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Understanding PvX
Bardtic
Member, Alpha One
So just saw a thread about if you like PvE, PvP or both. It made me realize what main stream MMO's have done to people. Most of these MMOs have created a polarized systems which make people want to play selfishly. In PvE, you want to be highest DPS or down content before others. In PvP, you want to be better than others and achieve higher ratings. Both PvP and PvE systems reward the player for this kind of play with some form of bragging rights. A title the individual can display, a piece of gear that the individual can wear, a mount that the individual can ride.
These systems make it all about the individual and don't promote loyalty or identification of a group. I think many people look back at the best times they've had in an MMO without realizing what made them the best. My best times and I'll wager many others were accomplishing something as a group, something with my friends, it didn't matter if it was PvP or PvE based.
PvX means there will be a mix of PvP and PvE content to accomplish things, which I think may change the minds of some of the people who "only PvP" or "only PvE." When you need to band together to defend your castle against a siege or down a certain boss to get a drop so your town can build the next level of some building, you will have fun either way.
The point is that if built correctly, PvX progression is based on much larger goals than something just for an individual character. When there are so many factors to progression, people have to diversify and you don't get the same sense of elitism in each part of the game that a lot of other games promote. PvP can be fun for all people when its more casual and people haven't spent hundred of hours min/maxing their gear and builds to just wreck anyone that isn't also a meta-slave. PvE is the same, can be fun for anyone when you aren't min/maxing DPS and thousands of boss mods.
With bigger goals in the world, it promotes group loyalty and play oriented towards working together to accomplish something regardless of the content. You can still play solo in PvX if that is what you enjoy but you will be missing out on a lot of the game's content.
This is my interpretation of PvX from my experience. Interested to see what others think!
These systems make it all about the individual and don't promote loyalty or identification of a group. I think many people look back at the best times they've had in an MMO without realizing what made them the best. My best times and I'll wager many others were accomplishing something as a group, something with my friends, it didn't matter if it was PvP or PvE based.
PvX means there will be a mix of PvP and PvE content to accomplish things, which I think may change the minds of some of the people who "only PvP" or "only PvE." When you need to band together to defend your castle against a siege or down a certain boss to get a drop so your town can build the next level of some building, you will have fun either way.
The point is that if built correctly, PvX progression is based on much larger goals than something just for an individual character. When there are so many factors to progression, people have to diversify and you don't get the same sense of elitism in each part of the game that a lot of other games promote. PvP can be fun for all people when its more casual and people haven't spent hundred of hours min/maxing their gear and builds to just wreck anyone that isn't also a meta-slave. PvE is the same, can be fun for anyone when you aren't min/maxing DPS and thousands of boss mods.
With bigger goals in the world, it promotes group loyalty and play oriented towards working together to accomplish something regardless of the content. You can still play solo in PvX if that is what you enjoy but you will be missing out on a lot of the game's content.
This is my interpretation of PvX from my experience. Interested to see what others think!
2
Comments
To me, the true mmorpg experience comes from guild play, which is why I love raiding. When you do progression raiding, there's no selfishness allowed, because if you are selfish, chances are the whole group will fail. Gear belongs to the group, not the individual players. If you get a piece of gear it's because it benefits the group and gives your group a better chance of succeeding.
And don't forget about the guild war system. We haven't heard too much about the mechanics of that, but may want to rethink just randomly attacking a caravan with those around it.
What happened was, guild would only allow the most elite of elites into guilds so they can compete, very few cared if they actually liked the people because they just wanted the massive payout for winning the castle. It got even worse when people figured out that castle sieges were on the weekend, and they could break from the guild during the week, joining other guilds as mercs for weekday node wars and get extra payouts that way, then rejoin main guild for weekend castle wars.
Guilds ended up being meaningless for a large majority. It also destroyed the opportunity for a lot of enjoyment as a main part of the game Castle/Node wars ended up having almost nothing to do with guilds but was all about payouts.
I hope there are guild systems that really encourage group play and working and growing together as a guild and having goals that people can work together for.
But as time goes on, i think you'll start seeing what you're looking for. It'll be YOUR node, and you'll have seen the same group of people chatting, trading, and relaxing for quite a while. You'll have personally invested in the node, helped build projects, hell, hopefully you'll have your favorite freehold tavern
I do disagree that people won't remember you though. With how large the world is and how hard travel is intended to be, I think you will run into the same people over and over.
Eventually your name matters. I used to play Perfect World which had open world PvP, and the Kill on Sight list where many. You had to remember that guy from that guild or just the guild itself, and kill it, no matter what you were doing.
This will matter, and people will know if you're only caring about yourself.
Don't forget about the Guild War mechanic too. Steven said it will work outside of the corruption system. Depending how this works it may become pretty easy to punish guilds that do dumb things. This system probably won't be abused either as anyone who does will have war declared on them by many many guilds.
People are pretty damn good at punishing abusers when there are actual consequences for their actions.
Also don't forget you get a longer death penalty and I believe lose more experience when you don't fight back. So may be worth the corruption from someone you hate just to do that to someone without any resource gains.
It all does depend on how much corruption you get per kill though. I am assuming you can kill a person every hour or two without getting a bounty on your head.
Dude, I like where your head is at.
What I think needs to be pointed out though: we always talk about "some BH" or "some guilds" but in reality WE are the ones that have the opportunity to take care of a**holes WE don't like and that WE don't want in OUR game. WE shape Verra and WE will stop corruption, not some random nameless Bounty Hunter we are sure will come around eventually.
Following the progress of AoC I am not sure what I like more: the game and how it is shaping up or the community that is creating itself, that is unbelievably friendly, non-toxic and mature. I have absolutely no concerns about griefing because of the people that I read on a daily basis that are going to be in Verra with me and every one of you as well.