Official Thread for Recluses Victory: PvP Zone
By
Adam7,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:15 in Developers' Corner
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Lady Sadako- do you remember which pill box this was?
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Wow, Archon Voss! Not seen you since I3 and the joy of the Hess TF! 
I think it was the one ahead and to the left of the villain base. That was the easiest one for me to get to. I can't be absolutely sure, though. 
Okay..there're a lot of pages here...so this might have been covered.
It's very easy for Heroes to reach RV, the portal is readily accessible through Atlas Park.
Villains however...it's a bit of a pain to get to Grandville, get to the elevators, wind your way past all the furniture and finally get to the portal.
It seems a bit unbalanced to me. Couldn't they have placed the CoV portal in Mercy Island? Maybe on the platform with the Black Line to Cap Au Diable?
Heroes get access to it, rather easily, in one of two lowbie zones, yet Villains have to hunt for it in the equivalent of Peregrine Island?
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I took over a pillbox that was already villain-side, but the person controlling it had been killed or run away or something. It had no turrets, but when I took it over, ONE turret spawned (instead of four) and it was right next to me, clipping the transparent dome. I'm guessing this is a bug.
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Lady Sadako- do you remember which pill box this was?
thank you for the information
A_V
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I've seen this too Archon and it was the one nearest the villain base I believe.
not sure if this is the right place to post it but Heavies (the in-zone pets) can't be port-friended. not sure if this is "working as intended" or simply following the elite boss mechanism of not being able to be ported.
port friend would definitely be so nice on them considering how slow they are.
who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
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I took over a pillbox that was already villain-side, but the person controlling it had been killed or run away or something. It had no turrets, but when I took it over, ONE turret spawned (instead of four) and it was right next to me, clipping the transparent dome. I'm guessing this is a bug.
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Lady Sadako- do you remember which pill box this was?
thank you for the information
A_V
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I've seen this too Archon and it was the one nearest the villain base I believe.
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Great- Triangulation helps out lots- we will look into it.
Thanks again!
A_V
Also the other night we tried taking over Bravo and there were no heroes around and all turrets were defeated and it said "Defeat all pillbox defenders" leading to a villain loss even though we would have stayed in it if it wasn't bugged.
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not sure if this is the right place to post it but Heavies (the in-zone pets) can't be port-friended. not sure if this is "working as intended" or simply following the elite boss mechanism of not being able to be ported.
port friend would definitely be so nice on them considering how slow they are.
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The can't be recalled from what I can tell. I thought it was because they were to big but it may be a bug.
Sorry, I'm gonna rant here, so here's a preemptive: DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
But to preface that: I really love this game. I've been a player since May of '04 when I saw it at E3. I played with the character creator and went home and bought it that day and have loved it ever since. I've gotten my brother, his wife, my best friend and my son to play. I've made a fairly popular mod for HL called Action and so understand on some level the process and the decisions that are made with game design and game balance in mind. I didn't balk at ED. I understood exactly why it was happening and while I didn't welcome it, I adapted. Even the tank resistance changes. I miss perma-Unstoppable for the fun ride and mourned it's passing but welcomed the ability to move about freely with Unyielding. And on and on. Basically I'm a supporter of the dev's deep down, even if I have done the occasional rant on a particular point or two.
With that said, I FEAR for the state of Hero vs. Villian PvP. Yeah, I know that there is already a glaring level discrepancy in RV that won't go away until I7 is on live for a few months. Not to mention the 5 to 1 ratio of hero's to villians. But there are some serious issues and GLARING disparities that is only going to grow more obvious when things move on. They are such that if something isn't done NOW there will be more serious decisions to be made. Probably mostly negative, only amplified by the time elapsed. And that's the Patron Powers vs. Ancillary Powers.
Currently as it stands the heros' powers can fill huge gaping holes in PvP that terribly destroy the balance between the two sides because there is no like power on the villian side. The lack of those same holes being filled on the Villian side will end with RV being dead. Not to mention what effect it will have on base raids.
For example, giving Blasters the like of Hibernate, Personal Force Field and Force of Nature(Unstoppable-Lite). There is NOTHING similar on the villian side that can do as much to get a villian out of a sticky situation. I've seen all three of these used to GREAT effect in RV in the few days I've been there. The lack of powers with anything near the utility of those powers is a real shame. This kind of protection for a 'squishy' class SHOULD be available one of the villian Squishy AT's as well.
This is on top of their already 30% unresistable damage and the highest burst accuracy in the game with Aim and Build Up both available, another horrible discrepancy between the two sides.
Controllers get Indomitable Will, a powerful status protection that can be used as a panic button to great effect. Yet again, nothing of it's like is available to Villian squishies. None of them get status protection of any kind.
And Power Build Up is basically a 10 second Domination on a 120 second timer that doesn't require previous attacks to make it available. Their holds already last longer than a Dominator without PBU. This would have been a PERFECT addition to either Corr or Dom Patron Powers to even out the playing field. This is also available to defender sets as well, so even more possible AT's with it to add to the disparity.
Then there is Containment. Something that in all previous zones enabled Controllers to even compete in the low levels. But in RV with the avalibility of decent, straight damage powers, it's too much. With only three holds necessary to knock off status protection, NONE of the villian AT's last long in a zone where Break Frees require you to rezone to a store to aquire.
Defenders, as previously statud gain acces to Power Build Up, which is a huge boon and is sorely missing from Patron Powers IMHO. But they can also gain a high damage(for a Def)Melee attack. Something their Corruptor brothers could use as well. Another glaring hole that Patron Powers failed to fill.
Then there is the Focused Accuracy debate. Now having played my lvl 40 SR stalker in RV I know all the Doom sayers were right. It allows Tanks and Scrappers to see you from quite a distance and just plain NEVER miss. And I mean even with Elude or Overload on NEVER miss. The right build, which isn't hard to do, can completely NEGATE, yes NEGATE the entire defensive line. And by Negate I mean that it offers NO decent protection even with the lvl 38 uber-power running against anybody who cares to make a build to PvP. Focused Accuracy or a power like it is a game-breaking discrepancy. The Villian side has no equivilant power to counter Ice tanks or SR with Elude running, or even to-hit debuffs from defenders and controllers. For an ancedotal example: I had my lvl 41 DM/EA brute in RV going toe to toe with a Broad Sword/Regen Scrapper. I was running Overload and he was debuffed by at least one casting of Radiation Infection and my Touch of Fear with one To-Hit Debuff SO. He NAILED ME repeatedly with all of that running. Between FA and Build Up he was able to clean my clock SOLO with all my vaunted defence and help from a */rad Corr somehwere above me. This sort of thing will drive every living soul out of RV IMHO.
And as we have seen in RV on test, most people just wnat to win at any cost and log their hero's. IF this lasts, pretty much the zone will be an Arch-Villian badge hunting zone for the heros like it is currently on test.
If somebody could explain to me how villians are suposed to compete with hero's in RV, I'd love to hear it. But based on the Patron Powers alone it's not looking good IMHO. I mean, the pets villians get aren't even up very often. THey are a true panic button if there ever was one. At least Overload is up ever few min. But 15min? Sheesh. Gimie some Hibernate,PFF,Force of Nature,Indomitable Will, Focused Accuracy or the like instead of a VERY situational pet.
I'm sorry for the rant but the last few days has been about the most un-fun I've experienced since I bought CoH in '04. Sure, I could be like the rest of the jerks and log all my Hero's but what's the point?
Hell, I didn't even touch on all the points I had about the dispairities. THere's more out there. And all of them point to a PvP game that is just gonna be unfun to play as a villian. And if you value a balance, fun PvP experience then something drastically needs to be done. Because all the HO's and Patron Powers will not bring the dispairity any closer to balance with Patron vs. Ancillary powers. Otherwise RV will look much like it does on Test but with less people.
There. There's my one and only DOOOOOOOOM.
You know I pretty much agree with you, villains are not looking good atm. I'll give it a month or two to see if things even out.
/agreed
Some of the PPP powers look ok, but the lack of diversity in power selection is saddening. I've suggested before that instead of 2 TierI, 1 Tier II, and 1 Tier III power give us a couple more at each level. Say 4 Tier I, 3 Tier II and 2 Tier III (since the pets are not very helpful -- pets with a Stalekr? WHAAAAT?) then let us choose what we need. I mean, Lord Recluse runs a vast criminal organization and our Patrons are supposed to be incredibly powerful. Stop being so cheap you bassturns!
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We are currently reviewing either a timer or a refresh of the Heavies during the temporal reversion. In the mean time, thanks for all the great feedback and keep testing!
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Thanks for taking a look at that. It'll probably not be a huge thing long-term on the Live servers, but I think it'll keep things fresher if the Heavies have a term limit other than the pet owner falling in battle.
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Sorry, I'm gonna rant here, so here's a preemptive: DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
But to preface that: I really love this game. I've been a player since May of '04 when I saw it at E3. I played with the character creator and went home and bought it that day and have loved it ever since. I've gotten my brother, his wife, my best friend and my son to play. I've made a fairly popular mod for HL called Action and so understand on some level the process and the decisions that are made with game design and game balance in mind. I didn't balk at ED. I understood exactly why it was happening and while I didn't welcome it, I adapted. Even the tank resistance changes. I miss perma-Unstoppable for the fun ride and mourned it's passing but welcomed the ability to move about freely with Unyielding. And on and on. Basically I'm a supporter of the dev's deep down, even if I have done the occasional rant on a particular point or two.
With that said, I FEAR for the state of Hero vs. Villian PvP. Yeah, I know that there is already a glaring level discrepancy in RV that won't go away until I7 is on live for a few months. Not to mention the 5 to 1 ratio of hero's to villians. But there are some serious issues and GLARING disparities that is only going to grow more obvious when things move on. They are such that if something isn't done NOW there will be more serious decisions to be made. Probably mostly negative, only amplified by the time elapsed. And that's the Patron Powers vs. Ancillary Powers.
Currently as it stands the heros' powers can fill huge gaping holes in PvP that terribly destroy the balance between the two sides because there is no like power on the villian side. The lack of those same holes being filled on the Villian side will end with RV being dead. Not to mention what effect it will have on base raids.
For example, giving Blasters the like of Hibernate, Personal Force Field and Force of Nature(Unstoppable-Lite). There is NOTHING similar on the villian side that can do as much to get a villian out of a sticky situation. I've seen all three of these used to GREAT effect in RV in the few days I've been there. The lack of powers with anything near the utility of those powers is a real shame. This kind of protection for a 'squishy' class SHOULD be available one of the villian Squishy AT's as well.
This is on top of their already 30% unresistable damage and the highest burst accuracy in the game with Aim and Build Up both available, another horrible discrepancy between the two sides.
Controllers get Indomitable Will, a powerful status protection that can be used as a panic button to great effect. Yet again, nothing of it's like is available to Villian squishies. None of them get status protection of any kind.
And Power Build Up is basically a 10 second Domination on a 120 second timer that doesn't require previous attacks to make it available. Their holds already last longer than a Dominator without PBU. This would have been a PERFECT addition to either Corr or Dom Patron Powers to even out the playing field. This is also available to defender sets as well, so even more possible AT's with it to add to the disparity.
Then there is Containment. Something that in all previous zones enabled Controllers to even compete in the low levels. But in RV with the avalibility of decent, straight damage powers, it's too much. With only three holds necessary to knock off status protection, NONE of the villian AT's last long in a zone where Break Frees require you to rezone to a store to aquire.
Defenders, as previously statud gain acces to Power Build Up, which is a huge boon and is sorely missing from Patron Powers IMHO. But they can also gain a high damage(for a Def)Melee attack. Something their Corruptor brothers could use as well. Another glaring hole that Patron Powers failed to fill.
Then there is the Focused Accuracy debate. Now having played my lvl 40 SR stalker in RV I know all the Doom sayers were right. It allows Tanks and Scrappers to see you from quite a distance and just plain NEVER miss. And I mean even with Elude or Overload on NEVER miss. The right build, which isn't hard to do, can completely NEGATE, yes NEGATE the entire defensive line. And by Negate I mean that it offers NO decent protection even with the lvl 38 uber-power running against anybody who cares to make a build to PvP. Focused Accuracy or a power like it is a game-breaking discrepancy. The Villian side has no equivilant power to counter Ice tanks or SR with Elude running, or even to-hit debuffs from defenders and controllers. For an ancedotal example: I had my lvl 41 DM/EA brute in RV going toe to toe with a Broad Sword/Regen Scrapper. I was running Overload and he was debuffed by at least one casting of Radiation Infection and my Touch of Fear with one To-Hit Debuff SO. He NAILED ME repeatedly with all of that running. Between FA and Build Up he was able to clean my clock SOLO with all my vaunted defence and help from a */rad Corr somehwere above me. This sort of thing will drive every living soul out of RV IMHO.
And as we have seen in RV on test, most people just wnat to win at any cost and log their hero's. IF this lasts, pretty much the zone will be an Arch-Villian badge hunting zone for the heros like it is currently on test.
If somebody could explain to me how villians are suposed to compete with hero's in RV, I'd love to hear it. But based on the Patron Powers alone it's not looking good IMHO. I mean, the pets villians get aren't even up very often. THey are a true panic button if there ever was one. At least Overload is up ever few min. But 15min? Sheesh. Gimie some Hibernate,PFF,Force of Nature,Indomitable Will, Focused Accuracy or the like instead of a VERY situational pet.
I'm sorry for the rant but the last few days has been about the most un-fun I've experienced since I bought CoH in '04. Sure, I could be like the rest of the jerks and log all my Hero's but what's the point?
Hell, I didn't even touch on all the points I had about the dispairities. THere's more out there. And all of them point to a PvP game that is just gonna be unfun to play as a villian. And if you value a balance, fun PvP experience then something drastically needs to be done. Because all the HO's and Patron Powers will not bring the dispairity any closer to balance with Patron vs. Ancillary powers. Otherwise RV will look much like it does on Test but with less people.
There. There's my one and only DOOOOOOOOM.
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Well said here, and I believe that these are very serious problems that need to be addressed.
For example, my VG did a base raid with heroes, and since the patch that made base items and the exemplar lvl for base raids to 50, my fellow villains and I had to face heroes with their ancillary powers. The result was that we could hardly kill them at all. When we attacked their base, we had to totally ignore them and had to go straight for their anchors. Killing them was not an option. Their ancillary power pools created a severe disadvantage to us, blasters and tankers with snow storm contantly keeping our teammates slowed, always getting hit by FA users and every stalker being instantly seen, and the god-mode powers for blasters made them extremely difficult to kill.
Of course this isnt that great of an argument example since we had no patron powers to compare, but it can be seen that the patron powers did create a huge advantage for the heroes. Hopefully the patron powers will get another look at a pvp balance and perhaps in the next few months we will see some changes to help balance the patron powers out as in comparison to the ancillary powers.
I FIGURED IT OUT!
the reason the devs dont give the villains good patron powers is because they realized how game-breaking they are
so when i7 hits live they'll stealth remove all the overpowered APP's and give free respecs to all the heros so they can compare their dark mastery and such to our ghost widow patron powers
....lol i wish
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Also...why is there no official thread for "Heavies". I'm still having trouble finding out where to pick one up for a hero. I've seen the Villian Spider platforms...but can't find the hero location.
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There are three of them strung out in an arc from the Hero base along the western side to the south wall. Players with Heavies keep them after a zone reversion if they haven't died, so you rarely see a hero Heavy pad with a Heavy on it. Also, players can snag more than one Heavy at a time.
Actually, I think that players should be limited to one at a time, and perhaps lose the Heavy after a zone reversion - just to keep things fresher.
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In order to locate Heavy platforms for your side, look at the OPs map in your base. In the Hero base they are marked with "square" markers, and in the Villain base with "round" markers. Read what the informational NPC's have to say, it can be very helpful.
We are currently rieviewing either a timer or a refresh of the Heavies during the temporal reversion. In the mean time, thanks for all the great feedback and keep testing!
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I would suggest that a refresh would be the better idea. unless you were to get warning about the timer getting ready to drop, theres a good chance the heavy will end up leaving right in the middle of a fight. and i would aslo suggest that if you did refresh. that it would happen at the very beginning of the reversion. of course either way theres still going to be troublemakers. like say, someone who grabs the robots then just idles. which is why a limit of 1 heavy per toon would be effective in stunting the greed of certain people. paticularily people just after the badge. who also tend to just grab a heavy and dismiss it over and over again. ive seen this happen more times then i can count and its sickening to see people commit such giant acts of stupidity
I believe in quality, not quantity. also i have a short attention span...
Guardian
Main: Goomba: 50-Tank Inv/stone...2892 hours
33-Brute
Pinnacle
Secondary Main: Captain Battleship: 22-Tank Inv/SS
WHERE IS ARBITER MINOS
the first villain contact says to go down the ramps to get weapons from him, but all that's down those ramps is a blue portal that can't go anywhere
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For an ancedotal example: I had my lvl 41 DM/EA brute in RV going toe to toe with a Broad Sword/Regen Scrapper. I was running Overload and he was debuffed by at least one casting of Radiation Infection and my Touch of Fear with one To-Hit Debuff SO
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Not only does FA give a tohit buff to shred defense builds and perception to see stalkers, but it also has tohit debuff resist. So ri and touch of fear (along with every single other tohit debuff villains have) do not debuff FA at all.
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I FIGURED IT OUT!
the reason the devs dont give the villains good patron powers is because they realized how game-breaking they are
so when i7 hits live they'll stealth remove all the overpowered APP's and give free respecs to all the heros so they can compare their dark mastery and such to our ghost widow patron powers
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Nah, their brilliant plan involves Villians getting the pre-NERF version of HO's from the Recluse SF. You know, the ones that boosted stuff by 33%-50% instead of the 20%-33% like an SO!
lol, my turn to laugh. Although that's about the only thing I could see that could even come close to salvaging the Patron Pools unfortunately. Ah well.
As to the story about the base raid, I don't really think it's too early to tell because other than the Snipe on Stalkers(Who are the only Villian class to really get useful powers even if they are all the same from each patron basically) the Patron powers don't really add much to the Villian AT's at all that would help. Corruptors get a hold, some armor, which IS nice, but they already have a secondary that does damage and has status effects. Dominators get... more attacks. They have an entire secondary powerset that's pretty much all attacks. They don't really need another. Brutes get range... Ok, but not spectacular. Nothing to help deal with high Def toons or anything. No new tools. Just a different kind of an attack. Same goes with Master Minds, they basically got a bunch of attacks. Nothing in any of the Patron Pools add will help, or give you a new angle with the problem you had in the base raid. Mostly all that's gonna happen is that the new atacks will replace older ones in your tray is about all.
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For an ancedotal example: I had my lvl 41 DM/EA brute in RV going toe to toe with a Broad Sword/Regen Scrapper. I was running Overload and he was debuffed by at least one casting of Radiation Infection and my Touch of Fear with one To-Hit Debuff SO
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Not only does FA give a tohit buff to shred defense builds and perception to see stalkers, but it also has tohit debuff resist. So ri and touch of fear (along with every single other tohit debuff villains have) do not debuff FA at all.
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Didn't remember that. That explains a LOT actually.
Rather than complaining about the Hero/Villain disparity for now, a call for a level bump might be in order.
Then some serious testing and datamining can happen in RV.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
I'm not simply complaining. Read my post. Yeah, it's pretty 'doom' but it offers some analysis instead of pure rant. A level bump would be nice but, as I said, I doubt that will do anything at all to help because of the nature of the holes being filled Hero Side vs the addition of new attacks on the Villian side, with nary a hole filled. Other than Stalkers(outside of the glaring lack of FA or at least 'Aim') the new powers do nothing to fill holes that the AT's have.
I seriously doubt that testing will prove otherwise but it sure would help. Help prove my point that is.
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We are currently rieviewing either a timer or a refresh of the Heavies during the temporal reversion. In the mean time, thanks for all the great feedback and keep testing!
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That would be greatly appreciated, Archon_Voss. All the times I've been on the test server, only one or two heroes have controlled the Heavies, not giving anyone else the opportunity to experience it.
If a fix isn't found, I can just imagine some Saturday one toon having control of a Heavy for eight to 12 hours of straight gameplay.
I think the best way to write it in would be the reversion since it already resets everything else.
I can agree with that, it also adds to the opposing side being given a chance, seeing as you'd have to go get your heavy again.
CHAMPION!
There was a "fix" to all of the PvP issues - Put them all on a separate server PvP only and let you choose ANY powers you wish.
Let everyone start at 50 and select ANY and ALL powers they wish.
Bang balance issue OVER. This also allows us a PvE not affected by constant nerfing to achieve PvP balance.
To the person who designed the Recluse Victory area, you forgot to Put a Red Carpet for the Heros when they are entering the Villian base.
I see RV nothing more then a Place for the Heros to camp the villian base and TP away.
So if you wanted to test if the Heros would be able to totally out class the Villians I think thats done.
A level bump would be nice so People could actually test the PP pool powers.
If not the Villians will have Years yes I said years of respecing, Hami-o tfing and staying out of RV to let the Heros get all the badges.
There is no balance w/o the ability to "test" how can we test anything when we can't even get 2 ft out of our base.
So if RV is going to be a TP war then change the Name of the zone to "TP or Not to TP".
Cuca 50th inv/axe
Cab 50th Inv/em
Shiverslash 40th ice/cold PP ahahahah
Mr Mold 39th plant/psi/pp ahahahaha
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People are correct in citing that the CoV entrance is a classic killzone corridor with no air cover if memory serves. I thought Recluse's forces got there first? Why would they choose that? Why wouldn't there be a couple of armed air transports providing overflight to the death corridor that Recluse chose?
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Obviously Lord Recluse is no Dr. Doom or Lex Luthor. They wouldn't have made that noob mistake.
[/ QUOTE ]Got to agree.
Maybe another solution for this death funnel could be to make more than 1 entrance/exit to the base? That could be to art intensive though at this point.
Of course I'm convinced that the villains are merely trapped in conventional thinking. The heroes are falling into predictable behavior with base camping and that is an exploitable weakness.
Once I get my MM to 41 I have some ideas that should work to discourage base camping.
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get up.