Poll: PVP or PVE - Which Are You? [UNOFFICIAL]

Reading these boards and the numerous posts I'm noticing a lot of people quoting things like.

Most the players are PVP only. 2/3 of the players only PVE etc etc

So, let's settle it once and for all.

Are you a PVPer or PVEer? And what type?

This isn't about trolling or debating, rather to establish what category we all fit into.

Gasket.

 

To settle this "once and for all", this poll must be representative. And I can't see more than 10% of the backers (at the moment 25.000) to vote on this. So please don't expect too much out of this or other polls here in this forum, since forums tend to reach a small more hardcore and dedicated part of the audience, but not the majority. And the developers know this. That's why they ask for opinions on forums, for example for the combat system, but not for decisions...

Besides, there is already a poll from Fireangel running, where I liked the possible answers much more, since she allowed multiple choices and more options, that reflected more different playstyles... (for example: I'm missing a poll option for the "Selective Gameplay"). And when her poll showed one thing, than that even in the dedicated forums group there's no general consensus on this topic.

And since the developers know, that this is a sensible topic (Chris, Richard and Star Long stated this many times), they won't post anything until they are sure, how they want it to be. And up to that point, it's mostly speculations here...

 

It will be challenging to get enough people to participate in the poll, to make it even 5% representative of the backer population you'd need 1250 votes, which would be a precedent on these forums.

I abstained, as I believe there are other more innovative and creative solutions to the issue of looting and death in pvp and pve.

Spoiler: gray!

Between the blinding whiteness of no loot, and the yawning chasm of gloom that is full loot, there is a near infinite number of compromises that solve the economic and social issues that both extremes create.

 

I voted consensual or not - full loot, but what I was really thinking was consensual and not - full loot, meaning that I'd would like an additional zoning option which shares housing content and a few other things with the slider, but disallows travel between PvP and PvE. Ideally, I'd like SPO, 2 FPO's (PvP and PvE), 2 OPO's (PvE and PvP), and then one extra OPO for full loot PvP which doesn't allow you to go into any other sliders. This way, non-PvPers can try PvP, people who want to go back and forth can do so, and people who want a genuine PvP world (not a large arena) can have it.

 

I voted PvE only no-loot since it's PvE no reason for full loot...Because I don't want to be ganked. Simple...ask me and I'll give my answer hehe.

 

Unless we get a significant portion of the 25,000+ backers to date, no poll here will represent a final anything. You might not even get a significant number of the people who post here, since this is by no means the first poll taken, and people are probably getting tired of polls that are essentially meaningless.

The best way to measure this is for the devs to take statistics of what people actually play once the Alpha/Beta tests start. That is the purpose, in part, of the Alpha/Beta tests.

 

I voted consensual - full loot but it wasn't the option I really wanted. The reality is that I think there should be consensual pvp at a macro level, but I don't think there should be consensual pvp on a micro level. Meaning that if you sign up for PVP then it's everything goes, not "Hello good sir, shall we PVP?"

I also prefer looting, but I don't think the system that would have the most balance would full unrestricted looting. I think you have to be very smart about items in an online video game where that's basically the difference between you and another player from a technical standpoint. Instead of unrestricted looting, I'd propose something where you're competing for special items and all your other stuff is secure. That way you can control the risk verses reward more easily as a player (and as a developer).

Of course, no one cares what I think so this will just be another post that a few people gloss over before posting their own ideas that no one cares about.

 

Given the Selective Player Online mechanism, does it even matter?

I'm glad there will be people who like single player modes, friends only modes, Open Player Online Modes, various flavors of PvP, up to and including Open PvP Full Loot, because that means a wide cross section of players can find a style of play that closely suits what they are looking for. The more people who buy SotA, the more successful it will be, so everyone should embrace every mode of play possible, because that is the best way to ensure the long term success of the game.

People who are looking through a soda straw intent only on the mode of play they are interested in to the exclusion of all others are effectively limiting the potential success of the game as a whole. What possible benefit can that provide?

 

That's an excellent question, Owain. I believe the answer in this case is that it provides ongoing feedback to the developers who need to know what people see through their individual straws.

 

While my MAIN playing style has always been and will be PvE with minimal PvP, I have NO PROBLEM with PvP being in the game under systems that allow people to be involved by their own choice. For myself in SotA, I'll be staying out of PvP unless the situation specifically calls for it such as defending a town for one reason or other, or if a quest requires the possibility of it. I don;t mind those situations because they have reasoning behind them.

What I'm not onboard for is the idea that if my character is not in town, that I am in any way consenting for someone to come up while I am busy in PvM or gathering resources and PKing my character at little to no risk to themselves for the rewards of looting me. The PKs can call me what they wish, but those scenarios add NOTHING to my experience of the game.

Finally, I think the people expecting or pushing SotA to be a replay of pre-Trammel UO are going to be sorely disappointed because I don't think a direct replay of that era is in any way the intent of the Devs or Lord British.

PvP with reasoning behind it (city sieges, quest scenarios)... sure. PvP for the sake of PvP... not really my thing.

 

Ya, that's my issue. Everything in this poll is a tiny detail compared to why I'm PvPing at all.

There are a lot of fun PvP games. What's intersting here is how PvP is weaved into an RPG. How does it grow my character? How does it fit with the lore? What happens to the world if I win or lose? Is there a guild or faction that I care about?

It is unlikely that the PvP element alone will be better than a pure PvP game like LoL or 100 other games.

 

Me must ask ourselves,
1. What made the early success a big success?
2. What will now make the successor a big success?
3. What made the early success turn unsuccessful and bland?
We all know the answer. Don't we?

 

(Assuming you're talking about UO)

1. Answer: Being the first major MMORPG on the market and utilizing a popular and established fictional world.
2. Answer: Innovation, again, being the first at what it does. In this case, bringing the best aspects of Single-player story-based RPGs and melding them with the persistent world and making that world much more dynamic in the process.
3. Answer: Time (Gamers tend to drift from older to newer games naturally) and Corporate (Mis)management (Too many missteps to list, really).

 

1) Being the only game in town.
2) Logical Innovation
3) Abuse of overly permissive player conflict mechanics.

trap_avoidance++;

 

Honestly I have a hard time answering this, because I am very much a "sometimes PvP" player. I will PvP, but usually only in context, and more often than not I would be in PvE only mode. So, I went with PvE, since it is my prevailing mode.

 

Without Portalarium itself sending a pool to all backers and convincing most of them to answer, no pool can ever hope to be representative.

And even if Portalarium did that, it would only reflect us backers, strange people willing to put down money for a game that (when most of us made the pledge) would not come for over a year still. This is certainly not the common player mindset, and unless the proportion of PvPers to PvE players is identical among backers and common customers, even a pool that managed to get every backer to vote would still likely not be representative.

This is why doing reliable statistics is so hard. Whoever is doing the research needs to carefully construct his sampling pool, preferably mapping the groups that are likely to have different opinions and picking the correct number of respondents from each group to keep the sampling pool at the same proportion as the total group that is to be analysed, though a random sampling might also work somewhat if the number of respondents is high enough.

Forum pools are specially unreliable because they rely on self-selection; in other words, the respondents themselves choose to be part of the pool. This means not only that the sampling pool is not carefully constructed, it is not even random, and thus has an intrinsic bias. This is called the "self-selection bias", and can skew results in a truly spectacular way.

This does not mean that forum pools, or other kinds of not so well constructed pooling, are useless; there is information that can be distilled from them, specially if more than one is available for comparison. But it does means that blindly taking their results at face value is foolish at best.

 

So far it looks like the OP is getting a point across. Apparently the majority loves full loot pvp consensual or not. Interesting...
I voted for full loot pvp consensual or not as well. In my gaming experience, I find that consenting to PVP takes the thrill of PVP away. In return rendering PVP dull and boring.

It's almost like playing NES (regular Nintendo) or something similar, no chance for something new to happen. It will just be the same game over and over, no matter how many times you blow the dust out of the cartridge.

 

Actually... not really. It's actually almost dead even across PvE only (13 currently), PvP by consent(11 currently), and PvP consensual or non(13 currently). It just looks like PvP consensual or not is the most popular because the votes there are ALL in the "full loot" option, while the other two are split between full loot and no loot. In fact looked at from that perspective, there are two people who do not want unconsensual PvP for every one that does.

 

It's not quite so cut-and-dried as that. There are 13 votes for "PVP - Consensual Or Not - Full Looting", and there are 14 votes for the two "No Looting" options, split 6 and 8 between "PvP - Consensual" and "PvE - Only" (respectively).

Within the PvP category only, Full Looting seems to be winning out in this particular poll (19-6), however.

Of course, the question remains open as to whether this poll is representative or not. Probably, it is not, for reasons articulated previously and elsewhere.

The logical fallacy you are engaged in here is called "soplipsism": the mistaken assumption that one's personal experiences and preferences are wholly (or at least significantly) representative of the experiences and preferences of others.

 

I'd say it is WAY from represenative. 25k backers and we have 30ish votes. that is not even a 0.01% sample size.