StrategicJER said:Liav, it probably seems unnecessary because you think players don’t want to subject themselves to that type of hardship when they do. I posted the FFA PvP ruleset I found meaningful back in 1999 – 2005.
Titles from killing players is a nice touch, but I wouldn’t envy them like I would for tournament winners. There are always ways to circumvent win/loss systems. VR could re-introduce new tourneys with new content instead of 1-time event exclusivity. I didn’t participate in the Wizard Best of the Best because of my lack of gear and 4 missing levels, but later on I won the priest/caster FFA on RZ. Its fairer to give new and old players more chances to win new titles, as the servers change and grow.
You can’t avoid PvP ganking if you don’t pay attention to your surroundings and if you are jumped you wear your gear or you die. You are more intent to fight tooth and nail if you know the circumstances. In FFA, players will hesitate to pick fights if they face serious server repercussions.
Players won’t fear PvP death if there is no chance of item loss, similar to the PvE death penalty. PvP death only halts the PvE progress of the defeated. Without 1-item loot there is less incentive to prevent zerg tactics. Faction PvP is essentially good vs evil zerg fests with coin loot. That perk suits the style.
FFA PvP is more personal and chaotic. There is a mutual respect to participate in the inevitable brutality because the server self-governs itself. Item loot in EQ distinguished the FFA ruleset from Faction PvP.
If I lose an item in PvP like jewel craft resist gear I replace those items and feed the economy. It’s not a big deal. Open world PvP players carry the same situational gear as PvE players. If you anticipate dying your extremely rare items get bagged first. An item swap GCD would intensify swapping.
Players will eventually consume the PvE content and fill all item slots with no drop raid and epic quest gear. There was usually 2 – 3 tradeable (worn) rare effect items that were swapped in during skirmishes. VR could keep this in mind when they are itemizing future content.
The truth is PvP players seek reputable reasons to be villains, heroes and anti-heroes in open world PvP. We want to gossip over the whole kit n caboodle. Personal vendettas that last years start with cutthroat thievery among other shenanigans. That was the whole point of item loot and the no play nice policy.
I don't think you speak for anyone but yourself and a very small group of people who enjoy a very specific niche of PvP.
Open world PvP is a niche by itself, let alone open world PvP where you stand to lose items.
Then again, this thread is about what server rulesets you would like to see. I'm simply stating that I think it's a terrible PvP model, which is my own opinion on the matter. Play nice policies and item loot are nowhere near the same thing. I'm perfectly fine with ganking, kill stealing, training, etc. in an open world PvP scenario. Item loot is just bad. That's just me, though.
I like the idea of a FFA PvP server or a faction-based PvP server. I would probably give either a try. I don't like the idea of item-looting. I just don't see it as necessary. If you kill another player to win a spawn or raid target, the reward is the spawn or raid target. That works for me.
StrategicJER said:If you anticipate dying your extremely rare items get bagged first. An item swap GCD would intensify swapping.
You kinda lost me on this one. If you're saying you want an item-loot PvP server, allowing players to "bag" items to avoid losing them in PvP seems like a total cop out. "Oh no, I'm about to get pk'd, better hide all my best items...."
I am a big fan of FFA PVP, with some bounty system and flagging for Murderers similar to old school UO.
* Attack someone and the attackers name goes grey (times out back to blue after combat is over after a few minutes) to others and allows others to attack back without flagging their name as well
* if you initiated the fight and kill someone they have the option to put up some of their banked coin on your head for a bounty.
* if bounty is placed on your head name gets flagged red a timer for each murder you commit. and your name and bounty get added to city public bounty board.
* PVP death drops all coin carried on player. (use the bank)
* no item drops
* PVP rogues should be able to pick pockets from players of coin, failure will flag name grey and open you up to being attacked by others without penalty
* NPC guards will react aggressively if your name is flagged red with maybe one or 2 safe-haven cities for the criminals.
* Killing a murderer with a bounty on their head will drop a token to hand into the local town for your reward.
* make rewards localized to nearest town, so one person may be worth different bounty values depending on which cities they were performing their nefarious deeds around.
* Red names will return to normal after some time has passed (online time not AFK time) depending on the number times the flag is currently stacked on said player.
* Red and Grey named players are open to being attacked without penalties to the attacking player (this is the basis for the servers policing)
I do think that item drops would be nice to help with immersion, but I don't believe item drops can work in a world where items don't decay. Items need to be disposable for item looting in pvp to be viable. Since items can't break to the point of being destroyed (disappearing from game) they in turn have a higher difficulty to obtain since you only ever need to obtain one, unlike mass quantities of the same items dropping all over as they will need to be replaced when they break. This worked well in UO only because items weren't permanent and would decay with use.
I also think Guild Wars should be something that can be enabled as well, allow guilds to declare war on each other. By doing this member of opposing guilds will show as red to the other guild and be open to PVP without penalty.
Just some of my thoughts on PVP
Grimmier Dark Elf Cleric -EverQuest- Lanys Ty'Vyl
Gibin Gnome Psionisist -Vanguard SOH- Sartok FFA PVP --> Telon
Nibil Raki Deciple -Vanguard SOH- Sartok FFA PVP --> Telon
Feldrak Dark Elf Magician -EverQuest- Project 1999 Blue
philo said:Vandraad said:Give me a server where I can pay a dramatically increased monthly subscription fee (3x would be good) and be guaranteed better customer service, lower server population, unique encounters and more GM events. I've got a lot of disposable income to burn on this game.
So what I'm hearing is that Vandraad wants pay to win... ;)
That isn't play to win, but it is pay for better service.
special player economy servers.
nothing is sold or bought by vendors, nothing.
all of the the basic crafting materials and reagents that used as crafting gold sink and sold by vendors are drops from mobs.
what is usually considered vendor trash is trashed.
the markets are continent or even zone centered.
Kilsin said:
we want servers to be bustling and social places where people remember your name and your actions, who makes the best swords, who gives out free buffs etc.
Joined the forums for this topic, mainly.
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127361
I've been fighting this battle for 7 years. Evidence above.
3-faction PvP is the ideal system, and Pantheon is built for it. Why 3 factions? Self-policing. If Red team becomes too dominant, they have to fight against yellow and blue. If Red team is being stomped into oblivion, then yellow and blue will begin fighting each other.
The 9 races can be divided perfectly into 3 factions.
Yellow Team
Dwarves
Archai
Gnomes
Blue Team
Humans
Elves
Halflings
Red Team
Ogres
Dark Myr
Skar
With current class/race combinations, yellow team would not have access to Rangers/ Direlords. Red would not have access to Rangers/ Paladins. This was very similar to how Sullon Zek was set up in Everquest. Almost the same classes... suspicious ;)
Suggestions:
-Don't bother trying to implement an item-loot system. It never works well. Just skip this. Allow coin loot though. You'll find yourself in a situation where people either won't PvP, or won't PvP wearing anything worth a damn.
-Don't try to enforce any Play Nice Policy on PvP servers. Make it clear from the start that anything goes, and you won't provide CSR or GM assistance in player disputes. This should apply to raid griefing, ganking, anything that can be solved with PvP - should be encouraged to be solved by PvP. "You don't like the Rogue killing your Clerics while you're raiding that pixel dragon? Go kill that Rogue then."
-If you implement any sort of artificial level restriction on PvP - you will be constantly fighting against people cheating the system. Out-of-range healers, bards in group giving buffs, etc. So, just allow any level to attack any other level. Create three (Four, really) tiers of zone:
GREEN zones: Friendly capital city, and newby zone. This is where you cut your teeth so to say, where your tutorial will take place, and where you can safely AFK without having to worry about Stabfast or Karrmerr ganking you.
GREY zones: The zone/area next to your newby area. A "transitional" zone. PvP is enabled, with limited death penalty and perhaps a level range to encourage people to fight others around their strength.
BLACK zones: The overwhelming majority of the game world. Any level can attack any other level from an opposing faction. Coin loot.
RAID zones: A PvP death here should result in some sort of lockout (unless rez'd) to prevent people from mindlessly running back to the raid, to interfere with an enemy guilds engage. I don't know enough about the death mechanics, or the world size, to know if this will even be feasible, but if you wipe out an enemy raid force - that encounter should be safe from THAT raid force, for at least one attempt. If they can keep trickling in, and hypothetically prevent ANYONE from doing the boss - that's not fun.
-Language barriers, and seperate chat channels. DAoC and WoW got this right. PvP is way less toxic when people can't speak to their opponents. (Look at League of Legends if you need an example)
-Balance the world map around the faction system. One of the main issues in Sullon/Vallon/Tallon Zek back on Everquest was the huge imbalance of starting areas for certain races. Having close proximity to those early raid dungeons - and a safe place to stage out of (I'm looking at you Dark Elves), was a huge advantage. If you decide to go with three factions, then try to balance the position of raids, cities, early dungeons, etc. for the factions.
-When a player dies in a PvP realm, there needs to be a mechanic to "blind" them. Preferably deafen them too. A dead player should not be able to see what's going on around their body, or hear when a boss is engaged (or dies). Fade to black or a view of the dirt is all the player should have, if not kicked back to their bind point immediately. This way, players can't spy or relay information with dead toons.
-If you're going to have a "Bind" system in Pantheon, make sure you restrict it for PvP servers. Don't let players bind in the open world, or this WILL be abused. Make them bind in a friendly capital city. In a PVE server, it's OK to allow people to bind in the open world, but on a PvP server... you'll run into situations... like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PNnbD8Hip4
A fun alternative to the PvP server rules I proposed above, is a - Hardcore - server with character migration upon death.
Path of Exile does this for their hardcore server. If you die, your character is simply moved to the 'regular' PVE server, and no longer playable on the hardcore server. This way, people on the hardcore server are only ever playing with fellow players who have never died. It creates a very unique atmosphere.
Dulu said:A fun alternative to the PvP server rules I proposed above, is a - Hardcore - server with character migration upon death.
Path of Exile does this for their hardcore server. If you die, your character is simply moved to the 'regular' PVE server, and no longer playable on the hardcore server. This way, people on the hardcore server are only ever playing with fellow players who have never died. It creates a very unique atmosphere.
It's an interesting suggestion, but being as Pantheon is going to be a group game first and foremost, with a much longer grind to reach endgame than you'd find in Path of Exile, I just don't think it's particularly practical. Think the world would end up pretty barren quickly on, unless you were to massively boost XP rates to the point where dying would still be tolerable by starting over.
Menubrea said:Dulu said:A fun alternative to the PvP server rules I proposed above, is a - Hardcore - server with character migration upon death.
Path of Exile does this for their hardcore server. If you die, your character is simply moved to the 'regular' PVE server, and no longer playable on the hardcore server. This way, people on the hardcore server are only ever playing with fellow players who have never died. It creates a very unique atmosphere.
It's an interesting suggestion, but being as Pantheon is going to be a group game first and foremost, with a much longer grind to reach endgame than you'd find in Path of Exile, I just don't think it's particularly practical. Think the world would end up pretty barren quickly on, unless you were to massively boost XP rates to the point where dying would still be tolerable by starting over.
No special ruleset is going to appeal to everyone, but a server set-up like this appeals to people who want to push themselves.
Imagine how awesome it would be to reach level cap without dying, or to conquer a raid target with no deaths? Raid items would have SO MUCH more value and prestige.
And if you die? You don't particularly lose anything - your character is just moved to another server.
No special ruleset is going to appeal to everyone, but a server set-up like this appeals to people who want to push themselves.
It obviously don't have to appeal to everyone to be a good suggestion, I even said I think it sounds cool, I'm just arguing that it would probably be impractical without some sort of tweaking to things such as XP rates. If you don't get a constant influx of newly created characters to a server such as that, it would probably become empty pretty quickly. Going off assumptions here, but I think dying is probably going to be something that'll be hard to avoid even for the most cautious and experienced player.
Imagine how awesome it would be to reach level cap without dying, or to conquer a raid target with no deaths? Raid items would have SO MUCH more value and prestige.
I mean, I don't disagree, I'm just questioning the plausibility of even having enough people to do any sort of raiding with to begin with.
And if you die? You don't particularly lose anything - your character is just moved to another server.
You lose being part of the community you've come to known. The server you're transferred to? Perhaps not so much. That's why I think it's important to have systems in place that wouldn't rerolling comletely out of the question.
@Menubrea
I'm personally more interested in a Teams PvP server. I think it would be the best thing to happen to MMO's in a LONG time. I would love to discuss the intricacies and elements of a balanced TPVP server.
But I think there is a solid audience for the hardcore pve style server, where it's "one life", it probably would need some safety net though, and the game would need to be perfectly fair. You couldn't have mechanics like Death Touch or Flame Wreath. No DDR mechanics that wipe a raid if you miss a dance step. It just depends on how much time and effort VR wants to invest.
But I think there is a solid audience for the hardcore pve style server, where it's "one life", it probably would need some safety net though, and the game would need to be perfectly fair. You couldn't have mechanics like Death Touch or Flame Wreath. No DDR mechanics that wipe a raid if you miss a dance step. It just depends on how much time and effort VR wants to invest.
Ye, like you said it would be up to much time VR would be willing to invest in such a concept. Chances are, not much at all unfortunately. Something like that would likely only attract a small minorty of the playerbase, and probably do do more harm than good in fractioning of what already will be a relatively small playerbase. Unless of course, we se a massive resurgence in the popularity of the old school ways of this genre.
I'm personally more interested in a Teams PvP server. I think it would be the best thing to happen to MMO's in a LONG time. I would love to discuss the intricacies and elements of a balanced TPVP server.
I used to do a lot of low level twink PvP back on Nagafen EQ2. It was probably some of the most fun I've ever had doing any sort of PvP. You had three different factions Good (Qeynos), Evil (Freeport) and Exiles (players who betrayed their previous faction making you hostile towards everyone). Exiles only hub was a small underground base called Haven.
There wasn't any sort of server side incentives or developed mechanics to create any grand scale battles early on, but there was just something about the combination of having most "grind/farming" in contested areas, and open world PvP together that made the world feel so alive. You could never feel completely safe, and a good skirmish or fighting over loot or named mobs were never too far off. You also dropped a portion of your gold and a few items in your inventory on death, making for some pretty juicy drama whenever someone forgot to bank all their hard earned plat. I remember looting 2k plat from some guy at some point. Poor guy hailed his pet named with all kinds of slurs like crazy for a long time (people used to namechange their pet to communicate with the opposing faction).
I am only interested in PvE. No special rules. Just basic PvE. I want this game to take me back to early EQ days. I want people to group. I want to have good memories of things accomplished together. I want the focus to be PvE. If you drag PvP rulesets into it, there will be the ongoing bickering from PvPers about how so-and-so is OP and needs to be nerfed. That'll happen some with PvE too, but not nearly as much. I don't want the dev resources spread too thin trying to support more than one ruleset.
If the game catches on, and the company grows, then maybe they can branch out. Initially, let's apply the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid.
I mentioned before in this very thread that this is the team that designed the Ironman server once in EQ. It had a set time before launch - three months. It was all out PvP and real-worl rewards were given to the list of winners. I think it was a druid IIRC. As much as I do not like PvP - this idea was superb. Once I broke lvl 20 (I think it was) the lvl lead at the time came looking for me and hunted me down in Toxx forrest.
I would like to see a fusion server with Ironman rules and Project M. Once your character dies, you launch in as a mob. Once your mob toon dies, you can launch in to player mode again, as a complete reroll on your toon.
I’m going to play FFA PvP regardless of the ruleset. It’s just hard to project one that makes sense until you actually experience it, especially with VR’s fresh game mechanics. I posted the Rallos Zek ruleset of the old rule (1-item loot) because a FFA PvP society works different than that of Faction PvP. I’d value a behavior rule of some sort that affects a moral choice, since FFA represents individualism.
I posted a poor example earlier. I meant to say the EQ devs didn’t itemize for it (at all levels) and failed to support a loot mechanic that locked the trade items to combat. In theory, the loot rule was meant to represent murders and cause players to police that behavior. It worked until around Velious. It never effected dominant guilds because the best gear was raid gear and each expansion the stats inflated.
Menubrea’s EQ2 twink story resonates with me because on EQ release the world FFA was pure chaos. Tons of tight-knit guild skirmishes, long-term rivalry, and politics. Nowhere was safe. We needed to form selective raid sects of reputable members from various guilds just to do the latest Kunark content. Any player who wanted to be a villian had an identity with the 1-item loot. Total strangers would band together to protect players from PK(s): Guild or Player. Kunark-Velious the mass guild rivalry diminished. Guilds were merging up from 12-man to 40-man to raid. There was a handful of PK guilds that terrorized the lesser guilds and the dominant guilds were playing 40v40 guild/sect warfare over raid content.
Those were some insane times. I don’t think all of that can be duplicated, but I’m eager to try a new FFA hardship.
I would definitely play on a server that was:
- No boxing (or possibly a 2 box limit)
- No marketplace / microtransactions / pay to win type stuff
Basically I don't want to play on a server where content can be dominated by box farmers, or where people feel pressured to buy things like exp potions to keep up.
grumble said:I would definitely play on a server that was:
- No boxing (or possibly a 2 box limit)
I'm concerned about this too. People will take advantage of the system as is. I don't feel like the boxing issue is being addressed seriously enough. Just because scripts aren't allowed changes little. I feel like some of Brad's comments on boxing show that he is out of touch with the state of boxing in today's mmo landscape.
No boxing server for me too.
from the streams i dont see anything that makes it difficult to box. I can see an overuse of boxing as it looks now. of course i havent been in game yet, but gameplay looks exactly like EQ or generic updated mmo
long way to go yet, so dont know what will change.
i'm tired of playing MMO's by myself. i am currently playing ff14 and like it alot, but there is no friends or family, just click que......I'm in a huge guild but havent made friends like EQ/Rift
100% no box
Eh, I don't think Brad is out of touch with boxing - I think he's looking forward to people having more than one account under their credit cards.
I don't like boxing, either, but if it helps keep the game running with more subscriptions, and as long as they use that extra money to keep churning out content, I'll get over it.
Assuming that boxing is a very large deal assumes that Pantheon is as easily played as, well, pretty much every other game. If reaction times, situational adjustments and on-keyboard engagement are critical elements to complex combat, then boxing quickly becomes less and less viable. Time will tell if this is actually the case with Pantheon but I'm hopeful.
That being said, I enjoy 2-boxing. I don't have a problem with it. I do have frustration with a player 6-boxing and monopolizing a camp. I realize the two positions are somewhat hypocritical, but there it is.