Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

PvP Open or Faction Locked?

    • 2130 posts
    December 23, 2016 3:35 AM PST

    Dullahan said:

    Time is the only factor that is indiscriminate. As such, it creates balance or a governor for everyone's achievements. It's important for creating both a sense of punishment, and a sense of reward. Better players can minimize it's impact, but no one can entirely avoid it. This creates balance making it neither too easy for those with more skill and time, nor too hard for those with less.

    Effort without time is not really effort; it's just skill. Skill alone should never be the factor that determines success.

    So yes, I feel like the time aspect is necessary for people to respect the process.

    That's exactly why I said that both time and effort are required, just that three months is over the line.

    • 79 posts
    December 23, 2016 6:53 AM PST

    For me factions is a must in PVP. Well, not a must but it makes it way more fun.

     

    PVP is (or should be) a team sport. Us vs Them. Sure you can do that with individuals, groups or guilds, but none of those are larger than a faction.

    In general I won't play other factions on pvp servers/situation. Omni in Anarchy Online (have no clan or neutral characters), Terran Republic in Planetside 2 (have low levels in other factions to see the new gear), Horde in Warcraft (becuase Alliance stink!), Illuminati in The Secret World, so on.. am I missing out on some game play? Maybe, but at least I'm not "them", because they are inferior.

    With faction PVP I also think there should be at least 3 factions. It makes for more interesting dynamics - sometimes fighting on two fronts, sometimes spoken (or unspoken) alliances to dislodge a third faction.

     

    Factions give a reason to "hate' the other side and that is the lynchpin of pvp - proving my team is better than your team.

    • 1434 posts
    December 23, 2016 7:07 AM PST

    The reason to hate the other side happened pretty organically in a game like EQ with so much competition for content. On Rallos, we had guilds we raided with or those we competed with. Then everyone killed random PKs, because you could lose your items and that made them pretty hate-worthy.

    Factions aren't the only way to do it, but I do think it's the best for cultivating community and a cooperative environment for players. Particularly at early levels. Getting ganked by friendlies right out of the gate is a little more than most people care endure. Especially when just progressing one's char is already such a time consuming process.

    • 84 posts
    February 25, 2017 5:44 PM PST

    Multiple PvP server rulesets would be ideal.  My favorite was Sullon Zek (3 Teams based on chosen Deity).  Hope to see that again in Pantheon!

    • 363 posts
    February 25, 2017 8:14 PM PST

    The best PvP I've ever enjoyed was open world FFA. Building your own alliances and becoming a dominant superpower was the best part.

    • 690 posts
    February 25, 2017 9:17 PM PST

    I think the best idea would be the halfway point. If you are a human, you start out not attacking other humans. But if you screw up your faction with npc humans, then just like how you can be attacked by the NPCs, you can attack and be attacked by human players. This way you have some safety and immersion so far as factions go, and still have the option, even if you have to work for it, to murder whomever you like. I'm willing to bet destroying your faction with a race will be far easier than gaining it. 

    The only problem with this idea is the possibility of someone getting good faction with all of the races and being un attackable. I'm sure there's a good solution to it though.

    • 219 posts
    February 26, 2017 12:04 PM PST

    I like the idea of factions having some meaning.  Like the Humans/Elves being close allies with the Darves/Halflings being further allies and the Dark Myr being basically enemies.  But I also don't like restricting people based on faction when it comes to grouping and raiding - I've known too many people in WoW playing one faction and unable to group with their friends because they picked a different faction.

    But I like the idea of faction/race having meaning in the world.  A Halfling being celebrated in Wild's End, welcome in Thronefast, chased out of...well, you get the idea.  :)  In terms of the cities/NPCs, this is cool and actually makes choice of character important in terms of if you want a neutral character that can go basically anywhere but doesn't get a lot of advantages (Barb) or a character that has advantages in good or evil cities but at the cost of not being able to travel to the other cities as freely.

    It also makes PvP feel more meaningful if MOST of your enemies are from "the enemy faction".  Now, I would love for players to be able to pick different factions (I know there's been talk of letting people "betray" their home faction and take on a new one), as this allows more PvP freedom and would make it cool to see that rare Ogre in the Human/Elf forces, because you'd know he went through a lot of effort to get there.  But note that when I say this I'm more talking organized PvP - like faction vs faction wars and the like.  And it would also be cool if there were races tagged as "neutrals" that could join either side - for example, a Human/Elf army fighting over a zone/battleground against an Ogre/Dark Myr army, and a group of Gnome players (neutrals) join in and are able to join either side because they're a neutral party to the conflict.

    When it comes to arenas or world-PvP, you should be able to flag who you want to attack/defend somewhat, but if it's true FFA, this means things like your AOEs hit EVERYONE, which could be cool but also annoying.  :p  Though I do like the idea of if you fight/harm/kill someone of a faction, you lose reputation with their faction (this could even be part of how a PvP player is able to switch/betray factions - in addition to attacking the NPCs of that faction, they could also hunt down and kill players of that faction as well).

    .

    That is to say, I don't like a system as rigid as WoW's Alliance vs Horde, and I love fights with more than two sides, but I also like there to be some structure so that it adds a bit of realism to the world and the races/empires - when you see a Ogre fighting in the Human forces or a Halfling fighting with the Dark Myr, it SHOULD be unusual and mean something.

    .

    EDIT2: It would even be cool if you could "be invited" by a friend to faction war - e.g. an Ogre and a Human are friends, so the Ogre "invites" the Human to take part in the war on his side.  The Human is neutral to the Ogre NPCs (they won't heal you but they won't attack you) and enemy/red to the Human army on the other side.  If he fights with the Humans, he loses faction standing with them, eventually becoming a traitor.  Meanwhile, he'll gain faction with the Ogres, eventually becoming tolerated, then accepted, then "Ogrefriend" and welcomed as an Ogre to their cities and wars.  Sort of like a Legolas and Gimli thing.  This would allow players to join their friends, even in PvP while also preserving the "vanilla" PvP experience for players that wanted to tow the faction line and just be "the good guys" or "the bad guys".

    .

    EDIT: OH!  But if I wasn't clear, let me stress again I mean this in terms of PvP like battlegrounds/wars.

    NOT PvE.  I think in PvE players should be able to group with their friends, whoever they are.  None of that "Oh, you play Alliance?  Yeah, I play Horde...awk-ward..."


    This post was edited by Renathras at February 26, 2017 12:11 PM PST
    • 111 posts
    February 28, 2017 12:52 AM PST

    i loved vallon zek. it was a split pvp server between evil/neutral/good races.

    im not sure if the dev changed that or even the community, but there were so many more evil players, that it was more an evil vs neutral + good.

    i loved to go with a group into darkies land and slaughter everything. red is dead...:). you had to be on your toes, since they would bring their guildfriends sooner than later. good times.

    (though item looting was a bit too much for my taste. you could pick 1 woren item from each killed player + all gold.)

     

    • 428 posts
    February 28, 2017 7:41 AM PST

    I have always enjoyed faction based PVP for a few reason.

    1:  It gives everyone an Us against them.  Some of my favorite PVP moments in EQ2 was zoning in Qeyno harbor and mocking the enemy as we ran Amock forcing them too defend there own home from the evil freeporters.

    2:  It also semi gives a break if you dont feel like PVP for a day.  You still have the issue but only half the server can kill you not everyone.

    3:  I enjoy the lore aspect of being faction based 

    • 3852 posts
    February 28, 2017 8:30 AM PST

    I am more a carebear than a pvper so my opinions do not represent the target market for a pvp server. This disclaimer in the interest of fairness. But one of my four years in Dark Ages of Camelot was on the pvp servers.

    I agree that faction adds a lot to the dynamics. Pure free-for-all gives the feel of anarchy where most players act like mass murderers when they think they can get away with it. Faction-based pvp gives more chance for team spirit (where the team is bigger than you and two friends or even you and your guild) and makes you a patriotic hero risking your life to kill the joint enemy rather than a mass murderer killing any passing person for loot or experience or notoriety.

    But I also liked the system where a certain ...fairness ....was imposed and you couldn't attack someone too many levels below you. Unless they did something to invite attack like heal or buff someone you were fighting. So if I was passing by minding my own business someone within a certain number of levels could attack me - that is the point of a pvp server after all - but someone 40 levels higher couldn't "gray bash" me without even the remotest risk of being hurt themselves. Griefing I would call that.

    • 441 posts
    February 28, 2017 12:25 PM PST

    If PvP was faction based and you got rewarded for taking out the other faction. If you could raise your faction and switch sides. If you could sack other factions cities. If you could still work with all the factions to do PvE. I would join a PvP server. 

    • 40 posts
    March 1, 2017 10:45 AM PST

    FFA with +/- X level restriction. (EQ's 8 worked well, but the level range is combat/game specific).  
    OOR Healing/Buffing flags the player for PvP regardless of level.
    Faction based system still in play.  Benefits to remaining loyal to your faction.

    No quams with a hard team/faction lock server as long as OOR Healing/Buffing is addressed.  I enjoy Exile systems as well.



    This post was edited by Hane at March 1, 2017 10:46 AM PST