Meandering through MMORPG's...

Author: t0nyd

 Jelousy is the key word in this debate. Group players want better gear, due to them deeming that their method of play is more challenging. Solo players usually want equivalent gear due to player vs player interaction. This is where things get messy, but in the end it all comes down to jelousy.

 If group players, raiders, etc, actually enjoyed this type of play, would they honestly care about the rewards? I think not. I believe that most group players know that in most mmorpgs, the best rewards are had by grouping. I also believe that most group players believe that when they engage a solo player in 1v1 PvP, that the group player should win easily due to having better gear that they gained while grouping. I call this the, I worked harder to get my gear so I should win every time, mentality or WoW mentality for short.

 Its obvious that this WoW mentality is not conducive to a PvP environment. When people PvP, they want dynamic challenging fights where all players have the chance at victory. Otherwise, you might as well be fighting mobs. This is why I believe a gear based MMO will never truly succeed with the PvP crowd.

 In the end it all comes back to the word jelousy. If you actually enjoyed what you were doing, you wouldnt care what equipment the people around you are wearing. Why does it matter that the guy next to you has equivalent gear, with out ever setting foot into a raid enviroment. It only matters when you have the WoW mentality.

 I didnt jump on either side of the darkfall soap opera. I ignored most of the threads concerning this game, due to not really caring to speculate. I have noticed some well written posts on this game and due to boredom with the current flock of mmo's, I figured, why not give it a try. So here is a simple mans perspective on darkfall. Please note, I am a casual player that is mainly interested in PvP with a bit of PvE on the side...

 Graphics

  To be honest, the graphics are sub-par compared to most mmo's. I am only running 2x 3870's, but this game wouldnt stress my onboard graphics chip. The terrain looks pretty ragged, but the character models are decent.

  Yes, I just said the graphics are pretty poor, yet I dont really care. I like to believe a game is not all about " look at the pretty ". If an mmo was all about "pretty", we would all be playing some square/enix mmo with summoning spells that take 3 mins a pop, while you gaze at the (insert giant anime creature) with flashy explosions and after the 3 minutes of  bashing-impaling-chewing, your character takes 9 damage. Anyway... my point is, the graphics are passable. All that matters really is the fun factor.

Skill Based Games

  Ive always liked the idea of a skill based game, although in my humble opinion, this is the worst and I mean the worst skill based system that I have ever seen. For some odd reason, a lot of people believed that a skill based game would alleviate all the needless grinding for levels. The grinding in this game is worse than listening to my girl friend grind her teeth at night. Who really wants to kill goblins for hours, endless hours, just to gain a couple skill points. Ive always envisioned a skill based game where you gained skills as you do the things you enjoy doing, This is not the method of Darkfall...

  Skill based games should give you options. I want to be a spell caster. I do nothing but focus on spells. The game rewards you by giving you more powerful spells, happy day. Nope. There is no reason to specialize in this game. There is every reason to be a jack of all trades. This here is the worst aspect of all skill based games. You can, be a melee only character specializing in a polearm and heavy armor. You will, gimp yourself beyond belief. All I have to say, if you want to PvP, pack melee weapon and a bow or spells or your gimping yourself. This breeds cookie cutter lameness. I know, there is always going to be cookie cutter specs in mmorpgs, but the key word is specs. Darkfall doesnt breed specs. Singular would be the appropriate word...

 Fun Factor

  The fun factor of this game exists on two levels. Level one is the political structure of the world. This game is basically about socialization. Make alliances, spy on people, backstab people, lead people into battle, these are the mechanics that make this game work. If you do not enjoy political drama, this game probably isnt for you.

  The second level to this game is all about zerging armies. The combat tactics are very simple, stay far away and lob arrows and spells, use environmental objects to break line of sight, and when you do get into melee, spam vertical attack. I just do not see how the combat mechanics can be considered fun.  For melee characters, you basically have vertical and horizontal slash. Not the most in depth melee mechanics. Spells are decently interesting, but just do not carry the game into what I would call... fun.

Summary

  If your into political intrigue and zerg combat, then by all means, buy this game now.

  If you do not enjoy stabbing the same goblin numerous times to gain a few skill points, If you would like a dynamic combat system, if you would like the idea of specializing and not being forced into a jack of all trades situation, if you want more than two methods of attacking in melee, then run away from this game in fear.

  For a sandbox game, darkfall feels so linear, so two dimensional. I have more fun playing team fortress 2. I relate darkfall more to team fortress two than an mmo. The problem is, team fortress 2 melee gives you one less option than darkfall and both play similar in the aspect of, someones always shooting and running away from you...

   My character is a caldari by the name of Alexander Creed. I did some research on ships and I chose my race by which set of ships I thought looked good. Obviously, this is kind of a mistake. My first lesson was, Caldari ships are not made to solo. I spend a good amount of my time solo. Also, for those that will look up my character in game, yes, I started playing in 2007. I played for 1 month then deployed to Iraq. So, my character does not have the skill points of a 2007. I just picked the game back up in december.

  I assume what I did is what everyone does at first and that is, run lots of missions. So I ran what felt like an endless amount of level 1 missions. Finally I got on the help channel and asked " how many level 1 missions does it take to get to level 2s". Someone directed me toward social skills. Noob mistake number 1. I raised my social skills up 2 levels, ran about 7 missions then bang, level 2 missions opened up. Shrug, Oh well, I am sure others will make the same mistake.

 By this time i have enough Isk to jump in a Caracal, which is my first attempt at piloting a cruiser. Things go well. Level 2 missions are cake. I run em for a rediculous amount of time. Finally I set my sights on the drake (battle cruiser). After running level 2 missions for about a week i become frustrated with my isk gain. I just dont see myself getting into a drake anytime soon. Luckily someone directs me towards the Salvaging skill. I wish I would have know about the skill from the begining. I would say my Isk gain quadrupled. Still my Isk gain just doesnt feel fast enough. I also get tired of running missions.

  By this time im so bored of running missions. I simply have no desire to play anymore. So I start playing warhammer again. Altho I am logging in to select skills to train while I play warhammer. This is like the only game ive played that rewards you for not playing. I log in one random day to check my skills when I notice people playing trivia on the noob corp chat. Im like, oh well, maybe I can throw a couple answers in there. Im not really paying that much attention. I get three of them correct. Im goofing around when I see out of the corner of my eye, my wallet icon is flashing. I click it and I have over 100 mil sitting in there. Im like, uhh. I didnt realize, the guy that was asking the questions was giving an isk reward for correct answers.

  So I finally buy a Drake. Obviously my interest in the game is a bit renewed. I run some missions for a couple hours then boredom sinks in again. At this point, im pondering canceling. I just dont see how people can play this game. Im chatting on the Caldari noob corp about it. Someone directs me towards PvP. Ive always wanted to PvP. I just didnt really know how. Eve is probably one of the worst MMO's for getting into PvP at the start.

  I joined the recruitment channel. After a few days I finally noticed a Corp recruiting that didnt require 5+ mil skill points. It is a Merc corp. So I figure, what do I have to lose. I join and it seems interesting enough at first. Im asking a ton of questions about fitting my drake. I also learn a ton of reasons as to why my drake isnt a solo ship and why Caldari seem to suck solo. Shrug, I figure what the hell, im going to solo this drake anway. Its what Im skilled for. At this time i am approaching 3 mil skill points and a majority of them are in missiles, shields, and drones.

  I chase war targets around for hours, days, weeks, now im getting bored. I begin to ponder my fitttings, trying to figure out how I am screwing up. I decide my passive shield tank just isnt working. I notice people will not stay to fight. I notice that the abaddon (battleship) that does cant hardly touch my shields, so he simply leaves. So after more questions, I learn about warp disruptors and webs. Warp disruptors keep people from warping and webs slow targets so my missiles actually do damage. Hmm, so I ponder my next load out test on this drake.

 At this point, I am going to recomment Battle Clinic, EFT, and Evemon to anyone even thinking of playing this game. Battle Clinic has load outs avaiable for you to browse. Evemon will help you plan your skills. I wish I knew of these when I started.

   I gang up and I get my first kill. This is before I change fittings. My interest is renewed. We had a good tackler, a battleship, and my drake, vs a battleship. He went down pretty fast. It was a rush. Finally I shot at someone, heh. Now I am back to the solo kick. I have 2x invuln fields for resistance boosting, a web, a disruptor, an after burner, and a large extender in my mids. I have 3xfield extenders for riggings. I pretty much get laughed at by my corp, but hey, I solo, so how am I to solo in a drake with out this kind of load out.

  The corp I am in is pretty small. So its not like I can gang all the time. I also play at odd hours. Im roaming around solo with no corp mates on. I notice a war target on. I have him on my buddy list of course :). I notice him in local space in amar and he vanishes. I warp to ashab gate and jump and luckily he is sitting there. I approach with my after burner on. He doesnt notice me. I wait to try and lock til I am with in 15km. I get there and try to lock. He tries to align for a jump, I bump him off it as I get my lock, disrupt, web, pop. My first solo kill. I was so pleased with myself that I jump away, docked, and forgot to loot the wreck, heh. Then it hit me. I just tackled a rifter in a drake, heh.

  So anyone that wants to play and learn from some of my  mystakes...

1. Mission running, train social skills.

2. Train salvaging for cash.

3. Dont choose caldari if you want to solo pvp.

4. Use Eve mon, eft, and battle clinic. This way you dont end up with the wrong skills and a retarded load out.

5.  If you notice trivia questions on the noob corp chat, ANSWER THEM!

 - tony d

  Out of boredom, I began pondering the mirrored classes of Warhammer and how unbalanced they feel. My main is an engineer in T3. My engineer is spec'd for grenades, which I find quite effective. I was curious about how a Magus performs with a similar spec. Here are my conclusions.

Concern 1: Staff vs Rifle
 Right off I noticed a lack in dps due to not having auto shot. I am sure most people overlook auto attacks. In t3 my engi usually auto shots a squishie for around 300 damage. This is 300 free damage that my magus lacks. Using a dps meter, my auto attack damage in PvP hits around the 20% range of my total. This damage is especially important in 1v1 and small skirmishes. Actually, its important no matter how I look at it.

 I believe staves should have a ranged auto attack function or the disk itself should have a ranged attack. Rifles are physical damage, so obviously, they do more damage to lower armor classes. I believe ranged staff attacks should do less damage overall but more consistant. I believe that staves should have their own magical attack type, this way they fall under a resist. So in turn, a rifle might hit a squishie for 300 and a tank for 90, where as a staff would hit every for around 300 pre resist. So the staff attack would end up doing 90 vs a high resist character and around 200 vs a low resist character.

 If you believe that I am correct or completely off base with this concern, please post a response saying why.

Concern 2: Endless Pandemonium vs Throwing Arm
 With Throwing arm we take the grenade spec engi's range from 65 ft to 98 ft. When in open RvR, there is no better tactic than throwing arm. This allows you to hurl your best abilities off a keep wall. With my magus, i feel very constrained when sitting on top of a keep wall.

 In the open field, with my Engi, I usually pick a group of casters and toss some aoes thier way. This usually consists of aoe interupts and an aoe knockdown from 90 ft away. With my magus I have to get within 65ft, so if I decide to target a pocket of casters, which spell like "surge of insanity", are made for, i get DEAD pretty quickly.

 Endless Pandemonium seems like a valid tactics but I have my doubts. Yes, having your primary dot refresh itself is very nice, except for the fact that its in my rotation anyway. So yes, im going to be throwing it into a pile of order in a constant rotation to keep the pressure up. It has a 15 sec durations, so you can bet that I am going to cast it every 15 seconds. This ability might get you kills from people who flee out of range, if the dot refreshes itself. Otherwise, I am probably overwriting it 90% of the time when I re-apply.

  I also believe that Endless Pandemonium's application of the dot isnt even effected by INT or any ability that can boost spell damage. 

Concern 3: Mage Bolt vs Point-Blank
 This is a tactical concern. You have damage vs knockback with less damage. Personally I prefer point blank. I have already discussed throwing arm and how vital it is to have range. Now, lets give the Engi, which has the better range at 98ft, and lets give him another knockbock. Not just an ordinary knockback either, a knockback thats easily used at low levels. Lets also force similar spec Magus to maintain a very close range when compared to Engi, and lets not give them a knockback at low levels.

 I simply do not understand how they can force a similar spec Magus to fight at a much closer range and give them less options for keeping enemies out of melee range.
 

Concern 4: Siphon Power vs Unshakable Focus
 Siphon power seems to lack viable scaling in my opinion. Yes it can lower the intelligence of one target and drain 200 AP from them. As you gain in levels, losing 200 AP becomes less bothersome.

 Unshakable focus scales with your damage output. As you level, your damage output gets higher, and unshakable focus doubles it. The synergy of this ability is amazing. Normally I toss out an acid bomb for the aoe dot and corp debuff,  then a frag, click focus, then toss out a mine for the aoe KD, then a flash bang, and watch that entire area panic. 1200 damage tics on frag grenade is amazing at lvl 24. All the while locking them up with an aoe KD to nail them, and the flashbang to interrupt the pile after they get up. You can use incendiary shot in there as well and you just put some nasty aoes on an area as well as your primary target. The magus just can not put this much damage out this fast. Just to make sure that everyone is on the same page, Unshakable Focus works on every dot that you have in play, even the ones you used before you clicked Focus.

I appreciate any opinions and any info you can give regarding these concerns. Also, please take into consideration that I am speaking of the changing and grenadier mastery only. I am speaking about balance up to tier 3. I know some of you believe that balance is only a factor at max level. I do not believe that balance is only a factor at max level and neither does mythic. Mythic did remove aoe roots in teir 1 for balance reasons proving this.

tony d

 I played the game for a couple months upon release and left due to lack of promised options. I figured that its been a while since launch, so possibly the game is on track now. Personally, I am looking for an interesting PvP game, and this is one of the few options available.

Game Performance

 Im running it on a 9950 black edition, 2 gig of 1066, and 2 3870. The game runs very good. I am running at max settings at 1680x1050. Im getting no hitching and no artifacts. Im running at a conistent 80-70 fps with the rare low of 56 fps which happens occasionally when I am around water.

Class Balance

 I have 4 characters in the 22-30 range (dark templar, necro, ranger, xotli). I have to say, balance is skewed horribly in favor of my ranger. After level 20, you can not expect to solo ever again unless your a stealth class. For days, I tried to level my necro past 22 and every quest area was camped by several rangers. As a cloth class you can expect to die to an even level ranger in 5-8 seconds. With my necro, my fear ability never worked once in an open world PvP setting. I did however, get it to work a couple times in a mini-game. My swarm of undead hit for 5-15 damage vs an even level low armored opponent, while I was being hit back for over a 100 an arrow.

 Pretty much the same things happened to my herald of xotli, due to them being low armored and requireing melee. My dark templar, in supposedly decent armor, felt like he was in cloth armor. I dont really understand how the armor scales in this game. I died just as fast as my cloth characters, to arrows, when playing this so called tank.

When playing my 23 ranger, I could pick people off with impunity. Id simply hide, find a target and kill it or leave it alone. The only things that I avoided where characters with significant level diferences. I died twice with my ranger, both times were to other rangers, hehe.

Graphics

  The game looks great. I dont believe there is an MMORPG out there that can touch the character models of Conan.

Bugs

  Only two bugs that I witnessed on a common basis. One was my necro's fear. For some reason, that spell just did not want to work in PvP. I would cast it, one of my pets would die, and the player would continue shooting at me as if nothing happened.

  The other bug was LoS related. Most rangers, when the swarm of pets made it to them, would simply sprint and jump on top of a building or inside a crack between structures. The pets would then simply stand there and not attack, while the ranger could shoot at me with impunity. Also, id lose LoS with my necro pretty easily, but as my ranger, my arrows would tend to still go off through structures.

PvP Mini-games

 I was really dissapointed with the mini-game set up. I first entered one with my necro at lvl 22. I did not realize that the mini-game bracket for that level is 20-40. With differing levels mattering as much as they do, I would have thought that the bracket would be 20-30 then 31-40. Such as it is, there is no reason to ever enter a mini game at the level of 22. It would be more beneficial for you and your team to wait until your level 30+. This set up just doesnt make much sense to me.

  Mini-games are simply horrible for necro's. After every death you have to waste 30 seconds resummoning your horde of undead. Speced for those undead, I didnt have any choice. Then I realized, even speced for them, they hit about as hard as smacking yourself in the face with a twizzler.

Final Thoughts

 If your going to play this game with PvP in mind. Then expect to play with a group and do not expect any sort of balancing when it comes to classes. This far into the game, balancing should  be the primary focus. Ive read that Funcom is focusing on statistic changes before they go back to the balancing of the classes. In all honesty, if you make 2 str = +1 melee damage, how does this fix class balance or change the power structure of the game in any way. If a dark templar is weak when compared to other tanks, and you change the way strength effects tanks, the dark templar is still going to be weak when compared to other tanks. It makes more sense to tweak some things and make every class viable.

 As a solo player that groups occasionally, i just can not justify spending 15$ a month on this game.

 Once a long time ago I thought Mythic had a plan. DAoC was enjoyable at first. Yes, it did turn into a horrible game, but thats because they lost sight of what made it a fun game. Its just like with Warcraft. I enjoyed getting all my characters to South Shore and engaging in all the PvP it had to offer. Yes, there was no point. There were no goals. I simply enjoyed the combat. Usually it would start small, then end up with 30v30 madness. Following in DAoC's footsteps, Blizzard released content that simply ruined this form of combat.

 Just for the fun of it, I hit up the classic servers on DAoC once again. I have every class for each realm parked in thid. I realized very fast why War plays so poorly. Right off, bone dancer pets were running through keep doors and killing people. Right off, shrooms were shooting people through walls and killing them. Man, this is sounding awfully familiar. Pet AI is simply a nightmare. I walked across a bridge, where the fuck did my pet go. Did mythic use the exact same engine for War?

 I expect DAoC to have these kinds of problems. I dont expect War to. Oh well, I was in a decent group for a bit. I started off playing my cabalist. 8 of us walking over a bridge when I notice a stealther and send my pet to pop him when, poof, dead in one hit. One single hit through my bubble, insta dead. Every caster in the group damn near insta died to a group of 6 luri nightshades. This left a paladin and an a merc to die to the 6 remaining stealthers. We didnt kill a single one of them. Obviously, this left a bad taste in my mouth. I realized at any one time, there were more stealthers on the map than all other classes combined. You might think this would wake mythic up a bit.

 The fanbois will yell, oh that doesnt count, only end game counts. I thought the journey was supposed to be fun. My bad. So i leave to go play a bit of War. After nearly dieing to the combination of a squig that walked through the door and 4 magus pets fireballing me through the walls, i bounced from that game as well. I would think, before you release a game, before you take the time to design all these classes, you might want the simple things to work, like line of sight and shit walking through walls.

So I decide to say fuck MMO's for a bit and play an RTS. I pick up  Red Alert 3. Right off the bat, the DRM made me want to break the fucking game. Your going to tell me that I have to have an internet connection to activate the fucking game. I also have to de-activate the game online or I lose an install credit. Am I fucking renting this game that I paid 50$ for. I slip the dvd in the drive and it wont fucking read. I take the game back and get a new copy. I slip the dvd in the drive. Sweet, it reads the damn dvd. I start to enter the key code when I notice its missing a fucking character. 19 out of 20 fucking characters. So I have to guess what this last character is. After my third guess the game boots me out of the install and you have to start over by typing in all 19 other characters. You have to be kidding me. By this time, id rather get my money back than play this fucking game.

 So to shorten this rant post...

   Fuck DRM, fuck EA, and fuck Mythic

 Lets begin by saying, I have almost every class in t2 and t3. I get bored of playing the same class. My favorite part of an mmo is to take the least played classes and find a way to use them effectively. My main from the beginning is an engineer. To this day, engineer is my favorite class.

          Scenarios

I enjoy most of the scenarios that ive played. It seems that they are varied enough to keep my attention for a little while. So after participating in open RvR for a few hours, its nice to jump in some scenarios. Comparing scenarios to DAOC battle grounds, scenarios are disappointing. I assume DAOC battle grounds are supposed to be compared to RvR lakes...

           RvR Lakes

This is probably the most disappointing aspect of the game for me. When I first imagined it, I imagined battle grounds in DAOC. I imagined these big maps where you can go farm mobs and participate in RvR. I imagined intricate keeps. I imagined moveable siege equipment.

I could get by the static siege spawn locations. I could get passed seige weapons being immobile. What I cant get passed is the keep layouts and how npc focused keep defenses are. With DAOC, once you finally breached the outer wall. You then lay seige to the inner keep. Battles would be all over, bridges, keep walls, pretty much everywhere. War keeps are so small, with little space to move, where aoe obviously reigns supreme. Then you take in consideration that not all keep lords are created equal. No one, unless your in a sizable raid with semi-intelligent tanks and healers, fights all the mobs in the lord room. Mostly its pull the lord to the pad and fight only him. Ive tanked stonetroll with a lvl 13 IB with a two hander, easily. Then ive been in groups in spite's reach, where the lord goes insane and hits everyone every second for 275 damage, til the entire band wipes.

Now lets talk about how fast the mobs spawn and the door mystically gets repaired. In DAOC, the keep door got repair when you took the time to repair it. It mystically repairing itself is pretty retarded.  Also, wtf do mob guards respawn so damn fast. This is a player vs player game, not a player + mob vs player. Its no wonder people dont like attacking keeps. Atleast in scenarios its players vs players...

           Closing Thoughts

I would relate War to being the arcade version of DAOC. They took every controversial aspect of DAOC and flipped it. They flipped it so much that most of the strategy has been taken away. For example, giving every class in the game a spammable ranged attack is because so many people in DAOC complained about roots. Obviously not realizing when you make a melee healer class like DoK/WP and give them a ranged spammable ability that gives them se/rf you basically take the one tactic for fighting them away, kiting. Ive tested this with players many times, an SW vs a DoK, a DoK can simply charge the SW forcing him backwards, the SW can try to dot/snare while walking backwards, the entire time the DoK has to simply hot himself and spam fist of khaine with CoC. With CoC on, fist of khaine can now snare dot for 300 damage from range. Now with my DoK at lvl 21 I can kill any SW level 20 and below with out even trying, from ranged. Cause with CoC on, your going to get snared doted, and im going to get into melee.

 I dont understand why every class must have a spammable ranged ability. I dont understand the new root set up. Most classes that have aoe roots have dots, so they are forced not to use their dots, and anyways, if someone makes it into aoe root range, your going to get snared. It would make more sense to have an aoe 4 second root than an aoe 10 second root that will break 50% on any damage. I mean, every class is going to snare you anyway, so how far are you going to get in 4 seconds. Its not like 18 out of 22 classes have a snare, oh, they do dont they.

I know im probably going to be flamed for this but, I believe the player should have choices. The player should pick what his character is good at and not be proficient in everything. Classes like DoK and WP should get picked apart by a ranged class. Tanks should have a hell of a time getting into melee, because we all know, tanks have perma snare, so once they get on ya, your not getting them off. Ranged class should die in melee, and they do, easily. Otherwise we end up with everyone playing the same classes, bright wizards, tanks, and melee healers...

  It seems that people are grasping to the idea that dying should have strict penalties. Also lumped in there seems to be the idea that if a player ganks another player, than the ganker should suffer some penalty for the action.

       Strict Penalties Relating to Death

  I have never really understood the idea of strict death penalties. I do believe penalties should exist. I just dont understand how strict death penalties will encourage players to PvP. I believe that dropping some money and random inventory items is penalty enough. That is, with a mild res sickness timer to deter, death, regank maneuvers.

        Gankers and Penalties Related to Ganking

  I constantly read, in open world RvR discussions, people saying that the penalties to ganking are never balanced. I just dont understand this concept. Logically, if im an assassin. I sneak up on you in some wilderness, with no one to see but the bear you're trying to stab. I gank you and you die. So, what kind of penalty should I receive?  Personally, i believe, none. Why you ask. I doubt the bear, whom I just saved from death, is going to go to town and be like, hey, im a fucking bear, and I just witnessed a murder.  Is the guy I just killed going to rez and be like, hey town watch, this fucker named t0nyd just killed me. You look alive to me fucker. Shrug...

 In my opinion, your going to have a couple types of open world PvP games.

  1. Faction Based

        This type is much easier to control. Just dont allow any faction on faction fighting. Now you know who your enemies are and if you need help, you know who to ask. Ganking still occurs, but there is no reason to have penalties due to you dying to the opposite faction, its simply part of the game...

   2. Free For All

        Free for all is pretty much a niche crowd type. If items and levels didnt matter much, you might actually see this type get a larger audience. Due to levels and items always mattering to the extreme, FFA will never have a large audience due to massive amounts of noob frustration.

    In the end, i dont believe that you need strict death penalties nor anti gank mechanics. If you give everyone a fighting chance, then no one will feel bad when they die. Its the standard MMORPG mentality of " I spend countless hours grinding so I should be tougher than you and automantically win ", that ruins FFA PvP. Simply put, 3 vs 1, i dont care what your level is, the 1 should have a tough fight on his hands... 

 Lets start off by saying that I believe that I want an open world PvP mmorpg. Atleast, I believe that I want one. Lets take a venture into Shadowbane to see why this open world PvP mmorpg is probably proof why people dont want one.

 I browse around checking classes and templates to see what would fit my play style. I settle on a Minotaur Doomsayer. I like the idea of big hit points, life drains, mana drains, and stun immunity. In a few hours of play I burn through the noob levels. This is a good thing. In a PvP game, where levels matter, and its free for all, you need fast leveling or levels shouldnt matter much. In this game, levels matter a lot. So leveling has to be fast. I hit 30, ventured out into the open world. Ran to my first node, dead with in seconds to a stealthed level 75 archer. Shrug, im back to it. I run to my second node, a different node of course. I kill a couple mobs, dead, to a different stealthed level 75 archer. Hmmm. Back to it, port to a different neutral city. Run to a different noob node. Dead before I even attack a mob, this time is different tho. This time it isnt an archer. Its a stealthed level 75 melee scout. So, i decide fuck this. I am going to find a guild and do it the smart way.

 Before I get into the smart way, lets get into the failure of this first paragraph. Stealth + tracking = bullshit. For the most part, this is a truth. If levels matter a lot. Stealth + always knowing where everyone is = gank fest city. Now in my opinion, stealth is a very powerful tool. A character should take a power hit to gain the ability to control the beginning of every combat situation. This is especially important in shadowbane due to the fact that scouts will have a very high defense. In most situations, a lowbie wont even hit them. Also, the stealth mechanic in this game is to the point where they can simply stealth in melee with you swinging or casting. If you dont dot them, they are gone. Now add in tracking. Im not even going to bother...

 Im in a guild. Im having a decent time of it. I find a nice hole to solo in near our guild town. I hit 32 pretty easily. A guild mate walks up and we decide to party. Next thing I know, we are 40 and heading out to a new area. This is a more dangerous area so im pretty ready. We hit 49 with out any action and port back to train. I train for PvP. Fuck training for PvE. I hit my blind spell pretty hard and my life drains. We head out and a 75 scout jumps us fighting three mobs. Luckily I already have them life taped doted. I hit precised stance to make sure I hit. My blind lands. My life tap dot lands. My drain life spam lands. My hit points never go below 75%. She dies. Im like fuck yea. Three mobs and a level 75. We are feeling pretty good about that. We see a few other lowbies roaming and dieing so we snag them into our group. Everything is decent. I hit 59 and we all log.

 I log in two days later to find our guild disbanded and our city gone. Great, and the guild hunt begins. After another hour of trying to find a node to kill at and dieing constantly to level 75, all scouts, I give up for the day.

 In my opinion, this is the perfect example of why people refuse to play open world PvP mmorpg's. Here are the reasons...

 Bad Game Mechanics

  Stealth in most games is implemented poorly. Stealth classes usually have over the top damage combined with attacking you at the worst moment possible. In my opinion, a stealth class should be more of a tactical, intelligent play class and not simply, boo, your dead, next, type of class.

  Tracking is a gankers dream. Knowing where everyone in the area is from very far away is a potent ability and should be treated as such. Combining this with the stealth mechanic is asking for frustration.

  When level and gear matter to the extreme, lowbies simply can not compete, even with greater numbers. This is frustration.

 The Average Mentality of an MMORPG Player

  It seems that the average mentality of the mmo'er is " I want a guaranteed win ". It seems that a majority of the players in shadowbane would rather roll a scout, with help from a fully functioning guild, max this scout, then kill lowbies all day. I really would like to see the numbers on this game. If I had to guess. I would say that around 60% of all characters online at anytime would be a scout. Leaving 40% for the many, many other classes.

  I guess I just dont understand this mentality. Personally, im looking for a challenging fight. Of course I want to win, but if winning is simple and guaranteed, I wont play that game very long. In a game like shadowbane, levels and gear need to matter less, and intelligent play a lot more. I believe that todays mmorpgs are the antithesis to intelligent play. It seems players want time to be the most important factor involved in deciding a winner. Simply, I played longer, i have better gear and am a higher level because of it, so I should win.

   Hopefully some new MMO will promote intelligent play as its primary focus, because in all honesty, todays mmo's bore me. Now let the flames begin... heh

  Lets start off by defining succeed. I believe that to succeed, you need to break the niche market population threshold. I would guesstimate that threshold being around 250,000 subscribers.

The Advancement Method

   I am not trying to promote a level or skill based system. I believe that either system is viable. Lets start with ability gain. I am tired of the standard, you level, you get this ability, routine. What I would prefer is you level, choose which ability or skill that you want from this list. This way, the player has the final say in what his play style will be even at low levels of play. I am tired of companies forcing a play style on you, then allowing you a choice when you max level.

   I would start by giving the player a large amount of hit points. As you level, you gain hitpoints in small increments and by allocating points to it. This way, how much hit points a player has is his/her choice and not determined by the game and gear that you wear. Every level the player should get a quantity of stat and a quantity of skill points to spend as they see fit. They could spend these skill points to attain new skills or to make existing skill more powerful. This will allow to a player to build a character depending on their own playstyle.

 Killing Players and Mobs

   Advancing through experience gain should not be a ponderously slow event. Killing mobs and players should both be rewarding. The idea is mix player and mob killing to the point that they are viewed the same. I believe a mob should not be a simple, i kill it, im at full health still, kind of ordeal. Every mob should have its own abilities that make it a worth while opponent. When fighting a mob, you should think, is this a mob or is this a player?

  Yes, you will get ganked. You will be attacking a mob and a player will come out of nowhere and gank you. This is an open world PvP game. Thats life. The fight should be interesting if you built your character to deal with situations like this. Fighting an even level opponent and an even level mob should end up in a loss for you, that is, unless you created your character in a way to deal with these situations. If you built your character to be the uber healer with no escape measures, well, thats your choice, deal with it. If you build a character to work effectively in a group, than group.

 PvP based Objectives

   I do not believe a good PvP based game can survive with out good PvE content. I am not saying that there should be 40 man raids. Mobs must interact and behave like that of a player. I believe that at the beginning of a good open RvR world that the player factions should start small. I believe that NPC factions should hold all the PvP goals until taken by a player faction. After taken by the players, then it is up to them to defend that goal. Mobs may be implemented to help guard a goal. Guard mobs should not respawn every 5 secs like in WAR. If the players dont actively defend a goal, they lose the goal. The guild that takes a node would determine how guards are placed to defend that node and they would be subject to the benefits and negatives given for keeping or losing this node.

 Defining a Characters Potential

  As your character progresses through the game, your defining characteristics should not be, your level and your gear. Your defining characteristics should be from the choices that you made when developing your character. Maybe you spent heavy on a hit point based build. Maybe you focused on stats that increase your offensive or healing abilities. Options should be there and they should determine your characters focus. If you want to make a nuke/healer hybrid, by all means, go for it. The point is, the game should not define your character. The point of an mmorpg, is to create a character that you wish to roleplay.

 Equipment

  Equipment should not play a major role in the sense that it does today. Yes, chainmail should be a more effective defense than a robe. Yes this should be a defining choice in how your character plays. No, 50% of your hit points should not come from the items you wear/wield. I can understand incremental gains from equipment, when it relates to statistics. I want options. Games such as WoW use equipment as the focus for play. I believe that in a good open world PvP game, open world PvP should be the focus. Gear should play a part, but not as a primary role.

  I also believe in a well balanced crafting system. I believe that the best gear should come from player crafters. This also allows for mining nodes to be placed and fought for in open world PvP. These nodes wouldnt be only for crafting gear, but also seige equipment.