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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
On PvE vs PvP players
bigepeen
Member
Sadly there will not be a grand unified game that everyone likes. Even games that are successful in one region, can fail in another (e.g. a successful NA game can fail in the Asian market, or vice versa). Although a region is a large sample size, and people are still people, something like changes in culture by region can affect whether it appeals to a group of people.
Game studios ultimately need to choose what kind of game systems they want to create, which in turn determines what kind of players it appeals to. Unfortunately, the current MMORPG player population is the most divided community in gaming, because many of its players either like one of two fundamentally opposite ideas: They either like PvP, or they don't like PvP. There's a sizeable portion of the latter that are allergic to any form of PvP, which is caused by their own insecurities about their abilities. And there's a sizeable portion of players in the other category that don't want to play a massively multiplayer game that relegates PvP to instanced battleground minigames, or takes away from open world PvP by letting players opt out of it. Letting players opt out of open world PvP might as well let them opt out of the open world altogether. Trying to appeal to both groups fragments the game, and is directly opposed to the massively multiplayer aspect of MMORPGs.
All of this has led to the sad state of affairs of the MMORPG genre. Game dev studios receive feedback that some of its players don't like PvP, so they let players opt out, or put more content in instances. This is obviously a problem, because instances and opting out directly goes against the idea of massively multiplayer games. PvE-only players inevitably drive games towards a less massively multiplayer experience, which, along with the P2W exploitation in PvP or PvX MMORPGS, explains the current state of affairs.
Therefore, if someone says "I hate PvP, and will avoid it at all costs", then I do not want them to influence the game, because they are diametrically opposed to the core values and game systems of AoC. Do we then need to worry about not enough people liking the game? No, because if we look at the general population of people who play games, you'll see that the number of active players playing PvP games far exceeds that of PvE games. Taking half-measures to appeal to both doesn't work, because these are fundamentally opposing ideas, and would result in cheapening the massively multiplayer aspect of the game.
Game studios ultimately need to choose what kind of game systems they want to create, which in turn determines what kind of players it appeals to. Unfortunately, the current MMORPG player population is the most divided community in gaming, because many of its players either like one of two fundamentally opposite ideas: They either like PvP, or they don't like PvP. There's a sizeable portion of the latter that are allergic to any form of PvP, which is caused by their own insecurities about their abilities. And there's a sizeable portion of players in the other category that don't want to play a massively multiplayer game that relegates PvP to instanced battleground minigames, or takes away from open world PvP by letting players opt out of it. Letting players opt out of open world PvP might as well let them opt out of the open world altogether. Trying to appeal to both groups fragments the game, and is directly opposed to the massively multiplayer aspect of MMORPGs.
All of this has led to the sad state of affairs of the MMORPG genre. Game dev studios receive feedback that some of its players don't like PvP, so they let players opt out, or put more content in instances. This is obviously a problem, because instances and opting out directly goes against the idea of massively multiplayer games. PvE-only players inevitably drive games towards a less massively multiplayer experience, which, along with the P2W exploitation in PvP or PvX MMORPGS, explains the current state of affairs.
Therefore, if someone says "I hate PvP, and will avoid it at all costs", then I do not want them to influence the game, because they are diametrically opposed to the core values and game systems of AoC. Do we then need to worry about not enough people liking the game? No, because if we look at the general population of people who play games, you'll see that the number of active players playing PvP games far exceeds that of PvE games. Taking half-measures to appeal to both doesn't work, because these are fundamentally opposing ideas, and would result in cheapening the massively multiplayer aspect of the game.
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Comments
I don't think it's fair to dismiss them completely, but I agree that taking their feedback outright will lead the game down the wrong path.
Hmph, I wouldn't say it's due to insecurity. People who don't like PvP rarely initiate fights with others, but that doesn't stop others from attacking them. Usually, the ones who initiate a fight as the advantage, by the simple virtue of choosing when to initiate the attack. As a result, those who don't seek PvP are, more often then not, at a disadvantage. They feel, rightly so, that the odds are against them. Battle grounds and other instanced PvP give them control on when pvp is going to happen, it feels more consensual.
What they do not realize is that by logging on a server allowing open world pvp, they are joining a big battleground. If they don't initiate fights, they give that power to others and condemn themselves to the position of victims.
The fragmentation truly is a big problem that plagues the MMORPG community, but to be honest the main divide comes from PvE elitist players (Usually people who comes from WoW) completely averssed to any form of PvP, in contrast to the majority of more PvP focused players that are completely willing to engage in PvE, fitting the PvX style of the game.
I Believe PvE Elitists are one of the main sources of modern MMORPG problems such as the rise on turning mmorpg into more Lobby based Instanced fiestas pretty much removing the "mmo" aspect of them.
Also, a lot of the ideas they bring on the forum usually goes completely against the concepts of the game, like PvE only servers, systems to opt out of PvP, Safe farm zones, more instances and etc.
Aren't we all sinners?
You can't engage in meaningful pvp when you get ambushed and murdered in a few seconds. People who play to PvP often have an overwhelming advantage because everything they do is min maxing the entire pvp interaction in the game.
That won't necessarily be the case in this game as they are aiming for damage to be low and hp to be high. However, there are legit reasons people avoid it and it is often due to scarring from other games. That will potentially haunt this game which is why it is extremely important to break misconceptions of unfairness due to it as fast as possible. There is going to be a degree of unfairness to it, but the levels some games deal with are completely hopeless for the defending party.
Even in Vanilla WoW which was the most fair the game has ever been. Warlocks could perma fear most classes and Rogues jumping on you from out of stealth was just death. It is often the worst offender for the ptsd gamers have about pvp due to not controlling it whatsoever in that game.
I don't think max level players should be allowed to freely world pvp however they like. There should be some limitations for level outside of the corruption system because it's just simply not fun for either side to pk someone who has absolutely no chance of winning in 1 million simulations of the battle.
PvP is at it's best when similar geared players with minor differences or if slightly outgeared then outplay potential possible. It is a detriment to the game when it is completely 1 sided at any point in the game. For some players being pounded that hard by a random player will cause them to never pvp again. Which will actually hamper the cool pvp modes in the game if not controlled to some extent.
The only games that give half a shit about pvp is guild wars, warhammer, and Lineage 2. No other MMO ever has. Any good experience for it in other games is greatly due to luck. The problem is the trolls. Trolls ruin freedom in the game. They abuse it for griefing and a lot of people are going to deal with it inevitably. A good half of my vanilla WoW experience was logging out because someone was guarding my body for hours on end. Players who were over 30 levels higher than me. If I had to deal with that in a game now I would probably just quit the game.
Lineage 2 was pretty unfair too, but it wasn't that bad because of the slow leveling speed. Deleveling and their corruption like system evened it out a little. So even if you did die to some dickhead one shotting you. An entire mob would show up to murder them and take their equipment in about 10 minutes. Most MMO's didn't have meaningful interactions like that though.
U.S. East
Instancing is not opting out of PvP, it is saying to those that want to PvP against you "wait here for a minute, we will be right back and we can have this fight then".
Instant travel is opting out of PvP.
While I agree with the idea that PvE only mindsets will destroy what Ashes is supposed to be as a game, it is no less true that PvP only mindsets will do exactly the same.
I also agree with you that - so far - no game that has tried to appeal to both PvE and PvP players has been even remotely successful in doing so. This means that if Intrepid are going to be successful at it, they need to be more PvP focused than the PvE games out there, and more PvE focused than the PvP games out there.
This is why you will always see me argue against those PvP players that yes, Ashes needs instanced content at all levels, and I will equally argue against PvE players that no, yes, you can be attacked while out harvesting, and that us as it should be.
The only way that will change for me is if Intrepid state that their plans for Ashes is no longer about a 50/50 split between the two.
Ahh god, we just reached some agreement in the other thread and here we go again maybe lol. "Yes, you can be attacked while out harvesting"....I'm assuming you're talking about more than just harvesting right? As in the vast majority of raids and dungeons, you can be attacked too.
It's not even fully about pve and pvp. It's about the fact that there's a direct inverse relationship between instancing and open world feeling. You take some from one column, you're putting it in the other. The more instanced the world is, the less alive, the less immersive, the less exciting.
The problem with this statement, while it is accurate, is it is also inaccurate.
When you are debating between open world content and instanced content in the context of a pvp environment, instanced content IS opting out of PvP, but that choice is on the developer's end. Players after the content is implemented aren't the ones opting out obviously.
When you turn an open world dungeon into an instanced one, you lose a contested area and because of that, potential pvp.
When you turn an instanced dungeon into an open world one, you gain potential pvp.
It's that simple.
Edit: Of course I'm not saying you can't have NO instanced content, just that instanced content is inherently anti-pvp. That's all my argument here is.
And this is why you dont instance everything.
As I have said many times, instancing is a tool. It is one of many tools. If instancing is a screwdriver, it should not be used to hammer in a nail.
However, it should be used if you need to screw in a screw.
Alright just making sure bro haha
Level difference will be huge in the first couple weeks of launch. No-lifers will have a huge advantage during this time, but it will start to level out as time goes on, since the level process will start to slow down once you're close to reaching max level.
You can still get attacked once outside of the instance, at which point it is not opting out of PvP. However, players could potentially be waiting forever for you to opt back in to PvP, not realizing that you've permanently opted out of PvP for the day by logging out in the instance.
I agree. PvE-only players are so naturally aligned against PvP or PvXers just by their nature, that you can't design a game for both groups without neutering one or both sides.
Much of your post can be solved by just not making the gear disparities so big. That runs counter to what most pve'rs want because they want each new piece of candy to be a major improvement over the next, which is understandable, that's part of the addiction.
But it doesn't work well in a game with pvp in it. One shots, two shots, three shots, bullying, elitism, domination are the result. If raiders spend months and months getting the best gear that's good design, effort should be rewarded.
Here's the bad design. Expecting new players to come into that game months after launch and be forced to spend the same months and months to achieve competitiveness with everyone. Expecting them to have to spend months before they can really start having fun and competing in all the systems of the game. Even players that started at launch, but only have 2 hours a day to play, compared to people that spend 16 hours a day playing. There should always be some kind of baseline, relatively easy to access gear to achieve competitiveness. (might take weeks to acquire, should take some effort and money) There are multiple ways to do that.
Thanks - you know me so well!
Can we get this in stone on the bottom of a statue? Maybe a statue of Dr Disrespect in some roman robes looking stoic AF.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
However, there is a different content type that can be offered to players that can only exist if there is no chance of interference from others, either competitively or cooperatively.
This is why instances in MMO's exist, this is why they were first developed, and why they are still used more than 20 years later, in every popular MMO.
Intrepids goal should not be to eliminate instances - as much as a few people around here would like that. Intrepids goal should be to put instances to the best use possible, but to make it so that they can not be used to escape PvP all together.
While they are obviously going to be used to escape PvP during the encounter, it is very short sightedness to assume that this means people have avoided PvP all together. You can have PvP getting to the instance, you have have PvP at the entrance/exit, and you can have PvP on the way home from the instance.
To say instancing removes PvP from Ashes is to say that the only appropriate time to attack another player is while they are fighting an encounter.
I'd also like to address a point from your OP, since it was quoted above.
While this is true, how about if we compare the number of players playing PvP focused MMO's vs PvE focused MMO's.
Or how about we count the number of people playing PvP focused games with a persistent world vs the number of people playing PvE focused games with a persistent world.
You can't just throw around numbers that have to include other genres in a discussion that is purely related to MMO's - unless, of course, if you want Intrepid to stop making an MMO and start making a BR, MOBA or FPS game. If that is what you are after, then saying there are more PvP players than PvE is valid.
If you want an MMO, then you should only count MMO players - and PvE kicks PvP's arse in that count.
The competitive interference can be designed around by creating enough content to where interference at your specific location, out of all the other possible locations, is unlikely to occur, but still possible. If you're doing 40 man content, it's fine if maybe a max of 10% of the time you get disrupted by another group by chance.
The cooperative factor is more difficult to balance around in the open world. I have no idea how they can balance this in the open world. They already said that they won't scale difficulty based on the number of people in a dungeon. I think they would need either some clever boss or dungeon design to make it so only 40 people can be effective or survive during the encounter. It's much easier said than done, because players will be able to find ways around it. If they were able to solve this problem, then I think the entire genre would follow them. I was just saying that there's a huge market of players that prefer PvP. A lot of those people probably would like a good MMO that isn't focused on just PvE, but it's not an option when studios and publishers sabotage PvP and PvX MMORPGs by implementing microtransactions at almost every opportunity. The MMORPG market should be many times larger than it is right now. Just the idea of a huge world, thousands of players, real player-driven economies, all interacting together in real time.. seems like it would be a genre with more potential than just about any other genre right? But no, it has been galvanized by MMOs that are glorified minigames, and publishers pushing predatory mtx's.
The reason why there are more PvE MMORPG players than PvP or PvX players right now is simply because there are no good non-PvE MMORPGs that exist. It's the same reason why non-removeable batteries in phones seem to be popular these days. Is it because consumers hate that 0.1mm more thickness in exchange for an easily replaceable battery, and if every company produced a version of each phone with a removeable battery, then customers would all choose the non-removable one? No, it's probably because there are a bunch of business-related and maybe other factors like tracking that happen to be anti-consumer. It's the same for MMORPGs.
The thing is, Intrepids biggest challenge isn't instances - it isn't anything PvP related.
Their biggest issue is in trying to be the first fantasy MMO with a persistent world where the open PvP doesn't cannibalize the games population.
I mean, if you need further proof that this is what killed Adcheage, just look at the server mergers. The same pattern of groups dominating other group, and the groups that were losing leaving the game happened on those servers the same as it did on the initial servers - and the mergers were done when the only players left were ok with the monetization of the game.
That right there is the reality of it. Intrepid need to make it so PvP itself doesn't chase away its own players.
I dont have an answer to all of that, but I do know for a fact that people are more likely to stay in a game if they know they have access to content they enjoy than they are to stay in a game where they do not know when they will next participate in content they enjoy.
This means that as far as I am concerned, Intrepid can either try and make the kind of PvP game that all the ex-L2 players here erroneously think Ashes will be, or they can make a game that will attract people semi-long term, and then ensure there are appropriate PvP opportunities to be had.
Having guaranteed access to content for people and then adding in PvP opportunities is easier and more likely to produce the game Ashes should be than offering players limited access to content will ever be.
I've found myself agreeing with you more as of late, seeing a bit more eye to eye. I agree that one of AoC's challenges is finding a way where it's pvp doesn't cannibalize it's population. I agree that that challenge is an issue in pvp games, and essentially a non issue in pve games.
I don't agree that pvp killed Archeage, not going to go into that because I did in the other thread. Certainly there we're some people that didn't get the success or victories they wanted and that led to them quitting. But that game had all kinds of non pvp issues that led to people quitting.
I'll tell you a game whose pvp either did or would have led to people quitting. Atlas. Atlas was screwed from the get go because of non pvp issues, bugs, broken systems, lack of land. But even if it was perfect and bug free, it was doomed. There was no check on mega guilds/alliances. And the pvp was completely wild west, no restrictions.
The guild I was in resisted the mega alliance of Dynasty. We had our own island, we we're looking for and courting allies to help us resist, we we're well off with resources/finances, we had a chance. Even if we didn't win, we we're going to have fun in the fight, and we would have just resettled on allied land somewhere and continued the fight.
But what happened? Dynasty didn't want to risk an open, frontal attack on our island. It would have been costly. So they got one of their allied Chinese guilds to sail into our harbors every day, at all hours of the day and night, for a couple weeks straight, with cheap/low tech fire bombs and fire ships. And they would sink so many ships. Hundreds, if not thousands of man hours of ships and all the items in them, gone in minutes, seconds sometimes.
Number 1, you had to be ONLINE to even have a chance of defending. Number 2, you couldn't defend against it even if you we're online. It cost the Chinese guild next to nothing to launch these attacks. Even if we did repel them, which we did a couple times without much loss, they could just come back at no real cost to themselves. Absolutely horrible pvp design.
There were god damn third party apps where people could see how many people we're online in each grid of the map. So you check the app, oh look there's only 5 people online in grid E6. OFFLINE RAIDING TIME. Those people wake up the next day to everything they've worked for gone.
THAT is an example of a game that the pvp cannibalized the population, or would have. Anyone who quit Archeage over pvp probably had no business playing a game with pvp in it anyway. And many of those who quit we're probably looking at the big picture. As in, yeah we didn't get the castle we wanted, but also, half our guild doesn't have land, Bob broke his gear the other day cuz of shit Eastern mmo rng, he's probably done, Jim can't even get his gear to upgrade the way he want's it to, he's probably done, and the god damn game is going FURTHER AND FURTHER P2W. It takes 10 of our guys to kill this one P2W guy who keeps showing up because he's so P2W'D out of this mind he's literally a god damn raid boss (not exaggerating). We're out.
This post has gotten a lot longer than I expected lol. But the reason why most of are here is because we see an open world/open pvp system that looks like it's going to work. And that's a whole other post that I could explain and it'd be about this long.
Quite a funny statement when L2's "kind of PvP", is the most akin to the current PvP concept that ashes has.
Aren't we all sinners?
Noaani just doesn't seem to be able to accept or comprehend that P2W and not AA's pvp format was the biggest offender that led people into quitting.
AA had so many flaws and trion did so many mistakes during its launch and early days (especially the release of Auroria was a huge killer for its population because of bots taking over all the land during the downtime issues), the insane P2W, the labor system, the early days enchanting, The Exploits that were not punished and people reporting them getting banned instead, The Bots, the RMT fiesta, and much more.
Ultimately Trion's greed and negligence killed the game.
But oh nonono for Noaani the game's PvP killed its population
Aren't we all sinners?
I like Noaani.
A little. haha jk. He's an effective debater, has some good points. The idea that pvp can and has hurt the population of games is true. I just don't see it with Archeage. Maybe I'm wrong. These things are kind of hard to analyze too when every individual server was a different situation. But Trion fucked up in so many ways that had nothing to do with pvp.
Haha, good one
A loud and incessant debater sure, not a good one. Uses every bad faith tactic in the book.
What, you don't think logical fallacies, constantly moving goalposts, and gaslighting are what they teach you at debate club?
"Show me on the doll where the PKer crit you?"
It is like they have some bad experiences due to lack of self confidence or lack of desire to learn and improve. Then they create reasons for PvP to be the problem with every game that does not gain a large foot hold in the MMORPG market. Plenty of PvE only/mostly games never make it.
Just look at "https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL80AP9QYJdzerVGAjjQj19A5_B6gKTo3U
Or Lazy Peons whole channel.
If you watch all of these videos like I have over the years you will see some patterns running games:
Greed, DEVs un-able/unwilling to fix problems, did not live up to promises, too many bugs, greed again, awful servers, too many bots, P2W(greed again lol), Game is WOW clone and WOW exists still.
I have never seen a game that died because PvP unless there were some balance problems that went un-addressed or you had to spend money to be competitive (AA). The fact is that PvE and PvP focused games face a lot of the same issues listed in the patterns above. Why would a PvX focused game like Ashes be any different?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I was as active on that games forums as I am here, trying to make it better (and succeeding, I might add).
The problem with saying that these things were what killed Archeage and not the PvP cannibalization as I have said, are the servers that opened post launch.
If what you think killed Arxheage actuly was the case, it would mean these servers should have had a stable population. The people on these servers knew Truon would make mistakes, new the game was P2W, knew all of what you said killed the game to be true.
Yet people still went to this server with the intention to dominate it, and that server still had the exact same population curve as the servers at launch did.
I thought it was Trion that chased away the games population as well. Right up until I saw that exact same thing happen when Trion were not able to be blamed.
Then when you see that the people leaving the server are the people losing at PvP, and then the groups that were winning split in to smaller groups and the cycle carries on, you really are left with no option but to co clude that the PvP is cannibalizing itself.
Unless of course you have an explanation as to why the people on the second (and third) wave of servers that knew all of the above had the same pattern as the launch server. An explanation as to why it was always the people losing PvP that were leaving, not the people willing PvP.
I mean, if you can explain that, I'm listening. I'd love to go back to blaming Trion for Archeages failings as I used to do.
The problem I have is that right now, blaming them over blaming the core design of the game doesn't make any sense.
No it wouldn't mean that as trion fck ups, p2w, exploits, bots/rmts, only increased as time went by, some people just genuinely liked the game and tried their best to ignore how ridiculous trion and insane p2w, even those peoples patience had a limit eventually.
And no new servers did not had the same curve as launch did, new servers had hype and some people after a time thinking the "trion fck ups, p2w, exploits, bots/rmts" were tamed down by that point, after every new server or merge overall population went down after small spikes.
Unchained was the last hope on AA for alot of people, sadly Gamigo proved to be as bad or possible even worse than Trion, straight up lying at peoples face. Once again people faced p2w, exploits, bots/rmts.
I'm unable to see AA dying back then if it did not had: trion fck ups, p2w, exploits, bots/rmts free.
Also, Check out this video
Aren't we all sinners?