PvP Broken? Let us count the ways..

[Reiraku]

Sadly, it was an all too common thing to see on the forums. 

[Banana Man]

Part of the reason Indom has a lower population because it had a PVP connotation associated with it, sure. It doesn't really matter, except that it's a symptom of the PVP system being broken in the first place. Granted, if you "fixed" it, people wouldn't just flock to PVP (or indom) either. People have all kinds of reasons for not wanting to PVP, ranging from simply not liking PVP games, to not having the time, to their favorite sets or play-styles not being viable, or even reasons that are totally illogical--and that doesn't matter either--no one has to justify their reasons for not wanting to do something in a video game.

On 4/7/2022 at 8:39 PM, Marbing said:

First, PvP threatens PvE in no way whatsoever. Second, your comment implies you believe PvPers to be superior to PvEers in some way. PvP in this game is no harder than PvE and the players that PvP aren’t any better at the game. They are entirely different and one isn’t greater than the other. Period. Let’s keep this civil please and not start getting snarky and elitist.

 

PVPers aren't superior. PVP isn't greater. But PVP absolutely is harder, and that's an objective fact. You can legitimately make PVE builds for "squishy" characters that can solo +4/x8 content while basically face-tanking everything. There aren't any difficult mechanical skills, you don't need to use fast reaction times, and there isn't a high barrier of entry. In PVP you're playing against real human beings that want to beat you. There's no question that PVP is harder, but that doesn't make it better or invalidate PVE or those who prefer or enjoy it. They're basically two different games at this point.

 

PVP is different, harder, and neglected, which makes it less accessible to people who don't do it and would even think about trying it.

 

On 4/1/2022 at 2:16 PM, Marbing said:

the only change can be made (from my perspective) to increase the PvP activity is one that makes PvP more accessible to the general player, not one that just furthers the divide or maintains the status quo with PvP being limited to an incredibly small subset of the games overall population.

 

 

Balancing the game would help do that. The problem is that developers have never had the required understanding of CoH PVP or the motivation balance it, and people who did have the understanding and motivation didn't have significant input. Even on homecoming, where the community has had more input than before, the rate of change and significance of changes was still way too low to keep people interested in a 20 year old game. Most changes have been limited to low effort fixes that are at best a bandaid for the root cause. Some steps in the right direction have been made, like purchasable accolades from the arena store and some new maps, but most of those came after most of the initial hype of the game returning had died down and a good chunk of the PVP community had already left. Sort of too little, too late, you know?

 

[The_Warpact]

4 hours ago, Banana Man said:

 The problem is that developers have never had the required understanding of CoH PVP or the motivation balance it, and people who did have the understanding and motivation didn't have significant input. 

 

You forgot the part that the Live Devs didn't give a sh!t about what the PvPers tried recommending prior to the big pvp nerf.

 

There was alot of time and effort put into help from the pvp crowd to help bring balance and possibly PvErs over to a better system but the live devs in their limited vision threw that out the window.

 

That was the first fracture the second was implementing the garbage we have now. Whatever the motivation it screwed it up to this every dwindling spiral. I used to love pvp, zone and base was a blast. But after the change I lost alot of friends almost over night, so you want to talk about people leaving, yeah the live devs started that sh!t.

[Marbing]

6 hours ago, Banana Man said:

PVPers aren't superior. PVP isn't greater. But PVP absolutely is harder, and that's an objective fact. You can legitimately make PVE builds for "squishy" characters that can solo +4/x8 content while basically face-tanking everything.

This is by definition an opinion and not an objective fact. It is essentially apples and oranges. The powers don't even work the same in PvP vs PvE. The goal's are different, the playstyle is different, etc etc. But, in my opinion, one isn't necessarily harder than the other. Depends on the situation and the content in each that you are comparing. Council Radios vs 8v8 Kickball?  Yeah PvP probably has the edge there. Aeon SF vs Ganking Noobs in RV? Aeon SF is harder. We probably wont see eye to eye on this. And that is okay! That's the beauty of opinions, you are allowed to have yours, and I mine. 

[battlewraith]

2 hours ago, Marbing said:

This is by definition an opinion and not an objective fact. It is essentially apples and oranges. The powers don't even work the same in PvP vs PvE. The goal's are different, the playstyle is different, etc etc. But, in my opinion, one isn't necessarily harder than the other. Depends on the situation and the content in each that you are comparing. Council Radios vs 8v8 Kickball?  Yeah PvP probably has the edge there. Aeon SF vs Ganking Noobs in RV? Aeon SF is harder. We probably wont see eye to eye on this. And that is okay! That's the beauty of opinions, you are allowed to have yours, and I mine. 

It's not just a matter of opinion. Pvp requires skills and attributes that pve does not. The main thing is that pve is static. The AI is coded and it's always going to behave the same way. Even the hardest pve content is a formula to be solved. Once you solve it, you can repeat those same victory conditions over and over again ad nauseam. Actual players confronted with losing will change their tactics in order to win. That difference is fundamental, relates to things like adaptability, reaction time, etc. and is not a matter of opinion. Even the hilarious Aeon SF vs Ganking Noobs example points to this. Where is it even possible in PvE to risk the prospect of getting ganked?

[Banana Man]

4 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

You forgot the part that the Live Devs didn't give a sh!t about what the PvPers tried recommending prior to the big pvp nerf.

 

Trust me, I remember.

 

Also, if Aeon SF is the "high end" example of PVE, it's still way easier than anything on the high end of PVP. I've done PVE stuff, to include speed TFs in record times with teams mostly comprised of people on PVP builds who barely if ever PVEd/ran TFS, had little to no knowledge of PVE builds, or which AV came next, or what to do. The barrier of entry is pretty low and you can figure it out in a matter of minutes to hours. There's no way you're beating or coming even close to beating a PVP team that does 8v8 scrims if you're playing with a bunch of people who haven't PVPed at that level before, it'd take months before even having a chance, and in the end (depending on the team) you might not ever even win against them, even if you do it for years. I'm not trying to sell PVP as crazy hard or anything, but I'm just going off the data we have and what I've seen.

 

I don't want berate that point too hard, because again, PVP being harder doesn't invalidate or diminish PVE at all. Is it harder though? Yes.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Banana Man

[Marbing]

52 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

It's not just a matter of opinion. Pvp requires skills and attributes that pve does not. The main thing is that pve is static. The AI is coded and it's always going to behave the same way. Even the hardest pve content is a formula to be solved. Once you solve it, you can repeat those same victory conditions over and over again ad nauseam. Actual players confronted with losing will change their tactics in order to win. That difference is fundamental, relates to things like adaptability, reaction time, etc. and is not a matter of opinion. Even the hilarious Aeon SF vs Ganking Noobs example points to this. Where is it even possible in PvE to risk the prospect of getting ganked?

Again… your opinion. Breathe bud, it’s an Internet forum not life or death. Clearly you think it’s easier to complete the Aeon SF than to gank a noob, that’s okay, that’s your opinion.

 

29 minutes ago, Banana Man said:

I don't want berate that point too hard, because again, PVP being harder doesn't invalidate or diminish PVE at all. Is it harder though? Yes.

In your opinion. 
 

Guys, this isn’t a hard concept. 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Marbing

[The_Warpact]

24 minutes ago, Banana Man said:

 

Trust me, I remember.

 

Also, if Aeon SF is the "high end" example of PVE, it's still way easier than anything on the high end of PVP. I've done PVE stuff, to include speed TFs in record times with teams mostly comprised of people on PVP builds who barely if ever PVEd/ran TFS, had little to no knowledge of PVE builds, or which AV came next, or what to do. The barrier of entry is pretty low and you can figure it out in a matter of minutes to hours. There's no way you're beating or coming even close to beating a PVP team that does 8v8 scrims if you're playing with a bunch of people who haven't PVPed at that level before, it'd take months before even having a chance, and in the end (depending on the team) you might not ever even win against them, even if you do it for years. I'm not trying to sell PVP as crazy hard or anything, but I'm just going off the data we have and what I've seen.

 

I don't want berate that point too hard, because again, PVP being harder doesn't invalidate or diminish PVE at all. Is it harder though? Yes.

Trust me I know, PVE you know the powers, attacks, and defenses of the enemies. You run it enough and you know when they are going to attack, what spots they are in, etc.

PVP on the other hand, and I'm talking PVP not noob ganking is a whole different ball game against an actual human with tactics that change at a moments notice.

 

Good example back on live there was a certain MM that used Howling Twilight to stun as an opening move this threw people off because at the time no one expected it, until a certain MM named Warpact came along with his bag of tricks and his opening move was Intimidate from the Presence Pool. SURPRISE asshat get your wannabe PVP MM out of my Arena. Needless to say you do not have that kind of tactics, surprise, and variations from a mission, like the ITF you can kite old Rommie to the same spot for a kill box regardless of diff...think you're doing that in PVP..no way Jose.

 

AS much as people want to rally against it, it is a fact that a human has an infinite amount of outcomes that they can achieve, while a mission with certain parameters is limited, you always know their powers, how they are going to react, etc.

 

If I had the time and money, I would start my own server, roll back the sh!t the live devs unleashed and LISTEN TO PVPers..and bring back base raids because I miss them ever so much.

[Marbing]

To be clear I agree that PvP is often harder than PvE. But the whole PvP is harder than PvE fails as an argument because it isnt true in all cases. If you keep comparing 8v8 decked out PvP players vs radio missions then yes I can see where you are getting that conclusion. But that isnt the entirety of PvP in this game. Just the other day I went 29 and 0 vs a hand full of non-decked out players who wanted to give PvP a try. Was that hard for me to do? No, not even close. Am I the best PvPer out there? No, not even close. Would I suck at 8v8, I have tried it and I agree it can be very difficult. But is it the hardest thing I have ever done in this game? Not in my opinion, once you figure out the general strategy and have a good team that knows what they are doing. Therefor... PvP is not always harder than PvE, so PvP cant then be objectively harder. It depends on the circumstance. Is it often harder? Yes. Is it always harder? No. That is the point. 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Marbing

[Banana Man]

If something is harder in more ways or more often than not, then it's harder overall.

 

It's not always harder. 

 

It is harder to be "good" at PVP than it is to be "good" at PVE. Can you agree on that?

[Marbing]

47 minutes ago, Banana Man said:

If something is harder in more ways or more often than not, then it's harder overall.

 

It's not always harder. 

 

It is harder to be "good" at PVP than it is to be "good" at PVE. Can you agree on that?

I suppose maybe at the highest echelon.

 

But it depends on what you consider good. Just being able to complete missions and story arcs doesn’t mean you are “good” at PvE, for example. There is solo, team play, speed runs, master runs, personal challenges (like trying to 5-man Hami), to consider here. You know? There are various levels of skill in both PvP and PvE and someone who is “good” at PvP isn’t necessarily “good” at PvE and vice versa. 
 

But, again, to be a top 10 PvPer consistently is probably harder. Therefor, at the highest echelon, I could see the argument that it is harder to be good at PvP.

 

[M3z]

On 4/1/2022 at 2:05 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

I'm fairly certain that most of the PvE crowd will agree with me when I say: I don't care what you do to change PvP. Leave it as is, revert it to pre-I13 state, change the rules to something else entirely, whatever.

 

I just don't want the developers spending a lot of time on PvP changes for the 10 whole people who PvP as opposed to the 99% of us who don't.

 

Don't believe me? Read the thread about Idom, the PvP server, dying People are desperately trying to get people to play on that server. Everyone left that server when it was announced that it was the PvP server. Even the PvPers left. Most of the Homecoming PvP happens on Excelsior these days.

 

So yeah. Do whatever you want with PvP. Just please don't spend a ton of developer time for the 10 whole people who still PvP because that's time you could be spending coding things for the rest of us who don't.

 

Not that my opinion matters.

Hope they spend 0 time doing pve changes and only do pvp changes.

[battlewraith]

3 hours ago, Marbing said:

 Clearly you think it’s easier to complete the Aeon SF than to gank a noob, that’s okay, that’s your opinion.

 

Lol noooo. I think it's easier to complete the Aeon SF than to be in the position of the noob being ganked, which is why you don't see anything remotely close to that in pve.

It's a silly point anyway. A skilled boxer could knock out pretty much any untrained person that walks into their gym. That is not an argument for boxing being somehow easy, or easier than some other sport.  

 

[Marbing]

29 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

 

Lol noooo. I think it's easier to complete the Aeon SF than to be in the position of the noob being ganked, which is why you don't see anything remotely close to that in pve.

It's a silly point anyway. A skilled boxer could knock out pretty much any untrained person that walks into their gym. That is not an argument for boxing being somehow easy, or easier than some other sport.  

 

Wow dude I don’t think I ever said PvP was easy or easier than PvE. I said there are tasks that are harder in one and in the other. And before you say ganking a noob in PvP isn’t  a PvP task, this has already been covered as such several times in several threads. It’s the easiest thing to do in PvP and people definitely find enjoyment out of it. So I used it as an example of an easy PvP task. Because it’s easy, and it’s a PvP task. 

I never said the entry fee was lower or equivalent. As a matter of fact I even said the entry fee wasn’t worth it for PvP, earlier in this same thread. I did say one isn’t objectively harder than the other because by matter of fact it heavily depends on what you are doing. Which I used examples to point out. 

It seems I’m have ruffled some feathers here with my opinions. So I’ll stop. Y’all have fun! 🙂 
 

[Banana Man]

I don't think it's a matter of ruffled feathers. I thought Battewraith brought to light a pretty important distinction, actually. Someone "ganking a noob" is so easy precisely because there is such a skill gap between that player and the "noob."

 

With PVP balance in general, it's important to look at it from the perspective of the "noob" getting "ganked" sometimes, especially when concerning the system having high barrier of entry to play/being inaccessible to newer players. A new player isn't going to think PVP is easy because they just rolled some other newer player, more likely they're going to find it frustrating or difficult because they're the one getting rolled.

[Marbing]

1 hour ago, Banana Man said:

I don't think it's a matter of ruffled feathers. I thought Battewraith brought to light a pretty important distinction, actually. Someone "ganking a noob" is so easy precisely because there is such a skill gap between that player and the "noob."

 

With PVP balance in general, it's important to look at it from the perspective of the "noob" getting "ganked" sometimes, especially when concerning the system having high barrier of entry to play/being inaccessible to newer players. A new player isn't going to think PVP is easy because they just rolled some other newer player, more likely they're going to find it frustrating or difficult because they're the one getting rolled.

I 100% get the distinction and agree with it. But it was a twisting of my point that some tasks are easier. Sorry just needed to clarify. I never said the entry price to PvP was low or lower than PvE. So I am not sure why the point need be made.

 

 

EDIT: I don’t know why the suggestion that PvP isn’t objectively harder than PvE has caused this much debate. I see all your points, I never said it was easier, I never said it isn’t often harder, I simply made the point that some PvE content is harder than some PvP content. Therefor, PvP isn’t necessarily harder than PvE by default. Is the floor higher, of course, is the ceiling higher? Perhaps. But there is a lot more content in PvE than there is in PvP. Which means there are plenty of examples of situations where PvE could be harder than your average PvP encounter. What’s so hard with understanding that? I’ve played both extensively, more PvE lately than PvP because I don’t see the value anymore in PvP. It costs more than it’s worth and the mechanics in PvP are dumb, (I mean DR? C’mon…) So I prefer PvE now, though I will skirmish some friends from time to time. Anyways… getting a little off topic… sorry if I offended anyone with my opinions on the matter. But, respectfully, I stand by them and haven’t seen any argument that has swayed that opinion in any way.
 

So how about, out of mutual respect, we finally just agree to disagree? 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Marbing
Added stuff

[Reiraku]

11 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

You forgot the part that the Live Devs didn't give a sh!t about what the PvPers tried recommending prior to the big pvp nerf.

 

There was alot of time and effort put into help from the pvp crowd to help bring balance and possibly PvErs over to a better system but the live devs in their limited vision threw that out the window.

 

That was the first fracture the second was implementing the garbage we have now. Whatever the motivation it screwed it up to this every dwindling spiral. I used to love pvp, zone and base was a blast. But after the change I lost alot of friends almost over night, so you want to talk about people leaving, yeah the live devs started that sh!t.

Here's a screen of the beta boards for i13. Notice the post counts for each feature

 

 

[The_Warpact]

4 minutes ago, Reiraku said:

Here's a screen of the beta boards for i13. Notice the post counts for each feature

 

 

A few were mine..

[Reiraku]

A few were mine too. Then we got things like this:

 

[Glacier Peak]

18 minutes ago, Reiraku said:

Here's a screen of the beta boards for i13. Notice the post counts for each feature

 

I wouldn't draw any particular conclusion, one way or the other on that thread count, other than to say it is indeed higher than all of the rest 😄

[The_Warpact]

12 hours ago, Reiraku said:

A few were mine too. Then we got things like this:

 

@Boomie is my buddy in rl and we just played last night. I haven't made mention of this thread, he doesn't lurk in here like I do.

I remember some of these conversations and some I don't there was alot of stuff flying around back then.

I'm wondering if he has anything so I'll drag him into it.

[Boomie]

I don't have anything anymore from back then. Sadly I didn't see a need to keep the old stuff since we just got ignored. I don't think that I have done any pvp beyond a random encounter or two since the game came back. I am sure that I can bring my old rad/son def that is i12 spec'd and do well in zone.

 

If Rei doesn't have much saved, I'm sure I have wayback links saved somewhere on the giant pvp threads. The old post Rei posted was really common then... I think I still have that posi post that was edited about pvp somewhere. 

[Reiraku]

1 hour ago, Boomie said:

I don't have anything anymore from back then. Sadly I didn't see a need to keep the old stuff since we just got ignored. I don't think that I have done any pvp beyond a random encounter or two since the game came back. I am sure that I can bring my old rad/son def that is i12 spec'd and do well in zone.

 

If Rei doesn't have much saved, I'm sure I have wayback links saved somewhere on the giant pvp threads. The old post Rei posted was really common then... I think I still have that posi post that was edited about pvp somewhere. 

Hi Boomie! Are you talking about the PvP interview Positron did that was edited? Because I have that one too. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

Wait what? Is that a real article?

 

*Checks the calendar.*

 

After reading that article I feel like someone's about to jump out at me at yell "April fools!"

[The_Warpact]

42 minutes ago, Reiraku said:

Hi Boomie! Are you talking about the PvP interview Positron did that was edited? Because I have that one too. 

Fvck i forgot all about this. Sums it up tho...