barrier

My two cents as someone who has a couple of fully incarn'd blasters and corruptors and who used to play a ton in RV: 1. Incarnates, when they weren't so widespread, used to level the playing field for some builds that would have not been otherwise viable, but this rested on the fact that you were likely to have incarnates on said-build and your opponent did not. Prior to PPM, I used to run around on a fire/cold corruptor in RV that was perfectly serviceable because of interface and incandescence (a nice way to get around heal decay). That character is no longer viable in zone because of widespread use of incarnates. Though PPM was a relative buff to it, incarnates make the character useless against most properly built toons with full t4's. Removing every incarnate other than alpha is preferable to the current situation for those off-meta toons. PPM then actually brings in less-than-optimal builds closer to optimal builds. 2. Incarnates are a huge barrier to entry. I don't think I've actually seen an alpha-only toon that can consistently manage something like my fire/plant, fire/ta blaster or fire/poison corr. All of these characters are outfitted with t4 alpha, degen, assault, incan and pyro. My fire/poison can actually 3-shot most 1606's if the heel proc goes off and I'm running assault hybrid. It is not a fair setup vs. anyone remotely new and it means that a lot of people who are just wanting to test out their new level 50's (even if fully io'd and accoladed) are finding themselves completely outmatched only because I took the time to properly understand PPM and spent a bunch of time getting incarnates (this solely by virtue of the fact that these incarn'd characters are the ones I use to run content during WST's and the likes - I barely PVE at this point). It is not a good thing to be able to three-shot a 1606 when 1606's are clearly underrepresented in the RV meta which is basically blasters, scrappers, brutes and tanks. 3. Alpha helps offset some of the more annoying aspects of PVP's diminishing returns system. A build with alpha generally looks and feels a lot more like a PVE build than one without. That's why I think it merits a special status among other incarnates. 4. I would love it if RV disabled all incarnates other than Alpha. Zone PVP would then look at lot more like the self-policed matches we do in the arena. That is a good thing for both zone and arena PVP. It provides a degree of uniformity that would likely help bring in new blood into the arena scene. That's generally not something that I like to lobby for - changes should be tailored to actual players not imaginary archetypes - but this is one change that got an overwhelmingly positive response in the PVP discord.

same. they generally crash the client or the client just hangs.

There you go, she can definitely provide you with a proper therapist recommendation.

Clearly not always.

Do you even read what you reply to?

I thought you cared about rewards. Here I am, offering them and you're getting all antsy. Oh well.

He didn't actually put a bounty on you, he added money to my pot to encourage you to prove you point. Clearly you needed to deflect from the fact that your point was utterly flawed and now here we are.

Excuses. Expected.

How about this: show up to kickball. Bring any offense. If you hit 75% of the targets called in either of your first two matches, I'll give you 250M inf and a public apology.

This is proper. The effect of #3 is particularly strong. The centralized PVP community, along with an informal council of captains, effectively exists to counter the stuff that would otherwise destroy 8v8 in an unmoderated form. We tried kickballs with no power restrictions. It encouraged stupid things like "oh that one dude has t4 assault + degen + judgement + 2 carnies >> he's just going to rogue the emp for 10 minutes straight and kill him over and over while we all lock and blow stuff up and whatever). The unrestricted meta in this game is degenerate as hell if you look at how things like barrier or the +hp rebirth work. The optimal 8v8 is brutes, tanks, scrapper and MM's and long drawn out fights in 8v8s where dying basically means you must be playing with a steering wheel and no keys. That game is not anything that most players are interested in. That is why policing is important and that is why if you want to 8v8, you have to abide by certain rules because if zone pvp is any indication, an everything-goes scene is what made the zones so desolate.

Sometimes, it's also totally worth putting up with the annoying waiter to have a five-star meal.

oh the absurdity of that first line. again: videogame.

That would be problematic. A typical fire blaster + strangler spike in an 8v8 right now comes with 9 mag of holds attached to it before any defender/corr locks on a target. That could easily be doubled through procs. Imagine mag 24 holds on every spike. You'd need to be constantly running 3 break frees or have 2-3 CM's on you to prevent you from getting held on every single spike.

This feels poorly researched. Guild Wars 2 counters your point re: character progression + gear + PVP. I've never done a dungeon or trial or whatever the hell they call those there. If you tabbed up my PVE play, it wouldn't hit double digits and I played that game for like 2 years. The fact that we effectively have free 50's in this game also counters your point re: progression here. The fact that I have never seen a newbie be even remotely proper at playing in an 8v8 is also counter to your "lack of skill" comment. Just because you can't see what's happening doesn't mean someone who knows the game can't. That is corollary of every single video game in existence. The notion of equal avatar ability is also a joke. I have yet to see a fighting game or a particular MMO where roles are of equal value, especially when you take into consideration situational picks. I dread going against Kano on Noob Saibot because a properly played Kano can counter my two "playstyles" when playing Noob Saibot, but I'd never play Kano against Scorpion or any other general area denial character. Same sort of thing applies to old school condi mesmers vs. any meele in the 2018 condi meta for GW2 (post-Warrior nerf). In every game, there is an element of rock paper scissors. The notion that COH is unique in this aspect is extremely naive. Proper PVP game design actually requires that all avatars be somewhat unbalanced. That often leaves particular players unable to play what they are naturally attracted to, but that is just the cost of competitive play. Another quick example: I think melee-heavy characters in Overwatch look really cool, but my FPS reflexes aren't as good as I wish they were so I relegate myself to characters that reward really good awareness of a particular map - so like Bastion, Reaper or Symmetra - roughly equal ability is an cute fantasy when players have to make these choices (otherwise choices would be irrelevant). That is fine and even desirable in a PVP game.

Do these people actively PVP in any other game? Serious question.

But is that truly my job? The notion that hand holding should be the default posture in an MMO is problematic. I am happy to lend concrete help as are most of the PVP guys that I know, but counseling you on your negative childhood memories is probably left best to family, friends and mental health professionals. I can understand gaming as an escapist pursuit but if an aversion to anti-escapist play (sports-like in manner) is what drives the "I will never PVP" position and that is what drives posting stuff to that regard which then turns off others from PVP, then that is probably confirmation that one may actually need some real life counseling.

am Meh. Turn off broadcast if it bothers you. As a somewhat reformed troll, i can only give you this little piece of advice: there is nothing more enraging to most trash talking zone pvpers than a person that stays quiet and repeatedly kills them. That is what I generally do and it's almost as enjoyable as 8v8 structured pvp as long as I am on a build that isn't plain bad (some of us spent almost a year exploring the pvp meta and have dozens of terrible toons that just wont even cut in zone - lulzsonicandFF corrs). My problem with these "they hurt my feelings" stories is that they are always drafted from the point of view of a person with an obvious victim complex. There is nothing out there preventing you from getting back at that stalker. This game isn't that hard and you can literally have PVP builds served to you by an automated bot on the PVP discord if you actually want to understand how PVP works. This isn't about broadcast chat bothering you. This is about people who arent really into competitive play rationalizing their feelings and giving too much power to text on a screen.

I just want to note that a good PVP build can be had anywhere for 250 to 500m. Ranged characters being on the lower side of that range. Also, you can join the PVP discord for build help and even template builds. There is even a bot to serve them to you if you don't feel like being social. Finally, remember that nothing is permanent. If you need to reshuffle IOs, homecoming has basically made respecs extremely inexpensive and readily available and unslotter can be had for less than 100k a piece if you arent rushed. I strongly encourage anyone even remotely curious to consider building a PVP toon for this. It's the most underrated aspect of this game, IMO.

I don't know how "the responses you're getting" are a relevant matter here. I hope you decide to join the event and reconsider posting any sort of toxic content going forward. I think this will be a lot of fun and I'm really happy that people outside of Indomitable are choosing to partake in this game's very unique PVP system.

Do you plan on signing up or is this just a theoretical exercise? BTW - Definitely joining in on this (probs on a corr or blaster). Thanks for hosting this @America's Angel!

Stop it MJB.

neither should ever die if played without roleplaying rules.

This is effectively my position. We have gotten no updates whatsoever to improve the viability of support classes. The 8v8 meta had to be tailored through rules to encourage anything other than 6 blasters/doms and 2 emps, with some teams effectively realizing that their emps weren't even worth running in some scenarios (TBD's roguing team, RNGs counter comp to GGz's taunt team, etc). Anything that encourages variety in the meta is a plus and makes PVP more accessible to people who would prefer to play anything other than blasters. Emps, Natures and other buff classes benefit disproportionally from pistol cancels and that is a good thing.

This guy gets it. No sarcasm.

It’s probably 99.9% of it...