Serious question. What MMO pvp works for you?
I'm open to anything new or old or revisited. I like faction-based pvp better than guild- or clan-based pvp (like Albion) because I'm "casual" and like to drop in and pvp whenever I want to. I don't want to have to participate in the social aspect of being in a clan, showing up at certain times, etc. I tend not to like ffa full-loot pvp, but I'm open to it. I've played Darkfall in the past.
I've been in ESO since launch, but it seems zergier now than it used to (maybe I'm just imagining it). But I'm not imaging that the performance in Cyrodiil sucks. I'm looking forward to Camelot Unchained to fill that RvR void.
I'm open to suggestions or to hear about what game you think does pvp right.
Comments
Can't see any reason to bother with PVP in most other games without these factors.
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I've never played the PVP in ESO but i can understand why some like that factor of the game, i just think it was poorly implemented in terms of the rest of the game, in a way that was not the case with DAOC.
Personally i think if not for the hackers, which are less of an issue at the moment, Planetside 2 isn't a bad PVP MMO, its just not a 'solo' player PVP MMO but one that rewards teamwork, strategy and persistence, though i think games like CS:GO have pretty much nailed the team based FPS for multiplayer games.
I think what constitutes a 'good' PVP game though relies heavily on the type of PVP you prefer.
Bless sounded good in principle, because I would like a "meaningful" open-world, but faction based set up since I don't have time for the committed social aspects of most guilds.
Don't know much about EVE. I just couldn't get through the tutorial, though I tried probably 3 or 4 times. I guess I'm not smart enough.
Looking forward to Camelot Unchained. Maybe Crowfall when it gets a bit closer. Is there much info about Pantheon PVP? Or is it mainly a PVE focused game?
They are Arenas. And the freedom to roleplay out conflicts anywhere they belong is lost.
I don't want gankfests either. But I do want PvP that belongs in the game to be enabled anywhere in the game world. This is tricky business though.
Once upon a time....
In UO the last "fix" to rampant PKing before they just gave up and made Trammel was to put a skill loss on "Reds" if they were killed.
The guild I was in doubled, as old players came back because we all thought we finally could take revenge on the griefers.
The same for other guilds.
Our guild started roaming the world looking for those "Reds" to extract vengeance. But for the first few days you couldn't find them. They were hiding because they didn't want to face the "justice" of real punishment.
The UO Devs had exactly what they wanted, players taking up the defense, and PKing came to almost a standstill.
But then everyone found out that the "Reds" friends could heal them and not get a criminal flag.
So the whole thing fell apart, and the victims were victimized again. And there was nothing you could do about it.
Players left again, and then they made Trammel.
And from that point on, it was said far and wide that wide open PvP would NEVER work. And lacking anything for proof, players believed that.
If not for those "Blue Healers", the history of PvP and MMORPGs would have been changed.
Once upon a time....
In the sense that it's not a completely open world PvP game, I don't disagree, though.
Gw2 has a good balance, quick PvP arena (with no level of gears, that's mandatory) and a decent RvR that fits the style of the game, even if there's much room for improvement.
I also like the "Southsun Survival" activity, it works very similar to Hunger Games. That's the idea for an open, FFA / full loot PvP mode I'd like to see implemented in many games!
Yeah on your open world comment. I guess I want one set of rules for the game, not a separation.
I really liked where I thought UO was going, as I mentioned not far above, about the "Blue Healer" problem.
If you didn't have that problem, then you have a world where anyone can attack anyone else, but with consequences. But the consequences for non-PKers were slight since they didn't kill players much and the system allowed 3 kills before the real penalties kicked in, and those wore off in a week or two. That meant that if some player is being a general jerk, you could kill them and not suffer for it. That also helps keep players in line.
Other game design is needed though, to really make things work all the time.
It's do-able.
And it's just more realistic.
Plus guild wars, obviously, to allow mass combat without penalty.
Once upon a time....
Having character progression and fun RvR or open world PvP is certainly possible but you would have to rethink a lot of your games design for that and it is a fine line to cross when you also want good PvE. Few bother even trying, but I think that have to do with the general apathy and lack of imaganition most MMO devs had the last 13 or so years.
So I play GW2 as well for my MMO PvP fix, it is far from perfect but it is the best PvP I had in a long time even so.
I do however think MMOs have missed out rather badly, PvP is the most popular gameplay in most other genres and there is no reason MMOs couldn't be like that as well if we just got a good enough game. But the whole "you become 100 times as powerful when you played a while" thing have to go, sometimes around twice is what is needed.
You would just have to be careful about the interplay between the two avatars, just as you do about the effect PvP has on PvE and visa versa.
Take GW2: In WvW you can siege stuff and take it for your team... but why? There's no benefit and there's really no clear goal to work towards during the matches.
In an FPS game, sure you may be doing the same thing over and over(battle royale, frag-fest, capture the map Battlefield style), but typically there's a point of victory.
RvR type games are most similar to the Battlefield style, I guess we could say, which brings light to some of your finer points. I have a blast in a Battlefield game, but in GW2/MMOs it all just seems fairly pointless and bland to me. Why?
One reason is as you mentioned -- balance. With power gaps and terrible class balance that some of these games have, it's often just not fun, or more importantly, fair. It's no fun to be 10x weaker than someone else just because they are playing the overpowered flavor-of-the-month.
Secondly: I think when you are playing in a persistent world like an MMO, having the RvR stuff locked into an out-of-world instance just makes it feel shallow and disconnected. I mean, what's the point of having realm-based territory control, if it doesn't actually affect your realm in any way whatsoever?
It's just some out-of-the-world map that no one cares about and brings no benefit to the rest of the game. In other words, there's no real victory.
Certain games have tried to give a worldly purpose to RvR victory, such as unlocking specific dungeons/raids when you control a map, which I think is a step in the right direction, and MJ is even taking that with him into CU, iirc.
People can overlook balance issues and power gaps, of the first point, in team-based warfare if it feels like there is actually something worth fighting for, as in the second point.
FPS games generally fall back successfully on the first point(fun and balanced) even when they are shallower towards the second.
But when both of those points are working against you, it's just going to go nowhere. This is the problem most MMOs have. They are stacking the negatives of the RvR systems and butting their heads into a wall.