This post is not meant to be my comprehensive list of my ideas on how to improve PvP – it is thoughts on today’s chat 🙂
Today there was a discussion in Nobles chat (yes, I’m one of those bastards) about how to get more people to flag for PvP.
As many people know, PvP is one of the most controversial subjects, if not the most controversial topic, in Shroud of the Avatar. Almost any time there is a thread posted on the official forums about PvP it gets derailed in the forums and breaks down into petty bickering that is not related to the initial topic. There is a large subset of players that want PvP in Shroud and a large group that doesn’t. I am one of those players that likes the idea of PvP and I see PvP as being poorly implemented in Shroud.
Today there were three ideas that if implemented together would be a significant improvement to the numbers of players that we see as being PvP flagged. Greyfox proposed giving players a 10% bonus to exp for flagging PvP. Halvard Fimbultyr desired a one week cool down on players after flagging. And yours truly suggested that PvP flagged characters be prevented from accessing Friends Only Online and Single Player Online.
Let’s look at how each one may improve the PvP community.
With Greyfox’s suggestion of giving players a 10% increase to bonus experience, we see an incentive for players to flag PvP. This does not hurt those players that don’t want to PvP. In fact, based on numbers that Chris said about the use of Obsidian potions for experience boosts a 10% increase is actually negligible in the long run. It is the difference between a level 80 and level 81 character. Yet, at lower levels it may seem as a significant boost in experience. Yes, it is a substantial amount of experience, but we have to remember that in Shroud there isn’t really a difference a level 70 player and a level 80 character (and that’s one of the reasons that these stats are hidden from most players). Would I flag PvP for a 10% increase in experience? Yes, I would. When I enter a PvP zone do I expect to be ganked? Hell yea, I expect it actually. In fact, I hate it when I go into a PvP and see the zone as empty for an hour while I am gathering resources and yet on my friends list, there are players the same zone (hiding in FO or SP).
Halvard’s idea of a week cool down is a preventative measure for players flagging PvP and then almost immediately unflagging. This could be a week of game time – which is 3 days. This is not a substantial amount of time. And does not significantly affect players ability to play the game.
My idea of putting a limitation on preventing players from accessing Single Player Online and Friends Only Online is also a measure to prevent an exploit of the 10% experience gain. I said this so that way players can’t hide from other players. It is designed to make it so that players that flag PvP are available and can be found by other players that want to engage in PvP. This means that players that are PvP flagged, might end up hunting together and encourage more group hunting and less isolated play. Too often we see players that hunt in Friends Online or Single Player Online.
Yes, I’m aware of the problems of resources and spawns not being sufficient for a number of players being in hunting scenes, but this might be the way that Portalarium can collect the actual data on how to better flesh out the scenes that they have built.
The game is still a work in progress and the Devs need as much input as possible. As long as constructive criticism is provided they have been open. Posts on the forums that are just bitching about how broken something is aren’t constructive. If you want to comment on my ideas, then feel free to register and provide your feedback – remember, Rule #1 DBAD.
