PvP Morals?

No wonder I survive pretty well in CoX PvP.

I mean, I would be the first to admit that I am a sucky pvp'er, I don't calculate builds or dabble in numbers, I wouldn't invest the effort to level a build that has an optimal powerset for pvp or design a pro-pvp build + slotting.

But I've been recently lurking and commenting in a few pvp-related threads on the forums, and I'm noticing something coming from quite a number of forum posters. There's something about the CoH/CoV mentality that keeps them married to their build/powerset/slotting and 'heroic' sense of fairness.

A lot of them profess quite a bunch of 'morals', things they wouldn't do - tp foe into mobs, rely on inspirations, yadda yadda.

*boggle*

Look, I'm sure tp foe ganking can be a pain. But it's a pve carryover to be concerned about people getting debt. What's wrong with debt, my god. There's a fraggin' debt cap. Debt works off soooo easily these days. Yet to a lot of people, it's like the damn end of the world if they are at the receiving (or even more mind-bogglingly, the giving) end of an attempted pvp assault that results in a mob getting the last hit.

Deal? You're in a pvp zone. Anything goes, no? Hell, I gave myself debt suiciding into hotspots. Dunno why people go nuts over it.

Granted, tp foe ganking by hospitals is really nasty, s'not something I would do, but hey, some people MIGHT do it, because they are more amoral and ruthless than I am. So why go nuts? You got options, you log off, you log on, you got 25 seconds to move the heck out of the hospital. Or if you really can't tolerate them, log off, doh? Play an alt. No opponents = the gankers (ie. attention-seekers) will get bored and move on.

I dunno. I found the Sirlin play-to-win article rather enlightening. Now from an academic standpoint, I know that in any pvp or competitive game, some of the 'fun' comes from finding strategic counters to such and such strategies. And that there's always a counter - unless the game is too simple - in which case, it breaks the game as a sure-win exploit and the devs will have to fix it, or the competitive gamers tire of it and go putz somewhere else.

Of course, because I am not a competitive gamer by nature, I will only spend so much brain activity on formulating counters before I grow tired and go putz somewhere else too. But it's nice to know how to think when you're in those kinds of situations. Gotta think like them. Attack/defend. Action/reaction. Strike/counterstrike.

Rather than reacting from your natural POV and becoming hurt and upset because someone played a mean trick on you - ya, "you, the player" not your avatar or character - because your ego was too deeply submerged in being your toon.

What you should take with you, from your 'supposedly more mature' POV is the attitude of win some, lose some. Nothing personal. If you weep and wail and act childish about losing, while hugging your high moral ground, then subconsciously, that's not mature at all, is it?

Anyhow, my last fun little beef. Inspirations. Now this freaking BOGGLES me to death. No wonder some people are weeping over the prevalence of break frees. They are sooo obsessed with their search for absolute perfection of 'character build', the utter balance of one powerset vs another, that they say they won't use inspirations to tilt the balance.

There is a zone for limited inspiration use. That's Siren's, of course. Hardcore pvp'ers who want to collect loads of bounty will sit in there and not use inspirations because they don't want to lose the bounty.

But now I'm curious. Do the shops that are always open hero-side sell inspirations? They have a temp-powers shop, of course. Not sure about inspirations.

Anyhow, the other two zones should have a freaking inspiration shop in there. I know BB has. Not sure about Warburg.

I find it hilarious. People will actually choose not to use inspirations, and hope that others will not use it when they fight too. (NO WONDER I can hold sooooo many people in BB and SC.) Or to be even more inconsistent, they will use break frees, but are reluctant to use anything else, be it respites or lucks or whatever.

All I can say is, please carry on NOT using them.

That'll give me a better than fighting chance when I meet you. :) You can spend your downtime crying on the forums about inspiration whores and people who spam enrages and this and that...

Me, I admit I suck at pvp and I need all the help I can get to survive, thank you.

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Addenum: Y'know, I've finally figured out WHY I am totally cool with messing around with all kinds of pvp: be it FPSes, CoX, Guild Wars, etc...while I HATED RoD PK with a vengeance. It has been bothering me a while, this dichotomy between the two.

Loot.

No, seriously. It must be a flaw in my character nature. This need for possessions. If every time I die, I LOSE something - whether it's a piece of equipment, or get a negative score, I would probably never touch pvp with a ten-foot pole.

1) I wouldn't be able to tolerate having the score show how sucky I am at fighting. I can deal with a zero score, with it raising in time due to practice.

2) I wouldn't be able to deal with people who mess with what was originally 'my' stuff, that was lost. Or in the case of RoD, where a lot of standard PK equipment was just mindlessly cheap, I wasn't able to deal with the tedious concept of having to go out, get the item, and then dress a char up like a paper doll again.

If RoD took away the loot concept, or arranged an mprog that would dress you up in standard PK gear at a word, I think I would have actually tried and enjoyed mucking about.

It's the 'respawn' factor that allows me to mess with PvP without worry. I die in CoX? I go to hospital. No worse for wear. I lose nothing that affects my ability to PvP. I can get back into the fight right away. Ditto FPSes.

Glad I figured that out.