A proposed PvP Teams ruleset: Modified SZ (long)

Vexenu · #1 08-28-2013, 04:42 PM

Introduction:

This is a big wall of text, be warned. If your immersion levels aren't high then get the fuck out of here while you still can.

All right, you're still here. So let's nerd out for a bit.

All the recent talk about a possible new PvP Teams server has been very interesting. I’ve read through all the threads, and most people seem to be in favor of a ruleset similar to the one that existed on Sullon Zek, although a sizable minority doesn’t have faith in the SZ rules. In this post I will go into detail on why a slightly modified SZ ruleset is the best bet to go with. I do this to hopefully establish some kind of community consensus that can be presented to Rogean/Sirken/nilbog as they consider what to do about a possible PvP Teams server going forward. I base the following ideas on my personal experience playing on SZ back in the day and doing a ton of PvP, my experience playing casually on Blue for the past couple of years, as well as lurking this forum like a motherfucker and getting an idea for the pulse of Red players and their attitudes/experiences with the existing Red server.

To begin with, a quick overview of the SZ rules: there are three hardcoded teams to prevent cross-teaming. Teams based on deity choice (Good, Neutral, Evil). PvP level range was almost entirely unrestricted (a level 60 could kill a level 10, for example, although XP loss only occurred within a 5 level range). No play nice policy, trains, corpse camping, griefing allowed etc…

Although it may strike the uninitiated as strange and even counter-intuitive given the harshness, this is the best PvP ruleset for a number of reasons. Anyone who played on SZ can verify that this ruleset produced the best and most memorable MMO gameplay they ever experienced. Teams allow for a built-in method of providing leveling safety for new players, and promote intense community unlike anything on a Blue server or FFA PvP. It’s very much an “us versus them” dynamic which is impossible to reproduce under any other ruleset, and which results in both the most meaningful PvE and the most intense PvP. Teams have to look out for each other. High level players have to protect lower level zones. Everything is heightened. And meaningful PvP actually occurs with much greater frequency than on an FFA PvP server, because people aren’t worried about earning a PK rep with their enemies, they just kill them. But at the same time, teams provide a safe haven for new and lower level players. It’s the best of both worlds: more PvP and more accessible leveling at the same time.

That being said, SZ did have its weaknesses that subtracted from the enjoyment of the server. Most notable was the dominance of the Evil team and the catastrophic weakness of the Good team. Any effort to replicate SZ must therefore take steps to prevent a similar recurrence of this imbalance. Some changes also must be made given the reality of several other relevant facts: the vastly increased knowledge about the game after 14 years, the smaller population we have to draw from, and the fact that accounts are free and essentially unlimited.

Differences proposed for team balancing:

Evil team is able to FFA PvP within itself. Any evil player over level 10 can attack any other evil player over level 10. Makes RP sense, because since they are evil they don't mind killing each other. This is an easy and elegant solution to address the problem of the Evil team's built-in advantages. This is necessary to weaken the evil team with internal strife and to prevent the evils from having an essentially uncontested a safe haven on Kunark. Powergamers are naturally attracted to the Evil team due to its superior races (Ogre, Troll, Iksar) and PvP classes (SK, Necro). Allowing intra-team PvP among evils will therefore allow for a rift to emerge between PvP powergamers and PvE powergamers. Players who join the evil team primarily to PvP will inevitably begin to prey on fellow evil team members who draw their ire. This infighting will help to weaken the Evil team and prevent its outright dominance.

Good team receives large innate bonuses to their characters, +20 to all stats, including resists. They also receive a permanent +20% XP bonus. The Good team is burdened with such godawful races and starting locations that there is simply no way to get enough people to play them normally. There has to be an incentive. Innate stat and XP bonuses give powergamers a reason to consider the good team, especially for the resist bonuses, which would be significant but not overpowering in both PvP and raiding. The accelerated XP would attract more casual players, who would like the idea of being able to level more quickly on the good team. Even this wouldn't be sufficient to bring the good team to parity most likely, but hopefully it would be enough to prevent them from being a completely blown out non-factor like they were on SZ.

Neutral team receives a similar but smaller bonus, +10 to all stats/resists and a +10% experience bonus. This incentive will encourage more people to roll neutral who do not have a strong opinion on which team to join, and who might otherwise go evil based on chance/spur of the moment decision. Since neutrals have more natural zone control and better racial choices than goods, they don't need as much of a bonus to compete with evils.

Hopefully these modifications (Evil FFA PvP, Good/Newt stat & XP bonuses) would result in more players rolling Good and Newt. Even then, a perfect 33%/33%/33% population split is impossible. But even a population distribution of 20% Good, 30% Neutral and 50% Evil would be workable and better than what SZ had. Even if Evils comprise half the server, they will be weakened by infighting enough to allow the smaller number of Newts and Goods to have more than a fighting chance once they organize. Increasing Good and Neutral team base stats is non-classic, but in the grand scheme of things it's a relatively minor change that is almost entirely behind the scenes, but which could have the very needed impact of swinging more players away from the Evil team.

These modifications should result in a good distribution of players across all three teams. Some more PvE-focused players will go evil to take advantage of the large races, but others will not want to deal with the potential headache of essentially FFA PvP on the evil team. The most hardcore PvPers will go evil exactly for this reason, but if they prey on fellow evils they will basically make themselves pariahs to the entire server and will face the consequences. Overall I would predict a small but persistently annoying level of intra-team PvP within the Evil team, not enough to destroy it but enough to weaken it a bit. The Neutral and Good teams will allow for safer leveling due to no intra-team PvP, which will provide a more natural atmosphere for Blue players to become acclimated to the server. Note that this one simple change to the Evil team also essentially allows for the coexistence of FFA and Team based PvP under the same ruleset. If you want the most hardcore experience, go evil and kill everything in sight. If you want to reap the innate race/class advantages of team evil, be prepared to defend yourself against the chaos of FFA PvP. And if you want a more traditional teams PvP experience with hardcoded allies and enemies, roll neutral or good.

Other needed modifications:

XP would be set at quadruple the normal rate for levels 1-20, and double the normal rate thereafter. A new server MUST get players invested in their characters as quickly as possible. People are not going to stick around if they can't make reasonable progress and get a taste of real PvP with a decently leveled character. Permanent double XP makes the server much more accessible to new players who join down the line as well. Enhanced XP on a PvP server is simply a must at this point.

Characters level 1-9 are not PvP enabled in newbie zones and cities. Prevents shitbags from driving off helpless new players with griefing tactics and uber-twinks down the road.

Add special global chat channels for each team, i.e. /evil, /neut, /good. This will allow teams to quickly and easily communicate amongst themselves, and help to prevent griefing by allowing low level players to summon higher level help. It also will promote feelings of community within each team and facilitate group formation. Basically a team-specific version of global OOC (which should not be on the server).

Put in a Firiona Vie version of the OT hammer. Totally non-classic but completely necessary to balance the teams (OT hammers being massively useful for raid mobilization, it's just more incentive for powergamers to roll Evil). This also goes a long way toward helping to alleviate the problem of team Evil having total domination of Kunark. Make it a semi-annoying faction quest like the sarnak braids, just use drolvargs instead.

Launch the server with Classic only at first. No Kunark. Either follow the original timeline or maybe add Kunark in after 2 months minimum. The world must be smaller at first to make the server feel alive with a smaller population. This also prevents the problem of allowing Evils a huge head start on safe leveling in Kunark. By the time Kunark comes out, Goods and Neutrals will be able to contest most of the continent, and Evils will have to protect their young Iksar from harm.

Remove items that are classic, but which produce un-classic effects with modern knowledge/mastery of the game, i.e. Trak Teeth lifetaps and Soulfire CHs. These have no place in classic EQ PvP.

Allow only characters of the same team on each account, and disallow logging into the server from the same IP with multiple accounts within 30 minutes of each other. Yes there are ways around this, but make it as annoying as possible for people to spy on opposing teams or same-team train. Be very judicious in giving out IP exemptions, and quick to ban abusers.

Cap the speed of leveling shortly after server launch. Something like:

Week 1: Max level 20
Week 2: Max level 30
Week 4: Max level 40
Week 6: Max level 50
Week 8: Earliest consideration of Kunark launch depending on community demand

This means neckbeards can't race ahead of everyone else and dominate the server from the get-go by simply massively outleveling them, as happened with <Ruin> on SZ. This shifts the focus from PvE to PvP, where it belongs on a PvP server. With the 4x XP bonus in place from 1-20, almost everyone should be able to reach level 20 within a week with even modest effort. From there things will open up a little more, but the caps in place should help keep most players in the same general level range, which keeps things fun, and results in battles for PvE zone control rather than just random griefing. Also, imagining a raid-sized force of level 20s descending into Lower Guk during the first week is just hilariously awesome.

Other important considerations:

One of the main things to realize is that the great majority of players on a new PvP teams servers will be BLUE PLAYERS. Many of them will end up quitting because they simply won't enjoy PvP, but a lot of them will end up staying if they start to have positive experiences with the PvP aspect of the game. The best PvP happens with friends and guildmates, so teams encourage this, while FFA PvP is terrible because it totally discourages new players and leaves them feeling helpless and isolated in a hostile environment.
Item loot is terrible because this is an item-driven game, and the possibility of losing items means the vast majority of people will go out of their way to avoid or minimize that risk as much as possible. This means an overall reduction in both the quality and frequency of PvP and an increase in lame tactics like naked casters.
Coin loot is sufficient, as is causing 50% XP loss on death and a corpse run (and a corpse camping if warranted). Beyond that fighting is about nothing more than pride and zone control. That should be sufficient for any truly competitive PvPers. Implement a scoreboard that tracks all kills to encourage this. Possibly have lootable insignias like on SZ with some kind of reward, potions, etc...
The resist system must be as close to classic as possible. 100 MR should resist 99% of roots/snares/blinds etc... 100 FR/CR should be something like 1/4 full resist, 1/4 low partial, 1/4 mid-high partial, 1/4 full dmg, etc... The basic rule of the thumb and most important thing for the resists system is that movement altering spells should basically NEVER land on a non-debuffed player with “good” (100+) magic resist.
Have raid mobs spawn within a 6 hour window with a one hour advance shout. Example, Trakanon is killed, and can respawn anywhere from 72-78 hours later. If he is going to spawn at 75 hours, a global shout announces he will spawn an hour from now at 74 hours. It's basically a one hour advance batphone to everyone on the server. More dedicated guilds will be rewarded by being in a defensive position at zone lines since they can camp the entire 6 hour window, but casual players will be able to move in to attack as the window closes in the final hour. Epic PvP will result. The precise timing could be tinkered with, the main necessity here is serverwide advance shouts for all raid mobs to encourage mass PvP competition for those mobs rather than poopsocking or locking down precise mob spawn times at off-peak hours.

Most important goals of a new server:

Promote parity between Good/Evil/neutral teams as much as possible
Encourage Blue players to stay on server
Prevent dedicated group of neackbeards from dominating server from launch
Eliminate all bugs/cheats/gay shit that plagued launch of Red
Eliminate duping/RMT/account trading/raid drama that plagues Blue

Conclusion:

This server should be started this Fall to capitalize on returning players who left over summer, as well as the fact that MANY players from Blue are currently fed up with the high end scene there. Guaranteed hundreds of them would give a PvP Teams server a try if it promised an escape from the dead-end raid scene on Blue. Launching the server soon would also give people time to gear up before Velious is released. If a new server were released to coincide with Velious, most players would simply remain on Blue, because their geared characters are already there. Blue would then remain overloaded and a new server would have a weak launch. If a new server is ever to succeed, it must be launched soon. And if a PvP Teams server is ever to succeed, it must be launched at this point, when people are frustrated with Blue and ready to start fresh, even if that means accepting some PvP.

Your thoughts:

Let's hear them!