What is so great about open world pvp?

[anstalt]

1) Scale

 

Instanced PvP is always limited in numbers to try to keep balance.

 

In Open world pvp, the numbers involved can be huge. It can *feel* like an epic battle in a way that nothing else in the game can offer. So far TOR hasn't delivered on scale at all. I'm not talking about skill at all, or tactics, but simply being in a big battle is exciting.

 

Ofc, this comes with its own problems, chiefly lag and zerg mentality, but when done right its immense! A few key memories stand out for me on the scale front:

 

Attacking KDS's city, SWG 2004

 

GMs spawned two AT-ATs in the Empire guild KDS's city and said "Go kill it / defend it". Hundreds of imps and rebels decended on the city itching at the chance to kill some imps and destroy a city belonging to the best Empire guild on the server. Ofc, we crashed the server and I wasn't able to log in for two hours, but before the crash it was amazing, a real wonder to behold.

 

Fort Attacks / Defence In WAR

 

The first load of fort fights in WAR were immense. Literally hundreds of people on each side. Standing on the walls of the fort and looking out on a field of red names was crazy! Again, loads of lag, crashed the server, but it has stuck in my mind ever since.

 

2) Random Encounters

 

Random encounters are exciting. Will you win, will you lose? Do you have backup nearby? My heart never starts pounding in instanced pvp, but in the open world I really start to get excited in 1v1s, small group encounters, ganking near enemy base etc. There is a true eb and flow in open world pvp that doesn't exist in instances.

 

3) Different Skill Set

 

Being good at open world pvp requires a different set of skills to instanced pvp. Whilst instanced pvp does require a lot of skill, the numbers are balanced and the group size is small.

 

In open world pvp, the ebb and flow and the imbalance of numbers means constantly adapting to your environment and trying to get the most advantage out of every situation. In WAR, I've seen and been a part of small groups and raids that take apart twice their number of opposition through better tactics, teamplay etc.

 

In instanced pvp, there are no flanks, there are no decoys, there are no traps. Large scale group pvp offers all of these and being a part of it is a lot of fun. Its like taking the skill of instanced pvp and adding an extra layer of complexity.

 

4) Environment

 

Instanced pvp is restricted to a small number of instances. Open world pvp, when done right, has huge open areas to pvp in which means loads of different terrain. Can you lure the enemy into a vally or dead end and then annihilate them? Can you make a stand on this rock or that rock? Can I hide my entire raid behind this tree to catch them opponents unaware?

 

Large scale environments free you up to fight where you want and movement becomes more important. I love trying to sneak a raid to a keep and running into another raid randomly on the way. There is the initial panic, then excitement, then the fun of the fight, then laughing over the win or loss.

 

 

 

 

Now, there are a myriad of problems in OPvP too. Chief amoungst these are lag, faction imbalance, lack of incentive, and boredom when no1 is around. These things are usually enough to kill Opvp for most people. BUT, when done right, its amazing! TOR is failing miserably on all fronts atm: bad lag, faction imbalance, no incentive and lots of boredom. Hell, by putting a cap on numbers on ilum they made it impossible for us to ever have truely large scale battles!

[JaboTOR]

Real pvp is like warm apple pie, it's hard to explain, you just have to experience it for yourself.

 

If you played Ac1, UO, daoc you'd know what i was talking about.

 

WoW ruined pvp in all post-WoW mmo's that copied it's "give the children pretty stuff for pvp'ing" type crap.

 

WoW pvp'ers aren't pvp'ers, they're pve carebears in disguise who expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter.

 

 

This. Oh how i miss the days of Asheron's Call (Darktide). Maybe one day someone will produce a game with as much pvp greatness as this game had. World of Warcraft ruined everything.

[Nulli]

Let's clarify a few things:

 

Open World PvP generally means

 

-Ganking and griefing of leveling players. This can be somewhat fun but only if it's not like a level 50 BM teabagging and griefing the same 3 level 20's over and over again.

 

 

Huh? No it doesn't. Maybe to you, but not to the majority who comment on this issue.

 

The current "Open World PvP" in TOR... is limited really to Ilum. There are ew if any opportunities to encounter and fight enemy players while leveling, and no point at all to it (except griefing). Ganking outside of PvP areas provides no Valor, no experience, no credits, no nothing.

 

Then you have Tatooine, which has an open world PvP area no one goes to.

 

Then you have Ilum, which is where people go for ZergVzerg to complete dailies to get gear.

 

Open world PvP proponents don't much care for any of these and are looking for some kind of better implementation.

 

Vis a vis WoW... please... don't bother... macro fest and rock paper scissors PvP.

[Razot]

So could we.

 

 

Still doesn't change the fact that OWPvP is bad and just a numbers game.

 

In your opinion..

 

In EVE my alliance would work on tactics and fleet composition. End result 40 to 50 man fleets can terrorize a whole region as we could take on a fleet 4x our size, even if they had a few caps, but it was very tricky and percise teamwork.

 

Other side of the coin is that no matter how good you get there's always better and we have been on the other end of it getting wiped by a fleet 1/4 of our size..

 

Its all about tactics and group composition.. In these types of games you always have the rambo types and the generally choas that turns into a zerg fest, but when you learn to PVP in WF's/BG's your view on PVP is very limited as all the tactics take place in a shoe box that you insta respawn..

Edited February 10, 2012 by Razot

[Vaporizer-Delta]

I like open world pvp because it's fun. I like killing low level pubs like others like collecting boxes, or looting chests. There are so few of them running around questing its hard just finding them. When you do most of them are in outposts or towns. Its a challenge to see of you can sneak up on them and off them in a few hits and then stealth out. If someone doesnt like the risk of being stabbed a few times when they leave the safety of Republic controlled areas then they should roll a char on a non pvp server. It's very simple really.

 

You call it ganking or greifing or whatever, I call it more fun than button smashing against a bunch of healers in wzs.

[NovoctusZahn]

I look at PvP like this, Have both.

If I play a game and both sides are at war, I should be able to attempt to kill you in open world. If i que up, it's like i'm going on a mission for and with my team to kill the other guy.

At the end of the day, it's fights, muggings, battles, it's war. They are both good, just depends on your taste and remember "Blood makes the knife holy"

Edited February 10, 2012 by NovoctusZahn

[Dreadspectre]

Huh? No it doesn't. Maybe to you, but not to the majority who comment on this issue.

 

The current "Open World PvP" in TOR... is limited really to Ilum. There are ew if any opportunities to encounter and fight enemy players while leveling, and no point at all to it (except griefing). Ganking outside of PvP areas provides no Valor, no experience, no credits, no nothing.

 

Then you have Tatooine, which has an open world PvP area no one goes to.

 

Then you have Ilum, which is where people go for ZergVzerg to complete dailies to get gear.

 

Open world PvP proponents don't much care for any of these and are looking for some kind of better implementation.

 

Vis a vis WoW... please... don't bother... macro fest and rock paper scissors PvP.

 

Thanks for quoting the rest of my post where I explain other things, oh wait..you didn't. Don't bother to reply to people's posts when you take them out of context please.

[DosPeros]

I think a lot of pvp'ers enjoy world pvp because of the fond memories many of us hold for moments we've only found in open world situations. There's a great deal of satisfaction in taking an enemy city, or taking back one of your own.

 

All in all however, world pvp pales in comparison to instanced pvp simply because it's impossible to balance team sizes and still keep it fun for both sides.

 

Open world PVP is not about teams..... it is about me....

 

You could be a level 50 out feeling all bad see a level 45 and jump him and then before you know it he has 10 of his buddies tea bagging your corpse..

 

 

Or you could be a lone level 50 dragging three enemies into heroic 4 area and get them rolled. (did it yesterday on Ilum)

 

That is using your brain and skill. How Instanced can ever compare to the heart thumping challenge of open world I can not even begin to imagine.

[carliiiiito]

@dosperos

 

i know exactly the feeling of fight or flight.i was a jedi in swg pre-cu.

Not sure if your familiar so ill explain a bit the life of a jedi was like.There was this thing called visibility,anytime anyone saw your lightsaber(that includes npc randomly spawning in the world) youd gain visibility,get enough of it and any bounty hunter can take a mission to kill you,same faction included.Also to note ,they had alpha strike has my name would be red to them but white for me.If you died you lost the number of skill trained times 10k experience,further more if u died 3 times in 24 hour your character was permanently deleted and you had to start over.So do you think i know exactly what you described feels like?i think i do

 

After all that said ,i still believe instanced pvp makes for better pvp since everyone involved is ready and willing to fight.fighting a premade ,who is min/maxin for pvp,do nothing but pvp feels a lot more rewarding than killing joe-schmoe that was questing on tatooine.

[Yazule]

ok so here you go... i am getting in my wayback machine (you are probably to young to know about professor Peabody) and going back to 1998 ... *poof*

 

there is me playing UO on Catskills shard, I am at my player placed house near the mines on the southeast corner of fire island. I need some ore so i go out to clank on rocks and there is a guy there clanking on my rocks... MY ROCKS I say and I proceed to pound on him until he is dead. I loot his body of all valuables (rocks of course, and armor and money and potions) and bop back over to my house where i store all of his valuables in a locked chest. I pop back out to hit some more rocks and he and 3 buddies come by and "zerg" me (this term did not exist at this time) ... of course I have only my armor and pick on me which they loot.

 

So i res and go back to my house, open a chest full of armor (there for just such a reason), regear, ICQ a friend (there was no vent or tells or global chat, just proximity chat) and we get a little party together of 3 people and go out and wipe them while they mine, taking all of their gear and potions again (as well as the ore)... dummys came with back packs full AGAIN.. lol thanks for the potions...

 

this escalates until there are 10 of us from both sides killing and whacking each other, with me looting corpses and taking their gear back to my house to keep it safe.

 

end of the 2 hour event I have more ore than I could have mined by myself being left alone, about 10 sets of armor (for the next ten times i get killed/looted) a crapload of potions and weapons to smelt or sell or use, a good story (that now, 14 years later i can still tell) and oh by the way, at least two of the people that were in that fight are playing this game with me right now (camaraderie) ....

 

That was mining in a pvp world,

 

and you thought mining was boring because you played WOW too much!

 

Nuff said.

 

zomg 2 pages of replies and no comment on my story of glory days in UO where pvp had value, player made content, and rewards not spoon fed????????

 

/slashwrist

 

anyone talking about "ganking" .... you joined a pvp server, there is no gank, there is pvp

[Nulli]

zomg 2 pages of replies and no comment on my story of glory days in UO where pvp had value, player made content, and rewards not spoon fed????????

 

/slashwrist

 

anyone talking about "ganking" .... you joined a pvp server, there is no gank, there is pvp

 

Man.

 

I didn't read it before but it was a great story

 

My brother played DAOC with me. We still reminisce.

 

 

Some fights were more epic than real life events That.... can't... happen in an instance.

 

I remember the first time I was in an open world PvP battle where we all did /who <zone name> and the numbers came back.... tickling 1000.... 3 factions fighting over Relics in one zone (old frontier)

 

That too was DAOC. You had to turn off all effects, and still lagged like crazy... until the server went KA-BooooooooooooooMMMMMMMMM

 

Server came back, we found the Relic and ninja snuck it to our Keep while everyone pondered what happened to it.....

Edited February 10, 2012 by Nulli

[ComeAndSee]

Open World PvP = ganking OR only fighting when you know you have a chance of winning

[DosPeros]

@dosperos

 

i know exactly the feeling of fight or flight.i was a jedi in swg pre-cu.

Not sure if your familiar so ill explain a bit the life of a jedi was like.There was this thing called visibility,anytime anyone saw your lightsaber(that includes npc randomly spawning in the world) youd gain visibility,get enough of it and any bounty hunter can take a mission to kill you,same faction included.Also to note ,they had alpha strike has my name would be red to them but white for me.If you died you lost the number of skill trained times 10k experience,further more if u died 3 times in 24 hour your character was permanently deleted and you had to start over.So do you think i know exactly what you described feels like?i think i do

 

After all that said ,i still believe instanced pvp makes for better pvp since everyone involved is ready and willing to fight.fighting a premade ,who is min/maxin for pvp,do nothing but pvp feels a lot more rewarding than killing joe-schmoe that was questing on tatooine.

 

I too was a SWG pre CU Jedi.... Your talking early in the game about the perma death.... which basically made the jedi guys put their toons on the shelf..

 

 

 

We ran a Jedi Grind academy on Dantooine..... Killing Quankers by the thousands hoping to not be seen..

 

If you recall though, only Jedi had perma visibility once they reached knight all other classed had to go to a faction point and choose to go overt... which was a great idea and has merit in this case as well.

 

I also remember once I was fully turned out hanging out in Cornet hoping some bounty hunters would pull my name and try to gank me... Jedi was a true alpha class then and could dominate three or four of any other classes at the same time.

 

I do agree that the WZ do make me a better PVPer.... only from the stand point of better understanding how to fight different classes.. but it still feels like practice.

Edited February 10, 2012 by DosPeros

[DosPeros]

Open World PvP = ganking OR only fighting when you know you have a chance of winning

 

Or you think you have a chance of winning..... but that is the challenge now isn't it...

 

Is that a lamb..... or a lion.... you never know.

[chuleh]

Open World PvP = ganking OR only fighting when you know you have a chance of winning

 

I bet you've only played WoW.

 

If you ever played UO you should know that 4 coordinated PKs vs 6-7 blues would own them. But hey, I'm pretty sure that by that comment you just posted you must've been several times to Bucaneer's Den or Brit's GY. Sure.. Right?

[Vaporizer-Delta]

hmmm, I just killed a bunch of willing and ready 50s in a WZ and then 1 "joe-schmoe" on Tat and while it takes no "skill", its still more fun. Plus I can take a smoke break when I feel like it.

 

And I don't do any of this for stupid video game rewards, although its nice to get them, I do this because I find it enjoyable while i have my morning coffee. When I'm leveling my noob bh I like knowing that I could be attacked by some pubs at anytime. Too bad there arent more of them.

 

I too had a very early jedi on Bria. Pvp was scary and I loved it. Do you remember the fights that lasted for hours outside of anchohead with the player houses?

[EasymodeX]

Ok fine, so you do not like the "feeling" of instanced pvp being separate from the regular world? So the downside is that we have lop sided fights with one side being outmatched.

 

World PvP is inherently more dynamic than instances. That's the bottom line. More dynamic = more fun.

 

Ilum is just a completely horribad implementation.

 

 

I mean who would want unbalanced pvp to begin with? That is the entire reason world pvp in WoW went away.

 

World PvP in WoW went away because Blizzard couldn't control the gear acquisition rate.

 

You seem to be suffering from some core misconceptions ...

 

No PvP is balanced. Ever. Gear is imbalanced, specs are imbalanced, buffs are imbalanced, skill is imbalanced, terrain is imbalanced, population is imbalanced, organization/teamwork is imbalanced.

 

World PvP is about winning despite all the imbalances. Or, creating imbalances in your favor.

 

 

Arena is like a duel -- like the british redcoats lining up in rank and file. Hyuk hyuk. "EN GARDE" LOLOL.

 

Warzones are halfway in-between.

 

World PvP is like 'real fighting'.

 

 

The whole game is a gear grind bro....

 

This is why the whole game is not designed with PvP in mind.

[Razot]

@dosperos

 

i know exactly the feeling of fight or flight.i was a jedi in swg pre-cu.

Not sure if your familiar so ill explain a bit the life of a jedi was like.There was this thing called visibility,anytime anyone saw your lightsaber(that includes npc randomly spawning in the world) youd gain visibility,get enough of it and any bounty hunter can take a mission to kill you,same faction included.Also to note ,they had alpha strike has my name would be red to them but white for me.If you died you lost the number of skill trained times 10k experience,further more if u died 3 times in 24 hour your character was permanently deleted and you had to start over.So do you think i know exactly what you described feels like?i think i do

 

After all that said ,i still believe instanced pvp makes for better pvp since everyone involved is ready and willing to fight.fighting a premade ,who is min/maxin for pvp,do nothing but pvp feels a lot more rewarding than killing joe-schmoe that was questing on tatooine.

 

NO you didn't!!!

Perma death x3 deaths period, with xp loss, skill loss and that was only at the start of the jedi in game.. later it went to -10 mill xp loss max and 500k a death or something like that, i dont remember cause i wasnt a CU kash jedi afker getting ganked every other day or in spin groups waiting for a BH to head shot me while spinning mobs, but i remember the QQ.

 

BH's although a pain was never an issue,, it was a def stacker or pikeman/def hybrid with medic and some good dot sticks that you feared and you didnt need a PBS for that once you became perma overt knight a BH was the least of your problems.

 

The only time a BH would kill you cause tbh they sucked was the bomb droid while afk, unless you where just grinding up a new jedi and went a really stupid way about it.

 

I could go on for days about but for the most part i know you are a respec Jedi or CU at best..

Edited February 10, 2012 by Razot

[DosPeros]

hmmm, I just killed a bunch of willing and ready 50s in a WZ and then 1 "joe-schmoe" on Tat and while it takes no "skill", its still more fun. Plus I can take a smoke break when I feel like it.

 

And I don't do any of this for stupid video game rewards, although its nice to get them, I do this because I find it enjoyable while i have my morning coffee. When I'm leveling my noob bh I like knowing that I could be attacked by some pubs at anytime. Too bad there arent more of them.

 

I too had a very early jedi on Bria. Pvp was scary and I loved it. Do you remember the fights that lasted for hours outside of Anchohead with the player houses?

 

I played an Imperial then and still call the enemy the Freepers... for Freeporters.... As that was the rebel alliance town we would camp.

 

Ironically on our server Imperials were out numbered and Rebels ruled.... Now a I play a REP and the Imps rule...

 

It just means more targets of opportunity for me.....

 

If you want more open world PVP roll Republic

[OklahomaSooner]

Instanced PVP is expected, its obvious, you know its happening.

 

World PVP is unexpected unless you are the one hunting, its sudden, it gets the adrenaline pumping.

 

If you haven't experienced chasing someone through an entire continent on WoW or EQ2, you wouldn't understand.

 

You can use the natural environment as cover, LOS. Every battlefield is different, has its little quirks depending on where you are.

 

Alderaan(the planet, not the WZ) is a site of great OPVP - that's pretty much the only place I've experienced "good" OPVP in SWTOR.

Edited February 10, 2012 by OklahomaSooner

[Kai-Eurah-Tird]

To win world pvp all you need is numbers. You see this over and over and over again through out the various MMOs. Having a big group cover up a lot of your own short comings, so the bigger the battle the less individual skill matters.

[Fujah]

ok so here you go... i am getting in my wayback machine (you are probably to young to know about professor Peabody) and going back to 1998 ... *poof*

 

there is me playing UO on Catskills shard, I am at my player placed house near the mines on the southeast corner of fire island. I need some ore so i go out to clank on rocks and there is a guy there clanking on my rocks... MY ROCKS I say and I proceed to pound on him until he is dead. I loot his body of all valuables (rocks of course, and armor and money and potions) and bop back over to my house where i store all of his valuables in a locked chest. I pop back out to hit some more rocks and he and 3 buddies come by and "zerg" me (this term did not exist at this time) ... of course I have only my armor and pick on me which they loot.

 

So i res and go back to my house, open a chest full of armor (there for just such a reason), regear, ICQ a friend (there was no vent or tells or global chat, just proximity chat) and we get a little party together of 3 people and go out and wipe them while they mine, taking all of their gear and potions again (as well as the ore)... dummys came with back packs full AGAIN.. lol thanks for the potions...

 

this escalates until there are 10 of us from both sides killing and whacking each other, with me looting corpses and taking their gear back to my house to keep it safe.

 

end of the 2 hour event I have more ore than I could have mined by myself being left alone, about 10 sets of armor (for the next ten times i get killed/looted) a crapload of potions and weapons to smelt or sell or use, a good story (that now, 14 years later i can still tell) and oh by the way, at least two of the people that were in that fight are playing this game with me right now (camaraderie) ....

 

That was mining in a pvp world,

 

and you thought mining was boring because you played WOW too much!

 

Nuff said.

 

Pure Gold err ah Pure Ore. Great story, those were the days.

[DrHalux]

To be honest, preferring OWPvP to WZs is just that, a matter of preference. I don't think anyone can definitively say one is better than the other. On that note, I prefer open world PvP far more. Especially when games implement a reason for it, such as turf wars and the like. Having a base and defending is much more satisfying to me than WZs. I think for me the reason is that in OWPvP after you successfully defend a base you get to keep it and say "this is ours, go ahead, try and take it.". However, OWPvP in this game seems very lackluster with not much to call your own and defend or take over.

 

So I suppose in this game specifically I would choose WZs at the moment.

 

But in other games with a more expansive open world mechanics I would prefer OWPvP

[Terrorshard]

My first game was Guild Wars. Loved it and played it for 3 years. It was instanced pvp but it wasn't a grind for anything, except maybe guild ranking.

 

I would log in and guest GvG all the time for people. There was nothing I got out of doing it I just enjoyed doing gvg's.

[Fujah]

To win world pvp all you need is numbers. You see this over and over and over again through out the various MMOs. Having a big group cover up a lot of your own short comings, so the bigger the battle the less individual skill matters.

 

You have less numbers you get more. Eventually you might have 50 vs 50. And even if the numbers are off, it's not like 15 can't take out 20. I remember battles that we had we flanked them from behind, so we had guys on both sides, it was freakin' cool.

 

I just get a bigger rush when I'm in OWPVP. I'm okay with WZ but how can I get 9 in a row, all huttball? Doesn't that bother anyone?

 

;-)