Why do you prefer PvP/PvE over PvE/PvP?

[Dr. Doom]

Just to chat. Why do you prefer the aspect of the game you prefer?

As a person who dedicates 95%+ of the time in this server to PvP, I do that for the following reasons:

- Much richer variety in talent tree options as well as itemization.
Unlike what goes on in raiding, most if not all of the 27 talent trees has something that can end up being useful to a team in pvp. It doesn't matter if a priest is holy, or shadow, or disc, or if a druid is feral, balance or restoration, all of them have something that can be of use.
Likewise, weapons that rarely ever get to be used in PvE (2handers or even 1handers with bleed/silence/stun procs ) do have an effect here and are welcomed alongside the regular dps/healer weapons.

- Smaller teams, higher contribution %.
With the sole exception of Alterac Valley, where the PvP going on is already reduced to the big PvE part of the instance, WSG, AB, and world PvP are usually done by smaller teams, where every person's virtues and mistake do show. It's also not possible to simply stand behind and use a 3 button rotation to perform correctly in dps charts. Being mobile, being attentive are very real requirements, and screwing something by hitting the wrong key will probably punish your team much more severely.

- No epix drama.
Pitiful arguments about this or that lewt council or how x/y/z guild ninjaed some stupid orange mount will simply never happen in PvP. Arguments will certainly do arise, but they will all be about how you did or did not do something vs this or that guy, but long lasting grudges and soap operas about how this ring went to a fury warrior instead of me, even though I did 0.5 more DPS are just not going to get in the way.

-Play at your pace.

An emergency happened in your house, or you suddenly remembered a previous appointment. Hitting /afk in a bg or just hearthing if doing wPvP frees you in 1 minute or less. Sure, your team may miss you, but in batlegrounds you'll be replaced soon enough, and in wPvP people can still engage even with 1 person down.
Bailing in the middle of PvE instances (specially as a healer or tank) is just going to stir a lot more trouble again, as it takes much longer to replace you and everyone is after the end goal only.

-Fighting other people rather than a 2005 AI.

Don't get me wrong, some AIs are so brutally punishing, that it becomes a point of pride to actually beat them. As someone who gamedin the 1990s, I am very familiar with SNK bosses. I still have some in my laptop in an emulator. Fighting Samurai Shodown final bosses or dealing with the 1 mistake- you're dead approach of other fighter games both vexes you and pushes you to try dozens of times, again and again to beat them.

However, that is certainly not the case with dungeon or raid bosses. Not only are their actions predictable (even more so with the add-ons that tell you everything in advance) but they're not even that hard to counter. There's a reason why clearing the existing raids isn't a challenge to any, but the starter guilds in this server.

On the contrary, playing vs another person, reading your movements, countering your first plan, forcing you to adapt is really interesting. Out of all activities in this game, dueling or going 1v1 in a battleground/wPvP is by far the most interesting one to me. I will often even wait for them to finish killing their mob or eat/drink before engaging them at 100%, and then see how it goes. Specially interesting when fighting people in higher ranks who have proper gear and are expected to be familiar with tactics.


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That's it for now. If there is another person who prefers PvP over PvE and has other reasons to list, go for it.
If you are a person who prefers PvE over PvP, also share your point of view.

[Diametra]

I suspect robotron will be along shortly to sum up his feelings on the subject in two words.

[Mryul]

I like vanilla because PvP and PvE are one. You can raid to get gear for PvP and you can kill people that raid. It's the perfect world for me. I would hate to do one and not the other.

[Limbflayer]

I'm a pretty average PvPer but I've never tried anything else in WoW. I just stick to battlegrounds as I enjoy fighting other players win or lose. I like to twink and form friendships with other people who share my passion for twinking on WoW as well.
On retail I actually twinked on a PvE server because I really hate being ganked by higher levels but PvP (battlegrounds) 10-59 is dead on the PvE server of Nostalrius.

I've never given raiding a go and might do so here but it seems difficult to get into and I don't like having to game by a schedule.

[Ana]

I suspect robotron will be along shortly to sum up his feelings on the subject in two words.

"I hate cows" is three words though.

[Zanbaka]

Nice thread bro, but damn there's so many PvP dudes out here man. Let me share the perspective of someone who prefers PvE over PvP (at least in this game):

-You say that there's more variety in PvP, but imo that's nothing but an illusion. Not only are some specs/classes more viable than others, you will always have a similar playstyle against a certain build. So most of the time you end up doing the same thing over and over again.

-Draw distance issues (don't think I need to explain this one)

-Shitty ranking system. It's boring to grind the same BGs over and over again, especially since there's not a lot of variety in vanilla.

-Annoying/toxic players. There's usually two types of players in BGs, which are
1. the dude who is being bossy as shit and constantly complaining about everything
2. the dude who doesn't do the objectives and is mindlessly farming HKs

Now let's move on to the reasons why I prefer PvE

-Whereas PvP is pretty much a neverending cycle, in PvE there is progress involved and it is really nice to work towards that goal and clear a raid, especially the harder ones. Although it's an MMO, it's still kinda possible to 'beat' the game when you cleared all content and gives a lot more satisfaction.

-The lore of the dungeons/raids is always interesting to me.

-Killing bosses requires teamwork

-Purple pixels. I know this is superficial, but it is really rewarding to get a nice piece of gear after putting in a lot of effort. Also more than anything, you could call me a gambling addict, but I always get super thrilled to see what kind of loot a boss is dropping with each kill due to its randomness (Same reason of why I like opening booster packs in trading card games. Feels really good to get that rare holographic card :d).

Trust me, there are a lot of frustrating factors involved in PvE as well, but still I think it is a superior experience compared to PvP, at least in vanilla

[CuteBoyScout]

Trust me, there are a lot of frustrating factors involved in PvE as well, but still I think it is a superior experience compared to PvP, at least in vanilla

Agreed, I like vanilla for PvE, for better PvP experience I'd rather go 2.4.3 or 3.3.5a.

[Simonich]

All i been doing is world pvp since server release. And now, as guild, we started a bit pve too, and its really nice, we come in ZG almost daily in shit gear and pvp specs (guild only) till now downed just 1 boss, and earned some rep, and we gonna advance slowly and figure bosses with a sense of 2004-style, along with some world pvp events.

[Mencius]

In general, I like PvE over PvP because I prefer teamwork towards a goal rather than direct competition between players. I know PvE has direct competition (people who pay way too much attention to dmg meters) and PvP has teamwork (the best way to win in BGs), but largely PvE dungeons and raids are about group efforts and a lot of PvP is about individual achievement and skill. I also agree with Zanbaka that I like the sense of long-term progress in end-game PvE.

For server, in retail I always played on a PvP server (even though I prefer raiding and PvE stuff) because I quite liked world PvP and that constant risk that you might suddenly be in a 1v1 death match. Plus, you often end up fighting someone else while leveling up (usually mid-late 20s) who then basically levels at the same time as you, thus creating a natural enemy/rival up to 60, which was fun.

I choose the PvE server here though because of the crazy population numbers on the PvP server and the reports of issues people are having with it.