I haven't heard anything about pvp and eq2. G0d knows I'm playing the wrong game in 2003 if I truely want some pvp action, but I'm curious if eq2 will support pvp.
If eq2 does support pvp, which flavor of the current pvp servers would be best?
Rallos, the Sullon or the TZ-RZ flavors?
I like the Sullon flavor best, but balancing issues are a major problem. Level limit pvp is weak, the right penalities can make up for that. Fighting somone within 7 levels of you does not make for a balanced fight. Each one has its ups and downs, perhaps they should trash the entire system and have a hybrid of each.
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I've played a lot of pvp games. Played a long time on Rallos. I consider myself one of those special players who more or less thrive on a pvp environment.
From my personal experience and opinion, i hope its like rallos zek. Not many pvp environments live up to the old style of rallos. There appears to be benefits to other styles of pvp, such as no level limit and whatnot, but in the end they generally end up either making it too easy for high levels to grief lower levels, or worthless in having any levels at all, because you can do just as much at level 10 as you can at 50 in the pvp world. Thus, as i've seen it, the level range solution is probably the best, and I hope there's an EQII server that is essentially the original rallos zek.
I think if EQ2 had an SZ system I'd give it a spin, otherwise probably not going to bother. RZ became too fruity because of the risk of getting pk'ed (stupid to have to hunt naked in case you have to zone out and then get ganked) and the team servers went fruity also =/
You need the risk of item lost, there has to be some risk to pvp. Just coin is weak, it didn't work in DAOC, it doesn't work in eq. It also allows for a bigger problem, which is super twinking. It's crappy to have a level 10 running around with level 50 + gear, killing everyone who doesnt have that, with no risk to themselve because of no item loot.
And if you hunted naked on RZ, then you at least understood the risk and even some of the fear of playing there. Thats partially what pvp is all about. If that isn't present, what penalty is there to death? Pride? For some people thats nothing, for others, its a great deal, but its not a good way to balance the system. Exp? If done correctly perhaps, but in all honesty looting is probably the best system i've ever seen, and that's been implemented. The only real problem to the system was no drop stuff. Mixing in the no drop with the droppable gave unfair advantages to people in high end stuff, because it was good and no drop. That probably should be changed, but if not, oh well, looting a nice crafted ring was always a prize worth gaining in a pvp encounter, even if the rest of your opponents gear was no drop. And if they did run around naked, they made themselves easy targets. Very good balancing system, imo.
RZ has a lot of problems I'd rather hope they take a slightly new tack based on lessons learned rather than ineptly making the same mistakes.
Some thoughts on pvp servers.
1) Twinkage/Buffage
Twinkage/Super Buffage is simply dealt with. Put hard and soft limits on buffs and items. Balancing and rebalancing items as time goes on would seem to be a daunting task but I see no reason not to handle it with a script rather than a human poring over a database.
2) Level Range.
Newbie griefing is lame enough to avoid though it might well be good to have the pvp range expand at mid to higher levels for the sake of group pvp. This would actually work a lot better if a majority of the advancement wasn't squeezed into a minority of levels as well.
3) Item Loot.
If the concept is to put a feeling of danger into pvp its largely a failure. Its an unbalanced penalty that mostly effects those nailed while engaged in pve. It's screwed by the no drop that exists at the end of the game and yet to make items so difficult to aquire so trivial to lose would screw things up yet more. I'd say experience loss represents a better penalty by far.
4)
Divisions between players. The free for all of Rallos Zek is equally a failure. Eq requires increasing cooperation to succeed as you progress. What we see now is the ongoing transformation of RZ to a blue server by the fact that the system of rules promotes politics and @#%$ while naturally squelching pvp as guilds that compete rather than cooperate tend not to succeed in PvP OR PvE.
I'd say artificial divisions between players are essential for good pvp along with incentive to compete (or innability to cooperate) as this provides a legitimate avenue for pvp to occur that is resistant to squelching by political forces.
5) Obvious ignorance of pvp issues.
This ranges from MB to clicky insta invis, to horses, to weapon loot, to the disarm change. If pvp does exist in eq2 I hope it is given the attention it deserves.
Make this server the personal battleground between Rallos Zek, Zeb, and Mithanial Marr. Regardless of what diety you serve you must choose to side with one or an another after being allowed to adventure a bit. You may have many characters but none on the same acount on the opposing side.
All players killed lose experience upon death and drop a token that the fallen or the victor may turn in for experience.
Faction Rules.
RZ. Can attack all including RZ. Can loot items or tokens(exp) off RZ and Zeb. Can only loot tokens off MM.
Zeb. Can attack MM and RZ. Can loot items or exp off RZ but nothing off MM.
MM. Can attack RZ and Zeb. Can loot tokens off RZ but nothing off Zeb.
A common problem mentioned with experience loss on death is corpse camping. However this is pretty simply solved along with bind rushing. Upon death the fallen reapears on the corpse with the ability to loot everything but the token but unable to take any other action (including combat) and moving more than a few steps. The fallen then reapears at bind unable to enter the zone of his deah for 1 hour.
Gains/Losses from pvp,
Meaning beyond a place on a scoreboard.
Definition of PvP success- SZ style points with more detail including a guild/and faction teams success in a particular zone. This need not be communicated on a scoreboard this only cheapens it.
Gains.
PvE
An experience bonus for a team/guild in a particular zone based on pvp success.
A penalty to damage done, to damage avoidance, and to spells landing/being resisted. Make this entirely guild based.
Make this dependant upon connecting zones and limit it based on the status of connecting zones. in other once you gain control of east and west freeport via pvp success you are able to control north freeport to an even greater extent and so on.
Make this penalty decay naturally and make it decay MUCH faster when the members of the afflicted guild team spend time in the zone.
A smaller and more slowly accumulating bonus to the above based on a guilds success in a given zone and in general.
1) Twinkage/buffage, yeah i agree there should be some sort of limit, im not too keen on buff limitations, as long as there is an easy way to dispell said things. However, there are times in the past where i can recall a lower level getting a druid Damage shield and heals, and simply slaughtering people. But thats the exception, not the norm. I don't know how much you should want to limit the buffs, but the twinking is definately a neccessity.
2) The higher level range as people level is a pretty good idea, but it shouldn't be too high. Essentially, if you get to the point where either a) A lower level or group of lower levels are easily competing with higher levels, because leveling means zero, then you've gone too far, or, if you get to the point where higher levels are easily slaughtering lower levels in range, its gone too far as well. Ultimately, i thought the 4 level increment was pretty good. Albeit i didn't keep playing to the 65 cap, i stopped at sixty, so it wasn't that big a deal, a slightly bigger range might be acceptable, but i wouldn't think it too much more so.
3) The loot issue is controversial. Im not too familiar with the shadowbane system, but if its still what i remember, the idea of soulbinding a few key items is a good one. I think loot is a key part of being able to benefit from pvp. Experience is cool too, it works, but it ultimately allows for a lot more griefing if possible. You could open itup to a DAOC-style pvp server, where xp is gained for killing people, but not lost, but that ultimately serves little penalty, and thus no fear of death. Moreover though, the ability to mess with the PvE aspect of the game is key to large scale battles. I know more then once on RZ my guild of 13-15 was able to defeat and breakup 200 + man guilds in mere weeks, simply because we could cut off their PvE. They couldn't gain items, they couldn't use/wear items without fear. The only thing they could do was xp. XP seems like to easy a commodity to make a penalty, because its either going to be a grotesque penalty, in which its too easily lost (imagine if you lost exp equivalent to recieveing the level 49 res, unrestorable, everytime you died pvp), or it won't be significant enough, its just too hard to gauge. Moreover, there should be some significant benefit to taking additional risks. If you have the best gear on the server, and its a pvp server, then you should either live up to that and be able to use it to fight, or, show your truely cowardly ways, and keep it bagged. It's a good way to show that the accomplishments of the server are also limited by pvp. Who cares how nice a Breastplate you have, if you can't wear it because you can't hold your own in a fight. Ultimately, this rewards people who will take a risk. This system only works though without no-drop, and with an adequate resist system put in place. If you're afraid to wear gear, then you set yourself up to gimpdom. I believe EQ-RZ was this way just before Velious armor became the norm for anyone over 55, mainly because hate/fear gear wasn't good enough without some droppable material, to give you protection in pvp.
Finally though, the idea that this opens people up to harassment during pve is non-unique to the situation. Because people can still be harassed while getting xp. Why would i want to waste energy hunting monsters when i could pop people low on health and gain xp from them. This especially holds true for known pks, making it easier for them to level since they often can't have groups unless they're in a pk guild. And either way, this threat is actually what i think is a good one. When you talk about divisions among players, it allows people not normally tied together to defend their xp areas from pks. That used to happen around unrest and lower guk on rallos, as well as other areas. It gives a division to protecting the area of xp from those who would ruin it from everyone.
4) This point about divisions is controversial. Rallos zek is now moving towards the realm of being a "blue" server mainly because the people left have formed divisions that are friendly with eachother. In many instances they don't wrong eachother or hurt eachothers gameplay intentionally. There's nothing wrong with that. RZ used to be a place with natural divisions that arose from politics, and that is the best and most realistic way to run a pvp server. Natural division leads to easy exploitation, that can only be handled by either hard coding strong limitations, or left as exploitable (hence the old cross-teaming problem on VZ/TZ). I've played games with coded divisions and non-coded divisions, and i've always personally preferred the latter. I think ultimately it runs better, but it could be an issue simply left up to preference. The added political atmosphere adds a new level to gameplay, that allows for things such as betrayal and spying and other fun RPG contexts. I think thats better for a pvp server.
5) Yeah, if you're gonna have a pvp server, things need to be taken into account when they're implemented, not way after the fact. EQ has forgotten about that to some extent. At the same time though, there needs to be a laissez faire policy in terms of solving issues. This especially is important in Customer Service. A big problem in pvp games is that customer service tries to impose certain rules (like on oldschool RZ) that cannot take into account the full depth of a situation. This generally applies to things that are player solvable. Sure if someone is cheating, or hacking, or exploiting, CSR should get involved, but when its a player vs player issue, it should be left for the players to solve. Thats more realistic, and more conducive to the rough environment. In summation, more though when it comes to design implementation and more involvement when it comes to catching hackers/cheaters/exploiters, hands off in pvp issues.
As for the pvp server you described, its essentially Dark Age of Camelot. And here's the biggest problem I see with that type of environment; longevity. I think a common misconception of a pvp server is that it must only be a pvp server. But that soon takes away a lot of meaning, the game is no longer an RPG, but a fantasy style FPS. You'll notice the game you also descripe could be Planetside. The great thing about everquest pvp, especially on rallos zek, is that it was an added dimension to the game, not the entire game. It makes for a more rounded culture, with other goals and initiatives. This, ultimately, is where DAOC staggered to keep a lot of their customers. EQ has done a great job with epic encounters, and high level content. Its pretty much unmatched. And the fact that there is constantly more added, makes for a non-boring and explorational ability. If the top level game is simply about doing pvp, or even the primary focus of a game is pvp, its going to eventually get dull, at least to some extent, and it loses that special magic of being an rpg in a world where other things are going on. I was never much of a raider myself, but I don't think there can be more of a rush then trying ot simultaneously succeed in pvp and pve. In any successful pvp game there needs to be something else that is a reward, something else to accomplish, because it adds more dimension, and ultimately, pvp should be an added dimension, not a 100% focus. This is also part of the problem with forced alliances. It means that team X is always your enemy, and that cuts down a great deal of realism in the rpg world. Whereas I can see the point that worshippers of a certain god, or of a certain race shouldn't get along, I also don't think thats neccessarily a complete standard. And if a company has to err, it shoudl err on the side of flexibility, because it allows for more opportunities. You can have race wars, or holy wars, or whatever, on a server with no set alignments. RZ used to do it all the time, as anyone who can remember defending Freeport, or trying to keep the darkies from storming into butcherblock can tell you. But ultimately, if you want a true roleplaying game, then the goal shouldn't be to put limitations, it should be to allow people to interact in different ways in a true environment. Thats why RZ was so great, because it added another dimension of realism, that of PVP. It had its flaws, and there's room for improvement, but that improvement shouldn't come from further constricting the rulesets, but rather nurturing the freedom, and making it into something better. There's a lot more to be said of an encounter where a darkelf and a halfling stare at eachother, each of the players trying to size up what the other is doing or thinking, deciding if its the right thing to do, morally, to attack the other, or if their racial contempt should be put aside for a more ethical path. Even from a non-roleplayers perspective, sometimes you don't wanna be labeled a pk, because it hurts your ability to play, by allowing the server to be free, you make that a decision every gamer must face. If you put in set groups, then there are enemies and friends, its all clean cut, and...dull.
Anyway, this is long and may not make sense, but thats my opinion on the matter. PvP is an element of roleplaying, just like in classic DND, you have the option of killing anyone at any time, you're playing like you live, with different rules and politics that govern a different world. There shouldn't be makeshift rules that make you conform. I believe its the DMG of Dungeons and Dragons that says, the GM, or game developer in this instance, should always be willing to throw away rules, in looking for a more realistic and fun experience.
I've played on all the servers. I played on rallos to lvl 50 before kunark came out, played on tallon and vallon when they came out and now have a 63 good bard on sullon zek. I don't say this to impress you but rather to impress upon you that I have logged lots of playtime with all the different systems.
Rallos Zek:
The point of any PvP server should be one thing and one thing only....PvP. This is a great server up to about lvl 30 because people actually PvP in this range. After 30 it becomes a bluebie paradise with 90% of the server being "Anti" and refusing to PvP at all. It ruins the whole point. On rallos killing people is frowned upon. Kind of strange for a server centered around doing exactly that. Throw in immortal healers and vague (but unneforced) PvP rules and you have an absolute mess of a PvP server. I honestly believe that if SZ and RZ were released at the same time RZ would be even deader than SZ is today.
TZ VZ:
Level range is both too large and too small. If you don't have item loot you should be able to kill anyone. However you should only be able to loot people within a reasonable level to you. TZ and VZ are like a poorly enforced SZ. Non hardcoded teams really sucks.
Sullon Zek:
The best PvP implementation EQ has to offer. You can kill anyone, teams are hardcoded and there is a real sense of commraderie amoung teamates. If I go into a zone with even con evils or newts it is gaurunteed there will be a fight. The PvP aspect hapens often and is in your face constantly. Unlike RZ PvP increases in frequency up until about lvl 60-65 when you simply run out of targets because all the even evils are in the elemental planes and the newts locked up in BoT. There are problems of course. GM's that have no clue what they are doing try to interfere and certain things are legal that should not be (scamming for instance should ALWAYS be illegal).
For EQ2 this is exactly how I would like to see PvP handled:
Every single kill is cataloged and recorded on a webpage like SZ used to be. The amount of points you get for killing a person is inversely proportional to how many points your class got for the day compared to all the others. For instance lets say there is a battlemage class in EQ2 that gets the majority of the kills. If there were 100 kills in your level range and 90 were battle mages 9 were Warlords and 1 was a jester if you are that jester you should get 99 points while the battlemage gets one. I know this sounds insane but it is the only way to balance things out and enforce class diversity. It really sucks seeing nothing but SK's Wizards and Bards at the high end of PvP. I know being a bard I'm contributing to the problem but I haven't fought a monk or rogue in months. Its not because they aren't good classes to play its just that they are at a massive disadvantage in PvP. If a rogue kill was worth 99 SK kills more people would play rogues and the whole system would balance itself out like a free economy.
When you kill someone there should be a random chance for something from their inventory to drop that is less than one RL day old (not what they are wearing but something from one of the 8 inventory slots, not a full bag but one item from a bag). This would limit you to getting items recieved from the current PvE session and not some bagged item your class relies on (like illusion masks etc). If this happens every item should be dropable. Put level restrictions up the kazoo if you like, add flag restrictions (can't wield a rage bringer if you haven't killed the general etc) but it makes absolutely no sense for an item to be no drop and it becomes a stopping block for high end PvP.
Points need to have a real meaning. The more weighted kills you have (and thus the more points) should reflect upon your persona. Perhaps have special PvP only drops that require a certain number of points to weild. Or have points unlock special PvP oriented AA skills etc.
One final point that fits in the with the no drop. Make it so you can have MAX one player on the PvP server. This almost completely eliminates twinking and solves the problem of having everything be dropable. FV handles this pretty well all things considered, but make sure there is no trivial loot code. If I need to kill mob X for some rare brewing barrel for my Burning Rapier 2.0 (which isn't completable until my level) then I better well have a shot at getting that item. Especially if it is in an out of the way place that no person of the appropriate level would go so I couldn't even buy it if I wanted to.
I know this is just pointless rambling but this is truly what I would like to see. Edited by: Pickk Pockket999 at: 6/2/03 10:08:37 pm
Sorry to disagreee Brathly, but with well over an uncountable number of levels PvP between RZ and SZ, and months of /play'ed between them, SZ is a far better PvP implementation for EQ then RZ could have dreamt of.
The idea is that in EQ2 twinking will be taken care of (by item level limits), which solves almost ALL of SZ's problem (aside from preset team imbalance which players cannot necessarily dictate).
EXP is by far the best penalty. This way you still lose out a bit if you zone with 5 hp's and Mister Wizard kills you, but he isn't taking your 13k item that you labored days /play'ed to get.
I played rallos and made the move to sullon for several reasons. most of all was the class imbalance on an item loot server. the supereffective even when naked wizzy can gank the not so effective even when geared melee for items at 0 risk.
item loot is just not workable long term.
as for sullon, if I were to lay down the rules there would be a few simple twists to the existing ruleset.
#1 all 3 teams are all/all. any class any race allowed, this eliminates the problems that arise from one team haveing all the best pvp classes and or best pve races. when you roll up a toon you choose your team from a check box.
#2 eliminate bind points in bluebie zones, eliminate ALL spell casting, bard songs, and clicky effects, turn on exp death from dots (cause you cant get a res in a zone where you cant cast ), take out banks and all trade skill vendors/equipment. this is a pvp server, pok is not your home or your hide away and should not be a happy friendly zone where we can all get along. if its easy make anyone who stays in a bluebie zone for more than 10min lose all buffs and start taking damage and mana loss as well.
#3 Dots, make all dots flagged for the caster so that druids/necs/shaman dont get penalised for people who zone/gate/book out of combat to avoid pvp death. Snare, FIX this game breakingly powerful spell, I for one am tired of snare landing first shot on my 220 mr. change gate a bit for pvp, while still needed its to relieable in pvp. Insta gate. gone, outta here, Noone needs or deserves a get out of anything free card.
those are the basics, the rest is just icing on the pvp cake
#4 res box's when you click yes on the res box you are stunned for 10 secs, you lose 90% of your remaing hp and all buffs are stripped, your resists are debuffed by 300 each. and if you should die durring this 10 second period you lose double normal exp and cannot be res'd. res box trains are not pvp and shouldnt be treated as such.
#5 Ghosting, warn people that bans are coming for ghosters and start the banning, its not hard to figure out what someone is doing when they constently travel through dozens of see invis mobs to arrive at some point conveinent for gank style pvp.
#6 Aa's, the lvl cap makes late comers easy points for people who have been on the server longer due to both gear and aa's, you could remove aa's from pvp servers, remove pop style aa's from pvp servers or my choice, make a person gain a "lvl" of con per 15 aa's spent. the number is flexable maybe every 10 is good maybe every 20, but some change needs to happen here, a lvl 65 sk with 300 aa's is not and Even to any lvl 60 with even decent gear and a few aa's. this will preserve even endgame pvp from the state its in now.
#7 No Play Nice Policy, and FIRE the gm/guide who shows up and tries to enforce one.
#8 after a certain number of complaints from the same team (i.e. noot on noot complaints) ban the person causing the problems, nothing is worse than griefers who go after their own team.
I have more, but thats enough, give me the first 3 and I will smile, add #4 and I will giggle like a school girl. its to bad the peeps at sony/verant dont seem to know jack about pvp or much of this would already be in game.
It sounds like, from the sony website, that they're going to be putting out abunch of different pvp ruleset servers at the release of eq 2.
That sounds like it'll work out because there are some people (such as kambic) who may want a more structured ruleset, and others, such as myself, who believe in a more free-flowing ruleset.
Either one is cool, i just hope we can all agree on one thing:
"#7 No Play Nice Policy, and FIRE the gm/guide who shows up and tries to enforce one."
That that statement should hold true everywhere =D
hehe yeah theres been some drama recently on sullon involving a gm enforcing the pnp and actually giving a warning to the guy who "broke" it. even though it went in favor of my guild and team I think it was absolute bs.
And from it:
Quote:PvP
How will PvP be handled in EQ2? In similar fashion to EQLive with different servers and a Priest of Discord?
EverQuest II, like EQLive, is primarily a PvE (player versus environment) oriented game. Our intent is to support two types of PvP within EverQuest II. One is a structured and competitive form of PvP that does not allow the players to directly fight other players, and will be available as an optional form of gameplay on all servers. No, this is not a new form of the PvP Flag. It is currently nicknamed IPvP, which stands for Indirect Player versus Player. More information will be released in the near future about this system. Our second form of PvP is the traditional EQLive server rule sets.
Other features, not directly considered PvP, that we will support include: player duels, competitive arena-style party combat with other player parties, structured guild wars (with repercussions and rewards), and other forms of consensual player versus player combat/interaction. These other features will be developed in both initial development and later LIVE development.
Will a separate team handle the balance issues that are unique to a PvP environment?
There are no plans for a separate team for PvP issues at this time.
An example of IPvP might be...put your group in a colloseum, put the enemy group in a separate colloseum, throw mobs at both groups in larger and larger waves...see who kills the most/best mobs (use a point system). Caffron, Wizard of <Sanctus Lumen>, the Good team PK guild.
I think Twinkage is just a matter of fact. The big problem right now is Legends twinking though. People transfer over to legends and come back with gear that not only is superior, but we can't even get what they have period. As to why it transfers servers with them I'm clueless, the developers are morons.
Buffing could be handled much like the recommended level items. If the buff "Virtue" had a level recommendation of 60, and scaled down in effect all the way to 1, things like that, might work out well.
Looting is just a bitch to deal with.
If you remove the aspect of no drop, many quests and achievements become trivial. Also, things that take a great amount of time and effort and skill could be lost to flukes. I can't imagine losing something like my epic fists as a monk because I went LD during a fight.
At the same time, having no drop makes for gimped loot code. People run around on RZ in full sets of unlootable gear, with nothing to lose. Their scope of pvp is 100% different then someone in gear. They can fight till they hit 0%. They can pick up their stuff and attack again immediately.
As a rogue I have to pull out at 50% if I want to keep me gear, otherwise I eat a HT for hundreds and hundreds of damage. If I don't wear gear I can stay all the way to 0%.. maybe land that lucky backstab for 700 or 800 and win.
It's really not a punishment for losing a fight, at least not a valid one. It's a punishment for losing a fight, for which there could have been no benefit for winning.
I've worn gear all my career up until the last few days, but now it's very clear that it only makes my time harder when I become the target of PvP.
My friend wore a fungi for one day before he got tired of dodging ivy hoopers and shadowknight bang squads and sold it. That piece of gear was going to get him killed.
"Wear nothing, and you may suck, but hey, you won't lose anything if you die and you can always get a lucky HT on some poor sap who just had a tough fight." <-- Rallos Zek
It shouldn't be that way, but it is. I think something brilliant needs to happen there to keep loot-possible PvP an option.
Mandated PvP also has it's problems. Sullon Zek isn't a server of good people, people just out for themselves and then the nasties.. it's team 1, team 2 and team 3. Team 1 hates team 2 and 3, team 2 hates team 1 and 3... etc etc.
If you don't attack said teams you're likely to be attacked, because PvP is mandated there's no punishment for attacking, even socially, why not attack.
At the same time you get the complete opposite of that on Rallos, bluebieism. Attacking someone (even with reason) dubs you a PK and you get blacklisted from guilds. With no legitimate avenue for PvP, you're either anti or PK, no in betweens.
Crazy thing happened on Rallos about a week ago. The GM's had an event where everyone was turned into Giants or Coldain dwarves, and everyone fought each other. Because it was a GM event, anti guilds killed anti guilds.. everyone PvP'd.. everyone PK'd each other. It was okay because it was sanctioned. It was refreshing to see.. course a few minutes after it was over everyone made their way back to their business and things were back to the norm.
When there's no social penalty for being an ass, there's a problem. When the game requires you and your 50 closest friends to see content and complete quests and compete, there's no way you can go it alone being an ass.
This game structure is not PvP friendly. It would take a hellacious miracle to make it so.
