A proposed PvP Teams ruleset: Modified SZ (long)

[Vandy]

Originally Posted by Pudge [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In terms of variance, no variance. Just stagger the spawns so the mobs aren't popping at the same time every Sunday. Give them timers like 7.2 days instead of exactly 7 days. This way the time the dragon spawns will still be known, but the actual time of day will be different, pushing the mob to another playtime. Give different mobs slightly different timers so they spread themselves out over time, and it won't be just a 3 hour window every week that the mobs are up.

I like this solution over variance. The spawn time would always be X.25 days later so if its killed at 11am then it will spawn at 5pm the next time and then 11 pm the following.

[Dullah]

Originally Posted by Pudge [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In terms of variance, no variance. Just stagger the spawns so the mobs aren't popping at the same time every Sunday. Give them timers like 7.2 days instead of exactly 7 days. This way the time the dragon spawns will still be known, but the actual time of day will be different, pushing the mob to another playtime. Give different mobs slightly different timers so they spread themselves out over time, and it won't be just a 3 hour window every week that the mobs are up.

Makes no sense at all. Variance just complicates the process of contesting mobs, the most important element on a pvp server.

[runlvlzero]

After thinking. Hardcoded locked in place teams based on race and religion are bad. Yeah its great immersion. But not the cure.

SZ came close but it fell short in a lot of ways.

R99 can do better than SZ.

[Rec]

SZ can be improved like anything else. I am still confident SZ like would win any vote though [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Zuranthium]

The original post of the thread is beautiful. Give us exactly that server.

I'd just add in one extra modification - the Good and Neutral teams should be able to collectively vote upon individuals within their team that they want to be able to kill. This server definitely needs to have no rules and no GM interference, aside from fixing bugs and banning hackers/boxers. Let the players handle EVERYTHING on their own. As such, the good and neutral teams need to be able to weed out trolls. If enough people within the team 'report' a certain individual, then that individual should become killable for a period of 24 hours.

[Old_PVP]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The original post of the thread is beautiful. Give us exactly that server.

I'd just add in one extra modification - the Good and Neutral teams should be able to collectively vote upon individuals within their team that they want to be able to kill. This server definitely needs to have no rules and no GM interference, aside from fixing bugs and banning hackers/boxers. Let the players handle EVERYTHING on their own. As such, the good and neutral teams need to be able to weed out trolls. If enough people within the team 'report' a certain individual, then that individual should become killable for a period of 24 hours.

Great idea. This would keep the no lifers that are hell bent on same team training and x-teaming in check.

I also agree this modified SZ type server that the original poster describes is pretty close to perfection.

Make it so GMs!

[Vexenu]

I want to expand on a few points here in response to the ongoing debate about a ruleset.

Item loot: nilbog and a few others seem to like the idea of some sort of item loot. It's inarguable that item loot heightens the PvP experience, but it works out much better in theory than in practice. Ultimately what item loot does is make PvP less frequent and less fun. It encourages ganking and lopsided fights, because it's never smart to risk your gear if you don't have to.

Item loot also ends up contributing to the imbalance of the server by favoring the most hardcore players who can secure a full set of no-drop gear. So those players can essentially PvP risk free, with nothing to lose and everything to gain, while more casual players wearing droppable gear have everything to lose and nothing to gain. And of course, item loot also strongly favors casters, who don't rely on gear at all compared to melees.

Item loot would do more than anything else to kill a new server before it even got off the ground. Even most Red players don't want item loot. Given the love of griefing on Red, that should tell you something. It's just a mechanic that the vast majority of EQ players have no interest in. Item loot is not needed as an incentive to PvP with SZ rules. The incentives to PvP with SZ rules are: pride, zone control, mob competition and simply to survive. The end result is that you get a lot more PvP occurring without item loot in place, and the PvP that does occur is much more fun and meaningful, rather than naked casters and lopsided gank squads rolling people.

PVP level ranges: Level ranges seem like a good idea to prevent griefing, but they take a way an awful lot from the immersion of the server and lead to a lot of problems with out of range healers. Having no level ranges like on Sullon Zek sounds, on paper, like it would result in a ton of griefing, but it doesn't work out like that in practice. Also, if the new server utilized the level caps during the weeks after server launch like I suggested in my first post, that would virtually eliminate the possibility of high levels griefing newb areas during the critical early period of the server's life. As the server matured and the level caps came off, the possibility for high level characters to grief newbie zones would emerge, but by then each team would have a sufficient number of leveled characters to defend its newbies. The team chat channels would assist this as well by making it very easy to summon help.

There's really no need to devise a complicated system for determining which players you can attack based on whether or not they cast a heal and fall into a given level range. Just allow any character over level 10 to be attacked. With accelerated XP in place, most characters will not be under level 20-30 for long, anyway.

No level ranges is what allows for zone control to emerge, which is a huge dynamic on a Teams server. With level ranges in place, higher level players are basically unable to defend their lower level teammates from PKs. And level ranges ultimately do nothing to stop determined griefers, who will simply used supertwinked characters with high level healers supporting them. With no level ranges in place, the high level members of a team have the freedom to simply attack and kill any enemy who harasses that team's leveling zones. This means that in order to truly grief hard, a player must go out of his way with a max-level character, repeatedly and during off-peak hours when help can't be summoned immediately. Which brings me to my next point...

Griefing: There seems to be a small minority of players who want nothing more than to inflict suffering on others and to intentionally make the new server fail. These people most likely have some kind of severe IRL problems that result in them feeling completely powerless and angry toward the world, so they enjoy taking revenge in a virtual world where they can feel powerful. I would recommend removing these people from the box by having GMs take action against their accounts without warning if they repeatedly demonstrate retarded and purposeless griefing behavior like slaughtering and corpse camping newbies, or deliberately abusing team protections to grief their own team, etc... I'm not advocating banning players who do this a few times or every now and then, but only those who literally go out of their way to shit on the server and deliberately abuse the ruleset to try to sabotage it and make people quit. The server and staff simply have no obligation to tolerate this behavior. It would be like a restaurant allowing patrons to come in, trash the place, spray every other diner with bottles of ketchup, then leave without paying. People like this are the reason that Red failed, and there seem to be a handful of people who would deliberately try to make the Teams server fail. There's just no reason to put up with that.

You could even grief the griefers with less punitive measures, like hitting them with an undispellable snare with an hour long duration or a debuff setting all their stats to -100. Basically, just give them a taste of the grief they love to inflict on others. Most of these people just need to have their asses kicked, so to speak, to wake them up and make them realize what shitheads they are. Once they are on the receiving end of some grief, I think most of them will wise up and not make it their life's mission to sabotage the experience of a 14 year old elf simulator. But GM's should not be afraid to step in and regulate on players who repeatedly attempt to shit up the server to compensate for their failures IRL.

[Absynthe2k5]

Originally Posted by Bogart [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Have you guys heard about that new MMO WoW? It's going to have team PvP.

Ya I heard about it and guess what ther is a shitload more pvp in it then here atm...omg.

Could you maybe stop trying to derail progress and say something worthwhile? Guy has a bunch of good ideas.

[Vandy]

Originally Posted by runlvlzero [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

After thinking. Hardcoded locked in place teams based on race and religion are bad. Yeah its great immersion. But not the cure.

SZ came close but it fell short in a lot of ways.

R99 can do better than SZ.

Red99 is stale. You have absolutely no new influx of players. Those that do start there are alone in the wild and are quickly griefed off the server. If you are happy with the current population and pvp level of R99 then continue to play there by all means.

I think that the early days of the server will be the most critical if you can get people to invest time to around level 30 they will most likely stay and play. That is why I support the idea of level limits for an initial period of time before the level limit is removed. This will allow the casual players to actually level up at a similar pace as those people who can play eq 24/7 and don't have other obligations.

[Masq]

One of the most original and thought out suggestions for the new PvP server. While I'd prefer a blue server, this sounds like something I could get behind and give a shot at.