How could players be enticed to PvP ?

[popps]

Question to PvPers...
Alright, you are a PvP expert and know it all, all of the good, but also all of the bad of PvP.

What would you say Ultima Online needs in order to have more players be willing to join the PvP ruleset areas ?


Question to non-PvPers...
Alright, you have always hated PvP and have enjoyed the game for its PvM content, but stop for a minuite to think about it............
Is there even a chance that you could be intrigued by PvP and interested in getting into it ?
What would the game need, what changes, new dynamics in order to have YOU interested in joining the PvP part of the game ?

Let's start the discussion and see if any good ideas show up......

 

[Zayin666]

Iam a non PvPer!

The only PvP i ever did was some RP guildwars back in the days before Trammel. Else I have been pked a few times.. especially arround IDOCS in fel
I think that PvP is too item dependant... I cant afford to pay 100s of millions to get the top gear that is needed to really stand out in pvp.

One thing that could bring me futher into pvp is "battlegrounds" (Sorry just comming back from WoW ).
Id like to enter a "safe" area with random or predefined teams and fight till the objective is met.. be that kill all others or CTF or something simular.

Id like to not worry about losing any non insured or blessed gear.. if I want a bag with potions or regs, I dont want to lose it on my first death.

 

[Petra Fyde]

oki, I have tried to pvp. I respect those who enjoy that type of gameplay, however I found I was lacking in 4 key areas.
1. I don't think fast enough - realising what you should have done 10 minutes after you rezed doesn't really cut it.
2. I don't have the dexterity. My fingers are everywhere bar where they need to be on the darn keyboard
3. I panic
4. And most important, I don't have a sufficiently aggressive or competitive nature to enjoy that playstyle. If I don't enjoy it, what's the point in doing it?

So I went back to pvm and crafting. Many of the people I am friendly with in game pvp, I'm content to tame mounts for them, trade with them, craft for them and occasionally die at their hands.

 

[Frarc]

Too often its not Player vs Player but Player vs Army.



When i'm fighting monsters in Champ spawns i'm not realy interested to get killed by other players and they take away all the hard work.





I would not mind some sort of duel arena where 2 people can enter and fight against each other just for fun and show who got the better skills and tactics.Without that the person who wins gains something over it from the other. Some sort of Gladiator Arena. With titles for people who keep winning.

 

[Flinx]

One thing that could bring me futher into pvp is "battlegrounds" (Sorry just comming back from WoW ).
Id like to enter a "safe" area with random or predefined teams and fight till the objective is met.. be that kill all others or CTF or something simular.

Id like to not worry about losing any non insured or blessed gear.. if I want a bag with potions or regs, I dont want to lose it on my first death.

Sign.

Arenas or areas for batlle, not loosing anything, get ressed with everything within seconds, and run not more than 30 sec to be back in the fight.

With this you can lure the non PVPler like me and probably they get the taste and play further on the "normal" PvP.

And promise some small prices for the battle. Special cloth, deco items, everything thats interesting but won´t be a real use in PVM or PVP

 

[popps]

Iam a non PvPer!

The only PvP i ever did was some RP guildwars back in the days before Trammel. Else I have been pked a few times.. especially arround IDOCS in fel
I think that PvP is too item dependant... I cant afford to pay 100s of millions to get the top gear that is needed to really stand out in pvp.

Thank you for your contribution.
Indeed, talking to other non PvPung players I get a feeling that the gap in suits and weapons might be a deterring factor to several who never even get close to PvP thinking they are not fit for it and never will be.

Perhaps this might be an issue that imbuing can help to address and reduce ?
As I see it, it will be either of the 2. Either imbuing will help close the GAP and therefore improve players participation to PvP or actually will make the GAP widen even further and deter even more players who will feel less competitive, from PvPing.

I hope that the Developers will watch the whole imbuing issue very closely and make all needed adjustments.
If this game wants to see more lively PvP, I think the road is to close the GAP between players, not widen it up.

Another issue I felt is considered as a deterrant to PvP is the use of scripts and hacks by some. Some players just feel that PvPing is not worth it when there are players capable of getting the upper hand thanking to third party utilities.

I think the issue is somewhat connected to the previous one. It is in the end still something felt giving others an upper hand. Hence, some players think it not worth their time to bother with PvP since they can never be a match to either those better equipped or using scripts/hacks. Result is the whole game looses, and PvP suffers.

So, personally I think that if PvP is wanted to be lively again in Ultima Online perhaps the key tuning should be bringing as much as possible all PvPing players onto the same level of game play.

 

[popps]

oki, I have tried to pvp. I respect those who enjoy that type of gameplay, however I found I was lacking in 4 key areas.
1. I don't think fast enough - realising what you should have done 10 minutes after you rezed doesn't really cut it.
2. I don't have the dexterity. My fingers are everywhere bar where they need to be on the darn keyboard
3. I panic
4. And most important, I don't have a sufficiently aggressive or competitive nature to enjoy that playstyle. If I don't enjoy it, what's the point in doing it?

So I went back to pvm and crafting. Many of the people I am friendly with in game pvp, I'm content to tame mounts for them, trade with them, craft for them and occasionally die at their hands.

The points you raise are good ones.

I wonder if the wonderfull world of programming could somehow find ways to help with the issues that you raise so that even those players not interested in PvP because of them could instead become more willing to adventure in it.

 

[popps]

Too often its not Player vs Player but Player vs Army.

Yes, ganking is indeed a problem with PvP and it hurts PvPing as it scares away from it many players who could be willing to play it but in the end hate being attacked by too large a party of enemies to handle.

Perhaps programming could bring some help with this to balance fights out ?

Like for example, assign to every player a global rating depending on the skills and suit/weapons being used and when 2 players initiate fighting keep a dynamic balance rating of the fight up and only allow other players to join in if their global fighting rating does not unbalance too much the overall dynamic rating in favour of one side only ?

For example, let's assume that we have 2 players.
Player A and player B.

Player A has a global fighting rating of, say, 30. Player B has a global fighting rating of, say, 50.

Assuming that a 30 rating vs a 50 rating fight is allowed by the dynamic PvP engine, the 2 players will be able to initiate fight against each other.

Then comes a third player, player C who has a global fighting rating of 60 who is willing to take side with player A against player B.

Since the 2 players together will bring their fighting global rating up to 30+60 = 90 against Player B who has a rating of 50, the game engine will not allow player C to join the fight.

Then comes instead player D with a fighting rating of 40 who also want to take side with Player A against player B.

This time the global fighting rating for player A + player D will be 30+40 = 70 against player B who has a fighting rating of 50.

Since the difference is not much the game engine allows player D to take part in the fight and take side with player A against player B.

Sure, it will be some good work to organize it all but once it would be done, programmingwise, it would ensure no risks whatsoever with ganking and allow for more balanced out PvP.

When players see that PvP is more balanced perhaps more will want to deal with it ?

 

[Maplestone]

Is there even a chance that you could be intrigued by PvP and interested in getting into it ?

No.

( I enjoy brainstorming about how to create interesting environments for all playstyles including PvP, but I can't even imagine a scenario under in which I personally would participate in PvP, even on a test center; although I may throw out the occasional random idea, I'm feeling more in a listen mode these days )

 

[Aurelius]

I'm in total agreement with Petra, those are exactly the reasons why I don't get involved in PvP. Didn't enjoy that aspect of pre-Trammel UO at all, so when I got the option to leave it behind, I was gone straight away.

I doubt there's much in terms of programming, or even the old 'risk vs reward' argument, that will change my basic dislike of PvP - for those who love it, go ahead and have a blast, and I hope you enjoy yourselves (and I hope it gets an appropriately balanced treatment in terms of dev time, 'reward items', and being made enjoyable as the non-PvP game - even a total non-PvP gamer like me realises the playstyle has been badly served at times).

It's not 'unwillingness' to try it that stops me being involved, or concerns over hacks, cheats, or lack of the 'right' items - I've tried it, on quite a few occasions, and never enjoyed it. The same 'lack' of competitive drive means I'm also not particularly rich (in-game or RL!), don't have the best PvM kit, have pretty poorly constructed templates for my characters... but I have fun. Other people have their types of fun - that's why the game stays alive.

 

[The Fallout]

I do dabble in PvP from time to time. I usually end up leaving because after getting ganked 3-5 vs me, those 3-5 people trash talk about how I suck and need to go back to tram. So maybe if ganking pvpers stopped telling me I suck because I can't kill 5 people by myself and these same people stop telling me to "go back to tram carebear" I might pvp more.

Let me state I am very competitive, but when the playing fields are clearly unbalanced, and I can quench my competitive thirst in much fairer, more realistic ways (call of duty 4, sports irl ect.) I really don't see the point of UO PVP that revolves around how big of a guild you are in, among speedhacks and such. Then the taunting is so un-earned it is ridiculous. If my cousins scores a shot on me in basketball and he gloats, I don't care. It wasn't like he had some ridiculous advantage. Yet, if he scored on me while I had cement blocks on my feet and he gloated....well that to me is uo pvp.

Also, no I am not bad in UO pvp, it is the ganking, speedhacks, and other such things that annoy me.

 

[Tina Small]

Petra pretty much stole my answer. I PvP somewhat in factions, but outside of factions, I don't have much interest in it. The only reason I enjoy PvP in factions is because it's usually done as part of a team and theoretically there's some sort of point to it (i.e., town control) beyond whatever usually motivates people to PvP.

I'm just not all that competitive. Don't really care if 75% of the shard could clobber my characters if I went to Fel looking for a fight. Don't care if 75% of the shard has better gear, more scrolls, or more gold than I do. It simply doesn't matter to me. As long as I am capable of getting what I need to have to do what I enjoy doing in UO, that's enough for me. Don't know if my laid-back attitude about things comes from reaching middle age and raising kids or if I just don't see much that's logical about trying to compete with an unknown number of strangers, most of whom have years' more experience in the game than I do, to reach some undefined goal. As far as I'm concerned, UO has no final outcome or goal that applies to all players. Goals in UO are as diverse and personal as the people who play UO.

 

[Winker]

oki, I have tried to pvp. I respect those who enjoy that type of gameplay, however I found I was lacking in 4 key areas.
1. I don't think fast enough - realising what you should have done 10 minutes after you rezed doesn't really cut it.
2. I don't have the dexterity. My fingers are everywhere bar where they need to be on the darn keyboard
3. I panic
4. And most important, I don't have a sufficiently aggressive or competitive nature to enjoy that playstyle. If I don't enjoy it, what's the point in doing it?

So I went back to pvm and crafting. Many of the people I am friendly with in game pvp, I'm content to tame mounts for them, trade with them, craft for them and occasionally die at their hands.

1. Speed comes with practice. The more often you die the more often you learn what to do the next time.

2. Set your keyboard up that makes sense and is easy for you, im 42 and still manage to get my fingers round the keyboard at a reasonable pace.

3. At first you do panic, once you have died 50+ times the panic goes away.

4. You don’t have to be aggressive, many PvP'ers are placid people (But not all).

Item are a big thing, PvP'ers tend to have the best bows, suits Jewels...etc But now we have faction items which are easy to obtain and cheep. Ok so we might have better weapons but Imbuing will sort this out.

I would say a big thing that stops a lot of people is the cruelty level. You have to be able to take the Ganking, Res killing, coming into your champ area once the champs is up and either killing and taking your loot or killing you and killing the champ and getting all the scrolls.

But if you can see past the cruelty and start thinking…be my turn next time, you might just make it past the first few weeks and start enjoying it.

You never get whole guilds coming to fell and start PvP’ing, other than trying their hand at champs. But once they get there butt handed back to them a few times tramie guilds tend to stay away.

Ganking is a big problem to the newbie PvP’er! But once they understand that ganking is only used to stop people from getting/running away and its not personal, things become a little easier.

So to answer your question “How could players be enticed to PvP” you got to be willing to help them out to start off with, they need to join a guild that PvP and will support them with suits, weapons Jewels ect. But most of all they need Friendship! That’s what will keep them coming back for more, and enjoying it.

 

[popps]

I do dabble in PvP from time to time. I usually end up leaving because after getting ganked 3-5 vs me, those 3-5 people trash talk about how I suck and need to go back to tram. So maybe if ganking pvpers stopped telling me I suck because I can't kill 5 people by myself and these same people stop telling me to "go back to tram carebear" I might pvp more.

Let me state I am very competitive, but when the playing fields are clearly unbalanced, and I can quench my competitive thirst in much fairer, more realistic ways (call of duty 4, sports irl ect.) I really don't see the point of UO PVP that revolves around how big of a guild you are in, among speedhacks and such. Then the taunting is so un-earned it is ridiculous. If my cousins scores a shot on me in basketball and he gloats, I don't care. It wasn't like he had some ridiculous advantage. Yet, if he scored on me while I had cement blocks on my feet and he gloated....well that to me is uo pvp.

Also, no I am not bad in UO pvp, it is the ganking, speedhacks, and other such things that annoy me.

I hear you and I feel that if we want PvP in Ultima Online become lively again then the Developers need to find creative and ingenuous ways to address the points you raise because I feel that many players are deterred from trying PvP by them.

Anyone has good ideas on how to deal with ganking ?

 

[Saunders]

Petra stole my reasons.
Like her I am well over 40( Winker), and my hands an thought processes are not as fast as theywere.
And really, I don't care about winning by killing. I just don't roll that way. I win by setting my own aims, which nobody else need ever know.

 

[Farsight]

So to answer your question “How could players be enticed to PvP” you got to be willing to help them out to start off with, they need to join a guild that PvP and will support them with suits, weapons Jewels ect. But most of all they need Friendship! That’s what will keep them coming back for more, and enjoying it.

That right there is all the answer the original question needs.

 

[Splup]

Anyone has good ideas on how to deal with ganking ?

I have one... People should get friends instead of playing MMORPG alone.

I'm pretty sure 99 % of PvP:rs agree with me, that the most fun fights are even group fights. 4vs4, 4vs5, 5vs5, 3vs3 etc.

Killing someone 4vs1 isn't fun. But when there's 1 guy doing a spawn and 4 guys raiding it, that's what happens.

I still do spawns alone sometimes, since then I get all the 12 scrolls myself. But I don't do in despice/destard etc. I go to T2A and hope I get it done before anyone notices. But if some guilds comes and kills me 4vs1 I don't pancake about it, I took a risk which I knew very well. Then I gather up friends and go take the spawn back. Sometimes ofc there isnt just enough friends online, but usually there is.

 

[Splup]

1. Speed comes with practice. The more often you die the more often you learn what to do the next time.

2. Set your keyboard up that makes sense and is easy for you, im 42 and still manage to get my fingers round the keyboard at a reasonable pace.

3. At first you do panic, once you have died 50+ times the panic goes away.

4. You don’t have to be aggressive, many PvP'ers are placid people (But not all).

Item are a big thing, PvP'ers tend to have the best bows, suits Jewels...etc But now we have faction items which are easy to obtain and cheep. Ok so we might have better weapons but Imbuing will sort this out.

I would say a big thing that stops a lot of people is the cruelty level. You have to be able to take the Ganking, Res killing, coming into your champ area once the champs is up and either killing and taking your loot or killing you and killing the champ and getting all the scrolls.

But if you can see past the cruelty and start thinking…be my turn next time, you might just make it past the first few weeks and start enjoying it.

You never get whole guilds coming to fell and start PvP’ing, other than trying their hand at champs. But once they get there butt handed back to them a few times tramie guilds tend to stay away.

Ganking is a big problem to the newbie PvP’er! But once they understand that ganking is only used to stop people from getting/running away and its not personal, things become a little easier.

So to answer your question “How could players be enticed to PvP” you got to be willing to help them out to start off with, they need to join a guild that PvP and will support them with suits, weapons Jewels ect. But most of all they need Friendship! That’s what will keep them coming back for more, and enjoying it.

Quoted from truth. Also wanted to bold the most important part

 

[Quantum Ace]

oki, I have tried to pvp. I respect those who enjoy that type of gameplay, however I found I was lacking in 4 key areas.
1. I don't think fast enough - realising what you should have done 10 minutes after you rezed doesn't really cut it.
2. I don't have the dexterity. My fingers are everywhere bar where they need to be on the darn keyboard
3. I panic
4. And most important, I don't have a sufficiently aggressive or competitive nature to enjoy that playstyle. If I don't enjoy it, what's the point in doing it?

So I went back to pvm and crafting. Many of the people I am friendly with in game pvp, I'm content to tame mounts for them, trade with them, craft for them and occasionally die at their hands.

If we leave out number 4 on your list, I have suffered from all of those problems in PvP. The only thing that would help me is an Auto Pilot Button.

<Godly PvP Powers> = Activated

 

[pgcd]

I mostly panic, which is kinda strange since I used to play a lot of Quake 3 Arena - and it doesn't get much more competitive than that. So, I guess that for me the Battlegrounds/Arena idea would work best.
Perhaps, it could be made more interesting if you could bet on the outcome: both players could give what they want to bet to a Referee NPC, and the winner gets the stuff (in the bank, perhaps).

 

[Alezi]

oki, I have tried to pvp. I respect those who enjoy that type of gameplay, however I found I was lacking in 4 key areas.
1. I don't think fast enough - realising what you should have done 10 minutes after you rezed doesn't really cut it.
2. I don't have the dexterity. My fingers are everywhere bar where they need to be on the darn keyboard
3. I panic
4. And most important, I don't have a sufficiently aggressive or competitive nature to enjoy that playstyle. If I don't enjoy it, what's the point in doing it?

So I went back to pvm and crafting. Many of the people I am friendly with in game pvp, I'm content to tame mounts for them, trade with them, craft for them and occasionally die at their hands.

1. Practice
2. Practice
3. Practice
4. Who says you have to kill players? Let your teammates do the killing while you heal them or hit up some champ spawn with blues doing it and protect them if raiders show up.

One of the most annoying PvP cheats currently is speedhack. I've lost countless of kills because the victim has zoomed out of the screen in mere seconds .

Fieldhack (field spells showing up as tiles) is another thing that's pretty annoying especially when defending a champ spawn or Harrower as it helps a lot when placing fields.

There's also lots of trashtalk involved in PvP and I find it quite funny, actually. One guy keeps calling in more and more of his friends and when they finally kill you say 5v1 they start to trashtalk how bad etc. you were, it's hilarious .

All new PvPers should try to join up a guild as guild vs guild or group vs group PvP is much, much more rewarding than 1v1's at Yew gate with a stealth archer getting killing blows.

It's an awesome feeling to finally kill the Harrower after fighting enemies for 4 hours while trying to damage the harrower, kill tentacles, keep the place fielded etc. and after the kill divide the scrolls.

 

[Frey Wavestrider]

Nothing in the current game setup entices me to PVP. It is rarely Player vs Player, definitely not honourable in most cases. I see no thrill in it. Having someone gank you and trash talk is not enjoyable and rarely funny for the person gank'd. (Actually, it is rather pathetic if that is how people need to get they enjoyment) Maybe if a system where only one person can attack you at a time and areas where you could do the battles of equal numbers, maybe I would look at it.

The current punishment for those who are doing the PK'ing by ganking is non existant. Maybe criminals should not get the insurance money or be able to loot. It might slow it down, big might! Being flag a criminal does not deter anyone. IF as alot of PVP'rs state, they are in it for the thrill, then not being able to loot the victims or getting insurance money should not be a problem to them. However, for a majority it is not the thrill and they do it for the gold/loot. Old time players will decry the *risk vs reward* mantra. That is what it is currently a mantra, the only risk is for the people not in pvp, crafters etc who go to gather resources. I do go to fel to train and gather resources and I have done champspawns with my guild, usually being raided and I accept that. However, I still see no reasons to pvp.

 

[Connor_Graham]

Question to PvPers...
Alright, you are a PvP expert and know it all, all of the good, but also all of the bad of PvP.

What would you say Ultima Online needs in order to have more players be willing to join the PvP ruleset areas ?

Survey says!....get rid of the cheating (speedhacking, etc.) and I'd bet the PvP population would nearly double.

Question to non-PvPers...
Alright, you have always hated PvP and have enjoyed the game for its PvM content, but stop for a minuite to think about it............
Is there even a chance that you could be intrigued by PvP and interested in getting into it ?

About the same chance a snowball would have during the middle of the summer in hell.

What would the game need, what changes, new dynamics in order to have YOU interested in joining the PvP part of the game ?

More than would be acceptable for UO and still have it remain a sandbox. UO PvP sucks as far as I'm concerned.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

You are defeated immediately by feeling the need to "Entice" people to .... what ever.

It ends up being anyway you cut it a Con, a Scam, a Come On and will eventually be seen as such and at that point, the moment of truth, it is lost, with the few exceptions of the convert. It may be far better to do the "Build it and they will come" concept than to try to .... entice .... the players.

PvP is only going to work, when the Powers of Nature, the Unseen Gods, what ever you call them, contain their involvement to removing the, Cheats, the Hackers, those that will use every possible external means to gain an advantage of others AND JUST AS IMPORTANTLY to remove those that are determined to PK THE PERSON BEHIND THE SCREEN (no not literally, well maybe based on some articles)

You achieve the above and you will NOT NEED TO SCAM ANYONE TO COME TO PvP, they will come voluntarily by the 100's if not 1,000's. It wont be fast it wont be over night as the perceived Paradigm of the existing PvP system will need to be given the time to be seen as having been changed to something that the player wants to be a part of.

Short of the above Utopia View .....

*Shrug*

You have Arena's in Felluca, do a Friday Night Fight Club event, every Week and get the Local EM involved with the power to eject undesirable people.

I would think Siege Perilous would benefit from this.

I would think TC1 would be a great place to do this ... Cross Shard as there is no real loss to anyone, and ample resources/ability to build your character.

Pssst: This Friday Night Fight Club might even have volunteer trainers / sparing partners to help train new to PvP players. But if the Playing Field AINT LEVEL IT AINT GONNA WORK.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I do both. Sometimes I PvP, sometimes I don't.

What I really hate about Felucca PvP are the following things:

• Bugs, cheats, hacks. They unbalance PvP to absurdity.
• PvP too item based. Especially since Faction items have come. Without an uber-suit it is almost impossible to compete.
• Mass-ganking and mass-murdering. People murder for sports. Without consequence. And being red isn't a real consequence.

I once wrote something about what you must know if you want to compete in Felucca. Read here.

 

[Magdalene]

I used to PvP when life was easier in UO.
When resist was resist, armour was armour and everything depended more on one's fingers, luck, some macros and a lot of timing. When LJacks would cut mages in half in one hit *rotfl*, mages had to meditate, bandages took forever to kick in...
Early champ spawns era (when one got kicked out on death) was the last time I actually fought another player willingly.

I had a lot of fun PvPing, never claimed to be good at it, but it was fun and a hell of adrenaline rush. The fun ended for me when the whole thing begun to require use of a calculator - bleh...

 

[northwoodschopper]

why do you need more people to pvp? is this just a call for easy kills? those that want to pvp are in fel ready to fight, and are part of guilds and factions, or are random reds. there's always yew gate too.

pvp's always been rather limited due to the facts that 1) it's costly (in death and equipment), 2) it's time-consuming (difficult learning curve, a lot of time seeing grey, learning and building macros, etc.) 3) it's personal (from dying, killing, looting, griefing, lack of sportsmanship, etc.), 4) it has always been the scutiny of hacks and cheats (as with any player-competitive game, people always look for an unfair edge), 5) grouping is essential (should be expected, but can be inopportune for many guild-wise), 6) in a rpg game at heart, it's hard to justify senseless pvp outside of guild wars and factions, which is a turn off for many when experienced players prey on the inexperienced with little regard, 7) you have to want to fight other players competitively.

they should probably implement a 'pvp-lite' system for trammel, which has more restrictions to help ease players into true pvp. something like a dueling arena to sign up with, or creating order/chaos factions in trammel with penalty-free deaths/no loot in pvp combat. that could help ease players into how unrestricted pvp works.

 

[lucksi]

Question to non-PvPers...
Alright, you have always hated PvP and have enjoyed the game for its PvM content, but stop for a minuite to think about it............
Is there even a chance that you could be intrigued by PvP and interested in getting into it ?
What would the game need, what changes, new dynamics in order to have YOU interested in joining the PvP part of the game ?

A level playing field?

You know, no speed hacking, scripted healing and so on.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

why do you need more people to pvp? is this just a call for easy kills?

I think he wants to point out that there could be much more to PvP than just hacking or having the best items. If the underlying system would be appropriate.

they should probably implement a 'pvp-lite' system for trammel, which has more restrictions to help ease players into true pvp. something like a dueling arena to sign up with, or creating order/chaos factions in trammel with penalty-free deaths/no loot in pvp combat.

I like the direction into which this idea goes.

 

[Yalp]

ganking & hacking.... without those fixes... pvp will die off.

 

[popps]

I mostly panic, which is kinda strange since I used to play a lot of Quake 3 Arena - and it doesn't get much more competitive than that. So, I guess that for me the Battlegrounds/Arena idea would work best.
Perhaps, it could be made more interesting if you could bet on the outcome: both players could give what they want to bet to a Referee NPC, and the winner gets the stuff (in the bank, perhaps).

I think the Arena could be a good way to "start players up" with PvP.

Like some sort of a way to introduce players to PvP by steps, not all at once.

Then, hopefully, after getting used to fight against other players in the Arena, players could start feeling more self confident and go out in the wild.

So, I think it would be a good way to open players up to PvP in steps.

 

[popps]

It's an awesome feeling to finally kill the Harrower after fighting enemies for 4 hours while trying to damage the harrower, kill tentacles, keep the place fielded etc. and after the kill divide the scrolls.

Assuming that all hacks and PvP scripts were removed from the game, what do you think about making it so that those killed in PvP in a given area cannot come back to it for, say, 1 hour or perhaps 2 real time ?

One of the things I think is annoying is to have people keep coming back.

If 2 parties fight each other and one is defeated, I think that the winning party should be given the ability to stay in peace for some time, after that, and earn the fruits of the victory won.

If the enemy keeps coming back it gets tiresome and only ends when one of the two gets exausted.....

Of course dead players of the winning party should instead be allowed to come back, but only after the fight has ended and the area cleared of enemies.

 

[popps]

Nothing in the current game setup entices me to PVP. It is rarely Player vs Player, definitely not honourable in most cases. I see no thrill in it. Having someone gank you and trash talk is not enjoyable and rarely funny for the person gank'd. (Actually, it is rather pathetic if that is how people need to get they enjoyment) Maybe if a system where only one person can attack you at a time and areas where you could do the battles of equal numbers, maybe I would look at it.

I bolded what I think is a very relevant argument as I think quite a lot of players are kept away from PvP because of a lack of a balanced out system.

Should the Developers come out with a way that can equalize forces in a PvP fight I am hopefull that more and more players would be attracted by PvP.

The current punishment for those who are doing the PK'ing by ganking is non existant. Maybe criminals should not get the insurance money or be able to loot. It might slow it down, big might! Being flag a criminal does not deter anyone. IF as alot of PVP'rs state, they are in it for the thrill, then not being able to loot the victims or getting insurance money should not be a problem to them. However, for a majority it is not the thrill and they do it for the gold/loot. Old time players will decry the *risk vs reward* mantra. That is what it is currently a mantra, the only risk is for the people not in pvp, crafters etc who go to gather resources. I do go to fel to train and gather resources and I have done champspawns with my guild, usually being raided and I accept that. However, I still see no reasons to pvp.

That is why I think it would be important to assign to fighting parties a global fighting "rating".
Once there is a rating in place for both fighting parties it is possible to handle the fight assigning bonuses and penalties and work to prevent or avoid gankings.

 

[Black Sun]

I tried PVP back when I first started, back during the hey-day of non item based gameplay. I didn't care for it then, and I still don't, here's why:

1) I don't like non-consensual fighting. I've never PK'd anyone, and I don't want to be PK'd while I'm out mining or marking runes, etc.
2) I don't like the idea of potentially losing everything I have on me when I die
3) I can't afford to shell out insurance money left and right to keep my items when I die
4) I can't afford the uber items needed to compete with current PvP'ers
5) I don't have the aggressive personality necessary to deal with the trash talking 15 year olds
6) I don't use any cheats/hacks/exploits, from what I understand PvP is full of them
7) I'm not interested in entering a virtual pissing contest with other players
8) I don't enjoy failure, repeated death is not my idea of a good time
9) I'm not fast enough to effectively run multiple macro's for various spells/potions etc.
10) I play UO to relax. PvP encounters (for me) have always been stressful.

That's why I don't PvP, and I have no interest in that playstyle. I have nothing against those who enjoy it, they can have it. But there's nothing they can implement that would get me interested. It's just not my idea of a good time.

 

[popps]

they should probably implement a 'pvp-lite' system for trammel, which has more restrictions to help ease players into true pvp. something like a dueling arena to sign up with, or creating order/chaos factions in trammel with penalty-free deaths/no loot in pvp combat. that could help ease players into how unrestricted pvp works.

How about a Chaos/Order system for Felucca where only Chaos and Order players can kill each other but noone else can kill them ?

Like a murderer (red) would not be allowed to kill neither a Chaos nor an Order player but only those taking side (with Order or with Chaos) could attack each other ?

Murderers (reds) would be free game to all.

Which means, a red will not be allowed to initiate attack onto a Chaos or Order member but Chaos and Order members will be able to initiate attack onto a red.

Of course, once attacked, the red will be able to defend and strike back.

 

[Old Man of UO]

I tried PVP back when I first started, back during the hey-day of non item based gameplay. I didn't care for it then, and I still don't, here's why:

1) I don't like non-consensual fighting. I've never PK'd anyone, and I don't want to be PK'd while I'm out mining or marking runes, etc.
2) I don't like the idea of potentially losing everything I have on me when I die
3) I can't afford to shell out insurance money left and right to keep my items when I die
4) I can't afford the uber items needed to compete with current PvP'ers
5) I don't have the aggressive personality necessary to deal with the trash talking 15 year olds
6) I don't use any cheats/hacks/exploits, from what I understand PvP is full of them
7) I'm not interested in entering a virtual pissing contest with other players
8) I don't enjoy failure, repeated death is not my idea of a good time
9) I'm not fast enough to effectively run multiple macro's for various spells/potions etc.
10) I play UO to relax. PvP encounters (for me) have always been stressful.

...

I agree with ALL of those and would like to add number 11:
11) My connection stinks! It's the fastest available in my area and I still have 200 MS pings. In PvP, I see black and white before I get my first casting off.

How about a Chaos/Order system for Felucca where only Chaos and Order players can kill each other but noone else can kill them ?

Like a murderer (red) would not be allowed to kill neither a Chaos nor an Order player but only those taking side (with Order or with Chaos) could attack each other ?

Murderers (reds) would be free game to all.

Which means, a red will not be allowed to initiate attack onto a Chaos or Order member but Chaos and Order members will be able to initiate attack onto a red.

Of course, once attacked, the red will be able to defend and strike back.

Popps... what you can't seem to understand (and it appears that some of the people in control at EA/Mythic don't understand) is that MOST of UO player do not want to engage in PVP. Nothing you have suggested even interests me in the least. READ and try to UNDERSTAND all the other postings why we don't want to PvP.

 

[Taylor]

I was a trammy for a long time. I always sucked at PvP, but I loved the adrenaline rush. When I started to get bored a few months ago with PvM, I decided to try my hand at the yew gate.

Well, at first I got slaughtered, but I didn't stop. I started hanging out just watching other toons play. I started reading/posting questions on forums. Eventually, I began to realize how different PvP really is - armor requirements are different, template requirements are different. Aspects of the game that had never really been important to the trammy me became increasingly important.

With this information, I started making changes. I started upgrading my suits. I built new templates and adjusted other. I went back with a dismount/tamer (<---trammy, remember?). It was too easy. So I went back with a necro/mage and a macer. These toons were much more difficult to play, but also more fun.

So now, I'm still a trammy since I mainly do yew gate PvP, but I'm branching out. My response time is getting quicker. I'm becoming a better PvMer as a result. My toons are getting stronger. All-in-all, I've had not only an enjoyable experience, but a productive one.

Everyone should give PvP a try at some point. You don't have to be ubers l33t - just go have fun. Hang out at the yew gate. Reds are people, too. Typically, they'll give you your pots and trap boxes back, especially if you're straight with them. In fact, I more often see blues looting than reds. Go spar a bit, trammies, you might find you like it.

 

[Pinco]

I think that the arena idea is the best thing that can allow a fun pvp without stress

Here is my arena idea:

I'm thinking at something like a stone to double-click and join a fight... the fight must be casual picked from who is waiting to join.... maybe with a choice from 1vs1 2vs2 etc...

if you win you earn points and with a box (like museum) you can pick a reward based on your total points... something like titles, items (just like the community collections are )

 

[Theo_GL]

You are defeated immediately by feeling the need to "Entice" people to .... what ever.

I completely agree here. If you have to 'bait' someone to do something - it will not end well.

Why does the original poster even care? Because they want more targets to kill. Its like the deer hunter saying 'gee - what can I do to get more deer to come near my blind so I can kill them'? Do you think that is going to be fun for the deer?

I find zero enjoyment in 'killing' a fellow player. I used to run hundreds of champ spawns and the fun was in working together to complete the spawn and earn the reward. I found no satisfaction in this game ever from killing another player. I'm not that type of person. I prefer co-operative play.

Now I do spend alot of time in Fel but fortuneately its usually deserted these days and I don't get bothered.

At the end of the day - if you have to 'bait' someone into doing something they dont' want to do - its not a good tactic. How about creating gameplay that people WANT to play?

How about creating fighting arena's with no insurance loss and giving out titles for success on a weekly basis? How about creating ways for players to compete with each other without it having to be a fight as to who has the best spell/pot macro or script? I dunno. Change the gameplay and it might be something I'm interested in.

To get run over by someone who spends far more time working on their scripts and hacked client to gain an advantage so they can mow me down and stand over my corpse talking with the ego of a 6th grade student is not my idea of fun.

 

[Wilde1]

Good post, Popps.

As a mostly non-pvper in this game, I agree with posters who point out the item advantage and script usage (eg, script healing) that makes it hard to compete. I think thats part of it.

For me tho, the main thing missing between UO and other games where i have successfully pvpd (War, WoW, DAOC) is a place to learn the pvp skillset. In DAOC, for example, the hard core 8x8 groups stuck to their own part of the pvp zone and fought each other. There were also places to find 1v1 fights (eg stealth wars), and places where the less skilled groups fought one another. Similarly, when i last played WoW (burning crusade), the less skilled folks could play a battleground and have fun even if they weren't that good yet, and the highly skilled folks cued up for the arena.

In UO, a new pvper immediately smashes up against players that have been pvping for a seriously long time, sometimes a decade or more. Even if I skill and gear up reasonably well, there's no way Im going to be competitive against a player with thousands of kills under his/her belt.

To make matters worse, if a few guildies and I manage to hold our own against a similar number of reds (at an IDOC, for example), there's no acknowledgment. Rather, the reds call in an overwhelming number of guild members to wipe us out, some of whom then begin to call names. Its discouraging. I miss the daoc days where you couldnt successfully run like a girl if you got damaged (because of game mechanics), and where a good 1v1 fight was often met with a respectful /bow by the winner.

For me, the combination of low vs high experience and incredibly poor sportsmanship (gamesmanship?) by some pvpers makes me inclined to wait for another game to re-invest in player versus player action.

 

[Tay M'real]

You can't entice people to PvP who aren't PvPers - you can only force them too.

What they should do is make hunting in Trammel/Malas/Tokuno so low valued that people don't bother - I'm talking gold from 10-50 per kill....loot would be so low that it's not valued...that way people who want to socialize can socialize freely in the non-consensual pvp areas and those who wish to hunt are forced to go to Felluca to have any chance at anything.

Oh - and all dungeons should be PvP

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Question to PvPers...
Alright, you are a PvP expert and know it all, all of the good, but also all of the bad of PvP.

What would you say Ultima Online needs in order to have more players be willing to join the PvP ruleset areas ?


Question to non-PvPers...
Alright, you have always hated PvP and have enjoyed the game for its PvM content, but stop for a minuite to think about it............
Is there even a chance that you could be intrigued by PvP and interested in getting into it ?
What would the game need, what changes, new dynamics in order to have YOU interested in joining the PvP part of the game ?

Let's start the discussion and see if any good ideas show up......

Funny...

Here it is. Same old questions same old answers.

There is not point to PvP anymore. No death consequence. Nothing to loot. No point. You have to template up to win out. This is for a player actually fighting a player. That doesnt happen.

Now a days, its groups.

Are you asking PvP as in going to Fel and participating. SIMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE.

Make the items that come out of fell characture blessed to the characture that gets it.

There is so much gold in game you dont need to go to FEL to get anything. You can buy it.

So how do you entice a player into PVP.
Create a reason.

There is no reason to go.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

PVP has too many penalties and lack of purpose in UO to be any fun to me.

I PVP mainly in World of Warcraft because PVP there has both. There I can pvp, I don't take any penalties at all, like repairbills. And the purpose is actually WINNING pvp unlocks areas you can get into for being successful and giving you access to items and enchants.

In UO if you die, it';s insurance loss, more insurance loss, more insurance loss and on a bad day you can rack up quite a bit of gold losses and that is not fun at all. Also there is no real purpose to pvp'ing. A handful of faction arties I guess...but really that's about it. There's really no purpose to winning, or controlling territories. Champ Spawns are about the only worthwhile reward but servers don't have enough competition to prevent massive monopolized scroll guilds.

All in all it's not fun or worthwhile.

 

[northwoodschopper]

changing any pvp system in fel would be a fail. leave fel as it is, it's essentially the lawless part of UO.

implementing a pvp zone in trammel, like a dueling arena in jhelom would be a great option to introduce pvp without any loss. afterall, jhelom is the fighter's town, the virtue of valor, and it would make reasonable sense to allow players to train for player vs player style of combat here. a player could learn macroing, equipment setup, and other tactics in relative safety and trial and error, without the losses of insurance or looting. there could be arrangements made where it could be 1 on 1 duels, team duels, or free for all pvp. there could be some other systems in place to ensure fair dueling, like tracking number of duels, number of wins and losses, and time spent in area. there wouldn't be any reward system in place, as this is meant to train for real pvp.

i would also suggest that order/chaos factions should return to trammel, as an introduction into unrestricted combat, which would further develop the needed skills.

 

[Nexus]

I try to see things from both sides, PvPer's want more folks, and PvMer's either want to avoid ganks, or just don't care for PvP , and in a few cases simply can't afford the equipment.

The one's not interesting in PvP well that's a lost cause your not going to entice them into PvP, they don't want to be prey. I had this discussion with a few folks the other night and I came up with what I thought would be the best solution.

Restrict PvP to Factions, and open it across all facets. Remove the Red restrictions from everywhere open everything up to everyone. Additionally the Balancer for Factions needs put back in, and I'm a firm beleiver that Guilds should not be allowed in Factions. When you join a faction you should be joining a NPC based Guild, let the faction have access to the Guild Chat system. A message by a SL would go to all SL's same for Min TB CoM. What this does is.

• Opens the Doors to Felucca's tougher PvM content to those interested
• Removes the Zerg Dominance of Spawns.
• Reduces the cost of Scrolling up a toon since Non-Faction players can do them with no risk of Raids, increased Mob difficulty would be a different story.
• Increases Resources available since you can Mine/LJ in Fel with no risk of PK's.
• Allows people to see PvP without going to Felucca in a Non-Risk Environment.
• Removes factions within a faction.
• No more hiding in Trammel to wait out Stat Loss.
• Provides cheaper easier to obtain materials for PvP Suits since everyone PvPing would have access to Faction Artifacts.
• This would give more meaning to Factions, it wouldn't be a guild fighting for dominance in PvP it would be a Faction fighting closer to what they were intended Story Line wise.

 

[bumblefutz]

I just broke 10,000 kills on my WoW paladin, but I wouldn't touch UO PVP with a ten-foot pole.

 

[Nexus]

I just broke 10,000 kills on my WoW paladin, but I wouldn't touch UO PVP with a ten-foot pole.

Instead of a generalized comment would you mind telling us why not? It's information like that the Dev's would need to know where to look at making changes.

 

[Setnaffa]

A few ideas to get more players involved in PvP and stop alot of the ganking:

1) Allow consensual PvP on all facets. This would be set up much like the trade Window. Both players, parties, or guilds drop their wager into the trade window and the winning side takes all. Players would have the option to disergard all PvP requests from the Configuration menu.

2) A player cannot attack another player if their skills are more than 25% higher than the other player. This rule is nullified in the Champ Spawn areas or if the lower skilled player is guilded or partied. If the lower skilled player attacks the higher skilled player, then the rule doesn't apply either. This rule stops taking effect if the lower skilled player hasn't risen in any skill in more than 1 week or if they have soulstoned skills within the previous week.

3) No player can be attacked by more than 2 players unless they have attacked more than 2 players. Parties and Guilds can be attacked by no more than their group size + 50% (rounded up) or 4, whichever is more.

 

[Kaleb]

Fel should not be changed or have any change suggested by any player that does not play there on a constant basis, there is nothing wrong with the system, UO has always been a multiplayer game and never should it be a single player game. the only way to get more players interested is to help them see past the false misconceptions and generalizations that die hard trammies sink into the heads of new players. A fine example of this is: Every PvPer hacks,cheats,scripts.


One of the best ways to bring in people who may find interest in PvP is to open Factions to fight in every landmass. Allow red faction members into other areas of game but with some restrictions, He cannot attack any non faction blue outside of fel unless attacked first meaning that any blue can take a chance attacking the red but be prepared being that they would then have every right to kill you also. Currently there are a lot of players in factions problem is only about 1/3 are in it for pvp while the rest are in it just for the items. Not only will it weed out the players who are using factions just for the items, but help even out the rank system for those who do use factions as a tool to PvP. but also allows people see real pvp action w/o stepping into the red gate.

 

[Ender]

UO PvP is pretty damn crappy now tbh. It was fun before AoS. :/