Work In Progress: What's Next for Arena PvP

Ive promised myself I wouldn't indulge more ht posts but ill make it quick . I dont find ht mods to make it more difficult thats not the issue for me and id assume most against it. Imo it dumbs down pvp. Using deadly block as an example blocking can do 3 k hits . Thats outrageous . The reason this dumbs down is because now thats 3 k damage you dont need to create yourself through combat . Merely blocking. 2v2 or 1v1 thats not such an issue as its easy to catch a bb. Put it into 4s and up and it is. Jump into crowd , block , get immunity and a nice big prec hit . Cant tell me thats skillful

Since offense and defense will be scaled for all roles. Why not remove the precision stat, let might be our only damage stat and give the dps role greater crits. All weapons and powers should hit the same for all roles with the exception of critical attacks. Tanks can keep a measure of superior defensive capacity with their 100% dom buff, healers have a greater capacity to heal with more resto and trolls have a greater debilitation capacity with their 100% dom buff. The dps won't be a vanilla role with no special sauce, they will have a significantly higher crit mag than the rest while all roles keep what makes them special.

While the gear may have similar stat lines, the role benefits should still be viable and useful with minor applicable stat buffs for each role.

The problem with basing all damage on might is with powersets like Rage, Light, Earth, and Celestial that have precision follow-up damage and focus on this stat instead of might. Most of these powers have smaller base damage from might because of the precision PI's. With this change it would require another overhaul to these powers (and damage in general) and I highly doubt they could limit this to just PVP.

I'm not even going to elaborate more on HT, but I have to comment on this here...the game is not getting harder. If anything new content is so easy that many in my league have solo'd the Gotham Under Seige world bosses and as a whole people are doing the new alert without a healer. When in the history of DCUO has content ever been completed without the help of a healer?

Too many ingredients make a messy soup. Rather than focus on more player components (utility belts, mods, HT, consumables, trinkets, etc.) I'd rather they put more into the interactions players have with content. For example the new quest where you shoot down birds is a great addition, however it feels unfinished and there isn't enough going on to make it a real challenge. I'd much rather the devs put more time into perfecting these experiences, new PVP maps/objectives, and boss fights or PVP based PVE instances where players have objectives that opposing teams are trying to deter. These IMO would make the game harder. ATM we just have a lot more of the same with just higher stats while doing it.

This is exactly correct. There is simply too much grinding involved for players new to PvP, or those simply tired of the endless cycle of gear replacement, to get geared to a competitive level in a reasonable amount of time.

The beginning of each season should bring a gear reset to even the playing field. That's the cash set. Give the cash set slightly lower stats than the top tier set from the previous season so players aren't so salty about their "leet gear" suddenly being worse than some scrub's green set. Then give players 1 or 2 additional tiers of gear to earn with marks during the season, both of which are superior to the top tier gear from the previous season. Repeat the process at the start of each season.

Additionally, I'd actually be in favor of 2 tiers of PvP marks like there are in PvE. Have the T1 gear cost Marks of Valor and the T2 gear cost Marks of Conquest*. This could work with something else the game needs: a PvP ranking system, leaderboards and a way to see your own Arena Rank. Marks of Valor would be earned in unranked matches and Marks of Conquest* could be earned in ranked matches. Tell me PvPers wouldn't love a way to earn bragging rights as well as something else to talk smack about.

Random thoughts based on experience in other MMOs and their PvP systems.

*placeholder name

You're right that's probably too much. I still maintain that the differentiation between roles should be a % based stat. Tanks and trolls already have a 100% dom buff, give healers a 100% resto buff and dps stance can have a 100% critical mag. If it were this way, playing your roles well would be a priority instead of everyone going for as much precision as they can because without it, you really can't hit very hard. At least not enough to make it practical.

In PvP, precision is every roles primary or secondary stat making all roles more dps centric when there's other ways support roles can get by. Everyone needs to be a hybrid in order to succeed. Pure support roles are becoming fewer and fewer in both PvP and PvE alike.

A few pages back I posted similar to this as earlier in the game it was these role bonuses (healer 65% increased healing, tank increased mitigation via PIs and trollers POT, increased vit, DPS had increased damage via % increases after using powers.) These defined the roles more than gear as (like Tunso said) the stats were not that much different. IMHO the ONLY way using one gear set would work is if:

1.) These role bonuses existed to increase role desirable stats while in said role.
2.) Stat mods were available to customize gear further than the base stats.

The problem then arises to how do you deal with these role defining traits under a system where only one class can actually debuff? This is where Clutchmeister and I were talking about counters creating an armor piercing effect OR stripping shields. Effectively some type of armor piercing where damage goes through shields and added role stat increases for the duration of immunity would help deal with the lack of debuffs and still create a level of skill > stats in PVP.

I feel that trollers "could" still make out under this proposed system, however tweaks to base damage %'s could help. What I mean is lets say trollers do 100% of their damage (no modifiers or buffs,) healers could do say 110/120% and tanks say 120/130% with DPS doing 150%. Healers, tanks and DPS now have a means to burn down shields (since they don't have a means to strip them or debuff) that isn't extremely OP as it requires actually doing attacks to remove shields. They could then increase the damage debuff on trollers from just 7.5% to 20-30%, which would make up for the reduced damage trollers do putting the other roles on near par with them in smaller arena content.

The game has for too long been chasing DPS and moving away from rewarding skill to rewarding high stats. Increased damage should come from successfully mastering the system, not just because a player has farmed raids and is modded with T6 precision/might in all their gear. Support stats should be able to sustain a balanced amount of focus fire on targets or power burn from a team. Tanks should actually CLEANSE debuffed teammates AND have a means to be cleansed themselves (in coordination with teammates.) The fabric of role interaction needs to be strengthen. Perhaps eventually they can create cross powerset PIs that help increase damage (IE nature lays out their PI and coordination of burning poison as well as say a Fire PI puts the poison gases on fire doing addiional DOTs.) Other MMOs have really cool cross class PIs and I would like to see it come into play in DCUO as that coordination is yet another layer of skill as well.

Bottom line, I think we agree that the status quo is not the direction the game should be going (DPS centric focus, individual players over group synergy, etc.) PVP should find its footing putting individual skill coordinated with teammates as paramount over stats.

I never said that ht makes combat harder, just removes a layer of combat mechanics. And if anything, HT makes it incredibly easy to play. Here's how:

1v1 node match, I'll use explosive block = easy
Deadly block = 30% of my opponents health gone and all I had to do was block
Empowering channel = why wait till I get a counter or immunity to use my finisher? I can use it now and be in a tank like state
Regen shielding = cool! now I'm an ice tank that also heals myself
Tm = now I can roll all day with no thought.

You can make something harder without dumbing it down. You're saying HT makes the game harder, but look at all those mods I listed, isn't that making the game easier for the user?

If Ht added complexity. Then it should make the game complex for both players

then...
I think we should have a prestige system, like CoD.
It will show who the real players are, from the wannabes!
each time you prestige you get a certain boost. that would be cool!

agreed!

That's the point. Deadly block makes you think twice before you just carelessly lunge. Therefore it puts the pressure on you to use more SKILL to avoid big damage.

Ok so you said that HT only makes the game easier for the user? So you aren't a user? It sounds like you don't even have HT but want the mods removed. Also like I said, the mod makes the user invulnerable to interrupt. It doesn't make them completely vulnerable though. You can pop a shield, roll out of the way, stun them, etc. That is how it makes the game more complex. You have to find other ways to counter instead of simply lunging. It takes more skill to do one of the alternatives than to just lunge. Also if both players are wearing the mods they both are at the same risk so they both have to play skillfully or die. It's that simple. If you are enough of a PVPer to post on this thread, you should be enough of a PVPer to get the mods.

I have stated how the mods add complexity. At this point if you don't understand you're not listening. I'm reading all of your posts and being open minded please do the same.

Please lower the number of required wins for the Lair feat. Or increase the feat points.

1k of wins for only 10 points is way too little.

its 25 feat points not 10

The good old days when I had plenty of options of what arena/legends match I wanted to participate in. But hey this is a step in the right direction.

They can't do that because not enough people play arenas. If the pvp revamp draws in old players that left when pvp was ruined for them, and new players who want a balanced multiplayer fighting game, maybe the devs will consider abolishing map rotations.

hum thx i like to play healer pvp and now you resume my role to look at people dying that is the contrary of my role then you my role mean nothing ... NICE...
Most of the time infinite fight mean lack of coordintion into the group it feel sad to resume everything in term of dps in this game ...

hum thx i like to play healer pvp and now you resume my role to look at people dying that is the contrary of my role then you my role mean nothing ... NICE...
Most of the time infinite fight mean lack of coordintion into the group it feel sad to resume everything in term of dps in this game ...

Its not carelessly lunging though is it its aoe splash damage on said turtle Not your current target thats being penalised which is just about all the big finishers . Especially now with w.m . So again ill repeat its bad enough crowd blocking is in the game and gives immunity now with ht it can take 1/4 of someones hp in android gear and a higher ratio in lesser gear

Did giggles make a different account. Are you giggles jr? Ht removes a certain skill lvl from pvp which would mean its less complex. But ill give you another word to use instead of complexity, try frustration its more realistic.