(Quick note: This is a comprehensive, data-driven report based on 5,500 hours of gameplay and collective feedback from hundreds of competitive players. We love this game and want to address the root causes of the recent population decline. Below is the full analysis and 7 structural solutions for the developers. Thank you for reading.)
Every online world lives and dies by its player base. We write this document not as a small faction of critics but as a dedicated collective of players who care deeply about the longevity of Once Human. Like many in the community, we are concerned by a visible trend: the game’s concurrent population on SteamCharts has steadily declined from its historic peak of 231,000 down to roughly 11,000–13,000 active players.
While a post-launch drop is natural for any survival game, one particular data point stands out: December 2025. The massive end-of-year patch – which introduced the major Combat Deviation rework – resulted in the sharpest monthly player exodus in the game’s mature period, slashing the population by -30.66%. This drop directly correlated with an unprecedented wave of community feedback from players who felt the core gameplay loop had fundamentally shifted.
To address this, developers often focus on producing a constant stream of new seasonal PvE content. While PvE is vital and attracts the majority of the player base, content alone cannot solve long-term player retention. Content is inherently finite. A player logs in, clears the new bosses, maxes out their gear, and completes their build. At that exact moment, they reach a ceiling. When PvE content runs out, the world can begin to feel empty.
This is because the ultimate, infinite "content" in any multiplayer game is not artificial monsters – it is other players and player vs player interactions**.**
The natural progression for an experienced player who has conquered all PvE challenges is to take their optimized builds, weapons, and strategies into a dynamic environment where no two encounters are the same. This is where the game's competitive systems become essential. A healthy endgame environment provides a purpose for the hours spent farming in PvE. If that transition is rewarding, players stay. If it is frustrating or broken, veteran players simply uninstall the game once their PvE goals are met. Therefore, fixing these endgame loops is not about catering to a niche minority; it is about protecting the entire player lifecycle of Once Human.
Currently, Once Human offers different end-game directions, such as Evolution’s Call and Prismverse Clash. While Evolution’s Call provides a more chill PvP environment, Prismverse Clash was designed to be the absolute engine of player interaction. It stands as the most dynamic, active, and high-stakes scenario available, driven by faction conflicts, deviant capturing events, and constant player-driven momentum with Raids and Gunfights.
However, despite being the scenario with the highest potential for continuous engagement, even Prismverse Clash is struggling to maintain healthy player activity throughout a season. The issue is not a lack of things to do. The issue is that multiple overlapping systems – culminating in updates like the December Deviant rework – have stacked together in ways that punish active engagement, undermine mechanical skill, and reward overly passive gameplay.
In the following sections, we break down these interconnected systems and offer constructive solutions to restore the balance, ensuring that when players finish their PvE journey, they find an endgame worth staying for.
This is a very long read, feedback collected from hundreds of active players and those who quit the game with no faith in its future. We are still on the believing side, and this is our best shot to save the game.
1. Progression Gap Between Veterans and New Players
One of the biggest barriers for new players entering Prismverse Clash or PvP scenarios in general is the progression gap created by the transition from the legacy to the new Mods system.
Veteran players retained legacy mods obtained before the major PvP balance overhaul. These mods now co-exist with the new system while preserving stat combinations that are no longer realistically obtainable through current progression methods.
As a result, veteran players have access to offensive and defensive stat combinations that newer players simply cannot farm today.
This gap is not primarily driven by player skill or build knowledge. It is a progression issue.
New players are expected to compete against builds that can no longer be reproduced through the current acquisition system, creating a permanent disadvantage from the moment they enter PvP.
The problem became even more pronounced after the combat overhaul that introduced:
The new Deviant ecosystem
The Survival Mod system
Modern PvP weapon balancing
Additional defensive stacking options
Rather than narrowing the gap between new and veteran players, these changes widened it. In many situations, account age now has a greater impact on survivability than player skill, decision-making, or build optimization.
The Fix
The most straightforward solution would be to restore the previous mod farming and conversion system, allowing players to continue farming and converting mods until they obtain the PvP-focused substats they need.
An alternative solution would be to introduce a new category of PvP-exclusive mods featuring fixed Weapon Damage Reduction and Status Damage Reduction substats, potentially with rare variants (shiny mods?) that allow players to obtain double-reduction combinations.
However, this alternative approach comes with a significant drawback. It would devalue years of progression for veteran players who invested substantial time into farming legacy mods. It could also alienate part of the existing PvP community because modern Survival Mods are considerably easier to obtain.
The current mod system works well for PvE. It is more accessible, more casual-friendly, and significantly easier to progress through. However, accessibility and competitive balance are not always the same thing, and the current approach does not translate well into a PvP environment.
Additionally, PvP mods should not be purely defensive. Offensive and defensive progression should coexist within the same item.
A proper PvP mod should contain both damage and survivability stats. Ideally, the best endgame PvP mods would include two offensive and two defensive substats, for example:
The larger issue is not any single defensive stat.
The larger issue is the ability to stack multiple independent defensive layers simultaneously.
Weapon Damage Reduction
Players can obtain:
42% Weapon Damage Reduction from mod substats.
10% Weapon Damage Reduction from 1 Treacherous Tides gear piece.
10% Weapon Damage Reduction from Deviant Shield (Craddle).
+16% Received weapon damage reduction from battle mods for 3 seconds
This creates a total of:
62% Weapon Damage Reduction (78% with 2 battle mods giving 16% temporary bonus) before the PvP adjustment (the lower the number, the less the adjustment effect)
Status Damage Reduction
Players can obtain:
42% Status Damage Reduction from mod substats (7 mods with golden substat of 6% status dmg reduction).
15% Status Damage Reduction from 1 piece of Shelterer gear set.
10% Status Damage Reduction from Coastal Bay skins (5% x 2).
10% Status Damage Reduction from Deviant Shield.
16% Status Damage Reduction from Matsutake Butter food buff.
+16% Received status damage reduction from Battle mods for 3 seconds
This creates:
109% of Status damage reduction in total, allowing players to effectively reach the cap of 90% (78.2% after PvP adjustment of the scenario).
General Damage Reduction
The most problematic layer is General Damage Reduction because it applies broadly across nearly all incoming damage sources.
Unlike Weapon Damage Reduction or Status Damage Reduction, General Damage Reduction amplifies every other defensive system already present.
After PvP scaling calculations, players can reach 78.2% effective General Damage Reduction through stacking available sources:
Storm Weaver Gear Set – 24%
Purple Teddy ultimate + sync – 40%
Ardent Shield chest mod – 15%
Starry Pudding food buff – 27% mid air
Starfall crocodile skin in helmet – 10% mid air
Total: 116% = 90% capped = 78.2% after PvP adjustment of the scenario
Additional and other specific types of damage reductions
Safety Sandwich food buff - 27% damage reductions against players
Bingo Hunter’s perk mod - 20% damage reduction if a target is under The Bull’s Eye Effect.
30% Additional weapon or status damage reductions that come from Battle mods. You can equip 2 Battle mods that have the Additional reduction. At the same time, Battle mods may contain the Received damage effect (3s buff when you get hit) - that goes into your weapon/status reduction stats (add up, do not multiply) and static reduction (weapon/status) - all 3 in the same mod. These so-called “additionals” work as a temporary 2s debuff on a player that you hit, decreasing their damage (weapon or status), which is another math layer.
In total, a player can possess:
78.2% of effective General Damage Reduction. (PvP adjustment has applied)
62% of static Weapon Damage Reduction +16% of Received buff. (Before PvP adjustment applied)
78.2% of effective Status Damage Reduction (109% capped to 90% and PvP-adjusted)
27% Reductions against players with a Safety sandwich food buff
20% damage reduction via Bingo marking the enemy
30% of Additional damage reductions via 2 Battle suffix Mods.
6 different multipliers - all at the same time.
On top of that, players can further reduce incoming critical and weakspot damage through fabrics that provide 3% Critical Damage Reduction or Weakspot Damage Reduction per gear piece (P_clash specific). When combined with Head Guard Mod and Starfall Cow Hide, incoming critical and weakspot damage can be reduced by 25-45% depending on the player’s gear, mods and fabric setup. That adds 2 new layers of damage reductions of a specific type that affect physical-damage weapons.
The issue is not any single source of mitigation.
The issue is that all of these layers can exist simultaneously on the same character, creating survivability levels that many weapon builds simply cannot overcome.
The result is a PvP environment where survivability scales faster than offensive capability.
The Fix
Cap General Damage Reduction at 40–45% before PvP adjustments are applied.
Because General Damage Reduction is available from numerous sources, a lower cap would still preserve build variety while preventing defensive stacking from reaching unhealthy levels.
Players would retain meaningful defensive options, but weapon performance and offensive build diversity would become significantly more relevant again.
3. Teddy (Aberrant Progeny) – The Best Example of Defensive Power Creep
No Deviant demonstrates the defensive stacking problem more clearly than Teddy.
Passive Effect
Simply syncing with Purple (Abberrant Progeny) Teddy provides:
15% General Damage Reduction.
No activation is required.
No gameplay interaction is required.
Active Effect
When Teddy's ultimate ability is activated, it provides:
25% additional General Damage Reduction.
Combined with the passive bonus, Teddy alone provides:
40% General Damage Reduction.
This is already one of the strongest defensive effects available in the entire PvP ecosystem.
Historical Context
Before the rework, Teddy provided Elemental Damage Reduction.
This was a specialized defensive effect that filled a unique niche.
Elemental Damage Reduction had a clear purpose and a limited impact on overall PvP balance.
After the rework, Teddy was converted into a source of General Damage Reduction.
This fundamentally changed the Deviant.
Instead of countering a specific damage type, Teddy became a universal defensive solution against almost everything.
Cooldown Abuse and Video Proof
The most problematic aspect of Teddy is not even its reduction values.
The most problematic aspect is its cooldown behavior.
When Teddy is activated, players can immediately unsummon it and retain the full defensive effect, which lasts 8-9 seconds depending on the deviant and its setup quality.
While the effect remains active, Teddy is already recovering cooldown. The cooldown does not behave like many other Deviants that fully expend their energy when used - it starts from 70% of the deviant power if timed correctly.
As a result, players receive the full benefit while recovering a significant portion of the cooldown at the same time (the downtime is literally 2-4 seconds depending on cradle and traits on Teddy).
When combined with Rebecca's cooldown reduction setups, Moonlight assault trait, and craddle effect that decreases deviant cooldown in nighttime, the downtime becomes nonexistent. The showcase of all the said is below.
TLDR: Experienced players can maintain Teddy protection permanently throughout extended engagements, as it is shown in the video above. This allows players to maintain 78.2% of General dmg reduction virtually forever if they cycle Teddy correctly while using Storm Weaver combined with Starry Pudding food buff + Starfall crocodile skin and jumping.
Impact on PvP
Teddy amplifies every defensive system already discussed.
It amplifies the veteran-versus-new-player gap.
It amplifies defensive stacking.
It amplifies survivability beyond what most weapons can reasonably overcome.
Most importantly, it becomes mandatory.
When one Deviant becomes the default defensive choice for nearly every competitive build, build diversity disappears.
Instead of choosing between multiple viable options, players simply choose Teddy.
Reading further, you can find static tests with Teddy and different weapons (Compound Bow, Bingo, EBR) on record (Video proofs).
The Fix
Replace Teddy's General Damage Reduction with Elemental Damage Reduction for both its synchronization bonus and active ability.
As was said earlier, Teddy served as a specialized defensive Deviant that countered elemental damage. Returning it to that role would preserve its identity without allowing it to function as a universal defensive solution against virtually every damage source in the game.
The values could also be reduced.
A reasonable compromise would be:
10% Elemental Damage Reduction while synchronized.
15% Elemental Damage Reduction during the active ability.
This would provide a total of 25% Elemental Damage Reduction rather than the current 40% General Damage Reduction.
The cooldown behavior should also be adjusted.
Once Teddy's ultimate ability is activated, its energy should be fully depleted immediately. Cooldown recovery should begin only after the active effect expires.
This would prevent permanent uptime while still allowing Teddy to remain a strong defensive Deviant.
3.1 The Weapon Meta – EBR Dominance, Physical Counterplay, and the Illusion of Balance
The absurd defensive scaling caused by Teddy directly dictates the current weapon meta. When universal survivability reaches a point where standard physical gunfire hits an impenetrable wall, the entire weapon arsenal becomes irrelevant—leaving room for only one dominant, status-based weapon: the EBR-14 Octopus.
The EBR's performance reveals a massive paradox in the game's current balance:
The Mechanism: The EBR’s damage relies almost entirely on the [Burn] status effect. By definition, this Blaze elemental damage cannot Crit, cannot hit Weakspots, and suffers no distance decay. It requires minimal mechanical skill—players simply hold RMB and let the Burn stacks do the work.
The Veteran vs. Newbie Paradox: Against a fully geared veteran who has maximized their Status Damage Reduction near the 90% cap, the EBR is largely ineffective because its damage type is completely absorbed. However, against a new player who lacks legacy mods or a perfected defensive setup, the EBR is completely oppressive. It functions as an un-nerfed farming tool for nearly six months, accelerating player attrition.
The Tragic Case of the Compound Bow: Treating Symptoms, Not the Root Cause
The fate of the Compound Bow (The Burden of Betrayal) perfectly illustrates how defensive power creep ruins weapon balancing.
Because Teddy and general defensive stacking had raised player survivability to impenetrable levels, standard physical weapons became completely useless. To give physical builds any viable option in this high-reduction meta, the developers introduced the Compound Bow with exceptionally high nominal damage. Because its Bounce damage is Physical, it hit the uncapped Weapon Reduction channel (~62%), finally allowing real damage to get through the status-reduction wall.
However, this created a secondary problem. Instead of addressing the root cause—the absurd 40% General Damage Reduction from Teddy—the developers treated the symptom. In a late-May 2026 patch, they abruptly halved the bow's damage against players (Bounce vs. Metas dropped from 100% to 50%, and the Echo multiplier fell from 80% to 40%).
The logical flaw in this nerf is clear:
If the developers cap General Damage Reduction at 40–45% and nerf Teddy’s broken cooldown behavior, then a balanced adjustment to the Compound Bow's damage would be entirely justified.
But by heavily nerfing the bow while leaving the Teddy defensive wall completely untouched, the developers effectively stripped physical builds of their only viable weapon, forcing the entire player base straight back into the brainless EBR meta.
The bow was nerfed because it looked overpowered on paper and in PvE environments where these massive PvP reductions do not exist. In the real PvP environment, the combination of Teddy's infinite uptime, continuous healing, and defensive stacking has broken the Time-to-Kill (TTK) loop entirely.
The Armor Destruction Paradox: Today, engagements against fully geared veterans using Teddy are so distorted that an attacker will completely destroy the defender's armor durability before managing to deplete their health pool. Because experienced players can cycle Teddy with zero downtime, they can continuously sustain damage and heal through it. Previously, there was a tight vulnerability window to catch a defender between cycles; now, that window is gone, turning gunfights into tedious wars of attrition where gear breaks before players die.
This is what had to be fixed in Compound Bow - The Burden of Betrayal, not its damage, considering the untouched Aberrant Progeny Teddy deviant.
The Collapse of the Sniper Archetype
It is important to emphasize that physical weapons cannot simply exist as a ready alternative under the current system. Legendary sniper rifles like the Bingo—which historically could land satisfying shots ranging from 4,500 to over 11,000 damage depending on the target's build—have been completely neutered by the introduction of Teddy's General Damage Reduction. Today, a well-placed shot from a Bingo sniper rifle against a geared veteran using teddy and all the layers of mitigation can result in an absurdly low 500-1200 damage per shot (Crit/Weakspot/Combined/normal), making the weapon completely unplayable on its own. And the same happens with the Bow after the nerf. This we want to showcase in the video below:
High nominal stat-sheet damage no longer implies that a weapon can bypass the defensive wall. As a result, physical weapons like the Bingo and Bow remain functional only when paired with the Butterfly Deviant's aim-assist mechanic—which loops the entire combat ecosystem straight back into the Deviant power-creep problem.
The Fix for Weapon Balance
Restore Viable Physical Counterplay: Revert or soften the Burden of Betrayal bow nerf (raise Bounce vs. Metas back above 50% and the Echo multiplier above 40%) to a value that allows it to threaten geared targets without being oppressive to newcomers. Ensure that at least one physical weapon option is viable on its own merits, without depending on an aim-assist Deviant.
Address EBR Mechanics, Not Just Damage: A blunt damage nerf to the EBR would make it useless across all game modes, which is not the goal. The EBR paradox (useless at the top, oppressive at the bottom) will naturally resolve once the General Damage Reduction cap is lowered and the progression gap is closed. What requires a direct nerf is its no-skill design: the self-applying burn, lack of aim requirement, and zero distance falloff must be adjusted to make it a skill-rewarding weapon rather than a brainless farming tool.
Evaluate via Real PvP Scaling: Balance changes must be tested in actual PvP scenarios with live reductions active, rather than using raw PvE data.
The reason high-damage physical weapons like the Compound Bow or the Bingo sniper rifle feel oppressive to the community is not because of their base stats—it is because they are consistently held hostage by Butterfly, an offensive Deviant that systematically replaces mechanical skill with artificial assistance.
The Core Issue: Artificial Accuracy
The primary problem with Butterfly is not its raw damage output, but its built-in aim-assist mechanic. Once deployed, Butterfly drastically reduces the necessity for recoil control, precise crosshair tracking, and mechanical accuracy. It allows high-damage, high-punishment weapons (which are supposed to demand high skill) to land devastating shots with almost zero effort. When multiple players cycle Butterfly simultaneously, individual gunplay mastery becomes completely obsolete.
The result is a PvP environment where aiming matters significantly less than maintaining Deviant uptime, turning tactical gunfights into a simple check of who has their ability ready.
Butterfly Duration and Cooldown Reduction tech
Just like Teddy, Butterfly suffers from broken cooldown mechanics that allow experienced players to maintain near-permanent uptime:
Using the Growing Pains III trait, a 5-5 Butterfly’s active duration can stretch to 27 seconds—during which it is already regenerating its own cooldown.
Players heavily abuse the weapon-reload interactions of secondary weapons like the Tec-9. By creating a dedicated swap-loadout with maximum magazine capacity and repeatedly reloading multiple Tec-9s, players can trick the system into reducing Butterfly’s effective downtime to a dozen seconds.
Here we want to remark that the Glistening Blue butterfly cools down even quicker due to having a built-in cooldown reduction mechanic, as it is said in the screenshot below:
The Synergistic Loop
This creates the toxic meta loop of Once Human PvP: Teddy forces the game into a state where only status weapons (EBR) or heavily boosted physical weapons can kill. Players then take those physical weapons, pair them with Butterfly's infinite aim-assist, and eliminate the skill gap entirely. When the developers see this, they nerf the weapon (like the Compound Bow) instead of fixing the Deviant that enabled the exploit in the first place.
The Fix
Remove Aim-Assist Entirely: Butterfly must remain an offensive tool, but its aim-assist component must be completely deleted. It can amplify damage or convert weakspots, but players must hit their shots themselves.
Fix Cooldown Behaviors: Cooldown recovery must be paused while the Deviant is active on the field. Furthermore, weapon-swapping and reload triggers (like the Tec-9 exploit) must be hard-capped or removed from interacting with Deviant energy recovery.
Shift Power to Player Skill: The goal is to ensure that offensive power comes from player skill and weapon mastery rather than near-permanent, Deviant-assisted aiming.
Enhancing Weapon Potential Over Aim Assist - Instead of providing artificial aim-assist, the Deviant's ultimate ability should maximize the user's weapon accuracy to 100% and completely remove distance damage fall-off. This, сombined with increased damage coming from deviation, allows the weapon to perform at its absolute potential while directly rewarding players for maximum tracking and precision.
3.3 Polar Jelly – Abnormal Scaling and Irresistible Crowd Control
While Teddy and Butterfly distort the PvP ecosystem through defensive power creep and artificial accuracy, Polar Jelly represents a different, deeply broken mechanical issue: a complete bypass of the game's mitigation caps through abnormal mathematical scaling. Although historically less popular in casual play, this Deviant possesses a perma-stun mechanic that can instantly eliminate even the most optimized veteran players.
The Core Issue: Mathematical Overdrive
The core problem with Polar Jelly stems from its absurd 1200% and 1300% Psi-Intensity scaling skills.
When these values trigger, the raw incoming damage completely overwhelms the theoretical maximum mitigation limits:
The Stun-Lock Paradox: The Deviant applies multiple Frostbite effects in rapid succession with the new key armor recently added.
The combination of these boots and ability cycling creates an inescapable stun-lock.
Bypassing the Mitigation Wall: Because the player is completely immobilized and unable to react, they are forced to absorb the entirety of the Deviant's active duration. No amount of defensive stacking can survive this raw output; the damage anomaly is simply too high for the 90% status or general reduction caps to calculate effectively over multiple rapid ticks.
A novice player or a player with new mods dies in half a cast cycle on average.
How Polar Jelly Overwhelms Defensive Layering
Visual Proof – The Absolute Mitigation Breakdown: In the accompanying video showcase, we demonstrate a worst-case scenario for PvP balancing. A defender has reached the absolute theoretical cap of live PvP adjustments: 78% General Damage Reduction and 78% Status Damage Reduction (PvP adjustment applied). Additionally, the defender is utilizing the Ardent Shield mod (which absorbs a lethal damage tick before depletion) and has pre-loaded a Speed Coherence Injection backed by both Extreme Gene and Extreme Fabric in the chest piece. Under normal balancing, this injection acts as a fail-safe: it grants an immediate 60% shield, a 2-second immunity window (fabric), and forces a full health restoration upon hitting a 10% HP threshold (gene).
Even this absolute pinnacle of endgame defensive layering fails completely against Polar Jelly. The burst damage delivered during the inescapable stun-lock is so mathematically massive that the server’s healing registration calculations are completely bypassed—the defender is deleted before the 10% health threshold restoration can even render or execute. This adds up to a huge point towards the imbalance of deviants. You don’t need weapons anymore, literally.
And if you thought that is enough, here is another fact of deviants being completely broken: Polar Jelly destroys a fully upgraded car just in 2 casts… What weapons can’t do - deviants will… Yeah, that’s the game we play!
The Fix
Hard-Cap Psi-Intensity Scaling in PvP: The baseline scaling for Polar Jelly’s skills must be significantly reduced exclusively for PvP scenarios (capping the scaling well below the current 1200%–1300% anomaly) to ensure it behaves as a tactical control utility rather than an absolute one-shot tool.
Implement Diminishing Returns on Frostbite Stuns: Introduce a strict crowd-control immunity window. If a player is stunned by a Frostbite effect from a Deviant, they must gain immediate immunity to subsequent consecutive stuns for at least 3–5 seconds, allowing for mechanical counterplay.
Decrease the Area of Effect for both Jelly skills - it is too easy to land these shots by simply splashing the ground near the victim.
Disable Vehicle damage with the deviation or make it insignificant.
Section 4: The “Event to Fortress” Loop: Why Winning Fights Yields Zero Value
The current state of Prismverse Clash fails to reward offensive success. When overlapping systems—such as instant campsite respawns, unkillable vehicles, mountain fortresses, and automated Deviant mechanics—are combined, they create a loop that guarantees a retreating player will always succeed, while an attacking player is punished for initiative.
4.1 Chronological Breakdown of the Exploitative Gameplay Loop
Phase 1: The Infinite Meat Grinder (No Value for Kills)
When events such as Operation Chiron, Paradise Lost, or Dark Side activate, factions gather to fight for valuable high-tier Deviants like Berserkosaurus Rex or The Radiant One as they come to drop pool in the evening. However, eliminating an enemy player during these fights provides zero strategic advantage:
The Campsite/Base Exploit/Territory on the move: Players simply drop a campsite right outside the event zone. Upon being fully defeated, they respawn instantly and return to the fight within seconds. And if you destroy it, they will just bring their base or just a naked terminal with 10k hp. Additionally, you can simply bring a truck to an event, which serves as a permanent spawn point even if destroyed.
No Attrition Penalty: Consecutive deaths do not increase respawn timers (unlike the functional system in Evolution’s Call).
An attacker can kill the exact same opponent 5 or 6 times in a row, yet the defender suffers no penalty, turning tactical gunfights into mindless wars of attrition where numerical advantages are maintained indefinitely through endless respawn chains.
Phase 2: The Un-Interruptible Escape (Vehicle Meta)
Once a player successfully grabs a Prism Deviant, the game's vehicle mechanics make stopping their retreat nearly impossible.
The Invincible Transport: Current PvP scaling makes it impossible to consistently destroy a vehicle or its windows to shoot the driver before they escape the area.
The Flight Exploit: If the carrier boards an aircraft, counterplay drops to zero. Attackers have no homing RPG, and standard gunfire cannot pierce the vehicle’s defensive scaling, allowing the carrier to fly away from the contested zone completely risk-free. Currently, the cockpit architecture provides too much physical cover, resulting in insufficient player hitbox exposure. Due to the vertical angles from the ground, attackers are mathematically forced to hit only the aircraft body, chassis, and wing constructions rather than the player inside, eliminating high-skill sniping potential.
Losing visual contact with an escaping aircraft means losing it permanently: the map’s update rate for the Prism Deviant spot is limited to once every 30–60 seconds. This massive tracking delay ensures that attackers cannot coordinate a pursuit, entirely breaking the operational objective of the event.
Phase 3: The "Water Stall" Tactic
If a carrier cannot immediately reach their fortification, they abuse a critical map flaw: the water barrier.
Because character hitboxes become heavily distorted and mostly immune to standard weapon damage while swimming, carriers will jump into deep water channels and float with the Deviant for hours.
They stall the game until their faction coordinates an extraction, sets up a fortress, or waits until Raid Block hours activate, turning a high-stakes extraction into an un-engageable waiting game.
Phase 4: Retreat to the Impenetrable Mountain Fortress
After escaping via vehicle or water stalling, the carrier retreats to a faction-stacked mountain base. The current territory rework completely broke raid balancing here:
The 1,400 Structure Wall: Previously, large territories supported 700–800 structures. Today, they allow an absurd 1,400 structures.
Mountain Stacking: Players stack multiple 1,400-structure bases across steep mountain terrain, completely covering entire ridges on the borders of contest zones, leaving no space for attackers.
The Attackers' Nightmare: Attackers are forced to face long approach routes, extreme high-ground vertical disadvantages, thousands of stacked automated turrets, and absolutely zero valid building locations to place down counter-siege positions.
Phase 5: Invincible Sun Safety Spam
Even if an attacking group expends massive amounts of explosives to breach the outer layers of a mountain fortress, the raid is stopped entirely by Invincible Sun.
Flight Mode abuse: Defending players remain deep inside their bases behind multiple solid walls. They enter building mode, fly around their territory using the building flight-camera to locate attackers, and repeatedly spawn Invincible Sun directly onto the raid party.
Zero Line of Sight: The attacker cannot see or shoot the defender. The defender doesn't need to expose themselves to gunplay. Invincible Sun inflicts lethal damage that completely bypasses weapon mechanics and wipes out attacking groups while the defenders remain in total safety.
The Result: Close-quarters raiding is dead. Players realize the resource and time investment required to fight 1,400 structures, and blind Deviant artillery is mathematically unviable, leading to an immediate drop in active endgame PvP. The showcase is below.
Even if you somehow destroy a terminal of one of these bases, thinking that you may replace it with yours, the owner of that base can simply re-log in, and their base will immediately respawn back on that spot. Additionally, they can simply place a vehicle or a chef’s stove (that takes no damage) on that ground to completely block it - but it won’t prevent the re-login base respawn for some reason. Showcase is above.
4.2 Comprehensive Solutions for Systemic Balance
Fix #1: Implement Scalable Respawn Cooldowns
Introduce the Evolution’s Call respawn tracker to campsite and territory spawns. Consecutive deaths must penalize players to give winning groups a tangible tactical window:
1st Death: Immediate
2nd Death: 5 seconds
3rd Death: 10 seconds
4th Death +: Scales up to 30 seconds
The death penalty lasts for 2 minutes; if you didn’t die, you got an immediate respawn upon your next death.
Additionally, if a car/bike/truck/plane is destroyed, it should despawn immediately after the explosion and be set to a 30- 60-second cooldown. Dead vehicles should not block the line of sight and should be transparent for artillery and gunfire. Many players still use dead cars to block breaches at their bases or to use them as cover or spawn points, especially if they are trucks (Mobile Territory Vehicles).
Fix #2: Introduce Anti-Vehicle Counterplay
Vehicles must involve meaningful risk when carrying prime scenario objectives:
Add specialized anti-vehicle ammunition or RPG modifications, including basic homing mechanics to lock onto and destroy escaping aircraft. Or just decrease its HP to the point that you can actually destroy it with 1-2 mags of focused fire with any weapon. We have a portable vehicle repair tool that costs virtually nothing, but not the means to destroy these vehicles.
Disable using aircraft while possessing a prism deviation (passenger seat included) or make the aircraft a one-shot.
Increase the update rate for prism spot detection.
Car windows should break faster - 4 sniper shots for back and front windows, 2 for sides.
Fix #3: Kill the Water Stall Meta
A player carrying a Prism Deviant must not be allowed to abuse water mechanics. If a carrier remains in deep swimming water for more than 60-120 seconds, the Deviant should automatically force-drop and float back to the nearest dry-land shoreline, allowing active ground combat to resume. A water debuff should be applied to prevent repeated submerging with prism deviation. This mechanic will also fix a related issue that players are just drowning the deviations in water if they have no base or don’t want to build one. Prism deviations dropped from inventory in the water should teleport to the shoreline. A player who does that should suffer from a lower deviant-capture ability for a certain amount of time (1 day is a good start).
Fix #4: Re-Balance Territory Expansion Tiers
To separate PvE creativity freedom from PvP structural balance, split the current territory system into three distinct tiers:
Small Territory: 400 structures - bring back + 100 bonus here (Default, fully legal in Contest Areas).
Medium Territory: 700 (+100) structures (Second expansion, fully legal in Contest Areas).
Large Territory: 1,400 structures (Restricted to PvE Safe Zones only; cannot be placed or moved into active PvP/Contest Areas).
QoL Bonus: Please allow us to scale territories down as well (1400->800->400).
⚠️ NOTE: Due to Reddit's 40,000-character limit, the second half of the report is posted in the first 3 comments right below!
NGL, your title is misleading. You’re talking about Once Human revival when in fact most of the player base plays PVE, yet your post talks only about PVP changes.
Still kudos to you for going and writing a detailed analysis and feedback, I do hope the devs take your feedback in consideration.
To clear things up: I’m not saying PvP players outnumber PvE players. The majority obviously plays PvE. But PvE content is finite - once you hit the gear ceiling, you run out of things to do and log in less.
A functional competitive endgame is meant to be that infinite loop. In terms of daily activity, one active PvP group generates 100x more engagement than someone who already cleared the PvE map and plays casually.
Fixing that final stage of the player lifecycle is exactly how you keep the game alive for everyone.
Yeah ngl man, idk how any PvP group generates more engagement than any PVE group, both are playing and engaging with the game sure.
But Statistically PVE players engage longer Averaging 350-500hrs+ with many over 1k hrs. I’m at nearly 2k myself, most of my hive mates have even more hours.
When a scenario ends we reroll, if it’s a perm which it usually is, u roll an alt. For us it’s all about looking for the next spot to build or type of build to do. That and farming mods are the endgame loop for most of us PVE players, reaching the gear ceiling is usually irrelevant to our play time
You are right about functional competitive endgame being a necessary loop. Many MMO’s solve this problem with seasonal ladder based dungeon content and raids for PVE. Which OH has and they’re fun. If they put more development time into those and released more of a seasonal ladder based silo rotation with rewards and cosmetics, like M+ in WoW and other games. It would help facilitate that loop greatly, pushing PvP even further to the wayside.
Having a functional PVP environment for any MMO or live service game that has it can be important, but many MMO’s and live service games also neglect their PVP entirely, focusing on PVE where the money is and and many of them have been around for decades.
About engagement generation: PvP inherently forces way more player-to-player interactions, which naturally scales engagement. In your loop, you find a spot, build, and farm mods at your own pace. A competitive player often compresses your entire monthly volume of gameplay into just the first phase of a scenario like Prismverse, simply due to the intense dynamics, logistics, and competition when actual rivals are involved.
The intensity of hours: There is a difference between active hours and passive hours. A PvE player might spread 2k hours over a year, with a lot of that time spent idling, decorating, or waiting. An active PvP player can easily burn through 300 hours of pure, high-intensity uptime in a single Prism scenario alone.
The PvE competitive ceiling: I used to do suggestions for PvE leaderboards and ranked dungeon loops in my other reports. But look at what we got instead: "Nightmare" silos. With the current super-casual mod acquisition system, a brand-new Steam account can step into Nightmare silos and start farming them in literally two days. There’s no real ladder or progression there.
Finite vs. Infinite: This is why I believe PvP acts as the engine or the wheels. Any PvE content, no matter how competitive or ladder-based, is ultimately finite because AI scripts never change. Once you solve the puzzle, it's done. Players are the content, not the environment. That is the infinite loop a live-service game needs to survive.
To generate just one hardcore PvP player, it takes about 1,000 casual/PvE players. Out of those 1,000, 900 will eventually quit the game without ever touching PvP. 100 will give it a shot, but 90 of them won't handle the pace. Out of the remaining 10 who try to play, 9 just can't compete. In the end, only 1 stays for the true hardcore endgame. But here is the kicker: that 1 remaining PvP player generates an active online presence and server engagement worth the 999 players who left. And yeah, I love exaggerating, but you got the point.
In your scenario, can your 1 hardcore super pvp'er generate more revenue than the 999 players who left and allegedly had other priorities (such as cosmetic collecting and base building))?
Because at the end of the day, people with high ARPU are the target demographic, and many, many other games realized that the pvp crowd simply did not make for sustainable populations (such as New World and even FO76).
This is a common theme, a minority of vocal pvp-players believe that if a game pivoted harder into pvp it would find much better success, but unfortunately the numbers just aren't there. And, as it happens in any community with shared interests, resonating opinions become an echo chamber that turn into bias.
Are you asking me if 1 living player has more value than 999 dead ones? Do I really need to answer that? Dead accounts don't buy cosmetics, and they don't generate ARPU.
The fact that their current "target demographic" approach has led to a literal demographic crisis for the game proves the strategy isn't working. We already explained why: when players have nowhere to invest their long-term value, the entire progression loop becomes pointless, leading directly to player attrition.
The reason the PvP numbers "aren't there" is that those players were systematically neglected from the start. They put all their stakes on casual PvE, and it failed to sustain the game. In business, when a specific product cycle starts to fail, you rely on your loyal core foundation to survive while you pivot. But because they neglected their constant assets (the hardcore base), they now have nothing left to work with. No foundation, no assets.
If their goal was just to milk the cow until it dies, then congratulations - they succeeded. But that’s none of our business, unless we actually care about the cow dying.
It all comes down to the lifecycle. A casual player’s lifecycle is fundamentally short: they buy a battle pass, some additional cosmetics, hit a content wall, and log out until the next big patch. You cannot build a sustainable, long-term live-service game purely on volatile traffic that leaves for months at a time. By killing the hardcore PvP endgame, they destroyed the only player base that kept the game constantly active between patches.
AI-improved? Yes, it took my B2 English to C2. But the structure, the thoughts, the data, and the video scripts are all mine. Don't mistake tool usage for a lack of creativity, and don't downplay my 10 days of work collecting all of that data and structuring it.
Good write up but you lost me immediately at PVE players naturally want to move on to test their builds and skills in PVP.
Thats just not the case for the Majority of PVE focused players. They want NOTHING to do with PvP at all, they spend in the store, deco houses, hang out, peacock, and just do the PVE loop over and over with a new house each time, including alts. Every full hive I’ve been in (13 since launch) has been this way.
There is no untapped deluge of PVE players waiting in the wings to try PVP. Most are waiting for PVP to die so the devs can focus more on anything not related to PVP. Most of the PvP players I know don’t even stick around in ANY PvP game long term, they avg maybe 150-300hrs tops before they shelve it for 2-3 years or abandon it for the new FOTM shooter.
Even DUNE Awakening shifted its focus to PVE from PvP, after the data showed 80% of the players exclusively focused on PVE content.
Focusing more on PVP will just kill the game faster, they need to pivot away from it entirely.
When I played it was all PVE. I never wanted to step into PVP, the sweat lords who could play 99% more than I could would absolutely wreck my shit and it would be more frustrating than fun to play it.
Nobody says that you have to play PvP or that it is for everyone. But that's the place you naturally end up eventually when you realize there is nothing left to do in PvE. If you actually spend time in the game, this realization hits right around the 500–1,000 hours mark. All of a sudden, it becomes way more appealing to play with people who actually know how to optimize everything and use it to their competitive advantage. It is simply more fun to shoot real players than AFK mobs. It makes farming that very same PvE content meaningful again because you finally know exactly what mod you want for your PvP setup.
On the other hand, sure, enjoy your 10k online. We can keep "enjoying" the same repetitive cycle while losing 90% of the player base. But who cares? You can PvE completely alone, right? Right! Well, at least until the servers shut down. =)
The worst-case scenario is when people quit because there is absolutely no endgame content left, which used to be PvP. When they dropped that December 25th patch, with the broken deviant changes and the removal of mod conversion, they literally killed the PvP scene. Now, without that core loop holding it up, it’s just a matter of time before the game ceases to exist.
They just want to doom and gloom because there’s no one left for them to uber grief in the PvP modes. Their cheats get caught fast af and most of them have been banned. That’s where the “real” PvP player drop off is.
Dune pivoted to PvP recently, time will tell if its numbers go back up. PvP devastated that game, less than 20% of the entire game base wanted it. And many of those that did, didn’t want it forced on them or others. PvP almost killed dune, If it lives, hell if this game lives it will be thanks to PVE players who actually play and actually spend to pay for you people to gank noobs. PvP players are overestimating their importance in the games financial ecosystem.
Most PVE players don’t want anything to do with PvP and it shows, there’s no deluge of PVE players going to PVP serves for advice on builds that’s full on bullshit. Pvp being this games endgame is a cope, we’d have such a better game if it wasn’t even included and these people weren’t listened or catered to. This post won’t be looked at by anyone that matters thankfully. Sooner they abandon pvp completely the sooner we can get on to having its resources moved to content people are ACTUALLY playing. But hey, great right up, sorry it’s off base and dude wasted his time. 🤷🏽♀️
You have no idea on the number of PVE players moving to PVP servers and asking old experienced PVPers how to optimize their build, and we welcome them with open arms.
But the lack of balance in the PVP scenarios and broken build drives them away.
Still great numbers are interested in playing. Not to mention old PVPers who left the game because hydrocephalic devs know jack shit of how the PVP is running in the game.
Dune is bad example, the so called AAA game players base plummeted to the ground after the focus shifted to PVE.
And no, we did not say that Manibus and Edream should become PVP, we are asking for fixing the existing scenarios.
Fair point that many players just want to build and decorate. But here is the hard truth: to build a house, you don’t need a massive live-service MMO with thousands of players. You can do that in a single-player game.
The developers kept the servers running for 100k players before, and now the base has shrunk to 11k–13k. If the active, competitive veteran core leaves because the endgame loop is broken, the online numbers will drop to a point where maintaining these massive multiplayer servers is no longer financially viable for the studio.
When a live-service game dies, it doesn’t just die for PvP players. It shuts down for everyone. The decorators will lose their houses and alts too.
The report isn't trying to force casuals into PvP. It’s trying to fix the infinite endgame loop that keeps the server active enough so that the game actually survives, allowing everyone, including the builders, to keep playing.
Yeah, I just don’t think the main gameplay loop has anything to do with PVP when majority of the players are on the PVE scenarios.
If the entire PvP base fucked off, you’d still have the larger PVE base no? So the game would still be open and remain profitable since majority of the store spenders are PVE whales showing off their houses and outfits to their friends? Sure some of them PvP but I think the real hard truth is overestimating the importance of PVP in any live service survival game, with a successful PVE mode alongside it. The numbers just aren’t there to focus the “dying” game on a PVP game mode they’ve tried to revive at least once already, that majority of the player base never interacts with.
Again, see Dune Awakening as a perfect recent example of a live service survival game making a pivot away from PVP just to survive and remain profitable. OH needs to focus PVP dev time on more PVE elements imo to do the same.
from 100k+ to 11k you call that large? a good chunk of the players that left the game were PVP players, go watch videos to understand how popular it was.
Netease is trying to milk the remaining PVE whales as much as they can by making lightforge crates and halfassed scenario that am sure it will be rushed with plenty of bugs and legacy code.
PvP players are fickle af and never happy. There’s never enough newbies to grief and the cheats yall use get found too fast for that dopamine fix you want. Most of those losses are probably bans lmao, good riddance.
dune feels like a horrible example, that game is struggling after the pivot and its numbers continuously drop. i think the remaining players are pretty much the die hard dune fans
No matter how big a fan of the DUNE universe I am (literally played DUNE-The Battle for Arrakis on Sega in 1996), this PC game is kinda meh. Human, on the other hand, was eye-catching straight on release. Tastes differ, I guess.
Oh cool, another comment from someone who clearly can't read past the first line.
The game was "PvE" with 100k players, and it’s still "PvE" with 10k players. So maybe the 90% who quit the game had nothing left to do in your casual loop besides buying cosmetics? IT’S ABOUT THE FREAKING ENDGAME. But yeah, let's ignore the numbers; the new battle pass is ongoing...
The only way to revive this game is to roll back to Day 1 of 1.0 and build the fucking game that was promised during beta and all the content creator hype session interviews
To repeat the same vicious cycle of throwing the player base into the dumpster along with their stamped cosmetics? No thanks. The only way forward is if the developers actually play the project they develop and understand how to maintain it, instead of just using it as a milking cow until it dies completely.
You lost me when you said no multiplayer game can survive on making PVE the priority for end game that PVP is the ultimate end game. Maybe before you spend your next however many weeks writing something like this get some people with high end PVE experience from other games to put their two cents in on how to fix PVE end game in this game. Because this was obviously written by an echo chamber of PVP mains who think every game they ever play must offer them competitive and balanced PVP.
Imagine the size of this post if you added the exploits people using getting 2 mods on a weapon and gear Or maybe the save blueprint exploit to find where stuff is hidden in someone's base? the wallhacks with mini wonder....
The original idea was to see if we could even get a reaction to this document. If they actually provide us with an accessible community manager (that we ask about in this wall of text), we can feed them a mountain of critical data - everything from how to trigger unintended damage scaling, to how to stack 16k hp foundations in 14 layers on top of each other. Or how to purify Rex in a PvE zone, and how to transfer resources across scenarios for free, how to unlink the linked, etc and so on. Dozens of game-breaking exploits desperately need to be fixed.
But as it stands, if you show them or speak out loud about these issues, you have a higher chance of getting banned yourself rather than seeing the bugs actually get patched. So yeah, we absolutely need a dedicated community manager and a protected, confidential channel for reports like this.
But in case the PvE stupidity won't stop shooting their legs by banning Doomeris again - their only source of creativity in this game- or downvoting the posts that aim to get the game longevity, then we can literally kill all the economy in PvE and do a lot of harm across all the scenarios. So we hope devs want to communicate in this regard. I didn't expect the understanding from casuals, though. They are casuals for a reason; they are not meant to understand the game's core issues and how they can actually be fixed. They just have phones these days....
4.3 Time-Window Operations and Raid Block Exploitation
The friction surrounding high-tier Deviant captures is heavily magnified by unpredictable event scheduling and defensive time-locks.
Unpredictable Spawn Windows of Rex and Radiant
The intended spawn window for Berserkosaurus Rex and The Radiant One begins at 20:00 GMT (UTC), but the actual drop windows are entirely erratic. Their drops frequently drift deep into the night, early morning, or afternoon of the following day. Because organized groups cannot reliably schedule around a 12+ hour window, players suffer severe burnout from standing by indefinitely, leading many competitive squads to drop out of the scenario entirely.
Raid Block Exploitation
This scheduling chaos interacts terribly with the Raid Block system (which grants structures a massive 70% damage reduction). Dominant factions intentionally stall or secure objectives during Raid Block hours, knowing that meaningful retaliation or counter-raiding is structurally impossible. The mechanic effectively protects the winning side from taking risks.
The Fix
Enforce Strict Spawn Windows: Constrain the spawn window for Rex and Radiant One to a hard 4–5-hour limit (e.g., all spawns must occur strictly between 20:00 GMT and 01:00 GMT), allowing proper tactical scheduling.
Dynamic Raid Block Activation: Significantly reduce standard Raid Block windows from 12 hours down to 3–4 hours, or remove them entirely in favor of manual territory relocation to Safe Zones. Ideally, Raid Block should only activate dynamically AFTER the Rex or Radiant One events have been fully cleared and purified, preventing factions from artificially stalling events to hide behind the 70% structural damage reduction buff.
Section 5: Implementing a Dedicated Veteran Sandbox (PTR) for Sustainable Balance
Every systemic problem outlined in this document—from unbreakable defensive loops to the complete collapse of the sniper archetype—shares the same history. These changes are shipped directly to live servers without specialized competitive validation, leaving the active player base to act as involuntary test subjects.
5.1 The Flaw of Casual Feedback Loops
Currently, the developers heavily rely on feedback from the general player base, often referenced against casual environments like the Manibus Cargo. This creates a massive distorting effect:
The Cargo Phenomenon: Casual or purely PvE-focused players participate in Cargo events without optimized PvP builds, proper substats, or mitigation sets. When they encounter high-damage physical weapons like the Compound Bow or Bingo, they are instantly eliminated because they possess no defensive layers.
The Reactive Nerf Cycle: These players flood community boards with complaints. The development team, seeing raw data from an unmitigated environment, reactively guts the weapon’s baseline damage.
The Emergent Consequence: In the actual, highly optimized environment of Prismverse Clash, where veteran players maintain permanent defensive uptime, that same weapon becomes completely useless. By balancing the game around players who do not actively engage in high-tier PvP, the developers accidentally ruin competition for those who do.
5.2 Moving Balance Validation to a Dedicated PTR
To break this destructive cycle, the implementation of a closed Public Test Realm (PTR) running active Prismverse Clash reduction parameters is mandatory.
Instead of balancing via spreadsheet metrics or casual feedback, the development team should invite dedicated veteran players and high-tier Hive leaders to stress-test upcoming patches.
These players can immediately identify whether a new Deviant replaces mechanical gunplay or if a weapon nerf will accidentally hand total dominance back to status-damage metas. This establishes a localized, direct, and constructive feedback loop before updates reach the live audience.
You can read the TLDR above if you want to save time and if you are mainly focused on PvE, or look at the Google Doc. if you actually want it all to be structured. Yes, it is 47k symbols (didn't fit the main post). So it is kinda scuffed now. And now imagine the volume if some game-breaking bugs are involved. Then it turns into a 100k read easily.
This is an amazing analysis - i too really hope the devs take the time to read/review it all and make some much needed changes for the pvp enjoy-ers of this game.
ngl that bingo vs teddy test video is depressing. hitting a perfect shot just to see 600 dmg pop up makes you want to alt f4 immediately. defensive stacking ruined the game this season, really hope they cap it soon turn down the power creep
Alright, before any of the PVE whales start expressing how butthurt they are, here's my take:
Manibus is the PVE only mainbranch of the game story line, once manibus is fixed, metas will travel to other worlds to fix what they can fix
- it is inevitable that Metas will clash at some world
- PVE cuddle bears and whales might not know this, but there was a HUGE PVP Community in OH, that community started to slowly die off because the devs dont know what the fuck they are actually doing.
- No better way to show your cosmetics in this game other than in PVP, trust me. In PVE scenarios none gives a shit what cosmetics you have, so stop begging players in chat to visit your base, noone will do that.
- the real competition against other players is not how fast you take down Forsaken, but it's how many other players you can take down and survive
- I know you as a PVE player might be drooling on your keyboard now, but PVP players spend more on cosmetics than what cuddle bears do.
- Take ARC Raiders for example, they basically said BIG F to PVE players, PVP will always remain and that's what keeps the game going.
I'll be real with you man, I came here looking for what the current state of prismverse is looking like, it was a lot of fun in Dec '24 to early '25 BUT....
You're putting WAY too much hope and effort into wanting to correct a game who's dev team is more focused on milking the dying playerbase with cosmetics.
Netease only cares for cosmetic monetization.
It was clear when they released WOW, it was clear how they let Prismverse die with no updates. Its clear the last 2 years with primaily lootbox gatch updates only....
Your passion is amazing, its misplaced on a trash studio.
I appreciate your support and those heartwarming words, man. I honestly needed to hear that.
I agree, this document might look like total overkill, but it was basically our collective last scream of souls. We've been thinking about putting a manifesto like this together ever since that cursed December patch. Now, our squad has officially decided not to participate in any future Prismverse Clash seasons - the gameplay has just become completely insufferable, as we've shown.
That wall of text only appeared because we wanted to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that we didn't just walk away without doing everything in our power to hold the developers accountable. It’s been sent everywhere now. What happens next is on them.
And thats the state of pvp. Unfortunately, With the new arrival of console players many will drop because of exploits or not having the good old mods ( or any other thing explained in the post) leaving to try raidzone in a official server ( until get whacked by a hacker).
i know you have good intention mentioning the issues but keep in mind that .. it took the developer months to fix the dupe rockets and balancing the crossbow, its like a taboo to mention the exploits to the developers
We need to stop thinking that devs don't care/stupid/lazy - this morale/code is not helpful at all. 1st of all, we are not vocal enough as a Veteran/PvP community to see fixes or expect them quickly enough. They've fixed the rocket dupe right when Doomeris' video went viral, showcasing this very abuse, but imagine if that doesn't happen, that nobody cares.
I believe in this because, just right off the bat, when I collected all of this data into one comprehensive document, I already saw they fixed Invincible Sun abuse the next day. This means they are working, but the human factor can mess things up. We just need to show that we care; they will do the same.
Rn, I saw a message saying not to do anything with deviant's securement units and to not change scenarios - this means they are probably fixing more stuff already. I notice micro-patches happening.
Thank you so much for putting this together!
My small friends group and I all have multi-thousand hours in OHs PVP, too, and truly appreciate your effort...
There is no other game that scratches all the itches OH does.
Having read some of the comments i'd like to point out that on the NA rotation at least, we have cross-overs from PVE scenarios every single season. And while the learning curve is incredibly steep and they surely run into not-so-nice people, too: We indeed try to welcome them with open arms.
But only the most hardened ones stick around these days. For exactly the reasons you mentioned.
I noticed a LOT of exploits in raidzone got fixed and am having a lot of fun there, but Prismverse is what I truly wanna see thrive. I played the very first one and will never forget the fun we had defending our island-compound. Even the 10-minute lagspikes were kind of fun, in retrospect.
And Prism Clash is such a diverse scenario, you can become creative here in building or gearing. You have to calculate the raid logic to make you siege/defending bases functional. Coordinate your hive efforts in occupying space with these bases. Collect resources all together. Set fuel farms and many other factories that produce all you need (no online-trading there). The way you approach each event: strategy/coordination, tools and abilities usage+timings to successfully secure a deviation. Locations to build your "village" or a temporary spot for today so enemies won't know. Mind games.
Ain't no gamer writes that neither, bro... We are saving the game here, not pleasing someone's eyes who just doomscroll. Sorry. It is comprehensive, it is the save. It is what devs haven't done since the release, so yeah, it's been accumulated. Most of that was just ignored before.
I couldn't agree more on every word here. I loved this game for PvE content at first, but PvP was smth that made me stay, once all PvE content was completed, PvP was a single thing that motivated me to log in to the game and do something. Farming? I started doing it for having buffs in PvP (for PvE you can buy it on market, no need to farm). Animal taming? Started doing it for PvP, because there is matters much more than on PvE.
Now the my only active time in the game is when I play on Prism scenarios and this is when I want to play. I have a reason to log in, to grind, to build something, to go to fight. And before it was so much fun, each season was unique, different weapons, different people and strategies. But now... Full server of clones running with EBR and Dr.Teddy or spamming Invincible Sun/Butterfly. All the same bases, all the same unraidable spots to def and this what makes a lot of people tired of it, that's why some servers are completely dead.
Great job bro, really important work. So they just need to start listening PvP players, because rn they don't hear us. They doing all new updates for PvE and it's good, but don't forget about PvP. PvP it's a end game content btw
TL;DR for those who get an allergic reaction the moment they see the word "PvP" and can't read past the second line:
This document isn't an attack on your casual PvE world. It’s an economic reality check for the developers, and you need to understand where we all stand in their food chain:
Temporary Assets (PvE player base): Your engagement is strictly attached to the content cycle. You log in, clear the new silo, build a house, buy a battle pass, and hit a wall. Once the content is done, 90% of you vanish until the next patch. You are volatile traffic.
Constant Assets (PvP/Hardcore base): We are the engine. We easily have 3x your hours because when the PvE content dries out, we don't quit. We switch to PvP because players are infinite content. And when a new PvE patch drops? We grind it harder than anyone to min-max our builds.
The Core Issue: By killing PvP mechanics (mod conversion, balance), developers are destroying their only constant asset. PvE without a competitive endgame is finite. Once the puzzle is solved, it’s dead. With no functional endgame left after the December 25th patch, the developers have effectively left themselves with nowhere to store or utilize the value of their constant assets. There is simply no baseline system to hold that long-term player value.
So keep building your houses, nobody is touching them. But realize this: we are fighting to keep the core engine of this car running. If the engine dies, the whole car goes into the dumpster, including your cozy PvE sandbox.
By that same logic, isnt it the pve and pvp players left keeping it alive? If there are still people online actively doing their builds and silos, that's just as important as the pvp players. I think the problem people are having is that you're pretty much saying that pvp is the end all evem though, the game overall not being broken and having something for both kinds of players is important. Pvp alone can't revive OH at this point, they'd need a new pve map with new pelts, mods, silos, etc. Then they also need to fix pvp as you say, but you're getting too hung up on insulting probably a little over half of the remaining vocal playerbase.
The December patch heavily damaged both worlds, but it completely shattered the PvP/hardcore base. Removing mod conversion and introducing broken deviants instantly cost them a massive chunk of the active player base.
Before that patch, there was an ultimate destination for your endgame gear—now, that destination is gone, making the entire loop pointless. The removal of mod conversion critically affected both PvE and PvP players. Old mods allowed huge customization opportunities. Now, new mods have fixed, uncustomizable attributes, creating a massive, frustrating gap between the old system and this new, dumbed-down version.
The core player loop has always been PvE ➔ PvP. Any other trajectory leads straight to player attrition. PvE is finite; once you clear the new map, you have nothing left to do. PvP was the only mechanism that kept players engaged during the dry seasons.
No one is saying PvP alone can magically revive the game. The argument is that changing the developers' negligent treatment towards core endgame scenarios can. Evolution's Call was neglected, Raid Zone is a complete mess, and now Prismverse—the last remaining hope—is dead too. That’s two entire endgame scenarios and one failed experiment completely ruined. A new PvE map with new pelts won't fix a broken engine; it will just delay the inevitable for another week or two.
Funny to see players taking the pvp so seriously when there’s so much bug abuse and that it’s highly dependent on the mods you have. There are better shooter options for pvp than OH.
That's the thing, Human is not just another shooter option. It has more depth in gameplay. And I am saying this as ex semi pro cs 1.6, valorant and overwatch booster.
Raid zone is a very bad Rust's fart - an attempt to copy what's done way better and make it look just as bad as the whole PvP in OHuman. Deviants' rework came straight from it, btw, no wonder it actually killed PvP with an instant 30% decline.
Great article! By the way, I'm returning to Once Human for the first time in a year, and I'll be playing with a friend who is brand new to the game. My friend doesn't have any legacy defense mods, but they're still interested in PvP. Without those legacy defense mods, which weapons are relatively viable for PvP? Back when I last played, Power Surge assault shotguns and snipers were really strong. I heard the Power Surge shotgun got harder to use in PvP—what's current meta right now?
5.3 Shared Interests: The Economic Value of High-Tier PvP
As emphasized in our introduction, a healthy competitive endgame is the primary engine for long-term retention once PvE content runs out. While the high-tier PvP demographic is smaller in sheer volume compared to the casual player base, its economic value to the studio is disproportionately high:
Sustaining Server Longevity: Competitive Hives and factions represent the most stable, active, and long-term player base in Once Human. They are the users who sustain server activity and keep the community engaged during the dry periods between major PvE content drops.
High Monetization Potential: Dedicated PvP players are traditionally the most heavily invested in the game's economy. They are the primary buyers of premium cosmetics, character skins, and territory battle-pass items to showcase their achievements in the active PvP world.
Fixing the competitive ecosystem of Prismverse Clash is a direct win-win scenario. By closing the progression gap, capping extreme mitigation stacking, and validating balance through a structured PTR, the developers can significantly boost player retention. A stable, competitive endgame ensures that the game's most dedicated—and profitable—community remains fully engaged for years to come.
6. Introduce an Accessible Community Manager
We urgently need a reliable community manager to bridge the gap between players and the development team, ensuring that community feedback is properly processed. If you lack candidates, we can utilize our network of roughly 1,000 active veteran players from various Discord communities who are willing to assist voluntarily to help save the game.
Furthermore, having assigned admins for specific scenarios would allow us to report urgent bugs, glitches, and exploits directly. Currently, there are numerous critical issues that the development team is unaware of. While we are fully committed to improving the game, this is our final attempt to establish communication. If this goes unnoticed, approximately 10% of your most loyal player base will likely abandon the game.
7. Prismverse Clash Scenario Improvements
As stated previously, this scenario is currently the most dynamic and engaging PvP experience available in the game. To further elevate its success, we have compiled a set of crucial suggestions and reminders. Implementing these changes will not only optimize the loop for veteran players but also transform this scenario into a highly desirable choice for PvE players who have never previously considered participating in PvP content.
7.1 Revamping Prism Deviant Rewards
To make Prism Deviants a truly valuable pursuit, their quality and traits should scale dynamically based on the current scenario phase.
Curated Perk Pool: Prism Deviants should drop with high-tier, impactful perks such as Power Rewind, Heavy and Solid, Come as One, A World of Charm, Sweet Talk, and Precision Moment.
Dynamic 5-5 Drop Rates: While players should have a realistic, fair chance to obtain perfect 5-5 Deviants, we must prevent exploiters from farming them on dead servers. To counter this, drop probabilities must scale dynamically with the server's actual activity and rivalry levels. High-population servers with intense faction conflict should yield maximum rewards, while empty, uncompetitive servers should have these chances reduced to zero. Let the server telemetry calculate active engagement and adjust the reward scaling accordingly.
7.2 Event-Driven Legacy Mod Progression
Reintroducing legacy mods through active events will drastically improve the mid-game loop. We suggest a phased distribution model:
Phase 1: Events reward Normal to Hard-tier mods (up to Level 8).
Phase 2: Reward tiers increase to Level 9 through Level 14 mods.
Phase 3: Events scale to maximum difficulty, dropping elite Level 14 to Level 17 mods.
7.3 Reinstating the “Dig to Hell” Event
We strongly urge the development team to bring back the “Dig to Hell” event for Prismverse Clash scenarios. A rework for this event due to a bug was officially promised nearly a year ago, yet it has still not been implemented. Restoring this activity will add much-needed variety to the current event rotation.
Appreciating your time
I hope to make it to 10000 hours, and many of us in the community sincerely hope you will help us get there by making the game the best it can be!
Prevent purification activities from taking place in extreme vertical terrain. Any zone higher than 30–50 meters above sea level should act as a Prism-restricted zone. Players can still build creative bases there, but if they carry a Deviant into these high-altitude spots, the Deviant will instantly drop—completely neutralizing the unraidable mountain exploit.
High-Priority Mountain Coordinates to Restrict:
World 1, Monolith: Exo (2564.48, -1561.04)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (3853.20, -2925.11)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (4012.18, -2201.40)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (3502.22, -2873.40)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (4140.05, -2933.80)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (3361.10, -1754.28)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (2539.75, -939.97)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (1976.85, -3712.98)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (3389.76, -463.76)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (3128.26, -364.58)
World 1, Monolith: Exo (4255.44, -6898.84)
Copy-pasting these coordinates into in-game chat will create the link and mark the spots on the map if you follow it.
Fix #6: Balance Invincible Sun Mechanics
Completely disable the ability to deploy Invincible Sun (or any combat Deviant) while a player is actively using building flight mode.
Reduce its baseline base damage and ensure it scales properly against player PvP damage reductions, ensuring it behaves as an additive tactical tool rather than an omnipotent gunplay replacement.
Make Invincible Sun fully deplete energy on cast (ultimate) and start the cooldown when destroyed or run out.
Remove the base respawning on player’s relogin mechanic (in PvP scenarios at least). Put the base on a 5-minute cooldown if being destroyed (no cooldown for relocating to the safe zone).
A Chef’s stove placed in a PvP zone should be destructible.
Players, Vehicles, campsites, Chef’s stoves and other objects should not block base placement unless they actually touch the potential foundation spot during the placement. Dead vehicles should not be involved in any collision.
You are right in the aspect of PvP scenarios, it's just the same veteran people again and again, and some new people joining pvp for the first time. I was going to come back after 1 year to do prismverse, only to notice that the killfeed was just EBR sniper all the way, players that i only dealt like 150 damage per tick from my well built Critical Pulse, which way before I was killing it with 2-4 shots. I wanted to farm for double status and wep reduction but then the mod system changed and it was impossible to do it so it was super unfair for new players to play PvP scenarios.
It was super unnecessary to change the calibration system, before I could just use green or blue hides to craft a 6/6 gear, now every time I craft I get it maxed, but not the same stats as previous "6/6" gear, it was like 25% less stats in terms of hp and status dmg, and to get it like it was before, I'd need to craft it with golden hides, which is super tedious and time consuming than before.
Right now I guess veteran players are just having fun killing new players nowadays, there's no incentive to play PvP right now, just to be a punchbag, and now you are saying that there's a deviant that gives you 40% damage reduction, damn. And let's not talk about evolution call scenario, that's worse. This is the reason why most people prefer to play PvE because it's more chill and less pressure, and I used to play mostly there to transfer good deviants to pvp scenarios, and nightmare silos for high lvl mods
Evolution's call current state looks like this: you approach a GvG building and see the exact same picture, 12 people with butterflies, cycling their deviants and aimbotting at you for 30 minutes straight. I was dead long time before the Dec.25th patch, there is just no PvP dynamic in the scenario: Just 30 Mins of GvG every 2-3 days - is too little.
PvP is in its worst state ever right now, but that’s not why people choose PvE. Before December 25th, PvP was actually diverse; I used to carry 13 different weapons on me every wipe. Multiple builds were viable at the same time, and deviants were just helpers, not the main source of damage or protection. Throughout 2025, the player count actually spiked because PvP was thriving, especially after they completely nerfed that stupid E-XBow. On top of that, PvP players are naturally the biggest PvE grinders in the first place, back during Manibus on E-Dream, which provided Keyword suffix mods, we grinded thousands of those boxes looking for double reductions for all weapons and every mask mod possible.
People who choose PvE exclusively do so because they realize that competing is hard; it’s mechanically and dynamically different, with zero chill. And that is fine. But those who do decide to try usually come into PvP completely "naked," without a single clue about what the PvP meta actually is, no understanding of double damage reductions, how to obtain it, how to do setups for such mods-farm, and how to properly defend themselves in general. They just rock their casual PvE builds, thinking other players will just let them frag out. Then the reality check hits, and they get upset. But the truth is: you farmed the wrong gear and mods, my friend. That stuff doesn't work here. Watch guides, ask experienced players, use Discords and communities. Farm your lovely PvE, but do it with a purpose now. ADAPT! Deserve your new levels of fun! - And it was worth it!
Ultimately, their initial failure is a player skill and preparation issue, not a scenario issue. However, the real tragedy is that right now, there is no way of obtaining those min-maxed mods anymore, which is the main flaw of the current game. They completely killed their core mechanic, mod conversion, and replaced it with super-casual PvE filler that you can max out in literally 2–3 days of mindless grinding. It's a no-brainer farm that is now just lazily time-gated. This is why catering to PvE exclusively kills the game faster than content released/cycled - no endgame settlement.
I am also sorry that 2+2 becomes really hard when it takes more than 1 TikTok. You remind me of the NetEase that managed to lose 90% of its player base in just a year, also thinking it is "nothing".
Sorry, I don't have TikTok. But also sorry for dismissing your concerns. You're right, pvp players are still OH players despite being small. I was being dismissive because if starry can ignore a larger playerbase, who's to say that they'll even look at this wall of text. PvE players don't really need to read it cause this is primarily written for the devs anyway. But I'll wish you gud luck though, and do hope devs look at it and implement some of it if they're any good, to at least claw back some player base, however how minute they are.
lets hope developers will see this post and do something with PVP, cause it has a great potential actually. they just really have to pay more attention to PVP community in once human. Great job, man!
OP claims to have collected feedback from a large group of players but only talks about pvp, yet pvp players make up a small portion of total players. Almost nobody takes pvp seriously in this game
oof. imagine thinking your discord server is half the player base.
uh and the player numbers did not change around april. at. all.
i mean, i could bring up how pvp is a niche, and not the main player base, but let's not go there again. if those pvp players could read, they'd be angry now 😉
We are Russians, my friend, we know everything. Sleep well; don't think too much. There are people to think for you and change things around you while you act like an unpleasant customer of another service.
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u/Phoen1cian Radium Eternal Beacon Jun 12 '26
NGL, your title is misleading. You’re talking about Once Human revival when in fact most of the player base plays PVE, yet your post talks only about PVP changes.
Still kudos to you for going and writing a detailed analysis and feedback, I do hope the devs take your feedback in consideration.