The future of PvP in SWL

LOL That was the first thing I noticed when I read the stream summary. I was imagining Funcom’s reasoning on using “P” being something like. “Hey have we ever used this “P” key before? Not that I remember, no plans to use it in the future either so I think were safe”

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You are right, I always used the icon to open the PvP menu, not the shortcut … totally missed that.

But yes, I also would love to see some objective based game modes return. Team Deathmatch is fun for a few rounds but I prefer something more substantial.

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PvP uses the same Shift+V menu as other group content now so there’s no need to maintain P for any possible future PvP content.

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Yeah, i miss the “GUYS DEFEND THE F- RELIC !”

(o)3

That’s supposed to be a Mayan pyramid in El Dorado… from the perspective of someone downed by some dick using Red Mist, there’s also my attempt at drawing an anima relic.

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If Funcom put in an Agent or two that you could only obtain through Shambala victory bags, that’d get the queues popping again.

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Only until everyone has the agent…the current need for new agents probably will get less over time

Yeah, I’ve attempted to put together some trolly tank setups for Shambala, but I can’t keep a buff on to (literally) save my life.

All the shenanigans in the world won’t avail you without the defensive cooldowns in play - having some (not all) of the tank buffs be unpurgeable would be a huge start. As it stands, the best way to tank is to have a pocket healer to keep your meatbag-self alive.

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there are people in Shamb that actually fight instead of cliff jumping now? I stopped doing Shamb cos it seemed pointless. I HATE I missed the pvp thingy in tsw the other day, but finally got the game reinstalled and looking forward to the next one…and my hopes of any other pvp play field in swl are fading.

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Just noted the buffs I gained (in my combat window) and lost while leaving naked Agartha:

You gain buff Favour of the Council
Buff Favour of the Council terminated.
You gain buff Total Domination
Buff Total Domination terminated.
You gain buff Consolidating Control

Have I missed those before, or is that a new thing?

Those are TSW PvP Buffs.
Funny thing is, that all PvP stuff is in SWL, they are just turned off.

Edit: TSW was marketed as active PvP game when it was in developement and those Buffs played a part of the whole TSW realm.

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Yes I noticed those buffs earlier yesterday too when i loaded into Agartha. Serves them right for taking the “p” key an using it for the agent system!

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So i guess this is the only thread out on the new forum with any real meaning.

Where are our PVP zones?

I’m sorry, i don’t buy not for one minute that the map “does not fit” or “does not belong” It’s just a map. It still exists on TSW so why not here?

I’ve seen absolutely no reason given for it not being here.
“Not on the agenda at the moment” is not an explanation as to why it won’t or can’t be at all and nor has it been said outright from the horses mouth neither. Especially when the naked agartha bug has shown us that the world domination buff from PVP is still present in a game where those PVP zones are apparently not.

However, It’s just maps, codes and words. It’s not like we’ve never ever had them, they don’t have to create anything new. The whole of SWL is a carbon copy of TSW with a few bits tweaked and a hell of a lot left out, perhaps there was no room on the memory stick or maybe they’re waiting till they do their 2nd vanity transfer, which will add the rest of the missing content…Who knows…

ABILITIES
I get how the abilities we have are ridiculously limited yes, but not useless.
If there is a way to unlock the passives from the abilities, so they aren’t tied to pairs, then it wouldn’t be so bad. A few more passives would be ideal and make the very sparse weapon pages look a little less stingy.

EFB
The EFB should never have altered our stats/glyphs that WE chose from our own gear to stack or create a build with. Sorry, it’s a PVP zone and like any other zone - you gear to get better and create a build that works for you, for the situation at hand. We don’t enter dungeons or these mega summons with a stupid EFB why the hell do we need one in PVP? Especially one that messes with our original stat/glyph placing. I see no problem in using also raid items in PVP, it’s just gear and AFAIK in SWL you get everything very easily, nothing is now out of the realm of reach to anyone.

NEVER PUT PVP ON A DAILY CHALLENGE LIST
Forcing people to complete a task by doing something they would never have contemplated, and by doing so, put them in the firing line, literally. They complain they get killed for entering a PVP zone to do a daily - PVPers get the blame for only doing what they had been doing all along, only to find it had been trivialised by some PVE listed mission. Funcom threw PVPers under the bus with that one.

At the risk of sounding too negative, here is some input on how PVP could work in this game. Look at the original, traditional PVP method. Most of you will be familiar with how this works and really shouldn’t need any description.

ALL three maps could very easily be added and SHOULD be added for the overall balance/contribution factor to work on the Faction Buffs.
The missions should remain traditional, faction based objectives.

  • Stonehenge - Hold centre for as long as possible. Points gained on kills and control of centre.

  • Eldorado - Capture and hold as many of the four relics as you can. Points gained on how long you hold them for.

  • Fusang - Capture a facility or defend if already owned. Points gained for number of facilities owned.

All three PVP zones share the same objective. The traditional, capture/hold/defend. There’s no reason to complicate it further or add anything else to it.

They also carry the same points system.
You win Eldorado by holding onto relics, winner is the one with the most points or the one who holds all four relics after a 2 min period.
You win Stonehenge by control of the centre and the winner is the one with the most points at the end of a timer.

Upon leaving either Eldorado or Stonehenge after a win/lose the game will show the usual, informative stats and scores contributed to World buffs. Standard payments of shards based on the win/lose element.

Now, Fusang is different, You can’t win fusang as such, since its persistent. But by gaining points which ADD to your faction Buff, the World buff that adds bonuses to combat and XP etc based on how many facilities you own, you can contribute largely via holding defensively, facilities of Fusang.
wins of ED and SH - all contribute to the FB’s just like they used to. Again, i would like to point out that apparently the faction buffs still exist in game for wins of Eldorado, Stonehenge and Fusang facilities owned.
Which leads me to what got me to reply to this in the first instance and that is the sordid topic of “rewards for pvp”

REWARDS
First off my suggestion: A dog tag or title or something may be obtained (claimed/awarded) by the faction who has dominated (won) the most in the period of a year. It’s unique for that year, and to the faction who dominated the most on the PVP leader-boards. Other such rewards should be considered for leading individuals.

IMO That is all that should be gained from these zones and NOTHING more.
No bags, no treats, no prizes. No carrots to tempt you.
This isn’t supermarket sweep and that is not a fluffy toy. Not everything needs to reward you with yet more of each patches “Current loot”. The way i see it, and TBH how i thought every other PVP participant saw it was the overall fun factor completely overrides any desire to have gotten something out of it other than a tally of what just happened via an accurate scoreboard of Kills, domination, crowd control, damage, healing etc. or the expected faction buff when domination is achieved. You get that right and the rest all falls into place. Rewards for PVP is not something i feel would benefit the nature of PVP nor should it be the focus on what would make it work.

This is how you bring real meaning to PVP and for it to have a purpose. Don’t trivialse the whole thing with bags, loot, agents, prizes etc. or you will always want that new current thing to be added to the loot table when the only thing PVP should provide is the element of fun based on your choice to participate in the first instance.

It doesn’t need signets, it doesn’t need anything except the people who were there already to play. We had win counts, we had kill counts, we had matches and battles. We had a chronicle. We don’t need stuff we can get elsewhere thrown into PVP as a reward. If people want to PVP they just will, and then its up to the PVP community to create and organise events, recruitment etc and we have proved we can do that too. You don’t force people to do it, you let them choose. You shouldn’t need to tempt them neither. PVP is a battlefield and it should always be your choice to enter. You don’t and shouldn’t need any “incentive” to join.

The rewards we had in TSW from the signets of sham were a mistake, setting a new trend that a PVP zone should reward you with something so desirable that you couldn’t get anywhere else was outright wrong. A huge mistake and a one that set PVP there on its road to destruction, along with the EFB and the daily challenge of PVP. If you keep asking for a reward or incentive then you are continuing to use that negative trend as a basis or example to work from when it comes to what PVP should reward the individual, when PVP - being faction centric should first and foremost reward the faction via buffs and then the individual participants.

The myth, initially perpetuated by funcom, that shambala was the most popular of all the pvp zones, and thus made the crossover to swl, Has continued to do the foulest of tricks.
Please, shake your head and listen to yourself, STOP asking for rewards or something special to be added as an incentive for you to play shambala. The zone was used to kill PVP in the first place. You’re making it look like it’s a lack of rewards for PVP that are the problem. The bags currently awarded from Sham you can get anywhere else. The only thing they need to do is remove them if you lose. What it offered before turned out to be nothing more than a deliberate attempt to sabotage the original PVP zones before they moved to SWL and to do that it had to coerce the players into opting for shambala, because it was the only place to get the new signets, it worked a dream. If they want to keep the bags currently awarded for Shambala
Why didn’t they put those signets in the same pool as all the others? Why did they have to add them to the loot table of shambala? The game was already on its way out at least in planning to SWL for sure, and those signets and anything else gained from anywhere meant nothing, it only makes sense if you are using a number to provide a statistic.

And so…
I personally PVP’d because when i logged in to tsw, i signed up for fusang - and would spend the day there fighting, healing, defending - having fun. It was MY chosen playfield, it was how i spent my days, it was where i met friends and enemies and loved to play both with/against both, I needed absolutely no other reward or incentive other than my own enjoyment to play.

There were many who would sign up for Stonehenge and farm it, or ED as premades. They did it not for any incentive, nor reward. If you opted for shambala it was because of what they dictated was on offer to you. They were very clever at making it look like it was the better option, but in fact it was the only way to get the signets. Now it doesn’t even have a win/lose reward - its like the final slap in the face that PVP - to them - doesn’t even matter and is not worthy, most likely another attempt to remove it completely after their new found proof concludes that PVP in SWL is NOT popular after all.

TBH they could have done so much, with such ease. PVP could have been a standalone edition to run alongside SWL at launch, keeping both player-bases on the market rather than risk sacrificing a portion here n there when something doesn’t fit in with the current plans or model. I mean, The Park? What was that all about? Why? Why the effort if you knew it wouldn’t amount to anything? Hide n Shriek anyone?
But alas i fear too little too late. As with the new content they’ve been sitting on.

Funcom have a nasty habit of leaving people waiting for too long and people do move on if they find something that interests or pleases them more, why on earth would you even leave that to chance? It makes no sense if you want to keep even the ones you have left amused, entertained or happy - never mind expecting them pay. I think if they actually look they will find that those who have stuck around the longest are the PVPers, and that i guess is our in built loyalty. When we chose to fight in the secret war, we chose a side. We chose who to stand with and what for. The fact that choice, among others has been diminished to a mere colour palette or flavour, in a game with such depth and possibility, is the elephant in the room and does not fit.

IMO
PVP can work in SWL

#PrayersForPassives #JusticeForFactions #ReturnToTheChronicle

(I am fully aware that the reply contains negative remarks towards the company - i stand by them as they are the truth - it’s hard to be positive about something that isn’t currently available without suggesting how to make it better via showing disapproval of the current so called PVP zone of Shambala and its reason for its existence)

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Though if i remember, the domination buffs i saw (i had all of them) meant that right now, at least on pvp side we are all in the same faction. That must have been the lazy way to fix the faction restriction for cabals but it will have to be re-fixed, obviously.

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That’s an interesting point! I hadn’t really put 2 and 2 together regarding that.

1 This should be pinned.
2 How about dressing in pvp outfits (vanity) to show support to fusang and all the actual battlegrounds ?

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I can get behind that :slight_smile: After all the Templars do have the best PvP suit.

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I am not entirely sure to get why we shouldn’t have loot in PVP. If that is the case, could we remove loot from dungeons too then, to avoid any bias. If dungeons provide a gearing path, Pvp should too. If anything, any type of activity should provide equal possibility of gearing (dungeons, scenarios, lairs, pvp, etc) based on the time investment.

Going slightly further than the original restoration of the 3 missing zones idea, why couldn’t we have open world pvp. With a simple flag to tick or untick wether you want to participate or not (see BnS or else).

Because you never used to get loot from PVP, you only got paid the going currency - which is what was used to gear with, buying equipment etc
You only ever got loot from dungeons and such. To add loot to PVP makes the whole aspect trivial as you then have to decide what goes into that loot table. If anything basic is all it should be, like i said to even contemplate what you get out of it other than your personal ranking on a chronicle, a contribution the your faction economic in some way via a buff and enjoyment of participation means you are missing my point of why there shouldn’t be loot or treats or gimmicks added to PVP as neither incentive nor reward.
There is no bias in that and there never has been IMO since there was no expectation of it, there was never any bias.
The problem is Funcom making an issue of where certain loot is obtainable from and what the best route of that is be it glyphs, gear w/e - they have managed to make scenarios the best place for glyphs and NYR for gear - there really isn’t anything else to gear with since weapons are best obtained from caches or AH.

Anything else is surplus and can be gained from questing dailies, sides etc

I wear PvP outfit all the time in SWL.

I was having a thought of that one day, there be masses of peoples standing in Agartha hub, in PvP suits. Just standing, all the day.

Yes that was the way it was in TSW. The thing is we moved away from a token system for gearing. Contrarily to what you believe, i can appreciate ranking in pvp and 10k kills achievements etc. What i am only saying is i dont see why pvp should not be equally rewarding as the rest of the activities. The issue with the non-token system is that yes, you will need a loot table.
Look at what happens in Shamballa now. I don’t like Shamballa and nver did. But the very fact the queue nver pops is giving an hint on how people without any carrot are going to come to participate to pvp.

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