Player Vs Player (PvP)

Some love it, some hate it. It is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but we would love to read your comments, ideas, concerns or anything else you may have to say in regards to PvP.

Shoot away!

It just needs to be balanced somehow so either lower-level players aren't being tossed in with top players and getting curbstomped, or somehow altering units in the fight to make it even when it does happen. Mercs don't seem to cut it.

The Dave wrote:

It just needs to be balanced somehow so either lower-level players aren't being tossed in with top players and getting curbstomped, or somehow altering units in the fight to make it even when it does happen. Mercs don't seem to cut it.

In the next 1-2 updates you will see significant changes to the AP (Army Points) system.

We have increased the AP for Heavy Infantries, Cavalries and Artillery.

We also added AP to Heroes, which will increase as the Hero is leveling up.

Weapon and Armor techs will also add to the AP value of a unit/hero.

Finally, AP will also be added to the items. Depending on the type, weight and number of bonuses an item gives, it will have a certain value of AP.

With the above changes the matchmaking will be a lot more clear and provide balanced matches.

The trouble with statistical balancing I've seen in every single game is, even though it looks to promote strategy on paper, what it actually does is streamline the game to the point of no deviation. Let me explain with an exaggerated example.
You've figure out that not equipping a hero to the army at all reduces a light infantry AP value by half then further only equipping a godlike weapon makes them deadly flankers while also allowing them to be matched against complete "newbs" who are using the exact opposite configuration.

Most commonly in the past I've seen the above happen to any equation based matchmaking where in the end there are extremely few viable combinations and the rest are people who don't know the fixed " tactics"(they haven't yet been horribly mulled by one such combination).

All criticism aside i do have 2 ideas.

Instead of focusing on a mathematically balanced system balance the players by their battle ratio (recommended to be pvp win/loss and also be modestly influenced by average pvp unit kill/death ratio). This would be a much better solution in the long run as the balance of strength will quickly sort itself doing your high effort AP balancing for you with no real effort at all while also giving the people who bothered to buy some of that real cash expensive c*** their moment to shine (ohoho! bias alert...).

Secondly and more importantly this is an online game encourage player's to interact (pvp and tea-bagging ofc) by making pvp the preferred choice this can be done in 3 easy steps:

1. raise pvp kill xp ratio higher than pvm (x1.2 sounds reasonable 1.05 - 1.1 would probably still be viable mid to late game) <- especially making people aware of such a feature~
   
2. death penalty is a strong reason why loosing pvp once is the reason why most people will not try again, even if they wanted too. Face it people that win a pvp battle will, in 80% (b****** figure) only loose a small fraction of their over all troops, i know i do . But i digress what I'm trying to get across is cap the max actual casualties after the battle at a modest 60% of units/heroes total troop/hp? As well as remove any troop death penalty against a player. Cuz u know~ if u die fighting an inanimate object you need a slap... so a loss of xp vs a bot is well warranted.
   
3. stop being a show boat, get rid of the % win ratio display it just gives people an excuse to be negative opposed to adventurous!(keep the pvm one, seems to be doing a good job warding off leavers, just have it track last 20 odd battles for the perfectionists chasing 100% with net issues~ i r ranty..)

Soz about the long post folks, and pardon any anglis/ grAmmAr mistakes, its not even a second language heh.

soviet wrote:

just have it track last 20 odd battles for the perfectionists chasing 100% with net issues~ i r ranty..

I aggree here.

About the 2nd idea I would do it a bit differently. Instant heal of all units/heroes entering pvp (that's when you have found an opponent, not just enter the queue).
I find myself many times thinking of joining but my heroes health keeps me back. And NO, gems will not do the job.

First, great game. This is the first game I found that deals with the ultimate question of good and evil. Great theme.

Back to the topic of PvP, I think it should be changed because it can be easily abused and it is quite unfair. First, it can be abused because someone can just have their buddies join the opposite faction and make deals with him/her. "I'll win one and you win one," they might say. Or, that player can create another BC account using a different IP address and, with the rewards from PvP so high, just farm from that account.

The rewards from PvP is too high. It encourages other players to cheat the system to get the rewards. I only have one account (light elf) and I don't plan to cheat but it can be very tempting for other players. I want to suggest that BC rewards the players not just on who wins the battle but also on battle casualties. Both winner and loser, as long as they deal damage, will walk away with something. but the winner also gets a bonus. That way, ethical players will be more prone to go on PvP because they know they don't have to wait until they get rare items, max until levels, etc, before they can test the waters.

Second, I do think the AP system for PvP is unfair. This game values quality more over quantity. It doesn't really matter if a player is fighting 2v1 or 3v1. If the player's unit has epic or godlike items, it will win, assuming that player is competent. To make it really fair, the units for PvP should be all computer-generated. Players will simply choose how much AP they are willing to fight with and the computer will randomly generate units to match both player's unit AP. But that will take away the item-aspect of the game so I doubt it will work.

I really enjoy playing this game but I want to give some helpful criticism to better this game.

I didnt realize you could intentionally pvp an enemy, i thought no matter where you qued on the map it would pit you against someone else at random.

I've only done like 4 PVP's, all 1v1's. The first two i was so outmatched the game gave me mercenaries. ELVEN mercenaries. Ugh... Anyways apparently ungeared rank 1 troops are worthless.. I had 5 squads total with them, but so did the enemy, plus he had archers. Depending on the size of the army, archers can be good or bad. If its 2 infantry and 1 archer, vs 3 infantry its bad, 2 infantry cant guard the archers.

But after that, you'll generally get the most effectiveness out of them. Actually, let me talk about that battle.

My enemy was undead, he had 1 archer and 4 lights, he bunched them up all behind a tower, they were so bunched up all 5 Banners were touching in the center of the mass. So naturally i sent troops around both sides of the tower, and basically wrapped around his deathball (STARCRAFT REFERENCES) but this did not win me any flank bonuses, his troops were still all higher rank, probably better heroes.

I think, but i could be wrong about this, a major issue is that AP does not take into account your level of research tech. Does it? If i've researched +6 melee and +6 armor, does my ap cost go up? If not, even if your AP is equal, your enemy could drastically outmatch you.

Next, i fought another Undead. He had 3 lights and one heavy. I brought 3 lights and the game gave me 2 human archers. They won the battle for me, easily, since after all my infantry and his infantry were dead, i could kite the heavies forever, and i did.

Finally with my 3 light infantry i got into a match with an Orc, and his 3 light infantry. He had 1 rank higher guys but because of my racial ability i won, not much tactics to do when you both have 3 units, we danced around but no one would open up a flank, i finally found a favorable engagement that had one of his squads not in combat for 6-7 seconds which helped. Still when i went into that game i thought "i have a huge advantage, i should win, if i dont, i suck" and when i won i blame that melee bonus, and i let the orc know "stupid racial huh?"
rock paper scissors stuff is almost as bad as RNG ) should be avoided where possible.

I'd so much prefer +5/10/15 melee vs all =\

Good posts all.

We are aware of the problem with PVP. All sides of it.

We are not happy with either the matchmaking or the fact that PVP can be exploited...in a way.

To make a long story short, we should have some changes in APs tomorrow which should help in having more balanced matchups. Also, we will probably drop the idea of Mercenaries joining a player's army, as they really don't provide any weight to that army to compensate for the difference in APs.

Let's see how it will go tomorrow.

Great battles Khor!

Pressing Short Term Concerns:

To a large degree, the ease of exploitation diminishes rapidly with more players in the matchmaking queue. That would also resolve a lot of the imbalances and make PvP more epic if they are mostly 3v3 battles.

To this end, dramatically reducing the XP losses in PvP would help encourage more PvPers. In a lot of non-competitive PvP, there are little to no penalties for PvPing.

AP valuations definitely need to be re-eval'd, but the devs are already working on that. Right now certain things scale in power a lot faster than they scale in AP (items).

Long term suggestion -- More game modes than simple death matches.

• Objective Based Mode - Domination: Where there are 3 capture nodes on the map that are well placed and can be captured back and forth by either side after having the most units within X distance from the capture point. Holding any of these capture nodes increases points until the points reach a win condition.
  
• Objective Based Mode - Conquer/Hold Out: One side holds multiple capture points at the start of the game and the other team has to try and take them all before a timer runs out.
  
• Many more objective based gameplay. Lots of games use them, so inspiration will not be lacking.
  
• MVP can be awarded based on Objective points as well as kills/losses.
  

Different PvP modes will split the pool of PvPers in queue, so the first thing is definitely to get more people PvPing.

Overall, these objective based maps give the designers a lot more control on what types of tactics will be used. Some objectives will favor sturdy units that can hold the ground no matter what. Other objectives will favor long ranged barrages, while others still will favor initiative or just sheer numbers.

It opens the door to an amazing layer of metagaming and really deepens the possibilities for teamwork based tactics. Both are huge benefits to the endgame.

It also opens up new balance issues, like say if your races top speed is 13 and you're competing over objective capturing. (cant wait to see the speed on the Berserkers)

On the other hand, slower units, being tankier, can hold an objective better, so it could depend on how many objectives are on the map. Specific game modes might lend themselves more to specific units which are better used by specific races. Requiring 1 of each race for a 3v3 could make it fun though, that way each side of faction has speedy units. Kind of gives you a role.

Been a lot of these styles of games lately, i did a lot of it in Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter and End of Nations beta, i love the tanky defensive style for holding a point.

Update. Ok i just did another PvP match, que'd up my three beefiest Light Infantry. Got pitted against an Orc with 3 LI and an archer squad, so the game gave me a human archer squad.
Now this is where it gets interesting/buggy. He was hiding his troops behind a canyon with 2 on one end, 1 on the other, and archers in the middle. I sent all my troops to the side with 2 people which prompted him to try and flank me with the 3rd squad which is a mistake i've seen a few times, trying to go around an object left his 2 LI to fight all three of mine, one of his squads had retreated giving me the chance to move one back to cover my flank and intercept his third.

Now the issue came up with flanking, as my 3 squads engaged his 2, he actually got a flank bonus in the middle of the battle, i mean its 3 against 2, its a WALL of dwarves, but somehow the game thinks he got a flank angle on me. I'm thinking you just shouldnt be able to flank someone if you have allies standing in that same spot, these guys were shoulder to shoulder.

The next one though was weirder. If you attack someone in the back, you get a flank bonus right? I've tested that it, i let people hit me in the back, its a flank. He tried to retreat his last 4 units/hero, i chased after him with a squad of identical size. When he got to the edge he realized he COULDNT manually retreat (apparently you can ONLY retreat if the units do it themselves) But he was facing the edge, back completely turned, when my squad struck right in the back. No flank bonus! In fact, the rest of my squad died in that one single round (i didnt see any flank icons on my squad, but it felt like it!) The hero survived and managed to force his guys to retreat.

So their are strange things at work !

Khor wrote:

I didnt realize you could intentionally pvp an enemy, i thought no matter where you qued on the map it would pit you against someone else at random.\

The fact that there is a queue means players could indirectly control who fights who. Two arranged players can wait for the counter to reset to 0 and then join in and, most likely, get to fight each other.

It is true if more players join PvP, it will be more random but it will take a huge player base for that to happen.

I'm happy that something is being done to reduce the PvP exploitation and biases.

So any plans on preventing people from stalling in a PvP game forever? Like, if someone was losing they could just run away from my dwarves until i gave up. I might have an interesting/needless complex idea for it.

I call it the Trophy system ! When one of your squads has killed an enemy squad, they can stand still and do a taunting dance. This demoralizes the enemies. So they could run around until they got demoralized enough to flee the map and end the game.

hahaha well something like that at any rate Being the last survivor in PvP = constant moral decrease maybe ?

Matches have a max timer of 15mins. I think whoever has the most AP still standing wins at that point.

Also, there is a tug of war "winners bar" right under the minimap. Not sure exactly what it indicates, but wins have always shown that bar in my favor.

So at worst, someone can drag a match out for a long time =/ thats still pretty bad manner. Hopefully when i get cannons it wont happen, ever.