Raw copy , but 100% true

[Vordy]

This is what most PvP'ers wants

Hello,

 

The OP, and many who have posted in support of him, are absolutely correct here. The bottom line is simple: if there is no risk versus reward metric for PvP, with both individual and broad scale implications, then PvP is just an e-sport.

 

One note before I go any further: there's nothing wrong with e-sport. It's just that if I want that, I'll play a shooter or RTS. This, I think answers the question PvP players always get from the hardcore PvE community of, "if you want to PvP, why don't you just play a shooter?" The answer that I want my actions to have consequences. I want my destruction of you to mean something, and I am willing to risk that my loss will mean something as well.

 

This is something that I have come to believe that many PvE players either cannot or will not understand. The hardcore PvE player defines his goals around the repetition of an action, the raid, which carries little risk and perhaps some reward, but has no broader impact in the game. For whatever reason, this is what they want, and they will not accept that other people enjoy different aspects of a game.

 

Because developers want to maximize subscriptions, they will attempt to cater to both playstyles. Because so many hardcore PvE players are so risk averse, and because they make up a large faction of the MMO community, they have a strong impact on developers' ideas. And so, developers attempt to cater to both by separating the predators from the prey. There are grazing areas, and there are violent colluseums, but the world is segregated. This is the WoW model, and it is not reflective of what we would call a virtual world. Rather, it is a collection of different games on a single server.

 

Developers can make the arena as "fun" as they want, but they will ultimately fail to deliver what the PvP community wants so long as they cannot influence the greater savannah. Further, because a segregated world is so unnatural, developers who choose this path cannot make a virtual world. The beauty of a virtual world is that it creates all sorts of interesting emergent play, like virtual economies, which are actually beneficial to the non-PvP player.

 

If the hardcore PvE player would have a bit longer vision, he would see that, if he would give up just a bit of safety, the returns, in the form of emergent gameplay, vastly outweigh the loss of absolute security. This is something that PvP players understand because they are familiar with risk versus reward metrics. The PvE player, being less familiar with those metrics, and having been catered to by games like WoW, are understandably less equipped to see this natural outcome.

 

Now, the difference between the real world savannah and the virtual one is that, in the latter, the gazelle's have the option of not playing. So, the trick is to set a balance point where gazelles have lots of grass to graze on in safety, but the best, or certain unique grass, requires venturing into the savannah to obtain. The penalties must also be balanced; they must sting, but not so much that the risk versus reward metric causes gazelles to never venture into the savannah, or worse, that they simply choose another game. This is the integrated approach that games like Eve do so well.

 

Many will argue against this position, but it is because they are gazelles. They want all the grass in their safe pastures and to leave the lions and hyenas to just fight, but without the reward of any tender meat. Of course I do not blame the gazelle; it is human nature to argue in your own self-interest. However, if we continue down this road, then MMOs will continue to be just games and not truly virtual worlds.

[Trujan]

Wow, lovely analogies there.

[vimm]

You want a sandbox game; you're in the wrong place - not that I disagree with you.

[Super-Nova]

that sir, was an awesome read.

[UrbanB]

heh its so true, remind me of the old Lineage2 days ..

 

PKing someone, actualy had a meaning, going red, made you free prey to everyone! with a risk to drop gear..

Sadly farmers took over the Risk and closed that gap if your CC were big enough

[Vordy]

You want a sandbox game; you're in the wrong place - not that I disagree with you.

 

Its not my post, but its worth reading it, it does make sense.

[dannythefool]

This pretty much describes EVE ;-)

[JohnSherwin]

Sound like the game your looking for is Eve online, great game where loosing in PvP will cost you. They have security levels where you rae safe in high security areas, if you want to farm better stuff you goto low security areas where you can be attacked.

 

I love eve online but just dont see how this model can be made to work in SWTOR.

[Stilly]

Great post. Only problem I see with it is you are talking about a new game, not this one. This ship has set sail. What you see is what you get with some qol tweaks. They had a chance to make this game something special. Now they have a chance to make it profitable, a small chance.

[Jodou]

The keynote here is gaming is no longer a hobby; it's a business. MMO companies need to protect their prospects, so they rip control from the player and limit what damage they can do in terms of PvP. They facilitate the illusion of PvP by feeding said lions/hyenas in a cage. We do not want to be fed; we want to hunt. It's for that reason that MMO's copy the boiler template that is WoW and what true PK's want will never happen again.

[Razot]

While I will agree with the post and while being an avid EVE player I have learned due to this game that you cannot generalize the PVP community.

 

I do believe that the modern day MMOs such as the WoW formula have created a PVP community equally adversed to risk vrs reward PVP. While I do not consider these players PVPers I consider them to be a hybrid as things like progression and reward for falure models remove any risk for doing PVP.

 

The bottom line imo is either have a PVP centric game like EVE with mid level PVP or a PVE centric game with a PVP mini game such as WoW and now Bioware.. The problem with this oustside of faction imbalance game is between open world PVPers like myself wanting risk vrs reward and open world PVP and the hybrids who want gear progression and rewards for falure in a controlled enviroment such as WZ's.

 

You cannot have any type of gear progression system attached to open world PVP as it causes an enviroment of everwanting gear heads to farm, fight club or take whatever path giving least resistance to accomplish the final goal wich in this case is to gather gear.

 

As a SWG vet i remember the naders,afk on kash,fight clubbers in the frs Jedi grinds, and like i said people will take the shortest easiest path to accomplish the final goal if a shiny awaits on the other end.

 

I think as long as this trend in MMOs continue i think its time to serperate the PVP community a bit by removing gear progression attached to open world or RvR PVP and having some other non gear progression yet faction rewarding sytem for Ilum and Tat while giving the hybrids thier ranked arena's and dungeon PVP with gear progression. If people want to take part in open world PVP the Expertise stat should be turned off and as for raid gear PVE gear should have a stat that is PVE based and that will also be turned off in open world zones and the gear should be based on soft cap values with freedom of stat selection.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Razot

[Sabbathius]

100% true nonsense perpetrated by people still mentally stuck in 1990s since...1990s!

 

Yes, back in the day games were challenging. There was a lot of risk vs reward. And it took a humongous amount of skill and/or effort to beat many games because difficulty ramped up insanely high near the end. Also no sissy quick-saves, if you died, you got sent back to level 1. Stuff like that. Yeah, I remember.

 

Things change. Things that were acceptable to the comparatively tiny gamer population of the 80s will NOT work with a huge mainstream (mostly consoleer) player base of today. Today, unless you get instant gratification, the game ends up being an obscure footnote.

 

Yes, risk and reward and open world where you were free to forge your own path, like Ultima Online, did work. Back in 1998. At its absolute peak in 2003, which interestingly enough occurred AFTER Trammel was introduced, the game had 250k subs.

 

EVE Online, mentioned in the article as doing it right? Yeah, 300k subs after what, 8 years in business? That's hardly doing well. It's a niche game. A footnote. An example of how to do things if you don't want to make money as a developer.

 

Other examples of recent risk vs reward games? Darkfall, Mortal, etc? Dead, dead, dead and...yes, you guessed it...dead! As much as I miss the good old days, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to realize that the old systems just don't work any more. Sure, they worked back in the 90s when your choice of fantasy MMOs was basically UO or nothing. Most chose UO, because nothing is not very fun. But today? UO wouldn't stand a chance. How do I know? Simple. You're here in SWTOR, instead of playing UO! You're HERE, reading this, right NOW, instead of playing EVE!

[Forsbacka]

Game companies are there to make a profit instead of doing world PvP MMORPGs for minor playerbase.

[NinjaScroll]

Great post.

[Vordy]

Other examples of recent risk vs reward games? Darkfall, Mortal, etc? Dead, dead, dead and...yes, you guessed it...dead! As much as I miss the good old days, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to realize that the old systems just don't work any more. Sure, they worked back in the 90s when your choice of fantasy MMOs was basically UO or nothing. Most chose UO, because nothing is not very fun. But today? UO wouldn't stand a chance. How do I know? Simple. You're here in SWTOR, instead of playing UO! You're HERE, reading this, right NOW, instead of playing EVE!

 

You cant really say that Darkfall was a bad game though, it was actually the company (AV) that didnt knew what to do, but I still have hope for the DF 2.0, its gonna be f2p in China

[Acyu]

This is what most PvP'ers wants

 

Not really. Aside from a MINORITY amount of these so-called "hardcore PvPers," the majority of the people do not enjoy a system like that.

 

This risk-award system is nothing new. It's been especially affluent in Asian games, where you either dropped items upon death in PvP, lost experience when dying in PvE, or a combination of both.

 

Truthfully, it was quite popular in Asia, and people didn't mind the farming and grinding.

 

However, it doesn't work quite as well in America and Europe, where people simply think differently.

 

Just like how everyone is raving over TERA, a "true" MMOARPG, calling it a revolutionary step toward the "right direction." Are MMOARPG something new? No. It was very common in Asian MMOs, but no one liked it so it failed hard.

 

TERA is projected to be successful in America and Europe.

 

Just an example.

[Vordy]

Not really. Aside from a MINORITY amount of these so-called "hardcore PvPers," the majority of the people do not enjoy a system like that.

 

This risk-award system is nothing new. It's been especially affluent in Asian games, where you either dropped items upon death in PvP, lost experience when dying in PvE, or a combination of both.

 

Truthfully, it was quite popular in Asia, and people didn't mind the farming and grinding.

 

However, it doesn't work quite as well in America and Europe, where people simply think differently.

 

Just like how everyone is raving over TERA, a "true" MMOARPG, calling it a revolutionary step toward the "right direction." Are MMOARPG something new? No. It was very common in Asian MMOs, but no one liked it so it failed hard.

 

TERA is projected to be successful in America and Europe.

 

Just an example.

 

Doesnt need to be an hardcore PvP to enjoy risk vs rewards, or am I wrong? Risk reward didnt fail in the Western, Ultima Online lived for years, Eve still lives, Darkfall lived and hopefully will rebirth in a few months. You cant say it failed in West, because it didnt.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Vordy

[Sabbathius]

You cant really say that Darkfall was a bad game though, it was actually the company (AV) that didnt knew what to do, but I still have hope for the DF 2.0, its gonna be f2p in China

 

You could argue that. But I have a theory of my own. The theory is that it is companies that don't know what they're doing that develop risk vs reward games!

 

Let me explain. UO, at the start, did poorly. Relatively speaking, of course. It had what, 100-125k subs? The developer realized that they screwed up, and introduced Trammel. Something most hardcore UO players call the beginning of the end for that game. Which is funny, because Trammel killed risk vs reward, by removing the risk AND doubled the population! That's right, he population surged to 250k after Trammel. UO is actually a perfect example, a proof that risk vs reward system doesn't work.

 

Then, a year later, in 2004 WoW came out with zero risk and lots of reward, and gained millions within a year. Another proof that risk vs reward doesn't work, while reward at zero risk does. WoW's system was simple, have fun AND get rewarded for it, at no risk. 12 million subs. Need I say more? You don't like that? I'm sure Blizzard fatcats lost countless nights of sleep worrying about you, rolling around all night restlessly on their piles of money with many beautiful ladies. Incidentally, last year Blizz posted a billion profit. Yeah, even with WoW "dying" for umpteenth time.

 

Now consider EVE Online, also came out in 2003. It never peaked over 300k subs. And out of those subs, how many are paid for with plex from botting? That game is another example of risk vs reward doesn't work. After how many years in business, with ZERO competition. And they have had virtually zero competition, there's not been even a half-decent space MMO in almost a decade. Now, my theory is that CCP is just a silly developer. Something that's largely supported by monoclegate, space barbies and their stubborn decision to make DUST514 a PS3 exclusive. Instead of looking at EVE and saying "well, that didn't work, time to try something new", they continue with the same old nonsense they've been doing for nearly a decade. And guess what? The game continues to stagnate.

 

Aventurine, poor developer? In my opinion a resounding yes. And poor developers make poor choices, which result in poor games, which is what Darkfall was. I was there, by the way, both in beta and at launch. It was poorly designed, poorly thought out and generally a total wreck. Same with Mortal, though I wasn't stupid enough to actually pay for that piece of garbage.

 

In closing, my theory is this - bad developers make bad games based on bad design. Risk vs reward is a bad design choice. No MMO, in the entire history of MMOs, have EVER topped 300k paid subs with a risk vs reward system. EVER. Meanwhile, WoW proved conclusively that if you DON'T kick your customers in the groin for every bit of lag or a bored group of gankers, people do actually stick around and have fun in your game! Shocker, I know.

[Acyu]

Doesnt need to be an hardcore PvP to enjoy risk vs rewards, or am I wrong? Risk reward didnt fail in the Western, Ultima Online lived for years, Eve still lives, Darkfall lived and hopefully will rebirth in a few months. You cant say it failed in West, because it didnt.

 

tell me how many people play those games.

 

tell me how many people play the other MMOs.

 

now tell me it didn't fail economically

 

Just because it was made and some people still play it and/or enjoy it, doesn't mean it didn't fail to appeal to the majority of MMO players.

 

When it "didn't fail" in Asia, EVERYONE was playing a game like that, because it was the "norm." MMORPG is much more popular in Asia as a genre than America or Europe

Edited February 11, 2012 by Acyu

[KrustyDog]

This pretty much describes EVE ;-)

 

I still have my active eve account. Game is awesome. Get jumped in low sec space and you get that good old heart pounding adrenaline rush cause if you lose they blow up your ship and loot everything you had on board. When your sporting a battle cruiser thats big time in mods and ship cost.

 

With the announcement of nerfing highest end pvp armor and rated bg's I am still holding out hope for SWtoR. God gear is a plague upon modern mmorpgs. And anyone who jumps disagrees is someone who doesnt want good, even, fair pvp. They just want to gibb lesser geared people. Highest end gear should allow a SLIGHT advantage not allow you to 2 and 3 shot people your own level. With a slight advantage a good pvp'er will prevail more often than not.

[Vordy]

 

Aventurine, poor developer? In my opinion a resounding yes. And poor developers make poor choices, which result in poor games, which is what Darkfall was. I was there, by the way, both in beta and at launch. It was poorly designed, poorly thought out and generally a total wreck. Same with Mortal, though I wasn't stupid enough to actually pay for that piece of garbage.

 

.

 

I could make a long past, you do have some valid points, but some is also wrong. Too bad you missed stuff like this, epic fights

http://www.own3d.tv/Vordus#/watch/91708

 

[farfulnugen]

The gaming world is about making money. Having risk when dying is not good business. Maybe if the game was free, it'd work. But people spend their money and a lot of their time to collect things in a game - to give it up over a kill is silly. You lose money that way.

 

I used to play a text-game way back when and when you died, you lost all your gear. Sure, it was fun - but it didn't take long to get gear. When they started making it harder to get gear, people stopped playing. Time is very important to people - if you waste it, they won't come back.

 

In theory, sure, it sounds fun. But not many will pay for it with $ or time. Also, when you play a game where there are major imbalances between classes, then losing something in a death is completely unfair. Another thing people would not stand for.

[chton]

If you want PVP play a shooter. All this high falutin talk of risk reward in a genre where it's not about skill but time put in and gear is hilarious. Gazelles that think they are tough play mmos where they can gear up and beat the better players. True competitors play where the field is level and skill is the determiner. I guess the risk to reward it too low when you lose and can't just gear up to beat them. Oh well.

[Vordy]

If you want PVP play a shooter. All this high falutin talk of risk reward in a genre where it's not about skill but time put in and gear is hilarious. Gazelles that think they are tough play mmos where they can gear up and beat the better players. True competitors play where the field is level and skill is the determiner. I guess the risk to reward it too low when you lose and can't just gear up to beat them. Oh well.

 

You are talking of Star Wars I guess, but the thread wasnt only for Star Wars. I guess you only played WoW and Star Wars though, because only people like that think gear matter much in a risk reward game. I guess you never played Ultima Online, gear there only reduced the damage from weapons, nothing else. More games like that exist.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Vordy

[chton]

You are talking of Star Wars I guess, but the thread wasnt only for Star Wars. I guess you only played WoW and Star Wars though, because only people like that think gear matter much in a risk reward game. I guess you never played Ultima Online, gear there only reduced the damage from weapons, nothing else. More games like that exist.

 

Never played WoW, never played an MMO where PVP wasn't determined by time put in rather than skill. Maybe there are a few, still the true competition comes from shooters without perks or what not. I think it's hilarious and part of the problem that you think that reducing damage doesn't affect game play. Seriously read what you said. How about a game where there is no gear differential at all? Seriously back to grazing.

Some people can win based on skill some need gear.