Why PvP is never fun in MMOs

[carbocat]

Gear progression is what keeps people hooked. If you want a multiplayer game where gear isn't a factor, I hear FPS and starcraft don't require gear grinds. Also, why should a valor rank 1 be able to smash a valor rank 50? The valor rank 50 obviously has put in the time to learning pvp, so he would have the advantage of knowing what hes doing.

 

...This...

[vinnia]

No. No. No.

 

It is all about the money, epic grinding = takes long = Players plays longer = More money.

 

And if u make only lvl 10 brackets lvl 11 brackts till 50. Ques are to long.

[RealAeiouy]

It's really very basic. If you're a casual player who doesn't have the time to farm out tokens and get great gear, then when that player goes up against somebody who does, they'll always lose. There's no skill needed, it's all based on gear.

 

Yet every company that makes an MMO falls into the same basic trap -- just throw everybody into the same PvP match and let them deal with it. How hard is it to realize that if you group people up by some kind of PvP rank, they'll have more fun.

 

You wouldn't build a game where a level 1 player has to face a level 50 NPC and defeat them, now would you? So why shouldn't PvP work the same way? Why should Bioware expect somebody at Valor rank 1 to face off against somebody at Valor rank 50 and expect there to be any modicum of a fair fight?

 

It seems like Bioware has all the tools at its disposal to make this game fun, but throws them out the window so they can be like Blizzard. At least Blizzard didn't make the mistake of giving every single class several stuns, roots and knock backs.

 

Thanks for the armature job, Bioware.

 

The primary reason you will lose is because you are not good. Why are you not good? Because you don't play pvp enough to be good. By virtue of playing pvp and getting good you end up with gear as well.

 

People who think the only thing that is holding them back in pvp is gear are delusional. I know when I am fighting someone who out levels or outgears me if they are good at pvp or bad just with gear. It makes a difference. If you can't make the distinction that means you need to spend more time playing pvp and less time worrying about gear.

 

The ceiling for getting full pvp gear is relatively low. It does not take a year to get all the gear you need. If you are actually skilled, as you claim, then you will only need a piece or two of gear before you skill balances things out anyways... So it is not anything to worry about.

 

It is just nutty that people who casually play pvp think they are really good at it and it is gear progression that is keeping them from dominating, that is crazy talk.

[Corolie]

If you don't enjoy PvP or just suck at it like I do.. Just don't it... simple as that unless you find someone worst then yourself to play against lol

[chuleh]

Pre-AoS UO > all MMOs.

[RealAeiouy]

I actually do understand this. However, I am strongly against giving developers a pass on crappy game design.

 

No effect from gear. It has been suggested numerous places that gear should be made to be purely cosmetic on PvP and all characters have their stats set to a baseline based on class.

 

The Valor 1 is smarter/more well informed. Alternately, the Valor 50 is just really bad and simply invested a lot of time, rather than actually improving themselves and their understanding of their class and the opposing class.

 

Why should someone get an automatic win against someone based on time played?

 

It is a character management and progression game. A character that has significantly progressed passed another should be significantly better. Why some of you think the heart of the game be removed because you don't feel like you should have to progress and grow your character I don't know.

[Bhorzo]

MMORPGs are usually based on gear-grinds, and not just skill.

 

How can a level 10 kill a level 50 monster? They can't. Same for PVP. RPGs are about developing the stats of your character. More time = more power.

 

Skill is sometimes a factor, but often it is not. I don't expect my level 14 to kill a level 50 raid boss, nor do I expect him to take down a geared 50 in PVP - even if I were the most skilled gamer alive. If you want a game that's purely based on skill, with a level playing field, then MMORPGs are probably not for you.

 

The basic design principles behind MMORPGs go against fair, balanced, competitive, skill-based PVP.

 

(Exceptions can be made for Guild Wars which gave you max-rank characters, and identical gear, or WOW's tournament realms... but exceptions are rare.)

Edited January 16, 2012 by Bhorzo

[RealAeiouy]

Agreed completely. The possibility of wining is always more fun than the inevitability of losing. Of course, you always run into those ******s who think they have skill, when they really just have gear.

 

Or even more commonly those who think the only reason they lose constantly is because they don't have gear.

[Speno]

THIS JUST IN BIG NAME FPS GAMES NOW REQUIRE GEAR GRINDS. Rank 45 in bf3 havent played since this came out.

 

BF3- Gear Grind levels, and toons.

MW3 = Gear grind weapons

[Ozlock]

I have fun in swtor pvp! If you don't, go play PVE. There are lots of PVE servers.

[RealAeiouy]

I would add all too often people paint this picture of one side being ungeared and the other side fully geared. The reality is 98% of the time you have a mixture of players with various levels of gear. It is a team event and those with less gear can contribute a lot. If you run around trying to 1v1 Bms you are doing it wrong.

 

People act like there is some special flag that makes everyone against them in better gear. That is not how it works. Again it comes across as more excuse making for not succeeding.

 

If you are on a team with 5 fully geared players and 3 fresh 50s vs a team composed similarly you are NOT disadvantaged. It is a team event and the teams are equal

 

People need to stop viewing their participation in Warzones as a solo player? Will teams. E unbalanced at times? Sure but that imbalance will go both ways and be the exception not the rule. As a team player you are not disadvantaged.

 

Ultimately gear IS part of the character SKILL that makes the character capable in pvp. You can either play the game and be succesful or complain about it and fail.

[Abanoth]

So it's come to this....everything thinks an MMO is a game like WoW. No wonder we never get anything new.

[Mothanos]

Warhammer was fun to pvp ! not

Aion was fun to pvp ! not

WoW was fun to pvp ! not

SWTOR is fun to pvp ! YES !!

 

SWTOR has something in those warzone's no other mmo brougt, HUTBALLZ !!!!

 

Whan iam 110 years old lying in my bed thinking what i did best in my life i will say to my grand grand grand childer.....boys i was a real fraw dawg peopel still tell legends about me.

And when i die soon my last moments will go on the toughts of that crazy galaxy sport called Huttball...

 

 

J/K

 

SWTOR has good pvp man, dunno why people are so upset.

 

Balance in mmo's are always ****t, to many classes and specs and variables to make it 100% balanced.

 

Some things need a few tweaks but for an mmo so young as SWTOR with my 12 years of mmo experience i can say this game has a good balance.

 

Thing is i only fight versus my own faction as i get Huttball 99% of the time so i cannot say how Empire versus Repuclis is atm.

But it seems Empire has a slight advantage from what i hear and iam sure Bioware can make adjustments when its true.

 

 

People need to enjoy the game more and stop looking for ghosts who aint there.

There are people whocan theory craft like madmans and they will bring faults to the light and bioware will act if they need to.

 

You can also try playing with Kung - Fu Panda's if you like !!! heared they can do a roundhouse kick also !!!

 

 

, enjoy the game or quit playing mmo's

[chuleh]

SWTOR has something in those warzone's no other mmo brougt, HUTBALLZ !!!!

 

Whan iam 110 years old lying in my bed thinking what i did best in my life i will say to my grand grand grand childer.....boys i was a real fraw dawg peopel still tell legends about me.

And when i die soon my last moments will go on the toughts of that crazy galaxy sport called Huttball...

 

 

J/K

hahahahah man, I'm at the office and I'm laughing so hard right now everyone's looking at me, damn, you made my day. +1 to you.

[Delphic]

MMORPGs are usually based on gear-grinds, and not just skill.

 

How can a level 10 kill a level 50 monster? They can't. Same for PVP. RPGs are about developing the stats of your character. More time = more power.

 

Skill is sometimes a factor, but often it is not. I don't expect my level 14 to kill a level 50 raid boss, nor do I expect him to take down a geared 50 in PVP - even if I were the most skilled gamer alive. If you want a game that's purely based on skill, with a level playing field, then MMORPGs are probably not for you.

 

The basic design principles behind MMORPGs go against fair, balanced, competitive, skill-based PVP.

 

(Exceptions can be made for Guild Wars which gave you max-rank characters, and identical gear, or WOW's tournament realms... but exceptions are rare.)

 

That. It's a shame most players who rant about expertise, premades, lvl 50s or just about anything to do with them losing against someone with an (actual or perceived) mechanical advantage won't read this.

 

You can debate whether the basic design of mmos (which requires or at least encourages a huge time investment coupled with a recurrent or incremental fee structure) is a good thing, but right now it's a fact.

 

If you really need competitive pvp you have to look elsewhere: FPSs, SCII, MOBAs. If, on the other hand, you quite like mmo pvp but are just annoyed that your level of commitment places you at the bottom of the pile, then - curiously enough - there isn't much you can do other than get over it.

[Kentontudor]

there's no real benefit to farming the other team, you cost yourself an additional win bonus, and even the games where i go 11-12 medals, the gain rate is essentially an exponential decay, i can make 4 in 1 minute, 6 by 3, 8 by 5, 9 by 7, etc

 

6-7 medals in a 6 minute win and do it twice is better.

 

^^^^ this

[thejaga]

I'm sure somebody has mentioned this, but GW2 will have a competitive PvP queue system where gear is not a factor.

 

Unfortunately, this is a casual game, so that will never be the case. More unfortunately, the gear gap in this game is quite significant. Lower levels lacking gear have zero margin of error facing off against a more geared player, and sometimes playing perfectly still won't be enough to beat a one-button wonder who has just grinded for more hours. Hopefully the gear gap smooths out at higher levels, so the biggest gap is for new 50s (and not as between Champion and Battlemaster, for example). We shall see.

[Bhorzo]

That. It's a shame most players who rant about expertise, premades, lvl 50s or just about anything to do with them losing against someone with an (actual or perceived) mechanical advantage won't read this.

 

You can debate whether the basic design of mmos (which requires or at least encourages a huge time investment coupled with a recurrent or incremental fee structure) is a good thing, but right now it's a fact.

 

If you really need competitive pvp you have to look elsewhere: FPSs, SCII, MOBAs. If, on the other hand, you quite like mmo pvp but are just annoyed that your level of commitment places you at the bottom of the pile, then - curiously enough - there isn't much you can do other than get over it.

 

PVP in MMORPGs can be fun (I think SWTOR is fun)... but if anyone thinks it's "fair and balanced" then they're delusional.

 

The problem I have is with people who come into playing MMORPGs and expect "fair and balanced" when the entire game is designed to be unfair and unbalanced at its very core. I can't take any "serious PVPers" seriously if their main type of PVP is in an MMORPG.

 

When you win in PVP... you never know if you won because of skill, or gear, or level. When you lose, you never know why you lost either. Skill plays a role - but it's very ambiguous and immeasurable.

[SandTrout]

THIS JUST IN BIG NAME FPS GAMES NOW REQUIRE GEAR GRINDS. Rank 45 in bf3 havent played since this came out.

 

BF3- Gear Grind levels, and toons.

MW3 = Gear grind weapons

Guess what, people don't stop playing either of those games because they ran out of progression.

[Armethious]

Anyone who complains about expertise being the end all be all of PvP gear is in for a shock. In its current form, it is only marginally useful.

 

Ok a little background first. The Expertise stat is built into the Armoring slot of PvP gear (albeit hidden cause it is currently not removable). The mod slot and the enhancement slot do NOT have expertise on them, they are the exact same as PvE gear. The problem is they do not just add expertise to a PvE armoring mod, they REDUCE the endurance and the primary stat. As an example, consider the following armoring mods.

 

 

From Champion Force-Mystic's Robe

+29 Endurance

+30 Willpower

+49 Expertise

 

From Columi Force-Mystic's Robe

+41 Endurance

+57 Willpower

 

So the question is, which is worth more? 49 expertise or 12 Endurance and 27 willpower? With buffs, that is closer to 13 Endurance and 29 willpower, but I digress. I would say initially yes, but due to diminishing rates of return, pretty soon it is not worth it. If you multiply that by the five pieces of modable gear you get a total difference of 60 endurance and 135 willpower.

 

I have not taken the time to do the serious number crunching, so I do not know for certain where the expertise "soft cap" is. At the moment I am testing it with my gear. Been swaping out my PvP gear for PvE gear and have increased my willpower by over 100 and still maintaining about 5.5% expertise. (I had as high as 10.77%)

 

Last point I would like to add skill trumps gear every time. You take a team of skilled and coordinated players in PVE level 50 blues and they will beet a team of uncoordinated newbies in full batermaster gear all day long in any war zone. This has been proven over and over across many MMOs.

[Red_Cruiser]

PvP in this game is all gear, level and class. Probably the lowest skill ceiling I've ever seen in an MMO.

[dcgregorya]

It's really very basic. If you're a casual player who doesn't have the time to farm out tokens and get great gear, then when that player goes up against somebody who does, they'll always lose. There's no skill needed, it's all based on gear.

 

As someone who has topped the leaderboard since rank 18 as almost every class besides Marauder (I just can't get above 3rd or so with them) and soloed or double teamed 50's since rank 24 or so I respectfully disagree with you. The *only* classes I had trouble solo'ing pre-30 with PVP gear were sorcs (bubbles + healing, ugh) and operatives (didn't survive the opening combo).

 

/thread

[xaviyago]

When you find a way to balance a pve gear progression with pure skill in pvp where gear doesn't play a factor, I am all ears.

 

That system exists, but not in SWTOR: gear drops from PvP kills.

 

If the character you kill in PvP has a chance of dropping a piece of decent bind-on-pickup gear in their level band, then you have a semblance of system that rewards PvP play. Not only that, but the system rewards level-on-level PvP play (not much PvP rewards from a level 40 getting that gear from a level 10.)

[BegaTasty]

It's really very basic. If you're a casual player who doesn't have the time to farm out tokens and get great gear, then when that player goes up against somebody who does, they'll always lose. There's no skill needed, it's all based on gear.

 

Yet every company that makes an MMO falls into the same basic trap -- just throw everybody into the same PvP match and let them deal with it. How hard is it to realize that if you group people up by some kind of PvP rank, they'll have more fun.

 

You wouldn't build a game where a level 1 player has to face a level 50 NPC and defeat them, now would you? So why shouldn't PvP work the same way? Why should Bioware expect somebody at Valor rank 1 to face off against somebody at Valor rank 50 and expect there to be any modicum of a fair fight?

 

It seems like Bioware has all the tools at its disposal to make this game fun, but throws them out the window so they can be like Blizzard. At least Blizzard didn't make the mistake of giving every single class several stuns, roots and knock backs.

 

Thanks for the armature job, Bioware.

 

You never played DAOC obviously, or Asherons Call or UO, pvp is superb when done correctly, unfortunately Bioware really are not good at it. As we can see, they went with the wow/rift system, this is why its so bad.

People dont want diversity, they want an demand everyone be exactly same down to the last pixel an ability. The young ones dont like the idea of pothers being able to do something they cant, an they refuse to learn how to counter things when its far easier to demand an threaten if they dont get their way.

 

PVP done right (no not battlegrounds) is excellent, but it takes a company with the balls to say to the wow generation no you cant have everything you demand.... Bioware are not it. We all know the constant crusade they are on in forums will pay off for them. scoundrels an op will be destroyed as a class. Then they will move onto the next class that kills them.

 

It is SO simple to learn your class that it just boggles my mind how lazy peopel, are.

 

Sage

ALWAYS travel with your group if your farming battlegrounds.

Always have tank guard you, never stray from the group.

Keep your HP maxed at all times an buffs up.

Even if a stealther gets you (as is his job) at least your group will kill him.

ALWAYS have your tank spamming his AOE Mez

 

You are a cloth wearer it's an OP's job to kill you above all others. They will always go for weakest target an they are made to do that. Instead of demanding nerfs an complaining that you get killed, learn to do a few simple things to protect yourself.

 

Play the game for a change instead of asking bioware to play it for you.

[carbocat]

First of all, at end game pvp when all have good gear it will be about skills.

 

Those who like PvP, if there is no gear progression when you spend so much time etc in PvP, wouldnt bother to play. Like you PVE guys, would you raid every day if you didnt get any gear?? And everyone had same gear...sounds realy boring.

 

I enjoy PvP in this game, and i am just lvl 38 at the time. I levled up trough warzone from lvl 14. So i loose to high lvl ppl with gear, ofcourse, they are players who got good gear from hours and hours playing warzone, and they should be rewarded with better gear because of theirs effort.

 

For my self i wouldnt even play PvP if i couldnt get better gear.

 

And one guy said: why cant valor rank 1 have same chance as a valor rank 60. CAUSE valor rank 1 have done nothing to have the same gear.

 

If you didnt notice, your stats are enchanted for PvP when you enter a warzone.

 

So when 50 brackets are here, a valor rank 1 lvl 13 will have same stats as a valor rank 40 lvl 49: