Hi there. I like to introduce my self, more specificly my experience with wiked and other games.
AND WARNNING: This might be a VERY long suggestion to read.
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I played Wiked since it first launched. I liked the game very much, but it had some issues. As a result I just played the campain and the Cerim Crucible for some more little time. With the Breach update the Moon Studios time demostrated to me that the game has improved dramaticly, adressing all issues and finding fun and cleaver sollutions. I got hooked for the game by then. I saw many interviews from Thomas, the game’s director, enter the discord server, etc. But one thing has bother me… PVP.
You see, I couldn’t find any word from Moon about PVP besides the confirmation the there will be such. My concern isn’t the lack discourse around the development of PVP, rather my fears that PVP wont hit as well as the solo-player experience or Co-op (by the record, I trust fully the Moon Studios will deliver the best experience in those). To clarify things I want to talk about PVP in other games, namely Dark Souls III and Elden Ring
Lets start with Elden Ring.
The game has solid combat mechanics, you can become a host’s enemy by ‘invading’ his ‘realm’ and your objective as an invader is to kill the host and his Co-op friends. One detail that can make the PVP experience suck is the fact that you as an invader chose to enter PVP, but the Host & Friends are or aren’t willing to deal with PVP. Other fustating factor in the PVP in Elden Ring is that, as an invader you can only invade people’s realm that have a co-op friend or a solo host that used an item to willfully engage in PVP opening his realm for invasion, bieng this latter scenario the least common one and making the invader experience aweful because you will be all time in a 2V1 situation.
Now I want to talk about Dark Souls III’s PvP.
Dark Souls has the same formula in a way. There are mayor differences like there is no need for a co-op friend in order for your world be open to invaders, rather the condition to the “open” world is to you actively be using and item that gives you a massive Health boost (almos a must for early game). Such Item in question is called “Ember”. There are features that Dark Souls III has that Elden Ring didn’t adopt. Covenants is one of them. This feature was the best for PvP in Dark Souls III because it was a cleaver way to incentivise engagement in PvP. The way covenants work is that playes join a faction and each faction has a currency for buying exclusive items. The way you get currency varies, but one thing is consistant: You need to play PvP to grid covenant’s currency efectively (there are some non-PvP ways to get currency, but they are just tedious as hell).
The point I want to make is that Elden Ring lacks any incentive what-so-ever for the player explore PvP andDark Souls III has some that worked. Many PvP players in Elden Ring complain about this issue and see Dark Souls 3 and other past games more fondly in camparison with Elden Ring. Dark Souls wasn’t perfect, it only had some incentive (the “shops” from covenants had only two items, some useless, for each covenant), but had a poor introduction of PvP mechanics. Elden Ring had not eaven a smal incentive, eaven if tha game has more interesting combat machanics in comparrison! This made me frustated as a player that engaged in soul-like PvP.
My main fear is the Wicked might turn into an Elden Ring: good combat, bad PvP system… Again, I got this view bacause I did not find in the internet any information about the future of PvP in Wicked.
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That is why a make the following sugestions:
Have in centives for the PVP:
(1)
Maybe each faction has a special currency you can grind by engaging in pvp.
(2)
Make factions’ engament in PvP spicy! Maybe one covenant tries to make some areas “protected”, calling for a faction member to protect and eliminate all trasspasers.
Make a thieves guild? Assination is the objective, using stealth to get the upper hand agains the target.
Make two or more faction that focus on duels in a massive arena.
Maybe make a faction that focus on protecting the player from assassination events. They are called to the Host’s world if the assassination take too long.
Maybe make that if the host survives an assassination event or defeats the guardians form the area, they get the faction’s currency form the player enemy they just defeated.
Just giving some ideas…
THERE MIGHT BE A PROBLEM: about the ‘guardian’ factions… what if the area they protect is a late game area? How they don’t recive spoilers from the area? how the early game player will have an early introduction to that faction? Well i got a solution (maybe). What if the faction is introduced early on, with a smaller shop and not protecting such late-game area, rather hunting down other players the wronged faction mambers.
(3)
Having in mind faction’s currency, make the shop meaningfull. have some cool blueprints in them (please don’t add the armors themselves because having to roll enchantments hopping for a plaged item again and agian is jut anoying). Have Unique weapons & armor that are only in that shop.
Speaking of currency also… maybe make such currency’s category the same as gems for Wicked. That is the inventory category that least fills up completly.
(4)
make proper introductions for PvP and how factions interact with it. maybe make quests with PvP objectives that give an instant reward as gear or money.
For now this are my suggestions. Thank you Moon for the amazing game you are making!