As I mentioned in the last letter, one of the major changes in 17.8 will revolve around the process of replacing the PVP title system, and introducing separate rankings for solo and teaming PVP as well as a true dueling system with its own ranks as well for those that prefer that style of PVP as well. There are also some Notum Wars changes afoot that we will get to later on in this letter. So with this letter I’m going to explain in more detail exactly what is coming your way in this regard.

It’s also a fairly lengthy letter this time out with a lot to cover on this subject so hopefully it illustrates the thoughts and efforts that are going into redefining the system. 

Before we get into the nitty-gritty I just want to stress that we truly hope that we will be able to cater for all the PVP tastes as much as possible with these changes and be mindful of passionately those who participate in PVP. There were definitely some very hard choices to be made and I want to address the most important, and probably most contentious of them first – namely, death and progression and what it means to a PVP system.

PVP and death 

There will be no consequences to death in terms of your new PVP score. 

There, I said it. (Please do read on though before you jump to the ‘post’ button on the forums!) So are we copping out and making it ‘meaningless’ by not incorporating loss with death? I honestly don’t believe that or we wouldn’t be doing it. Having a death penalty for PVP, let alone a harsh one, means that it becomes a focus for players more than actually taking part in the action. If it’s imperative you don’t die then you don’t take as many risks, you don’t commit yourself fully to the action, and when you multiply that out over many people taking part it leads to the situation we saw all too often up till now where it was more important to players to very selectively pick their targets and not risk anything. At the end of the day we thought overall that was counter-productive to a more enjoyable PVP environment.

I think the original PVP title system that was introduced back in the day had very genuine intentions behind it, and in a ‘perfect world’ it would even sound like a very good system, and in many respects it served to provide something that some players have found enjoyable to varying degrees down the years. However with the wonderful tool of hindsight I think its fair to say that it had one inherent flaw – it placed far too much importance on not dying. This was the cornerstone of the choice that we were faced with when considering changing the PVP system. We went through various ways to try and consider how to handle death, but at the end of the day we couldn’t avoid the fact that the way with the least possible complications and possible exploits was to not have death affect your PVP progress. 

So how does the system actually work?

The New Ranks 

As mentioned in the previous letter there will be three separate progressions for you to take part in with the new system. Solo PVP, Team PVP and Duels.

You will be able to choose which title is visible on your character (also selectable will be your ‘legacy’ pre-17.8 title if you had one). 

Players will now have a series of new stats visible in their character sheet that display the number of solo kills and deaths, team kills and deaths and Duel kills and deaths. Each relevant kill also provides you with a score that is added to your total for that form of PVP (you can look on it as PVP exp as it were) and that score allows you to proceed up the available ranks for that form of PVP.

The score for each kill will be based on a calculation between your level and your targets levels. The bigger the difference the more or less points you will receive for killing that player depending on whether you are higher or lower than them in level. 

If you are in a team (or killed by a team) the score is credited to your team score (and kill / death listing) as a team-kill rather than a solo-kill. Who is credited with the kill is decided by who does the most damage to the target.

So what are the ranks themselves?