I would love to play a PVE game where players just jump in and out of fights or locations or something like that, but I refuse to buy PVP games. They always end up as a repetitious failing grind for me. A game where it is essentially a single player game that allows coop is my ideal game.

Right. But as I mentioned you can put 100 hours into the game without fighting another player. And all the end-game stuff is for is the final tier of gear, which mostly change stats and resource gathering rates.

Yea, but I'm still not interested in spending money on a game without PvE modes. If it requires me to enter a PvP area, I'm not interested regardless of the amount of time I can spend in PvE only areas.

Well, Dune does have a player-run auction house. I haven't checked myself, but I don't doubt that you could get end-game mats on there.

Not at all. I miss the old days when people weren't so insanely entitled. Developers can make whatever game they want. People can play it if they want to. That's how the relationship works.

That does sound promising and does raise it a little on my list. It's defo better than nothing.

Honestly, Ark was so close with that aspect with the Obelisks. It would have been so cool to allow for char based PvP toggle (meaning when the char was made it had a setting if it was PvP or PvE), then allow for the Obelisks to teleport you to the designated PvE vs PvP zone. Have PvE invisible to PvP and if the structure is owned by a player in the other zone, it doesn't exist. Have a designated spot on the map accessible like the boss arena system that allows PvE and PvP players to mix and mingle/fight if they wanted to.

I mean obviously depends on how much time the dev's have on it, and what the cost etc... to make both are. If you make a game that's expecting PVP to be the primary advantage, and the PVE is meant to be a minor time sink to add some stakes to the PVP mode, then obviously the PVE players once they start playing, will complain of the game being unfun, unbalanced etc... and then the development will have to start stretching out into other portions of the game etc... On the other hand if the games PVE mode actually does hold on it's own, and the majority of the PVP is effectively people that enjoy attacking people that don't want to be in that fight... then maybe an alternative server etc... isn't a bad idea. Obviously no one is entitled to anything, it's up to the developers to make the game they want. Players are welcome to play what they want. In terms of a "would this be a good business decision or good for the game", well that depends widely on the game.

Not sure if they "should". But: not every gamer can play PvP. Some people have deficits and illnesses that prevent them from even having a slide chance against human players. You want that your game can be played by people, regardless of physical condition, or by the elderly (and in sense of games this means 30+ sometimes)? Than yes , yous should provide such a node of you already have some vE in there. Of course , multiplayer games are multiplayer games. But this is the same conversation like "should games have an easy mode" I personally would love to play for example the eldenring series, but I can't. I am physically not able to play the game with the required precision. And let me tell you, seeing arguments like "learn to play" are hurtful. So, maybe consider this side in further arguments

My experience with PvPvE games is they tend to be incredibly toxic, with some people just trying to get started, and others picking on them for fun. I have several friends who vow not to play PvPvE games again after bad experiences in games like Last Oasis and World’s Adrift, although they were interested in playing both of those games in a PvE format. Personally I find the extra danger from considering other players “another type of enemy” to be interesting. But also those types of games tend to breed to most toxic communities.

"Should they?" No. Games are a form of art, and they have no obligation to be anything more than what they are. That said, if their goal is to reach as many players as possible, they will miss out on a (likely) growing demographic by excluding PvE, especially if the framework is already there. Many people have no interest in duking it out with sweaty tryhards, and even if a game is lucky not to have those types, there's still people who make it their mission to grief others whenever possible. So I don't think they "should," but it's shortsighted not to.

They don't have to, but having one would significantly increase the chances of the genre being successful. All of the games in the genre that don't have a PvE mode see high success for less than a year before player numbers fall below 10k average players. The only really exception is Tarkov, which is basically the Fornite of the genre, except it actually was the first of the genre unlike Fortnite. ARC Raiders should have one in particular because it was originally supposed to be a coop PvE game, and was forced into its current genre by Nexon.

No, a game should be what the devs decide to make. That said, it can cut off a part of the market. I'm another one of those folks who tends to avoid PvPvE games, without a dedicated PvE only side. This weekend's Arc Raiders playtest was a good example. I read through the description on Steam and just decided, "na, I have better things to do with my time." Unfortunately, those sorts of games tend to have a problem with griefers running about directly trying to ruin other peoples' enjoyment. I'll freely admit that I will never be as good as someone who is willing to put the hours into gear grinding, practice and map memorization in such a game. I just don't enjoy that and that means I will always be at a severe disadvantage. So, why sped my time and money on such a game? This can lead to problem for such games, unless they have a very large player base. The Dark Souls series was a good example, which has the in-built forced PvP system, though you can kinda avoid it for solo play. And it still has a large player base. But, I'd also point out some of the the controversy around the Seamless Co-op mod for Elden Ring. When it released, the PvP players were howling from the walls about how long it made invasion queues. Since Seamless Co-op meant that the players using it were removed from the official servers, the number of easy targets to invade went way, way down. It seemed like a lot of folks like to have co-op, without the risks of invasion. As a longer answer to this, let me recommend two videos from Extra Credits: * [Bartle's Taxonomy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxpW2ltDNow) * [Balancing an MMO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drDuaQXm_U) These videos provide a way to think about players and how they interact with games and each other.

At least with Elden Ring you can play offline and use mods to do things like reduce difficulty or something and you generally aren't going to negatively effect other player's experience with the game.

No, games should be able to be designed around PvEvP being an integral element of the game. That said, personally, I'm not going to play a game like Arc Raiders or Sea of Thieves if it doesn't have a PvE only mode where I am capable of making all the same progress as the PvEvP mode, because I am not even remotely interested in PvEvP. Every game is not meant to be for me though. I love The Finals, but I can look at Arc Raiders and go "not for me" and ignore it. Dont get me wrong, I love Embark and a fully fledged PvE only mode would immediately get me very interested in Arc Raiders, but I see no reason I should be personally catered to for every game release. I don't even have enough time to play all the games that come out that *do* cater to my gaming interests.

If there is a second mode, how do I influence other players negatively?

Definitely. It's minimal effort and makes a game vastly wider in its appeal. PvP and PvE are very different experiences in any game. For one, I've never fought a bot in a PvE game which then felt the need to call me slurs for winning or losing. Also, I've never played a PvP game where I get the depth of strategy I can get against a real person.

Their initial switch from a pve only game was motivated by data and metrics that showed them it was a better choice to make an extraction shooter (they said themselves somewhere that the game just wasn't fun). I trust they made the right call, so I would say a pve only mode in Arc Raiders would dillute the tension of each round played. That being said, I'm also very risk averse, so I dislike the pvp part of the game. While I think its a necessary part of the gameplay, and that it brings awesome uncertainty and adrenaline, I think Embark should try and create incentives for more cooperation between player, encourage pvp as an intended risky choice rather than a reasonable option when encountering other players. From Tech Test 2 to the current Server Slam, they've apparently buffed the robots/arc enemies strength, I think that's a step in the right direction, even if I haven't personally noticed a change ‍️

I think it would be a nice thing to include as not everyone wants to interact with other players if they don't need to. But I don't think it should be an obligation. It sounds like a concept that I could enjoy, but I probably won't play it if there isn't a PvE mode. I play video games so I don't have to interact with people. But I'm not going to buy it knowing there isn't a PvE mode and then complain that there isn't one.

Depends on the game. If it's a good fit, go ahead and add it, but if it's not, it's better for a game to focus on doing one thing well than two things poorly.