What was your favorite thing about pre-I13 PvP?

Disclaimer: I am not by any stretch of the imagination a 'hardcore' PvP'er. I would consider myself casual... at best.

To be perfectly honest, what I liked about it was the exact same thing I disliked about it.

Most folks are calling it 'speed' but I prefer the term 'dynamic' and think this distinction is important. PvP was most enjoyed for its fast-paced play. The problem, for me, was when it became a contest of invisible jumping beans with brief periods of activity, only to break apart after the initial spot target and DeBuff/spike damage. Stealth, speed, and manuverability were extremely common, which made sense because it was effective. However, I think that was the same thing that was causing the problems. This didn't lend itself to the epic superhero/supervillain battles you read about.

Post 13, the pendulum swung too far the other way lending itself to stop/go herkey-jerky fights, but that's beating a dead horse.

The only reason I'm posting is because I think the key word here is 'dynamic' play. The feeling of constant motion and activity. Out of everything that could be said about pre-I13 PvP, THAT is what appealed to me.

Give a hard cap to movement speeds/height/etc if you must to make it more accessable, and lend itself to more toe to toe comic book battles. That I understand. However, for me at least, the feeling of consistent movement and activity is key.

Hope this helps.

Hiiii Antoinette!

Smallzies!!!!!

Scarlet Shocker had at least half a chance. Now Blasters are all but redundant in PVP - the world and his dog does more damage than most blasters

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

My favorite thing about pre-i13 pvp was that it wasn't post-i13 pvp.

Why can't the changes just be dropped and we go back to pre-i13 pvp? That solution has been there for the past 7 issues. 7 ISSUES! This isn't rocket surgery or brain science. Just rollback the ******* changes.

Oh wait, let me guess, you can't rollback changes because this spaghetti coded piece of crap is so tangled that any power changes might break something precious like [Walk].

Oi.

Apologies if this approaches thread necromancy, I didn't see this until it showed up in the off-site Dev Digest just now:

I'm one of the really unlucky ones: both of my favorite PvP characters got nerfed into oblivion, not just rendered even with other people but rendered completely unplayable in PvP, by diminishing returns. The fact is that some builds in City of Heroes just plain have nothing but the same effect stacked lots and lots of times. Take away the ability to stack +def, and what does a bots/FF mastermind have to fight with? Take away the ability to stack slow and -rech, and what does a mercs/poison mastermind have to fight with?

I wasn't around for pre-I13 PvP, I think. If I was, I barely PvP'ed back then. Anyway, the one thing that has been echoed in these dicussions is that you could PvP with just about any primary/secondary back then. While I don't mind that there's a clear PvP metagame right now, it could be a turn off that most powersets simply aren't useful for PvP. Even then, the current system feels like you have to build NOT for your primary and secondary, but your APP or PPP set instead (at least in RV, obviously).

I'm willing to adapt, since I am only now given PvP a shot. But in the brief time I've been playing, I felt like this could be so much better.

You people. . . . .

I still think much this all stemmed from a much deeper problem - mechanics aside, what mattered most (to me, anyway) was that when the developers did something with PvP before I13 (which was rare) they usually listened, and even when there was disagreement in the community about a change at least there was a mutual understanding about who was benefiting and why. Changes were subtle since PvP is an extremely delicate ecosystem, much more so than standard PvE, which is why everything was done in piecemeal to allow both the community to adjust and the developers to observe the effects.

Whoever was in charge of the PvP changes in I13 certainly did not give the impression they were listening at all or considering any particular group of players aside from non-PvPers - the majority of which will likely never get into PvP in the first place, as many of us warned at the time - and that rubbed a lot of us the wrong way. So wronged did we feel that some opinions on the matter have only become more sour over the course of two and a half years.

It is nice to be heard again and a step in the right direction, though with due respect we shall see in time if we are being understood and acknowledged or if this is just for hype. And if you're going to change something again, I highly suggest it not come in massive packages with drastic mechanics changes.