Is there a "Why Do You PvP" thread?
"Forum PvP doesn't give drops. Just so all of you who participated in this thread are aware." -Mod08-
"when a stalker goes blue side, assassination strike should be renamed "bunny hugs", and a rainbow should fly out" -Harbinger-
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I have to admit, PVP would be a lot more attractive if everyone had to choose from the same developer-approved templates in order to compete. This is effectively what the team behind Team Fortress did... you get a choice of 5 distinct playing experiences that are specifically balanced against one another (and the ability to swap classes to compensate for your team's weaknesses).|
Originally Posted by McNum
The Tyrant Personal Mission shows that you can play as someone else and even get their powers. So you could pick pregenerated characters and get it to work now.
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But at the same time, doing so would cut out City of Heroes' heart and soul--the ability to customize your characters however you see fit. They might find success in such a system if they made goal-based PVP and candy-coated it as "metahuman sporting events" or something akin to the action films for the Blockbuster Summer Event, but I highly doubt it will find popularity in a regular deathmatch-style PVP setting.
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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Well for your first point. When CoV was released it was a seperate game not just an expansion pack. You could buy it and play stand-alone. From that point it would be meaningless to spend resources to make game more interactive with each other than a couple of zones and arenas.|
Originally Posted by Shockwave007
1) I know villains weren't originally in the game. I didn't play even when they were. I just picked up the game 2 weeks ago. I just came in remembering there was a big villains release, and had the expectations that heroes and villains would actually compete with each other, not just be two separate areas, and then combine up for big missions.
2) Doesn't need to be inescapable. Noboday has to fight giant octopuses or burning buildings either. I'm simply saying it would have been nice to have some options that were available out there. Have villains actually trigger events that set off alarms for heroes to react to. I'm not a fan of high level Pvp zones, but I would love to see missions that were set up to encourage PPV encounters within the city for those players who are interested. Doesn't even need to be a fight. Have actions by villains affect heroes and open events, and vice versa. 3) I realize PvP was a complete afterthought, and balance has never been there. Doesn't mean I'm just accepting of it. I'm very disappointed in this part of the implementation of the game, even as someone who just started. |
For second part you need people presented to start that kind of play and in no way in any MMO there is a way to write a code that a player triggers an event that otherside can join in later. Only sandbox MMO's can do that but in those it is usually not a game predefined mission or event happens that way just player scheduled raids to another faction tops.
Closest thing I have seen so far in any MMO that what you want was in the RF online when at each 8 hour there was a faction vs faction vs faction (there was three faction I am not sure if that game is still around I remember it went to freetoplay) event take place to capture the main mine field and that was all.
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As I've said either in this thread or another of the active PvP threads, my background is more RPG than MMO, so I come to it with a different set of expectations. |
Originally Posted by Kangstor
Closest thing I have seen so far in any MMO that what you want was in the RF online when at each 8 hour there was a faction vs faction vs faction (there was three faction I am not sure if that game is still around I remember it went to freetoplay) event take place to capture the main mine field and that was all.
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Maybe the first addition that is needed is the ability to create 2 team, PvP missions in the AE system. I haven't played with that at all, so don't know if it's possible now or not, but it seems that if players had the ability to design missions, it might cover some of the holes at least temporarily. I haven't done that at all, so don't know what is available there, but assuming that's not possible now.
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Oh, okay. Hadn't seen that. |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
I've got to call you on this one - not the balance issues, but...
Well, here. From 2002 - pre-beta (look at that interface!) specifically 8 minutes in: "The third game play feature is the arena, an area where one player can face off against another player, team against another team in a variety of game environments. There'll be tournaments, ranking systems and so forth for people that enjoy facing off against live opponents." ...so saying "they didn't realize players would want it" is, quite simply, false. (I just happened across this, btw, wasn't actually looking - it was from a related video on the echoey G+ hangout thing.) |
Seems kind of silly to plan on adding PvP from the beginning......and apparently not even consider how PC powers would work on other PCs. Telekinesis being a prime example of that, I mean, they seriously didn't see anything wrong with a power that can potentially make another player permanently helpless?
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Wow. That's a gem of a find Bill. I never knew that PvP was being considered that early in the game development. Thanks.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
I've got to call you on this one - not the balance issues, but...
Well, here. From 2002 - pre-beta (look at that interface!) specifically 8 minutes in: "The third game play feature is the arena, an area where one player can face off against another player, team against another team in a variety of game environments. There'll be tournaments, ranking systems and so forth for people that enjoy facing off against live opponents." ...so saying "they didn't realize players would want it" is, quite simply, false. (I just happened across this, btw, wasn't actually looking - it was from a related video on the echoey G+ hangout thing.) |
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Well ya gotta remember that was all back when Cryptic still owned the game. If you ever played either of their following MMO's you'd know that not only are they prone to making stupid mistakes like the one you mentioned, they don't learn from their previous mistakes.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Oh, okay. Hadn't seen that.
Seems kind of silly to plan on adding PvP from the beginning......and apparently not even consider how PC powers would work on other PCs. Telekinesis being a prime example of that, I mean, they seriously didn't see anything wrong with a power that can potentially make another player permanently helpless? |
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I can only think of two things:|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Oh, okay. Hadn't seen that.
Seems kind of silly to plan on adding PvP from the beginning......and apparently not even consider how PC powers would work on other PCs. Telekinesis being a prime example of that, I mean, they seriously didn't see anything wrong with a power that can potentially make another player permanently helpless? |
1. Cryptic was created to *make* this game. It was their first one. They made some mistakes - some good, some bad, and some (like "let's not make sure someone's commenting their code properly for bases") just stupid, and
2. At least when the zones went live, one of the general (and IMHO true) responses to AT vs AT imbalance was "Team." For instance, TK works on one person... so have someone else attack/hold/END drain/confuse the TKer. (And honestly, I'm *fine* with that response in this game.)
Three reasons I don't PvP:
1. No level playing field. Builds worth positive number multiples of the influence cap can play against a build with only SOs, and be at no handicap against the SO build.
2. It involves PvP.
3. It involves PvPers.
Back before the changes...I spent a good time PvPing...mostly in the RV zone and and a few events.
The reason I don't PvP now...is because I can no longer PvE and PvP with the same build without it playing drastically different.
I knew PvP wasn't for me when I first went into a PvP zone several years ago with what was then my strongest (and therefore most fun to PvE) character. I had no intention of PvPing as I was only there for the badges, but when another PC approached I figured, "what the heck, let's see how this goes."
Now my character wasn't touch enough to solo GMs or even AVs, but that aside there was little in the PvE game that gave me any trouble. That said, I got off exactly one attach and lasted roughly 10 seconds against the other player. Since A) I play this game to have fun and that was the exact opposite of fun, and B) I don't want to make a job out of this game, and becoming successful at PvP is a lot of work, I don't PvP.
As a matter of fact, I missed out on playing this game for the first three years it was out due to a mistaken impression that the whole game was PvP, and I had no interest in that. It wasn't until I learned in late 2007 that I was wrong that I finally picked up the game.
So, in short, as others have said, there are no changes to PvP I can think of that would get me to participate in that aspect of the game.
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
Why I don't PvP is largely for these reasons:
1) Having to have a completely separate build from PvE. This right here is probably the biggest killer. Due to the mechanics of how things work in PvP (mezzes, heal decay, damage procs doing UNRESISTABLE DAMAGE), I'd have to completely rework any character to be able to operate at even an only "adequate" level of efficiency.
2) PvP is only good for certain ATs. Controllers and Masterminds, the latter of which is an AT I obsess over, are essentially useless in a PvP zone, and Masterminds have to be built properly for 1v1 matches. There was a reason I was so bitter over the Memorial Mayhem event: Because my participating character was a Nin/Time Mastermind. In short, I do not want to be shore-horned into only playing Scrappers, Brutes, Blasters, or Corruptors (despite liking those ATs) just to be effective in PvP.
3) The necessity of using certain powers. Basically, if you're not using both Super Speed AND Super Jump, you're boned.
4) No real point. Before i13 changed everything, I was told PvP zones on most servers tended to run rather full, so there'd be at least some sense of team-based play (the reason I play CoX), now those zones are utterly empty outside of people getting temp powers or badges. Thus, there's no real motivation for me to get involved.
5) The PvP community. At the risk of sounding like either a hater or a whiner, a large majority of the PvP-based community I have run into are not the sort of people I would associate with. This issue is compounded by the fact I spend almost all my time on Virtue, where people will try to use PvP as a means of RP, despite the numerous issues related to that choice.
If they reverted the i13 changes, or at least made heavy adjustments, you'd see a resurgence.
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Originally Posted by Shockwave007
As I've said either in this thread or another of the active PvP threads, my background is more RPG than MMO, so I come to it with a different set of expectations.
Maybe the first addition that is needed is the ability to create 2 team, PvP missions in the AE system. I haven't played with that at all, so don't know if it's possible now or not, but it seems that if players had the ability to design missions, it might cover some of the holes at least temporarily. I haven't done that at all, so don't know what is available there, but assuming that's not possible now. |
Wow! Shockwave, your comments, and gameboy's as well, sound really great. I for sure would spend time playing hero vs villain scenarios if they had them set up as you 2 and generally laid out. That's assuming it could be made to work. I don't know if it could be. I don't know if it would be worth the development time and effort to make it work if it even is possible. But, if they added it, even is as a paid add on like AE is (to some folks) I'd for sure give it a go. I think adding it into AE somehow might even be the way to go. OR at least somehow using the AE code combined with the sort of code from the Tyrant mission.
Like I said, I have no idea how feasible it is. Nor how worthwhile it is, but I'd look forward to it coming out if they announced it. I imagine it'd end up very niche, but so is AE, so....
And I'm not sure who said it, but I agree, for a hero/villain game, it is getting really old always having heroes and villains working together lately. Sure, there is some comics precedent for the good guy bad guy team ups, but they generally were brief occurrences. I get 'why' the Devs are doing so, but I'm not completely loving the idea. If for no other reason, why are rogues and vigilantes being punished with the inability to get alignment merits if all future content is going to be co-op? It sorta erodes at the specialness of Rogue/Vigilante status. But, even stepping aside from fact, I just like feeling of being heroic or villainous. If the line is blurred such that the two groups do the exact same things a majority of the time, that specialness is diminished.
Rogues and Vigilantes aren't "punished" by not getting alignment merits. Not only are Alignment Merits time-consuming to get in the first place, they can only be spent in increments of one purchase every 20 hours. While they do save in terms of Reward Merits, Reward Merits are a dime-a-dozen, almost literally. The advantage is that the in-between alignments get run TF content on BOTH sides, which allows them to practically drown in Reward Merits.
Alignment Merits are technically a consolation prize for the pure-alignments, who only have access to one side's worth of content.
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Only if that other player didn't bring breakfrees, which everyone should have been carrying, or ran with a powerset that gave repel protection, or teamed with a Kin for Increase Density. I figured this out the hard way one day on my Regen Scrapper in Siren's Call way back in I9 or I10 or something like that, and from then until I13 hit I never went into a PvP zone on any character without a generous supply of breakfrees. In one of your earlier posts you also mentioned Stalkers as being unbalanced because they were able to one-shot enemies while remaining invisible, which is partly true - prior to IOs, a Stalker could not hit the stealth cap while solo unless they were running Invisibility, which meant they could not attack until they dropped it, and teaming with another character who could give the hero +perception or -stealth (Emp and Sonic have +perception, and there are a ton of sets that offer -stealth in various forms). Assassin's Strike is an interruptible melee attack (or at least it was when this discussion would have mattered) and can be broken by line of sight, so if you constantly moved around and used the environment to your advantage it was very difficult for anyone but the best Stalkers to AS you unless they had help.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
They seriously didn't see anything wrong with a power that can potentially make another player permanently helpless?
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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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Many Controllers are damn good duelers or team players, and with the post-I13 rules it's very difficult to beat a well-played Mastermind in a 1v1 even if they're not using a PvP build (I've had rather good results with my old PvE-built Thugs/Dark, both in duels and zone play).
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Originally Posted by Issen
2) PvP is only good for certain ATs. Controllers and Masterminds, the latter of which is an AT I obsess over, are essentially useless in a PvP zone
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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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Most of this is just a matter of perspective, so while your perspective is, 'novel', I won't say it's wrong. But, the last part is wrong. If the non pure alignments are supposed to have twice the areas available to them, and if all future zones continue to be co-op, then with each new co-op zone the reward for the in-between alignments is a smaller and smaller percentage, while the A-merits, whatever you value them at, stay the same.|
Originally Posted by Issen
Rogues and Vigilantes aren't "punished" by not getting alignment merits. Not only are Alignment Merits time-consuming to get in the first place, they can only be spent in increments of one purchase every 20 hours. While they do save in terms of Reward Merits, Reward Merits are a dime-a-dozen, almost literally. The advantage is that the in-between alignments get run TF content on BOTH sides, which allows them to practically drown in Reward Merits.
Alignment Merits are technically a consolation prize for the pure-alignments, who only have access to one side's worth of content. |
And, all that said, my main point was that the co-op zones don't accomplish the feel of a hero or a feel of a villain when the two are interchangeable, and that applies just as much to rogues and vigilantes, too.
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Hate to nitpick Macskull... but a few addendums to both sides of this bit. |
Originally Posted by macskull
In one of your earlier posts you also mentioned Stalkers as being unbalanced because they were able to one-shot enemies while remaining invisible, which is partly true - prior to IOs, a Stalker could not hit the stealth cap while solo unless they were running Invisibility, which meant they could not attack until they dropped it, and teaming with another character who could give the hero +perception or -stealth (Emp and Sonic have +perception, and there are a ton of sets that offer -stealth in various forms). Assassin's Strike is an interruptible melee attack (or at least it was when this discussion would have mattered) and can be broken by line of sight, so if you constantly moved around and used the environment to your advantage it was very difficult for anyone but the best Stalkers to AS you unless they had help.
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Stalkers and Stealth, pre-IO, could increase stealth by
- Teaming, as mentioned, getting hit with Grant Invisibiliity. (At least until you attack or it wears off.)
- Siren's Call patrol temp power. Invisibility level invis that you *can* attack from, though it's balanced by limited time and... what was it, 3 or 5 times that you could get the power (and never after 30)
- IIRC, the empowerment station.
Of course, it's fairly moot, as it was somewhat easy to build up +perception - as mentioned, or bringing yellows, or that same empowerment station giving Increased Perception, or running tactics, or any combination of the above. I *do* recall that arms race going on. (And, honestly, not caring all that much... the joy of being casual.)
... or, depending on the zone, just stand in the water and watch the ripples, assuming they weren't flying stalkers. That, I found amusing.
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Yep, that's the theory. But as either Albert Einstein or Yogi Berra said, "In theory there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."|
Originally Posted by Issen
Rogues and Vigilantes aren't "punished" by not getting alignment merits. Not only are Alignment Merits time-consuming to get in the first place, they can only be spent in increments of one purchase every 20 hours. While they do save in terms of Reward Merits, Reward Merits are a dime-a-dozen, almost literally. The advantage is that the in-between alignments get run TF content on BOTH sides, which allows them to practically drown in Reward Merits.
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See, for one thing, strike forces require a certain number of other players to even start. I play on Virtue, and that's a pretty tall order for anything that isn't the WST. On a lower-population server? I shudder to think.
In theory, vigilantes and rogues have access to two sides' reward merits.
In practice, vigilantes and rogues have access to blueside's reward merits.
FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.
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In 1v1, yes. In ZONES? Oh god no.|
Originally Posted by macskull
Many Controllers are damn good duelers or team players, and with the post-I13 rules it's very difficult to beat a well-played Mastermind in a 1v1 even if they're not using a PvP build (I've had rather good results with my old PvE-built Thugs/Dark, both in duels and zone play).
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Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell
Yep, that's the theory. But as either Albert Einstein or Yogi Berra said, "In theory there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."
See, for one thing, strike forces require a certain number of other players to even start. I play on Virtue, and that's a pretty tall order for anything that isn't the WST. On a lower-population server? I shudder to think. In theory, vigilantes and rogues have access to two sides' reward merits. In practice, vigilantes and rogues have access to blueside's reward merits. |
To answer the OP, I find it helpful to frame the context of my response with another question. "Have you ever been in an actual fistfight?" (Now I'm casting no aspersions on either answer.)
I have been in several, often with me soloing multiple opponents. It can be quite a rush for the duration your opponents last. I came into PvP with this as my reference. Now I'll admit I learned the ropes in i6 enthusiastically to a point where I could win more often than not. Then I just sort of drifted away from PvP unless friends pulled me into it.
Now this may seem like an obvious thing to say, but to me PvP here FEELS like much more an exercise in number-crunching than bone-crunching. In PvP the sense that I'm just clicking buttons is constantly to the foreground in my mind. In short I can't maintain the suspension of disbelief. I don't think anything the Devs could do would address that short of full immersion virtual reality.
So yeah, I drifted away from PvP long before i13. Been there, bought a shirt that's now sitting in the unseen portions of my closet.
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get up.
I do not PvP because... The MSN Chess site that existed 10-15 years ago. Seriously. Let me explain. I play chess, I'm not great, but I can get through a tournament with a win or two and not completely embarrass myself. I play on various websites, and for a couple years I played on the MSN chess site. It was horrific (and yet I played, it was very easy to get a table/game) But in between playing games (and sometimes during!) the chat log was nothing but smack talk. Really constant, really bad. It was funny, but in the awful bad kinda way. I go to a PvP map here for some badges, lo and behold, the exact same smack talk. At least on the MSN Chess site I could have the pleasure of sitting down at a table and beating the snot out of anyone smack talking using skill, knowledge, and technique. In PvP all the combat rules are changed, and people have PvP monster builds, and people use all the terrain/tactics/teams to beat you. Then stand over your character and do the smack talk thing. Yeah, I'll put up with that nonsense if there is a fair chance to hand you your head on a plate, but not in this wild west environment.
So, blame it on the MSN chess site for me. I got my 100% lifetime fill of smack talk there.
I have not PVP'd in the last several years for many reasons. Most of them commented on here. I for one was most annoyed with all the nerfs that many toons got because of pvp.
Veats(widows) were great than stunk
Rad def/trollers were great then stunk then great
Blasters that had slows were great till they stunk then were ok
I had a tank that was unkillable then i13 and he stunk.
End drain toons were great when you could de-toggle then they changed it.
Just some examples if what happend to me.
However there are many more changes than i can even remember its been so long.
And one of the things that i always hated most of all in this game are nerfs. Instead of buffing or upping the potential of under powered or under performing at's or powersets they nerf the good ones. (there are of course exceptions) However for a long time it seemd only nerfs were the way to go.
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I missed out on this game for four years because of the same misconception. I just thought PvP was what MMOs were all about. In fact, it still amazes me to read a thread like this and see how many players are even more adverse to PvP than I am.|
Originally Posted by mousedroid
As a matter of fact, I missed out on playing this game for the first three years it was out due to a mistaken impression that the whole game was PvP, and I had no interest in that.
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For the record, despite my wariness of PvP, I have tried it a few times. It was OK, somewhat fun at times, no really bad experiences, but not something I wanted to seriously get into. I'm just not a very competitive person, especially with strangers.
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Originally Posted by Issen
Not only are Alignment Merits time-consuming to get in the first place
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I don't think this would work, for exactly the reason stated above, i.e., broken PvP powers like Telekinesis. I would think that your typical PvE team with all their powers is going to steam-roll a typical NPC toon in about 5 seconds flat. Worse imagine what a team of 6 Fire/Rad controllers would do. Or PCs will complain about being griefed when the player-run NPC-toon runs off and hides and the PCs can't complete the mission.
No, while an interesting idea, I don't think this can work unless both sides are balanced for PvP, or it's going to be very un-fun for somebody and therefore a waste of effort for the developers.
Now, some NPC group like arachnos or malta against "weaponized" superheroes expressly designed for PvP, in a PvP scenario, yes, that works much better, but would also be a lot more effort for the devs. Plus, I personally would like to meet PvP players on even terms and play supervillains as their adversaries, not mooks.