RebelToRumble
Veteran X
welfare epics
welfare epics
I actually do believe that most people who were really into PVP in other games before WoW mostly consider WoW's PVP a joke. It's essentially team dueling with nothing outside of personal gain as an incentive to continue. The battlegrounds are mildly interesting little mini-games the first few times, but their instanced nature is very limiting. There's no sense of scale at all.
PVP in an MMO that is basically a glorified ladder where the difference between winning and losing is the speed with which you attain new gear is actually pretty laughable when you look at something like Shadowbane where guilds created nations of player designed and built cities which were at war with other nations, and various cities were always under siege. Territory was a major factor, and even little guilds of tight knit friends belonged to larger alliances which got their hands dirty so everybody was involved in the massive land wars.
I once took my thief up to enemy territory and found a lone wizard out in the middle of nowhere. After watching him for awhile I realized he was starting up a new city, and he had a retarded amount of money on him to start building everything. I stole it (iirc it was over 1m gold) and ran like like hell. We used the money to fund our city and upgrade everybody in the guild's weapons and armor, and it provoked a massive multiple city siege where we defended our cities on and off for over a week. There were consequences for what you did.
If you gank some guy out in the middle of blade's edge, not only does it not really have any negative impact on him other than the corpse run, but it really has no point other than wasting the amount of time the corpse run takes him and it will have absolutely no consequences after the fact. Nobody is going to come defend him because everything is so transient that everybody knows that dude is long gone. Territory means nothing. And that's on a "PVP" server. The game has nothing to offer besides an endless parade of meaningless skirmishes.
I actually do believe that most people who were really into PVP in other games before WoW mostly consider WoW's PVP a joke. It's essentially team dueling with nothing outside of personal gain as an incentive to continue. The battlegrounds are mildly interesting little mini-games the first few times, but their instanced nature is very limiting. There's no sense of scale at all.
PVP in an MMO that is basically a glorified ladder where the difference between winning and losing is the speed with which you attain new gear is actually pretty laughable when you look at something like Shadowbane where guilds created nations of player designed and built cities which were at war with other nations, and various cities were always under siege. Territory was a major factor, and even little guilds of tight knit friends belonged to larger alliances which got their hands dirty so everybody was involved in the massive land wars.
I once took my thief up to enemy territory and found a lone wizard out in the middle of nowhere. After watching him for awhile I realized he was starting up a new city, and he had a retarded amount of money on him to start building everything. I stole it (iirc it was over 1m gold) and ran like like hell. We used the money to fund our city and upgrade everybody in the guild's weapons and armor, and it provoked a massive multiple city siege where we defended our cities on and off for over a week. There were consequences for what you did.
If you gank some guy out in the middle of blade's edge, not only does it not really have any negative impact on him other than the corpse run, but it really has no point other than wasting the amount of time the corpse run takes him and it will have absolutely no consequences after the fact. Nobody is going to come defend him because everything is so transient that everybody knows that dude is long gone. Territory means nothing. And that's on a "PVP" server. The game has nothing to offer besides an endless parade of meaningless skirmishes.
welfare epics
I don't think the reason some people dislike arena / BGs is only because it's not world PvP.doesnt change the fact that arena (even battlegrounds) is hella fun if you take the but-its-not-world-pvp stick out of your ass. as a team v team oriented player (tribes) you should appreciate both and recognize the difference.
You're right, the game is actually more gear dependent than it was before, but now it's much easier to obtain.
The problem now is the fact that certain classes have scaled well with the gear and certain classes simply haven't. Certain specs are useful, certain specs aren't. Certain combos work, certain combos don't. The game isn't balanced, and you're a bigger retard than I thought if you disagree with that.
And why the fuck would pvers be jealous?
A) most of them respec on off nights and do fine
B) They are actually getting their moneys worth
C) you don't actually have to be any good to get PvP gear.
In the end, most people who vehemently support the arena system are people who haven't PvPed in another MMO, or they did and failed miserably...so this is a lost cause.
I really do hope Warhammer nails it. If they deliver the gameplay fundamentals that they have laid out, they will. An MMO with an actual end game goal that involves at least 60% PvP = win.
I just don't agree with the whole point of WoW...simple as that. It was enjoyable for a few years before everyone and their mother started playing it. It started as a genuinely fun game, but now it's basically a corporate rock band--It's taking user friendliness to the realm of madness.
I don't think the reason some people dislike arena / BGs is only because it's not world PvP.
You're an idiot fanboy.
The whole problem (for us arena hating heathens) is that there even IS arena pvp and that it's the only thing that actually matters in the game.
For what it intends to do, I suppose it does a decent job of doing it--small fights where the biggest skill is knowing how to beat certain combos...nothing unpredictable, etc.
But as Smaq said, it's just not FUN to us...I really don't give a fuck about your 2k ratings, I've had 2k ratings too and it doesn't give me a greater appreciation for this bastion of great PvP that you call WoW.
So I will fucking talk about world PvP, because the only other "mmo" that has PvP entirely based in instances doesn't charge a fucking subscription fee for it. You're also a retard for thinking world pvp and arena pvp are so different, because our argument is that it's retarded to have the arena system be the only really useful type of PvP...so really your argument is "hey the only other pvp you can compare to wow is guild wars, go"
But here's an example of good PvP:
In Star Wars Galaxies, you could play a Bounty Hunter class. You could go to a mission terminal and it would give you the name of another player who was a Jedi. Using droids, you'd track this person and fight them. They wouldn't know you were hunting them until you attacked...if you killed them, you were given a cash reward...if they killed you, you failed the mission. Nothing in any game has ever come close to replicating the unpredictability and variety of that type of PvP.
It has nothing to do with a social atmosphere, and everything to do with your actions having a point. And upgrading your gear to keep up with the joneses - who are only upgrading their gear to likewise keep up with you in a never ending circle of gear/point grinding - is not a point.
The only reason people PVE or PVP in WoW is for better gear to PVE or PVP in, when the next season of instance comes along. They've created more of a sandbox featuring two distinct mousewheels than a game, which is fine for people who are like into a slightly more competative version of The Sims, or people who don't know any better. Most people who have experienced better PVP in an MMO have always been pretty dissatisfied with WoW though.
The level and gear up then go fight over something tangible (by video game standards anyway) is a lot more satisfying than level and gear up, then go fight in order to continue gearing up, in order to continue fighting ad infinitum. Playing WoW is sort of like trying to run a treadmill in an m. c. escher painting.
It has nothing to do with a social atmosphere, and everything to do with your actions having a point. And upgrading your gear to keep up with the joneses - who are only upgrading their gear to likewise keep up with you in a never ending circle of gear/point grinding - is not a point.
The only reason people PVE or PVP in WoW is for better gear to PVE or PVP in, when the next season of instance comes along.
The world might as well be a giant battle.net chat room for people while they wait for their 10 player game to start.
Because the design of the PvP is so cookie cutter and redundant and lacks so much variation that it doesn't matter who your individual opponents are--just what combo they are running.
It's actually starting to get a little bit better with some interesting specs and combos starting to pop up in 2v2 and 3v3 but once you get to high ratings you're really not playing a ton of different people/combos.
The issue is that Blizz doesn't seem to mind that certain specs and 41 talent points for some classes are just not viable in PvP. When you combine this with the fact that anyone can steal anyone's spec at any time now, you get flavors of the month and copycat speccing / gearing / gemming, etc. And since the game has gotten more gear dependent as BC has progressed, the gap between the really fucking good players and the just "solid" players has shrunk a great deal...the thing that separates them now is simply playing a lot together and learning how to beat certain combinations vs doing 10 games a week just for points.
5v5 on a competitive BG like 9 certainly isn't a walk in the park (and you'll notice that I even said that in my post) but anyone who's ever played another MMO will say how dumbed down WoW's PvP really is--and flawed on many levels.
I guess to put it another way, the way that people typically rate guilds would be in PvE the amount of loot they've collected via wowjutsu or something similar, and by extension obviously how many bosses they've killed and how far along they are. In PvP, you'd rate guilds based on that guild's individual teams' ratings (and player ratings now) and by extension the loot that they've gotten as a reward (s3 weapons, shoulders, etc).
So the accomplishments are really pretty much just limited to acquisition of wealth from one of two available loot treadmills. A given guild has no real holdings or influence apart from farmed wealth, and even that generally belongs to an even smaller sub-group of players within the guild (be it raiders in an instance, or a team in an arena). If a guild takes over an AV for example and steamrolls the other faction, takes out all the towers and all the mines, then takes their base - what happens? They get awarded some points and the whole thing gets reset.
I definitely appreciate the value of a skilled tournament style setting, don't get me wrong. It's just that limiting PVP in an MMO to such small groups and doing it in instances that just get reset sort of defeats the purpose of playing in an MMO to begin with. The world might as well be a giant battle.net chat room for people while they wait for their 10 player game to start.
Edit: Calling me a lootwhore in a game that's like 99% about the gear you're wearing really hurts my feelings.
And my argument isn't that WoW PVP sucks because it's arenas, it's mostly just that WoW PVP completely fails to utilize the massive game world it has available, and is disapointing in the extreme.
Another excellent post. It seems like most of the people I play this game with or talk to feel the same way about it as I do. It makes me wonder why they refuse to implement something like a FFA PvP server. No instances, no BGs, just the game world and FFA PvP. Set everyone to a neutral faction, allow chatting cross faction, or at least the ability to learn other factions languages and incorporate some form of item or coin looting like EQ1. Create droppable and non-drop gear, again like EQ1. I've heard of people trying to do something like this with private servers. The demand is certainly there so I just don't understand why Blizzard refuses to cater to the "hardcore" pvp community by giving us a few god damn FFA PvP servers.