Interesting discussions in my guild channel this morning.
Just a passing thought, want to explore it .
If you apply the same logic, as to why the Foundry had to go (little interest, small % of player-base, lack of support and knowledge to make it work, interferes with the core of the game)
EVERYTHING said about the foundry, could be applied to PVP in this game.. every single one.
I am not a PRO foundry person, neither am I ANTI PVP.. both of those aspects of the game I enjoyed for brief periods of my time here (loved doing foundry quests way back when you got rewards for them, did around 100 or so of the good ones back then, even replayed a couple just for fun)
But it was broken .. and people abused it.
PVP? I played alot between Mods 2-6.. even leveled and geared 2-3 toons that way, did hundreds of matches a month, thousands in a year.. but as the game kept increasing its never ending gear cycle.. I started playing less and less, then Mod 6 hit.. and the changes forced me to make a decision, either play PVE or PVP.. no time for both .. and PVP you earned no AD.. so I quit. I haven't actively done PVP domination matching since that time frame.. I only have ever done some 10 man guants with my former guild for glory or siege when you can still get some rewards (and as if those rewards were soooo broken they had to remove that..)
I do want to disparage any community, this isnt a swipe at pvp players, its simply a discussion.
Considering they do not seem to have the time , to really fix most things in the game as it currently stands, and if you apply the same logic to remove foundry and apply it PVP aspect of the game.
Is PVP the next thing to go?
Will they lose money ? Yes, but they seem to be willing to make that adjustment.. to have a maintenance support staff on hand vs enough devs to fix items. Look at the content they released recently , how much was broken? more then I ever remember since Mod 6, Mod 15 was a disaster, CTA disaster, everything seems to be coded wrong, incorrectly rushed through and with little or no follow up. To me Neverwinter seems to be nothing more, then a way to facilitate funding for other projects.
MOD 16.. is a dumb-ing down of the game.. they are removing so much, because they simply do not have time to fix the stuff , with the massive addons we have through the years.
While I appreciate their honesty, its a stark reminder that no game can go forever (except maybe wow.. even greatly diminished, they are a money churning machine..)
If they cannot support the foundry, what INTRINSICALLY is different about PVP?
That is the question at hand.
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The Foundry requires a whole bunch of resources to code and maintain. PVP just requires the game to be balanced. Which is the whole point of Mod 16. Personally, I reckon they should have started a kickstarter to fund the Foundry.
Again.. its not a swipe at PVP, its more of a discussion of.. CAN this game company as it currently stands, get a handle on it to make it a worthwhile endeavor of their time for profit.
Right now.. if you apply the foundry principle to pvp.. not sure it is to them.
Im sure they could SAY it is.. but they said that about the foundry.
My guess is.. well no.
While it may not be good for the players who enjoy PVP, the game mode can just be left alone and still at least run. With the Foundry, it seems that actual attention is required.
For PvP, each time a new piece of gear is added, it needs a pass to make sure it isn't overperforming/broken in PvP. Although, this usually required a number of patches after a new Mod was released for it to be fixed in PvP.
So I suppose if they wanted to do away with having to re-balance items to make sure they aren't overpowered in PvP, they could just remove PvP altogether. There haven't been any new maps since Stronghold, so nothing really requires updating. I think what would happen though, instead of sunsetting PvP, there just would be less incentive to fix overpowered items, and you would just see PvP denigrate into fest of broken items and mechanics which would never get fixed ... we are already a witness to some of this already, with certain mechanics being bugged as hell for God knows how long, with nothing being done about it.
So perhaps you're right, PvP may be the next to go, and while it won't be as visible as a sunsetting like the Foundry, it will just receive little to no fixes or balancing.
Which is unfortunate, because PvP is probably the only mode which really makes me upgrade enchantments, buy legendary mounts etc. PvE for me becomes static once you're able to beat the boss/newest dungeon, with no need for growth (I mean, who needs to shave 30s off a run time?), whereas in PvP you are always playing against evolving players. While for PvE you need teamwork against the machine (i.e. AI, in effect, a dead thing), in PvP you need teamwork against another team of players, the pinnacle of complexity. It's a shame that it is so broken and unbalanced that fewer people are able to experience what PvP could be ...
Your argument also ignores that the Foundry was only ever a thing on PC. Consoles never had it and PVP players there add to the pvp playerbase overall.
While I personally do not like PVP at all, the entire act of balancing the game should trickle down into PVP by extension.
And PVP was most likely much more lucrative than the foundry simply because it's available across all platforms versus the PC only foundry.
Dont get me wrong.. pvp was very fun early on in this game and if this game didnt sell power.. I still think it would've remained alot of fun , but alas, they did and it went from r10s to 12s, to 14's , now r15.. with all the flash /bank whatever is hot and broken going forward. I still remember the +4 ring that push everyone back at underdark (probably the very last time I went into a domination match was then.. I left during a match and never returned.. what a malarky pvp has turned into)
I have little hopes it would return to its glory from mod 1 and 2.. where basically anyone with a set of r8s could play and enter and be ok (a set of r10s vs r8s without all the double slotting we have now and all the artifact equipment and artifacts and ect ect.. was barely noticeable back then)
While the game made a boatload off all of these items, I wouldnt say anything released brought more "fun" to the game (this applies to pve as well tbh..
I still am waiting my Artifact weapon set that can "GROW" with me.. as in I dont have to dump it and revamp a new one every 3-4 months.
Where did that go anyways =P
The old argument for keeping PvP was always that PvPers dumped piles of money into the game, but that's just not true any longer. Sure, there are a few BiS PvPers who do dump money into the game, but there are a lot more BiS PvEers who do it. In fact, the tendency of some PvPers to dump staggering amounts of money into their characters to face roll new players is one of the prime reasons few people PvP. Maybe Mod 16 will bring some balance here to PvP by flattening out the gear imbalance and revive PvP a bit, but I'm not particularly optimistic here - if anything I think the new system of competing stats will just produce a never ending arms race in PvP where the average level 80 character will be just as unwelcome and unable to compete as the average level 70 character is in PvP now. Maybe it won't happen immediately, but certainly within a few modules.
Winter Lily (CW) / Winter Rose (DC) / Winter Ivy (HR)
Pandora's Misfits Guild Leader
Personally I kind of doubt it when you still have players with a lot of boons from thier guild, playing against the guildless or players from lower level guilds without as many boons - regardless of the changes in Mod16.
But that's just my 2¢
Now the boons in Mod16, although vanilla, are a step in the right direction in narrowing the gap between new players (which are needed for the longevity of the game and PvP) and veterans.
With the inflation of stats with the new gear (which most players will be able to obtain by the end of the Undermountain compaign), then the Guild Based boons should have a lesser effect than it does now in Mod 15, simply because the Guild Based boons are not increased.
Making armor/weapon enchantments more equal in terms of function and less strong than they were should also help. Although certain enchantments (I'm looking at you Shadowclad) are still overperforming.
The only problem which remains as a barrier between veterans and new players alike are the offense/defense enchantments. The difference between R15 and R10 or less is not insignificant. Whether the developers would like to equalise these effects in PvP will remain to be seen (e.g. lessening the gap, but still providing a difference so that there is not a complete loss to those who ranked it up to the max).
Another reason in my opinion is the character level - item level spread between those allowed into a PVP match was so wide that in the same contest we would see some characters struggling and others more than dominating and whether or not this tended to be a good or a bad thing largely depended on which team a player was on.
With less disparity between the effectiveness of individual players there might be a resurgence in interest in PVP – absent that disparity override, I predict PVP will remain as it is, something players know about – but most don’t care to participate in more than a couple of times.
Yule (Barb): 72k : Siren (TR): 78k : Torun (DC): 73k : Siren OP (OP): 76k : Siren SW (SW): 78k : Modern (F): 80k : Cherry1 (CW) : 68k Siren HR (HR): 78k
Every player who enters PvP is stripped of their PvE gear, boons, and so forth and outfitted with generic gear that has identical stats regardless of character class...
Something like...
- +300 to movement
- +600 to power
- +300 to defense
- +300 to deflection
Barbarian, Fighter, Mage, Cleric - whatever, the only gear bonus any player gets is the same gear bonus every player has.Of course those with higher character levels will have an advantage over those with lower character levels so there shouldn't be any more than 10 character levels difference between players in any given bout... and experience will also be something that will enable an individual player to deal more damage and avoid more damage, but that's something every player will be able to access eventually.
Yep, everybody who goes into PvP is stripped naked, no (PvE) gear, boons, etc....
Just tactics, teamwork, tenacity and a little bit of luck from the roll of the game dice.
Tenacity:
- the quality or fact of being very determined; determination.
- the quality or fact of continuing to exist; persistence.
- synonyms: persistence, pertinacity, determination, perseverance, doggedness, tenaciousness, single-mindedness, strength of will, firmness of purpose, strength of purpose, fixity of purpose, bulldog spirit, tirelessness, indefatigability, resolution, resoluteness, resolve, firmness, patience, purposefulness, staunchness, steadfastness, constancy, staying power, application, diligence, assiduity, sedulousness, insistence, relentlessness, inexorability, inexorableness, implacability, inflexibility
Aside from what appears to be your continued sarcastic response, allowing players to bring their PvE gear, boons and other augmentations into PvP was I believe one of the reasons a lot of players avoid PvP after queuing more than a time or two, because there were always a bunch of greatly augmented players who delighted in handing lower level and lesser equipped player their asses,However for some reason few of those heavily buffed players cared to continue to queue for PvP when the only other players queuing for PvP, were other heavily buffed players like themselves... and for some reason it seems every one of them strongly objected to being asked to give up their PvE augmentations to make PvP less one sided.
At least that's been my casual observation.
Without some kind of dedicated "fix", like the one I suggested and you disingenuously alluded to, I'm willing to predict PvP will remain much as it is presently something most players will try a time or two, but eventually abandoned because they get tired of repeatedly getting beat down.
My 2¢
This mod's goal seems to be to simplify the combat system, and break party synergy - again to simplify interactions between powers I guess, and make it easy for following developer teams to introduce new content and items without having to debug a whole bunch of occult legacy code. Pvp, if it's on the action-item board at all, is way down the list. Notice the lack of an official feedback thread for pvp this mod.
It just creates a catch-22, pvp is a bug-ridden, unbalanced mess, so the number of players decreases. Fewer players means less impact on the game as a whole, disincentivising the dev team to prioritize fixes. New content piles up, creating more imbalance, player base decreases again, ad infinitum.
Implementing a vanilla, naked, version of pvp removes imbalance caused by gear, boons and enchants, but not imbalance caused by broken class mechanics, a naked TR right now would still outperform everyone in the hands of a skilled player. Vanilla pvp would also uterrly de-monetize pvp from the dev's perspective. A new player with a newly rolled and levelled toon would be the same as a dedicated long-term pvp toon. The only differences would be in build, but not much since builds are cookie-cutter now, experience and skill. IMO that's completely ok, but there would be no reason for that pvp toon to have any money spent on it.
For example;
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If they change the number of any item or map, then the database needs an update as well. Thomas Foss stated in a video interview, a long time ago, that there was no budget for the Foundry. Essentially they were working on it, for free in their spare time. This boils down to having to fund someone at Cryptic to maintain a database. They only own the one server, heaven forbid it crashes for good, as they run all 3 of the PC games, and XB1 and PS4 versions of NW and STO. The games are just contained on different shards of the same server. AFAIK the backups to those games might be on the same server and just another shard. I hope not. That is like all the eggs in the same basket.
@greywynd Thus there is little to no difference between PvP and the Foundry. PvP can be removed from Icewind Dale as the "red area" in Icewind Pass and Dwarven Valley zones as this is an overlay in the database and not as "hard coded" as one might think. At this point removing PvP would have a negative impact and is not costing them man hours to just ignore it.
Good pvp'ers are also pretty decent pve'ers by default, but good pve'ers are not necessarily good pvp'ers, and/or avoid it like the plague. This has always been the game's problem. Whilst the pvp crowd understand the problems of pve, and comiserate with them, the pve crowd largely do nothing but denigrate pvp, despite the fact that many people enjoy it.
Which is unfair.
If I oneshot godfinder, or manage to kill tery, or blow saber out of the water, then yes, I will type a whole bunch of self-congratulatory HAMSTER in chat, because, whether I like them or not, respect them or not, I do acknowledge they are some of the top pvp toons in the game. But if I shoot some poor guy who declded to queue with 8k gear, then no, I won't. And I don't know anyone left in pvp who would bother either.
Just stop. I've, by default, been an active part of both communities, pve and pve, for years, unless you can say the same then stop perpetuating the same old bull. Pvp has never had the sheer number of HAMSTER people attribute to it, ok..? What people see now is a very pale reflection of what it used to be, and what it could be again, if, maybe etc.
We lost a whole lot of dungeons, and the game was poorer for it, we lost gateway, and the game was poorer for it, now we're losing the foundry, and the game will be poorer for it.
You get the drift I'm sure.