Rewards for CoX PvP definitely planned, says Castle

It's been a strange week for City of Heroes news. The lid of the Issue 13: Power and Responsibility Closed Beta pressure cooker remains firmly on, with nothing escaping, and yet the developers have been slightly more forthcoming with hints about future content.

PvP is firmly in the spotlight, following radical changes in Issue 13 that include the (apparent) total removal of mez protection in that context. Take Chris 'Back Alley Brawler' Bruce, for example, who seemed to us to be suggesting a comeback for the Cathedral of Pain, Items of Power and base raiding with consequences: 'Cathedral of Pain is intrinsicly tied to Items of Power. Items of Power are intrinsicly tied to Base Raids. Base Raids are intrinsicly tied to PvP. Any thoughts on why PvP is getting attention in this issue?'

Powers guy Floyd 'Castle' Grubb has been even more forthright, stating that rewards for PvP are definitely planned, assuming the new changes work out. (These might not be for Issue 13, but would definitely follow if the system succeeded.) At present, with the exception of zone mechanics such as those in Siren's Call, PvP in CoX doesn't really have rewards, unlike (say) Warhammer Online. Castle explains that several different possibilities are being considered, listed after the cut.

Castle's list of some possible PvP rewards runs:

• XP/Inf/"other" points per "win"

• Items of Power (Base Raiding)

• New IO Recipes (work like SO's in PVE, but have good bonuses, etc in PVP)

• Merits (I'm personally against this one, but none of this is my call)

• % chance Salvage Drop on kill

With the advent of Dual Builds in Issue 13, the idea of completely new IO recipes that have a better PvP effect than they do in PvE seems perfect for outfitting a second PvP build. It would, in fact, be the equivalent in CoX of the 'PvP gear' you see in other games, with the advantage that items wouldn't need to be swapped out; you'd have a whole separate build for PvP that you could switch to at any trainer.

We think it's significant that Castle specifies 'per win' rather than 'per kill' for the XP/Inf rewards. It would be far too easy to exploit mechanics that awarded XP for a kill alone, so some sort of tactical struggle would need to be involved. Goal-oriented PvP in City of Heroes, with rewards? We'd love to see it.