Understanding PvX

Bardtic

So just saw a thread about if you like PvE, PvP or both. It made me realize what main stream MMO's have done to people. Most of these MMOs have created a polarized systems which make people want to play selfishly. In PvE, you want to be highest DPS or down content before others. In PvP, you want to be better than others and achieve higher ratings. Both PvP and PvE systems reward the player for this kind of play with some form of bragging rights. A title the individual can display, a piece of gear that the individual can wear, a mount that the individual can ride.

These systems make it all about the individual and don't promote loyalty or identification of a group. I think many people look back at the best times they've had in an MMO without realizing what made them the best. My best times and I'll wager many others were accomplishing something as a group, something with my friends, it didn't matter if it was PvP or PvE based.

PvX means there will be a mix of PvP and PvE content to accomplish things, which I think may change the minds of some of the people who "only PvP" or "only PvE." When you need to band together to defend your castle against a siege or down a certain boss to get a drop so your town can build the next level of some building, you will have fun either way.

The point is that if built correctly, PvX progression is based on much larger goals than something just for an individual character. When there are so many factors to progression, people have to diversify and you don't get the same sense of elitism in each part of the game that a lot of other games promote. PvP can be fun for all people when its more casual and people haven't spent hundred of hours min/maxing their gear and builds to just wreck anyone that isn't also a meta-slave. PvE is the same, can be fun for anyone when you aren't min/maxing DPS and thousands of boss mods.

With bigger goals in the world, it promotes group loyalty and play oriented towards working together to accomplish something regardless of the content. You can still play solo in PvX if that is what you enjoy but you will be missing out on a lot of the game's content.

This is my interpretation of PvX from my experience. Interested to see what others think!

Wandering Mist

When it comes to node sieges and caravan attacks, I doubt you'll see much in the way of loyalty of group play, just a bunch of strangers who happen to have a similar goal for a few minutes. You see the same kind of thing in open world group events in other mmorpgs. When I'm doing Dolmen's in ESO or Meta events in GW2, I'm working with a ton of different people to accomplish a goal, but I don't care about them. We're just a bunch of strangers who happen to be doing the same thing at the same time.

To me, the true mmorpg experience comes from guild play, which is why I love raiding. When you do progression raiding, there's no selfishness allowed, because if you are selfish, chances are the whole group will fail. Gear belongs to the group, not the individual players. If you get a piece of gear it's because it benefits the group and gives your group a better chance of succeeding.

Rhaelah

@Reign118 This, omg. You've put into words what I could not for a few years now. This is why I quit Classic WoW, everyone was so selfish and no one had any group, guild, server, or faction pride anymore. Reminds me of the first time I went to kill Dain Frostreaver in EQ with my guild a few years ago. I didnt get any gear out of it, but it was tons of fun! If only I had realized some other things earlier before I quit. >_<

Bardtic

@Wandering Mist None of those games are PvX, so of course you don't care about what you do or who you do it with. You only care about completing it for personal gain. You do not have player created alliances and enemies. Each group/guild/node will have territories, sieges and caravan attacks will have consequences. There are politics involved in every action. If some major guild sees you participate in a caravan siege against them, they may put your entire guild on a kill on sight list.

And don't forget about the guild war system. We haven't heard too much about the mechanics of that, but may want to rethink just randomly attacking a caravan with those around it.

MrScrewtape

In BDO there was an really good example of this. You would think owning the regional castle and getting the massive guild bonus for it would be an incentive to hold guilds together and create loyalty and a sense of purpose. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

What happened was, guild would only allow the most elite of elites into guilds so they can compete, very few cared if they actually liked the people because they just wanted the massive payout for winning the castle. It got even worse when people figured out that castle sieges were on the weekend, and they could break from the guild during the week, joining other guilds as mercs for weekday node wars and get extra payouts that way, then rejoin main guild for weekend castle wars.

Guilds ended up being meaningless for a large majority. It also destroyed the opportunity for a lot of enjoyment as a main part of the game Castle/Node wars ended up having almost nothing to do with guilds but was all about payouts.

I hope there are guild systems that really encourage group play and working and growing together as a guild and having goals that people can work together for.

Bardtic

@screwtape I never played BDO, but sounds like they did it very wrong. When a Castle Seige is 500v500 I don't think you can be that picky. A massive castle should not be able to be run by a small elite guild. The bonuses should extend to your crafters, producers, military etc. In a game where one player can't do everything, you will be forced into a community and form a sense of loyalty.

Ventharien

I think how @Wandering Mist described it will be right for Caravans and the early game of Node Sieges. For caravans you head out with a group of friends, and maybe a group of mercs or just people who feel like defending along the way. You run into some people who attack, and everyone fights because that's what they chose. Other than you and your friends, it's possible noone in that entire group of addons will know each other, or even remember the names of their temporary allies or adversaries. The first Node sieges are just going to be big clumps of people, mostly strangers to each other, just fighting because they want to keep their stuff, or want the node to burn.

But as time goes on, i think you'll start seeing what you're looking for. It'll be YOUR node, and you'll have seen the same group of people chatting, trading, and relaxing for quite a while. You'll have personally invested in the node, helped build projects, hell, hopefully you'll have your favorite freehold tavern . So i think what you want is already kind of baked in, it just takes a bit for communities like that to form and solidify.

Bardtic

@Ventharien I agree that it will take a while to form communities and so it wont matter a huge amount early game however I also think there won't be a huge amount of caravan movement early on. Moving the kind of materials you'll have before end game probably won't be worth it. We will see what incentives they put in place for early game caravans.

I do disagree that people won't remember you though. With how large the world is and how hard travel is intended to be, I think you will run into the same people over and over.

BlackBrony

I don't think Caravans will be easy to spot. If every route is known, then there's only risk, no reward. It could be possible to set your own path for a Caravan and try to *stealth* to the next node.

Eventually your name matters. I used to play Perfect World which had open world PvP, and the Kill on Sight list where many. You had to remember that guy from that guild or just the guild itself, and kill it, no matter what you were doing.
This will matter, and people will know if you're only caring about yourself.

Songcaller

Kill on sight lists will be stupid in Ashes. It's a ticket to corruption. It would be the perfect revenge to turn people corrupted whenever a kill on sight is suspected. If I see the same people trying to kill me my tactics would change. Hence why I would prefer Bounty Hunter names to be concealed when a Bounty Hunter is flagged. I suspect reprisals will be various and plentiful.

Bardtic

@Neurath I disagree, although it depends on how much corruption you gain from a kill or two. It is well worth some corruption, especially if you have a guild or alliance backing and protecting you. Also don't forget, not fighting back has consequences for you too, you lose more resources and have a longer death penalty, etc.

Don't forget about the Guild War mechanic too. Steven said it will work outside of the corruption system. Depending how this works it may become pretty easy to punish guilds that do dumb things. This system probably won't be abused either as anyone who does will have war declared on them by many many guilds.

People are pretty damn good at punishing abusers when there are actual consequences for their actions.

Songcaller

It is entirely your preferences but I wouldn't always have Certificates or Resources on me. It would depend what the situation is, but, I feel the Bounty Hunter system isn't fit for purpose at this point. There are no protections for Bounty Hunters at all. Like I could track and kill someone who's corrupted only to find they are in a Dark Alliance Guild and have a whole Guild after me. Its not worth it for the perks at all.

Bardtic

@Neurath The Bounty Hunter system is not intended to be the only policing force behind griefers. It is for griefers who act on their own. Some Dark Alliance guild that is a bunch of a**holes will end up with so many people hating them that they will end up at the sore end of the stick(literally).

Songcaller

Yeah I can understand the sentiments, there is no reward without risk. No risk means no reward. I'm not scared of Guild Wars but I'm also not keen to start a Guild War before game releases lol. It would be difficult to regulate reprisals because a person who wants to 'grief' will predetermine a Military Node will assist them shed Corruption. Bounty Hunters will share the Military Node. The streets could be bloody. There would be little stopping people from killing someone inside a Node. Could be jumped anywhere in fact. I don't want to give 'griefers' ideas but you could even be jumped outside the Resource Deposit/Resource Bank (Can't remember the name right now though). Would make sense to hit someone when they are fully stocked. Not sure where the NPC Guards will be. I would fight them if I'm fully stocked but 25% of a full stock would be a nice boon. So many questions, so few answers at present.

Bardtic

@Neurath That is a good point. Although I am guessing that attacking someone inside an established node will have extremely high consequences. Which I am guessing will come in the form of being attacked by guards, which unless you have a team with you will probably just wreck you.

Also don't forget you get a longer death penalty and I believe lose more experience when you don't fight back. So may be worth the corruption from someone you hate just to do that to someone without any resource gains.

It all does depend on how much corruption you get per kill though. I am assuming you can kill a person every hour or two without getting a bounty on your head.

Songcaller

I'm not sure of the corruption penalties either. I think it would be important to 'grief' smart. So a bunch of bully boys could make a lot of wealth simply by 'taxing' those who try to deposit certificates and materials. No payment of 'tax' means combat will ensue. You could make them corrupted and then they die to the guards but I'd rather lose 25% than 50% at that point. I'm not sure if Guards will kill Combatants, I've only heard NPC Guards will kill corrupted. It depends what happens in terms of politics amongst the 'griefers' in Military Nodes and the local populace/Bounty Hunters. Some people will even attack Caravans if they're apart of the same Node. The Dark Alliance has a lot of potentials really.

Bardtic

In most games when you grief in a town, you are just swarmed by guards and die immediately. I don't see why they would ever let someone do something like that. I am sure there will be systems in place to prevent that kind of griefing. At the very least, any town that has this sort of action will see all the players move to a different node. That node then won't develop and those players doing the griefing will fall behind.

Hurf Derfman

Bardtic wrote: »

So just saw a thread about if you like PvE, PvP or both. It made me realize what main stream MMO's have done to people. Most of these MMOs have created a polarized systems which make people want to play selfishly. In PvE, you want to be highest DPS or down content before others. In PvP, you want to be better than others and achieve higher ratings. Both PvP and PvE systems reward the player for this kind of play with some form of bragging rights. A title the individual can display, a piece of gear that the individual can wear, a mount that the individual can ride.

These systems make it all about the individual and don't promote loyalty or identification of a group. I think many people look back at the best times they've had in an MMO without realizing what made them the best. My best times and I'll wager many others were accomplishing something as a group, something with my friends, it didn't matter if it was PvP or PvE based.

PvX means there will be a mix of PvP and PvE content to accomplish things, which I think may change the minds of some of the people who "only PvP" or "only PvE." When you need to band together to defend your castle against a siege or down a certain boss to get a drop so your town can build the next level of some building, you will have fun either way.

The point is that if built correctly, PvX progression is based on much larger goals than something just for an individual character. When there are so many factors to progression, people have to diversify and you don't get the same sense of elitism in each part of the game that a lot of other games promote. PvP can be fun for all people when its more casual and people haven't spent hundred of hours min/maxing their gear and builds to just wreck anyone that isn't also a meta-slave. PvE is the same, can be fun for anyone when you aren't min/maxing DPS and thousands of boss mods.

With bigger goals in the world, it promotes group loyalty and play oriented towards working together to accomplish something regardless of the content. You can still play solo in PvX if that is what you enjoy but you will be missing out on a lot of the game's content.

This is my interpretation of PvX from my experience. Interested to see what others think!

Dude, I like where your head is at.

Yoanna

The discussion about griefing, corruption and bounty hunters is missing a major point. @Bardtic hinted at it saying that corruption is not a huge concern if you have help to get rid of it.
What I think needs to be pointed out though: we always talk about "some BH" or "some guilds" but in reality WE are the ones that have the opportunity to take care of a**holes WE don't like and that WE don't want in OUR game. WE shape Verra and WE will stop corruption, not some random nameless Bounty Hunter we are sure will come around eventually.
Following the progress of AoC I am not sure what I like more: the game and how it is shaping up or the community that is creating itself, that is unbelievably friendly, non-toxic and mature. I have absolutely no concerns about griefing because of the people that I read on a daily basis that are going to be in Verra with me and every one of you as well.