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Vib Rib posted:Forced, high consequence PVP is something I'll cry about in every genre. I wish Ark could have been a more focused, singleplayer or co-op exclusive experience. But I also find myself wishing for that in non-survival games, like Escape from Tarkov. I'm just not competitive enough to keep up. I guess it doesn't matter anyway because in both communities PvP seems to be the only reason to play for a majority of players. I've seen so much Ark talk about private or personal servers to the tune of "why would you ever play this except to raid other people?" Do so many people enjoy the PvP aspect so much? My understanding (from friends who follow the game more closely), is that the devs purposefully want to keep player count low and "hardcore". But even if attracting "hardcore players" was the case, you could have optional PvP lobbies with gated high-tier loot, so PvP is still optional and yet brings about a reward if you engage in it.
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Feb 23, 2021 15:41
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Ghost of Mussolini posted:Do so many people enjoy the PvP aspect so much? There really are two types of games: -Games where you play against the system. You are solving a puzzle, figuring out mechanics, and your satisfaction in playing the game comes from "solving the puzzle". This is every PVE game out there. -Games where you play against an opponent (be it AI or real person). Here a real person will almost always have a leg up against an AI unless you're playing Chess or Go or Starcraft or something. Programming an engaging AI that responds like a human is very, very, very difficult -- so I think a lot of developers just figure "eh, why bother?" and instead make their games PVP focused. It saves them from dealing with the best that is AI programming, and also gets them all those sweet Twitch views because apparently that's what everything is about these days. That being said there was definitely a time in my life where I was really into the PvP aspect of games. Being part of a guild/tribe/whatever, building up our base/empire/whatever and warring with others who were doing the same. It's a satisfying style of gameplay, but I also found that I outgrew it sometime in my late 20s, when I started having less time to care about things like "spending 6-8 hours every evening logged into guild/tribe chat and actively playing the game". And I guess to a lesser extent I grew out of the bad habit of making my fun in a game contingent on someone else being the loser.
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Feb 23, 2021 16:44
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explosivo posted:Tarkov bums me out for this reason. It seems like a game I would normally love but kept getting blown away every time I'd play so I just never brought any gear with me which defeated the whole purpose of the game. I liked doing scav runs because it was pretty low stakes. I might revisit it at some point if I'm ever able to get a new video card, it also kinda ran like crap last time I tried it which didn't help. Ghost of Mussolini posted:Tarkov PvE in which you coop build a base with your buddies would be fantastic, and I don't understand why they don't do it. PVP heavy games like Tarkov, especially with the looting and gear loss mechanics, really mean your best highs are almost always someone else's lows. And if you're bad, you're the one taking the lows.
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Feb 23, 2021 16:45
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Vib Rib posted:7 Days to Die style game but with Tarkov looting and shooting mechanics, maybe a bit more functional base building. Oh yeah, I always forget 7 Days to Die as a good survival game that I've enjoyed. That, but with some of the more modern trappings of bigger-budget games, would be great.
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Feb 23, 2021 16:48
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PvP games are also the only way you can really do... hostile politics and dynamic strategizing? Politics is something even the best AI factions aren't remotely capable of yet, not to a level that is genuinely engaging, and strategy wise they become a solved problem after one encounter pretty much every time and its a lot of dev work to do even slightly better. The only game I've seen even *attempt* to implement that well is Rain World, and even there it is... obtuse and fairly simple (but very fun!). Yes, I am ignoring the joke of an attempt that various civ building games implement, there's a minimum bar for it to count and none of them clear it. That stuff makes for compelling, ever shifting gameplay and its basically only ever really available in pvp environments. Its the same reason you can't play a game built around them, like Among Us, with AIs. It just doesn't work. And people love that stuff! Obviously this doesnt really apply to the pvp games that are *just* see someone, shoot someone. But a lot of survival pvp aims for more than that.
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Feb 23, 2021 16:56
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That all sounds great but PvP in games like Ark or Conan is downright awful. I had my poo poo destroyed plenty of times and it always happened when I wasn't playing. This isn't fun or engaging in any way and amounts to little more than griefing as a gameplay mechanic. Hopefully with the success of Valheim we'll see more PvE survival games and less lazy PvP. If I want to kill other players I'll go play Battlefield or some other game that's actually put some more thought into it.
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Feb 23, 2021 17:06
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Drone posted:There really are two types of games: For what its worth, I think the AI opponents in Tarkov are good, both the scavs and the geared up high-end scavs and mercs. I think there could be a lot of fun to be had in PVE coop vs these enemies. Vib Rib posted:That was about my experience. I went "rat" pretty often and made out well with some scav runs, largely because they occur later into the raid when lots of people have already left or died, but otherwise it was a disaster.
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Feb 23, 2021 17:20
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Lots of games do it poorly and are more focused on making things fun for griefers than any sort of actual pvp, you're right. But then, there's a reason why everyone says not to play in pub lobbies in games like Among Us. Even games that are well designed and built specifically to cater to the fun sort of pvp often don't survive contact with the public. :V I think having fun in Ark basically requires finding a good server to play on, from everything I've heard? (I've avoided it myself because it sounds hellishly grindy)
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Feb 23, 2021 17:24
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PVP works way better when the expectation is that you're there exclusively to fight. Circumstantial PVP will always suck. I have never enjoyed a game that is "oh will this guy kill me or not" because not only is the answer usually "yes" but those games is more about gear or numbers imbalances than any actual challenge, so the "best" players are people who just poopsock more, rather than practice. This has been true in every survival game i've played, its been true in every space game i've tried (looking at you, eve and elite dangerous) and its been true dayz/all its spinoffs.
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Feb 23, 2021 17:24
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Minecraft does pretty well with pretty normalized "circumstantial pvp is always on" behaviour, I think. Part of the problem is, bringing it back around, for pvp to be interesting in a "more than just a dumb shooter" sort of way, there also need to be real incentives to not engaging in pvp, and a game that's built with those in mind. Or it just becomes a shooter where the only people you can trust are the ones you bring into the game with you So I agree that even the pvp focused games should stop being lazy and implement fun pve stuff to go along with it.
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Feb 23, 2021 17:28
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For the people interested in a single player Tarkov/SP-Tarkov, there actually exists a third party made server emulator for it that basically lets you play the offline mode but keep your progression (though not on the official server, obviously). I'm not gonna link it directly cause I'm not sure if it crosses the rules line here, but it does require a legit (and still active/current) Tarkov copy/account in order to get the game's files from (which you then slap the SP stuff on top of a copy of). Its quite playable, and even has PMC bots (though they're kinda just like well geared scavs). It even has modding. There is, however, no multiplayer component (So no teaming up with friends) and never will be, and they've said they'll discontinue work on it the moment if BSG ever sends them a C&D, but its there.
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Feb 23, 2021 17:39
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Galaga Galaxian posted:For the people interested in a single player Tarkov/SP-Tarkov, there actually exists a third party made server emulator for it that basically lets you play the offline mode but keep your progression (though not on the official server, obviously). I'm not gonna link it directly cause I'm not sure if it crosses the rules line here, but it does require a legit (and still active/current) Tarkov copy/account in order to get the game's files from (which you then slap the SP stuff on top of a copy of). Its quite playable, and even has PMC bots (though they're kinda just like well geared scavs). It even has modding. There is, however, no multiplayer component (So no teaming up with friends) and never will be, and they've said they'll discontinue work on it the moment if BSG ever sends them a C&D, but its there. I do remember hearing about this and meant to check it out, sounds interesting. I might have to look into this for real this time. Seems dumb that people have to make a mod that does this that is one wrong move away from getting C&D'd but here we are!
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Feb 23, 2021 17:47
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SP-Tarkov looks more my speed but I have a friend who's sunk a lot of hours into it and he says there's a few small but vital discrepancies that hold it back, like how loot and item spawns are varying degrees of wrong and weird, which I guess is because they based it on Tarkov's "practice" mode? Lots of things that add up to problems with progression and looting, which are some of the biggest factors. Anyway all BSG would have to do is make you have separate characters for PVP and PVE. No moving a character or items from one to the other. Two discrete ecosystems would fix basically all the problems, and I know there's people out there who'd be all in on the game if it was PVE instead of hardcore PVP. This is such an easy move, it could be done with existing architecture (as the existence of a mod enabling it proves!) and thousands of people who are turned off by the game as it is now would suddenly jump at the chance to buy it. Seems like a no-brainer, but they really are a company all about their specific vision of what the game is supposed to be.
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Feb 23, 2021 20:37
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I actually really like the way Elite handles this. You've got standard mode, open to pvp. You've got group mode, open only to your group, with pvp still enabled but obviously disincentivized since it can get you kicked from the group if you're an rear end in a top hat. And then you've got solo mode. You can switch between them on the fly. Most survival games would probably have to make those per map, since they aren't instanced like Elite, but I don't think the split would be too much to ask for, even in games that are pvp focused.
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Feb 23, 2021 21:27
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To be fair I don’t consider PVE servers on survival games to go nearly far enough. Any buildings/settlements that are not aesthetically pleasing enough to meet my standards are a personal attack on me and often I can seek no recourse. 
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Feb 23, 2021 21:37
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It seems like there might be a little bit of a valheim -> conan pipeline going on lately. I know I definitely went through it. My buddies and I set up a dedicated server yesterday (I'll make a post in private game servers about it) and were both really impressed with how many tools they give you to tailor the game parameters to the kind of experience you want to have. Between that and modding we were able to smooth out a ton of the rough edges of the vanilla experience (op thrall damage, leveling by making tables) while still keeping the server pvp. E: Here's the thread if anybody is interested. S w a y z e fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Feb 24, 2021 |
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Feb 24, 2021 01:09
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Vib Rib posted:Forced, high consequence PVP is something I'll cry about in every genre. I wish Ark could have been a more focused, singleplayer or co-op exclusive experience. But I also find myself wishing for that in non-survival games, like Escape from Tarkov. I'm just not competitive enough to keep up. I guess it doesn't matter anyway because in both communities PvP seems to be the only reason to play for a majority of players. I've seen so much Ark talk about private or personal servers to the tune of "why would you ever play this except to raid other people?" I feel exactly the same. I would pay a huge amount of money just to be able to play sea of thieves without pvp. I was so hopeful for atlas co's they had a pve server, but the game was poo poo, unfortunately. I'm still waiting for the coop/solo pirate survival game of my dreams.
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Feb 24, 2021 02:38
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One of those big old "Look how many people there are! (in theory)" survival game where instead of having to poopsock every individual resource and equipment the benefit of quality stronghold upkeep is higher and higher tiers of "You have unlocked infinite loving arrows/AK47s for your allies, but still need to craft your fire arrows/Tacticool laser rifles" to cut out the bloat of naked respawns and get you back to the cool parts of the game. It would leave you striving for the cooler/coolest poo poo, but of course that also means cutting out the "Look at how many Gameplay Hours* there are!" in needing to recraft generic military fatigues or minim requirement armor instead of your filthy hoodie you spawn with and dropping everything to craft or loot more surplus grade bullets. EDIT: I just realized I'm describing essentially MGS Mother Base but with less of the most recent "Keep hitting the 'do your job' button", huh. Less "Deploy because we ran low on generic resources" stuff, more of the "Here take these MSF brand chips and drinks with you, we just have these now." vibe. Section Z fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Feb 24, 2021 |
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Feb 24, 2021 04:23
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SCUM added an option in the latest patch for server owners to set up a dedicated PVE zone. You can turn on/off things like puppet damage (the AI zombie enemies of SCUM), mech damage (big robots guarding military outposts), player damage, base damage, even lock picking, if you want to create a zone people can build their base and don't have to worry about it being demolished or raided and still go out, loot and have random PVP encounters. Those options sound pretty good for creating that sort of PVE/PVP zones, haven't tried much myself yet though. Of course the game itself is still very under EA, people are eagerly awaiting the next big patch in next few months where it will up the version to 0.5. But so far it's lacking the more elaborate survival system and the PVE side (traders, NPC's, AI patrols etc.) completely. 0.5 should add stuff like fishing, boating and a map expansion + probably some other stuff too.
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Feb 24, 2021 10:16
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Fuuuuuuck me and my friends dedicated server died. Apparently our new system of extensive moats and extra king's hall combined with our desire to race ten boats at once did it in. 48 hours of intensive labour down the shitter. I know, I know, it's early access, but this one hurt. Anyone else have problems of this nature?
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Feb 24, 2021 11:07
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One of the better PVP solutions while we were playing Ark was the "Purge Time" system, where you got a couple hours every week to do pvp. This made it very possible to pop on for that time to defend your base and then the rest of the week it was gather and build. It also meant you weren't likely to waste your couple hours raiding every wooden box you could find, but would probably organize for going after the bigger prizes. That kind of ruleset could have a place in improving online PVP and raiding. That server also had an admin store where you could exchange implants for stuff.
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Feb 24, 2021 11:17
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Anybody try Breathedge? I like the look and tone of what I've seen so far, and it seems pretty well received. Hoping to get goon opinions before I pull the trigger.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:02
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Phetz posted:Anybody try Breathedge? I like the look and tone of what I've seen so far, and it seems pretty well received. Hoping to get goon opinions before I pull the trigger. It's great. Think: irreverent Subnautica of a sort in space. I've put ~47 hours into the early access versions. It is absolutely NOT a game that takes itself seriously, and it's amazing for it.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:33
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I was hoping to hear that, it really does look like a groovy 70's space Subnautica!
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Feb 25, 2021 20:43
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I liked what I played of Breathedge in early access, but I found it to be more adventure than survival like Subnautica. And yeah, the game definitely has... a pretty distinct sense of humour.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:46
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Almost forgot Breathedge was released 2 hours ago. I still don't even know where i got it, had it on my waitlist for awhile. Must have gotten it from a key in the free games thread or something.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:46
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Oh is Breathedge out now? I remember Giantbomb looking at it what feels like years ago now and thought it looked neat but wanted to wait until it came out before seriously considering it.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:49
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Does anyone have any experience with Atlas as a single player game? I know it's primarily a multiplayer game like Ark, which I also haven't played, but I read there's an official single player mode. I tried googling around a bit but youtube is crapping out on me right now and people seem to talk mostly about the pvp aspects. I'm mostly interested in the sailing aspect of it because I have a thing for boats and cruising around in them.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:43
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I could use more sailing games. I have played Ylands, which is kinda minecrafty and went F2P but needs $20 to play SP and doesnt have actual sailing, just press forward to go. Salt, which never really left alpha. Valheim, sailing is tons of fun. Assassins Creed games had decent enough sailing.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:10
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I love sailing and wish there was more games with it. I beat Sea of Thieves to absolute death with a buddy and that scratched a lot of the itch but I always crave more. Valheim is good, but give me more.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:12
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Yeah sailing around in Sea of Thieves is honestly incredible, but I hate literally everything else about that game so it's kind of a bummer. Valheim was great too, those stormy journeys with a hull full of silver when you can't see a few feet in front of your boat were real tense.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:13
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the pvp/pve debate cant really ever be truly fixed because the most fun you can have in a dedicated pvp game (or pve game with pvp) is just stomping all over people who do not want to pvp (diablo 2, ultima online, goofballs that think rust is friendly), and the best games are the one that have created a loop of pve that is fun and empowering enough that the latter people enjoy the process, can at least put a fight when they have to, or its rare enough that they spend enough time between incidents that they dont want to quit
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Feb 25, 2021 22:28
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OgNar posted:I could use more sailing games. I just started playing Windbound a bit and it has probably the best wind & sailing mechanics I've seen, basically just by also including tightening/loosening your sail. So you gotta tighten up to sail across or into the wind, but then if you get a good enough cross-wind and tighten up too much and hold the rudder straight it'll actually capsize you, especially if there's some waves too. It really nails the feeling of skimming over the sea in a small boat, it's dope. The only catch is that it's pretty cartoonish artistically, between that and the polynesian style boats (dugout canoe/outriggers/catamarans) it seems really influenced by Disney's Moana, so, y'know, I could see that putting people off. I would loving love to see Valheim add Windbound's more in-depth sailing mechanics, if they did that I'd probbly never stop playing it. Uh also I only grabbed Windbound cos they just had it 50% off on Steam, tbh I really wouldn't recommend playing full price for it. e] Yea the keybind thing is weird as hell , probably made to play with a controller My big recommendation would be to play it on adventure/easy difficulty, the survival side of things is just annoying otherwise, and the game works best when you can focus on just sailing around finding new stuff to craft to make better boats. e]e] re the keybinding, I haven't found them to be too bad, I think there's been like one thing I wanted to change so far, I wouldn't have even known about the issue otherwise. Definitely a bizarre oversight but I wouldn't say it's gamebreaking at all. Radical 90s Wizard fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Feb 25, 2021 |
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Feb 25, 2021 22:55
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Radical 90s Wizard posted:I just started playing Windbound a bit and it has probably the best wind & sailing mechanics I've seen, basically just by also including tightening/loosening your sail. So you gotta tighten up to sail across or into the wind, but then if you get a good enough cross-wind and tighten up too much and hold the rudder straight it'll actually capsize you, especially if there's some waves too. It really nails the feeling of skimming over the sea in a small boat, it's dope. I've been wanting to grab that for awhile but it has quite a few bad reviews and the fact you can't edit your keys really turns me off. Would buy in a second otherwise, even with the bad reviews.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:58
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It’s not really a survival game but as far as sailing goes I continue to be frustrated a new Sid Meier’s Pirates! Or spiritual successor has yet to appear.
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Feb 26, 2021 00:01
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Breathedge has a very, very specific and hard to describe Russian/Eastern European indie jank that's hard to shake. If you're familiar with it, you'll recognize it here. It's a little difficult for me to get over, especially with all the toilet humor, and it always feels like there's mechanics that were more ambitious than the game allows.
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Feb 26, 2021 00:27
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Vib Rib posted:SP-Tarkov looks more my speed but I have a friend who's sunk a lot of hours into it and he says there's a few small but vital discrepancies that hold it back, like how loot and item spawns are varying degrees of wrong and weird, which I guess is because they based it on Tarkov's "practice" mode? Lots of things that add up to problems with progression and looting, which are some of the biggest factors. Mind you, it still managed to really grip me and I put in so much time that I torpedoed my carefully laid plan to actually play some games on my Steam backlog. The shooting and general in the game really is top notch that even with all the issues I had tons of fun, especially when I installed a mod that made the AI more deadly and spawn in more often.Totally agree that a proper PvE server to coop with friends would be dope but it'll never happen sadly. Also agreeing with the whole "I hate when games try to force PvP onto you" sentiment.
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Feb 26, 2021 02:17
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I believe those issues have been fixed. They even got an emulated flea market in development.
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Feb 26, 2021 02:29
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Verviticus posted:the pvp/pve debate cant really ever be truly fixed because the most fun you can have in a dedicated pvp game (or pve game with pvp) is just stomping all over people who do not want to pvp (diablo 2, ultima online, goofballs that think rust is friendly), and the best games are the one that have created a loop of pve that is fun and empowering enough that the latter people enjoy the process, can at least put a fight when they have to, or its rare enough that they spend enough time between incidents that they dont want to quit I don't even think it is a matter of "most fun", because there is a lot of fun in beating a fully armed player to death with rocks when you can get away with it. It's more that gear is often rare enough that the only way to enjoy it is when there is little chance of it being taken away from you, which means that fair fights are completely out the window. Not to mention the social aspect of it is key. Sure something like most modern shooters means sniping someone from ten thousand feet away, but if you look at something like Sea of Thieves or Runescape's PVP wilderness then tricking gullible players into letting you kill them is half the fight.
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Feb 26, 2021 02:42
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I mean sea of thieves has so much more fun PvP for dumb things like my buddy jumping on another ship with an explosive barrel and asking everyone to stay calm and we intended to ransom some garbage piece of their loot fornot blowing up the ship. The guy shot it, blew up his own ship, and on the death boat told us “I don’t negotiate with terrorists.” It was hilarious for both parties. But that would never happen if the stakes were higher for the game because there wouldn’t be room to be goofy. And further, I recognize even that level of goofy low stakes PvP is still more than a lot of people want. It’s such a tough balance and it’s going to be different for almost every player.
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Feb 26, 2021 03:09
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