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MMO's and PvP...Oil and Water
littlemonkey
Member UncommonPosts: 61
PvP has only had a negative effect on MMO's. Let's hope Darkfall succeeds at being the ass-magnet game it wants to be.
littlemonkey
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PvP has been a problem for some games, like WoW, that are PvE at their core but attempt to add PvP as an afterthought. It causes all kinds of balancing problems that would never even surface had PvP not been a part of the equation.
On the other hand, a game like Eve thrives with regard to PvP. The economy chugs along based on losses taken in PvP, and PvP actually means something in that game (real risk, real losses..no graveyard running). At the same time, it has a rather awful community, filled with scammers on an epic scale, and all around asshats.
I think that PVP can work well in an MMO, as long as the design accomodates it. If the design and implementation are done right, you can have a good mix of pve, and pvp. Sometimes you can balance a game to tip more towards one than the other without damaging either. It all depends on how the classes, if applicable, the combat, and the rules are built. For example, WoW is, in my view, a very good example of a bad pvp implementation. Half of the classes for pve content are useless in pvp, and much of the gear and skills need to be switched when moving from pvp to pve, for those who chose to do both.
Warhammer online however, I felt didn't do too bad a job of making classes count well in both pve and pvp. skills worked out well in both situations, even tanks had a roll thanks to some skills to keep other players away from the softer targets. The game as a whole wasn't that good for me, but I found that one thing at least to be well thought out. Much the same as DAoC before it, that too had many classes that worked well for both pvp and pve functions.
The game itself though has to be one that has a purpose to the pvp. Something to be fighting for, in my view at least. PVP without purpose is just going to lead to the situation like you get on WoW's pvp servers, where someone levels up a rogue and just camps the low level areas, picking off anyone who wanders into the pvp flagged zones.
So to sum up, if the game world has reason for it, and the system is well designed and balanced, it can work well to have pvp, even as part of a pve game.
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Currently playing: Rift
former player of: DAoC, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, SWG (pre-NGE), WoW, Warhammer online, LotR:O
In Eve Online, PvP is based on player AND character skills, both of which take time to learn. It is also very costly when you lose, and carebear-PvP'ers hate that. They find this way too harsh for their taste, so they don't hang around very long before they move on to pastures new. They like the concept of a "sandbox" game, but don't actually like the actual thing in practice.
As for scammers, in Eve there are officially no scammers - there are just the gullible who fall prey to people more crafty than they are. If the victims wise up and don't fall for it again, they've learnt something useful. If they bide their time and kill the character that scammed them and retake what they lost, they've learnt something else. Funcom clearly state that the rule of "Caveat Emptor" is allowed full rein - but again, carebears might applaud this in public, but in reality they hate this kind of thing. Eve is not for everyone... thank the gods.
The vast majority of so-called PvP'ers in other MMOs prefer their PvP to be essentially risk free, as in Blizzard's appallingly carebear PvP system. Secretly, they actually enjoy bouncing back totally free, and without a scratch, when they lose. They can then pretend they are "hard core" but if there is the faintest chance there could be any actual risk or heavy financial loss involved, they just don't want to know. If Blizzard put some actual risk and expense in their PvP, the PvP servers would be full of the chirping of crickets overnight! Look no further than the wailing from the people who don't like "full loot" in Darkfall, even though the gear is easily replaced.
The type of people that pvp games attract just happen to be the same type of people that have no qualms about destroying a community for their personal gain.
Games with a self destructive community seldom last long or do well. There are, however, a few exceptions.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
I disagree. DAOC was a great MMO. IN fact, I would say that DAOC is probably one (if not the) best PvP MMOs out there today
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
PvP just gives players more choice.
While many like PvE, many people like PvP and some like both.
Games that try to cater for both PvE and PvP face a number of challenges:
One solution that may improve PvP play where there are also PvE play might include:
Some mechanism that removes the current restrictions that prevent players from different servers teaming up or competing in PvP may also improve both PvE grouping and PvP battles.
I did allow there were a few exceptions, notably DAOC, EVE, and UO.
DAOC and AO are an older generation of games that drew from a differant kind of community, one that predated WoW. Eve is a niche game and always will be. That is not a knock on Eve's quality, simply a statement as to the limited scope of players that will be drawn to it.
And tell me with a straight face that none of Eve's corporations have attempted to destroy the rest of the community.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
I did allow there were a few exceptions, notably DAOC, EVE, and UO.
DAOC and AO are an older generation of games that drew from a differant kind of community, one that predated WoW. Eve is a niche game and always will be. That is not a knock on Eve's quality, simply a statement as to the limited scope of players that will be drawn to it.
And tell me with a straight face that none of Eve's corporations have attempted to destroy the rest of the community.
OP has got it wrong.
Its more like...Single player games and PVP....Oil and Water.
Yes because gathering gear and having nothing to do with it other then to show it off and down the same bosses all the time is what its all about. Explain the negative effects, other then somebody destroying you ingame.
No company has ever done pvp that good in all honesty. Guild Wars is probably the closest you come to good pvp even though it is arena based but even that game has had major issues with pvp. Class balancing and keeping people interested in pvp long term seems to be the biggest problems. PVE we all know is more of a marketable aspect of a mmo as it stands right now.
PvP is the main reason to play MMO's IMO. Otherwise its just a glorified Baldur's Gate.
The first sentence speaks volumes about pvp mentality and why pvp communities have a well deserved bad rep.
The first sentence speaks volumes about pvp mentality and why pvp communities have a well deserved bad rep.
The problem is not fully the pvp community. I remember playing games like MOHAA and Quake3 and the end result of a lose was "good game, I really enjoyed that". Now its "YOU GOT OWNED BITCH". But not every PvPer follows this. I love pvp, with every win or lose I end it with good game. The problem is not the community alone, but the moderators who let it go this far. In WoW you can destroy somebody and turn around and completly taunt them about there lose, the most that will be done is a slap on the wrist warning (if that) and they will be right back to offend another. And you can devote a small % of the problem to punk kids whose parents didnt see rated T for teen for there 11 year old kid.
I agree with the OP, the two play styles really don't mix well at all. PVP needs balance, which basically means stripping the classes down and keeping it stupidly simple, great for PvP but boring for PvE which relys on clearly defined class roles with the appropriate skill set to deal with group encounters. PvE isn't just about killing mobs it's about grouping with other people and playing co-op, it's about playing the content with others not against them. So classes in PvE need certain skills to manage large encounters which is why so many classes have CC and when you throw PvP in the mix thats the first ability nerfed due to QQ from the PvPers, which causes imbalance in PvE because certain classes can't reliably fufill their role anymore and manage the encounters they were originally balanced for. PvP has huge consequences on PvE, PvP balance always comes as the expense of PvE balance.
I just don't think both playstyles can be catered to equally and still get the quality of content and fun they both deserve, the only problem I see with a pure PvP MMO is that you will have a game with too many predators and not enough prey, instead of nurturing and growing the community certain player types will crap on their doorstep and gank the casuals/content away from the game and ruin if for all the other PvPers.
An MMO is just an RPG without PvP.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
The first sentence speaks volumes about pvp mentality and why pvp communities have a well deserved bad rep.
The problem is not fully the pvp community. I remember playing games like MOHAA and Quake3 and the end result of a lose was "good game, I really enjoyed that". Now its "YOU GOT OWNED BITCH". But not every PvPer follows this. I love pvp, with every win or lose I end it with good game. The problem is not the community alone, but the moderators who let it go this far. In WoW you can destroy somebody and turn around and completly taunt them about there lose, the most that will be done is a slap on the wrist warning (if that) and they will be right back to offend another. And you can devote a small % of the problem to punk kids whose parents didnt see rated T for teen for there 11 year old kid.
You can't communicate with the opposite faction in WoW. You can do a few emotes but most of them will come out as "heartless did a strange gesture" to the other player. The worst you can do is /spit.
From my experience, personal insults get punished fairly quickly in WoW. People get suspended or banned. Stop blaming everything on WoW. What's next, you're going to blame WoW for global warming?
Douche bags have been around the internet long before WoW. I remember dealing with "lol pwnt" and "ez noob" in UO. As more and more people gain access to the internet, you see more of these types of gamers. The problem is that the PvP community as a whole attracts the angsty teen who needs to take his frustrations, caused by low self-esteem, on other people. With computers becoming a household appliance, more and more people can take out their anger on others without fear or reprisal.
Completely and utterly wrong.
Badly designed PvP tacked onto games designed as PvE games has had a negative effect on mmos. As a result many short sighted people (such as yourself) who fail to realise this have formed a negative view of PvP in games. EVE was designed around a PvE and PvP concept from the very beginning. Both playstyles support each other very well and its a very good game. It CAN be done. Unfortunately most games developers insist on keeping the two playstyles seperate. I think this is largely due to lack of vision and general ineptitude at making good games. Sticking PvP arenas into an mmo or just allowing players to kill each other with no reason or structure is obviously stupid and results in crap games such as WAR.
If you feed people mouldy apples and yet never show them what a good apple tastes like then they will naturally learn to dislike apples. Obviously this doesnt mean that apples are bad. You just need to try some good ones. Unfortunately people havent been growing many decent apples for a long time so they are in short supply. I think the future holds many nice tasty apples because nice tasty apples are what the internet is all about. If I'm going to play games on the internet with people then I want to share nice tasty apples with them.
This is clearly a troll post!
The purpose a game is "challenge". With out the challenge you have no game. Looking at PvE, the challenge is finite, meaning its put out and then it ends, you can probably keep doing it the same way over and over again, but thats it.
In PvE you play against the computer, in mmorpgs, the computer or AI in this case is predictable. Agro + charge attack. If (health is low) possible run away, turn around and attack again. Thats the PvE pattern. There is no challenge in the predictable.
PvP is also content, user generated content. It is unpredictable. PvP is the best thing to happen to the mmorpg genre, however it needs to be done right, just as pve needs to be done right.
In essence they are the same thing... a player vs a challenge. The level of difficulty is random with players, while its a constant with the computer npcs.
People try to make pvp and pve out to be complete polar opposites, like democrats and republicans, black or white, water and oil (as you put it)... but thats just fooling yourself with illgocial association. PvP and PvE are really the same thing, the only difference includes the input, one comes from a computer the other a player. In the end they are both challenges that can be played the same way, one is unpredictable and non static. Simple as that.
the bad ppl you dont like are on both sides of the fence, you, no offense, seem like one of them given your viewpoint and post.
It boils down to this:
A PvP game needs PvE in it to survive, unless it's crafted EXTREMELY well (like EvE), which is a rarity.
A PvE game does not need Pvp in it at all to survive, and can do quite well on its own for many years.
Because of this, when they mix the two, its USUALLY the PvE part that suffers badly because it had everything to lose, and usually cost a reduction in content due to splitting up personnel teams to work on both sides.
Mixing the two is really only a good idea for the Pvp side, as it can only gain from the extra people who will stay if the PvE is good. But if a PvE games pvp is bad, the few that joined because of that won't make a dent. This is why Warhammer had 500k people leave.. not because the PvP was bad, but because most people could'nt take the boring and bland PvE questing and buggy dungeons for longer than a month.
"TO MICHAEL!"
amen
for those who dislike pvp, go play single player games, i guarantee much more fun and adventure. unless mmo are just social chatrooms for you, i pity you then
Playing: Rohan
Played (from best to worst): Shadowbane, Guild Wars, Shayia, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, Rappelz, Archlord, Knight online, King of Kings, Kal online, Last chaos
I totally agree with what you say about game design. PvP in itself isnt bad. It just has to be implemented well.
However I disagree with your statement about EVEs community. It does have its share of asshats but what game doesnt? Lots of people drift back and forth between games anyway so the people you hate in one game might be the people you like in another. You would never know because its all anonymous.
I actually find the communites of other mmos to be much worse. The good thing about EVE is that it is harder to play and get into than most other mmos because most other mmos are simplistic and strightforward and require less brain power and patience. This results in all the morons, leet kids and generally immature people drifting towards the other mmos.
I agree that the community in EVE can be harsh but thats only if you go into the game with a lazy attitude or generally start acting like a twat. I remember when I played the game I would keep seeing people asking incredibly stupid questions which they could have figured out simply by following the basic tutorials. You would see stupid questions like "How do I fly my ship?" or "Where do I go when I leave the space station?" or "What is the best weapon for my ship?". Its all the brainless lazy mentality that people have picked up from playing all the other mmos which do all the thinking for them. So yeah understandably the people who have been playing EVE for quite a while get pissed off with hearing this kind of crap from people and have no patience for lazy people like that. I dont really blame them to be honest. They have got a bit of a reputation for being elitist but thats a good thing in my books. It just means they have high standards and dont want thick idiots and immature kids playing the game with them.
In all honosty I never felt PVP was negative in what ever MMORPG as a feature, but always felt it was a large part of the players who makes/made it a horrid experiance.
The first sentence speaks volumes about pvp mentality and why pvp communities have a well deserved bad rep.
The problem is not fully the pvp community. I remember playing games like MOHAA and Quake3 and the end result of a lose was "good game, I really enjoyed that". Now its "YOU GOT OWNED BITCH". But not every PvPer follows this. I love pvp, with every win or lose I end it with good game. The problem is not the community alone, but the moderators who let it go this far. In WoW you can destroy somebody and turn around and completly taunt them about there lose, the most that will be done is a slap on the wrist warning (if that) and they will be right back to offend another. And you can devote a small % of the problem to punk kids whose parents didnt see rated T for teen for there 11 year old kid.
You can't communicate with the opposite faction in WoW. You can do a few emotes but most of them will come out as "heartless did a strange gesture" to the other player. The worst you can do is /spit.
From my experience, personal insults get punished fairly quickly in WoW. People get suspended or banned. Stop blaming everything on WoW. What's next, you're going to blame WoW for global warming?
Douche bags have been around the internet long before WoW. I remember dealing with "lol pwnt" and "ez noob" in UO. As more and more people gain access to the internet, you see more of these types of gamers. The problem is that the PvP community as a whole attracts the angsty teen who needs to take his frustrations, caused by low self-esteem, on other people. With computers becoming a household appliance, more and more people can take out their anger on others without fear or reprisal.
Lol, you really took this to heart. Did you know on a pve server you can have both alliance and horde on the same server? So you could easily create a alt just to let the enemy know how much you hate them. Anyways I was refering to duels. I play WoW im blaming nothing on it. Im just using it as a refrence considering I play it. I could say it was in SWG but I dont play that anymore. Nice way to jump to conclusions. Really I would rather be refered to as a angsty teen if thats what It takes to enjoy PvP. PvP proves a lot then bot healing the main tank or using the same 4 skills in a row to keep up with rotation. So if im a Angsty teen, then what are you a mindless drone? Oh and "from my experience" what I said before still applys. I'll take my low self-esteem self back to battlegrounds, when you work up the courage to step your foot inside a pvp zone, let me know. You might enjoy it if you relax.
Edit: I just looked under you picture and see the words "pwnt" are you one of the douche bags thats been around the internet?
Sorry but what you say is illogical, and seems completely based on your personal perception, not on actual reality.
Lets look at the main function of an RPG. Character progression! This is accomplished through stats and numbers + items/objects, that give stats and numbers.
Both of these can be obtained from pvp and pve. Fighting mobs and getting numbers to change your characters number (stats) is just a tool for character progression. PvP can do the exact same, since the only difference is in the object's (npc or player) input.
In essence, people for the most part like a reason to pvp, they use the back story to explain the reasoning behind it. The backstory does not have to be fleshed out with PvE, but its certainly easier that way. PvE as a tool executes simple loops in which players see the predictable computer's reaction toward agro. With player input on the subject of attack, it becomes user generated content, unpredictable.
In this day and age this is needed. Can you name a current pve only game thats doing well? Fact is, titles with organized pvp rulesets in a world that uses pve as a tool for alternate character progression, seem to be the most accepted formula. WoW, Lineage 2...ect
Games like Vanguard that have some of the best pve out there but lack pvp, seem to be doing the worst. The evidence is that for a mmorpg to be successful it needs the user generated content and dynamic gameplay player input provides in regards to playing against another player, aka pvp.
Bollocks! You are generalising to the extreme. You cant compare a persons preferred style of gameplay in a computer game to how they interact with people in general. I might like slaughtering a load of enemy players but it doesnt automatically mean that I want to disrupt the game or ruin other peoples fun. Meaningful PvP in a game (a very rare thing in mmos) can give a reason for a community to exist. It gives various sides an identity to form themselves around.
You are also talking about the community of an mmo as though it is an actual "real" community of people living in a real village, town or city. Yes people are still involved but its not quite the same thing as its just a computer game.