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Since 2002, what been the reason that PvE players play FFA Loot MMOs?
MMOExposed
Member RarePosts: 7,387
There been a number of FFA Loot MMOs since 2002. EvE, Mortal Online, Darkfall, etc.
Usually these games population dwindle as more PvE players get chained ganked and looted and eventually rage quit, which then lead into the PvP gankers having to play against other PvP gankers and then the game usually takes a dive once it reaches that point.
But my thing is this. What was the reason these PvEers wanted to play all these FFA Looter MMOs in the first place?
I rarely see one of these type of games with good PvE at all. So what exactly did they jump into this kind of MMOs for in the first place before being run off back gank squads?
I feel like if we knew the answer to this, maybe developers could figure out a more rewarding form of gameplay that can keep these kind of players interested in these games regardless of the risk.
Usually these games population dwindle as more PvE players get chained ganked and looted and eventually rage quit, which then lead into the PvP gankers having to play against other PvP gankers and then the game usually takes a dive once it reaches that point.
But my thing is this. What was the reason these PvEers wanted to play all these FFA Looter MMOs in the first place?
I rarely see one of these type of games with good PvE at all. So what exactly did they jump into this kind of MMOs for in the first place before being run off back gank squads?
I feel like if we knew the answer to this, maybe developers could figure out a more rewarding form of gameplay that can keep these kind of players interested in these games regardless of the risk.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
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Comments
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
These are people that played with other people. Solo players are more likely to quit if they're attacked too much where groups survive better and have support of others for equipment if they can't keep up. Bottom line, these games are not solo games.
And just to be clear the enjoyment of PVE is subjective. They liked it.
Reason I don't like PvP in mmorpg is I play them to relax and have fun after work not to be frustrated. I do pvp in Destiny 1&2, all CoD games, but not in The Division 2 its frustrating there too.
What I want is some kind of "virtual fantasy world".
This means it is possible to do anything which includes PvP.
But as I Imagine a simulated fantasy world, the PvP happens for a reason. Duells, tourneys, wars, bandits.
As it is in most of this games the bandit part (aka gank squad) is mostly way to prominent.
This is mostly because of penalties being to easy to overcome or workarounds like alt-accounts deleting the downsides of being a bad guy completely.
This leads to random PvP happening to often.
Archeage has a good idea with the jail, but imho its not harsh enough. (more time in jail, bad karma staying much longer, getting rid of bad karma should involve helping other players not time/grind depending)
1997 Meridian 59 'til 2019 ESO
Waiting for Camelot Unchained & Pantheon
So basically LOOT is a carrot and seems we went from whales/cash shops to now duo wielding as pigs chasing carrots.The industry has found a VERY easy $$$ train,just show them some lights coming off loot and players get all excited.
- Common (white) BAH
- Uncommon (green) hmmm upgrade,bah already have better,ignore
- Rare (blue) Wonder how good this is
- Legendary (purple) YAY must get
- Exotic (gold) OMG !!!
I have stated it probably 20-30x,you remove the loot or rankings from most games now a days and those games become ghost towns.There are only two things driving the gaming market right now $$$ either via streaming/Epsort and loot.The games can be trash gameplay ,EASY foes/AI players don't even care,just give me that loot and that ranking.Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Since it is usually easier to get stronger doing PvE.
The people that don't PvE at all just play games like fortnite.
TLDR: It has very well developed systems and controls which permit a PVE player to largely manage their risks vs rewards which is why it appealed to me.
For those interested, I'll elaborate.
Even when I lost my ships, insurance helped reduce some of the sting and normally one only gets killed if they make a mistake or inadvertently make a high risk decision.
Played smart, a PVE player can easily thrive as long as they are willing to accept some losses.
When I left in 2016 I had amassed about 80B ISK, a decent amount for a casual player.
I'm sure I lost $20B ISK from ship kills, market losses, and scrapping and selling ships before having to move as I fled across null sec from one war zone to another seeking a new safer haven to set up shop in.
It was my perception that games such as Darkfall or Mortal Online were less forgiving and required much more reliance on ones team to thrive.
Most of my success in EVE was achieved largely through solo activities such as mining or site running, even though I was almost always a member of a corporation.
There were exceptions of course, group centric PVE activities such as Sleeper farming in wormholes or Incursions with the latter actually being best run if you were not in a player corporation as it kept you from being wardec'd.
I left after CCP made yet more design changes meant to improve PVP which either intentionally or not ended up increasing my risk as a miner while significantly reducing my rewards.
Put another way, too much effort while not providing enough satisfaction.
"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
Its a love hate relationship, my analogy is like a person you are dating, lets say they are a 10/10 on looks, body and intelligence which initially attracts you, but they have a slightly annoying attitude. Sure you wish they had a better personality but you deal with it. But as time goes you start to really hate that attitude and it starts to turn sour. Pretty soon those things that originally attracted you are no longer as important.
PVP is the attitude/personality in the above example.
Ok so what are some reasons:
1) FREEDOM a sandbox type game gives you. You can do what you want, they don't hold your hand like a themepark and force you to do only one thing to move forward in the game.
2) Skill based - your ability to play matters, normally these PVP games dont put as much emphasis on levels and gear. If they are important, then usually they can be attained fairly fast.
3) Multiple ways to play the game.
4) Crafting is usually relevant in these types of games.
5) Trade and interaction is usually needed in these games.
6) Economy is usually functional in these games.
7) Alot of these games have housing of some kind.
8) These games are not usually tedious, things like movement is faster and smoother usually. Although Wurm wasnt like this.
I'm former infantry, and what I envision for these types of games is something akin to real life warfare, without the obvious perma-death drawbacks with some really cool character building and PvE exploration thrown in. A chance to live in a realistic fantasy world.
It's not realistic that most of the active populous in a real world would be continuously preying on the weak. Instead, it's more realistic that people would band together and create kingdoms, governments, trade, and would continue to explore the world with conflict with other people being more rare than we see in games. War would break out between different kingdoms or governments when resources, including land, was contested.
In short, FFA PvPers lack imagination and organization that make the game world a realistic representation of what would happen if the game world was real, which is what I'm interested in when choosing a game world to "live in." So I settle for MMORPG's with RvR gameplay that take place on separate maps. It's a shame, because FFA MMO's have much more potential than FFA PvPers make use of.
The other problem is, that there are a lot of games that have PvP, but it's controlled, like in GW2, they have Zones that you go to, to engage in PvP, so the PvP is on your terms, and a these PvE players, or players that might enjoy occasional PvP, might buy a game without knowing the conditions by which PvP happens, IE: BDO.
Personally if your game is going to be a e-peen waving PvP gank fest, own up to that, and slap that label on the front on it, the only reason why they don't, is because they know doing so would make them dead on arrival.
In short they down play it to sucker people into buying their game, hoping to make up the dev costs in box sales. It's a shit move if you ask me.
Make a game for your demographic and own up to that, focus, and make it happen.
"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
Eve is a very different issue and really does not belong in the other group since it is one of the very few sci-fi space games that had some decent pve things to do. More PVE only people play that game for that reason alone. Not much else that can scratch that itch with the depth that eve has.
And finally, for some, they think that any game that they want to play should cater to them, no matter what the design is. They think that they should be entitled to play any game their way with no one, including the designers, not catering to them. Yea foolish, but true:)
But this last group has its own opposite in pvp players that always play pve games and continually rant that they want pvp servers and the right to kill others as they see fit. Not like this is a pve only thing:P
And lastly...blame the flipping dev's....seriously, i pretty much have no respect for dev's that are wishy washy about their games. I really wish eve had some pve servers but i respect the dev's that started with the game they wanted to make and kept it that way all the way.
If more dev's were like eve's we would not have so many game trying to be everything to everyone.
Like i said this goes both ways. People on both sides want what they like to play to be catered to.
After buying relying on the FAQ and game blurb. Then they find to their horror that almost nothing has been revealed on how they will caged in their homes and hunted to extinction. No I am not bitter but can you blame these people who acted on bona fide faith and discovered they could not really engage in the activity they bought the game for. So they go on to rant on the game forums and form the group of people who ask for PvE servers.
Game developers are very much to blame because even when some PvP players who really have no wish to have these PvE players in their game whining about being killed try to enlighten the PvE folk. The developers quickly reassure them about the penalties available and other means they have instituted to alleviate these issues. Except they fail to mention how ineffectual and tame the penalties are compared to the losses the PvE players have to suffer.
So when you talk about angry and angst ridden PvE players ruining PvP games try to see it from their point of view too because nothing is one sided.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Mortal Online is a first-person MMORPG in a fantasy setting.
In Mortal Online there are no PvP zones, only an open realistic world where you are free to choose your own path. Experience true real-time combat where you decide every move your character makes and where your personal skill really matters.
Build your own house, or set up a guild to build a keep. With enough power, violence or diplomacy, you and your allies will be able to rule an entire nation.
Choose from many different races and professions. You decide your own style of playing and whether to focus on PvP or PvE, both sharing the same game world. Devote your life to crafting, combat, magic or trading. Discover new skills, tools and resources. Or be the first to explore new areas to put your name on the map.
Looks like a lying ass sucker punch if you ask me.
See that bare faced lie about being able to choose between PvP and PvE, nahh that is some serious horseshit right there and this is exactly why PvE players feel like they got shafted and duped.
Mortal is an OW PVP game, you don't get to chose shit, it's a PvP Game.
Let's move on to Ark: Survival Evolved:
Their homepage offered zero info, so I had to pull this from Steam:
Umm what kind of game is this again? OW PvP? Or some PvE Co-op? I have no idea from this blurb.
In fact , find me an OW PvP game that makes it clear, you will get gank-fucked in this game upon entry.
To do this you will need to overcome struggles such as hunger, thirst and cold. Build a fire. Build a shelter. Kill animals for meat. Protect yourself from other players, and kill them for meat.
Create alliances with other players and form a town.
Do whatever it takes to survive.
Gonna admit.. I like the fact they were upfront about being able to kill other players for meat.
But I still stand by what I said about some game studios suckering in players by not making it clear what kind of game it is, Rust may not be that kind of game, but Mortal clearly was.
So it does happen, it's not just a myth.
Mad props and respect to them for that.
The whole point of having a company web page is to inform your potential customers about your game is about and what to expect, so that you markert to your desired demographic, and attract them.
Can you imagine if other companies did the same thing these MMO companies do?
Like someone selling chocolate on their homepage, with all the lovely images of truffles and fudge, and all that normal jazz, along with blurbs talking about how rich, creamy, smooth and delicious their chocolate was, but all of it was at least 350,000 Sorvill rating.
And they don't tell you about the Sorvill rating upfront on any of their pages or site, they just say things like "Has a warm and inviting flavor"
And when you discover that the truffles you bought were 750,000 Scoville rated, they said "No refunds, you should have done your homework, sucks to be you"
Think about it. Does that sound reasonable to you?
They want to bring the Sheep to the wolves.
What choices do these PVE'ers have anyway? All these games cater to PVPers. Always PVP'ers are getting mass advantages at a minimum, and they are required to PVP to compete. Where are these PVE games designed as PVE ONLY games from the start?
When I was playing WoW classic, best items was coming from top ranked PVP. PVP faction was required to get BIS gear.
In normal PvE, I may be wearing vambraces off a boss mob where it took my guild a month to learn the fight, and two months of farming for me to finally win the roll for that item. And I'm going to risk losing that? Hard pass.
I don't see PvE and full loot FFA PvP as being very compatible. Not the kind of PvE I play anyway.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests