PVP survey questions

Sm0keyJ0e

If it's truly about engagement and the long-term health of the game, I'm fine with them trying some new things in Versus mode. I think the hybrid version needs more time though.

My fear with changes here though (using Ducky's numbers) is that if you attempt to engage the other 60% you risk disengaging the current 40%. There exists an entire community centered around Versus--it is not centered around Story mode. There is no need for interaction there--you do your clears and perhaps share some creative teams or help with that really hard node, but it's not a "community". A BIG reason I continue to play this game (and I have chipped in a few bucks over the years) is the camaraderie I have built with other long-time players (and spenders). I am not sure I'd still be playing otherwise. It's fun to "help" out alliance-mates reach progression within the current system. It's fun to retaliate. It's a competition out there--there are only so many placement rewards and regardless of the system we ultimately get, only a handful of people will get those placement rewards. It's exactly the same in Story mode. You can get progression in both now if you're willing to put forth the effort, but the placement rewards remain exclusive.

I just worry if you make everything completely anonymous you turn Versus into Story, and the community there dies. 

Jaedenkaal

jackstar0 said:

I think the old suggestion should remain in the discussion: make PvP anonymous.

You can still figure out who people are with a combination of characters, character order, and character level.

Sm0keyJ0e said:

There exists an entire community centered around Versus--it is not centered around Story mode. There is no need for interaction there--you do your clears and perhaps share some creative teams or help with that really hard node, but it's not a "community". A BIG reason I continue to play this game (and I have chipped in a few bucks over the years) is the camaraderie I have built with other long-time players (and spenders). I am not sure I'd still be playing otherwise. It's fun to "help" out alliance-mates reach progression within the current system. It's fun to retaliate. It's a competition out there--there are only so many placement rewards and regardless of the system we ultimately get, only a handful of people will get those placement rewards. It's exactly the same in Story mode. You can get progression in both now if you're willing to put forth the effort, but the placement rewards remain exclusive.

Sounds like a decent argument for a new game mode where this is the "intended" interaction, rather than merely the most effective.

Although I suppose the risk with adding a new game mode is finding players who have the time to do it as well, or reduce the time requirements for the other two modes and hope/assume that in total, player engagement goes up. Overall, that would seem to indicate increasing the overall rewards a player can achieve, since reducing rewards from modes 1 and 2 and distributing the difference into mode 3 seems unlikely to be received well by most players.