Aett_Thorn

The fact that many of you don't get that PvP and PvE need entirely different leveling mechanisms is beyond me. In the PvE game, it doesn't hurt to have players of different power levels, to an extent (i.e., you need at least a minimum of performance). In the PvP game, having those kinds of disparities can ruin the experience for many.

I'm not saying that you don't have the right to complain, but trying to say that the the PvEers don't have a right to complain because the PvPers have exactly what we don't want is the wrong argument to be making, since you're talking about two different requirements for rulesets.

I'm sorry, but you don't get to tell others what a challenge is for them. When you say that there's no such thing as "challenge" in the PvE game, you alienate exactly the people that you're trying to convince. Some of us like the challenge level the PvE game offers, and like the PvE game here because it doesn't require the things that WoW does. I like that I don't need certain gear to complete a task. I like that I can form a team of less-than-optimal builds, and still come out on top.

That is not a problem for me. That's exactly why I like the game.

That was me that said it, and I stand by it. If you intentionally make the game to easy by your choices, you have the choice to not do that. It doesn't require anything other than switching your build, really, which is free, except for the cost of enhancements in it. And if you're downgrading, you should have enough money for it anyways.

If you know how to make a challenge, and get the fights that you're looking for (the longer, more drawn-out, might win, might lose ones), but choose not to do that, it's not the Dev's fault. If you choose not to do that, because you feel like you're gimping yourself, even though it gets you just what you want, then you're weighing risks versus reward for yourself. You have the right to come out of that comparison with whatever view you have, but the Devs have to make a choice on which side they want to aim towards. So far, they've aimed towards creating content for the majority first.

They can't create challenging content faster than players can figure out exactly how to make them trivial. It's almost impossible to do. However, you probably can find challenges made by players in the AE that do exactly what you're looking for. You can find those arcs, and run them, and get the challenge that you want. But insisting that the Devs focus on the 2-3% of powergamers in a game full of casual gamers is asking them to put the vast minority in front of the majority.

And the Devs have released new, supposedly challenging content for level 50s to do. The ITF and most of Cimerora was aimed at this group. And yet, I'm betting that you think that that content is too easy now, too, since it's been run so many times, and people know how to beat it. If the Devs released 4 new TFs designed specifically for high-end IO builds, I'm betting it would take less than a month before those players found that stuff too easy, and wanted more. Meanwhile, the regular players would have gotten nothing except content that they can't complete during that time, and they're clamoring for new content, too.

Two words: power creep.


If the Devs made something that was challenging to characters with as many purple set IOs as they could get, they would then clamor for new 'stuff' to make that content less challenging. Then, that content becomes fairly trivial, and we start it all over again.

The game is fairly easy. But when you go and make that game even easier by your own choices, it's not always the Devs that have to fix that. The Devs gave the players tools both to increase their own challenge, and to mitigate some of that challenge. If you want the challenge, you can have it. But if you build for mitigating that challenge, you really can't complain that the game is too easy. You've MADE it too easy. YOU can make it not so much.

And again, what you are asking for is a lot of work by the Devs to rebalance almost all of the PvE game, versus a little bit of work by you to get what you want.

I guess I'm not seeing what is so broken with the current system that player action couldn't solve.

And exactly why shouldn't they? If they were the ones who intentionally made the game to a point where it was too easy, why shouldn't they also be responsible for making the game challenging again?

I'm not saying that the Devs can't add some more challenging things to the game, but if somebody spends 2 billion influence to make a build, and then finds it too easy, there's a simple way to make it not so anymore.

And they don't even have to gimp themselves to do so, since the game is still balanced around SOs for all existing content. They're merely bringing themselves down to somewhere between baseline level and godmode.

My point is only that if people are worried that they're going to find the game too easy, they can NOT go for all of those purple sets, and have a game that is challenging.

Nobody is saying that IOs can't provide a significant benefit. What everyone is saying is that that is not a bad thing in and of itself.

Some people want a challenge. They can still have it. Some people want to play god-like characters. They can do that, too. There is nothing stopping either player from doing what they want other than themselves.

The game is balanced around SOs. It is not built around SOs. There's a big difference there. All that means is that everything in the game can be done by characters using only SOs. That does not mean that everything can be done solo by a character using only SOs, only that, with an appropriate team, nothing requires that any of those characters have anything stronger than SOs.

IOs can make things easier. A lot easier. There is nothing wrong with that. That was the intention behind them. People were asking for ways to make their characters better/stronger, but there was going to be no level cap raise. So, Inventions and sets allowed people to make their characters better without adding new powers or slots to current level-capped players. In some cases, and with a lot of time and money, this can make characters really powerful. That's the point of them.

With a lot of TIME and INFLUENCE, they can become more powerful. I don't see anything wrong with that. And if, in so doing, you find yourself not challenged by the game, you can simply take them out.

I love people who have Blasters that they've softcapped Defense on, probably after spending several hundred million influence, and then they talk about bringing challenege back to the game, like they can't do that by just taking those IOs out.

Seriously, people, DR won't do what you want it to do. IO builds will still be better than non-IO builds. If you want a challenge, you can do that now by making smart choices. If you're feeling like your character is too strong, take out the things making him that way.

Don't change the game in a way that isn't beneficial to people that like playing that way, when you can just make the challenge yourself.

And again, what part of that backed up his statement that bringing the PvP changes from I13 into the main game proves that that change would increase player retention?

That's not the point that we're arguing, though. Sure, IOs benefit any build that uses them, really. I'm not trying to say that they don't. What I am trying to say is that it's not an unfair advantage, and shouldn't be taken away in any part of the PvE game.

Also, since I said that not all of my builds even have IOs, it is not fair to say that all of my builds benefit from IOs. They could, but they don't.

Good, just wanted to make sure.

So? What exactly is your point here? Of course challenge levels can be changed. It doesn't take an IO'd-out build to go to challenge levels above the basic, though. Back before, during, and after ED, but before I9 and inventions came out, people were asking for more challenging parts of the game. For a while, there was no way to go beyond heroic setting without getting a team together. And that was all with SOs and HOs. IOs did not change the fact that people will always be asking for more challenge in a game.

But yet, you were able to play through it, get experience and/or influence, and the ability to potentially make your character better for the next time you ran through it, right? You could keep running that TF, and eventually have the funds to make your characters good enough to beat it, right? Given enough time, or even a better mix of characters, you could have beaten it?

There are many factors that can lead to a failed TF. It's not only lack of IO'd characters that does it. Otherwise, no TFs would have been completable before IOs. And I know that they were.

And what part of I13 backed up his statement?

So screw everyone, just because you're not happy?

True enough. I'll do that here.

1) I have some builds, with IOs used to plug some holes, or to make them more effective.

2) I have some builds, with fun IOs used to make the character more fun, but probably less effective overall. Things such as +KB effects on melee characters, and the like.

3) I have other builds, including my namesake character, that use only basic IOs, and don't use sets at all.

4) I have other builds, that still use only SOs.


I have never had a problem getting or staying on a team with any of these characters.


Also, trying to get PvP changes reverted or even changed because the system isn't considered popular by the PvE crowd here probably isn't going to work.

In PvP, you do need much more balancing than in PvE. In PvP, having someone that always wins doesn't work. In PvE, everyone always wins, really, so it's not a problem, and you want to be able to have different challenge levels for everyone.

You have been teaming with jerks. Again: not the Dev's faults.

I wouldn't be surprised. If I played PvP at all, I probably would've been campaigning against the changes. But I think it would've been hypocritical of me to say that changes were bad to a system I didn't care about. I figured that the PvPers had more weight in that department.

No, it is NOT an unfair advantage. New Players CAN get this stuff. It just takes time. Any player who decides to go for a build like the uber guys can get it...with time. That makes it a completely fair advantage, since you can do it, too.

You equate fun to being just as good as the other guys. Please understand that some people's idea of fun is to be BETTER than the casual players. Other people have an idea of fun that doesn't involve IOs at all. Right now, all can exist in the same system. The people who want to be better can be. The players who don't care don't have to. The players that want to be as uber as the big guys can work towards it.

Why should you, somebody who doesn't want to put in the work, be just as good as somebody who doesn't mind putting in the work to be better?


Right, and many people have set up builds that rely on having certain set bonuses at the strength that they are now. Why should they lose that? Just because you don't want to work to get the same bonuses?

THere's SUPPOSED to be a large difference in those builds, because the IO'd-out builds take a lot more time and money to set up.


Communism states that everyone gets the same amount, regardless of how much work they put in, or what they do. You are proposing just that. Working hard would get you no tangible benefits over somebody that didn't work at all. That is not the way to encourage your playerbase.

Please show me where this ridiculous competitiveness for uber builds is occurring. Because I'm not seeing it in-game.

Good! They're kind of supposed to! People spend a lot of influence and time to get to that point though, and if they find that too easy, they can always take the IOs out of their build.

If they contemplate it at all, they should definitely look at other games, and even this one, and see what happens when a game this far in makes major changes to gameplay. Remember ED?

Heal spamming has never been the most effective damage management tool in the game. Animation times being standardized to some kind of damage amount should be at least looked at, you're right. But applying the PvP rules as is, to a PvE environment would not be good.

Just look at the damage that melee does in PvE vs. PvP. Ranged damage tends to be less than melee damage. If a Tanker could do more damage than a Blaster, and be relatively as safe, and could exploit the PvE AI to all crowd around him, the Tanker would be better than the Blaster, and would minimize the Blaster's role on a team.

Will some of it likely make it into PvE? Probably. Should all of it? Hell no.

Soooo...the Praetorian version of Positron is weaker because they have different game mechanics in their dimension?

It doesn't make sense, especially when you think that Tyrant beat Statesman and trapped him, which never would have happened if the game mechanics you would like to be in PvE were there, since Tyrant would ALWAYS be weaker than Statesman.

Again, please show me where any player is kept out of teaming because they don't have the right IOs. I've never seen a player get kicked from a team because they didn't have enough IO sets.

And I said that new players aren't looking to be just as effective as older players "right away." They know that they need to work on it, just like everybody else did.

I've never met a new character in this game that expected to be as good as a 5 year-old level 50 player right at character creation.

But you don't NEED to perform as well as the uber builds. I've never found in-game a leader who kicked people without enough IO sets in their build, or who even really mentioned it to anyone on the team. So I'm not getting why anyone needs them. Are they useful? Sure. Can they make you better? Sure again. Do you need them? No.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE AS UBER AS THE MOST FULLY IO'd OUT CHARACTERS OUT THERE.

You just don't. You might want to be, but you don't need to be. New characters of any game should understand that somebody that's been playing for 5 years longer than them is probably going to have better stuff. As long as they know that they can get there someday should be fine for most new players.

Never gonna happen. You'd then need to make TOs, DOs, SOs, and Hamio-Os all the same effectiveness. Because even if we limited it to just level 50s, they can use all of those. Should the level 50 using just TOs or DOs be as effective as the one using SOs?

Then, you get the fact that each AT will not be as effective in every situation as another, and then sets within that AT being just as variable. In short: you will never have a situation in an MMO where every character is just as effective as every other character. It's not going to happen, and really, IMO, shouldn't happen.

It's also still not fair to those players who have worked more to get their characters to where they are to have that stripped from them, and you know it.


Agreed, but it is very similar. You're asking every character in-game to be as effective as every other. Basically, even if somebody puts in more time and effort, or does harder tasks, they get the same reward. Have you heard of communism? Because that is basically what that is.

You're asking for those who have spent more time and/or effort, and have made their characters better, to be stripped of a lot of that, while bringing up characters that haven't done the same things. You're basically creating a situation where there is no payoff to doing the harder things in the game. As such, everyone would only be doing the easy, non-challenging things. In this case, GR would be harder than the current game. People would, therefore, flock to the old content, instead of the new, because their characters are better there. That's not a good way to promote a new game, by having your existing character base stay out of it.

I can have fun without IOs. You can too. So can the new player. You can do every task in this game with just SOs. Might it be harder? Sure. Can you still have fun doing it? Yes. Undoubtedly yes. How do I know? Because people were doing it before IOs came out.

Casual players don't need purple sets on their characters. Any player who wants Purple Sets on their character is not a casual player, they are a hardcore player. Because Casual players don't need them. Hardcore players are usually willing to accept that they need to do work to get to that point.

A player who says that they should get equal payout without the work isn't a regular player. They are a player with a sense of entitlement. Nothing more.

I'm sorry, but your lack of willingness to go out there and do the same thing for the same rewards as everyone else isn't the Dev's problem.

Most new players aren't looking to be uber right away.

You are free to challenege yourself in this game as it is now. You can try to solo maps spawned for a +4 character with 8 player's worth of enemies in the map. If you don't think that is challenging, then I'd like for you to show me you doing it easily. Not everyone can do that, and it should be challenging to do and to get a character that can do it easily.

Changing game mechanics for new players, when they choose one side or the other, versus the new neutral starting point, would be very confusing. If your idea was implemented, a new person joining, starting two identical characters (1 hero-side, one in GR), would have to completely different number systems staring them in the face. Their powers, identically slotted, would have two different effects. How would that help them?

The Devs DO want to challenege players, but this is not the way to go.

Okay, first off, you don't need IOs to do anything in this game. You do not need to IO out your character. You wanting to do so isn't really the fault of the Devs. They gave you the means to do so, if you wanted, but you still don't need to.

If other players kick you for not having enough IOs, that is not the Devs fault, that is THOSE players.

Specifically, this point:

No. Absolutely not. If somebody spends 10 times as much time with you in-game, they SHOULD have better stuff than you. Why is that not fair? That's absolutely fair. They spend more time playing that you do.

You're basically saying that it would be more fair for doctors and McDonald's counter staff to make the same amount of money, despite the fact that one went to school for much longer. It doesn't make sense.

This game, like most games, rewards you for playing. That makes sense, doesn't it? And sense you don't need those rewards to play, the system is fine as is.

Mostly. Some stealth powers are specifically flagged so as not to stack with other stealth powers. However, in the case given by the OP, both Shadow Fall and Steamy Mist will stack with each other.

Fair enough on that. I put it in there too quickly. I'll try to remove it from my list.