The thing that made pvp/combat amazing in COH was the high speed combat feel of it, which the devs didn't seem to understand, hence why they alienated the entire pvp community in i13 and caused the majority of the pvpers to leave. If you're going to do pvp in VO, please make it like pre-i13 pvp. There are other ways to make melee classes viable in a high speed movement setting beyond just slowing everyone else down. You could give melee characters abilities like ranged taunts that reduce the range of ranged characters (Forcing them to fight near the melee character's melee range.), giving them ranged root/snare cc abilities, and also increasing the range of melee abilities so that they can hit from a little further than the usual 5m range of melee abilities (Maybe 7m-10ms).
Short Version: Don't artificially limit the fast paced speed of the game in your actual game mechanics, let the players be in control and don't let the system be a limiting factor (No insane travel suppression, no insane resists, no healing limitations, no damage normalization across different power sets, etc.).
Also, Do not mix PVP with PVE, it's one of the things that caused i13 in the first place. PvP zones like RV that mixed pve and pvp, which in turn caused a lot of people that didn't pvp in COH to call out nerfs to systems they never really used outside of those PVP zones, that had pve activities/badges in them.
Obviously there are better ways to balance PvP than others. But even the particular mechanisms in CoH that people didn't like so much (like travel suppression) might have been more widely accepted had they been better implemented.
The major problem I had with travel suppression was its "binary" nature: You either traveled at normal speed or 4 seconds worth of snail-speed. It was simply too jarring and annoying that way. Had it be implemented so that over the course of those 4 seconds you gradually slowed down then gradually sped back up I'll bet far fewer people would've been bothered by it (or even barely notice it happening to them).
For what it's worth I would rate my priorities in CoH at about 75% badger / 25% PvPer. But even though I typicially cared more about badging than PvP I never once personally "called out" for PvP nerfs or shied away from defending myself whenever anyone wanted to bother me while badging. Sure there were "care bears" that whined about mixing PvE and PvP but I was never one of them. Just mentioning this to point out your "solution" to not mix PvE and PVP activities might not make the universal difference you think it would.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I13 was bad, and everyone knew it. Changing how powers functioned eliminated numerous concepts and builds, and further polarized the meta into very specific builds. That said, there WERE issues that needed to be addressed. Ranged damage compared to the survivability of kiting compared to melee damage with defensive sets and trying to catch kiters was heavily slanted in favor of ranged, especially if the ranged was packing slows.
I would suggest an alternative to suppressing movement. Rather than suppress movement, suppress the effectiveness of specific powers while moving. For example, it doesn't make sense that firing a bolt of fire makes you suddenly trip and stop super-speeding around. But, it does make sense that while super speeding, your shot might not be aimed super amazingly, and you might be diverting power to keep your speed going, so the shot might not be as strong or accurate. This would have to be done carefully and with tons of alpha testing to gather data comparing a rooted playstyle to a mobile one, and examining differences in combat effectiveness, but it's a possibility.
Not a very complete idea, but an idea worth examining through discussion perhaps.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
I would agree that by itself travel suppression might not be the best mechanic the game could use to help solve the ranged versus melee combat issues. Other games have used other combinations of controls to balance out PvP with varying degrees of success. For instance there are table-top wargames that have used things like the accuracy/movement penalties idea you mentioned for decades now.
But here's a little known fact you might not remember about CoH: travel suppression was actually a "Plan B" that we eventually got stuck with after an initial "Plan A" was violently rejected almost instantly. During a beta testing period the Devs decided to impose the same -20% ACC penalty (that had always existed on the little used Group Fly power) on to Fly, Super Speed and Super Jump. The theory behind that of course was to try to impose a penalty to kiting and give the more stationary players a better chance to survive. Almost predictably there was such a huge uproar of hatred over it that it literally only lasted like that on the Test server maybe 3 or 4 days before it was patched back out. What we later got as a "friendlier compromise" to that was travel suppression. It was actually the "lesser of two evils" in that case.
So I'm not trying to say some variant of the accuracy/movement modifiers might never be the best answer for superhero PvP. I'm just saying that the way CoH tried it certainly didn't work. Perhaps some combination of a less annoying version of travel suppression linked to a mild form of the accuracy/movement mechanic together might work. I suspect a combined approach would take a fairly sophisticated algorithm to work and maybe (for whatever reason) that was beyond what the Devs of CoH could manage. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Perhaps in being such a binary function for -acc is where the issue stems? The key difference from the implemented group-fly variant is the emphasis on curving the debuff based on current velocity, at least in my mind it would make a difference. Normally in combat, a player will end up being stationary after so many attacks but their travel power will often be on still ((much to the sorrow of their endurance bars)). This variant wouldn't penalize them further for having their travel power on, but rather only when they were moving beyond what would be considered unslotted Sprint+swift speeds. Even then, the maximum suppression wouldn't kick in until reaching the speed caps. Teleport would need to work differently.
Naturally, testing would need to be done, but I want to say that tying a small accuracy curve and plugging in velocity for a variable wouldn't take too many lines of code to implement. Remember, for the most part, a normal player won't even feel the effects of this suppression, as power animations would in theory, root the player, so the line of code for accuracy check would need to be in a very specific order:
-Cue power
-Endurance check
-Line of sight check
-Range check
-Root player and execute animation
-***Wait a fraction of a second
-***Calculate current velocity and relative power enhancements to determine accuracy
-oppose accuracy to defense
-oppose damage to threshold negation ((this is assuming we get somthing like CO invulnerability))
-oppose new damage number to resistance
-----etc.
There would be numerous points that could be tweaked with in those lines which could be tweaked to modify balance, such as the time wait before calculating velocity, the sharpness of the curve, the beginning point of the curve, the actual stat which is being suppressed... It's still not perfect, but from my super-limited experience with Unreal script, as long as you find the right spot, it should only become a few lines of defining variables, and then adding results of the functions in to the basic power layout. If it turns out to be super-hated, putting the suppression calculation on a separate line allows it to be simply "commented out" as coders would say. Again mind you, I'm not a super hax coder, so I may be over simplifying the work involved, but the simplest implementation really doesn't seem like it would need much beyond a bit of playful tweaking until something "Fit".
Teleport would be the only thing that really needs to be worked with differently. A rapidly degrading debuff based on distance traveled perhaps? The i13 'fix' practically made the power useless for any kind of previously effective hit and run strategies, especially if one were tagged with a DoT effect, or a debuff toggle.
As you said, the combined approach would certainly be more work, but it may be the way to go. I would hope an elegant solution could be found that, at any time, could have variables or numbers tweaked or commented out for the sake of simple patching, but that's wishful thinking.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
As someone that dedicated the remainder of my COH days to pvp after i4 came out with Arenas, I would have to disagree. I played with some of the top pvp groups in the game prior to i13, on the test server ladders. 100% of my COH time was spent on leveling up toons and optimizing them for pvp since i4 came out, when i6 introduced pvp zones with badges in them, that was one of the worse things that happened to pvp. It forced people that collected badges to go into pvp zones and do something they would never do normally, it was the beginning of the end for the pvp system as we (The pvpers knew it.). Not everyone is like you, the vast majority of the badgers that went into pvp zones were in fact care bears that complained about the pvp system as it was, hence why I mentioned that putting badges/pve in a pvp zone was not a good idea. It caused people that normally didn't understand COH's fast pvp system or participate in it to criticize the system and it was one of the factors that led to i13 (One of the main factors being that the Devs themselves didn't understand the pvp in their game and why the pvpers enjoyed it so much.).
I'm not saying it was the main factor but it was one of the few factors that eventually led to i13. As far as fixing melee vs ranged in a fast paced super hero MMO, there are things that can be done, like some of the things I listed (Which are a lot more feasible than travel suppression and giving a -acc penalty to players that are kiting.). The people that are implementing pvp in this game should take advice from people that played in the game's Test server pvp ladders, as we gave the devs plenty of advice on fixing the issues with melee over the years and they were mostly ignored. There were tremendously long threads between i11-13 from the pvpec reps detailing solutions on how melee can be fixed in pvp.
PvP systems should be entirely in the players' control, there should be no binary limitations set forth by the devs. They should give the players the tools they need to be effective, melee characters should have abilities that only they can have. Like having abilities that cause travel suppression to the target, abilties that ground the target and reduces their movement while still giving the target a chance to fight back (Web Grenade like powers.), and powers that also reduce the target's range (Forcing the target to fight closer to the melee character). Abilities like these, where the players are in control as opposed to a binary system limitation, would be the best solution for the game.
*chop*
One issue that seemed rather common was that despite -range taunts being available for use, they were very rarely implemented into builds from what I saw. It might have been a different story in the arena, but I preferred the dynamic encounters found in zones, so my experiences stem more from there on live servers. Pre i13 supression seemed fine to me in all honesty, but the resulting supression where attacking OR BEING damaged made you slow to a crawl was a huge slap in the face, so I can agree on some points.
I would like to bring to your attention however that this game will not have the CoH/V archetypes, and that's it. There is framework to make more and more diverse builds found on the class/spec chart here.
http://reportsfromthefield.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/CoTats_zps56a08933.png
What I'm getting at is that, while a taunt might be effective at reducing range, zone pvp on live servers ((Which was admittedly, more casual than ladder PVP)) tended to shy away from taunts for some unknown reason. Perhaps it just "wasn't cool". On top of that, they required a hit check, but at the same time, seemed too effective and powerful if it were to be auto hit. Even so, this is likely the strongest option, albeit only if the taunt can be made an inherent ability. Still, I like the idea. It could maybe be extended to apply to all melee hits as well, and be an enhanceable feature.
Roots and snares would in turn, work at launch, but if a Class/Spec like the gunner (ranged/defense) was released down the line with mez protection, as implied by the defense secondary, then roots becomes less useful. Snares in turn in CoH's implementation completely limited one to horizontal motion ALA web grenade. The is turn completely invalidates a good number of travel power selections and reduces the complexity of the meta game. When you add a function which takes away viable options, the game becomes stale and stagnates. So this is a possibility, but not a be-all end-all solution either. Still, more options to pro/con helps.
Finally, lunges worked in CO and DCUO with limited results, but such might have been the case simply because melee didn't do any more damage than ranged did, and didn't require such a tight quarters engagement. In archeage, the lunges have a stun or snare attached to them (only about a second long) and that was never enough to balance out the advantage a ranged attacker had to snare the melee character pre-emptively. How things would work in an environment with mez protection and resistance is beyond me though. Definitely would need some live practice with it to analyze. The limited results in the other game do point to lunges needing to be much more powerful. But then, that centralizes a melee build around their lunge and burst game, and again, limits the meta, bringing stagnation.
An amalgamation of several ideas may be the best way to approach things, though I do hope we can find a solution that works across all archetypes rather than just the traditional ones we're used to.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
I believe your simplistic implication that "badgers ruined PvP and directly caused the I13 changes" is a bit dramatic and overblown, especially when you consider there were likely far fewer "dedicated badgers" who were even willing to enter the PvP zones to get badges than actual PvPers to begin with. The idea that a tiny vocal minority of care-bears were the only people the CoH Devs listened to simply doesn't make a lot of sense. I recall plenty of whining over the initial problems with PvP during the supposed "golden age" of the I4 through I6 period before the PvP zones even existed.
Do you know why those people were whining? The core problem was that PvP in CoH was fundamentally broken from the very beginning. Remember the Devs never even imagined that people would actually WANT to fight each other with active travel powers. They whimsically assumed everyone would just go toe-to-toe and the whole idea of kiting or mis-matches between ranged and melee didn't even occur to them as a possibility. Given that the Devs were so completely out-of-the-loop with their own game how can you honestly believe the pre-I13 PvP environment was designed and implemented absolutely perfectly from the beginning?
I realize you will probably not agree with me on what I just said, but I would agree with you that the attempts to fix it with the I13 changes essentially failed. I13 didn't cause the problems, but if anything they made things worse, not better. It's hard to accidentally let players start with a broken, overpowered system and then try to keep them happy when you attempt to unbreak it.
As for the hopes that the CoT Devs will listen to the hardcore CoH PvPers for advice I suppose time will tell. As you pointed out the CoH Devs didn't really listen to you - Why they didn't? I don't know. My only hope is that CoT PvP will be balanced well enough from the beginning that the need for a huge amount of I13-like reform will not be necessary. If people don't start out with a broken system they won't have to know what it's like to see it get taken away from them.
Good luck to you, for what it's worth...
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
As an aside, I do recall mention that powers would first be balanced against players, and then the pve game would build around that balance with care towards how much damage pve foes should do compared to how quickly and easily they should be dispatched. So in the initial balance wave, there will definitely be room for LOTS of pvp feedback and input. I know that was a while back, and I don't know how much changing from UE3 to UE4 altered that plan.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
This seems like a very big "lesson learned" from CoH. Taking a "make PvP work first" point of view makes a lot more sense than "tack PvP on as an afterthought" because, if nothing else, NPCs don't complain if PC powers are too overpowered against them. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Have the COT devs said whether PvP will be available at launch?
I did not PvP in COH. Honestly, it seemed hard to figure out since i joined after I13. Until the last few posts, i wold have thought it was a good idea to let the players who are most interested in PvP play around in a test bed before launching the capability.
Is there some PvP system out there that everyone actually likes, that the devs could model on?
One issue of modeling the pvp around any one thing is that everyone likes different things. In this sense, it's impossible to completely model pvp around any one thing. Some people like cues, other people hate them. Some people like open world pvp, some people don't want to even see pvp. Some people want brutal conquest war, some people want capture the flag, and super-sports.
Personally, I'd be interested in all of the above except hiding the fighting from the public eye. At release, I don't expect much more than a /duel feature, and an open world pvp concept. It would be really neat if it were possible to flag PVP on right at level 1 with no prerequisite allignment grinding, and then there might be some kind of huge explosion of players suddenly going to war at level 1 on game launch xD It'd be hectic, and I'd find it fun, but then, other people would hate that, so... yeah.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
This is what we want out of a super hero MMO, fast paced pvp action. The COH devs had a golden pvp system that they actually created by accident, no other pvp system until this day gave me and many other pvpers the excitement that COH's fast paced super hero combat gave me.
The -range on taunts didn't exist when pvp ladders were active, so.. Taunts weren't used in the Arenas (Even after they added -range to them, which was either close to i13 or after i13 if I remember correctly.) either as it was more of a R&G (Run & Gun) environment. If melee characters were to get -range abilities (Abilities that work like COH's taunts.), 7-10m (Extended range) range on their melee abilities and abilities that work like web grenades did in COH to limit movement and slow down the target, that's all they would really need to be competitive in pvp zones, at least. In organized pvp competitions you will find that pvp groups are always composed of ranged classes in mostly every MMO/Game in existence and that's not ever going to change. I have pvped in nearly every MMO since 1997 UO and 2000 DAOC, it has always been like that in competitions where it's group vs group (Teams are mostly ranged classes.).
I feel like this is going in a circle, and we're going to repeat ourselves again. Your suggestions are viable, but att he same time you have to consider what they do to the other player, and if that other player thinks being hit like that is fun. I also have the sneaking suspicion that removing buildup + aim + boost range stacking will fix a lot of problems come time to build powers... We'll have to wait and see though.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
Did you watch the video I posted by the way? Removing aim+BU+boost range wouldn't have done anything in the case of organized 8v8 arena pvp, it's a group of people spiking another person, person will die if they don't use their evasion tools/line of sight correctly in any MMO, not just COH (If they have a coordinated group on them.). Every MMO that has had pvp includes some kind of +dmg/acc buff/spell (Some even have abilities to increase range.) that people use prior to a group spike, you suggesting that it's an issue is hilarious to anyone that has pvped in any MMO since the history of MMOs.
They don't do anything to the other player if they actually understand how the system works, pvp was fine in COH, everyone that was actually a pvper enjoyed the system for what it was (Even the melee players.). Like I said, COH's fast paced pvp was accidently amazing and I don't expect anyone to ever replicate that, that's why I'm going to give up on every super hero MMO because I know it isn't going to happen, not when people have the mindset of wanting to slow things down because they never understood how truly amazing COH's fast paced pvp combat truly felt.. I think that's one of the reasons why I don't see much ex-COH pvpers giving their opinions on these spiritual successor MMOs, they have lost all hope that anything like COH's pvp can ever be replicated again. I'm also done as well as I see that it's a hopeless battle trying to convince the COH community that didn't spend all their time pvping in coh, what was awesome about it. My ex-sg/vg members warned me, but I didn't listen, I'm done. PVP is supposed to be competitive, it's not supposed to be easy or make you feel good, it should be hard, it should require skill, it should make you feel accomplished and want to get better at it with every loss/win. As someone that has pvped in nearly every MMO since 1997 (From Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, WoW, Rift, SWTOR, Age of Conan, The Secret World, City of Heroes, and many others.), I understand that and that's why I enjoyed COH's fast paced pvp. It made you have to work harder to be better, to hit phase shifts/hibernate faster, to evade better, to lock on faster, it was practically the epitome of a near perfect e-sports super hero MMO. It was an accident that it was that way (I'm sure of this now.) and the COH Devs did not know the type of gem that they had, it was beautiful.
^What is all of this? This was all pointless in the name of discussion. You're just repeating "fast pace, accidental, I'm experienced, I know more because I'm experienced, and do it my way, or I'll hate it." You're also inserting yourself as the voice of more than one person to try to give your statement more ground, but it's not a very effective argument. It doesn't address any concerns that other players might have. It's just... there.
-----------------------------------------
I watched the video. It was like I remembered. Players waiting for other players to come out of phaseshift so they could spike the guy who's only defense is on cooldown, meanwhile, hoping to cage the team's healers before even trying to start an attack. It was a lot of waiting waiting waiting, then 4 seconds of action, then waiting again. This time, waiting for self-buffs to cooldown so the spikers could 3-hit-kill their next target too. It wasn't fast-paced. Not in the traditional sense. A shooter is fast paced... Rather, it was spikey. A lot of waiting, then a few seconds of action. It was tense, but not fast paced in any way. You became the target of the spike and phaseshift is down? better use hibernate instead. Hibernate isn't up yet? guess that means I'm dead unless I get healed in the 3 second window of being attacked before I get finished off. Some people can get into that, but some people just want to play consistently. I know I'm simplifying things here, but this is the basic jist of how arena matches flowed when people used the standard setups.
It's not my cup of tea. But then, put any of the players who fought in arena in a zone, without their team, and suddenly, I loved fighting them. But that doesn't mean there weren't a million and one things that were broken about the game balance for any other player that wasn't super experienced, and had read up, and perfected a build over the course of 2-5 years.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
I'm just gonna throw this out there:
PVP in game? Sure, if 2 or more peeps wanna do that (and all do it willingly), that's cool. Not for me, but I get it.
PVP on the forums? That's NOT cool.
K?
Phoenix Rising's Model Citizen
Personally I feel the PvP at the close of CoH was great.... With the exception of heal decay, and movement suppression. Other then those 2 things, I really feel pvp was fair and balanced.
"8 years.... What a ride"
God I miss this. We won our servers pentad pvp tournament and it still ranks as the best gaming experience we ever had. Pentad was just awesome!
UK - Union server. From original game beta to close.
S4 - Union Heavyweight Champion
Watching Empathetic's video and remembering my own PvP experiences in CoH vs other games made me realize something. Something that might explain why CoH PvP was both problematic and awesome at the same time.
CoH wasn't a twitch game. But then, PvE opponents usually didn't use travel powers the way PvP opponents did. While powers weren't twitchy, using movement powers to keep up with a rapidly moving and direction changing opponent with movement powers was a bit.
This effectively gave CoH PvP an element of twitch that was largely absent in the rest of the game, which would cause a greater than normal rift between PvE and PvP, yet also make a game that has elements that satisfy very different players.
Just an observation and a theory. If this was the case, was it a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know. I do know that though I'm not a big PvPer in any game, I enjoyed it most in CoH.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I thought the thing to cause i13 PvP was players whining that they lost O.O
I don't know about that, but even a tourist PvP player like me knew that if you can't handle a proper spanking followed by a little verbal salt on the wounds, just don't even go to PvP zones.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Forums are always ablaze of "Nerf this buff this" when it comes to PvP, justified or not. CoH was no different.
Pretty much. I have seen countless PvP forums for other MMOs and those forums are usually lit with whining from all different types of people
CoH was one of the tamer ones. I remember Champions Online in it's early days had a trollfest of an PvP forum. Nowadays pretty much every MMO PvP forum has a great deal of undesirable people that toxify it for everyone
Formerly known as Bleddyn
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WCqnt88Umk]Do you want to be a hero?[/url]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/nyktoss-character-cove] My characters [/url]
I am Scissors.
Paper is fine.
[b][i]NERF ROCK!![/i][/b]
That's pretty much the "circle of whining" in PvP.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
*cue music*
From the day we arrive on the server...
And blinking log into the game...
There are more duels to fight than can ever be won,
Time to whine that losing's no fuuuun!
It's the Circle of Whines...
Calls for Nerfs of powers....
*ends music, slinks away*
A lot of what Empathetic says is true, and I get where he's coming from. One of the biggest issues with creating a viable system is that so few people actually have the capability/experience/knowledge necessary to do so. That statement in itself is nothing revolutionary - almost anyone would agree with that. However, I'm willing to bet that many people reading this consider themselves to have the qualifications, when in reality, most of them don't.
CoH was a game that became sacred to us. Sacred. People adored their characters; they poured hours into costume creation alone. For a lot of players, the character was an extension of the self. Others were fiercely immersed in the game's lore. There were people who really were experts on the game; some could run task forces with brutal efficiency, others knew every nook and cranny of every map. It was our game. Each of us owned that game.
People's images of the game have been cemented with nostalgia. For the most part, they only remember the good times. Everyone writes their own CoH history book, and they only write about their victories; their defeats are left out. CoH was sacred to us. Many of us want to remember it only for it's best parts - but the facts care little for our nostalgia. Things were as they were, no matter how we try and shape them to fit the CoH shaped hole left in some of our hearts. The PvP system was flawed, anyone can tell you that. Not everyone can tell you how it was flawed, though - and certainly not how to make a new system - no matter how much they may want to.
My point though is that most people who consider themselves PvP subject matter experts are, quite simply, not. More often than not, they lack the credentials or the experience to actually have any encompassing understanding of PvP. The danger of this delusion becomes evident when people speak about certain power sets or strategies. People will think "X" was overpowered when in reality it was very easy to counter. People will think "X" was balanced or even in need of a buff, when in reality it was one of the most broken mechanics in the game. A system will crash if misguided opinions govern its direction.
I'm 100% with him in terms of my lack of faith in anyone's ability to actually produce a superhero MMO with good PvP. The only reason I even occasionally read/post in this forum is boredom/nostalgia.
@Budweiser, I can see why you'd think PvP was balanced at the end of the game, but I disagree. Team PvP was generally balanced, but only because there were so many variables that transcended the limits of the i13 PvP system. However, outside of team matches, the game's PvP was in shambles. 95% of build combinations were completely worthless, no matter how skilled you were on them; incarnates were insanely broken; it was very time consuming and tedious for a new player to get into PvP because of all the grinding he'd need to do for IOs, accolades, incarnates, etc; and the PvP system's "balance" had devolved into a build vs build spamfest where the "balance" was scissors, rock, bigger rock, boulder - there was no balance.
At the same time, the notion that the pre-i13 system was perfect, or even ideal is a dangerous one. Was it better than the i13 system? Defintely. More builds were viable, the system allowed for more skill, and it was more accessible (though still not anywhere near accessible enough).
As for the so called "golden age" - while I think the non-existence of IOs definitely made PvP more accessible, I think the "skill" element is being exaggerated. When I think of a game that's really fast paced and takes a lot of mechanical skill, I think of games like Quake live. Go watch a Quakelive video, then watch a CoH video... CoH PvP wasn't that fast, and certainly wasn't very difficult or mechanically skill intensive. There was fast movement, and that was for me and many others one of the most fun parts of PvP - and made the game's dynamic very different than PvP in other MMOs.
That FoL vs HvND video showcases two top teams of the time playing a pretty high stakes game - and still it's full of very sloppy gameplay from all players on both teams. My point is that, while these players were some of the game's best at the time, this is a period of the game where skill was in the dark ages. Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of those players, and a lot of them evolved as the game did and were still very good - teams like Tribute, FoL, HvND, Pennance, and Lions Den inspired many teams to come with their legacy. But to pretend like CoH PvP during this era was at it's peak in terms of skill and/or that this was how the game would be played at it's optimum is dangerous. Who knows what PvP in this era, or any of the pre-i13 eras would have looked like if it was actually played to it's optimal level. The metagame could be completely different, and not necessarily something we'd enjoy.
TL/DR: The pre-i13 system was the better system in pretty much every way, but there was still loads screwed up with it; and while a lot of people like to glorify certain eras of it as the "golden age" ...
Golden age of fun? Possibly.
Golden age of a balanced and skill intensive system? No.
@redlynne, So true!
I came across a statement from Arcana(ville) that puts succinctly what I've been saying, or trying to say, regarding PvP:
- - - - -
[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Well put (as per usual for Arcanaville). Makes me think of the term "game coordination" rather than "game balance".
Things functioning together as they should for the proper result, not an equalization of various related aspects of the game that may look balanced on paper but may not actually function well. Very organic.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
We discourage anyone even from using the term "balanced" internally. One dev has repeatedly said balance is a false God. I agree with that statement. If anything we use the term performing within expected bounds. There will be highs and lows in all manner of metrics, the key is to know what the highs will be and design the system to acknowledge and adhere to those highs (in all metrics) and know what your minimum expected lows are and make sure every power, every power set, and therefore every class / spec performs at least at the minimum, can't go beyond the maximum. The real trick the is to make sure that certain combinations aren't out right stuck at minimum and certain combinations easily achieve maximum with little effort of investment.
Even knowing this, and setting up all the systems for the expected bounds and running sims, we will still get this wrong. The hope is that is we more right than wrong. But we know it will happen because players will do the unexpected, find the loop holes, and more than likely a few will be as familiar if not more so with how things operate than we will. Adjustments will,be unavoidable, it is the nature of the beast. But, we really do hope to put our best foot forward and believe the system as designed will support pvp and pve play with very little distinction between how powers operate. The combat mechanics are being built with pvp in mind.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
This should win some sort of forum irony award.
You were too lazy/disinterested in getting the incarnate powers so you got your face melted in RV. Incarnates actually added some interesting build options and slightly increased the variety. It was certainly no worse than before they were added.
You weren't involved in team pvp for most of the games history. I think you were still scrapping it out on Protector when most of those teams you mentioned were active. Never stops you from talking about it though!
There were always skilled players in pvp. Skilled and creative individual players who were finding ways to make their ATs work against other players. The Golden age was before anyone had settled on a meta--before anyone was even looking for one. Once it was established that you could have a bunch of ranged damage spam and an emp or two to keep them up--things started to go downhill. The high level arena matches towards the end of cox should be a shining example of what not to aim for in the new game.
Not only should they make a wide range of ATs (and builds) viable in pvp, they should make a typical match a balance between coordinated team performance and individual performance. Their best bet is to start with some sort objective oriented pvp that involves multiple objectives.
The only times I really went to RV was when I shrakzooka'd. So I don't know where that bit about incarnates came from.
I realize that we didn't get along when I was like 16 and I was a shitlord fightclubber on protector, but dog... it's been like 7 years. Honestly, I wish I played with you more later on, you and I could have been good friends in a different life.
I guess I might be a little late to the game, but I played CoX for a number of years and loved the pvp for a good majority of it. As I believe many have mentioned before, the pvp was simple in concept, but the fast pace style created the perfect combination for skill to shine.
Even to this day CoX pvp has been my favorite to play and I certainly hope some of it can be recreated in CoT. It does not need a ton of overdone development, but pvpers need the ability to create there own content (terminals were great), and dev support for the tournaments the community creates.
CoX did get pvp right in this game a long time ago, and I certainly hope we can mimic the early days of pvp. Allow the community to be involved and make it what it once was.
Edit: I wanted to add that by far the best days of pvp where when it all existed on the training room and everyone copied of HO's to make every character even. Every single person had the same access to resources and it made pvp completely based on teamwork/skill which is what it should be about. I remember practicing 5 days week for months just to get better, and that did not involve grinding for gear. Please do not create imbalance with gear/IO's and introduce this into pvp. This game has too many other amazing variables to allow players to shine without it being centered around gear in the arena.
-Fates/Spyderpig
I think the problem with most pvp systems is the idea that a balance can be achieved. I think someone said it right when they called balance a false god it simply does not and can not exist and never will in pvp. I think anyone who believes it can doesn't understand it even if they believe they do. I am not saying that adjustments do not have to be made but those adjustment should be made in the realm of things that enhance the class or skill to preform to it's optimal potential not hinder it with stupid limitations. I also believe that for pvp to be good it can not be just an after thought of the game it needs to be part of it's core but the question is how do you do that but still make it fun for everyone not just the hardcore pvpers ? I think that the only way for this to be accomplished by marriage between the pvp and pve areas of the game. Some of the funnest times I have personally had in pvp is when there has be an objective or goal in mind be it personal or game wise without this it simply becomes a boring repetition of who has the bigger stick and to me anyway that gets very repetitive and boring.
Here are a few suggestion I have
1. Make quest that involve pvp for those interested in it something that matches people against each other to achieve a goal besides simple bragging rights.
2. Have challenges that involve something outside a simple slug out between two players
3. Team efforts that involve something more then just capture the flag or hold a territory where players have to work together to achieve an objective or to stop others from achieving it.
4.Area's where players can test themselves against each other if they choose to bad parts of town everyone knows you do not go into unless you are looking for a fight kind or willing to risk it something l like EVE sec systems.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Personally, I am completely averse to PvP. I don't like the sort of environment and community that usually forms around it.
That said, I had the idea of 'Indirect PvP', where contestants run parallel missions or mission arcs that interact with each other.
Successes and failures in one mission has effects in the parallel mission as well as effects in the rest of the arc. For instance, a clue, or ally on one side may set up an ambush on the other. There might be advantages to speed-rushing a mission, which might be countered by careful investigation of every 'blinkie', or vice-versa, so playstyle also comes into the contest.
Alternately, it might be a sort of 'Running Man' game of opposed maze-running, where swift completion of the course is the goal. Defeat each encounter to open the door to the next segment.
Some of these scenarios Might culminate in a more direct confrontation, with PvP-flagged players going head-to-head, while Non-PvPers spawn simulacra or doppelgangers into the opposing game-space.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I have very mixed, but paradoxically very positive, feelings about Winter and Fireheart's suggestions. On one hand (and this is coming from an at most 1% PvPer) they sound REALLY fun and like the kind of PvP I would not just occasionally enjoy, but possibly even seek out?!? Especially with the limited but direct confrontation! On the other hand, that sounds like a possible nightmare for the Devs to work out and put together while keeping it fun and not a horrible mess.
It's a risk/reward thing. The risk is vital resources--time and manpower--which are at incredible premium as far as MWM's efforts towards CoT.
The reward? Well, the reward...
The potential reward would be pioneering something as remarkable and influential (and possibly as fraught with problems) as Mission Architect was for City of Heroes--like Mission Architect was a way for players to finally make their own missions, this could be a way for PvP'ers and PvE'ers to finally find a middle ground that they both at least mostly enjoy. You'd get to feel the power of being a PvE god but get the challenge of facing another real hero-villain in PvP.
THAT... would be something. Potentially epic.
I know that it's been tried with PvPvE in some games, but not in a way that has been overall successful from what I've heard and seen. If I'm wrong let me know. But what Fireheart is suggesting sounds like it could encourage a balance between PvP and PvE building and experience.
That's potentially pretty frickin cool.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I wouldn't balance anything for pvp reasons. Just accept that it is going to be unbalanced and that it will require very specialized builds.
Why? I think seeking balance in it is a fools chase that costs a neverending supply of resources and STILL at the end of it all, leaves a pvp game which is still unbalanced and still requires very specific builds.
Keep in mind devs: If players are complaining about pvp balance now, you can bet they will still be complaining about it after all of your balance passes. Seriously, this has happened in every pvp mmo ever. I think the balance passes are particularly horrible when they homogenize play, and balance things by making everyone the same.
Please do include some pvp material, but don't balance things off of it and don't make it in any way necessary to succeed at the pve game--because then you will have to balance for it.
https://blog.forrestthewoods.com/the-unbalanced-design-of-super-smash-brothers-3fbc9b346e15#.mdl8apt20
I personally greatly dislike PvP. If given the option, I would turn it 'off' for all my alts, so that I couldn't get roped into doing something I really dislike. I also take great offense at being called a "Care Bear" and being looked down upon by someone who misses the whole 4-color comics feel that was the whole point of City of Heroes. If you want to PvP, please find someone else to join you, someone who likes PvP as well. To each their own, but, keep the insults out. I can point out that the army has a nickname for people who start killing their platoon mates: Blue Falcon is the code name for a buddy f......, and, in the field, they would be extremely lucky to be cold-cocked by a M-16 butt and brought in for a Court-Martial. The anonymity of the games coupled with the lack of penalty has made sure this flourishes, but, they are learning really really bad habits. And there are no saved games IRL where you can restart from a save... I want this game to encourage better morality than is prevalent in society today, where greed is all, and need is ignored. PvP isn't in any way heroic, and, it takes some pretty nasty circumstances to bring it about in the 4-color type comics. What is typical is mostly posturing and argument between those heroes who don't get along... I want this game to start with and have the main story-lines go in the 4-color genre, and have the gritty street PvP type stuff be a sideline that doesn't have to be followed, and with no non PvP stuck in there. In the PvP zones should be PvP related stuff, any badges there should only unlock PvP stuff, etc.
I happened to see this post after I had finished with my previous. Someone had used the term "Care Bear" and that offended me, so I scrolled to the bottom, typed (2 fingers-ish), and saved my post first. And it didn't seem it would be as effective to add this to it, so...
"you've got to keep them separated"... Didn't really like the song, but, the line is appropriate here, I think... Here is my opinion: Don't you dare try to integrate PvP with PvE!! The headaches involved will hold back the project another year at least. Some ideas that were posted about movement and combat that can be applied to both: Having to slow a bit to take a ranged shot that also suffers a little in accuracy (here I would add a way to decrease the accuracy penalty by "training and practice")
Ranged taunts for melee types would be useful in both (perhaps coupled with an attack). And, Super-Speed just screams for a run around the target rapid attacking as an attack and an animation, maybe even an entangle with a similar animation... Super-Jump, then land on the target with a Super-Stomp! (Cheesy dust cloud animation for this one would be a good and easy to do option. )
I recommend reading [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/639751]Warcabbit's KS update in re: PvP[/url]
He started with three points:
1: You will never be forced to PvP
2: You can, in fact, talk about Fight Club.
3: Seriously. You will never, ever be forced to PvP.
And after a long discussion he closed with a fourth:
4: PvP design should never affect PvE play.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
As long as its a Tertiary Powerset (maybe something akin to the Pool Powers), and SuperSpeed is active. Just like Whirlwind, but with flurry of Punches from 3 semi translucent copies of your toon around the target. 3.. only because of Graphics performance concerns in Raids and such.
I remember once two rival sailing teams ran a race of some kind, with the one team claiming it's new hull material/design was a breakthrough in sailboat technology etc etc. The other team ran a catamaran against them and beat them pretty easily, as I recall. The lesson they kept repeating on the play-by-play was "You just can't race a mono-hull boat against a catamaran, the catamaran is always faster, it just is. This race is an apples-to-oranges comparison of the two designs."
Different classes, in order to actually BE different, will inevitably end up with differences between them great enough to make some fights unfairly biased towards one class or another. Also, team fights will end up working differently than 1 on 1 fights too, due to synergies that can exist between different power sets.
Some people only care about winning. Well, okay. But in some circles, like sailboat races and boxing, they tend to restricts who and what can be entered into the fight/contest in order to try to make sure there is not a glaring mismatch between contestants. The people who only care about winning are constantly trying to become the dominant favorite to win every match and make everything an unfair contest in their own favor. I the PVP community can and should have some sort of regulation to ensure that most fights aren't gankfests. Either the PVPers should do this or the game devs should, I don't know.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Interesting thread. I will start out by saying I liked the idea of PVP in COH but I struggled with the implementation and execution. I'm not about to say I know the answer for PVP. I think the idea that we should not dictate PVE by PVP is slightly ignorant to the difficulty of keeping PVP "within tolerance." It's much easier to balance the static and relatively dumb NPC baddies, than it is to try to keep incredibly disparate forces of two pvp combatants on a level playing field. Like giving a lion and a great white a level playing field.
I also think it's rather dumb to say the early days of PVP were the "best." Any time to put two people with little experience into some competitive environment the first few rounds are the best for both parties. Both are learning the rules and have an relatively equal chance of winning. Once one player or both begin to figure out the rules and loopholes and you begin having them fight at a higher level that is when the game play needs to really be in sync and fun to play. If not, one will undoubtedly get smashed into the ground. The trick is giving the lesser some footing to change tactics to overcome. If their only option is to rebuild their character to combat the other then you get into a vicious cycle of rock paper scissors or FOTM. Which I don't think is the best outcome but could certainly be worse.
For this reason I'm a strong proponent of structured PVP where each team or player is striving for a goal whilst blocking the other. Attempting to go for the goal means exposure and potential defeat but not doing so means never scoring a goal. It's a lot easier to balance the rules of an arbitrary game than it is to balance each class against all others. This is one of the reasons that soccer (football to the greater world) is so popular. Defenders have a numerical advantage unless the offensive teams exposes themselves. Even then the goal is not assured.
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