Some Cents on PvP...

Putting aside the desire for near-perfect balancing of characters at all levels (which I personally feel is unnecessary and actually helps to concentrate PvP players at certain levels), the most recent update (welcomed and most appreciated) have attempted to deal with issues that, unless certain other aspects of the game are fixed (namely merging), remain broken.

First, I don't believe PL has the players to support all the levels currently played surrounding the major PvP levels (I.e., 20, 28, 31, 38, etc), so they are unlikely to become major levels. Now, arguably people at those "in-between-levels" will move themselves in either direction to a main level (25, 30, 35, 40). That being said, I believe there is value in being able to PvP such a variety of levels. As stated previously, balancing all characters at all levels in neigh impossible, and for example, 35 bears are at a significant disadvantage against a 35 elf. In the past, bears would simply level up to 38 or 40 where they would be on a more equal level -- eliminating their ability to compete, essentially removes bears entirely from 35 PvP. Frankly, even a 40 bear beating up on 35's was part of the fun of PvP (organizing a team defense, working together vs someone far stronger, etc).

Tldr; Given the +-2 and the inevitable unbalanced nature of the classes at various levels (which was countered by higher or lower leveled classes), certain classes will be entirely eliminated from major PvP levels.

Second, there are two systemic issues with how PvP games are managed and hosted. The first being that the original host of the game quickly loses control after a single match. The second (and connected) issue, is that players can easily "merge" the game and move the minimum level up or down while the original players remain. Unfortunately, making it +-2 won't prevent 40's from joining 35 games, it will merely take a three minute concerted effort on the part of a 40 with a few characters between 35 and 40.

Personally I enjoyed the challenge posed by higher leveled characters -- they were both excellent practice, and sometimes quite evenly matched. That being said, I can understand why some might dislike high leveled characters beating up those lower than them, however in order for that issue to be fixed, game hosting and merging must also be repaired.

As I stated before, this is a problem that actually hurts the game and should be fixed instead of directing effort towards fixing 'bugs' that have no real impact on the game like changing what vanity a npc wears.

The Level Restriction by 2 is by far the best & usefull thing what Cinco ever updated. No more getting Rushed by higher lvl people (don't tell me you like to fight higher lvl ppl) No more merging. This update is just to fix PvP. Everyone is fighting now at same levels. Don't tell me its bad, cause i am 100% right about this :)

My points about level balancing, class exclusion, and merging still stand.

The solution could be closing the levels to same, technically saying +/- zero. Then merging TO LOWER LEVEL won't be possible in the first place, the merging issue also can be handled by changing in the merging algorithm a bit, merging will be allowed to +/- zero only, either way it will work BUT the beauty of +/- zero is that, it will make some really classy levels viable such as Level 50, 55 and more which is not even possible for now after the latest update because for example L51, 56 etc are significantly overpowered than those.

The only problem with all these range reduction is the requirement of patience and time to taste the twinks levels & greater number of twink toons to play on multiple levels, IMO because all the other problems aka complains are not as much as strong as the benefits of this update TBH, you got a nice point though, that at some places higher level classes are viable because of unbalance, but you'll have to also think that it's not much broader, it's true for really a VERY few levels & top of that higher level fighting is not a solution to unbalanced pvp, either find another proper level for your class, or make the OP class, and if something is significantly op at any particular level, they should fight same op classes not boost kill on other weak classes and this is what mostly happens.

And for the problem, older community already have good understanding on the good pvp levels, it's nothing new, so it will take a bit time, but then it will keep flowing smoothly.

All the problems stated by you are unrelated problems. And IMO merging is not even an issue. Just merge them into your game and kick. The class elimination problem arises from the fundamental game mechanics. At certain levels, some classes have a disadvantage due to the lack of good enough gear / enough skill points / necessary skills. If this problem didn't exist, the +/-2 levels would make more sense. On the other hand, this does solve some problems with PvP.

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Originally Posted by Shinepin

The Level Restriction by 2 is by far the best & usefull thing what Cinco ever updated. No more getting Rushed by higher lvl people (don't tell me you like to fight higher lvl ppl) No more merging. This update is just to fix PvP. Everyone is fighting now at same levels. Don't tell me its bad, cause i am 100% right about this :)

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And it also killed pvp sooo

Cinco posted in my thread about merging that he unfortunately can't change the current merging system.

Since reverting the system back to normal isn't possible, could we just remove booting from PvP entirely? I'd happily relinquish my ability to boot players from one single match in favor of players no longer merging to boot whomever they please. I think the option of adding a password is enough control for players hosting. Booting in CtF could either stay or go too, but I think booting in arena causes way more harm than good as it stands.

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Originally Posted by KingFu

Cinco posted in my thread about merging that he unfortunately can't change the current merging system.

Since reverting the system back to normal isn't possible, could we just remove booting from PvP entirely? I'd happily relinquish my ability to boot players from one single match in favor of players no longer merging to boot whomever they please. I think the option of adding a password is enough control for players hosting. Booting in CtF could either stay or go too, but I think booting in arena causes way more harm than good as it stands.

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Remove booting players!

Without a major overhaul, the only way to eliminate 'merging' is to make the PvP level range zero (0).

However, there is a way to fix it so that the Host doesn't lose hosting privileges when re-making the map. That'll be in the next update.

Merging is still in the game. The only way to counter people merging from higher levels to lower ones is to merge a game yourself and BOOT that higher level person. If they remove booting from the game what's stopping me from getting my level 56 down dozens of levels to farm for kills? What are people going to do? They can host a new game. But if my game (the one with a 56) has only one person in it and their game doesn't have a full lobby, then it would merge into mine as soon as their game is over and be an endless cycle.

We addressed the merge problem in Dark Legends by removing all of the host / join functions for PvP and making everyone go through a special interface. I kinda like this option.
Apart from this, I still have the +/- 0 levels trick to keep people from being able to merge. Not as exciting (especially if I take away the ability to host / join).

I think the update today which fixed hosting privileges solved a lot of these problems. Seems like somewhat of a solution to the merging problem.

I would be against removing host/join functions for pvp for now.

I as well would be against removing the host and join options. Truthfully, I feel that with the game host issue fixed, I would be more than happy to return to +-5, as it did allow for all classes to compete, helped to provide a challenge, and increased the number of players per major level.

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Originally Posted by DanielRH

I as well would be against removing the host and join options. Truthfully, I feel that with the game host issue fixed, I would be more than happy to return to +-5, as it did allow for all classes to compete, helped to provide a challenge, and increased the number of players per major level.

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I agree with you. Wasn't one of the reasons for the 2 level change because of merging? Now that some of the problems with merging fixed that makes +-2 even less necessary.

Good feedback!