Looking at things as impartially as possible, and just comparing time investments, completely independent of what one player may or may not enjoy: Looking at PvE progression gear, I'll just give a quick glance as Earth 3, since that's the Episode that was just issued for free. The average cost for a piece of Owlsuit is 60 Marks (480 for the full style, 705 for the entire set plus all peripheral slots). Rewards for running one of the raids is around 8 Ultrabucks for about 25 minutes investment of time, or around 20 Ultrabucks per hour gameplay. You net a piece of Owlsuit about every 3 hours. In contrast, with PvP gear, the cost for a single piece is 2000 Marks of Valor. If an average match takes around 10 minutes, and you assume a 50% win ratio, then you make 150 MoV per 10 minutes, or 900 MoV per hour. You net a piece of PvP gear every 2 hours 15 minutes. These numbers make it look like the PvP gear is even easier to get than the PvE suits. However, there is an invisible factor that needs to be considered. In order to move on to the next tier of PvE gear, you have to meet a minimum threshold of CR. In order to advance to the next tier of PvP gear, you must have purchased every single slot on the previous gear, including all peripherals. Using the Odyssey CR calculator, it can be determined that moving into Earth 3 with the 185 gear from the previous teir, you only need to upgrade 4 slots to Owlsuit and you qualify to move on to Deluge, and that is assuming that you never choose an Attuneable Reward to improve any of those other slots (something which would make it significantly faster, but hey, maybe you really wanted that Base Furniture). Just 4 slots, 240 marks, 12 hours of gameplay. For PvP? To buy everything required to break into the next teir, it takes 110 matches (assuming 50% win rate). At 10 minutes per match, that's 18 hours 20 minutes of gameplay, more than 50% more than what it takes to advance a teir in PvE. At that's just based on the 97/98 gear; when the marks start scaling up on PvP, it is at a dramatically higher rate than they scale up on PvE gear. Let's face facts; in any MMO, the majority of players congregate at the endgame. People want to compete at the highest level. PvE players are racing to their Ninth Tryde suits, and then they go back and mess around in the lower level content, but nobody wants to be the undergeared guy getting embarrassed by competing at the minimum. The same holds true for PvP. Players who enjoy PvP want the matches to be decided by skill, not by gear deficit. Requiring that a new player log almost 100 hours of PvP to get to their final gear suit, just so that they can start playing on a level playing field with the veterans, is unreasonable and offputting. The lower geared players don't want to spend 100 hours grinding through hundreds of matches of Legends, or matches where they have a gear handicap, just to get to the point where they can finally have an even fight. And the higher geared players don't want to get spoonfed ungeared rookies for weeks. On both sides, the matches are more enjoyable if gearing up can occur quicker, so the skill of PvP can be pressed. Sure, a certain amount of gear treadmill is to be expected, just to keep people playing, but there comes a point where if you make the grind too long and too annoying, it does not keep players playing; instead, it stops them from even starting in the first place. In order to bring the gearing of both styles into harmony, there does need to be some changes made to speed up PvP gear. Either, PvP could reward more marks. Or, PvP CR could be reworked so that it no longer requires every single piece plus every single peripheral before moving to the next tier. OR, the prices on PvP gear, particularly on the older intermediate sets, should be significantly reduced. Any of those changes would speed up the PvP gearing process to bring it more in line with how quickly PvE is able to gear up.
I'm not trying to nitpick or disagree with your general sentiment. More just to show that the thinking applied in the above paragraph doesn't really translate to what happens in game. 1. The difference between PvP tiers is not as significantly noticeable compared with PvE. Now I haven't done or watched PvP arena's in ages but it was very common within even the best leagues to see them fielding a player with one or even two CR below the max for PvP at the time. As far as I know most people would take a skilled CR99 over an unskilled CR101. It could also be argued that the grind for PvP gear is reasonable since there are far less tiers and no content lockouts like for PvE gear. People recognise skill over CR far more in PvP. If you're good an want into a PvP league, just proving yourself by fighting regardless of gear will do that for you. It should add to the longevity of the game mode but I do understand for some it's off putting. 2. If PvP players wanted matches to be decided by skill then there would be no argument about separating PvE and PvP progress. There is a big split between those who want PvP and PvE separated and those wo want PvE to count in PvP. If they spend more time getting PvE skill points, they expect to be able to use them PvP. These players obviously do not care about balance, fighting fair with other end game players, not being 'spoonfed undergeared rookies', in fact they're probably counting on it. Unfortunately the Devs seem to prefer this unbalanced, lack of focus on skill type of PvP. I agree more balance would make it more enjoyable. However with PvP already being the unprofitable dumpster fire that it is, making the game more balanced and focused on skill only drives away those PvE players who want it unbalanced to cater to their PvE gains.
I respect your opinion. Certainly there are no measureable metrics to the gameplay population's general attitudes, and no 100% guarantee that any particular changes one direction or another would net better results. Any ideas presented are purely speculation. I personally believe the number of PvE players who engage in PvP is a very, very small sliver of the PvE population, based on my own personal experiences with the queues. I'm of the opinion that right now with PvP in the state that it is, the majority of people who are consistently playing PvP are the people who have been for some time and consider themselves strongly to be PvP players, and maybe the odd other player who queues up once in a while and then gets slaughtered until they stop. You may very well be right and there may be a substantial number of PvE players who are already capped on their PvP gear but keep playing PvP anyway and enjoy the gear deficit. I personally suspect there is a much larger number of PvE players who look at PvP in it's current state and see something like the Deadshot 101 gear as just being entirely unattainable because it requires weeks upon weeks of losing repeatedly to get anywhere near it, so they never even try in the first place. But there is no way to know for sure what the truth is; in the end, we're both just speculating. But hey, I'm always happy to consider things from another point of view. Thank you for weighing in.
Who let Merle out of his cage? Do you remember double loot /marks from Ace 2v2? A lot of older players that PVP earned their gear that way. Here is an idea that I have thought about. DCUO could do something like they do with LPVE.The devs could pick one or two PVP instances / matches from the existing list.Add double marks to those particular pvp matches. Add those PVP instances / matches to the event section and rotate them on a weekly basis like they do with LPVE. I will add that players do not PVP much because the rewards do really suck. The feats are not really worth the time and last but not least....probably the biggest reason why players ignore PVP is that PVP is treated like the red headed step child. The devs could start adding all kinds of things to PVP with very little effort and yet they choose not to do anything.
No problems at all, your posts have been well considered and thought-out which makes it easier to engage with the topic. I wasn't quite clear before regarding those PvE players. I believe you are entirely correct about your sub-set of PvE players. Indeed to grind can be daunting and most will only enter to get whatever feats and gear they can muster before they tire of the mode. I was specifically referring to those who happily play both PvP & PvE. Lets take skill points, players can invest heavily into PvE compare with PvPer who doesn't have much interest in PvE and gain a significant advantage due to the amount of skill points available in PvE content. My point was if all or even most players who enjoy PvP really want balance, there would be a concensus on removing or limiting the amount of PvE skill points available in PvP. I mean if the PvP gear grind is enough to put people of playing PvP. Imagine how much of a roadblock skillpoints must feel like for a PvP player who doesn't like PvE. Seems obvious to me and many others that skill points will always offset any balance efforts made by the devs, whether that reducing the gear grind , re-introduction or certain mechanics or elements. What is the point of trying to create balance when it can be so easily circumvented with skill points. Anytime anyone mentions this kind of balance people will say 'go play legends if that's what you want'. Fact is the community is divided on skill & balance vs time & money invested into the game. Some people want a fighting game where the more money they put in, the more advantage they have and some people want a game based on skill. I'd love for a way to unite the two camps and i'd even say that those who want skill and balance are in the significant majority. However as is the mantra for DCUO these days: "DCUO is a business" and I suspect it's far more profitable to have an unbalanced and less skill oriented PvP mode.
The devs could start buy adding pvp gear with seasonals, episodes or time capsules. They could add Nth metal drops for each PVP knock out and every match but nope. New PVP gear does not need huge stat jumps. 1-5 point buffs in stats per level would work fine. Those would be stats that could be made up in other areas. That way the gear is not the deciding factor.
The players need a carrot to chase and the devs have not stuck a PVP carrot out in front of the players in about two years. All the devs need to do is start adding gear with minimal stat buffs and make double loot rotated weekly on certain instances. The old saying goes....If you build it they will come. That holds true but you also have to maintain that building of you want people to keep coming. DCUO has not done any building or maintaining since 101 gear was released.
I agree. I'm not entirely convinced by the argument that we should not add gear or content until fixes are made. As others have pointed it out its a catch-22 situation. At the moment all we can hope is that DCUO/Daybreak can do well enough to increase their staff enough to give PvP meaningful attention without taking resources away from PvE.
On that we 100% agree. I remember even back at launch, when Death & Glory had a strong PvP presence, and I was playing on villainside, my observations right from the beginning was that the game really did not offer much in the realm of PvP, and if a player was not interested in PvE, they would not stick around for long. Even when the mechanics were better balanced and the fights were more fun, ultimately SOE and later Daybreak never really did much for the PvP population, so the majority of PvP players left in favor of more PvP focused games. My thought process is built less around the idea of trying to make happy the remaining PvP minority, and more around trying to tempt in more of the people who otherwise ignore PvP altogether. In essence, if you have a player who plays until they cap out there gear and then still keeps playing just because they enjoy it, well, that's a player who isn't going anywhere. But if you have a player who plays the 775 matches it takes to get their full suit of 101 and then immediately quits, just trying to check it off for the feats or styles, then it presents the question: would reducing the total number of matches cause a proportionate number of other players to join in and participate in the grind? If PvP gear only cost half as much, would twice as many people play it? It's a question of finding the tipping point where we maximize player involvement. If slashing gear prices by 75% caused eight times as many players to finally take the plunge, then the net result would actually be twice as many PvP matches. If reducing prices by 25% didn't significantly change the number of players queuing up, then the end result would only be 25% fewer matches. Without the metrics, we'll never know the exact number where it becomes ideal. All we can do is speculate. But I personally believe that while the number one reason that PvP players might not want to queue is an issue of balance, the number one reason why PvE players do not queue is because it looks like it would take hopelessly forever to get anything, either in the way of gear or feats or styles, and so while they are entirely ignorant of the balance issues or the way the old rock-paper-scissors PvP worked, they give up before they even start. Fixing balance will make the existing PvPers happy, but it does nothing to address the issue of the players who never give it a shot in the first place, and sadly I suspect that is what makes up the majority.
I do think you have a good point regarding reducing gear costs. One possible downside I could foresee is longevity. As Knarley said, the carrot chase is a factor for participation. If the chase is too short then I believe players who only want the gear style and feats will populate the que's giving a short-term boost only to leave immediately once said achievements have been obtained. Secondly is the amount of time required to enjoy the mode. I believe most game genre's have a threshold for when something which you don't find fun can become enjoyable. This I think is linked to (but not parallel) to the time it takes to acquire the necessary skill at the game and are able to 'do' rather than 'try'. Vague concepts but I hope you get the idea. So to tie this back to DCUO PvP. Much like my experience (I hated PvP and only entered for feats) once I gained enough understanding of how to actually play PvP and not just trying aimlessly button bash I started to appreciate the mode more, the more time I invested, the more invested I became in the game mode. Now that fairy story won't be true for everyone, some people will just never enjoy PvP. However there are some people who hate PvP right now (just like I did) who don't know yet that it could be fun as they haven't invested enough time in the game mode. I think reduced prices can be part of the incentive, but there needs to be something along side it to keep people invested until they hit that threshold. Some will give up in disgust, but some will start to love PvP. One extremely unpopular idea would be to put things that would be advantageous for PvE players in PvP. Another could be to start awarding large sums of cash for PvP oriented stuff, 'Complete all sets get 5million etc'. Again unpopular, but it would work. But there is a contingent of PvEers who would rather leave the game than feel they are being 'forced' to PvP....even though PvPers are 'forced' to PvE if they want to maximise their effectiveness. So many catch-22s. It's not just the PvP community which effects PvP's progress, it's the entire DCUO community that is divided and stops progress.
just give the players the feats and recycle the pvp styles in new content as green /blue drops if they are not going to fix pvp this is the best way to move forward
many as I know lots of people that only came to the game for PVP and are now PVE players also garbage to one is another's treasure
I would take it a step further and say that DCUO could use the seasonal instances for PVP during the seasonals. The instances are already built. They just need to turn them into a PVP instance. Then players that want something different and harder for seasonals can get both without the devs needing to build something from the ground up. DCUO misses too many opportunities by ignoring this part of the game.
I don't know about the others but I go get my rump kicked on a regular basis. One thing you have to remember is having a fresh set of eyes always helps. Old timers tend to miss tons of things because they are stuck in their ways and refuse to change or they just cannot see it because they have been looking at it too long. edit* Also, you have to remember that a lot of people have no idea how to be unbiased and think about everyone involved even if it makes it harder for themselves. Most people nowadays are in it for themselves and no one else. They think of how it would help them & not how it might make things harder for others.
We need weekly leader boards that give cosmetic rewards, i.e mats, auras, titles etc, this will make people want to grind it and spend time in there, if you had to finish top 10 at the end of the week to earn a specific aura/mat with an epic title like, PvP God! Obs finishing No1 should give you a little summit extra special like an Augment booster or something that gives you double augment stats for the week that you are crowned PvP Champion!
Ohh, come on now. You know you want more PVP feats. xD On a side note. I did see a group offering to trade 8v8 PVP wins the other day. xD Just so that they could get them done and out of the way.
