Arc Raiders had a free playtest this weekend, and some players are arguing that the game needs a PvE-only mode. In the game players are tasked with scavenging resources from an open map infested with enemy robots alongside other players, with players not in your group effectively being another type of enemy. This, of course, has some players saying that fighting enemy robots is enough, that they don’t need the extra stress of having to fight off other players too. The pro-PvP players are, of course, saying that this is what the game is, and if you don’t like it you should go play something else.
It’s not like that’s never been done before. Sea of Thieves is another PvPvE game, and not too long ago it too got a PvE-only mode.
What do you say about this? Should a game that wants to be both PvE and PvP also offer exclusive modes?
They don’t /have/ to, but I will say if they don’t it removes any chance of me ever buying it.
I was up and ready to buy Dune launch week, but then I noticed there was no full PVE mode and I had no way of creating a PVE environment by self hosting or by other means. This blew all interest I had in the game.
To me it makes logic sense that a studio that offers a PvPvE should offer a PvE experience as well. The framework is basically already there, and in some cases won’t even require more resources to do. In the case of Dune they could easily have made PvE use the same servers, but have players marked as PvE invisible to other players not in the party, or give them a ghost effect to people not in PvE mode so they know not to try and fight them.
Any studio in my eyes refusing to acknowledge the casual non-pvp group are just throwing money away. I have easily dumped 100$ into both Ark SE and minecraft with how many times i’ve purchased them for different platforms, and these are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I would have never have bought either if they lacked the ability to go PvE only.
The PvP is the majority of the challenge of the game. If you remove that, for the PvE players it becomes Cookie Clicker and they’re done in a week. And it also reduces the participation in the PvP side and damages that part of the game as well.
The cat & mouse mechanic is integral to the game’s success. If that doesn’t work, this isn’t a game.
And that’s completely fine. But by the developers choosing to go that route, they just outcast the people like me that will not buy that type of game.
Being said though, I find it difficult to understand why a studio would want to go that way. Like, I am the player. If I want to make the game easier on myself, then I should be able to. If I’m willing to spend money on your game, It doesn’t really matter how hard it is.
I get that if a game has an endgame that is heavily PvP based, that it might affect PvP by allowing a PvE only mode. But, to me, I don’t really care because, regardless of their decision, I wouldn’t be in that PvP area anyway. It’s just one outcome is I spend money on their game, and one outcome is I don’t.
Many games I can see them going this route on, such as Overwatch 2 or Dota, but survival RPG games, I don’t see the point of having that type of system for, And I definitely think they’re losing money by going that route.
Yeah, more games need to be like Amazon’s New World, where they kneecap their own game in an effort to appeal to the masses like you and the shareholders.
Tennis would also have wider appeal if you didn’t have to run back and forth so much. They should look into that.
Personally, I don’t think either comparison is valid. These two items are nowhere near comparable to the original comment. With tennis if you don’t move, you can’t play. With the examples I gave above most of the game would remain available to the player, just in a single player or PvE environment. Survival RPG’s can easily be made either SP or PvE only, Dune actually came super close, they just decided to heavily limit the end game PvE compatible areas and locked the passage via a PvP area which is why I decided to just not get it.
BUT ignoring the false equivalence fallacy, if the player is willing to spend money on the game in the first place, it shouldn’t matter. Even more-so when the game is basically Ark Survival on Scorched Earth with a dune skin on it and a few additional mechanics added on. There was no decent reason that the game could not allow for a PvE only mode or at least the ability to self host your servers. They said they couldn’t do either under the excuse that they wanted the game to be an MMO(which arguably they failed to deliver on as well)
As for New World? As a person who played it from beta(which I do regret because its not my style game, I just really wanted to like it), New Worlds downfall wasn’t the dev’s trying to cater to everyone, it was the lack of a story/ambition to want to play. It was the same gameplay loop over and over with no drive to want to continue the story. This combined with the failure to have a decent “end game” (story line wise) at launch killed it’s userbase. They promoted a very heavily PvP based cooperative system and then massively fell through on the promises. This combined with the inconsistent servers and the boring game-play elements, made player retention extremely difficult. That’s not appealing to masses, that’s failing to deliver on promises and making a shit game.
I would love to play a PVE game where players just jump in and out of fights or locations or something like that, but I refuse to buy PVP games. They always end up as a repetitious failing grind for me. A game where it is essentially a single player game that allows coop is my ideal game.
Honestly, Ark was so close with that aspect with the Obelisks. It would have been so cool to allow for char based PvP toggle (meaning when the char was made it had a setting if it was PvP or PvE), then allow for the Obelisks to teleport you to the designated PvE vs PvP zone. Have PvE invisible to PvP and if the structure is owned by a player in the other zone, it doesn’t exist. Have a designated spot on the map accessible like the boss arena system that allows PvE and PvP players to mix and mingle/fight if they wanted to.
This would allow for using the same map for both modes, so lower system resources, it’s just the structures itself only show for players in the same PvP mode. So a base could exist in the same location on both PvP and PvE and the two modes would be non the wiser.
As someone with about 120 hours in Dune, I will say that I got all the way there without once fighting another player. The main map is PvE except for a few spots. I only set foot in the end-game PvP-enabled area once for about 20 seconds, and I think that since then the devs implemented a PvE-only part of that area. And most of the problems people have with the game stem from the end-game content, which I haven’t touched yet.
Yea, that was what I had found during research, end game stuff locked behind a PvP gameplay with a small section that can technically be done in PvE but has a long cooldown and requires going into PvP areas to get to.
Right. But as I mentioned you can put 100 hours into the game without fighting another player. And all the end-game stuff is for is the final tier of gear, which mostly change stats and resource gathering rates.
Yea, but I’m still not interested in spending money on a game without PvE modes. If it requires me to enter a PvP area, I’m not interested regardless of the amount of time I can spend in PvE only areas.
Honestly, I liked how runescape did PvP areas, you didn’t have to enter them, you could obtain the material via other means like the grand exchange. This is a good way of doing a PvPvE without hindering your PvE audience. How dune did it was more of a slap to the face, since its a small area thats shared with everyone that wants PvE and PvP, requires entering PvP areas to get to and has a limited resource so on congested servers it’s a big nuisance. it felt like more of a “this can say we tried” than an actual implementation.
Well, Dune does have a player-run auction house. I haven’t checked myself, but I don’t doubt that you could get end-game mats on there.
That does sound promising and does raise it a little on my list. It’s defo better than nothing.