Work In Progress: What's Next for Arena PvP

In this post I'll be talking about changes we believe will help bring PvP closer to how it was in the "Good Old Days". To help you understand why these changes will improve arena PvP, I'll start by explaining the factors that lead to PvP as it is today.

If you're only interested in what changes are planned, without all the whys and hows, just skip to the bullet list at the bottom.

The Hard Core Trinity

DCUO follows the "hard core trinity" model of MMO class design. The hard core trinity is based around tank, healer and damage classes. In a hard core trinity model, no one should ever get hit but the tank. The tank can't survive incoming damage for more than a few seconds without a healer. And no one can realistically make things dead except the DPS. The stats for enemies are tuned to such a hard core degree that surviving without every role is absolutely impossible.

When DCUO was in early development, we knew that other MMOs being developed at the same time were stepping away from the hard core trinity class model. Admittedly, there are some issues with the hard core trinity class design. For example, problems arise when there is an imbalance in class distribution, e.g. too many DPS and not enough Tanks/Healers.

But stepping away from a tried and true model to one that was yet unproven was deemed too risky at the time. Managing risk is important in game development. DCUO was already taking a number of significant risks with its combat system, fully voice acted cinematic content and game systems that let players share credit, rather than "steal" credit, for engaging enemies and objectives. Since we already knew the hard core trinity model worked and was fun, we stuck with it.

The Group Engine

Controllers are part of the core game design but aren't part of the classic trinity. They needed to fit into the model. This means they must provide an irreplaceable service required in all situations. So their function within the Trinity is power healing. The ultimate result of all roles coming together in DCUO is what I've dubbed the "group engine". When everyone competently performs their roles, the group is an unstoppable force. It lasts indefinitely against enemies who are orders of magnitude tougher and more damaging than any player. It works well in PvE and its fun.

Unfortunately once stats reach a point allowing players to stand against raid bosses, PvP starts breaking. Players are not raid bosses. Since we couldn't control what gear people wore, we needed to continually inflate PvP gear stats to keep pace with PvE stats. Otherwise people would just wear their PvE gear. We were between a rock and a hard place.

Today, organized matches of evenly matched opponents can last the full 10 or 15 minutes yet still have the match end as 0 to 0 draw because nobody was KOd. Role debuffs are intended to break the group engine, allowing players to be KO'd. But a number of issues keep them from being fully effective in all situations.

What Happened to the Good Old Days?

Ask an old timer who has been playing from the beginning and they will tell of a sweet spot in the old-days of PvP. It occurred before stat differences between the roles began hitting the extremes needed for raiding. PvP gear at release had a more balanced stat distribution. The difference between the offensive and defensive capabilities of roles was much smaller. No one could last forever, even with full support. Role debuffs weren't needed.

That day of innocence ended as players began earning higher level gear. Suddenly fights were won by the first to crit. You can't really react to instant death. Face-rolling your trinket and buffs, you could wipe out the other team solo before 12 seconds was up if you were lucky. That was awesome if you were optimally geared but not much fun for anyone else.

So we chose the lesser evil, which was increasing the time to KO so everyone at least had a chance to flinch before they took a dirt nap. With people lasting longer than a few seconds the strength of the group engine could kick in. Without role debuffs achieving their intended effect and breaking the group engine a well oiled machine is unbeatable. So it still wasn't what we all wanted.

The cry has always been, "Bring Back the Golden Days of PvP"! In the past that simply wasn't possible since we had no way to isolate arena PvP from PvE. Finally, we now have all we need to completely separate the two. This means we can tune PvP stats specifically for PvP, and PvP stats no longer need to compete with PvE stats. We can close the stat gap so differences in offense and defense are less extreme between roles. This will allow us to get back to a state that is closer to the Golden Age of PvP at release.

The Planned Changes

1) We will fully separate PvE from PvP.

• We will disallow the use of colas, buffs, trinkets, or damage consumables that are not specifically created for PvP.
  • Healing colas are standard equipment so we'll make sure these are easy to get so you don't have to go broke supporting a cola habit.
  • PvP damage consumables, buff consumables and trinkets remain up in the air. We're interested in knowing if you'd rather have these in PvP or not.
• All PvE gear will be disabled in PvP arenas.
• If your stats don't meet minimum requirements for PvP participation, all your stats will be automatically set to the equivalent of entry level PvP gear.
  • This will allow new players to participate in PvP without finding a PvP vendor first, and players of all levels will be able to participate in the same PvP arenas.

2) We will bring roles closer to each other both offensively and defensively.

• Instead of role-specific gear sets, we will create one single set of role-agnostic PvP gear for each of the four PvP CR levels.
  • This gear will have a balanced stat package.
  • You will be able to choose mods to specialize your gear toward your preferred role.
  • Mod availability will be on par with what's available in PvE.
  • We're currently considering still allowing Home Turf Tactical mods. We'd like know what you think about this idea.
• We will remove the damage penalties for non-damage roles.
  • We will consider buffing the damage of non-damage roles, probably to the equivalent of having "confidence buff" without having to attack your counter role.
• We will remove role debuffs and confidence damage buffs.
  • These are only necessary today as a way to break a fully functioning group engine to (sometimes) allow players to be KOd.
  • This includes Tank immunity to Controller effects but Tanks retain their ability to cleanse regular Controller specific debuffing effects.
• We will look to adjust other role benefits as needed to make sure we maintain reasonable class deltas.
  • For example, this could include toning down powerful mechanics such as Rage damage deference and other specific effects and mechanics that are too powerful in PvP specifically.

Some will see this list and flip the table over yelling "Great! Everyone is being forced to play DPS!1!!!" But keep in mind that Healers, Tanks, and Controllers will still perform their vital primary functions. The team that has healing, cleanses, power heals, crowd control, and debuffs has a significant force-multiplying advantage. The difference is that now while doing these things they will ALSO be able to contribute damage in a meaningful way, and actually take their opponents down.

That means groups won't be able to stay alive and intact forever. Players will be encouraged to play all the roles, since they will no longer be offensively weak, and most of the pain of staying in your role will be removed. And that means a return to more of what PvP felt like back in the good old days.

We are looking forward to your feedback and to answering any questions you might have.

*taps Tunso on the shoulder*
*whispering* You forgot about controllers. They have a mafia. You might want to change "trinity" to "quadinity".

Just got to the next part. I hear M&M has stopped scannering you.

I have to say, this sounds bueno. FNL won't cure my insomnia anymore.

sounds absolutely crazy, yet at the same time awesome. ill let others post their more experienced opinions on pvp, but this all sounds good to me.

I personally think Mods of any type should not be allowed in PVP.
No socket affinities, no home turf mods, no experts, no synthetics. Especially since they cause a MAJOR difference in PVP, way more so than in PvE.

Well if all gear is going to be unified, mods (normal not HT) will be needed to enhance role specific stats.

No idea of the full impact but I miss old days PVP a lot...

Public Enemies Server, being smashed by CTEN, Major Australia... such lovely moments

Does this mean movement mode debuffs will be the only way to debuff?

With Weapon Mastery and the Skill point overhaul coming out soon, there will be plenty of ways to enhance role specific stats.

Let me make sure I have this right ... you are removing the Role Debuffs granted by Movement Modes AND the Debuffs originally granted by opposing roles (i. e. Healer > Tank, Controller > Healer, etc) ... but you are keeping Controllers' ability to Debuff Healing, Defense and Offense?

[Quote = "Larfleeze, pós: 2496520, membro: 301850"] Eu pessoalmente acho Mods de qualquer tipo não deve ser permitido em PVP.
Não há afinidades soquete, sem mods casa relvado, não especialistas, não sintéticos. Especialmente porque eles causam uma grande diferença em PVP, muito mais do que em PvE. [/ Quote]

I Agree

I read the whole thing, and it all seems very promising and exciting. Id like to see a passive buff for teams that have all roles as well.

This sounds cool, no more deciding I I want dps gear or troll gear, just specing into precision or vit. Sounds like you've thought about everything. Disable all the trinkets and colas. You need a healer to heal then, and a troll to heal their power for that, and a tank to take the damage, sounds encouraging for the roles! Thank you

Sounds very interesting but does Safehouse: Rescue return somewhere in this plans?

Nice!

How do you guys see that giving the support roles extra damage is good? A healer will be able to hit like a dps and heal himself, a tank extra defense extra damage, and troll constant power supply and moee damage that it already does? And all you giving dps is a damage boost? I dont see thats wise. Its stupid enough u spend 10 mins fighting healers and tanks now theyll be buffed? Also if you gonna completely separate maybe make the gear a littke kess costly

But that will only be viable for high SP toons. Synthetic mods are for the people.

EDIT: And Wu Tang is for the babies.

does this right here mean it would be better to be in a role, because you would do more damage with that "buff" than if you were just in damage stance?

From what I understand, with the Gear being even across the board you won't run into healers with 4000+ resto in PVP gear so these issues won't really be there.

I could be wrong though. The way it's worded makes me think the PVP gear will be DPS tuned with a small amount dom/vit/resto.

I don't know how I feel about Healers and Tanks hitting so hard. I will reserve judgement