Proof, Again, That Trion Listens to Their Players

Despite fears my writing would be both sloppy and spastic, I rapidly fired up Blogger this morning in response to something recently witnessed: Trion, yet again, listening to their players.  If you haven't been on the PTS forums of late, this thread stands as a spectacle of admiration and trust for a company that truly "gets it".  For those without the time or desire to read through myriad pages in a thread, I'll give you the headline straight away:  Trion plans to completely normalize PvP in Rift.  Simply typing that sentence almost brings a gleeful tear to my eye.  As I read Elrar's post, I was struck with simultaneous disbelief and exuberance.

As I've argued in some previous posts, the PvP gear grind in Rift is atrociously long.  Once you hit 50, all your work is still ahead of you in terms of reaching a level of gear that one could deem you "competitive" in PvP.  The math supports this fact.  Experience supports this fact and, what's more is, that I'm going through it right now on my freshly-50 Warrior.  I'm seeing it first hand and it's absolutely not fun in the slightest.  I even went as far as to ask the Warriors in my guild for a spec that would bring high survivability while allowing me to "contribute meaningfully" in PvP while I'm still gearing out.  The result was a sword and board spec that is a mere annoyance to casters.  I still die in approximately 3 seconds.  I still do absolutely no damage to my targets and even the proverbial "bread and butter" of the spec (draining mana, interrupting casts, CCing) seems almost completely ineffective.  Being right in the middle of this painful grind, I'm a walking, talking advertisement for PvP normalization.  Hopefully this adequately illustrates my simultaneous relief and joy when the aforementioned thread hit the boards.

So what is PvP normalization?  It can mean many things but the end result aimed for my any attempt at normalization is balanced, competitive PvP for all right out of the gates.  That last part is worth repeating: balanced, competitive PvP for all right out of the gates.  It defies all reason that anyone would oppose such an advancement yet we have precisely that occurring from a vocal minority on the boards whom believe Rift PvP should be about gear progression where the reward for "putting in the time" should be the ability to "dominate those still putting in theirs".  Advocates of this position won't phrase it that way and they'll fight you tooth and nail about the fact that their gear provides an almost insurmountable advantage in PvP but, as they say about Science and that which applies here as well, the good thing about it is that it's true whether you believe it or not.

Rift's take on PvP normalization, at this time, is straightforward and strictly aimed at providing an opportunity to collect data and measure the effectiveness of such a system.  In short, PA will continue to provide its benefits but gear will not be considered in instanced PvP.  Prior to the effects of PA being calculated, all stats will be set to competitive levels for all players regardless of gear.  Your health, attack power, spell power and more will all be set for you.  Again, I can't explain adequately with words how excited I am for this change.

Of course the counter arguments abound, one more ridiculous than the next.  I've already read countless posts arguing against such a system claiming that open-world PvP would be ruined under this rule set.  The irony here is that normalizing open-world PvP is fundamentally impossible when you actually stop and consider it so the entire argument never really gets off the ground.  Rest assured, Trion is referring to "instanced" PvP for normalization as there truly is no way to "normalize" open-world PvP effectively.

Another popular argument is the tired and worn assertion that if you normalize PvP then PvE gear with procs becomes king of the proverbial hill.  In a game where weapon procs are regularly just a chance to deal negligible chunks of damage, I would personally be fine without even considering this edge case yet Trion is already a step ahead of the ball and has stated they are ensuring they handle edge cases such as this.  Truly, this argument has no leg to stand on either.

Then there are those who claim that Rift was implemented as a "gear-based, progression MMO" and therefore normalizing PvP should be off the table.  Were there ever a more asinine argument within the confines of Rift, I've not seen it.  Attempting to argue this point would be like arguing that an Italian restaurant should never put anything on their menu that isn't Italian regardless of how good the dish may be.  If it's good, and the people want it, then why wouldn't you?  There is nothing preventing such an addition other than your own imaginary allegiances.  Normalized, competitive PvP and gear-based, PvE progression can quite easily and happily coexist in this wonderful game and it's long overdue that people begin realizing this.  I invite anyone who witnesses a shallow and fragile argument thrown out by those opposing such a system for PvP to fire back and do so firmly.  

So how would I normalize PvP in Rift?  Aside from the obvious evening out of stats across the board, I would do the following:

1. Keep PvP gear in the game so that players whom prefer to only PvP still have gear enough to be effective in IAs, dungeons, and more
2. Disable all procs in PvP
3. Disable all synergy crystals in PvP
4. Get rid of valor and vengeance alike and put a blanket damage reduction in PvP
5. If necessary, also put a blanket healing reduction (or increase depending on what's needed) in PvP
6. Expand the mercenary system to queue players regardless of "faction" but implement a feature that allows players to queue only for their own faction.  This, of course, would lead to slightly longer queue times for them but it would be their choice.

Let's usher in an era of balanced, competitive PvP in Rift.  Let's pull in those subscriptions from avid PvPers that otherwise would never be.  Most importantly, let's show Trion our support for actually listening to their player base.  Rest assured that the feedback offered thus far on Trion's attempt at PvP normalization has been overwhelmingly positive but never forget that it sometimes only takes a vocal minority to ruin progress for the whole.