Goblin Squad Member
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This has been discussed at other boards for other games (even for D&D 3e-4e) so it is nothing new except that it seems to be not common knowledge on these boards.
There is a huge difference about the two fundamental types of PvP interaction being called PvP as War and PvP as Sports.
So whats the difference and what could this mean for PFO?
PvP as Sports
This mode is in use in almost all of the current classic fantasy MMOs. Examples are WoW, SW:TOR, Guildwars and also Rifts and Aion to a high degree.
PvP as sports means that PvP should be "fair" and the outcome of the battle should be decided mainly through the "skill" of the participants with "gear" be only a second factor and "level" and especially "numbers" being none. Arenas and Battlegrounds are the main locations where this type of PvP is found and it is currently widely accepted that this is the "best" (sometimes even the "only") mode of PvP.
PvP as War
In love and in war anything goes.
Yes, indeed. PvP as War was the prime methode of PvP back in the old days. Prime Examples are Ultima and Dark Age of Camelot. The idea is that, just as life, PvP isn't "fair". The outcome is often (but not always) decided beforehand. Sun Tzu is credited with many quotations that say just that: In war you should always try to win the battle before the first blows are traded.
In an MMO this usually means that you try to win through superior skill, numbers, gear and/or organisation/communication.
If you confront someone (especially someone from the western hemisphere) with both concepts for a game, then the vast majority is in favor of PvP as Sports. This is because "fairness" is highly valued despite the fact that it is ultimately delusional!
Delusional?! What does that mean?
Well, PvP as Sports was mainly integrated to avoid frustration, but it also ment that much of the thrill was lost as well!
You can do about 20 arena matches a day in WoW easily. Will each match be something to be remembered? Surely not, but will even ONE be memorable? Alas the answer is no as well (unless you are in the e-sports cycles and compete for the world championship or the like).
War as Sports is an endless series of flatlined fun and as such, ultimately shallow.
So what style will PFO have?
I guess that PFO will have the guts to actually bring back PvP as War. This means that there will be people that will complain about how unfair this all is. On the other hand there will be people who are exhilarated by a battle well fought, by an seemingly unsurmountable opposition being overcome - sometimes.
A good example from my times in DAoC:
In times when there was a well respected leader, Albion was almost unstoppable while in times where the big guilds squabbled their superior number was like dust before the skill of the hardened veterans of especially Midgard (ahem, you may now guess in which realm I played).
It was in these days that we awoke with all our fortresses overrun and all our relics stolen by Albion while the cowards of Hibernia sat back smugly and were content to defend their one left relic.
The big guilds of Midgard met and the leaders discussed plans that included deviations, pin point attacks and even the possibility of drawing the large number of Albion players into one zone to crash this zone and trap them there (which did not happen). In short everything was tried.
In the end we managed to win back one relic after almost 10 hours of near constant fighting. I was the carrier of the relic and we had now 1 hour to place it in our relic fortress.
It was cat and mouse of the highest level. I escaped and hid in the woods (no frigging radar back then) as my seven groupmates flung themselves against a large number of Albionites to slow them down. I dodged hunting parties as I waited for a number of groups to hack their way through a dungeon to clear a way for me if I could make it to the entrance of said dungeon without being found.
This, of course, was the moment that the Hibernians choose for a big time invasion in order to also get their relics back...
In a critical moment I killed a low level questing Albionite who wasn't aware of all the fuss going on and could have easily betrayed me with but a single post in the realm chat but didn't bother (which led to a huge discussion afterwards that Albion lacked "the spirit").
I died when traversing the Dungeon but the relic was picked up by a groupmate and she finally made it just a minute before the time was out.
Everyone went to bed this night with the feeling that something awesome had just happened!
I hope you see that there is a place for this mode of PvP and that without risk there is no reward.
I guess that PFO will have the guts to actually bring back PvP as War. This means that there will be people that will complain about how unfair this all is. On the other hand there will be people who are exhilarated by a battle well fought, by an seemingly unsurmountable opposition being overcome - sometimes.
Have they said as much? Or is this what you're hoping?
I would hope they develop a venue for both (an arena/'war-games' mechanic for sport and a general open-world PvP for the War aspect). But I haven't heard anything specific.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have made several posts about character balance that made these same points, without using your nomenclature.
Post:
The need to balance players the way you suggest is really only necessary, in my opinion, when they're primarily going to be competing in an arena, with a set number of players on each side, and rules to ensure the competition is fair. In PFO, I believe we're primarily going to be competing in the world at large, where more often than not the two sides in any conflict will be seriously mismatched. In that environment, the relative ability of any single player is much less important than the aggregate power of the group of players
... that kind of balance is necessary in any system that is going to be significantly about set matches of 3 on 3, or 5 on 5, etc. PFO is not going to be that system, to my understanding. PFO will instead *always* face potentially massive imbalances when 20 or 50 or 500 players get together to act against 10 or 5 or even 1. Because of that, I very much hope that PFO is more concerned with implementing the kinds of things that fans of fantasy would read about in novels, rather than concerning themselves with the kinds of things that fans of Arena PvP would want.
That said, I'm not really arguing in favor of hiring an army, I'm really just trying to encourage people to think outside the box of balanced 1v1 PvP and open themselves to ideas that might, at first blush, seem unbalanced, but which really won't have the kind of impact they fear in PFO, as long as PFO is not about ranked, arena-based PvP with even teams, yada yada.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want to have the best of both worlds.
This can be made, but only under certain premises.
.For PvP as War to work you can allow two mindsets:
- the people that indulge it
- the people who take pains to avoid it
But you can't allow a large number of players to be able to simply ignore it!
One thing that could leads to ignoring it would be to install battlegrounds or arenas with tangible ingame rewards.
But of course you could allow a duel mode for fun and intangibles (titles, fluff gear) only.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm in favor of "PvP as War", but I think from discussions in other threads, you and I have somewhat different conceptions of what's involved with that. To me, "PvP as War" does NOT entail that it's ok for Johnny who has been playing for 4 years and has top of the line gear is MECHANICALY 50 x more powerfull then Sally who has been playing for only 2 years and has medium grade gear. That, to me, is a completely unsatisfying design for a PvP focused game...regardless of whether it's designed as "Sport" or "War"... and I suspect not too many people are going to be interested in being Sally in that scenario.
To me, the "PvP as War" design means that while the 1.5% power difference between the 2 characters is completely undeterministic in an individual encounter...the game doesn't isolate the consequences of the encounters from one another...and when you start to work with the laws of very large numbers, that 1.5% difference starts to matter when you add up the results of the thousands upon thousands of encounters that go into shaping the overall conflict.
That's really what the essence of "PvP as War." is to me....that it's not just about 1 individual encounter....that it's encounter piled upon encounter that matters.....and I have no problem with any of those encounters being incredibly lopsided either...it's just that they shouldn't be lopsided because 1 player has spent 4 years leveling instead of 2 and by virtue of that has become mechanicaly unbeatable.
To put it in more specific context... A knight who has been trained since birth in the art of battle and who's arms and armor cost a kings ransom can still be taken out by a peasant who was pulled off his farm yesterday and armed with nothing more then a dagger....IF that knight happened to be charging through a dense wood and was unlucky enough to be thrown from his mount and landed flat on his back in front of said peasant, who had the presence of mind to thrust his dagger through the knights visor. That, to me, is "PvP War"....even a King can fall to a cheap dagger/arrow if caught in the wrong circumstances.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Pathfinder Online WILL have PVP as war. It isn't even really debatable as far as I see it. Open world PVP with player controlled buildings and territory immediately brings into play:
1. Politics
2. Economics
3. Logistics
Three things entirely absent in the PVP as Sports system. Whether those economics are mainly spent replacing player gear or paying for building repairs, siege equipment, and guards is irrelevant to the fact this game will be PVP as war.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think there should be both forms of PvP. I mean COME ON! Yes, PVP war would be awesome and probably goes well with the concept of PFO, but what about our fun crazy gladiatorial battles (PvP Sports)? I want to have the best of both worlds.
It can be player coordinated, player run, and player policed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It can be player coordinated, player run, and player policed.
As long as combat arenas and race circuits are constructable structures I'm all for it.
Oh, and if we have a really big arena we should be able to fill it with water and have naval battles like the coliseum did sometimes. ;)
I think a yearly tournament like in EVE might be nice too. That is a really successful very big hit there. Its one thing to win an unofficial event hosted by players. Its another to win one put on by the GMs once a year.
I'm all for war, but I'd also like to throw my weight behind no arena challenge areas. I think that one of the most idiotic - well, not totally true, but - things that a MMO can do is have you head into the tavern and nuke it out for an hour with other players, and then go off and do something else.
I'm sorry, but no. I'd like to say that if you fight something, you should be fighting for your own survival, and a reason, not because you are bored out of your mind.
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Goblin Squad Member
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War is never ending and persistent, sports have timers and rules...
I would partly disagree with that deffinition. Individual wars most certainly do end, Just not at any pre-defined time. War ends when one side decides that fighting is not worth what they are after, or when both sides figure out a comprimise, or occasionally when one side has been pummeled into nothing and is forced to start from scratch somewhere miles away from the reach of his opponent.
But I suppose you are part right in that some extent of war and conquest is most likely going on everywhere, and the effects from the previous battle are never truely gone even after the opponent pacified or destroyed.
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War does not determine who is right, only who is left.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In a world of religion and oath... War never ends...
Like the Jews and the Palastinians, the Sunni and Shiites, Jihad and the western world, the Culinary Union and the UFC.
Lets not get into politics and religion please. I'm not sure if it is allowed on these forums but it certainly makes me want to give a response that is way off subject.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lets not get into politics and religion please. I'm not sure if it is allowed on these forums.In a world of religion and oath... War never ends...
Like the Jews and the Palastinians, the Sunni and Shiites, Jihad and the western world, the Culinary Union and the UFC.
I'm pretty certain we aren't nearing breaking the rules of the forums until you go into directly controversial issues, like claiming one group as right, or one group as immoral etc... I'm pretty certain simply aknowledging basic facts, such as The jews exist and the palastini's exist, and haven't exactly been happy with eachother in recorded history, is not a controversial statement.
and perhaps you may be right that actual peace may not exist, but in an MMO I don't anticipate people to take their religions as seriously as they do in the real world. Heck in the P&P universe it is quite difficult to justify wars in the same way as in the real world due to the polytheistic nature of the P&P world.
In the D&D and pathfinder universe, 2 dieties that share 70% of the same views, but differ on 30% are generally allied. Knowing/believing that both gods actually do exist is kind of a huge motivation killer for both sides to wage war with eachother, outside of ones with much more major goals, like the ones who's entire doctrine is just random tyrany, murder etc... and those soceities tend to be more fringe, underground (in many cases litterally underground IE drow).
Lore asside just MMO players themselves do not tend to intentionally want to put themselves in such a position. Short of the developers intentionally making areas with an unfair unballance of resources to support such pockets of tyrany. In general if 2 sides had the budget and remained butting heads with eachother, both would wind up comparitively behind the times, and 1 or both would likely be paved over by an enemy that had spent the resources on building up while the other 2 had been losing all of their money and resources destroying eachother and rebuilding themselves, unless they were smart enough to have negotiated a peace treaty to prevent themselves from self destruction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm pretty certain we aren't nearing breaking the rules of the forums until you go into directly controversial issues, like claiming one group as right, or one group as immoral etc... I'm pretty certain simply aknowledging basic facts, such as The jews exist and the palastini's exist, and haven't exactly been happy with eachother in recorded history, is not a controversial statement.Lets not get into politics and religion please. I'm not sure if it is allowed on these forums.In a world of religion and oath... War never ends...
Like the Jews and the Palastinians, the Sunni and Shiites, Jihad and the western world, the Culinary Union and the UFC.
My objection isn't the the mention of that but rather as religion and oath being stated as the two primary sources of war. Conflict goes back the beginning of life and war goes back to when it began to form packs and groups. Do not two ant hives in conflict meet all the necessary criteria to be a war?
Blaming war on religion and oaths is like blaming obesity on hamburgers. Sure they can contribute but the underlying reason is people eating more than they should, and if they don't eat one high calorie food they will eat another.
In such a manner aggression and greed are the causes of war. Removing religion and oath would not remove war or even greatly reduce it. It might even increase it. Religions often have underlying peaceful messages and often war for religion is just a cover for a war that is being waged for greed or aggression, and would exist with or without religion. Such as two previously mentioned groups who I believe are really fighting over land. Saying it's for religion is just a good morale booster.
That is what I objected to. ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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...you and I have somewhat different conceptions... lotsa talk about gear...
I don't get you. I never said gear should be THE deciding factor, just that it WILL matter as this game, like all other classic MMOs is about archieving and gear is simply a part of this.
.And yes, I am all for caps to prevent ridicilous high stats in high end gear, I am against the lame design that is class specific set gear and for needing to make choices (high str or better resists but not both be possible).
But in PvP as War gear matters MUCH LESS than in PvP as Sports anyways because the undergeared side can always try to bring more people.
The following worked well in DAoC:
He despised the "elite guilds" and regulary led massive raids of "noobs" in bad gear across the frontiers taking forts and winning battles because of sheer numbers.
After a time his raids became better and better as all the badly geared "noobs" learned what to do and what not and aquired better gear.
I liked that very much although I was never part of it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Religion is a heavy topic and I agree these message boards are not the place for such topics, I realized this as I was posting and added the Culinary Union vs The UFC as a bit of humor at the end.
History has proven over and over again that Power and Greed go hand in hand with religion and I would expect nothing less in PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Religion is a heavy topic and I agree these message boards are not the place for such topics, I realized this as I was posting and added the Culinary Union vs The UFC as a bit of humor at the end.
History has proven over and over again that Power and Greed go hand in hand with religion and I would expect nothing less in PFO.
As a cleric of Sarenrae (Or maybe paladin if there is a way to be a neutral-good one) it is my solemn duty to defend our religion. And I'm sure I will see plenty of conflict against the followers of evil dieties, especially the cursed fiend Rovagug! But it stems more from a desire to protect the weak and the innocent than theology.
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Goblin Squad Member
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War does not determine who is right, only who is left.
I like that :)
I'm pretty certain we aren't nearing breaking the rules of the forums...
It's one of those things where it's probably best to avoid the topic altogether. Simply bringing up the subject can stir strong emotions which some people might feel compelled to express.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actualy when/how/to what extent/degree War's are fought, historicaly speaking, varies alot depending upon time and place and the sides involved. The concept of Total War or War without end and limitations....while it does have antecedents in classical and ancient times, is a fairly modern concept in it's prevelance.
Most conflicts, particulary if we are looking at the European Middle Ages (which is the inspiration for most calssical fantasy settings) were pretty limited affairs in scope... generaly fought by relatively small numbers of individuals and designed to establish very specific and limited aims (often to establish claim to a very specific piece of property) and were often fought according to very strict rules of engagement.
Moving that forward a bit in history into the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries....it was actualy not all that uncommon for generals of opposing sides to meet before the battle and mutualy determine when the battle was to commence. One of the reasons Napolean was so reviled in his own time was because he tended to flount such established conventions (although not all of his generals did).
Of course, such conventions generaly held only when both combatants shared some common bond or cultural outlook. When dealing with opponents that were regarded as "other" or "foriegn" such as much of the time when European and Islamic or Mongol armies met on the field of battle, things tended to get alot more brutal.
Not sure how all this will shake out in the PFO setting... but I imagine there is room for all sorts of different conflicts...including those where 2 factions of generaly similar outlook might fight brief or limited conflicts over specific desired resources. Historicaly pragmatic rulers understood well that it might be worth expending a certain amount of resources to gain a specific goal....but beyond that it started to become self-defeating for BOTH sides to continue a conflict beyond a certain point.
Hey, just looking at the last few posts about religion, and war, and what not, etc...
Wasn't it originally objected to, in that it would get us all of on some random tangents that were a waste of space? Isn't this whole discussion one of the tangents that we wanted to avoid in the first place? I'm all for discussing this kind of thing, but not HERE and NOW.
Just a personal opinion.
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1) There is plenty of room for a game to have both Sport-like PvP and War-like PvP. Just look at GW2. After several betas, the game has gotten MASSIVE praise mostly directed towards the WvW war combat.
2) Saying that making PvP a sport ruined some of the thrill is like saying that Football, Basketball, or any IRL sport cannot be thrilling or exciting either. That's not to say that this doesn't hold true for some people, but opinions are opinions. Having teams play against each other with essentially even odds (read: all things being equal other that weapon selection, character builds, and skill level) is a great way to test your abilities in a controlled environment where teamwork on a micro level can really shine.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1) There is plenty of room for a game to have both Sport-like PvP and War-like PvP. Just look at GW2. After several betas, the game has gotten MASSIVE praise mostly directed towards the WvW war combat.
2) Saying that making PvP a sport ruined some of the thrill is like saying that Football, Basketball, or any IRL sport cannot be thrilling or exciting either. That's not to say that this doesn't hold true for some people, but opinions are opinions. Having teams play against each other with essentially even odds (read: all things being equal other that weapon selection, character builds, and skill level) is a great way to test your abilities in a controlled environment where teamwork on a micro level can really shine.
Agreed sport PvP is fun! Desert Combat was epic before EA bought it, Warhammers instanced PvP was a blast, Rifts battle grounds are fun.
Before WoW was ever made we had them in Ultima Online, the players came up with the idea. By building structures in the shape of an arena, constructing obstacles like wooded walls and stone barriers. Player run events would take place everyday with prizes or just bragging rights.
It was all there in the open world for anyone to see or participate.
But there is a price to pay for that instanced themepark bg's... It takes the players out of the open world.
In themepark mmo's open world is not important, the game doesn't rely on the players interacting with each other to create the content. The devs provide most of that content for you.
As fun as it is and I enjoyed many nights running Bg's with premades, sport style instanced battle grounds have no place in PFO or any Sandbox mmo.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think that e-Sports remove the thrill from PVP, but I do think it ruins immersion. Player run events are fine, but let's leave it at that for a sandbox game.
On the other hand, I hope that PVP as WAR won't devolve into zerg guilds on a constant ganking mission a la Darkfall. To me, there's nothing thrilling or skillful about dog-piling with insurmountable odds. Raiding/defending towns or caravans could be a lot of fun, but I hope the PVP doesn't drown out everything else this game will offer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The difference I see between these forms of PvP is that usually because the gameplay almost exclusively combat focused, these pvp forms are then self-contained sub game modes for purposes of:
1) Player volition for pve centric game (pvp side option)
2) Balancing gameplay combat
3) tech reasons
But if you are creating a mmorpg with more than just combat or combat is a link in the chain to other gameplay, then pvp need to be a part of that:
Eg war could be trade war, guild war, nation war and even civil war as well as frontier war.
Pvp could be simple skirmish, dual, assassination and the like as well as posse man hunting etc.
Sport pvp if included, this should be again contextual driven eg a player earns heaps, wants to invest in their city, bankrolls construction of arena for gladiators and betting etc, don't know if player's could trap wild animals to fight players eg anything the Romans already came up with!
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Goblin Squad Member
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PvP as sport is not a primary objective of the game design, but there are places (one place in particular) where gladiatorial battles could be introduced. It isn't something we're worrying about at the moment though.
This is good to hear. I would much rather see this game's development pay attention and explore the possibilities of PvP and it's relationship to the macro-economic aspect of this game.
Hopefully, Goblinworks also looks into offering an API so third-parties can design and offer innovative ways to interact with the game. For example, an iPhone app that warns me when resource points have stopped harvesting or are under attack, and offers me limited actions (i.e: new build orders, replenish consumables, summon guards, call allies for assistance, etc.).
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Goblin Squad Member
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PvP as sport is not a primary objective of the game design, but there are places (one place in particular) where gladiatorial battles could be introduced. It isn't something we're worrying about at the moment though.
I assume you're referring to the arena of Pitax?
I wondered if you guys had plans to incorporate some of the larger River Kingdom settlements, since the political situation is so dynamic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1) There is plenty of room for a game to have both...
2) Saying that making PvP a sport ruined some of the thrill is like saying that Football, Basketball, or any IRL sport cannot be thrilling or exciting either...
1)
Yeah, there is, BUT only if done right. In Aion for example the introduction of an arena where you could get the same points as in open PvP killed open PvP dead because you could get your points faster in the arena...2)
Uhhm, no, sorry, but no. Neither is saying Arena PvP CAN BE repetitous and boring and is an overused game concept in MMOs saying that Football is boring, nor can you compare these things anyways.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, there is, BUT only if done right. In Aion for example the introduction of an arena where you could get the same points as in open PvP killed open PvP dead because you could get your points faster in the arena...
Hopefully we won't be seeing any kind of point system in open world PVP. Personally IMO point systems are contrary PVP as war. There should be 0 rewards for it beyond loot acquired and any bounties you are able to collect.
The point of open world PVP is acquiring or protecting assets and resources. Setting your enemies back or advancing your own cause. Give us resources and territory to fight over.
That is all you need to drive the engines of war. Clan A attacks Clan B because they have resources clan A wants. Clan C jumps in because Clan B is friendly to them or because they disagree with Clan As action. Clan D sees clan C as annoying interlopers and attack clan C.
Pretty soon you have all out war and deep running rivalries.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Andius has this exactly right.
When PvP rewards you by giving you points or tokens to buy better PvP gear, it doesn't matter whether it's open-world or arena-based, that's pure Theme Park and anti-sandbox.
PFO PvP may give some arena-like rewards by letting you win a purse for success in a gladiatorial arena. But there will always be much greater rewards to be had by holding your territory, defending your harvesters, guarding your caravans, etc.
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2)
Uhhm, no, sorry, but no. Neither is saying Arena PvP CAN BE repetitous and boring and is an overused game concept in MMOs saying that Football is boring, nor can you compare these things anyways.
I hate to start a "yes/no" debate, but yes, it is. My point is that your opinion on the matter is valid for you, but to make the blanket statement that organized, micro-level arena PvP ruined PvP by providing the illusion of fairness is to point at the current issues faced by modern implementations of PvP and use them represent the entirety of what Sport-like PvP can be.
There are instances where Sport-like PvP is FAR more interesting that War-like PvP (which can frequently devolve into a simple zerg), and instances where the opposite is true. My point was that by implying that Sport-like PvP is inferior to War-like PvP, you imply that sports themselves are fundamentally uninteresting.
And yes, you can compare structured PvP to Sports. (Capture the Flag, anyone?)
Ryan Dancey's post makes me hopeful about all of this. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Points are unnecessary if open war pvp leads to increase/decrease in influence on the actual gameworld.
That's also the reward of war pvp, in addition to the enjoyment of the activity itself and reaction of other players to an outcome that influences them.
Likewise sport pvp in the guise of gladiatorial fights would have to pay it's dues to the bigger picture one way or another: Eg odds, skill specialization, others associated with the running and profiting of said sport.
The take home message for any pvp in sandbox is that it's part of the gameworld is equally important criteria as the actual enjoyment of the combat gameplay itself.
