“You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” “You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!”
Sometimes when it comes to MMOs, that’s how I feel. Only instead of peanut butter and chocolate, its PvP and PvE or Raid and non-Raid. But so far, no one has yet come up with the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of MMOs, no one has found the right blend.
My most recent example is that I’ve quit playing in the Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. I love the Battlegrounds. I think the idea of Capture the Flag, Control Points, and other typically FPS styles of play being integrated into RPG PvP elements is just awesome. And when the Battlegrounds released, you couldn’t keep me out of them. The problem is… I don’t raid. I really hate raiding. Spending an entire night following someone else’s raid guide to victory is just boring. If I had to do that, I’d cancel my account. Luckily, there is tons to do in WoW besides raiding, and for most of it, my lack of raiding has no effect… until the Battlegrounds. At first, it wasn’t bad. There were tons of people as ill equipped as me. A guy in full raid gear was a rare occurance. But its becoming alot more common, watching my damage spells become less and less effective, while my survival rate continues to plummet… all the fun of Battlegrounds has slipped away. If only there were a way to join a Battleground that was restricted, that you couldn’t enter if you had on you (equipped or in bags) more than 3 pieces of raid gear, and by raid gear I mean the stuff that takes more than a group (I think I’d be willing to let the 10 man instance gear in).
Of course, any game that has ever introduced PvP has had the eventual colliding of PvP and PvE… some skill is overpowered in PvP so they nerf it and send the PvE players into a tizzy. Or some skill gets added or fixed for PvE and it “cripples” some class for PvP. Most times it seems like the developers need to make two distinct and separate games to sort it all out.
Anyway… no lofty design stuff here, just an acknowledgement that it exists and a realization that I, personally, would love it if the problem could be solved.