Rather than just posting my thoughts in other threads, I decided to sum it all up here.
Something that came up was PvP, and the negative emotions attached to it. Emotions like frustration, fear, anxiety, and why those emotions might stop people from enjoying, or even playing certain PvP games.
The game that really made me realize how much I dislike
full loot PvP games, was Albion Online.
For me, the experience was full of fear and anxiety of going into PvP areas, because at any point I could get killed by someone stronger, or by a group of people. My problem with getting killed is the fact that I drop all my stuff. It's hours of wasted gameplay, just to lose it all. It just feels pointless, because I don't enjoy the experience at all. Dying in PvP is punishing. I do not want my time to be wasted, I want my character to keep progressing forward, rather than going back to almost 0.
Avoiding those areas isn't really an option, since all the best gatherables, loot, etc. is located there. You're simply not going to get anywhere by staying in non-pvp zones.
It's a similar thing with Rust. You start off the game doing some PvE content, like gathering stuff, looting, etc. Then you might build a base and store all that stuff you've found. But the problem is, you can and WILL get killed by other players. It's very, very rare that players wont just attack you on sight. Oh, and you can also lose your entire base.
While it can be sometimes enjoyable, for me the experience was filled mostly with fear and anxiety of bumping into someone that's clearly stronger than me. Player's just aren't friendly, and most likely they will kill you, even if you are just a low lvl scrub with basic weapons/armor.
Though with Rust, at least you have servers that reset after a few weeks or a month, in full loot MMORPGs, there's no such luxury. You are never going to start at the equal level to others, and you're always going to be behind (unless you play right from the moment the game goes live).
Overall,
full loot PvP is really unenjoyable for me, and that's especially the case for MMORPGs. It brings out many negative emotions, and is just not an experience I'm looking for. I'm spending time focusing on looking over my shoulder constantly, rather than enjoying the game.
-Full Loot Hardcore PvP where dying to other players is punishing
Then we have
open-world PvP games, that don't necessarily have full-loot system. They do usually have a flagging system, where you can flag up and kill people. I'm talking about
games like Archeage, Lineage 2, and Ashes of Creation.
I was completely fine with the sort of system Archeage had. You could flag up on your own faction, though if you do it enough times, you would turn red, and you were no longer welcome in cities (the guards would attack you), and other players could kill you without any punishment. Turning red was really only something for those who wanted to be pirates.
I was also a fan of zones having a war-cycle, where they would go from peaceful to full out war. You had a choice whether you wanted to participate in PvP, by just avoiding PvP zones. There was also the added benefit of having 2 factions, so if you wanted to participate in some PvP, you could just go into those PvP zones and look for red players.
Dying was mostly an inconvenience, though it could be annoying. I know I'd much rather be annoyed, than experience fear and anxiety whenever I log into the game.
Now Ashes kinda falls between Archeage, and something more hardcore like L2 or even Albion. It's not full loot, but you do drop stuff on death. There are no factions, nor zones where PvP is disabled. You could be attacked by anyone really.
I'm not totally sure where I stand on it currently, but there's potential that with corruption working it's job, nodes and node citizenship being meaningful, guilds alliances being common, and other systems, the PvP experience could be great.
If corruption deters people from mindlessly PKing others, then good. You better have a good reason to attack and kill someone.
If node citizenship means you won't be attacked by players who also have the citizenship in the same node. or adjacent vassal nodes, then it's something I can work with.
If the game encourages you to get a node citizenship and where only the pirates and those who would like to roam from place to place wouldn't want to get a citizenship, then again, it's a great system.
It creates a certain gameplay element where you choose where you want to be in the world, and who do you want to ally with. It would also encourage you to defend the node against any sieges. Through a system of alliances, and being a citizen of a node, you essentially create a faction with the people around you. There could be many more factions around, and some of them will be friendly, a lot of them will be neutral/potentially hostile, and some of them will be hostile.
PvP will also have meaning, whether you're fighting against others for a farming spot, world boss, dungeon, it encourages group play and it rewards you if you come out on top. I do generally prefer the group PvP out in the open-world, add to that things like attacking/defending a node, castle sieges, etc. and it's just a great experience that isn't necessarily forced upon you.
This is the level of risk I'm willing to take, because it's going make the experience really good and interesting, while not being too hardcore, though I would like an option to just completely be left alone at certain times if I wish so (whether that's a certain area of the map being free from PvP during a certain period of time, or whatever else).
- Open World PvP that has meaning, where you fight/compete with others for certain things/rewards
Then we have games with
opt-in open-world PvP, like WoW, where you could basically choose whether you want to participate in it or not (whether it's playing on a PvP server, which has zones where PvP is enabled, or whether it's the simple flagging system). To me, it's a boring system in a way. There's pretty much no reason to flag up or kill someone, other than ego. It doesn't really encourage group play, unless you group up to just terrorize solo players. Again, there's no meaning, and mostly no reward. Boring, and frustrating due to the lack of a deterrent (meaning you could just go and kill low lvl players if you want to inside PvP zones on a PvP server).
-Opt-in Open World PvP, without much meaning added to it.
And in the end we have
mostly PvE games, with only PvP coming from battlegrounds, arenas, etc. WoW could be an example here as well. I'd also throw in GW2 (it does have GvG, or rather WvW, but it's garbage imo).
The most pointless PvP experience for me, it's just an afterthought, it's a lobby based PvP in a way, as it's not happening out in the open-world. This just tells me the game is primarily made for the PvE experience, with PvP not having any impact on the game world. Boring, but good for those who just want to have a more competitive setting.
-Strictly battleground/arena based PvP
So I'm really interested in what people think about these different types of PvP systems in MMORPGs, and which one you prefer and why. Also, for those who dislike PvP or certain types of PvP, why is that?
For those who dislike PvP,
-is it due to your ego/pride being hurt if you lose,
-due to distruption of gameplay it causes,
-due to you having no control over it (no consent)
-due to death being punishing
-due to it being unbalanced (getting attacked by players much stronger than you)
-or something else?
Anyways, here's a poll:
https://strawpoll.com/Q0ZpR5lKAnM