Issue 13: Power & Responsibility Discussion
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2008-12-02 14:18 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
I love the Shields visuals. Great work.
Pain Domination gives me hope that I'll finally level a Mastermind.
It takes me a while to sort through a new issue -- for example, I entered Cimerora for the first time the other day, and I've been playing since Issue 1. So I look forward to slowly unwrapping this present.
Good Guys: Touch of Gray, Cap'n Lil
Bad Guys: Maduro Man, Ghostbound, Amish Cyborg
I sincerely doubt that--the whining has been hard to miss--but by all means feel free to correct me.
I'd love to hear a reason why PvPers hate the new system that can't be quickly and easily shortened into "hey, I spent a lot of time and energy making my build/IO set/team a system-breaking invulnerable juggernaut, and I resent any effort on the part of the game to level the playing field for new entries or casual players". Go for it.
A lot of it was suppression. Unsuppressed movement ruled the Arena, it made it dynamic and fun for those who participated. The lack of that slows down the pace of movement, therefore reducing effectiveness of buffers. Buffers was another hit, adding 4% to people resistances is a joke, why bother? Healing decay meant getting people who a spike was harder than ever, the nerfs involving DR are not fun, though you seem to deem it as necessary just for "balance".
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I sincerely doubt that--the whining has been hard to miss--but by all means feel free to correct me.
I'd love to hear a reason why PvPers hate the new system that can't be quickly and easily shortened into "hey, I spent a lot of time and energy making my build/IO set/team a system-breaking invulnerable juggernaut, and I resent any effort on the part of the game to level the playing field for new entries or casual players". Go for it.
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Because only certain E-LEET PPPers can make those builds or teams AMIRITE?
Looks like the crashing has stopped thanks to the emergency patch last night. Working around thee wall bug in bases, but so far, my cavernous base is looking beautiful 
... Crap, when will I have time to make a leveling pact or PvP? 
Well, first-- yes, I think balance is important. I like to think that you do too, even if you put the word in quotes. Perhaps I'm wrong about that.
As far as movement suppression goes, your mad keyboard skillz don't play much of a role in the outcome against an experienced opponent--since there's no such thing as having to aim at your target in this game, and you can also auto-follow them with a single key-stroke. Most of the importance of movement as it has been up to this point has to do with line-of-sight issues--and of course it's a great way to smack around n00bs who don't understand how critical the "F" key is in PvP, since it's not terribly useful in PvE.
The major dynamic that is affected by movement suppression is that you're no longer able to smack someone with massive burst damage upside the head and race away before they even knew what happened. I hope you'll forgive my lack of sympathy about you having to hang out long enough to fight AFTER you get in the first hit.
You'd be surprised at how much good movement and evasion skills came into play in PvP matches.
It wasn't the lack of adaptation, simply because PvP'ers have always adapted to new situations, whether it be Psi blasters, VEATs, cage changes, phase changes, veng stacking, etc. But when the entire game for them gets slowed down exponentially, thus driving the unique feel of it (as compared to other MMO PvP systems) away without any of the rewards that those other systems provide, it's clear why one wouldn't like the changes or stick around to play them.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
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Well, first-- yes, I think balance is important. I like to think that you do too, even if you put the word in quotes. Perhaps I'm wrong about that.
As far as movement suppression goes, your mad keyboard skillz don't play much of a role in the outcome against an experienced opponent--since there's no such thing as having to aim at your target in this game, and you can also auto-follow them with a single key-stroke. Most of the importance of movement as it has been up to this point has to do with line-of-sight issues--and of course it's a great way to smack around n00bs who don't understand how critical the "F" key is in PvP, since it's not terribly useful in PvE.
The major dynamic that is affected by movement suppression is that you're no longer able to smack someone with massive burst damage upside the head and race away before they even knew what happened. I hope you'll forgive my lack of sympathy about you having to hang out long enough to fight AFTER you get in the first hit.
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So instead, all we have to do now is smack our keyboard! Button mashing is clearly more skill-determining than tactics. Clearly.
Thusfar, issue is rather "meh" for me. Has its good and bad points.
Shields - don't really have an opinion on them one way or the other. Was never a big fan, and I'm still not. Just can't come up with a decent concept to roll one. Tho, seeing all the new shield users running around is pretty cool graphics wise.
Pain - Rolled a new corr yesterday with it and level pacted with my fiance's new brute. 'Twas fun.
Dual Builds - gotta say, I love this. My emp now has a strictly team build and a solo build. And my WS has an all human and a tri form.
Badge interface - this is just freakin' awesome. Prolly the one thing I'm most excited about...now I know what I need for each badge I haven't gotten, and that's pretty sweet. I also like the organization of all the badge categories.
Salvage conversion - Major headache. My SG had loads of salvage stored up, which we've decided to split amongst members for conversion...which is nice on one hand. What it'll do to the market for a while I don't like to think about.
Day Jobs - I sent all my toons to "work" yesterday. Woohoo! I've always told them to get a job. 
Bugs and whatnot - As of this morning when I logged in, the tell feature was still borked. I got a message that was: [Tell]:isp. No idea who that came from, no way to reply, and no idea what they were trying to tell me. Friends list, if it's not connected to my chat window, will NOT close, no matter what I do.
There are still quite a few things I need to check out...these are just my initial impression from a brief time online yesterday and today. I'll prolly have a more solid opinion after this weekend. For now, I'm gonna go run some errands then come back and take my little DB/SR into the Call to get ganked.
MA Arcs:
"Bloodlines" - 40810
"Bloodlines: Part 2" - 176139
Feedback & Rating Trades Welcome!
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So instead, all we have to do now is smack our keyboard! Button mashing is clearly more skill-determining than tactics. Clearly.
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Ah, thanks for rephrasing my use of the word "fighting" as the obviously more accurate "button mashing". And while you're at it, I enjoyed your correction of "burst-damage hit-and-run" to "tactics". I bow to your new and improved verbiage, which obviously clarified my unhelpful terms.
Blowing someone to bits and racing away before they can respond is assuredly tactically brilliant, and my hats off to you for such a clever strategy. Were we on a battlefield, I would definitely want you on my side.
Of course, _we_ _aren't_ _on_ _a_ _battlefield_. This is a game. And your brilliant tactical manuever is also only fun for one of the two people involved in your tactic. While we're on the topic, it's also entirely antithetical to the style of comic-book combat that the game is supposed to be emulating.
Now, your tactical strategies will have to incorporate the idea that your opponent can fight back. I'm sure you'll manage.
They could fight back before. Nothing stopped them from doing so.
Also, hit and run tactics not thematical to comic books? Have you ever read an issue of the Flash?
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
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You'd be surprised at how much good movement and evasion skills came into play in PvP matches.
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No, I wouldn't. I do PvP, although I'll be the first to say I'm not terribly good at it. All I'm trying to do is get some clarity on what the core issues regarding movement here are. For knowledgable players, who understand and use the auto-locking and auto-follow, there is no such thing as evasion--at least in the sense that a shooter game would use it, where you weave and bob to avoid getting nailed by a freely-moving process of aiming. Here, you're locked onto by me hitting "tab" no matter how much bobbing you do, unless you break line-of-sight or run faster than I can.
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...when the entire game for them gets slowed down exponentially, thus driving the unique feel of it (as compared to other MMO PvP systems)...
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Ah, right. Here's the "I'm good at it, you're not, and I like it that way" part of the argument. You might be interested to know that while you describe PvP in this game as having a "unique feel" and lamenting how it's getting slowed down, many other people--including but assuredly not limited to myself--describe the same principles of PvP as "broken" and complain about being killed too quickly and too easily. Which is unique, I suppose, but I doubt many people outside of the hardcore PvP crowd would view that uniqueness as a good thing.
It's too soon for me to pass final judgement since it's only been out for only a day but so far all the changes and new content look great. I'm heavy in PvP but again it is too soon to give any feedback until I get some PvP time in on this new issue.
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It's too soon for me to pass final judgement since it's only been out for only a day but so far all the changes and new content look great. I'm heavy in PvP but again it is too soon to give any feedback until I get some PvP time in on this new issue.
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/QR
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They could fight back before. Nothing stopped them from doing so.
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Ah, do I detect a hint of "l2p"? Thenk you!
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Also, hit and run tactics not thematical to comic books? Have you ever read an issue of the Flash?
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I haven't. I have read Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, the Hulk, the X-men, and so on and so forth ad nauseum, but I'll admit that I have not read the Flash.
With all due respect to die-hard fans of the Flash, I think it would be very ill-advised to try to emulate the comic-book genre style of combat with a PvP system that so obviously favors Flash-esque behavior. I would call that ill-advised in much the same sense as a PvP system inspired by the fighting style of the Wonder Twins.
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No, I wouldn't. I do PvP, although I'll be the first to say I'm not terribly good at it. All I'm trying to do is get some clarity on what the core issues regarding movement here are. For knowledgable players, who understand and use the auto-locking and auto-follow, there is no such thing as evasion, unless you break line-of-sight or run faster than I can.
[/ QUOTE ]I think you might have just figured out part of evasion... keep going though.
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Ah, right. Here's the "I'm good at it, you're not, and I like it that way" part of the argument. You might be interested to know that while you describe PvP in this game as having a "unique feel" and lamenting how it's getting slowed down, many other people--including but assuredly not limited to myself--describe the same principles of PvP as "broken" and complain about being killed too quickly and too easily. Which is unique, I suppose, but I doubt many people outside of the hardcore PvP crowd would view that uniqueness as a good thing.
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When did I ever say I was good at it, or that you weren't?
Disagree with how broken the system was before or after the changes, but you can't deny that the speed and lethality of the game has dropped a lot. If you like it more this way, good for you. I'm glad you enjoy it. Others don't, however, and found the other way to be better.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
Best things about this issue to me:
However shields turns out to be like in the long run power-set wise, the shield graphics and customability variety are top notch, loving them a lot! Very nice to have such a large ammount of choices right off the bat.
Being able to save costumes.. brilliant! To me, this goes far above mere quality of life.
Bases.. being able to do so much more in decorating and building by having the placement restrictions off, suddenly I have a base editing toy that will last me months worth of creative play. Being able to suddenly afford a bigger plot size helps a bunch. Now all we need are more decorative bits, I need my indoor swimmable pool!
I'll save my gripes about other things about the issue for another post, and issue 13 does deserve some griping in places, but from the looks of things I thought it would be good to throw a few positive bits out there.
Removal of the "pathing" restriction in my base it appears will now allow me as the based Leader to cordon of some of the storage bins for my personal use only, since I am the only one who can edit the base and remove the obstruction. A little tedious to have to go into edit mode to get to them but well worth it to me. Since I am mostly a PUG SG I want to keep my valuable Set IO's to my toons only. T'would be nice if they would put granular permissions on storage bins -- as I've been asking for since about 5 issues ago! 
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All I'm trying to do is get some clarity on what the core issues regarding movement here are.
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Blowing someone to bits and racing away before they can respond is assuredly tactically brilliant, and my hats off to you for such a clever strategy. Were we on a battlefield, I would definitely want you on my side.
Of course, _we_ _aren't_ _on_ _a_ _battlefield_. This is a game. And your brilliant tactical manuever is also only fun for one of the two people involved in your tactic.
Now, your tactical strategies will have to incorporate the idea that your opponent can fight back. I'm sure you'll manage.
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While I can agree that burst-damage hit-and-run tactics were somewhat irksome when I first started pvping (I say when I first started, as it didn't take long to realize it wasn't really that hard to get some return hits in), I still have to disagree with the implementation of movement suppression as we have it now. Before I continue, please note that this is coming from someone who played an lolmelee toon in the previous system (make that doubly lol as the toon in question was a brute [SS/WP]).
Keeping in mind that I conceded to your point of view above, throughout my personal experiences I found there were many more positive aspects to it than negative (the first positive of which would be the sheer joy of the fast paced vertical, horizontal, and lateral movement, but that aspect isn't overly relevant to the "argument" so enough on that) .
For starters, there were many ATs that I faced which I simply could not stand in one place and fight against (in true Fite Klub style, whatever that may be) and have any chance of surviving, let alone having an opportunity to win. In order to avoid certain debuffs and "pet" style attacks, I had to be able to move very quickly and in some instances a fairly good distance away via SS or SJ (not running away, mind you, but making some definitive lateral moves to be sure). Yes, to anyone that might read this, I took to becoming a "semi-kiting brute" whenever needed; get a good laugh at that notion and move onward.
Anyway, one of the best examples would be my brute vs Storm Summoning Controllers. First off, I had to avoid the Hurricane debuff as much as possible (or else I'd have very little chance of hitting with any attacks, at least until Rage double stacked; Hurricane is even worse for other melee ATs and powersets that don't have any major league to-hit buffs ). Secondly, I had to continually move to keep out of Tornado (and I mean continually as the little buggers follow you incessantly). On top of that, I had to watch out for areas that Lightning Cloud was summoned/spawned in, or the fight would be over within seconds as my toggles were shut down and my endurance drained completely. Then there were the slow/damaging ice patches to avoid as well.
In the new system, without the ability to move extremely fast and avoid ALL of those things on top of whatever the Controller is tossing at me out of his/her primary set, I get completely wrecked in a laughably short amount of time. This isn't even taking into account the new Mezz Resist vs Protection garbage, which makes avoiding such dangers even more of an impossibility (which I won't go into further here as that wasn't brought up in your own statements).
I could point out other examples of ATs/Powersets that will devastate you if you simply stand and fight like we are relegated/forced to do in the new system, but I think that will suffice to get my point across. If you need more, just ask.
At any rate, just because some people were "abusing" (I put that in quotes as I personally don't see it as such) the previous unsuppressed movement, there were many more reasons why it was a viable system with some definite good (and I daresay necessary) aspects. This new system has just left me very much disillusioned with the notion of pvp anymore. While yes, I could move on and adapt as certain people keeping bringing up, there are even less fights I can hope to win now, not more as Castle and crew seem to profess is possible.
I'm gonna go cry a river for Oprah now....
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They could fight back before. Nothing stopped them from doing so.
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Ah, do I detect a hint of "l2p"? Thenk you!
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Um. I don't even begin to PvP and I'd say "lern2playnoob".
It's a game based on super-speeded, flying superheroes that shoot laser beams from their hands.
...what the heck else would be smarter than "run in... nuke... flee before the return hit.?
I was wondering, what about the new boards? I thought they were supposed to go live with Issue 13? (Curse my search-fu as I can't find the post about it).
Leader of the British Superhero Corps on Pinnacle
Shego: Another one saved from the fiery pits of EEeeeeconomy Computing Hell.
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I was wondering, what about the new boards? I thought they were supposed to go live with Issue 13? (Curse my search-fu as I can't find the post about it).
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I don't think it was ever stated that they would go live with Issue 13. You may be remembering when they announced that the new forums would be used for the closed beta period of Issue 13 testing.
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They could fight back before. Nothing stopped them from doing so.
Also, hit and run tactics not thematical to comic books? Have you ever read an issue of the Flash?
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Well, unless you had some serious IOs etc your toon was beaten silly especially certain ATs. I didn't mind it before but could only stand it for a few mins at a time. It was just a waste of time. I am all for trying the new PvP.
Overall, i13 is really weak. Not much to do. I like the new powers and day jobs are an ok feature but this issue needed more. Revamping a bunch of old stuff and then a few new things...bleh... 
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Well, unless you had some serious IOs etc your toon was beaten silly especially certain ATs.
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Not at all. While IO's did help, they don't make nearly the difference as is stated by some on these forums. None of the toons I PvP with run IO's at all. My stalker is still using standard SO's, and my scrapper only has a couple HO's in his build.
The only character I've IO'd out is my Dom, which I don't use to PvP with, and my Brute, which was made for team TF runs.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
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/unasked opinion mode on
I think they should start a new server. This server should keep the old PVP dynamics and be deemed an "expert level" server.
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Unsigned. PvPers can learn to play the game as it exists now just like everyone else. And there's nothing "expert" about being unable or unwilling to adjust to dynamic conditions--in fact, that's the opposite of "expert".
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Psst, you might have missed the main reason(s) why many PvP'ers hated the new system.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict