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[Poll] Setting up a game with PvP
TheLizardbones
Member CommonPosts: 10,910
Ok, here is a hypothetical question for all the arm chair developers out there, and if there are any industry pundits they can answer too.
Your job (it's imaginary, you'll get paid well, with health insurance, etc.), is to make decisions about a game launch. The primary game play mechanics of the game are not PvP based, however, the game itself allows for territory control, resource loss and even a political system. The game could be described as an open world sandbox, but with plenty of PvE content for players. The game would have factions, but player interactions would not be limited by faction. People with high reputations in different factions could be in the same guild, that type of thing.
If you're having trouble picturing the game, think crafting and some politics from A Tale In The Desert, with combat and a fairly liberal building policy.
Now, here's the question. How do you initially launch the game with regard to the PvP rule sets? Do you
- Launch a single server, which is PvE only, but with optional PvP flags? PvP would in the world (no battlegrounds), but as stated above, FFA. Players would receive loot and rewards for winning in PvP. The option exists to later launch another server with a different rule set.
- Launch a single server, which is PvP only. PvP would be in the world, and as stated above would be FFA. Players would receive loot and rewards for winning in PvP. There would also be punishments for attacking people in populous city zones, who are much lower level, etc. Players in safe zones (training areas) would be immune to PvP. The option exists to later launch a server with a different rule set.
- Launch multiple servers, with different rule sets.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
not a developer (so I answered muffins) but, if we think abou the stuff usually said here.
Pve players will complain about different servers, because they will say if the other server has pvp only the game will need to be based around being able to funcition with a pvp server too. So they will complain about that choice.
So you would need to somehow make a game thinking only about the pve aspects and then after release, just slap a pvp everywhere server there.
Then if you do that option, you will problably have pve players saying this will consume money from pve and that will split the userbase (this happened when warhammer developer started to think talk about creating a server without instancied stuff and etc...), and this will happen even if you make just 2 server, the non pve only and the pvp allowed one.
You can do like harsh noise musicians (warning; LOUD), do the stuff you want and the stuff for your userbase and not care when many say "your stuff is not music", "it sounds like shit"
In a sandbox, the less the number of servers you launch, the better, because a sandbox becomes better, richer and complex as more people it have (people are the main "content" creator there).
So, i answered the second option.
No to flag systems because they are arcaic and prone to exploitation.
No to PvP-only servers because majority of people spend most of their time in PvE content and wants to have nothing to do with PvP. You'd be aiming for a relatively small market otherwise.
No to multiple servers because you would want to keep the fragmentation of your player base to a minimum and you don't want to design and maintain multiple rulesets.
I guess its muffins for me.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
This.
Edit: Muffins as well
The only option left would be something like Elder Scrolls Online or TSW where the game content is PvE only. There may or may not be a PvP area, PvP battlegrounds, etc. Is that correct?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
That or severely limit PvP to areas which are "contested" or "lawless" for example.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
How about creating a game where both PvE and PvP depend on each other?
How about harsh penalties for senseless pk'ing.
How about ways PvE'ers can legitimately contract or hire PvP'ers to do their dirty work or vice versa.
How about 1 character slot and meaningful reputation system.
How about realistic structure destruction, if it takes days to build it should also take days to destroy.
How about realistic weighting system, if I kill you am I really able to loot a full suit of armor, weapons, items and all resources? ... not likely.
The last thing you want to do in a Sandbox is set up "limitations". If you set up the proper ruleset you give the chance for the player to create his or her own limitations based on the consequences they are willing or not willing to deal with.
This was an easy vote for me.
PVP with rules, safe zones, and penalties for abusive ganking is the only way to go. (The ArcheAge streams have convinced me of this, but I was already leaning in that direction.)
If your design is "competitive" (which any design with territorial control and politics clearly is) then every other answer fails.
Multiple Server rule sets => multiple bad games (PVP either tacked on or noticeably missing)
PVP flagging => immersion-breaking and exploitable
The key to getting PVE players (like myself) to participate in a PVP-legal game is to have a "gradual buy in". To use the ArcheAge example, there are several ways I can balance my PVP exposure vs. game progress. I can farm in unprotected territory, I can do unsafe trade runs, I can quest during wartime. In each case, I choose how aggressively to expose myself to enemies, anywhere from 0 to 100% without breaking immersion. If I could just "keep my flag off", non of these things would be entertaining.
I think a LOT of PVE players would play a factional PVP game if you could convince them that clever long-term strategy would beat out quick-twitch griefing and that there was a ton of ways to be productive beyond PKing.
Personally I think flagging is the best way to go.
Make it so when you opt in, you are in for a certain period of in game time. That way there is no immediate opting out.
I can't see any problems with that one.
No the answer would be more type of security zones, a enhanced EvE system, where the highest security zone could be pve only.. and if you want it to be sandbox zones security levels per zone could change.. so that pve only players have potentially are able to see other zones durings the game lifecycle, and the world becomes more dynamic.
Though.. if it is not indy, but AAA.. i would go with multiply rulesets and basicly 2 seperated development teams for every ruleset.. whereas there could be huge differences between those two servers types. This actually never happend up to the point, but it could be very well time for it. Start with one team to build up the foundation, split it for different specialized rulesets servers.. and advertise them as basicly 2 kind of games.
I'ts actually the only option in cases like this. You just can't allow pve'ers to be attacked. Period. It doesn't matter if there's a Karma systems, criminal system, no penalty, etc. If players get jumped a single time, they dramatize it, overreact and leave.
Personaly, OP, why does it have to be sandbox, political, territory control stuff like always? I'd like more interesting ways to connect open world pvp and maybe some instanced pvp areas.
But for this situation, a flagging system that was designed from the beginning to avoid exploits,a dn that rewards players for flagging in the first place, would probably be the bets option to make veryone happy.
In my opinion Quirhid is right.. and even more so in a territorial pvp setup.
One simple example. With pvp flags non flagged players will always abused to spy, to scout without the possibility to do anything against it. Another would be, if you do have resources tied to territorial control, they can harvest those resources without any penality.. and there are a lot of other ways, how pvp flags will be expoited in such a setup.
And therefore if you want separate pve from pvp, or to want give pve player complete safety you should better do it with zone setup... some zones are safe zones other are not.. or even better with different layers of security available for different zones.. then you can adjust all other mechanics rather good to the security level of a zone, and avoid a lot of potential exploits.
Of course in another world setup, without territorial control, pvp flags can work better.. but truth is territorial control enables a very dynamic world experience, which enhance the complete sandbox or better virtual world experience a lot, and not just for pvp players. And for themeparkish pvp... simple, small pvp games focused only on one playstyle are just superior to any themepark pvp solution, like Mobas, like GW1, like any FPS(Battlefield just one) and add almost nothing to the pve side of things or to the pve player.. and therefore if you want to do anything worthwhile from a pvp perspective in a MMORPG a sandbox/territorial control system with a virutal world feeling is something you can't do or offer in a simple multiplayer game.. and maybe more important, there is a lot of potential in such a system, because up to now we don't have any really good one. The best may be EvE, but from a pvp viewpoint the combat is not tactical enough, it is not good enough, is to slow.. and even the virtiual world feeling, how evolving and dynamic a world is, could be better than it is in EvE.
I vote diff servers.
Flags offer only an illusion of choice. You still basically have a PvE server.
I like FFA PVP, but not all the time, sometimes I want to relax when I game. Diff servers allows me to have multiple toons,
I really dislike magical PvP flags, in any form. They are a kind of gameplay MacGuffin, and not in a good way. Rather than making the world seem more believable, they make the world less believable.
/2c
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance