Why being the best in PvP is not good on here

So simply put, I want to try to convince people on here why working towards a unbeatable or powerful PvP app is the wrong goal to work toward. And I only bring this up because I do notice people(including myself) put a lot of effort into trying to make a magic or combination of applications powerful in terms of PvP, but doing so also leads to disrespect. Even if they don't brag about it is clearly seen in their apps if one looked, and to be honest that kind of thing kills the inspiration to role play.

So first, why is it bad to work toward a unbeatable PvP app. Well first off, all magic and equipment apps are built with their own strengths and weaknesses. That means that the app should always find a disadvantage, how many times they come to a disadvantage depends on how easily or powerful their strengths are. Now of course we could say that is not how some apps are made on here as their strengths and weaknesses are not always like that or fair, but it happens easily in other things too, like custom lineages.

Custom lineages are the second reason why to become unbeatable in PvP is not good. I will put it bluntly, with a custom lineage you can say your magic cannot be negated or reduced, you can say your character is immortal, you can say that your app's effects ignores other protection(resistances, immunities, armor, and protection). You can even say that you app works regardless of what they say, even if they said that it ignores all effects. The worse part in terms of PvP is that you can have more then just these effects, some custom lineages carry multiple of these powerful traits I have mentioned and more.

But I only bring this up to show how useless it is to be the best in PvP. Even if you say your effects happen no matter what, then all one has to do is put on theirs that they are unaffected no matter what, and then what?. And I would like to bring up one more point, it has been previously noted by even staff the site's PvP system is trash tier as it can be easily abused. So really? Working to be the best in PvP on here is a toxic process that eats at you and annoys all others around you to absolute hell. And I only say this because I have tried to make my magic something I want to rp with on here, but then I see how much better other people's apps are in PvP terms and I work to make it as good. But as I do so, I feel annoyed that my efforts of making a magic I want is rendered so useless by merely a thought and a edit on a app. But then I had to realize that the magic I make, the equipment, the lineage I choose and make, all those things have to be decided by what I want to rp with. And while I do know this now, it took me half a year to think of it and well...it's a hard line to determine when it's something you want and when it's absolute BS in PvP terms. So that brings me to my suggestion.

Below is something I want put in to the rules and guidelines about equipment and magic in one form or another. But the point I want to bring out is that the goal of making apps is to enjoy rping with them, and not as tools to try to boast a superiority among others. Because as I said, PvP is so easy to be the best here, because the system is not meant for it and it's easy to manipulate and achieve.

Spoiler:

So yes, my idea is to remind people or tell them when they see the guidelines to make applications with the thought of enjoying your role play experience on here and not based on to beat other people's magics on here. I would like to know if people would think the idea is good or not and have reasons why(or at least answer the poll please), or a word from staff if they would do this or not.

There are points I agree with, and some I disagree with, and some that have me stuck in the middle. I'll go ahead and say there's no actual way to be "the best" at PvP because there's always someone who would be better. An example is that I have an effect that states "Niyol cannot be killed by unnatural means" which means if you shot him through the head, he would walk it off. Which means that IF I were to enforce it in PvP like a sore-loser would, almost no one can beat him. I don't normally do PvP unless someone else activates my lineage and throws me into the fight with it, but I also don't intend on claiming immortality if someone drops me to 0HP. The immortality was initially only thought of for RP purposes, but for my example below I'm gonna roll with it.

"Almost" being the key word. Let's say someone like... Almyra Bys walks up to Niyol and touches him, making his organs fail. Organ failure is technically a "natural" death, since organs DO naturally fail with time, and when major organs fail, people normally die. So right there, Almyra wins. But let's say someone like Kateri (one of my old alts) walked up and rocket-launched Almyra in the face, splattering her all over the duel arena. This is a combat triangle: Niyol > Kateri > Almyra > Niyol. This is also why there's no such thing as being the "best" PvP'r.




Next point is that in PvP we normally pick our fights on site. It's not like some other RP sites where someone can just stroll up to your thread and go "HA-HA! WE SHALL NOW DO COMBAT YOU FILTHY CASUAL!" and proceed to stomp you. And with the recent de-incentivising of PvP, the only people who do PvP are the ones who actually want to do it. Even with Sinner/Saint positions you can decline a challenge, or at least it's implied that you can. So, if people DO, do PvP, then they know full-well who and what they're going up against since many people, whether they'd admit to it or not, actually go through the applications and see what the opposition's packing so they can either alter their stuff to defeat them (which is some BS to do), or so they can use their existing magic in order to attempt to formulate a combination to take them down.




So now, what do I think of you're suggested add-on to the rules?
'The purpose of magic, weapon, armor, pet, and custom lineage applications on the site is to give you as the role player a better time of role playing on here with others. As such, do not come here for a good PvP experience. This is because the guidelines here are meant to give order or structure to making the application, and can still be abused even with grading staff's efforts. So with this in mind, create applications based on what you want as a role player and not to match or be better then others on here. Because truth be told, people do not like role playing with unfair and powerful characters.'~WT


I think this variant is negative and self degrading to the site. It implies that PvP cannot be enjoyable at all, and would actually deter many new players from trying it out; or even repel some players who came here with the intention of having a PvP battle from time to time. It also seems slightly condescending towards the end... HOWEVER, I do think that we can use that as a base-plate for an addition to the rules. Perhapse:

The purpose of magic, weapon, armor, pet, and applications on the site is to give players more options on different abilities to support the lore of his/her character. While PvP is in fact present on this site, PvP does not yield any notable benefits beyond that of Storyline progression in most instances. It is advised to attempt to keep your magic within the confines of your character's lore, and not feel completely bound by the guidelines of this site. The community and staff would like to implore you to create applications based on what you want as a role player and not to match or be better then others on site. Please bear in mind, that all applications must be approved as 'balanced' in the eyes of either a moderator or administrator.

This version is a bit longer than yours, but it doesn't have as many degrading aspects to it.

I can agree with this to an extent, and I am probably one of those people that try's way too hard to make powerful stuff etc. Though I try to approve others with the same level that I have gotten etc. Anyway, back on the main topic, what if people enjoy making incredibly super strong characters and that is part of their fun, pushing themselves to see just what combinations they can really make and what they can do within the sites systems? Not fair to try and limit them really, which isn't what you said, just some food for thought.

Honestly, I've done roleplaying multiple ways over the years, and I love to try and test the boundaries to see what is acceptable and what isn't, it's part of the fun that I have, so I can understand those who try to make super invincible characters of awesomeness, but at the same time I've made some purposefully weak just to see what it is like to struggle against one to improve my writing skills and abilities in PvP. Both sides are valid, and honestly, most PvP should be done for plot anyway, especially here since there isn't much incentive to randomly go out and blop a dude. If you are fighting someone for plot or worried about your abilities compared to them, you can always discuss what will make the fight more fun, if the two of you are going to fight for story then most of the time people can just ignore stuff to have more fun, I personally ignore a lot of the hit count requirements in jobs just to describe a more fluid battle that is filled with more, or less danger for one or both sides, same can be done with PvP.

The other issue with just looking at magic is that you miss the characters personality, sometimes half a characters flaws aren't in their abilities but in them. if I may be so bold as to use my own for an example, Erika is pretty strong with time-based magic and such, but she will almost never show off the time portion, and would instead let you kill her so she could then respawn within a clone body and have more data on you. It's the same thing as using the revive system we already have on site and isn't an inbuilt weakness stated in the magic, but in her personality. All about subterfuge rather than pure powerhouse beat you down. Just some food for thought I would like to throw out there for the discussion.

Finally I'd like to agree with Niyol for the most part, with the exception of the last line of the quoted bit, where it says people don't like to RP with unfair and powerful characters, I feel that's a bit too jabby, to some a character many of us consider weak might be strong because they can counter them etc. Honestly it is a roleplay with little to no consequence as long as both of you discuss things beforehand or always leave something for the other to do, like a good RP post should, then it shouldn't be an issue, characters are characters, if your's meets someone who is stronger than it gives you more of an IC reason to buff up your character, and you could even branch off of that, or possibly become their friend and never have to "worry" about their power level, it's all a role play, it will never be even, but it doesn't have to, it only has to be fun, be it playing a weaker character or a stronger character, what matters is the interaction, and the playing off of each other. In a straight up PvP match yeah things can get wild, but that's the point of a duel to go ham, the point of a roleplay and story is to have fun roleplaying your character with others and see how it does, or doesn't work out!

Anyway sorry for the large text bubble, just my few cents on it.

I believe the state that Tiger is trying to make when saying people are trying to be "The Best" at PvP which I think you kind of missed, is people end up in the infinite loops of trying to make complete and utter bulls**t for the sake of undermining other people and being "The Best" not so much that they are "The Best". oh boy we're going to see a lot of double quotes are we.

The main issue is that we ended up with a cycle where everyone is making stuff that shouldn't be allowed or makes no sense in the context of their character. (hello ice mages being able to burn stuff with the cold somehow, psst freezerburn doesn't work like that.) This has taken the fun out of the site cause now you end up with people feeling undermined by the system while others get to have free candy from thin air (this is also thanks to staff inconsistency cause no two people think the same way 100% of the time). So while one app gets to pile on all the stuff to be "The Best" at PvP, another app is getting the nerf hammer 90% of the time which is sad nerf hammers make people feel bad.

Basically what I'm trying to say in my uncomprenhendable(this is totally a word I swear) pile of garblygook is that the system encourages people to try and be "The Best" at PvP when we don't actually want that, we want people to be free in what they create instead of making some people ungodly for no reason while making others feel like the staff is out to get them. This is why I miss back in the old days where things were strictly RP related rather than having this numbers game called health and damage and resistances, people could go for ages bashing each others skulls wide up and having fun while doing it until one of them decided that meh maybe their opponent deserved to win for their hard RP work. Now we get these 10 post RP duels because either damage is too high cause of sad things like people putting in as much BS as they can to make themselves "THE BEST!" or health is too low (I hate losing a fight just cause my opponent decided to unleash 400+ damage in one go despite the fact that I only have 300 health).

So in the end, I think the suggestion should move more towards encouraging people to do whatever they want rather than trying to balance things for a system that is so trashy that we would rather avoid it anyway and just do for fun plot battles instead of systematic PvP. Another point is that everyone should feel powerful in their own right instead of getting roflstomped just cause someone got more crap through.

Edit: I totally tried to sound like a nasally guy like a guy who does youtube videos about Playstation games, god typing doesn't get the sound of your voice right... kind of like skype calls.

That Adopted Kid wrote: In a straight up PvP match yeah things can get wild, but that's the point of a duel to go ham, the point of a roleplay and story is to have fun roleplaying your character with others and see how it does, or doesn't work out!

Natalia Wolf wrote:
So in the end, I think the suggestion should move more towards encouraging people to do whatever they want rather than trying to balance things for a system that is so trashy that we would rather avoid it anyway and just do for fun plot battles instead of systematic PvP. Another point is that everyone should feel powerful in their own right instead of getting roflstomped just cause someone got more crap through.

I quoted that last portion of TAK's post so I can also link it to this last portion of Nat's post.


The systematic PvP IN MY OPINION, is an optional thing. I'll use a personal example again... this battle I was pulled in against a D Rank and a C Rank, I had a D Rank status effect thrown my direction. As a B Rank player, D Rank paralysis = no effect. However, I allowed it because I don't believe in the ranking system for PvP. So in this situation, the system has been middle fingered and thrown out the koala.

BUT on the other hand, the C Rank was absolutely mortified when (through the combination of multiple effects) I unleashed 200 damage in 1 post since technically that should kill him. This is an example of RP'ing based purely on the system. But at the end of my post, I presented 2 situations, in which both of them, the C Rank was very much alive and breathing because why the heck not? No one cares about the system in jobs, so why should it matter in a PvP that's for fun?



In short, PvP matches are whatever. You can either use the system, or both agree to screw it and just have an endless brawl.

because everyone is going on and on I'm going to keep this simple from a personal point of view.

Working towards any sort of PvP entirely defeats the purpose of rp. Even if your character's goal is to be 'the strongest' the ultimate goal of a site like this is to write stories. Even the pvp should be nothing more than a means of evolving your player as a person and character. Some do this brilliantly, others do not. If your the strongest yet your character never went through anything truly impactful as a character, it's not the reason we're here. There are plenty of places where 'making the best pvp' is a viable objective. World of Warcraft and other games do so in a much more enjoyable format. Just writing post after post with the only objective of strength with no story to it seems like it would be quite boring.

I believe my point is more "we should encourage people to build their characters the way they want" but instead they see how our trashy PvP system is set up and don't feel encouraged to build they way they want, they see it and go "I have to make things according to the rules" instead. So what we need to do is make something that encourages free creative stuff instead of discouraging it with the system.

NOTE: Just to make sure the reader does not get lost, the detail about the suggestion is below the ANYWAYS paragraph.

TAK: Anyway, back on the main topic, what if people enjoy making incredibly super strong characters and that is part of their fun, pushing themselves to see just what combinations they can really make and what they can do within the sites systems? Not fair to try and limit them really, which isn't what you said, just some food for thought.

Natalia:The main issue is that we ended up with a cycle where everyone is making stuff that shouldn't be allowed or makes no sense in the context of their character. (hello ice mages being able to burn stuff with the cold somehow, psst freezerburn doesn't work like that.)

With the two above I am not exactly against the creativity and freedom with logic that is offered here, it's actually why I joined here originally(I know you said I did not speak against this but you made me think about it). Because I would find it funny if someone made a banana based magic that has the capability to smash bones and melt flesh like acid...using just bananas(that and the excuse of magic allows things here that would not make sense in the real world usually).

But what I am against is when people don't know when to stop with this logic. I will say this simply, their are various examples of this found in some of the custom lineages and other apps of the site that go too far with the logic given. And I understand that their are those like you TAK who want to push the limits, but the thing is the limits are not fully constructed on here and carry more consequences in breaking them on here rather then like on a video game. So while the limits can be reached and passed...I feel it shouldn't because naturally breaking the limits leave others to either get mad and feel malicious towards the limit breakers or those who follow with their own intentions whether good or bad, both can end in site drama(While this includes TAK this goes for anyone else reading that has a similar idea or if they see something here that applies to them).

ANYWAYS, I felt the above is off topic from the suggestion I was proposing, so below is what matters to that. I don't mind talking about the above more and at the same time wouldn't mind if people wanted to stop talking about the above part. Regardless, help by trying to divide the responses if you want to respond to the top or bottom please?

"The purpose of magic, weapon, armor, pet, and applications on the site is to give players more options on different abilities to support the lore of his/her character. While PvP is in fact present on this site, PvP does not yield any notable benefits beyond that of Storyline progression in most instances. It is advised to attempt to keep your magic within the confines of your character's lore, and not feel completely bound by the guidelines of this site. The community and staff would like to implore you to create applications based on what you want as a role player and not to match or be better then others on site. Please bear in mind, that all applications must be approved as 'balanced' in the eyes of either a moderator or administrator." -Niyol

I like this revision of what I was trying to say and would this version to be put in where people read the guides about magic, equipment, and custom lineages(though I don't think guides exist for a custom lineage...but that's fine enough). And I do admit my version is negative, but again I come from the viewpoint that thinking of PvP spoils a rp rather then makes go well or better...which admittedly I have been proven wrong on that account recently and am still trying to get that idea in my head. So yes your revision of my text is what I would like to put in...But I have another suggestion!

While you are putting that in(if the staff agrees to it), then would it also be possible to mention in the guides that pertain to PvP details that following the system in a actual PvP match is not usually needed? Because as it was said on here, the system is optional so as long the people involved are willing to talk about what may happen. So where their is information that pertains to the system info(which I guess is the same places where I recommended the original suggestion to go to), could it also be added that the system is not always necessary to follow in all PvP related situations? Below I have a idea of what it could be added, or maybe the two could be mixed somehow? Again I feel it could help if people see that when reading guides, PvP should not matter too much as a influencing factor so as long you keep the talk up between the people involved.

Spoiler: