Guards, Civilians, and Why Outdoor PvP Sucks

[Artega]

So, while talking to a few Bloodscalp natives, waxing nostalgic about the "good old days", where there was outdoor PvP (the undisputed best kind of PvP) aplenty, and the streets were paved in sold gold blocks and whatnot, we thought of what killed outdoor PvP and what could be done to fix it.

First, we're defining outdoor PvP as any kind of PvP that takes place outdoors. Whether it's a few random people ganking a few other random people, organized death squads, city raids, or even tournaments.

So, we're thinking about what killed outdoor PvP, and we came up with a few things:

First and foremost, the Battlegrounds. Combined with Contribution Point-based loot rewards and the fact that BGs are vastly superior to outdoor PvP for CP generation, that took away tons of people (to the point where some people refuse to PvP except in BGs) and turned even more into Honor farmers.

Second, civilians and the resulting DKs. We can understand the concept of DKs; it's to prevent people from griefing by camping quest NPCs all day and night. However, these DKs also make it very difficult to raid towns and cities, because the civvies just love rushing the mages (who are busily turning the thousands of zergspawning guards - another issue - into tasty little chunklets), which causes the entire raid to get a DK, and quite possibly instantly lose a rank or three.

Third, guard spamming. The way it is currently, raiding a town is almost impossible without several mages and/or warlocks around to AE them. For every guard you kill, six more spawn. This ends up with the raid fighting thirty or forty guards, plus players, all while trying to avoid killing the idiot civilians that rush into the killing zones.

Fourth, there's no real incentive, beyond the fun to be had. While I wish it were as simple as doing it for sheer fun, it would be hard to get enough people to really go at it over a town without some kind of incentive, be it loot, Honor, or something in between.

Now, for what we were thinking:

DKs have to go. They, perhaps even moreso than the Battlegrounds and their ability to be farmed, have hurt city raiding badly. We figure that the reason for DKs is simple: people would grief others by camping quest NPCs, and DKs are there to stop them from doing it (or, at least, prevent them from getting any ranks.) Our thoughts: Why not make these civilians completely invulnerable? Assuming you also make them unable to fight back, why not? This circumvents the griefing issue while freeing mages and warlocks up to AE to their hearts' content, without worrying about giving everyone in the raid a demotion for accidentally wasting Little Timmy.

Next, something needs to be done about the guards. Currently, they're little more than a breakwater and an annoyance; they're a complete nonthreat to anyone geared even in UBRS blues, and only serve to make several AE-capable casters necessary for extended town raids. Our solution is fairly simple: replace the zergspawn guards that come about from killing the initial roaming guards with stronger, Elite guards that are far fewer in number.

Say you're raiding Southshore: you've already killed the guards roaming about. Instead of having six or seven more Lv.55 normal guards spawn for every guard you kill, why not have a Lv.61 or Lv.62 Elite or two spawn? This would give Protection Warriors, Protection Paladins, and Dire Bear Druids a real place in PvP (besides the obvious player-killing uses), since these Elite guards would hit much harder, be harder to kill, and would actually be a significant threat, when you consider there will be ten or so of them running around at any given time. The idea is that you'll be fighting ten Elite guards (still easily handled by a large raid, but a significant deterrent to a small five- or ten-man sortie), as opposed to thirty normal guards. If no hostile players are seen for a certain amount of time, the Elite guards despawn, the normal guards respawn, and things go back to normal. Obviously, you wouldn't have Lv.62 Elites spawn from Lv.30 guards (instead, perhaps Lv.32 Elites), which would allow lower-level town raids to be possible.

Next, we still need incentive for these town raids. In capital cities, we have racial leaders: why not have Commanders for the larger towns (such as Southshore, Tarren Mill, Stonard, Theramore Isle, and so forth)? While allowing basic and the new Elite guards to give CP would lead to CP farming in towns (which would just be a resurfacing of the initial release of the Honor System, before Warsong Gulch came about), why not have a Commander and some special guards spawn in response to a major assault on the town?

This Commander could be worth a decent chunk of CP (assuming the racial leaders are 12,000, these commanders could be worth 1,000-7,000, depending on their level, and their guards worth perhaps 150-750), and could perhaps drop a decent amount of coin (in the area of 1g-50g, maybe) to offer additional incentive for town raiding. Now, these Commanders won't be there at all times; they only show up in response to a major assault on their respective town (after, say, fifteen minutes of constant combat), and they'd be far from pushovers. These Commanders could be the equivalent of Rend Blackhand or General Drakkisath (for the mid-level towns) to the range of the Zul'Gurub bosses (for the highest-level towns), with their guards being potent high-level Elites. Additionally, after being killed, these Commanders will not spawn again for at least a day or more, preventing them from being completely farmable.

We believe that changes akin to these would help revive outdoor PvP and town-raiding, would give more casual players a better chance at attaining Officer-level ranks, and would offer a viable, dynamic PvP option for CP generation.

Thoughts, comments?

[Urza-DSF]

As long as its all kept on PvP servers then I've got no problems. Otherwise I'm tired enough of the forced community split that is pushed onto PvE servers.

[Rinnhart]

This Commander could be worth a decent chunk of CP (assuming the racial leaders are 12,000,
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A recent TB raid yielded a Cairne Bloodhoof kill worth 800 honor.

Woo.

[Raven Vale]

As long as its all kept on PvP servers then I've got no problems.  Otherwise I'm tired enough of the forced community split that is pushed onto PvE servers.
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Yup I agree , I am completely fed up of PvP being shoved down my throat on a PvE server . We have enough wannabe's to put up with as it is . If people seriously want to PvP then join a server designed for this . I hated "the good old days" .

[MongoJerry]

A recent TB raid yielded a Cairne Bloodhoof kill worth 800 honor.

Woo.

Each player or combined?

[Watto44]

In my opinion, DKs were either a deliberate ploy to kill world pvp or a serious mistake in design logic. If the intent was the first, then it was a job well done, if the latter.... The idea of having a disincentive for killing the civillian (ie, the DK) and a similar disincentive for NOT killing them (ie. the resulting guard spawn when he see you) is pretty dodgy.

As for reviving world pvp, one of the things that I have thought of is to simply remove CP from kills in battlegrounds. This would make world pvp something of an option in terms of CP farming, and have the nice side-effect of reducing the effectiveness of botting and kill wh@#$ng in BGs.

Of course, the final issue is how you get the 180 billion toons in hillsbrad to spread out a bit... :P

[Alram]

I really enjoy the BG. Anything that would draw people away from BG to PVP elsewhere would kill BG. The queues are bad enough already on some days.

I also disliked "the good old days."

[Monkey]

From what I have read, I expect the Blizzard has the resolution of "Open PvP" concerns coming at the same pace at the "Casual Player" concerns--in the expansion. They've described the Outlands as lawless and rough-and-tumble, leading one reviewer to speculate it meant that there would be open PvP (contested zones, forced flagging, etc.) on even PvE servers.

Which makes a lot of sense to me--My initial impression of Open PvP from when I rolled in Nov 2004 on one of the early PvP servers--PvP didnt fit with the game. It seemed like the developers had built this great PvE game and then just locked PvP flags in the on position. And people recognized it--Over time, a sort of ad-hoc honor system would occur among people leveling in the same area; some people even helped the other faction. Of course, the honor system turned people into ye olde "bag 'o CPs" and ended any of that honor-between-factions crap mentioned in the manual. ;)

The Outlands will offer Blizzard an opportunity to really design an entire zone (or set of zones) for Open PvP. And not only that, but since we can expect that there will be places to level to 70 still in Azeroth, it lets them segregate the PvP away from zones which were (theoretically) designed for PvE.

~Monkey

PS: btw, longtime reader, first time poster. Hi and stuff. :)

[Rinnhart]

Each player or combined?
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I would assume, for each player.

That's still not enough honor to be more than a token jesture. I don't think 10,000 per player would be entirely unreasonable, especially if you applied player-style diminished returns to prevent farming.

At least, then, for a semi-serious honor farmer, you'd be breaking even with the time investment.

[Rinnhart]

In my opinion, DKs were either a deliberate ploy to kill world pvp or a serious mistake in design logic. If the intent was the first, then it was a job well done, if the latter.... The idea of having a disincentive for killing the civillian (ie, the DK) and a similar disincentive for NOT killing them (ie. the resulting guard spawn when he see you) is pretty dodgy.

Well, the logic was arrived upon when Blizzard heard nothing but complaints about people camping quest NPCs. It was only AFTER the implementation of DKs that all the city-raiders joined the discussion with their version of events. I agree, DKs suck, but I don't see Blizzard backpeddling.

As for reviving world pvp, one of the things that I have thought of is to simply remove CP from kills in battlegrounds. This would make world pvp something of an option in terms of CP farming, and have the nice side-effect of reducing the effectiveness of botting and kill wh@#$ng in BGs.

Remove honor from the BGs and you remove any incentive for most of the gaming population. I'll go do a few Battlegrounds a day to keep my rank and kick around between raids, but I don't care about the rewards, and anyone with the rewards doesn't want to do the BG they've been farming for the six months for S&G's.

Of course, the final issue is how you get the 180 billion toons in hillsbrad to spread out a bit...  :P
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The Hillsbrad Zerg was BG honor farming in a less efficient and less entertaining form.

[oldmandennis]

I realize the OP was only semiserious when he talked about the good old days of world PvP, but there were a lot of people who flat didn't like it for some very good reasons.

Constant town raids are an annoyance even on a PvP server. Massive battles turn into sprawling zergs that make the zone uninhabitable for characters who the zone is intended for. In world PvP, the sides are rarely even.

From what I have read, I expect the Blizzard has the resolution of "Open PvP" concerns coming at the same pace at the "Casual Player" concerns--in the expansion.

It seems from the blue posts, it will be sooner then that.

As long as the ranks remain relative, how exactly will giving more points for town raids allow casual players to recieve officer ranks? If your new world PvP gives more honor then BG's, the Honor farmers will be dropping the commanders 24/7, still shutting out casual players. And your proposed invulnerable NPC's are just as goofy a solution as DK's.

[Professor Frink]

There do appear to be PvP targets sitting around just waiting for a reason to kill them--There are non-civilian PvP-flagged elite NPCs in Astrannar and Splintertree post, for example. Attempting to kill the Astrannar one is a minor fad for the horde on my server. Giving some minor quest/loot/honor reward for these would be great. Perhaps adding a bracer and belt to the PvP sets...

The main problem with DKs and outdoor PvP right now is that in the pre-honor-system era people got used to hitting towns in 40-man raids, leading to a tradition of doing PvP in the largest raid possible despite honor sharing and the DK system both strongly discouraging it. If you're not in a raid with 40 other people, you don't have to worry about 39 other people attacking that damn mushroom vendor, and can just be responsible for your own damage or that of people you actually know and trust. People avoid questing or grinding XP in raids because of the severe penalty; I don't know why the nearly as severe penalty in PvP hasn't led more people to reconsider the smaller group there too.

There is still a problem with some other fool aggroing a civilian and dragging him into the pile of hostiles you intend to AoE; perhaps there needs to be a civilian-killer flag like the PvP one, where AoE, pets, etc. won't hurt civilians unless you're flagged by intentionally targeting a civilian. For added fun make it the same as the gurubashi arena dagger-flag and allow unrestricted PvP against "war criminals" :)

-- frink

[MongoJerry]

Fourth, there's no real incentive, beyond the fun to be had.  While I wish it were as simple as doing it for sheer fun, it would be hard to get enough people to really go at it over a town without some kind of incentive, be it loot, Honor, or something in between...

Next, something needs to be done about the guards.  Currently, they're little more than a breakwater and an annoyance; they're a complete nonthreat to anyone geared even in UBRS blues, and only serve to make several AE-capable casters necessary for extended town raids.  Our solution is fairly simple: replace the zergspawn guards that come about from killing the initial roaming guards with stronger, Elite guards that are far fewer in number.

It's interesting that you use the term "world PvP" with town raids interchangeably. For me, world PvP was very little about town raids, and in fact I campaigned heavily for a guard system, especially in the goblin towns, so that those towns would become the sanctuaries that they're supposed to be. Having potential customers battling each other in town is bad for goblin business, after all. In that sense, I like a lot of the additions they've made to make goblins more powerful like adding nets and range attacks and then making the guards in Cenarian Hold elite and powerful. In fact, I wish they'd close some of the loopholes in the goblin towns to make it even harder to fight inside the towns.

Towns ought to be neutral ground that's closely regulated and guarded by the occupants. World PvP, on the other hand, happens out in the world. The best world PvP I experienced was in 5-man groups roaming the Kargath-Searing Gorge-Blackrock Mountain-Burning Steppes corridor. *That* was a lot of fun, and I do miss that.

Next, we still need incentive for these town raids.  In capital cities, we have racial leaders: why not have Commanders for the larger towns (such as Southshore, Tarren Mill, Stonard, Theramore Isle, and so forth)?  While allowing basic and the new Elite guards to give CP would lead to CP farming in towns (which would just be a resurfacing of the initial release of the Honor System, before Warsong Gulch came about), why not have a Commander and some special guards spawn in response to a major assault on the town?

You're right that there needs to be an incentive, but CP isn't the way to go. What needs to be added is capturable towns and graveyards. That is, there should be towns whose entire existance is to be constant battlegrounds going back and forth between the factions. When your side captures the town, you get quests, special vendors, etc. If your side doesn't own the town, you need to organize a group to recapture it if you want to do those particular quests and use those vendors. It's possible that like the mines in Alterac Valley that the town reverts to a neutral state after a time if one side or the other doesn't keep a vigil at the town. The idea of this is to give a real tangible reward for doing PvP. And, unlike CP farming where you're really competing against your own side rather than your supposed enemy, this would be something that lets you fight for something for your side and against the enemy faction -- as it should be.

[Pesmerga]

What needs to be added is capturable towns and graveyards.  That is, there should be towns whose entire existance is to be constant battlegrounds going back and forth between the factions.  When your side captures the town, you get quests, special vendors, etc.  If your side doesn't own the town, you need to organize a group to recapture it if you want to do those particular quests and use those vendors.  It's possible that like the mines in Alterac Valley that the town reverts to a neutral state after a time if one side or the other doesn't keep a vigil at the town.  The idea of this is to give a real tangible reward for doing PvP.  And, unlike CP farming where you're really competing against your own side rather than your supposed enemy, this would be something that lets you fight for something for your side and against the enemy faction -- as it should be.

This idea right here, is what I thought PvP should be. I'd PvP if this was the case.

[Kevin]

What needs to be added is capturable towns and graveyards.  That is, there should be towns whose entire existance is to be constant battlegrounds going back and forth between the factions.  When your side captures the town, you get quests, special vendors, etc.  If your side doesn't own the town, you need to organize a group to recapture it if you want to do those particular quests and use those vendors.  It's possible that like the mines in Alterac Valley that the town reverts to a neutral state after a time if one side or the other doesn't keep a vigil at the town.  The idea of this is to give a real tangible reward for doing PvP.  And, unlike CP farming where you're really competing against your own side rather than your supposed enemy, this would be something that lets you fight for something for your side and against the enemy faction -- as it should be.

This idea right here, is what I thought PvP should be. I'd PvP if this was the case.
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Agreed.

I stopped playing on PvP servers for a few reasons. One of them was lack of other lurkers. One of them was that PvP still didn't mean anything.

In BG's there is some meaning to it. But world PvP and town raids (and I found town raids to mostly be not enjoyable on either type of server) have no major incentive, other than an exp like grind of honor.

As mentioned by others, the WoW gameplay mechanics are PvE with tacked on PvP. It's also got tacked on crafting too no real integration with the world.

I would PvP a lot more if there were more reason. If defending my territory from a hostile player of the other faction meant something other than a few CP's and lost time for me. I do defend against the rare town raids because keeping the NPC's alive so the unflagged lowbies can still use them does have some meaning. Not much but some.

If there were real reasons to do something I would do more of it, even on the PvE server where I play horde and we are outnumbered 3 to 1 making most non BG PvP futile and frustrating and pretty much anyone loses a 3 on 1 battle or at least they lose it most of the time.

But if there were also a real crafting system, you know where say players could repair damaged structures or build fortifications, customize weapons and armors with items taken from fallen foes (I wouldn't mind being able to craft some more useful items as well along the way either. :) ) PvP would be even better. I would then have another way to connect with the world because I would know that I built that fortification or repaired that wall to help make things safe again for the questers.

There are a lot of ways to make PvP fun and get other people involved in it but the game engine and the game design just don't have some of the tools for it.

I would not mind seeing more PvP. I've played entire sessions on PvE servers where I run around flagged while questing (which allows the other faction to get the drop on me even) and hit a battleground now and then, but I never really enjoyed the more mindless PvP that generally happened, the uneven gank fests (a problem with the Hillsbrad design as well forcing L20s into a zone with L30s because of the different faction quest line set-ups). Getting ganked by a few opposing faction so they could get at a rare resource never bothered me. Having an hour to play and wanting to progress on a quest chain but all the quest givers in the town were dead and then getting corpse camped and chain ganked when trying to run away to get somewhere else, not fun. But much of that is solved by just playing on a PvE server. :)

Yeah, I do think Blizzard needs to revaluate PvP and put some life back into some forms of it.

[Artega]

I realize the OP was only semiserious when he talked about the good old days of world PvP, but there were a lot of people who flat didn't like it for some very good reasons. 
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Actually, I was totally serious. I'm a staunch supporter of the thought process defining PvP servers as being for PvP-centric people: that is, if you get ganked, you don't whine, you go find them and get even. Additionally, I think forcing people on PvE servers to PvP is ludicrous; as shown by some responses in this thread, some people just don't like PvP combat, regardless of whether or not ganking is involved.

As for using world PvP and town raiding interchangeably, in most of my experiences, much of world PvP (e.g. groups of people killing each other at random) lead to town raids (people get angry and decide to go take it out on hapless guards.)

Also, I do happen to think Mongo's idea of town control is better than CP rewards for mashing a commander :)

[Sir_Die_alot]

I've seen a lot of ideas and a lot of "liked the good 'ol days" or "hated the good 'ol days". Pre honor of any kind PvP at least on Terenas was pretty fun. It was the mindless killing that I would also participate in with Lurkers in D2, and just quit when I was done. I do miss that.

Honor brought in constant town raids. TM for a time was impossible to quest out of. This "good 'ol day" I don't miss and I'm glad battle grounds solved it.

DKs do have to be modified. Once you aggro a civ the only way to get rid of it is to run. Running from a level 15 when you were happily fighting 30 level 55s is just dumb.

As for town modivation for raiding the "town capture" is a bad bad bad idea. It should always stay the faction town even if it's been cleared. Maybe your server of choice is balanced but some servers have a 60/40 split or worse making it impossible to take back towns (see TM being unquestable for the duration between the introductin of honor and BGs). A good -realistic- reward for taking a city should be you loot the city! The other side has shops and quest reward items, you should be able to loot these when you sack the town. Make the quest items a 1 time loot so it's not farmed but this would be a great modivation for items that just arent avalible to the opposite faction.

[MongoJerry]

A good -realistic- reward for taking a city should be you loot the city! The other side has shops and quest reward items, you should be able to loot these when you sack the town. Make the quest items a 1 time loot so it's not farmed but this would be a great modivation for items that just arent avalible to the opposite faction.

That's another good idea. My favorite quest ever in the beta was the Helcular's Revenge series in Hillsbrad. It's a four-part quest series that for its level takes a long time to complete. But, man, what a reward when it was finished! You'd bring Helcular's scepter to Helcular's grave in Southshore and he along with several dozen skeletons would pop up and if you dragged them into town, they would completely ravage the entire town. It was the most fun and hillarious thing I ever saw. Even from the Alliance side, I thought it was fun in the same way that Sitches always was -- as a fun distraction from the usual grind. There was a cooldown time on Helcular's grave (you could turn in the quest any time, but the event would only trigger if it hadn't been triggered for a while) and the event was always a one-time event for any given Horde player. Sadly, nonetheless, the event was nerfed to oblivion. It was changed so that only a handful of weak skeletons would pop, and because so many high level guards were added to Southshore due to the TM-Hillsbrad zergs, they can't even get close to the town. In fact, one lone Southshore guard can kill Helcular and all his minions -- a sad ending after all that work to complete those quests.

So, anyway, yes, I like the idea of having quests that involve raiding or pillaging a few select towns (double emphasis on the word "select") that are added and designed for that purpose.

[Urza-DSF]

The Outlands will offer Blizzard an opportunity to really design an entire zone (or set of zones) for Open PvP. And not only that, but since we can expect that there will be places to level to 70 still in Azeroth, it lets them segregate the PvP away from zones which were (theoretically) designed for PvE.
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I'm sorry, but what?! So your saying that just to placate a few who really enjoy killing other people while they are questing/doing their own thing that its allright for blizzard to say "Well, screw you guys who arent into PvP *and* raiding, this entire expansion isn't for you."? I am so utterly sick and tired of blizzards fascinationwith Raids and PvP events, and I know I'm not the only one who wants to see more *good* PvE content.

[Professor Frink]

DKs do have to be modified. Once you aggro a civ the only way to get rid of it is to run. Running from a level 15 when you were happily fighting 30 level 55s is just dumb.

I think you've narrowed down the problem with DKs right there. Give civilians critter-AI so that when attacked they run off screaming (and leave a large spawn of guards behind them) instead of trying to kill you. They could stop after 50 yards or so, then walk back after a few minutes, so that you could still turn in the quest, just at a slightly different location. You'd stay clear of civilians if your goal was to kill some non-civilian NPC or a player, but only people who actually chase down and finish off vendors/questgivers would get a punishment more severe than a risk of wipe.

-- frink