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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.
[SURVEY] Is Gathering PvE Content?
Kilion
Member, Alpha Two
I'll preface this by begging for a proper feature to conduct surveys and do polls (Unless I am just incapable of finding that feature in the forum) to get as accurate an opinion on the matter as possible.
So there have been a few discussions recently that boiled down to the question
Shoutout to @Noaani for bringing this up.
To find out what people see as PvE content or not I would like to conduct a number of polls to find out what satisfies players desire for PvE content.
Read the white colored question above and then like one of the two comments below that you align with. In 2-3 days I'd like to come back to this threat and discuss the results. PLEASE LIKE ONLY ONE OF THE OPTIONS.
So there have been a few discussions recently that boiled down to the question
"What is PvE content?"
(1) Is Gathering contributing to YOUR satisfying PvE experience?
(1) Is Gathering contributing to YOUR satisfying PvE experience?
Shoutout to @Noaani for bringing this up.
To find out what people see as PvE content or not I would like to conduct a number of polls to find out what satisfies players desire for PvE content.
How to participate:
The poll will be structured to be "Yes" or "No" questions.Read the white colored question above and then like one of the two comments below that you align with. In 2-3 days I'd like to come back to this threat and discuss the results. PLEASE LIKE ONLY ONE OF THE OPTIONS.
The answer is probably >>> HERE <<<
0
Comments
Gathering counts as PvE content for me
Gathering does not count as PvE content for me
First, if the questions aren't worded properly, they can lead respondents to one answer over others.
Second, there is a bias in polls towards what ever the first answer is.
Third, an individual question on a topic is never going to give any meaningful data.
Fourth, without a proper introduction to the questions (plural), respondants may be answering based off of false assumptions.
Even proferssionally run polls are to be taken with a grain of salt - let alone amateur polls.
So are you suggesting that my attempt to poll this topic is already completely irrelevant?
Any poster attempt at polling anything is irrelevent.
Does the gatherables pose a direct threat to the player? Not Usually, but they can.
Like making certain plants and flowers have a chance to apply poisons/debuffs to the player,
making mineral veins having a chance to spawn dangerous stone elementals when mined
or dangerous forest guardians when taking down trees.
For me personally? I really don't care.
Aren't we all sinners?
I mean, it isnt.
It's why Intrepid staff can run polls here and the rest of us cant. They explained it a while ago - though I cant remember if it was Vaknar, Margret or Trost.
There is even quite the body of literature on how hard it is to write polls without either intentional or unintentional bias. It's one of those things where I'm quite happy for you to not take my word for it, but at least look in to it yourself for a few minutes.
"Mu" (the question is wrong).
That's exactly why I asked for whether people perceive gathering as part of their PvE experience, instead of asking them to define gathering. All the definitions in the world mean little if they are unable to serve a purpose in a discussion.
I asked the question that we disagreed on, which was not "what defines PvE" but whether or not PvE players will be attracted to the game with what it is going to offer. One of these components that COULD satisfy a PvE players desire is gathering: Hence the questions to ask have to gauge exactly that, independent of whether that suits your or mine definition.
If Gathering satisfies the PvE desire of PvE players, then that would mean your argument has become a bit weaker that Intrepid is not doing enough.
PvP = player vs player
PvE = Player vs environment (Tree and things dont typically fight back so cant realy say vsing envirment there)
We were having a discussion, and that discussion had some context. This poll removed that context.
See, gathering cloth in WoW could be considered a PvE activity, because you have to kill mobs to get it. Same with skinning in many games. If someone had that in mind when reading the question, they would probably answer yes. But that also isn't the question that you asked.
@Tearl Stoneheart @Liniker @JustVine @SkylarckTheBotanist @Laetitian @Nerror @Jhoren
As of now, that is the list of peopel that have answered yes to the above question - I would like to add context to the question, in order to see if any of you would keep the same answer.
The context is in regards to getting players running guild based content in their current game of choice. The question isn't "is harvesting PvE content", the question in context shoud be "is gathering content as we understand it to be in Ashese likely to convince players happily running guild content with their friends in a game now to leave that game for this game, generally speaking.".
Does anyone think the answer to that is still "yes"? Your poll has no means of determining if a respondent is primarily a PvP or PvE player, or an equal split.
Are you even starting to see why Intrepid have disabled polls for us?
Comes down to how people define it. I didn't ask for the definition because by clicking "No" someone would also be able to show that this is not what they perceive as part of PvE, while by clicking "Yes" they can indicate that it is - independent on how exactly each and every single one defines PvE.
There is no point trying to talk to people anymore, because they are even trying to tell you now what you think.
I think it's more likely to convince PvE players than PvP players. There are still enthusiasts on both sides, and even in the pure PvP crowd. I'd say that's because it's a type of PvE that offers lots of opportunities for PvP, such as resource contestation.
But I'd say the bulk of players who want intricate crafting systems and would go so far as to switch games for them alone (assuming all else equal) would come from a primarily PvE community, and yes, intricate and individualised crafting systems would help them feel like Ashes lets them get to engage in the PvE type of content they crave.
Lots of flaws in your premise though. Switching games is a huge barrier of entry that you can't expect cool PvE combat/bosses to be the sole determining incentive for either. For now it would be plenty if a good crafting system would entice currently game-less players to commit to Ashes. The hype would gradually draw players from existing games over time.
The premise is fairly simple. In order to attract players currently playing one game for mostly one content type, a game needs to provide those players a similar type of gameplay experiene. Not indenticle, just generally similar. A guild that is raiding in one game but considering a move to a new game is not likely to consider the mining in a potential new game to be worth consideration.
Similarly, I wouldn't expect someone that plays MMO's mostly for PvP to be all that interested in the crafting and harvesting system in a potential new game either. However, with a game like Ashes, I would expect any given player in that raiding guild and that PvP player to both get about the same amount of use out of the crafting and harvesting system should they both move to that game - as a generalization.
That was essentially the premise here. I don't see it as being flawed at all - though again the OP of this thread has acted poorly in communicating the above to you and others in this thread.
As an aside, I want to talk briefly abotu the barrier of entry point you bought up - because that is a somewhat new point to this discussion (quite honestly, since this is a discussion that has been going on for a few years on these forums, well done for pointing out something that hasn't been discussed).
While you are right in that there is still a high barrier of entry for players leaving one MMO to go to another, that barrier of entry is infinately bigger if the game in question doesn't have suitable content. There is obviously no single "this design will get everyone playing this game", there are still things that could and should be done in order to get as much of the transient or ready to move MMO population as possible (at least, those that are suited to the game in question).
Most often people only see what they want to see in an outcome. People consider gathering a PVE content? Good, we can advertise that we have multiple pve activities.
Additionally people who read, and take polls, are generally not the average player. The average player, doesn't read forums, or consumes content for their game, they just play it. This means that the awnsers of polls, are ALWAYS from the invested few people, even if you do manage to get a large sample size. It has no relevance for any demographic.
Last, polls have a tendency to generate a socially desirable outcome. Not many people awnser how they truelly feel, if that is different then the perceived response.
In the above question, do you consider Gathering a PVE content, is already ambiguous. i awnsered no, because, to me it isn't content, its part of a bigger turn wheel that is the content while you could argue that every subsection of the bigger contend (in my opinion crafting) is a pve activity, Does that mean that every subsection is PVE activity Yes? No? thats open for determination, and even with such a simple question you already have a dilemma, how to interpret it, and whats the creators thought behind the question. Then (this is why polls usually don't show how many people have awnsered a question) you have the follow the horde mentality. x people have awnsered yes, well i guess its pve content, so i should just awnser yes. Even if you do not (fully agree) with it.
And this is just a simple question, a simple topic, with, little of no invested stakes.
Whether or not a player finds gathering enjoyable and adding to the game in a positive manner has absolutely no bearing on the definition of PvE. PvE is a fairly wide umbrella-term for many activities, which includes gathering and combat against computer controlled entities, regardless of how much people enjoy it.
I'm trying to ballpark what scratches peoples itch for whatever they define as "PvE content". If anything, I am trying to get a greater sense of what active members of the forum see as enjoyable PvE.
Sure, this is not accurate science but he doomy "this is not telling anyone anything" or pseudo psycho analysis going on is way beyond anything I am trying to achieve here. I just wanrt to know what I wrote in the question by people clicking on one of the options given. It's a tiny piece of data, not a meta study of the gaming indurstry, not instructive data for Intrepid, no oppressive command for anyone thinking differently to not participate, not "the truth", just the gathered opinion of people.
Can you explain to me please where the "versus" part of PvE is when mining.
If you want to take a literal meaning of the term, there needs to be an aspect of it that is versus.
The problem with this take is - as we discussed earlier - is that it then requires us to consider aspects of a game such as a broker system to be PvP.
Now, since the entire point of this discussion (across three threads now) is in relation to Ashes being a game to attract people of a given preference in regartds to MMO content, in order for you to believe the above, then you have to believe that to pend raiders consider mining rocks to be the kind of content that will convince them as a general population to come to a game.
By this logic, that means we should see many PvP players coming to Ashes for the marketplace PvP.
The PvE content Intrepid make for this game is literally the difference between the game having Tabula Rasa success, or Tera success. And I am literally trying to tell you what this is specifically.
The problem is, you are just not listening.