The Future of PvP

{{Turbine 2003 | Link = http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?page_id=216 | Title = The Future of PvP | Text = posted on 10-Mar-2004 We've recently made or proposed a number of changes to the world of PK and PKL combat, and we'd like to take this time to provide more information on where we are, where we're going, and how we feel about the state of Asheron's Call's PvP. Much of the information in this document comes directly from the feedback we requested on our forums. Some of the changes were not taken directly from the feedback, but are part of our overall vision for PvP. It's important to note that what we describe below is not set in stone. While we feel strongly about many of the gameplay changes we suggest, we want to hear your feedback on them. The enormous amount of negative feedback regarding the March PvP changes reminded us of exactly what happens when we don't come to the PvP community before implementing these changes.

The Current Status
The current state of Asheron's Call PvP is, in our opinion, very good, but nowhere near perfect. While there are a number of issues that need to be resolved, we believe that our PvP combat is as good as, if not better than, the PvP that you'll find in any other fantasy MMP. What makes AC's PvP so good?


 * The animation and physics system. Projectiles are real objects that can be dodged. You have the ability to maneuver in combat, and your movement choices have real consequences.


 * Character choices. The skill system, the vast amount of varied equipment in the game, and the ability to prepare for different opponents creates a number of different tactics and strategies for players.


 * Player skill matters. While numbers – such as number of levels and number of opponents – are very important, they are not necessarily the deciding factor. A skilled player can defeat a more powerful unskilled player, although it may be difficult.


 * Speed. One mistake in PvP combat – just one – can cost you your life. Combat can happen at any time.

However there are a number of factors that prevent AC's PvP from being as great as it could. Some of these factors are:
 * Very few safe zones on Darktide. One of the hallmarks of Darktide is the knowledge that nowhere is "safe". You can be attacked anywhere, at any time. The housing system has thrown a bit of a wrench in this, however.
 * Balance issues. While Mage / Sword balance is very tight, the other melee classes and archers are currently less competitive. There is still a wide gap between the Weeping Weapons and all other weapons and weapon classes in PvP combat.


 * Animation issues. The same system that makes AC's combat feel realistic has a number of problems. Jump-spin, "godmoding" potions and other consumables, fastcasting, slidecasting... these are just the top issues. This has been exacerbated by varied Dev Team response and a lack of communication regarding which, if any, of these actions are "acceptable" and which are "exploits".


 * Time spent preparing. Since you can be attacked at any time, you must be at maximum readiness at almost all times. This results in a great deal of time spent buffing and not fighting.


 * Lack of meaningful fights. By this we mean battles that have consequences, whether that is control of a location or resource, or some sort of recognizable achievement such as placement on a PK ladder. Left with this void, players on Darktide have created their own resources to fight over – macroing locations.

All of the above issues need to be handled in order to make AC's PvP all it can be.

Our Goals for the Future
Our vision for AC's PvP can be summed up in one sentence: Improve upon the positive and eliminate the negative. We want to take those features mentioned in the first bullet-point group above and add to them, while resolving the issues in the second bullet-point group. When designing for PvP combat, the first group that we must always consider is Darktide. Darktide is the home of the majority of our most loyal and experienced PvP players, and any changes we make to PvP combat should be done to improve their gameplay first and foremost. One goal that we strive for is balanced group combat. There is a considerable difference between, say, PKL dueling and a Darktide raid. In the former, the two opponents can set rules and guidelines, such as, "No debuffing," or "No gems". In the latter, you have no way of knowing which tactics your opponents may be ready to use against you. In addition, we want to have an environment in which a diverse group will tend to be more powerful than a group of similar characters. For example, two melees and a mage should have an edge over three melees of a similar level. This edge should not be overwhelming – the three melees may be skilled enough to defeat their opponents – but we want to encourage diversity. We want to increase the number of options and tactics in PvP combat. To give you an example of what we're trying to avoid, think of a typical arcade fighting game. When your opponent picks his character, you know – in general – what to expect and how best to try and counter it. While player skill is extremely important, you know the type of attacks that will be coming as soon as you see which character your opponent selected. This is what we don't want in Asheron's Call. When you are attacked by a mixed group, you should not be able to know ahead of time exactly which tactics they will be using. There should be multiple equally effective tactical options, and each option should have an effective counter. This last paragraph speaks to a number of recent changes – banes should be able to be countered with an appropriate lure, and Blood Drinker should be able to be countered with Blood Loather. Negative spells should be able to be countered with dispels.

Specific Proposals
I'd like to take the bullet points above and speak specifically on what our plans are to emphasize, or resolve, each one.

Animation and Physics
Most of the issues here will be touched on under resolving the negatives. It is important to stress that we want to keep the ability to move in combat.

Character Choices and Player Skill
Some of our more controversial recent changes have been towards increasing the number of options available to players in combat. These include the ability to debuff Weeping weapons and player worn armor, the planned changes to dispel gems, and the changes to Arc spell words. We seek to increase the number of choices available to players in combat, and to make multiple viable responses to the choices made by their opponents. In the case of Arcs, we want to continue to reward players who recognize the spell words used by their opponents and adjust accordingly. In the case of the Dispels, we wanted to create the option of dispelling level VII spells through a means other than gems, and then balance gems alongside these new methods. We are still considering much of the feedback that we've received on this topic, such as timers, speed of spellcasting, and stacking the gems. Other planned changes include the upgrades to "second-class" weapons and adjustments to the damage-over-time of the PvP weapon suites. We are also looking at the possibility of creating PvP-specific imbues for loot weapons. It is our goal that, for example, a melee who wants to take part in PvP combat has options beyond "Weeping Sword or nothing". To that end, we plan to adjust the Weeping, Hollow, and Phantom weapons. We are looking at ways to improve the low-end weapons in PvP, as well as improve the Hollow and Phantom weapons, without significantly impacting their balance in PvM play. The goal is for Hollow and Phantom weapons to be viable alternatives to Weeping weapons, and for other melee weapon groups to be viable alternatives to Sword. Sword will still be strongest, but the gap between it and the other weapon groups will be decreased. It needs to be stated plainly: It may be necessary to decrease the damage of the Weeping Sword. Our current damage-over-time charts, as well as in-game experiences, indicate that it may be slightly stronger than intended.

Speed
The most important goal with regard to speed is that we not change the current situation. While we may introduce further "countermeasure" equipment such as the Aegis shield, this equipment should have drawbacks in group combat. In addition, tactics that decrease a player's damage should be able to be countered through spell or dispel.

Safe Zones
This brings us to the topic of housing barriers on Darktide. There is strong feedback to do something about them, but the best solution may not be technically feasible for some time. We are looking at removing them altogether, only removing barriers from villas or mansions, or introducing some form of PK timer on the ability to pass through friendly barriers. One feature which we've seen requested – the ability to temporarily destroy a hostile housing barrier – is most likely not something we can add to the game anytime in the near future. This issue is still in discussion internally, and we value any feedback that you may have.

Balance Issues
Many of the topics mentioned under Character Choices and Player Skill apply equally to Balance. We have also tackled other balance issues recently, such as the imbalance in the low-level life transfer spells. There are a few topics for the future that are quite specific to Balance, primarily the state of missile characters in PvP. We currently have three ideas in concept to improve the state of PvP missile characters.


 * Aegis-like equipment. Our current design is an item that could be used on any loot missile weapon to add a Magic Absorbing property to it. This property would be similar to the Aegis Shield and would scale based on the wielder's Magic Defense. The downside is that the missile weapon would lose any melee defense adjustment that it might possess. Also, obviously, one would need to choose between this weapon and one's Weeping Bow, Crossbow, or Atlatl.

We are also looking at the possibility of creating similar equipment for casting objects, in order to give mages a choice similar to the choice we are giving missile users.


 * Pathing options. We would like to introduce a new pathing type for missile attacks. War Mages have the ability to choose between Bolts and Arcs for the purposes of targeting, whereas missile users have only one option. Any new option would likely be either through some sort of option in the attack bar, or through a new form of ammunition


 * Speed vs. accuracy. Currently setting the speed/accuracy slider to the far left allows you to fire at maximum speed, but penalizes your skill by 50%. Likewise, setting the slider to the far right gives you a 50% bonus to your skill, but fires at the slowest rate.

We are investigating the possibility of adjusting this slider to allow for fastest speed with a smaller penalty – or no penalty – without changing the bonus given at slowest speed. These ideas are still in the design process and your feedback would be useful. We are working to ensure that many of the topics listed in the March Letter to the Players Follow-Up, such as higher wield-req weapons, do not negatively impact PvP balance.

Animation Issues
Right off the bat, we'd like to differentiate between animation issues that we now consider to be legitimate player tactics, and animation issues that we plan to resolve.

Legitimate Tactics

 * Player-controlled casting times – the current "fastcasting" and "delay casting". However if a new form of fastcasting emerges that would allow players to rapid-fire spells beyond that which is currently seen, it would likely be considered an issue to resolve.
 * Slide-casting within the current movement limits.

Issues to Resolve
Jump-Spin deserves its own paragraph, if not more. One the one hand, it seems unfair that a player should be able to so badly throw off his opponent's client simply by jumping and spinning mid-jump that it breaks sticky melee and allows the player to run away. On the other hand, if that is the only means of escaping from a melee, what else do we expect that player to do? We are still working on solutions to this issue. We have previously considered solutions such as restricting movement while jumping, only to find that they did not resolve the issue. Currently we are designing and testing several other solutions, such as adding a PK jump timer (which would allow you to jump-spin, but not as frequently) or improving client prediction such that a target jump-spinning does not throw off sticky. We are also investigating the relationship of the Run skill to sticky melee. Perhaps a character with a high Run skill should have a chance to break sticky from a slower opponent? These are questions that require research, both into whether we can do this, and whether or not we should.
 * Jump-Spin. More on this below.
 * "Godmoding" potions and food.
 * Getting around the PK jumping stamina loss. (The Jump-Spin resolution may make this a non-issue.)
 * Animation-breaking issues not listed above. This is the catch-all for lesser-used animation-breaking actions or ones not discovered or reported yet.

Time Spent Preparing
A number of topics in the Letter to the Players Follow-Up touch on this directly, from faster self buffs to multi-stat buffs and fellowship spells. In general we want to decrease the amount of time you spend preparing for a fight, and increase the time you spend actually fighting.

Lack of Meaningful Fights
This is perhaps the most long-term issue to resolve. It is clear that the PvP community, Darktide in particular, wants something to fight over. We have just scratched the surface with our town revisions (putting Lifestones in towns) and the PK battle dungeons in the February event. We would like to add more things to fight over, with better and more tangible rewards. However, it is in our best interests to resolve the other issues listed above before we create meaningful combat goals and rewards. So this may be one of the last issues we resolve. As we work on it, we will ask you for your feedback on our ideas and proposals.

Lag
A frequently mentioned issue for the Darktide community is the subject of lag. We receive frequent reports that lag on Darktide is worse than on any other server. We are always working to resolve any server-side lag issues that we find, in addition we are working on adding improved performance monitoring to our servers. When this is completed our ability to diagnose and resolve any server-side issues should be greatly improved.

Conclusion
Asheron's Call's PvP players are some of our most dedicated, passionate, and vocal. Many of you know the guts of this game as well as we do, and we respect that. We want to improve our communication with you so that you can help us make Asheron's Call's PvP as great as we all know it can be. We hope that this article has been helpful in understand the Dev Team's goals for PvP. As I wrote earlier, the proposals that I've listed above are not set in stone. Your feedback will help us prioritize and update these ideas to better match what it is that you want to see in AC. In the end, we want PvP in AC to be fun. If it's fun, we'll enjoy designing for it, and we'll all enjoy playing it. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and let us know what you think! }}