PVP: Old Forum Discussion

[Greyfyn]

PVP part 1

Long ago, there were discussions about PvP in Project: Gorgon. This is Citan’s part of a much longer thread. The thread was locked and there is no need to reply. There are four parts.


Is PvP really off the table? 2 years 3 months ago

"I think it's really important for indies to set realistic expectations, which is why I've said that there won't be "meaningful" PvP in the game. (Meaning, more than just arenas with token rewards.) I have very limited resources, and I cut deep PvP to focus on other things. I realize that some players won't be interested in the game because of that, and that sucks. But there's a silver lining, which is that there's lots of players who want a free-form MMO but don't like PvP, and there are very few MMOs that cater to them. So I'm hitting a niche that isn't filled by other, bigger, games.

(I had a long explanation of why it would take a long time to do PvP right, but I cut it for brevity.)

That said, let me talk about "what if" scenarios a bit. Before the Kickstarter, I entertained the dream of having a wildly successful ($500,000+) Kickstarter, in which case I could hire several more people, including somebody who was specifically tasked with working on PvP. We could add some meaningful, yet alternate, PvP experiences. I'd probably let people opt in to PvP as a permanent character choice, and then have some capture-the-castle type mechanics, plus alternate PvP advancement. But the Kickstarter didn't happen. Maybe we'll get a ton of cash in the coming year, who knows. But I can't plan on that, and it isn't fair to ask you to plan on that. So barring a lot of money coming in, that's not happening.

Another "what if" scenario is if a big chunk of the player base tells me "I don't want KvK, I don't care much about balance, I just want Darktide!" If you aren't familiar with Darktide, it's the old AC1 PvP server. The developers basically added it as an afterthought. They just flipped a switch that made the whole server full-PK all the time. I could certainly do that.

It would have only slight nods to balance -- probably some ham-fisted nerfs of abilities that are very annoying in PvP, like Mez and Fear effects. And it would basically play out like the red-headed stepchild of the PvE server, because I'd still focus on PvE first and foremost. Players would have to adapt the PvE content to suit their PvP needs as best they could. In other words, just like AC1 Darktide Some players find that fun enough to be worth it -- some players think Darktide was the best PvP they've ever experienced. If I was convinced I had hundreds of interested players, I'd throw up a separate server for them and we could see if people stuck around.

But we don't have enough players at this point that it even makes sense to ask people. Still too small an audience, so it wouldn't be a representative sample size. And in the mean time, I need to stay focused on making the best PvE game I can. That's already a full work load.

Bottom line: I'm explicitly NOT promising good, interesting PvP in this game. If solid PvP is a make-or-break feature for you, then Gorgon probably isn't the game for you. Which sucks, and I'm sorry."
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by Citan.
The topic has been locked.

Part 1 of 4--this is historical information and no comments are needed.

[Greyfyn]

PVP part 2

Long ago, there were discussions about PvP in Project: Gorgon. This is Citan’s part of a much longer thread. The thread was locked and there is no need to reply. There are four parts.


Is PvP really off the table? 2 years 1 month ago

"To weigh in again quickly:

For our purposes let's call PvE "player versus environment" and it specifically means "killing monsters that are driven by the AI and not under the orders of other players". PvP is "player versus player", which also includes "player versus another player's AI-controlled pets".

It's also useful to point out that there's a "PvP flag" but not a "PvE flag" because PvP is a superset: you're always PvE flagged. (Otherwise you could wander through dungeons with impunity!) So when I want to use very specific terminology, I tend to say "PvP" and "non-PvP", because PvE isn't the opposite of PvP. They are complimentary game modes.

Anyway, someone earlier asked why the game doesn't just have one set of numbers for PvP abilities and another for PvE. And the answer is that the game engine can already do this! But it's not actually very helpful.

For one thing, equipment is a huge part of your character build, so I'd have to give different stats for both abilities AND every single piece of equipment. Basically, the problem isn't technical; it's time: that's an exorbitant amount of time to make it work!

Let me try to explain how long it takes by comparison. This is a game with a fairly open character-build system, and those are already much harder to balance than games with strict classes and simple equipment (like WoW). And yet it's taken WoW a very long time to even come close to having both their PvE and PvP content semi-balanced. And they had multiple people working on it full time, for years.

And to make matters worse, it's not just number tweaking. It often ends up that there's no numbers that can go into an ability to make it work. For instance, mezz abilities are just not fun in PvP. If I wanted to focus on PvP, it's not enough to make it "balanced", it also has to be tolerably fun, and that means being locked in place for 30+ seconds is not an option. Which means now there's a fundamental difference between PvE and PvP. I'd need to either make those mezz abilities do nothing in PvP, or else make them do some entirely different thing, inventing a new mechanic just for PvP. That's a very generic example, but it applies to lots of aspects of the game, from crowd control to damage to armor levels to well, everything.

Also, I'm not really planning on the game being extremely well balanced even for PvE. I'm committed to doing a passable job of balancing the PvE skills against each other for a few common use cases (soloing, small groups, etc.). But I'm not under the delusion that this will be an easy thing, or a perfect thing. It will take literally years; the game will ship and I'll still have to make more changes periodically, just like every single other MMO in existence does.

So given that, I can't also take on balancing PvP as well, because that will more than double my workload: I need entirely different numbers, but also entirely different scenario models (one-vs-one, two-vs-two, gang fights, etc.), and various different gameplay tweaks. I just don't have time.

Plus, I want to be adding new content every month after the game ships. Which means new balance variables every month. I won't have time to make sure every new item or skill or pet makes sense in both PvP and PvE.

Maybe when the game is on Steam it'll sell enough that I can stop "thinking indie" and instead hire a couple of systems designers to work on these tasks for me, but at the present moment, it just can't possibly fit into the schedule without throwing out other things that I think are more important to the game."
Last Edit: 2 years 1 month ago by Citan.


Part 2 of 4--this is historical information and no comments are needed.

[Greyfyn]

PvP part 3

Long ago, there were discussions about PvP in Project: Gorgon. This is Citan’s part of a much longer thread. The thread was locked and there is no need to reply. There are four parts.


Should Project Gorgon have PvP? Come vote! 11 months 3 weeks ago

"Hi guys! I don't want to derail the discussion too much -- EDIT: but I better reiterate what I've said in other threads, for newcomers: things like arenas are all we have in the plans. No open world areas with valuable resources or anything like that. It boils down to lack of development resources to focus on too many things at once. We can do PvE well, or both PvP and PvE half-assedly, and I choose to try to do PvE well.

That said, if there is a lot of interest in PvP (as in, a thousand people interested in open-world PvP) we can set up a separate game world or something like that. Even then I can't imagine spending a lot of development time on it -- it'd be something like "here's a PvP world, have fun."

tl;dr: if you're worried about the PvE being harmed by PvP, don't worry, it won't. If you're only interested in the game because of the PvP potential, I'm sorry to disappoint! But there are a lot of good PvP MMOs already. In this one, it'll always just be a little side-thing to do, nothing important.

Anyway, I didn't want to derail the conversation -- I'm always happy to hear peoples' thoughts in case they spark easy-to-implement ideas or something like that. But since presumably there's PvPers reading this, I wanted to get your feedback on a tiny tweak in the upcoming game update:
- Tweaked rules in PvP cellar to make playing around in there a little more fun (or at least less insta-death-y). All direct attack damage is reduced by two thirds. All indirect (damage-over-time) damage is halved.

I would also have reduced the potency of healing, but I don't have that feature coded just yet. (Eventually I'll code it for a monster I have planned that can reduce healing potency -- and then I'll repurpose it for the PvP cellar if it seems like healing should be weaker in there.)

If you have other ideas for trivial things that would make the PvP cellar more amusing let me know. I don't have much time to dedicate to it, but if I have something lying around from somewhere else, I can plug it in.

Oh, also, just FYI, the game actually has separate ability stat blocks for PvP and PvE, so each ability can do totally different things in each. BUT, equipment has only one set of stats, and since equipment is such a big part of balance, it's unlikely the game could ever be balanced for both PvE and PvP at the same time. The only intended purpose for those separate stat-blocks is to remove super-annoying things from PvP. For instance, right now being mezzed for 25 seconds in PvP is super, super irritating, so at some point I'll make mesmerize abilities do something else in PvP. Maybe stun or something."
Last Edit: 11 months 3 weeks ago by Citan.


Part 3 of 4--this is historical information and no comments are needed.

[Greyfyn]

PvP part 4

Long ago, there were discussions about PvP in Project: Gorgon. This is Citan’s part of a much longer thread. The thread was locked and there is no need to reply. There are four parts.

PvP will never be a major aspect of the game.
Posted by Citan on Saturday, 13 August 2016

"This is primarily a PvE game. There will be an arena with ranks and points and so on, but there won't be "open world" PvP.
Why not do open-world PvP? Two reasons. First, we don't have the manpower to do it well, and half-assed PvP doesn't attract a lot of long-term players. Second, I don't want PvP to detract from the PvE game.
There are already lots of pretty great PvP games out there. Why add mediocre PvP to this game just to check off a list of "expected features"? We're indies, so we can just tell it like it is: if you need PvP in your MMO, this is not your game.
That said, if we end up attracting thousands of PvPers who really want a (horrifically imbalanced) "PK World" separate from the existing PVE worlds … well, we can talk about it."



Part 4 of 4--this is historical information and no comments are needed.

[Yaksnot]

Thanks for the repost Grey!

[rastaah]

Can you spar in this game? That is my first question

And second I love the idea that they would just make a world and say have fun but don't expect any attention.

That in fact reminds me of the TEXT MUD I used to play (Dragonrealms/Simutronics) and they did a version of their world just like that called The Fallen. Ah The Fallen what a wham bam thank you maam that world was LOL. No balance , no tweaking because people whined.....ahhh yes pure magic I say.

So I love that idea (a world they just say "here have fun'

But to Elder games, I would make people sign a disclaimer before entering the world that it is completely on your own, don't whine if you are beaten as you will be ignored' etc etc as we know people will whine even if it is a world that clearly states non balanced pvp. So best to make a huge sign that hits them on the head before they even sign in.

But that is a great idea (having a world that is just 'here go for it but we are not balancing it")

Also love that the regular part of the game will be just PVE etc.

I could swear I saw people fighting in game though maybe I am wrong.

By the way Dev's, even Arenas cause the whiners to whine <3

[Greyfyn]

It is a PVE game.

There is limited PVP. We have a 5 minute PVP punch you can make with Alchemy. You will see people slaughter each other in town--that's how the gravestones pile up. Gruesome Spooky Punch. Try some! And there's the pvp dungeon under the mantis spy house in Serbule. You can spar there. That's it.

And for now, there are no plans to have more servers. So a pvp world remains a distant hypothesis.

Again, these posts are historical artifacts for reference only--there's no need to comment. The threads they came from were locked.

[rastaah]

Oh well thank you for letting me know when I can comment and when I can't!! Duly noted.