Lady_Sadako

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By pulling out small quotes of my statement you missed what I was saying overall. The Aikido example is perfect because in Akido we often have to fight against people whao are better armed, more skilled or just more than one opponent.

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I understand this. What I have evidently failed to get across is that skill is the only one of these advantages that cannot be set aside. In the Arena, you can willingly give up any advantage whatsoever in order to compete with a foe on their level, EXCEPT a HO. You can set aside your higher level, your travel powers, your temporary powers - but not your HOs.

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I would rather true variety in strength and skill to test myself against, rather than some homoginized version.

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Absolutely. And when I have a pile of HOs of my own, I want to be able to disable them temporarily in order to face opponents with only my skills to help me. I can give up any other advantage I have - it seems odd not to let me give up my enhancements.

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I see where your going with this, and you almost had me convinced, but then I thought If I met you at one of my Aikido competitions (or anyone else) I would not pretend to be worse than I am in order for you to have a good chance.

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Since that's exactly what happens in the Arena with auto-exemplaring down to your opponent's level, your Aikido analogy doesn't really work.

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I see no reason to throw the fight.

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Not asking you to. If you have a considerable advantage over me that is NOT skill based, whether it's levels, enhancements or whatever, then there are two ways we can proceed. Either we don't fight at all because we're not in the same league, or we fight in an artificially constrained environment that terporarily puts us on a more even footing.

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That is the true spirit of competition.

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The true spirit of competition also demands that fights are held between people of similar 'weight'. That's why we have weight classes instead of skill classes.

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Lastly. No one is making you compete against me or anyone else with Hami-os. So if you dont want to have the chalenge, don't fight against them.

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That is indeed an equally viable solution, but it does mean introducing some way of TELLING that a prospective opponent has Hami-Os. As you are no doubt aware, you can't currently do that.

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Actualy the Devs said that they were trying to keep everything from PvE the same as PvP, at least as much as possible. So knowing that it is understandable why people would assume that there "reward" would be the same (or at least as close to the PvE game as possible) in PvP.

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What happens when you *assume*?

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slight bonus over the casual player,

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Absurd. The bonus isn't fixed - it can be anything from one Hami-O to a whole screen full.

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If you work harder than me and make more money, get promoted quicker, and get more perks than me, I wont get our boss to demote you because I'm not willing to work as hard as you.

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No, but you wouldn't pretend to be in the same employment bracket, either. Anyone looking at both of us would be able to tell that you were a sales clerk and I was a company partner.

We're not talking about demotion, we're talking about meeting each other on a TEMPORARY level playing field. I don't WANT you to have to give up your HOs, any more than I WANT to give up my 44 levels of experience. I just want you to be able to turn them off temporarily, so we can pretend to be on an equal footing for the sake of the fight - just the same as if I'd exemplared down to fight a level 20.

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You are correct in that no *promises*were made. The expectation however had been set previously by the previous 3 large releases.

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Expectations based on what?

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Your analogy to enhancements being *in addition to* their effectiveness in PvE, is not correct. Adding a negitive to a positive is subtracting,

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Hamidon enhancements are not negatively effective in PvP.

PvP and PvE are like apples and oranges. Some powers have totally different effects in each. There is no a priori reason to suppose that something will, or should, work the same way in both.

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The reduction of reward on investment is the lowered effectiveness of an enhancement when in a PVP fight.

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If anyone had actually been *promised* the reward of a fully effective HO in PVP for tackling Hamidon, then you might have a point. However, no such promise was ever made. The effectiveness of enhancements in PvP is *in addition to* their effectiveness in PvE. Their effectiveness in PvE - the 'reward' you actually get for the 'risk' - is completely unchanged.

So, while your *perception* of the reward's worth (based on your own assumptions) may have changed, its intrinsic value has not.

Issue 4 isn't even on Test yet. The Devs have said that any number of things could change. There are no guarantees that they won't, for example, just cancel the effectiveness of *all* enhancements and say 'stuff it'.

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Instituting any policy that reduces the return on investment spent on obtaining a reward changes the basic precept City of Heroes is based upon.

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Last time I checked, Hami-Os still had exactly the same effect in PvE that they always have. Where do you get the 'reduction of return on investment' from?

And rewards can be VOLUNTARILY SET ASIDE in PvP if to use them would, in the eyes of the participants, mean an unbalanced fight. A temporary power is a reward. The 30 additional levels that a L50 has over a L20 are a reward.

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“They earned it, it’s not fair that I won’t/can’t, take it way from them!”

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Wrong. It's not 'take it away from them', it's 'give them the option of leaving it at the arena door'.

You're also wrong about fairness not existing in this game. Fairness is IMPOSED on you in the Arena, by the auto-exemping method. If, as a level 50, you are up against a level 20, then you can't use those 30 additional levels that you worked so hard to get. They are, temporarily, taken away from you. Going to whine about that?

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You know that by making the choice to play a Defender you chose the SUPPORT role of the game right. Now dont get me wrong I love healers

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'healers'

snerksnerkgigglesnerk

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and they should be able to have fun in the arena, but I think it is kinda wierd to compare a defender with any type of damage dealer.

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Yep. Because my powers don't deal damage, they deal tummy tickles and pretty rainbows. Let's just see how the chickens hatch before we go counting them, eh?

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there should be an option to tone down hamis, SOs, DOs, or even no ench mode. but it should be an optional rule, like the no travel powers setting. It shouldn't be a completely segregated deal.

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My opinion exactly. And, y'know, the fact that you're willing to face the likes of me *without* your Uber Loot active makes me feel that much better about fighting you when it *is* active. It means you're not hiding behind your HOs. I like this.

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Still though, the lvl 42 shouldn't have a reasonable expectation of beating someone who is 8 lvl's his senior.

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The way it's been structured, he should have *every* expectation of beating someone 8 levels above him - just like a level 12 versus a level 20, or a level 22 versus a level 30.

PvP in the Arena auto-exemplars people into the appropriate weight category.

The odd thing is, all of the arguments being made for how people with HOs put the work in etc. etc. etc. could be applied equally to the disparity in *levels* between PvP combatants. The Arena artificially balances a level 5 who goes up against a level 15, but it doesn't artificially balance an HOed L50 who goes up against a regular L50.

For my part, though, I still think the thing to do is to maximise free choice by making it obvious who has HOs and who doesn't. People with HOs are not going to 'dominate the Arena', simply because people don't have to fight them if they don't want to.

It's extremely unlikely that the #1 ranked player in his weight class will have all HOs. This is because in order to gain rank, you have to fight other people, and in order to fight other people, they have to agree to fight you. If someone has all HOs, practically nobody is going to WANT to fight him, so he won't rise above the ranks of the mediocre.

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you could ask them? sure they could lie, but I'm always willing to let people know what they are up against.

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See, that would turn me off right away. I want to fight *you*, not your trophy cabinet. That's just my personal feeling, however...

Here's a thought. Since the game's going to be ranked on a chess-like points system, why not give additional points to the victor if they defeat an opponent who's got a class of Enhancement that they haven't? (Naturally, additional points would be deducted from the loser too.)

There's nothing wrong with fighting an opponent who has a claymore when you have a dagger, provided that a) you KNOW he has a claymore before you start throwing down, and b) the judges who award the points are AWARE of the difference in your weapons.

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then don't fight those who you know are raiding hamidon. problem solved.

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Exactly. All you have to do is consult the Hami Raid Register and check who's been raiding Hami lately.

... wait, it doesn't exist.

Honestly, it's a bit much to say 'problem solved' when there's no way of putting your alleged solution into practice.

The simple answer to all of this is to allow us to view each other's enhancement types. Then we can pick our fights as we please. I refer you to my 'we should be able to tell who has HOs' post.

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Also we are all fighting to be number one, so if you don't fight someone who has them, then you are just going to let them be undisputed king of the arena?


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They won't be undisputed king of the arena unless they fight other people. It's a chess-like system.

If other people want to fight them in the full knowledge that they have Hamidon Enhancements, then let them. However, if nobody wants to fight you because you have Hamidon enhancements, then you won't be the king or queen of anything. The other people in that weight class will be fighting each other.

Personally, I think it would be fairest to let a challenger see what enhancements you have but not where you have put them. That allows a measure of tactical surprise, while cancelling the brass knuckles effect.

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This, however, does not occur when fighting within your "weight" class. If you're in your weight class, Hamidon Enhancements are killer.

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That being the case, can we have some way of knowing whether our prospective opponents have them or not?

As far as I can see, this taps right into the whole 'making an INFORMED decision' aspect of CoH which rocks so very hard - case in point, the boss changes.

I have no problem at all with the idea of duelling with someone who has a Hamidon enhancement; they earned it fair and square (let's hope!) There's challenge in fighting someone who has an advantage you don't. But there is the challenge of fighting someone who is bigger and tougher with only your wits to help you, and then there is the challenge of fighting someone with brass knuckles hidden under his boxing glove.

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I do wish that the Moonfire taskforce had:

A) A badge.
B) An AV that was not able to unlimitedly heal herself every 3-4 min.

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Can't help you with the badge, but you might like to know that Arakhn's healing is *not* unlimited. The more people there are close to her, the more damage she heals when she fires it off. You just have to stay out of melee range when it's time for the mega-heal power to activate.

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Done.

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Free for all PvP + Anime-inspired schoolgirl costumes + assault rifle & devices powersets = BATTLE ROYALE!

There are two things we badly need here:

1) A command to list available channels. Currently, you go on, and have no idea which channels you could be taking part in. I ended up joining KILL SKULS just because I knew it existed!

2) A lobby channel or two - possibly one for each server? - for generic chatting.

In Firebase Zulu, there is a Doctor Quaterfield who gives you a TF.

This *may* be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Doctor Quatermass of early BBC science fiction fame.

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Another possible Curry reference is the actor Tim Curry, who played a number of nautical roles (and chewiing scenery with the best of them) including.... (wait for it): Hunt for RED OCTOBER and Pirates of Penzance!

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Not to mention playing Long John Silver in 'Muppet Treasure Island'!

When I saw 'Curry Cove', that went through my head immediately.

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Observer Mode is cool. You look like a floating camera and can move around the arena map, watching the action.

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I sense a second career as a sports commentator approaching!

Have pedestrians talk about supergroups the way they now talk about individual heroes.

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whats that mean?

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It means PvP will range from one player against one to eight players against eight.

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Another astonishing revelation: The arena will also house themed conflicts that incorporate mission objectives and even bestow temporary powers onto those bold enough to enter.

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Oooh, fantastic!

I wonder how long until someone figures out a way to farm these for XP?

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Even the most seemingly mundane powers will be useful in PvP battle. For example, Statesman tells us that "taunting" another hero will force them to attack you... even against their will.

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Argh. Well, I hope there's some measure of choice involved in the nature of the attack. I wouldn't want to be stuck Mental Blasting someone when I could be Will Dominating them.

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Likewise, an opponent who becomes "confused" by a Controller-class hero will be unable to tell friend from foe.

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... how is that going to work, I wonder? All heroes appear as indiscriminate blobs? Random re-targeting of powers as they activate, so you snipe your buddy and heal your foe?

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And direct from NCsoft's arists in Korea comes new costume-design elements inspired by anime and manga.

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Could be very, very cool, if the styles don't clash...

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"I was so terrified that we'd produce something that wouldn't be right," says Statesman about the delay. "We designed a whole system and it just didn't cut the mustard. So it's my fault."

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Much respect to States here. Clearly it looked good on paper but didn't work in the playtest. It's a real headache when that happens, but you *have* to junk it and start again - you can't keep pushing it just because it seemed like a good idea.

Big thankyous to Youko for the transcript!

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It happens now. Guess what, doesnt effect anything.

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Oh, I know. The only problem I have with PLing is when people beg for it.

I was just trying to imagine what objection to increased team XP there could possibly be, and that was all I could think of.

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No offense, I like your other ideas - but this is completely insane.

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Why do you think so? The only potential issue I can see with it is that it will make PLing that much quicker...