Main City PvP Assault Idea

[Mindshard]

Was just tossing this idea around, picture this. One weekend (possibly once per month) there's an NPC in your faction's capital city. Talking to this NPC automatically flags you and sends you to the opposing city's capital city.

That's it.

Your faction now has the ability to lead a huge assault on the opposing city, toss in an armor vendor (no mods) of the old, removed PvP/vE sets somewhere in the middle of the city to buy. Bam, you now have a reason to head over there and PvP. Could even put them in a building to create a chokepoint that either side could defend.

 

That simple. A transport NPC and an equipment vendor and you have a weekend open world PvP event.

Would it make life difficult for someone brand new to the game and not sure what to do? Probably. But for 2 days, a city that can be skipped temporarily in return for open world PvP with incentives, which I think anyone could get behind is worth it.

 

Show someone an enemy, put a weapon in their hand, offer vague reward if they kill them and they'll try as long as it takes every time. And that's what we call content.

 

I don't know what you guys think, but for me a massive open world PvP battle is what I think of when I think of Star Wars, and those are the good memories I have from SWG. Do some RP leading up to it, then go all out killing each other!

 

Simply put, let's put the war back in Star Wars!

Edited May 30, 2013 by Mindshard

[AlienEyeTX]

Honestly, I think it would be loads of fun to have PvP that you could just drop into without finding groups and whatnot. Just joining a battle to further the cause of your faction. Good times.

 

I also find it annoying that we can't raid the other faction's cities. One of the big headscratchers in this game is whey everything is so segregated. I want to explore the entire galaxy and I want to talk to whomever I want to talk to.

 

Anyway, back on topic, I could get behind an idea like this. Scheduled attacks on capitals or temples or whatever. Sounds fun!

[Icebergy]

I would say this could be a lot of fun, especially if it was like once a month like you said.

 

I would suggest that players under lvl 20 be made 'immune' to this flagging though, so that lowbees can continue to level if they would like and/or if they don't know whats going on. Just to make sure that people can play the way they want to without having their gameplay interrupted.

[Malastare]

Whenever suggesting an addition like this, your first question should be: "How could this be abused?"

 

I don't see anything in your suggestion that addresses this. Let me get you started:

 

How are you going to prevent organized bands of Level 55 characters from blockading key quest areas?

 

Your suggestion seems to be: "Oh well, let them just not play for a couple days," or "They should call for help from their faction." Neither of those answers are terribly comforting. Basically, you are turning a blind eye to behavior that would be griefing in any other setting. You might not see a problem with losing two days of game play, but some players only play on the weekends. For them, it would be losing a week of play.

 

Even in the reverse, its not much better. A band of local 55's could stop all non-55 invaders from having any chance of success. The only response would be to call in other 55's to help break through.

 

So then:

 

How is this different from a Level 55 warzone?

 

Considering how levels/defense works in the game, this design would be a playground for Level 55 characters, particularly those in PvP gear. Even in simple L55 blues, a Level 55 character is virtually unbeatable to a Level 45 character. Put them in Partisan gear, and no one short of another Level 55 has a reasonable shot at them.

 

Thus, the first answer to the question is: "Level 55 warzones don't include the chance at a lowbie slaughter-fest". I suppose there is always the chance that other levels could play in the rare occasions when there are no 55's around. But even then, the problem still exists at all levels. A level 45 player will easily put down a Level 35 character, and that Level 35 character would embarrass a Level 25 character.

 

It's not that the idea is stupid or horrible, its that you've assumed that unstructured World PvP is a stable thing and that it wouldn't be min-maxed. Reality shows us that's not the case. Notice the recent Ilum event: Even with the relatively common cease-fire attitude of players in the center PvP area, few Level 50's were willing to venture in without a Level 55 escort. That's just 5 levels. What would make your suggestion any different?

[senshi]

I would absolutely love this idea.

[Mindshard]

Whenever suggesting an addition like this, your first question should be: "How could this be abused?"

 

I don't see anything in your suggestion that addresses this. Let me get you started:

 

How are you going to prevent organized bands of Level 55 characters from blockading key quest areas?

 

Your suggestion seems to be: "Oh well, let them just not play for a couple days," or "They should call for help from their faction." Neither of those answers are terribly comforting. Basically, you are turning a blind eye to behavior that would be griefing in any other setting. You might not see a problem with losing two days of game play, but some players only play on the weekends. For them, it would be losing a week of play.

 

Even in the reverse, its not much better. A band of local 55's could stop all non-55 invaders from having any chance of success. The only response would be to call in other 55's to help break through.

 

So then:

 

How is this different from a Level 55 warzone?

 

Considering how levels/defense works in the game, this design would be a playground for Level 55 characters, particularly those in PvP gear. Even in simple L55 blues, a Level 55 character is virtually unbeatable to a Level 45 character. Put them in Partisan gear, and no one short of another Level 55 has a reasonable shot at them.

 

Thus, the first answer to the question is: "Level 55 warzones don't include the chance at a lowbie slaughter-fest". I suppose there is always the chance that other levels could play in the rare occasions when there are no 55's around. But even then, the problem still exists at all levels. A level 45 player will easily put down a Level 35 character, and that Level 35 character would embarrass a Level 25 character.

 

It's not that the idea is stupid or horrible, its that you've assumed that unstructured World PvP is a stable thing and that it wouldn't be min-maxed. Reality shows us that's not the case. Notice the recent Ilum event: Even with the relatively common cease-fire attitude of players in the center PvP area, few Level 50's were willing to venture in without a Level 55 escort. That's just 5 levels. What would make your suggestion any different?

 

I get what you're saying, but by the same reasoning PvP servers shouldn't exist as this can happen in key areas (and does).

For a brand new player there's tons to do without going straight to, and sitting in Dromund or Coruscant isn't required.

There's even quest zones outside of it. There's the beginner instance, etc.

 

The most important thing is ONLY attackers would be flagging themselves by transporting there. Even on a PvP server your flag turns off if you don't fight someone, so I don't see an issue. Unless one of those lowbies goes and attacks a 55 they're perfectly safe.

[ELRunninW]

Anything that brings fun to the game and as long as I can completely ignore this event since I care not for PvP and I am absolutely sure there will be many people enjoying grieving around these 'special' places one may wish to go.

[PunisherAS]

"Wall of Crazy" as Bioware shall say,

Too much work for a crappy engine.

[CaptainBlackjack]

A better plan would be to actually have a defensible/attackable outpost on Illum that can be held by the winner for 1 hour and allows access to a weekly operations boss who drops pve and pvp gear. This is what Wintergrasp was in wow and was a success for both pve an pvp players. Just need to ensure a reasonable balance to the battle and I am sure you would have the faction fights your looking for.

[branmakmuffin]

Unless it created a special instance of the capital for PvPing, one of the worst ideas, which crops up periodically.

[Warrgames]

Does this fit into the lore If time period? Capital city were well defended and didn't get sacked monthly.

[Dawginole]

This essentially already exists on Tatooine.

 

All they would have to do is create a daily for this area rewarding comms for X amount of kills in the area and maybe make it faction based and it would be packed.

 

The actual problem is that it would be packed. The engine can't handle it.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Dawginole

[Mindshard]

Does this fit into the lore If time period? Capital city were well defended and didn't get sacked monthly.

 

Small attack parties aren't the same as destroying an entire city.

 

Because I'm too lazy to go back and quote, to the person who suggested Ilum or something, tell me how many people are on Ilum at any given time. If you make an event in the middle of nowhere less people show up. MMO gamers are no longer the hardcore, camp a spawn point for 20+ hours straight waiting for a mob to pop for a CHANCE at doing the most damage and MAYBE getting loot.

Now MMO players want to pick up a quest, walk 2m and turn it in and get top end gear and anything more effort than that gets forum rage spam.

 

The whole point is for there to possibly be a minor reward, but the real reward being the PvP itself. That's world PvP in a nutshell. And it's different, not just another timed/objective WZ.

[branmakmuffin]

Actually, now that I think about it, if it were limited to PvP-tagged servers, I guess it's no skin off my nether regions.

[AlienEyeTX]

Here's another way to look it, for the naysayers... I don't PvP, but this would get me to PvP. Attracting more people to this aspect of the game would have to be considered a good thing. Might help get more attention from the devs. An idea like this can be expanded on greatly in the future.

[Dawginole]

Small attack parties aren't the same as destroying an entire city.

 

Because I'm too lazy to go back and quote, to the person who suggested Ilum or something, tell me how many people are on Ilum at any given time. If you make an event in the middle of nowhere less people show up. MMO gamers are no longer the hardcore, camp a spawn point for 20+ hours straight waiting for a mob to pop for a CHANCE at doing the most damage and MAYBE getting loot.

Now MMO players want to pick up a quest, walk 2m and turn it in and get top end gear and anything more effort than that gets forum rage spam.

 

The whole point is for there to possibly be a minor reward, but the real reward being the PvP itself. That's world PvP in a nutshell. And it's different, not just another timed/objective WZ.

 

You know, FFXI had this thing in a city where a section of the city was attacked by npc's a few times a day. That section of the city contained the less valuable stuff. Once the attack began no one could enter or leave until it was over. And the other part of the city that had transport and the AH and most of the vendors was unaffected.

 

You were encourage to take part though because if no one fought off the invaders they could steal certain vendors like the guy who rented mounts or the guy that warped you to way points. Those guys then had to be rescued by groups that teamed up and freed the vendor from a cage in enemy territory.

 

I see no reason why something similar couldn't be done with pvp.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Dawginole

[Mindshard]

Here's another way to look it, for the naysayers... I don't PvP, but this would get me to PvP. Attracting more people to this aspect of the game would have to be considered a good thing. Might help get more attention from the devs. An idea like this can be expanded on greatly in the future.

 

I strongly suggest you give at least WZs a shot. I'm not quite sure what it is, but SWTOR's version of battlegrounds is my favorite in an MMO so far. Games like GW2 or Tera with their fast paced skill required combat are fun, but even alongside games with very similar structures like WoW I still will pick TOR anytime.

[Kirax]

They need to get rid of the fleets for this to work. Which I am all for, the fleets are one of the most dull places in the game to date. Back in beta the main cities were the main hangout spots. It wasn't until the last minute that they added the fleets which pretty much killed Kaas City and Corusant. The amount of instancing in this game would still be the main problem for the PvP assault idea to work.

[Warrgames]

Small attack parties aren't the same as destroying an entire city.

 

Because I'm too lazy to go back and quote, to the person who suggested Ilum or something, tell me how many people are on Ilum at any given time. If you make an event in the middle of nowhere less people show up. MMO gamers are no longer the hardcore, camp a spawn point for 20+ hours straight waiting for a mob to pop for a CHANCE at doing the most damage and MAYBE getting loot.

Now MMO players want to pick up a quest, walk 2m and turn it in and get top end gear and anything more effort than that gets forum rage spam.

 

The whole point is for there to possibly be a minor reward, but the real reward being the PvP itself. That's world PvP in a nutshell. And it's different, not just another timed/objective WZ.

 

Even a small man raid of 4 people attacking a major city EVERY month is going to be record in history books. Isn't reflected in lore. Just like Sith lose. Just because I want the Sith to win doesn't mean I can change the lore.

 

What Cilas is doing is World PvP.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=644757

[AlienEyeTX]

I strongly suggest you give at least WZs a shot. I'm not quite sure what it is, but SWTOR's version of battlegrounds is my favorite in an MMO so far. Games like GW2 or Tera with their fast paced skill required combat are fun, but even alongside games with very similar structures like WoW I still will pick TOR anytime.

 

Well, the thing is, I don't want to have to bother with groups. I kind of like the idea of faction vs. faction free-for-all. Of course some people will work together to take out larger objectives, and that's perfectly fine. I'd just like to drop into a battlefield and do my part to help the cause without everything being so... formal.