Well you could do world PvP with level scaling so everyone was effectively at the same level. That would actually be like what happens in a proper shooter, its skill not level that counts. The only issue with that is MMO combat seems often designed to remove skill, but we have all seen games where melee combat is balanced against ranged. It can be done.
You are completely missing the point. It is not about the fight. If a player wants to fight he can play FPS, moba, battleground game. It is about the politics, the economy, the impact and the reasons for PvP. That makes the MMORPG.
This first part nails it perfectly. MMORPGs are all about progression, whether it be on a player's character, on their gear, on their wealth or the territory they and their allies control.
They are rewarded for achieving this progression by being stronger than others and dominating them in game.
To me, this is actually a far more realistic form of "combat" than the simple "fighting" found in games such as BRs and the like.
It really isn't about the fight, its about winning the war, especially if the cost of losing can mean seeing the assets you worked hard to obtain can be destoyed or taken away.
When there is some tangible on the line to lose, then the regular "rules" of fair combat no longer apply.
In fact, it really comes down to one of my favorite EVE sayings, "If you ever find yourself in a fair fight, someone has done something terribly wrong."
If you are at my doorstep trying to take my stuff, I don't if I have to beat you with better gear, higher levels, more friends or whatever advantage I'm permitted to use, as long as you end up dead and I don't, its all good.
After all, this isn't really just a game, it's a war simulator and crushing others totally is all that matters, at least to me.
I've heard it said by others such combat isn't very "fun" to them to which all I can say is, it isn't supposed to be.
It's a fight for survival, which I enjoy immensely, but often find isn't very "fun."
Well you can still fight for domains, housing, cities even if you are all the same "level". That's a "rewarded for achieving this progression by being stronger than others and dominating them in game". Progression for domination of realm, rather than self progression, of course you could still have different levels scaling against mobs. Or giving you realm defence trees like inspiring the builders to rebuild a castle portcullis in half the time.
As to what the OP wants, come on guys, you get pvp xp from downing another player, you often get gold and you want to nick something from his bag?
What is this meant to be a 'Mugging Simulator Online' or a MMORPG?
Self progression - solo game, group progression - multiplayer game - pretty obvious. But you are still missing the point. EVE for example is a sandbox game with horizontal progression, There are not levels and ultimate superior gear.
In the solo RPG everything is about the progression of your character in the context of the story. In the multiplayer game it should be the progression of your group. That does not mean you cannot play solo, but in general the solo playing is optional. In a MMORPG you should not be able to grind solo your path from the beginning to the so called end game. In EVE you need to trade, and to use the services of the other players and their corporations.
Well fighting for domains etc is what I would regard as "progression of your group". I am not a fan of solo to top level, what I am suggesting here does not indicate that. There is more than one way to make an omelette, the problem for the genre is so few of them have been tried.
Self progression - solo game, group progression - multiplayer game - pretty obvious. But you are still missing the point. EVE for example is a sandbox game with horizontal progression, There are not levels and ultimate superior gear.
In the solo RPG everything is about the progression of your character in the context of the story. In the multiplayer game it should be the progression of your group. That does not mean you cannot play solo, but in general the solo playing is optional. In a MMORPG you should not be able to grind solo your path from the beginning to the so called end game. In EVE you need to trade, and to use the services of the other players and their corporations.
EVE is the most horizontal PvP MMO we have ever seen however, it is diagonal progression. If I max all my gunnery skills at 5 I am straight better than someone flying a gun based ship that has them all at 2 or 3.
In addition, if I am flying a mothership I am absolutely stronger than someone in a t1 frigate. That frigate does have the advantage of small size, fast speed, and good tracking rates on it's guns but if I simply release a flight of scout drones that frigate is doomed. Even a small squad of those frigates would be doomed. And I can repair allied ships. And I can take down much larger ships than that frigate.
However, fit that frigate with a warp scrambler and it can fill a role my mothership can't. The tackler role. Send a fleet of 100 of those frigates which is a small fraction of the cost of my mothership at me, and I'm dead.
Horizontal progression implies pretty equal tradeoffs so that your power never really advances. Vertical progression means you get something that is straight better than what you had before. EVE is based on unequal tradeoffs where more expensive ships make sacrifices to be more powerful but they are more powerful. So the best way to describe it would be a mix of horizontal/vertical progression AKA diagonal progression.
Oh, and I forgot to mention... it's full loot AND perma death. Good luck to the badasses
I think you need mainly skill for that game so doubt anyone interested in games like darkfall will be that interested.
I cannot name a single game in the entire MMO sphere that takes more skill than the original Darkfall. To the point of it's detriment, it's manual aim game with over 100 abilities to manage. It's the game where not only did I start using a proper gaming mouse but I started programing macros because they were a near requirement to accomplish certain tasks efficiently.
Absolutely skill grinding was a factor and it heavily detracted from the skill based aspects of the game but if you're telling me Darkfall didn't take skill, you clearly are absolutely ignorant of the game and really should keep your uninformed and frankly useless opinion to yourself.
Yes, yes, so much skill to park your toon in front of a tree and farm it while doing something else; so much skill to go and kill players afk farming resources; so much skill to kill undeargeared/leveled players.
Games like Darkfall represent the epitome of unskilled pvp, built for gamers that have a pve mindset but want to pretend to be pvpers. Probably the reason why most of them are dead.
Open world pvp games like what OP wants don't really make it as casuals have no interest in them, and casuals are where the market it is now. I myself hate full looting pvp, I don't mind pvp but I hate losing my stuff so I generally stay away from them. Most pvp mmo's devolve into bascally max levels ganking newbies all day, and are scared if anyone who can actually fight back shows up, it happens in every single one, and its why they die. A mmorpg can't survive without new players and when said new player keeps getting ganked by someone high level to the point they can't even defend themselves it gets old.. fast, so they quit. It ends up being that the ones playing the game end up killing it too.
I like pvp don't get me wrong but I hate the full loot aspect, because there are already enough asshats that will go around and gank new players, don't give them more of a reason to do it by giving them the satisfaction of making their target drop their stuff.
Anyway, I wouldn't expect any full pvp full loot mmorpgs to come anytime soon, and even if they do, expect them to be dead in less than 6 months unless its a free2play title.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Short answer: No, because no one but sociopath teenagers want a full-loot PvP game, and they ain't got no money.
This is so true.
I only disagree on the "teenager" part. Sociopath in video games can be, and often are much older. There's no age for being an ass when there's no risk of retaliation involved.
There is one strong causation, and loudness you're missing.
Gankers also tend to form their own tight nit communities. Younger gamers tend to have the time to invest into those tight nit communities (college and below).
Younger gamers also have time to post up the forum/reddit/whatever, and babysit their dozen or so threads to keep them on TOP. So you have that loudness coming from those PvPers right there. While this doesn't mean every ganker is a young kid with tons of time, it does mean those are the ones you get to hear A LOT.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
I love how every time someone asks for a pvp game we all get labeled as sociopaths, bullies, assholes and whatever else you can think of. Funny how it seems a little reversed to me. I play pvp games because I enjoy the politics between the guilds/alliances. I play against other people who are active and want to fight, sometimes you win sometimes you lose. You are right there are people who like to pick of easy targets, you have guilds like goon squad who will zerg everyone to death. Most those players run off when people fight back, goons always leave once they cant zerg people down anymore.
You cant get the rush of sieges from DF in a game like overwatch or pubg/fortnite. However you will get a better running game than you will ever find in DF :-)
I cannot name a single game in the entire MMO sphere that takes more skill than the original Darkfall. To the point of it's detriment, it's manual aim game with over 100 abilities to manage. It's the game where not only did I start using a proper gaming mouse but I started programing macros because they were a near requirement to accomplish certain tasks efficiently.
Absolutely skill grinding was a factor and it heavily detracted from the skill based aspects of the game but if you're telling me Darkfall didn't take skill, you clearly are absolutely ignorant of the game and really should keep your uninformed and frankly useless opinion to yourself.
Yes, yes, so much skill to park your toon in front of a tree and farm it while doing something else; so much skill to go and kill players afk farming resources; so much skill to kill undeargeared/leveled players.
Games like Darkfall represent the epitome of unskilled pvp, built for gamers that have a pve mindset but want to pretend to be pvpers. Probably the reason why most of them are dead.
I spent my time in that game protecting underskilled/ungeared player and there was plenty of challenge to be had in that. If you spent your time killing newbs that's all you. It's not reflective of how much skill it actually takes to accomplish something of note.
What is this meant to be a 'Mugging Simulator Online' or a MMORPG?
It's easy to be a bully online. You just need a few more levels than your victim and you can make his life miserable without risking anything. When you are too much of a coward to be an asshole in real life, that's the ideal hideout to do it without any risk of retaliation.
You forgot to add "in a poorly-designed game"...
It was implied. There has been not a single decently designed FFA full loot PvP MMORPG as of today, except maybe EvE... and even that game has flaws, but it manages them much better than all the others.
All those games fail because of one, single reason. Most players don't give a shit about "RP". If they can grief, they will, they don't need a reason for it, just to be assholes. That's what the Internet turns people into, nothing new.
The problem is people like @Jean-Luc_Picard are making it out like all MMO's need to suffer from Dragonball Z esque progression. That feature is the largest detriment to the entire MMO genre IMO. Even in PVE games I've quit a lot of the early MMOs I tried due to frustration at not being able to play with friends of different levels enjoyably.
Shrink the power gap. People are going to work for things that offer more power wether that gap in power be 5%, 500% or 500,000,000,000,000%. The problem is 99% of MMOs out there went with 500,000,000,000,000% because that's what WoW did and they are incapable of using the ounce of creativity it would take to design a better system.
But as was shown with Guild Wars 1, a game can be quite successful with a low powergap.
Come on you don't have to be a sociopath to like the idea of a full loot open PvP world, but it causes huge issues with gameplay and who will play.
The other thing that gets me is that even in proper shooter games, where there really is skill, no one wants to take something out of the other guys "bag". Does anyone say "When they get wasted we need to get some of his ammo!" It just does not happen.
What is this meant to be a 'Mugging Simulator Online' or a MMORPG?
It's easy to be a bully online. You just need a few more levels than your victim and you can make his life miserable without risking anything. When you are too much of a coward to be an asshole in real life, that's the ideal hideout to do it without any risk of retaliation.
You forgot to add "in a poorly-designed game"...
It was implied. There has been not a single decently designed FFA full loot PvP MMORPG as of today, except maybe EvE... and even that game has flaws, but it manages them much better than all the others.
All those games fail because of one, single reason. Most players don't give a shit about "RP". If they can grief, they will, they don't need a reason for it, just to be assholes. That's what the Internet turns people into, nothing new.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What is this meant to be a 'Mugging Simulator Online' or a MMORPG?
It's easy to be a bully online. You just need a few more levels than your victim and you can make his life miserable without risking anything. When you are too much of a coward to be an asshole in real life, that's the ideal hideout to do it without any risk of retaliation.
You forgot to add "in a poorly-designed game"...
It was implied. There has been not a single decently designed FFA full loot PvP MMORPG as of today, except maybe EvE... and even that game has flaws, but it manages them much better than all the others.
All those games fail because of one, single reason. Most players don't give a shit about "RP". If they can grief, they will, they don't need a reason for it, just to be assholes. That's what the Internet turns people into, nothing new.
There is Shadowbane- the best full loot MMORPG.
Ah yes, the one that failed and was shut down two times?
Yeah, a very good example of utterly badly designed PvP MMO.
It had one redeeming feature, it actually wasn't full loot, at least not in the initial launch version.
Players resurrected in their equipped gear, only their backpack contents (which included gold) could be looted.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
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.
This is exactly the type of pvp I would enjoy. I don't mind the ganking, it is the kill everything on sight without repercussions crap that bores me.
If the PK is allowed in the game, you cannot claim anybody is bad or wrong because he does it. It is a part of the game rules, like the "mining" of ore or the "killing" of mobs.
Bad logic.
It's in times when you have those choices that your true persona comes out.
If you have the choice to be an ass to other players who can't defend themself or not, and you choose to be an ass, well, guess what that makes you... ;-)
Totally agree. I've played full loot MMOs for many years now and never did I feel compelled to go and gank nubes or non combat characters, or sit there and purpousley annoy or harras a specific player over and over.
On the flip side, there seems to be a very specific type of personality that fits most greefeers in these games. I know cause I've played with them. I have been in guilds and chats with them, and I have often argued with them. Most of them are often arrogant, disrespectful, aggressive, selfish, uncooperative, obsessive, conniving and generally emotionally flippant. It's a if the only pleasure they get from the game is watching others suffer. When a game allows such people free raign they innevitably end up destroying it's community.
Come on you don't have to be a sociopath to like the idea of a full loot open PvP world, but it causes huge issues with gameplay and who will play.
The other thing that gets me is that even in proper shooter games, where there really is skill, no one wants to take something out of the other guys "bag". Does anyone say "When they get wasted we need to get some of his ammo!" It just does not happen.
Again, the point of the MMORPG is, you have long term reasons related to the game world. It is not just MMO, but also RPG. So you do not PvP only because you want some fight, but for the loot, territory control (even farming spot if not group vs group), boss (it's almost the same as the previous), war and etc. That is why I'm saying most so called modern MMORPGs actually are not MMORPGs. They have some MMO and some RPG parts, but that parts are not really integrated.
You are talking about roleplaying, it is an RPG you say. Well full loot RPG's, how many of those exist, I am struggling to think of one where you get more than one or two items. These days you are as likely if not more likely to get better equipment from exploring and finding hidden treasure.
If you go back to 70's and table top D&D, loot from NPCs was a common way the party "progressed". But roleplayers realised that was not very realistic, you are much more likely to find gold than a sword which is a little better than the one you already have. So that changed as well, indeed loot orientation in table top RPG's has declined. Its more about your own powers and abilities and indeed the personality of your character.
Changes to progression in table top RPG's has had some similarity to what happened in MMORPG's. More about systems, realm control, influence in society rather than looting.
I am not sure how full looting makes you progress more? To me if you get PvP xp and gold that's not bad, and you are not trying to say territorial control has anything to do with getting the dirty washing out of someone's bag?
Nope, there are real people behind the keyboard, believe it or not.
If there's nothing to gain from killing a character 20 levels lower than you, no challenge, no loot, no gold, no honor points, nothing, except being an ass to the person behind the keyboard, then you are an ass. There's no ifs, no buts, you just behaved like an ass. But I don't expect that kind of people to at least have the courage to accept what they are.
I do not PK, but if it is allowed I accept it. I do not blame the players, but the developers. If you could PK a player that cannot, or has not provided by the game motivation to defend himself, that is a problem with the rules and the mechanisms of the gameplay. As for the levels - MMORPGs should not have levels.
You are talking about roleplaying, it is an RPG you say. Well full loot RPG's, how many of those exist, I am struggling to think of one where you get more than one or two items. These days you are as likely if not more likely to get better equipment from exploring and finding hidden treasure.
If you go back to 70's and table top D&D, loot from NPCs was a common way the party "progressed". But roleplayers realised that was not very realistic, you are much more likely to find gold than a sword which is a little better than the one you already have. So that changed as well, indeed loot orientation in table top RPG's has declined. Its more about your own powers and abilities and indeed the personality of your character.
Changes to progression in table top RPG's has had some similarity to what happened in MMORPG's. More about systems, realm control, influence in society rather than looting.
I am not sure how full looting makes you progress more? To me if you get PvP xp and gold that's not bad, and you are not trying to say territorial control has anything to do with getting the dirty washing out of someone's bag?
Imagine a whole clan, guild or corporation to be frustrated instead of one player. Hundreds or even thousands of players - that are L2 or EVE. But this is the risk. Fool loot may seems terrible for the solo player, but it is a casual thing in comparison with the territory control.
For me because its a roleplaying game full looting goes too far, for you its the other way round. I can understand someone stealing cargo from a ship they just beat, after all the cargo is just gold in the end. No issue with that.
But players put a huge value on "their stuff" and I think you are suggesting that full loot means taking the armour they are wearing as well? That to me goes too far, but I can see how for some its just like the way knights had their armour ransomed in medieval times.
I am imagining a whole clan, of gamers with very high blood pressure because they just got shafted. Is that a great incentive for gameplay or overkill that is not needed to have progression and powerplay in a MMO? For me its the latter.
Nope, there are real people behind the keyboard, believe it or not.
If there's nothing to gain from killing a character 20 levels lower than you, no challenge, no loot, no gold, no honor points, nothing, except being an ass to the person behind the keyboard, then you are an ass. There's no ifs, no buts, you just behaved like an ass. But I don't expect that kind of people to at least have the courage to accept what they are.
I do not PK, but if it is allowed I accept it. I do not blame the players, but the developers. If you could PK a player that cannot, or has not provided by the game motivation to defend himself, that is a problem with the rules and the mechanisms of the gameplay. As for the levels - MMORPGs should not have levels.
You are talking about roleplaying, it is an RPG you say. Well full loot RPG's, how many of those exist, I am struggling to think of one where you get more than one or two items. These days you are as likely if not more likely to get better equipment from exploring and finding hidden treasure.
If you go back to 70's and table top D&D, loot from NPCs was a common way the party "progressed". But roleplayers realised that was not very realistic, you are much more likely to find gold than a sword which is a little better than the one you already have. So that changed as well, indeed loot orientation in table top RPG's has declined. Its more about your own powers and abilities and indeed the personality of your character.
Changes to progression in table top RPG's has had some similarity to what happened in MMORPG's. More about systems, realm control, influence in society rather than looting.
I am not sure how full looting makes you progress more? To me if you get PvP xp and gold that's not bad, and you are not trying to say territorial control has anything to do with getting the dirty washing out of someone's bag?
Imagine a whole clan, guild or corporation to be frustrated instead of one player. Hundreds or even thousands of players - that are L2 or EVE. But this is the risk. Fool loot may seems terrible for the solo player, but it is a casual thing in comparison with the territory control.
For me because its a roleplaying game full looting goes too far, for you its the other way round. I can understand someone stealing cargo from a ship they just beat, after all the cargo is just gold in the end. No issue with that.
But players put a huge value on "their stuff" and I think you are suggesting that full loot means taking the armour they are wearing as well? That to me goes too far, but I can see how for some its just like the way knights had their armour ransomed in medieval times.
I am imagining a whole clan, of gamers with very high blood pressure because they just got shafted. Is that a great incentive for gameplay or overkill that is not needed to have progression and powerplay in a MMO? For me its the latter.
So for me I recently switch from ArcheAge to Life if Feudal. ArcheAge is a partial loot game as you described. Life is Feudal is full loot. That is the primary reason we made the switch. I come from a background in full loot games and understand full well what they entail so I think you might find the reason we made the switch enlightening.
The way ArcheAge is set up your gear is bound but your packs are not. The gear disparity gets ridiculous overtime to the point that I could beat a max level player with poor gear hands down effortlessly but there were still a few people in the game who could one shot me despite the fact I ran a decently tanky class with a shield and had moderately good scores in the PvP specific damage resistance stats.
A couple groups screwed with us and so we went to war with them. One had a huge number of players but only a small handful of them were very strong. The other was a moderately sized group with every player in it using pretty stacked gear. We were a small group with most of our members being formidable in strength but not no-lifer level twinked.
With these wars we started roaming the map with about 3 of us taking on any member we saw of these groups we were at war with. 95% of the time we would win those fights. Our enemies would keep respawning until reinforcements arrived or just keep coming at us until they could win a single fight and then trash talk about what crap we were. Sometimes we could steal packs but if we didn't catch them while running packs the victories were meaningless, and actual PvP really wasn't much more meaningful than trash talk in faction chat. Even if we did catch them with packs it really just slowed their progression rather than being a meaningful setback.
So I made the decision to go back to full loot PvP MMOs because I was tired of winning fights and having it mean nothing. I wanted the immersion and stakes of skirmishes that actually mean something.
As far as full loot games being less RPGs:
A good hero's arc contains setbacks.
Full loot PvP is about learning your character is more than just their gear. Once you get in the mindset of seeing gear as a disposable tool rather than part of your character it really is a highly preferable system if you enjoy wars that feel like real wars with meaningful consequences as opposed to straight genital measuring contests.
It is rather hard to make a good full loot MMO and most of them fail miserably.
Part of that is that MMOs have basically become all about gear and the higher gear focus you have the worse does full loot work. When people spent weeks or even months to get a specific gear they tend to get upset when they loose it to a zerg.
And as @Eldurian pointed out does the usual very high powergap not help the least either. Neither does the very generous carrying capacity which means you can more or less steal anything from everyone you kill which is rather unrealistic.
PvP games in general needs a lot of players to be really fun and for said reasons do most full loot games have a very small playerbase which means you will kill and get killed by the exact same people over and over.
Also does the games usually forget to give a good motivation to why you actually need to kill tons of people besides greed for their stuff.
Low playerbase potential means few games and most of them really low budget, the alternative would be to make rather different mechanics (like Eve) but few devs bother to try that.
So for me I recently switch from ArcheAge to Life if Feudal. ArcheAge is a partial loot game as you described. Life is Feudal is full loot. That is the primary reason we made the switch. I come from a background in full loot games and understand full well what they entail so I think you might find the reason we made the switch enlightening.
The way ArcheAge is set up your gear is bound but your packs are not. The gear disparity gets ridiculous overtime to the point that I could beat a max level player with poor gear hands down effortlessly but there were still a few people in the game who could one shot me despite the fact I ran a decently tanky class with a shield and had moderately good scores in the PvP specific damage resistance stats.
A couple groups screwed with us and so we went to war with them. One had a huge number of players but only a small handful of them were very strong. The other was a moderately sized group with every player in it using pretty stacked gear. We were a small group with most of our members being formidable in strength but not no-lifer level twinked.
With these wars we started roaming the map with about 3 of us taking on any member we saw of these groups we were at war with. 95% of the time we would win those fights. Our enemies would keep respawning until reinforcements arrived or just keep coming at us until they could win a single fight and then trash talk about what crap we were. Sometimes we could steal packs but if we didn't catch them while running packs the victories were meaningless, and actual PvP really wasn't much more meaningful than trash talk in faction chat. Even if we did catch them with packs it really just slowed their progression rather than being a meaningful setback.
So I made the decision to go back to full loot PvP MMOs because I was tired of winning fights and having it mean nothing. I wanted the immersion and stakes of skirmishes that actually mean something.
As far as full loot games being less RPGs:
A good hero's arc contains setbacks.
Full loot PvP is about learning your character is more than just their gear. Once you get in the mindset of seeing gear as a disposable tool rather than part of your character it really is a highly preferable system if you enjoy wars that feel like real wars with meaningful consequences as opposed to straight genital measuring contests.
I can see where you and Ikcin are coming from, it does give motivation for PvP. But I question if that sort of motivation is needed.
In DAOC we fought for keeps across realms, in AoC we fought over guild keeps, in AC we fought to tell a roleplay story of people traveling on quests. In Lotro and ESO which both had an "arena" we did a lot of fighting there.
Quite different styles of PvP, all giving rewards for progression. Be it points, control of realm, special equipment and gear, guild kudos for knocking down another guilds "frontier" guild HQ.
We did all this and we did not have to take anything out of a guys bag or "ransom" his armour. That's to me the main reason why I just don't see the need for it.
So for me I recently switch from ArcheAge to Life if Feudal. ArcheAge is a partial loot game as you described. Life is Feudal is full loot. That is the primary reason we made the switch. I come from a background in full loot games and understand full well what they entail so I think you might find the reason we made the switch enlightening.
The way ArcheAge is set up your gear is bound but your packs are not. The gear disparity gets ridiculous overtime to the point that I could beat a max level player with poor gear hands down effortlessly but there were still a few people in the game who could one shot me despite the fact I ran a decently tanky class with a shield and had moderately good scores in the PvP specific damage resistance stats.
A couple groups screwed with us and so we went to war with them. One had a huge number of players but only a small handful of them were very strong. The other was a moderately sized group with every player in it using pretty stacked gear. We were a small group with most of our members being formidable in strength but not no-lifer level twinked.
With these wars we started roaming the map with about 3 of us taking on any member we saw of these groups we were at war with. 95% of the time we would win those fights. Our enemies would keep respawning until reinforcements arrived or just keep coming at us until they could win a single fight and then trash talk about what crap we were. Sometimes we could steal packs but if we didn't catch them while running packs the victories were meaningless, and actual PvP really wasn't much more meaningful than trash talk in faction chat. Even if we did catch them with packs it really just slowed their progression rather than being a meaningful setback.
So I made the decision to go back to full loot PvP MMOs because I was tired of winning fights and having it mean nothing. I wanted the immersion and stakes of skirmishes that actually mean something.
As far as full loot games being less RPGs:
A good hero's arc contains setbacks.
Full loot PvP is about learning your character is more than just their gear. Once you get in the mindset of seeing gear as a disposable tool rather than part of your character it really is a highly preferable system if you enjoy wars that feel like real wars with meaningful consequences as opposed to straight genital measuring contests.
I can see where you and Ikcin are coming from, it does give motivation for PvP. But I question if that sort of motivation is needed.
In DAOC we fought for keeps across realms, in AoC we fought over guild keeps, in AC we fought to tell a roleplay story of people traveling on quests. In Lotro and ESO which both had an "arena" we did a lot of fighting there.
Quite different styles of PvP, all giving rewards for progression. Be it points, control of realm, special equipment and gear, guild kudos for knocking down another guilds "frontier" guild HQ.
We did all this and we did not have to take anything out of a guys bag or "ransom" his armour. That's to me the main reason why I just don't see the need for it.
It all comes down to "Why we fight." Despite being firmly a non combatant I will fight for "cause" which means in defense of the territory my guild or alliance controls.
I found combat in DAOCs blue servers ultimately pointless, endlessly trading keeps with the only real benefit of gaining access to Darkness Falls.
This became increasingly less important as expansions starting with SI gave players alternate hunting grounds of similar efficiency.
I ended up joining a role playing guild on Mordred (FFA server) where we claimed a single keep and frontier zone which we defended at all cost against intruders. (Or collected "tribuut" from.)
While we couldn't loot gear those killed had to buy back their health (up to 5 gold per kill) which actually ended up with players being too broke to fight sometimes. The winners may have received a gold reward too, I no longer recall as it was more about gaining realm points.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
So for me I recently switch from ArcheAge to Life if Feudal. ArcheAge is a partial loot game as you described. Life is Feudal is full loot. That is the primary reason we made the switch. I come from a background in full loot games and understand full well what they entail so I think you might find the reason we made the switch enlightening.
The way ArcheAge is set up your gear is bound but your packs are not. The gear disparity gets ridiculous overtime to the point that I could beat a max level player with poor gear hands down effortlessly but there were still a few people in the game who could one shot me despite the fact I ran a decently tanky class with a shield and had moderately good scores in the PvP specific damage resistance stats.
A couple groups screwed with us and so we went to war with them. One had a huge number of players but only a small handful of them were very strong. The other was a moderately sized group with every player in it using pretty stacked gear. We were a small group with most of our members being formidable in strength but not no-lifer level twinked.
With these wars we started roaming the map with about 3 of us taking on any member we saw of these groups we were at war with. 95% of the time we would win those fights. Our enemies would keep respawning until reinforcements arrived or just keep coming at us until they could win a single fight and then trash talk about what crap we were. Sometimes we could steal packs but if we didn't catch them while running packs the victories were meaningless, and actual PvP really wasn't much more meaningful than trash talk in faction chat. Even if we did catch them with packs it really just slowed their progression rather than being a meaningful setback.
So I made the decision to go back to full loot PvP MMOs because I was tired of winning fights and having it mean nothing. I wanted the immersion and stakes of skirmishes that actually mean something.
As far as full loot games being less RPGs:
A good hero's arc contains setbacks.
Full loot PvP is about learning your character is more than just their gear. Once you get in the mindset of seeing gear as a disposable tool rather than part of your character it really is a highly preferable system if you enjoy wars that feel like real wars with meaningful consequences as opposed to straight genital measuring contests.
I can see where you and Ikcin are coming from, it does give motivation for PvP. But I question if that sort of motivation is needed.
In DAOC we fought for keeps across realms, in AoC we fought over guild keeps, in AC we fought to tell a roleplay story of people traveling on quests. In Lotro and ESO which both had an "arena" we did a lot of fighting there.
Quite different styles of PvP, all giving rewards for progression. Be it points, control of realm, special equipment and gear, guild kudos for knocking down another guilds "frontier" guild HQ.
We did all this and we did not have to take anything out of a guys bag or "ransom" his armour. That's to me the main reason why I just don't see the need for it.
It all comes down to "Why we fight." Despite being firmly a non combatant I will fight for "cause" which means in defense of the territory my guild or alliance controls.
I found combat in DAOCs blue servers ultimately pointless, endlessly trading keeps with the only real benefit of gaining access to Darkness Falls.
This became increasingly less important as expansions starting with SI gave players alternate hunting grounds of similar efficiency.
I ended up joining a role playing guild on Mordred (FFA server) where we claimed a single keep and frontier zone which we defended at all cost against intruders. (Or collected "tribuut" from.)
While we couldn't loot gear those killed had to buy back their health (up to 5 gold per kill) which actually ended up with players being too broke to fight sometimes. The winners may have received a gold reward too, I no longer recall as it was more about gaining realm points.
I am for us having some full loot MMOs, because I want diversity in MMO gameplay. But I won't play one as for me that incentive is unnecessary and I do question how long term a strong player base they would have. But we do get a lot of threads like this, so there must be demand out there. So don't worry I can't see "Mugging Simulators Online" leaving the genre any time soon.
Comments
Well fighting for domains etc is what I would regard as "progression of your group". I am not a fan of solo to top level, what I am suggesting here does not indicate that. There is more than one way to make an omelette, the problem for the genre is so few of them have been tried.
In addition, if I am flying a mothership I am absolutely stronger than someone in a t1 frigate. That frigate does have the advantage of small size, fast speed, and good tracking rates on it's guns but if I simply release a flight of scout drones that frigate is doomed. Even a small squad of those frigates would be doomed. And I can repair allied ships. And I can take down much larger ships than that frigate.
However, fit that frigate with a warp scrambler and it can fill a role my mothership can't. The tackler role. Send a fleet of 100 of those frigates which is a small fraction of the cost of my mothership at me, and I'm dead.
Horizontal progression implies pretty equal tradeoffs so that your power never really advances. Vertical progression means you get something that is straight better than what you had before. EVE is based on unequal tradeoffs where more expensive ships make sacrifices to be more powerful but they are more powerful. So the best way to describe it would be a mix of horizontal/vertical progression AKA diagonal progression.
Yes, yes, so much skill to park your toon in front of a tree and farm it while doing something else; so much skill to go and kill players afk farming resources; so much skill to kill undeargeared/leveled players.
Games like Darkfall represent the epitome of unskilled pvp, built for gamers that have a pve mindset but want to pretend to be pvpers. Probably the reason why most of them are dead.
I like pvp don't get me wrong but I hate the full loot aspect, because there are already enough asshats that will go around and gank new players, don't give them more of a reason to do it by giving them the satisfaction of making their target drop their stuff.
Anyway, I wouldn't expect any full pvp full loot mmorpgs to come anytime soon, and even if they do, expect them to be dead in less than 6 months unless its a free2play title.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
Gankers also tend to form their own tight nit communities. Younger gamers tend to have the time to invest into those tight nit communities (college and below).
Younger gamers also have time to post up the forum/reddit/whatever, and babysit their dozen or so threads to keep them on TOP. So you have that loudness coming from those PvPers right there. While this doesn't mean every ganker is a young kid with tons of time, it does mean those are the ones you get to hear A LOT.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
You cant get the rush of sieges from DF in a game like overwatch or pubg/fortnite. However you will get a better running game than you will ever find in DF :-)
Shrink the power gap. People are going to work for things that offer more power wether that gap in power be 5%, 500% or 500,000,000,000,000%. The problem is 99% of MMOs out there went with 500,000,000,000,000% because that's what WoW did and they are incapable of using the ounce of creativity it would take to design a better system.
But as was shown with Guild Wars 1, a game can be quite successful with a low powergap.
The other thing that gets me is that even in proper shooter games, where there really is skill, no one wants to take something out of the other guys "bag". Does anyone say "When they get wasted we need to get some of his ammo!" It just does not happen.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Players resurrected in their equipped gear, only their backpack contents (which included gold) could be looted.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
On the flip side, there seems to be a very specific type of personality that fits most greefeers in these games. I know cause I've played with them. I have been in guilds and chats with them, and I have often argued with them.
Most of them are often arrogant, disrespectful, aggressive, selfish, uncooperative, obsessive, conniving and generally emotionally flippant.
It's a if the only pleasure they get from the game is watching others suffer.
When a game allows such people free raign they innevitably end up destroying it's community.
If you go back to 70's and table top D&D, loot from NPCs was a common way the party "progressed". But roleplayers realised that was not very realistic, you are much more likely to find gold than a sword which is a little better than the one you already have. So that changed as well, indeed loot orientation in table top RPG's has declined. Its more about your own powers and abilities and indeed the personality of your character.
Changes to progression in table top RPG's has had some similarity to what happened in MMORPG's. More about systems, realm control, influence in society rather than looting.
I am not sure how full looting makes you progress more? To me if you get PvP xp and gold that's not bad, and you are not trying to say territorial control has anything to do with getting the dirty washing out of someone's bag?
But players put a huge value on "their stuff" and I think you are suggesting that full loot means taking the armour they are wearing as well? That to me goes too far, but I can see how for some its just like the way knights had their armour ransomed in medieval times.
I am imagining a whole clan, of gamers with very high blood pressure because they just got shafted. Is that a great incentive for gameplay or overkill that is not needed to have progression and powerplay in a MMO? For me its the latter.
The way ArcheAge is set up your gear is bound but your packs are not. The gear disparity gets ridiculous overtime to the point that I could beat a max level player with poor gear hands down effortlessly but there were still a few people in the game who could one shot me despite the fact I ran a decently tanky class with a shield and had moderately good scores in the PvP specific damage resistance stats.
A couple groups screwed with us and so we went to war with them. One had a huge number of players but only a small handful of them were very strong. The other was a moderately sized group with every player in it using pretty stacked gear. We were a small group with most of our members being formidable in strength but not no-lifer level twinked.
With these wars we started roaming the map with about 3 of us taking on any member we saw of these groups we were at war with. 95% of the time we would win those fights. Our enemies would keep respawning until reinforcements arrived or just keep coming at us until they could win a single fight and then trash talk about what crap we were. Sometimes we could steal packs but if we didn't catch them while running packs the victories were meaningless, and actual PvP really wasn't much more meaningful than trash talk in faction chat. Even if we did catch them with packs it really just slowed their progression rather than being a meaningful setback.
So I made the decision to go back to full loot PvP MMOs because I was tired of winning fights and having it mean nothing. I wanted the immersion and stakes of skirmishes that actually mean something.
As far as full loot games being less RPGs:
A good hero's arc contains setbacks.
Full loot PvP is about learning your character is more than just their gear. Once you get in the mindset of seeing gear as a disposable tool rather than part of your character it really is a highly preferable system if you enjoy wars that feel like real wars with meaningful consequences as opposed to straight genital measuring contests.
Part of that is that MMOs have basically become all about gear and the higher gear focus you have the worse does full loot work. When people spent weeks or even months to get a specific gear they tend to get upset when they loose it to a zerg.
And as @Eldurian pointed out does the usual very high powergap not help the least either. Neither does the very generous carrying capacity which means you can more or less steal anything from everyone you kill which is rather unrealistic.
PvP games in general needs a lot of players to be really fun and for said reasons do most full loot games have a very small playerbase which means you will kill and get killed by the exact same people over and over.
Also does the games usually forget to give a good motivation to why you actually need to kill tons of people besides greed for their stuff.
Low playerbase potential means few games and most of them really low budget, the alternative would be to make rather different mechanics (like Eve) but few devs bother to try that.
In DAOC we fought for keeps across realms, in AoC we fought over guild keeps, in AC we fought to tell a roleplay story of people traveling on quests. In Lotro and ESO which both had an "arena" we did a lot of fighting there.
Quite different styles of PvP, all giving rewards for progression. Be it points, control of realm, special equipment and gear, guild kudos for knocking down another guilds "frontier" guild HQ.
We did all this and we did not have to take anything out of a guys bag or "ransom" his armour. That's to me the main reason why I just don't see the need for it.
I found combat in DAOCs blue servers ultimately pointless, endlessly trading keeps with the only real benefit of gaining access to Darkness Falls.
This became increasingly less important as expansions starting with SI gave players alternate hunting grounds of similar efficiency.
I ended up joining a role playing guild on Mordred (FFA server) where we claimed a single keep and frontier zone which we defended at all cost against intruders. (Or collected "tribuut" from.)
While we couldn't loot gear those killed had to buy back their health (up to 5 gold per kill) which actually ended up with players being too broke to fight sometimes. The winners may have received a gold reward too, I no longer recall as it was more about gaining realm points.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I am for us having some full loot MMOs, because I want diversity in MMO gameplay. But I won't play one as for me that incentive is unnecessary and I do question how long term a strong player base they would have. But we do get a lot of threads like this, so there must be demand out there. So don't worry I can't see "Mugging Simulators Online" leaving the genre any time soon.