So Daglar posted some stuff about Arena's

[Puremallace]

Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-gene...p-duels-6.html

It is basically what we all had already assumed. Arena would take a soul system that is a nightmare to manage and make it even more of a nightmare. he is has been EXTREMELY straight forward in that thread.

We totally get that people want to have an outlet for competitive PvP. Wanting that isn't a bad thing. Delivering it to the quality level we believe it demands without upsetting the apple cart and creating an unsustainable amount of development work is a wholly different challenge.

We understand what an arena system is and does and we've contemplated it a number of times. RIFT however is an order of magnitude more complicated than most games out on the market today. Once an arena system comes in, a top COMP will come out, and unless we start micro managing spec balance and change spec balance even more dramatically things will ultimately not be a good experience.

If we don't adjust the classes more and more, everyone will just complain that things are not fair and that the FOTM group is V/W/X/Y/Z and the entire feature is a failure and that they are going to quit because it is not what they envisioned.

It will then spiral into making tons of class tweaks which we really do not want to make and have larger reaching impacts. Before anyone also says "its easy to just do the balance for PvP" - no, it isn't easy to do that on a product of RIFT's scale and complexity level. It becomes double the development time, double the bug count, double the QA time, and still results in sadness.

Daglar
Creative Director: RIFT

[Edge-]

I like it. Glad they're steering clear of Arena's. They really are a horrid system for a MMO. In a game with completely controlled classes it can work out just fine, but MMO's don't really lend themselves to that.

[RoninaThorstone]

Excellent post.
I wish more dev teams were this honest.
When dev teams level with their players like this it builds such a good community relationship.
It's like, if you have a problem delivering something... Just tell us and tell us why. Most of us will understand. We don't need a constant stream of hype and "soon" in order to keep playing your game.
Like, for example, weapons in wardrobe. Isn't there some huge technical hurdle or something? I vaguely remember reading something about it not being a simple fix. That sort of "well, we would like to but X bug happens and Y team is trying to fix it and we would like to get it out by Z but given how hard it's been I think that's an optimistic time table"
I would totally get that and respect them for it.

[Tarien]

I think it was pretty obvious that Arena's would be a mistake with such a complex soul system to balance. PvP is already a horrific mess without putting it under a microscope.

[Deleted]

just normalize it o.o

---------- Post added 2013-03-15 at 01:37 AM ----------

just normalize it o.o

[Edge-]

just normalize it o.o

When it comes to arena's, you need to do much more than alter damage. The interaction mechanics between different comps means you would need to alter how certain abilities actually function as well.

Arena's like that put every facet of PvP under the microscope, so the more variety/complexity, the more problems.

[Mormolyce]

If we don't adjust the classes more and more, everyone will just complain that things are not fair and that the FOTM group is V/W/X/Y/Z and the entire feature is a failure and that they are going to quit because it is not what they envisioned.

It will then spiral into making tons of class tweaks which we really do not want to make and have larger reaching impacts. Before anyone also says "its easy to just do the balance for PvP" - no, it isn't easy to do that on a product of RIFT's scale and complexity level. It becomes double the development time, double the bug count, double the QA time, and still results in sadness.

Haha, that is so, so brutally true.

I especially love "still results in sadness".

[Linzo]

Fun > Balance

Most people play arena's because they enjoy the small, organized pvp environment.

[Edge-]

Fun > Balance

Most people play arena's because they enjoy the small, organized pvp environment.

This is generally true. But when the imbalanced classes are causing you to not have fun because the class/calling whatever you're playing is getting shit all over, then Balance > Fun.

[draganid]

blizzard admitted a while ago that arenas were not such a good idea in wow and trion being smart and good at learning from others mistakes decided not to make blizzards mistake again

[Linzo]

This is generally true. But when the imbalanced classes are causing you to not have fun because the class/calling whatever you're playing is getting shit all over, then Balance > Fun.

no one like having zero chance of winning due to picking the wrong spec so i'll agree with u to an extent.

but I will always pick the option of having arenas available over not having them at all.

The best way I can think of is to not make arenas the source of the best pvp gear available and make it all about rankings and titles etc.

[Fencers]

Having it so arena is about titles/rankings is even worse. It's like the worse possible incentive in an asymmetrical PVP system.

[Puremallace]

Having it so arena is about titles/rankings is even worse. It's like the worse possible incentive in an asymmetrical PVP system.

I think pvp'rs just want a system where they can fight the best of the best. It is honestly is not some crazy request. League of Legends lets you watch fights. Hell I remember in Aion dropping everything I was doing to watch Scream and Chaste fight each other in a pre arrange area...or Hate guild vs Aphotic guild...that shit was the best pvp I had seen in a mmo

Hopefully Trion does swing around to taking competitive pvp seriously. it is not like we need ranked arena's here really because the people pushing for this are geared out of their f'n minds so it is not looking for a way to cheese the gear, but a way to fight the best

Pvp'rs who post on the Rift forums are just terrible at articulating their point. If you say we want arena's I think WoW arenas''ranked matches..ranked gear sets...new tiers every major patch..new titles...new mounts

[Deleted]

Well, if they just could think outside the box about competitive pvp. We all know they dont want arena, so dont do arena! But try do something else competitive, hell even rated battlegrounds would limit how to adapt the soul system. Keep the gear advantage, since 5 players with too much power will qq and threaten not to give them subfee anymore, but make the gear grind really fast so a normal mortal can take a competitive place in the endgame. That would keep everyone happy, and it would be a bit like wow... sure there's gear advantage but everyone can catch up quickly so it's barely noticable.
And something competitive, battlegrounds are easy to balance and guild community is rather strong in Rift. Just something. It's ok to say "No arenas, no way", but give the pvp players something else to think about... show that you want something. Ofc, I know that Rift devs don't want something... been obvious for a long time that this is the pvp to settle for... it's just a shame since they got potential to do something. My few cents, it's not like Im hoping or anything, I already learnt the reality the hard way =)

[Kelimbror]

I think a combination of the players the game attracts and the soul system makes it so PvP could never be a serious focus of the game. Putting in even one form of more intense PvP would result in a lot of resources lost from pushing content out. I'm sure that was a major factor in the decision to let you group and guild with the other faction and less focus on PvP.

[slime]

Shit, i don't care if it's balanced ... I just want the option there. All I read was "If we put in arenas, it creates more work for us."

[Puremallace]

Shit, i don't care if it's balanced ... I just want the option there. All I read was "If we put in arenas, it creates more work for us."

Blizzard is on year 8? They still have not got it to work.

[RoninaThorstone]

All I read was "If we put in arenas, it creates more work for us."

What I read was "if we put in arenas, it will hurt the community and game"
/shrug.

[Deleted]

I think a combination of the players the game attracts and the soul system makes it so PvP could never be a serious focus of the game. Putting in even one form of more intense PvP would result in a lot of resources lost from pushing content out. I'm sure that was a major factor in the decision to let you group and guild with the other faction and less focus on PvP.

Well, it did attract all players... however the pvp players left the game quite early (as far as I understand it, going 1-50 in pvp at launch was a really fun experience, but players were lost at endgame). Stuck are like 5-10 people doing endgame pvp, as in having time to get the best gear and gank the crap out of noobs showing that they got it... and these are extremely important people representing entire Rift pvp development, or at least their tears making Rift pvp development none existant cause devs really care for these few players for some strange reason. No serious game developers would let so few players have such great impact... most devs see profit and increased playerbase first. But it's the way it is.
I think the soul system was appealing to many pvp players coming from wow. Especially me and my bf wanting the wow talent trees to increase and instead they decreased and simplified them... we were so happy with Rift. We wanted many fun choices to play around with in pvp. That's why something like rated battlegrounds would be the shit in Rift, since it doesnt require balance the same way. Add faster gear grind to that and they would be good to go.

I understand what you are saying though, especially if we are looking at Rift today. The game has a rather small, settled playerbase with most of them being pve players, and a couple of few dominating the pvp area. Add to that a couple of few that comes and goes. They manage to launch many big pve patches that keep their largest playerbase happy, and the few pvp players settle with just getting some new gear added every now and then.
I think that Trion either keeps it this way, settle with what they have and keep it going for as long as they can. Other option would be going f2p, and that would change a bit how Rift works, they will probably want more people to play and use cash shop and then there might be some big changes.
But with the community they have, I think there wouldnt be any other option than freeminum, since the old vets want to have an advantage for being subscribers and keeping subfee as an option would solve that issue. It all sums up to what they want their future to be. As for now, I think it's right what you say... they settle with what they have and just try to keep the boat floating... and ofc making these statements so that the new players get an idea of what they wont do giving the new players an option to settle and stay or go.

[notorious98]

Smart move. PvP isn't Rift's strong point and likely never will be. They should stick to what they do best. Arenas are a pointless endeavor that leads to constant class balancing, constant nerfs and buffs, and constant bitching and whining. In the end, it usually completely fucks up your PvE balancing because you start tweaking to please the arena crowd more than you do to please the PvE crowd. If anybody is looking for competitive PvP, I can't see how this game is the place to be. The same goes for WoW or nearly any other MMO.