I honor my dishonor and attack EverQuest II’s pvp ruleset

Player versus Player, love it or hate, it exists in some form in most mmorpgs. From battling an opponent of the opposite faction to the death or competing with a friendly foe at an auction house by undercutting their prices player versus player can be a very engaging playing experience in a variety of fashions.

I believe the ass kickery label should be rephrased to Player versus Player versus Boundaries versus Developers versus Versuses. Why? Because it’s a far more accurate description behind the different aspects too take into account on what helps form the generalization that is player versus player. On second though, fuck that, way too long.

Before Everquest 2 launched onto desktops SOE had already outright dismissed pvp servers infuriating a portion of their playerbase. Times have changed, well not the times where SOE occasionally infuriates portions of their playerbase unleashing fury from above with golden showers, but the time for EQ2’s pvp game to evolve from the half-assed implementation with casual dueling arenas too introducing a full-fledged astonishing half-assed implementation pvp ruleset! Progress!

You can read the patch schematics that are currently being drawn out in Lucan’s chamber. As game producing maestro Scott Hartsman, aka Gallenite would have it put, the player versus player versus afk schematics are in the testing stages and not certainly scribed in stone as of yet. Too that my minds naturally responds, hasn’t Everquest 2 been in beta for the last 4 years? What an insidious stab, but yet such insight is still a dandy toid among factoids.

At first gander I’m not overly impressed with the proposed ruleset, some concepts I think are fine and others I don’t. No player versus player system is foolproof and the surface Everquest 2 player versus player system seems extremely derivative, cut-copy-paste and bluntly trite. Alas, I’m going to give some feedback no one could give a shit about and offer a few alternatives that I’d prefer.

Strongest Disapproval:

Dishonorable Kills: Any kill of the opposing alignment that was first engaged while the target had less than 50% health. Dishonorable kills result in a loss of faction with both your alignment and the opposing alignment. Losing enough faction will cause you to fall out of favor with your alignment, and will restrict or remove any access to the rewards system.

50% is fucking ridiculous, it should be 25%. 50% is too high.

Strongest Approval:

Taunts and Hate Reduction

Taunts have the ability to change players’ targets in PvP. They can also keep targets focused on the taunter for short durations of time. Spells that reduce hostile hate or lower your position on a creature’s hate list can force players to completely lose their target. Examples would include a Scout’s Evade or Templar’s Placate.

Excellent. This is fucking fantastic and I’m completely blown away. I’ve wanted too see these concepts implemented in World of Warcraft for over a year now. Is it enough to get me to subscribe to Everquest 2 and play on a pvp server? No, but this is great for those players who do.

A Further gander into the Ruleset /tinfoil hatz\

Pvp Rules

Players under level 10 are protected from and cannot initiate PvP combat. While some players will be ready to have at it swords a-swingin’ and spells a-flyin’ from the get-go, others will need to familiarize themselves with their character a bit before joining the fight.

For the opposing alignment, players’ names will have a red outline indicating that they are a valid hostile target. Any players +/- up to 8 levels are valid targets, and their names will appear as a color based on the level difference:

• Green: 5-8 levels below you.
• Blue: 1-4 levels below you.
• White: Even level.
• Yellow: 1-4 levels above you.
• Orange: 5-8 levels above you.
• Player names more than 8 levels below will appear grey, and non-aggro.
• Player names more than 8 levels above you will appear red, and non-aggro.
• You cannot attack any player that cons grey unless they attack you first.

Forced limitations and policing is what this specific mechanic accomplishes… For me, personally I find this mechanic to be restrictive. The mentoring system will help level the battle field but the boundary remains and hinders player choice. I get the impression the developers are trying to strive for what they deem to be a fair middle ground between a controlled environment versus an all out chaotic bedlam. I would prefer to leave the tags above in and instead go with a hybrid system that grants a bit more freedom and leaves room for the players to make their own choices instead of leaving them with none.

If a player attacks someone who is more than 8 levels below them they will receive a “vulnerable” flag. When a player is flagged vulnerable any other player regardless of level may engage the vulnerable player in combat and occur no vulnerable penalty in doing so.

If the lower level player engages in combat the higher level player will not be flagged vulnerable.

If a vulnerable player is killed the penalty aside from standard experience loss and also include coin on person have a random chance at dropping one item. (Item loss is negotiable, I don’t play Everquest 2, so I need to have a better idea on their itemization before making a final decision) Perhaps the item loss could be specified for flagged pvp items only.

Players engaging in pvp who are in the level ranges of less than 8 levels above or below will occur no vulnerable penalty.

Players may work off their vulnerability by killing monsters and or other players in their own level range.

Players who are vulnerable are worth more pvp points.

Players who are vulnerable can be tracked by certain classes.

Players who remain vulnerable for a certain amount of time will be placed on a bounty system.

Basically, with the vulnerable system there is a safeguard, but there is still a sense of danger and both players on each end at least have more choices.

Communication and Interaction

On EverQuest II PvP-ruleset servers, there is a distinct language barrier between citizens of Qeynos and citizens of Freeport . All players aligned with Qeynos will speak Antonican, and all players aligned with Freeport will speak Lucanic. This means that members of opposing cities cannot understand each other’s language.

Regardless of the language you choose to speak in—be it draconic, oggish, or otherwise—members of the opposing city will be unable to understand what you communicate in /say. Similarly, anything said in /auction, /ooc, and /shout channels will only be seen by members of the same alignment (good, evil, betraying).

Things you CAN NOT do across alignments:

• Group with members outside of your alignment
• Join a guild that is not of your alignment
• Send /tells to characters not of your alignment
• View /auction, /ooc, /shout from characters of another alignment
• Join chat channels created by characters of another alignment
• View members of another alignment in the zone with /who
• Send mail via the Norrathian Express
• Trade items or coin
• /duelbet (/duel still functions)

More barriers propelled between the two factions, most listed I agree with for obvious reasons. Cross faction communication is a hotly debated topic among various pvp rulesets. Dark Age of Camelot limits cross faction communication and it certainly enhances the immersion of their realm versus realm battle. In other mmorpgs like the original Everquest, there was no communication restriction between factions, both options have their pros and cons.

I was a lowly guide on Vallon Zek for several years and the amount of shit talking and verbal harassment was ubiquitously pandemic. It’s a waste of CS resources having to continously moderate the playerbase. The best two solutions are no cross faction communication and or no customer service presence at all so I could see why SOE would go with the former considering they may possiblly want to help alleviate the need for GM intervention.

Many foozles enjoy venting and shit talking amogst their peers and in most cases it will go unreported, afterall pvp players do tend to have more of a callous skin than non pvp players. I enjoy the occasional vulgar arsenal if it’s kept at a minimum and done in more of a duel of wits instead of blatant vulgar tourettes. When the verbal exchanges are ubiquitous it gets tiresome and my ignore list ends up filling up ten times faster than my friends list.

For this particular ruleset I would rather implement a middle ground, guild leaders could set the option for their guild, two options being tells or ooc. Enabling this option would cost the guild pvp points.

Cross faction communication may also be done via the say channel, although players should have the option to toggle it off completely.

Death and Rewards

Currently, deaths from PvP kills will result in moderate experience debt. You will not receive any armor damage. *Note* If you are on any creature’s hate list at the time of your PvP death, you will take normal PvE death penalties.

Rewards for engaging in and triumphantly winning a PvP conflict vary depending on how the kill took place. Rewards and definitions for kill types follow.

Honorable Kills: Any kill of the opposing alignment that was first engaged while the target had greater than 80% health. The first group or player that engaged will receive experience, status, and faction.

Neutral Kills: Any kill of the opposing alignment that was first engaged while the target had greater than 50% health. Neutral kills result in moderate faction gain, but do not reward experience or status.

Dishonorable Kills: Any kill of the opposing alignment that was first engaged while the target had less than 50% health. Dishonorable kills result in a loss of faction with both your alignment and the opposing alignment. Losing enough faction will cause you to fall out of favor with your alignment, and will restrict or remove any access to the rewards system.

The Kill List: Honorably killing another player will place them on a list tied to your character, designed to reduce friend farming and griefing. Any Honorable subsequent kill of the same player will result in a neutral kill until you have killed 10 other players. Neutral and Dishonorable kills have no effect on the list.

On paper this is confusing and can induce brain rot, a lot of different scenarios come into question, and as I said earlier engaging an opponent lower than 50% hitpoints would earn the player a dishonorable kill is my strongest dislike.

Final thoughts, it is a shame SOE is wasting one pvp server and going with the same ruleset with the addenum of the Station Exchange player salary versus player salary ruleset. Maybe a lot of players will congregate to that type of server, but a ffa pvp server would probably garnish SOE more subscriptions over a longer period of time. Next week I will propose some other additions to EQ2’s pvp ruleset that would in theory help foster the factions at large and enchance wide scale battles between the two factions.