Amarsir

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Additionally, I've heard a number of players refer to the Merit Reward System as a reduction to rewards. I'd like to remind players that only a handful of tasks in the game had their rewards reduced, however the majority of tasks in the game have had their rewards significantly increased.

[/ QUOTE ]I'm sorry Synapse, but this is major spin and I'm not buying it. You know full well that the ones you reduced are the most frequently-run TFs, and net rewards to the players are diminished.

What's insulting about this is that you yourselves bring up the "big picture" of net rewards whenever anyone mentions being in a slow group. Then it's all about the common market. But when we say the rewards came down, then you start pointing to the corner cases.

Either frequency matters or it doesn't. Since it clearly does, I'd appreciate a little more respect than "hey, look over there!"

So the big base update is not new items or features. It's an increase in my rent and further tension on salvage.

i13 really is a kick in the crotch, isn't it?

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Katie Hannon isn't going to disappear. You can do Katie in half an hour; it's a nice snack. If you happen to be under level 34 you get a nice round of "Grats" out of it. It's quick, it's handy, it's fun, it gets you a hat and an Amy and it is, in general, a Good Task Force. It's just going from being "just as good as Manticore and SIX TIMES FASTER" to "one sixth as good as Manticore and SIX TIMES FASTER." Maybe 1/8 as good, I don't know the exact numbers.

[/ QUOTE ]That's a good explanation Fulmens.

The problem though isn't the balacing. The problem is the huge frikken nerf they tossed in as a "by the way." They could balance up as well as down. They could leave Katie giving 1 recipe's worth, and Eden giving 1 recipe's worth, and give Manticore 4 recipe's worth. And it wouldn't really change the way things are because the people (Squez in your example) who run it a lot are getting the same rate and have no reason to change their behavior.

Balanced, with merits, in a way that doesn't punish the longer TFs. But that's not what they're doing. They chose to nerf it. Hard.

Before if I took 2 hours to run Katie, I got a recipe. Now if I take 2 hours to run Katie, I get 1/6 of a recipe. The problem has nothing to do with my speed, it has nothing to do with balance. It has everything to do with nerfs.

And the annoying part is that instead of the headline being "there are too many pool C recipes in the world!" I have to see this strawman argument that people are opposed to balance. Had they balanced up instead of down, this would be one of the most popular changes ever.

There's a "Merit timer"??? Thanks for explaing why that is, by the way. Last I heard was "if you want to run 12 KHTFs in a row, that's your choice."

At first I thought this was a good idea but the more I hear about it the more annoying it sounds. Way to replace one faulty system with another, and it's a shame that Synapse had to make his first appearance over this mess.

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The day job badges, much like Empath and other Epic badges which encourage days, weeks and months of AFK farming, reward passivity on the part of a player toon. This is, in my mind, a clear break from the concept of badges in the CoX system

[/ QUOTE ]Given that you have "much like" comparisons at the ready, it can't be that much of a break now can it?

I like it. So much of this game's longevity is built on having multiple characters. Yet there are a bunch of built-in annoyances for people with Alts (30 second wait when switching, can't invite yourself to a SG, no easy way to pass recipes, etc).

Finally we have here a feature that rewards people for having alts. I can play one while earning badges and bonuses on the other 30. I like it!

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Technically, your monthly fee is paying for access to the game servers. That's it.

What NCSoft as a company chooses to do with the revenues from subscriptions or micro-transactions is really a different matter all together.

[/ QUOTE ]And yet, if you announced tomorrow "there will be no more free issues" the subscriber number would drop off dramatically. So we shouldn't exactly pretend they are unlinked, either.

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We're not really paying much attention to where things fall in the calender year, just how much time passes between issues. That's the goal at least.

Are we hitting that goal? At this particular moment, not really.

...

I don't think we're that far behind though. If you look at the amount of things added to the game since the beginning of the year rather than just counting the issue numbers between January 1st and today, there's actually a good chunk of content that you guys have gotten without any additional costs. Probably close to 1 1/2 to 2 issues of content already. There was the mid-issue update for 11 and Issue 12, while not a great deal of new long-term content, was in reality quite a bit of work. We kind of went into I12 thinking it was going to be a smaller issue, but when everything was said and done and we looked back on everything we'd put in there, we realized how much work had really gone into it.

[/ QUOTE ]A perfectly valid answer. When I brought up the schedule I wasn't being pessimistic at all, just longing for a self-aware answer. Which this was, thank you.

For what it's worth, if I get bored inbetween issues I simply unsubscribe until something interesting happens. I obviously haven't seen fit to do that recently, so there you go.

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Actually, they don't say issue 13 will be the last issue. They just say it'll be the last issue THIS YEAR, which, with only 5 months left in the year, isn't all that unlikely unless things progress really, really smoothly with i13 and i14...

[/ QUOTE ]This is just an announcement to point out that we have made no official statements regarding the timeline or release of our Free Issues. And that the articles have perhaps misinterpreted what was stated.

[/ QUOTE ]Fair enough. Please be aware that many of us have expectations based on previously made actual official statements. Namely that we should expect 3 issues per year. If that is to change we would appreciate an official annoucment of such, and sooner rather than later would be admirable.

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I dont agree with the sg thing. If I invite a friend to try a trial account, i cant bring them into my sg to kinda make them a part of the group to encourage them to stay. Do the RMTers actually use some part of a sg to spam? It isnt like we invite rmters into our sg's and have a problem with "$49.99 for 5 mill! pst to new sg member!!!!!" he wouldnt be in the sg more than 30 seconds longer lol.

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Blame the people who made trial accounts and filled up their SGs just before prestige grants for that one.

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was that really a problem? so they have enough prestige to make a nice base? how does that hurt anyone.

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On top of which ... OK I wasn't playing or following the boards at the time, but I ran into someone who swore to me that Lighthouse and Ex Libris specifically advocated that behavior. Now that seemed a little silly to me, I didn't see much NCSoft benefit in trials being used like that. But he was sure enough that I do believe him.

So it seems like a big jump from "we recommend it" to "it's not allowed."

Not that CoH would ever overreact to anything.

In concept I'm all for player-created missions.

In practice, I look at a lot of the players I see, and expect to be overwhelmed with variations on these two missions:

1) Level 52 Family on an oudoor map. Mission goal: Rescue Farmer Jones and retrieve the stolen tractor.

2) Freakshow on a store map. Mission goal: The enemy PR0N L0RD is trying to steal a blow-up doll from the local sex shop. Go stop him!

However, one in a thousand will be rare and good, so that'll still be plenty of worthwhile additions. And hey, maybe someone will even create a villian side mission that feels villainous. That would be unique.

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292 centuries? Really. Holy [censored]!

I mean, that's 29,200 years of total play time, or 1.518 Million Weeks, or 255 Million hours played. We really need to get some lives!

[/ QUOTE ]On the other hand, that means the average character is played only 8 hours.

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“Why did Castle say no?!” At the time, he wanted each AT to keep certain sets so they were only found on that AT – Ninjitsu for Stalkers, Elec/Elec for Brutes, Ice/Ice for Tankers, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]I still support this, and hope it isn't off the table.

I congratulate you on this clever and timely change.

There is of course another exploit. And note that I'm using the word exploit, so this is clearly top priority.

Sometimes a person will invite people to a TF / SF, and then kick them later. And this is, um, griefing. Yeah, that's it, griefing! Terrible terrible griefing. It must be stopped.

So what you must do to fix this exploit, is make it so that one person alone can start a TF, but it still spawns for 3-8 like it otherwise would.

You know. To stop the griefing exploit RMT terrorist farmer conspiracy.

I was looking over the measured numbers of the change, and had a amusing observation.

As most know, the hardest thing about PLing is finding a bridge, a level 45-47 characters to SK the lowbie. Because of this, 45-47 are constantly hit with bridge requests. If you're willing to take them, it's very easy and fast to fly through these levels very quickly.

XP buffs were based on how long the average character stayed at that level. The quicker the move, the less the boost was.

45-47, moving more quickly because of bridging, thus got less of a buff than they otherwise would have.

Therefore, the actuality of this change specifically boosts bridge xp less, so they can bridge (relatively) longer. Thus the hardest part of PLing was granted a special favor.

I just find that amusing.

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Are we getting access to the toga and reef costume pieces again?

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Yes. Toga and laurel *wreath*.

What Valentine parties have you been going to?




[/ QUOTE ]ROFL!

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I'd write a check to Jay and BaB for custom animations and costumes right now, if that's the way it worked. But I have a feeling that the art department didn't burn the midnight oil and get a bonus for these extras: they would have worked just as hard - but on something else everyone would have gotten access to - if they didn't work on these.

This does not appear to be a case of "we can't justify the cost of making these items, but maybe we can make them retail items to help defray the cost." This appears to be a case of "hey, since you're making those things anyway, lets see if we can sell them rather than give them away, to gauge the interest of the player population in retail option packs."

[/ QUOTE ]Except Arcanaville, there's an implicit assumption in your analysis, and I think you're begging the question a bit.

It's not a given that all of their productive time inherently belongs to us as regular customers. That may be a natural assumption, but it's not necessarily true. And considering that we don't know exactly how big their staff is, or exactly how many hours they put in, putting a claim on 100% of the workhours wouldn't mean much even if it could be justified.

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This is exactly why I didn't put a badge in this pack.

[/ QUOTE ]I just wanted to take a moment to recognize the collective wisdom of the public. You gave less so people wouldn't complain.

The sad thing is, you're not even wrong.

There are some questions about attacks that I would have liked to see answered but they aren't. (I don't think so anyway.)

How much is my Darkest Night debuffing?
What is the % chance and duration of stun on my Boxing?
How much damage does Smite do? (I know I could hit a mob and look at the combat log, but that gives me the number after resists. I'd like the base number so I can figure out the resists.)

Things like that I would have liked to know. But I do appreciate what I've seen so far.

It's not 100% on topic, and my apologies for that, but it's related. Have you considered re-evaluating enemy difficulty multipliers? I think those might benefit from another view.

For example, Hydra men. I understand that at one time they were exceptionally good XP and got farmed. Accordingly that was reduced, and from then until now they give below average reward. That seems like an overreaction, as I can't see how they went from above average difficulty to below average without changing their powers. They are toxic and highly smashing resistant after all.

I suspect a check might reveal a number of cases where the multiplier doesn't quite line up with the difficulty.

Good list. Some of the things have been noticed and emulated in other MMOs, the Exemplar/SK being a notable example. And I think at the time, the team member search function wsa head-and-shoulders above the pack. (Nowadays it's a bit outdated, and sorely needs a "leader LFM" flag system.)

A lot of it can be summed up as "not wasting players time." In so many other games, it's standard logic that if you can make players move more slowly, the content will last longer. And it's true, and it works against CoH. Some people find that it becomes "routine" more quickly here, to which I point out that's because in a given hour they complete 5 missions and beat 300 enemies, vs (at most) 1/30 in any other game.

And the scaling, I don't know why others don't adapt to that more. I was talking to a designer from another company just yesterday, and he was still stuck on the "this mission has exactly these enemies at exactly this level" mindset. Just because that's how it's done.

One thing I'd like to add on is the intelligence of the respawn logic here. It's made easier by the use of instances, but still didn't have to be done this way. They go out of a way to make sure that an enemy will (usually) not appear out of thin air, not spawn on top of you.

I hate that in other games, where I walk into an empty field, think I'm fine, and suddenly enemies are appearing out of nowhere and aggroing on me. Because as it turns out, someone went through and cleared them all 9 minutes ago. It's immersion-breaking and it's annoying and I couldn't stand it.

Here, even ambushes come running from around a corner. You may leave a spot, come back and find it repopulated, but for the most part it's always behind your back in a way that could be believed.

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Hamidon and the mitos do damage through Phase Shift to prevent Phantom Army and Phase Shift type powers becoming "required" for a raid.

[/ QUOTE ]But just Hamidon & Mitos, right?

Can you explain this? Did Hami sneak up behind us while we were fighting Scirocco?

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are u sure u got it from the trial? cuz finishing a trial gives u a 10% chance at a mission recipe plus the 100% chance of trial recipe

[/ QUOTE ] I hear you and asked myself the same question. If that was the mission reward than I didn't get the trial reward at all.

Now it's not inconceivable that this happened, and it is the only way to reconcile with what I_See_Unicorns saw. But I'm certain that was the only recipe I received at trial end - and not because I'd done any other trials that day.

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The Debilitative Action: Immobilize/Range is Pool B; I bugged the defeat X mission I was on.

[/ QUOTE ]Interesting. I know I just received it from a Cavern of Transcendence completion. Wouldn't that make it Pool D? Level 15 Debilitative Action: Immob/Range

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And what makes you think that the devs' numbers aren't subject to change?

[/ QUOTE ]Is it me? Am I not saying this right?

I want updated, directly-given information while it's subject to change, so that player feedback is actually useful and not just noise.

Unless this is some meta plot to convince me I'm overestimating people. I must confess, it's starting to work.