So... why aren't YOU pvp-ing?

Why don't I PvP? My characters play completely differently in PvP than what I am accustomed to in PvE. Not just that I am no longer a whirling death machine, but all my stats are reduced, I have no status protection, my controls are massively reduced in effectiveness, and my powers do damage based on some formula I don't understand. Add to that the constant feeling of swimming through glue because I get my travel powers partially or completely negated any time someone so much as farts at me, and it makes PvP a tiresome prospect.

I think I am the target player of the i13 revamp, in that I was not a PvPer before i13. However, the changes made it so I will never PvP, because when I enter a PvP zone I might as well be in a completely different game on a completely different character.

I have a passing interest in it. There are several reasons why it is a passing interest.

I am not interested in rolling up a toon that I would otherwise have no interest in playing in order to fit into one of few perceived viable Pvp play sets. I am not interested in leveling this very specific toon up, and then investing several billion influence in IO sets. I am also not interested in chasing down every single required accolade just to be considered a viable toon. Mind you this is before I have actually discovered if I am indeed interested in Pvp or not.

Not at all unlike buying every single beiber related paraphernalia before I even figure out if I like him or not. The best part is, I have a pretty strong feeling that I won't have much interest in him after all.

It's no wonder why some of these players search out and use every possible exploit, I can't really blame them. I may not condone it, but I am not going to spit on them either.

Let's assume I have done all this, and have decided to finally jump in and start pvping, the small, yet very vocal players spewing bigoted, sexist, elitist crap at people is enough to make me say **** that ****. Turn off broadcast you say? No. Moderate yourselves I say. If It is not condoned in any other part of the game, it shouldn't be allowed in a Pvp zone.

However, let's assume that for some reason, my broadcast is broken, and I don't see any of that garbage at all, and I join a Pvp team, because fiteclubbing is for wankers, not only do I suck, but I bring the team down with me. I am shamed, and I quit in disgust after being ganked for the thousandth time, realizing it was all just a big waste of time.

How am I going to get better if I don't do it? Good question. I don't think repeatedly getting creamed by professionals in a pool tourney is the best way to learn how to shoot pool either. Especially when they are screaming at you and asking why you are wasting their time with your down syndrome skill set.

So for now, I am happy to keep it as a passing interest.

The rules stink. I started playing this game cause I like how stuff worked. Maybe the biggest reason why pvp is fail in this game only 1 mode kill or be killed. PVPers like different map, objectives, styles etc this game only has 1.

I gave up on pvp on this game long ago now I just stick to first person shooter where it's fairly balanced imo and they have lots of different modes like capture flag, zombie, ghost, infiltrate, king of the hill etc.

Mechanically PvP needs a lot of work. It's a list that's a mile long. I'm sure most of us do not have the slightest clue how to balance the archetypes and PvP mechanics when we barely understand them as there are now. I think that are a few things that they can do in the short-term (this year?) that they can change to improve the arena and hopefully get some support for PvP.

Echoing many others; mainly because:
1) My awesome PvE build is no good in against another player built for PvP. The gameplay is just so different. Superspeeding in and out of combat doesn't feel like Superhero combat - everybody shouldn't have to be the Flash.
2) Everyone dies too fast and too much. If I read a long comic book fight, and one of the combatants gets incapacitated every page, goes somewhere, heals up real fast, then is back in the fight the next page. Repeat ad nauseum. Bleh... I know this game isn't purely based on comics, but come on...
3) Where you PvP is kinda stupid. Certain entire zones with goofy goals... I'd prefer PvP trial-like instanced missions where you have some sort of queue, one for heroes and one for villains. The mission, like all missions, has a goal and you have to complete it, and the other player has to stop you. An queue option to choose if you prefer to be mission goal-getter or goal-stopper (or both) would work.

My "other game" is Aion.

If I want to be randomly ganked by some jerk who's hopping around spamming insults about how bad a player I am, I'll do it over there. <_<

It's funny that this has come up, as my SG only this past weekend put on a group-only PvP event that had us all match up and fight for fun and obstensibly to stay in character. I got knocked out in the first round and I'm not angry about this (it was against friends, after all) but it reminded me of all the things I don't like about PvP.

I'm a team player. I always will be. If I'm not running around soloing, then I'm tackling bosses, TF's and whatnot with my friends. And really, that's the definition of what MMO's are about, that sense of community and teamwork, at least for me. So the notion of fighting against people when the game has plenty to offer feels wrong to me, there's lots to do as is.

And I have to agree with the general perception that most people get when they go into a PvP zone; noone's there to say 'okay, let's have some fun and fighting and noone's taking it that seriously'....the problem is that most come away with the opposite impression. People are deadly serious, there's no fun about it and if you're actually standing still for more than three seconds that's an instant character flaw on your behalf and also a weakness to be exploited.

The attitude that people display can be amongst the worst I've seen people display online. Being 'the best' is paramount. Acting the worst, where no low is considered too low with regards to derogatory remarks is not only expected, it's encouraged. The mentality that goes along with it proclaims proudly that 'it's only PvP, toughen up princess' is the sort of thing you expect from sporting jocks and frankly really anti-social people. The number of people I've spoken to in RV and a few other maps that are welcoming (because they want new blood) are on a ratio of 1 to 50, at least in my experience.

And PvP here is unbalanced, period. In the event I mentioned before, it became blatantly obvious which powersets were performing and which ones just weren't meant for it. Fights generally were very one-sided and it was rare combinations that made for anything that lasted a while and was entertaining, but even then it was a slugfest where not much really happened.

And to top it off...the UI just doesn't work. Half the time matches were impossible to make and the other half just had matches failing to load at all. It seemed like random chance to have matches working where people could just spar or whatever, and there was no opportunity it seemed to support groups larger than say....two.

None of these things make PvP attractive to me. Even Trials (a side of the game I don't care for much either) is better organised, better supported and even more visually interesting than PvP in this game currently. There's not even a casual incentive to do PvP that I can see aside for a few giggles now and then with friends.

And seriously....couldn't we make Arenas into other event areas? The buildings seem ready made for community events.



S.

1) The ol' Telessassin Strike

2) The necessity of speedjumping around like we're all Incarnates empowered by the Well of the Fleas.

3) The inverse relationship between a player's self-esteem and his insistence on being a complete pancake.

4) The learning curve and rarity of fellow player tutors to overcome it.

5) Five on one ganking being the norm instead of:




6) Lastly, longtime PvPers that can't see how a casual player can't just ignore all of this and have FUN.

(Disclaimer: I loved the PvPing during the CoV beta. Huge battles, lots of powers every which way and people actually staying and *fighting*, not the bushwacking bonanza I have found since the shine wore off on the newly minted Rogue Isles.)

The first major reason I don't PvP in CoH is that I like my PvP to be balanced, and I don't believe it's possible to have balanced PvP in an MMORPG that wasn't designed around it from the ground up. They could, however, attempt to balance the sides. I've made multiple attempts to give PvP a chance here, both before and after I13, and the only time I ever actually had fun was about a 5 minute period where an equivalent number of heroes and villains were fighting each other. Then one side resorted to cheap tactics and the other side started losing members because of it, and it wound up lopsided and boring (and I've been on winning and losing sides, it's only fun for me if there's a relatively even match).

The second major reason is that our PvP "games" in the PvE zones aren't very engaging, and are actually all PvE mini-games with deathmatch thrown in as a way to prevent you from completing the PvE mini-game. The Arena, meanwhile, only has deathmatch. Deathmatch hasn't been enough to sustain a population in a PvP focused game since around 1999. Counter Strike, Team Fortress, and Left 4 Dead all have interesting goals that require strategy and tactics, and they have longevity because of it.

I, personally, think it's too late to salvage the PvP in this game, due to the damage done to the community, the age of the game, and most importantly, the fact that the original design wasn't focused on PvP (and probably never even took PvP into account until Issue 4 was being worked on). However, if they wanted to make an attempt, I'd say that improving the actual gameplay of PvP should be top priority, and that means new or improved mini-games with actual PvP objectives, and balanced sides. If PvP had something to offer, PvP gameplay-wise, besides trying to kill other players, and players trying to prevent you from getting Shivans and Nukes, more people might try it.

I still don't think it will ever be well balanced, because we've got tons of powers that were never designed with PvP in mind. They've been tweaked for PvP, but some builds are just weak or strong due to the basic conceptual design of the powers involved. Good PvP games have abilities and options specifically designed for how they will work and complement each other in PvP.

QR to the OP: It manifests a negative competitive attitude towards other players for me. If I want to trash talk and compete with other players, I will play Halo or CoD.

Also, getting ganked by obnoxious Stalkers one too many times may have had something to do with turning me off of PvP. (Not that all Stalkers are obnoxious, I happen to love the archetype.)

I don't enjoy PVP in any game other than MarioKart, actually, and even that gets tiring fast because I lose all the time.

I don't PvP because the Arena doesn't work. If I could just queue up for a match and play a quick game here and there I would. I have no interest in open-world PvP and it's dead on my server anyway.