PvP, Badges, or Mission Architect? Which do you use more?

My name is Xanatos and I'm a PVPer.

I'm not 100% sure which has the largest sub-community. But I'd be inclined to say PVP.

Personally, I PVP more than I use the Mission Architect. And I use the Mission Architect more than I hunt badges. I play a lot of AE missions, but I don't design that many. I know a lot of people use AE to farm and run missions. But who is using it to actually create stories? Are authors the absolute minority in COH? I don't really want to consider creating farms to be "using" the MA, because that's not what it was intended for. I'm talking about making player-created stories & missions. (The sort of thing that all the recent changes to the MA system clearly hope to encourage and support.)

I imagine most players have had a dabble with the mission architect system. But how many people actually consider themselves "authors"? How many people are eagerly awaiting the next update to the MA system so that they can upgrade their arcs & create new ones?

What about badges? How many people are shaking with anticipation at the ability to move well over the 700 badge mark come Issue #17? How many people are out there grinding out the impossible badges? (Immortal, Exalted, Empath, Jailed, Leader, Paradigm, Fabricator, Power Seller, Ouroboros Mender, etc.) I tip my hat to those of you able to make such incredible levels of commitment...but just how many of you are there?

I can't help but wonder if the MA sub-community is even smaller than the PVP community, and the Badger community even smaller still. I think I'm right about this. There's only 25,000 posts in the MA section of the forums, whereas the PVP section has about 80,000 posts. The badge forum is even smaller...it's only 11,000 posts!

This means that the PVP forums/community is more than twice as large and twice as active as the Mission Architect & Badges community COMBINED.

I make this comparison for obvious reasons. The MA system is constantly being updated & expanded upon with every issue. (And not just with exploit fixes!) Badges are constantly being added and tweaked with every issue. (The ongoing changes to the Empath badge being an obvious example.) While all of these changes are very much necessary to the game as a whole, I can't help but wonder why PVP is largely ignored? There are piles of broken powers, unbalanced powers, useless powers, and strange counter-intuitive measures in place. (Heal Decay & Travel Suppression immediately springing to mind.) There are no PVP bug fixes, tweaks, or balancing in any of the new issues. I don't understand why PVP is being ignored so much?

This isn't supposed to be an attack against Badgers or Authors; I consider myself a member of both of those groups, but more a general question about what people tend to spend their time on. This game has a lot of different sub-communities; and I'm pretty sure PVP is one of the more active ones.

Pvp

For me,
Badges > MA >> PvP

I used to PvP a lot more. I rarely do it now. I used to be able to bring anything to a zone and contribute. Now I feel I can't go in without several -KB IOs. I always preferred to play support, but shields and heals aren't what they used to be. And since I can get mezzed by anything, I need to have phase to avoid getting farmed. I don't like phase.

I use the MA maybe 2 or 3 times a month. Sometimes to run a farm, sometimes to look for new, cool content. I made an arc with a lot of my alts in it when it first came out, but I haven't really gotten into it. The heavy-handed bans right after it came out and the frequent nerfage since then have soured me on the Architect as a whole.

Of the three, I guess I use badges the most. But a large part of that is because you get badges just from playing normally. I have one badge hunter that has close to 600 badges. Most of my other characters go for badges that grant accolades and whatever other badges they may just happen to get.

Your statistics about subforum post counts are as meaningless as me pointing out that the badges for 45000 characters are being tracked at CIT.

I use badges the most, although that's not saying much since I only really track one hero and one villain. I use MA sometimes but mostly stick to dev content, and lolpvp.

I currently PvP but i miss being able to to go in on an SO´d toon and being able to have fun. Also i do not like being held back by playing villains and have to spend time on the market looking at unfilled bids since items are not available.

MA not so much, i tried it when it was new but not much into creating arcs myself and i find it hard to express myself since english is not my native language.

I used to Badge but it kind of got boring. Also I did not like some badges being out of reach. Now i only really badge if there is some kind of reward behind it(such as the +hp accolades etc.)

Also adding base building which i have tried but i found the limited tool frustrating.

PvP has never even had enough players to qualify as a community, much less a sub-community.

I think there is a perception problem though if players in the game separate what they do on the basis of what the event is, and I really think there's a problem with the opening point of view that there are sub-communities centralized around aspects of the game. Badges are a result of playing the game. Mission Architect is another way to play the game that gives badges. PvP is another way to play the game that gives badges.

Some players like to run task forces. Some players like to hunt. Some players like to run story missions. Some players like to hang out. Some players like to run repeatable missions. Some players like to farm. Some players like to do radio missions or newspapers with the safe guard / mayhem.

From a pure player traffic standpoint, the majority of the game plays the game, which is running missions and task forces. From what we know of the traffic numbers from a couple years ago, a very small minority of the game enters the PvP zones. If I recall correctly, the example that was used to paint PvP traffic stated that the Old Hollows, the pre-revamp Hollows, averaged more player traffic each day than all of the PvP zones combined on each server.

Now, as far as I'm aware, there's no official or unofficial number given for the player traffic that utilizes the AE system. Rather, the developers seem reluctant to discuss in any sort of detail just what the player traffic numbers signify. We can extrapolate from the player subscriptions as reported by NCSoft's financial department that the changes made to both the AE systems and the PvP systems had a negligible to non-existant impact on continued subscriber numbers. There was no sharp and continued drop off signaling a mass exodus of players.

This tells us that the visible players raising the points of AE and PvP in the forums, here, are a drastically small minority of the game, and so far have no visible impact on the financial basis of the game.

We also have empirical evidence, as documented by several players, that on the larger servers when a new AE exploit is found, Peregine Island has less instances, and when the AE exploits are closed, Peregine Island gains instances. This indicates that the abusing population of the game is flexible in what they do. Ergo, it's difficult to determine exactly what the traffic numbers are for AE.

We do know that the developers only anticipated maybe 10% to 15% of the player base sustaining AE involvement, which was one of the reasons why the sheer number of AE arcs in the first week of the release blew everybody's mind away. We can probably presume the developers numbers were accurate, and based on the number of new missions and missions being rated today, it's likely a higher number of players works with the AE system than projected.

That of course does mean a 10x to 15x lead over the single digit percentages reported to be involved with PvP play.

I've done all three to varying degrees.

My main character has existed longer than badges have, and I've collected who knows how many on him over the years without even really trying. I deliberately sought out and got all the ones that were required for the Accolades that grant combat powers and stat buffs, but other than that, I don't really go out of my way to get them.

I was a regular at Virtue's Fight Night arena PvP events, and while they were running, they were the highlight of my week. It had a more laid-back atmosphere, unlike the ultra-competitive streak that most PvP had. The collapse of Fight Night, combined with the I13 PvP revamp which did more harm to PvP than the good it was trying to accomplish, were what drove me away from the PvP scene. Which is a shame because I love a good fight, having a Scrapper as my main and all. Even though any serious PvP'er would wipe the floor with me, even before I13, as long I put up a good effort, I find it fun. The I13 PvP changes were not as well thought-out as they should have been, and I think the main reason was because that was one of the things added to I13 to make up for the Mission Architect being delayed, and not something done for its own sake.

But I love the Mission Architect, and I've used it to create some arcs, as seen in my signature. I am also one of the many who will use the upcoming improvments to revise my arcs. I enjoy creative writing, and I would love to do it for a living, but according to Sturgeon's Law, the odds of me turning out to be the next J.K. Rowling, or even be good enough to make a living at it are not in my favor, even though I've enjoyed some modest success in writing contests and such as I was growing up.

"Use more?"

I don't do anything special and I get badges. I don't pursue them.

MA, I use. I have arc ideas that come up and I end up without time to fiddle with, or don't get set in a way I'm satisfied with, so I haven't published anything in a while.

PVP, I hop into zones or the arena with friends. I run around in the zones in general, between using the firebases as a benchmark on characters at 15-20 and seeing if there's anyone to fight (or bringing others in and having a bit of a fight.)

So, in terms of exposure, I probably see badges more, since you can't help but get them. In terms of actual effort put forth toward, PVP > MA >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>(x100000000000)>Badges.

See my Guides and Tutorials

None of the above. I (and I assume everyone in forum and in game) use the PVE aspects more. Seeing as how you have to level up a toon to pvp with in the first place.

I'd don't actively hunt for badges unless they give some mechanical effect or they contain a title I really, really want on a particular character. However, I do accrue them just from incidental play. I'm not sure if that counts as "using."

I love Architect. Unlike (apparently) a substantial demographic, I don't use it for farming. I use it because (1) I enjoy writing arcs and (2) it's nice to play through some stories that I haven't seen at least 3 times already, as I have nearly all of the dev-created stuff. That said, I've cut back significantly on AE play since the last patch, though I suspect that'll change. I used to participate in the AE "community," too, when it was new, but I've come to find it incredibly frustrating. It tends to be dominated by players with what I consider excessively eccentric standards, though there are plenty of nice people, too. All in all, I devote about 15-20% of my play time to one form of AE-related thing or another, sometimes more if a new feature has just come out.

I occasionally PvP with a few people I know, but I find it dull. It's just a matter of dying fast and often, then rushing back into the fray to get killed again, punctuated by occasionally beating down an injured enemy. I consider it an exercise in futility. Overall, I'd say I devote about 2% of my play time to PvP.

This seems to be the pattern for most people posting here.

It looks as if the implication of the OP is supposed to be, "PvP has a bigger community than AE and badges, so it should get more development than they do." I don't know if this is empirically correct, and I don't agree with it, even if it is. Yes, that's unfair to PvP'ers, but as a player, I don't feel any particular need to be fair to PvP'ers. I might feel differently if I were a developer, though.

Badges are fun if I get them along the way, though I don't usually go out of my way for them.

I don't really PvP coz I'm not very good at it.

And I primarily use the AE for filming.

So, yeah, I'm a PvE gal. Not to diss those who do actively pursue AE, PvP, or Badging, whether consecutively or concurrently.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

For me, see most of what Memphis Bill wrote. I like to poke my nose into just about every area of the game. I probably badge "more", but that's because I get badges for doing other stuff, not because I go hunting badges. I usually only do that on high level characters that are missing some badge for some accolade I want, and not very often.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

badges>ae> turning off the game and doing something else>pvp

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Well I belong chiefly to the Badger community. (Got every badge except the Veteran badges and the few impossible ones, well for a 39 month vet anyway. )

I also belong to the RP community. I would also include myself in the MA Story creation group that the OP mentioned. Even though my activity in the latter varies.

PvP... well when I enter the zone (for badges) I expect to be the target anytime and prepares myself accordingly... while hunting for them badges. So not a very active one there. (Also from what i believe alot or several of the EU pvp'ers jumped server lists and joined Freedom. Starting fresh)

I don't tend to actively pursue badges, but of the three choices they would have to be what I've gotten the most "use" out of simply because I get several of them without specifically going for them.

I don't do AE missions except in the rare (these days) case that I get invited to a PuG that happens to be doing them. And building the missions is a painfully dull process that I just can't get into.

PvP is something I avoid like the plague in almost every game I play, and CoH is no exception.

I very rarely go out of my way to get badges. The only time I do it is if I want some accolade, and I don't even get those very often. I tried PvP once, and didn't enjoy it, so I won't go back. The only time I enter PvP zones now is to get shivans, warburg nukes, or try and farm PvP IOs with my wife. I used to use AE quite a bit when you could PL effectively with it, but now that that got nerfed all to hell, I don't use it either. So essentially all three of these things are pretty much huge wastes of developer time as far as I'm concerned.

All three are fairly low on my list of fun things to do. It would probably look something like this:

MA > PvP > Badges.

I like MA, but the rewards system incentivizes farming over using it as designed. Ticket caps that vary by map size, specifically, was a really bad idea. It is also my experience that arc authors tend not to playtest their arcs much and the system makes it way too easy to crank a custom group's challenge level up to unplayable highs, so I never solo in AE unless I'm farming. Or if I'm in the mood to play a fully-IO'd level 50 character alone, which is rare.

But out of the three choices, MA is still the one I use most simply because I use it at all.

I used to care about PvP and would do it once in a while, but haven't been bothered since they changed the system. I used to understand it fairly well and could perform at mediocre levels against experienced players. I tended to win against other newbs. Now, I just don't get it any more and haven't yet decided to figure out how the new system works. I've PvPed maybe twice since the system's been in place and haven't really enjoyed it much.

I don't care about Badges and never have, except accolades.

I'd guess that the whole of the City community splits something like this:

Badges > AE > PvP

Most of the players I know have at least one character that is their dedicated badge collector. Even I care about changes to accolades and their requirements. Most people I know will at least try AE, even if they don't become completely hooked on it. I'd guess that PvP caters to a smaller niche of players than the other two communities, but that's just a guess.