What I think the major flaw of this game always was....

[macskull]

2 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

So Mac, you're going with the idea that City was designed with open-world factional PvP from the very start... Interesting.

I'm not sure how you got that from my post but that was 100% not what I said. I was addressing the (incorrect) statement that this game's PvP was "shoehorned" in.

Edited October 3, 2020 by macskull

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

I'm not sure how you got that from my post but that was 100% not what I said. I was addressing the (incorrect) statement that this game's PvP was "shoehorned" in.

 

It read to me like you were saying the whole open-world/PvP-centric thing that keeps coming up, like in the first post pf this thread, wouldn't be "shoehorned in" because it was planned for. Sorry if that's not what you meant. 

[macskull]

I don't know to what extent PvP was planned for in this game but I'm pretty certain open-world PvP was never on the table. At any rate it wouldn't be possible today with the way the game handles PvE/PvP powers differences.

Edited October 3, 2020 by macskull

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

I don't know to what extent PvP was planned for in this game but I'm pretty certain open-world PvP was never on the table. At any rate it wouldn't be possible today with the way the game handles PvE/PvP powers differences.

True that.

 

And you'd probably have an army of angry PvE carebears coming after the people who coded that with torches and pitchforks! 🤣

[macskull]

Basically... I'm not really in favor of any changes that further dilute the game's PvP population. Open-world on-demand PvP a la Champions Online might be cool but outside of the arena it's difficult to find consistent PvP anywhere that isn't RV on Indomitable and making more zones PvP-accessible would either mean the small existing population would spread out, or the new PvP functionality would simply go unused.

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Krzbrg1 said:

If you are against it, present more acceptable versions for pvp in this game.

People can be against something and state it without having to present alternatives.

 

After all, for some people (not me,) an "acceptable version" of PVP would be "remove it entirely."

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Krzbrg1 said:

Hm....seems like almost everyone bites into my "once per week all areas open for pvp", ignoring the other "make it a rare sg raid event with preparations" and treat it like I adamantly want the game to be like that.

 

You're proposing PvP activity which affects PvE activity.  That's what the first half of your post was about.  It doesn't matter if it's a "rare SG raid event" or a weekly event, it's still PvP affecting PvE activity.  The majority of people do not want that.  People don't want to take one day off every week because they don't want to participate in open-world PvP and don't want to grind lowbie levels on alts.  People don't want the street sweeping missions in numerous story arcs made more tedious or annoying because an SG raid wiped out all of what they had to hunt, or buffed the critters, or forced them to go hunt for them in an area where they couldn't find anything within their level range.

 

It has nothing to do with what you think people read or misread.  The heart of the suggestion, adding PvP to the PvE game, isn't new, even if your take on it might be, and the "No, thank you" sentiment from most people isn't going to change because you say "It's just once in a while!".

 

Search.  Read.  Learn.

[Krzbrg1]

Oh wow...nice. I am out of the thread.

 

Was a bad idea.

 

[I Chaos Games]

Honestly PVP mostly ends up just as a generic combat system. The question is if you have elaborate crimes for bad guys to commit with good guys trying to stop them ... it would be very difficult to get them to connect. You could create an instance perhaps where people join kind of like the Arenas. But generally speaking it would be awkard to get people to connect over all. It might be fine for a side thing.
Also the problem with a lot of modern "sandbox games" which is what it would end up being like ... is there is not a lot of content. After a short time it feels like chores more than a game.
For actual role playing you pretty much always have to do that yourself. There are no games currently where you are doing a whole lot of role playing by game mechanic unless you bring that yourself. That is one of the failings with online so called RPGs ... they are not really role playing games. Especially when you played a variety of actual table top role playing games.

 

Edited October 3, 2020 by SorinaGarrigus

[Riverdusk]

56 minutes ago, Greycat said:

People can be against something and state it without having to present alternatives.

 

After all, for some people (not me,) an "acceptable version" of PVP would be "remove it entirely."

I wouldn't necessarily be for "remove it entirely" either, but I'd certainly be in the camp of "don't waste anymore time on it"  That'd be my "alternative".

[LiquidBandage]

1 hour ago, macskull said:

How can you shoehorn something into a system that was designed with that thing in mind from the very beginning? I am curious to hear your logic here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Heroes

 

PvP didn't exist in the game for almost a year. A huge portion of the player base only ever experienced the CoX game as a blue. You had to buy the expansion to be able to play a villain. There were a good number of nerfs to powers in the name of pvp balance in that same timeframe. The fact that you could play as a blue or a red and still never experience pvp because you had to essentially opt-in by participating in Arena or step into specially designated zones to pvp. That looks a lot like pvp being shoehorned into a game. 

 

If PvP was integrated into the game design from the very beginning, proper implementation would have done a couple things. (1) Provide some in game lore/hints for discoverability so the transition isn't a hard switch that gets thrown where one day there is nothing then the next there is this whole other world. (2) Heroes can't operate as heroes in villain zones, Villains can't operate as villains in hero zones. For a long time you were a villain or a hero, no switching. Your sphere of influence only touches half of the game world at any one time (that seems like a bad design). If you fracture your player base like that, it makes teaming up that much harder. Think about how difficult it can be to put together a full Strike Force team. (3) In their own mind, people tend to want to be the hero and "heroes" are the blues (determined by the system). Supers can have disagreements from time to time (and maybe fight it out in the Arena), but if you want to duke it out with another player they have to be a villain (something that had was determined at character creation) otherwise there is no course of action to be taken.

 

Anecdotally, look at the design maturity of the CoV zones and mission arcs compared to the original vanilla CoH zones & missions. The CoV counterparts are higher in quality, meaning they weren't designed in tandem. Also, look at how co-op content was introduced to the game. They made it easier for both factions to participate cooperatively to achieve a common goal. That does not sound very pvp-centric. The closest it comes is if you see an AT do something cool and it inspired you to make a villain. 

 

I'm curious to hear how you can back up the standpoint that pvp was a core design element of the game from the beginning.

[macskull]

1 hour ago, Riverdusk said:

I wouldn't necessarily be for "remove it entirely" either, but I'd certainly be in the camp of "don't waste anymore time on it"  That'd be my "alternative".

It's not wasted time if it makes that part of the game more enjoyable for those who do participate in it, even if that number is small.

52 minutes ago, LiquidBandage said:

snip

Okay, where do I start here? I guess I'll make a list.

1. Just because something was not in the game at launch does not mean it was not a feature the game was intended to have. See also: supergroup bases. Did you know that if you didn't purchase City of Villains you couldn't use SG bases at all until CoH and CoV were merged - more than four years after the game launched?
2. In the entirety of this game's history there has only been one power - one - that has been nerfed in PvE solely for PvP reasons. Do you know what that power is? Probably not, that's how obscure a nerf it was. Every other nerf that the playerbase has blamed on PvPers has had just as much a foundation in PvE, if not more.
3. PvP was always going to be opt-in. The way it was handled could have been better but having the arenas and later PvP zones worked fine. Players weren't forced to engage in PvP if they didn't want to (granted, initially there were liason contacts inside PvP zones that blocked progress from the rest of your contacts until you talked to them, but that got changed pretty quickly).
4. I'm not sure what your second paragraph is - or your third, for that matter - except a bunch of roleplay justification for why you think PvP is bad. That being said, Warburg has always been a free-for-all zone where anyone from any faction can attack anyone not on their team. If you want to fight someone of the same faction Warburg is an option, or simply join an arena match. There's no requirement for hero vs villain, except in Bloody Bay/Siren's Call/Recluse's Victory.
5. At no point did I ever say PvP was a core design element of the game, or that it was ever going to be. What I did say was that PvP was always an intended game mode for this game. Source? An early alpha gameplay demonstration where the demonstrator discussed the three planned game modes, which were missions, hazard zones, and the arena. Check around the 8:00 mark in the linked video if you're curious.

Edited October 4, 2020 by macskull

[RikOz]

15 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

You're going go find that suggestions which imply that PvP activity would have a direct impact on PvE activity historically gain no traction.

Even in WoW, this is true. There are few things that generate more umbrage on the message boards over there than sticking PvP into PvE content. Tons of people, myself included, have absolutely no interest in PvP (maybe if I was much younger, but at my age I have no interest in trying to keep up with twitch-gaming teenagers), or having PvP disrupt our PvE in any way.

[wolfshadow31]

I can’t say much about your post other than the ideas expressed make it sound like a game I would never play. 

[Myrmidon]

7 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

I wouldn't necessarily be for "remove it entirely" either, but I'd certainly be in the camp of "don't waste anymore time on it"  That'd be my "alternative".

If the Devs are going to both continue to develop the game and keep PvP active, they have to balance for both (particularly if abilities function differently between the two platforms).

[RageusQuitus2]

18 hours ago, Luminara said:

Obviously, any of the above groups, locations, or MacGuffin can be changed. 

Leave my MacGuffin just the way it is please.  so sick and tires of defending the current MacGuffin system.  Some players would ruin it by posting ideas and discussing tweaks for or against MacGuffin.  Some get angry and explain if you change MacGuffin they will leave, and that they represent the vast majority.  MacGuffin is perfect (well other than the name, id change it to McGuffin).

 

Fyi i like the idea of adding objective based pvp.  How about we replace the tutorial with a two men (or women) enter one man (or woman) leaves setup.  And make the tutorial mandatory. And have new accounts face off against established pvper accounts.  That way existing playerbase can kick some non pvper arse.  Maybe even give tutorial temp powers and pvp enhancement drops for accounts with certain pvp badges.

 

The vast majority has signed off on this post.  To the devs in my best picard, "make it so".

[Grouchybeast]

12 hours ago, macskull said:

1. In the entirety of this game's history there has only been one power - one - that has been nerfed in PvE solely for PvP reasons. Do you know what that power is?

It's Hurricane.

[Darmian]

1 hour ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

How about we replace the tutorial with a two men (or women) enter one man (or woman) leaves setup.  And make the tutorial mandatory. And have new accounts face off against established pvper accounts.  That way existing playerbase can kick some non pvper arse.  Maybe even give tutorial temp powers and pvp enhancement drops for accounts with certain pvp badges.

 

The vast majority has signed off on this post.  To the devs in my best picard, "make it so".

You forgot the sarcasm emote.

[HelBlaiz]

The asynchronous pvp idea does have some merit, I think. Say every time a player completes a bank mission, they contribute to a communal meter for their side (with side objectives adding extra progress). When the meter fills, it triggers a Rikti raid on the opposing side. If the devs were interested in designing new world events (Arachnos attacks Paragon, Longbow attacks the Isles) that would be far better thematically. People often like those world events and band together to fight them all the time. There would probably need to be a lockout timer, though, so even if people are zerg rushing bank missions, there's only a couple events a day. Too much more would get tedious I imagine.

Edited October 4, 2020 by HelBlaiz
autocorrect stahp

[FoulVileTerror]

It's also an opportunity for new types of content, potentially.  

Say, perhaps, that if the Redside Bar gets filled, then it unlocks a Mayhem Trial for a little while.  And if the Mayhem Trial gets completed, that in turn unlocks a Safeguard Trial populated with NPC-Dopples of all the Villains who participated in the Mayhem Trial.

Not real PvP, but a way for player Heroes and player Villains to interact with one another in an environment which respects PvE rules and consistency.

[RageusQuitus2]

16 hours ago, Luminara said:

The majority of people do not want that.

Sorry I was voted in as speaker for the vast majority not you.  The job is filled, and it I work at it tirelessly.  One day you might achieve the hive mind necessary to read all players thoughts and desires, imagine all possibilities (like I have).  Till then you speak for yourself and yourself alone.  

[tidge]

A hard "no" from me on MOAR PVP.

 

I certainly like the idea of having the option of facing more variety of "Elite Bosses/AV" that are tricked out like players (*1), there is no need to add the possibility of griefing other players in most of the world.

 

(*1) One of the benefits of playing Redside is (IMO) that you get to face the named heroes of Paragon City in regular arcs.

[Twisted Toon]

15 hours ago, macskull said:

1. Just because something was not in the game at launch does not mean it was not a feature the game was intended to have. See also: supergroup bases. Did you know that if you didn't purchase City of Villains you couldn't use SG bases at all until CoH and CoV were merged - more than four years after the game launched?

Intending to have something in a game, and planning to have something in a game, are two separate things.

They might have intended to have PvP in the game.

But, they didn't plan for it when they released the game in 2004.

Otherwise, PvP would, most likely, have been introduced in a more seamless manner.

And, CoV would probably have been released along side CoH in 2004, instead of three years later.

[Darmian]

1 hour ago, FoulVileTerror said:

It's also an opportunity for new types of content, potentially.  

Say, perhaps, that if the Redside Bar gets filled, then it unlocks a Mayhem Trial for a little while.  And if the Mayhem Trial gets completed, that in turn unlocks a Safeguard Trial populated with NPC-Dopples of all the Villains who participated in the Mayhem Trial.

Not real PvP, but a way for player Heroes and player Villains to interact with one another in an environment which respects PvE rules and consistency.

Doppels of all the villains who participated?  That I would love to see.  Though if you have an 8 member MM team of villains versus...ha! GANGWAR!

[HelBlaiz]

The eight man gang war dream. Shame doppels don't get burnout.