Ten Rules of PvP was RE: [MUD-Dev] Interesting DAoC Poll

[Azeraab]

At 11:01 AM 12/13/01 +0000, Dave Shepherd wrote:

>> DaoC fails on: 1,4,6,8,9,10, is iffy on 2 and 3, but does adhere
>> to 5.

>  4: Bladeturn spell absorbs the next hit, and it is ablative.
>  Heal or being hit removes mez (ignoring the bug if I may).

At best you could call DaoC iffy on this one.  There are some
defenses, but they are not widely available and most of them do not
work.  Healing to remove mez is only a repair, not an actual
defense, and since you cant hit you own team that doesn't even count
as a repair.

We end up with 3 things that need defenses (critical shots,
invisibility and mez) only critical shots properly have defenses.  1
for 3 doesn't count for success in my book.

Now I understand the design decision of making players rely on other
players for some of these defenses.  In theory rogues are needed to
spot enemy rogues and so on.  But the reality is that you wont
always be able to find these people, and that should not prevent you
from going out and have a good fair fight.

>  6: As fights are over in seconds, and it takes up to 20 minutes
>  to reach the PvP area again, you will typically have your powers
>  available, and you will use them up at the first opportunity.

I will agree that I made a mistake, DaoC does have powers which are
available to most players.

The reason I originally said DaoC failed this rule is because many
of the moves which go far beyond normal attacks in their
effectiveness are available with little or no delay in their use.
Things like chain ae stunning and 0 or 10 second timer on hiding.
But those more correctly fall under a different rule.

It should be noted that some classes ( Midgard's Shaman comes to
mine) have no powers.  This can be overlooked, as with any rule
exceptions can happen.

>  8 & 10: All dikus will suffer from this.  I don't see the
>  difference between 8 and 10 - one follows the other.

8 and 10 are talking about things that are entirely different.  Rule
8 refers to the actual resolution of attacks and defenses.  Rule 10
refers more to the ability of players to prepare themselves for
battle and adapt to changes in tactics as well as changes to the
game itself.

Rule 8 results from the kludge of building a PvP game on top of a
PvE game.  Players commonly get in large group and fight monsters
much more powerful than they are.  To do this the game must allow
them to hit at least 50% of the time.  But as the players gain
levels they hit more often, so when they get to the level where they
can solo a mob it previously took a group to battle they can now hit
99% of the time.

Now we move to pvp, and we get 2 fighters with 50 hit points each
and the fight goes like this.

  You hit your opponent for 11 damage.
  You opponent hits you for 10 damage.
  You hit your opponent for 10 damage.
  You opponent hits you for 11 damage.
  You hit your opponent for 10 damage.
  You opponent hits you for 11 damage.
  You hit your opponent for 10 damage.
  You opponent hits you for 10 damage.
  You hit your opponent for 11 damage.
  You kill your opponent.
  
Since they almost never miss do nearly maximum damage whoever goes
first wins 9 of 10 fights.  Boring.

The entire discussion about how overpowered mez is and the need for
active defenses would be moot if the passive resistance rates
against same level players were 60-70% (which would be pretty
reasonable for such a powerful spell)

Rule 10 is more about the horrors of a class/level system as it
applies to forcing you to live forever with mistakes made before you
knew anything about the game.  This is the real big one.  100% of
the people I know who have quit list this as a major factor.

Lets say you pick a Berserker on the first day you get the game.  At
level 5 you decide you are going to specialize in swords.  You spend
the next 2 months chopping away at mobs, and dreaming about hacking
through hordes of enemy players.  You are now level 40 and decide
you can go join the fun.

  You go to the battlefield at the ablion portal fort and stand
  around.  Most fights occur at long range, you have no ranged
  attacks.  Finally after an hour of doing nothing the albions rush
  out of the fort and attack.  You face an orange con albion
  armsman, he kills you taking less than half damage.  Your friend,
  another level 40 Berserker, who specialized in hammers kills the
  wounded armsman easily.  Over your corpse he says, "Didn't you
  know that hammers do much more damage against armor than swords?"

Now you are faced with a choice.  Keep playing a character who is
totally ineffective, and really not what you expected, and try to
make due. Start over, with a hammer specialized thane, and spend
another 2 months bashing monsters.  Or quit.  Most go with the first
option with a while, then try the 2nd for about a week, then go with
the 3rd.

There are 2 ways the designer can avoid the problems with rule 10.
Either make all of the classes similar.  If everyone was a mage
variant the problems would be minimized.  The issue of no ranged
attacks wouldn't exist, issues with spells being interruptible but
melee attacks not being interruptible wouldn't exist, and so on.

The other way is to allow players to make changes without having to
restart.  Ala UO.  The berserker in our example should be allowed to
at least toss aside his sword and pick up a hammer without penalty.

> So I would like to say that I do not feel it is fair to hold DAoC
> up to this ruleset.

These are not so much rules as common mistakes.  Should a disigner
look choose to break a rule because he is looking to do something
specific (such as force grouping) that's fine, but to ignore them
and just make the same mistakes everyone else has is silly.

> However, this ruleset only covers one-on-one PvP.  Take a
> chessboard mid-game - now lets add another queen, knight and rook
> to white.  The fine balance of attack/defend, maneuver/counter
> disappears.  In DAoC you will hardly ever fight one-on-one, you
> fight in groups.  You target the casters and healers first, your
> own healers hang back to cure mez - these are the maneuvers and
> counters but at a group level.

I dont see any of those rules being invalidated simply by adding
more players to the mix.  Change the words "every player" to "every
group" and they still appy.

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