Pvp, combat, and toxic communities

[Stroam]

I've seen a lot of combat suggestions and other suggestions revolving around making PvP combat better. I understand a lot of people enjoy killing things in video games, if that wasn't the case it wouldn't be the largest part of the video game market. I also understand a lot of people enjoy PvP because it takes killing to the next level. However, when I think of the most toxic communities out there they often revolve around highly competitive PvP style games. On the contrary, whenever I think about the most supportive communities it is around games that focus on things such building and collecting. There are exceptions to this trend but a trend can't be denied. I really like the community Vintage Story has going for it at the moment and I'm sure many would agree. Is anyone else concerned that if the game became popular for combat and PvP, that it would attract the type of players that make those other communities so toxic?

[Allen]

PvP, especially competitive pvp, does lead to toxicity, but not all combat is about PvP.

The current combat is basically 'back away and stab/throw spear at thing, usually in water if it's faster than you', which is pretty dull, and can get kind annoying considering how many wolves and drifters wander around the place. 

Improvements to overall combat makes pvp more of a content, but it also helps out PvE too(as long as you don't add purely PvP centric mechanics).

[junawood]

I wasn't worried about toxicity yet, though I've already experienced some on a server where PvP was allowed and I have to say that people asking for more (PvP) combat stuff and suggesting wars between NPC cities just makes me hope that this game doesn't go in that direction. Yes, you most likely have to kill animals and monsters, but I really don't want the whole humans against humans part that I'm so sick of IRL. I want survival, crafting, exploring, building, farming, collecting interesting stuff and some lore, things like that... But no wars and humans fighting against humans.

[Erik]

Good combat alone won't attract or lead to a toxic community. Competitive PvP however could. Competitive multiplayer games, especially team based ones (Counter-Strike, Rocket League, League of Legends, etc.), have always been a breeding ground for toxic behavior. For survival games there are also a few examples of particularly PvP focused ones like Ark Survival Evolved and especially Rust, where the core enjoyment revolves around raiding other peoples bases and trying to conquer whole servers. When the core gameplay motivation is griefing other peoples bases, you can bet that it will get toxic very quickly, especially in unmoderated environments that official game servers offer. However both of those games have arguably bad combat systems, where player skill is a very low factor and gear is decisive, so I don't think adding some improvements to PvP combat while focusing mostly on PvE combat would do much harm if any at all.

The combat system won't be the biggest factor that leads to the emergence of a potentially toxic competitive or PvP survival community, Minecraft evolved both things without ever having a good combat system for example. The forming of toxic subcultures are a thing that can't really be prevented, when anyone can host their own server, but as long as Vintage Story will stay primarily a survival sandbox game, the larger community is gonna stay nice.

[Perlin]

I think having a more interesting combat system would for the most part improve the game. Have a good system in your game that would work well with PvE & PvP, but don't make PvP, or the combat in general, a main focus. Games that focus on their PvP combat more then any other aspect tend to have the most toxic communities. But, it's still important to have a good combat system in open ended games like Vintage Story, just to have good PvP an option for the players who want it. Even if combat doesn't change, or the combat does change, but doesn't bring attention to competitive PvP, toxicity is bound to happen at some point if the game gets more popular. Any popular game community is going to have a toxic, hateful side, and that's fine, as long as that side of the community doesn't grow, and stays the minority.

[AngryRob]

Is it pvp that makes those communities toxic? Dark souls had pvp, but that community is pretty awesome. This is not really a combat game, its more of a "do not starve to death game", and i think once the survival aspects are ramped up people will not be wanting pvp as much. I have noticed that the games where the environment is very dangerous have nice communities. Rust has a controversial community, yet 7 days to die which is very similar has a nicer one. Based on my observations, the competitive games draw in people who think everything has to be a navy seal exercise, while the nasty real world survival games draw in a more intellectual crowed that is cooler. 

 

[Stroam]

I have read every single reply here and I like the discussion that is happening here. Everyone seems to be in slight agreeance that combat in its self is not the issue, but everyone has slightly different takes on what causes toxic communities.

[Allen]

On 10/30/2020 at 12:32 PM, AngryRob said:

Is it pvp that makes those communities toxic? Dark souls had pvp, but that community is pretty awesome. This is not really a combat game, its more of a "do not starve to death game", and i think once the survival aspects are ramped up people will not be wanting pvp as much. I have noticed that the games where the environment is very dangerous have nice communities. Rust has a controversial community, yet 7 days to die which is very similar has a nicer one. Based on my observations, the competitive games draw in people who think everything has to be a navy seal exercise, while the nasty real world survival games draw in a more intellectual crowed that is cooler. 

 

The dark souls community itself is pretty nice, but the dark souls pvp community can be quite toxic, especially with their 'dual code' and their tendency to murder (technically) allies because they didn't like what they did.

Generally, I think any game that throws people against each other in some way can't really avoid toxicity in some form since it's easy get annoyed/angry at someone you beats, you, especially if the method felt 'bullshit' to you.

Games with big PvE dangers get generally nicer communities since everyone has a more or less shared experience and common enemy to bond over. That said, having things be too difficult can put a lot of casual players off or lead to somewhat gatekeeping-ish things, so.

[AngryRob]

13 hours ago, Allen said:

The dark souls community itself is pretty nice, but the dark souls pvp community can be quite toxic, especially with their 'dual code' and their tendency to murder (technically) allies because they didn't like what they did.

Generally, I think any game that throws people against each other in some way can't really avoid toxicity in some form since it's easy get annoyed/angry at someone you beats, you, especially if the method felt 'bullshit' to you.

Games with big PvE dangers get generally nicer communities since everyone has a more or less shared experience and common enemy to bond over. That said, having things be too difficult can put a lot of casual players off or lead to somewhat gatekeeping-ish things, so.

Does difficulty really drive away the casual player? We have been told this for years, but the commodore 64 was an entire console of difficult games. Arcades were all about difficult games. Dark souls and that sekiru game are popular among the causal player. Part of me wonders if that was industry propaganda to suppress new ideas so that they can milk their has been ips forever. Is grind in a game bad if the grind is fun? I am of the opinion that even though vintage story is far more hard core than minecraft, that the casual audience would dive into this game because the difficulty makes the rewards that much sweeter. 

 

Maybe that is why some pvp communities get so toxic? Maybe that is the only reward those players get from that type of game? I have also noticed that people became jerks after the whole console achievements stuff hit. 

[Allen]

7 hours ago, AngryRob said:

Does difficulty really drive away the casual player? We have been told this for years, but the commodore 64 was an entire console of difficult games. Arcades were all about difficult games. Dark souls and that sekiru game are popular among the causal player. Part of me wonders if that was industry propaganda to suppress new ideas so that they can milk their has been ips forever. Is grind in a game bad if the grind is fun? I am of the opinion that even though vintage story is far more hard core than minecraft, that the casual audience would dive into this game because the difficulty makes the rewards that much sweeter. 

When I say 'casual' I mean people who don't have the drive or time to really sink their time into difficult games to really learn them. 

I think the biggest issue of the 'difficulty can turn away casual gamers' is defining what exactly a 'casual gamer' is. And there is a group of people who will get turned away at difficult games and high learning curves, what we refer to them as doesn't change the fact that they exist. 

You say dark souls and sekiro are popular among the casual player. Maybe it is. I enjoy both games a lot and I consider myself a pretty casual gamer. However, if you check steam achievements, you'll note nearly 20% of people who got dark souls on steam never made it past Iudex Gundyr, and almost 40% didn't make it past Vordt. It's the same for Sekiro. around 40% of people who got the game on steam didn't make it past the first boss.

Difficulty makes for sweeter rewards, but that only gets people into the game if they can, you know, achieve those rewards. 

Grind by itself might not be bad, but even if the grind is fun, if someone just hates grinding, they're not gonna play the game. Similarly, high difficulty by itself might not be bad, but raising the skill floor will inadvertently keep out players who isn't willing to or simply can't invest the time/effort/etc needed to reach that skill floor. And if you make it look too difficult, people might not even try it out in the first place. There are plenty of stories of people who didn't buy dark souls because 'I'm a casual gamer and I heard it's really hard'.

.

Going back to PvP and toxicity, I think it's really just unlike most PvE/non competitive were if you loose, you don't have much to blame other than the game or yourself, in PvP, if you loose, you have lots of people to blame, and all those people, along with you, are part of the game's community. Kinda happens sometimes with cooperative PvE too.

It's like telling two(or more) people to fight each other for multiple rounds with only a very distracted referee who's watching several hundred other games and (usually) loose rules to keep them in check, and hoping everyone comes out of it all nice and sportsmanship like.