Hi, I'm your new official PvP community rep. Ask me anything.

Hi. I'm banana man, but you guys probably know me as Fettuccine Alfred from the Pasta Mafia SG from the Zukunft server might know me as plantguy529, plantless, or Race Man Joe.

Last week, GM_Jimmy hit me up and asked if I'd be willing to be a representative for the PvP community. I originally pointed him in the direction of two other people, who I think would have been better for the position. For legitimate reasons, they didn't want to do it.

So, you're stuck with me. My condolences.

What does this mean?

I don't know yet. We have an unpaid dev team that's likely already up to their neck in work situating this infant server. I don't know how many resources, if any, they're willing to dedicate to PvP. What I do know is:

1. The old devs never reached out to us like this, so already this is looking better than the situation on live.

2. Whatever attention, resources, and time this unpaid dev team does decide to give PvP - no matter how great or how miniscule - I will be relentless in lobbying that those resources are used for the things we actually want, and the things that make this game better.

This also means I can host events with prizes. Like this one https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,2599.0.html. More of those to follow, both casual and maybe eventually more serious.

My first priority will be to change all PvP zones and arena maps into ski slope races will be to lobby for small, realistic changes that increase accessibility of PvP so people don't have to spent hours and hours grinding and manipulating the market just to make a viable PvP character, all while not affecting the PvE experience or game economy negatively. The more people we can get PvPing, the better. The more level the playing field, the better.

I don't want to get too much into theoretical system changes and tweaks yet, because I don't want to get anyone's hopes up - remember, we have an unpaid dev team, and we're a minority here. I do have things in mind, though, and I have all of you to help me. We are fortunate in having many very knowledgeable players from different eras of PvP playing right now, and their brains will be an invaluable resource going forward.

If you wanna know where I stand on certain things, ask away, and I'll answer what I can.

That sick avatar I just gave myself.

Blasters in general?

As in their state of balance? Anything blasters are doing that's seemingly out of line right now is a symptom of the PPM system, and not blasters themselves. I actually think they are a fairly weak AT right now, compared to things like corruptors and defenders, which can abuse PPM just as easily. I think blasters look a lot better than they actually are right now because of certain people playing them. I am personally not a fan of PPM and the sort of damage it creates, both because of RNG but also because it heavily favors certain sets in an already build-restricted environment. Not that I have the ability to change things in the code this instant, but even if I did, a nerf to blasters would be a really inaccurate nerf. For as much damage as they do, there are things that can literally stand still and not die to them, and there are other things that can do nearly as much damage while being considerably more survivable. I don't like the way things are, but we need to let it marinate so we can figure out A: what kind of changes we will be able to make, and B: what kind of changes are accurate.

So my question is: Is the whole pvp strictly confined to only indomitable server?

Absolutely not. Indomitable is just an "unofficial" PvP server. It's likely where I will host most of my arena events, and where @hp is hosting weekly Kickball events. I've seen zones on other servers, notably Torchbearer, decently active.

how many bananas do you eat a day, I expect a person named banana man to eat at minimum six bananas per day. one w/ each meal and then 2 additional nanners between meals and one bedtime nanner before sleepytime.

 

if you do not eat at least 6 a day I deem you unworthy of the banana man namesake and you should be stripped of the pvp community rep because obviously you cannot be trusted.

I carry one in my chest pocket at work.

The uniqueness of PvP encounters are gone and it’s been replaced by commonality.

 

Don't worry, man. I'm with you.

Who is the best spines/fire scrapper you've ever witnessed?

 

I love your name. Bananas are good. What are your 5 favorite names you've seen playing City of Heroes?

 

 

Best spines/fire scrapper: BBrown Thrust

Top 5 names:

1 BBrown Thrust

2 BBrown Thrust

3 BBrown Thrust

4 BBrown Thrust

5 BBrown Thrust

Congrats Bro

 

You think in about two months or so ( maybe even less if people are much closer to being ready ) we can see larger tourneys or even leagues 5v5-8v8?

Maybe. Depends on how many people stick around and how much initiative they'd have in putting actual teams together. @HP had a really solid turnout to KBs last week - multiple 8v8s at once. You should come out this weekend.

Hi Banana!

 

So blasters are a weak PvP AT and certain people playing them, including you, are making them look good? 

While you feel that Corruptors and defenders are stronger, but they do less damage and their secondaries are not PvP effective.

You’re against nerfing blasters, which is fine, but this indicates that other ATs need their secondaries to work so they can compete effectively against Blasters with 200 foot range PROC’d insta-snipes.

God forbid if a blaster is slowed to a crawl, held for more than a few seconds or is hit with -recharge to where his powers disappear. This was part of the game that made it competitive. Every class has its strengths and weaknesses. 

 

The PvP players that I’ve been talking to and myself have become unenthusiastic with today’s PvP. I mean, we get to a zone with our non-blaster toons and we're like, "Jesus. We need to roll blasters to compete but we don't like blasters so this blows."

I sent them this forum post and hopefully they will join in this discussion to help the PvP community. I know our last PvP reps were not listened to after i13 and that’s why the PvP community was decimated.

I wish you the best Plantguy Bananaman and all our fellow PvPers!

I am not saying that the current system is at all balanced. It isn't. I've been on record saying I don't like i13 because it marginalizes the majority of powersets and makes them useless in PvP. The PPM system does this further. It's not so simple as "nerfing blasters" or reverting PPM, or hitting a "No DR" switch, though.

I'm against nerfing blasters because it's a knee-jerk reaction, and really wouldn't do anything except make people not play blasters. As I said before, anything that's making blasters look broken right now is a result of the PPM system. PPM is just as broken, actually MORE BROKEN, on corruptors and defenders.

I'm gonna make up some numbers for an example.

Let's say a blaster attack does 200 damage, and the corruptor version of that attack does 140. Enhanced, that's roughly 400 and 280, respectively. Without procs, the difference in blaster and corruptor damage in this example is 30%.

Now let's add procs, let's say 4 each. 2 pvp/purple procs, and 2 normal procs would be (I'm guessing on these numbers but I'm pretty sure they're roughly accurate) 107, 107, 71, 71. The average proc damage is 89. Let's say 3 of them regularly go off (many powers would have a proc chance of 90%, so that's actually a low-ball), for an average of 267 damage from procs.

400 + 267 = 667

280 + 267 = 547

So, now the difference between blaster and corruptor damage is only 18%. Corruptors and defenders benefit from procs more than blasters do - and that's 18% on a high damage attack similar to bitter freeze ray, which is the WORST power in ice blast. When you look at things like bitter ice blast, freeze ray, and the fact corruptors have easier access to APP holds like Dominate, the gap between corruptor and blaster damage actually gets even smaller because they all have lower base damage.

TLDR: PPM makes base damage matter less. Blasters #1 selling point is higher base damage. PPM makes blasters matter less.

We also need to consider that only certain power-sets are capable of exploiting PPM. Some let you slot 4 procs in all your attacks. Others aren't so great, and only let you slot one or two. I'm not seeing anyone running around complaining that archery blasters are too strong. Blasters aren't broken, procs are.

You mentioned secondaries for corruptors not working. Again, I don't like i13... So I don't like that kin, and sonic, and certain other powersets are kind of bad right now, but that's not a problem exclusive to corruptors. Most blaster secondaries basically don't exist in PvP, and the ones that do are only useful for 1-3 powers in the set. EM has boost range, which is overkill in most situations anyway because you can already get so much +range from things like PvP IO bonuses and Intuition Alpha. /TA has a good movement power, and a web nade. Plant has a high damage hold, an absorb shield (which other sets also have), and toxins. So, yeah, Kin, sonic, and traps are pretty bad right now, and I don't like that. But nature, poison, and therm are insane, and PPM has made it to the point where you aren't even making a corruptor anymore. You're making a /poison blaster, or a /thermal blaster, or a /nature blaster, which is obviously better in most situations than any of the "good" blaster secondaries I just named.

If you show up to kickballs, you'll actually notice that most people playing the infamous ice/plant blaster are NOT priority picks. There's maybe two or three people at most who can log onto an ice/plant right now and make most team captains sure to pick them over other blasters, let alone other players in general. Those same two or three players are typically priority picks regardless of what they're playing.

So, I'm with you, man. I don't like how things are. That said, if we're able to change anything, we need to make sure we're not following in the footsteps of the old devs. We need to make our changes accurate and informed. Our resources, if any, are going to be limited, and we don't want to waste them backtracking.