Psoma

Maneuvers allows you to slot needed IOs like Karma: KB Prot and LotG 7.5's. Assault does not.

I know they're aware that the copy tool isn't working for a number of people, but nothing has changed in the last couple of weeks that I can see. It's pretty irritating, but I'd be lying if I said I was surprised.

Freedom and Virtue don't give this message, but I've been told they still don't copy (haven't tried myself recently), but for the rest of the servers, here's what I've seen for at least a week+:

In addition to the Power Balance Issues and Suggestion section in the wish list, I used to have a thread link in my sig that had some very detailed suggestions on how to make different ATs and sets more viable, and it had the support of the majority in the high-end crowd. I think you may have been listening to a loud minority when it comes to people that liked the "cliquey atmoshere." Most of us wanted/want more PvP'rs, which is why a number of us poured a lot of hours into the PvPEC, but the learning curve was pretty steep...and it really just got steeper with i13.

You are correct in that we liked the movement and speed, but most of us could not care less about cliques, and we certainly don't love that a great number of builds are useless. Like I said, the vast majority of us want nothing more than additional PvP'rs. I think the disconnect comes from outsiders' misconceptions, and part of that is due to them listening to the vocal minority on the forums and in /ac. Sadly, it seems as if they devs were a part of that outsider group, so they missed or dismissed the suggestions that would've resulted in PvP becoming more accessible.

It sounds like you're misunderstanding. It's not that we loved i12 PvP, but we preferred it to i13 PvP, so we look back at the previous system with some greater fondness than it probably deserves. I definitely feel that any future PvP tweaks would be better starting from an i12 foundation vs an i13 one.

I think you're probably right in that most of the game's current players will likely never become PvP'rs, but I think the PvP population does have growth potential. I think you're wrong in saying that nothing much that they (the devs) have done has ever brought in large numbers of PvP'rs. I think it's more about not doing much in the way of keeping large numbers of PvP'rs. Who really knows how many PvE'rs have kept their distance for the various reasons beyond the PvP community's control, but I know that I've heard from a decent number of them, personally, over the years, and it's a shame to think of all the missed opportunities.

Part of the issue on their end is accepting the fact that a lot of the work they did needs to be forgotten and abandoned. Nobody likes it when a lot of time and effort seems to have been for nothing, but sometimes it all just adds up to a costly learning experience.

There was the start of the biggest problem we face now: not fixing the basics before adding the bells and whistles. How many people want to keep taking a ride in a nice car if it keeps dying on you? Remember how unstable the arena was for the longest time? i4 beta was a nightmare because of it, but they sent the code to Live without having it fixed. And if I recall correctly, that instability was actually fixed when a programmer was troubleshooting the market code. The amount of time that passed in between i4 and then was ridiculous.

PvP'rs made the argument a long time ago that part of the arena's lack of popularity was due to the terrible instability. (Ex Libirs came along and got us to resubmit detailed reports over what had been happening with the arena all along, but I'm pretty sure the big fix was inadvertant.) I understand how much demand there was for the devs to appease the masses by pushing out additional content, but how can you expect a garden to grow if you just plant the seeds and then ignore it while planning a big harvest party?

Why did zones empty out? Emptying out is a little broad to start with, but I'd say the significant decrease in activity was due to the mini-games lacking in the reward department, combined with the shock of a number of PvE'rs getting their toons beaten by a combination of players with better knowledge/experience/skill/builds.

They were actually on the right track by offering real incentives to PvP, but again, broken code and the insistence of pushing forward anyway doomed the good intentions with failed implementation.

Yes, that's what happens when you rush things out the door that aren't ready. The arena wasn't ready because of instability, the zones weren't ready because they lacked reward, and base raiding wasn't ready because of both instability and ease of exploitation due to poor planning.

Again, I'm pretty sure the big stability fix was inadvertant.

Ex took the time to understood what had happened and agreed with us about what needed to be done in order to fix PvP in order to help it grow. At least a portion of the dev team was trying to work with her in order to start to make some of those things happen, but those things took a back seat to the pushing out of more content, and broken promises resulted in more disgust and anger.

Here's about the time where I started losing patience in the timeline. To summarize: every aspect of PvP is broken in some way. The mechanics are not the best, but they're actually the only reason the PvP community exists at all. There is a detailed, stickied list that Putz has posted, compiled by the PvP community, which addresses most of the PvP issues at the time. Instead of building on that and working with the community already dedicated to improving and growing PvP, we get:

And here's why PvP'rs were so incredibly angry. Things that weren't broken were now really broken, so any of the minor improvements (either then or after) were irrelevant. On top of that, we were told that the fundamental changes that created the broken mess that was i13 PvP...those were not negotiable.

As others have pointed out in the past, figuring out subscription changes due to the i13 PvP changes couldn't have accurately been done by just looking at overall subscription numbers in a given month. Short of having a list of every account owned by an arena PvP'r, and then seeing how many of those accounts were not renewed when the renewal time came, how could anyone say what the results were? There was actually a thread (or two) that consisted of players listing their accounts and their intentions to cancel/not renew because of the i13 PvP changes. Any thread like that was deleted of course, but I believe the number was over 200 by that point...at least enough to cover the salary of 1 employee for a year.

Unlike a lot of PvE items, maybe the implementation of PvP in this game has been absolutely horrible from start to finish. The truth is that it's impossible to have a real argument about whether or not PvP popularity in this game is viable because it's never been done right. I really don't see how it can be argued otherwise.

Yeah, I think a number of us have heard that same thing, with the only reason given was that i13 was the start of many PvP changes. We were told that PvP mechanics needed fundamental changes, that these changes would make the PvP environment more appealing to a wider group of players, and that the changes would be actively tweaked until perfected to make way for PvP-related content (such as the return of base raiding/CoP...and we know how that turned out). It seems that they can just pretend like they never made those claims now, because the fundamental changes they made have managed to destroy the PvP community, which comprises the only group of players that will ever call them on it.

At this point, we're struggling to maintain 3-4 ladder teams because, like Jimmay said, new players aren't coming along...because most new PvP'rs would normally start out in zones...and zones are dead because of the i13 changes. I don't ever play in zones any more, because I absolutely hate the changes, and I know quite a few people that feel the same way. If PvP is essentially being abandoned entirely, as it seems, what's the harm in allowing an underling, dev-in-training the opportunity to work with the PvP community and try a different approach? I think most of us (what's left of us, anyway) would be content with that.