[MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK

[Vladimir Cole]

Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want to
> participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want to
> participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar with
> similar customer bases?

I don't think that the games ARE that similar and can't give you
that assumption for free. Having played on several blue (non-PVP)
and red (pvp) Everquest servers, I think that Everquest's game
mechanics result in imbalanced and poorly executed
player-versus-player gaming. It seems that Everquest's designers
added PVP as an afterthought. They continue to make changes and
tweaks that are tested on red servers only after they've gone
live. This is not to say that EQ isn't a well-designed game, just
that it's not designed for PVP.

DAoC, on the other hand, committed to the Realm-vs-Realm idea from
the get-go.

I think a more appropriate question to be asking is, "Assuming
similar player-base demographics, what is it about Everquest's PVP
system that pales in comparison to DAOC's PVP system?" (Which is
really what you're getting at...)

Everquest PVP:

  1. Game balance changes are made first to blue servers and are
  tested on a blue-server environment, often with catastrophic
  effects for red servers.

    Example: One of the most frustrating and demoralizing changes
    for PVP players on red servers is the introduction of one-shot
    kills. Wizards (and necromancers to a lesser extent) can now
    one-shot kill any opponent on a PVP server with a new ability
    that was granted with the release of the "Shadows of Luclin"
    expansion pack. I don't have the data to back myself up on this,
    but I am willing to bet that there's been incredible attrition
    in the high-end player base on Everquest's PVP servers as a
    result of this.

  2. Classes are Balanced versus NPC encounters, not versus
  eachother in a PVP environment.

    Examples: Assuming equivalent gear and player ability, at
    certain levels of play one class is immensely more powerful than
    another class in PVP combat. Mages at level 8. Wizards and
    Necromancers at level 12. Shaman at 34. Wizards at 49. Wizards,
    Monks, Shadowknights at level 59-60. Because of these imbalances
    classes that are given short-shrift tend to become discouraged
    and drop out of the game to play a "powerful" pvp class.  The
    result: A server full of wizards, shadowknights, monks and
    shaman is not going to be able to access end-game content that
    was designed around the Warrior-Cleric and complete-heal
    rotation paradigm.

  3. Verant/Sony enforce play nice policies on blue servers but let
  red servers run amok (game design bias for blue-server play means
  that red-server play requires higher-touch customer service and
  that cuts into profit margins). When play nice policies are out
  the window, griefing becomes prevalant, driving many away.

    Example: The newest PVP server (Sullon Zek) had the highest
    population at launch. Today it has the lowest population of any
    of the PVP servers. A large part of the reason is that training
    (pulling dangerous NPCs onto an enemy in order to cause the
    enemy to die), bind-point-rushing (repeatedly killing a naked,
    defenseless players at their bind-points before they've even got
    full control of their characters), corpse camping (keeping a
    naked player from recovering his corpse by guarding the corpse
    and killing the player as he approaches), faction exploits
    ("bard-burn" tactics that exploit faction design) and so on have
    turned the majority of players away from the Sullon Zek
    server. As a result of these griefing activities and the huge
    experience loss from dying to NPCs on Sullon Zek, it's not
    uncommon for less-skilled and less-experienced players to lose
    5, 10, 20 or even 40 hours-worth of experience during a brief
    encounter with a griefer.

There are many more reasons... but I've gone on long enough in my
first post ever to the list. ;)
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