What Are Heroes Running FROM?

Ah, but the perception is half of one, six dozen of the other as far as that goes. Even if it was just the 'Incoming!' (which I actually enjoy, and will make a bind for next time I'm in game) there's still the element where the aggressor is expected to back off it the target says they're not interested. If they do, then it doesn't matter HOW it's worded, it's still asking permission, and if they don't there's going to be SOMEONE who petitions for harassment. I can almost guarantee it.

I' have to say something about this excact point. People that get involved in pvp do so because they want more of a challange then NPCs that have the excact same routine every single time. We don't go to these zones to kill AFKers or for the drops but simply cause it's the next level of challenge for us. That's all.

When you've done all the hard content the only real surprise left is pvp that's why I do it and anyone that is truly interested in pvp.

I can't log into the game right now (nasty malware) or I would try it myself. I can't see it being anything other than entertaining.

Some will get ready for a fight (watch those Inspirations glow!), others will flee (or try to otherwise break targeting), others will ask you not to attack. In all cases, it should be much more fun than just ASing the guy, doing a followup, and then running if he doesn't drop (for example).

First off, i'm not a PvPer. For me to be considered a PvPer I would have to accept that there is another person on the other side of the computer and not some pinata that drops PvP IOs; I don't. I'm a farmer.

If you would like someone to Explain ask: Mac, Conflict, Silit, or any of the other folks that call themselves PvPers.

I'm moving one of my zone farmers to freedom for one reason and it isn't to PvP. I'm going there to farm more pinatas.

That's hilarious and true.

<3

That's sig-able

The scene: 1960. A pilot is preparing to take off from a base in England in an aircraft that looks far too fragile to be a military airplane, to fly high enough he can see the curvature of the earth, and hopefully avoid detection (and destruction) by the people he's flying over. He is a U-2 pilot.

As he approaches the Soviet border, he turns his radio on. Using the Russian he learned during training, he says "Hey, guys, American spy plane here. I'm at 80,000 feet," and proceeds to give them heading and flight plan information.

What do you think would happen to such a pilot? On the plus side, he wouldn't be seeing a court martial or charge of treason....

Not applicable? OK, how about this.

Stalingrad, late 1942. Vassili Zaitsev, Soviet sniper, hides and waits for a likely Nazi target to come by.

There! He sees his quarry - a German officer. He takes aim, then stands up and breaks cover to yell "Hey, you, I'm going to shoot you now, stand still!"

Instead of being seen as a war hero, even having movies (such as Enemy at the Gates) based on the stories around him, he's used for the next half century plus as a lesson on "How not to behave as a sniper."

Get what's being said?

That said, I mentioned earlier, I like the hunt. So, in my case, I'll watch what's going on. I'll watch things develop over several minutes, if need be, and weigh - well, multiple factors, not just "can I take them" into if I attack, ignore/avoid, or offer to help.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Dolphins have legs now? OH CRAPPLES! It was bad enough when Mako was born, now?
GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!

I'm not in the camp that expects an attacker to back off if i ask in a PvP zone, so i'd say they were wrong. I don't want immunity from PvP, but the other end of the spectrum isn't any fun wither, which is why i don't PvP.

Eco.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

I'm sorry but I'm not sure i understand what you're saying here. You say you're not a PvPer, but your sig says you are. I think your farming reference means that you 'farm' other players in pvP zones, which would imply that your preferred targets are the easiest kills, which I guess would be AFK corruptors.

If that's the case, then you are indeed the worst kind of PvPer.

In any case, I think your viewpoint and attitude falls outside of the parameters of this discussion. If you really believe that PCs in a PvP zone aren't being controlled by real humans, then you have issues beyond this subject.

Eco.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

That struck me as a bit patronising, Bill, tbh.

I don't think either of your analogies are of any use here. The U-2 spyplane doesn't have any weapons. The pilot would indeed be an idiot to do as you say (which is far more than the simple "Incoming" I suggested, which would give any indication of location or direction). He is a lone, weaponless individual facing the entire array of Soviet anti-aircraft arms, both ground-based and airborne. A CoH PvP analogy to your U-2 example would be a single Stalker who walks up to a huge group of the opposing faction and drops Hide, for example.

And in Vasily Zaytsev's case, his aim was to one-shot his opponents without being noticed. That was perfectly understandable for him, of course, but the same incidence in CoH would be like a stalker who has the ability to one-shot from Hide. That would be wonderfully entertaining in a single player game, but I don't see anyone advocating that Stalkers be powered up so that they can do that. Also, "Hey, you, I'm going to shoot you now, stand still!" isn't what i was suggesting. You've added the standing up thing.

Eco.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Yes, but I was thinking something more along the lines of (with apologies to those who like myself had relatives in the war):

Japan, 1945
The phone of a commander of a military base in Hiroshima rings. The commander picks it up. "Moshi Moshi."

On the other end of the line, he hears a voice with an American accent say one word. "Incoming."

You get the idea.

Not meant that way. However, you did miss the point.

That first shot, getting in without being detected (in the stalker/veat/ILL controller/anyone with stealth case even more so) is vital. It's a big advantage. Giving that up isn't "sporting," it's suicide.

Also, there are PVE enemies running around. Why in the *world* would anyone need warning to put toggles on? They should have them on anyway! You're in a zone with patrolling enemies of various powers even *without* enemy players in it. Patrols don't give warning (usually. I'm talking the zone patrols here.) They're just as likely to attack/hold/etc. you after all - and some with nasty effects. Why should it be ... requested of a PVP enemy when it's not of the patrols (and ambushes, some of which have tricks no player does?)

TBH, even with a stalker, you've got to be facing a *darn* careful one not to get any warning - sound of build up, a weapon being drawn, etc. Hell, I suggest to people, if it's possible, to head for water if they think they're being hunted. Why? Because the only power that'll let you sneak up on them in that case is fly. SS will leave ripples. *Walk* will leave ripples. SJ will splash. TP, you should hear - and they'd better have hover or they're making a splash. Using a jetpack? You should be able to hear them.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Except, of course, the Enola Gay wasn't hidden. Its arrival (that of its flight of three, actually) wasn't a surprise. It was ignored. B-29s, in small flights, often made recon flights and weather flights. It might pick up an alert that maybe a raid was following, but it wasn't worth it to send someone up to attack given the fuel situation Japan faced (among other things.)

Game-wise? "Hey, look, a mastermind running towards me. I'm just going to keep walking to get my badge, obviously they won't attack me" is more similar to what happened. Sure, your example hit *harder,* but it was still a choice to ignore a potential threat.

And TBH, done *that* way? I think we'd get nothing more than even more "PVPers are jerks" posts, as it comes off as... arrogant, barring pre-arranged RPvP or characters that otherwise "know" each other.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I found that both in highly questionable taste and amusing!

But i dont think its a good analogy either. Unless the hiroshima guy's got some awesome toggles.

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Given two targets, I can make two decisions (and the decision I make depends on a number of factors such as the targets and the character I'm playing):

1. I can attack the AFK person first, as it's his mistake for going AFK in the middle of the zone in open sight. Odds are it'll be a quick kill, which will leave me time to deal with the other target.

2. I can attack the non-AFK person first. This is significantly more risky and time-consuming, and might not have the desired outcome (me getting in a kill and getting out, essentially) - for example, I might chase that person and suddenly find myself in the middle of a dozen heroes I couldn't see because I didn't have any perception.

If the non-AFK person hasn't noticed me, and my escape powers are up, I'll take out the AFK target first. If he has, I'll deal with him before I go on to the AFK target, because I want to deal with the target that poses the greater threat. Under other circumstances, I'll take out the AFK one first, because the most it will cost that person is a piece of a Shivan or nuke, or just a trip to the hospital. Unless the person is completely incompetent, none of those is a significant setback.

This is one of the key distinctions between a PvEer and a PvPer: the PvPer is competitive. As such, the PvPer will use situations and mechanics to his advantage as the game allows. You don't like that I'm constantly TPing you into traps? Bring oranges or find a Kin with ID. I could provide more examples, but most PvPer tactics are fairly simple to counter if you just stop and think about them. Neither I nor most PvPers log into a zone and think to themselves, "Hm, I'm looking for some easy kills today!" but I'm not going to pass over one when I see it. It's the PvP equivalent of a free meal. If I kill someone once or twice and they ask me to stop, I'll consider. I don't make it my intent to grief people in a PvP zone, though if I see two people trying to duel in an open zone I'll kindly remind them that the arena is the place for dueling (and as of I16 it's only one slash command away!), before killing the person on the opposite side.

As I said before, the reason the PvP population has become smaller is not due to the players themselves - a very small minority is the loud, trash-talking group, and more often than not they aren't even the good PvPers. It's perception and stereotypes, though. If you want to continue thinking that all PvPers are dirty antisocial gankers, though, by all means continue to do so, because it makes no difference what your views on PvP are once you step foot into a PvP zone - at that point, you're fair game. You've got your ways of avoiding PvP, and it's up to you how you use them. You want to completely avoid PvP altogether by staying out of the PvP zones? That's fine too, no one is really losing out there.

PvEers have never added to the PvP population reliably, and every attempt made to do so has failed spectacularly. In short, if someone doesn't want to PvP, they won't PvP and nothing is going to make them PvP. As for the rest of that list, I'll just sit here grinning smugly because it's so amusingly wrong. The PvPers don't care if the PvEers don't come into PvP zones, because for the most part there are enough PvPers to keep them busy. Especially with the free server transfer token thing going on now, I don't see there being an issue with this anymore (and all the PvEers get to have the PvP zones on the low-population servers all to themselves! Yeah, have fun with that...). Other than random doom-mongering and ridiculous guesswork, that list is pretty lolworthy.

Yep, every PvPer wants the PvP population to grow. However, PvPers know that not every PvEer who comes into a PvP zone is going to stick around no matter what happens, so they more often than not get a crash course in PvP and either decide it's fun or decide it sucks. Even if one person out of 100 decides it's fun, that's still a win at the end of the day. The PvEers who will stick around and become good PvPers aren't the ones who will stand around and whine in broadcast about how things suck and are broken - they're the ones who are learning from their own mistakes, looking at how other players do what they do, and remember what they see, and then come back the next time with that knowledge in-hand and find themselves doing much better. If that sort of person decides that the broadcast banter is annoying, they know enough to turn it off.

How do you know whether someone "knows what they're doing" before you attack them? I hide from searches on most of my PvP characters so I don't show up in the /whoall searches particularly because I want to have the advantage of surprise. You could, I suppose, apply a slippery slope argument to that and say "well in that case you'd be very happy with just beating up on a zone full of AFK enemies" and to a point, you'd be right. That'd get mighty boring after a while, though. If I wanted to do that, I'd PvE, because PvE doesn't have the ridiculous ruleset and the rewards are far better. I PvP because I never know what to expect, because it's unpredictable, because I need to always be on my guard or risk being killed quickly, and because my opponents are actually (at least semi)intelligent people who are doing the same thing I am. When I send that that tell that I'm attacking, they either get on the defensive or run, which makes what I'm trying to do (get a kill) significantly harder. My little row of army men isn't going to yell over a megaphone "Hey is it okay if we attack you now?" to the other little row of army men. If I knew that every target I saw would be a non-threat, then I might consider telling them I was going to attack them, but I'd rather just let them be surprised and see how they handle it - sometimes it's them that surprises me, and I like that. When something like that happens, I just say "bah," and click the "go to hospital" button. Nothing lost for me except maybe a few seconds of travel time across the zone.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Well, I am the worst pvper on Virtue. But you flatter me. I'm blushing, really.