Skill Based PvP vs Random Number Generator Based PvP
 

Why this thread exists

The creation of this post is due to the dark forces working behind the scenes, attempting to recreate the exact same resist system used on TZVZ for the P1999 PvP server. Why is this a problem you may ask?

In conventional Everquest PvP, the role of the random number generator wasn't very big. It really only affected caster nuke damage. If two melee were attacking each other, the amount of swings it took for one person to die, was large enough so the winner wasn't determined entirely by statistical variation. The sample size per fight was usually high enough that the winner or loser was determined solely by jousting ability.

Around Velious era, people that wanted to play PvP casters usually only played classes such as wizard and necro due to having spells with resist modifiers that always land. You can see where I'm going with this, the random number generator played little role in melee or caster PvP since most of the time people are casting spells that always land anyway.

Why TZVZ sucked

Now lets examine what TZVZ was like. The winner of many TZVZ fights was determined solely by things such as: did the wizard 8 second stun land or resist, paladin blind landing or resisting, whirl till you hurl landing or not, snare or root resisting or landing, mage pet stun or root resisting or not, the list goes on and on.

TZVZ took an almost entirely skill based PvP system (assuming each person was of similar gear) and utterly destroyed it by introducing enormous RNG variables into every fight.

Why would anyone want to play in a system like that? If the winner or loser of a fight is solely determined by the random number generator so much of the time, you might as well just play russian roulette with a handgun instead. It's the same difference.

As you can see from the other resist balance thread, virtually nobody agrees with how it should be. Half the people want some kind of caster's paradise, the other half want things to be just like EQ live during this period. All I know is that RNG played a much smaller role on EQ live than it did on TZVZ and it should be the same way on P1999 red server. If you want to leave RNG for spell casting damage since it's more "live like" then that's fine. But the other stuff needs to go since EQ PvP was not so dependent on RNG based luck.

If you want to go one step further and completely remove RNG from spell casting PvP, then you can do the following:

Change the resist system from avoidance based to mitigation based

If you ever played DAoC before, then you know what I'm talking about. This means that direct damage spells land every time with no full resists and your resist stat lowers how much damage you take by a fixed percent instead.

The following is just an example, the actual numbers aren't important. Benefits would decrease the higher in resist you went:

First 100 fire resist lowers damage 30%
Second 100 fire resist lowers damage 20%
Third 100 fire resist lowers damage by 10%

I would implement this only for damage spells. Spells like blind would obviously not work with this system and would need to follow normal magic resists from EQ live instead. Otherwise some guy could just stand there and chain cast blind on you over and over while his friend beats you to death as your screen flickers on and off. Same thing with root.

For stuns, I would let them land every time with the resist stat altering duration. Put level caps on them so only one will work against equal level players. Otherwise, people will load up 10 of them and perma lock people.

i tell you one thing

you're committed


edit: I complained over and over about the vztz resist system especially root - was completely useless, breaking insantly 98% of the time w/o any damage taken. But voidd was busy working on the food/water consumption for every race, clearly more important

< wehrmacht> secrets wtf
< wehrmacht> I was just writing an hour long post on mitigation based PvP
< wehrmacht> I'm about to post it in 3 seconds
< susugam> dont do it
< susugam> just kill yourself instead
< Bombfist> post a tl;dr at the end of it for me


tl;dr

skew the polls much?

Go play emu Doac if you want emu Doac

Go ahead and try to explain how the poll is skewed. Avoidance based resists are by definition "RNG based PvP". You can't argue your way out of it no matter how hard you try.

I don't know how anyone could argue a mitigation based resist system for damage only would be bad. It's almost completely impossible to balance a resist system based on avoidance where you either take 0 or lots of damage. With mitigation based, you can pretty easily cap it so it's not possible for casters to become useless. It also doesn't really change any normal EQ PvP dynamics by implementing it.

Why didnt you poll it "Do you want spell mitigation pvp based off resists or spell RNG pvp based off resist?
"
Because most people are going to select skill because they would rather say they are a skilled player vs they are a RNG player that is how its skewed dumbass.

You want it like DOAC thats fine, just go play DOAC. Every post you make you want to change eq dramatically. You post these made up melee and resist forumlas that are complete trash and one dimensional just gtfo you are a joke among the dev community

I agree have to say choose skill for it looked more admirable even though more skill is not incorperated in that option compared to RNG

skewed? most for sure

choosed RNG more in line of EQ, desire different game play different game

Any system where if you live or die is controlled solely by what you roll with the dice is RNG based PvP by definition. You can't alter the laws of the universe to change that. That poll option is correct no matter how you try to spin it. If the fight lasted for the duration of 10 spell casts, and you roll a resist for every cast, you automatically win! Congratulations! Well, maybe not win, but at least a free draw.

If you can literally be invulnerable while AFK, I fail to see how that does not qualify as the "less-skilled" system.

When a caster fights someone in EQ, the sample size (his number of casts) per fight isn't large enough for it to be skill based using an avoidance based resist system. It becomes all pure luck instead. Especially if he's fighting another caster and could win with 1 ice comet.

I don't know how anyone could argue a mitigation based resist system for damage would be bad. It's almost completely impossible to balance a resist system based on avoidance where you either take 0 or lots of damage. With mitigation based, you can pretty easily cap it so it's not possible for casters to become useless. All the casters voting against this are going to wind up useless in guild vs guild PvP against raid buffed opponents then cry about it, just watch.

Not classic. Welcome to P99.

If you want everything to be 100% classic, that's fine with me. Just post a warning message not to play any other caster besides a wizard or necro.

I doubt they have data to replicate that resist system though. Might be some sullon zek parses on the internet somewhere.

Let's assume they are not able to get that data, then what? It won't be classic no matter what they do then.

Also, the only person who I have seen working on a resist system for this server is Null, and guess what, it's not classic whatsoever, it's one of those "whirl till you hurl" resist systems.

So in response to your 3 word post, welcome to what appears to be "non-classic" so far.