Things like rebirth potions, previews, and spars only actually allow inexperienced players to have a chance to compete in PVP without getting knowledge checked by the people that win over and over.
It's been said and repeated multiple times even in E3 since before these were features (except sparring) that this is a PVP game. Mostly jokes, but they all come from a real place.
Rebirths, previews, and spars don't cause people to want to PVP more. They rebirth, preview, and spar, because they have to PVP to be relevant and compete with the people that generally just win verbs from the get go. I think the people that are secure in their ability to verb are out of touch with what a player that doesn't feel comfortable engaging w it feels.
The only reason the game feels more PVP focused now is because the wilderness is dominated by encounters. People shit on downtime but it makes it so that PVP isn't where the meat of the story is for a little bit, and allows newer characters to integrate. I know plenty of players that are either sitting the Atrellya arc out in settlements, or have quit/taken a break completely because of it.
I don't want to make this an Atrellya thread, my opinions are clear. The issue is that I think this is going to extend to ANY faction that the majority of the player-base could only reasonably want to wipe out.
Imo, there are two out-comes for these kinds of factions/races/classes/whatever.
-They don't invest heavily into PVP, but due to lore implications/past sins/zealotry of other factions, the faction either dies because they're just always being fought and losing- and things aren't getting better for them. Characters die, players quit.
-They do end up pretty PVP dominant, an arc is created around taking them out. You can't just leave them be, because the state of thing means that you have most of the playerbase AND the faction feeling like it's very out of character to spot each other out in the field and not make an encounter of it.
The first alternative is obviously bad. You don't want to have factions spring up then practically get bullied out before they can do anything interesting.
The second however leads to where we're at, and it hasn't happened with just Atrellya and has probably been a mainstay of the game because honestly, everything is cyclical but I like voicing opinions anyways.
Now, the reason I bring this up is to explain the playerbase's reasons for the PVP focus- and why people are either maxing verb ability or staying in settlements/quitting. If you go out, the atrellya encounters are possible, and if they happen these are the only ways I personally see a loss going for MOST characters. There are rare instances when this could not be the case, say- some really cool mental perm that lets you go in another direction, but you can get that with any enemy. Anyways, here's my list of possibilities:
1- Your character vows to get revenge for the defeat, and decides to get stronger. This necessitates the PVP focus, or the player can just keep throwing themselves at Atrellya and losing which isn't very narratively satisfying.
2- Your character doesn't acknowledge the incident much, they move on. This is a net 0 or net negative. It's not always bad when this happens, but if it keeps happening it'll obviously get on your nerves.
3- Your character is captured/comes with them willingly, and enters a corruption arc. This is the one instance where I think it could generate really good RP for you, but being in Atrellya probably means you might need to verb at some point (though not necessarily), and it's also just... not something a lot of characters necessarily want. If you're lucky enough to have the type of character you think would be great in a corruption arc, good luck.
4- Your character is captured and is killed. Self explanatory.
Imo, the PVP focus is a direct symptom of the current state of the game and nothing else. Before this, I think things were fine. Also, just generally- as mentioned before in this thread, FOTM are allowed to exist for too long. People need to rebirth, or spar, or what have you to keep up. Imo, it's just a matter of nerfing the builds that spike in popularity and wins faster to keep the playerbase thinking that there's not gonna be one dominant strategy for the whole month- and from that point on, PVP becomes more of a wild card of people trying fun things and being cool with it. If they're less worried they're gonna run into the same strong builds over and over for a month, then they're more willing to take a risk themselves.
Also, I'm always right. Any disagreements are null and void.
It's been said and repeated multiple times even in E3 since before these were features (except sparring) that this is a PVP game. Mostly jokes, but they all come from a real place.
Rebirths, previews, and spars don't cause people to want to PVP more. They rebirth, preview, and spar, because they have to PVP to be relevant and compete with the people that generally just win verbs from the get go. I think the people that are secure in their ability to verb are out of touch with what a player that doesn't feel comfortable engaging w it feels.
The only reason the game feels more PVP focused now is because the wilderness is dominated by encounters. People shit on downtime but it makes it so that PVP isn't where the meat of the story is for a little bit, and allows newer characters to integrate. I know plenty of players that are either sitting the Atrellya arc out in settlements, or have quit/taken a break completely because of it.
I don't want to make this an Atrellya thread, my opinions are clear. The issue is that I think this is going to extend to ANY faction that the majority of the player-base could only reasonably want to wipe out.
Imo, there are two out-comes for these kinds of factions/races/classes/whatever.
-They don't invest heavily into PVP, but due to lore implications/past sins/zealotry of other factions, the faction either dies because they're just always being fought and losing- and things aren't getting better for them. Characters die, players quit.
-They do end up pretty PVP dominant, an arc is created around taking them out. You can't just leave them be, because the state of thing means that you have most of the playerbase AND the faction feeling like it's very out of character to spot each other out in the field and not make an encounter of it.
The first alternative is obviously bad. You don't want to have factions spring up then practically get bullied out before they can do anything interesting.
The second however leads to where we're at, and it hasn't happened with just Atrellya and has probably been a mainstay of the game because honestly, everything is cyclical but I like voicing opinions anyways.
Now, the reason I bring this up is to explain the playerbase's reasons for the PVP focus- and why people are either maxing verb ability or staying in settlements/quitting. If you go out, the atrellya encounters are possible, and if they happen these are the only ways I personally see a loss going for MOST characters. There are rare instances when this could not be the case, say- some really cool mental perm that lets you go in another direction, but you can get that with any enemy. Anyways, here's my list of possibilities:
1- Your character vows to get revenge for the defeat, and decides to get stronger. This necessitates the PVP focus, or the player can just keep throwing themselves at Atrellya and losing which isn't very narratively satisfying.
2- Your character doesn't acknowledge the incident much, they move on. This is a net 0 or net negative. It's not always bad when this happens, but if it keeps happening it'll obviously get on your nerves.
3- Your character is captured/comes with them willingly, and enters a corruption arc. This is the one instance where I think it could generate really good RP for you, but being in Atrellya probably means you might need to verb at some point (though not necessarily), and it's also just... not something a lot of characters necessarily want. If you're lucky enough to have the type of character you think would be great in a corruption arc, good luck.
4- Your character is captured and is killed. Self explanatory.
Imo, the PVP focus is a direct symptom of the current state of the game and nothing else. Before this, I think things were fine. Also, just generally- as mentioned before in this thread, FOTM are allowed to exist for too long. People need to rebirth, or spar, or what have you to keep up. Imo, it's just a matter of nerfing the builds that spike in popularity and wins faster to keep the playerbase thinking that there's not gonna be one dominant strategy for the whole month- and from that point on, PVP becomes more of a wild card of people trying fun things and being cool with it. If they're less worried they're gonna run into the same strong builds over and over for a month, then they're more willing to take a risk themselves.
Also, I'm always right. Any disagreements are null and void.