Well that makes since. Clear the garbage left by other never coming backs. They could also up the decay also maybe.
Its not that people on private love server wipes. It is just become a neccessity for the owners, if you want your server to be full and active. If you pay 30 or more Euros per month for a 40 slot server you want it to be full and active, so that money is well spend and does not go out of the window for nothing.
In order to play pvp, you must be able to adapt yourself to certain situations and get creative. Otherwise you will not get any fun or pleasure out of it. I do not know how to express it correctly in english, but its the same as beeing a passionate builder. You want to create something that is unique, that shows the world your talent, but at the same time it needs to be something that works out for you. You use what you can use, you learn new methodes from others or come up with your own. You adapt to what is possible and push it to its max or further just to accomplish what you imagine in your head.
Pvp is nothing else in the end. Its just another enviroment. An enviroment people evolve around. For most non pvp´ers pvp buildings are simply spoken ugly. Something they would nether build, they even feel offended to call this a building. Most wouldn´t ever complement a pvp builder for his work, because they do not understand what it takes to build a pvp base. But pvpers see it differently. Because their focus is not on the beauty of the outside but on stability, flexibility, mobility, defenseability aso. A well build pvp base is gold. But its also nothing that just comes in a minute or two. A great pvp builder is not someone who comes around the corner and says, hey I am good in pve building, I am building you a great pvp base now. It takes hundreds of hours pvp play to learn the ropes and then evolve, to adapt to constantly changing settings, to get better and better in understanding how pvp and raiding in the depth work to make a base work under all circumstances. As a pvp builder, you have to get in depth knowlegde about how much your building can withstand. And this you only learn by doing, failing, adapating and trying again.
Raiding is and was never about unraidability. Its the challange how much your buildings can withstand in a raid over several hours. The same goes for experienced raiders. They do not want easy sandstone castles, they want fortresses to challenge themselfs. The unbalance of the game itself made stacking and other methods legit in the eyes of pvp players. Because they worked out well.
Private servers are flexible enough to offer pvp´ers the freedom to challenge each other in an controlled environment with rules that have proofen to be working out in most of the cases. This rules are not static and do not punish like Funcoms Tos. They are simply made to balance out what the game at this point, does not. They evolve and are adapted to the situation and the surroundings of that server. Because you will always run into people that try to ruin it for everybody else. And there will always be conflicts that only can be solved by active admins. The ones that try to ruin it for the others get a ban. But they also get another chance after a wipe to do better next time. Yes, some never learn. Thats sad, but this you have in every game. And private servers can handle this guys. Officials though to the lack of active admins, saddly do not. And therefore most people are leaving officials at some point. The wipes clear the field, if that makes sense. Like a reset button. But they do not take away the problems the game has or the unbalance. The same goes for the rules. Private servers are like a little bandaid to a big wound. Its better then nothing, but not a permanent solution. A lot of private pvp servers are struggeling too. Player count is going down overall.
When a Critical Mass of Officials is wiped, like at Official Release, this is the most fun experience for PvP. This lasts for a surprisingly long time.
And I mean it, for honest-to-goodness PvP, nothing beats a Universal Wipe.
Honestly, I think it is the absentiee players who only jump on to refresh or months or even years on end that the main issue with server clutter. I really wish we could have a maintaince requirement for buildings to last beyone the decay system. Something that requires players to actively manage their holdings or lose them.
The only reason new players find private servers desired is due to exactly what you said. Input from their respective communities. Funcom does not add much to this game so for new players it has died.
You’re unlikely to be banned due to land claim without the admin warning you first. These days on PvP official reporting people has become the new meta for dealing with clans you cannot raid. I’ve been banned for land claims in the past but in retrospect I deserved it because we claimed proper hardcore 2019 days but since then I’ve seen clans getting banned for the silliest of reasons.
The rules are too vague and don’t go into greater detail. I’ve always played on official but the official pvp servers are becoming a meme due to the report system and a lack of greater clarity from Funcom.
I’d prefer to stay on official but I’m tired of watching friends and enemies alike walking away from the game because of how things currently are, that for me is why I might consider private better than officials.
Privates are customizable and you pick which one suits you. However, there are plenty of pain points to be had that officials don’t have including blatant admin bias and favoritism which is why I just don’t do it…if admin are playing then it’s a recipe for disaster, imho…no matter how objective you believe your are. I think “new player” is being used loosely because they are friends of admin or other private server players that share other games.
When people talk about less trolls / toxic people on privates I guess that’s a big advantage of some moderation.
Especially chat moderation. While privates doesn’t have it directly (in game), you often have a lot of the chat on Discord and you can send screenshots to the admins etc.
I guess that helps.
Cos I hear a lot about the toxic officials, but on PS4 it’s nothing like that. Ofc you have steamroll zergs and I guess some people call that toxic, but you also don’t have in-game chat. Only the PS messenger system which is moderated by Sony. If people report you, you will get warnings/suspensions for being even mildly offensive.
This makes most people rather friendly. Of course you have people that are really feeling themselves, but overall it’s pretty good. I’ve had a lot of friendly chats even with people we raided or who raided us.
Also I’d say on PS4 privates are less desirable because there’s so few and all the populated ones are 10x, insta everything. Only time I’ve found a decently populated one with good rules it closed down after a month.
This. I mean my clan plays aggressive, and when we join non rp pvp privates it takes a week or 2 before admin is knocking on our door telling us to back off our raids. And it is usually when we start attacking the most established clan on the private. One that in chat acts as an alpha. It is funny.
Now when our clan does stray to a private first thing we do is identigy the admins friends and decide if it is worth fighting them knowing that we will get kicked.
Set damn that can’t be real, can it? This is supposed to be “Queen of the Mountain,” “King of the Sandcastles,” not “Best Nugget in the Catbox.”
Yet another reason why Officials rule. If you want a clear, simple solution for new players, make it an Official Server COURTESY that under-60 players not be persecuted, and that no one under 60 near the Noob Oasis be attacked. Conditional, depending on the aggression level of the Under 60.
don’t have to deal with furncorm on privates. Still risk the uninformed zero game knowledge private admin tho. hard to tell which is worse.
In an ideal world players would always keep in mind the health of the server when they’re deciding what to do.
Sure, they can relentlessly foundation wipe an active clan, but should they if doing that will drive that clan of the server entirely and push that server closer towards death?
Privates are the worst at defining things selective depending on who they are. They like the concept of “PvP” but refuse to aknowledge they may not be the top dog as far as that goes. But it was privates that made me realize we don’t all share a common idea of what PVP means.
Yeah that’s why I just avoid them. Obviously it works for them to do it that way…I just don’t want to deal with that BS and if they enjoy their BS…fine. It’s away from officials so no skin off my back.
I’ve always wondered about this. I’ve only ever done one rollback on my server and it was because a glitch where we were trying to restore to the previous day. Other than that, I’ve never wiped because I’ve never really seen the need. Granted my server is small and unmodded but still…is this really that common of a thing? I’m genuinely curious.
I think it’s different for different people and maybe even generally different between different cultures.
As I see things here on the Asian servers Privates are usually a group of friends who want to play together without too much noise or interference from other players etc. that begins things. Then others see it has active users on during their play time and join it as well. IMO it would be a tiny TINY minority who would consider them better or worse based on whether or not they are private or official.
Likewise, people who prefer Official to Private PVP servers likely do so for similar reasons of a social nature. They may be a solo player for example and are looking to make some friends start or join a clan - or just see what the game is like and how long they can survive. Officials offer the level playing field and (all welcome) lobby-like experience which facilitate that.
Other than those considerations it’s very likely the only other things people consider are the server settings that are displayed when you click on one in the listing: Things like experience and farming rates etc.
How the game plays in practice (on different servers) like @Hel and others have outlined here is very likely only applicable to players who are and have long been invested in this particular game - perhaps even to the exclusion of all others. CE Freaks basically - which is not derogatory nor meant that way! No one else really knows or cares.
I don’t have access to any actual stats for CE but my guess would be 90% of “new players” [the topic here] join a server arbitrarily or based on those social considerations and are playing a different game within 8 or 9 months max. And this repeats with like, every game they play. It’s the rare 10% who stay longer, care, or even consider most of the points being made in this thread. “New Players” may by the time they’re getting ready to move on to the next game but for example, mention any of @Hel’s points to a “new player” or one in the game for only a month and you will likely just get blank stares.
For me, I like both equally. Every server I’ve been on has been a pleasure. There are great players and great people on all of them - everyone else just kind of keeps to themselves. In two years of play I have yet to encounter a toxic player on any of them. The worst was a guy on a PvE server who thought it was funny to kick my thrall while I was harvesting Black Ice in front of his base - but I was laughing too.
One thing with privates, I’ve noticed… A lot of “admins” don’t know what they’re doing and have the server settings pretty messed up. If you mention this to them they are very grateful and will usually fix things immediately - but likely if not mentioned - it doesn’t get fixed. The last one like that was a guy who had it set somehow to where there was a purge happening every 30 to 45 minutes - on a PVP server that had been up for 560+ days. 
Stuff like that…
From the real PVP player.
Officials require hiding real good or big massive clans to survive.
Private servers come with their own rules and can be easier rates for the people just starting out or pvpers that dont want to hit rocks for so long to fight.
Admins on both sides private and funcom, will ban without proof and just because someone is whining. So try to keep a low profile until funcom admins either get replaced or ruin the game entirely by banning the playerbase. (Yup that advice turned into a rant)
I play Official PVP on console, so my experience may be different.
I play on PVP official because it’s where I first started. Got to grips with PVP fighting pretty quickly and built my first sandstone castle. Got a decent number of compliments from the alpha clan on its beauty, but was also quickly informed that A- it wouldn’t last 15 minutes in a raid because sandstone is weak AF. B- It would be an easy target due to no layering or honeycombing. C- It was in a really really bad location with hardly anything going for it. They offered me a spot in their clan, and then showed me how to build. All in all, a pleasant experience.
The issue we had afterwards is when another clan came into the server and accused us of all sorts of stuff, trying to get us banned. They didn’t even properly fight it out or engage in PVP on a PVP server. Just weaponized the admins. That’s the issue with officials. No real fighting any more. Step 1 isn’t about scouting anymore. Step 1 is report, and if that fails, step 2 is scout.
Officials aren’t desirable right now because little timmy who builds a 8x8 box in the middle of an open area and fills it with T3 benches gets raided and then he goes to zendesk and spam reports the clan who raided him
then zendesk comes along and wipes and bans half the server because their bases are too big. lma0.
So the solution is to destroy the game for other players? Yeah count me out of that. I like the PvE crowd here.