PvP and Badge Hunting Just Don't Mix

Let me spell out my own thoughts and opinions on this in an effort to get the discussion clear and to the point.

I believe that we can all agree that one of the purposes of putting the Shivans in a PvP zone is to get PvE'ers to go there and try out PvP. The zones are WAI to the extent that there is enough contention about the placement of the Shivans there that we are having this discussion.

Where I beleive the design fails is that although the Shivans draw PvE'ers into the zones, they do not draw them there in such a way as to have a positive experience.

A percentage of PvE'ers will enter the zone, have a PvP encounter, then decide that PvP is fun and that they will research it, practice it and continue with it. But I don't tink anyone can deny that this type of player is indeed a minority currently, regardless of the reason.

In fact, the Shivans (and similar rewards) may be hurting PvP: people who are not currently PvPers but might otherwise have been enter the zone for the purpose of PvE and find PvP interfering in that task. This generates negative feelings rather than the curiosity the Devs intended.

One of the many things PvP needs (IMHO) is a reason for people who might possibly be swayed to PvP to go into the zones specifically to fight other players.

My problem with this problem is that it's a Catch-22: all the solutions I can think of would lead to groups of PvEers (not PVPers) standing around in the zone beating each other up and telling the PvPers "stay away, I'm just here for the rewards".

Except: if all the rewards from PvP zones gave advantages only in PvP zones. But that leads into a 'rich get richer' dilemna where only good PvPers have the rewards that make them better, therefore no one new can get into PvP because their prospective opponents already have rewards that make them better.

Unless: PvPing (and doing well) somehow moved you up into higher and higher PvP 'brackets' where you would encounter people of the same or similar skill, and you were actually restricted in the degree to which you could play below your bracket.

Which: leads me to a very strange place, and a whole 'suggestion post' that this is not the place for.

*thinks and mumbles to self*

He does, sort of, have a point there, there are too many PvP zones for the PvPing population we have, it spreads them too thin, while just having RV wouldn't work (because there's no way, even at 50, a level 1 could compete with a natural 50).

What would the difference between farming NPCs for them and farming friends for them?

On the subject of a building a game up for PvP specifically, what about it?

City of Heroes invented the "Expanshalone", a seperate game that is compatible and allows interaction with another game.

No one can deny that PvP games can be popular at MMO levels.
We already have seperate builds in this game.
We already have a different ruleset for PvP here.

So, if they thought it would be sufficiently profitable, NCSoft could create an entire, 50 level, PvP-only game set in the City of universe, and set it up so that your character in that game translated into an 'alternate build' in this one, and vice versa.

Just the bare bones of a thought.

It is quite funny seeing the 'you and your ilk'.

Sorry but I had to laugh, if anyone remembers the British comedy duo Punt and Dennis they'll remember the line "damn you and all your kind'.

This is what appears to be the main problem in CoH, the PvPing community is completely seperate to the PvE community.

Lets take a look at WoW, most PvErs will run the battlegrounds when they've got nothing better to do, there isn't such a completely defined seperation between PvP and PvE communities, everyone does a little bit of both most of the time just to pass the time. There are more hardcore PvPers and casual PvPers but most people will do PvP battlegrounds for something.

I know I did PvP not for the gear but to obtain the PvP mounts which were black versions of the normal racial mounts, ones I couldn't get the normal coloured versions of in PvE because of the massive rep grind involved. Sure my black mechanostrider was a dime a dozen and everyone could grab one but I could obtain one and that made me happy.

Here there is a very definite seperation between the two communities, thanks to the way PvP is set up here, one cannot casually pop in to a warzone with any build (Hunters in WoW each talent tree had their advantages, Beastmastery could break out of stuns and holds, Marksman dealt high burst damage and Survival gave you more tricks up your sleeve to go escape melee fighters). Heck even a healing priest was useful to keep the main tank's health up for the general fight in AV or for mass group healing.

Here there are only a certain amount of 'good builds' for PvP, if you're not one of those, it's damn tough, you're character will get their *** kicked time and time again, doesn't matter if you pimp yourself out with 10 billion infs worth of IOs, if you're one of the unlucky powersets (like Assault Rifle on blasters for example) then you're going to get your backside kicked.

I know this may be upsetting to you but I'm going to be brutally honest here...the PvP community is small enough in that it matters only a little, the last quote was 5% a few years ago, with the Issue 13 changes having driven off (according to the PvP community) a lot of PvPers then we're probably down to 2%-3%. The PvP community is very vocal but it produces more noise than a community it's size normally would. They're the opposite of a silent majority, a noisy, shouty minority.

Despite what you think you simply matter a whole lot less than the PvE community, otherwise why the hell would they try to drag some of the PvE community into PvP by focusing on changes that were completely detrimental to the old way of doing things in PvP?

Issue 13 tried, it tried and failed.

As much as people hate Jack the one thing he said back when he was doing interviews for CO is that "if you don't have PvP at the start of a games life, adding it later is more trouble than its worth" and he's damn right (for a change).

To be fair he made a lot of mistakes, adding PvP and getting them to add villains as an expanshalone but that one quote shows that just throwing in PvP, as they have done with City of Heroes/City of Villains without any real consideration of the impact it has, was a major mistake.

So look at it this way...say they did get rid of PvP entirely, made the shivans and nukes available through PvE methods, turned all the PvP zones into PvE zones. The game would lose, at most 3600 subscribers (assuming we're at the 120k subscriber mark), that's not a whole lot of subscribers compared to the remaining 116400 subscribers who are here for PvE.

They're not going to gut PvP though, that would be stupid, instead they're going to focus on parts where they get the most bang for their bucks, PvE.

Sadly it comes down to a simple numbers game in the end my friends.

One of Macskull's comments has been playing on my mind for a bit now:

"the I13 changes, which were supposed to help people like yourself (the particular "I can't PvP because..." mindset), more or less ended up doing the exact opposite. All the changes mean that now more than ever you do need a specialized build and particular powersets to perform well in PvP"

What if there was some sort of handicap system, or a 'standard PvP' build that anyone could choose at the entrances to the PvP Zones. Lorewise, say, Vanguard or whoever would offer each hero a 'power suit' or sth. The mechanical effect would be that everyone who used this would have exactly the same powers and slotting. Obviously the chosen powers would have to be fun to play with, but then there'd be a levelling of the playing field, at least for players using this vs other players also using this. If these 'power-suits' were balanced to be equally as powerful as a top-end PvPIOd out player-designed toon, then the noobs lack of any skill at PvP would be balanced out by their buiold, and the best PvPers wouldn't be at a disadvantage so they'd still be able to say 'I'm cool because of my leet skills not because of an "I win" button' or what have you.

Does the PvP community want a level playing field?

Eco.

Quote:

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."