Android_5Point9

The ratio of volume and authenticity between those anecdotes and Bigfoot sightings is rapidly approaching even, yes.

No no no, see, you misread that. I didn't say knockdown, I said knockin. Rather than enemies going away from the attack, they come towards it. Clearly it's the perfect solution that everyone is waiting for. Though, it will likely have to wait until after reverse-butt capes, hair physics for bald characters, and the City of Dogs expansion.

In seriousness, it's not a big deal. If you're on a team where someone is getting disgruntled because your powers knock enemies away and OH GOD THEY HAVE TO RUN AN EXTRA 10 FEET OR OH NO MY AOE ATTACK DOESN'T HIT HIM AND MY PERFORMANCE IS SUFFERING BY 3.87% OUR TEAM IS DOOOOOOMED!!! then you should probably not team with that person. If you are that person, well congrats, there will be ever so slightly less knockback in your life. There aren't going to be security checkpoints set up at every mission door with the Knockback Protection Agency standing outside verifying that you have a single enhancement that works in a single power either way, so it matters very little.

The inevitable change of knockback to knockin and how it's a horrible choice that will split the community and shatter this game.

I've sort of found myself agreeing with the OP here, so I figured I'd offer my own perception of the supposed "issue."

Post Freedom, there's been a ton of stuff added, and at a much faster pace. For a while it was all shiny and new and there was pure volume to the point where it seemed rather overwhelming. Now though, we're settled in, and our recent frame of reference shifts from, "a new powerset is a real big big deal" and "a new zone revamp is incredible and rarely happens and wowzers!" to, "oh these things happen fairly often now." We've gotten a few powersets and two (and a half) zone revamps in particular in under a year. In the grand scheme of things, that's a lot. But then you look at mission content, you look at old contacts, you look at the issues that have been nagging you forever, the stuff that's been around since launch, and you refer to your frame of reference where everything is new and shiny from Freedom and you say, "well why haven't they churned out a ton of stuff that fixes X?" Where X is whatever you look at and take issue with.

Basically, people are forgetting that Paragon wasn't always in the position they are in now, which is to say "way better financially than we were before we started selling you a ton of stuff you want." And, that they've only been in this position for a (comparatively) brief period of time. Personally, I've been pretty happy about the transition, but nothing in particular has excited me over what they've been making as of late, so I went and dropped to premium for a while to see how it goes. I think now more than ever they're in a position to do some awesome stuff that they never could have before, and I really hope it evolves somewhere beyond "just make more stuff that you already have" and into "make stuff that you want that you don't have already," or at the very least, "fix the stuff that's been broken forever."

Well, I was aiming for a, "how much do I think I could get away with that would piss people off but not enough to make them quit." Which is a very entertaining thought process for some reason.

For actual changes I'd like that I'm sure people would hate:

- Implement a tab next to LFG called PvP. Consolidate the current Arena listings into a much smaller and easier to understand format (level ranges, solo/team) and let players queue from anywhere. At the end of the match, winners and losers get a varying number of Reward Merits and XP, and maybe a short duration buff to a stat of their choice, ala DFB.

- Following that train of thought, implement a new style of PvP matches that grants you a pre-specified set of powers using the extra power bar thing from i23. You could pick from a number of pre-set abilities (maybe themed after characters, but you still play as your own character) and play that way. Much easier to balance. Put it in the PvP tab alongside Arenas.

- Cut all existing craftable temp powers. Make them considerably rare drops, and include offerings that we already get from the market: Mission Teleporter charges, Experienced charges, Windfall charges, etc. Tradeable, auctionable, etc.

- Consolidate existing "clone sets", offering all the weapon models/animations from the two sets in power customization, but making a pass on the numbers to bring them up to snuff and making them into one set. For example, War Mace and Battle Axe would become Medieval Weapon. Super Reflexes and Ninjitsu would become... well, probably just Super Reflexes But With A Heal.

- Create thematic equals to the patron power pools for heroes. Numbers wise the same powers, but visually tied to existing heroes.

- Allow villains into Paragon City, giving them their own content to do there. Comic book villains are always in the city, not hanging out on some remote island chain run by a creepy spider guy. Keep Rogue Isles as viable content, but let villains be villains in the city. Implement a mode of transportation that isn't a tram for them, and a flagging system that lets villains or heroes designate that they're "ok" with open world PvP. If you don't turn it on, you never have to deal with it. Using the "yellow" status to make enemies neutral, villains could be buddy-buddy around certain villain groups while in the city. Depending on who you do missions for, you could earn their favor, elevating them from flat out hostile to neutral and eventually to friendly, where they'll shoot buffs at you as you run by, help you out if you're under attack, etc.

- Add in Woofers to replace Positron as head of the Phalanx.

- Blow up Faultline. Again.

- I'm running out of ideas.

Considering that i22 was released on top of a very popular space soap opera, I'd say i23 coming out on top of another big release makes sense.

If you have a Grey alignment, you summon a pack of wolves who you can ride on to your mission.


In factual news, Street Justice is 600 points now too.

First thing I put down in that box.

*highfive*

Took it as well. Few interesting bits in there. No idea what Halloween 2 is, but if history is anything to go on, it'll be pretty cool - everyone pulls out their best stuff for Halloween for some reason.

I meant, finding other people to PvP with. It's not exactly accessible and easily organizable to the same degree that a task force or trial is nowadays.

I was never suggesting it was cost effective or even really feasible from a financial standpoint for a total overhaul. You're absolutely right in that sense - the cost/return ratio on an overhaul is most likely all sorts of skewed. I was saying how ignoring a portion of your playerbase is poor form. PvPers in other MMOs aren't given the shaft to the same degree they are here. It's less about "fix PvP" and more about "quit ignoring/acting like jerks to the people who want you to fix PvP, and at least try and have a discussion about it." The reason people kept asking about PvP and bases was because they'd never gotten an answer and felt ignored.

Well, we could always change Water Blast's name to Bladder Blast, and force it to be colored yellow. Bladder Blast/Bio Armor is the perfect tool for the Wet Avenger!

I'm not implying CoH needs it at all. It's done very well for itself without it for years. I'm saying newer games are highly scrutinized for having lackluster pvp, or just lacking it all together.

What makes you say that? If they're coming in with no research done ahead of time looking for a PvP experience in a MMO, CoH has it by means of a technicality. Sure, it's there, but you'll have a real hard time finding it. Thing is, a newbie doesn't magically know that without digging around some.

Right, the point of the summit was to interact with the playerbase. PvP isn't a "big reveal" - it's already in the game. A total systems overhaul would be a big reveal had they, well, actually done that. I was suggesting they opened themselves interaction rather than flat-out ignoring comments. Had someone bothered to pitch a PvP zone revamp, the discussion could have gone there. Had they been more open to general questions, it could have happened as well.

There's one thing if you're annoying and spamming every venue with the same request over and over. There's another where civil discussion can't occur around a topic because there's some sort of pre-conceived disdain surrounding an issue. Had someone wanted to ask about badges, or additional RP features during a part that was vaguely related to the panel at hand, I sincerely doubt there'd be the level of, "no we're not talking about that here at all stop it."

Honestly, I'm not either. I think it's beyond childish and a little boggling that one of the better MMO communities around spouts it with the level of frequency that they do, but hey, whatcha gonna do.

Yeah, you say that now...

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. When you think of core elements in other MMOs right now, PvP is a huge part. Quite a few MMOs have based their feature set around PvP and use it as a driving force for what sells their product. Neither of us are in a position to say whether or not it's a good business decision to go forward with it, but a total absence of meaningful PvP is branded as something that can sink a new MMO in this age. I'd say that's incentive enough to at least try to get it going.

As opposed to metaphorically plugging your ears and saying "lalalala we're not talking about thaaaat~!" I understand it's a rough issue to go forward with, but I'd have appreciated some real discussion over it. The people who were asking questions with any regularity at the summit seemed fairly reasonable (except the one girl who was into mass murder and robbing banks because she can't in real life - that was a tad strange ), and I think something decent could have come out of it if they tried to talk to the community instead of ignoring it and repeating "we hear you" over and over.

There was one problematic person I remember who wouldn't stop nagging about it. Otherwise there was some fairly innocent asking about it met with either indifference or mocking (from the ustream chat). There are also pvp zones, 4 of them in fact, which by any standard is a ton of resources sitting around and doing nothing at the moment.

Which is why I liked Posi's idea of revamping Striga and giving it to villains. Even the scales ever so slightly.

Though, the pummit as a whole was pretty good, even from watching it on ustream. The audience wasn't totally ignored, but anyone asking about PvP never heard the end of "lolpvp" from the audience, and was told to stop asking about it by the moderating staff (Hit Streak, I think) and that PvP was specifically not being talked about at the pummit. Which is weird. The entire focus of the panels was to just talk with the players and not do big reveals, but oh no we can't talk about that!

Otherwise, good show! I'm super excited for the Post Apocalyptic set, and can't wait to see more on that. Rad Armor sounds promising as well, and even though I don't particularly care for the IP revamp, I'm sure they'll do good work on it.