PVP or PVE

Mizaeron

Is ESO more a pvp game or pve. Which population is higher, and what do Devs prioritise more in terms of balance changes

VaranisArano

Before this derails into bait and blame games...

Its both. PVP-oriented changes are highly visible because its not like PVE bosses have forum accounts to complain about overuses meta sets and power creep.

PVE population is higher, helped by ZOS driving away lots of dedicated PVPers with years of failure to fix persistent performance issues.

iamkeebler

Both.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

ESO is really two games. PvE has the larger world area and player base. PvP side was designed to be standalone to the point that someone that only wants to PvP can fully level without ever leaving the PvP side of the game. I think the acrimony between the two comes from primarily two areas. First, the game tries to balance combat across PvE and PvP. All too often the result is fixing balance in one breaks the other. I fell this one would go away if ZOS would just admit they need to balance the two environments separately. The other is largely due to the way events are structured that has been exacerbated by the event ticket model. Most events are standard PvE content but there is a PvP event that awards unique items as well. None of the events or their content provide items that are needed to play the game but they are unique and some players on both sides get upset they have to run the content to obtain them. The addition of event tickets make it worse as a player might decide they just won't go after a certain motif or buy it instead where event tickets tend to have more appeal for the prizes they offer. I don't know how to resolve this other than offering a PvE and PvP option for every event much like IC having PvP in IC and a PvE option for the IC dungeons.

AcadianPaladin

I've watched several polls over the year and, from them and general comments, I figure the player base breaks down to about 1/4 each PvP, Players who enjoy both, PvE group players, PvE soloists. I'm not claiming that is totally accurate but it is my impression.

Changes to the game are a source of heated debate. There are some changes that are clearly driven by PvP, some that are driven by PvE and quite a few that leave both communities scratching their heads since nobody wanted them.

Agenericname

There was a recent poll, for what they're worth, that showed a little over half of the people that voted did both. That of course is forum goers not really informative.

No doubt more people PvE than PvP, but to what extent is unknown.

At this point I think the devs use a Ouija boards for changes.

Eirinin

PVE zones are much more populated. There are pvp areas that are called ghost towns unless there is a special event focusing on them. Pvp population in general is often discussed, by pvpers, on these forums, as losing members/low population/disatisfied and shrinking.

I don't know what the actual numbers are, and polls on the forum, while interesting, may not reflect the game population skew, obviously.

Forum pvp, however, is very alive and kicking.

As to what devs prioritize? Auri-El only knows.

idk

The game has been mostly PvE since launch though it did have a much larger PvP community at launch than today due to poor performance in the original PvP.

The game has clearly has favor towards PvE as most MMORPG games like this tend have greater success on the PvE side of things which is why there is no PvP in the PvE zones outside of one zone that is mixed. Zos' first two areas they added were sticly PvE, Craglorn and Upper Craglorn,, and once they refocused on adding new content it has been all PvE zones except for the one mixed zone.

Cadbury

Eirinin wrote: »

PVE zones are much more populated. There are pvp areas that are called ghost towns unless there is a special event focusing on them. Pvp population in general is often discussed, by pvpers, on these forums, as losing members/low population/disatisfied and shrinking.

I don't know what the actual numbers are, and polls on the forum, while interesting, may not reflect the game population skew, obviously.

Forum pvp, however, is very alive and kicking.

As to what devs prioritize? Auri-El only knows.

Arguably even more fun than ingame PvP imo.

Uryel

PvE. Dev team tends to ignore PvE entirely and tweak things based on PvP whining, but the game is first and foremost PvE.

PvP is basically one area, one game mode where teams compete in predefined matches, and one "PvPvE" area that is a complete mess and failure, as every things on that theme have ever been in the history of gaming, because they don't cater to anyone specifically and end up being rather unused. Except in the case of the current event, that is.

PvE is basically the whole game, minus those exceptions. 15 base zones (5 per alliance) + mini-zones that used to be starting areas (5 of them) + 4 DLC zones and one to come by the end of the year ; so that's 19 zones + 5 minizones + 1 zone coming soon. And I'm not counting dungeons and raids there.

So, as expected of any Elder Scroll game worth its salt, the focus is on you adventuring, not beating the snot out of some other adventurer. But the minority of so-called "competitive" kids who whine all the time about nerfing this or that because they can't even be bothered creating their own builds and can't cope with anyone who devised a counter to their copy-pasted setup certainly is extremely vocal.

Malmai

Eirinin wrote: »

PVE zones are much more populated. There are pvp areas that are called ghost towns unless there is a special event focusing on them. Pvp population in general is often discussed, by pvpers, on these forums, as losing members/low population/disatisfied and shrinking.

I don't know what the actual numbers are, and polls on the forum, while interesting, may not reflect the game population skew, obviously.

Forum pvp, however, is very alive and kicking.

As to what devs prioritize? Auri-El only knows.

Who wants to play against bad lag, fps and CE users...

Runkorko

both, even if more ppl play mostly pve