PvP in Orbus needs some love. (Thoughts after 150 hours and level 20 as a Warrior)

Suggestions
#1

I just hit 20 on my Warrior after about 150 hours in game. I love the game, the class mechanics, and the community. But I am super disappointed in Warrior PvP, and feel that PvP in general just needs some love (PvE is great).

Arena PvP
Lets start with some general thoughts on Arena PvP. I discovered the Arena at about level 10 and I have sat in the arena queue 24/7 when I am playing ever since. However, the queue never pops. People never queue for it. So I started asking people to queue and I found that there was this fear amongst people to queue for it. Some thought it would cause them to drop gear if they died, and some thought that I would just crush them because I was higher level (both are not true). There is a total lack of information about Arena PvP in game and because of that, it is a mechanic that is not being used, which is a shame, because it is so fun.

Perhaps we could add a daily quest to participate in 3 arena PvP games, and that can reward you with something. Additionally, to get eligible for this quest, we could add in a sign post that discusses how Arena PvP works and have people read it to complete it. I think this would inspire more people to join for it and get people more active in Arena PvP in general.

For those who are not aware, Arena PvP is like a FFA MOBA. You start at level 1, level to level 4, and last person alive at the end wins. Super quick, fun, fair, and no consequences.

Dueling
The arena is great, but it is a terrible way to test out your current class. Because you start at level 1 and can only get to level 4, you can’t really test out how your character feels at end game. So, you have to travel to the wilds and duel there. BUT BE CAREFUL! If you use any DOT’s and someone actually dies, one of you is walking back from prison. It’s a pain.

If we had the ability to strike up a duel with someone, it would be a great way for us to test out our characters, get some PvP practice, and just like an Arena, have zero consequences. Again, if we added in a daily quest to duel, we could incentivize people to give it a shot and who knows, they may find that they like it! Perhaps dueling is only allowed in the War camp next to Guild City to prevent people from spamming you with duel invites. But without a doubt, there needs to be the option to duel.

Wilds PvP
I was totally under the assumption that the Wilds were going to be a place where people spent most of their time at end game. I could have sword I read a post from @Riley_D where he said he wanted people to not be able to portal out and that end game dungeon instance portals would be out there. This appears to not be the case from many of the people I talk to at end game. Hopefully they are wrong about this and the Wilds gets some increased purpose. But as it stands now, you basically just kill fisherman out there and people who are farming abberations (until Tradu comes out at which point Wilds gear becomes skippable.)

Warrior PvP
The moment I played the Warrior and learned they had combos, and saw SPYRO in his glittering white armor, I was like “I am maining a Warrior.” 150 hours later I am thinking to myself, “welp… this was a waste at the moment.” Don’t get me wrong, I love PvE, but PvE is a bridge to PvP for me, and Warrior PvP def needs some work.

Shield Bash, arguably my most important skill, does nothing in PvP. Good luck getting a combo on anyone after they are aware you are there. Between instant teleports, awkward hit boxes, and melee lag, it is near impossible to get a swing off on someone. So, what do I do, hold my shield up, charge them, dodge for 10 seconds and wait for the cooldown on Charge to return. This does somewhat work in Arena PvP but at higher levels and in the Wilds it does nothing.

Additionally, my horn does nothing in PvP aswell. Perhaps the horn can cause the player to do no damage for a short duration, or reduce their damage at least. Or just something for that matter. Because as it stands now, two of my most important CD’s are worthless and I am left with a shield that doesn’t seem to block everything (bugs), a charge that only chips away a fraction of their health, and an opponent who is almost impossible to hit otherwise.

Conclusion
The game is so fun, and there is so much room for growth. I know that the dev team listens and that they make great changes and updates. However, PvP seems to be a little forgotten at the moment (didn’t see any mention of if in the blog update) and I am hoping that if enough people read this post and add their own PvP thoughts in, we might be able to get some attention and get a little more love for a core aspect of this MMORPG.

Thanks guys!

On that note, if you are a PvP’er at heart and you want some people to queue for Arenas with, check out www.unionofham.com It links right to our discord and you can connect with a group of people who share the same passion. :slight_smile:

6 Likes
Warrior class – A dying breed
#2

I think I’ve said this in several places before, but at this point the PvP side of the game has not really been balanced. That will be fixed at some point. The Arena is just meant to serve as a prototype of a game mode that might be fun to do, but we haven’t spent a lot of time on it.

I mentioned in this blog post: https://blog.orbusvr.com/early-access-weekend-recap-whats-next/

Beyond Content Patch Two, we’ll begin work on some exciting new PvP content as well as the first Raid in Content Patch Three, with more details to come and a launch date on that as we progress further in development.

So it is on the slate, but we are not there yet.

6 Likes
#3

Understandable. Is there any chance we can just get shield slam turned on in PvP for the time being?

1 Like
#4

I mean, if it were as simple as flipping a switch, sure. But that’s actually a great example of why the PvP situation really needs a good chunk of our time so we can do it right.

Shield Bash stuns an enemy for a short amount of time and interrupts any heals they were in the process of casting. Okay, so what does that mean for other players? There’s not even a concept right now in the system of what a “stunned” player is. What does that mean in VR? We obviously can’t keep you from moving around in room-scale. So maybe it just means you’re not able to use your abilities for a short amount of time? What does that mean to each class? Do we like black out your screen or dim your display?

And then on top of all of that, is that even the gameplay we want in PvP? Or would it make more sense for the Warrior’s Shield Bash to do something entirely different in PvP than it does in PvE? Like, maybe it just instantly drains the Stamina bar of other players, for example.

So, yeah, there’s a lot that needs to be sat down and decided upon before we can really go through and make sure all the abilities of the various classes work well in PvP, and we want to do it right.

I wanted to also touch on this in two points:

  1. The Warrior has a lot more armor and hitpoints, just naturally, than any other class. So that is definitely an advantage in PvP.

  2. The shield does block things in PvP. A shield in-between you and a Runemage missile will cause the missile to hit your shield. Same thing for incoming Ranger arrows. Musketeer orbs are a bit trickier because while they do hit your shield, they are all mini-AoE attacks, so you are likely to get it as well. Ideally we’d like to get to a place where a Warrior’s shield skill in PvP can really swing the tide of a fight both for themselves and their friends, but we’re not there yet obviously.

But at any rate, that just leads us down the path of what each class’s role in PvP is, what we need to do to balance it, etc. Which are all discussions we will be having at the appointed time. But just want to make it clear, we do think about these things and try to consider all the angles.

6 Likes
#5

I agree with a lot of your points but Not sure where you are getting that you have even close to the HP as everyone else. A warrior can survive a lot more hits than any other class. There shield can block spells as well. You can block 13 t2 fireballs with your shield which is a ton of dmg. You can easily survive a mage ult and have more than double the HP of a mage. I think there needs to be a number in the health bar. Not sure why it is hidden how much health we have.

1 Like
#6

All of that makes total sense. I guess I was figuring that a shield bash would just stop the player from being able to teleport for a specified duration (2-3 seconds) and that it would be an easy “switch” to flip. Makes total sense to stop and think “is that the game play we want” though.

At the end of the day, as far as Warrior game play goes in my opinion. I want to be able hit things with my sword. Game play mechanics that allow me to do that are preferable. Because as it stands now, aside from charge, its pretty difficult to do that in PvP.

Again, PvE is awesome and I am loving that. Just that in PvE things run to you and stand still and in PvP things run away and keep moving.

Regardless, keep up the awesome work. You guys are defining VRMMORPGs and I am sure the industry is noticing.

2 Likes
#7

I am not even taking HP and armor into account. What I am talking about is more basic than that. “Hits to kill”. Doesn’t matter if I have tons of HP and armor if a mage can kill me in 3-4 hits. I know I have a shield and I can hold it up but a good mage wont shoot into my shield. And I am almost certain the damage shield cannot take 13 fireballs (are you referring to the tank shield). However, I need a solid 10-15 hits to take a hunter or mage down (musket is impossible). So when a mage can kill me in 4 hits and I can kill them in 15, what does it matter if I have all this armor and HP?

1 Like
#8

Not sure if you saw my post but I agree with most of your points. Nothing is balanced yet. I was just saying that warriors do have a lot more health. They can’t be 1 or 2 shotted. I did look at my notes, that was a tank shield, the dps shield can take 7 to 8 fireball hits, hard to tel if any of those crit since we can’t see damage against other players.

#9

I mean, PVP is probably a bit like PVE for warriors right now: they make the most sense as part of a group. You try being a ranger/mage/musketeer sniping the squishies while you have a warrior in your face, swinging their sword like a mad man. It complicates things.

1 Like
#10

I tried dueling a mage in the wilds and it’s not a pretty thing. It was the first time where i felt useless as a class as a Warrior and i’m In the same boat as you with time played as a warrior. Needless to say i lost 3 out of the 4 duels we had because what can you do except franticly chase te wizard around while he chuckles at you teleporting around untill the sword charge is off Cooldown and u can hit him maybe once with charge and maybe a white hit if you’re Lucky every 15 seconds.

I Felt kinda gutted that shield bash didnt work either. It basicly takes out all of our combo’s out of pvp and leaves ur with only 1 working ability (charge) out of the meager 4 we got.

They are not in a good place as is in pvp but Lets have faith in Riley I’m sure he will come up with something for the warrior class in due time. The stamina thing sounds like a decent idea. Or maybe a 1 second root or a frozen effect.

The stun does sounds a little overpowered tho as is. I mean in one stun u could get 2 wounds off. If any of those crits you probably looking at 5k damage + white hits that could easily add another 2k too this while not being able to do anything back does make warriors kind of into a orbus terminator.

1 Like
#11

Some cool discussion here about mez and pvp in a VR setting. I just wanted to mention that after going hard as a warrior the last few days, I started to get the distinct feeling that roomscale play would be especially strong for a warrior class due to the positioning issues mentioned here. Every warrior knows there is a “sweet spot” for hitting combos that can be frustrating to maintain in a moving battle. After reading about and working towards high scores in Space Pirate Trainer, I discovered the best players attrubute a lot of their success to big roomscale. In the high scores, it was discussed how in the same time period vive players greatly outnumbered rift in high scores… room scale is why.

This is not possible for everyone but… it motivated me to clear out a much bigger space than I had already, and initially I had enough to turn, lunge, shuffle to the side etc. Once I had room to lunge TWICE, or back up a full 2 spiders’ hitboxes, it really changed the feel and speed of warrior to me. I could be wrong, but I think the devs may have that in mind when thinking about Warrior mechanics. It is still tough, but I can chase a mage 10 or 12 feet swinging away now, whereas before I would have to just tp after them(agreed not fun esp with no stun).

It sure looks like the devs are considering everything the community suggests, and pvp is not balanced yet, but in the meantime I strongly suggest trying for the biggest space possible as a warrior player.

#12

I have a decently large space. Quality players teleport way outside the range of that space.

#13

I am not saying it’s the only solution, just that it helps. Furthermore if someone has the stam to repeatedly tp more than 4m in combat it would be cool to see how. Maybe they can consider putting a short time delay on TP if enough people have trouble landing hits. Pretty hard for a mage to cast while they are constantly fleeing with TP and all I have to do is hit charge when it’s up to close the gap if they get too far. We get the same movement they do but we attack by swinging an arm or hitting trigger rather than casting runes… will reserve judgement until I go up against more high quality casters.

I too think there needs to be some balancing, however there are ways to mitigate the chase problem in the meantime.

Edited to add that right now a really skilled ranger seems the toughest for me but I am learning to use my shield to help with that. Also balancing for 1v1 is a mess and often results in a lot of homogenization of abilities and playstyle, e.g. one stun for each class, one gap closer, one buff, one slow… etc

#14

i am going to start pvping in the arena as a warrior, as i dont think it is as bad as u say, guess i will find out

#15

Let me know if you want to queue up. Just for shits and giggles I will show you how fun Warrior is against Musket.

1 Like
#16

Also, Arena isn’t as bad as Wilds. In Arena, you have the possibility of going against unskilled players who just popped in the queue. Wilds is where you quickly see how mismatched Warrior is. Then again, all of my Wilds fights have been organized, perhaps if I get the jump on someone in the heat of battle, they will stumble.

#17

I’d enjoy playing some Warrior with you if you are around this week Wayne, seems like UoH are some of the most avid PvPers and it would be fun to experiment. Musket is really tough but healers have been hard to impossible to kill 1v1 in many games!

#18

Nice! Check out the discord to keep in touch if you aren’t already. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#19

Be happy to! It would be nice to brainstorm with some fellow warriors “in person” about ideas for shield bash suggestions in pvp. We def. need access to our spread of powers the same as other classes… all in good time.

#20

This topic was automatically closed 20 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.