Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
WKW algoritm for balanced PVP Environments: have you ever heard about it in any MMORPG?
Marere
Member Posts: 25
WKW = Who killed who
Basically this algoritm modulates all possible PVP deaths aftermaths (death penalty, respawning places...) basing them on chars PVP history (frags, repeated PVP deaths...), killer(s)-victim level range, PVP fight condition (trap, PK team...) finally turning any open/enforced (also called hardcore) pvp fight into a fair one.
It is currently discussed in a Focus Group discussion talking about Tibia PVP environment. Have you ever heard about such an algoritm in any other MMO?
I'm searching for a truly balanced PVP mmo since years... Do not talk me about WOW, EVE, ULTIMA & co: those are for crying babies. I want action.
Replies are more than welcome (:
Basically this algoritm modulates all possible PVP deaths aftermaths (death penalty, respawning places...) basing them on chars PVP history (frags, repeated PVP deaths...), killer(s)-victim level range, PVP fight condition (trap, PK team...) finally turning any open/enforced (also called hardcore) pvp fight into a fair one.
It is currently discussed in a Focus Group discussion talking about Tibia PVP environment. Have you ever heard about such an algoritm in any other MMO?
I'm searching for a truly balanced PVP mmo since years... Do not talk me about WOW, EVE, ULTIMA & co: those are for crying babies. I want action.
Replies are more than welcome (:
Comments
Calling UO and EVE cry baby games is like painting a huge bullseye on your back around here.
I've not heard of it, but it sounds pretty interesting. Balanced and MMO PVP rarely go in the same sentence. How would it handle gear discrepancies?
People searching for balanced PVP would be the crying babies IMO.
But no, haven't heard of any game successfully achieving this sort of balance, maybe because PVP, like life, isn't fair right?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Pffffff... you wouldn't last a month in Eve... nothing in eve is EVER fair.
Balanced pvp is for crybabies... go play wow battlegrounds with all shamans...
In Tibia gears equipment do not have a great relevance, given that best part of damages are elemental ones rather than physicals and that elemental eq pieces attributes have very low reduction rates (1-12%). Physical damage weapons (Knight/paladin-only) have great stats sometimes, but mages classes healing formulas are well counter-balanced to deal with such stats. Chars' skills and level are what make a character really powerful in Tibia and, since both Open (limited daily, weekly, monthly unjust frags) and Hardcore (no frags limits) Tibia PVP servers have no gang/level range limitations, it's easy to guess what happens there to newbies or to solo hunters. Note that in Tibia even a noobchars gang can kill a powerful high level character.
As far as I've understood, the algoritm would work in background, not limiting in anyway the game experience: players would be able to harass, random PK & co like they are used to do nowadays. It would simply fix the actual troubles due to death penalties judging each PVP fight to render fair death aftermaths: atm best part of players aren't able to recover their harsh PVP deaths loss.
@ "Calling UO and EVE cry baby games is like painting a huge bullseye on your back around here"
I go around with a bullseye painted on my back in Open and Enforced pvp servers of best MMos since 1997. Go figure if I'd hide it on a board.
This was my last post there: I'm ranting simply because CCP design didn't follow my own expectations and desires. And obviously CCP isn't my property and what I personally think doesn't matter.So: I'm ranting because an hardcore game is made for its audience, and not for me.
Sure. I anticipated this and explained my reasons on the first post I wrote recently. Where I wrote that my opinion is that Eve-Online has reached its critical mass and if they now want new players they need to start open up their systems. Bridging the early (and dull) game to the more deep stuff.
Factional Warfare isn't doing that, and I ranted. This also raised again the idea of a PvP design philosophy. A concept that I would like to see in at least ONE game. But that right now is completely absent from the market.
Which would be then meaningful only if there would be a big market for it. I believe there is. And that it is commercially BIGGER than what we have currently (for PvP). So: design philosophy and personal opinions. Personal opinions that matter not because *I* write them, but because when I write them I also *motivate* them.
This PvP design philosophy is about the progression system. Every decent system needs a progression. And every decent progression needs to be accessible. So that everyone can move through. More slowly or faster, but still move through.
Translating this to PvP simply means: PvP will NEVER be accessible and widespread if it works at a loss. So this is how it should work: if you want a system where PvP is more frequent and fun, then you need a system where people can participate without losing more they can gain.
In a system where the experienced players are MUCH, MUCH powerful than new people who enter for the first time, you need some mechanic to leverage them. Especially in the longer term, when people who are already inside become more and more powerful and the wall to climb for the new players higher and higher. In Eve it doesn't matter if there's a corp who decides to take over, new players won't have a chance if they enter a system where EVERYONE is more powerful than they are.
For PvP to work and be popular and widespread entry costs need to stay low. As low as possible.
In Eve-Online and other "hardcore" PvP games the costs are instead higher to the lower end than the higher end, where you can develop a fair margin of wealth to stay safe. Noobs pay higher costs than veterans. And this creates a gap between players that is harder and harder to fill, in a similar fashion to what happens with PvE raiding endgame. The game becomes increasingly specialized and less and less appealing and accessible for new players. That for a MMO equals to a progressive, unavoidable decline.
So: a PvP system with very low entry costs and at a gain. Where you gain through participation. Progressively.
In EVERY game and PvP systems you die a lot when you enter for the first time. In Eve-Online not only you would die a lot, but you'll also PAY a lot. So a lot of players shy away because the game isn't for them, while a smaller subset cling to the mechanic and find an exponential success, because once you climb the wall you can look down at things from far above. And it is rewarding.
But it's also an overall mechanic that is divisive and that works only toward a minority. A minority that will be eroded over time.
This means it is a choice, and that there's nothing wrong to make a game that aims at a niche. But you also have to recognize and admit what you're doing.
I'm not fighting against the idea that hardcore players shouldn't have their game. But that PvP can be both deep and accessible. And I want to play that game. And I believe it would be extremely successful.
I don't like the idea that I have to grind boring PvE missions for a week so that I'm able to participate in PvP for an hour. PvE should never be a requirement so that you can enjoy some PvP. I want a PvP system where participation costs are LOWER than the rewards. So that I can stick to it and continue to play and have fun. Without punishing mechanics to push me to the lowest risks.
These are the points I've offered for Eve:
* Open/factional PvP should be limited to SPECIFIC battleground systems tagged for Factional Warfare. While secure space should stay secure even if you are signed in.
* Within these tagged systems NPC factions should provide you the "gear" to use. Gain ranks to get access to better gear/PvP sets. If you blow up, you get replacements. As long you fight for them. (free participation costs)
* Forbid players to bring NPC-rented equipment outside battleground systems. So that the gear you gain can only be used inside this system. (not disrupting the current game)
* Forbid you to swap sets. So that you are only able to fly in NPC-rent sets, and not bring a goddamned Titan to a noob battleground.
The last point would allow these battles to be accessible to everyone, both noobs and hardcore, and yet provide equal opportunities as no one gets access to more powerful stuff.
That's how you "train" people to PvP. By making it fun, accessible and frequent.
To these proposals some players replied that the PvP would lose all "meaningfulness" if you don't risk to lose anything anymore. To that I replied that for me "meaningful PvP" is about communal objectives. Conquering and holding public space, expanding the empire.
If you paragraph your last post I'd consider reading it as I'm quite interested in this. I doubt many others will dare try to read that wall of text either!
"If all you can say is... "It's awful, it's not innovative, it's ugly, it's blah.." Then you're an unimaginative and unpolished excuse for human life" -eburn
killed by a wall of text...
http://www.teraonline.info.pl Polski Poradnik Gry Tera Online
Sounds kinda misguided. If you want to make a game about balanced PVP, why not make a game about balanced PVP?
Doesn't make sense to me to start with imbalanced PVP (open PVP) and then try to force it to be balanced with an arbitrary algorithm (which will inevitably fail.)
If you want unfair PVP, you embrace it and go in EVE's direction of having combat be one-sided (and therefore uninteresting.)
If you want good competitive PVP, you remove as many non-skill factors as possible. WOW Arenas/BGs are the closest MMORPGs get to it, but even those don't factor out all non-skill elements.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It depends on what you are looking for. If you want PvP to make the world feel real, ie people get murdered, ganged up on, there is war, etc in the real world and most IP's. So open PvP isn't about combat as much as rolling the with dangers of "life."
Then there is PvP for the fun of fighting another player. In that situation I don't see open PvP making any sense. You might as well have arena combat.
As for what the OP said. I don't really know what you are taking about here. Is this some kind of debuff to gankers, griefers, or zergs to even out open world combat? If so, then who is going to design this complicated code that not only makes intelligent decisions based on in game environment and fairly changes stats to "make it fair" but also is not open to exploitation which with current computers is extremely easy to do when you have code that must make decisions based on thousands of variables. (holy run on sentence batman)
Keep in mind developers have a difficult time evening out classes in general. With enough people talking to each other and number crunchers studying the game, people quickly find niche ways of playing that blows balance out of the water. It would not take much for people to trick this algorithm into debuffing their opponents.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
PvP balance is a myth.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Or you could.. you know.. click the edit button, and hit the enter button a few times throughout it. You're the one trying to make a point after all.
Seriously. Holy wall of text, batman. It literally strains my eyes to try reading it.
Then play an FPS or RTS that's designed for PvP.
MMORPGs are about progression, typically character driven. When you "balance out" fights, you contradict the main point of an MMO. In short, you quite literally cannot have truly balanced PvP in an MMORPG.
I've edited my post accordingly and reformatted it, but nothing has changed. The mere "enter" doens't add tabs. Yes, I'm the one who's trying to make a point here, not to waste my time solving this board text formatting issues.
@ Axehilt:
The only thing which doesn't make sense is to the deny any evolution process.
@ Ceredith:
It's not about balancing fights: if one is supposed to die in a particular condition he has to die. PVP deaths aftermaths are the point: an unbalanced fight should result in cheaper death penalties, even considering the former attitude of the agressor. Example: there is no reason for which a newbie should suffer any death penalty facing an uber char who went wild with noobchars repeated times in a short period. The abuse potential of such a death penalty limitation is nothing compared to the potential damage made by that uber-char to the whole environment, more if talking about newcomers noobchars. **** [edit] @ Formatting: even this post appears to be well formatted in text editor (and yes, I've used enter).
Edit your post and space it out.
--------------------------
Playing:
FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS
My Rig:
GPU: GeForce GTX 770, CPU: i7-4790K, Memory: 16 GB RAM
There much better and so you know i used the Enter key. Now i shall actually read it.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
People who want open world PvP don't want it to be fair. Arena and battlegrounds can be made balanced with level restrictions, boosting lower level characters and/or making sure the PvP does not revolve around gear grinding.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
He is basically saying that noobs cant catch up to vets quickly because of the skill training system and the fact vets have been playing longer.
He also wants things like Factional warfare restricted to certain systems so that noob space [his name for high sec not mine] stays safe for nobs.
Also he doesant like how factional warfare causes you to lose stuff and proposes a factional leveling system where higher level players = better gear and free replacements if your ship dies.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
We comprehend it perfectly. It doesn't mean we're going to attempt to read it for fear of blood shooting out of our eyes.
Point is your post was unreadable in its current form so i fixed it. Now its readable and i could comment on it.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
It depends on how one defines unfair. If we're talking about ganking that is due to the fact that too many PVP games also rely on the character level system for progression. And such a system is unbalanced in PVP (just as it is implicitly unbalanced in PVE) as one's character progresses in levels that character either gains new abilities or has their existing abilities augmented. It produces a perverse incentive to farm low level characters in a PVP context. Now, PVP Muds did have solutions that are similar to those used in modern MMOs: reputation (security rating in EVE), reduced rewards (some sorts of points for guild renown or what not) per kill per character, and level bands (a level 1 cannot be killed by a level 10, but neither can the level 1 kill the level 10).
Each one has its problems, but each one is the trade off to keep level systems. Alternatives do exist to avoid this problem, but they too are trade offs that offer downsides to the whole situation. So, I can't say there's an absolute best possible world of PVP, but rather ones that have more attractive benefits and equally attractive tradeoffs. Frankly, EVE comes closer than most in terms of balance when considering 1-on-1 PVP as it's pretty damn hard to gank a newbie that has at least some experience or understanding of the warp mechanics (even including gate camping). There's still the good chance to get the jump on a newbie, but after a few times, a newbie figures out being in a specialized group of friendlies will oftner keep the gankers away (and make the PVP more interesting).