macskull

I seriously doubt there are any PvPers who would leave because they have to accolade their characters. The point was made that it's lowering the barrier to entry, which is a good thing, but that's more a positive side effect than the main purpose of the request. Honestly, if we had the ability to get insta-50 and IO'd and accoladed but could only use those characters in a PvP environment, I'd be completely okay with that - but that's not going to happen. The OP's request is a far more reasonable one You don't have to accolade, get incarnates, get purples, get ATOs, any of that other stuff to PvE. You can do just fine on an un-accoladed and SO'd build because this game really is that easy. That's not the case in PvP.

Running through content quickly has more to do with the players at the keyboard than the powers they're using. You can do Numina in about 30 minutes with a team that knows where the hunt missions are and splits them up. I think the argument re: ATT/TT would've held more water back on live where powers like that were gated behind veteran badges or Paragon Market transactions, but these days they're available for very little inf to everyone from level 1 onwards. Not saying that doesn't mean TFs shouldn't get updated, but you can do even longer ones like Dr. Q in about an hour.

That isn't what's being asked for though. Did you read through the thread and see the posts where I clarified the OP's intention?

...That's not happening in Bloody Bay, I can tell you that much. I've gotten Shivans and Warburg nukes dozens of times since the game came back, on the most populated server, and I think I've seen another player not on my team once.

I don't think their point had anything to do with forum PvP.

Refer to my previous point - I'm guessing that poster doesn't want to engage in PvP and so avoids those zones. That's understandable, but what I'm getting at is if there are no other players in that zone (which is the case almost all the time) then it's functionally identical to any other zone in the game. They're literally not engaging in the content they don't want to engage in and still getting something out of it (i.e. temp powers, buffs, etc.). I'll reiterate an edit to one of my earlier posts - you have already said you support the idea in the OP, but now you're suddenly deciding it's entitlement and you're against it, you're arguing for the sake of arguing, and I don't have the inclination to indulge that any further. EDIT: For what it's worth I'm sure there would be an uproar if Shivans/Warburg nukes were removed from the game entirely, even though the majority of the players don't care to venture into PvP zones. I'd be totally okay with making them obtainable by different means.

Well, since you'd be the only player in the zone, by definition you couldn't possibly engage in player versus player content. For what it's worth, before I started PvPing I also tended to avoid things that required me to go into PvP zones. If I wanted to get temp powers or buffs I'd check and see if anyone else was in the zone, and if they were I just waited until later. It's not hard to avoid PvP in a PvP zone if you don't want to engage in it.

Going into a PvP zone devoid of players isn't "investing that time in PvP content."

For what it's worth, I would say Bloody Bay is completely empty 99.9% of the time so it's functionally a PvE zone, and it takes all of about 5 minutes to get your Shivans.

That's a good question - you can see your target's HP and end in the target window. For example, I know a Blaster's HP cap is 1847, and if everyone is in Pocket D waiting for a match to start I can click on people to see that. If I see one of the other team's Blasters only has 1600 HP you can bet I'm going to be calling them as a target more often. I might not know exactly what someone's IO slotting looks like but I know what the general build philosophy for PvP characters is (basically, with very few exceptions reaching your AT's HP cap is #1) so I know roughly what their build looks like.

Your argument would make sense if PvE had anything to do with PvP, but it doesn't. Let me be clear - I'm perfectly fine with spending the time to get the stuff on my PvE characters because that's doing PvE to improve my PvE experience. I'm trying to minimize the amount of PvE I have to do to improve my PvP experience. How do you not understand how those are different? EDIT: You've already said earlier in this thread that you think this suggestion is a good idea so at this point it seems like you're arguing for the sake of arguing and as such I won't be responding any further.

Nothing is preventing anyone from getting them and no one is saying the time of a PvPer is more important than anyone else. This is a QoL request, one that PvPers have been asking for for a long time, nothing else. Imagine the outrage if PvE'ers were forced to PvP in order to get necessary items for their characters. We accept that we're going to have to PvE at least sometimes to get our PvP characters ready but eliminating some of the grind would be nice. Do I see it bringing in new players in appreciable numbers? No, not really - but that's not why it's being asked for. Sure, it's easy, and we do it because we have to. It's not the ease of doing it, it's the grind. Takes longer to accolade a character than it does to level them, normally. What we're asking for is to not have to. I'd be willing to bet most of us don't bother accolading our PvE characters because there's not much reason to.

To address your first point: I'm not going to argue that having the +hp/+end accolades in PvE doesn't make you more survivable, but I spent the first four months since the servers came back maining an un-accoladed SO'd Fire/Cold Corruptor and I had zero issues with staying alive. PvE in this game is incredibly easy because the AI is dumb and player characters are incredibly overpowered by comparison, even before figuring in inspirations, IOs, accolades, and incarnate powers. NPCs don't deliberately target you because you have 20% less HP than the guy next to you. In a PvP environment, all other things being equal, you're going to get targeted more often and die faster because you have less time to react. It's not "these are really important," it's "these are essentially mandatory." I think @Waypointhit on most of what I'd say in addition. As an example, I know that roleplayers make up a small fraction of the game's population, yet on live the development team took the time to create and animate a power just for them (Walk, if you're curious). Roleplayers just got a status slash command in the last patch. Base builders have always been a tiny group but they just got a whole bunch of assets introduced in the last patch. See where I'm going with this?

You're not at a handicap for not having accolades in PvE. You're being intentionally obtuse.

I'll bite. PvP in this game has always had a small population. PvP in this game probably has a smaller population because 1) the game's subscriber base has always been small, 2) there really isn't any "goal-oriented" PvP, and 3) because of the nature of the mechanics PvP is much faster-paced and "twitchy" than any other MMO, which is probably the single best part about it. PvP in this game, even post-I13, ruined every other MMO's PvP because of how slow they all feel. It's more akin to an FPS than an MMO and that was one of things that drew players to it. The smaller population doesn't make it any less valid than any other aspect of the game. Sure, that means development resources may not be spent on it as much, but even during the years the private server was up there were at least some changes made to PvP. PvPers have a list of bug fixes and QoL requests and they are being worked on by the development team. PvPers are realists - we know that large sweeping changes are not likely to happen but we can at least ask for some things within reason. This is one of those things. I think the "no one uses it so it's not worth any development time" argument is, quite frankly, complete horseshit and an insult to the people who do use it. Throughout this game's history it's been the underutilized aspects that have gotten attention - entire zones got overhauled because they weren't popular, powersets got buffed because no one played them. This isn't a commercial game with shareholders to appease anymore. I understand the development team is working on their own time but that doesn't mean things can't get done.

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?