Dozens of people crowded into an area standing on opposite sides of each other casting spells, shooting arrows, and doing the ‘push and pull dance’ has lost its appeal for me. That’s not real PvP, that’s what happens when you try to have PvP in your game but fail. It’s the best that people can come up with when left, without any alternative, to their own devices. This happens a majority of the time in games without objectives, but it definitely can happen in games where the objectives and PvP ‘areas’ are poorly designed. For example, it happened in LotRO, WAR, WoW, and it’s happening in Rift (watch the PvP videos all over youtube).
When objectives are properly designed into the game’s open world then there’s a lot more to PvP than the dance. It’s also a matter of ensuring that you do not restrict people to these tiny outlined ‘lakes’ because that eliminates all strategy involved with mobilization. Traveling somewhere to claim something, ambushing something/someone, stealing something, invading something, and other programmed vulnerabilities can’t be overlooked anymore. People need a reason to fight. Something must be attainable. There must be a purpose to the action. This is why raiding for gear to raid harder places to get better gear works so well: It’s strictly objective and goal driven.
Dark Age of Camelot (the shining example)
- Keeps (castles) and their associated lands claimed by guilds for their realm (faction)
- Darkness Falls (dungeon, great PvE bosses/gear/place to level from 10-50) owned by whoever currently owns the most keeps
- Relics (objects of power that grant buffs) bestow their benefits upon the realm that owns them. Each realm has two (melee and spell damage in PvP/E) that can be stolen. You can’t steal enemy relics unless you own your own of the corresponding type. Benefit stacked up to 10% increase.
Other examples include: Darkfall and UO, (feel free to give me more examples).
Can anyone give me a valid reason why the working objective based PvP design has been thrown out? PvP where you stand in herds and throw stuff at each other until the mob gets up enough courage (usually when they have guards on their side) to actually fight is a form of PvP that is 100% guaranteed to not last long-term. People get bored and retention rates plummet until eventually the newest people coming in to try wonder why no one fights. This has been the case every. single. time. What happens next? Battlegrounds.
I loved Planetside for a time, even though you knew most days when you logged off the territory you captured would get re-capped it was ace setting out to capture various towers and bases and eventually a continent.
The more I hear about DAOC the more I realise I missed a great game. Doh!
I played DAoC for 4 years & stand off’s happened a plenty in that game also, milegates anyone?
Agreed. I shake my head at the nostalgia for the Tarren Mill / Southshore zergs in WoW, because my clear memory of that time was that while it was mad fun for a little while, it got really boring really quickly and everyone was extremely relieved to see battlegrounds and the honour system added to the game.
@Hatch: I knew someone would bring that up. Let me clarify. The Milegate camping was a strategy to choke reinforcements off. Even when it was done simply to force the enemy to engage you in a chokepoint, it was not the only method of PvP nor was it the the absolute norm.
@Carson: Yeah, it was certainly better than BG’s. BG’s were so well received because of how stale the world pvp got after a while.
@Intruder: Planetside is a good example.
I would argue objectives are a poor fit for PvP in an MMO, and that DaoC was far from a shining example for PvP, or even objective-based PvP…
The parts DaoC got right were:
– PvP zones were real zones where you could roam
– PvP zones had things to do in them (good loot, good xp, keeps/relics)
– Small groups could make a difference (8mans wiping zergs)
– Darkness falls presented danger and surprises (hunting or being hunted in there was awesome)
Personally, I feel objectives make PvP feel too gimmicky, and there is no way getting away from that; instead the concept needs to go. PvP needs to be tied into the core game more, which is simply, the best places to get loot need to be PvP enabled, and setup in a manner that encourages PvP; which really, is what Darkness falls came close to; a game world with that ideology built throughout it would be awesome.
Also, the game world needs to be smaller. WoW is a freaking ghost town because it is too big. The world instead needs to be smaller and more dynamic, so prior zones you visit can remain interesting, and there is enough foot traffic everywhere to support fighting.
Its been thrown out because the reality is most people don’t want to fight over (persistent) objectives. As soon as you can log in having lost something while you were sleeping, most people just can’t be fucked to spend time on it. Meanwhile, short fun matches do very well (see: any non MMO shooter, for example).
I’d be all for DAoC 2, but realistically, the best we can hope for is Planetside 2 or Tribes Universe to pick up the banner I think.
They been thrown out because it is a niche market and everyone is trying to emulate wow and failing miserably. Think about the power fail that rift will be in terms of pvp.. 2 sides vs 3? check, community killing cross server warfronts? check, insta teleport to dungeons avoiding open world? check, making character on BOTH sides on same server? check
Rift has courage to have an AOE CC class (I REALLY looking forward to browsing the whine threads at work lol) but thats the only thing they got right heh
Relics in DAOC were extremely powerful and thats why they mattered. 20% magic damage boost.. in DAOC this was massive, groups that you could not touch folded like paper when you had relics. So from a lvl 41 noob to RR10 vet they mattered. This also created a side benefit, you could use threat to forts/relics as a way to draw out the enemy, even lvl 20 could clearly see a massive difference it made when they had or not had relics.
Interesting thing in DAOC was also the fact that so many Euros played, this made the game really 24hours game, which just does not happen anymore. Everyone segregates players.
I don’t know if it has much to do with objectives. More like how effective zergs are. If small groups cannot outplay the zergs in any way, then you get the crowded objectives because that is what wins.
I heard that in WAR the CC was so numerous that a small group would easily get eaten alive by even the most braindead zerg group. So maybe the combat needs to require a bit more thought so smaller groups can break off and muck with things. This will naturally cause the zerg to break up a bit more to defend objectives rather than go from spot to spot like locusts while the small groups try to stay one step ahead (which isn’t really that fun).
I think it’s more of a group objective vs. personal objective.
WoW’s PvP is horrible because the objectives are personal. You get no greater reward for playing well in PvP, you’re there to farm honor to get personal gear. TB point farming was a great example. Heck, the TB raid is an even better one – one faction gets it on day 1 of server reboot, the other one gets it the next day since you only get the benefit once – and then no one gives a crap about who owns it. Arenas are complete failures due to the reward structure.
The “great” pvp games are mainly due to the fact that the PvP rewards are for groups of people, if not the entire faction and they actually mean something long term.
When you look at objective-less PvP (UO comes to mind), then the situation seems to delve into griefing, since there’s really no other reason to do it.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it has something to do with all the “pro-soloing” threads I’ve been seeing over the last few years.
Way back when there were many places in games no one would dream of going without a group. That’s not really the case anymore. Most mmos now you can just solo all the way to max level without ever speaking or grouping with another soul. It seems to be what the masses want.
I think this attitude has bled over to the PvP side of things as well. All of those cool things about DAoC required coordination and grouping. Today anything like that gets labeled as “forced grouping” and does not fit with the “get in,get out” design that caters to the solo/casual masses.
I know I may stretching a bit here but I think there is definitely a correlation there.
i still havent played anything that can compare to guild wars pvp in the form of Guild vs Guild battles.
I’m sure Asmiroth is right in that modern MMO pvp is all about personal objectives. If all you want are upgraded shoulders it makes much better sense to do instances – you can’t get out-numbered and you are continually fighting.
It’s meaningless because you aren’t actually fighting over something, you’re just churning out kills to get gear and you’ll get it anyway even if you suck.
It’s also not as memorable because every fight is the same pretty much.
I can see why developers are pushing it at us – we as a playing community have always followed the path of fastest personal advancement at least effort. That’s not actually compatible with having interesting pvp which implies you can go backwards as well as forwards.
Maybe most people think that the DAoC way doesn’t work?
After all the own company that created that game sunk with WAR. So it is very likely that other companies don’t want to try that.
Also, in this time and age people want more immediate entertainment and are less prone to standing around and looking for trouble for half an hour. People are playing MMOs more like games and less like virtual worlds with virtual communities.
I think the only company that’s going to try and tackle that DAOC feeling is Guild Wars 2. Not a big Guild Wars fan, but the 2nd one with 3 server clusters and a shared contested zone where the 3 servers battle for control of that zone sounds very very appealing to me.
But I agree, I can’t fathom why companies have moved away from the DAOC model of RvR. It felt epic with a real since of realm pride. When you went out roaming, you went out scouting your lands or theirs, often times with some tangible goals. And relic raids were just awesome. On both O and Defense.
I play DF and wonder why I can’t have these things either >.<
cities are the only source of pvp and its usually one-sided because attackers have surprise advantage.
One big game of note which does the PvP with a purpose more right than wrong: Lineage II. That’s why I’m playing it. 🙂 Well, not right now, since the newest expansion should hit the servers in about 45 minutes from the time of posting … 😀
Official PVP DAOC server on Rift. It will be Guardian.
http://vnboards.ign.com/rift_general_forum/b23470/114427394/p1/?11
I’m hoping that the pvp ends up being something that will support a community from DAOC. It has to be more than two groups standing off for a couple of hours.
Our community will choose a pvp server. Maybe we’ll go with one the DAOC crowd goes on.
As others have said, it’s because there are so few players that like a real, meaningful, competitive PVP.
Where is Darkfall today? a few thousand. The EVE stat I see all the time is that 80-90% of players NEVER leave “safe” space.
The market (money) is in PVE. PVP is for a “feature” to have in the list on the back of the box.
@Aven It is true to a degree(in a western market at least, Korea is different).
On one end you have games like Shadowbane where few month worth of investment in a city could get erased in an hour on the other end WoW (meaningless pvp). I will be the first to admit that SB is now too hardcore for me now(I loved it back when it came out). What was good with DAOC is that it had consequences but they were not crippling. So it meaningful but not too meaningful if that makes any sense.
It doesn’t need to be “hardcore” PvP. Half of DAOC’s landmass (more?) was your realm’s territory that the enemy could not entire. PvP was optional.
Planetside 2 (or Planetside Next as it appears to be called) holds some hope indeed. There’s a few vehicle models available which suggest the exact same vehicles as before with overhauled graphics. This shows a lack of ambition really, I’d hope the tech in the setting had moved on not just the game engine it runs on.
Of course I’m judging that entirely on surface details and the game may be revolutionary 🙂
Objectives, goals and purpose…these must be divided into two categories: (1) world and (2) individual objectives, goals, and purpose (loot, armor, additional skills).
(2) is the reason why people PvP at all and (1) is a mechanism to make it more fun and adds to the longeavity of the game.
It is ridiculous what could be done with objectives and what is done…DAOC gave us a flavor of what is possible but there is so much more! Besides controlling castles and dungeons, what about zone control…zone by zone…world control…let people conquer and enslave the other realm!
Have there be consequences to losing…instead of the everyone is a winner attitude. Life doesnt have to be fair. Dont make a giant controlled battleground out of it that is just some dumb meta game (WAR) – give people freedom and tools and they will work it out. Throw in three factions and let the sides autobalance themselves…
Game designers apparently want to “design” games and feel like they have to totally control the game environment…if I hear about open world PvP objectives and some of the rules attached to it..(can onlz attack this and that if it is 3pm on sunday and if the sun doesnt shine)…that is so dumb…people dont need game designers to dictate how they are going to have fun and be led down some narrow path…we need tools to create our own fun and that fun is going to be much better and more varied than whatever some game designer can come up with…
“Can anyone give me a valid reason why the working objective based PvP design has been thrown out?” There isn’t an answer unless you count the ones involving devs described by colorful expletives. Although objective based PvP seems painfully obvious to most of us we are apparently in some kind of tiny niche market that most developers have written off as not worth the trouble. Objective based PvP did so many good things for DAoC and none of these MMO makers seemed to see it. The game mechanics in DAoC encouraged large armies with common goals, it ‘invented’ realm pride that made you want to defend your faction. The game mechanics in DAoC provided the 8v8 niche because it gave the speed to run, the space to avoid, and the AoE to attack large groups. DAoC also provided points for soloist to hunt each other and mechanics to avoid larger groups. That game gave you 3 different forms of PvP, none of which included ganking lowbies and it did it all in one PvP lake. Mythic had a winning PvP design and even they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) duplicate it in their 2nd MMO, WAR. They split the PvP lakes up, put in battleground instances in direct competition with those open lakes, decreased the size of the lakes so you couldn’t roam, took out group speed, removed immunity times for CC, made all encompassing classes instead of specialized classes that depend on others (take note Rift), dropped the 3rd faction (monumental stupidity), and for some reason they decided that Darkness Falls was a bad idea (must’ve been all those posts on VN about how we all loved it).
You know maybe I do have an answer for that question Keen, I think that to a man, all the devs absolutely hate me and just sit back, figure out what I like, and do the opposite. So, I’m sorry about that guys, it’s my fault for the current crop of MMOs =(
Objective PvP has to be made much better and much more dynamic than what it was in Daoc or is in EvE. Topic is long and complicated , but in short -reason no one does is that no one focuses on world pvp games. All the big guys go after DIKU style clones where the sole objective is gear gear and gear
PvP is a niche left to incompetent designers and programmers (SB, Darkfall, Mortal Online) .Even eve was plenty bad if compared to wow purely from technical point of view (it was outright horrible at launch and still the faulty architecture shows its cracks)
@Max purely from technical standpoint EVE server is light years beyond what WoW has. Hell Lineage 2 is much better then WoW, what happens in wow when 800-1000 people try to move let alone fight in one area..
In some ways world pvp games are much more challenging and ability to handle hundreds of people(if not thousands) fighting in one area is one of them.
@Smthin
I researched network stack implementation in multiplayer games (Quake, UT, Tribes) and MMOs. I also do multi-tier server architectures and messaging for a living (mostly for web content though). EvE has the shittiest network stack out of them all. At least had for first 3 years , not sure if they reworked it recently or not
WoW is not the best on the market (planetside is ), but its head and shoulders above EvE. It supports higher update rates and many more simultaneous clients in one area. Its not only network stack either -its also its server architecture. I take wow server design and network stack over EvE any day. Heck I d take UT over eve any day -it would take less work to make good performance MMO with UT than do it with eve trainwreck
eve is amateur design (at least initially ) using scripting language and messaging made for slow enterprise B2B apps, it is one of the reasons EvE combat is insanely boring (cant support high update rates ) and systems like Jita lag a lot (last time I checked was a year ago)
The reason? Simple. Imbalance.
Say WoW had open world PvP everywhere, and the only way to get your gear was to capture these points for your faction. It would be a disaster, there would be constant forum whining of faction imbalances and guilds camping nodes.
Remember the old Wintergrasp when it wasn’t instanced?
You can cut down on instanced PvP like Battlegrounds and Arenas and do World PvP, but it will never be balanced and depending on what class, time zone you play in, and faction you can simply not progress.