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There is this misconception that there are PVErs and there are PVPrs, like they are two separate groups of people with no overlap, and if you only do X you can convince one to enjoy the other or vice versa.
A few weirdo outliers aside, players enjoy both. Players are both. Its the context that matters.
People who play FPS, purely pvp, are the same players who enjoy looter/shooters, purely PVE. Looter shooters always try and include a few optional ffa pvp zones and they are always empty, just 1 hard core camper/lootbox hero with his credit card gear obliterating anyone who comes in. The people who enjoy pvp in looter shooters are a miniscule portion of the player base. Game studios realized this and stopped trying to design around or cater to those types of players. They are irrelevant. They also stopped trying to force players into having to participate in that kind of content.
If only MMO devs would learn this lesson.
But why? All those PVErs all enjoy pvp in a regular fps...whats the difference?
The context. In a fps there is a sense of parity, equal footing, fairness. Even if you have a choice of kits it still correlates to rock/paper/scissor style of balance and your brain is ok with it because ultimately you all have equal power and no one has an unfair advantage.
In the other, you invest time/energy on questing/grinding/progression/growing in power. Your lizard brain assigns in innate value to your time invested and you judge every interaction with a toddlers sense of fairness and equality. This is mine and its not fair for you to take it.
Imagine if minecraft or any other survival game required you to grind mobs for 15 days /played before you could build your first hut or chop your first tree. And the second you do someone with 30 days /played can just come along and destroy your shit. That game would fail.
Now keep in mind, this already happens in effect, other players can come destroy your shit that you spent 15 days /played making. But people arent up in arms about it. Why not? Because there is a difference psychologically in the value assigned to the action of "building" (ie playing the game) than the action of "grinding" ( chore i needed to do to unlock the power to play the game)
The MMO genre is just an online version of the RPG genre in most players minds. Its about worlds and stories and progression and character growth (power). That context is never going to square with pvp. Yet every few years a developer comes along and who thinks they've "cracked the code" and itll work this time. It won't. Everyone who has tried has failed. Either they stick to pvp and the game dies or they neuter all pvp into meaninglessness and its just another pve theme park.
You can build a mmo that is pvp but you have to break the correlation in players minds with RPGs. One game has done so successfully.
If you want to keep the theme park bones but make your game pvp focused, then just change how experience is earned. You only gain experience or level up by killing other players. No secondary pve-style objectives to gain power in pvp. Only by killing other players do you gain power. Pvp is the game from level 1 and it is drilled into your brain from the moment you exit character creation.
Start with a gladiator arena or something, you start as a slave fighting in the pits instead of some hero standing in freeport.
Once you've leveled up a bit you get to leave the arena and go explore the world. Theres mobs and danger and things to see and explore like any other world/themepark, but you gain no experience/levels by pve. You must kill other players to gain power, which by happenstance, makes you strong enough to dungeon dive or kill dragons or whatever for shinies.
I dont know if that game would be popular,but it wouldnt die after a month either.
A few weirdo outliers aside, players enjoy both. Players are both. Its the context that matters.
People who play FPS, purely pvp, are the same players who enjoy looter/shooters, purely PVE. Looter shooters always try and include a few optional ffa pvp zones and they are always empty, just 1 hard core camper/lootbox hero with his credit card gear obliterating anyone who comes in. The people who enjoy pvp in looter shooters are a miniscule portion of the player base. Game studios realized this and stopped trying to design around or cater to those types of players. They are irrelevant. They also stopped trying to force players into having to participate in that kind of content.
If only MMO devs would learn this lesson.
But why? All those PVErs all enjoy pvp in a regular fps...whats the difference?
The context. In a fps there is a sense of parity, equal footing, fairness. Even if you have a choice of kits it still correlates to rock/paper/scissor style of balance and your brain is ok with it because ultimately you all have equal power and no one has an unfair advantage.
In the other, you invest time/energy on questing/grinding/progression/growing in power. Your lizard brain assigns in innate value to your time invested and you judge every interaction with a toddlers sense of fairness and equality. This is mine and its not fair for you to take it.
Imagine if minecraft or any other survival game required you to grind mobs for 15 days /played before you could build your first hut or chop your first tree. And the second you do someone with 30 days /played can just come along and destroy your shit. That game would fail.
Now keep in mind, this already happens in effect, other players can come destroy your shit that you spent 15 days /played making. But people arent up in arms about it. Why not? Because there is a difference psychologically in the value assigned to the action of "building" (ie playing the game) than the action of "grinding" ( chore i needed to do to unlock the power to play the game)
The MMO genre is just an online version of the RPG genre in most players minds. Its about worlds and stories and progression and character growth (power). That context is never going to square with pvp. Yet every few years a developer comes along and who thinks they've "cracked the code" and itll work this time. It won't. Everyone who has tried has failed. Either they stick to pvp and the game dies or they neuter all pvp into meaninglessness and its just another pve theme park.
You can build a mmo that is pvp but you have to break the correlation in players minds with RPGs. One game has done so successfully.
If you want to keep the theme park bones but make your game pvp focused, then just change how experience is earned. You only gain experience or level up by killing other players. No secondary pve-style objectives to gain power in pvp. Only by killing other players do you gain power. Pvp is the game from level 1 and it is drilled into your brain from the moment you exit character creation.
Start with a gladiator arena or something, you start as a slave fighting in the pits instead of some hero standing in freeport.
Once you've leveled up a bit you get to leave the arena and go explore the world. Theres mobs and danger and things to see and explore like any other world/themepark, but you gain no experience/levels by pve. You must kill other players to gain power, which by happenstance, makes you strong enough to dungeon dive or kill dragons or whatever for shinies.
I dont know if that game would be popular,but it wouldnt die after a month either.
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