For those who are new and not familiar with the games history a little recap.
It's never really changed:
Day 1: Spellsinger -- Sleep 99.99% land rate. Back then Archer's stun was a long slow (several second) attack and most players, (Yes actual players back then) had poor equipment and no way to resist sleep.
Result: Sleep, Cancel (removed ALL buffs 100% of the time), allowed the caster to move into position and kill everyone instantly.
Recap: The PVP was complete trash from day 1. Winning PVP happening at the log in screen when you chose Spellsinger.
Honor: Players would often gather in small groups and have honorable stand offs between each other. Because of all the trashy equipment it was sometimes fun and ended with one side leaving (without trash talking or crying...image that)
Dagger becomes OP. During one of the updates backstab was completely ruined. The land rate became nearly 100% and it was not longer necessary to even hit from behind.
(NCsofts history of complete ignorance and stupidity never halted)
Vortex -- My first experience with vortex was when it was first released. Here comes a random player ( .4 seconds -- instant cast ignite dead)
My first thought was you have to be joking, the pvp was already terrible now this? Really. The answer of course yes yes yes, Ncsoft's incompetence will never fail you. A shame too since the artwork, game mechanics, size, new quests, and cut scenes are actually really good. It's a masterpiece PVE game aside from the exploits, bots, pay to win.
Element stones helped hammer in the terrible PVP.
There is an inherent flaw though that made PVP impossible forever. BSOE / PR. In the old days people actually tried to PVP. Maybe that's because they where people who actually played and enjoy the game. (Aside from today pay/cheat sad crowd).
Back on topic: Impossible to overcome flaw design. If you can escape PVP instantly YOU HAVE NO PVP end of discussion. It basically means if you can't instantly kill players you would never kill them.
This wasn't always the case btw, even PR has a slower casting time.
Did I forget to mention Olympiad? While a decent idea, put into ncsofts hands it made for horrid game play. Instant WIN button yay. Players feeding points and getting to become invincible only for a few seconds. (Which meant killing 12+ players at a time in sieges and pvp)
The sad fact. A few minor changes and formulas would have solved all this.
Did you know. Enmity with the original Ormjaevel (whatever it was) used to be hardcore live players. They defeated all the others clans (and server events). It was not likely any clan on any server would have defeated them.
Why? Because they accomplished something you rarely even see in real life. A group working together without a bunch of self interest (me first) people. While other clans would hunt in different areas and deal with constant ganking, they hunted daily as a clan. The only way to knock them out was a fully siege force. (Sound simple? no one else ever managed to hunt this way).
That and a dedicated group to play all hours and dominate bosses in this style feeding into mechanic issues. (hero's, equipment, boss jewel) auto win.
Nova btw was not legitimate early on. It's always stemmed from heavy cheating and exploiting.
The turn over. I watched friends and entire clans turn to cheating. It was difficult for players to watch the destruction of the game every day and people just gave up. Enmity, and everyone (all severs everyone) where forced to just accept cheating players. There was so much cheating holding onto legit only clans meant you would lose. You would not have enough legit players and that was it. You wouldn't hold the castles, you wouldn't win as much pvp, and you would lose olympiad.
It was a sad state to watch.
