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Who killed Hero Games?
trill
Posts: 7 Arc User
I get on for the first time in months and its most non-existent.
Months ago it was one of the more popular parts of the game, and speaking honestly it was the reason i bought a lifetime subscription....
I have been back just a few days, but queued non stop and it never comes up with the exception of B.A.S.H once in a great while...
What happened? The alerts? The alerts on fun, but don't scratch that itch.
Months ago it was one of the more popular parts of the game, and speaking honestly it was the reason i bought a lifetime subscription....
I have been back just a few days, but queued non stop and it never comes up with the exception of B.A.S.H once in a great while...
What happened? The alerts? The alerts on fun, but don't scratch that itch.
Post edited by trill#2048 on
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The list above is a rough sketch of the many factors I've observed that have impacted PvP queues. My recommendation is to help new people learn the ropes and show them that PvP can be fun. Ubtri has does this so far, and even Xeno is trying to bring new people to try PvP.
PvP will always have balance issues as long as the numbers for PvP and PvE are not processed separately and freeform exists. It's just kind of the name of the game, and not a bad thing. Flavor of the Month builds will never go away, you just have to know how to counter FotM builds. Work smarter, not harder.
In short, there's no easy answer to this and everybody is going to have different perceptions on the the matter, but I believe I covered most of the main ones in the list above.
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
Devs, players, you name it.
Bloody hands everywhere.
2) The cost of respecs to be able to adapt to variations in the meta-game increased exponentially, requiring that PvPers spend even more time in PvE than ever before in order to be able to tweak their builds.
3) The cost of playing Alts increased greatly in the same manner as #2.
4) The spec trees emphasize min/maxing to a degree even greater than before, opening the gap between casual and serious PvPers.
5) Rather than fix the queue system so that it created equal matches rather than 4 v 1 and the like the devs implemented a system where a queue just wont pop unless there is a minimum number of players that is usually beyond the capability of the current PvP population to trigger.
6) A dev came out and said that PvPers are insignificant to Cryptic and CO.
7) Current spec and power options have been implemented in a fashion that makes playing melee in PvP the equivalent of volunteering to be a decent ranged PvP player's targeting dummy. Melee is very popular conceptually and so this drives people away.
8) Some PvPers are jerks. Not all. Not most. Not even a majority. Some. In a reasonable sized PvP community with some degree of player diversity a few bad apples will not have too terrible of an impact. In a game where many or even most people have been driven off by elements described in #'s 1 - 7, you are left with an environment where a few bad apples have a very major impact on their environment. Five real jerks out of a population of 20 regular PvPers have much more of an impact than a similar number out of 200 regular PvPers.
A population increase is needed to dilute the impact of negative influences on the community, but such a population increase is unlikely as long as people are being driven away from PvP by other elements...and those few bad influences.
9) The addition of PvP specific gear that widens the gap between casual and serious PvPers.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
QFT. Ashensnow pretty much nailed it here.
Two things though:
It should definitely be noted that there was a LOT of hate because PvP at one point was the ONLY way to get the top-quality gear in the game (the Champion's purple gear). It would be a grave mistake to go back to that. Cryptic doesn't do a good job with fine tuning, so let's not encourage them to create a new problem (or rather bring back an old one), mmk?
I can't remember which dev said that... Can you provide a quote Ashensnow? I know it might be hard with the way the forums are now, but it would be better to cite the source.
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
So.. there are less than 10 PvPers in existence but at least three (you said some.. which to me is more than a couple) are jerks, lol.
I am not making a statement.. just my little math mind.
:biggrin:
Nah, not saying less than 10 total. On the other hand it takes more than ten total in order for a 5 v 5 queue to pop with a significant degree of frequency.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
And also Acclaim vendors with very poor assortment... >.<
Wasn't that excactly the reason why there was more PvP at that time ? All i read was that
PvE noobs were playing ZA all the time. Now i simply don't read anything about ZA anymore.
So big question is, do you want to have back all the PvE players to farm them, or should it
better be just the 10 real PvPlers where one FotM build tries to kill the other FotM ?
At least thats how it looked for me just from reading the forums.
Don't say "PvE noobs", not few of them became real PvPer after wards.
ZA isn't so bad entrance for PvP beginners. :3
I'm pretty sure this was the guy telling Fockzy to "try ZA kid."
So to start - before you insult someone, especially in regards to pvp, at least know what you're talking about.
ZA was popular pre-alert because it was the acclaim farm primarily for pve oriented folks, which was prevalent as you would see many relog to exploit the system to not just get more acclaim but avoid the consequences of defeat in pvp.
ZA still pops, even SH, bugged turrets and all. But unless you're part of jaybezz's sg and doing 5 v 5 premades, you're gonna have to catch people at the right time. They're pretty narrow windows of opportunity, and they may not fall within your game time.
As people have said, the sheer lack of reward is one of the biggest factors, then the new changes brought from on-alert further limited viable setups/builds.
You're either a good build(there are maybe 2 ranged builds that have 3 t3 blasts to choose from, and just as few melee builds, which auto-lose versus the ranged builds)
or you are everyone else.
For everyone else, there's no reason to stay. Existing gear in Q-store/merits does not make up for the gap in power. There is no pvp gear short of two pieces that make almost no difference in performance.
With all that in mind, a new person who does not have imbue+high damage ranged attack or something like devour essence crit+active offense spikes will come to realize in about a week's time that they will remain exactly where they are in power and efficiency unless they dramatically change their build towards the ...4 builds or so that work, or they can just flip the bird to HERO games.
Guess which option wins most of the time?
I'll help you out with the dev bit or atleast point you in the right direction. The Dev that said the what ashen mentioned on top of other negative things towards people who play that playstyle had his own channel during the development stage of on alert. In this channel you would also get lashed if you even mentioned pvp. End result tell customers they dont matter and it kind of screws the pooch.
Gentleman_Crush eh?
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
Its the very reason i forked over the money for a Lifetime subcription...get 2 or 3 level 40s and PVE gets boring....
I have 13 - and only because I couldn't convert my pre-existing 40s into the FF slots.
Until rewards get improved, the only real alternative to generating interest in pvp I see is player run events offering prizes and the like.
The freeform system is impossible to properly balance for the sole purpose of PVP. There are entirely too many variables to consider and tweaking of powers is a hit or miss affair since the issue of an overpowered build has to do with a combination of several powers and no single power alone. When one seemingly overpowered power gets nerfed, then a different overpowered build is made. This is an unavoidable design flaw concerning freeform PVP.
The very design and competetive nature of freeform PVP allows players to create insanely broken builds that are capable of defeating an opponent in a very possible 1 to 2 seconds and dealing an insane amount of damage within that time frame.
There are those who embrace such build techniques, seeing who can defeat who in the quickest time possible by pushing the freeform system to the very limits to do so. These players always seem to be in a very small number. Those who do not embrace such practices get penalized and squashed and it created incentive to drive them away from PVP. The competetive environment also promotes build elitism, where you have to restrict yourself to certain build templates to be at a competetive edge. Such a culture surely drives away the casual player with their casual / concept build and that's why the PVP portion of the player base has seemed to have always remained a minority.
Last but not least, the PVP'ers (not all of them) who choose to be egoistical, self-righteous jerks towards others, including gloating their win over others, have helped drive away disgusted and disenchanted PVE players.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Ironically I think the majority of those speaking in his channel were PvPers/cared about PvP.
Allow me to explain something that came to light in CO's sister game STO. STO is also having a dwindling PvP population due to ridiculous imbalances and power/buff combinations, on top of straight out blatant p2w. But, in a discussion about how they don't seem to balance their skill system vs. what a decent build would have a dev clearly explained they actually balance around what they perceive the average (bad or "casual") builds are like. In CO terms this would be like... balancing a ranged build's crit around 20% to 25%, instead of the 50% (?) a spike build can get, not even taking into account something like Imbue.
I believe that is pretty much a company wide design philosophy. Its not that things can't be balanced, its that they don't balance them against what the high end players do on purpose, nor do they limit them to stay within their design limits (lower caps and DR).... lazy or hands off design? Either way it causes problems.
Also, I'm pretty sure NONE of the devs on either game do any PvP at all. I would say some outright hate it; pvp is not just ignored by Cryptic, its downright abused. Does anyone really believe they can't be bothered to at least fix the turrets in SH? Or that the Justiciar double passive bug tends to resurface just "because", much less that it takes months to fix? The amount of bugs, new and old that happen make me think someone is actively sabotaging them from the inside.
Oddly enough I don't blame the devs themselves, this mess is management's fault. I was hoping for PWI to make some changes in the company's upper levels, but alas... they've said Cryptic is their R&D. R&D into how to best apply their f2p model on western markets.
*shrug* Its heartbreaking I know, but I really don't expect any of Cryptic's games to get any better, not really, and especially not their pvp. The much touted starbases in STO were clear ultra grindfests and RL money pits from day 1. Not the content everyone was starved for. I fear vehicles or the upcoming zones may be the same for CO.
And no lie, as soon as the load screen came up i got the "disconnected from server" message
LOL are you serious? Upset at the time, i laugh about it out...it figures.
I'm kind of curious if that's based on any actual play numbers, I mean they'd know wouldn't they?
Even if you just sampled the PVP numbers gained/tracked by the Perks system you'd have an idea how often players pvp'd.
I don't know that they would share these numbers with us, but considering how much Dev time has been used to make PvP content in the past*
But to the point...
It's been summarized by others above but here's my short view of this Orient Express style killing..
Mind you, this is all negative, it's supposed to be. I can say nice things about the PvP crowd and the Dev's work on it, but that's for another thread.
*I know the pvp crowd will say it's too little, I can't say but that might be true. I'd be happy if half as much had been spent on RP content but oh well.
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
We can definitely be elitist, but as for impossible to satisfy - not so much. The lack of gratitude stems from a long-term experience of suggestions and feedback being almost completely ignored. For example, the addition of team duels was great, but when there's next to no incentive to pvp, it's pretty hard to get anyone not already acclimated to pvp actually interested.
We've seen immune turrets in SH since Alert hit...months ago. There are only 2 items available in the acclaim vendors and neither item is particularly useful, although the attempt to buff the emblem was a nice gesture but failed attempt as the numbers aren't high enough to justify its use over legacy gear. The initial offering negated stealth completely, and the version to hit live still requires too much investment vs the current standard of 300int and a legacy item.
Just listen ingame for the screams and you'll locate them.(ignore the idiots who boast of their wins and complain of their losses) You'll hear some congratulate the other person. They'll be able to point you at groups.
I know Caliga has been organising (under the guise of a costume contest) He's easy to spot ingame. Try him.
I used to do ZA for fun, especially if I got to be the zombie. (now where was that healer)
Have you tried getting 2 groups of low levels for a fun game of ZA, 1 experienced person per group to help with what to do (and not do)?
I'm strictly PvE and I have no problem with levelling character after character, hence my entry on alt-aholics.
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The only real issue with pvp is the problem with a stat system.
1. No Ranking System
2. No Arena(player creater ranked pvp match)
3. No Amazing rewards(mods, itemss, even xp)
4. Lack of map's and options
These are small problems that with one good update could be fixed. Just takes time to develope but i must say CO in the few years this game came out i have not see anything like this added. Only accomplisment in my eyes is Team Dueling inzone. And that is such a minor feature it shoulda been made when game realeased. Do yourself a favor and concider this and then pvp will be back to its glory days.
-signed by your favorite fourms poster!
Ya i seen that and thought its a bit off with a population likes CO has I'd say its like 10%
>_> theres like 10 pvpers...and 10 of 100 people = 10% ...Crush's method is flawed .
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Speechcraft. You gotta make it look like it's overcrowded and that they don't have much time for your nonsense!
They would then have to redo ALL the mobs to take this into account.
The result being, fighting different versions of Gravitar's one shot kills, all through the game.
We already hear everyday , people asking for help with low level missions. Imagine them trying to play wiht this scenario. Bye bye players.
The majority of the game is, go round do missions. Thats why the powers are unbalanced.. sorry "balanced" towards the low end. They don't want to dive off new people.
*reread* *shrug* sorry can't phrase it any better.
My intro to WOW was having a high level shaman in the start area, parked in front of the main quest giver just killing all the 2 dozen or more new players until they stopped respawning. Great intro to a game. They eventually had to change start area to BAN higher levels from them because of this sort of behaviour.
And shortly thereafter hearing a L20 bragging about pwning a Level 11. I pointed out his victim had no change to defend against or damage him, as he was half his level and far from being something to brag about, it was actually pathetic.
These sort of players are your communities worst enemies and you do have them.
On the community side, try;
a) making sure nobody camps Kodiak and challenges all the level 7's as they turn up. I have seen several L40's do this.
b) make sure they are all talking in local chat. It REALLY doesn't help your reputation having some bad winner/loser complaining and yelling insults at someone over zone chat. Though it does lengthen quite a few ignore lists.
c) have a chat to people about challenging people going to and from mission givers, for easy wins as they travel out of the duel area without noticing. This also gives PvP's a bad rep.
d) have some of the experienced people offer training runs and help sessions instead of just "come on eveyone queue for ...." you may have people interested who don't know who to speak to but who only hear the idiots over zone.
e) start up a PvP chat channel, assuming one already doesn't exist, advertise it for helping people, STRICTLY enforce behaviour rules on the chat channel to not scare of people.
As for the one yesterday who suggested over zone chat a world wide event, basically " last man standing"
1. No PvE who see the notice will turn up because they want to be able to get things done without being constantly attacked by other players.
2. new players turning up will think this is normal and go CYA.
3. those that haven't seen the message, either through not playing for a while or just not reading the notices, will go WTF, was this the last patch and log off again, unless they are into PvP.
Now, if you made it an OPT-IN event, where all people in it where flagged. Only the people taking part would get attacked and you could get teams of lookouts in the PvE , telling where people are. So the people spotted would have the option to run,hide or face the music. Both groups get to do what they want while interacting.
You would quickly find out who was hated, they would have people following them, so they can't hide.
Apologies for any fractured grammar and spelling, I've been up for half an hour and mY brain won't kick in for ABOUT ANOTHER HOUR.eerrrghhhh aarrghhh
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