I was never a part of my SG's base raids - timing issues as much as anything - but the others did enjoy them while they lasted. If there was one reason I didn't much care for the base raiding it is that optimizing the SG base for that kind of PvP required some particular design approaches (e.g. long corridors with turrets to maximize 'on target' time).

The one bug that had the base defenses shoot at anyone who entered was 'fun'. Especially if you forgot about it and went to the SG base with a low level character, and then had to run a gauntlet of turrets and other defenses taking a bite out of you. I believe once they finally got around to turning that off it was the end of base raiding. I suppose there weren't enough SGs engaged in it for them to bother to fix it.

Any sort of PvP is anathema to me. A base should be a secure place for socializing, not a place for griefing and stress creation.

Just say NO! to base raids!

Steel Cobra wrote:

Base raids were, and should be, optional. As for your oppinion on PvP, not everyone agrees with you. Some of us like the thrill of combatting enemies who are as smart, or smarter than we are. Aside from the thrill, the RP value of base raids is infinite. Rivalries, revenge, theft, kidnapping, all the things that super hero and villain stories are about.

You make some excellent points with regard to role-playing potential. It would also make me feel better if base raids were optional. I would most certainly keep my personal lair flagged for "No PvP".

I hope it doesn't sound silly, but I wouldn't mind a "kinder, gentler" PvP, where the darker, baser nature of humans was left behind in the real world. It's been my experience that PvP brings out the predatory nature of people and those people like to back stab (from invisibility) people 49 levels lower than they are and then get on General Chat and rant and rave and trashtalk.

PvP, if put into the game, should be fun for *both* sides, not just the professional griefer.

Just to be clear on a couple of things (subject to change, batteries not included, warning choking hazard)

We will never force anyone to PvP, baseraid or otherwise. It will always be optional.

We will be evaluating many aspects of PvP to make sure it is as fun as possible for everyone involved.

My personal hope is to make PvP as accessible as possible so players don't have to "learn 2 seperate ways" to play the same character. This does not mean that PvP will always be equal with PvE play but where as much as possible the fundamental mechanics for how powers operate will remain the same. It also means that there will be fun ways to get involved in PvP beyond "i want to beat up people operating virtual avatars" (note beyond does imply that part is still there). I'm not on the comp team but my player-based opinion is to use arenas as more than "that place to go pvp". Titan City being an analogue of our modern world should use an areana in the same manner we use ours; to watch sporting events. I'm not saying we'll add actual sports, but in the sense of PvP where players are duking it out either 1v1 or teamvteam. Where other players can spectate, and participators can earn "championships" "trophies" and other such rewards. There's more to the over-all concept of PvP accessibility beyond this, but its to at least portray an idea.

I used to be an SG leader, and we had a huge blast with pvp Base Raiding.

There was somewhat of an unfair advantage it seemed for large super groups that were able to farm incredible amounts of influence to construct overwhelming defenses that were just too overpowering. If base raiding is implemented, then I hope there is a limit to the construction of defenses so that there will be a more level playing field between small and large supergroups.

What killed Base Raiding IMO was the bugs and glitches. One side would be winning, and then all of a sudden ... "connection to server lost"... CRASH. I've been in base raids where we were losing and then crashes saved our butts, and the winning side was so furious.

If you were into PVP, Base Raiding was the shiznit. It was very difficult organizing 8-16 man teams for each side. The raids would not start back then I believe unless each side had 16 people per team.

I have done PVP warfronts in RIFT and I like how their engine evenly assigns members per side depending on who is available per side. It even allowed members of the opposite side opportunities to team with the otherside (e.g. "villains" teaming with "heroes", etc.).

Guardian333 wrote:

I used to be an SG leader, and we had a huge blast with pvp Base Raiding.
There was somewhat of an unfair advantage it seemed for large super groups that were able to farm incredible amounts of influence to construct overwhelming defenses that were just too overpowering. If base raiding is implemented, then I hope there is a limit to the construction of defenses so that there will be a more level playing field between small and large supergroups.

If this was the case (I only say if because "too overpowering" can be very subjective) then that does indicate a sloppy implementation of base building. As I said, I never participated in base raiding but, in my view, the fight should primarily be against the other team/SG rather than their base. A possible approach is to give a base a point value, much like units in tabletop wargaming have point values, so that those going in have an idea of how much of a challenge they'll be facing.

Guardian333 wrote:

Whoever developed Base Raiding for CoX, Cryptic or Paragon, my hats off to you. Very genious ideas. I can't believe it never lasted as much as Player Designed Missions.

Base Raiding never "lasted" in CoH because it was plagued with all sorts of balance issues (both with in-game powers and resource costs) as well as server bandwidth and stability problems. Basically it was never ready for primetime and any base raiding you managed to enjoy was almost a miracle on your part.

Now I'm not trying to say that base raiding the way the CoH Devs originally envisioned it will always be an impossible goal. I would simply stress that it's going to be hard enough for the Devs of CoT to get this new game going in the first place so I wouldn't get my hopes up that we'll see a balanced, workable SG raid system on Day One.

well according the toe 20's podcast many signs point towards base raids being a doable thing in CoT

The problem with base raids is you can either design your base to be esthetically pleasing, or you can design it to be as raid-difficult as possible, but not both.

You could work arouund this by having raid-related items (turrets, etc.) be placeable as wall popouts. Then you wouldn't need long corridors with big lion statues that shoot bees out of their mouths.

You would still have issues tugging in two directions if you can layout room topology though, or make people have to fight thru furniture like walls of desks, in CoH terms, where bases were less bases than custom kill zones.

I don't know a solution to this problem.

Gorgon wrote:

The problem with base raids is you can either design your base to be esthetically pleasing, or you can design it to be as raid-difficult as possible, but not both.

If one views bases in the same light as characters, the answer is obvious. I've no idea if there are any considerations that would prevent this from being practicable.

The only way I can come up with to make Base vs Base Raiding a "fair" PvP exercise is to do what functionally amounts to "destructible volumes" of spaces within Bases. Basic notion being that anything within a defined volume of space is destructible ... whether it is functional or purely decorative. That way, any sort of "obstacle course" that gets built can be "blown through" by an invader, if necessary. You then need a set of rules for "chaining" these destructible volumes together, creating "pipelines" of connection between all of the PvP relevant [i]functional[/i] items within the spaces that define a Base.

In the grand scheme of things, the simplest way to do this is to Define Volumes of empty space and flag them as PvE (indestructible items) or PvP (destructible items). Set rules for the Minimum Size of destructible PvP spaces (say, just for the sake of argument ... 32 ft by 32 ft by 32 ft ... which would be 1 "block volume" on the old City of Heroes base editor) and how they "connect" to each other. I'm putting a marker down for a larger PvP block volume size so as to be able to accommodate "giant" monsters inside of bases (what TERA would call "BAMs") activities and events that aren't strictly PvP but can have a more PvE flavor to them, such as NPC invasion missions in which your base gets raided by NPCs (damn Malta/Knives/Circle/Carnies/Rikti/DE always trying to bust in and wreck the place!).

City of Heroes tried (and failed) to solve this issue by setting up "invisible" pipelines of PvP "space" in bases that could have NOTHING inside of them, thus ensuring freedom of movement. This led to a lot of really WEIRD limitations due to how the programming was set up (and then never touched ever again, except to turn it off). I'm suggesting doing the reverse here, where anything inside of a "PvPable volume" can be destroyed, and the tougher it is to destroy the more expensive it is to buy (flimsy is cheap, sturdy is expensive). That then gives you the core of something that can then be used not only for building Bases, but also for creating Mission Environments (ie. the ubiquitous Warehouse Interior Map) ... including outdoor Mayhem Missions and the like (hint hint).

XxBudweiser4xX wrote:

Mendicant wrote:
Quote:
It's something sadly I never got to experience since I wasn't part of a SG back in CoH.

Most people in SGs didn't get to experience them, either. They were pretty broken and once turned off for repair, were never turned back on again as I recall.

Base raids were far from "broken"
P.o.N successfully completed hundereds of base raids and in fact had multiple items of power upon their release.
the thing that went bad with base raid was simply pathing issues.... and ill explain.
In order to "win" a base raid you had to destroy all the "dimensional anchors" There were i Believe 5-6 I cant remember which. Anyway, with the ablity the devs opened up with the "stacking" it was possible to create a room, then make it impossible to access that room, so if you placed an anchor in there, you could not lose the base raid.
When the dev found this out they had a choice, disable stacking in bases, which if they did this there would have been a global uprising, or disable base raids until a solution could be implemented.
Was given this information directly from several devs at the 2009 Hero Con

Yep, that would be the broken part. With raid pathing enabled base design was limited and with it disabled it was possible to build a base such that anchors could not be reached. There was talk about adding a setting that would enable/disable raiding for a base and raid pathing had to be satisfied before you could enable it, but nothing came of that. Given the nest of code that was bases, I expect it was more difficult than it sounded.

Heroes vs villains, obviously. Also, villains vs villains. Heroes vs heroes is less common, but has happened in various comics. Often involving things like mind control, alternate universe duplicates, or misinformation.

And whomever is setting up the raid could set up the corresponding story. Or no story at all if the people playing aren't RPers and just want to see the Avengers take on the Justice League.

What if the base gets split into two areas?
The living area which can be designed with as little limitations possible, the way it was like in City of Heroes. Or even better, hopefully. That would be the basic hangout for guild meetings and convenience like teleporters and medical station would be there.

And then the fortress, which is where the PvP would happen. In this area, the rules can be different. Everything you can place to block a players path could be destroyable. Or the design options are limited, so it is not possible to completely block the way to the prize. Or both.