Online PvP team battles aka party battles (3 different modes)

KendosanMasters

One of the best things of Baldur's Gate for me is the tactical battles the world and story are great, but the battles are what kept if fun in the long run and gave a sense of skill when completed successfully. While single player is the core of the game, I've found multiplayer always adds to the longlivety of a game and this also applies to Baldur's Gate series. It's easy to improve on those online features.

I'd love to see an option to use my party * against someone else's party.
I think there is two modes to go from this, loading a party from a save game or setting it as default and then fighting against someone else would really be fun. But also using the party creator, than having a set amount of gold to buy items in the map as a more balanced mode (it would be cool if you could save some regular builds and then select them before the match if they fit the balance rule set of said game).

This especially works well if some small battle maps were created for this, for example with some random traps to give thieves more purpose in these battles. Also some creep camps set between the players could be very nice.

Modes:

- So 1 party vs another party battle.

- A DotA (Defense of the Ancients) type of approach, where both parties have to defend their building/creature and destroy the one of the enemy to win the game. A nice twist would be that if party members won't be automatically revived indefinitely like DotA type games do.

- The dungeon race. Parties start in a corner of one of the dungeons paths that lead to the center of the dungeon. Each path is somewhat symmetric or more important balanced compared to the other. Each party will have to fight their way towards a certain point in the dungeon (likely the middle), the first party to reach this location is the winner. Again the traps, illusions and having a party to fight very different types of creeps etc. could play a big role.

* A party might be controlled by a single player or each party member by a real player.

Being a programmer myself and seeing that most changes that are being done at the moment are less work, I'd still hope this makes it in. But if not BGII or even BGIII would be the next best thing. Some suggestions by players that are very good but not possible at the moment, don't lose those suggestions they might be essential later on. Also you might still implement a simpler variant for now.

For example. I've another, much simpler to implement idea for dungeon races. The party enters a map, if it successfully completes it a time is saved and kept online. A sort of ranking system to see how well your party does compared to others.

I admire the effort you guys are willing to make.

Of course I've dozens of other ideas.

Pipe249

They're not making an MMORPG, no offense... I like your idea of PvP though

FateAscends

Pipe249 said:

They're not making an MMORPG, no offense...

Useless comment, makes me wish for a thumbs down option around here.

Anyways, on topic... I love the ideas you have, the dungeon race, and the player vs player idea too. I remember years ago trying to battle my friends with a single computer, taking turns queueing up commands and unpausing once everyone had input a character's move. Tons of fun. Perhaps to save the pause-and-play element you could have something like an arena battle that pauses every round, or two, or ten(testing may be in order to see what is reasonable for human reaction). The ranking system is very interesting too, as ladder systems have kept games alive for years after their re-playability was long lost. With an epic such as Baldur's Gate, the modding community and matchmaking multiplayer, it will have no problem with replay value, but the ranking system would just do that much more.
People are going to want to fight their parties, or character in one way or another. Why not create a medium in which to do so?

Shin

Not too poor an idea in itself, but too risky in my opinion. When games that started out mostly single player go down the road of competitive multiplayer, the single player parts tend to end up getting less attention and suffering for it. In BG I would personally rather see that single player got 100% of the attention. And if they brought in 30% more, those 30% should go to single player as well.

KendosanMasters

Shin said:

Not too poor an idea in itself, but too risky in my opinion. When games that started out mostly single player go down the road of competitive multiplayer, the single player parts tend to end up getting less attention and suffering for it. In BG I would personally rather see that single player got 100% of the attention. And if they brought in 30% more, those 30% should go to single player as well.

I think it compliments the normal as you call "single player" part of the game, as that is where you gather items, gather a good party and such. As it makes player really explore the game more, to find everything usefull. Adding to the rpg game as well as give it much more replay value and making players want to see how good their skill, party really is.

If we start in BG:EE with a fun pvp mode, it could be pretty great once we reach BG2:EE and BG3.

LordsDarkKnight185

Though im not very fond of PVP (Like one player fighting another) I love your dungeon race idea.

To build on to it i have a great idea...IF they do bg3, and its succesful, maybe they will have permission to make other games? Like a new adventure set in Waterdeep? Then an expansion could be the classic mega-dungeon UNDERMOUNTAIN...ME and 5 of my friends being awesome and battling to the center of undermountain while you and 5 of your friends try to do the same (if you do an acurate size-check...You could have 3 or 4 6-man teams exploring at the same time. I dont think they should meet and fight each other, but the moment the entire team makes it to the center, there could be a winner. Would be amazing i think.

moody_mage

PVP will only work if the game can detect if a character/party has been modified by a third party editor - otherwise you'll end up with parties with 25 in every stat, every item ever and illegally multi-classed up the wahoo.

Ken

decado said:

PVP will only work if the game can detect if a character/party has been modified by a third party editor - otherwise you'll end up with parties with 25 in every stat, every item ever and illegally multi-classed up the wahoo.

You could still play it LAN with friends.. If they cheat you just pour water in their Pc

SpaceInvader

BG has nothing to do with MMORPGs.
Still, the first "Party vs Party" ideas come from D&D...

raywind

would be nice addition to get some pvp but how are you going to take those players out from there that use shadowkeeper or something similar?

DukeOfSuffolk

These are probably the best ideas for PvP that I've ever read; especially the dungeon race -- Awesome Idea!! And there is some real flexibility with your ideas too. The community can contribute dungeons and DoTA maps!! YAY for strong communities!

That being said:
I HIGHLY doubt there will be PvP in BGEE or BGEE2 (we can have hopes for it with the inevitably release of BG3 though ). There are just so many quirks that would cause such a huge detriment to how the game plays, ranging from pausing to issues that @decado mentions. Class balancing would be inevitably more difficult too: not only would they have to be balanced for single/co-op play, but they would have to be balanced with each other. I'm willing to bet that the strategy of how they are being balanced does not take that fully into account .

In addition, I don't think the mighty Dev Team with their WIS 26 would like to implement something without any real story behind it regardless of any situation. They would also have to worry about server issues and matching teams/players, but that is besides the point.

moody_mage

Another thing which would have to be disabled is pickpocketing from other PCs. No-one is ever going to PVP if they can potentially lose items in their inventory. An auto-hostile mode would probably resolve this against opponents but not against pick-pocket attempts from your own multi-player party members.

KendosanMasters

decado said:

Another thing which would have to be disabled is pickpocketing from other PCs. No-one is ever going to PVP if they can potentially lose items in their inventory. An auto-hostile mode would probably resolve this against opponents but not against pick-pocket attempts from your own multi-player party members.

This is not really an issue. When they pick pocket it will only be for that game and you will simply not want that guy in your party again, nor should anyone else. The enemy should not be able to pick pocket but this is resolved with hostile mode. I'm sure little code is needed to resolve any exploits regarding pick pocketing.

decado said:

PVP will only work if the game can detect if a character/party has been modified by a third party editor - otherwise you'll end up with parties with 25 in every stat, every item ever and illegally multi-classed up the wahoo.

Agreed. A bigger problem is modded/hacked characters. But this could be controlled with a simple stat math that parties can't have higher stats sum than what is normally possible and not allowing non officially accepted content (new items, new spells, etc.). Multi classing comes with rules and if these rules are broken a simple ban for such a character will be the result. Though later this could fully be resolved in BG3.

Baldur

Oh, look, it's this topic again..

Solobear

This would never work in a million years.

kiros

As interesting as it sounds to incorporate some aspect of PVP, I just don't see this happening *drools @ mage battles*.
Baldur's Gate is not an MMO, it's a story.

GueulEclator

PVP mage battles are my dream.

Stop with the MMO bullshit argument. Adding PVP won't transform BG 1 into an MMO.

A simple arena multiplayer mode is A SIMPLE ARENA MODE. Many RPG did it, and never became an MMO. Seriously, don't you guys have friends you want to face against?

GueulEclator

h

KendosanMasters

Do you guys even know what MMO means? While Baldur's Gate/Baldur's Gate II is already a MO but it isn't a MMO. It is a Multiplayer Online game but not a Massively Multiplayer Online game; simply because a party is max only six players right now. The suggestion here is not about changing that. If you do add the unrealistically high number of 9 more parties you still have only 60 players max online at the same time. Not massive by any standards. And that is not in the core game but as the title says in PvP mode, battle arena's, dungeon race and such. If it was in the core story mode of the game, it had at least some connections with MMO, but this is separate from the main game. It has nothing, indeed absolutely nothing to do with MMO. It's just a separate PvP mode to compliment the story mode. So even if you don't like to try your party in PvP, you can simply ignore those modes, the story mode hasn't been changed.

That's the lesson for today.

Back to topic:

You play through Badur's Gate, your party gets stronger. A friend of your says his party is way more effective. He challenges you. But you can't really prove one of the parties is better because there is no PvP mode that uses any chosen save game to fight it out with your challenger or do a dungeon race. Now let's say you lose. You might want to check out more side quests, train your characters and get those good items. So basically PvP is just one more inspiration to play through the game eyes wide open.

If you finish the game you could just quit, but you could also try your legendary party against anyone who dares. Besides what if you had a different party how would that work in the game or against your friends?

PvP compliments the "single" player story mode. Let's not forget the story mode can already be played with friends online. You just can't check who's boss.

Baldur

And here's the counter-argument: I just don't give a toss about whose party is superior, 'cause that's not why I (and countless other people who feel the same) play Baldur's Gate.

KendosanMasters

Baldur said:

And here's the counter-argument: I just don't give a toss about whose party is superior, 'cause that's not why I (and countless other people who feel the same) play Baldur's Gate.

KendosanMasters said:

So even if you don't like to try your party in PvP, you can simply ignore those modes, the story mode hasn't been changed.

If you didn't want Minsc, simply because you won't use him in my party anyway. It's fine to never use him if you dislike him, you'll simply ignore him. But excluding him from the game would hurt a lot of fans that do like to use him. It's pretty much the same with PvP. It won't hurt you if it's in or out. But some people will be very happy. There is nothing to fear.

Of course you're free to dislike PvP and everything I and others suggested. I just hope you and others realize there is no reason to be afraid of it, as the big terms that are being used in fear that it will hurt the core experience, don't even apply.

I understand:
There are many players that like to see this, while others will simply ignore the mode if it's there or rather see changes to the story mode. As long as we get a big userbase to support this and future instalments.

Baldur

Yeah, 'cause as we all know, accepting retarded additions that detract from the RPG aspect has NEVER resulted in the degradation of the RPG features of a game, resulting in a pisspoor watered down experience for the RPG fans because the PvP and mainstream crowds were being appeased. [/MassEffect]

Razor

PvP in BG is ok but look, as you all know, its so, so easy to just edit all your gear and go PvP, so what is the point? Unless you play with some close friends that don't cheat for some fun moments. Like a "duel" option, I would understand that, just for the hell of it.

Baldurs gate is a party based, pause combat game, the PvP is... not very welcome.

There are already other threads about pvp btw

Hertz

Since the game wasn't built from the ground up as a PVP experience, I have no faith that a PVP conversion will meet the hopes and promises of both the pro- and anti-PVP crowd.

Promise 1: it won't harm the single-player experience
Promise 2: it's easy and cheap to make the coding changes
Promise 3: it's a purely optional experience

And, I must add, "it makes money for the developers." It's easy to make promise #1 and #3, but what happens when someone says "Kagain's regeneration is cheap!" and the debs have to nerf his 20 CON? Or when someone says, "Edwin gets too many spells!" and the character gets crippled in single-player mode? Or when someone says, "Fix the Sanctuary spell, it's unfair!" I can't see how a single-player experience wouldn't be harmed by rewriting spells and changing NPCs.

GueulEclator

@Hertz : this is fixed by having a clear distinction between PVP and single player. You don't use NPC character in PVP, you have to create a party yourself. So NPC characters would not be involved in PVP and would not be changed.

This same can be applied to other elements such as spells, abilities... The singleplayer experience stays intact while the rules are different only in PVP. PVP rules can be a bit different than singlplayer rules.

I know many games that did that.

Hertz

That fulfills promises #1 and #3: won't harm the single player, purely optional. But it violates #2: easy and cheap.

What you're proposing is that they rewrite every ability and spell solely for PVP, and rebalance the game mechanics from square one. That's not trivial. It's possible ... but in order to do that, many dev hours would have to be taken away from other things.

I'm not saying they won't, or can't ... just that it's unlikely to pay for itself.

FateAscends

The level of stupid in this thread is awesome. I leave for a month, and look what happens. Adding PVP isn't such a hard thing to do. Honestly I'd be happy with an arena to fight characters, with the only "new" mechanic added to the procedure being something to manage pausing. Screw rebalancing things, or cheat detection, just let me fight some other players! If you recall the game's SAVE function and EXPORT function, pickpocketing is not a concern either. Don't make it a part of the story, don't add it to the main game at all, just a room to fight someone else's characters. Easy, cheap, and quick to do.

Hertz

It isn't such a hard thing to do? Great: then the modders can have it finished in a few hours. Why waste the developers' time with it, if it's "not such a hard thing to do?"

KendosanMasters

GueulEclator said:

You don't use NPC character in PVP, you have to create a party yourself. So NPC characters would not be involved in PVP and would not be changed.

While I admire your passion and agree to a lot of what you've said earlier. NPC characters should be able to be used in PvP. Perhaps a filter could be used to not allow them, but NPC are part of a players party and as such are worthy and fun to be tested.

Hertz said:

It isn't such a hard thing to do? Great: then the modders can have it finished in a few hours. Why waste the developers' time with it, if it's "not such a hard thing to do?"

Adding PvP requires some basics. Online or at least LAN functionality is a core need for PvP. That at least is not easy to mod into the game in a way that it can actually be used. What the developers are trying to do is create a working base that has enough new content and options to bring in a lot of players. You need a working base to be able mod it, else it's just writing a whole new program using the files of the game...


It's like you can write an AI script that tells your party what to do. In the past these scripts were compared by players on Baldur's Gate forums to see who had written the best script. It would be cool to test these AI scripts against each other. But you'd need to have some basics to do that. You mights say beat this or that creep camp and show the results and time it took. Compare it with other peoples results. While that gives a general idea, it's also theoretical, slow and remains vague. It would be a lot more fun to just load two save games with your script and another's script in it and see it in action one party versus another. The battle of AI scripts. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Now while we enjoy the moment, it's easy to see that disabling the AI scripts and adding live player input would create more options.