What is Anet's objective for PVE ?

disclaimer : this is not a PvE vs PvP and should not derive into such, but all points of view from all players are welcome

The main objective of the game is PvP as we are all aware of, and i'm fine with it (thought i almost never do PvP). But i'm starting to wonder how does Anet plan to make PvE evolve in the long run.

I'm 95% PvE (the 5% left is PvP in team arenas with guildies) because i like the MMORPG-look that GW has. Looking around me i see a huge fanbase for the PvE aspect of the game and i know many people that prefer to do missions/explore rather than play PvP.

New content such as tombs or SF is refreshing, and surely cantha will improve the PvE aspect of the game adding some fun while exploring it. But what's the plan on PvE game modifications for the futur ? Is Anet going to focus more on this part of the game (not dropping the PvP aspect of course) by making it more dynamical ?

Best example of small tricks but good add-on value, look at the titans quest. Mineral spring is the same area but the quest/mobs is different and it adds some interest to go back there and face a different challenge. I wish there were a lot of new quests using this principle it's a great feature.

Maybe PvE isn't the main goal of the game, but if there's a big fanbase improving the PvE aspect would surely benefit the game.

At least that's what i'm thinking what about you ?

Of course PvE will be improved. How, I do not know. Just have to wait and see.

Since GW is still rather new and still working on it's balancing, it seems to me that all tweaks and balancing "get permission" from PvP first. That is not a knock at PvP at all. Keep reading.
Any and all skills that need improvement for PvE have to be checked and double checked in PvP so that the PvP side maintains it's balance. Problem with this is simple, AI does not equal a PvP player. So, it opens PvE situations that are exploitable or makes the skills completely useless.

I don't play PvP at all. 100% PvE. PvP opt in/out was the only reason I bought the game. I love it, so please no silly comments like "You're playing the wrong game". All people in my guild 100% PvE.

The way I see it, and in talking with guildies and others that claim to 100% PvE, too further improve PvE is to seperate the two, not bring them closer.

Take Factions for example: What does it mean when they say "Pull more people into PvP"? I don't want to be pulled into something PvP. In fact, after my first forced PvP session going from pre to post searing I sat there allowing the other team to kill me off while I went to go get a drink. I find PvP boring and just wanted through the area. If Factions has more quests and missions like that, I may find myself playing something else. That's not a rage quit threat, it's a simple fact that I don't enjoy PvP. I do hope to see some multiple group situations vs the enviroment though. I think it's awesome some people do enjoy PvP and I will often cheer on my country for gaining and keeping favor. There should be enough for all player types to play as they want, not a forcing of each on each other. PvP only players complain they have to unlock via PvE, I think that's unfair to them.

As too where Anet is going with PvE? We'll really have to wait and see. Forcing PvP or "pushing" it will cause me to leave as well as others I bet. PvP may sell to a small group of people (probably larger than I am giving credit too), but PvP does not keep long term players. Shadowbane? Asheron's Call 2? Each of these had strong PvP or all PvP aspects to it, both are dead. I think Lineage (2) is the only one left alive that focuses on PvP so stongly, but that is set to such a massive scale, it works. My feelings on the matter are PvE sold me and others, PvE will keep me and others. I am sure Anet knows where they are going though... well, at least I hope so. I enjoy this game right now and would like to continue doing so.

Lastly, PvP allows for some lack of creative building on a devs part. What?!? This will probably get me knocked over the head, but that's cool. Think about it. Arena type games (FPS) are game engines with a story line thrown on top of a PvP game. The devs set the stage with the game engine and the players bring the content. I would rather the devs give the content, build the engine for the content then the players (me) enjoy it.

My opinion anyway.

yes there is a pve update in factions the elite ones for factions that hold the town. sure it'll have some pvp in it but probly not to the extreme competiveness that turns you away from it.

well the main prob for pve is its to easy to beat. thats what the game lacks is a challenge in pve. if you look at other mmorpgs you can see there no basic end to it they always have new content to explore new quest etc. as for guild wars there been what 4 additions? fow uw topk and sf. all these are easily beat and once theyve came out builds have beencreated to beat them as fast as possible. example bein is barrage pet in topk with it you can beat the entire map in just over 30 min. and with uw theres the 55 monk tanking. they take like 0 damage and yeah. as for beating the game all u do is beat hells precipe do the titan quests and boom ur pretty much done. they need to give pve more things to do like add in new maps more often. or makn the old ones have fresh challenges like lets say adding new monsters to the different regions.

Yeah, i to am 95% PvE, most of my guildies are to. I would be concerned if factions was being brought out to try and lure more pve people into pvp, because if thats so, Anet is a dreaming about something that'll never come true.

But, if factions is aimed at pvp more than pve [And if Anet state that it is], then i would hope for some more areas and sections of tryia to be opened up for pve.

they need to have randome skill sets for monsters =D

New chapters will have to include more PvE content. Think about it .... how much can you add to PvP except new maps, new skills and maybe new armors. Other than that it's the same old "team A vs. team B" with minor variations. PvE is where new content can and will be added. New missions and quests, new unique drops, etc. The only thing I don't like is this attitude the PvE players will be forced to PvP in order to get more content.

We shall see.

Mobs desperately need unique skills to compete with players. The AI will never be strong enough to be challenging.

They don't have to unlock via PVE. They can just PVP to gain Faction, and unlock things using Faction points. Generally, unlocking 1 item costs 1000 faction.

Now, that just means that it's more *efficient* to unlock things via PVE, but really, if you're that PVP focused, you don't have to touch PVE at *all*.

Now that's just crazy talk! Sounds like some old school SP fan talk to me. :P (SP = Single Player)

You're right, though, many games these days are taking the PVP craze and farming it for big bucks because it means they don't have to put as much work into the campaigns, storyboarding, etc.

Hell, HL2 was probably voted "GOTY" when we all know what the real story is: it's a thin veil of a SP campaign for a game engine that was created to drive more counterstrike sales for a few years.

Cynical, I know, but probably not far from the truth...

If you focus on PVP in your game, it also means you get to skimp *ALOT* on time that would otherwise be spent on refining NPC AI routines, which leads us into our next post...

eudas

Oh, come on, that's not true.

They just need to put a little bit of programmer time onto the Henchman and Monster AI. They all, largely, use the same AI, and it's largely pretty stupid. They need to go through and create customizations on it, refinements of the AI.

If they spent even a little bit of time on it (and I'm talking more than just the AoE AI update), you could probably make the monsters pretty damned murderous. Thing is. nobody wants to hear the bottom 10% complaining that "it's too hard!" That kind of thing impacts sales, you see, as the uber casual gamers who can't be bothered to even reach nominal proficiency in the game avoid games with challenges and go play Barbie Horse Adventures. The other thing is, they got the AI to a "good enough" stage, and now nobody wants to spend more time on it.

Anet: SPEND SOME MORE TIME ON MONSTER & NPC AI ROUTINES.

eudas

From what I understand you'll have to play some form of PvP in order to gain access to elite PvE missions. Not sure if I like the idea or not due to not knowing what the whole deal is. I'm certainly not a PvP player and my guild is 3 people including myself and I think they're even less PvP than I am. heh....

I think the SF update gave one indication of where PvE is going. Mob spawn triggers based on quest updates, more interactive NPCs during the quest and a general increase in quest difficulty are all seen in the SF update.

A second indication of where PvE is going is the mob AI update. Ultimately skill balance is based on an 8v8 PvP situation (i.e. GvG). The closer the mob AI emulates player behaviour in GvG the more balanced a skill will appear in PvE. An imbalanced skill in PvE will be an imbalanced skill in PvP and hopefully will receive an appropriate change.

Can mob AI ever emulate player behaviour? Probably not, but currently there is plenty of room for improvement. And if you were in an optional PvE mission and could not communicate with the mobs (local chat was disabled), but the mobs you were fighting exhibited very strong AI in both skill selection and execution (and had player type names) are you fighting advanced mob AI or players dressed in PvE clothing?

See, that's kinda what I'm talking about. Heck, Anet has access to server logs for just about everything. Watch some of the top rated Healers in GVG wars, and program the mob monk AI's to emulate that behaviour. Watch some top rated Mesmers, and have Mesmer AI's act accordingly. Etc. Stick it in a feedback loop, and you can have the PVE mob AI's changing tactics based on new things learned in the PVP environment, so that if you change a skill to make it less attractive and players stop using it as much, the mobs will, too, and vice versa: make a skill more attractive, and players start using it more, so mobs do too.

Make the mob use certain subroutines based on what skills it has access to (i.e., which skills you've allocated as available for that particular mob type), and code some optimization based on available combos of subroutines (a really fancy way of saying to make the mob look at what it has available to use and use intelligent combinations of skills, much like a player would). Heck, do like the feedback loop mentioned above, and have it learn based on skill combos that players use as well.

The better you make the AI, the more playing the regular game becomes an exciting campaign against intelligent, coordinated opponents instead of dumb mobs whose job is to die. It also has the side effect of training the general populace better for PVP environment, which may itself have a side effect of increasing PVP involvement and creating a healthier ecology in that environment.

eudas

(In my own opinion) I think that eudas' last idea is pretty idiotic. PvE is not the same as PvP... and just because you attempt to make the monster AI act like the PvP Humans' Intelligence... that really won't work out as well as you're thinking. In a typical GvG match, its 8v8 total... people will die on both sides, and you'll end up with DP on both sides... and it'll be (hopefully) even the whole way through. Now... PvE, you're probably not gonna be fighting 8v8 at any time... it'll either be 6v8 or 12v8 or whatever, but its not gonna be the same balance there. Also, if the computer can perfectly emulate the Human Intelligence... then the human players are gonna die, which puts them at a SERIOUS disadvantage, since they still have to try and drop many enemies... with less health/energy to do so. How does this "balance" PvE as much as PvP? Just my two cents.

Well I know that Anet is working to improve the rpg of this game. GW ia not only a pvp but a rpg. They market their product of such. The Fan base for GW is mainly pG'ers fan base Anet has said that. So they really making fractions more pve players. However Anet sees both pve and pvp as important. Anet knows they did not make a strong enough rpg and they have said they will work on it.

In fact Gaile grey did say at want one point when they were making fractions she was a little worried. Anet is still a new company they are still learning. I am sure they realize both pvp and rpg players need to balanced for this game to work. Anet knows that their rpg is weak and they are working on it. PVE is very important to GW.

What I have to say to Anet is night and day is very important.

here is a link
http://www.gwonline.net/articles/art...7&action=part1

My only beef with PvP is the forced grouping. This is another point where I expect people to say." You're playing the wrong game." I don't like being thrown together with random people. I like structure and order and a team dynamic that can't be accomplished with random groups. That's why I solo most of the game or use henchmen most of the time. I'm all for more PvE content. I enjoy that aspect of the game more. I like finding new items and trying them out. I find that more rewarding than a little fame and a rank up on the ladder. It's a palpable reward as opposed to the reward of simple recognition. I could care less if I'm known or if my guild is known which is the only real reward for PvP, aside from the occasional tournament prize.

A healthier PvE dynamic would increase the fan base as well. Many who enjoy a more traditional MMORPG type experience and who are turned off by the PvP aspect of the game might be persuaded to come around with the addition of some more PvE content. I'd like to see the streaming updates used to add more quests and maps and other goodies for PvE players. Again I may be accused of "playing the wrong game" but to me a game like this should focus more on PvE and have PvP as a sideline only. Particularly with the way this PvP is set up with groups. Now that is not to say that a sideline cannot be as robust and well rounded as the main stay of a game. Tack on all the PvP content you want just remember this is a RPG and RPG's are about building a character and exploring not about racking up frags. I can appreciate the unique direction ANet decided to take when they made this game but I think it would benefit from going back to the roots of the genre.

I have said this before to alot of pvp players you cannot change pve to what pvp player wants. pve is alot different than pvp. Pvp players want different things than pve player. Anet knows this and they are going to ask pve players on they want in pve. They will not ask pvp player how to change pvp. They did that once and had a major back lash. Pve players want to enjoy the way they want to play.

I would like to say that the main fan base for GW is people who play pve. So meaning you upset the pve players, it will have a major impact on pvp.

*chuckle*

well, ok, maybe it's not the most brilliant idea in that context... i may have gotten a bit overenthusiastic.

But my point, i think, still stands: there's a lot that the AI could learn from watching the humans that play the game, and while it doesn't have to learn perfectly (because, in the extreme case, it would then *always* defeat the humans, and that wouldn't be fun for the humans), the data could still be used to improve the AI from where it stands now.

eudas

I'm 100% PvE and if Factions is all about PvP then you'll find me with my new assassin and ritualist spending 100% of my time in chapter 1 prophecies.