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.
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?
