Do we really need PvP?

[drizzeth]

Is the introduction of PvP part of the original game plan?

I find it hard to believe it is, as the game does not seem to really allow for it.


Patch 1 what was the driving force behind it?

With a game that is already running, why was such a major change in the balance of the game undertaken. Balance is extremely hard to get right in a complex RP game, there are just too many variables. If changes were to be made in balance they should have been done gradually and monitored not do them all at once.



Personally I would like to have seen new content (oh dear there's that word again) being added in the form of new materials, new items to craft, new mobs and new armors styles and weapons etc.


I have to wonder are the players influencing Nevrax's decisions too much. It is impossible to please everyone so don't even try.

What I will say to Nevrax is you designed the original game and game plan, in essence it your game we just play it. Sure you should listen to your player base but that does not mean you have to act on it if it does not fit into the original game plan. Sure you can modify the game plan if it is necessary but with caution.
If this game is being influenced too much by the players then I would say: Nevrax your in the driving seat. So Drive!

As far as i experienced, pvp wasnt a part of the game being made from the ground up, its more added later on, hence the system is so crappy.

For any real strategical/tactical pvp the current pvp system need big revamps.

On a side note, has anyone of you played for example Anarchy Online?
Personally i found it a very positive thrill to sneak trhrough enemy territory and be aware of the enemy faction players tailing me and trying to waste me before i reached my missions goal, that added a great sense of immersion and gameplay An i didnt even pvp myself in there, just played the stealthy go in, do mission, get lost type. Its a sense of accomplishment too, having lost 3/4 taling human opponents..something no mob, not even GM controlled can give you.

PvP is meant to be a fun extra i this game(as its not a fundament in Ryzom) its like a nice evening of playing Quake, but then its 2 guilded teams doing al wizardry stuff hehe.

As soon as you take you dieng from pvp too serious, rethink the way you deal with the game. Its just that...a game dont let it get to you in a negative way..

Anyway what do you people fear? The current community on non-pvpers is large enough to sustain their way of playing the game while the people that want some friendly brawls over outposts or anything can get the chance yto enjoy themselves aswell, the current community proved that theres no such thing realy as inconsentual ganking....look at PR and how long its been pvp now...how serious is the threath of being ganked? From personal experience its zero, even when you have an argument with someone its settled with words in PVP_PR and not with spells...in my experience.

[drizzeth]

What I will say to Nevrax is you designed the original game and game plan, in essence it your game we just play it. Sure you should listen to your player base but that does not mean you have to act on it if it does not fit into the original game plan. Sure you can modify the game plan if it is necessary but with caution.
If this game is being influenced too much by the players then I would say: Nevrax your in the driving seat. So Drive!

I forgot this in previous post but its such a good point it can have its own post lol.

Definatly Nevrax made a continuous error since the moaning of patch1 to listen too much to the wrong type of people, ad there still doing it and its not helping Ryzoms development a single bit, actually i blame al the changes having made because of listening to players too much as being the culprit behind all the delay of the content they where working on.

Nevrax needs to drive its own car a lot more indeed! David Cohen had a great dream/vision if we all just kept silent and had let him realise that vision instead of taking precious dev-time to suit the whiners...

[troll16]

As far as i experienced, pvp wasnt a part of the game being made from the ground up, its more added later on, hence the system is so crappy.

For any real strategical/tactical pvp the current pvp system need big revamps.

On a side note, has anyone of you played for example Anarchy Online?
Personally i found it a very positive thrill to sneak trhrough enemy territory and be aware of the enemy faction players tailing me and trying to waste me before i reached my missions goal, that added a great sense of immersion and gameplay An i didnt even pvp myself in there, just played the stealthy go in, do mission, get lost type. Its a sense of accomplishment too, having lost 3/4 taling human opponents..something no mob, not even GM controlled can give you.

PvP is meant to be a fun extra i this game(as its not a fundament in Ryzom) its like a nice evening of playing Quake, but then its 2 guilded teams doing al wizardry stuff hehe.

As soon as you take you dieng from pvp too serious, rethink the way you deal with the game. Its just that...a game dont let it get to you in a negative way..

Anyway what do you people fear? The current community on non-pvpers is large enough to sustain their way of playing the game while the people that want some friendly brawls over outposts or anything can get the chance yto enjoy themselves aswell, the current community proved that theres no such thing realy as inconsentual ganking....look at PR and how long its been pvp now...how serious is the threath of being ganked? From personal experience its zero, even when you have an argument with someone its settled with words in PVP_PR and not with spells...in my experience.

I played PvP for months it is fun doing missions as you say sneaking through not knowing if your going to be attacked or not. I also found direct PvP great when your fighting other players. I've only been ganked once so it is a lot less common than people who do not engage in PvP think. Ganking to me is where they sit and wait for you to kill you again, not where you get killed twice by the same player just because your doing quests in the same place.


What I am concerned about is not PvP but this game becoming not one thing or the other.

[michielb]

no

(I was gonna give a short answer but apperantly a plain "no" is too short )

[sky001]

Yes! I’m 100% for a PvP game.

Ryzom is a fantastic game with a level of interaction I haven’t seen in other mmorpgs; it’s only natural that it becomes a PvP. No community is ever perfect as there will always be conflict.

Why attain master titles in your skills if you’re just going to brag about them at the stables. If you want to be safe and chat with your friends, then stay in the cities. To get that prime outpost spot or access to supreme mats, you better be prepared to fight for it.

You can select to help your fellow homins or you can choose the path of domination. How you play is up to you. (hint: If you choose domination, you won't get far.)


Heavanor
Order of The Nameless

[ashitaka]

It's a hard question.
You can't say "yes" or "no" like that.

Pros:

• More content. You can't compare AI and human intelligence. With humans, the confrontation will always be different.
• RP Consequences. A pro-Kami that spread blood of Matis in the Prime Roots shouldn't be able to wander freely in Yrkanis, taunt all the pro-Karavan and then say : "You can't stop me thank to gameplay". That smells terribly. It's not "just a game", no we can't be friend and make kisses. Full player interaction makes the World live.
• Duels are fun, but only group PvP has an interest in terms of tactics and adrenaline.

Cons:

• Depending on the community, there are less or more jerks. There will be OOC abuses. The more important is how it'll be a phenomenon or an exception and how that could be handled.
• Ryzom's level system is clearly not designed for PvP. The barriers for PvP are really huge. Not only lower levels deals less damage but also they hit less. Finally, only students and jobless can enter PvP field in a decent time.
• Every PvP system has its flaws. Full PvP would terrify the newcomers and a lot of bunny bashers (someone tells me "PvMers" ah ok). Full PvP with a switch would have abuses and not the RP consequences. GvG would create a group of people that only accept war between themselves and cut themselves off the community.
• Some players have a mental block with PvP, even if it's better for them. They will yell against it and not even try to enjoy it. And that's not fun at all for them. (Mainly due to the lack of understanding of risks and problems to evaluate them)

Personally, seeing the French community, I'm rather for PvP. At least GvG by war declaration. I must precise that my current levels don't leave me a chance in PvP field, so I'm not speaking for myself just to pk everybody around, drooling and roaring. I'll add that this question of "Need of PvP" isn't even a question on French boards. We're rather like "What kind of PvP we need?" and "How to balance PvP?".

Please tell me how could you play the war between Kamis and Karavan with only PvM? (It's not a criticism)

[drizzeth]

Please tell me how could you play the war between Kamis and Karavan with only PvM? (It's not a criticism)

The problem on the UK shard it seems is that most forum active people dont want a war between Kami and Karavan, they rather have an allout peace and some think in the way of denying the Karavan and Kami alike and think in ways of united Kami/Karavanless Homin unity.

In the game itself however theres more then enough people itching for something as eventfull as the Kami/Karavan story kicking off.

Im not pro pvp because of power, i dont have any roflol, my 250 combat skill is rifles roflol, fear my 400+dmg baby! lol It because of my experiences in games like Anarchy Online, the human factor thrills

Also i like the story of the 2 opposed factions, they have such good reasons to not tolerate the other at a given point(especialy Kami protecting Atys' health, but hey im a pro Kami lol) I hope the story will be given a chance and not be denied, but then again i already gave up kind off. Too little time and community left, too much left to do..but wonders can happen and maybe they will, i certainly hope so! Because even if im not sure if its already too late for me, i still wish all the best to Ryzoms development and profitability.

[oauitam]

There are many like me that enjoy PvP quite a bit and do well at it and have never ganked another player.

I'm sure no one is worried that the many people like you will adversely affect the game. The worry is that not everyone is like you.

Using the examples of the known goobers that gank folks often really chaffs me, especially by guys/gals that know better. There are many in ALL games that take some of the fun away from others, and they are not PvPing... they may be RPing, crying for rez every 5 minutes or dragging aggro your way while you dig.

Jerks can do annoying things in the curent system. The more extreme examples of this behaviour will even get a response from a CSR to stop the sociopath. Why is Nevrax spending these man-years implementing a new system to allow more of these situations? (These new situations that won't be against the CoC.)

[As a side note, think of what else these dev-hours could be spent on!]

Killing someone in a PvP zone, though I do not do it personally, is no worse than many other things IG...

For the sake of argument let's accept that it is no worse, this begs the question; why add more of these zones?

What I will say to Nevrax is you designed the original game and game plan, in essence it your game we just play it. Sure you should listen to your player base but that does not mean you have to act on it if it does not fit into the original game plan.

This is all well and good but it isn't going to help Nevrax, or any current player, if either Nevrax go into liquidation or a player stops enjoying the game and quits. None of us will think, "Ryzom folded but it's ok they stuck to the original design documents".

As soon as you take you dieng from pvp too serious, rethink the way you deal with the game. Its just that...a game dont let it get to you in a negative way..

Telling someone to play in a different way or that, "it's just a game" isn't going to help us with the issue of whether Ryzom needs PvP or not. Indeed, this is the root of the problem. Obviously everyone knows that they are playing a game.

Simply implementing PvP and saying "deal with it or quit" seems to be exactly what Nevrax are doing - hence this thread! The worry is that the number of 'deal with its' will be smaller than the number of 'quits' and the number of new arrivals due to PvP will in no way make up for this loss.


As for it being "just a game" that is a whole different thread topic (and one I'd be very interested to discuss if that thread exists). MMORPGs are so much more than JUST a game. That's why most of us play them.

[drizzeth]

Telling someone to play in a different way or that, "it's just a game" isn't going to help us with the issue of whether Ryzom needs PvP or not. Indeed, this is the root of the problem. Obviously everyone knows that they are playing a game.

True, but i think im really trying to voice my growing concerns that opninions voiced on the forum arent always the majority of ingame pinions, the majority doesnt seem to take an active part in the forums although i have been away for long times and still am it still seems to be that way.

I am worried that Nevrax listens to much to a minority of players, frustrating a majority of players.

After patch1 the content majority didnt take part in all the threads that made Nevrax chance the patch and i fear that the same thing is going to happen over again.

Maybe its just the people i talk to that give a wrong avarage about opinions, but from the people i talked to most of them would come back to active their accounts of pvp is being implemeted.

People ive talked to that arent into pvp didnt seem to have a problem with it being there either, they didnt worry fora second about being harrased by pvp.

As for it being "just a game" that is a whole different thread topic (and one I'd be very interested to discuss if that thread exists). MMORPGs are so much more than JUST a game. That's why most of us play them.

Also true, but i used the phrase game to fail in trying to point out that there is no consequence at all in dieing by pvp, no death penalty even.

[manya]

I'll add that this question of "Need of PvP" isn't even a question on French boards.

I can't say anything about French since I don't understand the language, but the german forum shows much the same concerns about PvP than the english one. The fact seems to be that a lot of curent players could live happly without any PvP in SoR ever. The pool that I mentioned a few posts back shows that as well.

The question remains, if the PvP and all the conflict was planned for SoR from the start or not. From the lore I've read (not very thoroughtly I admit) it could well have been. We have the Kami and Karavan who actually *hate* each other. They have put aside their animosity for the time when there was a great outside threat, but with that threat gone, the old differences are surfacing again. So it seems that a conflict *was* planned from the start. And the most straightforward way to go about a conflict is to fight it out.

The problem is, that the community that eveolved in the SoR so far, with the absence of PvP, is one that doesn't care for fighting out the conflicts. We would rather solve it with diplomacy and don't like being forced into taking sides.

Now the problem Nevrax is facing, with the storyline and scenarios already written and much of the coding done is like this: Do they go forward with the initial plan and put the PvP and all the conflict in as intended? This would annoy the community as it currently is, but would bring something new to the game soon(tm) and *that* is something everyone is demanding of them strongly and for some time now.

The other option would be to make a sharp turn, scrap all, or most of, what is done already, come up with a new storyline and scenarios. That would mean Nevrax would have to say: "We are deeply sorry that our ideas are not acceptable for you. Please bear with us while we work on coming up with something better." In this case we can't expect anything new for at least a year. It takes some time to create a story, work it into a scenario and get the coding done.

I personally hate the idea of PvP or being forced to take sides. I want to be able to choose who to help, regardless of things like fame or anything. To be honest, I don't see any relation between someone's fame and his actual approval of one fraction or another.

Thus, if the choice was between implementing the announced changes or no changes for a considerable time, what would we advise Nevrax to do?