PvP = Experience?

[Shmak]

There is a general opinion held by most of the members of this site (and MMOs in general) that "grinding" for exp is bad. Let me establish my ideas about what grinding is before i go further.

Experience gain in most of the RPGs that I have played is all about the player vs. retarded AI (mobs). Some of these encounters can be fun the first couple times, or when the encounters are "dressed up" with quests, but essentially it boils down to repeating the same mundane task thousands of times. I don't care if it is a quest, if it still requires me to farm 200 kills from each of the 4 species of retarded wildlife in the area, its still a grind. The only thing that makes the grinding bearable is group play, because other players add interesting depth. Until devs are able to program interesting AI, this problem will persist.

Enter PvP.

PvP games are always interesting, because the other player is always an unknown quantity. One can no longer use ye'ol "target, cast, cast, cast, loot" technique. This means that pvp (under the right circumstances) makes for endless repeatability. I know people who STILL play Goldeneye for n64 because, regardless of the crappy graphics, when you get 4 people in there blasting away at eachother it's still kinda fun.

Now thats out of the way, here's my point: If experience could be gained from PvP play in some reasonable way, the grinding involved in leveling would be non-existent.

While much has been said about exp LOSS from pvp, nothing has been said about exp GAIN from pvp in Aion. The mechanics involved in the system might be tricky to implement, which leads me to believe that this probably will not happen. Doesn't mean I'm not pushing for it though.

I was gonna post some of my ideas on this, as in mechanics. But, it seems that most of time nobody cares about the mechanics so i'll save my fingers. Maybe i'll post them later if the thread doesn't get bogged down or derailed and people actually wanna talk about how games work.

[Calindor]

I thought you could get experience with abyss points. WoW and L2's pvp still keep people interested for years, and in L2 there are 0 rewards for it, except bragging rights and satisfaction.

[Draca]

Having xp gain from PvP opens up a huge expliot which was seen on ranking system in SW:Galaxies becouse it encourages "fightclubbing" where people just kill each other for xp. In the closed beta atm there is only death penelty for PvP death (correct me if i'm wrong) which would allow a realy nice leveling for free no risks.

Becouse in a online game there is only one rule, if there is a loophole people will find it and use it.

On the other hand i totaly agree with you that killing monster after monster is no better or doing a quests that goes, either get quest kill x of thoose return for reward or get quest from A got a package from B and return to A.

only way as i see it is to make dynamic quests with a storyline that changes overtime with the dynamic world so not everyone and their dog have to kill the bandits raiding city X.


Just my 2 cents
Draca

[Shmak]

I thought you could get experience with abyss points.

Hmmm, i searched around for some kind of system like this in the forums but i didn't find anything. Can you provide the source?

[Mr Mage]

Well you can get experience points in Guild wars when you PvP. However you can only really PvP at maximum level in Guild Wars so the gain is not really that important.

[Shmak]

Having xp gain from PvP opens up a huge expliot

Bad mechanics open up huge exploits. So the question you are posing is:

"How will it be implemented Shmak?" So i'll tell you what I think.

Players gain a variable amount of exp from pvp encounters depending on the difference in level between the two players. Higher level players receive decreasing amounts of experience for kills the lower the level of their opponent, down to a cutoff of say 5 levels lower. Players who kill opponents up to 5 levels higher than their own level gain more than the standard amount (the standard being exp gain from kills of one's own level). This system also takes into account the amount of damage and healing and adjusts the exp gain accordingly (the standard being one on one exp, two on one would be half the same amount to both winning players) for large scale battles.

Now thats the basis, pretty straightforward. So how do you get rid of the "fight club" scenerio? This is also pretty simple. The language barrier goes a good way towards preventing this, but it doesn't solve the problem. What solves the problem is the introduction of resources up for grabs in the areas where PvP is most likely to occur. Special spawns, events, and quests for those who can fight off the opponents and get to the NPC/Mob.

What does this sound like? This sounds like the Abyss my friends.

[Mark]

PvP in Aion is RvR, not FFA PvP like L2. Let's just get that straight real quick, if people are still wondering about it. There is only inter-faction PvP, intra-faction PvP is dueling and duels don't give any rewards at all.

So really, unless two people are using Vent or IM to talk to each other outside the game in order to meet up inside it and "fightclub", that's just not going to happen. Aion's PvP, as it is right now, is pretty damn good.

[Draca]

Originally Posted by Mark

PvP in Aion is RvR, not FFA PvP like L2. Let's just get that straight real quick, if people are still wondering about it. There is only inter-faction PvP, intra-faction PvP is dueling and duels don't give any rewards at all.

So really, unless two people are using Vent or IM to talk to each other outside the game in order to meet up inside it and "fightclub", that's just not going to happen. Aion's PvP, as it is right now, is pretty damn good.

Still you would only need one of each race to go too a secure place and take turns killing each other but my knowlage of Aion systems is rather limited atm.

Originally Posted by Shemak

Bad mechanics open up huge exploits.

unfortunely they don't need to be bad, becouse nothing is perfect but I think your idea is intressting

[Traize]

I like the way it is right now, but you should get a slight reward for killing the enemy faction. Maybe just a small % of exp

[Otium]

I find EXP gain from PvP an interesting idea and it's not that hard to implement. Still, the last interview i've read about Aion, they didn't have any plans regarding this matter.

[Anshin]

Considering that there shouldn't be pure PvP except those duels that Mark said, experience gain from PvP should be non-existant.
I say no pure PvP because, as Mark said (i think that's what RvR means >.<), the Abyss is PvPvE grounds, so, even though you might not get experience from the players you kill, you will probably get experience from the Balaur you kill.


The mechanic you said is what currently happens on GW, on PvE, but people still consider it Grind Wars.

[Rolus]

What about if you create a controllable area that gives exp to all members of the faction that are inside that area at a regular intervall (lvl based etc etc). That would be an indirect way of exp through pvp. If you only have one such area you prevent fightclubbing too cuz i think the rest of your faction prolly wouldnt agree with that.

[Mygo]

http://www.aionsource.com/articles/t...i-yongchan-14/

TIG> You've mentioned leveling up within the Abyss; does this mean that there will be monsters in the Abyss? Or do you mean combat between players?

There will be monsters. Abyss combines both PvE and PvP. Think of having a war over hunting grounds. Hunting in the Abyss naturally comes with more risk, and will be rewarded accordingly. We have a lot of quests and content geared towards leveling in the Abyss, so look forward to it.

We have not yet decided whether to make experience gain from PvP a reality.

[Fleiva]

There's nothing more rewarding than conquering zones or getting access to raidbosses, or cleaning the area so you can do your pve activities quietly.

That's why I don't think XP pvp is necessary, but then, I do think death penalty is something that would be good for open world pvp, if someone can come to me right after I killed him without giving a damn about dying, I'll end up annoyed, If I kill someone to conquer a zone, I want to enjoy that zone for at least 10 minutes without being bothered. If my guild kills another guild so we can raid in the abyss, I don't want them to come back mindlessly just to annoy me, I want them to consider that coming back over and over might be bad for them.

Wether its XP or Abyss points, there must be something to loose if you die.

[VendorTrash]

Originally Posted by Calindor

WoW and L2's pvp still keep people interested for years

WRONG

WoW pvp does not keep people interested for years. Grinding for gear in pvp is not fun, maybe the first hour or 2, after that it becomes mundane, repetitive and monotonous.

NC Soft has already made the mistake of making this a faction based/rvr pvp game, Lineage 2 had a fast paced rewarding exciting pvp. By rewarding I mean 3 things. You got the enemys drops if u killed them if they did drop something. You made them lose XP, you get to talk smack all day long. This is what you were RIGHT about, when making that statement. This is the fun factor that WoW and other faction based/rvr pvp mmo's lack.

Ill take that anyday over WoW's boring pvp grind, which is less then half as rewarding.

NC Soft needs to look at what they have done right with their own previous MMO's instead of trying to make a carbon copy of another, granted WoW is succesful and might be worthing of copying in some aspects...but not all...definitely not all.

...and getting XP from PvP would be cool.