So... why aren't YOU pvp-ing?
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2012-04-16 22:46 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I expect the same thing, and I don't condone anyone who expects otherwise. Ideally, everyone would be civil all the time, but that's not the case in PvP, in PvE, or anywhere, really. It would be awesome if it were, but the reality is that it's probably not going to happen.|
Originally Posted by ketch
I expect a basic amount of civility that requires one to pause for a moment and decide not to type out "lol, u suk" or "****ing ganker".
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Originally Posted by ketch
Unfortunately, while the bad behavior may come from a small minority its human nature to remember bad experiences longer than the good. A single bad experience with a restaurant, for example, can sour a person from ever going there again. That nature makes it all the more important for the community to embrace a basic standard that minimizes those bad impressions. Telling outsiders to ignore or endure it won't improve the situation. The change needs to come from within the community by stating that they will not tolerate it.
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I think it's simply a disconnect on the way we think - some people find it crazy that I'd enjoy being competitive and defeating other players, and I find it crazy that there are players who won't PvP because it means another player has to lose and that makes them feel bad (in fact, until I started reading this thread, I had no idea that state of mind even existed).
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Yes, but what makes an MMORPG different from a fighting game or FPS is that in an RPG, fighting has motivation beyond simply adding one to the win column. The objective is actually saving a hostage, or stopping a terrorist act, or intercepting a drug shipment. Fighting is merely a means to that end. The moment you make fighting itself the end, and not just the means, you've reduced the game to a biomechanical exercise in button pushing and nothing more. But MMORPGs are designed to go beyond such a simplistic, primitive game experience. So I don't agree at all that fighting villains is the entire point of the genre. I'm not sure you quite grasp what heroes actually do (or why).
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
I don't think it is irrelevant because this is a player community we're talking about here, which means there are unspoken community standards of behavior that are expected of people in order to "fit in" to the game environment. If you look at the sorts of behaviors that aren't tolerated in the PvE teaming context, you'll get a sense of how those standards, such as they are, serve to shape behavior. The general "mentality" in the PvE games reflects a superhero world to a good degree (sure, it could be described as polite, helpful, collaborative, and communal, but I feel the genre itself promotes this mentality, which is why you don't see it to the same degree in other MMORPGs, or at least I haven't), which I heartily approve of and encourage. The PvP game as it is currently implemented does not, which is why I regard it as a foul distortion of CoX and the "feel" it strives to create.
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Well, I can only speak for myself, but you are the type of player I have no interest in playing with. Our approach to the game experience offered by an MMORPG, and a superhero one at that, are too different. There is a very high probability that your attitude will manifest in-game behaviors I would find unenjoyably antithetical to the game experience I am trying to have (a problem I don't generally have with most of the PvE player population, though I do encounter it from time to time).
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@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
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Agreed, back when I first talked to people about the PvP zones there were many discussions of how they'd have to completely rebuild/redesign their character in order to get a PvP worthy alt. Whether it be limited to power/slot selection to enh types, it was a major recalculation from what's useful in the PvE world.
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Originally Posted by Radium
I'll throw out the most common unspoken reason.
People grow quite attached to their characters in PvE, they're used to the fact that they can plow through hordes of baddies and for lack of a better expression, feel like superpowered heroes. PvP game mechanics play vastly differently, and the whole experience tends to see people having their characters die frequently. It's like a feeling of betrayal contradicting everything they have been taught by PvE. Unless one has a strong competitive streak, PvP has nothing appealing to such players. |
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Now are you talking CoX PvP or every teabagging xbl player? Just saying, the few times I ever got on xbl I had to kill my sound because of all the crap chat.
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Originally Posted by Devlin_Quaid
Go to a PvP zone. Sit there for an hour and listen to the conversation. The venom you get there trumps anythign else you will find in the game, and I do not enjoy being a part of it. (You will find this most in RV, I've noticed Siren's Call to be a lot more civil, at least a lot of the time.)
I've also found that the type of people who PvP are the type of people I do not wish to associate with. People who have admitted to exploiting bugs for their own gain, and are happy to cause people genuine hardship (if you can call it that in a video game) over trivial, idiotic things. It isn't pleasant, and I only PvP with friends in the arena, or when I need a badge. |
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Agreed, it would be interesting to see it brought back more thought out, but it would probably take alot more than one issue to work through all the details, let alone release it properly. Perhaps revise one zone at a time? Throw some story into it, more so that what may/not exist atm.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
It's not from a lack of desire, I assure you.
I keep bringing it up though...every month, like clockwork  |
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Yeah, I'll probably get pummelled for this, but I actually Miss the old way of debt earning/burning.|
Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid
There are no harsh penalties for death in this game...
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...is done now, someone else can post. :-p
I don't PvP because I suck at it, and it's no fun getting curbstomped every two seconds. (I also suck at PvE, but there I have the tools -- difficulty settings -- to mitigate my ineptitude.)
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If I PvP'd, it was with a group of friends, that was the only thing that made it fun post I13.
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That's what I mean when I say "there's your answer." Why aren't you playing PvP? You can protect yourself from the nasty people. Well, there's your answer - I'm protecting myself from the nasty people by not engaging in PvP. It's easy to see this as overkill from the position of someone who likes PvP, but from my standpoint, I'm removing myself from something I never really liked to begin with, and in the process also preventing something else I didn't enjoy.|
Originally Posted by SinisterDirge
It seems like you are arguing against what you are recommending. People here are absolutely taking direct control over the situation by removing themselves from the situation entirely. They aren't complaining about removing themselves as I don't hear people lamenting that they would Pvp otherwise, they are just giving a reason why they don't.
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What I want to get across here is that if you ever want PvP to be widely popular and enjoyed by many people, you simply can't ask people to toughen up or go home. Experience has shown me that, when given the option, the vast majority of people WILL go home. When I was younger I might have seen this as a challenge, but these days, most of my energy goes into my job and the various other things I'm doing, so when I turn to games, it's to unwind, not to stress myself even further.
If the environment is welcoming and the people in it are nice, that stress goes away. Almost everyone who tries City of Heroes has nothing but good things to say about the community (in PvE, for obvious reasons). That's even when these are people who didn't really like the game at all. In his MMO Grinder review, ChaosD1 lambasted the game for a lot of technical shortcomings and for the hamstringing limitations on Free accounts, but he had nothing but good stuff to say about a community of people tripping over each other rushing to help him, guide him and give him stuff. That's a welcoming environment.
When I go into a game and I find myself belittled, insulted and tea-bagged, I'm disinclined to return. Yes, I could curtail the more negative aspects, but this still leaves me with no reason to return. As someone before said, it's not a question of why we aren't playing PvP. It's why we SHOULD play PvP in the first place, and mitigating the negatives does not answer that question.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I don't think it's the super hero genre so much as the fact that the PvE game goes out of its way to make any sort of competition impossible. You're given credit for any enemies shared with people not on your team based on how much of the enemy's health you took away, loot is distributed between team-mates automatically and anonymously, there's no duelling of any kind, you can't attack other players, and if anyone is bothering you, you can always just duck in an instance like you were going to be doing anyway, where the irritant can't follow you.|
Originally Posted by macskull
I disagree with your assessment as to why this game has the community it does. It seems to me this game has its community not because it's a superhero game, but because it's a very easy game to get into. There's not much learning curve, it isn't "grind-y" (at least to the extent most other MMOs are), and gear isn't the end-all-be-all like it is in other games. You can have lots of fun with minimal time investment in this game simply because it's easy to pick up and it's not terribly challenging. If this game had been a sci-fi or fantasy MMO with its current mechanics I'm fairly certain it would have about the same community it does now for the reasons I stated above.
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This kind of complete lack of competition just breeds a mentality where you might as well help if you're not doing something you can't interrupt. It costs you nothing and it usually brings you rewards anyway. At the very worst, people in City of Heroes can be indifferent, and that really hurts no-one. When helping others costs nothing, it just makes sense to help. When you never view other players as competition but rather as potential help, it just breeds a more friendly community.
When City of Villains first launched and advertised itself on its PvP, the community was swamped with a host of people who were here for the PvP, the challenge, the competition and the desire to play mean angry villains. It made the dedicated City of Villains forums considerably less friendly, but hey - to each his own. Thing is, most of these people eventually left for other games just because the bulk of City of Heroes doesn't lend itself to this kind of attitude. This simply isn't the kind of game you play to compete.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Quoted for truth. Castle drove away so many PvPers and the desire to PvP from those that stayed. Prior to his changes I would see hundreds PvPing in the zones and Arenas almost daily. SGs would hold Arena Events and RP groups would hold zone PvP events. On Virtue we had a very long running Friday Night Fights event that was very well attended.|
Originally Posted by eth_Nargy
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I miss it.
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You all are looking for a psychological reason why PvP isn't popular in CoX. I suggest you look instead at sociology, specifically the Bartle categories.
City of Heroes has always catered to the Explorer type in Bartle's categories. This game pioneered the exploration badge system (which then spread out to many other games). It has a complex character design system which encourages many different characters per player, and on top of that it allows for near-infinite costume customization. It's made for Explorers, people who want to fiddle and tune and just try new things.
PvP is the playstyle that appeals to a different Bartle category, the Killers. Killers and Explorers do not get along. Explorers don't want to be bothered by PvP combat when they're trying something new, and Killers don't like to be surprised and humiliated when an Explorer comes up with something new. The more Killers you have in a game the fewer Explorers you will have, and vice versa.
I'm *glad* that PvP is so neglected much in CoX. If it were popular then the devs would not be catering to Explorers as much, and I and a lot of other players would not be here. A game can either cater to Explorers or Killers, but not both. (Fortunately the other two categories, Achievers and Socializers, don't feud with others as much so you can pull them in also.)
I think that introducing PvP was the third biggest mistake that the management of this game ever made. (Number one was ED. Number two was branching out from blueside; allowing players to play villains and praetorians was a criminal loss of focus for the game.) They should have realized that the game appealed to Explorers and put all their energies into making that group happy. I think they've finally realized this. But management never has good institutional memory, so I'm sure some brain-dead suit will someday shift us back toward useless PvP again.
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Generally I agree but I've been saying since they added the PvP zones, and I am not a PvPer, if you go into the PvP zone to get something that something is not a PvE reward it is a PvP reward. To my recollection the devs "fixed" all of them except the one villain accolade which requires time spent in Sirens. That is wrong and a mistake if it is still in place. But so to is the mindset of players who feel a Shivan or a PvP zone exploration badge is a PvE reward they should be able to get without the risk of PvP.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
See, this is something I said as early as Issue 6 - trying to get players into PvP who don't want to PvP, but are there for PvE rewards is a mistake. All this does is get players who want to AVOID PvP and will get angry if they're killed while making PvP players come off as villains for killing them. That practice of getting people into PvP zones who don't want to fight other players, thus forcing them to do something they don't want, is responsible for a LOT of the bad blood around here.
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Anyone who wants those temp stealth/invis/phase powers, the shivan pet, nukes, badges, etc. are getting a PvP reward not a PvE reward whether they actually have to fight or not and whether they can use it in PvE or not. The possibility of getting PvPed is part of the risk I take when I go get a Shivan, etc. If I hated that risk as much as some I would not go get those rewards but they are PvP rewards by virtue of requiring the risk of getting PvPed.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Wait, that was supposed to be a castle? It looked like a medieval fort to me. And anyway, Castle picked his name after the meaning of the chess piece I personally know as the "rook," rather than the architectural construct of an actual castle. That's why his namesake has that on his chest when you train with him in Peregrine Island.
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Originally Posted by Grae Knight
Castle...
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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You're running into a few problems, and they're all rooted in a very simple fact - whether these are obtained via PvP or PvE, they ARE PvE rewards because that's where they're used the most often. I've certainly never seen them used in PvP, maybe you have. However, consider this - for a while after I6, EVERY ******* TIME I complained something was too difficult, do you know what the response was? "Go get a Shivan" or "Go get a Nuke." Recluse SF too hard? Get a bunch of nukes. Elite boss keeps killing you? Get a Shivan.|
Originally Posted by SwellGuy
Anyone who wants those temp stealth/invis/phase powers, the shivan pet, nukes, badges, etc. are getting a PvP reward not a PvE reward whether they actually have to fight or not and whether they can use it in PvE or not. The possibility of getting PvPed is part of the risk I take when I go get a Shivan, etc. If I hated that risk as much as some I would not go get those rewards but they are PvP rewards by virtue of requiring the risk of getting PvPed.
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I call this goading PvE players because that's what it is, whether intentionally or otherwise. These are rewards that make PvE considerably easier, but require PvP to obtain. You then obviously have a situation where PvE players will go into a PvP zone looking for the reward, but trying to AVOID PvP while they're at it. You may say they're just PvP rewards, and I agree with you - it's why I never bothered with the things. However, you're still creating this situation where PvE players go into a PvP zone with the express intent of AVOIDING fighting other players.
When people engage in PvE content, they most often do so to fight NPCs, or otherwise engage in the content. That's the whole point. The problem is that for PvP to be successful and, above all else, FUN, you need to get players who are there to participate, who want to fight, who are ready to be taken out and who want to PvP. You don't do that by goading in victims, essentially.
Consider the following - if Shivans, Nukes and whatever the hell you get out of Siern's Call only worked inside a PvP zone like how the Arena jet pack only works in the arena, do you honestly believe people primarily interested in PvE would bother with them? I know I wouldn't.
Gating PvE power behind PvP is a mistake, as far as I'm concerned. I have no problem with PvP progression, so long as it's not presented in such a way that it makes ME feel like I need it when I don't want to PvP.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Castling is what you do with a rook, not a name for the rook. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Wait, that was supposed to be a castle? It looked like a medieval fort to me. And anyway, Castle picked his name after the meaning of the chess piece I personally know as the "rook," rather than the architectural construct of an actual castle. That's why his namesake has that on his chest when you train with him in Peregrine Island.
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Paragon Wiki: http://www.paragonwiki.com
City Info Terminal: http://cit.cohtitan.com
Mids Hero Designer: http://www.cohplanner.com
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Right, that. I knew I was remembering something incorrectly. Still, that's why he has a rook on his chest |
Originally Posted by Aggelakis
Castling is what you do with a rook, not a name for the rook. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling
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It's at times like these when not being a native speaker really shows. It's always the little things.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'm one of those PvP enthusiasts who left the game after I13. My play was sporadic prior to that (a year or some months here and there), but I had three accounts and have never played since -- though I casually followed the game's development for some time in the vain hope that the PvP situation would be improved. I now just casually follow it out of habit; not because I any longer believe PvP will ever be addressed.
PvP in CoX had a lot of good things going for it. My two favorite things that were unique to it? Fast-paced 3D movement (unbelievably fun), and no /assist target acquisition functionality (slowed down initiation of target spikes in organized matches and made positioning an important factor in combat). Those two traits kind of worked in tandem to make the gameplay fast and engaging, but not so fast that people were dying every time an attack recharged, since you couldn't organize simultaneous assaults that quickly.
Anyway. I don't mean to discount anyone's opinion or experiences, but the "I don't PvP because of the [rude elements of the community|broadcast trash talk]" explanation rings somewhat hollow to me. I have a hard time believing (though be sure that I'm not saying it's not ever true) that such a solvable and minor social issue would genuinely discourage someone from PvPing if they actually enjoyed that kind of gameplay.
If you like the competition, and like the gameplay as it exist[ed], would you really let some anonymous child's mean words discourage you from experiencing it? I really doubt it. I think it's far more likely that there are other factors stopping someone who professes such an explanation from engaging in PvP -- dislike of competition, dislike of fast gameplay, dislike of the adrenalin, dislike how of ineffective preferred character/powerset is, or post-I13 dislike of how everything is completely different from the rest of the game.
I think the population of players who PvP is used as a whipping-boy in these kinds of posts, and I have to think it's at least partially disingenuous. If you like PvP, you just do it. If you're a legitimate edge-case, and like everything about CoH PvP enough to actually play it but for the anonymous words of children, then everything I'm saying is wrong about you. But blaming the people who PvP seems like kind of an easy and tempting excuse that I suspect is used more widely than is legitimately warranted.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This kind of complete lack of competition just breeds a mentality where you might as well help if you're not doing something you can't interrupt. It costs you nothing and it usually brings you rewards anyway. At the very worst, people in City of Heroes can be indifferent, and that really hurts no-one. When helping others costs nothing, it just makes sense to help. When you never view other players as competition but rather as potential help, it just breeds a more friendly community.
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"At worst, people in City of Heroes can be indifferent?"
Please open your Options menu. Note the prompt option to accept teleport. That was not put there from "indifferent" being the worst people in PVE could be. That was from people inviting lowbies to teams and dropping them from tall buildings into mobs of enemies. Note this was occurring pre-PVP.
Elsewhere in the forums, for something more recent, is someone talking about a group griefing their hami raid.
Or there's the "helpful" high levels that have "helped" lower levels that didn't need it by making sure any and all enemies in their way were defeated, minimizing if not eliminating the XP for that lowbie. Yes, you can "duck into an instance," but that doesn't mean this deliberate griefing doesn't occur.
Or there's the people who insist on spamming the help channel - "How do I fly" seems to be a popular question, with the same person getting specific answers and acknowledging them, just to ask a minute later, and again, and again, and again, making the channel useless for as long as they're on.
PVE is not all sweetness and light, just like PVP - despite how some people want to describe it (and it seems due to their own dislike of competition) - is not a bunch of satan-worshipping, puppy-kicking, baby eating evil mass murderers out to "ruin" your day.
Please open your Options menu. Note the prompt option to accept teleport. That was not put there from "indifferent" being the worst people in PVE could be. That was from people inviting lowbies to teams and dropping them from tall buildings into mobs of enemies. Note this was occurring pre-PVP.
Elsewhere in the forums, for something more recent, is someone talking about a group griefing their hami raid.
Or there's the "helpful" high levels that have "helped" lower levels that didn't need it by making sure any and all enemies in their way were defeated, minimizing if not eliminating the XP for that lowbie. Yes, you can "duck into an instance," but that doesn't mean this deliberate griefing doesn't occur.
Or there's the people who insist on spamming the help channel - "How do I fly" seems to be a popular question, with the same person getting specific answers and acknowledging them, just to ask a minute later, and again, and again, and again, making the channel useless for as long as they're on.
PVE is not all sweetness and light, just like PVP - despite how some people want to describe it (and it seems due to their own dislike of competition) - is not a bunch of satan-worshipping, puppy-kicking, baby eating evil mass murderers out to "ruin" your day.
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Yes. All of the problems you listed are people going out of their way to be dicks, which is griefing. There's nothing to be gained from teleporting people high into the air, because the system doesn't reward you for it. Griefing is a fact of any game, I'm not trying to deny that, but not many games actively encourage it by rewarding it. Lineage II does, yeah, but that game is evil.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
"At worst, people in City of Heroes can be indifferent?"
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What I'm saying is that the PvE game in City of Heroes is not in any way competitive. In fact, going out of your way to compete with people in the few ways you can usually makes your own rewards WORSE. The game does whatever it can to make sure people almost not interact with each other in PvE. You can't attack others, you can't take others' drops, you can't enter others' missions and you generally don't gain anything for being better than anybody else. It caters an environment which rewards you for being helpful and stiff you for trying to compete. That what's bred such an easy-going community.
That wasn't to say PvP is evil, but it IS competitive, and competitive games breed a wholly different kind of community. Not better, not worse, just wholly different. You can't expect to "win" at a competitive game without being very good, because that's missing the point of the game. You CAN expect to win at a PvE game without being very good because the game isn't trying to be challenging so much as it's trying to be entertaining. City of Heroes happens to be entertaining, and I personally take great comfort in being able to "win" without being very good. And when I can, there are always people offering to "win" one for me, because they're rewarded and because they stand to lose nothing more than the time it takes to help me.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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This.|
Originally Posted by Endlessly
Let me answer your question with a question.
-Why- would I want to PvP in city of heroes? |
I hate to sound materialistic, but if you want to grow PvP in this game you have to incentivise it to attract players. The current awards you can get in PvP zones (that you can get without facing another player, BTW) are outdated. Warburg Nukes, Heavy Temporary Pets, and Shivan Shards aren't quite as useful or desired now that we have incarnate powers and that they can't be used in iTrials.
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OK. *THAT* makes more sense than how what you were saying came out (at least to me.) |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Yes. All of the problems you listed are people going out of their way to be dicks, which is griefing. There's nothing to be gained from teleporting people high into the air, because the system doesn't reward you for it. Griefing is a fact of any game, I'm not trying to deny that, but not many games actively encourage it by rewarding it. Lineage II does, yeah, but that game is evil.
What I'm saying is that the PvE game in City of Heroes is not in any way competitive. In fact, going out of your way to compete with people in the few ways you can usually makes your own rewards WORSE. The game does whatever it can to make sure people almost not interact with each other in PvE. You can't attack others, you can't take others' drops, you can't enter others' missions and you generally don't gain anything for being better than anybody else. It caters an environment which rewards you for being helpful and stiff you for trying to compete. That what's bred such an easy-going community. That wasn't to say PvP is evil, but it IS competitive, and competitive games breed a wholly different kind of community. Not better, not worse, just wholly different. You can't expect to "win" at a competitive game without being very good, because that's missing the point of the game. You CAN expect to win at a PvE game without being very good because the game isn't trying to be challenging so much as it's trying to be entertaining. City of Heroes happens to be entertaining, and I personally take great comfort in being able to "win" without being very good. And when I can, there are always people offering to "win" one for me, because they're rewarded and because they stand to lose nothing more than the time it takes to help me. |
Though I still think some people just can't make the mental jump from "PVE works this way, and that behaviour is bad" to "This is PVP, and him preventing me from doing X is perfectly acceptable, because he's supposed to stop me." Honestly, I find "X stopped (defeated) me in PVP" to *be* helpful - because I can find out what I did wrong, or what they did right - and yes, sometimes it *does* come down to just blind luck and the will of the RNG gods.
Personally, I'm still completely unable to grasp the "I can't compete because it means someone else will lose and feel bad." I mean, not only is that an assumption (I don't feel bad when I lose, for instance, you'll usually get a "gg" or "nice" from me,) but I have to wonder just at what point that tips in. Is it all competition? Sam, you've said you don't go for sport. How about board games? Card games? Tic-tac-toe? Or Lady Grimrose's comment:
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| I will not PvP because someone, a real person, has to lose and the guilt/frustration will be there. I do not play CoH for Stress, I play it for fun. |
I get my PvP in other games, like Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty. PvP is the entire focus of these games, the characters are balanced and pre-built for it, and no one's non-PvP fun is being interrupted or disrupted. Unlocked weapons and practice to improve player skill aside, there's no previous investment: it's "pick up and go", with fast respawns so you don't have to sit out of the action for long. The culture and language are much less toxic, at least on the servers I play. For these reasons and others, I find that I don't get as angry, frustrated, etc when (trying to) PvP, and that in itself is another reason.
EDIT: I also share some of Samuel Tow's feelings about winning, losing, and the conscious decision to be a jerk to someone else and/or take pleasure from their emotional distress. I can't speak to the "validity" of such feelings, only that I do have them.
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
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I don't know about you, but none of the posters here citing toxicity as a reason they don't pvp strike me as the type to otherwise be hardcore pvpers. They strike me as being possibly on the cusp of perhaps maybe being interested, but would rather not deal with the drama, so part of their first impression of the "community" is language broadcasted in the zone that is absolutely not tolerated anywhere else in the game, or in life. At least not the circles I run in.|
Originally Posted by retylonic
Anyway. I don't mean to discount anyone's opinion or experiences, but the "I don't PvP because of the [rude elements of the community|broadcast trash talk]" explanation rings somewhat hollow to me. I have a hard time believing (though be sure that I'm not saying it's not ever true) that such a solvable and minor social issue would genuinely discourage someone from PvPing if they actually enjoyed that kind of gameplay.
If you like the competition, and like the gameplay as it exist[ed], would you really let some anonymous child's mean words discourage you from experiencing it? I really doubt it. I think it's far more likely that there are other factors stopping someone who professes such an explanation from engaging in PvP -- dislike of competition, dislike of fast gameplay, dislike of the adrenalin, dislike how of ineffective preferred character/powerset is, or post-I13 dislike of how everything is completely different from the rest of the game. I think the population of players who PvP is used as a whipping-boy in these kinds of posts, and I have to think it's at least partially disingenuous. If you like PvP, you just do it. If you're a legitimate edge-case, and like everything about CoH PvP enough to actually play it but for the anonymous words of children, then everything I'm saying is wrong about you. But blaming the people who PvP seems like kind of an easy and tempting excuse that I suspect is used more widely than is legitimately warranted. |
Mayhaps for some, that is enough for them to turn around and exit the zone feeling as though there is absolutely no loss to them whatsoever. I don't think they are that interested in pvp, and whatever smidgen of interest they may have had was smothered instantly. They don't care. And a few of the ones that should care, the ones that may be interested in actually growing the community are calling these people idiots. Hollow indeed.
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Granted, that's still a big leap. However, I feel that a cooperative-only environment is more likely to produce a friendly community than a competitive-only environment, and that's not because either is "better." A competitive environment is just not fertile ground for ********, and I'm saying this speaking as an *******. As I said, I play a few PvP games, myself, and every time someone chats something to the effect of "voli go bot" I have the urge to ask who the hell this person thinks he is to go ordering me around. I've caught myself having this reaction more than a few times, though I usually have the good sense to not act on it.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Though I still think some people just can't make the mental jump from "PVE works this way, and that behaviour is bad" to "This is PVP, and him preventing me from doing X is perfectly acceptable, because he's supposed to stop me." Honestly, I find "X stopped (defeated) me in PVP" to *be* helpful - because I can find out what I did wrong, or what they did right - and yes, sometimes it *does* come down to just blind luck and the will of the RNG gods.
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City of Heroes, by contrast, predisposes me in a much different way. When I come here, I know that this is a game where people generally don't NEED me to do anything specific unless I specifically commit to do something with them, I know other people can't hurt me so there's no tactic too cheap, so... Yeah, why not take five minutes of my busy schedule of idling inside a mission watching Ice Road Truckers to explain to someone how ED works?
Decent people will be decent in PvP just as they will be in PvE. It's just that competition leaves more room "antics" as you're always dependent on other people, be they your friends or your enemies. It kind of comes with the territory. Cooperation most often either puts social pressure on ******** like me to behave, or otherwise causes us to leave. A game that strongly discourages you from hurting other players is a game that generally develops a community that doesn't have that as a major attribute.
Again, nothing against PvP players in general. I just find it's harder and takes more work to get a LARGE PvP community to behave once it grows past the point where it stops being directly personal.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Personally, I'm still completely unable to grasp the "I can't compete because it means someone else will lose and feel bad." I mean, not only is that an assumption (I don't feel bad when I lose, for instance, you'll usually get a "gg" or "nice" from me,) but I have to wonder just at what point that tips in. Is it all competition? Sam, you've said you don't go for sport. How about board games? Card games? Tic-tac-toe?
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See, I'm a mediocre player, and that's on a good day. It's all fun and games when I'm paired up with people of well below my skill level just because I tend to not press and humiliate them, but instead tend to goof off. As I've talked about "enough" in terms of City of Heroes builds - i.e. I only need enough performance to do well and the rest I can use for fun but impractical powers - so I'll simply fight less hard when it's clear my opponents are weak. The problem is that, being a mediocre player, there are PLENTY of players much better than I am, and I just know that if I just trounced this guy so easy, then that means next game someone much better than me will make me feel the same way.
See, if I make another player angry by beating him, this doesn't upset me because I care about the feelings of strangers. I do and I don't, but why it upsets me is these feelings can AND WILL be my feelings. Maybe next match, maybe next week, but if he doesn't like it, then I sure as hell won't like it. I don't mind losing occasionally, but I do mind dominating other players because it just serves to remind me I'll be in their shoes next game, most probably. It's this realisation that in order for me to have fun - which I do by having a relatively clean, easy victory - someone else needs to be pissed off that worries me, and why I stray away from PvP.
I like PvE because in there, no-one ever loses. Well, OK, sometimes we do, but I do my best to avoid failable missions, and to drop them or "cheat" whenever I do. And when I say no-one loses, I don't praise this because I want other people to not lose. I praise it because I don't want I!!! to be the one who loses.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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