Why PVP should never be a significant factor in character progression in an MMO

f047ys3v3n

With this release of 1.6 several new, incredibly powerful, skills have been added to some existing, very powerful skills deep in the PVP tree. I say deep because for the average player these skills are months of focused PVP play away from attainment. Importantly, and unlike the skills in the Undaunted tree which is earned from endgame PVE these skills are also quite effective, and in PVE as well as PVP. Every AOE bar can benefit from Magica Detonation, and caltrops, every tank should have caltrops and Gaurd, and Vigor is incredibly powerful as the only really good stamina heal in a now stamina world. We should also not ignore the power of the ultimate war horn and barrier which have always been a big part of PVE Trials. In many ways the two PVP lines are probably the most powerful skill lines in the game today. When new skills were added to the PVP lines in 1.6 access to them was credited to PVP players for past experience in a way no undaunted passives were credited to PVE players for past experience. This is seen by many endgame PVE players as a slap in the face. PVP skills are good and back credited, PVE skills are terrible and the new passives, which are weak but nevertheless valuable, were not back credited. That is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the problem with these new PVP skills and the power they confer. To examine further we must examine the inherent differences in the reward structures for PVP and PVE.

The most important difference between PVP and PVE is that in PVP players determine both sides of the reward equation. In PVE a boss may be worth a lot of XP and drop good gear but you cannot make that boss run to you, spell sym, and let you hit him once to kill him. The developers control the difficultly and time to kill that boss. In PVP, on the other hand, you can make the boss do whatever you want because the boss is another player. That other player can be a guild mate on a different account or a cross alliance ally. Cross alliance alliances are so strong between the leading DC and EP guilds that it has long been joked about as the purple alliance.

It has been mentioned countless times by the dev's on the forums that rates of AP and XP in PVP vary wildly between players and that is why they cannot be boosted above the current 1CP and about 20k alliance for about 4 hours while enlightened for the average player. To do so would make those PVP players getting massivly more XP and AP very overpowered indeed even relative to PVE grinding. The reason for this is simple. Those people who gain massive AP often spend a good deal of time gaming the system by controlling both sides of the fight. They do this by having guildies on alternate accounts or allies in other alliances wipe on resources they are defending because, unlike the kill ticks they used to rely on with their oil pot parties, defensive ticks do not get progressively worse the more often you kill the same people.

I should also mention that, in addition to outright gaming the system, serious PVP players have devised other ingenious ways to maximize AP. After nightcapping an enemy buff campaign in an hour or two, a PVP guild will spend all day slowly giving it back. You see, defensive ticks are massive, especially when your alliance has one population bar and the other 3 bars. The procedure for taking advantage of these defensive ticks is let the enemy breach the inner keep. As soon as they are engaged with the guards you zerg out and wipe them as you were really a lot better the whole time but defending the outer wall would have been quick and discouraging. Wiping them will give enough time out of siege to get a defensive tick and to repair the wall as, with no camps, it will take a while for them to get back. Realistically you can only wipe them so long or they will get discouraged and quit so you have to give the map back slowly. 4 defenses or so for each keep given back is a good number. The ironic thing about this strategy is that when executed in Hadderus or Azuras star with average performance you can get more than 300k AP in 4 or so hours whereas the people who appear to be winning to the uneducated user by taking back map will get only 15k or so and will spend far more on siege equipment to do that. Because of the relative populations of AD, EP, and DC, it is quite easy for EP and DC to farm the populous and unorganized AD in this fashion though AD has also had some luck in Chillrend. This is what has happened to the former "buff" campaigns in all three factions. They have been transformed into farming campaigns.

I hope that this window into the functioning of PVP gives you some explanation of the clearly mysterious, to your developers, differences in rates of AP accumulation. I would love to say that I think changes will be made in PVP reward structures with the understanding that whatever is done, success in PVP, because the players control both sides of the fight, will always be easier to achieve by gaming the system than by playing as intended. No important aspect of character power should therefore be based on PVP achievement as it will invariable be rewarded to the worst actors.

pecheckler

I'd wager the majority of ESO players don't spend more than a small fraction of their time in PvP. I know plenty of people who enjoy ESO a great deal, but when it comes to satisfying the PvP desire, they'll play another game. The giant blob of players tug-o-war is just not appealing, nor is the travel time, and certainly not the amount of hours required to be up to par with hardcore PvP players. Most gamers like competitive PvP content where nobody has an advantage. Games where matches start with perfectly even teams. No players who have a thousand hours invested have some super-powerful item, ability, or statistical advantage. This is why shooters, sports games, and especially MobA games are so popular. Advantages are earned through strategy mid-match, and outside influence is limited to player skill and practice only.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

It is a good thing PVE players never use broken skills or messed up mechanics to 'outright game the system'. Only those dirty pvpers would do something so cheap and dishonorable.

In before 'no way!'
In before 'he did it first!'
In before 'other stupid stuff!'

Just to be clear I have always thought having to PvP for pve stuff and pve for pvp stuff is silly. But to come up with a nice hefty post claiming pvpers cheat, and by extension imply that pve players don't, is down right silly.

sirston

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

It is a good thing PVE players never use broken skills or messed up mechanics to 'outright game the system'. Only those dirty pvpers would do something so cheap and dishonorable.

In before 'no way!'
In before 'he did it first!'
In before 'other stupid stuff!'

Just to be clear I have always thought having to PvP for pve stuff and pve for pvp stuff is silly. But to come up with a nice hefty post claiming pvpers cheat, and by extension imply that pve players don't, is down right silly.

says the part of the game where you could grind spider in craglorn and go from vet 1 to v14 in 3 days, Oh did I ruin your moment?

Elijah_Crow

I think having powerful skills in PvP skill lines are a great incentive for players to get more involved with PvP.

Those that PvP must also experience the PvE portions of the game so it's only fair that to have some of the top skills you have to play the whole game. None of these are required by the way. They don't prevent you from playing any of the PvE content.

In my opinion your argument is fundamentally flawed. By extension the more players playing, the less any force can game the system.

If you want Vigor, work for it. It's not a necessity but I personally like long term goals worth achieving.

golfer.dub17_ESO

the only really good stamina heal in a now stamina world

Could rant for ages. It's nowhere near being a stamina world, and you might as well replace "the only good stamina heal" with "the only stamina heal".

The most important difference between PVP and PVE is that in PVP players determine both sides of the reward equation. In PVE a boss may be worth a lot of XP and drop good gear but you cannot make that boss run to you, spell sym, and let you hit him once to kill him. The developers control the difficultly and time to kill that boss. In PVP, on the other hand, you can make the boss do whatever you want because the boss is another player. That other player can be a guild mate on a different account or a cross alliance ally. Cross alliance alliances are so strong between the leading DC and EP guilds that it has long been joked about as the purple alliance.

You're implying that most people who have the PvP skills farmed their friends for them. That's a pretty silly claim to make. I'm not going to deny that some farming takes place, but I doubt it's rampant enough to be a significant problem.

And that's stacking the deck in your favor. I'm sure there's a ton of PvE exploits people use as well.

It has been mentioned countless times by the dev's on the forums that rates of AP and XP in PVP vary wildly between players and that is why they cannot be boosted above the current 1CP and about 20k alliance for about 4 hours while enlightened for the average player. To do so would make those PVP players getting massivly more XP and AP very overpowered indeed even relative to PVE grinding.

Mhmm, and what about super 1337, super-synergized PvE guilds that coordinate and speedrun trials compared to a group of randoms struggling through them?

Actually, wouldn't boosting Alliance Rank XP have the opposite effect? Everyone would max their pvp skill trees in no time, thus everyone would be on equal ground.

pppontus

This post is so wrong I cannot even find somewhere to begin. PVE has been exploited to *** numerous times in this game.

And that way of gaining AP you speak of is *** too. Much better to just go to some campaign where you have nothing and resource farm the pve baddies.

asteldian

Thing is, caltrops at rank 12 was incentive but hard work. Vigor at 24 is not an incentive. Those who got caltrops know how long it took to get that far and would not force themselves to try get to 24.

pppontus

Caltrops is 800k AP, really not that much. If you play a few hours in the evening it takes a week or so.

I feel very punished for having 5 vr14 characters but.. yeah. I think the requirements are fine.

Zhoyzu

Because PvPers have access to trials gear without grinding for them and every other pve thing this game has.

I see your points, but it really just seems like a QQ thread to me. "they have something i want but not enough to go get it myself, please hand it to me"

Masters weapons were gonna be pvp only. Now they drop like candy from a pinata in DSA, whilst the PvPers still actually have to maintain a threshold to receive them.

UrQuan

sirston wrote: »

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

It is a good thing PVE players never use broken skills or messed up mechanics to 'outright game the system'. Only those dirty pvpers would do something so cheap and dishonorable.

In before 'no way!'
In before 'he did it first!'
In before 'other stupid stuff!'

Just to be clear I have always thought having to PvP for pve stuff and pve for pvp stuff is silly. But to come up with a nice hefty post claiming pvpers cheat, and by extension imply that pve players don't, is down right silly.

says the part of the game where you could grind spider in craglorn and go from vet 1 to v14 in 3 days, Oh did I ruin your moment?

You... you just completely missed the point of his post.

Ace_SiN

So an excessively long QQ post from someone that hates PvP and thinks his style of play is superior... I seriously hate this Themepark state of mind that WoW created. PvP and PvE are NOT supposed to have this line that clearly divides the two. It doesn't matter which one you prefer. In sandbox games(and the original MMOs) the lines were blurred and had players going out into the world to experience all sides of content.

Zhoyzu

UrQuan wrote: »

sirston wrote: »

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

It is a good thing PVE players never use broken skills or messed up mechanics to 'outright game the system'. Only those dirty pvpers would do something so cheap and dishonorable.

In before 'no way!'
In before 'he did it first!'
In before 'other stupid stuff!'

Just to be clear I have always thought having to PvP for pve stuff and pve for pvp stuff is silly. But to come up with a nice hefty post claiming pvpers cheat, and by extension imply that pve players don't, is down right silly.

says the part of the game where you could grind spider in craglorn and go from vet 1 to v14 in 3 days, Oh did I ruin your moment?

You... you just completely missed the point of his post.

still relevant when you remove the quoted text as it appears hes agreeing with quoted text and built upon it.

Messy1

I love PvP, although I only PvP in ESO 25% of the time cause I am a huge altoholic.

Sometimes I will come across players and people in my guild who are like: What's PvP? Can you explain Cyrodil to me?

So I take them into Cyrodil and 90% of the time they love the PvP experience and are hooked and become even bigger PvP players than I am.

I don't understand some of the PvP naysayers on this forum. PvP is fun and ESO has a great spin on it and is a good thing for the game.

jeevin

I really wanted to like the pvp in this game but for me it's unbalanced as all hell and the latency is rubbish. I'd play a tactical shooter over this any day of the week to get my pvp thrills. Anyways the pvp population is pathetically small compared to other games out there so really there are only a handful of people in the whole world that give a *** Op.

RedTalon

Sounds like you just want something handed to you to be honest OP. having to take part in every part of the game to gain what you want is rewarding...sure it might take some time, but if they do this with the alliance war skills want all raid gear up for sell for alliance points that would be fair. Or better yet add it to crown shop for convenience along with the alliance skills

coldreactive_ESO

Indeed OP. PVP shouldn't be a progression means in most MMORPGs. PVP is meant to be a test of skills between players, as evidence to the multitude of MOBAs, Shooters, etc. While some MMORPGs may don Open World PVP or require progression, the lore of the MMORPG's story determines how PVP effects progression, not the other way or some other way entirely.

The Elder Scrolls series has always been an exploration, adventure, RPG Game of epic scale. We don't need PVP to be in the way of that enjoyment.

So far, the Lore of ESO doesn't support an alliance war (At least from my standpoint at level 23, VR0.) Our enemy is Molag Bal, not the Throne of Cyrodiil.

UrQuan

Zhoyzu wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

sirston wrote: »

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

It is a good thing PVE players never use broken skills or messed up mechanics to 'outright game the system'. Only those dirty pvpers would do something so cheap and dishonorable.

In before 'no way!'
In before 'he did it first!'
In before 'other stupid stuff!'

Just to be clear I have always thought having to PvP for pve stuff and pve for pvp stuff is silly. But to come up with a nice hefty post claiming pvpers cheat, and by extension imply that pve players don't, is down right silly.

says the part of the game where you could grind spider in craglorn and go from vet 1 to v14 in 3 days, Oh did I ruin your moment?

You... you just completely missed the point of his post.

still relevant when you remove the quoted text as it appears hes agreeing with quoted text and built upon it.

If that's truly what he meant, then he phrased it quite poorly, as that's not how it reads unless you add in words or punctuation that isn't there.

Lionxoft

One question... Why should PvE be a means to PvP progression? That is the bigger obstacle that ESO is facing.

Also, your theories of players gaming the system are just not true and there are systems in place to discourage that behavior such as sharply diminished returns on recently killed players. Another thing you don't understand is that a keep defense yields the same amount of xp regardless of how epic it is. The dee tick XP magnitude does not rise in a way that is similar to it's AP brother. The xp from a defense is somewhere around the amount of killing a VR scamp. About 450ish xp.

How many decent PvP sets can be just straight up bought with gold? All of them.

How many decent PvE sets can be straight up bought with gold? Hardly any of them.

Spangla

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

The most important difference between PVP and PVE is that in PVP players determine both sides of the reward equation. In PVE a boss may be worth a lot of XP and drop good gear but you cannot make that boss run to you, spell sym, and let you hit him once to kill him. The developers control the difficultly and time to kill that boss. In PVP, on the other hand, you can make the boss do whatever you want because the boss is another player. That other player can be a guild mate on a different account or a cross alliance ally. Cross alliance alliances are so strong between the leading DC and EP guilds that it has long been joked about as the purple alliance.

Stopped reading here.

If someone runs to you and lets them kill you multiple times they stopping giving ap.

eliisra

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

The most important difference between PVP and PVE is that in PVP players determine both sides of the reward equation. In PVE a boss may be worth a lot of XP and drop good gear but you cannot make that boss run to you, spell sym, and let you hit him once to kill him. The developers control the difficultly and time to kill that boss.

Not really. Amount of bosses in the past that's been skipped, bugged and outright exploited, it's astonishing. Just take 1.5, like half your daily gold pledges included PvE'ers bugging a boss to avoid mechanics.

There's still boss fights where you can abuse terrain and completely avoid a main mechanic. There's still instances where you can skip bosses and trash, to get the fat loot faster or better scoring. I cant say the same for PvP. How do you bug and skip players for more AP?

Most exploiting in this game comes from PvE land. I can write down at least 20 different bosses, both instance and landscape ones, where exploits where involved. Reason you dont hear about it is because monsters and bosses cant write angry tickets and bug reports when someone *** their ego and man cave.

bertenburnyb16_ESO

oh god I miss the lol button

for pvp players they had to pve to get the undaunted passives (wich are actually pretty good)
and now pve players will have to pvp is they want the alliance war skills (wich are not all NEEDED as u say, detonation has a cast time, guard is not really needed by tanks, it just may be handy with some particular bosses, and vigor is nice yes but healers are always magica based anyways)

secondly purple alliance, what a joke, it changes every night, and how I see it its mostly the green alliance, although now it seems the orange is back in power.... thats it with 3way pvp it shifts depending on the situation, and no, inter alliance agreements are not the way, since even if a couple of guilds from different alliances made an agreement, most of the other players/guilds on that campain would not hold to it anyways

Minack

sirston wrote: »

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

It is a good thing PVE players never use broken skills or messed up mechanics to 'outright game the system'. Only those dirty pvpers would do something so cheap and dishonorable.

In before 'no way!'
In before 'he did it first!'
In before 'other stupid stuff!'

Just to be clear I have always thought having to PvP for pve stuff and pve for pvp stuff is silly. But to come up with a nice hefty post claiming pvpers cheat, and by extension imply that pve players don't, is down right silly.

says the part of the game where you could grind spider in craglorn and go from vet 1 to v14 in 3 days, Oh did I ruin your moment?

lol "part of the game"

Elijah_Crow

asteldian wrote: »

Thing is, caltrops at rank 12 was incentive but hard work. Vigor at 24 is not an incentive. Those who got caltrops know how long it took to get that far and would not force themselves to try get to 24.

What, do you feel you're entitled to this?

To be blunt, you are not. It's not necessary and it's okay to have rewards for players who want to spend their time differently than you.

UrQuan

Spangla wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

The most important difference between PVP and PVE is that in PVP players determine both sides of the reward equation. In PVE a boss may be worth a lot of XP and drop good gear but you cannot make that boss run to you, spell sym, and let you hit him once to kill him. The developers control the difficultly and time to kill that boss. In PVP, on the other hand, you can make the boss do whatever you want because the boss is another player. That other player can be a guild mate on a different account or a cross alliance ally. Cross alliance alliances are so strong between the leading DC and EP guilds that it has long been joked about as the purple alliance.

Stopped reading here.

If someone runs to you and lets them kill you multiple times they stopping giving ap.

Funny thing is, I have run up to people in PVP and let them kill me (not without first attacking them to provoke them, though) intentionally. Not because I wanted to give them AP, just because I was done collecting my skyshards and I just wanted a free teleport

Samadhi

Make all the Alliance War skills only function in Cyrodiil.

Allows the skills to provide incentive and progression for PvP players without impacting PvE gameplay.

Molsondry

In my taugh . you should never be forced to do something you dont want. The fact are these system force pvp players to go pve and pve players to go pvp.

Blizzard tried that with World of warcraft . And they moved away from it because its just a BIG FAIL.

No pve players wanna go do pvp to be competive and hardcore pvp players dont wanna go pve to be optimal either.
Its like that and what so ever argue you have agaisnt it your wrong . a billion dollar company proved it.

Ezareth

Do you realize how mind-numbingly boring Undaunted daily quests are for me? I counting the days until I hit Rank 9 so I can never step foot in PvE land again (until the next PvE necessary addition).

Point is, that's kind of the game. They want players to do both PvE and PvP to a degree and to be the best in either category you have to wander into the other side.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

PvP'ers are finally getting a few tweaks and cookies after PvP was ignored for a whole year!!! And now the complaints start from PvE'ers that they don't get all of our cookies easily after having access to the whole cookie jar for so long?

PvP still has received no new content since launch. No duels. No battlegrounds. No PvP justice system and no imperial city.

There were months were PvP was unplayable due to lag, bugs, or memory leaks. Some rare and expensive PvP endgame gear is still absolutely worthless due to poor design. You want sorcerers curses to blow you up faster? Then get a gold curse eater set piece for being in the top 2% of PvP leaderboards. (in place of the masters weapon you were hoping for). How bout an endgame light armor weapon damage set with training traits? That can be yours too! Undaunted sets have actual code that prevents you from getting crap traits. Not so in PvP.

I also would love to never have to run another undaunted daily and stand in one place DPSing a big evil roaring thing for some fawning NPCs that I could care less about but that's how this game works.

I wouldn't mind them putting more PvE type quests in cyrodiil that ostensibly help the war effort that also help you level alliance war skills with the risk of being attacked by enemy players.

I do PvE every day with the risk of being bored to tears so I feel its a good tradeoff.

f047ys3v3n

My original post contained the thesis that PVP should not be a major source of character progression because the AP gained in PVP can be player controlled on both sides of the fight whereas XP and loot in PVP are not.

I will respond to the two challenges to this thesis I have noted.

The first challenge I note is the argument that progression can also be exploited in PVE. An example of this given by the first to provide and example in this argument was the once quite popular scorpion (it was a scorpion not a spider) grind in northern Craglorn. I will mention some others: the bugging out of the hardest boss in COA by using the door glitch, the bugging out of the top boss in Hel-ra by fighting him in his spawn location, the bugging out of the final boss of BC by fighting from the stairs. All of these examples have one thing in common. They were fixed. I do not make the claim that PVE players do not attempt to gain advantage by exploiting bugs in the system. I believe the saying is "exploit early, exploit often." The claim I am making is that because both sides of a fight in PVP are player controlled that there is no conceivable way to ever fix exploiting in PVP in the way that it is routinely fixed in PVE and that because it's nature is such it should not be a significant way to gain character relative to over players.

The second challenge is simply that controlling both sides of a fight is not an effective way to gain progression. Two arguments are given as to why playing both sides of a fight is not effective.

First, killing the same player repeatedly gives diminished AP. This was a fix put in place long ago to combat the incredibly popular oil pot parties common among PVP guilds who were emperor farming. In truth, the fix had more impact on those not exploiting and should be rolled back. Often people battling over the course of a night encounter the same enemies again and again and now see diminished returns on those kills. Exploiters quickly figured out that AP gained from defensive ticks is independent from the identity of those who attacked and now simply defend a resource again and again from the same attackers.

The second argument is that it is just not efficient to farm AP by controlling both sides of fights. While controlling both sides of a fight is less efficient than simply fighting as intended because one half of people in collusion must be on the loosing side at any given time it is still massively more efficient to collude than to play. It simply takes very little time for the loosing side to spawn at their own keep and run to the resource where the farming takes place in order to die. Actual play, even at it's most efficient is very rarely competitive with this. Actual play is also, in point of fact, usually quite exceptionally low in good opportunities for AP since both sides tend to spend a great deal of time trying to get the other side to attack their keep while not attacking the other sides keep. I am not sure if the poster was simply misinformed about this or expected me to be.

I consider my thesis quite intact after these few challenges. PVP should not be a major source of character progression because the AP gained in PVP can be player controlled on both sides of the fight whereas XP and loot in PVP are not. Zenimax made a poor decision with their new skill placement and gear balance changes for this reason. I believe that in the short run it may boost PVP numbers but that rewarding bad behavior always has the long term effect of decreasing interest in the game.

I will lastly address the various comments about my play style and my opinions about various other play styles.


It is true, as many posters suggest, that I personally loathe PVP in ESO. I rarely find it compelling as relatively balanced fights are a rarity, lag and stability issues frequently render it unplayable, time in fights vs. time riding and looking for fights is often low, and the stated goal of taking enemy keeps to gain control of the map is actually a generally poor strategy for advancement.

It is also true that I do loath some of the leading people in the leading PVP guilds. I was around and connected enough socially to know the details of the early emperor farming and oil pot parties. I was also around for failed the tripot extortion scheme and the continuing fall out from that. I know enough people seriously involved in PVP to know the tricks of the trade when it comes to playing both sides of the alliance war and when it comes to just AP farming the noobs. When I say that many of these changes reward the "worst actors," I am not speaking theoretically. Only some trade guilds have ever approached your level of malfeasance and harm to the ESO community. Comparatively most PVE exploiters really are harmless puppy dogs.


It lastly true that I feel for the plight of the average PVP player as many of my very best friends in game are exactly this. For a long time PVE players got new content whereas PVP players suffered through the same non-functional doors on the same map with fewer and fewer campaigns to chose from. The truth is that, with the exception of the doors (most of the time) this has not changed. Changes have been made to add extrinsic incentives to go to Cyrodiil in the form of having the only full XP mobs for V14 players in dungeons in the entire game there, giving out what are widely considered the best gear sets in PVP bags, and having new, incredibly powerful, skills in the PVP line. These incentives do not actually make PVP any more intrinsically fun though. Class rebalance did, but none of the direct changes to PVP do. To me they appear to be naked attempts at boosting numbers without improving an experience I feel needs dramatic improvement. Cyrodiil would better benefit from something like limited time weekly event campaigns where the alliance to cap would get good gear and thus PVP guilds would be incentivized to compete with each other instead of collude with each other.

Pirhana7_ESO

This is a PVE / PVP game. Stop trying to seperate it. If you want to have the strongest possible character you need to do BOTH. Both PVE and PVP has desired skills which require you to do both to get.

I am mainly a PVP player and will do a little solo PVE here and there. There are skills and passives in teh Undaunted i would like but i do not have because that would require me to leave PVP and spend time in PVE with other people doing something i don't want to do. How is that any different than PVE players needing to do PVP to get certain skills?

This game SHOULD be like DAOC and have much more skills and passive and character advancement achieved through PVP as that what this games theme and endgame was built around. the Alliance war in Cyrodiil where there is actually a purpose for your character be built.