macskull

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?

Getting the accolade benefits more easily is achieving balance. I'll agree that removing the accolade bonuses would also achieve balance but that's balance via nerf instead of balance via buff and PvPers almost always get the former instead of the latter. Let me explain general PvP build philosophy to you, in the hopes you'll understand why your suggestion is not a good one. In a PvP build you build for capped HP first, 41 or more points of KB protection if you're not melee, 60-90% recharge, and usually 50%-ish range bonus. Those aren't hard and fast rules, but they're pretty consistent across most ranged AT builds. There are already some powerset combinations that would probably be good in a PvP environment but aren't usable because you can't make a build that meets those requirements without gimping yourself. Additionally, PvP has diminishing returns on set bonuses and buffs - but hit points are the one thing that doesn't. In order for my character to be effective either in solo or team PvP, I need to stay alive long enough to do my job (debuff, heal, buff, damage, etc) and with the current iteration of PvP hit points are the single most important factor in whether I'm able to do that. Building for the HP cap alone is tricky on some ATs and if I don't get that extra 20% from accolades I'm either having to make serious build sacrifices in other areas (i.e. I'm less survivable) or I just don't have as much HP as I should (i.e. I'm less survivable). Making a good PvP build is tricky enough the way things are. See above. And I don't fault or begrudge you from enjoying that. I don't personally care about badging but I know there are people that do. My point was that we're not asking for the badges but rather for the bonuses. That being said, I don't think saying "this change will cheapen my experience" is any kind of reasonable justification to not make changes. Let's say that the badges were also granted along with the accolade powers for PvP - does that suddenly remove any pleasure you get from getting the badges, or that you got in the past? If it does, you may need to take a good hard look in the mirror.

I don't think anyone specified accolades versus accolade powers previously because that's a distinction that should have been obvious, in my opinion.

I don't care about the badges. Like, at all. Almost all my characters have the badges you get from leveling and accolading and that's it, apart from a few incidentals. I care about the accolade powers that are granted as a result of getting the badge. You're arguing semantics at this point. Setting aside any in-game bonuses you get from badges, what does earning a badge get you, other than adding one more to your total badge count, or a new character title, or bragging rights? Absolutely nothing. I'm never going to go out of my way to get the Really Hard Way badge, for example, because other than the thing I just listed, I get nothing out of it.

I'd venture that even among people who get the accolades and don't even consider stepping foot in PvP, only a small portion of them actually give two shits about the badges - they're after the bonuses.

Once again going to point out that asking to not have to do some PvE in order to be competitive in PvP isn't "gimme teh shineez nao kthxbai," whatever the hell that means. If the concern is "giving things to people for free," here's a few counter examples: Until I19, Fitness was an optional power pool that was practically required for every build. Where was the outrage when the pool was made inherent? Until I17, Khelds/SoA required a level 50 on the account to be unlocked. Where was the outrage when the unlock level was changed to 20? Until I21 you had to be level 14 and take a prerequisite power to get a travel power. Where was the outrage when this was changed to level 4 with no prerequisite? Until I12 you always had a base 75% chance to hit an even-con NPC regardless of your level. Where was the outrage when the beginner's luck mechanic was added? Until I19 you had to know which zones had Yellow Line and which zones had Green Line trains and zone-hop to get where you wanted. Where was the outrage when the train lines were merged? If there was any outrage about any of those (all QoL improvements, by the way), it was from the "I had to do it so they should too" crowd which honestly smacks more of entitlement than the people asking for those changes. "I had to do it so they should too" is, quite frankly, a pretty shitty way to justify withholding QoL improvements.

Did you read my edit? You'll find the answer there, and probably in at least one other post in this thread where someone asked the same question re: Justin that you did. Playing the "entitlement" card is a cop-out, plain and simple. For some reason unbeknownst to me I keep responding to your posts, and you keep on not getting it - all that's being asked for is a completely reasonable QoL change. Yes, it'll involve some developer time. No, it won't benefit a majority of players (it won't actually have any effect on a majority of players). No, that doesn't mean it's a waste of said developer time.

Remind me again which server was designated by the Homecoming team as the PvP server? Last I checked, it wasn't Justin. EDIT, because reasons: It's not a perfect solution. It's a workable one sometimes. Here is a scenario: I have a match scheduled for a certain time. All players involved have cleared their schedules for a few hours for that time. That same day Justin goes down for an update. This update introduces a bug which breaks quite a bit of stuff, but which would have been caught before it went to a live server. Now everyone who blocked their time off has to figure out a different time, but no one knows when that'll be because there's no ETA on a patch to fix the bug. Or a real-life example - when Homecoming moved their servers to OVH Justin was down for an extended period of time. You're saying no one should be PvPing during that time? What about the times when there are "release candidate" patches on Justin, and all the extra freebies are disabled? Am I screwed if my team needs me on X character but I don't have that one? Justin as a solution isn't being disregarded. It's been discussed in the PvP Discord before, at least for hosting tournaments and events, but ultimately the issues are the ones I described and that's why it's not a good solution. By the way, the idea that you'd be okay with keeping a second instance of the game running as a chat client is completely absurd (plus I'm not going to be tabbing back and forth between instances to check chat channels while I'm PvPing because that's how I get killed). I think it was Issue 16 that significantly revised most of the accolade powers and removed almost all the PvP requirements from them because people didn't want to PvP in order to get PvE bonuses. There's precedent there. I understand that some people would rather not engage in PvP to get PvE stuff, and that's fine, but why is it so wrong to want to remove at least some of the PvE you have to engage in for PvP?

The counter to that is simple - people that didn't want to PvP to get the PvP IOs didn't have to. They could buy them on the auction house. Hell, that's how most PvPers got theirs too (using inf that they got from PvE'ing or playing the market, not from PvP). Most of the supply came from people AFK farming them because the drop rates were so abysmally low. What @Dan Petrois trying to say (I think) is that there is nothing in this game that provides you PvE benefit that requires you to engage in PvP to obtain, but almost everything that you need to engage in PvP requires you to PvE.

I think you're underestimating exactly how much difference the extra 20% HP makes. I understand that you likely don't PvP so it makes it difficult to explain, but believe me when I say that disabling accolades for everyone isn't a solution anyone would be happy with.

I should have been more specific - I was referring specifically to IOs and accolades in this case. Most PvP builds will do just fine with only the alpha slot and that's about 10 minutes of work. I think that was brought up earlier in this thread. On live, a lot of the high-end competitive PvP took place on the test server because you could easily copy characters over and build however you wanted. However, the test server was unreliable at times (it was taken down for updates or maintenance during matches with no heads-up) and there were oftentimes new and interesting bugs because the test server was exactly that - a test server. Justin has the same issues. At some point we may decide to do things on Justin especially because the "free everything" that's there is quite appealing from a PvP perspective (I already make extensive use of it to test things) but it isn't reliable. Besides, not all PvP takes place in the arena, and if everyone who is PvPing is on the test server they're not able to monitor global channels and friends on the regular servers. There are plenty of times where I'm killing time in a PvP zone and see my friends are forming up a TF or something, so I switch and hop on that. Am I supposed to be running two separate instances of the game whenever I want to PvP? EDIT: In response to the edit about "no one wants to acknowledge removing accolades" - I'm acknowledging it, and I'm going to refer to you my next post for that. It's a non-starter.

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.