PvP Experience is a big minus - I don't understand the design goals there
PvP in these types of games is niche. It's not Fortnite or Call of Duty. When you look at very successful MMOs the PvP has very tight controls on them, generally speaking, and those that don't typically have a significantly lower share of the market/subscriber base and so forth.
It may well be that Intrepid is ok with that as that's more of a business decision, but since it's so baked in and fundamental at this point, it would be difficult to about face. I think of Wildstar's old school raiding (huge mistake/alienating of community), and EQ2s "you must have a full group to do any kind of meaningful content" prior to launch, also a huge mistake a rolled back. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
That all aside, given that PvP is very much here to stay and a core feature of the game, here are a couple of misgivings from someone who is a complete lowbie with very little game time.
I struggle to understand, on any level, the fun factor of getting continuously looted at the ripe old age of level 4,5,6 a mere few hours into the game. After the quest sends me off into the middle of nowhere with my old swayback, I found myself slowly gathering bits of glint, and other odds and ends. There wasn't really anywhere to sell it, the main city was a long, long ways off. After about 5 hours of game time I ended up with just about what I started with - close to nothing. I watched as players looted my dead body, I returned to my dead body to find it gone, and I watch as other players hovered, waiting for the mobs to finally get me, so they can loot me. Not really amazing for community building!
My question is, who is this fun for? You can say cry more newb or git gud or whatever and that's fine, but when the design sessions are occurring, is there fervent agreement, and inspiration when we talk about the newb who's just barely learning to game getting his pittance of loot snagged for the 10th time as a great design decision? This feeds back to my comment above - who is your player base? Who enjoys that? I mean, surely the looters, but when they push out the casuals... well, you have your niche market share.
If that's what you want, then ok it just needs to be understood. If not, then why is it like this?
Here's where design/dev/tiny "community" testing of PvP fails on a fundamental level. When you're having your caravan run and oh no there's some players going to try and take us out - it's a blast! But... you're playing with you peers, your co-workers, your boss and your subordinates. They are people you know and have a relationship with. That DOES sound like fun! But that is not the reality of your player base
To truly test your systems you need the trolls. The people who don't care about the consequence (if they are at all meaningful which, at the moment, they don't seem to be). The people whose game fun/experience comes from ruining yours. The people who are anonymous tea-baggers who shout cry more newb and will camp you and/or generally exploit the system as much as possible to grief you. That's who you need testing, not your friends or people you pay, but those people.
If your systems can withstand that and remain enjoyable, congratulations you figured it out! If not, expect a small niche player base and a level of success associated with that. Again, perhaps that's your goal - I'm sure Pantheon of the Fallen isn't trying to be the next WoW and that's ok.
Now pardon me while I offer my newb corpse and the pittance of loot it holds to the leets out there that actually know what they're doing!
