Player-vs-Player Systems Examined 152
Brendan Drain over at Massively has an in-depth look at PvP systems in general, using a comparison of two very different games in an attempt to find the ideal. EVE and Age of Conan are two very different games, yet each has their pros and cons to PvP. Is there a perfect middle ground to be had? "EVE Online and Age of Conan are both heavily PvP-oriented MMOs and while they take vastly different approaches to PvP, both approaches are successful in their own way. The high-consequence PvP in EVE leads to infrequent but meaningful conflicts with adrenaline pumping and guns blazing. In contrast, PvP in Conan is a fast-paced fantasy deathmatch where it's as fun to have your head chopped off as to burn someone alive. Where EVE Online would have me biting my nails nervously when attacked, Age of Conan has me laughing as a maniac smashes my head in with two clubs."
Older PvP (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as modern PvP goes, Guild Wars (for all the PvE problems of late) still has some of the best PvP action around.
Ultima Online (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone in that game had a macro for hide, you would spam it as you fled from a battle. Or better yet if you had UO extreme you had your emergency recall button, to make fast getaways before you were slaughtered. I have dozens of great stories in UO of back and forth PVP fighting, murdering, stealing houses and actually having an impact on other players. Its lame as shit when my friends play WoW and try to impress me with their PVP stories, none of which are interesting in the least bit, none of which have any lasting repercussions, and none of which hold the attention of the listener, unless you happen to play WoW. I'd tell my non- gamer friends some of my exploits in UO and they'd always get a good laugh out of it. All I ever get out of hearing WoW stories is total boredom, sometimes to the point that I can't help but mock them for being so into something so dreadfully unexciting.
Who can forget shit like running into someone between towns, paralyzing them, surrounding them with walls, and casting an elemental inside the death-box you created. Or going into the mining area where the RPers hang out, working on their blacksmithing. Casting an energy field on the exit of the mines and telling a group of 9 of them that you're going to murder them all. Watching as they scramble to exit the mine, only to see it sealed off as you go to town on them. For good measure you kill their pack animals too. Having huge battles in front of rival guild houses, the moment a guy drops everyone swarming the corpse and completely looting it of all its items. Taking down a guy with a tame White Wyrm walking around outside town, thinking he's hot shit. As the Wyrm is slowly killed he pleads with his attackers to stop and constantly spams "a follow" to get the creature into town and safety. Watching him whine and put up a fight out of anger for losing his prized possession, only to be cut down. And finally, kicking someone's ass so bad, making him lose such good items/so many reagents that the guy in his vitriol follows you around as a ghost just spamming your screen with lines and lines of OoooOoOOOOooo because he has no other recourse. Or even better, up and quitting the game because his loss was so devastating.
That's real PVP.
Re:pvp in mmorpg's is fundamentally flawed. (Score:1, Interesting)
In starcraft and warcraft3, you also have different forces from which to chose, and they manage (painstakingly) to make it balanced.
Btw, in guildwars they make weapons and level completly irrelevant too (by caping to an easy-to-reach cap), but they are the only ones I know to do it in an rpg.
Re:pvp in mmorpg's is fundamentally flawed. (Score:5, Interesting)
The only way that I really see PvP working correctly is to have a system where leveling isn't the goal, but is a factor. For example, after you complete so many dungeons, explore so many places in the world, have more personal experience playing the game rather than "xp points"...then you advance a level. The level's wouldn't increase your hit points, mana point, etc. Rather they would allow for new, more difficult game content to be unlocked and possibly alter enemy AI to be more difficult and loot to be scaled to be suitable for new encounters. Of course, you would also be able to learn new abilities at the new level that wouldn't necessarily raise your power to a huge degree over the previous levels spells but, instead, would increase your utility and efficiency.
The key thing that the new levels would do would be to protect low level opponents from being attacked by much higher level opponents. The game would also have to be much more strategy oriented than current games.
Play Eve (Score:5, Interesting)
And that's what makes the pvp great: it take real-life skill to figure out what ship fits work best. And that has nothing to do with time spent in game. You can be in the game for 3-4 weeks and have a very nice pvp rig capable of taking on players 3, 4 years old (as long as the ships themselves are comparable). I've seen some really clever fits from newbies. And I've seen some crap fits from older players.
Once you have the ship fitted out for its intended role, then it comes down to player skill. The tactics you use in a fight make up the other 30% of the chances of success in pvp.
The best part about pvp in eve, though, is the finality of it. If you get a ship blown up, that's it, it's gone. Some of the mods might survive, but for the most part it's over. It makes for a very exciting time.
-B
Re:Ultima Online (Score:3, Interesting)
You pretty much just described eve. Except you don't loose all the skills that took you 2 years of constant training(Assuming your clone level is high enough and you remembered to install a new one last time you died).
Who can forget shit like the guy who just bought himself a shiny new carrier decked it out in faction mods, undocked and before he could use the jump drive to get to a friendly system, a recon ship pops a cyno and 20 enemy caps jump in and he gets locked down to far from the station to redock. These guys then offer to ransom his ship, he pays them then they kill him anyways and pod him, steal everything he dropped then jump out all before the guys buddies can even arrive and save his ass.
Or the time when a hot shit merc group decided to attack a small corp with big friends, there pitiful 30 man faction fitted sniper fleet gets a a few dictor bubbles dropped on it, suddenly they are trapped as a few carriers jump in along with a 50 many battleship fleet with 30 or 40 support ships tears their ships to pieces while they cry. They then scream about blobing and how the game is rigged against them.
And stuff like the massive sov fights that last 4 or 5 hours, each side regrouping and fighting again in front of 10 different moons or planets all throughout a single system, or some of the big 400+ fights that resulted in capital ship graveyards.
Or the time I sat on a gate for 4 hours waiting for a single kill that was worth risking my ship over. Or sitting in a one enemy home system for a week, getting to be such a part of the local scenery that after awhile no one paid any attention. Then killing 4 or 5 miners before they get organized, then starting the process over again.
Re:Ultima Online (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow that sounds totally awesome!! And maybe I'm crazy but I'd rather have a root canal than suffer through that crap. I play WoW on a RP-PVP server, and my guild practices world PvP - if I were to describe our policies, it'd boil down to Wil Wheaton's "Don't Be A Dick". We let our opponents corpse run, regroup, and then we have at each other. Why do all that sportsmanship stuff? Cause it's to further world PvP. To get the opponents to come out and play.
I realize I'm weird, but I'd rather fight in such a way that I have MORE opponents, not less. Our guild doesn't (generally) secretly attack WoW zones... We post on the blizzard forms that we'll be in Halaa on Thursday night at 8 PM. Because making somebody quit a game isn't as good as making him play it.
Re:Older PvP (Score:2, Interesting)
PVP in EVE is brutal, absolutely brutal. I've seen everything I own in the game lost in less than 5 minutes, and I'll see it happen again. The only thing that keeps EVE from being the gankfest it could be, is that no one with half a brain wants to pissoff the carebears. They are the lifeblood of the game, and on more than one occasion a group of them have been upset enough to band together and wipeout every shred of evidence that, a more PVP centric corp, ever existed.