ARK: Survival Evolved – PVP PVE PVPVE What Are They?

Overview

Note: Credit goes to Typhon Perun

First off lets get a basic overview of what the terms mean.

• PVP – Player vs Player
• PVE – Player vs Environment
• PVPVE – Player vs Player vs Environment

Based on this list it is clear that some confusion can come in to play, especially when it comes to what PVPVE is. So the below sections will attempt to clarify each one and what it means to the player, as well as server admin and advertisement.

Note that I do have well over 30 years of gaming experience, and the only new term in this bunch is PVPVE. Still lets begin shall we.

PVP

PVP is pretty straight forward. To put it simple it is literally
player vs player, and the easiest of the three to understand. Basically what this means is the following.

• Players can attack other players, no matter the level or area they are in.
• Bases can be destroyed
• Tames can be killed
• Raiders (the ones attacking) can likely loot your stuff if they choose to do so.

Admitally this does have some downsides, and there are some common misconceptions about PVP which are listed here.

• Players gain XP by killing other players, FALSE there is no XP gained at all.
• Resources can be blocked off by more established tribes. This is sadly true and there is little a admin can do about it other then ban the offending tribe. However a ban does not prevent this.
• Off line raid prevention keeps dinos and base safe. Again this is false, as it does not prevent a tribe that wants to raid another form camping them and waiting for them to be on long enough to attack them.
• White flag means you don’t want to PVP. Sadly this has the same issue as with resource blocking. Also due to rendering distance limitations, you can attack a base with a white flag without even being close enough to see if one is present.
• PVP is the true end game, again false as if anyone has fought the king titan in the latest expansion, there is a cut scene that Wild Card put in that notes the actual intended end game.
• There are safe zones in PVP, again false as it’s a server wide setting. The only way there can be a safe zone is if the admin take the time to establish them on the server. Even then it’s depends on how active the admin are on that server.

PVE

PVE is also a pretty straight forward term. It basically is the Player vs the game, without having to worry about being attacked by other players. What this means is listed below.

• No players attacking other players
• No players destroying bases
• No players killing tames
• Unless you leave a box unlocked, there’s no player looting other players.

Now like PVP you can have issues like resource blocking, as well as additional ones like folks placing pillars to prevent folks from building in a spot, same for fence foundations. However due to base decay rates there are some other issues as well that only active admin can solve.

• Out of control Breeding, leaving dinos set to breed while your offline.
• Multiple large bases
• Bases that won’t go away (better detail on this below)

As for bases that won’t go away. The mindset of “Decay rates will solve this” is rather false and self-destructive. The main reason is that these times reset if a person logs in to the map, even if just for a moment. This is sadly a basic game mechanic server admins have zero control of. All the person has to do is log in have all there things within render range, and log off. This can be used as a form of trolling that is very hard to prevent. It also makes it harder for new players to find base locations on well established servers, even those with base limitation rules in place. It is up to the admin in the end to make the judgement call here, and hope it’s a good one for the community as a whole.

PVPVE

Okay so this one is hard to understand for alot of folks, even those that think they know what it is. As it combines the above two. Which by there own nature conflict each other, as one is player vs player, and the other prevents it. 

Largely this is correct as it is by nature a conflict, and false even by it’s own wording. In the end though this term should only apply to clustered servers, where there is a mix of PVP and PVE servers.

Now some think that allowing tribe wars on a PVE server might make the term valid. However this is NOT a guide on game mechanics, but the terminology being used. Also in if you think about it allowing tribe wars on a PVE server is quite simply allowing for PVP to happen. It’s not a server wide event that affects everyone, which is what this guide is about.

All I can say about servers that advertise that there PVPVE is to be careful about them. There is alot of grey area here, and no one has a meaning for it that is entirely false or true.

Conculsion

So there we have it, what the terms mean and how they been used since the first MMOs came in to being. Though PVPVE is a new one that only started showing up when ARK was first released. I hope this guide can better make things easier to understand for both new and old players.