Recluse's Victory and incarnate powers

[macskull]

I've been approached by @Faultline about some potential adjustments re: zone PvP and incarnate powers. The initial suggestion floated was creating a new zone, capped at level 44, so that players could still keep all their powers but incarnate powers would be out of level range. Initial feedback on the PvP Discord pointed out that the majority of players there at least would simply prefer incarnate powers to be disabled in RV because most players already build for level 50 PvP and would not want to make a second build or spend crazy amounts of inf on boosters.

 

That being said, I'm posting this thread to gauge wider feedback from the community. I've been told disabling incarnate powers is not terribly difficult from a code standpoint but the devs wanted a reassurance that such a change wouldn't be met with a dozens-of-pages-long feedback thread complaining about the change, so I'm offering this one up to the community.

Edited October 30, 2020 by macskull

[Waypoint]

Make a clone, rename it Recluse's Conquest.

Alternatively, clone Siren's Call & Warburg (better and more unique maps), bump them to level 50 with non-alpha incarnates disabled. Rename them to Siren's Order & War Isle. 🙂

[reib]

Close RV and open a new Level 50 Alpha-Only PvP zone. 

Some fresh air without split the (not enormous) population.

I voted Alpha-Only RV.

Disable all temp. Powers in PvP zones.

Edited October 30, 2020 by reib

[Silent Method2]

Other mechanics to consider beyond disabling the Incarnate grind, either in RV or in a hypothetical cloned version of it (either of which would probably be fine):

 

- adding ability to switch sides relatively easily

- whether high tier inspirations should be enabled (as the game wasn't really balanced around leaving and restocking with a full tray every minute)

- whether NPCs should exist (or at least, NPCs that use PvE mezzes and webs)

- whether emotes should be enabled (disabling would remove emote-style animation canceling)

- whether certain temps (Jump Packs in particular) should be enabled

- removal of base TP if that still exists in any form

 

Removal of some of these mechanics would steer the game more toward Arena-style combat, at least for one open-fire zone.

[Troo]

@Faultline feeding the junkies what they 'need'.

 

New zone:

An easy option could be re-purposing BB.

Alternately, since we are talking god like levels.. maybe one of the encounter maps for Rularuu the Ravager at the center of a larger area?

 

I continue to feel folks earned Alpha, it only effects themselves and it does help folks fill out a build BUT it maybe too much of a differentiator from those that don't have it for PVP.

( I still voted #3 )

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Troo

[M3z]

-Alpha only (the other incarnates add nothing to the game, barrier incarnate adds nothing to the game)

-Remove jump packs (only increases blaster/corr/def dominance of the zone due to lack of slows/cc/actual mezes that last longer than a couple seconds etc) Also continues to incentives passive playstyles which given the lack of slows/ccs makes it impossible to fight these people. 

-Disable all insps that are not tier 1 (this option already exists in arena so maybe that effect can be transfered over?)

-Remove all NPC's or severely nerf arachnos, there is a huge disparity in power between arachnos/longbow, Arachnos stun/hold for 4-6 seconds (I think they use PVE values), but the biggest issue NPC's create is they make MMs unplayable in the zone. This isn't a matter of "position yourself better" or "just avoid the NPCs", it's just unplayable in a game that demands high amount of movement(enemies hide in mobs, or you chase and pets aggro a mob). If you are a MM and you play on hero side (against arachnos) the boss level spiders AOE one shot your pets.

 

Basically everything @Silent Method2was saying, if anyone wants me to elaborate on why all incarnates except alpha should be removed from zone I can.

 

[Troo]

3 minutes ago, M3z said:

severely nerf arachnos

wasn't that the penalty for being a lowly hero?

[Xanatos]

@macskull @Faultline

 

+1 for making Recluse's Victory alpha-only. There's a reason all PVP tournaments do this: it's balanced.

 

Vast majority of PVPers will adore this. A small handful might not. (But they will be the 0 posts, single-run-on-paragraph, never-posts-again types.) You won't get a 500+ page epic with people arguing back and fourth. There simply aren't enough zone PVPers to fuel the flames of such a thread.

 

I'd avoid adding a level 44 zone. You'll just end up splitting an already small sub community (zoners) of a small community (pvpers). You want them all in one place IMO. Removing all incarnates except alpha is a better approach IMO.

 

Also, if you're looking to do more than just this, @Silent Method2 and @M3z's suggestions are on the money.

[Hot2]

Non-alpha incarnates have RUINED zone pvp. I barely go into zone because of all the ridiculous incan, barrier and other nonsense.

 

Please remove them ASAP.

[Mallex]

The most oppressive and problematic strategies in Zone PvP (excluding the pending Base TP fix) are....
 

- Incan Destiny + Large greens = Full heal inspiration pops

- Jump Pack + Steam Jump = 100% uptime of jumping anywhere

- Ethereal Shift = A phase shift that ignores NoPhase

 

These can fixed in the current PvP zones or a new PvP zone by adding the following:

kDisable_Temp

kArena

kDisable_Inspiration_Medium

kDisable_Inspiration_Large

kDisable_Inspiration_Special

 

This will disable:

- All temporary powers except those which work in the Arena (which are balance for PvP); no more Jump Pack/Steam Jump or Ethereal Shift

- All inspirations except small inspirations

 

I'm not sure how to flag to disable all Incarnates except Alpha, but that would solve a lot of issues too (Barrier spam, Incan stacking etc.).

[macskull]

If you are going to disable non-arena temp powers in PvP zones I would consider adding a vendor to the zones that provides the same temp powers as the arena vendors, minus the inspirations (so you'd still have to at least zone to get inspirations).

[Alouu]

Regarding NPCs, I recalled there are these "neutral to player" ones you can find in Mercy Island:

 

 

You can see they are neutral to you by their target frame being yellow instead of orange. Their behaviour is that they do not attack the player unless they are first attacked. I wonder if this AI can be ported to the enemy faction NPCs in pvp zones, so for example if you are Blue-side in RV the Longbow would count as allies to you, but the Arachnos would count as neutral like this.

 

The benefit of this would be that they can go unchanged for whenever pvers want to do pve things in pvp zones, but at the same time not attack the pvpers overhead.

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Alouu

[Kencian]

I voted to keep Recluse’s Victory as is, but make a new level 50 zone with Incarnate powers disabled.

 

Since all of the Incarnate powers except for one are banned as part of the standard arena PvP ruleset, if you ban them from Recluse’s Victory, you’re effectively making Incarnate powers PvE-only features since there would be no practical PvP environment to use them in, and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

 

Judging from the responses here and elsewhere, most of the PvP arena regulars would naturally gravitate toward the Alpha-only PvP zone anyway. Those who enjoy non-Alpha Incarnate powers regularly or have a day where they want to feel extra powerful for giggles can go to Recluse’s Victory. For those who enjoy in-game stories, you could even add some lore reason why the other 50 PvP zone doesn’t allow the additional Incarnate powers.

 

Essentially, having two different high-levels zones gives people a choice as to how they want to play.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Kencian

[Glacier Peak]

I voted to disable all incarnates, but I also support Alpha-only access as well. RV is such a unique zone thematically - I recently spent a great deal of time doing PvE content in the zone, (badges, xp grinding) and it was enjoyable. BUT! The moment an enemy player shows up, that's when I get to enjoy the zone  the most. You are fighting for control of the future, what's not to like! Subjectivity aside, I wholly support the opportunity to improve the zone with these suggestions, and I hope the results of this thread are both easy to implement by our volunteer devs and are built on a consensus from the community (particularly those who PvP here often). Great thread @macskull!

[Hot2]

2 hours ago, Kencian said:

I voted to keep Recluse’s Victory as is, but make a new level 50 zone with Incarnate powers disabled.

 

Since all of the Incarnate powers except for one are banned as part of the standard arena PvP ruleset, if you ban them from Recluse’s Victory, you’re effectively making Incarnate powers PvE-only features since there would be no practical PvP environment to use them in, and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

 

Judging from the responses here and elsewhere, most of the PvP arena regulars would naturally gravitate toward the Alpha-only PvP zone anyway. Those who enjoy non-Alpha Incarnate powers regularly or have a day where they want to feel extra powerful for giggles can go to Recluse’s Victory. For those who enjoy in-game stories, you could even add some lore reason why the other 50 PvP zone doesn’t allow the additional Incarnate powers.

 

Essentially, having two different high-levels zones gives people a choice as to how they want to play.

I disagree with this.

 

Incarnates have essentially ruined the game. PvE was already too easy, incarnates just made it worse. They were an unnecessary addition to the game, that should’ve only been used in certain post-50 content, PvP not being one of them.

 

I think if anything, return the RV that we all know and loved. Then, if you want, make another post-50 only zone with incarnates enabled. You guys can call it “Incarnate’s Victory” or something.

[macskull]

7 hours ago, Kencian said:

I voted to keep Recluse’s Victory as is, but make a new level 50 zone with Incarnate powers disabled.

 

Since all of the Incarnate powers except for one are banned as part of the standard arena PvP ruleset, if you ban them from Recluse’s Victory, you’re effectively making Incarnate powers PvE-only features since there would be no practical PvP environment to use them in, and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

 

Judging from the responses here and elsewhere, most of the PvP arena regulars would naturally gravitate toward the Alpha-only PvP zone anyway. Those who enjoy non-Alpha Incarnate powers regularly or have a day where they want to feel extra powerful for giggles can go to Recluse’s Victory. For those who enjoy in-game stories, you could even add some lore reason why the other 50 PvP zone doesn’t allow the additional Incarnate powers.

 

Essentially, having two different high-levels zones gives people a choice as to how they want to play.

I think the "leave everything alone, let the people that want it have an anything-goes zone" argument was why these sorts of changes weren't implemented before Homecoming's release when the game was still "secret" (at least that is my understanding of it). Given the time that's passed and how PvP in Recluse's Victory tends to go, it seems obvious in hindsight that maybe that wasn't the best idea. Most PvPers avoid RV because of balance issues. At this point, if two players really want to get into a knock-down drag-out fight where anything goes, the arena will be the place to cater to that. Yeah, it's backwards of how it was, and zone PvP will still have its issues, but I feel like the experience will be a lot less frustrating for most players involved.

 

A second high-level "anything goes" zone would be cool at least at face value but my fear is that it would further divide the existing zone PvP population, which isn't too big to begin with (though these changes should help!).

[Phoenix']

24 hours and only 50 people voted ???

[barrier]

My two cents as someone who has a couple of fully incarn'd blasters and corruptors and who used to play a ton in RV:

 

1. Incarnates, when they weren't so widespread, used to level the playing field for some builds that would have not been otherwise viable, but this rested on the fact that you were likely to have incarnates on said-build and your opponent did not. Prior to PPM, I used to run around on a fire/cold corruptor in RV that was perfectly serviceable because of interface and incandescence (a nice way to get around heal decay). That character is no longer viable in zone because of widespread use of incarnates. Though PPM was a relative buff to it, incarnates make the character useless against most properly built toons with full t4's. Removing every incarnate other than alpha is preferable to the current situation for those off-meta toons. PPM then actually brings in less-than-optimal builds closer to optimal builds.

 

2. Incarnates are a huge barrier to entry. I don't think I've actually seen an alpha-only toon that can consistently manage something like my fire/plant, fire/ta blaster or fire/poison corr. All of these characters are outfitted with t4 alpha, degen, assault, incan and pyro. My fire/poison can actually 3-shot most 1606's if the heel proc goes off and I'm running assault hybrid. It is not a fair setup vs. anyone remotely new and it means that a lot of people who are just wanting to test out their new level 50's (even if fully io'd and accoladed) are finding themselves completely outmatched only because I took the time to properly understand PPM and spent a bunch of time getting incarnates (this solely by virtue of the fact that these incarn'd characters are the ones I use to run content during WST's and the likes - I barely PVE at this point). It is not a good thing to be able to three-shot a 1606 when 1606's are clearly underrepresented in the RV meta which is basically blasters, scrappers, brutes and tanks.

 

3. Alpha helps offset some of the more annoying aspects of PVP's diminishing returns system. A build with alpha generally looks and feels a lot more like a PVE build than one without. That's why I think it merits a special status among other incarnates.

 

4. I would love it if RV disabled all incarnates other than Alpha. Zone PVP would then look at lot more like the self-policed matches we do in the arena. That is a good thing for both zone and arena PVP.  It provides a degree of uniformity that would likely help bring in new blood into the arena scene. That's generally not something that I like to lobby for - changes should be tailored to actual players not imaginary archetypes - but this is one change that got an overwhelmingly positive response in the PVP discord.

[Konflict]

@Faultline 

 

if there is a new pvp zone it should be Echo Faultline xD

 

with some sort of objectives like SC & RV with no diminishing returns please

[Konflict]

TBH I think it would be better with NO incarnates and have a pre i13 style pvp

[macskull]

37 minutes ago, Konflict said:

@Faultline 

 

if there is a new pvp zone it should be Echo Faultline xD

 

with some sort of objectives like SC & RV with no diminishing returns please

Echo Faultline was floated as a potential map/zone but the geometry in that map would make things... challenging. Those crevasses would be a nightmare. I also don't think turning DR off is a solution that will solve any problems. Post-I13 PvP in this game before they added options for no DR/TS/HD in the arena was some of the worst PvP I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

36 minutes ago, Konflict said:

TBH I think it would be better with NO incarnates and have a pre i13 style pvp

Because of the way the I13 changes are coded, it would be an all-or-nothing change. One thing people also seem to forget is the game has changed so much since December 2008, even if you just flipped a switch and went back to the old system it wouldn't be the same game anymore.

[RavenFrost]

I think the most fair is definitely leave RV as is and make a separate zone with alpha only.   As much as I personally think incarnates kind of break certain stuff in PvP, those who enjoy it should be allowed to play what they want.   

 

The issue I think would be is there enough population to justify splitting the zones? If people want to take the time to though, by all means anything that lets more people enjoy stuff is a positive change. 

[asclepius]

I voted for make a separate zone for lvl 50 with only the alpha incarnate power activated.

 

Reading everything above it seems that the PvP-community cares very much about having the higher incarnate powers disabled. Hence I do not think it would divide the community because they find it very important. 

 

This way there will be the Recluse Victory we know as is and a Recluse Victory for balanced PvP.

Edited October 31, 2020 by asclepius

[barrier]

I don't think there are enough people to properly split the zone into two without destroying RV.

[EmperorSteele]

16 hours ago, Phoenix' said:

24 hours and only 50 people voted ???

I think 50 is the total PvP population...

I kid, but seriously, it's nothing to be surprised about.