A disappointment game after game. Why couldn't they add Real Competition to PVP in MMO's? Is it really hard to create a Tournament like Brackets for PVP with Weekly Tournaments that leads to a massive Monthly Cross Server match of all winners. ( Bracket like Tournament is where you have 8 players , 1 v 1 which ends with 4 players and then 1 v 1 becomes 2 players, and then you have the winner ) And in a MMO you can also have pre tournament tests that qualifies you for the tournament so you don't get thousands of players. So everyone is on the top of their game.

You can even set it up so its always the same classes that battles each other for the best DPS player of the server , or a combinations of one tank and one healer vs one tank and a healer,  so class balances aren't a issue.

You can even have a wack a mole style, where instead of just killing each other, you also have mobs, and those that kills the most in the slotted time wins so you can decide to kill each other or focus on the mobs.

Or a red circle of death avoidance skill tournament, that who ever got the least damage wins and you get to attack each other as well so all damage received is recorded.

Or a healer vs healer, on who can keep their NPC alive the longest.

It doesn't have to always be zerg feasts, or who have the largest number of players, or who is most geared.

A tournament like brackets for PVP will promote more PVP, will make PVPers known to their servers and others, will make PVP a viable end game for all players. And there won't be a huge cry for nerf this and nerf that because you are always against your same class.

And then each month if the Developers likes, they can create different versions or wack a mole, new maps to do them in, and new obstacles in the same map so no one can get used to it. Easier fix than what every company out there is doing. Which is class balance, tier gear and more endless grind that ends once you get all your max gear.

( they can have max level tournament and lower level tournaments so its always available to all players )

I am not against team PVP, because you can also have Team PVP in a Tournament.

All sports have it so whats the big problem in following in its footsteps.

Most of the time developers do not focus about a hardcore group of gamers these days. It might will come in the near (?) future again, but I dont see any game around or atempt from any kind of developer to bring such a hope you described.

Btw I also would like to see this kind of matchmaking. The point is, that we can only expect this in a larger position from bigger companies like Blizzard for example. In WoW they had a strong competitive scene going on, with the arena tournaments. Sadly the interest and the overall feedback wasn't that big.

And that's the point. First, the whole system wasn't that innovative - personally I and I think many other people aswell - aren't that much attracted of a simple Armor + Weapon grind anymore. They have to offer us much more than a simply candybar in form of such subjective things.

I think the whole situation is very mundane at the moment: The companies try to make themselves a name, good or bad - the bigger ones lose the hardcore groups, the gamers that once loved to play in a niche and hated to play along with the general crowd (casual gamers) and now struggle to get especially this group back into the game.

The intelligent gamers do exactly know what they want and this cow-milking system from WoW nowadays only works with "new" gamers, that are not involved into gaming for more than maybe 1 year and are not able to look behind the scenery yet.

I'm confident that especially Blizzard will get us hardcore PvPers a niche again to play around.

But then please aswell for people like myself, who call themselves hardcore BUT SOLO pvpers.

Cheers.

Very interesting ideas....

But like the other poster said, many developers (and publishers) push for a "Big Tent" approach to MMO gaming, where they try to accomodate ALL MMO play styles...but usually end up fully satisfying none.  Why?  Subscriptions.

The new casual MMO audience demands polish, rapid content development, and features.  ALL things costing LOTS of money.  Game publishers will not drop LOTS of money on a game that can't reasonably gaurentee a certian return on investment.  Getting a return on a substantial investment, in this highly competitive gaming market, with a game that appeals to only a niche crowd of gamers is RISKY.

The "BIG Tent" approach also causes some development problems in creating balanced game play in PvE & PvP.  It's the age old balance problem.  How do you allow players to down a Boss that has 1 billion HP, but not completely blow another player that only has 100,000 HP out the water?  How do you allow for 6-8 different classes, with different abilities & roles, and at the same time not show preferential treatment to one class or the other in PvP scenarios.

With all that said...I'm not a huge fan of scripted PvP scenarios that you have to offer tangible rewards for (it draws in people not genuinely interested in PvP), but I like your ideas of expanding scenario PvP outside of group vs group combat.

Rather than trying to sell the idea of structured PvP to MMOs, why don't you try selling the idea of MMOs to people like me who like structured PvP?

Explain to me why I'd want my PvP experience to take place in a world where other things matter, where the PvP is just a "monthly cross server tournament" and not something that you do all the time every second that you're playing the game. And for that matter, why would I want to start with a handicap (lower level, worse equipment) based on how much time I spent doing stuff that wasn't PvP?

By and large, people who want to play against other players in matches (as opposed to indefinite world PvP) are looking for fairness and a pool of people to play against at any time. Putting this style of play into an MMO means taking away fairness and forcing you to spend a little time playing against other players and a lot of time doing PvE.

Break it down for me. Compare it to Modern Warfare or DotA 2 or Marvel vs Capcom. What possible advantage is gained by tacking a world onto my PvP?

Originally posted by 4bsolute

The intelligent gamers do exactly know what they want and this cow-milking system from WoW nowadays only works with "new" gamers, that are not involved into gaming for more than maybe 1 year and are not able to look behind the scenery yet.

Um... huh.

You realize that if this were true, the vast majority of WoW accounts would be no more than one year old. WoW is the size that it is today because so many people continued to play it for years upon years, or cancelled their account only to return later for a new expansion or new feature. I don't play, but I would put some big money on the fact that people with accounts less than a year old are fairly scarce on any given server. And that's just talking about people who have not been playing WoW for a year, let alone the even tinier subset of people who have not been "involved in gaming" for a year yet.

Also, you're implying that there is an inverse correlation between intelligence and newness to the genre. Put more plainly, you're saying that no intelligent gamers are new to gaming, and no new gamers are intelligent gamers. At the same time, you're claiming that new gamers (or stupid gamers, take your pick) are the only people who themepark grinding. That is inane. Stop it.