Test Discussion PvP Adjustments - 01/22/2016

Don't know how you guys 1v1 on PC but holding block is always a threat lol That silly mind-game is called roll threat.

Like I said no good player is going to let you block 3(now 5) of their taps.

Look, we already discussed this. You don't play in an environment to see how it happens. Your statement is an opinion. In actually gameplay on live it happens. Whether you can accept that or not doesn't change the fact it exists at every level of pvp. I'm ending this argument on that alone.

I play 1v1s plenty, bro. -.-

This is not news to me.. Uhm, why is this addressed to me at all?

After the fact that melee taps were not going to have their AOE aspect removed in PvP for the foreseeable future, I did agree with the increase of tap counters to 5.

But after consideration, this impact may be bigger than anticipated (eg legends pvp) and may not end up as a well-liked change.

Suggest that maybe the tap counter increase to 5 could be tested, maybe even test the tap counter increase to 4 as well, collect data etc but that this tap counter increase NOT be deployed to live yet.

Let the AOE bb removal from HB hit live, then wait for data / reactions from people pvping in duels / 2v2 / 4v4 / 5v5, before deciding on whether to roll out the change.

However detailed explanations / well-thought out responses / through testing that people do and give on the Test Server, and the well-deserved kudos to people putting in the time and effort, and also the quick and detailed responses / explanations / clarifications from the devs, it doesn't change the fact that the testing population is still just a small percentage of the DCUO population (pve / pvp).

Personally, I just worry that if this tap counter increase goes through, then any change to reduce AOE screenblocking issues:
- either by revisiting melee taps AOE aspect in Pvp
- or reducing block counter damage specifically
- or specifically allowing immediate breakout after block counters or)
is just struck off the table FOREVER, issue closed, and the tap counter increase is chosen as the one and only solution.

Bug Form still has an AoE BB. This needs to be removed as well.

We were able to run some 5v5 scrimmages today (3 games).

From 1st expressions:
*Supports are back to pushing out considerable amount of damage.
*People were still screen blocking but rarely and in very specific situations.
*Overall damage pressure was much higher but not "impossible to heal" high. Healers had to be on point the whole 15 minutes.

Screen blocking is not completely useless but you are not required to have someone screen blocking 24/7. Feels good. It seemed that DPS were having much more fun than they used to. From healer point of view those 3 scrimmages were probably the most fun i have had so far on test server. All the games were really close. Out of 3 games it was 1 win each with 2nd game being a 150-150 tie. Games had lead changes and comebacks. No 1000-0 blowouts while at the same time no 0-0 games. Enough kills happened to have score actively change.

How it changed other modes, that we have not tested yet.

Me and PILF did 1 1v1 before he went into 5's and I went into the new raid. Both of us were still rolling so I guess that wasn't a necessarily good test considering neither of us tried tapping significantly through a block. Some people seemed to find it ridiculous to be able to keep tapping but I don't understand the difference between tapping through a block and just attacking in the opposite direction after you see a block, in both cases you still achieve the same goal of reaching a state where you can finish a combo. Good to hear it's good for 4v4/5v5 tho so I won't have that much opposition on it xD

How is 4s? Can you still keep your team alive easy like last week or is it impossible now?

We only did 3 runs of 5v5. It looked like after i left for work, scrimmages for the day stopped as well. Doubt any 4v4s were done.

Can i still solo heal 4v4s? Hard to tell without trying post update. I rarely screen blocked in 4v4s anyways. Damage pressure from 1 dps/1 troll/2 heals team was not really high enough to force screen blocking. I mostly just focused on doing more damage.
The same match comparing pre-patch and post patch i'dd say would play out quite similar. I would be missing an easy option to mitigate good amount of damage by screen blocking...but like i said it was not needed in 4v4 to begin with.

I am a fan of the change, I wanted to a total removal of Blue Immunities but I will settle with this change. It will make pvp more fluid, I always thought players should not be rewarded with immunity to damage simply because they made a correct counter the reward in countering was perfect as is and the blues made screen blocking very prevalent. Speaking for myself I would much enjoy the game more if taps were not aoe at all, it makes no sense that a player around another player that is not being targeted should trigger a counter off of a tap. I am not bashing the devs the progress so far is good, I just don't understand the method behind that.

After a few 1v1's of actually trying to abuse the fact I can keep tapping while someone is blocking I have the following comments:
good:
- when done right random blocking is actually useless, me and my partner still landed several block counters from guessing when we finished our counters but random blocks did nothing in themselves
- if you play the continuous tap game, it seems to be more of a mind game than beforehand. since random blocking is taken out of the equation of thought you can focus purely on when to finish your combos and recognizing their tendencies in terms of when they finish their combos and when they throw bb's thinking you're going to be blocking. I actually like it somewhat.
bad:
- technically 5 weapons would be better than the others for 1v1: 1h, dw, rifle, 2h, and brawling
- bow, dp, ma, shield, and staff can't tap infinitely in order to purely play the combo mind game, their end taps are blockable
- hb spamming tap melee is useless
- rifle, 2h, dw, and brawling are slow taps and only have good combos at certain times
- 1h meanwhile has endless tapping and a combo possible after every single tap. the 1 tap hold is weak but 2-4tap is clip/stun/damage territory which means 75% of the time I finish my combo randomly when I see an opening I'm going to get something good. dw 1-5tap is bad and has good damage 6-8, and at 9 it's over and starts back at 1 which means dw would only get something good from doing a random combo 33% of the time on top of being slightly slower than 1h. And since dw's window is only from 6 to 8 you can selectively turtle in that area if you wanted to reduce that even further while if you try to turtle against 1h it does nothing since the window to finish with benefit is big relatively and it attacks so fast getting past the 1 tap hold stage can be done during someone's animation, at least how i see it.

If someone can test brawling/rifle/dw/2h tap spamming in a 1v1 scrim for me to see if there's anything I'm missing or any somewhat cheese aspect to it it'd be appreciated. 1H has been a favorite weapon of pvp for USPS for years so I know how to use it better than the other weapons listed xD

As of now, I'm in love with 1H but at the same time I realize it's somewhat unfair to the other weapons but I can't think of any solutions.
- If we reverse the change, screenblocking/turtling comes back a little and the 4v4/5v5 feedback with the tap change has been positive and it'll be worse technically.
- We could make the 4 taps from 1h, 9 tap from dw, something tap from rifle i don't even know, something tap from 2h, and 3-4 tap from brawling vulnerable to block like how the 5 tap is from 1h that noone gets is and like the other weapons but to me it would change how those weapons are played too much and imo it's always been a pet peeve of mine to have joker in legends with his 5 tap being the slash that's blockable while I'm used to just continuing to attack from using 1h in arena. I would actually hate this route downright and others might as well xD
- We could change the end taps for bow, dp, ma, staff, and shield to no longer be blockable. I somewhat like this option but since I don't use these weapons as much and only faced the 1shot version of them I don't know how that change would affect them and if we want everyone to be able to play the tap mind game or no one to be able to play it.

Or we could just do nothing. ma, staff, brawling, and shield all do more damage than 1H from what I've seen (correct me if I'm wrong) and hb is another stronger weapon that people want to get nerfed. DP is rarely used and is a mind game in itself by default pretty much. Bow and rifle are bb cheese. Do we want to just let dw and 1h be tap cheese and have that be their strength or...?

Do you ever stop complaining?!?!

Spamming block is a problem but so is spamming weapon attacks like smoke bomb, 1 handed's backflip, and dual wields flip attack. Changing it from 3 taps to 5 puts people in this mindset they have to either block and get countered or take the massive attack and the massive damage that follows.

This is one move that would once again, ruin pvp No doubt about it.

Leave it alone.

Adaptation is the mark of a true warrior.

EDIT: In all seriousness, spamming the same weapon attack will not save you in a competitive environment. Even in casuals doing that will only get you so far. I would worry more about how you fight against spammers than what the spammers are actually doing.

It would really help if people stopped wringing their hands with the "this will break the broken part of the game" and actually test the changes.

I think things are going fine regardless at this point. Long way to go, but progress is being made.