First i want to say that hands down WoW is an absolutly incredible game, in both pve and the potential for pvp. Every class is fast paced and fun to play, yet very unique. While the pve aspect of this game is just about perfect (if you limit instaces to 5 people only but thats a whole other thread in itself heh) the pvp area has a few issues i think that need to be addressed and if they are i’m sure it will be some of the best pvp offered in a mmorpg.
I agree, both on the summary and on the need to cap the “upper” limit of the instances. I’d also cap the difference of levels within a group when entering an instance. If there are more than ten levels between the highest level and the lowest, the group should not be able to enter the instance.
I agree also on your considerations about hiding classes and levels to replace them with a “consideration system”. Three colors are enough to use in the honor system and they’ll help a lot not only to enhance the gameplay (as you explain), but the system will also be easier to “get” and manage.
So I only foresee good consequences by doing this and I hope Blizzard will move toward this direction. Even if I consider the honor system still weak and in the need of a good structure:
http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/view/267
Now I’ll start to disagree:
As it stands now, yes a battle ends, when one group has to release to the graveyard, but in my opinion it is far too quick to get back into battle with the same players. In some situations players can be back and fighting the same exact battle within less than a minute. This really gives almost 0 risk to engaging in combat, becuase who cares if you loose, you’ll be back in 30 seconds to try again.
Firstly, the battle is meaningless because it is. Yes. There’s no real purpose and it won’t work if you give again a risk/reward because it will still be a pointless battle. The point is to work on a *meaning*, not to work on an excuse.
The second point is that the system you described is, at least, *fun*. If you knock down who looses a battle who will be your PvP target? It’s obvious that in WoW you’ll most likely meet always the same group in an hour, in a specific zone and around your level. If you erase this group from the game with who are you going to play?
If we add a downtime to who looses, the game will become damn boring and still pointless. Who looses an encounter will have to face the downtime (and it’s not fun at all). Who wins will have to wait because the PvP is over. No more possibility to play till the group is back. Unfun for both.
The “incentive”, about which you write, shouldn’t be “excused” by a penalty. But it should involve a *purpose*. Give the players and groups objectives to achieve, give them reasons to fight for. *This* will make the combat meaningful because there will be a structure that tells you what you should achieve and why.
If the reward is about the rejoice for the winning group because they made the other group face a downtime, well, the game is really weak.
A better idea, spawning from your graveyard solution, could be about building a very simple CTF (Capture The Flag) system. I agree that both Horde and Alliance should respawn at their own graveyard (no corpse run if you die in PvP, just a respawn at your graveyard). But we also build a system so that EVERY contested zone has “generic” graveyards that can be “conquered” and flagged. Once the Horde (for example) own the graweyard, they’ll be able to respawn there, while the Alliance will only able to respawn at their nearest “owned” graveyard (which can be in a zone nearby).
In this way we start to offer something to fight for and with a purpose.
What happens if a group fighting some mobs are attacked by opposing faction players, and some get killed by a final blow of a npc mob, and others by players – the group gets split up, can be frustrating.
Simple. You consider from where the higher damage came. If the mobs did 51% of more damage the player will suffer a PvE death. If it’s less it will be a PvP death.