Aggro/Threat mechanics don't work in PvX

GrilledCheeseMojito wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

People that know how to PvP are not predictable, this most likely is a case of the depth of PvP you played had a system in place that did not allow for enough of a skill gap, tab being part of that reason. The more action elements the less predictable things will be with more elements you need to react and take account for than just doing your rotation.

My dude, your fighter game background is showing! How embarrassing for you!

Literally none of what you are talking about here applies to MMO PvP - this is even more true when you consider that we are talking about medium to large scale PvP.

In an MMO, especially at large scale, you are essentially fighting the same people all the time. If I am the second best guild on my server, it is only really the second and third best that I am going to be fighting against.

Those guilds are going to always have the same basic leadership and communication structure during PvP, and that is what shapes PvP variation - not skill caps or action combat.

If you are playing a fighting game with 500 people around your skill level, you have 500 people that will all play the game just a little differently. In an MMO, when we are talking guild scale PvP, you guild leadership is fighting guild leadership, not players. Realistically, guilds only have two or three sets of leadership that they are ever fighting against - and that gets really predictable.

This was already commented on so i don't really need to go into detail, but as usual you are looking at something and trying to simplify it down and than say it is the same. Akin to say dps dps, heals heal, etc.

Honestly this is from lack of war experience on your part but players and situations you find yourself in will be different with whom you fight and how battles will go. The most important part of winning fights in larger scale wars 50v50+ is about the micro management of how groups play and fight together, not the overall 50v50 strategy. When you are having wars with large amounts of players micromanagement will be even more important as well as the difference faces you will be fighting with the different wars across the land.

Though regardless yes there will be top guilds and with gear progression pretty much the more people you have playing hard the higher chance you have to win. If AoC is a popular as people hope it to be, that pool will become quite large on competitive guilds, but wars won't only be fought on the top but on lower level nodes as well which means new faces and different skill levels.

Except those same top guilds will be the ones fighting each other all the time, and the fights will end up predictable because it's the same person pool; the only differentiator at that stage is strategy rather than moment to moment direction.

I think your perspective is still colored by your experience in fighters; I'm surprised you believe that there will be that much of a difference when you play a (by your own admission) unpopular fighting game (~150 total players on steam over the past month), where the top players often pick what they consider the top tiers anyway and fight each other a bunch. There's nothing wrong with this, but what dominates in this environment is the top players' understanding that allows them to dismantle challengers, not anything about moment to moment execution. So, even by your experience I think it still doesn't apply here in MMO PvP battles.

You really out here trying to insult games out there now kind of pathetic if you ask me. Most games die and that is part of life, though skill wise you would never touch the top ever so its ok, I'm buitl different than you in understanding and skill -winks-.

Your comments honestly reeks of not having been part of large battles and not understanding the full weight of what I talked about lol. Ill repeat again, do to more hybrid gameplay you are add more layers to gameplay right off the bat. It isn't just about rotations and timing buffs you are adding more layers to the gameplay do to the nature of action combat (by default adds more unpredictability. In large fights it is about the micromanagement that wins the battle, not the overall large strategy of the guild that could be the same they normally do since it works. Those mini fights will not be predictable nor will you be fighting the same person everywhere all the time even more so when you are doing larger battles.

Again there are going to be different levels of nodes which means different levels of battles between players. A high lvl node player shouldn't be sieging a lower level node in order to have balance of skill between players.

Though hey i guess its easier to make the assumption any player can destroy any node without limit so max node players can all be merc'd in to destroy low lvl nodes and just raid every single node. Then it would be even more the same faces, untop of it being a dead game where there are so limited competitive guilds. So if you want to make takes based off lack of design to control players and it being a dead game I guess you can make that take. I did not realize that was your standard, bless unleashed might be a game for you -wink-

Mag7spy wrote: »

Honestly this is from lack of war experience on your part but players and situations you find yourself in will be different with whom you fight and how battles will go. The most important part of winning fights in larger scale wars 50v50+ is about the micro management of how groups play and fight together, not the overall 50v50 strategy.

See, this shows that while you *may* have some large scale PvP experience, it is limited to that of a grunt. You've quite clearly not led PvP of this scale.

The macro management of PvP is where it is won or lost. Imagine you and I are leading our own 50 person guild against the other. I have a secondary objective I can go for, and so I send some of my people out to it. Likewise, you send people to defend that objective.

The decision each of us make as to how many people we send has more of a bearing on the result of the overall fight than any decision any one of the grunts in our guilds.

If I send 8 and you send 12, then I am unlikely to achieve that goal. However, I may be occupying 12 of the people in your guild for half an hour, giving me a lead in the larger scale fight. If the secondary goal isnt all that important, me forcing you to take more players out of the fight than I take out is an outright win for me. If that secondary goal is important and you prevent me achieving it without dedicating significantly more resources to it, this is a win for you.

On the other hand, if I send 12 people and you send 6, I'm likely to steamroll that group of 6 you sent, achieve the secondary goal we are after and get back to the raid in a matter of minutes.

These are the decisions that matter in large scale PvP.

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Honestly this is from lack of war experience on your part but players and situations you find yourself in will be different with whom you fight and how battles will go. The most important part of winning fights in larger scale wars 50v50+ is about the micro management of how groups play and fight together, not the overall 50v50 strategy.

See, this shows that while you *may* have some large scale PvP experience, it is limited to that of a grunt. You've quite clearly not led PvP of this scale.

The macro management of PvP is where it is won or lost. Imagine you and I are leading our own 50 person guild against the other. I have a secondary objective I can go for, and so I send some of my people out to it. Likewise, you send people to defend that objective.

The decision each of us make as to how many people we send has more of a bearing on the result of the overall fight than any decision any one of the grunts in our guilds.

If I send 8 and you send 12, then I am unlikely to achieve that goal. However, I may be occupying 12 of the people in your guild for half an hour, giving me a lead in the larger scale fight. If the secondary goal isnt all that important, me forcing you to take more players out of the fight than I take out is an outright win for me. If that secondary goal is important and you prevent me achieving it without dedicating significantly more resources to it, this is a win for you.

On the other hand, if I send 12 people and you send 6, I'm likely to steamroll that group of 6 you sent, achieve the secondary goal we are after and get back to the raid in a matter of minutes.

These are the decisions that matter in large scale PvP.

I'm going to play your game and assume you have lead nothing based on what you are saying. Like you keep missing the whole point of what I'm talking about and honestly I'm getting tired of repeating myself.

This is the last time I'm going to repeat myself, micro is what is important it is what creates the difference in fights and unpredictability coupled with how the combat is. Action combat creating more diverse elements between players using actual movement to dodge your attacks, and spacing.

You can send 12 people to another 8, but if the 8 are better at micro managing and win the fight that is a big play for the war overall. What those players do is the micro level in how they work together and win the objective play or cause disruption.

Yes you need a good shot caller, but being told where to go does not make the micro group preform better suddenly, it is still up to them to win the battle there. That battle being unpredictable in nature if you are fighting good opponents with good combat.

Effectively what you are saying is people are predictable because you are fighting he same shot caller doing the same plan. This is a pattern of yours you try to shut things down by trying to make things basic and remove any element of nuance in order to say everything is the same.

Your reasoning always base on ignoring details and only talking about the objective and not how that objective is met. Not what it takes to meet that objective and how it is accomplished. You understanding a shot callers plans does not mean players are predictable there is more to nuance than that in a fight.

Depraved

both are correct

Depraved wrote: »

both are correct

In a manner of speaking.

Essentially, Mag is talking checkers, while I am talking chess.

He is approaching it from the position of "see red, must kill, kill means win".

I am looking at it from the perspective of "if that group of 8 over there are actually quite good, and I can distract them with 12 average players, that is a win for me in the greater scheme of things".

So, essentially, the situation Mag is looking at and claiming a win on is the same situation I am looking at and claiming a win on.

All he sees and understands is what is on his screen. If he kills the people he can see, it's a win. It doesnt matter to him if those people were sent as a distraction.

Perhaps put another another way, you are more likely to win if you get the macro right and the micro wrong than if you get the micro right and the macro wrong.

Honestly, I hope I do end up on the same server as him. He would be the most easily distracted player ever.

Noaani wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

both are correct

In a manner of speaking.

Essentially, Mag is talking checkers, while I am talking chess.

He is approaching it from the position of "see red, must kill, kill means win".

I am looking at it from the perspective of "if that group of 8 over there are actually quite good, and I can distract them with 12 average players, that is a win for me in the greater scheme of things".

So, essentially, the situation Mag is looking at and claiming a win on is the same situation I am looking at and claiming a win on.

All he sees and understands is what is on his screen. If he kills the people he can see, it's a win. It doesnt matter to him if those people were sent as a distraction.

Honestly, I hope I do end up on the same server as him. He would be the most easily distracted player ever.

You are not talking chess lol, you are talking about a basic and important element of the war at the same time. The issue is you assume what people say so badly you are missing the point of what they are saying. Its a huge flaw of yours that will hold you back in a lot of elements.

Effectively you are trying to say the most important part is what the shot caller says in directing people. I am saying as important as that is strategies will be more standard. What is the meta they will try to do or that is the meta and people will follow it in some form of element. So you are trying to say pvp is suddenly predictable because of that knowing who you are fighting.

Though it is important that is not where you get the unpredictable amount of pvp. that comes from the actual different skirmishes and how players approach and do their fights. That micromanagement of groups is one of the most important parts if you will win the war or not when it comes to more competitive fights.

Anyone can say team a-c protects this point, team f-g is flex - team h-k protecting another point and coordinate the group based on what is going on and what is need. But to win the fights those groups that our coordinated in their fights and are skills are what will be the most important in winning fights, as it boost the chance to taking out the targets giving more opening to win points

You don't want to end up on the same server as me lmao, we both know how toxic things will end up. As enjoyable as it would be to crush you I have to think above my own goals and desires.

Mag7spy wrote: »

You are not talking chess lol

I actually literally am.

A common tactic in chess is to make your opponent think you are planning something in one part of the chess board, when really you are using that as a distraction so you can set yourself up in a different part of the board.

You want to say the micro decisions people make in small skirmishes as a part of larger scale PvP matter. The thing is, this can ONLY be the case if the outcome of that small skirmish matters to the larger fight.

This is the point I am making. If the fight you are in doesn't matter, the decisions you make to try and win that fight also don't matter.

The really amusing thing to me is that you gave an example of exactly the kind of thing I am talking about as being the reason why PvP is so predictable;

Anyone can say team a-c protects this point, team f-g is flex - team h-k protecting another point and coordinate the group based on what is going on and what is need. But to win the fights those groups that our coordinated in their fights and are skills are what will be the most important in winning fights, as it boost the chance to taking out the targets giving more opening to win points

If this is the kind of direction you are getting in a PvP setting, then yeah, this is predictable, your guild will be easy pickings, and no micro decisions anyone makes will matter.

Honestly, if this is the best your guild has to offer in terms of leadership, our respective guilds will probably never be in a position to fight each other.

I want to highlight that the epitome of a decent pvp team is the ability to fight outnumbered and still win. I think this I'd what Mag refers to in micro management and I'd agree.

Also, I agree with Noaani when Noaani stated 8 vs 12 draws people from the main fight. It boils down to the same parameters though. The ability to hold the ground and defeat enemies when outnumbered. Again comes down to micro rather than macro.

Neurath wrote: »

It boils down to the same parameters though. The ability to hold the ground and defeat enemies when outnumbered. Again comes down to micro rather than macro.

It depends.

If you are holding ground that I want, sure. On the other hand, if you spend all of that time with all of those people holding ground that I made you think I want, but actually don't, that is a win for me. That is what I meant by chess vs checkers - I made you think I was going to make a play in one area, but really all I wanted you to do is spend your resources fortifying the wrong area.

You can win the actual localized PvP, but still lose the fight - because the fight that mattered happened somewhere else.

This is a concept I expect you to be able to understand better than Mag, to be honest. Nothing specifically against him as a person, but with most of his gaming being fighters, it is easy for him to forget that the actual fight may not be something he is even involved in. All he sees and understands is the fight in front of him.

Keep in mind though, when I say most PvP is predictable, it is purely because most PvP leaders do not do this kind of thing.

It entirely depends on the fight objectives. Most people wouldn't head for dead ground just to fight people who hold the dead ground, thus, the tactic can be a dodgy one because you could weaken your main force for little gain. Then you have objective ground which comes under the remit of what we discussed. However, few leaders will dispatch their best fighters to fight elsewhere when the main fight is the fight that matters. In such circumstances either both sides would send a diversionary force or one side will waste time/players trying to create a diversion which won't divert anything.

Neurath wrote: »

I want to highlight that the epitome of a decent pvp team is the ability to fight outnumbered and still win. I think this I'd what Mag refers to in micro management and I'd agree.

Also, I agree with Noaani when Noaani stated 8 vs 12 draws people from the main fight. It boils down to the same parameters though. The ability to hold the ground and defeat enemies when outnumbered. Again comes down to micro rather than macro.

Glad you are picking up on it but he doesn't. He is talking about surface level, I don't want to get into arguing about shot callers and him not being able to predict them too much work and pages for that. So i try to make it clear between the elements of action combat and micro managed he can't predict what people will do, let alone talking about larger wars with even more going on.

Granted he thinks pve where things are set, can look at guides, have experience doing it, know what mobs do that that content is suddenly not predictable therefore takes more skill than pvp lmao.

Noaani wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

It boils down to the same parameters though. The ability to hold the ground and defeat enemies when outnumbered. Again comes down to micro rather than macro.

It depends.

If you are holding ground that I want, sure. On the other hand, if you spend all of that time with all of those people holding ground that I made you think I want, but actually don't, that is a win for me. That is what I meant by chess vs checkers - I made you think I was going to make a play in one area, but really all I wanted you to do is spend your resources fortifying the wrong area.

You can win the actual localized PvP, but still lose the fight - because the fight that mattered happened somewhere else.

This is a concept I expect you to be able to understand better than Mag, to be honest. Nothing specifically against him as a person, but with most of his gaming being fighters, it is easy for him to forget that the actual fight may not be something he is even involved in. All he sees and understands is the fight in front of him.

Keep in mind though, when I say most PvP is predictable, it is purely because most PvP leaders do not do this kind of thing.

You are talking about basic strategies that aren't going to work in a war and you are the one trying to say people are predictable lol. If you are fighting people with lack of experience yes it will be easy to control people.

I look forward to seeing your pvp clips and leading wars in the game and hearing your shot calling. You will have no excuses not to\, i look forward to seeing you think basic strategies are going to work against more experience pvp guilds that know how to manage, and their micromanaged can beat your numbers while being confused and not able to predict the gameplay of players and their skill.

Me saying a ton of mmorpgs pvp and PvP focused, war and siege related, tons of other games shooters, rpgs, etc. Then him saying i play mostly fights playing one fighting game lol?

@Neurath Please tell me you see the issue here with someone makes assumptions and says how things are when that isn't true. Yet is here thinking he knows about pvp lol? Legit is just talking thinking things he is saying is fact without being backed by anything but him just saying it just cause.

Neurath wrote: »

It entirely depends on the fight objectives. Most people wouldn't head for dead ground just to fight people who hold the dead ground

Sieges, guild wars and probably node wars in Ashes will have secondary objectives. These secondary objectives will likely have multiple means to achieving them, but don't actually need to be achieved.

On the other hand, a secondary objective could be the main objective players have, even if the game tells them it is their secondary objective.

Perhaps my aim in a node war is actually just to destroy your nodes stables in order to prepare for a siege in a few weeks, rather than stealing an artifact or what ever else. However, you don't know what my goal is.

I assume I need not say more.

Mag7spy wrote: »

Me saying a ton of mmorpgs pvp and PvP focused, war and siege related, tons of other games shooters, rpgs, etc. Then him saying i play mostly fights playing one fighting game lol?

Yeah, this is about the same as me playing multiple PvP MMO's and you then saying I am a PvE player because of one game I played.

Again, checkers vs chess my dude.

That said, I am a little surprised you even picked up on it this early, I was expecting to have to make the comment one more time before you did.

Yeah, I know there will be secondary objectives, but I've never seen secondary objectives make a siege victory. Secondary objectives are often there for extra bonuses or rewards.

If you can't take the node or castle, then secondary objectives are still considered to be dead ground. However, if a secondary objective is to destroy a foundry, for example, then the secondary objective had a real-world effect. I'm not sure what types of secondary objectives there will be.

Though, if your siege goal is to stop the metal workers, then the destruction of the foundry can be considered a minor victory even if you couldn't take the node. Really, secondary objectives are like runner-up objectives. Primary objectives should have a dedicated effort, and most leaders will focus on primary objectives.

Neurath wrote: »

Primary objectives should have a dedicated effort, and most leaders will focus on primary objectives.

This depends on the larger plan.

Lets say, for example, that there is a scientific node leveling up faster than I want. I want my node to be the local metropolis, but I want a scientific node to be a city level vassel.

If I successfully siege that node, it will be destroyed. If it is the only high level scientific node in the area, that goes against my plan.

If I initiate a siege or node war in order to slow the nodes leveling down via achieving secondary goals though, that may allow me to meet that goal.

I could say similar about guilds. Assuming guild wars allow me to remove the ability for members of that guild to do *something*, I can use that as a basis for dismantling the guild over time. Why try to kill the guilds players when you can just work on killing the guild?

I've yet to play any form of PvP event in which there isn't some form of secondary goal. It may be an actual in game goal, or it may be something else that just happens to be going on at the same time - but there is always something.

I'm not sure you can destroy anyone without primary objectives completed. Most of a guilds wealth will be in castles or freeholds now. Can't hit freeholds until after a successful siege but can damage a castle.

I think a guild war is your best bet but I'm not sure you can destroy a freehold in a guild war. You can destroy a guild Hall though I think. My main plan around guild warfare is to declare a siege against a castle and then raid the tax caravans.

If enough tax caravans are hit then the siege would go ahead full bore. If not a token force would distract said guild for an hour or two. Really guild wars will be better than a node war in my opinion.

If you want to hamper or destroy a node then primary objectives would be key. You could claim victory from secondary objectives but you'd face contestation and possible mockery from the defending side. I think total destruction would be the only viable victory condition for nodes.

Neurath wrote: »

You could claim victory from secondary objectives but you'd face contestation and possible mockery from the defending side.

Perhaps this is the difference between you and I.

I wouldn't claim victory or defeat until the end. If I am looking at a secondary goal as my target for the day, the plan isn't to have victory or defeat on that day.

In fact, if my plan for the day is to meet a secondary objective, my rivals claim of a win plays in to my hand somewhat.

Story time for you.

In the game I am playing at the moment, my guild and I destroyed an alliance recently by working out where there was a small rift between the guilds, letting one side of the alliance absolutely stomp all over us, and then demolishing the other side. One side of the alliance said they needed help with us as we were causing them problems, the other side said "what, those guys? They are absolute shit". A week and a half of gentle prodding later, the alliance was gone.

This is just one example of why winning or losing the fight isn't actually always winning or losing. This particular example had a secondary goal that was absolutely not a part of the game, not something other players would ever have thought was out goal (really? You wanted to lose? sure thing, my dude), but the end result had a greater impact on the server than any win or loss in PvP could ever have - and that was our plan from the very beginning (to be fair, we were all a little drunk when we came up with the plan).

Perhaps this is due to us all coming from a top end PvE background where we would look back at the end of a nights raiding, see 12 pulls, 12 deaths each, no kills, no loot, and yet consider it a sucessful night. We "grew up" on the notion that a fight isn't always won or lost in the moment.

Perhaps the reason you and Mag can't see what I am talking about is because you don't have that perspective. You seem to both look at a loss as a loss, as not achieving what the game tells you is the primary objective as a loss. You both seem to assume there needs to be a winner at the end of the day, rather than the end of the month, or the end of the year.

I'm not sure about the above, but it seems very much to be the case.

However, none of that is what I was talking about in regartds to secondary goals when I was talking to Mag. An example of what I was talking about with Mag could be me sending people to a different part of a castle or nodes walls with some siege engines. Am I attempting to set up a second potential entry point, or am I bluffing in order to get you to divert resources? If I am bluffing, if I don't really care about trying to breach the wall in that location, any peopole you send in are you wasting resources, and any decisions they make are meaningless in the larger picture of the siege as a whole.

If you send in a group of 8 that are able to successfully prevent my group of 12 from breaching the wall in that location, the net result of that is that I took 8 of your better players away from the real fight, for the low low cost of 12 of my worst players (siege engines in Ashes are not likely to need a lot of PvP skill to operate).

Well. I wouldn't bother with the breaches until breaches occur. If there are a lot of breaches then the secondary defensive line would be in operation and the walls would be abandoned. There is no need to fight on the enemy's terms when you can fight on your terms.

A hard block in the second line can hold out almost indefinitely if the core is present. If the core is not present it matters not where the stand takes place. I have not seen the map layout outs for the live game yet. I don't know if the maps from a1 will be used in live game.

I once destroyed a guild called Thirteen by a campaign of stating Thirteen meant their ages. No pvp required and Sun Tzu would be proud. In a game with pvp xp you would not want half your force levelling the enemy though. Pvp levels would only make the enemy stronger in the end.

Fortunately ashes has no pvp experience and I don't think there are death penalties associated with the pvp sieges these days either. The scope for sick pvp is excellent. I never mentioned loss, I only talked about victory as victory conditions are predetermined.

To a very rich node, the loss of rank 6 to rank 3 might not be a real loss if the market and freeholds are still intact for example. There are so many perspectives on what is taken to heart and what is shrugged off. Learning curves and death spirals are faced by pvp players too.