Comments on: ‘PvP Games’ are making PvE Worse

By: johnjohn

johnjohn — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:06:28 +0000

You realize this goes both ways right?

Pve games are making pvp games WORST. AKA carebear WoW, LOTRO, etc.

By: Zane

Zane — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:10:13 +0000

I think we’ll see that change with SWTOR. I think that game will fix this problem and will be able to match WoW one on one at Launch.

By: Kenny

Kenny — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:50:05 +0000

“RPG stuff is good as long as its within limits. and 15% is not a lot. look in skill based games if I am good and your are not 15% not going to save you .”

Exactly my thoughts. So, if I suck compared to you it won’t matter, I suck with or without the 15%. Now, if we are equal skill level then the one who did the grind will have a seizable advantage over the other. Will it make all the difference? Hell yeah.If there is any vertical progression then PvPers bound to try to stay on top of that – even you say the same thing later.

“because losing side quits when they have no hope fighting back .There are NO servers reset in MMO.”

So “pride” only goes as far until you win. When you start losing you don’t care at all about all those glorious things you mentioned later? Anyway a losing side can be incentivized to stay in the game even if they are losing. And why don’t we have MMOs with server resets? Why-o-why? (hint hint: because the insane timesinks that your hypothetical game has nothing of?). It’s like saying there are no server resets in MMOs because… Well, because there are none.

“you fight for different things in MMO.”

Oh, then if you have other incentives then why do you want “better gear”? Still haven’t told me what concrete advantage you envisioned as “resources”, “income”, “influence”, etc.

The problem remains the same: if you have rewards that give +% efficiency in killing the other side then it is something to grind for. If you have items that are better or worse then it will be viewed as “mandatory”. And finally, but most importantly, if you have a persistent world that you cannot change in a “meaningful way” (eg WIN) then you would just turn off most competitive players as for them the persistent world is just one more facet of the game but if it’s not winnable then what’s the point? It ceases to be a competition from that very moment onwards.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:54:38 +0000

Look no one minds the little pve side. Most pvpers want to have something on a side -be it crafting ,pve ,exploration. What we dont want is ENDLESS treadmill grind. IT NEVER ENDS.

And you keep talking extremes -its either endless grind ,either instarespawn with all gear. there is middle ground there.

When I talk 15% not being completely skill based I meant there should be other metagame in there- template, gear selection ,etc. Stuff which I like but is missing in FPS.

RPG stuff is good as long as its within limits. and 15% is not a lot. look in skill based games if I am good and your are not 15% not going to save you .

Complain mostly comes from the fact that to be competitve in PvP you have to grind even HARDER than average pve scrub. Because of min maxing and gear optimization . No one likes it but everyone has to do it.

If you provide safe heavens than it looses all meaning for the players. It’s equivalent of saying, your health cannot be reduced below 5% in UT, otherwise you might lose and ragequit. Fallback is provided with respawning advantages and weapons in FPSs but nothing more. Even if a persistent world would make sense for a purely skill-driven PvP game (let’s just call it FPS) this would definitely decorate it with rainbows and pink ponies.

No it does not . DAOC is an example of game with “safe havens” . yet people still fought each other. Ironically vanilla wow was pretty hardcore in some sense – you could raid enemy capitals! something daoc didnt allow!

IF you are thinking about it why not go the extra mile and say that it’s perfectly possible to win or lose the game? Yes, it sucks to lose, better luck after the server reset.

because losing side quits when they have no hope fighting back .There are NO servers reset in MMO. you cant have a mechanics which gives more and more advantages to veterans and winning side. – you will alienate any new players and have the losing side quit. Its perfect recipe for killing the game ,yet every single pvp mmo followed this recipe! (from daoc to darkfall)

If you want FPS equivalent it would be as after each death your health goes down 25% , permanently till,say the minimum 1%. And to make comparison complete you would also have to grind ai bots on “tutorial map” for 2 hours before you are even allowed to join live game .Who would play those FPS? NO ONE! – yet people are surprised servers were deserted en mass in SB and Darkfall after first cities were lost.

RR points inflation also was a big factor in why even Daoc was bad. No new players wanted to be sheeps for rr10 vets. no new players – game slowly dies

Would you fight for a 5% powerup in UT? I think that there is a fundamental difference between the Quake-ish Shotgun-Rocket-Zapgun-Whatever distribution than what you proably have in mind

you fight for different things in MMO. You fight for your guild , for fame. Do you think guilds wouldnt fight for getting their name listed as ruling faction , with officers being “lords” and guild leader King? -with perks like sitting in throne room and have rent income in terms of resources? With ability to have influence over game world?

Hell yes they would. People fought in SB just for their city to pop on the map (and they had to grind for gold that city day and night -not a fun activity at all)

By: Kenny

Kenny — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:21:00 +0000

ffs that italic shit

By: Kenny

Kenny — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:17:32 +0000

[i]“This element exists everywhere- in fact in quake , UT it’s the buffs and weapons you pick up (one can acquire them in very short time but nevertheless newly spawned toon is at disadvantage vs one which just picked up a slew of powerful boosters, hence hign end FPS gameplay in Quake/Ut consists of tactics and strategy revolving around power ups).”[/i]

Sure it does but would you happy with a persistent solution? Like in every round the player who picked up the powerup has it for the entire length of the round? Or it doesn’t respawn until he gets killed? Because having bonuses granted for, say, land control would just be this lopsided.

[i]“Building and using efficient character is a skill. Its something which distinguishes one having no clue about game mechanics from the one who does. What I mean by skill playing more of a role is that for example in CS I can kill fully loaded out player with just my starting pistol.”[/i]

I sense a contradiction here as PvP people mostly complain they have to do stuff before they can be effective at PvP. Given two players with equal skill that 15% gear you proposed is going to make the winner and the loser. I think that a long time player has the advantage of familiarity and such with the game is enough of an advantage. However I completely agree about the current trend in MMOs (WoW especially because of it’s exposure).

[i]“How much advantage that territory control gives you is a very crucial and fine point of game mechanics. It should be incentive enough to worth fighting for, but not the snowball advantage type , when winning sides gets more and more advantage, making it impossible to fight back.”[/i]

Would you fight for a 5% powerup in UT? I think that there is a fundamental difference between the Quake-ish Shotgun-Rocket-Zapgun-Whatever distribution than what you proably have in mind. Problem is, see, the terms of “character”, “xp”, “loot”, “grind”, etc are so deeply rooted in our brains regarding MMOs that it’s almost impossible to think without these about the subject. Would I fight for a 5% powerup in a persistent FPS world? LOL no, it would make kicking the opponent’s ass that much sweeter – but then again this would leave me with no advantage regarding the persistent world so I might just go back and suck at Quake/UT/whatnot.

By: Philinor

Philinor — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:44:24 +0000

I hear you on the pvp thing. Try googleing “Fury Online”. It was published some four years ago or so and was advertised purely as a PvP MMO. It had no PvE content. I remember quite well how they advertised the game with promises of something like a million dollar worth of prices to the best pvp players (pc’s, mousepads, screens etc). Well I didn’t like it so I stopped playing after beta and later found out that I wasn’t the only one stopping.

By: Telwyn

Telwyn — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:51:03 +0000

My thoughts on this:

WAR was a terrible waste of a great RPG world in my opinion. I *love* the gritty WFRP setting, but the PVE content in the game was such an afterthought for the most part and only really channeled you towards the PVP. WAR could have been the game to get me, at least casually, into PVP but by the time I trialled it most PVP was mindless zerging with you being one-shotted by overgeared twinked characters…

Allods again could have dragged me into a PVP game, but the mismanagement of the cash shop, the brutal transparency of the pay-to-play elements and the rumours of the next patch are not encouraging.

One important factor behind WoWs storming success has been it’s mission to cater for all types of players well. I can’t comment on the PVP in WoW, but at least it has it in spades. I find it strange that the makers of Allods and War though a purely PVE experience was not worth including – do they want to throw away subscriber? After all give PVErs a non-forced PVE server and we’ll happily grind away the levels and raid, and at the same time give the company money that can go towards making all sorts of content!

By: Max

Max — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:35:59 +0000

First I d like to mention that human language is awfully imprecise and the definitions are vague. So for example “skill driven” for one does not mean same as it means for another. Some people say that learning skills and abilities in WoW is not skill as it doesn’t require lightning fast reaction and precision aiming (btw it actually does require fairly quick reaction at high end arena –because you have to make a best choice in a timeframe of gcd taking into account multiple factors ,including avatar positioning, both team cooldowns , etc etc)
Depending on game genre it could mean different thing. Twitch is not the only “skill” element. Now when I skill dependent that means that outcome of encounter depends more on the player than on investment of time in various treadmill like timesinks (levels, gear etc).
This element exists everywhere- in fact in quake , UT it’s the buffs and weapons you pick up (one can acquire them in very short time but nevertheless newly spawned toon is at disadvantage vs one which just picked up a slew of powerful boosters, hence hign end FPS gameplay in Quake/Ut consists of tactics and strategy revolving around power ups). In Tf2/BF2/CoD4 you can unlock different weapons which distinguish you from newly created char. In CS money in rounds allow you buy better weapons, Kevlar, grenades etc.
Now the thing is one can jump in TF2 with fresh account and dominate, It is a game almost entirely 100% skill based –your starting loadout is complete and good, new unlocks are mostly gimmicks or things which provide different options (not more powerful ones)
Compare that to any mmo –newly created toons are useless no matter how good you know game mechanics . What I like in mmo is an element of template design – templates are another metagame, which I find fun and it’s the part missing in fps.

If it’s entirely player skill driven how do you manage character builds? I mean _what_ do you build if it’s not character but player skill that makes a difference? Do you have builds in CS? And if you have that 15% equipment that makes a difference, than that 15% becomes 100% at that same moment, as it will make or break your play – grind it or lose it.

Building and using (who knows maybe you just blindly copied fotm and do not even realize how its works) efficient character is a skill. Its something which distinguishes one having no clue about game mechanics from the one who does. What I mean by skill playing more of a role is that for example in CS I can kill fully loaded out player with just my starting pistol. It also doesn’t take much to acquire competitive gear. In MMO I generally think there is some time necessary for char development, but for entirely different purpose than present mmo have. Only reason I would put a requirement in time to get to competitive level is to provide accountability ,and I think that period should be a month of casual play (with some check built in that you couldn’t speed it up by playing 24×7) – put some pve /exploration content into this time frame to keep new player interested .
As it stands now the constant level/gear treadmill progression is only thing which current MMO have. You become more powerful personally , just for the sake of it , which is made obsolete by next patch when you begin same thing again. Arena in wow is just another form of meaningless instanced combat with wow gameplay mechanics, grinding towards better pvp gear, being obsolete next season

“Now why persistence? – for meaningful conflict. To control territory , resources. to have scale.”
Again, what does territory control and resources mean? They give you an advantage? Then it’s not entirely player skill driven,

It skill driven, just its different level of skill -skill in strategy ,politics and guild control, which allows you to take and hold territories. How much advantage that territory control gives you is a very crucial and fine point of game mechanics. It should be incentive enough to worth fighting for, but not the snowball advantage type , when winning sides gets more and more advantage , making it impossible to fight back. Relics on DaoC are example of decent goals ( not without flaws). Realm points there are example of bad advantage
I mean if you design such that one resources provides your crafters with abilities to build 5% better weapons it would be worth fighting for, if you also make it so it would become progressively harder to hold all valuable resources you would provide incentive for losing side to get some resources back ( by spreading opponent thin , since he has to defend more resources )

it’s a grind for the most/best rewards. It comes with metagaming. It comes with the possibility of “winning” the game (heck, this is a shadow looming even over EVE!) by making it impossible to others to play for goals.

Hence why I think it’s necessary to design a game “worth fighting a war in but impossible to crush”. Provide a fallback mechanism for losing side to recover and spring back up. Make the victory meaningful but do not penalize the loser into quitting (example of driving out losing side are games like Shadowbane and Darkfall). For example if I made pvp mmo I would reserve a few core territories for each side which could not be completely conquered and be sufficient for staging a fight back , one could dominate other side by controlling contested resources and maybe even raiding core territories (achieving some flashy rare title, maybe a statue or such – but nothing giving the advantage to already winning side). I would also make it 3 sided at least, so 3d side could balance the losing side.

Current MMOS do not have pvp which is about pvp and warfare. Its about some faceless honor /arena points or some such which is just another way to run same progression treadmill as pvers get.

By: Dispair

Dispair — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:50:01 +0000

I would like to add to this fine by Max who I agree 99% with in this instance, that when I am talking about meaningful pvp (although I have no idea who Ddblade was actually replying to), I am talking about a contest between players that are representative of the actual game mechanics. Not the introduction of some artifial risk/reward system besides ladder ranking.

Example: level 20 arena is not meaningful pvp I would argue as it is not representative of the actual game as each class have an incomplete toolset. Doesnt mean it cant be fun, but its not representative, likely not balanced, and therefore not meaningful.

Timesinks, gear grinds and such are one of the core problems in MMORPGs as they take the player away from what he should be doing namely practising his pvp skills or practising on an encounter, and constant gear rewards upsets balance, trivilizes pve and pvp encounters, and creates the lazy addict player type.

As a former raid leader and arena team leader I will testify that it is not only pvp that hurts from the gear incentive, and its not only pvp that people will play just for fun.

When did we stop playing for fun anyway, and start having this strange need to get rewarded to actually play a game.

PS.
Grats to the north american rls team of EG for winning the IEM world championsship, the european rmp team of Dignitas for the 2nd place, and the amazing korean rmp team of Button Bashers on the 3rd place.

PPS.
Whoever said that pvp cant stand alone in a game must be on crack. If Blizzard released arena as a stand-alone title I would buy it immediatly.