PvP in Open World MMOs

So I have been thinking of this type of blog for a while. I am one who enjoys PvP but I also enjoy PvE. But the question is what is the right balance between the two types of people who enjoy PvP and PvE? I hope to share my thoughts with it and yes it will be more neutral on the topic. I am not someone who says let's only do one of the other but I say let's do both. There are firm lines for both aspects but at the same time if there is the thought if you agree to join a game with Open World mechanics you must understand there will be PvP you are brought into and cant help it, but then you must  look at it like was it PvP or Griefing, there is an even finer line for that than anything else.

First let's get a little backstory on me and PvP in Open World MMOs. I ran a PvP Guild in DCUO, still running it but we transitioned over to PvE more. I was a Senior Leader of a PvP Guild in SWG on Infinity, and did a lot of PvP in space on Live in that game. Lastly I was involved in PvP with random Horde Members in WOW during my multiple attempts to enjoy that game, we would raid enemy zones and fight our way through stuff, don’t really know what was going on cause every time I play WOW I get lost in it lol.

Let’s Start with my experience in DCUO and WOW since those are more similar than SWG. On DCUO I ran an Ice Tank back before some big changes to weapons and armor. I had both PvP Gear and PvE Gear. This lets me have the defenses for both but you could use your PvP weapon in PvE and still be good, now you can’t. What we would do is Flag up and fight 3 vs how ever many wanted to fight us right outside of the Heroes HQs.  We let people choose when they wanted to fight us and had very good fights. There was only one Healer and one Controller with me and most of my damage came from my weapon. We would do this for hours on end and had a blast with it. The Heroes we fought had fun as well and it was a good show for new players to see what could happen if you joined PvP. There were no feelings hurt with each other and we had a really good time. But the question is off that, is flagging up for PvP really needed or can we always be flagged when near HQs or something similar to how WOW has it when you, might be a while since this was a thing so don’t jump at me, you would go into a Alliance area as a Horde player you would be flagged as soon as you got there.  I know DCUO has the Diamond Heist or something and the Queued PvP fights but this is about being in Open World and just finding a fight. In WOW we would go over to the Alliance Zones and just fight our way into the city. Even last time I tried it during Dragonflight DLC there was some Event going on and it would bring Horde Players to Stormwind, and once the Event was over we would just fight everything in the Area including any Player who would try to stop us. It was a lot of fun.

Here is a thumbnail from one of my old DCUO videos.

Now for the thing that might hurt some friends' feelings that I used to play SWG on Infinity with. Is there a time when doing all of this PvP hurts a community? I think there is. There is a very fine line between Griefing and PvPing. It comes from both sides as well. Both sides of players in the PvP community who only want to spend their day fighting other players it doesn’t matter who they are. The way the PvP system works in SWG is similar to WOW and DCUO where you have to “Flag Up”, this is only for non Jedi characters. Then once flagged you can take part in PvP. You get to choose when to fight, granted things that can happen are people can pull mobs onto you and get you killed still. This example was complained about a lot when I was on Infinity. I can say from my personal opinion, when this happened and I knew the types of characters who were there and left to fight the NPCs they should have lived, but they didn’t know how to play their Jedi at the time. I have done this before when running down into a dungeon and on my Jedi I pulled the entire place with me down to the people I wanted to fight and fought everything and I mean everything on top of the other Players. I was outnumbered but evented the odds to my favor. Was it the right thing to do, not necessary, they didn’t start anything with me yet. Did I know they would start anything with me on their way out while I was on my way down? I don’t know.   Now this leads into other aspects which carry over into the game I am playing now called Star Citizen.

Here is me on a normal character blowing up walls with SWG Infinity Custom Elite Skill Tree - Demolitionist.  I was flagged the entire time doing this as well. I eventually got surrounded and had players spawning walls on top of me to try and trap me, which is against TOS and another topic but only games that let you build cities and stuff.

The biggest question for all of the PvE players in these games. If you know PvP can happen at any random time why do you complain when it happens and you are not prepared? And to the PvP players, why do you complain when players who do nothing to you get upset when you hunt them down for hours on end or just hunt down random players, not the same player you already killed, for hours on end? Naturally forming PvP is one thing and forcing it is another. I feel there is a way to do both but PvP shouldn’t be the only thing everyone can do in a game, same goes for PvE. I think with the times we are in, people forget there are other people on the other side of the screen and you have to decide how you want to be. This is for PvE players just as much as PvP players. For example if you go to do illegal missions in Star Citizen you will get bounty hunted, this is  fact. If you get lucky you can make it an entire session with nobody coming for you and you can do Vaughn missions all night and make millions. Other times you are on a more populated server while playing in peak hours and get hunted as soon as you get the Tier 3 Crime Stat. This was a big problem when I started playing on SWG Infinity. The XP was so fast to get and there was no drama about who could be what Rank Jedi that you would have people who mainly played PvE make a Jedi and hit OK on a box that stated you will be constantly Flagged for PvP and can be attacked anywhere. Even with that being clicked and they agreed to it there was drama because they wanted to PvE on a PvP style character. Granted it made PvE a lot easier where you could do a Dungeon  with 2 people instead of 5 or more needed, with the correct armor and weapons, the Jedi would need a Tank/DPS  Jedi and a DPS/Healer Jedi. So I see the joy of being able to do that cause I did that a lot. But I also understood I was not safe when playing that character and I would be targeted whenever anyone saw me from the other Faction. What this did was cause a rift between the more heavily focused PvP Players looking for random natural fights and the PvE players trying to just do the small amounts of Dungeons in the game. This is what I am seeing start up again in Star Citizen. The PvP players only want to fight people. They have good response times, with the one time I was able to go with them. And then the PvE players, known as Bobs for some reason by the PvP players, want to do everything in the game. Granted during my one run before being kicked from the PvP Group, they did know who supposedly dupes RMC, the big selling commodity which is hurting the game when players do that kind of stuff. They tried to handle it within their own ability, which I liked to see. But you now run into well what if they were wrong and it was all speculation with minor evidence is that something more than? 

The aftermath of me ramming a Hull C as it was blocking 2 hanger bays cause it was to afraid it would be pirated by me and Ekliipse. Also it couldn't of landed since it was full of cargo and guy was just blocking the bays just high enough to not get impounded but affect players trying to launch, was this needed to be done no but I did do it. And even I can get carried away with stuff as I tell in the blog.

These are the fine lines I am trying to relay in this big wall of text. Griefing is when you kill someone so many times in a row they can’t play the game. This is within minutes of each death. If you are able to fight back and you live and then die so many minutes later and then they let you go about your business as you respawn, that is just organic PvP. If you are a Streamer/Content Creator, like me, you are not entitled to play the game and not be killed just because you are streaming. I find it really hard to stream a game and let people know “Hey here I am with a bounty on my head while I do Vaughn missions please don’t come kill me”.  This is not and I say again this is not smart on your part. If you are playing an Open World game you need to remember PvP can happen at any time and anywhere. Hire some protection for yourself, players will be happy to work for you if you pay them or if you are hosting a non Official Event hosted by the company of the game, then the same thing applies, hire some protection for the event. The idea around Open World MMOs is they are living breathing worlds you are in and the players are the ones who need to help keep it safe or find a way to talk to each other and work stuff out to keep things the way everyone wants it. There is no firm line of this is wrong or bad, until the Griefing happens and a lot of players I ran into don’t know what that actually is.

I hope you can make sense of all of this. I rambled a lot, at least to me. But all in all Open World MMOs have a fine line that needs to be remembered by both sides of the PvP and PvE coin. Not everything is Griefing but not everything is PvE. If you don’t want to be caught up in PvP remember where and what you are doing and if you need it hire players for protection cause if you are caught off on your own when doing something and organic PvP happens that is on you, sadly. Also remember if you are doing some PvE and it leads to players being able to come after you and you don’t want that then don’t do it. Find something else to do even if it means you can make money as quick, there is a reason why it's quick cause the risk is higher.