This is why I'm not PvPing.

This is the first time I've heard about this. Is this why we can no longer have base raids? I thought part of the I13 revamp was to make base raids "better" but Castle didn't have time to finish it.

More info, please.

This.

Okay.

O.M.G. Zwill, what have you just done?



Zone PvP was one one huge epic fail of game design. Really, really, really, bad game design.

Mostly for the reason you cite: One side can guarantee victory simply by bringing in more people to their side. There is not only an imbalance, but, an invitation to practically *force* imbalance at all times.

Then on top of that, open PvP zones invites the ganker mentality... whether the lone Stalker or the SuperGroup overwhelming force. It pretty much guarantees anyone venturing into a PvP zone to see how PvP is in the game will have a very bad experience of it as they are continually ganked, and then mocked on top of it -- people who gank are rarely kind about it -- I imagine them as the type of people who torture animals.

The 'games' of PvP Zones then become a dreaded curse as players who can't get into the hardcore build building to survive the lawlessness of a zone PvP try to grab some of the rewards found in a PvP Zone (Shivans, Nukes, badges). The Devs wind up virtually saying, "Hey, here's a huge game reward; you only need to survive completely unfair and insurmountable odds to get it!!!" Yeah, *that's* 'fun'. And so, now you have a class of players who hate and resent PvP because of that awful, awful, awful game design of open PvP zones.

Most of the dreaded I13 changes were designed to make Zone PvP more livable and balanced... which was a mistake because Zone PvP can not be balanced. Ever. Although, the I13 changes did make the Zones less ganky.

Most of the I13 changes can be reverted in Arena PvP, thus giving I13 haters almost all that they want in PvP, yet, somehow that doesn't satisfy them. This makes me wonder whether these are really the hated Zone Gankers and they want I13 repealed in the zones so they can go back to taking advantage of all the unfairness inherent in the Pre-I13 zones and feel like winners by exploiting the weaknesses of the mechanics and ganking any non-hardcore player that wanders into the zone.


What PvP needs is what you find in most MMORPGs: Instanced zones (like the Arena) that are easy to set up (the Arena is an 'F' in ease of use) with fun games (the Arena has no fun games like 'capture the flag').

I feel like chasing you and simply using /e slap or /e smack and super jumping off. Not even an actual power or anything.

Because I feel like my Titan Weapon will bounce off you and hit me in the face.

Seconded. I enjoyed pre-13 PvP from time to time, but base raids were especially fun in large part because the environment could allow for less than optimal builds to contribute meaningfully. Designing the base to be defended, the objective being to attack/protect a resource rather than rack up kill count, and the widely varying fighting environments made it a truly great experience IMO. You could play an absolutely amazing PvP group and still "succeed" by way of pylons, or keeping them from taking down needed objectives.

It was probably the best hope for introductory PvP for others too, IMO, because it combined the controlled environments of the arena (team size, scheduling, etc., and the ability to balance the sides), with the capture-the-flag goals that didn't always need every player to be a killing machine. I've never heard that it nearly melted the servers; on the one hand, that's kind of nice to hear that it wasn't just arbitrarily shelved, but on the other it's sad because it makes it unlikely that we'll see it ever return.

Of course, after the I-13 changes, it wouldn't be much fun anyway... When my Blue Wisp Pet actually grants a higher Defense bonus in RV than my PFF does on a level 50 FF defender, that's a sign of something seriously wrong with the game design. Let that sink in a minute: Vet Pet Powers and set bonuses are more valuable than full-on, focus-of-the-powerset powers are. That's just ridiculous.

And this is the root cause why I don't pvp in this game or games like this (anymore. I did, in another game in the past. Even won tournaments). I don't want to have to pick a certain AT and a certain power set to be competitive. I hate having to spend a lot of time and effort into getting a character up and running, kitting it out in exactly one way to have it perform at it's peak abilities.

That's why (as I said in that other thread) this game, and games like this, will never have balanced pvp, and thus no pvp that I will enjoy. PVP, imo, should be a match of wits and skill against wits and skill, during the actual match. Going into a fight and realizing that your opponent just happens to be the paper to your rock and there not being a whole lot you can do about it isn't fun imo. (unless you completely overclass your opponent in the wits and skill department, but that's not a whole lot of fun either.) It's better in team pvp where you can fill in the gaps with your teammates, sure, but I'm don't have the time nor the inclination to be part of a more or less dedicated pvp group. I'm not much of a team player anyway.

For this reason I prefer to PvP on grounds that do provide that basic balance. Games that are built from the core up around competition while providing everyone whit the same tools going into the match. Like some FPS (I HATE the shooters that give people in game advantages if they have played longer or dole out more cash or ...) or the more balanced RTS games (poorly balanced RTS games just make me sad.)

That's why I13 pvp missed the mark for me. I pvped some before that, but haven't for more than 30 minutes since then. It intended to create that balance, equalizing the power sets and ATs. Which is a good intent, imo. But, apart from the fact that it didn't succeed, it did so by completely altering the way power sets, and thus characters, play inside and outside of pvp. Making it even harder for people to get into pvp, and making it even more important that you jump through all the hoops of making a specialized build for it. As I see it, it achieved the exact opposite of what it was attempting to achieve.

The sad thing is that I don't really see how they can fix that. Because you simply can't balance this game for pvp, because at its very core that balance just isn't there. There're just to many different powers and archetypes to ever hope to make them balanced in any way. It's not a big deal in PvE, because a) I don't play this game to compete against my teammates and b) basically every powers combination in game is "good enough" to stand up to just about any realistic challenge in the game. You can only achieve that balance by starting anew, by changing the core mechanics of how this game works, effectively turning pvp into a different game. It's what they attempted and failed to do with I13. And as demonstrated that just isn't going to please most people, including me, and it this point it certainly isn't worth the effort anymore.

Pfft, that's an easy answer.


Just write in code that says, "Since you are a Blaster (for example), you can only die from someone who is a Tanker (for example)." "You are a Dominator AT, you can only die from someone who is a PeaceBringer/Warshade."

ta-da Rock, Paper, Scissors.


Now, where's my game developer grade salary?!

A couple of years ago my Tank met a Brute while running around Bloody bay for the exploration badges. 10 minutes later, we decided to go our separate ways since it became obvious that neither of us could defeat the other on our own.

On topic: I don't PvP in this game because the powers system wasn't designed with PvP in mind. Actually, I don't really care for PvP in MMOs in general, since there need to be abilities like crowd control for PvE that just don't add fun to PvP. Either the Mez lands and the target gets to sit around not doing anything until it wears off, or it doesn't land and the Mezzer doesn't feel like they are contributing anything. This extends beyond the big name MMOs, there's a Flash collectible card game (with a PvE campaign where you can earn some of the cards) I was playing where the PvPers were complaining about the ability to "stun lock" opponents. Please note that I'm just using Mezzes here as an obvious example, there are quite a few other abilities that contribute little or nothing to the enjoyment of one or the other type of play.

PvP game design is based on providing balanced encounters where each side has a (theoretically) equal chance of winning. PvE game design is almost always about unbalanced encounters, either one player versus a swarm of minions or many players versus one raid boss, with the player being supposed to win most of the time. These two design philosophies do not mesh particularly well. So if I want to PvP, I tend to load up a game that was designed for it from the ground up, like Team Fortress 2.

Wow, I'm officially 100% out of touch with the playerbase of this game. The sheer # of hours I spent in a pvp zone over the years completely goes against your statement but maybe the game has just changed too much over the years for any of my experiences to have any merit anymore.

I started with zone pvp and graduated to 1v1 arena and then team arena. Some of the most memorable moments for me in this game were duels with friends of equal level of fervor for min/maxing pve and lulzy pvp zone broadcast banter(basically videogame pillow talk, not the toxic hate speak that the forums make it out to be, in fact the game would have been boring sooner without it).

I remember spending hours just spamming /ac on justice for 1v1s and being thankful for every consenting partner. The few team arena events were always anxiously awaited, I remember a 2v2 tourney where the rules allowed tier3 inspirations and the week leading up to it I farmed RSF for a bin full of oranges so my /mace corr could stand up to the blaster/emp teams. The days where insp management mattered and the most work you had to do in a build was leveling/accolades/collecting a handful of sHO's made pvp simple yet so complex at the same time.

Now we have procs, incarnate nukes, obscene levels of power that force you into smaller molds of what is survivable, and the maligned ruleset changes that i13 brought and i14 was the last attempt of balancing with elusivity.

I am not pvping anymore because I don't know any fun pvpers anymore and the kind of pvp I was good at doesnt exist anymore. I've been back a little over a month because of a handful of old friends I can occasionally team with for freemium content. I have no problem giving ncsoft my money but they have to give me something worthwhile in exchange, I will gladly buy the powersets that look fun but they need to do more than just add incarnate content/costumes for me to resub.

ALMOST? That's the problem with you guys. If you're gonna do something, ya gotta commit yourself to go all the way with it.

Come to Freedom server. We will be waiting for you!

Have you no friends/gfriends? No global channels? No supergroup?

And I completely disagree that zone PVP was "one huge epic fail." Zone PVP - especially Sirens, to be honest - was some of the most fun I've had. I've had fun in Arenas, sure - especially with some of the level 4 PVP events in the past. But zone PVP has many things the arena doesn't - starting with the hunt when someone else enters the zone.

As far as numbers? My (non PVP specced) Corruptor, another Corruptor and (IIRC) a Dominator held Siren's for a good half hour against superior numbers. None of us were "uber" PVPers, either. So the "more numbers = auto-win" is, frankly, claptrap.

IOs, though... at this point, those break things a bit too badly, IMHO.

See my Guides and Tutorials

And those have been some of the more interesting fights I've had, IMHO. Actually had my MA/Regen Stalker go up against a MA/Regen Scrapper once - a good, solid ten minutes of trying to get any advantage over the other. I loved that fight - and after that it was mostly /em bow and head our separate ways.

Then there are the "you can't win" fights ... when someone's proven wrong. Same stalker vs a tank (stone, IIRC.) His two friends watching saying I'd obviously lose... and after several minutes his friends were pretty much telling him "You've lost, give it up, the stalker won" as he desperately tried to maintain that last 20% of health he had. Which finally went quickly.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I13 was awful, and I'm not talking just the PvP changes. I13 introduced many annoyances, but the one most relevant to PvP is that it removed all mobility between PvE and PvP.

PvE builds became garbage in PvP, even against PvE targets within PvP zones, even with multiple PvEers trying to take on a single PvPer. Likewise, most I13 compliant PvP builds became garbage in PvE. And almost nobody bothered with I13's dual build band-aid to bridge the widened gap. Meawhile, the promise of the I13 PvP changes never materialized: The number and variety of viable PvP builds at the top did not increase.

Case in point, running WWD7 with a guy I met in Recluse's Victory once. Nice guy, but as a blaster with nothing but single-target attacks I really wish he'd availed himself of that dual build feature. My claws scrapper felt like the real blaster on the team. On the flip side, in PvP, one of his blaster could probably solo five of my scrapper, because AoE attacks do nothing. Doesn't take a sociology degree to see why we mostly travel in different circles.

Is there some benefit to pretending I13 wasn't bad, that I'm missing? I mean, sure, it's more important to look to the future than to look to the past, but it's also important to learn from mistakes.

The snarky side of me wants to respond with:

"Sorry oh keeper of words on CoX, please teach me what your opinion of every word is so that we lowly posters can speak as you do".

However, to be perfectly honest, the word "balance" has been tossed around in discussions about PvP.

People have said there was a Red Vs. Blue imbalance due to the high range damage that blasters had over any type of red character.

People have said that there is an imbalance in powers between various power sets within a specific AT- see Kinetic Melee discussions.

People have used the word "balance" when talking about "why can't I bring my xxx and beat your yyy, clearly the game is broken because it lacks balance between the various power sets/ATs"

So if I am addressing the various rumors/myths/fallacies about pre i13 vs post i13 pvp, I think my usage of the word "balance" is correct, and perhaps the word doesn't mean what you think it means. Just because YOU view the term in a specific way does not mean that my addressing these myths is using the term incorrectly.

Go back to the original post you quoted of mine, I was responding to someone who said its nearly impossible for a controller to beat a tank or a brute. Which of course is completely false, it was false pre i13 and its still false post i13.

I said that the desire to have "balance" between all ATs is ridiculous because at the point where anything can beat anything the game becomes less about skill/knowledge and more about flipping a coin.

You seemed to take offense to my usage of the word balance. That is your right, however, are you knowledgeable about the history of PvP and the complaints/suggestions about it?
When asked "do you pvp" this was your response:

Quote:

Nope. I don't. I didn't much before I13, but I had a bunch of friends who did quite actively who I would sometimes join in with. I13 drove them all away.

Again, feeding the mythology that I13 chased all the PvPers away- but we will come back to that.

I just am not sure that someone who admittedly does not pvp, nor was ever really active would be able to offer insight into how something is or isn't working.
I'm sure you have an extensive pvp career in other games which you will toute as proof of your superior knowledge, however you .. don't..even...PvP..here. So is your knowledge of pre I13 PvP from first hand knowledge or just dicussions with these *friends* who abandoned you?

You also go on to state that:

Quote:

Everything doesn't need to be equal. It just all needs to be useful somewhere. And preferably, there's nothing that is always useful everywhere.

I would offer that, these circumstances already exist in CoX PvP. Lets say you want to play a blaster, and everyone says OMG YOU CAN ONLY PLAY FIRE BLAST U NOOB. Honestly, that has never been true (pre or post i13).
You want to debuff your opponents to-hit- Play a dark blaster.
You want to debuff your opponents defense- play a rad blaster.
You want to debuff your opponents Resist- Play a sonic blaster.
You want to slot Kb procs and RP with a gun- Play a AR blaster.
You want to play lvl 5 PvP- Play an Archery blaster.
There are situations where ANYTHING can excel.

You kind of confuse me a bit with your feelings about skill in the game.

Quote:

“You can make anything viable with enough skill" is completely subjective hogwash and nothing but a cop-out. If something is so much not competitive for some form of play such that no one plays it except people who don't know better, it's not viable. If it's only played by people who are gods among gamers just to break even in performance with Jow Blow on some other powerset, it can be balanced better.

Yet you go on to state:

Quote:

Knowing the correct reaction in a given circumstance and executing that reaction faster than an opponent does is the same thing distinguishes excellent sports figures and excellent players of video games. There is certainly an immense difference in physical conditioning between, say, a skilled basketball or tennis player and a skilled video game player, but the fundamental mental and physical capabilities that make one good also make the other good. A player of either game with superior situational awareness and reflexes has more "skill", by definition. I honestly cannot conceive how you could think this does not exist.

So, you admit there is a 'skill' aspect to this game, yet its hogwash to state that it plays part in making an AT or powerset viable. If skill shouldn't be part of making a character viable in PvP then again arent we back to competitive coin flipping?


Ok, before this wall of text becomes the great wall of text, lets go back to your friends who left because of i13 changes.


You mention Con. You realize that post i13 he was still around, pvping right? He even went so far as to start up a team for a test league that we were never able to get off the ground. So who exactly were these friends of yours that left CoH directly due to I13?
I have seen a lot of PvPers leave, some say "I really hate TS/HD/DR" They don't really say I hated the I13 changes. I think people who really PvPed back then KNOW that PvP wasn't exactly working the greatest either. The I13 changes were just too drastic and heavy handed. Some people rage quit, some of those people came back. In fact every league we have, we see people coming back to this game (even if its just for that league). We see people who claim that they are "quitting for life!" but they are still here throwing mental darts rather than using the force or commanding a spaceship or playing some comic book universe online.

I just think the mass exodus of PvPers post I13 that everyone believes happened sort of happened but not to the extent that everyone thinks. As I said before, this games population has decreased that along with free transfers lead to most PvP zones being ghost towns (but look at the hollows on most servers, its pretty much tumble weeds there as well). If the zones are empty and someone ISNT willing to transfer off their home server, then pretty much they will have zero chances of PvPing (in zone) so they eventually either quit or find another aspect of the game that they enjoy.

Okay.

I never said I love the changes that came with I13. I said, pre-i13 pvp wasn't exactly as super terrific happy fun ball as some people believe. There is always this ongoing mantra "roll back pvp to pre-i13... roll back pvp to pre-i13.

Ask people who really pvp'ed back then. It wasn't exactly fun to find a perma mind/fire and spend the two minutes (or so) clicking all your breakfrees then the next 2 minutes standing there holding your head while they slowly burnt you into ashes. TK was broken (still is pretty bad). With a good healer it was nearly impossible to die. Everyone rolled forts and nightwidows and ran around RV at will.

Travel supression blows. Period. There is a reason most of us turn it off when we fight in the arena. It isn't fun. However, my point was blaming the devs or Castle for it, really isn't fair, when the suggestion for Travel supression really came from *US* the players. Players (I'm not even going to say PvPers) wanted to stop people from running away from them before they were defeated. The suggestion was brought up that perhaps supressing their travel while they were attacked would be viable. Horrible idea. I have always said I would support tethering rather than TS. Melee attacks would cause TS, not ranged attacks.

Heal Decay sucks. Again, there is a reason we turn it off. Its too easily abused. You don't like someone you switch to their side... and start healing them. Soon they can't even pop a green to get some HP back. HD also made "healers" into buffers, not a lot of fun there. Incandescence (destiny) has somewhat fixed heal decay, but it remains to be seen if its a bug or working as intended.

New Mez rules- I like them. 2-4 seconds is plently long enough to help a stalker get off an AS, or for a melee toon to hustle its <pancake> rearend over to the target to hit it. Honestly, anyone who thinks controllers and doms are not viable in pvp, hasn't really been PvPing. ATs are more than just their primary and saying /posion doesn't mean a controller is viable is fooling themself. Thats like saying in PvP tanks fight by spaming taunt and hoping their chance for psi damage proc kills something.

DR-Im on the fence- I get that it was suppose to help lower the bar for players to try PvP. I just don't think it worked.

Inherent resists- not a fan, but I get why they were put in place. As much as people wanted to kill other targets, they also didn't want to die *that* fast on their squishy characters. I'm just not a fan.


As far as the part about a PvP build on a tf/sf/mission. I have played my PvP toons on many of these and have almost never had anyone complain. To be honest with the exception of maybe the prisioner escape portion of BAF, most of the new content focuses on killing hard targets which is 100% single target. Siege, NS, Maurader, That thing at the end of the UGT, Rulu-wade... you know what I mean? I do have *an* aoe with judgement and I have lore pets, so like I said I rarely get called out for not assisting the team.

Yeah, we had two full ladders going...VORI gone, Ajax and them gone, pretty much everyone on my teams gone...Vinnie and some of them are around and dUmb kinda stuck around through I13 and the last PvP D6/D8 ladder or whatever...but Arena PvP took a huge hit with I13, there just isn't denying that unfortunately.

Even the LEvel 5 ladder lost 2-3 teams. That's cool though because it's the msot fun I've had in an Arena setting since the first Freedom PvPL.
Zones are KINDA fun but again, too much base camping for me to stay there for more than a few minutes, even with droing base campers...that's fun for about 20 minutes or so.

But that's cool, PvP in that other game has people complaining about healers, OP classes, etc. etc. It's part of the PvP experience I guess. Had a ton of fun playing L4D lately, but mostly because I can shoot my partner in the head/back when they are getting too lippy hehehehe. >.>

I can't speak to why the original post popped up, I believe Z mentioned something or did something, he does love to get shot at in pvp zones, while changing into the golden roller or some other crazy thing.

I somewhat stated why I started this thread:
I will eloborate, if I posted in B.R.A's thread, honestly, my post would have been read by some, but for the most part people read the 1st post then maybe the 1st page... then skip to the end (or at least that is what I do).

It really irks (is that a real word Uber?) me when people say that pre i13 pvp was great and we should go back to it. It really wasn't great. Is post i13 better, I really don't know. I think the arena is great, much better now than pre-i13. I love the mez changes. Its a hard call. So much good, so much terrible.

So I figured I have always been meaning to post my feelings about blaming the devs and castle and saying i13 was the cause of all evil. So why not now.

I know my stance is not a popular one. It goes against the current dogma of CoX, but honestly, if you look back at what really went down and if you were around back then, its the truth (or its the truth as I see it).


As far as why here rather than the PvP forums. Again I can't answer for B.R.A. but I posted here, for 2 reasons:

1) to answer the question while trying to debunk some of the myths, and rumors about i13.

2)Lets be honest, if I wanted to reach a targeted audience I had to go here. The original post was here. If I posted on the pvp forums, the pvpers would read it and go... ok, thanks, now where is my build for xxx/xxx and who starting the next league? If I post here, at least I can reach those people who believe some of those ideas that I think are false.

I don't think I've typed as much as I have in the last two days since I was in college.

Pee Wee Kara.... I'm pretty sure I will get mod'ed for that.

Every 3 months or so I'll get an urge to try something different in the game, and I miss being able to hop into a PvP zone and run around like a lunatic.

If these posts (including the "I killed Zwill" thread) do something to make that possible again, I say more power to 'em.