How could we get you to try

[RageusQuitus2]

Considering the stigma pvp has, how could we get some of the anti crowd to try it? 

 

My preference is zone play.  I know the arena crowd has tried super hard to get more involvement.

 

Just curious what might make someone try it.

[FoulVileTerror]

Make it accessible and non-punishing.

Soooo . . . not a whole lot, regrettably.   We'd need a whole additional overhaul, and it would have to be VERY CAREFULLY done this time . . . with involvement from the whole community every step of the way, rather than organized behind closed doors and then revealed to overwhelming disappointment.

[EmmySky]

My biggest issue with PvP is that I know I need to do certain things build wise but those are super secret and I am not allowed to know the things.  People start spouting info and forget I am an idiot.  Its like they are speaking a different language.  And if you ask for explanation, they get huffy, like its obvious. 

 

Also I have heard tell discord is required.  I read discord on my smoke breaks but since my computer and discord dont get along I cannot use it while gaming.  (Phone with discord is plugged in on other side of room while playing on computer.)

[MTeague]

Change things about the zone as one side takes control. 

Similar to Recluse's Victory, or some WoW Battlegrounds.

[RageusQuitus2]

24 minutes ago, FoulVileTerror said:

Make it accessible and non-punishing.

Whats punishing?  Curious cause for example in diablo hardcore pvp you lost your toon forever and all the time invested.  In coh you respawn.  Maybe get taunted in /b by some ahole (but thats very very very rare, and often just sarcasm/teasing).

[RageusQuitus2]

23 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

My biggest issue with PvP is that I know I need to do certain things build wise but those are super secret and I am not allowed to know the things.  People start spouting info and forget I am an idiot.  Its like they are speaking a different language.  And if you ask for explanation, they get huffy, like its obvious. 

 

Also I have heard tell discord is required.  I read discord on my smoke breaks but since my computer and discord dont get along I cannot use it while gaming.  (Phone with discord is plugged in on other side of room while playing on computer.)

I guarantee that people like tehartic (who i spent time on discord with) and many others would bend over backwards (literally in artics case cause i hear he is flexible 😁) to help.

[RageusQuitus2]

For me the biggest barrier is infamy/io's.  It takes time to craft a build on mids and purchase io's for pvp to play the "sub game" that is pvp.  As an old man i have to choose pvp or pve often times.  And usually end up with a blended mess of a build.

[FoulVileTerror]

While being defeated in this game is not as grave as it is in other games, nor is it as encouraging/moralizing as it could be either . . . I meant punishing in regard to the learning curve and making mistakes.

While the perspective of PvP players themselves are important, if you want to attract non-PvPers, you'll have to take a look at things from their point of view.  Compared to the rest of City of Heroes, where "mistakes" are almost impossible to make, the PvP in City of Heroes is not anywhere nearly as forgiving.  There are clear choices which lead to functional builds, and all the other choices which a player makes are, essentially, Wrong.

 

It's night and day for the average player here.  In PvE, where the game's accessibility is quite remarkable (at least by the standards of a 2004 MMO), a player can select any power and still be reasonably expected to be able to make their way through the play experience without overwhelming defeat.   It's also a fairly gradual learning curve, assuming they're not getting Power Levelled to 50, of course.

Meanwhile, in PvP; the options are twofold:  

Do it yourself, which is painful and frustrating because you have to experiment in an environment where there are absolutely merciless assholes who are "just playing the game the way it's made."   (And, I know this is a touchy subject; but I'm not saying everyone who PvPs is an asshole.  I'm just saying that existing assholes gravitate toward PvP because it provides an outlet for them to BE assholes.)

or

You have to learn from existing PvPers, which is painful and frustrating because . . . blessed be those of you who try your damnedest to encourage regular players . . . you're quite frequently PvPers foremost, and you love PvP (and that is 100% okay!), but the people you are trying to teach -aren't- . . . and the divide can be so severe that it just becomes not at all worth it for the non-PvPer to bother trying to bridge that gap.

 

This game is amazing, and it has a lot to offer.

But if we want PvP to appeal to the same kinds of players who the majority of the game appeals to already, then PvP is going to have to change to more closely resemble the game those non-PvPers engage in on a day to day basis.

 

This is, at least, my personal take on the matter.  I have to admit, I'm not a competitive person . . . but as a professional in the games industry, I've had to try to learn to think like PvPers.   It's not easy for me.

But . . . there you have it.  The perspective of someone who is an outsider looking in, but as at least had the experience of being forced to learn a thing or two about "the other side" for career purposes.

My way isn't necessarily the only way to solve this problem, but I hope it at least helps move the dialogue forward to a clear resolution and mutually beneficial solution.

[nightroarer]

For me, you can't. Tried it, didn't like it--regardless of how well I did. Some of it was personalities, but mostly I like to do my own thing, and I enjoy playing story content more. I have nothing against pvp or pvpers (i.e., I'm not anti-pvp), I just don't enjoy it myself.

[macskull]

2 hours ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

Considering the stigma pvp has, how could we get some of the anti crowd to try it? 

 

My preference is zone play.  I know the arena crowd has tried super hard to get more involvement.

 

Just curious what might make someone try it.

The arena crowd has been pretty good about getting involvement going. There are 4 active "competitive" teams right now and 3-4 more "starter" teams full of players that are newer to PvP and want to learn. Attendance at the beginner-friendly PvP events has been pretty good.

 

Zone, on the other hand... obviously the only zone with any regular activity is Recluse's Victory on Indomitable (and very rarely on other servers, usually when a team wanders in for badges). The arena community has been self-policing pretty heavily in terms of regulating or banning powers in the interest of balance and fun - for example the 8v8 "rules" right now are Alpha only, limit of 3 of any AT per team, one Poison per team, and most teams have agreed to not use 4-second-base-duration mezzes. This results in a more balanced and competitive environment than the "anything goes" environment of zone PvP.

 

The unfortunate reality is that because this game is so easy and so casual-friendly it tends to attract the type of player who is not at all competitive and therefore is not at all interested in PvP. Sure, there are some who are interested in PvP, but here's how that plays out. Those players' first experience with PvP is probably going to be in a PvP zone where the sides aren't balanced to begin with and they're going to be going up against either a bunch of melee characters with T4 Barrier and the base TP macro or a bunch of Blasters with T4 Incandescence, a tray of T3 greens that heal for like 1500HP each, the base TP macro, and a team of support buffers sitting in their spawn waiting to recall them back to the base if they get so much as looked at funny. To top it all off, the players that tend to frequent the PvP zones while ignoring the other aspects of PvP tend to be some of the worst PvPers in the game, not only in skill level, but also in their ability to interact with people in general. So now these new players have all this going against them, and they're either going to decide within the first five minutes that PvP sucks and all PvPers are assholes without bothering to figure out why they're getting beat up, or they're going to to ask why, ask questions, and get better. That second type of player is pretty rare.

 

EDIT: Realistically, to get more people interested in PvP, the mechanics need to make more sense and there need to be more tangible and meaningful rewards. PvP recipes dropping from NPCs kind of killed the rewards bit, but the mechanics bit might be fixable. It'd just take a lot of work.

Edited September 12, 2020 by macskull

[nightroarer]

39 minutes ago, macskull said:

...the type of player who is not at all competitive and therefore is not at all interested in PvP.

And there are those us who are competitive but still don't enjoy PvP. Put me at a board game, CCG/TCG, or, in times past when I was young and athletic, on the baseball field or football (American) field, and I am/was fiercely competitive. But PvP in an MMO has just never appealed to me. It's just not my cup of tea (okay, my tea is usually in a glass, because I like it cold).

 

But that is one of the great things about games like CoH; they allow for a variety of playstyles and offer so many different ways to have fun.

[Luminara]

What we refer to as PvP maps, aren't.  They're PvE maps, with PvE content and objectives, populated by PvE enemies, and the occasional concern/hope that an "enemy" player (or team) might amble by.  There's no PvP content.  There are no choke points to defend or take.  There are no objectives which send us into enemy bases.  There are no flags to capture.  It needs smaller, more focused maps, and objectives which require PvP interaction to succeed.

 

Having more to do with powers would also be a massive step in the right direction.  Using our characters to build defenses or tear them down.  Repairing or disabling a mobile transit to deliver an objective to a location.  Having to power up something.  Preventing a helicopter or flyer from taking off, or ensuring that it does.  None of this exists.  It's all been possible from the beginning, but all we really have is dueling and ganking.

 

And teaming shouldn't be optional to engage in PvP content.  I say that as someone with social anxiety disorder, and someone who can only play when nearly everyone else is asleep (thanks again, Verizon).  Interacting with people in any game makes my hands shake, and I still believe this, firmly.  Multi-player PvP allows for more complex and compelling objectives, more interesting and varied map design and a better overall experience for the participants.

 

Finally, there aren't actually any reasons, beyond a few badges, to engage in PvP, especially now that PvP recipes are widely available.  The rewards are participation trophies, the exploration badges easily obtained even if there are players standing right on them, ready to slaughter anyone who approaches, and the temp powers aren't impressive enough to warrant fighting to acquire them.

 

As it stands, right now, PvP in Co* is less advanced and sophisticated than what can be had from games a decade older than CoH was when it went live.  It barely exists at all here, and what does pass for PvP is neither attractive nor enjoyable to me.  When, or if, it's improved, I'll be in line to check it out.  Until then, I'll pass.

[nightroarer]

All good points, Luminara. That sound far more interesting than just dueling or ganking. Still not sure it would be enough to pull me in personally, but it could make it more tantalizing to more players in general.

[Sir Myshkin]

Make every zone PvP Capable. Flag all characters initially as PvE only. Give us a toggle to turn PvP on, and allow all alignments to freely roam all zones.

 

Add in an alignment system patch so that all players equally effect everyone unless on the same team, and if a player that is a Hero or Vig continously targets other Hero/Vig, they will be shifted into Rogue/Villain status, and a Villain that teams/supports Vig/Hero continously will slowly be "redeemed" by their actions.

 

Add destructible items throughout all zones.

[Heraclea]

I don't often PvP because my mains and most invested builds are melee characters.  I have never played a game where PvP is really fair or fun for melee characters, and CoH is no exception.  The armors you invested in are useless.  You get endlessly CCed.  In CoH being CCed also drops your toggles. And you get bursted to death from across the zone by characters you won't live long enough to get to, and who will scoot away if you get close. 

 

If there were something akin to cage matches in CoH PvP I might try them. 

[Giovanni Valia]

I play PvP occasionally, mostly with friends and have joined a few of the kickball events on Indom. I think the most restrictive thing for people who are interested is the amount of time and inf necessary to get started. Putting together a character with the right power-sets and then leveling that char to 50+1 solely for PvP is a bit of a turn off. It's also very disappointing when the builds you spend a good deal of time/ inf into are built "wrong", as a few of my friends have found out in arena.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Giovanni Valia
sp

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

Considering the stigma pvp has, how could we get some of the anti crowd to try it?

For some people that answer is just flat out "you can't." PVP wasn't in the game from the beginning, and they liked it that way. They just don't like PVP, period.

 

Different strokes. (And no, that answer does not apply to me. Used to enjoy it.)

[Machariel]

The biggest turnoff to PVP seems to be the perception that PVP is so different from PVE that even a pimped out PVE character is simply playing a different game and easy prey, so they get ganked instantly, and that's no fun.  Now, I don't know if that is accurate, nor do I think it's necessarily unjustified.  But it is pretty unforgiving which is jarring in a game that's as accessible as City of Heroes.

5 hours ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

Whats punishing?  Curious cause for example in diablo hardcore pvp you lost your toon forever and all the time invested.  In coh you respawn.  Maybe get taunted in /b by some ahole (but thats very very very rare, and often just sarcasm/teasing).

I used to play EVE and that had a pretty severe death penalty as far as games go... you lost your ship, about 1/2 of your ship's equipment and cargo (which could be stolen by anyone if they got to it first), plus if you also lost your escape pod you suffered additional losses and (for most of the game's life) even potentially some XP.  But that looks easy next to diablo hardcore since in EVE you could replace ships in bulk... not so in this case. 

 

I'd like to see additional, objective-based game modes for PVP.  A mixed PVE/PVP game mode, like Destiny 2's Gambit, might be interesting.  This is a game mode in which each team is racing to complete a PVE objective, in separate instances, but one player can "invade" the other team's instance for a limited time, a few times per game.  In Gambit you get I think 30 seconds or until you've eliminated the whole team.

 

Anyway this closes the gap between PVE and PVE a great deal.  The defending team always gets to defend 3v1 or 4v1, and it means that both teams need to be able to clear regular PVE content quickly if they want to win, so suddenly a lot of the things that only matter in PVE or only work in PVE (controls, anything in the format of xxxxx / time, etc) have at least some utility.

[RageusQuitus2]

5 hours ago, nightroarer said:

All good points, Luminara. That sound far more interesting than just dueling or ganking. Still not sure it would be enough to pull me in personally, but it could make it more tantalizing to more players in general.

Agreed I really like what luminara said. 

[RageusQuitus2]

2 hours ago, Machariel said:

but one player can "invade" the other team's instance for a limited time,

I always thought safeguards and mayhems would be fun if this was introduced as an optional mechanic.

[Lines]

To echo a lot of people, PvP would need to be less about fighting each other and more about completing wild objectives. Especially if they were designed in such a way that the side that gets the most kills isn't necessarily the side that wins. The objectives in the PvP zones on a much smaller, instanced scale is kinda broadly what I'm thinking. SWTOR's PvP when it wasn't just a 4v4 arena match was really fun to me and I feel like those sorts of game modes aren't out of the question in CoH, assuming development time was no object.

 

A big thing for me would be if the difference between a reasonably thought-out SO build and a decked out IO set build were minuscule. One player being numerically advantaged than another is a big switch off for me. It should be close enough that someone trying PvP for the first time can easily KO a hardened veteran with a bit of luck. I'd like to be able to jump in and feel like I'm making a contribution without having to know what I'm doing.

 

On the back of that, I'd want killing to be easy and dying to be really forgiving and neither have a significant impact on how the match comes out, so that the action just keeps going. I'm thinking like the pace of Unreal Tournament games.

[Outrider_01]

PVP release was based around PVE powers when it first came out, then things like Blaster unresisted damage, travel suppression (lol like it was that abusive in PVE) or toggle dropping implemented for balance "reasons".  They had to balance after the fact, instead some kind of idea before it was released; most PVP games have an objective of how they are going to implement competition from the beginning instead of the half ass attempt of "here is PVP zones, one is sub 25 with target bounties, 2nd with hero vs villian PVP, and last is freebies regardless of which side of the game you played".

[macskull]

4 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

PVP release was based around PVE powers when it first came out, then things like Blaster unresisted damage, travel suppression (lol like it was that abusive in PVE) or toggle dropping implemented for balance "reasons".  They had to balance after the fact, instead some kind of idea before it was released; most PVP games have an objective of how they are going to implement competition from the beginning instead of the half ass attempt of "here is PVP zones, one is sub 25 with target bounties, 2nd with hero vs villian PVP, and last is freebies regardless of which side of the game you played".

You know there were arenas before PvP zones, right? Constant balance tweaks and changes are the nature of the beast in any PvP environment because they mix things up and respond to combinations/powers that are too good.

 

Part of the problem is that PvEers will immediately jump into a PvP-related thread and blame PvP for nerfs or changes when in reality there's only been one power in the entire history of this game that's been nerfed solely for PvP reasons. I'd be willing to bet there's not more than one poster in this thread who knows what that power is.

 

4 hours ago, Lines said:

To echo a lot of people, PvP would need to be less about fighting each other and more about completing wild objectives. Especially if they were designed in such a way that the side that gets the most kills isn't necessarily the side that wins. The objectives in the PvP zones on a much smaller, instanced scale is kinda broadly what I'm thinking. SWTOR's PvP when it wasn't just a 4v4 arena match was really fun to me and I feel like those sorts of game modes aren't out of the question in CoH, assuming development time was no object.

 

A big thing for me would be if the difference between a reasonably thought-out SO build and a decked out IO set build were minuscule. One player being numerically advantaged than another is a big switch off for me. It should be close enough that someone trying PvP for the first time can easily KO a hardened veteran with a bit of luck. I'd like to be able to jump in and feel like I'm making a contribution without having to know what I'm doing.

 

On the back of that, I'd want killing to be easy and dying to be really forgiving and neither have a significant impact on how the match comes out, so that the action just keeps going. I'm thinking like the pace of Unreal Tournament games.

Objective-based PvP is something the PvP community has been asking for for a long time - and I think the Shivan temp power and Warburg nuke temp powers were the team's original attempt to make something like that happen. Like, you'd have a team going in to collect meteor samples, or escort scientists, and the other side's players would be trying to stop that so it would be up to your team to keep those players alive. As with pretty much everything else in this game the developers' vision ended up being nothing like what the players actually did.

 

I disagree with your second paragraph though, because that is exactly the sort of situation the Issue 13 PvP changes tried to create. The implementation of those changes ended up seriously lowering the skill ceiling while making PvP more confusing to new players since nothing worked like they were used to, and it seriously lessened the effectiveness of many support powersets. XP and inf are extremely easy to come by on Homecoming with a bit of effort so it's not really a stretch to be able to afford a PvP build on a character if that's something you're really interested in.

[Coyotedancer]

In my case? 

 

You can't. 

There's not one single thing you could do to get me to willing join PvP in this game. 

 

It's not that I "hate PvP" or anything like that... As I've said before, my 'other MMO' is Aion, where avoiding PvP isn't an option past a certain point. You either join in the bloody murder or you don't play the game.... It's just that as far as I can see PvP is a very poor fit for City of Heroes. This is an easy-as-cake, casual- and cooperative-focused game. Trying to make it more PvP-focused is like trying to turn a marshmallow into a cinderblock.   

[Lines]

18 minutes ago, macskull said:

I disagree with your second paragraph though, because that is exactly the sort of situation the Issue 13 PvP changes tried to create. The implementation of those changes ended up seriously lowering the skill ceiling while making PvP more confusing to new players since nothing worked like they were used to, and it seriously lessened the effectiveness of many support powersets. XP and inf are extremely easy to come by on Homecoming with a bit of effort so it's not really a stretch to be able to afford a PvP build on a character if that's something you're really interested in.

 

Hah, I predicted that you specifically would disagree with that specific paragraph.

 

But I do bow to your greater knowledge of PvP. I know very little about how PvP works in the game. I can't imagine we'd be able to get from where we are now to where I'd prefer it to get to without stepping on the toes of the existing PvP community way too much, let alone how much of a technical balancing act it would be, so it's not a change I'd expect by any stretch. But the need for an optimised build is what takes my interest away.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Lines