CR Banana Man

In issue 13, massive changes were made to the PvP system, including the addition of a system of diminishing returns that make recharge bonuses fall off pretty hard around 80 or so percent. Perma dom is, to my knowledge, no longer achievable - and if it were achievable, wouldn’t really matter much with the way dominator damage and the mez system work. I guess I can give some insider info on this. The earth/fire dom team we ran in ware was actually just a normal jump team. The doms were basically just earth/fire blasters, and the lineup had nothing to do with perma dom or them being dominators at all. Blaze -> fossilize was really clean burst damage, and much faster and deadlier in the right hands than the psi/em teams of the time. For the OP, doms right now are basically burst damage machines, or used for set-up to get easier kills. We’re mostly seeing the latter one of those, because while they still do good burst damage, they are pretty squishy and don’t benefit much from the PPM system.

We can coordinate event times and times they will have the server up, and they will enable commands and seed the market to make it easier to enhance things.

As I understand, it will not be up regularly. However, we can run events on there, and they will hook us up.

Post bugs in here, and then Dan Petro (praise be upon him) can update them in the first post.

I've been told that new arena maps aren't a big deal to add, so start sending me some cool spots you'd like to see. Tell me (roughly) where the spot is, and what you think it would be good for. For now, we're looking to add about 6-8 maps. We will put the better (non-troll) map suggestions up to a vote for which ones get in. Here's some ideas to get the ball rolling. Founders Falls: Liberty Town, 8v8 Founders Falls: The Gaspee, 8v8 A ruined city would be dope. We checked out faultline and boomtown, and saw issues with most of the areas. I kinda like this one from RWZ, but tell me what you guys can find. Maybe an AE map? Good luck!

I am not saying that the current system is at all balanced. It isn't. I've been on record saying I don't like i13 because it marginalizes the majority of powersets and makes them useless in PvP. The PPM system does this further. It's not so simple as "nerfing blasters" or reverting PPM, or hitting a "No DR" switch, though. I'm against nerfing blasters because it's a knee-jerk reaction, and really wouldn't do anything except make people not play blasters. As I said before, anything that's making blasters look broken right now is a result of the PPM system. PPM is just as broken, actually MORE BROKEN, on corruptors and defenders. I'm gonna make up some numbers for an example. Let's say a blaster attack does 200 damage, and the corruptor version of that attack does 140. Enhanced, that's roughly 400 and 280, respectively. Without procs, the difference in blaster and corruptor damage in this example is 30%. Now let's add procs, let's say 4 each. 2 pvp/purple procs, and 2 normal procs would be (I'm guessing on these numbers but I'm pretty sure they're roughly accurate) 107, 107, 71, 71. The average proc damage is 89. Let's say 3 of them regularly go off (many powers would have a proc chance of 90%, so that's actually a low-ball), for an average of 267 damage from procs. 400 + 267 = 667 280 + 267 = 547 So, now the difference between blaster and corruptor damage is only 18%. Corruptors and defenders benefit from procs more than blasters do - and that's 18% on a high damage attack similar to bitter freeze ray, which is the WORST power in ice blast. When you look at things like bitter ice blast, freeze ray, and the fact corruptors have easier access to APP holds like Dominate, the gap between corruptor and blaster damage actually gets even smaller because they all have lower base damage. TLDR: PPM makes base damage matter less. Blasters #1 selling point is higher base damage. PPM makes blasters matter less. We also need to consider that only certain power-sets are capable of exploiting PPM. Some let you slot 4 procs in all your attacks. Others aren't so great, and only let you slot one or two. I'm not seeing anyone running around complaining that archery blasters are too strong. Blasters aren't broken, procs are. You mentioned secondaries for corruptors not working. Again, I don't like i13... So I don't like that kin, and sonic, and certain other powersets are kind of bad right now, but that's not a problem exclusive to corruptors. Most blaster secondaries basically don't exist in PvP, and the ones that do are only useful for 1-3 powers in the set. EM has boost range, which is overkill in most situations anyway because you can already get so much +range from things like PvP IO bonuses and Intuition Alpha. /TA has a good movement power, and a web nade. Plant has a high damage hold, an absorb shield (which other sets also have), and toxins. So, yeah, Kin, sonic, and traps are pretty bad right now, and I don't like that. But nature, poison, and therm are insane, and PPM has made it to the point where you aren't even making a corruptor anymore. You're making a /poison blaster, or a /thermal blaster, or a /nature blaster, which is obviously better in most situations than any of the "good" blaster secondaries I just named. If you show up to kickballs, you'll actually notice that most people playing the infamous ice/plant blaster are NOT priority picks. There's maybe two or three people at most who can log onto an ice/plant right now and make most team captains sure to pick them over other blasters, let alone other players in general. Those same two or three players are typically priority picks regardless of what they're playing. So, I'm with you, man. I don't like how things are. That said, if we're able to change anything, we need to make sure we're not following in the footsteps of the old devs. We need to make our changes accurate and informed. Our resources, if any, are going to be limited, and we don't want to waste them backtracking.

Don't worry, man. I'm with you. Best spines/fire scrapper: BBrown Thrust Top 5 names: 1 BBrown Thrust 2 BBrown Thrust 3 BBrown Thrust 4 BBrown Thrust 5 BBrown Thrust Maybe. Depends on how many people stick around and how much initiative they'd have in putting actual teams together. @HP had a really solid turnout to KBs last week - multiple 8v8s at once. You should come out this weekend.

I carry one in my chest pocket at work.

As in their state of balance? Anything blasters are doing that's seemingly out of line right now is a symptom of the PPM system, and not blasters themselves. I actually think they are a fairly weak AT right now, compared to things like corruptors and defenders, which can abuse PPM just as easily. I think blasters look a lot better than they actually are right now because of certain people playing them. I am personally not a fan of PPM and the sort of damage it creates, both because of RNG but also because it heavily favors certain sets in an already build-restricted environment. Not that I have the ability to change things in the code this instant, but even if I did, a nerf to blasters would be a really inaccurate nerf. For as much damage as they do, there are things that can literally stand still and not die to them, and there are other things that can do nearly as much damage while being considerably more survivable. I don't like the way things are, but we need to let it marinate so we can figure out A: what kind of changes we will be able to make, and B: what kind of changes are accurate. Absolutely not. Indomitable is just an "unofficial" PvP server. It's likely where I will host most of my arena events, and where @hp is hosting weekly Kickball events. I've seen zones on other servers, notably Torchbearer, decently active.

That sick avatar I just gave myself.

Hi. I'm banana man, but you guys probably know me as Fettuccine Alfred from the Pasta Mafia SG from the Zukunft server might know me as plantguy529, plantless, or Race Man Joe. Last week, GM_Jimmy hit me up and asked if I'd be willing to be a representative for the PvP community. I originally pointed him in the direction of two other people, who I think would have been better for the position. For legitimate reasons, they didn't want to do it. So, you're stuck with me. My condolences. What does this mean? I don't know yet. We have an unpaid dev team that's likely already up to their neck in work situating this infant server. I don't know how many resources, if any, they're willing to dedicate to PvP. What I do know is: 1. The old devs never reached out to us like this, so already this is looking better than the situation on live. 2. Whatever attention, resources, and time this unpaid dev team does decide to give PvP - no matter how great or how miniscule - I will be relentless in lobbying that those resources are used for the things we actually want, and the things that make this game better. This also means I can host events with prizes. Like this one https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,2599.0.html. More of those to follow, both casual and maybe eventually more serious. My first priority will be to change all PvP zones and arena maps into ski slope races will be to lobby for small, realistic changes that increase accessibility of PvP so people don't have to spent hours and hours grinding and manipulating the market just to make a viable PvP character, all while not affecting the PvE experience or game economy negatively. The more people we can get PvPing, the better. The more level the playing field, the better. I don't want to get too much into theoretical system changes and tweaks yet, because I don't want to get anyone's hopes up - remember, we have an unpaid dev team, and we're a minority here. I do have things in mind, though, and I have all of you to help me. We are fortunate in having many very knowledgeable players from different eras of PvP playing right now, and their brains will be an invaluable resource going forward. If you wanna know where I stand on certain things, ask away, and I'll answer what I can.

Some of you may remember the PvPEC hosting these casual events called Lethal Lotteries. Some of you don't. This event will take place on the Indomitable server, but is obviously open to players from any server. The event will take place on Sunday, June 2nd at 6PM EST. Players of all experience levels, including zero, should feel more than welcome to come out and play. The pros of this format are: 1. It's not too serious. 2. You get to meet and play with new people. 3. You don't need a team to sign up. 4. If teams are unbalanced, you're not stuck on that team for the whole night. 5. Ey baby there's gonna be prizes FORMAT: It's pretty simple. You sign up on one character, and then you play a series of 5 2v2 matches, each match with a different random partner. The eight players with the best win/loss record after 5 matches will then be randomly paired up and play each other in a single elimination mini-bracket until one team triumphs over the other three. PRIZES: Everyone who shows up and plays will be entered into a raffle for a chance to win 200 reward merits. 100 reward merits for each of the eight finalists. 300 reward merits for each player on the second place team 500 reward merits for each player on the winning team Note: you cannot win the raffle if you win first or second place. Gotta share that love, baby. MATCH SETTINGS: -10 minutes -Small inspirations only -Travel suppression off -Heal decay off -Map will be announced before the start of each round, and determined by me using a randomizer, lol. MATCH RULES: -Minimum character level of 47 -Alpha incarnate slot only. All other incarnates will be disallowed, and discovery of any usage will result in a forfeit (I don't have enough people to moderate every game, so this is mostly up to honor system). -no "barcode" names. For those not aware, this means you can't rename your character to have a name that looks near identical to your teammate's with the intent of making it impossible for your opponent to distinguish you from one another during the game. Determining if names violate this rule will be at the event organizer's (me) discretion. Don't overthink it - if you aren't intentionally trying to cheese you have nothing to worry about. -"Sudden Death" round does not count. If the scores are even at the end of ten minutes, ties will be resolved via ski race. If there are an odd number of people during the preliminary round, the odd man out/odd team out will get a bye that round, which will count as a win. If there are three people and all we need is a fourth to start a match, the odd man out will have me as their partner. Use this thread to sign up. Please post your global handle, and the AT/build of the character you are bringing. You can change your character choice at any time until registration closes on the day of the event.