Say No to Open World PvP Say YES to Cross Server PvP

Hello again

I do not like PvP, but I appreciate the loyal subscribers to this game that do enjoy PvP. I think the solution to PvP issues is to make it cross server PvP.

If you go into Sirens Call on ANY server you will be with everyone else from ANY server in the same Sirens Call.

I think, this would be the only good $ spent on PvP in this game...

Then all you PvPers could be together, and stuff.

Not an altogether bad idea, this.

My primary inquiries/concerns with it are thus-

1- Would the engine handle heavy load in a specific global pvp zone like it does elsewhere by mirroring the zone and shunting new arrivals into it, ala say "Sirens Call 2" and 3 and so on?

2- Would the existing hardware/game engine be able to handle that readily if it wound up being popular, given the server crashing history large, heavy pop/traffic events in Pocket D on Virtue sometimes have?

3- What ability for direct trade between characters from different servers would exist in this environment?

I know that the first two would take a redname to really answer in full, though some discussion might be had to bat around thoughts at least.

Good idea, this one. Or so goes my thought.

Honestly Perfect Pain, cross-server PvP is sort of a pointless feature to ask for.

Okay, while most of the players in the game who actively participate in PvP combat have already used the free transfers to move their avatars to Freedom Server, that isn't why cross-server PvP is a pointless feature.

One of the reasons why it's a pointless feature is that cross-server linking would require a significant amount of "new"engine code, "new" networking code, and "new" user interface code. Of the cross-server systems we have in place now, such as the chat system, AE system, and auction house system, I directly know that the auction house system uses it's own external server, rather than existing on the game servers. I also know that AE content is hosted upon it's own server. I'm under the impression that the chat-server is handled the same way, using an external server rather than running atop the game engine server.

As I see it, in order for the development staff to consider cross-server play, an argument would have to be made for a cross-server event or system that more than 1% of the active player-base would participate in.


Another reason is that simply making CoH's PvP Cross-server doesn't necessarily mean that more players will participate. I do know that somebody has made the suggestion before that PvP-play would grow if more players were available to take part in PvP. I'm not entirely sure this is true. Remember, CoH is often used as "proof" in the games industry that MMO's do not need PvP to succeed. Despite multiple years of PvP-play existing in the game, PvP zones and PvP arenas have never attracted a significant amount of players. Despite literal years for PvP players to evangelize the feature and get players interested... the general game response has been "ho hum" at it's best.

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If the developers were to look at a system of making game-content cross-server compatible, I think it would be in their interest to just bite the howitzer shells and examine a player-serverless cloud environment as a hosting solution. Although that brings it's own set of problems, it would at least be applicable to the game, not to a niche.

the one thing that is brought up all the time this is suggested is that it will not draw new people to PvP. that is absolutely true. if someone doesn't want to PvP they won't. no matter what carrots you dangle in front of them. if someone does want to PvP then they will. you can not change peoples minds about an aspect of the game.

also as j_s says, it would probably be a nightmare to get working correctly. i'm sure that the devs had this in the back of their heads when they gave us free transfers and that is partially why they have left them as such for now.

Back when PvP was the new shiny and the PvP population was growing, this would've made sense to at least consider. Now it'd be throwing precious resources at a tiny part of the game population, "solving" a problem that has already at least in part been addressed via free server transfers.

If they were to invest in PvP at all, I'd rather see a new PvP revamp intended to make it more fun and rewarding.

If they were going to throw resources that directly benefit only a small crowd, I'd rather seem them invest in base building tools. Even though only a small fraction of the players edit bases, a larger percentage indirectly benefits.

I want it stay broken, but I will be nice and say I want it better. I hate PvPs, but I don't NEED to be in there so yeah it should be fixes. But I do NOT want all the PvPers from every sever play together.

First off what if there was 2 people named Fire Man?

Second there would be more people to kill me if I do go in the PvP zone.

The name would be like this:

The Extrordinary Awesome
Fire Man
Virtue


The Extrordinary Awesome
Fire Man
Champion


Whats the problem?

I love when people say about broken stuff but never a helpful indeepth solution.

love..sorry...i mean cant stand

I think the main problem involved here is the same one with cross-server anything - how do deal with name clashes?

An open letter to NCsoft

I often go into the PVP zones of my Pinnacle and goof off. I'll often hit Siren's Call and help Arachnos win the zone or hit Bloody Bay because I've gotten into the habit of throwing Shivans at everything and restock a lot. I'd say 75% of the time I do this there's no Heroes in the zone, and most of the heroes that do come in get mad at me when I attack them because they're only there for the Shivans or the badges or something crazy like that.

I'm not leaving Pinancle because I'm not primarily a PVPer, and I don't want to have to have my best toon leave the server where all my friends are so I can get some solid PVP... But if I had the option to PVP with him regularly without leaving Pinnacle? I'd certainly take it.


So I vote Yes for moving the PVP zones on a separate server and using special titles for server to deal with the shared name issue. PVP's small because it's flawed and unpopular, yes, but the fact that it's so hard to find PVP on some servers is keeping it unpopular.

Unfortunately I think these two months of free transfers are going to be all we'll get for "cross-server PvP." There hasn't been a successful long-running (i.e. more than one night) PvP event in over a year, on any server. Justice and Pinnacle had attempts at leagues that fizzled out, people tried rebooting the test ladder and that fizzled out, and I guess it remains to be seen whether the upcoming Freedom league actually takes off (I think it will, since there are quite a few players involved).

I'd really rather any and all dev efforts toward PvP be spent reverting the system back to I12 - I'd trade any PvP related buffs and all my existing PvP characters to have that back.

Pinnacle had a 3-man-team tournament within the past year. I'm no sure where you're getting your "over a year" numbers.