Bringing back the competitive side to pvp

Over the years funcom has introduced new pvm content, in contrast, very little new things has been introduced to pvp. Apart from bs been changed here and there, the notum miner area and the «new» pvp title system not much has changed. I know a lot of players miss the old pvp title system because it brought a competitive side to the game, where dying in pvp actually meant something. Along with this a lot of pvp tournaments have been arranged over the years by players being enjoyable for many. So here's my idea on what could potentially bring back a lot of players, given that its doable without too much effort on fc's side. A 2vs2 and 3vs3 arena pvp matchmaking system. in order to make it less complicated, i'd like fc to do a rework of the notum miner area with terminals very much like the battlestation ones. Where the terminal would be used to sign up teams and enter a match making queue. Having a matchmaking rating system as well as ranks based upon the teams matchmaking rating in order to make it competitive. Where each win/loss gives a certain amount of points based on what your opponents rating is. Upon entering you would then enter a decontamination room excactly like the battlestation one for say a minute, to then be teleported to a closed area in the notum miner field having say 30 seconds to prepare before a door opens and its game on. For balancing purposes i'd sugguest each team needs to consist of different professions, to avoid teams like 3x nt's or 3x agents as well as making more professions included and allowing for many different team setups. Also upon entering decontamination room every buff would be removed including 12m, pen buff etc. Another interesting idea that could be introduced after implementing the arena would be to make seasons. Upon the season ending ranks and rating would be reset, where based upon rank achieved at the season ends would give certain rewards, such as titles like season 1 2vs2 champion or 3vs3 champion etc, or small item rewards. Im not sure if the topic has been discussed before, i couldnt find any threads about similar topics atleast. This could potentially be very fun for the people playing this game, along with that im sure many players would return if such a thing existed.

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Over the years Funcom has introduced new PVM content, in contrast, very little new things has been introduced to PVP, apart from bBS been changed here and there, the Notum Miner area and the «new» PVP title system not much has changed.

I know a lot of players miss the old PVP title system because it brought a competitive side to the game, where dying in PVP actually meant something. Along with this a lot of PVP tournaments have been arranged over the years by players being enjoyable for many.

So here's my idea on what could potentially bring back a lot of players, given that its doable without too much effort on FC's side. A 2v2 and 3v3 arena PVP matchmaking system.

In order to make it less complicated, I'd like FC to do a rework of the Notum Miner area with terminals very much like the Battlestation ones, where the terminal would be used to sign up teams and enter a match making queue.

Having a matchmaking rating system as well as ranks based upon the teams matchmaking rating in order to make it competitive. Where each win/loss gives a certain amount of points based on what your opponents rating is.
Upon entering you would then enter a decontamination room excactly like the battlestation one for say a minute, to then be teleported to a closed area in the notum miner field having say 30 seconds to prepare before a door opens and its game on.

For balancing purposes I'd sugguest each team needs to consist of different professions, to avoid teams like 3x nt's or 3x agents as well as making more professions included and allowing for many different team setups, also upon entering decontamination room every buff would be removed including 12m, pen buff etc.

Another interesting idea that could be introduced after implementing the arena would be to make seasons. Upon the season ending ranks and rating would be reset, where based upon rank achieved at the season ends would give certain rewards, such as titles like season 1 2v2 champion or 3v3 champion etc, or small item rewards.

I'm not sure if the topic has been discussed before, I couldn't find any threads about similar topics at-least; this could potentially be very fun for the people playing this game, along with that I'm sure many players would return if such a thing existed.

Awesome write up but it's been said too many times, FC won't invest the time and money into AO to make the changes to the back end systems. I'd would love to see some different options for BS like you said that might not require that much work, 2v2-3v3 just adding more terminals because getting even 8 people together can take a bit. Any sort of ranking system sounds like way too much effort for what they are working with, heck even a score board that showed what BS was running and the current score would be nice.

tl;dr FC lacks discipline, and can't even

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Originally Posted by Gaveup

Awesome write up but it's been said too many times, FC won't invest the time and money into AO to make the changes to the back end systems. I'd would love to see some different options for BS like you said that might not require that much work, 2v2-3v3 just adding more terminals because getting even 8 people together can take a bit. Any sort of ranking system sounds like way too much effort for what they are working with

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I think you're right, i might have gotten a bit too carried away. Theres lots of different ideas that could make the pvp in this game more fun. Just trying to bring forward some ideas that could be doable. Like you said a ranking system might be too much.

What if there was a terminal that teleported you to decon first, followed by a instanced version of tir arena or omni ent arena? Could be fun even with random teams. Also shouldnt be too much work. Heck even add a 2vs2 or 3vs3 stats that works just like the current dueling stats does, with just 2vs2's won/lost

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Originally Posted by Occamsrazor

What if there was a terminal that teleported you to decon first, followed by a instanced version of tir arena or omni ent arena? Could be fun even with random teams. Also shouldnt be too much work. Heck even add a 2vs2 or 3vs3 stats that works just like the current dueling stats does, with just 2vs2's won/lost

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I'd sign up for that, the more compressed open space would be fun with smaller teams and should be able to add more instances like org-hq building, or even some of the bars Baboons would be cool. That's partly why BS is so stale same map over and over, at least they opened it back up, but even opening the spiral again would be cool I remember a lot of good duels at the top and jumping to the floor to stop a someone capping.

As a developer my self, i can say with 100% correctness that making a new pvp instance is really easy. I pretty much agree that we could need new pvp instances. This would attract players to come back also.

Now that would be very cool, i suppose the only tricky part in a 2vs2 or 3vs3 instance would be to make the supression field drop once all players are there. Either that or some other solution to make the fight start only when all players have entered the instance. Because if it acts just like bs, people would always enter at different times and start fighting, potentially making fights really unfair.

Also it would require a new instance to launch everytime there is enough players to start a round and only start if all players agree to enter. If everyone is sent to the same instance the whole purpose of 2vs2 or 3vs3 would be gone.

Knowing many profs swap nanoskill gear to buff up, players might need extra time to swap back. After being teleported from decontamination room to the instance, the supression field would have to drop after a delayed time upon all players entering, a minute or 30 seconds after entering instance should be enough. Either that, or having the supression field drop after say 2 minutes after a new instance is started?

the instance would need to kick out players once all the members of one team is dead.

Another thing that could be fun and make it last longer would be to have a scoreboard just like bs, adding points upon wiping the other team, say first team to 3 points or 5 or something like that, however it might get complicated to have rounds starting and ending and where to send dead players while waiting for a fight to finish.

yes

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Originally Posted by ByLogic

yes

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Yes to what? :)

Im not really sure where to go with this if its ever going to be a real thing, who to contact etc. Also i think theres lots of players out there with good inputs or other interesting ideas for such a instance

to 2vs2 and 3vs3 + scoreboard.

I got a suggestion regarding the time spent dead. If a player dies, he is sent back to the decontamination room waiting for the round to end. To then avoid fights lasting too long and keeping dead players waiting, nano is wiped if the fight lasts longer than say 5 or 7 minutes? And perhaps a huge evade debuff.

no-

Well, you need some kind of mechanism to prevent everlasting fights keeping everyone that dies waiting for the remaining fighters. Most of the everlasting fights are between healers or evade professions. What i mean is god forbid if you end up with a fight like 2 docs vs 2 advs, the fight has to end someway that isnt completely unfair to just a few professions

i dont think people would like to wait for the pvp ground to finnhis just because they died. than your rewriting how ao works in general. The penalty for death is good enough.

I think your trying to make Ao in to wow arena :P

I think you may be right, but some sort of competitiveness is what makes it exciting. Thats atleast what made those 3vs3 player hosted arena tournaments exciting. Last man standing kinda thing :)
if everyone keeps re-entering you would have to gain points upon killing members of the other team. Effectively turning it into some kind of team-deathmatch which also could be cool but very different

i have played a few arena games over the years, take guildwars as an example, you had 3vs3 arena there where upon winning 5 matches in a row you would get 1 titlepoint, 2 more for 10, 3 for 15 slowly increasing, just for the first title you needed 100 pts, it was a hell of a grind, but the point is, every time you were on a streak you would do anything to avoid loosing. which made the pvp fun and exciting.Theres several different ways to make pvp competitive in this game, it doesnt necessarily need to be excactly like wow arena. Im all ears for any kind of competitive pvp, because as soon as it becomes casual with no sort of progress it becomes boring with time. I have dueling title 6 on my ma, solo title 8 and team title 7, it will take me years of grinding to ever get close to a higher duel/solo title. It just gets to a point where the progress is no longer there.

PvP itself is a lot of fun, but far more exciting if theres more risk to it and a goal to look towards. Like a lot of players i miss the old days where people would use every bit of their toolset to kill someone or avoid dying. Now its become common for fixers and nts to stand still during a duel or bs pvp because it doesnt really matter anymore if you die, which is in my opinion not the way they are supposed to be played.

So what could make this game more exciting is a new pvp instance and some kind of more exciting pvp titles where you can gain progress but also lose progress.

Im sorry for all these long posts, im just a bit frustrated with how things are and have way too many ideas on changes that could be made with not all too much effort.

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Originally Posted by Occamsrazor

PvP itself is a lot of fun, but far more exciting if theres more risk to it and a goal to look towards. Like a lot of players i miss the old days where people would use every bit of their toolset to kill someone or avoid dying. Now its become common for fixers and nts to stand still during a duel or bs pvp because it doesnt really matter anymore if you die, which is in my opinion not the way they are supposed to be played.

So what could make this game more exciting is a new pvp instance and some kind of more exciting pvp titles where you can gain progress but also lose progress.

Im sorry for all these long posts, im just a bit frustrated with how things are and have way too many ideas on changes that could be made with not all too much effort.

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God forbid that you run, root or snare your opponent in a duel. It's like asking to get crucified :P