Making PvP more rewarding - PvP merits

The idea behind PvP recipes is a good one. It's makes PvP more rewarding. But, ultimately, PvP recipes reward winning, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing. It isn't, however, the best thing way to get people to PvP. PvP is fun, but it requires a VERY thick skin and a competitive spirit which not everyone has. PvP in this game is also unfair and always will be. There are too many variables for it to ever be "fair". Now, I don't think this is a bad thing, I just think it limits folks desire to engage in PvP.

I was thinking about how to get folks (including myself) into PvP. I started down this path because I've been playing Aion for the last month and PvP was a integral part of my playtime on the game. I really, really enjoyed it. Lost a lot, won a lot too. It was still fun.

Here in CoH, I've tried to PvP, but I get bored because I'm frankly lazy. I need targets and action. Breaking up a fite club doesn't count! So I've been thinking how the devs can bri..err encourage folks to PvP. And I think I've come on it: PvP MERITS!

HOW PVP MERITS WOULD WORK

PvP merits would be earned in three ways:

1) Defeating a player in a way that earns reputation (2 merits);
2) Being defeated by a player where that player earns reputation (1 merit);
3) Spending 30 minutes in a situation that subjects you to PvP (not hospital camping or death camping) (1 merit)

This does not appear to be too farmable (everything is farmable, of course).

HOW PVP MERITS WOULD BE SPENT

20 Merits - Trial/TF roll
50 Merits - Purple roll
50 Merits - PvP recipe roll

That's it! Only the really good stuff and only randoms.



Well, that's my idea, you may denounce it and mock me now!

With your plan, I could have 4 PvP recipes every night while I sleep.

Edit: That's on top of any that might drop randomly.

The problem with PvP rewards is that it's just a carrot on a stick philosophy, in a manner of speaking. You can have all the rewards you want, but if the underlying system sucks, people won't bother. Apparently the I13 changes were supposed to pave the way for a "balanced" PvP rewards system, but that obviously backfired and it doesn't seem as though there are plans for anything to change.

Maybe I'm wrong. What are the reputation rules?

EG, I'm betting that the best outcome you'd possibly get is for PCs to give the same chances of recipe/enhancement/purple drops as NPCs. Merits are too easily farmable.

A 1 in 5000 chance to get a purple off of another player doesn't seem to bad.

Did this once or twice just to see what would happen (and got one or two recipes out of it) -

Step 1 - Log in account 1.
Step 2 - Log in account 2.
Step 3 - Go to BB.
Step 4 - Cycle through alts, defeating each of them.

By the time they cycled through on one server (with a mix of heroes and villains,) it was long enough for me to get rep for the first one again. I could go and just churn in rewards on most servers without ever being disturbed. (After all, once I set up my location, all my alts log back in there.)

Macskull, Hyperstrike and Goldbrick all, really, have good points. There's no *reason* to PVP in here. Carrots... eh. You'll find more people cooperating (if they bother with the zones) than fighting on most servers. And the whole "Well, in PVE I have long holds/hold protection/great defense while in PVP it's completely different" does throw people.

Aion was made with PVP in mind. Think I mentioned elsewhere I love having a rift open and keeping an eye out for any Asmos that wander through. It's tied into the world story, it's built into the powersets and world. COH... not so much. Aion is (somewhat) more balanced - both sides have the same eight classes. There's also compelling reason (aside from PVP itself) to go *into* those zones.

I'm not so sure we could get away with that here. Or that it'd really work out as well - without it somehow forcing people into being on a mixed team.

There's a good bit of underlying work that needs to be done before we look into more PVP carrots, IMHO.

See my Guides and Tutorials

PCs having the same chance to drop the same stuff as NPCs, with the addition of PvP recipes, that I can go along with.

Introduce merits and it would be farmed so fast and so much your head would spin off your shoulders.

Currently you have to make a significant investment in time and/or money to trick out your character with all the best stuff. I don't begrudge the people who have done so their ridiculous power levels...they earned it by doing mind-numbing things for hours on end.

There is also no real way to game the current system for purples and PvP recipes, intentionally so. PvP merits would be easily gamable, and would throw the ratio the devs are shooting for WAY out of whack. Your average character isn't supposed to have more than a few purples in their build, introduce a gamable system like this and everyone will have entire builds full of them.

So, I don't think PvP merits are such a good idea, it wouldn't attract more people to PvP, it would just introduce a new way to farm.

Especially since there is not even a way it can go wrong.
You co-op with someone or yourself on another account, happily defeating each other for merits with varying characters, and if some real PvPers in the now fuller zone come by? All they can do is defeat you, and that's what you wanted anyway!
I can also see people running around hoping to be defeated then, with all toggles off, as its just so much faster an easier to faceplant twice than to win once.

Now one goodie drop chance with every win and with every x minutes spent in a PvP zone NOT in hospital NOT dead NOT hidden NOT afk NOT whatever I forgot? Sure, why not.

The latter would be like a "reward for not being defeated" then, better than a reward for being defeated I think. And less farmable.

OK fair enough guys, I'm man enough to admit my idea has too many flaws. Thanks for the comments.

While flawed, I'm wondering if the idea would have more merit if the recipe costs were higher and there was a bigger benefit to winning as opposed to losing or just sitting around. Make being defeated or the thirty minute timer a chance to gain merits, not guaranteed. It can be 50/50 but that alone should help reward actual kills and encourage activity. Remove purples from the roll selection and fuse PvP recipes and standard TF recipes into the same pool (rather than having multiple pools) and raise the price to 500 PvP merits. This gives less guarantee to the rolls instantly being the best thing ever since you could possibly get a "poor" roll. Finally, make the merits drain like rep--not engaging in PvP means that you lose merits over time.

As a whole, this can still be farmed but it isn't as easy and the numbers don't seem too high for those who are actively engaged in pvp. One that might help though is if the devs made some pvp recipes that were in yellow/orange strength that dropped easily as opposed to having all pvp recipes being purple strength.

Word has it that base raids should be making a comeback sometime around Going Rogue, so that's a plus. Of course, no one really knows how base raids will work with the crappy PvP system we've got, but they'll still be there nonetheless.