macskull

@Captain Powerhouse After looking through what I could find based on powerset descriptions here is what I came up with for the heal over time vs regen disparity. Unless otherwise specified the powers listed apply to all ATs that can take that power. There are several powers not on this list that do heal over time but they don't have separate PvP flags so they're already working correctly. Water Blast/Dehydrate Nature Affinity/Regrowth Pain Domination/Soothing Aura (all except Mastermind, because MMs don't get this power and theirs is supposed to do +regen instead of HoT) Time Manipulation/Temporal Mending Time Manipulation/Chrono Shift Panacea: Chance for Hit Points/Endurance

I think the idea of balancing being done by a single person is not a good idea, regardless of whether it is PvP or PvE, which is part of the reason I watch patch notes like a hawk and am not shy to provide constructive, evidence-or-numbers-based feedback regarding changes that are likely to be detrimental - it seems like there is only really one powers developer and it's impossible to tell whether powers changes come from collected player feedback or from that one person's own whims (I'm not saying that is what is happening, mind you, I'm just using that as an argument against having a single "powers guy" for any aspect of the game). In terms of PvP, it is easier to get the consensus of the PvP community as a whole and then pass along suggestions or requests to the development team instead of relying on one person to make balance changes. Having one person make a whole bunch of sweeping balance changes on a whim is how PvPers got Issue 13 so naturally we're very wary of that sort of thing happening again in the future.

Eh, CoH PvP is still way more fun than most other MMOs even after it got gutted. It's more akin to an FPS in how "twitchy" it can be so I can understand how people who are used to PvP in other MMOs might not like it, but every other MMO's PvP is just... slow.

At the risk of seeming confrontational and starting another disagreement... I've seen lots of changes throughout this game's run that I've thought were silly and probably a waste of development time (looking at you, roleplayer tag and the very existence of the Walk power) but I'm never going to advocate against development time being used on something that I won't personally get any benefit from.

That sounds like something I could get behind (but +tohit not +acc).

For sure. I'm a huge fan of the market on Homecoming and it's a big reason why I haven't seriously invested any time on other servers.

It is worth noting that prices for the most desirable PvP IOs were not initially quite that high because there was no lockout period for getting a chance at a drop. Once that lockout period was added is when prices shot through the roof.

It's not so much that the bonuses are disabled for PvE as they are enabled for PvP. They've already got some pretty solid PvE set bonuses so anything past that is icing on the cake. It wasn't the fact that they were PvP drops which led to those prices, it was the supply vs demand. If they'd been PvE drops of comparative rarity the prices would have been the same. This game has never had gear accessible solely via PvP and I don't think anyone is advocating for that.

I'm okay with keeping PvP IO drops the way they are because it means 1) that's one less thing I have to farm for and 2) prices would go nuts if they only dropped from PvP defeats.

The -range debuff from Hurricane is flagged as PvE-only for Masterminds.

I did notice that Ice/Regen is the 4th-most-popular level 50 Sentinel build, and Psi/Energy is the most popular level 50 Stalker build. I'd be willing to bet a non-negligible portion of those are PvP characters.

I think the reason prices on the market trended upward throughout the game's life had less to do with where the supply of recipes was coming from and more to do with the amount of inf being generated versus the number and effectiveness of the inf sinks the game had. Let's say for example, that there was a class of PvE IOs that were even rarer than purples, that had roughly the same supply as PvP IOs and only dropped from certain NPCs. I can practically guarantee that 1) people would be farming those NPCs nonstop, and 2) the prices for those IOs would be at parity with PvP IOs. At some point during the private server's existence, PvP IOs were made available from merit vendors and PvE mobs because presumably PvEers wanted them in their builds but there was such a small population that there just wasn't any PvP and therefore no supply. Regardless, I think with the bucketing system the current market employs, and with enhancement converters being a thing, even if PvP IOs were reverted to dropping only from players their prices wouldn't be as insane as they were on live.

In order to do this you were AFK in a PvP zone which opened you up to having someone come across you and kill both your characters. It's not risk-free like you make it out to be. AFK farming was not the original intention when PvP IOs were introduced, I won't argue that, but killing another player character in a PvP environment is not an exploit or abusive behavior. I think we have a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes an exploit or exploitative behavior, and I'll leave it at that. I'm not being obtuse in any way - it's true that PvP IOs were only created through PvP, but if I wanted a PvP IO for my character I had several avenues to get one. PvP wasn't required. Regardless, if you're making an argument for PvP IOs throwing off the economy because of how expensive they were, that argument doesn't hold any water because 1) the high prices didn't translate to anything else outside of one or maybe two specific IOs, and 2) people were willing to pay that much because they had that much inf (and they didn't get 4 billion inf from PvPing, I'll tell you that much). I'll reiterate - PvP IOs had no noticeable effect on the economy (where "economy" = auction house prices). We're still in disagreement of whether AFK farming is exploitative behavior so we'll ignore that bit for the rest of the discussion. PvP IOs had no effect on prices for anything other than PvP IOs. The reason one or two of them were going for 3-4 billion inf is because PvEers had enough inf on hand to afford that, and didn't want to PvP to get them. I'm not tripping over myself, I'm not misrepresenting anything, and I'm continuing to be patient and civil despite having to listen to the same tired arguments dragged up in the last ten pages of this thread.

Do you also consider AFK farming in AE missions to be exploitative behavior? What about AFK farming for damage badges? What about AFKing in a zone to get the "spend x time in this zone" badge? You must realize two things - drop rates on PvP IOs were and still are pretty low, and after the I13 changes the PvP population was so low that you'd almost never get a drop. Even now, when I'm PvPing for probably a dozen or more hours a week, I don't think I've gotten a single PvP IO drop off another player. The combination of low drop rate (and a lockout period after earning one) and low prevalance of the enemies you needed to even get a chance at the drops in the first place meant AFK farming was the most efficient way to get them. There was only one PvP IO selling for that much, and that price was even after factoring in the higher supply from farming. You are right - it's a supply and demand thing. The Gladiator's Armor 3% defense unique was the most sought-after PvP recipe by PvE players (because 3% defense is worthless in PvP) and they were paying 3-4 billion for them because that was what the market supported. Even so, PvP IOs were never "only available through content most people do not want to play" because you could buy them on the market or trade/email them. If you didn't want to PvP for a chance at the drop, you forked over the inf. Hell, I know plenty of people that didn't PvP that started AFK farming the IOs because they were a good way to make inf if you weren't going to use them.

No, I have not one single time said I wanted the badges, but good job on trying to read into what I'm saying even though I've explicitly stated in at least several places in this thread that it's the accolade powers that are being asked for. While the suggestion never never included the badges because I didn't seriously think that anyone would fail to make that distinction, your reasoning has me curious, and you now deciding you don't support the OP's idea because your enjoyment of the game would be affected if the badges were also granted is textbook entitlement. I feel like we are being counterproductive at this point - you've already said you'd be okay with the accolade powers being granted minus the badges, which is a completely reasonable request and probably what would end up happening in the first place, so I don't think it's worth rehashing this argument any further. Regarding the old forums thing... you are the one making sweeping assertions about a group of players and all I'm doing is asking you to back up your assertions with concrete evidence. The forums still exist in intact and human-readable form via the Wayback Machine and the Spelunker Project, so if your assertions are indeed correct you should have no issue finding proof.

I find it odd that someone who created an entire thread devoted to finding the best farming build thinks farming for PvP IOs is exploitative behavior. Moving on past that, though - could you elaborate on the effect PvP IOs had on the ingame economy? The existence of PvP IOs did not affect the prices of anything else on the market. So if you really wanted to keep PvP IOs entirely separate from PvE you wouldn't be able to sell them on the auction house or trade/email them ingame. I'm going to reiterate that simply stepping foot in a PvP zone does not mean you are engaging in PvP, but rather than you are consenting to engage in PvP should there be other players present. As I've now said multiple times, other than Recluse's Victory on Indomitable and maybe Torchbearer, the PvP zones on Homecoming are largely empty. Defeating PvE mobs in a PvP zone isn't PvP. Doing door missions in a PvP zone isn't PvP, though in at least one of the PvP zones you can get temporary ally buffs or enemy debuffs that apply zone-wide by completing door missions. If there were PvP-based objectives then that's something I could get behind, and objective-based PvP was a QoL request from the PvP playerbase that (surprise) was completely ignored when PvP was overhauled in I13. There's already a "PvP merit" system of sorts - the bounty system in Siren's Call lets you buy PvP temporary powers with reputation earned from player kills, but that requires the zone to be active in order to utilize and it's just not the case these days.

Epic shields also give resistance or defense to all damage types, and melee armor sets give defense or resistance to psi where they don't in PvE. I have already said as much in that getting the bonuses without the badges is an acceptable "compromise" though I don't think there's any need for compromise to happen here. What I don't accept is your assertion that PvPers were asking for changes "like clockwork" that were "to the detriment of PvE." I asked you to provide any examples of that and you either couldn't or were unwilling to. You're making broad generalizations that, even if they were true at the time, no longer apply to the current iteration of this game. There has only been one time in the entire history of this game where a power or mechanic received a nerf in PvE for solely PvP reasons. The original intention of PvP IOs was to provide a tangible reward for PvP because they only dropped from player enemies. They also provide set bonuses in PvE because everyone at the time realized that even if you're a PvP character you're going to have to PvE at least somewhat. The PvP IOs were always tradeable on the auction house or via in-game trade/email so you could always obtain them without any PvP. I don't think PvPers complained then, because PvP IOs sold for a lot of inf and it was generally worth the time to farm them.

Every AT gets some amount of base damage resistance simply for existing in a PvP environment, ostensibly in the name of balance, so the precedent already exists.

This attitude is counterproductive and makes no sense - aren't the things that are broken the things that should get the most attention? ...You do know that PvP IOs work in PvE, right? They still enhance the power they're slotted in, and they provide set bonuses in PvE. Hell, they even have the extra benefit of keeping set bonuses when you exemplar without being catalyzed. There's been discussion on PvP IOs already in this thread - if they only dropped from player enemies and were untradeable then you'd have a point. Even on live, though, you could get them off the market so there was never any requirement to PvP to get them. On the Homecoming servers you can even purchase them from merit vendors or get them as drops from NPCs.

Mez levels his characters the old-fashioned way and occasionally streams the process. Just thought you should know.

I'm not fighting to get the badges. I've already said I care nothing at all for the badges. This isn't, and never was, about getting the badges. If we are going to make arguments about limited developer resources and only using those resources on things that will affect a majority of players I'd look no further than the most recent patch and the "roleplayer" tag. I'd be willing to bet that the serious roleplaying community is about the same size as the PvP community, yet I don't recall anyone outside the RP community having a fit because the the development team devoted resources to something that didn't affect them. There have been new exploration badges and accolades added to the game even since Homecoming started up, and I'm also willing to bet that the hardcore badging community is about the same size as the PvP community, yet I don't recall anyone outside the badging community having a fit because the development team devoted resources to something that didn't affect them. Why is it that whenever the PvP community asks for a little bit of developer attention everyone suddenly cries foul? I'm not entirely convinced it's because the more vocal critics of PvP just don't like the PvP community and don't want them to have nice things because they had one bad experience in a PvP zone twelve years ago.

My response to your post was more focused on why the idea of removing accolade bonuses in PvP is a poor solution. PvPers aren't unwilling to accolade their characters because they already know that getting the accolades is a mandatory side activity if you want to be successful. It's not a matter of an "unfair advantage," it's removing a barrier to something that everyone's already getting. I'll use the Fitness pool as an example - almost every build took Fitness when it was a non-inherent power pool, to the point where the developers decided to give everyone Fitness as an inherent power pool. This is exactly the same idea.

Is this focusing on Sentinels specifically? Because they definitely don't need any help in PvP.

I assume you're referring to Tremor and Frozen Aura in which case I can assure you Footstomp is a copy-paste of neither of those. All three of those powers have different stats.

Rage is the set-defining power for SS (Footstomp notwithstanding). Is it really SS if it doesn't have Rage?