macskull

What are you basing balance on? Team situations? 1v1 situations? Under the old PvP rules things were fairly balanced in team situations and 1v1 situations had more of the rock/paper/scissors thing going on (though an intelligent player and good build choices could help scissors beat rock, for example). With I13, they basically threw team balance out the window in favor of 1v1 balance (mostly heal decay, diminishing returns, damage balancing, and the mez changes). While it kind of works in some 1v1 situations, it's boring because duels are now based around who can deal the most damage fastest, instead of who plays smartest or who can manage their inspirations the most effectively (if, say, it were two Doms of equal skill fighting each other it would come down to which one played more offensively and ran the other out of Break Frees, but now if it's two Doms of equal skill fighting each other it comes down to who has the better build), and team balance suffered horrifically.

Basically what I'm getting at here... show me an MMO with balanced PvP and I'll show you an MMO where everyone is playing exactly the same character, and that's only fun until you realize you're no different than anyone else.

On Freedom you can find, at virtually any time of day, any day of the week:

* 1v1 arena matches
* Small-team arena matches
* Medium-team arena matches
* Large-team arena matches
* Busy zone PvP in at least 2 of the 4 zones (Siren's is more "mellow," if you will, as most players are in RV these days)

On Justice you can find, maybe at peak hours, normally on the weekends:

* 1v1 arena matches (in many cases, it's just fiteklub without the worry of getting attacked by a non-participant)
* Small-team arena matches
* Fiteklub in RV (this one is more of an ongoing occurrence - actual organized zone PvP is far rarer).

There are more good players on Freedom than there are bad players on Justice, and there are a lot of bad players on Justice. I am pretty sure I can count the number of good Justice players that haven't transferred anything to Freedom on one hand, and none of them have posted in this thread. If by "filled with skilled players" you mean "maybe half a dozen people standing under the globe in RV talking to each other and occasionally fiteklubbing," then I would support that assertion. Of course, if you transfer over to Freedom and ignore everyone who doesn't agree with everything you have to say like you're some sort of god, of course you'd think that Freedom PvPers are all bad. From the OP, the only PvP SG I recognize is Vince's, and with the exception of Vince himself the members of that SG are downright terrible (wasn't Dinwoodie in Hard Knocks? - and we all know how that turned out). The good Justice PvP groups either died off or went to other servers well before I13.

By the way, didn't you say you were going to stop posting? Whatever happened to that?

Don't bother transferring something to Justice unless your only intent is to roll fiteklubbers in RV. It might be worth it because transfers are free, but in that same vein most of the remaining good Justice players who haven't already done so have transferred or are transferring to Freedom. Justice PvP was more or less dead before the free transfers and I imagine it will be even moreso now. To answer your question seriously, though, yes you'll probably get griefed for using travel powers and inspirations or using phase/Hibernate. That's Justice PvP, in a nutshell.

On this... I think it's slightly less important on a Stalker since you spend most of your time unseen, but if you've spent a decent amount of time on Freedom (especially in the arena) you'll find out that not having knockback protection will get you killed, a lot, because coordinated teams will use the knockback -> mez -> damage spike to ensure you have zero opportunity to react before they can kill you. Knockback does have a 10 second suppression period (mez suppression is 15 seconds) but don't forget that being KB'd means there is a period of a few seconds where an entire opposing team can close in on you without you being able to do anything. It's one of the reasons I dislike playing SO'd characters when RV is busy.

Because while it sucks compared to how it used to be, it's still better than most of the alternatives and the PvE required to PvP isn't horrifically slow and grindy.

I cry on my Stalker every time I hit someone with Dark Blast and watch as it does 30-40 damage.

*kicks tal in the shins*

Yes, that's what you do. >.>

Given two targets, I can make two decisions (and the decision I make depends on a number of factors such as the targets and the character I'm playing):

1. I can attack the AFK person first, as it's his mistake for going AFK in the middle of the zone in open sight. Odds are it'll be a quick kill, which will leave me time to deal with the other target.

2. I can attack the non-AFK person first. This is significantly more risky and time-consuming, and might not have the desired outcome (me getting in a kill and getting out, essentially) - for example, I might chase that person and suddenly find myself in the middle of a dozen heroes I couldn't see because I didn't have any perception.

If the non-AFK person hasn't noticed me, and my escape powers are up, I'll take out the AFK target first. If he has, I'll deal with him before I go on to the AFK target, because I want to deal with the target that poses the greater threat. Under other circumstances, I'll take out the AFK one first, because the most it will cost that person is a piece of a Shivan or nuke, or just a trip to the hospital. Unless the person is completely incompetent, none of those is a significant setback.

This is one of the key distinctions between a PvEer and a PvPer: the PvPer is competitive. As such, the PvPer will use situations and mechanics to his advantage as the game allows. You don't like that I'm constantly TPing you into traps? Bring oranges or find a Kin with ID. I could provide more examples, but most PvPer tactics are fairly simple to counter if you just stop and think about them. Neither I nor most PvPers log into a zone and think to themselves, "Hm, I'm looking for some easy kills today!" but I'm not going to pass over one when I see it. It's the PvP equivalent of a free meal. If I kill someone once or twice and they ask me to stop, I'll consider. I don't make it my intent to grief people in a PvP zone, though if I see two people trying to duel in an open zone I'll kindly remind them that the arena is the place for dueling (and as of I16 it's only one slash command away!), before killing the person on the opposite side.

As I said before, the reason the PvP population has become smaller is not due to the players themselves - a very small minority is the loud, trash-talking group, and more often than not they aren't even the good PvPers. It's perception and stereotypes, though. If you want to continue thinking that all PvPers are dirty antisocial gankers, though, by all means continue to do so, because it makes no difference what your views on PvP are once you step foot into a PvP zone - at that point, you're fair game. You've got your ways of avoiding PvP, and it's up to you how you use them. You want to completely avoid PvP altogether by staying out of the PvP zones? That's fine too, no one is really losing out there.

PvEers have never added to the PvP population reliably, and every attempt made to do so has failed spectacularly. In short, if someone doesn't want to PvP, they won't PvP and nothing is going to make them PvP. As for the rest of that list, I'll just sit here grinning smugly because it's so amusingly wrong. The PvPers don't care if the PvEers don't come into PvP zones, because for the most part there are enough PvPers to keep them busy. Especially with the free server transfer token thing going on now, I don't see there being an issue with this anymore (and all the PvEers get to have the PvP zones on the low-population servers all to themselves! Yeah, have fun with that...). Other than random doom-mongering and ridiculous guesswork, that list is pretty lolworthy.

Yep, every PvPer wants the PvP population to grow. However, PvPers know that not every PvEer who comes into a PvP zone is going to stick around no matter what happens, so they more often than not get a crash course in PvP and either decide it's fun or decide it sucks. Even if one person out of 100 decides it's fun, that's still a win at the end of the day. The PvEers who will stick around and become good PvPers aren't the ones who will stand around and whine in broadcast about how things suck and are broken - they're the ones who are learning from their own mistakes, looking at how other players do what they do, and remember what they see, and then come back the next time with that knowledge in-hand and find themselves doing much better. If that sort of person decides that the broadcast banter is annoying, they know enough to turn it off.

How do you know whether someone "knows what they're doing" before you attack them? I hide from searches on most of my PvP characters so I don't show up in the /whoall searches particularly because I want to have the advantage of surprise. You could, I suppose, apply a slippery slope argument to that and say "well in that case you'd be very happy with just beating up on a zone full of AFK enemies" and to a point, you'd be right. That'd get mighty boring after a while, though. If I wanted to do that, I'd PvE, because PvE doesn't have the ridiculous ruleset and the rewards are far better. I PvP because I never know what to expect, because it's unpredictable, because I need to always be on my guard or risk being killed quickly, and because my opponents are actually (at least semi)intelligent people who are doing the same thing I am. When I send that that tell that I'm attacking, they either get on the defensive or run, which makes what I'm trying to do (get a kill) significantly harder. My little row of army men isn't going to yell over a megaphone "Hey is it okay if we attack you now?" to the other little row of army men. If I knew that every target I saw would be a non-threat, then I might consider telling them I was going to attack them, but I'd rather just let them be surprised and see how they handle it - sometimes it's them that surprises me, and I like that. When something like that happens, I just say "bah," and click the "go to hospital" button. Nothing lost for me except maybe a few seconds of travel time across the zone.

This made me chuckle, because there's nothing even remotely like this in CoX PvP (short of potential geometry exploits, which do get people banned). Everyone has the exact same opportunity to get exactly the same stuff. You somehow equate a well-IO'd and accoladed player fighting an SO'd player to be like moving someone's golf ball, but in reality it's more like I have the crazy expensive set of golf clubs and balls and the other player's got some gear he picked up at Wal-Mart. Am I going to have an advantage? Sure. Is it going to be game-breakingly huge? Absolutely not. The best part about this make-believe golf game is that the player using the Wal-Mart gear has a locked box in the back seat of his car with the exact same gear I'm using, except he hasn't figured out how to unlock it. Once he puts a bit of time into looking for the key, though, he'll be on pretty much the same footing as me.

In this analogy, you are the one with the Wal-Mart clubs and balls, you can see that locked box in your car, you know exactly what's in it and what it will do for you, yet you refuse to figure out how to unlock it because you stubbornly maintain that someone should give you the key (or better yet, just hand you the stuff). In a sane person's mind, that's entitlement. Normal people laugh at entitled people, which is probably why no one's taking you seriously at this point.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everyone should have everything, because that's the only way to make everyone happy.

There are 5 things you need to remember when dealing with Stalkers. I'll list them:

* W
* A
* S
* D
* Space

Sound familiar? Yeah, those are keys on your keyboard. Use them. A Stalker needs to get into melee range to get off an Assassin's Strike, and that gets a lot easier if you're standing still constantly. With the exception of some really good Stalkers (and I can probably count these on one hand, and I'm not one of them), the only way a Stalker will be able to AS you is if you stand still long enough for them to get into melee range to start AS, or if you get mezzed/KB'd. If you're moving, odds are you'll be a fair distance away from the Stalker by the time AS goes off (it's about a two-second period between when the Stalker clicks the button and when you get hit) which means they won't be able to use a follow-up attack in melee range.

When I'm playing a Stalker, I go after the easiest targets first because it is difficult to get an AS off on a moving target unless you are either really good at predicting where someone will land from a jump or you find a target locked in a long animation (Shout and Total Focus, for example). If you're not moving around, you're making my job that much easier. Finally, bring teammates. A solo Stalker is generally not a threat especially after the I13 PvP changes, but once they attack you, they drop out of hide and they may be easy pickings for your teammates if they're paying attention.

In short: pay attention, keep moving, and try to avoid situations where you paint a giant target on your back. While playing a Stalker is easier than it was before I13, it can still be a pain to get off an AS on a target if your team lacks someone to set up mez or KB spikes.

This is more or less the case, though in most cases higher-level characters will have the advantage even if everyone's set to the same level. With the I16 exemplar changes you will keep an extra power or two (three, in the case of Bloody Bay) when you exemplar down into a zone, and higher-level characters may have better enhancements slotted or have accolades to boost their stats. That being said, setting everyone to the same combat level ensures you won't be at a massive disadvantage right from the get-go.

No, but I'd expect it will be like this for a good while (assuming most of the people who transferred over don't get frustrated and transfer back). Was a good stress test for my Stalker, whom I've never really played (he hit 50 back during the MA stuff, and I just now dropped a stealth IO and SOs into the build).

You missed the key point of my post: the other side has exactly the same opportunity to do those things as I do. Is it usually fun when it happens? Nope. Is it a learning experience? Damn right it is. You've got two choices: you can try and shove yourself right into things, or you can try and ease yourself in by asking questions. If I see you in a zone and I don't know anything about you, you're just another opponent who may or may not be a threat, and in the time I spend sending you a tell asking if it's okay to engage you (lol @ that) I will probably have been killed by someone else, or you've known I'm there and as soon as I start to type you'll kill me. Until PvP has more goals than "stay alive and kill the other guys" I will do my best to achieve that goal. I don't know enough about you to determine whether or not you're a threat to me so I will take steps to ensure you don't pose a threat. If you're not there to PvP, that's fine. You have travel powers and can get away and I'm not going to say anything about it.

Of course, I wouldn't expect a non-PvPer to understand, so it's kind of like talking to a brick wall in that regard.

More likely than not, I won't. Of the fourteen US servers there is now one server that has regular PvP activites, and for the most part you will see very few PvEers wander into RV or Siren's (I'm talking, of course, about Freedom). This has much less to do with the perception that all PvPers are evil, soulless bastards than it does with the implementation of bad mechanics to "fix" perceived balance issues. Odds are if I see someone in RV, they're there to PvP. As I said above, I'm not going to take the time to stop and ask someone if it's okay to fight them in a zone. Upon entering the zone they acknowledged there would be a chance they might be attacked by a player, so I'm just turning that potential risk into an actual one. There's no "risk" involved for that player either, as the worst that will happen is they'll get sent to the hospital. I don't think most PvPers that are left particularly care about "hurting" PvP, because it's not the players that are the root of the lack of PvP population - it's the system. Will I be helpful if a situation warrants it though? Yes, that's who I am.

Outlaw as in Outlaw Immortal? That really bad Fire/Mental Blaster that thinks he's hot **** because he can occasionally steal a kill and almost always has Hibernate, phase, the jump pack, and the draw range bug to fall back on if things don't go his way, and refuses to step foot into the arena even though he thinks he's God's greatest gift to PvP? I haven't seen him, even on Freedom, in several weeks now.

I engage in competition as the rules of engagement allow me to. The rules of engagement allow me to start a fight against a player who is not aware I'm there, or isn't prepared to fight me. The rules of engagement allow me to have a team of eight spike a solo opponent. The rules of engagement allow me to get out of a situation I don't want to be in (to a point, the travel suppression and heal decay changes made it a bit more difficult, but it's more often than not the non-PvPers who are "hurt" by this). Unsurprisingly, the rules of engagement allow my opponents to do the exact same thing to me - except I am constantly expecting it so I am prepared when it happens. In short, I do everything the rules allow me to do in order to win, and I do everything the rules allow me to do in order to not lose. If the person I'm getting away from can't finish me off as I'm trying to get away, that's their issue, not mine.

If I see a player in a PvP zone and I don't have a good reason to not attack them, you're damn right I'll go after them. They're in a PvP zone, I'm in a PvP zone, and they just so happen to be a member of the opposite faction (or just con orange in the case of Warburg). At that point, they have three choices: 1) fight back, 2) run, 3) leave until I'm gone. I don't disparage someone for making any of those choices, because I fully expect most PvEers to hightail it as soon as I start attacking them. If I kill them and they keep coming back, that's more rep and more chances at a PvP IO drop for me. Sooner or later they'll wise up and figure out what I'm doing, and then it might get interesting. If not, oh well. Best-case scenario, they'll actually stop and ask me questions about my build and their build, and we'll have a friendly conversation, and I just might have managed to bring in a new PvPer. Of course, many PvEers would rather just log off in frustration or suffer in silence instead of trying to actually figure out what's going on, but that's neither here nor there.

Ironically, this is what I13 and subsequent changes were supposed to do. Look what they accomplished.