Originally posted by Yeebo Long story short, this game just doesn't make me feel like superhero. The look and the power sets are right. However, the effects that my powers have on my oppenents aren't. Most powers just "feel" rather weak and innefectual, because most of the foes you go up againts are pretty tough. A wizard type in EQ, WoW, or DAoC "feels" a lot more powerful than a blaster does in this game (to me at least). That's just wrong.
Hmm, I felt the opposite way. Playing WoW made me feel like a mouse in a factory full of hammers that randomly rise and fall. As a Mage, my powers felt VERY weak, and if another enemy walked up behind me while I was fighting, I was dead. At least in CoH I stand a chance against one average opponent.
I've taken a break from Coh before. At the time I felt there wasn't enough content left in the game to justify subscribing to it in lee of another unexplored world. My overall impression of the game was excellent. The warning signs were there with the propsed rebalances for I4, but i didn't feel that they would particularly disturb my play style.
This time i don't feel there is anything to come back to. Most likely if i hadn't seen I5 I would have bought the expansion pack. (And then been royally ticked off when I resubbed my CoH account and then found my favourite hero non functional).
I still look back and think of CoH as a highly excellent gaming experience. I feel the same about Planetside. But when they begin to die they begin to die. There's no mistaking it. The population moves on and the glory days can never be recreated. Play the games when they are hot, that's what I say, and move on to the next one before it stops boiling. There are so many to try and so little time.
Regen is the worst scrapper powerset for 8 man teams, and it is no longer the best powerset for endurance fighting, it is the worst. Best or worst still isn't really the issue, it's simply a case of unable to do that which I previously found enjoyment from.
I'm typically unimpressed by statitics. I'm not even particularly bothered which class of scrapper is "the most powerful". I'm not a min/maxing statistic crunching type of player. That is a real turn off for me. There are a thousand different circumstances within the game, each with a seperate relevant statistic, what one person values is not necessarily that which is valued by another. Often, when I instantly die, or now am forced to retreat out of combat within the first minute, I notice that the others scrappers are merrily fighting on. I don't think to myself how overpowered they are, I simply think, I am not having fun in this team and go look for an exemp party where I can still function in a "heroic" role.
I absolutely concur with your assessment of defenders and regen. Bubbles really make a difference.
Reconstruction is no worse than Instant Healing in it's current form, if not substantially better, since it doesn't cut out without warning and recharges many times in the same period of time. I use Revive quite a lot, self-reliance is something I enjoy in my games, and Moment Of Glory which I traded for it didn't suit me. Again, removing powers from my attack powerset to replace them with pool power attacks is yet another excersise in homogenising. Why would I want to remove my chosen powerset attacks and defences to replace them poolpower attacks and defences?
Any circumstance where the powersets can no longer function in their own right is without merit. Particularly as they used to be able to. Previously the option to be either "defensive" or "aggressive" was perfectly customisable within the slotting of the regen powerset. Now it is not.
There are endless topics in endless forums on how to make regen a playable powerset again. If there wasn't a problem no one would be discussing it. The more I read about "charts" and suggestions for re-engineering characters, the more and more depressing this game sounds. Is that all thats left?
I would concur with your suggestion that the people complaining about I5 are those that have played it fo a long time. These are precisely the people I would expect it to annoy. The replayability of these kinds of games is not merely the addition of new content, it is also a social experience where you play with the same old people again and again endlessly, because they are your friends and you have a laugh with them. The game is only noticeably boring when you can find no one you like to play with.This is why I5 is a game wrecker. Many of the old faces are pee'd off enough to move on. Regular players have been penalised, comedy conversations have degenerated into powerset analysis/nerf complaints. It's lost that loving feeling.
For what it's worth, it took me three weeks to get to level 40 in COH, it's only taken 2 in Wow. Matrix Online was ludicrously fast, I hit lvl 50 in 8 days flat, solo street hunting.
I was all set to type out a thorough and comparison-filled reply but.... *shrug* I went back and read through all the threads from people who are leaving because they got pwnd by the devs and well...
I know my luck, and If I talked any of you back into CoH I'd probably have the misfortune of grouping with you. I'd also hate it if one of you guys started a new character and rolled with new players, filling their ears with "back in my day we could take on 15 purples without dying" stories.
Cuz you see, the new playerbase is enjoying themselves. And no, I'm not one of them. I've been playing since back before there were issues. I've seen overpowered sets get nerfs they needed (my fire/dev blaster 'Sellout' and her uber Smokeynade of DOOM!) and some that didn't need it...
actually I can't say there are any that didn't need it. Regen needed it. Fire Tanks needed it. Stealth effects needed it. My post-'nerf' regen scrapper is still unstoppable, EVEN in big groups. I have 4 recharges in IH, and for the most part never use it. I am not a Tank, my job is to kill the boss and let everybody else deal with the minions.
My kinetic defender is the opposite: his job is to make sure everybody is attacking like rabid crack-smoking monkeys, and spends very little time attacking on his own.
My ice/ice/ice blaster is different. Her job is pseudo-controller, minion-filter, and goalie for the other squishies
Find a purpose, find a job to do in a group. The greatest tactic in the game isn't having the most uberest powerbuild, but knowing which powers not to use at which times. That's why I like CoH. It's not about loot drops and who has the shiniest asskickinest Adamantine Plate of the Whale God, it's about thinking. Corner pulling, setting up traps, pre-AV strategies... they all make a difference. Even inspiration cultivation makes a huge difference once you learn how to do it.
Changes happen. Adapt. If that means learning how to play a new game *shrug* peace. But don't moan because the devs made that Ub4r build guide you got off the forums inneffective, and you don't know enough about your powersets to balance things out.
/rant off
And for those who know me from other forums... PROGEN WARRIOR FOR TEH WIN! (R.I.P Earth & Beyond)
Give a man fire, he'll be warm for the night SET a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life -Pratchet
Originally posted by LordDarkmist On the American side, the population has been increasing
Yup thats why there has been a decrease in the game cost and an obvious increase of free trials. COH isnt going anywhere itll be around for a long time, but I know many of my friends that played have quite and those that still have an account most have gone from playing 20+ a week to less then 10. I predict that after COV that the game will get a boost for a few months, but then after the update following COV that even more people will leave and COH will settle at about 100k players and remain at that player base for the next 2-4 years.
Originally posted by LordDarkmist On the American side, the population has been increasing
Yup thats why there has been a decrease in the game cost and an obvious increase of free trials. COH isnt going anywhere itll be around for a long time, but I know many of my friends that played have quite and those that still have an account most have gone from playing 20+ a week to less then 10. I predict that after COV that the game will get a boost for a few months, but then after the update following COV that even more people will leave and COH will settle at about 100k players and remain at that player base for the next 2-4 years.
You're right about the initial explosion of players, but every game has done that inorder to maintain more ppl...As far as numbers, it has increased compared to the amount it dropped to when WOW was just released... However I compared the numbers during the free trial... And yes this game would be more fun if it had more ppl... And as I said before ppl get bored over time also...I5 - the only thing I liked from this was the balance(and that 1 hostage thing), like most other issues, it's contents I feel are just as repetitive...this game needs other necessary components to make it really fun and lasting... What I like about this game though is that I can accomplish something in a decent amount of time (TF is the only exception, TFs are actually quite repetitive for the old ones atleast)...
Anyways, in COV they've created that cinematic thing for missions, so the game has more potential... What I wish COH would do, is to immerse players into the storylines (they need to incorporate that into TFs, trials, story arcs, or a different type of story quest)
Example: At brickstown, there's creys there... You form a group and talk to contact that tells you creys are up to something, but they dont know what...
mission 1: find what creys up to (incorporate cinematics before and after ea mission with subtitles to tell story if necessary) ...lets say end of mission u find location of experimental testing facility...
mission 2: Investigate building...you end up saving hostages...they tell u crey is abducting ppl and performing genetic testings on them...Also u find out about a diff place that holds all of the mutated ppl or whatever...
mission 3: You go there for further investigations...You find out they're trying to build some sort of mutant army...
mission 4: You find their primary headquarters and put a stop to their testings by defeating AV and destroying testing stations (if they could add some better interactive stuff like in trial missions to this, it would be cool) ...( they could maybe make a mission where u need to find a key or password in an earlier mission then fight an AV that guards the door, and then when u enter the room you capture the boss of the whole thing without having to kill everyone )
The main thing I would hope is not to have the cinematic thing become repetitive like missions...The cinematics should be used to signify something important like a real story/history behind a certain group like nemesis,crey, troll,etc.... Because the exclusiveness of it would heighten ppl's enjoyment more when they get to it, rather than just having a whole bunch of cinematics...
You're right about the initial explosion of players, but every game has done that inorder to maintain more ppl...As far as numbers, it has increased compared to the amount it dropped to when WOW was just released...
The first 3 months of game release it had about 180k players. It dropped to about 130k when WOW/EQ2 released and then climbed back to about 140k in march, however that was mostly due to the european launch(acording to mmorpgchart). That is hardly "increased compared to the amount it dropped to when WOW" and to even suggest that it has shows a grand scale of biasness. There aren't any numbers more current then march at this time, however, if you think there are more players now then in march your continuing to live in a bias fantasy land. i would guess that the current subscriber base is about110k- 120k. Which considering they are the only superhero mmog avaliable isn't really all that promising (when the marvel/dc mmogs come out it will kill coh in a year i would guess)
As for the nerfs and stuff in I5, this guy, Nikelaos, I think said it well on the view of how the game should be... http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Ideas&Number=3729173&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=3 ...In other words, the nerf was necessary also to balance out the fight with AVs...Pre I5 allowed almost all archetypes the ability to solo AVs... AVs shouldn't be soloable, it's supposed to be a challenge... Anyways I agree with what that guy says and his idea too, there should be another sub tier, "elite boss"...
The diff now is that the easy fights aren't necessary with whites anymore, but with blue and greens...Solo fighting is still possible, and since Devs did up exp gain for the increased difficulty also...And it's still possble to feel "heroic" but not "godly"... As for missions, whites now actually requires some "risks", but they're still soloable...
To address other issues previously stated...The SGs not working out, has always been an issue...I5 is not the reason...This game is a "Casual" game...I've had SGs in issue 2 before and many of them are gone in weeks or months...The fact of the matter is, it's really due to the simpleness of creating SGs, repetition, "tons" of diff powersets, and speed of leveling...when ppl get to level 50, they end up making a new char/toon...PPL also make new toon when they want to try something else( due to 1. boredom of previous char or 2. interest in a different type ) ... The thing is, you have to end up joining those super big/multiple SGs which lasts forever...The only problem is you don't get to know everyone in SGs like that, and some ppl like me, just plain hates them...The SG problem needs some work by the devs (I think the sg alliance thing made the problem worse)...Anyways hopefully when COV (bases and stuff) comes, it would be easier to determine the "Staying" SGs from the "Temporary" SGs...As for right now, it's best to merge with other declining SGs, sadly enough...
As for my personal thoughts/suggestions, I think fights with AVs would be more fun if they created a 2nd tier type status effecting powers just for AVs...AVs should beable to hold and throw you around and stuff as they like, to make them look powerful regardless if u have status effect protection...This way there could actually be more strategy...Along with that, AVs damage should be reduced. The AVs damage output is too tremendous right now, which makes it retarded, cause it can 1 shot you...The only problem with this is for the role of "tankers"...Their toggles and whatnot would be affected, but maybe the 2nd tier type status effect won't turn off (defensive/armour) toggles or some better solution...I really think AV battles could be more fun if something like this were to happen...
Originally posted by LordDarkmist On the American side, the population has been increasing
Yup thats why there has been a decrease in the game cost and an obvious increase of free trials. COH isnt going anywhere itll be around for a long time, but I know many of my friends that played have quite and those that still have an account most have gone from playing 20+ a week to less then 10.
Comments
Hmm, I felt the opposite way. Playing WoW made me feel like a mouse in a factory full of hammers that randomly rise and fall. As a Mage, my powers felt VERY weak, and if another enemy walked up behind me while I was fighting, I was dead. At least in CoH I stand a chance against one average opponent.
It's hard to fight in a gazebo.
-Mitch Hedberg
I've taken a break from Coh before. At the time I felt there wasn't enough content left in the game to justify subscribing to it in lee of another unexplored world. My overall impression of the game was excellent. The warning signs were there with the propsed rebalances for I4, but i didn't feel that they would particularly disturb my play style.
This time i don't feel there is anything to come back to. Most likely if i hadn't seen I5 I would have bought the expansion pack. (And then been royally ticked off when I resubbed my CoH account and then found my favourite hero non functional).
I still look back and think of CoH as a highly excellent gaming experience. I feel the same about Planetside. But when they begin to die they begin to die. There's no mistaking it. The population moves on and the glory days can never be recreated. Play the games when they are hot, that's what I say, and move on to the next one before it stops boiling. There are so many to try and so little time.
Regen is the worst scrapper powerset for 8 man teams, and it is no longer the best powerset for endurance fighting, it is the worst. Best or worst still isn't really the issue, it's simply a case of unable to do that which I previously found enjoyment from.
I'm typically unimpressed by statitics. I'm not even particularly bothered which class of scrapper is "the most powerful". I'm not a min/maxing statistic crunching type of player. That is a real turn off for me. There are a thousand different circumstances within the game, each with a seperate relevant statistic, what one person values is not necessarily that which is valued by another. Often, when I instantly die, or now am forced to retreat out of combat within the first minute, I notice that the others scrappers are merrily fighting on. I don't think to myself how overpowered they are, I simply think, I am not having fun in this team and go look for an exemp party where I can still function in a "heroic" role.
I absolutely concur with your assessment of defenders and regen. Bubbles really make a difference.
Reconstruction is no worse than Instant Healing in it's current form, if not substantially better, since it doesn't cut out without warning and recharges many times in the same period of time. I use Revive quite a lot, self-reliance is something I enjoy in my games, and Moment Of Glory which I traded for it didn't suit me. Again, removing powers from my attack powerset to replace them with pool power attacks is yet another excersise in homogenising. Why would I want to remove my chosen powerset attacks and defences to replace them poolpower attacks and defences?
Any circumstance where the powersets can no longer function in their own right is without merit. Particularly as they used to be able to. Previously the option to be either "defensive" or "aggressive" was perfectly customisable within the slotting of the regen powerset. Now it is not.
There are endless topics in endless forums on how to make regen a playable powerset again. If there wasn't a problem no one would be discussing it. The more I read about "charts" and suggestions for re-engineering characters, the more and more depressing this game sounds. Is that all thats left?
I would concur with your suggestion that the people complaining about I5 are those that have played it fo a long time. These are precisely the people I would expect it to annoy. The replayability of these kinds of games is not merely the addition of new content, it is also a social experience where you play with the same old people again and again endlessly, because they are your friends and you have a laugh with them. The game is only noticeably boring when you can find no one you like to play with.This is why I5 is a game wrecker. Many of the old faces are pee'd off enough to move on. Regular players have been penalised, comedy conversations have degenerated into powerset analysis/nerf complaints. It's lost that loving feeling.
For what it's worth, it took me three weeks to get to level 40 in COH, it's only taken 2 in Wow. Matrix Online was ludicrously fast, I hit lvl 50 in 8 days flat, solo street hunting.
I was all set to type out a thorough and comparison-filled reply but.... *shrug* I went back and read through all the threads from people who are leaving because they got pwnd by the devs and well...
I know my luck, and If I talked any of you back into CoH I'd probably have the misfortune of grouping with you. I'd also hate it if one of you guys started a new character and rolled with new players, filling their ears with "back in my day we could take on 15 purples without dying"
stories.
Cuz you see, the new playerbase is enjoying themselves. And no, I'm not one of them. I've been playing since back before there were issues. I've seen overpowered sets get nerfs they needed (my fire/dev blaster 'Sellout' and her uber Smokeynade of DOOM!) and some that didn't need it...
actually I can't say there are any that didn't need it. Regen needed it. Fire Tanks needed it. Stealth effects needed it. My post-'nerf' regen scrapper is still unstoppable, EVEN in big groups. I have 4 recharges in IH, and for the most part never use it. I am not a Tank, my job is to kill the boss and let everybody else deal with the minions.
My kinetic defender is the opposite: his job is to make sure everybody is attacking like rabid crack-smoking monkeys, and spends very little time attacking on his own.
My ice/ice/ice blaster is different. Her job is pseudo-controller, minion-filter, and goalie for the other squishies
Find a purpose, find a job to do in a group. The greatest tactic in the game isn't having the most uberest powerbuild, but knowing which powers not to use at which times. That's why I like CoH. It's not about loot drops and who has the shiniest asskickinest Adamantine Plate of the Whale God, it's about thinking. Corner pulling, setting up traps, pre-AV strategies... they all make a difference. Even inspiration cultivation makes a huge difference once you learn how to do it.
Changes happen. Adapt. If that means learning how to play a new game *shrug* peace. But don't moan because the devs made that Ub4r build guide you got off the forums inneffective, and you don't know enough about your powersets to balance things out.
/rant off
And for those who know me from other forums... PROGEN WARRIOR FOR TEH WIN!
(R.I.P Earth & Beyond)
Give a man fire, he'll be warm for the night
SET a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life
-Pratchet
You're right about the initial explosion of players, but every game has done that inorder to maintain more ppl...As far as numbers, it has increased compared to the amount it dropped to when WOW was just released... However I compared the numbers during the free trial... And yes this game would be more fun if it had more ppl... And as I said before ppl get bored over time also...I5 - the only thing I liked from this was the balance(and that 1 hostage thing), like most other issues, it's contents I feel are just as repetitive...this game needs other necessary components to make it really fun and lasting... What I like about this game though is that I can accomplish something in a decent amount of time (TF is the only exception, TFs are actually quite repetitive for the old ones atleast)...
Anyways, in COV they've created that cinematic thing for missions, so the game has more potential... What I wish COH would do, is to immerse players into the storylines (they need to incorporate that into TFs, trials, story arcs, or a different type of story quest)
Example: At brickstown, there's creys there... You form a group and talk to contact that tells you creys are up to something, but they dont know what...
mission 1: find what creys up to (incorporate cinematics before and after ea mission with subtitles to tell story if necessary) ...lets say end of mission u find location of experimental testing facility...
mission 2: Investigate building...you end up saving hostages...they tell u crey is abducting ppl and performing genetic testings on them...Also u find out about a diff place that holds all of the mutated ppl or whatever...
mission 3: You go there for further investigations...You find out they're trying to build some sort of mutant army...
mission 4: You find their primary headquarters and put a stop to their testings by defeating AV and destroying testing stations (if they could add some better interactive stuff like in trial missions to this, it would be cool) ...( they could maybe make a mission where u need to find a key or password in an earlier mission then fight an AV that guards the door, and then when u enter the room you capture the boss of the whole thing without having to kill everyone
)
The main thing I would hope is not to have the cinematic thing become repetitive like missions...The cinematics should be used to signify something important like a real story/history behind a certain group like nemesis,crey, troll,etc.... Because the exclusiveness of it would heighten ppl's enjoyment more when they get to it, rather than just having a whole bunch of cinematics...
Issue 5 introduced a lot of bad stuff. Sound Loop Crashes, Increased Lag.
In exchange for crashes and other bugs, a new zone was added, 2 new classes, and new types of missions.
This doesnt really justify new content for adding problems into the game. They need to fix stuff first instead of trying to meet business deadlines.
Useful, I'd agree with u there
As for the nerfs and stuff in I5, this guy, Nikelaos, I think said it well on the view of how the game should be... http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Ideas&Number=3729173&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=3 ...In other words, the nerf was necessary also to balance out the fight with AVs...Pre I5 allowed almost all archetypes the ability to solo AVs... AVs shouldn't be soloable, it's supposed to be a challenge... Anyways I agree with what that guy says and his idea too, there should be another sub tier, "elite boss"...
The diff now is that the easy fights aren't necessary with whites anymore, but with blue and greens...Solo fighting is still possible, and since Devs did up exp gain for the increased difficulty also...And it's still possble to feel "heroic" but not "godly"... As for missions, whites now actually requires some "risks", but they're still soloable...
To address other issues previously stated...The SGs not working out, has always been an issue...I5 is not the reason...This game is a "Casual" game...I've had SGs in issue 2 before and many of them are gone in weeks or months...The fact of the matter is, it's really due to the simpleness of creating SGs, repetition, "tons" of diff powersets, and speed of leveling...when ppl get to level 50, they end up making a new char/toon...PPL also make new toon when they want to try something else( due to 1. boredom of previous char or 2. interest in a different type ) ... The thing is, you have to end up joining those super big/multiple SGs which lasts forever...The only problem is you don't get to know everyone in SGs like that, and some ppl like me, just plain hates them...The SG problem needs some work by the devs (I think the sg alliance thing made the problem worse)...Anyways hopefully when COV (bases and stuff) comes, it would be easier to determine the "Staying" SGs from the "Temporary" SGs...As for right now, it's best to merge with other declining SGs, sadly enough...
As for my personal thoughts/suggestions, I think fights with AVs would be more fun if they created a 2nd tier type status effecting powers just for AVs...AVs should beable to hold and throw you around and stuff as they like, to make them look powerful regardless if u have status effect protection...This way there could actually be more strategy...Along with that, AVs damage should be reduced. The AVs damage output is too tremendous right now, which makes it retarded, cause it can 1 shot you...The only problem with this is for the role of "tankers"...Their toggles and whatnot would be affected, but maybe the 2nd tier type status effect won't turn off (defensive/armour) toggles or some better solution...I really think AV battles could be more fun if something like this were to happen...
This sounds more like what I was expecting.