player level versus zone level

I am in a small supergroup, and this weekend, a small group of us (5) went to Bloody Bay to try our hand at the PVP aspect of the game. I used to play CoV several years ago, and did a little PVP then, but this was my first excursion on the Hero side, and for the other members of the team I was in, it was their first experience ever. (Our supergroup is all made of casual players, so our play time in the evenings is limited at best. When we get together, we do so to have some fun. We thought PVP would be a different sort of entertainment.)

I have to say that while I am absolutely no expert in PVP, I knew enough in advance that we'd need a bit of the thick skin to try it, so I was ready for any smack talk and insults someone of the opposite faction may throw our way. I knew that if we ran up against an experienced group, we'd be beaten - however, I was not at all prepared for what had happened.

The average level of our toons was about 25, and we started running the meteor mission. We had collected about 4 of the samples needed before we saw our first villain. We engaged him (a corruptor) and between the 5 of us, it took little time to bring him down.

It was the only kill we got the rest of the time we were in Bloody Bay.

Within moments of defeating him, we were engaged by several more villains, and this time, one by one we all were defeated. We didn't even touch the others; from my own personal experience, I saw anything I threw at one opponent (I'm a blaster) do barely any damage, and then almost immediately get healed again. It didn't appear that it was through an activated healing power, either.

So after we all ended up back at the hero base, the expected insults and smack talk ensued on broadcast. But through the exchange of conversation, it came out that we just had our butts handed to us by a group of level 50's. This came out when they kept saying over and over again that the better PVP was in Recluse's Victory, which none of us could get to given our levels.

Realizing that to continue to adventure in the zone would wind up with us getting more of the same, we said thank you for the PVP to be polite, and then we left the zone. One of the Supergroup members even said that they were not coming back.

The entire experience brought some questions to mind:

first, why would a level 50 want to hang out in a zone rated at 18 to 25? Was there some benefit to it or were they there just to make themselves feel superior to the people the zone was intended to serve?

Second, is the better PVP is in Recluse's Victory? If it is, why would people who know this fact hang out in in lesser quality zone?

Third, what advice would other PVPers have for casual players who may want to get into PVP? It's something some of us want to give a try, but if it means always getting ganked by people who we clearly are outmatched by, then it's not close to fun and we'll just stay in the PVE zones.

Fourth, How does the levelling system work for people higher than the zones level? I know that it greys out powers, but how are enhancements treated? This would be good information to have in order to plan for a PVP build.

I see people saying how PVP is dead, etc etc, but if the new people coming to the PVP zones have these kinds of experiences, it's not a surprise that there are sparsely populated PVP zones. Any help or information given will be appreciated.

people actually still go in BB news to me, what server? if you don't mind my asking.

Because they can by game design.

There could be many reasons why they are there.

Yes.

IDK.

Design a toon using mids', post it on the boards to get advice, level and slot said toon, go PvP.

I don't understand all this ganking business people complain about. Prepare, practice, get better, team up, live longer, get kills. Pretty simple concept. I'm sure you already have applied this to the PvE portion of the game right?

5 levels higher in powers from the zone level cap.

No clue bc I never cared to look.

Can't blame the current crop of players because of your lack of PvP experience.

PvP is dead because of poor design decisions made back in issue 13.

1. No benefit. But the zone wasn't "intended to serve" only low levels. There's a reason it's open for everybody.

2. Of course PvP is better when you have access to all your powers. But sometimes people may want a change of pace. And yes, of course PvP in BB is 10 times easier than in RV, and sometimes people want to play on easy mode.

3. Only advice is to practice. The absolute worst thing you can do is what your SG-mate did....say that you're never coming back simply because you got beat. If you can't handle seeing your toon die in a video game, then yeah, PvP is definitely not for you. Because unlike PvE, you're not an invincible god in PvP, no matter what you play. A lot of PvE'ers never grasp this concept.

4. Enhancements still work like normal, so yeah, there's a big advantage to being level 50 in a low zone.

All that said, you were very lucky to even find any PvP in BB. Literally 99% of the time it's completely empty, and this is on Freedom, which has about 99% of the PvP community these days.

BB actually had a strong population on Freedom for about a year or so. For some reason that ended right after the massive changes to PvP were made. I think it probably had something to do with a decent number of players quitting as a result of those changes.

I too was surprised to hear that they ran into anyone in BB on any server...but I actually miss those times. BB was casual fun.

4 PvP zones per server, 11 US servers. 44 zones, and the best part is only one of them is busy at any given time, and one other is busy during peak hours (I'm talking, of course, about Freedom RV and SC, respectively).