PVP Power Disparity

xaansteel · March 2016

So I stopped playing for about 6 months because I had more or less maxed out the potential to progress beyond just grinding for more enchantments, and I came back because I heard that Drizzt and Bruneor are in the game, and that's pretty fun, I'm very much enjoying the PVE content while I still have so much to do, but I also like to PVP and it's pretty much an exclusive club at the moment. I used to go into domination and do pretty well, I was always one of the better PVPers and won more domination than I lost despite rarely playing with a team. Now I come back and I'm fighting some players who I can't even damage, and can almost 1 hit me. I got some fairly good level 70 gear, auction house artifact equipment and a decent 2.5k average item level. And while I respect the need for gear upgrades to be meaningful, I think that for PVP to be fun for most players they should have some shot of having a meaningful impact beyond capping in domination and perhaps buffing their party and stunning (as ineffective as my stuns are). This is one of the reasons why so many just don't do PVP at all, besides there still only being 2 domination maps but that's another story

Would it make sense to have 2 tiers of level 70 pvp? 3k+ and 3k-? I hope the lack of this isn't just pandering to the highly paying playerbase who enjoy beating the snot out of "newbies" (who have been playing for over a year)? I should hope that people want to be good in PVP primarily because they're skilled rather than just insanely powerful by default, and while gear and smart builds are an essential component of MMORPGs, they shouldn't be exclusionary in PVP to the point that if you haven't spent hundreds of dollars or grinded yourself to an early grave for thousans of hours you can't really compete. 2 tiers of average item level would both make the PVP experience enjoyable for more players, but keep the incentive to power up.

Hope to hear why I'm wrong or if I am right.

Respectfully, and still completely ethical in not using third party AD purchasing despite the minimal impact of $20 a month on my power level insofar as it can be traded for AD,

Xaansteel

Unknown · March 2016

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Unknown · March 2016

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sockmunkey · March 2016

One other problem with brackets is you will still have twinks. Rather then getting stomped by people with double your item level. You will simply get stomped by people who stripped off just enough gear to squeak into a lower bracket. Players with enough stats that they can keep their 20000+ power by removing a few less important stats. It is much easier to strip away a few items, lowering item level, yet still maintaining effectiveness. Then it is to build up to it. Separating players by item level wont do much to solve many of the core issues with PVP.

reds351 · March 2016

It's a very simple problem.

1. you can't really do bracket matchmaking as not enough people so you end up stomping or getting stomped on.
2. No one wants to do pvp as there is no bracket matchmaking.

xaansteel · March 2016

Ahh, the vicious circle, PVP is too dead to do that but it's dead because that hasn't been done (also new maps and games, and how about a free for all?). Alas indeed.

I mean if it's actually the case that the Neverwinter team are hard at work producing great PVE content and fixing important things on limited revenue, I get it, but just think of how many more people will be tempted to contribute a modest amount of money to the game by making PVP fun for more people.

Yes there would be twinks but a level 2999 twink when you're 2500 isn't so bad, I relish the challenge of fighting a 2999 and would be doubly inspired to upgrade even more to close that gap because at least that's possible without breaking the bank or playing all day every day.

I did find a partial solution. I have 2 characters, a guardian fighter which is level 70, and a hunter ranger which is still level 61. I can PVP for a long time on that hunter ranger (I mean once the queues are fixed, it seems extra bad below 70). But I like the continuity of doing a dungeon with a character and then dropping into PVP afterwards. More stuff to do. I mean there are astral diamond incentives to PVP, and you'll also need to make glory for your guild, that function makes no sense for smaller guilds with less powerful players, oh boy here I go again trying to use a feature of a game and getting smashed into oblivion, 10 deaths in a short game

rayrdan · March 2016

xaansteel said:
Ahh, the vicious circle, PVP is too dead to do that but it's dead because that hasn't been done (also new maps and games, and how about a free for all?). Alas indeed.

I mean if it's actually the case that the Neverwinter team are hard at work producing great PVE content and fixing important things on limited revenue, I get it, but just think of how many more people will be tempted to contribute a modest amount of money to the game by making PVP fun for more people.

Yes there would be twinks but a level 2999 twink when you're 2500 isn't so bad, I relish the challenge of fighting a 2999 and would be doubly inspired to upgrade even more to close that gap because at least that's possible without breaking the bank or playing all day every day.

indeed all we need is 2 brackets:
over 3k
under 3k
gear cant be changed once the pvp start with the only exception of overload slots.

release a domination map once in a while and its done.

Unknown · March 2016

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xaansteel · March 2016

defiantone99 said:
Na, 3.8k and above need their own bracket. The difference between 3k and 3.8-4.2k is like night and day.

Fair point, I can't speak to the difference because all I've ever had from either is total annihilation no matter what I do, but whatever it statistically makes sense to do would really make things more fun

Ask a lot of people why they don't pvp in a poll and ask them if they would pvp more if they actually had a shot of competing, I bet it's more than just me who don't pvp at level 70 precisely because there aren't tiers.

Or, instead of tiers, just matchmake better. But that should ideally not mean each team has a few god-geared players and a couple weaker ones, because just the feeling of throwing everything you have at someone, fighting brilliantly, using all your tactics, and still not having a shot is a bad one and keeps people from pvping. Nobody wants to play the role of not actually having much of an impact but striving to be the smallest detriment possible. It's literally like in Call Of Duty if you shoot someone in the head 5 times they still don't die. What would happen to Call Of Duty if that happened, how much would they sell?

flehstiffer · March 2016

"Na, 3.8k and above need their own bracket. The difference between 3k and 3.8-4.2k is like night and day." Diefiantone

This. I fought icydrake on my 3.6k TR, and barely tickled him, meanwhile he was taking a quarter to half my health each strike. Against people my own ilvl, I'm perfectly fine 1v1, and can usually even 2v1 or even me vs 3 if they aren't very skilled. There is a lot of power to be gained from that last couple hundred ilvl.

Unknown · March 2016

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xaansteel · March 2016

Would that be matchmaking balance or just gear should count for something in pvp but perhaps significantly less than it does currently? I could live with that, like I said I don't fault an MMORPG for making gear matter in pvp, it's part of the game, but yeeesh

Unknown · March 2016

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Unknown · March 2016

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asterotg · March 2016

rayrdan said:

xaansteel said:
Ahh, the vicious circle, PVP is too dead to do that but it's dead because that hasn't been done (also new maps and games, and how about a free for all?). Alas indeed.

I mean if it's actually the case that the Neverwinter team are hard at work producing great PVE content and fixing important things on limited revenue, I get it, but just think of how many more people will be tempted to contribute a modest amount of money to the game by making PVP fun for more people.

Yes there would be twinks but a level 2999 twink when you're 2500 isn't so bad, I relish the challenge of fighting a 2999 and would be doubly inspired to upgrade even more to close that gap because at least that's possible without breaking the bank or playing all day every day.
indeed all we need is 2 brackets:
over 3k
under 3k
gear cant be changed once the pvp start with the only exception of overload slots.

release a domination map once in a while and its done.

First they would have to evaluate IL new. Armor enhancement gives 35 IL, while the difference between R10 and R12 in IL is lower. My alts with perfect weapon enchants, legendary artefact gear, mystic or full refined artefacts, R 9s (exept utility) have LESS, then 3K IL. Add boons. Add guild boons. 3k IL on one char is not the same as 3k IL on another char. This is just the mathematial problem with IL. Compare 3k OP with a 3k GWF and you have the second problem.

urlord283 · March 2016

again the only problem with PVP is premades verses random teams... and how hard it is to get into GG and SH PVP

I would like some new PVP gear to work toward... The SH stuff depends on your Guild the Other stff you should be able to get on your own...

Please introduce new gear

xaansteel · April 2016

I really do dislike item level, if not gear score then they should at least try to have something like stat score to include boons and the progress with artifacts that haven't been upgraded yet. Wait, that's gear score. Bring back gear score, heh. Then yes matchmaking needs an overhaul. The only problem I see with strictly dividing premade and random is that if you want to pvp with some friends, chances are you'll get clobbered if all of your friends don't have that game-deciding gear.

Or, whatever, maybe keep level 70 PVP a gear-driven clobberfest but give us more options. Duels would be nice, maybe a duel arena. IWD is nice except that's the same thing just more spread out, one GWF took out 3 people earlier. Free for all within tiers. Domination can be a bit annoying, I bet more people would just drop into free for all for some fun if there was the option and you could have tiers

Possibly unpopular but I think it would make some sense if gear just wasn't as important. Keep it important, make better gear let you be more powerful, but do some kind of logical statistical balancing to make it not able to be so insane after a point, some kind of reasonable policy of diminishing returns, nobody would be any less motivated to power up but it would just be less ridiculous, it would also eliminate the problem of people complaining that there's no challenging content and they can breeze through everything in the game. A lot of players don't want this. I remember IWD, amazing mod, people would do Kessell's Retreat and you had to talk strategy, you had to kill the beholders first or they'd mess you up, you had to work, now it's just rush rush rush grind fest try to do it 10 times in an hour, that's not the slightest bit true to D&D which should feel like a tactical dungeon experience. In my return I found myself asking about the strategy and was always met with "just do damage", oh apparently we have a 3.5k GWF which completely eliminates the need to do anything other than mash keys randomly to get through. It's gone too far for a lot of people, even many people who do have godly gear. It's been a bit too silly ever since Tyranny Of Dragons but at least back then it wasn't so bad

subnocte · April 2016

As things stand PVP is pretty much entirely about gear at level cap. People with maxed out everything (including boons and mount bonuses) barely have to do anything to kill people and be unkillable.

I don't think Cryptic will ever do it in a free to play title but I'd like to see equalised gear, at least partially, allowing for some kind of progression and decent rewards. If PVP became more about skill and tactics rather than BiS premades stomping pugs, it'd be a lot more fun and a lot more popular for the majority of people.

klangeddin · April 2016

They need to remove Tenacity from PvP gear, replace with other stats and then give a flat Tenacity bonus the same for everyone.
Every time the gear is separated you create a disparity, in this game it's worse because while there is a PvP Specific Stat, there is no PvE specific stat. This is the typical flaw of design that mmorpgs go through at first because they think it's such good design (when it's not), then the disparity becomes unbearable and they have to remove it, like they did in RIFT.
And this is just part of the problem, mod 7 introduced some AP/Stamina drain marks that are simply out of this world and make the disparity even worse, those things have to be nerfed, plain and simple.

ghoulz66 · April 2016

klangeddin said:
They need to remove Tenacity from PvP gear, replace with other stats and then give a flat Tenacity bonus the same for everyone.
Every time the gear is separated you create a disparity, in this game it's worse because while there is a PvP Specific Stat, there is no PvE specific stat. This is the typical flaw of design that games go through at first because they think it's such good design (when it's not), then the disparity becomes unbearable and they have to remove it, like they did in RIFT.
And this is just part of the problem, mod 7 introduced some AP/Stamina drain marks that are simply out of this world and make the disparity even worse, those things have to be nerfed, plain and simple.

That still won't help. My characters in full T2 pvp gear get torn like paper with 40% DR/60% ArP resists. Those are 2.7k character that just get destroyed with no chance to even put a dent into a premade char's HP.

The big players can easily pile up ArP up till it's beyond 12k. Removing stat curves was one of the worst decisions they made.

greyvamps · April 2016

the thing i hate on pvp is that it doest count of ur efford, someone that lost 1 match and 1 wins with 0 efford can be ranked top 1 while one of 11 kills 3 downs 19ss 15 wins and 3 losts, got ranked at the bottom, the system needs to be patched too if they wanna get pvp people back in, cause myself feel like quiting due this, cause the efford is meaningless, and i readed someone posting bout power nerv, why power nerv it takes forever to kill one right now, this game doest need power nerve, this game needs balance, all classes are outclassed, like trix roque cant do shet, or they must have gears thats way op to other gears, wich makes people quit the game due outballance, both trix roques can have gud gear, but sometimes u see one trix roq attacking the other dealing 1k dmg while the other does 30k dmg, js things are getting impossible, my sister plays that class and showed me her gear, she has armor penetration of 50% and deal still only 0 dmg to alot of players, here and there 400 as a lvl 70 while another trix kills her in 3 hits, explain that part, i can understand that people complain bout power due this, but its not the issue bout power but bout balance, ps plz know as well dat some people are hacking

mamalion1234 · April 2016

greyvamps said:
the thing i hate on pvp is that it doest count of ur efford, someone that lost 1 match and 1 wins with 0 efford can be ranked top 1 while one of 11 kills 3 downs 19ss 15 wins and 3 losts, got ranked at the bottom, the system needs to be patched too if they wanna get pvp people back in, cause myself feel like quiting due this, cause the efford is meaningless, and i readed someone posting bout power nerv, why power nerv it takes forever to kill one right now, this game doest need power nerve, this game needs balance, all classes are outclassed, like trix roque cant do shet, or they must have gears thats way op to other gears, wich makes people quit the game due outballance, both trix roques can have gud gear, but sometimes u see one trix roq attacking the other dealing 1k dmg while the other does 30k dmg, js things are getting impossible, my sister plays that class and showed me her gear, she has armor penetration of 50% and deal still only 0 dmg to alot of players, here and there 400 as a lvl 70 while another trix kills her in 3 hits, explain that part, i can understand that people complain bout power due this, but its not the issue bout power but bout balance, ps plz know as well dat some people are hacking

i suggest fix on the leaderboard but also suggest somehow the leaderboard to calculate correctly the calculation: cant be a player avoid get killed to stay at top pages when he loses the match ! BUT FIRST we need fix some things like shadowclad because we see kill death ratio 1000-0 and you see posts like: here the top gwf kill death ratio for example !

on server side should be visible only the total performance and not sort by kills and deaths and and that is HAMSTER.

xaansteel · April 2016

Expanding on the duel arena idea. An area where you can go and make matches. Want to play 1 on 1? You can without some hothead smashing you and your opponent to bits in IWD. Want to do 2 on 2? Go ahead, and pick your opponents. 5 on 5 elimination? Or in domination you can pick your opponents. Yes it does mean more people would have to pvp but I think they would

feanor70118 · April 2016

Gear score brackets won't solve the problem of class balance. Any tier system would have to take into account the huge power and survivability difference among classes, because right now 4k GWFs, TRs and paladins would only be fighting each other.
I know Cryptic has to struggle against a boneheaded, demanding schedule for releasing new content (which always gives us broken and bad ideas like shadowclad and ambush rings) and management that, for some reason no one at all understands, won't just give us back our epic dungeons, but it's long past time they move class balancing to the top of their priorities list.

kievitz · April 2016

If there would be a bracket there should be a challenge board not a queue line.

Ex. make a party add to the challenge list and browse other partys with similar IL and gear or party composition only could have toons of ILs close to each other.

But as devs have stated overall gameplay balacing is finished in Jan 2017 (so they claim) so bite the pain fellas

I dont think a ladder or above described challenge board will be done, this game is after your cash not critical QoL fixes.

Enjoy bugs and unbalance for the next 6 months or more or longer.

xaansteel · April 2016

feanor70118 said:
Gear score brackets won't solve the problem of class balance. Any tier system would have to take into account the huge power and survivability difference among classes, because right now 4k GWFs, TRs and paladins would only be fighting each other.
I know Cryptic has to struggle against a boneheaded, demanding schedule for releasing new content (which always gives us broken and bad ideas like shadowclad and ambush rings) and management that, for some reason no one at all understands, won't just give us back our epic dungeons, but it's long past time they move class balancing to the top of their priorities list.

Indeed. That's a problem in itself. Have to have the fundamentals down for people to stay, it's really disheartening starting to play a game and then learning that your class is strictly worse than other classes regardless of build. At least they've worked on and continue to work on PVE balance so some classes aren't strictly more desirable than other ones, but PVP needs its own balancing even more

PVP Power Disparity

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