Thorizdin_LotD

Gah, this is growing faster than I can keep up....

Castle, one thing that would be very helpful for this kind of discussion would be some numbers that we don't have access to. For example, the question of replay value of the PvP zones in CoX could be well demonstrated by looking at the number of a couple of badges.

If we could see how many people have Forward Observer (Rep of 100+ is a good indicator of someone who actually PvP's) and some of the "time in zone" badges like Siren's Song it would be good indication of how many people reuse the content there.

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I don't think anyone could successfully argue that competitive games are not popular. Multiplayer FPS and RTS games do have a great amount of replayability and popularity, but your statistics here are ignoring two major facts.

First, all of those games mentioned have healthy, strong MOD communities which constantly churn out new maps, weaponry, and options. None of them are remotely the same as they were the day they were released, and most of the modifications come from fans who donated their time to create/alter content.


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Its absolutely true that there is a modding community and they contribute to the diversity of the games. I don't think that is much of an issue in this case though. While no one expects (though it would be nice) for any MMO to release a tool kit and let players contribute content, people do expect the people who run the MMO to add content over time. I guess I'd put it like this, which has changed more since 2000, DAoC or CS? I'll put my money firmly on DAoC, in all the major ways to measure change; ie number of lines of code, in-game content, art assets, balance changes, and changes to the play experience.

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Second, none of those games requires (to my knowledge) a monthly or hourly subscription fee. Ah, wait...the internet cafes in the asian market do charge an hourly rate and most players in those markets play via the cafes.

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Now this is true (sort of), and its surprised me a bit that it hadn't come up before

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The MMO market is hugely expensive to develop for. This means a revenue stream of some sort has to be guaranteed for an MMO to be successful and in the American Market, the standard is the monthly subscription.


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But not the only model, while neither Guild Wars nor Diablo II are truly MMO's in all senses of the word they certainly attract many of the same players.

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My opinion is that if players in the American market had to pay as much to play Counterstrike as they do to play say "WoW" there would be a vastly lower number of Counterstrike players.


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Really? Then how do you explain the continued popularity (and huge expansion) of Xbox live? Granted there are some extra things that MS throws in, but the main aspect is providing hosting for multiplayer games and its far from free, in fact you have to have a gold membership to gain access to the multiplayer games:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/membe...ptioncards.htm

If Xbox live were calculated as a MMO, it would be the second largest:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/p...nchmarkpr.mspx

I'll go along with the idea that if it cost a fee to play CS that would reduce the number of players, but I don't think it would be a major reduction. People like to pretend that it doesn't cost money to play these games, but I can assure that is a serious mistake. While its true that anyone could host a game with a few buddies, but once you get beyond the small team vs small team size you need a dedicated box. This is even more true for the newer FPS games. Take a look at the pricing for game server rentals/hosting and you'll see what I mean.

Game Servers UT2004 Pricing

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Sony tried and failed to get a subscription based RTS launched. They launched, with severely underwhelming success, an FPS with a monthly subscription fee. I contend that the lack of success of both titles had as much to do with the required subscription as it did with any shortcomings in implementation. Planetside may have been the best game ever -- I personally would not know, I would *not* pay a monthly fee to play an FPS when I can play Counterstrike for free.

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Again, this is something of a fallacy because in almost all cases someone is paying. You can play all day on a free server, but someone is paying for it, often to advertise their server rental business

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I, and I have every reason to believe Im a typical MMORPG player, have no interest in a FPS PVP game.

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I'm glad you think so Having said that, this entire game has been out of step with the mainstream of MMO's for quite sometime. Take a look at the pure MMO stats I compiled and you'll see that the exclusion of PvP for so long created an environment that was tailored for people who aren't the average MMO player. After all, the average MMO player doesn't play CoX at all.

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Its the make and grow your character, and see the progression that makes MMORPGs addictive IMO.

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There is no doubt that PvE has value that is at least equal to PvP in terms of attraction to large numbers of players. Having said that its interesting to note that the term MMoRPG has almost completely fallen into disuse in the current generation of gamers and I think that says something about the state of gaming, they are MMO's these days.

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However, where PVP comes in is what do you do after you do all of PVE? When you are max level, and done all the unique missions and the rest are repetitions, then what do you do? PVP, loot, skills/trades are all answers various games have used to try to keep interest after you "finish" the game.

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I won't disagree that this is how many PvE players get to PvP and it ties into the whole replability factor. Many many hardcore RP'ers are into PvP because its another way to use the character they've built and loved. The other side of the coin is the guy who comes from the FPS or RTS world, who is much less attached to the character but still passionate about the competition.

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Well, so, after many twists and turns, we come full circle.

Which is to say it seems we all agree.

The game needs both, and it sounds like everyone agreed on that from the beginning, we just didn't like the sources and sometimes we didn't like the tone.

The next question is still the big one, which is how to improve the crossover and make what are (in my mind, anyway) 2 different games come closer to being one game we can all enjoy in its full length and breadth. Well, not "all," that's overstating. There are 10% on either side of the PvE / PvP issue that will never enjoy the other. But we need to start playing to the 80% in the middle.

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Allow for two builds. That would be quick and dirty method.

The more thoughtout methods would be some of the stuff T_L and Arcana have stated.

Though after 2+ years I think a lot of people would not mind if the quick and dirty method were implemented at this point.

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Yep, a two build system implemented _right now_ would be one of the best things the devs could do for PvP and its something that has most of the mechanisms in place to handle it. They would have to store the two builds, but I doubt database space is that much of an issue.

*Edit* this thread had done wonders for my post count but not helped me finish any of my work for some reason...bbl

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[EDIT] What I am trying to say is I love FPS PvP but can't get into PvP here. So statistics showing that millions of people play Counterstrike isn't going to convince me that more PvP is what this game needs.

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This is usually because of issues with the PvP implementation rather than MMO PvP not being a good thing. The gaming world has moved pretty significantly toward instanced combat with balanced teams, a step in the right direction and is much more in line with FPS PvP experiences. Fury, Guild Wars, and WoW have all made this leap and I believe this will continue as games like Huxley continue to push the boundaries of our arbitrary definitions.

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PS: I am still hoping for some kind of 8v8 Hero vs Villain capture the flag type scenario. Am I the only one?

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Not at all, this would be an awesome addition. RV, I think, was somewhat inspired by CTF but ended up being more complex. Many other MMO's have this type of match already....

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also I want to point out I would be wary of anything posted by MMOrgchart.

As has been stated several times in this thread.


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Including by me, with the caveat that the information my point was depending on was highly reliable because the data is publicly available as part of NCSoft's and Blizzard's SEC filings. While it may be difficult to get exact subscription numbers on say the number of subs in SWG, because SOE is ashamed of those numbers its not that hard to get numbers on WoW, CoH, L2, GW, and most "successful" games.

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EDIT: Also I see MMOs and RTF and FPS as all different genres. You can't really lump all those statistics together because the reasons (and audience of) one plays an MMO pvp game is different than that of an FPS. I myself HATE FPS and RTFs with a passion. MMO pvp is what actually attracted me.


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This is one of the areas where the public data is weak, there is much better (private) information available that provides strong correlation between these groups but I hate to even bring it up because I can't share it.

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Also these links to statistics do nothing to show that the idea that "most find pvp as having more replability" as nothing more than opinion.

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If you dispute the concept that gamers can be treated as group, then we have to use logic.

We know that for the games that segregate PvP from PvE zones that the number of PvE zones is overwhelming in the favor of the PvE side of the equation. In CoX there are 4 PvP zones and the Arena (bases could be counted as well, but they aren't exclusively for PvP). There are 26 or 27 (IIRC) PvE zones on the CoH side and 8 more on the CoV side. The fact that the PvP zones get any degree of usage indicates a high correspondence with replay value.

I haven't done this kind of survey, but it would be interesting to record names of players and characters in the zones for a period of months and see what the reuse numbers were in this game. I can say, without any doubt, that the PvP zones do get more repeat use than any of the PvE zones in this game, part of that is due to the simple fact that there are fewer zones that fit into that category but another part is the fact that there isn't much point of going into Skyway once you're level 32. The same cannot be said of BB or SC.

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Also I do not see MMOs and RTS/FPS games as one and the same. To me you HAVE to separate them simply because in MMOs there are variations in the combatants (ATs, classes, etc). There are A LOT less variations in the typical RTS or FPS game than in an MMO.

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I agree completely, but the people who play those games are very much the "same". A relatively small portion of gamers report only sticking to only one genre. Just because a game type isn't the same does not mean that elements (and lessons) can't cross those boundaries. BF2 is arguably one of the most popular FPS games of the last several years and it has an advancement mechanic that is straight out of a RPG.

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I would hope games like Fury do not subscribe to this. (I still haven't gotten a chance to test the game personally).

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Balance, or more accurately the lack there of, is one of the major reasons that some of the early (and the less well thought out) PvP implementations got a black eye. Balance is critical for PvP to flourish, which is one reason I get passionate about that topic. However, just because its harder to balance MMO's than FPS games doesn't mean it shouldn't be done or lower the value of PvP in MMO's. Its just one of the hurdles (one that CoX stumbled on) between wanting a good PvP implementation and getting one.

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PvP implementations derive much of their re-playability because of the variation. Any time I enter a PvP match, even if I've been on the map thousands of times before, the experience is fresh because I have no idea what my opponents are going to do. The same cannot be said of (most) PvE implementations. (I can run the FrostFire mission in my sleep I believe.)

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I would agree with your description of the PvP experience for FPS but try as I might I do not get the same experience here. Do PvP regulars get surprised by their opponents? My (acknowledged as limited) exposure to PvP suggests it to be every bit as repetative as PvE.

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With the exception of fighting people who are clueless, yes its different every time. Even when you fight a team multiple times, they will change strategy. Now, this isn't to say that you can't have the same sort of experience, ie Stalker dodging is going to happen to any squishy who enters a PvP zone, but that is much different than knowing exactly when and where X spawn will pop up.

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So "For most gamers (not all), PvP content has more replay value than PvE content. " is surely an opinion.

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If you would like to attempt to refute my data, please do so. I've provided extensive information; including raw data, graphs, and citations. All are open to challenge on their own grounds or contradictory data, but as of yet no one has offered any.

BTW, one important point. My data is based on all gamers, not just MMO gamers, and certainly not just gamers playing CoX.

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The fact is even if 1 person sees pvp as nothing but the same ol same ol (because they don't see any new rewards for it), and they don't see pvp as having ANY replayablity, the the idea that pvp content has more replay value than PVE, IS in fact an opinion.

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This is the same argument Jack just tried to make, and its still false. Simply because some people don't agree with the majority, doesn't change the fact that the majority feels a certain way. The statistics are facts based on personal opinions, but they are not opinions themselves.

*Edit*

Now, if the statistics are somehow wrong then you have a venue of dispute, but saying that statistics are invalid isn't a good means to move the discussion.

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I don't think that is subjective at all, it doesn't mean that it holds true for each individual but its certainly true from a statistical view point.

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But the fact that there are people for whom it doesn't hold true renders your statement entirely subjective. Its your opinion, and you have the right to it, and I might even agree with it, but its still just your opinion and as such is subjective by definition.

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No its not. Let me see if I can clarify this for you. Whether or not a person enjoys re-using any given type of content _is_ a completely subjective decision based on personal preferences. However, the _fact_ is that PvP content is more reusable by far more people than PvE content is not subjective, it can be demonstrated via statistical analysis.

Here's another way of looking at it. An opinion is subjective, but the measurement of the outcome of those opinions is not. If we ask 10 people if the like apples, 7 may say yes and that creates survey data. If we watch what those 10 people eat over a period of time we can more data about how much they really do like apples. The fact that 2 people don't really care for apples and 1 person can't stand them doesn't alter the reality that most people, in our subject group, like apples. For most gamers (not all), PvP content has more replay value than PvE content.

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What I do suggest, is that not funding PvP is entirely short sighted because PvP content is much more reusable than PvE content and I see both as contributing to the success of a modern MMO.

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How are you defining "reusable"? I ask because I know players who have been here two years now, know the PvE content by heart, and yet still come up with new toons on a regular basis to re-experience that same "less reusable" content. Seeing that, I think the entire issue of "content reusability" is entirely subjective.

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Actually it isn't subjective at all, however keep in mind that I speaking of gaming in general not just gaming here in CoX. There are certainly people who can and will play the same PvE content many times in as many different variations as is possible. Having said that, no pure PvE implementation shows anything like the longevity seen with PvP implementations. Keep in mind that both Counter Strike, StarCraft, Warcraft, BF, BF2, and a multitude of other "old" games.

Lets just look at CS since its the grand daddy of em all.

In 2002 there were over 30,000 populated Counter-Strike servers on line.

In 2004, GameSpy statistics showed over 85,000 players simultaneously playing Counter-Strike at any point in time.

in 2006, Steam regularly shows over 200,000 players for Counter-Strike at the same time (though this number includes some of the later releases as well).

According to statistics gathered by Valve's content-delivery platform, Steam, these players collectively contribute to over 6.177 billion minutes of playing time each month.

Thats a game that was released in 2000 (started as a mod back in 1999).

PvP implementations derive much of their re-playability because of the variation. Any time I enter a PvP match, even if I've been on the map thousands of times before, the experience is fresh because I have no idea what my opponents are going to do. The same cannot be said of (most) PvE implementations. (I can run the FrostFire mission in my sleep I believe.)

Now, are there some people who don't get bored by the repetition that is common in PvE? Certainly, but I don't think its all that common, otherwise I wouldn't expect people to constantly ask for more content. Guild Wars only has 4 PvP venues (really just 3 IMO), each with a limited set of maps. Compare that the number of PvE venues, 3 lands each with 40+ regions.
(http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page)

The same is true for most games that don't have open PvP, there are almost always far more PvE content (in terms of maps, assets, etc) than PvP content. I don't think that is subjective at all, it doesn't mean that it holds true for each individual but its certainly true from a statistical view point.

Agreed, while I haven't delved into the earliest dev posts this is clearly the method used and one of the sources of the problems.

The _easiest_ method for fixing this game would be to implement lower caps on certain critical values and better still to do so that self buffs are held as separate value (with its own cap) from buffs from other sources. Interestingly this would have little effect on the PvE game, but a huge affect on PvP. One of the biggest problems I have with PvP in this game is the magnitude of impact that team buffs have. For example, it should be impossible for a team of 8 facing another team of 8 in an arena match, with both sides possessing PvE effective builds, to have a 100+ to 0 score. However, it happens pretty regularly and the difference is team buffs. While I believe that teamwork (including buffing) should be have strong impacts on success in combat that degree is clearly skewed. So much out of whack that we faced a team in a match that resulted in a score of 115 to 1. The team fortunately had the strength of character to ask what they did wrong. In less than a month we had another match, and while we won again the score was 28 to 4 (or something similar) all because they brought the right mix of support characters with the right skills.

This is clearly indicative of how much of force multiplier buffs are in this game and they are _not_ successfully countered by their debuff counterparts.

Ahh...I wasn't talking about this game. This one was pretty clearly balanced around a mathematical ideal of "effectiveness" of some sort given the number of similar powers/sets that are variations of each other with tweaks to certain values. Claws versus Spines seems to be a good example, with Spines having higher burst damage to go with higher end cost and slower recharge, both produce X amount of DPS over time but have drastically different outcomes where burst damage is important or factors (like buffs) strongly impact recharge rates and end recovery. I'd be willing to bet that there is (or at least was) a master spreadsheet with each power set totaling so they matched each other to a certain degree.

Negative feedback is needed, both of us agree on that. However, I am much less than convinced that simply incorporating them will result in any more balanced games. Most games at least claim to be built around the concept of rock/paper/scissors, of course applying the precepts of a zero sum game to a non-zero sum game can be perilous, but theoretically that should create negative feedback in most games now. Arguably that doesn't occur, of course you can reply that they simply didn't implement it well.

I can't prove a negative so I have to say that its possible you can create a tree that will create balance, but I can say that quite a few smart folks I know (that are paid to do just that) have come up short trying to. I believe the reason for this is embedded in the fact that no matter how complex your model it can't predict how everything will be used and how negative feedback can be subverted. Not only do you have to create a perfect model, but it has to be perfectly executed, something that I have never seen happen in more than a decade of managing software projects.

The current game is somewhat dependent on recharge times and end cost per power for its balance. In and of itself this is a reasonable approach. The problem comes in when a team buff is created that allows someone to bypass the drawback of a certain set. In your example adding another AT that could debuff defense or toHitBuffs would have a major impact.

The sheer number of interaction of skills and abilities in an MMO makes me doubt that anyone will create a model that can be implemented.

I do think your approach could provide a good starting point for balance, but that's as far as it can go. I personally prefer a flexible system character system so that balance issues aren't crippling when they occur. In a game like GW, if a skill is weak people don't use it. Given time, the player base will show the developers where the overly strong and overly weak skills are. I also believe that hard caps are more effective than trying to create a web of counters.

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So, because we didn't sell toilet paper when we opened the store we shouldn't sell it now that its proven its popularity at every other store.

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I believe a more apt use of this metaphor would say she means that just because toilet paper sells well doesn't mean you should convert most of your stock over to it. There's plenty of room for other material that sells, too, and you don't need to take up everyone else's shelf space to get TP generating money.

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No, not really. At least that's not my position at all. As I stated in this thread and many others like it, PvE is an important part of this and most other MMO experiences. What I do suggest, is that not funding PvP is entirely short sighted because PvP content is much more reusable than PvE content and I see both as contributing to the success of a modern MMO. I also believe that games that don't do a good job at both forms of play are going to lose out to games that do.

To further stretch the metaphor, I don't want sell only toilet paper but I would like to have a nice new display since we haven't sold it before.

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In GW you can often win with a "weaker" build if it takes advantage of a weakness of builds that are common for the current meta game. I like this kind of solution much better than one that changes the how effective a power is.

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But that idea is just a close paraphrase of the idea I originally presented: the only difference is that I suggested instead of such things happening by coincidence, they happen explicitly by design.


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It is similar, but the difference is predictability to the players. If I plan a team build with X, Y, and Z in the morning only to find out that Z is now 20% less effective because some moron posted my uber build idea and everyone is running I'd be unhappy. Now, in a system where powers can be easily changed its not terrible, but in a game like CoX where changing a build requires a limited resource it would be horrendous. Could you imagine leveling up a character that was effective, but non-conventional, only to have dozens of people figure out your build and then reduce you're effectiveness just by cloning it? That's a pretty fierce implementation of a non-zero-sum game model.

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In effect, the balancing happens less at the powers level (although it ultimately has to be implemented at the powers level) and more at the meta-level of PvPers making decisions on what to build, and how to tactically approach combat. Those decisions currently are at least partially based on what the current prevaling build percentages are, and how likely you are to fight any particular thing. It would improve balance significantly if those decisions weren't just randomly based on player populations, but intimately tied to them directly by explicit design decisions. Right now, it just happens. A good design, in my opinion, would leverage the behavior for balance purposes.

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If you can define a mechanism that automatically balances without lowering the effectiveness of existing characters and powers then I might agree, but I can't see a method for doing that. For example, you could lower the effectiveness of "clones builds" by consider the age of their template and the older the template the more "original" its considered. I still don't like that, because then you have lowered the ability of smart players to react tactically. If I know the value of and the animation that Executioner's Strike uses I currently have an idea of what the max damage is. However, I have to factor in too many factors that predictability is destroyed and there is no reason to know anything other than its an ax attack since the level of imperfect information is so high.

Currently I can watch a GW match for a few minutes and have a very good idea of not only the skills the player has slotted, but his attributes, Runes, and gear. Take that away by introducing a variable that isn't related to anything other than when I created my character (or how many clones of me there are at that moment) and you've reduced the strategic depth of the game. I'd much rather have a somewhat less elegant balancing method (meta-game) and have more predictability.

No disagreement there, the FotM phenomenon is obviously a negative and various tactics have tried to address the "tallest daisy" issues that surround it. However, the constant contest between builds is part (one of my favorite parts) of MMO PvP. Its one of the things that separates MMO combat from FPS games, where everyone is basically a clone of each other. The problem isn't differences, its inflexible systems and extreme specialization. Many PvP centric games attack this by having flexible character re-specialization systems. In Guild Wars you can respec you character (even changing secondary profession) in any town and you can easily store builds as text files on your PC so changing what your character can do is easy. (Its important to note that GW reduces the number of active skills to 8 in an effort to reduce balancing complexity.) This is a good system since it allows for the development of a strategic environment called the meta-game. In GW you can often win with a "weaker" build if it takes advantage of a weakness of builds that are common for the current meta game. I like this kind of solution much better than one that changes the how effective a power is.

I think you would have been better served by not answering than posting this.

You spent probably 20 minutes writing something that boils down to, I think that everything that was said is wrong, but can't be bothered to provide any evidence or even a rational argument to counter it.

You claim that game trends in the whole MMO industry are somehow not applicable to CoX...by what reasoning?

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In General, I think that whatever PvP does in other games is immaterial. Yes, there is a market for PvP, but CoX was not that market in the beginning and I believe that trying to make CoX more PvP oriented is a bad idea. Bad for me, bad for the game.

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So, because we didn't sell toilet paper when we opened the store we shouldn't sell it now that its proven its popularity at every other store. BTW, Arcanaville and I were discussing Game Theory, a field of study that originated in the 1940's.

Please, feel free to educate yourself on one more topic:
Game Theory

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Unlike you and the other PvPers In This Thread, I do not make up facts and I do not claim to have secret knowledge about what they do in the game.

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That's a mighty broad stroke there neighbor, care to point any place this PvP'er made up facts?

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At this morning: 0830-0840 Pacific Time
Whoall in Steel Canyon: 5
Whoall in Siren’s Call: 0
Whoall in Skyway: 3
Whoall in Bloody Bay: 2
Whoall in King’s Row: 3
Whoall in Warburg: 0
Whoall in Atlas Park: 15
Whoall in Recluse’s Victory: 5

Total PvE: 26
Total PvP: 07


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This, as I think you realize, isn't particularly scientific nor is it all that compelling. First, having one sample is like assuming it rains all the time in San Diego because the one time I went it rained for three days. Without taking a broad sample you can't see trends and anomalies. Its equally interesting to note that with the exception of the home of costume contests (AP) the highest population PvP zone matches the highest population PvE zone in your survey. However, as I said a sample size of 1 is basically worthless. If you want to use stats to support a position, please do the work and gather statistically significant data.

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if the other people in this thread can stop citing facts without providing the evidence to back up what they say.


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Again, I believe that I provided a significant amount of verifiable data. I hope you'd avoid using broad strokes if didn't intend to include my posts.

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In the meantime, here’s a question for you all:

If PvE is such a dead duck and not financially worthwhile, why is it that I see threads over and over again about how PvPers are trying to get more people into their zones and trying to come up with more ways to have PvP forced into other zones but I do not think I have ever seen a thread started with the idea that PvE areas need to have more incentive to get all those PvPers to come out of their zones and join us?

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I don't personally believe that PvE is dead, far from it. My personal position is that pure PvE games won't succeed, but we have yet to see a pure PvP MMO work. Fury is the first to be released and it will be very interesting to see how successful it is in the marketplace. In short, its worth the developers time and energy to put some focus on PvP, but that is not the same thing as saying stop working on PvE.

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Can you site the source of these 'facts'?

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Yes I can, and without the single quotes around the word facts as well.

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Thank you! I apologize if I offended you. I doubted you actually had a link, but if it existed was quite interested in looking at whatever source you were pulling your information from.

/em hits the links

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No worries, I'm thick skinned

(My wife says thick headed but we won't go into that.)

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This is _supposed_ to be a factional conflict (in all the zone except WB). I simply can't understand why it seems the same people that claim to enjoy PvE and the story lines don't see this as a complete destruction of immersion. I can't see many comic heroes not helping another hero, though certainly villains don't naturally have the same loyalty they are all part of the same organization.

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Funny... I made this same argument regarding WB and why the entire concept behind it is flawed. I remember your response being "heroes fight heroes all the time in the comics".

So...

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So... what? There isn't an inconsistency there. Yes, heroes do fight other heroes in comics quite regularly. Yes, heroes help other heroes fight villains. Even when heroes disagree and have fought in the past they will often work together to take on a threat.

I've also stated, numerous times, that WB has a weak RP reason to be FFA and BB had a much better "story" for being FFA. However, having the lowest leve PvP zone be a FFA was something I and others campaigned against during the CoV Beta.

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My first "official" class in games theory was in 1979, but I was pretty young at the time. I've been studying it as an actual mathematical discipline off and on for approximately twenty-two years. I know people who've studied it longer, but they're all mathematics or economics professors.

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Then color me surprised, I first engaged with game theory in the early 80's, 84 IIRC.

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But whatever its worth to publishers, game designers don't generally make that kind of money. Castle could hit his coworkers with lightning and actually *give* them superpowers, and I doubt it would take him higher than the high five figures. Lead programmers can make more, but lead programmers don't normally get rich unless the game you end up writing happens to have "Quake" in the name.


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I'm well aware of what programmers, skill balancers, and designers make. However, someone able to come up with an algorithm that actually describes balancing in an accurate model could make a great deal more. Programmers and artists (and community managers for that matter) aren't the one's who get rich in the gaming business because in most cases they are working for a salary and if they're lucky a few thousand stock options.

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If you are a game theorist, then here's the principles surrounding effective 1v1 PvP balance. You'd want to exploit three separate player decisions. First, you'd want to ensure that the act of making a build decision has population-based negative feedback. Each person that chooses to build in a particular way reduces the value of that build. That's possible: ensure that every build contains its own specific weakness (trivial examples, Focused Fighting offers a tohit buff: Unyielding buffs character with unresistable smashing damage). This means even if a particular build is "better" than all the others, that fact is only true so long as not too many other players take it. By definition, the strongest builds are not the most popular, they are the least popular, and that's impossible to circumvent.

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The problem with this is that while it does use self correcting forces to aid in balance, it doesn't create a fun game. Who wants to play a game where the effectiveness of your power is determined by how many other people choose the same one?

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Second, design proportional stacking rules, so that no game attributes exponentially increase, and so incremental improvements always have constant incremental value. This prevents single-point balancing from being upset by odd combinations of things, and allows for linear balancing metrics. This takes away the incentive to overstack, or accumulate lots of one thing, and allows players to make diversity decisions on an equal footing with stacked decisions.


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Agreed, but I'll also put forward that this is much more important to team v team balance than it is to 1 v 1 balance, since teams are where overloading occurs. Part of the balance issue, is imperfect information, not only do you not know the power choices or the slotting of your opponent you also don't know their strategy. No matter how you handle it, you can't provide perfect information because the game can't know what I'm planning to do.

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Third, create a requirement to commit to combat to achieve maximum effectiveness, and force the decision to commit to occur prior to gaining complete information about the combatants. This eliminates the ability to arbitrarily decide to engage in only fights where you have mathematically demonstrable advantages. This closes the exploitable hole in the first principle above: players have to decide to fight with imperfect information, which means they cannot precalculate overpowering advantages and decide to fight on that basis.


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Imperfect information isn't something to run from in games, while perfect information helps balance it doesn't make the game more enjoyable. To my mind making less information available would be a better approach for CoX than providing all information. I would prefer that the archetype tags not be displayed in PvP, this would have the effect of lowering cherry picking of targets to a degree. Although astute players will still determine who is playing what, it requires the use of observation and will lengthen combat in many cases. Providing perfect information only feeds into the drive to change, especially when combined with your first technique.


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There are lots of untapped ideas for balancing capabilities in 1v1 combat, and all of them have the additional property that they make teamed PvP combat more interesting also: they are not specifically 1v1-targeted adjustments.

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Let me be perfectly clear here. 1 v 1 balance is not possible in the modern MMO environment. While its possible to create a model, as you did above and many people have done before, it doesn't create an enjoyable game because the key to everything is the idea that something becomes less powerful as it gains popularity. Even in Guild Wars or Fury where changing powers is simply a matter of loading a new template between matches/maps players want predictability in the performance of their powers. Now, as I said all or almost all changes to balance are done on individual powers, but the changes are (or should) only be done in light of how that power affects team play. I really wish I could share some of the information I have that really illustrates this well, but I'm still bound by NDA's.

Having said all of that, we come to two fairly obvious conclusions. Its relatively easy to develop a model for balance that isn't fun and its relatively easy to develop a fun game that isn't balanced. The challenge becomes how do you craft a fun MMO from one of the balanced models? Everyone has been taking the other track, ie creating a fun game and then trying to cram into a state of balance mainly because no one has found the algorithm for fun yet

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Where I disagree is trying to work on 1v1 balance, its a waste of time and resources and always will be.

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There is no such thing as team balance without archetypal and powerset balance of some kind. "Balance" doesn't necessarily mean every single possible power set combination has an equal chance of killing every other single power set combination (but the notion that such a goal is intrinsicly impossible is something I wish I had the time to disprove, because I'd bet my annual salary on it), but there are specific design requirements for a balanced PvP environment that begin with individual power sets and archetypes, and work up from there. You cannot skip directly to "balancing" for teams: its blatantly impossible. Attempting to build on poor foundations is the only real waste of time and resources that exists; creating good foundations never is.

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While I have great respect for your mathematical ability I doubt you've been looking at game theory as long as I have. I can promise you this, if you can figure out an effective method of creating (much less effectively testing) 1v1 balance in an MMO setting then it will be worth much more than yearly salary unless you're already in the Donald Trump salary range

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When people claim that PvP is "balanced" for teams, what they are saying is that for any given team, you can construct another team that is its approximate equal. That's no different than saying for any character build, you can construct another character build that is its approximate equal. There is no sense in which CoX PvP is balanced for teams but not balanced for individual combat. There's nothing about teamed combat dynamics that CoX implements that adds something to the balance equation that single combat lacks. In fact, in the specific area of stacked buffs, teamed combat actually breaks more weak spots in the game engine than single combat does.


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Its called potential balance, the problem that is inherent for 1v1 balance is inter-class balance. In CoH terms, a Blaster should do more raw damage than a Defender, but how does that affect balance? Should the Defender win more or less than 50% of the fights if player skill is equal? Things obviously get much more complicated as you add more power sets and powers.

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Probably more to the point: I know of no fix to PvP combat mechanics that fixes teams without addressing a specific powerset issue in single combat also: there are little if any "team" fixes when it comes to game mechanics, only powers and mechanics fixes, which are blind to team/solo combat.

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Certainly all adjustments (or almost all) end up being adjustments to individual powers and individual classes since for most games there isn't such a thing as "team powers" (though in some games there are team modifiers that can be balance impacting). However, changing the amount of energy return that a Paragon can return via Energizing Finale or "The Power Is Yours!" is adjusting an individual skill, but the balancing was due to the power's impact on team play. In a 1v1 situation the power would never be touched, since its not at all overpowered.

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If you liked the 1v1 so much, why didn't you make the descion to go to the arena, where you would not have been attacked in a zone made where people attack you because your a villain/hero.

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First, finding someone to fight in the arena who isn't twinked is a pain.

Second, I actually like having the mobs around since it adds an element beyond "GIT EM!" to it.

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And why is that different when other players get involved?
This is _supposed_ to be a factional conflict (in all the zone except WB). I simply can't understand why it seems the same people that claim to enjoy PvE and the story lines don't see this as a complete destruction of immersion. I can't see many comic heroes not helping another hero, though certainly villains don't naturally have the same loyalty they are all part of the same organization.

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Third, I don't see why anyone would just decide to barge in on an even fight. If someone's attacked two to one, I can see it. I dove in on a few three to one matches and greatly enjoyed sending the people packing. But when two people are duking it out, why push the scale to "Insta-win!"?


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See above, besides if your in the zone the game provides a reward for me killing you. Why wouldn't I do that?

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I've sat back and watched a few good fights. Admittedly on my characters with stealth who are much less likely to be harrassed, while hiding in odd places with nice views. But it was impressive to watch two good teams going head to head. I could have walked in, debuffed and pushed it to 'easy mode' but what fun is there in that?

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I doubt very much you've seen a pure team v team competition in the zones and since its impossible to say who is on a team that you aren't you have no real idea. Which is yet another reason why people jump in. The arenas are for "set" combat, not the zones.

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But the point is not to stop ganking in FFA zones, but to set up PvP missions where the inequities are reduced.

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Sorry if I missed your point, but this paragraph seems to be aimed at the zones.

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I'm in complete agreement, but the source of the problem is the system, not the players. The devs tell us it's rock/papers/scissors, but that's false. It's more like Scissors/Rice Paper/Printer Paper/Cellophane/Cardboard. A build like an EM/Fire Brute (with Insp + Accolades) will outperform any scrapper set that doesn't have Slow. Mind/Rad, Ice/En, etc....these builds are not balanced in the context of PvP because PvP isn't balanced for 1v1. So the devs need to address these things and they won't. You can't have gankers if people can't gank. Now, you can't truly balance 1v1, but the gap in peformance is reducible and they have mostly ignored the issue.

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I'll always agree that team v team balance (especially factional) can be improved and that more PvP venues is an improvement. Where I disagree is trying to work on 1v1 balance, its a waste of time and resources and always will be. Can some of the underperforming sets be made better and the "best" reduced? Absolutely, but that should always be done in the context of a team, usually of a specific size.

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Thorizdin_LotD:
Now, if you have a real solution to dealing with "poo monkeys" I'm all ears.

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Exclude them. If you are on a team with someone who continually greifs other people, or who suggests you do things like TP foe the same person continually as he tries to get to the exit; kick them from your team and help the other people nuke them.

You CAN do something about people who are total Poo Flingers. You just choose not to.


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Actually, I already do all of those things, I have never said that individuals and groups shouldn't try to improve things. What I have said is that trying to go over and above with rules that are over and above what the developers and owners of the game have said are the rules won't work.