Open World PvP

[Theodric]

It isn't really an example of white knighting to ask for people to avoid personal attacks in a thread about a new mode in a video game.

Here's the comment in question that I made:

That aside, I don't think there's any need for personal attacks - especially over something as trivial as preferences in a video game.

I'm not really seeing what is supposedly so dramatic or unreasonable about that.

[WoW]

I'm not really seeing what is supposedly so dramatic or unreasonable about that.

GCBTW!

I can't wait for Asmongold's followers to come and purify this corrupt community.

[Jojoya]

It's more that I find that portion of the community's stance to this game to be a big reason why it's so stuck in the mud and insipid.

But the game isn't stuck in the mud and insipid. It's very good for those who want the type of game it is.

Sounds more like you're expecting the game to be something it was never intended to be.

Open world PvP would be cool but it wouldn't work with flying.

Open world PvP works just fine with flying. Did a lot of it in Outland during BC, especially around Halaa since that was designed as a world PvP hub. Also did a lot of back and forth between Honor Hold and Thrallmar. Those who wanted to PvP would be there. Those who didn't would keep their distance. Flying didn't stop it - it helped those who wanted to PvP get there faster.

What doesn't work with flying is ganking. Gankers get upset when their non-consenting targets have a potential escape route. It's weird how the gankers will then usually disappear when those who actually want to PvP start showing up to fight.

Um....we were missing content long before covid was a thing sweetie. Hate when people use that excuse when we were already very clearly missing things before it was a thing like...you’re gonna blame it on the pandemic that didn’t even exist yet?

And yet no one is giving SE credit for the new content they added. They only complain that there are fewer dungeons added without mentioning the multizone combat like Eureka and Bozja/Zadnor, or the Firmament (granted the latter will have no interest for someone who is looking for combat content).

Just because you aren't interested in what content did get added doesn't mean there is less content. There's just less that is of interest to you (and I'm going to be highly disappointed if you're actively participating in Bozja/Zadnor at the same time you're complaining about fewer dungeons).

Is Triple Triad open world? I can't remember. xD

It's not. You can only play against other players in a few designated places. ;-)

All of the above take place on an opt-in pvp setting

Are you certain about that?

It was very easy to force flag enemy players in WoW up until mid-MoP. There were dozens of little tricks to use so someone would end up flagged without their specific opt in. Even after Blizzard had addressed most of the tricks, new ones would be discovered or bugs would happen.

Let's say there are very specific PvP worlds created and open world PvP is only possible on those (which I doubt can happen considering how SE has to mirror everything world to world from the number of zone instances at expansion start to housing wards).

What about the player who just wants to get their MSQ progression or other content completed without being interrupted by PvP for a change? Tough for them, it's either PvP or don't play?

We saw what happened in WoW on PvP worlds. Players would migrate to majority faction so they didn't have to worry much about getting interrupted while doing other stuff. Those on the minority faction who didn't want to play the majority faction would abandon their characters or transfer to another world that either had their faction as the majority or was not a PvP world.

The majority faction had almost no one left to fight outside of a handful of diehards who were actually interested in world PvP. Cries of "Blizzard, do something! Make my world balanced again so I have someone to fight!" would fill the forums and yet those players who claimed they wanted to fight would never take the obivious step and change factions so they would have thousands of players to fight.

If world PvP doesn't work in the long run in a game that was supposedly designed for it, how well do you really think it's going to work in game that was not designed for world PvP at all?

Keep in mind we don't have factions as a basis for PvP here. SE had to pretty much give up on GCs for PvP and put everything into mercenary mode because players all flocked to what was perceived as the winning GC.

How many players are going to opt-in to participate when it's all FFA and any allies you recruit are subject to friendly fire?

[Theodric]

MMO's by their very nature change over time and they are also designed to appeal to a broad range of players. With that in mind, it strikes me as counterproductive for anyone to suggest that players would be better off going elsewhere if they want to see a specific request come to fruition.

Certainly, the development team are no stranger to obliging niche requests as we've seen numerous times already.

The addition of PvP out in the open world in some form would not suddenly shift the game's genre altogether, either. It'd just be another piece of content that some people can involve themselves with and others can actively avoid.

It need not be implemented in every zone. Some proposals - mine included - involved suggesting some sort of no man's land where it can be limited to as a compromise.

As an aside, I've enjoyed a lot of the experimental content that FFXIV has put forward. I like playing around on BLU, I liked Eureka and I'm even more fond of the Save the Queen content.

Unfortunately Matsuno isn't returning to write the planned third act, which has since been scrapped - in turn dampening my enthusiasm for future content. Those who are already happy with the game must surely have plenty to entertain themselves with. Thus I see no harm in allowing different niches to be fulfilled from time to time. It helps the community grow, after all.

[Jojoya]

MMO's by their very nature change over time and they are also designed to appeal to a broad range of players. With that in mind, it strikes me as counterproductive for anyone to suggest that players would be better off going elsewhere if they want to see a specific request come to fruition.

There's never harm in asking.

But do you realistically believe SE could create a satisfying open world PvP experience without compromising the quality of content already in the world or causing disruptions to the game experience of those players with no interest in world PvP? I personally wouldn't mind if they added it for those who want it but it's not something I want for myself nor do I want it disrupting my game experience. Part of the appeal of FFXIV when I got fed up with WoW and was looking for a new game was that I didn't have to worry about world PvP disruptions taking out flightmaster or other NPCs I needed to interact with.

I don't think SE could pull it off. The instanced PvP in this game is generally viewed as poor as it is. It's going to be very hard for SE to produce good open world PvP when even Blizzard has always struggled with it despite designing it into WoW from the start.

That's why players will suggest going elsewhere to get it. Go to games that were designed for it from the start so you get a better experience and this game isn't disrupted for players who in many cases came here specifically because it lacked world PvP.

[Krotoan]

The addition of PvP out in the open world in some form would not suddenly shift the game's genre altogether, either. It'd just be another piece of content that some people can involve themselves with and others can actively avoid.

important part bolded.

Most of the people in this thread are not against content they won't engage in. They are against content they will be forced to be engaged in, have to change their current playstyle to avoid, and/or content that changes what they currently find "fun" about the game.


I hate Eureka. I rarely engage in EX-Ultimates.

Both are fine to be expanded. While I have my gripes about locking the relics and dyable armor behind them.. they aren't detracting from what I enjoy in the game and I can choose to engage in them at will.

[Saito_S]

important part bolded.

Most of the people in this thread are not against content they won't engage in. They are against content they will be forced to be engaged in, have to change their current playstyle to avoid, and/or content that changes what they currently find "fun" about the game.


I hate Eureka. I rarely engage in EX-Ultimates.

Both are fine to be expanded. While I have my gripes about locking the relics and dyable armor behind them.. they aren't detracting from what I enjoy in the game and I can choose to engage in them at will.

Precisely. Expand Savage/Ultimate, expand/improve PVP, expand on Triple Triad. NONE of those things are things I engage in much (I do pvp here and there, but only because there are a few glams I want that are only obtained via Wolf Marks). I'm fine with all that getting more attention even though none of those things are among the aspects of the game that I really care about.

I don't know how or why the idea of opt-in open world pvp got conflated with NON opt-in open world pvp, because it seems to me that the vast, vast majority of opposition to "open-world pvp" has been if it's not opt-in. Yes, there's also some "I don't want to see too much dev time devoted to something I don't care about." Personally, I don't generally worry about that sort of thing; I get that people play the game for a variety of reasons and engage in a variety of content, so I'm cool with some dev time/resources being devoted to things I don't care about, even if that could theoretically be "at the expense of" work on content I DO care about. There can be exceptions, like if I just think something is really really worthless and would rather not see time and resources devoted to it, but that's not too common for me.

But LOTS of people in this playerbase DO care about that. There's no sense in singling out people who say this of PVP because people say this about all kinds of content - "I don't want to see (X) because I don't want the limited dev time/resources to be used on it."

That said, open-world pvp that is NOT opt-in is a terrible idea. And I'd hazard a guess that said mode of "forced" open-world pvp participation is what the VAST majority of the "anti" people in this thread (possibly 100% of them) are against. Other than discussions of it simply not being viable (because the dev team likely wouldn't be able to do a good job to implement it in a satisfying way and make the systems for it work, etc.), I don't really see people being against opt-in world pvp on principle. And for my part, if they COULD make opt-in open-world pvp work well, in a way that pvp-enthusiasts would find fun, without having to spend a disproportionately high amount of time working on it (i.e. spending way too much time/energy on it compared to other somewhat niche content), then hey sure, why not.

[Nanne]

Yoshi already talked about open world PvP sometime around end of Stormblood. He said the devs could already just tag an area for PvP but they haven't done that in the live game cause there aren't enough people looking for that kind of content. Only 1/3 of the current PvP modes are active for 6-7 hours a day and rest of the modes only happen during ranked seasons/community events. Splitting the small PvP community into even more modes might be bad for all of the modes. Now it would be important that the new small scale PvP mode is a success because that would help with the problem that the only PvP happening actively is Frontline that requires 72 players that has no chance for it to pop before the daily reset.

[SannaR]

important part bolded.

Most of the people in this thread are not against content they won't engage in. They are against content they will be forced to be engaged in, have to change their current playstyle to avoid, and/or content that changes what they currently find "fun" about the game.


I hate Eureka. I rarely engage in EX-Ultimates.

Both are fine to be expanded. While I have my gripes about locking the relics and dyable armor behind them.. they aren't detracting from what I enjoy in the game and I can choose to engage in them at will.

This exactly. I don't know when these forums started down the path of people going oh well you are against this version of an idea so you must be against all versions. There are a select few in this thread who have recently taken this stance. And seem to want to die on the various hills they take that stance on just so they can complete the cycle of the self fulfilling prophecy of no one can ask for changes to the game that may or may not be seen as popular. Just so that they then can point and cry out "See? You can't ask for something different from the normal or criticize the game. Because people don't want or agree with one aspect of something."

I'm one of those who wouldn't mind having areas or ways people can pvp as long as it's optional and the devs somehow made it satisfying. The fact that many in and outside of the pvp community see what we do have as unsatisfying doesn't help any new mode look promising.

[linayar]

It was very easy to force flag enemy players in WoW up until mid-MoP. There were dozens of little tricks to use so someone would end up flagged without their specific opt in. Even after Blizzard had addressed most of the tricks, new ones would be discovered or bugs would happen.

Let's say there are very specific PvP worlds created and open world PvP is only possible on those (which I doubt can happen considering how SE has to mirror everything world to world from the number of zone instances at expansion start to housing wards).

What about the player who just wants to get their MSQ progression or other content completed without being interrupted by PvP for a change? Tough for them, it's either PvP or don't play?

We saw what happened in WoW on PvP worlds. Players would migrate to majority faction so they didn't have to worry much about getting interrupted while doing other stuff. Those on the minority faction who didn't want to play the majority faction would abandon their characters or transfer to another world that either had their faction as the majority or was not a PvP world.

The majority faction had almost no one left to fight outside of a handful of diehards who were actually interested in world PvP. Cries of "Blizzard, do something! Make my world balanced again so I have someone to fight!" would fill the forums and yet those players who claimed they wanted to fight would never take the obivious step and change factions so they would have thousands of players to fight.

If world PvP doesn't work in the long run in a game that was supposedly designed for it, how well do you really think it's going to work in game that was not designed for world PvP at all?

Keep in mind we don't have factions as a basis for PvP here. SE had to pretty much give up on GCs for PvP and put everything into mercenary mode because players all flocked to what was perceived as the winning GC.

How many players are going to opt-in to participate when it's all FFA and any allies you recruit are subject to friendly fire?

So, I think that PVP servers are out of the question as any server they add would better serve the general player base rather than only part of it.

As for an opt-in method, FFXIV has the advantage of not having competing player factions out in the world that would flag you for PVP if you step into a competing faction's territory. I'm not sure what other methods WoW had for force flagging players for PVP, but FFXIV probably doesn't have them.

So if it's an entirely opt-in mode with no loophole, it should work well.

The other thing is there should be no other extrinsic reward for choosing to opt-in to OW-PVP, like increased exp. That way, people don't have to choose between wanting to do MSQ and gaining reward via opting in to that mode. Just like NG+, people would opt in to do PVP, not for other rewards.

So it's an entirely secluded mode where people have to choose, so events like unwanted wedding crashers can never happen unless people forgot to opt out, which would be their own fault. That said, the wedding itself is instanced and they could force no PVP in that area.