Well my first real experience with mmo pvp was in wow and it was bad, even to this day a fight between roughly equal level people is bloody rare, or if you find one you can bet your a.. that a lvl 80 will come running, wow today is all about being lvl 80 and while my highest char is a 73 hunter he does not really have much more chance on a lvl 80 now then he did at 60 or 50, sure i might survive a little bit longer but not by much, i'm sure someone will say l2p but not much to learn when a lvl 80 can take out half my hp in 1 hit.
Blizzard sure changed the scaling of for example spells, my warlock that made made it to 72 a while ago got a new shadow dmg absorb for instance, the old one absorbed like 800 dmg, the new one absorbs 2750(prior to 70 the upgrades added a few hundred to the absorb), if i end up in a fight with a lvl 80 priest i can be happy if i manage to get by his absorb shield before i'm dead, sure my warlock have no pvp gear and only 26 resilience but still have close to 15k hp, even when i was buffed to just over 19k a lvl 80 pally took me out in like 6 seconds, and i only lasted that long cause i tried to get out of his sight.
If you then look at the Age of conan and fury(pvp server) it is almost silly with the ganking, the underhalls which has a fair amount of quests is unplayable more or less, being around lvl 16 and crushed over and over by a group of lvl 20+ gets old fast, it's a bit like gate camping in eve online, you are dead before you have finished loading and in aoc you can't put a bounty on someone like you can in eve (if i recall that correctly).
I really hate being ganked by lvl 80's in wow but then when there are major fights in places like ironforge/stormwind i'm there fighting and dying a lot but that is fun and i got town defender achievement on a few of my chars, only wish healing gave some honor to, spending 1 hour in if healing and no honor to show for it is bit boring.
Don't know much about the pvp in eve online but there you can at least at times bargain your way out of being killed, no such thing in games like wow since the horde does not understand what you say anyway
WoW is all about character level. There is almost no chance for lower level to beat a higher level.
EVE Online is really just "excel online". People calculate DPS, DPS repaired and HP buffer by any given setup and shiptype. And due to max. death penalty (losing ship and equipment), many people chose the "quantity over quality" approach and zerg any hostile to oblivion; safety in numbers. Which makes EVE Online a game about numbers rather than skill.
So for 1vs1 one could fitt 400 DPS, 600 DPS tank and 14000 HP, but you are better off with 1200 DPS, 0 DPS tank and 40000 HP. Of course there is misc. utility abilities one can use to reduce damage, similar to fear, curse etc. etc. in WoW so one could win given how clever your setup is. But add *10 more people to the equation and the gank group >> tank group by far, no matter the utility abilities.
Darkfall, never tried it.
DOAC, never tried it.
UO, never tried it but I wish I had.
Lineage II is like WoW but with harsher death penalties
If done right PVP can be enjoyable experience. But alas in the real world we have pvp gankers, pvp griefers and other players who pvp to make other folks quit playing games. We have pvp guilds whose only purpose is to own the server they are playing on and prevent others from partaking of the experience.
Since we are so hot about pvping and even lawyers and criminal analysts and courts are taking a closer look at this as well. I recently heard of a study that showed proof that pvpers who gank, grief, who are hard core pvpers are 90% more likely to commit violent crimes including up to murder and terrorism.
The negative aspect of the pvping is more then the positive aspect of it. PVPIng brings out the worse in players and those who thinks otherwise are morons and fools and have no real understand of human nature.
For example why do you think the PVP servers on World Of Warcraft are so low in population compared to the PVE servers?
EVE has open PVP and yet they have a problem with cheaters, gankers, exploiters, terrorism and so forth.
Warhammer Online also has this problem as well with its RVR aspect. Hard core pvpers, griefers, gankers, accusations of cheating and explotiation on both sides. (I cancelled my account on WAR over this very issue).
Any MMO that has pvp is going to have these sort of problems in either the short term or long term. They going to have to deal with the griefers, gankers, cheaters, exploiters and other rifraf that comes down the pike. Some of us who are called carebears are actually the honest pvpers who do not grief, gank or other dishonest activities and we are in the minority.
As long as there are pvp type games, there will be griefers, gankers, hard core no life morons who play online 14+ hours a day and think they can be dishonest because they can get with it and yes they do get away with it because MMO companies prefer these type of pvpers since they bring in the most money while the rest of us quit paying them by cancelling accounts.
I like PvP. I despise PK's. I have played almost every game out there for the past 9-10 years and do not consider myself a "carebear." That said, I have to take exception with those who say that EVE is the ultimate PvP game. Four years ago, EVE was an exciting game. Today's EVE seems to have attracted every one of that 4% of the population that falls into the definition of sociopath and the game's developers have encouraged them in every way they can find. So IMO EVE is no longer a good PvP example or even a good game. These are the people who for some reason want to drive all of the other players out of "their" game by using every ugly griefing tactic they can think of. They're sick and it's honestly not fun for the rest of us to be around them. Their warped views pour out of them like filth from a sewer as they spew their hatred into the chat channels or the forums. They call themselves PvP'ers, but they're not. PvP'ers enjoy the excitement of a good fight, PK's are cowards who only fight when they are sure of winning. In a game like EVE where the penalty for dying is so extreme, it has taken the fun out of the game for many people.
The best part of any PvP game is the tension of knowing you can be killed at any time - it keeps you alert, makes your heart pound, etc. But to be killed when you're defenseless by someone who is manipulating the game mechanics in way not intended by the developers is not fun. I think that once CCP made the decision to sell ISK via the GTC or PLEX mechanics, the atmosphere of the game changed completely. The gankers can afford to pay their RL money to exchange for ISK and they no longer seem to worry about the loss of their ships or equipment (as seen by the huge increase in the so-called suicide gank squads in high security areas) as it means nothing to them. The playing field is unbalanced, those of us who work for our ISK become angry over the huge losses we take just so some sociopath can laugh at you in local or send you insulting Evemail.
Until game developers get it through their heads that the vast majority of the people who pay for their games are not griefers and play to have fun, I think we can expect to see more of this unsatisfying version of PvP play. UO at one time did it right - the cost of death was never so extreme that you were virtually destroyed by a single encounter, thus people could enjoy the fights. I believe that most people would find that PvP is much more fun than PvE is, if they weren't so terrified of losing everything in a single death. Warhammer looked like it was going to be the perfect PvP game until it was released, although I suppose it did introduce a lot of people to PvP in a totally non-threatening way, which is a good thing. Capture the flag encounters, however, are just boring after a very short while and War had no longer term encouragement for PvP. Other than the griefers, I believe that most people like having an objective to fight for - glory for themselves or their realms, personal gain, whatever. Just to go out and kill other people for no reason other than because you can never feels very satisfying. Most of us want a challenge, win or lose, it's trying to outsmart the other player that makes each encounter worthwhile.
There needs to be a balance somewhere in these games. Criminal behavior that hurts - really hurts - other people needs to be punished in virtual worlds as it would be in the real world. It's the total lack of consequences for anything they do that is encouraging this trend towards vicious anti-social behavior. I can't believe that the person who repeatedly "ganks" the totally defenseless target while laughing at and insulting them would be an otherwise decent person in real life. Anyone who would chose to role-play a rapist has serious personality issues; this is no different. Games really need to differentiate between the PvP'er and the PK and program accordingly.
There are problems with FFA PvP of course. From a company standpoint, if your newbie player keeps getting one-shotted by the Big Bad Ganker, he'll get frustrated and quit. Telling all his friends that the game sucks in the process. So as a company, you run the risk of losing subscribers.
FFA PvP also fosters bullying, unless there is some kind of penalty in place. I find it rather amusing that some people who defend FFA PvP as being "better" also loudly decry any type of ganking penalities. This basically tells me that their idea of "fun" is taking their max level toon and repeatedly killing players that can't defend themselves. Where's the fun (or challenge) in that?
DAoC had the best pvp system I've played. If I didn't want to pvp, I stay out of the frontier. When I decide I do, once in the frontier it's Them Against Us. Taking keeps affected the game world, especially if you snagged a relic.
Simple fact is, FFA PvP is a very small market that caters to only a small percentage of players. In EQ1 they had 3 total pvp servers, and they were the 1st to be merged. DAoC had 2 pvp servers, they were soon merged as well. There are more PvE servers in WoW than there are PvP servers. In CoX the content asked for the most is Co-op NOT PvP. The list goes on.
Most important thing about PvP is definitely the goal, if nothing changes then PvP feels hollow and wasted. The example of Tarren Mill is an example of wasted PvP where almost nothing is achieved.
I would have to argue that getting material rewards for PvP makes me feel hollow and wasted. That's the thing I really love about FPS, is that you are playing the game for fun, not to get some carrot-on-a-stick achievment. The people you are playing with are there to have fun and get better at the game, not to compete with you for gear drops.
Sure, FPS have goals. First to kill 20 wins, CTF, Point Capture. They are team oriented goals that don't change anything in the game itself, because it's just for fun. Tarren Mill was great fun. Its what really turned me on to the PvP in WoW in the first place. It was alot more balanced than the loot-treadmill battlegrounds and arenas which are the current focus. So you never gained territory. You never lost any either, which is a big deal considering the factions were never balanced numbers-wise.
In my opinion, PvP has to be done for the sake of PvP, otherwise the focus is lost, and the fun removed.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Definitly the best mmorpg with PvP or "Open Field PvP" would be Shadowbane by far.
PvP is fun, like in WoW that has great PvP of course, but PvP without versality to support it means nothing. For example EVE online has a ton of different ships with a ton of different modules/equipment that makes you think on how to build it. While WoW has few set's and few skill tree's basicaly making every 2nd player of the same class exacly the same, in terms of equipment and skills. Of course in that kinda fight with exacly same characters its only different in who has more luck and skill in playing that character yet still quite boring. While in Shadowbane or EVE online you may have enemy with same race/ship/class yet very very different setup, you cannot know your enemy from what you see at first glance and that makes it that much more interesting.
If im trying to find a good PvP game, i try to find many different classes/races with a ton of skills so i can build my character from scratch. After that of course somes in the accual gameplay like Runes of Magic that has extreamely boring gameplay with 0/24 kill rats quests and extreamely bad balance issues (what are the devs thinking? they ever played a game?) while having good class+skill versality with of course fine range of equipment.
Comments
Well my first real experience with mmo pvp was in wow and it was bad, even to this day a fight between roughly equal level people is bloody rare, or if you find one you can bet your a.. that a lvl 80 will come running, wow today is all about being lvl 80 and while my highest char is a 73 hunter he does not really have much more chance on a lvl 80 now then he did at 60 or 50, sure i might survive a little bit longer but not by much, i'm sure someone will say l2p but not much to learn when a lvl 80 can take out half my hp in 1 hit.
Blizzard sure changed the scaling of for example spells, my warlock that made made it to 72 a while ago got a new shadow dmg absorb for instance, the old one absorbed like 800 dmg, the new one absorbs 2750(prior to 70 the upgrades added a few hundred to the absorb), if i end up in a fight with a lvl 80 priest i can be happy if i manage to get by his absorb shield before i'm dead, sure my warlock have no pvp gear and only 26 resilience but still have close to 15k hp, even when i was buffed to just over 19k a lvl 80 pally took me out in like 6 seconds, and i only lasted that long cause i tried to get out of his sight.
If you then look at the Age of conan and fury(pvp server) it is almost silly with the ganking, the underhalls which has a fair amount of quests is unplayable more or less, being around lvl 16 and crushed over and over by a group of lvl 20+ gets old fast, it's a bit like gate camping in eve online, you are dead before you have finished loading
and in aoc you can't put a bounty on someone like you can in eve (if i recall that correctly).
I really hate being ganked by lvl 80's in wow but then when there are major fights in places like ironforge/stormwind i'm there fighting and dying a lot but that is fun and i got town defender achievement on a few of my chars, only wish healing gave some honor to, spending 1 hour in if healing and no honor to show for it is bit boring.
Don't know much about the pvp in eve online but there you can at least at times bargain your way out of being killed, no such thing in games like wow since the horde does not understand what you say anyway
WoW is all about character level. There is almost no chance for lower level to beat a higher level.
EVE Online is really just "excel online". People calculate DPS, DPS repaired and HP buffer by any given setup and shiptype. And due to max. death penalty (losing ship and equipment), many people chose the "quantity over quality" approach and zerg any hostile to oblivion; safety in numbers. Which makes EVE Online a game about numbers rather than skill.
So for 1vs1 one could fitt 400 DPS, 600 DPS tank and 14000 HP, but you are better off with 1200 DPS, 0 DPS tank and 40000 HP. Of course there is misc. utility abilities one can use to reduce damage, similar to fear, curse etc. etc. in WoW so one could win given how clever your setup is. But add *10 more people to the equation and the gank group >> tank group by far, no matter the utility abilities.
Darkfall, never tried it.
DOAC, never tried it.
UO, never tried it but I wish I had.
Lineage II is like WoW but with harsher death penalties
AOC, never tried it.
Asheron's Call, fucking sucks.
SWG, say what?!
If done right PVP can be enjoyable experience. But alas in the real world we have pvp gankers, pvp griefers and other players who pvp to make other folks quit playing games. We have pvp guilds whose only purpose is to own the server they are playing on and prevent others from partaking of the experience.
Since we are so hot about pvping and even lawyers and criminal analysts and courts are taking a closer look at this as well. I recently heard of a study that showed proof that pvpers who gank, grief, who are hard core pvpers are 90% more likely to commit violent crimes including up to murder and terrorism.
The negative aspect of the pvping is more then the positive aspect of it. PVPIng brings out the worse in players and those who thinks otherwise are morons and fools and have no real understand of human nature.
For example why do you think the PVP servers on World Of Warcraft are so low in population compared to the PVE servers?
EVE has open PVP and yet they have a problem with cheaters, gankers, exploiters, terrorism and so forth.
Warhammer Online also has this problem as well with its RVR aspect. Hard core pvpers, griefers, gankers, accusations of cheating and explotiation on both sides. (I cancelled my account on WAR over this very issue).
Any MMO that has pvp is going to have these sort of problems in either the short term or long term. They going to have to deal with the griefers, gankers, cheaters, exploiters and other rifraf that comes down the pike. Some of us who are called carebears are actually the honest pvpers who do not grief, gank or other dishonest activities and we are in the minority.
As long as there are pvp type games, there will be griefers, gankers, hard core no life morons who play online 14+ hours a day and think they can be dishonest because they can get with it and yes they do get away with it because MMO companies prefer these type of pvpers since they bring in the most money while the rest of us quit paying them by cancelling accounts.
I like PvP. I despise PK's. I have played almost every game out there for the past 9-10 years and do not consider myself a "carebear." That said, I have to take exception with those who say that EVE is the ultimate PvP game. Four years ago, EVE was an exciting game. Today's EVE seems to have attracted every one of that 4% of the population that falls into the definition of sociopath and the game's developers have encouraged them in every way they can find. So IMO EVE is no longer a good PvP example or even a good game. These are the people who for some reason want to drive all of the other players out of "their" game by using every ugly griefing tactic they can think of. They're sick and it's honestly not fun for the rest of us to be around them. Their warped views pour out of them like filth from a sewer as they spew their hatred into the chat channels or the forums. They call themselves PvP'ers, but they're not. PvP'ers enjoy the excitement of a good fight, PK's are cowards who only fight when they are sure of winning. In a game like EVE where the penalty for dying is so extreme, it has taken the fun out of the game for many people.
The best part of any PvP game is the tension of knowing you can be killed at any time - it keeps you alert, makes your heart pound, etc. But to be killed when you're defenseless by someone who is manipulating the game mechanics in way not intended by the developers is not fun. I think that once CCP made the decision to sell ISK via the GTC or PLEX mechanics, the atmosphere of the game changed completely. The gankers can afford to pay their RL money to exchange for ISK and they no longer seem to worry about the loss of their ships or equipment (as seen by the huge increase in the so-called suicide gank squads in high security areas) as it means nothing to them. The playing field is unbalanced, those of us who work for our ISK become angry over the huge losses we take just so some sociopath can laugh at you in local or send you insulting Evemail.
Until game developers get it through their heads that the vast majority of the people who pay for their games are not griefers and play to have fun, I think we can expect to see more of this unsatisfying version of PvP play. UO at one time did it right - the cost of death was never so extreme that you were virtually destroyed by a single encounter, thus people could enjoy the fights. I believe that most people would find that PvP is much more fun than PvE is, if they weren't so terrified of losing everything in a single death. Warhammer looked like it was going to be the perfect PvP game until it was released, although I suppose it did introduce a lot of people to PvP in a totally non-threatening way, which is a good thing. Capture the flag encounters, however, are just boring after a very short while and War had no longer term encouragement for PvP. Other than the griefers, I believe that most people like having an objective to fight for - glory for themselves or their realms, personal gain, whatever. Just to go out and kill other people for no reason other than because you can never feels very satisfying. Most of us want a challenge, win or lose, it's trying to outsmart the other player that makes each encounter worthwhile.
There needs to be a balance somewhere in these games. Criminal behavior that hurts - really hurts - other people needs to be punished in virtual worlds as it would be in the real world. It's the total lack of consequences for anything they do that is encouraging this trend towards vicious anti-social behavior. I can't believe that the person who repeatedly "ganks" the totally defenseless target while laughing at and insulting them would be an otherwise decent person in real life. Anyone who would chose to role-play a rapist has serious personality issues; this is no different. Games really need to differentiate between the PvP'er and the PK and program accordingly.
There are problems with FFA PvP of course. From a company standpoint, if your newbie player keeps getting one-shotted by the Big Bad Ganker, he'll get frustrated and quit. Telling all his friends that the game sucks in the process. So as a company, you run the risk of losing subscribers.
FFA PvP also fosters bullying, unless there is some kind of penalty in place. I find it rather amusing that some people who defend FFA PvP as being "better" also loudly decry any type of ganking penalities. This basically tells me that their idea of "fun" is taking their max level toon and repeatedly killing players that can't defend themselves. Where's the fun (or challenge) in that?
DAoC had the best pvp system I've played. If I didn't want to pvp, I stay out of the frontier. When I decide I do, once in the frontier it's Them Against Us. Taking keeps affected the game world, especially if you snagged a relic.
Simple fact is, FFA PvP is a very small market that caters to only a small percentage of players. In EQ1 they had 3 total pvp servers, and they were the 1st to be merged. DAoC had 2 pvp servers, they were soon merged as well. There are more PvE servers in WoW than there are PvP servers. In CoX the content asked for the most is Co-op NOT PvP. The list goes on.
I would have to argue that getting material rewards for PvP makes me feel hollow and wasted. That's the thing I really love about FPS, is that you are playing the game for fun, not to get some carrot-on-a-stick achievment. The people you are playing with are there to have fun and get better at the game, not to compete with you for gear drops.
Sure, FPS have goals. First to kill 20 wins, CTF, Point Capture. They are team oriented goals that don't change anything in the game itself, because it's just for fun. Tarren Mill was great fun. Its what really turned me on to the PvP in WoW in the first place. It was alot more balanced than the loot-treadmill battlegrounds and arenas which are the current focus. So you never gained territory. You never lost any either, which is a big deal considering the factions were never balanced numbers-wise.
In my opinion, PvP has to be done for the sake of PvP, otherwise the focus is lost, and the fun removed.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Sorry, but this is not true. The PvP servers have a larger overall population than the PvE servers in the US.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Definitly the best mmorpg with PvP or "Open Field PvP" would be Shadowbane by far.
PvP is fun, like in WoW that has great PvP of course, but PvP without versality to support it means nothing. For example EVE online has a ton of different ships with a ton of different modules/equipment that makes you think on how to build it. While WoW has few set's and few skill tree's basicaly making every 2nd player of the same class exacly the same, in terms of equipment and skills. Of course in that kinda fight with exacly same characters its only different in who has more luck and skill in playing that character yet still quite boring. While in Shadowbane or EVE online you may have enemy with same race/ship/class yet very very different setup, you cannot know your enemy from what you see at first glance and that makes it that much more interesting.
If im trying to find a good PvP game, i try to find many different classes/races with a ton of skills so i can build my character from scratch. After that of course somes in the accual gameplay like Runes of Magic that has extreamely boring gameplay with 0/24 kill rats quests and extreamely bad balance issues (what are the devs thinking? they ever played a game?) while having good class+skill versality with of course fine range of equipment.
Anyone tried the pvp in battlestations in anarchy online? haven't tried it myself but tempted to try, soloing ai missions
for victory points is slow going, but bit fun even though the aliens are insanely hard at times.