Back in 2001 i loved pvp in shooters. Team fortress classic and command & conquer renegade were some of my favorites. I had a around 10 real life friends that would get together and lan party all the time. But we all thought mmo pvp was for those that sucked at shooter pvp. Today pvp is just not that fun because i'm older and really don't care for all the cheating that goes on. MMO pvper's seem to be the biggest cry babies in gaming. If they lose a fight its always because the other class is OP and needs to be nerfed. All the so called class balancing in mmo's is because of the cry baby pvper's

Koensol wrote: »

andreasranasen wrote: »

From a PvPer, PvP is way too toxic. Don't even bother.

PvE players can be just as toxic, if not worse. In general it just about how competitive people are, and how mature they are in handling that mindset. I've seen plenty examples of people being condescending to others in PvE. Even after someone openly apologizes for not being as skilled, he is being called names and asked to just leave the group. I even see people coming into a normal mode dungeon group, and the first thing they say is "Yes im low CP, please don't kick". That says enough about the mentality of the competitive players in MMO's.

Agree

I think the more discerning division is between competitive and others. The competitive crowd tends to have a higher ratio of players hostile to others not just competitive.

Pvp just by its nature brings in a higher percentage of the competitives and actively drives them to direct interaction with other competitives.

In contrast as a pve solo guy I rarely interact with players.

STEVIL wrote: »

Answering the base question:

When i engage in competitive gaming it is important to me the battle is a fair one, that both players start with the same possibilities OR if anything that a handicapping system be used to empower weaker v stronger play that is fun and challenging for all.

At a minimum - evenstart hopefully with seeding/zoning/tiers. At best, handicapping or seeding to make all competitions fun and challenging for all.

Examples of the latter include GO, pool, bowling.

Examples of the former include chess, poker, scrabble.

ESO does not have this. its expected and accepted that having better gear means you have better chances as a matter of course. That means skill and luck are not necessarily the determining factors.

So its off my list of "competitive gaming" choices.

Not only gear wise, but in term of the bonuses as well! I know the keep and scroll bonuses are there to make people want to do those things, but its part of why 1 alliance almost always dominates a map, and when another alliance gets numbers / skill to overthrow them its a full reversal.

From a fun PvP perspective, the bonuses should be reversed. If you are outnumbered 2:1 on a server you should get bonuses, not have the already winning side get even more bonuses.

Can you imagine how much more fun PvP would be is (as an arbitrary example) the battle spirit debuff was less if your alliance was heavily outnumbered?

Because of this, and the limitations on defense an offence tactics, pvp is mostly about numbers. Yes if you have a group of 3-4 good, co-ordinated players you can do stuff, like capture resources, but in terms on main pvp (keep attack and defence) its about bodies more than skill. I have never seen a group outnumbered 2:1 successfully attack or defend a keep unless they had the emperor with them.

@Castagere

It was a different time. Back then, using and maintaining a computer was a tricky affair. It wasn't for everyone. I felt things were much more polite, back then. I didn't feel like I was surrounded by parasitic sociopaths at every turn. And even in PvP up until the mid '90s? You could find more people who played casually than competitively. In fact, the really competitive people had to stick with MMOs like Ultima Online, back then. That was the point. Their numbers were so small that they had to consolidate in certain games. That was just the way of it.

Since technology has become more easy to use and maintain, however, we've seen a huge increase in competitive and toxic people. Along with more xociopathic attitudes on the Internet. The rise of easy to use technology gave rise to increased sociopathy on the Internet, we saw things like cat pages, fun gaming dedication sites, and shrines give way to horrors like Something Awful. The paradigm shift was clear. Since then, things have only gotten worse. Every time there's a correlative increase between easier to use technology and Internet toxicity. You'd never have had something like League of Legends.

I don't know why this is always the case. It means that as an introvert, I've done nothing but shy from communities whereas I used to be very friendly. These days, I'm more than a little (obviously) bitter at all of the parasitic sociopathy that's rampant on the Internet. Like being antisocial (not asocial, antisocial) is hip and cool, and everyone wants to try it. In so many ways it felt like there was a lot more empathy and ethics on display in the Internet of the mid '90s than there is now.

I think that's why progressive activists (often labelled 'SJWs') have become so loud in recent years, simply to combat this growing tide of parasitic sociopathy. So... Yeah, it was a different time and it's not really a comparison. With the ease of use of technology, it's everyone's game, now. The only thing you can do to create a better community is to discourage, deter, and disincentivise competitive attitudes and behaviour. By adding in end-game grinding and PvP, you're inviting highly competitive players. And when you do that, you're inviting toxicity.

This isn't to say that all PvPers are bad, mind you. I said this in my last post. They're not. You can have casual players who can PvP just for fun, who aren't competitive at all. This exists. I made the point that the nice PvPers aren't the ones who're using duelling to troll people, either. The thing is? Nice PvPers are such an insignificant number, now. Why? The competitiveness and toxicity of PvP these days makes it a scene they want no part of. The hyper-competitive, toxic, and sometimes even sociopathic sorts have claimed PvP as their own. If you dare even add PvP these days, it's going to get nasty. And that's a real problem.

The only solution is to drop PvP. Not saying ESO should do that, of course. ESO was born with PvP and they can hardly take ita way. The point is is that future MMOs need to not even consider end-game grinding and PvP. If you remove the elements that actually foster competition, you remove the toxic people, the overly aggressive sorts, and the sociopaths who enjoy being hyper-competitive. So that's where MMOs need to go in the future.

It's funny, because we're seeing an inverse. The competitive people can't stand even being near one another any more, there's just too many of them. So they spill over into other games, hoping to escape people like them, so that they can prey on others who aren't. Just like they did in the late '00s, before everyone caught on. MMOs as well have shifted away from them, because it's not profitable to make a large scale MMO for them. Their numbers are substantial, but trivial compared to the casual population of the average MMO. MMO developers just realised that instead of catering to the toxic, hyper-competitive people alone, more money could be made from the casuals. That's why we've seen a move away from open world PvP games (like Ultima Online) and raiding games (like WoW) toward mostly casual MMOs where the PvPers/raiders are thrown a meagre bone.

The next logical step is to just remove grinding/PvP altogether. Remove the competitive element, and appeal more to the casual element than before. ESO was good, but they were clinging to the wrong audiences. They were hoping, I guess, that there were people other than these toxic micro-communities (who seem to hate one another) that would play PvP and raid. Except no. The casual audiences just find them too toxic, so the casual audiences ignore PvP/raiding.

I think that back in the day, there were only a handful of these super-toxic micro-communities. Just a few. That's why they could hang around in Ultima Online and tolerate one another just to have a place where they could PvP. As the Internet has become easier to use, though, and it's let more and more toxic, hyper-competitive people in? The hate has grown. Why do ESO PvPers not play League of Legends? They hate those guys. Same with ESO raiders and WoW. These groups are incredibly xenophobic, which is a common factor in hyper-competitive people.

There's just so much hate, loathing, anger, toxicity, and sociopathy. And casuals like myself don't want that. We don't want our stomachs filled with acid, we don't want high blood pressure, we just want to have fun. We play games to have fun. And really, the more we avoid these toxic, hyper-competitive people, the better. That's why duelling felt like such a spit in the eye. Yes, let's cater to toxic, parasitically sociopathic, aggressive, hyper-competitive people to spite the entire demographic of people playing ESO. That's a great idea! I worry ESO is going to kill itself with mismanagement. I can tell that the same people aren't in charge now as when the game launched. It's becoming a bit of a train wreck.

I wonder what my next MMO will be? I love ESO, but it's just following the same pattern as Champions Online and so many others that came before it. Maybe the next MMO will be smarter. And if they drop PvP and end-game raiding, they won't have to ruin the game trying to balance it. People can just have fun and use whatever sort of build they enjoy. And that game, when it happens, will be more popular than any MMO before it.

One last post...

@Lysette

You're a lovely person, and you remind me of the nice players I used to encounter in PvP back in the day before everything went to crap. I wish there were more like you around. If you weren't in the infinitesimal minority, I might actually PvP. Sadly, the Internet of today doesn't have a whole lot of you in it.

I like pvp im just sick and tired of insta-dying without having a chance to defend myself. It sucks all the fun out of it.

@AuldWolf You are preaching to the choir man. I made a post earlier in the thread saying that people too immature to handle their competitive nature are the problem. So yea, I fully agree with you. Still, remember there are always exceptions to the rule.

DigitalShibby wrote: »

attackjet wrote: »

I heard those dungeons were harder than imperial city prison and white gold tower, and now people with less than 300 cp can get beat these dungeon without dying and do the speed run? No.

Simply not true. All veteran dungeons can be completed by players of all CP levels. Skill counts far more than CP, and will take you further.

attackjet wrote: »

Second off, the armor. Why in the world would I step foot into white gold tower when I can just buy the helmet off the vendor?

Last time I checked you couldn't buy a 5pc set, including jewelry, like spell power cure, from a vendor. Some people also like the feeling of earning what they have not buying it.

attackjet wrote: »

This is the most important. why is pve armor and weapons the best for PvP?

To encourage people to do both sets of content, so the game isn't completely allowing you to live your entire ESO existence in Cryo.
This is an MMORPG... not just a pew pew pvp game.



I think pvp is the most boring thing you can do in eso personally but I don't knock those that like it. I see no point in kill, die, rinse, repeat. That's for games like call of duty.

PvE is far more challenging, sure, the majority of dungeons are far too easy especially once you get the mechanics down, but when you play with random guild mates, group finder or brand new players the challenge is helping them learn and complete something for the first time. I do three vet pledges per day, and about 10-15 dungeons per day after that, because I'm helping new guys, getting whispers to help on final bosses, help farm gear sets, help someone try out their brand new alt that's a tank, helping guild members on their first ever run or CoS.. those things are rewarding, fun, social and enjoyable.

The Cryo horse riding simulator where practically everyone copies a YouTuber's latest build isn't that cool to me, but when someone calls for my help after they've spent 2 hours struggling through a dungeon and I get to teach them and be there for their joy when finally finishing it that makes me feel good, so that's what I do.

In PVE the only thing that can happen is you gain or complete what you are trying to do, if you die.. you just don't get what you wanted, thats it, and you can keep trying till you succeed. But there is no risk of losing anything. That is where PVP is different (well for ESO anyways in Cyrodiil) In the big picture the main goal there is to defend what is yours and take from the enemy, so when you die in PVP not only are you not getting what you wanted in the enemies lands, but you are also going to lose yours when they push past you into your lands.Its like there is more purpose in this PVP system than in PVE. Its not pointless fighting, you are there for your alliance and to defend what is your and to take from the enemy. I hope this kind explains the vision difference between PVP and PVE in ESO.

Also its not a horse simulator if you know the map, you can alsways port to a keep and it takes less than 2 minutes, sometimes 1 minute to ride to the next keep where teh fight is. In some cases you can even port right abck to the fight.