macskull

And this, folks, should tell you all you need to know.

Just because we don't like having to grind through unlocking the accolades doesn't mean we don't do it. It's pretty much impossible to HP cap most characters without the accolades unless you make significant build sacrifices to do it, and sometimes not even then. If you don't have as much HP as you should you're putting a target on your back. The point here isn't necessarily to make PvP more appealing, though lowering the barrier to entry might help with that as a side effect - the point is that yes, we are already doing the PvE content to get the accolades, but that's even more time spent doing content we don't really want to do in order to get to the content we do want to participate in.

For the most part, PvP and PvE are completely separate in this game. There's no point in having a PvP server.

Most of the PvP-related badges got removed from redside accolades around I16 I think? All that's left now are exploration badges and I think maybe a defeat badge or two, and honestly most PvP zones across these servers are so empty that they're functionally PvE zones. In regards to "free PvP accolades" versus "free PvE accolades" there's a simple but significant difference there - you don't really need those stat-boosting accolades to PvE. In PvP those extra 20% hit points are a huge deal to the point they're practically mandatory if you plan on being competitive. One of your primary build goals on almost every PvP character is to hit the HP cap. This proposed change unbalances nothing and actually lowers the barrier for entry for PvP, which is a good thing for everyone concerned. As far as the "getting a lot for nothing," the post-I24 version of this game already does that (auction house changes, incarnate system changes, P2W vendor, etc.). The PvP community is taking advantage of having the ears of a new "development" team that may be more willing to help us out with quality of life requests like this one.

The good thing is all of those things are completely optional for PvE. I can count on one hand the number of times I've used Shivans or Warburg nukes since the game came back. The good thing for you is that most of the PvP zones across the Homecoming servers are dead 99% of the time so if you really wanted to wander into a PvP zone to get any of those things you wouldn't see anyone else. Incoming list: 1) Most of the redside accolades are faster/easier to get than their blueside counterparts, especially with the I25+ changes. 2) How does auto-granting accolade powers in PvP affect anyone other than the people that PvP? I PvP because it's the only interesting content in this game - PvE is mind-numbingly easy and repetitive and the only reasons I do it are to socialize with friends and grind out the gear I need to be competitive in PvP. The less mandatory PvE I have to do to get a character ready for PvP, the better. 3) Again, I think you're missing the point here - the accolade powers in question would only function in a PvP environment and would provide no benefit in PvE. I honestly do not understand why people would be opposed to this because it has literally no effect on PvE. I'm specifically referring to the stat-boosting accolades (the four +hp/+end ones) here, but they are practically required to be competitive in PvP.

So... Shivan Shard, the Warburg nukes, Born in Battle, Marshal, Stolen Immobilizer Ray, and Megalomaniac, to name a few? The original intent of the OP was to have PvP-only accolades granted automatically while in a PvP environment that function equivalently to the PvE ones but only while you're in a PvP zone.

So this should have been addressed to me, I think? I don't do much zone PvP because the quality is lower than what you'll find in a competitive arena match and the prevalence of the base TP macro has made it pretty unfun. I am going to touch on your points though - of course I'm going to make a good build for my character. Do you run all your characters on SOs or do you optimize their builds? You probably weren't aware that most aspects of the game function very differently in PvP than they do in PvP and diminishing returns mean your "pvp uber build" doesn't have nearly as much effect as you think it does. You've said this in other threads - something about an inherent imbalance between builds in PvP because of the broad range of powersets available. And you know what? You're 100% right. But let's look at it this way - if I'm trying to build a character that can solo AVs and GMs, are you going to use an Assault Rifle/Force Field Corruptor for that? Nope. If I'm trying to build an AoE DPS machine I'm going to use a Fire/Fire Blaster. My point is there are different aspects of the game that some builds are more suited to than others. PvP is another one of those aspects - it favors builds that emphasize single-target burst damage, though on a team you can get away with more build variation. Even though this game's PvP implementation is a shadow of its former self, post-I13 PvP is still some of the best MMO PvP out there.

FWIW there are still some villain accolade powers tied to exploration badges in PvP zones. Said zones are dead enough these days where you'll never see another soul while you're in there. The simplest way to deal with that when the zones were more active was to just go in at a time when there weren't many people around, get the badge, and get out. If you died once or twice, oh well, you came back later. I think the logic with trying to get more people into PvP zones was this - if you got 10 extra people into a PvP zone, and even one of them had a bit of fun and got curious and decided to come back later, that was a good thing. It is unfortunate that a large portion of the zone PvP population was, and still is, the bottom of the barrel, and enjoyed broadcast PvP almost as much as they enjoyed actual PvP. Regardless of where you stand on the discussion we're having, now that it's been explained what exactly OP is asking for I'm pretty sure you can un-/jranger the idea, no?

Can you give me any examples? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I'm honestly curious.

That still doesn't solve the issue of having to PvP on the test server. Sometimes that's okay, but it shouldn't be the go-to answer. If someone is taking the time to add that feature in, why not do it on the live servers?

So, if the ability to do this has to be added into the game in the first place, why would I want that restricted only to the test server? That's more work than just adding it to the normal servers because then you'd have to disable it every time you wanted to push a patch to live, and re-enable it every time you pushed a new patch to test. That would also require me to load onto the test server every time I want to PvP, which isn't practical for several reasons, not the least of which is the test server is sometimes home to experimental or buggy powers or mechanics. "Go to the test server" shouldn't be an answer. Adding this feature to the game has literally zero effect on non-PvP content and addresses a hugely popular PvP QoL request that goes back almost to when PvP was introduced to the game.

I suppose OP should have been more specific with what he was asking for - not another way to unlock the accolades via PvP content, but simply having the accolade powers granted on a temporary basis as long as you are in a PvP zone or the arena. As soon as you leave one of those areas the power(s) would be disabled again. The goal here isn't "bring more people into PvP by making them go into PvP zones to get PvE rewards" but rather "remove some of the grind from making a competitive PvP character by auto-granting accolade powers in a PvP environment." See my reply to the first quote in this post, where I explain what exactly is being asked for. Now that you mention it though I am curious what exactly you're referring to happening in that timeframe, as I'm not aware of any times where a PvE method of obtaining something has been removed and/or replaced entirely by a PvP method. The goal here is to lower the barrier to having a competitive PvP build.

So because I'm bored I'm going to actually take the time to respond to this. PvP wasn't deemed a failure by the parent company or the developers, at least not initially. Prior to Issue 13 this game had some of the best PvP you could find in any MMO. It wasn't perfectly balanced, but it was fast-paced and a ton of fun. Many servers had PvP events or leagues and at its peak there were at least a dozen independent teams engaged in competitive arena-based PvP. That might not seem like a lot, but this game never had a super-high population. It is true that a vast majority of the playerbase never engaged in PvP, but the same argument can be made for many aspects of the game - most people don't RP, most people don't badge-hunt, et cetera. The situation changed dramatically after Issue 13's sweeping PvP changes which ironically were intended to make PvP more appealing - most of the competitive players left and very few new people actually got into PvP. PvP IO recipes didn't get introduced to the game until Issue 14 and while it's definitely true that people used arena matches to farm for those drops, saying that was what most PvP consisted demonstrates an utter lack of understanding of what was actually going on in the game at that time. It doesn't matter how much of the playerbase a subset of players is - it could be one percent, or ten percent, or fifty percent. Saying that a group of players represents a small percentage of the playerbase and therefore doesn't matter is antithetical to everything this game's community stands for, or at least stood for. These days, I'm not so sure. In regards to your last paragraph, well... I guess I have to address it, but it's... really, really dumb. No one is going to chime in and say that they do that, because doing that is completely stupid. No one's going to spend the time to level up a PvP character in PvP zones when they can PL to 50 in a couple hours and then IO and accolade their character. Have you ever tried to level a character from 1-50 via entirely street sweeping? I've done it, and once you hit the upper 20s it gets agonizingly slow. If someone spends a large portion of their time in-game in a PvP zone, they're a zone PvPer. Besides, you've already said in here and other threads that you basically despise PvP in this game, and you used Guild Wars as an example of an MMO with good PvP, so why would I take anything you have to say seriously?

You are fundamentally misunderstanding what the OP is asking for - he's asking for the existing accolade powers to be available for PvP (arena/zone/whatever) without having to grind PvE content to unlock them, not asking for new PvP-specific accolades. With the current state of PvP the stat-boosting accolades are pretty much a requirement to be competitive.

Any ETA on a fix for this?

There is something in the works that I think people will like. A pentad tournament would be fun but I don't think we have enough AT variations to make a draft-style pentad work right now.

Comparing a toggle power that 1) has an activation time, 2) has a recharge time, 3) costs inf to buy, and 4) can be suppressed when mezzed with a slash command that has none of those drawbacks is like comparing apples and oranges. Every thread this slash command has come up in has seen you somehow linking it back to PvPers and quite frankly it's tiring.

I'll see if I can work on a list over this weekend.

Also a couple more mez-related bugs: Corruptor/Psi Blast/Subdue - 4.0 sec immobilize, should be 2 Corruptor/Force Field/Detention Field - 8.0 sec immobilize/phase, should be 4

It's not a bug, per se, but now that heal decay no longer exists in zones and is off by default in the arena (i.e. it's essentially nonexistent now), it may be worth revisiting the disparity between PvE and PvP parameters for powers that give heal over time in PvE but +regen in PvP. Big examples here are the Panacea proc and some of the Nature Affinity buffs.

Melee does not need a damage buff. A correctly-built melee character can be essentially unkillable even with multiple people attacking it.

Wow, this thread kind of blew up when I wasn't paying attention. I'm a little disappointed most of the replies (looking at you @Bentley Berkeley) didn't read the second half of the thread title and completely missed that I was advocating for disabling the command in PvP environments only. I understand it's all irrelevant now, but when I made the OP almost two weeks ago I don't think it was widely known that this was supposed to be a GM-only command and assumed it was something that was intentionally available to everyone. I'll close with my normal "PvP ruins everything" plug - in the entire history of this game there has only ever been one - one - power or mechanic that's received a PvE nerf solely for PvP reasons, and the players who insist that PvP should not exist in this game because they don't like it are more toxic than the PvPers they hate (alternatively, why not remove all badges from the game, because badgers are such a small subset of the playerbase that having the badges is just a waste of resources).

Please for the love of god keep the interrupt in Aid Self.

The values for procs in the spreadsheet are PvP-specific, as that was its original intended audience, so some things like mez durations may be different.

Thanks for the shout out. I'm reasonably sure the PPM values I have listed are correct as it seems like the values listed on the Wiki were current as of the game's shutdown and the values haven't been tweaked since. Most of my leg work in putting that list together came from checking numbers on sets that were added post-shutdown or weren't on the Wiki's list, and then spot-checking the ones that were. I am missing some proc effects just because the way some of the procs work grants their bonus (+hp, +end, and the like) in a way that isn't easily viewable in-game.