The vast majority of content people play in MOBAs is PVP. The vast majority of multiplayer content in FPS and RTS games is PvP. Even most text based and phone games like Ogame and Clash of Clans revolve around PvP.
It isn't that PvPers are the minority. It's that people who want to PvP when there are huge stat gaps involved are the minority. People who don't at least sometimes want the option to enjoyably do content in areas they don't have to worry about PvP are a minority.
It's not that people don't like PvP. It's that most MMOs, even the MMOs best known for PvP, do PvP wrong.
MMO open world PvP lacks balance in many areas - as numbers (zerg vs few), gear, unsuspecting victims are often what determines faceroll victories.
This is why PvP is not popular in MMOs - as it's basically predatory tactics that win.
On the flip side - MOBAs, team shooter etc... - are the most popular games in the world, having majority of players as far as online games go.
Players LOVE PvP that's balanced where everyone has a chance of winning (FPS, MOBAs etc...)
on the flip side - in MMOs with open world PvP - a new solo player that's undergeared has ZERO chance of winning.
No wonder PvP in open world MMOs is not popular
yeah, I think my title should have added MMOs after "niche group". With exception of maybe MMOFPS games (like planetside 2).
There is a huge difference between all the deathmatch sandbox MMOs, where skills, items and zergs win. And a very fair team based experience in MOBAs and FPS games. Even RTS games rely purely on skill and being good at the game. I can't play starcraft 2 and kill everyone I meet just because I may or may not have played for months or years and have the best units and bonuses or whatever. I can hop onto planetisde 2 (or starcraft 2 for rts example) and kill anyone if I have the skill or be killed by someone even newer than me. I can never do that in most sandbox PvP MMOs.
I remember starting up Ultima Online decades ago, and this dude with super good armor and weapons came at me when I was killing undead and one hit me. Stood no chance.
That "feature" was driving many people away in UO and it be dead by now if it was the same (they even release updates/expansions still decades later). So they had to change it to optional PvP but still have a PvP area (which saw almost no people compared to the PvE part). That doesn't mean PvP is niche in gaming, but in MMOs it is because most people don't want to be ganked over and over by a 500 man zerg or some dude who no lifed the game and can one hit everyone and not be able to be one hit himself.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
@DMKano - I think the levels and gear has a lot more to do with it than anything else. If you consider games like Rust, ARK, Freelancer, Life is Feudal : Your Own World etc. These games are essentially just smaller versions of Open World PvP based MMOs... with less disparity found than you would find in any of those MMOs. And you see more PvP than PvE servers in most of those titles. And again, it's a genre that's quickly becoming more popular than MMOs.
And the most successful MMO with a major emphasis on Open World PvP remains EVE to this day. EVE is also the MMO in which a fresh player is the most useful to an established alliance. Coincidence? I think not.
The vast majority of content people play in MOBAs is PVP. The vast majority of multiplayer content in FPS and RTS games is PvP. Even most text based and phone games like Ogame and Clash of Clans revolve around PvP.
It isn't that PvPers are the minority. It's that people who want to PvP when there are huge stat gaps involved are the minority. People who don't at least sometimes want the option to enjoyably do content in areas they don't have to worry about PvP are a minority.
It's not that people don't like PvP. It's that most MMOs, even the MMOs best known for PvP, do PvP wrong.
Title says BDO a mmorpg sandbox and you reference MOBA/FPS/RTS.
Yes, because it's extremely relevant to the subject. PvP is overwhelmingly more popular than PvE when it comes to multiplayer only games but you make them massively multiplayer and suddenly PvPers are the minority. That should be raising some serious red flags to developers and have them reconsidering how they do PvP in MMOs.
I've always felt that MMORPG PvP is for people who earned or bought an advantage over others. Its not designed to be fair. Its designed for people to measure their epenis-size. Sorry, but this has been done since the days of early RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons where you occasionally get super-character players who want to fight the other player characters. People want to dominate and the lure of being able to dominate with gear and wealth is what brings people to the PvP. Fair has nothing to do with it.
On top of dealing with gear. One has to deal with Computer Specs, Connection Speeds, and a lot of Objective-Oriented PvP, where you don't have to kill anything or anyone and can still win or lose.... since they can't make it a Deathmatch or Team Deathmatch anymore or we all know who will win .
We can talk about MOBAs but MOBA characters are like Pokemon, where only the few of the many are good.
Go into an Old School FPS game and its amazing the difference in skill. I can be a stellar player and play against a newbie and I am going to win 30 - 0 easily. I can post the screenshot and the community in these games know to never respect any person who persecutes or beats out a newb.
I could fight against players my skill level and I can edge out and win 15 - 13. Or I can tell you my favorite fights were those I lost, but I played against the top 10 players in the world and has scores like 7 - 9 and 5 - 8. Even so, my win/loss vs top players was lower, I learned a lot more..
and if I post the screenshot, people would say "WoW...that is a pretty damned good score considering the player and the map that you are fighting in" and even get praise from a top player too. I remember adopting from a top player the idea of awarding and looking for the "Best Kill" made. It happened when I lost the match 7 - 9 and the player said "you still got best kill.. don't know how you landed that shot!"
However, MMORPGs are filled with people who praise overgeared and underskilled players who spend their time killing people who are ranked below them and trash talk about how good they are.
Yes.. PvP Gamers are a Niche crowd, but that is one attitude that I wouldn't mind becoming extinct. Too many damned screenshots of players oppressing the weak and calling themselves heroes and being praised for it!
@DMKano - I think the levels and gear has a lot more to do with it than anything else. If you consider games like Rust, ARK, Freelancer, Life is Feudal : Your Own World etc. These games are essentially just smaller versions of Open World PvP based MMOs... with less disparity found than you would find in any of those MMOs. And you see more PvP than PvE servers in most of those titles. And again, it's a genre that's quickly becoming more popular than MMOs.
And the most successful MMO with a major emphasis on Open World PvP remains EVE to this day. EVE is also the MMO in which a fresh player is the most useful to an established alliance. Coincidence? I think not.
The vast majority of content people play in MOBAs is PVP. The vast majority of multiplayer content in FPS and RTS games is PvP. Even most text based and phone games like Ogame and Clash of Clans revolve around PvP.
It isn't that PvPers are the minority. It's that people who want to PvP when there are huge stat gaps involved are the minority. People who don't at least sometimes want the option to enjoyably do content in areas they don't have to worry about PvP are a minority.
It's not that people don't like PvP. It's that most MMOs, even the MMOs best known for PvP, do PvP wrong.
Title says BDO a mmorpg sandbox and you reference MOBA/FPS/RTS.
Yes, because it's extremely relevant to the subject. PvP is overwhelmingly more popular than PvE when it comes to multiplayer only games but you make them massively multiplayer and suddenly PvPers are the minority. That should be raising some serious red flags to developers and have them reconsidering how they do PvP in MMOs.
It's not just specifically an uneven playing field, it's that many more male gamers see the challenging play of PvP much more attractive than grinding or questing for levels.
MOBAs cut the PvE time down, allowing players whose primary interest is PvP to do that without sinking hours into developing a character. In MOBAs, avatars can quickly snowball to an unfair power level, but the players don't spend months leveling their avatar and grinding gear just to get to that spot, so it stings much less when they get dominated by an enemy player who has snowballed. They get to wash, rinse, and repeat in an hour or less.
FPSs focus even less on developing a character. This plays directly to the more popular interest among the industry's most popular demographic.
So players can handle enduring an uneven playing field, so long as they don't start that way by default, they can quickly even the playing field without relying on spending significant amounts of time doing things OTHER than PvPing, and if they spiral outta control into an uneven field, the player doesn't feel like months worth of PvE effort has just been completely wasted.
That's not evidence of anything, other than stupidity for using it as evidence. Firstly, even if you were using a server at launch there would be too many factors to make such a blanket statement. Such as the fact that BDO is a heavy rng, quasi-p2w, and intensive grind Eastern mmo. These types of games do not appeal to Western gamers all that often, and this includes pvpers.
Secondly, I played this crap mmo at launch as a hardcore pvper who was in a 200 man hardcore open world pvp guild, allied with half a dozen other 100 man + guilds, and friends with dozens of other pvp guilds. Guess how many are still playing BDO? Less than 5%, and that's players not guilds. I myself dumped BDO after the sieges were delayed 2 months longer than they were stated to come out. After hearing stories from friends who spent $500-2000+ and look back at BDO as nothing but a waist of time, I dodged a bullet.
TLDR: Game is bad, so we (pvpers) left. AKA why it's empty
Haxus Council Member 21 year MMO veteran PvP Raid Leader Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
It's not just specifically an uneven playing field, it's that many more male gamers see the challenging play of PvP much more attractive than grinding or questing for levels.
MOBAs cut the PvE time down, allowing players whose primary interest is PvP to do that without sinking hours into developing a character. In MOBAs, avatars can quickly snowball to an unfair power level, but the players don't spend months leveling their avatar and grinding gear just to get to that spot, so it stings much less when they get dominated by an enemy player who has snowballed. They get to wash, rinse, and repeat in an hour or less.
FPSs focus even less on developing a character. This plays directly to the more popular interest among the industry's most popular demographic.
So players can handle enduring an uneven playing field, so long as they don't start that way by default, they can quickly even the playing field without relying on spending significant amounts of time doing things OTHER than PvPing, and if they spiral outta control into an uneven field, the player doesn't feel like months worth of PvE effort has just been completely wasted.
The thing with MOBAs (And RTSs for that matter) is that the uneven playing field is a direct result of player skill in most cases. The playing field becomes uneven because of choices made during the match but everyone starts at the same time and has the same amount of time to develop. How you choose to use that time is part of your player skills. If you get pushed from your lane or lose your forward based resulting in an imbalance, it's your mistakes that lead to that.
And that works perfectly fine in games meant to last 15-60ish minutes with all players present at the start of a match and generally playing until it's either fully decided or clear who the winner will be. In your general MMO the game lasts years and very few of the people playing years down the road will be the people who were there at the start. And everyone has different amounts of playtime. A completely different game in nature than a bunch of players all starting at the same time and playing for the same amount of time.
While mistakes and careful usage of time still can lead to faster development these factors take a back seat to overall time played in most instances, which is not a skill based factor.
And that's why you see highly competitive player dropping these games like hot potatoes. It's not that they can't enjoy playing the economy, or running dungeons, or any number of other types of content that aren't pure PvP. Hell I love that content when the mood strikes me and it hasn't been ruined for me by being forced to do more than I want in order to be a competitive PvPer.
It is absolutely because when they go to PvP, they don't want to lose to someone less skilled than them simply because that person played longer. So they choose to play games that don't make that crutch available.
@DMKano - I think the levels and gear has a lot more to do with it than anything else. If you consider games like Rust, ARK, Freelancer, Life is Feudal : Your Own World etc. These games are essentially just smaller versions of Open World PvP based MMOs... with less disparity found than you would find in any of those MMOs. And you see more PvP than PvE servers in most of those titles. And again, it's a genre that's quickly becoming more popular than MMOs.
And the most successful MMO with a major emphasis on Open World PvP remains EVE to this day. EVE is also the MMO in which a fresh player is the most useful to an established alliance. Coincidence? I think not.
The vast majority of content people play in MOBAs is PVP. The vast majority of multiplayer content in FPS and RTS games is PvP. Even most text based and phone games like Ogame and Clash of Clans revolve around PvP.
It isn't that PvPers are the minority. It's that people who want to PvP when there are huge stat gaps involved are the minority. People who don't at least sometimes want the option to enjoyably do content in areas they don't have to worry about PvP are a minority.
It's not that people don't like PvP. It's that most MMOs, even the MMOs best known for PvP, do PvP wrong.
Title says BDO a mmorpg sandbox and you reference MOBA/FPS/RTS.
Yes, because it's extremely relevant to the subject. PvP is overwhelmingly more popular than PvE when it comes to multiplayer only games but you make them massively multiplayer and suddenly PvPers are the minority. That should be raising some serious red flags to developers and have them reconsidering how they do PvP in MMOs.
It's not just specifically an uneven playing field, it's that many more male gamers see the challenging play of PvP much more attractive than grinding or questing for levels.
@DMKano - I think the levels and gear has a lot more to do with it than anything else. If you consider games like Rust, ARK, Freelancer, Life is Feudal : Your Own World etc. These games are essentially just smaller versions of Open World PvP based MMOs... with less disparity found than you would find in any of those MMOs. And you see more PvP than PvE servers in most of those titles. And again, it's a genre that's quickly becoming more popular than MMOs.
And the most successful MMO with a major emphasis on Open World PvP remains EVE to this day. EVE is also the MMO in which a fresh player is the most useful to an established alliance. Coincidence? I think not.
The vast majority of content people play in MOBAs is PVP. The vast majority of multiplayer content in FPS and RTS games is PvP. Even most text based and phone games like Ogame and Clash of Clans revolve around PvP.
It isn't that PvPers are the minority. It's that people who want to PvP when there are huge stat gaps involved are the minority. People who don't at least sometimes want the option to enjoyably do content in areas they don't have to worry about PvP are a minority.
It's not that people don't like PvP. It's that most MMOs, even the MMOs best known for PvP, do PvP wrong.
Title says BDO a mmorpg sandbox and you reference MOBA/FPS/RTS.
Yes, because it's extremely relevant to the subject. PvP is overwhelmingly more popular than PvE when it comes to multiplayer only games but you make them massively multiplayer and suddenly PvPers are the minority. That should be raising some serious red flags to developers and have them reconsidering how they do PvP in MMOs.
It's not just specifically an uneven playing field, it's that many more male gamers see the challenging play of PvP much more attractive than grinding or questing for levels.
Not sure whether this is just limited to males!
It isn't, you're right. I didn't mean to imply female gamers don't enjoy competition. However, competition is ja more prevalent motivator for male gamers than it is for female gamers.
It's not just specifically an uneven playing field, it's that many more male gamers see the challenging play of PvP much more attractive than grinding or questing for levels.
Not sure whether this is just limited to males!
Exclusively, no. There are competitive females too. However there is a fairly prominent speaker I've been introduced to through some of the management classes I've taken who makes a lot of pretty convincing points about the differences in male and female mindsets.
Essentially men are more conditioned to be able to accept defeat and learn from their mistakes, and accept hierarchies through the kinds of activities they take part in as children. There tends to be winners and losers in male games as well as often leaders who need to be followed without question.
Females are less conditioned this way as many more of the activities they take part in have no winners or losers and need no leader. They tend to value inclusiveness over hierarchies and prefer solutions where everyone wins.
Now bear in mind the speaker is pretty old. You can tell by the videos she is in that they are old videos. I think the way male and female children are raised has changed a bit and it's a lot more common for younger females to be competitive and accept hierarchical structures, and young males to be less competitive and more inclusive.
But overall I think a lot of what she says still holds true.
Within MMORPGs PVE is more popular. Within broader online gaming PVP is 100x bigger.
Why do you think Blizzard killed Titan and made OW?
PVE games can only get so big and lose all of their players once people finish the content. That is not the best use of a persistent user experience model.
What kills pvp in MMOs is vertical progression, zerging and class balance (fotm).
I love PvP in MMOs when logistics is a game of its own AKA De La EVE.
Constantine, The Console Poster
"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
That's not evidence of anything, other than stupidity for using it as evidence. Firstly, even if you were using a server at launch there would be too many factors to make such a blanket statement. Such as the fact that BDO is a heavy rng, quasi-p2w, and intensive grind Eastern mmo. These types of games do not appeal to Western gamers all that often, and this includes pvpers.
Secondly, I played this crap mmo at launch as a hardcore pvper who was in a 200 man hardcore open world pvp guild, allied with half a dozen other 100 man + guilds, and friends with dozens of other pvp guilds. Guess how many are still playing BDO? Less than 5%, and that's players not guilds. I myself dumped BDO after the sieges were delayed 2 months longer than they were stated to come out. After hearing stories from friends who spent $500-2000+ and look back at BDO as nothing but a waist of time, I dodged a bullet.
TLDR: Game is bad, so we (pvpers) left. AKA why it's empty
And shadowbane...darkfall...mortal online...hmmm...lots of others. Ultima Online PvP was killing the game so they changed it to a PvP optional MMO. Hm...so many examples lol. Asheron's Call Darktide was popular, but not nearly as much as the PvE servers. Darkfall/mortal online are still around but nowhere near the numbers of even EVE Online, and EVE is niche for different reasons. EVE Online is only one who does pvp right (compared to other PvP MMOs) as far as that type of game goes.
At least in EVE you can start as a new player and still be useful in PvP and can contribute as much as anyone else.
Survival PvP games are really popular of course, like Ark Survival, RUST and that kinda game. Ark being #1. It has PVE servers, but most popular are PvP ones. But while you can lose your base and items...it doesn't feel nearly as bad as losing countless hours of work in most PvP MMOs go and its pretty quick to rebuild. I guess taming dinos and losing them all would be annoying but meh.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
Doesn't surprise me really. The "hardcore PvPers" bitched about jail time / debuff in ArcheAge and convinced developers to reduce it. It's funny how they find it so easy to complain about consequences for their actions, but never will you hear a PvPer agree that ganking or griefing is anti-productive to gaming.
100% agree its like a frog put in a pan of cold water and then slowly cooked, they never see why they are dying (MMO population numbers) the churn rate is awful in PVP centric games and the churn rate in MMO's in general was terrible to start with.
PVP ? it just PK . It true that PK is part of PVP but PVP don't mean just PK .
PK must be put in check and heavy punish for this behavior because it mostly 1 side assault .
Yes and no. Lineage 2 veteran here from its more glory days. The PK system was abused. It brought another strategic layer to the game. Who do you war with, who do you accept/cancel clan war with. Do you flag for PvP? Flag only when you are certain you are going to win etc. Piss off people by stealing their mobs until they PK (because you dont flag back but you continue being a total dick) and then you come back with your main hero and kill the karma toon and hope for gear drop (That's how I got Zaken Earring the first time)
It can be exploited by both sides. There's really no easy way. I suppose that's why I migrated so quickly into Guild Wars 2 once it was out. It had cool PvE, it had PvP arena mode and a roaming PvP mode with objectives. As I loved playing MMOs this seemed like the perfect setup. And it was all balanced, mind you. It didn't matter how much you grinded. It was a battle of wit.
Then came Overwatch. Been playing ever since. Fuck PvP-centric MMOs, honestly. If you want to duke it out with me, you are more than welcome to reach Grandmaster tier and face me in the ranked ladder.
So I have to ask, in Overwatch what really are you fighting for?
Welp, being grandmaster means I'm in the top 1% of all Overwatch players for my region. Which is kinda nice.
Also it gives me the right to start or be part of a challenger team which may lead to a career in pro overwatch assuming I get noticed and picked up by an OWL team. And the challengers do get noted. Assuming I want an esport career. Being a software engineer however is tiresome enough. I like being in the top 1% however.
Like literally, regardless of how good you think you are and how much you trashtalk on reddit ot whathave you, unless you are grandmaster you are below me in terms of game knowledge and game mechanics and that is fact.
PVP ? it just PK . It true that PK is part of PVP but PVP don't mean just PK .
PK must be put in check and heavy punish for this behavior because it mostly 1 side assault .
Yes and no. Lineage 2 veteran here from its more glory days. The PK system was abused. It brought another strategic layer to the game. Who do you war with, who do you accept/cancel clan war with. Do you flag for PvP? Flag only when you are certain you are going to win etc. Piss off people by stealing their mobs until they PK (because you dont flag back but you continue being a total dick) and then you come back with your main hero and kill the karma toon and hope for gear drop (That's how I got Zaken Earring the first time)
It can be exploited by both sides. There's really no easy way. I suppose that's why I migrated so quickly into Guild Wars 2 once it was out. It had cool PvE, it had PvP arena mode and a roaming PvP mode with objectives. As I loved playing MMOs this seemed like the perfect setup. And it was all balanced, mind you. It didn't matter how much you grinded. It was a battle of wit.
Then came Overwatch. Been playing ever since. Fuck PvP-centric MMOs, honestly. If you want to duke it out with me, you are more than welcome to reach Grandmaster tier and face me in the ranked ladder.
So I have to ask, in Overwatch what really are you fighting for?
Welp, being grandmaster means I'm in the top 1% of all Overwatch players for my region. Which is kinda nice.
Also it gives me the right to start or be part of a challenger team which may lead to a career in pro overwatch assuming I get noticed and picked up by an OWL team. And the challengers do get noted. Assuming I want an esport career. Being a software engineer however is tiresome enough. I like being in the top 1% however.
Like literally, regardless of how good you think you are and how much you trashtalk on reddit ot whathave you, unless you are grandmaster you are below me in terms of game knowledge and game mechanics and that is fact.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Doesn't surprise me really. The "hardcore PvPers" bitched about jail time / debuff in ArcheAge and convinced developers to reduce it. It's funny how they find it so easy to complain about consequences for their actions, but never will you hear a PvPer agree that ganking or griefing is anti-productive to gaming.
I will agree with you that griefing and RPKing (Killing someone for the sake of the kill alone as opposed to achieve any greater objective) are anti-productive.
I'd say on the hierarchy of "Why do people hate MMO PvP and how could we make them hate it less?" it would go something like this though.
Addressing griefing is a major issue that any PvP title needs to look at and consider. However the primary reason people hate MMO PvP is the stat disparity, and addressing that also addresses the primary issue most people have with griefers too (The fact they generally target people who have no prayer of winning because of stat disparity.)
In other words a game that addresses stat disparity but not griefing can be successful. A game that addresses both will be highly successful (Provided the core content of the game is good). A game that addresses griefing but not stat disparity will be a flop. A game that focuses on Imbalanced numbers and FOTM builds as the primary issue is wasting it's time.
Which is why I've always said... PvP + Progression does NOT work. You mentioned Eve Online as a successful PvP game. Well, in MMO standards, EO is technically OWPvP, but PvPing in certain areas will come at a price. This is called balancing out the equation. So in essence, you have SAFE areas in EO.
EVE is actually the classic example of a game that has addressed the disparity but done very little to control the negative aspects of PvP IMO.
Highsec offers relative safety if you never leave your NPC corp and never haul expensive cargo or fly an expensive fit. Join a corp in a war dec or load up a few hundred million in cargo without knowing how to keep it safe and you'll find out how safe high-sec really is. I had someone in a tornado try to lock up on my hauler (I don't auto-pilot with expensive goods hold so I warped out before he finished the lock) the other day because I had 30 mil of PI goods in my hold. It's ridiculous how on edge you need to be in the "safe" areas of the game.
But yes EVE is still successful despite that. And it's successful because I can join a newb PvP corp that has ship replacement and start kicking butt in PvP from day one on a free account. It's addressed stat disparity better than any other title.
It would be even more successful if high sec was actually high-sec and low-sec wasn't more dangerous than null.
Yes, those that desire open world PvP in MMORPGs are niche compared to those that do not. That most such games greatly limit PvP is ample evidence of that.
However, that the MMORPG open PvP market is comparatively niche doesn't change that there is a shortage of games that provide it.
That condition will change somewhat as more such titles are on the way in the not too distant future. Whether the niche is large enough to support all those games, who can say.
But, at least for a time, those looking for that kind of play won't be quite so starved for options.
There is a shortage because its been proven they die in about 6 months or less. People get high level and it always turns into a max level ganking newbies, to them that is "pvp", which causes said new players to eventually get sick of it and just quit, the "pvpers" end up killing their own games with how they act. It has happened to pretty much every single forced pvp game.
Best pvp setup I have seen to this day is still dark age of camelot, you can hit level cap without stepping a single foot in a pvp zone, if you wanna pvp there is arena's in diff level brackets that also has you fighting for control of a keep, and then at cap you can go to the frontier, a huge pvp zone with castle/land control. The key thing is, the pvp is in its own big zone, so if someone has no interest in pvp they aren't forced to go there. The best thing is since the best gear is crafted, every capped char generally has the same gear, so pvp becomes more about skill and teamwork than having better gear. This has proven successful because it caters to both sides, the pve people get their pve zones, the pvpers get a huge zone to go out and pvp in. The frontier was often back when I played quite full of players looking to fight. Why no other mmorpgs tries to copy daoc's pvp setup is beyond me. It also had realm skills that you'd earn from realm points which are awarded for pvp kills. While not required for pve at all, some of them help in pve. This is more incentive to get pve players to try out some pvp, and it works.
Even with no penalty for dying, getting ganked when your just minding your business questing or something is really annoying, even more so when its someone 2-3 times your level that you can't even fight back against. I mean if it was someone my level ish, it just meant I need to git gud, or get better gear, but at least I had the chance to fight back.
The problem I noticed is many of these so called "pvpers" are really cowards, they won't dare fight someone near their own level, they always go after people that can't pose a threat. Which IMO is not really pvp, its just someone being a coward.
In rising force online, I used to go to the enemys pvp zones and just hang around, i'd never bother the low levels if they didn't start anything, sometimes i'd just ignore them too as they had no chance to kill me. I'd just hang around until someone my level range would eventually come out to get rid of me from their factions side... Then i'd fight em. That is IMO what real pvp is, fighting someone close to your char/skill/gear level.
Sigh I don't know why these forums never save it when I hit return to break apart paragraphs.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Yes, those that desire open world PvP in MMORPGs are niche compared to those that do not. That most such games greatly limit PvP is ample evidence of that.
However, that the MMORPG open PvP market is comparatively niche doesn't change that there is a shortage of games that provide it.
That condition will change somewhat as more such titles are on the way in the not too distant future. Whether the niche is large enough to support all those games, who can say.
But, at least for a time, those looking for that kind of play won't be quite so starved for options.
There is a shortage because its been proven they die in about 6 months or less. People get high level and it always turns into a max level ganking newbies, to them that is "pvp", which causes said new players to eventually get sick of it and just quit, the "pvpers" end up killing their own games with how they act. It has happened to pretty much every single forced pvp game.
Best pvp setup I have seen to this day is still dark age of camelot, you can hit level cap without stepping a single foot in a pvp zone, if you wanna pvp there is arena's in diff level brackets that also has you fighting for control of a keep, and then at cap you can go to the frontier, a huge pvp zone with castle/land control. The key thing is, the pvp is in its own big zone, so if someone has no interest in pvp they aren't forced to go there. The best thing is since the best gear is crafted, every capped char generally has the same gear, so pvp becomes more about skill and teamwork than having better gear. This has proven successful because it caters to both sides, the pve people get their pve zones, the pvpers get a huge zone to go out and pvp in. The frontier was often back when I played quite full of players looking to fight. Why no other mmorpgs tries to copy daoc's pvp setup is beyond me. It also had realm skills that you'd earn from realm points which are awarded for pvp kills. While not required for pve at all, some of them help in pve. This is more incentive to get pve players to try out some pvp, and it works.
Even with no penalty for dying, getting ganked when your just minding your business questing or something is really annoying, even more so when its someone 2-3 times your level that you can't even fight back against. I mean if it was someone my level ish, it just meant I need to git gud, or get better gear, but at least I had the chance to fight back.
The problem I noticed is many of these so called "pvpers" are really cowards, they won't dare fight someone near their own level, they always go after people that can't pose a threat. Which IMO is not really pvp, its just someone being a coward.
In rising force online, I used to go to the enemys pvp zones and just hang around, i'd never bother the low levels if they didn't start anything, sometimes i'd just ignore them too as they had no chance to kill me. I'd just hang around until someone my level range would eventually come out to get rid of me from their factions side... Then i'd fight em. That is IMO what real pvp is, fighting someone close to your char/skill/gear level.
Sigh I don't know why these forums never save it when I hit return to break apart paragraphs.
I'm glad I noticed the last line, as I originally wasn't going to reply, but as the issue isn't in your control I'll do my best to decipher it.
I've heard a lot of good things about DAoC PvP. Perhaps Camelot Unchained may well be similar in quality when it comes out, but from what I understand the game will have little if any PvE.
Not all games with fairly open PvP quickly die. EVE has been around a fair while and is at least still hanging on. I think there is some room for expansion in this market.
The thing about unpleasant people is that conduct is more intrinsic to themselves than the type of play they do. You can run into objectionable behaviour in PvE fairly easily. Players like that can just be more direct about it in PvP, which could be a lure for them such that they possibly represent a higher proportion of that population.
You can run into objectionable behaviour in PvE fairly easily.
It has already been discussed, and the consequences aren't even remotely close to those of PvP:
- The impact players can have on you is much lesser. Unless the game is really badly designed, it's very hard to stop another player from doing anything in PvE.
- Mobs don't chase you for ages, don't spawn camp you, don't kill you repeatedly for laughs and giggles.
Everything has already been discussed.
The consequences of negative PvE behaviour vary depending on how a game functions. That it is very hard to stop another player from doing anything in PvE can just as easily be the root of a problem rather than protection from it. Being free from any effective repercussion tends to encourage negative behaviour rather than diminish it.
The problems are different but can be just as plentiful depending on the nature of the game and the community that plays it.
The consequences of negative PvE behaviour vary depending on how a game functions. That it is very hard to stop another player from doing anything in PvE can just as easily be the root of a problem rather than protection from it. Being free from any effective repercussion tends to encourage negative behaviour rather than diminish it.
The problems are different but can be just as plentiful depending on the nature of the game and the community that plays it.
If you're trying to pretend that there's more griefing in PvE games than in PvP games, you're delusional...
At least for me, I would never make that point, because I know it's not true.
However I prefer to be griefed in a PvP game than a PvE game. If you grief me in a PvE game you get to go on your merry way and the ways of getting you back are so awkward in meta that I'm never going to do anything about it.
If you grief me in a PvP game, I put your name down on a list. And one day you may just log in to find me pissing on the ashes or your smoldering settlement. More than a few people have already.
So essentially, I'd rather be frequently griefed in an environment I have the capacity to do something about it, than seldomly griefed in an environment where I don't.
______________________
Edit: Actually to put things in perspective I've been messing around with an old text based space colonization I used to play in a highschool. Started on a new server like a week in. Some high rank guy attacked me for my resources the day I started building my first defenses. Blew a few up, stole some materials etc.
I passed him up in rank yesterday and have been assessing his defenses. Or rather lack of defenses when it comes to his ability to stop interplanetary missiles.
The dude's honor points (somewhere deep in the negatives) show he has been farming newbs pretty consistently. Today, I will rain fire and fury down on him as I empty my missile silo into his main planet, annihilating his defenses and leaving his fleet exposed. He won't be farming newbs anymore. All because he farmed the wrong newb at the start of their career.
PVP ? it just PK . It true that PK is part of PVP but PVP don't mean just PK .
PK must be put in check and heavy punish for this behavior because it mostly 1 side assault .
Yes and no. Lineage 2 veteran here from its more glory days. The PK system was abused. It brought another strategic layer to the game. Who do you war with, who do you accept/cancel clan war with. Do you flag for PvP? Flag only when you are certain you are going to win etc. Piss off people by stealing their mobs until they PK (because you dont flag back but you continue being a total dick) and then you come back with your main hero and kill the karma toon and hope for gear drop (That's how I got Zaken Earring the first time)
It can be exploited by both sides. There's really no easy way. I suppose that's why I migrated so quickly into Guild Wars 2 once it was out. It had cool PvE, it had PvP arena mode and a roaming PvP mode with objectives. As I loved playing MMOs this seemed like the perfect setup. And it was all balanced, mind you. It didn't matter how much you grinded. It was a battle of wit.
Then came Overwatch. Been playing ever since. Fuck PvP-centric MMOs, honestly. If you want to duke it out with me, you are more than welcome to reach Grandmaster tier and face me in the ranked ladder.
So I have to ask, in Overwatch what really are you fighting for?
Welp, being grandmaster means I'm in the top 1% of all Overwatch players for my region. Which is kinda nice.
Also it gives me the right to start or be part of a challenger team which may lead to a career in pro overwatch assuming I get noticed and picked up by an OWL team. And the challengers do get noted. Assuming I want an esport career. Being a software engineer however is tiresome enough. I like being in the top 1% however.
Like literally, regardless of how good you think you are and how much you trashtalk on reddit ot whathave you, unless you are grandmaster you are below me in terms of game knowledge and game mechanics and that is fact.
That is a somewhat strange statement. Sure if you actually are grandmaster then that's great for you, but it doesn't mean really anything other than you are good at Overwatch. In ranked modes it's nothing like playing pro teams, it's almost night and day how different it is, and you can see that just by watching anyone play. Watch a pro CSGO player play in ranked matchmaking and see how awful the best matchmaking players actually are compared to people who do it for a living. It's why watching people that were "pubstompers" is fun on twitch because they are pros who basically show how meaningless the ranked modes actually are. It goes for pretty much any game with ranked and a pro scene. But why do you care so much to provide you are a software engineer, grandmaster in overwatch, and that you are more knowledgable? That literally does nothing for anyone other than your own ego which seems to be large. Also do you have proof you are so good at Overwatch? I play quite a bit and haven't heard of you.
You can run into objectionable behaviour in PvE fairly easily.
It has already been discussed, and the consequences aren't even remotely close to those of PvP:
- The impact players can have on you is much lesser. Unless the game is really badly designed, it's very hard to stop another player from doing anything in PvE.
- Mobs don't chase you for ages, don't spawn camp you, don't kill you repeatedly for laughs and giggles.
Everything has already been discussed.
The consequences of negative PvE behaviour vary depending on how a game functions. That it is very hard to stop another player from doing anything in PvE can just as easily be the root of a problem rather than protection from it. Being free from any effective repercussion tends to encourage negative behaviour rather than diminish it.
The problems are different but can be just as plentiful depending on the nature of the game and the community that plays it.
If you're trying to pretend that there's more griefing in PvE games than in PvP games, and that it can have the same impact, you're delusional...
If you're trying to pretend that one can't grief in PvE fairly easily, and that in some games that will have a greater affect than others, then you no idea what you're talking about.
Comments
There is a huge difference between all the deathmatch sandbox MMOs, where skills, items and zergs win. And a very fair team based experience in MOBAs and FPS games. Even RTS games rely purely on skill and being good at the game. I can't play starcraft 2 and kill everyone I meet just because I may or may not have played for months or years and have the best units and bonuses or whatever. I can hop onto planetisde 2 (or starcraft 2 for rts example) and kill anyone if I have the skill or be killed by someone even newer than me. I can never do that in most sandbox PvP MMOs.
I remember starting up Ultima Online decades ago, and this dude with super good armor and weapons came at me when I was killing undead and one hit me. Stood no chance.
That "feature" was driving many people away in UO and it be dead by now if it was the same (they even release updates/expansions still decades later). So they had to change it to optional PvP but still have a PvP area (which saw almost no people compared to the PvE part). That doesn't mean PvP is niche in gaming, but in MMOs it is because most people don't want to be ganked over and over by a 500 man zerg or some dude who no lifed the game and can one hit everyone and not be able to be one hit himself.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
And the most successful MMO with a major emphasis on Open World PvP remains EVE to this day. EVE is also the MMO in which a fresh player is the most useful to an established alliance. Coincidence? I think not.
Yes, because it's extremely relevant to the subject. PvP is overwhelmingly more popular than PvE when it comes to multiplayer only games but you make them massively multiplayer and suddenly PvPers are the minority. That should be raising some serious red flags to developers and have them reconsidering how they do PvP in MMOs.
I've always felt that MMORPG PvP is for people who earned or bought an advantage over others. Its not designed to be fair. Its designed for people to measure their epenis-size. Sorry, but this has been done since the days of early RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons where you occasionally get super-character players who want to fight the other player characters. People want to dominate and the lure of being able to dominate with gear and wealth is what brings people to the PvP. Fair has nothing to do with it.
On top of dealing with gear. One has to deal with Computer Specs, Connection Speeds, and a lot of Objective-Oriented PvP, where you don't have to kill anything or anyone and can still win or lose.... since they can't make it a Deathmatch or Team Deathmatch anymore or we all know who will win .
We can talk about MOBAs but MOBA characters are like Pokemon, where only the few of the many are good.
Go into an Old School FPS game and its amazing the difference in skill. I can be a stellar player and play against a newbie and I am going to win 30 - 0 easily. I can post the screenshot and the community in these games know to never respect any person who persecutes or beats out a newb.
I could fight against players my skill level and I can edge out and win 15 - 13. Or I can tell you my favorite fights were those I lost, but I played against the top 10 players in the world and has scores like 7 - 9 and 5 - 8. Even so, my win/loss vs top players was lower, I learned a lot more..
and if I post the screenshot, people would say "WoW...that is a pretty damned good score considering the player and the map that you are fighting in" and even get praise from a top player too. I remember adopting from a top player the idea of awarding and looking for the "Best Kill" made. It happened when I lost the match 7 - 9 and the player said "you still got best kill.. don't know how you landed that shot!"
However,
MMORPGs are filled with people who praise overgeared and underskilled players who spend their time killing people who are ranked below them and trash talk about how good they are.
Yes..
PvP Gamers are a Niche crowd,
but that is one attitude that I wouldn't mind becoming extinct.
Too many damned screenshots of players oppressing the weak and calling themselves heroes and being praised for it!
MOBAs cut the PvE time down, allowing players whose primary interest is PvP to do that without sinking hours into developing a character. In MOBAs, avatars can quickly snowball to an unfair power level, but the players don't spend months leveling their avatar and grinding gear just to get to that spot, so it stings much less when they get dominated by an enemy player who has snowballed. They get to wash, rinse, and repeat in an hour or less.
FPSs focus even less on developing a character. This plays directly to the more popular interest among the industry's most popular demographic.
So players can handle enduring an uneven playing field, so long as they don't start that way by default, they can quickly even the playing field without relying on spending significant amounts of time doing things OTHER than PvPing, and if they spiral outta control into an uneven field, the player doesn't feel like months worth of PvE effort has just been completely wasted.
Secondly, I played this crap mmo at launch as a hardcore pvper who was in a 200 man hardcore open world pvp guild, allied with half a dozen other 100 man + guilds, and friends with dozens of other pvp guilds. Guess how many are still playing BDO? Less than 5%, and that's players not guilds. I myself dumped BDO after the sieges were delayed 2 months longer than they were stated to come out. After hearing stories from friends who spent $500-2000+ and look back at BDO as nothing but a waist of time, I dodged a bullet.
TLDR: Game is bad, so we (pvpers) left. AKA why it's empty
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
And that works perfectly fine in games meant to last 15-60ish minutes with all players present at the start of a match and generally playing until it's either fully decided or clear who the winner will be. In your general MMO the game lasts years and very few of the people playing years down the road will be the people who were there at the start. And everyone has different amounts of playtime. A completely different game in nature than a bunch of players all starting at the same time and playing for the same amount of time.
While mistakes and careful usage of time still can lead to faster development these factors take a back seat to overall time played in most instances, which is not a skill based factor.
And that's why you see highly competitive player dropping these games like hot potatoes. It's not that they can't enjoy playing the economy, or running dungeons, or any number of other types of content that aren't pure PvP. Hell I love that content when the mood strikes me and it hasn't been ruined for me by being forced to do more than I want in order to be a competitive PvPer.
It is absolutely because when they go to PvP, they don't want to lose to someone less skilled than them simply because that person played longer. So they choose to play games that don't make that crutch available.
Essentially men are more conditioned to be able to accept defeat and learn from their mistakes, and accept hierarchies through the kinds of activities they take part in as children. There tends to be winners and losers in male games as well as often leaders who need to be followed without question.
Females are less conditioned this way as many more of the activities they take part in have no winners or losers and need no leader. They tend to value inclusiveness over hierarchies and prefer solutions where everyone wins.
Now bear in mind the speaker is pretty old. You can tell by the videos she is in that they are old videos. I think the way male and female children are raised has changed a bit and it's a lot more common for younger females to be competitive and accept hierarchical structures, and young males to be less competitive and more inclusive.
But overall I think a lot of what she says still holds true.
Within broader online gaming PVP is 100x bigger.
Why do you think Blizzard killed Titan and made OW?
PVE games can only get so big and lose all of their players once people finish the content. That is not the best use of a persistent user experience model.
What kills pvp in MMOs is vertical progression, zerging and class balance (fotm).
At least in EVE you can start as a new player and still be useful in PvP and can contribute as much as anyone else.
Survival PvP games are really popular of course, like Ark Survival, RUST and that kinda game. Ark being #1. It has PVE servers, but most popular are PvP ones. But while you can lose your base and items...it doesn't feel nearly as bad as losing countless hours of work in most PvP MMOs go and its pretty quick to rebuild. I guess taming dinos and losing them all would be annoying but meh.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Also it gives me the right to start or be part of a challenger team which may lead to a career in pro overwatch assuming I get noticed and picked up by an OWL team. And the challengers do get noted. Assuming I want an esport career. Being a software engineer however is tiresome enough. I like being in the top 1% however.
Like literally, regardless of how good you think you are and how much you trashtalk on reddit ot whathave you, unless you are grandmaster you are below me in terms of game knowledge and game mechanics and that is fact.
Impressive.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'd say on the hierarchy of "Why do people hate MMO PvP and how could we make them hate it less?" it would go something like this though.
80% - Problems driven by vertical progression (Stat disparity, gear disparity etc.)
19.75% - Griefing / RPKing.
0.25% - Imbalanced numbers and FOTM Builds
Addressing griefing is a major issue that any PvP title needs to look at and consider. However the primary reason people hate MMO PvP is the stat disparity, and addressing that also addresses the primary issue most people have with griefers too (The fact they generally target people who have no prayer of winning because of stat disparity.)
In other words a game that addresses stat disparity but not griefing can be successful. A game that addresses both will be highly successful (Provided the core content of the game is good). A game that addresses griefing but not stat disparity will be a flop. A game that focuses on Imbalanced numbers and FOTM builds as the primary issue is wasting it's time.
Highsec offers relative safety if you never leave your NPC corp and never haul expensive cargo or fly an expensive fit. Join a corp in a war dec or load up a few hundred million in cargo without knowing how to keep it safe and you'll find out how safe high-sec really is. I had someone in a tornado try to lock up on my hauler (I don't auto-pilot with expensive goods hold so I warped out before he finished the lock) the other day because I had 30 mil of PI goods in my hold. It's ridiculous how on edge you need to be in the "safe" areas of the game.
But yes EVE is still successful despite that. And it's successful because I can join a newb PvP corp that has ship replacement and start kicking butt in PvP from day one on a free account. It's addressed stat disparity better than any other title.
It would be even more successful if high sec was actually high-sec and low-sec wasn't more dangerous than null.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
I've heard a lot of good things about DAoC PvP. Perhaps Camelot Unchained may well be similar in quality when it comes out, but from what I understand the game will have little if any PvE.
Not all games with fairly open PvP quickly die. EVE has been around a fair while and is at least still hanging on. I think there is some room for expansion in this market.
The thing about unpleasant people is that conduct is more intrinsic to themselves than the type of play they do. You can run into objectionable behaviour in PvE fairly easily. Players like that can just be more direct about it in PvP, which could be a lure for them such that they possibly represent a higher proportion of that population.
The consequences of negative PvE behaviour vary depending on how a game functions. That it is very hard to stop another player from doing anything in PvE can just as easily be the root of a problem rather than protection from it. Being free from any effective repercussion tends to encourage negative behaviour rather than diminish it.
The problems are different but can be just as plentiful depending on the nature of the game and the community that plays it.
However I prefer to be griefed in a PvP game than a PvE game. If you grief me in a PvE game you get to go on your merry way and the ways of getting you back are so awkward in meta that I'm never going to do anything about it.
If you grief me in a PvP game, I put your name down on a list. And one day you may just log in to find me pissing on the ashes or your smoldering settlement. More than a few people have already.
So essentially, I'd rather be frequently griefed in an environment I have the capacity to do something about it, than seldomly griefed in an environment where I don't.
______________________
Edit: Actually to put things in perspective I've been messing around with an old text based space colonization I used to play in a highschool. Started on a new server like a week in. Some high rank guy attacked me for my resources the day I started building my first defenses. Blew a few up, stole some materials etc.
I passed him up in rank yesterday and have been assessing his defenses. Or rather lack of defenses when it comes to his ability to stop interplanetary missiles.
The dude's honor points (somewhere deep in the negatives) show he has been farming newbs pretty consistently. Today, I will rain fire and fury down on him as I empty my missile silo into his main planet, annihilating his defenses and leaving his fleet exposed. He won't be farming newbs anymore. All because he farmed the wrong newb at the start of their career.