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Why PvP sucks.
Meridion
Member UncommonPosts: 1,495
First off, I'm not a carebear or PvP hater; But, there are those times I start PvPing and while I like PvP in most cases, sometimes it's just so frustrating you wanna quit the game instantly. You know what? I just had one of those clarity-experiences where you suddenly get something you never understood before... Well, in my infinite altruism I want to share the revelation with you ^^
No seriously, what is the major characteristic of bad PvP...? I really didn't know, while what I knew was that the fun I got out of PvP varied greatly from title to title.
EvE always provided fun PvP for me, so I initially thought 'well, maybe it is the thrill of the harsh death penalty'... But then I found myself enjoying Warhammers PvP equally as much; While at the same time I considered PvP in WoW or LotRO... well, mediocre at best... In LOtRO downright frustrating.
Well, just recently I quit Star Trek Online with PvP being a major letdown. But why? It has basically the identical instanced scenario system WAR uses.
In STO, as 'the guy next door' (like me), you queue for a PvP instance, you get in, you start flying, suddenly 5 ships appear out of thin vacuum, you're instantly disabled and die within 5 seconds. Even if people are healing you, you die, you gain 3, 4 seconds, but you die...
And suddenly it struck me. While I was playing WAR back in 2009 I could, while not playing with a lot of coordination, stay alive in a bunch of enemies literally forever, as long as a healer was supporting me: People used to critizise Warhammer for being tank and healer dominated. And you know, they were right. PvP in WAR or EvE was fun for me because usually, you can't be as easily killed; You fulfill your role and usually you contribute.
Additionally, in Star Trek Online classes/ships were all self-sustaining. Everyone could deal damage, heal themselves and debuff to some extent. Very much like in WoW or LotRO, you needed to have an allround build if you wanted to survive or compete. Real healers or real tanks were mostly toast.
EvE, WAR and to some extent DaoC are the only games that allow people to keep the roles they specced for (like support, debuff, buff, tank) and still be useful.
So those two aspects do the trick, at least for me. Completely detached from things like death penalty, reward, instancing or open world.
Fun PvP consists of
- minimal to no crowd control
- low damage output
- high specialization and interaction between classes/builds
Well I know a lot of people will disagree, and a lot of people will love their pwning stunlock builds in their games. But from now on I think I'll know what bothers me when PvP's starting to get 'WTF is this crap!'-esque again. In any upcoming game.
M
Comments
Sounds like Star Trek Online PvP had a balance problem.
Games like Warhammer gives you a ton of health and you do little damage, that's why you can last so long without dying.
WoW doesn't give you a ton of health and reduce your damage. If you want to survive in WoW, you have to counter attacks, eg, kick the mage who is casting a pyroblast, shield bash a priest who is healing himself, etc.
Tons of health and low damage is the old school way of balancing PvP. It's not fun to me.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Well, PvP battles that lasts five seconds can't be much fun.
Unless you actually just want to kill players as fast as possible but then you can stay in the first/third person shooter games.
I really despise the MMORPG devs for wanting these players in their games, it has destroyed the community of WoW, WAR and some others.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
The reason I never engage in PvP is because one of the things PvP'ers are always clamoring for is skill-based. By and large, they are referring to fast reaction times, quick aiming skill, and other twitch like abilities. Even in a one-on-one RTS match like Starcraft, players always want to play at the fastest possible speed.
If you want me to get into PvP, change the mechanics such that even the slowest of clickers can win through strategy, thinking, planning, etc. I want a chess-like match, not a Street FIghter type battle. I want to play my RTS battles at the slowest possible speed. I want to out-think my opponents, not out-react them.
Fully agree with light/nonexistant CC. Interaction is the point of games, and spending time prevented from interacting is contrary to the experience.
Mostly agree with the low DPS comment. I think that with appropriate respawn and combat systems, a game can have high DPS. But with existing respawn/combat in MMORPGs, low DPS is certainly the most fun.
Only partially agree about specialization. Specialized roles are a fantastic way to make combat more team-oriented and interesting, but a game can still be fun without them. Modern Warfare 2's roles are pretty flimsy and there's almost zero directly-teamwork-related Perks to choose, yet it remains a fun PVP game. I could see a MMORPG being enjoyable in the same way, if it shared some of the design choices of MW2.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well STO has a lot of problems, but this particular event was against another Federation-pack.
And yea, WoW's PvP was superfast and laden with stuns etc.
In WAR I could rush into a group and start hacking, people would fly through the air, get back on their feet, and run back into battle. Sure, sometimes people would die, but the fight would never be "10 vs. 10, 10 seconds, one group dead" *shrugs*
This is not even fun on the winning side. You get there, you give it all you got and everything is over after 10 seconds? Reminds me of other activities btw... *coughs* anyways, trying to be objective: You get less 'battle-time' no matter what side you're on, you're either victorious after a few seconds or you're dead, but no matter what, the confrontation is over after a few secs... how's that more fun?
That's one more argument pro EvE btw. Any battle there can take really really long with several strategy changes, tactical decisions, etc...
M
Well if you spend weeks (months?) of non-battle operations building up for an EVE PVP fight, then yeah the battle better take a damn long time when it finally starts. Although tbh, I think EVE's fights are the least interesting PVP possible since the fights themselves are so predetermined (mid-fight decisionmaking is irrelevant if battles are decided by the number of ships and how powerful they are.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I would point to Guild Wars as a game with near perfectly balanced pvp. One of the coolest mechanics was interupting skills where with excellent timing various classes could stop a skill and cause the user to waste casting times, energy and cooldowns. It is very powerful in that interupting a key heal was often one of the more effective ways to get past a strong healer, but was hard to pull off.
Thats an example of skillful gameplay that can shut down someone, but not leave them stunlocked or mezed for like 20+ seconds.
When someone from WoW brags about how they can stunlock and kill people with their rogue, I just shake my head since there is little skill in just spamming stun skills ftw.
Good PvP is when you are kicking the crap out of other people.
Bad PvP is when people are kicking the crap out of you.
Very bad PvP is when people are kicking the crap out of you because of a design flaw or imbalance.
Extraorinarily bad PvP is when people are kicking the crap out of you because of a design flaw or imbalance, and taking your stuff and mocking you while they do it.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I have to say, as a die-hard nonconsensual PvP fan in MMORPGs, I began reading the OP's post with considerable skepticism, my first thought being "wow what a closet carebear." However, after reading the post, I find myself in almost complete agreement with all points made. I have a few additional points to make as well. My background is as follows: DAoC for 2.5 years, Eve Online for 2 years, WoW for periods of 90 days intermittently, WAR for about 90 days, and nothing now.
Most games that implement PvP do so in a "consensual-only" way, meaning that you have to in some way "choose" to partake before beginning a fight. To me, that is strike one. I like the freedom of attacking people when I want to, and the ever-looming possibility of being engaged by others. To me, constantly looking over your shoulder and randomly and unexpectedly being engaged in PvP as you progress through the game is a plus factor not a minus.
In my opinion, the game that struck the best balance in this fashion was Dark Age of Camelot on the PvP servers Andred and Mordred. Unlike WoW, there were no "factions" and you could speak to your enemies and be attacked by people of the same races / classes. True freedom of choice (with some limitations). As stated by the OP, DAoC had significant specialization and roles -- and the right combination of classes and teamwork could create a very powerful PvP force. It is also worth mentioning that there was real balance as well -- an infiltrator (assassin class) could waste a sorceror but would get wtfpwned by a warrior; the way it should be. In WoW, on the other hand, every class can really become a jack-of-all-trades and has a way of beating up any other class; makes no sense.
The second best framework would be the Eve Online style PvP. Completely nonconsensual with a severe death penalty (which makes PvP a highly meaningful part of the game), but at the same time if you really wanted to avoid PvP you could usually do so (easy to escape). At least, if you are paying attention and are ready to flee at a moment's notice. Eve has good roles and specialization, as well. My only complaint is that they carebeared a lot of it early on and I'd imagine that trend has continued.
WoW would be my third choice for a PvP model to follow. Restricted areas (good, especially at lower levels), but the whole 'faction' thing kinda sucks. I also don't like the reliance on "arena" style PvP although those are fun as an "addition to" existing PvP, but not a replacement for, or focal point, of PvP in a game. WoW tends to promote jacks of all trade builds which also sucks . . . and even on the PvP servers the game seems to be steered towards protection from PvP instead of promotion of PvP. What I would love to see is a server with no PvP restrictions --- just open season across the world and no language barrier
wouldn't that be fun!
Lastly, I think the LEAST amount of fun for PvP is the Guild Wars model. Although generally speaking, it is a fun game, no death penalty, no consequence, separated from the game itself, this model is almost like an afterthought to the game itself -- although I know I will get arguments about this, some even saying it is the focus of the game. Honestly, if PvP isn't integrated into the PvE part of the game, it is silly. I loved the battles fought in Darkness Falls in DAOC . . . so much fun.
s
This is definitely the most constructive and interesting thread I read since I-dont-know-when.
Really rare to actually learn something this way.
[quote] Fun PvP consists of
- minimal to no crowd control
- low damage output
- high specialization and interaction between classes/builds[/quote]
i lol'd pretty hard, the first and two cancel eachother one, you NEED one or the other to get past any healer.
in your world, everyone will roll healer, because there will be fuck all crowd control and fuck all damage going around, so just heal everyone to death unti lthey get bored and leave.
so glad random people liek OP dont have any sort of say in teh way MMO's are going, it'll be a sad day when those aspects of "Fun pvp" are implemented. probably some keyboard turning clicker that needs the huge amount of breathing room between GCD's so they can miss-click their shit 5-6 times before they finally get one ability off
what ruins pvp is CC.
when you get put in piñata mode almost every time you pvp it gets old very fast.
CC kills the skill it should take to pvp.
Games with NO CC are normally the best pvp games because even if you get ganked you have a chance to escape or kill the guys ganking you.
In a game with CC you are screwed if you get ganked because you will be in piñata mode most of the fight, just getting beat on.
Hmmm.....
I see what the OP is saying but I'm not entirely sure that I agree. For me it hinges on the idea that instant kills make for bad PVP.
I like Instagib in FPS, esepecially in 1v1 duels. Some of the most intense moments in fighting games are when both players are almost out of HP and the next hit wins the round. Most sports fans will tell you that the best moments of any game happen in the last two minutes of a tied game. As time goes on, I find myself believing more and more that two minute 3v3 matches are the end all be all of team based competition.
I think the key is that you need to be able to counter everything. If there's a choke point on the map, you have to be able to bypass it. Every class not only has to fill a role, but be able to counter the role of another class. There have to be multiple means of acheiving the same goal so that no one strategy or tactic can ever completely dominate. One hit kills should be possible, but only against very specific targets or under very specific circumstances (i.e. headshot).
It isn't really the amount of DPS as it is the need for solid play and teamwork. High DPS and instakills are not incompatible with good PvP
You're assuming both (a) poorly balanced Healing Per Second numbers and (b) the inability for players to counter Healing in other ways (healing-reduction effects, interrupts, dispels, etc.)
A well-designed game isn't going to run into this issue.
WAR is a great example of terrible HPS vs. DPS balancing imo. Both times I played, the melee-healers were over the top with the amount of combined HPS+DPS they could put out. Personally I feel WAR has some of the weakest Class and Combat Design of any MMORPG out there (let alone a PVP-focused one.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I only half agree with #1. The ability to for a small number of individuals to affect a larger part of the battle is an interesting concept which I completely support. It just has to be balanced. But it allows for the tables to be turned when seemingly "all hope is lost'. This is a good thing in my opinion.
low damage output I can sort of get behind. two combatants going at it for 10 minutes would be extreme. But limiting one or two shotting so that someone who is surprised on the battle field can still have a chance is a good thing.
As far as #3, sure why not.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The problem with PVP in MMO's is you can not have a gear, level, ability difference that so gives someone and advantage that the majority the player base have 0 chance of winning.
When you can one or two shot players or farm them in a premade at will the "average" player either stops pvping or if a pvp game leaves it.
When pvp sucks for a majority of the player base do to the above it kills the fun and in the end why pvp fails in most MMO's.
It seems to me you like games where PvP is about team vs team rather than games that PvP is about 1vs1 and the whole mindset "ima gank u" around it. I am on the same train as you. Never liked or even got interested in PvP outside of WoW's world PvP in large scale battles and Alterac Valley, and later on in WAR, mostly on RvR lakes but on scenarios too.
It's really the existance of the team/realm that lets you play as a tank, healer, or use any other support abilities like CC (what's the point into disabling your opponent in a 1vs1 battle? usually none) but also let you develop strategies as a team.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
Well, but a game could incorporate this "turn the table"-effect without implementing large scale stuns. Perfect example - in this particular aspect - is the knockback/collision feature in WAR: You could defend bridges, gates, bottlenecks by kicking people over the edges or blocking them. The stationary 'defend' function every tank got made for some great defensive capabilities that could allow a small team to hold a keep/BO without a glimpse of CC.
Additionally, there's still debuffs you can put in place for defensive strategies. Like defensive auras, a debuff-mode where a character is doing almost no damage but is able to debuff enemy heals/damage.
There's a myriad of ways that come to my mind when I think how a game could incorporate a no-CC-policy while still allowing players to turn the tide by playing smart.
Well and really, I am not talking about 'screw this I can't kill anybody' concerning low DPS. I'm talking about: A team is able to keep their members alive if they work together. You should still be able to kill a guy that breaks away from the group and enters lol-im-pwning-u-all-mode.
EvE got this soooo right imo, from the smallest mining ops to the largest fleet battle. You either coordinate or die. I love how well fit frigs can still contribute. Was the number 1 'just great' experience I had when I joined a pack during my third or fourth week and we went looking for trouble because of the running corp-war back then. Well we got our (evenly numbered) fight and I could contribute, in a frig. Awesome.
M
Fast paced pvp has ruined the community? May I ask why, cause I see no sense in this post of yours. Of all games I have played, I must say that WoW has definately handed me the best tools for my pvp, regardless class. LOTRO as I play now, has a 'pvp' that is a joke, while WAR had subpar pvp.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
Maybe people want 'chess match' too; speed-chess. You seem like you are more at home in a strategy match, and not in an MMO pvp. It is not 'all the other' people that is something wrong with. You cannot expect a whole genre to change just to cater you, when all the rest want something totally different than you want.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
I have played Rogue. I am unable to stunlock. Stunlocking requires alot of skill and it is a beauty to watch. It is far from 'just spamming stun skills' as you try to put it; which show you have no clue about WoW whatsoever.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
On the other hand, you better believe there are a tonne of people who want PVP but not the kind of 'twitch-based lolcoptering' you want.
For example, pre-NGE SWG had an excellent turn-based combat system that allowed fast-paced combat that went according to your own preset plan but which could be interrupted by the opposition and which you yourself could then react to with new moves. Of course, then the NGE came along and changed combat to twiitch-based FPS and a quarter of a million people unsubscribed...
It's not that you think PVP sucks.... It's that STO PVP sucks... as does much of the game...
I also play a stunlock rogue and am crap at PVP - however, I can keep a target immobile indefinitely. It's just a question of mashing my macro buttons. Perhaps you have latency problems or are not using some common Mods.
I agree with the OP. CC at least in Wow i feel is out of control. Most fights I am froze, stunned, feared so much I start to feel like a ping pong ball. If there is CC in the game, don't use DR,, use the DAOC method of immunity timers. I always thought it was funny, you have a lvl 80 death knight (the lich king brought you back from the dead) and warrior shouts, you piss your pants and run away crying. This is just my opinion.
I have played a rogue in WOW and although I wasn't the best, I could stun lock and I have arthritis.