Arc Raiders had a free playtest this weekend, and some players are arguing that the game needs a PvE-only mode. In the game players are tasked with scavenging resources from an open map infested with enemy robots alongside other players, with players not in your group effectively being another type of enemy. This, of course, has some players saying that fighting enemy robots is enough, that they don’t need the extra stress of having to fight off other players too. The pro-PvP players are, of course, saying that this is what the game is, and if you don’t like it you should go play something else.
It’s not like that’s never been done before. Sea of Thieves is another PvPvE game, and not too long ago it too got a PvE-only mode.
What do you say about this? Should a game that wants to be both PvE and PvP also offer exclusive modes?
A game doesn’t have to offer anything, if they can offer modes without compromising on their artistic integrity good for them otherwise just make the best game they can without requiring they cater to the largest demographic.
That said, I probably won’t play a game without a decent PvE mode, because I generally prefer playing solo. So if they want my money, they should offer it.
I don’t want to tell others what to do with their art, but I would certainly appreciate that. For every PvPvE game if they replaced the human opponents with NPCs I would probably be happy. I avoid PvP games. There is enough toxicity in the world without willingly subjecting myself to something that has been specifically created to generate toxic situations and behavior.
Extraction shooters “needs” PvE-only mode as much as Dark Souls “needs” an easy-mode.
It’s not a case of if they should offer exclusive modes. But you should get what you paid for. And you’re paying for PvPvE extraction shooter. If they add a PvE-only mode down the line, fantastic, but their main focus, should be to create the best PvPvE experience they can in accordance to their vision of what they want the game to be.
No matter how much you playtest your game, there’s gonna be “unexpected features”, balance has to be tweaked, exploits have to be removed. They’re gonna have their hands full for at least 1 year after launch before they can even think about adding additional modes.
Sure if it’s either limited progression/loot, or seperate progression entirely. People will just farm on low risk PvE missions for high tier resources and upgrade to end game gear. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how Sea of Thieves handles this.
The Arc (name of the robots) can be challenging but they are also easy to pick off at range. Maybe if the arcs were stronger in PvE? This then defeats the purpose of appealing to an even more casual crowd. People were already calling for Arc nerfs.
The devs originally pitched this game as a co-op PvE game akin to something like Helldivers 2. Their monetization model is practically the same to HD2. They decided to swap to PvPVE claiming it just wasn’t fun though many speculate Nexon, their publisher/owner, had a say in it. I have doubts Nexon influenced the gameplay but Nexon is Nexon afterall.
From my experience playing the tech tests and latest server slam, it’s real easy to avoid PvP and only fight the Arc if you so choose. You’ll run into players eventually but I’ve had an easy time making friends with strangers. Last server slam had more PvP due to limited upgrades available.
I’m not opposed to a PvE only mode if it meant the game is still playable after the servers shut down.
Or just different loot. Destiny actually had a fairly decent approach to this. Some gear was PvE only from enemy drops, and other gear could only be found in the PvP shop (which required grinding currency in PvP to purchase). There was some gear that was categorically better for builds, but the devs tried to keep the exclusive stuff fairly balanced. So like the PvP stuff wouldn’t try to make you outright overpowered in PvE, for example. It meant you could take the same gear across the two different modes, without being able to simply get OP by focusing on one mode entirely.
The devs struggled with balancing the gear between the two modes, (looking at you, Gjallarhorn), but the idea wasn’t awful.
The gear exclusive to PvE means only usable in PvE or only lootable in PvE? If the former, well that’s the same as my seperate progression suggestion. If the latter, how good is the PvE loot in PvP? Can it be really strong against other players or is better gear locked behind PvP? If can be really strong, people will grind out low risk PvE for good gear hence my limited loot suggestion.
You mention the devs struggled to balance between both modes and I’m willing to bet Embark is a smaller studio compared to Bungie. Trying to balance a whole different genre is a lot of effort for not much gain. People who want only PvE will rarely touch PvPvE due to toxicity or skill issues (as cringe as that sounds).
Wish devs (well, and pubs too, sure, all companies, its their monies after all) could do whatever they want, their arc art. None should put big pressure. If You want something that is not on the market, do it yourself, and prove You were right by getting more profits, ez as that (also fffff nintende for blocking such moves).
2, Wish more, publishers, who decide what they pay for on devs would not rush pure excel rectangles (profits, that’s very very very only thing that they do care, nothing else at all). With they could decide to add some extra pve only game modes too, like hey, You have 95% assets made already, that cannot be too hard to add few game menu elements and switch “friendlyfire=0”, can it be? Even if that gives slightly less profit per hour of work, should still be profitable overall?
No. They have a vision and implementation that they want to balance and trying to shoe horn another game mode isn’t exactly easy for them to try and balance while attempting to maintain the core game.
It’s complicated, but I think no. But maybe they could have certain maps where it’s PVE. I’ve recently played the pve only fork of The Cycle Frontier, another pvevp extraction shooter that got shut down a few years ago, and the pve only mode is considerably easier, to the point where the tension from the full game is not present. So a game designed to be PvEvP would probably feel soulless without part of its intended game design.
I mean obviously depends on how much time the dev’s have on it, and what the cost etc… to make both are.
If you make a game that’s expecting PVP to be the primary advantage, and the PVE is meant to be a minor time sink to add some stakes to the PVP mode, then obviously the PVE players once they start playing, will complain of the game being unfun, unbalanced etc… and then the development will have to start stretching out into other portions of the game etc…
On the other hand if the games PVE mode actually does hold on it’s own, and the majority of the PVP is effectively people that enjoy attacking people that don’t want to be in that fight… then maybe an alternative server etc… isn’t a bad idea.
Obviously no one is entitled to anything, it’s up to the developers to make the game they want. Players are welcome to play what they want.
In terms of a “would this be a good business decision or good for the game”, well that depends widely on the game.
“Should they?” No. Games are a form of art, and they have no obligation to be anything more than what they are.
That said, if their goal is to reach as many players as possible, they will miss out on a (likely) growing demographic by excluding PvE, especially if the framework is already there. Many people have no interest in duking it out with sweaty tryhards, and even if a game is lucky not to have those types, there’s still people who make it their mission to grief others whenever possible.
So I don’t think they “should,” but it’s shortsighted not to.
Not sure if they “should”. But: not every gamer can play PvP. Some people have deficits and illnesses that prevent them from even having a slide chance against human players.
You want that your game can be played by people, regardless of physical condition, or by the elderly (and in sense of games this means 30+ sometimes)?
Than yes , yous should provide such a node of you already have some vE in there. Of course , multiplayer games are multiplayer games.
But this is the same conversation like “should games have an easy mode”
I personally would love to play for example the eldenring series, but I can’t. I am physically not able to play the game with the required precision. And let me tell you, seeing arguments like “learn to play” are hurtful.
At least with Elden Ring you can play offline and use mods to do things like reduce difficulty or something and you generally aren’t going to negatively effect other player’s experience with the game.
I am talking about using mods / “cheating” in a game that has an online function.
If you mod Elden Ring, youre most likely playing offline and not ruining other player’s experience. But you can’t mod/cheat a game that is online only without ruining other player’s experience.
They don’t have to, but having one would significantly increase the chances of the genre being successful.
All of the games in the genre that don’t have a PvE mode see high success for less than a year before player numbers fall below 10k average players. The only really exception is Tarkov, which is basically the Fornite of the genre, except it actually was the first of the genre unlike Fortnite.
ARC Raiders should have one in particular because it was originally supposed to be a coop PvE game, and was forced into its current genre by Nexon.
Do we know Nexon forced them to change genres? The devs explained that their PvE only concept just wasn’t fun hence the change but who knows how much Nexon has a say past monetization strategies.
I agree with the other comments. “Should” kind of frames this as a necessity. It’s not - no one gets to dictate what’s in the game except for the developers. But I will have a hard time without a clean PvE mode, especially if the game wants to be both PvE and PvP.
Why? Because in PvE you are dependent on the community of the game. And sometimes it’s great, but sometimes it can really suck the fun out of a game. Having the option to chill and not interact with anyone can be great of you don’t wanna gamble on the community, especially when you wanna play to decompress after a work day.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
No humor/memes etc…
No affiliate links
No advertising.
No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
No self promotion.
No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
No politics.
Comments.
No personal attacks.
Obey instance rules.
No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc…)
Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
A game doesn’t have to offer anything, if they can offer modes without compromising on their artistic integrity good for them otherwise just make the best game they can without requiring they cater to the largest demographic.
Enthusiastically support including PvE.
No. Games can offer whatever modes they want.
That said, I probably won’t play a game without a decent PvE mode, because I generally prefer playing solo. So if they want my money, they should offer it.
I don’t want to tell others what to do with their art, but I would certainly appreciate that. For every PvPvE game if they replaced the human opponents with NPCs I would probably be happy. I avoid PvP games. There is enough toxicity in the world without willingly subjecting myself to something that has been specifically created to generate toxic situations and behavior.
Extraction shooters “needs” PvE-only mode as much as Dark Souls “needs” an easy-mode.
It’s not a case of if they should offer exclusive modes. But you should get what you paid for. And you’re paying for PvPvE extraction shooter. If they add a PvE-only mode down the line, fantastic, but their main focus, should be to create the best PvPvE experience they can in accordance to their vision of what they want the game to be.
No matter how much you playtest your game, there’s gonna be “unexpected features”, balance has to be tweaked, exploits have to be removed. They’re gonna have their hands full for at least 1 year after launch before they can even think about adding additional modes.
Sure if it’s either limited progression/loot, or seperate progression entirely. People will just farm on low risk PvE missions for high tier resources and upgrade to end game gear. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how Sea of Thieves handles this.
The Arc (name of the robots) can be challenging but they are also easy to pick off at range. Maybe if the arcs were stronger in PvE? This then defeats the purpose of appealing to an even more casual crowd. People were already calling for Arc nerfs.
The devs originally pitched this game as a co-op PvE game akin to something like Helldivers 2. Their monetization model is practically the same to HD2. They decided to swap to PvPVE claiming it just wasn’t fun though many speculate Nexon, their publisher/owner, had a say in it. I have doubts Nexon influenced the gameplay but Nexon is Nexon afterall.
From my experience playing the tech tests and latest server slam, it’s real easy to avoid PvP and only fight the Arc if you so choose. You’ll run into players eventually but I’ve had an easy time making friends with strangers. Last server slam had more PvP due to limited upgrades available.
I’m not opposed to a PvE only mode if it meant the game is still playable after the servers shut down.
Or just different loot. Destiny actually had a fairly decent approach to this. Some gear was PvE only from enemy drops, and other gear could only be found in the PvP shop (which required grinding currency in PvP to purchase). There was some gear that was categorically better for builds, but the devs tried to keep the exclusive stuff fairly balanced. So like the PvP stuff wouldn’t try to make you outright overpowered in PvE, for example. It meant you could take the same gear across the two different modes, without being able to simply get OP by focusing on one mode entirely.
The devs struggled with balancing the gear between the two modes, (looking at you, Gjallarhorn), but the idea wasn’t awful.
The gear exclusive to PvE means only usable in PvE or only lootable in PvE? If the former, well that’s the same as my seperate progression suggestion. If the latter, how good is the PvE loot in PvP? Can it be really strong against other players or is better gear locked behind PvP? If can be really strong, people will grind out low risk PvE for good gear hence my limited loot suggestion.
You mention the devs struggled to balance between both modes and I’m willing to bet Embark is a smaller studio compared to Bungie. Trying to balance a whole different genre is a lot of effort for not much gain. People who want only PvE will rarely touch PvPvE due to toxicity or skill issues (as cringe as that sounds).
Sea of Thieves gives like 1/4 the rewards when you’re on PvE but otherwise it’s all cross-compatible
arcart. None should put big pressure. If You want something that is not on the market, do it yourself, and prove You were right by getting more profits, ez as that (also fffff nintende for blocking such moves).2, Wish more, publishers, who decide what they pay for on devs would not rush pure excel rectangles (profits, that’s very very very only thing that they do care, nothing else at all). With they could decide to add some extra pve only game modes too, like hey, You have 95% assets made already, that cannot be too hard to add few game menu elements and switch “friendlyfire=0”, can it be? Even if that gives slightly less profit per hour of work, should still be profitable overall?
No. They have a vision and implementation that they want to balance and trying to shoe horn another game mode isn’t exactly easy for them to try and balance while attempting to maintain the core game.
Yes. People suck. The only tolerable multiplayer is LAN, or multiple controllers connected to the same device, possibly with split screen.
It’s complicated, but I think no. But maybe they could have certain maps where it’s PVE. I’ve recently played the pve only fork of The Cycle Frontier, another pvevp extraction shooter that got shut down a few years ago, and the pve only mode is considerably easier, to the point where the tension from the full game is not present. So a game designed to be PvEvP would probably feel soulless without part of its intended game design.
I mean obviously depends on how much time the dev’s have on it, and what the cost etc… to make both are.
If you make a game that’s expecting PVP to be the primary advantage, and the PVE is meant to be a minor time sink to add some stakes to the PVP mode, then obviously the PVE players once they start playing, will complain of the game being unfun, unbalanced etc… and then the development will have to start stretching out into other portions of the game etc…
On the other hand if the games PVE mode actually does hold on it’s own, and the majority of the PVP is effectively people that enjoy attacking people that don’t want to be in that fight… then maybe an alternative server etc… isn’t a bad idea.
Obviously no one is entitled to anything, it’s up to the developers to make the game they want. Players are welcome to play what they want.
In terms of a “would this be a good business decision or good for the game”, well that depends widely on the game.
“Should they?” No. Games are a form of art, and they have no obligation to be anything more than what they are.
That said, if their goal is to reach as many players as possible, they will miss out on a (likely) growing demographic by excluding PvE, especially if the framework is already there. Many people have no interest in duking it out with sweaty tryhards, and even if a game is lucky not to have those types, there’s still people who make it their mission to grief others whenever possible.
So I don’t think they “should,” but it’s shortsighted not to.
Not sure if they “should”. But: not every gamer can play PvP. Some people have deficits and illnesses that prevent them from even having a slide chance against human players.
You want that your game can be played by people, regardless of physical condition, or by the elderly (and in sense of games this means 30+ sometimes)?
Than yes , yous should provide such a node of you already have some vE in there. Of course , multiplayer games are multiplayer games.
But this is the same conversation like “should games have an easy mode”
I personally would love to play for example the eldenring series, but I can’t. I am physically not able to play the game with the required precision. And let me tell you, seeing arguments like “learn to play” are hurtful.
So, maybe consider this side in further arguments
At least with Elden Ring you can play offline and use mods to do things like reduce difficulty or something and you generally aren’t going to negatively effect other player’s experience with the game.
If there is a second mode, how do I influence other players negatively?
I am talking about using mods / “cheating” in a game that has an online function.
If you mod Elden Ring, youre most likely playing offline and not ruining other player’s experience. But you can’t mod/cheat a game that is online only without ruining other player’s experience.
They don’t have to, but having one would significantly increase the chances of the genre being successful.
All of the games in the genre that don’t have a PvE mode see high success for less than a year before player numbers fall below 10k average players. The only really exception is Tarkov, which is basically the Fornite of the genre, except it actually was the first of the genre unlike Fortnite.
ARC Raiders should have one in particular because it was originally supposed to be a coop PvE game, and was forced into its current genre by Nexon.
Do we know Nexon forced them to change genres? The devs explained that their PvE only concept just wasn’t fun hence the change but who knows how much Nexon has a say past monetization strategies.
I agree with the other comments. “Should” kind of frames this as a necessity. It’s not - no one gets to dictate what’s in the game except for the developers. But I will have a hard time without a clean PvE mode, especially if the game wants to be both PvE and PvP.
Why? Because in PvE you are dependent on the community of the game. And sometimes it’s great, but sometimes it can really suck the fun out of a game. Having the option to chill and not interact with anyone can be great of you don’t wanna gamble on the community, especially when you wanna play to decompress after a work day.