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my ideal endgame: Indirect pvp
Rungar
Member RarePosts: 1,132
Indirect pvp is pvp where you don’t directly interact with enemy players. Instead you interact with a pve component in competition with other groups of players, where only one group can be the winner, but all can be rewarded based on their efforts.
Given the bulk of mmo players are casual pve players I think this model could work well and overcome some of the usual endgame problems you typically find in pvp or raiding.
I would have this in four forms.
1) Realm vs Realm vs Realm. Similar to games like daoc or eso the realm model works pretty good. Pitting realms against each other in campaigns is a good and endless way to keep players interested in playing. Each realm would compete in pve against a common enemy and indirectly vs the other realms in timed campaigns. The winner of the campaign gets a shot at that month’s ”final battle” which could be a raid or a dungeon, a solo player challenge or even something non combat. Who gets a shot at these is largely determined by your contributions but there are also other selection components. If you fail the task the second place realm gets a shot and if they fail the third place realm gets a shot.
This would be structured with 3-6 simultaneous “warfronts” for each realm based on participation. New fronts can open up on the fly based on participation but each one is a unique scenario and common enemy and there might be 10-15 everchanging scenarios. Each warfront has a large number of tasks and quests for all kinds of players and anyone can just hop in and participate on behalf of their realm. As with the realm each warfront can also be won individually and winning the warfront gives access to select content. As with the above, failure gives the other teams a crack at it.
2) Npc guild Competition: This is npc guild vs npc guild competition where certain world tasks are allotted and the players of the guilds face off indirectly. This would be occasional mini competitions where players of guilds can fight for their guild. Parts of these guilds can be built up by winning these little wars. These wars occur semi-randomly but also round robin so each battle is generally different. This also has a co-op component where two guilds can get a chance to work together for some task, completing it benifiting both guilds. Sometimes youll get a war, sometimes a co-op.
3) npc guild internal competition: This is an indirect way of pvp for players within npc guilds. You can gain ranking by performing pve challenges and you can also lose these ranks by failing to perform against up and coming players. There would be a number of unique solo, duo and and trio pve challenges for each guild and the challenge would be based off the activity the guild participates in. In these npc guilds ranks have perks and meaning and you would require certain achievements to qualify to compete against other players with the same achievements. This would be done passively where your performance would be scored similar to a leaderboard for any individual challenge or group challenge.
4) indirect group pvp: These would be specially designed dungeons where players in groups of three ( and multiples of three) can compete against each other indirectly. These dungeons would have 3 different parts, one for each group of players. Some would be time challenges, no death/survive challenges and other tasks where players can hone their skills in pve but be pressured by other players competing against them. Alternately these dungeons can be completed in cooperation mode where all teams work together but separately, for different rewards.
With these 4 modes of indirect pvp I think we can achieve a better and more resilient form of endgame in a mmo that can work for any kind of pve player. We move away from direct pvp and raiding and towards a more integrated form of play stratified on a number of levels where it’s much easier for players to casually access but also provide incentive for more hardcore players to participate and lead. This lets players challenge each other (indirectly), but also provides certain aspects chances to work together on certain tasks.
i believe this form of content delivery would be very efficient in a mmo, while appealing to the largest number of players possible.
Comments
so you think the mmorpg genre is healthy with the current models in place?
my idea was that all players would be rewarded not just top players. If youve played eso similar to how their pvp campaigns work. You get what you put into it basically. Pvp aside anyone can pop in and contribute and be rewarded for their efforts. Rather than multiple instances of the same thing though it would be better to have multiple unique campaigns in the form of warfronts.
i dont think territory control is a good idea in a mmo due to the longeterm imbalance problem combined with the jump ship problem. I would actually have temporary pve bonuses for the victors and random loot, but nothing you couldn't eventually find elsewhere within the campaigns. I prefer giving out more resources than just extreme loot. Winning would give you a leg up but its not exclusive though those resources might be much harder to get elsewhere.
I would use an achievement based point system where only one realm can get each achievement. This allows you to end the war early if needed. That might come in the form of taking castles, unlocking things, destroying things, beating certain enemies, finding things and other discoveries. Not all achievements would be combat related.
also it could be structured such that your "realm" might change from campaign to campaign and not necessarily be static like other games which would also address the imbalance problem. We could do this by harnessing the power of the local npc guild system which can change the landscape of who your fighting with and against when needed as developers could decide on the fly who is allied with who.
think of city states or similar entities constantly realigning their allegiance to one another and thus changing to some degree, who is with and against whom.
I was and am a huge fan of that kind of npc conflict, because it gices purpose and agency to players, instead of conflict consisting of "pointless" murdering other players.
It also creates that virtual world feel that so many are missing in todays mmorpgs. You are not the hero of a story made by others (man I am sick and toered of story driven), you have the choice to a part of the npc conflicts and what you choose to do will become your story.
Anyways.. One of the many reasons EqNext was going to be the next gen of mmorpgs. Hope some other game picks up that torch one day.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Depending on the mode the tasks and objective might be different.
ideally they would be radial styled with multiple simultaneous tasks and global objectives rather than the typical trash-->bossfight style dungeon. This will give players time to talk and strategize, determine who will do what etc. Rewards being determined on how well you complete the global objectives, but also the ability to fail so you cant just keep throwing yourself at it.
if you mean the number three, to me it just seems the best bang for the buck. Its a bit of a magic number. Not too much, not too little.
The red brigade (some npc faction) have hired orcs of the grey hills tribe to attack settlements in [insert area], in order to weaken the defenses and suplly lines for the city of Mist (currently run by Sven fourfingers). If the red brigade is succesful in weakening the city enough, they might launch a siege to take the city.
You the player can now choose to support either fation in multiple ways.
Finding orc dens and cleaning them out (imagine instances with entries at random locations), delivering crafted supplies to the city, doing influence quests for Sven to increase his standing/power. Or if you choose to support the red brigade, supply orcs with weapons, attack npc settlements, or whatever. I am sure you could come up with various other ideas, the point is you are helping a npc faction against some other npc faction, and becausr other players are doing the opposite, we have "indirect pvp".
Obviously you gain standing with the factions you help, which may result in rare recipes, items, new quests, etc (think gw2 dynamic events, just .. Much much more dynamic).
Within this npc conflict, for those who enjoy more direct pvp, there will be missions and battlefield dedicated for that, but in the name of supporting the npc faction.
Now scale this up with many npc factions with many agendas, and an everchanging world due to those agendas succeeding or failing, cities rise and fall, ownership and power balanced change. Partly controlled by AI, and on a larger scale by GMs (human interaction is to control that things don't get out of hand or one sided, and to maintain an interesting game - Players can be extremely destructive if full anarchy is allowed).
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
It's a "gamey" design, and it leads to "gamey" content design.
With artificial barriers and walls, full of gamey participation rules and rewards.
This would work MUCH BETTER in a Sandbox game, where you don't need all of that artificial stuff, and can just drop it into the game world and let players seek it out, with clues hidden in the game.
Edit to add:
You people, and your adherence to the level grind, are what's really holding this industry back.
Once upon a time....
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Especially when players choose to jump to "the winning side"
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I am certain that not easy, but solvable, AND all those resources previously spent on creating story content could be redirected to getting such dynamic systems designed. Besides, is there really any other way to renew or evolve the mmorpg genre ? Certainly the story driven games are on full repeat, working hard to remove player agency and interaction with eachother as well as the world. While the pvp games are only about dominating and murdering other players, and tbh that is (for me) a pretty narrow idea of sandbox.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
alliance vs alliance (dynamic realm vs realm): this is a shifting sands type of realm vs realm since alliances can change as necessary to maintain the game when gross imbalances are detected. Thus the whole world is available to all players but the indirect pvp areas are alliance only. So this month the mages guild might be in a different alliance than last month. This tool would be used sparingly though to maintain the integrity of the game.
it would be set up as follows: Realm vs realm
each "realm of a warfront" is a stacked "3 layer cake" zone (9 zones altogether spanning the 3 realms) that consists of a number of gated objectives. In order to open the gates you need to do tasks in all three zones simultaneously. This is designed this way to allow the maximum number of players to participate. There would also be an incursion system where enemies try to retake gates that have been taken by setting up portals. These can be nipped in the bud solo but if left will pump out enemies and eventually they will retake the gate requiring suppression activities from the players which is a form of solo content.
so each objective or gate will require a number of core tasks to be completed covering the three zones in order to open the gates. There are also bonus objectives that will hinder the other realms to some degree, quests, and other tasks players can complete simultaneously. Most of these are either solo or small group tasks but some require simultaneous multigroup coordination. At each gate is an enemy boss type event which might be a single boss or one boss in each of the three zones or waves of enemies, but would require coordination of multiple groups. To this end there would be a 3 chats for each realm and this is achievement based so those who lead and gain achievements can be elevated in rank during that campaign and gain more of a voice on the battlefield based on achievement. The top chat reaches the whole realm. This resets when the campaign ends.
the first through the gate slightly hinder the other two realms making it harder for them to clear their gates and whoever breaks the final gate, all gates open in all realms and the highest achievement players of the fastest realm get a single chance to complete the campaign. If they fail the next realm gets a chance. If all fail no one wins. The campaign stops for one day and it starts again but with a different scenario ( each warfront is its own unique scenario) which are activated upon demand so the first one might be different each time.
Rather than just points we would use achievements to rank players which is ultimately a point system but more difficult to grind. If a player isn't available for the finalle, the next player inline will be selected until enough players are selected for the final event.
intra npc guild:
when you join a local guild you can gain ranks in the guild that must be maintained to some degree as most ranks are competitive. You complete by doing "gauntlets" and "missions" ( solo or group depending on the rank) that result in a leaderboard situation. the players with the best performance move up ranks which opens up chats and other perks in the guild.
npc guild vs guild:
These are special world missions that can either be competitive or cooperative and include 2 different local guilds. They occur randomly but are always local. Completion of the mission results in some guild based temporary boon for the victors or for both guilds in the case of the coop missions.
need a separate post for the dungeons.
heres how i would do dungeons. All my dungeons would be radial meaning you pretty much always start at the center of the dungeon. Its best to show by example:
Rungar's "dead by daylight" haunted castle
in this dungeon you arrive to a castle at dusk and have to clear out some zombies and ghouls at the front entrance. Once you do this you go inside to the main center area. From here you are given your tasks by a npc helper.
task 1: find wood and repair the main door while repelling the zombies.
task 2: search for survivors throughout the castle and bring them to the main area
task 3: search for a hidden artifact somewhere in the castle in a continually random location
task 4: find and confront the vampire miniboss
global objective: survive the night.
You wont see a timer or anything youll just see light coming through windows when dawn approaches. Zombies and ghouls will continually attack the main gate which requires constant maintenance. If its ignored/destroyed they will constantly attack you and the survivors While your doing that you can also complete the optional tasks of the artefact, miniboss and survivors to improve your rewards
surviving the night with at least one group member left gets you the wooden chest
surviving with at least 5 survivors gets you the iron chest
surviving with 5 survivors and either the artifact or the miniboss gets you the copper chest
surviving with 5 survivors and the artefact and the miniboss killled gets you the silver chest
surviving with 10 survivors, the artifact, the moniboss gets you the gold chest
surviving with all the survivors, the artifact and the miniboss gets you the platinum chest.
thats just an example of a basic radial dungeon.
The castle has three slightly different wings (with the same theme) to it so each time you play this dungeon you might get one of the three. When you play co-op you have to work together to achieve global goals which are unique to each wing but open up a final encounter. in indirect pvp mode you compete against the other groups for a shot a different final encounter. Note that there is no final encounter for the regular mode. You have to play the co-op or pvp mode. It would be ideal if you could see other players during the dungeon but not be able to directly interact with them. Winning the final encounter bumps up your reward chest level by 1. One wing might be the library, another the armory and another the dining hall. each a different scenario of a main theme.
this design is meant to maximize assets used by providing alternate versions and gameplay modes with essentially the same resources. The radial model will help bring back the "team" idea since players will have to talk and decide who is best suited for doing what and also the idea of you being able to lose.
tank dps, healer is not ideal for this kind of content which is why i prefer the situational mitigation model where everyone can dps situationally, no one heals and tank is also situational based on the enemies encountered.
this model is more well rounded while keeping the situational role aspect intact. You want to send the right guys to kill the right enemy.
i think you overestimate them.
Once upon a time....
Yet, some few made it. Because they broke the mold that the mainstream won't break away from. Because, evidently, there's proof somewhere that the "mold" is the only thing players want.
Once upon a time....
"And don't forget our cash shop, to buy your extra backpack space and loads of heal potions so you can keep up with the Jones's."
Once upon a time....
But I don't see how it's PvP in any sense. Maybe that's in the chest reward?
Yes, this can fit in nicely with a Sandbox game. Better than a Themepark, if simply dropped into the game world. Or it could be part of a larger Quest (again, fits either game type).
To be honest, I don't like the concept of zone rewards for all.
I played some DAoC, and I didn't like being affected by what other Players did or didn't do.
However, on a grander scale like you're talking about, with lots of things being affected by holding a victory, it might be much more acceptable.
One problem with the "indirect PvP" is when certain groups build a "best template of characters", and just keep controlling a victory condition. And worse, a certain "country" does that with all of the important stuff.
You might consider a long timer to prevent the same characters from always running and controlling said "ownership" of the victory conditions.
I hope you understand what I mean here, since I'm making up terms to make my point.
Once upon a time....