Dr_Mechano

Agree, considering Battle Axe and War Mace are pretty much carbon copies of Broadsword with a few things changed around, I don't so how they would generate less fury than either of those.

Alestorm (scottish pirate metal) make good use of the accordian too

I'll be brutally honest here.

The GMs, if they're anything like the WoW RP server GMs, wont give a monkey's uncle about it and will infact just plain ignore the petition. Despite the WoW RP servers having additional rules (don't name your character something stupid, don't hastle people RPing etc.) the GMs enforce them about as often as goats produce flying meat pies from their horns...

There's nothing to see in this thread MOOve along people!

Wow....just have to say...what an awesome post Bovine!

It is quite interesting, I think the main problem for City of Heroes was that many people joined because it didn't have PvP in the begining, it was a safe oasis away from the Horde/Alliance PvPfest of WoW (though the epic battles of Tarren Mill were a sight to behold...) which even then had seperate PvE and PvP dedicated servers.

WoW itself has gone through many changes, originally (as mentioned) there were no battlegrounds so people created 'hotspots' where the two sides would clash and the battles were long and bloody but on PvE servers these were consentual PvP since you actively had to toggle PvP mode on in the open world. However there was a darker side, on the PvP servers Stranglethorn Vale was an absolute no-go for players in the lower level range because those in the higher level range would still be around, questing and hunting.

Eventually battlegrounds were introduced with the whole honor system where only the best of the best got the grandest of PvP focused gear but the open world lost a lot of its epic battles. Time goes on and eventually they introduce a brand new honor system just before the first expansion, the battlegrounds explode as gear not normally available to players becomes relatively easy to get.

Then they introduce the arenas, Blizzard wanting to turn WoW PvP from a side edition into an E-sport (such as Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena or Counterstrike) unfortunately the plan...sort of backfired, the original Arena rewards were not only awesome in PvP but also most of the time the best inslot items for PvE. This led to people 'gaming the system' so they could get the rewards for PvE purposes without PvPing.

Eventually they begun sorting things out, trying to make the PvP arena rewards harder to get and less desirable for PvE (adding Resiliance into the item budget which lowered the crit chance of someone fighting you, it was useless in PvE but incredibly useful in PvP).

Thoughout all of this was the massive problem of balance. Unlike an FPS like Team Fortress 2 balance is incredibly bloody hard to pull off because there's many classes, many different specs within those classes. Each class seemed to take turns in being 'the overpowered one' and that still continues to this day.

PvP balance in MMOs is, quite frankly, impossible its, as Americans would put it, painting the golden gate bridge, once you've finished the job the other end needs painting again. Once you've balanced one class for PvP, then all the other classes need to be looked at to make sure they're balanced as well but once that's done then the original class may be unbalanced again.

For this reason alone PvP in MMOs will never be as popular as PvE, there's the inherent inbalance of it all.

As Bovine mentioned, the Warzones are, now, two generations behind the current MMO curve, the old way was to leave PvE bait in zones to lure people in. How many people would honestly mind a reduction in power of the Shivans and Warburg nukes if it meant they never had to step foot in a PvP zone again to get them? That is the key question.

If they wished them to remain powerful, why not put them as merit rewards? 10 for a Shivan and 10 for each type of nuke, that's quite a lot of PvE effort put in to get Shivans and each type of nuke. Would people object to this if they removed one of the fundamental things that draw completely disinterested parties into a playstyle they hate?

Personally you could probably magic away the PvP zones and they'd be missed by, what, 1% of the population that PvP because all competative PvP takes place in the arenas. Throw the signature hero defeat badges from RV onto those heroes (so any time you defeat Lord Recluse as a hero you get his old RV badge in addition to any badges that particular story arc grants), make the old 'time spent in X' badges history badges and so on.

Or better yet find some way to keep the zones but turn them into competative PvE content in a shared (but not co-op) zone.

How much of an outcry would there really be if the PvP zones got stripped out or the the PvP only rewards became achievable through hard work in PvE instead?

PvP in City of Heroes has, at best, a minority following. At worst it has a tiny, almost cult like, following.

The whole problem stems from the fact that they introduced PvP for PvPs sake without actually considering the implications further down the line, they've balanced and rebalanced PvP without actually ever succeding to draw in anyone beyond the small subset of players who actually did it in the first place.

I say just make the Shivans and nukes available through merits, strip the stupid PvE missions from within PvP zones, clear out all the enemy mobs (NPCs have no place unless there is a specific PvP related goal to them...see Alterac Valley in WoW) and make them purely PvP and then call it a day. Leave the PvPing to the pureists who want to PvP to the Arenas and their zones, leave anything PvE out of it and tada...no complaints...

Just done one of Union, even had a couple of lowbies tagging along to get their badges.

Seemed like everyone knew what to do, the instant Lord Winter went phased every broke off and waited for the Guardian, who proceeded to be smacked down in an orderly fashion before going back pummelling the physical manifestation of Winters chill and fury in the knees until he fell over.

Still had time to nearly clear the zone after his defeat.

Ah epic music.

How I use to love Total Annihilation and how the music would switch to reflect what was happening.

This was one of the generic 'nothing is happening accept building' themes, creepy yet soothing but when the action kicked up...it would fade into this.

For some reason just can't seem to get gold on my level 5 character with combat jumping, even with IR, I came close 50.10 seconds but I just can't get below 50.

On the other hand my level 50 SS/Fire brute sailed through it and had to actually try hard to get bronze.

All those 'missing' badges are showing up for me on the Candy Keeper on the Union EU server...

There's 6 sets of badges linked to the ski slopes, three for the intermediate and three for the expert based on times.

Speed boost actually does very little, the buff I would recommend would be Inert Reduction as this gives great control over the ice which is what's really needed and if your character is super jump, use Combat Jumping.

Heh if I remember rightly didn't one of the actual Pistol moves they showed at Herocon cause doves to appear from nowhere?

A Hamidon Bud.

Yeah they're not in the game anymore but it's as close to a Gelatinous Cube in this game as I'm going to get and who doesn't love cuddly mini-Gelatinous Cubes?

You can bet Arcanville is going to be one of the first in. I think that's about the only person I know would be among the first waves of beta if only for her mad maths skills and because she's going to do all the calculations and equations that make my brain hurt!

I had actually resigned myself to not get into the loyalty program/get the badges. My EU account lapsed for a month so obviously not going to get it there but my US account was probably lapse for about 2-3 hours so I automatically assumed I just wouldn't get the badge.

Lo and behold come badge awarding day I actually got given the badge.

So seriously, just contact the support team, if I can get automatically awarded the badge despite lapsing for 2-3 hours I pretty sure they'll be willing to give it to you.

I still quite like my idea.

Yes the pool option has been bought up before BUT it's limited to a costume set/items only being selected when normally a costume option would be available (so 3, 6, 9, 15, 18, 21, 27, 30, 39 and 51 months) and a power option opening only when a power option would be available (12, 24, 33, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60, 63) all the other months offer a respec, a costume token or the +salvage/recipe slots.

Say a person wanted both the Blackwand AND the Nemesis staff, they'd still have to wait 2 years to get that and in the mean time they would have picked up wings, belly-tees/kilts, Samurai Armour and the Boxing set.

There's still carrots being dangled and that way the devs could simply keep adding stuff to the veteran rewards system without ever needing to stop it since there wouldn't be the complaints of people demanding the latest 'new shiney' because it's got a damn 5 year wait on their hands, they can pick it up at three months if they REALLY want it but that means they're missing out on something else they could want equally as much, it becomes a tough choice.

I honestly don't understand the resistance to this idea, sure some newbie could get wings at 3 months and someone who is a five year vet had to wait 15 months to get them but you know what, you STILL got five years worth of stuff over the newbie.

The second option is to add 'basic' versions of the vet rewards to the character creator (like they did with wings they added the tiny demon/angel wings while the big versions are vet reward only), that way people still have access to shorts and boxing gloves but only the vet reward ones look fancy and only the vet reward people have the championship belt.

Actually since when did running in PvP not become a valid tactic.

I've had some grand chases through RV using Superspeed/Superjump to catch another person with the same powers back before Issue 13.

Hell I specced into teleport foe and caltrops just to cheese runners off or to assure my getaway was all the sweeter.

Then Issue 13 came along and caltrops might as well have not existed since they did sweet FA to actually slow someone down...

Alright can someone show me the numbers of people who PvP? I mean really hardcore PvP at this point, factoring into arenas and zones?

Because at this point I'm probably willing to bet that after the 'Issue 13 debacle' torked off a lot of the old school PvPers we're probably down to 1% of the population actually going into PvP zones to use it for their intended purpose. PvP just wasn't meant to be in this game, it was really nice and all, the devs tried (sort of) and now it might as well be ushered off to the gaming concepts in the sky.

Keep the arenas but convert the zones into co-op style zones but both Villains and Heroes get different contacts and storylines, Shivans and nukes are rewarded for completing a repeatable storyline that takes about the same length of time it would have taken to get them in the old school PvP enviroment.

Sure the Shivans and the nukes get toned down but eh...it's no great loss to anyone.

[The above post has sprung from a deranged mind, all it's contents may or may not be sarcastic or merely thinking outloud, all numbers held within the post are pulled out of thin air and as such should not be construed as actual statistics...]

I admit I'm probably the worse person when it comes to playing the market?

You know why?

I gamble, I play it like I do slot machines...

Everything but the most rarest of recipes gets listed for 1 inf.

Yes I farmed the walls for a bit, got lucky and got a purple drop, one, that's it. I made 250 million on that drop, you want to know how much I've made just by gambling?

Another 200 million ontop of that...

AE tickets, random merit rolls, it's all good, I made a load of inf that's to those. If a pleb like me who doesn't so much as play the market as guess with a blindfold on can make 200 million with ease...how the hell are other people not making that kind of money, it's not even playing the market as I said.

As I said before, purples aren't needed in any build that isn't going all out on recharge. Positional and Typed defense builds only want a purple AFTER they've successfully softcapped themselves which often leaves room for 2 purple sets. Regen building can be better done through non-purples, Run speed increases (like my experimental 'I run at 40mph WITHOUT sprint on' Granite tanker). The only time Purples are needed is either as 'added fluff' they make your build that bit better but they're not the key focus or if you're focusing on recharge.

Now I know that even if I wanted to Perma-Hasten AND had the money to do it, I couldn't I wont be bothering with purples because they simply add nothing more that I desire...

If these missions are meant to be PvP then by god remove all the mobs guarding the stuffs. That's the thing, 90% of the time the risks involved AREN'T PvP, they're PvE. You want to get nukes, got the god awful Arachnoids hanging around to make your life hellish (high regen rate and toxic damage...oh and they come in huge groups...) or Shivans popping up to stop you getting that meteor.

If the rewards are so high due to the 'risk' of PvP then just remove those mobs and make PvP the REAL risk instead of mobs that are overpowered due to the Issue 13 PvP nerfs (which if I remember correctly, the zone enemies still haven't been balanced around).

Oh and while you're at it depower the damn signature villains/heroes in RV just a tad, a full on GM level signature hero isn't the easiest thing to beat even with a team of 8 in PvE why on earth are they that powerful in a high risk PvP zone?

Admittedly I did duo all but Statesman with a fellow Mastermind (thankfully MMs can drop insps on the heavy pet and give them lots of buffs to allow them to tank the heroes).

The oddest thing though is that I would have assumed the purple recipes would have dropped back to their pre-AE levels (60 million a piece for each purple recipe) by now with all the new farming going on (more supply, same demand) but they appear to have remained the same, it's just a tad baffling for a non-marketeer person like me.

Anyone care to explain?

I can't be the only one that's actually seen the Tree follow it's creator a short distance. It looks like it disappears underground, tunnels for a while then springs up once the summoner stops moving.

That might just be me though...