Idea for dynamic PvP zone.
Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 2:32 pm
I posted this last Friday but I posted it under Feedback. After submitting the thread, I got a message that all new threads were checked by a moderator. Unfortunately, Lawrence has been unable to find my thread to move it to General so I'm going to try again....
Like many others, I've had a lot of mixed feelings about the current event. For me, it's not a fundamental aversion to PvP but, rather, being drawn into PvP when I'm sitting there in my harvesting gear. I had an idea about how such an event could be implemented to retain the best of the PvP and non-PvP worlds.
The idea came from thinking about a land-based border conflict of ages past. In a simplified view, you'd have a front-line of combat where the two sides were fighting but behind that front line on either side, you'd have a relatively safe zone that was the territory held by either side.
My idea for this in Ryzom would be to have the land in question (for this event, it'd be Aelius) be divided into two non-PvP areas with a hot zone in between that was PvP. This hot zone, however, wouldn't be a static place on the map but, rather, it could be moved by either side through PvP combat.
So the purpose of the fighters would be to fight the opponent's fighters to try and push back the front line further into the enemy territory. This would have the effect of creating more safe (non-PvP) area for the harvesters.
That's not to say that a harvester couldn't go out and try harvesting in the front line territory (maybe their side is desperate for a resource), however, they'd be subject to PvP.
The front line zone could be designated on the map (and maybe compass) as a red overlay. Harvesters in the safe area could keep an eye on this to see if it was advancing towards them so they'd have a chance to evacuate if the enemy was making a push their way.
I've seen several ideas about dividing the map up into PvP and non-PvP zones. I just wanted to take that a step further and have the zones be dynamic based on the actions of the fighters. I think that'd give the fighters much more purpose.
I'm not sure of the exact mechanism that would be used to determine the location of the front line. In chatting with Rakujitsu, I think his idea about having control points that the fighters had to occupy would work for this. They could take the form of towers with some NPCs. If you killed off all of the NPCs at one of the towers, you'd gain control and your own NPCs would appear. Of course, this might not sound like PvP until you think about the fact that in addition to the NPCs, you'd have the opponent players to contend with because the towers for each side would be within the hot zone (in fact, the towers are what define the position of the hot zone). I suppose you could also make the towers themselves attackable so you destroy them to occupy the space.
Having it be towers that you had to occupy would also have an effect of slowing down the shift of the fight zone. If the fight zone could almost instantly swing from one side of the map to the other just because the enemy players were killed, I think that would negate the point of having a safe zone and allowing non-combatants time to react (i.e. evacuate). Because you'd have towers you had to occupy, you'd still have to kill them to begin your advance into the enemy territory.
You could have NPC guards in each safe zone which would make it difficult for a harvester to simply sneak through the hot zone and try harvesting on the other side.
By positioning key resources across the entire map, you'd create an environment where it was important for the fighters to try and push the line back towards the enemy so the harvesters could access the resources.
Sorry if this is rehashing ideas that have already been talked about. Like I said, I wrote this Friday and I know there's a lot of threads I haven't caught up on since then.
Like many others, I've had a lot of mixed feelings about the current event. For me, it's not a fundamental aversion to PvP but, rather, being drawn into PvP when I'm sitting there in my harvesting gear. I had an idea about how such an event could be implemented to retain the best of the PvP and non-PvP worlds.
The idea came from thinking about a land-based border conflict of ages past. In a simplified view, you'd have a front-line of combat where the two sides were fighting but behind that front line on either side, you'd have a relatively safe zone that was the territory held by either side.
My idea for this in Ryzom would be to have the land in question (for this event, it'd be Aelius) be divided into two non-PvP areas with a hot zone in between that was PvP. This hot zone, however, wouldn't be a static place on the map but, rather, it could be moved by either side through PvP combat.
So the purpose of the fighters would be to fight the opponent's fighters to try and push back the front line further into the enemy territory. This would have the effect of creating more safe (non-PvP) area for the harvesters.
That's not to say that a harvester couldn't go out and try harvesting in the front line territory (maybe their side is desperate for a resource), however, they'd be subject to PvP.
The front line zone could be designated on the map (and maybe compass) as a red overlay. Harvesters in the safe area could keep an eye on this to see if it was advancing towards them so they'd have a chance to evacuate if the enemy was making a push their way.
I've seen several ideas about dividing the map up into PvP and non-PvP zones. I just wanted to take that a step further and have the zones be dynamic based on the actions of the fighters. I think that'd give the fighters much more purpose.
I'm not sure of the exact mechanism that would be used to determine the location of the front line. In chatting with Rakujitsu, I think his idea about having control points that the fighters had to occupy would work for this. They could take the form of towers with some NPCs. If you killed off all of the NPCs at one of the towers, you'd gain control and your own NPCs would appear. Of course, this might not sound like PvP until you think about the fact that in addition to the NPCs, you'd have the opponent players to contend with because the towers for each side would be within the hot zone (in fact, the towers are what define the position of the hot zone). I suppose you could also make the towers themselves attackable so you destroy them to occupy the space.
Having it be towers that you had to occupy would also have an effect of slowing down the shift of the fight zone. If the fight zone could almost instantly swing from one side of the map to the other just because the enemy players were killed, I think that would negate the point of having a safe zone and allowing non-combatants time to react (i.e. evacuate). Because you'd have towers you had to occupy, you'd still have to kill them to begin your advance into the enemy territory.
You could have NPC guards in each safe zone which would make it difficult for a harvester to simply sneak through the hot zone and try harvesting on the other side.
By positioning key resources across the entire map, you'd create an environment where it was important for the fighters to try and push the line back towards the enemy so the harvesters could access the resources.
Sorry if this is rehashing ideas that have already been talked about. Like I said, I wrote this Friday and I know there's a lot of threads I haven't caught up on since then.
