Over the past several months I have refrained from bringing this topic up for several reasons. Mostly I know that it is not a priority for the development team and is a large undertaking. However, now that the agent system and season 2 are nearing release I start to wonder If there are any plans for PvP in this games future.
My first suggestion (which may already be done) is to have a chance for agents to drop in Shambala. As much as it was my least favorite PvP zone in TSW it is currently all that exists in SWL. Why was it popular and popped consistently even in the final days of TSW? Well, because it dropped signets that were very desirable in both the PvP and PvE communities. This is apparent from the times I’ve spent an entire day qued with no Shambala pops in SWL.
I personally represent a minority of the player base in this game but I am quickly reaching a point where I have nothing left to do. My gear is almost entirely maxed out. Museum as complete as can be and I have about 25 achievements left to get in the game. The most common reply I get is well then go play another game and come back when theirs more content! But why should I need to do that, I was at this same point in TSW 3-4 years ago and then I discovered its PvP community and spent 2 years PvP’ing having some of my most memorable experiences in the game. Also for people not at the point im at in the game PvP is a nice break from the grind for some.
Ill end there and see what peoples thoughts are on the matter so as to avoid going off on too much of a rant. I do however hope to see some thoughts or discussion from the devs on this matter in the months to come. PvP is endless content provided the foundation is set. I know its not for everyone but I’m certain done right It would add a lot to the games replay-ability(not sure that’s even a word).
Also, you’re not as much of a minority in that there are many, many players withering under not just a content drought, but an activity drought.
I appreciate the ambiance being created in SWL by restricting player gatherings - but devs have to accept this is an MMO. Cater juuuust a bit more to that idea, please.
And whether it be agents, agent xp, distillates, main quest completions, sidequest completions, scenario keys or whatever comes to mind to incentivize player participation, it would be EXTREMELY easy to modify Shambala rewards to make it worth playing. (You know, so there’s not a monthly BS session to sucker fresh mea- new players in.)
And we could really use some new zones. I understand we’re stepping back from faction-centric stuff, but how hard is it to change the matchmaker to randomize people into 3 teams, rather than looking for faction tags?
Thoroughly agree. PvP is fun in and of itself, but it’s also a great change of pace from Challenges and/or repetitive gear grind upgrades, which are pretty much what is there now.
Loved all the PvP zones in TSW and would hope they’ll all return. Although if there is going to be a loot reward just for Shambala and not for the others, you’ll have the big queue for Shambles which doesn’t require that much effort, versus the other venues.
So yeah, I do hope PvP is on the list to make a return at some point - sooner than later.
I’d like to see the old PvP maps return. I’d not like to see abilities constantly tweaked to pointlessness in PvE because of PvP. Bring back proper PvP with PvP versions of skills?
Thanks for that update Zeitgeist. Ill try to make it at least for old times sake. Has been a while since I’ve had the thrill of hunting down lumies and dragons
Ill comment on this because its a frequently brought up point. I completely agree with you this is a PvE game primarily and I would advise that if PvP zones and PvP gameplay is brought back to SWL that skills are not altered for the sake of PvP as this always generates a negative response and ultimately a bad image on PvP. My stance has always been to remove the skills from use in PvP if they are that game breaking. Alternately modifying them so that they function differently in PvP is preferred but I understand that this is more work and would prefer to keep it as simple as possible.
Agents dropping in Shambala would be an easy way to get the queue popping again. Something needs to be done and that would be something.
What I always thought should happen, is a timer from when the first person queue. say five or ten minutes. After that time, if it doesn’t fill up you just launch. If only one person queued in all that time. Grats he got an easy win. (I doubt that would happen much)
Who cares if a lot of matches turn into 3 v 3 or 5 v 5. That’s still better than the current system of hours and hours with no pop at all. I suspect the problem now is everyone knows it won’t pop so therefor no one queues. If people knew a 3 v 3 match might happen more would queue and then you’d fill up more often.
Like Drenneth I’m out of things to do as well. Agent system will be a nice gap filler and hopefully season 2 starts shortly after that. But PvP is a fine content gap filler that should be looked at.
I think this is probably the most realistic PvP suggestion I have seen.
There definitely needs to be an incentive to both participate AND to win in Shambala.
The only reason I was in PvP every single day in TSW was the daily challenges.
It’s not that I dislike PvP, I just need more of a reason to do it than just PvPing.
I dunno, I doubt pvp is going to be improved much by the presence of players who are only there because they feel compelled to complete a daily challenge. Same goes for giving greater rewards for victory - as soon as winning gives a significantly better reward over losing, some people will inevitably turn toxic. Hell, some people are already toxic towards “noobs” in elite dungeons and that’s cooperative.
I suspect this is the real reason there’s a lack of pvp - it’s basically a bottomless pit of dev time. It’s not just a case of fixing up the old maps to work with SWL, there’s then an endless treadmill of balance tweaks stretching on into infinity.
I feel that this should be avoided as much as possible as I know well enough that there is simply not enough resources to do this properly. My suggestion would be to simply remove the use of certain skills in PvP as needed either permanently or until a PvP variation of the skill can be introduced without effecting PvE (this is where it would be time consuming but I would be fine with them removing the skill if needed instead of altering it)
Also concerning the daily challenges and greater rewards for a victory I can see where your coming from but for better of for worse that is simply the nature of people and the alternate is what you have now which is no participation. To avoid toxicity entirely in PvP is to avoid PvP altogether. With randomized matches your win/lose ratio should be about 50/50 which means you are at no disadvantage for greater rewards to a victory however it does give you more incentive to try to win. Will people still be a little toxic from time to time? Sure. But that is the nature of PvP.
If the pvp population is so small that the numbers have to be made up with people who don’t want to pvp, then it’s kind of hard to justify including pvp at all, no?
But that’s just the thing. As much as it sounds nice to have this ideal that players should want to PvP simply for the sake of PvPing that is in fact not realistic. So in actuality the population is not so small that the numbers have to be made up with people that don’t want to PvP there simply has to be a reason for the existing population to be motivated to do so. The same is true of PvE there are a number of fights, and activities that are avoided because the risk or time/reward ratio is undesirable. (The Tokyo world boss, Castle Scenario and Full dungeon runs are just some examples) In fact if not for scenarios being the most efficient way to level up glyph’s I can guarantee you that 90% of the population wouldn’t run them. See where I’m going with this? I think that there would be in fact a lot of people that would want to PvP if there were some incentive to do so and from that you create players that fall in love with PvP for the sake of PvPing.
PVP is hands down some of the best fun, and best socializing I had in TSW… I miss it in SWL. Give us our PVP back, please. And yeah, fine, don’t tweak the skills. Half the fun was figuring out how to counter whatever the other teams came up with. And make no mistake, there was no one build that wrekt everyone…it was a constant evolving balance.
Some of my greatest memories from TSW were in PVP. I’ll never forget one night in Stonehenge when my Templar side was soundly beaten but some nice Dragons and Lumies came over and spent some time giving me some PVP tips so I could be more competitive my next go. They became quick friends and it made PVP a ton of fun after.
Shambala is an ok break from PVE but it quickly became “how to finish in 60s or less” so we can re-queue for more gear.
We need the old maps back, and hopefully some new ones, to rebuild the community, make new friends, and have more stories to tell about how annoying evade tanks are and how awesome that last ditch steal was to seal the victory with under a minute remaining!
It feels like you are implying PvP should not be competitive… which is a fundamental misunderstanding of PvP.
If your only incentive to PvP is to PvP then even PvP people will go elsewhere where their PvP skills are rewarded.
As far as PvP being toxic… it is PvP… you literally are killing other people… repeatedly… some level of toxicity is to be expected.
Shambala would be an ok enough PvP zone if it was incentivized to do so.
Think about it this way, as nice as story and side missions are, if there were not daily challenges for them, there would be far less completed on a daily basis.
Now you might say “well I would still rerun missions for green bags, shards, xp, story etc”, which ok sure, but you doing that is not dependent on other people valuing those things the same as you.
PvP is, it requires other people(currently a LOT of people, that number should be lowered IMO) to decide to do that thing as well, at the same time, so you can do it.
So to summarize.
PvP without incentive to PvP is a lame duck.
Regardless of zone.
As Jimmy says, “PvP without incentive to PvP is a lame duck” - see also why Shambala never pops in SWL unless there’s a concerted effort to “market” it.
And all it takes to incentivize it is to make it a mission completion. Or award MoF. Or, improve the drops…
Editing to add more: As I sit here in queue, waiting for it to pop again, it occurs to me that AP would also be a fabulous reward…
Would love to see PvP added back into Secret World, especially if we could get it the way it was in TSW, or even revamped/expanded on what we had originally! Would give us players some more endgame content to enjoy as well as something to do while we wait for more story/dungeon/raid/lair content to release. Now and years down the road.
