I’m trying to like it but I really cannot digest it all that much.

EverQuest 2 progressively released more and more details about its upcoming (with the expansion) PvP ruleset and it seems to have met the consensus of the majority of the players. Not mine, though.

The full explanations can be found here (nothing new. This is at least one week old).

There are some design choices that I don’t see as interesting nor fun and I believe will turn into experiments gone wrong, in the same way pretty much everything they tried that wasn’t directly derived from WoW (see my “Patterns of EverQuest2” that were at the origin of the lenghty articles below).

Between the sympathizers there’s also Cosmik. So I’ll back up some of his comments at times.

The first note that I have to make, though, is that for the most part this PvP system is a carbon-copy of the (terrible) one used in WoW. Now we’ll have to see if the history repeats and if those few things that EQ2 is trying to do differently will reveal to be so bad that everything will be ultimately patched back to a proper WoW clone in all the tiniest details. The King of Game Design that SOE secretly seems to worship.

The guidelines are the same as WoW, as I already “ranted” about. There are two factions, one is evil, the other good, both share the same classes, there’s a distinction between honorable and dishonorable kills and if you farm enough points you can build up faction and have access to fat loot. Now let’s delve more into the details.

Communication and Interaction

All the first part explains how the comminication between the two factions is regulated. And it goes really in the detail explaining everything you CAN’T do. Even if it would have been so much simpler to explain what you CAN do. Which is: you are free to whack those in the other faction and use emotes. That’s all.

On this level the whole system is clearly copied from WoW till the minimum detail. There isn’t even a minimal difference whatsoever. Let’s hope that at least they didn’t copy even the exploits (like leet speak) that were only patched later in WoW. Maybe they went in lazy mode and just blocked directly the messages instead of adding filters, who knows. I also wonder if they’ll go with DAoC model and use only generic overhead names or they’ll go with WoW’s model and still display the full name on the enemy characters. Oh yes. Rhetorical question, I guess :)

There’s one trait I find extremely interesting, though. But I’ll come on this later. (see the P.S. at the end)

Combat Mechanics

The next part explains how the combat will behave differently from PvE to PvP. They have basically set them as two separate systems where one spell can be adjusted in PvP without affecting PvE, so making the balancing process less problematic and less prone to screw ups.

From the development side this is a solid practice and one that other games have already used in a way or another. It is good that EQ2 was planned from the ground up with this mindset, so I have nothing to criticize.

Instead from the player’s side this could be problematic. I’m wondering how they’ll keep the UI clean and still show how the skills and spells behave in the two different situations. I also believe that the variance will make the game feel less consistent and understandable. Which would require probably too much research to understand all the quirks and use your character at best. So it’s good from a game-y point of view, but less in an attempt to create a world with its own rules and consistency. I can understand the choice, though.

And now we arrive at the problems: Taunts and Hate Reduction.

Cosmik is glad, along with many other players positively surprised, to finally see aggro managment skills finally working in PvP. Yes, they’ll add more tactics into the fight but I really believe this is a bad decision that will make the combat terribly unfun.

The experience in DAoC already taught (to noone, since no game actually addressed this problem) how gameplay-disrupting skills make the combat frustrating. The frustration comes directly from the loss of control. A combat system (no matter if it’s twitch or turn-based) is fun the more you have an active control on it. If you can take decisions and affect how things are going. By definition an attack must imply a defence. Losing control of your character without any possibility to do anything else than stare at the screen feels like being kick-slapped around a room without the possibility to react. It zones you out. It feels passive.

I already examinated at depth (from my point of view) these mechanics and I believe that this sort of frustration is valuable in the game only if it can also find an “exit point”. A “vent valve”. But instead in these combat mechanics the “loss of control” is not a pattern of counterattack. It is instead a pattern of death. When you are losing control you are also going to die.

All these comments come from my direct experience and I know what frustrates me in a PvP combat and I perceive as “unfun”. What I hate the most in WoW’s combat mechanics, for example, is that I pass the majority of the time trying to fight against the controls and gameplay-disrupting situations. I’m constantly feared, Mind Controlled, slowed down or chain-stunned. These interruptions disrupt the gameplay. While I hate being feared, the most frustrating thing is that you also lose your target. Here you are fighting with the interface, which is the most annoying thing in a game: having to re-issue the same commands repeatedly.

This continue loss of control is not fun. It gets in the way of playing the game. So why creating two separate systems for PvP and PvE if this possibility isn’t used to support the fun in the game? Again it’s not a case that the most fun mechanics are those reactive (see again Mount and Blade) instead of those gameplay-disruptive. So I don’t see the innovative implementation of taunts and aggro management in PvP as something that will contribute in a positive way.

The same I could say for the “Control Spells”. This isn’t a new problem for the genre and I already explained what I think about it and how I’d try to solve it (same link as above). EQ2’s model isn’t anything new, regulated through immunity timers (as DAoC). In this case probably a better choice than the one used in WoW (through diminished returns). While the latter is more consistent, it is also less fun for the reasons listed above.

So I do not like how EQ2 is going to address this problem, but it’s also in line with what all the other games are doing.

About the behaviour of stealth I won’t comment much because it depends a lot on the implemention than general design. I just hope that they copy WoW, in this case, and not DAoC. Hiding the overhead names while stealthed. That’s pretty much all I ask. It would be also interesting to have a variable visibilty based on range or skill/level check instead of just a visible/invisible boolean status. Another detail that I find important is that WoW uses sounds to help you detect hidden targets (both friendly or not). That’s another very good idea.

Death System

This is crucial in every PvP implementation and the one that made WoW’s PvP so popular and successful. Here I agree with Cosmik. This choice to add an exp debt on a PvP death is plain bad. I just don’t see any good coming out of this. There is no advantage whatsoever and on top of this there’s even the incentive to grief by attacking a player when he is engaged in combat to make him suffer the full exp debt (and loss of money).

I also agree with Cosmik on the doubts on the honorable/dishonorable system. It is something that never worked in WoW. I don’t even think it’s possible to make it work without adding a further layer of complexity that wouldn’t add anything worthwhile to the game. Here the solution is rather simple and the one WoW implemented before kicking everything to hell whith the launch of the honor system. More feedback on this here.

Here SOE is trying to outsmart Blizzard by implementing a system that faied in WoW and was discared among the complaints of the players pointing at the page of the manual where it was described. I think this new solution will be also short-legged since it doesn’t really address the *origin* of the problem. No useful solution can be found if this part is examined superficially as it currently is.

Forcing the players to check the exact percents of health on a target before attacking to avoid to incur in a penalty is bad. Very, very bad. Broken design on multiple levels (even if the actual threshold to matter is the one at 20% with the latest revised mechanics). I also do not understand the “Kill List” used to address the problem of repeated kills. This is another system that failed in WoW and an occasion for EQ2 to do better, but its solution convinces me even less. This is another core mechanic of every PvP implementation. My suggested solutions and further thoughts are here (adding “bounty points” and incentives to survive instead of penalties).

There’s also a possibility that you drop some junk in a PvP death. I don’t think this idea will add anything worthwhile. Fluff. Instead dropping gold will be annoying and adds to the death penalty. Again a bad move.

I note that at the higher levels there isn’t any penalty or discouragement for ganking. This while the victim will still receive the exp debt and drop gold that will be looted by the happy ganker. The ganker is allowed to farm lower level players and loot their gold without any penalty.

At the lower levels, instead, ganking will be forbidden, since you won’t be able to initiate the combat with a character 8 levels below you. Cosmik commented about this and I agree with him. This pretty much erases all the qualities of an open PvP system. WoW outsmarted pretty much everyone on this aspect with the idea of “friendly” and “contested” zones. It wins hands down and the evidence of this will show.

All these points stacks up to form a death system that doesn’t look nowhere fun nor solid or even accessible. While encouraging the griefing and cheap ganking mechanics. Pretty much the opposite of the results it should try to achieve.

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No mentions about the PvP rewards and factional gains, so it’s hard to figure out the impact of this system. I only know that doing worse than WoW is pretty much impossible in this case (yeah, Honor System).

So, I expected to write a few terse notes and instead I got this. I have many gripes about the death system and the combat mechanics and I expect that this PvP ruleset won’t be popular. I wouldn’t be surprised if SOE pushes this back in the list of priorities after it is launched.

Pretty much the same destiny of EverQuest 1.

P.S.
At one point I wrote that there was an interesting trait but then I forgot to write about it. I don’t know if I’m correct but there’s a part where they hint there aren’t just two alignments possible, but three (good, evil, betraying). They don’t explain this part but it may have lots of potential. One of my ideas on the “dream mmorpg” (also tied to the “permeable barriers” concept) was about letting the players betray the original two hardcoded factions to create new ones, with the possibility also to switch from good to evil and vice versa. I’m curious to see what will happen in EQ2 from this perspective.