Killers vs achievers

As I promised yesterday, here I am with the idea of financially successful PvP MMOs. PvP MMOs are small niches, usually with 10-50K players. No successful, high-subscriber count MMO has non-consensual PvP, not even EVE. You can play EVE for years without ever leaving safe zones, and that's what most people do.

The fundamental problem of PvP games is simple: someone have to lose and losing is not fun. Several games include the "reward for losing" scheme to lure losers for PvP, but it only works in PvE games, where the reward can be used for something "fun" later (like doing WoW BGs to get PvP gear to get ilvl to get in troll dungeons). Remember, game rewards are just pixels, and while players are ready to grind rewards for a time being, there must be at least hope of winning at the end. A game that is fundamentally PvP cannot offer that to those who suck. And by definition half of the playerbase is below average.

However the weird circle-zerging of Tol Barad opened the chance that both participants of the battle leave it happily, considering himself winner, despite obviously only one of them can be. The key is the "killers vs achievers" scheme. In this scheme rewards are given for two activities: killing enemies and winning some objective. The rewards can be both explicit ingame like honor points and social like achievements, titles, toplist places. While theoretically one can have both (killing and winning) or neither (being dead and lost), usually one of the participants get the kills and the other gets the win. It's important to make both winning and killing desired to prevent win-trading. So the aims are still conflicting but not mutually exclusive.

The only thing the game developer must care for is to clearly signal the players via lore or obvious mechanics which team/class fits ones playstyle, so killers go to the side that pwn and lose, achievers go to the side that dies and win. This is a very general and basic game design, that can be implemented in very different games. I provide you two games that implement these. Please don't criticize the obviously shallow gameplay of these "games", they are just simple examples, focus on the PvP aspect.


First example: "the noble knights vs evil demons". There are several zones of the kingdom where NPC peasants gather various resources to the king and those knights who defend that zone. There is a Hell plane where evil demons live. They need no resources besides souls of the innocents.

The game has two phases, like Tol Barad: a battle phase and a peace phase (for example demos can only leave hell at midnight which is at prime server time). In peace phase the knights can craft, build defensive forts, walls, traps, do quests like "save my farm from the wolves" for currencies and other PvE activities including even peasant-work. Such activities make them stronger by providing gear, consumables, war machines and so on. Demons in Hell can duel or do practice battles between each other or summoned ghosts who act like knights, gaining skill points becoming stronger.

In battle phase the demons attack one or more zones. This can happen as a zerg or a demon can even go alone, there are many different territories to attack and defend. The purpose of the demons is to gather souls that can only be gained from killed knights and NPC peasants. These are essential resources, without souls a demon can't progress (like they need a soul to elevate the cap of their combat skills that they can fill up in duels and practice battles). So killing people is essential for demons. Not dieing is also important, a dead demon loses a soul and also time while he respawns in hell and get to battle again. It is to prevent suicidal zerging.

Not dieing is also important for knights as they also lose time and resources like gear (replaceable next day by PvE). However not dying is not the primary objective of the knights as it is to defend the peasants and the infrastructure (demons get time and vanity rewards for mindless razing like titles or getting skill points free instead of having to duel for it in peace time). So it's completely rational for a knight to sacrifice himself to hold demons back while others and peasants are retreating to the fort or even to the zone portal evacuating people and resources. The essential item for a knight is promotion badge that he gets from the king for protecting his resources and to a lesser extent for killing demons. The rewards are group-wide, divided equally by members. At the end they get a letter "This shire was attacked by 46 demons, the brave knights protected 122/140 peasants and 15000/16000 gold worth buildings, killing 8 demons. So the King decided to award 123 badges among the 52 defenders".

Theoretically the demons can conquer a zone by taking the central fort and then for the next day they can farm it for hiding peasants and can even do quests (the Devil wants you to poison the wells so the people can't use it for a week even if they recapture it) but such outcome is highly unlikely due to the fort is well equipped with battle machines guaranteeing 1:5+ kill:death ratio for attackers (demons can't use them next day defending). Also, theoretically the knights can slay all the demons in the zone without them killing anyone, but hunting down the quick-moving, stealthing, elusive demons need such a manpower that would make the rewards go too many ways.

So at the end of a usual battle, demons are happy that they got some new souls and pwned hard, knights are happy that they defended most of the innocents and gained badges that they collect for levelups. Please note that this is not "reward for losing", both sides must win their own goals or no rewards.


Second example: "fishermen vs pirates". This is a free for all PvP game where everyone can fish and be a pirate. There are skills that helps in combat, others helps in fishing. The characters and ships are uninspectable, so in the town everyone is a respected fisherman. Only at the seas do pirates show their true colors. Similarly you can only figure out if there are barrels of fish or cannons on ones ship by attacking him. Anyone is free attacking anyone, taking his equipment, the fish he caught, even sinking his ship and kill him, so it's really a negative-sum impact PvP game. When one hoist the Jolly Roger, the character's name changes to his pirate name, and the two names cannot be linked unless he tells it himself or change flags front of someone. So in the town you can't find the pirate who robbed you, he can be anyone. The pirate name can also be changed any time, the only consequence is that you lose your place on the toplist of infamous pirates.

You must have equipment in your ship, water and food for yourself and your NPC crew; fishing nets for fishing; salt to preserve your fish; wood, sails, ropes for repairs; cannons, powder, balls for ship vs ship combat; armor, sword, musket for boarding the enemy ship. You all buy these in the port for the gold you got for the fish that you - or your victims - caught. The trick is that the speed of the ship is strongly affected by its weight. You can lose weight by throwing the fish and the equipment to the water. So if there is a pirate chasing you, you can get away by losing some items. These float for a time being, so the pirate can get them, but only if he stops to pull them out of the water. If he continues to pursue, the booty can sink and get lost by the time he gets back or someone else might get it.

Theoretically you can catch someone, take all his resources, kill him and sink his ship. Also, you can fish successfully and when a pirate attacks you, you can kill him and take his stuff too. But these are very unlikely to happen. The skill system makes it impossible to be good at both fighting and fishing. You can be OK in both or specialized in one. So usually a fisherman is no match for a pirate, and knowing this, he runs when sees one, dropping some stuff to gain speed, providing the pirate booty. At the end of the day, the fisherman returns to the port with fish, the pirate returns with booty and the memories of others fleeing from him throwing their goods, so everyone is happy. On the long run average fishermen are richer than average pirates, but a good pirate can get very rich and can see his pirate name placated on the town walls (as wanted posters).

The real PvP is actually consensual, as the victim can always get away by throwing in enough stuff (if the pirate throws in equal stuff, finally he'll have no weapons to attack). Ships will only be sank if the victim stands and fights which (due to the fishermen run) happens only when two pirate candidates meet. The consequences of such battles are severe (one loses his ship, other gets damaged), so such battles will be rare.