Considering that every time I make a post with “P”, “v” and “P” somewhere in the title the ensuing comments pile up into three digits, either Scott Kurtz has a lot of fans or there’s a whole lot of people still mad about getting ganked in front of Despise 10 years later. And given the recent comments by Auran on the less than stellar success of their new PvP MMO, it seems a refresher course may be in order on H0w 2 mak3 y0ur playerZ gAnk. So, here is my incredibly humble checklist of how to make your player vs player not morph into player vs company. In other words… a design manifesto cleverly disguised as some incredibly obvious aphorisms! I can speak from experience, of course, having worked on one of the more successful PvP-centric MMOs and, much more importantly, having complained a lot on message boards.
PvP should not be the focus of your entire game. There have been three MMOs where the entire game consisted of player vs player combat: Planetside, WW2 Online, and Fury. Although all of these games are still running, none of them were considered market successes. (That’s not to say that a PvP-only game can’t be successful – but be prepared to consider a niche title a success.) Very few players in an MMO want to be “all gank, all the time”. Even in a game where PvP combat is the primary focus, such as Shadowbane or Eve, other elements of the game (city building, economy, etc) provide context for the persistant-world battling. With that context, your players exist in a world at war. Without that context, your game is a long-running deathmatch. And it’s safe to say other people are probably doing deathmatch better than you are.
PvP should not be a random afterthought. Or if it is, be prepared for it to be an afterthought that few bother with. Gameplay mechanics that may be crucial for the player vs environment game can spell hot death when used against other players, such as crowd control. If you go the path of designing a combat system that works well against AI monsters and raiding, and then retrofit it to a PvP environment, at least establish a framework so that what works against a monster doesn’t necessarily work against a player. However, if you go down that dark pathway, be prepared to hear a lot of complaining from your newly disenfranchised players that you just nerfed into goo. Another problem with “hey, let’s throw in a dueling system” PvP is that, by definition, that system will have little context.
PvP players hate classes. Generally, the strongest advocates of skill-based systems are PvP players. Not much of a surprise, since PvP players tend to also be the more experienced MMO players who feel as though they want to play on “advanced” mode. Class based systems also breed a sense of entitlement and disillusionment, as the players feel as though their class is inferior to everyone else. (Note: in a class-based system game, check the message boards for that class – if there’s not several dozen pages of people complaining their class is underpowered, that’s a good sign that class is wildly overpowered.) Plus there’s always the allure of coming up with a “build” that no one else has (even though everyone else in a skill-based game is playing one of three builds – maybe two) and bragging about it on message boards.
PvP players need classes. The best argument for this is what Damion Schubert has termed tactical transparency. The easiest way to illustrate this in a PvP context: players want to be able to build contingency plans. It’s hard to have a contingency plan in the heat of battle when the best you can determine about an enemy coming over the hill is “uh, he’s big and he is holding some sort of weapon”. Note that you don’t need a class to fit this need so much as a clearly visible role. If your PvP game is in a fantasy environment (note: stop), make sure your casters can’t wear platemail and tote a halberd. There, you just made it easy to identify a caster. Now, to define it further, make it so your healers have to wear a Pope hat to have a strong connection to the divine. Hey, now your players can target healers by looking for the funny hat. You just made gameplay. Also, even if your game does have classes, some means of differentiating player choices within each class is crucial. World of Warcraft’s talent system is a great example of this; a priest can be a good healer, can melt faces in PvP, or can spend points in that other tree no one uses.
PvP players detest grinding. This is something of a trick question as all players detest grinding. However, PvPers will be the loudest of the contingent demanding a shortcut. Be it level grinding, skill grinding, reputation, items, whatever roadblocks you put in the way for players to reach the end of the game in two weeks, people wanting to engage in PvP will demand that, yes, they want to reach the end of the game in two weeks, thank you.
PvP players need some grinding. Without some form of ‘grinding’ – in other words, character persistence and improvement – you have a world without meaning. No one grinds in Counterstrike (unless you count the very real grind of player skill and oh boy are we coming back to that one in a bit). Very few PvP players want no character improvement – what the argument boils down to is that they want a small “ramp-up” time, and then small incremental improvements over time that give their characters a wider set of abilities without making the constantly growing equation of power growth = time invested that is so common in MMOs to date. At any rate, that’s the charitable view. The cynical view is that the average PvP player wants player growth for everyone else capped to 10% to 25% less powerful than they personally are at any given moment.
PvP should not screw new players over. This is the No, You Cannot Be A Juvenile Little Brat rule. For examples of what happens when that rule is broken, consult everyone’s favorite, Ultima Online In The Good Old Days. Another example is “world PvP” in World of Warcraft on PvE servers, which usually consists of a passel of bored level 70s deciding to camp on a low level town owned by the other side and wipe out all the characters. Most games prevent this by making NPCs in low level zones higher level than the attacking players, or simply prevent them from bottom feeding in low level zones entirely. However, it’s pretty clear that Blizzard intended for players to be able to “raid” low level zones – without thinking through the impact that has on precisely the players who (a) cannot actually fight back and (b) are learning how to play the game and (c) deciding if they want to continue paying for said game. Alienating people who have not yet decided if that free month you gave them is enough time to get tired of your player base’s crap? Not a good idea. I mean, clearly, look how badly it’s hurting Blizzard!
PvP should screw over someone. At the same time, without someone bitterly throwing a keyboard against the wall and breaking it yet again thanks to yet another goddamned stupid pickup group not that I would know anything about any of that, PvP combat becomes just a meaningless exchange of particle effects. Part of opting into PvP (and oh, yes, we shall return to that point in a moment as well) should entail the understanding that not only can you lose, you will lose something dear to you. Whether that is as simple as time, or as permanent as item loss or even permadeath (if you’re particularly insane), consequences are part and parcel of meaningful PvP.
“You gotta keep ‘em separated.” Whenever you hear old-school Ultima Online veterans indulge in nerd rage!!!1! over something called ‘Trammel’, they’re talking about geographic PvP separation – in this specific case, the introduction of safe zones into UO. Which pissed off every vocal PvPer playing UO, marked the end of a glorious era of a true shared virtual world, was a horrible sap thrown to skill-less “Trammel newbs”, and, oh, also, stopped the incredible bleeding of customers UO was suffering to the very-much-not-a-shared-virtual-PvP-world Everquest. Although the stereotypical MUD-era “PK switch” doesn’t work very well in an MMO environment, geographical separation does work very well indeed for providing a pure “opt-in” to a PvP-free-fire zone, even a ’soft’ separation as seen in Eve where there’s not a line but more or less likelihood of retaliation by the NPC police force. And if you think seperation/opt-in PvP isn’t a very good idea for whatever reason (purity of your virtual world vision, desire to have a hard core PvP experience, deep and undying hatred of your new players), keep this simple fact in mind – your game will have a geographically based PvP switch. The question you should answer is – will it occur within your game, or by players leaving it for games with other rules systems?
But not too separated. At the same time, there should be encouragement to actually enter what I’ve been known to call ‘Gankytown’ (if only so I can intone “MASTER BLASTER RULES GANKYTOWN”) (note: when designing PvP systems, it often helps to indulge your inner 14 year old). Both to give the battle-hardened denizens someone new to slaughter, but also, and more seriously, giving new players a taste of battle so they can discover whether or not they have a taste for it. The best way to do this is to place optional, but valuable rewards for new players (and only new players, preferably through the mechanism of quests or other one-time-only reward systems) that encourage them to get into the fight against other new players from opposing sides after the same thing. Continuing this progress through to “battlegrounds” where hopefully even-matched players compete against one another, and players discover that losing a PvP match doesn’t actually cause massive internal bleeding, and more importantly start to make contacts among other interested players and guilds. Guild Wars tends to do this pretty well with its PvP minigames, as does World of Warcraft (though the low level WoW battlegrounds tend to be dominated by specialist twinks in a sort of PvP minigame, which can alienate the truly new player). Other possible carrots include valuable raw materials for crafting and, in level grind games, greatly expedited experience gain vs. other players (which worked very well for Dark Age of Camelot).
In the endless player skill argument, you should assume your players don’t have any. I’m tempted just to leave that sentence as is. However, the player-skill vs character-skill argument is, in the sense of this discussion, almost a red herring. Does your game have twitchy gameplay? Is player growth simply gated by whomever has the most time or cash on eBay to spend? Are your rules so arcane and so often patched that your players have to level up their Google skill just to get an accurate spell list off your website? No matter what gates exist, there will be some. And there will be those who are better at working those gates than others. It’s what I call the tyranny of the skilled minority. A given small percentage – be it 10% or 20% or whatever – will win any contest consistently, when faced with the less skilled 80% or 90%. There’s not much you can do about this, save be aware of it, and more importantly, ensure that losing isn’t too painful a proposition. Note that this directly contradicts with the rule that “PvP should screw over someone.” Congratulations on the realization that no matter where you step, the mine will go off directly under your foot.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reward those players who do. Players should always feel as though PvP combat is more than just a random dice roll weighted by what level their Panzerelf Warden ground up to. Even if a player is consistently losing to the skilled minority when they are matched up with them, if they feel that in a fair fight they had a chance of winning, the pain of that loss is lessened considerably. If the player feels as though given enough practice and skill they can turn the tables, they’re motivated to do so (and also possibly pay for a new keyboard). If a player feels as though they had no chance because the Emotionally Distressed Wizardling class just pushed a button that vaporized all players within 500 feet, that motivation usually expresses itself as “finding another game”.
PvP players are angry and bitter, and will hate you. This has nothing to do with design. I just thought I should warn you. There’s been enough bad games out there that you have no honeymoon period at all. Sorry.
#1 by Michael C. Neel on December 10th, 2007
I’d have been happy if ShadownBane was stable… game flaws and all. In fact, rule one – make sure it’s stable… all else can follow.
#2 by Chad on December 10th, 2007
As far as “PvP players need classes”..
What about a Sci-Fi game like Anarchy Online, which has a skill system containing over 100 skills, and is set in an environment where it doesn’t participate in the “armor class” system — anybody can wear any armor and many classes end up looking the same regardless of whether they’re melee or spellcaster. A good example was before the first expansion, there was a set of armor that had +Health and +NCU (memory to store beneficial buffs) on every piece, and it therefore became the “standard” for any sort of endgame or PvP. Funcom tried to break that up by adding the “Tier” armors for each class in Shadowlands, giving every class a unique looking set of armor, but that armor got replaced quickly enough with rare and unique loots from the endgame zones and raids. It thus became hard to quickly identify somebody on the battlefield.
So my question is, is there no way to innovate and take the approach Funcom did with AO, do you HAVE to stick to the “casters wear dresses” way of thinking?
Also, AO’s skill system exposed many flaws in trying to give players more choices and not sticking to the simplistic approach to skill systems that say, DAoC had (5-6 skills, pre determined by class). AO had > ~100 skills, and no method to reset any of them (until now, but the reset points are in very short supply and cost real money I believe). So while it was cool that you could be a pure spellcasting class and still raise your shotgun skill and wield a shotgun.. with every content update, and every new “flavor of the month” weapon, the people who had no more skill reset points, or didn’t invest in the skill to use the latest weapon, ended up being gimped and fell behind. Again, is it impossible to push the envelope and give players that much choice, and yet still not create situations where new content and new, better items = leaving players behind?
#3 by Sara Jensen Schubert on December 10th, 2007
On classes: another way to look at it is that PvPers hate rock-paper-scissors matchups. Personal agency should determine wins and losses — I lost because I should have performed better, it’s not that I should have chosen a different class at character creation.
#4 by tannenburg on December 10th, 2007
Or, as a caveat – I should not have lost in PvP because I haven’t ground through the Impossible 40-Man Epic Dungeon a hundred times to get the Incredible Purple Armor and the Magnificent Instakill Purple Meatcleaver.
#5 by Scott Jennings on December 10th, 2007
Just as a note, this isn’t done, I’m in meetings most of today but I just thought it’d be fun to get what I had up. Things like item centricity, grief protection, etc are obviously on the list. I’ll ninja-stealth edit this entry probably this evening.
#6 by Nicademus on December 10th, 2007
I say stick to space based combat MMOs, PVP seems to work much more easily for some reason I can’t explain.
#7 by Joe on December 10th, 2007
There’s one approach a purely (character or player) skill-based game could take. Rather than making one armor “set,” tie the armor to what the character is doing at the time, not by what bonuses are needed, but by what the logistics of the role are. For example: a sniper is pretty much paired with light armor due to the re-load time and the fact that once a shot goes off, a lot of attention goes toward killing the sniper. They need to reload fast, not have breathing constricted (and thus shots thrown off) by heavy armor, and be able to get away if spotted. A caster might also be hindered by that heavy armor, and be unable to make the complex gestures needed for high-level spells. A heavy weapons guy might not mind being slowed down or hindered by heavy armor, because his job is to sit and spray, and he won’t be ultra-mobile while firing, either.
That is, instead of going for what item gives you +Agility and +Crit as a Hunter, you look for what item won’t totally screw you into dying at an inopportune moment or throw off your shots as a sniper. The game becomes more about player choice and skill, and maintains the balance of “Sniper != heavy armor”
#8 by Sutro on December 10th, 2007
This reminds me, hasn’t it been well over a year since you said you were on a project you couldn’t talk about yet?
Are you anywhere closer to talking about it?
#9 by Matthew Weigel on December 10th, 2007
“make sure it’s stable…”
I disagree. Stability is important, but fun is more important. To put it another way, you noticed stability problems with Shadowbane because it was fun… if you hadn’t been enjoying your time, you wouldn’t have even noticed that it crashed except to say “oh good an excuse to leave right this instant.”
#10 by Najitaka on December 10th, 2007
I did not play Fury after playing beta for two reasons. Funny, the first is the same reason I leave most MMOs. Too much of a time sink.
In Fury’s case it wasn’t leveling that was the sink, it was trying to figure out all of the combinations of weapon, armor, and skills/spells to be effective. In Fury, since it was PvP only, I was hoping that it would be a game where I could jump on for a couple of hours, win or lose. But no, I had to study the combinations and find out what works best as you do in most PvP games. In the old days, the hardcore gaming days, I would have poured over tons of data and made my own theories and went with it. Today, I simply don’t have that kind of time. This shouldn’t be a problem for the hardcore pvpers.
Finally, what you could do solo was too limited. I could join a pick up group, yeah right, no self-respecting pvper is going to do that. I could join a free for all arena. After mastering the ffa, there comes a point when you realize that you are only getting beaten by higher level players, players that have taken more time than you to study the combos, or groups of players that forces in ffa. I can live with those but in living with those there was nothing else to do.
Fury would never be a mass market game that people play every day, but it would have filled a nice niche had it documented its combos and advancement better offline so that you didn’t have to spend so much time in game reading the details of every spell, weapon, armor, skill, etc. Also it needs more options for a solo player. 1v1 ladders, tournaments, etc would have helped.
Fury could have been a niche game that I would have played for a long time. My $0.02.
#11 by Mox on December 10th, 2007
As a counter to the statistician’s point about rock-paper-scissors, I’d say that doesn’t necessarily apply in the case of MMO PvP. When you’re playing a class-based team game, it is absolutely fine to have RPS-style balance if there are mobility and forethought advantages – i.e., you can plan for encounters, and you can evade encounters if you get intelligence fast enough.
Planetside works along these lines, where various equipment combinations defeat other combinations in the right circumstances. If you control the encounter space, you can limit the counters (e.g., getting RExo/HA indoors). If you’re caught on the hop, then you’re dead (Reaver spam as you try to make your way on foot from an AMS). There are plenty of “top of their game” players in Planetside, most of them are there because they know how to avoid the fights they’ll lose.
If the game is not clearly team-oriented, then you’re right, you need a way for anything to beat anything else or people will complain about unfair matches. I would have thought Shadowbane and Eve would fall into this category, even with the strong influence of guild affiliation, because the game feels so free-form.
Camelot’s RvR works well, with clearly-defined sides. It doesn’t have the accessability of Planetside, but then it has to support a rich PvE game too. Which leads me into a big essay about how to make playing the PvP game be like playing the PvE game (main culprit here is aggro rules) which I’m not going to spam Scott’s blog with.
#12 by Nuyan on December 10th, 2007
I think people have a different (and often flawed) views of what is PvP. I mean, when you’re speaking with the average WoW player about PvP, the only thing he qualifies as PvP is the meaningless ganking outside instances and instanced combat like battlegrounds.
But really, there’s a lot more that I consider “PvP”. If you’ve a very dynamic MMO, you’ll automatically get some kind of PvP. Just look at Eve Online, the dynamic markets are VERY PvP. It’s probably even more cutthroat than the space combat itself. When you manufacture stuff in that game and selling it on the market, you’re constantly PvP’ing. Even the missioning (shooting npc’s) is kind of PvP’ish, because the loot and money you make goes into the dynamic world of Eve (inflation).
And I guess it’s needless to remark that your blog-entry here is full of the usual generalizations and cliches.
#13 by Sutro on December 10th, 2007
I wouldn’t really say that the examples listed are good examples of absolutist PvP being anathema to market success.
I think it’s fair to say that WWIIOL had a host of other problems that contributed to its slow market start. If anyone remembers them, the first days of Planetside were actually quite good; I imagine their box sales were competitive.
Planetside’s failure in sub numbers was mainly the fault of whoever thought having two base layouts was a good idea, and a lack of community support in the form of ladders and whatnot.
The f13 interview of Auran highlighted what their problems were.
Thing is, we don’t have a good enough example of a PvP-absolute product to say that it can’t be a success. Each one of the entrants so far has had design or production problems that contributed much more to their “downfall” (even though they’re still going) than the core concept did.
#14 by Mist on December 10th, 2007
Rock-Paper-Scissors is fine, and ultimately innevitable in most cases. People would rather lose to Rock than they would do low rand(100) rolls. You just need to allow players to change what hand they’re throwing frequently, both depending on immediate situations and the larger meta-game strategic shifts.
And a complement to the ‘PvP should not be a random afterthought’ should be ‘Everything else should not be a random afterthough either.’ The rest of the game needs to not only be present as your first point states, but it needs to be at least relatively fun even when there isn’t any PvP around, or when you don’t feel like PvPing, or when you’re actively hiding from PvP.
#15 by Heartless_ on December 10th, 2007
I agree whole heartedly with the need classes and believe a class/skill crossover game would work well for PvP. The more I play Team Fortress 2, the more I lean towards this idea as well. There is just something to be said about being able to analyze your opponent on visuals alone, instead of having to die the first fight to “figure out his skills”.
Sure, not knowing your opponents skill set and build, can lead to people arguing that it is better since it involves more “skill”, but honestly I can’t see how it ever gets balanced correctly. There is no point to start balancing in a 100% skill built game. Classes provide a foundation for balance and the ability for the game to give feedback to the player in anticipation to the battle to come.
I’ll always argue for skill-based systems, but I have long since given up tossing out the idea of “classes” as a whole.
#16 by Dartwick on December 10th, 2007
One point on classes.
EVE gets this prety much right. Its a skill based system but the equipment you choose to equip makes you a defacto class in both function and form. And the equipment can no be changed in combat.
EVE has a ton of problems, but they get c;lass/skills thing right.
#17 by Dartwick on December 10th, 2007
A second note on something you havent addressed yet
In a free for all sytem you cant give a meta reward(like realm points) for random killing.
Rather you must give meta-rewards for objectives which will encourage “purposeful” PVP and all for communities to devlope.
Mordred is an example of when you dont do this.
On the other hand when you have predetermied hostile sides you can give meta-rewards for random kills.
#18 by Tholal on December 10th, 2007
Great post! Though I disagree with the part about class or role needing to be readily identified.
I think PvP actually benefits quite a bit from the mystery of not knowing what any individual player might throw at you. Not only does this provide additional excitement, but it also cuts down on ganking (since gankers tend to go for the least powerful players they can find. If they cant tell at a glance how powerful someone is, they’ll be more hesitant).
You also get the added bonus of learning from experience and developing knowledge of other players via past encounters. In Shadowbane, we came to know the names and abilities of the scouts and assassins that would stalk our players on a regular basis and that gives the world a much more personal feel. I would rather hear ‘Lum is outside our city’ instead of ‘Level 50 Scout outside our city’.
The less blatant info you give out about other players the better, IMO.
#19 by Mist on December 10th, 2007
Easy identification of classes (or at the least, archetypal skill sets) and abilities is absolutely crucial to make a mass market PvP. It makes the game MUCH more accessable and approachable at the beginning of the learning curve if players are able to easily distinguish every class in the playfield and every spell or effect being used. Making it easier at the low end is fundamentally important because newer players will feel much less frustrated if they know WHY and HOW they died than if they died without having any data to incorporate for future encounters.
This is why WoW PvP solo, small skirmish, and group versus group PvP is much more accessable than say DAoC’s PvP, despite both being based on VERY similar abilities dynamics. For instance, in WoW, it is very clear when a paladin casts his bubble or his Blessing of Freedom on another player or himself, where in DAoC it was very difficult to tell when a player was immune to attack via an ability such as Bodyguard. Every WoW ability has a visual effect that is unambiguous AND persists for the duration of the effect, such a Druid’s root spell having its grasping root graphic last for the duration of the effect, whereas the same effect in DAoC only had an animation that fired once for ~1 second at the beginning of the effect, with the player standing there in place with no visual effect for the rest of the duration. This makes the entire process much less frustrating for enemy and ally alike by providing visual feedback to incorporate during the encounter and for future encounters.
#20 by Rob231 on December 10th, 2007
huge time sink requirements for gear/level achievements also hurt pvp.
pvp competitive players should spend time learning the game their character’s abilities and honing tactics. not raiding dungeon x for item y of asswhooping.
notwithstanding instant on demand character customization, a verteran player of a game should have end-game pvp capable characters in a week or so of dedicated (5 hours) playing.
marginalization of character power gained through play time.
thus avoiding game of forever playing catchup to pvp veterans that never miss a day of play.
UO had it right, a 2 week old character skilled up by a veteran is just as powerful as a character was created the day the server came online. Over time you can achieve huge amounts of wealth/gold/items but none of these made you more powerful in pvp.
#21 by hellfire on December 10th, 2007
re: Classes, a lot of posters are just debating semantics of the point. It doesn’t matter what mechanics you use. The point is that your enemy has to have some sort of way at the onset (or during) the battle to know what you’re doing and execute some sort of defense/counter-attack. This mechanic can be anything, really. It just has to be functional.
What’s the first thing you do when the doors of an arena open? “Priest uh…shadow, Warrior, … can’t find the 3rd. They all have paw, so there’s a druid somewhere.”
Quickly identifying your opponent and stating/executing a strategy to defeat that group is incredibly important. If you take that away from players all you’re left with is chaos and group-soloing. You can’t have strategy if there’s nothing to strategize against.
#22 by Mist on December 10th, 2007
Exactly, hellfire. I think what at least some of the other people are saying is that while that needs to be correct, also, not every warrior and priest and druid should be exactly the same. The more differentiation and individualization within a basic archetype, without completely breaking the archetype, the better.
#23 by Tholal on December 10th, 2007
During the battle, sure, it makes sense to be able to tell what your opponent is doing. Before the battle, not so much. There’s no reason you should be able to look at another player and instantly know, ‘Hey that’s a level 50 Gnome Barbarian. I’m going to attack him because my class always defeats Gnome Barabarians’. Ambiguity makes for much more interesting gameplay, and promotes interaction beyond, the jump-out-and-kill-those-weaker-than-you mentality. It also encourages player skill. Not knowing initially what your opponent might throw at you, being able to react dynamically to the situation becomes much more important. Otherwise it just, this is class XX, I need to do YY to beat them. You become familiar with opponents you fight more often, and begin to know their skills, abilities and tactics, giving you an extra advantage, unless they are also becoming familiar with you!
Now of course, I’m not talking about a WoW or Warhammer game. I’m talking about a PvP game, which stands for player vs player, not class vs class.
#24 by antipwn on December 10th, 2007
The biggest problem with most PvP games is that late adopters are at a disadvantage compared to vets and that hurts your recruitment after the first dizzying post-launch rush.
I mentioned on Psychochild’s blog how I’d fix that and that is to throw out the standard MMO paradigm of ‘this is my character’ and replace it with ‘these are my dudes’. You need a game design that encourages players to take the long view and rewards that are beyond purely powering up the guy who wins. Then you can break the pen and paper character paradigm and instead have players control a bunch of connected characters who all advance within a narrow power band depending on the fortunes of the active one.
This design allows you to use the ‘P’ word in a meaningful way that doesn’t lower the barrier to exit but does allow all the social checks and balances that permadeath promotes such as bounty hunting. If the power band is narrow enough and the core gameplay is present from the start then griefing becomes a non-problem, you’ve converted griefers into regular players by default.
The rest of the design, classes, PvE content, rainbows and unicorns is just gravy and doesn’t automatically get in the way of your desire to have players beat the snot out of each other digitally as it tends to do in regular MMOs.
You could even make it a MMORPGFPSRTS and really cook up people’s preconceptions of what a subscription based PvP game could be.
#25 by VPellen on December 10th, 2007
I don’t know if I should be happy or sad.
On the sad side, Lum writing about PvP is the only notable thing that’s happened this week.
On the happy side, Lum is writing about PvP!
#26 by IanB on December 10th, 2007
I wouldn’t say a system that requires months of skill training time before you can meaningfully contribute in PVP (Eve) is “getting the class/skill system right”, especially when you are in addition at a permanent, unalterable disadvantage in total skill points compared to someone who started the game before you did.
#27 by antipwn on December 10th, 2007
That’s not how EvE works though. The scariest thing in 0.0 space isn’t the organised gang of three-year vets in faction fitted battleships, it’s the blob of two week old noobs in cheap frigates. Agony Unleashed prove this every week in their PvP University classes.
Additionally the vet with 5 times your skill point total can’t bring all of those skillpoints to bear at the same time, he has greater diversity than the noob and a slight edge due to the fact that most of the time spent training is for the last level of a skill that will give you a fractional advantage over someone who only trained the first 3 or 4 levels but he isn’t and will never be an order of magnitude better 1v1. His big advantage is that he can switch roles between fights, where the noob is limited to being a tackler or additional DPS.
#28 by Caya on December 10th, 2007
Umm, antipwn, I’m not sure I actually understand your point, but did you seriously suggest that permadeath is the way to make “griefing become a non-problem”?
#29 by Caya on December 10th, 2007
Umm, antipwn, I’m not sure I actually understand your point, but did you seriously suggest that permadeath is the way to make “griefing become a non-problem”?
#30 by Caya on December 10th, 2007
arrgh, sorry for the doublepost, wordpress told me there was an error and to reload, and there was no post when I did :/ I now withdraw from a PVP thread when I can’t even win against the stupid board.
#31 by Mist on December 10th, 2007
“The biggest problem with most PvP games is that late adopters are at a disadvantage compared to vets and that hurts your recruitment after the first dizzying post-launch rush.
I mentioned on Psychochild’s blog how I’d fix that and that is to throw out the standard MMO paradigm of ‘this is my character’ and replace it with ‘these are my dudes’. You need a game design that encourages players to take the long view and rewards that are beyond purely powering up the guy who wins. Then you can break the pen and paper character paradigm and instead have players control a bunch of connected characters who all advance within a narrow power band depending on the fortunes of the active one.”
I think this works. It works in EVE, to an extent, where you have ‘these are my ships’, you can’t power up an invincible godship, well you can, but those are not owned by players those are owned by entire alliances. You can however have lots of nice ships for different situations.
It also works for guild-centric games, where you fight to improve not just your own character, but to improve your other guildmates characters or to improve NPC guards on structures your guild owns.
#32 by Iain Compton on December 10th, 2007
#33 by Iain Compton on December 10th, 2007
Ah sorry, I should point out that I am infact antipwn in case that comes across as a little schizophrenic.
I’ve only put an evening’s worth of thought into it but it seems to me that a lot of people have tried to overcome the problems with putting unrestricted PvP into the standard MMO paradigm without notable success. The solution to me seems to be to change the MMO paradigm to one that doesn’t bring all that messy baggage with it. To make a square hole before trying to insert the square peg into your existing range of non-square holes.
#34 by hellfire on December 10th, 2007
I didn’t play Planetside to the extent where I can expertly comment on this, but the 6 months or so that I DID put into the game seemed to bear out that variety was a completely workable advancement mechanic.
I went back and played the fodder stuff last year and it still held. I was still able to make kills with my nub. No mechs or fancy vehicles necessary.
#35 by Gawain on December 10th, 2007
I think Sara Jensen Schubert and Tannenburg have already brought up the only two real points I would make. Your game shouldn’t be about certain classes trumping other classes, and it also shouldn’t be a requirement that you grind the same dungeon 50 times for boots, PvP or not. Im a giant proponent of random item generation for just that reason. Thanks, DAoC, for showing us how that whole thing should work.
#36 by IanB on December 10th, 2007
DAoC also managed to provide an example of how it *shouldn’t* work with TOA as well.
Although honestly, I’m not sure we have anything great to learn from DAOC, loot-wise. Pre-TOA, PVP gear was either new 50s/lazy 50s in their epics, which weren’t great, or people in 100% crafted suits (and crafting was so painful and bad in that game.)
Post-TOA, it was a WoW-esque loot grind/farm fest, with crafting filling the holes still.
I think the ‘token’ system (a la WoW’s heroic badges or PVP rewards) is probably the best way to go that I’ve seen, either that or 100% player-crafted – but if you want to have meaningful PVE content on top of your PVP (besides whatever the resource gathering model you pick is) that more or less means at least a token loot system if you’re setting your sights on anything but the casual crowd.
#37 by Rhino on December 10th, 2007
I wish the lessons of UO were not always so swiftly brushed under the rug. The “Bonedood/Platedood” era was from the very beginnings of the game. UO did really evolve into something special. I think even Lum was pretty enamored of it around the Renaissance/Seige Perilous era.
Eventually UO when down the “separate but equal” path of facetization, which killed the spirit. But I think the players of today would appreciate an old-chool UO-type environment.
The key points for good PvP (as gleaned from UO):
1) Player freedom
(skill based system, open economy, no level-dependent zones)
2) Integrated consequences for bad behavior
(reputation, statloss)
3) Some meta-game way to exert control over the world
(housing, factions, guilds, vendors)
In a modern game world free of lag and obvious expolits/bugs – this is all you need.
#38 by Dartwick on December 10th, 2007
I think PlanetSide was only a modest success because at the time it was fresh of the limited group of people who were wiling to pay a subscription most uncomfortable or simply bad at playing FPSs.
In the post WOW world where subscriptions are accepted readily I believe a quality FPS MMO could succeed. It probably would be better with a little PVE but I think the twitch nature hurt PS more than the PVP only aspect.
And yes I played it for a few years.
#39 by Craig on December 10th, 2007
I totally agree with Rhino. All they need is that system and you are good to go!
#40 by Kconvey on December 10th, 2007
Well some interesting things I think I need to mention.
Gain/loss and pvp vs non-pvp seems to be where they all go wrong these days.
Pvp vs non pvp
What all the devs want these days is a robust pvp enviroment cause it keeps players around long after the content is boring. The problem is that unless you put alot of incentive many if not most players dont like pvp. Now this ties directly into the next part.
Gain/loss
How do you handle what you gain and what you loose and they ALL! have major problems.
Winner gains, looser gets nothing no penalty. This leads directly to two problems, one is win trading, if the gain is big enough no matter how many limits you try to put on it, people will find a way to win trade. Now to people who loose, one of two things will happen either they will get better or they will quit. Now since essentially 50% of players must loose, you need a constant influx of players or the game will have player count problems.
Winner nothing, looser nothing. This stops win trading and to a lesser extant loss frustration. But it leaves the whole system feeling rather empty. Not terrible for a game who’s focus is elsewhere.
Winner gains, looser also gains. This leads to lazy winning, or winning by loosing. But it does keep loosers from quitting cause they never get anything and takes much of the fear out of a system. This is good for new player friendly games.
Winner directly gains at loosers expense, This is the harshet possible system where pvp puts nothing into the system. This will suffer from extremly low target count unless its forced in some manner. People who dont do well in pvp will avouid this system. Only a few games have pulled this off and one of them was when there was no other game on the market and they took a take or leave it attitude its not like you have anywhere else to go.
well thats all for now
#41 by Deyth Valkyrre on December 10th, 2007
So true about the lost honeymoon. Developers are automatically on our shit list and must work very hard to get off it. All upcoming MMOs are assumed to be crap which is usually the safe bet.
Deyth Valkyrre
The Combine
#42 by Freakazoid on December 11th, 2007
I agree that tactical transparency makes the game easier, but I can see a fun class or skill pvp MMO without it. You might alienate some fringe pvpers, but it’s not like you can’t use your brain and think of more creative uses to make something almost as transparent as “this class looks like this, always”. Intelligence gathering comes to mind.
The whole contingency plan thing sounds out of left field to me. If I mistake one class/skill user for another, I change tactics to fit the new class/skill user. It’s usually that simple, depending on the situation. Also, once someone reveals their hand, they can’t really take that hand back. Everyone now knows you’re actually a sniper instead of a flame-throwing soldier. They have your name and they all saw you using the rifle, now it’s just a matter of telling everyone else who were too busy or too dumb to notice, which is really quite easy both in-game and metagame.
Everything else is pretty spot-on, though.
#43 by Dave Rickey on December 11th, 2007
Look deeper. The question is not “Do players like PvP games?” Camelot, WoW arenas and PvP servers, Eve, Guild Wars, not to mention a few games you might have heard of like the various incarnations of Quake, Doom, Team Fortress, Counterstrike, Battlefield, Halo….
The question is “What kind of PvP experiences can an MMO deliver that non-service games cannot?”
–Dave
#44 by Rhino on December 11th, 2007
MMOs deliver persistence – shooters just reset after you’ve captured the flag or whatever.
For PvP to work in an MMO, it must impact the persistent world. That’s why Eve PvP feels more satisfying than DAoC PvP, which feels more satisfying than WoW PvP.
Duels, arenas, and “neutral zone” wars of the various MMOs aren’t really different than tacking a Counterstrike match onto the existing gameplay. It can be fun for a little while, and it might even give you something shiny as a reward, but it doesn’t really effect your metagame experience, and it’s always more awkward than the games that are straightforward shooters.
There are ways for PvP to have consequences for even those who opt out of it without making everyone go crying to the forums. In fact, if done right, it could even make everyone’s experience more entertaining.
#45 by Scott Jennings on December 11th, 2007
FYI, this post is finally “done”. flame away!
#46 by J. on December 11th, 2007
“To put it another way, you noticed stability problems with Shadowbane because it was fun… if you hadn’t been enjoying your time, you wouldn’t have even noticed that it crashed except to say “oh good an excuse to leave right this instant.””
Yeah, people were having fun, but they noticed the goddamn sb.exe memory-crash errors as well as the popups telegraphing the fact that at least some of the mess was being strung together with Visual Basic. And then a whole shedload quit two months after ship and stayed away in droves from the expansion packs.
Sorry, Matt, that just made me scratch my head and make me wonder if you played Shadowbane. I agree in principle that “stability” might be secondary to “fun,” but stability is still pretty freaking important. And SB had some serious problems in both categories.
The real benefit to most competitive online games is that the worst that can happen to anyone is losing. Your character dies, and you start over, usually in the same state you started in, and even if your opponent doesn’t start over right away either, it’s usually not far behind. Not so in MMO’s. That in my mind will always be the fundamental challenge endemic to the genre.
#47 by pflorian on December 11th, 2007
One thing I have observed in my MMO PVP experience is that, based on forum discussions, there are exactly two speeds that characters can move at:
1. Ludicrous
2. Ineffectual
…with no happy medium.
Also known as the “Anyone who moves faster than me must be of some sexual orientation of which I do not approve” rule.
I don’t think there’s any way to win that one, either.
#48 by Demolira on December 11th, 2007
I think the most true statement is the last one. No matter what you do, you’re doing it wrong. On the other hand, to quote God in Futurama, “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”
Also, “Panzerelf Warden” is the most amusing thing I’ve heard today.
#49 by ex_top_20_guildwarsplayer on December 11th, 2007
I’m an ex-top guild wars player, finished in the top 10 routinely with 1 first place (gold cape) finish.
I disagree w/ some of your comments, particularly your “PvP needs grind”. Skill-based PvP is not driven by having a skill or character experience advantage. Grind that provides this is totally unacceptable. Grind for titles, valor and otherwise meaningless “glory” is fine.
If your pvp game is good, people will play it like “grind” anyways.
#50 by Angry and bitter pvp player on December 11th, 2007
MMO PvP requires a group clan or guild, and they need to play regularly together, while Rock paper scissors can be entertaining it gets pretty stale, and you need to create a way for people to meet eachother
Guildwars while having very fun pvp through gvg really failed here, there was no ingame support at all for guilds forming, and after my guild disbanded my reason to play was gone
Fury also fails here, even more than guildwars does
Devs: Text chat does not cut it for forming groups
On another note: A Fury Dev made some comment about everybody at gameshows having fun with Fury, guess what dev, its because you had a balanced environment there, you don’t in live at all and your skillbalancer is incompetent, your itemsystem is complete trash for balance aswell, but you should already know this as its been said ever since alpha.
I guess I am angry and bitter