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Tuesday, 11 September 2012

PVE games, PvP games, griefers and highsec kills

Posted on 22:00 by Unknown
There are lot of PvP games out there. Games where you advance by defeating enemy players. Chess is a pure PvP-game. There is no PvE content in chess, all you can do is fighting other players. You can elevate on the ladder only by defeating other players and if you are defeated, you lose rating. Chess is a non-consensual PvP game, the only way to avoid PvP is not playing.

You can play chess against a computer. Does it violate the above statement? Does playing against a computer make you play "PvE chess"? No. Not because some computer AIs are so good that they can defeat master players. Not because some day a true AI will be created who will have true intelligence and self-awareness and playing chess against it wouldn't be different than playing against an equally rated player. Not even because if you play on a computer, you might be unable to tell if your opponent is the computer, or another player over the internet.

The reason why playing chess against a computer is still PvP is that the computer opponent uses the same tools as you. The computer has the same pieces, can make the same move. The computer AI obeys the same rules as a player, therefore it is a player. Maybe a bad player who can be easily defeated, but no different than an equally bad human player. There are such bots for HL Counterstrike, League of Legends, Starcraft and they don't decrease the PvP nature of these games. Since the bots usually suck, defeating them is considered newbie activity, something that help you learn the basics. One that only plays against a bot therefore considered a "noob", a bad player who can only defeat the weak bots.

PvE games can be defined as games where the computer opponent obeys different rules as the player. For example the quilboars of WoW or the Guristas of EVE just spawn from nothing, use different skills and their strength is different from the strength of a player in equal sized character. For example the lvl 10 quilboar warrior has much smaller armor and DPS than a lvl 10 player, while a raidboss has much-much more HP than the players and meant to be defeated 1 v 25. Defeating such "mobs" is either considered "grinding" or "completing content", but not actual combat. You can only compete against an opponent. The quilboars are not opponents for any player, while a chess AI is an opponent. It beats some players and loses to some, but it plays the same game as you.

In PvP games the competition is direct. You win chess by defeating opponents. There is competition in PvE games too. 100m running is a PvE sport. You are in your lane, running against the time of other players. You have to reach the goal zone before they do, and they can do nothing to stop you except by "completing the content" faster. Such competition can be seen in WoW World first fights.

Now to the interesting topic: griefers. Ever heard of chess-griefers? I didn't. Does it mean that chess players are all gentlemen? Maybe, so let's look at a much less gentlemanly game: boxing. Any stories of box-griefers? No, the ear-bite doesn't count, as the biter was banned from the game.

In PvP games, the goal is to defeat the other player, to destroy his ingame assets: remove his chess pieces, kill his avatar in CS, knock his body out in the boxing ring. The game is already all-out PvP, you can't be more destructive to the opponent than you already are without breaking the game rules. You are here to defeat him, take away his rating, break his dreams of winning. No trash talk or random idiocy can beat that. Besides exploits, the game rules of a video game cannot be broken as they are enforced by the code, so there cannot be griefing in PvP video games without bugs. (I ignore teamkillers as they are a by-product of automatic matching, you don't have them in handpicked teams).

"Griefing" can only happen in PvE games. It can only be defined in PvE. Griefing is an act that delays another player from reaching his goal while it delays me equally, which is stupid as the third player will get ahead of both of us. If arthasdklol parks his mammoth mount on the top of the postbox, other players can't use the box. He can't use it either and he can't do anything since he is sitting on the box. His action is totally pointless in-game, and has only one goal: inconveniencing other players. It doesn't make arthasdklol win, actually it makes him lose (as he is locked out from every game activity while sitting on the box, while his opponents are only locked out of the box).

There are lot of usage of the term "griefer" in EVE, proving that most people experience it as a PvE game. They believe that they can "win" it by reaching some goal (ISK, ship type, standing) before the others and blowing their ship up randomly serves no competitive purpose for the attacker, he is just after tears. Maybe the developers didn't mean this. Maybe they wanted players to PvP. But they failed to implement any reward system that makes most of the players fight (for any other reason than "harvesting tears"). There is Sov map. There are resources in nullsec. They clearly meant players to fight for it. (more about it in a later post). They probably ignored the fact that most MMO players just want to improve their character and they won't risk it unless they are forced. PvP games force them: you fight an opponent in chess or don't play chess. In EVE, you can stay forever in highsec, or dock up when neutral arrives in null while "improving your character". Many don't even see why should they fight. To grief a stranger?

Not having clear definitions lead people consider completely valid PvP "griefing" and demand developers to stop it. Like this snowflake thread where some genius demands more developer help against destroying freighters overfilled with valuable loot. Since the loot is valuable, taking it increases ones power. The attackers will be more rich after the attack (assuming average drop-loss rate) than before. This is the definition of competitive PvP: your loss is my gain. It is not griefing (your loss is my loss too, but I don't care lol). Players can always win competitive PvP by playing better. For example by not filling 20B cargo to a freighter. Next time use an Orca for the small and valuable cargo, or carry it in 1B batches in a freighter.

Wednesday morning report: 144.4B, Damn the FW exploits and CCP being so slow with the fix. (5.5 spent on main accounts, 3.6 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.6 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Avatar, 17.4 sent as gift)
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