honoroitisfantastic Would you pvp for prisms?

[honoroit]

^ pvp was always great on live, i thought! agree theres a bad rep pvp enjoyers, umm, enjoy.

 

i think that bc most homecoming players are slow and bad at pvp, probably... so they moan about even going red side, and hero fantasy rupture  and so on and endlessly (see what i conflated there!?)

 

nothing matches the zenith of pvp madness, kupo!

 

the tanker with a warmace who superjumps (from nowhere) onto your face and connects monster hits. 

 

we've all had our bits that get the blood running, if your're in the know, right?

 

just wish it could still be part of CoX. because non-heroes exist!

[macskull]

12 hours ago, honoroit said:

Introduce a PvP mode that relies solely on a special build with only SOs or some equivalent...

 

i like the idea of stripping down to SOs, accolades and incarnates etc removed - that flattens the set bonus madness and overpowered nonsenses that might otherwise arise.

These are already options in the arena interface. You can disable set bonuses, accolades can be bought for peanuts at a PvP vendor, and you can disable some or all Incarnate abilities. As far as PvP zone gameplay goes, all non-Alpha Incarnate abilities are disabled and accolades don't work unless they're the PvP-specific version you get at the vendor for 10k inf.

 

1 hour ago, arcane said:

Would I PvP if Prismatics dropped and the PvP community were completely replaced by less toxic people? Maybe 

It's unfortunate that historically zone PvP, which was probably a player's first introduction to PvP in the game, tended to attract the type of player who would be seen as toxic. However, enemy chat is disabled by default in PvP zones. It seems much of the complaining about "toxic PvPers" came from players who went into a PvP zone - despite the multiple warnings that they could be and would be attacked by other players - and got attacked by other players. Some of the most fun spontaneous PvP I've had is when a few players go into RV for the pillbox and AV badges, others show up to hunt them down, people on both sides get backup, and all of a sudden there are 4 teams of players all chasing after each other while still trying to do badges.

Edited July 31, 2023 by macskull

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I'm "retired" from PvP so my knowledge could be outdated, but what is toxic in the pvp community?

 

I don't know how it is lately, but, back before the Sunset, there were enough PVP players that would actively berate and harass you if you were a PvP zone sometime regardless if you fought them or not. If you did and lost, well, then you would really get the "you suck", "you're a noob", "why do you even try" kind of bs.

It wasn't everyone and it wasn't all the time, but PvP does breed that type of mentality in some people.

And it should be no shock at how I dealt with the situation.

I seriously hope that it is obvious how I dealt with it without me needing to say it.

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I may have been ganked a few times in zone

 

Getting ganked repeatedly. Being outnumbered by the other side. Picking one of the archetypes that was intentionally gimped because it made PvP less fun for some of the other archetypes. And a bunch of more unbalancing factors and situations that all end up as "not fun" .... drive players away from PVP.

If I can have fun teaming up and running around in THE CITY winning against enemies, why would I want to experience someone mercilessly beating me down and chastinging me about my lack of skill?

Sure no gear repair costs, but where is the fun gained from repeated defeats and verbal abuse?

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I feel the pvp community has gotten a bad reputation in general over the years

 

The PvP Community has been largely ignored by most players.

The PvP Community was very vocal on-live.

The PvP Community worked very hard for advantages to certain archetypes to the detriment of other archetypes.

 

PvP is in no way balanced in City of Heroes. The game system wasn't built for PVP.

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I know multiple pvpers over the years myself included that have completely outfitted characters  with full sets of IOs or power leveled countless alts for people that had shown an interest in actually pvping.

 

You don't have to do that any more.

People can Auto 50 a PVP character at this point.

I haven't bothered.

 

I have gone into PVP zones on several occasions and found them to be empty.

I made characters on the PVP server at the time and found it to have far less communication on /lfg then on any of the other servers.

 

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

it seems to me that pvpers in this game have been the most ostracized and persecuted group of players in CoH's existence.

 

People not wanting to participate or interact with PvP (on any level) isn't ostracization. It wasn't like players were "Oh, you are a PvPer? We don't allow PvP players on our PvE teams. Get lost loser!" That would be ostracization and that wasn't occuring.

 

I don't see how PvPers were "persecuted" either. How were you punished for being part of the PvP community? (Other than by toxic behavior from other members of the PvP community.)

 

The PvP community has always been very small slice/percentage of THE CITY's population. Numbers are small now all around.

[macskull]

11 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

People not wanting to participate or interact with PvP (on any level) isn't ostracization.

Sure, but there's a definite pattern - PvP-related threads outside of the PvP section of the forums tend to attract the type of poster who says things like "PvP can die in a fire" (a direct quote from the tenth post in this thread, for example). That's not a Homecoming-specific problem either: it happened all the time on the old boards as well. It seems like an inevitability that whenever a "what would it take to get you to PvP" thread pops up, people come out of the woodwork to shit on PvP. Like... that's great, you don't like PvP, but that response is the ingame equivalent of telling someone to take their car to the dump when they ask how to change a headlight bulb. It's not constructive, it's not helpful, and it's not relevant.

 

Even responses along the lines of "fix the players" are worthless because 1) that's not how it works and 2) the "toxic" PvPers are and have always been a tiny minority. Then there are the "this game wasn't designed for PvP" and "PvP isn't balanced" responses because at least in the case of the former it is demonstrably, objectively incorrect, and in the case of the second, it's a gross oversimplification of a bunch of pretty complex issues. PvE in this game isn't balanced either.

Edited July 31, 2023 by macskull

[Glacier Peak]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

Would I PvP if Prismatics dropped and the PvP community were completely replaced by less toxic people? Maybe 

I'll echo what was already been said - there really isn't an active pvp community anymore. I'll offer that brings bad news though, in that players can't fight other players if nobody is willing to pvp. It's like the chicken and the egg metaphor. Or kinda like if there wasn't an auction house, the marketing scene would be pretty 'selling out the back of the van' niche. 

 

Edit: Basically I'm saying folks stopped being able to enjoy playing pvp on Homecoming because there were less and less players interested, then not many, then participation stopped entirely. One could speculate on any number of likely valid reasons, but the bottom line is if you don't have players to fight, you can't pvp. 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Glacier Peak

[macskull]

23 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Or kinda like if there wasn't an auction house, the marketing scene would be pretty 'selling out the back of the van' niche. 

You could liken it to Rebirth's auction house: the "bucketing" that HC has doesn't exist there and population is pretty low, so while the auction house technically exists there's no guarantee the item you're looking for is available at any price because there is simply no supply so you have to go through alternate means to get it.

 

It really is unfortunate that HC's player base isn't high enough to sustain a PvP population because PvP in this game has always been fun and some of the PvP QoL improvements we've had over the last few years have been the best things since Issue 13 happened.

Edited July 31, 2023 by macskull
Accidentally a period

[honoroit]

even if it were more of the posi 1 style clones, putting it in peoples face and integeating with pve, can lessen the 'i hate pvp' gut react some bring.

 

take guild wars 1, youre playing normally, then you enter a mission where, without warning, the oponents are live. that 'mesmer' or 'warrior' is a player!!

 

they did it very early level also, like 4 of 20. 

 

i dunno... is there even an mmo with pvp anymore?

 

last good ones for me were eq2 (nagafen Figs, the illusionist - everything about eq2 pvp was great imo), aion (rifts!), blade and soul (BAD monetization, great pvp), wow (southshore lpwbie waves and waves)... and coh...eve online doesnt count. and of course guild wars 1 (more than 2 imo)

 

anyway, not much these days, and by these days i mean decade, is there?

[macskull]

7 minutes ago, honoroit said:

i dunno... is there even an mmo with pvp anymore?

Yeah, but it's hard to find one that's as fast-paced as CoH's is. The almost FPS-like speed and twitchiness is what made it popular with a large group back in the day, but that's also probably why it isn't more popular now - the game is extremely simple and pretty easy and PvP is a huge departure from what most players understand about the game.

[SwitchFade]

23 hours ago, honoroit said:

 

simple - would you pvp, arena or zone based, if prismatic aether things dropped when you killed people?

I'd sooner gouge out my eyeballs with anthrax laced sponges and then play marbles with them.

 

And that's right before setting fire to my fingers with baby lard and bobbing for apples in an industrial blender.

 

So....no.

[honoroit]

baby lard?! your eyeballs? - you crazy!

 

i fear youve been eating bark at the teamroom in baldurs 3?

 

pvp is good!

 

 

[UltraAlt]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

the forums tend to attract the type of poster who says things like "PvP can die in a fire" (a direct quote from the tenth post in this thread, for example).

 

Not to ostracize anyone, but I have had that poster on ignore for a long time.

What I consider to be their "bad attitude" isn't directed at PvP alone.

 

And, I'll go ahead and say it, the CoH Forum Community before the Sunset was much larger, but I have far more people on ignore now than I ever did back then .... way more.

 

2 hours ago, macskull said:

It's not constructive, it's not helpful, and it's not relevant.

 

Agreed.

See my first post on this thread.

 

2 hours ago, macskull said:

Even responses along the lines of "fix the players" are worthless because 1) that's not how it works and 2) the "toxic" PvPers are and have always been a tiny minority.

 

Toxic players regardless of what part of the game they are involved with drive players away from themselves and usually the activity they are engaged in.

Saying that toxic PvPers were at least part of what drove me away from PvPing more before the Sunset is a fact.

It doesn't take large numbers to have a detrimental impact on something. It just takes enough vocal ones.

 

I don't know what "that's not how it works" means in relationship to "fix the players". 

Perhaps you could explain that more.

 

3 hours ago, macskull said:

Then there are the "this game wasn't designed for PvP" and "PvP isn't balanced" responses because at least in the case of the former it is demonstrably, objectively incorrect

 

You are obviously wrong.

The game was built for PvE and only PvE. There was no PvP when the game launched.

PvP was added to the game later on and anyone that did any PvPing when it was added and years later knows how many changes were made to PvP to try to balance it.

In my opinion, it is still a failure to balance between archetypes let alone level and enhancement imbalance.

 

Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Eternal Champions, Samurai Showdown, Soulcalibur, etc. were games designed to be PvP.

CoH was not.

 

3 hours ago, macskull said:

in the case of the second, it's a gross oversimplification of a bunch of pretty complex issues.

 

Not at all.

PvP was added to try to get a different demographic subscribing to City of Heroes. It was still subscriber based back then. City of Villains had not even released yet.

 

If you are looking for a fighter game, there are much better options.

To anyone that is actually looking for a fighter game to play, that is abundantly clear.

 

3 hours ago, macskull said:

PvE in this game isn't balanced either.

 

PvE is far more balanced than PvP.

Also PvE in CoH is meant to be about team synergy. It does a very good job of not only different archetypes augmenting each other, but having multiples of the same archetype increases that archetype's strengths.

 

Again.

Read my first post in this thread.

I'm not against player's PvPing.

 

However saying that there are no issues with PvP (on multiple levels), toxicity in PvP player base doesn't drive players away from PvPing, and/or how badly PvPers are treated does nothing to increase the number of players that are engaging in PvP.

 

Giving additional rewards to try to sucker players into content simply because enough players don't want to participate obviously rewards the people that already do the activity more than someone that might just "check it out". 

If you want to give badges for player defeats, fine. I don't really care about the badges. When it comes down to it, I really don't care about the hologram costumes either, but to some people that is a big deal. Apparently, the person posting thinks they are a big enough deal that it would lure more players to PvP simply to get the hologram costumes.

[honoroit]

4 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Apparently, the person posting thinks they are a big enough deal that it would lure more players to PvP simply to get the hologram costumes.

 

yes!

 

itd work, shiny and bright, magpies and treasures.

 

its 1150M for an aura costume.

 

i dont wanna run the tunnel map 80 times.  dunno about the rest of you.

[Andreah]

You may be able to bribe people to do things they fundamentally don't like, but they will not thank you for it.

[SeraphimKensai]

51 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

The game was built for PvE and only PvE. There was no PvP when the game launched.

That's right there was no PvP when the game launched; however, my understanding is that there was pvp in an early alpha version of the game. Look for 2002 or 2003 E3 videos and discussions of the game play. It was removed prior to the closed beta, but planned to be brought back later on when development had the time to give it more resources. 

[macskull]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

I don't know what "that's not how it works" means in relationship to "fix the players". 

Perhaps you could explain that more.

I'll elaborate: the PvP community at large cannot stop toxic players from being toxic any more than you can stop people from engaging in catgurl ERP in Pocket D on Everlasting. The organized PvP community, as it existed, did a fairly good job of policing itself ingame and the more toxic members of that community often found themselves unwelcome, but there's no similar amount of organization or community for zone PvP - anyone can go into Recluse's Victory and talk shit in broadcast, hit you with -jump, and Wormhole you into a dumpster. As I said earlier though, enemy chat is disabled by default in PvP zones so if the shit-talking is what you take issue with, that's as simple as restoring the default chat settings or placing the offending player on ignore. If you take issue with how they are playing the game your best bet is to report them and hope the GMs agree that what they're doing is griefing. Or, I dunno, leave the zone and come back in a little bit when they're bored because they can't find anyone to attack.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

You are obviously wrong.

The game was built for PvE and only PvE. There was no PvP when the game launched.

PvP was added to the game later on and anyone that did any PvPing when it was added and years later knows how many changes were made to PvP to try to balance it.

In my opinion, it is still a failure to balance between archetypes let alone level and enhancement imbalance.

Here's a video of some early alpha gameplay of CoH. If you watch a few seconds past the timestamp in the link, you'll specifically hear the arena and PvP mentioned. Just because it wasn't originally in the game doesn't mean the game wasn't built for it. If your argument for "the game wasn't built for PvP" is "there was no PvP when the game launched," then I suppose you could apply that same logic to levels 41 through 50, respecs, being able to run more than one defensive toggle at the same time, badges, capes, auras, multiple costume slots, or the entirety of CoV. PvP was added to the game about a year after launch, which in the grand scheme of things isn't long at all (less than eight months after respecs were added, about six months before CoV, two years before Inventions, and five years before the Incarnate system).

 

You say lots of changes were made to PvP to try to balance it like that is a bad thing - games with a healthy PvP scene continually made balance passes and adjustments to ensure "what's good" is continuously changing so the meta doesn't get stale. Luckily, changes to the game which were made solely for the sake of PvP balance didn't affect PvE (except for Hurricane's tick rate getting nerfed, that one I will concede). PvP in this game is not perfectly balanced, nor is it perfectly balanced in any MMO. Sure, you could add a game mode where every player just gets to pick an NPC's predetermined powers and everyone has exactly the same build, but that's... boring and runs counter to everything that makes this game unique. "Some builds aren't viable in PvP," I hear you say, and to that I agree you may have a point - but that's also true for lots of things in this game. If I'm wanting to fire farm I'm probably not going to do it with an Empathy/Archery Defender because there are better options. If I'm trying to solo an AV I want a build with lots of single-target damage and some -regen, and not every character is going to have those things. PvP's no different.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

However saying that there are no issues with PvP (on multiple levels), toxicity in PvP player base doesn't drive players away from PvPing, and/or how badly PvPers are treated does nothing to increase the number of players that are engaging in PvP.

I did not say any of those things. PvP does have its issues, but they're fewer and less significant than they've been at any time since Issue 13. I don't really buy the player toxicity argument either - every PvPer had to start somewhere and they probably also encountered their share of toxic players but they wanted to understand what was happening in the game and why it was happening so they could get better, instead of going "that person was mean to me, so I'm not coming back." I'm also not complaining about how PvPers are treated so much as the type of responses the very mention of PvP tends to elicit on these forums, on Discord, or ingame - just from this thread alone we've got responses running the gamut from "PvP can die in a fire" to "I would rather get AIDS" to "I'd sooner gouge out my eyeballs with anthrax laced sponges." That kind of attitude may well stop an interested player from even trying to PvP.

Edited August 1, 2023 by macskull

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, macskull said:

 

 

Even responses along the lines of "fix the players" are worthless because 1) that's not how it works and 2) the "toxic" PvPers are and have always been a tiny minority. Then there are the "this game wasn't designed for PvP" and "PvP isn't balanced" responses because at least in the case of the former it is demonstrably, objectively incorrect, and in the case of the second, it's a gross oversimplification of a bunch of pretty complex issues. PvE in this game isn't balanced either.

 

Even early on, as far as PVP balance, I've generally felt the PVP balance was this thing called "the team." That's what it basically felt balanced around. 1v1? ... sure, if you're the same AT, or at least the same sort of category. (One of my most hilarious - and *long* - fights on live was my MA/Regen stalker vs a MA/Regen Scrapper. We gave up after a while, said nice fight and went our separate ways. We just couldn't get each other to that tipping point where someone was going to win.)

 

But a team? Pickup trio I was on of - as I recall - two Corrs and a Dom basically held Sirens 'til better than a team of heroes finally overwhelmed us (and stopped coming 1-2 at a time.) Teams cover each other and build up where another's got a weakness.

 

(Though those were also really before IO builds went crazy and/or I13.)

 

*shrug* Zones are empty these days anyway. I think I've had ... two? PVP encounters since starting here. And one where the person was just standing in a base, I'm assuming getting time for a badge. I'm not interested in arena. I used to like the random chance meetings, trying to hunt someone by the trail of opened presents, that sort of thing.

[UltraAlt]

2 hours ago, honoroit said:

 

yes!

 

itd work, shiny and bright, magpies and treasures.

 

its 1150M for an aura costume.

 

i dont wanna run the tunnel map 80 times.  dunno about the rest of you.

 

it isn't worth selling that grind  - that was put in there to keep those that want that grind busy - simply to get more people to PvP.

 

... and could easily get exploited as people took turns letting other players defeat their characters ... too easily exploited....

[UltraAlt]

2 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

It was removed prior to the closed beta, but planned to be brought back later on when development had the time to give it more resources. 

 

Probably because they couldn't balance it.

When it was launched it wasn't balanced.

It still isn't balanced.

 

I'm trying not to post bad stuff about PVP but I'm getting pushed against the wall.

 

If people want to PvP, that's great. 

I don't think they should get extra rewards for doing something they like.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, macskull said:

I'll elaborate: the PvP community at large cannot stop toxic players from being toxic any more than you can stop people from engaging in catgurl ERP in Pocket D on Everlasting. The organized PvP community, as it existed, did a fairly good job of policing itself ingame and the more toxic members of that community often found themselves unwelcome, but there's no similar amount of organization or community for zone PvP - anyone can go into Recluse's Victory and talk shit in broadcast, hit you with -jump, and Wormhole you into a dumpster. As I said earlier though, enemy chat is disabled by default in PvP zones so if the shit-talking is what you take issue with, that's as simple as restoring the default chat settings or placing the offending player on ignore. If you take issue with how they are playing the game your best bet is to report them and hope the GMs agree that what they're doing is griefing. Or, I dunno, leave the zone and come back in a little bit when they're bored because they can't find anyone to attack.

 

PvPres can reduce and even possibly eliminate the toxic behavior by not accepting it as a group.

If everyone reports the toxic players, the DEVs will do something about it. If they talk s#$# in broadcast, there is the evidence to report.

PvPrs could even tell them that their behavior is detrimental to PvP - which it is.

Throwing your hands up and walking away from doing something about it doesn't mean that nothing can be done.

It just means that PvP isn't important enough to you to try to do what needs to be done to attract and keep other people playing PvP.

 

btw. I have never run into Catgurls ERP'ing in the Pocket D on Everlasting.

 

As far as being griefed or your solutions about being griefed...

I wanted to PvP. I would know how to deal with it. You don't need to tell me how to deal with it.

 

Out of the 36 ways to get out of a bad situation, the best one is to leave.

 

And that's one less player playing PvP. And anyone else that does likewise means one less.

And the more that leave that find something else that is more fun to do and don't return to something that was a bad experience, the environment that causes that bad experience gets fewer participants  - those that remain shouldn't be given greater rewards simply because there are fewer of them.

 

This thread is running in circles at this point.

It seems some feel like they need to insult other people during discussion, so I'm going to walk away.

No reason to waste more of my time on this thread.

 

My intent was to post something helpful in order to organize in a way that I thought would help get players together to PvP.

I don't think that PvPer deserve extra rewards.

 

 

[OldManMercy]

[MoonSheep]

On 7/31/2023 at 7:27 AM, biostem said:

The only thing likely to get me to PvP would be to either:

 

A. Introduce a PvP mode that relies solely on a special build with only SOs or some equivalent, with no IOs, temp powers, accolades, or anything else - just your build against mine, with no advantage for having "deep pockets" or the time to farm / grind content.

 

i agree - sirens call used to be amazing for PvP pre-IO.

 

 

perhaps zone incentives could also be added, along with bonuses so people don’t take it so seriously - e.g rewards for dying X number of times 

[Sanguinesun]

'City of Heroes' character 'Twixt' becomes game's most hated outcast courtesy of Loyola professor | News | nola.com

[Kaika]

See this is what I meant by "and angers those who want to pretend pvp does not exist"

 

While I think there are a lot of practical reasons why substantial pvp rewards are a bad idea, as your "goal" is controlled by another player and can be easily exploited. The very notion of rewarding pvp in any way or even acknowledging its continued existence is seen as outright offensive to some player for some odd reason. Bringing up a topic like this in general just leads to arguments. Many people drawn to these kinda treads look at purely optional side content and basically don't want ANYTHING encouraging players to try it out, despite this being a relatively normal thing in any MMO with pvp. Seriously I've seen people arguing that badges that you need to pvp for to get, are pve content and shouldn't be in a pvp zone (Aside from the one villain accolade that is pretty bad and should be changed). Regardless of the practicality and exploitation issues, you likely wont find much in the way of constructive discussion here on the topic of PvP incentives, as the topic almost exclusively devolves into complaining about pvp broadly anywhere outside of the pvp forums.

 

Don't get me wrong I have plenty of gripes about the current system I basically stopped pvping in I13 when they changed everything, but people enjoy it and honestly more might if they were encouraged to try. If you hate an optional activity that much that you come into a thread discussing possible rewards just to complain broadly about the activity in general, then good news, it still is and will always be entirely optional, the prospect of them getting rewarded in any way for it should have literally no bearing on you.

 

Long story short while I might personally disagree with this specific suggestion, just because you don't enjoy the activity does not mean those that do shouldn't have nice things.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Riot Siren

[Neiska]

13 hours ago, honoroit said:

you know, kupo, bribes work. bribing people to pvp would probably work.

 

Is this what you want to turn pvp into? Another form of farming or attracting players who don't care about pvp, or people you had to "bribe" to pvp?

 

13 hours ago, honoroit said:

now gank squads? thatd be awesome! it can actually be fun when baddies pounce, if there's enough people to respond in kind.

 

With respect, it's that kind of thing that keeps many people away, including myself. Personally, I wouldn't mind dueling 1v1 in an arena. But not me just flying through a zone doing quests and getting jumped by a couple of 50s and getting stomped and camped. This isn't a WoW PVP server and thank God for that. But if all you want is more people to be victims, then I want no part of such activities. And I wouldn't take part no matter what the bribe was. Even if they offered me 1 billion to be a punching bag, I would still decline because "that's" how much I dislike that form of "PVP." And I suspect I am far from alone.

 

To me, that isn't even PVP. Not really. It's just Ganking. And call it a hunch that the kind of players who enjoy that, or are willing to be punching bags, have moved onto other games long ago. CoH is many things. Conductive to fair and equal PVP it is not.

[honoroit]

31 minutes ago, Neiska said:

It's just Ganking

 

i find a lot of people who complain about ganking call being killed in pvp in any way, ganking.

 

could you end up with hunt packs in zone pvp, yes.  its dangerous.

 

a stalker or stealth becomes greatly more valuable, and a persons on their toes.

 

were someone truely following you for an extended period, theres a bunch of zones.

 

death happens, asymetric death happens, in pvp.

 

to me, its part of what in totality is the most dynamic and challenging play type in the game.

 

it beats rolling over council on repeat, where the primary concern is 'can party memver x get a hit in at all before the mob explodes'?

 

people want to be powerful, they do not want that challenged by another like them. because while they may feel its unfair, they are aware that it was human vs human, and they lost. to some that stings a lot, but it doesnt have to.

 

pvp isnt screaming pog loudly while remembering to thank your sponsors, patreons, and onlyfans - or it never used to be.