FFA PvP only works with a zerg mentality when you can define the specifics of your group and have constant knowledge of your environment. I don't see that to be the case here for the following reasons:
PvE mobs in the PvP zone were still pretty tough to beat with a 3 person group. Ambushes even by small groups on larger ones with PvE help can even odds quite a bit.
The premise of FFA PvP is that you can have any number of random "factions" vying for loot, and groups have so far appeared to be small 3 man groups. Even if you brought 12 people to a fight.. only 3 would get the loot. I find that this cures more "zergs" than it creates. Even with a dedicated 3 faction system, you still end up with some factions being much larger than others, and you've seen this on pretty much every game that has factions.
What games are exactly "pure PvP" anyways? Some of the hottest PvPcentric titles right now are games like GuildWars2 which requires all the skill minus the loot, in WvW it has a 3 "faction" system, and in the end its ALL about the zerg mentality. In Structured PvP there is no loot, skill does often win out, but we're not talking about structured PvP -- Any structured PvP that The Division has would have a player cap obviously.
Casual usually means you can pop onto something that doesn't take much skill and leave with the same amount of loot as someone that has 100s of hours of time has. We can't base that off of what we saw in the video.
Not to mention that if you're not more skilled than your opponent just bring more friends to win -- thats every MMO ever. I have yet to see an MMO where that isn't the case. Sure I've had instances where a small group can take on a larger one.. but we're talking about maybe 5 players taking on 8 - 10 players. Theres nothing here that makes me feel like the same cannot be said. In fact, we saw a team of 3 players take on two sets of NPCs and 2 human controlled teams fo 3. The game may end up being casual.. but it won't be because its FFA Team based PvP.
Well FFA makes PVP games shallower whether or not a zerg mentality exists. Often you start with relatively deep PVP where skill choice, build choice, dodging, interrupts, and all sorts of skill-related factors matter. Then if you introduce population imbalance -- whether it's 200v100 (zerging) or 2v1 -- you trump all of that skill-related depth with one shallow decision.
"Only 3 would get the loot" is an imaginary problem. In the event that the game's loot system is ridiculously obtuse, you'd rotate which of your four 3-man groups had looting rights for any given gank. More likely the game's loot isn't stupid and you'd simply split things up the old fashioned way.
3-factions can help, but people are notoriously stupid in mobs. In a 3-player boardgame when Fred is in the lead then yeah obviously Bob and Jill are going to gang up on him -- that's basic FFA strategy. But in a MMO environment like PS2 suddenly people become stupid and see the leading facton as unassailable and the other underdog as an easy target -- which of course is the worst possible strategic choice and results in the leading faction's lead growing stronger. So you do need special incentives for players to help steer them towards non-stupid decisions in MMOs, but once that problem is solved then the high-population faction is actually easily defeated (because unless they have 51% or higher population, they simply can't handle the resulting two-front war, and will lose ground.)
Pure PVP is PVP undiluted by non-skill factors. And yes GW2 is basically a pure PVP game, though it feels like a stretch to call it one of the hottest PVP games. With just a partial list of the biggest PVP games we can see how GW2 is a relatively small player among PVP titles:
3.5 mil sales, GW2 (wiki) (and probably also has one of the lowest portions of its playerbase touching PVP.)
Casual does apply to time investment, but it also includes a skill component. Progress Quest isn't the most hardcore game ever, just because you can invest limitless hours into it. Quite the opposite: it's an ultra-casual game because no skill is required to play.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Looks more fun and exciting TO ME then any mmo coming. Beta signups are now open.
Fixed it for ya
I think that was implied when he wrote it.
Didnt see him step up and announce that he represents all gamers and his word is that of the masses.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
Well FFA makes PVP games shallower whether or not a zerg mentality exists. Often you start with relatively deep PVP where skill choice, build choice, dodging, interrupts, and all sorts of skill-related factors matter. Then if you introduce population imbalance -- whether it's 200v100 (zerging) or 2v1 -- you trump all of that skill-related depth with one shallow decision.
"Only 3 would get the loot" is an imaginary problem. In the event that the game's loot system is ridiculously obtuse, you'd rotate which of your four 3-man groups had looting rights for any given gank. More likely the game's loot isn't stupid and you'd simply split things up the old fashioned way.
3-factions can help, but people are notoriously stupid in mobs. In a 3-player boardgame when Fred is in the lead then yeah obviously Bob and Jill are going to gang up on him -- that's basic FFA strategy. But in a MMO environment like PS2 suddenly people become stupid and see the leading facton as unassailable and the other underdog as an easy target -- which of course is the worst possible strategic choice and results in the leading faction's lead growing stronger. So you do need special incentives for players to help steer them towards non-stupid decisions in MMOs, but once that problem is solved then the high-population faction is actually easily defeated (because unless they have 51% or higher population, they simply can't handle the resulting two-front war, and will lose ground.)
Pure PVP is PVP undiluted by non-skill factors. And yes GW2 is basically a pure PVP game, though it feels like a stretch to call it one of the hottest PVP games. With just a partial list of the biggest PVP games we can see how GW2 is a relatively small player among PVP titles:
3.5 mil sales, GW2 (wiki) (and probably also has one of the lowest portions of its playerbase touching PVP.)
Casual does apply to time investment, but it also includes a skill component. Progress Quest isn't the most hardcore game ever, just because you can invest limitless hours into it. Quite the opposite: it's an ultra-casual game because no skill is required to play.
The purpose of bringing up GW2 is because in comparison to all the other games listed, its the closest to what we can expect from The Division. While I am not entirely jazzed about all of the decisions they made with the Dark Zone, I don't feel like what we saw will be the ONLY PvP options available. Dark Zone PvP is closer to an FFA WvW scenario, and I use that loosely as we don't know what other options will be available, such as possible servers that require PvP flagging etc. I mean we still have 5 months before beta and not much else on all of the different game modes available.
I don't see how, based on your definition of casual, that the skill required to play The Division is any lesser than the skill that it takes to play GW2, BF4 or street fighter. It actually seems like it would require as much if not more skill because it merges GW2 and BF4, requiring cover, skill management, and real time aiming. I don't see how the type of PvP changes the components of skill involved in how you play. I also don't see how you can ever combat against population imbalance whether its FFA or Faction based unless you specifically stay with structured PvP which is every game you mentioned on that list aside from GW2s WvW. And I know quite a bit about the imbalances in GW2 being on Blackgate which pretty much outzergs all the other servers we get matched with. Its highly likely there will be structured options in The Division, but that wouldn't automatically make it less casual or require more skill.. at least in my opinion.
Looks more fun and exciting TO ME then any mmo coming. Beta signups are now open.
Fixed it for ya
I think that was implied when he wrote it.
Didnt see him step up and announce that he represents all gamers and his word is that of the masses.
Originally posted by laokoko "if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
The purpose of bringing up GW2 is because in comparison to all the other games listed, its the closest to what we can expect from The Division. While I am not entirely jazzed about all of the decisions they made with the Dark Zone, I don't feel like what we saw will be the ONLY PvP options available. Dark Zone PvP is closer to an FFA WvW scenario, and I use that loosely as we don't know what other options will be available, such as possible servers that require PvP flagging etc. I mean we still have 5 months before beta and not much else on all of the different game modes available.
I don't see how, based on your definition of casual, that the skill required to play The Division is any lesser than the skill that it takes to play GW2, BF4 or street fighter. It actually seems like it would require as much if not more skill because it merges GW2 and BF4, requiring cover, skill management, and real time aiming. I don't see how the type of PvP changes the components of skill involved in how you play. I also don't see how you can ever combat against population imbalance whether its FFA or Faction based unless you specifically stay with structured PvP which is every game you mentioned on that list aside from GW2s WvW. And I know quite a bit about the imbalances in GW2 being on Blackgate which pretty much outzergs all the other servers we get matched with. Its highly likely there will be structured options in The Division, but that wouldn't automatically make it less casual or require more skill.. at least in my opinion.
Well it's certainly possible you've read more about Division than I (I've only seen their 2 video releases.) The core pieces of WvW feel like 3-faction (world-based), siege, and territory control. Nothing I've seen on Division gives me the impression of any of those elements. Even if you took GW2's WvW and made it FFA, I feel like you'd describe that as EVE or Darkfall style FFA PVP and not WvW.
Even with other PVP options, it seems unlikely Division will be a good PVP game. The fact that it has FFA PVP where you can loot things from other players implies those looted things matter, and that in turn implies those looted things make you stronger, and that's vertical progression. Vertical progression is the other common non-skill factor that prevents a game from having pure PVP.
The reason it's casual is it's less skill-focused. Chess is a deep, hard-to-master game with a lot of nuance. If you added the option to have a teammate join you with a full set of pieces, the majority of the skill involved in chess would be trumped by the almost skillless act of bringing a friend. One game (chess) is purely about skill, while the other (FFA chess) would largely be about who brought more teammates to the match.
With Division and similar FFA PVP games, the underlying combat might be deep, but a very simple decision (bringing friends) trumps that depth. Bringing friends is a decision which is both easy (requires almost no skill) and extremely powerful. So games with that type of PVP are never as deep or skill-intensive, which is why they're more casual.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by madazz Not an MMO. Developers have stated on many websites its not an MMO. Here is the first quick google link I found. http://ca.ign.com/wikis/the-division
Who said this was a mmo?
You did, by posting in a discussion forum for MMO's.
General Gaming = any game. Since when is using proper forums a bad thing for non-mmo related games?
This was originally posted in the MMO forums. He also posted a thread for the 4 player game Destiny in the MMO forums. Both were moved.
Ahh so more than likely he either misplaced the threads or just said screw taking time to put it in the right place
Well it's certainly possible you've read more about Division than I (I've only seen their 2 video releases.) The core pieces of WvW feel like 3-faction (world-based), siege, and territory control. Nothing I've seen on Division gives me the impression of any of those elements. Even if you took GW2's WvW and made it FFA, I feel like you'd describe that as EVE or Darkfall style FFA PVP and not WvW.
Even with other PVP options, it seems unlikely Division will be a good PVP game. The fact that it has FFA PVP where you can loot things from other players implies those looted things matter, and that in turn implies those looted things make you stronger, and that's vertical progression. Vertical progression is the other common non-skill factor that prevents a game from having pure PVP.
The reason it's casual is it's less skill-focused. Chess is a deep, hard-to-master game with a lot of nuance. If you added the option to have a teammate join you with a full set of pieces, the majority of the skill involved in chess would be trumped by the almost skillless act of bringing a friend. One game (chess) is purely about skill, while the other (FFA chess) would largely be about who brought more teammates to the match.
With Division and similar FFA PVP games, the underlying combat might be deep, but a very simple decision (bringing friends) trumps that depth. Bringing friends is a decision which is both easy (requires almost no skill) and extremely powerful. So games with that type of PVP are never as deep or skill-intensive, which is why they're more casual.
I couldn't really speak to EvE of Darkfalls systems as I haven't really played those games long enough to get the gist of what depth or skill they actually have. I did play Fallen Earth for a while, and while it was a factions system it was also FFA, (at least at the beginning) and it also had a TPS feature. While that game gave you access to DOZENS of skills at a single time per character (more than the division will allow at a single time), and required you to aim so despite all of the actual issues and poor animations that game had, it could be the closest game to The Divisions Dark Zone System. I had a lot of fun with that system... there were never zergs that way outmatched our teams. Sometimes we were outnumbered, but it was usually temporary as with the 6 factions, there was always another one that would come in and only see "red" characters and inadvertently help us.
Now as for the Division, here is what we "know". When you are in the dark zone you 1) Are supposed to fight NPCs to make your way to the armor and weapon drops, and 2) You will encounter other players and can choose to either help them and work with them, or kill them. 3) If you attack (not kill - just attack a player) you become flagged as rogue, this means people can kill YOU without penalty. 4) There IS a penalty for going "rogue" but we don't know what that penalty is yet.
So chances are players will be dissuaded from going rogue too often. Perhaps they get an increase in their "rogue" timer each time.. so even if they just hop into the dark zone an hour later they're still flagged? Maybe "rogues" have increased extraction times? We don't really know exactly what the penalty would be.. but being flagged as a red player free to kill in a PvP area while most players aren't flagged as a free kill is usually a pretty good reason to not randomly attack players.
Sure you'll always have instances where people will still go rogue. In fact some of what I read.. people went rogue on accident (I'm hoping they make it tougher than just a stray bullet flagging you) but with half a year left until Beta, theres a lot of room and a lot we don't know to fine tune to dark zone into something more.
And regardless it does sound like you may just not like any PvP that isn't structured... because in every single open world PvP system, you will ALWAYS be outnumbered a few times, regardless if theres only one other faction or if its FFA. That doesn't require less skill and doesn't mean its a casual game because that happens.. thats literally every game with open world PvP. I'm the kind of guy that played on PvP servers, yeah sometimes you get multiple people attacking you, but with the right game (like The Divisions cover and TPS system) you at least have a chance whereas in most games, you can't even take cover or fight back.
I'm interested, but also afraid that it will be far too "gamey".
I actually applaud longer TTK, but tons of numbers appearing above heads, fighting off waves of enemies etc. That smells like Destiny all over again. Not to mention that they seem to have RNG loot mechanics.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Comments
Well FFA makes PVP games shallower whether or not a zerg mentality exists. Often you start with relatively deep PVP where skill choice, build choice, dodging, interrupts, and all sorts of skill-related factors matter. Then if you introduce population imbalance -- whether it's 200v100 (zerging) or 2v1 -- you trump all of that skill-related depth with one shallow decision.
"Only 3 would get the loot" is an imaginary problem. In the event that the game's loot system is ridiculously obtuse, you'd rotate which of your four 3-man groups had looting rights for any given gank. More likely the game's loot isn't stupid and you'd simply split things up the old fashioned way.
3-factions can help, but people are notoriously stupid in mobs. In a 3-player boardgame when Fred is in the lead then yeah obviously Bob and Jill are going to gang up on him -- that's basic FFA strategy. But in a MMO environment like PS2 suddenly people become stupid and see the leading facton as unassailable and the other underdog as an easy target -- which of course is the worst possible strategic choice and results in the leading faction's lead growing stronger. So you do need special incentives for players to help steer them towards non-stupid decisions in MMOs, but once that problem is solved then the high-population faction is actually easily defeated (because unless they have 51% or higher population, they simply can't handle the resulting two-front war, and will lose ground.)
Pure PVP is PVP undiluted by non-skill factors. And yes GW2 is basically a pure PVP game, though it feels like a stretch to call it one of the hottest PVP games. With just a partial list of the biggest PVP games we can see how GW2 is a relatively small player among PVP titles:
Casual does apply to time investment, but it also includes a skill component. Progress Quest isn't the most hardcore game ever, just because you can invest limitless hours into it. Quite the opposite: it's an ultra-casual game because no skill is required to play.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think that was implied when he wrote it.
Didnt see him step up and announce that he represents all gamers and his word is that of the masses.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
The purpose of bringing up GW2 is because in comparison to all the other games listed, its the closest to what we can expect from The Division. While I am not entirely jazzed about all of the decisions they made with the Dark Zone, I don't feel like what we saw will be the ONLY PvP options available. Dark Zone PvP is closer to an FFA WvW scenario, and I use that loosely as we don't know what other options will be available, such as possible servers that require PvP flagging etc. I mean we still have 5 months before beta and not much else on all of the different game modes available.
I don't see how, based on your definition of casual, that the skill required to play The Division is any lesser than the skill that it takes to play GW2, BF4 or street fighter. It actually seems like it would require as much if not more skill because it merges GW2 and BF4, requiring cover, skill management, and real time aiming. I don't see how the type of PvP changes the components of skill involved in how you play. I also don't see how you can ever combat against population imbalance whether its FFA or Faction based unless you specifically stay with structured PvP which is every game you mentioned on that list aside from GW2s WvW. And I know quite a bit about the imbalances in GW2 being on Blackgate which pretty much outzergs all the other servers we get matched with. Its highly likely there will be structured options in The Division, but that wouldn't automatically make it less casual or require more skill.. at least in my opinion.
Originally posted by laokoko
"if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Well it's certainly possible you've read more about Division than I (I've only seen their 2 video releases.) The core pieces of WvW feel like 3-faction (world-based), siege, and territory control. Nothing I've seen on Division gives me the impression of any of those elements. Even if you took GW2's WvW and made it FFA, I feel like you'd describe that as EVE or Darkfall style FFA PVP and not WvW.
Even with other PVP options, it seems unlikely Division will be a good PVP game. The fact that it has FFA PVP where you can loot things from other players implies those looted things matter, and that in turn implies those looted things make you stronger, and that's vertical progression. Vertical progression is the other common non-skill factor that prevents a game from having pure PVP.
The reason it's casual is it's less skill-focused. Chess is a deep, hard-to-master game with a lot of nuance. If you added the option to have a teammate join you with a full set of pieces, the majority of the skill involved in chess would be trumped by the almost skillless act of bringing a friend. One game (chess) is purely about skill, while the other (FFA chess) would largely be about who brought more teammates to the match.
With Division and similar FFA PVP games, the underlying combat might be deep, but a very simple decision (bringing friends) trumps that depth. Bringing friends is a decision which is both easy (requires almost no skill) and extremely powerful. So games with that type of PVP are never as deep or skill-intensive, which is why they're more casual.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ahh so more than likely he either misplaced the threads or just said screw taking time to put it in the right place
I couldn't really speak to EvE of Darkfalls systems as I haven't really played those games long enough to get the gist of what depth or skill they actually have. I did play Fallen Earth for a while, and while it was a factions system it was also FFA, (at least at the beginning) and it also had a TPS feature. While that game gave you access to DOZENS of skills at a single time per character (more than the division will allow at a single time), and required you to aim so despite all of the actual issues and poor animations that game had, it could be the closest game to The Divisions Dark Zone System. I had a lot of fun with that system... there were never zergs that way outmatched our teams. Sometimes we were outnumbered, but it was usually temporary as with the 6 factions, there was always another one that would come in and only see "red" characters and inadvertently help us.
Now as for the Division, here is what we "know". When you are in the dark zone you 1) Are supposed to fight NPCs to make your way to the armor and weapon drops, and 2) You will encounter other players and can choose to either help them and work with them, or kill them. 3) If you attack (not kill - just attack a player) you become flagged as rogue, this means people can kill YOU without penalty. 4) There IS a penalty for going "rogue" but we don't know what that penalty is yet.
So chances are players will be dissuaded from going rogue too often. Perhaps they get an increase in their "rogue" timer each time.. so even if they just hop into the dark zone an hour later they're still flagged? Maybe "rogues" have increased extraction times? We don't really know exactly what the penalty would be.. but being flagged as a red player free to kill in a PvP area while most players aren't flagged as a free kill is usually a pretty good reason to not randomly attack players.
Sure you'll always have instances where people will still go rogue. In fact some of what I read.. people went rogue on accident (I'm hoping they make it tougher than just a stray bullet flagging you) but with half a year left until Beta, theres a lot of room and a lot we don't know to fine tune to dark zone into something more.
And regardless it does sound like you may just not like any PvP that isn't structured... because in every single open world PvP system, you will ALWAYS be outnumbered a few times, regardless if theres only one other faction or if its FFA. That doesn't require less skill and doesn't mean its a casual game because that happens.. thats literally every game with open world PvP. I'm the kind of guy that played on PvP servers, yeah sometimes you get multiple people attacking you, but with the right game (like The Divisions cover and TPS system) you at least have a chance whereas in most games, you can't even take cover or fight back.
I'm interested, but also afraid that it will be far too "gamey".
I actually applaud longer TTK, but tons of numbers appearing above heads, fighting off waves of enemies etc. That smells like Destiny all over again. Not to mention that they seem to have RNG loot mechanics.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!