PVP and PVE are just different enough that your goals and needs are different for the two regimes, thus you tend to want some, but not all of your slotting and enhancements to be different.

Examples:

There were some IOs that gave set bonuses, but they also gave ADDITIONAL set bonuses which worked in PVP-only.

Some ATs trying to build their toon for PVP really wanted things that gave knockback protection. I think someone once told me that for a good tanker to have enough knockback protection to be "unknockable" he needed like +41KB Protection (The Zephyr IO alone gave +4). For PVE you only needed like +18 to +20 because NO AV or monster in the game had better than 18-19 strength KB to begin with. My numbers could be off by a few points here and there but my point is, you needed far more KB protection in PVP than you did in PVE.

You may be tempted to make a PVE toon that's basically unhittable by cranking up your defense/resist and then setting your difficulty to a point where the badguys are just bad enough that they basically can't hit you. In PVP this really shouldn't be possible, so as a strategy for plowing through missions it's fine (albeit slow, but on a team, useful for tanking AVs), but as a strategy for doing PVP, if it works, it's broken and if it doesn't it's not worth trying.

There are other differences, and God knows I didn't even do any PVP really, but I was aware from what friends told me.

Some of the animations were tediously slow even for PVE. The Dual Pistols set had some attacks where you spent more time flipping the stupid guns around in your hands than actually shooting anything.

I could see having some PVP-unlocked costume parts IF they make them available for money in the cash shop. That way it's available free in PVP, thus encouraging the F2P cheap skates out there to go get it, and still accessable by PVE-only high-rollers like me who don't want to get our capes dirty in PVP :)

Going back to PVP specifically, and I've said this before, I think it would be good to have things like badges (they wouldn't actually BE badges, but would function similarly) that PVPers could get by winning official tournaments. Like when people look at your avatar in game (and or on the forums?) they would see not just:

Radiac

But something like this:

Radiac
Winner of The 2016

With the being something they'd have a cool name for, like "Rumble in the Jungle" or "Thrilla in Manilla" etc.

So not "collectible" like a badge, but "wearable" as a badge is. A way to show off your accomplishments, but not on the official list of "badges" that all badgers will try to get all of.

Thanks, I forgot about some of this. Especially point 4.

My thoughts on this have been that this kind of MMO is never going to be the ideal PvP setting. If there is PvE then that is generally where the focus lies, because PvE is more resource intensive. Hence, if a PvPer stays and plays on this kind of game it is because they enjoy what it has to offer in terms of theme, classes/abilities/powers/etc., and the PvP offerings (maps, the other players, etc.). In other words, even if it remains a relatively small aspect of the game, PvPers have all the same reasons as PvErs to be on and play the game.

To summarize, why would a PvP-focused player play on a spiritual successor to CoH? Because they enjoy it and find it to be fun.

The assumption that nobody will have PVP forced upon them against their will is to eliminate the possibility of jerks camping spawn areas, ganking newbies for sport, and, in the process, repelling new players and losing the company customers. A lot of games allowed this in the past, CoH did not, as it didn't even have PVP at first.

On the reverse side of that coin, "Forcing PVPers to endure PVE" is a different question. PVE stuff like teaming up, leveling toons, getting gear, etc are staples of the RPG game genre and as such are, I would think, expected in a game that is marketed as an MMORPG. I mean, I don't think any rational person who agrees to join a DnD group is going to sit down at the table and say "What, you mean I start at level 1?!? Screw that, can't I just be level 20 with all the best gear from the start and immediately attack the other members of the party? No? LAME! This game sucks, I'm leaving."

So my attitude on forcing PVPers to endure PVE is, yes, let's do that. I'm against making PVP success dependant on a PVE gear grind, but this is supposed to be an MMORPG, not a first person shooter. If the leveling is as fast in PVE as CoX was when we last played it, then that's not a huge burden to put on anyone. As for gear, how powers work, etc, they're said they want to keep PVP separate in that sense, and so do I. So PVE for XP to get to the level you want to be at for PVP, yes, PVE for gear grinding and tweaking powers to try to make them work the same in both regimes, no. That's my stance.

wyruzk wrote:

answer to pvp is to make everyone equal, with automatic max enhancements, whatever... for the duration of the pvp
...
4. pvp p2w, players with the 'best' gear/stuff win, usually
...

Im not a PvP player, because it just seems luck has a part in it. Roll the dice to see if Accuracy is enough to HIT the other player, and if you roll a MISS you loose.

As far as i can tell, just my opinion, PvP seems to particularly appeal to those that are looking to punish others, payback really. Maybe because they feel wronged by others in real life!? I dont know. But i do know it doesnt appeal to me.

I tried PvP once, i was alone.. and came across 2 other PVP'ers. One was a Controller, other a Brute. I might have been on a willpower scrapper. Throughout the match (i lasted for a few minutes), the controller was holding me down, and the Brute was dishing it out. At that moment i felt as if i was the kid being bullied on, as one kid was holding me down, and the larger kid who was full of rage, just kept whaling on me releasing All his frustrations, and i was the punching bag.

And after that, I would never step foot into a PvP. Remembering that moment, the though of it just disgust me to no end, even 'till this day. And maybe that's why I'm not too fond of any game or aspect of a game that allows Bullying in such a way. Maybe grown men can draw the correlation from this sort of PvP experience and see something Dark, unnatural, perhaps even Corrupt, and rather wash their hands of it and just stick to the PvE element of the game that actually lightens the soul, not Darken it. (phew.. I got that out there) Yea, PvP as it was Sucks! I'm biased, as you can tell.)

If i had my say, i would try and take elements from other Fighting Games that appeal to Allot of people already.
As an example.. I like to play Street Fighter 4, and I find the GUESS aspect of it very good. Why not introduce a Risk / Reward aspect?
An Example could be a Blaster Tries to Snipe at you from a Distance, and if you GUESS exactly when he does that, you can use a COUNTER attack that can deflect and PUNISH him. Of course, a Snipe would have to have a shorter Cast time, which is fine, since the recovery time will be longer, which is fine, since the other PvP'er can Punish you for GUESSING wrong.

Perhaps even have a RATING system to keep track of a PvP'ers ranking. It would serve 2 purposes that come to mind right now. One, letting the PvP'er measure his/her to others, and Two, to allow others that are not as experienced to decline any match if they so choose just by checking the other players rank. Such a system, though, would mean that such PvP matches could only be fought One Vs. One individually for that round.

Even if you had a full Team..and wanted to watch or even participate.. each team would have to Choose one of their teamates as their Contender for a match-up, if we allowed for team PvP that is.

I know, having something like this would mean someday there being actual Money Prizes for West Coast vs East Coast Top players matches.. and could possibly be Streamed Live on Twitch or whatever else will exist at the time, and i suppose that would kind of be interpreted by some as a PvP system that kinda succeeded.

To Gangrel,
That sounds like a really good system, especially the part about the gear. Sign me up (I'm still not PVPing in all likelihood, but that's just me).

Gangrel wrote:

The one thing that I found annoying in CoX PvP was the diminishing returns system concerning holds/heals. It really did change how a character was built and played. But this was because the *holds* in PvE lasted so long, that the change to having it last a lot less in PvP play made it harder to get your head around (for the new player that is).
Keeping the effects *closer* together (in effect, if you learn the game via PvP or PvE, the same tactics should still work in general) makes it easier to switch between the two, and less of a "OMG I AM HAVING TO RELEARN MY CHARACTER".

Diminishing returns generally refers to something losing its effectiveness if it is applied repeatedly. This removes or mitigates the likelihood that a character can be 'stun locked' by someone spamming a hold or stun. The initial duration of the hold or stun is a different matter.

I agree that the powers should not be vastly different between PvE and PvP. I am sceptical whether a simple change in the duration of a power is enough to constitute a need to relearn how to play a character. Keeping the effects closer together raises its own dilemma: effects versus what? Should the PvP effects be similar to those against a minion, a lieutenant, or a boss? Perhaps an elite boss?

PvP is going to require someone who is accustomed to PvE to learn a new play style, in any event. Registering that certain powers (or even entire power sets) are not as useful or effective in PvP as they are in PvE is likely one of the easiest and most fundamental lessons that a person will have to learn.

That more than a handful of enemies should and will use traps, disorients, stuns, etc. is hopefully a given for MWM.

Radiac wrote:

I personally don't think that having to change tactics for PVP is a bad thing, in fact, I think it should have to happen, in most cases. ...
... or even some kind of mechanic where you can run time off the hold clock by going crazy on your keyboard pushing the movement buttons rapidly. ...

Might I suggest also significantly reducing the Range of any powers with a HOLD, so enemy has to approach you and stay in range of any of your AoE's if you're doing team battles. If you're going to Spam Holds on me, I'm gonna Spam -Hold DeBuff/etc.. on you, so your Holds could wither down to almost noting in magnitude.. given enough time passes in battle of course. ;)

No statement on what PvP ought to be, is to me, sea to shining sea.
I'll just report what I observed from CoH/CoV.

PvP had a short spike of interest. Once that ended, it became two groups of people: Those who pretty much were all about PvP and considered PvE a distraction, at best (very small number from what I could tell) and roleplayers who used PvP to actually "play out" character squabbles--but such events generally weren't that common.

I apologize for the wall of text.

As a self-avowed, dyed-in-the-wool PVEer, I have to say that I do not begrudge those who want fun, exciting PVP the opportunity to find that in CoT. I sincerely hope this game holds a strong appeal for them and keeps them coming back for more. That said, I have a few thoughts to share on the subject:

1. Personally, I probably still won't want to do it. I'm just not looking for a "competitive" aspect to this game, that's not what appeals to me about it. I have this attitude like "Come on guys, I log onto this game to relax....so really, PVP? Do I HAVE to? Ughhhhhh....."

2. Some PVPers whom I personally know in real life are self-avowed trolls, are their own worst enemies, and will be a destructive force in a game like this if given an environment in which they can prosper. Their version of "having fun" is taking fun away from other people. The only really big reason why they want to win at anything, ever, is to see the look on your face when you lose. If they can troll, grief, dominate and/or humiliate others, they enjoy the hell out of that and will do it to the point that it makes everyone they're abusing rage quit and go find another game just to get away from them. This is not the kind of thing I think a game like this should be set up to encourage or attract. If these people decide this game "sucks" because they can't get away with annoying people for the jolly hell of it, and they decide NOT to play CoT for that reason, then despite their complaints about the PVP and despite the loss of money their abandonment of the game and displeasure with it causes, I say good riddance. To hell with them. I'd rather not have them around and still have the newbies they would have driven away instead. Call me a carebear if you want to, but that's my opinion.

3. Some PVPers say they want the power sets and classes to be more or less equal in PVP, but I think many really just want to be the first person to find the new "right answer" or broken combo that allows them to win easily, then they get all mad when you close that loophole (in the name of improving competitiveness and parity) and then have to go find something else. So what happens is, you start out with a game that invariably has some kinks to work out in the powersets and rules, etc at first, and this attracts the PVP optimizers. These PVPers find the inherent exploits and start exploiting them, which basically is allowing them to bring the proverbial gun to a knife fight and thus they dominate the PVP scene for a while until the devs decide "We want competitive PVP, not this thing where one combo totally breaks the game, this is absurd we need to cut out this abusable combo so that people can fight each other on something resembling a level playing field." and this causes the PVPers that had acclimated to the broken combo to say "What?!? MY combo doesn't work anymore?!??! *rage quit*" You're never going to satisfy those people, because they all want something that's demonstrably unfair to everyone, and tilted in their favor, which is something nobody can possibly agree with or publicly endorse.

4. Magic: The Gatherimg, a game which I play off and on, not competitively really, went through something like this when it first came out in the mid 1990s . The earliest sets of cards they printed had some cards that were TOTALLY unfair, especially if you had more than one or two of them, and the original rules didn't set any upper limit on how many copies of a card you were allowed to play. Some cards were rarer than others, but people who didn't know any better would trade you some of the best stuff (which looked harmless enough at first blush) for more impressive looking cards that were actually quite common and not terribly useful in large numbers. So in the 90s, the company sponsored a tournament where you could make a deck using any cards you wanted. When they registered the players and looked at the decks the decks could be broken down into two distinct categories:
A) Decks that could win the game on the first turn.
B) Decks which mathematically had ZERO chance of winning the tournament.

So they (the company) got smarter and started limiting the number of copies of a cards you could have in a deck, then they outright banned some cards, etc, and people RAGED about it because they were like "HEY! I spent all this money and time and effort to accumulate 20 copies of this one broken card and now all that is for nothing because it's banned, WTF?!?!?" These people didn't care that the game had gotten infinitely fairer and more open to new players and was no longer totally degenerate and unplayable, they just wanted their stupid combo deck to work like it had before, because winning, even through something you know yourself is totally absurd and broken, is all they cared about at the time. That and the money they had spent on the cards. Lesson learned there is: people who pay up front for some kind of obviously degenerate advantage which is technically allowed within the rules are setting themselves up for a big disappointment later when the other shoe finally drops. Trying to please them is counterproductive and does not produce a better game for anyone.

Eyes. On you guys.

In a good way :)

Funny you should mention M:tG. I used to play back in the days of the Power 9 in Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised. I was guilty of Channel/Fireballing many people myself on the first turn. lol. I was happy when they started restricting deck size and amounts of single cards per deck. I then quickly moved on to a Mono-Blue deck that took advantage of Time Twister, Time Walk, Twiddle, Time Vault, Ancestral Recall, etc. and dominated with my mult-turns deck. And you are exactly right in the comparison too. Many people I knew rage quitted M:tG once Wizard's started restricting and banning cards. Most brilliant use, and heart wrenching, of a card that was banned in M:tG was when a guy literally shredded up his Chaos Orb and sprinkled it all over his opponent's cards. Will never forget that.

Anyways, I digress. This is why I think there is a huge push to make PvP something separate from PvE. This way there is no hurting the PvE side of the game when it comes to terms of the Devs attempting to "balance" the game in the name of "fairness". As has been mentioned before, I've also participated in PvP in CoH when Kiting was the way to play, then when Energy Melee/Ninjitsu Stalkers were the way, then TP Foe into Bots/FF MM's. Somebody always tries to find the ONE combo that grants the instant win and then ruins the rest of the game for everybody else. I used to love my Energy Melee/Dark Armor Brute before they nerfed the crap out of Energy Melee. Then it became so unplayable that I had to delete her. It was my first villain to 50.

Part of me really wishes that PvP won't even be implemented in CoT. I just really wish there was a game that didn't have PvP attached to it. To me it just goes against what MMO's are supposed to be about. To me, and I don't speak for everybody, a MMO is about community and having fun "teaming" with other people. Meeting new people that live half-way across the world and playing together developing a new friendship that would have never been possible if it hadn't been for this game. Not pissing someone off that lives in another country solidifying their belief that the country the person came from, that just destroyed them and is now in the process of trolling them, is nothing short of complete rude, arrogant, enormous asshats.

I cannot beg this enough. Make PvP in CoT something completely separate from PvE. Give it it's own server, it's own powers, it's own enhancements, it's own world. Don't make it a part of the PvE world. This way if something does end up needing to be tweaked for PvP you can do it on the PvP side and not mess up the PvE side. Seriously. PLEASE!