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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.
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I enjoy PVP -- In the area and base raids, multiple teams from my coalition, between friends who can later laugh at how much the defeated one sucks and go do some missions together.
If I'm in Bloody Bay helping take down a firebase to get the pet shivan and a villain starts pounding on me, it's not fun. (And the last time this happened, I was on my hero and helping a mastermind, who could only watch the brute beat on me while I was helping a 'fellow villain').
If I'm in Bloody Bay on a team getting confused by a villain for the Reformed badge and a stalker kills me every 30 seconds, it's not fun. (This happened before the 1-shot rule; a stalker AS's my controller every time as soon as I came back from the hospital. Controller that is still stuck 60% through that badge.)
If I'm in Siren's Call hunting blue Tsoo for the badge and a dominator holds me on midair, drops me into the mobs and then goes away while the mobs kill me and I get full debt, it's not fun.
If I'm in Warburg getting scientists for the nuke in order to have a chance against a buffed AV and a stalker is camping the consoles and AS's me when I have the 3 codes, it's not fun.
If I'm trading pillboxes with a villain to get the badge in RV and a scrapper keeps on coming back to kill him every 2 seconds while I can't do a thing to help him, it's not fun.
It wouldn't be as bad if it was just a defeat, grab the reputation, then leave us alone. What bothers me is people who defeat THE SAME hero/villain working on a PVE goal every 30 seconds, just to interfere, since they get no reward for defeat after defeat.
www.SaveCOH.com: Calls to Action and Events Calendar
This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
Like many of the dev's "problem solving" techniques, I find it makes the game less enjoyable as they are only paying attention to the issues that will make people level faster. It's the way of things, because money talks louder than thier pride in the game.
But not completely unenjoyable, so here I am. I despise PvP. I love badges though. So I do my badgehunting at 3-7AM if I'm going to do it, and never let my cape cross the theshold of those accursed zones again.
Go on devs, waste your time on 'improving' PvP. I've got plenty to do in the meantime...like watch my pets randomly vanish, fail to reappear after exiting an elevator, or (my favorite) rename themselves "Fire Tarantula" or some other such NPC. 
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And, if I'm back to full health at some point after taking damage, does the 'debt counter' reset and start figuring the percentages from scratch again?
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My experience indicates that -all- NPC damage is cumulative, and healing naturally and by powers doesn't remove it.
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So essentially we take full debt most of the time should we be attempting to perform objectives containing NPCs.
Bad bad bad design.
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Like many of the dev's "problem solving" techniques, I find it makes the game less enjoyable as they are only paying attention to the issues that will make people level faster. It's the way of things, because money talks louder than thier pride in the game.
But not completely unenjoyable, so here I am. I despise PvP. I love badges though. So I do my badgehunting at 3-7AM if I'm going to do it, and never let my cape cross the theshold of those accursed zones again.
Go on devs, waste your time on 'improving' PvP. I've got plenty to do in the meantime...like watch my pets randomly vanish, fail to reappear after exiting an elevator, or (my favorite) rename themselves "Fire Tarantula" or some other such NPC.
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Can't we comment on all this without the snark? I pick on your post, but god knows there are more than enough posts in this thread that I could just as easily pick on.
This doesn't have to be an evil, money making plot or a dark attempt to stop powerlevelling for it to be a bad idea. It can be a completely well-intentioned idea meant ONLY to enhance your experience of the game, and still fail miserably to do so.
Quadruple the debt cap. Then, Only those who really enjoy pvp would play and those concerned with pve debt and playing nice would stay in their safe zones.
Why is it ok to get debt in pve but folks freak out if it is in pvp? That thought process is completely backwards to me.
I can see why they made the change, as on the face of it it appears to be "fairer", however it still sucks because you may have been comfortably fighting NPCs and maybe getting a little yellow on health, but still been in complete control of the situation and able to still defeat them and heal up afterwards - but if a PC comes swooping in while you are in the middle of fighting the NPCs and takes you by surprise then you end up with a heap of debt which you otherwise wouldn't have done had there been no PC involvement.
This just opens the floodgates to a lot of griefing in my eyes - especially for AT's that are used to taking a lot of hits in PvE but are fully capable of managing that incoming damage and still coming out on top. Now you are just going to get spiteful people laying in wait around enemy mobs and picking people off once NPCs have done a fair amount of damage to them for the sole purpose of giving them shedloads of debt.
It's just going to end up putting a lot of people off entering PvP zones if they keep it like this.
If they want to make this work, they need to adjust the amount of debt you get in PvP zones, bearing in mind the deathrate tends to be so much higher in them. It should be mission-level debt at the most, and personally I think it should be even lower than that (they can reduce the amount of XP you get for mobs in PvP zones to compensate if they want).
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The way it SHOULD work is that if a npc kills you, you take proportionate debt with what damage the npc did to you. But if a player kills you, no debt.
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In fact this method is the best idea overall. I seriously can't believe there were that many (if any) players actively helping others to "escape debt" in the manner implied in Cuppa's post - were there?
More often than not players were NOT helping others escape debt. Infact usually if there was a fight players were causing debt...the only place you're ever likely to see players helping escape debt is warburg since if they get overwhelmed they quit team and blast...
As it is this system still allows people to escape SOME debt by just Nova-ing their buddy....
51% or more NPC damage you take full NPC debt. 50% or less and no debt.
Under a player hold when you die and NPC did the 51%+ damage then you only get 1/2 debt.
That's how I'd like to see it.
And if this is a problem in Warburg (which I doubt since it's rarely busy and usually just fight clubs) then make warburg HvV...
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The way it SHOULD work is that if a npc kills you, you take proportionate debt with what damage the npc did to you. But if a player kills you, no debt.
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QFT
/signed
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Why is it ok to get debt in pve but folks freak out if it is in pvp? That thought process is completely backwards to me.
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Because you die LOTS more often in PvP zones. Going into a PvP zone and not dying to me means the sides are way unbalanced (and they often are) or you're barely participating.
I go into PvP expecting to be taken out. When I go PvE (which is a lot more often, let me tell you), I don't expect it. This isn't "City of Random People Getting Their @$$es Kicked," it's "City of Heroes/City of Villains." Yes, dying (and debt) is part of the game.
I remember being absolutely furious when I reached level ten and when the I5 came out the very next day there was no debt below level ten. Believe me when I say I'm used to debt as a part of the game (and it beats the ever-loving tar out of XP-loss). Penalties for dying are fine. But in PvP, dying is such a part of the game that they should be minimized.
PvP makes sense in a game like this, absolutely. It should be fun, though. Winning is always fun. The challenge is to make this aspect so much fun that the prospect of losing isn't a deterrent.
The fact is, I don't see a solution for this. Any solution is going to upset SOMEBODY.
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I seriously can't believe there were that many (if any) players actively helping others to "escape debt" in the manner implied in Cuppa's post - were there?
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No, there weren't. It was a happy accident when it happened at all.
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Yes. Also no XP or Prestige in PvP zones.
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HA.. hahahhaha ... *sniff* ahh anyways.
No thanks. I'm not goin to dig some scientest out of The Web in Warburg for zero xp given for all the junk I must clear out of the way. 
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The trade off is the ton of Inf you'd pick up, plus getting one of the best temp powers in the entire game. And, it's honestly not *that* time consuming. My wife had never done it before and got her first nuke ever in 15 minutes yesterday.
15 minutes for a one-usage "I WIN" button, plus a ton of Inf? This is bad?
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I seriously can't believe there were that many (if any) players actively helping others to "escape debt" in the manner implied in Cuppa's post - were there?
[/ QUOTE ]I doubt it. I've never encountered it. Like Lady_Sadoko said above, it's only seemed like a happy coincidence, if it happened at all.
However, if that is true, it's all the more reason to come up with an alternative to the xp-debt "risk vs. reward" equation in the PvP zones when dealing with NPC's.
The reason to go to PvP zones... primarily to PvP
The reason to hunt NPC's in PvP zones... only way to get some of the badges. It would be preferable that there be PvE zones available that these badges could be hunted for.
The only other form of PvE in those zones are the missions handed out, and the biggest "reward" for most of those are temp powers, not nescesarily the xp.
If someone is "street sweeping" for xp, that can be done in a PvE zone. The PvP zones should primarily (if not solely) be for PvP.
If what I'm saying is true and the focus of the PvP zones are ironically PvP, then the focus of our fighting is against other players which means our odds of mitigating any debt we gain just dropped through the floor, since we get no xp for them. Furthermore, with these changes, our odds of getting even more debt than before just jumped up quite a bit. Debt that we probably won't work off in the PvP zones, relegating us to bringing that back into our PvE... which we don't want to do. The fact that we die more often, faster, and with less control over the situation in PvP zones, in addition to the fact it is also "outside" debt, most players will, by its very nature, get concievably far more than debt than we would probably accrue in PvE doing "door" missions (and no, changing the debt to "door" debt in PvP zones still isn't good enough). We were promised "debt free" PvP... not "kinda debt free if you don't get attacked by NPC's in the zones, maybe" PvP.
This has been my experience at any rate, which means that when I got back to PvE to work on improving/leveling my character, I now have the setback of debt that I wouldn't have gained, and I am further dissuaded from ever wanting to PvP.
I want to see xp/debt removed entirely from the zones, but I agree there still needs to be some form of risk/reward; just not a form of it that effects PvE in the way that debt does. Either reputation and bounty could be expanded and have more depth/meaning in terms of meaningful reward they offer, or something completely different, but it seems most folks agree... whatever it is should be, should be seperate from the PvE game.
Folks were in RV during test racking up Hammi sized debt, about as quickly and easily (saw folk talking about it in broadcast every time I was on) This is not something I, nor do I think, the majority of players would find acceptable if it wasn't on test boosted to 40 artificially. I gained my fair share, and only once from the AV/Heroes wandering the zone. There's enough ways to get debt in there that they are a small consideration. The fact that made the AV/Heroes so frustrating is that they were basically "insta-debt" as opposed to any challenge (the Dev's, it seems, missed something in translation and removed debt from them, which is a good thing... but still misses a large point of the complaint in that the AV/Heroes kill you that easily that they are basically "insta debt").
I have decided to resume my boycott of the PvP zones once more, and am passing on a copy of the new patch note Cuppa posted to this list to my SG. I won't speak for the rest of my SG, but this needs to be addressed meaningfully before I step into another PvP zone, no matter how much I may like to.
"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.
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I seriously can't believe there were that many (if any) players actively helping others to "escape debt" in the manner implied in Cuppa's post - were there?
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No, there weren't. It was a happy accident when it happened at all.
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OK, you know what. This just occurred to me. How often do bugs/situations exist like this which MIGHT positively affect players? This--BORDERLINE--and the *chance* that Storage Bins can double up what you put in them are the only things that come to mind. And these require immediate patching--even pulling the servers midday??!--to do it?
Was this PVP change put through public Testing, Devs? Was it put through the same level of QA that the Mastermind fix has to see? We were told it has to both a Cryptic *AND* an NCSoft "pass". Was all of this put through that? Or do we only rush out patches to issues that might in a sense 'benefit' players?
Yes well unfortunately the easiest way to get PvP "kills" is still to attack players who are involved in another fight either with a NPC or another player. Once they are badly hurt you poach the kill from the NPC/other player.
With other players this is really annoying for them after they take all the risk, someone else snipes for the kill and possibly kills them too. The unfortunate part is that as irritating as this is it is also incredibly sweet when you can pull off a solo double kill this way.
With NPCs if you don't quite kill the player it probably means debt for them. Personally I don't believe anyone should expose others to debt so I will never engage anyone fighting mobs. But not everyone was raised to be a caring indivdual LOL.
Removing debt is probably the best answer since relying on people's better nature is pretty funny in a game featuring villains.
The absolute BEST answer would be experience/debt suppression. Attack or be attacked by a PC and experience and debt is suppressed for say 1-5 minutes (whatever works).
I don't know if people were really using other players attacks to escape debt (I can't imagine how you would set this up and make it worthwhile). But if experience was suppressed for 5 minutes this would also discourage cheating since it would mean standing around a lot. Meanwhile if all you want is a badge then you shouldn't care if experience is turned on or not.
Not sure of exactly what the correct time frame to balance out the suppression vs "hey I still want to play" is but it is a thought.
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
The PvP zones are a fantastic way to build up prestige.
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This just opens the floodgates to a lot of griefing in my eyes - especially for AT's that are used to taking a lot of hits in PvE but are fully capable of managing that incoming damage and still coming out on top. Now you are just going to get spiteful people laying in wait around enemy mobs and picking people off once NPCs have done a fair amount of damage to them for the sole purpose of giving them shedloads of debt.
It's just going to end up putting a lot of people off entering PvP zones if they keep it like this.
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QFT, and because you say the same thing I want to say only better. 
Did I read that correctly? "[Y]ou can no longer 'Escape debt' by being defeated by a PC after taking massive damage from NPCs." Who in the hell has ever implemented that strategy?!? Are you saying someone can keep PCs at bay until the moment they're about to die?
If this is implemented I don't think anyone would try to attack a NPC in a PvP zone again. Raise your hand if you've ever defeated a slew of NPCs then got sucker punched by a Hero or Villian when your health was low. *raises hand*
PvP zones weren't made for killing NPCs, they were made for killing PCs, not because there's no debt, but because it's a greater challenge.
I'm with you Tasty I've never heard that one. If someone is actually doing that they need to find something better to do with their time LOL.
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
(sorry if this has been said before, but i did not read every post)
In order to avoid exploits, remove any xp rewards (and enhancement drops, but not inspirations) from NPCs on every PvP zone (indoor missions not counting), and then remove every kind of debt on the same zones as well.
We will still have to fight NPCs, and we can defeat em and be defeated, but at least people wont have to fear about debt when they are considering about entering the PvP areas. This could increase the PvP population, in my opinion.
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I took only "falling" damage and still got debt. So I think ANY outside damage will produce debt.
There goes Fly is a travel power in PvP.
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Hey yet another reason to take fly
1. Slower than any other travel power for the slotting required
2. More endurance intensive
3. Over a dozen powers with -fly effects
4. Can get you debt in pvp now...
yay...
Why do we even have fly again? Lets just all make super jumpers and bounce around the city..../sarcasm off.
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QFTW.
Plasma has it dead on. People take Air Superiority as is. Is this just going to be a new way to debt someone in a PvP zone? It completely nullifies the Flight power and you get knocked from the sky to NPCs. Wooo, so..good..?
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If this is implemented I don't think anyone would try to attack a NPC in a PvP zone again.
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Why are you saying "if this is implemented" ? It's in the game right now; it's been a part of issue 7 all along. It was just another "missing patch note" until yesterday.
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(sorry if this has been said before, but i did not read every post)
In order to avoid exploits, remove any xp rewards (and enhancement drops, but not inspirations) from NPCs on every PvP zone (indoor missions not counting), and then remove every kind of debt on the same zones as well.
We will still have to fight NPCs, and we can defeat em and be defeated, but at least people wont have to fear about debt when they are considering about entering the PvP areas. This could increase the PvP population, in my opinion.
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I'd like to hear a good reason from the Devs why this would be a bad idea (or at least, a worse idea than what they've done with "proportionate debt"). They're already going to remove the debt given by RV AVs (and yes, I know it's because even in their soon-to-be-"nerfed" state AVs are a much bigger challenge than normal mobs, but still). Why not just remove debt and XP from PvP zone mobs? It's not like people ever really go their to street sweep for XP anyway...
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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.
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This is just awesome. Thx! 
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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.
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Awesome this means when someone TP's me onto their caltrops in mobs I am DEFINATELY going to get debt.....
Yay for [censored] griefers... TY devs!
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Yes. Also no XP or Prestige in PvP zones.
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HA.. hahahhaha ... *sniff* ahh anyways.
No thanks. I'm not goin to dig some scientest out of The Web in Warburg for zero xp given for all the junk I must clear out of the way.
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Then why would you ever go after nukes after 38?
Because nukes rock. And it's fun.
I think this debt thing is a bad idea. Why? Because I just experienced it first hand.
In normal PvE play, I am in control. If I screw up, if my skill is not up to the task, then I get debt. This is Statesman's way of telling me to slow down. So I take heed, lower the difficulty or try a different tactic or whatever. But I do not get frustrated due to the fact that I was "inflicted" with debt.
In PvP, I am not in control. I do not set the difficulty. If nobody's there but newbs, I pwn. If the grand high poobah of PvP shows up, I die like everyone else. PvP depends, necessarily, on the input of other players.
If I participate in a PvE portion of a PvP zone, this means I'm fighting Mobs. Mobs that can give me Debt. For example, Arachnoids in the Web (one of my favorite places to hang. I'll go down there JUST to fight Arachnos and skip the technicians, at times). If I die fighting them, it's not terribly different from dying in any normal PvE circumstances. It means I bit off more than I could chew or that I used some power incorrectly or whatever.
But I have no control over the Blaster that just sniped me, or the Stalker that just assassinated me. They're players, so they can match or exceed me. They don't think like a computer. You can't expect me to PvE against them. So I die. And I take debt.
Or maybe I just want to PvP. I just want to fight other players. I go head to head in the exciting, dynamic setting of a PvP zone, taking all comers while dodging wandering monsters. Maybe one of those monsters tags me with a missile or something. I don't even notice in the fury of my fight. But I die. And I take debt. Worse, I'm likely to die to players many, many times over. And many times, I'm likely to take damage from stray monsters. So the debt starts to add up. This means I need to take time away from PvP and perform debt relief.
Neither of these scenarios are exceptional. They represent the bulk of my PvP experience, actually, and the bulk of most people's, I must imagine. I just noticed this problem today, in fact. I recieved 23k debt in Warburg (I'm level 41 and running Life Insurance), the first half from the first scenario, the second half from the latter.
I don't see how this will do anything but discourage use of the PvP zones. You can use the Arena and recieve no debt if all you want is a PvP fight, and if you want interesting and dynamic PvE stuff, then missions will have to do. If you want a mix of both, then you WILL recieve debt, problematic if you want to level quickly.
Too much stick. Not enough carrot.
I think they should remove Debt and XP from PvP zones entirly. What's this you say? Nobody will come to them? They only come due to better mob XP?
Hogwash. I go to Warburg for the nukes. I go to Bloody Bay for the meterorites. I go to Siren's Call for the PvP. You don't fight the RV AVs for XP... you do it for Temporal points and to WIN. Aren't these draw enough?
People were just arguing that they shouldn't be "forced" into PvP zones for cool badges and accolades. Well, I think they SHOULD. I think by encouraging people to experience PvP, they might come to like it and discover a whole new dimension to this game. I've certainly enjoyed some of the PvP fights I've had... sometimes despite myself.
But gaining debt last night dampened my pleasure. It's a shock to alot of people, gauging from this thread. Learning that PvP offers debt will do NOTHING to encourage reticint players to join in PvP, and may even drive away some casual PvPers.
On the flip side, if NOTHING offered debt, the PvP zones become playgrounds. Players will gleefully fling themselves in Siren Call hotspots and fight for their side. The worst of griefing vanishes, because cruel-spirited players can't hurt your PvE game. A sudden ganking becomes irritating and worthy of reprisal, drawing you into the PvP game, rather than inflicting debt and driving you from the zone.
I fail to see a problem here, except that it will promptly end my Arachnoid hunting pleasure, but I suppose I'll just have to wait until I'm level 44-46 in Grandville for that. A small price to pay.