AO's PvP Problems (And How to Resolve Them)

[key]

@Catean

I feel like the PvP issue is ruining the game for quite a few people, in a couple of different ways. Especially when you’re trying to enjoy the game and not fight metamancers who want to kill you. As such, I’ve come up with possible methods to resolve this, and even though it’s unlikely, I would at least wish to share my opinions, as getting hunted by players has been so unpleasant for me that I’ve pretty much almost stopped playing unless there’s updates. It’s that bad.

I mean, do you even try to learn how to fight back? I doubt it. Learning basic combat knowledge, even if you don’t want to fight, can help you even for running away.

@Catean

First off, the cap could be set higher. Rather than about 50, it could be raised to 105 or so, where the player has already progressed far into the game to understand its mechanics or at least tank a couple more hits from the attacker. It’s still not fair, however, though it’s not even at level 125.

This is a good idea, though. I think PVP past level 50 should still be around for party PVP.
For example if you’re LVL 50 and a LVL 125 attacks you without being in your party with FF on, they can’t dmg you, but if it is they can(so lower lvls can still practice PVP)

@Catean

Before I mention that, I do want to say that the jail time as a negative rep is a pain too. Not only is the GN chasing you, but if a player hunts you, you get jailed too, which is pretty annoying. It should be that only GN players will arrest you, not any player in general.

Notoriety is a mistake no matter what anyone says. There should at least be a fair price to reset notoriety, like 500 galleons max. I don’t recommend being a bad reputation player if you refuse to learn how to kick back.

@Catean

The second problem is the cause for all the bounty hunting rking issues. Vetex is incentivizing PvP too much. AO is not a PvP game. PvP should be optional, yet it is very frequent anyways. The reason for this is that Vetex is purposefully making players lean towards PvP. And the biggest factor is reputation. Reputation is practically impossible to get post 100,000 other than from bounty hunting. The only other method is the Agora which only updates every 20 minutes.

AO is a PVE based PVP game. There are PVP aspects, but you shouldn’t be forced to PVP for in game things, like deckhands. Deckhands and renown shouldn’t go together(fame is meant to be for PVPers anyway). Instead, Deckhands should go hand in hand with the “feats” system that is currently useless.

@Catean

There is literally no need to lose money and charts when dying, and while you can be careful against sharks or NPCs and avoid them somewhat easily, you can’t really avoid players unless you’re good at dodging most of their moves.

For starters, treasure charts are almost TOO easy to obtain. Even rare ones are very easy, as all you need to consistently get them is a rival(another easy method)
There is a reason to lose money when you die, it’s because you probably shouldn’t even have that much money on you in the first place(and it’s supposed to reward players that defeated you, but this is bad anyway because what if you get teamed on?). I wish banks were around, but oh well.

And for the last one, you could just fight back. And when I say fight, I don’t mean you have to be all chivalrous like I am and never run, you can play in the most downright disgusting, goofy, devious, DUBIOUS playstyle and honestly the enemy would probably just leave you alone.

If they don’t, oh well.

@Catean

The worst thing is that Vetex’s balance changes are just making it harder to avoid PvP. For example, he raised the dashing stamina cost, making it harder to run, harmfully impacting the more passive players like myself. AO is a game about exploration, adventure, and story, not PvP. PvP does not need to play such a major, and problematic, role in the game. It was bad enough in WoM with the infamy system. Now it is nigh unavoidable.

Ngl imo this is a W change. Also, the dashing stamina cost applies to all players.

PVP is an endgame thing. Yeah sure, the game starts off as an adventure story, but once you reach max level, PVP becomes the main thing. Do you know how much of a blast it is to participate in wars? Even FFA PVP sessions are amazing( @Dibs)! But you’re a pacifist player who’d rather fish for hours instead of learning how to fight back, so in your opinion that would probably sound like hell.

Again, in the end, PVP will always be right there. AO isn’t some sort of auto generated thing. Eventually things that you can explore will run out, and everyone will be trying to make it to th leaderboards.

[key]

@Gelid_Monkeys

Gaining reputation isn’t all that big of an encouragement to PvP, and outside of having fun, that’s the only notable one. going up the leaderboard is fairly pointless, and you can already get deckhands (enizor and kenton) without a high rep. Bounty hunting rewards are fairly low, to the point 9 times out of 10 it’s better to just sink ships for sealed chests, unless you’re specifically farming rep. If people are being sweaty over the leaderboard, it’s their issue, the game doesn’t force players to focus on it.

Exactly. Bounty Hunting is honestly, the worst way to gain reputation and that’s coming from a guy that has caught 700 fish(across all files) in a span of maybe 3 years of playing WoM and AO. It’d be better to just go and farm your rival or something, but most players bounty hunt for the fun of it.

[key]

@Gelid_Monkeys

i feel like that would remove a lot of risk from interactions and diminish immersion. When i’m playing negative rep i like the chance of being arrested, the issue imo is the (sometimes) excessively long prison times and possibility of getting stuck on an island because of being unable to talk to shipwrights.

Problem is, the GN navy ships don’t actually stop coming after you. It’d be cool if they only sent like 1 ketch after you every day, that makes sense, but they send ketch after ketch instead.

The jail time thing is also pretty annoying. I think it would be cool if we had something to do in the 10 minutes of jail time, maybe some sort of minigame with other prisoners?

[Dibs]

@key

Even FFA PVP sessions are amazing( @Dibs)!

FyI that was super light, basically just always what me and my friends (or randoms) do everytime we do munera sessions, occasionally super fucking hectic 4v4s out of nowhere happen and the chaos is fun as fuck

uhhh idrc about the actual topic pvp bad boohoo

[key]

lol

I’d probably attend more, but I’m not EUW so ig I’m an L

[Dibs]

That sucks cuz from what I can tell USW is a pretty organized region like bro I have never seen 1 clip in a USW munera session where random idiots were fighting in the background, EUW you would never not have a ringside fight of 3 actual dumbasses fighting for no reason

[key]

IKR, it’s like USW is the Canada of all AO regions

[Dibs]

Pussios honestly, USW kinda like those videos of the very organized and quiet white churches and EUW are the videos of those crazy wacky African churches

anywho i dont wanna derail this topic any further

[AwesomeOS]

Nah derail it this shits just an argument that’s been had 8858584848485 times now

[Dibs]

bubububut I gotta be on my forum golden boy shit so that I have a chance of verified trader (meta is never going to give anyone verified trader [confirmed])

[OOFUS]

Enzo or and Kenton are NOT deckhands

[64arc]

@Catean

Low level players getting killed by 125s is not unheard of, and it’s a negative impact on both newer and returning players. It is annoying and unnecessary, especially considering the power difference of a maxed 125 and some random player in the sky islands.

nah

[TheoreticalExistence]

honestly I wouldn’t mind bounty hunters and random pvp encounters in this game if the pvp was fun or even good.

I’m gonna be real, the pvp in this game is a slog and I can’t support ANYTHING being behind it.
It looks so fast but it feels so slow.
Landing a hit feels like blind luck and getting hit feels like bullshit 100% of the time.

Even fighting players at my skill level with an identical build is barely an improvement.

[Bio]

Clearly, you aren’t using attack speed

[Gelid_Monkeys]

i agree, the ketch spam feels more overwhelming than it’s probably meant to be. Maybe it’s supposed to be like that idk, but at least it’d be nice if the marines didn’t swim across the entire ocean with their infinite stamina to hunt you down even after you get them off the ship

[TheoreticalExistence]

@key

The jail time thing is also pretty annoying. I think it would be cool if we had something to do in the 10 minutes of jail time, maybe some sort of minigame with other prisoners

what about just not having jail.
there is 0 gameplay reason for it to exist.

I challenge anybody to give a genuine reason why players should be locked up for 10 minutes every death.

[Gelid_Monkeys]

don’t they occupy the same type of slot as deckhands

[TheoreticalExistence]

No, they don’t.
They take up quartermaster slots.

the fact that so few people know how deckhands work to begin with only goes to show how much of a problem this is.

[Gelid_Monkeys]

alright, doesn’t change much tbh since deckhands aint that good

[TheoreticalExistence]

A ketch can have 4 of them and once you meet the obnoxious requirements they’re free.
Those stats add up.