, with high levels, mid levels, and low-levels sharing the same space, but I am guessing we'll the the "test" of that after Feb 21 when it's scheduled to launch.

[DeepT]

The only real change needed, which has already been suggested for months on the WoW forums, is simply to let contribution points buy gear opposed to getting the right rank to buy gear. This is hardly a new idea.

[quatoria]

Originally Posted by HRose

Yes, armchair design once again. But this time it's SHORT. No TL, DR this time. Kay?

TL, DR.

[nutsak]

More like PCP/DC rite?!

[VegasRobb]

Wombat,

Thanks for the post. It sounds like the PvP might be fun. Did you see lots of naked mages running around?

[mouselock]

Originally Posted by VegasRobb

Wombat,

Thanks for the post. It sounds like the PvP might be fun. Did you see lots of naked mages running around?

I'm tempted to check it out because they've finally implemented a game where taunts and aggro evasion actually do something. Taunts force targetting, while evasion clears targets. I'm really interested to see if that mechanic works the way I think it ought to. (I guess it'll depend on how EQ2 handles targeting and whether or not the interface is automated enough to allow people to run lame retarget schemes.)

[SlyFrog]

Originally Posted by Gordon Cameron

What if you actually hard-coded server balance? I.e., if difference between 2 factions exceeds X amount, it is impossible to create characters of the larger faction (at least ones which aren't alts of the same account) until the difference is decreased?

I'm sure it would annoy lots of individuals, but as a "brute force" solution, would it have any effectiveness?

Or as I said elsewhere, use the Planetside balancing system; give bonuses to the understrength side, such that people are enticed to play the weaker side and balance it out.

[quatoria]

As a Vanu on Emerald, before the re-balancing of weapons and MAXes, let me just say; the 'bonuses' DID NOTHING for us. It might or might not be a good idea, but that implementation of it was awful.

[TheWombat]

Originally Posted by VegasRobb

Wombat,

Thanks for the post. It sounds like the PvP might be fun. Did you see lots of naked mages running around?

Dunno about "naked," because the beta buffer was giving us level appropriate gear, but casters were very prominent. DPS classes rule in the sort of decontextualized PvP that a beta promotes, and Wizards and Warlocks were doing a lot of killing. Pet classes were prominent too, though I actually saw more Necros than Conjurers at the fight I participated in last.

The balance between melee and magic is tough. WoW gives Mages great survivability, at the cost of class uniqueness and pure DPS. DAOC gave mage-types brutal DPS but near zero survivability. EQ2 is trying to balance that a bit. Casting in combat is already much more feasible than in DAOC but less so than in WoW, for example. The real problem in PvP is ranged vs. non-ranged. Folks who have to mix it up face to face suffer from a number of problems in many games. In EQ2 they've lengthened the "reach" as it were of melee types to give them a chance against spell hurlers, and I can attest that when I started casting my AOE I got hit repeatedly by three DPS-type melee folks usually, and unless a healer in my group was on the ball I'd drop like a dress on prom night.

Where it's going to be interesting is seeing how pure tanks--Guardians, generally, in EQ2 class terms--function. I have not seen any in PvP yet in the beta, as they generally have crap DPS. But the taunting they have is superb, and as taunting really messes up casters in PvP by causing target switching--you're about to unload a huge spell on a half-dead Wizard when your target gets switched to some hit-point overflowing tank--I think Guardians will have a good group role. And they are needed for good leveling (or at least some sort of tank is--there are other options).

[TheWombat]

Originally Posted by mouselock

I'm tempted to check it out because they've finally implemented a game where taunts and aggro evasion actually do something. Taunts force targetting, while evasion clears targets. I'm really interested to see if that mechanic works the way I think it ought to. (I guess it'll depend on how EQ2 handles targeting and whether or not the interface is automated enough to allow people to run lame retarget schemes.)

Given that the Tab key to cycle targets hasn't worked right in EQ2 since day one, I'm pretty hopeful no one will be able to automate retargeting :).

In the battles I've seen, taunting has messed me up by switching my target from the squishies to the plate wearing dudes, so that's working well right now. As for clearing targets that's also probably working, given the frequency with which my targets seem to de-target, but I can't be sure of the reason often. I know my pets lose targets easily when actively resisted.

[Gourmand]

Making items more perishable is a great thing for PVP. Having items move to and from you more often is a lot more conducive to PvP-loot mechanics. I think because items are so static in MMO's these days it's a terrifying thing to think about losing any piece of your stash.

It at least pushes the catasses to save their epics for PvE, and be a little more cautious on the PvP front. Less disparity.

[Jason Cross]

Well it's an interesting idea, but Blizzard kind of already does this with Battlegrounds. Only instead of the "PvP hotspot" being a point in the real world, it's in an instanced zone so the performance of a heated battle doesn't affect the PvEers with undue lag.

But I find one major flaw in your reasoning: that PvPers attack helpless PvEers for reward, and that by centralizing the reward you can centralize the conflict and let the PvEers roam around other places and do their thing. If only it worked like that.

In your system, unless I am mistaken, you are still technically capable of engaging other players of the opposing faction anywhere in the world. That's enough to ruin it - game over. If you're a "grey" in WoW, people will gank you. They get no reward for this, and no punishment. You're not worth honor points. They did it because you were there, and they think it's funny that you have to come back and get your corpse now. Sometimes they'll hide out and wait for you to res, and then gank you again. "HAHA noob u suck!" I've had it happen to me plenty of times.

It doesn't seem like your system will address this at all. It centralizes the action at specific places in the overall world for those seeking rewards, but those that want to gank people for entirely social reasons are still free to terrorize the countryside.

It also encourages loads of people to fight it out in particular zones - if you spread out and try to capture lots of hot spots, you don't get PvP points. You get them by everyone engaging on ONE hot spot, trying to take it over and have lots of nearby enemy targets to get PvP points from. This would create terrible lag because it's in the open world and the numbers can't be controlled like in an instance.

I personally like the idea of "spending" honor points on items/recipies/commodities/etc instead of earning ranks. That much I'll give you. But I don't think your PvP system would be an improvement in WoW, over playing on a regular PvE server and participating in Battlegrounds.

[HRose]

Originally Posted by Jason Cross

Well it's an interesting idea, but Blizzard kind of already does this with Battlegrounds. Only instead of the "PvP hotspot" being a point in the real world, it's in an instanced zone so the performance of a heated battle doesn't affect the PvEers with undue lag.

The BattleGrounds remove the persistence from the game, which is the whole fun about fighting FOR A REASON. Instead of fighting just for the sake of it. It removes all the purposes and impact you can have.

Simply put: I think I'm not the only one who loves a lot more the open world PvP than quick instanced games. If I want that type of gameplay I don't launch WoW. It's not there the potential of the game. Blizzard copied it just because it was easier to do for them.

In your system, unless I am mistaken, you are still technically capable of engaging other players of the opposing faction anywhere in the world. That's enough to ruin it - game over. If you're a "grey" in WoW, people will gank you. They get no reward for this, and no punishment. You're not worth honor points. They did it because you were there, and they think it's funny that you have to come back and get your corpse now. Sometimes they'll hide out and wait for you to res, and then gank you again. "HAHA noob u suck!" I've had it happen to me plenty of times.

Yes, ganking is allowed but not rewarded, nor punished. As I said: it is a *choice*.

Imho, this adds to the game. Because it's not anymore the game telling you: "kill that enemy, it's a walking bag of points". Instead it says: look, that's another player, you can choose to disrupt his gameplay, annoy it, challenge him, dance with him or even help in with a quest. It's your choice. It's a way to let the players free to build their own stories, characters and gameplay. Without the game system whispering in your ear what you should do.

Before the Honor System went in to transform me into a walking bag of points I teamed up many times with horde players to complete quests. We couldn't speak, but we could still DECIDE how our characters behaved. I decided to NEVER attack the horde and the system was open and allowed this enriching depth.

On the other side you can still be ganked but you have PLENTY of ways to escape that and move away. This has never been a real problem. And if it is it should be tackled from this perspective (giving the players more tools to escape) instead of ENFORCING behaviours, making the game so stupidly arid.

You can still ask for help in these situations. This is the social fabric of the game and it is PRECIOUS. It isn't something to shot down. There's a threat, you are called to react to it. And you have plenty of ways to do so or avoid it if you so choose.

Is it better EQ2's system where the players are encouraged to gank other players to loot their gold, junk items and inflict them xp debths? Is this more accessible?

Tell me.

It doesn't seem like your system will address this at all. It centralizes the action at specific places in the overall world for those seeking rewards, but those that want to gank people for entirely social reasons are still free to terrorize the countryside.

And you are wrong. My system also completely addresses this.

You don't want the PvP to "get in the way"? At all? Ok -> PvE servers.

The proposed system was thought by me with both PvP and PvE servers in mind.

The PvP servers follow the rules described. The PvE servers also follow the same rules, with the difference that you have to flag yourself deliberately if you decide you want to move toward an hotspot and fight there.

How's this bad? Tell me.

That's the point of having two separate rulesets. It's your choice if you want to erase the possibilities of a PvP server and have something more "controlled".

It also encourages loads of people to fight it out in particular zones - if you spread out and try to capture lots of hot spots, you don't get PvP points. You get them by everyone engaging on ONE hot spot, trying to take it over and have lots of nearby enemy targets to get PvP points from. This would create terrible lag because it's in the open world and the numbers can't be controlled like in an instance.

That's one goal and should be balanced accordingly.

As the Honor System went in, all the PvP in WoW was focused on Southshore. It was hardly fun, I agree.

The goal is to spread the action between 4-5 hotspots instead of just one. This isn't really a problem, it just needs the rules to be tweaked, tested and reiterated. (mostly about balancing the amount of points awarded when you conquer an hotspot and those generated over time as log you keep it capped)

[Mark Asher]

One of the nice things about the WoW battlegrounds is that they sides are even. Out in the game world the sides are not even. This was sometimes a problem in frontier fighting in DAoC.

Also, controlling hot spots is a lot like controlling keeps in DAoC, and one of the problems in that game was people just organizing at weird hours to retake a keep.

PvP is fun when the sides are even. When one side is outnumbered, it's not a lot of fun for that side and it tends to drive players away because they give up. How will you keep the fights even?

[HRose]

Originally Posted by Mark Asher

One of the nice things about the WoW battlegrounds is that they sides are even. Out in the game world the sides are not even. This was sometimes a problem in frontier fighting in DAoC.

Also, controlling hot spots is a lot like controlling keeps in DAoC, and one of the problems in that game was people just organizing at weird hours to retake a keep.

PvP is fun when the sides are even. When one side is outnumbered, it's not a lot of fun for that side and it tends to drive players away because they give up. How will you keep the fights even?

Oh, it's simple.

Each zone will have a special recruiter that will count dynamically the horde/alliance ratio in that zone and, if the conditions are met, will allow a player to "betray" its faction and fight for the other. In this case the recruiter will cast a "spell" on the player, turning his name green toward the other faction and letting him communicate and fight for it. This status is reset when the faction balance in the zone changes or when the players leaves the zone.

Well, this was just a joke.

The point is that what you say is not even correct. Blizzard didn't solve at all the faction unbalance. You still have it in the form of long queues.

So it's not Blizzard's idea solving this problem against HRose's idea creating this problem. It's just a choice between having to sit in a queue for 20+ minutes between each BG session or erase this waiting time but suffer for a situation where fighting is harder since you are easily outnumbered.

BOTH of these suck, I'm really not sure that Blizzard's solution is that much better.

The point is that my idea INHERITS this problems, it doesn't create it. The faction balance was a design issue to solve the minute after Blizzard decided that the game was going to have two rival factions. What I mean is that this problem doesn't belong on the level discussed here. It must be solved somewhere else.

That said. There are ways to mitigate the impact of that problem. Solving it is impossible. Even if you are the best design ever. But some sort of mitigation is always posible and some ideas can be developed in that direction.

DAoC also uses some of these ideas that never really convinced me. For example, we could give the outnumbered faction a bonus multiplier on the PvP points they gain, so that, even if they are outnumbered and more frequently killed, the reward system still "compensates" this greater effort.

This would work on the systemic level and keep things even, but it wouldn't work on the "fun" level, I believe.

Other mechanics could be about adding some quest patterns. For example: the alliance outnumbers the Horde by a fair margin and is holding an hotspot from three days. Every attempt to attack it failed miserably. We could add some PvP quests, similar to Alterac Valley, where the horde players could roam around the zone to accomplish some goals and "summon" an hero or a NPC army that could assist them in the assault. This could help to obtain an alternation on who is holding a spot.

It could work because the faction holding an hotspot is required to camp it and remain at a radius, or the hotspot resets by itself. So the horde is more free to roam around the zone, sneakingly working on their next assault with the added tools.

This solution would be way more development-intensive, so I'm not so convinced by it. But it's another example to mitigate again the unbalance.

A third solution could be about letting the Horde (outnumbered) assault the Alliance on multiple points/hotspots. Lowering for them by a fair margin the requirements to "cap" one. It's a more tactical strategy that would allow the Horde to launch some "stealth" attacks instead of trying to charge the Alliance all at once.

This third solution could even work similarly to DAoC, where an hotspot is also upgraded and defended by NPCs. So that the Horde would be able to push all its resources in one to make it inexpugnable even when defended by a few players. While the dominating Alliance would try to maintain many more hotspots, hence spreading the resources and showing many more weak points that could be targeted by the Horde as tactical, quick incursions.

The design strategy I follow *is not* about solving the unbalance, here. But about opening gameplay patterns so that the game remains fun even when you play in a outnumbered faction.

Again, solving completely this problem is not possible because it belongs to another level of the design. But it's possible to mitigate it in a number of ways and I don't think the situation with the queues is much better even compared to a scenario where my system would be plugged without any of those "safenets" I explained.

Here I wrote down in five minutes some ideas to address this problem that I believe could be valid. While Blizzard is still doing jack shit after more than a year the game was released and after five years of development.

Excuse me.

[Mark Asher]

"The point is that what you say is not even correct. Blizzard didn't solve at all the faction unbalance. You still have it in the form of long queues."

I wasn't talking about queues. That's another issue. I was talking about how the battlegrounds allow for balance battles.

"The faction balance was a design issue to solve the minute after Blizzard decided that the game was going to have two rival factions."

I've played a game with three factions (DAoC) and no factions (Shadowbane) and all suffered from number imbalance issues. In Shadowbane it was simply a matter of guilds being different sizes, and the partnering of guilds.

The pattern of PvP in WoW from launch has gone like this: Initially, PvP before the battlegrounds tended to confine itself to Tarren Mill. It was common for horde and alliance players elsewhere to ignore one another.

Then the PvP ladder system was implemented and overnight the server became a bloodbath. There was PvP everywhere, and groups of players roamed the zones killing everything in sight.

Then the battlegrounds opened and the activity moved there because not only could you earn more CP in the BGs, but they had their own rewards as well. PvP out in the game world became like it had been initially, some killing and some waving between alliance and horde.

On our server there is still a fair amount of PvP going on in the game world in terms of groups organizing to raid areas like Crossroads, Grom'Grol, etc. You can't count on it happening all the time, but it's frequent.

I think it would be great to have hotspots we could try to take over, but I'm sure alliance would dominate those. You'd have to have some slick coding and game mechanics to artifically balance the sides. I think I'd be happier just seening that effort go towards new battlegrounds.

[dannimal]

The idea that the honor system converted players into "walking bags of points" and thus destroyed any hopes of freewill on behalf of the players, or that the game system is "whispering in your ear" is where I have issues.

- The other day, on Dark Iron, I was in Searing Gorge (which is a ludicrous gankfest because of the constant flow of 60s to the instance in the zone, which is otherwise meant for high 40s-low 50s). I ended up with 2 adds, and while I possibly could have survived (popping every timer available), an odd thing happened:

A lvl 60 undead priest dismounted, helped kill all the mobs, then mind controlled me. He healed me, buffed me with PW:F, then waved and rode off.

That warlock created his own story, character, and gameplay. Even with all the whispering. The fact is, even if the other guy is worth points, I can still decide to not attack him, ignore him, or even help him. In fact, this choice is just as logical/defendable "in game" as attacking.

You haven't mentioned a functional difference between the instanced BG PVP action and the "open world" hotspots. In fact, the decision to put the hotspots far away from "normal play" to draw the conflict away from questers kind of kills the "open world" idea.

It seems like it would be just as effective to come up with some kind of open-world impact of relative success in the BGs. Discounts to everything on that continent (because they're getting more supplies out of the region), for example.

Yes, there's the issue of queues as imbalance in the current system. I would choose waiting to play 15 on 15 over having the option to dive head first into combat as a group of 15 against a group of 30 every time. Unless the "reward" system were set up in such a way to reflect the imbalance (a far from trivial task), it makes as much sense for me to engage in PVP when I'm grossly outnumbered as it does for me to wander into UnGoro at lvl 45. It's not just a matter of "the team outnumbered 2:1 gets double points" because it's more than twice as hard to kill someone in that situation.

Edit: Fixed my moronic class mistake.

[Gordon Cameron]

You mean priest, not warlock, I presume?

[soundnfury]

It has always seemed to me that the imbalance could be easily fixed on the server level by offering incentives to create characters on the underpopulated side. They could offer anything from double experience to an instant /buff to level 20 or 30 (perhaps limited to those who already had a level 60 character on any server).

[Mark Asher]

Originally Posted by soundnfury

It has always seemed to me that the imbalance could be easily fixed on the server level by offering incentives to create characters on the underpopulated side. They could offer anything from double experience to an instant /buff to level 20 or 30 (perhaps limited to those who already had a level 60 character on any server).

Perhaps, but for players who already have a level 60 it might not be much of a draw. You can twink your own alts, but not if they are on another server.

I think the expansion will help if the dranei (sic) are really the alliance expansion race. They are butt ugly. I can't imagine any horde player wanting to switch sides to play one, while plenty of alliance players might like to try a blood elf.

[dannimal]

Thanks for that catch, Gordon. I had just gotten off going from 14->16 with my warlock alt, and had warlock on the brain.

[HRose]

I patch my idea (then I'll let the thread die, don't worry) - based on WoW:

- Remove player's names and guilds of the opposite faction from the overhead titles. Replace them with [PvP rank] + race.
- Remove the PvP rank from overhead titles for same-faction players, add the PvP rank as a graphical mark next to the portrait when you target someone.
- Add custom Last Names to characters.

Btw, what's the correct name for the thing dysplaying graphically the military ranks on a uniform?

[Gordon Cameron]

Rank insignia?