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PvP / GvG Ranking system

Hi All,

This is my first post, as i got really interested in AoC recently, this simply feels very refreshing after all of the Korean MMO's my self and i believe a big portion of you lot played over the course of of the last decade lets say.
One game that really got to play it for so long (besides Dota and Dota2, which is completely different genre) is Guild Wars 1 or GW Originals.
And some of the games i played in the past, where i actually invested a minimum of year active play, just to give you a broad picture of my game understanding were:

KalOnline
ArchAge
Silkroad Online
Vindictus
Guild Wars
World of Warcraft
TERA
Guild Wars 2
Black Desert Online

Not to mention FPS games and all, but in general from all of these games, the one that had me and i know All of my friend, mesmerized to the point even today when we mention it, we feel a certain nostalgia with a really hard grip to us.

The reason why i mentioned all of this, which probably makes you think, what has this to do with the opening topic at all?
7 years of active daily GW1 play, 6 years was only PvP/GvG, and comparing the experience i had in GW1 with all of other games i played, GW1 had the best, most fun, most profitable and complex PvP i ever experienced. I will name a few reason why, and how did the ranking system go, for those who never played it

There were several pvp grounds to name a few

PvP Arena 4x4
Hall of Heroes 8v8
Aliance Battles 12v12
and the best GvG 8x8

Each of these had different maps, which provide different strategies ofcourse, as with any game that is. But IMHO what GW1 had, no other game had ever, was the PvP ranking system in Hall of Heroes of HoH (later to be called, Heroes Ascent) and this is how it went,

8 people, random of friends, would make a party in this designated map, where all other teams were, we would think of a build we would play, as each character had 180+ skills to use, but only available 8 skills to wear in match without option to change, each of us would think through a build to have synergy, had tanks, healers, protection, dmg etc. Once we were set we go hit the Enter battle button.
Once we enter, first we fight 4-5 NPCs, depending how fast we kill them thats how much Morale Boost we gain, which provides more health etc. Max was 10 morale boost, 60 death plently per character.

Now the main thing, you enter a map , the first map and you play vs other 8 real team players, the team to win goes to the next map, but with each win you get fame.. First win is 1 fame, second win 2 fame, 3 fame etc.. I will post the wiki fame ranking system below.

This title is acquired through fame. Fame is a system of points given to players who win battles in Heroes' Ascent. The amount of fame earned per victory is one, plus a certain amount of bonus for consecutive wins. The more consecutive wins you have in Heroes' Ascent, the more fame you are awarded upon victory. The amount of fame earned per win with the number of consecutive wins you are at is listed below in the table.
Consecutive wins 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Every win after 13
Extra fame earned 1 2 3 4 6 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40
Total fame earned 1 3 6 10 16 24 36 52 72 96 124 156 192 192+[40*(number of wins-13)]

And what is gained from this, is a very, very competitive PvP arena with a very strategic way of performance per team, as some maps include 1 shrine, each team get one NPC hero who has to claim this shrine, where of the map has total of 3 teams, while the time is ticking and such.

After a number of fame, you get a rank, with the tank a cool emote which shows how much experience you have, how much of a good player you are, and i believe this system is extremely fair and cool, as if i am rank 3, i will be looking for rank 3+ party, whereof people of rank 9 and higher, look for similar parties.

The ranking emotes can be previewed below:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hero_(title)
or on video: https://youtu.be/Xh6vTZa_7mk?t=64

If you flash /rank or /fame anywhere and the emote comes up of high rank, people instantly know you were a good player and respected you, and there was no way you could cheat of this system to gain these ranks.

I believe with all the gaming experience, that all of these 100 v 100 battles look cool 3-4 times you play it, later it becomes boring, hectic, time wasting, and ridiculously generic.

Small scale battles require focus, attention, planning and in depth strategy, leading and such, and with each win it feels very rewarding, especially with such a fame/ranking system as GW1 had.

Same plan would go for Guild VS Guild, where guilds would battle to gain ranks on the ladder, i usually participated in top 20 guild battles, and no matter how much you play, how good you are, there were guild with way lesser ranks who would join to play against my guild and eventually wreck us easily, as they had a better strategy, better plan to what our guild used as a build at the time, and this is the best part, no one knows their builds, it's always a surprise element with each character having 180 plus skills, and it's changeable pre battle, every battle we can pick to play a different overall build.

What i am hoping for in AoC is to make the PvP anything similar to GW 1 where the PvP would actually feel as a place where you have to constantly improve your skills and play, a place where pushing 3 buttons for 4 hours to win is not an option, but rather think hard, force team-play and so on.

Sorry for the long post, but i am hoping people will recognize the urgency needed for a game to have such aspect of the game where easy going 2 skill pushing option is not the way to go to fight other people virtually, but where you are so good at PvP with your character, and suddenly someone comes and outplays you because he thinked faster, better and different at the time, makes appreciate the skills of the other player, and congratulate them on how good they were.

Feel free to post, ask and propose anything so we can get more info on the PvP aspect on time, and perhaps channel this to something productive.

Kind regards,
Tengu

Comments

  • As far as i am informed, there will be arenas of different sizes (1v1, 2v2 etc.), and PvP rankings as well as PvP rewards have also been confirmed.
    Since there is not much known about the fighting system we can only speculate, but im sure it will allow exciting battles. :P
  • That's cool, i think there was some mention about PvP in one of the AoC videos, but very little information.
    Thing is, i would like to hear more about PvP and i'm sure many other would like too. It is a very important aspect of the game
    and there are people like me who get bored of the PvE content quickly and mostly dedicate years in the PvP arenas, and if these arenas are not that interesting, a huge portion of players lose interest.

    For example the PvP is still active in GW1 even after 10 years of the game with no new content for years now, people, including my self go back every once in a while and play PvP weekends.

    The ranking system needs a meaning, and the PvP system really should be more strategic than just button smashing.

    For example GW2 has really bad PvP system where everything goes down to 3 skills following a meta er character that everyone plays, and the division system as ranking they have is massively unfair and unbalanced.
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