PVP-only characters and the systems behind them.
By
GOTerpsPvP,
Posted on: 2009-04-29 14:09 in Suggestions and Ideas
/signed to a pvp server that allows auto-level to 50, access to all of the pvp zones, pocket D, and the Arena, and free enhancements.
THIS would be a huge benefit for pvp.
I would suggest that either you have an unlimited supply of all IO sets available for free, or simply eliminate IO's from the equation and only have SO's available (i.e., no IO drops from pvp zone npc's). Eliminating loot from the equation would be a HUGE step in the right direction.
Link every pvp zone to Pocket D (and one-another) instead of adding arena kiosks in the zones themselves.
With these changes, you would finally have a "balanced" pvp game. Of course, everyone might end up playing the same AT/powersets but it would be a more balanced and fun pvp game than we have now.
Unfortunately, I just don't see this ever happening, as it would appear to involve too much work for the benefit it would provide to the relatively small population of players who enjoy pvp, and also runs contrary to the goal of killing pvp completely.
The suggestion as written would only be appealing to me if the characters were automatically awarded all accolades, or provided with an alternative method to obtain them. (This includes Day Job Accolades, although providing an alternative means to obtain them seems more straightforward.)
I also would be wary of implementations for "PvP Merits." My immediate fear is that they'd be dropped only for PvP kills, and that heavily disadvantages new characters created this way.
One thing that would probably have to go in for this that I'd really like, however, is the ability to run PvP Zone Missions according to your combat level rather than your security level.
For the sake of balance, I'd go a different direction and eliminate all accolades for "pvp-only" characters.
[ QUOTE ]
The suggestion as written would only be appealing to me if the characters were automatically awarded all accolades, or provided with an alternative method to obtain them. (This includes Day Job Accolades, although providing an alternative means to obtain them seems more straightforward.)
I also would be wary of implementations for "PvP Merits." My immediate fear is that they'd be dropped only for PvP kills, and that heavily disadvantages new characters created this way.
One thing that would probably have to go in for this that I'd really like, however, is the ability to run PvP Zone Missions according to your combat level rather than your security level.
[/ QUOTE ]
Your second paragraph takes care of the first, perhaps. 
As far as how they'd drop? Good question. Yes, kills would (IMHO) have to be part of it - but since they don't get TF merits, arc merits, etc. perhaps a PVP-only-flagged character would get them for X many missions, a chance from the NPCs in zone and the like. How many for each, and how much the various rewards would be.... I'm not even going to speculate. I'll leave that to those that love playing with numbers.
... which somewhat feeds into the third point. Since these characters play only in PVP zones, and would be directly affected by the buffs/debuffs from the missions, they should be able to run them regardless of being "50."
In some ways, they'd be like GM-coded NPCs are. Somewhat.
[ QUOTE ]
Since these characters play only in PVP zones, and would be directly affected by the buffs/debuffs from the missions, they should be able to run them regardless of being "50."
[/ QUOTE ]
The pvE missions should not be accessible by the "pvp only" characters, imo. At the same time, they should simply remove the buffs/debuffs that are awarded for completing missions in the pvp zones.
Meh. I don't mind those, per se. I'd like them a lot more if the missions were available regardless of security level. I'd like them *far* more if they were tied to zone objective events rather than instance missions.
One miracle at a time.
This looks like a good idea to me. They could add alternative PvP Accolades with a different set of requirements, such as kill counts against particular ATs.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
1. Gotta make sure the pvp chars don't count towards H/V EATs
2. Yes, like PvPleaseHelpme, link all zones to Pd, for the Arena there, and make sure PvP only chars can't use the vators out of PD
3. Only SO builds would make things more balanced, but possibly unlimited Free-IOs (abiding to the slotting rules, of course) would allow for different ways of play, and allow players who know how to slot a character well can have a slight advantage, because after all they spent the time to number crunch everything together, instead of a generic SO slotting. Other play styles from IOs like a proc-tastic build or fast and lighter on end but less powerful, or slow, defensive and powerful, bonuses from IOs.
4. Instead of putting all that consignment house and trainer and what-not in the zones, how bout a much smaller base portal to a PvP Char only "Base" zone with all that stuff. Perhaps instead of a consignment house there should be a special store with things only PvP Chars would need, like costume recipes, and temp powers, perhaps even special pvp powers, like a normal ranged attack for melee people, or a temp mez protection for ranged ATs, or even TP protection, cause now not even EA or ELA will protect from that.
[ QUOTE ]
1. Gotta make sure the pvp chars don't count towards H/V EATs
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I was somewhat assuming that. Then again, if it were flagged as a PVP-only EAT, would it be a big issue? It'd still have all the other restrictions, after all, being flagged PVP-only. It certainly wouldn't count for the PVE version, though, no.
[ QUOTE ]
3. Only SO builds would make things more balanced, but possibly unlimited Free-IOs (abiding to the slotting rules, of course) would allow for different ways of play, and allow players who know how to slot a character well can have a slight advantage, because after all they spent the time to number crunch everything together, instead of a generic SO slotting. Other play styles from IOs like a proc-tastic build or fast and lighter on end but less powerful, or slow, defensive and powerful, bonuses from IOs.
[/ QUOTE ]
The IO build mentioned (select, can't unslot but can change, cant' trade, etc.) would not lock you ONLY into common IOs (or SOs, depending on what the strength would be.) They'd be there for starters, so you wouldn't have a completely unslotted 50 with the disadvantage of - well, not having played and gotten INF/recipes/etc. If you get, trade, or otherwise obtain set recipes, you're completely free to use them (and they, as regular IOs, would be usnlottable/tradeable/etc.)
I specified that setup specifically because of PVP IO recipes. It'd be silly for a PVP-only character not to be able to use PVP-dropped rewards, after all.
[ QUOTE ]
4. Instead of putting all that consignment house and trainer and what-not in the zones, how bout a much smaller base portal to a PvP Char only "Base" zone with all that stuff. Perhaps instead of a consignment house there should be a special store with things only PvP Chars would need, like costume recipes, and temp powers, perhaps even special pvp powers, like a normal ranged attack for melee people, or a temp mez protection for ranged ATs, or even TP protection, cause now not even EA or ELA will protect from that.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, part of the reason for putting all that stuff in (the trainer, CH, etc.) was also as a QOL change for everyone in the zone. Non-PVP-only characters can, after all, still level, and they may not want to leave a good fight for a haul over to a trainer and back.
CH access, though, I could see being put into an actual "safe" spot for a PVP-Only character. It can take some time, after all, and they don't have the option of leaving and going to a regular CH.
It would also give them access to the regular recipes you mention above, if they don't drop (costumes, temp powers, etc.) I won't go into temporary PVP powers, as that's a whole other kettle of fish.
[ QUOTE ]
Gotta make sure the pvp chars don't count towards H/V EATs
[/ QUOTE ]
I GUESS you could prevent someone from creating a pvp-only epic AT, but I'd just assume have all of these available as "pvp-only" options from the get-go.
[ QUOTE ]
3. Only SO builds would make things more balanced, but possibly unlimited Free-IOs (abiding to the slotting rules, of course) would allow for different ways of play, and allow players who know how to slot a character well can have a slight advantage, because after all they spent the time to number crunch everything together, instead of a generic SO slotting. Other play styles from IOs like a proc-tastic build or fast and lighter on end but less powerful, or slow, defensive and powerful, bonuses from IOs.
[/ QUOTE ]
Agreed. SO-only would be better for balance, but IO's open up a bunch of possibilities. Though, ultimately, people will gravitate towards the "best" IO's (after someone else does the number-crunching).
As for temp powers, the only temp powers that the pvp-only toons should have access to are those available from the arena or pvp zones.
The OP's suggestion involves creating PvP-only toons on the regular live servers whereas I've always had my pipe-dream of a "pvp server" that worked as I described (only pvp content, no loot, auto-level to 50). The likelihood of either idea ever being implemented is almost zero, but it doesn't hurt to dream!
I think the benefit of consolidating the pvp'ers in one place (the pvp-server) would be about the biggest improvement they could make. Even with the OP's suggestion, players would be split up among the various servers and still need to congregate on the Test server for events and loot duping. It'd be nice if everyone could be on equal footing without needing to transfer characters to the Test server and dup loot. If the devs ever take the massive steps necessary to make either of these things happen, I'll just cross my fingers and hope they have the sense to eliminate loot from the equation in some manner.
In the past, the devs had said the Test server was "the pvp server" but more recently they've indicated they dont want Test to be the primary pvp server. This is very unfortunate, as I would think the best bet we have of ever seeing something like the suggestion at hand would be for the devs to say "OK, Test Server 2 is the new pvp server, and will allow auto-level to 50, free loot, etc.." but alas that will never happen.
This came to mind again during a discussion of the AE farms.
It's been suggested before that we have available a (Guild Wars-style, for instance) ability to roll an "PVP flagged" character. I thought I'd take a crack at laying out not just the characters, but everything around them to support such a character.
What this is not:
This is NOT a character that can go anywhere and PVP - no stalkers in Atlas park.
What this is:
On character creation, you get an instant level 50 character that is only usable in PVP zones, the Arena, and the base (for when base raids are available again, as well as for storage and potential build items.) It cannot exit a PVP area, except to go to another PVP area.
Why do it:
Partially to encourage PVP, partially to take some of the wind out of power leveling, both as far as cutting back the RMT market and the various broadcast spam.
A PVPer who didn't have to do anything but roll a PVP-dedicated 50 could do so immediately to try out new builds or build ideas, get a "needed" character (more support? More damage? Go roll one!) for a team or the like.
Someone new to PVP wouldn't have to worry (well, as much - see detail bits for a discussion of enhancements) about being too far behind the curve, or being at the bottom end of the range of a zone. If they want to try PVP but don't feel their character is up to snuff, they can just create a new one (with no "attachment" to it) and if they don't like it - delete it when they're done. This could get some people who are on the fence interested in actually trying PVP.
Why not:
There's a good bit of work behind it. No illusions there. However, some of the additions would benefit everyone.
Detail bits:
The characters would be able to earn infamy and prestige. NPCs in the zones would still drop enhancements, recipes, salvage and the like. They obviously wouldn't get XP, being level 50. All exemping and similar rules would still apply to them.
When you get the character, you level 1-50 just like you normally would. There's an added step, however, where you assign enhancements. These are not "real" enhancements - while they can be changed, they cannot be removed, sold, or traded. They CAN be replaced with real enhancements, including set IOs. These enhancements would be about level 40-45 common IO strength, to give a reasonable amount while in RV and to deal with the effects of exemping down.
Also, they'll have their own "special" merits. Yes, I know, another "money system," but unlike bounty, this doesn't decay or go away. It's here solely to make up for the fact they won't be getting reward or MA merits, or be able to run respec trials if they want to make a little "tweak" here or there without a complete reroll. To some extent, the rewards would have to be "PVP character only" to cut down possible exploitation holes - but having the rewards (if they were, say, SF/TF level recipes as well as respecs) tradeable between similarly flagged characters I don't think would be a bad idea or affect the market much. They should be noticably different (say, if it's an IO, where a normal IO has the silver border, this one would be deep red, yellow, or a noticably different color.)
Support work that would have to be done:
Obviously there needs to be some support system behind this. You can't respec (past a freespec) if you couldn't exit the zone. In fact, you couldn't get to a trainer to swap builds. So, what to do:
(1) Arena kiosks in every PVP zone.
Why this hasn't been done as it is, I don't know. I think it's been asked for forever.
(2) Trainers in zone.
You can, after all, level in a PVP zone. Being able to train without losing bounty, shards, codes or temporal points would be nice for everyone. It would also allow the insta-50 PVP-flagged character to swap builds, as that option is only available at the trainer.
(2a) - Trainers in base.
Yes, you lose bounty, etc. by going to the base, but it'd be available to everyone. Not as optimal for this character type as (2) but helpful for everyone. I'd go for both.
(3) Consignment house access in zone/base.
Because, yes, they should be able to make INF by sellign what they don't want, while buying what they do. This would, short of RV, be their only access to purples for instance. (Short of trading and such, which is not disallowed.)
(4) Obviously, all the flagging and PVP-character-only related systems.
I'm not saying this wouldnt' be a good chunk of work to do, but I think with all this behind it, it may be workable, as well as help encourage PVP in general.