Hey there! I'm LimitsofLife (I know, no s**t, Sherlocke), and I decided, if for no reason other than gags, to write this PvP guide. I've been playing PvP servers for over two years now, and I've noticed a lot of guides like this pop up. Most of them, however, have a major issue; it's all chickenscratch and theoryville. I see a lot of "Oh, I'll knock them into a ravine with my fishing rod" or "I'll hide my base underground, nobody will ever find it there". This kind of thing simply is not true. So, here, I'm writing a multi-chapter all-inclusive PvP guide that I hope will clear up some of the myths and rumors surrounding PvP. This is the first part, a simple, short introduction to what PvP is, why people play it, and what you can expect when joining the PvP community.
P1.1 - What is PvP?
PvP, or Player versus Player, combat is an environment where players compete against each other for domination and power. They use all sorts of tactics, both honourable and underhanded, to best their opponents in combat, often stealing their resources and demolishing their hard work. This is an environment where you won't be reprimanded for griefing, where taking your anger out on someone with a sword is perfectly acceptable, where mining and foraging skills are often forgone for aggression and PvP experience. It's a harsher, dog-eat-dog world, where the most skilled and aggressive players call the shots, and the rest struggle to dethrone them. Sound like fun to you? I know it does to me.
PvP, in a nutshell, is where players can fight each other. Usually this is done with a sword, armour, and perhaps a bow and potions. However, these are not the only viable tactics, as I will discuss later. As I'm sure anyone who plays Minecraft knows, the attack system is rather bland. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Often people say it's luck and equipment-based rather than skill-based, which is true to a point, but there's other factors that contribute to a fight too, which I will also discuss later.
P1.2 - How does one become involved in PvP?
When browsing through the Servers section on almost any Minecraft fansite (including this one), you might notice a lot of servers include [PvP], [Factions], [Anarchy], and similar tags in their titles. These are all suitable servers to start your PvP career on. When looking for a server, one must choose whether they want a Factions server, which is where people band together to form powerful clans and dominate the server, a true hard-core PvP server, where there are no factions binding you to other players, and there's nothing stopping you from backstabbing them at the right moment and taking everything they own (or vice versa!), or an Anarchy server, which is a do-whatever-the-hell-you-want kind of server. I generally recommend starting on a Factions server, as you'll have powerful, often experienced teammates to help you learn the ropes.
In order to ever be successful at PvP, you need to think much more aggressively than is required in vanilla gameplay. A simple example of this is that before I started playing PvP, I rarely had a sword on my hotbar, as keeping it in my inventory until I needed to dispose of a monster or two was enough. After a couple weeks of being jumped and completely unable to react in time to fight back, this changed. Aggressiveness and a combat mindset will take you farther than almost any other skill you could possibly possess when it comes to PvP.
You'll also notice a lot of PvP clans in the Clans section of this forum. Joining one can be very beneficial to your experience, but on the flip side of that coin, a lot of them, to be blunt, don't have a bloody clue what they're doing. Make sure to scope your potential future clan out first before joining it, and don't hesitate to leave if it's not the right one for you.
P1.3 - A combat mindset, you say?
Yes, exactly. A combat mindset means rearranging your priorities to suit combat and self-defense instead of foraging and resource gathering, at least until one has established himself. When I first join a new PvP server, I do the following.
1. Check what plugins and mods the server is using. I try to avoid servers with McMMO and similar mods simply out of personal preference.
2. Try to get a scope on the most powerful factions and players currently playing on the server.
3. Find an opportune moment to leave spawn without being pursued.
4. Run 2-3000 blocks away from spawn, gathering simple resources like food along the way, and making note of any bases I might pass along the way.
5. Create what I've come to know as a "gypsy hole". This is a term for any rudimentary temporary base, usually created by a nomadic player.
6. Attempt to find diamonds and obsidian.
7. Build a Nether portal, grab all of my resources, and use Nether travel to travel at least 20,000 blocks from spawn. I'll post a guide on how to do this later.
8. Once I've put sufficient distance between myself and the spawn, I'll start a base. After this, I'm pretty much free to do whatever I feel needs to be done.
Your priorities might be different. A lot of people are opposed to Nether travel, considering it is technically bug abuse (it can even get you banned on quite a few servers, so be wary of this.), or others wish to join an already established faction or group. If this is so, then so it is. I can't really help you there.
P1.4 - Okay, so then what?
Okay, so let's say you've got your base established, maybe started a team and built some trust with said team, and you have plenty of resources. Now, it's time to strike! Dust of your armour, sharpen your sword, and prepare to raid your helpless peers!
In one of the later chapters, I will go into heavy detail discussing the offensive aspects of PvP, including actual combat itself, raiding bases, and searching out factions. For now, looting the destroyed hulks around the spawn and picking fights with wandering adventurers should sate your thirst for blood. Checking bases that have already been raided and/or abandoned for hidden chests can often yeild tidy profits. If the player/faction who raided them didn't check themselves, you're likely to find something lying around.
Hidden chests are frequently hidden behind walls and under floors. Listen for ambience, as this might indicate a secret, unlit room. Tear up the floor and the walls for good measure. Check any suspicious outcroppings, buildings, and caves. TNT is often a good way to check for hidden chests, as it demolishes many blocks at once, but remember to only detonate one piece at a time. Any more than that and you run the risk of destroying your potential loot.
Aside from raiding, you'll probably want to expand your base more, hoard more resources, and find more trustworthy people to recruit. When you're not raiding, generally it's a good idea to improve your own base. I'd also recommend making a secondary base somewhere else on the map that you can move to at a moments notice if your first base is breached.
My hopes is that this guide will help you get your foot in the door with the PvP community, and maybe even help you a little if you're a seasoned veteran. Do note that this is only the first chapter, and I have at least half a dozen more on the way. The next chapter will touch upon building the perfect base, which I will put up either later today or tomorrow. I also have some screenshots and crappy Paint images to post, but in the mean time, enjoy and have fun!
That is a really good start to a PvP guide! I would definitely keep going. But a thing you have to keep in mind: don't focus too heavily on faction PvP or raiding, PvP minigame servers are also some people`s thing. They (and that includes myself) don't like losing their whole existance on a server that they have spent weeks or months on if they do get raided, on the servers I talk about your team just loses the game and the next one starts right away. Another thing: Even if you dislike theory, it is useful for the praxis, sure you don't need to know exactly how much damage every single weapon does but a few essentials would be good (for example diamond axe = iron sword damage wise), everyone has their own style of explaining something but there can be no praxis without theory and vice-versa.
Again, keep going, I am looking forward to how this turns out.
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Happy trails
~Max
Again, keep going, I am looking forward to how this turns out.