Define "PvP Success"

To further clarify:

If you build a toon (any toon), and you PvP with it, what criteria would
you consider before you would call it successful at PvP?

A thread in the market forum (of all places) is prompting this query, mostly
because (as I read it) their position appears to be that you need a L50
with IO's (typically sets, if not procs and purples) to be competitive at all...

Personally, I disagree with that position, having several toons that meet
the "success criteria" listed below. Toons count as successful at PvP for
me if they meet the following criteria:

1> Kill Ratio > 1:1 (I kill more than I get killed)

2> The toon is able to gain 400 rep honestly (ie. killing 400+ guys that were
trying not to die)

3> I have more fun than ire when I PvP with it (which is usually true by
default if points 1 and 2 work out).

That might be fairly naive criteria, and you might note that Level and
Enhancements aren't even factors in the equation, so I'm curious to hear
other viewpoints.


Thanks in Advance,
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I only consider a toon successful at pvp if it has the [I Win!] button. Luckily, I'm from Justice so even when i bring my trash into RV, the [I Win!] power activates upon entry.

Depends quite a bit on your role. If you're playing a Blaster, a successful character will be one that is able to dish damage out, while being able to run out of LoS at any second. It's really as easy as that, just knowing your role and being able to play it well. IO's and build play secondary to that.

This is a very good question, one I was just thinking about yesterday.

If you know anything about me, you know I play with SO's. So my view of success is vastly different from someone with a 15 billion build. To me, since all I do is zone PvP, success means simply that my side is beating the other side. That's if I'm solo. If I'm on a team, I stop caring about "sides", and feel successful if my actual team is doing better than the opposition.

For example, last night a spent some time in RV on my therm...solo. RV was very busy, and I just ran around buffing the whole zone. Never asked for an invite, and never got one. But I felt I was successful, because I kept almost a full zone buffed and definitely saved some people's lives. I also got about 3 kills, and died 0 times, so even with the K : D criteria, I did well.

And I also thought about how me doing only zone PvP allows me to have more success. Example: my therm has EIGHT points of kb protection. That's right, 2 KB IO's and no acro. Guess how many times I was KB'd in one night of playing in Freedom's RV. Once. One total time.

Compare that to the arena, where as soon as I got KB'd once, I'd be the target for the rest of the night, and the game would essentially become completely unplayable for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a huge part of "PvP success" is simply knowing your limits. I may be the oldest PvP'er left in the game, but I really do have to stick to zones to have success, unless I want to fully IO my toons. And since I don't, I stick to zones.

I forgot wtf was the point of my post....oh yeah...the person who said that you absolutely need IO's to be competitive is mostly right. That is, if your goal is to actually PvP in arena with the top players. After I13, this game became way too one-dimensional for that to happen. If you don't have the necessary IO's, you're done before you even started.

....unless you have different goals and/or ideas of success, like me.

Kill to death ratio isn't a very good metric when you're playing support and disruption where a lot of what you do doesn't show up on the KtD scoreboard.

You just kind of have to know for yourself whether you're being effective and whether your efforts are generating saves for teammates or preventing escapes/getting opponents killed. Certainly part of it is being able to stay in the field and evade ganks--it's hard to be effective if you're doing laps to the hospital.

Reputation is also a fairly meaningless measure for me. 400 happens as a simple side effect of showing up to play for a while and can happen a lot faster or a lot slower based on factors that you don't control. I've gotten just as much rep from coasting for an hour as from being on top of my game.

In the end, if I was entertained by a pvp session, it was a "success."

First, great topic. I read the topic this morning and been thinking about it a bit.

It's definitely hard to gage "PvP Success".

A Trick Arrow can completely ruin the opposing sides chance to succeed. They probably wont get many kills and they will most likely be the #1 target of the opposing side. Is this a success or a failure?

A bad blaster can mow down enemies if they have a good emp. Is this a success?

An emp can throw out occasional heals rarely buff, and still help their side out. Is this a failure?

I am sure you can see where I am going...

So anyways, I guess my opinion is that success is purely based on how much fun you have playing. I am the first to admit I'm a bad blaster, but I love playing him and I am getting much better everytime I play. So in my mind that is a successful character.

On the other hand I have a Necro/Poison MM that destroys people in arena and zones. I hate playing him, I hate the MM playstyle. Its the most frustrating toon I have ever played, but its a beast in PvP. This to me is a failure.

Anyways, good topic, always fun to think...

-Kiri

Just like in real life, being able to contribute somehow (as Super mentioned) and having fun/a good time (as Skeet said).

i dont have to kill anyone or even win a match to be successful, as long as i make someone, somewhere, rage or get emo.

Arena: Success is delivering your role effectively and implementing your options correctly so your team gets more kills than the opposing team.

Zone: Success is whatever floats your boat.

It's pretty simple, actually. Success is defined by whether you are in UTBG or not. If you aren't in UTBG then you are not successful, and probably have a long neck.

LF practices.

to me Success is Winning, Failure is losing. Epic failure is causing your teams loss.

Its great to get 10 kills and no deaths, but did your team win? Were you going rogue to get your kills or were you actively trying to acheive the team goal of winning. We you playing your roll as the support or were you more worried about KSing your damage for the lulz of being first on the team in kills.

At the heart of it all - its winning. Barrier causing someone to rage and emo out is /win. Getting killed is not a guarranteed failure because it might be your roll to be vengeance bait.

if you had a good time, grats. you were successful.

Success in Zones - KS'ing someone or just getting a kill the hard way if you feel like putting that much effort into it.

Failure in Zones - Landing Dual AS'es that some how cause the 1 shot code to apply about six times in one afternoon.

Success in Arena - Not being the farm target if your team loses. Using Clear Mind.

Failure in Arena - Playing backstreet boys on Vent rather than target calling. (Can be considered a success if you manage to get a kill though) When glue arrowed, tp'ing yourself from the pool near the statue on AP to the pool right across from it. Not taking the globe as your first option on the AP map.

Success in PvP = having fun. Who gives a damn what other people think as long as you enjoy what you do. Drone, grieve, fiteklub, arena, zone... whatever it is you do, if you have fun doing it you're good.

Fail = Getting butt sore and/or emo over pvp in a MMO. Take the game for what it is, a game and realize this crap means nothing to anyone in the real world. If you take it for anything more than that you fail at pvp.

Multimedia Genius Submission

Some interesting replies - Thanks.

The point about filling your role is a good one. My PvP toons are damage
dealers typically, so, my #1 point on kill/ratio really can be interpreted as
"is my toon performing it's role effectively" - I don't play support toons, so
the kill ratio *is* the role for me... A good point though. I agree with it.

I'm also especially pleased to see Supermax's response as a player with just
SO's. You demonstrate the point I was trying to make in the original market
thread. Clearly a toon can be effective with just SO's - for certain AT's,
and certain situations - I agree entirely.

In other scenarios, for some toons, SO's aren't enough. As an analogy, I'm
pretty sure that nobody has won an Olympic cycling event or a Tour de
France with a bike purchased off the shelf at WalMart. But LOTS of people
get from A to B quite regularly with such bikes. That's to say they can
still be used effectively within certain limits and expectations.

Arena matches tend towards more upper tier PvPer's (on average), so I'd
also expect the builds need to be more upper tier as well... Zone, not so
much...

Your experience appears to me to validate the way I was thinking about
the issue.

@Barrier: lol - why am I not surprised?

@Empire Forgotten: You contradict yourself from your stance in the Mkt thread.

Quote:

Barrier causing someone to rage and emo out is /win.

Barrier can achieve this "win" from anywhere - no level req or IO req.

Also just "winning" is a bit meaningless in this context - it's like saying
"rich" is what I want to be... It's too nebulous and undefined to measure
an actual success or failure point generally. Barrier's case may be the
exception proving the point because any broadcast "tears" can be seen
and counted...

But, what is "winning" in Sirens, for example - Are you a failure if your team
doesn't control the zone? How about Warburg or Bloody Bay? How do
you "win" there???

How do you "win" if you play solo?

Arena has clear-cut criteria for "win". So, if your SO build serves as the
agro bait, and your team ambushes the other guys enough to get a victory,
were you not competitive? Was that not a "win" wherein you played your
role well?

Do you need IO sets if you actually plan to be vengeance fodder (per
your "death isn't guaranteed failure" statement)?

In short, you yourself have pointed out multiple roles that, by your own
admission a> don't count as failure and b> require nothing special in
either level or build...

Given that, I stand with my original statement in the other thread.

You *can* viably PvP with an SO'd build on a non L50 under certain scenarios
within certain limitations and be successful in a number of ways...

I appreciate the replies to this thread - it was an interesting question to me too.


Regards,
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