"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.

I will say I would have loved mmos to be online/offline. You should be able to enjoy your electronic asset purchases after the game is gone. Thats not really what you asked though but to add to my non sequitors I love when its all. Go play another game and then months later its. why does no one play this game whining.

Not just your experience, all of the games I've seen have a steady pulse of reviews about giving up due to of older players shitting on newbies, with devs silently endorsing it or having their hands tied by management because either "that's the way it's meant to be played" or they have a microtransactions shop and this toxicity encourages petty rage spending to catch up. And it works, because despite the mixed or barely positive reviews, these games still enjoy a steady stream of players enjoying the cycle of abuse. I'd consider it an exploitation of the "do unto others what was done unto me" psychological thing we humans tend to have going on.

Up to the devs. There's no objective should or shouldn't it's just a matter of opinion. Would it be nice? Yea. I get not wanting to play a game where you have to worry about coming into conflict with other players. I don't like those types of games either. I also don't buy them.

I am talking about using mods / "cheating" in a game that has an online function. If you mod Elden Ring, youre most likely playing offline and not ruining other player's experience. But you can't mod/cheat a game that is online only without ruining other player's experience.

The game was originally planned to be a PvE only game, but the game wasn't fun according to the data by their playtesters There's work that is involved in properly making and balancing and creating content for a different mode. You design the entire game around how you play it, in those case PvPvE. So no, they shouldn't. And neither should devs be forced to make a game they don't want to make. If you remove the PvP from the game as-is, you will lose out on a lot of what the game is supposed to be, and the interactions and moment-to-moment gameplay you have. Not to mention you're gonna split the playerbase which is rarely healthy for a multiplayer game. There's a reason PvP is included, and that's because it a straight up impossible to implement the sort of dynamism and unpredictability PvP adds. There's not a lot of games like Arc Raiders, and it is the kind of game that I want. Not every game is, or should be made, for everybody. That's how you get the sort of environment of undifferentiated AAA games where they all look and play the same all designed by committee to appeal to the greatest amount of possible to earn as much as possible