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A call to PvP'ers - What motivates you?
Zayne3145
Member Posts: 1,448
I feel I should first make a concession: PvP is not my thing. I find it repetetive, shallow, massively infuriating and not what MMORPGs should be about. I'll be the first to admit I utterly suck at it (which probably goes a long way to explain my negative bias).
I'm really interested to find out why people find this gameplay so appealing. Having discussed it with my guildies, I'm still none the wiser. Some say "It's more exciting and unpredictable that fighting against a computer", to which my counter-argument was that predictability means you're more often than not going to be more prepared. Others simply said: "It's fun", which is a very ambiguous statement.
I'm going to admit that I have somewhat of a misconception about people who like to PvP - that they are driven by some kind of bloodlust for wanton killing. I realise this is completely irrational, but I would like some of the more eloquent among you to describe what exactly it is about PvP that makes it so appealing, so that a self confessed 'carebear' can get a better grasp of the psychology behind its supporters. Please show me that it's not simply alleviating some base need for mindless killing. 
Comments
I like PvP because I'm able to fight something more intelligent than the usual AI. PvP also offers something PvE doesn't (for most game at least): every players will be able to kill a boss someday but what about the "best player on the server"? Isn't it more challenging to fight one known as the "best"? I also like the fact that in "team death match" there's a sort of strategy going on.
I'll take Warhammer for exemple since it's the best PvP RvR in my opinion (haven't tried DAoC yet): Here, you can fight pretty much everyone on equal ground in most instances. Being more intelligent, players will adapt to the opponent team and fight in order to win. Scenarios are the best exemple: if a team have trouble killing the enemies they will try to capture different grounds at the same time and then hold the enemies as long as they can. It's the same for Savage 2, if we fought NPCs instead the game would fail because it requires a certain level of intelligence and the ability to work together with your team, while NPC's can't react like a player and can hardly adapt to different situation (unless programmed to)
That's pretty much why I like PvP and it certainly isn't bloodlust :P
PVP can be fun if done right. I will take Lineae 2 for example as I think its the only game that offers real pvp. In a open PVP game like Lineage 2 the PVP aspect of the game is what gives Player Control and that is what Lineage 2 is based on. Clans / Alliances control every aspect of the game which creates balance. Its PVP with a purpose. Now you have some games that have PVP which is something just thrown in where its just mindless killing for no reason. Those are they types of games that people play and get the same idea as you do about PVP.
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.
Excitement of the combat. It does apply for PvE as well, but PvE much more easier in the most cases like :tab,1,2,3,loot -repeat.
Hide,seek,wait for opportunity to strike,lure enemy out,weaken enemy,buff yourself,apply tactics and strategy,retreating, persuade and maybe few more factors.
And of course "It's fun" factor. It is like liking a colour or taste of food, you like it, but don't really know the reason.
"Don't argue with dick-heads, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience"
Having the satisfaction of knowning that you just wrecked some ones face on the other end of a PC.
1. PVE to lvl
2. PVP to own at that lvl.
http://acominos.evony.com <- if your bored at work
Players provide infinitely more challenge than AI do. Most AI need extra hp, more damage, etc... to compensate for being utterly stupid, whereas human players can really lay on the strategy, do unpredictable things. For some people, it's just more interesting to fight another player.
Multiplayer Games!
Same reason people play chess.
It's fun, competitive, and always has room to improve. People like testing builds, learning tactics, and simply getting better at it.
I can't understand why people play MMOs to get together and fight a bunch of mindless mobs. PvE takes no skill and has really no room for improvement. Every mob is the same, it runs up and melees you over and over, some cast basic spells but its just dumb.
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It all comes down to wanting to dominate those around you to be seen as the best/alpha and the respect and admiration that comes with it. It comes from our inherited primitive nature carried on from evolution. Alphas get all the chicks
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Ok, you can "not get" pve, that's fine. but saying it has no room for skill? please...
sure, pvp can (key word, CAN) be more challenging, depending on the person and the opponent. pve can also be a challenge, again based on the people and the opponent. In the case of pvp, the difference is that the opponent is capable of thinking outside the box, forming their own stratagies and ideas dynamically. with pve, the opponent is scripted, yes, but you still have to figure out how that script is going to react to different actions, and you also have to work well with other people to make your counter measures work right.
Overall, there's skill in both types of gameplay, different types of skills, but skills non-the-less.
And to answer the original poster, for me at least, I don't pvp often, but when I do, it's mostly to get a chance at a large scale battle (not a fan of arena, dueling and such) and try to work with other players, against a group of other players, to fight over something. be it an objective, a keep, whatever. Just to move for a goal knowing that the opponents blocking that are going to put up a good and challenging fight, that you can't just follow a guide for (not that i'd go for guides anyway, might aswell just hire someone to play for you if you go that route, but that's going off track there)
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Currently playing: Rift
former player of: DAoC, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, SWG (pre-NGE), WoW, Warhammer online, LotR:O
I do both PvP (mostly BG) and PvE on WOW.
I think the answer is simple, I want to own other people, just like i want to top DPS charts when i PvE.
BTW, it is not the challenge. It is much much easier to kill some random players in a BG, then to bring down some bosses in PvE.
i like the challenge and the unknown aspect of open pvp.i recently came back to AoC having fun while i don't go out attacking every person i see i pretty much only defend when i get jumped but its fun never knoing when some one will pop out of stealth and try to kill you. while pve mobs you see them in the semi stationary position not actively hunting you in any zone at any givin time.
while from what i've seen/heard i'm a "carebear" because i refuse to be a total douche and kill people 10 lvls or more lower than me, because i prefer a challenge?hell i don't even bother with people 5lvls lower than me even tho i would get pvp exp from them, just not fun for me to totally roll people. i prefer a good fight where i don't know if i'll win or lose.
while i do like pve and for the most part most of my mmo experience is pve, i have more fun with pvp thrown in with it, it makes the pve more for for me.
I suck at it aswell and still love it! It just adds so much more to a game and find it actualy hard to explain. The type of poeple playing these type of game are just more my type of poeple. I am no way a ganker or someone who liked blood. I would only go into battle with good reasons. In war these reasons are clear, your each others enemy. However in games like Darkfall this will not be more clear and you will actualy have to fight for something.
I am an former Face of Mankind player (Most poeple prolly do not know or never really played it). There was a constend presure of a pending war, constantly had to be on your gaurds (Not only from someone ganking you, but also what you say!), but you know someone had your back. You know that if you screamed you where under attack, folks would show up. It created a type of "friendship" and cooperation you will not see in a pure PvE game or even a game like WAR.
You are more proud of what you build and fight for a "real" cause. Protecting what you helped building up, protecting people from gankers, etc, etc. Tried my best to explain it, but it is a feeling with is hard to discribe, but thinking of all the fights I had in Face of Mankind puts smile on my face and make me sad at the same time as the game is no more (for now).
I do it for the competition as well as the freedom it gives me. I'll use Dark Age of Camelot as an example.
I used to haul a balista out into the battle field and set it up in the edges of the woods near places where people usually run by. I'd then proceed to peg the loners and the stragglers with it to work them down a bit before I charge out of the woods and fight them with my warrior who was a melee class with miniscule ranged abilities.
I find that fighting other players as opposed to AI brings in that randomness and the surprise I look for when I play. The chance that 2 fights are going to be exactly the same are extremely rare unless you're fighting someone that plays as a one trick pony. With the raiding and the AI I find that once you've conquered it the surprise is gone and you end up just going through the motions to get at the loot that you're there for. In WoW's case, as long as you have 1 person who knows the encounter and all the rest are willing to follow orders there is a very good chance that you'll overcome it all. PvP I find is different. When I fight a group of players more things come into play. The actual morale of the players plays an important role as well. You can actually manage to break their spirit and watch their plans and efforts fall appart. In the end I just find it more Dynamic and liberating.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
Same as fps'- more dynamic gameplay, elements of strategy, and the desire to win..
Well first off some implementations of PvP suck.
But in general PvP is fun for a similar reason sports are fun. When I play, for example, fullback in soccer and the forward is coming at me I know a number of things.
I know the rules of the game (no hands etc), I know the premise of the game (scoring by kicking through the goalposts), and finally I know of the various things the forward may do.
Now lets examine that last part. The forward can only do a limited number of things. His body is only capable of doing certain things. Through practice, which is essential to not feeling lost, I can learn to anticipate on the fly what he may do or what he may do a few steps down the line. If he goes away from the goal he may do a spin move or something.
There are many variables. I know most of what he may do, but not precisely what he will do. I can anticipate his action several moves ahead but he may be tricking me. I know the move-counter move principles but I never precisely know what will happen.
There are some key things here. First off, without practice you will be lost. It will seem boring or stupid until you can get a feel for it.
For those not inclined to sports it is similar to the difference between playing a prepared piece of music and improvisation.
You could say that a Raid is like playing one of Bethoven's symphonies. A group dungeon is like playing a in a rock band with music you have rehearsed. PvP is like doing an imporved jam session.
One of the things to note about improvisation is that it actually takes a lot of practice. You must know music theory and possibly the people you play with pretty well to understand what may come next and be able to freely and relaxedly continue the music onwards in a way that sounds good.
If you do not practice or are simply a novice improv tends to get you lost or you just kind of run out steam and it ends. Many people think you can simply pick up an instrument and improv or jam or whatever. You can but it will suck. People who can improv well off the fly are usually extremely excellent musicians.
The same thing is true of well implemented PvP (which is essentially the same as a sport). In that you will feel lost until you can get a feel for what is going on.
There is a reason all sports do massive amount of practice. It is only through repeition that your mind can process this stuff via "feel" otherwise you are slow and lost.
This too... The newest games IMO do not do PvP right. Most of it's player base are people filled with blood lust for no reason other then just killing. Once you play a game with purpose attached to the PvP that affects more then just yourself and the outcome actually impacts the game world as a whole then you might figure out why we derive such pleasure from it.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
WoW's pvp is really...unbalanced at the moment. Deadly and hateful gladiator gear dropping in pve raids? Bullshit. Right now, those that dont raid (myself) are getting the short end of the stick. Being a healer aswell, you can image how hard it is to survive against the ridiculous amount of burst that dps classes were given after 3.0 came out.
Nonetheless, I love pvp. I love it when its a pure and fair match;fighting an equally geared enemy with equal skill. I find this happened most often to me when I was leveling a new toon. On my paladin, fighting an undead mage dozens of times in eastern plaguelands. On my paladin again, killing and being killed by a single lock in feralas. On my warrior, constantly being jumped by an amazingly hard to kill druid in zangarmarsh...who happened to be 3 levels below me (killed me once, i got him 3 times.) On my hunter, fighting a shaman for 3 days straight in Nagrand and Blade's edge mountain. Those are really my favorite moments of pvp, when its outdoors, spontaneous, and resilience and UBER PURPS are not in the picture.
I've played my share of games (from fps to rts and rpgs) and PvE has become totally boring, predictable and easy. It's all the same just with different skins, weapons and item names especially since the game developers are trying to go mainstream with increasingly simple games. For newbies and the "new" type of instant gratification players the current difficulty level is just fine I guess. For me and other more experienced players it is not. So where to go, what to do ? The only place for me to actually have some sort of a challenge is against another human player. Of course I lose a lot but the emotions you get when you win a hard match is a bigger reward than any PvE item drop or NPC kill could ever give me.
Do not forget: In a year you will have moved on to another game. All the stuff you found fighting the computer will be meaningless and is lost. All that progress your char enjoyed will go down the drain. In the end virtual data is irrelevant. Only one thing counts: The amount of enjoyment you get out of the game. PvP games are the only ones left which continue to motivate me.
Of course there is the rare exception. A few singleplayer games have either a great story/atmosphere or are quite a challenge (for example stalker on hard).
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Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
To me PvP should have a purpose.The normal ganking as you see in WoW, AoC and others, where you walk around as a low level (newly created) toon and a maxed out char kicks your ass is kinda lame, and is one of the things I'd prefer to avoid.
Lots of games use Realm vs Realm (or Race vs Race, or Faction vs Faction, or whatever you like to call it) as a purpose for PvP. Most (if not all) of these games yell for gankers to camp spawnpoints and starter areas...
FFA PvP games on the other hand are a different thing. In these gamesthe developer should IMO set some rules and punish random PKing, or PKing of lowbees & spawnpoints. If these rules are set well, and you add a purpose to PvP (like in Lineage II where you can gain clan reputation, which is used for clanskills), I'm game for a PvP.
Though I do like PvP, it's not the main part of my gameplay. For the most I like PvE (raids, dungeons & grinds) with some occasional PvP, just for the fun of it...
While im not a fan of just killing for fun, in most mmo's i pvp in their has to be a real purpose
For instance in DAOC, i was fighting for realm bonuses and territory, I killed those who got in the way of our goal, and generally didn't bother with roamers or 8 man's unless we needed to seize control of a zone for a siege or something.
In free for all pvp games I never attack first, its always either in defense, revenge, or to help others from gankers.
I guess its roleplay garbage I do, but it keeps the game fun for me, and I feel like im establishing my characters behavior and personality in the game by doing so.
The excitement. The rush. Working with my friends to take control of a certain area.
It's unpredictable in most cases. I requires a deep understanding of your classes strengths and weaknesses. It requires an understanding of other classes.
Really...I love PvP AND PvE. I just tend to PvP more often because quests in MMOs tend to be more grindy and they don't hold my interest. Tortage in AoC is a perfect example of PvE that gave me the feeling PvP gives me. PvP just requires a whole other level of concentration and skill. Pounding away at boars for the 50th time just doesn't suit me. I like raiding, but it usually requires a ton of time and I don't have that.
In PvP...I jump in, have fun, and jump out. I come from Runescape, so my earliest memories of PvE is pounding away at cows to get their hides and level up. My earliest memories of PvP are running through the old wilderness, scared to death that I would lose all my blood runes I had saved up to get my staff of guthix because some high level would kick my ass.
It's the thrill. I play MMORPGs for the thrill. I love the feeling. Armor and weapons don't matter that much to me. I love the feeling. I love the atmosphere. I love fighting along side my friends. This is the only genre that I feel the epicness while I'm with my friends I've made during my journey. Multiplayer games just don't compare. Single players don't offer the interaction.
So for now, I'll PvP. When a game can offer me PvE that immerses me in the story and makes me feel like I'm working towards something greater than myself and RvR that fosters epic wars...I will have found the game that I will play for as long as the doors stay open.
Sorry...kind of got off track.
/rant over
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
Mainly competition. I get no kicks out of killing someone with a red name just because the game mechanics want me to. I prefer open world PvP, the kind of game where you can pvp anyone, everywhere and converse with them. I mainly play games that also encourage this style with world objectives, such as in Lineage 2 where castles go up for siege, and the clan that wins them gets tax/money and other rewards, and bragging rights over people they beat. Or fighting for a raid boss so you can kill it and get the loot while the losers get nothing.
I really don't like arena style PvP where the only motive you have to PvP is just to kill the other person when you dont even know them.
As others have written, it's the challenge that motivates me. I can usually figure out an AI relatively quickly, but with a good PvP'er a whole bunch of variables can be introduced.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
That pretty much sums up how I play PvP too, but I am not a RP person in the pure sense. I am also not one to gloat after killing a player, unlike my RL friend man he really annoys me to hell when we group and he trys ganking for the hell of it.
Bandit.
Asbo
Two things:
1.) Knowing that there aren't dominant setups that everyone is using, making the PvP predictable (cookie cutter, FOTM type PvP)
2.) There being enough risk for it to actually be exciting and getting some type of adrenaline going. A lot of these games baby up the PvP and make it not sting when you get killed or appease to instant gratification too much. Risk factors in PvP need to be tough enough to make it fun and exciting.