PvP in an MMORPG is Hopeless

It's my opinion only because there's no effective way to empirically test it. If there was, and we could execute it, I speculate (yes, speculate) that we would come up with the following fact:

"You can't balance PvP combat in a game as complex as this and make it relatively fair for everyone. Someone will always be overpowered, and sometimes a few someones. Others will always be under-powered."

I also can't see how "Gear and character skill is the emphasis," is an opinion. You don't aim. You roll dice. A level 10 is no match for a level 50, but someone playing TF2 for the first time tonight has an excellent chance of being a genuine threat to me.

Sure, and pink elephants fly over London every third tuesday.

Do you really believe that a game that is considered the model to follow for the hardcore group centric PvE-Raiding crew/fans and peaked at 450.000 subscribers (By Sony numbers at 2004) was "saved from doom" by FOUR PvP servers?

Having an opinion (either wrong or right) is a good thing, backing it up with lies that's not so good.

You could just show them to me.

Provide evidence for your claim that the original MMORPGs were designed primarily with PvP in mind, and PvE was a tacked on afterthought. This is your claim, not mine.

Saying "Google it" isn't providing evidence.

Lol i never tried ballista, wasn't really into it. It's amazing how many people played FFXI for years and years. Regardless of what time of day i used to log in, there was ALWAYS over a thousand people on the server. I think it was because servers weren't area specific. I actually don't like the idea of regional servers, seems dead 95% of the time when not in primetime.

I've actually contemplated going back to FFXi after playing this horrible excuse of an MMO, but i think the outdated graphics would do me in.

You can't balance any game that is not a perfect mirror between sides, it's not possible, so should we reduce all competitive games to checkers and chess?

Even in FPS, certain guns will outpeform others in certain situations, so is it the player or the gun that killed you? The player or the position on the level? The person or a superior mouse with gold wires that improved his input by a fraction of a milisecond?

True balance is fiction, in ALL GAMES.

Even in chess or checkers, someone has to go first, and true balance just vanished.

So, since true balance is fiction, trying to hold any game up to the standard of perfect true balance is like holding any human being to an absolute perfect image of humanity. No one will fill that, and no one will even agree on what that perfect image is.

So, with that FACT in mind, that balance is IMPOSSIBLE, why bother even judging games based on it?

If I didn't play games that weren't balanced, I wouldn't play games.

Word PVP is not that silly of an idea, balance or no balance. Nothing in real world is truly balanced so why would a fiction world tempting to be real be perfect in nature...to want perfection is like wanting a super model pleasuring you 24/7 it just will never happen.

And FPS are NOT balanced either...people level and get better weapons and have better hardware and thats just the computer/game side of things. People in general are better at FPS then others...so again that isnt perfect either.

It seems more like you just suck at PVPing in this game, or maybe in every MMO you have ever played, and never took the time to learn how to properly play the class you rolled. Just because you PVE and are awesome does not mean you should PVP and be awesome. It takes skill and time to learn how to appoarch just not 1 class but different appoarches for ALL classes.

Plus if on Illum, the open world PVP for 50s, get in an active guild and group with mates so your not alone being stomped all the time. Honestly only noobs solo in MMOs

There's a key difference. Forgive me for going back to my favorite example.

I've played a lot of Team Fortress 2 for years and my inventory shows it. I have every weapons for every class. As such, I'm much more potent than someone playing for the first time.

If he comes at me as a Medic and I'm on a Heavy, yeah, it's worse for him. But you know what? He still has a shot, and not a one-in-a-million, all-planets-align shot either. A decent player is always a threat, particularly when we can bring skills like reflexes and aim into this game from others.

Gear matters, but it doesn't make or break encounters. Certain classes are of course the counter-class to someone else, but that cuts both ways, and everyone has a decent shot against everyone else. They're still different, but it's reasonably well balanced.

A level 10 has absolutely no shot against a level 50 until you want to spin me a wild tale.

Gear > Skill. Someone who just hit 50 and is a great PvPer is just going to get curb stomped by someone who's a lousy PvPer, but in all the best gear.

OR... they're a healer. In which case they'll probably get clobbered.

You follow me? There's just too much going on in this genre for this type of competitive game play. You're not competing with me, you're competing with my character. We might as well play Pokemon.

dont bother >< , after SE release the last expansion packs (3 so far) and upped the max lvl the game just wasnt the same seriusly 99 lvl , every mage with refresh/convert? what a joke

and rdm wasnt even my main , but destroying the main/sub system letting players lvl up after 75....was ugh....

pvp is an option unless you roll on a pvp server of course, but in all my years off mmo play, i would say that pvp is the bane of the dev's it's never going to be what everyone wants, always balance issues with ranged and melee classes, but they can tune it the best they can and make it fun, I play on both a pvp and pve server, when I want to play my story and travel around with out conflict i play the pve side, when I have had a bad day and feel like jamming a light saber in someones face it's pvp day..

Well I'm very glad my only time on the forums has been on vacation as I'm not sure the amount of stress created here could be handled at any other time. As to this discussion I must say that if PVP qq'ing really affects the rest of the game as much as I percieve (and there is alot of it) then I would have to agree with a different thread that the balance in one (pvp) should not effect the other (pve) and vice versa.

I don't know if or how it can be done but it seems a nessecary evil in order to keep both camps happy. Like light and dark or the two sides of any coin you cannot change one without affecting the others balance.