MajorPrankster

Obviously, I could not agree more!

On the weekends, she even makes me an extra pot in the evenings so I can stay up late and play City with the boyz.

Nothing quite like getting hyped up on good coffee and then falling into scrapper lock, only to notice, minutes AFTER the team wipes, that you are the last one standing and since everything is dead, the rest of the team is starting to rez.

Of course that might not be just the coffee. Could be trying to carry on a conversation with my wife and one on voice chat, watch TV and play my scrapper all at the same time.

Who watches the team window when there are baddies that need killin'? And if the woman that makes me such nice coffee is talking, why would I focus on the cries of death from my friends in voice chat?

These are the questions I ponder.

Yup. Both sides are made up by humans.

Humans have an uncontrollable tendency toward cognitive dissonance and must therefore do everything they can to support the choices they make, while belittling the choices of others, so that they can feel good about those choices.

Gaming forums provide provide me hours of entertainment because of this.

Since most gamers have some level of competition within them, it seems that there must always be a winner and a loser, a right and a wrong, even on a forum. General discussion is simply not tolerated a good portion of the time.

On topic, for me KB is tons of fun simply because I don't worry about DPS unless I am soloing and doing test builds. If I am in a group, I my goal is just to relax and KB makes me giggle. Since I have not been in a PUG in years for anything other than things like invasions and the Halloween event (I am lucky enough to have 5 RL friends playing) I have my own slanted view on the subject.

I have been the last man standing more often with Mighty Dinky than any other character I have, except for my WP/SS tank.

Playing anything else right now seems much less fun.

I had NO idea!

Thanks for the heads up, I guess I'll be respeccing that.

I do. I have it right now as a proc machine 3 damage procs and a Performance Shifter Chance for Endurance. I use it to herd and distract mobs from the squishies, plus it looks great!

Definitely one of the optional powers though. I have thought about other ways to build that might see it replaced. The slots are starting to look better in other things, I just like the proc-gimmick.

Now that sounds like a great idea!

Anyone that thinks reworking the basic system is easier than creating challenging content needs to pass around whatever they are smokin'.

Since the players themselves can already with the tools in AE, create more challenging content, the Devs could certainly do it fairly rapidly. As mentioned in this thread and elsewhere, they have even stated that no existing content will be adjusted to IOs but left the door open for new content.

Obviously, the recent changes in the difficulty sliders are a step in this direction but I think they got pulled for TFs.

Along these same lines, at GR the Devs said that the new ways to make your 50th level characters more powerful would allow them to 'trivialize' the current content. Certainly that will come with more challenging content, don't you think?

DR and other changes to PvP were much more extensive, I am well aware.

My point remains, DR lowers the amount by which IOed characters are better, but they remain better none-the-less. Therefore, jerks that kick over builds and bonuses will still do just that, making adding DR to PvE in an effort to keep the jerks at bay will fail.

Ah! The heart of the matter!

As Aett_Thorn mentioned and you agreed, these leaders/team were jerks, plain and simple.

You submit that the devs can do something about this by adding DR.

With DR, an IOed out character will STILL outperform one that is not.

The jerks will still kick those they think are not worthy.

In the end, the Devs simply tick off a bunch of players, get bad press and possibly lose subscriptions.

It was certainly not the magic fix for PvP. DR simply lowered the amount by which IOed characters were better.

It's called an using a RL example to explain a point of view.

Fun is does not revolve around IOs for every player. For those that do have fun building characters with IOs, you are doing nothing but stomping on their time, energy and fun to make yourself feel like you characters are more powerful. This sounds like nothing more than envy, to me.

Team leaders that will exclude anyone for having a certain build, IOs or not, are complete jerks, why would you want to play with them anyway?

This is NOT a FPS. In MMORPGs, the more you play, the more power you gain. That's the Genre. Like it or leave it.

Oh, ok.

You have my pity then.

And this is, again, supposed to attract more PvPers how?

So, since I prefer to interact with ration, intelligent humans, try and bring forth examples that apparently have superfluous information and state my opinion, that makes me a target for MORE insults. Interesting.

Have fun with your attempts at increasing the PvP population. Good luck, you will need it.

The advice is sound. the childish bickering already starting in the thread (forum PvP it's called I guess) is more suited to a middle-school playground.

As for PvP being 'broken', that's obviously a matter of opinion. The rules work the way they work, adapt or be defeated.

I PvP with friends in the Arena and run around zones on and off when I feel like it. We trash talk on voice chat, but we have been friends for years and there is certainly no real animosity involved. I PvP in other games as well. I don't mind dying, it's all learning.

I would simply prefer to PvP against rational, intelligent adults, like my gaming buddies, than those who bring the childish insults into the mix, regardless of if the advice they give is sound.

So, in short, my reason for not PvPing against strangers IS because of their (general) attitude, not the game rules/engine. The last time I was fighting with my tank in a zone, after it taking 3 players to finally bring be down, the first thing I got was a tell to the effect 'go home noob you suck.' How is that supposed to want me to interact with a person who thinks this tactic will encourage me to PvP more?

I feel the same way about the over-testosteroned, insult laden competitors of ANY game, from Poker to Magic to Football to TF2. Life is too short to spend much of it listening to insults thrown by someone over a game.

Now, for the topic at hand, the best advice I can give to players new to PvP is:

. Read. Read everything you can, information is king.
. Don't go in alone. PvP in CoH is really team based and IMO more fun in groups.
. Remember that faceplanting is normal. You have to learn somehow.
. Good sportsmanship will get you better advice.

Pot meet kettle, as in, you have it wrong, YOU should 'just go'.

WRONG! BZZZT!

It is City of Heroes. The word super does not appear anywhere.

I played from Day 4. Took a year off for personal reasons.

I play on Pinnacle, always have pretty much.

I can say with all honesty that it is no harder or easier now to find teams than it has ever been, with the exception of things like free re-ups, when one expects a larger active population.

This, like the other things you present as facts, is called "anecdotal evidence" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence.

When presented with the ONLY source of information that we have available that has any real chance of being a fact in the number of subscriptions, namely that the company running the game say subs are up (not to mention the fact they are investing a ton of cash into it, Posi mentioned a wheel-barrow full of money) you discount it on the basis of 'company's always lie', which to me shows clearly a level of paranoia about "them" and "the rest of us" that I always find quite amusing.

As to active server participants, as others have pointed out there are always ups and downs, for any number of reasons. School, summer time, new babies.

As for there being the huge drop in server pops from the beginning you (and your friends and others) claim, as others pointed out to you, for every one of the posters that cries doom, there are several that have anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

And finally, what you fail to see that those of us watching the forums have witnessed for years, is that from the beginning there have been doom criers yet we are still here and the company is going fine from the looks of the money being invested, therefore, we tire of the cries of doom from the uninformed.

In all honesty, why do you care at all how other people might want you to play? It seems to be a big issue for you.

Tell them to go jump.

Those who try to force others to play a specific way are the ones that need to lose good teammates.

You might want to get a doctor to check that entitlement level for you, I think it needs medication.

Like any service you are completely within your rights to change it. I am also completely within my rights to point and laugh at your reasoning (or lack thereof.)

With all seriousness, I think you are taking the game too seriously. Seriously.

As soon as hear anyone talking about 'taking longer' to kill things, that's usually a big clue as to if the game is a job or a fun pastime.

I will fully endorse leaving a team when you are not having fun. I do it on PUGs when the need arises. TFs are a little trickier due to the way they work, but the fact remains I will not hang around if I am not having fun.

If you are not having fun on a particular team, just leave it. Forcing your view of how team should work is no better. You are just infringing on their fun.

I walk away immediately from any form of team drama. I am lucky in that I mostly team with RL friends, but I do not play this game to listen to others argue about who should go first.

This is what lost me as well.

Why on earth would you possibly care about how much prestige your SG has vs. another? There is certainly no in-game reason, much less a benefit.

The only reasons are greed and vanity from what I can see; I certainly do not want any game mechanic to be changed for those reasons.