Is there a decent full loot PvP game currently?

Panther2103

I know this is kind of a niche sub genre of MMORPG's, but I've had an itch to play a full loot PvP game. I just got my PC back after a year of no MMORPGs on PC and haven't really kept up with everything. 

Basically I'm just wondering if there is any decently populated full loot MMORPG's that aren't EvE online (because eve is extremely hard for me to get into due to how slow it is). 

Right now I'm playing Darkfall New Dawn, but not sure if there is something a little more populated, as this server doesn't seem to have all that many players (I ran across the world and encountered a total of 0 people while running to my clan hamlet). I have access to Albion Online, but I've heard that game died off a bit and I'm a little skeptical before dumping a bunch of time into it. 

boris20

Darkfall is a lost cause at this point. Population will get nothing but worse. Both the new revivals of the original darkfall, have fail at bringing the game back to life, and there is not enough population to fill even a portion of either version. Dont waste your time with the grind, neither will be around too long. 

As for a full loot game with a healthy population, I cannot say there is much on the market at the moment. Albion is populated, even if it has died off some from launch, though its not my cup of tea. 

When Gloria Victis gets finished, it should be a solid game if they can market it right. 

Mortal online is still around but same boat as darkfall, on life support. 

Panther2103

boris20 said:

Darkfall is a lost cause at this point. Population will get nothing but worse. Both the new revivals of the original darkfall, have fail at bringing the game back to life, and there is not enough population to fill even a portion of either version. Dont waste your time with the grind, neither will be around too long. 

As for a full loot game with a healthy population, I cannot say there is much on the market at the moment. Albion is populated, even if it has died off some from launch, though its not my cup of tea. 

When Gloria Victis gets finished, it should be a solid game if they can market it right. 

Mortal online is still around but same boat as darkfall, on life support. 

Damn that's kind of what I was afraid of. I may stick with Darkfall for now just because I really like the feel of the game, and would like to experience whatever I can in it until it goes away.

Mortal I did look into a bit, but most of the forum posts were people asking about a revival server for the game or something. 

Albion wasn't necessarily my cup of tea either, but I may give it another shot as it seems to be the most populated based on forums / subreddits. 

I wish there was one definitive full loot MMORPG, but unfortunately I think that due to the small community that likes this type of game and how selective they seem to be with features they want, I don't think that can ever happen (other than Eve for some reason). 

boris20

Mortal to me was just too wonky feeling. Darkfall atleast had crisp combat, but it is a game that requires a high pop to keep it feeling fresh and not get stale quickly. Nothing worse then roaming for a few hours to only find one or 2 people to fight. 

I doubt we see a decent Full Loot game for some time, as most companies make their money off the casuals, and most casuals do not want any part of full loot. 

Theocritus

Why were there 2 versions of Darkfall? Im guessing the companies are totally unrelated? All taht did was divide the small playerbase as it was.

Sovrath

Theocritus said:

Why were there 2 versions of Darkfall? Im guessing the companies are totally unrelated? All taht did was divide the small playerbase as it was.

Two different companies with two different visions.

Panther2103

Sovrath said:

Theocritus said:

Why were there 2 versions of Darkfall? Im guessing the companies are totally unrelated? All taht did was divide the small playerbase as it was.

Two different companies with two different visions.

This.

ROA wanted to keep it as close to original darkfall as possible only changing little things.

New Dawn wanted to tweak bigger parts of the game adding things like auction houses and changing how systems work. 

I agree it did split the playerbase quite a bit. 

Sovrath

ikcin said:

For me the main problem with both games is the first person view. It is fine in FPS. Will be fine even in WoW. But have you tried to PvP melee with first person view combat - it is terrible. You have only tunnel vision, and the battle is actually random hits, while players run in circles. If I compare with terrible games like GW2, BDO, and etc. Well the combat in GW2 and BDO is far superior. It is completely pointless, but so much more immersive, fluid, and better, that there is no comparison with Darkfall and Mortal.

I think the first person is fine. And quite frankly I'd be interested in more of that. Or 3rd person where you only see enemies in your line of site.

Panther2103

ikcin said:

For me the main problem with both games is the first person view. It is fine in FPS. Will be fine even in WoW. But have you tried to PvP melee with first person view combat - it is terrible. You have only tunnel vision, and the battle is actually random hits, while players run in circles. If I compare with terrible games like GW2, BDO, and etc. Well the combat in GW2 and BDO is far superior. It is completely pointless, but so much more immersive, fluid, and better, that there is no comparison with Darkfall and Mortal.

The first person view is only for ranged combat in Darkfall. When using swords and melee weapons it's all third person. Mortal does always have first person, but I honestly kinda like it. 

Kyleran

boris20 said:

Mortal to me was just too wonky feeling. Darkfall atleast had crisp combat, but it is a game that requires a high pop to keep it feeling fresh and not get stale quickly. Nothing worse then roaming for a few hours to only find one or 2 people to fight. 

I doubt we see a decent Full Loot game for some time, as most companies make their money off the casuals, and most casuals do not want any part of full loot. 

Considering casuals are the ones usually being looted are you really surprised they stay far away?

Kyleran

Panther2103 said:

boris20 said:

Darkfall is a lost cause at this point. Population will get nothing but worse. Both the new revivals of the original darkfall, have fail at bringing the game back to life, and there is not enough population to fill even a portion of either version. Dont waste your time with the grind, neither will be around too long. 

As for a full loot game with a healthy population, I cannot say there is much on the market at the moment. Albion is populated, even if it has died off some from launch, though its not my cup of tea. 

When Gloria Victis gets finished, it should be a solid game if they can market it right. 

Mortal online is still around but same boat as darkfall, on life support. 

Damn that's kind of what I was afraid of. I may stick with Darkfall for now just because I really like the feel of the game, and would like to experience whatever I can in it until it goes away.

Mortal I did look into a bit, but most of the forum posts were people asking about a revival server for the game or something. 

Albion wasn't necessarily my cup of tea either, but I may give it another shot as it seems to be the most populated based on forums / subreddits. 

I wish there was one definitive full loot MMORPG, but unfortunately I think that due to the small community that likes this type of game and how selective they seem to be with features they want, I don't think that can ever happen (other than Eve for some reason). 

Albion is one of your better bets, Life is Feudal is in Steam early access, full of old school skill grinding though perhaps not quite as FFA as you might like. 

EVE succeded for several reasons of course, but from a PVP perspective I think the "quiet brilliance" (through luck or design) is players can well control their level of risk and ergo losses.

Got an old carebear like me to play 7 years with much of it in 0.0 nullsec. 

Sure, I got killed a fair amount, but usually those were my fault, with death by "recliner" being my number one cause of ship loss.

Regardless, I always made more than I lost and amassed a small in game fortune,  all while playing casually with no special "get rich" tricks, just hard work.

That's the type of controlled env. FFA game makers are going to have to provide if they want to convince us "sheep" to join their world.

Eldurian

Currently playing Life is Feudal and enjoying it quite a bit. The world is huge, like it takes about 8 hours to cross it from corner to corner on foot. That can make it seem empty but when you see the things people have built you can tell it's not. And I still do see other players running around.

The lack of a general chat also adds to a sense of isolation but they have a Discord and you can join into a group.

It is a full loot PvP game but I must add that unlike Darkfall and other such titles the consequences for random ganking are real here. You take a huge alignment slide for murder and an ever larger one if you murder someone after they use the "I yield" ability. If you go below -50 alignment you can never regain alignment and with that skill loss on death increasing as alignment falls (With the lowest ends of alignment prettymuch wiping your character) you may as well just delete your character and pay 10$ for a new one if you go below -50.

However if you use blunt weapons you will knock out opponents instead of killing them allowing you to rob them. This gives lesser alignment slide and will not bring you below -49 alignment in itself.

Not sure if the ganking controls are something that would turn you away or something you would appreciate but I find it pretty cool to see an Open World PvP game that finally has teeth when it comes to controlling the behavior of people running around killing everyone they see like they are playing a Halo death match.

"Full of old school skill grinding though perhaps not quite as FFA as you might like."

Skills actually raise exceptionally fast if you are focused on a single character and their influence over character power is far lower than most games. One of my buddies showed up a dude in full armor while he ran around naked with a sling on a fresh character because he was able to kite him and the dude hadn't put kiting counters into his build. 

Tactics and player skill reign supreme in LiF. If your village has the proper equipment and facilities you can be 90% effective in terms of character skills in like 2 days. Your player skills may take longer to catch up.

Jakdstripper

full loot games are incredibly niche.....unless they are quick match type like PUBG  

i myself recently went back to check out the few new things in Mortal Online. while i have a soft spot for this game (it was my "UO", as i'm too young to have been part of the original UO), and absolutely love the immersion of first person all the time, i really can't recommend it. it's been out for many years now and still plagued by basic combat de-sync, lag, bugs and general serious game issues. on top of this (and also perhaps because of this) the game is very low populated.



i've tried DF at least 5 or 6 times. the grind was just too much. i didnt like all the spells and skills you had to cycle through. didn't like the animation and the look of the characters. never really got into the community and mostly just got ganked hard all the time by players that had been grinding for years. the skills/stats gap was just too great..... also MO always pulled me back. 


EvE was fun for a bit, until i discovered just how poor i was. how most pvp is simply gate camping. how most large corporations own pretty much all null-sec....and generally how slow paced everything was. this game will also have you truly question your self assessed IQ level. i also did not like always being a ship. didn't work for me. 


recently i've tried Lif as well.
was disappointed by how unstable, laggy, buggy and slow it is. on top of this pvp is incredibly restricted and penalized. if you like to terra form and build little villages this is definitely your game. but the pvp is incredibly luck luster. everything in this game is incredibly slow, and the grind is reminiscent of early DF. it really would be a much better game if the servers were stable, with no lag and very few bugs. alas, in the state it's in, its just not worth my time. 



these days i'd say the most successful and somewhat populated full loot pvp games would probably be games like Rust, or Conan Exiles, or Ark, even Dayz. nobody is into grinding anymore. nobody wants to work hard to get skills or gear. everyone wants quick fix of high octane action....hence the popularity of Fortnite and PUBG. they are essentially full loot pvp games minus all the skilling/grinding/gathering  the slow, tedious and repetitive parts of mmos. 

Kyleran

Jakdstripper said:

full loot games are incredibly niche.....unless they are quick match type like PUBG  

i myself recently went back to check out the few new things in Mortal Online. while i have a soft spot for this game (it was my "UO", as i'm too young to have been part of the original UO), and absolutely love the immersion of first person all the time, i really can't recommend it. it's been out for many years now and still plagued by basic combat de-sync, lag, bugs and general serious game issues. on top of this (and also perhaps because of this) the game is very low populated.



i've tried DF at least 5 or 6 times. the grind was just too much. i didnt like all the spells and skills you had to cycle through. didn't like the animation and the look of the characters. never really got into the community and mostly just got ganked hard all the time by players that had been grinding for years. the skills/stats gap was just too great..... also MO always pulled me back. 


EvE was fun for a bit, until i discovered just how poor i was. how most pvp is simply gate camping. how most large corporations own pretty much all null-sec....and generally how slow paced everything was. this game will also have you truly question your self assessed IQ level. i also did not like always being a ship. didn't work for me. 


recently i've tried Lif as well.
was disappointed by how unstable, laggy, buggy and slow it is. on top of this pvp is incredibly restricted and penalized. if you like to terra form and build little villages this is definitely your game. but the pvp is incredibly luck luster. everything in this game is incredibly slow, and the grind is reminiscent of early DF. it really would be a much better game if the servers were stable, with no lag and very few bugs. alas, in the state it's in, its just not worth my time. 



these days i'd say the most successful and somewhat populated full loot pvp games would probably be games like Rust, or Conan Exiles, or Ark, even Dayz. nobody is into grinding anymore. nobody wants to work hard to get skills or gear. everyone wants quick fix of high octane action....hence the popularity of Fortnite and PUBG. they are essentially full loot pvp games minus all the skilling/grinding/gathering  the slow, tedious and repetitive parts of mmos. 

What you call slow, tedious and repetitious I call gameplay.

Now that pointless, mindless PVP found in those other games is of little interest,  but I've never been part of the unwashed masses.

anemo

Worlds Adrift holds most hope for a normal game.  It even has outstanding themeing and premise.  It actually has a playable core gameloop that you can buy into right now.  Devs are very very adamant on always on PvP, with safety mechanics mostly getting to "defender plays with a 7 card hand, while you get 4” (there are no cards just closest fast explanation).  Has plenty of jankiness but you can actually play it, compared to most of the " dream dealers" you see for most new MMOs.  Also is far from fair or even trying to be, even suffers from gameloop breaks in many cases.


Screeps is downright the best, and most fair full loot MMO I've ever played.  It is what I now return to instead of EVE.  Basically an RTS at MMO scale, played through the lense of an AI programming game.  If you can cross the skill gap it is an outstanding game, with a great community (like seriously this is a brutal PvP game and it's actually nice and helpful), and game mechanics that allow massive divergences in playstyle/tradeoffs.

Jakdstripper

ikcin said:

Sovrath said:

ikcin said:

For me the main problem with both games is the first person view. It is fine in FPS. Will be fine even in WoW. But have you tried to PvP melee with first person view combat - it is terrible. You have only tunnel vision, and the battle is actually random hits, while players run in circles. If I compare with terrible games like GW2, BDO, and etc. Well the combat in GW2 and BDO is far superior. It is completely pointless, but so much more immersive, fluid, and better, that there is no comparison with Darkfall and Mortal.

I think the first person is fine. And quite frankly I'd be interested in more of that. Or 3rd person where you only see enemies in your line of site.

It will be fine only if you play with VR and instead of tunnel vision with two hands you have a realistic simulation.  I'm not sure, but there is not such a game. As actually the fpv is used to increase the frame rate, it is far away from anything realistic. And in melee combat it is completely broken. Your viewing angle as a human been is about 190. In the games it is less than 90. That works in FPS because most of the time you are focused on distant objects, and the tunnel vision even helps for faster reaction and more accurate shooting. In everything else except the shooters fpv is broken.

I personally have to disagree. I think it come down to personal preference. I love the immersion of first person melee combat. Played all the elder scrolls in first person. Chivalry, mortal Online, and any first person shooter usually has a few mellee weapons. I was actually very disappointed when ESO came out with such a shitty first person experience.i like the feel of realism that it gives. Don't get me wrong I totally understand the advantages of 3rd person vew, but the feel just isn't the same. It's a much more detached feel, as if you are moving a puppet from high above. First operson feel much more like you are right in the middle of it. When they come swinging at you u, it truly feels like they are about to hit you in the face....I find it much more intense, all limitations included.
While we do normally have a much wider field of vew that the creen usually provides , we still have a lot of blind spots irl. You cannot see behind you or even the sides. This is carried over into first person. 3rd person has no blind spots, which is inherently not like real life.
Again, it's just pesonal preference.

krevra

I would also recommend checking out Conan Exiles, its release is soon (May 8th). Combat has a Dark Souls feel to it, but it is full loot survival game with a focus on pvp and raiding other players, plenty of gathering and crafting if that's what you are into as well.

Its kinda funny tho because i was just searching for a answer to your same question. But honestly nothing is worth it that isnt a dead game. Only games i play now are Planetside 2 for its large scale tri-faction FPS combat, GW2 for WvW only, and Conan Exiles im just waiting for release. Tho i have played that game extensively. Other games in the "near" future to keep a look out for will be Camelot Unchained and Crowfall, but i have my doubts for both in the current state of either game.

Worth mentions would be Gloria Victis and Life Is Feudal as potential games that can be good. Darkfall seems dead/dieing again and its no surprise, Mortal Online as others said seems to be going on but meh didnt seem like my cup of tea I always notice updates on that game tho. Oh ESO i guess has large scale combat as well but the animation canceling ruined it for me, better not hear anyone say but you dont need it! Yeah maybe if you are a hyper casual and dont care about putting out damage in pvp and you find getting rekt and zerging fun. Albion Online just never felt very exciting for me, tho it has population and its going to steam which will gain it more players, Pretty solid game tho and constant updates.

Copperfield

mmorp.com has nothing but disgruntled mid age complainers here.

if its a patch about minecraft or a mobile mmo.. its always negative here

if you like darkfall i would stick with it.. specially what rise of agon is planning and patching the upcoming months

Kyleran

Copperfield said:

mmorp.com has nothing but disgruntled mid age complainers here.

if its a patch about minecraft or a mobile mmo.. its always negative here

if you like darkfall i would stick with it.. specially what rise of agon is planning and patching the upcoming months

Thanks for the irony.

Cryomatrix

@Kyleran
You had like 6 accounts in Eve, how is that casual?

I actually loved mortal online, thought it was a great mmo, had everything i wanted except for the population and good graphics. Really in depth, hardcore as hell, i liked it honestly.

Cona exiles is a good game, i played for awhile as i like the building and thrall system it has, plus completely naked characters.

Tried rise of agon, too low budget, quit for no reason really, maybe the graphics killed it or i just dont like traditional mmos anymore.

EvE is great but path of exiles is better for my adhd and is way more mindless, so i can listen to lectures to improve my work. 

Cryomstrix 

Scot

Panther2103 said:

Sovrath said:

Theocritus said:

Why were there 2 versions of Darkfall? Im guessing the companies are totally unrelated? All taht did was divide the small playerbase as it was.

Two different companies with two different visions.

This.

ROA wanted to keep it as close to original darkfall as possible only changing little things.

New Dawn wanted to tweak bigger parts of the game adding things like auction houses and changing how systems work. 

I agree it did split the playerbase quite a bit. 

If you want to kill a MMO of make decisions like this, keep players together.

Scot

Copperfield said:

mmorp.com has nothing but disgruntled mid age complainers here.

if its a patch about minecraft or a mobile mmo.. its always negative here

if you like darkfall i would stick with it.. specially what rise of agon is planning and patching the upcoming months

I have to say I think posts about Minecraft are mostly positive. But anything on mobile, yes I and most I think, do slate them. Are you a big mobile MMO player, do you know anyone who is? 

Kyleran

Scot said:

Copperfield said:

mmorp.com has nothing but disgruntled mid age complainers here.

if its a patch about minecraft or a mobile mmo.. its always negative here

if you like darkfall i would stick with it.. specially what rise of agon is planning and patching the upcoming months

I have to say I think posts about Minecraft are mostly positive. But anything on mobile, yes I and most I think, do slate them. Are you a big mobile MMO player, do you know anyone who is? 

@Phaserlight plays Vendetta Online on his mobile,  but its really multi platform more than mobile.

Kyleran

Cryomatrix said:

@Kyleran
You had like 6 accounts in Eve, how is that casual?

I actually loved mortal online, thought it was a great mmo, had everything i wanted except for the population and good graphics. Really in depth, hardcore as hell, i liked it honestly.

Cona exiles is a good game, i played for awhile as i like the building and thrall system it has, plus completely naked characters.

Tried rise of agon, too low budget, quit for no reason really, maybe the graphics killed it or i just dont like traditional mmos anymore.

EvE is great but path of exiles is better for my adhd and is way more mindless, so i can listen to lectures to improve my work. 

Cryomstrix 

Casually refers more to in game playing time, couple of hours a night, more on weekends usually.

People often think "casual" players can't be serious or committed which isn't really true, we just lack the free time some other folks do.

Good to see you are more of a hardcore PVPer, you can watch my back in Bless if we ever play it together.

I'll mind the spreadsheets.

Eldurian

Jakdstripper said:

recently i've tried Lif as well.
was disappointed by how unstable, laggy, buggy and slow it is. on top of this pvp is incredibly restricted and penalized. if you like to terra form and build little villages this is definitely your game. but the pvp is incredibly luck luster. everything in this game is incredibly slow, and the grind is reminiscent of early DF. it really would be a much better game if the servers were stable, with no lag and very few bugs. alas, in the state it's in, its just not worth my time. 

The beta thing is real. It is buggy as you would expect a beta to be, but it either has improved greatly in recent days or the level to which it is buggy is greatly overstated.

Let me interpret "Restricted and Penalized PVP".

By declaring war on another guild you can kill them any time you encounter them in the open world without penalty. Most non-newbs are in a territory holding guild so many guilds simply declare war on every territory holding guild to gain the right to PvP with every vet in the game. You'll frequently log on to see a single guild wardeccing guild after guild.

However you do have to be a territory holding guild to do this. And if your guild's monument is destroyed you will no longer be a territory holding guild. So pissing off every other guild in the game does have consequences. Consequences someone who wants to be able to kill everyone else in the game for free should be prepared to accept.

In addition, if you use blunt damage weapons to take people out non-lethally and loot them while they are unconcious you will never go below -49 alignment. Alignment penalties at -49 are present but tolerable. 

Finally you can use the "Trespasser" ability on anyone in your territory to kill them without consequence or kill people who are flagged as criminal (you recently did something bad) /evil (-50 alignment and lower).

If you run around randomly killing everyone you see like the game is a giant Halo Deathmatch you will hit -50 or lower and essentially have to make a new character. If you're smart and work within the game's systems that heavily discourage random ganking, you can get plenty of PvP without being overly penalized.

This is just people who want every Open World PvP game to be a mindless gankfest whining that one finally isn't.

As stated before. It really is not that grindy. Join a good guild, get some high quality food from them, and you'll have a very effective character in a few days. If you want to go out and solo build your own village then that's an entirely different story of course.

Cryomatrix

Kyleran said:

Cryomatrix said:

@Kyleran
You had like 6 accounts in Eve, how is that casual?

I actually loved mortal online, thought it was a great mmo, had everything i wanted except for the population and good graphics. Really in depth, hardcore as hell, i liked it honestly.

Cona exiles is a good game, i played for awhile as i like the building and thrall system it has, plus completely naked characters.

Tried rise of agon, too low budget, quit for no reason really, maybe the graphics killed it or i just dont like traditional mmos anymore.

EvE is great but path of exiles is better for my adhd and is way more mindless, so i can listen to lectures to improve my work. 

Cryomstrix 

Casually refers more to in game playing time, couple of hours a night, more on weekends usually.

People often think "casual" players can't be serious or committed which isn't really true, we just lack the free time some other folks do.

Good to see you are more of a hardcore PVPer, you can watch my back in Bless if we ever play it together.

I'll mind the spreadsheets.

I am not going to play Bless, I work too much and the MMO shit is boring, it won't be any different than anything else we've seen. 

Here's a char, some re-hashed skills, kill a million mobs, to level up to kill a million more. Been there and done that. WoW (3 months), L2 (6 months), GW2 (6 hours), Tera (20 hours), ESO (4 hours), Runes of Magic (4 months), Neverwinter (4 months) = same game, different skins.  

Only EvE and Entropia are categorically different in my mind and entropa is barely different. Conan Exiles i like for the crafting. Civ 5 for mental stimulation, PoE for creativity. 

PoE is repetitive but the differences in how characters play makes the game amazing, plus the hardcore feature is what keeps me playing. I could never play an ARPG where my char couldn't die. 

Maybe, it'll be fun to play an MMO where I delete my char after I die. .