Not_Quite_Even

Just wondering, what do you guys think the balance metric the developers are using when they compare defense to resistance?

I'll readily admit that defense, in theory, is probably better than resistance if only because you avoid some of the debuffs. But I get the impression that there is some hate against defense, because "not ever being able to hit your target is unfun" Though to be honest, I'm not sure that it's any more fun than wailing away at a target whose combination of resistance and regeneration is such that you can never significantly harm it.

If you invest an absurd amount you can get 45% defense or more in pvp. But any blaster with aim and build up will laugh right through it.

Just wondering do resistance sets have a similar hole that defense sets have with (power boost), aim, build up (targeting drone, focused accuracy, tactics, fortitude, mind link, etc.)?

Call me cynical, but +ACC bonuses and + to Hit, is a lot easier to come by with set bonuses or commonly available powers and damage bonuses are rather more rare.

Well if you're starting out in pvp, mange your expectations:

1. As a general rule your powers will act differently in PvP than pve. Some powers that are "worthless" pve are "teh uber" in PvP. Examples, flurry is still a better melee attack for a blaster than bonesmasher, web grenade is arguably the strongest control power available.

2. Lookup Arcanaville's post on Diminishing Returns math. The math is hard, though Arcanaville puts it in the clearest terms available. If you start putting together a team based on team buffs, and/or invest heavily in set bonuses in IOs, you need to understand what those things will do in PvP beforehand.

too long didn't read. While having lots of buffs or set bonuses in pve is awesome sauce, many, many times even super great buffs in pve like fortitude or vengeance will add very little.

3. The combat logs are stilled bugged so they will not show everything that they should. So time to time you'll be hit with things and have no idea from the log what it was.

General advice, build for damage, seek -resistance debuffs, keep your powder dry and your head down.

Also do not be surprised if many of your opponents have phase shift, hibernate, personal forcefield or some combination thereof.

Peace

But XxEshxX has a point.

When I was a very small noob, I was given a leg up. Admittedly it was after I tried several times unsuccessfully, and then asked for help. After i graduated to senior noob, I also helped others.

Here's an observation for you. If a noob's first reaction to being defeated is to whine in broadcast, do you want to help him or her? There are jerks everywhere, but I've found most pvpers are actually pretty cool about sharing their expertise if you try first and ask nicely.

Honestly, if the developers really wanted to boost interest in pvp they'd offer to go into an arena event or a zone, like they offered to run a tf during one of the auctions. Heck, you might even get some of the crowd that left if you gave them a chance to paste Castle and Positron up against a wall.

It seems to me that Castle and Positron are more likely to be able to fit a 10 minute arena match into their schedules than a task force.

Definitely: Nerf Bat/Developer

Personal Forcefield.

Placate was the reason I made my first 6 stalkers. I really wanted the jedi mind trick. I always respec out of it. Like too many things in CoX, great concept, horrible execution.

1) There are no healers in City of..
2) In PvP everyone experience heal decay, so that the 2nd heal from any source has only 75% of its original power, the 3rd, 50%, the fourth and subsequent 25%.
3) Empaths used to be very useful in team pvp, but with Diminishing returns and the mezz changes, most of their buffs are rendered useless.


PvP is all about damage now. Anything you click cause travel and regeneration suppression.

In sum, PvP as it is today has little if any use for "healers", empaths, or other buffer types.

Balance:

The only place you can reliably find balance is in an arena event organized by yourself or someone you know who's good at it. While there are plenty of fite clubbers who yell out in the zones "Duel me!" you're still going to be fair game for anybody in the zone on the opposing side.

Hopefully, Open Beta will come soon and arena matches will be easier to come by.

Fleshbag:

Point 1: I agree that the difference in performance between PvE and PvP should be addressed. While balancing on the basis of animation times would have been a great idea from the ground up, grafting on to the system now causes a lot of unintended consequences. My biggest issue with this current Frankenstein approach is that powers that are mostly worthless in PvE are Godkillers in PvP, and excellent even set defining powers in PvE often do little or nothing.

Point 2: If the developers adopted your approach, -75% accuracy if flight, superjump, or superspeed were toggled on; every forumite would go to the /binds help and use the information there to and a hover/flight bind so the player could instantly switch to the "non debuff" hover fire, then retoggle and take off. Heck you could probably rebind all of your power keys to toggle off flight, toggle on hover, and then execute the attack.

As to your comic book examples, not only are they irrelevant, alas, to the discussion of an MMO, but they are in more than a few particulars simply incorrect.

Ouch, a -range debuff on a spines/regen blaster? I'm so angry with myself for not having thunk it!

Fallspark,

An interesting idea. So in your opinion what are the paper builds? And which are the scissors?

So the scissors to a ice/em tank is ?? a rad/psi defender?
stone/em tank is?? kinetic/electric defender?
ice/em blaster is ?? a mind/rad 'troller or a mind/psi dominator?

But will any of those scissor builds actually be able to defeat the paper builds? Is their damage sufficient to overcome the paper's hit point advantage?

It's an interesting idea, and I'd like to see it in practice. In my personal experience, defeating any tank is very, very hard, even with a team (kiting, running away etc. + a truck load of hit points + solid mezz defense makes it too difficult for me).

I dabble and enjoy PvP, some things are totally beyond my understanding, like how to defeat a tank who's not afk. I leave it to older, wiser, more experienced heads.

Peace

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...actually, the majority of Ganker builds require low or unpopulated zones to function most effectively in and unsuspecting victims, especially stalkers and traps/decives. In a fully populated zone those same gankers usually become the ganked when large teams with complete support builds show up. So if you got ganked, then it would be b/c you didn't join a team for whatever given task, not b/c some other jerk brought in his solo ganking FotM just to ruin your Shivan/Nuke run. Sometimes a well populated zone makes it easier to achieve those tasks.



[/ QUOTE ]

I submit to the point that sometimes a well populated zone makes it easier to make shivan or nuke runs, but it still creates more barriers than it limits. If full support, coordinated teams are common, then anything less than that is almost certainly toast. I've been on some of these coordinated teams, and the other thing that doesn't melt before them is another well coordinated team, and then it is often a question of who got the first shot off. I'm not sure that that environment is at all preferable to the casual or new PvP'er than the old I-6 no one can see stalkers who can one-shot any squishie at will. In this case, being able to see the threat, and knowing there's jack all you can do to survive it, isn't an improvement.

Peace

Honestly, I'm just not sure this is the right approach.

Suppose I want to get my feet wet with PvP and try it out? If there's the "PvP server" then the hard core folks will have you breakfast, and then they'll be the gankers, the pvp rep farmers etc. And I suspect that it will raise the basic minimum requirements to enter a PvP zone, both in terms of hardware (you'll need a good graphics card, processor etc to handle all the mad bunny hopping pvp'ers) and in terms power choices (pvp without super speed and super jump? not advisable) and IO's/Hami O's and the like. I really like the invention system, but someone who plays around with it even a little will be at a huge advantage to someone only using SO's in PvP.

I believe that the better solution is to have a less cut throat more supportive environment for folks to gain some experience in PvP. I highly recommend the Giza Fight Night on Virtue. Great fun and uniformly positive folks all the way around. I would think this is the better way forward.

When I first started PvPing I went to the zones and got torn up constantly. Whether it was from the completely invisible stalkers from I-6 who then really could 1-shot you without you're being able to see it coming, or just the massive gang tackle [[ yes, I went solo into Sirens.. ] zone pvp didn't allow any breathing room to learn anything. You walked in, maybe you saw a target, cued up an attack, and then splat.

If PvP consolidates to one server, it'll actually restrict the community to only those hard core folks with PvP groups, ventrillo servers, et. al. Folks don't come to PvP in nice balanced pentads, they come individually. Zone PvP is virtually impossible for a newbie to survive, much less enjoy, other than a stalker [and even they have issues].

My advice, for what it's worth:

1. Provide rewards for arena pvp play, experience, temp powers, costume pieces, whatever. But some reason for someone to say "Sure why not?" when asked to an arena match.

2. Schedule "Zone Level" arena events. I'm sure the Super Heavy Weight arena matches are fun for those involved, but fully kitted out 50's are still rather rare, and I don't think that that's where the growth potential lies. I'd concentrate on folks in the "middle" to heavy weight divisions levels 25-38.

Lag is a real worry, as it devolves the game into who has the better processor or what have you. I think an unofficial PvP server will increase this problem, and further limit the PvP community to those with the hardware to handle it.

An "unofficial PvP server" I think has some issues associated with it. I'm just wondering what the upside is expected to be?

I have run Cloak of Fear with the Psi Damage Proc from Glimpse. It's hard to notice as the damage scrolls past rather quickly, but so far I'm quite satisfied with it. It's not as reliable as Death Shroud, obviously, but when it does land, it hits rather hard. The base accuracy, even with Glimpse IOs is still quite poor. I scrolled through and found that the Psi Damage Proc was missing quite a bit, as I haven't had the slots to slot for accuracy yet. But I'm martial arts/Dark, so any AoE is good AoE, for a Spines... How long are things lasting anyway?

Alas, C-Lab, the unrooting effect of Whirlwind is gone.

Kinda looking like the superior invis'ed ill/emp is looking better all the time.

Grrr.

With all the things they could nerf, why did they have to nerf defenders?

But isn't your last quote the most telling?

"We are aware that many primaries are out performed as controller secondaries and intend on looking at that in the future"

Not, we recognize the problem and have solutions coming in I-7, or I-8, or even "soon", but we'll put it on somebody's white board and after they've done everything else, maybe they'll start thinking about coming up with some solutions, which then will take months to test and code.

Thanks Pilcrow, I had missed that quote having gotten way too disgusted with it about 3/4 of the way through.

Defenders are the baby sitters of lowbies 1-20, when our damage isn't so totally eclipsed by blasters and the 6 lvl difference in primary power availability is actually felt.

And maybe that's "working as designed"

Two points:

1. Dang isn't it nice that we were getting shafted both ways "by design." Seriously, though, thanks Castle for actually "manning up" and flat out telling us. I really appreciate candor, especially when it brings bad news.

2. Healing causes brain damage! Y'know the only thing I find more annoying than the stupid lack of balance between controllers and defenders is cries for "heal". The only folks that drop on my teams are those that run out of range of my heal or do something equally stupid like trying to solo a +4 AV, while the rest of the team is fighting tooth and nail with the other 3 spawns "Confidence Man" aggroed on the way in. Besides, don't all the tanker sets have a heal in their primary anyway?

Um.. don't know about multiple posting or what not, but thanks, I had missed the death knell from States.

Gee, why be a stalker when you can 2-shot just as well and probably a lot safer, with almost as much stealth with a /DA brute?

Thanks States.