March 2002

Chess and Checkers: PvP with Melee Combat
Posted Wednesday, March 13, 2002 by Mavralyn

I find that once again the debate on allowing Melee combat for PvP has reared its ugly head. To duke it out or not... that is the big question on everyone's mind. Well, if you enjoy using checker pieces to play chess, then I say go for it!

There is no such thing as BALANCE for every single class or combination of classes that will allow all characters an even playing field. Fighters are the brawn... brains are not normally their forte. They prefer to go in swinging (or for those that prefer the ranger types, standing back and firing their deadly missiles while staying out of harm's reach).

Your thieves much prefer sneaking up on someone and attacking from behind... a very deadly sort of attack too. And if spotted, the cunning thief will slip away and try again in the future. The rogue sort does tend to have more brains than the average fighter type... but typically are a little weaker in physical combat. OH... they also can fire off missiles too with a fair accuracy that is alarming.

Sounds fun you say? OK, sure... no thinking involved... just pick the weapon and start attacking. Big deal. Let's all just stick with weapons and forget any strategy or spell usage whatsoever. In addition, for anyone who even thinks there's strategy or fun in that, then I say, "Go play some checkers".

For those of you that whined, "there was never any balance in NWN... the ONLY good choice for PvP was a cleric/mage maxxed character!" I say, "bullSHIT". You know why? Because there was balance... you had your questers... and trust me, having a cleric/mage try to quest alone could be extremely challenging. Definitely not easy. Damn it... let my cleric/mage be able to have better hit points and use better weapons! I want to be able to quest and kill npcs without having to die a few times!

The cleric/mage combination just happened to be the best choice if you wanted to have some good player versus player combat. It was a challenge and it was BALANCED. All cleric/mages had the exact same spells to choose from (only took a little effort to find all the spells that could be found in game and train for spells too) as well as the same access to weapons and armor (don't even think pearl... that's a whole different chess game there). All cleric/mages had a choice of which spells to use when entering a PvP fight. If that isn't balanced, then I sure as hell don't know what is.

I am adamantly against having melee combat for PvP, and I fear that it will be tested, and tested, and tested (because the minority has a voice). I also fully believe the results of all that testing will show that it's boring, mundane, mindless, and totally NOT necessary for BALANCED PvP. And (in spite of the findings) I believe the not-so-silent minority will continue to whine and demand to have their checkers to play chess with.