Combat is a staple of nearly every online game, and Landmark finally has its Combat 1.0 in the form of PVP on flagged claims.
The game’s latest update actually adds quite a bit more to the game, including new Kerran-themed items, as well as an increase to attached claims. By far, however, combat in the form of Player versus Player (PVP) claims is a pretty interesting development that deserves some talking time.
Let’s discuss how this plays out, shall we?
A Game Table and a Weapon
Landmark treats these PVP skirmishes like a game, so to start off, a claim actually has to have a crafted item set in it to enable PVP. Called a game table, the item determines what kind of PVP can happen on the claim it’s on, whether it’s a team deathmatch, free-for-all deathmatch or zone control PVP type.
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You’ll also need to craft a weapon, which is essentially free at the moment, requiring no components to craft it on a forge. You can currently choose between a conjurer’s staff, a bow and arrow set, and a sword. Sorry folks, no shields yet, it seems.
You’ll need these weapons when you join in on a PVP claim’s action, since your other tools, as legendary as they may be, cannot be used as implements of smacking-upside-the-head.
Setting up your claim
As of this writing, you should now be able to fiddle around with a number of different settings related to the matches, such as how long the matches are, what you need to score to win a round, and the number of rounds in a match, among others.
The other thing you’ll want to do is to build your claim according to your own devious plans. Do you want a fair fight or make it hell for one side to win (please choose the former)? Do you want to replicate your favorite template and see how it feels as a deathmatch dungeon? You can, apparently, do that.
Aside from the basics, you can also apparently craft and throw on some hazards onto your claim. These include land mines, flingers (stuff that throw you in a certain direction), and moving platforms
You just need to make sure some of the important items pertaining to PVP, namely control points and the like, are available on the zone else your game won’t work properly. Of course, the game requires you to put them in, but in case you’re wondering why a PVP match isn’t starting, you may be forgetting that one little thing you need to place.
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Preparing for Play
Once you’ve prepared everything and it’s all in place, you’ll want to edit your claim to mention what kind of game type and setup it has (kind of like describing your server and game type on an shooter game), and then you can enable game to launch your claim as a PVP zone.
People can basically join a queue to be added onto your claim’s list of combatants. PVP-enabled claims also have the added benefit of being noticeable with a crossed-swords setup on the overworld map, so you can easily find the action you’re craving for.
Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting
It’s not really kung-fu, but when you’ve got a weapon equiipped, your visual orientation changes slightly to a more action-friendly mode with a white combat reticule that turns red when enemies are there.
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You’ll have three bars to take note of: an armor bar, a health bar, and an energy bar. Energy lets you do stuff, while armor mitigates damage. Run out of armor and your health will take a hit. Run out of health, and you’re dead for a few seconds while the system prepares to bring you back from the clutches of death using the respawn settings set up by the claim owner.
Repercussions
All in all, the update should entice a different set of player to want to try his hand at building. Instead of buildings, however, this sort of player may prefer to create and furnish his own battle arena in pursuit of conquest.
All in all, it’s a good start, and I’m eager to see how fans of the game and people who’ve had a mild interest in seeing more game systems in Landmark, myself also included in the latter, have to say about this development.
If you’re interested in knowing more, there’s a great post on the forums that outlines what’s needed in more detail, and it’s where the pictures for this post are from. What do you guys think?
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