I don’t understand why the Devs had to create winners out the PVP minority and losers out of the PVE majority. If you think giving a massive elite benefit to one group is not massively disenfranchising the other group, then you are mistaken. If the tables were turned and PVE had a 10% loot luck bonus and 30% gather luck bonus, then how would the PVP players react? The potato chip would fall right out of the aghast open mouths of the PVP players. There would be a wailing and gnashing of teeth of biblical proportions.
PVP players always carry on about how the game was designed initially as a PVP game. It is irrelevant. It is only about what the game was advertised as at launch when people put their money down, and about the state of the game now.
New World made a clear choice at the start of the game that there would be no PVP servers, that this would be a game where the two playstyles would co-exist. There was no hint that one group would be preferred over the other. For the most part the game development seemed to have been quite successful in this balance up until now.
On the PVP gameplay side however the usual rot was starting to set in. On quite a few occasions the open world PVP aspect was starting to turn into gank squads roaming the countryside looking for solo/duo players to pounce on. Now at least for a short time there will be more of it. PVP gameplay at its finest.
I did though think on one occasion that it was mildly amusing seeing 12 PVP guys steamroll one oblivious chad picking up an ore node, with the PVP leader commenting in local chat ‘Hey buddy this ain’t no christmas special’.
But this is also ultimately the problem, solo/duo payers flagged in the open world going out gathering resources will inevitably be ganked once too often by the roaming death squads, and then they won’t flag again. The solo/duo players will eventually realise that the new PVP preferred nature of the game means that they are really up against it, and that it is time to move on to another game. Most of us don’t want to play a game where we are looking over our shoulders all the time.
Curiously on the forums I see a few comments from PVP players, saying ‘see this is what PVE players get for not letting us have PVP servers from the start’. This is an interesting comment from two points of view. Firstly, there is a real venom that PVP players have towards PVE players, what is that about? This is definitely not reciprocated, PVE players are nearly all indifferent to PVP players. Secondly the PVP players are well aware that PVE players have been royally shafted, somehow to the PVP player this massive percentage luck change is their ‘revenge’. There is something rather unsettling about this, about the mindset of some of the PVP players, it’s a very real us versus them diatribe and the Devs have handed them the perfect opportunity to tell everyone about it.
I can see the future in this game for me …
I log on and I see a dungeon run I’d like to like to go on being organised, but it’s advertised as pvp only. I logged on, I lost.
I log on and I check I’m wearing my luck gear, but wait a minute, the PVP players are effectively carrying 4 more luck gear pieces with their 10% luck bonus. I logged on, I lost.
I log on and I go out into the wilderness and flag for the 30% gathering bonus, I get ganked within 20 minutes by a roaming death squad. I logged on, I lost.
It’s only for so long that you can live with a losing proposition. It’s a compelling reason not to play.
The Devs have created a two-horse race out of PVE and PVP, when they didn’t even have to go to the races at all.
For a PVP preference decision like this to be made, it does tell us something about the PVP mindset of the Devs, or at least some of them, leaving us all to ponder exactly what PVP preferred changes will be made to the game in the future, maybe this really is just the start. What happens next if we don’t all comply with this new luck directive and begin to PVP our little hearts out?
Is it right to make obvious winners and losers out of different groups in the player base? Who decided that one playstyle was more important than another? Who decided to try to force one particular playstyle on the entire player base? Who decided to tear up the PVE PVP balance that people understood they were getting when they bought the game? There is a fundamental question here of impartiality, fairness, and freedom of choice without any form of coercion.
I now appeal to those Devs who favour a balanced approach to the game, I urge you to rise to the occasion and fight against the oppression of PVP preference.
This is a pivotal moment in the game, the restoration of PVE/PVP balance happens now or never.
So, very soon unless things change, I will play less and less. After just one day I already have that feeling of ‘why bother’ when I log in now. By change, I don’t mean a ‘fix’ that tinkers about at the edges by reducing the percentages for PVP preferred luck, I mean total elimination of the PVP preference.
I’ve played hundreds of hours in the game, I have 200 in every skill except fishing and furnishing/weaponsmith which are both at 150. I was taking the time to set myself up for years to come in the game. I group up with a few friends who also don’t and won’t flag PVP, and they agree that their future gameplay is now at best uncertain, the enthusiasm they had for the game is evaporating.
Clearly the New World team have created something very special in the MMO market. Quite literally this game is the real McCoy, I’ve been waiting years for something like this, you were on the right track. I even bought another copy for a friend to play. We finally get there, and one gameplay change just turns the whole thing upside down. Massively disappointing.