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Long and the short of it, while there are some small PvP thingies getting some attention (like _Castle_ posting about Brute Fury in PvP a few days ago) there are not any big PvP issues on the nearer term feature lists.
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That is the best thing I've heard from a redname in a goodly amount of time. No offense to the PvPers, but imo the devs have already invested way too much time in what is at best a minority interest.
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QFT
-- War
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I'm offended. Suppose a red name wrote they won't be spending time on badges (minority group) or bases (another minority group)? We all have opinions on what we'd like the devs to spend time on, but I think it is absurdly rude to come into the PvP forum and essentially kick all the PvPers in the head when a red name has just told them that they don't matter.
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The intention of my post was not to dash all hopes of any change in PvP, but to help illustrate why those changes hadn't been a hot topic with design. I know that a lot of their time, when it isn't currently spent getting Issue 8 out the door, is working on some of the very broad and exciting stuff coming in issue 9 that will add a lot to the game over all (inventions + other goodies).
I do really like the suggestion about trying to re-use the old event where everyone got a level 40 on Training Room to come PvP with. That sounds like it might have some good broad appeal and make for a pretty darn fun weekend. Of course, I haven't investigated it with the dev team and it might not be possible, but still a good idea to follow up on. Besides, I'd like to play a few different Archetypes myself at lvl 40 with a hord of other folks to blast at or along side with. 
Let's try and focus the discussion on things we can do under the current systems?
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Like forgetting pvp ever existed and make the pve game more fun??? Thats a good start.
Eliminating all the temp powers and bonus xp in PvP zones then adding debt back in? That would be wonderful.
I could go on, heck the dev team is making quite a few of those come true to deter people from the pvp zones.
Zomg shivans and temp invis is uber powerful......nerf it
The purpose of this post is to try to enlighten some people as to why PvP gets so little love from Cryptic compared to other areas. Not to bash PvP.
Cryptic is in Business to make money. This is achieved by making the maximum number of people happy with the lowest expenditure of their limited resources. So lets examine some of the possible Expenditures.
PvP: PVPers make up 2-6% of the population and PvP changes would require a lot of resources from Cryptic.
I have done some random sampling on Protector and Virtue over the last few days and the results show between 1% and 4% (Average 2.54%) of online players are in the PvP zones at any given time. Checking the zones turns up the same names most of the time. Mind you that doesn't even mean they are PvPing. They may be farming better XP, or Prestige (Quite common in RV), Getting Badges or even acquiring temp powers. A Random Sampling of 100 Characters in Atlas Steel and Talos turned up only 6 with PvP Ratings and none over 8.2 ranking. Based on this Data I would conclude that PvPrs make up less then 7% of the game and hard core PvPers probably less then 2% of the game.
Of those who are PvPers most of the things that would make them happy would require a fair amount of resources and some MAY well be impossible without a complete overhaul of the system (see Below, PROBLEMS WITH PVP).
Compare this to the following.
Badgers make up 4% to 33% of population and it takes very few resources for Cryptic to do badges.
The Devs drop a marker at a spot, create some badge art and connect it to the player database. Kill badges may take a little more time but still should be relatively easy. I'm guessing most badges can literally be added by Cryptic in a few hours (maybe as little as 10- 20 minutes for exploration). At least 4% of players are serious Badge Hunters, (signed up for City Info Terminal) and upwards of 30% actively pursue some badges (Random sampling of 100 people (see above) turned up 33 with history badges). In other words 5 times as many people can be made happy by adding more badges then by working on PvP. And said badges require far less resources then TRYING to fix PvP.
Costume options are used by 99%+ of heroes and probably require less resources then PvP.
This is a bit harder to gauge, however many players I talk to love CoXs costume selection. I would GUESS that the amount of resources to make many, though not all, new costume piece is comparatively quite low and the number of people who enjoy or at least will use said pieces is high compared to PvP. Almost without exception, people select a costume for a character. Practically no one uses the default character. Further support came from the fact that of the 3 costume contests I saw while sampling people, every one drew more participants then where found in PvP zones at the same time.
Halloween was swamped by Badge and Costume players.
For further proof of the number of Costume and Badge players keep in mind that the main reason most players "Trick or Treated" beyond the first ten minutes of Halloween was either for an extra Costume slot or Badges. XP sucked, people were rude, there was griefing, and it was crowded. Not exactly good things. Yet it was crowded because a large number of people wanted Badges or Costumes. That's a lot of Badgers and Costume freaks. Once again lots of reward for Cryptic to invest resources towards these areas.
New zones are enjoyed by the vast majority of players.
This takes a fair amount of work, similar in magnitude I would guess to adding a new PvP zone. However upwards of 90% of the players will use the new zone, compared to 2%-6% of players who would use the PvP Zone. Translated a new PvE zone gives up to as much as 45 times better return for development dollar then a PvP zone.
PROBLEMS THAT KEEP PvP UNPOPULAR
Many of the PERCIEVED problems that keep most players from entering PvP can't be fixed by Cryptic.
Achieving PERCIEVED BALANCE amongst characters is impossible.
Balancing the different Characters is pretty much impossible. With close to 1000 different Powers, HO's, Inspirations, Temp Powers, etc, I see no way this will ever be possible. Mind you a very skilled player may be able to take most builds and do something with it, But in order to attract more then the very skilled players you must make MOST players feel their builds are able to fight on an even standing with the other builds. Not a chance. It doesn't matter how much manpower Cryptic adds within reason.
If you doubt this just look at the arguments after 2+ years on weather PvE classes are balanced. I doubt anyone feels they are and Cryptic has had almost 3 times as long to fix them. And that's simple by comparison to balancing PvP.
Some Player attitudes drive potential PvPers away.
Attitude in PvP. While 90%+ of PvPers are good friendly players all it takes are a few individuals who trash talk on open channels, call people noobs, etc to turn off any but die hard PvPers or masochists. Once again Cryptic can realistically do nothing about this.
Perceived Cheap tactics keep Even more players away.
Perceived Cheap tactics. Weather it's stalkers; TP onto Trip mines; Camping the Hospital; 8 on 1 gangups; TPing into Drones or any of several dozen other tactics, Your average player will not hang around long in PvP when faced by these tactics. Worse still within the PvP community itself there is debate on which of these are valid or cheap tactics. If those who like PvP can't agree on the validity of said tactics, than how many non PvPers do you think will want to play in such an environment. Once again Cryptic can do little to help solve this.
Experts dissuade even more new players.
The Expert player will trash the new player every time. Sure given enough time, energy, resources, reading, practice and training, as well as developing a PvP specific build, the new PvPer might be able to win. How many PvEers do you think want to spend 100s of hours trying to do this. That doesn't count the players who already know that there hand Eye coordination, Computer setup, Inet connection or intelligence will NEVER allow them to beat the better players. Cryptic MIGHT be able to set up a difficulty system (Spot people points, Reduce Endurance/HP of those who rank hire, etc) to help offset this. However most all such systems would still be open to abuse and would quite likely anger at least some current PvPers.
Cryptic has seen 6 attempts fail, Why throw good money after bad.
Worse still Cryptic last 6 Attempts to give players PvP have failed.
Arena = Empty.
3 Zones = Almost Empty, and lots of headaches from people complaining about Balance, Cheap Tactics, etc.
Base Raids = Still working to get them going, lots of bugs after a year of spending resources on them with few people using them.
RV= Almost Empty and still more headaches.
Given these failures why would Cryptic want to RISK any more significant Resources into MAYBE making the smallest percentage of players happy with a high probability of total failure (another empty unused area.)
PvP isn't Dead, But it will need a NEW direction to get it going.
Mind you I am not saying PvP is dead. Just that trying to fix the current zones is unlikely to help. Instead my guess is they will try new Dual use methods (Useable in both PvP and PvE) to try to smooth over the problems. Inventions and Hero/Villain teaming being two such. That way even if it FAILS to work in PvP the cost can still be justified by making PvEers happy.
Just becaus there is only 2-4% of people in PvP zones, doesn't mean that they are the entire makeup of PvPers in the game.
If PvP problems are fixed, I think that the PvP crowd will grow. Judging by this post alone, there is interest in doing this.
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Just becaus there is only 2-4% of people in PvP zones, doesn't mean that they are the entire makeup of PvPers in the game.
If PvP problems are fixed, I think that the PvP crowd will grow. Judging by this post alone, there is interest in doing this.
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Thats why I also did a survey of Characters Outside of the zones. 6% had a PvP ranking of less then 8.2, and None had a rank over that. By comparison I have a rank of 80 or so and I don't consider myself to be a REAL PvPer.
Likewise of those 2.4% sampled who were in RV, Practicly every one was farming XP/Prestige and showed no signs of wanting to PvP. They were cooperating with Heroes and Villians as to who would take what PBs. Not exactly Hard Core PvPers. (Most of them had Rankings bellow 10)
Real PvPers (Those who continue to hunt and play PvP) for whom Arena fixes and other changes take priority over Added zones, New Costumes, Badges, Fixing ALL the PvE bugs, New powersets, etc, probably make up less then 1% of the total population. And as My post suggests, PvP fixes take as much or more resources then most of those other additions.
Forums are notoriously inaccurate representaion of the Player base. Most Diehards will be found on these forums while most casual players avoid it like the plauge. So even if this thread gains 1000 different posts in agreement, It is still not a major incentive for the Devs to consider. As an example of big draws look at the ED thread which drew over 100,000 posts and still did not change the Devs minds. And as of this post only ~ 46 people have posted to this thread, Not all of whom agree.When you consider that there are close to 150,000 subscribers that is NOT an encouraging turn out.
Mind you, If Cryptic had unlimited Resources I would be asking that they fix Arena, Set up a seperate PvP server, etc. However they don't. And the reality is even if they fixed the current bugs in Arena you would see virtually no longterm change in the number of PvPers because the other problems I mentioned would still be there.
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Just becaus there is only 2-4% of people in PvP zones, doesn't mean that they are the entire makeup of PvPers in the game.
If PvP problems are fixed, I think that the PvP crowd will grow. Judging by this post alone, there is interest in doing this.
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Thats why I also did a survey of Characters Outside of the zones. 6% had a PvP ranking of less then 8.2, and None had a rank over that. By comparison I have a rank of 80 or so and I don't consider myself to be a REAL PvPer.
Likewise of those 2.4% sampled who were in RV, Practicly every one was farming XP/Prestige and showed no signs of wanting to PvP. They were cooperating with Heroes and Villians as to who would take what PBs. Not exactly Hard Core PvPers. (Most of them had Rankings bellow 10)
Real PvPers (Those who continue to hunt and play PvP) for whom Arena fixes and other changes take priority over Added zones, New Costumes, Badges, Fixing ALL the PvE bugs, New powersets, etc, probably make up less then 1% of the total population. And as My post suggests, PvP fixes take as much or more resources then most of those other additions.
Forums are notoriously inaccurate representaion of the Player base. Most Diehards will be found on these forums while most casual players avoid it like the plauge. So even if this thread gains 1000 different posts in agreement, It is still not a major incentive for the Devs to consider. As an example of big draws look at the ED thread which drew over 100,000 posts and still did not change the Devs minds. And as of this post only ~ 46 people have posted to this thread, Not all of whom agree.When you consider that there are close to 150,000 subscribers that is NOT an encouraging turn out.
Mind you, If Cryptic had unlimited Resources I would be asking that they fix Arena, Set up a seperate PvP server, etc. However they don't. And the reality is even if they fixed the current bugs in Arena you would see virtually no longterm change in the number of PvPers because the other problems I mentioned would still be there.
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It is a bit flawed as you made a survey on a low pop server that is known to have little pvp to start with and you do that survey 1 year after the dev quit caring about pvp.
I will admit I didnt checked all the issues when they came up on test but I know for a fact that I4 was the one that had the most people on test server to check out the arena when it came up and this is before the game had any PvP advertising in a box meaning it drew pvp attention out of a strictly pve crowd.
While it is true that right now, it would take more ressource to fix pvp then caring about other thing, in the long term percpective, it would become the opposite as PvP is the feature that has the most replayability meaning once we have a working system, you dont need as much attention as PvE wich require more of everything to keep people interested.
I would really like to know the % of veteran players that do PvP compared to those that do not PvP at all and see if the PvE alone is able to retain people for so long in general.
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I would really like to know the % of veteran players that do PvP compared to those that do not PvP at all and see if the PvE alone is able to retain people for so long in general.
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Hi! 
I can only speak for myself and my various SGs...think about...30-40 people total that have been playing for 1-2 years or so.
I come for the PvE content, the zones the teaming with my friends and having fun in missions, badges and so on.
Every now and then we get curious how we would 'measure up' against each other and go to Warburg or Recluse's Victory to see what happens...then we rib each other and so on.
Now I am in an Arena event on Champ, it was a draft and it's fun...but outside of Caging someone on the other team I don't expect to contribute much.
To me...PvP would be more interesting for us if the Devs threw a wrech in the works every now and then so new strategies would be designed, or if more of our characters would stand a chance.
Hopefully Inventions will contribute to this.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
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I'd be up for that. Pre 41 is when both sides are more balanced, so that's not a bad idea really. Anything past that you see the pure difference between the villains and the heroes. No matter what you guys try to believe, villain PPPs are just horrible in comparison to the hero epics.
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Maybe, then, what the developers SHOULD do is "instant 49's" ...? (I say 49, to avoid possible issues with making Kheldians ... let's restrict the test to the "core ten" archetypes for now, yes?)
No, seriously. Let everyone make a level 49 character - and for the villains, sidestep the missions for a patron, just have the patrons there to talk to and grab PPP access from.
Then, let folks out to have unmitigated FUN ... while the developers quietly datamine to see if the PPPs are, or are not, actually balanced.
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I'd be up for that. Pre 41 is when both sides are more balanced, so that's not a bad idea really. Anything past that you see the pure difference between the villains and the heroes. No matter what you guys try to believe, villain PPPs are just horrible in comparison to the hero epics.
It may also give you an idea of what I was talking about regarding powerset balance. Seriously, roll an energy blaster, then try an ice blaster - you'll see the glaring differences. Play with fly versus combat jumping as well.
There's a fear out there that the invention system will throw things even further out of whack too.
I think a lot of this game's potential lingers on issue 9, and we'd like to see it hopefully sooner than later because a lot of us are getting pretty depressed at the current PvP situation, and PvE isn't doing it for a lot of us anymore. I still do some PvE, but rarely with anyone but friends and I find myself logging off when they're not on now.
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I totally agree.
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PvP: PVPers make up 2-6% of the population and PvP changes would require a lot of resources from Cryptic.
I have done some random sampling on Protector and Virtue over the last few days and the results show between 1% and 4% (Average 2.54%) of online players are in the PvP zones at any given time.
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I appreciate that you approached this question analytically, but you may not be aware that players who enjoy PVP level up characters too, as we are forced to PVE quite a bit to enjoy a wide range of effective PVP characters.
Much serious PVP activity takes place on Test server (official cross-server PVP location!), PVP activity levels vary by server and time of day, and in truth you would need some sort of player survey instrument to get a real handle on PVP interest across the player base.
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I appreciate that you approached this question analytically, but you may not be aware that players who enjoy PVP level up characters too, as we are forced to PVE quite a bit to enjoy a wide range of effective PVP characters.
Much serious PVP activity takes place on Test server (official cross-server PVP location!), PVP activity levels vary by server and time of day, and in truth you would need some sort of player survey instrument to get a real handle on PVP interest across the player base.
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You may have missed the second method I used for determining PvP useage listed in my origional post.
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A Random Sampling of 100 Characters in Atlas Steel and Talos turned up only 6 with PvP Ratings and none over 8.2 ranking. Based on this Data I would conclude that PvPrs make up less then 7% of the game and hard core PvPers probably less then 2% of the game.
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Only 6% of Characters sampled had a PvP ranking. This method would catch PvP characters outside of the zone unless they were bad PvPers or unless they had not PvPed with those characters for awhile. As I pointed out My Character has A PvP rating of over 80. Its very clear that I PvP, and I only PvP about an hour a week.
As for Test Server how many thousands of People are PvPing on there. Remember 1,500 people would only represent 1% of the total monthly subscribers, and from what I have heard there are no where near that many at Test Server PvP events.
While you MIGHT be able to say my estimates are off by a percentage point or two I think the Data speaks for itself.
Even if my data is off by double, 5% of Players being PvPers still plugs in about the same for all my points listed. It is still to small of a portion of players for the Devs to expend major resources.
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It is a bit flawed as you made a survey on a low pop server that is known to have little pvp to start with and you do that survey 1 year after the dev quit caring about pvp.
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Did a quick survey on Freedom (according to my Search fu it has a large PvP Pop).
At 18:15 PST time Sunday there were 36 heroes listed in PvP zones and 1364 total Heroes listed in game. Thats 2.6% of the population.
Likewise a smaller sampling (20 heroes) in Atlas Park of heroes 15+ found 7 had 1 or more history badges but none had any PvP Rep.
Admitedly its done a year later. I had no way of knowing such a survey was needed 18 months ago. But since we are dealing with the hear and now it is still a valid survey. If less then 5% of players are even going into Zones long enough to get a SINGLE point of Rep then it suggests little interest from the server population. Thus Cryptics stance makes sence.
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I will admit I didnt checked all the issues when they came up on test but I know for a fact that I4 was the one that had the most people on test server to check out the arena when it came up and this is before the game had any PvP advertising in a box meaning it drew pvp attention out of a strictly pve crowd.
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True but that same crowd has failed to respond in the long term to ANY PvP made by Cryptic. And while Arena bugs may play a part, The vast majority of Players dropped due to the other points I listed. (BValance, Griefing, Percieved Cheap Tactics, etc) All the fixes to Arena bugs in the world will not bring more then a handfull of people into the Arena until those are fixed.
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While it is true that right now, it would take more ressource to fix pvp then caring about other thing, in the long term percpective, it would become the opposite as PvP is the feature that has the most replayability meaning once we have a working system, you dont need as much attention as PvE wich require more of everything to keep people interested.
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But getting a working system that appeals to more then a handful is curently, IMHO, Impossible without the problems I listed being fixed. Take Ballance. Cryptic still can't satisfy players, and EVEN PvPers argue about what is ballanced and what needs to be nerfed. If the PvPers can't even Identify the imballance what hope does Cryptic have.
Without Ballance most players will quickly leave upon loosing a majority of there matches. Wether the imballance truely is to blame doesn't matter. As is human nature they will scape goat it and say "Nope, PvP is broken so I will not play. Not my fault"
So what you see is what has happened in the past. New PvP comes out. A percentage of PvEers try it out. They loose a lot of battles to Characters they percieve to be to powerful, and because of what they perciev as cheap tactics. In some cases they are 100% right, Quite often they simply aren't that good. But they quickly leave and the population dwindles. As more people leave it leaves fewer easy kills, and those who are easy kills, either due to lack of skill or simply being stuck with a bad build and no respec are targeted more often. Thus forcing them out. Rinse. Repeat. Eventually the best 1-5% are left sitting in PvP.
This is what I have seen happen with Arena, BB, SC and War.
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Let's try and focus the discussion on things we can do under the current systems?
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Then there isn't anything to discuss. You can talk tactics all you want, but the Arena will still stay broken, imbalances will still exist, the Carebear community will still come to the PvP forums and [censored] in our backyard, and nothing will be done about it. We've gone over this [censored] a thousand times, what little is left of the PvP community can't do dick for the game anymore.
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The big thing is that if you make more powers and powersets PvP friendly, more people may PvP, thus making it an even bigger part of the game.
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I really had to QFTx500000000000
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True dat.
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Agreed a billion percent, but this assumes an inherent desire of the devs to make PvP a bigger part of the game. *That* would be lovely.
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I could be wrong, but in just about any MMO, no matter how friendly the PvP is, it's still a minority, and will always be a minority. So, while I'd like to have more PvP focus, looking at the big picture the devs have it right. Maybe one day, where the number of subs is big enough that the smaller percentage of PvP'er is a big enough in number for it to become economical for the devs to spend more time on PvP. Right now though, it isn't. That's my 2 cents.
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PvP is a pretty big part of WoW. I mean, when you hit the end game it is pretty much all you have left.
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Actually, with WoW, end game PvP is a minority too. In fact, unless you do all the raid and stuff before hand going into the battle grounds is a waste of time because everybody is totally tricked out with top gear.
So, WoW has way, way better PvP support (I know I play), yet, it's still a minority. However, with WoW, the 5% minority (yes I made that number up) is still 5% of 6.5mil people so it's worth while to spend the time working on PvP content. CoX's 5% is a very small number.
i don't think pve or pvp is going to get any love in the future. you guys need to start taking the game for what it is at this point. you're all the minority, then ones that somehow stuck around this long. and that's the entire cox population. =[
So is Lighthouse basically saying if you want to pvp, go to another game?
He came from Sony right?
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So is Lighthouse basically saying if you want to pvp, go to another game?
He came from Sony right?
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Hmmmm
lol sony
you win internet ty
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Long and the short of it, while there are some small PvP thingies getting some attention (like _Castle_ posting about Brute Fury in PvP a few days ago) there are not any big PvP issues on the nearer term feature lists.
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That is the best thing I've heard from a redname in a goodly amount of time. No offense to the PvPers, but imo the devs have already invested way too much time in what is at best a minority interest.
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QFT
-- War
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I'm offended. Suppose a red name wrote they won't be spending time on badges (minority group) or bases (another minority group)? We all have opinions on what we'd like the devs to spend time on, but I think it is absurdly rude to come into the PvP forum and essentially kick all the PvPers in the head when a red name has just told them that they don't matter.
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The intention of my post was not to dash all hopes of any change in PvP, but to help illustrate why those changes hadn't been a hot topic with design. I know that a lot of their time, when it isn't currently spent getting Issue 8 out the door, is working on some of the very broad and exciting stuff coming in issue 9 that will add a lot to the game over all (inventions + other goodies).
I do really like the suggestion about trying to re-use the old event where everyone got a level 40 on Training Room to come PvP with. That sounds like it might have some good broad appeal and make for a pretty darn fun weekend. Of course, I haven't investigated it with the dev team and it might not be possible, but still a good idea to follow up on. Besides, I'd like to play a few different Archetypes myself at lvl 40 with a hord of other folks to blast at or along side with. Let's try and focus the discussion on things we can do under the current systems?
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Perfect idea, Lighthouse.
"I never said thank you." - Lt. Gordon
"And you'll never have to." - the Dark Knight
It might be me, but "Let's try and focus the discussion on things we can do under the current systems?" just sounds like "Hey, guys, think of some fixes we won't have to spend valuable dev time on already, kthx."
Fury FTW
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At 18:15 PST time Sunday there were 36 heroes listed in PvP zones and 1364 total Heroes listed in game. Thats 2.6% of the population.
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It's very common for people to /hide and avoid being listed when they're PvPing. Stalkers, for example, will often do that, so that you can't tell there's a stalker in the zone.
I've been in RV on several occasions when the actual population of the zone, based on who I could see running around and fighting, was some 300% of the listed population. Bear that in mind.
Add to that the number of people who PvP, but just didn't happen to be in a PvP zone or an Arena match at the time. You can't rate the popularity of taskforces, for example, by who happens to be on one at the time of your survey. But a bug in a taskforce affects anyone who might go on it.
PvP has been SERIOUSLY invested in over the last 3 issues, and fixing what's broke isn't 'throwing good money after bad', it's simply finishing what you started.
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It's very common for people to /hide and avoid being listed when they're PvPing. Stalkers, for example, will often do that, so that you can't tell there's a stalker in the zone.
I've been in RV on several occasions when the actual population of the zone, based on who I could see running around and fighting, was some 300% of the listed population. Bear that in mind.
Add to that the number of people who PvP, but just didn't happen to be in a PvP zone or an Arena match at the time. You can't rate the popularity of taskforces, for example, by who happens to be on one at the time of your survey. But a bug in a taskforce affects anyone who might go on it.
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Thats why I also did a survey of Characters Outside of the zones. On protector only 6% had a PvP ranking of less then 8.2, and None had a rank over that. By comparison I have a rank of 80 or so and I don't consider myself to be a REAL PvPer. Thus it doesn't matter if they weren't in the PvP zone. I still can get a good estimate by the fact that few characters outside the PvP zones have been there and won in recent times.
You can say that maybe the PvPers outside suck, or simply haven't visited for a long enough time but neither sounds likely.
My numbers may be off by a bit, but most evidence, supports them. Look at the number of people attending tournaments. A quick search seems to indicate that they are lucky to draw a few 100 players. When you consider that the number of subscribers is 150,000 or so then that means less then 1/10 of 1 percent of players have even enough interest to do a tournament match.
What percentage of current players do you think are heavily into PvP, and how do you derive that data?
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PvP has been SERIOUSLY invested in over the last 3 issues, and fixing what's broke isn't 'throwing good money after bad', it's simply finishing what you started.
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When you put money into something 5 times in a row, and fail all 5 times, then most people would consider putting money into it a sixth time to be "throwing good money after bad". What is your definition?
PvP has been tried 5 different times in variouse ways. None of those ways has managed to capture more then a handful of people. Why spend limited resources to try to fix certain elements of PvP when as I pointed out those elements are the LEAST of the problems.
So the arena crashes sometimes. Most people who might come to PvP couldn't care less about that. They want Ballance, No griefing, A decent chance to win, etc. Until that is fixed or a way around those problems is found, the only ones who will enjoy a fixed arena are 1-5% of the total game population.
Cryptic has 2 choices.
Spend Resources TRYING to make 1-5% of the population happy, and quite probably failing. Mind you their past track record seems to indicate that no matter what they TRY to do they will fail to make PvPers happy.
OR
Spend the same resources making 35-95% of the population happy with a new zone, costume pieces, and a handful of badges. All of which has generally had a 80%+ success rate.
It doesn't take a powergamer to figure out what the better build is from a business perspective.
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What percentage of current players do you think are heavily into PvP, and how do you derive that data?
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I'm not even going to try to answer that one, because I don't think it's relevant. You don't have to be 'heavily' into PvP to make use of the feature.
You wouldn't ask me what percentage of the player base was heavily into bases or heavily into playing Dominators, and yet both of these features are flawed, and need fixing, and will most likely get it.
Judge how much a feature needs attention by how broken it is, not by how many people are using it.
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When you put money into something 5 times in a row, and fail all 5 times
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Fail?
The Arena isn't much used, true. But the Arena doesn't WORK right. It's bugged, and tournaments don't work, and you can't bet on matches, and IIRC the special Arena badges aren't even functioning.
As for the other zones 'failing' - they are being used, currently, DESPITE their flaws. That in itself suggests not that PvP is unsupported by the players, but that there are players still willing to PvP in CoX even though so much is wrong with it. Now, stop and consider how many more would participate if it worked as it should.
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None of those ways has managed to capture more then a handful of people.
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Did you see the test of RV when there was auto-levelling to 40? PvP still draws plenty of support, WHEN IT WORKS.
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Most people who might come to PvP couldn't care less about that.
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And many of the people who would otherwise be consistently PvPing DO care about it. What's the sense in alienating those of your playerbase who WANT to PvP, but find the feature too bugged to use?
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the only ones who will enjoy a fixed arena are 1-5% of the total game population.
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You're seriously wrong. You are basing your figures on a snapshot, and on your own inferences. You have no way of knowing how many people
- pvp a lot of the time
- pvp some of the time
- pvp very casually, but still appreciate the presence of pvp in COX
- would pvp a lot, but don't because of bugs
- want to try pvp but are scared off
- want to try pvp but don't know how to start
You're mistakenly assuming a static target market - a fixed percentage of the player base 'who PvP' - and not seeing PvP as what it is, which is an optional FEATURE of the game, and as deserving of attention as any other feature, be it task forces, Dominators, badges, or PvE content.
In short, you have the situation back to front. It's not that the PvPers are a small percentage of the population and so PvP doesn't warrant attention - it's about maintaining a feature that was introduced.
Don't try to divide up the player base into 'pvpers' and 'non-pvpers'. That's as arbitrary as dividing them into tankers and non-tankers, or base-builders and non-base-builders, or badge-positive and badge-indifferent. See the PvP features as FEATURES, which may or may not be used by players, and work from there. That gives a much clearer picture of what's happening and why.
Cryptic INSTIGATED PvP features in this game, and because of that, they have a responsibility to maintain them. It's not throwing good money after bad, it's patching up what was broken when you put it in.
Just look at RV, for heaven's sake. A lot about RV is magnificent, but consider how it actually plays out - you do the best by NOT winning, and putting off victory, until you have 1000 points! (And the temp power is mediocre, and it has only one use!) Where's the incentive to actually win? What's the point of introducing a PvP zone where the basic concept is so wonky that people don't play to win there?
Look at bases! Why are the rooms so big and airy? Because bases were designed primarily as a player-built PvP map. The Items of Power only existed to give people something to PvP over. And base raids are STILL borked.
Oh, and every time you get a salvage drop, think of PvP, because half the salvage recipes are for PvP items. Turrets, defences, widgets to rebuild broken stuff, defence screens. Now tell me that PvP is irrelevant.
It's all very well for Lighthouse to point out that this was developed as a PvE game, but you know, it wasn't US who put the PvP features in, it was the Devs, and since they opted to do that, we're well within our rights to ask them to make those features work.
Frankly, it doesn't matter how many people you or I might think PvP in this game. That's not important. What's important is that the Devs take care of what they introduced.
'Let's put chilli on the menu!'
'This chilli is way too hot.'
'Look, only a few people are eating our chilli.'
'Hey, manager, could you fix this chilli?'
'No, we have to prioritise all our other dishes. Only a few of you are eating the chilli.'
'But the chilli is really hot.'
'Sorry, this wasn't a chilli restaurant when it opened.'
'But I like chilli. Could you just make it a little less hot?'
'Hey, are the managers catering to those obnoxious chilli eaters again?'
'I hear they nerfed the pizza because of the chilli. I hate chilli eaters. I ate chilli once and it was horrible.'
I don't know, Lighthouse. The vibe I got from your post was that PvP won't be seriously looked at until at least after Issue 9, and who knows what else may come up that will push that back even further.
I've only at most had a mild interest in getting into PVP, but after reading your post, I don't see a reason to do it. I doubt that was your intention, to turn people off from PVP, but by saying it's going to take at least 6 months or more before there's even a chance of PVP getting looked at... Well. Heh. Giving me a level 40 character to try out something that doesn't work all that well isn't going to solve a problem like that.