How would you organize (Pv-whatever) your survival MMO? And would you include PvP?

[Zed Clampet]

I used to think that the perfect set-up would have 3 servers: PvP, PvE and Blended (PvP restricted to certain areas), but after a decent amount of time in Dune Awakening and World's Adrift, I have almost come to the conclusion that players of survival games can't handle PvP.

For one thing, apparently you attract the absolute worst of gaming's dirty underside. These people are toxic both in the game and out of it (like on the forums). And they aren't here for the PvP. They are here to torture people. They will camp for hours waiting for the chance to use an exploit to rob you of everything. In Blended worlds, they will find ways to ruin your day even in the PvE zones. For instance, in World's Adrift, there was a way that you could hook a ship with your grappling hook and pull it. These people would spend an hour or more slowly pulling people's ships into the void so they would be destroyed.

To these people, the simple act of deciding where to put your base becomes a twisted game. Is there any way they can prevent you from reaching some critical resource? If so that's how they will build their base.

Dune Awakening, which I think is a great game, is currently being destroyed by these people, so much so that the game is bleeding players at the moment. And I just have to wonder whether the extra sales you might get for having PvP is really worth it.

 

[dxchase]

My survival MMO wouldnt have PVP or a mix off it either. Theres plenty of other things id list here that wouldnt be in mine that you find in those games too, but staying on topic.

Did you know theres PVP in Diablo 4? You wouldnt be looked at weird if you didnt because its THAT trivial and under-utilized. Nothing in the game world is tied to being good at PVP or even engaging in it outside of buying the set which you can do without fighting people. Thats how PVP would be for my survival game if i even included it.

 

[Frindis]

I'd like a PVP MMO with safe zones and a good bounty system. These safe zones would function as a tutorial area where you could level up a few times and learn the basics before being left to your own devices.

In the PvP zones, there would be a bounty system that worked like this: If you kill low-level characters, you would immediately be put a bounty on. Depending on the gravity of your actions, this bounty would include further penalties. One of these penalties would be that whatever you carry, you lose when someone kills you; items would either go to the player or disappear. This would not only make such a bounty very lucrative to pursue, but it would potentially be catastrophic for the player, as they would lose all their stuff.

Further penalties would be multiple bounties on your head, and for the absolute most notorious of the bandits, they would be not only hunted by players, but by every NPC in the world. You would automatically get hatred from all factions making it impossible to progress in them. Think of it like getting six stars in GTA and EVERYONE is after you.

 

[Pifanjr]

I think one problem with Survival MMOs is that the PvP stuff is gated behind a lot of PvE content. After like the first week of the game being released you'll have PvP'ers running around in max gear and the only way you have a chance of defending yourself is if you first play through the PvE portion of the game until you have max gear as well.

But that sucks game design wise. Imagine if you had a game like Battlefield or Call of Duty, but to join a match you first had to play a week of Stardew Valley first. The PvE portion of a Survival MMO maybe has some more overlap with the PvP portion, but they're still very different experiences.

But even if you get the best gear in the game, you still have to deal with the fact that a lot of griefers work in groups. So not only do you need to get the best gear, you need to join a group yourself to be safe. Meaning that you cannot play the game solo and you need to invest quite a significant amount of time and effort into maintaining your relationship with that group.

To go back to the Battlefield and CoD example, that's like if you need to ask around for people who want to play a game instead of just having a matchmaking algorithm that automatically puts you in a lobby of people of a similar skill level ready to play.

I think you can see this in EVE Online for example. It's fairly successful in blending PvE and PvP together, but only because the people that play the game invest a lot of time into it and join one of the big guilds. It's notoriously unfriendly to casual players, solo players and newcomers in general.

---

I think one way you could do PvP in a Survival MMO is to have all PvP areas instanced and if you want to go to one, it'll put you in a matchmaking algorithm and automatically matches you up in a fair battle. This way you could rely on tried and tested mechanics and systems for team deathmatches too with interesting maps and win conditions instead of just an open world where you're never sure where the next group of griefers is hiding.