issue 27 Focused Feedback: Temporal Warrior, Instant Level 50 PvP Characters

[UltraAlt]

47 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Couldn't you just delete the character and recreate it?  I mean, you'd have to stow any enhancements somewhere, but otherwise, why do you need a respec when you can just create the character at level 50?

 

You can just create a brand new TW spec it, transfer enhancements from the old one, then delete the old one and rename the new one.

 

EDIT:  I guess this way you'd have to use unslotters, which is a mild expense.

3 hours ago, Digirium said:

3 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

The same way any other character would except you would have to hand-off the respec recipe from a PvE character to the PvP character.

So I guess this also promotes that everyone should make an alternate account for doing some of the hand-off work.

 

I think that would be the wrong solution to get a TW an extra respec.

[UltraAlt]

31 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

or, make character creation so easy that your character is deleted after every session.

 

You mean like pre-made characters that everyone has access to, but they have to be named and have the option to customize costumes?

 

/e facepalm

 

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by UltraAlt
Thumbs up added

[Ston]

46 minutes ago, Excraft said:

Spot on.  It's been going on before the last couple of updates too.  They've catered to that same small group of inner-circle folks since the beginning.

 

Did you have the same complaints when PVP-only accolades were added to the game? This really isn't a big deal and will have minimal impacts on the rest of the population. Asking for resources for PVP without needing to do PVE content isn't a game-breaking request. This is how the system works in other MMOs.

 

47 minutes ago, Excraft said:

I don't see them ever changing that or really caring about what the majority want or would like to see.

 

Sheathed weapons, toggle suppression, new hardmode content, rebalancing softcapped defense, new costume currency, roleplay improvements... Yeah, the devs really don't care about anyone but the small circle of PVP players.

 

49 minutes ago, Excraft said:

A couple people mentioned this in other threads, but it really does seem clear these suggestions are being made by devs or dev buddies using incognito alt accounts to make it seem like it's something people outside the inner circle want. 

 

Myself and other PVP players have been asking for free resources for PVP, I can assure you I'm not in any inner circle. This is a huge QoL improvement to introduce players to a different way of playing the game. For me at least, this isn't changing anything except removing 2 hours of AE farming I would be doing. If all I plan to do with a character is PVP, there really isn't any reason I should need to engage in PVE content. 

 

It also seems like an exaggeration to suggest this will impact the rest of the playerbase. This will maybe get 10-20 players into PVP long term. That isn't something that's going to break the market or ruin your chances of badge hunting. You still need to get the enhancements/boosters/influence to fund your PVP characters via PVE anyway.

[Ironblade]

3 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

No, but there are people who do use the PvP zones for non-PvP purposes:  badges, shivans, etc.  Now I am 100% on board with the idea that you are taking a chance every time you enter a PvP zone.  I can just see this potentially leading to gank fests.

In theory, I suppose this could be an issue.  Realistically, though, I don't see this one change as being significant enough to noticeably increase the population in the PvP zones.  I was in Bloody Bay yesterday, getting a Shivan Shard, and there was no one else in the zone.

[ShardWarrior]

13 minutes ago, Ston said:

This will maybe get 10-20 players into PVP long term.

 

I certainly hope not.  Based on what the Homecoming folk have posted, they will not make changes unless they have a broad appeal.  If only 10 to 20 players will benefit from this, then it was a complete waste of time and should never have been done in the first place.  Having said that, I am in no way against this change, so please do not get all bent out of shape over that. 

 

15 minutes ago, Ston said:

Sheathed weapons, toggle suppression, new hardmode content, rebalancing softcapped defense, new costume currency, roleplay improvements... Yeah, the devs really don't care about anyone but the small circle of PVP players.

 

Perhaps I misunderstood the post, but I do not believe this was intended as an attack on the PvP community.   You may be reading this wrong.

[Ston]

14 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

I certainly hope not.  Based on what the Homecoming folk have posted, they will not make changes unless they have a broad appeal.  If only 10 to 20 players will benefit from this, then it was a complete waste of time and should never have been done in the first place.  Having said that, I am in no way against this change, so please do not get all bent out of shape over that. 

 

 

Perhaps I misunderstood the post, but I do not believe this was intended as an attack on the PvP community.   You may be reading this wrong.

 

My mistake, I agree it wasn't an attack on the PVP community specifically, but it was a suggestion that recent updates have been made to appeal a very small group of players that are close to the devs, which just doesn't seem true. There are plenty of changes that have originated on the suggestion & feedback board.

 

And yeah 10-20 may have been a conservative exaggeration, I'm hoping it will lead to Recluse's Victory being filled for fun combat on a regular basis!

Edited July 19, 2022 by Ston

[Stoked]

5 hours ago, High_Beam said:

I respect you and your opinions and more often than not agree with your positions, but with regards to this change; excellent.  I feel that there should be MORE DISTANCE between PvE and PvP, that the two should never meet or impact the other . . . EVER.  You keep the two worlds separated then you don't have to deal with the damage or the impact.  You make PvP changes to affect only PvP so they have their "balance" and nobody is OP or everybody is OP or burst damage this or that is king and the PvP people are happy cause they are "getting attention".  Meanwhile in PvE you can focus on cool things like powers and zone revamps and new content.

 

Will this get me into a PvP zone?  Nope, I find zero entertainment value in it, but that's me. The only enticement to me would be badges and I don't have the OCD that I did on live for this.  But as I have always said, I do believe players should be able to PvP as long as they don't impact the majority of the player base (live or on HC).

Agreed 100% and I would take it one step further. Separate the two so that there is a PVP only instance. There is no difference between the marketing spam that used to infect the chat channels on LIVE and some twit in a PVP zone trying to entice people to die for 100 million influence all the time. Both are annoying and just get people to ignore chat or minimize, whatever your solution. If for sake of argument you make Excelsior a PVP-only instance then all the people there can choose to shift their toons for free to another instance if they want to. Going forward, only PVP maps are available on that instance.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Stoked

[America's Angel]

3 hours ago, Troo said:

This feels, in my opinion, like continued catering to a small subgroup that we've seen over the last update or two.

 

1 hour ago, Excraft said:

Spot on.  It's been going on before the last couple of updates too.  They've catered to that same small group of inner-circle folks since the beginning.  I don't see them ever changing that or really caring about what the majority want or would like to see.  A couple people mentioned this in other threads, but it really does seem clear these suggestions are being made by devs or dev buddies using incognito alt accounts to make it seem like it's something people outside the inner circle want. 

 

[Astralock]

I sincerely hope that this change helps rejuvenate the PvP community because they have suffered long enough.  That said, I request that the various red side accolades no longer require badges from PvP zones.  Blue side accolades do not require badges obtained in PvP zones, so I do not see why red side accolades should.  I am specifically talking about the Triumphant, Swashbuckler, Weapon Inspector, Arachnos Rising, Lobbyist, and Last Stand badges.  Perhaps place copies of them in red side PvE zones if removing the requirement from their respective accolades is not an option.

 

I realize that this is only tangentially related, but the normal excuse typically given is something along the lines of, “PvP zones are dead.  Just go on global hide, get in, grab the badges, and get out.”  With the PvP zones hopefully being brought back to life, that is less of an option.

 

I would just like parity between alignments, and to give people one less reason to not play red side.

[Stoked]

4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Will this show that there really isn't all that much interest in PvP?

 

 

The fact that this discussion thread is alive is proof enough of that.

[Faultline]

Some collected responses, not going to bother quoting invididual posts:

• @El D is correct in that this mode was approved because PVP is seen as a separate minigame that shouldn't require a lot of PVE effort to get into. The closest simile is base building; originally it also required players to farm Prestige in order to build anything interesting, but we decided that this is just a pointless hurdle that prevents players from getting into the base building minigame, so Prestige was removed.
• Removing PVP zone exploration badges from villain accolades is a maybe, I'll add a note to look at the specific accolades and what they could be replaced with.
• Temporal Warriors currently only get respecs from the level up badges, then they have to acquire Respec Recipes for more. I'll add a note to revise this in the future depending on the mode's popularity, I can easily datamine how many respecs are actually used.
• In a related point that appears to be missing from the patch notes, the first three costume unlocks that PVE players get from missions are granted by the PVP kill badges, with the last slot from Halloween salvage not being currently available, but there will be a vendor somewhere for it eventually.
• A no-enhancements mode for Arena is possible, I'll add a note to include it at the same time that the no Incarnate modes are added, which have been pending for a while.
• Premades are, at the moment, a pipe dream; just too many holes to properly lock those characters. It may be possible to do something in the PVP zones themselves, where interacting with an NPC changes your build into a premade and marks your character so it is not persisted to the database, but even that has a lot of holes that need to be carefully found and plugged before it has a chance of happening.
• Reverting to pre-i13 PVP is a massive amount of work, again way more than this mode took to create. There was an internal experiment back in December with i12 rules but no power work, and it just doesn't work as a simple fix; too many powers need to be manually adjusted, and I'm not a powers dev. Temporal Warrior took about six hours of work by just me over the weekend.
• I looked into changing the levelup system of Temporal Warriors to work like a respec, but there are significant hurdles there. The respec really wants to place you back to the same security level you started on, and changing that breaks things like the extra respec that VEATs get at specific security levels.
• I'll echo @Number Six in his post here https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/36519-focused-feedback-name-release-policy-phase-1-warning-mode/page/9/#comment-482806 that developers don't use sockpuppet accounts in feedback threads, we have better things to do with our time.

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Ston said:

My mistake, I agree it wasn't an attack on the PVP community specifically, but it was a suggestion that recent updates have been made to appeal a very small group of players that are close to the devs, which just doesn't seem true. There are plenty of changes that have originated on the suggestion & feedback board.

 

No worries.  Sometimes a second set of eyes is helpful.  As far as whether these suggestions are all coming from the same small circle of people. I have my suspicions about that as well.  And from what I am reading in this and other threads, I am not the only one.  No, I personally have no direct proof so take that with a grain of salt, but I have seen enough smoke to know there may be a fire somewhere. 

[Bionic_Flea]

8 minutes ago, Faultline said:

In a related point that appears to be missing from the patch notes, the first three costume unlocks that PVE players get from missions are granted by the PVP kill badges, with the last slot from Halloween salvage not being currently available, but there will be a vendor somewhere for it eventually.

I totally think that Trick or Treating in the PVP zones would be appropriate, hilarious, and tons of fun.  "Here come the bullies to take our candy . . . hit them with the rotten eggs first!"

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

9 minutes ago, Faultline said:

Some collected responses, not going to bother quoting invididual posts:

• @El D is correct in that this mode was approved because PVP is seen as a separate minigame that shouldn't require a lot of PVE effort to get into. The closest simile is base building; originally it also required players to farm Prestige in order to build anything interesting, but we decided that this is just a pointless hurdle that prevents players from getting into the base building minigame, so Prestige was removed.

 

I'm all for this, but please be careful to completely separate PVE from PVP.  Like completely different servers separate.  I, for one, am not willing to give up one iota from my PvE experience to try and encourage a few dozen or hundred people to try PvP, and then find they are using it as a backdoor to affect markets or power levelling.  In my life's experience, when there is an exploitative loophole, people will find it and people will use it.

[The_Warpact]

Frankly they should just remove the badges from pvp zones. The constant whining is annoying after a decade+.

But, you want shivans, nukes, etc risk vs reward although they should be buffed. P2W temp powers, Incarnate abilities, etc are more powerful. If there is a likelihood that you could get "ganked" then the pvp powers should be so powerful like bringing Superman to rescue a cat kind of overpowered.

[Chrono-Bot]

I think this sounds really neat!

 

It might increase my chances of being chased around a bit when I go for explore badges, but that actually sounds kind of exciting. It's not like I'll suffer for it.

[Mezmera]

21 minutes ago, Faultline said:

Reverting to pre-i13 PVP is a massive amount of work, again way more than this mode took to create. There was an internal experiment back in December with i12 rules but no power work, and it just doesn't work as a simple fix; too many powers need to be manually adjusted, and I'm not a powers dev. Temporal Warrior took about six hours of work by just me over the weekend.

 

This is the biggest barrier to pvp.  The QoL improvements given to pvp is nice with the pvp only accolades and this new create a character system. 

 

Ultimately though the attraction to pvp will not be driven by these QoL improvements alone, it'll be a real rebalance of pvp from its current broken form that may attract more to these arenas.  A full revert to the old system isn't going to fix anything and likely creates so many more problems.  

 

While these features are cool and all it still is window dressing.  

 

 

[El D]

2 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

I'm all for this, but please be careful to completely separate PVE from PVP.  Like completely different servers separate.  I, for one, am not willing to give up one iota from my PvE experience to try and encourage a few dozen or hundred people to try PvP, and then find they are using it as a backdoor to affect markets or power levelling.  In my life's experience, when there is an exploitative loophole, people will find it and people will use it.

 

How does this give up from PvE experience? It does require that enhancements, IOs, etc. all be bought from personal resources gained the 'main game'/PvE side, yes, but that's just encouraging people to play PvE content and use the market as it already has been used. Once someone buys an IO from the auction house, it doesn't matter what they use it for - toss it in a new PvP only character, slot it in an alternate build for a PvE character, or just horde it in their base, the effect is still the same. Heck, PvP Only characters just seem like yet another avenue to promote more drops put it to the market, given that they'll also be earning recipes, salvage, and things.

 

Also, given that the PvP Only option literally locks these characters out of all PvE content outside of PvP zones, I don't understand how it might affect power leveling either. Is it worry that Temporal Warriors will be able to easily power level non-PvP Only characters? That seems like a mighty tall order, given they don't have access to any mission content. IMO, if someone manages to use a Temporal Warrior to effectively power-level a non-PvP only character within a PvP Zone, with the massively shifted numbers and constant possibility of getting ganked... At that point they've earned it.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Just now, El D said:

 

How does this give up from PvE experience? 

 

I don't know yet, and I'm perhaps overly cautious.  By making it a specific PvP server with no connections to PvE (maybe make it Brainstorm) there is little chance of a loophole.

 

I guess the flip question is, why *shouldn't* it be a specific PvP server?

[Faultline]

Just now, Yomo Kimyata said:

I guess the flip question is, why *shouldn't* it be a specific PvP server?

 

Developers don't set up servers. System administrators do. Completely different area that developers have no input on.

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 minutes ago, Faultline said:

 

Developers don't set up servers. System administrators do. Completely different area that developers have no input on.

 

Or perhaps shards, maybe I'm using the wrong nomenclature.  Surely the HC devs can speak with the HC system administratiors?

[El D]

16 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

I don't know yet, and I'm perhaps overly cautious.  By making it a specific PvP server with no connections to PvE (maybe make it Brainstorm) there is little chance of a loophole.

 

I guess the flip question is, why *shouldn't* it be a specific PvP server?

 

Temporal Warriors are supposed to make accessing PvP easier specifically without cutting folks off from the rest of the game's community or requiring undue playtime hurdles to use. Heck, given its reliance on PvE earned resources for high tier effectiveness it pretty much requires contact with the rest of the game's community/markets. If Temporal Warriors were shifted to a PvP Only shard, there's no PvE markets being run to build off of and it'd just further segments an already pretty heftily segmented population instead of encouraging cross-play among established shards. Basically, it becomes less of a 'Hey, come join in!' feature and more of an 'Out of sight, out of mind' thing that brushes PvP under the rug.

 

That said I totally get the concern for possible loophole abuse, but this seems like an overall net positive - and if there are loopholes with the set-up, I'm pretty sure the devs would close them. xD

Edited July 19, 2022 by El D

[Faultline]

9 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Or perhaps shards, maybe I'm using the wrong nomenclature.  Surely the HC devs can speak with the HC system administratiors?

 

We're different teams, we talk to each other (recent problems in Excelsior were caused by SQL Server load that needed new code to troubleshoot and mitigate) but we have different roles. Developers don't do hardware provisioning or handle finances, and we don't want to. We are developers, we already got our hands full doing that.

 

I, as a developer, can add new code that will run on the servers once deployed. I can't tell the "publisher" side, "provision a new server, tackle $1000 on next month's donation goal to cover it, and set it up with exactly these config settings". That's way beyond my boundaries and responsabilities.

[Yomo Kimyata]

@Faultline fair enough.  This doesn't seem like a big enough issue to get other teams involved.  That said, I also don't think that it's a big enough issue to implement, but then again I don't plan on insta-50 PvPing.  It seems like there is a lot more potential for downside than upside, but I haven't been managing a free-to-play game for 2+ years so what do I know!

[UltraAlt]

4 hours ago, Stoked said:

The fact that this discussion thread is alive is proof enough of that.

 

It is a scale thing.

I wander into the PVP zones occasionally, but I'm not going out of my way to PvP in PVP zones.

The Arena is pretty much garbage. Always has been.

 

When this goes live, I might go to the PvP zones from time to time, but it is highly doubtful that I'm going to make a Temporal Warrior.

If they are there, then I'm less likely to go there.

If I could pick a ready-made I would be likely to go there more often, which would still be almost never.

 

So no, the discussion thread isn't proof of how many players will participate on a regular basis in game.

There are only 4 pages of comments and I know that I'm several of those posts.