Players already get honor points for PvP in battlegrounds.. except battlegrounds are a more controlled and balanced environment by design. If your argument is that single players don't get enough honor when they lose battlegrounds, this outdoor thing does nothing to help... if you are on the smaller faction, you're still going to lose. And then you'd get the same honor you would have in a battleground.
It sounds like you're trying to find a way to spread players out so you're more likely to end up in 1v1 situations. You can already do this... just go out into any given contested territory and go hunt.
This whole idea is just a solution looking for a problem.
Of course I am trying to spread players out to get 1v2, 2v2s for more competitive PvP. In Battlegrounds something like 90% of the honor gain is earned from winning the battleground. The Frontier is just an area where players are incentivized to roam in smaller groups. The honor gain would not be rewarded mainly from just winning a frontier, but killing other players. Killing enemy players would contribute to your faction's Frontier Score. The concern is whether Frontiers can prevent Zerg playstyles from dominating. WSG isn't about farming honor from players, but rather turning in 3 Flags. That is not the goal of Frontiers.
Because it isn't about winning the battle in a frontier, as much as it is about farming honor. The goal is to make solo/small group play the best way to honor farm. This could be achieved through underpopulation bonuses. The Frontiers are about earning Honor on an individual basis. The underpopulated faction would earn more honor from objectives and kills. If more players on the underpopulated faction realized the best honor was in the Frontiers, then they might join. That is how it would balance out. If players in the overpopulated faction are receiving less honor, then perhaps they would return to doing battlegrounds. You would have fewer players to kill and more honor to split when in the larger faction. Don't think of it as being like WSG or AV, where the winning faction gets the best honor reward.
Why Zerg in a Frontier if you could get better honor from a crossrealm AV? What if the group that deals the most damage only gets honor? There are additional anti-zerg mechanics available. The Highest Honor gain would be from killing players, not doing a small scale objective. The objectives exist to spread players around.
How are you going to balance factions? If the answer is NO, just say no and we can end the thread.
Because it isn't about winning the battle in a frontier, as much as it is about farming honor. The goal is to make solo/small group play the best way to honor farm. This could be achieved through underpopulation bonuses. The Frontiers are about earning Honor on an individual basis. The underpopulated faction would earn more honor from objectives and kills. If more players on the underpopulated faction realized the best honor was in the Frontiers, then they might join. That is how it would balance out. If players in the overpopulated faction are receiving less honor, then perhaps they would return to doing battlegrounds. You would have fewer players to kill and more honor to split when in the larger faction. Don't think of it as being like WSG or AV, where the winning faction gets the best honor reward.
Why Zerg in a Frontier if you could get better honor from a crossrealm AV? What if the group that deals the most damage only gets honor? There are additional anti-zerg mechanics available. The Highest Honor gain would be from killing players, not doing a small scale objective. The objectives exist to spread players around.
How are you going to balance factions? If the answer is NO, just say no and we can end the thread.
Do PvP servers have faction imbalances? Yes. Does that prevent underpopulated factions from ranking up in World PvP? No. It even offers them more enemies to kill. I understand the faction imbalance concern it is valid, but I believe that Frontiers would actually fix some of the issues with Open World PvP in classic. (Flight master camping, level 50 farming etc..) The Frontier is intended for farming honor, where the underpopulated faction would be able to potentially earn more honor on an individual level.
Elaborate how the overpopulated faction would be at such an advantage in a Frontier in terms of honor farming? Consider some of the measures in place to prevent that.
Do PvP servers have faction imbalances? Yes.
Not in BG's where players primarily grind their honor and are rewarded for PvPing.
So how do you plan on balancing factions so this will be viable?
edit: This statement summarizes my feelings on this topic, and every other one of Gnoll's suggestions perfectly:
I'm not even against new content in general a long time post-launch... but no interest in retarded new features being added to the game. I can't see this kind of feature ending well no matter what is thrown at it. It's broken by design...
Retarded new features that are broken by design. Designed by someone who has no foresight. Regardless of what issues we point out with his idea, he will quickly scramble and try to offer some sort of quick fix that doesnt acknowledge the greater issue... Its as if he has no ability to tap into a gamers perspective and predict their VERY predictable actions... He may actually be a perfect Dev in this regard haha.
Do PvP servers have faction imbalances? Yes.
Not in BG's where players primarily grind their honor and are rewarded for PvPing.
So how do you plan on balancing factions so this will be viable?
edit: This statement summarizes my feelings on this topic, and every other one of Gnoll's suggestions perfectly:
I'm not even against new content in general a long time post-launch... but no interest in retarded new features being added to the game. I can't see this kind of feature ending well no matter what is thrown at it. It's broken by design...
Retarded new features that are broken by design. Designed by someone who has no foresight. Regardless of what issues we point out with his idea, he will quickly scramble and try to offer some sort of quick fix that doesnt acknowledge the greater issue... Its as if he has no ability to tap into a gamers perspective and predict their VERY predictable actions... He may actually be a perfect Dev in this regard haha.
If solo play is incentivized and players are spread out enough, then faction imbalances are not as big of an issue. However, let's say there is a cap of 100 players per faction in the Frontiers. This way it wouldn't be 300 Horde vs 50 Alliance, but 100 Horde vs 50 Alliance. What do you do about the 200 other Horde players that want to be in the Frontiers? Do you add a queue time for entering the Frontier? What if when players died they had to leave the Frontier and new players that were waiting in queue would enter.
I hate to use the whole Battle Royale dynamic, but let me know what you think. What if there was a player cap of 100 in a Frontier, and if players died they would be put back into queue. This way the underpopulated faction would have more access to the Frontier than the overpopulated faction. They wouldn't have to wait in any queue. Dying would put players back into the queue as an added risk/reward.
Below is an example using the Wandering Isle as a Frontier. The Alliance would enter the zone on Boats that circle frontier zone (Blue Lines). The Horde would use Zeppelins to enter the Frontier (Red lines). This way players would not get stuck in chokepoints, but could enter the zone almost anywhere. There would be small-man objectives spread across the map, as well as a few Keeps/Fortresses to capture for larger groups.
So now there is a cap to factions? This isnt open world at all... Your idea is slowly getting closer and closer to what we already have. Its as if your original idea posed issues that are broken by design.
I'll reiterate my previous question because I still havent gotten an answer:
But how do you plan on balancing factions? As this idea will fail without faction balance?
I can answer this for you if you want? Its pretty simple.
So now there is a cap to factions? This isnt open world at all... Your idea is slowly getting closer and closer to what we already have. Its as if your original idea posed issues that are broken by design.
I'll reiterate my previous question because I still havent gotten an answer:
But how do you plan on balancing factions? As this idea will fail without faction balance?
I can answer this for you if you want? Its pretty simple.
I think that if players were removed from the Frontiers upon death and sent back into queue it would fix potential zerging issues as well. Big groups would fall apart when players die since they wouldn't be able to just return to the Frontier. They would be put in a queue.
It is a hypothetical. It would be server-only and it would force population balances in the Frontiers. Is it necessary, no I don't really think so, but it could still make for an good system. I agree with you that faction imbalances in World PvP are a considerable setback. The entire purpose behind this is to incentivize small scale PvP. That is what competitive PvPers want. They don't care about Random Battlegrounds, and in Classic WoW it will be a huge turnoff. I am aware that making PvE ana really efficient way to farm honor is not good. Players want to PvP for honor. They want to kill eachother. Frontiers are intended to promote an small scale PvP environment that holds lots of players.
Dark Age of Camelot had Frontiers. It was a three faction PvP game in open world zones. The biggest issue was that it was group focused. You need to make World PvP Frontiers solo focused. There is a reason Arena was 2v2 and 3v3, because small scale is more competitive.
I think that if players were removed from the Frontiers upon death and sent back into queue it would fix potential zerging issues as well. Big groups would fall apart when players die since they wouldn't be able to just return to the Frontier. They would be put in a queue.
It is a hypothetical. It would be server-only and it would force population balances in the Frontiers. Is it necessary, no I don't really think so, but it could still make for an good system. I agree with you that faction imbalances in World PvP are a considerable setback. The entire purpose behind this is to incentivize small scale PvP. That is what competitive PvPers want. They don't care about Random Battlegrounds, and in Classic WoW it will be a huge turnoff. I am aware that making PvE ana really efficient way to farm honor is not good. Players want to PvP for honor. They want to kill eachother. Frontiers are intended to promote an small scale PvP environment that holds lots of players.
Dark Age of Camelot had Frontiers. It was a three faction PvP game in open world zones. The biggest issue was that it was group focused. You need to make World PvP Frontiers solo focused. There is a reason Arena was 2v2 and 3v3, because small scale is more competitive.
So to clarify this is no longer an open world concept because you cant fix faction imbalances?
I think that if players were removed from the Frontiers upon death and sent back into queue it would fix potential zerging issues as well. Big groups would fall apart when players die since they wouldn't be able to just return to the Frontier. They would be put in a queue.
It is a hypothetical. It would be server-only and it would force population balances in the Frontiers. Is it necessary, no I don't really think so, but it could still make for an good system. I agree with you that faction imbalances in World PvP are a considerable setback. The entire purpose behind this is to incentivize small scale PvP. That is what competitive PvPers want. They don't care about Random Battlegrounds, and in Classic WoW it will be a huge turnoff. I am aware that making PvE ana really efficient way to farm honor is not good. Players want to PvP for honor. They want to kill eachother. Frontiers are intended to promote an small scale PvP environment that holds lots of players.
Dark Age of Camelot had Frontiers. It was a three faction PvP game in open world zones. The biggest issue was that it was group focused. You need to make World PvP Frontiers solo focused. There is a reason Arena was 2v2 and 3v3, because small scale is more competitive.
So to clarify this is no longer an open world concept because you cant fix faction imbalances?
Open World by design can not have faction balances. That is impossible. That doesn't mean open world PvP has to fail. It fails largely due to zerging and faction imbalance. I offered ways to mitigate those issues. There would be an underpopulation bonus, so players would earn more honor while on the underpopulated realm. Solo/small scale players would receive way more honor, and there would be increased diminishing returns for playing in a full group. Players would receive little to no honor for adding onto fights, because the group or player that deals the most damage to a target would basically receive full honor.
The alternative is to make a queue system, but keep it server wide. Have a population cap, and perhaps a mechanic that players would have to requeue upon death so that players wouldn't need to wait in queue as long.
Classic WoW battlegrounds will not keep competitive players interested. Competitive players want competitive PvP. Arena offered that sort of, but also damaged many other aspects of the game. Frontiers are keeping with the Contested Zone PvP that Classic offers. I am trying to determine if Frontiers could exist in an open world environment, as long as zerging is not the dominsant playstyle. I am convinced it is possible, but it is concerning if there are 300 Horde and 50 Alliance in a Frontier. You can't think of it as 300 v 50. The goal is for players to be roaming in small groups or even solo, not zerging over the less populated faction. Let's discuss this matter. If most players are roaming in small groups, then why is faction imbalance that much of an issue? You will encounter other groups on your faction more often than the enemy, but why would the enemy action be outnumbered when encountered?
Open World by design can not have faction imbalances. That is impossible. That doesn't mean open world PvP has to fail. It fails largely due to zerging and faction imbalance.
This is exactly what it means. And this is why this has failed in EVERY MMO it has ever been implemented in. Your idea (as usual) is not new. It is broken by design.
So how will you balance factions so your idea is viable?
I can give you a hint to the solution of faction imbalances... It rhymes with sharding and starts with an "s". Why dont we add sharding to Classic so your idea can function? Does that sound good?
Open World by design can not have faction imbalances. That is impossible. That doesn't mean open world PvP has to fail. It fails largely due to zerging and faction imbalance.
This is exactly what it means. And this is why this has failed in EVERY MMO it has ever been implemented in. Your idea (as usual) is not new. It is broken by design.
So how will you balance factions so your idea is viable?
I can give you a hint to the solution of faction imbalances... It rhymes with sharding and starts with an "s". Why dont we add sharding to Classic so your idea can function? Does that sound good?
Obviously, open world can not be balanced in terms of population. Sharding is not a necessary solution. Do not compare this to what some other game was doing. Those games encourage Zerg gameplay. Frontiers are intended to discourage it. Just as faction imbalance is inevitable in the open world, so is zerging. Players will zerg, but it can always be mitigated by design. Only award honor to the group that deals the most damage to the target. This way adding onto fights gives no honor. Dramatically decrease the honor reward for each additonal player that is added to a group. Groups with 5 players roaming would earn vastly lower Honor than groups roaming as a duo. There are ways to eliminate Zerg type behavior, and besides having specific objectives such as Keep Fights might discourage them from roaming. I know how these "Open World PvP" MMOs work. I spent this past year working on a Dark Age of Camelot server. That game was always flawed, and it boiled down to the group based PvP of the game. You need to design it around solo play, otherwise you have large groups farming solos/small mans and the population dies off.
Obviously, open world can not be balanced in terms of population. Sharding is not a necessary solution. Do not compare this to what some other game was doing. Those games encourage Zerg gameplay.
Sharding is the only solution that has demonstratively worked in this regard. You have (yet again) taken a failed idea and redelivered it without innovating anything about the idea. What started as an open world concept, now has player count restrictions... Effectively adding barriers and making this concept NOT an open world PvP scenario. This is just the same as an instanced BG, only there is no guaruntee that the player count will be equal... The idea is bad.
Frontiers are intended to discourage it.
Frontiers didnt even consider this idea until we outlined how awful it was and highlighted some of the most obvious glaring issues... You are now playing damage control and spending more time trying to defend and salvage your idea, rather than looking at the situation objectively.
Just as faction imbalance is inevitable in the open world, so is zerging. Players will zerg...
And thus rewriting PvP and allowing players to be rewarded from zerging, being rewarded with PvP items by doing PvE actions and allowing players to compete in an imbalanced environment that will be inherently broken, is a terrible, awful, poorly thought out idea.
So now that you have added restrictions and this is no longer an open world concept because there are population limits on each faction, how do you plan on balancing the remaining players, as this idea is dead on arrival without balance and is already not an open world concept...?
Sharding is the only solution that has demonstratively worked in this regard. You have (yet again) taken a failed idea and redelivered it without innovating anything about the idea. What started as an open world concept, now has player count restrictions... Effectively adding barriers and making this concept NOT an open world PvP scenario. This is just the same as an instanced BG, only there is no guaruntee that the player count will be equal... The idea is bad.
You make some good points, but sharding does not solve zerging, and it makes it so that you end up playing with players from other servers. That is not a good thing. I have suggested ways to fix the issues with other Open World PvP MMOs.
- Higher diminishing returns on full groups. More than there currently is. Substantially more honor for solo/duo/trio.
- Only the group or player that deals the most damage to an enemy will receive honor for a kill. Zergs won't be able to add and leech honor.
- Allow for players to enter on Zeppelins or Boats that travel across or around the Frontier. This way there are no chokepoints where players can zerg.
If earning honor in a zerg is really bad, then wouldn't these players just do battlegrounds instead? Classic WoW gives them that option. Open World PvP MMOs mostly did not have battlegrounds. Do I think that having a server-wide battleground using this system could work? Sure, but it can be acheived without a queue system in the open world.
And thus rewriting PvP and allowing players to be rewarded from zerging, being rewarded with PvP items by doing PvE actions and allowing players to compete in an imbalanced environment that will be inherently broken, is a terrible, awful, poorly thought out idea.
So now that you have added restrictions and this is no longer an open world concept because there are population limits on each faction, how do you plan on balancing the remaining players, as this idea is dead on arrival without balance and is already not an open world concept...?
Obviously, you do not want players idling doing PvE to earn honor. The main purpose for even having objectives is to spread players out. This is designed as a more competitive form of World PvP, where players who play solo can potentially earn the most honor. It also remove the low level griefing and camping that you see in the open world. I think that discouraging zerg roaming at all costs is vital. That is something none of these other MMOs accomplished. As I stated before, even if there is a faction imbalance in a frontier, if players are roaming in small groups, then how is that as detrimental? Most of the time you would be unlikely to encounter two enemy small groups at the same time.
Sharding does not solve zerging, and it makes it so that you end up playing with players from other servers. That is not a good thing. I have suggested ways to fix the issues with other Open World PvP MMOs.
Yes it does. "Zerging in WoW is a term that now means attacking an enemy (or a group of enemies) with a far bigger group of weaker units". Sharding limits the amount of players in any one zone and acts as a balance between both factions. This quite literally balances groups of players ensuring that one faction can not overwhelm the other faction by zerging. This can be seen in retail raids where a raid group will start to phase out and not be able to help their raid on the same shard.
If earning honor in a zerg is really bad...
Earning honor for PvE actions is even worse. Completely deteriorates the integrity of the game.
Obviously, you do not want players idling doing PvE to earn honor. The main purpose for even having objectives is to spread players out. This is designed as a more competitive form of World PvP, where players who play solo can earn the most honor. I think that discouraging zerg roaming at all costs is vital. That is something none of these other MMOs accomplished. As I stated before, even if there is a faction imbalance in a frontier, if players are roaming in small groups, then how is that as detrimental? Most of the time you would be unlikely to encounter two enemy small groups at the same time.
It does not matter what your intent is. Players will play. No one cares what you intend to do. Based on what you have said you want to do, your idea will fail. You have to do one thing to validate your idea, and that is to offer a way to balance factions in an open world PvP encounter. Othewise your idea is dead on arrival. Can you do that?
Ahhhh I get it now, post a controversial topic that Stfuppercut will enjoy debating, and farm posts to level 60. Well played RedridgeGnoll, well played...
Also, once again - I don't think you want Classic WoW.