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Will PvP be a zergfest??

Easy now, ain't trolling here or anything like that.

Thing is, I never played DAOC for example, I played games with battlegrounds/scenarious/warzones and arenas etc, etc... Sometimes I wonder how the pvp could be sustainable in a game like ESO where there are only PvP in Cyrodiil. And that it is a pvp with masses! I'm a bit afraid that it will mostly be a so called zergfest, wich is very fun for a while though (TarrenMill/Southshore) but is fun for long?, sustainable?

 

Hey, I read other peoples post every now and then and some people seems to praise DAOC's system. And sure, I think they know what they are talking about but in what way was it so fun in the long term? How did it work? What made it sustainable?

 

Now, I am looking forward to this 3 faction pvp aswell as the pve part in ESO, it seems fun. I just never played a game with such a system so therefor I wonder.

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Comments

  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719

    1. You always play with the same people...more or less. The same guilds on your side and the same enemies in theirs. Scenario PVP in other games is mostly random Qs: a bunch of strangers against other strangers--at best 4 or 5 people you know and that only some of the time. In DAoC you got to know a lot of people fighting with them day in and day out. That matters. 

    2. Complex planning and execution. Not all the time, but often enough. Sometimes you just head out to the frontier and see what's cooking. Other times you spend a week or more planning a "relic raid" (Elder Scroll raid here) that involved attacking the toughest, best defended stronghold of one of your two enemy alliances. After you got it, you then had to run it back to your own stronghold. Lots of opportunity for trying to catch them by surprise, fake them out with diversionary attacks elsewhere, some groups harassing and trying to prevent reinforcements, scouting, etc. Once you got those relics you stole back home, your whole alliance would get some PVE and PVP boost. Each side in DaoC had a magic and a melee relic. Whichever you stole, would boost that ability. Not sure how they will do it here but it'll be something like that. I know, this is sort of old-hat now. WOW and everybody else has copied this realm wide (or at least zone-wide) boost system from DAoC. Maybe they'll add some new wrinkles to it.

    3. On the other side of 2 above... rallying and trying to prevent them taking it or hitting them as they try to take it back to their stronghold. Or... if you're the third alliance, using the opportunity to do your own impromptu raid. Endless possibilities. Contrast that to a 15 minute scenario that is always more or less the same.

    4. No separate PVE and PVP gear with contrived PvP-only stats. So...no point farming for gear. Some point farming for some of the post level cap extra abilities PVP points got you but the focus, at least in "vanilla" DAoC, wasn't just in racking up the points. People just did it because they liked doing it.

    But the key to all that is some kind of reward system that makes all types of contribution worth it. That's where Warhammer Online really screwed-up. The rewards were such that defending wasn't worth the time or effort. So yeah, it deteriorated into a zergfest with one side taking a keep, getting the reward points and then abandoning it and letting the other side take it back to farm points while you went somewhere else to take another one. On top of that, WAR also had 15 minute scenarios with better rewards than keep taking. People Q'd for the scenarios and whenever they popped they would go do that and abandon the raid. WAR was also only 2-sided. The 3rd side makes a big difference and makes everything riskier. Your home territory isn't safe just because all of Alliance A and Alliance B are tied up in one big fight somewhere. Alliance C will have their own ideas and hit you where you're week.

    Just some of the things that made it work.

    "Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”

    ― Umberto Eco

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    ― CD PROJEKT RED

  • PaRoXiTiCPaRoXiTiC Member UncommonPosts: 603
    War is a zergfest. Don't you watch old movies? Theres nothing that can be done about it. Massive World vs World vs World PVP will always and forever be a zergfest.
  • SleepyfishSleepyfish Member Posts: 363

    Well keep in mind DAOC was DAOC and RVR was built from the ground up to go with the game and lore. It had the fortune of one being a new concept and also at a time when DAOC at its peak had 250k total subs, which was a lot for that time. The problem currently is that you are really just dealing with one big center of the map siege battleground. and if you are trying to keep a population of a few million occupied you will have to put out more instanced battlegrounds just to keep the boredom at bay. the combat system itself will determine if its a Zerg fest or not though.

    GW2 is a zergfest because the combat system is spammy and poor. You face zergs in GW2 because ranged combat is a joke, not to mention any utility, dps AOE spam is king. Thats what killed their WvWvW. So the debate on pvp is just from people like me who think RVR is more like a mini game than actual pvp, but it does not have to be a zerg if combat is not terrible. Archery so far looks pretty good, but we will see how far you can snipe someone to be sure, if it looks like a bunch of guys trying to hit you with a 20 foot AOE ground dps attack you may have problems. 

  • MasitaMasita Member Posts: 10

    DAoC PvP (RvR) differs from most newer PvP games: Much longer Crowd Control spells (+immunity) and Interrupts (interrupting caster and archer classes) are by far more important than for example in GW2.

    Using Crowd Control efficiently, a small, well  organized group can take out a much larger force. Something I really miss in newer PvP games...

  • svannsvann Member RarePosts: 2,230
    I believe they said that if you die you respawn at your homepoint entrance, so it wont be like you just die and run back in immediately.  If you die you are out of the battle until you can travel back.  So dont die.
  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719
    Originally posted by svann
    I believe they said that if you die you respawn at your homepoint entrance, so it wont be like you just die and run back in immediately.  If you die you are out of the battle until you can travel back.  So dont die.

    Or if you do, get rezzed. In DAoC you only ever really had to run back - and it was a long run - if the whole party/raid wiped or you died in a spot where no one on your side had a LOS to you.

    Funny thing about ESO though, rezzing uses up the same soul gems you need to use to recharge your magic items. I can just see it... "sorry man, can't rezz you, my healing staff is almost out of charge and I only have one soul gem left" image

    "Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”

    ― Umberto Eco

    “Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” 
    ― CD PROJEKT RED

  • ApraxisApraxis Member UncommonPosts: 1,518

    Why was DAoC not only a zerg fest? Because it was a zerg fest. Port to emain macha and the zerg fest was a 100% guarantee.

    But in DAoC the actual RvR zone was huge.. even more in the beginning there were 3 different huge zones. You need to run 30 min or more from one end to the other.. of one zone.

    So basicly the zerg concentrated at one single point.. and usually at the same single point.. in Emain Macha.. And Emain Macha was one zone of the Hib RvR Zones.. basicly just 1/15 of the total RvR Zone.

    If you want to have smaller scale pvp you could run through the other zones, and you would have found(after some time) another group, or other player for small scale pvp.

    In WAR this never happend, because a) the zone were more or less tiny, and b) most ppl looking for small scale pvp joined a instanced. (easier, fast, more reward.. but not that fun in comparsion)

    In GW2 because a) the zones are again more or less tiny in comparsion, and b) the zones are extremely crowded.. one castle beside the other just almost no room between that it can even happen that smaller groups can meet and can fight it out.

    How will it in ESO? It really depends on a lot of stuff. Will the AvA(PvP) map huge enough? Will it not be overfilled with castles and stuff( and as i heard already you can run(with mount) from one castle to another in 1-2 min. this really cries tiny and or crowded once again), and/or will there be enough objectives spread around for different size of groups.. and are they worth is?

    How fast can you run from one spot to the other? If you can run within 5-10 min. to every spot, you will not find one fight uninterupted.. or with other words, you will only see zerg.

    I don't know how it will turn out.. but  i am not that optimistic.

  • artemisentr4artemisentr4 Member UncommonPosts: 1,431
    Originally posted by Iselin
    Originally posted by svann
    I believe they said that if you die you respawn at your homepoint entrance, so it wont be like you just die and run back in immediately.  If you die you are out of the battle until you can travel back.  So dont die.

    Or if you do, get rezzed. In DAoC you only ever really had to run back - and it was a long run - if the whole party/raid wiped or you died in a spot where no one on your side had a LOS to you.

    Funny thing about ESO though, rezzing uses up the same soul gems you need to use to recharge your magic items. I can just see it... "sorry man, can't rezz you, my healing staff is almost out of charge and I only have one soul gem left" image

    I guess that means everyone needs to carry some extra. "I will trade you 4 soul gems if you rezz me!!!"

    “How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?”
    R.A.Salvatore

  • tanzer126tanzer126 Member CommonPosts: 3
    I honestly just hope pvp is segregated.. I don't care for it in mmo's because there is 0 skill involved at any level past "these skills work against this".... If there is any form of open world FFA pvp i will end up not buying, played the beta this weekend, very high hopes for the pve. don't want to see it ruined by morons and griefers
  • DistopiaDistopia Member EpicPosts: 21,183
    Originally posted by tanzer126
    I honestly just hope pvp is segregated.. I don't care for it in mmo's because there is 0 skill involved at any level past "these skills work against this".... If there is any form of open world FFA pvp i will end up not buying, played the beta this weekend, very high hopes for the pve. don't want to see it ruined by morons and griefers

    If there is no skill in playing against a thinking, reacting, real opponent,  your own statement.. How is there any skill at all in PVE and why would you enjoy that more?

    For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson


  • EntinerintEntinerint Member UncommonPosts: 868

    Let's see:  No collision detection and no friendly fire?

    Yeah that spells ZERG-FEST to me.

  • tanzer126tanzer126 Member CommonPosts: 3

    People, like those scripted thoughtless monsters I enjoy slaying, are predictable. given time nothing is left to chance. skills wont drastically change mid fight, at a certain point the leaps and bounds into higher quality gear slow to a point by point min-max race. I hate pvp in mmo's, while i love first person shooters as a competitive outlet, where eye hand coordination, reaction time, tactical split second thinking all come into play on a level that (when lag is removed from the equation) is a far better test of "skill". 

    PvP is (or should be) defined as two combatants who are there for the same purpose, to kill the other. in a segregated pvp situation that is the case, in open world, that quickly and harshly turns from pvp, to pking, in which one side is there for blood and the other just wants to get on with their damned business without being bothered by a fool.

     

    open world pvp has been a problem in every single game it has ever been implemented into, a simple look at Aion (i use this reference for it's size and reputation) shows that before there were penalties for rifting with a high level into a much lower level area, the game was rampant with the elitest griefers and gankers, against whom the average player who is in the zone appropriate for their level has nill chance at even escape let alone victory.

     

    in any game with levels, character progression of any means (gear availability, skills, revenue streams) open world pvp is like sending an aircraft carrier to settle a debate between two fishermen on their row boats..

  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719

    The only situation where a zerg can't happen is in instances with a small number of players. In any kind of open world environment - PVP or PVE - a mindless zerg with no strategy is an option for people who want to do it that way.

    So... I'm going to assume that anyone using the term in a disdainful way is a 5-man, scripted dungeon instance aficionado. Some people enjoy choreographed folk dancing with memorized steps, others just like to dance. image

    "Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”

    ― Umberto Eco

    “Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” 
    ― CD PROJEKT RED

  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719
    Originally posted by Torvaldr
    Originally posted by Iselin

    The only situation where a zerg can't happen is in instances with a small number of players. In any kind of open world environment - PVP or PVE - a mindless zerg with no strategy is an option for people who want to do it that way.

    So... I'm going to assume that anyone using the term in a disdainful way is a 5-man, scripted dungeon instance aficionado. Some people enjoy choreographed folk dancing with memorized steps, others just like to dance. image

    Yeah, I've never seen large group pvp that couldn't devolve into a zergball.  Sometimes steamrolling a map in a zergball is fun and it's sort of cool when large scale combat gets out of control.

    I prefer small to medium group sized skirmishes mostly, but zerging has it's place.  A really good pvp system, in my opinion of course, will have stategy and tactics options that can stop a zergball in its tracks, or possibilities for smaller groups to harass or disrupt the zerg. For Aiur.

    Not to mention developers making defense an attractive option that gives you the same or even better rewards (points or whatever) than attacking.

    That was WAR's main problem: it was much more rewarding to take a keep than to defend one. This led to the inevitable "keep flipping" where two zergs would avoid each other, take a keep and promptly abandon it

    "Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”

    ― Umberto Eco

    “Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” 
    ― CD PROJEKT RED

  • JyiigaJyiiga Member UncommonPosts: 1,187

    As others have pointed out defense needs to be an option.

    I say the size of the area we are defending and how fast you can move around in it are also ways to break up the zerg.

    Guild Wars 2 is a good example of nice ideas, but sorry execution. I still log on and participate in their WvW, but the areas that we fight over are entirely to small. I normally break away from the zerg and do my own thing simply for fun and challenge alone. The zergs are what determine control over the map. The more you can group together the faster you can crush the other side.

    If the zone was larger and harder to get around (no stupid teleport way points). It would warrant better tactics. DAOC had its share of zergs, but the RvR areas were so big that I could group up and go off with a small team and still make a big impact. I can't really do that in GW2.

    Make it big! Make travel take time! Make defense viable!

  • Swids2010Swids2010 Member Posts: 244

    Simple answer YES

    From what I've read about it and from playing wvwvw in gw2 (which I did love for maybe 2-3 months) it seams like its going to be very similar so if you played that you know what to expect.

    image
  • ButeoRegalisButeoRegalis Member UncommonPosts: 594


    Originally posted by Masita DAoC PvP (RvR) differs from most newer PvP games: Much longer Crowd Control spells (+immunity) and Interrupts (interrupting caster and archer classes) are by far more important than for example in GW2. Using Crowd Control efficiently, a small, well  organized group can take out a much larger force. Something I really miss in newer PvP games...
    .. because if it's one thing PvP players like it's to be disabled by a good hard stun lock, sit there for thirty seconds, maybe a minute until they finally kill you. Best-time-ever!

    Closely followed by...


    But in DAoC the actual RvR zone was huge.. even more in the beginning there were 3 different huge zones. You need to run 30 min or more from one end to the other.. of one zone.

    ...dying in battle, respawning at PK and then having to run back to the battle for 5 minutes.

    Believe it or not, change can actually be good for you.

    image

  • FlyinDutchman87FlyinDutchman87 Member UncommonPosts: 336

    The success or failure of a zerg really has a few main influences.

     

    1. The prevalence and power of AOE skills. In GW2 there is a hard cap on the number and damage of AOE's. This makes it highly effective to pile a million idiots on top of each other.  If AOE's are powerful enough when stacked they will punish players for being to concentrated.

     

    2. The rewards for Capping and Defending. In games like War and GW2 players get awesome rewards for capping things and very little for defending. Also the rewards for capping smaller points are VERY tiny in comparision to the larger keeps. This makes it so that players are rewarded for clumping together to take the largest objectives instead of rewarding them for spreading out and defending, or capping smaller points.

     

    3. Importance of side objectives. The supplies in GW2 were an awesome idea but not nearly deep enough. If you had iron mines and stone quaries to defend and use. actaully building/repairing of keeps and things with crafting skills. Watch towers and such that are actually defensible it would spread players out improving the over all experience instead of having a massive cluster of idiots just running some point to point smashing everything.

  • ElikalElikal Member UncommonPosts: 7,912

    Well of course YES!

     

    Heck, I haven't seen a single MMO with open PVP where victory was NOT decided by masses of zergfests running. As MMORPGs are designed, meaning how combat is designed, there is simply no room for finesse or strategy. In 9 out of 10 fights yours health is down faster that you can say "poppycock".

    People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert

  • keithiankeithian Member UncommonPosts: 3,191
    Originally posted by Elikal

    Well of course YES!

     

    Heck, I haven't seen a single MMO with open PVP where victory was NOT decided by masses of zergfests running. As MMORPGs are designed, meaning how combat is designed, there is simply no room for finesse or strategy. In 9 out of 10 fights yours health is down faster that you can say "poppycock".

    This contradicts your icon representing Lord of the Rings and Galadriel where she says "

    “Even the smallest person can change the course of the future”"

     

    Elikal, you need to have more self belief lol. By the way, I think my next female dog will be named Galadriel.

    There Is Always Hope!

  • ElikalElikal Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
    Originally posted by keithian
    Originally posted by Elikal

    Well of course YES!

     

    Heck, I haven't seen a single MMO with open PVP where victory was NOT decided by masses of zergfests running. As MMORPGs are designed, meaning how combat is designed, there is simply no room for finesse or strategy. In 9 out of 10 fights yours health is down faster that you can say "poppycock".

    This contradicts your icon representing Lord of the Rings and Galadriel where she says "

    “Even the smallest person can change the course of the future”"

     

    Elikal, you need to have more self belief lol. By the way, I think my next female dog will be named Galadriel.

    Well, I really loved the scene between Galadriel and Gandalf in the Hobbit, like the goodness of the small people makes a change. But we speak of MMOs here. And I I'd make an icon representing myself, it would be Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets show!

     

    Statler: Do you think this show constitutes cruelty to animals?
    Waldorf: Not unless they're watching it.

    hohohoho XD

     

    EDIT: Ah I wish I'd have a dog too. I'd like a black Labrador Retriever. Alas living alone it just doesn't work, who'd look after the dog when I am at work?

    People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert

  • IridescentOrkIridescentOrk Member Posts: 157
    I like the zerg and always will. I also like mini PvP games aka battlegrounds, scenarios, etc.

    gameplay > graphics

  • khartokhar3khartokhar3 Member UncommonPosts: 486
    i hope developers never listen to the whiners. rvr games should always have zerging. love it when big zergs fight each other. those fights are epic. bgs and arenas are for solo or group pvp.
  • FlyinDutchman87FlyinDutchman87 Member UncommonPosts: 336

    I have no issue with massive PVP. I just want  there to be a meter of success other than number of players. I want it to take 100 players an hour to cap a keep instead of four minutes. I want to have a chance to stop them. I want to be rewarded for standing around some Po-dunk lumber camp trying to keep the supplies flowing and keep 2 rouges from capping it.

     

    There is nothing wrong with the zerg, hell you should NEED the zerg if yourt trying to take something big, but the game shouldn't be two groups of 200 players running around capping all the points without stopping to ever defend anything. I'd much rather see 10 groups of 30 people spread out in small fights than 300v300 idiot fest where no one has any idea what is happening.

    That's not saying there isn't a time and a place for a 300v300 fight, but it should be a rare ocurence not the norm. 

     

  • TheMaahesTheMaahes Member Posts: 185
    Originally posted by Vinterkrig
    Originally posted by khartokhar3
    i hope developers never listen to the whiners. rvr games should always have zerging. love it when big zergs fight each other. those fights are epic. bgs and arenas are for solo or group pvp.

    I'm fine with zergs if there are ways to counter zergs, like old school DAOC.. GW2 is the biggest pile thanks to its aoe spamming zergfest full of no skill casuals.

    My experience with RvR was WAR and it is the game I think everyone (developers and fans) need to look at more than DAoC. Camelot gives us the example of how to do RvR, but WAR provides a mile-long list of mistakes that need to be avoided. The big one, is the idea that warbands should only be countered by other warbands. While Mythic never voiced this opinion, their class balance history strongly indicates it. They developed a phobia of AoE damage and silently pushed for small teams to rely on ST "melee-trains" rather than "bombing". This directly lead to the dominance of zergs. It was only when the population began to drastically drop (and thus the zerg sizes) that small groups could "melee train" down a zerg, but still only under ideal circumstances (ambush, hit all priority targets, and wipe them within a small time frame).

    Zergs are not a bad thing when there are ways to deal with them, and not all large forces are zergs (meaning, don't cry zerg if they appear to have more than you). The idea of RvR is to have these large fights and they are fucking epic. So many great memories in WAR with them.

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