[ QUOTE ]
(I understand that not every PvPer is "bad" like that. I will even concede that maybe most PvPers are not "bad" ones. But as long as the PvPer crowd tolerates the utter tools that are on their side of the fence, the general opinion of Non-PvPers is unlikely to change.
[/ QUOTE ]
And that, boys and girls, has been my point all along.
I don't hate PvP. I quite enjoy it, in fact. What I dislike are people treating other people like [censored] just for the fun of it.
And no, I'm not talking about the occasional newbgank... I'm talking about intentionally torturing someone else by making sure that the other person has no fun whatsoever playing this game.
The three idiots who treated the new guy so bad he SHUT THE DAMNED GAME DOWN because it was the only way for him to escape the [censored]-hats are the people I am talking about, not the occasional trash talker.
So please, those of you who keep talking about how its "subjective" or that I'm being unreasonable... are you really, truly trying to defend behavior that in the real world is considered so bad that defending it is unthinkable?
Is that what you are really trying to do here?
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But as long as the PvPer crowd tolerates the utter tools that are on their side of the fence, the general opinion of Non-PvPers is unlikely to change.
[/ QUOTE ]
What makes you think we have any more choice in tolerating the utter tools on our side of the fence than anyone else? That's like me saying, "I will never PvE again until *you people* figure out a way to silence the belligerent and obscene 12 year olds that seem to live in Atlas Park's broadcast channel. Outside of petitioning EULA breaking speech, there's noting more we can do than anyone else. Every population in this game has its share of jerks and loud mouths.
I suppose we could target "the tools" in zones and gank the crap out of them until they shut up or leave the game, but then we'd only be doing something *else* that those outside the general PvP population deem as [censored]-hattery. And then who decides who gets ganked and who doesn't? There's no local sheriff, so I guess we'd have to rely on a lynch-mob. That's always fair and acceptable behavior.
Or is it okay for PvPers to gank other PvPers as long as the PvE community gives us the go ahead?
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I'm having a really, really hard time believing nobody knows what Jack's talking about. It's true that it's hard to define what level of [blank]holery is unacceptable without descending into suffocating legalese, and I agree that Jack has used some (shall we say) sweeping generalizations in his rhetoric, but is everyone really going to act like they don't know what kind of conduct he's talking about?
Really?
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It serves their purpose to willfully pretend that they don't, it seems.
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Or you could just make a valid point instead of a verbose and thinly veiled complaint that people aren't playing according to *your* rules.
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[ QUOTE ]
(I understand that not every PvPer is "bad" like that. I will even concede that maybe most PvPers are not "bad" ones. But as long as the PvPer crowd tolerates the utter tools that are on their side of the fence, the general opinion of Non-PvPers is unlikely to change.
[/ QUOTE ]
And that, boys and girls, has been my point all along.
I don't hate PvP. I quite enjoy it, in fact. What I dislike are people treating other people like [censored] just for the fun of it.
And no, I'm not talking about the occasional newbgank... I'm talking about intentionally torturing someone else by making sure that the other person has no fun whatsoever playing this game.
The three idiots who treated the new guy so bad he SHUT THE DAMNED GAME DOWN because it was the only way for him to escape the [censored]-hats are the people I am talking about, not the occasional trash talker.
So please, those of you who keep talking about how its "subjective" or that I'm being unreasonable... are you really, truly trying to defend behavior that in the real world is considered so bad that defending it is unthinkable?
Is that what you are really trying to do here?
[/ QUOTE ]
Obviously Jack, someone with your intelligence can tell thats what is happening here.
If your someone that acts like Jack (applying his forum mentality to real PvPing) then id rather you not PvP. You'd just make my experience worse, thus becoming a Griefer/Ganker and all around Poo Monkey.
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lol JackButtface
[/ QUOTE ] lawl
[/ QUOTE ]
My, you certainly destroyed me utterly with your intelligent rebuttal of my points. Whatever am I going to do?
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Reply to the person, and show that you actually do care about someone calling you a name. Then act like a child and make yourself into a bigger bab*e*.
[/ QUOTE ]
Your mistake is assuming I give a squirt of warm urine about someone else calling me a name. I found the "JackButtface" thing seriously unoriginal. I've been called far worse by far more creative people, and this didn't even make me raise an eyebrow.
If you're going to directly insult me, try to do it in an entertaining manner. Or else get use to me sarcastically pointing out how bad you are at insulting people.
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If you liked the 1v1 so much, why didn't you make the descion to go to the arena, where you would not have been attacked in a zone made where people attack you because your a villain/hero.
[/ QUOTE ]
First, finding someone to fight in the arena who isn't twinked is a pain.
Second, I actually like having the mobs around since it adds an element beyond "GIT EM!" to it.
Third, I don't see why anyone would just decide to barge in on an even fight. If someone's attacked two to one, I can see it. I dove in on a few three to one matches and greatly enjoyed sending the people packing. But when two people are duking it out, why push the scale to "Insta-win!"?
I've sat back and watched a few good fights. Admittedly on my characters with stealth who are much less likely to be harrassed, while hiding in odd places with nice views. But it was impressive to watch two good teams going head to head. I could have walked in, debuffed and pushed it to 'easy mode' but what fun is there in that?
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If you liked the 1v1 so much, why didn't you make the descion to go to the arena, where you would not have been attacked in a zone made where people attack you because your a villain/hero.
[/ QUOTE ]
First, finding someone to fight in the arena who isn't twinked is a pain.
Second, I actually like having the mobs around since it adds an element beyond "GIT EM!" to it.
[/ QUOTE ]
And why is that different when other players get involved?
This is _supposed_ to be a factional conflict (in all the zone except WB). I simply can't understand why it seems the same people that claim to enjoy PvE and the story lines don't see this as a complete destruction of immersion. I can't see many comic heroes not helping another hero, though certainly villains don't naturally have the same loyalty they are all part of the same organization.
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Third, I don't see why anyone would just decide to barge in on an even fight. If someone's attacked two to one, I can see it. I dove in on a few three to one matches and greatly enjoyed sending the people packing. But when two people are duking it out, why push the scale to "Insta-win!"?
[/ QUOTE ]
See above, besides if your in the zone the game provides a reward for me killing you. Why wouldn't I do that?
[ QUOTE ]
I've sat back and watched a few good fights. Admittedly on my characters with stealth who are much less likely to be harrassed, while hiding in odd places with nice views. But it was impressive to watch two good teams going head to head. I could have walked in, debuffed and pushed it to 'easy mode' but what fun is there in that?
[/ QUOTE ]
I doubt very much you've seen a pure team v team competition in the zones and since its impossible to say who is on a team that you aren't you have no real idea. Which is yet another reason why people jump in. The arenas are for "set" combat, not the zones.
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
[ QUOTE ]
Sorry if I missed your point, but this paragraph seems to be aimed at the zones.
[/ QUOTE ] The paragraph is specifically aimed at identifying the need to create a PvP environment that is not like that which we have in zones.
[ QUOTE ]
Where I disagree is trying to work on 1v1 balance, its a waste of time and resources and always will be.
[/ QUOTE ] Then you'd need to eliminate the ability to have 1v1 PvP missions. Only let PvP occur on teams of four or more players (and of for the reading impaired, i'm not talking about changing the arena or PvP zones that currently exist).
For the record, I don't think that's necessary, but perhaps in the short term it might be advisable. However, I also partially agree with Arcana: You can't solve team PvP without addresing the problem at an atomic level. In a different post, she astutely identified that the real fudnamental problem is that the devs even allow a power like Geas/FoN to be available to players in PvP. Why is it acceptible that a power is allowed to completely nullify those who depend on +DEF, but there is no corresponding power that allows us to completely nullify those who depend on +REGEN/HEAL/HITPOINTS or +RES? I interpret this as a "PvP be damned" approach to adding such changes to the game.
As long as they devs subscribe to this mentality, they'll never get PvP to a point where it doesn't feel grossly unfair. The devs seem unwilling to tackle this problem head on and I, for one, think they should. PvP needs to evolve, and in its current state, too many people might reject any expansion.
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If you liked the 1v1 so much, why didn't you make the descion to go to the arena, where you would not have been attacked in a zone made where people attack you because your a villain/hero.
[/ QUOTE ]
First, finding someone to fight in the arena who isn't twinked is a pain.
Second, I actually like having the mobs around since it adds an element beyond "GIT EM!" to it.
Third, I don't see why anyone would just decide to barge in on an even fight. If someone's attacked two to one, I can see it. I dove in on a few three to one matches and greatly enjoyed sending the people packing. But when two people are duking it out, why push the scale to "Insta-win!"?
I've sat back and watched a few good fights. Admittedly on my characters with stealth who are much less likely to be harrassed, while hiding in odd places with nice views. But it was impressive to watch two good teams going head to head. I could have walked in, debuffed and pushed it to 'easy mode' but what fun is there in that?
[/ QUOTE ]
I see. Not much that you can do about that man.
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I see. Not much that you can do about that man.
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Yea, which is kinda sad. But I'll venture into the PvP zones looking for a good fight once in a while anyway. After WoW's PvP, I think I can find a better place for ours.
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Sorry if I missed your point, but this paragraph seems to be aimed at the zones.
[/ QUOTE ] The paragraph is specifically aimed at identifying the need to create a PvP environment that is not like that which we have in zones.
[ QUOTE ]
Where I disagree is trying to work on 1v1 balance, its a waste of time and resources and always will be.
[/ QUOTE ] Then you'd need to eliminate the ability to have 1v1 PvP missions. Only let PvP occur on teams of four or more players (and of for the reading impaired, i'm not talking about changing the arena or PvP zones that currently exist).
For the record, I don't think that's necessary, but perhaps in the short term it might be advisable. However, I also partially agree with Arcana: You can't solve team PvP without addresing the problem at an atomic level. In a different post, she astutely identified that the real fudnamental problem is that the devs even allow a power like Geas/FoN to be available to players in PvP. Why is it acceptible that a power is allowed to completely nullify those who depend on +DEF, but there is no corresponding power that allows us to completely nullify those who depend on +REGEN/HEAL/HITPOINTS or +RES? I interpret this as a "PvP be damned" approach to adding such changes to the game.
As long as they devs subscribe to this mentality, they'll never get PvP to a point where it doesn't feel grossly unfair. The devs seem unwilling to tackle this problem head on and I, for one, think they should. PvP needs to evolve, and in its current state, too many people might reject any expansion.
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Is it just me or is having someone with the EXACT same skill and capablitiy as me seem a bit lame. I want people to be more overpowered than me, I want to fight someone who I have to do almost impossible things to beat. Thats why I PvP, I want that challenge.
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I see. Not much that you can do about that man.
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Yea, which is kinda sad. But I'll venture into the PvP zones looking for a good fight once in a while anyway. After WoW's PvP, I think I can find a better place for ours.
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I think adding a PvP Instructional Mission / Informational kina thing at arena's and at the doors of PvP zones would help people understand it better. They need to know what they are getting into. Im sure that would help sort out a lot of problems.
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Where I disagree is trying to work on 1v1 balance, its a waste of time and resources and always will be.
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There is no such thing as team balance without archetypal and powerset balance of some kind. "Balance" doesn't necessarily mean every single possible power set combination has an equal chance of killing every other single power set combination (but the notion that such a goal is intrinsicly impossible is something I wish I had the time to disprove, because I'd bet my annual salary on it), but there are specific design requirements for a balanced PvP environment that begin with individual power sets and archetypes, and work up from there. You cannot skip directly to "balancing" for teams: its blatantly impossible. Attempting to build on poor foundations is the only real waste of time and resources that exists; creating good foundations never is.
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While I have great respect for your mathematical ability I doubt you've been looking at game theory as long as I have. I can promise you this, if you can figure out an effective method of creating (much less effectively testing) 1v1 balance in an MMO setting then it will be worth much more than yearly salary unless you're already in the Donald Trump salary range 
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When people claim that PvP is "balanced" for teams, what they are saying is that for any given team, you can construct another team that is its approximate equal. That's no different than saying for any character build, you can construct another character build that is its approximate equal. There is no sense in which CoX PvP is balanced for teams but not balanced for individual combat. There's nothing about teamed combat dynamics that CoX implements that adds something to the balance equation that single combat lacks. In fact, in the specific area of stacked buffs, teamed combat actually breaks more weak spots in the game engine than single combat does.
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Its called potential balance, the problem that is inherent for 1v1 balance is inter-class balance. In CoH terms, a Blaster should do more raw damage than a Defender, but how does that affect balance? Should the Defender win more or less than 50% of the fights if player skill is equal? Things obviously get much more complicated as you add more power sets and powers.
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Probably more to the point: I know of no fix to PvP combat mechanics that fixes teams without addressing a specific powerset issue in single combat also: there are little if any "team" fixes when it comes to game mechanics, only powers and mechanics fixes, which are blind to team/solo combat.
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Certainly all adjustments (or almost all) end up being adjustments to individual powers and individual classes since for most games there isn't such a thing as "team powers" (though in some games there are team modifiers that can be balance impacting). However, changing the amount of energy return that a Paragon can return via Energizing Finale or "The Power Is Yours!" is adjusting an individual skill, but the balancing was due to the power's impact on team play. In a 1v1 situation the power would never be touched, since its not at all overpowered.
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
Woa, Idea man!
*Juggernaut*
One player is spawned into the PvP zone, every player in the zone is on the same team, and their goal is to defeat the player that is given super-AV level power.
Said player will have a timer of 5:00 minuntes to be Juggernaut, and it will pick at random, so as to not unfairly pick same person over and over.
If Juggernaut is defeated it will randomly attach to another player, and whoever defeats the Juggernaut will get some kind of really good reward, like bounty. Or something.
Since it will take more than one person to kill the juggernaut, they can make it so its like a monster. Give whichever team that does (10% right?) the rewards.
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The following is My Opinion Only. Your Mileage May Vary.
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On one of the first four pages on this thread someone brought up that SWG had been pvp centric as it's end game and had then switched to pve for a bit. <snipd for brevity> SWG had to suck up that PVP paid the bills to begin regrowing now.
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I played SWG for two and a half years and have no idea where you got your information from but (from my viewpoint) it is dead wrong. If its your opinion, say so. If you have any facts, please present them. Unless you were inside the offices when decisions were made, you have no idea how or why things were done.
SWG did have a strong PvP element to it. You could also choose to never ever once in your entire game existence ever in any fashion even for one moment dip your toe into the shallow end of the pool of PvP.
SWG, at the beginning, was wonderful because it did not require PvP. The factions were nice and were available if you wanted to PvP but you could even join a faction and still not engage in PvP. You could explore, gather, build and sell to your hearts content and never once take a shot at anyone.
Yes, the Great Holocron Grind was unsatisfactory to some players. Everyone wants to be a Jedi, but by allowing everyone to become a Jedi you cheapen it, and the Developers of SWG rightly appeared at first to know this. They made it something that only a person who really, really, really wanted to be a Jedi would do it. I can still remember the night I was on Ahazi server when the system wide message from Darth Vader went out. The very first Jedi had been unlocked and come into existence and everyone in the Ahazi Galaxy was warned to be on the look out. I would have loved to be that guy, that was awesomely special.
What killed SWG (IMO) was the Devs incorrectly bowing to the pressure of the very vocal and very whiny PvP crowd. This is in my opinion and the opinion of my entire 120+ Guild that left SWG after each successive change in how to get your Jedi altered things for the worse until they ended up with that stupid mist hidden enclave. Even then I knew more than a dozen people who stuck it out until finally SWG completely destroyed all Non-PvP experience and turned the entire MMORPG into a twitch game.
I think of SWG as a cautionary tale for CoX. If CoX continues to bow to the pressure from the PvP crowd they will continue the rush to failure.
In SWG, each PvP change made someone unhappy. Scores of people would hit their forums complaining about whatever had been changed. Things would get changed again and most of them would be even more unhappy.
Sadly, the people who were happy and didnt want things to change didnt say anything. They were happily playing the game until the game took away their pets, their crafting, their foods, their architecture and city building and exploring and gathering. And when the PvPers took things away from them, people left.
CoX is headed down the same path. I9 is a prime example of giving me nothing that I want and everything I dislike. Inventions are nothing more than more powerful enhancements with tweakd out sets that will one at a time become nerfed as different FotM builds take the prize in PvP. In the mean time it will add seller spam in broadcast, it will have groups camping mobs or hunting areas and Kill Stealing Lts and Bosses that spawn. I have already seen threads (in test server forums) where someone complained that he spammed broadcast and request channel for over an hour and could not get anyone to sell him the recipe he wanted.
With less than two weeks open (on test) to the public, i9 has already proved that Seller Spam is going to be an issue. I foresee no way to avoid this. SWG had (at the beginning) the most comprehensive and versatile mercantile system that I have seen in any MMORPG. If you were a trader class, you could put your own kiosks almost any place you wanted, within limits of your level and what you owned of course. Even without that, every city had a Bazaar with numerous kiosks so that people who did not want to waste time on Non Combat skills could still sell their drops and products without having to stand in one spot and spam broadcast.
It didnt matter. Every starport, every city, every place where more than ten PCs could commonly be found, there was at least one person standing around spamming broadcast. Coming into any starport was like hitting a wall of spam that lagged you upwards of three minutes. Maybe not the end of the world but certainly an eternity in MMORPG time. I had a friend on dial-up that could not enter the capital city of the three most populated planets. Trying to take a starship in would cause him to disconnect.
The only reason why I dont feel CoX is destined for this is because the auction and invention system is so poorly thought out and badly implemented that I dont think many people are going to do anything with it. Like the PvP Zones and the Arenas, it is (in my opinion) one more example of CoX bowing to the pressure of a group that is not their main player base.
Most of my friends do not engage in PvP at all because of the behavior attributed to PvPers. Warranted or not, until the good PvPers step up to the plate and start actively excluding the bad PvPers, my opinion isnt likely to change. Yes, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. If you good PvPers want to get rid of the bad opinion most of us have, you have to actively do something to stop the gankers, the childish smack talk and the horrible attitudes that are currently on display in any PvP zone.
The only myth I know of, insofar as PvP and CoX is concerned is that the Devs never intended to have PvP and it was added as a second thought.
I will say that there is no way that PvP was not going to come to CoX. Despite my opinion of it, there is money to be made in PvP. I believe CoX implemented it perfectly; it is put off into specific zones that you cannot enter on accident and even if you some how manage to stumble in, you have ample time to leave.
[ QUOTE ]
PVP pays the bills. PVE does not.
[/ QUOTE ]
Of everything the OP said, this is what I disagree with the most. PvE obviously pays the bills quite well for CoX. The game existed for more than a year without any PvP content and the PvP content that is implemented is underpopulated and underused.
I believe that CoX is going to lose more and more of its hard core player base. The player base that has been here since opening. The player base that has seen the beloved nazis turned into funky interdimensional aliens. The player base that has patiently waited for the universities to be put to some use. The player base that WANTED skills, actual non-combat things that could be used, like detective work and inventing the ultimate nullifier, and even though we see our Universities being turned into factories we are still here. The honest, faithful, player base that still writes huge RP threads and submits stories to Artic Sun and again and again finds a reason to RP up from level one and fight Marrowsnap one more time.
This hard core player base is still here. It is still strong. It still has faith that the Developers wont forget us. When i9 goes live, this player base is going to take a hit, it is going to lose more of its numbers. They are going to hope that the Invention system will give their characters a feeling of Batmans utility belt, Mister Fantastics research room or Doctor Strange making a potion. They are going to be sorely disappointed.
And for a short time, PvP fans will return. They will sample the invention system. They will find it doesnt allow them to farm mobs for elite loot, but that wont stop them from KSing, Griefing as they try.
Then the PvPers will realize that they cant corner the market on certain special drops, like SWG and EQ allowed. The PvP zones will remain underpopulated and underutilized. The Arenas will remain empty. And the Non-PvPers who left will not return because they will have lost faith that anyone in CoX is paying attention to what made this game great at the beginning.
[/ QUOTE ]
Roughtrade,
Thank you. You've said what I lacked the eloquence to say. I hope Positron reads this. And that he pays attention to it.
PvE player. I've been here since July 04, and every single word here you've said is true. All four of the PvE players I joined with have left over these issues. The first one left after ED. The second and third left about six months ago.
The last to go was my own husband, he left after the Valentines Event and the rollback of the temp powers (the 'problem' reported on test before the event went live), it was the last straw for him after one too many disappointments. He watches over my shoulder and has no interest in coming back.
I've also lost a few other friends in the last few weeks over waiting for the next issue.. and lo and behold, it's I-9. The last thing we wanted. And we know it's only going to lead to more PvP crowd whining and caterwauling, and then catering and nerfs.
I didn't play SWG, but I did play EQ. Hubby plays DDO. The other friends play WOW. They often talk about the glory days, and our teams and how we played COH... but they aren't coming back. Well done!
I play COH. I think this whole Wentworths/Economy: You no share with SG members, no base storage for dju! You sell!!!1!! strategy stinks.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
[ QUOTE ]
While I have great respect for your mathematical ability I doubt you've been looking at game theory as long as I have. I can promise you this, if you can figure out an effective method of creating (much less effectively testing) 1v1 balance in an MMO setting then it will be worth much more than yearly salary unless you're already in the Donald Trump salary range
[/ QUOTE ]
My first "official" class in games theory was in 1979, but I was pretty young at the time. I've been studying it as an actual mathematical discipline off and on for approximately twenty-two years. I know people who've studied it longer, but they're all mathematics or economics professors.
Not at the Donald salary range yet, though. But if I thought someone would pay me Donald money for a PvP combat system, no matter what its properties had to be, I'd quit my job tomorrow to write it.
But whatever its worth to publishers, game designers don't generally make that kind of money. Castle could hit his coworkers with lightning and actually *give* them superpowers, and I doubt it would take him higher than the high five figures. Lead programmers can make more, but lead programmers don't normally get rich unless the game you end up writing happens to have "Quake" in the name.
Honestly, if Cryptic asked me to fix the game mechanics, I'd probably do it for free because the improvement in the game I'm playing would be worth more to me than what they can afford to pay anyway. I'd take a badge, though.
If you are a game theorist, then here's the principles surrounding effective 1v1 PvP balance. You'd want to exploit three separate player decisions. First, you'd want to ensure that the act of making a build decision has population-based negative feedback. Each person that chooses to build in a particular way reduces the value of that build. That's possible: ensure that every build contains its own specific weakness (trivial examples, Focused Fighting offers a tohit buff: Unyielding buffs character with unresistable smashing damage). This means even if a particular build is "better" than all the others, that fact is only true so long as not too many other players take it. By definition, the strongest builds are not the most popular, they are the least popular, and that's impossible to circumvent.
Second, design proportional stacking rules, so that no game attributes exponentially increase, and so incremental improvements always have constant incremental value. This prevents single-point balancing from being upset by odd combinations of things, and allows for linear balancing metrics. This takes away the incentive to overstack, or accumulate lots of one thing, and allows players to make diversity decisions on an equal footing with stacked decisions.
Third, create a requirement to commit to combat to achieve maximum effectiveness, and force the decision to commit to occur prior to gaining complete information about the combatants. This eliminates the ability to arbitrarily decide to engage in only fights where you have mathematically demonstrable advantages. This closes the exploitable hole in the first principle above: players have to decide to fight with imperfect information, which means they cannot precalculate overpowering advantages and decide to fight on that basis.
Under such circumstances, even if the raw numbers are not precisely mathematically balanced, the balancing happens in the decision trees of the players: the game forces players to diversify their builds, because no build is good if too many people have it, and it forces players to work harder to defeat anyone, because if everyone is different, few people will actually have each other's precise weaknesses, and most of all they will have to decide to fight before they are 100% certain what the mathematics of the situation are to make the precisely informed decision.
There are ways to force players to commit to battle. One example (and I'm not saying its a good one to implement in CoH, its just offered as proof of concept): reduce blaster base damage, then grant them a special click power that boosts damage to equal or higher levels - but roots. Mobility equals low damage, lack of mobility equals higher damage. If blasters want to stay mobile, they can attack other squishies, but they won't have the same overwhelming damage against them. If they want to attack hard targets like scrappers and tankers, they will need more damage to overcome their defenses, but they can only get it if they lose their mobility and simultaneously make themselves vulnerable to melee attacks. Its probably too radical an idea for this game, but it would work in a from-scratch game engine.
There are lots of untapped ideas for balancing capabilities in 1v1 combat, and all of them have the additional property that they make teamed PvP combat more interesting also: they are not specifically 1v1-targeted adjustments.
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Nice writeup. I like it!
Story Arcs I created:
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Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
[ QUOTE ]
That's not really reversing my question. My question is "why consistently attack someone who's asking not to be?"
But the simple answer to your question is "because by doing what I'm doing, I'm not in any way interfering with you or your enjoyment of the game." It's not really a lot to ask, courteously, to just lay off a guy who's not really there to put up a fight or do much of anything to take skin off anyone's back.
Your examples of a person doing PvE stuff that affects you in some way -- well, that's fine. But we're talking about people specifically looking for badges, not people participating in a PvP zone's "story."
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You most certainly are impacting my gameplay experience by "just badging" in a PVP zone and asking me not to kill you. You are denying me rep AND bounty, denying me the ability to remove you from my bounty list and, ironically, denying me access to PVP rep badges. It's literally the same as if we were both farming masks for badges in Talos and I kept running around killing them all before you could get any. And if you are running missions, you are buffing my opponents and possibly denying me of equal footing in the zone, particularly if I'm outnumbered.
A non-PVP'r in a PVP zone, by the very design of this game, affects the enjoyment of PVP players who read the warning upon entering the zone. They attempt to rewrite those rules with their "don't attack me plz, I'm not here to fight" and impose them on the players who "legally" are following the rules of the zone.
What it comes down to is simple....as a badger in a PVP zone, you believe that your rights to enjoy the game are greater than mine. That makes you arrogant, pretentious and uncaring about anyone but yourself. To use a rather broad brush on the behavior of a badge hunter who wants everyone in the zone to leave them alone while they do their thing.....they are GRIEFING the PVP zone players. They are creating an artificial set of rules and forcing their playstyle on everyone else and doing so against the wishes of those playes who want to follow the basic rules of PVP: If it cons OJ, it's an enemy. But I'm not going to jump there....yet.
Repeated killing of the same player BY the same opposing player is a different matter, as bounty and rep are now out the window. But I could still make the same argument....your refusal to fight in a zone intended for fighting between players is disrupting the enjoyment of the PVP'r.
That's like going to a busy, loud nightclub and screaming over the loudspeaker system "Please keep it down, I'm just here to read!"
Another thread I posted on had someone saying that stalkers broke the "unwritten" rule about the docks in lolbloody bay being a safe zone.
People who ignore the sign and expect people to follow their rules of convenience are just as bad as the rest of the trash talkers in zones (namely because those people start going off in broadcast as well)
zone duelers are the worst. I'll never understand why someone would zone duel anyway, it either involves popping 12 reds or your t9 for the one kill duel.
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Now, if you have a real solution to dealing with "poo monkeys" I'm all ears.
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Shutting them down within the limits of the game seems to work. There is nothing a bully fears more than a united front willing to fight back.
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I have yet to see that really work. IME all it does is encourage them.
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The Dev's should follow up on features that were promised, if they're not currently working 'as intended'. Examples would be base raids, power items, PvP and arena stability, etc.
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After the reception the devs got when asking for testers for the arena bug fix just recently, they may not be super-psyched about catering to this particular crowd at the moment...
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zone duelers are the worst. I'll never understand why someone would zone duel anyway, it either involves popping 12 reds or your t9 for the one kill duel.
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I don't understand either. Then [censored] you out for interrupting their duel....just boggles me. Had one set of ppl on Infinity tell me I was going to Hell for interrupting duels. For people to say such a stupid thing, but I am the wrong one. Okay whatever. Are they the poo monkey or me Jack?
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I'm not disputing that PvP is popular. Some people like it, and that's great. I'd also dare say that some like PvE as well. I'm not suggesting that a game shouldn't feature PvP. I'm protesting the OPs opinion that PvP shouldn't be optional if a game wants to be successful. I disagree strongly with the notion that PvE players are somehow more fickle than PvP players. Why is it so wrong to have both? Why alienate half the potential playerbase?
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I'm actually very supportive of two other groups out there, PVErs and RPers. I even posted so on page ten. Please understand most pvpers are attacked daily on their own forums by people that want PVP completely removed from the game.
The only MMORPG game that I can find hard numbers for that is PVE only that has more than 100k players is Disney's toontown for kids, which is literally meant for pre teens and is part of the Disney advertising machine.
Most PVE only games have a sharp beginning followed by a hard fall, normally settling to be between 10,000 - 30,000 players. If that exact thing were to happen to COX, that would mean that more the listed base of 160,000 players (June 2006) would lose 130,000 - 150,000 players.
The smallest loss under that scenerio would be about 4 out of 5 players. That doesn't leave a lot of people to PVE with does it?
The arguement is that completely removing PVP would be bad for this game. I was not arguing that PVE should be removed. I was also not arguing that PVP shouldn't be optional.
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Well, prior to the release of CoV, CoH was a game without PvP with well over 100,000 players. Would it have stayed there? Would it have plunged or soared? We don't really know. We can come up with all sorts of theories, but the simple fact remains that we have no way of knowing.
Anyway. I don't mind that we have PvP. It doesn't impact the PvE game much, if at all. What I reacted to was when you, in your OP, stated:
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PVP isn't optional for COX's long term survival.
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I understand that you're not advocating the removal of PvE. Forced PvP doesn't mean the removal of PvE - but if it is no longer optional, you're bound to drive off everyone who don't enjoy PvP. Even if the PvE stays the same. You can (and do in all current cases far as I know) have PvE content even in games with 'forced' PvP.
But if this isn't what you ment by that statement, I appologize for misunderstanding.
As for people who attack PvPers on a daily basis..? Well, I don't come to the PvP forums usually, so I wouldn't know. I think there should be room enough for all of us, but I can understand why there are protests. This game has been PvP-free for roughly (okay, very roughly ) two thirds of its lifetime. So lots of folks still remember the "good old days".
It's like ED. You can whine about it because you remember what it was like before, but it's not bloody likely to be taken back out.
Can't we all just get along? (at least outside the PvP zones) 
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
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I'd actually like to try my hand at PvP in this game. All my 'negative experience' come from other games.
So far, a number of (CoH specific) things keep me from giving it a go though:
1) I refuse to respec a character just to be viable. My build is my build, and if that's not good enough I'll stay the heck away, thankyouverymuch (I don't actually know how accurate this perception is. For all I know, it could be hugely exaggerated).
2) My favourite character is a Dominator.
3) As far as I'm concerned, life before Fire Imps might as well not have existed. So that pretty much rules out Bloody Bay and Siren's Call.
4) I think Free for all PvP is kinda stupid. While it might make sense for villains to wail on one another, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for heroes. Especially not while Lord Recluse is trying to nab nuclear weapons. I don't buy the excuse for why Warbug is free for all. At least Bloody Bay had a story that made kinda sense for it... Warbug? Not so much. So this rules out Warbug.
5) That leaves Recluse's Victory and the joy of Hero Epics vs. Villain Epics. I might give RV a run when/if I ever get a villain to 50. But that's bound to be a while. From what I heard, ranking up debt in there is pretty easy if you're not 50, and while I generally think debt is pretty inconsequential, I don't need more negative feedback to convince me to stay out. Again, this might be an exaggerated perception.
Maybe one day 
Thought for the day:
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
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Where I disagree is trying to work on 1v1 balance, its a waste of time and resources and always will be.
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There is no such thing as team balance without archetypal and powerset balance of some kind. "Balance" doesn't necessarily mean every single possible power set combination has an equal chance of killing every other single power set combination (but the notion that such a goal is intrinsicly impossible is something I wish I had the time to disprove, because I'd bet my annual salary on it), but there are specific design requirements for a balanced PvP environment that begin with individual power sets and archetypes, and work up from there. You cannot skip directly to "balancing" for teams: its blatantly impossible. Attempting to build on poor foundations is the only real waste of time and resources that exists; creating good foundations never is.
When people claim that PvP is "balanced" for teams, what they are saying is that for any given team, you can construct another team that is its approximate equal. That's no different than saying for any character build, you can construct another character build that is its approximate equal. There is no sense in which CoX PvP is balanced for teams but not balanced for individual combat. There's nothing about teamed combat dynamics that CoX implements that adds something to the balance equation that single combat lacks. In fact, in the specific area of stacked buffs, teamed combat actually breaks more weak spots in the game engine than single combat does.
Probably more to the point: I know of no fix to PvP combat mechanics that fixes teams without addressing a specific powerset issue in single combat also: there are little if any "team" fixes when it comes to game mechanics, only powers and mechanics fixes, which are blind to team/solo combat.
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