What do you mean by 'making pvp equal'?

Some type of arena system hat incorporated this would be cool. Overall I don't think everywhere I'd be a favor of this model. I already think people overtrain for tdps too much.

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I'd think that'd be a benefit to the RP community and non-super high level characters. It would also probably make the game more approachable, which might in turn help grow the community.

I imagine that the people who're at the top of the food chain right now would fight tooth and nail against 'losing' all those years of 'work' though and I don't know how many active accounts worth they represent currently, so I can't really guess where the GMs would weigh in on it.

How many people actually pvp regularly anyway? I sure don't. I think a really well designed and thought out arena would possibly be a better alternative but the way it is right now seems pretty bad to me. Hard to really say for sure though since I don't even participate in it.

Makes me kind of sad, opens up a world of possibilities with an even playing field for everyone. The obvious advantage for being higher level would be access to more skills and abilities, but everyone being able to take and give a hit would do wonders for pvp/interaction. Might be able to actually set up legitimate wars between players / regions if this was the case. Got a problem with Theren? Well grab the people you can or who are interested and burn it to the ground. As it is, the hard math makes it were one HLC could literally take 1000's of people not within the threshold to land a hit consistently.

<A character with 500 combats is never doing anything to a character with 1000, and that catch up is going to be impossible.

I've literally heard people make a commentary about this disparity with an off hand dismissal that the smaller character should just stay out of the inns and train more.


I guess we're all just here to mindlessly script so we can play in five to ten.

Any suggestion on the pvp muds? DR's is pretty bad at this point, so I am game for trying the other ones.

that bloodlust mode they once kicked around would be neat.

or maybe if you could roll up an NPC "gladiator" that can adopt certain weapons perks and spells to a limited rank, like say 10

then other people can do the same, every rank 10 gladiator has the same number of stats and perks by rank 10, then folks can duke it out. you could hold special "to the death" matches where a losing gladiator beefs it for good.


-Munch-

I like normalized PvP as a concept, but DR's combat system has very little or no depth once you take ranks out of the equation. Why hilight a bad system?

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"Warrior Mages don't bother covering up their disasters.

They're proud of them."
-Raesh

Guild Wars 1&2 has an amazing PvP system, primarily because you can auto create a PvP only character at max level, and they also cap the level and do not raise it. Development moves horizontally instead of vertically. I mention GW1 because of the Guild Vs Guild combat which was one of my favorite things of any game ever, and 2 has World Vs. World where server groups fight against each other on a huge map. There's also small scale stuff as well.

Most of this wouldn't work for DR, obviously. But horizontal development is something I'm always a fan of.

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"Game balance is sobbing over in the corner as it considers the ramifications of AoE Blufmor Garaen. Your spell slots send their condolences." - GM Raesh

>>The problem right now, I feel, is that PvP in DR once you get passed, oh, say, 500-600 ranks, is just a matter of numbers. Whoever has more numbers will probably win, unless they do something stupid.

This is pretty untrue. Ive seen people with disproportionately lower ranks thrash the hell out of someone with higher ranks. The rest of what you said in this paragraph are for the most part true although id argue you have to be good at scripting to get there. There are some level 190+ people who are laughably trained (in a bad way).

>>Normalize or proportion ranks for PvP would make it so someone, say, with 800 offensive and defensive average, would still probably lose to someone with 1200, but it wouldnt be a guarantee. The idea is not to say someone with 500 ranks is literally identical to someone with 1500 ranks, but that that person with 1500 is 3-fold stronger than that person with 500, NOT, '1000 ranks higher'.

For the most part, this is how it is (with respect to the 800 vs 1200 in ranks). I think the argument for a 1500 ranks in a weapon vs 500 ranks in defenses really doesnt hold water. Threefold stronger or 1000 ranks higher shouldnt really make a difference, you shouldn't win a fight vs someone with triple your ranks ever. That doesnt feel unreasonable to me.

>>The idea here is NOT to equalize ranks, it is to mitigate the rank gaps so PvP can be more contentious, not less. Right now, in most situations, the winner is determined solely by who has more ranks, or in some cases, whose guild is in worse shape. Id prefer to seePvP that was based more around the right actions and choices in combat, not "do you have more ranks than me? yes? ok, you won".

I think you grossly overestimate people and why they dont pvp. Most of the people I've met in DR simply dont PVP unless they are guaranteed victory. I see it all the time. I still firmly believe thats all the pvp guarded stance is. I know thats a separate argument and i dont want to get into that however going back to what you said above - the right action and choice in combat is to not engage someone who outclasses you in pvp if you arent ready to accept your characters death (with all the hilariously non-existent consequences) with open arms. Staff has gone out of their way to make death almost meaningless, not wanting to die in pvp IMO falls down to two things: fragility of the ego OR simply not enjoying PVP (which is ok too imo, thats why pvp closed is there).


>>Common strawman arguments against this over the years have been: someone with more ranks trained harder and should always win, someone with 100 ranks should never beat someone with 1000, and everyone likes pvp just the way it is.

I dont think these arguments are strawman. Although I agree with you that it is highly unlikely that EVERYONE likes pvp just the way it is. I cant see the value in saying that your training shouldnt make you stronger than someone who didnt train as hard.

>>Its also worth reminding that the wide number of skills for TDP grind is a thing, and also a problem, and also solely resisted by people who have been training characters longer.

Again, disagree. The main complainers of this are the people who didnt train many skills. Ive heard the arguments and some of them are compelling but you are going to have to accept some type of a pretty hefty concession if all these ranks that were trained solely for the tdp's due to system design were suddenly made meaningless. These people who trained harder are going to want the advantage that they trained for, or simu will simply lose customers. Its very late in the game to make that type of a change and expect it to be accepted.


>>So, yeah. Complaining about PvP while demanding nothing really change is sort of odd. That so many people seem to be in a position wherein they find PvP boring past 500-600 ranks and need to make alts to keep enjoying PvP is pretty telling.

I honestly know that most people make a lowbie for pvp because they are more likely to get attacked by the pvp closed mitkiahns and netherliches of the world who only pvp when they dont know the persons name, thus believe they can win. When their character becomes known, they make a new one. I know a bunch of people that do that. Mostly because the PVP in DR is actually quite decent and they do find it enjoyable.

One way to have a decent pvp system would to just open the test server, and code some stuff in to make a character with a 100th circle predetermined amount of EXP, TDP's to spend. You can pick what skills/stats/spells your allowed and go on from there. Once that was done you would have additional commands like healme to use when you die, though with healme only healing when out of combat for a set time (2-3 minutes). Maybe even just incorporate this into an arena system in prime.

Pretty sure ideas like this have been thrown around before, but it would make people that like a good pvp challenge happy. I love to pvp, but even with a decent turnout at wyvern trials or the like, it usually turns out for some people that they outclass or are under their opponent by a large margin.

>This is pretty untrue. Ive seen people with disproportionately lower ranks thrash the hell out of someone with higher ranks. The rest of what you said in this paragraph are for the most part true although id argue you have to be good at scripting to get there. There are some level 190+ people who are laughably trained (in a bad way).

I feel like you may not have read the last sentence in the paragraph you quoted from.

>For the most part, this is how it is (with respect to the 800 vs 1200 in ranks). I think the argument for a 1500 ranks in a weapon vs 500 ranks in defenses really doesnt hold water. Threefold stronger or 1000 ranks higher shouldnt really make a difference, you shouldn't win a fight vs someone with triple your ranks ever. That doesnt feel unreasonable to me.


I dont think PvP outcomes should purely be 'who has scripted longer'. This will have to be something we disagree on - you feel that having invested 5 years of scripting into this game means you are automatically supposed to win against someone who has invested 2. I do not.

>I think you grossly overestimate people and why they dont pvp. Most of the people I've met in DR simply dont PVP unless they are guaranteed victory. I see it all the time. I still firmly believe thats all the pvp guarded stance is. I know thats a separate argument and i dont want to get into that however going back to what you said above - the right action and choice in combat is to not engage someone who outclasses you in pvp if you arent ready to accept your characters death (with all the hilariously non-existent consequences) with open arms. Staff has gone out of their way to make death almost meaningless, not wanting to die in pvp IMO falls down to two things: fragility of the ego OR simply not enjoying PVP (which is ok too imo, thats why pvp closed is there).

No, I think we're in complete agreement about why many people dont PvP, and also, why many people do. That you feel the right action is simply 'dont participate until you outclass someone' is literally what I view to be the problem with PvP in DR. I like that the ramifications of death are minimal now, but that doesnt really mitigate the fact that PvP is 'which participant has scripted longed'.

> I cant see the value in saying that your training shouldnt make you stronger than someone who didnt train as hard.

To reiterate - The idea here is NOT to equalize ranks, it is to mitigate the rank gaps so PvP can be more contentious, not less. Right now, in most situations, the winner is determined solely by who has more ranks, or in some cases, whose guild is in worse shape. Id prefer to seePvP that was based more around the right actions and choices in combat, not "do you have more ranks than me? yes? ok, you won".

>The main complainers of this are the people who didnt train many skills

Conversely, the main opponents of it are those who did. I personally think its idiotic that the game is built around a model that encourages wide training of all weapons and armors, irrespective of what class you actually are, but like you point out, this is an entirely separate bag of worms issue. The benefit of training wide should only be 'you have trained wide', not, 'you have all the TDPs'. The last time GMs proposed this, people had veritable tantrums. That approximately 6 years after the last time I saw a GM propose this, the issue is still 'but people will quit if you nerf their characters' strikes me somewhat skeptically, as there are a lot of new players in the game now from F2P who are wildly deincentivized to participate in PvP due to these gaps and bizarre training paradigms.

Unfortunately, I think the loudest voices get their way in the long run.

>I honestly know that most people make a lowbie for pvp because they are more likely to get attacked by the pvp closed mitkiahns and netherliches of the world who only pvp when they dont know the persons name, thus believe they can win. When their character becomes known, they make a new one. I know a bunch of people that do that. Mostly because the PVP in DR is actually quite decent and they do find it enjoyable.

Perhaps. But I think a lot of people made new characters (as someone just chimed in with saying) because post 100th or so, theres just nothing much going on sans a well established and rarely changing pecking order and making the numbers get bigger.

That the arena or test server or noob wars keeps getting thrown around as a solution tells you how broken things are. The answer shouldnt be 'abandon ship', but rather, 'fix the one we have'. If that means some people get nerfed, or indeed, that the pecking order gets shifted around, thats a good thing.

I honestly find it intriguing that people complain about boring PvP at higher ranks, but refuse the notion of smoothing out that skill gap effect. People also complain about bots, but openly admit that the only way to engage in PvP is to avoid conflicts that will get you killed, AND, that people need to just take their lumps.

<I dont think PvP outcomes should purely be 'who has scripted longer'. This will have to be something we disagree on - you feel that having invested 5 years of scripting into this game means you are automatically supposed to win against someone who has invested 2. I do not.

Agree and Disagree.

I agree pvp should be normalized on a certain front (like arena's and such that all are openly participating. I however don't think every interaction should be based on this model. I would group that as open pvp (normal skill) and arena pvp that would be (predetermined) skill ranks.

<<The problem right now, I feel, is that PvP in DR once you get passed, oh, say, 500-600 ranks, is just a matter of numbers. Whoever has more numbers will probably win, unless they do something stupid. Theres obviously some wiggle, and buffs matter. I find that fairly boring, because you dont have to really be good at anything to get there.>>

The first statement is simply not true, even with extreme rank disparity I've seen many lower ranked people wipe the floor with higher ranked people. (even a few hundred ranks higher) Look at how the original Noopin played for just one example off the top of my head. Then you throw out buffs and debuffs like its just some thing that can make up for the rank disparity and is boring. This entire game, in terms of combat, is buffs and debuffs, to do damage or mitigate it. If you find buffs and debuffs boring this might not be the game for you. Also if you aren't using buffs and debuffs you are doing it wrong.

>>You just grind longer, and have even a basic understanding of how to do things. I will add here that Ive seen a bunch of fights where people do things so stupidly I have to wonder if they purchased the character, and am thankful they havent really figured it out.<<

Ok, but all things being equal, if they DO figure it out and they have better ranks than you, don't you kinda deserve to NOT win at least the majority of the time? Like if you both make proper and perfect decisions shouldn't the better trained fighter win the fight?

<<Normalize or proportion ranks for PvP would make it so someone, say, with 800 offensive and defensive average, would still probably lose to someone with 1200, but it wouldnt be a guarantee. The idea is not to say someone with 500 ranks is literally identical to someone with 1500 ranks, but that that person with 1500 is 3-fold stronger than that person with 500, NOT, '1000 ranks higher'.>>

First I've seen someone with 800 ish beat someone with 1100 ish so we aren't that far off your spectrum. Do you just want to turn the game into a chat room with rock paper scissors?

>>The idea here is NOT to equalize ranks, it is to mitigate the rank gaps so PvP can be more contentious, not less. Right now, in most situations, the winner is determined solely by who has more ranks, or in some cases, whose guild is in worse shape. Id prefer to seePvP that was based more around the right actions and choices in combat, not "do you have more ranks than me? yes? ok, you won".<<

Again this premise is false. Ranks do make a difference and they should, but I think you are overstating the win button nature baring extreme circumstances.

<<Common strawman arguments against this over the years have been: someone with more ranks trained harder and should always win, someone with 100 ranks should never beat someone with 1000, and everyone likes pvp just the way it is.>>

You presented a false premise with very little point, now you gave counter arguments to it. This is like a guy on sports talk radio saying, "For the next three hours I'm going to tell you why Jay Cutler is not a top three QB in the league". No one in their right mind thinks Jay Cutler is a top three QB, but this guy then goes on to presenting 14 ridiculous arguments as to why he is a top three QB, that no one ever thinks, and then spends the next hour disputing these arguments.

<<Its also worth reminding that the wide number of skills for TDP grind is a thing, and also a problem, and also solely resisted by people who have been training characters longer.>>

Kind of agree with this, but it strays from your main point which I'm still struggling to find.

<<So, yeah. Complaining about PvP while demanding nothing really change is sort of odd. That so many people seem to be in a position wherein they find PvP boring past 500-600 ranks and need to make alts to keep enjoying PvP is pretty telling.>>

You are the one who postulated that people are bored of PVP.

That being lets go with your next statement, you said PVP gets boring past 500-600 ranks not because of a lack of willing participants, there are many inherent mechanical reasons why end game pvp is less than ideal and it has nothing to do with ranks. Is willing participants even the point of this entire post? I'm legitimately confused about the main point.

Finally, People make alts for about 100 other reasons than to just enjoy PvP.

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<lol@squanto

That's pretty much what Ive been hearing.

An arena system that sets everyone to 100th circle with equal ranks and stats with a ladder system etc could be really really cool.

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<I get exactly what is being said here. You guys want to go to the gym and look like Arnold without lifting the weights, shooting the roids, dieting, eating like a horse, sleeping like a baby, making love on the beach, oozing charisma gained from years of winning or brushing your hair a thousand times.

Maybe that is true? I don't know. I think maybe some people just want to have fun with pvp. If you're lower level it's not fun so there is that aspect to it. Maybe a compromise would be a range limit on pvp. You can only attack someone if they're in a certain range of total offense/defense average?

I mean comparing this to real life is a little strange to me it's a video game people just want to log on and have a blast.

<That has to be the worst idea I have ever heard.

Interesting. Well I've seen it implemented on another mud and it was a huge success.

<There is no reason you need to get free ranks and free abilities and free power to have fun with pvp.

Yeah I see that side of it. I see the side of it too where you don't even want to participate because you'll just get curb stomped by HLCs and to me it seems like these HLCs are not open to any suggestions at all they just want to maintain their god status and shoot down any idea.