Gear won't matter anymore?

[Cromathaar]

Fun ? The genuine pleasure of fighting against other players ?

So you say fun is enough motivation. What if you lose a PvP fight. Is it fun? What if you lose all your PvP fights. Is it fun? What if you are farmed on respad. Is it fun? What if you can't finish your quest 'cause someone is ganking you constantly. Is it fun for you?

[Chaman-bourru]

So you say fun is enough motivation. What if you lose a PvP fight. Is it fun? What if you lose all your PvP fights. Is it fun? What if you are farmed on respad. Is it fun? What if you can't finish your quest 'cause someone is ganking you constantly. Is it fun for you?

Well i don't mind losing at all. Unless RL emergency i don't leave minis nevermind what. As for losing all your PvP fights i'd say... learn to pvp and start being an asset to your team. Farmed on the respad ? Doesn't happen very often and you can nearly always get away. There are many ways to avoid being ganked while questing. If you can't finish your quest, if you can't call a friend or two to help you... then you try an other quest and finish that one quest a bit later...

[Rathothis]

You are welcome to name other motivational mechanisms for PvP in AoC.

Fun. Improvement as a player. The joy of beating someone who is a better player than myself because for once, I did the right thing at the right time.

As I said before, PvP on a level playing field is good for competitive players (because they get competition) and casuals like me (because it allows them to take some more risk and thus improve as players).

Your real issue with that seems to be that you can get the same experience in other games. True. Maybe these other games even have better systems (rankings, stats, arena tournaments) to support competitive pvp. But the exact same thing is true for vertical progression - if the grind is what you crave, there are plenty of alternatives to AoC as well.

Truth be told, I play AoC for other reasons (lore, art design, combat mechanics). The same will hold true for many of the real PvPers. But that doesn't make their preference for competitive PvP vs gear / AA grind less legitimate.

[Cromathaar]

Well i don't mind losing at all. Unless RL emergency i don't leave minis nevermind what. As for losing all your PvP fights i'd say... learn to pvp and start being an asset to your team. Farmed on the respad ? Doesn't happen very often and you can nearly always get away. There are many ways to avoid being ganked while questing. If you can't finish your quest, if you can't call a friend or two to help you... then you try an other quest and finish that one quest a bit later...

I've asked whether it's fun but you started giving me advice instead of answering. Why? I don't need your advice, I need your answer.

[Cromathaar]

Fun. Improvement as a player. The joy of beating someone who is a better player than myself because for once, I did the right thing at the right time.

So is it fun nowadays?

[Rathothis]

So is it fun nowadays?

Well, it would be more fun if I had equal gear

[kalston]

So you say fun is enough motivation. What if you lose a PvP fight. Is it fun? What if you lose all your PvP fights. Is it fun? What if you are farmed on respad. Is it fun? What if you can't finish your quest 'cause someone is ganking you constantly. Is it fun for you?

Wtf, are you a sore loser or something? Someone who hates dying and losing?

Nothing wrong with losing when you're outplayed and not out-powered by gear and AA, is there? Cos then that gives you something to work on - get better so you can win next time. Learn from your mistakes.
That's exactly why unchained pvp makes sense - too bad it's just mini games and doesn't apply to pvp everywhere though (I am 100% against any form of power progression in pvp - however I'm all for vanity stuff, titles, rankings, stats, bragging rights, open world FFA pvp...)

And if you can't handle a single ganker (assuming gear, AA and lvl are not the issue here) then get better, or smarter. Or call for help.

Those of you who think that's whan an FPS is for and MMORPGS are for grinding progress and gear... You're being very closed minded about this, and because of your line of thinking, the game is in it's current state when it could be thriving if the devs stayed the original course (pre 1.05). It's not that I just disagree with you philosophically, it's that you are wrong, and your ideas have proven fatal to entire servers. By listening to players like you, the devs have completely ignored the potential AOC once had at being something truly different and amazing in so many ways. It's time to admit that gear/aa grind has stifled the game, and defending the vertical progression model all you are doing is driving vets and potential new players to other games that aren't afraid to innovate.

QFT.

[Cromathaar]

Well, it would be more fun if I had equal gear

Why? Difference in gear makes any PvP harder for lower-geared person thus he improves faster since he must not make mistakes and has to do right things at the right time. Besides a level of satisfation from killing lvl 10 person with lvl 3 one is much higher that killing an equal opponent.

So how equal gear help the "fun-based" PvP motivation that you've described in your post above?

[Chaman-bourru]

I've asked whether it's fun but you started giving me advice instead of answering. Why? I don't need your advice, I need your answer.

Of course it's not fun to get rezpad farmed and such. But there are tons of ways to avoid that and it's not what happens most of the time. Hence the advice since you don't seem to be able to avoid or deal with the few bad situations that can occur.

[Rathothis]

Why? Difference in gear makes any PvP harder for lower-geared person thus he improves faster since he must not make mistakes and has to do right things at the right time. Besides a level of satisfation from killing lvl 10 person with lvl 3 one is much higher that killing an equal opponent.

So how equal gear help the "fun-based" PvP motivation that you've described in your post above?

Unless you are magically gifted (some people are, I am not) or have a lot of time to spare (I do not), the current system means that you will be farmed for a pretty long period of time without a serious chance to compete. That is not fun. Having no margin for error also means that you have little scope to take risks. Which is not fun either.

I'd also dispute your rather odd idea that you need to make the game not fun in order to force people to get better. I'd rather think that it makes people quit. Which is exactly what vertical progression has done to PvP in this game.

[On a side note, the current system allows fully geared and AAed players to be rather lazy (in particular if they play soldiers). So also on that count, your claim that vertical progression serves to separate the wheat from the chaff fails.]