Originally posted by Vampires What i like more is these power levelers that play this game or any other! they either get someone to power level their toon to what ever the maximum level then enter a PVP zone get beaten then complain about how over powered certain skills are, when all that was need to beat the foe they had! I am sick and tired of listening to people go oh this is too powerful and that's too powerful! Here's an idea try learning how to play your toon! Then you might actually beat someone!
You know, some generalisation you do could hurt the feeling of some users that you wouldn't want to hurt. Let's me give you an example.
I never receive PLing myself, and I almost never give it. However, I meet a guy once in the game. He was the worst player I ever group skill-wise, but he has such a good natured attitude and was extremely kind. So I group him. Turn out after sometimes he ask if I would consider PLing him. My initial reaction wasn't nice and I am not proud of it. I didn't group that guy again with this character.
So, I start a second character after my first reach 50. I catch up to this guy and he asks me for a group when I am in his level range. I told myself, err, maybe he won't ask for PLing this time. So I group him. The guy is STILL horrible, skill-wise. But again, extremely nice. So I befriend him more. He ask for PLing again later, this time I react better, I just ignore him and keep doing our grouping. However, I reach level 50 and left him, way behind in levels, once again.
So I start my third character...I catch up again on THE SAME guy, he is STILL playing the same characters, he prolly have more online time than all my 3 toons together, despite the fact I left CoV like 2 or 3 times already, and my 3rd characters catch on him. Then I see some peoples in his guild talk trash about him, in front of him. I see him nearly crying, yet, kind, as always...extremely kind. I really want to cry myself, and I know I am silly, but even just writting now bring a tear or two to my eyes...damn me. Anyway, the point is...this guy is TRYING really hard to get to level 50, and for some reasons, he isn't going to do it alone. Maybe he has some illness, maybe he is retard, maybe, maybe, maybe...but the last thing he prolly want is to talk about it. He is PLAYING because his life is prolly wretched in a way I am better not knowing. So yeah, I did PLed this guy a little, my only regret is to not have PLed him more. Since I hit level 50 again and he was again left behind, and again he was all kindness and smiling to me, extremely nice, always. The only thing that re-comfort me, is that I put some sense into his guildies before I left, so he is prolly into better hands then he would have been with me anyway.
So, will I receive PLing myself? Nope, that is the most boring thing you can do to hurt me, I want to PLAY and earn it myself. However, in some case, I will consider giving PL to SOME players. Bottomline, you don't know with who you are playing, you don't have to do anything for anyone, but don't be so harsh against other players, even if they ask for PLing. Granted that 99% of the peoples who ask for PLing are lowly leeches (aka raiders or PvPers most likely), they deserve to be trained and kicked where I think...but...some peoples are just TRYING real hard and they are not succeeding for some reason. If someone is having such troubles and PLing is the only thing that seems to work with them, then yes, I would consider doing them such a favor...slightly, since I am selfish like everyone and I may be nice, but not always and my dedication isn't iron if there isn't something in it for me.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
My only problem with PLing is that you really dont win. the ppl that PL you will probably expect you to return the favor. That means logging onto that toon you didn't like at the first place (so you got him PL'ed)- but now you gotta repay the favor.
For PvP toons I cant lie I think its okay. Cause u gonna suck in pvp anyway no matter what. PvP is a totally diff ballgame from PvE (I saw PvE gods get torn up in PvP all the time if they are running a PvE build). I got my stalker PL'ed a little from 30-41. Lol why would anyone roll a stalker for PvE anyway their contribution isnt as good as a rad corrupter or brute but thats just how I see it
I agree with you Anofalye, but they are not the people running around on the forums. You i have played with and i know what your like, you know as well as anyone what i'm talking about. Take this topic for instance, i know as well as anyone how long it takes to get a toon to 50, hell i have 3 of them, but hey thats what it is a learning curve, you play that long and you should by the end of it know your toon and be able to play him well.
Originally posted by Motorhead Originally posted by dink
ED ruined what was once my favorite MMO for me and I keep hoping they'll fix it.
I simply don't understand statements like this.
Did ED ruin your game because you lost the ability to perma-haste?
Powers like Hasten were never meant to be perm. If they had, they would've been toggles.
ED fixed that.
My Claws/Regen Scrapper is just as effective now as he was pre-ED, and I have the PvP badge to prove it.
um, so why'd it take so long for ED to be implemented? did the devs just not NOTICE how people were slotting powers for a year?
lots of implications to consider there...
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
On one level I can't believe I'm explaining ED 14 months after it came out. On the other hand, they never really did a great job of explaining it themselves. And they didn't do any favors coming up with the lie "Enhancement Diversification". It was, along with the Issue 5 nerfs, a "Character Convergence", and on that scale fairly successful.
OK firstly, CoH was designed by a History Major. A lot of the questions like "are they that stupid?" Yes, yes they are. Very bad at math, and for a long time simply acting like it didn't matter. Powers were designed around concept, not balance, and if something was demonstrated out of whack they just took another guess. And it's true PvP really brought that kind of thing into focus, but there was plenty of evidence that they had a problem simply based off of PvE.
Let's consider Tanks for a moment, specifically the easy to consider (and then-popular) Fire and Invulnerability tanks. A good tanker easily hit the 90% cap. And had Dull Pain and Invincibility or Healing Flames on top of it. On the other hand a bad tanker (and I saw many) who skipped crucial powers or slotted wrong could have as little as zero. To say nothing of taunt ability. That meant some tankers were up to 20 times as powerful as others. Now as a min/maxer myself, that's something I enjoyed - knowing that my choices made me so much better than I could have been. But it's not really healthy for the game.
For one thing, say I see a tank flagged on the LFT list. How do I know who I'm getting? With swings that much, it absolutely matters - one can carry the team, the other has to be carried by them. This created bad feeling, and in both directions. If we need a good tank it sucks finding one without armors. On the other hand, plenty of tanks (especially pre-burn-nerf fire) merely saw the rest of the team as padding. More than a few were real jerks about it too: "NO KNOCKBACK, SLOWS, STUNS, RAINS, IMMOBILIZES, OR I'M LEAVING. ALSO DON'T ATTACK UNTIL THEY'RE ON TOP OF ME. IN FACT, JUST STAND BY THE DOOR."
Which leads to the question of difficulty, one of the things talked about a lot those days. Many many people said Invincible difficulty was too easy. And it was. Some days it still is. Yet for a few, heroic was a little tough. How the heck do you design challenging missions for that? And remember, you just recently learned that you suck at math.
It was untenable. Even with a higher difficulty for the "haves", that would just separate them further from the "have-nots." It also creates other problems when enemies designed to peter out at 30 need to exist at 33, 34 just to fulfill the mission. And even then it's swingy - you're well into one-shotting "squishes" if a lone enemy loses taunt momentarily, or a miss streak on holds creates a bad spot. That's a weird way to balance offense/defense even if everyone was at the same level. Which remember, they are not.
Add in the concept of buffs. Assault was a joke on it's own level, but what would it have had to be to be good? Power + 5 SOs + Build Up is approaching 400% of the coded damage of a power. Is 20% all that good? 20% of base is only 5% boost to existing damage in that case - so some defender offering a 20% buff really isn't really all that noticeable in their contribution. Worse is something like a resistance debuff. Sonic was still new when ED happened but the question was already being asked: Why do we need resistance buffs when the tank is already at the cap? Bubblers had put up with that longer but at least they offered something different and un-cappable.
And lastly, no one was asking for nerfs directly but many many posts were made requesting changes. They generally took the form "it's not fair that set X can do this and we can't, so give us more." Well with power already pushing several levels higher than intended and the above problems stirring about, it would be silly to push anyone else higher. Anyone requesting "balance" was making the case for balancing down, they just didn't know it. And there were lots of them.
Again, I had the same psychological reaction as a lot of you: "My character is getting weaker, that's now why I play!" But I have only to look at other MMOs where gaining a new power means maybe a 2% damage boost, to know that adding 3 x 38.3% is asking for trouble. And when you get right down to it, it is psychological. We only complain about what is because we know what was. Also, ever notice that when a power gets a 40% nerf there are complaints up and down, but if it gets a 40% boost nothing but praise? Both ways is them admitting they screwed up the first time, so it's not exactly a complaint about their balancing skills.
(And I notice the people who complain about i5 and ED nerfs slowing down their game always forget to mention the straight-up 25% xp boost for any enemies above level 25 that was included with i5. If you still run your teams on invincible, and many do, the net change is leveing 25% faster isn't it?)
Beyond it all, and this will be my closing word on the subject, the response to any complaint about slow leveling is the same: What the heck is your hurry? Nothing magic happens at 50, you just run out of storylines. Maybe, maybe in issue 9 that will change. Until then, playing the game for 50 hours is playing for 50 hours, whether I get 15 levels out of it or 5.
Since I didn't see anyone actually answer the Question here about GRIND.
...No, no they didn't. Issue-8 only added "Veteran Rewards" and 1 more Zone with the same crap you've fought 100+ times by now. And the Vet rewards only offer 2 powers which are UNENHANCEABLE ...both in Slotting, and Damage Buffs which means they pretty much have no impact on the 25+ level ranges anyway. Issue-9 Or Inventions (whichever comes first) is also extremely unlikely to tackle the issue of grind. ...This is because the Bozo who originally handled "Rewards" (Aka: XP, Drops, Badges, Etc) and Totally short-changed all of us when Issue-5 and E.D. came out... Was PROMOTED to Lead Designer. So if you expect to see any better rewards, well you've got a long effing wait ahead of you. ...Hell they're still trying to figure out why SuperGroup Bases were a flop, so don't expect them to wrap their heads around the Exponential GRIND they created and never addressed. ...And don't ask 'em either, you'll just get some BS excuse about "outleveling Content" followed by more BS on why they refuse to allow players to "flash back" to the "Content" they've ALREADY missed.
Beyond it all, and this will be my closing word on the subject, the response to any complaint about slow leveling is the same: What the heck is your hurry? Nothing magic happens at 50, you just run out of storylines. Maybe, maybe in issue 9 that will change. Until then, playing the game for 50 hours is playing for 50 hours, whether I get 15 levels out of it or 5.
Well any PvPer will tell you their hurry to Level 50 is so that they can compete. Contrary to popular belief, a level 30 will infact get steamrolled by a level 50 in Siren's Call. Enhancements makes all the difference. And if you belong to a hardcore SG that does competitions in Arena, then the requirement is that you hit 50. Sometimes an SG might decide they need more brutes, defenders, etc to farm end game content- so then that puts pressure on members to level the needed toons to fulfill the roles
Other times players might just want to reach cap quickly just so they can get that brand new power they're anxious to try. Also, the repititiveness can also drag players down a bit. It's not really the repitition that really drives the stake in for me- its really a lot of other factors such as certain powersets being way weaker than others (thus I got to the point I had no other toons I could roll cause from a min/max point of view I tried all the villains), pvp not being fully supported, unbalanced pvp between hero/villain, and many other things. These are just my personal qualms. I didnt play heroes though so that is a factor. only made one scrapper in which I felt was fully developed at level 34. I didnt think Focused Accuracy was worth grinding for. On my EM/ELA brute stuck with her for pvp after 40cause none of the brute epics seemed good at all besides web grenade (which was only good for PvP lol). Seriously Villains got screwed on their epic powers. I can tell the CoH lead designer was fairly decent but then after he got asked to leave some lazy one took over for villains
As far as I can tell to fix Dominators Cryptic instead nerfed Controllers. Not sure why they find it so difficult to buff Doms to make them worth playing
They finally fixed Fury and /Fire for brutes. If they would just only focus on making the powersets more fun and add new ones then I think that'll make the game more fun. Right now Energy Melee is copied across like 6-7 ATs (too lazy to count right now). I think they should've put more effort into developing original content.
edit- good post you made though has some good points justy giving my point of view
Right Baff... and in doing so, they nerfed every experienced player in the game and increased the time it takes to level by an average of 40% on all Sets, not just the Minmaxx combos. Levels 29 through 49 are still a miserable grind in most cases where many players just stop playing their Heroes/Villains with any kind of consistancy, instead opting to roll Alts because gaining new powers and trying new combinations is really the ONLY gameplay there is. ...And that has been a constant complaint since day one That the Devs have KNOWN to exist. But instead of focusing on making Faster Leveling, new Scripted missions, new Mission types, new Powers, and new things in general to do in the game, they focussed most of their resources on BASES and BADGES which introduce even MORE GRIND in the form of collecting "Prestige" and Kill-Quotas on only certain types of Mobs (Which is also one of the most-hated "Tasks disguised as Content" in the MMO universe).
The Devs have known all along that the only replay value this game holds to most sane average people, is in the concept and costume customization of the Character when you first make it, and then later in the powers gained by leveling. ....When leveling slows to a crawl like it often does in the late 20's, it quickly becomes apparent to the player that there's no reason to continue. ...and adding more Temp Powers or "L00t" to that range won't help either b/c it only addresses 1 of those things at a time. .....when what players really want to keep them going is: New Powers AND the ability to start customizing those new powers right when they first get them. No one wants to grind for 20-30+ hours just to get their next new power. But in CoH/CoV it seems to be the Status Quo after 25. Infact it is one of the slowest leveling games in the industry which is a horrible combo when you consider that Instanced Combat against Scaled-to-Level/GroupSize Mobs is the only real Content the game has had to offer for 3 years.
Originally posted by vajuras Well any PvPer will tell you their hurry to Level 50 is so that they can compete. Contrary to popular belief, a level 30 will infact get steamrolled by a level 50 in Siren's Call.
That is a good point and I didn't mean to skip over it. I guess my own PvE bias made me forget about that. And while I can bring a low-30 into Siren's Call and do ok (hampered more by my lack of skill than by lack of extra slots), there's no denying that being 50 would help. I can certainly understand wanting to get to that point to PvP better.
However, a lot of the people who are good at that tell me it was extensive PvE that honed their skills, so that when they switched to PvE they were learning how to adapt their play, not learning how to play. Take that for whatever it's worth, I just pass it on.
And incidentally, I think sometimes the best level for PvP is 47. The 1 power and 6 extra slots are often not as worthwhile as having all your enhancements (including HOs and SHOs) be +3.
I didnt think Focused Accuracy was worth grinding for.
I leave it turned off most of the time. But then again, see above about my preferences.
If they would just only focus on making the powersets more fun and add new ones then I think that'll make the game more fun. Right now Energy Melee is copied across like 6-7 ATs (too lazy to count right now). I think they should've put more effort into developing original content.
I certainly agree there. My subscription goes on and off month-by-month, but I've played with every single playset to at least a reasonable level. So you'd think armed with that info they'd realize that more powersets translates directly into more revenue for them.
Actually, what I would really like to see are a few more power Pools. By the time you get to the high levels you can generally predict the build based on the powersets, with very minor deviations. For that reason I think the early 20s are an interesting time. Light on powers, even lighter on slots, but with SOs available - there are some fun variations to see, even ones I'd never be caught dead with myself.
Originally posted by iller new Scripted missions, new Mission types
I want to be on board with this, but perhaps I lack imagination. Currently there are:
Hunts Ambushes (inside & outside of missions) Defeat all / Defeat boss & nearby mobs (Treating these as basically the same) Find the glowies Prevent the escape Take/free a hostage and lead them out Protect an item from destruction Mayhems Safeguards AV fight (the dynamics are different than normal fights) Monster fights outdoors And then some custom things in the PvP zones
Specifically, what types of mission would you like to see added?
New enemies, always. New powers for me, see above. New maps and tilesets, please! But new mission types? What would you like to see that isn't an extension of above? And I have less MMO experience than many but that already seems like more variety than most MMOs give. That doesn't mean more variety wouldn't be good, I'm just not armed with enough specifics to join you in asking.
-Onslaught (Survive against waves during a count-down timer)
-A LOT more scenarios involving Combat/Support NPC's (these help alleviate AT imbalances)
-Large Scale battles/seiges with Combat NPCs (like the ones found in Hotspots)
-NonCombative tasks: Espionage, "Stealth"ing, (They actually REMOVED this as an option, the retards)
-REAL Exploration missions/bonuses
-A guaranteed Level-up for every Major Story-Arc completed
-XP bonuses on timed-missions based on time completed in.
-Side missions that require answers/Knowledge of previous Storyline details
-"Skill misisions" that would reward an ENHANCEABLE temporary power for a couple days.
-"F-Corp/Crey sponsored missions" that would reward pure Inf, Salvage, & Prestige.
-"Arch-Nemesis" system allowing players to use Basebuilding tools to construct missions that players from the opposing faction could enter, and then face the mission creater as the End-Boss if they so choose.
For the peoples talking about ED, I5, I2-I6 or any other nerf.
The main problematic with ANY nerf, is that the players are there to PROGRESS. Once this point is understood, nearly any nerf is unacceptable (post-release), no matter how unbalancing something may seems. The point is not to know if you can adapt to a nerf, it is that you REGRESS.
I was soloing AVs. There is nothing you can do to remove that from my memory, and I actually had a blast against Valkyrie (Battle Maiden, her evil version), she kill me once, then twice, then I kill her...all in the same fight, using Revive. The fact she can't 1 shot me, yet can 2 shots me, it was FUN and challenging. Yeah, I was 1 shotted quite often, I did died a LOT more back then, when I was overpowered, because I was taking insane risks and playing crazy while afterward I start been carefull, aka not heroic. Ymne my scrapper was a hero back then. Just like in the movies, and it actually make me enjoy the game a LOT. Someone that would have not been afraid to say NO to anything that seems wrong, even a Nuclear warhead wouldn't have stop her; a modern character would be careful and may hide (my PB was not really a hero)...back then, it was a silly notion, I was heroic, I was dying a LOT, but it was all FUN. When a fire tanker was a jerk, I was trying to finish the mission before he can even zone in! I can be a jerk to. See, someone who zone twice or tripple and didn't get the mission bonus as a I complete the mission too fast...hehe, suck to be you! A regen scrapper was great FUN. Challenge is only a component among the fun factor, not the only component by any mean. A regen scrapper, even as overpowering as it was at it best, was still not a tank. I couldn't tank in a group of 8, and the defenders, they can't heal me, I was dead of intact. Not like someone with healing can do anything, dead or intact, heals were useless, it was part of the charm. However, all buffs where incredibly powerful as with my regen...it was extremely powerful. I still think that the dead or intact character have a LOT of charms and appeal and I don't see that happening in ANY MMO, which is sad. The defender is still quite usefull, all the group but 1 need healing...and the buffs are extremely neat, any regen scrapper, no matter how strong, would have /poke the empathy defender for the buffs! Shake it, it might buff you!
I don't care how "needed" was the nerf against IH, I still don't accept it; never will. You gave me a toy, you can't take it back. There is no other way. I never see the fire tankers as a problematic myself, nor the blasters...haha not like their sorry excuse of dps/regen/tanking combo could even think of soloing an AV!
See, that is still what I believe, as a player, and some of the nerfs I remember date all the way back to I2. Balance, challenge, whatever, it hold water when it compare to PROGRESS. My first toon was not my scrapper, I didn't like him and switch to my scrapper, which I like. ED completely destroy that notion of progress, once and for all. I can't play CoH because I rage as I remember. I like challenges, not at the expanse of progresses however.
AVs where not meant to be soloed, the game didn't hold any challenge in what was meant to be done, so I found the challenges I could, and I adapt to what was present. Now, you take away what I have? Nope, it doesn't work like that. If nothing is challenging, then I will try to better myself, to do better, find a secondary type of challenge. When you nerf me, you destroy everything, all my comparaison, the game is dead, and it is a new game that remember me what I lost and was not allowed to complete.
Despite everything you may say against CoH, it was popular at release and it lost a great deal of players, peoples who PROGRESS and didn't accept to regress, and they are rightfully refusing those nasty changes. Once you gave to a player, it belong to that player and can't be removed, ever.
PS: This point of view toward nerf is only concerning the game from a PvE point of view, how the powers act in PvP could be completely different and nerfing in PvP-exclusive areas is prolly necessary, but PvE-wise, nerfs are nearly always unwelcome.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Even in the supposed 'god-mode' days, I and my teammates died plenty. Whether it was an AV or herding 3-4 mobs of Nemesis in PI, it still happened and we still had fun. The game can still be fun but the feats we used to accomplish make the game look less 'super' now. I agree, we could make our own challenge back then. The difficulty slider helped everyone(my 50 FF defender still can't go higher than Tenacious solo) from me who knows the game pretty well to my friend who is used to consoles and still gets flustered fighting 4 even con minions(he has less than 2 months experience).
As far as progress, I hope the Invention system will fill in some missing holes in the game.
And Anofalye, I recently have been playing my Claws/Regen(now 44) the most and was not impressed with IH. I do well enough with Health, Integration, and Fast Healing. I asked around and many players said you could avoid it. Moment of Glory is pretty fun except the times you hit it one second too late or hit it and die immediately after. Some fights though, it's still fun to hear the occasional "RUN!!!" comment after the rest of the team wiped and you manage to clear the room for your comrades.
But overall, yeah, I found the pre-I5/ED game much more fun and frantic than now. When you got into your 40s back then, you noticed a big jump in feats accomplished. . . like you said PROGRESS.
Thanks for the response iller. However, I'm not going to go easy on you:
-Zone/Flag capturing
Siren's Call and Recluse's Victory, each of which do it in a unique way and manage to add PvE to an an essentially PvP game.
They could code a literal "Capture the Flag" zone, but I'm dubious how successful it would be. Firstly, I'd shut off travel powers zone-wide, and stealth powers whenever you control the flag. (Because it would suck to be "flag's gone ... zone reset".) And of course that raises problems with, say, Kinetics that someone smarter than I would have to solve. That aside, I think there's premise for it. But it requires a whole zone (or Arena setting). And more importantly, this is PvP - it doesn't do anything to "stop the grind with new mission types" which was the challenge.
-King of the Hill
I think Warburg was somewhat supposed to touch on that. The "hill" in that case being a scientist. I'll be the first to say it doesn't play that way, and they could go back to trying it. The Siren's Call "bounty" system is also in that area. They could do more with it.
Again though, that's PvP. It doesn't stop the grind with a new mission type.
-Onslaught (Survive against waves during a count-down timer)
Already exists, it's not even that rare. And there are two types, even better than you asked for. "Ambushes" if they're attacking you, and "Protect the item from destruction" if they're attacking the item behind you.
-A LOT more scenarios involving Combat/Support NPC's (these help alleviate AT imbalances)
They're moving in that direction. I agree they can do more. The ability didn't even exist until a year and a half ago though, and you can definitely see how missions designed since then have more and more of it.
Also note that every mission has combat NPCs if you get Shivan Shards. Not that anyone would play it that way, but I'm illustrating that the increase of temp power pets shows movement in that direction as well.
-Large Scale battles/seiges with Combat NPCs (like the ones found in Hotspots)
Now this I like. Hotspots are my single favorite thing in any PvP zone, and on the shortlist for the whole game. Because they tap in to one of the game's strengths - one vs many combat that many MMOs avoid. Of course the problem is that it's damager-friendly; healing a Longbow won't give me credit for his kills. Friendly NPCs in an instance can fix that. This is a Guild Wars type of approach, no?
Now the Devil's Advocate wants to say this: you're just replaccing teammates. You can take any mission and get friendly objects and larger spawns simply by inviting other players. Now I know a lot of people say they like soloing in MMOs. And looking at how CoV was designed tells me they know this. So I don't mind going in that direction. I just have this voice worrying that on the grand scale it diminishes the experience rather than enhancing it.
My next concern is actually more substantial. I go into this mission, kick off the battle, then hide and sit back while collecting free xp. Then I reset just before my side loses, or if I can get another mission I just let them lose. Makes ProgressQuest look active.
That said, this inspires me to think of a different way to do the difficulty slider. Instead of having one slider alternately doing two things, I'd have two sliders - one for level and one for size. That way you could get three or even four times as many enemies in a mission if you wanted. Not exactly brand new but a way to give me directly what I'd normally get by herding.
-NonCombative tasks: Espionage, "Stealth"ing, (They actually REMOVED this as an option, the retards)
While I wasn't a fan of the changes they made, (even less so of the ones pushed and withdrawn about a year ago), they're not quite as mentally challenged as you claim. That was right before they introduced newspaper missions, which have "get the object" as a frequent goal. You really think it would have been a good idea to have players run mission after mission and never even fight anyone? That is so many more times the grind than what we have now.
And stealthing isn't removed, just diminished. I routinely use this technique in TFs, and sometimes when soloing as well. It just means I have to be more careful, or consider taking out the enemies around the object. That's not a bad thing.
As for non-combat tasks, yeah, long requested there. Much easier said than done though. Knock on wood that inventions help here.
-REAL Exploration missions/bonuses -A guaranteed Level-up for every Major Story-Arc completed
"Free XP" is not a mission type
-XP bonuses on timed-missions based on time completed in.
That's a neat idea. Does it help stop the "grind" though? People who do the mission faster are already getting better xp/min. All this does is increase the disparity for slow levelers.
-Side missions that require answers/Knowledge of previous Storyline details
That's interesting. Not quite the same value on replay, and subject to fansites giving away the answers, but a fun idea.
-"Skill misisions" that would reward an ENHANCEABLE temporary power for a couple days.
Not a new mission inherently, just a new pitch around it. I like the approach of a nice explanation tying the mission to the power, but I don't know if enhanceable temps is worth the trouble to write it. There have been "respec failed" problems all over just from the simpler act of adding permanent powers via vet rewards. I'll settle for them remaining buffable.
-"F-Corp/Crey sponsored missions" that would reward pure Inf, Salvage, & Prestige.
I really don't think missions that don't give xp are the way to stop the grind.
-"Arch-Nemesis" system allowing players to use Basebuilding tools to construct missions that players from the opposing faction could enter, and then face the mission creater as the End-Boss if they so choose.
Closest you're likely to get is base raids, and you'd have to agree those haven't exactly taken off. Not that it isn't fun, but it's just way too hard to slide into existing architecture.
For what it's worth, every so often I make some notes toward an MMO design of my own. (Never going to happen, just for kicks) and one of the things I definitely want from the ground-up is users changing the environment as they play to make the game less predictable.
Still, not going to happen here. For the work required to get that going they could practically make a new game.
...stuff like that...
OK, well most of what you're asking for is more of what they've already been doing - mostly stuff really invented or increased in the last 18 months. Yet I don't see you giving a lot of credit for those things fighting "the grind." If that's what you want, you really ought to appreciate what they're already doing.
That said, I'm adding "better integration of friendly NPCs" and "situationally boosted spawn sizes", potentionally in conjunction, to suggestions slipped in Dev-read threads where appropriate.
That's great and all, but all your examples are still currently limited to very specific parts of the game and none of them are particularly rewarding XP-wise... I know, I've done all of them. No, 80-90% of our leveling is spent doing the same exact Defeat-Alls or Defeat-Named-Bosses that are just reiterations of themselves. I'll give them credit when they actually start applying these new missions types to alleviating the Grind and giving XP values that are worth the effort put in... which they have thus far failed to do. And please keep in mind, that in later levels, it can still take 30-40 missions to levelup because the level curve is so exponential... and if only 5 of those mission introduce anything unique, then it really doesn't matter HOW MANY different mission types could potentially exists through the game. ...Nevermind the fact that most of the time when we pick missions, we only are given 2 or 3 choices(1 of which is usually a quota or against a Villain Group that our AT might be weak against).
The central grind problem is lack of content. There simply isnt enough to do in CoH. Not enough enemies. Not enough zones. And the devs dont undersand this. How can I tell?
CoV.
After two years with no significant infusions of content the first expansion adds NO NEW ZONES to the core game. Yes, now you can play a villain. But would it have actually been that hard to make the new zones playable by both heroes and villains and re-work the old zones playable from the villains perspective? I dunno. Perhaps. But I know that now instead of having 50% more content for my heroic characters to explore as they level, I can play this other game. And then theres the whole question of why they didnt just add five new classes to the game, and make all ten classes possible heroes or villains. *boggle*
The lack of content becomes REALLY keenly felt when you hit 30+ because of the exponential increases in xp.
I'm continuously amazed that CoX hasnt collapsed. It has a lot going for it, but I can only assume that most of the current players either have never played a game that doesnt have that level of grind, or else they REALLY, REALLY like supers.
I play WoW now. The core gameplay in CoH is better, particularly in groups, but I've been playing WoW for two years, and I'm STILL discovering places I have never seen before (in the lower level zones) and quests for alliance that I've never seen (I played mostly horde). Oh. And the advancement is faster. So not only do I have more choices of what to do to level, but I dont end up doing the same content over and over just to punch out a level.
"Did ED ruin your game because you lost the ability to perma-haste?"
How about because they completely ****ed over a number of powersets like super reflex scrappers and force field defenders? Not only does ED effectively cut in half how much defense these powers can provide (as if super reflexes was not the weakest of the scrapper sets), but they also cut the base numbers for defense in half. So, you can now only get half of the defensive boost on half of the original number.
I am tired of hearing /regen scrappers talking about perma-hasten as if that is an excuse for ED. /Regen was the most powerful scrapper set to begin with, and their ding from ED was minimal. I find hasten, health, and stamina to be needed far more often now than pre-ED, so the entire 'reduces the need for 'x' power' argument is null and void.
As such, touting your claw/regen scrapper, hardly among the bottom 3/4 of scrapper sets to begin with, and your pvp record with it is completely pointless. ED did little to that powerset compared to what it did to other powersets.
I am not saying that ED ruined CoX for me, but it sure put a damper on my favourite characters, former scrappers turned squishies. I have hardly touched what was my fav, a kat/sr, since shortly after ED was put in. I tried, I respec'ed for the changes, I still like the character, but it is like playing a blaster now with-out the benefit of range.
What i like more is these power levelers that play this game or any other! they either get someone to power level their toon to what ever the maximum level then enter a PVP zone get beaten then complain about how over powered certain skills are, when all that was need to beat the foe they had! I am sick and tired of listening to people go oh this is too powerful and that's too powerful! Here's an idea try learning how to play your toon! Then you might actually beat someone!
Okay, this is pretty off topic. . . I just wanted to state that this isn't my problem with ED. My problem is the advancement rate. I like leveling up my own toons, but after level 25-30 it really feels like I don't really get a level except on the levels when I get a new power. Thus what used to be a fun, but slow progression, became a painful and boring grind.
I'm not a powergamer that needs max level super-fast and I even liked the Issue 5 changes where they patched up some of the exploits. There are new ones, though they aren't as "powerful" as the Issue 5 ones. Well, there were new ones the last time I played at least - about 6 months after CoV was out. I don't know if they've fixed them. However, I didn't use them because I'm not a powergamer. I was tempted to do so because the grind was so bad, but I LIKE doing missions. . . I just want to feel rewarded when I ding and not like all I'm getting are enhancement slots that don't improve my character in any significant way.
(And I notice the people who complain about i5 and ED nerfs slowing down their game always forget to mention the straight-up 25% xp boost for any enemies above level 25 that was included with i5. If you still run your teams on invincible, and many do, the net change is leveing 25% faster isn't it?) Beyond it all, and this will be my closing word on the subject, the response to any complaint about slow leveling is the same: What the heck is your hurry? Nothing magic happens at 50, you just run out of storylines. Maybe, maybe in issue 9 that will change. Until then, playing the game for 50 hours is playing for 50 hours, whether I get 15 levels out of it or 5.
Amarsir - I snipped out the great parts of your post to focus on the things I had a problem with, and it was a great post. I played the heck out of CoH and your analysis of how and why the system was broken and thus why they implemented ED is great.
Here's the thing though. I'm not worried about the amount of time to ding a new level. I'm worried about the fact that the new levels after 25 are really unexciting because so many of them only give enhancement slots that are not useful and thus it really doesn't change the way I play or enhance my character.
Yes, the system was broken very badly. ED may have fixed game balance, but it wrecked the hell out of the game's advancement rate. If I'm only getting a "real" ding every other level because I only need 3 additional enhancement slots/power (and less than that sometimes) then I really need about 75-100% xp boost to get back to the old advancement rate. Levels that grant you nothing useful are not really advancing.
Also, I'm not in a hurry to get to 50 on any of my characters. . . I just want to see progression on them. Getting stronger is part of the fun in MMOs for me.
ED ruined what was once my favorite MMO for me and I keep hoping they'll fix it.
I simply don't understand statements like this.
Did ED ruin your game because you lost the ability to perma-haste?
Powers like Hasten were never meant to be perm. If they had, they would've been toggles.
ED fixed that.
My Claws/Regen Scrapper is just as effective now as he was pre-ED, and I have the PvP badge to prove it.
This is a fairly uninformed statement. Hasten originally needed 2---yes 2--recharge enhancements to be permanent. They extended the recharge duration of it so that having exactly 6 made it permanent. If they didn't want it to be permanently available, it would have an even longer recharge from the outset. This sounds like the same argument that pets were never meant to be resummonable poast a single set even though they took recharge enhancements.
Well dink i agree with you that it was a little of subject, but the point was there. They complain about the grind and then complain about the too powerful skills!! they wouldn't have to worrie about the grind if they didn't complain about the powerful skills.
If I'm only getting a "real" ding every other level because I only need 3 additional enhancement slots/power (and less than that sometimes) then I really need about 75-100% xp boost to get back to the old advancement rate. Levels that grant you nothing useful are not really advancing.
Castle, who is one of the only real Devs there who says he'll look at problems, and then actually FIXES THEM... Was working to address this. ...Now HOW they're addressing it unfortunately, is by implimenting "L00t" in Issue-9 via "Invention" and if anyone here believes it's specifically to pep up CoH, then they are SADLY MISTAKEN b/c it's really a pre-emptive strike or Beta-Test for L00t Implenatation that they intend to put into MARVEL UNIVERSE (which is to-date, simply summed up as "CoH with L00t" thus far). But admittadly, if "Invention" really adds something that makes it worth getting those Enhancement slots which Dink is so vastly underwhelmed by right now, then that will address SOME of the issues in the 25+ game. What WON'T this l00t address though?...
For me, I was always happy to get Enhancement slots because customization is the whole reason I rolled a new character. My problem however, was in the fact that just to get that next level, I often had to do the same exact same mission type 20+ times, often times against the same Villain Groups.. meanwhile the entire reason that I was trying to level, was to get into a new level range so I could get AWAY from that same goddamned villain group and mission type. ...also n00bs... lotta damn n00bs in certain level ranges
I-9 Inventions won't make leveling go by any faster. ...Infact, it has the dangerous distinction of making the game even MORE tedious by introducing FARMING for the rarer crafting materials. If that's the case, then it could potentially worsen the percieved grind, and maybe even break the game entirely... And the guy who's building the system could unfortunately recieve a large chunk of the blame just because the idiots upstairs want to turn this game's customers into Paying-betaTesters for their next game that isn't even likely to have the same publisher. ...It makes me sick.
And the guy who's building the system could unfortunately recieve a large chunk of the blame just because the idiots upstairs want to turn this game's customers into Paying-betaTesters for their next game that isn't even likely to have the same publisher. ...It makes me sick.
1) MUO doesn't have the same publisher as CoH/V - Microsoft Games is publishing MUO; NCsoft publishes CoH/V.
2) I severely doubt that Inventions is a "beta-test" for MUO. If anything, I expect they've gone back to the drawing board for a lot of the MUO systems. And it's the same guys upstairs who developed CoH/V that is developing MUO - Statesman is in charge of both games.
Sure, a lot of the other systems, they will have gone back to.. umm... "the drawing board"... on. But Where's the loot system in CoH? There isn't one! And the Devs have already admitted they have no formal experience with a real-time economy which just so happens to be one of the primary concerns and features of this "MUO".
So, think about it again... I don't wanna sound patronizing, but What's the chance they're just going to pull a perfectly functioning Economy for MUO's l00t system out of thin air? ...Much less one that - A) Isn't "Grindy" and - Doesn't just utterly rip off the most popular competing MMO's.
Hmm.. it would seem to me then, that there's only one place they'll go to get that experience they need(and ahem... large scale DATAMINING which is really the only thing that Statesman has ever cared about), prior to launch.
Comments
You know, some generalisation you do could hurt the feeling of some users that you wouldn't want to hurt. Let's me give you an example.
I never receive PLing myself, and I almost never give it. However, I meet a guy once in the game. He was the worst player I ever group skill-wise, but he has such a good natured attitude and was extremely kind. So I group him. Turn out after sometimes he ask if I would consider PLing him. My initial reaction wasn't nice and I am not proud of it. I didn't group that guy again with this character.
So, I start a second character after my first reach 50. I catch up to this guy and he asks me for a group when I am in his level range. I told myself, err, maybe he won't ask for PLing this time. So I group him. The guy is STILL horrible, skill-wise. But again, extremely nice. So I befriend him more. He ask for PLing again later, this time I react better, I just ignore him and keep doing our grouping. However, I reach level 50 and left him, way behind in levels, once again.
So I start my third character...I catch up again on THE SAME guy, he is STILL playing the same characters, he prolly have more online time than all my 3 toons together, despite the fact I left CoV like 2 or 3 times already, and my 3rd characters catch on him. Then I see some peoples in his guild talk trash about him, in front of him. I see him nearly crying, yet, kind, as always...extremely kind. I really want to cry myself, and I know I am silly, but even just writting now bring a tear or two to my eyes...damn me. Anyway, the point is...this guy is TRYING really hard to get to level 50, and for some reasons, he isn't going to do it alone. Maybe he has some illness, maybe he is retard, maybe, maybe, maybe...but the last thing he prolly want is to talk about it. He is PLAYING because his life is prolly wretched in a way I am better not knowing. So yeah, I did PLed this guy a little, my only regret is to not have PLed him more. Since I hit level 50 again and he was again left behind, and again he was all kindness and smiling to me, extremely nice, always. The only thing that re-comfort me, is that I put some sense into his guildies before I left, so he is prolly into better hands then he would have been with me anyway.
So, will I receive PLing myself? Nope, that is the most boring thing you can do to hurt me, I want to PLAY and earn it myself. However, in some case, I will consider giving PL to SOME players. Bottomline, you don't know with who you are playing, you don't have to do anything for anyone, but don't be so harsh against other players, even if they ask for PLing. Granted that 99% of the peoples who ask for PLing are lowly leeches (aka raiders or PvPers most likely), they deserve to be trained and kicked where I think...but...some peoples are just TRYING real hard and they are not succeeding for some reason. If someone is having such troubles and PLing is the only thing that seems to work with them, then yes, I would consider doing them such a favor...slightly, since I am selfish like everyone and I may be nice, but not always and my dedication isn't iron if there isn't something in it for me.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
My only problem with PLing is that you really dont win. the ppl that PL you will probably expect you to return the favor. That means logging onto that toon you didn't like at the first place (so you got him PL'ed)- but now you gotta repay the favor.
For PvP toons I cant lie I think its okay. Cause u gonna suck in pvp anyway no matter what. PvP is a totally diff ballgame from PvE (I saw PvE gods get torn up in PvP all the time if they are running a PvE build). I got my stalker PL'ed a little from 30-41. Lol why would anyone roll a stalker for PvE anyway their contribution isnt as good as a rad corrupter or brute but thats just how I see it
I simply don't understand statements like this.
Did ED ruin your game because you lost the ability to perma-haste?
Powers like Hasten were never meant to be perm. If they had, they would've been toggles.
ED fixed that.
My Claws/Regen Scrapper is just as effective now as he was pre-ED, and I have the PvP badge to prove it.
um, so why'd it take so long for ED to be implemented? did the devs just not NOTICE how people were slotting powers for a year?
lots of implications to consider there...
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
On one level I can't believe I'm explaining ED 14 months after it came out. On the other hand, they never really did a great job of explaining it themselves. And they didn't do any favors coming up with the lie "Enhancement Diversification". It was, along with the Issue 5 nerfs, a "Character Convergence", and on that scale fairly successful.
OK firstly, CoH was designed by a History Major. A lot of the questions like "are they that stupid?" Yes, yes they are. Very bad at math, and for a long time simply acting like it didn't matter. Powers were designed around concept, not balance, and if something was demonstrated out of whack they just took another guess. And it's true PvP really brought that kind of thing into focus, but there was plenty of evidence that they had a problem simply based off of PvE.
Let's consider Tanks for a moment, specifically the easy to consider (and then-popular) Fire and Invulnerability tanks. A good tanker easily hit the 90% cap. And had Dull Pain and Invincibility or Healing Flames on top of it. On the other hand a bad tanker (and I saw many) who skipped crucial powers or slotted wrong could have as little as zero. To say nothing of taunt ability. That meant some tankers were up to 20 times as powerful as others. Now as a min/maxer myself, that's something I enjoyed - knowing that my choices made me so much better than I could have been. But it's not really healthy for the game.
For one thing, say I see a tank flagged on the LFT list. How do I know who I'm getting? With swings that much, it absolutely matters - one can carry the team, the other has to be carried by them. This created bad feeling, and in both directions. If we need a good tank it sucks finding one without armors. On the other hand, plenty of tanks (especially pre-burn-nerf fire) merely saw the rest of the team as padding. More than a few were real jerks about it too: "NO KNOCKBACK, SLOWS, STUNS, RAINS, IMMOBILIZES, OR I'M LEAVING. ALSO DON'T ATTACK UNTIL THEY'RE ON TOP OF ME. IN FACT, JUST STAND BY THE DOOR."
Which leads to the question of difficulty, one of the things talked about a lot those days. Many many people said Invincible difficulty was too easy. And it was. Some days it still is. Yet for a few, heroic was a little tough. How the heck do you design challenging missions for that? And remember, you just recently learned that you suck at math.
It was untenable. Even with a higher difficulty for the "haves", that would just separate them further from the "have-nots." It also creates other problems when enemies designed to peter out at 30 need to exist at 33, 34 just to fulfill the mission. And even then it's swingy - you're well into one-shotting "squishes" if a lone enemy loses taunt momentarily, or a miss streak on holds creates a bad spot. That's a weird way to balance offense/defense even if everyone was at the same level. Which remember, they are not.
Add in the concept of buffs. Assault was a joke on it's own level, but what would it have had to be to be good? Power + 5 SOs + Build Up is approaching 400% of the coded damage of a power. Is 20% all that good? 20% of base is only 5% boost to existing damage in that case - so some defender offering a 20% buff really isn't really all that noticeable in their contribution. Worse is something like a resistance debuff. Sonic was still new when ED happened but the question was already being asked: Why do we need resistance buffs when the tank is already at the cap? Bubblers had put up with that longer but at least they offered something different and un-cappable.
And lastly, no one was asking for nerfs directly but many many posts were made requesting changes. They generally took the form "it's not fair that set X can do this and we can't, so give us more." Well with power already pushing several levels higher than intended and the above problems stirring about, it would be silly to push anyone else higher. Anyone requesting "balance" was making the case for balancing down, they just didn't know it. And there were lots of them.
Again, I had the same psychological reaction as a lot of you: "My character is getting weaker, that's now why I play!" But I have only to look at other MMOs where gaining a new power means maybe a 2% damage boost, to know that adding 3 x 38.3% is asking for trouble. And when you get right down to it, it is psychological. We only complain about what is because we know what was. Also, ever notice that when a power gets a 40% nerf there are complaints up and down, but if it gets a 40% boost nothing but praise? Both ways is them admitting they screwed up the first time, so it's not exactly a complaint about their balancing skills.
(And I notice the people who complain about i5 and ED nerfs slowing down their game always forget to mention the straight-up 25% xp boost for any enemies above level 25 that was included with i5. If you still run your teams on invincible, and many do, the net change is leveing 25% faster isn't it?)
Beyond it all, and this will be my closing word on the subject, the response to any complaint about slow leveling is the same: What the heck is your hurry? Nothing magic happens at 50, you just run out of storylines. Maybe, maybe in issue 9 that will change. Until then, playing the game for 50 hours is playing for 50 hours, whether I get 15 levels out of it or 5.
Currently playing:
DC Universe
Planetside 2
Magic Online
Simunomics, the Massive Multiplayer Economic Simulation Game. Play for free.
...No, no they didn't. Issue-8 only added "Veteran Rewards" and 1 more Zone with the same crap you've fought 100+ times by now. And the Vet rewards only offer 2 powers which are UNENHANCEABLE ...both in Slotting, and Damage Buffs which means they pretty much have no impact on the 25+ level ranges anyway. Issue-9 Or Inventions (whichever comes first) is also extremely unlikely to tackle the issue of grind. ...This is because the Bozo who originally handled "Rewards" (Aka: XP, Drops, Badges, Etc) and Totally short-changed all of us when Issue-5 and E.D. came out... Was PROMOTED to Lead Designer. So if you expect to see any better rewards, well you've got a long effing wait ahead of you. ...Hell they're still trying to figure out why SuperGroup Bases were a flop, so don't expect them to wrap their heads around the Exponential GRIND they created and never addressed. ...And don't ask 'em either, you'll just get some BS excuse about "outleveling Content" followed by more BS on why they refuse to allow players to "flash back" to the "Content" they've ALREADY missed.
Well any PvPer will tell you their hurry to Level 50 is so that they can compete. Contrary to popular belief, a level 30 will infact get steamrolled by a level 50 in Siren's Call. Enhancements makes all the difference. And if you belong to a hardcore SG that does competitions in Arena, then the requirement is that you hit 50. Sometimes an SG might decide they need more brutes, defenders, etc to farm end game content- so then that puts pressure on members to level the needed toons to fulfill the roles
Other times players might just want to reach cap quickly just so they can get that brand new power they're anxious to try. Also, the repititiveness can also drag players down a bit. It's not really the repitition that really drives the stake in for me- its really a lot of other factors such as certain powersets being way weaker than others (thus I got to the point I had no other toons I could roll cause from a min/max point of view I tried all the villains), pvp not being fully supported, unbalanced pvp between hero/villain, and many other things. These are just my personal qualms. I didnt play heroes though so that is a factor. only made one scrapper in which I felt was fully developed at level 34. I didnt think Focused Accuracy was worth grinding for. On my EM/ELA brute stuck with her for pvp after 40cause none of the brute epics seemed good at all besides web grenade (which was only good for PvP lol). Seriously Villains got screwed on their epic powers. I can tell the CoH lead designer was fairly decent but then after he got asked to leave some lazy one took over for villains
As far as I can tell to fix Dominators Cryptic instead nerfed Controllers. Not sure why they find it so difficult to buff Doms to make them worth playing
They finally fixed Fury and /Fire for brutes. If they would just only focus on making the powersets more fun and add new ones then I think that'll make the game more fun. Right now Energy Melee is copied across like 6-7 ATs (too lazy to count right now). I think they should've put more effort into developing original content.
edit- good post you made though has some good points justy giving my point of view
They data mine.
Any combination of powers that levels too fast is a threat to their revenue stream. It flags itself for their attention.
It is human nature to seek advantage.
The Devs have known all along that the only replay value this game holds to most sane average people, is in the concept and costume customization of the Character when you first make it, and then later in the powers gained by leveling. ....When leveling slows to a crawl like it often does in the late 20's, it quickly becomes apparent to the player that there's no reason to continue. ...and adding more Temp Powers or "L00t" to that range won't help either b/c it only addresses 1 of those things at a time. .....when what players really want to keep them going is: New Powers AND the ability to start customizing those new powers right when they first get them. No one wants to grind for 20-30+ hours just to get their next new power. But in CoH/CoV it seems to be the Status Quo after 25. Infact it is one of the slowest leveling games in the industry which is a horrible combo when you consider that Instanced Combat against Scaled-to-Level/GroupSize Mobs is the only real Content the game has had to offer for 3 years.
However, a lot of the people who are good at that tell me it was extensive PvE that honed their skills, so that when they switched to PvE they were learning how to adapt their play, not learning how to play. Take that for whatever it's worth, I just pass it on.
And incidentally, I think sometimes the best level for PvP is 47. The 1 power and 6 extra slots are often not as worthwhile as having all your enhancements (including HOs and SHOs) be +3.
I leave it turned off most of the time.Actually, what I would really like to see are a few more power Pools. By the time you get to the high levels you can generally predict the build based on the powersets, with very minor deviations. For that reason I think the early 20s are an interesting time. Light on powers, even lighter on slots, but with SOs available - there are some fun variations to see, even ones I'd never be caught dead with myself.
I want to be on board with this, but perhaps I lack imagination. Currently there are:Hunts
Ambushes (inside & outside of missions)
Defeat all / Defeat boss & nearby mobs (Treating these as basically the same)
Find the glowies
Prevent the escape
Take/free a hostage and lead them out
Protect an item from destruction
Mayhems
Safeguards
AV fight (the dynamics are different than normal fights)
Monster fights outdoors
And then some custom things in the PvP zones
Specifically, what types of mission would you like to see added?
New enemies, always. New powers for me, see above. New maps and tilesets, please! But new mission types? What would you like to see that isn't an extension of above? And I have less MMO experience than many but that already seems like more variety than most MMOs give. That doesn't mean more variety wouldn't be good, I'm just not armed with enough specifics to join you in asking.
Currently playing:
DC Universe
Planetside 2
Magic Online
Simunomics, the Massive Multiplayer Economic Simulation Game. Play for free.
-King of the Hill
-Onslaught (Survive against waves during a count-down timer)
-A LOT more scenarios involving Combat/Support NPC's (these help alleviate AT imbalances)
-Large Scale battles/seiges with Combat NPCs (like the ones found in Hotspots)
-NonCombative tasks: Espionage, "Stealth"ing, (They actually REMOVED this as an option, the retards)
-REAL Exploration missions/bonuses
-A guaranteed Level-up for every Major Story-Arc completed
-XP bonuses on timed-missions based on time completed in.
-Side missions that require answers/Knowledge of previous Storyline details
-"Skill misisions" that would reward an ENHANCEABLE temporary power for a couple days.
-"F-Corp/Crey sponsored missions" that would reward pure Inf, Salvage, & Prestige.
-"Arch-Nemesis" system allowing players to use Basebuilding tools to construct missions that players from the opposing faction could enter, and then face the mission creater as the End-Boss if they so choose.
...stuff like that...
For the peoples talking about ED, I5, I2-I6 or any other nerf.
The main problematic with ANY nerf, is that the players are there to PROGRESS. Once this point is understood, nearly any nerf is unacceptable (post-release), no matter how unbalancing something may seems. The point is not to know if you can adapt to a nerf, it is that you REGRESS.
I was soloing AVs. There is nothing you can do to remove that from my memory, and I actually had a blast against Valkyrie (Battle Maiden, her evil version), she kill me once, then twice, then I kill her...all in the same fight, using Revive. The fact she can't 1 shot me, yet can 2 shots me, it was FUN and challenging. Yeah, I was 1 shotted quite often, I did died a LOT more back then, when I was overpowered, because I was taking insane risks and playing crazy while afterward I start been carefull, aka not heroic. Ymne my scrapper was a hero back then. Just like in the movies, and it actually make me enjoy the game a LOT. Someone that would have not been afraid to say NO to anything that seems wrong, even a Nuclear warhead wouldn't have stop her; a modern character would be careful and may hide (my PB was not really a hero)...back then, it was a silly notion, I was heroic, I was dying a LOT, but it was all FUN. When a fire tanker was a jerk, I was trying to finish the mission before he can even zone in! I can be a jerk to. See, someone who zone twice or tripple and didn't get the mission bonus as a I complete the mission too fast...hehe, suck to be you! A regen scrapper was great FUN. Challenge is only a component among the fun factor, not the only component by any mean. A regen scrapper, even as overpowering as it was at it best, was still not a tank. I couldn't tank in a group of 8, and the defenders, they can't heal me, I was dead of intact. Not like someone with healing can do anything, dead or intact, heals were useless, it was part of the charm. However, all buffs where incredibly powerful as with my regen...it was extremely powerful. I still think that the dead or intact character have a LOT of charms and appeal and I don't see that happening in ANY MMO, which is sad. The defender is still quite usefull, all the group but 1 need healing...and the buffs are extremely neat, any regen scrapper, no matter how strong, would have /poke the empathy defender for the buffs! Shake it, it might buff you!
I don't care how "needed" was the nerf against IH, I still don't accept it; never will. You gave me a toy, you can't take it back. There is no other way. I never see the fire tankers as a problematic myself, nor the blasters...haha not like their sorry excuse of dps/regen/tanking combo could even think of soloing an AV!
See, that is still what I believe, as a player, and some of the nerfs I remember date all the way back to I2. Balance, challenge, whatever, it hold water when it compare to PROGRESS. My first toon was not my scrapper, I didn't like him and switch to my scrapper, which I like. ED completely destroy that notion of progress, once and for all. I can't play CoH because I rage as I remember. I like challenges, not at the expanse of progresses however.
AVs where not meant to be soloed, the game didn't hold any challenge in what was meant to be done, so I found the challenges I could, and I adapt to what was present. Now, you take away what I have? Nope, it doesn't work like that. If nothing is challenging, then I will try to better myself, to do better, find a secondary type of challenge. When you nerf me, you destroy everything, all my comparaison, the game is dead, and it is a new game that remember me what I lost and was not allowed to complete.
Despite everything you may say against CoH, it was popular at release and it lost a great deal of players, peoples who PROGRESS and didn't accept to regress, and they are rightfully refusing those nasty changes. Once you gave to a player, it belong to that player and can't be removed, ever.
PS: This point of view toward nerf is only concerning the game from a PvE point of view, how the powers act in PvP could be completely different and nerfing in PvP-exclusive areas is prolly necessary, but PvE-wise, nerfs are nearly always unwelcome.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I will second that "Thank you".
Even in the supposed 'god-mode' days, I and my teammates died plenty. Whether it was an AV or herding 3-4 mobs of Nemesis in PI, it still happened and we still had fun. The game can still be fun but the feats we used to accomplish make the game look less 'super' now. I agree, we could make our own challenge back then. The difficulty slider helped everyone(my 50 FF defender still can't go higher than Tenacious solo) from me who knows the game pretty well to my friend who is used to consoles and still gets flustered fighting 4 even con minions(he has less than 2 months experience).
As far as progress, I hope the Invention system will fill in some missing holes in the game.
And Anofalye, I recently have been playing my Claws/Regen(now 44) the most and was not impressed with IH. I do well enough with Health, Integration, and Fast Healing. I asked around and many players said you could avoid it. Moment of Glory is pretty fun except the times you hit it one second too late or hit it and die immediately after. Some fights though, it's still fun to hear the occasional "RUN!!!" comment after the rest of the team wiped and you manage to clear the room for your comrades.
But overall, yeah, I found the pre-I5/ED game much more fun and frantic than now. When you got into your 40s back then, you noticed a big jump in feats accomplished. . . like you said PROGRESS.
Thanks for the response iller. However, I'm not going to go easy on you:
Siren's Call and Recluse's Victory, each of which do it in a unique way and manage to add PvE to an an essentially PvP game.They could code a literal "Capture the Flag" zone, but I'm dubious how successful it would be. Firstly, I'd shut off travel powers zone-wide, and stealth powers whenever you control the flag. (Because it would suck to be "flag's gone ... zone reset".) And of course that raises problems with, say, Kinetics that someone smarter than I would have to solve. That aside, I think there's premise for it. But it requires a whole zone (or Arena setting). And more importantly, this is PvP - it doesn't do anything to "stop the grind with new mission types" which was the challenge.
I think Warburg was somewhat supposed to touch on that. The "hill" in that case being a scientist. I'll be the first to say it doesn't play that way, and they could go back to trying it. The Siren's Call "bounty" system is also in that area. They could do more with it.Again though, that's PvP. It doesn't stop the grind with a new mission type.
Already exists, it's not even that rare. And there are two types, even better than you asked for. "Ambushes" if they're attacking you, and "Protect the item from destruction" if they're attacking the item behind you.They're moving in that direction. I agree they can do more. The ability didn't even exist until a year and a half ago though, and you can definitely see how missions designed since then have more and more of it.Also note that every mission has combat NPCs if you get Shivan Shards. Not that anyone would play it that way, but I'm illustrating that the increase of temp power pets shows movement in that direction as well.
Now this I like. Hotspots are my single favorite thing in any PvP zone, and on the shortlist for the whole game. Because they tap in to one of the game's strengths - one vs many combat that many MMOs avoid. Of course the problem is that it's damager-friendly; healing a Longbow won't give me credit for his kills. Friendly NPCs in an instance can fix that. This is a Guild Wars type of approach, no?Now the Devil's Advocate wants to say this: you're just replaccing teammates. You can take any mission and get friendly objects and larger spawns simply by inviting other players. Now I know a lot of people say they like soloing in MMOs. And looking at how CoV was designed tells me they know this. So I don't mind going in that direction. I just have this voice worrying that on the grand scale it diminishes the experience rather than enhancing it.
My next concern is actually more substantial. I go into this mission, kick off the battle, then hide and sit back while collecting free xp. Then I reset just before my side loses, or if I can get another mission I just let them lose. Makes ProgressQuest look active.
That said, this inspires me to think of a different way to do the difficulty slider. Instead of having one slider alternately doing two things, I'd have two sliders - one for level and one for size. That way you could get three or even four times as many enemies in a mission if you wanted. Not exactly brand new but a way to give me directly what I'd normally get by herding.
While I wasn't a fan of the changes they made, (even less so of the ones pushed and withdrawn about a year ago), they're not quite as mentally challenged as you claim. That was right before they introduced newspaper missions, which have "get the object" as a frequent goal. You really think it would have been a good idea to have players run mission after mission and never even fight anyone? That is so many more times the grind than what we have now.And stealthing isn't removed, just diminished. I routinely use this technique in TFs, and sometimes when soloing as well. It just means I have to be more careful, or consider taking out the enemies around the object. That's not a bad thing.
As for non-combat tasks, yeah, long requested there. Much easier said than done though. Knock on wood that inventions help here.
"Free XP" is not a mission typeThat's a neat idea. Does it help stop the "grind" though? People who do the mission faster are already getting better xp/min. All this does is increase the disparity for slow levelers.That's interesting. Not quite the same value on replay, and subject to fansites giving away the answers, but a fun idea. Not a new mission inherently, just a new pitch around it. I like the approach of a nice explanation tying the mission to the power, but I don't know if enhanceable temps is worth the trouble to write it. There have been "respec failed" problems all over just from the simpler act of adding permanent powers via vet rewards. I'll settle for them remaining buffable.I really don't think missions that don't give xp are the way to stop the grind.Closest you're likely to get is base raids, and you'd have to agree those haven't exactly taken off. Not that it isn't fun, but it's just way too hard to slide into existing architecture.For what it's worth, every so often I make some notes toward an MMO design of my own. (Never going to happen, just for kicks) and one of the things I definitely want from the ground-up is users changing the environment as they play to make the game less predictable.
Still, not going to happen here. For the work required to get that going they could practically make a new game.
OK, well most of what you're asking for is more of what they've already been doing - mostly stuff really invented or increased in the last 18 months. Yet I don't see you giving a lot of credit for those things fighting "the grind." If that's what you want, you really ought to appreciate what they're already doing.That said, I'm adding "better integration of friendly NPCs" and "situationally boosted spawn sizes", potentionally in conjunction, to suggestions slipped in Dev-read threads where appropriate.
Currently playing:
DC Universe
Planetside 2
Magic Online
Simunomics, the Massive Multiplayer Economic Simulation Game. Play for free.
CoV.
After two years with no significant infusions of content the first expansion adds NO NEW ZONES to the core game. Yes, now you can play a villain. But would it have actually been that hard to make the new zones playable by both heroes and villains and re-work the old zones playable from the villains perspective? I dunno. Perhaps. But I know that now instead of having 50% more content for my heroic characters to explore as they level, I can play this other game. And then theres the whole question of why they didnt just add five new classes to the game, and make all ten classes possible heroes or villains. *boggle*
The lack of content becomes REALLY keenly felt when you hit 30+ because of the exponential increases in xp.
I'm continuously amazed that CoX hasnt collapsed. It has a lot going for it, but I can only assume that most of the current players either have never played a game that doesnt have that level of grind, or else they REALLY, REALLY like supers.
I play WoW now. The core gameplay in CoH is better, particularly in groups, but I've been playing WoW for two years, and I'm STILL discovering places I have never seen before (in the lower level zones) and quests for alliance that I've never seen (I played mostly horde). Oh. And the advancement is faster. So not only do I have more choices of what to do to level, but I dont end up doing the same content over and over just to punch out a level.
How about because they completely ****ed over a number of powersets like super reflex scrappers and force field defenders? Not only does ED effectively cut in half how much defense these powers can provide (as if super reflexes was not the weakest of the scrapper sets), but they also cut the base numbers for defense in half. So, you can now only get half of the defensive boost on half of the original number.
I am tired of hearing /regen scrappers talking about perma-hasten as if that is an excuse for ED. /Regen was the most powerful scrapper set to begin with, and their ding from ED was minimal. I find hasten, health, and stamina to be needed far more often now than pre-ED, so the entire 'reduces the need for 'x' power' argument is null and void.
As such, touting your claw/regen scrapper, hardly among the bottom 3/4 of scrapper sets to begin with, and your pvp record with it is completely pointless. ED did little to that powerset compared to what it did to other powersets.
I am not saying that ED ruined CoX for me, but it sure put a damper on my favourite characters, former scrappers turned squishies. I have hardly touched what was my fav, a kat/sr, since shortly after ED was put in. I tried, I respec'ed for the changes, I still like the character, but it is like playing a blaster now with-out the benefit of range.
http://wuyausu.com
Who stopped payment on my reality check?
Okay, this is pretty off topic. . . I just wanted to state that this isn't my problem with ED. My problem is the advancement rate. I like leveling up my own toons, but after level 25-30 it really feels like I don't really get a level except on the levels when I get a new power. Thus what used to be a fun, but slow progression, became a painful and boring grind.
I'm not a powergamer that needs max level super-fast and I even liked the Issue 5 changes where they patched up some of the exploits. There are new ones, though they aren't as "powerful" as the Issue 5 ones. Well, there were new ones the last time I played at least - about 6 months after CoV was out. I don't know if they've fixed them. However, I didn't use them because I'm not a powergamer. I was tempted to do so because the grind was so bad, but I LIKE doing missions. . . I just want to feel rewarded when I ding and not like all I'm getting are enhancement slots that don't improve my character in any significant way.
Amarsir - I snipped out the great parts of your post to focus on the things I had a problem with, and it was a great post. I played the heck out of CoH and your analysis of how and why the system was broken and thus why they implemented ED is great.
Here's the thing though. I'm not worried about the amount of time to ding a new level. I'm worried about the fact that the new levels after 25 are really unexciting because so many of them only give enhancement slots that are not useful and thus it really doesn't change the way I play or enhance my character.
Yes, the system was broken very badly. ED may have fixed game balance, but it wrecked the hell out of the game's advancement rate. If I'm only getting a "real" ding every other level because I only need 3 additional enhancement slots/power (and less than that sometimes) then I really need about 75-100% xp boost to get back to the old advancement rate. Levels that grant you nothing useful are not really advancing.
Also, I'm not in a hurry to get to 50 on any of my characters. . . I just want to see progression on them. Getting stronger is part of the fun in MMOs for me.
I simply don't understand statements like this.
Did ED ruin your game because you lost the ability to perma-haste?
Powers like Hasten were never meant to be perm. If they had, they would've been toggles.
ED fixed that.
My Claws/Regen Scrapper is just as effective now as he was pre-ED, and I have the PvP badge to prove it.
This is a fairly uninformed statement. Hasten originally needed 2---yes 2--recharge enhancements to be permanent. They extended the recharge duration of it so that having exactly 6 made it permanent. If they didn't want it to be permanently available, it would have an even longer recharge from the outset. This sounds like the same argument that pets were never meant to be resummonable poast a single set even though they took recharge enhancements.
Castle, who is one of the only real Devs there who says he'll look at problems, and then actually FIXES THEM... Was working to address this. ...Now HOW they're addressing it unfortunately, is by implimenting "L00t" in Issue-9 via "Invention" and if anyone here believes it's specifically to pep up CoH, then they are SADLY MISTAKEN b/c it's really a pre-emptive strike or Beta-Test for L00t Implenatation that they intend to put into MARVEL UNIVERSE (which is to-date, simply summed up as "CoH with L00t" thus far). But admittadly, if "Invention" really adds something that makes it worth getting those Enhancement slots which Dink is so vastly underwhelmed by right now, then that will address SOME of the issues in the 25+ game. What WON'T this l00t address though?...
For me, I was always happy to get Enhancement slots because customization is the whole reason I rolled a new character. My problem however, was in the fact that just to get that next level, I often had to do the same exact same mission type 20+ times, often times against the same Villain Groups.. meanwhile the entire reason that I was trying to level, was to get into a new level range so I could get AWAY from that same goddamned villain group and mission type. ...also n00bs... lotta damn n00bs in certain level ranges
I-9 Inventions won't make leveling go by any faster. ...Infact, it has the dangerous distinction of making the game even MORE tedious by introducing FARMING for the rarer crafting materials. If that's the case, then it could potentially worsen the percieved grind, and maybe even break the game entirely... And the guy who's building the system could unfortunately recieve a large chunk of the blame just because the idiots upstairs want to turn this game's customers into Paying-betaTesters for their next game that isn't even likely to have the same publisher. ...It makes me sick.
2) I severely doubt that Inventions is a "beta-test" for MUO. If anything, I expect they've gone back to the drawing board for a lot of the MUO systems. And it's the same guys upstairs who developed CoH/V that is developing MUO - Statesman is in charge of both games.
So, think about it again... I don't wanna sound patronizing, but What's the chance they're just going to pull a perfectly functioning Economy for MUO's l00t system out of thin air? ...Much less one that - A) Isn't "Grindy" and -
Hmm.. it would seem to me then, that there's only one place they'll go to get that experience they need(and ahem... large scale DATAMINING which is really the only thing that Statesman has ever cared about), prior to launch.