PVE Quality of Life

[GhostHecate]

Proposal:

Allow PVE players to have more renown and disable their ability to go onto the leaderboard.

Details/background on your proposal:

This could also work by giving PVE players a different type of renown or just complete detatchment from the leaderboard and the PVP/Competitive side of the game. Whichever idea is easier and more feasable to achieve and implement into the game.

This could allow PVE Players to have access to high renown currently available and up coming features only accessable to PVP Players currently.

Potentially allow PVE Players to have titles of their own seperate from the PVP titles for renown and their faction specific ones as well.

Reason to add/change:

• The new shops using renown have cool items you simply cannot get unless you disable PVP Protection
• You gain lots of renown from Fleets and other PVE activities that simply go to waste once you reach the maximum.
• Enabling PVP to have higher renown is not worth the witch hunting or ganking from other players once you reach higher renown levels.
• For the issue with PVE players with really high renown having no threats or going onto the leader board without the possibility of being knocked down or hunted could easily be fixed by adding high level NPC hunters that match or overpass the hunted player’s level with randomized factions and gear/weapons. Making this feature can be it’s own suggestion but generally could allow lots of possibilities for players who want the PVE side of the game more over the PVP side.

Please let me know of any changes or issues this could bring and we can come up with better ideas or implementations!!

Thank you for reading!!

[Trapstar]

I thought about this, and I thought of a split of two for leaderboards;

For Hero players, Renown and Fame. The former is the PvP scale, the latter is the PvE scale.
For Criminal players, Bounty and Infamy. The former? PvP. The latter? PvE. I don’t think we should be capped much, just have it be separated as a number of things go off of your fame/bounty and its kinda lame to be capped off somewhere without being able to progress. Let there be sidegraded titles as well for the factions too, so a high ranking assassin “Maestro” would be instead “Virtuoso” to draw a flashy sounding distinction, just stuff like that.

[GhostHecate]

EXACTLYYY this is a great idea for a seperation of some sort!! There’s so much potential and it’d be a lot easier to differentiate PVE and PVP players on the playerlist as well!

[vorf]

i have no idea what’s written in the wall of white but i agree

[Randomness21]

honestly this should be doubled up on with guilds too, as guilds are kinda pointless right now, with bases being useless to make or have in general, maybe npc ships of the random criminal groups or just any wars sea organization that isnt like the navy or something one of the members are in, could attack yuor base and u get like 1 rep for either u or whatever defenses for killing them, which would add an actual reason to have bases for guilds, and a lot of people chose to swap to guilds so they arent always forced into pvp servers, and this could also be a thing for clans too, to make sure its all equaled out

[toiletofficer]

I want to become a Major but to achieve this goal I need to risk getting hunted I am willing to do so but it doesn’t feel right running from every fight and living in fear

[Trapstar]

at the end of the day, AO is a PvE game. A game thats primarily focused around PvE is not made for PvP, thats just how it is, its a balancing nightmare and an overall mess because youre scaled to npcs hundreds of levels higher than you with set traits not players with micromanaged builds to minmaxx something highly specific. It means that most PvP comes down to “who preps before the jump with the most meta build”

[howtomakerr]

I’m kinda happy there are no cheese builds in ao

[GhostHecate]

oh yeahhh that would be awesome too giving guild bases raids for reputation would be awesome

[tbd]

nope

the items above 250k renown are pvp cosmetic rewards. theyre not meant to be obtainable by pve players. as a mainly pve player myself, im fine with that - especially considering the massive amount of risk you already take on by turning the pvp toggle on. there should definitely be some cosmetic reward for engaging with the game’s pvp system, and giving it to the pve players too bc ‘its not fair’ or something is crazy

[GhostHecate]

Blocking off renown for cosmetics items (such as the ones from brotherhood and knights) that are not PVP rewards (the game’s focus is not PVP and most renown is gained from PVE activities not just bounty hunting) is not good game design and blocks off a large portion of the community from experiencing these things without getting witch hunted for having high renown

[howtomakerr]

It’s optional content and is also cosmetics

[tbd]

yeah except high renown (past 100-250k) is designed to primarily be obtained through pvp activities (altho idk, theres probably some stuff wack out of balance rn since the update is like 2 weeks old). past one million, the game practically stops giving it to you for doing pve stuff

i don’t see how gating off cosmetic items to pvp players is bad game design. they are supposed to be pvp rewards, the fact that you can grind pve to get there isn’t the intended way you’re supposed to get there. all of the useful stuff in the knights proxy/brotherhood of balance shops is already obtainable by pve players

[GhostHecate]

yeah except high renown (past 100-250k) is designed to primarily be obtained through pvp activities (altho idk, theres probably some stuff wack out of balance rn since the update is like 2 weeks old). past one million, the game practically stops giving it to you for doing pve stuff

It isn’t designed for PVP at all. Vetex expressed very firmly that he hates PVP and would gladly remove it from the game through his rant (which you can probably find it with some searching) about how he hates PVP, and it’s community. He only left it in because the percentage of the community that likes pvp would go bonkers.

You can easily get high amounts of renown from PVE activities (even more so with fleets which is a PVE activity), and it doesn’t stop being a good source of renown after you reach millions. There’s several people on the leaderboard or that have been there at some point through just grinding PVE activities.

i don’t see how gating off cosmetic items to pvp players is bad game design. they are supposed to be pvp rewards, the fact that you can grind pve to get there isn’t the intended way you’re supposed to get there. all of the useful stuff in the knights proxy/brotherhood of balance shops is already obtainable by pve players

It’s bad game design because it’s making content in a PVE focused game exclusive to PVP players in which PVP is not the focus and is filled with toxic behaviors most of the player base does not want to be part of. Grinding PVE activities is literally the focus of the game, as stated by Vetex in his dislike of the PVP aspect of the game. Exactly, the useful stuff is available, so why not the cosmetic stuff? There is 0 reason to gate it to a niche part of the community and keep PVE players with a limit on how much renown they can have.

The alternatives/options I suggested only give more opportunities for PVE players to stay in the game for longer and still allows the PVP community to keep its corner.

[Mithridatise]

Genuinely no idea how a roleplay element that’s used as a requirement for certain cosmetic titles, faction ranks, items and a singular mechanic (notoriety) is associated with PVP.
There’s no reason to have that when you could simply have some ‘PVP points’ or something the likes that would actually reward PVP players with PVP-related things instead, like let’s say, Pokémon and the many other games of various other genres that have PVP as a thing to do after the story.

---

@tbd

the items above 250k renown are pvp cosmetic rewards

Which you can all obtain from PVE for as long as your PVP is enabled! The only thing that you have to do is just, not interact with players at all and you can PVE to get those so-caleld ‘PVP items’. Bizarre innit?
Also, allowing players to get some of those items when PVP is off is also pretty weird for something PVP-exclusive.

[clowGenesis_CG]

We’re returning to the good old Soifon days with this one. No idea why the stars seem to be invisible these days but I gave it 2 effort, 3 quality, and 2 reasonability

@GhostHecate

The new shops using renown have cool items you simply cannot get unless you disable PVP Protection

Exclusive content catering to a specific playstyle is not a bad thing. In fact, it encourages people to do PvP besides just for a number going up (It’s why the idea for professions on paper is good). It’s even better now that you’re not forced into it either. Nobody would really be encouraged to do PvP then if they could get easier through PvE

I’d say PvP is a significantly harder task than PvE so I think the exclusive items is fair enough.

@GhostHecate

You gain lots of renown from Fleets and other PVE activities that simply go to waste once you reach the maximum.

This is fair although most of the rewards from PvE comes in the form of items that then further help PvErs to progress. Although your idea of having a leaderboard is good but heavily flawed. I had a better idea years ago where it’s just a large PvE number that never goes down and is tracked throughout the entirety of the file’s existence. My idea for this was to have milestone rewards for the points in a casual way where the emphasis is on just exploring and doing PvE. Like a better version of what professions is supposed to be.

Not a perfect idea but it’s a massive improvement over trying to replicate a system that is inherently PvP based into somehow working with an entirely different gameplay style.

@GhostHecate

Enabling PVP to have higher renown is not worth the witch hunting or ganking from other players once you reach higher renown levels.

Witch hunting can be avoided by blocking the user. Not saying world pvp is perfect but I think it’s a lame argument to remove PvP rewards exclusivity by making the broad assumption that getting ganked is going to be the majority of someone’s PvP experience to not be worth it.

@GhostHecate

For the issue with PVE players with really high renown…

This point is solved by my fix to your PvE leaderboard, which sets out to remove the idea that a PvE and PvP leaderboard will function the exact same in its scaling.

The End

I will make a response to other comments in a separate reply as I still need this to be readable for the initial statement

[GhostHecate]

Exclusive content catering to a specific playstyle is not a bad thing. In fact, it encourages people to do PvP besides just for a number going up (It’s why the idea for professions on paper is good). It’s even better now that you’re not forced into it either. Nobody would really be encouraged to do PvP then if they could get easier through PvE

I’d say PvP is a significantly harder task than PvE so I think the exclusive items is fair enough.

Catering to a specific play style depending on the feature is ok (if it doesn’t hinder playability for the other side), but practically removing a fun mechanic from players that don’t want to fight other players in a PVE focused game just isn’t good design. For example, I’ve been having fun, but it gets ancient when I can’t see any progress on anything other than my fleet right now. I get thousands of fame and none of it goes to me because I have a hard limit after having a dookie experience getting witch hunted the last time I didn’t have the toggle. Of course, it’s better that you aren’t forced to do PVP anymore, that’s why lots of people came back to the game. And lots of people would be encouraged to do PVP because bounty hunting players still gives a LOT of renown, and that’s literally the only thing PVP brings to the table. So blocking off cosmetics and titles based on renown to the comp side of the community is just gating off extra player retention.

PVP is hard, it’s ping based and gear weighs in a lot of who wins the battles. I don’t find that fun, and would constantly have higher level players with higher renown hunting me for being the second highest in the server. Not fun, just difficult and a hindrance.

This is fair although most of the rewards from PvE comes in the form of items that then further help PvErs to progress. Although your idea of having a leaderboard is good but heavily flawed. I had a better idea years ago where it’s just a large PvE number that never goes down and is tracked throughout the entirety of the file’s existence. My idea for this was to have milestone rewards for the points in a casual way where the emphasis is on just exploring and doing PvE. Like a better version of what professions is supposed to be.

Not a perfect idea but it’s a massive improvement over trying to replicate a system that is inherently PvP based into somehow working with an entirely different gameplay style.

I appreciate the criticism, but the leaderboard system isn’t a PVP feature. If you simply have no player interaction and your PVP toggle off, you can easily reach millions of renown with effort through PVE activities. Several players have done this before and just looking at the ingame stats you can easily see this.
Although your idea is good as well, I think that takes the whole point of having similar systems in order to avoid FOMO. I think the current system is simple and can be recycled into a cloned version for the other side of fence instead of making an entirely new one. It’s not replication of a PVP system, it’s a replication of a system that removes the competitive side of the game for the majority of the player base that plays casually.

Witch hunting can be avoided by blocking the user. Not saying world pvp is perfect but I think it’s a lame argument to remove PvP rewards exclusivity by making the broad assumption that getting ganked is going to be the majority of someone’s PvP experience to not be worth it.

Alt accounts exist, random players exist. Witch hunting doesn’t have to be the same person, just having a high renown makes you live in fear if you don’t have a good build or are good at PVP. PVP players, even if my suggestion passes, will still have exclusive things. This just adds ways for PVE players to experience the game without being forced to PVP or live in fear of PVP players with the toggle off. I simply want to enjoy the game to it’s fullest without having to cater my play style to players that have combat ready PVP builds and skill/experience on this. I had 0 good PVP experiences in this game, and I believe every other soul that voted for the toggle will relate. Losing 50000 renown in the span of several servers by different higher level PVP players was very frustrating.

This point is solved by my fix to your PvE leaderboard, which sets out to remove the idea that a PvE and PvP leaderboard will function the exact same in its scaling.

Your system, in my opinion, is also a good addition, but my suggestion is made to make it a simple and recycleable addition. Your idea includes an entire new system to the game which requires more work and would make the game even more complex.

[tbd]

@GhostHecate

It isn’t designed for PVP at all. Vetex expressed very firmly that he hates PVP and would gladly remove it from the game through his rant (which you can probably find it with some searching) about how he hates PVP, and it’s community. He only left it in because the percentage of the community that likes pvp would go bonkers.

ah. then let me introduce you to the man who created this feature in the first place

if you’ve been here for more than a year or two you probably remember a clan called noble phantasm. they were public enemy number 1, known for sinking pve ships on the edge of the dark sea and pirating all of their sealed chests. the leader of this clan designed the renown system all the way back in early access, back from the reputation system, which was more significantly pve based.

the pve sources of renown are almost entirely for the creation of renown. since every interaction between players is a net negative in terms of renown, some new renown has to be created somehow. pvp is supposed to distribute this created renown amongst the pvp players, and eventually the person who kills the most people should end up at the top of the leaderboards. this is why pve players can’t go past 250k renown, or they would be able to accumulate as much renown as they wanted without ever getting it taken away from them (although it does softcap at 1,000,000)

it isn’t really balanced, of course, since you can accumulate far too much renown with pve, but whatever. the highest stretches of renown are not meant to be within the bounds of pve. that’s been the point since the very beginning

@GhostHecate

Because the game is not PVP focused?

sure, the game isn’t pvp focused. but it’s had a pvp mechanic in the game for as long as its existed, and so has every single game in this series. this is the first time in a decade where the pvp system in these games has been toggleable. just because the main part of the game is the story and bosses doesn’t mean that there isn’t a pvp system in this game. pvp content is side content just as much as bosses and dark sea and charting and every other form of pve is.

the developers have said, time and time again, that a route of pvp after full release would award cosmetics to make it worth pursuing. there’s even a hidden title in the game (that makes npcs tell you to take a shower) for winning a tournament.

in short, these are pvp items. that’s the point. that’s the whole reason their renown requirement is above the set limit the pvp toggle puts you at. if you really don’t want to go through the trouble to kill people for them, there are plenty of other items for your vanity.

[quinny]

how does ts happen everytime. Ngl just delete full release at this point.