CoH: Freedom and PvP

So COH itself was never great? Most of the fixes prior to I13 were, frankly, small adjustments, or adjustments made specifically for PVP.

Incorrect. Prior to I13, while smallish, the PVP community was fairly healthy. I tend to play primarily on Victory and Pinnacle - neither one a "large population" server - and could typically count on a fight in BB, Siren's or Warburg within (at worst) a few minutes. Or at least someone showing up. That is not "atrophy." That, like badging, like base building, like RP is a healthy subset of the community - that, frankly, could have kept going.

I13 did kill PVP. And if it were a series of good changes, well, after this long I should see somewhat similar population in the zones getting used to the massive changes between it and PVE. Yet I go in and... crickets.


Wow. Massive leap there.

If "There are bugs that were never addressed" means "PVP never worked right," then COH as a whole has never worked right by your logic.

Y'know how people pick on je_saist for "being wrong?" You're giving his reputation a run for his money with this set of responses so far.

... which is why they devoted time to come up with PVP IOs, PVP zones, and time - though misguided - in I13. They've spent more time working on PVP than they have with AE.

Some people DID play this for a different PVP experience, like it or not.

And don't typically have to learn a *completely different set* of mechanics for stepping into another zone, as they do NOW with post-I13 PVP. Such as travel suppression for taking an inspiration, or powers not doing as much damage, or mez protection NOT giving mez protection (yay, tanks getting mezzed on the first hit!) or hold times getting absolutely gutted - and those AREN'T the more complex mechanics.

Seriously, if Croatoa suddenly had your character working *completely differently* (and not in a positive way) just for stepping into the zone, do you think you'd want to go there? Or do you think it'd be a zone that's completely avoided?

Please provide the source for your numbers - specifically "PVE players THAT WANT NOTHING TO DO with PVP." I'll agree that less than 10% were hardcore PVPers. But most of the people I saw in the zones were like me - mostly PVE that went into the PVP zones for something different to do. That's a FAR harder number to come up with.

Similarly, give me the numbers for the *hardcore PVEers* who - without the I13 mechanics changes - would never, ever touch a PVP zone. Yes, I do know they exist. Want to bet they're ALSO under 10%?

Most of the population falls somewhere in between those two extremes - at least until they learn that stepping into a PVP situation *radically* changes your powers, which turns OFF the casual player. That I *can* say with certainty, just from observation of the zones and my own decrease in PVP activity.

As it is, your response had *zero* to do with his statement that there are vets who have been here from launch who are still baffled by the current PVP system - again, such massive (and generally negative) changes to how powers work will tend to *dis*courage people from using the feature.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I also play on Victory, and I have to agree with Bill here 100% -- that was EXACTLY the way it was prior to I13. Siren's Call, in particular (and to a lesser extent Warburg), was simply hopping many nights, with a changing group of players and toons warring one side vs. the other. It was a ton of fun -- and this is coming from a person who really does not enjoy most aspects of PvP at all. If, arguably, we have I13's PvP changes to primarily "thank" the end of zone PvP for, then it's a darn shame (and boy, were base raids fun too!).

CoH started off as a good MMO and evolved into a great MMO.



10% of the population is smallish.

Yes what there was of the PvP community had zones and servers they preferred to play on.

I'll concede that point but I was refuting what Battlewraith said

And I dismissed that idea because it flat out wasn't true. There has always been a solid but small core of PvPers waiting for things to get fixed, and while I think the devs put PvP on the back burner for a while they haven't given up on it yet.

Never said it didn't. Again the remaining PvP population is merely waiting for the devs to fix it.


If I'm going to be compared to someone for something I said then I'd much prefer it to be Je_Saist than Durakken.

Exactly. PvP didn't atrophy from dev neglect. They spent a lot of time on it.

Never said they didn't.

And that changes what about how new players having to learn the PvP mechanics for a game they never played before? Even if PvP were perfect in this game new players would still have to learn the ropes.


So we're just quibbling over the percentages that represent the admittedly small PvP community. Well without hard numbers from the devs I stand by my estimate.

That's a bet I would take but I know of no way to resolve it because I doubt the devs will ever confirm it one way or the other.

Actually I think what discouraged people more wasn't the PvP mechanics, but that tiny fraction of the PvP community that (vocally) behave like obnoxious jacktards when encountered. Their antics didn't encourage people when they are trying to learn how things work. Thus the larger good PvP community suffered.

It wasn't intended to. It was solely directed at the fact that all new players have to learn the mechanics of any game they are playing for the first time.

Yet your stance was that if PVP was so great, it wouldn't have kept needing fixes. The game *as a whole* kept needing fixes. Still does. So your statement should hold true for the entire thing.

Which it sounds like you disagree with.

Which way would you like to argue?

Again - "hardcore, always in there," perhaps. "Max percentage of the population that was in the zones over a day," perhaps. But I'm quite willing to bet that there was *more than 10%* of the population that was involved in PVP (prior to Issue 13) total - that goes from hardcore to "every once in a while" to "Stuck a toe in with a new character maybe once a month."

There's a *wide* range of "PVP activity." And from the number of new faces I used to see going through the zones, 10% being involved to some degree with PVP - and yes, I'm ignoring those who just went in for shivans - sounds very low.

What does this even mean? That's a non-answer. Certainly meaning nothing in response to my statement that I played on low pop servers and still *used to* (pre-I13) be able to get into a pretty good fight. Not just 1v1 or 2v2 or 2v3 or whatnot, but multi-team vs multi-team fighting back and forth across the zone for *hours.*

And it didn't MATTER which server I was on.

As for "Zones" - they were in ALL the PVP zones. I could go from one group in BB to another group in SC to another in WB to yet another in RV and see mostly different people - in one night.

Post-I13? Yes, the population concentrated on Freedom, for the most part. Because it *drove away* so many.

There's a difference from (say) Aion, where you learn how a power works - and it works the same way whether you're fighting a player vs an NPC - and here. Here, a new player who gets interested in PVP has to learn the ropes *from scratch* TWICE. That does not help grow, or even maintain, the PVP community. They have to learn what their character does in PVE, then find out "Oh, it doesn't work *anything* like that" in PVP.

Thought that ws pretty clear. "That changes what?" That changes how big of a barrier to entry there is for PVP, which directly affects interest and effort. More people are going to give up on it - as we can see from the now-usually-empty zones and arenas on most servers - when they have to re-learn everything.


And your estimate comes from what? And you're defining the PVP community as? Without any of that, your estimate means nothing. You'll note I *do* end up specifying.

Honestly, no. I went through that. And you know what? Anyone in the zone dealign with that would soon find most of the *rest* of the people in zone working to get rid of the truly obnoxious player. Being able to pick out "trash talk" from being a jerk. The impression on the boards here was "OMG, Everyone was like that!" - from one or two very distinct parts of the community, and a very few *loud* folks from those as well. The badgers were the same way, quite bluntly. Id' say the behaviour I saw from some of them was far more consistent (and consistently *bad*) than what I saw from the PVP community as a whole. (And yes, I know not all badgers are like that either. Which is part of the point. But I saw it more often from that side. )

Read prior response to that. You miss the point that they *don't* have to learn them just once. And that is a detriment to PVP.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I don't feel I have to choose because I don't see it holding true for the entire thing. I see the PvE part of the game as constantly evolving into a better game with a few setbacks here and there like the problems with the MA.

But I don't see the same progress happening with PvP. Everything I saw and read has given me the impression that it has been a constant struggle to get it to work until they put it on the back burners with I13.



I'm sorry but it'll take something from the devs to convince me that 10% isn't a fair assessment of the PvP population.


It means players on different servers have different experiences. I recall seeing plenty of threads prior to I13 complaining they could never find anyone in the PvP zones on whatever server they were on.

And it didn't MATTER which server I was on.

As for "Zones" - they were in ALL the PVP zones. I could go from one group in BB to another group in SC to another in WB to yet another in RV and see mostly different people - in one night. [/quote]

I guess it's possible they were all liars. And when I was working on the SG badge to unlock the Dimensional Vortex power source (which was prior to I13) on Virtue I guess I had to run two accounts to earn the PvP kills because the other PvPers were hiding from me.


Wasn't arguing about the difficulty involved in learning how PvP works in this game just stating that new players will always have to learn a new system.


Personal experience and what I read on the forums in posts made by rational respectable posters over the years like yourself.

Anyone that enjoys PvP in this game.

I guess we'll have to disagree on this. I believe negative impressions make a far more lasting imprint on people than positive and people will avoid them.

Bill,

You're glossing over the fact that PvP has chewed up disproportionate resources over its history for the number of hours spent PvPing.

That's what it comes down to.

Not to be dismissive of the PvP community's legitimate complaints, but the devs have done a pretty fair job of implementing what the players have asked for: the arena itself; zones; mini-games; rewards. But nothing ever stuck with the broader community, and attempts to make PvP more broadly popular have been met with, at best, indifference.

PvP has been a boondoggle in CoH, and I don't think any amount of dev and community time would fix it.

We don't want a fix at this point all we want is for them to flip the switch to make all the powers and rules same for pvp zones as pve zones. That's it at this point. How could that possibly take more then an hour? how I ask you?

Lets face it people the devs are to stuborn to admit their mistake and apparently 10% of 100,000 doesn't mean all that much to them. 10,000x15=150,000. **** I wish $150,000 a month meant jack squat to me.

The devs solicited feedback for pvpers about what kind of changes they wanted to see. Part of that feedback involved those players explaining what exactly was good about pvp. The devs rejected all the input and instituted things like dr, travel suppression, heal decay etc. which were intended to attract non-pvpers. Which obviously failed and greatly reduced the number of dedicated pvpers that were playing the game.

When NCSoft got the pvpec going, the player reps spent a lot of time putting together proposals for pvp rewards (e.g I designed custom pvp themed capes that would be earned through pvp badges). The majority were rejected by the devs with little indication why. NCSoft kept pvp events from falling apart by offering swag like game codes as prizes.

Base raids were popular with a lot of people that didn't do mainstream pvp. They took that functionality out rather than fixing it. They've disrupted multiple are leagues on test because they can't be bothered to run another instance of test server. As I mentioned earlier, the arena population dwindled when they wouldn't bother fixing it for multiple issues.

Anyone that has spent a lot of time pvping from the time that it was introduced knows that your characterization is inaccurate.

Before or after i13?

And who are you to say this?

Zones: Were planned from the beginning, as they were introduced with COV.
Mini-games: Were planned as part of the zones. No new ones, in arena or zone, were ever floated.
Rewards: Are the only thing that HAS changed since the introduction of PVP, with the introduction of PVP IOs (and regular drops.)

So that's one out of three. And you forgot there's one LESS place to PVP, with the removal of base raids from the game. Name one other area that has had that big of a chunk of content removed. Bonus points if it was removed and presented as a "gift" for someone else (Base raids being shut down = no need to worry about pathing, base builders, put stuff wherever you want! And I'm not saying that to put down base builders.)


PVP IOs led primarily to farming as they were introduced after I13. And then there's I13 itself... which was certainly not met with indifference, any more than coming out to your car with the tires stolen, windows smashed and graffiti sprayed everywhere on it would. They've had plenty of time to see how badly I13 screwed things up.

You're welcome to your opinion, but I strongly question the basis on which you've formed it.

See my Guides and Tutorials

That was certainly my experience. Bill will probably remember my "Hell's Angels vs. property values" analogy when PvP was first introduced.

Like everything else about the eternal PvP argument, however, that is anecdotal and hasn't got hard numerical data behind it, and so, like the argument itself, there's no point. You and Bill both have good points, but are making them in support of two sides of an argument that is itself of no value. So congratulations - the two of you have just successfully re-enacted the entire Internet as a two-person show!

Wrong.

10% is a big number. Especially when you're talking $$$ and subscriber numbers. Only a complete idiot would disagree.

A large group of people used to play PVP frequently in this game. I imagine that number would only have grown under F2P if the mechanics had not been changed in I13.

All of this discussion has happened before. All of this discussion will happen again.

Well, of course. There would be no point in discussing whether people would complain about it. That's a given.

I don't know, we had so many arguments.... >.>

See my Guides and Tutorials

Well, yes, and that analogy was in almost every one of them.

You don't remember! *snif* And I really thought we had something special...

You've been gone a while. I've been in a contractural "Disagree with Evilgeko" for a while.

And by the way, he's wrong.

See my Guides and Tutorials

in i21/freedom incarnate powers will be limited to VIP only regardless if you have GR or not (since its gonna be rolled into the game at that point anyway)

to get IO access yes its a single purchase

You are right that 10% is a large number, but it's also true that the other 90% is an even bigger number when talking about $$$ and subscriber numbers.

And I truly wish our PvP community had something they could be proud of playing.

Fair enough.

Well, obviously.

As for me, I find that - quite refreshingly - I no longer give even one-tenth of one damn about PvP. In my initial disappointment at its coming, I lost sight of the simple fact that this is the Internet, and as such the international jackhole alliance would've been along sooner or later anyway.

Thanks for not understanding what I just said. HINT: It wasn't that.

It's not what you play that makes you a jackhole, it's how you behave while you are playing that makes you a jackhole.

Think they said that a PvPer with good skills can beat a IOed chump even if the PvPer only has SOs.

Which is true, I'm the chump and I bet in RV as a level 50 with some incarnate abilities a level 40 PvPer could beat me with ease...

@Thread.

I used to PvP it was fun, then it got boring because nothing ever changed. Then it all changed and I don't even enter the PvP zones now.

My vote would go for the remove PvP specific rules in PvP zones, except where the PvE rules allow easy griefing (like TPing into drones etc).