honoroitisfantastic Would you pvp for prisms?

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Neiska said:

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."

Wait a second now.  Don't be too rash.  I'd take a billion to be a punching bag for a bit. 🤪

[GM Crumpet]

I think the main problem is people really aren't that interested in PvP.  Some people have tried to get players excited by organising events and ended up receiving so much hate and abuse they gave up. While smack talking and abuse to your opponent is perfectly fine and a well crafted insult is a joy to behold, some people took it too far and followed it up in emails and private messages.

I don't think extra player rewards would ever happen though. The devs allowed a PvP character to be created at level cap which I think is as much as you are going to get. At the moment you get a decent player balance, but once there are rare rewards you just know the person with the farm alts will throw as much inf as they can to make the most min/max alt possible so they can dominate and suck the joy out of what should be a fun part of the game. It's not as bad as pay to play in retail games where someone will throw vast amounts of real money at a character for the absolute best loot, but it's still something that while in the rules of the server is against the spirit of the event.

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, honoroit said:

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

With CoH's PvP zones forcing people to specific levels in the zones, it's less of an issue, retaining only the inherent advantage of someone fully slotted out with IO sets exemp'ed down from 50 to the zone level over someone barely at the zone minimum, but too many other MMOs have reinforced the perception of PvP being largely populated by сволочи whose sole measure of their 'leet skillz' as a gamer is how fast their level-capped character in BiS gear can gank characters fresh out of the tutorial zone who have no functional way of even chipping the fingernail polish on the character attacking them.

[JasperStone]

14 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

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.

 

 

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?

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

@SeraphimKensai The above is more akin to my experience.

I played on Guardian 🙂

Any PvP outside your events was ... god awful.

On my old computer, I had a screenshot of something that was said to me ...

yea ....

Hard pass on PvP.

 

If you like it? Great! 

I do hope the community grows so you can continue to experience it.

But I don't have to like it.

 

The other part is the assessment.

If you are bad at PvP ... you are a bad player.

Yes. This was said to me.

 

 

 

[Neiska]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Wait a second now.  Don't be too rash.  I'd take a billion to be a punching bag for a bit. 🤪

 

But that's just it. If it was 1 on 1 duels or gladiator kind of setup, I might be interested in that. But they want more people for the open zone kind of format, which is rarely equal or fair. It's who outleveled who or who gets the drop on the other. Aka, "ganking." And the thing is, unless players are "required" to go to such areas, people seem willing to DO the ganking, but not BE ganked. And I think suggesting such a playstyle not only be encouraged but rewarded in CoH to be a bit dubious.

 

I mean, within hours people would figure out how to exploit. If if it was me personally, I would log in at 5am on a Saturday when there is "nobody" else on, load up my alternate accounts then find some dark forgotten corner and proceed to gleefully farm myself. Then cue the people saying "that's exploiting" or "it wasn't intended for that" and other similar heated discussions about the AE. Then when it is pulled the PVPers would go "why are you punishing us?" just as the farmers did/do.

 

But I think the vote kind of stands for itself. If people want to "gank" there are other games for that in a much more controlled competitive environment. Many games have made entire series around it, such as Call of Duty and the like. But some extremes in the PVP community I suspect don't want a fair honest contest or comparison of skills in the spirit of good sportsmanship. Not all of the PVP community are gankers. But there are some that most certainly are, akin to Hardcore ganking in Diablo 3, or Stranglethorn Vale in Wow, or fully leveled 70s perched waiting for fresh 60s to enter the Dark Portal. I consider it borderline harassment to permit such activities. But so long as there is a way to "opt out" of it, I won't personally complain.

 

But, I do find arguments of "we want PVP," but immediately any notion of any fair, equal fight and not just incentivized ganking mildly amusing. That tells me some (again, not ALL of the PVP community, but some, certainly) don't want a fair fight, they just want victims.

[SeraphimKensai]

24 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

 

@SeraphimKensai The above is more akin to my experience.

I played on Guardian 🙂

Any PvP outside your events was ... god awful.

On my old computer, I had a screenshot of something that was said to me ...

yea ....

Hard pass on PvP.

 

If you like it? Great! 

I do hope the community grows so you can continue to experience it.

But I don't have to like it.

 

The other part is the assessment.

If you are bad at PvP ... you are a bad player.

Yes. This was said to me.

 

Sorry that you had a bad experience with PvP on Guardian. My SG played heroes on Guardian and villains on Pinnacle. Even in our SG not everyone was a pvper and that's totally okay. Those of us that did a lot of pvp hosted SG and public pvp practice sessions quite a bit to try to help those that were interested improve. Our SG even limited discussion in broadcast to things like salutations, thanks, good game and the such.

 

Sorry that someone called you a bad player, as I wouldn't state that pvp skills are a causation of pve skills. I personally mained an empathy defender for pvp and I feel that twitch helped me become an even better empath in pve as well (sad that empathy is kinda unnecessary in pve at higher levels these days) but that's likely a niche use.

 

Personally I'm retired from most pvp these days as real life doesn't let me have a steady schedule and my old pvp team has quit the game as well. I just like understanding where people are coming from maybe it ties into the fact I mained an empathy defender for so long.

[honoroit]

currently 90% of us like grinding that funny-50-tf-i-never-do or running tunnels ~80 times to gather ~1150 million inf (250 prisms) so their character can enjoy an aura.

 

if you dont think prisms from pvp should be a thing - do you think the drop rate should rise outside of literally less than a handful of places where accrual isnt punishing?

Edited August 1, 2023 by honoroit

[Neiska]

1 hour ago, GM Crumpet said:

At the moment you get a decent player balance, but once there are rare rewards you just know the person with the farm alts will throw as much inf as they can to make the most min/max alt possible so they can dominate and suck the joy out of what should be a fun part of the game. It's not as bad as pay to play in retail games where someone will throw vast amounts of real money at a character for the absolute best loot, but it's still something that while in the rules of the server is against the spirit of the event.

 

Personally, I wouldn't even bother other people. I would just find a quiet corner somewhere, super early in the morning when no one else was playing, (EST player here) and use my main to kill my alts over and over and the moment anyone else shown up, I would just leave or find something else to do. Or just move elsewhere. Unless goofing off with friends, like chasing each other with bats and stuff, or 1 on 1 arena-style gladiator duels, I don't particularly enjoy PVP. But if it was given any kind of reward, I would treat it as any other activity and analyze it to see if it would be beneficial for me to use it. If it was worth my time, sure, I might farm it. If not, then I likely wouldn't bother. 

[Neiska]

3 minutes ago, honoroit said:

currently 90% of us like grinding that funny-50-tf-i-never-do or running tunnels ~80 times to gather ~1150 million inf (250 prisms) so their character can enjoy an aura.

 

if you dont think prisms from pvp should be a thing - do you think the drop rate should rise outside of literally less than a handful of places where accrual isnt punishing?

 

1,150,000,000/80 = 14,375,000 per run. Honestly, depending on how long it takes you to finish a tunnel run, that is fairly optimistic. There are faster ways to make money than tunnel run. If you want to just make money quickly, learn how to play the real moneymaker in the game - the Auction House. Some of the richest people I know aren't even level 10. But in seriousness, you have mentioned prisms a few times now. Is this what this is really about? You want other ways to get prisms for auras? Or ways to get prisms from activities you personally enjoy? Again, hard to convey tone of voice via text here, so I want to express I am trying to ask respectfully and in earnest.

 

Personally I am okay with having things that take time and effort to earn. If aura's were just like any other costume pieces, everyone would have them immediately. Heaven forbid a game actually have things that take time, effort, and dedication to get. There used to be games like Everquest where getting a single item, your epic, could take months of game time, if not longer, and a good part of the community never finished. Having an Epic should be just that - Epic. Not a participation trophy which is what the majority of costume auras and looks are right now.

 

I do want to say that I have absolutely nothing against you personally, or even the PVP community. You guys have a kind of game that you enjoy but requires participation from others. But I think most people would agree that everything is essentially on the community itself. I wouldn't expect any handouts or bonuses from the HC staff, or if they did, I would treat it as a pleasant surprise. But I do wonder, have you folks in the PVP community tried to get organized? Make a PVP discord? Supergroups whose entire point is to support PVP? I mean, all that is going to fall on the players who want that sort of thing. I doubt any kind of serious PVP is going to happen on its own, or from the HC staff. So, just saying, it might be on the minority of you players who actually want this sort of thing to make it happen.

[Snokle]

I have done some random zone PVP before it was Freemium setup, and times during the HC years it was an interesting balance for the most part. While Live I played on Triumph where there was a small PVP crowd very few were toxic but for the most part it was fun. I had a couple friends IRL which would go into zone to team PVP. Hell even times when we were hunting for badges, we had some fun PVP chicanery and if we asked some people were fine just letting us do our things. Was I good a PvP? No, I probably did not have a very good build for it, but it was fun especially after i13 work.

 

I have done a little bit of PVP work when I was doing some badge hunting in RV, and it felt mostly the same as before, but with the small base comparatively and no connection to some of the players it felt more hollow. As a lot of people who PvP'd did a lot of PvE too and setup a lot of the great challenge runs or high end work at the time. At a certain point, it just felt hollow, as I enjoy zone PvP more at the time when it was busy and you could feel swings like this, Arena was never my interest as I felt it did not have the hero vs villain tropes that hit me properly.

 

Would prismatic ethers change my opinion and get me to PvP more? Nope I fell I am over it in the game and moved on. Also not being an exact fan of the ethers as a grind for really nothing is not my interest when it comes to grinding in games.

[Ruin Mage]

To the question of the thread's title:

Absolutely fucking not.

[alphamax]

tldr: no, prisms are just not going to do it for me, even though I love pvp.

 

Played on live 2005-2010. Was an avid team pvp'er. In fact, that's the main reason I stayed as long as I did. I love the movement mechanics of the game, even if some were unintended by the devs apparently (see: kinetics).

Came back to HC in 2021 and had to relearn the game (incarnates weren't out in 2010, along with a multitude of new IOs, powersets, etc).

In less than a year on HC, I had ~20 L50s, maxed out, IO'd out, purpled out, and T4 incarnates.

 

I've been STRUGGLING to keep playing through 2023. PVP would keep me interested... but there's very little community. I tried to informally join groups in zones, but these are empty most of the day. I only have a few 2-hr windows to play, and finding anyone to team with is really frustrating.

This is not a defense of COH PVP - it is super annoying to get in a zone, get blasted and 3-shotted from someone you can't even see because you haven't maxed out perception.

You hosp, insp up, and again damage/debuffs from players you can't even see, and dead again. Like mentioned, I had to learn some of the newer game mechanics and now can at least survive.

 

COH PVP suffers from a 0-chance win if you are missing key powers against most attackers. This is part of the problem.

PvE has a multitude of tutorials while pvp has none. PvE itself is a poor example of what PvP is actually like. If youre not ready, PVP is like entering a 4-star ITF with an SO'd character. How can that be fun?

 

For those reasons, prisms alone are not going to be enough of a reward to get people to do something they hate: getting destroyed, out of nowhere, often.

I would love an overhaul of pvp where there is more emphasis on teaming, more tutorials, perhaps even a free "pvp build" which only activates in zones with free IOs, with recommendations (+perception, web grenade, etc.).

 

This is not to say PVP is a bad idea. It's just not ideal in its current form. If not for pvp, what else is the endgame??

[honoroit]

35 minutes ago, Neiska said:

 

1,150,000,000/80 = 14,375,000 per run. Honestly, depending on how long it takes you to finish a tunnel run, that is fairly optimistic. There are faster ways to make money than tunnel run. If you want to just make money quickly, learn how to play the real moneymaker in the game - the Auction House. Some of the richest people I know aren't even level 10. But in seriousness, you have mentioned prisms a few times now. Is this what this is really about? You want other ways to get prisms for auras? Or ways to get prisms from activities you personally enjoy? Again, hard to convey tone of voice via text here, so I want to express I am trying to ask respectfully and in earnest.

 

Personally I am okay with having things that take time and effort to earn. If aura's were just like any other costume pieces, everyone would have them immediately. Heaven forbid a game actually have things that take time, effort, and dedication to get. There used to be games like Everquest where getting a single item, your epic, could take months of game time, if not longer, and a good part of the community never finished. Having an Epic should be just that - Epic. Not a participation trophy which is what the majority of costume auras and looks are right now.

 

I do want to say that I have absolutely nothing against you personally, or even the PVP community. You guys have a kind of game that you enjoy but requires participation from others. But I think most people would agree that everything is essentially on the community itself. I wouldn't expect any handouts or bonuses from the HC staff, or if they did, I would treat it as a pleasant surprise. But I do wonder, have you folks in the PVP community tried to get organized? Make a PVP discord? Supergroups whose entire point is to support PVP? I mean, all that is going to fall on the players who want that sort of thing. I doubt any kind of serious PVP is going to happen on its own, or from the HC staff. So, just saying, it might be on the minority of you players who actually want this sort of thing to make it happen.

 

power items, like epic class weapons, or artifact sets, or other else granted power in game, and were oft best in slot for pve, or provided significant advantage beyond cosplay.

 

prisms are for cosplay, and we change the theme weekly even on excelsior!

 

i would love two things:

1/ prisms to drop from a range of activities that reflect the players actual play at a reasonable rate, if time gating is goal.

2/ more pvp!

(3/ pvp invasions into city zones, even within faction)

[Ghost]

 

 

If you are able to entice players over to PvP with added rewards, then what?

How are you going to teach them, so they can enjoy it enough to keep coming back?  Or is it a case of “entice more victims for me” with no regard for anything else?

Surely you don’t think repeatedly killing someone is fun for them, or helping them learn.

 

 

I don’t PvP.  Only thing I know about the community is remembering some jerks about a year ago trying to entice noobs into a PvP zone by advertising a big money CC.  

Some took the bait, despite warnings from other players.
I thought that was sorry and couldn’t help but wonder how many players we lost because of the actions of these PVPers.

 

 

 

[SeraphimKensai]

35 minutes ago, Neiska said:

But I do wonder, have you folks in the PVP community tried to get organized? Make a PVP discord? Supergroups whose entire point is to support PVP? I mean, all that is going to fall on the players who want that sort of thing. I doubt any kind of serious PVP is going to happen on its own, or from the HC staff.

To answer your questions, and someone like Mac could provide likely a better response but....

There's a pvp discord server here's how to access it:

 

The PvP community has worked pretty closely with HC staff over the years in suggesting pvp changes and doing testing for pvp. That's why there's things that limit incarnates past the alpha slot in PvP zones, accolades needing you to buy the pvp version of them, and temporal warriors among other adjustments..All of those suggestions came from the PvP community to make PvP more equitable and easier to be able to compete in.

 

Honestly even going back to the live servers there has always been a significant amount work between the devs and pvp community as most pvpers back then had no issue about using the test server for the sanctioned ladder pvp league.

 

But your right PvP does require a coordinated effort. Sadly the homecoming population has dwindled over the years to the point that the PvP community moved to Excelsior in an attempt to access more players but even so the population is limited.

 

[Neiska]

15 minutes ago, honoroit said:

 

power items, like epic class weapons, or artifact sets, or other else granted power in game, and were oft best in slot for pve, or provided significant advantage beyond cosplay.

 

prisms are for cosplay, and we change the theme weekly even on excelsior!

 

i would love two things:

1/ prisms to drop from a range of activities that reflect the players actual play at a reasonable rate, if time gating is goal.

2/ more pvp!

(3/ pvp invasions into city zones, even within faction)

 

1 and 2 I have no objections to. But number 3 is where we have problems. As that would force people to participate in an activity they have already decided to not partake in, by virtue of avoiding open PVP areas. The moment there is an "open season" in a city, people will simply move. Even to their own bases if need be. You are essentially subscribing to "force" other players, unwilling ones, to engage in your favored activity. 

 

As an example, it would be similar if they turned off "all" INF gains outside of ITFs, or Farming, and "forced" players to do those activities, which I suspect most people would be very much against, including myself.

 

So why is it alright for you to want to force your own play on others, but if the tables were turned it wouldn't be welcome? The fact few people engage in PVP when they can opt out says plenty. If they wanted to do that, they already would be. but if you tried to "force" it on players, a good number of people would leave. Myself included, if I was "forced" to PVP in order to play CoH. So you wouldn't find yourself with more PVP. (or at least, you might for a short time.) But before long, you would be right back where you started.

 

And none of this is meant as a personal insult or attack, only describing for context. There "is" a point, when you try to "make" others enjoy something that they don't, either by force or by bribery, where they will go "screw this" and just move elsewhere.

 

Food for thought.

[honoroit]

same kind of people pull their internet when they get invaded in dark souls. 

 

but strangely, still get online.

 

guess they want co-op at no risk, and dont mind having to reset when it happens.

 

in a world that were perfect, itd be a type of server/shard.  no 'force me to engage' or anything exciting like that.

[Ghost]

10 minutes ago, honoroit said:

same kind of people pull their internet when they get invaded in dark souls. 

 

but strangely, still get online.

 

guess they want co-op at no risk, and dont mind having to reset when it happens.

 

in a world that were perfect, itd be a type of server/shard.  no 'force me to engage' or anything exciting like that.

You gotta remember - not everyone thinks the same way you do.  
I play COH to relax and have fun.     
The opposite of how I view PvP.

 

Out of curiosity, how would you react if PvP was eliminated from the COH?

 

[Neiska]

2 minutes ago, honoroit said:

same kind of people pull their internet when they get invaded in dark souls. 

 

but strangely, still get online.

 

guess they want co-op at no risk, and dont mind having to reset when it happens.

 

in a world that were perfect, itd be a type of server/shard.  no 'force me to engage' or anything exciting like that.

 

That is quite the take. Comparing CoH to Dark Souls is a false comparison. The game, and other players, don't exist as mere targets for you. And, the game isn't even designed to be risky co-op play. There are already dedicated areas for you to fight other players - the PVP zones. Since there are so few there, that should be a message that most simply aren't interested.

 

And, for the record, people are allowed to enjoy games like Dark Souls without enjoying PVP. More of a Bloodborne or Elden Ring fan personally though. But just because its an option in a game, doesn't make it everyone's focus. And from where I sit, its you being the initiator here.

 

Again, not to personally insult, but this is reading very much like a "I like to fight people. There are no people for me to fight where it's permitted. Let me go where they are protected and fight them." You are free to enjoy PVP. And I hope you do, truly. But I take a very dim view on strongarm-ing others into it, simply by their virtue of their presence in the game. I mean, lets imagine it for a moment - You are in atlas, talking with friends on fresh characters, deciding what to do and chatting away, when all of a sudden 5 level 50's dive out of the sky, or as you put it, "Combat Jump into it as a Tanker Mace" and just start absolutely annihilating them. Is that what you expect players to have signed up for, or even expected themselves? To me, that is quite Toxic behavior, and an example of why part of the PVP community is seen as it is - negatively. That isn't PVP to my mind at all. That's just griefing and ganking low levels. And what do you think it would do to the game and the community if such a thing was allowed to happen? You personally might enjoy it, but I doubt its a stretch to say that the majority of the community, especially new players, would not.

[srmalloy]

18 minutes ago, Ghost said:

Out of curiosity, how would you react if PvP was eliminated from the COH?

One of the things that attracted me to CoH in the first place was that it didn't have PvP; roughly 90% of my PvP in CoH (barring the PvE actions in PvP zones like the Shivan mission) was shortly after the release of CoV, when a group of my friends and I held a beach party on the roof of the hero base in Bloody Bay for a couple of hours, popping the turrets as they came back up and discouraging any heroes that came up to try to throw us off. We didn't pay any attention to the heroes unless they wanted to argue with us over our commandeering their roof; it was just a "We're on your base, catching some rays" thing. The villain base wasn't laid out to make the reverse 'occupation' work, or we probably would have tried that.

[Oubliette_Red]

2 hours ago, honoroit said:

currently 90% of us like grinding that funny-50-tf-i-never-do or running tunnels ~80 times to gather ~1150 million inf (250 prisms) so their character can enjoy an aura.

 

if you dont think prisms from pvp should be a thing - do you think the drop rate should rise outside of literally less than a handful of places where accrual isnt punishing?

 

80% of statistics are made up on the spot.

 

I am working on my 3rd page of characters on one server, only 3 have hit L50 and only one of them has done any incarnate-level content, plus Hami's maybe 2-3 times a week. I run content from tutorial to Grandville/P.I./Night Ward. I don't like grinding anything, that's why I'm generally on different characters every day I log in.

 

The devs would likely have the metrics on how many prisms are being handed out/consumed/traded and I will leave it up to them to decide if the drop rate should be adjusted. But I vote no for prisms being awarded in PvP.

 

[High_Beam]

2 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

To the question of the thread's title:

Absolutely fucking not.

What about a Klondike Bar 🙂

[Oubliette_Red]

17 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

One of the things that attracted me to CoH in the first place was that it didn't have PvP; roughly 90% of my PvP in CoH (barring the PvE actions in PvP zones like the Shivan mission) was shortly after the release of CoV, when a group of my friends and I held a beach party on the roof of the hero base in Bloody Bay for a couple of hours, popping the turrets as they came back up and discouraging any heroes that came up to try to throw us off. We didn't pay any attention to the heroes unless they wanted to argue with us over our commandeering their roof; it was just a "We're on your base, catching some rays" thing. The villain base wasn't laid out to make the reverse 'occupation' work, or we probably would have tried that.

 

That's hilarious. Back on Legacy one of the few times I got caught in a PvP zone (while exploration badge gathering), there was a group of gardening implements camping the hospital to gank folks that were respawning, having a grand time.

 

[TheZag]

The only fun ive ever had in CoH pvp was with a bunch of level 2 blasters.  We tried some lvl 50 pvp and those that had pvp builds completely devastated those that did not.  Adding a reward wouldnt attract me to that awful experience again.  Maybe i would pvp in a zone where the rule was enhancements have no effect or SOs only but the current state of pvp is an absolute misery to play.

 

[honoroit]

if you're famous, like me, in CoH, prisms comes down to one thing: