Lvling via PvP and PvP quests

Personally I love the fact this game's niche is PvP.

I can't wait for the open world PvP both while leveling and at max level.

And I'd actually love it if the game went further and provided questing infrastructure and incentives for PvPing while leveling.

Such as, having not only PvE quests but also PvP quests which either encourage you to take down other players or even demand that you do so.

For example, let's say the same quest path eventually leads you to choose bewteen two communities, each with different quests and quest rewards and reputation rewards.

Each community's quests put you on a path of conflict with the players who chose the other community and it's quests.

For example, the quest from Community 1 demands that you hunt animal X for fur.
Community 2 quests will demand that you taint the furs of animal X to screw Community 1.

Just quests in general that puth players in competition with one another, and groups against other groups.

In general I think you should be able to loot quest items from a player you defeated in pvp if you're on the same quest as him.

Or you could just have quests that require you to kill X players but that would be more boring... not as boring as ''go kill 8 boars'' but still.

But yeah, how would you guys feel about PvP quests being a thing and via them lvling via PvP being a thing?

Personally I'd love it, I mean, you're going to have plenty of open world pvp anyway so why not at least build some infrastructure for it and some extra rewards for it?

How would you design these systems if you want them in the first place?

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Noaani

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

You are correct about what Steven said, yet why must a player's time leveling be an exception to that guideline?

It isn't an exception.

There is no crossover in what PvE and PvP rewards in Ashes.

PvE generates wealth (coin, materials, items etc), and generates experience. PvP simply redistributes it.

PvP doesn't generate anything at all in Ashes. If you kill a player and they drop materials, those materials were generated in PvE, and simplhy redistributed in your direction via PvP.

The same is effectively true with experience. You do gain some experience in PvP when you kill a player (at least that is the current plan). However, it is not a lot of experience, and it is experience that the player you kill loses (they gain debt experience, but that simply means they lose experience they are about to gain, rather than experience they have already gained).

Thus, PvP is never generating anything new in the game. Everything in the game world (materials, items, coin, buildings, mounts, experience, ships, everything) is generated in PvE, and has the chance of being redistributed via PvP.

Changing it so that PvP generates new things (in this case, experience) completely changes the game.

I'm not sure why you were looking through the OP for any reference towards this, as it is a basic function of the design of the game.

Ironhope

Noaani wrote: »

Yes, but they primarily exist for other reasons. They are core aspects of the game. Remove them, and you break other aspects of the game.

Questing is a core, basic aspect of the game.
It's a core, basic aspect of any mmo-rpg.

Noaani wrote: »

If your quests were not in the game, nothing would be broken. They would exist solely for the purpose of existing, and do not matter.

PvE quests creating conflicting interests between players so PvP happens wouldn't exist just for hte purpose of existing, they would exist for the purpose of encouraging players to do something fun, PvP.

PvP quests asking you to kill X amount of players in your level range would simply reward you for something you (a pvper) will realistically do anyway every chance you get. So it would allow people who want to lvl based on pvp (or also based on pvp) to do so. It wouldn't exist just for he purpose of existing.

Ironhope

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

I do agree that the game would suffer if there were one predominant way to level,

I never suggested that this should be the predominant way of leveling.

My main suggestion is for PvE quests that create conflicting interests between players who can go for PvP or not if they so choose to.

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

For example, we could have bounties and arenas offer considerable xp. You are correct about what Steven said, yet why must a player's time leveling be an exception to that guideline?

Yeah exacty.

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

From which, I assume, the winner gets more rewards or xp. Sure, players could die during the event and potentially lose xp, but that's part of the considerable risk of doing pvp.

Exatly.

Don't want to PvP? Don't.

But you're not going to be as successful with said quests.

Ironhope

Noaani wrote: »

There is no crossover in what PvE and PvP rewards in Ashes.

PvE generates wealth (coin, materials, items etc), and generates experience. PvP simply redistributes it.

PvP doesn't generate anything at all in Ashes.

Did they say that you will absolutely NOT have rewards for bgs, arenas, guild wars, etc?

Because virtually all top mmo-rpgs do that (rewards for PvP).

Maybe it (them saying that) got past me, please clarify.

Wulfenthrad

Noaani wrote: »

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

You are correct about what Steven said, yet why must a player's time leveling be an exception to that guideline?

It isn't an exception.

There is no crossover in what PvE and PvP rewards in Ashes.

PvE generates wealth (coin, materials, items etc), and generates experience. PvP simply redistributes it.

PvP doesn't generate anything at all in Ashes. If you kill a player and they drop materials, those materials were generated in PvE, and simplhy redistributed in your direction via PvP.

Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting, but hasn't Stephen expressed an interest in adding a progression system for arenas? In a 2017 interview, at about the 26:30 mark, he says that you might get pvp related potions and advancements. Is that not item generation and progression through pvp? Even if those rewards stay within the pvp system, I think that farming arenas for potions generates some value does it not?

While reading through the wiki, I recently discovered that objective based pvp events, such as caravans and castle sieges, don't lose you any experience so unless they don't generate any xp, then would it not be reasonable to assume that a player can progress through leveling? While yes, much of the in game wealth will probably be produced during PvE, I'm generally talking about experience, and with no xp sink on objectives, the only way that xp progression can be prevented during them is preventing players from gaining xp from them in the first place, and I just don't see Intrepid doing that.

Some sources I used:

Interview with timestamp on arena progression
Wiki page for PvP, it should be before the table of contents

Dygz

Ashes has a bunch of different types of progression.
Ironhope is hoping to have quests that increase Adventurer progression through xp gained from PvP.

Wulfenthrad

That's what I'm hoping for as well.

Noaani

Ironhope wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Yes, but they primarily exist for other reasons. They are core aspects of the game. Remove them, and you break other aspects of the game.

Questing is a core, basic aspect of the game.
It's a core, basic aspect of any mmo-rpg.

I was unaware your position was PvP quests or no quests at all.

That is an odd position for you to take, but hey, feel free to defend it.

Ironhope wrote: »

PvE quests creating conflicting interests between players so PvP happens wouldn't exist just for hte purpose of existing, they would exist for the purpose of encouraging players to do something fun, PvP.

PvE quests give players the option (and usually this option is more advantageous) to cooperate, rather than compete or conflict.

PvP quests obviously aren't giving this option.

The only way cooperation would work in a PvP quesr scenario is to trade kills, and this is something Intrepid would need to design to prevent, as opposed to promote a cooperative approach.

Azryil

Noaani wrote: »

The only way cooperation would work in a PvP quesr scenario is to trade kills, and this is something Intrepid would need to design to prevent, as opposed to promote a cooperative approach.

I don't think that is strictly true. It may be the most efficient way if all your after is killing X number of players quests, but PvP quests could be related to other PvP objectives in the game like Sieges or Caravans. Additionally players could group up to fight other players in the world. I think the bigger issue with PvP quests may be the nature of how respawning work and how large the world is, you won't realistically be able to get multiple kills off the same player unless the PvP takes place right next to a town so it could end up taking a long time to get many kills unless large groups of players are fighting each other in the world.

Geophysical Ninja

Noaani wrote: »

In my experience of MMO's, and just the internet in general, people do not need artificial mechanics to generate conflict.

This is such am obvious concept, yet you put it both succinctly and perfectly placed in the thread. Kudos.

The only thing to add is that my favorite definition of conflict is "two people in the same country."

Noaani

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

While yes, much of the in game wealth will probably be produced during PvE, I'm generally talking about experience, and with no xp sink on objectives, the only way that xp progression can be prevented during them is preventing players from gaining xp from them in the first place, and I just don't see Intrepid doing that.

You are correct that the current plan is to not lose experience in caravans and such.

However, there are two different points to make in relation to why Intrepid most likely won't award experience for them.
The first point is that when running a personal caravan (the type that will be most common, and the only real type worth discussing), the only people that stands to lose anything at all are the owner of the caravan itself, and the person that owns the materials in the caravan (usually the same person, but not always).

If you and I are just minding our own business out in Verra, and a caravan comes along, I could chose to attack it, and you could chose to defend it. Then, we could both just ignore the caravan and farm each other for experience. Neither of us stand to lose anything regardless of what happens to the caravan, there is no experience or item loss, and so any experience gained is just pure exploited experience.

The second point is in relation to the actual point and intent Intrepid have behind having no experience loss in such events.

The point of running a caravan is to move materials you have from one point to another (again, personal caravans). The point of attacking a caravan is supposed to be to claim some or all of those materials. You will notice that neither of these - the person running the caravan or the person attacking the caravan - have PvP as a specific point behind their actions from a game design purpose.

In these situations, PvP is the method for the action, not the point of the action. Understanding that this is the entire games philosophy is key to understanding the game.

Now, Intrepid looked at this and they decided they wanted to make it so a random person coming across a caravan under attack or a node siege or some such was not given specific reasons to not assist on one side or the other. The biggest reason they would have for not assisting is the death penalty. So, if you remove that death penalty, these random passers by are more likely to assist.

Again though, this isn't an assist in the PvP, it is an assist with the caravan, or the siege, the PvP is just the method or means - the caravan or siege is the object of that assistance, that is the important thing. They are going out of their way to make it so that players have no material reason (experience counts ass a material reason, fun doesn't) to join or not join an attack or defense of a caravan or a siege, other than specifically for the object of that action.

If you cast a rational and unbiased eye over the above second point, it makes no real sense to award experience for kills in these PvP settings. Perhaps experience for winning a siege is in order, or experience for taking a caravan, but these are the objects, not the PvP itself - and even then I would only go so far as to say perhaps. Adding experience as a reward in any capacity adds a material reason other than the object, which Intrepid are trying to avoid.

I am assuming you were lacking the context of Intrepids reasons for removing death penalties on caravans and such. Without that context, your perspective here could make sense. It is still easily exploitable, but it could make sense (or at least be a very valid point to argue).

However, when you take on board that context, awarding experience for such things seems to be an unlikely scenario, at best.

Noaani

Azryil wrote: »

I think the bigger issue with PvP quests may be the nature of how respawning work and how large the world is, you won't realistically be able to get multiple kills off the same player

Other than knowing corrupt players respawn randomly when killed, we don't really know all that much about respawning. Non-corrupt players respawn at the closest location.

Corruption isn't a factor in the types of PvP we are talking about here, so spawn locations will be somewhat known.

Geophysical Ninja

Ironhope wrote: »

Jahlon wrote: »

So everything you described is basically forced PvP, which Ashes has, but in the form of PvP Themes.

Forced....
... do you come into a niche pvp game and expect to level out there in the world without world pvp?

WoW Vanilla esentially did what I just suggested (but with different systems), sending players with conflicting interests in the same areas to encourage wpvp.... and people back then and in modern times (with the release of WoW classic) loved it.

I mean, that's what this kind of game is supposed to be, an adventure. Adventures are intrinsincly challenging.

But no, it wouldn't be forced. In the example I gave you can just not pick the PvP quest or you can just let the players of the competitor quest-giver community ruin the npc furts so you spend 10 times more time on the quest. I guess that would be an option too.

Jahlon wrote: »

Either that, or the things you have mentioned involve killing other players through the flagging system, which would be detrimental to your development due to corruption.

I guess you would just have to look for people who are flagged for PvP and ignore the hippies.

This is not a niche PvP game. This is, and has always been described as a PvX game. There will be designed PvP content, and there will be designed PvE content.

From Steven:

Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focused or a PvE focused, it is a comprehensive PvX game and as a result these systems are all interconnected and have to coexist with one another with certain types of mechanisms that can provide that give and take, that push and shove

Dramatic changes to the core systems as described throw that designed system away.

I'm sorry that you have issues with hippies.

Wulfenthrad

Noaani wrote: »

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

While yes, much of the in game wealth will probably be produced during PvE, I'm generally talking about experience, and with no xp sink on objectives, the only way that xp progression can be prevented during them is preventing players from gaining xp from them in the first place, and I just don't see Intrepid doing that.

You are correct that the current plan is to not lose experience in caravans and such.

However, there are two different points to make in relation to why Intrepid most likely won't award experience for them.
The first point is that when running a personal caravan (the type that will be most common, and the only real type worth discussing), the only people that stands to lose anything at all are the owner of the caravan itself, and the person that owns the materials in the caravan (usually the same person, but not always).

If you and I are just minding our own business out in Verra, and a caravan comes along, I could chose to attack it, and you could chose to defend it. Then, we could both just ignore the caravan and farm each other for experience. Neither of us stand to lose anything regardless of what happens to the caravan, there is no experience or item loss, and so any experience gained is just pure exploited experience.

Having participation play a primary role in gaining is already a common way to ensure that players are participating in events instead of going AFK and gaining xp for no effort. For example, in GW2 and FF14, you have to actively contribute to get any reward from their open world events, with greater reward tiers for varying levels of participation, being capped at the highest tier, upon completion of the event. So, within this context, if you're raiding a caravan your participation will increase as you damage and kill other players to secure the objective before getting your reward at the end of the event, in this case the successful attack or defense of the caravan.

When it comes to what attackers have to lose, they have an inherent time sink in raiding the caravan and the opportunity cost of doing other things in the world. Not to mention any consumables like buffs or potions to gain an advantage.

Noaani wrote: »

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

While yes, much of the in game wealth will probably be produced during PvE, I'm generally talking about experience, and with no xp sink on objectives, the only way that xp progression can be prevented during them is preventing players from gaining xp from them in the first place, and I just don't see Intrepid doing that.

The second point is in relation to the actual point and intent Intrepid have behind having no experience loss in such events.

The point of running a caravan is to move materials you have from one point to another (again, personal caravans). The point of attacking a caravan is supposed to be to claim some or all of those materials. You will notice that neither of these - the person running the caravan or the person attacking the caravan - have PvP as a specific point behind their actions from a game design purpose.

In these situations, PvP is the method for the action, not the point of the action. Understanding that this is the entire games philosophy is key to understanding the game.

Now, Intrepid looked at this and they decided they wanted to make it so a random person coming across a caravan under attack or a node siege or some such was not given specific reasons to not assist on one side or the other. The biggest reason they would have for not assisting is the death penalty. So, if you remove that death penalty, these random passers by are more likely to assist.

Again though, this isn't an assist in the PvP, it is an assist with the caravan, or the siege, the PvP is just the method or means - the caravan or siege is the object of that assistance, that is the important thing. They are going out of their way to make it so that players have no material reason (experience counts ass a material reason, fun doesn't) to join or not join an attack or defense of a caravan or a siege, other than specifically for the object of that action.

If you cast a rational and unbiased eye over the above second point, it makes no real sense to award experience for kills in these PvP settings. Perhaps experience for winning a siege is in order, or experience for taking a caravan, but these are the objects, not the PvP itself - and even then I would only go so far as to say perhaps. Adding experience as a reward in any capacity adds a material reason other than the object, which Intrepid are trying to avoid.

I am assuming you were lacking the context of Intrepids reasons for removing death penalties on caravans and such. Without that context, your perspective here could make sense. It is still easily exploitable, but it could make sense (or at least be a very valid point to argue).

However, when you take on board that context, awarding experience for such things seems to be an unlikely scenario, at best.

With the idea of PvP being a means to an end instead of an end to itself, couldn't you expand that to encompass the game? Players don't raid to play through challenging content, the just do it for the loot, going through it is just a means to an end. Players don't wander the forest or explore the caves, they just do it to get the resources. Taking that line of thought down to its conclusion leaves us a game devoid of the fantasy of a fantasy game, where instead of playing the game to slay dragons or make friends, it's about maximizing resource acquisition.

For many players, they want the experience of taking down a dragon, or exploring the depths, or robbing that unfortunate soul who thought they could cheap out on that escort. Players should choose how they want to play in a sandbox mmorpg without without feeling like the way they're playing isn't valid, which does seem align with how leveling, and the greater game as a whole, is being designed in general. Admittedly, I didn't know this when I wrote my first post, but PvP is already planned to grant players experience, so a player could decide to lean towards PvP and still progress through the game's leveling system without being handicapped too hard.

I understand that you don't simply want people to be murder hobos and run down every caravan and its uncle to rush through the leveling process, and I would agree with you that shouldn't happen. But, PvP is a valid activity and players shouldn't be punished for engaging in it by falling behind everyone else.

As a side note, "rational and unbiased eye over the above second point, it makes no real sense to award experience for kills in these PvP settings", "Without that context, your perspective here could make sense." really? It's a bit difficult to have fruitful conversation when someone implies a sense of superiority over someone else. We're both just people writing several paragraph long forum posts for something we're excited for, and we can both learn from each other if we move forward in a more civil manner.

Noaani

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

Having participation play a primary role in gaining is already a common way to ensure that players are participating in events instead of going AFK and gaining xp for no effort. For example, in GW2 and FF14, you have to actively contribute to get any reward from their open world events, with greater reward tiers for varying levels of participation, being capped at the highest tier, upon completion of the event. So, within this context, if you're raiding a caravan your participation will increase as you damage and kill other players to secure the objective before getting your reward at the end of the event, in this case the successful attack or defense of the caravan.

When it comes to what attackers have to lose, they have an inherent time sink in raiding the caravan and the opportunity cost of doing other things in the world. Not to mention any consumables like buffs or potions to gain an advantage.

Based on this response, I am going to assume I didn't do an overly good job of explaining things - as most of this has nothing at all to do with anything.

So, rather than try and go over any of this, I'll attempt to reiterate my previous point.

If a player is out in the world, and a caravan comes past, Intrepid want them to join the fight *IF* they have reason to care about that caravan. It may be that the caravan is coming from or going to a node where they do business and they don't want supply interrupted. It could be that they do business there and they DO want supply interrupted.

The key thing is, if that person has a reason to want to join the fight on either side, they should be able to without issue.

Intrepid aren't concerned if people that don't have any skin in the game don't join the fight. In fact, it seems to me that they are quite happy to keep those people out of the fight.

The object of caravans is not to get as much PvP participation as possible, it is to add some risk to the transfer of materials. it is worth noting that if too many caravans fail to reach their destination, the games economy (and likely the game itself) will grind to a very definite halt - and more people joining in on caravans means more caravans not making it to their destination.

Wulfenthrad wrote: »

As a side note, "rational and unbiased eye over the above second point, it makes no real sense to award experience for kills in these PvP settings", "Without that context, your perspective here could make sense." really? It's a bit difficult to have fruitful conversation when someone implies a sense of superiority over someone else. We're both just people writing several paragraph long forum posts for something we're excited for, and we can both learn from each other if we move forward in a more civil manner.

I was suggesting that you look at it with that rational and unbiased eye (as I assume you are able to do that), not that I am doing that and you can't.

As I said, I am assuming you were missing the reasoning behind why Intrepid have removed the death penalty from caravans and such. When you put that reasoning back in place, and look at the whole situation with that rational and unbiased eye, not having experience gained on kills in such PvP situations seems the only real option.

If they have experience on PvP kills for caravans, they create a situation that players can exploit for experience gain, and also create a reward that will see people join caravans for reasons other than the caravan itself. If they do not have experience gain but also have no experience loss, then they create a situation where people will only join in on the caravan (attack or defense) if they have reason to do so, but there is no barrier to them doing so (lost opportunity cost is not really a reason- either people will have something planned and will just do that anyway, or they will have nothing planned and so would likely have done nothing in that time).

So again, look over it with that rational and unbiased eye, and see what you see.

Ironhope

Dygz wrote: »

Ashes has a bunch of different types of progression.
Ironhope is hoping to have quests that increase Adventurer progression through xp gained from PvP.

XP, items, reputation leading to items, yeah the general quest stuff.

Ironhope

Noaani wrote: »

I was unaware your position was PvP quests or no quests at all.

Its not, I'm not sure where you understood this from.

Noaani wrote: »

PvP quests obviously aren't giving this option.

Of course it would.
Team up with a friend to cooperate in killing other players.

Noaani

Ironhope wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I was unaware your position was PvP quests or no quests at all.

Its not, I'm not sure where you understood this from.

If this is not an argument that you are making, then your point about quests being a core, basic aspect of the game is redundant.

We all agree the game will have quests, so that core basic aspect is covered. Why bring it up?

Ironhope wrote: »

Of course it would.
Team up with a friend to cooperate in killing other players.

I didn't say you can't cooperate on PvP quests, I said you can't cooperate in place of competing.

While you can group up with people to complete PvP quests, you can not complete them without conflict - other than by kill trading.

Noaani

Ironhope wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Ashes has a bunch of different types of progression.
Ironhope is hoping to have quests that increase Adventurer progression through xp gained from PvP.

XP, items, reputation leading to items, yeah the general quest stuff.

Steven has specifically said PvP will not reward this kind of thing.

One day you will understand what this game is about. That day is not today - but I have hope.

Ironhope

Noaani wrote: »

then your point about quests being a core, basic aspect of the game is redundant

Lets recap.

I said PvP quests would be cool.
You said they wouldn't because it would be artificial.
I proved they're as artificial as the other systems of the game such as caravan, sieges or guild wars.
You said that yes those are also artificial but it's okay because they're core aspects of the game.
Well, quests are core aspects of the game too.
So I'm back at:

There is no difference between PvP quests and the other systems we already got in the game.
It's completely in the game's spirit.

Noaani wrote: »

I didn't say you can't cooperate on PvP quests, I said you can't cooperate in place of competing.

I'm still not sure what you mean.
Maybe it's me maybe it's you.
Can you rephrase please?

Noaani wrote: »

While you can group up with people to complete PvP quests, you can not complete them without conflict - other than by kill trading.

Obviously kill trading would be made to not count for the quest's success.

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