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Why do MMOs teach a player to PVE but not to PVP?
elocke
Member UncommonPosts: 4,335
I'm a casual PVPer. YOu know, the guy who likes to pve most of the night but occasionally will log on just for a different change of pace and excitement, which PVP can offer. However. I find that I'm really horrible no matter what game I PVP in. I get very lucky if I can kill one person let alone 2 per pvp match.
Is it gear? Partly. Depends on the game. Is it lack of skill? I suppose, BUT, how come I can be great at PVE but not PVP?
I think the answer lies in the games themselves. They spend "insert number here" amount of levels or hours teaching me to PVE and how to work in a group and how to take down those nasty bosses, but not once do they ever teach me how to take out a group of players or even one on one.
For those of you who PVP and are great? Disregard, for I think the PVP game is made by those just like yourselves. My issue is with PVP learning. There really isn't any in any of the games I've played. They just throw you to the wolves so to speak and as I'm using what the PVE side of the game taught me, I find myself getting stunlocked, silenced, one shotted into the dirt 95% of the time.
I WANT to be good at PVP, I WANT to get better and do it more than just casually, but constantly losing and not knowing how to fix it since my playstyle obviously isn't PVP inherent, is not very fun.
So basically, can the PVP be taught in these games just as much as PVE is and why isn't it being done? I would think this would make many PVPers happy as it would give them worthy opponents and people who stand and fight as opposed to those who run away or just let you kill them because they know they can't win.(I've done this MANY times and I'm tired of it).
Comments
You learned to PVE by PVE'ing. The only way to learn to PVP is to do it. Yes will get killed. It happens, but you will learn from all of those mistakes. Just keep PVP'ing and learn from it. Watch tactics used against you. Eventually you will get it.
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I have never looked at the issue from this point of view before. While I can see where somebody might view the issue in this manner, it is a far cry from what I see as the issue.
PvE is easy. At most, PvE can be a gear check. PvE mobs are there to be killed by the player. In your average game, you go in with your Trinity and the mobs let you kill them as long as you meet the gear requirements and nobody messes up too bad. Pretty straight forward.
PvP on the other hand - well, the other players do not want you to kill them. They are not scripted to carry out certain attacks or use certain abilities at key points. Tanks are meaningless, because unlike PvE mobs - players realize that whacking on the meatshield is pointless while Heals is keeping them up and DPS are fragging the Hell out of you. Players will go after Healers, sneak up and take out the DPS, will attempt to kite players away from their groups to pick them off... etc.
So to an extent, I can definitely see where one could say that PvE does not teach you the skills you need for PvP. I can see where doing so though, in certain games, would point out just how flawed the PvE system is. Those that relish PvE would not want that - they get a sense of accomplishment from it. The game developers would not want to draw too much attention to the fact that the PvE aspects of most games are in line with hunting ranches where folks basically go to shoot fish in a barrel as opposed to hunting in the actual wilds.
As for learning PvP, it depends on the game. Some are so woefully imbalanced by gear, that you really would not get the opportunity to learn anything. It kind of reminds me of a scene from Shaolin vs. Lama - where the prospective student is fighting the master in an attempt to learn his kung fu. After a fight where he gets his butt kicked, he is laying there beaten and bleeding, he says he only learned one move. Yes, it is not very efficient in the least.
However, much like there are all the guides and walkthroughs for the various PvE encounters - some games have information for PvP. Either that or the forums for those classes can provide information that a player can attempt to implement in PvP during their next encounter.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
So you spend hundreds of hours learning about PVEing to be better at PVE.
You can do that in PVP too. Spend hundreds of hours actually pvping, and trying out builds, you'll get better.
I don't need several paragraphs to help answer your question. It can all be summed up with one easy phrase...
"Pratices makes perfect..."
That is all.
I get that. The experience of PVP teaches you to PVP. At least some of us. After 6 years of WoW, I still suck. After a few months in EVE, DF, Warhammer Online, I still suck.
So I get that experience teaches, but why can't the game? It already tries to reach every playstyle in PVE why doesn't it reach out in the same way in PVP? I can't believe there is only ONE way to PVP, there has to be more than one.
If it can't be taught, is it a matter of psychology? The "killer" instinct so to speak? Or if it IS gear, then there needs to be a big giant sign saying "GET BETTER PVP gear just like you hear about PVE gear, lol"
Remember, I'm also casual, putting hundreds of hours into PVP isn't going to happen. It doesn't excite me as much as progressing my character or unfolding a story or working as a team to take down targets. PVP is very different and I just think there HAS to be a way to teach it besides what's been done.
OP I commend you for your honesty and the fact you want to improve at pvp even though it is not the main focus of your gaming.
If you really want to improve, whilst repeatedly pvping (practice makes perfect) is the bedrock upon which to build your abilities as a pvper there is a little more to it then that. There are players out there that pvp for years and still have imporved little from their first tentative steps into pvp. If you really want to improve aside from simply pvping more often I would suggest that you 'fall in' with the pvpers who actually know what they are doing in whatever game you happen to be playing. You don't have to join up with them etc, just try and group with them when they happen to be pvping and watch and learn from what they do.
EDIT to include the elements from your latest post:
If you are pvping in DF and EVE then it may well be that your character isn't developed enough after two months. In fairness both are perhaps the most hardcore mmos on the market pvp wise so it may be a case that you are not that bad, but you have chosen the most difficult games to be casual in.
As for WAR, well are you getting stomped solo or in groups, if the latter are you in pugs or premades? Alot of pvp success in games like WAR come down to team unity, not individual skills.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I think its partly because in PVE everyone is a winner.
In PVP, some of us have to be the losser.
No one can speak for everyone.
It takes a certain mindset. What I've learned from the people that are insanely crazy good at team PvP is that they are WAY better at learning from their mistakes and then actually changing their habits. They just have this natural ability to adjust that goes beyond what the average player can handle. The people that tend to be good at PvP rarely say things like, "That was cheap!" or, "God damn it! That class is OP and my class is FAIL!" Instead, they adjust. Change tactics. Try new things out. Change their class. They'll do whatever it takes to win and won't let complaints get in the way of success.
And then, they just plain have better reaction time. The best of the best have natural reaction time that is difficult to hone if it doesn't come naturally. And even when you do get a bit quicker, there are limits to what can be accomplished.
The best players PvP A LOT. At least that's what they say over and over and over again. You can't be casual and good at the same time. Well, you can't be casual and realize your potential. Like any specialized talent, you have to put in the hours to really succeed at high levels of play. If you don't have the time or feel like it's a waste of your time, you will never see the results you are looking for.
It's often difficult to tell yourself that you are inferior to other people at doing anything. Especially in the case of video games for some reason. But there are certain people that just have a natural tendency to be better at PvP than other people. Some people have an ability to put in the hours, have faster reaction time and have a natural ability to fix mistakes/change tactics.
Edit: And since reading your last post, there is one major reason why YOU will never see the results you are looking for. You are a casual. You will never be able to hang with the people that are into PvP. You can't just play every once in a while and expect to be good at it. Classes change, tactics are always changing. The whole PvP animal is in a constant state of flux. If you aren't along for the ride while it's changing, you will get left behind. Being good at PvP takes commitment. Expecting to get good at PvP without that commitment is delusional.
Are you talking about dueling then? I snipped around the part I left above, because PvP does require working as a team to take certain targets down. If you have a group of 10-20 or more people just running around solo... they will lose to people working as a group.
Take something as simple as two players fighting two players. DPS/Healer vs. DPS/Healer.
The DPS/Healer group that is working as a team is going to beat the group that is not working as a team.
Say you have two DPS fighting two DPS... the same thing will come into play. If you have two folks taking down one person while the other side is splitting DPS... who is likely to win?
The fundamentals are the same whether you are talking about PvP or PvE. You do not have a completely different set of abilities in PvE than you do in PvP. In some games, you may have different gear - but it is not completely different.
If it is a case that your gear is not good enough for what you are trying to do in PvP, that is no different than if your gear is not good enough in PvE. If you are not doing enough damage, it is no different. If you are not able to soak enough damage, it is no different.
A player is not going to sit there and let you kill them. A mob will. That is the core difference between PvE and PvP.
In thinking more about it, games do teach you how to PvP as much as they teach you to PvE. The fundamentals of your character do not change.
In PvP, you actually have to think - the battles are not scripted - you need to react to so many more possibilities as to what your target may do.
The only way that games could better prepare you for this would be to make PvE harder. Improve the AI... have mobs react and act more like a player would do. Get rid of the monster ranches...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Sometimes part of it is that the controls just aren't natural. I found that changing key bindings or eventually getting my RAzer Naga mouse, really helped "my" style of pvp.
I also recall that Guild Wars (used?) to have a small pvp encounter before you entered the main world. Still, it really is about practice and making sure the controls are natural for you.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
In pve your achievement is to gather as many rares and epics as possible to achieve recognition by others. To reach the
maximum limit in both gear, points, levels, and classes, which also include evidence of victory over all forms of bosses and
enemies; obtain victory until that is achieved.
In pvp your achievement is to enforce dominance over other players by ability, mentally and verbally until the opposing force
forfeits either by verbal submission, passive choice, or unsubbing from game. repeat process upon other foes until there is no
population to obtain victory.
a decades plus worth of information on both categories suggest that the majority have little desire to impose dominance over another
sentient user. In turn Pvp is loosely stereotyped to be a category that caters to those to find achievement in ridden competition in all forms.
Traditionally PvE revolves around threat and aggro, trinity. There isn't anything like that in PvP. The tank-n-spank form doesn't inspire a lot of thought or tactics either. My suggestion is this: Get rid of the trinity, enhance the AI and make the mobs use the same tactics and same skills as a human player would. You'll bring PvE combat and PvP combat closer together. One name I can throw you: Guild Wars.
Here's some advice:
Best way to get good at PvP is to have a good mentor and friends with whom you can reflect your PvP experiences and learn collectively. You also need to challenge yourself constantly. Battling against weaker opponents doesn't make you better. I guarantee you will learn more from one close match (even a lost one) than from 10 steamrolls.
I also like to think that you learn more from losing than winning. So losing is a learning experience if you can discover what you could've done better. The off-chance that you win, you must discover, why you won? Was it due to opponents error or something else? What was the turning point and why? What where the other possible scenarios?
You must also acknowledge the things you cannot control and hence cannot learn from them. If you can't control it, it means your skill doesn't matter and you should avoid it. Luck is one such thing, player population is another. They vary from game to game.
I cannot emphasize this enough: Get a mentor and/or get into a group that is passionate about competitive PvP (since they are the best of the PvP sort**). It is far more painless and easier than to learn all by yourself. Monkey see, monkey do. Learn by doing. The surprising thing is, many skills you'll learn about PvP will be "reusable" in other games aswell.
**Evolution makes them better than other PvP players since they constantly try to be better and go through even fights unlike some gankers, campers, griefers, PK'ers etc.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Some interesting points raised here. One key issue is down to the ability to learn and adapt. PvE teaches you the best way to run an encounter and then thats it, you simply repeat the same thing over and over again. PvP is about being able to constantly adapt, adapt to your environment, your enemies and you own character/groups circumstances.
I have run pvp guilds in the past and the players that have come on the most have been the ones who have learned from their mistakes, ironically some of those who started off in 'the worst shape' went on to be the best pvpers, simply because they could spot the mistakes they used to make in their opponents and take advantage of them.
When you pvp consistantly you get to know the top players int he community, often it's the case that pvp guilds move games en masse, as such they are always playing within a well drilled team regardless of which mmo they are taking part in. As a casual if you come across that kind of player you really are going to have little chance.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Okay here's the thing follow along and bare with me. I'm a casual golfer, I enjoy golfing but I don't get out as much as I'd like. Lord knows (and my wife can attest) I spend way too much money on quality equipment.
But the thing is I still can barely break 90, hell I'm sometimes thrilled when I break 100 on certain courses.
And why is that... Because I'm a CASUAL golfer. So ya see no matter what I spend or read up or watch the latest techniques, I'm still going to be just ok at it because I just don't play enough of focus enough time to it.
You said so yourself elocke, you are a casual PvP'er.
You want repetition. Games that have harsh death penalties such as Eve and DF are bad because it takes time to recouperate your losses. I give you an example from FPS games: A good way to maximise repetition is to play on servers that have minimum respawn time etc. so you will spend more time fighting than looking at your corpse.
Also, in Eve, there are many instances where it isn't smart to fight. It only makes you better at judging when to fight, but it doesn't make you better in the fight.
Like I said in my earlier post: Most of these skills you can bring with you to other games so play something where PvP is frequent and challenging as often as possible.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
being good at PVP is all about communicaton and sticking together.
All for 1 and 1 for all
PvE is about predictable action/reactions against automated doodads, PvP is about trying to outsmart your opponent, or at least outluck him
Like the difference between hitting a post with a sword to practice, vs sparring with a partner? Something like that..
What game are you playing WOW? I can only imagine you are playing something like wow, war, aion or whatnot possibly EQ or Lineage.
Fundamentally if you are on a game with Battlegrounds Start there. Its not about level its about ( Intent) so get a level 29 or 39 geared up for battlegrounds and we will start there. PVP gear for one is not PVE gear, you want to survive and people are not scripted monsters. Which brings the first problem with PVEers, mobility. Stop turning with the keyboard and use the mouse to move, hopeuflly a 5 button mouse. If you play a game that forces you to keyboard turn decide which side of the keyboard to use just to move with and assign the other half to hotkey with. If you play UO there is some err advanced tutorials I can give for that.
When you are in pvp you are not chatting, you no longer have chat keys. Those are now hotkeys for killing:) I dont know what everyone else does but I set my board up from left to right 6 across starting from Q and three rows down for my primary attacks. But raiders do something similar so I am sure you know how to hotkey. You really have to get used to 3 primary things, moving while fighting, being ready to attack at a moments notice, what good pvp gear is apposed to pve gear. Oh and pvp speccing apposed to pve speccing. Speccing for pvp is usually not as simple honestly. Get to 39 stop leveling for awhile, do battle grounds and when your not in BGs hunt in STV or something. Just do that for a few months you will improve.
I am not sure that this is an easy thing to learn.
You can learn PvE from NPCs but you can only learn PvP from other humans.
Of course if PvP and PvE would be closer to eachother things would be simpler but a human will always react different from a AI.
Also a part of the problem is that usually is PvE based on the holy triad with tanking but you can't tank another player, but even in cases were there are no tanks like Guildwars is PvP still a very different skill to learn than PvE.
My advice is that you should talk to and learn from other players. Unless someone make a MMO where mobs act like humans that is the only way. I think someone will eventually.
In a game where the PVP system and mechanics are deep and complex, teaching someone to PVP takes months.
Having a feature in the game to teach someone how to PVP would be redundent since PVP can be learned just as easily if not better by practicing PVP'ing instead. There is no reason to ask the game company to build an in game, months long tutorial to teach PVP when it can be learned more easily in a more practical way: practice, practice, practice.
It's also counterintuitive to learn to PVP by not PVP'ing, since PVP stands for player versus player. If mmorpg companies could make AI's as good as human opponents, then PVE would be much more awesome than it is today. But AI usually sucks in most mmo's, and any PVP teaching school would rely on AI's not much better than what already exists. Thus, the PVP school AI opponents and lessons would be an inferior way to learn compared to learning against real humans using real human tactics.
In summary - the easiest way to learn to PVP is to PVP; there is no purpose for a gaming company to make a ridiculously long in game feature that teaches PVP; and even if such a school were created, it would be inferior in every way to actually just PVP'ing.
EDIT: Oh and everyone sucks at PVP at first. In games like DAOC where the PVP system is complex, you will suck for a pretty long time. All you can do is keep trying. That really is the best way to learn.
Also, you need to know your opponents - races, abilities, classes, everything about them. You need to be able to see the opponent before the fight even begins and to be able to identify race and class and based on that, their likely abilities and tactics. Memorize the class abilities and what each class looks like. Then you'll know, before you even enter the fight, what to expect from your opponent and how to counter it.
Fundamentally if you are on a game with Battlegrounds Start there. Its not about level its about ( Intent) so get a level 29 or 39 geared up for battlegrounds and we will start there. PVP gear for one is not PVE gear, you want to survive and people are not scripted monsters. Which brings the first problem with PVEers, mobility. Stop turning with the keyboard and use the mouse to move, hopeuflly a 5 button mouse. If you play a game that forces you to keyboard turn decide which side of the keyboard to use just to move with and assign the other half to hotkey with. If you play UO there is some err advanced tutorials I can give for that.
When you are in pvp you are not chatting, you no longer have chat keys. Those are now hotkeys for killing:) I dont know what everyone else does but I set my board up from left to right 6 across starting from Q and three rows down for my primary attacks. But raiders do something similar so I am sure you know how to hotkey. You really have to get used to 3 primary things, moving while fighting, being ready to attack at a moments notice, what good pvp gear is apposed to pve gear. Oh and pvp speccing apposed to pve speccing. Speccing for pvp is usually not as simple honestly. Get to 39 stop leveling for awhile, do battle grounds and when your not in BGs hunt in STV or something. Just do that for a few months you will improve.
Yeah, currently my PVP of choice is WoW mostly because even if I suck it can be a lot of fun for an hour or 2, lol. But I try Guild Wars pvp and just flat out suck at it. Same with WAR. I'm playing FE too at the moment and will soon be pvping and I just don't want to be frustrated yet again with a game I like but I only see one side of the game.
In WoW, I'm going to try an experiment. I'm going to focus my DK on PVP. Getting geared etc. all for pvp to see if that even remotely helps me. At least for WoW. No idea what to do with GW or WAR or FE.
Losers do not bother with PvP scene. Care-bears run away. Fair players compete in FPS/RTS. Of course you are going to lose, what is left are aggressive dirty wolves. And even if you are one of them you are still going to lose half of time and many of your victories will be worthless cakewalk.
Otherwise: practice, study openings, yell when you charge, run when attacked, gank nubs, and count easy wins for double.
I suspect it is the nub ganking that is missing to get you to zero sum.
A crucial bit is having players fight against equal-skilled opponents by having an ELO-like ratings system and matchmaking them accordingly. LoL in particular does an impressive job pitting you against opponents where your win expectancy is 50/50. This also amplifies the impact of a player's decisions during a match (including the decision to communicate and work as a team.)
But apart from that, if the core gameplay is different then a "PVP tutorial" should at least cover some of the basics. As I understand it, SC2 supposedly had something like that.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Some are meant to kill, to be killed. You can't learn to be good at some things....
In my opinion forget about boring battleground / instanced PVP. It isn't thrilling at all, especially if it's pitting you up against certain opponents of equal skill everytime.
The fun is in roaming around looking for a fight, finding it, realizing you may have bitten off more than you can chew, and then whooping ass anyway. These are the kind of fights that give you a rush the entire time, win or lose. And this is amplified, for example, if you're in a group of say 4 people total and you guys kill a full 8 man group. You just don't get that feeling in a battleground or instance where you know what's coming.