www.guilded.gg put up the poll below and its interesting. With so many new MMO in development focusing on PvP, are they missing the majority of players? Whats your thoughts? Cast your vote, lets see if we can help them get a better picture.
https://strawpoll.com/rppxh1ad What is your typical playing preference for MMO's
47.94 % (198 votes)PVE & PVP (But Mostly PVE)
43.1 % (178 votes)PVE Only
8.47 % (35 votes)PVE & PVP (But Mostly PVP)
0.48 % (2 votes)
Comments
Generally PvE and crafting/gathering, with PvP here and there to spice things up.
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Spoiler: None of them are full loot open world PvP games!
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I think some developers think they can take shortcuts on content by throwing PVP into a mainly PVE game. Animation is an expensive bottleneck in game development, and adding animations for a variety of mobs with a variety of attacks is time consuming. So, they do some of that and fill in the gaps or 'end game' with open world PVP. And that's why many of them fail, even with players who prefer PVP.
Another reason PVP centric RPGs fail is they're too complicated and time consuming for players. If I want to PVP, I want to install a game, learn some basics, and have a moderate chance of victory. That's what killed the RTS genre, and that's what will kill the OWPVP MMORPG genre. The most popular games on the market are PVP games, but that PVP is gated behind a matchmaker (LoL, WoT, etc) or start players on a level playing field (PUBG, H1Z1, etc).
If I was making an MMORPG, I wouldn't waste two seconds on PVP until I had a solid PVE game completed.
PVE drives PVP.
The entire point of an mmorpg is to created a fantasy world that ultimately emulates human history on planet Earth from a cultural perspective. Our very own history is often viewed in a romanticized light and merged into the pantheon of our beliefs.
When mystery drove exploration in the day of slow travel and low science the very world we lived in was the key character of the story. Wonder and the drive for resource, be it physical or knowledge, created the conflicts within the world. People want this in a fantasy world because it is the very thing we are trying to emulate.
Thus eternal war cannot exist both by resource and social limitations. Eternal peace cannot exist as the very conflicts created by exploration and consumption in a diverse social setting is unrealistic.
If you make a game that is nothing but war you then lose the key audience component that is drawn to mmorpgs. If the game is entirely pve then you lose the audience and realism demanded from a true fantasized world.
The issue is balance. That game needs to be large and diverse enough to not just support both but for both to exist in synergy. Few games have managed to accomplish this and simply abandoned this approach.
Even games like ESO and BDO which try to emulate both within the open world and keep them relatively protected from on another fail by this very goal. No city is really at risk, safe zones are always safe and there is no real exploration. The last statement is what really bugs me personally.
In ESO and BDO there are roads to everywhere. NPCs exist somewhere before you ever reach it. Exploration actually doesn't exist. You cannot forge your own path through areas never touched by the cultures controlled by players. Once tech and design merge so that pve and pvp can truly syngerize to emulate the true interest and nature behind the concept of an mmorpg, both player group interests will be enlightened to why they are really drawn to these games:
People really just want to experience the glory days of human exploration and enlightenment even if ignorant to the fact that social evolution was and always is driven by conflict, consumption and war.
You stay sassy!
Just not in the MMORPG market.
PVP in an MMORPG will never be able to provide the levels of intensity that match-based PVP can, because there's always a bunch of other stuff that needs doing aside from the PVP.
I thought Darkfall Rise of Agon attracted enough players to support the game, but the developers apparently don't agree. They've recently proposed changes to attract more 'casual' players. These changes would allow new players to be 'pvp viable' within 15 hours of gameplay... 15 hours! They may as well not even bother.
And that's the same problem Crowfall and Camelot Unchained will have. I don't think the RPG PVP community is large enough to support both Crowfall and CU. One of them will lose and eventually fail, and I think the winner will be Crowfall.
I just think the player base has changed over the last two decades. Very few gamers play only ONE game. Very few gamers are looking for a medieval life simulator where you literally have to devote your own life to character progression, and that's always been the Achilles Heel for these types of PVP games.
EDIT: When I say "few gamers are looking for a medieval life simulator", I mean in a PVP or highly competitive environment.
CU is has plenty to offer for the pve crowd but this depends on your definition of what a pve player is. Players can play a pure crafter class which may or may not ever have to participate in large scale warfare. They support the war effort of course but can simply stay in very safe areas if they wish. The type of player that the crafter class attracts is not the stereotypical pvp player.
Add the scout class and progression through realm contributions that supports non-combat game play even for combat classes and the audience diversifies even more.
RvR in general is not the typical hardcore pvp playground either. History reveals this clearly. It is a far more cooperative affair which draws in more traditional mmorpg players (on the pvp end of the spectrum of course).
The benchmark for their success will likely be far less dependent on market share than if the games are playable and fun. The market for pvp mmorpgs is massive. The vast majority of servers based on emulations of older mmorpgs are driven by pvp. This includes the massive Wow emulator market. Only a very few pve servers are successful. Pvp servers outnumber pve servers by likely more than 10 to 1. Why? Because they love the open world pvp mixed with pve immersion ... which has been largely stripped from many modern pvp mmos.
This is the entire point to niche product creation: to attract a specific audience not being properly served now. These games know they won't have large percentage market share but the audience share interested in these games is far larger than many of you think it is.
You stay sassy!
And PVP is no more realistic nor historically accurate than PVE. It's simply a design decision of whether you want to tell one or both sides of a story: history is indeed all about periods of peace and conflict but if you're experiencing a fantasy simulation of it from the perspective of just one of the sides, the other side can easily be just the E.
The driving force behind PVP and what makes it appealing to me is that when you replace that other side with a P instead of an E you're fighting against something that behaves more intelligently... well, hopefully.
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The reason PVP emulator servers outnumber PVE emulator servers is because the vast majority of the PVE crowd is already being served by current MMORPG titles. Having said that, I hope you're right about the interest for PVP centric MMORPGs. I think we're certainly going to find out either way once those games are released.
RvR could be far more interesting then any matches, it is too bad WW2online wasn't that good. With a low powergap could the struggle between different realms be epic.
You assume that since no MMORPG really had popular PvP it can't be done. I assume it is the mechanics that is wrong to make the gameplay as good as it should be.
It is of course impossible to prove that something can't be done and unless someone actually pulls of a MMORPG that does for PvP what Wow did for PvE I can't prove the opposite either but I believe that the right game can do it.
A game like that would be rather different from anything we seen so far though, but who knowa? maybe one of the kickstarters or a future AAA devoloper gets it right eventually.
If you however assumes all MMORPGs must be like EQ and Wow then you are right, a MMORPG like that can never provide what games like Overwatch can. The closest so far were probably DaoC and GW and both of them were rather different from the standard model, just not different enough.
Why?
If you live in null sec in EVE, play Darkfall, Mortal Online etc. the majority of what you will find yourself doing is PvEing in PvP areas. In other words PVE & PVP (But Mostly PVE). The only time you will find yourself doing mostly PVP is if you specifically seek it out by going into hostile territory and hunting for enemy players.
So according to this poll, 56.41% of players could live in EVE's null sec or similarly dangerous areas.
However. I'm guessing a large portion of those who voted for the top option meant they like to live in safe areas and occasionally do arenas.
I think the big thing to keep in mind is the MMOs on the horizon are indie MMOs. They aren't looking to replace existing MMOs. They are meant to offer an alternative. So you can remove anyone who is satisfied by currently existing MMOs from their target audience. That would skew the data considerably, and largely in favor of the PvP crowd I feel.
Though I'm also willing to be in dangerous areas to PvE.
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I'm actually a little annoyed at the current crop of devs that think they can make a system with very few rules, and enable PvP. To think they suddenly have a system that is a self regulating sandbox, that is magically interesting, and player driven.
Devs I have a hint to you most of your players are very very boring, some are even extra boring since they're just having a few kicks between work and sleep. Even if you add some conflict drivers and loot in, there actually being an interesting story to tell will still be rare. Even the darling EVE which has a world constantly at war and 15K peak users everyday, only has a few stories worth repeating a year. This took almost two decades to get to such an equilibrium. neither does your game have two decades of special sauce nor will your parent company let you continuously invest in it for two decades like CCP has their game (even if it is badly at times). So really stop trying to tackle the beast of player created content the way you are right now (especially all those silly 100 man server survival grinding games).
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Yes
anemo said: True although I would not put this much emphasis on number of rules. It is more about what rules are in force. You mentioned EvE which means FFA PvP with system security as the only real limit to it. Everything else is jut built around this core and serves purely purpose of making game more accessible if anything. There are not many rules there really.