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Equalized pvp?
chocobofarmer
Member Posts: 512 Arc User
Before I start, let me quickly describe the pvp situation in another mmo, Tera. It has one equalized pvp map called Corsairs Stronghold, and half a dozen unequalized pvp maps. The unequalized pvp maps are almost completely dead because highly geared people just roflstomp weaker players. The equalized pvp map is very popular, in part because it has decent rewards, because it is very easy to get into, and because it rewards skill, strategy, and teamwork. There are some people who log into Tera just to do corsairs stronghold instead of PVE content.
There are a few major problems I see with pvp right now which I think some kind of equalized option can fix.
1. Too much gear quality difference between most people. With so much difference in gear quality, only well-geared people stand a chance, and much fewer people queue into the pvp because they can't get well-geared. Trying to balance with so much variation in gear score is also much harder than if there was less impact of gear on the effectiveness of players.
2. Too much healing reduction. A 50% nerf to healing happened back when I played in mod 2, and imo it was terrible for less-geared healers but maybe okay balance-wise for super-well-geared healers. Less-geared healers were dying like flies, and the few super-well-geared healers had to hide behind teammates and take a long time to heal back up. Slower self-healing is boring and slow-paced, and I'm sure it was a major contributing factor to #3 below.
3. Too much damage reduction (noticed this after coming back from a 1.5 year break, its like people take 50% less damage than during module 2). When people take a very long time to kill, pvp relies much less upon skill or strategy, and much more upon gear and which class is more powerful. To illustrate, if on average it takes 20 seconds for someone to die, it is much more likely that a less-geared or less powerful class player will be able to use skill or strategy to overcome the better-geared or more powerful class player because the more powerful player will have shorter time to react to the less powerful player, but if on average it takes 40 seconds for someone to die, the more powerful player will be able to survive from mistakes and the gear/stats of the players will do the fighting as they stand in front of each other mashing buttons waiting for each other to die, and the less powerful player is more likely to die from the prolonged attrition. Making gear/stats determine victory in long attrition is much more boring than quick fights determined by skill or strategy.
What I'm thinking about is giving people the option for equalized pvp, for domination, gg, stronghold, icewind dale, etc., where equalized pvp takes effect only for people who agree to it, i.e. by queuing for it or flagging themselves for it. When people don't agree to it, then unequalized pvp occurs. The rewards for participating in unequalized pvp can be reduced compared to equalized pvp so that people who geared themselves for pvp will still have something to do with their pvp gear, and there can still be incentive for people to gear up and participate in unequalized pvp.
Just to give an example of what changes could be in equalized pvp, something like: the healing reduction and damage reduction changes reverted, balance changes specifically for and only used during equalized pvp, everyone is made level 60 without 4th rank powers, given the ability to freely choose from any of the old module 1-2 tier 1-3 pvp armor set pieces (with equalized amount of defense/attack and the amount that stats are increased by, while retaining unique set bonuses and what stats are increased), and any of the following: rank 7 enchants, normal quality weapon/armor enchants, four rank 60 artifacts, and 5 companions (1 summoned).
There are a few major problems I see with pvp right now which I think some kind of equalized option can fix.
1. Too much gear quality difference between most people. With so much difference in gear quality, only well-geared people stand a chance, and much fewer people queue into the pvp because they can't get well-geared. Trying to balance with so much variation in gear score is also much harder than if there was less impact of gear on the effectiveness of players.
2. Too much healing reduction. A 50% nerf to healing happened back when I played in mod 2, and imo it was terrible for less-geared healers but maybe okay balance-wise for super-well-geared healers. Less-geared healers were dying like flies, and the few super-well-geared healers had to hide behind teammates and take a long time to heal back up. Slower self-healing is boring and slow-paced, and I'm sure it was a major contributing factor to #3 below.
3. Too much damage reduction (noticed this after coming back from a 1.5 year break, its like people take 50% less damage than during module 2). When people take a very long time to kill, pvp relies much less upon skill or strategy, and much more upon gear and which class is more powerful. To illustrate, if on average it takes 20 seconds for someone to die, it is much more likely that a less-geared or less powerful class player will be able to use skill or strategy to overcome the better-geared or more powerful class player because the more powerful player will have shorter time to react to the less powerful player, but if on average it takes 40 seconds for someone to die, the more powerful player will be able to survive from mistakes and the gear/stats of the players will do the fighting as they stand in front of each other mashing buttons waiting for each other to die, and the less powerful player is more likely to die from the prolonged attrition. Making gear/stats determine victory in long attrition is much more boring than quick fights determined by skill or strategy.
What I'm thinking about is giving people the option for equalized pvp, for domination, gg, stronghold, icewind dale, etc., where equalized pvp takes effect only for people who agree to it, i.e. by queuing for it or flagging themselves for it. When people don't agree to it, then unequalized pvp occurs. The rewards for participating in unequalized pvp can be reduced compared to equalized pvp so that people who geared themselves for pvp will still have something to do with their pvp gear, and there can still be incentive for people to gear up and participate in unequalized pvp.
Just to give an example of what changes could be in equalized pvp, something like: the healing reduction and damage reduction changes reverted, balance changes specifically for and only used during equalized pvp, everyone is made level 60 without 4th rank powers, given the ability to freely choose from any of the old module 1-2 tier 1-3 pvp armor set pieces (with equalized amount of defense/attack and the amount that stats are increased by, while retaining unique set bonuses and what stats are increased), and any of the following: rank 7 enchants, normal quality weapon/armor enchants, four rank 60 artifacts, and 5 companions (1 summoned).
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Comments
I think Original poster had made some good points, but I myself actively played in Module 2 to Module 5 and did some domination matches... I did not always win but I did win some games. I am not sure if players cheat in this game but sometimes the matches are very one sided and not a close competition despite everyone being level 60.
Ideally they could compile all data from module 6,7 & 8 and remake the game system back to module 5 periods and try to rebalance the game to make PVP fair and competitive. I have not tried Stronghold PVP system myself but I read around the forums and people who complain say that gear differences make things unfair and not balanced.
A new rethinking of gear score and acquisition of epic PVP gear would be welcome if Cryptic would reformat the items system once more, ideally with PVP balance in mind.
I think the future appeal of Neverwinter would depend on how new patches and module would shape the game, only time will tell... right now I still prefer PVE aspect of this game as opposed to not so closely balanced PVP.
yesterday i visit stronghold pvp after some time and expect more casual players there then before. i am 3.3 IL and from my 7 deaths, 6 was 1vs1 encounters against permastun trappers or almost permafreeze CWs. all legendary and mythic. really engaging gameplay, this dont bring people into this mode
Keep all the old PVP contests for those who want to play them and continue to try and fix them however you like, but give us all a fair fight and we might all enjoy PVP for the first time.
Essentially a dynamic scaling of item performance to boost up players with lacking performance, so that they can arrive at a point where they would achieve at least a certain amount of competency in pure specifications. So people with better gear still do have better performance, but not at the extreme levels as can be seen in games that don't feature any balancing system -- ie.. NW, or WoW, or etc..
Also, dynamic scaling doesn't completely negate your efforts to have better gear, unlike -- for example -- Guildwars series. Hence, gear progression is still a major motivator since having better gear does mean something, albeit not as much as it currently does.
Better matchmaking, I'm afraid, has currently fallen out of the list as an option. Matchmaking as a method of balance only works when you have enough of a playerbase to satisfy multiple 'server requests' to form matches with different baseline of gear performance. Unfortunately, NW was never that much wide of a player base, and whatever players there were in this game are now leaving, thanks to the devs simply giving us PvP players the finger and walking out on us....
...which also means the entire discussion is a moot point. They've just decided to treat us like cattle, and pretend we don't have opinions or voices. So no fixes, no tweaking, no balancing, nothing.
Nothing's gonna happen anyway.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
We (or at least I) stated, if Cryptic wanted to tier or divide the playerbase in any way in PVP, it would have to be done while the playerbase #s were higher. If they waited too long, the playerbase #s would drop too much to make it realistic and effective. Which is the scenario we currently face.
Any type of normalization/equalization of gear just wont happen in a p2w game. It is directly at odds with how one of the main revenue generating systems operate in f2p p2w games.
There is nothing really that can be done anymore. Tiered or dividing the playerbase had to be done earlier when we had players. And normalization of gear just isnt in the cards with how these publishers/devs (pretty much all trion/pwe/my.com/etc) setup their games/
I really liked PVP early on. I played many hours/days/weeks of it. But then cryptic decided to monetize the gear more, and the gear gap only widened, playerbase shrunk, and we continued to see bugs/exploits prior to testing then released on the live server; which just continued to hurt PVP. Im not sure a real active large PVP playerbase can survive here. It's turned into a niche game, with a small selective playerbase.
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It only gets worse with time as newer players into the game aren't doing PVP at all, so it's just a gradual upward shift of gear levels, with the pool also getting smaller as lower geared players get sick of the pug stomping and quit.
Something obviously needs to be done to address the gear gap. That means making it harder for the higher geared players to win and easier for lower geared players. Equalising everything alone wouldn't really work - there'd need to be a ranking system on top.
Any solution to this would at first mean longer queues. But how does that affect people? Currently the highest geared players go into a match, sit around and wait for a guaranteed win; the lowest go in, sit around and wait for a guaranteed loss. This shouldn't be allowed to happen, and if it means longer queues at first to avoid that, it's for the good of the game.
doing lev 30 PVP you meet maxed chars rank 12´s + with epic gear and GS 2k+, redicules..
going lev 70 PVP you do not get one step in the door facing maxed player with SH boon , axebeak, lolset, complete lionsmane and transcendent enchants
only alternative would be spending a big ammount of cash , 1000´s of dollars
All the "wannabe BiS", pugstomping guilds of kids ruined it. They blame the stomped pugs for being undergeared. Many of these guilds and players even try to prevent the average NW player who goes PvP for daily reward, from getting it, if they can. And if you tell them it's a bad behaviour, they say it's the PUG's fault for being..."PUGs". There's no respect or will to create a healthy PvP environment. Just a childish desire to "stomp" and humiliate the enemy.
Playing my alts i noticed this a lot. To quote one guy after stomping one of my alts for no reason:
"i just killed a cow".
So be it. All the remaining PUGs still going to PvP should switch to PvE and let these guys enjoy 1 hour Domination queues, or longer.
Don't go PvP unless you're 3k iLvL in T2 PvP armor at least. Period. This is what the game is telling us, with the aid of pugstomping powerplayers.
Sorry for the couple of good and usually respectful PvP guilds (basically, Absolute, EoA and BTG). But i think they can arrange enough premades to have their share of pvP fun.
Cryptic should remove the RAD reward from PvP.
Out of the dedicated PvPers, right now the only reason why people join are the daily RAD. But with new underdark rings giving basically the same RAD with less frustration and effort, and this childish behaviour from many "wannabe like Absolute and EoA" guilds, more and more players leave PvP. In the end the game mode will truly die, unless cryptic does something to prevent these "pugstomping" kids from poisoning the whole PvP environment.
There's a huge difference between "competitive" BiS PvP guilds (EoA, Absolute, BTG), and "wannabe" PvP guilds that fill their belly with childish powerplayers.
What you describe is the basic issue that you get when you create a PvP environment that allows these powerplayers to have their way. They blame the "average PUG" for being "weak", but at the same time they want them to stay there and get killed cause well, that is exactly what they enjoy. When they end up in a losing team, they quit the match 99 % of the times. After cursing their team mates. There are currently plenty of PvP-oriented guilds like that. Expecially the ones that set iLvL requirements but do not set rules about behaviour and fair play.
"Downgrading" and "Upgrading" every player at the same iLvL (level of enchants and artifacts) while leaving the build intact might help a lot.
But another thing that MUST be introduced in Domination and GG is the FORCED SOLO QUEUE.
Stronghold siege might get a rework and become the "Guild vs Guild" game-mode, along with a way for Guilds to officially arrange Premade vs Premade games. Basically, a forced solo queue for PUG PvP, and the current queue for those who want to engage in PM vs PM.
Cause it's really useless to have a "matchmaking" if you then allow players to form premades. You destroy the meaning of "matchmaking", allowing players to pre-form their teams.
Unless you, then, introduce iLvL brackets with gear locked up after you enter the queue. In that case, forming high iLvL premades would result in longer queue times, while the system awaits for a group that can match the premade.
So you'd have a "downside" to the formation of premades in PUG PvP (longer queue times).
Back then the BiS player may have ~30% advantage over an average-geared player who only spent ~100 hours gearing up, but it was possible to counter by teaming up on him. Right now you can have a BiS player solo a team of average-geared players. If cryptic released gearscore-tiered pvp, I'm sure it would make more fair matches than right now, but I still feel there should be an option for equalized pvp. In Tera, there is equalized and unequalized pvp and fairly good matchmaking based on ranking, yet unequalized pvp is pretty dead. The gear discrepancy and difficulty of obtaining gear in Tera is much less than neverwinter also.
(a) got bored and moved away from NW, and currently doing the same chit to some other people in some other game
(b) grew up a bit and takes on the guise of "seasoned veteran", "oh, I don't do that stuff no more" chit
(c) come in as alt characters and troll newbie players who can never recognize who's who
So stop buttering up to the big-names as if they've actually done anything to help out PvP, because they haven't. Yes, a few of those people, are actually nice people, and have SOMETIMES shown the decency to not join in with their brethren in trolling and griefing other people, but that's about it.
Most every negative fiascos NW's seen, has the same group of people behind it. Same tardbags who've abused every known bug in existence since day1 to grief and hurt and drive everyone that's not part of their small society and make them quit. It's only after the PvP numbers have shrunken so much that stuff like SH doesn't even queue, and a decent good Dom match almost never happens, that some of them have started to act as if they care for their 'prey', somewhat akin to hunters and poachers suddenly taking an interest in wildlife preservation, since at this rate it becomes clear that there ain't going to be anyone to troll no mo'.
Maybe some of you have forgotten just which breed of people were the ones that have krapped on the leaderboard when it first started, with all sorts of filthy and disgusting attitude in "rigging" the win/losses to their favor. I certainly haven't. Nor have I forgotten which people have been playing which characters long before their current "innocent looking" incarnation, and golly, they certainly didn't show any compassion or understanding towards other lesser geared players in those days.
...
So no, pando, there's nothing different between the 'competitive' ones and 'wannabe' ones.
The former is simply the future of the latter.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
And in my personal experience after playing PvP a bit with alts, out of my main, is that when you meet those guilds or their members, 90% (not every player but most of them) of the times they stop "stomping" once they win, if you don't attack they don't needlessly kill you and let you get your reward.
When i meet, instead, premades from these other guilds that have geared players but are not the above, it happens quite often that they end up being stompers who just enjoy rolling over normal players and humiliate them as much as they can.
The main difference, in my opinion again, is that some guilds target geared players AND enforce (or try to enforce) some good rules of conduct.
Other guilds, instead, set again iLvL requirements, but do not set or enforce any rule of conduct, and end up filled with powerplayers. Some others just plain simple aim at gathering geared players and sh*t on other players whenever they have the chance to do so.
However, i like the idea of a "equalized" PvP option where the rank of enchants and artifacts/ artifact equipment is temporary equalized (basically, same as lvl adjustement when entering different PvE areas, but done with gear), leaving the build intact.
So, for example, all enchants become "greaters" or "normals" and rank 8, all artifacts and artifact equipment become epic, downgrading or upgrading where needed.
Also, mount bonuses should go off. Cause that's another problem. Just like companion bonuses, in domination and GG, the bonus from mounts should not be active (free stats or free AP).
Sopi SW Youtube channel pvp brickabrack
Lol.
I like the idea of an equalized PvP, more.