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D&D and PvP. Why it won't work.
Xira
Member Posts: 437
Well for starters even in 3rd ed. the classes are pretty unbalanced. A mage pwns a warrior and a monk pwns both of them.(At level 20) This is 'balanced' in p&p because the mage is much harder to get to level 20 than a warrior....and most p&p games don't last that long anyway.
Why I don't think pvp will work well in D&D online:
Many of the classes are balanced in non-power ways. In a MMORPG there is no requirment for roleplaying...If your paladin wants to group with an Orge for faster Exp, he can do that no problem. You can't 'remove' trouble non-RPers players like you can in p&p....So everyone will naturally play the overpowered classes.(Why play a fighter when a paladin is better?) Of course they can balance this....But....Then it's not D&D.
2ndly. The gankage spells/feats. There are a _LOT_ of cheap moves in D&D. No-save bigsby's spells....No-save stuns. Timestop???? Ki-strike for a weaponmaster will insta-gib a mage......D&D was in no way balanced for open PVP....Everything about it was made under the assumption that there would be a DM there to blue-bolt you to hell if you got out of line. Such protections will not be afforded in the MMORPG...So of course everyone will use the cheap stuff constantly. The monsters you fight won't suddenly grow resistant to the cheap trick you keep useing.
Of course they could balance the classes and spells....Again though then it's not D&D.
They could try to balaqnce these 2 points by adding uber-loot that massivly raises saves versus say polymorph and petrification. Then the game becomes an EQ/DAOC clone....Level up by grinding then go camp the uberloot to have a chance of competeing. It would no longer be about skill at all but who has less of a life(Or can buy more on Ebay).
I do not think PvP will work well in D&DOnline due to lack of inherant class balance in D&D and the numerous save-or-die spells and abilities. It will either become something not-D&D or it will be a massive cheap gank-fest.
Comments
What will he do next?
D&D was never designed for PvP, bottom line. You could PvP if you wanted, but that was in the safe presence of a human DM. All of Xira's points are very good reasons why PvP won't work and be fun. To simply say "no pvp = suck" is a very shallow way to look at it.
Btw, the PvE combat will be nothing like any other mmorpg. Some people don't seem to comprehend that they're innovating here, instead of following the mmorpg mold set by older games. Fire an arrow into a wall from the shadows... and a kobold will turn in surprise and walk over to investigate. A minotaur will lower its horns and stamp its hooves before charging; and if you dodge out of the way, the minotaur can hit a wall and be stunned. Knocking a goblin into a bonfire, the beast will catch on fire and run away screaming.
These are just some of the things that make the D&D experience worthwhile. While PvP and Crafting may be added later after launch, the FOCUS of D&D has always been teamwork and adventuring in dungeons. Not ganking others, harvesting materials for plate armor, or randomly exploring wilderness. Yes, if DDO was designed to be like other mmorpgs, then the lack of PvP, crafting and open wilderness would hurt it. But it not, and it doesn't hurt to keep an open mind either.
PvP could work, and the unbalancing makes it more challenging.
Yea a Sorcerer of the same level of a Fighter could take him, BUT what happens when the Sorc runs out of spell slots to cast...or if the Fighter makes his saving throws, or gets into melee range. I'm sorry but any arcane caster in melee range of a Fighter is pretty much screwed without help. With what D&DO is about and how they are going to do things, if they do enable PvP, I think it would prove interesting, to say the least. I personally think it would be kewl to have my group and I take on a powerful and evil PC.
"Really, I'm quite sane. Just ask my psychiatrist, Dr. Sockpuppet."
"Rehab is for quitters."
First of all it would be interesting to see if D&DO features or plans on featuring PvP, and if there is even the minimal interest in PvP.
The way I see it, with all the existing MMORPGs out there and the whole lot of new ones expected to go live soon there will be a fierce battlle over subscribers, and D&DO has (atleast at this stage of development) a very small of intended crowd, or rather predictably intended crowd. Unlike EverQuest II, WoW, and Middle Earth Online, D&DO is based on a pen and paper roleplaying game which by nature has a much smaller audience than a big successful MMORPG, a game franchise or a best selling book. Now, that said and as stated before, with this minimal audience group it is not sure there would be that many hardcore PvP players to even make it worthwhile to implement such function and tweak and tune it. Ofcourse, if enough people will request PvP... all I can say is it would be interesting to see how the developers deal with such issues that rise from it.
Sorry for the sorta unreadable post, my head aches terribly.
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Always run with scissors. The quicker you go, the quicker you'll get to your destination and the quicker you'll finish using the scissors, therefore significantly reducing your chances of injuring yourself
I hope they have wilderness to explore. As a Dm I often have towns, locations ear marked for a story line to hook my players should they encounter them.
Meanwhile, I do the random encounter thing, and if they still missing out on a story line, I toss in a map or two or letter on the next random encounter to garner their attention. It works well for our play group, and I imagine DDO could do something similar.
PvP would work well if it was group vs group, so you have that cleric healing that warrior that just ate 4 magic missiles. One on one ..to unbalanced
Your Paladin grouping with an orge fighter or one not even close to his alignment is a easy fix.
Example LG Class groups with a CE Class =50% XP penalty
Using a simple Aligment grid with a + or - 1 level of aligment difference to give you a Penalty or a Bonus.
Your a Chaotic evil Half orc Thief, you group with a LG paladin human and a Chatic Good gnome fighter. Because your chatic in nature you dont take as much of a hit off the CG Gnome but you do off the LG paladin.
Basically any direct opposing alignment would incur some kind of large penalty when grouped up, while something minor as a True nuetral with a Lawful Nuetral would incur 0 penalty or even a bonus of 5 -10 % XP for keeping the groups faith closely matched.
This might work.. I dunno
Shad
Shad
Balancing this game for PvP would be an all out nightmare. Almost to the point where as if they know it would be a monumental undertaking, they may be better off not even trying for fear of upsetting the masses.
Currently Playing:- nothing
Oh Turbine is making this? I forgot about that... That's bad, right?
At any rate, I heard somewhere that Wizards of the Coast will allow plenty of creative freedom to the dev team of D&DO and they will actually implement those changes into the next P&P ruleset. If PvP is included, I expect some changes to be made in balancing those issues you speak of.
I doubt this game will bring back the old memories of sitting around the kitchen table playing D&D. Probably the only way to get that experience back is to do just that.
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Always run with scissors. The quicker you go, the quicker you'll get to your destination and the quicker you'll finish using the scissors, therefore significantly reducing your chances of injuring yourself
~Yeti
...living up to the standard of typing with "twinkie fingers" one post at a time. lol 8-/
~Yeti
The problem with PvP is that WotC balanced the classes by factoring in Non-Cambat skills. Rouges only get 1d6 hitpoints and have medium combat but they get 8 skill points per level. That factors into the balancing. DDO has very little use for non-combat skills.
Personally I'd take a 20th level Wizard over any other class in PvP.
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Leerooooyyy nngggJJennkkinnss..
A Legend was Born
Do you not understand though? to the people who play for pvp this is where it makes it no fun. i mean, seriously, i like being ganked, teaches me things... like, how to fight multiple opponents.. and such, anyway, i agree the game needs to not be focused on pvp, but i feel they do need to have some kind of FFA server, or servers..
Sorry bout the double post...
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Leerooooyyy nngggJJennkkinnss..
A Legend was Born
hello ???
D&D is NO PVP period... why is this post even here ?
its about adventuring together, exploration, conquest. PVP ? I am sure there will be many other games to satisfy the pvpers, please stay away from this one
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Leerooooyyy nngggJJennkkinnss..
A Legend was Born
Originally posted by Dregard44 Well, of course P&P D&D isnt pvp,
Actually, I think PNP D&D is all about PvP, it's simply alternative form of PvP. Look at it from this point of view: you have two groups, the party controlled by the players and the horde of monsters controlled by the DM. Now what makes it so much more PvP oriented than MMORPGs is the fact that the monsters abide the same rules as the player characters in contrast to MMORPGs where monsters get enormous bonuses to compensate for their AI.
The way I see it, D&D is a group PvP in it's PNP version, altho I still don't think there's a reason to implement such feature in the MMORPG. A player is bothering you? simple solution to that - don't adventure with him... either that or go play ShadowBane.
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Always run with scissors. The quicker you go, the quicker you'll get to your destination and the quicker you'll finish using the scissors, therefore significantly reducing your chances of injuring yourself
I'm not particularly found of PvP either, but we used to PvP with PnP D&D (try to say that 5 times fast out loud). We had a blast, sort of a little battle Royle
Lying in bed, looking up at the stars, a single thought passed through my head. Where the fuc|{ is my roof.
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I'm only just now checking out D&D Online, and havn't seen much in the sense of PvP. Honestly, I'm sick of all the whining about PvP in games. Every game forum has these threads saying "no balanced PvP = crap game. Know what? Its been said before and it will be said again; if you want PvP as the maincourse there are way way waaaaay better genres for PvP. Thats not to say it cannot be fun, I had fun playing DAoC for awhile, but in the end its all about PvE when playing MMORPGS. And frankly, thats the way it should be. Not every game needs to be an 'I pwn0rd u' slug-fest. I'm sure DDO will make servers for those that want PvP and thats fine with me. Call me a carebear or bluebie; I'm above childish whining. I just hope they do not alter classes and try to balance in the name of "my character isn't as strong"
Someone above spoke about paladins and their disdain for wealth building and solo play etc. I hope this game stays true that. Limits the abilities for a Paladin to group with an evil character just so he can gain some exp. That automatically moves him from Lawful Good to Chaotic Nuetral. Hence, no longer a Paladin.
There will never be balanced PvP with the D&D rules. So what. Could still be a heck of a game. There is always Call of Duty. In fact, think I'll go play some.
I'm of the crowd that doesn't see why PvP has to/should work in DDO. This game is taken from an established system in which the concept for that system does not include PvP. From reading what I have read about the reason the turbine staff are creating this game (which is that they have a regularly weekly DnD session and wanted to translate that feel into a MMOG), I hope they stick to that thought and not try to shoe-horn PvP in. The aforementioned reasons noted, DDO with Pvp would most probably turn out to be a huge pain in the rear as PvP in SWG is.
Sure, some say if PvP is consenual you don't have to participate and it doesn't affect you. Well, wrong. The constant re-working of a given class do affect everyone of that class whther they engage in PvP or not. The fact that DnD classes aren't balanced for Pvp ensure that people will cry foul and demand changes to a class b/c they can't pvp as well as X other class.
Now, before the pvp+ people light their torches, I'm not here to burn the Pvp idea down. If you want to PvP in DDO, I hope you have ample opportunity to do so on a server set aside for that. Just expect your class to change in ability every other month or so as years of MMORPG gaming and 14+ years of playing/DMing DnD give me a pretty good idea of the Charlie Foxtrot PvP would be with DnD, ADnD, 3.0 or 3.5 classes.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I'll have to whole-heartedly disagree with you on this. I don't see (nor have I ever done) a DM as one against the party. If your motivation as a DM is to kill the party, you won't be DMing very long. Players
like to be heroes and in order to be a hero you have to live long enough to make a name for yourself. Yes, there should be risk with death included as a possibility. Yes, players in a few of my campaigns have died for doing foolish things (and being told by their party members not to do the thing that got them killed beforehand). That said, the role of the DM if to tell a story and to help the players tell their own story. Every battle I've placed before my players I hoped they would win yet I was objective enough to place challenging encounters so that the win had value to it.
No, the players play, the DM unfolds the story as I see it.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez