My Ideal “HARDCORE” RvR Sytem
January 9, 2008 – 9:24 pm
Having just read an article about RvR consequences over at Warhammer Army, I feel inspired to write about my own ideal RvR system for WAR. This is basically how I’d like to see things work (at least on a special server). If the final implementation is different than my ideal, I’m not saying I won’t play, but I’ll be a bit disappointed and may jump ship for a game that nails everything according to my preferences. The chance of that happening is about same as an orc willingly giving out snotling foot massages. Pretty slim.
My hardcore RvR system offers:
- Personal incentives and consequences
- Realm incentives and consequences
I believe you need to temper all the benefits of doing well in RvR as an individual and a realm with some consequences for doing poorly. I don’t believe in win/win outcomes for everyone because consequences serve as motivation for improvement (such is life). I don’t expect all my ideas to be popular but bear in mind; I spent over six years playing what many would consider a hardcore PK MUD by today’s “care bear” standards. Anyone claiming to be a true greenskin at heart will probably agree with much of what I’m about to write!
Here are the major features I’d include in my ideal RvR system:
- Realm Ranks
- World RvR
- Capturables
- Corpse Looting
- Player Trophies
- RvR Stats and Titles
Realm Ranks
This is a throwback to DAOC’s realm rank model. For each person you kill in RvR, you receive a certain amount of realm points. As you earn more realm points you achieve higher realm ranks. Each rank you achieve will give you a realm skill point that can be used to purchase realm abilities from your class trainer. Realm abilities are active or passive skills that will enhance your performance in RvR (e.g., Purge [active use, 5 minute cool down] – Instantly removes all crowd control affects and makes you immune to crowd control spells or abilities for 10 seconds). Think of it as an experience/level system for RvR.
It’s in your best interest to increase your realm rank because it makes your character stronger. Your individual strength and effectiveness not only helps out you, but your realm in the overall war effort. After all, a group is the sum of its individuals and group success will be measured by how well the members work together.
The consequence for neglecting realm ranks is that people will eventually surpass you, making them more difficult to defeat in battle. If you or your group is constantly getting smashed in RvR, you have two options: cry about it or adapt with new strategies or team members. These games are all about practice, so the more you play, the better you’ll react in an RvR situation.
World RvR
I’m not a fan of instanced PvP like the battlegrounds you’ll find in World of Warcraft (e.g., Warsong Gulch,Arathi Basin, Alterac Valley, etc.). I much prefer the persistent, integrated, open world RvR they’re planning to include in WAR but I’d make it a bit more hardcore. I enjoy PvP that actually affects each zone from newbie to elite.
The incentives for individuals and groups to participate in RvR become much greater when it affects their progress from level 1-40. In my ideal system, you’d be given a minor reprieve in the tier one zones because you’re just a newbie at this point. I’d say only 33% of the tier one zones should be contested. Tier two would jump up to 66% contested and tiers three and four are 100% contested. A contested zone means you are in direct competition with the enemy over quest-givers, creatures to XP on, trade skill resources, etc. You may have a few friendly camps here and there that offer a brief respite from the constant conflict, but not many. This is similar to how the PvP servers are set up in WoW.
If you choose not to improve skills or adapt to your enemy, you’re going to suffer the consequences in a persistent RvR environment with contested zones. You’ll progress more slowly if your enemy is gathering up all the zone’s resources. This may introduce a need for forced population balance on behalf of Mythic. I’m not saying they need to baby players by matching everything up 50/50, but preventing servers from swaying too far towards one faction or the other is a must. Under populated realm bonuses can help even things out a bit, but that’s a band aid solution in my opinion. Encouraging (or forcing) new players to roll on the under populated servers is a must if balance becomes an issue (i.e., 2:1 or greater).
Capturables
By capturables, I mean cities, keeps, outposts, etc. You may not be very effective as a solo player in these scenarios; however, you should still receive personal reward. For instance, when you overtake a keep or outpost, there should be a stockpile of loot given to everyone involved based on their level of participation. This is similar to the proposed Public Quests system already present in WAR. The same goes for a capitol city, but obviously on a much grander scale.
I really dislike the “percentage chance to drop” raid model present in most MMORPGs these days. For example, forty people kill a boss but only a handful receive a reward for it. Instead, I propose that all forty participants be rewarded. I don’t believe that everyone should receive an Epic item; just the most productive people. Everyone else would receive a cut of the gold and random items from the armoury. Oh, and I’m also against bind-on-pickup and bind-on-equip items, so trading this loot at any stage in your career becomes much less cumbersome.
Incentives such as bonus XP, damage, health, power, damage, etc. should be tied into owning these capturables. Each zone should be riddled with keeps and outposts granting different kinds of realm bonuses. This gives people something else to fight over (aside from the gut-wrenching hatred for opposing races). Located in the middle of each zone would be a relic keep, similar to one you’d find in DAOC. The realm in control of this keep sees an even larger realm bonus. If the relic keep doesn’t change hands within a few RL days, it will reset itself in order to prevent a particular realm from dominating over an extended period of time.
Corpse Looting
I predict this will be the most controversial feature in my list, but please hear me out before you start crying. In a system with unbound gear, full corpse looting is a quick way to nab some great gear for the marketplace or personal/realm use. Many MMORPGs these days put such an emphasis on gear that this idea has become blasphemous; however it naturally balances itself out in the long run.
You may lose that nice full set today but another one is simply a few kills away. Gear becomes another driver of RvR conflict, similar to capturables. The threat of losing your equipment also forces you to play with more strategy. I absolutely hate carefree death and respawn systems because it feels more like you’re playing a first-person shooter than an MMORPG. Poor skill and strategy lacks any consequence in these care bear systems.
A concept found in my old MUD was that your corpse would sometimes spawn a shadow to protect it (about a 33% chance). This shadow helped prevent people from looting until you could run back and claim your gear. Your guardian was vulnerable though, so two or more people could dispatch it with relative ease. In my ideal system, allies could also prevent enemies from looting your fallen body. I would include a 5-second loot timer similar to someone channeling a spell before your corpse inventory would show up. This would allow for interruptions in the looting process. Allies could even loot your corpse if given permission via a slash command. I would also include a feature for encumbrance. Scrawny arch mages should not be able to carry a full set of plate without moving slower.
A corpse looting system encourages people to gain better gear through RvR as well as PvE. It can also strengthen your realm’s unity. After a few successful skirmishes, people will end up with extra gear that can be given freely, traded, or sold in the marketplace. The economy will always be dynamic, adjusting itself to the ebb and flow of supply and demand.
Player Trophies
Forget the weenie artifacts EA Mythic is proposing. Have you ever seen those images of dwarf skulls impaled on an orc’s spiky pauldron? That’s what I’m talking about! Without getting overly gory (warranting an M-rating), I would love to see different races given the ability to hang enemy corpses from trees, collect ears from fallen victims for a necklace, weave capes out of enemy scalps, and pretty much any other way you could defile a victim’s corpse.
The concept breaks a little when you consider that stunties still need to respawn with their heads intact, but it would be great to see a <head of StuntyX> on a pike warding off enemies from a nearby bridge. Over time, they would decay and despawn, but for a brief time you can embarrass your enemy. The ear necklaces or scalp capes could even offer small bonuses depending on the amount you collect.
The incentive here is to embarrass your foes and the consequence is obviously being embarrassed. Also, if these items could be somehow worked into the crafting system, they may work out as great ingredients for recipes. It gives you one more reason to RvR!
Player Stats and Titles
This could easily be worked in with the Tome of Knowledge. I want to see a stats/rank system in WAR similar to what DAOC had on the Camelot Herald. If possible, I’d like it to track even more (e.g., the top 10 stunty killers). People ranking in the upper echelon of these categories on the WAR Herald could be given special temporary titles in game. For example, Snafzg Smrt <Dwarf Slayer> or Grom Paunch <Warboss>.
Titles can be more than merely fluff. People with special titles will likely be talked about on forums and revered in game by the foolish snotlings. If you’re a common stunty and you see a <Warboss> coming towards you, chances are you’re going to get butterflies in your beer belly. Then you’re probably going to get owned. Conversely, if you happen to defeat the <Warboss> you will feel joy and pride and I think the Herald should display achievements such as these as well.
Individuals and guilds take great pride in their achievements and there should be visual indicators of them in game to fuel competition. Having it on a separate site is nice, but not everyone visits these sites. In game display is key, IMO.
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So there you have it. If you made it this far… you really needed something better to do. Har! I kid, I kid. If you agree, disagree, or would like to add something to this list, I’m all ears. If you find yourself thinking, “Hey, this guy is on the right track!” let me know and maybe we can start a petition on the forums or something! The biggest thing I would like to see is corpse looting, but I doubt it will ever happen in mainstream game like WAR.
While I admit the majority of people are too scared to lose their items and don’t realize the kind of excitement that is generated when you go from crappy gear to a nice set almost instantly, there are still plenty of “hardcores” left in the world to fill up one or more WAR servers dedicated to it. Just look at the early days of Mordred (pure PvP) and Gaheris (pure PvE) in DAOC: they did pretty well for themselves considering the game never broke the 250K mark of subscriptions and lost players almost every month since its peak.
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16 Responses to “My Ideal “HARDCORE” RvR Sytem”
Coming from my WoW background, its hard to let go of items, but I think corpse looting would be a good thing.
I was thinking along the lines of a compromise: your corpse only drops one of your items, with different item slots having different odds of being looted, ie, your boot item slot might be left behind in death 17% of the time, but your main hand slot only 3% of the time, and all of your item slots drop odds adding up to 100%. This way you still don’t want to die, but you won’t need to store an extra set of everything in case you die and resurrect naked.
I really like the idea of being able to put the actual players head on a spike, or perhaps hanging their body from a nearby tree after killing them. At the very least, you should be able to keep ears or something of your enemy, tradable to certain repeatable quest vendors. Maybe you’ll even be able to ask that vendor how many times he’s had your ear traded in.
My only question remaining is, if your gear can be lost at a moments notice, what form will progression take on in end game besides gear?
By Knash on Jan 9, 2008
I like everything you said but I have one question about corpse looting. If you lose your gear to looting, when you finally res….what kind of gear will you have? If you’re naked then you’re an easy kill and you may not have the means to defend yourself OR buy new armor worth fighting in. That would put a HUGE damper in even the MOST hardcore gamers play. What if you get ganked by a sudden and unexpected group of players? Which of the players loots you? It’s all good in theory but I think making it work out well would be a real pain in the arse. I like the first response in that you would only lose a piece of your gear instead of ALL of it.
I especially like the part about trophies and COMPLETELY agree with you there.
By Pipoca on Jan 9, 2008
@Knash - I’d even support the compromise of a single item loot system. I just want their to be some sense of personal loss when you die, giving you incentive to use your head in RvR.
As for progression, more emphasis is put on gear, but less on the “grind” for gear. Instead of having to raid 20 hours to win some sword, you may kill someone who drops it in regular PvP. It’s not the only endgame goal though. It’s still all about keeps, relics, city raids, and something I forgot to mention earlier, unlockable special dungeons for owning the most keeps in a zone (similar to Darkness Falls).
@Pipoca - In any corpse looting games I played, you would res back at your capital city or the main city in the zone you died in, completely naked! I would support the placement of a freebie gear merchant who will give you some basics for your level range. Ideally though, you’ll have people offer you a few gold to purchase better loot from the merchants / auction.
It shouldn’t take more than a minute to get a few basics an run out to check your corpse.
One flaw in my corpse-loot system that I just thought of is that MMOs make it very difficult to escape combat if you don’t want to fight. In the old school MUDS you could escape your foes by using map knowledge and strategy. Everything is visible in an MMORPG and if you introduce speed buff classes, escape from groups as a solo player would be nearly impossible without some thought put into escape features.
I like the cat and mouse dynamic, but you wouldn’t want everyone to be able to escape either, so that’s a potential flaw too.
In a group, the first person who makes it through the loot timer will be the only one with access to your corpse. Other people would receive a “this corpse is already being looted” message. Ideally, one person would loot and share with the group later. The looted items will appear in the chat window with the name of who looted it to prevent lame ninjas.
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Thanks for the feedback guys!
By Snafzg on Jan 10, 2008
The problem I see with your corpse loot system is that while you start off by saying there is a need for a penalty you soon after say that another set of gear is only a few kills away. It really takes the emphasis off of corpse looting if what the person is looting is THAT replaceable. It would be logical to say that a skilled player would kill many others before he himself goes down - possibly having saved up quite a few sets of armor if they are indeed only a few kills away.
I’m not a fan of corpse looting at all. I think that again puts too much focus on gear. Gear should never be more than 20% of a character’s overall ability.
I’m more for a hardcore visual trophy system where if someone kills enough enemies they start to look incredibly powerful. Dwarf skulls hanging off their belts, bigger muscles, more bloodlust in their eyes, that sort of thing. Allow the trophies to hang in houses or guild halls with labels of who they belong to or something like that.
The type of combat in DAOC/WAR is not one of reserved gameplay. It’s also not in the nature of a Greenskin to question whether going in to a fight would be too risky for him (he’s not afraid of losing his gear). Removing the risk to the player and adding more of a reward is in a sense reverse risk. You risk making your opponent better if you die - not the other way around.
Some interesting ideas here.
By Keen on Jan 10, 2008
In WoW, a 10% durability loss (basically a direct loss of gold) occured with death, although not if the finishing blow was PvP related… which leads to people acting more irrationally in PvP combat, playing with less strategy.
I like the idea of personal loss from death, as it is counterbalanced by the possible gain from victory.
I’m liking my idea of a single item loss even more now, as it would again cut down on the extreme back and forth of gear (in RvR combat, after a huge battle, picking up afterwards could become a full time job!).
As to Keen’s comment on the nature of Greenskins and their recklessness, perhaps a racial trait of black orcs and choppa’s could be to add a 50% chance upon death to not lose any items, thereby giving those players the ability to be a bit more reckless in their attacks, thereby playing, on average, more like orcs.
By Knash on Jan 10, 2008
@Keen - Well, certain rare items will always be a bit of a chore to win back, so there’s still consequence for dying. And I do agree with your statement that gear shouldn’t be as powerful as it has become in MMORPGs these days. I have a whole article in mind for that one!
In my system gear is an incentive to RvR (like keeps and trophies), but you should still be competitive without needing to wield the Ultimate Hammer of Doom.
@Knash - If I had to replace corpse-looting with anything it would be durability loss from PvP death. It’s not the ultimate incentive to play with strategy and avoid stupid deaths, but it’s still a costly one!
@Both - The ideal setting for a greenskin’s death is always on the battlefield (having taken many others with him) but there’s still incentive to survive in RvR from a role-play point of view. The longer you live, the more bodies you can smash and bash to pulpy goodness.
By Snafzg on Jan 10, 2008
Well, imo corpse looting would never work in a game like war.
Corpse looting where you gain the victims equipment is much better in a game with a small amount of players, vs thousands of players, and having everyone scramble for a corpse to try and loot it would be silly and annoying, like the old scramble for av scraps when blizzard added that - everyone literally stopped killing and ran at dead corpses hoping to be the one to loot it.
Plus it encourages people to play too safe, they will wander in huge groups and the concept of fair fights will be non-existent.
The problem with games with thousands of players is, if you present players with any opportunity to exploit something, they will, as WoW has proved time and time again. MMORPGs will always have to balance any feature against that. Corpse looting just seems like a nightmare waiting to happen in that environment.
Personally one item not on your list I would like to see is temporary artifact items - items that are gained through some special way, are slightly better then anything else available, maybe have some neat special effects, but only last for a real-time week. That way, you are never “max gear”, and when you do get a special item it feels great and you want to play while you have it, then when it decays, you want to play to get a new one. Never a, well this chars max gear, nothing left to do.
By nazgum on Jan 11, 2008
Awesome job guys on Greenskin!!!!!
Each week the content gets better and better. May I ask Snafg or another admin to send our members at Bullies a newsletter via guildportal email. I am sure our members would luv to hear whats new with Greenskin:) Also we are open to any endorsement for a nice spot on our front page as a sponser;)
By josewales on Jan 11, 2008
Some good points about player looting, but Mythic already announced that players will drop gold/loot when they die in Beta Update 2. The cash or items aren’t from each character’s personal inventory, but actually randomly generated similar to NPC loot.
So I think we may still see a bit of a scramble for players to loot other player corpses in large group RvR.
I really like the decaying artifact idea. How well would the idea of a limited number of these artifact fly in an MMO do you think? Allowing for only one Uber-Sword in the game at a time will likely sway things in favour of the campers and hardcores.
Not that you shouldn’t be rewarded for extra time investment, but the idea of (single item) corpse-looting may circulate said items nicely.
By Snafzg on Jan 11, 2008
Hey! Nice suggestions! Especially the capturables section!
Do you think Warhammer will have the bonuses? They talk about taking keeps and cities, but by doing this give the realm like 10% more damage? Much like in DAoC relic raids. Also, having the most keeps opened up darkness falls.
These things were the things I absolutely loved. I hope this aspect is included in Warhammer or some other MMO.
Nice post!
By Travis on Jan 19, 2008
I haven’t heard any specifics like this about the capturables, but I really hope they make it in. The bonuses don’t have to be overpowering, but it gives you another reason to go on out an capture them for your benefit.
Thanks!
By Snafzg on Jan 19, 2008
Remember how items in daoc had a bonus stat?
my idea for corpse looting consists of not actually taking an item but draining it of its bonus stat, adding it to your items.
now this bonus/penalty doesnt have to be a percentage based bonus like in daoc. it could be a different set of bonuses and penalties depending on your class, visually represented by trophies on armor/weapons and so forth.
this would also make corpse looting a tactical decision for any RvR group. who needs the bonus, who has time to loot?
losing your gear alltogether would require easy access of at least mid level gear and a way to defend from being looted. it’s not a bad idea if implemented carefully, but it would take a lot of tweaking.
By Hobson on Jan 21, 2008
Ive read your post and have to say that u have a great vision of things, but lets think on these two topics that really made me think of:
1 - World RvR
I like PVP and like PVE too but, the way ur planning things out reminds me what WoW PVP servers are today…a crap system where u cant lvl without being ganked and cant farm the things u need.
Ive recently stopped with WoW cuz of this. I was on a big High-End guild, that demands lots of things for u to play on a raid (buffs, pots and so on) and u know the problems a great guild name causes…a guy thinks that ur a PvE rat and dont know how to fight, starts attacking u and dies and he call his friends to help camp ur body for over one hour. They ruined ur farm and made u waste ur time AND money. Yes, money, cuz if u pay to play, every minute u pass online its because u paid, and if u cant play, ur wasting money.
I know that War is different from WoW, but if u let RvR the way u described, with time itll be like a WoW PvP server, full of dumb kids that dont care if ur paying and dont have the minimum respect to u.
Sorry, but u have to review this topic.
2 - Corpse Looting
Lets think about this situation. Yesterday, uve got that awesome nice armor ur looking for over 3 months and suddenly u get ganked by 5+ players at a contested territory.
Oh crap! Uve lost ur nice armor! How many months till u get another one?
OMG! they are camping you! Oh sh**…another peace of your armor gone!
Terrible thing to think of, a thing that cost u a lot of time and/or money and effort to get, lost in 10 secs or less.
Ok, so u reconsider that money should be substracted from u every time u die…Gosh! They are still camping you! Damned…u lost 1gold or more!
Corpse Looting its not a good ideia, specially on a game that many kind of ppl will play, ppl that can take advantage of numbers to usurp u and ur friends.
Again, sorry, but u have to review this topic too.
U might say that im a “care bear”, but let me clarify that im not a newbie player that argues every time i get killed. In fact, ive played a lot of MMO’s and most of them have no restrictions to or less care to waht u do on PvP. I consider myself an extremely experienced and hardcore player, since i spend more than 8 hours per day playing, and u looks experienced to me too, but with a lil less experience on PvE. I may be wrong, but thats the impression u pass to me, ur comments looks like a person extremely focused on PvP that dont care about ppl starting to play the game today.
One thing that ive learned all these years playing MMO’s is that if u wish to be respected, u should respect the other players as well. They are not simply a target that u kill, there are a flesh and bone guy controling that char, like u.
By HardcorePlayer on Jan 25, 2008
Well…ive spent some hours yesterday thinking about this stuff and came here to complement some things.
Corpse Loot, as ive said, is not a good thing. If u want to make ppl play with brains and carefully think their moves, some bonuses and visual improvements reflecting those bonuses are good choices.
Get a thicker skin, improved armor, ability to deflect projectiles, more muscles and strength are some of many improvements u can give to a player when he kill someone.
Imagine that uve killed 3 ppl and got Deflect Projectiles (20%), Imp Armor (armor+5) and Burning Hands (10% chance to add fire to ur attacks). These are neat bonuses to have and u probably want to keep them, so, if u die, u lose them AND will have penalties applied to u apon ressurect like Fadigue (move 5% slower) and one of ur bonuses will become a curse like -5 armor, -10% fire resistance and so on.
Fadigue should be a always applied debuff with a 5 min timer and the other debuffs last for 15 min and can be cancelled if u regain the buff. This way, the player will be carefull to not die but will make him seek a target to regain and cancel debuffs.
The buffs should be something like a reward, if u manage to stay alive, ull keep the buff till u log out and u can only have maybe 3 or 5 bonuses at a time, so, if u dont like one, simply remove it and kill again to try again.
These bonuses percentage should be around 25-30 percent to any kill u do. U dont need to give the killing blow, just help to kill to take ur buff, that way, pure healers and support classes will have buffs too.
Players 10+ levels below u will not generate buffs and have the Gods Favor, meaning that they can resist/dodge/block ur attacks maybe 10% of the time and do Double Damage to u to balance their attacks against urs. This way, they will have a chance to survive HL players and at the same time, have a chance to win. This way HL players will be discouraged to attack newbies at Pure PVP servers.
U can think: “Man, this guy is crazy…10% chance to resist/dodge/block and Double Damage? WTF!?” But think twice, ur attacks do something around 1k-2k damage (im guessing) to a player 15 levels inferior, they probably have this amount of live or less. If they take 100% of ur damage with no chance to resist, itll be a one hit kill, in counterpart, they do something like 250-500 dmg at same lvl targets (again guessing), so this means that they will do 500-1k dmg to u and u probably have more than 2k life at lvl cap and obviously a lot more spells/skills that they have.
This way, they will not be ez preys and be encouraged to engage in combat sooner and with some chance to kill HL players. This is not a system to favor newbies as the chance for them to die is big, is a way to protect them and give some “spice” to newbie Vs expert player battles.
Let me stop here because i have the bad habit to write too much o.O
By HardcorePlayer on Jan 26, 2008
i think you have a lot of great ideas for the pvp part of the game, i totally agree that there should be some sort of penalty for dieing, as well as a reward for winning a fight. the whole rez sickness idea i think would be great for every time you die, at least that way a huge battle doesnt last forever because everyone can immediately run back to their corpses and keep fighting.
as far as the whole camping issue goes, that is just part of the game if your on a pvp server, its meant to be that way. if you dont like the idea of having to defend yourself every once in a while when your trying to farm for money or anything else, then your not that hardcore and you shouldnt be on a pvp server, go play on a rp or normal server if thats your style of play. i think pvp servers are meant to try and make battles and skirmishes somewhat more realistic. the game is called WARhammer, 2 factions are at war and when you see another player of the opposing faction, you should be able to attack them at will
just my thoughts and opinions, i have more but im at work, but great ideas overall
By Luvtopvp on Feb 7, 2008
Corpse looting will be exploited. It’s a system where the rich get richer and the poor become destitute. Corpse camping and grief play would become the preferred RvR play and roving groups of gankers would roam the PvP areas of the game. Mythic/EA has demonstrated their commitment to fair PvP by creating the “chicken” dynamic to discourage ganking. They will NOT shoot themselves in the foot by implementing something as damaging as actual item looting.
Players WILL loot gold and xp just like PvE kills. There WILL be trophies related to PvP achievements.
Any system that rewards the winner with an increased advantage is doomed to failure.
There’s a reason the Stanley Cup Champions pick last in the entry draft. Any MMO that fails to see this is doomed to a stat-inflation death.
By Koroh on Feb 8, 2008