Options for Alternate PvP Mechanics

After discussing the topic many times over, I thought it imperative to memorialize my thoughts on whether weapon perks should be active in PvP. In drafting this article, I reached out to many fellow PvP players on their opinions as to how activating weapon perks in PvP would change the landscape.

Factors to consider

First, let's discuss the relevant weapon perks in PvP. The damage perks would be the primary ones that everyone would desire for PvP should perks be activated: base damage, fire rate, critical damage, and iron sight damage. The secondary perks that would be sought after would be magazine capacity, reload speed, and overall accuracy. With there being 7 perks to prioritize, it should be painfully obvious that a system where weapon perks are activated favors legendary weapons on account of their having 8 perks to work with versus the 4 perks that epic weapons can have. Sure there are a select group of epic weapons that are so powerful that 4 perks are enough to make them viable: namely the Skull Blaster 3000, Big Eagle Storm, Pyro Spirit, Shadow, and Fire Fist Spewer, but it is much harder to come by a great roll on these weapons than on a legendary weapon. Another important thing to consider is that because all guns are brought down to their power level for a rank 1 player, base damage perks would not be as effective a boost to damage as one would think. Likely, 10% base damage would be enough to boost a primary's body shot value by 1 hit point, which in many cases only increases DPS by 6-7% rather than the full 10%. On the other hand, a 10% fire rate perk would boost DPS by the full 10%, so farming for 10% fire rate would be a much bigger priority. In short, the likely impacts of having weapon perks be activated are to once again make legendary weapons the preferred weapons of choice, which would kill the variety that the current (as of 0.8.6) meta contains, and to give players incentive to farm PvP specific perk sets on weapons.

This brings up the main impetus behind players asking for weapon perks to be active in PvP, which is to properly incentivize players to grind PvE for the chance to improve their PvP game. With the pre-0.8.4 system of PvP, there was clear incentive to grind PvE for better gear because of the significant advantage that was offerred to players that had high quality pieces of legendary gear, but the community called out for that advantage to be removed because it favored players who have (1) played the game for much longer than newer players and (2) the time/desire to grind for the higher quality items to give them an advantage over newer players or gain parity with higher level players. While this did remove a big incentive for top level PvP players to grind PvE outside of events that offer legendary rewards like the current Easter event, this did decrease the gap that newer players have to overcome to perform well in PvP. In the end, it comes down to balancing providing incentive for PvP players to participate in other game modes and curating a PvP experience that is attractive to both new and old players.

While I personally am a proponent of increasing the damage across the board for all guns up from their current ~8% of PvE base damage at 270 power to fix the very long Time to Kill mechanic that currently exists in PvP, I wanted to explore different options that MFG has to alter the PvP meta.

(1) The Barenaked Legends option

Some players have called for zero perks to be active in PvP and have only a player's skill build be the defining factor in differentiating oneself in the PvP environment. This seems to me to be a very similar experience to Halo PvP where players would have virtually the same health pool and the same weapon would perform the same for any player regardless of the quality of the perk set. It would really come down to the extent of a player's inventory of weapons to choose from and their particular skill build in this style of PvP. It would virtually eliminate the gap that is there between new players and established players with great gear. I personally would not be against the implementation of this system of PvP because (1) Halo is probably my all-time favorite video game series and (2) it would place the most emphasis on thoughtfully crafted skill builds and the overall skill of the player. It would also offer MFG the added benefit of being able to manage the balance of weapons in the game in the same way that the current system offers them that ability.

(2) The 80s Hair Metal option

If all perks were to be active, then we would once again see that it is virtually impossible for a newer player to best a well established player in PvP simply because of the gear advantage alone (anyone remember Vanilla WoW PvP?). Legendary weapons and armor would be the most sought after pieces which not only limits players' options cosmetically, but also serves to decrease the variety of weapons that are preferable for use back to where it was in update 0.8.3. After seeing how stale this meta became, I am not clamoring for MFG to revert back to this style of PvP even though it would give a player like me quite a significant advantage over others.

Conclusion

What is great about this current PvP meta is that there are so very many guns that can be used effectively in PvP, and this has created a greater variety in play style and forced players to know how to counter that greater variety of play style. What I do not like in this current PvP meta is the amount of time that it takes to kill an opponent because of the low base damage of weapons when compared with the average health of your competitive PvP player being in the 160s. What was great about Halo PvP was that it was a slightly extended time to kill above the very fast Call of Duty setup, but it wasn't such a long time to kill that you would have to shoot your enemy so very many times after hitting them with a very powerful weapon like a shotgun, sniper rifle, or rocket launcher. Given that, I again suggest that MFG boost the multiplier of PvP base damage to be around 11% of base PvE damage at 270 power in order to bring back the core PvP experience that was so satisfying in this game prior to update 0.8.4.

A big thanks to the input from NinjaStatic, Lulleh, Halide, NateGoregasm, Sagrawa, HellNaw, and Hodric on both sides of the debate so that I could craft a somewhat balanced article given my clear bias on where I believe MFG needs to alter the PvP environment. I welcome any comments/critcisms on what I've put forth to further the discussion on this topic, but I did at least want to have a starting point for everyone to consider before entering into the debate on the matter.