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PvP as a neccessity
fentanyl
Member Posts: 23
for the longest time i've been looking for a good PvP game that i can get into. something that has equally entertaining venues of advancement through PvP and PvE gameplay. i could never sit too long on a game that i couldn't rob and murder folks with as much impunity as my skill allowed. why is that? is it because i'm a jerk? maybe i'm just acting to offset powerlessness or inadequacy in reality. yet, outside of case by case studies, nothing is going to resolve that common lament after a vicious PK, "you ust kill cuz ur weak r/l lol".
however, it's really not that way. a mmo has it's kind of ecosystem that if done correctly and maintained wisely, can supply limitless entertainment. part of that ecosystem demands predators who thrive from extracting thier jollies from conquest against persons, and the other half of the coin naturally seeks accomplishment to be acquired through the interaction with the enviroment. there is a relationship here that sets subcategories of people to be put in check. pkers take pride in hitting a juicy mark, optimally the person with the greatest arogance or something to lose, and without a healthy portion of these predators a PvE game will invariably become an attendance competition. in the animal kingdom you can observe what happens when predators are removed, the habitat decays as what was once prey extract more from thier enviroment than the enviroment produces and a domino effect is set in motion. in the animal kingdom the end result is migration and wastelands, and in the world of mmo's the result is not dissimilar. when the enviroment yeilds no more entertainment (which is what we play for right), we leave, and we leave communities where 5-10% of players (mostly inactive) hold a disporportionate amount of wealth. effectively, we satiate ourselves and leave.
i've seen it many times at this point and rarely do i find the window of opportunity that allows me to partake of good PvP gaming before it's tinkered to irrelevance or dropped before the next development phase. if anyone here knows what i'm talking about, what was the last game you this in? what went wrong? or if you're playing one now, tell me about it.
Comments
EVE Online.
Plenty of threads around here explaining why, but here is my favorite:linkage
Also, here is a quote from a devchat earlier today:
Been a long time since I seen a post like this.
This is my account from the change in UO.
I know what your talking about,.And anyone playing UO when the new tramell land was patched in they know to,. Of corse the Anti pvp players Loved the idea of splitting the land into a mirror. 1 land for pvp the other for non pvp.At first everything seems ok,. But it was easy to see the distruction of UO day by day.
Player killer "PK" is vary important to a good balance in a game,They stop players from over farming gold/rare items,. allso force players to not carry there whole life savings with them.It allso shuts up mouthy players/ Ksing /an loot griefers,.Keeps the crafting profesions busy an the prices low.They allso promote Partys an groups to fend off that 1 to 4 gank sqwad.PLuss everyone dont look so flashy an rich,. they look more like survivers.
But not everything good comes from player killing,If the risk of becoming A player killer is light then you get to many 2 acounts/characters doing it an it becomes a problem,but UO had it right,. Murder counts,.I call it ghost jail.Not going to explain it for non UO players.It was not easy to be a RED back in the day.Had to wait 80 hours to res after killing around 15 players in a day then dieing. you didnt see the same PK everyday unless they were Vary VAry good,so my gank is done Im gone for a long time,. an thats 80 loged in hours, as a ghost.I learned my lessen, better spend that time logged in at work.
Eve-online,. is the only game I know of with True "PK" right now.
Dont play Eve Online. You will never be good in PvP. Their is no level cap so the veteran players pretty much have a monopoly over the PvP game.
I would recommend Star Wars Galaxies. I think it is the best quality game as far as PvP. You have space PvP where you can fly for the Rebels or Imperials and fight other players. Or you can play the "ground game" and fight in PvP as a stormtrooper type or a rebel type. Plus you can work for Jedi and become a Jedi Master and beat down other players or fight other JEDI for 'Jedi Rankings'.
After that I would recommend waiting for City of Villians if you like superhero type games. City of Villians is the expansion pack to City of Heroes that lets you PvP as a superhero versus the opposing side "Good side versus Evil side".
Other then those I cant reocommend any PvP games. Maybe EQ2 in about 1 year when they release their second expansion that adds the 'Qeynos versus Freeport' PvP war.
Since you compare to the ecology...
Predators in nature also are fiercely fighting each others, only a very few will gang up, and they will only do so with a few...killing and chasing others predators with relentlessness. (PKing games will prove you that PKers dont fight each other that much and more co-exist then openly attack each others). Predators are also extremely carefull about entering another territory, since it is permanent death
In a MMORPG, PKers dont chase others PKers. Which lead the ''ecology'' as you call it to having to many predators for the ''preys'', which would lead to having a shortage of preys and to many predators. When you have to many predators in nature for the prey, you run out of prey and everyone starve and the MMORPG is dead by shortage of players...
And dont tell me PKers focus like they should against others PKers, they just dont.
Also, in an ecology system, if a bull charge a pack of lions, the lions run away. Sure they could gang up and bring down this champion of the prey, but they wont. They could get hurted and die from it. In a MMORPG, they just kill the strongers ''prey'', which lead to the ''weakers prey'' been left alone.
If you want a good PvP system, any PvP player need to KoS any other PvP player that dont belong to his small pack of 20 or less, usually 4-5 online, relentlessly with no pity...and run away from good PvE player, even if they could kill them, the point is not to defeat the PvE champion, it is to feed on the weakers.
In such a system, you would have no more then 10-15 PKers in a very big zone and they will mostly conflict each others, and the PvE players would be able to run behing many strong PvE players and actually extremely rarely be predated.
Building such a system is to complex, and would required extremely harsh measure for any PvPer player that is seriously wounded by any PvE player(so a group a PvP player actually run in front of 1 PvE player, killing that PvE player would mean 1 of them would suffer unacceptable losts)...
See, a PvE player should never be hunted more then once a month for ANY reason. Once a lion eat, any animal could walk pretty close and as long as they dont step on their tail, the lion wont move from under the tree. A lion that feed is a lion that wont kill for a day, two day or maybe even a little longer. A lion that see a HUGE pack of easy prey wont kill them all right now...if he is angry he may kill 1...no more...a PKers will hunt them all for no good reason.
Also, in the ecology, if the predators kills to many prey, they starve to death...
I really dont know if PvP players really want a system that is build around ecology, look to me they are happy to hunt on the champions of the prey(a pack of lions could kill a bull, they rarely do and when they do, 1 of them is usually crippled and die shortly after), which is not something that happen much in nature.
A PvP ladder system or zones restricted that dont impact on PvE sound more fun and more challenging to me, then actually abusing those who cant defend themselves or even worser, abusing those that somewhat can but are not exactly on par for a skilled PvP player...
If the PvP player have permanent death, but the PvE player dont have permanent death or any penalty beside a little walk, then sure...I can deal with open PvP. So a PvP player that die is dead for good, no matter if a PvE kill them or another PvP...now we are talking of a group of PvP running away in front of 1 PvE player that can potentially hurt them bad. It start to make sense. You would need a protection to not accidentally become PvP player...and also some feature to make sure PvE players are not hunting the poor PvP players non-stop, but rather react to their presence(so they can charge them, but not run after them to long). The system would need at least a tiny %(lower then 1%) chance of instantly killing someone PvP with any hit to make sure folks are afraid...as long as the overall ''strengh'' of the damage dealer is within acceptable reach. You could give the PvPers a permanent damage bonus...as long as the PvE get the % to kill on every hit if they have the overall strengh(level) to back it up...it should make the PvPers consider twice about attack a strong PvE player...just like in nature.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Theres no character lvl in eve,. so yes your right,There is no lvl cap
Dam man,. not sure your so right,. player killers dont care,.they attack each other like fish.
The thing I can agree on is if its a lvl based game you cant have open pvp,.level gaps are to much.But skill based games offer less of a gap,.I can tell you a few simple ways to frustrate a PK in eve online an they will leave you alone till they have help,or go an refit there ship.
Thing with skill games is,.If ya feel ya need to ward off the Lions then carry some bull horns.
Eve Online isnt skill based that you are posting about. I think you meant 'twitch' based as far as talking about determining players skill.
Eve Online has levels. They have a skill system like "Laser weapons skill level 1", then you train level 2 etc etc. THere is just no level cap. So Veteran players have hundreds of skills maxed out.
The veteran players have years of accumulated skill training (THe longer you play the stronger you are because skills train over time), so even if you are casual veteran player, you have a pimp character.
Veteran players have the strongest shields, the toughest armor, the best gun skills, the fastest ships, the most hot points. A new player has no chance of competing with the veteran players in PvP.
I like Eve Online skills system if you are a player from day 1, and the community is big enough from day one to make the game healthy, but it is horrible on new players that are joining. Unless they give new players excellerated skill training which they havent done yet so they probably wont ever.
r1tual, thats not quite right..
Eve-online has 5 levels for any skill.
ie - light laser 1.... light laser 5
it takes 10 min to get to lvl2, and like a month to get lvl5.
but then - thats IT for light laser.. cant get any higher... same with EVERY SKILL.
after about a month, you can have maxed out one specialisation... Also, at any time you can only use certain skills.. so a 2 month player in a interceptor is about equal to a 2 year player in an interceptor.
the longer you play the more OPTIONS you have. Sure, you can get to pretty damn good in once specialisation very quickly, but are hopeless outside that area, in time, you can add extra areas of specialisation.
The key to eve is that there is NO BEST ANYTHING... only things that are better in certain situations. A n00b ship with the right modue can be key to taking down a uber battleship with the best modules. (ok rare example, but its possible)
The KEY to eve is teamwork, advanced planning, knowing the capabilities of your ship, and knowledge of the enemy. No matter how long you have played, how many skills, you can always be beaten by something.
the Uber player in a battleship and 20 million skill points could be taken down by a few noobs in frigates with a few hundred thousand skill points each - if caught at the right time.
and one more thing i forgot...
so many skills are useless unless you use the right mods/guns.
if your in a battleship with lasers, then all the skills in light/medium weapons, and all skills in missiles/projectiles/hybrids are useless... that can easily be 3-4 million skill points "wasted" at that time.
so someone with a month can be as good as a 2 year vet... in that situation and setup.
What greater tribute to free will than the power to question the highest of authority? What greater display of loyalty than blind faith? What greater gift than free will? What greater love than loyalty?
One big flaw, the average PK'er doesn't realize they can kill off all there food
The only game that will come close to the PvP freedom you seek will be Roma Victor and (maybe DnL). But RV is top becaUse of its combat system and freedom.
RV is entering into its commercial testing phase soon. Go and sign up, you may find something you like!
WWW.ROMA-VICTOR.COM
First off, the original poster was making an analagy, he didnt say create an entire MMORPG based on how the animal kingdom holds PvP. I don't really understand what you're suggesting here, you like open PvP but only if there is a limited amount of PK'rs per zone, or if the PvP people have perma death? Not only would this be incredibly hard to do, but it would be the worst decision a developer has ever made, if they choose to do it. You give very specific reasons why open PvP will fail, but you have NO proof to back it up. It could just as easily thrive as it could fail. You suggest a MMO have PvP zones, and consentual PvP, thats fine, take your pick between the dozens of mass-market, high profile, MMO with consentual PvP, wont be hurtin my feelings.
The original poster made a GREAT analagy towards the animal kingdom, and i agree 100% because i have experienced this too. The only game to hold my interest for more then 1 year (and it was for 6 years) was an open PvP game (at least it was when it started, and even after trammel, it still had very good PvP, factions, guild wars, fellucia, etc). Some people perfer to log on every day of the week and gind on that same monster endlessly over and over until finally they level up only to do it again. Thats great, you have dozens of MMO's like that. I want just ONE game where the PvP is open and looting is FULL, but there is still a healthy PvE system. I also want a game with a good polictics and dimplomacy system, and that is completely skill based.
Darkfall is looking the closest to what i want, with open PvP and full looting.
to anofalye, i can see how you would observe these things, but i don't believe some of them are entirely correct. i was contending that full or open PvP is a neccessity that can be contained by the system of the game. however, for some time now there hasn't been a system able or developers willing to test thier system with that kind of PvP.
so yes you could probably find rich PvP gone mad but that's probably not entirely related to the fact that PvP is there, but rather that it is an option. in games i've played where it is optional (example:pvp servers, or small pvp areas), i've found pkers to be to be the only ones pk'd at all. they intentionally risk little or nothing and after the kill they go back PvE play.
now, i don't agree with you on the pack of lions analogy. weaker players are targeted by weaker pkers, and weaker players learn the ropes this way too. a noob of good disposition could make invaluable friends by wandering into a death trap, but there aren't many of those folks around. also, stronger pkers are also rather indiscriminate. there is no need to KoS anyone else, because if the enviroment allows pkers to loot, the loot is more motivating than a "he's not like you, you should off him" rule.
what i was posting about wasn't just throwing predators into any game all willy nilly but a game that adapts and grows along with predators and prey. i don't understand how it would work to limit the amount of pkers per each area like an elevator capacity; it wouldn't work but making an area that's only usefull to mid level PvE players would attract smaller amounts of PvP players, and that's what i'm talking about. some games do get it right.
I was allmost kill'd last night by semi newb player,.Iv been playing 2 years,
I just bearly got away,.I wasint ready.IN fact I was day dreaming, Came close to losing ALOT,An still not sure how i got away,.Think he ran out of power, I was jamed, My 5 months of skill in gunnery was useless an IM glad he had no Noss(NRG drain) I was able to tank most of the dmg.
The fact is,.yes you can Have ALOT of skill,.But like Cenn said,only a small amount of skills you have will effect the ship your in,.Most players unless hard core PK will train a range of skills that suit them for there style an for one type of ship. 3 months an your god in any ship you choose to max in stats.
Maby there is a Skill cap in a way,. Hell lets Call it a lvl cap,