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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Sociopathic/Psychopathic behavior in PvP focused MMOs
iccer
Member
To start off, and explain what actually made me post this:
I've started playing Archeage again, on the classic server.
It's honestly a brilliant game, one of the best MMOs I've ever played, that's for sure. There's so much stuff to do, from PvE, to PvP content, large group content, farming and gathering, crafting. The game pretty much has it all.
Returning to this game after 7 years, I was filled with nostalgia, hearing familiar sounds, visiting familiar areas that I spent so much time in...
The game isn't without issues, that's for sure, even without P2W elements (which were removed for the classic server), but it's in my opinion the best version of the game out there currently.
What I've noticed previously, and what Archeage Classic has confirmed, is that these types of games bring certain kinds of players in, more than other games. I'm talking about straight up sociopathic types of players.
These types of games bring players with sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies, but also encourage such tendencies in players, due to the nature of their design.
Lack of empathy, attempting to control others with threats or aggression, lying for personal gain, tendency to violence, superficial relationships, stealing/committing crimes, and especially exploiting others for their own personal gain, are definitely how I would describe a large number of players in Archeage.
- From mindless PKing, just because you belong to the other faction, to PKing your own faction for personal gain (no matter how small), it's such a common behavior, that's really putting me off from even playing in zones that allow PvP.
- These players also just enjoy messing with other people, trying to annoy them, make their gameplay less enjoyable.
- Also, besides having large egos, these players also seem really immature, which is especially sad when you realize most of them are probably 25+ years old (and still act like 15-year olds).
There's just something that makes players turn into scumbags when playing these types of games.
I myself don't like being in large competitive guilds, because those guilds seem to attract these types of players. The worst part is when you actually do get those players together, because it brings a lot of drama, guilds disbanding, leadership changes, backstabbing, "politics" being a real thing, etc. A lot of these people are just unpleasant to interact with in general.
I might have been fine with this stuff 7 years ago, when I last played the game, because I was much younger back then, still in my teens, immature, and generally displaying some of those characteristics myself, but nowadays, I feel like I've "grown up", started having a bit more empathy, and realized I'm actually playing the game alongside other humans, not with random NPCs that I'm going to exploit for my personal gain.
It's also an unpleasant experience when you are just minding your own business, playing solo, doing random stuff, and suddenly get ganked by a group of 5-6 players, that have 1-2k higher gearscore than you. The only reason being, you belong to the other faction. This is a problem with the game design, because it shouldn't allow mindless, meaningless PKing (there are a ton of other problems that I'm not gonna go into, as they're specific to Archeage itself).
I actually do enjoy group PvP, either competing for world bosses, just hunting merchants out in the sea, or even defending your own merchant, even Halcyona PvP. What I realize, is that I do enjoy group PvP that's around certain valuable objectives, but I really dislike random PvP that can happen anywhere, for no apparent reason.
The whole issue here is that the game allows for these players to behave in that way, which means more of those people will be attracted to the game, which means more of those people playing the game. The way to solve it is to just not attract those kinds of players in the first place, by limiting what they can do, and how much they can impact the experience of others, with their behavior.
Why am I writing all of this?
Well, for a couple of main reasons.
First, is because I want to "get it off my chest", and sum up my thoughts in a written form. I'm also wondering if other people have noticed similar things in these types of games.
Second, because I feel like Ashes could have a lot of the same problems, due to the nature of it, being a PvP(PvX) game.
I think Steven gets a lot of shit already from some people, either for right or wrong reasons. The reality is, that he was an Archeage player, and he was a leader of a large guild, and people had some bad experiences with him. As such, he is obviously trying to at least transfer some of the systems, that he enjoyed interacting with, from Archeage to Ashes. The question is, are those systems good for the regular player, or only for a specific type of player.
I feel like Ashes design having similarities to Archeage is what actually made me follow the project, but now I'm starting to realize that I might actually dislike some of those similarities.
- I'm going to start off with the main, general, overarching thing. Steven himself. This is just my opinion and there's no malice intended in this comment. I don't know Steven personally, or what his exact vision for the game is, but I feel like he has some biases that will impact the key designs of the game (well obviously). While he is an MMORPG player, he just isn't your regular MMORPG player. Most people get caught up on this, thinking because he's an ex-MMORPG player, he is just like them, and he definitely knows what most players want and how to implement that stuff in the game. But that's just not the case.
He was the leader of a large, hell, HUGE, competitive zerg guild. He might very well be one of those types of players I was talking about previously, with no regards, or empathy for others, only interested in personal gain above all else. Are you content with playing a game made by such a player, or rather, do you think the game will encourage that type of behavior, at least to some extent?
On the other hand, this could be a good thing, because he's also able to realize the large impact of having such a guild, and he has experience to know what happened with such guilds in Archeage (where enough players leave the game, and enough players start joining the most powerful guilds, so the entire server is dominated by 1 or 2 guilds - not even gonna go into player nations). He would have the knowledge not to allow the same mistakes that made Archeage a worse game, repeat in Ashes, his own game.
- In Ashes, there are no factions, which I now think is a great change compared to Archeage (previously I liked the idea of having 2 factions, but playing those sorts of games, I've realized there's almost 0 punishment for actually just PKing the hell out of the players from the other faction, for no reason at all).
- There will be flagging, or turning against your own "faction". It remains to be seen how the corruption system will work, and how much of a deterrent it will be. I just hope it does a good enough job of making it not worth to actually flag up for miniscule reasons, and to only be worth it to flag up in certain situations, either around valuable objectives, like dungeons, world bosses, caravans, or similar.
- Ashes introduces a lot of content, like castles, freeholds, mayorship, etc. that will only be accessible to, and controlled by the select few powerful guilds. My experience from Archeage is that it will be mostly be the highly competitive types that will exploit this type of content as much as possible for their own gain, while leaving the regular players behind.
- The whole "player driven thing" falls apart if you give players too much control, without enough limitations, because those undesirable types of players will come out on top, much more often than you think, and they will directly or indirectly control the experience of playing on "their" server. They will control the objectives, freeholds, cities, castles, world bosses, dungeons, farming spots, if you give them the freedom to do so, because they are selfish. But more importantly, they will control the experience of other, regular players, and usually it's for the worse, not better.
- And lastly, it's not even about large guilds controlling stuff, and impacting the gameplay of regular players. It's about those types of sociopathic individuals, who are going to ruin the experience of others, if the game allows them to do so. They could just PK their own faction constantly, for materials, farming spots, or for no reason at all, just for their own enjoyment. This is why I feel that systems need to be put in place to prevent such behavior, and I feel like Ashes will have those systems in place, it only remains to be seen how they're implemented, which we just cannot know until we get to play the game.
I dislike PvE only games, but I also dislike open-world PvP games that allow mindless PKing. PvP should only happen during certain events, in certain areas, or around certain objectives, not all over the map, at any time, for any reason.
The problem with these kinds of games, like Ashes, is that they always kind of assume 99% of the players will behave normally. It just doesn't happen.
These games assume players will band together and fight back against the bullies, they won't. They will just try to get away from them, or usually just quit the game. This whole "band together", "bounty hunter", stuff is pure fantasy that won't ever work, because you just can't gather a bunch of randoms to do stuff like that, especially against organized guilds, and especially against organized psychos, whose entire goal is to exploit others for their own benefit, or just for their own enjoyment. Those people treat others as enemies, but more importantly, as NPCs, rather than actual human beings.
TL:DR - Players with sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies are drawn to Open-world PvP (or PvX) sandbox games, because those games don't put certain restrictions on what they can do, and how much they can negatively impact the gameplay experience of other players. Interacting with those players isn't enjoyable, and games should limit how much players have an impact on others. If a game doesn't attract such players, it means less of them will play it, which means everyone has a better experience overall.
Just wondering what everyone's thoughts on this are, has anyone else noticed whether those kinds of players prefer PvP MMOs, and if there is a way to prevent them from negatively impacting the gameplay experience of others?
I've started playing Archeage again, on the classic server.
It's honestly a brilliant game, one of the best MMOs I've ever played, that's for sure. There's so much stuff to do, from PvE, to PvP content, large group content, farming and gathering, crafting. The game pretty much has it all.
Returning to this game after 7 years, I was filled with nostalgia, hearing familiar sounds, visiting familiar areas that I spent so much time in...
The game isn't without issues, that's for sure, even without P2W elements (which were removed for the classic server), but it's in my opinion the best version of the game out there currently.
What I've noticed previously, and what Archeage Classic has confirmed, is that these types of games bring certain kinds of players in, more than other games. I'm talking about straight up sociopathic types of players.
These types of games bring players with sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies, but also encourage such tendencies in players, due to the nature of their design.
Consistent behavior patterns in sociopaths include:
- Lack of empathy for others
- Impulsive behavior
- Attempting to control others with threats or aggression
- Using intelligence, charm, or charisma to manipulate others
- Not learning from mistakes or punishment
- Lying for personal gain
- Showing a tendency to physical violence and fights
- Generally superficial relationships
- Sometimes, stealing or committing other crimes
- Threatening suicide to manipulate without intention to act
- Sometimes, abusing drugs or alcohol
- Trouble with responsibilities such as a job, paying bills, etc.
Most of these could actually be applied to a lot of players that I've encountered in Archeage.
Lack of empathy, attempting to control others with threats or aggression, lying for personal gain, tendency to violence, superficial relationships, stealing/committing crimes, and especially exploiting others for their own personal gain, are definitely how I would describe a large number of players in Archeage.
- From mindless PKing, just because you belong to the other faction, to PKing your own faction for personal gain (no matter how small), it's such a common behavior, that's really putting me off from even playing in zones that allow PvP.
- These players also just enjoy messing with other people, trying to annoy them, make their gameplay less enjoyable.
- Also, besides having large egos, these players also seem really immature, which is especially sad when you realize most of them are probably 25+ years old (and still act like 15-year olds).
There's just something that makes players turn into scumbags when playing these types of games.
I myself don't like being in large competitive guilds, because those guilds seem to attract these types of players. The worst part is when you actually do get those players together, because it brings a lot of drama, guilds disbanding, leadership changes, backstabbing, "politics" being a real thing, etc. A lot of these people are just unpleasant to interact with in general.
I might have been fine with this stuff 7 years ago, when I last played the game, because I was much younger back then, still in my teens, immature, and generally displaying some of those characteristics myself, but nowadays, I feel like I've "grown up", started having a bit more empathy, and realized I'm actually playing the game alongside other humans, not with random NPCs that I'm going to exploit for my personal gain.
It's also an unpleasant experience when you are just minding your own business, playing solo, doing random stuff, and suddenly get ganked by a group of 5-6 players, that have 1-2k higher gearscore than you. The only reason being, you belong to the other faction. This is a problem with the game design, because it shouldn't allow mindless, meaningless PKing (there are a ton of other problems that I'm not gonna go into, as they're specific to Archeage itself).
I actually do enjoy group PvP, either competing for world bosses, just hunting merchants out in the sea, or even defending your own merchant, even Halcyona PvP. What I realize, is that I do enjoy group PvP that's around certain valuable objectives, but I really dislike random PvP that can happen anywhere, for no apparent reason.
The whole issue here is that the game allows for these players to behave in that way, which means more of those people will be attracted to the game, which means more of those people playing the game. The way to solve it is to just not attract those kinds of players in the first place, by limiting what they can do, and how much they can impact the experience of others, with their behavior.
Why am I writing all of this?
Well, for a couple of main reasons.
First, is because I want to "get it off my chest", and sum up my thoughts in a written form. I'm also wondering if other people have noticed similar things in these types of games.
Second, because I feel like Ashes could have a lot of the same problems, due to the nature of it, being a PvP(PvX) game.
I think Steven gets a lot of shit already from some people, either for right or wrong reasons. The reality is, that he was an Archeage player, and he was a leader of a large guild, and people had some bad experiences with him. As such, he is obviously trying to at least transfer some of the systems, that he enjoyed interacting with, from Archeage to Ashes. The question is, are those systems good for the regular player, or only for a specific type of player.
I feel like Ashes design having similarities to Archeage is what actually made me follow the project, but now I'm starting to realize that I might actually dislike some of those similarities.
- I'm going to start off with the main, general, overarching thing. Steven himself. This is just my opinion and there's no malice intended in this comment. I don't know Steven personally, or what his exact vision for the game is, but I feel like he has some biases that will impact the key designs of the game (well obviously). While he is an MMORPG player, he just isn't your regular MMORPG player. Most people get caught up on this, thinking because he's an ex-MMORPG player, he is just like them, and he definitely knows what most players want and how to implement that stuff in the game. But that's just not the case.
He was the leader of a large, hell, HUGE, competitive zerg guild. He might very well be one of those types of players I was talking about previously, with no regards, or empathy for others, only interested in personal gain above all else. Are you content with playing a game made by such a player, or rather, do you think the game will encourage that type of behavior, at least to some extent?
On the other hand, this could be a good thing, because he's also able to realize the large impact of having such a guild, and he has experience to know what happened with such guilds in Archeage (where enough players leave the game, and enough players start joining the most powerful guilds, so the entire server is dominated by 1 or 2 guilds - not even gonna go into player nations). He would have the knowledge not to allow the same mistakes that made Archeage a worse game, repeat in Ashes, his own game.
- In Ashes, there are no factions, which I now think is a great change compared to Archeage (previously I liked the idea of having 2 factions, but playing those sorts of games, I've realized there's almost 0 punishment for actually just PKing the hell out of the players from the other faction, for no reason at all).
- There will be flagging, or turning against your own "faction". It remains to be seen how the corruption system will work, and how much of a deterrent it will be. I just hope it does a good enough job of making it not worth to actually flag up for miniscule reasons, and to only be worth it to flag up in certain situations, either around valuable objectives, like dungeons, world bosses, caravans, or similar.
- Ashes introduces a lot of content, like castles, freeholds, mayorship, etc. that will only be accessible to, and controlled by the select few powerful guilds. My experience from Archeage is that it will be mostly be the highly competitive types that will exploit this type of content as much as possible for their own gain, while leaving the regular players behind.
- The whole "player driven thing" falls apart if you give players too much control, without enough limitations, because those undesirable types of players will come out on top, much more often than you think, and they will directly or indirectly control the experience of playing on "their" server. They will control the objectives, freeholds, cities, castles, world bosses, dungeons, farming spots, if you give them the freedom to do so, because they are selfish. But more importantly, they will control the experience of other, regular players, and usually it's for the worse, not better.
- And lastly, it's not even about large guilds controlling stuff, and impacting the gameplay of regular players. It's about those types of sociopathic individuals, who are going to ruin the experience of others, if the game allows them to do so. They could just PK their own faction constantly, for materials, farming spots, or for no reason at all, just for their own enjoyment. This is why I feel that systems need to be put in place to prevent such behavior, and I feel like Ashes will have those systems in place, it only remains to be seen how they're implemented, which we just cannot know until we get to play the game.
I dislike PvE only games, but I also dislike open-world PvP games that allow mindless PKing. PvP should only happen during certain events, in certain areas, or around certain objectives, not all over the map, at any time, for any reason.
The problem with these kinds of games, like Ashes, is that they always kind of assume 99% of the players will behave normally. It just doesn't happen.
These games assume players will band together and fight back against the bullies, they won't. They will just try to get away from them, or usually just quit the game. This whole "band together", "bounty hunter", stuff is pure fantasy that won't ever work, because you just can't gather a bunch of randoms to do stuff like that, especially against organized guilds, and especially against organized psychos, whose entire goal is to exploit others for their own benefit, or just for their own enjoyment. Those people treat others as enemies, but more importantly, as NPCs, rather than actual human beings.
TL:DR - Players with sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies are drawn to Open-world PvP (or PvX) sandbox games, because those games don't put certain restrictions on what they can do, and how much they can negatively impact the gameplay experience of other players. Interacting with those players isn't enjoyable, and games should limit how much players have an impact on others. If a game doesn't attract such players, it means less of them will play it, which means everyone has a better experience overall.
Just wondering what everyone's thoughts on this are, has anyone else noticed whether those kinds of players prefer PvP MMOs, and if there is a way to prevent them from negatively impacting the gameplay experience of others?
4
Comments
Having said that though This is exactly the reason why I'm interested in the game in the first place. Steven has played in big guilds, so the game will be about big guilds. I prefer my mmos to be truly MASSIVE and not just a group of random solos running around in pugs.
Competitiveness will always attract people who are competitive and people who are competitive will quite often behave as you described, because that's the kind of behavior that wins competitions.
So in the words of a classic meme "this game might not be for you". And I'm only half-kidding there, because even if I do know that there'll be anti-PKing groups and good BHs (cause I plan to be that myself) - I still want players to have a good few chances at PKing before they get fucked by the system. To me this creates a much more immersive mmo, where players can influence other players' gameplay. There should obviously be a limit, but it would only apply to a tiny fraction of players.
To keep it short. Being a non-competive type of person myself, I tend to avoid conflicting with this type players. I form my own goals, rejecting the ones everyone fight over. I spend time in the unpopular part of the world, which often only means they're perceived as the inefficient ones. An uncontested spot often trumps the wasted time for the better ones. Low population servers are also an option. The last resort is stop playing the game.
People can call me a low ambition loser all they want, but I play game to have fun, and going against my values squashes any kind of pride for the achievements I could get.
I'm still unsure if Ashes is a game for me by the way. I'll play it for sure, but I have no ideas or expectations for how long.
But when they kill people just because they can, because they think its funny, and they do it over and over for no benefit but some laughs (also known as griefing). Theres a wiki page on griefing but I dont know how enforced that will be if at all.
Will you play Alpha 2 or will you just watch streams to see how the game evolves?
PvP MMOs by nature can't have powerful enough punishments for consistent behaviour of this type while trying to simulate a living world (other than the sandbox type, let's go 2b2t!)
They usually give up on the latter, I think.
I literally see other people as NPCs in the game, but that doesn't make me kill them en masse or actively put them down.
You just gotta git gud at being a sociopath
Well, do you have any suggestions (for making the game work better in a way where you don't cause problems for others as much by being the way you are)?
Generally when I ask people who have these types of issues 'how can I make you less effective at doing that in a way that might make you change' in design discussions, the answers I get aren't actually about making anything better for anyone else.
Not that I'm expecting that, they are who they are, after all, but hey, might as well ask...
i suppose people who play monopoly are also sociopaths or psychopaths.
people who play chess, people who play basketball, soccer, pokemon, etc, etc.
every time you play a game where you have to make the other person lose. damn i guess the majority of people in the world are sociopaths or psychopaths, since most people prefer cooperative-competitive activities.
I salute your brand loyalty.
People who act nice can be just as toxic.
many of them also dont. but im talking about gamers in general. there are more people who arent YouTubers/streamers that people who are. isnt jutst 5% of the population or so who are sociopaths/psychopaths?
also, remember that many people who are on social media are just basically acting. the create a character (not all of them but most do) and post stuff to get views because thats how they make money.
if we go by th logic of "im going to win and i dont care if you lose", everybody who competes is a psycopath or a socipath. everybody who plays monopoly, chess, pokemon, etc, etc. the guy working harder than the rest to get that promotion is also a psycopath, because hey only 1 person can get the promotion and everybody else will get screwed. the nba player who starts training one hour before everybody, etc, etc
we are getting pretty ridiculous at this point.
The irony is palpable, but sure, I'll bite.
Not everyone who competes 'doesn't care if the other person loses'. Some people care quite a lot about if the other person is having fun matching skills with them, even if they don't win. Sometimes especially if they don't win.
If your definition of 'truly competitive' involves 'not caring about your opponent's feelings, well...
There's many psychological red flags if one knows what they're looking for.
The point is, just because someone seems nice or empathetic doesn't mean they're genuinely "good" people either. That's all I was getting. I don't really want to get involved beyond that in relation to this threads subject matter or relative purpose.
Do you have data to support this? Would be very interesting to see if there was data to support this.
I think some people really love the freedom that comes with an OWPvX game.
People can strike back at those who hide behind things such as peaceful zones when farming, as an example in ESO you can farm Craglorn and there will be people who come and deliberately try to interrupt your farm.
Luckily in Ashes they can pay the price for that sort of behavior.
There are also people who are otherwise annoying and unpleasant where there's no point to dialogue, the course of action will also be PVP.
Some people have never paid any real consequence for being a rude pusillanimous and PvP is one of the very places they do.
That's one of the major reasons I play it at least, I'm from a real life era of if you're going to misbehave, you get warned. Then you get your ass beat.
bro got ganked in archeage got so mad that came to write an essay insulting people for PvPing in a PvP game
Oh the virtual psychological warfare, the horror... such suffering... i almost feel bad for OP...
The Faction part of AA seems to really have gotten to you, a pity you never experienced L2's Factionless Karma System that's much more close to what Ashes is going for.
Aren't we all sinners?
The best system i ever saw so far.
And that's all the story.
Honestly playing an MMO is all about NOT being alone... ok... you won't have party 100% of the time (maybe), but also maybe the problem is all about yourself...have you ever thought about it?
Way to miss the point. Where to even begin...
I'm not even sure if you are being serious, but if you are, then there's probably nothing I can say that will make you actually see my point.
All of those things you've listed are games, where participants are participating and competing willingly against others. You usually also have different tiers in sports (and even ranks, in competitive PC games), you don't often see the best teams competing against teams that are 2-3 tiers below them, let alone 5 or 6, and that's for a good reason.
In open-world PvP MMORPGs, there's no such thing. You have people with top tier gear, just PKing lower geared players, or even lower level players. There's no consent to it, and it isn't balanced. It's much different setting and feeling from a competitive game, like LoL, Dota, or CS, where the entire point of the game is to kill the enemy team, on a set map.
But again, that wasn't even my point, it's not just about making other person "lose", it's about players not taking into account they're playing against other human beings, it's about them actively destroying other people's enjoyment of the game, or even hampering their progress. It's not just about PKing, but those players actively hunting other players, like they're animals, as soon as they spot them in a zone that allows PvP (which will be the entire world in Ashes). It's about there being no punishment to mindlessly PKing people for no reason, which encourages such behavior to happen in the first place.
Expected such a reply from you, because you are definitely one of those people that I was describing in my post, I can bet on it.
But no. You have missed the entire point. Try reading my above reply, and my post again, if you didn't get it.
Funny you say "PvPing in a PvP game", because it just shows how you view the game. You probably see a red player, and think he has to be exterminated asap. I don't. Not because I dislike PvP or anything, but because there is no point in killing them, I only see them as enemy when they try to compete for something against me/my group/faction, be it a world boss, Halcy war, or whatever other event that brings PvP.
But killing someone just because they happen to be within your view range, that's pointless to me. There's nothing competitive about it, especially when it's groups going around killing people 5v1 or 10v1.
Again, it only happens because there's nothing to prevent it from happening.
Ditto
You won't be in a party about 70% of the time you are playing. I don't know where this idea that you have to play in a party for everything comes from. Again, you're just arguing about something completely different at this point.
I came to the conclusion that nothing surprises me anymore...
They're talking about a game that was inspiration for this game. L2 had you play in a party ~80-90% of your time. There pretty much wasn't any soloable content of worth in that game. You HAD TO find a party and live with them.
This is also why people were more fine with pvping, because they were always with company.
That's just a bad analogy.
You cannot compare a mob, that's programmed to do something, with real player decisions and actions. Besides, I'd just not play the game if that was the case.
The issue is how players view a game. They just say "it's a PvP game so expect PvP", which completely misses the point, and just shows how people who play these types of games think.
I don't see what L2 has to do with this, we are talking about Archeage, and Ashes. And their comment seemed directed at me.
A mob that hunts you is exactly the same as a PKer. But you're the same as Dygz and wouldn't play a game with as hardcore of an approach.
Yes, because that's what's on the tin. When you play CS - you get shot. When you play Dota/LoL - you get ganked. When you play Rust - your everything gets fucked.
The same applies to a game with open world pvp. When you decide to play a game like that, it's logical to expect that you'll get attacked by other players while playing.
Did AA let you solo a ton of content or was very solo-friendly? Cause while it's another big inspiration, L2 is one as well. And when it comes to the pvx design of Ashes, I'd say that L2 is a MUCH bigger influence than AA.
Guild content is parties. Raid content is parties. Siege content is parties. Most caravans will be party content. PvP is balanced around parties (while 1v1 is RPS). Freeholds, as we've learned recently, is pretty much party (family) content.
And on top of all of that the fact that you can be attacked in the open world will push people to party up, because safety is in numbers. So gathering and dungeoning will also be party content.
And literally all of that was the case in L2 (well except for caravans, cause there were none). Which is why I brought it up in the context of being in a party.
You saying that 70% of gameplay will be outside of a party implies to me that AA was soloable AS FUCK. Which is not what Steven is going for.
A game that is designed around PVP for PvPers and now the very players it was designed for are sociopaths and psychopaths.
Uhuh.
Maybe, but it might also moreso be 'the loud ones' or 'selection pressure'.
I know a lot of players who absolutely thrive on the PvP, but won't generally just set out to make anyone miserable. But you'd pass 20 such players on the road before you get the one who 'just harasses you for the next 40 minutes'.
Sure, it took you 20 minutes to ride past them and 40 minutes of 'abuse' to shake off (or log off) the persistent one, but I get that your point is probably closer to 'why does the game reward the latter?'
It's moreso that since those people are driven and fueled by that interaction, they can 'keep going' longer than 'nicer' people can (and sometimes, have way more time on their hands for some reason, can't imagine what it is...)
The more 'rewarding' the game is without PvP, if it allows the PvP, then the more 'reward' those people get out of disrupting the flow of others. Can't really change it. Any 'reward' other than 'survival' achievable via actually dealing with those players would be cheesed. Victory basically doesn't deter them, they bring more. This happens even in games that are entirely about PvP.
One friend who plays offlane in MOBAs (and I share this experience) is good ENOUGH to win against 90% of opponents, and escape in 2v1 (sometimes killing at least one target). The result is quite often that the enemy just stacks their whole team against him eventually, to get the one kill... sometimes repeatedly. Why? Maybe they just want the equivalent of a really cool boss battle? But I doubt it.
It's more accurate to say 'it's a PvP game so expect people whose personal reward is making others lose'. Sometimes they're practicing, sometimes they enjoy hunting prey, and sometimes it's the only thing they can enjoy. In the end, it's the game that has to do anything about it, so what do you want to see?
New World explicitly changed its design because of this type of player. Throne and Liberty is going in the same direction. Another game I can't mention is wrestling with it too, though that game may keep more freedom and just try the 'even harsher punishment' style.
But in the end, what is a punishment, but a miserable pile of ashes?
I mean, what kind of data are you looking for? I'm certainly not documenting every interaction in every game I play, so I can make a study about it, that's for sure.
I have however talked to people that also felt like Archeage brings a certain type of player, a player who lacks empathy, a player who's immature, a player with huge ego, among other things. And it's really easy to spot those players out there, when you see how they behave in the chat, how the guilds they're in are always full of drama, backstabbing, etc. - because of those huge egos.
I love the freedom that comes with an OWPvX game as well, which is why Archeage is my favorite MMORPG.
But we might have different definitions of freedom. To me, freedom means I can do a bunch of different stuff whenever I want to, whether it's PvP, PvE, whether it's faction v faction PvP during events, world bosses, or whatever else, or whether it's farming mobs, dungeons, or just planting stuff on my farm, doing trade runs, crafting stuff, making gold through AH.
But the freedom to just randomly negatively impact other player's experience, is something I don't find valuable at all.
Your examples are all valid, but that's far from reality of what actually happens when you have too much freedom. If you give too much freedom to influence other people's experience, you just end up with certain people constantly running over other people, disregarding them completely, ruining their experience, because they treat you as a NPC, because they are the only important thing in the whole game, and you are nothing.
The game can be designed around PvP, for PvPers (which is just false, because those are PvX games, but whatever), but it doesn't mean that's the only thing that happens in the game. Again, it is not LoL, Dota, or CS, where PvP is the main thing. Archage isn't that sort of a game, and neither is Ashes.
Again, CS, Dota, LoL aren't comparable to this. Those games' sole focus is the PvP, it's literally a match based system, where the only goal is to win against the other team.
If that's how you view MMORPGs, then I don't know what to say, because to me MMORPGs don't represent that at all, and we might very well play MMOs for different reasons.
In CS, Dota, LoL, and other competitive games, you HAVE to PvP, and you HAVE to kill other players to win the game. In MMORPGs, you don't have to do it, unless there's something to win (again, I've given examples of events with PvP focus). In MMORPGs you do not have to murder everyone from the opposing team, because there isn't a match that you have to win. Yet some people either feel like they have to, or they just enjoy killing others who aren't looking for PvP.
It's not about soloing the content.
Most of the valuable stuff, you just have to group up, and not jsut group up, but bring 2-3 full raids for it.
But you won't be spending 80% of the time doing that sort of content.
You do not need a group if you want to farm mobs.
You do not need a group if you want to plant/harvest stuff on your farms.
You do not need a group if you want to craft/process stuff.
You do not need a group if you want to do quests.
That's majority of what you'll be doing anyways.
Sure, there's trade runs with the merchant ship, dungeons, events, world bosses, etc. all the fun content that you'd obviously do with a group, but those things aren't what you're going to be doing for majority of your time (unless you really chose to do so, and ignore everything else). And you probably won't be able to do all of them, unless you play 12h a day.
"(and sometimes, have way more time on their hands for some reason, can't imagine what it is...)"
Actually that's one of the key parts as well probably.
'it's a PvP game so expect people whose personal reward is making others lose'.
It's actually really funny, but that's the whole point I guess. I think that that sort of view is something those kinds of players, and sociopaths/psychopaths have in common. That's often the only reward for them, and it's apparently enough to make them feel satisfied. I just find that sort of thing disgusting, especially because I know most of those people aren't actual psychopaths, yet they act like they are when they are put in these sort of games, and they actively seek out those games.