I fall into what seems to be an unusual category of PvP gamer.  I'm not someone who is obsessed with being the "best" or one of those "leet" people who feels the need to lord their character over others as some sort of uber-geek status symbol.  I enjoy both cooperative and competitive play, but there don't really seem to be any games where I can actually enjoy myself consistantly.  I've played a multitude of MMOs, some for years, some for shorter periods of time.  But what I see is mostly small-scale PvP or unbalanced mechanics.  Here are some of my impressions on the major games I've experienced so far:

Word of Warcraft - This was not my first MMO by any means (not counting MUDs, my first was EQ), but it seems to be the most liable benchmark for most players today.  When it came to the "PvP servers" this was nothing more than a pointless gank-fest with characters who lorded a lofty 20+ level advantage seeking out the weaker characters to make their gaming life as difficult as possible.  Rarely was there any actualy battling between players of similar level range.  But then there are battlegrounds.   Most of these were smaller groups fighting over control points (ala king of the hill in Halo), or playing capture the flag.  They are instanced battles, reset after a rather short match, and don't affect the actual game world in any significant way.  Luckily here players are matched up with those of similar level though.  But, no seiges, nothing really large-scale.

Guild Wars - Many people seem to enjoy the PvP in this game, but it's all small-scale combat.  Battles of no more than 12v12 is still minor.  There is SOME territory control competition, but no major battles or seiges.  The good thing is that you can jump into the PvP from the start in this game if you so choose (though at a seemingly great disadvantage against those who leveled their characters).  And though there is faction-based competition, everyone being human and lack of character variations is a little disheartening.

Dark Age of Camelot - In my opinion, this game is dying/dead.  It's so full of veteran players you have a hard time getting together with people to level your character.  There are many guilds who will help and power-level you though, so if you're up for that it might be worth it.  At the early stages you get to experience a similar situation to the battlegrounds of WoW, but later you can get into Realm vs. Realm combat.  Unfortunately in this example, I didn't reach the high-end game and was unable to experience the RvR combat.  I just didn't have the patience to either sit around and wait for a group or sit around and be power-levelled.

Planetside - Player base shrinking so fast, and there is a big difference between the abilities of veteran players and anyone who is new.   You might as well be wearing paper armor and shooting rubber bands while you hope to gain experience and rank-up your character.  The larger scale and base-controlling aspects were enticing though.

Lineage 2 - See "gankfest" of WoW PvP servers, then multiply by factor of infinate immaturity.  The PvP in this game was as mindless as it is unimportant.

EQ2 - Yet another PvP afterthought of a game where PvE is the ruling factor.  Add in your typical "ganking" motif and let the frustration begin.  Why even PvP in this game?: to show off your uber-tool...

EVE Online - Flying ships around with auto pilot and auto shot might be interesting for some, but it certainly doesn't take any skill.  I'm not saying that some of the battles don't require a certain level of strategy, just not skill.  And you might as well swear off PvP for a few months while you wait for your character to earn enough ISK and skills (acquired in real time) to be competitive.  3 months of time might get you a start...

And yes, there are titles I'm neglecting out there.  You've got the dead horse that is Shadowbane.  EQ has some PvP servers.  And some other games that most people don't care about and have many other issues to worry about besides PvP combat.  I was pretty hopeful for the PvMP in Lord of the Rings Online, but it has turned out to be a work in progress yet.  Many players are afraid to take their level 50's out there, and the balance of the play seems yet to be an issue.  Maybe they'll make it better in the future and we will see non-stop PvP action, but for now there isn't really a game that caters to that cooperative and competitive need.  It all seems to be too small-scale or unbalanced (or the game as a whole isn't worth the disc it's burnt on)...

Its simple... most people blame the class when in reality they were just beaten by a better player or they just sux at PvP.

You can balance classes by ajusting skills/talents as much as you like but the player behind the class is a big factor that can never be balanced.

Class balance doesn't usually break things in my opinion.  Sure, those bloody paladins and their "bubble" were irritating as hell, but they could be killed none the less (yay for Warlocks)...  My concern is when one side is consistantly the winner over another, regardless of the different players on that side.  In order for the combat to be worthwhile, each side should at least have the POSSIBILITY of winning.  Some classes are better at beating others, and that's not really a problem.  But if you AND others like you lose every time you enter a PvP battle, there is something wrong there...

My experiences are about 33% similar, 67% totally opposite.  Perhaps it's just a matter of perspective, but I think you're being unfair on 4 of the best PvP games at least.

WoW -  you claim that same-level PvP was rare and being ganked by someone 20 levels higher than you was common.  This was not my experience.   Horde and Ally share the same contested experience zones, they need to do the same quests (or at least quests in the same areas), how do you think people level up?  High level characters have plenty to keep themselves occupied now, especially with TBC.  Common sense, as well as experience disproves what you say - high level ganking sometimes happens, but it happened to me like 3 times from 1 to 60 in WoW, on a PvP server and that's not an exaggeration.

Guildwars - Guildwars isn't an MMO, it's a single player RPG with multiplayer instances.  Even the developers state it's not an MMO, it's a CORPG or whatever.  It's online, it's an RPG and it has a lot of players, but then so does Neverwinter Nights, which also isn't an MMO - but has PvP.

DAoC - It's an old game, so yeah many Veterans are what you'd expect to find.  A lot of old DaoC fans are holding out for WAR, but a lot of hardcore fans insist this is still the best PvP game ever.

Planetside - There really isn't that big of a difference between noobs and vets here.  Doesn't sound like you've given this game a chance.  It's not an RPG, even though some weapons are unlockable (including the big BFRs), it's still perfectly possible to kill people.  You can easily kill a BR25 with BR6 in the right situation.   Of course, veterans are going to be more experienced - but thats' the same with any game.

Lineage 2 - Haven't played it.

EQ2 - Had great fun levelling up to 70 in a regular group on Nagafen, but that was mostly due to the PvE aspects.  The PvP felt tacked on and none of the classes were designed with PvP in mind, even with the altered-for-PvP abilities it still felt like an afterthought. 

EVE - The PvP here is something you come to appreciate with time.  There's no battleground to join, or arena to fight in.  The PvP aspects are mostly about survival, instead of just smacking each other.  It's an acquired taste.

Eve PvP is very terratoral and as you can actually attain soverenty of entire regions of eve it can be very competative involving wars between severall alliances one example included over 9000 players against 3000 with allies of 4000 players this war lasted a couple of months. So as you can see the scale can get pretty huge especially when spread over 12 bottleneck star systems. Now as to the combat itself true you can set orbit and autoattack but only noobs do that and such noobs get killed very fast that way. The reason being is unlike the more experienced PvP person the noob is not taking advantage of severall advantages and disadvantages [depending and ship and setup].

Below is alink explaining one of the basic factors you need to take into acount when PvP'ing in eve.

This one is for guns

http://www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g25.asp

This one is for missiles

http://www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g26.asp

Now as you can see just in your movement and your speed there are factors that can both be used to maximise your chan ces of hitting your target and factors that make it harder for you to be hit. Then there are the various modules you can fit such as ECM for example.

Usually, pvp isn't thought out well.  They try to attach it to a game meant for no player skill and pvp can't work like that.  Unfortunately, that seems to be the way all games are going, less player skill, more auto aim and tracking missles.

Planetside was pretty even.  The only problem I had was bullets didn't go very far and there was only 1 hit box.  Those are excusable though, the terrible lag was not.  That is what ruined it for me.  It was pretty easy to kill anyone not in a vehicle.

Originally posted by brihtwulf

I fall into what seems to be an unusual category of PvP gamer.  I'm not someone who is obsessed with being the "best" or one of those "leet" people who feels the need to lord their character over others as some sort of uber-geek status symbol.  I enjoy both cooperative and competitive play, but there don't really seem to be any games where I can actually enjoy myself consistantly.  I've played a multitude of MMOs, some for years, some for shorter periods of time.  But what I see is mostly small-scale PvP or unbalanced mechanics.  Here are some of my impressions on the major games I've experienced so far:

Word of Warcraft - This was not my first MMO by any means (not counting MUDs, my first was EQ), but it seems to be the most liable benchmark for most players today.  When it came to the "PvP servers" this was nothing more than a pointless gank-fest with characters who lorded a lofty 20+ level advantage seeking out the weaker characters to make their gaming life as difficult as possible.  Rarely was there any actualy battling between players of similar level range.  But then there are battlegrounds.   Most of these were smaller groups fighting over control points (ala king of the hill in Halo), or playing capture the flag.  They are instanced battles, reset after a rather short match, and don't affect the actual game world in any significant way.  Luckily here players are matched up with those of similar level though.  But, no seiges, nothing really large-scale.

Guild Wars - Many people seem to enjoy the PvP in this game, but it's all small-scale combat.  Battles of no more than 12v12 is still minor.  There is SOME territory control competition, but no major battles or seiges.  The good thing is that you can jump into the PvP from the start in this game if you so choose (though at a seemingly great disadvantage against those who leveled their characters).  And though there is faction-based competition, everyone being human and lack of character variations is a little disheartening.

Dark Age of Camelot - In my opinion, this game is dying/dead.  It's so full of veteran players you have a hard time getting together with people to level your character.  There are many guilds who will help and power-level you though, so if you're up for that it might be worth it.  At the early stages you get to experience a similar situation to the battlegrounds of WoW, but later you can get into Realm vs. Realm combat.  Unfortunately in this example, I didn't reach the high-end game and was unable to experience the RvR combat.  I just didn't have the patience to either sit around and wait for a group or sit around and be power-levelled.

Planetside - Player base shrinking so fast, and there is a big difference between the abilities of veteran players and anyone who is new.   You might as well be wearing paper armor and shooting rubber bands while you hope to gain experience and rank-up your character.  The larger scale and base-controlling aspects were enticing though.

Lineage 2 - See "gankfest" of WoW PvP servers, then multiply by factor of infinate immaturity.  The PvP in this game was as mindless as it is unimportant.

EQ2 - Yet another PvP afterthought of a game where PvE is the ruling factor.  Add in your typical "ganking" motif and let the frustration begin.  Why even PvP in this game?: to show off your uber-tool...

EVE Online - Flying ships around with auto pilot and auto shot might be interesting for some, but it certainly doesn't take any skill.  I'm not saying that some of the battles don't require a certain level of strategy, just not skill.  And you might as well swear off PvP for a few months while you wait for your character to earn enough ISK and skills (acquired in real time) to be competitive.  3 months of time might get you a start...

And yes, there are titles I'm neglecting out there.  You've got the dead horse that is Shadowbane.  EQ has some PvP servers.  And some other games that most people don't care about and have many other issues to worry about besides PvP combat.  I was pretty hopeful for the PvMP in Lord of the Rings Online, but it has turned out to be a work in progress yet.  Many players are afraid to take their level 50's out there, and the balance of the play seems yet to be an issue.  Maybe they'll make it better in the future and we will see non-stop PvP action, but for now there isn't really a game that caters to that cooperative and competitive need.  It all seems to be too small-scale or unbalanced (or the game as a whole isn't worth the disc it's burnt on)...

Alot of these games where you do state true facts really arent all that bad. Alot of the things you list here are quite exxagerated and even puts WoW in a deeper pit than it really is. You seem to find something to complain about in every game that makes it seem like it ruins it, when in reality most of these games can be fun in PvP.

The PvP in DAOC is very involving, fun and balanced in most aspects. Yes, each realm could have had more numbers than the other, but people found it even more fun when fighting against an opponent who has the advantage. The RvR in DAOC is umatched, who doesnt find it fun to storm a keep and break down the doors? You can find some awsome times in DAOC RvR.

WoW's PvP full of gankers? Heh, well, thats what its like in an FFA zone. You should expect ganking if you go out there, I mean what are players going to do, do a /wave and then wait 10 minutes until youre done farming? lol. And even though high levels did gank lower levels most of them were in the same level range anyway since most of the people in WoW hit 60+.

I cant believe youre rapping on Guild Wars. So what if it has small scale PvP? The PvP is great in that game considering that you pick and choose which skills you bring in with you into combat. Most of the time I had a blast in even the arena matches. And lack of character variation has nothing to do with whether or not the PvP is balanced.

I mean, youre calling alot of the PvP in these games "mindless and unimportant" well with that mindset you could call the whole MMO game mindless and unimportant. The "point" of PvP is to have fun and ENJOY yourself, and test yourself against other people. From the way I see it, you just need to lighten up a bit - at this rate, ANY game with PvP in it will be called "mindless."

Bash it or not WoWs group PVP IE battlegrounds and other grouping PVP is some of the most balanced PVP i ever played. 1v1 solo PVP is another story. WARLOCK OR DIE

Originally posted by Recant

My experiences are about 33% similar, 67% totally opposite.  Perhaps it's just a matter of perspective, but I think you're being unfair on 4 of the best PvP games at least.

WoW -  you claim that same-level PvP was rare and being ganked by someone 20 levels higher than you was common.  This was not my experience.   Horde and Ally share the same contested experience zones, they need to do the same quests (or at least quests in the same areas), how do you think people level up?  High level characters have plenty to keep themselves occupied now, especially with TBC.  Common sense, as well as experience disproves what you say - high level ganking sometimes happens, but it happened to me like 3 times from 1 to 60 in WoW, on a PvP server and that's not an exaggeration.

 

...what?...i assume you play alliance and have never been to hillsbrad, TM will soon become a ghost town because 70 no-life allys raid it on a daily basis and you cant go into the hillsbrad feilds without getting ganked at LEAST one time. other places (e.g. desolace) arent bad for ganking mostly because one of the factions towns has few quests so there arent many 1v1 conflicts. I liked when there were abuncha city raids going on but now (on my server anyway) the last time there was a real pvp raid was 2 months ago and it was the other faction anyway  i do like AV though, but if you arent in the highest 2 lvls allowed into it you just get slaughtered by mobs

Dark age of camelot pvp back in its prime, was perfect in all imaginable ways. Large scale, small scale, fairly balanced.

If pvp games suck now, its caused they failed to do what Daoc did right back in the day =)

back in the day refers to before atlantis xpansion btw to those who played then ;p

Originally posted by cupertino

Its simple... most people blame the class when in reality they were just beaten by a better player or they just sux at PvP.

You can balance classes by ajusting skills/talents as much as you like but the player behind the class is a big factor that can never be balanced.

Indeed this is true. Some will in fact scapegoat the class that happened to dispatch thier character than accept that they are lacking. As such they never acknowledge this to be the case and continue to perform badly.

That said, WoW is a fine example of just how borked class balance can get. A warrior virtually has no chance against a good frost mage. Just check out youtube and the videos of warriors getting destroyed by mages wearing nothing and spamming frostbolt. Of course it was designed to be this way,

why ? you got me.

I don't believe PvP and character progression was really meant to be combined together.  You either have a FPS type of game with little to no character progression that is great for PvP or you have lots of character progression and no PvP.  It's the character progression PvE that makes PvP unbalenced.  I'm not sure why they decided to combine the two together at some point.

You forgot about Shadowbane, the most balanced PVP game to date.  Nothing out on the market today has true PvP in it.

Originally posted by Flyte27

I don't believe PvP and character progression was really meant to be combined together.  You either have a FPS type of game with little to no character progression that is great for PvP or you have lots of character progression and no PvP.  It's the character progression PvE that makes PvP unbalenced.  I'm not sure why they decided to combine the two together at some point.

There are ways round this, but in my opinion, few games have done it successfully.

The easiest solution is the "end game" PvP option, like the LOTRO monster play, where you have to have reached a certain level before you can take part. The down-side to this solution is that for those into PvP, this can turn the game into one big grind just to reach the "end game".

Another possibility would involve setting out the character progression in a different way, so that character skills progress, not their level, and hit points are separate from the skills. This gives an advantage to older characters in that they have more abilities and attack options, but means that with careful use of skills, a lower "level" character can still kill an experienced character. Combined with one sword being little better than any other, this is probably a more realistic and balanced approach for implementing PvP, without totally abandoning character progression.

Possibly combined with that option, another approach is to build in penalties for attacking lower level characters. This could be anything from having the "bully" highlighted as such as a target on their head for other players, to temporary skill loss, or having the character gradually turning into a chicken, vulnerable to the newest of newbies.

 EggFtegg -

  I want to commend you on your thoughts on the matter.

After all the idea that experience = invulnerability to attack is...

           well its a whole tangent; but its laughable.

 skill; not "incredibly high hit points" as the basis of survivability - and representing it so in a game can help reward skill and experience without making it Unsurmountable...

 Whats so fun about being invincible anyway?

Its a good question raised here but to my surprise it looks that not many people actual try to answer why! And instead of going trough all the exsamples , lets agree that most PvP is either unbalanced or small scale! Or Boring !

the simple answer to the question is obvius that small scale PvP is more easy to balance. And big scale is not !

the more complex answer is to look at how much game play there is open ended and how much that is forced to be played in a special way. The less openended the more responsebility game designers have to balance it ! Because if its open ended , then players balance it them self ! Its called politics

i read in my local newspaper an artickel about EVE and there it was compared to the childhood sandbox experience (nobody tells you what to do, you can do every thing you want, no rules, a good place to make friends, the castle you build can be destroyed in a second, and now you have real enemies also!). This is opposed to the rollercoster experience that standard mmos provide like WOW. (only the option to take the ride on the rollercoaster, you don't really make friends with people along for the ride, and while really fun to do it leaves you with an empty feeling after!

Now i have been thinking then about how this exsample could be expanded to PvP. The childhood experience of competions did have the ballgames with rules, bounderies and fixed teams. And then there was the more openended plays of Cowboys vs Indians! And offcause when somebody stepped on your sandcastle!

What is needed for balanced big scale PvP is that players and guilds , get a more free choice ingame about what side to take in conflicts. And what conficts to take. Then it balance it self !

If not then gamedesigners have alot and I mean ALOT work to do to keep a game balanced for PvP.

Look at a game like WAR- developers keep on saying (very excited though)- everybody fights everybody- RvR from the beginning. And it sounds like a Cowboys vs Indian like game,but it properly is just a very big ballgame. And that can be very good, but ballgames do need to be very well balanced to be fun!

I wonder what newbies mean by "unbalanced" do you guys even play FPS games as well? Just other day 3 of us fought against 1 guy in an FPS game (Rainbow 6: Vegas) and lost. I'm so sick and tired of nubs making posts complaining about unbalanced numbers. get some skill. Stop posting and go practice lol. In FPS games alll the freaking time we have matches and the teams are way uneven. Maybe you should start a post askjing for MMO devs to integrate player skill. you know- like Dodge and Aim?

edit- In MMO land even games like City Of Heroes accounted for player skill since player movement is so important. Just sitting still and trading blows will get noobies killed. I've made films were I killed 5 people *SOLO*. Get some player skill seriously speak for yourself I love uneven odds.

Originally posted by Flyte27

I don't believe PvP and character progression was really meant to be combined together.  You either have a FPS type of game with little to no character progression that is great for PvP or you have lots of character progression and no PvP.  It's the character progression PvE that makes PvP unbalenced.  I'm not sure why they decided to combine the two together at some point.

played Guild Wars? How about skill based games where there are no levels? There are leveling systems out there more ideal to both PVE/PVP then what msot games try to make us swallow

Originally posted by vajuras

 

Originally posted by Flyte27

I don't believe PvP and character progression was really meant to be combined together.  You either have a FPS type of game with little to no character progression that is great for PvP or you have lots of character progression and no PvP.  It's the character progression PvE that makes PvP unbalenced.  I'm not sure why they decided to combine the two together at some point.

 

played Guild Wars? How about skill based games where there are no levels? I have your post has no merit play more games

I have played guild wars.  It is pretty balenced though it really doesn't have much character progression IMO.  There are 20 levels I believe and a handful of skills for each class.  The game is also designed primarily for PvP.  It was never really meant to be about character progression like the real MMORPGs out there which are heavily rooted in PvE.

FPS is really for the PvP crowd IMO.  I do believe it is even though if you aren't very good at it then I'm sure you can lose 6 to 1.  They could also be cheating or the person might just have a better PC connection.

At any rate the point was that D&D style games were never about PvP. 

I'm not sure what your post refers to I was talking about Templates / Skill Based systems.

Guild Wars employs a Template system which can be easily translated into future MMOs. Templates (or Unlocks) is also commonly employed in FPS games

Skill based systems, as known to many of us, also lends very well to PVP due to its balanced nature of not altering hit points. A point someone just pointed out above I see. Each skill is leveled independantly.

Lastly, I play FPS games on my xbox 360 so aimbots aren't a worry for us. In FPS games aimbots arent a big deal you can vote them off or boot them. I know on my clan server we'd just boot someone we suspected was a cheater