Lack of territory control - DAOC was good in this area, but I think it can be improved upon.
Lack of rewards - I think DAOC was pretty good in this regard too. You had personal progression through realm points and bonuses to your entire realm with relics.
Cross Realm - I don't want to fight against a bunch of random people. I like getting to know my realm mates, and enemies.
As a Veteran-MMO gamer (boast boast) it's very easy to say:
Repetitive maps - Auto-generated PvP-Maps, how awesome would that be? Bring it
Gear grind - no gear with stats works best, see GW2 or other PvP-Games
Rock, Paper, Scissor no doubt - pure PvP-titles dont have such a feature. Every class can beat every class. Done
Pure Healer classes - "Are you serious, Healing is fun!" No doubt, but we are here to meet ourselves at fairness when it comes to sports. So? Everyone can heal himself.
No consequences - vary Age of Conan's Crime System to add more spice!
No impact on the overall world - ArcheAge will bring a brilliant example with court and prisons
Make it not too unforgiving as AoC is. The abusive PvP in AoC scared so many players away, it's insane.
and Most important: Make it possible to beat multiple opponents at once by how well you manage to play your class. Having the feeling of being able to beat only one Player at a time feels very restricted. I know this is very hard to implement, especially when every class can beat every class. That being said, burst and clever CD-usage has to be a key factor.
Now, bring this into an MMO and you really have an outstanding Game. If you like the idea and want more detail? Feel free to contact me and offer me a well-paid job, with enough creative freedom.
We, appreciate it.
I think the OP was looking more for what has ruined an RvR type game. What you list is important if the majority of fights are going to be 1v1, so if that is what your interpretation of PvP meant, then well done.
Unfortunately, an RvR game is less interesting if the focus is on 1v1 fights, or short duration mini-games (like a CoD, or instanced PvP in some MMOs). And the vision for CU is ope- field, persistant combat. Since this board is dedicated to CU I think we can assume the OP was looking for what has killed RvR. I could be wrong though.
Point 1 would add to long term interest. Hopefully CU's inclusion of building will alter the battlefield enough to keep it different over time.
Point 2 is valid in terms of combat balance, but I can't see how being a crafter will be interesting at all if every item you can make is always the same.
Point 3 is only true where 1v1 is the norm. The whole purpose of RPS is to encourage **cough** force **cough** teamwork. If you know there is a class out there that is going to own you every time 1v1, you will be less likely to venture out without a friend of the class that can own that other class every time 1v1. RvR is about group and larger combat, so RPS is just a way to add to your choices (that matter).
Point 4 is mostly a style choice I'd say. Once you've accepted RPS, then healers become a viable option, but only if they are pure healers and no one else can heal. Healers that can dps (especially at the same time a la DoKs in WAR) are always going to be unbalanced. Unless everyone is a DoK, but how boring would that be?
Point 5 A crime system I can't comment on, as I've never played AoC, so I can not speak to the system. As far as no consequences, I think you are referring to murder vs. war-fighting given the crime angle. Sounds interesting, but it seems unnecessary unless the game is FFA PvP. For RvR, the consequences need to be realm-wide, and occur because of inaction, rather than due to an action. Standing around while your realm loses a keep (if you are a combat class) should lose a combat character something (maybe even XP).
Point 6 we agree on and in addition to what I say in point 5, one way might be when a realm loses a control point (that start out under that realm's control) would create a combat debuff that only goes away when that control point is recaptured. To keep it from overwhelming a realm, for each combat debuff, there could be a corresponding crafter time buff (nothing gets you to work hard like making something to defend your realm when an army is marching on your house). You can't increase the odds of a special or the bonuses on the items because they would outlast the debuff and then a realm will start to intentionally lose keeps to get buffed gear.
Point 7 I again have no experience with, although I agree with the general sentiment. You can't have one class or one side too powerful, or people will stop playing.
Point 8 would be tough to implement with a "balanced" classes approach, with RPS where the small group is all one class it would be easy if the soloer is the class that rocks the other. On the other hand, this would be more of a mistake on the part of the group than any skill of the soloer (aside from recognizing an opportunity). Skill in an RvR game will be largely about group tactics, at least as much as "burst and clever CD-usage."
Wow... I feel out of place here. I'm an old school PvP'er and my views seem to be completely different.
What game mechanics have ruined PvP in other MMO's?
1) The Holy Trinity - For me this has ruined PvP in more MMO's than any other mechanic is the histroy of gaming. The first issue it has caused is the whole rock, paper, scissor balancing act crap. Every class has to be weak to another class to balance things out. This creates a situation where PvP is largely decided by what class or classes you are facing rather than whom. It completely ruins 1 vs. 1 dueling, 2 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 3 matches. Its all about the classes you are facing rather than whom and their skill level. Next is the fact that the trinity drags combat out beyond what it needs to be. If you are doing 5 vs. 5 the rule is focus down the healer then engage in combat. Both sides are doing this repeatedly.
Whats the point of PvP if my class simply beats yours regardless of our skill differences or vice versa? If I or you win simply because my or your class can't compete with the other, what is the victory worth? If I or you lose simply because we didn't have a healer that match, what is the victory worth?
2) Levels - This has always been asinine to me. I would have played many games for the Open world PvP servers if levels didn't exist. Essentially you are a wipping boy until you get to cap, then you can finally be on par with others and simply wtfpwn anyone 5 or more levels below you. Thats asinine and again I must ask, what is the victory against lower level players worth?
3) Gear - This little mechanic likes to come into play after the level mechanics just to screw with you some more. Alright, finally I'm level 50! So now I'm on par and can compete with other capped level players! Wrong, because they obtained their rank 1337 PvP prestiege gear of noob slaying already and you have to go through this asinine grind to get it before you can compete. When you are decimating others simply because you have better gear, again I must ask... what is the victory worth?
4) Stealth - Don't get me wrong here, I actually like stealth. The problem I have is how its used. Thanks to the god awful existance of the holy trinity rock paper scissor crap stealth is used as a means of allowing squishy rouges to compete with their scissor, rock or paper (Which ever they are meant to counter at the time). So yeah, I have a problem with the backstab stun insta kill crap that has become of stealthed in trinity.
Thats my short list. These are the top 4 things that have ruined PvP in other MMO's for me. I could easily give you 20 more, but these are the main ones.
Sounds to me like you are focused on 1v1/dueling........my opinion rock,paper, scissor brings the most out of games.....sometimes you just need to let the enemy pass......
Wow... I feel out of place here. I'm an old school PvP'er and my views seem to be completely different.
What game mechanics have ruined PvP in other MMO's?
1) The Holy Trinity - For me this has ruined PvP in more MMO's than any other mechanic is the histroy of gaming. The first issue it has caused is the whole rock, paper, scissor balancing act crap. Every class has to be weak to another class to balance things out. This creates a situation where PvP is largely decided by what class or classes you are facing rather than whom. It completely ruins 1 vs. 1 dueling, 2 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 3 matches. Its all about the classes you are facing rather than whom and their skill level. Next is the fact that the trinity drags combat out beyond what it needs to be. If you are doing 5 vs. 5 the rule is focus down the healer then engage in combat. Both sides are doing this repeatedly.
Whats the point of PvP if my class simply beats yours regardless of our skill differences or vice versa? If I or you win simply because my or your class can't compete with the other, what is the victory worth? If I or you lose simply because we didn't have a healer that match, what is the victory worth?
2) Levels - This has always been asinine to me. I would have played many games for the Open world PvP servers if levels didn't exist. Essentially you are a wipping boy until you get to cap, then you can finally be on par with others and simply wtfpwn anyone 5 or more levels below you. Thats asinine and again I must ask, what is the victory against lower level players worth?
3) Gear - This little mechanic likes to come into play after the level mechanics just to screw with you some more. Alright, finally I'm level 50! So now I'm on par and can compete with other capped level players! Wrong, because they obtained their rank 1337 PvP prestiege gear of noob slaying already and you have to go through this asinine grind to get it before you can compete. When you are decimating others simply because you have better gear, again I must ask... what is the victory worth?
4) Stealth - Don't get me wrong here, I actually like stealth. The problem I have is how its used. Thanks to the god awful existance of the holy trinity rock paper scissor crap stealth is used as a means of allowing squishy rouges to compete with their scissor, rock or paper (Which ever they are meant to counter at the time). So yeah, I have a problem with the backstab stun insta kill crap that has become of stealthed in trinity.
Thats my short list. These are the top 4 things that have ruined PvP in other MMO's for me. I could easily give you 20 more, but these are the main ones.
Sounds to me like you are focused on 1v1/dueling........my opinion rock,paper, scissor brings the most out of games.....sometimes you just need to let the enemy pass......
Sorry, I was speaking about PvP as a whole. I mainly prefer open world PvP games and FFA PvP games. I do enjoy arena type PvP every so often but that bubble type of PvP isn't my prefered experience. Its just my opinion and we are all going to have different ones. I was just shocked that many in this thread wanted artificial advantages over others when it comes to PvP.
Originally posted by Kuppa OP why is casting while moving a problem???
Because it encourages kiting, and thus minimizes or eliminates the usefulness of non-ranged classes.
You say it like it's always the case. When well executed this is not a problem and offers skill play and more fun(to some), instead of static gameplay based on looking at your skillbar.
It is always the case. All casting while moving does is turn PvP into a festival of rabbits, as everyone is jumping all over the place casting their spells. This = silly and no fun.
If you're looking at your skill-bar... you're doing it wrong.
Lol nope it doesn't. You saying it doesn't make it a reality. You can have pvp with movement that does not eliminate the usefulness of non-ranged classes. If you play it that way doesn't mean everyone does.
The other option is like WoW, look at skill bar and wait for cooldowns. Only move when target is out of reach or to go out of reach...
What cooldowns wtf? Look at daoc, you can't cast while moving you have to stand and you don't have almost any spells on cooldown.
I don't want everyone jumping and playing like rabbits like somebody said, it's just stupid.
Steath, excessive CC, short TTD - it should be a fight not a gank or a helpless beating.
Small scale fights - IE WOW arena. The bigger the fight (that doesn't turn into a lagfest) the better.
Balance - Some classes (usually tanks) being near useless while others (usually healers) are ultra powerful. Having 5-6 healers on a 15 person team shouldn't make you unbeatable it should weaken you. A balanced team of classes should always be strongest with all class/role having a nearly equal place in that.
PVP with no point - Make winning in some way important to the side with an effect on the game world. Make it less an instant respawn slayfest and more of a strategic battle. Don't reward selfish play. Give a sense of progression and development of both your toon and your guild/team/side for our efforts.
Small scale fights - IE WOW arena. The bigger the fight (that doesn't turn into a lagfest) the better.
PVP with no point - Make winning in some way important to the side with an effect on the game world. Make it less an instant respawn slayfest and more of a strategic battle. Don't reward selfish play. Give a sense of progression and development of both your toon and your guild/team/side for our efforts.
This 2, absolutely.
Instanced pvp are the worse thing that was invented for pvp (by Blizzard). There is no point to them really besides grinding out, and because of them now every company is doing it.
Continual "updates" and additions to gear that force you to start all over with grinding/gold farming/etc. for a whole new set of gear since everyone with the hot new gear can now smush you into a grease spot, no matter what your relative skill levels are.
BLEAH. UGH. PHOOEY. :P
(It's the whole horizontal-progression-is-more-interesting thing.)
Making seperate pve and pvp gear, seperating the 2 sides, insted of making raid the best gear for both, imo if pvpers aren't willing to spent the time to raid, they don't deserve the top gear.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
We can whine and cry about game mechanics but the truth is we players mess up PvP more than anything else. Take DAoC for example. All the changes that people complain about today were changes people were practically begging for back before they happened. People wanted Emain and the Mile Gates gone and along came New Frontiers with no Emain or Mile Gates. Soon everyone was crying that NF was too spread out and they couldn't find each other to fight and they wanted Emain and the Mile Gates back. I could go on and on about the changes made to that game because of player requests, but one example will serve.
As soon as the competition starts, the whining starts. Then the devs start swinging the nerf bat and making changes and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
That's probably because the players don't take time to think about the matrix of PvP and exactly what makes something "overpowered". For example (again in DAoC. Sorry but everyone points to that game as great PvP so I'll use it.) Midgard Berserkers had a style called Doublefrost that did huge damage, but cost an extreme amount of endurance. As a result a zerker could use Doublefrost twice or maybe three times a fight before they went completely out of endurance and couldn't use styles anymore. Sure the damage was big but the enemy healers could keep up thanks to the dramatic fall off in damage after two swings. As a result most smart zerkers in Midgard didn't spam Doublefrost. Instead they saved it for killshot swings.
Then Midgard got an endurance regeneration spell (Endocrack cast on tanks by Shaman that lasted for 10 minutes) and suddenly zerkers were able to spam Doublefrost over and over and over doing huge damage with no danger of running out of endurance. Many zerkers were born and most of them used only one style, the extremely high damage Doubleforst style, since they didn't have to worry about running out of endurance. Suddenly everyone started screaming "Nerf Zerker Damage!"
But Zerker Damage wasn't the problem. The problem was Midgard combat styles like Berserker Left Axe were designed to be used without the benefit of Endurance Regeneration (Which, for those of you who remember, was to the be the special realm skill of Hibernia like Celerity was to belong only to Midgard), so they were meant to do huge frontloaded damage so Midgard groups could drop PvE monsters quickly before they had to sit down and regen endurance for the next pull.
What was "overpowered" was hooking Zerk Damage and Endurance Regeneration. However instead of addressing this point, Mythic took the easy way out, listened to the players and nerfed Zerker damage across the board, gutting the class. The better move would be to modify endurance regeneration in some way to maintain a high endurance penalty for high frontloaded damage, however listening to the Nerf cries was easier and Midgard began its days as the Hind Tit realm.
The moral of the story? Be careful what you wish for.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Originally posted by ShakyMo Tane Sorry but players didn't invent instancing, which is the greatest cause of shite pvp.
Shaky,
I accept that players didn't invent it, but player whining did. Players whining about "gettting zerged" and "getting ganked" etc caused the developers to do the easy thing and create 1) instances where the numbers are even and 2) create mirror classes across realms. Rather than analyze what caused the problems and addressing that, the developers simply attacked the symptoms of the disease because that in the end was easier (and cheaper) than addressing the root cause (the disease itself).
The disease is Power Creep. When someone can get an advantage in PvP through simply gaining items or abilities that others don't have then that is when PvP goes from Player vrs. Player to Loot Score v. Loot Score. Power creep bleeds skill out of PvP contests and turns it into the card game War. Ever play War? Skill doesn't mean anything in the card game War. All that matters is you have the highest card when you turn them over. Its the same in MMOs that blend PvE and PvP. When two characters run into each other Power Creep turns the game into who has the best loot/abilities available when the confrontation occurs.
In DAoC groups would sit around the Border Keeps waiting for their "I WIN" abilities provided by PvE items and abilities to come back up because going into a PvP fight without them was suicide. The vast majority of people in PvP in any game don't look for good fights. Instead they're looking for fights they can win, just like in Real Life. No one looks for a fight they might lose against a giant rugby player. Instead they want to pick on that kid from the debate club.
It was the same in DAoC. If people in DAoC really wanted good even fights then the most popular battle ground would have been the level 5 battleground, where people weren't even their advanced class yet and loot was extemely limited. Instead everyone put artifacts on their level 24 toons so they could pwn it up in Thidranki. The higher the levels, the more goodies from PvE were available through items and abilities and the less skill based combat got. (Please don't start in with that "pre kiting" stuff. I know there was some skill, but your group was still sitting at the boarder keep waiting for Purge to come up before you went to fight, so spare me. I know because my group was just as guilty.)
The solution to Power Creep is to keep items available in PvE equal to both sides and make PvP as skill based as possible. But even then you won't get even fights because people will 1) avoid each other to collect alleged PvP rewards as fast as possible 2) only fight when they have a clear advantage of some kind and 3) cheat using various hack programs. Just take a run through Planetside 2 if you don't believe me. People usually just avoid fighting and get Certifications by capturing enemy fascilities. If you fight you get yelled at because "there are no certs for defending." For the most part the only PvP occurs when several are running over the few on their way to the next capture point. And then you run into that Heavy Assault who is immune to damage and can fly. Meh.
So there you have it. Player whining caused instances and player behavior makes them the only viable alternative.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
There is no reason for seperate PVP and PVE gear if only one of the two activities is considered "end game". However if you want to create a game that both has a deep PVE end game progression system and a end game PVP game some form of delimiter on gear is probably the easiest way to go.
PVP players won't tollerate PVE raiders having a gear advantage over them any more than high end PVE raiders will tollerate a solo path to equivlient gear no matter how long the grind is. I have seen this argument play out time and time again in closed beta's for multiple games and it has always ended the same.
Normalization is the only other easy solution and that kind of makes gear in PVP meaninless doesn't it?
What makes a good PvP MMO for me is the risk factor when you go out into the world. If you can die 50 times in half an hour without any sort of penalty whatsoever, chances are that gameplay will quickly turn into a snooze fest.
I want my heart pounding and the adrenaline rushing when I PvP, I don't want to be falling half asleep because whatever I do or however bad I play, I know in advance I won't be losing anything.
They could gate raid content by you require some sort of gear that wards against a specific boss.
Or they could not bother with constant vertical expansion with tiered item sets and instead have a more horizontal approach where you unlock more variety of skills and utility, but not more raw power.
The hamster wheel turns me off mmos full stop, its not just a pvp issue, it also causes issues with pve, splitting up the player base, stopping your friend being able to play with you because he took a month off etc..
Comments
For me:
Instances - I hate everything about them
Lack of territory control - DAOC was good in this area, but I think it can be improved upon.
Lack of rewards - I think DAOC was pretty good in this regard too. You had personal progression through realm points and bonuses to your entire realm with relics.
Cross Realm - I don't want to fight against a bunch of random people. I like getting to know my realm mates, and enemies.
I think the OP was looking more for what has ruined an RvR type game. What you list is important if the majority of fights are going to be 1v1, so if that is what your interpretation of PvP meant, then well done.
Unfortunately, an RvR game is less interesting if the focus is on 1v1 fights, or short duration mini-games (like a CoD, or instanced PvP in some MMOs). And the vision for CU is ope- field, persistant combat. Since this board is dedicated to CU I think we can assume the OP was looking for what has killed RvR. I could be wrong though.
Point 1 would add to long term interest. Hopefully CU's inclusion of building will alter the battlefield enough to keep it different over time.
Point 2 is valid in terms of combat balance, but I can't see how being a crafter will be interesting at all if every item you can make is always the same.
Point 3 is only true where 1v1 is the norm. The whole purpose of RPS is to encourage **cough** force **cough** teamwork. If you know there is a class out there that is going to own you every time 1v1, you will be less likely to venture out without a friend of the class that can own that other class every time 1v1. RvR is about group and larger combat, so RPS is just a way to add to your choices (that matter).
Point 4 is mostly a style choice I'd say. Once you've accepted RPS, then healers become a viable option, but only if they are pure healers and no one else can heal. Healers that can dps (especially at the same time a la DoKs in WAR) are always going to be unbalanced. Unless everyone is a DoK, but how boring would that be?
Point 5 A crime system I can't comment on, as I've never played AoC, so I can not speak to the system. As far as no consequences, I think you are referring to murder vs. war-fighting given the crime angle. Sounds interesting, but it seems unnecessary unless the game is FFA PvP. For RvR, the consequences need to be realm-wide, and occur because of inaction, rather than due to an action. Standing around while your realm loses a keep (if you are a combat class) should lose a combat character something (maybe even XP).
Point 6 we agree on and in addition to what I say in point 5, one way might be when a realm loses a control point (that start out under that realm's control) would create a combat debuff that only goes away when that control point is recaptured. To keep it from overwhelming a realm, for each combat debuff, there could be a corresponding crafter time buff (nothing gets you to work hard like making something to defend your realm when an army is marching on your house). You can't increase the odds of a special or the bonuses on the items because they would outlast the debuff and then a realm will start to intentionally lose keeps to get buffed gear.
Point 7 I again have no experience with, although I agree with the general sentiment. You can't have one class or one side too powerful, or people will stop playing.
Point 8 would be tough to implement with a "balanced" classes approach, with RPS where the small group is all one class it would be easy if the soloer is the class that rocks the other. On the other hand, this would be more of a mistake on the part of the group than any skill of the soloer (aside from recognizing an opportunity). Skill in an RvR game will be largely about group tactics, at least as much as "burst and clever CD-usage."
Again, great points for a 1v1 FFA PvP game.
Lawt
Sounds to me like you are focused on 1v1/dueling........my opinion rock,paper, scissor brings the most out of games.....sometimes you just need to let the enemy pass......
Sorry, I was speaking about PvP as a whole. I mainly prefer open world PvP games and FFA PvP games. I do enjoy arena type PvP every so often but that bubble type of PvP isn't my prefered experience. Its just my opinion and we are all going to have different ones. I was just shocked that many in this thread wanted artificial advantages over others when it comes to PvP.
Same should be for archers and all two hand weapons.
What cooldowns wtf? Look at daoc, you can't cast while moving you have to stand and you don't have almost any spells on cooldown.
I don't want everyone jumping and playing like rabbits like somebody said, it's just stupid.
1 instancing
2 instancing
3 instancing
you get the picture
Steath, excessive CC, short TTD - it should be a fight not a gank or a helpless beating.
Small scale fights - IE WOW arena. The bigger the fight (that doesn't turn into a lagfest) the better.
Balance - Some classes (usually tanks) being near useless while others (usually healers) are ultra powerful. Having 5-6 healers on a 15 person team shouldn't make you unbeatable it should weaken you. A balanced team of classes should always be strongest with all class/role having a nearly equal place in that.
PVP with no point - Make winning in some way important to the side with an effect on the game world. Make it less an instant respawn slayfest and more of a strategic battle. Don't reward selfish play. Give a sense of progression and development of both your toon and your guild/team/side for our efforts.
This 2, absolutely.
Instanced pvp are the worse thing that was invented for pvp (by Blizzard). There is no point to them really besides grinding out, and because of them now every company is doing it.
Instanced pvp should've been left for MOBAs.
I hope they never have that in CU.
Continual "updates" and additions to gear that force you to start all over with grinding/gold farming/etc. for a whole new set of gear since everyone with the hot new gear can now smush you into a grease spot, no matter what your relative skill levels are.
BLEAH. UGH. PHOOEY. :P
(It's the whole horizontal-progression-is-more-interesting thing.)
everybody being a hybrid. not good. severely limits the need for teamplay and use of tactics.
no collision detection. not good. usually ends up having blob trains (see gw2)
plus when in, it helps the underpopulated side and encourages strategic positioning.
one faction being severely overpopulated. (see war)
"carrot-on-a-stick" updates. (see wow)
where ur barely done gathering all your epic gear... bam! update! now its sub-par, gotta farm again.
too gear-dependant. (see aion) where if u got better gear, ur pretty much gonna win.. ...against the whole enemy realm. -_-
staring your UI instead of the battlefield. (see wow/gw2 comparison)
in wow you have 20-30 skills and wait for certain actions from your opponent and its like a game of tennis.
in gw2, u have like 15 skills during a fight, from a big pool to choose from (strategy), and focus on the battlefield, dodging attacks.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
Gw1 and coh beat wow to it.
1. Levels
2. Other RPG mechanics
We can whine and cry about game mechanics but the truth is we players mess up PvP more than anything else. Take DAoC for example. All the changes that people complain about today were changes people were practically begging for back before they happened. People wanted Emain and the Mile Gates gone and along came New Frontiers with no Emain or Mile Gates. Soon everyone was crying that NF was too spread out and they couldn't find each other to fight and they wanted Emain and the Mile Gates back. I could go on and on about the changes made to that game because of player requests, but one example will serve.
As soon as the competition starts, the whining starts. Then the devs start swinging the nerf bat and making changes and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
That's probably because the players don't take time to think about the matrix of PvP and exactly what makes something "overpowered". For example (again in DAoC. Sorry but everyone points to that game as great PvP so I'll use it.) Midgard Berserkers had a style called Doublefrost that did huge damage, but cost an extreme amount of endurance. As a result a zerker could use Doublefrost twice or maybe three times a fight before they went completely out of endurance and couldn't use styles anymore. Sure the damage was big but the enemy healers could keep up thanks to the dramatic fall off in damage after two swings. As a result most smart zerkers in Midgard didn't spam Doublefrost. Instead they saved it for killshot swings.
Then Midgard got an endurance regeneration spell (Endocrack cast on tanks by Shaman that lasted for 10 minutes) and suddenly zerkers were able to spam Doublefrost over and over and over doing huge damage with no danger of running out of endurance. Many zerkers were born and most of them used only one style, the extremely high damage Doubleforst style, since they didn't have to worry about running out of endurance. Suddenly everyone started screaming "Nerf Zerker Damage!"
But Zerker Damage wasn't the problem. The problem was Midgard combat styles like Berserker Left Axe were designed to be used without the benefit of Endurance Regeneration (Which, for those of you who remember, was to the be the special realm skill of Hibernia like Celerity was to belong only to Midgard), so they were meant to do huge frontloaded damage so Midgard groups could drop PvE monsters quickly before they had to sit down and regen endurance for the next pull.
What was "overpowered" was hooking Zerk Damage and Endurance Regeneration. However instead of addressing this point, Mythic took the easy way out, listened to the players and nerfed Zerker damage across the board, gutting the class. The better move would be to modify endurance regeneration in some way to maintain a high endurance penalty for high frontloaded damage, however listening to the Nerf cries was easier and Midgard began its days as the Hind Tit realm.
The moral of the story? Be careful what you wish for.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Excessive CC wth no immunity
Gear reliance
Poor balancing leading to OP FoTM classes
Listening to forum whiners
Edit:
Thanks Shakey, forgot one.
Instancing
Sorry but players didn't invent instancing, which is the greatest cause of shite pvp.
Shaky,
I accept that players didn't invent it, but player whining did. Players whining about "gettting zerged" and "getting ganked" etc caused the developers to do the easy thing and create 1) instances where the numbers are even and 2) create mirror classes across realms. Rather than analyze what caused the problems and addressing that, the developers simply attacked the symptoms of the disease because that in the end was easier (and cheaper) than addressing the root cause (the disease itself).
The disease is Power Creep. When someone can get an advantage in PvP through simply gaining items or abilities that others don't have then that is when PvP goes from Player vrs. Player to Loot Score v. Loot Score. Power creep bleeds skill out of PvP contests and turns it into the card game War. Ever play War? Skill doesn't mean anything in the card game War. All that matters is you have the highest card when you turn them over. Its the same in MMOs that blend PvE and PvP. When two characters run into each other Power Creep turns the game into who has the best loot/abilities available when the confrontation occurs.
In DAoC groups would sit around the Border Keeps waiting for their "I WIN" abilities provided by PvE items and abilities to come back up because going into a PvP fight without them was suicide. The vast majority of people in PvP in any game don't look for good fights. Instead they're looking for fights they can win, just like in Real Life. No one looks for a fight they might lose against a giant rugby player. Instead they want to pick on that kid from the debate club.
It was the same in DAoC. If people in DAoC really wanted good even fights then the most popular battle ground would have been the level 5 battleground, where people weren't even their advanced class yet and loot was extemely limited. Instead everyone put artifacts on their level 24 toons so they could pwn it up in Thidranki. The higher the levels, the more goodies from PvE were available through items and abilities and the less skill based combat got. (Please don't start in with that "pre kiting" stuff. I know there was some skill, but your group was still sitting at the boarder keep waiting for Purge to come up before you went to fight, so spare me. I know because my group was just as guilty.)
The solution to Power Creep is to keep items available in PvE equal to both sides and make PvP as skill based as possible. But even then you won't get even fights because people will 1) avoid each other to collect alleged PvP rewards as fast as possible 2) only fight when they have a clear advantage of some kind and 3) cheat using various hack programs. Just take a run through Planetside 2 if you don't believe me. People usually just avoid fighting and get Certifications by capturing enemy fascilities. If you fight you get yelled at because "there are no certs for defending." For the most part the only PvP occurs when several are running over the few on their way to the next capture point. And then you run into that Heavy Assault who is immune to damage and can fly. Meh.
So there you have it. Player whining caused instances and player behavior makes them the only viable alternative.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
If you look at the time instancing crept in things like quake 3, counterstrike and original team fortress were popular.
The "money men" thought we will have a slice of that pie.
I agree with you on power creep though.
While wow and gw kept the inner game of tab target combat, but took the outer rules of the game from fps - timed matches, ctf etc..
Planetside took the inner game, the actual combat from fps, but took the outer game - persistence, no Instanding, territory control from daoc.
There is no reason for seperate PVP and PVE gear if only one of the two activities is considered "end game". However if you want to create a game that both has a deep PVE end game progression system and a end game PVP game some form of delimiter on gear is probably the easiest way to go.
PVP players won't tollerate PVE raiders having a gear advantage over them any more than high end PVE raiders will tollerate a solo path to equivlient gear no matter how long the grind is. I have seen this argument play out time and time again in closed beta's for multiple games and it has always ended the same.
Normalization is the only other easy solution and that kind of makes gear in PVP meaninless doesn't it?
What makes a good PvP MMO for me is the risk factor when you go out into the world. If you can die 50 times in half an hour without any sort of penalty whatsoever, chances are that gameplay will quickly turn into a snooze fest.
I want my heart pounding and the adrenaline rushing when I PvP, I don't want to be falling half asleep because whatever I do or however bad I play, I know in advance I won't be losing anything.
Disagree resilience is totally unecessary.
They could gate raid content by you require some sort of gear that wards against a specific boss.
Or they could not bother with constant vertical expansion with tiered item sets and instead have a more horizontal approach where you unlock more variety of skills and utility, but not more raw power.
The hamster wheel turns me off mmos full stop, its not just a pvp issue, it also causes issues with pve, splitting up the player base, stopping your friend being able to play with you because he took a month off etc..
Mind gw2 no progression ain't right either.