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Make PVP more accessible

A bit of a background. I took a break from Outlands because I honestly thought it wasn't for me. I saw multiple patches come through, and those patches were focused on PVP content. War Aspect, Faction Wars... then I come back and I see the devs saying that they kinda regret spending 8 months on something that wasn't utilized, because really, 5% of the population participates in PVP.

So! We know now that reason why so little people participate in PVP isn't because of lack of content. The fact that factions have such low participation is proof of that; there is plenty of PVP content, but very few players participate in it. Maybe the focus should be on WHY players don't participate in PVP. I can tell you my experience, and the experience of many people I've talked to.

It's pretty well known that when a red enters a dungeon, the PVEers flee and scatter, and most hardcore PVPers and UO vets find this silly. 3 reds can interrupt a PVM shrine event, and pick off the 10+ PVEers participating in it.

Vets look at these situations and say "That's dumb. The PVEers should just turn around and murder the reds, or at least drive them off. Even if the PVEers don't have optimal specs. The reds are drastically outnumbered. Why is this even an issue?"

I think the big culture problem is, people don't sit down and think about _WHY_ 95% of the server has zero interest in PVP.

PVE in Outlands has been modernized. It's one of the reasons the server is so popular. Aspects, Codecies, Mastery Chains... the works. It's all super fun, and there are lots of [ commands to make it easier.

PVP, on the other hand, is a clunky mess, and feels like an entirely different game. It still feels like an early 90s MMORPG with lots of warts. It almost feels like playing a MUD. PKers are essentially playing an entirely different game, and they are good at that game. Either way you look at it, it's clunky, and whether you like to admit it or not, it's not intuitive. It has a steep learning curve from going from total newb to being able to actually win a fight. It's not like modern MMORPGs where it's easy and fun to play, but hard to master. In WoW, for example (or any modern MMORPG), even a total newbie can get into it and use basic controls, and get this; use most of the same abilities and tactics they used in PVE, and still find success. They won't be able to regularly beat people who have PVP specs and put in the time, but 3 vets driving off 10 noobs simply wouldn't happen.

In UO, You need a LOT of setup and practice to even get to a beyond 'speed bump' level of PVP.

Going back to the above example, the reason why PVEers scatter and not turn on the red, is because most PVEers are no good at PVP, and they have no desire to learn because they don't find it fun.

Think that's stupid?

By all metrics, PVP in UO isn't fun. It's poorly designed. Because of course it is. Again, early 90s MMORPG, designed by a team that actually didn't like PKers much.

I don't know about you, but I'm no good at pole-vaulting. I could probably get good at pole-vaulting if I wanted to, but I have no interest in doing so. Just like I have no interest in getting good at anything that on the surface, looks like something I won't enjoy. I enjoy PVE in Outlands, but every time I've dipped my toe in PVP I'm like, 'This isn't fun at all.'

You could tell me UO Outlands isn't for me, but by that logic, it isn't for all but 5% of the playerbase. You see what I'm saying?

Honestly, the only way to really fix it would be a complete conceptual overhaul to PVP in Outlands as we know it, likely using [ commands that perform extremely robust actions, with the goal of making PVP less clunky and a lot easier to get into. With maybe some builtin, in-game tutorials. Yes, existing PVPers would probably be turned off by this, but as said before, existing PVPers only account for maybe 5% of the playerbase.

Another idea to throw at the wall would be to make it so aspect actually matters in PVP. Not the LEVEL of the aspect, but the aspect in and of itself. Make it so people with poison aspect armor do poison damage that actually matters in PVP. Make it so people with air aspect actually get an attack speed bonus (just not as much as they do in PVM). Just some examples.

Either way, to summarize, if you want more players to be involved in PVP, something has to change. It's NOT lack of content. The content is there. It's the clunky, un-fun methods in which Outlands PVP is done.
 
Great post. I actually tried to get into pvp and asked for help on discord and was immediately called a "trash human" by three people for not playing a mage and playing a poison dexxer. I don't care for shit talk anymore so I just went back to PvE and just ignore the dress lovers. I'm not interested in pvp when it is centered on one type of playstyle. You're 100% on point with poison. It sucks ass in the little pvp I have done. I'd actually love to get into it if it weren't just a preload mage team gank fest. Nice post.
 
It's really odd to me that PVE is super modernized, balanced, and fun, with a ton of different specs and playstyles supported (And people are discovering new things all the time!) Whereas PVP is basically the same clunky mess as it was in old UO.

I only used poison as an example. Like Dexxer builds (air, etc) could have a faster movement speed or way to catch people. Eldritch builds would be more the traditional mage type we see today. List goes on, but also like I said, having aspects actually matter in PVP isn't as big of suggestion than to do stuff with the engine to make PVP easier to get into and more accessible for newcomers.

I understand there are limits to the engine, UO Outlands is a 25+ year old wizard game under the hood, but we got around a lot of those limits in PVE, why not in PVP?
 
Yes, existing PVPers would probably be turned off by this, but as said before, existing PVPers only account for maybe 5% of the playerbase.

Sure, but that 5% is pretty important if we want to keep this world dangerous (and most do want that). Many of those players have honed their skills over the course of years or even decades. I've seen them get outraged at even minor adjustments that affect their playstyle -- a huge overhaul that completely changed the nature of pvp might drive them off the shard altogether.

It's just not something the developers could undertake lightly. And some of your ideas are frankly terrible. Faster movement speed for dexxers, really? :p

That said, I agree about the clunkiness.

As a pvmer who has tried to get into pvp many times over the years, the most clunky thing I see is the targeting. There's 239427 different ways to target and it's not really clear what the difference is between, say, "enemy" and "non-friendly" and "grey" and "criminal." You need separate hotkeys for every color of player and because there's no target closest for players you need both "next" and "previous" so you can (theoretically) toggle between them. For newcomers it's a lot. Or the other option is to risk death getting close enough to your enemy to grab everyone's bars and then sort and arrange them all on your screen while you're on the run trying to stay alive, which is a pain in big battles.
 
I think the other reason pvm players don't want to engage is the difference in losses for the pvm'er/pk'er. Pk's don't lose much on death where a pvm'er has an expensive loadout and anything they've looted. I imagine that is why most run.
 
It's just not something the developers could undertake lightly. And some of your ideas are frankly terrible. Faster movement speed for dexxers, really? :p
That was just a 'throw at the wall and see what sticks' idea that I didn't think much about. The main point of my post was how clunky PVP is, and how inaccessible it is to most players.

As for dexxers, there's a well-known imbalance between mages and dexxers, and how easy it is for experienced players to keep Dexxers at play. Thinking about it more, it would probably be better to give more teleport-like abilities, or maybe bonuses to using rope if you have the tactics skill. (Shorter cooldown, longer range, etc).
Sure, but that 5% is pretty important if we want to keep this world dangerous (and most do want that).

If PVP was made more accessible and popular, more people would create pkers, and the world would become more dangerous.

Edit: But it would also be easier for newer players to team up and fend off PKers, to balance out the addition of more PKers.

To me, that sounds like a more fun game for all.
 
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A lot of patches that improve PVE and almost no patches for PVP improvements\new skills( only making PVP players life even harder like nerfing).Pve content can compete with other games like WOW ( talents,passive abilities ,active abilities , classes.The same here on Outlands with aspects ,chains etc) but when it comes to pvp we have one three button class with no armors with abilities(POE, Albion online) , no talents\passives ( wow) and of course people dont want to play it as we compare it with other games as 90% of us played them for many years.So, why no to make couple of pvp patches insead of new deco items?
 
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I don't think PKs have it hard at all lol. They get a 15 minute penalty if killed. That's not bad at all. I'd love to try it but I don't like the trash talk.
 
Here are some random thoughts from a 100% PvM player that has only dabbled in PvP:
  • No incentive - It's all risk and no reward if a PvM player chooses to engage in PvP. It is much more rewarding to just move to a new area. What reward is there for the PvM player that downed the Red/Gray harrassing him? The risk/reward balance here is skewed heavily in the favor of the PvP player.
  • Limited progress - Progressing your character's experience, wealth, empire, etc... is all put on hold if you decide to PvP.
  • PvP is too scheduled - If I log in for 15-20 minutes, instead of running through a dungeon, what can I do for some PvP action?
  • No diversity - Tank Mage, Archer Mage.
  • PvP is mage dominated - while dexers do have a niche area they can perform decently in, people like to cite the ONE area of the ONE aspect of the game that dexers can hold their own, and then claim balance. Any meaningful PvP is mage-oreinted and half the potential population is being cut out here.
  • Ebolt Rails - PvP seems to always morph into sync dumping which I don't think anyone enjoys
Do I have a solution to any of these points? Hell no... I'm just bitching and moaning. But figured I'd share them anyway.
 
Here are some random thoughts from a 100% PvM player that has only dabbled in PvP:
  • No incentive - It's all risk and no reward if a PvM player chooses to engage in PvP. It is much more rewarding to just move to a new area. What reward is there for the PvM player that downed the Red/Gray harrassing him? The risk/reward balance here is skewed heavily in the favor of the PvP player.
  • Limited progress - Progressing your character's experience, wealth, empire, etc... is all put on hold if you decide to PvP.
  • PvP is too scheduled - If I log in for 15-20 minutes, instead of running through a dungeon, what can I do for some PvP action?
  • No diversity - Tank Mage, Archer Mage.
  • PvP is mage dominated - while dexers do have a niche area they can perform decently in, people like to cite the ONE area of the ONE aspect of the game that dexers can hold their own, and then claim balance. Any meaningful PvP is mage-oreinted and half the potential population is being cut out here.
  • Ebolt Rails - PvP seems to always morph into sync dumping which I don't think anyone enjoys
Do I have a solution to any of these points? Hell no... I'm just bitching and moaning. But figured I'd share them anyway.
No incentive: I actually agree with you and I think this is a problem with PVP. For one, there's little risk in a PKer getting killed. They are locked out of a dungeon for a bit. That's not much at all. So they take a break and work on other stuff. Original UO had far larger consequences for dying as a murderer. People still played murderers cause it was exciting.

But there's incentive for the PVEer, or group of PVEers, to hold a farming position. If you escape, you still lose time. And if you always have to escape, you are never able to farm. This is what I tell people who advise to use tracking-- cool, I get to escape, but I still can't farm. And there's plenty of people who have experiences where the only times they can farm (peak times), they can't kill 2 mobs without running into a PKer, no matter what dungeon they go to. Even if they can escape, they aren't progressing. And I think PVEers would fight back more, if PVP came more natural.

Limited Progress: This is hard to judge. Maybe someone isn't having fun without occasionally doing PVP. In that case, PVEing too much would lead to burnout and them quitting the server, which means everything is put on hold, permanently.

PvP is too scheduled: I don't think this is that much of an issue. There's lots of world PVP content. As I said in my post, the amount of content isn't the issue.

No Diversity/Mage Dominated/ebolt rails: Combining these into one I think that PVP needs to be conceptually refactored. It seems we are playing UO Outlands when we PVE and UO:R when we PVP. The system should be modernized and better diversified. That's also why I said introducing aspect into PVP (again, not aspect LEVEL, but aspect in and of itself) might be a great step in that direction.
 
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Then they go and do this...


Inscription Skill
  • If a player has a Protection or Arch Protection effect in place, they will now have a (30% * (Inscription Skill / 100)) chance to avoid Spell Interrupts caused by Melee Hits
 
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I don't want to debate, but your theory can only be true if dexxer has magic resist and the mage has no parrying. Magic resist is a must-have, parrying is not. Why?

I mean it's not really a theory. Even Luthius backed it up -- "annihilate" was his word.
 
I have been keeping up with the forum posts on here since I stopped playing to see how the development has been going. The reason why I stopped playing was due to the PvP. I think it is very much not fun; if you try to do PvP without magery you are going to be very frustrated.

Seeing more posts like these is encouraging and it is leading to some positive change. As I have seen with the recent patch notes, they are indeed making changes to the way PK's interact with the world and even did some balancing in arena PvP (that accuracy adjuster for consecutive hits). These changes sound okay, but more needs to be done.

Thank you for keeping the discussion around this topic going. I look forward to seeing how the game develops more.