Devs Stance on PvP and Balance of the Game?

[Solarverse]

When this game first came out, the Original Devs stated (I believe it was Jack Emmert) that this game would never have PvP. Since then, with the release of the Arena, back in Issue 6 (if memory serves) they introduced PvP.

 

This was a concern for PvEers, because it was believed the game would start seeing changes due to PvP balancing  The Devs then told us that this game would never be balanced around PvP.

 

That also was not the case, as the Travel Power giving a huge negative chance to hit was introduced, followed by that being changed to Travel Power Suppression.

 

Many changes were made due to PvP afterwards...more than I can count.

 

What I want to know is, will the Devs of City of Heroes today grant PvE asylum from any changes made for PvP? What is the Dev's stance?

[PaxArcana]

The Arena was Issue 4 or 5.

 

Issue 6 was City of Villains and the open PvP zones.  :)

 

...

 

Travel power changes were not because of PvP.  They just happened to come out at the same time.  Those changes were intended to stop people from doing "fly-by" attacks, eliminating all risk from combat.

[chigiabelo]

I don't think we can really consider this game to be the same as it was during Live when it had a team of developers who were paid to go to work and put in full-time efforts to keep the game going and growing. The current team seems to be a loosely organized group that is doing the work with the priority being to keep people playing, but I imagine they have their own lives and jobs outside of their development efforts here and the time they do spend on this is split between making tweaks and playing the game like we do which, as you know, is already a time sink.

 

I surmise that changes will be prioritized based on a combination of (1) the most blatant bugs, (2) the easiest changes to make, and (3) what the most people are asking for.

[SwitchFade]

The Arena was Issue 4 or 5.

 

Issue 6 was City of Villains and the open PvP zones.  :)

 

...

 

Travel power changes were not because of PvP.  They just happened to come out at the same time.  Those changes were intended to stop people from doing "fly-by" attacks, eliminating all risk from combat.

 

I recall many instances where devs mentioned that "kiting", especially in the arena, was of concern.

 

Travel suppression may have been later masked as "exploitive combat kiting removal," but the clear tipping point was how it was exploited in PvP, placing ranged AT's using SS so completely dominant that they could not justify NOT changing it. To be clear, before PvP, kiting was possible, but being that it wasn't practical when trying to power level, it was of little concern. The reason for this is, as soon as I get in range, game hit check is automatic on mobs that are antagonized. So even in situations where I initiate the alpha from concealment of some kind, wipe a group of mods and move on, I would have to contend with recharge on tier 9 powers that have this damage potential. If I attack with a lower damage power, which will or wipe the group, and kite out, I will still take the alpha, because the game has initiated attack the moment any un-killed mob is antagonized.

 

So, actually steam-rolling mobs with kiting was not possible. Second, I could always kite, with hover and snipe, so there was little reason to remove the same SS kiting in pve.

 

Additionally, kiting is nearly pointless when trying to use multiple aoe's, as it always was, and no one did it.

 

Travel suppression was implemented most expressly because of PvP, as it was literally game breaking. Further, they instituted many changes because of PvP.

 

NCSoft always intended for PvP to be part of the game, and design testing for it was already underway by issue 3. Jack E. Had several disagreements with NC, this being one of them, and he was eventually shown the door.

[Solarverse]

The Arena was Issue 4 or 5.

 

Issue 6 was City of Villains and the open PvP zones.  :)

 

...

 

Travel power changes were not because of PvP.  They just happened to come out at the same time.  Those changes were intended to stop people from doing "fly-by" attacks, eliminating all risk from combat.

 

I disagree. What we were told and what the reasons were, were two very different things. Kiting mobs with travel powers was NEVER a thing. People were more concerned with trying to herd than they were with kiting.

 

Want to know who was kiting? Me...in PvP as a Super Speeder. I was part of the reason for the travel power nerfs. I am partially to blame.

 

Same could be said to the Assassins Strike Nerf, or the placate nerf... both done because of PvP. I am also partially to blame for these changes. Pop 4 reds, hit build up, AS, target died in one hit. Hit placate, you went invisible to everyone, not just your target. So I never came out of hide unless placate was up.

 

When people came to the forums to complain, the Devs told them that Stalkers were working as intended, they would not be nerfed.

 

Now, even though there were ALWAYS ways to beat this, the players demanded a nerf and the crowds with the pitch forks and torches grew larger. Eventually, the Devs nerfed placate AND Assassin's Strike.

 

The list goes on and on. These nerfs were due to PvP...and had very little to do with PvE. I know it's hard to believe that a Dev would lie...but in this case it was a flat out lie.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

If I can resurrect an old meme: lolPvP.

[Dan Petro]

Considering the entire point of i13 was to add a separate PvP flag to literally every power in the game, and that when you apply changes you have to pick which part of the power you want to change (the PvE or PvP values) this is pretty much a moot point.

 

Not everyone was playing a tank and herding the entire map.  The movement speed stuff was done because you could effectively easily and permanently kite any damage as a non tank ranged damage player.  In PvP, people ran Kins for *years* after that because guess what still provided unsuppressed movement speed in both PvE and PvP (and still does to this day in PvE).

 

PvP has in some ways been a good litmus test to figure out what is broken and what is not.  Powers are put to a different level of scrutiny when used in a player vs player environment, much more so than when fighting near bread dead AI.  So many times when you see a PvP change, the reality probably was it was broken in PvE too or performing so high above other sets that it is easier to knock one thing down here and there than raise everything else up.  See Energy Transfer. 

 

And while the end result change was too harsh and pretty much gutted the set, it was still a power that was massively over tuned. 

 

 

[SwitchFade]

Considering the entire point of i13 was to add a separate PvP flag to literally every power in the game, and that when you apply changes you have to pick which part of the power you want to change (the PvE or PvP values) this is pretty much a moot point.

 

Not everyone was playing a tank and herding the entire map.  The movement speed stuff was done because you could effectively easily and permanently kite any damage as a non tank ranged damage player.  In PvP, people ran Kins for *years* after that because guess what still provided unsuppressed movement speed in both PvE and PvP (and still does to this day in PvE).

 

PvP has in some ways been a good litmus test to figure out what is broken and what is not.  Powers are put to a different level of scrutiny when used in a player vs player environment, much more so than when fighting near bread dead AI.  So many times when you see a PvP change, the reality probably was it was broken in PvE too or performing so high above other sets that it is easier to knock one thing down here and there than raise everything else up.  See Energy Transfer. 

 

And while the end result change was too harsh and pretty much gutted the set, it was still a power that was massively over tuned. 

 

 

 

Not necessarily. The changes that were made because of PvP, by issue 13, were essentially"baked in," and will now be problematic to change.

 

Additionally, while it was possible to kite, if a mob survived your alpha, it automatically retaliated, and even when you look out of range, you would still then be hit by their alpha, because of how the game functions.

 

Kiting was never viable as a means to be overpowered. As an example I mentioned, hover sniping was, and still is, kiting.

 

Super speed kiting was only an issue in PvP.

[Solarverse]

Considering the entire point of i13 was to add a separate PvP flag to literally every power in the game, and that when you apply changes you have to pick which part of the power you want to change (the PvE or PvP values) this is pretty much a moot point.

 

Not everyone was playing a tank and herding the entire map.  The movement speed stuff was done because you could effectively easily and permanently kite any damage as a non tank ranged damage player.  In PvP, people ran Kins for *years* after that because guess what still provided unsuppressed movement speed in both PvE and PvP (and still does to this day in PvE).

 

PvP has in some ways been a good litmus test to figure out what is broken and what is not.  Powers are put to a different level of scrutiny when used in a player vs player environment, much more so than when fighting near bread dead AI.  So many times when you see a PvP change, the reality probably was it was broken in PvE too or performing so high above other sets that it is easier to knock one thing down here and there than raise everything else up.  See Energy Transfer. 

 

And while the end result change was too harsh and pretty much gutted the set, it was still a power that was massively over tuned. 

 

 

 

More truth to this than I care to admit. But I'll admit.

[Dan Petro]

 

 

Not necessarily. The changes that were made because of PvP, by issue 13, were essentially"baked in," and will now be problematic to change.

 

This is true if you want to try for an i12 reversion kind of thing.  But look at the snipe changes currently on the test server.

 

In PvE they are going from 2.28 to 2.76 scale damage based on  your to hit modifier.  In PvP they are unchanged and using the standard PvP damage formula which heavily accounts for activation time to determine damage done. 

[SwitchFade]

 

 

Not necessarily. The changes that were made because of PvP, by issue 13, were essentially"baked in," and will now be problematic to change.

 

This is true if you want to try for an i12 reversion kind of thing.  But look at the snipe changes currently on the test server.

 

In PvE they are going from 2.28 to 2.76 scale damage based on  your to hit modifier.  In PvP they are unchanged and using the standard PvP damage formula which heavily accounts for activation time to determine damage done.

 

Understood, while some changing may be easily possible, unwinding travel suppression, GDN, ED, and other changes made because of PvP would be largely impossible, due to every other addition that built in them. A damage scale change is much more minor.

[justicebeliever]

Understood, while some changing may be easily possible, unwinding travel suppression, GDN, ED, and other changes made because of PvP would be largely impossible, due to every other addition that built in them. A damage scale change is much more minor.

 

I would think revisiting changes to GDN and ED wouldn't even be a discussion at this point, given how baked in they are to everything, not just because of what PvP did or not do to cause them to happen...

[Dan Petro]

 

 

Not necessarily. The changes that were made because of PvP, by issue 13, were essentially"baked in," and will now be problematic to change.

 

This is true if you want to try for an i12 reversion kind of thing.  But look at the snipe changes currently on the test server.

 

In PvE they are going from 2.28 to 2.76 scale damage based on  your to hit modifier.  In PvP they are unchanged and using the standard PvP damage formula which heavily accounts for activation time to determine damage done.

 

Understood, while some changing may be easily possible, unwinding travel suppression, GDN, ED, and other changes made because of PvP would be largely impossible, due to every other addition that built in them. A damage scale change is much more minor.

 

So you can just straight up turn off travel suppression and Heal Decay in the arena and it is currently turned off in the zones.  ED is a PvE change and laid the groundwork for Invention Origins.  GDN was a PvE change because it created this massive gap between characters with defensive primaries and secondaries, and those with damage/support/cc ones.  It was bad for the games PvE health. It wasn't a PvP change because Powerboost Aim/Build up + 30% unresisted damage on blasters or completely unresisted debuffs on defnders in PvP pretty much laughed at any level of defense/resistance a character could hit. 

[srmalloy]

Kiting was never viable as a means to be overpowered. As an example I mentioned, hover sniping was, and still is, kiting.

 

However, you can also look at hover sniping as falling into the original claim Jack Emmert made that "range was a Blaster's defense", which was true only until the change that gave virtually every mob a ranged attack that seemed to almost always exceed the range of non-Snipe attacks; my AR/EM Blaster could drift around high in the sky with Boost Range running and snipe out most mobs without retaliation (a few exceptions, like Malta Gunslingers and Zeus Titans, come to mind), but it was annoyingly slow.

 

Super speed kiting was only an issue in PvP.

 

I only ever used it in PvE, but Super Jump kiting was also possible. My use of it in PvE was mostly with my Ktn/Reg Scrapper with Super Jump, mostly against the Sky Raider Sky Skiffs in Terra Volta -- he could queue up an attack on the ground, leap up at the Sky Skiff, sail past it, land, and the attack animation would go off; he'd eat the return fire and repeat until the Sky Skiff was down. That character was also the only 50 I ever deleted, after the Regen rework went in based on combat results from a badly skewed internal test server; I wasn't interested in the complete rework I'd have to do on the character to put him back together after the changes. And Willpower showed up later taking over the 'fire and forget' defensive powerset that Regen had been.

[THEDarkTyger]

I recall many instances where devs mentioned that "kiting", especially in the arena, was of concern.

 

I don't recall them mentioning anything specifically about the arena when they said kiting was a concern.

 

Travel suppression may have been later masked as "exploitive combat kiting removal," but the clear tipping point

 

Only "clear" to those looking for an excuse to call the devs out on a "lie"...

[SwitchFade]

I recall many instances where devs mentioned that "kiting", especially in the arena, was of concern.

 

I don't recall them mentioning anything specifically about the arena when they said kiting was a concern.

 

Travel suppression may have been later masked as "exploitive combat kiting removal," but the clear tipping point

 

Only "clear" to those looking for an excuse to call the devs out on a "lie"...

 

Incorrect. It was clear what they were doing.

[Kaika]

I think someone already mentioned it but I just wanna make it clear

 

PvP runs on an entirely different system from PvE these days, a system that does not effect PvE balance any more. Its has been like that since I13 you can read about the differences here https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Player_vs_Player, there are quite alot of them.

 

Many powers already work vastly differently in PvP then they do in PvE, namely power which grant alot of small heals over a short time grant regen instead so it doesn't mess up healing DR. At this point whether or not changes way back in I6 were made because of pvp is kinda irrelevant as they have been how the game has worked for the majority of its lifetime. These days changes can be made to PvP with no effect on PvE

[MrAxe]

The Arena was Issue 4 or 5.

 

Issue 6 was City of Villains and the open PvP zones.  :)

 

...

 

Travel power changes were not because of PvP.  They just happened to come out at the same time.  Those changes were intended to stop people from doing "fly-by" attacks, eliminating all risk from combat.

 

I disagree. What we were told and what the reasons were, were two very different things. Kiting mobs with travel powers was NEVER a thing. People were more concerned with trying to herd than they were with kiting.

 

I must be in a minority. Used to enjoy kiting with super speed.

[Kaika]

I must be in a minority. Used to enjoy kiting with super speed.

 

Honestly I miss it too, it defiantly was a thing, still kinda is with jousting just harder. The devs at the time were trying to make the game actually have challenge and resemble what they had "Envisioned" the game to be like at launch. Which was much slower and more challenging, if my issue 0 guide book is to be believed. In all honesty the game was crazy broken back then, not saying the changes were good, but I can see why they made alot of them. The travel power change though I'm willing to blame at least a bit on PvP as it effected that alot more.

[Solarverse]

I recall many instances where devs mentioned that "kiting", especially in the arena, was of concern.

 

I don't recall them mentioning anything specifically about the arena when they said kiting was a concern.

 

Travel suppression may have been later masked as "exploitive combat kiting removal," but the clear tipping point

 

Only "clear" to those looking for an excuse to call the devs out on a "lie"...

 

It *was* a lie.

[Solarverse]

The Arena was Issue 4 or 5.

 

Issue 6 was City of Villains and the open PvP zones.  :)

 

...

 

Travel power changes were not because of PvP.  They just happened to come out at the same time.  Those changes were intended to stop people from doing "fly-by" attacks, eliminating all risk from combat.

 

I disagree. What we were told and what the reasons were, were two very different things. Kiting mobs with travel powers was NEVER a thing. People were more concerned with trying to herd than they were with kiting.

 

I must be in a minority. Used to enjoy kiting with super speed.

 

It was counter productive. A very slow way of getting a kill.

[THEDarkTyger]

I recall many instances where devs mentioned that "kiting", especially in the arena, was of concern.

 

I don't recall them mentioning anything specifically about the arena when they said kiting was a concern.

 

Travel suppression may have been later masked as "exploitive combat kiting removal," but the clear tipping point

 

Only "clear" to those looking for an excuse to call the devs out on a "lie"...

 

Incorrect. It was clear what they were doing.

 

I repeat my above statement.

[SwitchFade]

I recall many instances where devs mentioned that "kiting", especially in the arena, was of concern.

 

I don't recall them mentioning anything specifically about the arena when they said kiting was a concern.

 

Travel suppression may have been later masked as "exploitive combat kiting removal," but the clear tipping point

 

Only "clear" to those looking for an excuse to call the devs out on a "lie"...

 

Incorrect. It was clear what they were doing.

 

I repeat my above statement.

 

*Shrug* I would point you to the live Dev archives. Not made up opinion, just point of fact.

[Snakebit]

Travel suppression wasn't implemented to stop kiting. It was implement to stop jousting. It's not the same thing.

 

I used to fire fire blast joust all the time. Cue blaze, SS past the target...free attack because you are out of range before the mob registers the hit for retaliation. It does aggro and will attack if you go in range, so wait until the mob drops aggro, do it again. I killed dozens of mezzers like that while patrolling, particularly Family and Circle. It was slow, ungainly, and was horribly ineffective as an XP earner.

 

And that's not why it was implemented. It was implemented because you could do the same thing in PVP. Over and over and over again because human players were easily distracted. The only way it could be countered was to have someone cue an attack on the jouster so they took incoming during the approach. My PVP partner excelled at stopping incoming jousters using a knockup melee.

[THEDarkTyger]

*Shrug* I would point you to the live Dev archives. Not made up opinion, just point of fact.

 

By all means, point away. As in link the statement that you're now claiming they made which contradicts your earlier statement of them saying it wasn't but it was "obvious".