Albion Online as a PvE Game?

[Yasha]

If you are pure PvE player, and new want to participate in any PvP activities, how much is unavailable to you in AO?

Obviously, all the PvP gameplay is unavailable. But my question is how much gameplay remains. Are there any interesting PvE quests or dungeons with challenging enemies? PvE combat situations that require you to grind (and maybe craft), acquire special equipment, etc., to be successful? How about exploration and discovery? Much of that?

Do PvE guilds exist, and if so, for what purpose?

Thanks in advance for useful answers.

[Flarelight]

Hi,

Albion Online is a PVP centric MMO. All the ingame activities revolve around this concept as of the time of this post. With that out of the way...

• As a pure PVE player, you have access to all of the Royal Continent's Safe Zones (Blue and Yellow zones), where there is no fear of PVP death since you only get knocked down and don't lose your items and equipment.There are World and Guardian Bosses ingame, but most of them are located in Red and Black Zones.

• You have access to Faction Wars PVP by joining a City's Faction when you can equip Tier 4 armor and weapons. Once you join a Faction, the entire Royal Continent becomes full loot PVP. You can un-flag from your faction anytime, which makes you neutral and unkillable in safe zones.

• Albion Online is a sandbox game, there is only 1 tutorial quest to get you used to the game, and it has PVE quests. After the tutorial, you are free to pursue your path via the Destiny Board.

• You have to grind a fair amount of Fame (Albion Online's term for Experience) to be able to damage higher tier mobs. Your Reaver level determines the tier of mobs you can efficiently kill.

• There are plenty of areas to explore ingame, but it is lacking as of the moment. We're hoping that this year's major update will address the solo game experience. There are also plenty of solo and group dungeons in the safe zones with challenging bosses.

• There are plenty of activities like crafting, trading and gathering that fully compliment a PVE only playstyle.

• Most Guilds have a mixture of PVE, PVP, ZVZ and Crafting activities. There are very rare PVE only guilds mostly for Roleplaying purposes.

• Grab or ask for a Trial key in the official forums at https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Board/118-Trial-Key-Zone/ . Trial keys cannot be redeemed in the Steam version of this game, you need to download the native client and redeem it there.


Hope that helps and feel free to ask any questions in the game's Help Chat once you're online!

[Yasha]

Thank you for providing the "official" answer / marketing spiel. I am still looking for clearer pros and cons about PvE in this game.

It appears that a significant part of the game is "locked" behind a PvP-only wall. For example, it appears that the most rewarding content, apparently on the Royal Continent, is only available if you enable PvP. It also seems that the best equipment (Tier 4?) is also unavailable unless you enable PvP by choosing a faction. Does the equipment magically fall off if you disable PvP (leave all factions)?

I'm sure there is a good reason why there are virtually no PvE-only guilds except those catering exclusively to RP activities. I'm left to assume that teamwork is of little or no value outside of PvP.

Are there "plenty of areas to explore," or is exploration "lacking as of the moment." Putting two opposing statements in the same sentence makes little sense. It helps reinforce the impression among gamers that marketing statements aren't worth the time to read them.

[Flarelight]

I'm sorry if some of my statements aren't clear and it sounded more like a marketing ploy. No worries, I am just a regular player ingame with no connections to SBI in any way. So let me clarify.


It's true that a significant portion of the game requires PVP hence the reason I said that this a PVP centric game in the first sentence of my post.


Albion Online's Continent is divided into two. The Royal Continent where new players start out, and the Outlands where high level guilds compete for better resources and materials.Guilds are very important in this game, team work is also essential if you want to progress further. There is strength in numbers if you aim to compete with better guilds in the Outlands.


Tier 4 armor and equipment is where you start being relevant as a player since it opens up a lot of possibilities to gather, craft and start out venturing out from your starting town. I mentioned that Faction Warfare can be accessed at Tier 4 because it is the minimum requirement to join that activity in the Royal Continent and it its completely optional if you don't want to.

You start with Tier 1 equipment and progress to Tier 8, the highest tier available at the moment. The game has a classless combat system where your class depends on what you wear. It's up to you to decide what you want to wear.


When I said there are plenty of areas to explore, I meant the maps are massive and there are plenty of activities you can do in those maps like hunt, gather, loot chests, enter dungeons, pickup treasures, gank and ambush players, and participate in small scale PVP to massive ZVZ. Higher tiered maps offers higher and rarer materials, mob, fame, and silver.


While the maps are massive, it is my opinion that it's currently lacking meaningful solo activities aside from the activities I mentioned. I should have made that clearer, for that I apologize.


These are all my ingame experiences that I just shared. Let me reiterate that this is a PVP centric MMO. Everything you do from crafting to farming helps sustain the players, PVP and the economy.


This is a niche game. It's not for me to tell you what the pros and cons are since I obviously enjoy playing it. Try the game out and form your own opinion about it.

Edit: Added a link to in-game activities: https://steamcommunity.com/games/761890/announcements/detail/1702806818025200146

[PandAches]

TLDR the pve is good in the early game, but if you wanna do the late game pve you're gonna have to wade through a lot of pvp

[Yasha]

Thanks Flarelight, that helps clarify things. It sounds like a PvE player has less and less to do as they go up in Tier, with a Tier 8 outfitted player having virtually nothing to do aside from the odd crafting activity. It also sounds like a PvEer might have to buy top level materials for crafting, since those materials can only be acquired in PvP regions.

Since I'm looking for a new PvE MMORPG for myself and my wife to enjoy, it sounds like we'll need to look further. Compared to EQ, DaoC, AO, CoH/CoV, EQII, WoW, Conan, SWTOR, ESO, etc., this really won't be a good solution for us.

[PandAches]

You ever heard of necro?

[Seawater]

nah not ring my bell

[Yasha]

Well, it sounds like the game also has an extremely unhelpful, trollish community (with the exception of Flarelight). Another nail in its coffin.

[PandAches]

Care to explain how I am trolling?

[Yasha]

I was referring to Artificial Intelligence, not you, PandAches.

[PandAches]

Ok. By the way Albion just got a huge roadmap reveal I suggest you take a look at it in case it interests you, might not but worth a look. https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/97535-Development-Roadmap-beyond-Merlyn/

[Yasha]

Thanks, PandAches. All information is helpful information.

It appears that there will be some bones thrown in the direction of PvE, but it's revealling that PvP features are listed first, presumably because they have higher priority in the backlog (and in the hearts of the Devs). The lack of timetable is deliberate, and suggests that it won't be until late 2019 before we see them all.

All in all, I'm inclined to give games like Revelation Online, or Project Gorgon, a chance before I invest in trying this.

[ntall1]

There is no PvE in Albion Online. Unless you consider killing monsters for loot PvE.

The game has little to no lore. The only lore to be found is a few paragraphs on their website. There is no story, and the only quests are the tiny handful of starting quests that help to orientate new players.

Outside of basic crafting and gathering, players need to make 100% of the content they experiance through emergant gameplay.

[captainrussia]

This game is very similar to EVE Online. In a sense that playing it for "PVE Only" is doable, but you are kind of handicapping yourself. (however they are expanding on that in the game - which is good)

But again - on the other hand its a sandbox, so saying that "you cannot do w/e you want" would be false as well. You CAN do whatever you want, with certain limitations. Its like the "democracy in the US, where everyone is free" - but your freedom is only limited by the freedom of the person next to you.

If someone wants to gank - they are free to gank (not everywhere though. There are limitations). Now if you don't want to gank and you want to avoid getting ganked - you are free to do that as well, but with certain limitations. Its a bit diffucult to explain, I think a "free country" example might be the most fitting.

Regarding "Trollish community" - I mean any PVP game has that. I've been playing EVE Online for 12+ years, played Rust, etc... all survival/PVP type games will have "some" trollish community who will tell you "can I have your stuff" when you complain. I am used to that and I just filter those people out. There are of course some cool players who are helpful, they run the formulas and numbers, develop plugins and contribute to the community (on the forums, and/or otherwise).

Regarding the OP question - you can also do Expeditions in town (a very controversial topic for PVP players, as that invloves 0 risk, and 0 PVP), which are now accessible in all tiers of gear - tier1 to tier 8. So yes - there is PVE "content" to grind experience in town with 0 risk by queueing up for an expedition, which takes around 20 min in an instanced dungeon. Expeditions vary in difficulty which is outlined in their level. So you can have HCE (Hardcore Expedition) lvl 5-6-7 and so on... currently to lvl 15 I believe. These are somewhat similar to Diablo 3 challenges (forgot what they are called) where they just go up in difficulty...

"Buying higher gear" because you cannot farm it (if you choose to avoid PVP) is totally fine is a sense of an open player driven economy. Someone chooses to take the risk to go out and get the materials, so that someone else (or same player) can then craft and sell it.

Some players absolutely avoid PVP and just farm in town - Expeditions (or in lower tier zones: Blue + yellow), and just play the market. Simply playing the market, trading, and crafting in the city is also doable.

There are also player owned islands, with Laborer NPCs which you can hire to do work for you (similar to WOW outposts), in different areas - crafting or gathering or even Mob Killing.

You can also wear top tier gear (t8) in the lower tier starter zones (blue/yellow), they have power scaling (so they are less useful, but still work) and you still get full benefit for gathering gear for example. Gathering lower tier materials is definitely an option. Doing lower tier PVE dungeons is definitaly an option. Doing high tier HCE (Hardcore expeditions) from the town queue is definitely an option.

However its a PVP game as was already explained. Its very competitve. Market PVP is also PVP as we call it :) people will compete in everything.

I personally don't like hand-holding theme park MMOs, because I get bored really fast (less player freedom, everything is pre-defined). But to each his own I guess.

[Yasha]

Thank you, Captainrussia, for the explanation. It gives me a much better idea of what the game includes and does not include. Your insights into viewpoints on "gameplay freedom" clarify why PvP players in this game are so unhelpful, and a few downright hostile, to players inquiring about PvE.

From a design standpoint, PvE play is not zero-sum, and team-oriented MMORPGs (like the original EQ, DAoC, AO, etc.) encouraged an "everybody wins something" attitude. PvP play is viewed more as zero-sum - somebody wins and somebody loses - head-to-head personal competition. Ultimately I think that is why the two play styles have so much trouble understanding each other, and why even game designers can get confused about what kind of game they're making (or go to great lengths to justify their design choices).