Tweaks and fixes

Send a gift basket and I bet they find that spread sheet.

I know I'm reaching way out on a limb here, but... suggestions for new arena maps? On larger teams pretty much anything goes but I've noticed that for smaller team matches and 1v1s it seems to always be cargo ship, lab, or Perez. Preferably a medium-sized map with a decent amount of geometry.

Grandville map.

Also, fix Defender kthnx

Yeh i would love to see Defenders get Focussed Acc or hibernate to at least level the playing field in dueling situations. Would love to respec my cold/dark defender to have FA or Hiber..

Give defenders old defiance but toned down :P

Just give Defenders a mash-up of the Tanker and Blaster cold pools:

* Flash Freeze, 41
* Block of Ice, 41
* Frozen Armor, 44
* Hoarfrost, 44
* Hibernate, 47

I was musing today during class, so I filled a page of my notebook with suggestions and new ideas. As in the past I'll try to say not only why the changes are a good idea, but how they will benefit everyone in the long run.

MECHANICAL CHANGES

* Remove travel suppression (i.e. the arena option, not remove PvP TS and replace it with PVE TS). This does not significantly change balance nor hinder someone with slow reactions, but it does bring some of the fast movement back into the game. With no TS, there is no need to be suppressed when attacked because your opponent will be able to catch right back up to you when their animation is finished (right now, many attacks trigger suppression that is longer than suppression caused by being attacked, which makes no sense if you're using it as a tool to enforce fighting). Keep a 2-second duration unresisted suppression for being hit by a melee attack from a melee AT, except in TS-off arena matches. This ensures melee characters are useful in both being able to stay with a target, and helping keep the target near them (in conjunction with taunt) so their teammates can assist them.
* Cut in half, or remove, heal decay. Heal decay in its current implementation makes getting a kill as simple as "attack until the target dies," and the outcome of a fight should not be as predictable as "spam damage." Coordination should be rewarded, not random attacking. HD and TS combine to make the PvP experience sluggish and awkward and reward teams that bring ranged characters with fast-animating and fast-recharging attacks instead of rewarding teams that bring a variety of abilities. In short, if you want to appeal to the current PvPers and make the system more fun for everyone in the process, something needs to be done about either TS or HD, and preferably both.
* Reduce PvP base resistances for squishies from 40% to 20%. This change would allow the base resistances to still be meaningful, but would allow resistance buffs (Sonic/Therm shields, World of Pain, orange inspires) to become more sought-after and commonplace. This change would negatively impact the survivabilities of squishies, but the removal of travel suppression and heal decay would more than make up for it by allowing the player to get out of a bad situation more easily.
* Further reduce the ranged damage output of melee ATs - currently many melee builds are able to put damage similar to a Blaster, but they have twice the HP, self-heals, and looser DR curves to keep them alive when they are targeted. I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to put out ranged damage, but they should not be outdamaging dedicated ranged damage dealers - that's what melee range is for.
* Increase the damage scale on Assassin's Strike. For an interruptible power which requires you to be in melee range to execute to barely take off half of a squishy's HP is just plain silly. It doesn't need to be where it was at before I13, but it does need to have some merit other than its status as a "signature attack." Currently, some Stalkers are skipping AS entirely and instead focusing on spamming sharks at range.
* Loosen the DR restrictions on recharge, damage, and defense, as well as slightly increasing the amount of allowed resistance on squishies - they still have less HP than a melee character, so the same amount of resistance or defense will not get them as far. Boosts to recharge and damage mean builds built around a certain performance level (faster recharge on AM or Domination, for example) will not be unfairly penalized, and ATs focused on damage (Blasters, Stalkers) will benefit more from damage buffs.
* Boost PvP base resistances of VEATs and Khelds from 10% to 20%.
* Give Banes elusivity in Cloaking Device, if it is possible. Banes cannot get defense in meaningful numbers on their own without a lot of investment in IO sets, and even then they have no resistance to back their defense, which is often shredded through like it's not there because of the lack of elusivity. Widows fare a bit better, but they still lack meaningful resistance.
* Bump elusivity granted from 10% to 15 or 20%, which would give us a middle ground between the perception of "too powerful" we had in I13 and the perception of "too weak" we have now.
* Add -maxspeed back into slow powers, though tone it down from the PvE numbers. This ensures that one application of a slow will have a noticeable, but not large, effect, and you don't need to stack multiple slows in order to produce meaningful results.
* Return a portion of Blaster damage (not necessarily 10% like it was before I13, perhaps 5% would be better) to being unresisted. Likewise, return Scrapper and Stalker crits, as well as Corruptor Scourge damage, to being unresisted. If possible, make a portion (10%? 20%?) of Defender debuffs unresisted, so as to players a reason to want Defenders over Corruptors in some situations in PvP again.
* Reduce the -range from taunt powers to 50% or 66% (currently at 75%) or make the -range require a tohit check and not stack from the same caster. Taunt powers should show the caster a hit roll on the taunt itself, instead of just saying the power is autohit and then informing the caster whether or not the taunt was successful.
* Refigure AoE damage, treating AoEs as a single-target attack - factor their damage based on activation, tier, and recharge time. For example, Inferno is supposed to be a very high-damage attack, but most people skip it these days because all it does is tickle your opponent and drain your own endurance.

CHANGES TO THE PvP MEZ SYSTEM

* Standardize cage durations across all ATs, somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 20 seconds. Remove the built-in immobilize (or, see next point).
* Return mez protection, but grant squishies a base mez protection of, say, mag 6. This would allow them to stay functional if at least one mez (and in many cases, even two) hits them long enough for them to respond, instead of being insta-mezzed and spiked as is the current case. As part of this change, the PvP duration of mezzes would be capped at a relatively short duration, something like 10 to 20 seconds. This eliminates insta-mez that could happen under the old and new systems, would allow mez stacking to overcome protection, but would not cause a mezzed state to last a very long time (plus the mezzed player could use a Break Free if it was necessary). This change has the added benefit of allowing powersets based on offensive toggles (Rad and Storm, namely) to not be as frustrating to play. If a player's mez protection gets overcome, the same situation as current applies (offensive toggles drop, but defensive toggles do not, and toggles do not suppress).
* In addition to the above change, damage on mez powers would again be re-figured: higher than current PvE values, but lower than current PvP values. This allows mezzing ATs to both contribute damage-wise and contribute to mez stacking for a short time.
* Telekinesis becomes repel/hold like it is in PvE, but the magnitude of the repel is lowered (or the amount of repel protection a Break Free grants would be increased), so you wouldn't need two Break Frees to overcome it. Additionally, add repel protection to Sturdies ("you are sturdier and more able to resist damage as well as enemy teleportation and repel effects").
* Add KB protection to the list of effects powers like Clear Mind and Clarity protect from (perhaps 9 or 10 mag KB protection, same as Increase Density). ID would still be useful because of the +res and TP protection, while the other powers listed are useful for the +perception and such.

QoL SUGGESTIONS

* Give Defenders an Ice epic pool (for example, Flash Freeze/Block of Ice/Frozen Armor/Hoarfrost/Hibernate) for PvP and PvE equality with other low-HP ATs - yet another reason Corruptors are preferred over Defenders for PvP today is because Defenders must take Phase due to their lack of Hibernate.
* Boost Defender base damage (perhaps this could apply to PvE as well, which would be seen as a buff). Rework Vigilance to provide a meaningful benefit in PvE as well as PvP (for example, replace the end discount with a +special).
* Give Hover more protection to -fly effects, so one Web Grenade cannot drop a flier out of the sky.
* Introduce PvP minigames (capture the flag, king of the hill, etc.) with meaningful rewards such as merits, temp powers, or PvP IOs.
* Give PvP kills boss or elite boss XP, subject to the same timer as PvP IO drops. Provides an incentive for non-50 characters to participate in PvP, but is substantially slower than leveling via PvE, so will not be abused.
* New arena maps (Grandville, Thorn Isle, St. Martial, Praetorian zones).
* An in-interface arena store that lets participants purchase inspirations and temp powers from the /arenalist command (once the participants have joined, of course, so as to prevent someone from listing an empty match for the sole purpose of buying inspirations and then quitting out).
* "No base resistances" option for arena matches.
* An arena or PvP instance queue system, a la CO. Such a queue would allow a player to create or join and then continue doing whatever, and would randomly pick teams based on AT (in an attempt to balance teams as much as possible) and start a match once the queue is full. The queue would have search/matchmaking restrictions based on critera such as desired team size or desired arena rules.
* Cross-server zones and arena, please.

Last time we had a nice list we got pvp 2.0. At least we know we can blame you for pvp 3.0 mac.

*shrug* What I'm suggesting is, in terms of numbers, more like 1.5. I can recognize that some of the changes made in I13 were probably for the better (patron pool changes, resists to everything in epic/patron shields, and the concept of DR isn't one I really agree with but I can understand why it's there), but I also recognize that most of the changes are a steaming pile of crap. If it turns into PvP 3.0, and it's more of a downgrade than an upgrade, I'll probably just end up doing the same thing lots of players did during the I13 beta - unsub, give away my stuff, and leave, and I'm guessing quite a bit of what's left of the PvP population would do the same.

I think that list pretty much sums it up, and the only thing bearable about i13 to me is less OP'd mezzes (but now they are underpowered as mezzes and just attacks), and the changes to squishies defense/resist. It really was crazy when blasters can get the amount of defense some had back before i13, to where my SO'd blaster couldn't even compete with ice/em's especially when they build for defense, idc if its IOs or insps, squishies shouldn't ever be past 30 defense IMO.

Mac suggestion fixes my biggest frustration. If the "Mag 6" Proteciton isnt put in, there needs to be SOME way to allow offensive toggles to stay toggled while being mezzed.

Retoggling hurricane every 10 seconds (2.5+ second animation) is irrirating. Also, the slow cap and the -range cap needs to be lowered. Add a buff to range in a Kin's ID. This would allow Kins to be useful again (+speed to counter slow ID to counter -range). Hey, even allow kins to increase the range of attacks (Maybe half of boost ranges power). You can make it not stack if that would be too overpowered.

Con, it's always mac's fault anyways?

Rite?

I think the only way I could see increasing AS's scale would be if they changed the mez situation. Otherwise, it would be just awful for everyone with /hide in their secondary.

Mac I really dont know about the base resistance button. I think that would be horrible for arena pvp. I am of a mixed opinion on changing the mez system. Assuming the overall goal is still bringing in new pvpers they really should not change anything vital to the system as it is now. I am unsure about these changes and am scared by the fact that they will be forced upon us with a hammer.

Someone did the math (think it was Barrier) and proved that a Blaster in a DR-off match under the current rules would only be dealing slightly more damage than a Blaster under the old rules - but under the old rules, people didn't have epic/patron shields that protected against everything, 10% of Blaster damage was unresisted, and there were unresisted debuffs to drop a target's resistance before the Blaster even start its attack. I don't have a problem with base resists in and of themselves, nor DR - but I have a problem with how the two interact with each other in that they make +res buffs on squishies all but useless.

I'm not saying "IMPLEMENT THESE CHANGES NAO," I'm merely offering them as suggestions for alternatives that are better than what we have right now. The point I'm getting at is making PvP as similar as PvE as possible (basically, with what I'm proposing the only real differences would be DR, global resists, damage changes, and mez changes that are different than PvE but not so different as to completely confuse a new player). One of the current complaints by PvEers about PvP is that it's too different - these suggestions keep the two roughly the same while addressing some of the bigger "worries" (whether real or perceived) that led to the I13 changes. Regarding mez: I don't think the old system was the best, and I don't think the new system is the best, though both have their advantages. I'm merely trying to find a balance between the two.

I'm of the opinion that a combination of both good mechanics and a meaningful rewards system are necessary if the devs wish to draw in new PvPers (which, unfortunately, seems very unlikely no matter what they do) - PvEers are more likely to be attracted if there are really good rewards involved, even if the mechanics aren't spectacular, but it would make sense for things to function more similar to PvE so they're not completely alienated when they walk into a PvP zone. The best rewards structure I can think of are minigames which give good rewards to the winning team.

Do you guys remember on test when that bugged zone went live - I don't know what zone it was, but it was completely unfinished? It had PvP flags set for heroes and villains, but was PvP 1.0 ruleset.

PvP 1.0 ruleset still exists in the PvE world, can we get a zone setup maybe with this flag set? What this would do is allow us to compare PvP 1.0 and 2.0 together apples to apples.

We could actually get some real data like "This is what works in the old system - does it work in the new system? No? Why does it work in the old system and not here? Is there a way to fix that?" Without the two systems sitting paralell, its very difficult to test and compare the two.

You might suggest just trying to forget about 1.0 and look forward altogether, but, as an ebil conservative, I would never want to forget about your past and the things it did RIGHT just to be able to say "Hey, we have progress see?" I also wouldn't want to completely disregard the work done on PvP 2.0 because a lot of features are pretty slick and could help balance out.

Id agree that it was shut down quickly, but I don't think it was the PvP that caused that. I think it was just an unfinished zone that they didn't want let out.

If I was able to go back, I would have liked to fraps some PvP matches to show areas that I think were better in 1.0. It would be nice to give, not only written reasons why we think certain changes should be made, but actually video footage of how certain things worked. putting two zones side by side, even for a weekend, would show the community that you really want test out and get real suggestions on changes, rather than hamstring in tweaks to the current system that might not be best for PvP as a whole.