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Double Xp event / Are they gearing up for something bigger?
ursacor
Member UncommonPosts: 102
Heroes and Villains, prepare to experience our first ever Double XP weekend event! The rules are simple. Hero and Villain characters will receive double the XP for all of their accomplishments in the game. Take advantage of this opportunity to level up your favorite characters. Good luck and have fun!
Event Timing:
Start: Friday, July 21st at 9am PST / 12pm EST
Finish: Sunday, July 23rd, 8:59pm PST / 11:59pm EST
Event Timing:
Start: Friday, July 21st at 9am PST / 12pm EST
Finish: Sunday, July 23rd, 8:59pm PST / 11:59pm EST
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So what does everything think about this, is it their way of saying their sorry for past sins. Or it is a precurser of something larger to come?
Comments
Villains just recently got their level cap raised from 40 to 50. Heroes have been at 50 for a while. My guess is that this event is aimed at getting more 50's on the villain side so endgame PvP will be a little more balanced. Anyone who's already at 50 isn't going to benefit from it, so it will act as a bit of an equalizer.
Michael K. Donovan
What this says about the devs' thoughts on the game:
"We know levelling your way through this game is a grind, and since we have no content ready to be released, log in for a weekend and get a level or two on us."
Yeah, that's some "promotion." They offer temporarily that which you get as a matter of course in better games: fast levelling.
Does one weekend really work for anyone? If they doubled the xp permanently after level 25 then I'd totally be back in a heart-beat.
I'm not sure what or who this weekend is for.
Should be interesting to play, though.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Subs must be down.
I think I prefer the kind of events you get in WoW with extra missions and bonus NPCs and new monsters to fight.
The only guilds I know who still play CoH/CoV are PvP guilds. The PvE players don't really have anything to do in this game but level alts.
Though the PvP guilds I know aren't all that happy with the PvP game either. Open zones without any real prizes for "winning" are pretty lame. Haven't talked to them since Issue 7 though. Have they gotten items of power and SG bases working yet?
IOW, "content."
Guild Wars just finished a summer weekend event for people with Factions: New quests, new monsters, and new loot that you could trade for a very cool dragon mask. The event also featured games of chance that rewarded you with loot you could use to buy other in-game items.
What does it say about a game that holds an event where the only "loot" you get is double the XP for doing the "same old same old"???
And meanwhile, on the CoH boards, you have people bitching about this and the Winter Lord event as examples of where the devs failed. Actually, I liked the Winter Lord event for two reasons: something different to kill and no grind. It was fun hunting Winter Lords for incredibly sick XP, because you killed alot, died alot (in my case) and watched your XP bar move, unlike the grind you have to go through for the last 30 levels of the game now.
For everything the devs have taken away from the players, double XP should be the least they give back and it should be made permanent.
OK, in the interest of providing some constructive feedback, here are a few things the devs of this game could do to address both the balance issues and make the game more fun. Please note, I will be using GW for reference, so if you don't want to read what another NCSoft offering does, read no further.
Armor. Every MMO has it, and it means something. It provides base defense. The biggest imblanace in the CoX universe is the have/have not issue when it comes to defense. Tanks have tons, blasters have none. The problem balancing a game like this - especially for PvP - lies in the fact that the only balancing you can have is whether a blaster's offense is sufficient to overcome a tank's (or scrappers) defense. If everyone had the option of building defense - at the expense of offense - into their toons, then you'd see a lot more variety in the types of builds you'd get without having to nerf powers and enhancements.
Consider this: at the character customization screen you have the option of selecting an "armored" look versus a "tights" look. Well, why not make this mean something in the amount of defense you can build into your toon?
Selecting "armor" ups you base defense against damage but makes you slower. Selecting "tights" allows you to move faster (and be more agile) making you harder to hit, but causing you to take more damage when you do get hit.
With costumes now meaning something, let people use the tailors for more than just changing their look. Allow changing costumes to offer a way to change your build defensively.
If I know I'm going against a lot of ranged attackers, let me have a "speed" build via my costume (armor) that allows me to work at range. If I'm going against known melee foes, I'll wear an armored costume for better close-in defense.
GW does something similar to this. Every character in GW has the option of buying different types of armor to wear against different types of foes. For example, my Rangers all carry two types of armor: each type offers base defense of 70, with an additional +30 versus elemental damage. But one type adds +15 defense against fire damage and another type adds +15 defense against cold damage. Against foes that use fire, I wear the additional fire protection. Against foes that use cold attacks, I wear the additional cold protection. However no ranger armor has a built in buff against physical (SL) damage. For that, I have skills: throw dirt, dryder's defense, escape (elite), lightning reflexes, etc., and traps: dus trap (blind), snare (crippling), barbed (crippling/bleeding) spike (elite, crippling, bleeding, knockdown).
A Ranger fares a lot better against Warriors in GW than a Blaster fares against Tanks in CoH because ArenaNet has given every player the option to pack defensive armor and/or skills into their toon's build, while making every healer and protector monk in GW important to a team's success.
BTW, you only get to take 8 skills into an instance with you, even though you have more than 150 per profession from which to choose (should you earn/buy that many). Every skill is equally valuable in and of itself. What determines your success in GW is knowing which skills work best against which opponents, and how best to equip your character to compliment the skills of the other players on your team.
Weapons. Every character in GW gets one or more, and every weapon minimally offers the ability to keep fighting (dropping an opponent's health) while allowing you to use your more powerful skills to heal, buff a teammate, debuff the other team, or attack for greater damage.
("Rest" in GW is a virtually a foreign concept, and is almost never used to recharge for another fight. You may have to retreat to heal, but there is no "rest" power that speeds this process. Fast healing and energy regen is built into the game, and is usually achieved in the time it takes to go from one mob to another.)
Weapons can also provide defensive or offensive buffs to the wielder, and require no energy to use.
Conversly, every single attack in CoH requires energy, and when you run out, you have to retreat to "rest" and regen, or you become a punching bag/shooting gallery target (especially if you're locked down/asleep/held/ or otherwise immobilized).
Weapons also increase the speed of combat during a fight. While you might have to wait for skills to recharge in GW, you never have to stop attacking while doing so. Unless you have a full tray of blues in CoH, or have hasten and stamina (nerfed thanks to ED), some builds simply can't keep up with the energy demands of a protracted battle, and are often forced to retreat to "rest" while the rest of the team fights on. It's boring and pointless.
Weapons in GW provide a scaled base of damage that can take lower-level foes down all by themselves, require no energy to use, can buff the wielder and debuff foes, and can keep you in a fight even while your more powerful skills are recharging.
CoH, OTOH, provides virtually useless "temp powers" at the lower levels of the game (you lose these by level 10) and low power/low damage attacks like "brawl" that are pointless even to load.
Weapons would address energy issues for every toon and make combat faster and more dynamic. At the very least, every toon should have a "zero energy" attack - or better - an attack that draws energy from a foe - that they can use to stay in a fight while their energy recharges.
Loot. Mobs should drop more than worthless enhancements and "salvage" for use in building bases. Why? My toons weren't even in an SG and so the salvage was completely worthless to me! How 'bout mobs that drop influence and weapons, or costume upgrades that buff offense or defense? You might argue that such would only encourage farming, but my point would be: so what?
Think about it: CoX is a subscription game. Whether someone is farming, pl'ing, doing missions, or monster hunting, what's the one thing they all have in common from a business perspective?
They're all playing the game. And people playing is what keeps subs active and money rolling in.
In this regard, Emmert's "balance vision" has done more to hurt the game than further its development. Emmert wants people to gain experience doing virtually one thing and one thing only: team up to do door missions because he thinks the story arcs are what will keep people paying to play if they only "get" them. For me, reading story arcs was stupid and pointless, and kept me from doing other things that were more fun.
At the bottom of it all, though, is that CoH lacks a loot-based, player-driven enconomy. The only "loot" that came close to this was Hammi-Os, and they were nothing but a PITA to farm. Giving people more variety (a.k.a. "content") will keep subs up longer than forcing everyone into a cookie-cutter build to play an immensely shallow cookie-cutter MMO.
IMHO.
P.S. If you want to avoid loot-stealing, griefing, and encourage greater participation in door missions, randomly drop cool loot to named players on a team inside door missions, the way GW does in its instanced world.
I, myself, prefer apples.
Coincidentally, I'm not surprised.
I prefer oranges.
Of course that's the reason, and not because WoW is based on a hit established franchise and developed by a company that's had a good reputation of making blockbuster games for years in the past.
It's 160k, btw.
I heard they are worried about getting below 100K (thus losing money). Probably they do not have a very large development team and they had a larger one in anticipation of CoV doubling their playerbase.
Unfortunately, instead of doubling their playerbase, it merely kept the game barely functioning in spite of horrible nerfs. Double and then halve your playerbase and you are left back where you started. . . except that you have hundreds of thousands of disatisfied customers who say awful things about your game.
MMOs like this would never survive in a competitive market. Luckily, MMOs are so lucrative that more and more of them are being made. I don't think anyone will ever be as stupid as Cryptic has been in the future without going under immediately. What I fail to understand is why they are so stubborn about standing by their terrible mistakes.
Actually, CoV didn't even double subs, merely increased them over CoH release by 19% (163,000 to 194,000). If subs have dropped back to 160k, that's 3k less than release, despite the game being played on 5 more servers.
Auto Assault is selling so poorly, BTW, that less than 2 months after release, that game is down to 1 server (they merged all the others into one).
All the people I know personally that were playing CoH/V have gone over to WoW. I went to Guild Wars.
I'm beginning to doubt CoH/V will die any time soon (too many rabid fanboys for that) but its numbers will always hover between mediocre and non-profitability because the gameplay remains shallow and repetitive, high level content remains the elusive holy grail, attaining levels and cool powers takes too long (it's a horrible grind) and the devs seem to spend more time and resources obsessing over balance than content or fun, the latter of which is tantamount to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
Actually, no. I hate PvP. It ruined what was once a decent game. And the 'tards that play PvP are pre-pubescent boys who just want to measure their privates. In short, it's nothing more than a boring, pecker-contest and I find it stupid and childish.
Back to you.
LOL, I totally agree grape! Just got the email about the big ole' "double xp weekend event". I noticed it mentioned, if you have an inactive account now would be a great time to come play again blahblah, something along those lines and the little blurbs from the other websites about how good CoV and CoH are leads me to believe this is a "OMFG Subs are down, hurry hurry the cash cow is starting to look like Kate Moss!" kind of attempt to up the pennybank.
Just my 2 infamy tho.
---I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm simply saving you from that hideous costume you're wearing.
The only guilds I know who still play CoH/CoV are PvP guilds. The PvE players don't really have anything to do in this game but level alts.
Though the PvP guilds I know aren't all that happy with the PvP game either. Open zones without any real prizes for "winning" are pretty lame. Haven't talked to them since Issue 7 though. Have they gotten items of power and SG bases working yet?
LOL, I never notice 1 PvP guild, they must not be THAT PvP oriented after all, I remember meeting PvP guilds in old PvE servers in EQ after all! *grin evilly*
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
It seems to me this is almost a tacit admission that they know levelling in COH is too long and tedious, and basically not a lot of fun after you get to 30 or so. After all, if levelling were fun, they wouldn't need to make it go by faster as a promotion... would they?
C
C
Actually, CoV didn't even double subs, merely increased them over CoH release by 19% (163,000 to 194,000). If subs have dropped back to 160k, that's 3k less than release, despite the game being played on 5 more servers.
Auto Assault is selling so poorly, BTW, that less than 2 months after release, that game is down to 1 server (they merged all the others into one).
All the people I know personally that were playing CoH/V have gone over to WoW. I went to Guild Wars.
I'm beginning to doubt CoH/V will die any time soon (too many rabid fanboys for that) but its numbers will always hover between mediocre and non-profitability because the gameplay remains shallow and repetitive, high level content remains the elusive holy grail, attaining levels and cool powers takes too long (it's a horrible grind) and the devs seem to spend more time and resources obsessing over balance than content or fun, the latter of which is tantamount to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Well, reading between the lines of Positron's posts, it looks like a lot of the things you wish for in your earlier post are coming to CoH. "Loot" especially.
I always liked the fact that the toon's appearance and it's functionality are completely separate, as I'm tired of games where everyone looks alike.
What CoH really needs to do to foster increased subscriptions and entice veterans to return is to add more -- and varied -- content more frequently. Issue 7 took them over 7 months to release, and there were so many game-breaking bugs in it that scores of players have left in disgust. People have lost their Friends lists, the Global chat channels disappeared and were never recovered, missions were broken, badges weren't being awarded properly... Issue 7 is easily the worst Issue they've ever released, and the long wait merely compounded the bad feelings surrounding it.
They need to release issues 8 and 9 this year, before Christmas, adding massive content and revamp unused zones and tilesets. They also need to rethink bases; of all the things in the game, that one aspect has disappointed the most players. I stopped playing back in November, only returning when they offered free reactivation. Nothing I saw during those times enticed me to resume paying, and listening to other players' complaints about the game makes me even less interested in doing so.
It seems to me this is almost a tacit admission that they know levelling in COH is too long and tedious, and basically not a lot of fun after you get to 30 or so. After all, if levelling were fun, they wouldn't need to make it go by faster as a promotion... would they?
C
The problem with their biggest changes from last year -- the Global Defense Nerf of Issue 5 and Enhancement Diversification in Issue 6 -- was that they resulted in slower levelling speeds in the higher levels. They negatively impacted the players' fun by slowing the game down while simultaneously making it more difficult.
There were some powers and powersets that were overpowered and needed to be toned down, but what they did was nerf everyone across the board. That didn't result in parity, it merely lowered the bar for everyone. The overpowered powersets were still overpowered in comparison, they just weren't as powerful as they'd previously been. If toon A's abilities went to 10 and toon B's when to 6, it makes sense to take toon A down 2 and boost toon B up 2. Instead they just lowered them both by 2, so now toon A is 8 and toon B is 4. The disparity still exists, so they have to do silly things like offer double XP as an enticement.