EmpireForgotten

Although dUmb TS maybe a little different, dUmb chat isn't to bad - but I could just be numb to it.

Lolz CoD - because they schedule things and then don't show up

Lolz Osha - his posts are to long

Lolz DJ - because anime is fun

Lolz Doc a Science - because SB is the best power in the game

Lolz Slax - because he actually leveled a dm/da before it became lolz

Lolz anyone else who thinks my post has merit or holds water - if it held water my computer would be wet

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*turns on group_fly next to Empire*

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Confuse me too so I can put webnades on myself

I disagree with a complete 'no movement supression' - There needs to be some advantage to running SR, taking swift/hurdle, or bringing a kin along. i12 supression was perfect the way it is.

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I transferred to Pinnacle and ended up in some abandoned Tabula Rasa zone. Can someone please contact support for me?

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Seeing as I am the Official Infinity SB whatyamacallitguy. I hereby decree that all SB be sent to him so he can "run" back to Infinity.

reading what I just wrote was just retarded... okay I need sleep.... I am sounding stupid now...

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SB would fix that - it gives you wings...I mean endurance.

I read an article today on espn.com about how the NBA a long time ago was a lot more physical and, even though more punches or elbows were thrown, there was still a lot of respect amongst the players.

Someone told me the smacktalk was part of the fun. Most of the time, it wasn't personal, but it allowed both teams to dislike each other so they did their absolute bestest to destory the other team. I think that is something very important we need future generations to see. Even though my group didn't really get involved with the 'friendly banter' other teams would throw at us - it did make us want to farm certain people more so than other (Sorry Yosef and Ownage). They may not have been the easiest kills - but those kills usually gave us a big jolt and sometimes turned a loss in the match into a personal win for the group.

That said - I would like to hear other groups sooper sekrit strategies that helped their respective groups succeed. Since the old strategies are utterly worthless in the new PvP, it makes for good debate and discussion.

I'll pose a question for other groups: When your teams saw that dUmb was running storms, did your lineups change at all or did you practice differently?

I have found with this whole situation that the developers feel righteous in their actions and how they handled this situation. Making posts asking for Clairification will get no reply and flame wars will continue on until people get numbed over by this.

The sad and simple truth is this: The developers have always had a smug attitude that they know what is best for this game. It started with statesman and it has trickled down to the new regime. They feel that they handled this situation well. If you disagree and that disagreement is at an impasse - the only thing to do is either live with it, or unsubscribe.

They will not give in. They have a proven track record of sticking by their hard decisions without caring what the community thinks. It takes time to prove whether their decisions were the best for the game and we haven't had enough time pass by to make that determination.

TP foe is probably the worst idea to come out of PvP 1.0. It should have never been useable in PvP.

I remember reading that article and I enjoyed it then (Just re-read it and Its still a fun read)

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I don't understand why People thought of the old PvP as 'exclusive' or 'Eliteskillrequired'

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I understand completely why people think the old pvp was exclusive to certain builds, but I'm pretty sure the only folks who think "eliteskillrequired" are limited to a select few pvp'ers who like to overstate how much "skill" is required to do well in pvp.

Your group used all sorts of different AT's, but how many matches did you win against teams who had "optimal" lineups when you fielded your all-melee team? (ZERO, right? Who would ever field an ALL-melee team??? Lolmelee)

The fact is the "optimal" lineup cannot be created by using any random powerset/AT combination, so many players feel like they have no place in competitive arena pvp. This was/is true both before and after the changes.

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My point is - People assumed that you 'cant' run Melee or non-Fotm's because they don't work, when that wasn't the case.

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Yeah, you can run whatever you want and be competent, but if you want to compete with the best (and actually have a chance of winning) you need(3d) a very specific lineup that excludes many powerset/AT combos.

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You are correct that you couldn't peice together any characters and be good. I guess my sense is clouded because, well, anything worked with storms. Sure you had to have 5/6 out of 8 set for the lineup, but those other spots left open lots of possibilities that jump teams didn't have.

If the new City of Heroes expansion goes live and brings in a bunch of new faces, it might be nice to have an area that shows how the Vets used to do things. I like hearing stories about herding maps or Vengeance stacked PvP matches. Since PvP is what I used to love and admire about this game, I figured I would start here.

My goal is to list the little nuances and caveats in the old i12 PvP system that people used to gain an advantage. People might hear about the 'double sonic' lineup, but they may not understand how it worked or how you countered it. People might wonder how Stalkers were used in arena PvP before knockback became easier to do. Finally, People might wonder how these lineups were even thought up. (I also have sometime on my hands and talking about the old days of PvP still makes me smile - so at least ill enjoy writing this)

So to that end, I will go into detail The history of dUmb PvP, some of the lineups that we used to run, how they started, and out we determined who to target/when to attack/etc.

[u]dUmb Pre-test: [u]
I joined dUmb shortly before i8. dUmb wasn't a PvP SG, but had a keen interest in doing small PvP battles. Shu returned from a WoW fling to form dUmb's live PvP roster. This consisted of various members of the dUmb coalition, which was the leage, the order of the vigilant, and the walking dead. Infinity had a semi active arena population consisting of 5 groups. JLE, The House of Shadows, Hell's Army, Brotherhood of the dragon, and ABH. Slowly, the live groups started to lose interest and after a very big beating by ABH, we move to test.

[u]dUmb - i9:[u]
To start off - we were a live group that assumed we could come in and run with the big boys. Our first practice was against Velocity and we got rolled hardcore. During the evening, the final score of all matches was probably 200 to 3 in favor of velocity. It was an interesting sensation having your poop pushed in like that. It was disheartening to know we were not very good in the grand scheme of things, but it was nice to have a challenge for once. Vinnie was willing to come to our Teamspeak server and he was able to give us some pointers to start out. We slowly started practicing more and our standard team we decided upon was 5 blasters (One being a devices blaster) 2 emps 1 kin.

This team served two purposes. 1, it allowed us to not be picture perfect in our spikes because our out going damage was so high. 2, allowed for us to not have quick targets, because picking up the target was very tough for us at the start of our ladder tenure. This team would start out calling targets and if we got to a point where we could turn the corner, we would have 2 rogue people trying to solo kill. Most of the blasters were Fire/EM's and Ice/Ems.

[u]dUmb -i10:[u]
The above team (With minor revisions, adding in a sonic, trying double sonic, etc) Really didn't work out well once blaster damage was nerfed to be only 10% unresisted. At the time the new hotness was the double sonic lineup and we couldn't dent capped resists with those cages going off. We also had problems with the Pingu's because their storm team was very disciplined - they would move as a team and kill as a team.

Our team makeups shifted to using storms as the primary players. Our first storm team consisted of 2 fire/storm controllers and 1 earth/storm controller. The blasters were fire/devices and X (Whoever we had to play at the time would fill in this roll). Support would be 2 emps and 1 kin. Our goal was to not die within the first two minutes. We figured if we could not get into too far of a hole within the first two minutes, our debuffs would start to take effect and we could then turn the corner.

We also worked really hard on our movement. The one thing we didn’t like was having to turtle together on open maps. Sitting still for 10 minutes didn't seem like a lot of fun and we didn't have the disciplined that the pingu's had. So, to that end, we worked on our Moving turtle. It usually called for the support to each put a storm on follow and cast buffs while following their storm. The blasters would make quick dives away from the team to try and scare someone into phase or hibernate. If someone hibernated, we would immediately gather on them and drop our [censored]. Anyone that came to save the poor bloke was killed first, then the hibernated person second. We used the devices blaster to keep people on the ground so they ran through rain easier. It also helped if we got our favorite outdoor map - Atlas Park - Because people would land in the water pools and couldn't get out. The storms focused on stacking immobs and holds so that we could stack debuffs easier. The kin was usually our farm target (Sorry Syph) followed by their blasters.

It was during this time that we had the Pingu, Statesman's Watch, and dUmb Love triangle; where SW would beat Pingu, dUmb would beat SW, and then Pingu would beat dUmb. This lead to a leapfrog battle royale that lasted months; and is quite possibly the most fun anyone in dUmb had during our tenure on the ladder.

[u]i11[u]

i11 beta introduced a couple changes, including Psi blasters. It was during this time that we migrated to using a Trick arrow defender in concert with Defender storms. The goal was to keep the kinetic's support as annoyed as possible to the point of collapse. It was also during this time dUmb tried several different roster spots for their two X factor positions. Since a storm team needs 3 storms and 3 support, the other two could, in theory, be anything. We tried 2 blasters, 2 tanks, a scrapper and a blaster, 2 additional storms, 2 colds, and a bunch of other things. It was during this time that we started to lose our drive. The ladder was losing teams and we were losing interest.

[u]i12 beta[u]

i12 beta almost killed test PvP. It was 2 months long and no test teams were allowed in to test. During this time, teams were dropping like flies. Our roster really took a beating. We didn't lose people, but we lost a lot of interest. It was hard to get a good mix of 8 people who had the necessary toons to play. It was during this time that we ran our 3 SR scrapper lineup and our 3 taunting tank lineup.

Once i12 beta was finished, we started to get back into the swing of things. We ended up dropping to the bottom of the ladder - it was almost to the point where I almost yanked dUmb off the ladder. After talking it over with Shu and Welldone, we decided that we weren't going to do any officials for 1 month and we were going to get back to the basics of what we did best. We started out on infinity in RV just running our disruption teams again and getting used to playing with each other. Our final team makeups looked like this:
Offensive Storm Team:
3 defender storms
2 blasters (1 must be devices)
2 emps
1 kin

Defensive Storm Team:
3 Controller storms
1 Trick arrow
1 Blaster
2 emps
1 kin

TK Team
3 defender storms (Psi epic)
1 Trick arrow (Psi Epic)
1 Fire/Em Blaster
2 Emps (Either Mind/Emp or Emp defender with psi epic)
1 Kin

We used our TK team against people that ran double sonic lineups
We used our Offensive Storm team against teams that ran Sonic sonic/double kin
and we used our Defensive Storm team against people that did the old 4x4 (4 damage 2 emps 2 kins)


[u]October 8th, 2008 - A day which will live in Infamy[u]

I had off from work this day due to a personal holiday. I spent most of the day copying IOs over to test and getting builds ready for people who were at work. I had just worked out the night before the lineup we were going to run. We had yet to practice it, but a quick warm-up would be all that we would need. The match was against PX for number one. The lineup was:

3 Controller Storms
2 Broadsword/SR scrappers (Weapons master with Webnade and Caltrops)
2 Emps
1 Kin

PX was really good and knew not to use hibernate against our team. In our previous match up, PX went with the 4x4 lineup and did very well. I was planning on that happening again. My goal was to disrupt their support so much that we could get a hold on one of their empaths and then lineup a critical headsplitter spike. On paper, I felt it to be an interesting lineup.

Depending on if we won or lost, we would switch to standard storm lineup, but it would definitely have a trick arrow in it because "you can't win an official with a trick arrow - SilentMethod"

Round three if needed would be comprised of who was still online. I felt this match would have been a very good match for both teams; with PX having the edge on experience and skill and with us having the edge on Spontaneity and Craziness.


But, it wasn't meant to be. i13 beta starts this day and PvP would be changed forever. Gone were the days where it took skill to disrupt movement speed (Everyone was slowed). Gone were the days where it took skill to mez someone (Everyone can mez everyone). And gone were the days where skill and teamwork meant something.

[u]PvP i14. - *Skipping i13 because very little test PvP took place)[u]
The ladder was reformed, had several teams in a 5v5 format. 2 stalker lineups ran the scene now, with other lineups finding it very hard to get kills. Several lineups we tried were:
1 rad/sonic
1 Blaster
1 Stalker
1 Tank
1 Empath

4 Cold defenders
1 Empath

2 Stalkers
1 Thermal
1 Blaster
1 Empath

Going forward, I have had little involvement with the metagame of PvP in i14, so Slax or someone might be able to fill in the rest for our group.

But that's our history. If you're bored and would like to walk down memory lane, post yours

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This is a bad example, no good pvper played melee toons in the old pvp"[/b] this is the total opposite of the truth a good pvp'r can play with just about anything and make it work i knew a few that own in zones with pb's for goodness sakes PB's. Now in a closed in setting like say the arena your chooses were limited to spines but zone anything could work.


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In zones it's easy to do well with just about anything since crappy players as well as good go there, I should have been clearer that good players would not play melee characters in high end team pvp, I think there were some on the 1v1 ladders but I only looked once or twice so I can't say.



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Lol. My team ran scrappers and tanks in the high end PvP arena.

I don't understand why People thought of the old PvP as 'exclusive' or 'Eliteskillrequired' My group, although highly skilled in my opinion, was not hardcore by anymeans. It took us a full year to get somewhat decent and we were probably the most dynamic team out there. Our roster had anything and everything. We ran controllers, defenders, tanks, scrappers, blaster. (Never ran a kheld, but that's another matter)

I can guess that the reason people thought of the old PvP as exclusive was because they weren't the best right away. It takes time to get good at something, expecially when the Skill cap is as high as it was in the old PvP. Skill cap is what makes a game competative.

The old PvP was easy to learn - it works similar to the PvE side in terms of My high damage attack in PvE is my high damage attack in PvP. The old PvP was tough to master - some may argue that it was impossible to master.

I feel that PvP was changed for the people that didn't want to devote the time necessary to learn the system and adapt to it. The system was changed to adapt to the player, and we have what we have now:
DR: No one can be truely better in a numbers term than anyone else
Supression: Commit or Phase - evasion not an option
Heal Decay: Healing support not a true option.

What the hardcore crowd is upset about is the hard counters that existed before are no longer there. If I wanted to counter a scrapper team, I would bring a controller heavy lineup. If I wanted to counter tanks, I would bring controllers and blaster. If I wanted to counter controllers, I would bring more support and heavy damage. A team leader would try to manage all the hardcounters out there to build a team that was balanced and could handle the brunt of other lineups. If a team saw that we were running our storm team, yet they refused to run a second kinetic because they wanted the second cage - they were [censored]. The teams would be balanced for about 2 minutes (Until the initial buffs wear off) and then its on. But, if the other team runs a second kinetic, They're set. Then its skill vs skill - because no roster has the advantage. If the minus range was an issue, you just need to run melee characters.

My point is - People assumed that you 'cant' run Melee or non-Fotm's because they don't work, when that wasn't the case. People assumed that since all people heard was 'lolmelee' that melee was broken completely, when that wasn't the case. People assumed that you needed completely Pimped out characters inorder to 'pwnnubs', when that wasn't the case. If my group has proved anything, its the fact that non-standard lineups can work against high end teams as long as they are built properly.

I have to agree with Rock.

The BIGGEST issue I see with this whole situation is how it was handled.

If the Lead Developer would have come to the forums and said "People are using Mission architect for exploitive behavior. This must stop. Anyone caught using MA for exploitive behavior will be banned and their characters deleted. The exploits I am talking about are the absurd leveling and Ticket Gaining. If you are currently participating in these acts, Stop now. Bans will be coming to anyone who continues to use these exploits." I would have no issues. In fact, I would applaud these same developers for taking a stand and stopping abusive behavior.

The problem is the developers didn't outline what constitues abusive behavior and have retro actively banned people and deleted characters. Im not even talking about the illegitmate bans that have happened, Im talking people who did use the system to level fast.

First, The developers assumed intent. Unless you are the person who leveled off these mission, they have no way of knowing what the intent of the user is. Second, Policies were made that have precedents set against them. During a double xp weekend, I have been involved in powerlevel sessions that got me from 1 to 40 in the weekend. Hardcore powerlevelers have leveled toons fully from 1 - 50 during a 36 hour session. If farming was a bannable offense before, why is double xp weekend 50's allowed to stay? We need consistancy.

Third, I would consider myself an extreme gamer. I like to push my team and my characters to the limit. I enjoy tense sessions that to the hardest tasks in the quickest times. My SG has done 20ish minute ITFs, 9 minute speed katies, and 40ish minute STF. Are these bannable offenses as well? We are accomplishing challenges in the game that were never ment to be achieved. STFs are supposed to take 2 hours based on their merit rewards and ITFs are supposed to be 90 minutes? Are we going to get banned for playing the game to the extreme?

Finally, The sheer lack of communication is appaling. We had Positron make his post detailing the retroactive bans, then we have one follow up post saying that he isn't going to give specific details about the bannings. How can people know what to avoid if the information is not available? I should use my best judgement? Its obvious peoples best judgement wasn't enough.

Look, I could care less about the moderator actions. It is listed in terms of service that you can't discuss specific moderator actions that happen to a specific user. Im also ok with deletions and bannings that happen from this point on (The point of Positrons message). But the Retroactive bannings, sheet lack of communication on what constitues the ban and on the assumption of intent is unacceptable to me and others.

You won't see a goodbye thread from me because I don't work like that. Butif and when I do leave, It won't be because of RL reasons or because I don't like the game anymore. It will be because of how poorly this situation was handled.

Sounds fun, looks like it will be out around the same time as the star trek mmo so ill have to try both

We need a new MMO to play - someone should post some ideas on the dUmb boards. Id suggest WoW if I didn't already dislike it, having it being the same age as CoH, and we would need more people if we wanted to do end game raids - which is all I would want to do.

Sure, zet resubs just as mine is expiring. Conspiracy I think.


Tony's sheer ignorance of certain people who have gotten toon's deleted/banned is funny. But, given his past history, Its in his nature to advocate for the underdog.

My irritation stems not from people getting banned - its a game and bannings happen. My irritation comes from the idea of 'Policy making on the fly' that the devlopers have been using lately.

All Positron had to do was make a post stating that anyone caught using MA to farm xp would be banned from X point on Going forward. The whole retroactive banning and that craptastic job they did with the whole thing (Yeah, how intelligent is it to script a mass banning? That will go over REAL well with the people who get flagged unintentionally.) is a complete mess.

Tony (And not just tony, but the people that are on the side of "Lolumad at ur banningz u shud hav nown lol"), I, like you, have played this game for a long time. I have never been banned, never had a character genericed, and never had moderator action taken against my posts. In the past 2 weeks, the actions of the devlopement and community team has turned me from mildly disgrunted fan who continues to pay for the game unto someone who wants no part of it. I didn't even use MA to get a level 50 and I am outraged at what is happening to people that did.

Again, All that had to happen was a post stating "If you do X going forward, you will be banned and deleted." That's all that needed to happen. I would be laughing too at the people who got banned for continual leveling after they were warned. The point is - they weren't. Punishing users for A) bad coding and B) past offenses when nothing offical had been stated is wrong.

Go ahead and argue the "You shoulda known better" line. Im in a freaking stupid super group. I should I have known, please tell me?. The next counter line should be "Ignornace of the law is no excuse." When there is no law, how can I be ignorant of it?

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Give everyone a Walk inherent power.

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I'd prefer a 1%-100% speed slider. Harder to do, but much more useful.

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No, People can't have their cake and eat it too. You get stealth from superspeed and end/rech from speedboost. If you don't like the speed, either quit the team or ask the buffer to not give you SB.


*Edit* totally need a walk button. Then costume contest could turn into Walkoffs and David Bowie could be our judge

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If I was a match, Why in the world should I assume that I could beat a bucket of water?

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If it's a plastic bucket, and you were a flying, jumping, or speeding match, you could melt parts of the bucket so that it leaks.

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Or if the matched jumped out of the way before the water hit it? Im glad someone mentioned something like that. I would attribute that to the skill of the player playing the 'match' against the lack of skill from the 'bucket of water' Can the match win in equal conditions? Absolutely not. but if the person is very good at playing his match, he would appear to absolutely destroy the paper and even take out a bucket of water.

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PVP should be about skill just as much as it is about POWER. And it should be on an even footing. Having single BROKEN Powers and Broken untouchable Defenses that any NOOB can exploit is not PVP. Sorry!

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Sorry, but if you think PvP prei13 was all about broken powers/untouchable defense before - then you clearly have a severe lack of understanding of the old system.

PvP in i12 was rock/paper/scissors in 1v1 situations. If I had a controller, I could beat a tank, but I could be beat by a stalker or blaster. If I was a stalker or blaster, I could be beat by a tank/scrapper.

Why in the world would any sane person assume that you should be able to beat every single AT you come across, when their main mitigation goes right through a hole you have. If I am paper, why in the world would I assume that I could beat a match? If I was a match, Why in the world should I assume that I could beat a bucket of water?

If I was in a zone 2v1, Why in the world would I assume that I should bea ble to survive when, even in PvE, I might not be able to survive a spawn set for 2 people? Why do people assume that 8 person ballanced team should not appear immortal to people who are disorganized and solo?

In PvE, if you can't solo an 8 person spawn'd mission - what do you do? You can either quit the mission or....wait for it...Get a team!

MMO's are about Teaming. PvP used to be about teaming. Now PvP is based on a set of rules that discourages teaming. Sure you can put 5 blasters on a team and say "Hey! Look at us! We're teaming!" But that's not a team. Even comic book super teams have balance to them. The X-men team of Cyclops/storm/beast/jean/wolverine/emma is a balanced team.

PvP 1.0 had more viable archetypes and builds than PvP 2.0. This is fact. You can argue that certain builds were unplayable in PvP 1.0, and there were some. Brutes had a severe disadvantage, as did Claws scrappers - but they weren't unplayable. The only AT's that can even argue that they were unplayable in PvP 1.0 were kheldians. With the new changes to PvP. Almost any toon that requires offensive toggles is damn near unplayable. Its very frustrating having to retoggle hurricane or Rad debuffs every 10 seconds. And since anything can mez you, and no ammount of teamwork can save you from that - you are forced to spend 30% of your combat time re-toggling something that other AT's don't have to worry about.

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I just dont see people looking at the res as replacing the 3 players we are no longer using. People are used to playing either 2 sonic teams(Blue) or 2 therm 1 sonic teams (red) both types of play put the team at res cap and had to use other ways around it. Blue ended up with a lot of 0-0 ties or 1-0 wins the red side ladder had higher scoring games because of unresisted A/S and Scourge. People moaned about res caped teams on blue side but had unresisted debuffs to counter it but still ended up with super low scoring matches. Where red side it was the norm. Just because you "cant" play your blasters does not make for a broken ladder and no way another team will work other than 2 stalker 1 therm 1 emp 1 FFer. For one with PvP IOs the FFer becomes a little less valuable, because forcebolt cant KB. Pre PvP IOs you could slot enough KB protection to protect vs anything else.

If anyone can think of a team that can shut down a stalker and get kills with out them I believe that it would be this crew. The innovative people that have tweeked and played some of the most effective teams in ladder PvP.

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the biggest change that I see as different is the phase change. Before, phase was only unuseable for 1 minute. I don't remember KB spike being that effective in i12 villains, but we were just starting to get interested in starting our villain team. If I get KB spiked now, in the current ladder, I can phase and usually survive assuming im quick on the phase. Once I come out of phase, I am dead because all they have to do is do it again.

Our counter to the hero double sonic team was storms (well it was our counter for everything really). People usually had capped resists for the first 2 minutes, but after their single kin was so messedup that he couldn't buff again, it let us turn the corner so to speak. If we harrassed someone into hibernation - forget about it they were dead. And whoever came to save them was dead too.
Now, you cant disrupt the capped resists because there is nothing to disrupt - Everyone has it.

I don't have an issue with the capped resists, my issue is that there appears to be only one viable method for consistantly getting kills. You could bring a Gimmick team (Like all Tanks or All Stalkers), but those matches would end in either a 0-0 tie or a '0-1 and lets evade the rest of the time.' Also, once people figure out how to counter the unresisted AS (if you get enough knockback to stop FF's from being viable) What do we have?

Leave the ladder the way it is and lets look at it in a couple months. If we haven't come up with counters by then, we can either append the ladder to work something out or just fold it entirely. The issue that I have with the current PvP is that I am putting my time into something that isn't very fun. We are also completely back where we start when this ladder was formed. We still don't have Support from the people making the game in coordinating this ladder. Its all player driven. So we all don't like the system, but were still putting in the same effort.

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Like the chicken said, "I knew the job was dangerous when I took it."

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I lol'd

Since we are all throwing around opinions:

Remove:
Heal Decay
DR from Buffs (External and Inspirations)
Unbuffable travel supression
-slow and -range caps

Change:
Mez resistance back to protection
Holds back to PvE standards
Unresisted debuffs back

Keep:
Damage changes
Changes to fly (allowing it to have protection from -fly)
APP/PP balancing
Toggles not dropping

Add:
Unresisted supression if hit by a melee attack
Some kind of Critcal hold for controllers/dominators that overrides all protection.

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7th, could you please explain why you disliked the old PvP so much? Just wondering.

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Thats a loaded question based on my original, and really only, point.

Lets try this in baby steps:
Its obvious by many posts that those that hate the changes, enjoyed how PvP was before. Thats not to say that they didnt think there were any probs, just not as many as there probably really were. (Sure thats subjective, but its a guaranteed majority opinion.)

With that said, its a safe bet that any changes made to PvP, much less drastic ones, would not be welcome by the more 'hardcore' PvP community. Why overhaul something that was working well, right?

So if I were to list the issues that made original PvP broken, most of those said people would just disagree with me.

Instead, we should try and anwer this question: Why dont/didnt people PvP?
And lets start with Macs list of answers: Because some people...
1. didn't like the lack of reward. (Rewards added - check)
2. didn't like that they had to build their character differently. (Dual builds added - check)
3. didn't like the unpredictability. (And those people still dont)
4. didn't like that their Superman clone could die in half a second. (Answer for that: Slow down the game, as the devs are trying to)
5. just didn't want to PvP. (And those people still dont)
6. might've even been turned off by the people they met while PvP'ing. (Very true, but quite possible that some of those people have since left)

Now let me add my own:
7. didnt like how seemingly unbalanced it was between ATs. (still lingering issues here)
8. didnt like how you had to tailor your toon around pvp, and not pvp around your toon. (read: carbon copy characters w/acro, 2+ travel powers, etc - seems to have been replaced w/hibernate, PS, etc)
9. didnt like the hit-and-run tactics. (travel suppression - check)
10. cant accept others are better than them. (And those people still dont)

I think thats a fair list of possible answers, whether or not you agree with them. Have they all been resolved? No, and some will never be. Did it creat new probs? In some cases yes. But it is obvious that it has gotten generally better, and that the devs have worked, and are still working in PvPs best interest.

Also for additional details on what was fixed, check out Project_X593 nice list on page 9.

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I read your reasons and I can't understand why we are having arguments here. Your reasons for disliking the old PvP are almost the exact same as some of the most hardcore people I know.

Instead, we should try and anwer this question: Why dont/didnt people PvP?
And lets start with Macs list of answers: Because some people...
1. didn't like the lack of reward. (Rewards added - check) - Good thing about i14
2. didn't like that they had to build their character differently. (Dual builds added - check) Good thing about i13
3. didn't like the unpredictability. (And those people still dont) PvP isn't for everyone
4. didn't like that their Superman clone could die in half a second. (Answer for that: Slow down the game, as the devs are trying to) This is where the overkill started, ill get to it later
5. just didn't want to PvP. (And those people still dont) Again, you can't please everyone
6. might've even been turned off by the people they met while PvP'ing. (Very true, but quite possible that some of those people have since left) I have little sympathy for people with thin skin

Now let me add my own:
7. didnt like how seemingly unbalanced it was between ATs. (still lingering issues here) Some of the i13 changes fixed this its the additional crap that caused worse lingering issues than what existed
8. didnt like how you had to tailor your toon around pvp, and not pvp around your toon. (read: carbon copy characters w/acro, 2+ travel powers, etc - seems to have been replaced w/hibernate, PS, etc) Dual builds kinda fixed this issue but it doesn't address the heart of it. Some people just got pissed that their concept toon didn't fair well in PvP. PvP will never be 100% balanced amongst AT's, but these changes have taken it a step away from balance
9. didnt like the hit-and-run tactics. (travel suppression - check) Travel supression was buffed in i13. Yep, you heard it correctly - you can travel faster while attacking then you could before. The problem is that supression was buffable before - which required teamwork. That aspect is now gone. I do think that the person being attacked should be supressed if they were hit by a melee attack though.
10. cant accept others are better than them. (And those people still dont)


Player vs Player combat has never been balanced in any MMO out there. Where City of Heroes shined was that good teamwork and skill will stomp out anything. Having the game being based on skill and teamwork made it competative. Sure, there are going to be AT's that shined in either system, but if you were going around to have a casual night PvPing, you could bring any AT and still not suck, as long as you had the skill to play it.

In my opinion The new PvP is training wheels that can't be removed. People didn't want to spend the small ammount of effort necessary to be decent at the old system and just screamed for change. My first toon was an invul/ss tank and it would irritate me how squishy he was. It wasn't until I learned how to play my dude differently in PvP that I really began to get a certain sense of enjoyment out of it. I also was considered amongst the PvP crowd to not be very good, and that's an accurate statement. So take it how ever you want, but this isn't coming from someone who is upset that they aren't the best anymore (Infact, im better at the new PvP than I was at the old and I still dont like it).


I can't fault you for liking the new system. It would be like me faulting someone for liking mayo and Jelly sandwiches instead of Peanutbutter and Jelly. But the fact remains that I can cite several examples of how the changes went completely overboard and how it has hurt, rather than helped, PvP from my perspective.


People will argue that they would be happy if we went back to i12 and I would be among them. I would gladly lose the things that I like about the new PvP to get rid of the several dealbreakers that exist today. I personally would like a re-evualation of the new PvP and take the best things from it and combine them with the best things from the old system.

New system good things:
Dual builds
PvP rewards
Hero/Villian Balance of epics
Making more viable APPs/PPPs

New system things that have pros/cons:
Damage changes - Increased the number of viable toons, yet really hurt some

Dealbreakers:
Unbuffable travel supression - The old system was fine just tweak it to make melee be unresisted supression.
Mez resistance
Diminishing returns
Heal Decay


At the end of the day, You will have your opinion and I will have mine. I currently based my opinion on having played the old way from the casual fights to the highest level. I also have played the new way, beta'd it, quit the game, got over the knee jerk reaction, and I am currently fighting for change. I might be willing to bet that I have spent more time either PvPing or thinking about PvP (lineups, builds, etc) than most of the forum cartels have spent posting on this site. I don't know how much time you put into the old system. You could have been in the arena or zones every day or you just tried it acouple times and didn't like it at all. I will say that PvP has a very steep learning curve. Really, only the thickheaded who don't mind getting beaten over and over again end up sticking around long enough to become decent themselves.


Again, you are very right that this is all subjective. I would like to see some datamining from the devs if PvP has been more active now than in i11 (i12 beta really killed the test PvP community because of how long it took, we were fairly active in i11 though)

We would have to practice various lineups like Spec did. If 5 blasters can truely beat all balanced teams, then we have serious problems.

7th, could you please explain why you disliked the old PvP so much? Just wondering. Using the whole 'old PvP was crap and you know it' argument just makes you look ignorant.

Im reminded of a famous quote. "If someone forms an opinion that is not based on facts, then he is a fool"

Here are a couple facts about i13 PvP:
-There are less viable sets now than what existed in Prei13 PvP.
-Teaming isn't important in i13 PvP, which goes against the mantra of all MMO's