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PvPvE


Tyran

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PvP sucked in the arena, we all know. There is just a shear lack of use for tactics and it seemed to only be about 'who has the biggest guns'. The devs of this emulator are capable of great things, but with PvP, I doubt anyone can make something of that. This is because the mechanics are fairly shallow in EnB. It's just target, then auto-fire and unleash your few skills.

Now, how to improve on this?

Try PvPvE

It goes like this, imagine the map being something like this for 4 teams:

pvpve.jpg

To start at the main objects:

Bases have hitpoints and can be destroyed, they are protected by turrets. While the base is still up, it will spawn MOBs and players will be respawned if they die.

Mini-bases are control points guarded by turrets and can be destroyed like bases. They function as a protection line for your base.

MOBs are spawned at the bases every 30 seconds or so and move at impulse speed across their path. Each base spawns three groups that take a seperate lane each. A group could consist of three warrior ships and one trader (healer) ship. When more than 50% damage by a player is done to a MOB when it dies, it creates a lootable wreckage.

Capital ships are spawned once every 10 minutes in one random lane together with a wave and are a higher level than normal. Capital ships could have long range weapons with moderate damage but high hitpoints. Waves with capital ships are especially effective at pushing. The point of them is to create a wedge in the opposing lines.

Resource points contain ore fields with many ores, if a player mines these he will keep them after the game. Also, the occasional upgrade roid appears which can be important for victory. Resource points could have a gravity well covering them so as not to make miners impossible to kill.

Upgrade roids contain upgrades for your MOBs. You need to deliver an upgrade to your base for it to take effect. Effects could be a slight increase to damage and hitpoints, or perhaps an extra skill.

Mining upgrade roids could take a while, maybe 20 seconds or so. While mining these roids, nearby MOBs of the other teams will focus on the miner in particular. If a miner becomes incapacitated while holding upgrades in his hold - they are lost. But mined ores are not.

How to play?

The map is a square and could be 25k by 25k and is instanced just like the arena.

Your goal is to destroy the bases of the other teams. Tactics and teamplay, being in the right place at the right time, having a particular lineup of professions etc. will play an important part in this style of combat.

As the waves of mobs of each side meet they will fight each other. Each class can help their mobs push the lane in a different way, mainly like this:

Tradesmen heal friendly mobs

Warriors help friendly mobs with killing

Explorers upgrade friendly mobs

Ofcourse, all races can buff their mobs with devices and skills as well.

The amount of players on each team can be anything really. Also the number of teams could vary from what is shown.

How long would a match last? It depends on a lot of factors but 45 minutes could be a nice average duration - not too short and not too long.

What reward could the victor get? Something along the lines of redeemable points that can be used to get items from a rewards NPC perhaps? The teams that are 2nd, 3rd and 4th would also get a reduced number of points per match so that players don't fight for no reason.

Now, this idea is just an idea as per usual. I also wanted to throw this out because PvPvE just adds an extra dimension to the play that could also appeal to those who normally do not like PvP.

PS: Yes, elements have been ripped from DotA because that is arguably the best pvpve game about :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I also believe I saw a post somewhere with a suggestion of a PVP or group PVP game like soccer - essentially a you had a miner 'mine' the ball and transport it to the goal, while being defended by other team players and making it past a certain point. I think any arena area should have more than just "I shoot you"

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I like this idea. I think that slimming it down to two factions competing at a time might be a tad easier to manage though.

Would be interesting to develop a storyline from this, whereas the original Arena was based upon Progen-themed contest.

Perhaps a multi-faction "Gate War Re-enactment Society" could sponsor the events following established game lore, such as instancing a re-enactment for certain battles:

The Battle of Zweihander: Terrans v. Bogerils for the "ethnic cleansing" of Alpha Centauri

The Battle of Akeron's Gate: Jenquai v. Progens, with the Progens chasing after escaping Jenquai, and then Merjan and Mordane popping out of Akeron's Gate with their explorer/battlefleet after a certain timer counts off

The Battle of Jove City: Progens vs. Jenquai

The Battle of Mars: Terrans vs. Progens: stop the massive Terran battlefleet from launching nuclear strikes to Mars (I think this was an unscripted event in the WestWood game documents)

An NPC representing the Gate War Re-Enactment Society could be stationed at the Homeworlds or at N7 to register players for a particular event and a faction in that event, so that players could pick a side regardless of their actual affiliation.

The NPC would give that player a token which is good for that event, and an event would close for registry after 36 players (18 for both sides, three full groups per side).

Players could then fly to the respective location (for example, the Battle for Jove City would be in Jupiter sector) and speak to a waiting NPC who'd then instance the players at the appropriate time to the battlefield.

The battlefield itself need not be a specially done up thing (still show the wreckage of Jove City, but the hulks like Icotus Maru and Pax Remalis and others would be active capital ships with their tag-along factional mobs slugging it out).

Add in bases and mini-bases as Tyran proposed, and you have the makings of a heck of a fight.

Maybe even code in some "disembodied voices" speaking into the instanced chat, like:

Dahaka Khan: I will grind your Jenquai corpses into paste for my dog soldiers to eat!

Dai'Shao Long Tzu: Man your stations, and repel these defiled beasts!

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Holy dionysian caesium spittle, Batman! I'm loving this idea. It's kinda like DoTA, IN SPACE!

I particularly like the idea that everyone is given a role, from supporters to miners to combatants, and the focus isn't on direct player-versus-player combat, but more upon player-versus-mob combat.

Edited by Noxmire
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Three points:

-----------

ZONE SIZE:Unless the whole zone is a grav well, 25k isnt big enough....I have toons that are capped at the 1k thrust, as do others..you could traverse the whole area in 25 sec with that thrust...with warp you could traverse in 5 sec (less warp init time)@ 5000 warp.

PLAYER INTERACTION:It wasn't made clear if it was a straight up pve over all pvp in toto match. Or if players could incapacitate each other. In Live arena you could kill players and they respawned at base areas (no actual dmg or equip dmg...no ammo spent etc.) Some players class skills gave them huge advantages. As an example if you knew how to play a PS you couldn't be killed. period. They could menace other players and make them helpless for a set amount of time (during which they could kill the other player or continue mining a "ball") once the other player came out of menace (because of player complaints they elimnated chain menacing) the PS if he was near being killed would just power down. This made them untargetable. They couldn't move true..but the other player couldnt dmg them..so they could just sit there as shields and reactor recharged. Then they could run the ball in or continue to pound on the other player with renewed vigor.

LEVEL RANGE: To empliment this a player lvl range must be framed up...its not much fun as a L50 player and a L150 uses their superior skills to wipe you out...or if it was a straight pve then a team of L150 of course wipe out the other side towers far sooner than a team of L50s. Balancing would of course be hard to do on a mixed player lvl per team i.e 2x 150 ea side 3x 100 ea on down until ea side is lvled over all...but there is still inbalance since 1 side could have 2x L150 JE and other 2xL150 warrior etc. I would suggest like live had a lvl range per arena..i.e. say L100-134 can join a arena of their range but not L75-L99 etc.

About the NPC awards, have it like alternate coinage that is traded in for item(s) OR cashable for xp. But for sure make all items tradeable not that "soulbound" crap from other games so that your alt toons can be fitted out with outgrown gear. Or even traded to guildies etc. Perhaps the gear don't have to overshadow other already in game gear..maybe even the same gear or even as a slight bragger same gear but named different and differing Graffix or something...i.e. arena award brimstone ballista: might have differing colored shots/sound etc.

As I have seen in other MMO if you have the arena awards be substantually superior then you just encourage a PVP "elite" and have a community scism and an eventual 2 track player base (look what a nightmare WOW has gotten with the 3 track player development [arena,raid,craft/pve] and all the adherants of ea.)

All this is not to be critical..I like the concept of arena options..just throwing breaking points I see and potential fixs.

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Mattsacre raises good points; stuff earned from any sort of PVP/PVE hybrid events should not be significantly better than stuff earned the normal way, through grinding. Further, neither should it be weighted towards a specific purpose (look at WoW's PVP-arena gear if you want to see why this is horrible; basically if you want to PVP successfully without picking on newbs, you have to get arena gear, since stuff earned from raids/grinding is totally unsuitable.)

I like the idea that stuff earned from these hybrid events would be cosmetically different from standard stuff, rather than statistically different. Unique shot graphics, special FX that play when equipped or used, stuff like that is excellent and I'd wholly support rewards of this type.

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  • 1 month later...

We actually tried it back in Alpha Testing. It failed. As long as the person with the "biggest guns". It fails. PvP sucks literally and totally in Earth and Beyond. All you need to do is have the big guns camp and the other team can get screwed.

We kept Sword for a purpose to show players PvP cannot be done in E&B. And, if you look at the equipment, the beams, missles, projectiles, reactors and shields. 150's had all the same gear no matter class. There is no variety that was the biggest downfall of Earth and Beyond.

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We actually tried it back in Alpha Testing. It failed. As long as the person with the "biggest guns". It fails. PvP sucks literally and totally in Earth and Beyond. All you need to do is have the big guns camp and the other team can get screwed.

We kept Sword for a purpose to show players PvP cannot be done in E&B. And, if you look at the equipment, the beams, missles, projectiles, reactors and shields. 150's had all the same gear no matter class. There is no variety that was the biggest downfall of Earth and Beyond.

More variety in desirable equipment at all levels, but especially at top levels for all classes would be a nice thing.

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We actually tried it back in Alpha Testing. It failed. As long as the person with the "biggest guns".

Then it was the wrong type of pvp system. EnB "could" have a great system, but not 1 vs 1 biggest gun wins, no. Faction would work well, provided base captures are on a timer. This way as the countdown winds it's way down, it gives people an idea when to amass coop-pvp fleet/s for large battles - those that are flagged for faction pvp albeit. Will it happen here? Doubt it, but eventually they will release server code so another project group could take it up with pvp centric game-play on the front burner. Quite annoying the code is hidden away by the current community dev team from the community players/supporters at this point :( Diversity is a healthy thing imho.

Of course there is much more that can be done. Don't get stuck in a box (i.e. think out of the EA/EnB box). There is more to faction than shooting, and lots of new skills that could be created for it ;)

Edited by Daywolf
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The way i would see it is that you want the classes to do what they do, ie miners mine, traders trade, wars fight:)

Just have the miners/explorers go out find stuff and mine, sell resources to your station , when the station has enough it builds/upgrades itself and mobs it spawns.

Have a neutral base where traders can go trade for stuff from your base, similar to miners your base gains resources need and when get a certain amount up/grades the base/units.

Warriors go out kill the opposing side and loot .. yep resources! take it back to base etc.

Each class resource input adds to the same single resource for station so that all class combo work.

So the idea might be first to X amount of resource. Or just that first to get the better upgrades will win. something like that.

Obliviously stopping the other team collecting resource is where the PVP comes in.

Agree with the thought that some skill should work differently in PVP, menace maybe only last for 50% of its time or whatever works well, PD has a 10 sec time limit or something. And so on for each skill that means a class can not be killed, Though I do not mean skills should not allow escape.

It would be a major project though.

Edited by Bovyne
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It would be a major project though.

Not really. Well normally it's not. I've never opened the CVS here so I don't know the details of how they implement skills etc (oh and cant since code is restricted from our view now). Normally though it's handled within the scripting system, and so not difficult at all. Trying to recreate something can be more challenging, but recreation is far from my idea or intent. But yeah, I've written over 100 server-side scripts just over the past couple years (more before)many of them for skills, and I'm just saying not as daunting as some may think.

Yeah, miners can do more than mine in PvP. Mining being a part of it, but also there are potential related skills that can be brought directly into a battle armada. 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more'!

Edited by Daywolf
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@Daywolf

While your ideas have merit, you lose credibility with the constant passive, aggressive commentary that peppers your commentary.

Back on topic, the question becomes, while you may think it's easy to implement based on game systems you've used/implemented in the past, they are probably not the same as this one. So it may be harder than simply due to the lack of sufficient tools, scripting support, etc.

Also, there's a question of priority. With the limited development resources, where does PvP even fit in the priority list? PvP was never a priority in the old EnB, what would make one think PvP is a priority or even an interest here?

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What I meant by major is that balancing in itself is a major project. Also what combonations would you get? 1 vs 1 vs PvE amount?? or Group vs group vs group PvE?

How do you balance say 1 vs 1? How would you script the vE stuff?

Or the various skills if in a group?

Mind the easiest way would be to have another ship entirely for PVP that is the same for all, Possibly a cross between all classes, which means everyone has the same skills to choose from and skill/tactic is the more important factor.Though you would be bale to get upgrades for arena ship and your normal ship from a vendor maybe? For PvP ship should give an advantage but not huge advantage, Unless you can have a sort of table/league that people without the higher gear can compete and get it?

Could be race based for some variation, but would be easier to balance.

Edited by Bovyne
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It would be a major project though.

you are right, it would be a major project to implement (unless someone has a server-side script that magically does it all in one line :) ).

It would be good to do though, and yes I agree that PvPvE is the only way to go for any kind of PvP with E&B. We did a pure PVP test on the dev server and within 1 minute it becomes incredibly annoying - the PW just grav-locks you and pounds until the shield and hull are gone. Playing as a JD is ok, but eventually the PW can gravlock you on a decloak and then it's game over.

All the good E&B PvP ideas have been of the PvPvE variety, to set up the framework for these will take a lot of content and server work.

So saying that, yep I do like this idea, and I see us eventually having this kind of thing happening. I think this kind of thing would lead to having a lot more people online too - if we can incorporate benefits to this game system from normal play too, it would help with the whole picture.

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The day any kind of pvp makes it outside of arenas will be the day I delete enb from all my computers and off of my website and never play it again, thats just how much I can't stand pvp. I could rant more about it but I will just end it here.

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This doesn't seem to involve direct player on player combat, but more a case of 2 or more teams working against each other to accomplish certain goals, based on the strengths of each class in their group. If I'm understanding this correctly, then I don't really see a problem with it. Might be a good idea depending on the specifics.

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This doesn't seem to involve direct player on player combat, but more a case of 2 or more teams working against each other to accomplish certain goals, based on the strengths of each class in their group. If I'm understanding this correctly, then I don't really see a problem with it. Might be a good idea depending on the specifics.

yep, that's exactly what we want. We want to see imaginitive teamwork plans, classes working together to their best strengths to get the PvE task done, in competition with the other team/s.

At no point will players be directly shooting each other. There'll be no 'ganking' in E&B thankyou!

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Then it was the wrong type of pvp system. EnB "could" have a great system, but not 1 vs 1 biggest gun wins, no. Faction would work well, provided base captures are on a timer. This way as the countdown winds it's way down, it gives people an idea when to amass coop-pvp fleet/s for large battles - those that are flagged for faction pvp albeit. Will it happen here? Doubt it, but eventually they will release server code so another project group could take it up with pvp centric game-play on the front burner. Quite annoying the code is hidden away by the current community dev team from the community players/supporters at this point :) Diversity is a healthy thing imho.

Of course there is much more that can be done. Don't get stuck in a box (i.e. think out of the EA/EnB box). There is more to faction than shooting, and lots of new skills that could be created for it :D

We tried every combination there was. It is an ultimate failure. Unless there is more variety of weapons, shields, and reactors. It is a fail. That is why we left Sword to show you people PvsP cannot be done in game. We also used that as our sandbox and testing area. And, Sword should remain as is for if there is a bug from an NPC Emu Devs can use Sword like us EA Devs and use it as a testing area and sandbox.

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