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Topic: PvP, CoV and melee gimp? (Read 5329 times)
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jpark
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1538
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It was clear in EQ and shadowbane - melees were basically hopeless in pvp (vs. wizard, bard, necro etc.).
City of Villians will introduce pvp to CoH. Tankers and scrappers look hopeless in this game in that context. No chance against ranged attackers of other classes. Am I missing something here? Because if that's true I wonder if a major re-balance is in order for tankers / scrappers to address this.
Maybe they can make taunt workable on player characters :P
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"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation. " HaemishM.
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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Expect 1 of 3 things to happen:
1) Massive nerfage/rebalancing right before release of CoV 2) Removal of crowd control powers from PVP aspect and/or changing of crowd control powers only in PVP zones 3) Addition of immunity to crowd control powers once you've been hit with them already
I'm sure melee will still have problems in PVP as a whole, but I like a challenge.
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Rasix
Moderator
Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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CoH pvp will be a goddamn nightmare for at least a year once it's released. Mez, stuns, knockbacks, rangeed supremecy, travel powers. Anyone trying to balance this better have a room for a 100 sq ft flowcart on their wall.
Really, I believe the ranged will kick the shit out of meleers until there's a time that a balance pass is made or that meleers start making pvp specific builds.
And a lot of it is going to be situational. Certain tankers will not have to fear certain blaster types due to massive resistances. But will the tanker ever be able to get close enough to the blaster to hurt them?
You can basically apply the above to just about any pvp game that has pve as its advancement core.
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-Rasix
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Xilren's Twin
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Yeah, it's pretty much know that ranged attackers and crowd controllers will rule the day in pvp if things are left as is. Add in stealth, aim, and sniping powers and it just looks bad right out of the gate.
However, what I do NOT want to see is changes to the overall game (the pve portion) just to make the pvp more "balanced". PvP balance in a level based game is starting from a less than ideal position anyway so whatever they do decide to do with pvp, here's hoping it only affects pvp.
At this point I'm more interested to see how they can make playing the villians fun and different from being a hero, know they can't go overboard (i.e. I;m quite sure you wont be able to kill people or blow up buildings so what do villians DO? rob banks and steal stuff every day?)
Xilren
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"..but I'm by no means normal." - Schild
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jpark
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1538
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HaemishM you summed it up for me - melee is the challenge.
Grind (who is posting on these boards) and I spent about a year in Shadowbane constantly testing to come up with a melee build that could survive pvp. It was a dwarven dagger thrower that Grind came up with - it rocked. Rocked enough to become nerfed - surest testament of value.
So if you want to test your knowledge and skill of any pvp system, come up with a melee build that can survive or win :)
Rasix's comment was made about the pvp being situational and this could be bang on:
Pehaps a pvp environments of open fields vs. rooms. In the latter case, the close quarters might balance towards melee builds.
Xilren's Twin - it could be a lot of fun doing evil missions. Not sure if you have played Fallout - but in that game you could be evil or good - and the difference in gameplay was huge. I am optimistic about CoV could be as much fun and different than the current CoH.
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"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation. " HaemishM.
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geldonyetich
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2337
The Anne Coulter of MMO punditry
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Melee horribly gimped when PvP opens? Prepare for a surprise. I'm not too worried about my Scrapper's odds at PvP at all. Here's why:
1) Camoflague and soon, Invisibility. You can't range nuke what you can't see. Invisibility is exactly that - total invisibility. You may have noticed that if you target somebody before they go invisible, the client is unable to update on their position. I think this is because they've wisely adapted the "client in the hands of the enemy" approach and you simply do not get position updates on invisible PCs.
2) Integration. This is a SCrapper/Regeneration ability, but nearly every Tanker/Scrapper kit has a similar ability. Basically, it gives me near total immunity to any Mez/hold/immobilize/stun powers. Those poor mob controlling Villians will curse how much endurance they end up wasting pointlessly on me with this power active.
3) Super speed. You can fly away, but you can't outrun me. (Unless perhaps you too have Super Speed.) Of course, using any kind of power temporarily immobilizes you as the animation plays through - that's enough for at least two or three good swipes for me.
4) Focus, a ranged knockdown power.
About the only weakness my Scrapper will have in PvP is against hovering/flying opponents, which I can try to swat out of the air with Focus but otherwise will have to run and/or hide from.
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Rasix
Moderator
Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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Like I said, expect a year of balance when or if it's ever put in.
Stuff like camo, invis, WILL GET DEALT WITH. Do you think people are going to want the lame ass stealth wars that has complete fucked up Mythic's RVR experience since launch? It'll be great when stealthers look for people with rest toggled and one shot them. Stealth abilities (available to everyone) just bring a whole nasty ball of wax to any sort of pvp.
Controllers will whine about crowd control immunity. Blasters will complain about being mezzed constantly. Scrappers without an optimal pvp build will whine about getting nuked to oblivion or about not being able to kill the tanker with his 90% resist without needed 400x the endurance they have. All melee will bitch about having to stand still to deliver a blow. Controllers will complain about doing dick for damage and dieing to every class on the planet.
It'll be a complete disaster. A fun, most likely fast paced disaster but a train wreck nonetheless. It should be interesting and make the boards about 200% more unreadable in the process.
Really, PVP brings a lot of undesirables to the table in regards to game design and balance. If I were them, I'd just implement it in a limited faction and say "Have fun! We're not going to balance for pvp because it'll assfuck the rest of our game!"
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-Rasix
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jpark
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1538
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Geld,
You have some interesting ideas their for a scrapper build in pvp. Likely you have played shadowbane - and I think we know where that goes:
You're going to get repetitive strain injury endlessly chasing your target around in the off chance when he activates a power you can get a swipe in.
I'll go with your scenario though for simplicity - you do eventually kill your opponent. But what tedious game play. Running around in vain effort to hit anything - especially with travel and heal powers in this game - is going to be a very long tedious fight.
Maybe a way around this is as Rasix suggests - don't balance. But let group vs. group take place in an instanced zone of combat. In instances where the average level differs between the opposing groups, maybe the game could sidekick the whole average level of the group to match the opposing team.
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"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation. " HaemishM.
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Gong
Terracotta Army
Posts: 88
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i believe the key to melee survival is going to be some combination of stealth skills, and most importantly usage of Teleport Foe as a means of getting a flying/hovering/whatever blaster.
a friend of mine has somewhat developed his melee character with the intention of PvP viability, even though there's no telling when the Arena will ever be added. he is a tanker, ice armor/stone melee. he plans to use Wet Ice as defense against crowd control, and uses stone melee for massive single attacks. at level 18, he was hitting orange bosses for 140+ in a single attack if he used buildup. he also chose flight as his travel power, and has air superiority (which is actually a decent melee attack as is, has a pretty reliable knockdown).
by the way, i'm somewhat of a lurker here, though i've been a reader for quite a while. most of the guys i play CoH with have become increasingly busy with work/friends/etc. lately, and i was wondering if Bat Country is a fairly active supergroup? if so, i'd like to join.
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jpark
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1538
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TP foe is interesting but even in PvE what I hear is that if you use this ona fleeing/ moving villian - the instant he arrives at you he runs again - so you cannot get an attack off.
So if its true that TP foe cannot deal with fleeing villians in PvE - it may portent similar problems in pvp. It's an interesting tactic though.
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"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation. " HaemishM.
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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It'll be a complete disaster. A fun, most likely fast paced disaster but a train wreck nonetheless. It should be interesting and make the boards about 200% more unreadable in the process.
That assumes the boards are in anyway readable now. Forks, eyeballs, veneral disease, retardation are all results of looking at any official boards, ever. Really, PVP brings a lot of undesirables to the table in regards to game design and balance. If I were them, I'd just implement it in a limited faction and say "Have fun! We're not going to balance for pvp because it'll assfuck the rest of our game!" I'd rather they take the approach of making the PVP zones have a new set of rules that are totally separate from the rest of the game. Make all levels meaningless in the PVP areas (as if every person you fight is a yellow con) or treat every player in the zone as if they are sidekicked to the highest player in the zone at all times. Hide the level of the other player. Make sure there is a respec. Turn off the ability to rest in all PVP zones to keep away from the one-shot kills.
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Riggswolfe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8046
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Depending on how things go I may drop out of COH when PvP comes in. Everytime I've seen a developer try to balance PvP and PvE they ass rape the players and totally fuck the PvE portion of the game because some ability is too powerful in PvP. I'll give it time, but the first time I see a patch with notes like:
"Blaster Power X has had its damage reduced because it was too powerful in PvP"
or
"Secondary Power Y has had its usefullness totally screwed because it was too powerful in PvP"
I'll be out of here.
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"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
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geldonyetich
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2337
The Anne Coulter of MMO punditry
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Geld,
You have some interesting ideas their for a scrapper build in pvp. Likely you have played shadowbane - and I think we know where that goes:
You're going to get repetitive strain injury endlessly chasing your target around in the off chance when he activates a power you can get a swipe in. Well, with Super Speed I'd likely catch up to them very quickly and with invisiblity they won't even see me coming. Once I'm in short (not melee) range, I can fire off Focus which has a fairly good chance of knocking them down, allowing me to get another 2-3 attacks off awhile they're getting back on their feet. But I do agree that a better way to look at CoV PvP will be in a team scenario. You won't be soloing PvP or fighting Villians wandering the streets. From what I understand, PvP will largely be a scenario driven affair from taking conflicting missions, and so will have not a single hero but whole teams going at eachother. Interesting thing in favor of CoV PvP balance is that the Heroes are not that far ahead of a Boss villian, which have much the same powers at their disposal and the ability to apply it against heroes in much the same way. For example, there's mob controlling heroes and there's mob controlling villians. Often the villians actually cheat a bit, for example the Hellion bosses who are both able to take a good deal of damage while throwing out fire blaster nukes. So what I'm basically saying here is that while PvE and PvP have differences in CoH, it's far less profound than it would be in a MMORPG such as EQ or DAOC where the monsters and PCs are geared much differently, often with a 6 on 1 scenario in mind.
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jpark
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1538
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On the topic of pvp in groups:
I think people are overlooking a modest ability that (empathy) defenders have, and perhaps others:
Remove Stun.
Look at the high end ability for most builds - when you cast this baby, the trade-off is usually a huge stun effect (and sometimes some debuffs).
Remove stun can compensate for this I suspect. Cast your high end ability, and that 45 sec stun disappears when the defender casts remove stun. I am extrapolating from the observation that remove stun dismisses the disorientation of resurrection, and may have similar utility in treating the after effects of other spells.
The defender (empathy) high end ability is a cast that gives a single target unlimited endurance. Not normally taken by defenders since it causes a 45 second stun to the caster. Very impractical - unless someone else in the GROUP can remove stun.
Remove stun is the key to unlocking the high level abilities of groups for pvp combat and pve imo.
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"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation. " HaemishM.
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