My PvX != Your PvX

Basis: I prefer PvE over PvP so, in my mind, I'd like to see more balance between the systems.

Is this a fantasy, yes. I know logically that PvX for Ashes consists of a blend, a mixture if you will, of both elements. Therefore, I think that when some of us say "Ashes isn't really PvX", what we mean is that it isn't what we would think PvX would be (Equal measure of both in my opinion).

Do I want PvE only servers? No. I enjoy the risks that come with the PvP Systems in mind. Will I need a group of friends to play with because (even though I'm complimented for living in the Caravan stream) I'm a big scaredy cat when it comes to PvP? Absolutely!

All in all, I'm just trying to say that I think PvX can be considered more of a spectrum where some of us like the (in my opinion) PvP heavy version of PvX and I'm sure there are some that prefer a more PvE heavy version of PvX.

I plan to play Ashes all the same, but I had seen this topic floating around and wanted to discuss it, or share my thoughts.

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Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

You're a hardcore pver, who has played with hardcore pvers, who somewhat likely have also played with the same type of players.

Sort of.

Most of the people I know that play MMO's have been too end PvE players.

Have been.

While those in my guild still are, most of the people that I talk to that used to be in the same guild as me are no longer in the same guild as me because they wanted to take a step back from being at the top end.

As such, I talk to more people playing MMO's casually than I do those playing at the top end (although I talk more with those at the top end due to being in a current guild with them).

This is why my opinion on things is often specifically not that of a top end PvE player. It is rarely the opinion of a top end PvP player, but I look at things from the perspective of a casual player as much as I look at it from my own perspective.

You know quite well that I am not one to try and convince others that my perspective is right - I'll argue my perspective, but at the end of the day the person needs to come to their own conclusion. That is why I am happy to tell you why I have the opinion on people playing games for the story that I have, but rather than feed you the information I have, I have simply suggested you talk to more people about it. Not people on a stream like Asmon - streamers and their chat don't talk about things in any sort of truthful way - it is literally the worst source of information you could imagine.

This thread even has a number of people saying that Cataclysm was just a shit expansion in general - so feel free to start there.

Otr

NiKr wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

People who play MMOs for story, are not reliable customers to pay monthly subscription.

They are, as long as your story is good and is updated regularly. To me Mihoyo games are the biggest proof of that. Genshin has been out for over 3 years, yet it still makes insane money every patch, because characters that they release are interesting within the story (and the upcoming one will be one of the most interesting chars, so I think it'll make a ton of money as well).

Star Rail is the same and is also making insane money.

Yeah, sure, whales contribute a good chunk of that, but considering that getting a full char only costs a few thousand - you'd either need thousands of those whales or simply an equal distribution of expenditures by normies. And even if it was all simply whales - the characters that make the most money are the ones that are hyped by the story.

If Ashes has an interesting story and is releasing updates as often as they want to - I'm sure there'll be a fair number of people that stay subbed for that.

I don't know about those games.
So you will play AoC for the story? And then once you finished it you go back to Genshin which rolls out story faster?
I see other possibilities too.
- some players want just the progression of their character, to put those points to some attributes. PvE combat, going and collecting the XP and those drops can offer that. At the very end, the difficult PvE combat could provide the fun, as a challenge to defeat.
- AoC was described as a themebox to suggest that is a sandbox with some story elements which will create the story of your character, like an emergent narrative based on player decision and external factors. That gives replay value to the game. Each alts will have a different story.
- in games which are sandbox, story is just general lore. The character story is whatever the player can do, and many players have indeed limited creativity, yet they become "content creators" on youtube by having funny faces and doing reaction videos

Ludullu

Otr wrote: »

So you will play AoC for the story? And then once you finished it you go back to Genshin which rolls out story faster?

I'm not gonna be playing Ashes for its pve. Story is simply the only part of the pve that I will care about. Grinding mobs, artisanry, quests - all are just tools to make me better in pvp, while the story is completely its own thing that I have a separate interest in.

But yes, I will be playing both, Ashes and all of the mihoyo games

Otr

Your PvX != My PvX

Dygz

HybridSR wrote: »

Not trying to be a dick Dygz, but why are you here then? Steven has been literally saying from the start that AoC will be a game of friction, contesting, not everyone will be a winner, etc. Also if you know anything about L2 which takes about 20 seconds if you Google (and once again L2 is AoC's biggest inspiration together with AA), then you'd instantly know that it's ALL about risk, mass pvp, competition.

I'm here to test Nodes and see how devs convince PvE players to play on the same servers as PvPers.
And I was enticed by the Meaningful Conflict of Sieges and Caravan PvP; rather than Steven's recent obsession with Risk v Reward.

HybridSR wrote: »

Also, why don't you like it? I've played PvE MMOs before. They're boring as hell. It's literally doing the same thing 300 times until you're done. Literally ONE month playing a PVP MMO like L2 would've given you memories that beats anything WoW or FF can give you. You think finally getting that piece of gear from the same Raid Boss after 100 tries feels better than capturing a castle with your buddies? Nothing in WoW/FF or any of those games comes close to the thrill of PvP and winning with the boys.

The better question would be. "Why do you find PvE MMOs boring as hell?"
It's a matter of playstyles preferences and who the target audience is.
When Jeffrey Bard was Lead Game Designer, the target aidience seemed to include more diverse playstyles.
AFter Steven took the reigns as Acting Lead Game Designer, it became clear that Steven is primarily designing Ashes just for his own preferred playstyle.
I have plenty of enjoyable memories I cherish from playing PvE.
PvP gives me memories of playing with assholes. Which are not really the kinds of memories I seek.

I would say that Defending Sieges with other players is much better than repeating Raids ad nauseum for Gear.
The addition of non-consensual PvP with The Open Seas makes all of the above moot and Ashes a game that I really have no interest in playing - other than socially hanging out with friends I've already made in the Forums.

Dygz

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

See, now you're talking about raid bosses.

Beating the Lich King is the end of that story (afaik).

And again, I used Asmon as simply an example. Cata's sub numbers show that they started going down pretty much immediately, meaning that people stopped their subs even before they knew for sure that cata was a bad expansion.

I've seen a ton of people say they have no interest for what FF14 will put out in the future, because the current overarching story has ended.

I'm sure there are more story-based mmos out there that I simply don't know, but considering that these are the biggest ones, I do think their examples are valid for what I'm trying to say.

10 years ago, Cataclysm was my favorite expansion. Because my main is a Druid and was able to spend that expansion focused on healing.
But, it was after Cataclysm ended that I realized I was burnt out of the Endgame treadmill, where you reach the end of that story and then are stuck waiting 2 years for the next expansion. I had no interest in playing Mists of Pandaria or any other expansion before Shadowlands.
I played Neverwinter Online next. Hit Endgame and then realized I was pretty much done with MMORPGs.
A week later, EQNext was revealed and it seemed as though their version of Nodes would put an end to Endgame.
It's because Nodes seems to me to be a lite version of Storybricks that I chose to support the Ashes of Creation development.

Currently, my favorite WoW expansions are:
1: Dragonflight
2: Cataclysm
3: Shadowlands

Dygz

Otr wrote: »

Caravans and it's defenders are also in always PvP mode.

Nope.
Caravans have a PvP invite bubble.
Players within that bubble choose to Defend/Attack/Ignore the PvP associated with Caravans.
Which means I can travel alongside a Caravan and remain a Non-Combatant or I can choose to flag Purple.
It's not possible to travel the Open Seas as a Non-Combatant.

Otr

Dygz wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

Caravans and it's defenders are also in always PvP mode.

Nope.
Caravans have a PvP invite bubble.
Players within that bubble choose to Defend/Attack/Ignore the PvP associated with Caravans.
Which means I can travel alongside a Caravan and remain a Non-Combatant or I can choose to flag Purple.
It's not possible to travel the Open Seas as a Non-Combatant.

Let's see how we will travel alongside a ship with a water mount and what combat spells we can use.

HybridSR

Dygz wrote: »

The better question would be. "Why do you find PvE MMOs boring as hell?"

Incredibly easy question to answer. It's static content. It's repetitive, if you have the time and most people who game do, it's absolutely riskless. It's a participation reward. Why the F do I want something if everybody can have it? Where's my motivation? I wouldn't EVER bother to raid unless I knew not everybody will be able to have whatever that RB drops. What's the point if everybody can? It's literally doing the same 100 times over until you get it. Yawn.

PvP + friction + diplomacy is ever changing, wild, impossible to predict and always leads to fun times if you have the willingness to throw yourself into the fire. It's not even a comparison. This is why Lineage 2 had garbage updates and the game still survived for an entire decade just because the social systems were pretty good and everything was setup for a ton of drama, fights, diplomacy, backstabbing, spying, etc. PvE MMOs will never EVER give you that.

CROW3

Yeah, I have to agree - PvP’s dynamic makes that content more fun, frustrating, nail-biting, memorable, and rewarding.

Noaani

HybridSR wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

The better question would be. "Why do you find PvE MMOs boring as hell?"

Incredibly easy question to answer. It's static content. It's repetitive, if you have the time and most people who game do, it's absolutely riskless. It's a participation reward. Why the F do I want something if everybody can have it? Where's my motivation?

As a PvE first player, I agree with your general point here - I hate doing content everyone can do.

That's why I play at the top end. When you are killing mobs that only 1% of a games population will even see (and only 25% of those that see it will ever kill it), the above issues simply aren't factors.

While I understand many players enjoy PvE at lower tiers - tiers where everyone is able to participate - that has never appealed to me at all.

HybridSR wrote: »

PvP + friction + diplomacy is ever changing, wild, impossible to predict and always leads to fun times if you have the willingness to throw yourself into the fire.

Yeah, but the actual fighting is all the same. PvP fighting on a large scale is boring as fuck.

PvE content (good PvE) is FAR more varied than PvP could ever be in terms of the actual fight. Sure, every time you fight the same encounter it may go roughly the same, but the next encounter along is totally different, and the one after that is different again.

In PvP - especially mass PvP - every fight is basically just the same.

It doesn't really even matter what game you are playing, mass PvP is still basically the same. It's the same in EQ2 as it is in Rift, or Archeage, or BDO, or ESO, or EVE.

There is more variation in how you actually play within one EQ2 raid zone than there is within the PvP of every game I have listed above.

Dygz

HybridSR wrote: »

Incredibly easy question to answer. It's static content. It's repetitive, if you have the time and most people who game do, it's absolutely riskless. It's a participation reward. Why the F do I want something if everybody can have it? Where's my motivation? I wouldn't EVER bother to raid unless I knew not everybody will be able to have whatever that RB drops. What's the point if everybody can? It's literally doing the same 100 times over until you get it. Yawn.

Endgame is static, repetitive content, sure.
Acting in Broadway plays is also riskless.
If I want risk, I will play a Survivial game or an FPS.
If I want Cooperative Storytelling, I will play and RPG.
I don't raid, either.
The foundation of RPGs is cooperative PvE storytelling.
Competitive PvP is really the purview of other genres of video games. It's like trying to make all video games e-sports.

HybridSR wrote: »

PvP + friction + diplomacy is ever changing, wild, impossible to predict and always leads to fun times if you have the willingness to throw yourself into the fire. It's not even a comparison. This is why Lineage 2 had garbage updates and the game still survived for an entire decade just because the social systems were pretty good and everything was setup for a ton of drama, fights, diplomacy, backstabbing, spying, etc. PvE MMOs will never EVER give you that.

PvP friction is uninteresting. I am not at all interested in player v player friction.
Just as I am uninterested in actor v actor friction when I watch or participate in a play.
I am very interested in the stories of the characters - and I really don't want actor-friction or player-friction interfering with the cooperative story-telling of the actors and players portraying the progression of their characters.
We agree that Lineage 2 was probably garbage. Ashes is heavily inspired by Lineage 2.
I have 0 interest in player drama and player fights and backstabbing and spying while playing an RPG.
I don't want MMORPGs to give me any of that.
When I want something like that, I will play a PvP genre, like a Survival game or an FPS.

Dygz

CROW3 wrote: »

Yeah, I have to agree - PvP’s dynamic makes that content more fun, frustrating, nail-biting, memorable, and rewarding.

Yep. I don't play RPGs to experience frustration or "nailbiting" associated with other players.
PvE is fun, memorable and rewarding enough for me. Sometimes, there is some nailbiting from mobs and NPCs. (Especially the first time I was hit with Blind and my screen went black.)
If I want PvP, I will play a different genre of game.

What I'm hearing is that gamers find the RP aspects to be boring so they have to add in competitive PvP to make RPGs interesting.

CROW3

Dygz wrote: »

Yep. I don't play RPGs to experience frustration or "nailbiting" associated with other players. PvE is fun, memorable and rewarding enough for me.

I’m shocked. 😆

Aszkalon

Otr wrote: »

Your PvX != My PvX

People can say whatever they like,

PvP will follow them even when they try to avoid it. This doesn't make Ashes a pure PvP-Game. It just forces People to be more aware of their Environment and to possibly, just "possibly" - search for Allies who can help oneself out.

Otr

Aszkalon wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

Your PvX != My PvX

People can say whatever they like,

PvP will follow them even when they try to avoid it. This doesn't make Ashes a pure PvP-Game. It just forces People to be more aware of their Environment and to possibly, just "possibly" - search for Allies who can help oneself out.

Sir Steven will balance the game based on what he sees on Alpha 2 servers.
I don't know if those players are a representative sample of those who are expected to join after release.
And he said everything is subject to change.

HybridSR

Noaani wrote: »

PvE content (good PvE) is FAR more varied than PvP could ever be in terms of the actual fight.

For the life of me I cannot understand what kind of mental gymnastics you did to get to that conclusion. Everytime you PvP, the scene is different, the terrain is different and it often favours different classes depending on the location, the enemies may change, the strategy is different, randoms may join the fight or not, hell, even the time of the day changes things, too. Depending on what you did ingame yesterday, some other people might like you and help you, or even dislike you and fight you, too. You may end up fighting outnumbered, you may end up having to run away while being chased by 20 people. That's because players are unpredictable.

You're saying that somehow hitting the same NPC that's coded to work the exact same way until the end of time in PvE 100 times is more varied than that?... I have no idea how you can claim that, sorry. Hard disagree and I think you're a bit on copium there.

Dygz wrote: »

Endgame is static, repetitive content, sure.
Acting in Broadway plays is also riskless.
If I want risk, I will play a Survivial game or an FPS.
If I want Cooperative Storytelling, I will play and RPG.
I don't raid, either.
The foundation of RPGs is cooperative PvE storytelling.
Competitive PvP is really the purview of other genres of video games. It's like trying to make all video games e-sports.

Dygz, for the record, I don't dislike you or anything, I'm just completely confused as to why you're here. AoC will be exactly the opposite of what you're looking for, and it has been like that since the day I frst saw Steven talk about the game. You seem the type of player who would enjoy FF XIV. Why are you in an open world PVP MMO forum? It's very clearly something you don't or won't enjoy. The game won't change either, this has been the vision from the start.

Otr

HybridSR wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Endgame is static, repetitive content, sure.
Acting in Broadway plays is also riskless.
If I want risk, I will play a Survivial game or an FPS.
If I want Cooperative Storytelling, I will play and RPG.
I don't raid, either.
The foundation of RPGs is cooperative PvE storytelling.
Competitive PvP is really the purview of other genres of video games. It's like trying to make all video games e-sports.

Dygz, for the record, I don't dislike you or anything, I'm just completely confused as to why you're here. AoC will be exactly the opposite of what you're looking for, and it has been like that since the day I frst saw Steven talk about the game. You seem the type of player who would enjoy FF XIV. Why are you in an open world PVP MMO forum? It's very clearly something you don't or won't enjoy. The game won't change either, this has been the vision from the start.

Everyone have a little Dygz inside and he takes care of them to grow happy.

Dygz

Aszkalon wrote: »

This doesn't make Ashes a pure PvP-Game. It just forces People to be more aware of their Environment and to possibly, just "possibly" - search for Allies who can help oneself out.

RPGs are not going to be pure PvP games. True.
Even in PvE, we search for Allies who can help.

Dygz

HybridSR wrote: »

Dygz, for the record, I don't dislike you or anything, I'm just completely confused as to why you're here. AoC will be exactly the opposite of what you're looking for, and it has been like that since the day I frst saw Steven talk about the game. You seem the type of player who would enjoy FF XIV. Why are you in an open world PVP MMO forum? It's very clearly something you don't or won't enjoy. The game won't change either, this has been the vision from the start.

I mean... long story short...
I've been here since the Kickstarter.
The game design has changed significantly - especially with the addition of The Open Seas in 2022.
(Which was also several months after the original Lead Game Designer left and Steven took over as Acting Lead Game Designer for 18+ months, before hiring Bill Trost.)
While Jeffrey Bard was Lead Game Designer, the spin seemed to appeal to a broader set of playstyles.

So... no. The current vision is not the same vision it has been from the start.
And has changed in a manner that I'm no longer interested in playing.

I am still very interested in testing several of the systems.
So... I will be testing the Alphas and Betas.

(Steven will tell you that Ashes is not a PvP MMO; rather it is a PvX MMO.)

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