Do you think it is a good idea for the devs to focus on PvP development early on? Why or why not?
Personally I think they should focus allocating all resources on PvE and refine that experience into a grand one, then release PvP in a well planned future expansion. To get the strongest foundation possible then move on to the more complex and luxurious features.
If I remember correctly City of Heroes did not have pvp at release, heck, it didn't have it for a few years after, and it was in my opinion one of the best PvE games ever made. It was the type of game that you could use to relax and wind down from after work or school, make a few new friends, and maybe order a pizza, hunker down all evening, and get lost in another world without having to worry about the metagame or other players jumping you or losing your ranking.
I would like to Arenas and Warzones in at some points, at least a /duel function for settling heated disputes and what not.
Every villain is a hero in their own mind.
PvP arrived in City of Heroes in [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Issue_4]Issue 4[/url], which for all intents and purposes was 1 year after release.
PvP for City of Heroes was never more than a "kludge" the way that Cryptic did it, trying to shoehorn a pure PvE game into a PvP system. Needless to say, it didn't work, and the Players fairly quickly "figured it out" as far as PvP went. There were a *LOT* of things in City of Heroes that pretty much "foiled" any sort of attempt at Game Balance for PvP ... namely the Mez System itself, with its binary/boolean effects structure (epic failure for a PvP system), as well as incredibly flawed game mechanics such as the Accuracy/Defense system for hitting targets that could be completely "flooded" just by using Inspirations, and the way that Debuffs were either Way Too Effective or Pathetically Ineffective with almost nothing inbetween (much like the Mez System). It all soon devolved into the "quick kill" challenge, where amazingly Assault Rifle/Devices actually had strengths when used against Players due to the relatively "quiet" visual FX on the projectiles (making it hard to spot the shooter) to the deadly combination of Stealth plus [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Pool.Teleportation.Teleport_Foe&at=Class_Blaster]Teleport Foe[/url] plus [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Blaster_Support.Gadgets.Trip_Mine]Trip Mine[/url] stacking for excessively "unfair" More Sudden Than Instant Death™ (memo not included) cheap gank you kills that didn't require Line of Sight[i](!)[/i] to accomplish.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Wow! That was highly informative. Thank you.
So that mean there is a chance to do PVP right this time around instead of it being shoehorn into a system that doesn't work.
Makes me wonder if they are going to balance powers with PVP in mind if they do.
Would you like them allocating resources into making PVP a primary part of the game or have it saved for later?
Every villain is a hero in their own mind.
I think it's best to have PvP from the start.
Think it'd be a good idea to have a PvP Switch as well as a Duel Option.
This way people can just fly/run around the city and search for those who want to PvP. People can also switch PvP off with a simple press of a button if they're feeling like they're getting ganked way to much while just trying to get to their mission.
Duel Option should teleport people away to an instance or put them in their own private little bubble, that way we don't hear them whine when attacked in an open PvP zone (in this case, the whole game). Was way to much of the crying in CoH when people popped into the open PvP zone and interrupted someone's duel that everyone was supposed to know about and or care about in an open pvp zone.
It has already been suggested that PvP should revolve around groups/teams. With the number of AT and power set combinations that will be available it's a fool's errand to attempt to achieve any kind of 1v1 balance. While I believe that most people don't want PvE and PvP to be separate games, I do hope that there will be sufficient distinction that changes to the one will not cause upheavals in the other.
Since it sounds like you're repeating your question of whether PvP should be available at launch, I will say that I believe this should be the case. They need to cater to the audience that they wish to attract, so this is not a case to which they'll want to apply 'better late than never'.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Speaking just for myself, I'd prefer it if Dueling basically involved accepting a Special Mission, and that all you had to do was enter ANY MISSION DOOR to enter any one of a random set of Dueling Instances ... which could be anything from an Ultimate Fighting Monkey Cage with no exits to an abandoned warehouse filled with Twisty Little Passages, All Different so as to make the Duel something of a game of Hide And Seek to add an element of surprise (which could easily be foiled by the old Marco/Polo game of using chat bubbles to find each other quickly if that's what the Players wanted). So rather than "teleporting off the street" when you accept the Duel, you're given a Mission to enter, and then ANY Mission Door around is the entry to the Dueling Instance ... creating a "double accept" situation, where first you have to accept the Duel, and then you have to actively move to a Mission Door and enter the Mission Door to "begin" the Duel.
Doing this makes the whole thing much more immersive and "isolates" the Dueling PvP aspect from the population at large (so the spectators can't interfere or "throw" the match somehow with indirect use of Powers).
All you need then are "Dueling Terminals" where people can go to "watch" Duels that are in progress so as to allow controlled audience observation of Duels.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Don;t even have to go that far... you can just have a combat state called "Duel", which disallows you to be buffed/debuffed by outsiders (effectively a 100% resistance to non self buffs whilst it is running).
Not to mention as well that *generally* speaking, from my experience, that interfering with a duel (via the duel mechanism), is frowned upon [1].
[1] As in that I have seen serial offenders receive a temp ban in WoW for doing so. Experience limited to just servers that I have been on.
Am kinda of against the "start a duel, then have to run to a door and wait for zoning to occur, and then wait for the player to take part"... Duels are intended to be "short and sweet", typically lasting just a minute or two, rarely longer.
Making it more of a chore to duel someone, you might as well just not have the option to do it in the open world.
Agreed. Plus who knows how long it would take the other to reach a door, and they could just use it as a means to grief.
Best to just have it teleport you to such a map in the case of a duel.
I'd agree with you Gangrel if you're talking about "quickie" One And Done 1v1 Dueling. The calculus changes a little bit however if you have your 1v1 Dueling rigged into a "best 2 out of 3" system.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
you never mentioned "best 2 out of 3" system though.
And for a lot of *other* MMO players, I can imagine the "duel" system being a quickie.
Hell, on my WoW server... right outside Stormwind there is normally a group of PvPers (its a PvE server, so you *HAVE* to initiate the duel to do it), doing some form of round robin/elimination style duelling...
This is something that just crops up every now and then (to be fair, I only notice them duelling, and am not paying attention to any form of schedule), but it shows that something small like this, can be done on the fly.
They have stated that they intend to have PvP at launch. It may not be a huge part of the game, but it will be there.