[ QUOTE ]
Granted, I don't give a hoot about badges, but for those that do and have some sense of ethics...
[/ QUOTE ]
Then accolades aren't for you, I'm afraid.
There's no way you'll get badges like Zookeeper through normal playing to level 50. And if you solo, you'll never get Illusionists or Unveiler or possibly even Banisher by yourself without a team to spawn multiple bosses/LTs.
It's the way it's always been, though. PvP has nothing to do with some skewed badge requirements that have been in the game since issue 2.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Being defeated in a PvP zone will carry debt if any of the damage to you was caused by NPCs. The amount of debt is directly proportional to the amount of damage you took from NPCs vs. how much was done by opposing Player Characters. The more damage dealt to you by NPCs means more debt when you are defeated.
[/ QUOTE ]
Whoa, wait a moment. Let's say I'm reduced to 10 hit points by a combination of equal amounts of player and NPC damage. Someone then heals me up to half hit points, and I then get killed by a player.
Does the healing remove player damage or NPC damage first? Is it a case of first dealt, first healed?
[/ QUOTE ]
My concern as well. If I'm fighting over a hotspot in Siren's, of course I'm taking damage. But I expect and regulate that damage. At 50% life, I'd generally consider that fairly safe. Except for an Assassin's Strike, something by definition I'm not predicting. Now I can get killed by a player from what would otherwise be a safe position, and I get debt from it?
Sounds like you made it worse.
And, didn't CuppaJo say "added to the patch notes?" As in it was already done and and you're only now putting it in the notes? Again? Isn't that getting embarrassing?
[ QUOTE ]
We either need a better explanation on this debt system in PvP (beside the boiler plate "if you get hit by an NPC you get debt" response) or a reconsideration of the engine around it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Healing resets it. You won't get debt for damage you healed away
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, to be fair, the monkey badge is easy now with the lower limit, by hunting a few hours with a full team in Crey's Folly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Still, Crey's Folley is a hazard zone and, if you go in and try to get it at the assigned level, you will get debt just like in PvP.
So the question becomes is it unfair to villains that they have to get a badge that can be easily obtained by a level 15 villain simply by farming a mission with a team of 8 with only 1 reset at most as compared to heroes needing to kill 1000 monkeys in a hazard zone that they can't enter until level 30+?
If anything, I think this badge is out of balance for heroes. Killing 1000 monkeys is not fun and can easily take you all day. Doing one mission twice to get Man in Black is a walk in the park and you get the accolade by level 40.
[/ QUOTE ]
I've seen this mission *once,* villain side.
For the monkeys - *how* many Rikti missions are there with it? (or for another accolade, Paragon Protectors?) You can go to Cf. You can go to FF. You don't have a choice of *a* mission ... or the PVP zone.
THe point is, on the hero side, there's no "you missed a mission you could farm, now you must go into a PVP zone or beg for that mission, like it or not." There are other options of getting those same mobs.
And yes, you can get debt in the PVE zones - but you can also control the situation much better than you can in the PVP zones.
[ QUOTE ]
A lot of people are overreacting to this right now.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not at all. I get shot by NPCs while PvPing all of the time. Hell, I get shot while travelling all of the time. Like those Tsoo darts that poison you for like 2 minutes.
It's much easier to avoid letting an npc get the final shot, than having to constantly avoid being hit by the legions of haphazardly placed mobs in these PvP zones 24/7 while trying to actually fight players.
Maybe the base campers have the right idea afterall. Avoid the NPCs and sit in one spot. Joy.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just added this patch note to PvP section:
Being defeated in a PvP zone will carry debt if any of the damage to you was caused by NPCs. The amount of debt is directly proportional to the amount of damage you took from NPCs vs. how much was done by opposing Player Characters. The more damage dealt to you by NPCs means more debt when you are defeated.
* This means that you can no longer escape debt by being defeated by a PC after taking massive damage from NPCs, nor will you be penalized with a massive amount of debt if you are defeated by an NPC after taking a huge amount of damage from a PC.
[/ QUOTE ]
Why is there Debt in PvP zones at all?
[/ QUOTE ]
Because there is Experience in PvP zones. Possibly if you eliminated both it would make sense but then people would complain "Why have mobs there if they aren't worth experience?"
Rules:
1) everyone will never be happy
2) you will break the game trying to please some people
3) see rule 1
----------------------------
You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
For those that dont link off of Friggins post:
[ QUOTE ]
Based on the explanation so far, it sounds like it's possible to be attacked by an NPC, get badly wounded but still defeat it and heal all damage, get taken out by a PC, and get debt. There's a long thread on the problems with the hamidon changes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To address this point specifically: That behavior would be a bug. Damage tracked expires as you heal or regenerate. So if you took 99% damage from an NPC, healed it all back, and then took 100% damage from a PC, you would get zero debt.
That was the way it was desinged, and if it's not functioning that way, then it is a bug, and will be fixed.
[/ QUOTE ]
@PlasmaStream
"Big Bada Boom(tm)!"
1295 Badges
http://GuardianForce.Guildportal.com - Virtue
Niska: Are you Familiar with the works of Shan Yu?
If they were debt free, then there would have to be NO XP, Inf, Prestige, Insp, salvage, Enh drops or any other type of reward for defeating NPC mobs.
No debt risk = no reward. It would just have to be that way.
99% of damage from player then killed by 1 point of NPC damage causing full debt is bad. 99% of damage from NPC then killed by 1 point of player damage causing no debt is bad also.
The patch notes method helps with this but is not the full answer as it does not deal with healing that occurs during the fights and how that affects the percentages of PC vs NPC damage.
I don't pretend to know the "best" answer to this. I'm sure the dev's with some useful suggestions (not rants) from players will figure something out.
As it's clear from the time of Arenas (yeah, how populated are THOSE?) that the overwhelming majority of the player base doesn't care about PVP content, why not throw the non-PVPers a carrot or bone to get them into the PVP zones? See my no-debt/inf* idea above.
So basically, I can say get a stalker or maybe a scrapper with headsplitter and commit my time to griefing in PvP zones. Simply wait for one of the oodles of pvp mobs (such as the heralds or ancestor spirits in Sirens who can take a squishy down to like 20% in one-hit and stun them) and then finish them off to give them debt.
Hell, you don't need teleport foe to easily give players debt in PvP any longer, but now it will be even easier to abuse the tp method as well!
[ QUOTE ]
The patch notes method helps with this but is not the full answer as it does not deal with healing that occurs during the fights and how that affects the percentages of PC vs NPC damage.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To address this point specifically: That behavior would be a bug. Damage tracked expires as you heal or regenerate. So if you took 99% damage from an NPC, healed it all back, and then took 100% damage from a PC, you would get zero debt.
That was the way it was desinged, and if it's not functioning that way, then it is a bug, and will be fixed.
[/ QUOTE ]
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
[ QUOTE ]
As it's clear from the time of Arenas (yeah, how populated are THOSE?) that the overwhelming majority of the player base doesn't care about PVP content
[/ QUOTE ]
Of course, you say this as Pinnacle has two instances of Recluse's Victory open...
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
Stray thought: if the game counts falling damage as NPC damage for the purposes of NPC debt, then what about self-inflicted damage such as from MoG and Unstoppable?
Excellent news on the 'healing erases flagged damage' front.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As it's clear from the time of Arenas (yeah, how populated are THOSE?) that the overwhelming majority of the player base doesn't care about PVP content
[/ QUOTE ]
Of course, you say this as Pinnacle has two instances of Recluse's Victory open...
[/ QUOTE ]
Arenas were super busy when they first launched as well. Look at them now. Just sayin'.
Not.
Good.
Enough.
Not mad at you Cuppa (not going to shoot the messenger) but something's gotta give. Of all the things I have been ticked off about the way aspects of this game have been handled, the existence of debt in PvP zones is probably my biggest personal bone of contention. From the first promise of "debt free" PvP in the zones, you guys have yet to deliver. Some other form of "risk=reward" equation needs to be developed (and there have been tons of suggestions on what that could be) in PvP zones. The system you're discussing implementing seems even more trouble than half of those suggestions, and still doesn't address the real problem.
I don't want PvP to interfere with my PvE.. and debt does this!
So, I don't do PvP... a lot of folks don't, for just that reason. I don't think that's what you guys want.
Almost every time this has been brought up (and possibly here, I haven't bothered to read all of them because this debate just frustrates me to no end) someone says "deal with it" or somesuchrot...
I have dealt with it. I don't PvP except very rarely. Solved as far as I'm concerned. I think I'd really enjoy the free-flow PvP that exists in the zones, but I don't want debt from it creeping into my PvE game, so I generally avoid it. I don't think that makes anyone, myself included, any happier about the situation though.
It seems to me, with all the recent Hammi changes and the Arch Villain and Giant Monster Changes the customer base is becoming increasingly unhappy about the direction you guys are taking the game at large. Worse, it seems the Dev's, who created this board for feedback, largely either are ignoring that feedback or not really paying attention. This change you're now looking at implementing only serves to Illustrate this. Does what you say match the title? No.
Not.
Good.
Enough.
For those who continue to support and/or make excuses for these changes the most worthy argument I've heard is "If you show the numbers, the Dev's will listen". Well, in some cases, we don't have those numbers. This seems to be getting better, but still not where it should be if that's the primary criteria for them listening to us.
I've heard that the Dev's ignore posts that are "emotionally" based (whether or not this is true, I don't know. This has usually be said by the same players that insist on seeing our numbers for why we are unhappy). Isn't the fact that a rather a large number of players are unhappy, justifiably so (to the point where even the Dev's admit they made some things too difficult, like in the case of the AV and GM changes) reason enough?
The point is the playerbase at large seems to be growing more and more displeased with every update... every additional "challenge" added that makes tedious things like Hammi and a lot of AV fights even more tedious. Every "nerf" that needs something to be fixed (like Positron agreeing that Phase Shift needed a reduction in activation time to make it the "uh-oh" power it was "inteded" to be after the change to make it a 30 second long recharge toggle) that continues to go unattended to help rectify it. For every undocumented change (especially when they're not in our favor) that we, the player base, have to uncover... Not to mention the all the QoL issues that have gone ignored, and game effecting bugs that have been around since near the beginning...all these things, little by little, continue to erode our trust in where this game is going, and only serve to make us more unhappy...
But short of us posting here, how do you quantify "unhappy"??
We don't need to know how much damage we do vs. how fast the GM's regenerate to know that their bar stays full to be unhappy about it. We don't need to know the ammount of debt we gain vs how much xp we get in PvP zones to know that almost every time if we're actually in there to PvP and not street hunt, we'll leave with more debt than xp to know we're unhappy about it.
I play games to have fun. I play games to enjoy myself. If you can quantify that, then maybe quoting numbers is the way to go. If you can't, then listen to how your player base "feels" about a change at least as much as the numbers. Sometimes.. just sometimes... that should be enough.
I can still find a few things that are more "fun" than "frustrating" as it is now.. but that number seems to be dropping, especially as the folks I like to play with move on to greener pastures because their "fun" vs "frustration" meter gets filled.
Start listening...
Edit: Yes, I know they're changing the regen rate on the GM's and whatnot... the point is it shouldn't have made it to live like that to begin with.
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
Also, just in case anyone thinks I "hate" PVP, I don't. Just a big fan of keeping it's effects strictly isolated from the PVE game, for the people that *don't* want to deal with fighting other players.
Anything that ensures the success and longevity of the game overall I'm a fan of.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, to be fair, the monkey badge is easy now with the lower limit, by hunting a few hours with a full team in Crey's Folly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Still, Crey's Folley is a hazard zone and, if you go in and try to get it at the assigned level, you will get debt just like in PvP.
So the question becomes is it unfair to villains that they have to get a badge that can be easily obtained by a level 15 villain simply by farming a mission with a team of 8 with only 1 reset at most as compared to heroes needing to kill 1000 monkeys in a hazard zone that they can't enter until level 30+?
If anything, I think this badge is out of balance for heroes. Killing 1000 monkeys is not fun and can easily take you all day. Doing one mission twice to get Man in Black is a walk in the park and you get the accolade by level 40.
[/ QUOTE ]
I've seen this mission *once,* villain side.
For the monkeys - *how* many Rikti missions are there with it? (or for another accolade, Paragon Protectors?) You can go to Cf. You can go to FF. You don't have a choice of *a* mission ... or the PVP zone.
THe point is, on the hero side, there's no "you missed a mission you could farm, now you must go into a PVP zone or beg for that mission, like it or not." There are other options of getting those same mobs.
And yes, you can get debt in the PVE zones - but you can also control the situation much better than you can in the PVP zones.
[/ QUOTE ]
I leave to go to the store and someone makes my point exactly.
As for all the badges Taser has mentioned, they can be farmed in an open PvE zone (possible exception of PP) [/b]SAFELY[/b] if you just wait a couple of levels.
Masks -- hunt Talos at night after level 35 and the is NO RISK, just time commitment.
Illusions -- same thing except in Peregrine and wait for level 45.
Monkeys -- run through Crey's at level 40. Took me all of 3 hours to top off the last half of my bar. Which I was able to spread over the course of a month just by plucking off two or three spawns everytime I had a mission in there.
This is just another in the long list of things where the devs have made it more difficult for villians than heroes ever had it.
[ QUOTE ]
Also... not to be a jerk... but couldn't they have addressed some of the bigger bugs before going after this? Masterminds, broken badges, the Boss Knockback bug?
[/ QUOTE ]
The Mastermind bug, at least, has a fix in the pipeline as of a few days ago - we just have to wait for it to make Test, then Live. I don't know about the others.
CuppaJo:
[ QUOTE ]
Just added this patch note to PvP section:
Being defeated in a PvP zone will carry debt if any of the damage to you was caused by NPCs. The amount of debt is directly proportional to the amount of damage you took from NPCs vs. how much was done by opposing Player Characters. The more damage dealt to you by NPCs means more debt when you are defeated.
* This means that you can no longer escape debt by being defeated by a PC after taking massive damage from NPCs, nor will you be penalized with a massive amount of debt if you are defeated by an NPC after taking a huge amount of damage from a PC.
[/ QUOTE ]
Positron:
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Based on the explanation so far, it sounds like it's possible to be attacked by an NPC, get badly wounded but still defeat it and heal all damage, get taken out by a PC, and get debt. There's a long thread on the problems with the hamidon changes.
[/ QUOTE ]
To address this point specifically: That behavior would be a bug. Damage tracked expires as you heal or regenerate. So if you took 99% damage from an NPC, healed it all back, and then took 100% damage from a PC, you would get zero debt.
That was the way it was desinged, and if it's not functioning that way, then it is a bug, and will be fixed.
[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'm not understanding what this says, but is Posi saying that we don't get debt if killed by an NPC, or that we don't get debt from PvP only if 100% of the damage we take comes from another player?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Also... not to be a jerk... but couldn't they have addressed some of the bigger bugs before going after this? Masterminds, broken badges, the Boss Knockback bug?
[/ QUOTE ]
The Mastermind bug, at least, has a fix in the pipeline as of a few days ago - we just have to wait for it to make Test, then Live. I don't know about the others.
[/ QUOTE ]
I know. Just was curious why some changes can pushed through such as Hami and PVP zone debt without testing, but something that is a clear "fix" has to be testing. Seems... backwards? Everything should go to Test before coming within 100 yards of Live unless it's a massive exploit/emergency.
See: the fact that unless they snuck in a patch with the emergency storage bin lockdown, Confused characters can still grief in PVE zones.
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'm not understanding what this says, but is Posi saying that we don't get debt if killed by an NPC, or that we don't get debt from PvP only if 100% of the damage we take comes from another player?
[/ QUOTE ]
What Posi is saying is that the debt you get at the moment of your death is based on how much of that bar of damage was caused by NPCs and how much by players.
Let's say you have 100 hit points.
NPC deals 50 and player deals 50 = you get 50% of one outdoor death's worth of debt (equivalent to one mission death)
NPC deals 95 and player deals 5 = you get 95% of one outdoor death's debt. This is the 'fighting a mob and then sniped by a player right at the last moment' scenario.
Player deals 95 and NPC deals 5 = you get 5% of one outdoor death's debt. This is the 'beaten up by a player then knocked back into a group of mobs that then zerg you' scenario.
You know, I feel for everyone who's been around since conception; I simply want to know a few things.
1. What was promised the game would be as time went on? What was the promise for PvP? How far off the mark have the dev's been?
2. How upset would you be if it was 2+years later and we were on a clean (as clean as can be)I3 release vs I7 full of bugs?
3. If the dev's could change PvP, don't you think that there would be a rash of players that would still want something else to change? More of this, less of that....?
At this point, numbers in all facets of business are what drives change. If you look at the posts related to PvP issues resolved or unresolved, there are pretty much the same people expressing the same opinions. How then, with a few 1000 people playing, do you figure that the numbers on this issue should account for a dramatic change?
Also, as pointed out, with all releases there are bugs -
(and every company that releases any type of product is always fixing it after because they must keep up with the economic base markets so don't even bother going that route unless you have a degree in economics)
so remember that when the dev's finally do change the PvP area.. you will have bugs. Will you then complainthat they should've waited until it was a clean release?
How much cake would you like to have and eat? 
mmmmm... cake...
Justice
Everwood
Triumph
The Trust
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Also... not to be a jerk... but couldn't they have addressed some of the bigger bugs before going after this? Masterminds, broken badges, the Boss Knockback bug?
[/ QUOTE ]
The Mastermind bug, at least, has a fix in the pipeline as of a few days ago - we just have to wait for it to make Test, then Live. I don't know about the others.
[/ QUOTE ]
I know. Just was curious why some changes can pushed through such as Hami and PVP zone debt without testing, but something that is a clear "fix" has to be testing. Seems... backwards? Everything should go to Test before coming within 100 yards of Live unless it's a massive exploit/emergency.
See: the fact that unless they snuck in a patch with the emergency storage bin lockdown, Confused characters can still grief in PVE zones.
[/ QUOTE ]
Its their general policy not to include patch notes about fixing what they consider exploits, because it alerts people who didn't know about the exploit to its existance, and gives them chance to exploit it until the change goes live.
Always remember, we were Heroes.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Also... not to be a jerk... but couldn't they have addressed some of the bigger bugs before going after this? Masterminds, broken badges, the Boss Knockback bug?
[/ QUOTE ]
The Mastermind bug, at least, has a fix in the pipeline as of a few days ago - we just have to wait for it to make Test, then Live. I don't know about the others.
[/ QUOTE ]
I know. Just was curious why some changes can pushed through such as Hami and PVP zone debt without testing, but something that is a clear "fix" has to be testing. Seems... backwards? Everything should go to Test before coming within 100 yards of Live unless it's a massive exploit/emergency.
See: the fact that unless they snuck in a patch with the emergency storage bin lockdown, Confused characters can still grief in PVE zones.
[/ QUOTE ]
Its their general policy not to include patch notes about fixing what they consider exploits, because it alerts people who didn't know about the exploit to its existance, and gives them chance to exploit it until the change goes live.
[/ QUOTE ]
But such things *after* patching have historically been detailed is what I'm saying. Too much stuff is getting excluded, by accident I hope. Hami changes for example, and these PVP changes--were they new for the last live patch? Were they on test when i7 was on Test? How long was i7 on test? Weeks? A month+?
I think part of the whole stink is a hero being AS'd while taking out Shivans or whatever (A cheap shot if you ask me) that is when it can truly suck.
Otherwise, you can see, for the most part, an enemy heading your way and can run, prepare, whatever. The NPC damage thing is a bit ludicrous if it "never goes away". If I am in a normal mission and throughtout the whole thing I go into the red and heal, red and heal, and get taken out at the very end...I don't take any uber debt, just the slated "debt % to level while be defeated in a door mission". Why should I get mass debt because in a pvp I fight, get hit, heal, fight, get hit, heal, repeat, repeat, rest, stand at the pier wait for a player enemy, fight maybe get defeated and if I do get debt because the NPC damage didn't reset.
We either need a better explanation on this debt system in PvP (beside the boiler plate "if you get hit by an NPC you get debt" response) or a reconsideration of the engine around it.
Kenja's Logitec G15 Masters Guide
Kenja's Concise Commands and Emotes Guide (I10)
Kenja's Links Guide for Badge Collectors
Visit SalsaVille!