What do you like about open-world PvP?

Hi,

Because of the recent PvP discussion I got really curious and wanted to find out what people love so much about open-world PvP. I've never really understood it because from my experience you are always put into a situation where you can't/have extremely low chance to win.

Majority of my experience with open-world PvP have been while I'm 1v1ing a mob. So not only am I low hp & mp from attacking a mob and my skills are on cooldown but also I'm facing a mob and a player at the same time AND the player got the advantage of attacking first meaning his skills will be reusable again sooner.

I'm not against open-world PvP at all, I understand that people do enjoy it, I just want to understand a little more why people enjoy it so much when (to me personally) majority of open-world PvP seems like just unfair fights with almost no chance of survival for the defender.

Cheers.

*Again I'm not against the open-world PvP, just wanna make that clear.*

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Elwendryll

What I like about open world pvp :

It introduces chaos in an otherwise pretty deterministic environment.
It creates social interactions and role play opportunities.
It makes you feel unsafe at all time. Which makes everything you do more rewarding, because there was a risk.
It makes the game more difficult and challenging
It opens up an entire play-style.
You can "claim" a farming spot by figthing for it.

This might be a bad example because this game hasn't been successful, but I played Crowfall for a while, it's basically full inventory loot when you die (and durability loss on gear with no repair options). PvE in this game is not really a thing, every "PvE" objective is something you're supposed to fight over. And yet, there were people who despised PvP who played it, for some obscure reason. And gathering was a lot of fun, when you hear a noise in the distance you go full alert mode, when you hear chopping noises and see a tree falling in the distance, the adrenaline starts pumping, should you run away? should you get closer and try to kill them for their loot?

Also open world pvp is very different from structured arena PvP. You can ambush people, you can play with terrain, from a distance, etc... You can attack someone who's killing a boss, or have to defend yourself while trying to kill a boss. It's a lot of different situations, it encourages you to play with friends, because in almost all situations you can win any encounter just by having enough numbers.

Playing solo in an open world pvp setting is very challenging because people tend to stay in groups (PvP players escorting gatherers or whatever for instance), but it's very rewarding when it works out, and very satisfying.

Of course it's not for everyone because dying is frustrating, but it is very exciting.

Percimes

Bladen wrote: »

The constant thought of a looming threat that could come out at any moment is such a great feeling to have and encounter. It makes the world feel more alive instead of the same old boring grind. Like if i go into this forest is someone waiting to get me? It also creates some of the most memorable experiences. I'm not going to remember killing some random mob but i will remember a player popping out and fighting me over a resource or something similar.

And let's be honest if you don't want random player interactions why are you playing an mmo?

This could also be achieved in PvE, but almost all MMOs, at least the recent ones, have been so theme-parky and soft that, unless you're crossing a zone way too high level for your character, this feeling of risk is lost (too easy to avoid danger or to run away from it). That's one thing EverQuest did well, roaming higher level mobs in zones: sand giants in the Oasis, that guard in the Common Lands aggro'ing every careless lowbie dark elfs, the dratted minotaur hero in the gnome low level zone, brownies hidden in the bushes, ... I have more memorable moments from random mobs aggro'ing than from any player who attacked me on the open. A question of perspective I suppose.

The big difference between mobs and players is how they aggro. Player aggro is weird compared to mobs. They have very large aggro range, which doesn't always trigger, and it doesn't reset when you kill them, quite the opposite, it tends to rise up when you kill them.

HumblePuffin

Asthma wrote: »

Hate to be pessimistic but there hasn’t been an mmo with successful open world PvP. Which is the reason I’m hesitant to be excited for it. As long as Arenas isn’t an afterthought, I think as a whole it can be successful. .

I assume you mean mmorpg and competitive owpvp which I would also argue against, but either way there have definitely been mmos with successful open world pvp. Aion, lineage, EQ, Ultima, BDO, a billion Korean mmos, archeage, RuneScape even, the original pass of WoW vanilla-WotLK(arguably the best years of that games life) all had rather enjoyable owpvp.

In the context of AoC, carvans and node sieges both sound like they will be a blast and on a reasonably level playing field when compared against their owpvp in the “hunting grounds”.

I too hope that the arenas present in military nodes will scratch that itch of “as level playing field as you can get for an mmorpg”. Definitely don’t expect this game to be getting an esport for its PvP. You’ll be disappointed.

Veeshan

Percimes wrote: »

Bladen wrote: »

The constant thought of a looming threat that could come out at any moment is such a great feeling to have and encounter. It makes the world feel more alive instead of the same old boring grind. Like if i go into this forest is someone waiting to get me? It also creates some of the most memorable experiences. I'm not going to remember killing some random mob but i will remember a player popping out and fighting me over a resource or something similar.

And let's be honest if you don't want random player interactions why are you playing an mmo?

This could also be achieved in PvE, but almost all MMOs, at least the recent ones, have been so theme-parky and soft that, unless you're crossing a zone way too high level for your character, this feeling of risk is lost (too easy to avoid danger or to run away from it). That's one thing EverQuest did well, roaming higher level mobs in zones: sand giants in the Oasis, that guard in the Common Lands aggro'ing every careless lowbie dark elfs, the dratted minotaur hero in the gnome low level zone, brownies hidden in the bushes, ... I have more memorable moments from random mobs aggro'ing than from any player who attacked me on the open. A question of perspective I suppose.

The big difference between mobs and players is how they aggro. Player aggro is weird compared to mobs. They have very large aggro range, which doesn't always trigger, and it doesn't reset when you kill them, quite the opposite, it tends to rise up when you kill them.

One of my memorable experience from everquest was being a human necro and being wacked by the wandering druid on South Qeynos when i went to the bank :P dam those druid and rangers.

Another was getting wacked by the human necro walking around the qeynos hills when i was playing my human ranger

just think of Pkers as smart bandits with further agro :P

Veeshan

HumblePuffin wrote: »

Asthma wrote: »

Hate to be pessimistic but there hasn’t been an mmo with successful open world PvP. Which is the reason I’m hesitant to be excited for it. As long as Arenas isn’t an afterthought, I think as a whole it can be successful. .

I assume you mean mmorpg and competitive owpvp which I would also argue against, but either there have definitely been mmos with successful open world pvp. Aion, lineage, EQ, Ultima, BDO, a billion Korean mmos, archeage, RuneScape even, the original pass of WoW vanilla-WotLK(arguably the best years of that games life) had rather enjoyable owpvp.

In the context of AoC, carvans and node sieges both sound like they will be a blast and on a reasonably level playing field when compared against their owpvp in the “hunting grounds”.

I too hope that the arenas present in military nodes will scratch that itch of “as level playing field as you can get for an mmorpg”. Definitely don’t expect this game to be getting an esport for its PvP. You’ll be disappointed.

I would even say Darkfall was rather successful when it came out i think it downfall was alot more to do with super slow patch/decelopment in patches was like 1 patch every 8 months :P

Heartbeat

CROW3 wrote: »

- the world is more dangerous
- Grouping has more value
- You can actually fight for resources
- PvP as content is dynamic and player driven instead of scripted and repetitive
- and c’mon pushing someone off a mountain never gets boring 🤪

I'm gonna go with everything you said as well and add that some of the most fun i've had in PvP came from the random fights that popped up here and there and evolved into entire OW guild wars when I played BDO.

Vaknar

What personally excited me about open-world PvP are the endless possibilities of interactions and the stories that come from them

Some of my most memorable experiences come from PvP (while many come from raiding!) Combining the two sounds neat!

I get that there are some aspects of it that aren't as awesome to some players.

Do any of you have any interesting open-world PvP stories from other games you'd like to share?

Dygz

Even in table-top RPGs, I typically attempt to bypass combat with Charisma skills and Stealth.

The first game I worked on prefessionally was MechWarrior II: NetMech.
Most of the guys in QA would choose the biggest, most powerful and durable Mechs, so they could pummel each other. I typically chose the smallest, fastest Mechs so that I could skate past the combat and capture the objectives.

Basically the same for Neverwinter Online.
There I would focus on zipping over to capture as many flag pylons as possible. Capturing a pylon was at least 2x points than a kill, so...I would just let people kill me if they wanted to and the run to capture the next pylon. Which would, more often than not, place me at the top of the leaderboards for captures...and often help my team win.
There was another form of PvP where we had to gather resources and build defenses - make sure certain key areas weren't destroyed by NPCs/mobs. I enjoyed focusing on those objectives way more than direct PvP combat.

So...the more objectives available in Ashes Sieges, the better.
But, I'm also looking forward to fiddling with augments.
In the Alpha One Sieges, I played a Cleric since we didn't have a Rogue or Ranger.
I kept hoping I could have a proc on Hallowed Ground that could render me Invisible. Possible even render Invisible anyone who enters Hallowed Ground.
I really enjoyed casting Hallowed Ground near a breached gate and then working with two other Clerics to cycle through casts so that Hallowed Ground was always active in that spot, even while we waited for our individual cooldowns to end.

The UE5 Character Creator has me even more eager to see what kind of mercenary entourage I can create to guard my Freehold and Caravans. And I'm also eager to see how well I'm able to craft/construct Carvans with consistently adequate defenses against raids.

In most MMORPGs, the gameworld is static.
Winning or losing PvP is in no way memorable to me - I don't expect anything to change much.
Fippy Darkpaw will still be doing the same thing tomorrow that he was 20 years ago.
Ashes PvP is inherently meorable for the most part because who owns a Castle when will impact everyone.
We will certainly remember when a City or Metro falls - and we will be sure to talk about it as we adjust to those significant changes in the emergent gameplay.

Ludullu

The biggest thing about owpvp for me is the player interactions and relationships that build from that interaction.
I've made years-long friendships, after pvping the same people for a month. I've made server-spanning rivalries that were built on mutual respect that came from daily pvp battles. I've created guilds purely from recruiting people through pvp fights, and those guilds could usually stand up against higher numbers of players because everyone in my guild became friends with each other and had much better coordination because of that.

And I've been on the receiving end of that attitude, where I'd fight against 3-4 people from one guild even though I knew I'd lose, but, exactly because I fought back, I got invited to their guild and was immediately respected for my efforts.

I've spent hours talking with enemy guildies sitting in town, because despite the war between our guilds we respected each other and treated each other as equals. Of course there'd be some assholes who would always spam some random shit in chat and flame their enemies, but more often than not they'd get kicked from their guild because they were to toxic towards everyone. The community itself was built on "be the best you can be and respect your enemy for doing the same".

All of this was built on a near-requirement to pvp in Lineage 2. You wanna make you character stronger? You gotta pvp the people doing the same thing. You wanna farm some important item? Pvp the dude who's already farming it to "earn" your right to replace him. And then defend that place from others who wanna earn that right too. You die against the same dude a few times? Talk to other people in the same location and propose killing him together and then splitting the better farm among yourselves. You're the dude who got killed by several people? Do the same thing they did or find a guild that would help you do that.

I really hope Ashes manages to capture the same community interactions and philosophy as L2 did. I sure as hell will give my best to promote them.

superhero6785

One of my best memories was trying to finish a quest in Aion when I kept getting ganked by 3 players. I messaged in my guild chat for help and my guild leader showed up 5 minutes later (much higher level) like superman flying in to save me. He took on all 3 by himself and stood there like a giant knight in shining armor. Then he said "You like my new sword? I call it my boom stick. Well, take care!" Then flew off and I finished my quest. I'm sure he felt great and loved taking 15 minutes out of his day to go beat up some bullies. It's the awesome social interaction that open world PvP creates that makes it so worth the hassle.

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