Kitsune9tails

NancY, have you PMed Lighthouse with a comprehensive list of your concerns? I'm sure he'd be only too glad to dialogue with you on this.

In other words, it takes 6 months to a year to begin to implement anything big. So don't expect to see anything on any wishlist this year. Software development takes time.

Thank you, Candlestick. This

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Im pretty sure most of the villains are upset about these things.

A. SR instead of Regen for Brutes.
B. Elec Blast instead of Psi Blast for Corrupters
C. Anything/Anything other than Elec/Elec for Stalkers
D. Earth/Elec instead of Ill/Dark for Dominators


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Is an 'unhappy with which sets were proliferated first' post I can understand.

I don't agree necessarily, but I understand what you would have preferred.

Okay, I'll bite:

Which sets should have gotten ported over for villains?

In my personal case, more stuff is more stuff, so I'm happy and going to be soon considering buying new slots or a second account for alts both blueside and redside.

Also (and I'm not slamming on you here) it's not my intent with my suggestion (instancing entire zones as FFA PvP) to segregate the PvPers...I want the option to segregate myself away from the mixed player hero/player villain zone at will.

My idea is let the people who want that go to a place where they can get it when they want it. On days when they aren''t in the mood, let them opt out.

It's like having PvP servers and PvE servers, but easier on the Devs theoretically (no maintaining different code) and easier on the players (want to PvP? Just zone anywhere/anytime, no server hopping involved).

It lets heroes and villains see all areas in the game and interact with the content there.

Unfortunately, it does allow the players to segregate themselves if they so choose. But then, that's the player's choice.

in any case, it still opens up all the zones to villains, which is the point.

I am entirely in favor of villains getting more content as part of the natural development of the game. There are two sides; both should get love.

This is a pure guess, but I'd say the red side population is roughly 30% of blue side. No busnessman ignores one third of his customers. But why add red side only or blue side only content when you can release content for both?

Also, even if the Devs wanted to throw 100% of their development time behind red side, the accountants aren't going to let them do that until they can convince them that doing so will be profitable. That is to say, more profitable than doing content for both sides at once.

Conversely, if the accountants get convinced that Red side needs love, the Devs will follow the paychecks.

That said, I beleive there are too many rich story possibilities in Redside lore for it to go unaddressed forever.

But I'm not sure that giving redside more zones just so they can have as many zones as blueside and for no other reason is going to happen.

All I want right this second for redside personally is some new tilesets that will let me kidnap someone from their home, their job, the park, etc and not some cave where they have already been pre-kidnapped. And let me fight their personal security, elite bodyguards, fellow scientists/sorcerers instead of other villains.

And if a villain were in, say, Atlas Park, what should happen when he gets within aggro range of a Hellion? Or more realistically, a level 25 Villain riding the sub to IP and then aggroing Family or DE. If that drops them into PvP mode, gank city. If it doesn't, it's time to killsteal.

Not to mention the group of level 50 heroes with maxed Perception that would hang out at the villain zone-in point(s) in IP and follow them around, waiting for them to go PvP.

Of course they would be somewhat countered by the villains that gathered in large groups while untargetable, waiting for signal to all go PvP at once and spike the first poor fool to attack one of them.

Thank you NancY, I think I understand your proposal more, but I still like my own idea better.

You are right, I'm missing something.

Is it:

A villain with his PvP flag off could wander into Atlas Park. If I attack him, that sets my PvP flag to on, and therefore me and a bunch of my hero buddies can gank him. Conversely, he could enter AP with a bunch of villains, and all could attack and gank me (thus suffering the penalty of having their PvP flags set to on).

Or is it:
A villain can wander into AP with his PvP flag off and attack a PPD officer right in front of my hero, and I can't attack him because his PvP flag is off.

Or is it some other alternative I'm not seeing? I haven't played WoW in a while.

IMHO, immersion is something th game needs more of, rather than less of.

However, immersion is not my only reason for not wanting an FFA world as my only choice. It's just that having to ask a villain politely to stop beating down that PPD cop so I could duel him please would be something I disliked.

Please don't add things to the game that I dislike.

I'm not complaining; I understand why Stalkers play that way, and it makes sense.

It's just not fun for me to perform or experience very often, thus one reason I don't PvP much.

I get what you're saying. I'm just saying that there are people who would not like it.

I've been a lowly Druid calling down Moonbeams on a rooted PvPer in the 'safe' zone who was so much higher than me I couldn't see his level. It was fun...much more fun than getting ambushed by NPC merlocks while I'm underwater and drowning...but I digress.

But one of the reasons I play this game and not that one is that you can't do that here. It's a preference. And everytime I set foot in a PvP Zone or heck on the PvP forums, I am reminded why I have that preference.

Loners being ambushed by 3 full teams.
Stalkers who AS and run.
Having to move around like a twirling pogo stick all the time.
Being teleported to a drone.

I'm not here to condemn that gameplay. I'll have that gameplay when I choose it, and not while zoning in from a mission door, thank you very much.

hey, as long as we're all pipe dreaming here

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You go to the Tram (or submarine) and see:
Atlas Park (PvE)
Atlas Park (PvP)

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I like this idea. It keeps PvP optional while adding variety to the zones. However, I'd group all the PvE stuff at the top, have it so people have to scroll down to the PvP group at the bottom... just so there aren't any complaints about accidentally clicking on the one below what they wanted.

OR, thinking a bit more on it... have the PvP versions be accessable from OB portals, so that they could be on a different "shard" where some key technologies were circumvented and Arachnos has a bigger foothold.

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You might as well leave things the way they are now. That's a big waste of resources for what amounts to what we already have, which is PvPers stuffed away in a corner somewhere.

I'm guessing many of you have never tried WoW because you don't understand what I was talking about, and I think EG is talking about too. Heroes and villains in the same zone doesn't mean world PvP, it doesn't mean you can attack each other at any time. That's what a PvP server is.

What I was suggesting is like the PvE servers of WoW; both factions can enter any zone, but can only PvP if they turn on their PvP flag. Also, attacking a member of the opposite faction automatically turns on the flag.

Missions would need to be spread out across all zones. New contacts and stores would need to be placed, but that isn't any more work than is being suggested in this thread, especially the suggestion of running 3 versions of each zone. That's 3 versions of each zone on every server!

Heroes and villains would not be "paling around" because it's not a shared zone of the type we now have. The missions would not suddenly all become co-op. PvP could take place anywhere if players wanted to take part in it. It would not be forced upon anyone like in the current PvP zones.

As for the comments that PvPers or villain players don't matter because their numbers are so small....I'm sick of the elitist attitude in this game. Those players pay the same each month that hero players do. They're entitled to the same treatment by the dev team that the hero players receive. Alienating any subset of players, for any reason, is not good business practice. Doing that anywhere else would be construed as prejudice and unacceptable. Why is it acceptable here?

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I can see that in some game, maybe CO. I just don't want it here. If CO were that way (WoWesque), I might play it, but I'd still want to have the same option of PvE gameplay I have now as well.

Even if I were hardcore PvP, I wouldn't want to 'force' it on others who don't want it if there is an option.

As far as Villains or PvP not getting equal treatment, that's something you have to take up with the bean counters (no offense to any bean counters, such as Arcanaville ) in that any allocation of resources that does not LOOK LIKELY to garner a profit just ain't happening.

Catch-22: Get more villain players and PvP players into the game, and more resources will get thrown that way.

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Why don't you think it would work?

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My concern is that people would accidentally find themselves in PvP if they aren't careful. Or to alleviate that problem you would have a rather annoying message that would pop up everytime you entered the zone.

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Also, why would a seperate PvP server with a different ruleset be better? That sounds like it would have a few problems:

- splitting off some of the Devs to work on the different codebase
- making sure the different codebase was compatible with updates
- perceived 'stepchild' status (deserved or not) of PvP server

etc...

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The different codebase argument doesn't really hold a lot of water with me. In the long term, the time you spend maintaining the separate codebases is well paid off in the time you don't have to consider how to shoe-horn everything into PvP and PvE at the same time.

Also, from personal experience, the typical animosity that you see between PvEers and PvPers tends to fade when each playstyle has its own gamespace.

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I am in favor of each type of gameplay having it's own space.

Why not develop PvP as it's own compatible "expanshalone" with its own city developed for it from the ground up? Then you have two completely seperate Devs teams and content, and all you have to worry about is the fiddly bits for when someone takes a character from PvE land into PvP land?

Thar deals with code problems and playerbase problems. Just put it all on a server anyone can reach from any other server, like the Test Server is now.

Yes, exactly: just instance it so that someone who doesn't want to see it doesn't have to.

I like the idea of the FFA world being accessible via Ouroboros.

It would lessen the load on the servers due to splitting of the population, but be materially expensive due to the need to purchase more hardware.

Why don't you think it would work?

Also, why would a seperate PvP server with a different ruleset be better? That sounds like it would have a few problems:

- splitting off some of the Devs to work on the different codebase
- making sure the different codebase was compatible with updates
- perceived 'stepchild' status (deserved or not) of PvP server

etc...

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Hero_of_Steel (kindly) linked to my thoughts on the subject, but I want to point out, since it's often overlooked, that making a hero zone available to villains doesn't necessarily mean PvP, co-op, or even competition. Villains could have their own instances of Paragon City where they'll never see a player Hero, and where contacts, zone events, and spawns can be tailored for villains.

Just thought I'd throw that out there since people always seem to get hung up on the, "but I don't want more PvP or co-op" thing when the idea of zone re-use is brought up.

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This is an idea I've tossed out there a few times:

You go to the Tram (or submarine) and see:
Atlas Park (PvE)
Atlas Park (PvP)

If you go to the PvP version of Atlas, you land in a faction only full sized instance. The PvE version of Atlas is Hero only and vice versa. If you choose to go to the PvP version, you land in an FFA instance of the zone. Choosing to Hospital sends you to the PvE version of the Hospital.

That said, I don't think anyone objects to there being more villain zones per se, the villains just have to be prepared to deal with a further spreading out of the villain population when they get them.

To convince the Devs that there needs to be more villain specific content, the answer is simple: recruit more villain players.

Interesting, but it would not e my personal preference.

I like the mechanic of missing/being missed, with all the attendant frustration. I would like it if it were cosmetically altered to eliminate missing in favor of the target dodging.

Nor would I have a problem with a system based around starting from a 95% chance to hit. But I'd prefer the option to build a character around being completely missed by attacks greater than 50% of the time. And that goes both ways: I wouldn't mind it if opponents did so, so long as Defense was still balanced with Resistance and the like.

I think it's evident from the design what they want. Grab your SG, your long time friends from your friends list, R buddies and do a TF.

You can do one with a PuG? Bonus!

You can solo it? Fine, but if you have 8 people in the TF, you are soloing 8 people spawns. You want to solo it for 2 person spawns? That's fine, too, just have the extras quit.

TFs are not the only content in the game, you can level to 50 without collecting 88 rare IOs.

Common = 1 or more per mission (20+ per day)
Uncommon = roughly 1 per 10 missions. (3 per day + commons)
Rare = 1 per TF/Trial. (2 per day+ uncommons and commons)
Seems pretty straightforward.

If you think from (what I presume to be) a designer's point of view it all makes sense.

It's not like they took the TF or the rewards away; they just made it tougher IF you have people drop out and not quit and not return.

Sure, red side needs more TFs. And more players. But making it somewhat tougher to soft load TFs in PuGs (while not disallowing the practice entirely) is not the be all and end all of that problem.

The amount of Pool C getting into Players hands could be anywhere from right on to double what was intended. I'm not sure you could say it's 'insufficient' so much as 'disproportionate'.

Then again, without the numbers to look at, there could be a proportionate number of Pool C Recipes red side, and people are just using them rather than marketing them.

All we really know is that people want there to be more (until they get more, then they will complain about the prices dropping).

Looking at TF design, you should go around 4 hours of gameplay between pool C drops. If you are in the market for 1/10 of the items in the pool, then it should take 40 hours worth of TF running, or 10 TFs, to get one of those drops.

Thus, if you run 2 TFs per day, you should go a week or more between drops you actually want, by design. THAT would be 'sufficient', and that's not counting buying them from players who didn't want the thing you wanted.

Is that about the rate you are desiring or experiencing?

I'm sure the Devs would rather have devoted the bug squashing team to something else, had that been an option. But this is what got greenlighted, or finished first out of however many things they are working on.

This currently being tested fix looks to be intended to be a more player-friendly compromise. Who knows whether it will go live? No harm in testing it while datamining to see if the Live fix is sufficient.

That's better than having the Devs ignore the player outcry against the Live fix, no?

Apparently the Devs disagree whether softspawning TFs is hurting someone. It hurt someone enough that they ordered man-hours to fixing it.

Perhaps some other method of supporting the villain economy could be suggested? One that doesn't require spawning TFs for 8 and then soloing them?

How many times and in how many ways does Lighthouse need to say, "This is the best we could do with the time resources we have right now?"

I appreciate the people who are posting alternatives, but let;'s not make any presumptions about how things are organized and what could have been done with the time they had, please.

Further tweaks may be forthcoming, please feel free to say what direction you want them to take. However, softloading that allows 1 person to set up rewards for 8 is RIGHT OUT. Let's start from there.