Other than Stalker, what is good in pvp?

This.

I really liked zone PvP myself, but these days I don't bother with it. If there's ever a PvP 3.0 (and I hope there is), I'll check it out.

I always thought they were dead because people would rather have access to ALL their powers, and not a handful of powers.

I know that's why I prefere RV over the other zones.

I just can't imagine heroes and villains playing capture the flag

Well as hard as it may be for you, and to be fair a good deal of people in this game, to believe but some people couldn't care less about role playing. At all. As far as a lot of people are concerned, I.E. those who do not role play, it is just a game with two different sides and the labels "villain" and "hero" matter about as much as red and blue.

This coming from someone who plays on Virtue and actively participates in role play, BUT I used to play on Freedom and PvPed seriously and I never really saw my characters as "villains" they were just characters in a video game...nothing else.

Even then I can see CTF in RP terms, because villains are hardly villainous in this game and more like lackeys. So the lackeys could be trying to steal some shinny artifact and the heroes have to stop them and bring it back.

They gave travel suppression for people like you. lol "supposed" to.

So you think limiting the number of available roles is good and people mad about it has nothing?
You have no clue what you are talking about.

Did I say anywhere in there that everything is perfect now? No. What I said was "Wah!" isn't helping. "Wah!" doesn't do anything to make PVP better. "Wah!" doesn't provide any incentive to increase resources spent on fixing PVP (whatever may be broken or not perfect). PVP will only get attention if people are interested in it and participating in it.

Since we're feeling more-knowing-than-thou, how about answering a couple questions?

1. What roles are missing from PVP? I see offense, support and disruption roles in current PVP. That covers a whole lot of ground and provides opportunities for a wide range of ATs.

2. What ATs are absolutely useless in PVP? Brutes, probably, because of how run-and-gun tactics or one-on-one fights hurt Fury. I'll chalk that up as a counterbalance to their farming abilities. What other ATs are useless?

Well it doesnt really matter one way or the other since they killed their own community by not listening to it and neglecting pvp.
I'll rephrase. More viable powersets.
Theres no real reason to play any blaster but psi/em not because its overpowered but because the rest are not good.
Buffer roles have been limited to pretty much emp and pain. Colds for shields, Sonic, FF for shields and thermal for shields have no place thanks to dr and inherent resists.
Kins are not as nice to have as they were.

PvP is stale, nothing has been done with it regardless of promises. They hardly do bugfixes any more. PvP was added on but they still have the responisbility to perform basic maintenance to it.

Not sure if i want to continue to beat this dead horse with you since all of this has been discussed thouroughly.

its not that the roles are missing, its that they're extremely limited. there are only a handful of combinations that have the ability to do a decent amount of damage which was, ironically, the opposite goal of i13. pre i12 wasn't very diverse, but it is way more diverse than it is now in its roles.

brute's aren't useless due to fury and run and gun tactics(albeit that doesn't help but thats not the main reason. defenders still have *some* use but not much) they're useless because their main job in pvp, taunting, can be done much better by a tank. it's got less HP therefore has less ability to handle a spike, and the higher damage mod isn't enough to make them viable. they're basically a nerfed scrapper with the inability to spike.

also warshades, and to some degree defenders(since their debuffs aren't unresisted anymore and corrs do more damage) are useless. and in the current AT's that are still some what worth a damn, each AT has a pleathora of builds that are just as useless as those ATs. any blaster primary except sonic fire and psi and any secondary other than energy or MM. most of the buffing sets for corr secondaries and defender primaries buffs are useless. for instance the best and basically only tool an FF defender has now is force bolt. defense based sets are so sub par to resistance or heal sets that you're gimping yourself if you go into a zone with one (the exception being stalkers because they work differently but for things like VEATs and defense based scraps tanks and brutes, you're screwed)

PVP already GOT attention because "not enough" people were interested in and participating in it. The i13 changes were brought about because of low interest and what appeared to be barriers to entry.

What did we get?

FEWER people playing it, and even HIGHER barriers to entry. Which, itself - by having fewer people playing - which "doesn't provide any incentive to increase resources spent on fixing PVP," to use your own phrasing.

Before, for instance, I knew if I had mez protection, that NPC mezzer couldn't mez me (surprise, surprise) and control ATs would have to work on it or do something to drop my toggles.

Now? Surprise, the powers work vastly differently in PVP. There is no mez protection. Resistance, yes. Among many, many other changes.

You don't want to hear people saying how bad it is now and how good it was before? Open up your ears and pay attention as to WHY they're saying what they're saying instead of dismissing it as "wah, it's not like it was." PVPers adapt to changes - when they're done reasonably.

They were not. And it cost the game the majority of the PVP community, and left VERY bad feelings among those who remain - with good reason.

See my Guides and Tutorials

One thing I've noticed is that the changes to PvP is supposed to draw more interests from people who don't normally PvP but the changes don't seem to draw any more new attention and the changes piss off those frequent PvPers.

So basically, the changes didn't do anything except for pissing off those who like PvP.

I never like PvP in this game and the new changes certainly don't attract me at all. It feels like what they changed is instead of Power A doing great damage, they changed it so Power B does more. So the solution to PvP is to take Power B.

and see this is really what i have never understood about the i13 changes. i can understand the idea of fixing pvp to bring in more people. i can understand the mentaility of catering to a group you're trying to encourage pvp within (i don't agree with doing it but i understand why). what i don't understand is if the devs were trying to increase popularity within a group that doesn't pvp i.e. pver's or people that casually pvp, then why wouldn't you put something in game letting the player know, not only that the game mechanics are different but how they're different. something to let new players know without them having to come to the forums and more or less require you to do research before entering a zone. you would think that would be a major part of massive system overhaul.

Thus the learning "brick wall."

I said at the time that yes, I agreed with the intent, and could even see the purpose behind some of it - suppression, etc.

But then again, I'm on the forums and know where to look to get the info.

The changes shouldn't have all been done in one issue. I think they overreached - end result aside... well, perhaps not aside, as the end result (the smaller community and massive powers changes) is *from* that overreach.

Put in suppression. Wait, tweak, see if it helps the "everyone's jumping around" and makes it more accessible. Put in the resistances/damage changes. See if that helps. If so, stop. Holds too binary? Put in a mix of resistance and immunity instead or something. See if it helps.

It's like... well, putting house rules in monopoly to stop a specific problem with your group. You put in one or two. You don't suddenly yank the board away halfway through and whip out a half-finished Trivial Pursuit game and say "This is how we play now!" It annoys the people REALLY into the monopoly game, and those that want to play once in a while - who could make for an even bigger monopoly gaming group - back away, not knowing when the game is going to change again.

See my Guides and Tutorials

That is not so much further then imagining Elves, Dwarves and Undead playing, no?

How much of that was rule changes and how much of that was IO-based and how much of that was people leaving a game made in 2004 for something shinier and newer?

Pre-i13, I can remember hitting a zone, barely getting out into it, then getting repeatedly TP'd to drones or some impossible to escape corner while a Bots/FF MM kept my Scrapper KB'd and useless. These were not "good old days" for me. There were tons of problems and I would allege that the i13 changes made PVP better, not just for me, but for a whole lot of people playing a whole lot of ATs.

The PVP IOs have definitely moved the goalposts, though. Anytime you can retain the set bonus at a lower level without giving up the benefits of high-level IOs, you create an imbalance. Giving them an additional benefit for PVP only creates a further imbalance. I would say that creates a barrier to entry, yes.

I'd say that's a GOOD thing. Back in the "good old days" if you were a mezzer, you were kind of useless unless you happened to have one of the few that wasn't commonly protected against. Now, you've got some bite, even against melee ATs. Less against other squishies, sure, but more universally useful and this opened up the game to additional ATs.

PVPers adapt to changes, but they never do so without a whole lot of "Wah!" You ever read PVP forums anywhere? Every change is DOOOOOM!!! Every forum thread loaded with "I quit!" drama. Here, it is no different. When people spend time and virtual currency building for one set of rules and the rules change, even if only nominally, the "Wah!" goes through the roof. These were big changes, but on the whole they were good changes (not perfect, not good everywhere, but better). The "Wah!" still went through the roof.

However, I would agree that PVPers have adapted. Those that could, anyway. Those that couldn't or wouldn't "Wah!" instead. And they keep it going while others enjoy the new system and still more make efforts to do so. They're part of the problem keeping PVP down, not part of the solution.

If it were a gradual drain - "Hmm, the zones seem a little emptier now" - it'd be the "shinier and newer."

However, it was "I13 hit, Lighthouse basically told the PVPers to go stuff themselves, mass exodus." Rule changes AND being told off killed off the community.

And measures were put into place against things like that. Orange inspirations protected against TP Foe, which also has (not just had) a Tohit check. Powers also provided protection. And, of course, there's the simple expedient of "Teaming," as was advised time and time again.

PVP was not, and should not be, balanced 1v1. COH does not have a limited number of classes to balance around. In Aion, for instance, you could point at a random (say) Ranger or Chanter and pretty well guess what powers they had and the best their sets could be. COH? If I point at a Defender, what are they? Do I have to worry about them buffing the team or debuffing the heck out of me? How about that Brute? Is it Defense or Resistance based, and what's their offensive set like?

Yes, you could get some good 1v1 fights going - and I did. Doesn't mean I won them all, or even most of them. But PVP was based around the idea of teaming - using teammates to cover whatever offensive/defensive holes you had (and taking advantage of those of the enemy.)

And if you were being "TP Foe'd into drones," you were too close to the enemy base, not "barely into the zone." Yes, I hear these apocryphal tales of being "Chain TP Foe'd across the zone into a drone." That would be a tohit check each and every time, no inspirations taken to counter it, perfect timing by each and every person in the chain so you couldn't escape, and a LOT of luck. ESPECIALLY when assisted targeting (target through ally) was removed in PVP. Why were people typically TP Foe'd into drones? Because the other side's base was being *camped.* Back off and the fights get much more fun.

Nothing was "Impossible to escape." I'd been TP Foe'd into "guaranteed" ASes and the like before and escaped by the simple expedient of - ready for this super-sekret uber escape strategy? - holding down the space bar and picking a movement direction so I was moving away already when the TP hit.

Then you haven't paid attention to what was happening THEN, or post-I13, to be blunt. Were there problems? Sure. And from I6-I13, they were addressed gradually, from zone geometry holes and exploits (note the "doors" in the guard towers) to counters to strategies (like Energy Aura and other sets as well as orange inspirations giving TP Foe protection) to requested protection (added drones.)

But you want to say it's better. How's a reduced hold duration better? How is gutting buffs better? How is getting RID of mez protection better? (Yes, you can now hold that tank - whose mez resistance kicks in before you can stack it. You're now slowed thanks to suppression and he can kill you.) How is kicking in movement, regeneration and recovery suppression *on taking an inspiration* better?

How is making every power work differently when you step into a PVP situation "better?"

Before, if you *wanted* to, you could take a second build and build for PVP. (I didn't, yet I still won my share of fights and fought to my share of draws. Even on SOs.) You knew how your powers worked. You had to learn how to best utilize them against others, how to deal with your "weak" powerset counters, and how to fight against a thinking enemy.

Now, suppose I picked some zones and changed how your powers worked. In Founders Falls, defense values are 1/3 of what they were, damage caps are set to 150%, and control has a higher TOHIT to overcome. In King's Row, defense is changed to resistance, range is cut in half, and travel powers work at half speed. Think people would get annoyed and complain? Think others would leave?

Think they'd be justified in doing so?

Side example - my Energy/Energy brute used to be one of my favourite PVP characters. Now, I don't bother. Not because of the Energy Transfer change - that didn't bother me at all.

See, I had two things going for me. One, TP Foe resistance - I'd hunt down those doing the TP Foe nonsense to teammates, because I could counter that.

The other? I had others warn about my character in broadcast because of one thing - every attack that could take it was slotted 2acc-3dam-1 stun. I worked those in to keep you in place. Energy transfer now taking a long time (comparitively) to animate? So what? You were still there and not going anywhere. Now... no point.

For people to earn PVP IOs, there have to be people who want to PVP. Post-I13, due to those changes, there are far, far fewer people who want to PVP. Far fewer people - some of whom were parts of multi-game PVP groups (I believe Lion's Den was one of these, for instance, and they vanished along with many others from COH) - who had worked with prior changes and would teach others, who could help a newbie out and help them learn the ropes.

It's not the PVP IOs creating the barrier to entry. If I manage to IO out a build and I hand it to someone new, those IOs aren't going to make much difference at all. It's the *massive* change in how powers work, thanks to I13. Yes, including control.

The SSK +5 level power "bonus" doesn't help in zones, either (that is, not in a positive way.) For instance, Bloody Bay used to be 15-25. It still is - and that's a bad set of ranges, IMHO, as it takes you from 2-3 TO'd out slots in nine powers to several fully (or nearly fully) SO'd out powers. That's a heck of a range. But builds were exceptionally tight to fight there. Now, it's practically 15-30. Nearly a full primary (and I'd say inherent stamina only makes THIS situation worse.) Siren's Call? You didn't have to worry abou Tier 9s before, or Controller/Dom pets (and if you don't think THOSE make a difference, you're sadly mistaken,) Blaster nukes (though, of course, damage is screwy now) and the like. Now, since you're fighting "essentially" 20-35 (DOs to near-full primary and secondaries,) it's another huge gap in power on top of powers acting differently (and, of course, Tier 9s to deal with - something that before you only had to worry about if someone was exploiting a former bug where they could run out, trigger it and run back in.)



No, you weren't. Not unless you didn't bother learning how to deal with thinking opponents. My Earth/FF - hardly a "hardcore" PVP set - annoyed the hell out of people thanks to Quicksand, Earthquake, -def and the like - and her buffs were useful, as well. Kill quickly on her own? Nope. But again, *teaming* was what PVP was geared toward.

Illusion was liked for PA and invisibility - full, attack-without-dropping invisibility. Doms were valued for mez *and* a damaging secondary.

"Less resisted control?" Gravity does smashing - it also has lift and slows. Earth did -def. Plant had problems because of the ridiculous (even in PVE) "Cannot use power, target in air" - go ahead, take a plant into BB, even now, and watch some of your powers fizzle against firebase turrets that are "in the air." Mind was ridiculously strong, yes, but it is in PVE as well.

You'll excuse me if I laugh at this.

EVERY AT was useful in PVP, unless you're SOOOOOO focused on winning 1v1 the majority of the time - and even then, it fell to some *powerset combos* being weaker or stronger. Hell, I fought (and won) using *warshades,* arguably the WEAKEST AT for PVP. Now, Warshades really *are* useless. Slows? Pfft. Damage? The mobs aren't subject to the same rules as players, so it's nearly suicidal to try to buff from them. And of course, *teleport* - suppression means (a) you cannot get away via teleport, since it's completely killed, and (b) Starless Step (TP Foe) provides your target with invincibility when they arrive for a time, so you're just picking who you want to have your face beaten in by. (The teleport bit affects Peacebringers in dwarf, as well.)


The game *completely changed.* The devs wanted feedback in beta. They were given it, WITH GOOD REASONS as to why the changes were NOT good (not "It's just change, I don't like it.") The response? "Tough, they're going through."

Gee, being told "The part of the game you enjoy is being changed completely, don't like it, too bad" - hmm, I wonder why people would complain and leave. Or rather, why they DID, leaving an already-small PVP community devastated and the zones completely empty.

Which others? Where are allllll these new PVPers, who don't know what the old system was like, who have never been on the forums, filling the zone and making the arena active?

If your dismissive attitude were right, then now, nearly SEVEN ISSUES later (and since issues aren't evenly spaced, let me give you the release date - Tuesday, December 2, 2008 - over two years ago) there should be new PVPers who have never known what PVP was like before Issue 13, "born and raised" in the new system. There would be a population drop and steady rise, not just as we get new (replacement) players and some old hands come back to see what shook out, but as the people those changes were created FOR (those "ATs that were left out," as you want to paint it,) start taking their places in the zones.

So, where are they?

You can't blame the forums. Less than 10% of the game's population comes here, per Paragon Studios, and not all (or even most) of those post. People should be discovering and learning the new system on their own without ever SEEING what you dismissively put out as "all this wah! from the old PVPers." It happened in issue 6 when it was introduced. It happened throughout all the changes from I6-I12. The population grew, I13 hit, and then.....

Hmm.

*goes into siren's, hears crickets.*
*goes to BB, watches for a while, someone goes for a shivan and leaves when attacked.*
*goes into warburg, listens to his "Hello?" echo through the empty zone.*
*goes to RV, nothing.*
*looks at the empty arena*

On the PVE side, TWO similar game-changing items hit one right after the other. Enhancement Diversification and the Global Defense Nerf. No IOs to make up for it for years. Yet the population stayed - even grew - for the most part. Those are "Good" changes. Ones that people complain about the big change, yes, but work through.

If the same hasn't happened in over two years on the PVP side, I'd say your argument that they were "good" changes has more than a few holes in it. If they were "good" changes, they should have drawn new PVPers. They should have drawn in their targeted audience, who would have kept the PVP scene lively.

So where are they?

Where's my nice, active Siren's Call zone that I used to have?

Where are my fights at the meteors or in the city in Siren's?

Where are the beachfront brawls in Warburg?

I'll tell you where they are - *GONE.* And they have been since issue 13.

Say I run a restaraunt. I make greek food (just to pick something.) I don't have a huge clientele, but hey, I get 5000 people a day in. One day, I mention I'm going to radically overhaul my menu. Now, I've made minor changes before, and my 5000 people have dealt with it. Some they've liked, others they haven't. However, I'm going from Greek to... oh... Jamaican/Tex-mex. (What a combo! It'll draw in new people!) My customers, of course, complain - they come here for greek food, if I want to add some stuff fine but they like greek! I tell them to shove off, the changes "aren't for them, but for the people who have tried greek once and not come back." I make that change. I retain 10 customers... and lose the other 4990 that used to come there. But hey, I gained 5 new ones!

What happens to my business? Even if those 5 like it - I have a total of 15 people, 7 of which like it, 8 of which still show up for some reason, even if they grumble. Was it a good change or bad?

That's what happened to PVP.

See my Guides and Tutorials

See my Guides and Tutorials

the massive spike downward was rule changes. but im sure there are some that left for those other reasons as well.

then you're an idiot. I can honestly count the number of people who like i13 pvp on one hand. was prei13 perfect? of course not. it had its problems and the decision to do something about pvp in i13 was needed. the fact that it wasn't for the pvper's, said by lighthouse, was the absolute worst thing they could have done. post i13 is even more buggy, has less diversity, and the only amount of fun to be had is when you can go into arena and turn most of the changes off.

not really. maybe for pve but overall they've had little effect on pvp

this would be true if pvp IOs were worth a damn in pvp. most pvpers don't use any pvp ios because most of the bonuses are the kind that get DR'd down to nothing and aren't worth their money. the only pvp IOs that pvper's use are damage procs, some glad javs, and pana's. and the last two are basically used because they give a range bonus.



this basically says that you have no idea what you're talking about.

same thing with this statement. the mez change didn't open up the game to additional AT's. it just took insp management out of the game. the fact that a mind dom in domination can put a hold on you for anywhere from 6-8 seconds and you can do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT IT is complete and utter crap. any effectiveness this change had was taken out when they took out toggle dropping on mezzing.



well there haven't been any changes in the last 3 years and the last one we said was DOOOOOM!!!!! was, in fact, doom so....


they were not good changes. taking buffing out of the game was not a good change. making mez protection useless was not a good change. making it so every build is basically the same cookie cutter thing and that the entire gameplay experience is a glorified rock paper scissors thing was not a good change. making is so that i slow myself more by activating a power than if someone uses a slow power on me was not a good change. changing how damage is done to make flurry and jump kick harder hitting powers than some t9's was not a good change. not fixing any of the bugs that have been in game since the implementation of i13 and leaving it in the same broken state was not a good change.

No, those that'd wah'd at the time, left.

a 4 year old can make an effort to eat his vegetables, that doesn't mean he enjoy's it. the only enjoyable thing about pvp is even with all the restrictions it is still more difficult and challenging than anything in the pve game.

but the statement that complaining about a change that is universally and by majority hated in order to get it changed doesn't make any sense to me. if we didn't, we'd still be dealing with 100 mag hold procetion mito's on hamis and fire wouldn't have gotten the buff it got afew issues ago.

His sig-quoted section is in yellow.

(This, by the way, is also part of what turned me - who has been called a "fanboi" more than once - into such a cynic when it comes to dev changes and promises of "ongoing" systems. They said Devs Choices in AE would be ongoing, which is why we only got 5 slots... no new ones in over a year. Base changes? Nada. Even Invention sets are very few and far between - the devs put in big systems or make big adjustments, then leave them to rot. And now they're promising "ongoing" incarnate trials and systems, expanding the trees! Riiiiiiiiiight..... )

See my Guides and Tutorials

This is a quality post.

This made me laugh.