The question I always have when people trot out this "fair and balanced" pvp suggestion is where do you draw the line?

Do you give everyone 1k ranks 100 in all stats? That kinda screws the folks with poor/incomplete buff suites, and kinda puts stealthers at a disadvantage.

Do you base it on skillsets? Which completely disregards the efforts many put into their tert skills to offset their class bias. I recall a dear friend of mine, back in the old, punishing EXP model, had his top skill as perception in a deliberate effort to make it harder for Ragran to pick on him. I highly suspect folks like that would be less then thrilled to lose a huge amount of ground to play in your system. Not to mention it puts guilds with under-evolved prime skillsets (Lore/Armor primes) into an even rougher spot for 'Fair'.

Honestly speaking, one of the bigger drives to MMO's is the powercreep payoff. What is the draw to building and growing a character if you can't take advantage of such? I know people love to trot out the argument of "What about Joe-New-Guy?", but frankly, Joe there has no right even standing in the same room as someone like Gort, let alone being a threat to him as something other then a speed-bump.

In the current EXP Paradigm, you can make a character that can be involved with all but the absolute biggest of names in a shockingly short amount of time. Yes, you have to put in some effort, and yes, that benchmark IS pushed a little farther out every day, but it really SHOULD because it's a multi-decade old game that touted virtually unlimited advancement. Is there room for improvement? Sure. Could a 'even footing' style Arena be neat? Maybe. Is anyone in this tread going to change their mind? I'd give a snowball in hell better odds.

Samsaren

I've seen a lot of people saying that they've seen 800 ranks beat 1100 ranks. This is actually a good argument for normalizing PVP. I've seen a suggestion floated around that in PVP, ranks 1-1100 are treated as <insert number here>. Ranks 1101-1500 are treated as <insert number here +100>. Ranks 1501+ are treated as <insert number here +200>. This would serve to make PVP more fun for everyone (I'm assuming that is unless your idea of fun is that you've scripted for 10 years and DESERVE to curb stomp everyone because they haven't scripted for 10 years).

I believe this would get rid of the problems with baiters, as well as make PVP more engaging for everyone. The people that have scripted for 10 years will still have the extra spells, extra stats and "better" gear so it won't be like they've worked for nothing. They would still have an advantage over lower circle people, it just wouldn't be so bad. This would also serve to help against the baiters that newer characters don't even know are breaking policy, so don't report.

The best thing about noob wars is in the past all the vets who make alts end up dominating them, badly dominating them.

It ain't all just a ranks thing folks.

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>The question I always have when people trot out this "fair and balanced" pvp suggestion is where do you draw the line?

I think being willing to ask the question is a better start than saying 'as long as you have fewer ranks than me I should be able to kill you all the time'. And, as I think a lot of people have been quite clear in stipulating, narrowing those gaps is not the same as eliminating them.

>Do you base it on skillsets? Which completely disregards the efforts many put into their tert skills to offset their class bias. I recall a dear friend of mine, back in the old, punishing EXP model, had his top skill as perception in a deliberate effort to make it harder for Ragran to pick on him. I highly suspect folks like that would be less then thrilled to lose a huge amount of ground to play in your system. Not to mention it puts guilds with under-evolved prime skillsets (Lore/Armor primes) into an even rougher spot for 'Fair'.

I think this is a question for how to handle the arena suggestion, not how to handle better closing the skill gaps suggestion. A survival tert should have a hard time spotting a hiding survival prime. And no, Im not saying lock everyone to their skillset placement either.

> Is anyone in this tread going to change their mind? I'd give a snowball in hell better odds.

Yarp.

>(I'm assuming that is unless your idea of fun is that you've scripted for 10 years and DESERVE to curb stomp everyone because they haven't scripted for 10 years).

This is pretty much the extent of the proffered counter argument. I think its valid to some extent - more work and investment should pay off - but I dont think just because you sat and scripted for 5 years or hit JOIN JOIN back in 1996 that you should implicitly be guaranteed the ability to curb stomp anyone who only scripted for 4, or hit JOIN JOIN in 2005.

None of these suggestions have been aimed at taking away the edge long and hard work provides, its been aimed at reducing the absolute guarantee that is the current pvp paradigm. And again, if the only way to revitalize your interest in pvp was to roll an alt for the noob wars, that points to there being a problem at the higher ranges.

I think if players are happy with the current pecking order paradigm, sure, no conversation can be had, and we should just keep on truckin on until the bots catch up, or the caps are reached and once again we have this issue of PvP being kind of a rough thing to engage in sans steamrolling or getting steamrolled due to various choices that were made ages ago. I personally dont find that as enjoyable as more equal footing PvP (and again, this is not a call to simply normalize all Pvp ranks), but if others dont, then, whelp.

>The best thing about noob wars is in the past all the vets who make alts end up dominating them, badly dominating them. It ain't all just a ranks thing folks.

This is absolutely true, and I think probably the most fun Ive ever had in conflicts is when Im fighting someone who is close in rank. Hence my suggestion to narrow some of the gaps, somehow.

I am not the least bit surprised that the coolest thing about noob wars was seeing how people who know the game and its nuance did better. I find that really encouraging, because it suggests that the bones of PvP are actually in better shape than some people think, and its overshadowed by rank disparities.

<My mind is not made up at all. I don't even care about pvp that's the funny thing was just throwing thoughts out and get told it's the stupidest idea ever. I have no idea what the best solution is or even if it really needs to be changed. I guess personally I just think an arena would be a lot of fun?

I wasn't trying to completely crap on your ideas, some of the arena battleground type ideas you had in the other thread you made were pretty good. What you proposed in the idea I thought was very bad was the desire to see characters unable to attack another player unless that player was skilled similar. That would just drive away decent RP and PVP since everybody needs killing now and again.

Basically I like DR PVP system as a whole how it is now. There are things that could be tweaked here and there, small things that don't make sense like watch, but aside from that its not bad. I do think it would be awesome to have the arena type system that would allow folks the option to base matches on predetermined skills. That would take some fleshing out to make it be interesting, and the option could always be made to use the feature on a per match basis.

>>If only there were some suggestions in play that would make that stuff possible...<<

Suggestion: Stop braiding vines. Get out of the inn. Hit the gym. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade

Whats humorous is in a suggestion about how someone could PvP on equal footing with someone who outranks them, in the same sentence you told someone to stop mindless scripting, you told them to go mindlessly script.

Thats the problem - when the only barrier of entry to this exchange is 'how long have you mindlessly scripted' you arent allowing a situation where actual skill and knowledge matters, aka the noob wars.

Yeah I have no idea I've never gone open. I rarely even think about PVP. I've been to the wyvern trials etc it was really boring and all my matches ended up in draws because no one could hit each other so I was just like pvp is really weird here and haven't participated since.

I also did noob wars but the participation was so low I just sat around with no one to fight all the time. I won a couple and lost, well, more than a couple though.

Just from my view I don't really understand why someone needs the ability to one shot a low level player. In every mud I've ever played this was recognized as a problem except for here. There were always rules put into place that made the mud appealing to everyone for pvp but this place it's not.

No one complained about it like they do here and most people participated because it was fun.

>>This seems like a great attitude; I'm very encouraged to stick around DR now.

Truly sorry you can't compete with the 3 guys in that level, except I'm not. We're talking about an extremely long cycle MMO, the handful at the top DID put the time in. Even there though, they aren't untouchable, it just takes a bit of effort to get to striking range.

Honestly, it sounds like what most of you want is something akin to PVP Seasons, with a re-setting time so that those interested can have their spot to party. I'd lobby for that, rather then sweeping hardcore changes to the base game.

Samsaren

Why is a new players ability to fight gort mean they will or will not stick around?

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>>Why is a new players ability to fight gort mean they will or will not stick around?

It doesn't; being told they have no right to even stand in the same room is what might encourage them not to.

Not being able to catch up to people who've spent years at something is a normal part of most long term endeavors. Having people tell you that you have no right to even be around because you're not one of them shouldn't be. At least not if you want your game to grow.

There ARE plenty of other things to do. The problem comes when someone tells you that you don't even deserve to stand in the same room as someone else because they have been scripting longer than you.

That's the problem though, he DID say that a new character doesn't deserve to be in a room with Gort. He didn't qualify it with anything else. That's the attitude that a lot of the HLC have right now. "I'm better than you because I've 'put in more time' and have scripted longer". Or maybe even just outright bought their character.

And I think there's a bunch of hostility in a discussion that needs to go elsewhere.

If you're going to not act in good faith to simply provoke hostility, you need to probably go do something else.


Annwyl
Message Board Supervisor

If you've questions or comments, take it to e-mail by writing me at DR-Annwyl@play.net.

Thank you, Annwyl.

Now, say we take the suggestion of 1-1100 ranks being normalized to say 100 ranks in PVP, with 1101-1500 200, and 1500+ as 300. What could be done to streamline it, or maybe make a few changes to it to make it work better?

Also, the suggestion of more PVP stances? Right now we have Open, Closed, Guarded. Maybe add a stance that normalizes the skills in PVP? Instead of Open, Closed, Guarded we have Open, Closed, Guarded, Beastmode. Anyone in Beastmode would be closed to anyone else except others in Beastmode. That way it's more of an opt-in.

Next, the suggestion of ranges? Maybe you can only attack people withing 20 circles of you? Would that be too small at upper levels? Or perhaps set it to a skill rank, based on your primary skillset? Only can attack within 100 ranks of combat skills? This seems very unwieldy and hard to program.

Any suggestions to modify any of these would be great.

Just because DR's PvP is bad and should feel bad doesn't mean it should change. That's time that could be spent improving the much better PvE experience in DR, and nobody logs into a PvP mud for their PvE experience.

This fascination with and, allotted development time to, DR's awful PvP game needs to stop or... slow down. By which I mean stop nerfing my WM in PvE because someone felt bad they lost a fight. I am aware I have no moral high ground to speak of because it is completely submerged in my lake of tears.

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

They're proud of them."
-Raesh

People can make suggestions all they want. People can also point out why they dislike said suggestions when they are terrible. Then we can all run in circles moving the goalposts and disagreeing.

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>Not that it has much weight, but the argument for the game is akin to what they would be asking in RL. It would be like going to a Jiu-jitsu gym and asking to be a blackbelt without putting in the years of work.

No, it's not? The 'skill' portion is built in. As someone else said during noob wars the players who are good at PvP still dominate because they have skill.

This is simply asking for a normalized skill and stat combat grounds.

Not for all PvP in the game to be completely removed or flattened or whatever.

>The real issue here is that those crying foul are the ones that expect a fantasy medieval text game to be easy.

Oh, I'm sorry. I missed the part where your character was a slave-chattel caste to a local lord and never learned to read or right, eats meat once per season, and owns no possesions. Crying 'real world medieval simulator' doesn't work because DR is not. It's a game.

>Considering how little pvp actually happens in DR, the real root of the issue isn't pvp, it is about having equality without putting forth any effort.

You (collective) who keep saying this literally aren't reading anything anyone says, since no one has said this and it's been refuted...a lot. That's not what people want, it's not what people have asked for.

>I am not going to walk up to the likes of Jondong, Aftermath, Cibym, Gort, Caidie, or Squanto and poke the bear (which includes making statements which grants consent) with a stick, as I would expect to get killed.

That's great! Since literally no one has asked for that to happen. Can we stop talking about it now?

I appreciate your attempt to comment on suggestions that have been made Kitch, but your analogy is a little flawed. People didn't "work" for anything in the game. They scripted for it. It's only a time thing. A better analogy would be "I've paid my electricity bill longer than you have, therefore I deserve to be able to turn off your electricity if I want".

I'm not sure about equality for everything, I don't read a lot of the forums.

I completely agree that Paladins/Rangers (and Traders too, don't forget them!) need development, but I'm always willing to make suggestions that would improve the game.

If PVP is such a small part of the game, I'm not sure why there's such a large pushback (by what appears to only be HLC) against making changes that would make the game more fun for everyone.