Potential Future of CoV PvP.

Hello, my name is Konrad, and today I would like to address the devs and the community with a proposal of a moderate magnitude, fairly low complexity, but huge potential for player draw.

Before I begin, allow me to mention a bit of my credentials. I've been a gamer, roleplayer, and beta tester of MMOs pretty much since 2000, and there are a lot of genres I have seen and tried, from siege based pvp (extreme end being Shadowbane) to enforced roleplay and small scale obscure games, and I have to say... City of Heroes was really a ground breaking game of its time in terms of what it could support and unique in its potential combination of roleplay and pvp mechanics.

To elaborate further, I have played for a year primarily on the Virtue server, which seems to have the largest population nowadays. This demonstrates that the interest for roleplay is hot. However, there is one problem I have found with CoH - and that is... its lack of sandbox pvp.

Outlining the problem.

I am sure that a large number of people will support me in this notion, that
while the content missions are fun, they seem to lack persistant continuity, as the world around you never changes. Even after you defeated Lord Recluse, there he stands again in Grandville and bosses you around. Some of us are competitive roleplayers and we keep searching for a game, where you could expand dominance, while staying in character, and having it mean something.
Having maxed out a character to level 50, and specced out all the top Incarnate powers, I found myself wondering what to do now?
I went to roleplay in Pocket D, and found the roleplay somewhat stagnant.
Usually, it is: half -ooc flame and sexual innuendos, or completely chaotic roleplay that is not even backed up by pvp accomplishments.
For example, a guy who claims to own the St. Martial casino - is simply RPing there, and anyone can barge in and claim they own it instead. Simply because there are no mechanics for it.

The game shows us all these cool powers and outfits, assassins, businessmen, mercenary organizations, so much promise for contacts and political intrugue, supergroups of villains and heroes, and yet... I thought to myself, what am I missing?
How come I see all this exciting stuff, but none of it is actually happening to me. So I send my character mercenary looking for work. And nobody would hire me, because there is no use for mercenaries.

Then, I say, I must find my luck in the PvP zone, so I head to Recluse's Victory, and what do I find? A game of tag that resets itself every 10 minutes. While the PvP is fun and engaging, a roleplayer gains nothing from it. What happens in Recluse's Victory, stays in Recluse's Victory, and there is no way you can prove to the rest of the server or have anyone care or acknowledge that you just owned a ton of people and it means something.

It's a feeling of being all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Hence, my proposed solution:

In short, introduce Territory Control system.
Looks like the main mechanics for this are already in place. Most of this stuff can already be applied without writing much new code.

The proposal is as follows.

On every map we have districts, marked by white white dots, examples being in Cap Au Diable - Haven, New Haven, Devil's Coat Tails, etc.
When you enter these zones, you receive a screen update that you have entered it.

1. First part of my proposal is to allow supergroups own these districts, and make it so that the SG name is displayed underneath, when you enter the district.
This simple change hugely boosts bragging rights and motivate people to compete. Letting the entire map know that your name is on it? Oh yeah.
Nothing new, already an existing mechanic, now simply applied in one additional way.

2. Now, how do we take over districts? Mechanics for this are also already in play. The district starts with an arena terminal in the middle, just like ones in Monkey Club in Pocket D. This terminal could be located by the district marker. Here, at this special conquest terminal, an event can be scheduled to claim reign over the district by a leader of an attacking Supergroup.

Such a claim Challenge costs the attacker 100 000 prestige to issue.

If the district is not owned, the event is automatically accepted, and if the district is owned, the event has to be accepted by the defending supergroup who currently owns the district.

Anyone with rights to schedule raids should be able to use the terminals to either attack or defend districts. First come first served, when it comes to throwing challenges. Only one supergroup at a time can attack a district. No other supergroup may challenge the same district if another has already challenged it.

The challenge has to be accepted within 24 hours and a time of battle must be set to no further than 3 days away. If the challenge is not accepted within 24 hours, it defaults to a loss of district. (can't own land if you're on vacation and not ready to defend it, and didn't appoint anyone in your Supergroup to check for attacks).

To make this easier, announce the challenge across Supergroup chat. "Your control over [District Name] has been challenged by [Enemy Supergroup Name]. You have 24 hours to respond, or your control of the district will be forfeit"

Once the challenge is accepted, the countdown starts. This enters the siege into the Countdown Phase.

Countdown Phase.

The Countdown Phase is the time period between the challenge being accepted, and the time the battle is set to. Essentially it is a courtesy period for both sides to gather members, practice, and organize, and hone their pvp teamwork. The longest it can last is 3 days (72 hours), because once that expires, the battle will begin.

During the Countdown Phase, members of both attacker and defender supergroups and their coallitions can now teleport through the terminal into an instance of the district (just the one district of a map, separated by blue walls from the rest of the map). Here, they can kill each other and pvp freely, basically creating an instance of, say, New Haven with pvp rules between these two Supergroups (and coallition). Nobody else is allowed on the challenge map who is not directly involved in the conflict. But a supergroup may try to add more supergroups to coallition to form more numbers.

The challenge map is basically a free PvP arena for the duration of the Countdown Phase. No mobs should be there (to reduce lag), and players of involved sides can kill each other there at will. Until, the countdown ends.

War Phase.

Once the countdown is up, The War Phase begins. During the War Phase, coallitions cannot be broken and no more members can be added to either attacker or defender supergroups. The error message would be: "Your coallition is now at war. Wait till the end of the War Phase."

Attacker and Defender coallitions enter the map from two different spawn points, attacker spawn and defender spawn.

The War Phase lasts for one hour, during which the map begins to track individual kills (similar to Recluse's Victory). This part is simple as war itself. Whichever side has more kills by the end of the hour, wins.

If both teams sit out at spawn points and no kills occur, the defender wins and the attacker has just wasted 100 000 prestige.

By "side", I mean the supergroup who created the challenge in the terminal (not entire coallition. It is assumed the coallition is willingly helping one supergroup win, usually it would be the main head supergroup, leader of the coallition, but it could vary, i.e. a coallition may let one of its lesser SG members drop a challenge).

If the defender wins, the supergroup (and only supergroup, not coallition) who controlled the district, remains in control.

A global message is displayed: The War Stage for [District Name] has concluded. [District Name] Region is now controlled by [Winner Supergroup]

Now we enter Stability Stage.

Stability Stage.

Plain and simple, it is an immunity to Challenge for 1 week. Having successfully defended or conquered the district, this district's Conquest Terminal is closed for 1 week. Once a week passes, someone else can try to attack it once again.

That's the basic idea. I guarantee you that every PvPer out there will drop whatever game they are playing and come play CoH if you guys implement this. You will make a ton of cash, and I personally know about 150 people who would instantly sign up that very day.


But that's not all. Surely, PvP of that caliber would have economic advantage for us political/economical/greedy types.

Here, the rules would be simple:

All purchases made in shops of the district, all deals sold/bought on black market - would pay a small % fee to the ruler supergroup. Yes, this means that some districts (ones with tailors) will be more prized territories than districts who don't have many vendors. Competition will be hot there.

Also, to add to this, make ferries and train stations charge a small fee. No more than 100 infamy/information/influence per trip. (hardly noticeable to an average person daily, 100 infamy is nothing), but it builds up from a 1000 people a day using the ferry, and your supergroup just made 100 000 infamy a day. Not bad.

Great motivation to compete for ownership of districts, if seeing your SG's name on the entry notification is not caressing your vanity enough.


Now, the beauty of this proposed system is that is that it does not FORCE anyone to use it or pvp. It does not change balance or game focus much at all, but rather accomodates both.
If you do like doing content missions and chit chatting in pocket D about stuff you make up, you are still free to do that. The worst that can happen to you is a public ferry will charge you a penny, and quarter masters will pay a bit less and charge a bit more. Nothing vital, you can ignore it.

But if you are a hardcore PvPer and RPer like myself, it will be a great thing to RP about. All those figures of power will now gain tangible measure. You don't think Johhny G is important? Go look at his tag - he is a leader of Crimson Vanguard, and now look at the map of Port Oakes. Yes, Crimson Vanguard owns Marconeville, and they successfully defended it for 6 weeks. Yeah, this guy before you is important. He is now twice the sexy, twice the powerful, twice the meaning. Not just a guy in a cool suit.

I really hope devs read this and think about this prospect. It would easily make City of Heroes the new game of the year. No game has successfully managed to implement a non broken functional territory control system that would be any good yet. This could really revive CoH for many players who are losing interest and seeking other games to play.
This would also make people want to keep playing, because a week to week hold on your territory means commitment to the game, if you're the conquering type.

And again, if you are not, the game can stay the same to you, and you don't have to care who owns what land. As long as you pay your taxes.

Discuss.

I could see some SGs getting behind this. Two things though...

so...you want base raids?

The problem with challenging yourself over and over with throw-away super group, is that you have to beat others to it who are waiting by the terminal like hungry sharks for the immunity to pass. If you have dozens of people zerging the terminal and clicking self-challenge, well, then you deserve to hold the region, because you, sir, are on the money.

As for opting out of the taxation system, if that was possible, everyone would opt out and render the system pointless. If i can opt out of your taxes, I can spin tales in Pocket D about how I'm the most powerful guy on the planet, but somehow I'm still a level 25 noob who never put his nose into PvP. So, I'd say nay, we all have to pay.
To make this transparent, perhaps simply keep prices the same, but give half of that money to the district rulers.

@Computer: you really would never use such a system? Wouldn't be tempted to get an SG to conquer a district and collect free money every day? The miniscule fees, even if it's 100 inf. per ferry ride, would build up to large sums just because how many people use it. Well, ferries can be split between districts, one ferry can belong to one, another to another. It would really earn good profit if you owned a district with a ferry. You could spec out your SG's toons with the money from taxes, it would heal the game's ruined inflated economy back up quite a bit as well!

I'm guessing you are not a PvPer at heart, and PvPRPers are the target audience for this proposal's draw. I'd like to hear opinions of some hardcore CoH PvPers if such are present in the house.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PC_guy so...you want base raids?

I'd think my post was lengthy enough to clearly state what I'm proposing. I was not around when base raids were still active, but from my understanding, base raids were simply competitions over items of power, who most people had no clue or care about.

With what I am proposing, anyone at anytime is reminded who owns the district you're entering. Your victory trophey gives you concrete fame, not just an item in a hidden base you have to invite people to go look.
Also, economic advantages, I believe were not present in base raids, but if I am wrong, please correct me, as, once again, I did not come around early enough to witness raids.

I am basically proposing a siege system.

As good of an idea as this is, I see 2 flaws with it.

1. What if I dont want to join a SG? Im left out of pvp?

2. The mechanics of pvp are what stink in this game. Heal decay, travel suppression, native resists... Fix those "problems" and I think you'd have a much better go at PvP in this game again.

Just my 2 inf.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

Those problems are just quirks and bugs with balance. Fixing them is not as necessary as giving PvP a purpose to begin with. Even with balance issues it can be fun if there is a point to it in the first place. Right now there isn't at all a point to PvP.

Again, the responses here so far are mostly from carebear population, who wouldn't want to pay an extra penny to a player superior in PvP.
Any input from folks who like competition with clear winners and losers, versus the pve grind over and over again with no endgame point?

this sounds alot like Warhammer

lolpvp

I'm not saying "don't fix the bugs", it's just a longer process because people have different ways of thinking and will keep correcting devs balance issues, so it's an ongoing process.

However, something like enabling supergroup battles for city areas, even with a miniscule reward, like your SG name on the map as the owners, or your SG banners flying from the buildings - would be an awesome start to making pvp rich in content and surely everyone would love that, just out of sheer vanity.

People will battle for cities all the time, in order to display their supergroup logo and name to everyone who visits the zone.

Just that simple implementation would already bring old contest fans back into the game, and encourage people to subscribe for paid membership, so they can join supergroups. Because right now SGs are useless.

Some times i wonder what would have happened if all those resources were spent instead on some form of objective based pvp.

PC_guy, PvP balance is secondary because Going Rogue allows you to have all the different archetypes on both sides. Besides, Supergroup based PvP would allow heroes battle heroes and villains battle villains, so all archetypes would be in a mix.
So just counter a scrapper with a scrapper. Balance doesn't matter much if you use similar toons. It just makes you adapt.

Except not all scrappers are equal. Why bring a Katana scrapper when a Kin scrapper is so much better? If the sets were actually balanced with one another, then the team dynamic would be much more flexible and open to all sorts of builds.

Well I like all these ideas.

I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish I hope I wish I pray the devs will do SOMETHING with PvP. Anything. Recluse's Victory only goes so far. I like the way the OP put it, its like a back n forth game of tag. Arena takes too long to setup and there is no real purpose for it or stat tracking.

I never quit after the i13 fiasco, and I continue to have faith that one day the devs will give us some pvp endgame that is a blast, but that's just me....

Love how this guy says he never bothered with PVP for longer than 30 minutes in one breath, and then in the next calls himself a hardcore PVPer.

Even the hardcore trolls have gone. I kinda miss Dahjee.

I miss Adamant_Soul.

@Vince