Crowfall- PvP MMO "With Consequences"

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clok1966

Golden Member
Jul 6, 2004
1,395
13
76
Hate to be the wet blanket but its the same thing over and over, "we want TRUE PVP" but 99.99999999% who ask for that want it ONLY if they can win, and in TRUE PVP good players win the rest do not, so they all leave (Shadowbane has been mentioned here before). Anything that resembles True PvP is dead in a very short time. A few play it and dominate and the sheep get tired of dying over and over and leave. The games have short staying power as people who all "wanted" it come and play, see they cant match the elite players and leave and say it has some issues they don't like (namely they lack the skills to be competitive).

True PvP wont work, it never will for this reason alone. You need to keep a player base and unless you can compete people dont play. Love it or hate it WOW has one thing going, anybody (even the least of ability) can do pretty much anything.

But I am all for one making it, maybe this will be the one? I am not good enough to play against great PvP people, but ti would be fun to watch.
 

Rhezuss

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2006
4,120
34
91
Looking really interesting and I might opt in and pledge. This looks like a fresh take on the genre...really interesting.
 

XiandreX

Golden Member
Jan 14, 2011
1,172
16
81
I'm hoping they unveil the crafting system soon. I have a feeling its going to be the most in depth crafting system we've ever seen from an MMO. If you want to do combat and crafting at the high end, you will probably have to have two accounts because you will be training combat skills on one character, and crafting skills on another character. If you played SWG you know how good the crafting was in that game. This game has Raph Koster who designed the crafting system in SWG. He's not a developer, but they have hired him as a consultant to design system.

Crafting in SWG was incredible.
Nothing else has come close for me.
 

KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
29,044
41,734
136
The alpha is very cool, i like the concepts that they are presenting, the pvp matches are fun
 

JeffNY35

Senior member
Dec 16, 2009
294
2
76
Hate to be the wet blanket but its the same thing over and over, "we want TRUE PVP" but 99.99999999% who ask for that want it ONLY if they can win, and in TRUE PVP good players win the rest do not, so they all leave (Shadowbane has been mentioned here before). Anything that resembles True PvP is dead in a very short time. A few play it and dominate and the sheep get tired of dying over and over and leave. The games have short staying power as people who all "wanted" it come and play, see they cant match the elite players and leave and say it has some issues they don't like (namely they lack the skills to be competitive).

True PvP wont work, it never will for this reason alone. You need to keep a player base and unless you can compete people dont play. Love it or hate it WOW has one thing going, anybody (even the least of ability) can do pretty much anything.

But I am all for one making it, maybe this will be the one? I am not good enough to play against great PvP people, but ti would be fun to watch.

Depends on your measurement for working.

But I know what you are getting at. The last stab I took at "real pvp" was Age of Conan. The game itself had quite a bit going for it. I quite enjoyed the combat system, with the fatalities and all. Aside from some balance issues pvp was pretty damn fun. But the player base of today will find a way to ruin a game like this. It was downright sickening, a power-guild formed on our server, and basically everyone joined. So they dominated the server. The world wasn't expanded enough end game so it allowed them to choke point all the high level zones. But then they had nobody to fight and everyone quit. It wasn't even they had all the good players they just had too many and as you elude everyone just wanted to dominate the server. Once you do that the game is boring for everyone. And then people probably went on to ruin the next "true pvp" game. Darkfall was it? Heh.

To play devils advocate though, depends on your definition. Games like guild wars have done fine from what I gather. Eve Online too, plenty of others. But in many games it just doesn't work. Then there are your games that have "themepark" style pvp like WoW but that's more like casual match making.
 

GoodRevrnd

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2001
6,803
581
126
Darkfall imploded because people couldn't handle the grind required to stay competitive long term and there was no real way for solos / small groups to stay viable operating out of neutral towns (at least early on). That said, PvP in the early days was extremely vigorous with some absolutely massive GvGvG wars going on. Our city Mehatil survived 14 sieges before it fell. There were probably 3-4 super alliances if I remember correctly and another 3-4 small ones that were at least viable. I really don't think the players played a major role in ruining that game.
 

KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
29,044
41,734
136
From the alpha test anyways -

You start on a map with 4-6 other 6 man teams, no gear
-there is a fog that slowly creeps in and forces players to the middle eventually
-you need to kill mobs for better gear but this takes time (fog encroaching)
-last team wins

i liked the fact then even when i was being focus fired upon it still took a bit of time to die, no 2-3 shot deaths. I only played the ranger class but it was fun...


I really enjoyed the first couple of months of Darkfall, played the shit out of it, it had great promise in some ways. It died for me because they could never fix the exploits/hacks...flying ships anyone? 16 man guilds somehow having more material wealth than guilds of a 100+? Still probably one of the top 3 mmo experiences for me. I saw that 2 companies have bought the Darkfall licence and will be releasing their own separate versions of the game...i just can't see anyone paying for that game yet again and then monthly subscription after that...insanity.
 
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JeffNY35

Senior member
Dec 16, 2009
294
2
76
I really do miss open world pvp ganking and skirmishes. Couple dudes come around and gank you. You come back with couple your dudes gank them, more dudes show up on both sides. start hunting each other around the map.

Honestly stuff like that was really fun. nice break from just leveling or boring raid to loot a new color item.

I am not sure if any mmos have that aspect successfully these days or not. Heck even Warcraft when it FIRST came out was fun. as soon as people hit 50 and started raiding, I went to the next game trying to get that experience.

In the end though, I just don't have the time commitment for one of these games any more. But I still miss it at the same time.
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
106
Hate to be the wet blanket but its the same thing over and over, "we want TRUE PVP" but 99.99999999% who ask for that want it ONLY if they can win, and in TRUE PVP good players win the rest do not, so they all leave (Shadowbane has been mentioned here before).

"True PvP" is one of those things where if you ask 5 players to define it you get 5 different definitions.

-You can attack anyone, generally anywhere in the game world.

-If there is a safe area, then you shouldn't be able to progress without leaving the safe area.

-When you die there are consequences. You don't simply respawn a minute later, you actually lose something- gear, XP, skills, or a significant death respawn timer.

-Open world, open guilds, there is absolutely no guarantee of your PvP happening in conveniently fair 5v5 matches, it could be 8v3, 10v1, or 50v8. Deal with it.

-There needs to be a game behind all the PvP. This can take multitudes of forms, but the point is there needs to be more to the game than simply logging in and blowing up people. Part of the skill should be determining when to PvP and when to try to play nice and progress your character/guild.

Those are the aspects I care about, and I think Crowfall will do a fairly good job at achieving those. We'll see.
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
3,562
14
81
What's this game going to have in terms of open world building?

As for "true pvp", I just don't like the idea of geographical limits on open PvP. If there are levels in a game, I am personally OK with level limits (i.e. you can only PvP with players within 4 levels of you), but only being able to PvP in select zones or duels, I don't like.

Isn't this game going to have like the base worlds where you carry your wealth back to and those are not PvP?
 

KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
29,044
41,734
136
https://www.crowfall.com/en/faq/

the more i read the more i like it, servers have a set lifespan, your character has a permanent base...

There are many different options that have to be defined in order to determine the rules in each Campaign. The idea is that, at any time, there will be MANY Campaigns running in each of the “World Bands”, with new Campaigns constantly being brought online as old Campaigns come to an end. (The exact number of concurrent Campaigns will obviously depend on the size of our player population!)

When it comes to changes that can be made to the Campaigns, you can think of them as being broken into TWO major categories: ATTRIBUTES and MODULES.

Campaign Attributes:

Attributes are basically configuration settings.

There is a baseline set of Campaign rules that are common across all Campaigns. These attributes MUST be set in order to run a Campaign. Think of these as the simple (but highly impactful!) settings that are “dialed in” at the beginning of each Campaign. This includes settings like:

Map Size: How large is the world?
Duration: How long does each season last? How long does the entire Campaign last? What triggers the end of the Campaign?
Import/Export Rules: How much stuff can be brought in and out of the world, and when?
Magic Level: How powerful are the different types of magic?
Archetype Restrictions: Is this Campaign restricted to only certain archetypes?
Resource Scarcity: What is the population of resources available on this world, by type (common, uncommon, rare?)
Death Penalties: When a player dies, do their items decay? If so, how much? What are the looting rules on death?
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
106
What's this game going to have in terms of open world building?

What they talked about so far was a tile based system. You can place tiles within an area you control of various sizes, they have to fit sort of like tetris blocks. For example a simple well might just be a 1x1 unit block, a temple might be an L-shaped piece, a medium keep might be a 2x2 block, etc. So you don't have full freedom minecraft style, but you can design your own layout based on arranging these blocks as you choose.

As for "true pvp", I just don't like the idea of geographical limits on open PvP. If there are levels in a game, I am personally OK with level limits (i.e. you can only PvP with players within 4 levels of you), but only being able to PvP in select zones or duels, I don't like.

No levels in traditional sense, but there is a skill based system of progression and you can unlock different discipline sub-classes and such. The idea is that the longer you play the more options you will have, but you won't necessarily be significantly stronger in a liner fashion... just more flexible.

Of course, the devs have also stated they are keeping the hand-holding to a minimum- you *will* be avble to make bad decisions and gimp a given character, you can't just spec out random skills and do okay, there will be some thought and strategy required to build a good character and you might well face a more optimized player who seems impossible to beat... but that would be because the optimized character is built better, not because it's been grinding xp for 600 hours.

Isn't this game going to have like the base worlds where you carry your wealth back to and those are not PvP?

Yes, but those base worlds are essentially a game lobby. You don't play the real game there, it's just sort of a way to show off your winnings. Like in WoW, strolling around ironforge in your new full tier set to show off, that sort of thing.

And the beauty of the limited multiple worlds concept is that while some allow you to carry in some initial gear/resources, others do not. If you are a newbie and you want to play on a fresh world with no item import, you can, and everyone will start that campaign as naked as you are.
 

KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
29,044
41,734
136
What they talked about so far was a tile based system. You can place tiles within an area you control of various sizes, they have to fit sort of like tetris blocks. For example a simple well might just be a 1x1 unit block, a temple might be an L-shaped piece, a medium keep might be a 2x2 block, etc. So you don't have full freedom minecraft style, but you can design your own layout based on arranging these blocks as you choose.



No levels in traditional sense, but there is a skill based system of progression and you can unlock different discipline sub-classes and such. The idea is that the longer you play the more options you will have, but you won't necessarily be significantly stronger in a liner fashion... just more flexible.

Of course, the devs have also stated they are keeping the hand-holding to a minimum- you *will* be avble to make bad decisions and gimp a given character, you can't just spec out random skills and do okay, there will be some thought and strategy required to build a good character and you might well face a more optimized player who seems impossible to beat... but that would be because the optimized character is built better, not because it's been grinding xp for 600 hours.



Yes, but those base worlds are essentially a game lobby. You don't play the real game there, it's just sort of a way to show off your winnings. Like in WoW, strolling around ironforge in your new full tier set to show off, that sort of thing.

And the beauty of the limited multiple worlds concept is that while some allow you to carry in some initial gear/resources, others do not. If you are a newbie and you want to play on a fresh world with no item import, you can, and everyone will start that campaign as naked as you are.

The multiple worlds thing is brilliant i think, there are a lot of options that they have in creating the rule set for each world. Hopefully they can design it to appeal to a large amount of people
 

JamesGoblin

Junior Member
Jan 30, 2016
17
4
36
What's this game going to have in terms of open world building?

As for "true pvp", I just don't like the idea of geographical limits on open PvP. If there are levels in a game, I am personally OK with level limits (i.e. you can only PvP with players within 4 levels of you), but only being able to PvP in select zones or duels, I don't like.

Isn't this game going to have like the base worlds where you carry your wealth back to and those are not PvP?

To add to what @Chiropteran said, about "geographical limits": Campaigns will actually be whole servers, with thousand(s) of players, size of a continent and will last couple months on average. It will be a whole game/world in itself, with guilds, crafting, building, sieges, grind...and whatever you normally do in other MMOs.

Speaking of Eternal Kingdoms ( "the base worlds where you carry your wealth back to" ), the king-player controlls PvP there (turning it on/off), I guess most of EKs will have PvP off most of the time. By the way, here is how players build their kingdoms: lakes, rivers, mountains, castles, everything is disposed by player-owner and then procedurally generated by the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCVZlrzAo-8&feature=youtu.be
 

clok1966

Golden Member
Jul 6, 2004
1,395
13
76
"True PvP" is one of those things where if you ask 5 players to define it you get 5 different definitions.

-You can attack anyone, generally anywhere in the game world.

-If there is a safe area, then you shouldn't be able to progress without leaving the safe area.

-When you die there are consequences. You don't simply respawn a minute later, you actually lose something- gear, XP, skills, or a significant death respawn timer.

-Open world, open guilds, there is absolutely no guarantee of your PvP happening in conveniently fair 5v5 matches, it could be 8v3, 10v1, or 50v8. Deal with it.

-There needs to be a game behind all the PvP. This can take multitudes of forms, but the point is there needs to be more to the game than simply logging in and blowing up people. Part of the skill should be determining when to PvP and when to try to play nice and progress your character/guild.

Those are the aspects I care about, and I think Crowfall will do a fairly good job at achieving those. We'll see.

I love this one
"-Open world, open guilds, there is absolutely no guarantee of your PvP happening in conveniently fair 5v5 matches, it could be 8v3, 10v1, or 50v8. Deal with it."

I agree this is how it should be, but its the flaw too, 99.99% is the gank squad. People are pricks when its allowed and there are no repercussions. You mentioned repercussions, the few games that have done this are full of "player base feels its to harsh", if you ar old enough to have played all the attempts at this. its just human nature, again nothing wrong with it, the real problem is as i said earlier, if the game isn't fun for everybody they wont play. Sure its fun for the 8 of the 8 vs 3, but when these 8 no longer have the 3 to kill it gets boring. "deal with it" people do, they quit, and the game dies. the guy who could kill noobs all day long to satisfy his ego, soon has no noobs, and is facing real fights (or his 8 is now fighting 15), he gets killed non stop and soon he quits too.

Everybody thinks im against non care bear PVP, im not, its just wont work. People want non stop victims, they can kill all day long and keep doing it. This will never happen, TRUE PvP is killers and victims, the victims have no fun and leave, its not rocket science, just facts as pretty much any PvP MMORPG has proven.

Again, who knows maybe this one will strike the right balance but i doubt it. How do you keep the sheep playing? thats the trick, the killers will play and love the game till the cannibalize each other after the sheep are gone.

all just opinion maybe so far off its silly, but ehh till i see a PVP work long term i stick by it.
 

GoodRevrnd

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2001
6,803
581
126
"Deal with it" is the only correct answer to numbers complaint. However, I think the real problem goes deeper than that. The imbalance between the 2 hour per day player and the 12 hour per day player creates problems that are nearly impossible to solve... and this imbalance is compounded by the fact that 12 hour per day players tend to coalesce more into those larger number groups.

1. This is why I think skill caps are important, and also why I believe an ideal system will have diminishing returns for time invested in any activity (skill gain, resources earned, etc.). The tough part is finding a balance so that people who do want to play a lot still receive payout for it. I think back to Darkfall where it could be a real chore for a semi-casual player just to maintain stock of T4 gear, let alone T5 or T6 which were significantly better. I think a conceptually better system would have keeping T4 gear be a modest effort, and have T5/6 gear provide only incremental 5-10% benefits and more available to the players who did invest obscene hours.

2. Faction based games need robust faction management systems. Large groups benefit from this significantly, but the ability to form complex alliances, sub-allegiances, guild ranks, etc. give smaller groups a much better fighting chance. Shadowbane was GREAT for this. I don't recall another game ever having sub-guilds. It allowed multiple builds to pledge to a nation or master guild which made communication and collaboration far easier, and importantly, allowed groups to maintain varying degrees of autonomy and not subject themselves to the full wrath of drama a super-guild is capable of creating. I doubt many of SB's server wars would have been as epic without this fantastic system.

3. The sheep need to be given a purpose beyond being food for the wolves. One of the best solutions is a deep tradeskill system that many PvPers won't be interested in, have the time to do, or are flat out unable to do based on their own skill selections. This gives the sheep value to some wolves so they will be integrated, protected, or left alone. It also deepens interaction possibilities beyond making every encounter a fight.

I don't know if Crowfall will address any of these problems, but these are key areas where most hardcore PvP games have failed, as fun as many of them may have been.
 
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Linflas

Lifer
Jan 30, 2001
15,395
78
91
Clearly you never played UO :)

Land domination could be one, resources, resupply, etc... in UO you'd beat your opponents and they would drop all the stuff on their body, but it wasn't anything you couldn't just buy again. It was how the economy worked. In game players would craft the gear and sell it, players would buy it, and then fight one another based on factions, or guild warfare. The losing team in an engagement lost all their stuff, and made it easier for the winning team to resupply if THEY lost. It was a constant battle back and forth. And it was awesomely fun.

That stuff got so bad in UO that they ended up making a mirror world to deal with it. The griefers called it "Barney World" but that was around the same time the EQ went live and UO began the long descent.
 

JamesGoblin

Junior Member
Jan 30, 2016
17
4
36
That stuff got so bad in UO that they ended up making a mirror world to deal with it. The griefers called it "Barney World" but that was around the same time the EQ went live and UO began the long descent.

Speaking of UO and griefing - http://community.crowfall.com/index...you-the-one-who-brought-us-trammel/#entry1610

PS And yea, I also think that Crowfall's success depends (much more than what many seem to think) on the quality of "carebear experience" i.e. it's Eternal Kingdoms, economy, crafting/building etc... that also includes the quality of life of "losers".

Of course, I am aware that it'll be nich - the question is only how nich will it end up being.
 

Ns1

No Lifer
Jun 17, 2001
55,413
1,570
126
That stuff got so bad in UO that they ended up making a mirror world to deal with it. The griefers called it "Barney World" but that was around the same time the EQ went live and UO began the long descent.

but even in carebear land, they still had Chaos/Order battles that you can opt into. Gank was alive and well.

Had so many great Chaos/Order guild fights in that game.

The carebear/non-carebear split seemed like a decent way to appease both player types.
 

clok1966

Golden Member
Jul 6, 2004
1,395
13
76
"Deal with it" is the only correct answer to numbers complaint. However, I think the real problem goes deeper than that. The imbalance between the 2 hour per day player and the 12 hour per day player creates problems that are nearly impossible to solve... and this imbalance is compounded by the fact that 12 hour per day players tend to coalesce more into those larger number groups.

1. This is why I think skill caps are important, and also why I believe an ideal system will have diminishing returns for time invested in any activity (skill gain, resources earned, etc.). The tough part is finding a balance so that people who do want to play a lot still receive payout for it. I think back to Darkfall where it could be a real chore for a semi-casual player just to maintain stock of T4 gear, let alone T5 or T6 which were significantly better. I think a conceptually better system would have keeping T4 gear be a modest effort, and have T5/6 gear provide only incremental 5-10% benefits and more available to the players who did invest obscene hours.

2. Faction based games need robust faction management systems. Large groups benefit from this significantly, but the ability to form complex alliances, sub-allegiances, guild ranks, etc. give smaller groups a much better fighting chance. Shadowbane was GREAT for this. I don't recall another game ever having sub-guilds. It allowed multiple builds to pledge to a nation or master guild which made communication and collaboration far easier, and importantly, allowed groups to maintain varying degrees of autonomy and not subject themselves to the full wrath of drama a super-guild is capable of creating. I doubt many of SB's server wars would have been as epic without this fantastic system.

3. The sheep need to be given a purpose beyond being food for the wolves. One of the best solutions is a deep tradeskill system that many PvPers won't be interested in, have the time to do, or are flat out unable to do based on their own skill selections. This gives the sheep value to some wolves so they will be integrated, protected, or left alone. It also deepens interaction possibilities beyond making every encounter a fight.

I don't know if Crowfall will address any of these problems, but these are key areas where most hardcore PvP games have failed, as fun as many of them may have been.

Some pretty good ideas there. I see so many talk about great fight in PvP, epic, and went on through the day, Back and forth battle are mentioned. And there is no better feeling than beating a HUMAN not a NPC in a battle of wits and skill. I KNOW why we all want this experience, I know why game company's try to bring this to us.

You made me think, with your "sheep a purpose" , the protection idea is pretty good, but i doubt many will just tradeskill, there would have to be some good PvE for those guys, and a reason for the PvP to escort or be around to protect them.
 

GoodRevrnd

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2001
6,803
581
126
You made me think, with your "sheep a purpose" , the protection idea is pretty good, but i doubt many will just tradeskill, there would have to be some good PvE for those guys, and a reason for the PvP to escort or be around to protect them.

Naturally, although SWG (and even UO) proved plenty of people are willing to JUST tradeskill. This probably isn't appropriate in a game like Crowfall, but you still need something in there for these people. I'm sure there will be some sort of PvE. That's the only logical way to funnel crafting resources into the economy.

What if if you completely min/max your character for combat, yielding you a 20% combat power advantage over someone who has min/maxed for crafting? By doing this, at best you can only master a single trade which has high utility but not high value, something like fletching, so you are at least able to supply yourself with a steady stream of master tier arrows. You have one gathering skill that you can harvest at 75% efficiency and the rest harvest at 50% Conversely, the character min/maxed for crafting is able to grand master 2 high value trades like armorsmithing and enchanting, 2 high utility trades, and can gather 2 resources at 125% efficiency and everything else at 75%.

Now, imagine the best resources are in highly contentious areas. The combat character could take care of himself there, but his yields for the time invested are garbage. The crafting character could go by himself and harvest no problem, but if he runs into trouble he'll be at a distinct disadvantage and could just lose everything.

Or... what if... they went together and they both were more likely to leave happy having both fulfilled their roles? You could amplify this benefit even more. What if the combat character could "assist" the crafter's gather for a 50% gather speed boost.

These types of synergies are critical in PvP MMOs, otherwise what's the point of all that persistence? Without these synergies, everyone will be a min/maxed combatant in a never-ending gankfest for no real reason. The sheep, crafting, social interactions, economy, politicking, etc. all greatly increase the intensity of every combat encounter--which really is why most of us play PvP MMOs instead of round after round of CoD.