What is it with these thread about PVP.

[DeckardRunner]

Ok I know what PVP is, but I see a lot of whining threads about solo mode and how it will reduce PVP, or how stats should be kept different for solo as they are not really playing the game.
What is it about PVP, is it the fact you are up against a human player, does that mean the AI is weak and does not give a real challenge.
Or is it the fact that some people just like the thought of killing other people in game, they get some sort of buzz from feeling that is pees of the other person.

Me, I've played PVP games and enjoyed them (eVe, BF2, BF3 etc), but it would not matter to me if the people on the receiving end where good AI or real players.
What is it with PVP that makes people demand it and want to identify it above AI kills, if AI skills where the same or better than a human player, would they still want to know.

Are most PVP players who get joy from killing other players repeatedly secret psychopaths acting out in the game world what would get them locked up in the real one.

 

[ApocaRUFF]

Humans are social creatures, so knowing that the character you just interacted with is an actual person is a rewarding experience. We're also a competitive species - we strive to compete with each other. It's why sports and the Olympics are such a big thing. Do you think they would get half the popularity if the players weren't human? No.

So, we like the human-to-human (player-to-player) interaction, along with the sense of accomplishment we get if we succeed over another real, living person.

And, like it or not, Elite: Dangerous has heavily been advertised as a "multiplayer" experience, even with the solo play and massive AI competent. This means that the type of people who enjoy multiplayer (which is, at its core, the type of people who enjoy human interaction and competition) are attracted to the game. Which explains why so many of the players are concerned with, and interested in, PVP gameplay.

 

[FoxTwo]

And, like it or not, Elite: Dangerous has heavily been advertised as a "multiplayer" experience, even with the solo play and massive AI competent. This means that the type of people who enjoy multiplayer (which is, at its core, the type of people who enjoy human interaction and competition) are attracted to the game. Which explains why so many of the players are concerned with, and interested in, PVP gameplay.

That is all fine and good.

What is not good is forcing PvP unto people who are not interested in PvP. Hence why these modes exist in ED, and why these people take issue with it - cuz then people have a choice and go "beyond their reach", and they're sore about that.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Humans are social creatures, so knowing that the character you just interacted with is an actual person is a rewarding experience. We're also a competitive species - we strive to compete with each other. It's why sports and the Olympics are such a big thing. Do you think they would get half the popularity if the players weren't human? No.

So, we like the human-to-human (player-to-player) interaction, along with the sense of accomplishment we get if we succeed over another real, living person.

And, like it or not, Elite: Dangerous has heavily been advertised as a "multiplayer" experience, even with the solo play and massive AI competent. This means that the type of people who enjoy multiplayer (which is, at its core, the type of people who enjoy human interaction and competition) are attracted to the game. Which explains why so many of the players are concerned with, and interested in, PVP gameplay.

Maybe so, except you fall into the same trap that others do by using "is a rewarding experience" when you should have said "may be a rewarding experience"; "we strive to compete" instead of "some of us strive to compete"; "we like" instead of "some of us like".... You have a view - it is not necessarily shared by others. By the number of posts on the topic, I expect that there are significant numbers of players on each "side" of the ceaseless arguments....

 

[BBcokeley]

On the basis of the OP, have you played Arma 1-3 the AI in these games (haven't played 3 for a few months) is absolutely ridiculous, they kill you with a head shot before u see them (mostly) a player is the lesser in this case, though I wouldn't like this type of advantage that ai has, players in the multi side of A3 are more of a downgrade from the campaign, I find that amuzing

 

[ApocaRUFF]

That is all fine and good.

What is not good is forcing PvP unto people who are not interested in PvP. Hence why these modes exist in ED, and why these people take issue with it - cuz then people have a choice and go "beyond their reach", and they're sore about that.

Maybe so, except you fall into the same trap that others do by using "is a rewarding experience" when you should have said "may be a rewarding experience"; "we strive to compete" instead of "some of us strive to compete"; "we like" instead of "some of us like".... You have a view - it is not necessarily shared by others. By the number of posts on the topic, I expect that there are significant numbers of players on each "side" of the ceaseless arguments....

Anyways,

He asked why so many people were interested in PVP, so I explained it to him. I'm not saying that it's the "be-all-end-all of everything."

Of course there are plenty of people who prefer PVE content over PVP content - single player games wouldn't be a thing if PVP was the best and only thing worth doing.

While I personally prefer online play because it offers me the player-to-player interaction I'm seeking in the game, I can understand that there's plenty of people who would prefer the single player experience so I'm not going to try and deny it to them or convince Frontier to deny it to them.

 

[Seonid]

The game can be played in many ways, which is good. There are however some players that have decided that they should dictate how other people should play the game, hence all the threads that are created.
Private Groups are the perfect example of allowing people to play as they want, two easy examples are the PVE group created by Mobius and the PVP group created by Titus Balls, both groups as I understand it are pretty big.
People get to play as they want and we all share the same galaxy, everybody wins.

 

[cmdr awesome]

The fundamental problem is that some PVP players think that their chosen method of play should be the only one available, and so complain about the existence of solo mode. It's similar to the people that actively resist a console port. In both situations FD are opening up the game for more people to enjoy, and a subset of the existing players don't like that even though they are completely unaffected.

The 'no solo mode' argument has a premise that if solo mode wasn't there, then the players that choose to use it would be forced into open play where they can "interact" with everyone. What the argument fails to recognise is that those players could choose instead to play some other game, or be unable to play due to poor network latency. The argument can also be restated as "my wish to play the way I want is more important than your wish to play the way you want", which I hope most would agree is an indefensible position.

 

[ApocaRUFF]

I can, to an extent, understand how the players on the "open only" side of the argument feel.

An example is what happened with Ultima Online. During it's golden age, the PVP and PVE players were forced together and, even though the PVE players gripped about the PVP players that would kill them, they both had a good time. Then the servers were split so that the players who wanted to just enjoy the PVE could play on one server and those that wanted to play PVP on the other. Sure, it let both types of players enjoy their preferred play styles, but essentially killed Felucca (the PVP server) and ended the golden age. So it's proven that a majority of players will, if given the choice, will shy away from PVP, which essentially causes the PVP population to become stagnant and boring.

In this case, though, instead of separating the game into PVP and PVE, it's Open play and solo play. It's understandable that the PVP players are worried their game experience will be adversely affected by the absence of population that the solo players will create.

But again, while I can understand it, I don't think it's right. E: D has been designed from the beginning to provide both types of experiences. They knew this coming into it, so they shouldn't expect it to change.

 

[DocMoriarty]

As a matter of fact, most people are not interested in PVP, yet a lot of games or better developers don't realize and honor that. There is a simple indication for that. Take the Everquests (1+2) for example. There are 80% non-PVP servers and 20% PVP servers. And this relation has been there since the beginning of Everquest 14 years ago. Even in full PVP games like EVE 80%-90% of all actions are non-PVP. The problem is that there is always a loud aggressive minority of PVP junkies and griefers and a sadly way too silent majority of non-PVP players that don't demand their rights.

That said, i would have preferred if there would have been 2 rulesets for multiplayer, a non-PVP ruleset that doesn't allow free PVP and a PVP ruleset similar to how Everquest has 2 different rulesets for the 2 types of servers. The problem is that now, to enjoy multiplayer, i have to play on a PVP server which is a pretty huge disrespect of the devs towards the majority of paying customers. One of the reasons why i'm neither a backer nor do i preorder due to such massive design flaws.

 

[Robert Maynard]

An example is what happened with Ultima Online. During it's golden age, the PVP and PVE players were forced together and, even though the PVE players gripped about the PVP players that would kill them, they both had a good time. Then the servers were split so that the players who wanted to just enjoy the PVE could play on one server and those that wanted to play PVP on the other. Sure, it let both types of players enjoy their preferred play styles, but essentially killed Felucca (the PVP server) and ended the golden age. So it's proven that a majority of players will, if given the choice, will shy away from PVP, which essentially causes the PVP population to become stagnant and boring.

That's an interesting example - the fact that when given the choice, players did not opt for the PvP server is a very telling datapoint - it flies in the face of the "PvP will bring more players" argument sometimes offered in the circular threads here.

If the PvP players are worried about player choice it may in some way stem from the Felucca experience - there were not enough PvP oriented players to make the PvP server viable - their fear may be that something similar will happen here unless open-online ends up being a place that players of all types can enjoy.... Here's hoping!

 

[DocMoriarty]

That's an interesting example - the fact that when given the choice, players did not opt for the PvP server is a very telling datapoint - it flies in the face of the "PvP will bring more players" argument sometimes offered in the circular threads here.

If the PvP players are worried about player choice it may in some way stem from the Felucca experience - there were not enough PvP oriented players to make the PvP server viable - their fear may be that something similar will happen here unless open-online ends up being a place that players of all types can enjoy.... Here's hoping!

Precisely proves what i just said one post above.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Precisely proves what i just said one post above.

Indeed! I took a bit of time constructing that one - you snuck in in the interim!

 

[Snyperal]

I believe that people bang the PvP drum because they enjoy the competition, of it and let's face it it's a great feeling of smashing your opponent into dust, either through consensual PvP or from using a game mechanic to your advantage. I've been the smited and smitee on various different games and platforms it gets the blood pumping. I'm.not a fan of the split world's and I think the game should be open play only because this generates risk and without it you're accomplishments aren't quite the same, I also understand that griefers will grief and there needs to be an avoidance system to deal with that.

 

[OVMorat]

If you you're asking "Why are there so many threads?" then it's because there's a lot of marketing around the game and it cleverly includes words like "sandbox" "muliplayer" "Pirate" "Bounty Hunter" and this attracts PvP players like bees to honey. It also attracts a lot of EVE players because even the most ardent EVE fan (and there are many) would rather play it in First Person with a joystick. Attacting both PvPers in general and PvP EVE players specifically means that you get quite a lot of threads saying "But where is the Combat?" (and worse).

If you're asking "Why are PvPers so grumpy when they finally work out how this game is designed?" then it's pretty clear that this game is designed to be a solo game with optional chat. There is no player to player trading, no squads, no wingmen, no way to issue bounties, no ingame RP, no open chat channels - in short NO support of multi-player beyond occasionally seeing and even more rarely shooting at each other. This doesn't jibe well with people who turned up looking for a fun multi-player AND PvP experience.

Is the game rubbish? No, far from it - but it is trying very hard to attract the "wrong crowd". The extra annoying thing is that the game could very easily be adapted to please both camps. PvE players often cite EVE as an example of why there shouldn't be PvP but EVE has been designed from the outset to encourage PvP. It has choke-points, it has trade hubs, it has a system for sovereignty in space and it specifically allows PKing even in hi-sec areas as long as the killer is prepared to lose his ship. None of those things are true of Elite Dangerous, and no one is asking for them.

Risk and Reward were very cleverly scaled in the original Elite according to the security rating of the star system. Assuming that this will be true of ED, then all PvPers need is the ability to be part of the risk in the lower security systems. We don't need combat arenas, we don't want to be able to sit outside Eranin popping noobs*. All Pirates need to do is be able to lurk in high risk systems and interdict Players and NPCs for money. All Bounty Hunters need to be able to do is kill Pirates. There will, of course, be crossover. The next step up would be for genuine multi-player tools which would allow drive slaving, or fleet jumps or whatever you want to call the ability to fly around together in a group. This would allow traders or miners who wish to hire escorts to do so, and pirates to gang up to defeat convoys. This could be EPIC FUN for all concerned. I know this because we did it before - in a game called Jumpgate. I don't see it as a coincidence that every PvP vs non PvP argument we're having in ED was thrashed out in Jumpgate. I only wish those forums from 2000-2001 were still on line somewhere.

*That's just ganking and should get you a ban

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

That is all fine and good.

What is not good is forcing PvP unto people who are not interested in PvP. Hence why these modes exist in ED, and why these people take issue with it - cuz then people have a choice and go "beyond their reach", and they're sore about that.

Nailed it in 1 imo. I hope people enjoy multiplayer and encourage everyone to try it, and even get stuck into a little PvP

just do not try and force it on people, or blackmail them by saying if you are not open to PvP all the time then you can never try it!

Ie do not try to change the game from the one advertised just so you can force people to be your target!.

 

[Tarsas]

It actually reminds me of the vanilla days of World of Warcraft, playing in the PVP server, when you actually started questing in the jungles of Stranglethorn you could never, ever get a quest done inside a few months due to being killed every five minutes. I moved to a PVE server, and it was amazing how much more fun and rewarding the gameplay became, when I was actually able to complete quests inside of a few hours.

 

[Commander Debic]

I believe that people bang the PvP drum because they enjoy the competition, of it and let's face it it's a great feeling of smashing your opponent into dust, either through consensual PvP or from using a game mechanic to your advantage. I've been the smited and smitee on various different games and platforms it gets the blood pumping. I'm.not a fan of the split world's and I think the game should be open play only because this generates risk and without it you're accomplishments aren't quite the same, I also understand that griefers will grief and there needs to be an avoidance system to deal with that.

You may not be a fan of the split world's but the words you say after that statement

and I think the game should be open play only

explain perfectly why Elite Dangerous has the the group select play. Many people wish to play ED but the PVE players don't say they think their play style should be the only one. They just join a pve group like Mobius and get on with their game. The counter to your statement is if you only want a PVP Elite Dangerous game to play, you have it already, Join Titus Balls PVP group.

The group function is a terrific example of a game that can give all styles to all players.

With open being there for those who like the, I don't know whats coming, play style.

 

[par2005]

I don't know why everyone is so fixated on either PvP or PvE. I think it is possible to create a single universe where both of these genres co-exist. Secure systems, anarchy systems, bounties, etc. I really believe it is doable.

I, for example like occasional pvp, but not too much, so I could still enjoy my trading, etc. Without _any_ players it would be boring, as no risk means - meh... But too much, getting killed every 5 minutes like in some kind of FPS, would be meh as well.

So let's hope FD nails it, and strikes the perfect balance.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I believe that people bang the PvP drum because they enjoy the competition, of it and let's face it it's a great feeling of smashing your opponent into dust, either through consensual PvP or from using a game mechanic to your advantage. I've been the smited and smitee on various different games and platforms it gets the blood pumping. I'm.not a fan of the split world's and I think the game should be open play only because this generates risk and without it you're accomplishments aren't quite the same, I also understand that griefers will grief and there needs to be an avoidance system to deal with that.

It does appeal to some players, no doubt - yourself included from what you state here. However to force their / your chosen play mode on all players (by removing the current session-by-session play-mode player choice) is unacceptable as it enables the chosen play-style of one group of players to be forced upon another group of players.