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

I still PVP sometimes, but personally, my list of complaints about it:

1. Not easily accessible. You either have to run to specific zones, or use a confusing arena interface. It was made slightly better by not requiring you to run to an arena building itself, but it's still a hurdle.

The process of initiating PVP in the "arena" is completely jarring and takes you out of the game itself for several minutes while you set up the match, agree on rules with the person you're fighting, and then load a completely new map instead of just going head to head right there.

2. PVP gameplay differing from PVE gameplay: This wasn't as bad before i13. I still have no clue what all changes when switching over. Having to have separate builds using powers that I'd never normally use annoys me.

3. Ranged Damage, or go home: Mind you, this was a problem even before i13.

4. Superspeed, or go home: It's vastly superior to the other 3 powersets to the point that it's pretty much required to pvp.

5. Outdated/Unreasonable Rewards: The only case where PVP itself is actually rewarded is in Sirens, with the bounty system, and the rewards available are inspirations, or an SO enhancement.

No, Bloody Bay Shivans don't count, as they require no PVP interaction to obtain.
No, Warburg Nukes don't count, as they require no PVP interaction to obtain.
No, Recluse Victory Mechs don't count, as they require no PVP interaction to obtain.

Then you have PVP IOs. That drop so rarely the primary way to get them is afk farming an alt account, which, while technically is PVP, is not, really.

Could it be fixed? Sure. Will it be? Nope.
The fact they went Free to Play and barely touched the PVP aspect showed they have no intention of ever correcting the system, as that would have been the best time to do so. (Which is funny, cause the Freedom trailer actually shows players PVPing in freaking First Ward.)

When I started in this game, my first 5 alts were based on me and my family. Each member of the family designed the alt and their costume and I played them all to 50.

I went to a PvP zone once during this time to help some sg mates get PvP kill badges. I stood there and let them kill my daughters, then logged in the next one and allowed them to kill her. I HATED every kill, gritted my teeth and helped them, and was emotionally torn up by seeing my daughters die again and again.

I never went into PvP zones again, and never will. That entirely personal experience scarred me.

No trash talking was involved, just my own silly investment in the characters.

I'm guessing this isn't terribly relevant to other people's reasons for avoiding PvP zones, but I know it had a huge effect on me. No change to PvP will bring me back, and PvPers are entirely innocent in this story.

There's no future in PvP.

I have no interest in participating in a system that is not actively supported and developed by the developers. And honestly, there's no reason for them to ever do so.

[QUOTE=Aura_Familia;4203846]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrLiberty I don't PvP because there is no one left to PVP with. As for anyone who whines "I don't PvP because people trash talk in broadcast" You are a complete idiot. heh, this is soooooo the way to disprove their point, amiright?

You're only furthering my point. You could chose to drive around said comments the exact same way anyone with half a brain could completely ignore the trash that gets spilled in AC or Zone broadcast. Yet here you are.

There are plenty of reasons to take issue with pvp mechanics and everything like that. Crying that a big bad person in a video game hurt your feelings by saying mean things about you and rather than taking the easy road of /gignore /petition /removing chat tab someone decides to come onto the forums and whine/complain about it is someone who is just looking to whine and complain.

I don't engage in PvP because due to the bizarre artifice of its mechanics, it doesn't feel like superhero combat to me. The whole cat-and-mouse, hit-and-run style of combat is anything but superheroic. It is Quake Arena with spandex avatar skins. I don't play CoX as a surrogate sport; I play it to experience virtual superhero comic book action. Moreover, PvP is so isolated in its own "world", that it feels like an entirely separate game. Nothing that happens in PvP affects the PvE game, and vice versa.

Maybe if there were unplanned, triggered PvP "raids" in regular PvE zones, it might be more interesting to me. Sort of like how a random zone gets a Rikti Invasion when a group turns in a Lady Gray Task Force. Suppose there were instanced Mayhem/Safeguard PvP missions going on all the time. And suppose that if, in a 20 hour period, enough of those instances were won by one side or the other to trigger a random zone of the loser's side opening up, for a short time (10-15 minutes, say) to world PvP where there are all kinds of rewards for causing trouble (for villains) or cleaning up the streets (for heroes). PvP would then have potential impact, even if only for a short time, on the PvE world, making the two more integrated.

Of course, in order for this to work and not just turn into a 10 minute grief fest, PvP combat has to be overhauled so that characters can't be pwned in seconds. "Hot spot" markers would appear on the mini-map anywhere a fight between players is taking place, allowing allies to jump in and help. But that only works if such fights aren't simply over and done with in a few seconds. Even 3-on-1 fights have to be able to last a little while. One of the most distasteful aspects of PvP in just about any MMO I know of is the he-who-draws-first-wins nature of the mechanics. You have a few seconds to pwn your opponent or you get pwned. No time for tactics or for escapes or for allies to come to your aid (they must already be present and ready to intervene to be of any help). Some people like this because they have mastered it, but I don't find it fun and I doubt I would find it fun even if I mastered it myself.

I used to PvP sort of casually. I even won a tournament on Protector back in the day, though I've never been part of the crowd that's really concerned with building for it, dueling, etc. The revamp got such bad reviews that I sorta lost interest after that, and while I did try again a few issues later, it just...wasn't fun. I put my Fortunata against a Brute and we literally couldn't kill each other. Just sat there trying to put each other down in Warburg for a good five minutes before we just got bored and went after separate scientists.

I'd almost use the word "unbalanced" based on that example...not in terms of powersets, but in terms of execution. Actually, it's probably balanced too well in some ways. A fun PvP match is close enough to be intense, but should be over fast. We fail at that.

It'd also help if there were concrete rewards for it. PvP recipes are nice in theory but so damned rare that they fail at what they're designed to do. I realize that the devs don't want people farming them, but I think the Reputation restrictions are probably enough for that; if they dropped more frequently, and/or with no Rep restrictions going into effect unless a drop happened, it'd make PvPing for reward much more worth peoples' time.

I never was much of a PvPer, but I've recently joined a group on Virtue that PvPs with another SG a lot. Was quite fun having a SG vs VG PvP match, even if we did lose.

And just last night, Z challenged Virtue to PvP and it was great to see so many people doing it for the first time. Even after he left, it was fun to still play with others. Course my build wasn't ready on my Fire/Fire Brute but hey, fun non the less to beat up or lose to other people you've seen around the server.

There is a very big difference between competitive talk and the filth I've seen spew from some players mouths. I, personally, have always envied sumo-wrestlers for their discipline in and outside of the ring. They compete, and whomever wins and whomever loses isn't a big deal. I like to play the game, not put up with someone else's nonsense. I don't even like to watch many sports nowadays due to all of the hostility in them. Years ago, that hostility was absent from a lot of sports, and as a kid I grew up thinking that sportsmanship was something to aim for.

For an example of player nonsense, calling someone an idiot for not plugging their ears and going "la la la!" whenever they enter a PVP zone isn't competitive talk; it exists solely to degrade someone who is different from you and ignores all reasons why someone would want to keep their chat on. It is an anti-thinking response that benefits no one but the speaker. In a similar vein, it isn't productive to taunt someone after you defeat them. It isn't acceptable to insult someone for several days after they've lost. It isn't healthy to hold grudges and try to endlessly harass whomever beats you. Belching a slew of random swear words strung together isn't clever or entertaining. Being impersonal isn't a sign of strength. Threatening someone with real life violence when you are losing should never be tolerated in ANY place. And ostracizing players who admit that they don't enjoy this isn't going to encourage them to PVP any time soon. In fact, none of these things encourage people to PVP, since it has been shown and is said to drive away players.

Truly an interesting conundrum: PVPers drive away the people that they would PVP with. Now, I haven't seen all of those things happening in this game, since I have taken very few forays into the PVP world of CoX. However, I have seen them happen in countless other games. It only takes one guy who alts to 2 different accounts and gets his entire SG group to /tell you insults on a daily basis to just quit with the PVP thing as a whole. This is worse for PVPers, because it is the players themselves who are the content. PVPers making themselves as unpleasant to deal with as possible just removes any fun that could be had in the game. Take a show of hands on the question of "Do you want to fight some guy who spouts cheesy RP one-liners, or some guy who just aimlessly swears at you before, during, and long after the fight", and you'll see exactly how contradictory to it's survival the whole PVP environment can be.

PVP in CoH pre and post I13 is anti melee and does not work like PvE. And the zones rewards in the Call are not worth the risks.

First, to answer the original question:

Until recently, I still ran my Stalker in SC a couple times a week.

These days, there's simply too many other things to do, most of which are:

A> More rewarding to my characters
B> Generally more fun to be a part of.

As a result of those, I haven't even logged in my main PvP toon, let alone played him
in quite some time.


As for PvP in this game, there's no short answer or solution to the problem(s).

That said, I'll ramble on about what I think its problems are, and maybe even
toss out an alternative or two for consideration (Not that it'll matter imho).
But, heck, I'm at work, and this topic is more interesting...

First, PvP is *hard* to get right - there are a LOT of games that didn't, and
comparatively few that have.

In CoH, there are 3 main reasons (imho) why PvP is an utter, abject failure.

1> Player Mindset

The entire rationale for PvP in the first place is that AI is *dumb* - really dumb.
So, the idea is to challenge ourselves against real, thinking, creative people.
Conceptually, an excellent idea.

The problem? By very definition, players need to be *competitive* - just as they
would be in boxing, or tennis, or auto-racing, or chess or *any* other endeavour
where humans face off against other humans with a distinct winner/loser outcome.

Unfortunately, for PvP here, CoH is a clear cut Good Guy/Bad Guy game based
on comics (a stylized reality where Bad Guys are always redeemable, nobody
truly suffers for the most part, and honor and chivalry are generally much more the
norm than RL). The *real* Bad Guys are just NPC's designed to be defeated.

So, I think a lot of folks here tend to perceive their toons in that context, and/or
aren't that competitive, and/or really don't like having their pedestalled, world-saving
Good-Guy, behave like a vicious killer (or be Bantha PooDoo either)...

Yet, within the game's rules, that's the exact approach that *effective* PvPers
rely on to be "successful" - whatever it takes to get the kill. Like most other
competitive ventures, PvP IS all about the W. In itself, that's not a bad thing.

Still, because it IS competitive, it comes with all the attendant attitude (just
like NHL playoffs, NFL Super Bowl, NASCAR auto racing etc.) where you have
intensely competitive people doing anything they can to win.

Additionally, there is no real facility for "Pop Warner, sportsmanship PvP" for the
casual or beginner player - they wander straight into the cutthroat "pro areas"
by default -- The result is hardly surprising.

2> Learning Curve, Power Behaviour

Point #1 notwithstanding, we DO have competitive players in our game - witness
Pylon/AV/GM killers, RWZ challenges, Speed TF's, and any other number of activities
that stress skill, speed, teamwork, and overall competence needed to excel.

Unfortunately, few (if any) of the skill things toons can do in PvE even work
in PvP. In I3/I4 days, there was a lot less discrepancy in the way powers behaved
in either enviroment. I-13 virtually removed *any* performance similarity for a
toon in PvE and PvP. The behaviours are completely (and radically) different.

Given minimal meaningful rewards, a viciously competitive group of expert killers,
and no simple way to learn the ropes except get repeatedly farmed, why bother
to learn all the changes, or even deal with it at all, when the stuff you DO know
works well in PvE and rewards your toon handsomely (without any derision or
embarassment) for doing it?

In short, a lot of folks don't bother. There's no payoff or value for the effort,
but a lot of "pain" for attempting it.

3> Mechanics and Devs

It's well known that the original devs always *wanted* PvP in the game, but
unfortunately, that desire didn't carryover to the game's engine design.

By the time they actually got around to tacking PvP on, there were any number
of issues that were fine in PvE, but seriously borked in PvP (mezzes, for instance).

Basically, there was little (if any) understanding of how to actually *implement* a
balanced PvP system, by the time they got around to actually making one.

Very quickly they were jolted by the reality that existing PvE powers had some
very unbalancing RPS effects when used in the PvP enviroment. Some, they
could try and compensate for by changing how they worked, and some are
just plain problematic based on how the game was designed (with little PvP
forethought).

Compounding that issue was I-13, which was, quite simply, an abysmal implementation,
by a few pvp-clueless, arrogant people, who were adamantly certain that they
knew how PvP *should* work better than the players (in their minds).

To that end, they deliberately snubbed any advice from a player community
of active PvPers who were experts in the mechanics, and were willingly trying to
help the devs improve the product - only to be basically told "stfu - we don't care
what you think, *this* is how we're doing it, whether you like it or not".

Surprise, surprise - it was a complete disaster...


Those are the issues and the history (in my highly-opinionated view)




So, can it be fixed?

Honestly, like bases currently - No. It's a mess and is probably best left alone
at this stage in the game's life cycle.

That said, if they actually *want* PvP in the game, I'd look at a few ideas for a
*new* implementation.

1> Separate PvP from PvE - totally. We have years of history that conclusively
shows they *don't* mix well in this particular game.

So, make one PvP server - that's what it does *exclusively* and non-pvpers
can stay away... Any rewards in this system should be purely PvP focussed
as should be any content.

2> Make a small set of simplified ATs' with simplified powersets that *only*
exist on the PvP server - cover the key roles, and Balance Them against each other.

Solicit, and seriously consider, input regarding these AT's, powers and capabilities
from active/interested PvP players...

Quite simply, the current PvE ATs are *impossible* to balance and always will be -
there are just too many combinations and permutations to even try it.

In this way, you get a manageable group of balanceable characters, while still providing
some of the choices that make the AT's fun, and you don't have to risk having
Little Johnny's uber multi-billion Fire/Ice tank build get squashed like a bug because
that combination is completely worthless in PvP as it is today, despite Johnny
having played it for 1200 hours in every PvE setting imaginable.

Make these AT's immediately available at L50, with standardized enhancements
available to one and all at creation time and you're set.

The learning curve is easier, any differences between PvE and PvP are clear and
you mitigate the attachment we have for our long-played PvE toons who get
pwned in today's PvP environment.

Now, you're on a simple, level, playing field, just like the successful FPS's

Done right, you'll rebuild the PvP playerbase. Done well, you might even create
an enviroment that will entice some PvE folks to dabble in occasionally (see next point).

3> Cater to *levels* of skill. There should be simple areas (duly restricted
with some form of relative rating) for casual players, Advanced, and Elites.

A casual PvPer should be able to go into an area based on relative rating and
have a fun time that is still competitive (rather than overwhelming).

This occurs in most other sports as well: I can play some competitive tennis
(at my own level) without having to face Roger Federer, or play some casual
hockey without getting pounded by Zdeno Chara. I can race karts at the local
track without facing Jeff Gordon, etc.

Why can I NOT do this in PvP? In short, I should...



Clearly the current PvP system cannot handle *any* of these things well and, imho,
is a complete write-off.

TBH, I question whether PvP is wanted or even desirable at all in the game (maybe
a survey?) at this stage, but if it is, I certainly think it would be better, faster,
and more economical to start over from scratch than try to salvage the mess that
is our current PvP system.

Maybe some of the ideas I listed would help. Maybe not.


Regards,
4


PS> Sorry for the length of the post, but imho, PvP is a pretty complex deal, and
if it's worth the time to do at all, it's worth the time to do it properly.

Thanks for your time.

Basically my feelings sum up what everyone else is saying. The PvP zones work under such different rules that you just can't casually go in and play. If my level 40 brute can handle large spawns of Arachnoids in Grandville missions, why does he get mauled by smaller spawns of Arachnoids in Warburg?

The rewards are either too rare (PvP purps) or too useless (Bust your butt in Siren's Call and you too can get a SO!). The Reputation system requires you to either go solo and hope you don't get teamed up on, or join a team and get such tiny gains that the natural degradation nullifes it by morning. Also, why *does* Reputation degrade?

The only real fun I've had with PvP are Gladiator fights, since those are much less dependant on AT and more skill related. Especially with a 'nothing worth more than 150 pts' rule for huge brawls.