I'm about to join the madness

Freedom....here I come.

Itching to PvP since Pinnacle's small PvP community is almost non-existant, to none at all. I'm still trying to revive some interest in that server, but I have to say, it probably won't work. Freedom is unofficially the PvP server for this game.

Hence...I'm transferring the following lineup I have.

Heroes:
Sonic/NRG Blaster
MA/Regen Scrapper
Invuln/DM Tank
WP/NRG Tank
Psi/NRG Blaster(Maybe. Not sure yet)
Rad/NRG Blaster

Villains:
Thugs/Dark MM
NRG/NRG Stalker
Ice/Cold Corruptor


I'm ready to pwn! I'm ready to GET Pwned! I'm ready to have some good fun. The questions is.....who do I sell my soul to to get a pretty decent SG/VG for some crazy crazy fun. >

SEE YOU ALL THERE!

To be honest, I don't know if any real SG's even exist anymore. No competitive PvP exists anymore, so there's not much point in having an SG. Most people just do random kickballs. Welcome to the server though!

Aww. So no tourneys? like 5v5s tourneys and what not? Ah well. I'll still join just for the PvP aspect.

there is some 5v5 and 8v8 and kick ball going on usually.

I for one welcome our new n00000bish freedom RV overlords from other servers.

Don't move ice cold.....

free transfers are a step in the right direction but its still the same game. this game is on its last leg, dont expect any vets to invest much effort into building a pvp sg and i sincerely doubt we are getting any new subscribers. small groups of friends is the best you can expect.

Here's how I look at it:

This game is nearly six years old. Its population has been on a steady (very small, but it's there) decline for the last few years, and I13 and the MA fiasco in I14 and I15 didn't help that. I'm hoping it sticks around for a while longer, because there's now competition and competition is usually good for the customer (we've been getting lots of new stuff thanks to CO, really). I don't see the game going away anytime soon, but unless there's a massive advertisement campaign or something like that, or GR is really good, we won't be getting a large number of new subscribers. I think GR will appeal mostly to the subscribers the game already has, and I'm sure that's the main goal of the expansion, but getting some new blood in would be welcome. Regardless of how many new subscribers we get, I very highly doubt many - if any - would come for the PvP, especially if they've been following things around here the last year or so, or talking to the PvPers who still play.

In regards to PvP, I13 basically took everything about the old system and threw it out the window. We're now back at the metaphorical I4 in figuring out what works and what doesn't. The problem here is that in I4 they had nothing to compare the system with, but we have 8 issues of pre-I13 PvP experience to compare our current experiences. It doesn't help that the PvP population across all servers right now is probably smaller than the PvP population when I4 first launched (and probably into I5 as well). It took quite a while for organized PvP to get going when it was first introduced, but I don't think it will happen this time around, because the new players don't have the experience and the vets don't want to have all their work wrecked without notice or input like last time.

Just one correction to all that. The I4 PvP population was HUGE! It was the only time that I saw arenas filled with people. It was new and lots of people wanted to try it.

A lot of folks were disappointed in how their characters performed because they would almost never die in PvE but get destroyed in seconds and so they started to not come back to arenas. Little by little, the arenas got less and less populated.

By the time I6 came out and introduced zone PvP there was an established group of PvPers and a lot of folks that dabbled in it. But many of the dabblers never returned after their first assassin strike death. (Remember, this was before the one shot code, perception IOs, and DR. Stalkers routinely had one shot kills). It was at this time, in my opinion, that we started to see a big rift between PvE players and PvP players.

But I certainly agree that I13 precipitated the biggest loss of PvPers in the history of the game. Although I have seen a few familiar faces returning here and there, which is encouraging.

Hey flea...I have one correction of my own regarding that. From what I remember, PvP really wasn't that active when arenas went live. It was totally off the hook on the test server BEFORE the issue went live. There were just hundreds of people in the arena 24/7.

Then when it went live, I was actually really disappointed. I came home expecting to PvP, and saw a completely empty arena on Freedom. Gave it about a week, and didn't see any activity....so I gave up on it. That's when I made the biggest mistake of my PvP "career" in CoH lol. I figured PvP wouldn't go anywhere, so I used my last respecs to respec all my toons back into PvE builds. Literally like 5 minutes after I was done respeccing my last toon, I got an invite from a friend to be one of the founding members of Tribute.....and I declined. Still kinda regret that hehe.

Yeah, I4 test arenas were crazy. It was standing room only. But it was like that the first few days of I4 too. All the folks who never bothered to go to test wanted to try it out. And let's face it, the grand majority of players don't go to test.

But it didn't last very long at all. The arena was very buggy, the interface was confusing, and there was zero balance. These were the days of six slotted hasten and stamina. The days when Hamidon could not kill a well slotted regen scrapper. The days before break frees when a controller could perma hold you and a dark melee could perma fear you.

It was fun because it was different, but it was also really badly designed and revealed the design flaws to everyone. These design flaws lead to the lunacy of brawl toggle dropping, Enhancement Diversification, and the great Global Defense Nerf.

Which reminds me, that was another reason that PvEers disliked PvPers. They were blamed for the nerfs. It wasn't the PvPers fault. They didn't make the design, they only revealed the flaws. But the PvEers blamed them anyway and many of them were quite nasty about it. PvPers, being a jaded and mouthy bunch in general, didn't like the vitriol thrown their way and responded in kind. But that was one of the triggers that created a big schism between those two communities.

This moment in COH history was brought to you by the number 3 and the letter X.

I disagree. The devs need to stop trying to get people to PvP and just make it fast paced, fairly balanced (it will never be completely balanced), with everything having some use and some counter. It used to be all of that, although it could have used some balancing tweaks and bug fixes.

But their attempt to lure in PvEers by adding badges, travel supression, diminishing returns and PvP shields did not lure many (if any) to enter the ring. Quite the opposite, it lead to an exodus.

Some people will never like PvP no matter what. They play the game to escape and relax and don't want to compete with other players. Some will be willing to enter the fray after they've mastered the rest of the game to try and find a new challenge. To keep that group, the game has to be intuitive and fun.