AresSupreme

Originally Posted by Frosticus

Just like in game I'm seeing a LOT more pve jerks flexing their epeens than I see pvp'ers.

OP is getting pissed cause you guys are trolling his thread...repeatedly. I'd get pissed too, he obviously put some time and effort into the OP. You don't have to read it, agree with it, like it, or even think about it. However, if you think it is in the wrong section that was covered in the 2nd POST. Mindlessly repeating it is at best displaying you have no reading comprehension, but are more likely just trolling the guy.

If you feel it is in the wrong section PM a moderator to have it moved. No one cares that you think it is in the wrong section because it was already mentioned...repeatedly.

The funny thing is (and hopefully the anti-pvp carebears can grasp this one). When you attack Ares from an anti-pvp position with some brainless rhetoric intended to inflame you are being a hypocrite. Additionally, Ares is being true to the nature of a pvp'er by "defending" himself. He may not be doing it in the most effective way, but I can understand his frustration for sure. You guys are annoying trolls.

Originally Posted by Boomie

It's kinda strange really. It happens no matter where you go ingame and even the forums. I suppose since there are only 4 pvp zones the concentration of idiots that talk trash is greater than in most pve zones since the population is spread thinner. On a similar note, I see the same amount of /bc trash talking in Atlas when I'm at the market as I do when I'm in RV.

The biggest deterrent from pvp IMO is how completely opposite things are from pve. Also it doesn't help how the NPC's in zones are still OP'd. There really aren't any rewards save pvp io's and not many want to pvp enough to run across them. That being said, I do pvp but no where as much as I used to. I have been participating more as of late but that's due to a new pvp toon that I really enjoy playing.

Originally Posted by ShadowsBetween

Ares - you may disagree with some of the people who dislike PVP. Or all of them, for that matter. But if you want your guide to be complete, it should address some of the issues that have been pointed out - PVP jerks, the fact that some powersets or power pools *will* have to struggle, PVP jerks, the difference between fighting NPCs and players in a PVP zone, PVP jerks, and trash talking. If you want to make a complete guide, that is.

Originally Posted by ReclusesPhantom

I'm with the others, and by others, I mean the people that aren't trying to bash you for having this is the wrong section.

I found it helpful (especially the slotting part), the one problem I had is that you left out certain powersets of characters I have. (Altoholism means I'll find it hard to get a specific build to 50 so I need to use my current 50s)

So, I was wondering (and was hoping you could PM me the answer), how would a Katana/Willpower Scrapper fare in PvP? And how should I slot/build it? PvP is something I've always wanted to get into.

Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan

I used to look at guides, etc, although I was never too obsessive about min-maxing, but nowadays i've come to realise that it's actually quite hard to self-gimp a toon in regards to PvE, so i just go with whatever power or slotting choices i think are cool or fit my concept. Admittedly, my concepts all seem to include Stamina, for example, but when it comes to travel powers, I'm not concerned with numbers.



This is me. I don't farm and I don't solo AVs unless I'm taken by surprise (fighting a heroically pointless losing battle for 20 seconds max before faceplanting counts, right? ), so I do essentially treat PvP the same; I avoid it.



How on earth can you take my post as a rant? I simply stated I wasn't a PvPer, then i went and tried some PvP, and reported back on what happened. I wasn't ranting about anything. I even complimented the PvP community on the reception I found.

Eco.

Originally Posted by Frosticus

I'd give your guide a 4/5. Good job.

This is a great place to post it because you are inviting people to join freedom and join pvp. Placing it in either the freedom and/or the pvp boards would sort of defeat the purpose of that. As mentioned you should seek to have this added to the guide section for several reasons.
1. To make it more permanent
2. AFAIK the existing "beginner guides" are all pretty outdated since i13 ruined them.

Also, don't be discouraged by a large percentage of people saying they aren't interested in pvp, that is just the environment. Like all "mass marketing" you'll only get a small percentage of positive recipients. In this case even a few people seeing it and deciding to give pvp a whirl is a good thing. With basically zero dev support (and the support given seems to be trying to "kill it" heh) and a largely vehemently anti-pvp player base the pvp community has to be built 1 person at a time. That is something I wish more pvp'ers would remember.

Especially don't be discouraged by the people that are basically trolling this thread. They say they are against pvp, but they are only against pvp that actually takes a small degree of skill so they stick to mind-numbingly easy thread derailments and general trolling.

I think you should add a small section explaining that pvp isn't something you should just expect to be successful at the first time. At best even when you take your beloved 1200 hr toon in it is like learning a whole new AT. At worst it can be like learning a whole new game. That clearly isn't for everyone, but just like "alligator wrestling" some people might really like it and not even know it yet.

Originally Posted by Basilisk

Why don't I PvP?

Well, because about 98% of my PvP experiences go like this: I zone in, wait around for 10-15 minutes, see no one, get bored, then go back to running missions. The other two percent? I arrange to hit the Arena with a friend, where it's usually a matter of figuring out a pair of characters who aren't "rock" to the other's "scissors".

PvP is basically a waste of time in this game- it can be fun, but there's so much work to getting fights together, that I'd just as soon go back to PvE

Originally Posted by inktomi

I PvP a lot in other games, but not in CoX. The system is just no good for it.

The big frustration for me is that PvP in CoX seems to rely too heavily on power sets and such -- too be able to PvP you not only need to use specific builds, but to roll completely new characters with certain power sets.

Then there is the level thing; you can enter a PvP zone at level 15, but you'll be fighting level 50s who are exemplared down. That makes the learning curve for PvP damn steep, you basically need to wait till level 50 to even try it out.

CoX is a game with tons of character control and many ATs can drop an enemy in 2 or 3 shots. Both those things are horribly unfun in PvP. Basically the PvE design of the game makes PvP pointless.

In every other MMO I've played, PvP was the part of the game I would spend the most time on. I'd love to be able to PvP in CoX too, but I've tried it out with a few different characters (an AR/traps corruptor, mace/shield brute, and a Crab Spider so far) and it's just no fun at all. I'm sure I could level characters with powers more suited to PvP, and I'm sure I could make better choices of pool and patron powers, but that's way too much work for something that I doubt I'd like anyway.

Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan

I'm a PvEer. The reason I don't PvP is the smacktalk. It might be froma minority of players as you say, but there isn't any at all in the PvE game for comparison.

I'll pop inot WB now though with my En/En 50 Blaster and see what happens.

EDIT: It was completely empty. I'll go try RV.

EDIT 2: RV had quite a lot of PvP action going on, so I flew out anf joined in. I have to say, the smacktalk was minimal. Quite friendly, actually.

However, the gameplay was horribly boring. I would fly out, try to get some attacks in on various SJers zipping around, then get held, drop from the sky and die fairly shortly after that. I repeated this for 6 deathcs, then asked for advice in broadcast. This is the result:

[Broadcast] Name witheld: keep moving, spec out of fly will help
[Broadcast] Someone else: If your being spiked, theres nothing you can do really lol
[Broadcast] MrCaptainMan: spec out of fly?
[Broadcast] Someone else again: hibernate and phase

Quite friendly, as i said, but it doesn't help. If I can't PvP with Fly, then PvP is broken IMO. I'm not going to radically change the concept of my toon just to play essentially a repeatable mission with no plot.
Sorry.

I do wish you well with your efforts to get more PvP, however, and i say again how pleasantly surprised i was at the general level of politeness and good-natured rivalry I just saw in broadcast.


Eco.

Originally Posted by Neuronia

There is too much interruption of movement, too much heal decay...diminishing returns have their place I guess, I can see the utility.

Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain

I have been into PvP zones several times through out my playtime here at CoX. I have been on gank teams. group gank teams. solo. duo. small group teams. And no matter what... I hated broadcast chat. so I turned it off. Only to find out I hated team chat as well. So I turned that off. Well whats the damn point if I hate what is said in there?
I have killed some people in PvP. Woopty Doo. It doesnt feel like Street Fighter Champion Edition II.

I have been to Bloody Bay... Mostly to get Shivans... but HATE getting ganked in there. What the hell people? I would rather pay 100,000 and just buy shivans on the market than deal with the STRESS of getting them in a PvP zone.
(badges)

I have been to Sirens Call... Been there done that... Its just not my cup of tea. Plus all the stalker gank fest is just blah.

Now understand I am talking about Virtue server. Then I went to Freedom and OMG WTH is that crap? Sirens Call on Freedom server is a really really bad Stalker gank fest. I dont even understand why ANYONE bothers on that server.

I have been to warburg for badges mostly and nukes. I HATE HATE HATE those Arachnoid things. And I dont honestly care for the people who camp just to ruin your nuke getting abilities.

I have been to RV. While I was in RV this one time some guy kept going on and on how he thought I should get ***ed in real life. So I put him on ignore. I sent MANY reports to the NCSoft people. and that was pretty much it.

I have probably been in PvP zones prior to that maybe 2 or 3 times a month. but, yanno. I just dont go in there at all anymore.. Unless for a day job badge.

I thought about farming recipes in a PvP zone, but it turns out one of my friends just gave me the ones I wanted. So never need to go in there.

I wish you luck in trying to get more people to come in those zones so you can farm recipes. I just think you might have gotten a better responce had you put this in the FREEDOM section of the forums.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Ares, while I appreciate your sentiment and wish you the best of luck in snagging enough people for some meaningful PvP, I think you're fighting for a lost cause. You put a lot of effort into this, and I commend you for it, but most of your effort is done behind an assumption - PvP is good, here's how to engage in it. There are certain people, and from what I've seen quite a few of them, who simply don't enjoy PvP, can't get past the notion that it's a good thing to do, and as such they simply never get to the explanation of how to do it. It's like saying "If you want to wrestle alligators, here's what you need:" People are just going to go "But I don't WANT to wrestle alligators!" and move on.

See, I don't think your post belongs in the Freedom or PvP forums. I think it belongs in Player Guides, because, from what I saw of it (OK, I skimmed A LOT), you have a lot of useful info tied behind a premise a lot of people are going to skip over unless they're specifically looking for it.

You're never going to get meaningful zone PvP in City of Heroes because you'll never budge people out of their servers even if you DID get them to PvP. And even if you did get them to PvP AND budged them from their servers, you're never going to get the kind of player density that makes PvP meaningful. I don't buy into the "PvPers are jerks" argument, but I do know that any player versus player encounter where people can't FIND each other and spend the majority of their time looking for each other and stalking for each other is not worth playing. It's like Half-Life at Boot Camp with four people. Anyone who knows what I'm talking about will understand. It's just not fun.

That, and not everyone likes a competitive environment or wants to look at the game in a new way. Recently, I dropped my difficulty to -1 specifically because I DON'T like competitive, difficult games. I'd much rather have relatively easy, somewhat assured victories than to struggle against every opponent. As I mentioned recently, the only reason I delve into the mechanics of the game at all is so I'll know how to avoid dealing with them. That's not a good way to build for PvP, not by a longshot.

In essence, I appreciate your effort, but I'd advise you to just clone it over to Player Guides and get it included in the Guide to Guides. That way it won't get purged and it'll still serve people.

Originally Posted by ShadowsBetween

I have almost no experience with PvP in this game. I've gone into Bloody Bay once shortly after I-13 went live, at the insistence of one of the few people on my global friends list. (They wanted Shivans, they wanted company, and they were certain I would enjoy the experience.) After getting repeatedly mauled at one meteor by a Boss Shivan that refused to die (largely due to the fact that PVP runs under almost entirely different rules, but *only* for players) we finally managed to get everything, and got the temp powers. My friend: "While we're here, let's look around for some other players." Me: Activates Pocket D teleport. Afterwords I told them, basicaly, that having done it once I was never going to do it again. The whole time we were there, I was nervous and jumpy, and otherwise experiencing epic levels of "not having fun." The fact that the NPCs basically cheat didn't help, since as far as I know they don't use the same screwed up rules as players in PVP zones.

As for other games, I *have* tried actual PVP. I find that it is a game mode that tends to concentrate all the biggest jerkweeds in a game into one place at the same time. Part of it is the same problem as driving on a freeway - the vast majority of drivers are not psychotic lunatics. However, after spending an hour on the freeway, I can almost guarantee that you *will* have noticed any of the lunatics near you, and they *will* be what you remember about the drive. Likewise, I'm sure that intelligent, well-spoken and polite people play PVP. I *do not* remember ever encountering such a person in any of my few attempts at PVP.

Do immature, trash-talking moronic jerkweeds exist in the PVE game? Yes. And I make every effort to have nothing to do with them. I'm certainly not going to volunteer to go into a part of the game that is almost certain to be infested with them.

Originally Posted by tanstaafl

Thanks for the post.

I dont understand the rage against it being here. I would not of read it in the PvP section.

Your examples though tend to show me why dont bother much with PvP. All the scrappers are /regen to be viable, the tankers all /ss etc.
This may not be what you meant, but my impression of it

But I'm not going to make a toon purely for PvP and level it up just to try out PvP. And dont see much point bringing in a toon to be slaughtered.

I do a little bit of arena, and rarely bloody bay if I see someone on the way as I'm getting shivans, but see them as far less optimised setting.

/2 inf

Originally Posted by Glacier_Peak

Great work Ares.

A few errors I noticed when reading, (Corps and Doms difficulties are not rated, and we all know how hard they are to play hehe) but the rest is pretty smooth.

Originally Posted by Glacier_Peak

Can you show me the numbers?

Originally Posted by CryoTech

When you make such a subjective post at least tag "YMMV" at the end of it. This is meant to be a guide and you don't want to be handing biased information to new comers.

You may find that based on your experience but off my experience my melee characters struggle far less than my ranged chars to survive in zone. Anything outside of a duel, I find that ranged chars are at a serious disadvantage as they are bait for any stalker or any scrapper who decides to suprise them and AS/Crit them with such a small amount of Hit Points.

And of course YMMV

Originally Posted by OPTICAL_ILLUSION

A for effort. I understand your mentality and message but you should really do more research.

Areas to work on...
1. Provide objective views and accurate information.

2. Include all the changes to PvP since I13.

3. Make the community aware that Mid's does not provide accurate information for PvP.

4. Let the community know that PvP receives the least amount of Dev attention, care and support.

Originally Posted by Acyl

Okay. One big gap in your guide... you haven't said anything about the HEATs and VEATs.

I know, Kheldians aren't exactly great for PvP.

But I thought the spiders do pretty well. They're not as dominant as they were under the old PvP system, but they're still good. It's probably worth mentioning.

Yeah, not everyone has a 50 and access to the epic ATs, but I'd wager most folks reading these forums...do.

Originally Posted by Reiraku

While I would dispute some of the information in the guide, it's definitely a nice read. Keep at it.