A treatise on player versus player (PVP) combat by a player versus environment (PVE) gamer.
What do we find in a game?
Combat.
Combat in games is rather simple, a weapon exists, a target exists, then somehow the weapon is employed on the target and we have combat. Whether or not the target can reprise the action matters not. It is the action that matters, the action of employing any weapon against anything in the game world. Generally, combat takes place as part of PVP or PVE. Please note that PVE may also be referred to as artificial intelligence (A.I.) entities in the game world.
Camping.
In difference to what we’re used to, going out to a place surrounded by nature and staying the night, camping in games is a rather deplorable, yet common practice. When you camp, you basically stop other players from doing something. In spawn camping, a player or groups stand where a monster would appear, not allowing others access to it for hours or days. Another way to spawn camp is usually in PVP, there is a place where if you die, you reappear or rematerialize in. That place is called the spawn area. Sometimes other players or a team of players will go to the other team’s spawn after they have annihilated them, and wait for them to reappear and continually kill them.
Life skills.
Life skills in games are the game equivalent of a baker or butcher, mechanic, or weaponsmith, and the like; anyone who uses things found in the gaming world for the manufacture or otherwise making of anything allowed. Some of the more prominent life skills are fishing, wood cutting, mineral gathering (various rocks, gems, crystals, etc.), and the harvest of fruits or vegetables among many others.
Gear.
Armor and weapons in games come in a variety of forms and are acquired in a variety of ways. Mainly, a common way to acquire the best gear—as armor, weapons, jewelry, or other wearables are generally referred to—is through a process called a raid… but we will not delve too deeply into that, usually if you want the best equipment or equipment parts the game has to offer a raid is one of your options for acquiring them. Another way to get those is through something called an event. Events take place in a variety of ways from instanced events when something just appears in the world momentarily, game master or GM visits the game and rewards those present, world bosses (where a boss is an entity much stronger than its nearby counterparts) carrying rare items, or others.
Servers.
Game servers are commonly a place where a number of players are placed or located throughout a game session or the entirety of the game. It boils down to numbers, where if too many players are in one same area, often doing similar things, it gets cramped; but where gaming is concerned too many players usually means to have a sluggish everything else. Placing players in different servers is done in order to keep things in the game world from falling apart via game lag (a slowing of the game to where players can hardly move or do anything), rubberbanding (when the game avatar/character moves and is moved back to a previous location over and over as if being pulled by a rubber band), and for the sake of game spawns (spawns are generally a quest animal, creature, entity, or thing that reappears after a certain time has passed), and etc. The server allows a manageable number of players to coexist and do their business (PVP, PVE, life skilling) without being troubled by issues.
eSports.
Electronic sports, or eSports for short, is something that seemingly took the world by storm. In a nutshell, a person or group of individuals (often called a club, guild, clan, clique, association, etc.) meet against one another in a publicized medium and compete for a prize (think chess, but not just chess, any electronic endeavor that pits 2 or more against one another). The prices range from non fungible tokens to millions of dollars.
Gamers.
Players or gamers in games exist today in many different forms. There are players who only PVE, others who only PVP, a variety of others who only life skill, and the rest who fall somewhere in between them all (that is not to say there aren’t more). Usually, a player who only does one of those 3 things only delves deeply into the one thing. While they may own a plot, a home, or a place for mass storage of ingame collectibles, there are innumerable ways to play a game. Yet, a PVPer will generally only do other things in the game in order to prepare for PVP. Though there are games that make you go through a number of things -like raids- in order to gear up, there are other games that are built around only PVP. The same goes for the other types of gaming types expressed (PVE and life skills).
Gaming.
Gaming is repetitive. Usually in order to achieve anything you have to repeatedly progress through similar scenarios or usually through the same area over and over. There is something almost romantic about the affair of gaming. You must try and fail or try and succeed repeatedly in order to obtain that which you want most. Whether you are going out to the same field to collect the same flowers with which to craft a potion, or fighting the same monster waiting for that rare drop you dream of, repetition is at the vanguard of it all.
The overall picture.
As with any other sport, the eSports scene is filled with all types of people. I have learned that there are people who like playing football and others that do not. Comparatively, there are those who do not like playing football, but enjoy watching it. I believe this happens with eSports as well, where there are those who can enjoy watching a match of their favorite teams or guilds battling, or merely tune in to a game they particularly enjoy the way that it looks.
Many games nowadays have servers that are PVP-only, PVE-only, or rather oriented more towards a particular playstyle. This allows gamers of all types to join their cohorts in a variety of ways. I am more likely to join a PVE server than any other and have skipped many games that did not provide a PVE-only server.
It is common to join groups for any of the allowed playstyles and often there are a number of bands or guilds that are formed for like minded individuals to partake from the company of others while enjoying their particular joys.
The PVP argument.
While there are variations of the argument, I will only discuss a few:
Players are more intelligent, or more capable of combat than A.I.
Players need to be put in their place from time to time.
Players are more intelligent, or more capable of combat than A.I.
This seems like a given. It is almost common sense to think this to be so. The truth is more manageable with a bit of observational examples in my experience. There are many ways in which games come these days, from 2D to photorealistic, and playable from 1st person to virtual reality, and much in between.
From a 2D perspective, we have a player moving left or right on a screen. If there was PVP in this 2D game, a player can only come from the left or the right and only in a variety of ways. For instance they could be standing there in plain view, they could jump into view, they can walk or run into you, or even hide using the environment based on the color of their attire. If you think of it, regardless of their modus operandi eventually you will learn the hiding spots, the method they most like to use, and if they play long enough, the timing they use.
If you move from the 2D perspective to a 3D perspective, you now have a whole other means to come at your prey in PVP. Any object can be a hiding spot, any sound could potentially be used against you. Yet, that’s not what happens. Games take place in a rapidly evolving environment. While sound may have a bit to do with this or that from time to time, it is more the environment that will affect the encounter(s). Yet, the same applies as in the 2D environment. There are only so many buildings you can hide in, only so many spots where you are aware something of value is in, a place where hiding is best, or even where the vehicles are parked. The location of these things are learned the same way in 3D as they are in 2D, there are just more to remember. What’s more, all new players will see the same spots or shiny objects and as an experienced player you know (mainly because you were new once) exactly where they may be headed. As experience kicks in, you understand that a spot is better than another for hiding, for using a sniper rifle, for close hand combat, to run someone over, or anything else your heart desires. This learned behavior, spots, mannerisms, tactics, and more, are no different than those in a game of chess or football. Once you know the move, all you do is repeat it or look for it and the same person or team will use what they know against you. Thus, learned behavior becomes the tell that allows you to almost telegraph the competition.
A.I. is programmed to move in a certain pattern, to go to the same place(s), to act or react in a specific way, and to do a repeated task in some sort of pattern. The more advanced the A.I. the more advanced the pattern. That is to say, eventually you learn the pattern of the A.I. in the same way you learn those of the players depending on their level of expertise. The difference? Based on the given example, I fear there is no difference. At the end of it all it is only a matter of learning the behaviors and routines of the two. The best example of this is a raid. Usually in a raid, a boss will have something called stages or phases in which the attacks they do change in type, severity, or some other meaningful way. While raids often take a long time to finish, what is important to know is that this very difficult (often impossible at first) boss eventually reveals all of its hiding spots, all of its mechanics or tricks, and players can then just easily defeat them (easily because they know what to expect).
In today’s gaming scene the A.I. of a particular upcoming game will rival that of its predecessors and with time it will be as complex as that of the average gamer. It is my opinion, based on years of gaming while observing the various forms of PVP and PVE that exist and have come and gone, that the difference between PVP and PVE is merely people arguing about there being a difference.
Players need to be put in their place from time to time.
I hate to argue for the troll (a person who generally lives by making others upset one way or another while they enjoy the whole affair), but someone has to. We live in an age where massively multiplayer online gaming (MMO) is widespread. It has evolved to a place where not only is talking to other players common, but it has become a part of the game(s). That is to say, you need only have a microphone and you can interact with other players without the need to be in a group. You can literally stand in the town square and… rant about, or hear someone else doing so.
No, games are not immune to discrimination and other forms of derogatory human interactions. Yet, if you are to game in today's MMO scene, you have to understand, expect, and oftentimes put up with the town crier or worse the lunatic running around without armor or clothes yelling obscenities for the sake of just that. This argument is more about peace of mind -for any one individual- than anything else. A person or group, upset at the lunatic, wish to run them from town by killing them. In this way, it will take them some time to run back to repeat the endeavor, thus granting everyone a bit of peace. Worse, a player is trying to fish in peace while listening to the soothing fishing music the game provides and there comes angry player so-and-so to tell them this and that and expressing just how this person who is fishing should otherwise cease to exist because they are ruining the game for them. At such times it would be prudent to put an end to the rude person for the sake of the fisher person via PVP.
The problem with that argument is that everyone in the game is there having fun the way they know how to. Preventing a player from having their fun in whatever way they want to is akin to doing the same to anyone else for PVPing, PVEing, life skilling, or otherwise. Oftentimes in life a thing is created for a purpose and yet, many other purposes are found for that thing, not all of them being kind or benign.
Conclusion.
While the argument exists -as many other arguments do in these times- it appears that stepping back for a moment from the anger of a moment found; due perhaps to something not going the way you wanted, planned, or otherwise envisioned, may result in seeing more than we believe exists. Yes, a lot of players do something for fun, yet others do it for their own means and purposes. In a time where there are so many games, varieties of games, styles of gameplay, and much more, it would be prudent to say that if something in a game stops you from enjoying it, then perhaps it is time to look for another game to bring the joy back. As humans we cannot like everything nor can we like something perpetually. Change is, unlike the repetitive nature of gaming as a whole, part of the human experience (although we could argue that individuality, like gaming, also has its repetitiveness built in).
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