Instanced PVP (Arena and/or Battlegrounds)

Greetings!

Like many others, I have been following AOC for years and am beyond excited for everything it has to over. However, I wanted to bring up a concerning issue I have.

For myself, I love both PVP and PVE content but I play PVP far more than anything else in an MMORPG. I read that AOC is primarily going to be open world content so there are going to be incentives for engaging with other players during events and what not. However, does this mean there won't be any small scale PVP that you can simply queue into or visit an area that is dedicated to small scale PVP? My favorite content happens to be 1v1 & 2v2 combat and it would be a bummer to have to only rely on stumbling across another person in the open world. I am perfectly fine with queuing into an arena/battleground or visiting a colosseum type area in which this type of thing can occur.

I would love to see a dev forum/discussion on this to see what direction PVP will be going in for AOC!

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AirborneBerserker

Noaani wrote: »

Pyrolol wrote: »

The bulk of that game was subject to PvP

Hard no.

The bulk of WoW - in terms of play time, gear progression and developer effort - has ALWAYS been its instances.

This has been the core design philosophy since it's inception.

In early WoW, players on PvP servers could spend the bulk of their time PvP'ing, but the bulk of the game was never subject to PvP.

Ba row. @Pyrolol WoW was NEVER focused on PvP. There was no "bulk" part of that game that was about PvP, ever. Rated BGs didn't get implemented until WoD, literally 5 expansions in, 10 years no Rated BGs. Battlegrounds weren't in the game on release. Hell Arenas weren't added until TBC 2 years after launch.

There was more dev time spent on Raids in Vanillia WoW then the first Decade of PvP development.

Pyrolol

No, RBGs came back out in cata, literally the following expac, i didn’t bring up vanilla so don’t see why that’s relevant here? There was rated BGs in vanilla mind you? So don’t know why ya said that (remember High Warlord title?)

I wasn’t comparing apex legends to WoW at all, was saying about those specific 3 BR games are the same genre and took the good ideas off each other (was just an example of how games can take other ideas off games and incorporate it in their own way), Was using this comparison to WoW and AoC not WoW and those games?

This balance arguement gets me everytime, i remember debating this with Kingddd. If WoW has never ever balanced all of their classes, how has their arena worked for the past 18yrs? Its because its team compositions, and patch notes that apply only to that segment when you step into the Arena and un affected to ow and pve

I agree with the 1v1, it should atleast be 2v2 because won’t a cleric vs cleric or tank v tank just be them running from each other til one gives up 😂

I did hear devs discussing scissors, paper, rock but wouldn’t this come down to skill and a bit of luck? You can dodge abilities in this game and counter, stun, silence and sleep? This creates avenues in counter play

Also, do you not remember how good the Isle of Queldanas was in TBC? There was OW non stop there and Arena (both can exist together and still be healthy amount of participation)

There’s dodge mechanics in this, would love to see how that changes the dynamics of Arena, doesn’t matter how OP a class is if you can outplay them or they can’t hit you with skillshots you can win
I don’t see the problem? Like all multiplayer games there will be a meta and it will shift every now and then just the way multiplayer games are especially in competitive play

Pyrolol

Sorry the quote function is bugging but in response to this

“We'll get to test instanced pvp at some point in P3, but only after a ton of other systems that are more important than "sit in my little room with my little enemy, hitting each other"

My Idea was, in the Alpha you can do events that are PvE based where you kill x amount of goblins or Highwaymen and you get the chest reward for example. I was saying why not throw in a PvP event in the same format? Could be something interesting that might entice some good PvP action

Ludullu

Pyrolol wrote: »

My Idea was, in the Alpha you can do events that are PvE based where you kill x amount of goblins or Highwaymen and you get the chest reward for example. I was saying why not throw in a PvP event in the same format? Could be something interesting that might entice some good PvP action

I mean, caravans are literally that. You fight people and then you get a "chest" with goods.

Having a separate pvp event would require addressing the already present issues of the caravan events. Healers outside of the event healing participants, respawn points in relation to the location of the event, point counting, lvl disparity, rewards in the context of purposeful throwing (can't happen in pve stuff) and just rewards in general, cause god knows we've had issues with that shit even in the normal pve events.

And literally all of that is useless WHEN PEOPLE CAN JUST FLAG UP AND FIGHT EACH OTHER WHEREVER. Or just go to the permaflag zone and fight there.

AirborneBerserker

Pyrolol wrote: »

No, RBGs came back out in cata, literally the following expac, i didn’t bring up vanilla so don’t see why that’s relevant here? There was rated BGs in vanilla mind you? So don’t know why ya said that (remember High Warlord title?)

Okay 7 years, that doesn't change the fact that when you are prioritizing the bulk of your stuff comes first and things you aren't focusing on comes after. You don't wait 7 years to add something like RBGs if WoW had BGs, Arenas, and RBGs on launch you could argue there was somewhat of a split. But, they had NONE on launch and some of those features didn't come till YEARS later, that means they are not focusing on PvP and its definitely not the "bulk" of anything.

Pyrolol wrote: »

I wasn’t comparing apex legends to WoW at all, was saying about those specific 3 BR games are the same genre and took the good ideas off each other (was just an example of how games can take other ideas off games and incorporate it in their own way), Was using this comparison to WoW and AoC not WoW and those games?

Which is fine, but the statement that Apex was the first to do it isn't true. It wasn't even the first FPS to do it. Pretty sure it was Battlefield 2 (released in 2005) had a medic load out that could heal hurt squad members and res them.

Pyrolol wrote: »

This balance arguement gets me everytime, i remember debating this with Kingddd. If WoW has never ever balanced all of their classes, how has their arena worked for the past 18yrs? It's because it's team compositions, and patch notes that apply only to that segment when you step into the Arena and un affected to ow and pve

Which is true, but what is the affect it has on the game. Cata removed most builds in the game by restricting people to a single skill tree being filled in before being able to branch out. They did that because they needed tighter control over the build variety. That allowed them to bring all the classes much closer in power so you could have multiple team comps be viable.

Pyrolol wrote: »

I agree with the 1v1, it should at least be 2v2 because won’t a cleric vs cleric or tank v tank just be them running from each other till one gives up 😂

I did hear devs discussing scissors, paper, rock but wouldn’t this come down to skill and a bit of luck? You can dodge abilities in this game and counter, stun, silence and sleep? This creates avenues in counter play

That's the thing if you want 2v2s or 3v3s you need a much tighter hold on the build variety, you need the classes to be very close to each other in balance to have any kind of competition. Not having that tighter hold on the build variety means only certain comps work. This game isn't doing that which means Arenas wont work on a fundamental level, and they will be dominated by one or two comps. Which is a problem because now people that want to win in arenas will be forced to level classes they aren't interested in. Which wouldn't be a problem in an ARPG where getting to max level takes a day or two, but when were talking about 400+ hours to level plus time to gear up it becomes a very big problem.

Pyrolol wrote: »

Also, do you not remember how good the Isle of Queldanas was in TBC? There was OW non stop there and Arena (both can exist together and still be healthy amount of participation)

There’s dodge mechanics in this, would love to see how that changes the dynamics of Arena, doesn’t matter how OP a class is if you can outplay them or they can’t hit you with skillshots you can win
I don’t see the problem? Like all multiplayer games there will be a meta and it will shift every now and then just the way multiplayer games are especially in competitive play

I do remember Queldanas. Know what I remember, getting corpse camped for 4 hours on the one day I was able to play the game that week, with no recourse. Never did another daily there. Not to mention all the other times I got corpse camped because I "wasn't allowed to farm X at that time", or I "stole" a kill. Just because something existed in a game doesn't mean it was good, and even if it was fun for you doesn't mean everyone enjoyed it.

The dodge mechanic is not going to make as big a difference as people think. People will just focus on one person at a time and when they run out of stamina they will get stunned and burned down.

Pyrolol

Tbc started 2007
Cata started 2011

That’s only 4yrs that was missed out on RBGs and only 2 of the expacs, which just meant there was more 5v5s happening during that period anyway. RBGs were in Vanilla end game, that to me is classified as on launch, Arena came out the very first expansion after in TBC

Battlefield 2 (great game) wasn’t a BR and don’t even know what firestorm was 😂. I did not say FPS, I did say BR (Battle Royale) genre, and it was the first to do for a BR mode inclusive of ranked BR which started in season 1 with a ranked mode. PUBG (the first BR game) even added that later aswell and the team mate rezzing and also respawning too.

In Cata, they reduced the skill tree which made everyone pretty much have the same build and if you didn’t you were at a disadvantage, it didn’t make it more balanced, what they did to achieve this was make things more burstier, remove mana burn and drain mana talents so games no longer was about mana and an MS game, it was just pop cooldowns and something dies in 30 seconds and if they didn’t they would run until CDs came back if you played at high rating you would know all of this. It was a horrible expansion and there was a reason a lot of players quit. This is the same expansion Blizzard became a sell-out

Please, can you understand that the entire dynamic changes due to the movement abilities added in AoC, this now adds avenue for outplaying, cd management, skill shots to hit, stamina spending, dodge rolls, blocking, mana, LOS and positioning… (I haven’t even mentioned archtype spells/abilities yet). Movement alone can be the tipping of the scales, when added in an Arena format that would make this skill cap much higher and now “unbalanced” arch-types will be required to use more skill. At least give AoC the chance to do there confirmed 3v3/5v5 Arena before trying to protest it

I will once again reiterate that Blizzard are the worst at balancing classes and yet the Arena was running strong for almost 2 decades, you just made it work with what you had

In regards to Isle, i remember getting guildies to help out and vice versa turning that place into a mini warzone, that’s unlucky you had a bad experience in OW, guess that’s why open world PvP is never balanced

blank0666

The idea of areana's sound good at first... then you start thinking about player power and rewards.
should the areana only reward cosmetics? should it reward at all? should it reward with poweful items?
if so, what's the point of open world PvP? you can just get good at instanced PvP and wipe the open world with the powerful gear you got there. you didn't engage with the general community, you just grinded in some instance and got good gear.
that sounds more like a WoW thing. I am hoping this game is more about the open world.

part of what excites me is the consequeces of engaging players in open PvP. if you want to be known as a PvP player, you go and do that in the world itself. you need a cohesive team, and that drives a social network into grinding their gears.

maybe you killed one too many players from an opposing node and now they hunting you down... maybe you are recruited into a group wanting your services and willing to pay you for protecting their caravan... that's way more fun then just creating a magical box realm to fight in.

Pyrolol

Wouldn’t that same argument be used for farming dungeons for gear though? Both would require a team to farm with? Literally same thing except one you kill monsters and the other you kill other players

If you go to the Arena link and have a read
Says just titles and cosmetic rewards only

I also started a discussion about all this last year to work a good compromise, if you want to have a read and see the different ideas and different perspectives here it is

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/58885/the-arena-thread/p1

WoW is not the only mmo to offer Arena

So does
New World, Lost Ark, Tarisland, Throne & Liberty, ESO and down the line AoC. WoW was just the first one going back to my original point made here of other games incorporating their own versions of systems from other games.

Having a 3v3 or 5v5 team can also create social interactions, playing as a team and winning, ive made heaps of friends purely from the Arena. OW can get stale and sometimes daunting, hence why it wouldn’t be a problem to have both to break things up doing something different that’s not objective based for once and test your skills in a controlled environment

Again, I will say that’s all good and well that it might not be your cup of tea but it is other people’s and I can’t understand why we can’t have both? Unless this is a dead game it’s definitely viable to accommodate these systems for end game content and have them not affect each other. Some people enjoy casual gameplay, some people enjoy a competitive ranked ladder system and pushing their classes to the limit, it’s just the way it is

Ludullu

Pyrolol wrote: »

Wouldn’t that same argument be used for farming dungeons for gear though? Both would require a team to farm with? Literally same thing except one you kill monsters and the other you kill other players

Instances are not meant to be farmed repeatedly, so farming arena would not be the same as farming instanced pve
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Instancing
Instances not intended to be places that can be farmed repeatedly.[7]

And obviously instanced arena is nothing like open world pve, because it's a fully controlled and potentially abusable place. L2 had arenas with quite a tangible reward and guilds would go hard on rigging fights and giving their best members the best rewards.

Any instanced content should, at best, reward cosmetics.

AirborneBerserker

Ludullu wrote: »

Pyrolol wrote: »

Wouldn’t that same argument be used for farming dungeons for gear though? Both would require a team to farm with? Literally same thing except one you kill monsters and the other you kill other players

Instances are not meant to be farmed repeatedly, so farming arena would not be the same as farming instanced pve
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Instancing
Instances not intended to be places that can be farmed repeatedly.[7]

And obviously instanced arena is nothing like open world pve, because it's a fully controlled and potentially abusable place. L2 had arenas with quite a tangible reward and guilds would go hard on rigging fights and giving their best members the best rewards.

Any instanced content should, at best, reward cosmetics.

That only works if there are so few people queueing up that you can predict who your going to be fighting. On top of that it's a violation of TOS. So, ban everyone that participated.

Noaani

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

That only works if there are so few people queueing up that you can predict who your going to be fighting. On top of that it's a violation of TOS. So, ban everyone that participated.

Banning players is not a remedy to poorly designed game system.

Any time a game developer bans players for something in their game, they need to alter their game to make that thing not able to be done any more.

Thus, if you are saying an action in game should be bannable, then you actually need to assume that action won't be possible in the live game - or you assume the developers are ok with players doing it.

Hardrubbish

I'm not the biggest fan of small instance arena-style PvP
But I've always loved the idea of them putting in a full-on Colosseum in the nodes or maybe just the military nodes and using it as a live-action event so people can come in watch and put on bets in-game on the outcome.
that way if you want to do the small PvP you come to that city go in some kinda holding area and wait your turn to vs other players.. its just my dream though

Pyrolol

Ludullu wrote: »

And obviously instanced arena is nothing like open world pve, because it's a fully controlled and potentially abusable place. L2 had arenas with quite a tangible reward and guilds would go hard on rigging fights and giving their best members the best rewards.

Any instanced content should, at best, reward cosmetics.

Is this about win trading? Agreed should be a bannable offence

Parkerino wrote: »

I'm not the biggest fan of small instance arena-style PvP
But I've always loved the idea of them putting in a full-on Colosseum in the nodes or maybe just the military nodes and using it as a live-action event so people can come in watch and put on bets in-game on the outcome.
that way if you want to do the small PvP you come to that city go in some kinda holding area and wait your turn to vs other players.. its just my dream though

This is also already in the design, for Mayoral candidates

Though I don’t know if you can spectate the actual Arena through this interface, if you have a read on the wiki about the Arena concept it’s all there in detail.
Competitive Arena will be different to the Mayor’s election one.
My dream is for a ranked 3v3 Arena mode with a ladder to climb

Ludullu

Pyrolol wrote: »

Is this about win trading? Agreed should be a bannable offence

How exactly would you determine that though? What's the measure of "throwing the fight"? Is it the number of abilities used? The speed of that action? Is it the movement in the arena? Who's supposed to track all of that and determine "ah yes, his movement in this particular moment was SUS, so he definitely threw the fight!".

Is it just about people from the same guild/alliance? What about meta-guild that operate from discord, but have guilds of different names in the game? Are we supposed to somehow track that as well?

All of that stuff is too damn messy, which is why I agree with Noaani's last comment and which is why I say that any instanced content should only reward cosmetics. And then, if the server culture deems it required - they can spit on the ones who used win trading to achieve said cosmetics. But at least the game as a whole will not be influnced by that.

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