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What is left of the game for a PvE player?
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Basically, I think it's worth asking the question: is it really fair to ask to not be affected by PvP at all but be allowed to affect PvP players' experiences through PvE? I lean towards saying it doesn't feel quite fair - let both play styles impact on each other as long as it's not extreme.
Closest, I suppose, would be players a running trains.
I have heard of players in archaic MMORPGs using collision to trapping people by blocking doors.
But that has not been possible in most games of the last decade.
The notion that bypassing player capitalism can be considered griefing is patently absurd.
Also, I have not seen anyone in these forums ask or suggest to "not be affected by PvP combat."
My point is not that PvE is griefing, or to equate physical PvE trolling tactics with griefing, but rather that normal PvE activities don't happen in a bubble and do affect other players in indirect ways, typically economically. To that end, I'm simply posing the thought that if PvE can affect the experience of everyone else then it's not unreasonable to allow PvP to affect everyone as well.
The PvE impact doesn't have to be so extreme as to ruin someone's day. It could be purchasing a house someone else wanted, using a trade route at a particular time of day thereby reducing that route's return for other players afterwards, grinding rare mobs in one spot for hours, or harvesting all the resources of a node. All of these could prevent someone else doing the same thing. Sure, all of these are part of the free market model in-game, but my point is they still affect the experience of other players, often causing some negative emotion or inconvenience. So I'd rather have the free market system with all its ups and downs and the PvP system with all its ups and downs apply to everyone.
I think the reason we focus on how PvP affects players is because it's so direct; we see the impact instantly, whereas PvE works its way through in-game systems and its effects propagate after time where we can't trace the results back to the actions of individuals, so we accept the effects as part of the game systems.
Anyway, it's a nascent thought so I'm trying to flesh it out in my head as we go along.
Before I go on explaining it, I'd just like to mention what PvPers do to ruin a PvEers day - they might get killed non-consenually. That's 1 thing.
Now, what can PvEers do to annoy PvPers?
- Stand in the way of a fight, or even worse, multiple people standing in the middle of a fight, potentially causing lag
- in Faction vs Faction types of battles, ungeared and unexperienced PvEers ruining a Factions statistics by getting killed over and over, leave it to the professionals
That's 2 things.
I won't go on about PvEers depleting open world resources and similar activities, as that is a PvE thing. If a PvPer would want to do such things, he is doing PvE at that moment.
My points are strictly considering when a player only wants to do a specific type of action at a time, eg. PvPers want to kill people and not get disturbed, or PvEers want to gather stuff and not get killed.
I am on neither side, as I enjoy both sorts of activities. I enjoy PvP as much as doing dungeon raids or craft my own gear (if it is beneficial to do so).
Also, it is not right to criticize either playstyle, as both work together.
PvEers gather stuff and craft things that PvPers will buy and use.
PvE will build the world (which means they must have enough protections to do so) while PvP will destroy it (which means there must be convenient enough mechanics for this to happen)
I think Ashes will be well balanced and will even encourage player to expand their horizons. For example I like love dungeon boss raids, but I'm thinking I might become a Caravan pirate, a low risk, high reward happy fun time thing.
Annoying is not necessarily the same thing as griefing.
People are not forced to keep poorly geared people in a group nor inexperienced people. That is a consensual choice.
And on the topic of things that have been done to me in a non-pvp environment, i have had players tag mobs and steal resources I was going for. I always play melee so this happens to me a lot. I'll be running up to a mob, about to hit it, and someone, usually a range class, will steal it. Sometimes this is because there aren't a lot of mobs but there are those times they had options and they chose to be rude. The best is when a resource, chest, or quest object is being guarded by the mob and while i'm fighting the mob, a player comes up and takes it.
free bodies ^^
Um. No.
What you mean is playing a game with non-consensual PvP combat is a choice.
Which everyone agrees with.
What has been stated in these forums is that those of us who abhor non-consensual PvP combat will not be playing Ashes if non-consensual PvP combat is too prevalent in Ashes of Creation.
Which is not at all the same thing as not wanting to be impacted by consensual PvP combat.
Tagging mobs is a game design issue; not a player issue.
Although, it also could be an entitlement issue.
But, really that is about the devs not providing an adequate amount of resources in their game.
If people are ruining other players day via PvE, it will effect the entire playerbase regardless is that player PvP or PvE orinted. Most likely those ruining actions are harming more other PvE players, because their focus is in PvE stuff.
But what it comes to open world PvP and ganking, then PvE oriented players suffers more, because they want to avoid this kind of behaviour, because it will ruin their gaming experience. To OWPvP oriented players open world PvP is something they are ready to face in good or bad. They enjoy the fights and winning from underdog position feels always really good and satisfied.
Did the person who doesn't want a pvp mechanic because it could interrupt their play call a situation where a person interrupt my play with a pve mechanic an entitlement issue? That is cute.
I don't know if it's an design issue, games that use tagging are usually designed that way with for a reason. Don't know about tagging but they mentioned in the last stream that we will want to fight over resources spawns so that probably means it will be limited so there is a reason to fight.
@Ferryman
You are kind of exaggerating what's being talked about here. I don't think anyone was saying these situations were soul crushing. Just talking about pve situations that can interfere with others.
If someone's game experience is ruined because they got killed by a player then that is a personal problem.
Who is the person who did not want a PvP mechanic?
I would like to see that quote.
If getting killed by a player has no significant consequences -as in Bless Online- it's not an issue. Same with PvP combat in NWO.
If getting killed by a player means that I'm going to lose items and gain experience debt, it's a significant problem... since that adds time and effort to my gameplay.
In albion's open world, haven't you had a scenario where you were waiting for a boss/elite-mob to spawn and someone else steals it? What about a scenarios where you are trying to efficiently farm an area and people start killing your mobs or farming your resources? These are the kind of scenarios that they are talking about. Just pointing out how your time was wasted and gameplay effected.
I don't own boss/elite mobs, so it's not possible for other people to steal them.
I consider it poor game design to have content that is camped and can be "stolen" by other players.
I do not lose significant time finding another place to farm.
I do lose significant time on regaining lost items and getting rid of xp debt.
Not being able to kill the mob I expected to kill is the product of poor game design.
That is a dev problem; not a player problem.
For example:
Crazy shoppers go out early on Black Friday trying to get the best deals. They know someone will get the last one and it might not be them so they move on to the next store and the next deal. They find it challenging according to gals I have spoken to.
People, whether in real life or a game will always be effected by others. It's what you make of it and how you let it effect you that matters.
Because the griefing that occurs in MMORPGs is significantly more prevalent than in real life.
Black Friday is one day out of the year.
@CylverRayne
I'm not attacking this mechanic, just pointing it out.
Affecting other players is not an issue.
The whole point of MMORPGs is to be affected by other players - that is even true for solo players.
As far as real life vs game though, it is quit similar. You have serious evil bullies in real life as well as the gaming worlds that do affect others. It's how we deal with it that matters in the end and affects our sanity.
Now to be clear, this guy had 2 things going for him that AoC will hopefully never see, that is OP P2W gear, and fast travel.
This guy would farm every field raid boss that spawned, on spawn. In this game the instance bosses dropped nothing of value, and the only way to get certain things was to farm these open world field raids. Now, it was very possible to get to these bosses before this guy, but your whole party, if not raid force, could not keep up with the dmg this 1 guy did due to piss poor game design. So when he showed up, and he would, he would simply out dps you and take the drops and move on.
Now what this did was a few things.
- Bottle necked certain items in the market and made the prices artificially high.
- Denied some players the path to progress certain quests and progressions, for indefinitely.
- Allowed 1 person to vault ahead of most of, if not everyone on the server in certain categories.
As I said, in this case it was mostly poor design to allow this to happen. However that does not take away the fact that if there are any loopholes whatsoever in the PvE side, then a hardcore PvE player will go and start to abuse this. It is also a logical argument, that when something like this happens, it is far more harmful to the server overall than several PvP players griefing a few people non stop.
But lets come back to Ashes. Even you can be affecfed undirectly via PvE, it is not as bad as you will be ganked by other player(s). If someone gets to the mobs first, you can still have choise to change place to farm, but if someone is attacking you, you dont have choise to avoid the situation. So that was my point. So it is much worse thing from player point of view, that (s)he will be ganked by player, than someone takes "your" mob/boss or buys "your" sword. There is a huge difference like day and night.