For Whom the Bell Tolls

I wrote this post before this update but I'm posting it anyway.

I think the PvP ruleset is working very well. Sure, you have to be prepared for trouble while you're xp'ing, but that's life on Nagafen. However, I did want to mention one somewhat minor issue that has been troubling me.

Opposing players tend to congregate at zone-in's, say the Mariner's Bell area in the newbie xp zones. Okay, that's a valid strategy. They pick off a lot of opposing players with ambushes. And you do have immunity on zone-in so I'm not saying they are ambushing incoming players. They are getting the players who went there to do quests and xp and aren't expecting PvP action. That part is terrific. They managed to get there and they deserve the kills they can get.

What I do have trouble with is the fact that they can act with relative impunity. Whenever a posse assembles to rout the incursion or if they're just losing a fair fight, the intruders simply zone, completely ending the fight.

I respect people who come up with strategies like that, but I think you also have to see it as a game mechanic issue. So, I'd like to see a restriction on zoning when in PvP combat. There may be issues with that I'm not smart enough to figure out, but I'm suggesting it anyway.

Now, someone is going to read this and say: "Hold on, Aggro! What's with you wanting to impose artificial restrictions on gameplay? I thought you didn't like that sort of thing?"

My suggestion isn't the artificial restriction. Zoning is. Especially with the Mariner's Bell where you have no idea where the person zoned to.

Zones are merely technically imposed limitations on the game. And I don't think people should use those to their advantage. If it was a "real world" do you think in the middle of a heated fight someone is going to hail a boat (from the opposing city no less) and sail calmly away to another area of town? Please. That's the "artificial" part.

Anyway, after I wrote this I saw SOE may be doing something about it so my complaint is probably pointless. But hey, that never stopped me before.

As for the rest of the PvP action, I think it's great but I haven't been in enough fights yet. I'll probably talk more about it in the future.
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Okay, to update this post a bit the change SOE went with is:

The bells in Freeport and Qeynos can no longer be used by non-citizens.

I am happy to see a change made but I wouldn't have gone quite so overboard. I would have went with a time delay or heavy cost on the bells for non-citizens. But I do prefer this limitation to having no limitation at all. And I like to see that they are paying attention to what's happening on the server and reacting accordingly.