[Column] Pathfinder Online: Checking in on PvP

SBFord · October 2013

The Pathfinder Online team is prolific in their developer diaries on the game's official site. In one of the latest, PvP was detailed. We take a look at the blog and offer some of our own thoughts. Check it out before heading to the comments to tell us what interests you about Pathfinder Online.

PvP is a central part of Pathfinder Online. In a recent blog post Ryan states that, “The first principle of our design for Pathfinder Online is ‘maximize meaningful human interaction.’” I’m hard pressed to think of an interaction between two players that can have more meaningful implications then one that will leave a player dead. Especially when you factor in player corpse looting… yes, you can lose your items, but more on that later.

Read more of Rob Lashley's Pathfinder Online: Checking in on PvP.

ChaaK · October 2013

Okay, so drop everything at the bank, and thread your gear before doing any PvP hehe.

Not my kind of thing anyway, as I completly suck at PvP.

flizzer · October 2013

No longer interested after I read this. I hate player corpse looting and going back to find your corpse, no thanks.

EndoRoboto · October 2013

The only thing that could make PFO better would be if it released before i turned 30. Ugh.

stayBlind · October 2013

Whoa, this sounds pretty good. I hope that development goes smoothly for them!

Amaranthar · October 2013

I like it. I've been a fan of player created factions and been talking about it around here for a couple of years.

Loot drops serve as a reason to not die. I hope this "thread" stuff isn't too extensive. Hopefully just a few items, and at a cost for a magical spell or ritual or something. I hope gear isn't so important and irreplaceable that it becomes a game of gear grinding.

It's been a while, I'll have to give this game another look.

MumboJumbo · October 2013

Good write-up got the in's-and-out's more or less.

In terms of the PvP I think the systems are naturally at different levels of player organization which tracks levels of economic power in the game so "meaningful pvp" is also economic-driven pvp eg for resources, for bandits to take advantage of hauling teams that are not guarded which in turn drives demand for guards to be paid to protect such caravans. So PvP provides opportunity for roles (even mercenary soliders eventually) and expense which balances more PvE orientated roles such as resource capture and crafting and building and securing of territory in hexes for such infrastructure (buildings/settlements) and player organizations to use for their cooperatives (trade partnerships) and subsequent chartered companies.

One thing to add concerning "looting items": Items are going to degrade/decay over use/time (not sure which, perhaps both?) so loot turn-over is expected to be a staple anyway. As said threading allows some of your top gear to be protected but if you're walking around equiped to the bling then you're a big red target so that's not what most players will do. One reason for looting is to add "potential cost" on defeat but not too severe to discourage encounters and/or discourage loot-gank-ninjas either-either (hence threading and item destruction at corpse loss). Additionally you group up to protect your corpses and further any lost gear is a "sink" in the economy further good for crafting demand.

Alignment and reputation systems track your pvp activity and change accordingly further which influences your ability to join various groups. I think it's intended to be fairly complex system of inter-relations between settlements and chartered companies.

-

TL;DR: Current PvP is being designed as a by-product of players attempting to achieve their goals and it has consequences (ie expenses) as an action to take compared to alternative actions.

apocoluster · October 2013

Stopped reading after Pvp is the central part of.... Not for me. I wish it the best though. I've been waiting for a sand box to come along and shut up all the whiners.

moomoo1234 · October 2013

sounds wicked. cant wait to get my hands on this game!

Psalms · October 2013

This sounds fantastic! Can't wait

Ramanadjinn · October 2013

Sounding like it may be a fun game.

Actually having open pvp and full loot with some gear turnover is a great step in the right direction for my tastes.

Without knowing what is involved in threading items or more details on that though it is hard to say how it will all turn out. My worries now are that it may end up as some sort of thing where anyone who is worth killing is just going to have bound gear on them and only newbies who need the gear the most are going to be the ones dropping gear.

But it is far too early to say that would be the case. So far the Pathfinder guys sound intelligent, maybe they'll make the right moves with the binding. There are ways to do it right.

EndoRoboto · October 2013

Im tired of dying in a game and paying almost no consequence for it. Losing 25% of non-threaded gear will really help out the crafting economy and just plain make smarter and more cautious players. I really picture this turning out like Eve Online without the sci-fi.

furbans · October 2013

Author should get all the facts straight.

PFO was not given a greenlight with the 2nd kickstarter. The development has ALWAYS been decided upon and do you honestly think 1 million USD will fund the game? All the kickstarters were to speed up some tech demos and milestones.

Saying PvP is the central feature is a bit misleading. Yes it's a big part but human interaction being the central feature is more apt since you need to have others to harvest, protect your resource gathering not only from players but more importantly from NPC mobs who will come and escalates the longer your operation goes, there are dungeons of sorts that will be instanced to a party. The game, on paper, is a whole lot more complicated than "just PvP."

The author completely misses on the PvP styles, their are three categories that is organized by large scale PvP (settlement/nations/alliance), small group (companies), and solo/weekend warrior style (factions).

Pretty poor article as it is misleading and overall half assed quick write up of a single blog post by Goblinworks which one has to spend a shit ton of time to real ALL the blog posts to really understand what this game is going to be about.

furbans · October 2013

Originally posted by Ramanadjinn
Sounding like it may be a fun game.

Actually having open pvp and full loot with some gear turnover is a great step in the right direction for my tastes.

Without knowing what is involved in threading items or more details on that though it is hard to say how it will all turn out. My worries now are that it may end up as some sort of thing where anyone who is worth killing is just going to have bound gear on them and only newbies who need the gear the most are going to be the ones dropping gear.

But it is far too early to say that would be the case. So far the Pathfinder guys sound intelligent, maybe they'll make the right moves with the binding. There are ways to do it right.

Something the author completely misses and misconstrudes in their article. Their is no full corpse loot, there is a chance of the items that is not threaded. Best comparison would be EVE I suppose but is not entirely accurate.

As for you concern, one cannot thread all their gear. I forget the exact specifics but each item has a point system of sorts (like it costs more to thread a weapon than the boots) but it will be impossible to thread all your gear. It doesn't make sense to do be allowed to thread all your gear for two reasons, 1. PvP looting rewards (give at least somehting to the PvPers) and 2. it would hurt the crafting and the economy which they are striving for something similar to EVE which is the model for PFO.

Amaranthar · October 2013

Originally posted by MumboJumbo
Good write-up got the in's-and-out's more or less.

In terms of the PvP I think the systems are naturally at different levels of player organization which tracks levels of economic power in the game so "meaningful pvp" is also economic-driven pvp eg for resources, for bandits to take advantage of hauling teams that are not guarded which in turn drives demand for guards to be paid to protect such caravans. So PvP provides opportunity for roles (even mercenary soliders eventually) and expense which balances more PvE orientated roles such as resource capture and crafting and building and securing of territory in hexes for such infrastructure (buildings/settlements) and player organizations to use for their cooperatives (trade partnerships) and subsequent chartered companies.

One thing to add concerning "looting items": Items are going to degrade/decay over use/time (not sure which, perhaps both?) so loot turn-over is expected to be a staple anyway. As said threading allows some of your top gear to be protected but if you're walking around equiped to the bling then you're a big red target so that's not what most players will do. One reason for looting is to add "potential cost" on defeat but not too severe to discourage encounters and/or discourage loot-gank-ninjas either-either (hence threading and item destruction at corpse loss). Additionally you group up to protect your corpses and further any lost gear is a "sink" in the economy further good for crafting demand.

Alignment and reputation systems track your pvp activity and change accordingly further which influences your ability to join various groups. I think it's intended to be fairly complex system of inter-relations between settlements and chartered companies.

-

TL;DR: Current PvP is being designed as a by-product of players attempting to achieve their goals and it has consequences (ie expenses) as an action to take compared to alternative actions.

And this is the way to encourage players to group with others and form long lasting associations.

furbans · October 2013

Originally posted by Ramanadjinn
Sounding like it may be a fun game.

Actually having open pvp and full loot with some gear turnover is a great step in the right direction for my tastes.

Without knowing what is involved in threading items or more details on that though it is hard to say how it will all turn out. My worries now are that it may end up as some sort of thing where anyone who is worth killing is just going to have bound gear on them and only newbies who need the gear the most are going to be the ones dropping gear.

But it is far too early to say that would be the case. So far the Pathfinder guys sound intelligent, maybe they'll make the right moves with the binding. There are ways to do it right.

Here is a copy and paste of more details on threaded items. If MMORPG is going to cover PFO then they need to cover ALL the topics as this bits here n there causes more miscommunication than help.

Threading and Powerful Items

As mentioned previously, players that die and respawn leave most of their gear on their husks. The only items that remain with them are those that have been attached via metaphysical "threads." Players will have discretion in tying threads and can reassign threads without losing them: one day a player might have 19 threads devoted to her armor; the next day she could switch them to instead protect her gloves, hat, boots, belt, and amulet. (Items require different numbers of threads based on their size and importance.)

As a player advances, she can purchase more threads. However, items of higher quality and tier require more threads. A starting character with starting gear has sufficient threads to protect all the gear she is likely to carry (one weapon, a set of armor, and a half dozen or so miscellaneous items). A character that has reached level 20 in a role and has all top-quality gear, meanwhile, may only be able to protect her armor and one weapon, three weapons and a miscellaneous item, or some other combination (but she could protect a larger amount of gear if she were willing to use weaker items for some of her slots). And a new player given a top-tier weapon may not be able to bind anything else but that.

Additionally, players use threads to bind to intermediary resurrection sites: you can always respawn at the nearest big statue of Pharasma (usually confined to rare, significant locations), but the world is also full of player-created or pre-placed smaller shrines to Pharasma. If you bind to one of these smaller shrines, it's likely to be much closer to the place you died.

Effectively, starting characters are going to have sufficient threads to protect most of their gear and rarely suffer major setbacks from being killed. However, as players advance their characters, they'll have to start making meaningful decisions about death: Will you use mostly weaker gear so you don't have to risk much of it on death? Will you bind to a lot of shrines so you're always near your corpse for a better chance to recover everything before it's looted? Or will you bind only your most prized and best gear, risking the rest?

Amaranthar · October 2013

Originally posted by furbans
Originally posted by Ramanadjinn
Sounding like it may be a fun game.

Actually having open pvp and full loot with some gear turnover is a great step in the right direction for my tastes.

Without knowing what is involved in threading items or more details on that though it is hard to say how it will all turn out. My worries now are that it may end up as some sort of thing where anyone who is worth killing is just going to have bound gear on them and only newbies who need the gear the most are going to be the ones dropping gear.

But it is far too early to say that would be the case. So far the Pathfinder guys sound intelligent, maybe they'll make the right moves with the binding. There are ways to do it right.

Here is a copy and paste of more details on threaded items. If MMORPG is going to cover PFO then they need to cover ALL the topics as this bits here n there causes more miscommunication than help.

Threading and Powerful Items

As mentioned previously, players that die and respawn leave most of their gear on their husks. The only items that remain with them are those that have been attached via metaphysical "threads." Players will have discretion in tying threads and can reassign threads without losing them: one day a player might have 19 threads devoted to her armor; the next day she could switch them to instead protect her gloves, hat, boots, belt, and amulet. (Items require different numbers of threads based on their size and importance.)

As a player advances, she can purchase more threads. However, items of higher quality and tier require more threads. A starting character with starting gear has sufficient threads to protect all the gear she is likely to carry (one weapon, a set of armor, and a half dozen or so miscellaneous items). A character that has reached level 20 in a role and has all top-quality gear, meanwhile, may only be able to protect her armor and one weapon, three weapons and a miscellaneous item, or some other combination (but she could protect a larger amount of gear if she were willing to use weaker items for some of her slots). And a new player given a top-tier weapon may not be able to bind anything else but that.

Additionally, players use threads to bind to intermediary resurrection sites: you can always respawn at the nearest big statue of Pharasma (usually confined to rare, significant locations), but the world is also full of player-created or pre-placed smaller shrines to Pharasma. If you bind to one of these smaller shrines, it's likely to be much closer to the place you died.

Effectively, starting characters are going to have sufficient threads to protect most of their gear and rarely suffer major setbacks from being killed. However, as players advance their characters, they'll have to start making meaningful decisions about death: Will you use mostly weaker gear so you don't have to risk much of it on death? Will you bind to a lot of shrines so you're always near your corpse for a better chance to recover everything before it's looted? Or will you bind only your most prized and best gear, risking the rest?

Thanks. That sounds good to me, but leaves some worries.

First off, is gear going to be that important? Is this "god-mode" stuff?

Second, as far as PvP, can PKers attack anyone they want? If so, will any penalties actually be enough to prent groups of PKers scouting areas and then making a run through the players there if they know they can win? "Scouting" as in using a neutral character and sending messages to PKers waiting for the call.

Mardukk · October 2013

Sounds great! I'll be keeping my eye on this!

Grakulen · October 2013

Originally posted by furbans
Author should get all the facts straight.

PFO was not given a greenlight with the 2nd kickstarter. The development has ALWAYS been decided upon and do you honestly think 1 million USD will fund the game? All the kickstarters were to speed up some tech demos and milestones.

Saying PvP is the central feature is a bit misleading. Yes it's a big part but human interaction being the central feature is more apt since you need to have others to harvest, protect your resource gathering not only from players but more importantly from NPC mobs who will come and escalates the longer your operation goes, there are dungeons of sorts that will be instanced to a party. The game, on paper, is a whole lot more complicated than "just PvP."

The author completely misses on the PvP styles, their are three categories that is organized by large scale PvP (settlement/nations/alliance), small group (companies), and solo/weekend warrior style (factions).

Pretty poor article as it is misleading and overall half assed quick write up of a single blog post by Goblinworks which one has to spend a shit ton of time to real ALL the blog posts to really understand what this game is going to be about.

Sorry Furban. Let me clear up some misconceptions for you.

Do you think anyone was going to give them the capital to make this game if they could not get the second kickstarter funded? Nope.

The first kickstarter was for the tech demo. Not the second.

No where in my column do I say there is going to be full corpse looting. Someone else did in their comments. That someone was you.

I mentioned threading but didn't go into full detail. I was talking about PvP not the entire last 10 months worth of development. I can talk about that in a future column. It would have ran this one way too long.

Go back and reread Goblinworks blogs. They called the company pvp the weekend warrior pvp not the factional pvp. Are you the one trying to intentionally mislead people?

[mod edit]

maplestone · October 2013

Originally posted by furbans

The game, on paper, is a whole lot more complicated than "just PvP."

But in the end, what is the ultimate resolution to a conflict of interest between two players? If two players desire one resource, how is it ultimately decided who gets it? In the end, there must be one and only one answer to this question and it is what defines whether a game is PvP or not.

I wish this project well, but I am not the target audience because I seek a world with a different answer to that question than might is right.

furbans · October 2013

Originally posted by Grakulen
Originally posted by furbans
Author should get all the facts straight.

PFO was not given a greenlight with the 2nd kickstarter. The development has ALWAYS been decided upon and do you honestly think 1 million USD will fund the game? All the kickstarters were to speed up some tech demos and milestones.

Saying PvP is the central feature is a bit misleading. Yes it's a big part but human interaction being the central feature is more apt since you need to have others to harvest, protect your resource gathering not only from players but more importantly from NPC mobs who will come and escalates the longer your operation goes, there are dungeons of sorts that will be instanced to a party. The game, on paper, is a whole lot more complicated than "just PvP."

The author completely misses on the PvP styles, their are three categories that is organized by large scale PvP (settlement/nations/alliance), small group (companies), and solo/weekend warrior style (factions).

Pretty poor article as it is misleading and overall half assed quick write up of a single blog post by Goblinworks which one has to spend a shit ton of time to real ALL the blog posts to really understand what this game is going to be about.

Sorry Furban. Let me clear up some misconceptions for you.

Do you think anyone was going to give them the capital to make this game if they could not get the second kickstarter funded? Nope.

The first kickstarter was for the tech demo. Not the second.

No where in my column do I say there is going to be full corpse looting. Someone else did in their comments. That someone was you.

I mentioned threading but didn't go into full detail. I was talking about PvP not the entire last 10 months worth of development. I can talk about that in a future column. It would have ran this one way too long.

Go back and reread Goblinworks blogs. They called the company pvp the weekend warrior pvp not the factional pvp. Are you the one trying to intentionally mislead people?

[mod edit]

Yeah this sure sounds like the kickstarter funded it, or without it it would have never launched. Kickstarters just sped things up.

Is the whole budget coming from this Kickstarter?
No. Most of the budget is being provided by our initial investors, but the money we're raising on Kickstarter is the difference between a 4 year development plan and a much faster, much larger plan.
Barring unforeseeable future complications we do not expect to have to raise additional funds or do additional Kickstarter projects after the successful completion of this project.

Regardless the article does not clarify certain things that should be clarified and makes broad generalization that make it misleading like the basis of PvP as Ryan's statement on human interaction is not all about the PvP, that is only a small portion of what he means by human interaction. There is the misrepresentation of threaded gear, the impression you bestow is that there will never be any loss if one threads everything which will not be the case. Many 'journalists' make clarifications or disclaimers if you may so people don't get the wrong impression when they talk about feature of the game if the face value is not all what is there. PFO needs a very long multi session of articles to cover just an overview of the basics.

furbans · October 2013

Originally posted by maplestone
Originally posted by furbans

The game, on paper, is a whole lot more complicated than "just PvP."

But in the end, what is the ultimate resolution to a conflict of interest between two players? If two players desire one resource, how is it ultimately decided who gets it? In the end, there must be one and only one answer to this question and it is what defines whether a game is PvP or not.

I wish this project well, but I am not the target audience because I seek a world with a different answer to that question than might is right.

Your under the assumption that it's all about competition and ganking. PFO seeks a multifacet in human interaction than just PvP, it is actually who of people to actually work together. There are a wide array of reasons why people will want to work together in PFO. Saying PFO is PvP centric is a half truth since it only tells a portion of the truth.

I'm not a PvPer at all but the elements or goals GW are setting out to accomplish have my attention because it is trying to bring back the Massively in MMO and not another solo game.

Ramanadjinn · October 2013

Originally posted by furbans
Originally posted by Ramanadjinn
Sounding like it may be a fun game.

Actually having open pvp and full loot with some gear turnover is a great step in the right direction for my tastes.

Without knowing what is involved in threading items or more details on that though it is hard to say how it will all turn out. My worries now are that it may end up as some sort of thing where anyone who is worth killing is just going to have bound gear on them and only newbies who need the gear the most are going to be the ones dropping gear.

But it is far too early to say that would be the case. So far the Pathfinder guys sound intelligent, maybe they'll make the right moves with the binding. There are ways to do it right.

Something the author completely misses and misconstrudes in their article. Their is no full corpse loot, there is a chance of the items that is not threaded. Best comparison would be EVE I suppose but is not entirely accurate.

As for you concern, one cannot thread all their gear. I forget the exact specifics but each item has a point system of sorts (like it costs more to thread a weapon than the boots) but it will be impossible to thread all your gear. It doesn't make sense to do be allowed to thread all your gear for two reasons, 1. PvP looting rewards (give at least somehting to the PvPers) and 2. it would hurt the crafting and the economy which they are striving for something similar to EVE which is the model for PFO.

Thank you for your insight and information. It does sound like as far as this goes they have some good and inventive ideas.

MumboJumbo · October 2013

Originally posted by maplestone
Originally posted by furbans

The game, on paper, is a whole lot more complicated than "just PvP."

But in the end, what is the ultimate resolution to a conflict of interest between two players? If two players desire one resource, how is it ultimately decided who gets it? In the end, there must be one and only one answer to this question and it is what defines whether a game is PvP or not.

I wish this project well, but I am not the target audience because I seek a world with a different answer to that question than might is right.

I think the aim is to be intentionally complex. There's a political system as well for eg. And alliances (the quill and ravens) are going to be just as important as pvp (swords and spears). I think if you look at the roles that could be generated: Miner, woodsman, hauler, crafter, spy, diplomat, politician, builder etc then these are all highly relevant as much as soldier, guard, mercenary, bandit, bounty-hunter etc? That's the vision ideally I'd say behind the assumption that human civilization is built based on war to claim new land to solve economic problems. Equally however is ingenuity and invention... and that's I hope as relevant gameplay via the former as well as the latter.

superconducting · October 2013

Really like what I heard about PvP and the fact that there's multiple ways to participate in it!

jbombard · October 2013

I think player looting is fine in a PvP game. However I don't think it is going to attract many people whose main activity is PvE. People who are just there for PvE don't want to lose their hard earned gear to somebody participating in an activity they don't want anything to do with in the first place. As long as Pathfinder is happy with limiting itself to PvP niche they will do fine, however if they try and sell themselves as a PvE game I think they will end up with a lot of dissatisfied players, and that can hurt the game and the community for everyone involved.

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