PvP in Empires of Arcadia
As you all know, Players versus Player combat will (at long last) be making an appearance in Empires of Arcadia. Over the summer I’ve been drafting a rough plan of how it will work and have come up with a PvP battle system that will be both competitive and innovative. It will integrate with Player versus Non-Player combat seamlessly as well.
The basic idea of PvP is that you do not fight other players directly. I have decided not to implement direct combat for a number of reasons, but that’s outside the scope of this article. Instead of fighting other players directly, you will fight their Eidolons (this is a story element, explained later). Each player will possess an Eidolon (starting at a certain, but currently undecided level) which will serve as a guardian of sorts. First, allow me to explain the functions of an Eidolon in PvE combat.
Your Eidolon, as a PvE companion, will serve as a conduit for a number of things, the first of which is your Limit Break. Depending on your Eidolon’s ability set, your Limit Break will become available to you in battle at a certain time or when certain conditions are met. These abilities are often devastating to your enemies or very helpful to your character and can range from simply dealing extra damage to resurrecting your character upon death.
Secondly, your Eidolon can serve as a spiritual guardian of sorts that can bestow persistent abilities upon your character, again depending upon your Eidolon’s ability set. These can range from extra attack to extra defense or any number of bonuses to your statistics.
Your Eidolon’s ability set is determined by how you use it in combat. Each Eidolon starts with four basic persistent abilities that increase attack, defense, spell damage, and spell defense, and three basic active abilities that deal physical damage, deal physical damage, or add temporary status effects. How often you use each of these active abilities will determine which new abilities it learns. Which persistent/passive ability you have active most will determine which one increases in power. All active and passive abilities are based on an experience scale; experience for your Eidolon is taken out of your main experience pool. You can decide how much experience goes toward your Eidolon in your Eidolon screen.
In addition to abilities, your Eidolon will have a full set of statistics that increase as it gains levels. How these statistics increase depends again on how you use the Eidolon. This will be shown in a bar-graph chart that shows the frequency of use of each skill type. If you have ever played Morrowind or Oblivion, this system should be fairly familiar to you, as each stat may increase anywhere from 0 to 5 points based on skill use. These stats will not affect anything in PvE - they are used in PvP only; this is something you may want to keep in mind when determining your Eidolon’s battle style.
In PvP, your Eidolon will serve as your avatar. There is no player-to-player combat for reasons I’ll explain later. You will be able to directly control your Eidolon’s actions in combat to a certain extent. In the event that you defeat another player’s Eidolon or another player defeats yours, it will no longer be available for use in PvE or PvP combat, thus negating/removing both its persistent and active abilities, until it is revived, either via a Spirit Shrine or through the use of a spell or potion. Your Eidolon gains 100% of experience received from PvP battles, based on its level vs its opponent’s level.
I have decided to implement it this way for the main reason that even though your Eidolon is killed, it will not decommission your player. You are still free to enter PvE combat with a dead Eidolon, though you won’t have access to its abilities or your Limit Breaks. The reason for this so that players are free to enter combat with other Eidolons even when that Eidolon’s owner is offline.
Which brings me to my next point; no, both players involved in a PvP battle will not directly control their Eidolons. Only the player who initiated the battle will be able to directly control theirs. For this reason, I will be implementing a system of macros where you can select how your Eidolon behaves under certain conditions; e.g., when it is low on health, has been attacked, or any number of conditions. For players of Final Fantasy XII, this will be familiar as well.
This is basically the tip of the iceberg for the Eidolon system and it may or may not be subject to change prior to release. However if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, feel free to let me know.