Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!
Options
Low level PvP
Burnzey
Member
I enjoy PvP, but one concern I have is being sub max level and being unable to participate fairly and enjoyably against players within a similar level bracket. PvP has a significant impact on any online game, and ineligibility to partake could potentially drive away new players interested in having a go.
New World had open world PvP, but nobody below 60 would flag for fights because higher level players would be in lower level zones for materials. Additionally, scaling was removed so that lower levels had no chance of fighting back. As there was no bracketed instanced combat for lower levels, PvP was pretty much non existent after 60s started to emerge.
Will there be buffers to who can attack who? I.e 60 can only attack a max level of 50 ( 10 level difference) this system is in OSRS wilderness
Will scaling exist in PvP? Exists in some games already
Will instanced battlegrounds be offered as an alternative for players in specific brackets?
New World had open world PvP, but nobody below 60 would flag for fights because higher level players would be in lower level zones for materials. Additionally, scaling was removed so that lower levels had no chance of fighting back. As there was no bracketed instanced combat for lower levels, PvP was pretty much non existent after 60s started to emerge.
Will there be buffers to who can attack who? I.e 60 can only attack a max level of 50 ( 10 level difference) this system is in OSRS wilderness
Will scaling exist in PvP? Exists in some games already
Will instanced battlegrounds be offered as an alternative for players in specific brackets?
0
Comments
And the solution to the problem is... level up.
Grinding mobs and quest is tiresome. You need to break it up with the dynamic engagement systems that online games have to offer.
If you start attacking someone, you get flagged. If they don't attack you, they're still considered a non combatant and you will gain corruption points depending on the level disparity and how many non combatants you killed. While corrupted you get greater death penalties and you hit less harder depending on your level of corruption. You also now have people trying to hunt you down on the map.
However, if you both start smacking each other its fair game.
Based on my current knowledge there won't be scaling in PvP.
No.
And yes there'll be arenas though we don't know if there'll be a level requirement.
Lower levels can contribute to pvp through the open world through group play in caravan attack and defence, and also in world boss attempts and dungeons when defending from attackers or attacking those already participating.
Will they be able to stand their ground 1v1 against higher level players? No. And they shouldn't be able to.
But people trying to club baby seals won't have a fun time as they'll hit the max corruption faster than if they were fighting people their level, and likely won't get anything of value.
Contribute? Probably roll over and die without any real impact on the outcome whatsoever.
Lower levels need their own space to smack around each other like instanced content or they need to have their stats scaled up. Otherwise it's just a waste of time being there.
I think that levels in an MMO is primarily a PvE focused method of determining the difficulty of an encounter. PvP is more about ladders and leaderboards through a tallied system of wins and defeats.
Of course, I think there should be a reward and perk progress system for players who PvP to improve and develop their character, but if in a 1 vs 1 a level 60 is getting dunked on by a level 20 through scaling, fighting another 60 wouldn't change that outcome anyway lol
If the answer is no then say "how was open world pvp in older mmos for low lv players?".
And the answer would be "unlike NW that came out yesterday, in a good open world pvp mmo, high lv players had no reason to be around low lv players, killing them."
And if guilds and communities work as they should, then the community should step in to provide justice, not game mechanics.
Mind you, the community stepping in to seek harsh penalties for pvp probably has inhibited the corruption system to provide good. Too many players have focused on the bad side of it, and sought to have a harsh system, to discourage all together, rather than see it as both a penalty and a means to instill justice.
This is an RPG, wich means if I have a heavier armor, a better weapon and more power aquired from levels I'm gonna have an advantadge, not only in PvE.
Your character improving makes you more efficient at killing players, from level 4 you can abuse lvl 1's and so on... you don't need to be lvl60 to start PvPing, even at that level there will always be a bigger shark.
And this might sound crazy, but you have to trust players.
Because the game would be focused around zones being tied to specific level groups which would not need levels outside that bracket to attend. The only reason there would be a higher level there would be to farm materials to level their profession or the odd person helping their friend MAYBE, but the game would have in built indirect mechanics to prevent different level groups from interacting.
This game being an open world nodal progression system is why I've chosen New World as a relevant, and recent reference for this topic. You will have higher level players mixing and interacting with lower levels that it would be impossible for the two not to mix due to resource requirements to develop the cities.
On your first point, there is no determinant factor currently that points to how long it would take to reach max level. There are a multitude of factors that could slow or inhibit player level growth whether they are direct through mechanics or indirect through other players and in game events.
You'd hope that guilds and communities may come to the rescue, but if they're too busy farming for their level specific content, why would they out that aside to help out somebody levelling? Easiest thing to say is "log out for 15 minutes they'll go away"
I'm not sure how this corruption (bounty) system will play out when it's tied to potential item loss. But if Low level players are "assisting" with capture mechanics then punishing players with the corruption system would be detrimental to overall design.
Flagging yourself, instanced combat areas, world PvP etc
No? I do.
You've played one MMO for your PvP content that's published and developed by the most p2w companies and you want a say on balance?
Jog on m8
Again, you dont know what you are talking about.
A: Currently no, what will deter most high level players from PK lower level ones will be the threat of receiveing tons of corruption for the kill compared to some one of the same level, as for pvp, if you get caught flagged by a high level player, you will get blasted.
Q: Will scaling exist in PvP? Exists in some games already
A: Probably not, due to the corruption system aspect stated above.
Q: Will instanced battlegrounds be offered as an alternative for players in specific brackets?
A: There will be instanced pvp Arenas, as if they will have levels brackets separatation or if it they will automatically match you with similar level players is currently unknown, but i would bet on the second.
Aren't we all sinners?
Again, you dont know what you are talking about. You just went "L2? What is this? Lemme google. L2 from NcSoft. P2w".
You are clue less, and the simple proof is that you started this topic with NW and it's subpar design.
Shut up for a bit and listen to what I am telling you. Good open world mmos dont get low lv players and high lv players into a conflict of interest.
If a high lv player is near you and you flag, you will get killed.
That's a big IF. Get that into your head.
There was no pay to win of any kind when it started.
Hard risks to pk, hard xp loss for pvp > but that made it all the more calculated to participate, rewarding to win and a hard reminding grind to cover the losses.
Frequent wars over territory, xp areas, castle ownership and fights to be the clan to the one to take a raid boss down
Every other game since has not really had that same gravity.. Quite addictive
Please. I implore you to read again the blurb about this open world PVX mmorpg and then come back and make suggestions.
If any of them involve instances or restricting pvp from pve Andy's then go and read it again until it sinks into your brain what this game is about.
You've listed one KMMORPG as your experience which is ultimately limited in scope of what MMOs offer. Most Asian MMORPGS are P2W, with NCSOFT being notorious for gutting the soul and spirit from games they aquire for profit purposes. A Google search of reviews and articles about L2 confirms this is the case. 12 years has probably led to your Stockholm syndrome
NW is listed as an example because it is what NOT to do in an MMO that shares a vision for open world conflict.
This topic is about inclusiveness of lower levels into the PvP scene through balanced mechanics that offer a fair, competitive play between players of similar level considering there is no bracketed, instanced PvP.
I don't see how discussing PvP content for sub max level players has rustled your jimmies so much
Who said anything about stopping PvP?? I'm advocating for lower levels to have some footing into this content without being totally ragged on.
I found that to be highly problematic too for a game that's designed for PvP. My friends wanted to enjoy the game but leveling was a very boring barrier to the "important" combat.
I like that Ashes has a flat scaling system, I guess similarly to New World. But New World required you to participate in open world PvP only for the hell of it. It's extremely plain and the risk/reward for a lowbie was practically non-existent. So really, New World kind of needed a level-variable scaling to give any reason for people to do the thing the game was designed around.
You genuinely don't need a fair playing ground to participate and enjoy combat. I think that is one of the main elements to MMO's in general: the growth of your character. There will come a time in Ashes, because of how common PvP interactions will be with its plethora of features, where you will have a feeling of how strong a level 35 is. You will have a threshold of how many level 20s you can handle at a time.
Obviously this is all being said while high on copium.
side note: alts will be relevant too because of the class system. should help widen the level range of the server for a longer period of time.
They get into this content through group play like I mentioned before. You know. The MMO part of MMORPG.
Low levels won't get picked on by higher levels because they most likely won't be worth the huge corruption hit.
The game is designed around groups and social interaction and isn't intended to be a solo game. If you want that go and play wow and you can BG in your level group and run on a hamster wheel all day.
However, I agree that a low level player should be able to participate in PVP at a level higher than cannon fodder, but it's purely dependent on the combat system the developers choose. If the combat leans more towards character skill, then you're shit out of luck.
And people keep bringing up L2 here because Steven literally took its pvp system, made it better and more casual/lowbie-friendly and said "go have fun". Now what he also needs to do is to add a proper gear balance. L2's gear tiers allowed lower lvled players to be at least somewhat competitive with higher lvled people. So if Intrepid manage to balance their gear tiers in the same way - lowbies might be able to have some impact in pvp.
L2 also prevented high lvl players from farming low lvl locations because they literally didn't get resources or XP from the mobs. I personally hope that it's the same way in Ashes. Have some step-based artisan progression where in order to move onto higher tiers of progress, you forgo the lower ones. Make a soft tie-in to the character's adventure lvl and make taking these steps a voluntary decision instead of "oh, you were at tier3 of gathering and picked up another flower? Now you're at tier4 and can't pick tier2 anymore. Sucks to be you".
This way casual players who don't care for pvp could gather low lvl resources w/o worry that some top lvl dude will come to annihilate them (not like corruption would allow this, but still). And if that player decides to go higher in their artisan progress - they'll have to risk more pvp, because they'd need to go up in adventure lvls and visit locations where there'll probably be more pvp.
This would also create a soft pvp ladder, where any new player could still find pvp around low lvl resources because there's casual players running around there, while said casual players could still pvp back just fine because the gear disparity isn't present. If anything, a casual artisan would probably have muuuuch better gear than a new player, because they've been farming stuff on the same adventure lvl and have made a ton of money doing so.
This interaction was the case on pretty much all L2 servers I've played. Now it was the case because top lvl people made alt characters to farm low lvl locations, but that was the result of a low playerbase and limited game design, while Intrepid could implement this kind of system as something completely intended and rewarded. Casuals would stay happy, pvpers would pvp each other instead of preying on lowbies (while still having the opportunity to go be a dick for 2-3 kills, before assassinating your own character with corruption). And it would be in line with the "risk vs reward" theme, because low lvl players would have way less risk, but their rewards would also be limited, while to get better rewards they'd have to take higher risks by leveling up and moving up the "ladder".
My biggest enjoyment from new world was low level open world pvp.
I purposely stayed lower lvl to shit on lvl 60's, it was genuinely the best experience ive had in ages.
Players would be so pissed after dying to a lvl 40 player. Wish I could have that experience again.
Only a small fraction of the pvp population would be willing to just go kill low lvl players. And corruption will stop the majority of those people, and prevent others from trying.