[idea] new 'PvP Arena event' - to make PvP regular game activity

[tangar]

What the problem with current PvP mode, why it's not so popular nowadays?

1)

- PVP chars have only one life and no ghost, ie are erased on death same as
no-ghost chars.

While PvPing - you die a lot. You learn a lot. At current PvP mode you live too short life. So if you have to start each time from scratch to live another 15 minutes and then beign killed - it's not fun to create new char again and again.

2)

- gain no exp from any other source except killing other PvP characters.

It's fun to get common TomeNET playing experience together with PvP; killing monsters and lvling - the very best core of the game.

3) It's separate mode with not much players around. We got too much modes, guys

=====

I belive it's possible to make PvP more desirable to play; to make PvP regular part of the game, so players would enjoy it without too harsh penalities and get more fun from it.

So.. I got an idea:
- To add a new event - "PvP arena"; where all players, at all modes - could sign with _any_ character. Without any lvl restrictions. At this event they would fight, not to fatal end, but to victory and get nice prize. And it's not just PvP arena, there are monsters spawning, so you have to be very skillful to win!

How to balance it if there would be people from all kinds of modes? Make people have equalized stats/lvls/properties to certain lvl while they are fighting at arena!

Yeah, it's sound fair: all character in PvP arena become certain lvl with their skills/stats equalized to it. For example: player A has lvl 27 and player B has lvl 43; they sign at PvP event. At arena they both become lvl 30, with maximized stats and fixed resistances and properties. Maximum damage per attack is limited to certain amount. Their equipment not taken into account, but each participant still has his inventory and could spend different potions/scrolls. You playing skill matters!

More details:
- If you die at PvP arena - you do not loose anything, you even get + 1-5 luck deed for participation (random rewards is fun). If you won event - you get luck +5 deed or sometimes - item's deed. The more players participated - the higher chance to get item's deed reward.
- At arena there are always some monsters (they continue to spawn during event). It would make PvP much more intense and interesting; with more different situations around. It also helps to balance fight between fragile, but powerful magic users and vital, but straighforward physical fighters.
- There are could be different arena types:
---- with different lvls layout: all chars get equalized to lvl 5-10-20-30-40...
---- with different enviroment around, different themes (lava, forest, desert & etc)
---- with different ruleset - Free for All, team DM, capture the flag & etc. But for beginning 'Free for All' is perfect.
- There are could be statistics and rating at the website, which shows the win/loose ration of the best arena players. Maybe even give players go receive scores for participation/wins which they could trade to deeds eventually? Loads of options

So.. Idea is fun. But for now, the most hardest part - is to recognize correct way of balancing players. Cause some races become pretty powerful earlier on; and in common gameplay their power limited by their exp.rate speed. Lets think at this examples:

Human Warrior 13 lvl meets Ent Warrior 24 lvl. They both become lvl 20 at the arena, their characteristics are equalized - HP, damage, speed & etc. The only difference is how effecintly they would play there; how they use enviroment, monsters around them & etc. So yep, its fair fight.

Istari meets Warrior. Istari got loads of different spells, but warrios are very vital. The only chance for warrior to kill istari is to come close to him. As phase door works, its not so easy. But there are also monsters around, which keeps spawning during fight - so istari got troubles just blinking randomly, he could be grabbed by mobs. But also it's unlike with previous case (warr VS warr) - if istari and warrior HPs would be equalized - it wouldn't be fair. Cause istari has to have much lower HP, but more firepower then warrior. How to balance it? Maybe equilize HPs only for certain races/classes?

Let's brainstorm about it together? Please post your ideas!

Conclusion:
'PvP Arena event' could be very fun place, accessible to everyone; it could make PvP popular among all TomeNET players. As people do not loose stuff/chars there - it wouldn't make community angry at each other, but make people communicative. Right now most of players plays alone (me also), but at this event players would interact between each other and it would make TomeNET even more alive and fun game!

@ my tavern

[tangar]

I got an idea how to balance classes in PvP - use 'pvp templates':

- For the beginning create only one arena level bracket - 50 lvl (so it would be possible to use all skills/spells which players using in 'common' gameplay)
- For this bracket there is ONE 'PvP template' for each class. It means that when any of characters go into 'PvP event' his character automatically adjusted to certain skill lvls, stats & etc.
- Equipment and race bonuses doesn't count.

If we would do it, all what we need is to design 15 templates:

- Warrior
- Rogue
- Paladin
- Druid
- Mindcrafter
- Mimic
- Ranger
- Archer
- Shaman
- Priest
- Istar
- Runemaster
- Adventurer
- Hell knight
- Deathknight

So each template has to have predefined resists, stats, HP/mana/stamina, AC, speed & etc.

How to balance this templates after they are created?
By gameplay experience. Players would play this event and would bring feedback to devs about balance. The same balancing goes in other MMORPGs. But in TomeNET it would be much easier to balance cause there is special PvP bracket which doesn't influence to PvE game balance.

So main idea there - PvP balancing wouldn't ruin almost perfect PvE balance. It would be totally independed gameplay; it would be another side of TomeNET.

Now next thing.. Which PvP balance is the best?

I belive it's the Triangle:


- Warrior kills Archer
- Archer kills Mage
- Mage kills Warrior

This is very logical and effective way to balance PvP. Of course, in TomeNET we got plenty of hybrid classes, so it could be a bit different archetypes, not just warr-archer-mage. For example, we could have:
- melee
- semi-melee
- ranged

OR:

- physical
- mixed
- magical

Also we have perfect tool to rebalance class PvP templates - SPEED. With this parameter, balancing could be much more easier, then in other MMORPGs. For example, if shaman would be too powerful - just reduce speed a bit and lets see what would happen next time A lot of experimentaion awaits, of course - and it's huge fun!

Please write your comments and suggestions

post @ my tavern

[tangar]

Guys, it's pretty essentional stuff - to make PvP more regular gameplay activity. Please add your suggestions or just support this idea by replying to this topic

[Computation]

Sounds cool. Today I got a monster challenge on top of the Training Tower which was kind of like this but against a monster instead of PvP.

Personally I think something like that for PvP would be nice.

Just place two players in an arena, maybe rebalance a bit e.g. by adjusting levels or restricting items, and have them fight. It would probbaly be nice if they got the items that they used up back after the battle so that PvP can be easily repeated, does not get in the way of the normal game, and players can go all out without losing valuable items.

It would probably also be nice to have a ladder or tournament of this kind of thing.

[tangar]

Yeah, it would be so cool to have regular PvP... Even disbalanced one Then several newbie players could try to fight with noe big guys FUN!

[tangar]

I've participated several times in 'Highlander Tournament' event and I liked it very much. It's fast-paced event with a lot of fun.

It would be perfect to make it 'regular' PvP activity for all players, not only for people who want to start new character and get 'great' bounded item ('0' lvl reqs.) for newborn char.

Suggestion:

1) Make it possible to participate in such activity only with newborn lvl 1 'human' 'adventurer'. It would put all players in the same conditions and make PvP very fair and balanced. Also for 'Highlander' (in terms of 'lore') it make sanse to be human-only event.

2) make reward (ticket, not item!) for this event not soulbonded (not '0' lvl req). So after you win the ticket - any of your chars could use it AND to get '0' lvl item (soundbonded). It would make all players willing to participate in this tournament to get nice item for their main chars. Also make rewards from 'Highlander Tournament' ticket more random than DK-ticket reward (so you would be able to receive bigger variety of items for different equipment slots)

3) Strictly forbid in event rules: team-play and give-away matches ('ban' player accounts for this).

4) make 'Highlander Tournament' more regular, like every hour.

5) add ladder at the website which would show - who is the best PvP player in TomeNET

So... Even if players would be able to get extra 'great' item for their 'main' chars, it wouldn't ruin economy because it would be quite big challenge to win this tournament:

There can be only one.

For example, DK is much eaier and faster; in 'Highlander' you have to spend a lot of time (10 minutes for lvling)... At high lvls players often could get more then one 'great' item for 10 minutes, so it's quite balanced And please note that players would rarely win 'Highlander' (the more players participate - the less chances), so time which you spend on event to get 'great' item would be not 10 minutes, but 30 or even more.

[tangar]

Another addition to previous message:

It could be no need to restrict people to play with 'human' 'adventurer'. To do so the same system as to Dungeon Keeper event has to be implemented - there are limited speed of all characters and potions of speed doesn't work. It means that devs know how to limit characters to certain parameters during event.

So if we would take DK approach and apply it for 'Highlander Tournament', it could be something like:

1) to make the caps for base melee, ranged, magic damage, hp, armour (so only items which you would find during event would matter your char parameters).
EX:
All mage's 'bolt'-like spells would have the same damage (25, for example)
All mage's 'cloud' spells (like Toxic Mositure) would have the same dmg per turn (7 for example)
All melee basic attack would be 10
All ranger basic attack would be 15
Defaul armour for everyone is 20
Default HP is 100

Numbers which I wrote are quite random, just picked them as example.

2) All race/class bonuses do not work in this event.

3) You receive bonus to HP and mana for each lvl up during the event. But as some races needs much more EXP for lvl up - this bonuses depends not on lvls, but on amount of experience points. EX:

Ent and human with 500 XP would have different lvls, but equal bonus to hp/mana (only during the event).

So basically this event could be played by _the same_ (equal) characters with sustained parameters/resistances. Your goal to kill as much monsters as you could to get bonuses for HP/mana and also find the best gear. Also no need to increase skills during event (this wouldn't give any bonuses).

Sounds pretty fun because having such system would make PvP much easier to balance - the less paramaters we got, the easier it would be to make it work. Just different types of damage (melee, ranged, magic), hp, armour... When basic parameters would be implemented and balanced - more parameters could be added; but for start basic are quite enough.. even more then enough to have a lot of fun

[tangar]

Idea of 'PvP arena event' is not dead It's discussed in discord. Due discussion we came that it could be very fun gameplay, especially with monsters spawning; back to original post:

- At arena there are always some monsters (they continue to spawn during event). It would make PvP much more intense and interesting
....But there are also monsters around, which keeps spawning during fight...

so having arena event where also would appear monsters; so it would be fight where players try to kill other players, but also monsters trying to kill them all

With such concept - no need to rearrange players' builds, just limit speed and some more parameters; all player would have chance to win/survive in this event; all depends on their skill and strategy. Some players would try to incite mobs on players, some - to hunt down players directly, some - just to to run and wait when players would kill each other.