EQ Never

I think most people are absolutely fine with PVP. If you have ever enjoyed Halo or CoD or any FPS online, then you should ask yourself what the difference is if you dont like MMO-PVP. There is absolutely no bullshit power differences in FPSs. Everyone has been caught in a position to where they are up against a player that they cant possibly win against, regardless of skill in MMO-PVP, though. That is what causes people to hate PVP in "their MMO," in my opinion.

This will probably get me some flack, but... Developers, in my opinion, need to go one step further. Changing skills and abilities so that they react differently between player and NPC is one step. The next step is to normalize stats. What is more discouraging than to be a fresh player within PVP and go up against a player that has the best PVP gear he can get? What is the competition in that? Even a hard counter class isnt going to win against that fully decked player.

We could go several directions to keep a player interested with this change. I was just thinking equipment with almost minuscule benefits. Just like what FPS's offer. Make an entirely different equipment page, similar to Vanguard. Any equipment you get for PVP would be from a PVP vendor. Item inflation shouldnt affect PVP. Any effects Im thinking should be more specific to just a benefit to a Skill or ability. Your headpiece has no other stat other than an effect like "Increases the radius of your AoE's by 10%," or "Increases range of Aimed shot by 5 yards." Effects like those wouldnt tip the scales so badly that a skilled player without that item couldnt win. Gone would be the days of a Noobie having to click the same ability 15 times to kill the equipped player that would only have to click once to kill the noobie. We could finally have PVP based on.. well.. you know..actual skill. Not Level, not skill points, not weapons nor armor.

Daidraco_sl said:

I think most people are absolutely fine with PVP. If you have ever enjoyed Halo or CoD or any FPS online, then you should ask yourself what the difference is if you dont like MMO-PVP. There is absolutely no bullshit power differences in FPSs. Everyone has been caught in a position to where they are up against a player that they cant possibly win against, regardless of skill in MMO-PVP, though. That is what causes people to hate PVP in "their MMO," in my opinion.

This will probably get me some flack, but... Developers, in my opinion, need to go one step further. Changing skills and abilities so that they react differently between player and NPC is one step. The next step is to normalize stats. What is more discouraging than to be a fresh player within PVP and go up against a player that has the best PVP gear he can get? What is the competition in that? Even a hard counter class isnt going to win against that fully decked player.

We could go several directions to keep a player interested with this change. I was just thinking equipment with almost minuscule benefits. Just like what FPS's offer. Make an entirely different equipment page, similar to Vanguard. Any equipment you get for PVP would be from a PVP vendor. Item inflation shouldnt affect PVP. Any effects Im thinking should be more specific to just a benefit to a Skill or ability. Your headpiece has no other stat other than an effect like "Increases the radius of your AoE's by 10%," or "Increases range of Aimed shot by 5 yards." Effects like those wouldnt tip the scales so badly that a skilled player without that item couldnt win. Gone would be the days of a Noobie having to click the same ability 15 times to kill the equipped player that would only have to click once to kill the noobie. We could finally have PVP based on.. well.. you know..actual skill. Not Level, not skill points, not weapons nor armor.

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Jesus H that's so boring. Just play a GD FPS FFS. MMOs by nature should reflect a sense of social structure and progression. Theyre not FPS. I don't know anyone but complete retards that just start an MMO and get frustrated by geared players that have been working their asses off for gear for the past 3 years. Running into a geared player and getting your ass kicked does one thing. MOTIVATE YOU. It motivates people to go, PVE and do other things to get better gear to beat those players. Its like an arms race. A carrot on a stick. It's what MMOs are all about. Striving to become more powerful over a long period of time. Not to log in for 15 minute for the first time, PVP and log off. That's what Call of Duty is for. Shit like this is what is ruining MMOs.

Mentalities like this is not only ruining PVP in MMOs but PVE as well. Making raids easier to access but having "easy, normal and hard modes" kills the entire mystery and motivation. I don't know anyone that bitched in EQ that they couldn't do Veeshan's Peak or Sleepers or NTOV. They loved that those zones were difficult and had mystery to them and it motivated people to continue playing. If anyone could just go and do those instances 1 month after release people would have quit in droves out of boredom. Turning MMOs into single player online games where everyone can do everything easily is not making the genre better. It's what's killing it. I can't believe people are still so dogmatic and blind to this fact.

pvp battlegrounds and instances are fucking dull

Daidraco_sl said:

I think most people are absolutely fine with PVP. If you have ever enjoyed Halo or CoD or any FPS online, then you should ask yourself what the difference is if you dont like MMO-PVP. There is absolutely no bullshit power differences in FPSs. Everyone has been caught in a position to where they are up against a player that they cant possibly win against, regardless of skill in MMO-PVP, though. That is what causes people to hate PVP in "their MMO," in my opinion.

This will probably get me some flack, but... Developers, in my opinion, need to go one step further. Changing skills and abilities so that they react differently between player and NPC is one step. The next step is to normalize stats. What is more discouraging than to be a fresh player within PVP and go up against a player that has the best PVP gear he can get? What is the competition in that? Even a hard counter class isnt going to win against that fully decked player.

We could go several directions to keep a player interested with this change. I was just thinking equipment with almost minuscule benefits. Just like what FPS's offer. Make an entirely different equipment page, similar to Vanguard. Any equipment you get for PVP would be from a PVP vendor. Item inflation shouldnt affect PVP. Any effects Im thinking should be more specific to just a benefit to a Skill or ability. Your headpiece has no other stat other than an effect like "Increases the radius of your AoE's by 10%," or "Increases range of Aimed shot by 5 yards." Effects like those wouldnt tip the scales so badly that a skilled player without that item couldnt win. Gone would be the days of a Noobie having to click the same ability 15 times to kill the equipped player that would only have to click once to kill the noobie. We could finally have PVP based on.. well.. you know..actual skill. Not Level, not skill points, not weapons nor armor.

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As underjoyed said, why the hell wouldn't I play an FPS then? Don't get me wrong, I damn near broke my keyboard when going for Glad in Season 2 and getting butt fucked by some other team who just happened to be getting luckier drops when they were raiding (We never got weapons, and I was the main tank anyway, so I never got 2 handers...)

But you know what? That actually added flavor to the game. Those teams? I instantly recognized them when they came out. And the weapons? All I thought is about how I wanted to keep farming so I could get them. Yes, it actually gave me a reason to farm. And my entire guild (Most of us PvPd) felt the same way. Every time one of us got sodomized by some PvE weapon, the very next raid night you'd here "We have to kill this fuck so I can X or Y".

Frustration is like spice, man. Yes, too much of it will turn people off. When Warriors were one shotting people with Arc Reapers or Wizards were double talisman popping, it was "too much". You didn't have time to enjoy it. But just the right amount adds a real flare to the game (A flare that's been put out in WoW.) When you lost simply due to stats, and you KNEW you could beat the asshole if you only had better gear, that shit was like a fire under your ass...Even if you couldn't raid, it pushed you to grind for more PvP stuff.

In my opinion, WoW's largest problem is pushing the bullshit "make characters meaningless" so everyone gets a fair shake. If none of the work my character does fucking matters, then why the hell am I going to keep playing? If everything is skill based, why am I not on a game that has more outlets for, you know, ACTUAL SKILL, like an FPS? If ALL PvP gear must come from PvP, why would I PvE (And vice versa? This is a big one, these worlds need to stop feeling like chat lobbies that lead to separate games. Yes, PvP should give great gear, and so should PvE, but there is nothing wrong with a few slots being better with PvE or PvP gear every tier--that adds flavor and pushes people to actually pull the different facets of the world together.

In the end. RPG's have their strengths and one of them is the strategic influence of preparation in terms of gear and stat allocation. It's really one of the key "spices" of this genre, take it away and you're left with a shit third person shooter that you don't have to aim. You are trying to play Checkers with Chess pieces, man.

What people say they want, and what they actually do are two seperate things. I heard all about this "skill" shit in pvp and people whining and complaining all day long that skill did or didnt matter. WoW then decided to give all those yelling "skill..skillz!!" battlegrounds to play by themselves.

Guess what happened? Dead battlegrounds. They didnt want to play against people with equal skill / gear level, they wanted to outgear everyone by twinking and roflstomp the battleground. This has happened in every MMO I have played, wether it be on a PVE or PVP server.

EQ pvp wasnt about skill either. It was about waiting until someone had engaged a mob, was half health , and you pop from around the corner and kill him...or roaming in 2 or 3 man gank squads. WoWs open world pvp....Lulz... Catch someone mining or doing a quest, swoop down on your mount and one shot them. Thats what pvp has become. Lvl 90 in a level 20 zone able to greif until the level 20 calls in friends, which then has the ganker call friends....and 30 mins later everyone goes back to whatever they were doing. Its boring as hell.

Leave PvP out of MMOs in my opinion or use them for a small diversion only. Having to "equalize" all skills so everyone can counter everything is boring as fuck. Chars in most mmos have almost become carbon copies of one another because everyone needs to be able to do everything equally as good in pvp and the whining commences.

If you want to pvp , Black Ops , Battlefield 3, or numerous other FPS are right there for you to play on a semi equalized level.

Pvp in MMOs has become a joke and they spend far too much time trying to balance that shit than do anything else with the game.

Tide27_sl said:

What people say they want, and what they actually do are two seperate things. I heard all about this "skill" shit in pvp and people whining and complaining all day long that skill did or didnt matter. WoW then decided to give all those yelling "skill..skillz!!" battlegrounds to play by themselves.

Guess what happened? Dead battlegrounds. They didnt want to play against people with equal skill / gear level, they wanted to outgear everyone by twinking and roflstomp the battleground. This has happened in every MMO I have played, wether it be on a PVE or PVP server.

EQ pvp wasnt about skill either. It was about waiting until someone had engaged a mob, was half health , and you pop from around the corner and kill him...or roaming in 2 or 3 man gank squads. WoWs open world pvp....Lulz... Catch someone mining or doing a quest, swoop down on your mount and one shot them. Thats what pvp has become. Lvl 90 in a level 20 zone able to greif until the level 20 calls in friends, which then has the ganker call friends....and 30 mins later everyone goes back to whatever they were doing. Its boring as hell.

Leave PvP out of MMOs in my opinion or use them for a small diversion only. Having to "equalize" all skills so everyone can counter everything is boring as fuck. Chars in most mmos have almost become carbon copies of one another because everyone needs to be able to do everything equally as good in pvp and the whining commences.

If you want to pvp , Black Ops , Battlefield 3, or numerous other FPS are right there for you to play on a semi equalized level.

Pvp in MMOs has become a joke and they spend far too much time trying to balance that shit than do anything else with the game.

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This x 1000^^^

I've said it before, but the big thing that's needed to make a pvp system work (at least if they're going to make it part of the core gameplay, and not relegate it to a separate server) is that there needs to be actual consequences for playing the ganker or griefer. Even if you're always capable of killing another character, there ought to be compelling reasons to not go around killing all willy-nilly (at least in parts of the world, other parts could perhaps be FFA). Something like EVE's high-sec/low-sec system would probably be a good start; Archeage also has an interesting system where you can actually be arrested for murder under certain circumstances, and get your character thrown in prison for x amount of time, which might even be a better deterrent than simply getting your character killed.

Randin_sl said:

I've said it before, but the big thing that's needed to make a pvp system work, at least if they're going to make it part of the core gameplay, and not relegate it to a separate server, is that there needs to be actual consequences for playing the ganker or griefer. Even if you're always capable of killing another character, there ought to be compelling reasons to not go around killing all willy-nilly, at least in parts of the world, other parts could perhaps be FFA. Something like EVE's high-sec/low-sec system would probably be a good start; Archeage has an interesting system where you can actually be arrested for murder under certain circumstances, and get your character thrown in prison for x amount of time, which might even be a better deterrent than simply getting your character killed.

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Which is something I was trying to come up with. I really wasnt looking at Warzones and Battlegrounds as examples. I dont care for that type of PVP. Im glad that some of you like WoW PVP, but it is boring and just not for me. The Carrot on the stick wouldnt be the Gear Progression, but a Reward, an achievement, a title, Land, a Struction, a Dungeon, a higher spot on the Leader Board. Developers arent as dumb as some of you seem to think. They can come up with a reason to keep you playing. I personally just think gear progression is just a means to take a shit all over someone thats less powerful than you. Which.. "I" think is boring.

Not insisting that any of you are wrong, but I guess I am "that guy" that tried reasoning with people that PVP. Where nothing is ever done right and no change is a worthy one, ever.

Underjoyed_sl said:

PVP in MMOs fail because there is zero motive and objective. People don?t go to war just for the sake of killing each other. You need a goal and a purpose. Uninstanced contested PVE content gives a meaning to PVP. You can?t just take away PVE and expect people to going around killing each other for no reason. What happens is you get bored fast of that. That?s why world PVP is always more fun than instanced battlegrounds. The only instanced PVP that has any type of meaning is a competitive arena system with teams that strive for a ranking (like an actual sport). Basically you need to start with vibrant PVE content that people strive for and use PVP as a method of achieving a PVE goal.

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This argument is also why making a PvP + PvE game is going to take a revolution in player thinking. Presently speaking, no game developer is ever going to risk pissing off their casual player base by giving PvPers the ability to control how they play. 'No, you don't get to PvE without being griefed, johnny' is an automatic red flag when it comes to casual players / publishers.

Daidraco_sl said:

Which is something I was trying to come up with. I really wasnt looking at Warzones and Battlegrounds as examples. I dont care for that type of PVP. Im glad that some of you like WoW PVP, but it is boring and just not for me. The Carrot on the stick wouldnt be the Gear Progression, but a Reward, an achievement, a title, Land, a Struction, a Dungeon, a higher spot on the Leader Board. Developers arent as dumb as some of you seem to think. They can come up with a reason to keep you playing. I personally just think gear progression is just a means to take a shit all over someone thats less powerful than you. Which.. "I" think is boring.

Not insisting that any of you are wrong, but I guess I am "that guy" that tried reasoning with people that PVP. Where nothing is ever done right and no change is a worthy one, ever.

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The problem is that you're posting on a MMORPGboard. It's not the MMO side arguing with you, it's the RPG side. There are MMOs out there that aren't RPGs, and which support exactly what you say, but character development and progression is the heart and soul of a RPG. From the time of D&D, higher levels with better gear have been able to face melt lower levels with crappier gear. It's a staple of the genre and is what attracts a lot of people to it.

EtadanikM_sl said:

This argument is also why making a PvP + PvE game is going to take a revolution in player thinking. Presently speaking, no game developer is ever going to risk pissing off their casual player base by giving PvPers the ability to control how they play. 'No, you don't get to PvE without being griefed, johnny' is an automatic red flag when it comes to casual players / publishers.

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I was probably griefed more times in Wow than I was in any pvp mmo. If you have a reason to pvp then you do not need to be able to grief people, you just need some sort of flagging system. It can be done other ways too, such as zoning (eve security status etc).

EtadanikM_sl said:

The problem is that you're posting on a MMORPGboard. It's not the MMO side arguing with you, it's the RPG side. There are MMOs out there that aren't RPGs, and which support exactly what you say, but character development and progression is the heart and soul of a RPG. From the time of D&D, higher levels with better gear have been able to face melt lower levels with crappier gear. It's a staple of the genre and is what attracts a lot of people to it.

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Item Power
I have never really liked stats on gear. Having a sword infuse it's wielder with strength or agility seems like a lazy way of extending the level cap. I like items that have unique properties and special powers beyond what anyone would be able to achieve normally. (night vision on a helm, a sword that fights along side you, bow that shoots flaming arrows ect.) The effectiveness of these items should depend on the characters skill with that particular type of item and the player's ingenuity.

That being said, I think these types of magical items should also be rare and there should be a limit as to how many ungodly items a character can equip at a time.

Character Power
Anyways, higher level characters destroying low level characters with 0.00% chance of every being killed is a huge contributing factor as to why griefing gets so bad most of the time. Honestly, if a person, even a relatively weak person, is able to swing a wood axe and it actually connects with your skull... you should die. End of story. If you made pretty much any attack in combat lethal, one person being swarmed by 20 people is almost guaranteed to die, if they stand and fight and everyone else attacks at the same time. In order to win while being outnumbered, a person should have to retreat, lead the enemy into snares and traps, lead them into a maze and start picking them off, strike from concealment, or just avoid them altogether.

Statflation and massive power curves are antiquated design concepts that are left over from the PnP days that were there to numerically represent the risk or danger of a situation. Just saying a dragon was really really scary wasn't enough for the combat to be resolved without name calling. There needed to be rules to show exactly how scary that dragon was. Also, the player was removed from the action via the nature of the medium they were playing in. Your actual dexterity with anything was meaningless for your characters sake.

Computer games have increased the amount of input a player has with their character. Now a decent amount of a players actual dexterity can be transferred directly to the character. However we are still locked behind stats, gear, levels, and other mechanics because of traditional concepts of representing character power. The only problem this poses when fighting NPC's and mobs is one of potential boredom and uninspiring gameplay.

However in a PvP setting you set yourself up for poor scenarios that do not reward strategy, competence, ability, or anything really except for a characters inventory. It's a huge disservice to limit players to such a marginal method of competition. I think gear selection should not be about getting the best multiplier, but should be about bringing the best utility and abilities. Gear should change how a character plays, not simply giving them more +'s.

Effects of PvP in the game world
Every kill/death in a pvp scenario in an rpg needs to carry weight. If you kill a person you need to feel the impact of what just happened and deal with the consequences. I will repeat myself again, but NPC's need to be involved in this and become the framework for these conflicts. A player should be able to win approval from a group of NPC's and then receive aid and benefits from this group when dealing with unwanted hostility.

Lets say two people are both allied with a faction, and one person kills the other. This particular faction does not take kindly to such actions and when the player who was killed reports this crime the attacking player winds up on that faction's shit list and loses their standing with them. Of course you could have other more sadistic factions that care little for the plight of it's members or maybe even actively encourage the strong to cull the weak. Whatever the case is, every kill needs to be considered before it's carried out.

If a player decides to murder everyone they meet... life needs to become very difficult for them. They should feel hunted and cast out of just about any group or society. They should lose all access to the services most players take for granted, NPC's that find their actions vile should not deal with them or actively try to stop them. And the ability to escape needs to be controlled as well.

Point is... if you make a game that allows people to fly around, at level ridiculous, reigning down fireball hailstorms on to the heads of unsuspecting farmers and noobs with absolutely no penalty to them whatsoever... you have a shitty, poorly thought out, steaming pile of uninteresting and boring shit that serves no purpose but to infuriate or satiate bloodlust.


Summary
Limit an individuals power, make all combat potentially lethal, have real consequences for actions, have interesting combat with many facets and avenues for success, make team work and cooperation the largest boost to player power in the game.

Grim1_sl said:

When (if) Darkfall is working and if people say it is good, then I'll give them my money. I'm hoping they get it right. But I stopped giving money to games because they have potential a long time ago.

The Age of Wushu thread has me seriously considering giving them some cash. Sounds pretty cool and came out of left field.

PvP is popular. LoL, CoD, WoW arenas, etc.. prove that. But just throwing pvp into EQ half assed won't work for all the reasons already stated. And I don't think balancing for PvP then creating the PvE is a good idea either. That is how classes become bland mush. GW1 had abilities that couldn't be used in PvP. Should probably go that route. Especially with control classes like the enchanter around.


edit: If SoE throws out the old aggro model then the trinity is going to blow up anyways. That means everything will change and it may make the PvP a lot easier to do. The standard aggro model used up to this point makes balancing for PvP really hard, since every human player just ignores the tank and goes after the healer / clothies.

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I liked why eq2 dd with pvp. Tanks could actually taunt. So take the aggro mechanic and put it in with players also.

I thought that model was pretty damn good and all too often overlooked

On the next Everquest, from Mr. Smedley

"I have to be honest with you. We have completely blown up the design of EverQuest Next. For the last year and a half we have been working on something we are not ready to show. Why did we blow up the design? The design was evolutionary. It was EverQuest III. It was something that was slightly better that what had come before it. It was slightly better. What we are building is something that we will be very proud to call EverQuest. It will be the largest sandbox style MMO ever designed. The same exciting content delivered in a new way. Something you've never seen before. The MMO world has never seen before. We didn't want more Kill 10 Rats quests. We didn't want more of the same. If you look at the MMOs out there, they're delivering the same content over and over again. So are we. We need to change that. When we released EverQuest, we changed the world. We want to do that again with a different type of game.

What I will commit to is, at the next Fan Faire, not only will you get to see it but you will get to touch it. Most of the EQNext devs are in this room. If you get them drunk enough they might tell you. They're led by Dave Georgeson. Terry Michaels. Vets from EQ and EQ2. We are remaking Norrath unlike anything you've ever seen, but you'll recognize it. I'm sorry we don't have anything to show for it, but I wanted to be honest with you and tell you a little bit about it. Keep the faith."

Agreed, can't wait for this PR hype to blow up in their faces. SOE just does not have it in them to make another good game, EQ was an accident or sheer luck and the first of its kind. They have done absolutely nothing since then to make you believe they could come up with a solid game, nevermind one that's an innovation.

Well yes, but at least we got told when we can touch it! When it the next fan faire? Anyone on this board still go to those things? Pics and vid's please.

I feel like I went back in time and read one of Brad's posts regarding Vanguard while it was in its infancy. Personal feelings regarding SOE aside I'd truly love to see them deliver something amazing but painful experience has taught me otherwise where hype like this is concerned.