This is why I'm not PvPing.

Regarding PvP,
Zwill, you think we can set up an event?
I was thinking 1v1, 2v2 and 8v8. Have each server hold one of these, and then have the server champs battle it out with each other.

i remember a few years ago that this was held as a 1v1 event, but since there are no more PvPReps, these events are not being planned.
If needed, i can volunteer as one of the helpers.

BTW, Zwill... Kudos for bringing the players closer to the Devs!
Since you have been Community Manager the bridge between these two groups has been closed to a point that imo, sets an example to all other games.

I love PvP in any game that isn't an MMO.

I've played a ton of MMO's. And what I've seen in MMOs is that to be able to compete in PvP I have to grind to get the best gear.

I hate to grind.

I love PvP.

I don't PvP because I refuse to grind to get all purpled out with PvP IOs, and be uber leet.

Right now there is a 100% PvP FPS game (that recently just launched) that is taking at least 50% of my gaming time.

There is no grinding. And while there are different options, there is no uber leet gear. Everyone is even. The game is "balanced". And is crazy fun.

When I want PvP I'll find a good FPS that does it well. I can't imagine MMO PvP ever being worth my time.

Thats why I don't PvP.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Zone PVP, hate steping in there only to be destroyed in seconds by some purpled-up Defender, very embarrassing

I do enjoy the Arena matches though. Anyone else in the EU base that remembers to S4 tournament, was about 5 or 6 years ago, organised by Bridger?

Was a massive amount of work, but damn, was amazing fun

I've said this several times before on similar threads but one of the best PvP experiences I ever had on this game was when Recluse's Victory was on the test server. I guess that makes it the beta test for I7. All existing characters were wiped and new characters were given enough XP and Inf to level up to 40 and equip it with SOs.

While it took a few minutes to set up, once you got in to RV you would see all kinds of powersets being used. There is no need to worry about having a flavor of the month since anyone could turn around and make one for themselves in a manner of minutes.

IOs had not been released yet. There were no I-13 mechanics that made PvP different than PvE. No one had multi-billion builds filled with procs. That placed everyone on relatively equal footing as far as build. What was left was inspiration usage, teammates, skill, and luck to determine winners and losers.

People weren't emotionally attached to their characters since they had just made them. So being predator or prey didn't seem to matter as much. There was some banter but I didn't hear any of the over-the-top trash talking.

And since it was something new there were lots of people buzzing about.

That brief little window in time is the closest I have seen to balance in CoH PvP.

I've tried PVP a few times over the years, and decided it wasn't for me. The primary reasons are:

1. I don't want to have to learn a whole new game basically. SO many things work differently in PVP that I feel like it's not something I can do casually. I either spend quite a bit of time mastering the different system, or I'm not good enough to enjoy it.
2. I don't like the changes to PVP. My characters that are super-awesome badasses in PVE are considerably less so in PVP, and I don't enjoy that.
3. The amount of immature vitriol spewed by the PVPers. Yes, there is some of this in PVE content as well, but it's much more prevalent in PVP, and I don't particularly enjoy spending my time being insulted by 13 year olds on the internet.

Sigh, it sucks that you are asking me to repond when im not at home, my choices are type on my phone or use my laptop that drops the connection.

You sure are tenacious, I will give you that. However, I thought the issue you had was your misconception of my definition. Of balance, I've already showed that it was some elses definition that I was responding to as well as at least one other poster staating that they viewed balance in the same way as perhaps that first poster.

Now you want my pvp cv because I question you pvp experience... I guess that is fair.
I didn't join this game till whatever issue rv opened. I played the first year with minimal pvp play. I think I buffed in sirens call a few time. Idk what year would that have been...2006? This would be much easier if I wasn't on my phone.

I met putz, vv, w ed and some others while pveing with them. They tried to get me interested in pvping but for the most part I just empped while putz pled.

Finally after trying villians 2007 maybe? I started pvping on a stalker, sirens and rv. Base raiding with some fun villian groups on victory.

A trio of us moved to infinity because it was "the" arena pvp server. I became friends with players in the dUmb channnel and had my @$$ handed to me by shu and stella.

I did mostly zone RV on infinity for maybe a year with the occasional duel against critakill, warlust and such. I believe but don't quote me that tpvpl season 1 was about this time, or perhaps just prior.

I was drafted by ed for lazer city jesus eyes, and we were horrible.

I joined pvpec and ran all of the pvp evens on victory except maybe 1 lvl 5 event for idk..3 years?
when raid left pvpec he asked me to run it but due to lack of communication and seeing the direction some people wanted to take pvpec I stepped down and ck and peril took over.

So my experience pre i13 was mostly zone play with some dueling and minimal team arena.

Zwillinger, I recently found something that broke during issue 13. Domination for Dominators isn't working properly, and there are easy fixes and suggestions on how to fix it here. I've tried to get some attention to it, but have 0 idea whether someone is taking it seriously or not.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=287947

Even if you could assure me it's been written down somewhere where someone will see it, that would be very nice. Bookmark it and look at it when you're free if you have to. Thank you.

EDIT: ^ This is PvP related ONLY

As to PvP balance? I always point people to the original Super Smash bros game. It has a tier list, meaning some characters are -typically- better than others, just like every other fighting game.

At the same time, the top player (Isai) can beat -every- other player in the world with -any- character, usually winning by a mile as well (worldwide).

For me, that is balance. It means that regardless of the character, the amount of skill can -always- overcome that, through tactics and build strategy.

We have that to a certain degree, but honestly, the "skill" that can make any character good is knowing how to IO it properly, and while that does indeed take skill, it can also be passed over to someone who knows nothing about the game.

This is why people rarely share their own builds on the forums.

It also makes me hate how set bonuses are listed. Especially with big PvP bonuses showing. Give me 30 minutes and I can reverse engineer someone's build almost entirely. This means if someone else does this, they could have most of my builds, or something very similar to it. Wish they could be disabled in PvP zones like they once were.


If you wanted this game to be more based upon skill that isn't IOing properly, the only way I see it is to make it similar to how it was pre-i13. Some good changes have been implemented since then, but make PvP -faster-, so that reaction time and knowing your stuff is what makes you survive and get kills.

At the time being, people can take their time and relax while PvPing, because fights take a long time and both sides are constantly being slowed down. I'm never shaking because of the intensity of CoX PvP like I used to. The appeal to PvP is the adrenaline rush.

I've never tried to create a list to fix PvP, but I wouldn't mind these changes implemented, given other changes that are affected by them or affect them were also changed with them.

-Take out inherent +res in PvP
-Take out DR (This system is too complicated, Devs cannot balance things they don't fully understand, and players have no idea how to build their characters)
-Maybe give everyone a +100% dmg buff (things die faster) to counter the survivablility power creep since i13 (Incarnates)
-Lose TS/HD



I cannot stress how complicated PvP has gotten with DR and other mechanics. I -know- it's too complicated because I find mistakes in the coding on a weekly basis, and have a list right now open on my screen of over 20 PvP exploits that wouldn't exist if the programmer understood DR and PvP completely.

Anyone can take a look at the thread I posted.
PvP is so complicated these days that nobody had noticed their inherent power didn't work for 3+ years. That would get picked up before it even hit live if Dominators PvE had Domination stop working for them.

I don't even mind throwing away the years of experience I have dealing with DR. It definitely gives me an edge, an edge I shouldn't have, but I would prefer PvP without it.

So, I finally have time to sit down and write a long response.

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Originally Posted by The_Masque I never said that balance was achievable, only that its the same in PvE as it is in PvP.

I never accused you of saying balance was achievable. What it looks to me like you said was that either balance was unachievable or at least very undesirable.

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Perhaps you missed Coyote_Seven's post

I didn't, and it's definitely a great example of a definition of "balance" that I have an issue with. You and I do both disagree with Coyote_Seven on that part.

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This is what I responded to with: <snipped> Quote: There is no such thing as balance in any competitive game. If there was there would no point in playing. So again, I didn't define "balance" as comparing one character to another and stating that "balance" ment that either player had an equal chance of wining. I was replying to a coment from another poster. Therefore you are either being disingenuous by stating that balance does not mean what *I* think it means, or you simply didn't really read the posts.

Here's where, though, even though you and I may both disagree with Coyote_Seven's post, we aren't saying the same thing. You don't argue that balance should mean something else than how Coyote_Seven described it in context. Instead, you implicitly agreed with it by referring to "balance" as he did, and saying it's a bad thing. Specifically, you said:

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There is no such thing as balance in any competitive game. If there was there would no point in playing. If there was a 50/50 chance of me winning in a fight no matter what, then why would I even want to compete.

So I agree with you that Coyote_Seven may be off the mark in whether or not Controllers vs. Tankers should be an "even" matchup, but I don't agree with the conclusion you stated as a result. You appear to accept C7's version of "balance" as being when Controllers and Tankers (and, by extension, everyone versus everyone) would be evenly matched. Hopefully clearly by now, I disagree strongly with that definition of "balance". You didn't bring that definition of balance into the argument, but you not only repeated it in a reply, you reinforced it by applying it even more generically to "a 50/50 chance of winning a fight no matter what". That is why I am having this discussion with you, and not Coyote_Seven.

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You desire a better balance, and I believe I asked (perhaps it was in a draft of my post) what would you do to create this balance you think is the only way to have viable pvp in this game? Honestly, have you even considered what you are asking for? Or because PvP isn't really up your alley do you instead just buy into what your "friends" told you?

I trusted them to ask for things more specific things than I, exactly because they have more hands-on experience than I did. Several of them were in direct discussion with the Devs and gave the devs detailed suggestions. Heal Decay was not a suggestion they made. Extreme diminishing returns was not a suggestion they made. God knows that anything like I13 travel suppression was not a suggestion they made. It's been a long time, I don't remember all the specific things they talked about having suggested. What I remember is that they were, broadly speaking, attempts to address some of the ATs and powersets that were limited or even overpowered in various PvP contexts, to bring them in to a tighter performance cluster. They were attempts to modify pre-I13 PvP to improve its "balance" without ripping out the essence of how it played. What they got instead did rip out its essence by most of our opinions (and by "our" I mean the group of players I was involved with), and didn't include the more moderate changes they suggested.

And I'd like to point out at this point how childish the "*friends*" thing was. I'm amused you think you might have hurt my feelings. I didn't ask about it so I could know whether or not to be mad at you. I asked about it so I could point out that only people with crappy arguments resort to attacking the arguer. You're someone I don't know spewing text at me on the internet, so don't kid yourself into thinking you can make me care what you think of me as a person.

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Yet every league we get old school PvPers back who join and then leave again once the leagues are over.

I hate to tell you, but that's not a PvP community. That isn't going to grow the way one with regular activity and pugs would. That's stagnant. And that's not what it was like pre-I13.

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I watched an episode of CSI once, but I don't think that qualifies me as a forensic scientist.

What a thoroughly asinine analogy. CSI is a load of crap. Real forensic investigation doesn't play out like that, and real CSIs don't do a fraction of the stuff depicted on the show. CSI and its spin-offs is a dramatization. If, in fact, I worked with real CSIs, talked to them about what they did, and actually occasionally went into the field with them, I would still not be a CSI, but I would damn well be able to talk intelligently about what CSIs do, how, when and why.

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I also spend a lot of my time talking to surgeons, that doesn't mean I'm going to pick up a scapel or tell one how to do sugery.

That's true. And if you have lunch with them and talk about golf or the stock market, you aren't going to even be able to talk about surgery. But if you spend a lot of time talking with them about their specialty, asking questions about what they do and why, and then sometimes accompany them into the operating room and help out with surgery, then you are going to be able to have intelligent conversations about surgery. If you happen to spend a lot of time studying human anatomy, you're going to be able to have even better conversations about surgery.

Are you going to be an expert? No. Guess what, I never sold myself as an expert on PvP. I sold myself as someone who had some actual experience. I sell myself as someone very knowledgeable of the game's mechanics, who's pretty good at extrapolating what those mechanics mean for practical play before even trying them out, and who had people with more experience that I could bounce those extrapolations off of. (I was good at that extrapolation in PvP pre-I13. I haven't cared enough about post-I13 PvP to hone up on its special mechanics to do so any more.)

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I just do not understand how you can ride your high horse and lay judgement on an aspect of the game which you by your own admission have never really participated in.

Because I have more experience with it than you're trying to make out that I do. I don't have the credibilty of some of the people who really did PvP a lot back then, but that doesn't mean I have no credibility.

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Maybe if you did, you would realize something can be fun without having to be 'balanced'.

Strawman number three that I've picked up on, I think. I never said CoH PvP wasn't fun. I liked pre-I13 PvP, and I have declared that I think it was imbalanced. I believe it would have been more fun if it was better balanced in ways that tried to retain its best features. Tweaking certain powersets and powers would not have changed the core of the PvP game. Iterative changes.

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They exist now.

Not relevant to a discussion about pre-I13 PvP.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EARb4s9KVk8&feature=fvsr

... So, like, you read the video poster's own comments on that movie, right?

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i think the point? of this video just flew right over the heads of all the n00bs crying about 8 reds for 30 sec in a 10 min match.....come on guys even with 8 reds popped Full Auto didnt kill anyone..... think about it ......, but keep posting you are very amusing

Sorry, but I'm pretty confused about your deal with AR. You make points about how it can be played well or be good with the right build, but then turn around and offer solid evidence of the opposite.

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Just because Aracana says it, doesn't make it true. Just as Z saying Masque is right (sort of) doesn't make my points valid.

I don't even know what to do with this comment. I mean, first off, "duh"? This is an internet forum. Nothing is true because any of us say them here. If that's the position you take on everything, then no one can have a conversation, because no one is an authority on anything. But when people have a history of posting sensible things, I give them more weight than someone who, from my perspective, comes out of the woodwork saying things about "balance" that I think are absurd on their face.

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You think that everything should have a place- that every power should be desirable in some situation. I get your idea of what balance means to you. However, my point is, that isn't a PvP phenomenon (oh btw Aracana also said something similar to this). Its a CoX phenomenon.

Honestly, I don't even think I know what you're asserting here, but it doesn't look to me anything like what Arcanaville said.

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So saying that PvP isn't viable or is broken because of this is pretty rediculous.

Please quote where I said that about PvP. I referenced viability of certain characters or powersets, but not of PvP.

I think PvP here is no longer viable because the I13 changes gutted the PvP community, and made PvErs even less likely to venture into PvP zones than they were prior. That is not directly a comment about post-I13 "balance".

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If that is what makes PvP so unplayable and that is why people don't PvP then wouldn't everyone also not PvE?

Let's let Arcanaville answer that.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville There is also the argument that its wildly unbalanced PvE is part of the game's overall attractiveness, but that severely hampers PvP when the thing on the other side of the screen is another human being, and not a critter.

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I did post the link to what you are talking about here it is again: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122744 I will also post what Putz listed under Power Balance Issues and Suggestions: Look over those points, honestly, almost all of those have been addressed post I13.

Seriously, what? I can find huge swaths of those suggestions that I don't think were implemented. Several of the items on the top priority list are not implemented. But most importantly, what they did get came with a bunch of stuff that no one asked for. The list of request would have been radically different if they had been asking for it post-I13.

Even for the things they did get, saying they got what they wanted is like saying someone who asked for a face and boob job got what they wanted over four surgeries, during the first of which the doctor cuts off both their legs. What do you think they'd ask for after you cut their legs off? Do you think maybe their list of requested changes might be a little different after that? You think that chin tuck is still the priority?

Just looking at the priority list.

1. People often have to reset matches multiple times to get an acceptable map. Add selectable arena maps, as well as the ability to eliminate maps from the selection while still having a random pick.

I think they got most of this one, though I don't recall if it was in I13.

2. There aren’t any meaningful rewards to encourage participation in PvP.

Still true. Drop rates for actual PvP play are very low. PvPOs are not universally considered meaningful rewards. PvPOs did not appear until I14.

3. The Only Affecting Self timer in the arena has two big issues: its wide variability, and the ability to affect people who are in OAS. This video
shows how to trick the OAS timer. Additionally, the OAS timer itself lasts between 0 and 20 seconds, a world of difference in an arena match. Consider decreasing the range, normalizing the timer to a set value, or switching it to the PvP enabled mechanic that exists in zones.

No idea about this one.

4. Villains have no ally grantable source of +perception in Sirens Call. Consider switching the order of clarity and sonic repulsion, adding +per to the /cold shields, or adding it to thaw. This in itself could go a long way towards fixing balance issues.

How long did this take to change? Did it change before side switching?

5. Instanced PvP missons are a highly requested feature. Many people would like to PvP, but would like a story or different tasks other than just “kill the most people on the other team.” Hero vs. villain safeguard/mayhem missions are the most popular request, but king of the hill and capture the flag are also frequently mentioned.

Never happened.

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As far as the dogma of blaming the devs/castle for DR/HD/TS. I hate to point out since I consider Putz to be a friend but here is the suggestion that was taken out of context and all of PvP was painted by too broad of a brush stroke: Quote: New PvPers feel overwhelmed as they try to get the hang of things. Consider adding a newbie friendly zone with debuffed damage, debuffed movement, and buffed resistance so players can learn basic mechanics at a slower pace.

I don't see where that's anyone but the devs' fault. Someone asked for a training wheels zone, and the whole thing was wrapped in training wheels and bubble wrap, with the option to turn off some but not all of that in the Arena. The devs decided to do that. None of that goes on Putz or whoever else may have originated the quoted suggestion. They asked for a limited thing which was reasonable, and the devs are the ones that made it universal and unreasonable.

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So yes the suggestions were listen too, and unforunately, taken TOO far, rather than the popular belief that our voices were ignored.

You have a very strange notion of what it means to be "listened to". If someone hears the words coming out of my mouth but completely screws up the intent and basic meaning of what I told them, they did not listen to me.