PvP..what IS wrong with it? seriously im asking you.

Everytime i read a moaners thread, talk to someone who isnt coming bk, who wants to come bk etc etc they always mention how "PvP is broken" but never say what is broken and just refers to issue "x".

so you the community who like to kick the snot out of eachother

How is PvP broken? i'm sick of people saying it is and when asked nvr answers.

If you lot mean about fairness then surely that is PvP, PvP is never meant to be fair.

And as you may of guess i dont PvP...but is thinking about it more.

how about you read the first 3 stickied threads in this forum and they will pretty much answer you.

lol....dont know how you could read about all the complaining and miss the reasons why people complain. Also, wtf do u care, u don't pvp, right? But you're thinking about starting, so read the first sentence again.

I don't care that people complain about whether or not they will get animated faces in i21, therefore, I don't ask why they complain. But maybe I'll start to care......

quoted from eps in i17 CB

in a quick nutshell, this

I guess I'll bite. Someone who has been around longer can fill in the gaps if I miss something.

Once upon a time PvP in CoH was quite similar to PvE. Most of the PvP zones were populated during prime times and some all the time, across several servers.

Then Issue 13 came around. This was supposed to be the issue to improve pvp. There wasn't all that much else in this issue (Merit rewards, multiple builds, shields/pain dom, and leveling pacts.) The only content was a few missions added to Cimerora and the midnight squad arcs. The big changes all came with the power and system re-balances for pvp.

The changes made to pvp completely changed the system. It was to the point where players had to learn almost a completely different game. Several powers didn't function in the same manner, and some of the systems introduced are so complex, you literally have to know calculus to properly understand them. I'll attempt to break down the changes and how they affected what the game once was.

1. The damage of all attacks has been refigured. Basically, the longer the activation/animation time of an attack power, the more damage the power is going to do. There are adjustments for recharge time and Endurance cost, but the actual time the power takes up in an attack chain is the primary consideration.

This in of itself seems to make sense. The more time you spend activating a power, the more damage it does. This caused some problems with sets that were fast activating however, as their powers now did significantly less damage. Some sets or individual powers were hit pretty hard by this (ice blast being the first one that comes to mind). On the flip side, powers that were once skippable became the most damaging powers available (flurry).

2. In general, the base damage of all Archetypes has been increased in PvP zones and Arenas. The Containment bonus for Controllers in PvP has been reduced because of their higher base damage.

All archetypes got a damage boost, this counters some of the other changes made later one. What it doesn't say is that the archetypes were not all evenly boosted. Example in pve a fortunata's range attacks do significantly more damage then a defender with psi blasts; in pvp the damage is identical when recharge/activation/endurance are factored in.

3. Travel suppression - Being hit by an attack triggers movement suppression, just as making an attack does. Suppression for being hit by an attack is always the same duration. Any power with a negative impact on the target (including all debuff powers) is considered an attack.

This still one of pvpers biggest complaints. Not only are you slowed when you attack, you are slowed by being attacked. This completely removes evasion from being a tactic/skill in pvp. Subsequently, escape powers like phase/hibernate/pff became even more important because there were the only way to disengage from combat. Also, the notes didn't mention that several buff powers caused travel suppression, ones that didn't even make sense (mind link, rttc, etc). One of the biggest draws of CoH PvP was its fast pace, this took that away.

4. Note that Teleport powers are completely disabled when suppressed.

An entire travel pool was rendered useless.

5. The greater the base range of an attack, the longer the suppression for the attacker.

I didn't even realize that this was part of the update.

6. Teleport Foe and related powers in Gravity Control and Warshade powersets now grant 3/4 of a second "untouchable" flag on the target.

I suppose this was instituted to prevent the tp ganking. I don't have any problems with this change

7. Diminishing Returns - Resistance and defense powers have greater diminishing returns when stacked than in PvE, and lower caps. "Buffing" Archetypes (Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, Dominators and Masterminds) have less ability to benefit from all buffing powers than other ATs (the powers have less effect on them, and their caps are lower).

Now DR has become a standard for pvp. This is not so much because it was welcomed by the community, but because the way all the powers function, it is a necessity. This also had an major negative side effect. The DR effect is so steep on most attributes buffs have become mostly useless. Why bring a bubbler or sonic when the shields only grant 2-3% of protection? Also since squishies get less benefit from the buffs, the ones that rely on them for survivability (force fields, sonic to a lesser extent) don't get those benefits in pvp, thus rendering their secondary useless.

As a side not defense based toons were given elusivity of 30% to bring them more on par with resistance based toons. This number was shown to be overpowered on paper and in practice. In the following issue, elusivity was reduced to 10%. This proved to be an overnerf and defense-based toons mostly disappeared.

8. Heal Decay - Healing powers suffer from diminishing returns when several are used in a short period of time. Healing powers also trigger suppression.

This really irked a lot of people. The more you heal in a period of time, the less effective it becomes. Also, the healer is travel suppressed. It seems like this was just instituted because someone got grieved by an emp/blaster combo. In its current form, healers are less useful, and easy targets. The more they heal, the less effective it is, and they're also travel suppressed so they're easier targets.

9. Global Resists - All Archetypes (except Tankers and Masterminds) have some default resistances to all attacks in PVP.

All archetypes are given a base resistance, this varied from 10-40%. Not included in the patch notes were that some resistance shields that once granted +res to only some damage types recieved +res to all. What this did was take many of the advantages away from some of the sets and further remove strategy or sense from the pvp game. (ex. invul being weak to psi). Picking patron/app shields doesn't matter cause the res ones all offer the same benefit.

10. Melee classes gain extra resistances to all debuffs and to movement slows. These bonuses are linked to the power in each set that gives status protection (Unyielding Stance, Wet Ice, Plasma Shield, etc.).

Whatever

11. Defeating enemies in PvP can award Influence/Infamy, Inspirations, and rarely Salvage, but no XP.

Good change, numbers are too low, but whatever.

12. In general, there is no such thing as Status Protection in PvP, only Resistance. The exception is Knockback protection, since Knockback is a binary effect. The base durations of status effects are greatly reduced in PvP (generally 4 seconds for Controllers and Dominators, 2 seconds for all other Archetypes).

There are 2 camps on this one. In the old system inspiration management was important especially up against a fortunata or dominator. Balancing breakfrees was a skill in itself. In the current system breakfrees do absolutely nothing. The duration of holds has been reduced, but the ability to counter them has been removed. What happens is instead of having to plan ahead to counter holds, now you simply have to deal with them. Some people like this because it is less work/clicking they have to do; others hate it because they're left helpless with not counter, much like being run out of breakfrees prior to i13. Personally I don't like this change, a powerboosted, dominated, stun can last upwards of 10 seconds. There is nothing you can do to counter that. 10 seconds is certainly long enough to kill someone.

13. Unlike in PvE, defensive toggles do not suppress when you are held/stunned. This means that not only do the toggles not drop, they continue to grant defenses while the player is held/stunned.

Good change

14. Didn't see it in the notes, but there was also a taunt change. Taunt within powersets for brutes/scrappers/tanks now has a -75% range component.

Good change, except for that the base taunt duration isn't affected by taunt resistance. So even unslotted, with a few recharge reductions you can perma-stack it. Oh yea and it stacks, it becomes silly when you have to stand on top of someone to hit them with a melee attack.



All in all what these changes did was remove much of the skill/strategy from the pvp game. It was supposed to attract new players and make the pvp system more accessible for people who failed at the original pvp system. The new players never came and the old players were driven away by a system that simply not fun. It also separated things the pvp and pve game so much that competitive pvp missions or pve/pvp missions will probably never come.

One of the things that really pushes pvpers the wrong way is that when these changes were announced the developers made a statement that pvp would not be ignored any longer.

luxuns really nailed it with that write up, and repeats what has been said many times before in a touch more eloquent way.

personally, i pvp'd from i6 release up until about 2 weeks into i13. the biggest headaches were:

damage based on activation. a reasonably logical way to base pvp damage, but it relies on players willingness to learn an entirely new system of power ranking/damage. it also somehow led to the example of flurry. these two issues alone should have raised some major red flags.

travel suppression. inspirations? buffs? really?

approaching ridiculous in diminishing returns. yeowch.

pvp io's on ridiculous timers/drop rates for risk/reward ratios. they are not any where near that good in most drop cases, and the bonuses are fairly standard to be temporarily nerfed into oblivion when used in pvp.

finally, the stated commitment and complete 180 in action and discussion. nobody expects a miracle for a nickel, but there had to be some interesting discussions at the office with the community waving giant flags about these issues and having it pushed out the door anyway. then not talking about it, ever, burning the birth certificate, killing the midwife, nuking the hospital, and e.m.p.'ing the internets.

i'm 'hopeful' the endgame/incarnate offering takes a look at pvp in a positive way to extend that portion of the game further as well. glass half empty might suggest that incarnate powers would simply be disallowed in any pvp circumstance, or only in arena settings to minimize workload and avoid addressing it entirely.

What are the most annoying/important changes? I'm not playing pvp very often, but sometimes. This thread helps me understand whats wrong. Now I know why my tp didn't worked when I tried to use it.

edit. I didn't saw any difference before or after i13 I just died then and I'm dying now. When I'll see brute I know I'm going to die. No matter what I'm doing. Tesla cage does nothin, endu drain no effect and my blasts are not doing damage fast enough. 1+1+1=dead blaster

This biggest problem i have with the new PvP is DR.. I normally run a MM, and i did fairly well in competitive PvP back on the test server before i13 nuked PvP from orbit.

What they don't tell you, is they set pretty solid caps on most squishys using DR. No matter how much inf you throw into a toon, no matter how many PvP IOs, or buffs, or inspriations, you cant get higher then those set caps. Which means my defense capped MM, can never get higher then 20% defense. NEVER. I could run with all my toggles and buffs, or none of them, and my sheer set bonuses along put me near that cap, i toggle everything on, and i literally gain 4%.

If the dev's didnt want a soft capped MM, they shouldnt have given us the option to make one, not set pretty hard caps to just say 'NO'

You also forgot the mass AoE nerf. Basically most AoEs, as they are quick animating, were cut in about 1/2 damage wise, and things like inferno, fireball, etc were completely nerfed to the point where brawl almost does more damage. This was made to nerf the fire/EM blasters from back in the day, but now we have psi/EM that can perma placate.. so i really dont have the slightest idea what the dev's were smoking, but they should atlest have the decentcy to share next time ya know?

Just for an example, playing a fortunata vs. a psi defender.
I have and play both, defenders get the full 40% resist bonus in pvp,fortunata gets 10%.
Since diminishing returns my fortunata, a defense based toon, now has 72% less defense thanks to DR. With pvp being resistance based now, this severly cripples the fortunata, and favors the defender over it.
Since the bonus defenders now get when soloing, with decreses up to a team of 3, my defender now outdamages the fortunata.
Take into account this is only primary powers, the secondary for the fortunata is virtually nil since DR , the secondary for my defender, which is radiation, still works as intended, to a degree(not counting the effects of heal decay)the debuffs still do thier job.
So now thanks to the laundry list of bad choices the devs have forced upon us, the "support" toon in this case is now much better than what is supposed to be an attack class toon.
I've stated this numerous times, but for someone asking whats wrong with pvp, i'll phrase it as a question: What would you rather play in PvP, something you've played through level after level in PvE, and know its strengths & weaknesses, or the presumably "same" toon, only to get in a PvP zone, and find that thier damage is different, holds don't hold, they have no defense, their movement goes to a snails pace when they attack, are attacked, pop an inspiraition, heal, or even get hit byNPC characters?

Personally, i'd like to play my characters as i've learned to play them in PvE, knowing if i have to use an inspiration, like a break free, or a heal, its going to work like intended.
Every toon should have a role to play in PvP the same as PvE, this is no longer possible because of changes that were made to the system for the veiled reasoning of trying to get new players interested.
Their changes only pushed the old players out, and pushed the "even playing field" further apart.

Unfortunately the O.P. can't make a decision based on a comparison of the pre & post nerfed systems, but you do know the difference between the way your character preforms in PvE & what its like in PvP now.
The question is which would you prefer?

in simple terms -

they took pvp and dumbed it down so that new pvpers would not feel outclassed when they flocked in to pvp ( a common complaint from care bear pvers..that pvp was hard, their dark,dark,dark defs were useless, and the mix/max builds made it impossible for them to survive ) .

Those of us who did pvp pre i13 - pretty much hate every change (and a huge clue to the developers - none of the pvp changes made it to pve...unlike every other major power change in the game --- like ED..)

So they gutted pvp to make it easier in the hopes more people would pvp. Those people never came and the majority of those who did pvp left because of said changes.

People who are not interested in pvp are not going to play pvp. No matter what changes happens. They are not even interested any changes in pvp and they skip all pvp info in patch notes (I do that). So... why bother to change pvp to please them (us/me) if they don't like pvp at all? There is good pve content in game and pve players like that content. They don't mystically start to like pvp. its matter of taste. Nothing else and nothing can affect that.

But truth is that those pvp maps are empty today. I can't remember when I saw actual fighting in Sirens last time. Probably 2 years ago.