Killawar

Yes they were. I remember the gathering place near the hero base where the street started to dip and the skyscrapers by the construction sites began. People used to gather there and wait for the tumbleweeds to roll by before the fight started.

I think most of the PvPers (if not all of them) play exclusively in arenas. Used to be the other way around before the cursed I-13 (so many corner-cage fight clubs in Siren's Call back in the day), but that was when the game functioned in fundamentally similar ways in PvP as it did in PvE. The main problem with PvP is that people expect to play City of X while they're doing it but they definitely don't post I-13, you're essentially playing a completely different game.

Last I heard about "terrible combo" it was way back in the day and it was something like Ice/Mace tanker.

Wave a magic wand and revert things pre i-13 and I would guarantee it wouldn't be dying anymore. Unfortunately we only have access to the Magic origin, not a magic wand.

They don't "agree" with you because they want to pretend that they're l33t3r than thou because they know how to exploit every miniscule and terrible mechanic/point in the I-13 system. In reality it's not a matter of agreement. When the majority of the PvP playerbase quit the game because of the changes back in the day you have a concrete problem. 'Liking' i-13 genuinely is like enjoying the taste of excrement. Yeah, you can and that's your 'opinion', but it's a terrible decision on your part and the group you're going to get together with is going to be very niche, hence the current "PvP community" who swears up and down that I-13 is 'better' yet they refuse to see the results beyond their arena scoreboard which is a total lack of interest/build divergence/alternate strats. Granted, these (a lot of the time) are the people who live on a diet of KBs and don't remember than a good chunk - if not the majority - of the PvP back in the day was zone pvp.

Made a necro MM the other day, was wondering about the lich. You can slot so many different proc enhancements in it but will they all function? For instance, you can slot the -res from Achilles in it, but does it proc on every ability or does it still follow the rules of power-to-slot applicability?

Two years later and the response I get is relatively instantaneous. What's "great humor" is your inability to form a coherent response as well as your seeming ability to reply relatively instantaneously and implicate yourself in have nothing better to do. Yikes, you'd think that having so much time spent on a forum would mean that you'd be able to navigate the language of its game competently. Time wasted indeed.

In summation, this is the problem: Your character is no longer your character the moment you enter a PvP zone. I honestly do not think any of this is necessary anymore given that we have IO's to supplement a lot of the "perma slow/cc'd" stuff now. The damage calculation stuff was just completely unnecessary, powers did not need a functionality change, we just needed more options to counter certain strats - and we have them now in the form of IO sets. Just make PvE = PvP and I guarantee you'll see a ton more people start. Hell, just make it an option in an arena setting or alternate Siren's Call zone (Siren's Call Pre-13 or something). Let the I-13'ers have their cake and give the people who don't like it a separate place to PvP.

Yes, because stalkers 1-shotting squishies with unresistable ET crits wouldn't be in an "optimal team". Sure, bud. The "current state of play" sees 8 ranged ATs with spike damage and pocket heals. Where's your melee? Yet to be seen, bud. "Height of diversity" isn't spamming corrs/blasters/anything with a ranged primary burst set. That's called one niche, and that's not "diverse" at all. Additionally, I'm not the one who's so "off-base" that he considers arena, which wasn't by far the most popular method of pvp, the pinnacle of pvp. You seem to forget that most people were playing in Sirens/WB/RV, and that was far more diverse and entertaining pre-13 than your KB's will ever be. See, that's the thing: pre-13 having more viable options for people to use isn't "an opinion", it's a fact. You could roll into SC with just about anything and play the game whereas now "I hAvE tO hAvE mY oPtimAl oNe-DiRecTioNal buIlD aNd iF yOu DoN'T dO iT lIkE thIs yOu'Re WrOnG!" It's quite literally just an excuse for you wannabe elitists to shell everyone else who wants to have fun out of whatever clubhouse you think you're in. Ouch, then someone points out your BS one-of stars-aligned example. It's almost like every other i-13 supporter in these forums. Oh wait, it is exactly like the other i-13 supporters. Weird. Is it "sustained damage" that kills things or 8 ranged pouring all their burst into you in 2.5 seconds that "kills anything reliably"? Right, the second option, but continue cherry-picking and misconstruing.

Pets being equal level to the MM. What's so wrong with having a t3 that's orange to you?

The people who like post-I13 pvp (and have bad taste) could be pacified and the old-school pvpers could be appeased by just by adding a setting on the arena tab and/or supplying a 'different' zone to those who want it. I see the arena already has settings that disable DR's and whatnot, I don't see why they couldn't just hole it all up into one tab that says "Pre-13 settings" or something. Far as I remember, the things that are different are a lot less convoluted than assumed. Hidden buffs/nerfs/DR's didn't happen pre-i13, your character functioned, in essence, the same as they did in a PvE setting. The only thing that I remember differently was that "players were harder to hit", so base accuracy was a .5 multiplier as opposed to a normal .75, so what's to stop them from just adding a 'new zone' (Siren's Call I-12 or something) where it functions similarly to any other zone, you can just target people on the opposing alignments? I mean, confusion debuffs are already a pseudo-predecessor for this concept; we've all done our fair share of BAF's and (probably) slugged each other (totally) on accident. What's to stop the 'new pvp zone' or 'arena setting' from functioning similarly in that you're in a perma pseudo-confused 'state' where you can just so happen to hit players on the opposing faction and vise versa while simultaneously treating it as a 'PvE' zone so that we don't get all the I-13 hidden stats/drs/strange damage calculation formulas muddled in? As for the perma-slow arguments, we have IO's now that reduce those effects substantially. As far as the CC-spamming goes, let it ride, see how it pans out. PvP nowa days is already boring, it can't get worse. You could also always make better PvP enhancements down the road to stifle this too, perhaps resistance/defense slot enhancements that either reduce the magnitude of CC effects put on you in a PvP zone or giving you more magnitude resistance in a PvP zone. You could even go so far as to make Magnitude Resistance enhancements that specifically increase the magnitude resistance, nothing else. It would give an actual dynamic to slotting defensive powers so that it wouldn't just be 1+1=resistance enhancement.

Nah, I'm a different guy. I was on Freedom.

You're talking as if most of the community competitively PvP'd, much less competitively PvP'd in Arena. The majority of PvP was zone, and the 8v8 bracket was the least popular (as is with every higher player-count bracket in the vast majority of MMOs). Casual-friendly is relative here, and relatively speaking, yes, it was far more casual-friendly than the other patches I-13 and onward due to a much worse learning curve (as the game hardly functions as it does in PvE, meaning there are far more mechanics to learn - a lot of which affect builds, which would then mean changing one's build to match it). Post-i13, there's a ton more investment, time, and effort that it takes to get over the curve as opposed to the patches before. You go watch some SC old videos. The people that play there all have their accolades and IOs. It's not a 'full power' issue, it was the opposite; SC offered a way to play that was moderate. Nobody had all their powers, meaning fights were far less exhausting/lengthy, and the fights themselves were more 'balanced'. And? The guy was one of the top PvP'ers on Freedom. How does his criticism of I-13 and the like bear any less validity because of the game's age? It is impossible for a team of 6 to 'out-discover' an entire alive community. Despite its unpopularity, the game still had more people PvP'ing (much more playing) than we have now. All that is discovered was already discovered, it's just that this community now is more tight-knit than it was before, so these 'discoveries' are conveyed at a faster rate. There are more rules because balance is an issue, and the issue we have here is the one called 13. Ease of leveling has nothing to do with game balance. Again, look at WotLK Arena private servers, they've been around for years - and every class is viable there. Perhaps not every spec, but even still that's a far better environment than what we have. There's no "Mage" limit in a 5v5, there's no 'pvp effects' on powers, there's merely just a stat - that you have the choice to attain or not. Leveling speed plays a part in development, sure, but to state that we have more high level toons than Live did is inaccurate. What we didn't have was a community that was this tight-knit (albiet tight-knit compared to other games, but not to the point that it is now). Artificial rules have always been an indicator of imbalance, and Issue-13 has a ton of them. Any time the functionality of the game has to change, it's a bad sign. The only thing in an LK server that changes - and isn't even forced upon you - is a stat, found on gear, that you can equip. In I-13 there is no choice, which is merely why I'm suggesting that, at some point, people get the option to play on an Issue-8 style (or sooner, whichever) version of PvP maps as a flashback. People could keep their i-13 metas that way, and other people could play the game closer to what it actually is.

In the current system, yes, because of all the DR's/etc. If you're stating that you couldn't fit in anything meaningful, then that's flat-out incorrect. There are plenty of sets that give both Psi/toxic (a lot of the purple sets, actually). If you're stating that it would be 'impossible' because you don't want to give up stats in other areas then that'd be your personal issue. You only need to hit 60-90% recharge in the current system which is nowhere near perma hasten, There are single enhancements (Aegis, Imp. A.) that give flat-out psi res. Saying you couldn't switch out four enhancements (both those, and assuming you go for purples, finish out just two sets) for roughly 15-20% res right there is either incorrect, or you're just admitting to wanting to keep a greedy build against what you stated as previously problematic damage types. TLDR: Yes, you could, you just don't want to. And my point is: When were their team limits back in the day? Because I haven't heard of any at all. The more artificial restrictions there are the worse the actual balance is. Artificial restrictions are pure indications of poor balance, plain and simple. That's what I said. I stated Astrike wasn't at one point. It is now - in both cases. So you point out "the other points" but these points you just describe as 'not making sense'. So you forfeit elaborating because you can't? Ok. You're assuming there's no teamwork in zone pvp which is flat-out incorrect (or are you one of the people who didn't join teams in SC/RV back in the day and coordinate with random people to cap nods/win hot spots?) Yes, there's coordination in zones, it seems you weren't the person to go into them however and just stuck with arena. You seem to think 'balance' = ability, and that's not how things work. Disregarding other mediums for PvP is what got the system dealt the current hand it has, stating that things should continue on this way is both ignorant and insane. So because it's easier, it should be the primary focus? That's lazy game design, and clearly it hasn't worked out before, not to mention that route is the least enjoyable for the majority of the player base as 8v8s compared to Zone PvP or even 1v1s was the minority. You claiming that you should get the attention because your bracket is the lowest hanging fruit is ridiculous. And furthermore, no, it hasn't been a game about 'teamwork' and the like; you can certainly play on a team, but if this game actually was a game based around teamwork then I wouldn't be able to solo content that's made for eight people/solo AVs (which are the equal of raid bosses) by myself. This game has always been about everyone doing their thing the way they want to, and the majority of everyone was not 8v8, it was zone & smaller bracket Arena pvp. No DR's with templates is obviously not the same as no DR's without them. Or, in other words, 'No DR's Issue 13" is not the same as PvE rules. Yes No, as stated above. Every single video game that remotely took care of its PvP had a vastly longer shelf life to the point that there are even private servers of better managed PvP versions of various games still running today, years later. It would be a huge chunk of resources, but it would be for a great benefit down the road. Pre issue 13 was a casual version of PvP - that's what made it alluring to newer people. They don't get into it now because issue 13 is essentially an entirely different game from the one they're playing. You don't get new people with a system like that. Siren's Call was absolutely packed before Issue 13. Afterward? Nope. Even the big names like Hyper AI quit PvP'ing due to it. It certainly does when evidence shows that video games which have fun PvP retain more of their player base over time. History pretty much shows us that, yes, it's guaranteed that you will keep more people if there are more aspects of the game available. Right now, PvP is not available to most people due to the giant gap between game mechanics (PvE vs PvP). It's not about being a dev, it's about making a suggestion, one that wouldn't even disrupt the issue 13 game that you (apparently?) don't want to give the alternative for. "Small fixes" won't make it any better for you since a "small problem" wasn't the thing that wrecked it. As I've said before, you're basically asking the devs to waste their time on "small fixes" because those fixes won't solve the problem.

Yes, 'different' in a bad way. The diversity is smaller (in both builds and viable ATs/powersets) - that's bad. The balance is worse (evidenced by the former) - that's bad. I don't really care if it's "the same" (though, honestly, anything that's not Incarnate-level stuff would be similar enough, that's for sure, as I expect Siren's Call would be pretty much the same), and it's not like I'm suggesting a total overhaul, just the option for people who don't like the current system (which is, I'd venture to say, most people) to be able to go back and play how they want to. As for Psis and Forts, simple fix: Psi-resist builds, stacking to-hit. Not just that, now you have IO sets that give resistances (because that used to be a very rare thing before the PTR update before Live went down), so you can build against problematic sets (like Psis back then, for instance) in both the resistance department and the -recharge department (with recharge resistance). If anything, the current system - without the Issue 13 stuff - would be a better playing ground for balance given that people could then build specifically against the things they do not like dealing with. There're more options now, and without Issue-13 people wouldn't be locked to playing a specific way just because of an AT choice. The AT limit didn't exist because a portion of your team was dedicated to doing something, meaning you built your team in a specified way - that was your choice - and so could play the game that way. Now we have a SINGLE AT that is solely responsible for altering the structure of a team, which, if I'm not mistaken, is what is often known as 'broken'. Resistance and defense DR'ing so harshly doesn't just kill Sonics/Therms, it also kills every other AT that functions defensively (Brutes, Tanks, etc.). If you wish to get literal, the Issue-13 system is worse than the old one, as it has far less people being able to play the game how they'd like to. But you already have a basic template for how powers should work (since it's the PvE version of the game). No, it's not flipping a switch, but it's not working from scratch either. Yes, it'd take some time, but 'small incremental changes' won't fix the problem since the problem isn't 'small and incremental'. Asking the devs for small changes to fix the issue is in retrospect just asking them to waste their time - since none of what is being changed will alter the game in the drastic way it was - that essentially ruined PvP. AStrike wasn't resisted before in PvE by mobs. Scourge was. Countdowns were harder to pull off given that: Melees weren't invalid, meaning you either could be dealing with someone with a higher HP/resist pool Could be getting taunted off targets yourself. Could be getting hard-cc'd (Seismic ate Acrobatics and without an extra Mag protection (like CM, etc) you'd be getting held). Same w/ KOB and the like (if you weren't running Acro/had team prot). Now, it's much more 'preschool countdown', far less setup. How can you compare eliminating DR's to two issues where DR's existed? "Resistance and defense powers have greater diminishing returns when stacked than in PvE, and lower caps." - that's from the I-13 patch notes (meaning DR's existed). This means your comparison of I-13/15 is moot, since DR's actually did exist there. It's funny that you're stating the "worst pvp to ever exist" is literally the issue I'm saying we should revert. That aside, if the game functioned like it used to, what's the hole in Sonics/Therm? Or, in other words, what's the damage type that they don't give resistance to? Psis? Thanks to prolif, there's a lot more of those running around (Psi melee, you still have Forts, other ranged sources of Psi damage). It's like you're pretending that sonics/therm gives every type of resistance in the game - and it doesn't, there's a hole there. So, if everyone's running something that isn't resistant to one thing, why aren't you then running that one thing if your'e sick of seeing it? Of course you can't 'pick and choose' what parts to bring back, but the old system tied together is still better than what we have now. And no, you can certainly predict what would happen - and sometimes be accurate in those assumptions. If you couldn't even remotely accurately predict what would happen, then every balance patch in every game would look like a mess, but that's not the case. Some patches are far better than others. Eliminating DR is just one part (because Issue 8 PvP and the like didn't have those), you know that. Secondly, the most popular versions of the game never were 8v8's (or Areans for that matter), it was mostly zone PvP anyway, so why are you trying to suggest that the game remain exclusively suited for the niche groups of people when most of the people played Zone games? Not necessarily if the Devs in question either liked the current PvP system or just didn't care about it enough to change it in any meaningful way. I'm not sure a learning curve would be that big of a thing either considering it would function like the actual game does now (that's one of the cons of the current system in that it's totally alien to new players who are already trying to understand the base game. Throwing a bunch of DR's, hidden stats, "PvP effects" and whatnot at them is only serving to dissuade them from PvP'ing in the first place). Of course it wouldn't be the same, but I don't think anyone is asking it to be 'the same', just better - and functioning like the "PvE" (actual) side of the game does so that it makes sense. As far as benefiting the game very little as a whole, I don't think that's even close to an accurate statement. Look at WoW, look at League, DotA, Overwatch - a ton of games, really, and the thing that they all have in common is that they, comparatively to CoH, didn't treat their PvP community as third-class citizens (more like second-class, but that's another threat all together). Back in Wrath of the Lich King, for instance, PvP was what brought WoW a ton of added interest (with 3's matches and the like). League is purely a PvP game and nearly infinitely renewable because of it (because PvP is one of the most efficient uses of renewable content, as it's nearly a guarantee to be introduced into a different enough situation to feel novel or at the very least interesting). If CoH could get PvP back into its old line of interest (i-8 or sooner, when things still made sense) then it would not only hold interest and likely gain some as a result (permanently, since that's the nature of alluring PvP), but it would also take some pressure off the Devs in the future since they wouldn't be the only reliable thing to keep interest in the game, they'd have a renewable interest-resource of PvP to hold people's attention - and time played. There'd be less pressure on them to push new stuff, and there'd be more people that could get into the game. The Devs would win and so would the community, the only problem, as you've mentioned, is that, in the present, nobody would win since the Devs would have to spend resources fixing it and the game would have a slow period of development because of it. But, long-term, it'd definitely be a good investment (there are still Wrath of the Lich King purely PvP private servers to this day because the balance was good enough to hold interest, and Wrath was, what, ten years ago?). We have a ton of other games that prove it. Games with bad PvP don't last as long on average, and those that do retain far less interest than the games that have decent/good PvP.

So if changing the current system is too much for PvP, what about a flashback system for it? Such as, have a Siren's Call flashback that worked on the pre-issue 13 style of PvP? It'd keep the current stuff for the people who like their '3 blaster limit 8v8 kickballs' and let the people who liked the older PvP play the game how they want.

Power prolif isn't really a point against going back to a better version of PvP - or at least giving other people the option to play the game in a different way. Willpower was broken across the board when it came out and was adjusted accordingly. Bio and Rad are already pushing things a bit over the top and likely need adjustments in general too; proliferation has never been a problem in PvP, it's always been the fact that sets themselves have been overtuned (new sets, not proliferated ones). Speaking all the hypotheticals of what 'could' be broken is nothing more than that - hypothetical, and a 'potentially broken' powerset is still a heck of a lot better than what we're dealing with now. Never in my years have I heard of an AT limit in 8v8 until Issue 13 hit. Powers working the same as they did in PvE was pretty much how it worked beforehand, so the "balance every single power" is pretty moot too (especially since the "balance every single power" is what we're working with right now and it was a terrible idea ('PvP Effects' - no)). The only thing that would be inconsistent is the 75% - > 50% base hit chance, which, yeah, that'd need to be adjusted and would probably take some time. As far as I know things like crits and scourge are resisted now by NPC characters as well (Assass Strike an Unstopped Minotaur in ITF and it gets reduced appropriately). TK was always unfun in general and should've been able to be mitigated like normal CC (classified as a hold, etc). That would've solved it. Everything being resistable and stacking res with AS and whatnot not being resistable? Easy fix: Find an appropriate amount of resistance for, if needed, crits/AS to ignore. Besides, with the way it is now (toggles being suppressed, not shut off when CC'd) you could just do setups with CC and burst someone down like that. It'd certainly be a lot more interactive than 8v8 kickballs now where it's a game of "3...2...1..." countdowns and PPM RNG salads. If you reverted it back and people stacked res's to cap, even still, they couldn't cover all their bases. What, are you going to stack teams of X AT's that boost resistances so that you're capped on everything, then get CC'd and blown up because you have a measly 1660 HP cap? Even 25% damage - especially now - is still a lot (stalkers hit upwards of 1k with AS/3 - 4 damage procs), you could still kill someone like that. It also wouldn't be the 'current system with DR off' since players wouldn't be fed a ton of free resistances with the AT-zone bonuses and other hidden 'pvp effects' and stats; people would have to work to get those resistances by targeting different IO sets and likely have to sacrifice a lot of the proc enhancements that make current PvP little more than RNG-proc salads. Besides, I'm not saying "change the entirety of PvP", I'm saying give the people who don't like awful I-13 a chance to play another way. As it stands, CoH is still the alt-grind, and without the OG's (Paragon Studios) cranking out new story content and whatnot, the alt-game is gonna get stale. PvP is pretty much an endless resource, and giving people different ways to play it would make the game hold a lot more attention anyway. Most of the people I talk to in-game dislike I-13 and don't play PvP because of it. You could have all those people back in the fold with just a simple flashback map to old SC (and patch) without disrupting the current PvPers who like to play their 8v8 3 blaster "because they're too broken" limit.

WTB dev comment pst

Then could a flashback system for PvP zones be implemented? For instance, old Sirens Call - with the pre-issue 13 balancing? If it's purely zone-based, couldn't there just be a different 'zone' added?

So I was looking at all the settings you could alter in Arena today and was wondering what it'd take to, say, slap an option in there to shut off things like "PvP effects" and Archetype bonuses (basically revert it back to pre-issue 13 through arena). I know and have talked to quite a few people in-game that don't care for I13 and onward PvP (I don't myself). It'd be cool if there could be a setting (at least in arena) for people like us.

Why not brute/tanks then too? The anim is ridiculously long across the board.

Saw a dom use Tremor and it was pretty quick. Hopped onto my brute to use it to see any differences, nada, it's still super slow. Intentional?

The timer feels like it lasts way longer than the actual animation. Do widows link minds with dial up?

Probably not a simple anything, but I'd think it'd be a lot more enjoyable than the current system of hidden stats and proc salads. -Slow resists would be useful against certain builds, sure, but not every character need rely on slows. Also, that'd be resources spent in a generally niche spot (slows when, what, you could supplement it with resistances/damage/utility elsewhere). -Back in the day they still had multiple ST holds - even toggles dropped completely when CC'd which made CC even better, but it was managed by carrying around a few BF inspis and whatnot. The proc chance thing could be balanced out in general with the (pretty) nonsense PPM system. Like how sets get activated depending on how many enhancements of that set you have slotted, you could have the strength/proc chance of a proc enhancement depend on how many of the same enhancement you have equipped in the respective power. For instance, the Heca proc's damage or consistency could go down depending on how many of the other enhancements you have/don't have equipped. It might even be a good idea to do that in PvE too or at least make the proc enhancements less powerful and the sets themselves more appealing. -Crits would be a much bigger issue if they weren't resistable like they are now. I'd venture to say if we reverted back to an issue-8 style of PvP a blaster with that wouldn't be that big of an issue. It states on the CoH Wiki that Blaster HP cap is 1606(.4), an absorb shield that ticked wouldn't be that big of an issue given that the HP pool is still relatively small compared to the other ATs (since they can either pour out a ton of damage or have more HP to duke it out). The instant-snipe thing should be okay as it is given that its damage is nerfed when used mid-combat. I'm not aware of any Scrapper damage being unresistable; crits were made resistable a while back. As far as 4k damage goes, even a 75% resistance to that damage would end up dealing 1k - which every AT could outlive (even a MM given that they split damage with their pets). It'd definitely be cool to go back in time as far as balance goes. RV wasn't even the big deal back then, it was SC - which I imagine would be a lot easier to deal with from a balance perspective anyway. Side note: Why do PvP zones follow the exemp-level system (where you get access to powers above the level bracket) and not the hard-cap level exemp system (like it used to be)? SC was hard-locked at level 30, the same went with the other zones. Why were things like that changed (Travel Suppression, Heal Decay, etc.) but not the glaring balance/hidden stat salad/DR issues?

Well yeah it's different, the main thing being incarnates. But, from what I understand, most people only play with Alpha slots (or at the very least rule out Destiny usage). The only thing really 'different' then would be a few new IO sets and some power proliferation - which would be neat to see anyway (who knows what would be good? I'm all for a huge 'meta' shift (where, back in the day, there really wasn't one)). Besides, I'd rather it be a mess where everyone got to play what they wanted instead of a mess where a PvP zone is ruled by ranged. I'm all for proc nerfs if it means going back to pre-i13 "DR" "hidden stat salads".