What does Blood Bay bring to the table?

Would like to see a few mines make it into the blood bay scene... multi-player mines that encourages conflict over resources

 

I don't think Blood Bay adds (or will add) anything new to the game except for having large amount of space that allows for some PvE while we're killing time trying to find an opponent... which I don't believe Shardfalls can deliver on that front.

Really? Aside from the occasional dragon-farming that takes place, I feel like the island is pretty much void of any fighting... or players.

With that said, I'm really liking the place. The scene is large enough to adventure and kick some ass while still having to watch my back. The fact that it's a PvP exclusive zone reassures me that everyone present is fair game. None of that PvE-strikes-first none-sense.

There's just nothing really "PvP" about it.

Same here... but at least I got a place to hang around and hopefully, at some point, something fun will happen.

 

I'd like to see all the things that come with a pvp sandbox in my mind come about.. which is not much gameplay guided by enforced systems, just whatever people happen to come up with. That takes a # of players present though, so, any suggestions on how to make it more compelling are totally appreciated. I like the idea of mines.. and all the badness/goodness that come with that (thinking mines north of Britain). AFAIK the plan is still to have at least one big quest in BB that is still W.I.P. (the completion of which grants housing permission).

 

oh, ment the increased size of the zone looks like it can SUPPORT multiple groups. Not that i had actually seen it used other then the people checking it out upon release. * The whole.. it being 4x bigger then most zones.

 

And continuing quests, tasks, and achievements that continue to give reasons to explore the world as well please

 

factions and virtue consequences that change the aspect of all content in the sandbox

 

Blood Bay looks awesome, but the PVP player base is very diluted right now. With a dozen PVP zones, one of which is huge, and very few players pre-release to fill them, we won't see much PVP. Currently the player base is "sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread." - Bilbo Baggins

Recently I ran into a player in a Shardfall after spending an hour there, only to find out that he too had been in there over an hour before we even saw each other. And that zone isn't nearly as big as Blood Bay.

Hopefully much of the 'finding people to fight' problem will go away after 'release'. And once basic PVP mechanics are implemented, balanced, and bug free...

 

Oh my bad.

Increasing its accessibility is certainly something that can help.

What would be great to have is something to "gain" without necessarily it being a crafting material, or house or something along those lines. Some of us don't really care about crafting or houses; we just want to fight. Some sort of badge of honour, or a cool weapon/armour set... maybe pirate themed considering the location.

In my particular case, I don't need to gain anything at all. In games that aren't necessarily PvP exclusive (like this one), the things that keep me invested in PvP tend to be:

• When I have a sense of belonging to a particular group and that this group needed help defending a point. An example of this is in vanilla WoW at the Arathi Foothills; Battlegrounds didn't exist but I was in the front lines in world PvP on a daily basis. I didn't need to fill out a form to join a particular guild, I merely showed up and I was part of the team. My presence meant something.
• When I can easily jump in the action and immediately find players to fight. If there's a sign somewhere that says "Hey! There are players here and they're fighting!", it's easier for me to engage and have fun. Typical modern solutions involve some kind of matchmaking. In SotA's case, it might be something like seeing combat/population from the overworld.
• When I can deathmatch or have objective-based play, it usually keeps me around when I don't necessarily know what I want to do. In team or solo... doesn't matter. When people aren't raiding or clearing dungeons, they might go fishing or craft; it's like their "meh, I don't want to think too hard" moment. Being able to come in and having a goal set for you when you really don't feel like doing busywork... That keeps me entertained and, sometimes, those kind of moments are what makes me log in certain games.

Without any of these, I don't believe PvP has any way of perpetuating itself. While those aren't particular suggestions per say, I hope you guys will keep this in mind when designing content.

Found a guy in BloodBay after a few hours of screwing around but I had just finished killing a monster so it only took him a single shot to finish me off. Lost a good 900g on that exchange just to keep my pants on.

I'm not necessarily complaining on the loss, but by the time I found a ressurection shrine and rezzed, that player was nowhere to be found.

 

Most people I met in Blood Bay were there to explore the new scene, though my fairly cheap scrolls on public vendor did not do so well so I do not think it is heavily visited scene.

I bet most people go there for screenshots or because of the screenshots. There is so much new stuff, people come to test that has nothing to do with PvP. It is pretty cool scene with a lot of cool stuff, but nothing that actually affects PvP. The virtues of towns do not really work in any way, there is no battle of good and evil, no safety in either town regardless of your virtue or lack of it. I suspect if that is not changed most people will get tired of it fairly soon and in time will enjoy new things in PvE scenes when they became available there.

Anyway main problem as of now is that there simply is not that much players in the game and most zones are empty, though to be honest I prefer sometimes seeing someone to be constantly fighting players. I really hope that most PvP zones will end up as pretty good spots for PvE with some risk of PvP. I mean we have arenas in game for constant PvP.

 

Hi Gix, I got to apologize, I was in poor form there.
I saw someone from the Airship, so I headed towards them, by the geysers. As I saw you, I pulled weapons, jumped in the geyser and shot up, stacking spells. As I landed I unloaded a couple triple stacks, but noticed you were already half health from the mobs.
I feel bad jumping you at half health, so I'm sorry. I did give back the ransom.

I do think it would be nice to have some Rez points close by the town so it is not such a long hike to get back in the action. I would have loved to have a better fair duel and fight again. I waited around for a bit, but obviously by the time you Rezzed and got back I had moved on. Bummer, it would have been awesome for you to jump me!

Blood Bay has been alot of fun, super scene, very nice. Some Rez points by the town would be a great addition!

 

How is housing going to work in Blood Bay? When the server opens in say R39, people rush to locations or an orderly placement based on pledging???

 

Don't worry about it. I think I'd much rather you attacked than hesitated... because that makes the entire thing awkward

I can sort of understand why the shrines are spread out as they are because, in large conflicts, you wouldn't want the guy you just killed to come back into the fight immediately as it makes the death have less of an impact in group play.

Had you actually had a reason to stay near the area (as in, with the map offering an objective of some sort), I believe I would've had plenty of time to come back an exert some revenge.

I'm gonna be spending quite some time in Blood Bay if not to just serve as some sort of target in the following months.

I need to experiment with the geysers to see what's up...

 

All good suggestions and will keep them in mind. Obviously there's not pre-determined opposing factions like WoW world pvp or GW2, Anarchy Online, EQ2, Archage, DAoC etc.. People will have to make their own 'nations', but I did enjoy that type of gameplay and the best ones did have cool benefits from 'controlling' areas.

I've been thinking of rewards to propose to @Sannio (who has lots of good ideas on his own along these lines) like a special title (if that's what you meant by badge). We just worked on a change today to where boats deliver you on the island. Thanks for the feedback!

 

Shroud already has NPC 'nations' built in... Its in the siege scenes. I ran through the scene the other day and there were mercenaries defending Ardoris' gate side and the Obsidian cultists were besieging. How natural or organic could that be for ready made conflict?

Perhaps beyond the scope of getting the story done, but definitely worth consideration as far as faction tracking.

 

Did something change? Based on something Darstarr said for R37, it seemed like factions were already going to be a thing. Leaving us to our own devices is going to be funner than silly putty - but it's going to be a PK paradise kinda slugfest without consequence mechanics. Oh well.

Ref:

 

Hey dakit, I agree with a lot of your ideas, though I don't understand your focus on no mixed PvE-PvP content. Some type of PvE content at least gives players something to do if a PvP scene has nobody else in it, for starters. And I don't see why that would convince PvPers to not enter the scene. The reason Shardfalls are empty now isn't because they have mixed PvP-PvE content, but because they're pointless.

Guilds taking command of control points is something I've argued strongly for before. But to make that worthwhile, my belief is the ultimate thing is not just that there be objectives and rewards, but that the objectives and rewards have some meaning.

If that's the case, it'll not just attract people who identify as PvPers, but will also encourage PvEers to join in. The real problem is that a lot of game designers assume is that if they just offer the right rewards and bonuses, this will entice PvEers to join in. However, in reality, a primary reason why PvEers stay out of PvP is because PvEers are generally role-players, and PvP in most games has no real objective purpose. Yet, if the only incentive you're giving is marginal bonuses or meaningless titles or goodies that they could buy from a player vendor, there's still no real objective purpose -- because those are just frivolous things. It's fluff. The only way to make a fight matter is to make it have some impact on the world.

So, for example, I'm someone who doesn't normally PvP, but I would under the right circumstances. In your list, the least interesting *to me* are the combat, production, gathering bonuses. People who wouldn't otherwise PvP are going to suddenly PvP just to marginal bonuses so they can min/max their grinding activities? Not me -- that's boring. On the other hand, the most interesting is taking control of passes. However, in order for that to *be* interesting, the PvP passes need to at least be a more convenient route than the PvE passes, because otherwise its a stupid capture-the-flag game with no point to it. After all, if its just as easy to go through a PvE pass, what are you fighting over? And if we're doing that -- and you're creating an inconvenience for PvEers anyway -- so why be selective and make separate PvE and PvP passes? Each control point already has an alternate route around the gate.

What I've argued for is that in passes, the only area that would be PvP-enabled would be the gated areas, when in control by a guild. If you went around the gated area, you wouldn't even have to think about PvP. But, at the gate, you could pay a toll to the guild to pass -- not be teleported across, but be "white-flagged" so you can pass through the gated area without being open to PvP. Chris has said this technology is available to them -- like we see in basement arenas, they can have it set up so only a portion of a scene is enabled for PvP. And flagging people out of PvP would be as easy as flagging them in it.

The second thing I've argued for is to give players a way to practice PvP with their friends without real consequences. So a 'friendly duel'/'practice duel' option where the fight stops before anyone dies, and because nobody dies, players can't have items looted. When they feel they're ready, they can move on to non-friendly duels, and then they could go out and experience PvP in the wild, in PvP zones and control points. The reason I think this is important because one of the largest barriers to players entering PvP is that they're afraid to get their feet wet. They want to be sure they can hold their own before they get into a real battle -- so this would be a kind of stepping stone.

 

I took that to mean we already had the virtue system and we are not getting factions.

 

Yeah, not me - I really thought that meant there would be factions and faction stuff and faction consequences and a complex consequence mechanic that steered game content based on actions within the context of your choices in story/sandbox. Glowing red/blue isn't at all what came to mind when he said factions. But yeah, if that's what he meant - I guess I'll be shifting colors from blue to red - no point in staying blue if it doesn't mean anything - reds get all their decos for free and make a whole hell of lot more money by keeping PVP loot.

I'm bummed that I missed out on all the free crafting mats because I wanted to stay virtuous. All those red crafting grand masters... haha - jokes on blue.

 

Sorry but I could be wrong, perhaps this is a good question for the next hangout. *sighs* I didn't want to make you feel sad or perhaps you are joking lol

 

@Vas Corp Por Something that might be fun and easy to incorporate into the game is an objective lot say a city or keep size where the winners of the fight get piles of stones to build a maze or keep to protect a flag in the center. This creation is destroyed when the next group captures the flag. The groups/guilds that keep this flag get access to 1 type of obsidian potion that stacks with the ones you can buy with COTO. This would highlight some of the best functions of the game our players creativity in building things, pvp fighting, and things that are useful to all types of players.