MMORPGs Player Versus Player

PVP stands for player versus player and is a part of the end game for many MMORPGs currently on the market. Player versus player combat allows players to compete against other players in duels or team warfare.

Player versus player in MMORPGs cant be compared to the FPS counterpart (counterstrike, quake etc) as it is not twitch based combat. Player skill in pvp is defined by awareness and knowledge of the character the player controls (abilties, spells etc). PVP is not entirely up to the player's skill as its results are also defined by the items the character wears.

The most argued issue of pvp in mmorpgs is the balance issue. On the one side you dont want any sort of class or skill combo to be more powerful than others, as that would give an unfair advantage to the people playing that class. On the other hand you do not want to end up with all classes feeling the same. Gladly mmorpgs are very team/group oriented games, and as soon as we distance ourselves from the need to be a solo hero slaying everything in our sight we can counter the balance issues by grouping up with other players. Somewhat at least.

A healer does not need to do the same amount of damage as a mage, a healer should heal. Having group based pvp allows that to happen. The problem is, everyone wants to dish out the damage once in a while and so players will complain either way.

A second issue of player versus player combat in mmorpgs is the pve vs pvp balance. In my opinion there is no way to balance those two against each other successfully and still have a fun game. PVE players play to advance their characters and gain powerful items. Powerful items will give them an unfair advantage in pvp against those players that spend the majority of the time enjoying the pvp content. In my opinion pve and pvp parts of the game need to be separated or the focus needs to be put exclusively on one part.

When I say separated i mean it. Could have two roads of character advancement, one for pvp and one for pve. Items gained while doing pve content only work against pve content and vice versa. Have a ranking system for the pvp road that awards the player with items as they gain rank. This would solve the item balance issues. But there is still the skill , spell issue, that needs to be balanced for both pve and pvp as well.

Maybe its just time we stop over analyzing the games we play and just play them for the ... you know ... whats the word ... fun ... for the fun of it. Then the developers could spend their precious time focusing on other aspects than reaching 100% character balance.

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