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Of course, there are people who think email was invented in 1991.
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That's because there wasn't anyone out there to tell us we had it until then. "You've got mail!" 
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We kinda did. I remember some people doing ridiculously wild things with their biff alerts, too.
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WTH?!? Email outside of AOL in 1991? That's unpossible!
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Open case.
I don't understand
Open box
I don't understand
Touch Crate
You open the box and a magic demon comes out and kills you.
Delete Zork....
I don't understand.
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You have insulted a cornerstone of interactive fiction. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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Open case.
I don't understand
Open box
I don't understand
Touch Crate
You open the box and a magic demon comes out and kills you.
Delete Zork....
I don't understand.
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You have insulted a cornerstone of interactive fiction. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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Sprays on grue repellant.
That blue thing running around saying "Cookies are sometimes food" is Praetorian Cookie Monster!
Shoot on sight, please.
Arcanaville and Thorizdin give me a mental erection. So much better than 99% of the stuff I see anywhere in this forum.
No disagreement there, the FotM phenomenon is obviously a negative and various tactics have tried to address the "tallest daisy" issues that surround it. However, the constant contest between builds is part (one of my favorite parts) of MMO PvP. Its one of the things that separates MMO combat from FPS games, where everyone is basically a clone of each other. The problem isn't differences, its inflexible systems and extreme specialization. Many PvP centric games attack this by having flexible character re-specialization systems. In Guild Wars you can respec you character (even changing secondary profession) in any town and you can easily store builds as text files on your PC so changing what your character can do is easy. (Its important to note that GW reduces the number of active skills to 8 in an effort to reduce balancing complexity.) This is a good system since it allows for the development of a strategic environment called the meta-game. In GW you can often win with a "weaker" build if it takes advantage of a weakness of builds that are common for the current meta game. I like this kind of solution much better than one that changes the how effective a power is.
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
I started to write a long post, but after re-reading what I wrote, several times, I can sum it up like this:
Give me a good story that will inspire a good reason to fight other players or NPC's and will evolve with my actions, and I'll be all over the enemy with Inspirations or without. Otherwise, MMO's are always going to be a PvP core sugarcoated with stale PvE candy, endless or randomized, it'll still all be the same.
I don't really hate PvP, the game, or the players. I just hate fighting without a worthy cause.
I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
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Player Auction houses are a great example of PvP content that is typically embraced by PvE players.
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Why do I get the feeling that you've played EVE Online? 
DS
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I haven't, but I want to get into it at some point. I find their use of resources intriguing.
Edit:
I'm also really enjoying the discussion between Thor and Arcana in this thread. Good stuff!
Castle 
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Castle
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Mags 
Find a way to make Ice Melee (tank) good in PvP...
A worthy challenge?
(Or, find a use for Frozen Aura. Any use would be good.)
YMMV---IMOIce Ember
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Find a way to make Ice Melee (tank) good in PvP...
A worthy challenge?
(Or, find a use for Frozen Aura. Any use would be good.)
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It helps keep my e-beer cool and frosty during play.
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In GW you can often win with a "weaker" build if it takes advantage of a weakness of builds that are common for the current meta game. I like this kind of solution much better than one that changes the how effective a power is.
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But that idea is just a close paraphrase of the idea I originally presented: the only difference is that I suggested instead of such things happening by coincidence, they happen explicitly by design.
In effect, the balancing happens less at the powers level (although it ultimately has to be implemented at the powers level) and more at the meta-level of PvPers making decisions on what to build, and how to tactically approach combat. Those decisions currently are at least partially based on what the current prevaling build percentages are, and how likely you are to fight any particular thing. It would improve balance significantly if those decisions weren't just randomly based on player populations, but intimately tied to them directly by explicit design decisions. Right now, it just happens. A good design, in my opinion, would leverage the behavior for balance purposes.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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PvE'ers like yourself, with your biased opinions, but opinions non the less, are coming into PvP zones excepting to be the best instantly.
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What? How do you know that? Get out of my head!!! Out! Out! Out!
lol
Please don't take me too seriously... I've just seen too may of these posts not to laugh at them. I think my point was made though.
However, this does bring up another very valid point. If the PvPer's want to cultivate a good, fun, competative community, they or the Devs might want to find some reasonable way to initiate those of us with less experience. I have personally come to the boards and to PvP zones asking for help and claiming to be a 'noob'. No one outside of my non-PvPing SG has stepped in to help me. If you want to feel 'l33t', then by all means, kill me quickly, but don't expect me to stick around and find it fun. If you want to cultivate the community, however, then there might be a more positive and creative way to respond. I understand the concept of learning by losing, but at least in PvE I feel I have a reasonable community supporting me, even when my SG's not online.
(Don't worry, I realize that there's no way to know how experienced a person is if you just randomly spot them in a zone. That's not what I'm getting at.)
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Same numbers of [censored] who PvP, also PvE.
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Your right. All of those PvPer's had to PvE to get to where they are now.
Oh, sorry... not really what you were getting at...
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Free for all zones? Ok so your talking about Warburg. Ganking? In a PvP zone? Nah doesn't exist. When I enter a PvP zone, I know full well im going to get attacked non-stop, as long as possible. Its a PvP zone, you are OBLIGATED to attack anyone and everyone (FFA zone). Ganking, pfft thats just what cowards use to call PvPers who attempt to FULLFILL the goal of the zone, and of the PvP itself.
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So that's the mentality that's undermining my enjoyment of PvP.
I'd been wondering.
Just for example, my favorite PvP fight was one that neither of us won. We couldn't kill eachother. I was hunting him, he was trying to strike me down before I could get a hold of him. It was actually fun.
I've had more than one enjoyable match between me and someone else be ruined by someone else butting in and killing one of us. Similar lines in the couple of team fights, two teams going at it, having fun, and then the self appointed calvary from on side or another shows up and makes it completely pointless to attempt anything.
Since I'm curious, is this a common mindset for PvPers here? Or do I have hope of being able to enjoy PvP from time to time?
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Quick answer from a non-PvPer. If you don't want to be interupted, go to the arena. Expect interference if you're in a zone with other PvPers.
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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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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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If you can do it without upsetting the player base, you fix the pvp balance issues in this game and I'll give you better than a badge. I'll give you a medal.
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Laylyn of HAUNT:
Please read my response on page ten. Also, please realize the orginal post was aimed at the pvp-needs-to-be-removed from-this-game crowd. There are a couple of others you missed on the past two pages.
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Whisky Tango Foxtrot?
Try going back and reading what I said without assuming I am attacking you....
...Poo Flingers...
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I wasn't attacking either. On a side note, I think you and Jack would make a perfect couple...
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Yeah, maybe we would. Neither one of us cuts up the quotes of another person to edit it so that it creates the appearance of making random insults.
Unlike yourself, I don't make up facts but refuse to give links to the data to back up my claims. I don't take my personal game experience and claim it is how everyone else experiences the game.
I give my opinion, I say what it is based on and claim only to represent myself and the people I know who have told me they feel the same.
You are very correct. Jack and I are two of a kind, we're not liars.
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Considering I posted information twice on the first page of this thread, yes, you are a liar and and practicer of disinformation.
For those that aren't familiar with the symptoms it's here:
http://www.whale.to/b/sweeney.html
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In GW you can often win with a "weaker" build if it takes advantage of a weakness of builds that are common for the current meta game. I like this kind of solution much better than one that changes the how effective a power is.
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But that idea is just a close paraphrase of the idea I originally presented: the only difference is that I suggested instead of such things happening by coincidence, they happen explicitly by design.
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It is similar, but the difference is predictability to the players. If I plan a team build with X, Y, and Z in the morning only to find out that Z is now 20% less effective because some moron posted my uber build idea and everyone is running I'd be unhappy. Now, in a system where powers can be easily changed its not terrible, but in a game like CoX where changing a build requires a limited resource it would be horrendous. Could you imagine leveling up a character that was effective, but non-conventional, only to have dozens of people figure out your build and then reduce you're effectiveness just by cloning it? That's a pretty fierce implementation of a non-zero-sum game model.
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In effect, the balancing happens less at the powers level (although it ultimately has to be implemented at the powers level) and more at the meta-level of PvPers making decisions on what to build, and how to tactically approach combat. Those decisions currently are at least partially based on what the current prevaling build percentages are, and how likely you are to fight any particular thing. It would improve balance significantly if those decisions weren't just randomly based on player populations, but intimately tied to them directly by explicit design decisions. Right now, it just happens. A good design, in my opinion, would leverage the behavior for balance purposes.
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If you can define a mechanism that automatically balances without lowering the effectiveness of existing characters and powers then I might agree, but I can't see a method for doing that. For example, you could lower the effectiveness of "clones builds" by consider the age of their template and the older the template the more "original" its considered. I still don't like that, because then you have lowered the ability of smart players to react tactically. If I know the value of and the animation that Executioner's Strike uses I currently have an idea of what the max damage is. However, I have to factor in too many factors that predictability is destroyed and there is no reason to know anything other than its an ax attack since the level of imperfect information is so high.
Currently I can watch a GW match for a few minutes and have a very good idea of not only the skills the player has slotted, but his attributes, Runes, and gear. Take that away by introducing a variable that isn't related to anything other than when I created my character (or how many clones of me there are at that moment) and you've reduced the strategic depth of the game. I'd much rather have a somewhat less elegant balancing method (meta-game) and have more predictability.
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
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Quick answer from a non-PvPer. If you don't want to be interupted, go to the arena. Expect interference if you're in a zone with other PvPers.
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I don't care about being interrupted, it just seems like it successfully sucks the fun out of it for the other people.
I don't understand the "Yay! 5 of us beat that one guy!" or "Must! Charge! Everything!" mentalities.
I had something of an argument on the subject a few times, generally to the effect of, fight going, twice as many people suddenly show up on my side and spank them. No skill, no tactics, no thought, just pure numbers.
They did not appreciate my "That was remarkably lame" comment.
Can someone, rather than saying I should just accept it, explain to me why it should be done? What purpose is there to outnumbering and simply destroying the enemy? What fun is in an assured victory? Why is it not only accepted but expected that someone will attack anyone they can in a zone no matter what they are up to?
The only answers I've seen were, "Cause I wanna" or "because it's what people do". In fact, this was a fairly large issue on my server for a while. People were trying to hold PvP events in random spots and a few individuals felt it was their duty to attack them as much as possible. Why? "Because that's what PvP zones are there for", aka, "Cause I wanna".
PvP, PvP zones, this entire game. All of this is here to have fun. I can't fathom that hollow victories and senseless aggression can really be fun. Am I wrong? Is any victory fun, no matter how little work goes into it?
I expect it when I go into a zone, I don't like it, but I expect it.
Edit:
For that matter why does aggression have two gs? Sorry, looked over my post and noticed the spelling error, only to start wondering why...
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Castle
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Mags
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KHAAAANNNN!!!
IMO, and only in my opinion, PVP adds another dimension to COx that would be sad to lose. Im a 90%+ PVE player, who occasionally enjoys PVP.
The question for the designers of COx, is what do players do after reaching level 50?
Playing alternates/starting new character is an answer. COx is good at encouraging that, and Im a natural alternates person, but it does prevent/discourage some of the social aspects of the MMO (on different server, no longer same level as other friends, etc).
Adding "Loot" is one answer, as once you reach 50 you still may not have collected all the epic level loot. EQ and WOW and others go this route. However, even then, who cares about loot unless its something you get to use.
Continually adding higher level content is some thing that EQ and others have done. The problem is adding more and more programming to an older and older game engine. Its good, but its hard to keep up with the players.
PVP allows for enjoying a max level character well after all the PVE stories are completed. This gives a reward for the loot system, making both better.
Some of the problems I see with PVP is that some powersets play massively different in PVP than PVE. Tanks (for example) are much squishier in PVP than PVE, making someone who plays in PVE pretty upset at their performance in PVP. PVP also lends itself to poor sportsmanship. All competitions have this potenial, but the added inability to hurt a jerk makes them fearless. Last, in an MMO with the variety of powers available in COx, its almost impossible to balance the powersets. As mentioned by Thorizden (old paper DnD reference, if I recall correctly) or Arcana, some powers are not as easily defensed as others. Two examples are slows and stuns. Holds are easily avoided via BFs and even acrobatics and all melee types with mez resistance (and hero Epics), while slows can be countered by kin defender powers only (and ice tanks?). Stuns are stopped by mez protection and BFs, but aid self has a very minimal affect. As stuns are often part of the highest damage attacks in the game, they are very effective in pvp. The difference in a fire blaster and nrg blapper is huge. The difference in a invul/fire tank and a invul/EM tank is huge. A lot of that is the stun+high damage.
This makes the balance thing very difficult. First person shooters avoid this by making almost everyone the same (which I hate the idea of, BTW).
I think COxs needs and should have PVP. I love the fact it is consentual only. I like the backdrop story of the zones, in general (Warburg being the weakest). I like the fact that levels are (mostly) taken out of the PVP mix, and how loot (mostly) is not part of PVP. Yes, HOs and more inspirs/better slotting do make a difference in PVP, but not as much as some gear in some fantasy games.
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...I had something of an argument on the subject a few times, generally to the effect of, fight going, twice as many people suddenly show up on my side and spank them. No skill, no tactics, no thought, just pure numbers.
They did not appreciate my "That was remarkably lame" comment.
Can someone, rather than saying I should just accept it, explain to me why it should be done? What purpose is there to outnumbering and simply destroying the enemy? What fun is in an assured victory? Why is it not only accepted but expected that someone will attack anyone they can in a zone no matter what they are up to?
...
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The way I understand it, it goes beyond the simple explanation of 'cause I wanna'. Both because of game lore and because of player expectation, these zones are all out war zones. Players are trying to take over areas, get nukes, etc. Other players are expected to try to stop them. Duels or team duels getting interupted can be completely by mistake. Since most players expect anything to happen, they may feel they're doing you a favour by helping out, etc. You saying what they did was lame after the fact may very well be a bit confounding to them. It is war after all.
On top of that, as has been previously mentioned, how many comic heroes would stand by and let another hero get nearly killed (only a few readily come to mind 
). As for villains, they would join in on the 'superior numbers' side just to see a hero get ganked. As in anything as big as superhero cutlure, there are probably exceptions, but we're talking about general lore.
What would be needed to satisfy what you are talking about is a dueling option. Individual players would have the ability to invite to a duel, and if accepted both parties would no longer be targetable or able to target others. If the two duelers were team leaders, then their teams would be included in the duel, and cut off from the rest of the players in the zone. The devs probably see the arenas as addressing this though, so I doubt we'll see it. Either way, you can't really go in to a PvP zone expecting everyone else to understand or abide by your rules if the mechanics of the game allow for more.
Oh, and for the record, superior numbers is part of tactics.... but I get what you're saying.
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3. pvp play is inarguably more engaging, visceral, and immediate than pve play -- which doesn't mean pve isnt fun. grinding through a "narrative" can be entertaining, but honestly id really rather just watch the movie.
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Uh, yeah, that's entirely subjective, so saying it's "inarguably" more engaging etc is a crock. Several people in the thread have already said that isn't the case, which disproves your statement (the "inarguably" part) right out of hand. But good try.
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On that: You're arguing from your own experience, or from the experience of others. Means nothing. There are common pvp and pve experiences that are neither subjective nor anomalous. Think of them as average or prototypical experiences. Of these, the pvp experience is more immediate, visceral, and engaging. This is a comment on the phenomenon of play within these two separate contexts of play, not a comment on either the description or interpretation of that phenomenon by individual players, which will be more varied.
On balance: mathematics, like any other sign and symbol system, does not determine human behavior. Because sign and symbol systems originate in human behavior, they are, in part, analogous to human behavior, but only in a descriptive (rather than predictive) sense. And that description is inevitably impartial and incomplete. If so, then it will be impossible to mathematically ensure a balanced pvp environment in any context of sufficient complexity involving, for instance, the large numbers of players involved in an mmo the size of CoX. (Economists, btw, are slowly finding this out now.)
If, however, you prioritize human behavior (in this case, play) more highly than your prioritize mathematical models of that behavior, then you can, conceivably, balance any closed system of human behavior, such as CoX, by pretty much the same means that horse races are balanced. You handicap.
If, for instance, data are available that demonstrate, within pvp across all context and servers, death/defeat rates for certain ATs are more or less than defeat rates for other ATs, then you bump the hit points of the losing ATs. You bump these hit points (or subtract as necessary) until the defeat rates are no longer significantly distinct. And, if at some future point, due to player innovations or whatever, the defeat rates get again out of whack, then you continue to bump/subtract as necessary.
But, regardless, you base your decisions on what sort of bumping/nerfing works or doesn't work not on a mathematical model of what should or shouldnt work, but on the practice of play and players.
Game play is not a beast to be tamed; it is a path to be followed.
On metagames: I'm sick of hearing about metagames, frankly, at least and until the same design practices that apply to plain old games become somehow inapplicable to the so-called "meta-games." All fair (and fun) "metagame" goals are implicit in the plain old game rules. To the extent that metagames abide by those rules, we should just call them games. To the extent that metagmes do not abide by those rules, we should probably just call them cheating.
Most "metagames," for instance, are "won" by having something or by doing something (guild connections, tricks and exploits, large amounts of play time) that is not available to be had or to be done by individual and common players.
On the other hand, the extent to which "metagame" refers to the recontextualization of play during successive play experiences is a valid way to use the term. But then "metagame" does not apply to any sort of play more than any other. Contextualization and recontextualization occur all the time -- throughout, for instance, an individual's history of CoX play. (Think how differently you think of and play with your characters now then you did, say, a year ago.) But to establish the "metagame" as something either apart from normal play or as an aspect of play that is only practiced by "elite" players is by and large a self-serving crock.
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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. ***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.
[/ QUOTE ] Fundamentally, this is something that I argued for over a year and a half ago: The context of the game determines how powerful you are. You don't really talk about a mechinism, so I will. The game should [u]not[u] change your powers. Thor is 100% correct in that such an approach ignores the psychological impact of players having the environment imposed upon them rather than the other way around. What should happen is the mobs that are spawned should be sensitive to the players that exist. If the number of DM/Regens that enter a zone exceeds a certain % or amount, then the mobs start using weapons that are specifically targeted to /Regen powers. If the number of controllers is high...mobs start spawning their own Empaths-type support. This if is a far far more immersive and acceptable way to create the negative feedback loop without directly affecting the player's toon.
EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying they use powers based on who they are fighting, but the game spawns mobs with certain powers based on population statistics. The AI doesn't have to change one lick. You could even use this technology to make the missions themselves to create a increasing difficulty in that later spawns "adapt" to the invaders.
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Second, design proportional stacking rules, so that no game attributes exponentially increase, and so incremental improvements always have constant incremental value.
[/ QUOTE ] I'm really not sure why this wasn't a no-brainer from day one. The fact that someone can stack on 12 Rages is silly. Thor, while your instincts about this really only affecting teams is noted, inspirations and pool powers make this a far bigger deal for 1v1. Any and all benefits should have a greater decreasing rate of improvement. Many effects such as +RECHARGE already do, but it should be more dramatic, IMO. Most importantly, it needs to be applied to inspirations.
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Third, create a requirement to commit to combat to achieve maximum effectiveness
[/ QUOTE ] I'm not sure where you pulled this from, but it's not a principle of 1v1 PvP combat, nor should it be. Part of any battle is knowing when to retreat, knowing when to pursue, and knowing when and how to limit your enemies' abilities to do either. This is true for 1v1 or 1000 v 1000.
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and force the decision to commit to occur prior to gaining complete information about the combatants.
[/ QUOTE ] First off, that's already in effect because you don't know you are fighting and you never knew what inspirations they carried or what Accolades they possesed. Second, the devs have already subscribed to this idea by removing the ability to look at the powers of Villians. This is something many of us identified very early on, and the devs responded. I also partially agree with Thor, in the getting rid of the Archetype labels...however....I think there is a psychological necessiity to provide the combatants with some information along those lines, it may break the immersion to some degree, but I think it cuts down on some of the frustration. I also think it serves as a form of cross-game advertising. Getting beat by a Brute or a 'troller may motivate many to go and make one.
And yeah, the r/p/s analogy/metphor propogated by the devs does the entire community and the devs themselves disservice in looking at the issue objectively. Such an analogy suggests that 1/3 of the time, any given build will win, lose, and draw. Such is not the case. Such is not even remotely the case. The fact that every scrapper primary has access to some +To Hit boost and none of them have access to a -regen/heal power creates an unnecessary asymmetry; I've already covered how grossly unfair Geas/FoN is to many sets in PvP.
I think many of us agree that the devs need to make a psychological commitment to providing a less binary outcome and a more equitable experience in PvP. Failure to commit to this creates a self-perpetuating excuse for them to avoid expanding PvP: 1) PvP is grossly unfair and people hate that 2) Because so many people hate it, it's not as financially important as PvE 3) Since it's not as important as PvE, we won't address it....which means that we'll never get past 1.
To be fair, I think the devs have taken some stride to address PvP issues. I think they need to keep taking them. They need to take more steps. Traditional PvP needs to evolve and expand.
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Uh, yeah, that's entirely subjective, so saying it's "inarguably" more engaging etc is a crock. Several people in the thread have already said that isn't the case, which disproves your statement (the "inarguably" part) right out of hand. But good try.
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On that: You're arguing from your own experience, or from the experience of others. Means nothing. There are common pvp and pve experiences that are neither subjective nor anomalous. Think of them as average or prototypical experiences. Of these, the pvp experience is more immediate, visceral, and engaging. This is a comment on the phenomenon of play within these two separate contexts of play, not a comment on either the description or interpretation of that phenomenon by individual players, which will be more varied.
(etc, etc)
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EDIT: Misunderstood, my apologies. Let me try that again.
The word "inarguably" used in that context wouldn't get past a high school journalism student. To say that PvP is objectively more engaging is to assume a set standard for what "engages" absolutely everyone who plays the game, and that's assuming everyone defines "being engaged" in the same way.
This is, pretty obviously I think, a very silly thing to say. It's asserting personal preference as objective fact.
It was fun.
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Of course, there are people who think email was invented in 1991.
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That's because there wasn't anyone out there to tell us we had it until then. "You've got mail!"
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We kinda did. I remember some people doing ridiculously wild things with their biff alerts, too.
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