Got back and did a quick watch through of the mentioned video, an interesting essay with a message that is contrary to AO’s core design, that message being that PVP and PVE players simply cannot mix in the same environment, and it ruins both of their experiences.
(The video, for anyone curious)
It sums up how I think many feel quite well actually. I have two friends who play the game quite frequently with me, both of whom are starting to really dislike this aspect of the core game design. Both of them are enjoying it enough to play it on their own, and both of them have been jumped by random people looking for fights when all they wanted to do was fish, ship hunt, etc.
PVP players will often come around and Try to say that ‘well pve contents just boring right now’, without considering that this PVE content is still entertaining to these players.
I know Vetex is adamantly against a pvp toggle, and I think world pvp is a rather deep flaw AO will have to live with. A big scar on its legacy that will likely turn away its fair share of players who are denied the simple pleasure of playing the way they want without being shoehorned into unfun scenarios or demanded to be ultra-cautious and paranoid about every player encounter they have.
for the love of god, just turn eyliusm free for everyone, so much pvp (and pve) potential wasted, ya people will still hunt for renown to boost their ego and ya there will always be that toxic size bur eylisum just can resolve so many problems.
to also add, my friend that tries to stay on neutral always gets renown, and considering AO is more of a exploring, adventure, rpg, thingy than PvP makes me to think ur supposed to gain renown passively from doing stuff and that pvp is more of a high risk high reward
honestly might be my skill issue, at the start i pvped a lot, got to 750pk then i took the musket and got to 2k players kills, i was very active in munera, and then i took a 3 month period where i barely pvped, and dodge reflex rlly dont help me, idk how to put it in words but i still find a non dodge relfex fight more fun and fair than one with dodge.
bassically i went from:
parrying warrior 80% of the time (including triasta, 70% of the time)
killing almost one person from each LB rank (rip my achievements, got reseted when i left navy)
be somewhat good with hiting musket m1s
snipe people with musket and predict very well where they are
win against ganks
i even started to land 90% of my grabs and predict where they are gonna go to grab them
to barely being able to do some of them, i just have to re-learn all of that
I’m going to share my opinions on the whole PVP and PVE thing.
Currently, PVP is rare enough that most people won’t get attacked, and generally don’t prepare for an attack whenever they see someone. If they do get attacked, it feels bad since they were not expecting it. This is sort of helped by the radial combat tag that lets you know when someone wants to kill you.
However, PVP is also common enough that there will be frequent negative experiences.
I would assume that most people don’t want the stress of having to constantly check for threats in each server, and even if you get used to it, abruptly being interrupted by the presence of someone who wants to kill you isn’t something that people want.
PVP is not a bad thing, it is fun even if you are very bad at it. However, the problem with it is that you can force it onto someone when they don’t want it, and often that also comes with them losing something if they die. This is why PVP arenas, especially Elysium are good, since you know that you are getting into PVP and you know that if you die you won’t lose anything.
Less people actually hate PVP more than hating having to fight when they don’t want to. If you want to PVP, invite someone to a 1v1 at munera or something, people are much more likely to enjoy it when they have a choice, and it also makes it more interesting for you as well since they won’t be running away the entire time.
Most people who play probably aren’t since most of them grinded for it to get deckhands, only now they don’t need renown now
So it’s basically cosmetic now
so, there have been no occurrences of “flooding” where everyone in a big friend group or guild joins a small server to completely lock the danger and excitement from open world pvp?
yea i don’t think the dopamine seeking low-rep PvP’ers are gonna care if they get thrown in jail, they’ll just watch youtube while they’re jailed. it’s what i would do
I love that you’re trying to help out here, but Vetex is adamant about never letting PVP be avoidable, so…
This probably is going to fall on mute ears.
It helps him financially to not implement any PVP escape or reduction too, anyways. Long story, but in summary: Mad PVE players try PVP, then grind more after losing to get PVP viable gear. More time spent grinding = more Premium players joining which = more robux in Vetex’s pocket to be devex’d into legal tender.
I’m not saying AO is in a good spot with the PVE/P divide right now, but I am saying that this might be a mute point for actual implementation.
This is aside the point- but Clans should be detached from PVP. They shouldn’t be pvp exclusive, because that simply says that the only thing this game cares about in the long term are pvp players.
Don’t partake in the pvp leaderboard if you don’t want to pvp? Reasonable.
Don’t go out and find community within AO? Unacceptable. AO is an MMO, and it thrives off of social interaction. This isolation of all PVE players to just solo play annoys me to no end. That rule change that almost went through in regards to witch hunting especially shows this dissonance between pvp mods and testers and your average lil’ fellow who wants to enjoy other facets of the game.
Building to ‘defend an island’ is cool and all, but, there are plenty of people who want to build for the purpose of just… making something nice looking that they are proud of. Sure, in PVP minecraft servers, you can build a base for efficiency, but they are plenty of people who just build for the sake of building. Should they be ousted? Told they are wrong? Told they shouldn’t participate in this content because its for the ‘pvp’ players? No, that’s silly.
A major goal for AO should be making sure PVE players aren’t alienated from community, should they choose to interact with it. Yet AO has intense alienation for those who just don’t want to pvp in anyway. Forced PVP, as stated by Josh Strife Hayes, leads to feelings of bitter anger, and the more we can do to alleviate that anger, the better.
My dream is that threads like this becomes a distant memory, and new players in a year are like ‘Wait this is what the community was like a year ago? What?’
Honestly wished they took back the nerfs to sealed chest infamy gains. It made it so pve guilds could actually get onto leaderboards if they were determined enough. Now the infamy that they give is almost negligible, since its nothing compared to what 1 kill will give you.
but not being able to pvp (i just suck at it) is really frustrating knowing that any moment, i could be assasinated, spawn-killed, all that stuff, and i cant do anything against them
but like you said, the pvp players get the kickball, they have experience, they have confidence, their equipment is more suited for player destruction than us, and ours? its building tools, not destruction tools
a community where the experients profits off of the inexperienced, its just sad
the least people can do when assasinating/bountying others is asking for permission
sure, it wont always work, but atleast the other party is more ‘calm’ about it, and they might even let you for free because youre that polite
Clans are the only way to be in a community in this game? They’re meant to be competitive teams of players and a feature focused around PvP. There’s nothing stopping you from just making a server or party instead of being in a clan, or you could even be in a clan server without joining it ingame.
