Teams PvP confirmed by Rogean, transcript of convo..

[Danger]

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

100% agree. The challenge with EQ PVP in its current state is that without a PnP it degenerates down to who is willing to stay up the longest and put in the most hours. Ironically, they solved this issue over a decade ago when servers like Vallon Zek came up with their own PnP ruleset that actually made PVP and PVE competitive and available for the masses. What you have seen on EMU servers the past 10 years is a result of the small subset of degenerates, who CAN spend countless hours griefing, all playing on one sandbox of 100-150 dudes.

Conclusion, find a way to implement a player enforced PnP that doesn't get the gm's involved and you'll see a thriving server. Yes there will be retards who don't follow it, but that's what blacklisting is for. Only reason people get away with it on the emu boxes is every person is needed and not replaceable.

What was the Vallon Zek PNP policy?

[White_knight]

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

I would respectfully disagree with that conclusion. The one guild situation doesn't materialize due to a gear gap, even though there is certainly a sizable one in Velious.

The "gear gap" is minimal in Classic, almost to the point of being non-existent, and somewhat present in Kunark but again not incredibly relevant from a PvP perspective. Nonetheless, we experienced a situation where only one guild ruled on top, with occassional PvP action for a week or two here and there.

So why is that? I would propose that it's not because of some "gear gap" but rather because of the fundamental nature of mass pvp in EQ. This is a game that by design makes everything take a long time. It's part of the allure of this game over the modern MMO where everything is a click away, gear becomes irrelevant with the next cookie cutter content tier, etc., etc. On the other hand, because everything takes a long time, people want to maximize the use of that time to achieve their goals with the least difficulty possible. This typically involves funnelling into one large zerg guild who can defeat everything with ease.

Mass PvP usually involves hours of buffing, staring at zone lines, and training. Even when one side "wins" this combat, it then devolves into people doing everything possible to delay the winning sides ability to enjoy the raid mob they just fought for. In classic, we saw Nihilum literally stay up till 4am in the morning to prevent Holocaust from engaging Nagafen. We saw this again in Velious. Most normal human beings do not have an interest in this nor patience for it. It's just not enjoyable for almost anyone involved to stare at a wall as monks go at it with one another and try to lock down a zone, particularly in classic where it's incredibly easy to get past a raid force guarding a zone and fuck with your raid. At that point, the "losing side" stops logging in, or, the "winning side" stops logging in and now the losers become the winners as we saw in Velious [with everyone just guild hopping to the new "winners" team].

The fabled "mass pvp" is usually just a 10 hour blue balls fest followed by about 3 minutes of action. It's just not something that is sustainable in it's current form. They tried to create the PnP and what not, but it was never really enforced, had contradictory rulings [what is a "raid force" for contesting], and never caught on. This will only continue to happen on future boxes unless all sides involved make their own agreement [unlikely], or a real PnP is created and enforced that encourages guild vs. guild PvP, but in a way that allows the winners to then engage the mob and for everyone to go to sleep before 3am and fight another day.

My 2 cents.

This is exactly why I say you have to make a PvP server more casual orientated for it to be successful.

EQ PvP dynamics dictate that no-lifers "win" by default. If systems could be put in place to enhance the desirability for more people to play, whilst facilitating PvPing then a server could be more successful.

Allowing a server's entire raid content be dominated by 1 guild, usually with 15-20 no-lifers at helm, is one of the reasons what keeps these servers low pop.

A normal person doesn't have 15 hrs to play EQ in a day because 5 people decide to spend their Monday training a raid.

Also I don't agree with LNS, that system is shat.

[Gustoo]

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

A normal person doesn't have 15 hrs to play EQ in a day because 5 people decide to spend their Monday training a raid.

There is no way to make EQ a game that doesn't favor the people with 15 hours a day to play. That is how the entire game was designed and anything that anyone does to try to change that will fall flat. Other games do not require maximum hours dedication, everquest does, for maximum victory.

The 2 teams with Sullon full level range PVP gives the most amount of people a chance at having a good time, besides regular red 4 lvl item loot rules.

A winning team will always develop and the losers will always come to forums to complain.

People are always going to want a fresh start after a while. For me, I don't really care about a fresh start EVER but I want population, I want people to come to the server to play casually or however they enjoy playing. Red now is actually 99% dead which means we need to start over.

[Danger]

instancing has been gutted from the p99 infrastructure.

teams is your best bet to prevent a unipolar server.

numbers, coordination, and strategy can outweigh gear, especially during classic. Tune on Drybone and a couple BIS apex went up against like 20 Heretic recently and it didn't go well for the gear advantage.

We've only had one P99 pvp server, and the population drop around the 2 month time frame was due to staff banning the 2nd high end competing guild. That soured a lot of people and shifted the power balance dramatically and in a way the server never really recovered from.

[derpcake2]

The problem red has involves two parts.

One issue is that people will outgear others so much in Velious, that PVP turns very one-sided. This was the nail in the r99 communities coffin.

Regular wipes would solve this, but they will lower the amount of effort people are willing to put into their characters.

I think 6 months of classic, 3 months of kunark, 4 months of velious and wipe would be ideal. I don't see the point of transferring characters to blue, if you want to play on blue, just level there, not as if that is challenging.

[White_knight]

Another issue is that lots of people dont play red for the PvP, they play it for the easy pixels -- they won't play a new PvP server or a seasonal server.

The key also is to cater for the casuals, not the no-lifers. No-lifers ruin servers, esp. PvP servers where they can 'feel' some dominance by flexing to make up for their inherent lack of IRLife.

[Gustoo]

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

Another issue is that lots of people dont play red for the PvP, they play it for the easy pixels -- they won't play a new PvP server or a seasonal server.

The key also is to cater for the casuals, not the no-lifers. No-lifers ruin servers, esp. PvP servers where they can 'feel' some dominance by flexing to make up for their inherent lack of IRLife.

All EQ is for no lifers. If you have a life you can play casually and enoy the game, no problem. All MMO is designed for time sync. EQ Easy mode isn't going to help. No lifers will still lock down the pixels for their pixel hoard. Don't worry about them.

[derpcake2]

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

All EQ is for no lifers. If you have a life you can play casually and enoy the game, no problem. All MMO is designed for time sync. EQ Easy mode isn't going to help. No lifers will still lock down the pixels for their pixel hoard. Don't worry about them.

on eqlive all the rules made for casuals just got exploited by neckbeards

pretty sure they still haven't fixed the bug where people can drop an instance when the raid mob is at 1% and avoid the lockout

just rotate 3 alts and chain farm the instance

[White_knight]

So in effect:

You need to make a server with faster respawns, and reduced raid requirements, i.e 7 day dragons are every 3 days with variance. ToV should be tuned to require half the amount of people. Also, VP and ToV should be instance zones. However the catch is dragons drop less lewt, i.e 1 item each so not as to mudflat the server with gear.

There should be a 1-50 list of zones that do not have PvP.

So in effect you offer faster PvE (both in leveling and gearing) and 'safe' leveling areas to casuals, remove the no-lifers claim to griefing, in addition make each server have a 12-18 month life span before rolling into blue.
This way people can spend 12-18 months playing on a hybrid casual-PvP server then swap out to playing on blue.

No PvP server will last if it's setup for the no-lifers.

[Danger]

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

You need to make a server with faster respawns, and reduced raid requirements, i.e 7 day dragons are every 3 days with variance. ToV should be tuned to require half the amount of people. Also, VP and ToV should be instance zones. However the catch is dragons drop less lewt, i.e 1 item each so not as to mudflat the server with gear.

There should be a 1-50 list of zones that do not have PvP.

So in effect you offer faster PvE (both in leveling and gearing) and 'safe' leveling areas to casuals, remove the no-lifers claim to griefing, in addition make each server have a 12-18 month life span before rolling into blue.
This way people can spend 12-18 months playing on a hybrid casual-PvP server then swap out to playing on blue.

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