Space marks bitching about PvE and PvP...
There has been a mini-drought of good FUDster store citizen content in the last few weeks with spectrum being full of tedious discussion about PvP and PvE. I was hoping for some "4.0 never been done before ... the best experience in the history of gaming" type content, but instead we get boring bitching.
The whole discussion is moot. PvA is a made up a concept for selling JPEGs. They want money from both types of players. A MMO is either PvE or PvP focused, you can't combine the two. PvP can have PvE elements, but the core will always be PvP. In similar manner, PvE by definition does not include non-consensual player on player combat.
The Store citizen tech demo will never have a meaningful PvE component.
* Their asset viewer platform is simply not designed for supporting elaborate missions with NPCs (the ship kind, forget NPC crew). "10:1 NPC ratio" and "NPCs indistinguishable from players" was always a ruse. Why do you think they pivoted to a space base and player crafting pitch in the latest Conned Citizen marketing event?
* PvE content requires a structured hierarchy of ships/capabilities/features. You need some sort of rock-paper-scissors mechanic, situational strengths, progression systems. This is both critical for NPC enemy progression and player progression.
* You can't have engaging PvE without an overarching gameplay narrative. There need to be goals and motivators for progression. There has to be some meaning to the world and at least a high-level story arc.
* You need a real content pipeline. And your deliverables need to be tied to gameplay. Look at their cities; they are very fancy and extensive. But at the same time, they don't really offer anything real from a gameplay perspective; you might as well have an X3 style menu system (when you dock at the stations) instead of their cities.
* PvE needs to have some of meaningful economy. They have a whole bunch of non-combat JPEGs; these would all need to tie into the overall MMO economic model. The hypothetical non-combat gameplay would need to be linked to PvE combat.
The most recent ConnedCitizen confirmed that they can't deliver on any of this.
Regarding the PvP side; sure, it is probably the most mature component of their tech demo. That being said, whatever they deliver is not going be even remotely close to their malicious marketing.
* No real multicrew combat - Their engineering gameplay is crude and clearly not suitable for MMO style gameplay. Turret gameplay is not viable outside of what is essentially a pre-arranged combat scenario. You want to design defined multicrew roles and balance from day one. Literally everything you do has to be built around these roles and multicrew features.
* A good PvP game requires a committed focus to balance. They have 30-40 single ship fighters in their cash shop; they will never be able to come up with a combat model that makes even half of them viable. There will always be 2-3 meta ships (recently introduced in a sales) and all other cash shop items are going to be abandoned.
* Beyond conceptual ship balance, they also need to balance different weapon types, weapon sizes and a whole bunch of other things. Not happening as it is easier to just release a new meta ship/JPEG.
They made a big deal about player bases, crafting and economic gameplay to enable org combat/competition. Considering their track record and incentives (selling JPEGs and power creep cash shop items), one has reason to be skeptical about their intentions and capabilities with respect to delivery.
Just look at their base/map model. They are planning to have ~500 player shards (which we have yet to see working properly) but the map will be shared? How will that work? Your top nodes on the map will be taken over by bases from a different shard that you cannot engage with?
PvE will never happen in store citizen. PvE players might as well look for a different game. PvP does exist in store citizen, but it will never go beyond griefer central and quasi pre-arranged matches that might as well be run in a session based manner. The stuff about guild vs guild gameplay is a marketing ruse to keep selling JPEGs; like everything about star citizen.
