Arilou

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Calaxprimal View Post
    Well, my point was that for the most part, States (and Recluse to a degree) are treated like Superman of DC. In that he's ALWAYS there with his powers... he just may be a nazi, or a control freak, or mad, or whatever, but he's always in existence as something similar to statesman.

    And the actual physical well of furies was found on Primal earth.
    THe physical Well is (as mentioned by Ramiel, only an extension of the metaphysical Well. And there are almost certainly other physical wells in other universes (Praetoria almost certainly)

    And he actually seems to be lacking in a lot of universes (COT-verse, for instance)
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rodion View Post
    There's nothing new about this. Before AE people would save the level 45-50 Demon, Family or Battle Maiden missions, which were easily farmed by Fire/ tankers, Fire/Kins or Inv/ tankers. Instead of people begging to be PLed in Atlas Park's AE, people constantly spammed the broadcast channel in PI with ads for PLing back in the day.

    The Family farm became so commonly abused by Fire/Kins that Family XP was nerfed.

    The only thing AE does is "democratize" the ability to run these farms, and not restrict them to level 45+ characters who have the appropriate contact.

    And, honestly, radio missions can be used in exactly the same way: most tankers/brutes can run Council radio/newspaper missions in their sleep. You can keep dismissing radios until you get the same old Defeat Archon Manuela mission and run it all day and night.

    I find it disappointing that so many people choose to spend all their time running the same tedious farm, or even worse -- doorsitting in the same tedious farm. But if they are bound and determined to do it, they will find a way to do it no matter what barricades you place before them.
    People still do that actually (mainly because you don't get purples from AE)

    There IS a differene with AE though: Due to the way you can set up ambushes and spawns you can get a lot more enemies in a lot smaller area (IE: Less downtime) you don't havet o walk around the map herding, because eight ambushes will be heading straight for you.

    (which is why these farms actuallly require pretty complex builds, there's A LOT of incoming damage)
  3. The well isn't found just on Primal Earth. The fact that it's interacting with Praetoria kindof josses the idea that it's restricted to Primal.

    Most probably it's something that is outside or "between" universes, but manifests at specifi points and times to specific individuals. Richter & Cole are both likely candidates (depending on universe anyway, Emperor Cole and Statesman are still relatively close analogues, so it makes sense they'd have similar powers since they gained them in similar situations.

    There's probably a billion universes in which Cole never got powers, or ot them a different way, or never existed.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Snow Globe View Post
    The two characters that I mentioned have nearly the same sample size as Leandro's initial post (100 trials). Given that, their runs are should be close to his, but they aren't. Admittedly I'm also keeping track of the 2 times I got threads (1% overall runs) and failures (which Leandro might not have or have been subject to).

    The character with 78 trials is: 4% V / 13% R / 46% U / 28% C / 1% T / 8% F (values rounded).

    The character with 69 trials is: 13% V / 26% R / 45% U / 13% C / 0% T / 3% F (again rounded).

    And my overall range (212 trials): 7% V / 19% R / 44% U / 24% C / 1% T / 5% F (rounded).

    Compared with Leandro's (100 trials) overall range: 10% V / 20% R / 40% U / 30% C.


    The degree with which the individual character deviates from the overall is a problem.


    And there should be a streak breaker, because the system itself is suspect. Otherwise people (not just me) would have stopped complaining about the rewards by now.
    There is (effectively) a streak-breaker. It's called Empyreal merits. Functionally it's the same thing.
  5. ^ I can't remember the number of iterations you have to run to get a high-ish (say 90%) chance of having the right %'s but it's pretty damn high.
  6. Quote:
    You know... You keep saying solo play requires much less effort and I have to call you out on that. No, it does not.
    *headdesks*

    DO YOU EVEN READ!?

    I've specifically determined what I mean by effort.

    YES. Any particular challenge is going to be harder than teaming against that particular challenge.* So beating that hellion boss is harder solo than teaming. This is already baked into what I mean by "effort".

    I said that given the same failure-chance and time spent on the actual task it takes more effort to team because you have to actually get a team first (the difficulty of this varies, but it's a factor).

    So stop bringing up all sorts of stuff that's entirely besides the point. Take two identical tasks (let's say, sit for 30 minutes in a room and then a reward-box spawns, only one version of this task requires a team, and the other does not) the challenge is the same (100% chance of success assuming you don't get bored) the time is the same (just 30 minutes of waiting) given these parameters the team-task is going to require more effort because you have to actually get a team to do it, while the solo-character can just go in and start waiting immediately

    DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND? Or do I have to say the same thing I've said two-dozen times AGAIN. Are you goint to keep up bringing up arguments that are completely irrelevant?

    Any team-based vs. solo task has to take into account (in addition to the synergistic effects of teams, etc. etc.) the effort it takes to actually form a team. (or look one up)

    The rest of your post just has absolutely NOTHING to do with what I'm talking about at all. I'm just saying that if there's going to be a solo path (WHICH I THINK THERE SHOULD BE, AND BY THE WAY, ADDING ONE WOULD NOT BE PENALIZING SOLOERS BECAUSE PRETTY MUCH ANY SOLO PATH WOULD BE BETTER THAN THE SISYPHEAN TASK THEY HAVE AHEAD OF THEM RIGHT NOW, SO IT WOULD BE MAKING IT EASIER AND NOT PENALIZING THEM) it's going to have to require an equal amount of effort as the trial path. However they choose to distribute that effort. (repetitiveness, challenge, etc. etc.)

    Ideally the solo-path should require exactly as much time from the moment you decided to start collecting incarnate stuff as the trial path. Including the time it takes to form teams and such.

    * the scaling system *somewhat* changes this, but it's still true for any given challenge.
  7. The problem is the costs. A radiance armor piece goes for 6 empyreal merits. A Very Rare component goes for 30.

    You COULD I suppose get the entire Radiance Armor set on the very rare table, but that feels a bit... Eh.

    EDIT: I was at least somewhat matching the vendor prices to the costs in emps/astrals.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex View Post
    For the record, I don't believe in Arcana's split between "deterministic" and "random." Because the deterministic path forces you to roll, the only thing deterministic about it is that there is a path of some kind. The length of that path is anything but deterministic unless you just flat out ignore random drops. The only time you spend any Empyraens is when the system doesn't proc for you.

    It takes 30 Empyraens to get a V Rare. If the odds of one dropping randomly are 10%, that means you have a 0.90^30 chance of it not dropping on its own while gathering Emps. That's about 4%.

    IF the number is really 10% and if we can control it, for the player base as a whole it is much smarter to save Empyraens than spend them on V Rares. After all you don't get the Emps back if you spend them and a V Rare drops later (which illustrates another principal: high value salvage is more valuable if it procs in the first 50 or so rolls rather than later).
    Yep. But the deterministic path is there as a floor, for those people who are just plain unlucky. Remember, theoretically you could run twenty million trials and never get a very rare. Becuase that's how randomness. works. It acts as a streak-breaker.
  9. Quote:
    And cause me to rage-quit and never want anything to do with the game ever again. Any system which requires, as an intended course of progression, intends for me to fail at it more than I succeed is a horrible system, irrespective of how fast I can progress in it. That's my beef with random drops, as well - you bust your *** beating a very difficult encounter and you end up getting the consolation price you never wanted in the first place.
    I, personally, am more on the other side: I'd be allright with only have a 10% chance of success (that is on average, I don't want it to actually be random) if I only had to do it once. The sweet sense of accomplishment after beating a really tough challenge is... Well, sweet.

    The best way of course is some kind of staged rewards that means you can get some level of slow/grindy progress even if you fail, while if you succeed (which is really hard) you don't have to repeat it at all. But that's pretty much impossible to balance.

    Quote:
    I'm fine with slow and grindy AS LONG AS IT'S RELIABLE.
    Congratulations! The devs thinks so too! That's why you can convert Empyreal Merits to Very Rare components.*

    Quote:
    And please, let's not be disingenuous with terms like "challenge." The iTrials may be difficult, but they are distinctly possible. Putting an AV in my missions makes them functionally, practically and quite very literally IMPOSSIBLE to complete regardless of how much you choose to talk down to me about "challenge." I'm not Bill Z Bubba. I don't have characters who can solo AVs, or come anywhere even close. I don't have characters who can even survive eye contact with an AV on their own. And I don't regret that for a minute, because AVs are not and never have been - and never will be - solo content.
    Again, I don't neccessarily think putting AV's into the hypotethical solo incarnate path is neccessarily a good idea. But IF you don't (since remember, some characters CAN solo AV's easily, which means EB's is going to be a cakewalk for them) it's likely going to require more repetitions (IE: more actual grinding) than if you didn't.

    If you're not putting AV's in there (or some new game mechanics I can't even speculate on) characters like Bill's aren't going to be challenged at all... And since solo requires so much less effort than trials (essentially, in trials Bill's characters matter less becuase the rest o fthe teams are going to slow it down, unless he takes the time to find a team BillClones, and in that case the time he spends doing that is time he's not running trials, so it slows him donw anyway) which means that the "challenge" part isn't going to be particularly important in determining the time/reward ratio. So they're going to have to go for repetition instead. (Or at some other form of making sure you spend time doing it)

    *Whether or not the conversion ratio is where it should be is beside the point. That's why it's there.
  10. Quote:
    Empyraens don't address the fact that for the player base as a whole, it is much smarter to save Empyraens and wait for drops. That's IF the numbers are really 10%.
    Again, that's probably deliberate. You want the random method to be a better odds, statistically, than the deterministic one simply because it's random. (whether it should be three times better is a different question, it probably should have a slight edge)

    It's actually even kinder than that since the deterministic method isn't directly tied to the random one: IE: You can progress down both at the same time.
  11. Quote:
    So, essentially, if I want a path in which I can gain Incarnate progress AND have fun, I'm sadly out of luck? That seems to be a running theme here. Call me cynical if you want, but if the Trials are so horribly grindy that making a solo path that doesn't bore me to tears or isn't impossibly difficult is unfair to them, then shouldn't this mean something's wrong with the Trials, rather than the solo path?
    Okay, let's start with a few basics.

    There are rewards. There's going to be a task required to do these rewards. Doesen't matter if it's just standard levels, incarnate rewards, IO's whatever. If you want "stuff" you're going to have to do something. Play the game. Meet the challenge.

    Sure, they could give us a "get to level 50" button at the start of the game. They could just ignore the entire idea of game mechanics and progression and make it into a free-form diceless RPG.

    But it's not very likely. The game is a "classic" RPG, that means that in order to get rewards you're going to have to meet challenges of some kind. Are we okay on this? Can you accept at least this much?

    Now. Ideally there would be an infinite amount of content to run, and an infinite amount of rewards to get: You'd never have to repeat ANYTHING unless you wanted to and you'd always have something new to work for.

    This is unrealistic. The devs do not have that kind of time or resources. They are working with finite resources.

    A lot of people (not all, but many) only play as long as they can get new stuff. Improve their characters (they might roll a new one of course, but even that has a finite kind of permutations before it gets stale) if they stop getting to be able to do new stuff with their characters, they eventually stop playing them. Once they feel there's nothing new to get (at all) they stop playing the game.

    Now, the easiest way for the devs to keep these players occupied (as in, the least amount of work for them) is to make them repeat content to get shinies. If you make them run the Gauntlet of Doom 10 times before they get the Sword of Sharpness they'll stay playing ten times as long as if you gave them the sword after one Gauntlet run, and you'll have to do 1/10th of the work as if you had made ten different dungeons they could run.

    Hence "grinding". It's a rather efficient way of doing things. Most people don't mind repeating content *to a certain extent* if they get some new shinies from it. And the devs don't have to make infinite permutations of content.

    That's why they make you repeat content: IE: Grind.

    Now, of course the devs knows there's a balance to be struck here, make players repeat the same content TOO many times and they'll get bored and quit, regardless of the shinies. So they have to make some kind balance. Maybe you need to run the Gauntlet of Doom only five times rather than ten to get the Sword of Sharpness.

    Now, the thing is that *players have different tolerance for these kinds of things*. COH is (and I can state this with confidence) on the VERY low end of the grind-scale. The trials are relatively non-grindy compared to a lot of other MMORPG's high-end stuff. (and just like everything else, it'll become less grindy as more alternative paths/content exists)

    This doesen't neccessarily mean the devs have put the level of grind on the right level, but at least you should be able to understand why grinding is neccessary. It's because it's effectively recycling the dev's work.

    So if you want to argue that the current system is too grindy (I think it's about right, personally, there's a few minor stuff that could be sorted out, and I'd certainly not mind some kind of solo-path, but the grindiness-level itself is pretty decent, you can get a fully kitted-out incarnate in a couple of days if you are at it, which is lightning-fast by MMORPG standards) you can. But that's a separate argument for arguing about the grindiness or lack thereof of a solo-path compared to the trial-path.

    To a certain extent repetitiveness can be balanced by risk of failure: If a challenge is set so that people will fail it about half the time, then effectively you can cut the level of repetitions in half (since half the time they won't even get to the reward stage) so in that sense repetitiveness and challenge are conversible: The repetition/challenge values can be combined into one value, let's call it "effort", that can be used to determine how long a player "should" have to play before they get their reward.

    There's all sorts of ways of making you "feel" progress between actual rewards of course, like giving you tokens that can be traded for stuff, etc. That gives you a feeling of progress, even though they can't be used for anything until you get 10 of them, say. But you know you only have to get 3 more of them before you have your Sword of Sharpness.

    Now, if you have a solo-task that takes the same amount of time and has the same challenge-factor (let's say the average failure rate is 50%) as a team-task, a team-task *is going to require more effort*. This is counterintuitive but rather simple: It takes effort to assemble and coordinate a team. (a team can also make a task much easier, but that afects the failure rate, assuming the failure rate remains constant, it takes more effort to do it with a team)

    Do you understand?

    Now, the devs have set the effort-level required to get the Incarnate Powers. it might be too high, it might be too low. You think it is too high, but anyway. Assume the devs have figured that this is the optimal level of effort required and they're pretty happy with it.

    That means that any solo path is going to require the same level of effort (time, repetition, challenge, what-have you) as the trial path. (Or, given that the devs are fallible human beings, they're at least going to take a stab at it)

    Why that is, is well... obvious. They don't want the solo-path to be obviously superior (in the lack of effort required) because if so people will do it exclusively, then get bored, and quit the game.

    Do you understand now? This is well... It's really basic game-design. If you don't want a challenge, if you just want to make up "the rules" as you go along, then the game really isn't for you. The devs are trying to keep the requirement of a challenge up becuase they know that most people will get bored running around with God Mode after a while. (this, incidentally, is also why they periodically nerf stuff that they consider overpowered)

    Again, where the level of "too easy so it gets boring" is? that's going to vary from person to person, and the devs are going to try to hit a middle-ground that's acceptable to the largest number of people. (Whether or not they succeed is a different matter.

    And that's why they have to make the solo-path equally grindy to the trial-path.* Now you have your answer, please never ask that question again.

    Quote:
    I'm serious when I ask this question, by the way. Every time I suggest anything in regard to Incarnate content, people usually give me a requirement that "It must suck at least this---> much to exist." Why?
    Because people appreciate a challenge. They value stuff more after they've had to work for it. Again, there's a balance: Give people stuff too easily and they won't value it, make it too much work and they'll give up, thinking it's not worth it.

    * Not neccessarily the current trial-path. It's possible the devs are going to figure "Eh, we made it too grindy, let's scale it back." But that's a different matter.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jagged View Post
    Solo<>Easy.

    Grind<>Hard.


    Soloing an EB is far more interesting and harder than a team wailing on an AV. Plus, for some strange reason, EBs seem to use wider ranges of powers than AVs. Maybe thats just because 8 characters smacking an AV causes it to do down before it does anything interesting.

    If you want "Easy" you make an 8 man team and do anything.
    That's what I said actually. He was complaining that a solo path described earlier would be too hard/repetitive. I mentioned that if he's going to get a solo path it's likely going to be at least as hard (which admittedly isn't much) as the trial path, and if it isn't as hard it's probably going to be twice as repetitive to compensate.
  13. Because people have wanted it.

    And it's not even very grindy. Compared to level 40-50 it's a breeze.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by RoleplayerX View Post
    Honestly, I don't play redside because I find the zones depressing and annoying to navigate. My wife and I were both disappointed that Mercy Island had not been included in the update for Freedom. Villainy is everywhere, not just on decimated island city states. Improve the redside zones and I'll play there.

    As for that other game that was mentioned, I love playing a villain there.
    Mercy is getting updated (unless they changed that) It's not neccessarily getting the Full Atlas overhaul though. (Mind, since it's newer it might not need to)
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Schismatrix View Post
    Small sample sizes do not yield uniform distribution, eh?
    So basically the problem is that the random number generator is actually exhibiting randomness?

    To get any other result you'd have to add a non-random weighting system that tracks each character's reward table results and alters each roll based on prior results. Sort of a reward table streakbreaker.
    Mind, it would be relatively simple to do.

    Say, if you've run 50 successful trials and never gotten a very rare, the game forces one.

    Although then again, it would be pointless since we already have the empyreal method.
  16. Currently the rewards purchaseable via incarnate rewards cannot be acquired any other way than by hoarding merits (this is mostly important for the Radiant Ascenscion armour pieces)

    I was thinking, why not add them to the reward table at the end of trials? That would give characters with no need for components something to hope for at the end of trials.

    The way I've been thinking is to add the following to the following tables:

    The common table:
    * One Chest emblem.

    The uncommon table:
    * One Non-costume change emotes
    * One Incarnate Ascenscion Armor
    * One none-trail aura
    * One trail Aura

    The rare table
    * One piece of Ascension Radiance Armor

    The only thing with costs comparable to a Very Rare Component would be a Purple Recipe, and I don't think the devs wants to hand those out like that
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Miuramir View Post
    This crystallizes something that has been vaguely bothering me. What if the devs were to put things you can buy with Astral merits on the lower random tables, and things you can buy with Empyrean merits on the higher ones?

    A Rare costs 8 Empyrean merits, a Very Rare costs 30. For example, offering a single Aura choice (currently 3 E) on the Rare table, or an "all the Auras pack" (currently 18 E) on the Very Rare table, would technically be a loss... but might be a real improvement for a significant number of people.
    I've been pushing this for quite a while.
  18. Quote:
    Well, except a lot of F2P games don't actually allow free players to build any kinds of networks. Want to form a team? Premium only. Want to pick the people you play with or against? Premium only. Want to save people to your friends list? You don't have a friends list, that's premium only. Want to chat with people? You can't, because most channels are premium only.
    If you're doing F2P I think you should pretty much resign yourself to being a second-class citizen since, well, that's the point.
  19. The basic current "exploit" is using the AE to create an enemy group that does only a specific type of damage (fire seems to be most popular, since it tends to lack annoying secondary effects) then building a (tank, brute or scrapper) to have capped resistances and defences against that damage type.

    I'm kind of in two minds over the exploity nature of it, since having to build a specific character to do it seems to be quite a lot of work, but YMMV.

    It's not an exploit in the same way the monkeys and other XP-exploits were, but it is leveraging the power sets of the enemies and your character in a way that isn't "natural" to the game engine (since most enemies do multiple damage-types for precisely that reason)
  20. Yes, that's kind of the point.

    The devs wants people to pay for their stuff. (Obviously, it's how they get their sandwhiches) in order for that to happen they need to have something that people want to pay for. The endgame content seems to be a reasonable substitute for that.

    It doesen't run into the "paying for power" problem, since you actually need to play the content to get the shinies. There's less justification for restricting Praetoria and First Ward though.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Venture View Post
    It's bad writing. Good writing would not have tried to shoehorn every character in the game into a one-size-fits-none pseudo-explanation. This is the kind of thing I used to see in late 1970's GMing.

    It is literally the case that no explanation at all would have been better than the one we were given.

    Honestly, the "there's one kind of fundamental force underlying everything else in the universe" is kind of a common theme. Not just in comics, but in real-life as well. (Not to mention that the "all origins are ultimately different manifestations of the same thing" DOES rather neatly explain why everyone's abilities are mechanically identical)
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Venture View Post
    This point in particular is the deal breaker. It is made perfectly clear that the Well is offering a classic Faustian bargain. No sane, ethical being would have anything to do with the Well once this revelation is made, except perhaps to try to destroy it if that were possible, even at the expense of destroying all superhumans or removing all superpowers.
    Except that you DO reject it. (or rather, before you even get the chance to reject it the Letter Writer makes sure that you're in no position to accept it anyway)
  23. A lot of these games part of the fun is finding a group of players to play with and watching each other improve. I played a certain PVP-focused fantasy MMORPG for quite a while, and let me tell you, it becomes a whole lot more fun if you have a good guild behind you. (Not that it didn't get boring eventually as well)

    A lot of it is not just learning what to do, but learning what to do in response to what others are doing. Even a good PUG can't really compare to the kind of synergy you get when playing with people you know (who might even have created their builds specifically to synchronize with each other) joining the zerg isn't half as fun as using your guild-warband to successfully hold of two enemy warbands from the premier opposition guilds

    In a lot of these type of games, the network-building is kind of the point. Go off alone and half-cocked (which is pretty much standard procedure with PUG:s) against a coordinated enemy and you'll have your rear handed to you. Regardless of any other factor.
  24. Having a ****** connection, SHOULD be punished. It means you're not helping (as much as you could anyway) if you're disconnecting or crashing you're out of the game for a significant priodof time.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dromio View Post
    I was thinking about the aggro cap this week. I really would love to build a "Defend the Rainbow Bridge" kind of mission in AE with unreasonable numbers of bad guys assaulting a lone team or hero. But there's really nothing out there for me. There's no map for something like that, no unreasonable numbers of foes, and the aggro cap would make the whole thing pointless anyway.

    It'd be cool if the aggro cap could be suspended in specific missions. I'd much rather see something like that in a trial rather than all the lame sequester type processes they put in to help people think the trials were a challenge.
    You can get uneasonable number of foes by chaining ambushes (that's how most farms work, for instance)