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The Secret World: Issue #4 - The PvP
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Over the next several columns, MMORPG.com Lead Writer Bill Murphy will be taking a look at the individual features of Funcom's The Secret World. In Issue #4, Bill talks all things PvP, both good and bad as he sees it. See what Bill has to say and then let us know what you think in the comments.
In an effort to continue discussion on the game, let’s keep analyzing the many different sections of The Secret World as we know it. I mean really, though we’re just a couple months from beta’s anticipated beginning, there’s a lot left to discover about Funcom’s next title. One of the many areas that’s of intrigue for me personally is the game’s Player vs. Player system. So here’s the gist what we know.
Read more of Bill Murphy's The Secret World Issue #4 - The PvP.
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Comments
Sorry but match made PvP is basically worthless garbage; another iteration of the same tired old battleground with apparently the added thrill of having to "farm" it for some resource. I don't mind them adding it, but I'd much rather they ignored it and worked on a better open world/territory control pvp area for the factions.
3 factions: That's a promising start. Get rid of the healer next, I'd go for next.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
"No level 900s ganking a level 7. Yes, please!"
How do we know that there aren't "levels" of these skills that allows for the same basic thing? Forget ganking, that's a given that numbers matter. We don't know that a highly advanced character won't be able to one hit an infinite number of half as advanced characters. And this bothers me, because it's just word play at this point.
Once upon a time....
I agree. Something like covens, temples, libraries, things that can not only be captured, but offer something for those who hold them. Information resources (libraries, temples), small power boosts of specific kinds (fountains?), items (depots, mines, etc.).
Once upon a time....
3 faction game and they only talked about worthless BGs at GDC....
Son, I'm dissapoint. Hope there is more..There is simply so many oportunities with this one I hope they don't limit the game to simply instanced pvp with zero consequences at all.
Yeah, I also feel that it's a missed opportunity that TSW will have 3 factions but no large scale PvP between said factions. Hopefully Guild Wars 2 will be able satisfy those that long for something akin to DAoC, with their own large-scale World PvP (mention early in the vid).
You'd think that with the lore and everything built around 3 factions so intrinsically, that pvp would go the whole hog and include both types of arena/scenario/instanced & world/realm/faction pvp?
Then maybe the second pvp is too demanding on the network ie technical call on this choice?
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Do hope they get some open world areas, they could even do it in a DaoC style since each faction does have a an area of the world as their base.
Good news: structured, meaningful PvP.
At least it's not another iteration of the tired, guaranteed fail that is open world PvP - a system that never works.
Games are games and should be treated so. Try to imagine open world soccer, or open world tennis, or open world boxing to understand why chasing the fantasy of 'open world PvP' will lead to repeated disappointment.
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Open world PvP is a synonym for "Gank-fest". Why bother to put effort into a fundamentally flawed system when there's so much else that could be done in the same time to make the game more fun for 99% of the playerbase?
Please, give me another Darkness Falls like in DAoC!
This, we have seen where open world PvP leads to, most people leave and the small hardcore minority is running the servers. We have seen that in AoC, that is now a PvE game (and a good one meanwhile) but startet out attracting all the PvP doods.
After those ruined their own Servers they were merged into the fragile communitys of the mixed Servers, breaking those next. All that was left over is the PvE servers and thos work pretty well. Nice community and quite healthy population.
So go figure where this will go.
My thoughts exactly, just speculation on the part of the author and I'm sure people are going to run with the whole "no lvls and we get 500 skills" thing.
I'm sure out of the "500 skills" they will include passive skills that raise abiliites such as hp,mp,stam,defense,str,int.etc.
Which means a player with 900 skill points to spend will own one with 7 skill points to spend all day long as he will have a higher hp pool,mana pool ,better defense ,not to mention higher damage output.
Of course the last part is speculation on my part as well but i find it far more realistic to think there will be PvE advancement of some sort, which most likely means grinding skill points to spend (filling up an "XP" bar at which point you are awarded skill point(s) )
Why do so many people seem to be obsessed with the false comparison of Open Gank PvP vs Battlegrounds????? Or are you just dense?
Persistant, territory control PvP does NOT automatically equal open world pvp! In fact, I and others have argued many times that truely open pvp is just too hard to effectively implement in an MMO but that does not rule out territory control and persistant objectives. Consider DAoC and EVE (arguably two of the most successful MMOs with strong PvP elements); in both the main territorial pvp areas are distinct and seperate from the general population/themepark aspects of the game.
My complaint with battlegrounds is that they are over used and a "quick fix" for games that feel they must have pvp but which are unwilling to devote any real effort to it. BGs are a mindless quick reset mini-game; to use your sports analogy it's like a league where no one tracks stats and you can get any prize you want by beating the local youth team enough times.
The PvP servers in AoC were fine before they added rewards and consequences to satisfy the PvE crowd. The Bane server was actually the most interesting of all the servers because it was Cultural, meaning races teamed up against the other two races. But the developers ended up allowing the races group anyway, which led to just another FFA but with a lot more opportunity for abuse. They should have kept the races separate and let them fight it out, like in DAoC, in my opinion.
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Agreed, match made pvp simply shows that devs dont know anything about pvp and dont even care about pvp, they simply want to make a stupid game that will make losers feel better by "awesome" pve... pvp battlegrounds exist only because devs dont care about the pvp of the game and just want to say that their game has pvp
"Now, I’ve made it clear before than I’m longing for a game to have the balls DAoC did and give us three-faction warfare on a world-wide scale."
Actually, DAoC wasn't world-wide PvP; you had the frontier region that was factional PvP and the shared dungeon (Darkness Falls) that was technically factional PvP (until such time as whichever side controlled it drove out the few remaining enemy players in it). From what they were saying about the Hollow Earth area, it sounded a lot like DAoC's frontier. I'm curious to see how they are going to rework that now.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Pleeeeease don't make the same mistake as Conan. Don't just follow WoW and make PVP = minis and stupid arena matches! We don't want this game to be like WoW!
I hope they decide to make the open world matter more in PVP.
I must say that I'm skeptical about the 3-faction instanced time-limited PvP format...
While this might sound odd coming from me, I really don't think this is a good idea.
The whole point of 3-faction PvP is its shifting alliances feature which provides the in-built negative feedback loop preventing one side from gaining the upper hand and which is therefore, at least theoretically, prolonging the fight indefinitely. Time-limited "matches" have no need for this controller mechanism and I'd say that they may acively suffer from it. In an instanced PvP match with 3 factions either the two sides will gang up on the third and overwhelm it in time for the match to end OR they will all shift-alliance with the game ending in a draw. As you can see both of these outcomes are not ideal.
Imo 3-faction system is great for a permanent conflict that does not need ultimate outcome resolution (also known as "world PvP"). 2-faction system, with its in-built positive feedback loop inbalance is ideal for time-limited matches (aka "battlegrounds" "scenarios" or whatever).
I really hope Funcom designs its instanced PvP with this in mind. You can have temporary alliances set at the beginning of the match, for example, so it is still a 2-sided conflict. Or it could pair just 2 of the 3 factions in each particular match. Imo 3-way fighting is not the route to go in "match" PvP. But I could be wrong, it's just a hunch I have. Imo they would do well to provide both 3-sided and 2-sided arenas and see how things go from there.
The Hollow Earth bit, on the other hand, should firmly stay 3-faction and that's one part of the game that I'm really interested in tho I wouldn't mind some good old-fashioned BGs from time to time as well.
If PvP is limited to BG-size areas with limited number of participants, then there is no need for three factions, PvP-wise (I like all three factions, and think they mix well, storywise). If the Hollow Earth area is large and has no restrictions on number of participants, then three factions makes sense.
Part of the thrill in DAoC was that you spent time hunting down your enemies, and getting killed set you back quite a bit time-wise in that you usually respawned some distance from the action and had to run back to where the fight took place. There was no non-stop action with respawn camping, but tactically each faction had to send out scouts/spies to find their enemies.
If the HE area is of a fair size, one of the DAoC OF-frontier zones, that should be plenty of space for everyone to join the fun, and the strategic element of three factions come into play. If the area is AoC BG-size with just group vs group action, then we are better off without.
at least they are off to a good start with the open skill based character developement. i truely hope they do develop it a lot more when it comes to all the different aspects of pvp. area style is fun but only to a certain extent. looks like there is a mix of pve in there as well. it will be an interesting one to watch and see if they pull this off. considering funcom's track record i feel this will be released way to early people won't like it at the start and it'll be a year before it's worth playing... just sayin.
Well, couldn't one say the same thing of open world pvp? "Another tired iteration of open world pvp with the added thrill of killing people signifianctly weaker than oneself?"
It's six of one/half dozen of the other.
Which really means it just comes down to personal taste.
for my taste, battlegrounds (such as warhammer) were a blast. But it tends to remove pvp from the game world and essentially makes it another ride in a theme park. having said that, there is a contingent of players who are basically about getting their buddies together and killing anyone who has less numbers or levels/abilities.
From what I've seen I do think DAoC seems like a great system so here's to more games adopting it.
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Match made PvP is a good fun alternative to world PvP when you dont have the time to play for hours. But I too prefer open world PvP to instanced one, but the latter one fills an important purpose.
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I prefer match made PvP and Flagging up when u feel in the mood for a fight!
If ppl want PvP zones or full PvP - then we should ALL be given the choice with different types of servers - PvP and PvE/PvP
The PvE/PvP having No PvP zones, just BG of some type and Flagging up.
A game should have what will mostly please all - of course there is no pleasing everyone, but as long as the majority have choices of different types of servers to suit their style of play, then that seems fair.
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If you try to pigeonhole me
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BG's of 3 different factions - should make it interesting to say the least! Massive fun.
I am an Abstract sort of Creature
Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint
If you try to pigeonhole me
I Will Break Free!