May be in the less popular camp but normalized gear in pvp in an MMO to me is so deflating. The whole draw for MMO's for me is perpetual world where your hard work and grinds + efficiency at finding groups or ways to be more successful then others helps ultimately lead to advantages. If i wanted pvp experience with everything normalized i'd play a different game.
Think real life in many cases...the smartest guy doesn't always finish first. The relatively smart guy who also understands the importance of leadership, collabration, etc is the guy who usually is the most successful (from a traditional career progression stand point). Many variables come in to play not just "skill" in itself.
I know there is down sides like driving away players who don't have as good as gear etc but for me thats always a driving push and I enjoy that additional variability. I've been semi retired from PVE MMO focus for years (anything I actually played hardcore) so definitely was hoping to see some PVE action but would love some engaging pvp. I still don't understand why they don't automate a "Best of the Best" tournement EQ style. Can you imagine how awesome that would be? Have a quarterly automated tourney even and a big battle arena everyone can come watch like the final 8 (can instance all the prelim matches). I'd say add betting even haha but that could introduce throwing, maybe cap it at small amounts so its still "fun" but nothing that can be abused. About time we see something new in the PVP space, alittle true next gen (hi its fucking 2022).
Still remember seeing the wiz in the top guild right when i started playing EQ win and rocking his oracle robe (may have been a SMR). Couldn't imagine how exciting it would be with combat that had more then 1 few 8 second cast time spells haha.
Yep thats the rub. PVErs want their PVE to make them better in PVP. all pvp games except for 1 have went this route and every single one of them failed. Talking about wasting 10 year dev cycle on games that last a month tops, this is the way to get there.
Players choosing to waste their time to continue fighting over resource spots vs if you die you're now minus loot and similar punishments are way different from a player perspective or the dozens of MMO PVP games released the last two decades wouldn't be dead. Same with needing to fight your way into raid zones. We spent 2 years doing WoW classic on a PVP server with forum nerds who dealt with all those issues when they occurred on raid nights where we took an hour to get everyone zoned in. I spent all my non raiding time being a shit lord open world rogue ganker and during PVP rank grind we would be camping people from flight paths to instance zone ins. None ate a ban/suspension/cs ticket etc and WoW is about as carebear as it gets. If WoW had pvp loot that server would have been empty instead of packed to the brim and far less enjoyable for everyone.
I have also yet to play a single loot drop MMO where players didnt exploit to skirt around rules. New World before it made its myriad of changes from pvp loot people just ran around naked ganking people. Didn't matter if they died, but super punishing to those that did. Older games that went full hardcore pk were exploited to shit to as well because most of these PVPers don't want any sort of challenge when it comes to fights.
Personally feel that games that offer a PVP solution to PVE work great. In games without a PVP solution to PVE problems I have ended up getting suspended multiple times (thanks EQ) for dropping a zones worth of mobs on some shit head which is a poor experience for all involved.
If PVP focused gamers wanted an MMO like some have discussed then something like BDO would be king right now. Meaningful gear upgrades to fight at best grind spots, item breakage, item loss, best tradeskill/lifeskill of any mmo, no real p2w, deep class knowledge required for equal fights, best in class action combat of any MMO, resource wars etc and an absolutely trash tier PVE end game. Instead it's basically another low pop niche game due to "harsh" penalties from crafting/death etc. and their low player count shows it.
People can bring up Eve but if released today it would flop. The majority aren't into that shit anymore or it too would be growing and not dwindling.
Wasting a 10+ year dev cycle to keep 10k online is about as dumb as it gets, but it's their money to lose.
All this assumes the game even remotely lives up to all the features it's promising and isn't a buggy/exploited mess at launch.
Regardless of their choices I'll play it cause none of it bothers me, but I'd rather a game with a robust set of options and a player base to match than niche trash.
See above comment. People will always bring up Eve because Eve is the only success story.
BDO is fundamentally nothing like Eve. In BDO, all power is gained through PVE and further through loss Based RNG. Its basically WoW if losing the /roll for raid loot made you weaker.
Reading your post, basically you want wow classic pvp servers, which was fun for a month then every single one of them became 100% one side or the other. Again this design lasts for a month tops, like all other failed pvp games.
As for eve, yeah its 20 years old now and dying but not due to any of its pvp design decisions. If it wasnt spreadsheets n shit with an impossible learning curve the game would of been wow before wow, millions of subs for a decade+.
If you want to develop a successful PVP game you need to look past the engine and ui and understand how eves design differs from every other failed pvp game.
Fundamentally, eve is closer to a fps than a rpg, even though mechanically its just spreadsheets in space.
There is no power gain via pve. Progression is horizontal not vertical. New players out the gate are competitive with vets. Pve/industry exists because of pvp, because of loss. It also drives it. They are complementary elements of the whole.
unlike fps which rewards twitch/ hand-eye coordination, eve rewards game knowledge, strategy, tactics, logistics, crafting, espionage, alliances and your ability to network. All the things strategy/mmo pvp players want. All the things that crafters and industrialists want.
Why does every pvp game tries to create artificial pvp objectives like caravans or logistic chains, wants crafters to be important but still forces you to make 10k rusty iron spoons to level it up, etc. They all create artificial systems to make choke points and pvp objectives. Crafters want to be well known, they want to be vital parts of guilds. They are in Eve. The richest fuckers in the game, industrialists buy and sell alliances and finance pvp wars like Rockefellers and elon musk and shit. Instead games decided "well known" should mean "crafted by dipshit3" should appear on the botton of all 900 +1 swords you had to craft to gain a level in blacksmithing.
Why not just let players actually do those things? This ore is extremely rare except for this one mtn range where it is abundant. It can only be forged way the fuck over there. No magic systems to move it via invuln, fake caravans. You want the ore, mine it. You want to forge it, then carry it back. Everyone is pvp flagged always. Have fun, but more importantly, dont interfere.
Players will kill each other for it, create logistic chains to bring it back, creating tons of hot spots for ambushes, ganking etc. Alliances will be built, thievery, betrayal and back stabbing will happen, groups will collapse. It will get to the point where players determine it isnt worth the cost. Which will result in less competition, reducing the risk, which will restart the cycle all over again.
That is basically every eve war in a nut shell for 2 decades. Its 20 years worth of content for a fully engaged player base. When the map gets too stale, when alliances get too large or too comfortable, then change the recipe for making something or change the stats on something so now this other thing is the flavor of the month, the meta, and it has completely different resource inputs and then watch the chaos ensue.
Everyone says they want pvp and they want it to matter, but then ask for it be neutered to the point where its meaningless. The only successful pvp mmo game proves this is ass backwards.
Heres the thing, you only care about your shinies because of sunk cost fallacy of your caveman lizard brain because you spent x hours grinding/questing/raiding for it. Remove the PVE hurdle, remove the shinies. You dont give a shit when you die in a fps do you? Even though you drop all your shit, and the dude who killed you picks up your gun and then teabags you. No you respawn and try again. How about instead of crafters making hundreds of +1 swords to level up only to vendor them, they make them because your guild needs them to outfit your guys when they die and respawn?
