Reviving Virtue's Tradition of RPvP (Open discussion)
I used to PvP in Siren's Call on a daily basis, and there was a good deal of RP to be found. One of my favorite moments in the game was Cackle hitting on my Scrapper for a good ten minutes while they dueled, until finally the two of them ended up dying at the same time and landing on top of each other. I'd log in, grab whatever character I felt like fighting on, head to the zone and go to town. But...
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then this happened. I can't just grab a random character and head to the zone anymore. They'll probably need a second build, since their powers all work differently in PvP, and most of their good attacks will probably be inferior to crap like Flurry. If they have a lot of stacking of effects, DR nerfs them. If they're a buffer, DR nerfs them. If they use Teleport for travel, lolz. The feeling that I could just grab any character I like and make a meaningful contribution in PvP has disappeared, and it took my interest in PvP with it.|
Originally Posted by Apophasis
post-i12 PvP have reduced the number of power sets you can use to excel in PvP. Also, turning the game into two entirely different words mechanically
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Really, the general gist seems to be that a lot of RPvPers were only casual PvPers, and there's not a lot of room for that anymore.
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Originally Posted by Malech
In a game known for it's quick leveling it's a joke for anyone to complain they don't have the build to pvp or their characters concept dosen't fit. Roll a new toon if you want to pvp and get a different concept.
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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Originally Posted by Silver_Tooth
I do wish there were more RPvP events, as I enjoy both quite a bit.
DJ Shecky from The CAPE radio held (still holds?) monthly RPvP events that were a blast. Lots of people would show up, party, and throw down. No one cared about winning, losing, or how their builds measured up. I brought my PB to the first event, which is a rarity since you never see khelds in the zones. The idea was to have fun, and from what I saw the majority of people did. I think a lot of the reluctance to RPvP comes from mindset. People do put a lot of time into their characters and become quite attatched. They don't want to enter a PvP situation and see their beloved characters beaten. |
Actually, I will be starting the RPvP back up in December, as RL has me off the air on Tuesdays right now. But Yes, once a month I do open zone RPvP, and rotate zones. Most of us are not real good PVPers, but we are learning.
Defcon 0 - (D4 lvl 50),DJ Shecky Cape Radio
@Shecky
Twitter: @DJ_Shecky, @siliconshecky, @thecaperadio
When you air your dirty laundry out on a clothesline above the street, everyone is allowed to snicker at the skid marks in your underoos. - Lemur_Lad
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Originally Posted by Malech
Someone asked me to post here and I will, virtue has never had an active rp pvp community, it had pvp rp events that were run by pvpers. Thats it. The rp playing base on virtue of whoever attended those events is almost all gone. The remaining player base on virtue dosen't rppvp because our game is built up in cliques with different sg's demanding all the other sg's realize how awesome they are. People are too used to doing rp plots were mary su generic characters win everything, because of this most rpers are way too afraid to lose.
The complaints about the new system are moot at this point, it's been almost two years since i13 was launched people have had that long to prepare new builds and try pvping again. In a game known for it's quick leveling it's a joke for anyone to complain they don't have the build to pvp or their characters concept dosen't fit. Roll a new toon if you want to pvp and get a different concept. Yes pvp has changed, get over it. |
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As someone who was part of the RPvP community that use to thrive on Virtue you really don't know what your talking about. We used the crap out of base raiding for RPvP back in the day and the PVP zones for RP events.
The ability to build a base dojo then actually have duels in them really never got old. And being able to actually chase a fugitive through a zone thats being manned by a real person is a lot of fun. And before you had AE it was sometimes the only way to run a story.
We ran the Liberty Bowman plot that way on Virtue, he was taken out during another operation in Bloody Bay and they created a story around his kidnapping. And thats just one example.
Not every SG on the server is into the Mary Sue always win god mode. Maybe the groups you run with, but not any of the ones I've been involved with. I also know groups that still use PVP in RP though not generally in the zones, mostly they use the arena for duels/training/simulations.
Sometimes RPvP has nothing to do with winning/losing, sometimes its just the ability to be able to play out whats happening.
Actually slicing the bad guy with your sword is way more fun then "/em slashes bad guy in the face".
Its like AE, use it in a creative fashion.
I'm a fairly heavy story based RPer and I'd chose PVP over text fighting any day. Its more fun as long as you don't get a group of people who are more interested in winning then story/fun. But thats a consideration for anything in the game when RP is involved.
As for the OP:
I really enjoy RPVP and I sadly got into it with the Shinsengumi at the tail end of its heyday with the Liberty Bowman event. I find it hard honestly finding other people who are up for it, and I sadly don't have the skill that Kadekawa had in convincing people to actually try it.
But if someone managed to set up a group or some events I would LOVE to get back involved and help how I can.
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I think you might be surprised at how many of us don't RPvP or PvP simply because we don't think that CoH/V is a very good PvP game. It's not about cliques or Mary Sues or any of that nonsense, it's because time we'd be spending grinding inf to make a PvP build and then actually RPvPing is time we could be spending playing TF2. I'm a lot more OK with losing a match when I lose because of inferior skill than when I lose because the other guy has all the time in the world to grind for purples and I don't. Obviously you don't see it my way, and that's cool, but in many cases at least it's got nothing to do with any of that Mary Sue stuff you mentioned.
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Originally Posted by Malech
Someone asked me to post here and I will, virtue has never had an active rp pvp community, it had pvp rp events that were run by pvpers. Thats it. The rp playing base on virtue of whoever attended those events is almost all gone. The remaining player base on virtue dosen't rppvp because our game is built up in cliques with different sg's demanding all the other sg's realize how awesome they are. People are too used to doing rp plots were mary su generic characters win everything, because of this most rpers are way too afraid to lose.
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I'm not certain how to respond to this. It feels like what you are saying is more of a complaint about the pvp in this game in general. Because, well last I checked you don't roleplay in tf2, I don't think you spend months building a character and detailing their origin in tf2, or any other fps for that matter. Oh, also it's grinding pvp io's now not purples.
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Originally Posted by Warp_Factor
I think you might be surprised at how many of us don't RPvP or PvP simply because we don't think that CoH/V is a very good PvP game. It's not about cliques or Mary Sues or any of that nonsense, it's because time we'd be spending grinding inf to make a PvP build and then actually RPvPing is time we could be spending playing TF2. I'm a lot more OK with losing a match when I lose because of inferior skill than when I lose because the other guy has all the time in the world to grind for purples and I don't. Obviously you don't see it my way, and that's cool, but in many cases at least it's got nothing to do with any of that Mary Sue stuff you mentioned.
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Originally Posted by ransim
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As someone who was part of the RPvP community that use to thrive on Virtue you really don't know what your talking about. We used the crap out of base raiding for RPvP back in the day and the PVP zones for RP events. The ability to build a base dojo then actually have duels in them really never got old. And being able to actually chase a fugitive through a zone thats being manned by a real person is a lot of fun. And before you had AE it was sometimes the only way to run a story. We ran the Liberty Bowman plot that way on Virtue, he was taken out during another operation in Bloody Bay and they created a story around his kidnapping. And thats just one example. Not every SG on the server is into the Mary Sue always win god mode. Maybe the groups you run with, but not any of the ones I've been involved with. I also know groups that still use PVP in RP though not generally in the zones, mostly they use the arena for duels/training/simulations. Sometimes RPvP has nothing to do with winning/losing, sometimes its just the ability to be able to play out whats happening. Actually slicing the bad guy with your sword is way more fun then "/em slashes bad guy in the face". Its like AE, use it in a creative fashion. I'm a fairly heavy story based RPer and I'd chose PVP over text fighting any day. Its more fun as long as you don't get a group of people who are more interested in winning then story/fun. But thats a consideration for anything in the game when RP is involved. As for the OP: I really enjoy RPVP and I sadly got into it with the Shinsengumi at the tail end of its heyday with the Liberty Bowman event. I find it hard honestly finding other people who are up for it, and I sadly don't have the skill that Kadekawa had in convincing people to actually try it. But if someone managed to set up a group or some events I would LOVE to get back involved and help how I can. |
You gave me no examples here of how there was any roleplay pvp that was actually roleplay pvp not pvpers pretending to be roleplayers. So unless you can you know, find an example thats not some obscure event, I'll just give you the same treatment you gave me. you don't know what your talking about your wrong.
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Exactly. Many of us just don't like PvP in CoH/V. Whether it's RPvP or regular PvP. It isn't fun for us. You seem to have this idea that there's something wrong with the roleplayers that makes us not want to engage in RPvP. I say there's nothing wrong with the roleplayers, the PvPers, or the RPvPers, the problem is that the game's PvP simply isn't very good and that this puts far too much of a damper on any RP fun that could be had through it. I'd rather play TF2 and not RP at all than RPvP in CoH/V. I know many others who feel the same way.
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Originally Posted by Malech
I'm not certain how to respond to this. It feels like what you are saying is more of a complaint about the pvp in this game in general. Because, well last I checked you don't roleplay in tf2, I don't think you spend months building a character and detailing their origin in tf2, or any other fps for that matter. Oh, also it's grinding pvp io's now not purples.
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How do you pretend to be a roleplayer? Isn't roleplay a form of pretend? So you're pretending to pretend? Does that make PVP'ers dead-serious and hardcore realistic? Or are we tackling some sort of postmodern model of meta-roleplay? I'm confused.
| You gave me no examples here of how there was any roleplay pvp that was actually roleplay pvp not pvpers pretending to be roleplayers. So unless you can you know, find an example thats not some obscure event, I'll just give you the same treatment you gave me. you don't know what your talking about your wrong. |
Things I play competitively and enjoy:
Street Fighter 4
Street Fighter Alpha
Tekken 3, 4, 5 & 6
Unreal Tournament 2004
Unreal Tournament 3
Day of Defeat
Team Fortress 2
Empires Mod
Left4Dead
Left4Dead2
FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage
GRiD
DiRT 2
Altitude
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Mount & Blade: Warband
Dawn of War
Company of Heroes
C&C: Red Alert
Magic The Gathering: Dual of the Planewalkers.
Jedi Knight Academy
Freelancer
Guild Wars
Warhammer Online
Atlantica Online
Eve Online
Things that have PvP that I avoid like the plague because the implimentation sucks:
Age of Conan
City of Heroes
I am a huge fan of Player VS Player in every genre, and I used to enjoy Citys PvP as it was dynamic, fast and fun. But the "New PvP" system just feels like one of the Devs was sick of always losing matches so they jury rigged the code in their favor so they could win some matches, then lost interest and forgot about it.
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I'm sure there's some way in which one could pretend to be a roleplayer, in sort of an online version of hipsters getting mullets and bad mustaches and pretending to be white trash. Probably something along the lines of the Goon Squad's antics a few years ago on this server (it was the Goons, right? I get some of those old groups mixed up). I don't think that's what he's talking about, though.
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Originally Posted by Eveningstar2
How do you pretend to be a roleplayer? Isn't roleplay a form of pretend? So you're pretending to pretend? Does that make PVP'ers dead-serious and hardcore realistic? Or are we tackling some sort of postmodern model of meta-roleplay? I'm confused.
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No, i13 made far less builds viable, along with adding the entry barrier of different PVP powers. You see less of RPVP because there is less PVP.|
Originally Posted by Apophasis
Despite it being easier for many of the Virtue-flavored RP sets to PvP, thanks to the i13 changes, there are even less RPers PvPing.
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I used to do any RPVP I could but that has been virtually none since i13. However if anybody's interested I would like to RPVP. I hate textfighters and have rarely RPed since i13. So it would get me back into RP too.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
Well first off in general: There is nothing wrong with people who don't want to PVP, so I don't know where some of you got that idea from.
I've participated in a few RPPVP events in the past, but that was mainly because some of my friends were also involved in it; if it was just me alone, I wouldn't have went. It was fun, but only one of my characters can actually stand their ground in PVP (WP brute), the rest are paper thin when it comes to the PVP crowd and powersets.
I can't speak for the changes to PVP, because quite honestly I don't know any of them because I never step into PVP apart from RPPVP events. I will say it's actually fun when both parties involved are doing it for the fun of it, but that fun gets ruined once you get stalkers who'll TP you up into the siren's call lighthouse and two shot you, or when people start TPing you into drones. I'll also go out on a limb and say IOs had something to do with it, too. Purple IO sets don't do anything to help the powersets that were already not so good in PVP, but make those that are good in PVP pretty much unstoppable. There isn't much you can do against a tanker or has their heal on a 10-15 second cooldown unless you too have the insane recharge needed in order to burst them down between heals, which can't be done unless you are also a FotM purpled out character.
If someone decided to bring out an RPPVP event I'd try it out, for sure, but I don't count on me doing much else from that.
Characters!:
Pinny - Scrapper
Shadewing - Defender
@Pinny
By pretending to be a roleplayer, referring to groups like the goon squad, or the X-patriots who don't have any roleplay beside saying they beat you up. Their groups don't do roleplay they just say they are roleplaying when beat someone in pvp. If they lose it well that didn't fit their already loose definition of IC.
lol @ X-Patriots and RP.
That VG makes fun of RPers tbh. I know this for a fact, because I've had friends that were former members, and I've seen their so-called leader and other high ranking "leaders" make fun of them in Pocket D and such. Sure there have been some members that are RP-friendly, but to say the whole VG itself is RP-friendly is RoFL-copter.
Well the OP did list them as one of the rp pvp groups.
To be fair, it's not as if any really deep and heavy RP usually goes on at open RPvP events anyway. The only one I can think of where I saw RP other than "We're fighting!" was the Warburg event Ascendant and Warcabbit set up ages ago with the xenonite meteor. Granted, that event was pretty awesome, but it's still just one example. Others haven't been bad or anything, but they were just regular PvP with a bit of RP veneer glued on.
Tl;dr
Criticizing my character as incomplete for declining your Arena Invites isn't the best way to get me to go to your next event, OP. Nice try.
Short opinion:
Any meaningful RPVP is only going to happen between trusted friends who understand that the way the game mechanically plays out, will often not match what we have carefully crafted in our stories.
I have met more than one ganker-moron who spent billions of inf on his PVP IO build, who one day decided to "bring their 'toon to RP in the D" and see how many people they can troll into one-sided fights.
Long opinion:
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That sounds like a horrible scene. Godmoding, and closed actions aplenty. I wouldn't mind seeing that Broot and his girl get beaten to a pulp in a fight because they are godmoders.| you're challenging my Purple-PvP IO'd out level 50 psychokinetic Defender to a duel because he looked at your girlfriend the wrong way when she was trying out the new Omega pieces at the tailor's, then insist on textfighting it out -- wherein he grinds my toon's body into the pavement with his super strong fingers, then lunges his tentacles of doom at me, while his level 4 Mind/Psi succubus-themed Dominator girlfriend invokes satanic ritual and sucks the soul out of my head |
It begs me to wonder, what are YOU trying to accomplish, hanging out over there, and trying to pick fights with a character that can win against anyone who is not min/maxed for PVP? I'm pretty sure that raising your rep rating wasn't in mind when you started hooting and hollering at Big Beefy's girlfriend with him in plain sight - riiight?
Putting that aside, if I was in a similar scene - I would do the smart thing and size up the opponent before making the first move.
If I read your tabs and see that you're an obvious PVP-tuned character, you'd better hope you have a VERY well-realized concept, or I'll just think you're just a ganker in a different suit, trying to draw me into a fight to wag your E-peen over me.
The idea of "RP concept substantiation" isn't a bad one, but completely fails in the face of min/maxed PVP builds, versus non-min/max'ed, non-purpled out, concept builds that roleplayers are completely free to choose.
Besides, I like to play more than one character. Asking me to "substantiate" each one at the price of several hundreds of millions, or billions of influence a piece is a bit much.
It might be small change to the farmer, or the predominant PVP'er who has taken advantage of the outrageous prices of PVP IO's, but remember that I spend most of my time in the PVE game, building up my AE arc and custom mobs, making alts, or playing out with someone.
If you write well, and play with passion - you're already very well "substantiated". If you can hold up in the PVE game, that's even better, but something I still consider secondary to the main ingredients of being a good roleplayer - a good character concept, a good execution of that concept, and punctuation.
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| I would be inclined to take the performance of thematically weaker/but PvP superior "in spirit." Perhaps the sword, unbeknowest to its user, uses an alloy that is a weakness to said Supergirl? But it would really vary depending on the concept. I would actually demand at that point that the thematically weaker toon come up with a stronger concept as to why they were able to defeat your toon, or you could use that as an RP hook to explain that there something much deeper to their powers/talents? |
Play out the concept decently between people you know - and it might actually work in very specialized situations, but the mechanical gameplay in PVP should never dominate a story without total consent from everyone involved. It leaves way too much room for derailment.
With all that being said, I'll wander to the PVP zones if I feel the need to do so, but I hold no power over anyone else's storyline, nor should anyone else expect me to take them seriously when they initiate the arena invite prompt, insisting that I somehow "substantiate" my character within an in-game aspect that was not built with roleplaying in mind at all.
@Kyuu
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I have no idea how you can be a pretend RPer.|
Originally Posted by Malech
You gave me no examples here of how there was any roleplay pvp that was actually roleplay pvp not pvpers pretending to be roleplayers. So unless you can you know, find an example thats not some obscure event, I'll just give you the same treatment you gave me. you don't know what your talking about your wrong.
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But here you go, two events, posted on Virtueverse in story form that were RPVP events. These are the two major ones I was involved with that were part of the original groups mentioned in the OP and sadly at the tale end of the RPVP heyday.
Project A.R.E.S. involved members of several super groups and villain groups including the Hyperion Force as the main group. We had several players play the part of the villains in the story and all of the story events were handled in the arena including the rescue of Ava Adore.
http://www.virtueverse.com/index.php...e/Project_Ares
The Liberty Bowman story was actually fairly large it involved a large number of groups and was done in both PVP zones, the arena and in PVE. This was a fairly complex story and Ava along with the Hyperion Force and Archon X were only involved with the story end and the Bowman's rescue. Kadekawa was actually killed during one of the finale operations tied to this story. (http://juggertha.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1hkq34 Juggertha did some awesome artwork of Kadekawa's final mission)
http://www.virtueverse.com/index.php...Missing_Bowman
More recently SCORPIO has done operations that were in PVP zones, we use to run patrols and RP in the zones and arena. We've even ran a few minor story bits in the PVP zones, there were parts of our With Leave (http://www.virtueverse.com/index.php...y_9/With_Leave) storyline that happened in Bloody Bay and Sirens.
We also use to do zone PVP regularly, it was a lot of fun too especially when random people would show up and join in, especially in Bloody Bay.
Mada Zarifa vs Colonel Hero
SCORPIO defends their temporary control of the Arachnos Base in Bloody Bay
Thats just what I could dig up in a few minutes. The real downside is I just don't have the time anymore to organize the RP events never mind RPVP events I was running with Scorpio. But we do still use PVP for story events when it fits. And we do still occasionally hit up the Arena for Training Simulations.
Edit: One more I thought of, when SincereAgape and Neo Trick Shot were married Ghost Widow showed up and kidnapped Agape and if I remember correctly dragged him off to Bloody Bay. The wedding party then rushed to the rescue to save him and several villains arrived to thwart them.
These are just a couple examples of people who are role players also PVPing, and very few of them had PVP builds. We did it for fun, we did it for story. This did happen and still does to some extent.
The fundamental problems with RPvP are two specific groups.
Group 1: Min-maxers who build their character for maximum effectiveness and then tailors their concept around min-maxed build to -DOMINATE- because they hate losing.
Group 2: Doesn't want to really participate because their build isn't effective due to game mechanics and it goes against their character concept to ever actually be defeated, and don't bother because they know they'll lose and they hate losing.
The problem is, "real" RP doesn't have winners or losers. Unless you can find a group that's willing to accept that the game mechanics of CoH dictate the rules of reality just like the dice + attributes dictate how things work in DnD, and don't consider getting upstaged in a combat situation the end of their entire character, you're not going to have much luck.
You can RP a loss just as easily as you can RP a victory, just, most people don't want to do that.
Course, this is coming from someone who just accepted they were a PVP punching bag and made it part of their concept, so, your mileage may vary.
Can I be part of group 3: doesn't bother because they know unless they're a min/maxed purple build they'll get destroyed by everyone. ?
Doesn't have anything to do with me hating losing, it's just a gigantic waste of time.
Characters!:
Pinny - Scrapper
Shadewing - Defender
@Pinny
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Nope, that's still part of Group 2, because you consider losing a waste of time.
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Originally Posted by Pinny
Can I be part of group 3: doesn't bother because they know unless they're a min/maxed purple build they'll get destroyed by everyone. ?
Doesn't have anything to do with me hating losing, it's just a gigantic waste of time. |
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Yay Sparrowhawk!|
Originally Posted by Sparrow_Hawk
Oh, and hello those people who remember me. I'm back!
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<----kadekawa
shinsengumi.virtueverse.com
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Except in the past with RPPVP events I had fun whether I won or lost. I wonder why that is.|
Originally Posted by Haetron
Nope, that's still part of Group 2, because you consider losing a waste of time.
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I think it all goes back to how imbalanced CoX PVP is now.
Characters!:
Pinny - Scrapper
Shadewing - Defender
@Pinny
So, I think I'm missing some critical information. What changed in i13 that made PVP inviable? I'm not challenging the conclusion. Just curious.
Edit: Whoops. I guess it is i13?
I have absolutely no IC reason why my character would take Phase Shift and Hibernate, hence why I don't seriously RPvP. PvP on its own would be another matter, there is the 2nd build and if I wanted to spend a fortune all over again I could, but I feel that would be money wasted.
Will I mess around with friends and acquaintances? Sure. However there is a huge difference between messing with friends and the various god mode steps you need to take to stand a any form of a chance in competitive PvP, RP or not.
Besides I just spent 1.4 Billion Inf on IO'ing out my Blaster so they could soft cap defense, Why on Earth would I want to PvP with them with PvP in its current state of "Ha ha ha **** you defense based toons!" ?
Back in the days of Old School RPvP, we had the Oldschool PvP System... you know, the thing that they decided to change randomly on a whim that crippled holds, heals and defense making it suck to be anything other than a corrupter or a Regen Scrapper.
I am glad I PvP'ed and RPVP'ed back in the day and had my fun then, because you wont see me touching the new PvP system with a medium sized pointed stick.
After the "New PvP" went in, I moved to WAR, now there was some fun PvP and RPvP (if you were on the RP server.)