This server has a thriving PvE scene, but the PvP is abhorrent. However, I've seen the dedication and talent the staff have here and I'm confident with some healthy discussion and suggestion, it can be made great. These suggestions are what I would consider a jump in the proper direction.
1. Looting - this server is based on an era in which full loot was a selling point. You die, you lose everything. You kill someone and their shit is now your shit. On paper, that's fucking awesome. The reality of the situation though, is that you kill someone, and they have 176 potions on their corpse and unless you have autism, you're not picking it up. There isn't a single person who wants to spend 5 minutes looting every single thing off a corpse, then dragging it back to their lair to spend another 15 minutes carefully pouring each potion into a keg. MAKE POTIONS TRULY STACKABLE. You're not going to lose out on donations, or whatever. Butlers will still be convenience items. Just please, do this.
2. Spell damage - Yes, again, we're still trying to get this right. Great headway has been made with explosion and e-bolt, which are the bread and butter of group PvP, but there is more work to be done.
4. Bolas - There has been talk about these as of late, but I want to stress their importance. I personally think they should be usable by anyone and on anyone, not just limited to faction members. Applying different rules for players whether they're hardcore PvPers(factions) or just dabble, seems counter productive in breeding a fun PvP environment. Their impact in PvP is not a slight one. They're a very powerful tool, but a necessary one to force conflict. Running until the person pursuing gets bored should not be a viable tactic. To inhibit their strength some, they should be limited to players who have 100 tactics + 100 weapon skill. It brings a new variety to group fights by allowing only tank mages and dexers to use them. Dexers are currently useless in fights greater than 4v4. Allowing them the ability to create chaos by bolaing and focusing down mounts gives them a unique and viable role.
1. Looting - this server is based on an era in which full loot was a selling point. You die, you lose everything. You kill someone and their shit is now your shit. On paper, that's fucking awesome. The reality of the situation though, is that you kill someone, and they have 176 potions on their corpse and unless you have autism, you're not picking it up. There isn't a single person who wants to spend 5 minutes looting every single thing off a corpse, then dragging it back to their lair to spend another 15 minutes carefully pouring each potion into a keg. MAKE POTIONS TRULY STACKABLE. You're not going to lose out on donations, or whatever. Butlers will still be convenience items. Just please, do this.
2. Spell damage - Yes, again, we're still trying to get this right. Great headway has been made with explosion and e-bolt, which are the bread and butter of group PvP, but there is more work to be done.
- Magic arrow - This spell is so worthless, I only use spellbooks with 63 spells in them so that I can avoid accidentally using my macro for it. 1 damage on resist and 2-5 on non-resists is completely unacceptable. This spell is an integral part of 1v1 in this era. It's what I would refer to as a filler spell. It needs to do significant enough damage to prime yourself for a burst combo, ie; stun into ebolt/pot combo. But it can't be so hefty, that a solid defense can't heal through it. 5 minimum to 12 max would probably be a good start.
- Harm - This spell isn't terrible, but it is inconsistent. I'm guessing the resist rate is something like 50% because it's a 5, then a 15, then a 5, then a 15. Rather than decrease how often it is resisted, I would suggest increasing the minimum damage when resisted to something like 8.
Now, your concern is that alchemy is dominant, however it degrades in value the larger groups become. It's strong in small skirmishes, but as you start to reach 3v3s and higher, its usefulness falls off and starts to become outclassed by other filler skills, such as scribe. Healing and hiding have higher values in dungeon scenarios. Anyways, what I'm saying, is that the relevance of skills is situationally based and alchemists are not the end all, be all.
4. Bolas - There has been talk about these as of late, but I want to stress their importance. I personally think they should be usable by anyone and on anyone, not just limited to faction members. Applying different rules for players whether they're hardcore PvPers(factions) or just dabble, seems counter productive in breeding a fun PvP environment. Their impact in PvP is not a slight one. They're a very powerful tool, but a necessary one to force conflict. Running until the person pursuing gets bored should not be a viable tactic. To inhibit their strength some, they should be limited to players who have 100 tactics + 100 weapon skill. It brings a new variety to group fights by allowing only tank mages and dexers to use them. Dexers are currently useless in fights greater than 4v4. Allowing them the ability to create chaos by bolaing and focusing down mounts gives them a unique and viable role.
- Faction mounts - With the introduction of bolas, you can increase the importance of sigils and create objective based PvP. Faction mounts will come bonded when purchased, but if the faction loses control of the city in which they purchased the war horse, their war horses will unbond. Warhorses will recover more quickly from bolas. .5-1s instead of 2s.