@b4adle7 said in [Mega Thread] PvP and PvE Playstyle Discussion:
@wagstr Wow, didn't need to bait the breath for long to get good responses did you! It is nice to get responses from people not promoting to not play the game.
@Xultanis-Dragon What an amazing response/post! Thank you! And yes, to be fair the amazing content SoT has been adding is PvE, so I retract the accusation of PvP getting updates aside from the Reapers Hideout updates and the emissary flag. (Which we have enjoyed also.)
O.k. will accept the accusations of being biased thinking about the friends that just cannot defend themselves even after MANY hours of game play. (Working on helping them I am said in Yoda voice)
So there is where it isn't understood where PvP is on a tight leash? Do explain.
So when the game first came out it was very bloodthirsty and the algorithm they had for the game had more players per server than it does now. In those days it was incredibly common to see a ship on the horizon and it do an anchor turn straight towards you.
Unlike now that you see most ships on the horizon that avoid you.
Then there were forts that spawned on a 3 of 4 hour timer. Which in that time help facilitate PvE players into PvP and gave PvP'ers a location to fight and hunt. The seas were relatively quiet while everyone fought for the fort.
During this bloodthirsty period Rare released Alliances to curb the PvP a little and it worked. According to their update, open engagements were down and alliances were being formed. As many betrayals but just as many actual alliances. Since loot and rep were hard to come by players shared or split loot accordingly to what they needed.
So alliances were the first step. The next instance were the weekly events and monthly events that always had at least a few commendations that said "complete as an alliance". Again in an effort to get players to play together and not hunt each other.
However, this was all doable for most crews again because PvP'ers had a place to fight and hunt where everyone joined in, The forts.
Loot and gold was scarce, a lot more so. The only way to get loot was to find it, or quest for it. It wasn't in the water with barrels, meg and kraken dropped no loot. So it was Fort, Quest, or find it on an island.
The beauty of this scarcity and rarity is that when the forts finally popped, everyone would go for it. Even PvE players because why not. Sell all your loot and go fight for the fort. PvP'ers would go, PvE'ers would go, and the whole server would fight at one location for HOURS.
Sometimes there were ships on the server that used that time to do other things like questing or exploring because as long as that skull was in the sky, thats where all the combat would be.
Rare wanted to help players with the grind and with the fact that forts were so bloodthirsty. After releasing shrouded spoils update, Events were now a constant thing. One fort is done, another one takes it place almost immediately within 5 mins, sometimes 15 to 20 if the kraken spawned on someone.
However, with the introduction of loot with barrels, megs dropping loot, kraken dropping loot, loot being EVERYWHERE. There was NO reason to do Forts anymore.
When PvE players sink at a fort or someone comes to attack, they just leave and wait for the next one. Why not, it'll be up in like 5 mins. PvP'ers fight but the fight is just 2 ships and that last for maybe 30mins??
We went from a contested event that had players fighting over it EVER SINGLE DAY for 6 to 8 months straight. Players fighting for 2 to even 6 or even 8 hours for a single fort with the whole server coming, ships leaving and new ships coming in and fighting some more.
We went from that to no one even bothering with forts anymore. For multiple reasons. 1 why fight when another one will be up?? Also why fight over something that you can earn in less time than it takes to fight over it with the change they made to loot spawns in the game??
So they wanted to lower the amount of open engagements, and they wanted to give PvE'ers more content and something ELSE to grind for with commendations, all of these changes to give PvE players MORE to do and try to force PvP players into situations of Cooperation.
With everyone grinding to pirate legend in a week or less now because of the sheer amount of loot you had pirates that had pirate legend with nothing left to do. These are the PvPvE type players. All the PvE is done, so whats left?? Yup PvP. Alliances were now a joke because why make an alliance when I don't need specific loot I just need the gold. So why get 50% of something when I can have 100%.
So now you have Pirates who are pirate legend, with no PvE content that want PvP, and now you have PvP players with no contested event to fight over because no on wants to do it.
Where do all the PvP'ers go now with no central location for them to gather at and have measuring contest?? Hunt PvE players.
Being in the middle, granted leaning toward PvE do to the crew's desires, the encounters are varied. Have encountered many PvP that wipe us out in one shot or give us a great challenge and get to talk with them discussing the tactics we encountered and even shared ideas. But way more often encountered PvPers screaming vulgarity and talking constant childish insults. The pointing out of a PvEer being the worst may come from only attacking them. I will state that if we get destroyed by a PvPer, as long as they aren't toxic trash, I will always complement them on the thorough thrashing we had just received.
The thing is that most PvP'ers act that way to get a reaction. Thats it. Its like poking at your friend because you want to irritate them a little bit or the trash talking you do at a competitive match.
It gets worse when the PvP players realize you are taking it personally. What they want is a reaction thats all. Could it just be overzealous banter?? More than often probably is. Can some individuals take it too far sometimes?? Oh definitely but I only believe that when it comes to children in the game. Children SHOULDN'T be in the game but even if they are we should watch what we say to them.
I completely agree with you. Precaution on who you meet, and be ready for whatever does happen. Pointing out what happens with alliances is just pointing out what happens.
Pretty much. Again, alliances use to work better. The only downside is that there are thousands of players that would probably form actual alliances with you except they are all in the alliance servers. I found 3 of them and noticed that a lot of players stop playing the game once they complete everything and usually only takes about 2 weeks to farm up everything they need. As much as a month. Then those players leave the game and wait for the next update, do everything they need in less than a day then leave and wait another month.
I know why they did alliances, but they messed up with how it gave more rep and gold. 1000 chest is now worth 1500. In a game where gold income was an issue that community tried to address before it went insane as it is now.
But the idea of a support emissary "forcing" you into something? Is this a False Dichotomy fallacy? The support emissary is simply a suggestion for people that are a polar opposite of the PvP only crew. How would that force anything?
Well not support emissary but emissary in general was a try at an idea right?? PvE players want to gain extra rep to make their grind easier then the flag would help but make them targets.
PvP players want people to fight then Fly the Reaper flag and hunt the emissaries or hunt other Reaper ships.
Only problem is what is the incentive for the PvE player to fight the PvP ship?? Do you have one at all??
What incentive does the PvP player have to fly a Reaper flag when other players on the map can see him and leave almost immediately??
LOL, I've seen Reaper Galleons run away from Merchant sloops lol.
Obviously the Reaper Galleon was PvE'ers trying to get their reaper rep and the merch was the PvP crew trying to earn merch, but still lol.
Good idea but bad for this game. Bad implementation.
I so dislike the idea of PvE servers. More than half of the game would be taken away. The upcoming "custom servers" can be for them. But no, have not noticed a lot posts for PvE servers comes from new players. Do you have a citation for that?
Check the names of the posts whenever you see a post complain about PvP or request that PvE servers be allowed. They are castaways and if you check their profiles they have less than 1m meters sailed and have only played the game for about 2 weeks.
I'm not trying to exaggerate or push my agenda, its what a lot of us have noticed. There are a FEW vets that might advocate for PvE, but the major outcry is from newer players.
Nope, not one side nor one or the other. Feels biased on your end as only PvP.
As noted in the post it is just ideas for a support emissary with a lot of balance to think about. No one would ever be forced into anything. Keep in mind stating that if you are so good that you only do PvP, wouldn't trying out support be a challenge? Or wouldn't be a challenge to go against someone with support be bragging rights?
It boils down to incentive.
In a game where there is a shared world of PvPvE, PvE players are going to be the target. How do you mitigate this?? You incentivize the PvE players INTO PvP. Now we majorly PvPvE players in the community but they lean slightly to one side or the other depending on whats going on or whats available.
In the past, forts made everyone lean towards PvP because you didn't lose anything you didn't bring with you. PvE'ers took a chance and with the PvE'ers taking a chance it brought the PvP'ers.
This wasn't a mandatory thing, there was no commendation for this. It was just the best place for high tier loot. Difference between this and FoTD is that no one had to activate this so no one has any stake in it. Its just like a beacon that says "FREE FOR ALL IF YOU WANT THIS BOOTY!!!"
PvE'ers would form alliances to take on the PvP ships and work together.
Now you are going to ask how do we incentivise PvP'ers into PvE?? Well the game pretty much already did that. With skelly ships, kraken, megs. When they spawn we have to take care of it and honestly I have those spawn almost everytime I about to approach a ship or I'm fighting one. IT IS SOOOOOO ANNOYING lol.
Look at it this way. The game in the beginning had a contest event called forts that spawn every 3 or 4 hours, where the whole server would come together and fight. EVERYONE. PvE, PvP, PvPvE, someones grandmother.
This happened everyday, almost every single fort, 2 to 5 ships fighting for HOURS and HOURS. This went on for 7 months. Everyday, one event.
Look at the current state of events. Look at the updates. Its just a grind fest. Do this event this many times for this commendation once your done no one does it anymore.
How often do you see events and just KNOW in your heart of hearts going there is a waste of time because more than likely no one is there.
The game pushed us apart because of the reviews at launch and pushed us apart because Rare got scared. Instead of building on their shared world they instead tried to do what every other game does to keep players playing. By praying on humanities addictive natures. How many friends do you know who played WoW or a game that has a daily or a weekly?? They tell you "yeah man I'm in, just let me finish this daily/weekly". They aren't getting anything more or better. They just don't want to feel as if they missed out.
They then took away the fighting grounds for PvP'ers and put a leash on us trying to make us play nice with everyone with forced alliances and forced commendation farming.
The game went from Loot and Rep being the important thing to commendations.