We've got several changes to the PvP system currently in the works. I expect a new build going to QA later this week or early next week.

Some of the upcoming changes:

The plate piercer is being adjusted as its attribute bonuses are imbalanced right now.

We are capping the maximum amount of movement speed debuff that can occur. This will stop folks from stacking multiple slowing effects to make it impossible to move.

We are adding a health / damage equalizer to PvP matches. This new addition will bring the health and damage of all PvP players into a fair range for the match. For example, if you do average damage for your level then your damage will be average in PvP. The same is true for health... that is, if you have low health for your level then you will have low health in PvP. This change will make is much easier to find a match because you won't have to wait for someone near your level range to get in the queue. Think of the City of Heroes sidekick system for a good reference point on this feature.

The scoring system in PvP will be adjusted because of the new matchmaking system. The side with the most kills will win.

If a match is unbalanced (i.e. 2 vs. 1) then the side with more players will have their damage adjusted accordingly. Also, if a player leaves a match early then the remaining players will be adjusted to make the match fair again.

We are reducing the numbers received from attack speed modifiers in PvP matches. This includes increases as well as decreases.

steve

thx for the update

any word on possible changes to amend the issues of extremely low pop on the pvp server?

and is it possible to elaborate on this balancing system, im not sure i understood about average hp and average dmg...

thx!

It's our belief that low popuplation on the PvP server is caused by the long wait times for PvP matches. So, people log on to try it out, get in the queue and wait for a match. After many minutes, they bail.

So, we're automatically rebalancing PvP to make matches between players of vastly different levels playable.

This works because of how the game is designed. Let me put it in a nutshell for you:

We know what the minimum, average and maximum damage is for any player at any level. So, we know if you have low, average or high damage at any point in the game. This is also true for health -- we know if you have low, average or high health for your level. In truth, we can calculate a ratio for any attribute that tells us how close to the maximum value you are (0.0 = lowest, 1.0 = highest).

Using this information about your health and damage, we can easily "remap" your character to another level. In PvP, we're picking some arbitrary level (110 perhaps) to remap everyone in the match to. So, a level 1 would have much more health and much more damage in PvP matches. Where a level 100 player would get a tiny boost to bring them up to PvP quality.

However, a level 100 using rank 1 firebolt would be doing very low damage -- because the required level for rank 1 firebolt is very low level. That makes it do "low" damage for a level 100. Those relative power differences are reflected in all PvP matches. You must use skills and equipment that are appropriate for your level to get maximum benefit in PvP matches.

Now, it's important to note that having higher level characters is still an advantage in this sytem. Higher level players have access to more equipment and skills, making them more flexible on the battlefield. Also, remember that your skills upgrade in a staggered way -- meaning that they are more useful when first purchased and get weaker relative to the monsters as you level until you rank them up again. So, gaining levels will help you keep your skill damage up to snuff.

Beyond rebalancing everyone to a PvP level, we are also changing how unbalanced group matches play out. For example, during a 5 vs 1 match the players on the 5-man team will have their damage multiplied by 1/5. During a 5 vs. 5 match, all damage remains at the rebalanced level. You see? We take the ratio of players on each side and use it to reduce the damage on the side with more players. It keeps things playable.

We're also providing a new stacking resistance to knockback effects. Each time a player is knockbacked or stunned, they gain 5% resistance to stun for 30 seconds. Multiple stun effects within the 30 seconds will cause the resistance to raise 5% and the 30 seconds to restart. So, if you are outnumbered 5 to 1, and all the opponents are hitting you with holy roller and shadow word smackdown then you'd quickly gain near immunity to those effects. This resistance lasts between deaths.

Finally, we're also making sure that successfully resisting a magical attack will stop the effects as well as the damage done. So, no more getting slowed by ice bolt if you resisted the damage. The same is true for other skills like smackdown and holy roller. Resisting various magic types will be more useful.

This rebalancing should make the PvP matches more fair and much quicker to get into. That, we feel, will bring a lot more attention to the PvP world. Get in for a quick match and get out. No waiting...

steve

But... But...... B...
Its just not fair to nerf the plate piercer, now its going to be a poo weapon... and.. It looks so cool but now its getting worse I wont wear it anymore... Can we have some minigun?.. In return for the sacrifise?

About the pvp, it sounds pretty good. Still need to work out some new good build for it, because normally I suck at pvp. Btw.. about the new skills for the next patch... will come multiple good pve ones? IMO the first/second priority now is a bunch, a big bunch of new skills, will make pvp and pve much more fun and also under the level 100's it solves the boring.. thingy.

I chat far to much..
/nick Mr.Talkalot
LR

What's wrong with the Plate Piercer? It's a good bow ...

I guess my question on the plate piercer is if it is getting "rebalanced" across the game or only in PVP?

thx Stephen, that helped clear it up 100%...i htink this is an excellent idea.

i really hope it works and gets more ppl on the pvp server...however i htink that part of the problem in the small pop is 2 things aside from the limited ppl to have matches with...

1)logging into the server (i know its not major, but if u wana 3v3 that means u and 2 buddies gotta log out then in etc)
2) nuthing else to do should u have to wait (say ur in a 5 man team, id assume this grping is less likely than a 1/2/3 man team

in ne case glad to see u guys are proactivly working on it, imo u guys make wow devs look like monkeys with computers, u listen to ur customer base and u actually fix things

thx

We even can design the devs their avatar woohoo!
About the pvp servers/pve servers, look at the suggestions thread for more information, its discussed more.

wtb t3 ti'eff

i know legend, 1 of the posts there is mine...but there is a dev here :P

While I applaud this attempt at balanceing pvp in truth its an unbalanced system. You pretty much are stuck with certain archtypes to be successful in pvp. A fighter has alot of trouble with rangers and mages normally simply because they really cant keep up with them. There is also the issue of most people simply dont want to play pvp. If they did ncsoft has a more pvp oriented game in Guildwars. I think you'll find that even with these fixes you'll find that pvp server participation to be seriously lacking in players. Don't get me wrong its a step in the right direction but until its more balanced I dont see many people giving it a try. Especially figher archtypes with little way to faily defeating mages or rangers. Yes I play a fighter.

Evening teams when someone leaves early- That's wonderful! Thanks a bunch!

One of the things I noticed in PvP is initially once you have secured your new target [enemy] and you find out what they use to attack etc...to counteract you then rebuff if you have been regenerated and by the time you have your resistance up..the battle is over..time out finito..so is there any way to increase the turn around time of buffs within PvP..just my two pence worth

personally i think that b4 the match starts (while locked in ur start area) you should be able to change around your skills ne way u like with no cooldown applied.

**edit: and of course ne buff that has its button removed from u bar should disapear**

once the match starts i think ur bar should be locked for the duration of the match.

Edited by Pewpu (09/14/07 01:02 PM)

Is there any posibility to merge the pvp world into all pve servers? I'm sure it will bring much more ppl to pvp.
Also a clan system will make pvps better.

nty to a clan or guild system, i only foresee trouble with that...and as for the merging of pvp and pve servers it isnt on the horrizon.

stephen posted a list of upcomming changes to the pvp system to try and fix the lack of ppl available to the queue...i hope this fixes things, if it does than servers dunt need to be merged, but imo i think that the best fix would be mergeing...however im content with ne fix that allowsme to pvp more than once every 30 mins

i consider myself die hard pvper...but i left wow for this game even tho wow offers much more pvp content.

i was playing this game and quitting wow b4 pvp was offered in dr. i love the way this game offers fast pace, feel like a god, swing/shoot/cast or die gameplay.

however they added pvp and i do find myself sometimes a lil bored of running the same dungeon or farming the same boss and so i go over to the pvp server and see that 8 ppl are logged into it (or like last night 1, which turned out to be only me when i logged in, i figured itd be that lvl 100 fighter type guy always on...)

and i feel like the lack of ppl on the pvp server has little to do with lack of intrest in pvp itself and more to do with lack of wanting to stand around indefinitly to do pvp.

even 40-50 ppl is a small pool of ppl to pull a fair match from, the devs are making it so that the entire grp matches each other thus making a positive match of all 50 ppl instead of maybe 2/50 ppl matching. hopefully this resolves the issue without comprimiseing pvp itself

i think the problem is that ppl ARE more intrested in lvling/lewt/pve than spending 30-60mins to get into a 7min match that might not be balanced...NOT that they are more intrested in pve than pvp...if they could get into matches back to back to back they might find it resonable to leave pve for 30 mins or so and pvp a bit

Edited by Pewpu (09/14/07 05:21 PM)

Honestly if they really wanted pvp there is lineage 2 and guildwars to play. Most people want to blow 15 minutes on a game and then be done. PvP is seriously stressful and makes more problems than it fixes for alot of us. I think wasteing precious time working on pvp is bad for bussiness when the game needs so much more added to the pve content. Even as a fighter I know of maybe 3 skills I'd use and they are all self buffs and the poison cloud. As a mage there is maybe 1-2 attacks viable to each person and a few aoe's one being a ranger attack not a mage one. My biggest beef is I'm paying money to help DR develop and I'm not getting enough content added to justify my money that I am interested in. That might sound selfish but you have to consider I'm not going to keep paying unless I am happy. I could care less about joe smoe down the road who loves pvp getting new content if I am not happy myself.

sir william, thats like saying ur not gonna pay taxes bc some of the money helps take care of things u dunt care about and not only what u like...did u ever consider that there must have been enuff ppl that DO like pvp that the devs added it?

also i think the devs are doin an excellent job of adding content at a pace that doesnt ruin the game (ie new skill skills added last patch, some real fixes to things like aoe, etc)

i am sure that the devs intend to release patches in the future that offer more content and features (like the upcomming patch that will have tradeing), for both pvp and pve.

u have to keep in mind this game started purely as pve, they had time to refine and add to that, pvp has been out for 1 release (month or 2?) and still needs to be refined and worked on so that it is fair and balanced.

also, to say that u will stop playing bc of x,y,z is fine...did u ever consider that maybe ur ideas of how the game should be are the minority? i mean i have reasons i would stop paying/playing this game too, but im not posting them on the forums like its a threat. the devs are doin an excellent job of meeting the majority of thier customer bases demands and wants, unlike say WoW that only caters to say the top 5% of thier gamers.

I think d2 pvp was popular due to the skills that it had, each one was very unique and required skill to use successfully.

Also all the characters had very fast response time and a smaller hitbox so it was easier to dodge and harder to aim. The matches were also usually very short.

All in all it had more of an fps type feel to it with more emphasis on player skill than gear or skill builds.

Edited by tappa (10/08/07 04:51 PM)

The main reason I dont pvp and the people I play with dont pvp is because you have to be lucky at higher lvls to find someone your lvl. I love to pvp, but its no fun if its an easy win against lowbies. At lvl 50 I wish i could take on 4 lvl 25s instead of 2. As for the unbalaced abilities of the different specs, its not as unbalaced as most people say in pvp.