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World of Warcraft PvP Ranking System Detailed
The official World of Warcraft site has details on the Player vs. Player ranking system which they'll be rolling out to the game. It gives meaning to the PvP concept with tangible, and impressive, rewards for engaging in combat with other players, a leader board, and little things like an officer's title. From the article: "As we have mentioned before, when you kill other players or aggressive PvP-enabled non-player characters (NPCs) in your level range, you will receive an honorable kill. All your honorable kills for a week are then calculated to give you an honor score for that week, which then translates into an honor ranking. This honor ranking carries with it titles and material rewards, and eventually, officer status and other perks."
This'll help stop the higher level horde players from ripping through lower levelled areas, which gets annoying pretty damned fast. Blizzard, when their servers are up, have done a pretty damned good job with this game, I have to say.
It doesn't matter so much now that I am approaching level 60, but I had hoped the honor system would function as a deterrent for people killing players half their level. It seems that no penalties will be introduced for dishonorable kills. If anything, this system will only exacerbate the problem. Large groups of players roaming about killing soloers will no doubt be the norm as the benefits for high honor seem very nice. If this system changes anything, it certainly won't be making things any more honorable. On the contrary, expect to be farmed like mobs once this goes live.
Sounds like an excuse for virtual violence! What is our world coming to?
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I'll be on Boulderfist
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This is not a sig in the mississippi, it's a sig in denial.
There are a few problems WoW, its main goal is to get people preped for a endgame instances and Battlegrounds.
:)
Basically you try for better armor/weapons (or do the same instances 1000 times waiting for a drop) on the same instances...
Then you goto Battlegrounds, and fight for better armor/weapons...
The only cookie in the game is the weapons and instances? Theres nothing beyond it, theres no real indepth RPG factor to the game. (Ok, some of the quests are entertaining, and a little RPG'ish)..
And the new PvP system has a few bugs, you get jumped by a 50 and you attack back you get dishonor? A lone 60 attacks a group of 50s and get dishonor? What happens when you dont play for a week or 2, you loose rank? What if you where doing instances? Too many issues still on PvP not explained.
Also currently, the Alliance outnumbers most servers 2/1, my server Bloodhoof is 10K Alliance vs 5K horde. What happens when Battlegrounds starts and its a limit of 200 vs 200? Alot of Alliance wont be able to play. That is my favorite, since currently Alliance raids towns with more people than can defend. Blizzard seems to want to stop all town raiding and move people to Battlegrounds, since its a dedicated server. Last time Alliance attacked our Horde city of Origmmar, they crashed the server. WTG.
While the graphics and gameplay is fun, the gameplay is locked into "fight, fight, heal some, fight" there isnt anything other than fighting . Farming is just fighting monsters for drops, same difference.
In SWG you can build a house, build things, put in it, trophies of sorts. But you have a private area, same with Anarchy Online. WoW has no such thing, its bascially, you, and a bank to store some stuff.
I was hoping for more RPG than hack and slash, while fun, gets old. I have lots of friends who came here from City of Heros burnt out, what happens when you realize you do the same thing over and over? Nothing, you move to the next MMORPG.
One of the Massive online games "Second Life" actually lets you build things, the flip side, you can build WAY too much, and less of the fun game. Its more social, you build, chat, play games (triva/etc), but no RPG hack and slash.. I think SIM's is about middle, but the tasks are a little stupid, and you feel too cartoonish.
I really want to see a game that includes both, the building aspect, the fighting aspect, the trophies, the content. I've been following www.mmorpg.com on newer games to see if anything is close.
WoW PvP is going to be the make it or break it for Blizzard, if they dont offer something for people to enjoy they will lose people to the new MMORPG's coming out. They have newer game engines, have new ideas, Space combat, Car combat, new D&D games, Matrix online, list goes on... so much stuff to keep people busy, 6 months before you figure out if the game has anything left to offer...
I know, i've spent way too much time playing WoW, more than most games in the past, I've been level 60 for awhile, leader of a guild (Since our leader left for a "Leet" guild.). Going on high end instances, about a month away from all our avereage guys making 60. Just in time for Battlegrounds, or limited raid parties.
I think Battlegrounds is going to be the saving grace for Blizzard, if it sucks, people are going to leave.
I think this PVP system is terrible. It rewards how much you play, rather than how good you are. There are people that play this game 40+ hours a week. I have a job and other obligations. On a good WoW week, I may play 30 hours. 15 hours is more common for me. I don't expect to ever get anywhere near the higher ranks.
The other problem is that this sytems outright encourages ganking. Once this patch goes in, it's going to be very difficult to level a character from 50 - 60, because there are going to be gank squads of 60s running around the zones where 50s are trying to level just ganking everyone. It is a bit like this now, without rewards. With rewards, it will be much worse.
C'mon Blizzard. WoW has a system that rewards play time already. What level your character is and how much good equipment you have is primarily determined by how much you play. I don't want the PVP system to be the same way. Please make it skill-based, rather than time-based.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
WoW gets ever closer to a complete reimplementation of Medievia. I wonder when they will come up with some original.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
But DAoC STILL has WoW beat in this (and most other departments)...
Because the twits that would gank people only half their levels do it to the NPCs that are half their level.
Sorry but the dishonor system needs to have teeth or this continued behaviour is going to ruin the game for many people. On a RP server there are raids by level 50-60s into newbie areas all the time! Ganking the NPCs which prevents players who cannot hope to challenge these losers.
As for the issue about why people complain about ganking people half their level and such. Mainly because for all the claims that people must PvP to find a real challenge in a MMORPG won't pass the laugh test as these same PvP advocates seem to only engange in contests where there is no challenge.
Where is the challenge in ganking people 20+ levels lower than you?
Where is the challenge in ganking NPCS 20+ levels lower than you?
Anarchy is no way to run PvP in a MMORPG and that is just what Blizzard is offering. Without systems in place to curtail asshat behaviour what reason is there for players to play right? NONE.
Blizzard is no different than any other company, they have no end game and they plan to cover for it by relying on PvP. Lets look at the logic of that, you want to rely on the one part of the game that generates the most CSR issues as your end game? The one that causes the most worth to thwart exploits?
I wish that Blizzard would confine PvP on PvE/RP servers to Battlegrounds AND duels. (but they need options to let people to decline duels automatically). Allowing people to raid NPCs in starter and middle level areas only fosters grief.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
you make it sound like the alliance in its entirety is completely innocent of doing that very same thing.
I've lost count of how many times my 28 level shaman has been gutted by level 40-60 alliance in hillsbrad, windshear, and ashenvale. In fact, there has only been 2 times when I came within talking distance to a high-level alliance (both were pallies) and wasn't murdered instantly. real cool! pat yerself on the back!
Get Virtual.
I'm only attacked by alliance characters 10+ levels above me. The only plausable explaination is that my level 28 Orc Shaman is seen as an enormous threat by level 60 elf rogues.
boy howdy I just can't wait for this new patch to go through and give all level 50-60 elf rogues a reason to scour contested areas in the search of rewarded PVP. There's a name for us level 28 shamans: Target of Oportunity.
Get Virtual.
I've been resisting the desire to move over to an RP server for a long while now. One reason is that I know a couple of people on the PvP server I'm on right now. They play much more than I do, and have been sending me nifty stuff.
The other reason was that--real soon now--Blizzard would be implementing an honors system. I assumed that once it was installed, there would be some sort of punishment for people who ganked lower-level players.
That's what I want out of the honor system. Not epic armor, or ph4t l00t, or the chance to call myself "Grand Marshal" (I can do that anyways, thankyouverymuch). All I want out of it is a simple change in the game mechanics that provides a disincentive for high-level players to beat up on low-level players.
It looks like that's not going to happen, and that I don't have a temperament that enjoys the sort of crap being pulled on PvP servers. So I think it's time to put my characters into retirement, and move to an RP or RL* server.
* Real Life server. Much harder to farm for gold, the permadeath rules are worrying, and you never get an epic mount. But arguably the play is richer and more rewarding, and the server has zero latency and phenomenal uptime.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
1. You will almost always be grouping on a PVP server. Once this is in place it will be very hard to solo past level 30. Players will have incentive to kill you so you will want to be in a group to minimize this, and maximize you ability to kill players of the opposing faction.
2. Despite what anyone says, I believe that Blizzard is correct that this will decrease ganking of low level players. There will now be risk/reward in PVP. I don't run around killing level 10 creature because it is not worth my time. My time is better spent killing those creatures that can reward me for my kill with money or an item I can use. The same will apply with the honor system. I will be rewarded for seeking out players of my level to kill not those who are lower level. As for those players who still gank. Well lets just say that there are small children of all ages who need to kill weak people to feel big and no amount of dishonor would stop them anyways.
3. This will hold on to hardcore players. If Blizzard loses the hardcore players they loose their long term revenue stream. All the talk about casual players is well and good but they wont be around for the long haul. This is the kind of compelling ladder system that will keep those competitive players sticking around paying their $15 dollars a month for years to come. If they don't stick around the game will die out.
kill ratio would be a good start.
I played an all-pvp mud called "GroundZero" back in the day. Basically a 25x25 grid with some walls, random weapons everywhere, and two teams. You kill each other, then you kill each other some more. (There were some other little things but basically you just pick up an M-16 or USPS-Issue-Standard-Assault-Rifle, or electron cannon, chain saw, flame thrower, grenades, whatever, find some ammo if applicable, and hunt down players on the other team.) The ranks in the game were determined by kill ratio and total kills, so that a player with 200 kills and 10 deaths had a much higher rank than a player with 200 kills and 200 deaths.
WoW's system appears to simply be total (honorable) kills. Nothing at all to do with skill whatsoever. So person X who gets 100 kills and dies 200 times gets the same "score" as person Y who gets 100 kills and dies 10 times.
It would be incredibly simple to factor in kill ratio to the formula, but I'll admit there would be drawbacks to that as well. Powerful groups would rarely suffer a casualty and would just rack up their score. To counteract this you can apply the existing notion of "sharing" an honorable kill with your group to "sharing" a pvp death with your group, but ramp up the death share and drive down the kill share. (E.g. 100 group kills might equal 200 total "kill points" for the group, but 100 group deaths might equal 300 total "death points" for the group.)
MORTAR COMBAT!