Is PVP really accessible for all players? Few suggestions.

[strangerism]

well no, In AoC pvp there has never been a balance or fairness and I don't think it was meant to be. In my opinion this mmo pvp open world is all about tipping the balance, one moment you are being overwhelmed and the next you jump corpse-ing your opponents thanks to grouping and on the spot alliances. It's where the fun is, in enjoying the moment where you prevail the odds even if it is short lived. That is my opinion.

[Ernests]

Give 10.PvP armor and full T6 set to all and on all toons. Then look how many people will be lost interest about game just after a month...

[Rathothis]

well no, In AoC pvp there has never been a balance or fairness and I don't think it was meant to be. In my opinion this mmo pvp open world is all about tipping the balance, one moment you are being overwhelmed and the next you jump corpse-ing your opponents thanks to grouping and on the spot alliances. It's where the fun is, in enjoying the moment where you prevail the odds even if it is short lived. That is my opinion.

Give 10.PvP armor and full T6 set to all and on all toons. Then look how many people will be lost interest about game just after a month...

Well there are successful MMOs (like GW2 and even WoW) which go for "balanced" / "fair" PvP, at least in terms of gear (of course any RPG will always have FotM abilities / classes etc). AoC initially was like that as well, since there was hardly any "endgame gear" to speak of, and no AA. The major change to this came with Bori (gear) and RotGS (AA).

The real question is, which approach is more attractive to players? Little to no vertical power progression, as in GW2/WoW/original AoC, or the grinders' paradise which we inherited from Craig Morrison? I for one have a very clear opinion on this, and it happens to be backed up both by the history of AoC (where Bori made PvPers leave in droves), and by what successful MMOs are doing.

EDIT: I don't think the fact that AoC has no factions or meaningful consequence system for world PvP means that any additional imbalance (e.g. gear, AA) will be accepted by the player base. And even if that were the case, you could have PvP systems with vertical power progression (e.g. open world), and others without (e.g. "Unchained" minis with normalized gear, as FC were contemplating some time ago). But this discussion is moot - world PvP is dead and will remain dead given the game's population.

[Ernests]

If five years would have no update for new aims in PvE, then PvE would have been dead also

[strangerism]

Well there are successful MMOs (like GW2 and even WoW) which go for "balanced" / "fair" PvP, at least in terms of gear (of course any RPG will always have FotM abilities / classes etc). AoC initially was like that as well, since there was hardly any "endgame gear" to speak of, and no AA. The major change to this came with Bori (gear) and RotGS (AA).

The real question is, which approach is more attractive to players? Little to no vertical power progression, as in GW2/WoW/original AoC, or the grinders' paradise which we inherited from Craig Morrison? I for one have a very clear opinion on this, and it happens to be backed up both by the history of AoC (where Bori made PvPers leave in droves), and by what successful MMOs are doing.

EDIT: I don't think the fact that AoC has no factions or meaningful consequence system for world PvP means that any additional imbalance (e.g. gear, AA) will be accepted by the player base. And even if that were the case, you could have PvP systems with vertical power progression (e.g. open world), and others without (e.g. "Unchained" minis with normalized gear, as FC were contemplating some time ago). But this discussion is moot - world PvP is dead and will remain dead given the game's population.

The only reason I always return to play this game is pvp and it's combat style, unique in the genre, and that seems to be the driver (attraction) in my opinion.

It is difficult to make a point in discussing why certain game is more successful than the others and bringing comparison here as it could fix something, there might be several reasons unbeknownst to us. My personal experience with long progression games that also applies to AoC is that, no matter what, I get bored of playing the same game over and over, the novelty ends at some point and I have to stop. It would be the same for any other game.

Also I don't think Bori made pvp'er leave, it's just the common narrative, maybe many people left because they got tired to play it due to probably not many updates or probably the lack of sandbox elements that seems to attract a sophisticated crowd which goes in par with this game anyway (lets not forget WOW had a totally different demographic). Why new players stopped flooding the playfields? Well who knows probably underwhelming marketing or some other reasons. In my opinion the game pvp it is hard to master so few stuck at the end. In the open world server like Fury, pvp requires not only game skills but also social ones, alone your are free prey and without friends to back you, you will be ganked. That is also something to put into account on why many didn't had a so called "balanced" experience.

I think RoTGS was a nice expansion honestly, apart from the excellent pve content which none can dispute, the AA horizontal progression was better than the usual level cap raise, not splitting the player base and make it so we all have to rush at the next level cap and find ourselves exactly at where we started. Isn't that pointless? The AA grinding, surely, rewards players who stick to the game in the long term, and what is wrong in that? Despite, even a maxed out AA pvp lv10 can be killed by a couple of f2p toon with little AA who knows how to play. The same could be the opposite, that maxed out AA pvp lv10 can crush 3 hopeless players by himself. It's fair game to me. Also I am not here defending my AA grind, as I am playing f2p with a new toon just to be clear.

Objectively I don't see the current state of the game that bad or inaccessible for a new player who wants to enjoy pvp, if he is mesmerized by the way this game combat plays out he has lots to learn and master, a decent progression curve in terms of gear and AA to look for in the long term with a little let down of the gear part which in my opinion is bland, giving only fixed stats boots instead of enhancing different styles of approach to combat or roles in teams.

What is missing is new players unfortunately, but that goes for both pve and pvp, maybe if Funcoms decide to open all kithai playfields to f2p players this might change because as it is now the meager playerbase (f2p and prem) is split from the start which is never a good thing and one or the other is destined to rot isolated in their respective endgame world, the f2p crowd in Stigia while the premium one in Kithai.

Peace, no wait I mean, War and long live Conan.

[Rathothis]

Also I don't think Bori made pvp'er leave, it's just the common narrative, maybe many people left because they got tired to play it due to probably not many updates or probably the lack of sandbox elements that seems to attract a sophisticated crowd which goes in par with this game anyway (lets not forget WOW had a totally different demographic). Why new players stopped flooding the playfields? Well who knows probably underwhelming marketing or some other reasons. In my opinion the game pvp it is hard to master so few stuck at the end.

Hard to disagree with the assessment that there were a lot of factors which contributed to AoC not becoming the "WOW-killer". As to Bori, I suppose it also failed because expectations were sky-high, given Mr Morrison's focus on PvE in previous updates. But even leaving these expectations aside, it was just poorly designed content.

But your point regarding demographics is important. AoC clearly has a more mature (in terms of age, not always in terms conduct) audience than the WOW crowd. I've always thought that, given this difference in player demographics, Mr Morrison's decision to add a lot of time sink elements was strange. After all, your average high school kid has more time to waste than your average working man / woman. But maybe that's just me.

One other reason to bear in mind: AoC's sandboxy FFA world PvP model relied to a large extent on player-made "content", in particular guild rivalries. But leading a serious PvP guild is a big time investment, and one that most people are only willing to make for a limited period of time, before they move on to greener pastures (new games, new jobs, new wives, husbands and children). I think one of the lessons to learn from this is that devs should not rely too much on players making their own game, even in a "sandbox" environment.

[Ernests]

Rathothis, I don't know how large experience you have of playing AoC. But really since 2008 I have been in several guilds. And ALWAYS I see one and the same. When people have the highest level of equipment, they lose interest and enthusiasm. Typically, there are two options: 1) either their online become weaker and weaker until they disappear from the game completely; 2) either they begin to develop of new alts. Such behaviour have the majority of players. And, unfortunately, PVP is no exception. Here happens exactly the same. Almost all the time I've played in PvP oriented guilds and on PvP server. Only with the last transfer I moved on Crom. And over the years I've lost many friends, who left the game because all has reached. Yes, and most of them were PvP-rs. However as you can see I was stay.

Sadly, but players that do not lose interest after all is reached is a m-i-n-o-r-i-t-y. Yes, I know the full T4/T5 players, who are ready to do Enigmata of Yag a hundred for the first time. Yes, I know the full T3 PvP players that in the last five years was completed 3000-5000 minis and still continue to do it. It seems that you are one of them. Need to understand that these are exceptions, rather than the usual cases. Maybe you play another game, if you don't see what is really happening in front of you... May I ask what is your guild?

[Rathothis]

Rathothis, I don't know how large experience you have of playing AoC. But really since 2008 I have been in several guilds. And ALWAYS I see one and the same. When people have the highest level of equipment, they lose interest and enthusiasm. Typically, there are two options: 1) either their online become weaker and weaker until they disappear from the game completely; 2) either they begin to develop of new alts. Such behaviour have the majority of players. And, unfortunately, PVP is no exception. Here happens exactly the same. Almost all the time I've played in PvP oriented guilds and on PvP server. Only with the last transfer I moved on Crom. And over the years I've lost many friends, who left the game because all has reached. Yes, and most of them were PvP-rs. However as you can see I was stay.

Sadly, but players that do not lose interest after all is reached is a m-i-n-o-r-i-t-y. Yes, I know the full T4/T5 players, who are ready to do Enigmata of Yag a hundred for the first time. Yes, I know the full T3 PvP players that in the last five years was completed 3000-5000 minis and still continue to do it. It seems that you are one of them. Need to understand that these are exceptions, rather than the usual cases. Maybe you play another game, if you don't see what is really happening in front of you... May I ask what is your guild?

I don't think this is about me, but here you go. The answer is simple - played AoC since 2009, but my guild has been dead for a while. I've been invited to apply to some other guilds, but as I no longer have enough time to seriously raid or PvP, I stick to my old guild tag. Currently I mostly play late-night minigames. It's easy to spot me since my ingame name is the same as on the forums. I never see you there, but maybe you PvP at other times of the day.

As to the importance of the "gear factor" for player motivation in PvP: Remember PvP prior to Bori, and how there were no gear incentives back then? Of course there were people who quit the game then as well, but it did not get any better when the gear grind was introduced. Sure people were keen on Bori for a month or two, but that was followed by a big exodus of players who were disappointed with it. Also, as I pointed out before, there are examples of successful MMOs with little to no gear grind, so clearly vertical power progression is not the only way for MMOs to retain a PvP player base.

What would do much more for player motivation would be to allow players to sign up for minigames in teams again. MMOs are a social activity, players who are into lone wolf gear grinding are better off in Diablo anyway.

[AggroMagnet]

To the original question of this thread, no it is not really accessible for all players.

I have said this before, but ill just repeat myself once more :

-give full T1 PvP set at PvP0.
-get rid/reduce to 1-2 hours max the cooldown on minigame quests.
-keep sag rewards as they are, make all other minis give 2 tokens per win/1 token if you loose.
-reduce PvP level requirements for T2 PvP set.
-reduce PvP level requirements for T3 PvP set.
-greatly increase amount of Prowess given per minigame win, give 50% of that amount to the team that lost too.
-greatly increase rewards for PvP festival quests for participation, dont give everything only to those who win events (keep rewards for the winners as they are).
-give a significant amount of Expertise AA points each time you gain a level in PVP.

And ofcourse let us sign up in minis with 1 more friend.

[slackjoint]

I take a look into my crystal ball and foretell you that again it wont change anything .

As AoC player you basically have 2 options :

1) Accept the game as it is now and see it as "finished"

2) Move to a game that gets regular updates and has a decent company behind