The dangers of PvP-focused games

For clarification, we are talking MMO games. A persistent, massive TF2 style game would be an MMO, it just wouldn't be an RPG but instead an FPS. As stated above, Planetside is a good example of this.

The main problem, I think, is that the RPG design philosophy of most MMOs (rewarding via time invested) just doesn't mesh well with pvp (which ought to revolve around rewarding via skill).

For all the talk of 'true pvp players' and 'elite pvpers' etc its all a giant wank as 97% of them are gankers and griefers. When it came to 'real' PvP the whole lot of them hide behind massive guilds and alliances, zergs, hiding in zones 10-20 levels below their own etc. You see it in every single game that has a PvP element. I had to laugh when I saw the Darkfall reviews stating how these 'leet' PvPers were hiding in safe zones and behind grand alliances so they wouldn't themselves get ganked. Which is exactly spot on with what the person who earlier commented that, and I paraphrase, that they only want PvP when they win. Not any other time.

In my not so humble opinion, the only 'true' pvp happens in ranked Battlegrounds when you have two pretty much evenly matched teams in numbers, levels and gear. Which is why you never see the gankers and griefers in there, they don't want 'fair' fights or any actual competition to their e-peen stroking. WoW and WAR have it pretty much nailed in the evenly matched Battleground department on the whole.

Unfortunately any real RvR takes second place to rolling zergs with each team carefully trying to avoid each other as their is more points/xp/reknown/etc to be had if you 'game the game' and it ultimately ends up more of a RvNPC zergfest.

Apart from team battlegrounds I don't think you'll see any decent PvP outside of games like WW2 Online, Planetside, TF2 and all your other Online FPS games. Games with no levels, no gear etc where a brand new player can take on and kill a 5 year veteran.

Give people the opportunity to be arseholes and a large number will take it up with our consequence free games and internet.

/this

I remember many times when PvPers have said that games should have PvP missions that drag the PvEers into the PvP zones (yikes that sentence had too many Ps in). Point being, there are far too many people who want cannon fodder, and not enough who want a challenge. Make a game that does PvP "right", and odds-on you're going to find you're only actually appealing to that tiny minority.

As someone who PvEs almost exclusively in games (I trade currencies as my other hobby, and I think that covers everything I might ever want from PvP), mostly PvP involves me being turned into a stain on the floor. I've seen a couple of times it hasn't; WAR and Planetside stick in my mind as both ensuring that you aren't inadvertently killed by someone 10 levels higher. I understand it's something a lot of people enjoy, but it does bug me when games feel I need to be pushed into it...

I agree with the people who say that a good PvP game will try its best to put players on an even playing field. For me there's nothing fun about spending 95% of leveling dying to people who can one-shot me not because of skill, but because they out-level me by so much and then finally being able to compete once I make my way through that pointless gauntlet.

That's why I like to play PvE leveling while doing PvP in instanced battlegrounds in WoW. Even with world PvP there's no point in trying it unless you are at max level. I've done some of the world PvP objectives and found I couldn't complete them unless I waited until 3 am, because someone on the "other side" would always bring a friend who was at level cap to gank anyone who tried to engage in real PvP with them. In the instanced battlegrounds I know I'm always competing against people I have a chance against, even if they are several levels higher than me, I still have a chance if I have the skill and a good team. I enjoy the hell out of those. I don't get the fun in heavily imbalanced PvP unless you get your jollies from ruining other people's days instead of actually competing.

to be honest, no.

no MMO has real, strategic, organized, balanced pvp. all you do is.. well gank weaker players in pve, deathmatches in arenas which are bad because they are neither strategic nor balanced(gear) and battlegrounds which are neither organized(random guys) nor balanced(gear).

there is a CORPG game(competitive online rpg, it means its pvp based) that still, after so many years of screwing up has the best pvp gameplay over any mmo. the game im talking about is guild wars. even gear, strategic maps(im talking gvg here), true esport feeling and ... well skill balance is shit since nightfall... also, players have roles, no such thing as everyone can do everything like in ... pretty much every mmo... you have 8 skills and that won't enable you all the little shit you can load into your skillbar to make the game even more retarded. too bad its dead now. but its pvp still trashes every other mmo's...