If you want pvp where you can pick up any skill you want and play the way you want check out Fury. Its not a persistant world you can wander around in but it is fast paced and vary versitle. Other than that I guess you would need to wait like the rest of us for Darkfall.
Now see that is the thing.. I want other things to do in the game as well. I want great pvp content, but i also want lots of stuff to do besides pvp, I mean some days you feel like killing everyone you see, some days you just want to chill. Some days you want to relax .. then something sets you off and you want to smash someone . That is not what I am seeing in these games .. I am seeing that you have to have one or the other.. why can't we have both? I want decent graphics, great gameplay without lag, skills, one on one player killing and wars with hundreds of players on both sides. I don;t really like games that force you to do stuff, but rather let you choose what you want to do. Besides it is no fun killing someone that doesn't know how to fight or even wants to, that is an execution not a challenge. That is boring not fun. If I could have a game that had crafting, engineering, science, tailoring, woodworking, jewelry making, blacksmithing as well as great pvp content , decent graphics, that game would rule the mmorpg world. Why can't they make one like that?! .. I want my cake and eat it too :P
The more you describe, the more it sounds like Pre-CU SWG.
If you never got a chance to play it, I'm sorry. In my opinion it had everything. Fairly decent pvp system and the ability to "turn off" your faction if you chose not to pvp that day.
I wouldnt look for a game like it for a very long time. Too many people got burned and no one (developers)is willing to touch another game like it because of that.
What the OP is looking for is Pre-CU SWG, when you couldn't tell what someone was unless you saw a title that they (willingly) put on.
heh, I never did and still don't trust what anyone throws up as their player title.
You still can't run up to someone in SWG and predict what profession they are. Professions in SWG aren't tied to factions, armour, weapons (usually) or race. Someone dressed up in BH armour could be a BH, but they could also be a Medic or even an Entertainer.
There isn't the skill system in SWG anymore, so there's no mixing of professions anymore (other then Beast Master). However each profession does have Expertise to allow you to build out your profession with different abilities. Just because you come across a Medic doesn't mean they're going to be beaten the same as the last Medic.
if reflexes were for xbox games.. why would soo many players like myself want them in computer games? I have an xbox ... and i play my computer more.. I prefer pc games over my xbox tyvm .. and i like reflexes in pvp combat .. why would you possibly think that reflexes should be left out? I mean what is left without them? better pixel junk determining? plox who would want to play a game based on that? lmao. stats should play a role.. but not be all that it takes to win that would be mindless nonsense.
Ya SWG isn't to bad of a game, btw hey obraik how are things going over on chilistra? EH still going strong?. But as pre-cu is now long gone, and the game you are looking for seems to be the dream game, one that most gamers want but no developer seems to develop. So if you want a game that has all that stuff i am sorry to say their isn't one.
While I totally agree with the Op i fail to see what relevance her being a girl has? It might get more viewers i guess...
But yeah, unpredictability rocks, sadly it requires a system without predefined classes. Which is almost impossible to balance, just look at those that tried and how the masses treated them. Seems people prefer predictability *shrug*
The predictability factor and the wanting of items to greatly affect who wins a fight and the " luck factor" are guys ideas not girls.. The males I have spoke with support the items and the luck system while as the female I have spoke with think it should have more value placd on real ability. That is why it is titled" a girls perspective. Tbh, I would have no idea that would affect whether or not someone actually reads what i have to say and would hope that would not be the deciding factor as to whether or not to read my post. I want people who actually care about pvp combat in the games to read it regardless of gender. ty
While I do agree its best to have skillbased PvP I dont agree with the idea its a girl's perspective...I am pretty bad at PvP myself ) And yes, I get frustrated ALOT by it) and whenever I had seen girls play in PvP they mostly dont do that well compared
to the men. Ofcourse there are lenghtly exceptions, very lousy at PvP males and great at PvP females...I just get that impression
While I do agree its best to have skillbased PvP I dont agree with the idea its a girl's perspective...I am pretty bad at PvP myself ) And yes, I get frustrated ALOT by it) and whenever I had seen girls play in PvP they mostly dont do that well compared
to the men. Ofcourse there are lenghtly exceptions, very lousy at PvP males and great at PvP females...I just get that impression
Actually, most of the girls I have met that PVP are far more calculated and ruthless about it.
I don't think it would really be all that hard to balance a game that had all abilities on one player simply because ALL players have the opportunity to train all those abilities as well. That would be balance in itself wouldn't it? I mean between the different things such as mage, range, melee.. as long as they made equal hits in all of them it wouldn;t be so hard. Now as to the guy saying you could tell what someone was going to do by what they chose to wear .. yes to an extent, but they could still range you in mage gear and melee you in range gear it would make the predictability factor much less than it is now in most games. I would also like you to be able to switch armors, weaopns, fighting styles during combat so that assuming what someone was going to do based upon what they were wearing or weilding could be a deadly mistake. Yes in MK you had to choose a character and they had different abilities, but what i loved most was playing someone on the same character they were using, leveling the playing field. Then just playing that character better than they did . That is truely dominating them :P And yes I do agree that girls are wayy outnumbered in games, Maybe if they would stop assuming that girls want more items to dress up like princess barbie and added more hardcore pvp content the games would be more attractive to women. I mean for us real girls we have lots of shoes, dresses, and jewelry for real, so that isn't what we crave in a game. We want to be able to put our butt kicking shoes on :P
Guild Wars already has something a long these lines. Its impossible to tell what someones skill load out is until you see them use the skills. And the classes, especially since everyone has two classes, have far too many possibilities to guess.
You have no idea if a ranger is specced for archery, trapping, or hand to hand until you see them do it.
It is isn't the case however that a ranger can be all three at once like you ask for. And I beleive they put in limits for armor switching to once per match, although weapon switching is unlimited.
It becomes fairly important in high end GvG to be able to quickly figure out or at least guess what the various builds so that you have some idea of the overall team strategy. The Guild Wars realized fairly early that this is an important aspects of PvP.
Static build games like WoW, or most any other MMO, have essentially taken out the strategy portion of teams. When you compare a WoW arena match to a Guild Wars GvG match. There is no speculation in the WoW arena match, there no OMG what is Team X gonna pull out this time. When ArenaNet first put out observer mode (let's you spectate GvG matches) I remember watching one of the top 10 teams doing a match running some kind of balanced pressure/spike build with rangers, warriors, monks and a mesmer. The very next match I watched they came out with every single one of the a Warrior/Monk and owned like 3 low ranked teams using PallyWay. They did it fun because the ladder had been suspended for a couple days.
In GuildWars you could go against a team known for running spike builds all the time and they could easily just pop in and start running a Necromancer Minion factory before you even realized they pulled a fast one on you. In WoW, and many other MMOs but WoW has a competitive arena, its pretty much Ho Hum because even if the players wanted to mix it up they can't do it other than a respec. And the respecs in WoW are nothing compared to a respec in Guild Wars. And a GW resepc can turn a Monk into someone with no heals and only nukes. Even the most DPS orietned WoW priest has some serious heals.
Not only is there no means for significant variation in WoW, but once you see a team you know it and its strategy. In Guild Wars a team can literally have any make up at any one time and the only real limit is their ability to play the builds, which is actually significant. I have seen a player who was very much feared as a mesmer and I have seen many players who get run over with the same build.
This is one of the many reasons the Guild Wars team understands PvP better than most other MMO devs. It is also something that shows why some underlying mechanics of MMORPGs can be quite hazardous to good PvP. WoW doesn't have static and predictable PvP because it has bad PvP deisgners. It has that because that is what the entier game design and balance is based around. They could relatively easily make PvP-only characters like GW did. And on the test server even essentially have done so. But then no one has PvP "progression".
And the sad fact is that many MMO PvP players will demand the progression even if it makes the PvP crap.
In the end what she is saying here, although I don't fully agree with the implementation, is simply not arguable. Many MMO players will argue it because it interferes with other things they and they can't see a way to make work with both. But in the end the locked down nature of EQ clones makes them extremely mediocre and also quite boring. They lack spice and are completely predictable.
Sadly the people who will argue are wrong, but will never accept. The reason I know they are wrong is because I have played Eve. Even with locked down skills, the ship system and the large variation in load outs accomplishes, to a certain degee, what I sketched above for Guild Wars.
And for those who will say its because classes suck. You are wrong. Guild Wars uses classes and Eve uses skills, but they both allow for the same mechanic that gives their PvP the edge of unpredictability. Its not about skills or classes its about good and imaginative design.
While I do agree its best to have skillbased PvP I dont agree with the idea its a girl's perspective...I am pretty bad at PvP myself ) And yes, I get frustrated ALOT by it) and whenever I had seen girls play in PvP they mostly dont do that well compared
to the men. Ofcourse there are lenghtly exceptions, very lousy at PvP males and great at PvP females...I just get that impression
Actually, most of the girls I have met that PVP are far more calculated and ruthless about it.
Well perhaps its not the same game....I am playing WoW...dont know how girls do in other games....I guess the average girl in Countertrike is better at PvP than their WoW counterparts
The main point of the OP is to find skill > class/items etc, which I think might possibly be found in The Chronicles of Spellborn. I really suggest you read up on how they manage gear and skills, it's quite similar to 2D arcade games, with combo's and tactical skills.
The classes (3) all have 3 subclasses and the races can be customized pretty darn extreme, perhaps even past the point of COH/COV, but different. You want a fat wrinkled old hag, you could probably do that, wear ragged linen cloth and still beat the crap out of the Terminator, because of tactics, skill combo's and skill deck (selected available skills).
As to females and WoW .. I've (Twink Healer Paladin (~300+ healing) )played 29BG's with a woman for a while ( Male Tauren Warrior ) and they're certainly not less agressive (Best time I've had in the game though
Now see that is the thing.. I want other things to do in the game as well. I want great pvp content, but i also want lots of stuff to do besides pvp, I mean some days you feel like killing everyone you see, some days you just want to chill. Some days you want to relax .. then something sets you off and you want to smash someone . That is not what I am seeing in these games .. I am seeing that you have to have one or the other.. why can't we have both? I want decent graphics, great gameplay without lag, skills, one on one player killing and wars with hundreds of players on both sides. I don;t really like games that force you to do stuff, but rather let you choose what you want to do. Besides it is no fun killing someone that doesn't know how to fight or even wants to, that is an execution not a challenge. That is boring not fun. If I could have a game that had crafting, engineering, science, tailoring, woodworking, jewelry making, blacksmithing as well as great pvp content , decent graphics, that game would rule the mmorpg world. Why can't they make one like that?! .. I want my cake and eat it too :P
The more you describe, the more it sounds like Pre-CU SWG.
If you never got a chance to play it, I'm sorry. In my opinion it had everything. Fairly decent pvp system and the ability to "turn off" your faction if you chose not to pvp that day.
I wouldnt look for a game like it for a very long time. Too many people got burned and no one (developers)is willing to touch another game like it because of that.
Sounds much more like Eve to me. Too bad the details of Eve's gameplay are so cumbersome. The fighting gameplay is actually alright, but all the waiting in other ways is not.
Anyway though. I will answer why you can't have that, well you can but its rare.
In order to have all those things TOGETHER (and I stress that word) you must have a game that is a true world simulation with somewhat real consequences.
EQ, WoW, Guild Wars, DAOC. All these games they are not simulations, not by a long shot. Pretty much only Eve and to some extent the now defunct Ryzom, have been true simulations.
The mechanics of these non-sim games make PvP either bad or inconsequential or both. Things like silly locked down classes and resurection point spawning.
But most of all they are not based on resources or control in any real way.
Now take a look at Eve. It has resources which can be gathered and are key to getting money and making the best stuff. It also has means of controling those resources and when players die they get kicked back to some other region of space. Furthermore getting back to where they died may entail 5 minutes or travel or even an hour of travel.
What does this mean? It means that in Eve you can prosecute a war. A real war, not a battle, but a war. Where you take people stuff bit by bit over a prolonger period of time until they have no more stuff.
Now lets look at WoW this is literally impossible. A real war is World of "War"craft is impossible. You could have as many brawls for bragging rights as you want. But there are no wars, nor can there be any. The game mechanics do not allow it.
Now let's look at another aspect of EQ-clones. Aggro management. This is a mechanic that is the exact opposite of a sim-game. It is anit-intelligence. It is a button that causes the AI scripting to go from effective to stupidly inefffective. In EQ-clones you do things by making the computer act even stupider than it normally would with its limited AI. In Guild War they design the game so that the players are supposed to use the abilities they are given to counter or manage the behavior and abilities of others, be they human or computer controlled.
The Guild Wars developers would be ecstatic if they could have their mob AI operate comparable to humans. The WoW devs would be crying if this were the case, because it would break their entire game. Literally break it.
This is also why the above poster mentions SWG. Because Pre-CU was very much a simulation based game. These games also tend to be sandbox-ish, but don't have to be.
Guild Wars is not a simulation game but in the realm of the player interacting with the environment they have adopted the same philosophy as a simulation game. The idea that all the bits in the game should hang together well and not be composed all sorts of stilted exceptions. If some mobs keeps killing your healer you give the warrior or ranger the ability to slow them down or blind them, you don't disable a fundamental aspect of the game by giving the mob by giving it a taunt induced lobotomy.
So why is it so important that in order to have all these things together in one seemless world that the game be a simulation style game like Eve or eve Pre-CU SWG. It comes down to consequences and interactions.
Eve has many important consequences and interactions for each thing you do. Games like WoW have very little in the way conesquences. If you go ganking in the lowbie area, what the worst that can happen? So people run you off. But even more to the point, they can NEVER run you off if you don't want to. In Eve I can run you off and make it impossible for you to come back. I can literally eject you from a system and camp the gate so you can never come back.
Guild Wars has many interesting interactions in its skill system, but the most important aspect of this system is that everything in it is meant to work no matter what the situation and is therefore whole in regards to PvP. A game like WoW, since its an EQ-clone, revolves around a concept that can never work in PvP; aggro management. In Guild Wars all the methods designed to keep an aggor thing away from someone work no matter that thing is controlled by whether its a player or a mob.
All of the skill based interactions in Guild War have been designed to be a whole system that maintains its integrity. Eve does the same thing on a larger scale that also involves economics and travel etc. Everything has its purpose and reason and function in the overall world.
So I have mentioend Guild Wars a lot here even though its not a simulation game. But GW does not try to put all those things together in a seemless world. It separates things sepcifically because they do not want to create a simulation game, but are too good of designers to deviate greatly from the spirit of the idea.
If the GW designers did try to make a world that all that stuff together in one place it would naturally become a game like Eve (hopefully with better gameplay) because the design philosophy that is shown in there skill system will naturally lead you down that path.
Any game that tries to do them all together will either be a simulation game like Eve and Pre-CU swg or will be stilted and flawed like EQ clones. A simple and obvious example of this is travel times in EQ1, because the game was always a very bad simulation they had to successively reduce travel times. Their design simply made excessive travel times a burden with no purpose other than immersion. Whereas in Eve their travel times serve a very real purpose and fit into the design, It can take two hours to go across the Eve-verse, but you never have to. EQ-clones eventually force you to go to very particular static locations in the world they simply can't enforce realistic travel times. But of course that also means you can never have trade routes since you have invalidated travel.
The EQ designers never understood this. Most EQ players who yearn for "immersion" (you can see them in the Vanguard crowd) do not understand this. The only reason people can run trade routes in Eve is because of travel times and localized markets. You can run a trade route in Eve in about an hour or so and buy low and sell high and make a profit, like a real world merchant. If you added in teleports so that people can run Molten Core whenever they need to, you would completely destroy trade route running. You would also completely alter the strategic map of the entire Eve-verse. But if Eve were designed around running the same instance in the same place over and over and farming materials over and over, they have to eventually add in teleportation.
This sort of thinking is the major flaw in most MMORPGs. It is the failure to understand interactions like these and the consequences that ensue from them. It is why CCP is great design house. They state flat out in many places that travel times are cornerstone of Eve. I hate long travel times in EQ-clones, but that is because they are worthless they are an undue burden placed on me to make people feel warm and fuzzy. In Eve they serve a purpose, they are actually of the world, they are in fact part of the bedrock of Eve.
This is the fundamental difference in design between a game like Eve and a game like WoW. This small subtly and the HUGE consequence changing it entails.
If you gave everyone the ability to teleport anywhere in the game every 3 minutes. How would that change WoW? Not that much.
If you did the same in Eve, how would that change Eve? It would completely and utterly change the game to such a degree it would no longer be Eve.
One "feature". One small consideration. One thing a small group of immersion obsessives consistently advocate for in EQ-clones simply because of immersion but nothing else really. Why do they advocate so much? Because on some level they really want a game like Eve but set in the EQ world with different gameplay. They have an inkling of what this stuff really means. Of its true significance.
But for the EQ designers travel time was only about making the world "feel" like a world. They had no real idea what they were doing. They still don't understand what they are doing as shown by Vanguard. They just through vague ideas at the wall to accomplish some feel. They have no idea or consideration of the function and interaction of their games.
And the same thing happens with PvP its just over 10 other mechanics.
Basically like math you can prove something multiple ways but they all end up proving the same thing. EQ design is the like the blind men trying to figure out what an elephant is, each think its a different animal and wind up making some barely functional chimera whose purpose none of them even know because it is serving multiple masters some of whom have contradictory aims. Eve and Guild Wars design, they said "Hey we want make an elephant what do we need and how does it go together?"
It's great that girls, ladies, women, what have you are starting to enjoy this 10+ year old fascination of men. It's even more exciting to see them intrigued by the PvP aspects and not just the PvE. As for the OP's original statement / question, there are games with this sort of gameplay mentality that you speak of. I never really played Ultima Online, nor will I, but it sounds pretty close to what you want. There are also FPS MMO's that resemble your PvP desires as well, such as Planetside and World War 2 Online. I think your problem is your actually playing PvE centric games that offer PvP, such as EQ2 and WoW. Granted WoW was suppose to be more PvP centric, it failed. So, you want a PvP game that provides mystery to combat as well ongoing wars, there are a few titles that meet this standard. Eve Online and Dark Age of Camelot and the soon to be released this decade Warhammer Online. Hang in there, give one of the above game's trial version a shot and maybe you'll find one that interests you. That's the great thing about MMO's as of late is the trial versions so people can test drive for free. Good Luck
I do not buy the idea that WoW was meant to be more PvP centric. I think that they thought they could just shove in some PvP and capitalize on it like they did with StarCraft, but never fully thought it through.
They always intended to make a copy of EQ and DAOC. The PvE design of those games inhibits many aspects of good PvP.
I don't think Blizzard ever made any serious effort to offer good PvP. They did what most of these games do. Smash PvP on top of a poorly designed PvE system and then advertise it as "PvP" even though they have neutered half the things that make going against a person fun.
I think are right about PvE centric games that offer PvP, but I don't think WoW failed. You need to try to fail and they never tried they just marketed.
And that is the problem with most of these games they are marketing and as part of that marketing they cannot and will not discuss or deal with the fundamental flaws they have. You mention DAOC as a one with good PvP. Yet the raiding expansion with its Mudflation did alot to ruin that PvP and seriously piss off many players all because they wanted some of the EQ PvE action and tried to jam the two together with no real regard for the overall design or purpose.
Most MMO half-ass the PvP and fill in the flaws with marketing or excuses (if there is a difference between the two). They are almost never honest about the shortcomings and even go so far as to try to combine things they know aren't compatible like mudflation based raiding to see just how much of a crap system the players will bear.
Even for a game like DAOC, which was made with realm warfare in mind. It still clung to the EQ/DIKU MUD style PvE mechanics and just jammed them into RvR.
Now that is fine, it takes considerable effort to design a new system from the ground up. But the fact is the system they used has many many flaws and limitations when it comes to PvP. But they refuse to say so. According to Mythic or Blizzard their systems can do anything they want and satify every PvP need. BS that is flat out false. Mythic deserves credit for adding some decent PvP ideas onto a family of game systems (EQ clones).
But the fact remains that in DAOC once you see a guy in action, barring a re-roll, you know what he's got and what he will do (for the most part) from then on. This is a fundamental limitation of all EQ-clones. And its not the only one.
Frankly between lies by omission from developers and the my team versus your team mentality of MMORPG players and the silly FFA e-peen wavers the discussion of PvP for MMOs never makes much progress.
Can most people even list a set of very general features for PvP and their Pros and Cons? No, its just FFA rulez you wusses! And respecs suck! Or RvR is for people who can't handle the complexity of Eve. Or Eve is for masochists! Or full loot so I can pwnz joo!
The fact is each of the features has pros and cons. Or at the least a PvE reason for why its in PvP. Al you seem to get fanbois who focus on the Pros or haters who focus on the Cons. Without a good weighing of each. This is important because some Pros/Cons are fundamental to good PvP. An issue like Full Loot, is conditional. It can be good, it can be very bad. In some cases it is a necessary part of the design, such as Eve since its resource based.
The fact is all EQ clones, like DAOC, have very static PvP. They have various Pros as well. But the question is do those Pros make up for the unvarying and predictable PvP? And the answer is no, because static PvP always becomes boring. The whole point of playing against humans is because they are dynamic. It may be the case that RPG-wise some people dislike the mechanics, such as respecs or free form ability choice, that can lead to more dynamic play.
But that is not what is important. What is important is the lack of this feature. At some point it must be acknowledged it is a fundamentally important aspect of PvP play.
All you here is the marketing about all the Pros of these various games, but they lie by omission and refuse to confront the issue of static gameplay because they cannot change that. In the case of DAOC they added on another layer dynamic play with RvR and it has served to make DAOC feel better than a game like WoW or EQ2. In EQ1 PvP it was the FFA cut throat nature of Rallos Zek that added in the element of dynamic play and danger.
I guess what I am saying is that people are letting the Devs off the hook and alot of times its because they do not identify this problem and even make PvE excuses for why it can't exist. Stop doing that and demand a solution that results in dynamic gameplay and non-predictability. Because predicatable PvP, known quantities are boring. Knowing your stats down to a T is fine, but knowing your opponents down to a T and knowning that they will always be the same undermines one of the bedrock aspects of PvP.
Someone like the OP understands this problem from past experience due to good fighting games like MK, Street fighter, Tekken etc. And these games are based on real world fighting. They proposed a solution, that is not great in my opinion, but which identifies an extremely important core problem with MMORPGs today. Its a fundamental part of all "PvP".
And that is that you don't know what a desparate human will pull out of its ass and you don't know when they will do it. The less options you give them, the more you tie them down, the more static you make things; the more you make them predicatable and less human, the less it is actually PvP. The more the player is just some faceless Hemo rogue or Fury Warrior or whatever.
Whereas in those old fighting games we could both be playing Eddie from Tekken or Ken from street fight or Raiden from MK. And you know they have certain moves to watch for and you know they have jabs and crosses and kicks, but you don't know what's coming when or how they will set it up or how aggressive they are etc.
These RPG games can't quite do things like the fighting games, without becoming less of an RPG, but they can keep the same idea. In the fighting games it is in the fighting itself that the player has enough freedom and variation to make things interesting even if its Ken versus Ken, between distance and reactions and different favorite moves etc. But in an MMORPG those things are abstracted out so must give people other ways to be dynamic which usually translates into different abilities. In a fighting game I can switch up my style whenever I want even with the same guy, I can play defensive or aggressive.
In an RPG the analogous thing is to take different abilities as that essentially defines your style or role.
The fact is that in most MMORPGs you only get that feeling you get from a fighting game the first few times you go against someone, then they are a known quantity it becomes formulaic and is mostly a matter of execution.
This doesn't mean DAOC has nothing of value, far from it. But it is still missing a key aspect of PvP. In the long run it is not good PvP, even if it has good parts to it. An aspect that would make the game timeless, instead of fun for a decent amount of time. DAOC PvP is fun for a decent amount of time, WoW pvp was fun for a short amount of time. But Tekken is always fun (at least for me). And that is because of this missing key aspect. The EQ-clones are static and eventually lead to the "Been there done that" feeling, even in PvP.
And until people start actually agitating for that aspect you will continue to get temporary fixes for your MMO PvP cravings and PvP that feels like its missing something even if you think its pretty good.
There are a lot of ways to achieve it, but fundamentally you need to demand a rich choice of player abilities and some way for players to switch up what they want to do such that you cannot easily predict what they will do. If you try to lock people down you will get a case of "be careful what you wish for" because in the long run it destroy a games longevity.
Whether its giving people every ability or letting them respec whenever they want or having different ships with different load outs or whatever. It may be the case that such an idea does fit in with the RPG idea slowly molding your character. It may be the case that this does not fit in well with the idea of roles for classes. But these things can be worked around, they are on a less fundamental level.
But those concerns are secondary not primary. You can't throw out dynamic play because them. For PvP dynamic play, uncertainty and flexibility, is a necessary component that players have allowed, or even forced, Devs to neglect due to concerns that are less important in PvP.
The current MMORPG market has, for the most part, borne half-assed substitutions and quick fixes instead of real dynamic play. Things like RvR and FFA, they add on layers that add something extra to those who like that sort of thing, but are not enough. They make people feel good about it for a time, but eventually even they wear thin.
And from examples like Eve we know there are ways to have dynamic play still have the "crafted" characters some people want. Just because the EQ-clone class model is borked does not mean its impossible. And yet you see people saying its one or the other then opting for the less important choice, locked down development in favor of dynamic play. Which is exactly the wrong decision, and is a false dichotomy anyway.
Classless systems eventually get classes. Trust me on this.
UO has tankmage, dexxer, stunmage, scribe, etc. Once you identify which one you are facing then your tactics become a little more specialized.
I bet you ANYTHING darkfall will have the same types of 'classes' evolve.
Classless systems also have barely any impact on balance. The game still has to be tweaked in order to keep people from all gravitating to one 'class'.
EDIT: Oh and I forgot to mention Guild Wars favors the most-skilled players more than any other online RPG out there. Pretty much any other game is going to have more random skills and more random item procs or allow players to grind items / leves for a huge advantage.
_______________________________ PM me when an MMO as good as UO was comes out.
if reflexes were for xbox games.. why would soo many players like myself want them in computer games? I have an xbox ... and i play my computer more.. I prefer pc games over my xbox tyvm .. and i like reflexes in pvp combat .. why would you possibly think that reflexes should be left out? I mean what is left without them? better pixel junk determining? plox who would want to play a game based on that? lmao. stats should play a role.. but not be all that it takes to win that would be mindless nonsense.
cause you're not good enough for xbox reflexes and you found weaker prey. Also you don't need reflexes for RTS and those are pvp.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You? if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it. Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
Originally posted by deviliscious Ok first off I am the girl who used to go down to the local pizza place and take all the deliverery drivers tips by owning them at mortal kombat( still my all time favorite game).Sadly, those days are pretty much over, sure i can play it on xbox but it will never be the same as an actual arcade machine. Anyhow my take on pvp combat, well the biggest problem i see with alot of these games is the "luck factor" verses real player ability. To me player killing should be about reflexes, game knowledge, memorization and better guessing of what your opponent will do next. The ability to control the fight and make your opponent do what you want them to do is what makes a good fighter. What I dislike about having to choose classes that all have different skills is that it takes alot of that away. As soon as you see an elf you know what their strengths and weaknesses are so it is easy to know what to do next verses figuring it out in the heat of battle. If all players in the game have all abilities on one character and can make those characters appear however they want, then you would never be able to " predetermine" what they are capable of upon sight like fighting a real opponent. If all players can train anything however they wish or everything to max, they can choose to work for it. so on one character you can have everything the game has to offer instead of having to create several characters to accomplish this. A game that allows you to do anything in actual battle in the game would make it possible to take combat to a higher level. You would never know what another player was going to do based on their appearance and you would never know what the other player was going to do in the middle of battle. Just because they maged you doesn't mean they are not going to range you then melee you. For players that fight for the challenge not for loot or fear this is what player killing is all about. Players that care nothing if they die , and do not care much for pixel items, this is what makes the game fun. The predictability in alot of games when fighting players makes you feel like you might as well be fighting an npc. If it were up to me I would take computerized luck out of it entirely and leave it up to real player skill, and have all players have the ability to do anything in battle that they choose to train all on one character. That is what player killing to me is all about.
clap, clap, well typed / spoken. This is spot on. And yeah, I remember Mortal Kombat. I purchased it for my home game system and had like the whole neighborhood over for some good times. Was a party everyday
street fighter, mortal kombat, Tekken.... Sigh, this post took me back
Unfortunately the Game Designers of today have convinced themselves we all need "Classes" and Tactical Transparency inspite of the legions of PVPers that keep telling them this scenario is *OLD*:
Mage sees Warrior Mage roots Warrior Warrior gets PWNed
Originally posted by Impyriel --To me player killing should be about reflexes, game knowledge, memorization and better guessing of what your opponent will do next. The ability to control the fight and make your opponent do what you want them to do is what makes a good fighter. --- All of this applies to games with "classes" as well. Even Mortal Kombat had "classes" so to speak. Each character had his move sets and you knew what you were going against each time someone picked their character. Like KABAL But I get your point I think, basically a sandbox mmo with heavy emphasis on pvp. Oh yea and I want a challenge, but I want the epic hammer to bludgeon you with too
this was a good point Fighting games do have "Classes" but where FPS/Fighters differ from MMO the player's playstyle counts for much.
In an FPS, a meleer doesnt have to die because we can dodge fire. In MMOs, dodge is handled by a roll of the dice which is a real killer
Spellborn, darkfall, huxley, or any game that features realtime dodging will get my attention.
if reflexes were for xbox games.. why would soo many players like myself want them in computer games? I have an xbox ... and i play my computer more.. I prefer pc games over my xbox tyvm .. and i like reflexes in pvp combat .. why would you possibly think that reflexes should be left out? I mean what is left without them? better pixel junk determining? plox who would want to play a game based on that? lmao. stats should play a role.. but not be all that it takes to win that would be mindless nonsense.
cause you're not good enough for xbox reflexes and you found weaker prey. Also you don't need reflexes for RTS and those are pvp.
Hahahah! actually my xbox sits there collecting dust because all my friends I play on it don't want me killing them anymore... they won't even play me =(. I mean every once in a while I will talk them into playing but I mean there is no point for me if I have to let them win so they will play me again. And playing xbox online... Playing 13 yr old lil boys is boring to me not challenging. I want the whole package the player interaction as well as good pvp ( which includes reflexes). And tbh I have found more challenging "prey" on my pc than on my xbox.
if reflexes were for xbox games.. why would soo many players like myself want them in computer games? I have an xbox ... and i play my computer more.. I prefer pc games over my xbox tyvm .. and i like reflexes in pvp combat .. why would you possibly think that reflexes should be left out? I mean what is left without them? better pixel junk determining? plox who would want to play a game based on that? lmao. stats should play a role.. but not be all that it takes to win that would be mindless nonsense.
cause you're not good enough for xbox reflexes and you found weaker prey. Also you don't need reflexes for RTS and those are pvp.
You need micromangement skills in RTS games like C&C3, starcraft, supreme commander, company of heroes, etc. I would say 'Micro' is just as demanding if not more so
<not sure if I misread this post>
Also I want to add most RTS have things like Range, use of cover, use of terrain, stealth, recon, knowledge of terrain, etc. These elements surely blow away MMORPG in regards to player skill. I am not sure if one would consider this more 'tactical' then player skill so I will surrender on that front
Comments
What in God's name does gender have to do with any of this?
If you want pvp where you can pick up any skill you want and play the way you want check out Fury. Its not a persistant world you can wander around in but it is fast paced and vary versitle. Other than that I guess you would need to wait like the rest of us for Darkfall.
You wouldn't even bother to read it, if it were written by a guy...
Of course! How foolish of me.
The more you describe, the more it sounds like Pre-CU SWG.
If you never got a chance to play it, I'm sorry. In my opinion it had everything. Fairly decent pvp system and the ability to "turn off" your faction if you chose not to pvp that day.
I wouldnt look for a game like it for a very long time. Too many people got burned and no one (developers)is willing to touch another game like it because of that.
Thalos Vipav
Star Wars Galaxies: R.I.P.
You still can't run up to someone in SWG and predict what profession they are. Professions in SWG aren't tied to factions, armour, weapons (usually) or race. Someone dressed up in BH armour could be a BH, but they could also be a Medic or even an Entertainer.
There isn't the skill system in SWG anymore, so there's no mixing of professions anymore (other then Beast Master). However each profession does have Expertise to allow you to build out your profession with different abilities. Just because you come across a Medic doesn't mean they're going to be beaten the same as the last Medic.
if reflexes were for xbox games.. why would soo many players like myself want them in computer games? I have an xbox ... and i play my computer more.. I prefer pc games over my xbox tyvm .. and i like reflexes in pvp combat .. why would you possibly think that reflexes should be left out? I mean what is left without them? better pixel junk determining? plox who would want to play a game based on that? lmao. stats should play a role.. but not be all that it takes to win that would be mindless nonsense.
Ya SWG isn't to bad of a game, btw hey obraik how are things going over on chilistra? EH still going strong?. But as pre-cu is now long gone, and the game you are looking for seems to be the dream game, one that most gamers want but no developer seems to develop. So if you want a game that has all that stuff i am sorry to say their isn't one.
Try DAoC on the Classic server clusters. Melee combat is done with combat styles which can be catagorised as:
- Anytime, a style that can be performed well anytime
- Positional, you have to be either in front, behind or to the side of the opponent to perform the style
- Reactionary, you need to either evade, parry or block to perform the style
- Follow up, can be the 2nd / 3rd / 4th style in a chain that comes after an anytime / positional / reactionary.
None of this timer based (insert WoW clone here) BS, you actually need some skill to play the melee toons to their full potential.
While I totally agree with the Op i fail to see what relevance her being a girl has? It might get more viewers i guess...
But yeah, unpredictability rocks, sadly it requires a system without predefined classes. Which is almost impossible to balance, just look at those that tried and how the masses treated them. Seems people prefer predictability *shrug*
The predictability factor and the wanting of items to greatly affect who wins a fight and the " luck factor" are guys ideas not girls.. The males I have spoke with support the items and the luck system while as the female I have spoke with think it should have more value placd on real ability. That is why it is titled" a girls perspective. Tbh, I would have no idea that would affect whether or not someone actually reads what i have to say and would hope that would not be the deciding factor as to whether or not to read my post. I want people who actually care about pvp combat in the games to read it regardless of gender. ty
To echo the sentiments of several above posters.
Male of female, give me a fight against a good opponant.
I know back in DAOC I had my butt kicked from emain to Midgard many a time by girls
..and I came back for more
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
While I do agree its best to have skillbased PvP I dont agree with the idea its a girl's perspective...I am pretty bad at PvP myself ) And yes, I get frustrated ALOT by it) and whenever I had seen girls play in PvP they mostly dont do that well compared
to the men. Ofcourse there are lenghtly exceptions, very lousy at PvP males and great at PvP females...I just get that impression
Actually, most of the girls I have met that PVP are far more calculated and ruthless about it.
Thalos Vipav
Star Wars Galaxies: R.I.P.
You have no idea if a ranger is specced for archery, trapping, or hand to hand until you see them do it.
It is isn't the case however that a ranger can be all three at once like you ask for. And I beleive they put in limits for armor switching to once per match, although weapon switching is unlimited.
It becomes fairly important in high end GvG to be able to quickly figure out or at least guess what the various builds so that you have some idea of the overall team strategy. The Guild Wars realized fairly early that this is an important aspects of PvP.
Static build games like WoW, or most any other MMO, have essentially taken out the strategy portion of teams. When you compare a WoW arena match to a Guild Wars GvG match. There is no speculation in the WoW arena match, there no OMG what is Team X gonna pull out this time. When ArenaNet first put out observer mode (let's you spectate GvG matches) I remember watching one of the top 10 teams doing a match running some kind of balanced pressure/spike build with rangers, warriors, monks and a mesmer. The very next match I watched they came out with every single one of the a Warrior/Monk and owned like 3 low ranked teams using PallyWay. They did it fun because the ladder had been suspended for a couple days.
In GuildWars you could go against a team known for running spike builds all the time and they could easily just pop in and start running a Necromancer Minion factory before you even realized they pulled a fast one on you. In WoW, and many other MMOs but WoW has a competitive arena, its pretty much Ho Hum because even if the players wanted to mix it up they can't do it other than a respec. And the respecs in WoW are nothing compared to a respec in Guild Wars. And a GW resepc can turn a Monk into someone with no heals and only nukes. Even the most DPS orietned WoW priest has some serious heals.
Not only is there no means for significant variation in WoW, but once you see a team you know it and its strategy. In Guild Wars a team can literally have any make up at any one time and the only real limit is their ability to play the builds, which is actually significant. I have seen a player who was very much feared as a mesmer and I have seen many players who get run over with the same build.
This is one of the many reasons the Guild Wars team understands PvP better than most other MMO devs. It is also something that shows why some underlying mechanics of MMORPGs can be quite hazardous to good PvP. WoW doesn't have static and predictable PvP because it has bad PvP deisgners. It has that because that is what the entier game design and balance is based around. They could relatively easily make PvP-only characters like GW did. And on the test server even essentially have done so. But then no one has PvP "progression".
And the sad fact is that many MMO PvP players will demand the progression even if it makes the PvP crap.
In the end what she is saying here, although I don't fully agree with the implementation, is simply not arguable. Many MMO players will argue it because it interferes with other things they and they can't see a way to make work with both. But in the end the locked down nature of EQ clones makes them extremely mediocre and also quite boring. They lack spice and are completely predictable.
Sadly the people who will argue are wrong, but will never accept. The reason I know they are wrong is because I have played Eve. Even with locked down skills, the ship system and the large variation in load outs accomplishes, to a certain degee, what I sketched above for Guild Wars.
And for those who will say its because classes suck. You are wrong. Guild Wars uses classes and Eve uses skills, but they both allow for the same mechanic that gives their PvP the edge of unpredictability. Its not about skills or classes its about good and imaginative design.
Actually, most of the girls I have met that PVP are far more calculated and ruthless about it.
Well perhaps its not the same game....I am playing WoW...dont know how girls do in other games....I guess the average girl in Countertrike is better at PvP than their WoW counterparts
The main point of the OP is to find skill > class/items etc, which I think might possibly be found in The Chronicles of Spellborn. I really suggest you read up on how they manage gear and skills, it's quite similar to 2D arcade games, with combo's and tactical skills.
The classes (3) all have 3 subclasses and the races can be customized pretty darn extreme, perhaps even past the point of COH/COV, but different. You want a fat wrinkled old hag, you could probably do that, wear ragged linen cloth and still beat the crap out of the Terminator, because of tactics, skill combo's and skill deck (selected available skills).
As to females and WoW .. I've (Twink Healer Paladin (~300+ healing) )played 29BG's with a woman for a while ( Male Tauren Warrior ) and they're certainly not less agressive
(Best time I've had in the game though 
The more you describe, the more it sounds like Pre-CU SWG.
If you never got a chance to play it, I'm sorry. In my opinion it had everything. Fairly decent pvp system and the ability to "turn off" your faction if you chose not to pvp that day.
I wouldnt look for a game like it for a very long time. Too many people got burned and no one (developers)is willing to touch another game like it because of that.
Sounds much more like Eve to me. Too bad the details of Eve's gameplay are so cumbersome. The fighting gameplay is actually alright, but all the waiting in other ways is not.Anyway though. I will answer why you can't have that, well you can but its rare.
In order to have all those things TOGETHER (and I stress that word) you must have a game that is a true world simulation with somewhat real consequences.
EQ, WoW, Guild Wars, DAOC. All these games they are not simulations, not by a long shot. Pretty much only Eve and to some extent the now defunct Ryzom, have been true simulations.
The mechanics of these non-sim games make PvP either bad or inconsequential or both. Things like silly locked down classes and resurection point spawning.
But most of all they are not based on resources or control in any real way.
Now take a look at Eve. It has resources which can be gathered and are key to getting money and making the best stuff. It also has means of controling those resources and when players die they get kicked back to some other region of space. Furthermore getting back to where they died may entail 5 minutes or travel or even an hour of travel.
What does this mean? It means that in Eve you can prosecute a war. A real war, not a battle, but a war. Where you take people stuff bit by bit over a prolonger period of time until they have no more stuff.
Now lets look at WoW this is literally impossible. A real war is World of "War"craft is impossible. You could have as many brawls for bragging rights as you want. But there are no wars, nor can there be any. The game mechanics do not allow it.
Now let's look at another aspect of EQ-clones. Aggro management. This is a mechanic that is the exact opposite of a sim-game. It is anit-intelligence. It is a button that causes the AI scripting to go from effective to stupidly inefffective. In EQ-clones you do things by making the computer act even stupider than it normally would with its limited AI. In Guild War they design the game so that the players are supposed to use the abilities they are given to counter or manage the behavior and abilities of others, be they human or computer controlled.
The Guild Wars developers would be ecstatic if they could have their mob AI operate comparable to humans. The WoW devs would be crying if this were the case, because it would break their entire game. Literally break it.
This is also why the above poster mentions SWG. Because Pre-CU was very much a simulation based game. These games also tend to be sandbox-ish, but don't have to be.
Guild Wars is not a simulation game but in the realm of the player interacting with the environment they have adopted the same philosophy as a simulation game. The idea that all the bits in the game should hang together well and not be composed all sorts of stilted exceptions. If some mobs keeps killing your healer you give the warrior or ranger the ability to slow them down or blind them, you don't disable a fundamental aspect of the game by giving the mob by giving it a taunt induced lobotomy.
So why is it so important that in order to have all these things together in one seemless world that the game be a simulation style game like Eve or eve Pre-CU SWG. It comes down to consequences and interactions.
Eve has many important consequences and interactions for each thing you do. Games like WoW have very little in the way conesquences. If you go ganking in the lowbie area, what the worst that can happen? So people run you off. But even more to the point, they can NEVER run you off if you don't want to. In Eve I can run you off and make it impossible for you to come back. I can literally eject you from a system and camp the gate so you can never come back.
Guild Wars has many interesting interactions in its skill system, but the most important aspect of this system is that everything in it is meant to work no matter what the situation and is therefore whole in regards to PvP. A game like WoW, since its an EQ-clone, revolves around a concept that can never work in PvP; aggro management. In Guild Wars all the methods designed to keep an aggor thing away from someone work no matter that thing is controlled by whether its a player or a mob.
All of the skill based interactions in Guild War have been designed to be a whole system that maintains its integrity. Eve does the same thing on a larger scale that also involves economics and travel etc. Everything has its purpose and reason and function in the overall world.
So I have mentioend Guild Wars a lot here even though its not a simulation game. But GW does not try to put all those things together in a seemless world. It separates things sepcifically because they do not want to create a simulation game, but are too good of designers to deviate greatly from the spirit of the idea.
If the GW designers did try to make a world that all that stuff together in one place it would naturally become a game like Eve (hopefully with better gameplay) because the design philosophy that is shown in there skill system will naturally lead you down that path.
Any game that tries to do them all together will either be a simulation game like Eve and Pre-CU swg or will be stilted and flawed like EQ clones. A simple and obvious example of this is travel times in EQ1, because the game was always a very bad simulation they had to successively reduce travel times. Their design simply made excessive travel times a burden with no purpose other than immersion. Whereas in Eve their travel times serve a very real purpose and fit into the design, It can take two hours to go across the Eve-verse, but you never have to. EQ-clones eventually force you to go to very particular static locations in the world they simply can't enforce realistic travel times. But of course that also means you can never have trade routes since you have invalidated travel.
The EQ designers never understood this. Most EQ players who yearn for "immersion" (you can see them in the Vanguard crowd) do not understand this. The only reason people can run trade routes in Eve is because of travel times and localized markets. You can run a trade route in Eve in about an hour or so and buy low and sell high and make a profit, like a real world merchant. If you added in teleports so that people can run Molten Core whenever they need to, you would completely destroy trade route running. You would also completely alter the strategic map of the entire Eve-verse. But if Eve were designed around running the same instance in the same place over and over and farming materials over and over, they have to eventually add in teleportation.
This sort of thinking is the major flaw in most MMORPGs. It is the failure to understand interactions like these and the consequences that ensue from them. It is why CCP is great design house. They state flat out in many places that travel times are cornerstone of Eve. I hate long travel times in EQ-clones, but that is because they are worthless they are an undue burden placed on me to make people feel warm and fuzzy. In Eve they serve a purpose, they are actually of the world, they are in fact part of the bedrock of Eve.
This is the fundamental difference in design between a game like Eve and a game like WoW. This small subtly and the HUGE consequence changing it entails.
If you gave everyone the ability to teleport anywhere in the game every 3 minutes. How would that change WoW? Not that much.
If you did the same in Eve, how would that change Eve? It would completely and utterly change the game to such a degree it would no longer be Eve.
One "feature". One small consideration. One thing a small group of immersion obsessives consistently advocate for in EQ-clones simply because of immersion but nothing else really. Why do they advocate so much? Because on some level they really want a game like Eve but set in the EQ world with different gameplay. They have an inkling of what this stuff really means. Of its true significance.
But for the EQ designers travel time was only about making the world "feel" like a world. They had no real idea what they were doing. They still don't understand what they are doing as shown by Vanguard. They just through vague ideas at the wall to accomplish some feel. They have no idea or consideration of the function and interaction of their games.
And the same thing happens with PvP its just over 10 other mechanics.
Basically like math you can prove something multiple ways but they all end up proving the same thing. EQ design is the like the blind men trying to figure out what an elephant is, each think its a different animal and wind up making some barely functional chimera whose purpose none of them even know because it is serving multiple masters some of whom have contradictory aims. Eve and Guild Wars design, they said "Hey we want make an elephant what do we need and how does it go together?"
They always intended to make a copy of EQ and DAOC. The PvE design of those games inhibits many aspects of good PvP.
I don't think Blizzard ever made any serious effort to offer good PvP. They did what most of these games do. Smash PvP on top of a poorly designed PvE system and then advertise it as "PvP" even though they have neutered half the things that make going against a person fun.
I think are right about PvE centric games that offer PvP, but I don't think WoW failed. You need to try to fail and they never tried they just marketed.
And that is the problem with most of these games they are marketing and as part of that marketing they cannot and will not discuss or deal with the fundamental flaws they have. You mention DAOC as a one with good PvP. Yet the raiding expansion with its Mudflation did alot to ruin that PvP and seriously piss off many players all because they wanted some of the EQ PvE action and tried to jam the two together with no real regard for the overall design or purpose.
Most MMO half-ass the PvP and fill in the flaws with marketing or excuses (if there is a difference between the two). They are almost never honest about the shortcomings and even go so far as to try to combine things they know aren't compatible like mudflation based raiding to see just how much of a crap system the players will bear.
Even for a game like DAOC, which was made with realm warfare in mind. It still clung to the EQ/DIKU MUD style PvE mechanics and just jammed them into RvR.
Now that is fine, it takes considerable effort to design a new system from the ground up. But the fact is the system they used has many many flaws and limitations when it comes to PvP. But they refuse to say so. According to Mythic or Blizzard their systems can do anything they want and satify every PvP need. BS that is flat out false. Mythic deserves credit for adding some decent PvP ideas onto a family of game systems (EQ clones).
But the fact remains that in DAOC once you see a guy in action, barring a re-roll, you know what he's got and what he will do (for the most part) from then on. This is a fundamental limitation of all EQ-clones. And its not the only one.
Frankly between lies by omission from developers and the my team versus your team mentality of MMORPG players and the silly FFA e-peen wavers the discussion of PvP for MMOs never makes much progress.
Can most people even list a set of very general features for PvP and their Pros and Cons? No, its just FFA rulez you wusses! And respecs suck! Or RvR is for people who can't handle the complexity of Eve. Or Eve is for masochists! Or full loot so I can pwnz joo!
The fact is each of the features has pros and cons. Or at the least a PvE reason for why its in PvP. Al you seem to get fanbois who focus on the Pros or haters who focus on the Cons. Without a good weighing of each. This is important because some Pros/Cons are fundamental to good PvP. An issue like Full Loot, is conditional. It can be good, it can be very bad. In some cases it is a necessary part of the design, such as Eve since its resource based.
The fact is all EQ clones, like DAOC, have very static PvP. They have various Pros as well. But the question is do those Pros make up for the unvarying and predictable PvP? And the answer is no, because static PvP always becomes boring. The whole point of playing against humans is because they are dynamic. It may be the case that RPG-wise some people dislike the mechanics, such as respecs or free form ability choice, that can lead to more dynamic play.
But that is not what is important. What is important is the lack of this feature. At some point it must be acknowledged it is a fundamentally important aspect of PvP play.
All you here is the marketing about all the Pros of these various games, but they lie by omission and refuse to confront the issue of static gameplay because they cannot change that. In the case of DAOC they added on another layer dynamic play with RvR and it has served to make DAOC feel better than a game like WoW or EQ2. In EQ1 PvP it was the FFA cut throat nature of Rallos Zek that added in the element of dynamic play and danger.
I guess what I am saying is that people are letting the Devs off the hook and alot of times its because they do not identify this problem and even make PvE excuses for why it can't exist. Stop doing that and demand a solution that results in dynamic gameplay and non-predictability. Because predicatable PvP, known quantities are boring. Knowing your stats down to a T is fine, but knowing your opponents down to a T and knowning that they will always be the same undermines one of the bedrock aspects of PvP.
Someone like the OP understands this problem from past experience due to good fighting games like MK, Street fighter, Tekken etc. And these games are based on real world fighting. They proposed a solution, that is not great in my opinion, but which identifies an extremely important core problem with MMORPGs today. Its a fundamental part of all "PvP".
And that is that you don't know what a desparate human will pull out of its ass and you don't know when they will do it. The less options you give them, the more you tie them down, the more static you make things; the more you make them predicatable and less human, the less it is actually PvP. The more the player is just some faceless Hemo rogue or Fury Warrior or whatever.
Whereas in those old fighting games we could both be playing Eddie from Tekken or Ken from street fight or Raiden from MK. And you know they have certain moves to watch for and you know they have jabs and crosses and kicks, but you don't know what's coming when or how they will set it up or how aggressive they are etc.
These RPG games can't quite do things like the fighting games, without becoming less of an RPG, but they can keep the same idea. In the fighting games it is in the fighting itself that the player has enough freedom and variation to make things interesting even if its Ken versus Ken, between distance and reactions and different favorite moves etc. But in an MMORPG those things are abstracted out so must give people other ways to be dynamic which usually translates into different abilities. In a fighting game I can switch up my style whenever I want even with the same guy, I can play defensive or aggressive.
In an RPG the analogous thing is to take different abilities as that essentially defines your style or role.
The fact is that in most MMORPGs you only get that feeling you get from a fighting game the first few times you go against someone, then they are a known quantity it becomes formulaic and is mostly a matter of execution.
This doesn't mean DAOC has nothing of value, far from it. But it is still missing a key aspect of PvP. In the long run it is not good PvP, even if it has good parts to it. An aspect that would make the game timeless, instead of fun for a decent amount of time. DAOC PvP is fun for a decent amount of time, WoW pvp was fun for a short amount of time. But Tekken is always fun (at least for me). And that is because of this missing key aspect. The EQ-clones are static and eventually lead to the "Been there done that" feeling, even in PvP.
And until people start actually agitating for that aspect you will continue to get temporary fixes for your MMO PvP cravings and PvP that feels like its missing something even if you think its pretty good.
There are a lot of ways to achieve it, but fundamentally you need to demand a rich choice of player abilities and some way for players to switch up what they want to do such that you cannot easily predict what they will do. If you try to lock people down you will get a case of "be careful what you wish for" because in the long run it destroy a games longevity.
Whether its giving people every ability or letting them respec whenever they want or having different ships with different load outs or whatever. It may be the case that such an idea does fit in with the RPG idea slowly molding your character. It may be the case that this does not fit in well with the idea of roles for classes. But these things can be worked around, they are on a less fundamental level.
But those concerns are secondary not primary. You can't throw out dynamic play because them. For PvP dynamic play, uncertainty and flexibility, is a necessary component that players have allowed, or even forced, Devs to neglect due to concerns that are less important in PvP.
The current MMORPG market has, for the most part, borne half-assed substitutions and quick fixes instead of real dynamic play. Things like RvR and FFA, they add on layers that add something extra to those who like that sort of thing, but are not enough. They make people feel good about it for a time, but eventually even they wear thin.
And from examples like Eve we know there are ways to have dynamic play still have the "crafted" characters some people want. Just because the EQ-clone class model is borked does not mean its impossible. And yet you see people saying its one or the other then opting for the less important choice, locked down development in favor of dynamic play. Which is exactly the wrong decision, and is a false dichotomy anyway.
Classless systems eventually get classes. Trust me on this.
UO has tankmage, dexxer, stunmage, scribe, etc. Once you identify which one you are facing then your tactics become a little more specialized.
I bet you ANYTHING darkfall will have the same types of 'classes' evolve.
Classless systems also have barely any impact on balance. The game still has to be tweaked in order to keep people from all gravitating to one 'class'.
EDIT: Oh and I forgot to mention Guild Wars favors the most-skilled players more than any other online RPG out there. Pretty much any other game is going to have more random skills and more random item procs or allow players to grind items / leves for a huge advantage.
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PM me when an MMO as good as UO was comes out.
cause you're not good enough for xbox reflexes and you found weaker prey. Also you don't need reflexes for RTS and those are pvp.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it.
Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro
if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
clap, clap, well typed / spoken. This is spot on. And yeah, I remember Mortal Kombat. I purchased it for my home game system and had like the whole neighborhood over for some good times. Was a party everyday
street fighter, mortal kombat, Tekken.... Sigh, this post took me back
Unfortunately the Game Designers of today have convinced themselves we all need "Classes" and Tactical Transparency inspite of the legions of PVPers that keep telling them this scenario is *OLD*:
Mage sees Warrior
Mage roots Warrior
Warrior gets PWNed
this was a good point Fighting games do have "Classes" but where FPS/Fighters differ from MMO the player's playstyle counts for much.
In an FPS, a meleer doesnt have to die because we can dodge fire. In MMOs, dodge is handled by a roll of the dice which is a real killer
Spellborn, darkfall, huxley, or any game that features realtime dodging will get my attention.
cause you're not good enough for xbox reflexes and you found weaker prey. Also you don't need reflexes for RTS and those are pvp.
Hahahah! actually my xbox sits there collecting dust because all my friends I play on it don't want me killing them anymore... they won't even play me =(. I mean every once in a while I will talk them into playing but I mean there is no point for me if I have to let them win so they will play me again. And playing xbox online... Playing 13 yr old lil boys is boring to me not challenging. I want the whole package the player interaction as well as good pvp ( which includes reflexes). And tbh I have found more challenging "prey" on my pc than on my xbox.
You need micromangement skills in RTS games like C&C3, starcraft, supreme commander, company of heroes, etc. I would say 'Micro' is just as demanding if not more so
<not sure if I misread this post>
Also I want to add most RTS have things like Range, use of cover, use of terrain, stealth, recon, knowledge of terrain, etc. These elements surely blow away MMORPG in regards to player skill. I am not sure if one would consider this more 'tactical' then player skill so I will surrender on that front