Good post. I wonder if it's not a chicken-or-egg question, though- if end game PvP is the goal, why isn't there more of it? Are people not committing themselves because there's not enough to fight about, or is there not enough to fight about because people aren't committing themselves?

Judging from in-game chat and these forums, it appears that more people are concerned with the soap opera dramatics of the alliances- they might be too busy to fight.

Anyway, regardless of reason, fewer and fewer people are logging in these days, so obviously there is a problem.

I would, too, but I have to say that a lot depends on what kind of content and mechanics. If it's more roaming NPC bots, or mechanisms for PvP, I doubt much will change. The last patch made some changes that need to be undone, or at least made irrelevant- I know for a fact that several individuals left because of it.

your right for a game that is over two years old it doesnt have content.....er wait

im in the same mood as last year at winter/spring - generally the time i dont play the game im used to very often.

was the same for AutoAssault and Tabula Rasa. I hope this game doesn't face the same end as those two - when i started to play it again, the server shutdown was announced.

The perpetuum DEVs dont have to listen to a publisher like NCsoft AFAIK, and that gives me hope that i can play the game as long as i pay for it...

A game where player interaction is devided in either no pvp or full pvp but without political consequences as in a personal standing that is being reflected on yourself and your corp by your actions - has 2 finite states - but no dynamic.

Things to fight over wont change that.

True as far as it goes Red. Thats why I supported your third zone idea. But what is really needed is an on going focus. The game Rift is a very dynamic world, in the midst of a multi sided extra planar war. The rift system is very flexible, and can be used for many different purposes. Of course Rifts main focus is CareBear ^^, but something like that could be adapted for PO.

http://www.riftgame.com/en/

As it stands, the majority of the real action is confined to the largest player alliances, who have the resources to replace their losses. They also have a strangle hold on the choke points. Everyone else is just trying not to lose what they have managed to gain at this point.  Unless some changes are made, thats how things will likely remain.  Its going to be a very delicate balancing act. Tilting too much one way or the other could lose many of the few remaining players.

It worked for Eve Online.  I'd rather wait for my skill points to spend than grind activities to raise them.  The latter leads to macroing and repetitious  boredom.

I'm brand new to the game but it seems to me that if I'm patient, and join a decent corporation, I will be able to participate in some PVP.

Progression is not finitely set in 1 area so when you play for so-and-so long you are more better because you can drive a better robot/mech. This is called a leveling system in theme-park games.

Progression is fluctuating depending on player EP distribution, on an efficiency scale in a chosen role. Someone might choose to stick STRICTLY with light-EW bots for utility/support role for his corporation, but 99% of people will go the ego-stroke route and "gimme mech I wanna pew-pew". This is called the variety system in sandbox games.

Basically what you are advocating would turn the player experience into a bastardized DAOC, with 3 factions where 1 eats 2 eats 3. So because you've played for 3 months and invested all skills into mechs, you should "automatically" destroy everything and everyone that hasn't "outleveled" your progression down a fixed level scheme.

TL;DR would be, youre advocating that player level/progression should be more important then player skill.

I say it should be player skill > level progression, always.

So we'll have to agree to disagree.

The progression comes through efficiency at performing said roles, not at increased number of toys you can sit in and pilot as you pass through every 20,000 EP checkpoint.

Increased efficiency = specialization.

Yes, in ~10 years we might get to the point where absolutely everyone in-game who started at release is equally skilled (assuming they dont add even more extensions at any point).

This thread seems to have derailed from content to progression, which seems to be happening alot.

MMO players seem to have been infected with a sense of entitlement when it comes to playing. Probably because the more popular MMO's have made a great effort to try to level the playing field among many players of different skill level.

Player skill has become less and less important at anything but the most extreme levels, the 'Hard Core' players. The min/max players that have 'capped' all the possible ways the game can enhance your play and are competing on skill alone.

Let me use an example of what I mean by player skill.

A game like Tetris measured your player skill by score. You're progression was entirely player skill based, as your skill in manipulating the blocks got better, your score increased.

MMO's have tried to make the content more challenging, but without the player ever needing to actually increase their skill; if you die to creature X, go get better armor/weapons and come back to try again. Eventually the game will give you enough bonuses that you can kill the creature and move to the next level.

If we look at Perpetuum in the same light, we see that the game is more like Tetris than MMO. The advantages the game gives you are enough to get you past the PVE content, but they are not enough to counter a skilled PVP player.

Put a PVP player that was in beta with 1 year of experince and 100's of fights up against a new PVP player with max level EP skills in similar bots, and the Vet win (assuming they actually got good at PVP with all that practice).

TL;DR Perpetuum requires you to L2P to get better, progression is player skill, not game bonuses.

And I disagree with your disagree, partly.

You totally dismiss the fact that knowing which bot counters what, is pure player knowledge. There's no EP you can spend that will tell you what bot or what fit you need. Yes the information is out there for all to see, but i'm sure it wouldn't suprise you to know that many players don't even make the attempt to learn things like that.

Most inexperienced PVP'ers try to 'brute force' a win, ignoring terrain and not fitting any module that doesn't increase DPS; and then expect the game to make up the difference by giving them more and more powerful DPS items until it works.

End game content should start arriving in 2022. Between now and then I'm sure the makers have many plans to fill in the current and near future content. TY all for your ideas suppositions rumors and death-knell cries. Please carry on.

How does EvE fall into this idea of progression? It works in a very similar way to Perpetuum and is one of the longest running MMO's out there.