CR Banana Man

Update: Powers on the bugged list are now ok to use, as they've been fixed. Map pool added. No barcode names added.

Edited banned powers to include electrified net arrow. Let me know if I'm missing anything else. Stalker zapp and taunt limitations are being considered ass well.

Were this a 3v3 event I guess I’d consider letting you join without a team, but it’s a 6v6 event where you pair up with another team of three, so I can’t allow you to sign up solo since it would be at the expense of the other three players you get teamed with.

Hey, everyone! We're going to kick off this year with an improved version of the event we ran toward the end of last year. -Sign up with a team of 3 people -Randomly pair up with other teams of 3 people and face off against other team combos in 6v6 matches -Round robin style preliminary round, this time with a finals structure afterward PRIZES!!! *Members of the winning team will receive AT LEAST 1000 merits each. *Second place finishers will receive at least 500 merits each. *Finalists will receive at least 300 merits each. *Those who don't win anything above will qualify for raffle prizes of 2-300 merits. The number of raffles and merit prizes will increase depending on the number of signups - there isn't a set rate for that, though. It really just comes down to: if more of you sign up, I have an easier time asking for more stuff. This event will take place on the INDOMITABLE server on SATURDAY, JANUARY 25th, at 6:00 PM EASTERN time! Rule-set: -Matches will be 10 minutes, 6v6 -ARCHETYPE LIMIT 2 (as in no more than two on your combined 6 person team). Keep this in mind when signing up, try to be flexible if possible. -No heal decay, no travel suppression, small insps only -Only one person on your team can be using a variation of taunt -Alpha incarnate only -Minimum xp level 50 -Poison is limited to one per team (your combined 6 person team) -No "barcode" names -Banned powers: --Telekinesis --Electrified Net Arrow --Stalker Zapp --Steam Jump --Anniversary Jump Pack thing from p2w Map Pool: Randomly selected and announced at the start of each round robin round. Outbreak Steel Skyway Atlas Striga Signing up -Sign up by posting your teams here, or pming me your team (@S) on the PvP discord (which I will then post here). -Sign ups should contain the most commonly known alias of the player, maybe a commonly used global or two, or your PvP discord alias (there's no limit to how many accounts or characters each player can sign up, and you don't need to write them all down - you're essentially just signing up a player). If you're not in the PvP discord, it's a great place to be! Here's the join link: https://discord.gg/ACfXPxK -Feel free to advertise in this thread or on the discord (or almost anywhere) as a free agent if you don't have partners. All experience levels welcome, obviously! See you there!

I didn’t mean that you were asking for things that were meaningless. I know you weren’t. I was saying that things like current PvP badges, like the ones for starting an arena match (that you still get even if you just afk the match or quit out of it) are meaningless rewards to most pvpers, and I wouldn’t want the team to waste resources on them. The reason I don’t like the idea of recipes that only drop in PvP is because I want to make slotting/ioing/leveling/accolading PvP characters as easy as the devs will possibly allow me to. When PvP IOs only dropped in PvP, the drop rates were too low for someone to actually get enough of them from normal PvPing. The most effective way to get PvP IOs was through afk farming them with multiple accounts (ie not actually PvPing). Casual players, or non-farmers we’re having to pay insane amounts of influence for PvP IOs (2 bill for a glad jav proc for a while) and usually couldn’t afford them. It won’t be as bad here with converters in play, but unless the drop rate were lowered to the point where there wasn’t any exclusivity to them, I wouldn’t be about it.

I do like the idea of incentives for PvP, ie prizes (merits, items, or unique badges) for winning and even just participating in PvP events. However, I want to avoid “incentives” that just make people who don’t want to PvP feel like they have to participate. I also don’t want to promote more meaningless PvP badges like the ones that exist now. They can be obtained without actually PvPing, have no relevance to actual PvP ability, and are really just a hassle to grind out for the people who care about them (and the people who do care about them are usually not pvpers). I’d rather let the badgers do their thing in peace, and instead have rewards that mean something. Right now, those rewards are mostly just merits for winning/placing/raffles in the monthly PvP events (and fun, lol). Maybe more in the future, but as with everything else here, there are no promises.

Merit prizes will be at least in the amount of the last tournament (500-1000 for members of winning teams and less in increments for 2nd and finalists). There will be at least two raffle prizes as well. Sign up or I’ll delete the empathy powerset from the game.

Lib and I have talked about running martial for a while now, not just for the good tp, though. Set has a bunch of utility outside that, too.

Yes

Fire blast can definitely be a thing, it has been known. Also, nojiyo had a pretty significant impact on the ice/plant trend, too. He showed up to the first night of kbs and streamed playing one for the whole night.

Beam is pretty much lib/Dan Petro. Grav has been a thing since live, and I know since day one on this server a few of us had been pushing for people to play Grav/emp for the free phase. With spikes getting better/more organized/more optimal, more people are starting to favor it over the higher heal values of defenders. Grav/ta was a thing on live, too, dex and a few other people played them in like i15. Same thing with psi blast, old technology from live but with the instant snipe instead of psi dart. Damage resists aren’t really a big deal with it because of inherent PvP resist. It’s more about damage delay and range. In addition to void, Unholy and gore were among the first (and only) stalkers I saw at KBs. Just about everyone playing stalker concluded that they had a higher impact playing something else, so idk how much of a trend it really was. Doms are definitely still a thing, and I think they’ve been seeing more playtime lately. Nature was was one of those sets that was just blatantly really high impact. Lib and I were basically begging people to roll them since day one, vinnie did the legwork, and was probably the first to be really prominent on it, but void and macskull were also the first I remember bringing them to kbs, and captains who knew what they were doing valued nature picks pretty highly. We knew gathers were the way to go, but it’s only been recently that people are doing them, and I think that’s because it’s only been recently that organized teams have been practicing.

Can we not? Melee can do a bunch of damage. Melee is almost unkillable. Melee (and many other non melee things) can’t do the sustained damage to kill anything reliably. Melee doesn’t need a buff. Melee (and many other non melee things) needs a change, and that change is probably way too big to happen with a tiny volunteer dev team. Melee is like the pyro in tf2. Too good at what it’s good at, too bad at what it’s bad at, and overall not usually useful in a competitive environment. We’re beating a dead horse at this point.

Sign in, but never mind. I was under the impression I had to select your character in game to pull it, but I don’t.

PRIZES UPDATE: General kno, HP, vinnie, march, bizzare, and killa instinct will receive 1000 merits each for first place. Spec, avid, tanize, and bangbangdoof will receive 500 merits each for second place. Tempty and Macskull will each receive 400 merits for winning the raffles. And, since I can't win my prize, I raffled that too, and Fire Wire gets my 500 merits. Thanks to everyone for coming out, seems like people enjoyed themselves and most of the games were pretty close and engaging. I know some people on the team I ended up on stepped up in some pretty major ways in some of those matches, and I think that was the story across the board (exception being xhiggy and unholy's team... get bodied LmAAAAAAAAAAA_______0). GGs, let's look forward to future events.

Thanks for signing up. I’m going to keep signups open until like 15 minutes before the draft probably, but at this point signups are subject to closing at my discretion, so please sign up ASAP if you still plan on attending. Participants should be in the PvP discord at the start time - the faster we get an idea of how many people we actually have, the faster we can start drafting. The draft will be serpentine, and the format will be round robin. Captains will be filled on on lineup picking before we draft, but it’s basically pick/ban style (like in MOBAs) but without the bans. Each round robin round will have a map assigned to it, and you will know the map before picking lineups. Map pool: Tech lab Skyway Steel Atlas Outbreak Siege Striga As discussed a few times in discord, the defender version of the single target poison hold (paralytic poison) will be banned. This power is bugged and doing double the intended hold duration, and in combination with powers from poison (weaken) becomes very easily exploitable. Corruptor and controller versions are working as intended, and will be allowed.

I didn’t feel strongly either way about this, so I took some time to think it over. Shout out to psypunk. Barrier’s idea is good in that it’s something easy to implement while having almost negligible side effects. That said, as other ideas in this thread have shown, the same goal can be achieved without any side-effects. I’m gonna echo this sentiment: Silent Method’s idea seems like it’d be easy to code, and also the least intrusive to other facets of the game. Quick note on that: the part about increasing KB protection on melee sets wouldn’t be needed because they already get enough KB resistance to be un-kb-able. What we could (should) do is add KB protection and resists to the melee sets that currently don’t have any (fire, ninjitsu, any others I’m missing). This addition could be a PvP only change (real talk, though, why don’t those sets have KB protections in PvE too?). I’m with you, there. This is why any changes I’m currently pushing for are essentially agnostic of any overarching PvP system (new maps, free hp accolade buff, bug fixes, etc). Lucious, this next bit might sound sarcastic, but I’m genuinely asking because maybe you know something I don’t. What is it about using mighty judgement against MMs that would stop working with the addition of higher KB protections? Do the KB res IOs work on their pets too? Further, how does increasing access to KB protection make melee worse with the way KB currently works? Which melee set is KBing people right now? I realize this wasn’t directed at me, but, here’s my answer, and my general thoughts on melee right now, and the KB mechanic. Knockback, as it exists in coh right now, is a skill reducer. It’s a skill reducing mechanic the same way perma-taunting is or perma caging was, or like the current mez system is. In a team PvP environment, the 4 second unavoidable holds of the i13 system are infinitely stronger than the 30 second avoidable holds of the old system ever were. CC in team PvP right now, especially with the damage from procs, is absolutely busted. KBing (and CCing) something right now doesn’t require any special coordination or set-up. It doesn’t require you to risk anything to gain the reward of KBing/holding someone into what’s essentially a free kill. The person you KB can be completely oblivious to it, or completely aware of it. He can be the best evader in the game, or the worst evader in the game. If your team isn’t god awful, that person is dead. Yes, you CAN hibernate or phase after you notice the KB icon on your buff bar but before the KB occurs, or even pre-phase a spike because someone telegraphs it - that's not balanced counter-play. A person shouldn't have to use their 120 second cooldown phase shift to avoid an otherwise unavoidable KB power with an enhanced cooldown under 4 seconds, especially not when pre-phasing in the first place is because the other team misplayed. To achieve something like that, you should have to either pull off some crazy coordination, or use a long, dangerous animation with a short range, probably something that you can’t use very often. Force Bolt is a 1.1 second cast with 80 ft base range and a 4 second cooldown, it’s spammable with no repercussions. Some people might try to argue that running a bubbler is the sacrifice your team makes for that kind of power. Running a bubbler in exchange for free kills every time you spike is not a sacrifice (doubly so in the current system where that bubbler can contribute near blaster level damage to those same spikes). CCing and KBing in smaller scale PvP, on the other hand, is not broken at all, and probably underpowered if anything (not counting the bugged holds). This goes back to what you said about being careful about changes, because one change can screw up 5 other things. There isn’t a simple fix that makes CC ok in smaller scale stuff without making it even more busted in team stuff. This is the stuff that would require major system changes. Melee is the same way. I’ll agree that melee isn’t “fine” - but there’s a caveat to that. Melee is no less “fine” than anything else right now, because this system is busted and very little is fine with it. This idea that melee characters are just getting torn apart by ranged ones is a falsehood. There are melee characters that can facetank an Ice/Plant blaster for 10 minutes straight and not come close to dying. You could point out that I’m using the strongest melee characters in this example, and that I’m neglecting to mention that the rest aren’t that strong - you could point that out. I’d respond by pointing out that I’m also using an Ice/Plant Blaster in this example, which is one of the most powerful ranged builds. Yes, an Ice/Plant Blaster, in a closed environment, can kill a BS/Fire Scrapper… but I don’t see anyone out here complaining about not being able to beat Elec/Ice Blasters and AR/Traps Corruptors. There’s disparity in every AT. At the top level, melee ATs do not lose to ranged ones, in a closed 1v1 environment, they either win or tie. Melee, in team matches, is a weird situation, because it’s actually broken, but for all the wrong reasons. You can play a melee character in an 8v8, but your role would typically be (on anything except a stalker) playing “taunt-bot.” The problem with this is that A. Taunt bots are a skill reducing mechanic, and a very broken one at that. It’s a low skill role, a low risk role, and a very high impact/high reward role. B. Playing a taunt bot is an experience most melee players (and most players in general) find to be boring and unrewarding (how much fun is just running around web nading and taunting the same person for 10 minutes straight?). There’s no simple fix for melee. Just buffing damage on something that’s already completely unkillable is not a good balance change. Melee is too bad at what it’s bad at (confirming damage on people), and too good at what it’s good at (being literally invincible). Another thing about melee that makes it weird (and still somehow like everything else) is that there isn’t an accepted standard of what a balanced melee character actually is, and this is due largely in part to people having vastly differing experiences on melee, and playing against people of vastly varying skill levels. *For the record, we’ve really yet to see the extent of how broken taunt bots actually are. On live, they did way less damage, were less durable, and were usually only run by teams that weren’t very good. I’m pretty certain that a coordinated team of say 2 emps, 5 ss/bios, and one poison could beat a conventional 8v8 jump team of blasters, defenders and corruptors by just perma taunting 5 people, setting up really long holds with the poison, and then hitting 5 ko blows simultaneously on the target. Even if you only get 4 or 5 kills in a 10 minute game it’s plenty. You’re probably never dying on that team.

Alright, nerds. Your new maps are 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, and 16. If you liked a map that didn’t make it, there’s always next time. This (ideally) won’t be the last time we do this. Thanks for voting! Sign up for the 5v5 event if you haven’t!

Oi m8. Let's do a 5v5 event. Sunday, July 7th. 6:30 PM EST. Super fast overview of how this will go: 1. Sign up with this format Global(s): Known aliases: PvP builds you have/if they are IO'd: EXAMPLE: Global: @WarmLemur99 Known aliases: Tomato Johnsone PvP Builds: -Beam/Martial blaster (fully IO'd) -rad/ff corruptor (will be IO'd by date of tourney) -peacebringer (Not IOd) 2. On the date of the tournament, teams will be drafted, kickball style (with a catch). Right before the tournament, team captains will volunteer (number of captains to be decided based on number of sign-ups), then they will pick teams from the rest of the sign-ups, player by player. Here's the "catch": Team captains will volunteer in pairs! If you're a captain, you get to pair up with a homie (must also be in the draft pool, must be a consensual pairing) and co-captain/draft your team together. 3. Play a bracket tournament with your teams 4. Prizes will be at least as big as during the lethal lottery tournament (600 merits to each person on the winning team, half that for second place) Bigger if we get more than four teams. There also be two raffle prizes that will go to players who are not on either of the top two teams. Rules: Archetype Limit: 2 of each Incarnates: Alpha only Banned Powers: Telekinesis, Dark Grasp (the dark control hold - it's bugged and doing almost double duration). Ties: Replay the same lineups with the same map. First kill wins. Server: Indomitable for now* *if they make indomitable the copy server for Justin (ie, you have all of your characters from live on the training server), I will consider doing it there.

Here's some of the maps you guys suggested. Let's vote in like 8 of em. Also BB code is wack. Post the numbers of the eight you like best 1. Founders Falls: Gaspee https://imgur.com/a/9y2l7JJ 2. Founders Falls: Liberty Town https://imgur.com/a/hjb3Hcn 3. Creys Folly: Tangle Town https://imgur.com/a/HNl7KNK 4. Thorn Tree (for smaller matches) https://imgur.com/a/EwcL6J3 5. Warburg: Beach (xhiggy has pics in mapcall thread) https://imgur.com/a/SQVmeWn 6. Crey's Folly: Paragon Water Works https://imgur.com/a/YqnbLuc 7. Cascade "Archepelagio" (bottom level would just be for smaller stuff, if we can get multiple levels without the walls being too weird, could be for bigger stuff - see lib's shots in the map call thread for closeups) https://imgur.com/a/gjnwSui 8. First Ward : Sunken City https://imgur.com/a/p99YhPe 9. Grandville: The Fab (not sure how this one would work, patch the floors or wall them off? - otherwise looks dope) https://imgur.com/a/s7e8yeu 10. Bloody Bay: Villain Base (could be cool for 1v1, 2v2s and smaller stuff) https://imgur.com/a/tUQueaU 11. Eden: The Pit https://imgur.com/a/nA9n4bV 12. The Hive: NW corner (xhiggy has more pics in the map call thread) https://imgur.com/a/ar9v4lG 13. Independence Port: SW Corner (for smaller stuff) https://imgur.com/a/HHcjcDz 14. Sharkhead Isle: The Crush https://imgur.com/a/41bHcts 15. Night Ward: The City of Souls (seems the same as sunken city but a night time version) https://imgur.com/a/Mpr1uiV 16. Crey's Folly: Water Treatment Area https://imgur.com/a/zQC9HEB 17. Cap Au Diable: NE industrial area https://imgur.com/a/RoaYnsc Ideally, we will do this in batches every now and then. Some of the ones suggested (like moth cemetery) were really flat and open, and probably wouldn't be usable, despite looking cool. Keep sending me cool looking stuff so we can try to get it in next time. Preferably with two or 3 screen-shots and info on how to check it out. Voting closes next Wednesday, June 26

They actually did. AR snipe animation has not been touched since shutdown. They never got around to changing the Cast Time in the power definition, but the actual animation was rooting for 1.67 seconds during that final week of i24 beta, before all servers got killed. Confirmed. I made an ar/elec thinking it would be 0.67 and stripped it as soon as I realized it wasn't :(

It definitely isn't falling on deaf ears, as these are the same issues we're all dealing with. With regard to the access barrier, there's good news and bad news. The good news is, these GMs seem open to most ideas that make it easier to IO/accolade characters for PvP. For example, I talked to GM Jimmy, and he's not opposed to the idea of IOs that could be purchased from merit vendors for about the price of SOs, so long as they can't be sold on the market and only work in PvP. The bad news: that's a coding nightmare, and any ETA on even starting that project is basically indefinite until some more of the basic crap gets ironed out (website, support, server stability, infrastructure, etc). There is one accessibility change (accolade related) on the horizon, but I still can't give you dates as to when. In the meantime, Jimmy has encouraged the use of the test server for PvP events, when it's up. Once character copies from live are a thing, I think that's a pretty viable option, at least for tourneys and stuff. Also, I don't see a no-IO pvp zone happening, but there is a "no set bonuses" option in the arena.

Thanks for the ideas so far. If you have more, post them by tomorrow. I'll soon be putting many of these up for some sort of vote-in along with more that have been suggested to me through other platforms.

Dan Petro has compiled a list of PvP bugs here . I'm stickying it on our boards so that it doesn't get buried in the bug forums. Please post any and all bugs you find in that thread so they can be added to the list. It'd be helpful if you post info on how you tested them/how to reproduce the bug. Thanks!

Welcome back. I haven’t seen Thor since 2011. Stop by kickballs if you haven’t already.

Yikes, that sounds bad. Nebulous form not working actually does sound familiar from live server. Later today I’ll put up a link to the PvP bug thread so we can better track that stuff and work fixes.