RvR is the only type that I enjoy.  FFA rule-sets and full loot rule-sets allow for too much greifing.  It makes the game pretty much pointless and appeals to the fringe social outcasts of the gaming populous. 

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Originally posted by Ohaan
This is where I disagree a bit. I think you can have a deep, instance-free, persistent world PvP MMO even with a lot of character building. The key is a steep diminishing-returns curve. It should be relatively quick to get to 90-95 percentile. The extra 5% or so is gravy for the power gamers who want to invest the time.

A good substitute for standard character 'building' is character customization. Appearance and non-combat skills go a long way towards personalizing your experience.

Also, devs seriously have to consider the fun factor. I liked the PvP in UO because damage output was relatively low. Battles lasted a while and you could often safely make a retreat. If you were killed, you could  get back into the action in a few minutes if you stocked up in advance. Original DAoC sucked IMO: you could be mezzed right off the bat, two-shotted, killed, and then it was a 10 minute horse ride to the frontier fort, and then up to 15 minutes to wait for a portal. 25 seconds of action followed by 25 minutes of downtime was just lame.
Small differences in game design can make for big differences in game play.

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Good to know that some Pro FFA w/Looting do want full game worlds with exploration, character building, etc. Taking that into consideration, makes more sense how companies go wrong with the PvP design of their game. They try to make the same game cater to both crowds, so they put the big environment and rich character building, but then throw in FFA PvP at the end. The FFA Looting crowd is upset because they need to spend tons of time building their characters and doing endgame PvE to get the gear to be competitive in PvP. The Consensual PvP crowd is upset because they want to be able to explore the game world and experience other non-PvP parts of the game without being forced into a PvP situation at any given time.

Since I'm in the latter camp, that's why SWG was great for me. I could go Overt and fight people when I wanted, and there were usually other people I could find who were doing the same thing. If I just wanted to go kill MOBs or explore the massive game world without fighting anybody, I could do that too with no worries. The only flaw was as I said, no content for the PvP, so eventually people stopped wanting to participate and you couldn't choose to go Overt and fight because nobody else would go Overt as they had to incentive to do so.

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Originally posted by Inf666

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Originally posted by Tierce
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1) You had two factional sides fighting each other, yet it was possible to be neutral in the game and not be alligned with either side.  You could switch sides if you wanted to put in the time to grind the faction, or go neutral after being on a side.  Topping it off, everybody could communicate with everybody, no lame attempts at breaking through the language scrambler.  If you wanted to talk smack, you could, and if someone talked smack to you, you could do it right back to them without needing to know how to break through the language scrambler. 

It would be a lot better if you had multiple factions. Even better if guilds can chose not to be in a faction at all. In Swg there was not much room for diplomacy, politics, gaining allies etc. This is where FFA + looting really shines. Banding together is necessary in such a chaotic world. and reading about the political scheme of the guilds is great especially when you yourself are involved.
 
2) Everything was Consensual.  You knew when you were attackable, you knew how to become attackable.  Sometimes you took a risk and got a TEF, sometimes nothing happened, sometimes you came across a group of enemies and got killed.  Nobody could really complain about getting ganked because you chose to be attackable.  This also allowed for good competition, as both sides would amass groups and then go at it in a location.  When one side won, you knew you won, and the losers knew they lost. 

I remember a lot of fights where we wanted to attack an enemy base but the enemy already had spies in our midst who could not be not attacked. The spies simply scouted out our forces, told the commanders which players are involved and what their character type is (medic, doc etc...) so that target priorities could be made. I am sorry but the situation was simply ridiculous: moving along in a swamp with 30 people and having 2 non-attackable hostiles in our mids shading us and giving intel via ts back to the enemy. Thats why I hated the consensual stuff in swg. Nothing worse than attacking a base and getting killed in seconds because your healers are getting focus fired from the start.

3) Player built bases.  Putting the bugs with this aside, the destroyable bases were a great objective.  Players had to put in the time to earn the faction to build them, and the other team would work to destroy them.  Faction pets were also a fun thing to buy and destroy in the early game. 

As you said they were rather useless. Combine them with increased boni for production and harvesting in the bases vicinity.

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 Yes, a third faction might have made it more interesting.  Maybe at least had the neutral faction have its own faction type reward system without necessarily committing its members to being PvP attackable.  I have to disagree about the politics though.  There was a lot of politics involved on the Server I played on.  There were alliances amongst the guilds on the same faction.  You were not forced to defend your own faction 100% of the time.  As an Imperial, there were some Imperial player cities that I refused to help defend.  Conversely, there were some rebels that I had respect for and some that I did not.  The type of tactics I used against those I respected greatly differed from the tactics I used on those I vehemently hated.  There was a very deep player community.  People who proved to be smacktards were blacklisted from shops and could not get the good gear to PvP with.  People who proved to be good helpful individuals had all the best crafters on the server volunteering to build them custom equipment and share rare looted items and rare resources. 

With the unattackable spies from within, I think you run into that with every game.  At least in SWG you could communicate to everybody and the added transparency made it much easier to know who was a spy.  Even then, I never felt that the spies changed much in any battle.  Even when they did, it's nothing like the faction traitors you have in other games, especially ones that disallow cross faction communication.  Nothing aggravates me more than the, "I'm so cool cause I'm on the other side's vent getting you killed.  You can't talk to them, but I can."  That crap didn't exist in SWG because everybody could talk to everybody anyways.  There wasn't anything special about relaying information to the enemy because anybody could do it.  Because it wasn't so Taboo, you had fewer people doing it. 
 

Well since I'm not a PvP fan I would say none at all, but if I were to pick a system I would say consenual only since even WoW's system promotes assinine behavior. There should be consequences to this type of activity instead of the game expecting the players themselves to police the griefers.

What I mean by that is if you decide you want to go on a PK spree of low levels then be prepared to be barred from every settlement in the game, guards of all factions attacking you on sight for the game impossed bounty on your head. Not being able to sell or trade items with tradesmen in towns, you would have to go to unsavory locations to base out of where your goods bring less cash and even mundane items cost an arm and a leg.

Games these days don't place consequences on nefarious behavior and some by design seem to promote it to a greater degree. I'm not so naive as to think that games without any PvP are better than those with it, but if a company wants my subscription fees then they had better provide me a product I'm willing to pay to play, and a game that forces me to PvP won't be getting my cash.

OH! and no class should have the capability to stealth to complete invisibility at least not be able to renenter it once its broken for a sneak attack. I just find this to be the refuge of cowardly behavior. I might allow that you can use this type of ability to preform recon work or to move through an area unseen due to superior use of camoflage but it doesn't meet the common sense test to be able to skulk around in the middle of an open area and remain unseen.

LOL, fair enough.  Any game then that is FFA  PvP with just bag looting and no equipped item looting is fine with me.  I don't like gank fests from people out ganking for the sole purpose full corpse looting looking for ultra rare items that took me months to earn.

Originally posted by Czzarre

Trust me, Ive lost more than My fair share.

but I always came back. I didnt run away crying, I stood my ground and got rolled so many times, I lost count. If people lose thier armor, weapons, gold , whatever ..would they be so bold?. If people were to lose with a cost, perhaps they would not engage the enemy as much. In fact, because of this, you may actually find less fights as people only enter fights they think they can win, or cut and run a lot sooner. That, and a lot more people playing stealth/invisibility/cherry picking classes that offer first strike potential and escapability (which are already prevalent).

To me, PvP is putting the best you've got against the best Ive got. I dont like losing items, but I dont feel I need a reward other than my victory. Just my thoughts on it

Torrential

you know what we need a Victory condition here friend I'm sorry but what you describe isn't really PVP. That's senseless PVP without an objective

Guild vs Guild fighting over a resource node would be a good start towards good PVP with firm Victory condition

it doesnt have to be looting but there needs to be LOSS like you cant rez without a teammate or something. Because fighting all night long like immortal gods might be fun for you but I've tired of that years ago.

open - RvR  with semi full looting (No losing of equiped items)

I also like War there system. Where PvP get more room every tier, till it is open-PvP at tier 4.

Weirdly enough I am a care bear and don't get involved in PvP but I prefer the game I'm in to have FFA PvP with full looting.  Ok so I'm going to get ganked once in a while and loose stuff I've been putting time and effort into getting but the risk of this happening adds to my enjoyment of the game.

A lot of great info so far. I think this thread sheds a lot of light on the PvP scene for me. All of the ideas you guys have come up with are great. I know somewhere, somehow there has to be a middle ground between PvP and PvE. I don't feel they should be separate games. The community in the game, no matter what your play style, should be able to contribute to one another and enjoy the game. Finding this common ground will not be an easy task. I think all of your comments help to find or design a top notch game for everyone to enjoy. I'm trying to think outside the box.