COH2 predicted by Massively
By
Alvan,
Posted on: 2008-12-27 20:23 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Wow I guess GR got some new 'Thread Clippers' for xmas! I would dearly love to know what all the deleted posts were about 
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Oh, just a discussion about some photos from the NCSoft Europe Christmas party. Don't know why GhostRaptor decided to remove the links -- after all, he still had his thong on.
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What aggravates me is all it takes is a little thought and planning.
Take base raids for example. Why do they have to be limited to bases? Why cant two SGs, of either villian v hero or same side v same side duke it out in a city zone? And i dont mean an instanced one. I mean in the same zone that we play but they, having been allocated, can fight and any other player cant join in?
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Because even if you assume that the previously quoted 25% of the population is a 100% PvPer is correct, three quarters of the player base would be up in arms over more time devoted to a minority past time.
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Why cant the devs invent some incentive for these battles?
They dont even have to invent em. There are hundereds of JLAvJSA or X men v Avengers stories they can swipe to create a compelling reason to fight.
Who knows? Maybe some PvE players would get the PvP bug.
The players would love it. And they'de be great to watch too. I could go on and on.
Just a bit of imagination and forward planning is required to spruce this game up no end.
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If they can fix PvP so that Purples give tangible benefits but don't make you godlike, so that both the HC PvP community and the casuals are happy then, and only then, should they start adding PvP features of any sort. Because until PvP in its basic form is fixed no amount of plasters will make the game better.
for spellings
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And if he doesn't? Does that mean what he says is wrong? I don't think so.
This could go back and forth til the end of the world comes. But until someone proves him wrong, then no-one can say his statement is false. You don't have to go searching for his source to do this, find your own. But so far no-one has posted anything. (if they have then i've missed it because i'm tired) 
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If he doesn't, then he isn't proven right. In light of his posting history, I'm not inclined to run around spending my time proving or disproving what could have been a throwaway remark that took him all of 5 seconds to invent and type in.
So, no more back and forth, but my opinion ain't shifting until someone else makes the effort to provide hard figures. And traditionally the onus is on the person that makes an assertion to back it up if necessary.
(Example: If I was to say "I know Ghostraptor's actually a member of the Albanian royal family - the proof's on the web somewhere, but I can't be bothered to link to it", would your default position be to believe me until someone else spent time disproving it? 
)
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(Example: If I was to say "I know Ghostraptor's actually a member of the Albanian royal family - the proof's on the web somewhere, but I can't be bothered to link to it", would your default position be to believe me until someone else spent time disproving it? )
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Yes.
*hides from His Majesty* 
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Because even if you assume that the previously quoted 25% of the population is a 100% PvPer is correct
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Which, of course, it isn't. It isn't even vaguely close to 25%. No matter what spurious claims anyone may have made (and after GR's rather extreme use of the delete facilit, I have no idea who did).
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If they can fix PvP so that Purples give tangible benefits but don't make you godlike, so that both the HC PvP community and the casuals are happy then, and only then, should they start adding PvP features of any sort. Because until PvP in its basic form is fixed no amount of plasters will make the game better.
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You requirements for 'fixed' seem a little extreme for me. I don't like PvP that much either, but I wouldn't deny them at least some time because I've set impossible to meet parameters for a level playing field.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
I think the lessons need to be learned for CoX2. If they are going to do PvP (and, as GG says, it does fit with the comic book hero theme) it needs to be part of the core game - something you will be introduced to naturally through play, not something way off to the side. WAR made a good job of this. CO looks like making the same mistake as CoX: however good or bad the PvP is, they are shunting it off to the side in arenas, condemning it to be a minority activity.
I really should do something about this signature.
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I think the lessons need to be learned for CoX2. If they are going to do PvP (and, as GG says, it does fit with the comic book hero theme) it needs to be part of the core game - something you will be introduced to naturally through play, not something way off to the side. WAR made a good job of this. CO looks like making the same mistake as CoX: however good or bad the PvP is, they are shunting it off to the side in arenas, condemning it to be a minority activity.
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Agreed.
There are alot of things that could be learned from WAR. The PvP/RvR has alot to offer and is the most accessable I've encountered so far in an MMO. As a so called "Carebear" I've never liked PvP, however WAR has changed my view on it. From my experience they actually got it right, the various classes seem fairly well balanced and there's objectives to all the PvP activities beyond simply finding someone to fight. AT balance aside I think that is one aspect that PvP in CoX is sorely lacking.
One of the biggest differences I've noticed is that games where PvP is successful always have a globally available range of classes. In WoW both sides have access to every class in the game (last time I checked) and in War every Order class has its Destruction counterpart, essentially repainted with a coat of evil. I think that's on thing that makes PvP in CoX a problem as there is no parity between hero and villain ATs it makes balancing harder, especially with the way Villain ATs are either hybrids of hero ATs or, in the case of MMs, have no comparable hero AT at all.
The Public Quests are another thing that would lend itself well to CoX as a number of zones have a theme to them that a PQ could be built around (It could even be used to take GMs off timed spawning rotas.
I entirely agree that if they are going to do PvP, then it needs to be engineered in from the start.
As to 'integrating it into the flow of play,' well there it depends on how it's done. I haven't played WAR, so I don't know where that's going, but I dumped my interest in Spellborne because their idea of 'integration' was to make a major resource gathering area fully PvP. If you wanted to do crafting, you were going to end up getting ganked. I considered this to be... a mistake on their part. (We'll see, the game has yet to launch in English, and appears to have gone with some odd form of F2P system.)
Anyway, if there's some natural mechanism for introducing people to some areas where PvP can happen, then that's good. If you end up in situations where PvP is a progression requirement, then no.
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however good or bad the PvP is, they are shunting it off to the side in arenas, condemning it to be a minority activity.
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OTOH, the quoted reason (AFAIK) for the I13 PvP changes being designed to handle Arena PvP is because that's where the US servers do most of their PvP.
Also, Arena PvP seems to be 'the way forward' as far as game companies are concerned, since they can push it as an e-Sport. Blizzard, in particular, are going that way, with entire servers devoted only to Arena PvP, and a world championship with fairly large, cash prizes at the end of it.
While the companies continue to support 'Zonal' PvP (Battlegroup PvP for WoW), it's the Arena PvP they can make the money off.
Oh, before anyone from the PvP 'camp' comes in suggesting that these big championships encourage others to try PvP, I highly doubt it. They did some study which suggests that the Olympics has no effect on people's participation in sport, and may actually have a negative effect since most people can't hope to attain the level Olympic athletes have. I rather suspect that wandering into a zone as a newbie, get your [censored] handed to you and it just not being like it was in that arena match video you saw, is going to have about the same effect.
PvP is a minority sport in MMOs. It's a minority activity in WoW, where it's heavily pushed. I suspect the same is true of WAR. It's not going to stop being a minority activity in CoX2.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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I suspect the same is true of WAR.
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Nope, I doubt there are many people who have played WAR and not tried PvP. You could avoid it if you tried really hard, but if you follow the storyline you will be lead into PvP. It's not a matter of having to wander into gank-zones in order to get stuff you need though. The key feature are the instanced scenarios - and if you go in, you go in to fight.
I really should do something about this signature.
WAR's PvP works because the whole game and much of the audience are there for said PvP. In fact if anything the PvE suffers a good bit for it, being more of a side show.
I think (Although i'd happily be proved wrong) that really a game can't have its cake and eat it too in this case. Balancing between PvP and PvE takes too much time and is too much of a high wire act to work, you're going to have to choose one or the other.
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WAR's PvP works because the whole game and much of the audience are there for said PvP. In fact if anything the PvE suffers a good bit for it, being more of a side show.
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I think (Although i'd happily be proved wrong) that really a game can't have its cake and eat it too in this case. Balancing between PvP and PvE takes too much time and is too much of a high wire act to work, you're going to have to choose one or the other.
[/ QUOTE ] I think this is a matter of approach. If you start with classes balanced for PvP and build the PvE around that framework then it's probably possible to for a game to have its cake and feast until it explodes. CoX was founded on PvE so shoe-horning PvP into the game was unlikely to end well.
Plus then we have the AT's. CoV ones are more hybrid for PVP, where as CoH ones fall more into the holy trinity type, Tank, Damage, Healer.
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WAR's PvP works because the whole game and much of the audience are there for said PvP. In fact if anything the PvE suffers a good bit for it, being more of a side show.
I think (Although i'd happily be proved wrong) that really a game can't have its cake and eat it too in this case. Balancing between PvP and PvE takes too much time and is too much of a high wire act to work, you're going to have to choose one or the other.
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Which to me sounds a lot like EVE, where PvP is the basis of pretty much everything you do and my main reason I no longer play.
I liked PvP in CoH because anyone could jump in and do something fun, IOs removed that for me I'm never going to farm, an activity I do but loath to fully slot builds to just fight people. If my PvE build worked acceptably in PvP that'd be okay, with IO sets, and especially the purple sets I can't compete. ((Okay that's a vast simplification and not entirely true, but to me thats what caused PvP to stop being fun and become a non-fun activity)) As for the arenas I never enjoyed their completely stultifying boredom, yes I know now you can change maps and stuff but my bad experiences in there means I won't now try them.
TBH While I no longer play on a PvP server, I think the World PvP version of PvP in WoW is the best I have seen, though personally I prefer the consensual version on PvE servers, though with our population I don't think that'd work.
For me CoH2 would have world PvP, (flaggable on PvE servers). Then you'd get that epic villains battling the heroes scrum you see in comics, it'd be consensual so that those of who don't care for PvP, or for that battle can ignore or avoid it entirely. And to help balance things I'd remove the artificial Archetypes system, so that you can be who you chose to be. You'd still be limited to Blaster Corruptor etc but both sides would have the whole gamut of ATs, which would be much easier to balance. sure you might need to change the names for the different sides, but I fail to see why a heroic mastermind couldn't be called a Commander or something similar. And I'd add a middle ground, that everyone would start out as a neutral type who could become either good or bad, and change from one to the other where their every deed (both PvP and PvE) would let them define who they are. I'd sign up for the game now...
Arena's would remain and become the only place that teams from the same faction could duke it out, plus add danger room scenarios for those of us who are happy fighting computers.
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After all, the scarlet witch isnt gonna do all that well in a fight with Thor is she? - Unless she gets that one hex in.
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Which she will succeed in doing 100% of the time if the story requires it
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Yeah but that's the point. this isnt a story. It's live playing so you cant apply your point here.
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But that is my point
In a comicbook story, all heroes and villains can find a way of defeating each other if the story requries it, but in a comicbook game, some ATs/classes will just be stronger than others because they're designed to be that way.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Take base raids for example. Why do they have to be limited to bases? Why cant two SGs, of either villian v hero or same side v same side duke it out in a city zone? And i dont mean an instanced one. I mean in the same zone that we play but they, having been allocated, can fight and any other player cant join in?
Why cant the devs invent some incentive for these battles?
They dont even have to invent em. There are hundereds of JLAvJSA or X men v Avengers stories they can swipe to create a compelling reason to fight.
Who knows? Maybe some PvE players would get the PvP bug.
The players would love it. And they'de be great to watch too. I could go on and on.
Just a bit of imagination and forward planning is required to spruce this game up no end.
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I cant believe Im agreeing with you, but you have hit some nails there.
Although the number of non-pvp zones where hero and villain SG could duke it out is severely limited due to certain reasons..
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(snip)For me CoH2 would have world PvP, (flaggable on PvE servers). Then you'd get that epic villains battling the heroes scrum you see in comics, it'd be consensual so that those of who don't care for PvP, or for that battle can ignore or avoid it entirely. And to help balance things I'd remove the artificial Archetypes system, so that you can be who you chose to be. You'd still be limited to Blaster Corruptor etc but both sides would have the whole gamut of ATs, which would be much easier to balance. sure you might need to change the names for the different sides, but I fail to see why a heroic mastermind couldn't be called a Commander or something similar. And I'd add a middle ground, that everyone would start out as a neutral type who could become either good or bad, and change from one to the other where their every deed (both PvP and PvE) would let them define who they are. I'd sign up for the game now...
Arena's would remain and become the only place that teams from the same faction could duke it out, plus add danger room scenarios for those of us who are happy fighting computers.
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Now that sounds like an excellent idea!
GR... post this to Posi. In giant huge letters! Twice!
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one thing ppl has to consider, COX was original made for PVE-only, so it's not such a wonder that PVP doesn't work out the way it is now.
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one thing ppl has to consider, COX was original made for PVE-only, so it's not such a wonder that PVP doesn't work out the way it is now.
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Wrong. CoX wasn't originally designed for PvE only because of CoV. The intention of PvP was always there because of the creation of CoV. Just because CoV wasn't implemented until issue 7, and arena's wasn't implemented until issue 4 doesn't mean that CoX was specifically desinged for PvE only. If it was however CoV would've been released as a separate game, but that wouldn't have been a good decision from a business perspective.
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one thing ppl has to consider, COX was original made for PVE-only, so it's not such a wonder that PVP doesn't work out the way it is now.
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Wrong. CoX wasn't originally designed for PvE only because of CoV. The intention of PvP was always there because of the creation of CoV. Just because CoV wasn't implemented until issue 7, and arena's wasn't implemented until issue 4 doesn't mean that CoX was specifically desinged for PvE only. If it was however CoV would've been released as a separate game, but that wouldn't have been a good decision from a business perspective.
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They may have had in mind during development that they would "add PvP at some point in the future" but they certainly didn't let it influence thier design desisions, or a whole load of things (ATs, powersets) would have been designed differently from the start.
PvP was not added for CoV though, it was added much earlier, but Sorudo never said it was.
I really should do something about this signature.
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Take base raids for example. Why do they have to be limited to bases? Why cant two SGs, of either villian v hero or same side v same side duke it out in a city zone? And i dont mean an instanced one. I mean in the same zone that we play but they, having been allocated, can fight and any other player cant join in?
Why cant the devs invent some incentive for these battles?
They dont even have to invent em. There are hundereds of JLAvJSA or X men v Avengers stories they can swipe to create a compelling reason to fight.
Who knows? Maybe some PvE players would get the PvP bug.
The players would love it. And they'de be great to watch too. I could go on and on.
Just a bit of imagination and forward planning is required to spruce this game up no end.
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I cant believe Im agreeing with you, but you have hit some nails there.
Although the number of non-pvp zones where hero and villain SG could duke it out is severely limited due to certain reasons..
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You mean that heroes cant go to villian zones and vica versa?
I'm in favour of opening up all the zones.
Of actually setting missions in the opposing zones. Where the player who enters the opposing zone cannot attack but can be attacked. (They will then be able to fight.)
The player entering the enemy zone can be granted a small stealth bonus so that if they are clever and careful they MAY avoid being spotted.
I mean, again on the why not theme, why can't heroes enter Grandville at great risk (and therefore great reward?)And vica versa? There's instant PvP straight away and because of the "danger" involved, will be fun.
Don't get into a flap. It's only my opinion and I'm thick
Arc 56763 Lord Anarchys heaven
2 mission arc. Bring friends cause Lord Anarchy means business...
Sorudo said CoX. Last time I checked PRAF, CoX was both CoH and CoV combined. Please do correct me if I am wrong on that one though.
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After all, the scarlet witch isnt gonna do all that well in a fight with Thor is she? - Unless she gets that one hex in.
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Which she will succeed in doing 100% of the time if the story requires it
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Yeah but that's the point. this isnt a story. It's live playing so you cant apply your point here.
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But that is my point
In a comicbook story, all heroes and villains can find a way of defeating each other if the story requries it, but in a comicbook game, some ATs/classes will just be stronger than others because they're designed to be that way.
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I reread your post and you are right. I read it wrong. Sorry. I agree with your post, which by the way, was excellent and well thought out.
Don't get into a flap. It's only my opinion and I'm thick
Arc 56763 Lord Anarchys heaven
2 mission arc. Bring friends cause Lord Anarchy means business...
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one thing ppl has to consider, COX was original made for PVE-only, so it's not such a wonder that PVP doesn't work out the way it is now.
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I stated in an earlier post that was not the case.
Don't get into a flap. It's only my opinion and I'm thick
Arc 56763 Lord Anarchys heaven
2 mission arc. Bring friends cause Lord Anarchy means business...
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one thing ppl has to consider, COX was original made for PVE-only, so it's not such a wonder that PVP doesn't work out the way it is now.
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I stated in an earlier post that was not the case.
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Not strictly the case, it was designed with the intent to add PvP in time, but that didn't alter the core game and all the AT's being designed primarily for PvE play. Such is blatantly obvious in the difficulties experienced with balancing the game for PvP.
IF it had been designed with PvP from the start, this issue wouldn't exist.
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