server merging... pvp server .....eu servers

*Twitches*

Arrrrgh! Make it go away!!

*Curls in fetal position, still twitching*

First off, I'm not an EU player, but I think some of what is being discussed could affect the North American servers if they were implemented. It is for that reason that I'm commenting on this thread.


Mainly I've seen two main points in this thread.

PvP'r numbers on the EU server are low.
Player numbers on the EU servers in general are low.


PvP numbers are low
PvP has never been big in CoH. It wasn't part of the original game. It was added to the systems since some players wanted to PvP.
Apparently that wasn't a very large number of players. There wasn't much PvP going on when the Arena was released. There was a slight increase when the zones were released.
Mission XP in PvP zones was increased to try to lure other players into the PvP zones; this brought some players into the zones for the PvP'r to pounce upon if they had the chance, as most of these player that came for the increased mission xp were there for that reason and not for PvP'ing. As you can figure out, these players that went there just to just run missions get annoyed when they get jumped.
New players have a hard time keeping up with a veteran PvP player even if they had the same gear (enhancements, temp power, etc). The archetypes are incredibly unbalanced in PvP, so some archetypes really do best to avoid PvP.
It isn't fun to lose all the time, so anyone that encounters a situation in PvP where they are beaten down (aka slaughtered vs being defeated) repeatedly - especially by the same PvP opponent or if they are mocked when they are defeated may very well leave the PvP zones never to return ... with any character.


Player numbers on the EU servers in general are low
I'm sorry to hear that the numbers are dwindling. I think that the DEVs were trying to give you the option to consolidate yourselves with the Winter Event server transfer feature. If you can decide as a group which server it is that you want to be on and then the majority of the players migrate to the same server then a server-less or server merger really shouldn't be a point any longer.
With this method, those that want to stay on a less populated server can feel free to do so. The merger plan forces players to move to another server. If the population on one server gets so small that it isn't worth running, I'm sure that the characters there would be "force moved"/merged into the other server before they shutdown that server. So merger is really a last choice sort of situation as far as I'm concerned.
Now merging of server lists! Oh, yeah. I'm all for that. I would love to be able to play on the European servers in addition to the NA servers. That would give me more character slots - hopefully, if this was done - a language option would be in the options menu. Communications don't have be absolute in this game as long as players have their own interface in a language that they can understand (or figure out enough of); I've played on mission teams with people that didn't speak any English and things went along great. Most of the time when I'm on a team of players that speak the same language - many of them are not chatting and the team is just rolling along.
I have the feeling that there are some kinds of legal goings-on that are preventing the mergers of the NA and European servers. It would definitely be good for the game. It would have a drastic effect on the game economy for a short period of time if the WWs were linked. Players would tend to migrate towards servers that they had better connections, so I have the feeling that the EU players that were looking for more PvP would be looking at PvP'ing on NA servers versus NA players moving their characters to EU servers.

Ways to increase PvP'r numbers
For the purpose of this thread - the end result that seems to be the target is really increasing the number of PvP players as opponents.
It is assumed that by increasing the number of players on a server that PvP numbers will increase. This is true but it is by percentage. So it may be for every 100 players that come from another server that only one is a PvP'r - I have the feeling that the percentages are a lot lower than that.
It is assumed that PvP would run smoothly and fairly by an EU player playing on a NA server versus an NA Player - or vice versa. Lag means death in PvP even more quickly than it does in PvE. Is it just that Lag isn't seen to be an issue?
The biggest PvP community on the NA side tended to have events on the Test server - so all the players that wanted to be in the PvP events would copy the current version of their characters to the test server and hash it out there. The problem with that occurs when the server is shutdown for testing (really it's primary use, right?). But this still may be an option - if EU has access to a test server, which I'm assuming they do, but I don't know for sure. These events were on test were all Arena events as far as I know.
PvP contests would be a good way to try to get PvP'rs in the same place at the same time. Use the forums to set up events and send the events into the Niviene so that they will be posted on the calendar.
The biggest PvP turn out on the NA servers was when a DEV or two showed up in a PvP zone to give out yellow names. When that happened, there are are tons of people in whatever PvP zone the DEVs are in. One of my friends saw the event was going on and called me over from another server. Of course, by the next day the zone was back to it's normal virtually empty self.
Then, of course, there are issues of being polite - well really the issue is with some PvP'rs being very rude. When the whole rest of the game allows you to play in an environment that is fairly friendly and helping one other, the PvP zones tend to be the exact opposite.

The flip-side of the coin
Recently, the most populated I've seen a PvP zone was when a group of multi-boxers/multi-account holders were parked on top of the entrance way into a PvP zone (Bloody Bay) I think, and blasting away at their own helpless alts in order to gain PvP recipes. They had no problem attacking the heroes that zoned in or tried to exit the zone. If you didn't know what was going on and zoned in as a hero, wouldn't you start attacking the villains? Most everyone was AFK and one villain seemed to be targeting for all the other villains. So they would only need to turn on you and you were down. Can't blame someone for attacking if they don't know someone is there exploiting the zone's architecture for their own gain. Well this made it to the forums, but this only lured players into zoning in and trying to help, which was only helping the exploiters as now they have "fresh" kills.
It wasn't really about PvP. It was about exploitation of the PvP zones.
Unfortunately, this was the greatest number of PvP players that I had run into a zone in a long time. It was just a couple of people running multiple characters - some seemed to have 3 or more accounts.
It wasn't fun for anyone but them. The new PvP'r that stumbled into that may never go back into a PvP zone. Since they weren't even letting heroes leave the zone (they were sitting on the zone in/out point doing all this), some players couldn't get their heroes out of the zone before they were killed and sent to the hospital. I would have to say, that that experience may have been so frustrating for a few that they never returned to the game - let alone PvP.

I don't know what the PvP attitude is like on the EU servers. I can certainly hope that they are less rude than some of the PvP'rs that I have run into on the NA servers. With so few active PvP'rs, it doesn't take many rotten apples to spoil the bunch. That is to say, that if a potential PvP player only gets to taste bitter when they PvP, they won't gain a taste for it and have no reason to return.
After all, the game was created to be a PvE game, and PvP was just added as an afterthought.
[EDIT :: I ran a mission a PvP zone just a couple of days ago. There was no villain in the zone.]

How about you take a moment to actually read the posts from the people that are trying to help the game instead of revealing that you don't actually have any interest in helping the game move forward.

no

tl;dr

How about you follow alt's posting and realize they are self righteous and indignant about 99% of the time? But seeing you made me post again lets see what I can do for you.


wrong, it was planned from pre beta. You can look up the youtube of it.




clueless and wrong. The arena was packed on test and on release. Unfortunately pvp had several huge imbalances that took far long to address and most players lost interest.




It was far more than slight. Literally every server had at least one zone if not 2 that were always busy.

I will catch this all at once. A great many things were added to pvp since it was released to draw more pvpers in. From temp powers in zones to pvpos. The problem is this truly is a pvecentric game. And the only way for them to ever add more players is to remarket the game to a different crowd. And even the time for that has probably passed. AS for people losing or 'getting farmed' by experienced pvper, it still happens, wil always happen. Its the nature of all pvp. Their only real hope is to invest the time to get better, there is no changes that can be made within the game engine to fix those differences.


This all the eu dudes are asking for. And it makes complete sense. Therefore it is incredibly unlikely to happen. I will catch my other point on this in a second.




The biggest issue is any group that has got together to promote pvp has literally been **** on by the devs. Intentional or ignorant that's what happened. Don't believe me ask any test pvper or any old pvpec rep. Neither of those groups had much love for each other but they both caught the same shaft. Until they stop punishing people who volunteer their recreation time there is honestly no point in trying.




The biggest pvp turnout in the history of this game was the rv event on test to try it out. Some of the reasons it was so successful, lots of people, free toons to play, a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere. With ae they gave us free toons. With free transfers they made the beast that is freedom pvp into an even bigger beast. AS far as atmosphere, I am a firm believer in you get what you give. Probably two of the bigger dicks both in game and on the forums are barrier and myself. But if you're starting and not dick we are both incredibly helpful. Sorry to ruin anyone's illusions about all pvpers being ********.



I have said this in other threads, I will say it again and often. If you need to coddled to pvp, then pvp probably is not for you.





That is not the entire story. The person who brought it to the forums was a know trouble maker and embellished the story a bit. And while yes it was a tough situation even you have to admit it was a pretty isolated ordeal. And sometimes people will have bad first exposure to new things. I hardly think that would make it a pvp issues. Also of note, the poeple who were farming were not pvpers.





Did I mention self righteous and indignant. Yeah, thought so. Now really, stay out of my pvp section.



tl;dr 2 ur fasez.


Why did I lol when one of the options for spell checker on pvper was popper. Damn funny stuff right there.

Like they are now?
I have far better latency towards US servers than the EU servers.

Cba with the rest