What makes for good PvP?

What is your most memorable PvP moment?

Mine came from playing on PvP-servers (or as PvP-flagged) in PvE-centric games. Why?

Arranged PvP is like a match of paintball between coworkers. Even if you manage to get involved, it still feels arranged. Especially with the oh-so gentleman-style handshake post game. Like a sports match.

The PvP moments I remember, are when problems were solved with the pointy end.

Conflict occur for reason - and you decide to solve it then and there. Western-style justice. Emotions and all.
It simply feels good!

Do you think good and memorable player on player battles can occur under curated conditions? Or are these skirmishes and battles best when they occur naturally? What are your thoughts on the matter?

Sidenote;
PvP has nothing to do with griefing. Griefing is the conscious act of being an asshole, regardless of server ruleset.

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Uboon

Dopamine
PvP feels good & rewarding when there are good PvE and PvP reasons & rewards for doing so. In AoC the PvE and PvP reasons, risks and rewards all revolve around node control, and hence synergistic PvX gameplay should emerge! In other words, everything from gathering to wars revolves around node control, and this will give us that oft-quoted but illusive 'meaningful' gameplay that we have been promised by every MMO since EQ.
Adrenaline
PvP feels good when there are unpredictable moments, unbalanced encounters and unscheduled events building excitement, danger and unpredictability. I a note sure what random and unexpected PvP moments will arise in AoC, apart from a spot of bother from the occasional corrupted.

Sjelden

Veeshan wrote: »

Unpredictability, simply put i enjoy pvp especialy open world pvp becuase it makes the world unpredictable, pve games are incredably boring to me since there so predictable.
PvP especialy open world pvp is unpredictable and not always fair so getting jumped or sneaking up on somone gets the blood flowing to either escape or come out on top, those tend to be more memorable moments when you overcome the odds either winning a fight your outnumbered or escaping a zerg, or getting a big score or loosing one these tend to have more emotional responses which makes them more memorable and an experience.
Mindlessly pveing/grinding without a care in the world is just boring because no threat or unpredictability where developers have tried to make the most "fair" PvE experience by removing thing like mob trains, high level mobs from zones or any form of possible unpredictability that can occur the zones and gameplay feel so ridgid and predictable.
Everquest for me has beed the best PvE experience for me for some reasons below
- Same level mobs didnt mean same difficulty there was like 5 difficulties (Easy, normal, hard, difficult and im gonna fk you up) not all lvl 25 mobs were the same in strength
- Mob patrols (still exsist in some games to date not as common though)
- trains mobs didnt leash so you had to be wary of mob trains to the zone, player would usualy shout it in chat so u knew to get out of the way but sometimes they couldnt.
- High level mobs in low level zones
- factions and reputation for mobs most mobs had a faction that reduced and increased faction with other mobs for example killing enough guards in a town might actualy make mobs dungeons not KoS to you cause they like you killed the guards Also some cities had corrupted guards which if your not carful might become KoS to you and wack you in town (Non corrupted guards would also assist the corrupted guard aswell because they dont know better)

All in all the older games PvE wise felt more alive/living world than the current ones on the market which seems to have deleted the living world elements to make the game convient for more players.

Completely agree!

Sjelden

Voidwalkers wrote: »

I think the major difference between "encounters" and "arranged fights" (arena, battlegrounds etc.) is the former usually feels like a "live-or-death fight", while the later feels like a "sports game". The emotions you invest into them are just different..

Good analysis!

Voidwalkers wrote: »

That being said, satisfying "encounters" are usually hard to come by -- given that in an open world environment, the attacker usually starts with multiple advantages and the fights are rarely fair:
- attackers start with element of surprise
- attackers generally pick targets that they perceive to be weaker / "beatable"
- attackers are usually far more prepared (attacking using "pvp builds", in games where such thing exists)

And so you often end up with one sided wins, or the other party just runs or evades you (if they can), or you're forced to yolo yourself into an unwinnable fight out of pure boredom. (Basically sums up my Eve Online pvp experience)

This is my experience as well, and is usually rampant during the early days of a new game/server, when people are leveling up. Some leverage the level difference as much as they can. Over time, most players reach the level cap, and "only" skill, gear and numbers seperate players.

During the early days of World of Warcraft, the jungle was a common gank spot. We used to hide a few friends behind tree's, and park a low level bait in the middle of the path. What made it hillarious, was the oh so predictable outcome.

Sjelden

Laetitian wrote: »

Azherae wrote:

I understand why scheduled PvP is a thing, I understand why 'no warning' PvP is a thing, and the current design seems to be 'building up toward benefits for the former' and 'discouraging the latter if not consensual'. I'm looking forward to Caravans and Dungeon clashes the most because those are the perfect 'inbetween' for me.

I totally get that, and there's a realistic chance that will be how Ashes turns out. I just think there are many additional options that should be explored to make the game more engaging and meaningful for PvPers.
For example, if you wanted to make sure you discourage non-consensual "no warning" sieging: Why not make non-consensual outpost sieging opt-in, and confer a certain non-trivial, but still dispensable benefit to those (mayors/guilds/node citizens) who allow the risk (because they feel confident they can muster up the defences in time)?

Seconding everything else you've outlined.

I find your discussion interesting.
My first thought going through the early posts was how MOBA vs MMO in some ways are comparable to Planetside vs Counterstrike.

Counterstrike is a fixed number of players fighting for control in a limited area with (mostly) predictable movement patterns and conflict zones, whereas Planetside is more chaotic in nature.

In my initial analysis of your discussion, I thought the same would apply for MOBA vs MMO.

Personally, I would believe a "less rules, less restrictions" approach would benefit the game. This kinda touch on a slightly related topic; Do you create a game for everyone that noone likes, or a game for a few that they will love?

My confidence in this project has been tied to Stevens statements about avoiding to appeal to everyone.

However, building a niche passion project for the minority group, also means passing up on (seemingly) greater profit. A trap many MMO developer (or publisher) studios have fallen victim of.

Fantmx

It occurs only when it needs to and has clear reasoning behind it to make it feel meaningful.

Dolyem

Yay for paintball reference. That's my jam.

As for PvP experiences. My most memorable PvP moments were

1. Back in vanilla WoW, starting fights 1v1 or 1v2 in Hillsbrad foothills, and over the course of an hour or 2 it would escalate into an all out war pushing back and forth between Southshore and Tarren Mill. It's by far one of my favorite WoW memories, and it happened very often on my server naturally.

2. Guild Wars 2 WvW, back when they had their original buffs before they made stability stacking. It was near perfect large scale PvP. I was in a guild where we ran in a 15 to 30 player deep group, usually around 20, and we would hunt down massive zero groups of 50+ and outplay them. It was so much fun having so much cohesiveness with my guild, allowing us to take down groups far larger than ourselves. And I'll never forget using death from above on my warrior (you deal damage and knockback in an AOE when you land from a high enough jump) onto a cliff edge on top of a group I saw flanking us, and knocked half of them to their deaths because it was before they nerfed it.

3. Twinking in WoW. While it was mainly fun to play in battlegrounds, it was also fun to run out to hillsbrad or STV as a 19 rogue and fight level 29s. I made a bit of a name for myself, and I even added a bit of RP, challenging enemy faction players, allowing then to decline the duel if they wished.

4. And of course, I loved revenge killing enemy players who interrupted my gathering runs. Fighting for resources made it far more interesting they running in a circle efficiently.

And in regard to curated conditions. Technically Ashesbif Creation is curating many conditions to incentivize world PvP. Just because it isn't a capture the flag battle ground doesn't mean it isn't curated by the systems in place to promote conflict between nodes and players in the open world.

Sjelden

Dolyem wrote: »

And in regard to curated conditions. Technically Ashesbif Creation is curating many conditions to incentivize world PvP. Just because it isn't a capture the flag battle ground doesn't mean it isn't curated by the systems in place to promote conflict between nodes and players in the open world.

I guess a clarification of "arranged" and "curated" is in order, thank you for pointing that out.

When I speak of arranged and curated PvP, I was mainly thinking of 1v1 duels, or arena/battleground type of instanced combat between two groups of equal numbers, like capture the flag type battles.

A caravan is forcing players trying to move goods into a pvp-active enviroment, with incentive for both attackers and defenders to engage in pvp and win. Higly curated, but not neccessarily arranged.

A castle siege, while not arranged, is certainly planned. I guess AoC is looking to cover all bases.

Raven016

Vaknar

CROW3 wrote: »

Open world pvp. Swift kicks over steep cliffs make me happy.

Something so satisfying about an environmental kill 😈

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