I only have my own preferences to go by. I doubt if I would play a game that had permadeath - those level 1 rats can be tough
I also tend to avoid PvP games. You can call me a care bear, but it is not something I enjoy - the few times that I have tried has shown me that.
What is a MMO without competition and cooperation? Not a MMO obviously. As for the PvE, if the mobs were adaptive as players - there would not be any difference. Many so called PvE players cry for better AI - guys in the MMOs there are other people, and they are better in the bad and good ways than any AI. It is obvious, the problem is not the PvP or the PK, the problem is some people want to play solo, and always to win.
I find (found) plenty of cooperation in the MMOs I play(ed). I am not looking for competition. I get very competitive so it is something I generally avoid when I am trying to enjoy my downtime.
I started to type that I would like better AI, but then I stopped and considered - I might not if I'm honest with myself. I guess that I would have to try it
I've lived in null-sec in EVE as part of two different alliances on two different occasions. PvP was more frequent there but a good 90% on my time on both occasions was spent mining, ratting, and doing complexes. (Gathering and PvE)
I spent several months playing Darkfall. While I loved to go hit enemy ore mines and capture villages the majority of my time was spent gathering resources and farming mobs.
I played Freelancer for 5 years. In that game I probably spent about a third of my time fighting other player. And the other two thirds hauling cargo, doing missions etc.
Rare and perhaps non-existent is the MMO PvPer who never wears the crafter or PVEer hat. The MMO world is not divided into PvPers and PvEers. Most players fall on a spectrum of PvPing sometimes and PvEing other times. And as that graph shows, even in the top PvP game on the market, a lot of people live in the safer more PvE oriented areas most of the time.
People who want to do PVE activities a lot of the time, but sometimes want to go PVP, are not part of a game's "PVE community".
I'm good with keeping pvp and pve separate in MMO. I'll do league/csgo to fight other folks, where everyone starts on equal footing with the same amount of resources and teammates.
I've lived in null-sec in EVE as part of two different alliances on two different occasions. PvP was more frequent there but a good 90% on my time on both occasions was spent mining, ratting, and doing complexes. (Gathering and PvE)
I spent several months playing Darkfall. While I loved to go hit enemy ore mines and capture villages the majority of my time was spent gathering resources and farming mobs.
I played Freelancer for 5 years. In that game I probably spent about a third of my time fighting other player. And the other two thirds hauling cargo, doing missions etc.
Rare and perhaps non-existent is the MMO PvPer who never wears the crafter or PVEer hat. The MMO world is not divided into PvPers and PvEers. Most players fall on a spectrum of PvPing sometimes and PvEing other times. And as that graph shows, even in the top PvP game on the market, a lot of people live in the safer more PvE oriented areas most of the time.
People who want to do PVE activities a lot of the time, but sometimes want to go PVP, are not part of a game's "PVE community".
If people who are PvEing 90% of the time but PvP 10% of the time aren't included in the "PVE Community" then a game doesn't need a "PVE community".
Games do need PvEers. They do need crafters. Otherwise resources and territory are not worth fighting over. But I don't see the need for some kind of PvE purist who will never touch PvP in a PvP game. Not that I mind having them if they want to inhabit the same game as me, but I see no reasons to cut features many of us enjoy to appease an audience that already has plenty of games that meet their needs.
PvP vs. PvEer isn't an on/off switch no matter how much we speak of them in those kind of terms.
I've heard several variations on the quote "If there is a fair fight, someone has done something terribly wrong." That's very true for Open World PvP. The objective isn't fairness, the objective is realism, and real fights are almost never fair.
However, in real life there are ways for a smaller force to strike against a greater enemy. It's called guerilla warfare and it's a highly feared tactic.
And of course larger forces have overwhelming numbers, resources etc.
I think making Open World PvP "fair" is about not making mechanics that nerf guerrilla warfare as it is the only way larger groups are answerable to smaller groups, and infact making it so groups who control a massive empire have many points at which they can be attacked and suffer small but meaningful losses which can lead to a death by a thousand cuts if they piss off all the smaller guilds. It's also about keeping in the ability for a peasant with a spear to stab a knight and have it actually hurt rather than making PvP about ants vs demigods.
By realism , it mean that you die IRL if your character get killed ?
By realism I mean, real conflicts are very rarely resolved by two even sized groups going head to head in a match with rules.
Conflicts are most frequently resolved with "dirty tactics", surprise attacks, alliances etc.
Open World PvP MMOs are the only genre other than Open World PvP Survival Games (Which are essentially the same thing on a smaller scale) where you can have conflicts that actually feel real on any level.
Troll comments aside, that deeper level of realism is what a lot of people want which is why so many upcoming projects promise it.
It makes them cry usually - especially the purist PvE players who thought they've found ways to stay safe - and then BAM - ganked - say goodbye to your stuff.
Pure PvP with drama and consequences. Nothing makes me more happier.
I've lived in null-sec in EVE as part of two different alliances on two different occasions. PvP was more frequent there but a good 90% on my time on both occasions was spent mining, ratting, and doing complexes. (Gathering and PvE)
I spent several months playing Darkfall. While I loved to go hit enemy ore mines and capture villages the majority of my time was spent gathering resources and farming mobs.
I played Freelancer for 5 years. In that game I probably spent about a third of my time fighting other player. And the other two thirds hauling cargo, doing missions etc.
Rare and perhaps non-existent is the MMO PvPer who never wears the crafter or PVEer hat. The MMO world is not divided into PvPers and PvEers. Most players fall on a spectrum of PvPing sometimes and PvEing other times. And as that graph shows, even in the top PvP game on the market, a lot of people live in the safer more PvE oriented areas most of the time.
People who want to do PVE activities a lot of the time, but sometimes want to go PVP, are not part of a game's "PVE community".
If people who are PvEing 90% of the time but PvP 10% of the time aren't included in the "PVE Community" then a game doesn't need a "PVE community".
Games do need PvEers. They do need crafters. Otherwise resources and territory are not worth fighting over. But I don't see the need for some kind of PvE purist who will never touch PvP in a PvP game. Not that I mind having them if they want to inhabit the same game as me, but I see no reasons to cut features many of us enjoy to appease an audience that already has plenty of games that meet their needs.
PvP vs. PvEer isn't an on/off switch no matter how much we speak of them in those kind of terms.
thats the thing. What defines a MMO to be PvP or not PvP? are Sandbox MMOs, mostly PvP? What about WoW, is that a PvP MMO? What point does a MMO become a balance of PvP and PvE?
Lets discuss the effects FFA Full Loot and/or Perma Death effects the PvE Community in whatever game utilizes these features.
First I must ask, can a PvE community exist under these certain conditions?
If So, how challenging can this PvE content be designed with the FFA-FL/Perma-Death lurking around every corner?
I remember playing Darkfall near the end of its life when it was getting closer to convert over to Darkfall 2. One thing I noticed was PvE in the Open World just seem dead. Some of the Selling Points for the game was the open world PvE content with NPC factions that change based on how players interact with them. But I didnt really see much grouped PvE content. Usually PvE groups were left to just Small Guild Runs and thats it. The groups doing PvE always had to do it in silence, which really takes away from a lot of the threat involved in whatever creature we had to fight, because it never felt like a threat big enough for backup of any kind, like you may see in other MMO games. I may be spoiled by games like GW2 and Rift with Open World Content that brings the community together. But in my experience in the FFA-FL setting, this was the total opposite.
Whats your thoughts on this?
I expect it would make the community primarily focused on PvE to be mainly absent.
Though there may well be PvE in such games, and in some may consume a fair amount of time, I expect those focused mainly on PvE would be prone to seek out games where PvP is constrained in some way such that it can easily be avoided by those with no interest, and has little to no negative impact associated with defeat to encourage casual enjoyment.
When players know there is balance they will PvP until the MMO cows come home. But the more they play the more they see imbalance in MMOs. That's why populations of FPS and other forms of competitive games do not die out over time, there is balance.
I tend to agree that that is what most players want. Trouble is, the minute you make different classes, or more generally, more ways that characters can have different skills and abilities than other players, players will see imbalance, even if everything is perfectly balanced. For example, if a player keeps getting their ass handed to them consistently by characters of another particular class, they're more than likely to assume that class is OP, rather than the possibility that they haven't figured out how to fight that class. It's just how the human ego tends to work.
And like you say, there's balance in FPS's that can't be reasonably denied. Oddjob aside, whether you have a loadout or you have pickups, everybody can get access to any weapon, OP or not. You might still have accusations of people cheating that may or may not be true, but the game's design puts everyone on equal footing... at least until the kids go on summer break and play 8-10 hours a day... but it will at least be fair.
So that's the dilemma as I see it. Whether there's really any imbalance or not, the moment you make imbalance a possibility, players will assume it exists and population will suffer.
thats the thing. What defines a MMO to be PvP or not PvP? are Sandbox MMOs, mostly PvP? What about WoW, is that a PvP MMO? What point does a MMO become a balance of PvP and PvE?
A PvP MMO is a game where the developers openly acknowledge that the primary driver of content in their game is PvP or at least where that is insanely obvious by the decisions they make. For instance making the majority of the world FFA PvP enabled or focusing around a certain type of content like PvP matches in a MOBA. Balancing classes primarily around PvP etc.
A PvE MMO is a game where the developers openly acknowledge the primary content is PVE or make decisions that make that insanely apparent. Heavy emphasis on raiding, crafting, etc. balancing classes more around PvE than PvP. Refusing to offer greater rewards for greater risks when you brave PvP areas etc.
Of course there is the possibility to make a game that kind of rides the line and whether it's PVE focused or PVP focused is very debatable. I can't think of any such games off the top of my head though. Most games lean hard toward one extreme or the other.
Lets discuss the effects FFA Full Loot and/or Perma Death effects the PvE Community in whatever game utilizes these features.
First I must ask, can a PvE community exist under these certain conditions?
If So, how challenging can this PvE content be designed with the FFA-FL/Perma-Death lurking around every corner?
I think it is possible if designed properly. I am not a huge fan of the permanent death idea, but I could accept it if it were rare and if it opened up new possibilities. So maybe only certain Epic bosses would have the power to permanently kill players and they would only do it rarely. Then when the player is killed some new class or character type opens up that only permanently killed players get. This new character could somehow be linked to the permanently dead character as a child or apprentice or some other character influenced by the now dead legend.
For FFA loot, here is the system we are using in our game. When a player is defeated by an NPC or another player, they drop all held and equipped items. Any other player can take them, but doing so is a crime. Criminals can be hunted down by other players as bounty quests (auto-generated by the nearest city) or by NPC assassins if players don't complete the bounty quests in a timely manner. When the thief is killed the items are returned to their rightful owner. The thief is still a criminal and will be kill on sight to any NPCs in the country they committed the crime.
Comments
Games do need PvEers. They do need crafters. Otherwise resources and territory are not worth fighting over. But I don't see the need for some kind of PvE purist who will never touch PvP in a PvP game. Not that I mind having them if they want to inhabit the same game as me, but I see no reasons to cut features many of us enjoy to appease an audience that already has plenty of games that meet their needs.
PvP vs. PvEer isn't an on/off switch no matter how much we speak of them in those kind of terms.
Conflicts are most frequently resolved with "dirty tactics", surprise attacks, alliances etc.
Open World PvP MMOs are the only genre other than Open World PvP Survival Games (Which are essentially the same thing on a smaller scale) where you can have conflicts that actually feel real on any level.
Troll comments aside, that deeper level of realism is what a lot of people want which is why so many upcoming projects promise it.
For some reason it often takes a fight just to get to the negotiating table though.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
are Sandbox MMOs, mostly PvP? What about WoW, is that a PvP MMO?
What point does a MMO become a balance of PvP and PvE?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
And like you say, there's balance in FPS's that can't be reasonably denied. Oddjob aside, whether you have a loadout or you have pickups, everybody can get access to any weapon, OP or not. You might still have accusations of people cheating that may or may not be true, but the game's design puts everyone on equal footing... at least until the kids go on summer break and play 8-10 hours a day... but it will at least be fair.
So that's the dilemma as I see it. Whether there's really any imbalance or not, the moment you make imbalance a possibility, players will assume it exists and population will suffer.
A PvE MMO is a game where the developers openly acknowledge the primary content is PVE or make decisions that make that insanely apparent. Heavy emphasis on raiding, crafting, etc. balancing classes more around PvE than PvP. Refusing to offer greater rewards for greater risks when you brave PvP areas etc.
Of course there is the possibility to make a game that kind of rides the line and whether it's PVE focused or PVP focused is very debatable. I can't think of any such games off the top of my head though. Most games lean hard toward one extreme or the other.
I think it is possible if designed properly. I am not a huge fan of the permanent death idea, but I could accept it if it were rare and if it opened up new possibilities. So maybe only certain Epic bosses would have the power to permanently kill players and they would only do it rarely. Then when the player is killed some new class or character type opens up that only permanently killed players get. This new character could somehow be linked to the permanently dead character as a child or apprentice or some other character influenced by the now dead legend.
For FFA loot, here is the system we are using in our game. When a player is defeated by an NPC or another player, they drop all held and equipped items. Any other player can take them, but doing so is a crime. Criminals can be hunted down by other players as bounty quests (auto-generated by the nearest city) or by NPC assassins if players don't complete the bounty quests in a timely manner. When the thief is killed the items are returned to their rightful owner. The thief is still a criminal and will be kill on sight to any NPCs in the country they committed the crime.