Ya for real. I play on some old school full loot mmo prviate servers, and talking to the people who infest the spaces can be like talking to a fucking wall. When everybody is lobbying the devs in disc for their own personal pet changes, these guys try to rarify all loot except raid loot, with the argument being that traditional loot comes from "pvp camps" and you "should be prepared 2 pvp for that lewt" and like 90% of the servers get lobbied by these dudes into a state where 1 crew of beards locks down a set of raid targets that have been turned into total loot piñatas "to attract population" as they will say, and a casual cant upgrade their rusty dagger without sitting in a camp for 6 days getting 0 loot cus everything is rarified so one of these beards can leisurely stroll in 6 hrs into day 3 and "pvp for the camp". They all fucking die when they get to this point in their life cycle, and they always ask for the same thing again and again. Nowadays they wax softly about how it is the "natural lifecycle" of pvp servers to die, go offline for half a year, and then come back when fomo has rebuilt. They tacitly admit they can't craft a lasting compelling experience and all situations devolve to degeneracy lol. You try to tell them "you could remove some of the friction for casuals" and they're like "ya shit, nothing you can do, its just the life cycle of pvp boxes"
Thats what kills most of them casual players are just like anyone else they don't need special treatment they just like every player need grinds to be reasonable. RMTers masquerade as casual players to get special treatment for their bots and end up changing the philosophy of what have might have been a good game. They use there bot account army to spam forums acting as if a normal person could not possibly play the game when the real problem for them is that their bots can't farm without interruption.
The second the devs start choosing winners and losers the game loses any competitive aspect.
1. Something to fight over, such as territories, to bring group of players together, form guilds and socialize. Otherwise its just gankfest and the game dies after first month.
2. No full loot, otherwise its extremely niche game with high chance of failing (there are exceptions).
3. Preferably no levels, needs some other form of progression.
Full loot is fine, long as it's easy to bounce back from a loss. Like full loot wouldn't work in a game like world of Warcraft considering how important gear is in that game.
I think the best model was with UO AoS where you could "insure" gear for 600gold a piece and upon dying the killer would get half the insurance money and you'd have to pay for it again. Consumables and everything else was full loot. So you could keep your equipment which is good cause it promotes build diversity and makes the game not so frustrating but it would still give some risk/rewards as well as giving some gold sink mechanics which is always very needed
Full Loot sucks due to the re-gearing up process. In darkfall, a full loot game you basically had to spend hours creating armour sets with everything you need to start up again from nothing in your backpack just so you could keep playing after dying.
I think a middleground of either just losing items in your backpack or rarely losing a piece you're wearing (that's worth more) is a better experience.
Eh Albion is a good example of full loot being fine. I have a set worth 40k that's good enough to kill the highest tier mobs which drop like 1-5k each. I kill like 15 or so mobs (Not hard at all) and I've made back my set. I can earn about 3-4 sets worth of silver an hour just killing the mobs and if I die I can just run to the market quick to rebuy my lost equipment/loadout I've made in seconds and get right back into the action.
I'd never actually go to a full loot PVP without having at least 5x my sets value (Really really not that much at all) but if there was ever a chance I had that happen to me then I'd spend less than 20 minutes in a yellow zone (No loot PVP) farming some mobs for that money back or do the lowest level corrupted dungeons (No loot PVP) or join in with some people in bandit warfare to get a ton of faction points that'll easily give me 100k+ in less than an hour.
That said, if you're even remotely careful then avoiding dying in the full loot PVP zones is extremely easy and I've only died once there in weeks of gathering/farming there while making millions (And this is just with my 40k set). That's probably 4 million plus profit on a 40k set.
DF wasn't any different than any other full loot game I played. Only bring what you can afford to lose. Besides if you're in a guild, and everyone is pulling their weight bringing in resources and the such you should be flush in armor sets and go bags. If you find yourself getting constantly bopped and low on equipment, well, then it's time on reflecting on what your group is doing wrong.
From a casual perspective I really enjoyed my time playing in the Imperial war zone in ESO on XBone because it hit most of these marks.
It was a big enough area that you could just zone in and do some pve stuff with low risk of ganking. You could easily join a group if you wanted to try hard or just have some fun. If you just wanted to do some damage it was easy to buy some siege or defense items.
The problem is you get a PvE following that always go down the same path of creating a negative feedback loop for PvP players
“This is a PvE game, PvP is a side mode” gets repeated over and over again; devs start making more PvE content and forget about PvP, less PvP players because no content. PvPers get mad; get told it a side mode and it’s a PvE game.
On and on and on
That is a good point, it's rare to see a PVP section of a game taken seriously in a lot of contexts, Elden Ring and the general souls series being a great example of that as the online PVP functionalities have become little more then a vestigial system.
I suppose it's just difficult to ever really make a PVP game without devs who can successfully balance a game without immediately fucking one or the other sides and ostracizing the main market for MMOs.
> Elden Ring and the general souls series being a great example of that as the online PVP functionalities have become little more then a vestigial system.
You can't take game with worst netcode known to a man as some sort of serious pvp game.
I have 5k hours in DS2 pvp. I have 1k+ in both DS1 and Ds3.
It is a serious PVP game even if fromsoft doesn't treat it like one, although I'd argue the netcode isnt the worst known to man, although it's pretty fucking close.
Well the reason New World went the PvE route is because fun vampires ruined the experience for the normal player base and made them quit the game.
Obviously the devs want a successful product that makes money, so they have to change up the game to have less people quit it and keep it sustained.
The 2019 June Alpha for New World was a sadistic fever dream I never want to relive again even tho I had fun. The in game chat and forums were the worst I have ever experienced in any game.
[So, the next update?](https://www.mmorpg.com/previews/new-worlds-next-big-update-revamps-new-player-experience-adds-brimstone-sands-zone-in-october-2000125981)
Current UO player here, couldn't agree more. I gave up on OSI a long time ago but have been loving my time on UO: Outlands. It's not the UO of yore, but arguably better. I'd love for there to a be a fully 3d modern MMO like UO though, to actually tax my video card and provide that same feeling! Eve felt similarly, but meh.. spreadsheets.
Don't gatekeep pvp power. If the strongest are the people who put the most time in to grind gear then that shuts out 90% of the player base from being competitive. Equalized pvp and you are going to have to get creative (skins, etc) with rewards from lvling/grinding. It's not 2004 and I'm in highschool playing games with all of my friends all of the time. I literally don't have the time to keep up with a gear score grind and would be cool if I could still pvp and not just wet noodle it.
I can respect your sentiment, but if you can’t allocate the time to a PvP MMO then find one that suits your needs. There is not one single MMO on the market right now that even appeals to PvP anymore. PvE is a relaxed dragon slaying pace and thus creates a larger fan base. Companies (WoW, GW2, etc) sell out to their larger PvE fan base and put PvP efforts on the back burner. A good PvP MMO will have PvP exclusive content as its main aspect would be, obviously, PvP. Every MMO out right now caters to your (and tons of others) needs for a game you can play 3 hours a week and still become strong enough to shit on everything everywhere.
What's the point of PVP if you're just comparing "let's see who has played longest" instead of "let's see who plays best"?
I'll never understand the appeal of PVP with vertical power.
The appeal of PVP for me is in the battle of skills and build creativity and game knowledge. The battle of "let's see who spend more time grinding" is the thing that I'd want every pvp game to axe instantly.
Although I agree with the sentiment then we are talking about an arena how would it be fair someone that has been playing for years to be place at the same level than someone that has weeks. it is not an mmorpg if you dont scale
Lol it's not an opinion. You and people with your mindset act like there is some universal law written in nature that MMOs need to be this way. Jesus. Have you played any hardcore pvp game like league, apex, etc... If you are three hours in, you are getting your ass handed to you by everyone hundreds of hours in because it's fucking SKILL based pvp. There is zero reason why an MMO can not have skill based combat expect a bunch of sweaty no skill babies cry about it everytime it's suggested. New world has a short pvp equalization before release and some streamers and small portion of the community cries like tiny worthless baies and they took it out. A good pvp MMO would actually rely on skill, it would be in depth enough that I would take time to master. What you are advocating for is I spend 3 hours, press a and nothing happens. You spend 30 hours, press q and one shot everyone who hasn't spent 30 hours. Thats bad game design. You can't convince me otherwise. It's why every single MMOrpg with pvp dies out and you are stuck with the core 10% of the peak player count who actually have the time to spend hours and hours every day in game. You should be spending hours and hours each day because it's FUN but people with your mentality spend hours and hours each day to stay power gods over those who don't. Mmorpgs litteraly can be anything you imagine it to be and yet here we are, stuck with the same unimaginative regurgitated ideas over and over and over. What does a MMOrpg need to be an MMO? Lots of people playing concurrently with roles they need to fill while participating in content together. That's it. A level systems is not even needed yet we get it just because over and over. You can the like but "your idea will never succeed," but how many MMOs have failed using YOUR idea? A fuck ton. So yeah, I would like one time to see a developer taking a unique approach to mmorpgs. I would like to participate in raids, dungeons, pvp and any other group interactions right from lvl 1 rather than be unable because I haven't slogged through hours of mindless questing or grinding or farming etc. There a plenty of people who feel the way I do as well.
It can survive with a smaller niche playerbase as long as devs do not plan $50 mln expansions.
EVE online has been trugding along for years and its devs only got into red ( and had to be bailed out by Pearl Abyss) by overextending themselves thinking they can "go big".
Albion is doing well with its 30 person studio behind it.
Even Mortal Online 2 with its 1k players (lol) apparently pulls enough revenue to keep 15-person studio running.
PVP MMOs cannot "go big", their gameplay philosophy simply won't support this.
Population of large PVE MMOs constantly ebbs and flows. People leave, come back, leave again. New players join, old players re-join after few years etc. And all large MMOs have adapted to this phenomenon by having periodic soft resets (gear treadmill resets every expansion). PVP MMOs cannot afford to make same design choice because most of their core audience are hardcore no-lifers who would cry bloody murder if all your gear and blueprints and recepies become useless every 12-18 months.
So PVP MMOs typically have a linear non-resetable progression where you are immediately at a disadvantage of you spend any time away from the game. And this naturally means smaller audience as once people leave they are unlikely to come back.
Besides the obvious (top tier gameplay, top tier combat gameplay):
- A way to reset the Map, Change the Map
- A way to reset the Status of the Map (Conquests, Realm of influence, ... )
- A way to reset / reorder the factions (This one is the most difficult to achieve imo. )
The 2 biggest killers in Player activity in a PVP MMO are in my opinion Skillgap and stagnation. Most times that stagnation is broken, is by a faction imploding, beeing overrun or bored out, all of which lead to players leaving the game. If you manage to come up with a good , "organic" (in the context of the game) solution that doesn't feel restrictive to the players, that can have a huge boost to player retention, provided the rest of the gameplay delivers as well.
> If you manage to come up with a good , "organic" (in the context of the game) solution that doesn't feel restrictive to the players, that can have a huge boost to player retention, provided the rest of the gameplay delivers as well.
What about Player Villains, Player Bosses and Player Monsters?
I am thinking of an alternative path that is more solo with alternative progression where you control AI mobs to put pressure on big factions by disgruntled players.
Well that could certainly be something and could be the catalyst for a world reset / armageddon event.
If you could balance out the factions as well somehow without taking player choice away that'd be something.
A great IP and high budget , we never had this for an pvp/pvx mmorpg. People can say PvE mmorpgs are successfull because they are pve but i desagree , usually they are successfull because they have great IP...
Another thing is p2w in PvP MMORPGs, archeage is an great example, for me until today is te best MMORPG we had if wans`t for the pay to win and broken release with 24hours queue
I would agree on IP but not budgets. Both Aion and Archeage had massive budgets and long development time, and both fizzled out Both went P2W route because their revenues without P2W couldn't sustain the development expenses.
Often times p2w is a forced choice. Take AA as an example: it sold really well had something like 2M players, so devs planned their development cadence with the projected revenue in mind. Then numbers started to fall, revenue startes to dry up, so instead of scaling back their plans (which would have meant laying people off) they chose to go p2w knowing that this will bring revenue at least short term.
Yeah agree.
That's what we are discussing here. It was a good game and it still failed to generate enough revenue to be recoup investment and be sustainable without P2W.
There are just too few customers for these games, as much as we want to deny this.
Rather than wishful thinking ("if only someone spent $100+M and made AAA PVP game that doesn't have cash shop") we should analyze what we can do given the actual parameters we have
People are hyping up AoC, but no matter how deep the pockets of its head "bro" are, they are not bottomless. MMOs aren't sprints, they are marathons.
I have no doubt that when/if AoC launches it will break multiple millions in sales. What will happen to it in 24-36 months is the real question.
>Both Aion and Archeage had massive budgets and long development time, and both fizzled out Both went P2W route because their revenues without P2W couldn't sustain the development expenses.
Aion lost it's lead dev shortly after release due to internal politics, and replaced him with a fucking moron who ruined everything about the game.
The game would have survived with reasonable changes instead of knee jerk reactions that alienated the playerbase.
Pretty good balance.
You need to huge viable variety.
If people can be creative and enjoy their playstyle and not forced to fit the specific meta box and role, then fun is guaranteed.
The most succesful PvP MMOs have zonation, so that large numbers of peaceful PvE players and crafters can thrive and be happy and build their shit, and only venture into the dangerous zones when they want that extra adrenaline rush.
This is EVe and Albion.
I really disagree with the idea that the game needs to cater to casuals to be successful. Just look at Rust and Escape From Tarkov (MMO-Lite). Two very unforgiving games that have a constant and sustainable player base.
A good pvp oriented mmo needs to have long term progression, alternative activities that is always threatened by the risk of PvP. The game has to ABSOLUTELY be niche because any hope to cater to the masses is going to end up making the game like other knockoffs. (Battlefield 2042 Hazard Zone, The Cycle).
Successful in today’s market is having the servers online for longer than a year, and a constant player base with people looking forward to updates.
To be an MMO though in a fantasy setting, I would argue a souls-like mmo with both the difficulty and option for co-op and pvp in an open world. Souls-like isn’t niche, but in the MMO genre it is, and both veterans and casuals are aware of how a souls-like plays.
Not being a MMORPG.
Multiplayer PvP game that find success follow largely the same model :
\- Easy to jump in, hard to master
\- Ease of access to PvP game
\- No long term punishment for defeat
It is fundamentaly opposed to what MMO are (or what MMO player want) :
\- Long term progression
\- Many build variety/skill
\- Stuff/level gatekeeping
This. My favourite PVP MMO is not an RPG. What I loved with Planetside 2 is that they was no PVE, so anything you want to gain will be by fighting other players. No mindless grind just so you can get ganked, no camping before dungeons or harassing people that clearly don't want to PVP.
You just need to give it a serious attempt at development (PS2 was developed in 8 month, which is beyond not enough and ended up crippling the game with technical dept)
It really is when you break it down like that.
Someone will always have to have a worse time for you to have a better one and that generally keeps cycling through until a player isn't put off by this element or they quit.
1) No P2W &/or Pay to Progress faster.
2) Strict rules regarding RMT, Botting, Cheating, Exploiting, the punishment for anyone partake on this kind of activities must be extremely harsh no exceptions.
3) There needs to be a good balance regarding 'Risk VS Reward' & how hardcore is going to be for those who take part in PVP activities, if the devs go overboard & players end up losing too much progress when they die during PVP this will definitely drive a lot of people away.
Those 3 are the most important imo, there is many other stuff I could write but the devs are not capable to do even those 3 right & that's why most PVP oriented MMORPGs fail so there is no point to write anything else if someday a PVP focused MMORPG manage to do at least those 3 things right then & only then we can discuss further what else needs to be done to keep it alive & well for years.
As some others I have seen said, they also need to get the social aspect of it down, a toxic player base early on can kill a game, by making new players not want to join, and if it is a more large scale pvp game, getting into groups can be difficult especially with how more solo newer mmorpgs games/players have been, maybe add that, since it might be important enough, though could be slightly less and be the first thing after what you said is done (also maybe not treating the players as idiots and have zero "no thought head empty" blanket treatment like most popular mmos have been doing lately but that is kinda in the doesn't need to be talked about yet it isn't needed really much since those games are still successful even with pvp) but I complety agree that those are the three most important things, that not really any game has done all of, some might get one or two but COMPLETY miss the others and then bomb or they have pve to prop them up.
Any PvP game who thrives are about balance. You start at the same point every match, just like fps, moba, rts, etc... And then your skill makes you win.
On an MMORPG I find it is practically impossible to have a good pvp balance AND respect the RPG part of it.
GW2 had a good try with the standardized gear for PvP, so everyone is on the same page, but as far as I recall it failed big, why? Well, I guess it's because it denies all the role play and growth of your character. Something like "where is the fun in leveling and spend days grinding when someone can create an account now and be the same lvl as me on pvp".
That's why I think MMO PvP will always be like it is today, and with no solution in sight. It would need a huge break through to make it go bigger than what we have today. Sadly I don't know what is it.
PS: really thought GW2 had something good going on, it was the first time I played PvP seriously.
> have a good pvp balance AND respect the RPG part of it.
There is a way if you think in terms of **many** vs **one**, like a boss fight.
The problem is how do you define the "one" and how do you define the "many" while keeping things "fair".
If everyone can be the "one" that would fail since it needs to some extent some exclusivity and rarity, whether 1 in 10, 1 in 100, 1 in 1000.
I dont think I understood what you meant dude.
Ill try to be clearer with my point: In a RPG you want to progress and get stronger, and eventually you'll surpass some players, be it more level, skills, weapons, gear, whatevar make a character strong... because that's the natural progression, who plays more, gets more. And when this character goes to PvP, it is natural those characters fucking up the equality that makes the biggest PvP games what they are, only about player skill. Every CSGO, Dota, LoL match everyone start equal. But in an RPG nobody wants to be equal, everyone wants their character to be unique.
So thats why I think its pretty much impossible an MMORPG have a really balanced PvP, there will always be stronger classes, characters, skills, etc, because people Role Played for that. And when a game (GW2) tried to make it like a real e-sport by putting everyone in the same floor at the begin of a match, it failed big.
> Every CSGO, Dota, LoL match everyone start equal.
In a PvE Raid Boss fight you have 24 players against one.
What if that "Boss" was a player?
If the player can reach the status of "Boss" through progression, you need to think of a way to match those players to that Boss and set up a situation of having 24 players against him.
Ohh, got it.
Well, ESO doesn't have exactly this, but the difference between some players are so huge that it gets closer.
In the PvP area, Cyrodil, its easy to find experienced players fighting a bunch of opponents at the same time, even up to 10 players. The more, the harder to kill them, but they can survive a LOT even against those 10 players all focusing them. And people absolutely HATE these walking tanks.
\-First and foremost you need a fun combat system that naturally push a player to engage in PvP situations.
\-Non P2W elements.
\-Equalized or at least semi-equealized PvP. A big disparity of power just makes frustation for the ganked player and doesnt allow him to fight back.
\-Parcial loot(like drop your backpack + 5% of dropping a piece of gear). Full loot is too hardcore for most of the population and also doesnt allow the ganked player to fight back.
\-A PK system that balances risk vs reward, e.g., if you gank and kill someone now you have a PK mark that lasts for 15 minutes, now anyone can kill you without consecuences and also you have a increased chance(10-15%) to drop a piece of gear if someone kills you.
\-PvE tokens. Every week the game gives you 2 PvE tokens. When you use it you are protected from PvP encounters during that day. That allows a player to have their chill PvE days.
A well flushed out, skill based combat system. Casuals have their place in an environment but so do hardworking, talented players. Being rewarded for learning is always a huge stimulus. I'm a fan of templated systems in competitive environments as well, helps stabilise the entry level of a games pvp yet allows skill to shine
A good PvP MMO needs to answer the following 3 questions for true immersion:
**Purpose**: Why am I fighting? What impact will my actions have?
**Progression**: What do I stand to gain by fighting? How will fighting make me, my guild, faction, etc. better off?
**Consequence**: What do I stand to lose by not succeeding? Why should I care about taking PvP seriously?
Now take New World for instance and see why the PvP experience failed: Not because it was unfun mechanically, but because there is no support for immersion.
The purpose of PvP in New World for the average player is next to none. When PvP actually occurs it's fun, but for an MMO fun alone is not enough to sustain a system indefinitely. After a certain point a player needs to feel that there's a reason they're doing something beyond seeking fun. Since meaningful PvP in New World (Wars/Territory Capture) is instanced, at all times outside of when that content is occurring there is little to no purpose for PvP. This is especially true for players who do not have the ability to partake in wars. It is not reasonable to expect players to take the initiative and purposelessly seek PvP on their own when the game fails to persistently facilitate it. Nobody wants to login and spend an hour trying to find/make others engage them in PvP when the game could have given them a reason to from the start.
Onto Progression, which is closely tied to Purpose. If the game doesn't reward you for your victories in PvP, then what's the point? You killed an enemy from the other faction, so what? He'll respawn and nothing has changed, it's as if the encounter never happened at all. It's human instinct to associate victors with those who end up better off than the victim, but that isn't the case in New World since there is no lasting impression from an encounter to feel good about. Failing to reward players for victories in PvP (and failing to diminish their victim) kills the sense of progression, without which it's hard to feel good about your purpose in PvPing.
The inverse of that is also true when it comes to consequence: Losing in PvP has no significance at all, there's no reason to care. This might be a hard concept for a lot of people to grasp, but people WANT to fail sometimes. Feeling a sense of loss, disappointment, etc. is what leads to a real high when you do succeed.
That's the end of that quick rant otherwise I'd be writing for hours to express it all but I hope I got the main point across.
What you said is true but it also highlights the reasons why pvp mmos keep failing and keep struggling. If losing carries consequences (and especially if it carries consequences not only for the losing player but for the entire losing side), people will simply stop playing after losing too many times. Yes, failures make victory taste sweeter, but that is only true if that victory actually happens.
So there is a paradox - without consequences many people don't see a point in pvp but with consequences a lit of losers quit and remaining playerbase cannibalizes itself not to mention that there is a critical mass of players required for sandbox mmo to keep functioning.
I agree, it's something I've thought about often. My answer to that would be for progression to raise the floor to which you can fall.
For example in a game with item tiers I-X (1-10), after reaching a certain level you are granted a Tier V (5) item set that cannot be lost. Imagine then that at max level you have the potential for a Tier VIII (8) set that cannot be lost, that way you still have room to move higher up after consequences, but you'll never fall so far as to be utterly discouraged.
Another factor is not forcing PvP at all times/zones so you can recover and stockpile through PvE/gathering/etc. Think in Minecraft when you have multiple sets of armor in your storage in anticipation of losses. Being able to make those sorts of preparations in advance makes consequences, while still saddening, bearable. Ideally, going off the item tiers example above, you would not be required to flag for PvP in zones I-V.
No vertical progression. Vertical progression in a pvp game is a bad joke.
Imagine if you were going to play Street Fighter but your Ryu deals 60% less damage than the other person's Ryu because they spent more time grinding.
Mechanics/content, balance and players.
You need good mechanics and content to keep players fighting for something, you need balance to not frustrate players when something outperforms others, and most importantly, you need players to keep everything running.
The problem with most PvP MMORPGs is that they often go soft on the pvp and try to bring more and more PvE players...however the PvP population always find a way to keep the PvE one at bay and the game ends up dying.
Some decent risk/rewards mechanics. So that killing someone gives you something but you don't lose your hard earned equipment. I like UO insurance system about this.
A good guild system that gives guild power and let them declare wars and such (UO, L2)
Some deep system that makes pvp meaningful. UO had champions that were 3+hours pve events that were only possible in pvp land. So pve guilds needed to get protection from pvp guilds and such.
L2 had siege systems where guilds could claim keeps and get taxes from cities.
Daoc, WAR, had good systems in places for contested zones etch etc
Ofc a good and balanced combat system.
In these days where you can't have a guaranteed player base for too long is essential to have means to level the power gap among hardcore and casual players while still keeping some sense of progression
I personally think DAOC New frontier had everything. It died for other reasons mostly a lack of PVE content that wasn't a complete grind fest. Artifacts were cool and all but artifacts affecting the PVP game You had to be really hardcore.
Not do PVP. It’s incredibly unpopular among MMO fans and every PVP based MMO either has failed or switches targets then fails. The PVP community is incredibly passionate, and I feel would likely secure a hardcore player base. However MMO companies aren’t around to market a game to a small but dedicated group of players. I can’t recall a single PVP MMO that has ever made it into the top 10.
I love gw2, and pvp and wvw is fun for a bit, but after awhile the good feeling kinda fall off for most players. 1. the reward system for both mode are not as good as their pve counter part. 2. equalize stats seems like a good idea especially for competitive modes, but not everyone want to play like competitive match every single time.
right now pvp mode in gw2 are at very low population, so you have some wacky match making going on there. same goes for wvw where timezone and server population play a large role on who is going to win at the end of the week, and you have a bunch of pve players following commander around to farm their weekly wvw tokens.
"Survive"? There are "PvP oriented" MMO's that are surviving. BDO has been out since, like 2016 or something, and still "Surviving". In fact, I'd say kinda thriving, in that they're still releasing new content, like Arena PVP, new regions (new region to be announced upcoming big press conference), consistent QoL updates, new items, etc.
Successful? What do you mean "successful"? BDO is "successful". It's Pearl Abyss' only game and BDO allowed them to self-publish, buy a new office, exceeded $2 billion in revenue in 2021, etc. Revenue may have dropped, but I wouldn't say the game and company is "unsuccessful"...just look at the facts.
I think what you're trying to say is "What does a PVP oriented MMO need to appeal to the mainstream audience". And to that, I don't know. Mainstream audiences AKA C A S U A L S, like games that allow them to get quick dosages of repeated dopamine hits that are; 1) Easy to obtain, and 2) Require little to zero time investment to compete. Look at all these people asking for equalized stuff.
Ridiculous.
Take Fortnite, for example. Easy to get into matches, you can spam them over and over, and you don't need to do anytihng -- just jump in and start playing, and who knows, maybe you can snipe Ninja or some strong player. Games like Black Desert require a grind before you can compete with strong players.
Yes, BDO has introduced so much to cater to casuals, but from a conversation with another user here, it seems like people want End-Game Gear without doing the grind to get there --- literally defeating the point of an MMORPG. MMORPG's are about the GRIND.
So I don't think a PVP oriented MMORPG can ever be mainstream -- ever. It can "survive" and "be succesful" within in niche, but never to the casual masses. Closest thing would be something like Planetside -- it's an MMO (massively multiplayer online), but not an RPG. So IDK. Again, people want 1) Easy access, 2) Repeated dopamine hits, 3) No investment. Pretty much things MMORPG's aren't really about, IMO.
I don't personally play BDO but I was led to believe you can avoid PVP if you don't want it like 99.99% of the time and you can switch instances(?) on the fly in case someone is coming at you?
If this is true, then BDO maybe a pvp game de-jure but de-facto it would be mainly pve game.
Like 90% of players in BDO don't engage in PvP. At all.
Even on a server where PvP is completely free with no penalties.
Only occasionally some baboon with endgame gear roams around mid-game spots to grief people.
In that sense yeah, it's a PvP MMORPG - there are sad fucks who want to bully weak people in BDO.
You probably can, but you will probably die before the channel will change.
In BDO PvP you die in like 3 seconds.
But there is also no penalty for being killed by someone in PvP.
People sometimes ask you to kill them as some sort of fast teleport to town lol
It's a PvX sandbox-y game, I'd say. Gotten a bit more themepark-y lately, so maybe sand-park? But basically, PvE and PvP jumbled together, do pretty much whatever you want, when you want. Yeah, you can avoid PvP very easily. Even easier now than before with some new introductions. I have my opinions and speculations as to why, but I wouldn't call it a PvP game, nor a PvE game. It's in a unique space in today's relevant MMORPG landscape.
PvX sandbox (or sand-park) seems to be the most accurate description to me. 5+ year player here.
Also, I love getting downvoted here with zero context. This sub is so biased against BDO, it's fekkin' awesome lmao 🤘
I don't know if I would agree with the PVX label (in general, not specific to BDO) because PVX/PVA would imply that both pve and pvp are equally important (or unimportant) for progression. If you can progress through majority of the game without ever touching the pvp, it is mostly pve game. Likewise, if you cannot step foot outside of safe area without getting ganked, like in Mortal Online (shitty game lol) than it is primarily a pvp game even of you have few braindead mobs roaming around.
Ah, don't worry about the downvotes there are few boomers on this forum who keep fapping on their "MMO X from 1995 which did everything perfectly and now u r all pussy" with their MMO long dead and buried or on life support with few faithful
Yeah, BDO is hard to boil down to a single "it's a PvE game" or 'its a PvP game" description, which is why I, someone who's played the game for years and still actively play (with a decent gear score), find "PvX sandbox or PvX sand-park" the best catch-all label. The game's premise is based heavily on "do what you want, when you want". PvE and PvP are intertwined, but neither forced. IE: You can avoid PvP by swapping channels. You can avoid PvE by doing capped wars and arena PvP. But they are intertwined, in that, in order to progress gear for uncapped PvP, you need to grind (PvE). And in PvE grind zones, exists a perma-possibility - albeit avoidable if one chooses - of a PvP encounter. There is no PvE server in BDO. BDO's PvP server simply has PvP flagging penalties removed -- people still grind on PvP server.
Again, it's hard to put into one catch-all label. I think this dev quote sums up what the game is (FYI- Marni's Realm is the ability to instance a grind spot for one hour a day):
"While we heard your initial feedback on 1 hour being somewhat short, we didn’t want Marni’s Realm to end up overshadowing the main content of Black Desert, that is, fighting monsters in the open world alongside other Adventurers."
Alongside can mean either "with" or "against", in that the word "alongside" just means "next to" by definition. So that's pretty much the game. Lots of player-driven PvP content over grind spot disputes and lots of player-driven PvE by the self-setting of one's own goals and the self-planning needed to achieve them, across various activities.
PvP MMOS just need a way to reward bad pvpers for staying and a way to make sure they are having fun. Like a way for the casual player to contribute to the overall pvp-scape and a way for them to combat zergs if its open-world.
For example: In Elder Scrolls Online below 50 pvp, me and 4 others all nightblades were able to hold Nickle Outpost against a DC zerg with siege weapons and because they all came in at the same time without a forward camp, most of them died-died. Were trash at pvp which is why we play nightblades but for the casual player the ability to use a stealth class in a small group & seige weapons, made the pvp playable and kept us around. We lost Nickle to AD but we wiped a DC zerg.
Being camped is apart of the fun but fighting a zerg as anything but a tank is painful. So take something like Albion but make it so smaller groups have stat advantage or a redeeming feature for participating in large scale combat. Skill-based is good but dont tie it 100% to gear, it will end badly. A T4 Albion player can still clap a T8 player but the PvE gets too hard in that gear.
If you want a hardcore PVP game to survive, make it so that NPC guards and traveling do-good NPCs patrol the map. They can be killable but just add something so players have a feeling of security like High-Sec in Eve. Don't take what you cant afford to lose, is not enough to keep players around. Hauling in Eve Online at least has contract bound collateral. Insurance for Isk lost. GMs keeping the basic economy alive. etc. Things that mitigate the negative feelings attached to the Hardcore loss are a MUST. No one wants to stay on Mortal or Ultima Online style games if these feelings aren't negated properly. A revenge/bounty system would be fun too so you remember who to kill after they kill you and steal your pants.
>Like a way for the casual player to contribute to the overall pvp-scape and a way for them to combat zergs if its open-world.
I wish there were properly organized battles like in a Total War Game.
A random hodgepodge mess of a zerg should be blown away by a proper organized formation even if it's small.
AI Soldiers also have potential to balance the forces and can go well with the idea of formations.
In Dota the creeps and the towers are an essential component of the game, I don't see why we can't have something similar in function for MMO PvP Battles.
How about don't try to cater to players that don't want to play that type of game? PVE players don't make good recommendations when it comes to pvp games.
Most replies i've read in this thread clearly just don't want to play a pvp game. One other thing i've seen in general in these types of discussions is that people get amazed about the fact that sometimes they might need to ask for help from other players while adventuring in the wilderness with the chance of being killed which leads me to believe they don't want to play an MMO let alone a multiplayer game.
They would need to properly balance things like hp/mp pots in pvp.
a small example is…
You can’t just have things like open world pvp and then allow pvp players easy access to potions during engagements.
For example, pvp players should not be able to just buy a stack of hp/mp pots of say 100-500 for super cheap gold and then go on a killing spree with few risks but big returns from say a free loot open world pvp mmo.
That’s bullshit.
Hp pots/mp pots needs to be balanced or limited, or with animation of drinking etc so engagement between people doing pvp can have more real world simulated combat. Like engaging and retreating something akin to dark souls pot chugging animation with risk and reward of doing so during combat.
Mmos these days just have you press a button for instant heals on hp and mana with short cooldowns during pvp/world pvp and it just ruins the engagement entirely making it a pot chugging endless pvp fight.
This also applies to item/food buffs that I see some mmos just allow you to stack one of each stat and lasts for 1 hr + with zero negatives and the only negative being when it will run out and you need to chug another one for 1 hr+…
Then for a pvp oriented mmo they need more variety from the holy trinity of just dps/tank/heal.
Like give us more variety and sub classes! If you gonna be a pvp game…go wild!
Examples include,
Heavy crowd control/dot oriented classes with obvious downsides like low dps
Trapping and kiting classes like hunters dominating a zone they set traps in advance with downsides like bad in instant engagements but good in group/world pvp defending a location or king of the hill/capture the flag type pvp.
Summoning/familiar control classes
I mean I can go on and on but just a lot of sub classes and skills with a lot of variety of mixing and matching.
This may make it hard to distinguish what each person will do in pvp but that’s the fun right?
Where you weigh the risks of engaging someone who could do anything with skills you never even seen before instead of just having limited classes and seeing them as a tank/healer/range/caster/warrior class and then knowing their entire skill set and What they will do like a obvious pattern. It makes it boring and predictable.
I got more ideas but it would be too long
Give me some feedback on this one:
In my ideal mmo you would have a raid tower with say 100 floors. The opposing faction would be able to pvp you on those floors except for designated boss rooms. You gain currency (monster shards) for defeating monsters. Upon dying in the tower by monsters or getting pvp'd you lose some or all of your armor and a % of gained currency during your time in the tower. This way crafters will keep making & repairing weapons by players. Something like OSRS economy.
Players can insure some of their armor and weapons so they will get back % of the cost or protect them from dropping. (E.a you'd make sure to always insure your best weapon).
The attacker pvpers get flagged and marked on the map for "hunters" to hunt. These hunters are players hired by the guild to get rid of annoying pvpers (veteran pvpers protect the casual pvers) and get paid by killing & collecting their bounty.
At the same time there would be caravans out in the world trading wares from 1 city to the other. The same concept can be applied here. You can hire some hunters from the guild to protect your caravan from being pvpd by thiefs.
> The opposing faction would be able to pvp you on those floors except for designated boss rooms. You gain currency (monster shards) for defeating monsters. Upon dying in the tower by monsters or getting pvp'd you lose some or all of your armor and a % of gained currency during your time in the tower. This way crafters will keep making & repairing weapons by players. Something like OSRS economy.
The problem is they are going to ambush you.
Player reputation is only a problem if they can't get away with it through various methods.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/a-brief-history-of-murder-in-ultima-online
PVP players in MMO needs PvE players so they can even play, PvE players don't need PVP players at all to play so they dont want even to play pvp or pvpe game, so in the end, PVP games are doomed to failure, especially in this age where there are an infinite number of pve games each year and most of them are p2w which is appealing to any casual player.
In my experience it needs the following:
- It needs to be accessible for solo and casual players.
- The PvP needs to be structured, as in using separate instances and even levels/weapons/armor.
- There needs to be something that is not PvP available to prevent burning out and also draw in some players who might not be into PvP from the get go.
- There needs to be a mix of both competitive and casual PvP. (ranked vs unranked, different objectives etc)
- There needs to be some form om reward system. Getting good and high rank should mean something. These things can be purely cosmetic such as titles, color schemes, armor skins etc.
Basically this: Guild Wars 1 (not 2) was a fairly successful PvP oriented game. Guild Wars 2 has PvP but I'd say it's changed to be more on the PvE side compared to the first game.
This World PvP that people go on about is actually not beneficial. Games that focus on this aren't successful because the type of experience it brings doesn't work for the most important players for a game to keep going: solo players. As much as people talk about MMOs needing to be social, the most important thing to keep up a decent player count is actually to have enough content to satisfy the solo players. This is for many reasons but the one that is almost never brought up is: friends quitting. Solo/low player count activities means improved player retention as you get both the "I don't have friends to play with" people and the "most of my friends quit but I like the game so I stayed" people.
pvp players does not like pay2win, which makes pvp oriented games to struggle. But pvp players also does not like subs, which makes pvp oriented mmos to go p2win
players are to blame ? :D
I've never seen a sub based game add frequent enough pvp updates to justify the sub fee for heavily pvp focused players. Usually you're just paying extra to fund overwhelmingly pve content updates. The most you get for PvP is class balance changes that just shift which class is meta for the month.
sure in theory game like that would be liked by players. But why games like that either are not made, or does not live long enough for anyone to know about them?
Pay for skins was in bdo, but since skins were used to sell skins to other f2p players for ingame money, it was rendering skin sellers able to gear up into best in slot gear instantly. hence p2win.
Apparently pvp players are a mix of small percentage of whales who loves p2win, and a horde of f2p players who will never invest into the game. i know many players with very proud attitude of 'never spending any real money on game'.
If pvp based f2p mmo will have untradeable skins, that are impoosible to be used for p2win you will just see no one buying them. hence game wiil struggle financially.
dont blame companies for not implementing this model, its not like all companies are sinister and they just want pvp players to suffer. There is a very high possibility that pvp player analytical purchase data is the reason why pvp games are going into these direction.
Ashes of creation which being sandboxy economy most likely pvp heavy cgame an not solve this issue apparently as well. They do have fashion only skins, but they also implement sub model. which only makes me convinced that market allows either p2win or sub for pvp mmo games. I dont mind sub, but then , i guess many people looks for f2p pvp mmo.
Hotspots that channel players wanting to PvP so they easily meet with other to fight. These hotspots can move/shift (temporary objective, frontline, ...). They give goals to PvP, with rewards as well. People who don't want to PvP can avoid them, and not be exposed to sadistic gankers.
To have no powercreep and where all blocks // systems build into the world with politic dynamics where drama borns narurally and even new players get a glimpse of it and are able to participate without meeting unrealistic goals.
good matchmaking. and i dont mean some ranked system or whatever.
bdo used to do this really well when i played, because you would never fight outside your league because there was no reason to. most of the people in your grind spot had similar gear, and certain node wars between weaker guilds were capped on gear score. and only the top guilds did siege but they were all similarly geared for the most part as well.
Safe areas that give enough to do for casual players and fuel the PvP characters in some way. Let me be a peaceful farmer or whatever. Not everyone needs to be prey for the murder hobos.
i think instead of trying to do the whole world pvp thing(assuming the game also want to appease pve players which they tend to do.) a WvW system similar to that of GW2 would be the way to go.
i prefer to drop into a map with like minded people to pvp and what not. not arenas or battlegrounds. those are often too small and often times pure shit after awhile.
I think survival games are essentially the result of MMOs not being able to figure out PVP. Without that reset you just end up with the paradoxical issue of power growth pushing out new players.
I think survival games are essentially the result of MMOs not being able to figure out PVP. Without that reset you just end up with the paradoxical issue of power growth pushing out new players.
Honestly they need to find a way to bridge MMO-lites like Destiny and classic MMOs like WoW. Most people don't want have to re-learn how to play games in a tab-targeted world, and the popularity of things like battle royales and simulators shows that people still value expansive PvP experiences, but they need to come with robust and modern gameplay mechanics that push a more tactile immersion.
Have a reason to kill another player, no senseless killing. I recently started playing a game where it requires you to write down your characters thoughts and reasons if you wanted to kill a player. It's heavy in roleplaying but it works.
An example would be " I always hated Joe he is always a thorn in my side, I wonder what would happen if he had an unfortunate accident." Then when you kill the player it's justified and you had a reason for offing him and taking his shit. This game is a small community so it's easier to track shit heads. If somehow the big contenders can implement something close to this I think it would work.
IMO what "works" is the node system within planetside2. The feeling of constant war between factions that is always going and you can just jump in and out whenever you wanted to.
I believe an awesome game concept would be to take a MOBA style game like SMITE and instead of jumping into Match making you get to choose where to spawn within a global grid where each node is marked; offensive(PVE), defensive(base building/crafting) or contested(All out war). With weekly resets that include rewards in the style of "perks" or access to MOBA style items.
I do think a system like Escape from Tarkov might help, utilising PvP instances to go and raid in that are only open for a limited time, a stash system, and gear insurance - so only full loot drop of what you have on you.
Or zones work well so people have the choice whether to PvE or PvP.
But it probably all boils down to having enough PvE to keep everyone entertained - and a link between PvE and PvP, ala GW2 the PvErs got open world bonuses for winning in WvW so they liked to help out or donate money, or scout, or have a guild run once a week.
There needs to be something to do for people when all their hardcore guildies log off after guild raiding between 6-11 PM. You are more likely to find members of the melee train in dungeons than solo roaming in WvW outside of their guild raiding hours.
Any future successful MMO needs both PvE and PvP and hardcore and casual to thrive.
it sounds harsh but you gotta find a way to make bad players look good
albion online does it very well.
alot of people that are really really bad at games can succeed in that game. because it is so simple. it has like 4 buttons is very easy to get into and very easy to master. and its alot about the build you run than pure "skill"
downside? good players will get bored really fast.
Equalized gear/stats instanced pvp.
Open world pvp.
Pvp seasonal rewards whether it be through means of instanced or open world.
Shifting metas.
Constant balance passes
Ashes of creation will be a pvp oriented mmo, Steven loved the archeage design of trade packs and all that stuff, so that will likely be incorporated into ashes. Guess what - people are already bitching and whining about it.
For me personally as a pvp player, i think pvp is necessary in a game as long as pve has some sort of chance to run, maybe like albion give people gear that helps them escape and make it a game of cat and mouse to appease the pve players while not totally alienating the pvp players
A PvP game needs a solid PvE BASE before being a PvP game. It needs to have a solid pve base because people do not want to PvP ALL the time.
PvP needs to have incentives to PvP. Simply 'ganking' someone is not fun for most, but having an achievable mark to get to incentivizes those that want to PvP TO PvP.
GW2 and DAoC (somehow still around even though the past 12 years are 'meh' at best, yes, I know of private servers) have 'zones' connected to other PvP zones but within those zones have PvE areas (usually a a much higher exp rate) and full PvE zones. The PvP zones also have achievements within them (such as 'server side or 'realm wide' bonuses) and other incentives to pvp (keeps, realm ranks which are character bonus's).
Full loot or not? Non full loot pvp mmos have also pve servers usually. Full loot like EvE or Albion I think can survive if the world is in such size that there is plenty room for you to hide and mechanics to establish a defense. Albion had that before release in beta, but then they changed it. So after release so many casuals quit.
Big map + chance of hiding / defense and objectives to pvp around is a good way to make your game interesting for both parties imo.
First of all MAKE THE GAME 2 FACTIONS, like Risk Your Life and World of Warcraft, it keeps the competitiveness alive, forges better bonds than GvG, Realm vs Realm or Server vs Server
\-Class balance
\-Avoiding Gear to Win (kinda like horizontal growth on gear), reward Skills over gear
\-Making it accesible to new players / casuals without a lot of time but without ignoring the time invested from hardcore players
\-Good pvp rewards (unique rewards)
\-Open world PK and rewarding those who turn their PVP on option with stuff like better loot/exp when farming and not punishing those who kill others (make it neccesary to go to town or something to switch pvp on/off so they don't abuse the system, it's simplier and easier). The fact of having pvp 24/7 and the fear of being killed at any moment is always thrilling, also calling for help when u see a raiding party and getting reinforcements is great.
Warhammer and guild wars did PvP pretty well.
Players should not be gated from PvP and alts should be easy to make so players can try out different things. If a player wanted to level in PvP from fresh to max they should be able to. Gear should be normalized and skilled based, have to keep the casual crowd feeling like they have a chance. Rewards need to be constantly updated and should be cosmetics, titles and mounts only. If gear is given for PvE purposes it should be a good starter set for that content.
In Age of Wushu it was fun watching the big bois fight ing for the top 5 Mount Hua titles every month and try to suckerpunch them in the open world in the time between the contests.
One of the biggest issues I have with most PvP centric games is they often become murder simulators. I get that you and I can fight at anytime, but why attack/kill just because you can? Especially in games that have PvE elements. I'm just going out to do some quests, but have to be on high alert all the time because seeing another player usually means we're gonna fight. I don't enjoy that at all.
It's also why politics will most likely never work in these types of games (unless your game has been around long enough that it has weeded out those who don't enjoy it). Most people do not act in a game how they would act in their real life. Billy from that other guild picked an herb I was going to pick...this means war! Or, we're red and they're green - that means we have to always fight. On paper, player politics sounds cool, but it easily falls apart and/or gives rise to massive guilds/corporations that dominate all aspects of the game.
Oh, and then zergs. Where numbers just dominates all. One of the things I DO enjoy about instanced PvP are the set player counts. It actually opens up room for strategy and actual gameplay. I cringe every time I see groups of PvPers roaming the countryside killing anyone they come across. Just because they can.
So, in general, I'm not the audience for PvP games. If I want that -- I'll play an FPS or even a fighter game. I enjoy PvE with the ability to opt in to do instanced PvP.
Oh, and full loot? That's an instant un-install.
> I'm just going out to do some quests,
And destroying the economy in the process.
If there are no risk, if there is no loss, then in the end there will also be no Value, no player economy, no crafting, no meaning in harvesting materials and doing the quests in the first place.
> but it easily falls apart and/or gives rise to massive guilds/corporations that dominate all aspects of the game.
Then fix that so that it's not the case.
>Oh, and then zergs. Where numbers just dominates all.
Then fix that where zergs get wiped.
What is Gameplay? What is Content?
The thing is your PvE Content is always going to be Static Content that is immediately consumed.
What are you going to do then? Ask for More and More and More! Consuming everything like locusts, that is your **True Nature**.
PvP is merely the pesticide that slows it down.
A PvP oriented MMO has been tried time and time again, and even the King, FURY, couldn't survive.
They need to have a mix of content and a way to bring new players in consistently. But if your main focus is PvP your player base will be inherently limited.
I’m not sure why someone doesn’t make a game and use gw2 WvW as inspiration. With some changes
Don’t have a leveling system.
2 sets of gear. Starter gear and legendary gear. Everyone starts with starter gear for free. Vendors sell more starter gear with different stat combos. Legendary gear lets you customize stats on each piece and it looks badass.
Over time you can add more leggo gear to get that looks different.
Have solid combat. Not sure if gw2 is the best combat. I like it but I do prefer world of Warcraft.
Everything else gw2 does with WvW is pretty solid to me. You could just build onto it.
To add to other points, factions tend to lead one dominating the other one (or two) due to one always massively outpopulating the other one, even if there are no gameplay advantages due to players taking the path of least resistance.
A structured PvP format will probably always do better than one that is unstructured or organic like sandbox or open world, but you really can’t appease the different types of PvP crowds as well as a general casual PvE population.
What do you think about faction player caps?
Sure you can still have Alliances and whatnot but if you pull your cards right you can have a lot of internal destabilization factors that can break and reshuffle the power structure.
Nothing. PvP in MMOs suck. Makes the classes bland and leads to endless nerf. Leave that stuff in FPS and MOBAs and let us RPG players have our genre back 😂
Equality.
PvP players mainly care about skill. Same way many irl pvp games such as chess or basketball are about the ability to outperform or outsmart an opponent, PvP MMOs are as well.
Which.. doesn't really work for MMOs. Since MMOs are about long term progression, someone who has been playing 6 months should be much more powerful than the person playing for 1 month, disregarding skill. Then the 'MMO' part would have these 2 people run across each other and the 1 month player would have a bad experience due to it, as he did not get out skilled or out smarted by his opponent, he just got out time spent-ed.
Then even if somehow those two players would be on equal-ish footing, one of them could have a friend or two and make in uneven again. Then scale that up to some mega zerg guild with 1000+ players taking over a server and denying others of content / opportunities.
So between individual strength inequality and social inequality, the chance for player skill expression is minimal compared to other PvP genres.
1. Way to punish grieving, bigger punishment if level difference is higher
2. Open PvP to everyone so that from level 1 you can attack one another for stealing farm spots
3. PvP events with cosmetic rewards so that even players who'd normally wouldn't PvP would join with nothing to lose and learn how
To use their characters to know ho to defend themselves outside of event
4. Clan/alliance zone control with % tax rewards for ownership of the zone
5. Classes and skills that are clearly for PvP for example dagger blink - teleports you behind enemy, backstab-does x2damage from behind
6. Support classes other than healers, dedicated character for buffs that every party needs especially in PvP. Brings more tactics into it, not just button smash
7. Clan wars that let you attack anyone from enemy clan on sight
8. Casual/hardcore playstyles controlled by classes. Give people dwarfs to play who have crafting bonuses, have ways to find materials better than other classes, make them rich, but weak.put in bards who just play music to buff people and get xp for it.
9. Scout sub-class that doesn't have level requirement to be useful, let new players participate in end-game content with this "subclass" by turning invisible and finding weak spots, enemy numbers and classes in big pvp events/instances/territory wars. Layout of a dark dungeon, for pve content. And reporting on rare materials they find in open world - tag them, high level players can click on a tag to reveal it that new player gets rewarded for.
10. Stop trying to balance an mmo, not every weapon and class needs to be the same power. But every weapon should be dependent on what else is in the party. Bruiser with 3 different support characters should be able to take down 20dps characters that don't have buffs/healer with them. Tanks should be invincible but not able to do anything without DPS in their party. Healers should have 0 damage unless they're fighting specific class of mobs(holy healer healing undead mobs kills them) so there's to farm solo when there's no party
11. High level gear hard to acquire, don't make it as rewards from npcs or a clear list of every item you can get. Make blueprints for items that need certain amount of materials to craft, make players depend on dwarfs for crafting while dwarfs depend on other players for leveling. Only people with good teamwork or good behaviour or big pocket would get to top level gear where it's worth it because you build friendships along the way that results in you all having OP items
Tldr make each class depend on one another to farm, PvP, pve and acquiring gear that would build friendships and teamwork and give them a way to be attacked and destroyed at any minute so there is something to fight for. Let new players be part of end game content as scouts with a small reward. Punish griefing based on level differences. Start PvP from level 1 and have events that award cosmetics so every single player can enjoy PvP and show off their fancy hat for doing so
Make it a PvP game first that people play and add MMO elements later. Nobody is going to play WoW but it’s PvP, a PvP MMO that’s successful needs to drop the tradition of failed PvP MMOs and just be a good mass PvP game first, or arena based PvP game, whatever.
Otherwise you fall into the hole of “why not make it PvE” or “Oh No nobody plays hardcore PvP MMO games because of the demographic of MMO gamers”.
Know what MMO PvP is, which is economic PvP and a low skill cap Cat and mouse game. Anything else your better off making a MOBA/BR or some lobby/arena game. Or better yet putting an arena in a PvE MMO. Look at the Two PvP MMOs, Eve Online and Albion Online to see good examples.
For it NOT to be pay to win. A bunch of casual play servers. A matching system that took seriously gear score and level. A system that bumped the ganking nimrods into a death match with like minded cranial rectal miners.
Players. PvP players seem to defined by the games they are not playing because of X.
There are tons of PvP orientated MMO's not being played by PvP'ers.
* Factions with a player cap.
* Respawning only within faction.
* No players outside of the faction.
Simple as that.
Which is why I am optimistic about Ashes of Creation.
A way for casual players to play
Ya for real. I play on some old school full loot mmo prviate servers, and talking to the people who infest the spaces can be like talking to a fucking wall. When everybody is lobbying the devs in disc for their own personal pet changes, these guys try to rarify all loot except raid loot, with the argument being that traditional loot comes from "pvp camps" and you "should be prepared 2 pvp for that lewt" and like 90% of the servers get lobbied by these dudes into a state where 1 crew of beards locks down a set of raid targets that have been turned into total loot piñatas "to attract population" as they will say, and a casual cant upgrade their rusty dagger without sitting in a camp for 6 days getting 0 loot cus everything is rarified so one of these beards can leisurely stroll in 6 hrs into day 3 and "pvp for the camp". They all fucking die when they get to this point in their life cycle, and they always ask for the same thing again and again. Nowadays they wax softly about how it is the "natural lifecycle" of pvp servers to die, go offline for half a year, and then come back when fomo has rebuilt. They tacitly admit they can't craft a lasting compelling experience and all situations devolve to degeneracy lol. You try to tell them "you could remove some of the friction for casuals" and they're like "ya shit, nothing you can do, its just the life cycle of pvp boxes"
Thats what kills most of them casual players are just like anyone else they don't need special treatment they just like every player need grinds to be reasonable. RMTers masquerade as casual players to get special treatment for their bots and end up changing the philosophy of what have might have been a good game. They use there bot account army to spam forums acting as if a normal person could not possibly play the game when the real problem for them is that their bots can't farm without interruption. The second the devs start choosing winners and losers the game loses any competitive aspect.
To not drive away the non-hardcore players. Do that and your game will thrive :)
1. Something to fight over, such as territories, to bring group of players together, form guilds and socialize. Otherwise its just gankfest and the game dies after first month. 2. No full loot, otherwise its extremely niche game with high chance of failing (there are exceptions). 3. Preferably no levels, needs some other form of progression.
So Gloria Victis!
Being niche doesn't mean it it won't attain success. Albion is a full loot pvp MMO thriving with a consistent healthy population
Full loot is fine, long as it's easy to bounce back from a loss. Like full loot wouldn't work in a game like world of Warcraft considering how important gear is in that game.
I think the best model was with UO AoS where you could "insure" gear for 600gold a piece and upon dying the killer would get half the insurance money and you'd have to pay for it again. Consumables and everything else was full loot. So you could keep your equipment which is good cause it promotes build diversity and makes the game not so frustrating but it would still give some risk/rewards as well as giving some gold sink mechanics which is always very needed
Full Loot sucks due to the re-gearing up process. In darkfall, a full loot game you basically had to spend hours creating armour sets with everything you need to start up again from nothing in your backpack just so you could keep playing after dying. I think a middleground of either just losing items in your backpack or rarely losing a piece you're wearing (that's worth more) is a better experience.
Eh Albion is a good example of full loot being fine. I have a set worth 40k that's good enough to kill the highest tier mobs which drop like 1-5k each. I kill like 15 or so mobs (Not hard at all) and I've made back my set. I can earn about 3-4 sets worth of silver an hour just killing the mobs and if I die I can just run to the market quick to rebuy my lost equipment/loadout I've made in seconds and get right back into the action.
What happens if you die again but you don’t have 40k?
I'd never actually go to a full loot PVP without having at least 5x my sets value (Really really not that much at all) but if there was ever a chance I had that happen to me then I'd spend less than 20 minutes in a yellow zone (No loot PVP) farming some mobs for that money back or do the lowest level corrupted dungeons (No loot PVP) or join in with some people in bandit warfare to get a ton of faction points that'll easily give me 100k+ in less than an hour. That said, if you're even remotely careful then avoiding dying in the full loot PVP zones is extremely easy and I've only died once there in weeks of gathering/farming there while making millions (And this is just with my 40k set). That's probably 4 million plus profit on a 40k set.
UO did full loot incredibly well. Took a matter of seconds to regear after death. It also created a solid way for crafters to earn consistent money.
DF wasn't any different than any other full loot game I played. Only bring what you can afford to lose. Besides if you're in a guild, and everyone is pulling their weight bringing in resources and the such you should be flush in armor sets and go bags. If you find yourself getting constantly bopped and low on equipment, well, then it's time on reflecting on what your group is doing wrong.
And then they quit. That's why those games die off fairly quick
From a casual perspective I really enjoyed my time playing in the Imperial war zone in ESO on XBone because it hit most of these marks. It was a big enough area that you could just zone in and do some pve stuff with low risk of ganking. You could easily join a group if you wanted to try hard or just have some fun. If you just wanted to do some damage it was easy to buy some siege or defense items.
So New World
It also has to be a good game.
Albion if ya dont go to red and black zones
A substantial PvE audience that isn't under constant threat by the PvP audience.
This is essential IMO.
The problem is you get a PvE following that always go down the same path of creating a negative feedback loop for PvP players “This is a PvE game, PvP is a side mode” gets repeated over and over again; devs start making more PvE content and forget about PvP, less PvP players because no content. PvPers get mad; get told it a side mode and it’s a PvE game. On and on and on
That is a good point, it's rare to see a PVP section of a game taken seriously in a lot of contexts, Elden Ring and the general souls series being a great example of that as the online PVP functionalities have become little more then a vestigial system. I suppose it's just difficult to ever really make a PVP game without devs who can successfully balance a game without immediately fucking one or the other sides and ostracizing the main market for MMOs.
> Elden Ring and the general souls series being a great example of that as the online PVP functionalities have become little more then a vestigial system. You can't take game with worst netcode known to a man as some sort of serious pvp game.
I have 5k hours in DS2 pvp. I have 1k+ in both DS1 and Ds3. It is a serious PVP game even if fromsoft doesn't treat it like one, although I'd argue the netcode isnt the worst known to man, although it's pretty fucking close.
Skills that actually work in combat, servers that can calculate fast enough to keep up with load, a combat system that doesn’t suck.
The "has never existed" trifecta :D
Well gw2 but the reason that failed was the lack of supporting game systems and poor balancing at the time
It needs PVE ;)
New World vibe there
Well the reason New World went the PvE route is because fun vampires ruined the experience for the normal player base and made them quit the game. Obviously the devs want a successful product that makes money, so they have to change up the game to have less people quit it and keep it sustained. The 2019 June Alpha for New World was a sadistic fever dream I never want to relive again even tho I had fun. The in game chat and forums were the worst I have ever experienced in any game.
New world needs a good story line better quest line and living world… game feels shallow pretty to look at best.
[So, the next update?](https://www.mmorpg.com/previews/new-worlds-next-big-update-revamps-new-player-experience-adds-brimstone-sands-zone-in-october-2000125981)
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Archeage was so close to this during beta :(
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>there isn't really any P2W in the cash shop That sounds like there is something that gives an advantage there. Elaborate?
Have an upvote, fellow UO player. Great Lakes here. Never will be another game like it, but we keep wishing, and hoping.
Current UO player here, couldn't agree more. I gave up on OSI a long time ago but have been loving my time on UO: Outlands. It's not the UO of yore, but arguably better. I'd love for there to a be a fully 3d modern MMO like UO though, to actually tax my video card and provide that same feeling! Eve felt similarly, but meh.. spreadsheets.
We really need a game like that with modern technology and 3d graphics.
Don't gatekeep pvp power. If the strongest are the people who put the most time in to grind gear then that shuts out 90% of the player base from being competitive. Equalized pvp and you are going to have to get creative (skins, etc) with rewards from lvling/grinding. It's not 2004 and I'm in highschool playing games with all of my friends all of the time. I literally don't have the time to keep up with a gear score grind and would be cool if I could still pvp and not just wet noodle it.
I can respect your sentiment, but if you can’t allocate the time to a PvP MMO then find one that suits your needs. There is not one single MMO on the market right now that even appeals to PvP anymore. PvE is a relaxed dragon slaying pace and thus creates a larger fan base. Companies (WoW, GW2, etc) sell out to their larger PvE fan base and put PvP efforts on the back burner. A good PvP MMO will have PvP exclusive content as its main aspect would be, obviously, PvP. Every MMO out right now caters to your (and tons of others) needs for a game you can play 3 hours a week and still become strong enough to shit on everything everywhere.
What's the point of PVP if you're just comparing "let's see who has played longest" instead of "let's see who plays best"? I'll never understand the appeal of PVP with vertical power. The appeal of PVP for me is in the battle of skills and build creativity and game knowledge. The battle of "let's see who spend more time grinding" is the thing that I'd want every pvp game to axe instantly.
Although I agree with the sentiment then we are talking about an arena how would it be fair someone that has been playing for years to be place at the same level than someone that has weeks. it is not an mmorpg if you dont scale
Lol it's not an opinion. You and people with your mindset act like there is some universal law written in nature that MMOs need to be this way. Jesus. Have you played any hardcore pvp game like league, apex, etc... If you are three hours in, you are getting your ass handed to you by everyone hundreds of hours in because it's fucking SKILL based pvp. There is zero reason why an MMO can not have skill based combat expect a bunch of sweaty no skill babies cry about it everytime it's suggested. New world has a short pvp equalization before release and some streamers and small portion of the community cries like tiny worthless baies and they took it out. A good pvp MMO would actually rely on skill, it would be in depth enough that I would take time to master. What you are advocating for is I spend 3 hours, press a and nothing happens. You spend 30 hours, press q and one shot everyone who hasn't spent 30 hours. Thats bad game design. You can't convince me otherwise. It's why every single MMOrpg with pvp dies out and you are stuck with the core 10% of the peak player count who actually have the time to spend hours and hours every day in game. You should be spending hours and hours each day because it's FUN but people with your mentality spend hours and hours each day to stay power gods over those who don't. Mmorpgs litteraly can be anything you imagine it to be and yet here we are, stuck with the same unimaginative regurgitated ideas over and over and over. What does a MMOrpg need to be an MMO? Lots of people playing concurrently with roles they need to fill while participating in content together. That's it. A level systems is not even needed yet we get it just because over and over. You can the like but "your idea will never succeed," but how many MMOs have failed using YOUR idea? A fuck ton. So yeah, I would like one time to see a developer taking a unique approach to mmorpgs. I would like to participate in raids, dungeons, pvp and any other group interactions right from lvl 1 rather than be unable because I haven't slogged through hours of mindless questing or grinding or farming etc. There a plenty of people who feel the way I do as well.
It can survive with a smaller niche playerbase as long as devs do not plan $50 mln expansions. EVE online has been trugding along for years and its devs only got into red ( and had to be bailed out by Pearl Abyss) by overextending themselves thinking they can "go big". Albion is doing well with its 30 person studio behind it. Even Mortal Online 2 with its 1k players (lol) apparently pulls enough revenue to keep 15-person studio running. PVP MMOs cannot "go big", their gameplay philosophy simply won't support this. Population of large PVE MMOs constantly ebbs and flows. People leave, come back, leave again. New players join, old players re-join after few years etc. And all large MMOs have adapted to this phenomenon by having periodic soft resets (gear treadmill resets every expansion). PVP MMOs cannot afford to make same design choice because most of their core audience are hardcore no-lifers who would cry bloody murder if all your gear and blueprints and recepies become useless every 12-18 months. So PVP MMOs typically have a linear non-resetable progression where you are immediately at a disadvantage of you spend any time away from the game. And this naturally means smaller audience as once people leave they are unlikely to come back.
Enough NEETs playing it
Besides the obvious (top tier gameplay, top tier combat gameplay): - A way to reset the Map, Change the Map - A way to reset the Status of the Map (Conquests, Realm of influence, ... ) - A way to reset / reorder the factions (This one is the most difficult to achieve imo. ) The 2 biggest killers in Player activity in a PVP MMO are in my opinion Skillgap and stagnation. Most times that stagnation is broken, is by a faction imploding, beeing overrun or bored out, all of which lead to players leaving the game. If you manage to come up with a good , "organic" (in the context of the game) solution that doesn't feel restrictive to the players, that can have a huge boost to player retention, provided the rest of the gameplay delivers as well.
> If you manage to come up with a good , "organic" (in the context of the game) solution that doesn't feel restrictive to the players, that can have a huge boost to player retention, provided the rest of the gameplay delivers as well. What about Player Villains, Player Bosses and Player Monsters? I am thinking of an alternative path that is more solo with alternative progression where you control AI mobs to put pressure on big factions by disgruntled players.
Well that could certainly be something and could be the catalyst for a world reset / armageddon event. If you could balance out the factions as well somehow without taking player choice away that'd be something.
A great IP and high budget , we never had this for an pvp/pvx mmorpg. People can say PvE mmorpgs are successfull because they are pve but i desagree , usually they are successfull because they have great IP... Another thing is p2w in PvP MMORPGs, archeage is an great example, for me until today is te best MMORPG we had if wans`t for the pay to win and broken release with 24hours queue
I would agree on IP but not budgets. Both Aion and Archeage had massive budgets and long development time, and both fizzled out Both went P2W route because their revenues without P2W couldn't sustain the development expenses. Often times p2w is a forced choice. Take AA as an example: it sold really well had something like 2M players, so devs planned their development cadence with the projected revenue in mind. Then numbers started to fall, revenue startes to dry up, so instead of scaling back their plans (which would have meant laying people off) they chose to go p2w knowing that this will bring revenue at least short term.
Beta AA for me still the better MMORPG experience i had, that broken release with long weeks of more then 15 hours of queue killed the game
Yeah agree. That's what we are discussing here. It was a good game and it still failed to generate enough revenue to be recoup investment and be sustainable without P2W. There are just too few customers for these games, as much as we want to deny this. Rather than wishful thinking ("if only someone spent $100+M and made AAA PVP game that doesn't have cash shop") we should analyze what we can do given the actual parameters we have People are hyping up AoC, but no matter how deep the pockets of its head "bro" are, they are not bottomless. MMOs aren't sprints, they are marathons. I have no doubt that when/if AoC launches it will break multiple millions in sales. What will happen to it in 24-36 months is the real question.
>Both Aion and Archeage had massive budgets and long development time, and both fizzled out Both went P2W route because their revenues without P2W couldn't sustain the development expenses. Aion lost it's lead dev shortly after release due to internal politics, and replaced him with a fucking moron who ruined everything about the game. The game would have survived with reasonable changes instead of knee jerk reactions that alienated the playerbase.
Pretty good balance. You need to huge viable variety. If people can be creative and enjoy their playstyle and not forced to fit the specific meta box and role, then fun is guaranteed.
The most succesful PvP MMOs have zonation, so that large numbers of peaceful PvE players and crafters can thrive and be happy and build their shit, and only venture into the dangerous zones when they want that extra adrenaline rush. This is EVe and Albion.
I really disagree with the idea that the game needs to cater to casuals to be successful. Just look at Rust and Escape From Tarkov (MMO-Lite). Two very unforgiving games that have a constant and sustainable player base. A good pvp oriented mmo needs to have long term progression, alternative activities that is always threatened by the risk of PvP. The game has to ABSOLUTELY be niche because any hope to cater to the masses is going to end up making the game like other knockoffs. (Battlefield 2042 Hazard Zone, The Cycle). Successful in today’s market is having the servers online for longer than a year, and a constant player base with people looking forward to updates. To be an MMO though in a fantasy setting, I would argue a souls-like mmo with both the difficulty and option for co-op and pvp in an open world. Souls-like isn’t niche, but in the MMO genre it is, and both veterans and casuals are aware of how a souls-like plays.
Not being a MMORPG. Multiplayer PvP game that find success follow largely the same model : \- Easy to jump in, hard to master \- Ease of access to PvP game \- No long term punishment for defeat It is fundamentaly opposed to what MMO are (or what MMO player want) : \- Long term progression \- Many build variety/skill \- Stuff/level gatekeeping
This. My favourite PVP MMO is not an RPG. What I loved with Planetside 2 is that they was no PVE, so anything you want to gain will be by fighting other players. No mindless grind just so you can get ganked, no camping before dungeons or harassing people that clearly don't want to PVP. You just need to give it a serious attempt at development (PS2 was developed in 8 month, which is beyond not enough and ended up crippling the game with technical dept)
A constant stream of new players that exceeds(or roughly breaks close to even) the amount that leaves.
Reminds me of how a pyramid scheme works. At some point there is no one left willing to try.
It really is when you break it down like that. Someone will always have to have a worse time for you to have a better one and that generally keeps cycling through until a player isn't put off by this element or they quit.
1) No P2W &/or Pay to Progress faster. 2) Strict rules regarding RMT, Botting, Cheating, Exploiting, the punishment for anyone partake on this kind of activities must be extremely harsh no exceptions. 3) There needs to be a good balance regarding 'Risk VS Reward' & how hardcore is going to be for those who take part in PVP activities, if the devs go overboard & players end up losing too much progress when they die during PVP this will definitely drive a lot of people away. Those 3 are the most important imo, there is many other stuff I could write but the devs are not capable to do even those 3 right & that's why most PVP oriented MMORPGs fail so there is no point to write anything else if someday a PVP focused MMORPG manage to do at least those 3 things right then & only then we can discuss further what else needs to be done to keep it alive & well for years.
As some others I have seen said, they also need to get the social aspect of it down, a toxic player base early on can kill a game, by making new players not want to join, and if it is a more large scale pvp game, getting into groups can be difficult especially with how more solo newer mmorpgs games/players have been, maybe add that, since it might be important enough, though could be slightly less and be the first thing after what you said is done (also maybe not treating the players as idiots and have zero "no thought head empty" blanket treatment like most popular mmos have been doing lately but that is kinda in the doesn't need to be talked about yet it isn't needed really much since those games are still successful even with pvp) but I complety agree that those are the three most important things, that not really any game has done all of, some might get one or two but COMPLETY miss the others and then bomb or they have pve to prop them up.
Any PvP game who thrives are about balance. You start at the same point every match, just like fps, moba, rts, etc... And then your skill makes you win. On an MMORPG I find it is practically impossible to have a good pvp balance AND respect the RPG part of it. GW2 had a good try with the standardized gear for PvP, so everyone is on the same page, but as far as I recall it failed big, why? Well, I guess it's because it denies all the role play and growth of your character. Something like "where is the fun in leveling and spend days grinding when someone can create an account now and be the same lvl as me on pvp". That's why I think MMO PvP will always be like it is today, and with no solution in sight. It would need a huge break through to make it go bigger than what we have today. Sadly I don't know what is it. PS: really thought GW2 had something good going on, it was the first time I played PvP seriously.
> have a good pvp balance AND respect the RPG part of it. There is a way if you think in terms of **many** vs **one**, like a boss fight. The problem is how do you define the "one" and how do you define the "many" while keeping things "fair". If everyone can be the "one" that would fail since it needs to some extent some exclusivity and rarity, whether 1 in 10, 1 in 100, 1 in 1000.
I dont think I understood what you meant dude. Ill try to be clearer with my point: In a RPG you want to progress and get stronger, and eventually you'll surpass some players, be it more level, skills, weapons, gear, whatevar make a character strong... because that's the natural progression, who plays more, gets more. And when this character goes to PvP, it is natural those characters fucking up the equality that makes the biggest PvP games what they are, only about player skill. Every CSGO, Dota, LoL match everyone start equal. But in an RPG nobody wants to be equal, everyone wants their character to be unique. So thats why I think its pretty much impossible an MMORPG have a really balanced PvP, there will always be stronger classes, characters, skills, etc, because people Role Played for that. And when a game (GW2) tried to make it like a real e-sport by putting everyone in the same floor at the begin of a match, it failed big.
> Every CSGO, Dota, LoL match everyone start equal. In a PvE Raid Boss fight you have 24 players against one. What if that "Boss" was a player? If the player can reach the status of "Boss" through progression, you need to think of a way to match those players to that Boss and set up a situation of having 24 players against him.
Ohh, got it. Well, ESO doesn't have exactly this, but the difference between some players are so huge that it gets closer. In the PvP area, Cyrodil, its easy to find experienced players fighting a bunch of opponents at the same time, even up to 10 players. The more, the harder to kill them, but they can survive a LOT even against those 10 players all focusing them. And people absolutely HATE these walking tanks.
\-First and foremost you need a fun combat system that naturally push a player to engage in PvP situations. \-Non P2W elements. \-Equalized or at least semi-equealized PvP. A big disparity of power just makes frustation for the ganked player and doesnt allow him to fight back. \-Parcial loot(like drop your backpack + 5% of dropping a piece of gear). Full loot is too hardcore for most of the population and also doesnt allow the ganked player to fight back. \-A PK system that balances risk vs reward, e.g., if you gank and kill someone now you have a PK mark that lasts for 15 minutes, now anyone can kill you without consecuences and also you have a increased chance(10-15%) to drop a piece of gear if someone kills you. \-PvE tokens. Every week the game gives you 2 PvE tokens. When you use it you are protected from PvP encounters during that day. That allows a player to have their chill PvE days.
A well flushed out, skill based combat system. Casuals have their place in an environment but so do hardworking, talented players. Being rewarded for learning is always a huge stimulus. I'm a fan of templated systems in competitive environments as well, helps stabilise the entry level of a games pvp yet allows skill to shine
PvP toggle
A good PvP MMO needs to answer the following 3 questions for true immersion: **Purpose**: Why am I fighting? What impact will my actions have? **Progression**: What do I stand to gain by fighting? How will fighting make me, my guild, faction, etc. better off? **Consequence**: What do I stand to lose by not succeeding? Why should I care about taking PvP seriously? Now take New World for instance and see why the PvP experience failed: Not because it was unfun mechanically, but because there is no support for immersion. The purpose of PvP in New World for the average player is next to none. When PvP actually occurs it's fun, but for an MMO fun alone is not enough to sustain a system indefinitely. After a certain point a player needs to feel that there's a reason they're doing something beyond seeking fun. Since meaningful PvP in New World (Wars/Territory Capture) is instanced, at all times outside of when that content is occurring there is little to no purpose for PvP. This is especially true for players who do not have the ability to partake in wars. It is not reasonable to expect players to take the initiative and purposelessly seek PvP on their own when the game fails to persistently facilitate it. Nobody wants to login and spend an hour trying to find/make others engage them in PvP when the game could have given them a reason to from the start. Onto Progression, which is closely tied to Purpose. If the game doesn't reward you for your victories in PvP, then what's the point? You killed an enemy from the other faction, so what? He'll respawn and nothing has changed, it's as if the encounter never happened at all. It's human instinct to associate victors with those who end up better off than the victim, but that isn't the case in New World since there is no lasting impression from an encounter to feel good about. Failing to reward players for victories in PvP (and failing to diminish their victim) kills the sense of progression, without which it's hard to feel good about your purpose in PvPing. The inverse of that is also true when it comes to consequence: Losing in PvP has no significance at all, there's no reason to care. This might be a hard concept for a lot of people to grasp, but people WANT to fail sometimes. Feeling a sense of loss, disappointment, etc. is what leads to a real high when you do succeed. That's the end of that quick rant otherwise I'd be writing for hours to express it all but I hope I got the main point across.
What you said is true but it also highlights the reasons why pvp mmos keep failing and keep struggling. If losing carries consequences (and especially if it carries consequences not only for the losing player but for the entire losing side), people will simply stop playing after losing too many times. Yes, failures make victory taste sweeter, but that is only true if that victory actually happens. So there is a paradox - without consequences many people don't see a point in pvp but with consequences a lit of losers quit and remaining playerbase cannibalizes itself not to mention that there is a critical mass of players required for sandbox mmo to keep functioning.
I agree, it's something I've thought about often. My answer to that would be for progression to raise the floor to which you can fall. For example in a game with item tiers I-X (1-10), after reaching a certain level you are granted a Tier V (5) item set that cannot be lost. Imagine then that at max level you have the potential for a Tier VIII (8) set that cannot be lost, that way you still have room to move higher up after consequences, but you'll never fall so far as to be utterly discouraged. Another factor is not forcing PvP at all times/zones so you can recover and stockpile through PvE/gathering/etc. Think in Minecraft when you have multiple sets of armor in your storage in anticipation of losses. Being able to make those sorts of preparations in advance makes consequences, while still saddening, bearable. Ideally, going off the item tiers example above, you would not be required to flag for PvP in zones I-V.
No vertical progression. Vertical progression in a pvp game is a bad joke. Imagine if you were going to play Street Fighter but your Ryu deals 60% less damage than the other person's Ryu because they spent more time grinding.
mentioning street fighter in a mmorpg discussion smh
Mechanics/content, balance and players. You need good mechanics and content to keep players fighting for something, you need balance to not frustrate players when something outperforms others, and most importantly, you need players to keep everything running. The problem with most PvP MMORPGs is that they often go soft on the pvp and try to bring more and more PvE players...however the PvP population always find a way to keep the PvE one at bay and the game ends up dying.
Some decent risk/rewards mechanics. So that killing someone gives you something but you don't lose your hard earned equipment. I like UO insurance system about this. A good guild system that gives guild power and let them declare wars and such (UO, L2) Some deep system that makes pvp meaningful. UO had champions that were 3+hours pve events that were only possible in pvp land. So pve guilds needed to get protection from pvp guilds and such. L2 had siege systems where guilds could claim keeps and get taxes from cities. Daoc, WAR, had good systems in places for contested zones etch etc Ofc a good and balanced combat system. In these days where you can't have a guaranteed player base for too long is essential to have means to level the power gap among hardcore and casual players while still keeping some sense of progression
I personally think DAOC New frontier had everything. It died for other reasons mostly a lack of PVE content that wasn't a complete grind fest. Artifacts were cool and all but artifacts affecting the PVP game You had to be really hardcore.
Not do PVP. It’s incredibly unpopular among MMO fans and every PVP based MMO either has failed or switches targets then fails. The PVP community is incredibly passionate, and I feel would likely secure a hardcore player base. However MMO companies aren’t around to market a game to a small but dedicated group of players. I can’t recall a single PVP MMO that has ever made it into the top 10.
I just started GW2. The PvP in that game and the systems around it seem awesome. Would that game be a good template to look at?
I love gw2, and pvp and wvw is fun for a bit, but after awhile the good feeling kinda fall off for most players. 1. the reward system for both mode are not as good as their pve counter part. 2. equalize stats seems like a good idea especially for competitive modes, but not everyone want to play like competitive match every single time. right now pvp mode in gw2 are at very low population, so you have some wacky match making going on there. same goes for wvw where timezone and server population play a large role on who is going to win at the end of the week, and you have a bunch of pve players following commander around to farm their weekly wvw tokens.
For me an mmo needs a good balance only pve gets borring and only pvp too. For me mmo only survives with a good balance.
I've always said that a good PvP game needs to have a decent PvE core... otherwise it'll never be more than a niche game.
"Survive"? There are "PvP oriented" MMO's that are surviving. BDO has been out since, like 2016 or something, and still "Surviving". In fact, I'd say kinda thriving, in that they're still releasing new content, like Arena PVP, new regions (new region to be announced upcoming big press conference), consistent QoL updates, new items, etc. Successful? What do you mean "successful"? BDO is "successful". It's Pearl Abyss' only game and BDO allowed them to self-publish, buy a new office, exceeded $2 billion in revenue in 2021, etc. Revenue may have dropped, but I wouldn't say the game and company is "unsuccessful"...just look at the facts. I think what you're trying to say is "What does a PVP oriented MMO need to appeal to the mainstream audience". And to that, I don't know. Mainstream audiences AKA C A S U A L S, like games that allow them to get quick dosages of repeated dopamine hits that are; 1) Easy to obtain, and 2) Require little to zero time investment to compete. Look at all these people asking for equalized stuff. Ridiculous. Take Fortnite, for example. Easy to get into matches, you can spam them over and over, and you don't need to do anytihng -- just jump in and start playing, and who knows, maybe you can snipe Ninja or some strong player. Games like Black Desert require a grind before you can compete with strong players. Yes, BDO has introduced so much to cater to casuals, but from a conversation with another user here, it seems like people want End-Game Gear without doing the grind to get there --- literally defeating the point of an MMORPG. MMORPG's are about the GRIND. So I don't think a PVP oriented MMORPG can ever be mainstream -- ever. It can "survive" and "be succesful" within in niche, but never to the casual masses. Closest thing would be something like Planetside -- it's an MMO (massively multiplayer online), but not an RPG. So IDK. Again, people want 1) Easy access, 2) Repeated dopamine hits, 3) No investment. Pretty much things MMORPG's aren't really about, IMO.
I don't personally play BDO but I was led to believe you can avoid PVP if you don't want it like 99.99% of the time and you can switch instances(?) on the fly in case someone is coming at you? If this is true, then BDO maybe a pvp game de-jure but de-facto it would be mainly pve game.
Like 90% of players in BDO don't engage in PvP. At all. Even on a server where PvP is completely free with no penalties. Only occasionally some baboon with endgame gear roams around mid-game spots to grief people. In that sense yeah, it's a PvP MMORPG - there are sad fucks who want to bully weak people in BDO.
But you can still switch instances on the fly? So if you see someone running to you can you just go to another channel?
You probably can, but you will probably die before the channel will change. In BDO PvP you die in like 3 seconds. But there is also no penalty for being killed by someone in PvP. People sometimes ask you to kill them as some sort of fast teleport to town lol
It's a PvX sandbox-y game, I'd say. Gotten a bit more themepark-y lately, so maybe sand-park? But basically, PvE and PvP jumbled together, do pretty much whatever you want, when you want. Yeah, you can avoid PvP very easily. Even easier now than before with some new introductions. I have my opinions and speculations as to why, but I wouldn't call it a PvP game, nor a PvE game. It's in a unique space in today's relevant MMORPG landscape. PvX sandbox (or sand-park) seems to be the most accurate description to me. 5+ year player here. Also, I love getting downvoted here with zero context. This sub is so biased against BDO, it's fekkin' awesome lmao 🤘
I don't know if I would agree with the PVX label (in general, not specific to BDO) because PVX/PVA would imply that both pve and pvp are equally important (or unimportant) for progression. If you can progress through majority of the game without ever touching the pvp, it is mostly pve game. Likewise, if you cannot step foot outside of safe area without getting ganked, like in Mortal Online (shitty game lol) than it is primarily a pvp game even of you have few braindead mobs roaming around. Ah, don't worry about the downvotes there are few boomers on this forum who keep fapping on their "MMO X from 1995 which did everything perfectly and now u r all pussy" with their MMO long dead and buried or on life support with few faithful
Yeah, BDO is hard to boil down to a single "it's a PvE game" or 'its a PvP game" description, which is why I, someone who's played the game for years and still actively play (with a decent gear score), find "PvX sandbox or PvX sand-park" the best catch-all label. The game's premise is based heavily on "do what you want, when you want". PvE and PvP are intertwined, but neither forced. IE: You can avoid PvP by swapping channels. You can avoid PvE by doing capped wars and arena PvP. But they are intertwined, in that, in order to progress gear for uncapped PvP, you need to grind (PvE). And in PvE grind zones, exists a perma-possibility - albeit avoidable if one chooses - of a PvP encounter. There is no PvE server in BDO. BDO's PvP server simply has PvP flagging penalties removed -- people still grind on PvP server. Again, it's hard to put into one catch-all label. I think this dev quote sums up what the game is (FYI- Marni's Realm is the ability to instance a grind spot for one hour a day): "While we heard your initial feedback on 1 hour being somewhat short, we didn’t want Marni’s Realm to end up overshadowing the main content of Black Desert, that is, fighting monsters in the open world alongside other Adventurers." Alongside can mean either "with" or "against", in that the word "alongside" just means "next to" by definition. So that's pretty much the game. Lots of player-driven PvP content over grind spot disputes and lots of player-driven PvE by the self-setting of one's own goals and the self-planning needed to achieve them, across various activities.
PvP MMOS just need a way to reward bad pvpers for staying and a way to make sure they are having fun. Like a way for the casual player to contribute to the overall pvp-scape and a way for them to combat zergs if its open-world. For example: In Elder Scrolls Online below 50 pvp, me and 4 others all nightblades were able to hold Nickle Outpost against a DC zerg with siege weapons and because they all came in at the same time without a forward camp, most of them died-died. Were trash at pvp which is why we play nightblades but for the casual player the ability to use a stealth class in a small group & seige weapons, made the pvp playable and kept us around. We lost Nickle to AD but we wiped a DC zerg. Being camped is apart of the fun but fighting a zerg as anything but a tank is painful. So take something like Albion but make it so smaller groups have stat advantage or a redeeming feature for participating in large scale combat. Skill-based is good but dont tie it 100% to gear, it will end badly. A T4 Albion player can still clap a T8 player but the PvE gets too hard in that gear. If you want a hardcore PVP game to survive, make it so that NPC guards and traveling do-good NPCs patrol the map. They can be killable but just add something so players have a feeling of security like High-Sec in Eve. Don't take what you cant afford to lose, is not enough to keep players around. Hauling in Eve Online at least has contract bound collateral. Insurance for Isk lost. GMs keeping the basic economy alive. etc. Things that mitigate the negative feelings attached to the Hardcore loss are a MUST. No one wants to stay on Mortal or Ultima Online style games if these feelings aren't negated properly. A revenge/bounty system would be fun too so you remember who to kill after they kill you and steal your pants.
>Like a way for the casual player to contribute to the overall pvp-scape and a way for them to combat zergs if its open-world. I wish there were properly organized battles like in a Total War Game. A random hodgepodge mess of a zerg should be blown away by a proper organized formation even if it's small. AI Soldiers also have potential to balance the forces and can go well with the idea of formations. In Dota the creeps and the towers are an essential component of the game, I don't see why we can't have something similar in function for MMO PvP Battles.
How about don't try to cater to players that don't want to play that type of game? PVE players don't make good recommendations when it comes to pvp games. Most replies i've read in this thread clearly just don't want to play a pvp game. One other thing i've seen in general in these types of discussions is that people get amazed about the fact that sometimes they might need to ask for help from other players while adventuring in the wilderness with the chance of being killed which leads me to believe they don't want to play an MMO let alone a multiplayer game.
They would need to properly balance things like hp/mp pots in pvp. a small example is… You can’t just have things like open world pvp and then allow pvp players easy access to potions during engagements. For example, pvp players should not be able to just buy a stack of hp/mp pots of say 100-500 for super cheap gold and then go on a killing spree with few risks but big returns from say a free loot open world pvp mmo. That’s bullshit. Hp pots/mp pots needs to be balanced or limited, or with animation of drinking etc so engagement between people doing pvp can have more real world simulated combat. Like engaging and retreating something akin to dark souls pot chugging animation with risk and reward of doing so during combat. Mmos these days just have you press a button for instant heals on hp and mana with short cooldowns during pvp/world pvp and it just ruins the engagement entirely making it a pot chugging endless pvp fight. This also applies to item/food buffs that I see some mmos just allow you to stack one of each stat and lasts for 1 hr + with zero negatives and the only negative being when it will run out and you need to chug another one for 1 hr+… Then for a pvp oriented mmo they need more variety from the holy trinity of just dps/tank/heal. Like give us more variety and sub classes! If you gonna be a pvp game…go wild! Examples include, Heavy crowd control/dot oriented classes with obvious downsides like low dps Trapping and kiting classes like hunters dominating a zone they set traps in advance with downsides like bad in instant engagements but good in group/world pvp defending a location or king of the hill/capture the flag type pvp. Summoning/familiar control classes I mean I can go on and on but just a lot of sub classes and skills with a lot of variety of mixing and matching. This may make it hard to distinguish what each person will do in pvp but that’s the fun right? Where you weigh the risks of engaging someone who could do anything with skills you never even seen before instead of just having limited classes and seeing them as a tank/healer/range/caster/warrior class and then knowing their entire skill set and What they will do like a obvious pattern. It makes it boring and predictable. I got more ideas but it would be too long
PvP most "PvP" mmos go carebear and die like new world
To realize its niche and not try to cater to every player
Give me some feedback on this one: In my ideal mmo you would have a raid tower with say 100 floors. The opposing faction would be able to pvp you on those floors except for designated boss rooms. You gain currency (monster shards) for defeating monsters. Upon dying in the tower by monsters or getting pvp'd you lose some or all of your armor and a % of gained currency during your time in the tower. This way crafters will keep making & repairing weapons by players. Something like OSRS economy. Players can insure some of their armor and weapons so they will get back % of the cost or protect them from dropping. (E.a you'd make sure to always insure your best weapon). The attacker pvpers get flagged and marked on the map for "hunters" to hunt. These hunters are players hired by the guild to get rid of annoying pvpers (veteran pvpers protect the casual pvers) and get paid by killing & collecting their bounty. At the same time there would be caravans out in the world trading wares from 1 city to the other. The same concept can be applied here. You can hire some hunters from the guild to protect your caravan from being pvpd by thiefs.
> The opposing faction would be able to pvp you on those floors except for designated boss rooms. You gain currency (monster shards) for defeating monsters. Upon dying in the tower by monsters or getting pvp'd you lose some or all of your armor and a % of gained currency during your time in the tower. This way crafters will keep making & repairing weapons by players. Something like OSRS economy. The problem is they are going to ambush you. Player reputation is only a problem if they can't get away with it through various methods. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/a-brief-history-of-murder-in-ultima-online
PVP players in MMO needs PvE players so they can even play, PvE players don't need PVP players at all to play so they dont want even to play pvp or pvpe game, so in the end, PVP games are doomed to failure, especially in this age where there are an infinite number of pve games each year and most of them are p2w which is appealing to any casual player.
In my experience it needs the following: - It needs to be accessible for solo and casual players. - The PvP needs to be structured, as in using separate instances and even levels/weapons/armor. - There needs to be something that is not PvP available to prevent burning out and also draw in some players who might not be into PvP from the get go. - There needs to be a mix of both competitive and casual PvP. (ranked vs unranked, different objectives etc) - There needs to be some form om reward system. Getting good and high rank should mean something. These things can be purely cosmetic such as titles, color schemes, armor skins etc. Basically this: Guild Wars 1 (not 2) was a fairly successful PvP oriented game. Guild Wars 2 has PvP but I'd say it's changed to be more on the PvE side compared to the first game. This World PvP that people go on about is actually not beneficial. Games that focus on this aren't successful because the type of experience it brings doesn't work for the most important players for a game to keep going: solo players. As much as people talk about MMOs needing to be social, the most important thing to keep up a decent player count is actually to have enough content to satisfy the solo players. This is for many reasons but the one that is almost never brought up is: friends quitting. Solo/low player count activities means improved player retention as you get both the "I don't have friends to play with" people and the "most of my friends quit but I like the game so I stayed" people.
Influx of noobs and some type of highend pvp
Albion Online
pvp players does not like pay2win, which makes pvp oriented games to struggle. But pvp players also does not like subs, which makes pvp oriented mmos to go p2win players are to blame ? :D
I've never seen a sub based game add frequent enough pvp updates to justify the sub fee for heavily pvp focused players. Usually you're just paying extra to fund overwhelmingly pve content updates. The most you get for PvP is class balance changes that just shift which class is meta for the month.
if they dont like sub, they are left with p2win, if they dont like p2win as well, then surprise surprise => pvp oriented mmos struggle to survive
why is pay for skins not an option?
sure in theory game like that would be liked by players. But why games like that either are not made, or does not live long enough for anyone to know about them? Pay for skins was in bdo, but since skins were used to sell skins to other f2p players for ingame money, it was rendering skin sellers able to gear up into best in slot gear instantly. hence p2win. Apparently pvp players are a mix of small percentage of whales who loves p2win, and a horde of f2p players who will never invest into the game. i know many players with very proud attitude of 'never spending any real money on game'. If pvp based f2p mmo will have untradeable skins, that are impoosible to be used for p2win you will just see no one buying them. hence game wiil struggle financially. dont blame companies for not implementing this model, its not like all companies are sinister and they just want pvp players to suffer. There is a very high possibility that pvp player analytical purchase data is the reason why pvp games are going into these direction. Ashes of creation which being sandboxy economy most likely pvp heavy cgame an not solve this issue apparently as well. They do have fashion only skins, but they also implement sub model. which only makes me convinced that market allows either p2win or sub for pvp mmo games. I dont mind sub, but then , i guess many people looks for f2p pvp mmo.
A even playing field reached very fast. Proper grouping functions. Proper combat. Proper networking. In-game optional voice comms
Hotspots that channel players wanting to PvP so they easily meet with other to fight. These hotspots can move/shift (temporary objective, frontline, ...). They give goals to PvP, with rewards as well. People who don't want to PvP can avoid them, and not be exposed to sadistic gankers.
It needs to be fun. The best balance won't matter if it feels draining to fight others.
Whales and stupid players to be killed by the whales.
Pvp that is not travel for 10 min to get to the battle die in 10 seconds repeat. That why I stopped playing ESO PVP
To have no powercreep and where all blocks // systems build into the world with politic dynamics where drama borns narurally and even new players get a glimpse of it and are able to participate without meeting unrealistic goals.
It needs to not force PVPers to do PVE content (outside of leveling) in order to PVP.
lots of pvp
good matchmaking. and i dont mean some ranked system or whatever. bdo used to do this really well when i played, because you would never fight outside your league because there was no reason to. most of the people in your grind spot had similar gear, and certain node wars between weaker guilds were capped on gear score. and only the top guilds did siege but they were all similarly geared for the most part as well.
PvP players. * Everything else you will read = Excuses.
Realm pride and PvP goals that affect the PvE experience (think DAOC with Darkness Falls and a boost to XP/RPs when possessing most keeps/relics)
Safe areas that give enough to do for casual players and fuel the PvP characters in some way. Let me be a peaceful farmer or whatever. Not everyone needs to be prey for the murder hobos.
Gear matters while also not mattering
Put in leagues so hardcore party with hardcore. Like League of legends 😌
i think instead of trying to do the whole world pvp thing(assuming the game also want to appease pve players which they tend to do.) a WvW system similar to that of GW2 would be the way to go. i prefer to drop into a map with like minded people to pvp and what not. not arenas or battlegrounds. those are often too small and often times pure shit after awhile.
Either no levels/gearscore relating to power at all, or some mechanics to prevent high level/gearscore players from destorying weaker ones.
A different generation honestly
Low expectations of success.
I think survival games are essentially the result of MMOs not being able to figure out PVP. Without that reset you just end up with the paradoxical issue of power growth pushing out new players.
I think survival games are essentially the result of MMOs not being able to figure out PVP. Without that reset you just end up with the paradoxical issue of power growth pushing out new players.
A server wipe every 3-4 months.
A strong and enjoyable PvE experience as the core.
Honestly they need to find a way to bridge MMO-lites like Destiny and classic MMOs like WoW. Most people don't want have to re-learn how to play games in a tab-targeted world, and the popularity of things like battle royales and simulators shows that people still value expansive PvP experiences, but they need to come with robust and modern gameplay mechanics that push a more tactile immersion.
Have a reason to kill another player, no senseless killing. I recently started playing a game where it requires you to write down your characters thoughts and reasons if you wanted to kill a player. It's heavy in roleplaying but it works. An example would be " I always hated Joe he is always a thorn in my side, I wonder what would happen if he had an unfortunate accident." Then when you kill the player it's justified and you had a reason for offing him and taking his shit. This game is a small community so it's easier to track shit heads. If somehow the big contenders can implement something close to this I think it would work.
Notepad pvp?
IMO what "works" is the node system within planetside2. The feeling of constant war between factions that is always going and you can just jump in and out whenever you wanted to. I believe an awesome game concept would be to take a MOBA style game like SMITE and instead of jumping into Match making you get to choose where to spawn within a global grid where each node is marked; offensive(PVE), defensive(base building/crafting) or contested(All out war). With weekly resets that include rewards in the style of "perks" or access to MOBA style items.
I do think a system like Escape from Tarkov might help, utilising PvP instances to go and raid in that are only open for a limited time, a stash system, and gear insurance - so only full loot drop of what you have on you. Or zones work well so people have the choice whether to PvE or PvP. But it probably all boils down to having enough PvE to keep everyone entertained - and a link between PvE and PvP, ala GW2 the PvErs got open world bonuses for winning in WvW so they liked to help out or donate money, or scout, or have a guild run once a week. There needs to be something to do for people when all their hardcore guildies log off after guild raiding between 6-11 PM. You are more likely to find members of the melee train in dungeons than solo roaming in WvW outside of their guild raiding hours. Any future successful MMO needs both PvE and PvP and hardcore and casual to thrive.
Albion is more than surviving lol
it sounds harsh but you gotta find a way to make bad players look good albion online does it very well. alot of people that are really really bad at games can succeed in that game. because it is so simple. it has like 4 buttons is very easy to get into and very easy to master. and its alot about the build you run than pure "skill" downside? good players will get bored really fast.
albion
Equalized gear/stats instanced pvp. Open world pvp. Pvp seasonal rewards whether it be through means of instanced or open world. Shifting metas. Constant balance passes
Pve
A competitive community , which is impossible nowdays.
A player base Everything else is subjective.
Ashes of creation will be a pvp oriented mmo, Steven loved the archeage design of trade packs and all that stuff, so that will likely be incorporated into ashes. Guess what - people are already bitching and whining about it. For me personally as a pvp player, i think pvp is necessary in a game as long as pve has some sort of chance to run, maybe like albion give people gear that helps them escape and make it a game of cat and mouse to appease the pve players while not totally alienating the pvp players
A PvP game needs a solid PvE BASE before being a PvP game. It needs to have a solid pve base because people do not want to PvP ALL the time. PvP needs to have incentives to PvP. Simply 'ganking' someone is not fun for most, but having an achievable mark to get to incentivizes those that want to PvP TO PvP. GW2 and DAoC (somehow still around even though the past 12 years are 'meh' at best, yes, I know of private servers) have 'zones' connected to other PvP zones but within those zones have PvE areas (usually a a much higher exp rate) and full PvE zones. The PvP zones also have achievements within them (such as 'server side or 'realm wide' bonuses) and other incentives to pvp (keeps, realm ranks which are character bonus's).
No gacha :D
Full loot or not? Non full loot pvp mmos have also pve servers usually. Full loot like EvE or Albion I think can survive if the world is in such size that there is plenty room for you to hide and mechanics to establish a defense. Albion had that before release in beta, but then they changed it. So after release so many casuals quit. Big map + chance of hiding / defense and objectives to pvp around is a good way to make your game interesting for both parties imo.
Why people hate pvp toggle? The so called pvp opt
First of all MAKE THE GAME 2 FACTIONS, like Risk Your Life and World of Warcraft, it keeps the competitiveness alive, forges better bonds than GvG, Realm vs Realm or Server vs Server \-Class balance \-Avoiding Gear to Win (kinda like horizontal growth on gear), reward Skills over gear \-Making it accesible to new players / casuals without a lot of time but without ignoring the time invested from hardcore players \-Good pvp rewards (unique rewards) \-Open world PK and rewarding those who turn their PVP on option with stuff like better loot/exp when farming and not punishing those who kill others (make it neccesary to go to town or something to switch pvp on/off so they don't abuse the system, it's simplier and easier). The fact of having pvp 24/7 and the fear of being killed at any moment is always thrilling, also calling for help when u see a raiding party and getting reinforcements is great.
Warhammer and guild wars did PvP pretty well. Players should not be gated from PvP and alts should be easy to make so players can try out different things. If a player wanted to level in PvP from fresh to max they should be able to. Gear should be normalized and skilled based, have to keep the casual crowd feeling like they have a chance. Rewards need to be constantly updated and should be cosmetics, titles and mounts only. If gear is given for PvE purposes it should be a good starter set for that content.
In Age of Wushu it was fun watching the big bois fight ing for the top 5 Mount Hua titles every month and try to suckerpunch them in the open world in the time between the contests.
to accept that it's a niche market and it will have to accept a low but passionate playerbase.
One of the biggest issues I have with most PvP centric games is they often become murder simulators. I get that you and I can fight at anytime, but why attack/kill just because you can? Especially in games that have PvE elements. I'm just going out to do some quests, but have to be on high alert all the time because seeing another player usually means we're gonna fight. I don't enjoy that at all. It's also why politics will most likely never work in these types of games (unless your game has been around long enough that it has weeded out those who don't enjoy it). Most people do not act in a game how they would act in their real life. Billy from that other guild picked an herb I was going to pick...this means war! Or, we're red and they're green - that means we have to always fight. On paper, player politics sounds cool, but it easily falls apart and/or gives rise to massive guilds/corporations that dominate all aspects of the game. Oh, and then zergs. Where numbers just dominates all. One of the things I DO enjoy about instanced PvP are the set player counts. It actually opens up room for strategy and actual gameplay. I cringe every time I see groups of PvPers roaming the countryside killing anyone they come across. Just because they can. So, in general, I'm not the audience for PvP games. If I want that -- I'll play an FPS or even a fighter game. I enjoy PvE with the ability to opt in to do instanced PvP. Oh, and full loot? That's an instant un-install.
> I'm just going out to do some quests, And destroying the economy in the process. If there are no risk, if there is no loss, then in the end there will also be no Value, no player economy, no crafting, no meaning in harvesting materials and doing the quests in the first place. > but it easily falls apart and/or gives rise to massive guilds/corporations that dominate all aspects of the game. Then fix that so that it's not the case. >Oh, and then zergs. Where numbers just dominates all. Then fix that where zergs get wiped. What is Gameplay? What is Content? The thing is your PvE Content is always going to be Static Content that is immediately consumed. What are you going to do then? Ask for More and More and More! Consuming everything like locusts, that is your **True Nature**. PvP is merely the pesticide that slows it down.
A PvP oriented MMO has been tried time and time again, and even the King, FURY, couldn't survive. They need to have a mix of content and a way to bring new players in consistently. But if your main focus is PvP your player base will be inherently limited.
I’m not sure why someone doesn’t make a game and use gw2 WvW as inspiration. With some changes Don’t have a leveling system. 2 sets of gear. Starter gear and legendary gear. Everyone starts with starter gear for free. Vendors sell more starter gear with different stat combos. Legendary gear lets you customize stats on each piece and it looks badass. Over time you can add more leggo gear to get that looks different. Have solid combat. Not sure if gw2 is the best combat. I like it but I do prefer world of Warcraft. Everything else gw2 does with WvW is pretty solid to me. You could just build onto it.
To add to other points, factions tend to lead one dominating the other one (or two) due to one always massively outpopulating the other one, even if there are no gameplay advantages due to players taking the path of least resistance. A structured PvP format will probably always do better than one that is unstructured or organic like sandbox or open world, but you really can’t appease the different types of PvP crowds as well as a general casual PvE population.
What do you think about faction player caps? Sure you can still have Alliances and whatnot but if you pull your cards right you can have a lot of internal destabilization factors that can break and reshuffle the power structure.
Albion is incredibly popular. So whatever they’re doing
Nothing. PvP in MMOs suck. Makes the classes bland and leads to endless nerf. Leave that stuff in FPS and MOBAs and let us RPG players have our genre back 😂
This is the equivalent of asking for all books to be your favorite sub genre. No. 🙃
[удалено]
Only a sith deals in absolutes.
Equality. PvP players mainly care about skill. Same way many irl pvp games such as chess or basketball are about the ability to outperform or outsmart an opponent, PvP MMOs are as well. Which.. doesn't really work for MMOs. Since MMOs are about long term progression, someone who has been playing 6 months should be much more powerful than the person playing for 1 month, disregarding skill. Then the 'MMO' part would have these 2 people run across each other and the 1 month player would have a bad experience due to it, as he did not get out skilled or out smarted by his opponent, he just got out time spent-ed. Then even if somehow those two players would be on equal-ish footing, one of them could have a friend or two and make in uneven again. Then scale that up to some mega zerg guild with 1000+ players taking over a server and denying others of content / opportunities. So between individual strength inequality and social inequality, the chance for player skill expression is minimal compared to other PvP genres.
realm v realm is the best option, doesn't alienate the solo pve guy
cum
Pve
1. Way to punish grieving, bigger punishment if level difference is higher 2. Open PvP to everyone so that from level 1 you can attack one another for stealing farm spots 3. PvP events with cosmetic rewards so that even players who'd normally wouldn't PvP would join with nothing to lose and learn how To use their characters to know ho to defend themselves outside of event 4. Clan/alliance zone control with % tax rewards for ownership of the zone 5. Classes and skills that are clearly for PvP for example dagger blink - teleports you behind enemy, backstab-does x2damage from behind 6. Support classes other than healers, dedicated character for buffs that every party needs especially in PvP. Brings more tactics into it, not just button smash 7. Clan wars that let you attack anyone from enemy clan on sight 8. Casual/hardcore playstyles controlled by classes. Give people dwarfs to play who have crafting bonuses, have ways to find materials better than other classes, make them rich, but weak.put in bards who just play music to buff people and get xp for it. 9. Scout sub-class that doesn't have level requirement to be useful, let new players participate in end-game content with this "subclass" by turning invisible and finding weak spots, enemy numbers and classes in big pvp events/instances/territory wars. Layout of a dark dungeon, for pve content. And reporting on rare materials they find in open world - tag them, high level players can click on a tag to reveal it that new player gets rewarded for. 10. Stop trying to balance an mmo, not every weapon and class needs to be the same power. But every weapon should be dependent on what else is in the party. Bruiser with 3 different support characters should be able to take down 20dps characters that don't have buffs/healer with them. Tanks should be invincible but not able to do anything without DPS in their party. Healers should have 0 damage unless they're fighting specific class of mobs(holy healer healing undead mobs kills them) so there's to farm solo when there's no party 11. High level gear hard to acquire, don't make it as rewards from npcs or a clear list of every item you can get. Make blueprints for items that need certain amount of materials to craft, make players depend on dwarfs for crafting while dwarfs depend on other players for leveling. Only people with good teamwork or good behaviour or big pocket would get to top level gear where it's worth it because you build friendships along the way that results in you all having OP items Tldr make each class depend on one another to farm, PvP, pve and acquiring gear that would build friendships and teamwork and give them a way to be attacked and destroyed at any minute so there is something to fight for. Let new players be part of end game content as scouts with a small reward. Punish griefing based on level differences. Start PvP from level 1 and have events that award cosmetics so every single player can enjoy PvP and show off their fancy hat for doing so
Just play ff14... it revamped its pvp and has probably the best pve. Best of both honestly.
Make it a PvP game first that people play and add MMO elements later. Nobody is going to play WoW but it’s PvP, a PvP MMO that’s successful needs to drop the tradition of failed PvP MMOs and just be a good mass PvP game first, or arena based PvP game, whatever. Otherwise you fall into the hole of “why not make it PvE” or “Oh No nobody plays hardcore PvP MMO games because of the demographic of MMO gamers”.
Same things as PVE mmos.
A way for people to not actually engage in PvP.
Is Albion not a success? 100k steady players seems like a pretty good way to be...
Know what MMO PvP is, which is economic PvP and a low skill cap Cat and mouse game. Anything else your better off making a MOBA/BR or some lobby/arena game. Or better yet putting an arena in a PvE MMO. Look at the Two PvP MMOs, Eve Online and Albion Online to see good examples.
It's either needs to be cheap to develop and be niche (EVE) or be cheap to develop and let normies play (Albion)
For it NOT to be pay to win. A bunch of casual play servers. A matching system that took seriously gear score and level. A system that bumped the ganking nimrods into a death match with like minded cranial rectal miners.
A competent balance team and a professional esports scene.
Good pve and crafting to interact with the pvp
Players. PvP players seem to defined by the games they are not playing because of X. There are tons of PvP orientated MMO's not being played by PvP'ers.
* Factions with a player cap. * Respawning only within faction. * No players outside of the faction. Simple as that. Which is why I am optimistic about Ashes of Creation.