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Mowglia

PvP: General Observation

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This is a general point about PvP which involves balance, account sales, and priests. It is merely an objective observation.

 

To start, the recent changes/reset to Elevation involved rule changes that included meditation nerfs and characteristics suppression; presumably to make it easier for noobs when encountering vets. If the objective was to balance PvP a bit, then this is all fine. It will have worked insofar as it went.

 

Except there's a fundamental problem with balance in PvP, and even to some extent in PvE.

 

Traditionally what a player would do is use a "crafting main". This is the toon that makes all the gear, and therefore gains a whole stack of characteristics; body strength, stamina, etc. And this toon is typically the one a player would send into PvP. Priests were typically used in a support role, for casting tools, hanging back with heals, or whatever. Back in the day, most players I knew were doing it this way.

 

Now it seems players can buy strong crafting accounts and priest them up, while keeping their "crafting main" for crafting/imping. This means there are some pretty strong accounts running around, with all the advantages of a long history of crafting with regard to characteristics, fighting skills, etc. Except they also have the advantage of being a Fo/Mag priest.

 

So this seems a bit overpowered if the original intention was to balance things out. You can suppress characteristics/meditation to even things out a bit, and that's all good. But all other things being equal, if the other guy is a Fo (and has refreshes and heals) then you're going down, no two ways about it. I see this a lot in Wurm videos involving PvP; everyone seems to be a priest these days.

 

It's not my job to try to come up with ways to balance this; I just thought I would point out the obvious contradiction between the apparent objectives concerning the rule-changes to Elevation PvP, and the reality of the situation.

 

If the intention is to balance PvP to give weaker accounts at least a chance against stronger accounts, then perhaps it might be an idea to restrict priests to cloth only? This might help offset the advantage from spells. But like I said, it's not my job to fix this; I just wanted to point out this issue in the context of balance in PvP.

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You should join a kingdom like we all did at the start, Wurm is community.

I'm 100% sure every kingdom has their crafter to provide you all the stuff you'll need.

And, btw. Grinding Epic skills to 70 is very quick. 70 skill on Epic equals to almost 90 effective skill except fighting and characteristics.

Begin in a group it's a priority, especially for the newcomers. Without a minimum of knowledge and strategy you ain't going anywhere.

Edited by Davy

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that's a big problem now Davy, there just isn't the groups left on Epic to provide that as far as I am aware. SO newcomers basically have to start on their own now......

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4 hours ago, Davy said:

You should join a kingdom like we all did at the start, Wurm is community.

I'm 100% sure every kingdom has their crafter to provide you all the stuff you'll need.

And, btw. Grinding Epic skills to 70 is very quick. 70 skill on Epic equals to almost 90 effective skill except fighting and characteristics.

Begin in a group it's a priority, especially for the newcomers. Without a minimum of knowledge and strategy you ain't going anywhere.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong; what you are saying is we should become priests for PvP and rely on other players/accounts to do the crafting? Ok, sure. Personally I'm good with that. I currently run 8 accounts, 3 of them priests.

 

Except this fails to address the observation I was making about balance in PvP. An issue that the recent changes to the rules on Elevation appeared to be concerned with.

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The problem I find with balance is that, it's just a fact of life that combat isn't at all balanced.  I'm sure England would have loved a benevolent God to balance the war on Germany, but it just wasn't to be.  Combat is brutal and visceral, in life or in a game, it's how it is.  To balance or make it easy for one player is to undermine another.  I'm not advocating for screwing over newcomers by not implementing things to help them catch up, not at all, I'm just being real in that I don't see how it'll help.

 

I guess my point is that the other side of the arguement is by making it easier for new players your making it less interesting for veterans, which we've seen quite a lot of them leave since pvp balancing has been a thing the last few years.

 

Wurm was, in the past, all about character advancement and punishing us for the sake of being a hard life.  If it wasn't for being murdered a few times and having a combat seasoned veteran slaughtering me (which let's face it a seasoned veteran should be able to do) I'd have never pushed myself to keep playing.

 

I guess I find balance in pvp to be an unobtainable thing, because to balance it will always leave something behind, whether that's new players or old, I don't feel it'll truly help in the longrun.  If anything, remove the extras like sorcery and stupid stuff that's forced people to cookie cutter and let us get back to good old fashioned medieval combat where a strong arm, high quality sword, and quick thinking of tactics was what set you apart.

 

When WO goes to crap I'd love to find a stripped down WU pvp server where it's plain old medieval combat (no sorcery, no priest or go home, no artifacts, etc).

 

/myopinion

Edited by Nomadikhan
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8 hours ago, Mowglia said:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong; what you are saying is we should become priests for PvP and rely on other players/accounts to do the crafting? Ok, sure. Personally I'm good with that. I currently run 8 accounts, 3 of them priests.

 

Except this fails to address the observation I was making about balance in PvP. An issue that the recent changes to the rules on Elevation appeared to be concerned with.

No, you don't need to be a priest but i won't deny that they are usefull especialy in a pvp squad. (I spent most of my time as non priest on pvp)

 

@Rhianna You're right, what i said doesn't justify the current situation about Epic

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Priest restrictions is a terrible, unfun mechanic, no one thinks its good or that it adds anything to the game. Which makes you wonder why is it in the game? The answer is obvious- the more accounts people are forced to make, the more money devs get.

 

There is a reason why basically every WU server gets rid of the dumb priest restrictions.

 

The advantage of being a priest in PvP is absolutely huge. So you are forced to choose between being useless in PvP or being useless in PvE. The way to balance it is what every WU server owner has already figured out- let everyone become priests. You shouldnt be doomed to being useless in PvP just because you want to actually be able to play the game. I know some people who quit out of boredom after becoming priests because they could barely do anything if they werent out PvPing.

Edited by MightySheep
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1 hour ago, Davy said:

No, you don't need to be a priest but i won't deny that they are usefull especialy in a pvp squad. (I spent most of my time as non priest on pvp)

 

 

I still think that is currently wrong - you are essentially useless unless a priest now - I left the pvp servers after Sindusks changes not only because it remains unbalanced mainly due to the power anyone with tomes has under it but also due to having to be a priest. Being 1 hit by 5 people with true-strike is also a turn off. Fights used to last and be fun, the pvp game hasn't been fun for quite a while now.

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The priests with good pvp spells will in almost every case beat a non priest even with much lower skills... 

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The moment this game became Spells online was the day pvp died.

Edited by Rudie
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Thing is, that when you get some advantage in PVP (being a priest), it should go at a cost of some disadvantage in PVP.

 

In Wurm, you get advantage in PVP at a cost of disadvantage in PVE really.

Slower body stats gain doesn't count, couse people mostly priest up strong accounts anyway, and also, after recent pvp changes, I heard that body strength were nerfed in some way?

 

Priests should be removed or should be just specialized units at some PVP costs.

 

- healer - got heals and protective buffs, but after each heal casted, got his normal and magical damage output lowered for certain amount of time

- elemental - got range damage dealing spells and damage increasing buffs, but after each dmg spell casted, got his healing abilities lowered dramatically for certain amount of time

 

etc.

just a general idea

Edited by Wilczan
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16 hours ago, Nomadikhan said:

The problem I find with balance is that, it's just a fact of life that combat isn't at all balanced.  I'm sure England would have loved a benevolent God to balance the war on Germany, but it just wasn't to be.  Combat is brutal and visceral, in life or in a game, it's how it is.  To balance or make it easy for one player is to undermine another.  I'm not advocating for screwing over newcomers by not implementing things to help them catch up, not at all, I'm just being real in that I don't see how it'll help.

 

I guess my point is that the other side of the arguement is by making it easier for new players your making it less interesting for veterans, which we've seen quite a lot of them leave since pvp balancing has been a thing the last few years.

 

Wurm was, in the past, all about character advancement and punishing us for the sake of being a hard life.  If it wasn't for being murdered a few times and having a combat seasoned veteran slaughtering me (which let's face it a seasoned veteran should be able to do) I'd have never pushed myself to keep playing.

 

I guess I find balance in pvp to be an unobtainable thing, because to balance it will always leave something behind, whether that's new players or old, I don't feel it'll truly help in the longrun.  If anything, remove the extras like sorcery and stupid stuff that's forced people to cookie cutter and let us get back to good old fashioned medieval combat where a strong arm, high quality sword, and quick thinking of tactics was what set you apart.

 

When WO goes to crap I'd love to find a stripped down WU pvp server where it's plain old medieval combat (no sorcery, no priest or go home, no artifacts, etc).

 

/myopinion

 

This is pretty much my view too.

 

PvP will never be equal, and that's half the fun. Not knowing what you'll come up against. Surviving a fight against the odds. And like you said, removing advantages for veterans could backfire and encourage them to leave. Having objectives to work towards that make us stronger in PvP is a positive thing, if only because it gives us something to do the rest of the time.

 

It's the cookie-cutter angle you referred to that I was really getting at; you just phrased it better. Right now players seem to be going leather/chain, long spear, and Fo/Mag priest. The thing with priests not being able to imp is actually irrelevant (and therefore not a disadvantage) if the priest doesn't have to imp because they're supported by the same player's crafter. So a player can buy a decent crafting account, priest up, and then use it for PvP with massive advantages over a straight crafting account, and insofar as I can tell, literally no disadvantages.

 

When I talk about balance, I don't mean balance in the sense that we want to make everything equal. I mean in the sense that advantages ought to be well thought through and proportionate. So fine, you can priest an account and get all the advantages of heals and refreshes. But there should be an effective cost in doing this to that particular toon. For example, restricting priests to cloth armour only would maintain a level of risk that offsets the advantage of spells. I'm not saying this ought to be done, merely giving an example of how balance might be maintained.

 

Personally I would like to see a wide variety of "builds", tactics and gear used in viable ways, rather than the cookie-cutter situation we currently appear to be in.

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16 hours ago, Rudie said:

The moment this game became Spells online was the day pvp died.

Yep and when SOTG was introduced.

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i wished this game didn't have priest at all, and instead of spells everything was done via runes, you could categorize them and allow one of  each category on a weapon or tool so you can still get a weapon with bonus to hit chance, life transfer, skillgain  etc .

makes more sense to me, but i get we can't  remove priests now so that wont happen.

although we could make it that priest can make runes via spells, without needing rift materials and so its easier to get runes with priest then it is with a crafter. hence making it possible for both but not removing all use for priests. their pvp bonuses should be runes too which you add to armor. and healing spells runes you add to jewelry or something like that. i would not mind a change like this even though it lowers then usefulness of my 3 priests.

 

unfortunately i agree that you are severely lacking in pvp if you are not a priest.

so you can add being a priest to the choirs of being good enough for pvp, like SOTG.

selling accounts should also never have been allowed, but hindsight is easy.

 

 

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make dedicated non combat citizen support roles viable like they used to be, nobody knows what'll fix it.

maybe special buffs or properties given to regular iron tools that will give normal people and not weirdos a reason to be there?  it's sotg but it's not sotg.  it is priest but it is not priests.  it is champs but it is not champs.  it is sorcery but it is not sorcery.

maybe the problem is that nobody wants to play on a server that has been reworked from being skill progression end goal, to a stomping ground for nerds.  all of the balance ideas have been tried, and zero of them have worked. 

if you think some sort of balance where everybody has similar everything, is going to make a bunch of freedomers say, "well chaos is now a viable place to build a ranch within the dirt walls for tinkering up my skills in the protection of the societal structures the many of us have created," then you are out of your mind.  it's a shame too because at one point it was what the game was supposed to be.

none, and i repeat, none of these balance ideas are going to work.

i am sorry god.

editline: tomes?  you realize, you do realize that people have ponied up over FIVE HUNDRED euros for those packets?  do you want that to be a bad investment?  like hey we made a mistake dude so the entertainment value of your purchase is now marginal.  it's going to be an embarrassment. 

these players thin eachother out just fine, it's just that there are 4 of them playing with just themselves.

maybe make the little guy say that's the best place to tinker.. on a pvp server.  it is the only big change you can make.  the pvp server was a place where treasures were made, now they get destroyed there.  maybe when you work that out reconsider the treb aoe, make a new map that isn't geographically bad.

Edited by Johnston3

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SOTG was good for pvp, people enjoyed longer lasting fights, if people wouldn’t die in 3 hits players might actually enjoy the experience.

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