Samuel_Tow

Now, some of you may remember that I posted a long-winded rant about the changes to Malta AI back in I14 when a whole host of AI changes happened, and for those who don't remember it, let me remind you:

Prior to I14, Malta soldiers were really nasty, but there were a few little tricks a player (say an enterprising Blaster) could exploit to outsmart them and beat them at their own game. Gunslingers have a host of really nasty attacks, such as an Ice hold that they can cycle about as quickly as it recharges, an AoE fire bullet that does a LOT of damage and is AoE and a bunch of regular handgun attacks. However, they only used those at long range. Staying close to them, like 5-10 feet or so, would cause them to only cycle their handgun burst. It was nasty, but quite tolerable. Malta Titans have a variety of nasty attacks, such a whole host of missile swarms and a couple of plasma blasts. However, again, staying close to them caused the Titans to only ever cycle their bash melee attack, which while still strong, was survivable.

So, come I14, all of that changed. Suddenly, all Malta soldiers were using all of their attacks, and it was NASTY. Oh, sure, I discovered that keeping away from Tac Ops, say 40-50 feet or farther, would cause them to fire their rifles repeatedly and NOT throw stun grenades, but even that was a small consolation when compared to the horror that were full-tilt Gunslingers and Titans.

Fighting them now, I'm starting to spot something interesting. While Titans will still fire their entire array of missiles and blasts even if you're close enough to hit them at the new melee range (7 feet), something wonderful happens if you approach point black within old melee range (5 feet or less). Suddenly all of their missile swarms halt, their blasters fall silent, and the Titans resort to swinging their fat arms around, just like before. Apparently, the old trick still works, but I need to be a LOT closer for it to take effect. Which is really cool, because it gives these titans a very, very cute Achilles' heel that only a really cheeky Blaster would even think to exploit - run into their faces and stay in melee the entire time.

I've yet to experiment whether Gunslingers suffer from the same tactical limitations, but if they do, then I might just have found a good way to tackle these guys once again. And, before you guys axe me for exploiting bugs in the AI, let me just explain that I find this kind of system of strengths and weaknesses to be a GOOD thing. It both requires one to know his enemies, and it represents an actual tactical choice in a game where tactics so often come down to "hit it until it dies." I like the fact that the Vahzilok, for instance, are hideously difficult to fight, yet suffer from enormously short sight and aggro radius, making them susceptible to crafty tactics of division and trap-laying.

Malta having specific weaknesses is GOOD.

*edit*
Unfortunately, Gunslingers do not appear to be subject to these tactical limitations. They fire their handguns just fine even at the closest range I can get to without hugging them. TacOps, on the other hand, aren't using their Stun Grenades at close range, and indeed avoid using their rifles, as well. Instead, they stick to Brawl and (annoyingly) Taser. I can't say that's that big a step up, though being tasered is certainly not as bad as being flashbanged. The bigger problem is the inability to outwit Gunslingers, as their damage and status effects can be devastating when combined with their unnecessarily high accuracy. Still, making Titans a bit less of a threat IS a step up.

I don't believe this thread has too much merit, because it seems to be taking kill speed, or in other words DPS, as the only meaningful metric of how "good" an AT is. Trying to balance damage between all ATs is not a good idea, because that removes the notion of a "damage dealer" in one fell swoop, not to mention gutting the very idea of some ATs being better at certain things than other ATs, which is kind of the point behind having them to begin with.

All ATs are not going to kill equally fast, that much is a given. The ability to kill fast is one thing an AT can be good or bad at. Survivability is another ability that not all ATs need to be good at. Team support, much as I dislike the concept, is one, as well, and believe it or not, there are PLENTY of people (myself NOT among them) who would trade personal ability for team support. Being able to turn the tide of battle via altruistically helping others vs. selfishly helping yourself is the crux of being a hero, after all.

As far as I'm concerned, the only real balancing ATs need to undergo is giving them modes of play similar to how pretty much all the upcoming super hero games are going about it, and similar to how our own dual builds can support. Have the character be allowed to have both a solo-friendly state and a team-friendly state, and the problem ought to be solved.

Unfortunately, the original game was designed with the holy trinity in mind, and that is too hard-rooted to work around now, but think about it from this perspective:

Say a Forcefields/Energy Defender needs to choose between team support and solo ability. In team mode, the Defender will be pretty much like he is now. In solo mode, his shields will only be castable on the Defender himself, but for less buff (and never on team-mates) and his Energy Blast would do more damage. Better for solo, horrible for teaming, but isn't that the point of an alternate combat mode?

I wanted to quote so many people that if I replied to each individual I'd probably double my post count. Let's see if I can't freehand a response to everybody and get it right. If I seem to be referring to something you feel you said, I probably am

On the note of exploration having more novelty value than replay value, I have to agree completely. You can't really re-explore the explored, that much I agree with. There is something to be said about having so much to explore that, by the time you circle around to the old, it feels new again. The Abandoned Sewers Underworld always has that effect on me, as do the entirety of the Shadow Shard, but that's largely because I go there so very, very rarely.

I think, however, we're getting two different versions of exploration being mixed up in here. On is the version of exploration that badge hunting promotes, where the player is placed in a familiar, "in-control" world which nevertheless has lots and lots of hidden easter eggs for the player to find and enjoy. The Developers' Lounge in Faultline is a perfect example, but hardly the only one. Plenty of CoV rooftops have an old chair, a barrel with a TV on top of it and loads of beer bottles strewn around as though a bum were squatting there. Places of that nature are fairly widespread. This is, to call it that, urban exploring.

There is, however, another type of exploration that we actually lack in a big way. This is what I'd call the outdoorsman style exploration, where the player goes to a place that isn't simply hidden just off the side of the beaten path, but going quite literally far away from civilization. In fact, plenty of backpackers do just that in real life - pack their bags and head off into the forest or into the mountains. There doesn't really have to be anything particular to explore or see (though untamed nature usually provides regardless), but rather it's the sense of being far away from anybody else that is the real draw. Now, I'm too much of a sissy to do something like that in actual real life, but I can certainly appreciate the sensation in a virtual world.

There's also something I think no-one has touched on, and that's the road trip factor. When I was a kid, my family would take me to the sea side every year, and it was a 500-600 kilometre drive that took quite literally all day, from dawn to early dusk. It wasn't ever any fun, mind you, especially for a little kid of 6-7 years of age being cooped up in a car for 8 hours straight, but there's an odd kind of serenity to it, once you get into the spirit. In fact, one of by FAR the most fun things I've done in GTA: San Andreas was to punch some poor sod off his Harley and and just take the thing out onto the freeway and travel around the county. It didn't have any point, but I just enjoyed the serenity and calm of the trip. Which is funny in a game about running over hookers and shooting cops, lemme tell ya!

To me, my trek through the sewers was a little bit of the latter two paragraphs. I enjoyed the sense of being far away from civilization, probably a full mile underground, alone in a wild place. Honestly, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more if the Abandoned Sewers entrances were deeper towards the middle of the regular Sewers so it felt "deeper," but that's besides the point. And then on the other hand, I really did enjoy the trip. I tell it like an adventure with interesting events popping up around every corner, but to be honest, it WAS long and monotonous, with battle after battle deconstructing into the same basic parts. And a few times I lost my groove and thought about giving up. But, you know, the feeling that I CAN'T give up was part of the fun. It's a job that has to be done, and if I can fall into the groove of it, it actually goes by quickly and it is a lot of fun. In essence, my trek through the sewers went like the world's most disgusting road trip

Of course, trying to sell that to people will not work. As was mentioned, this IS a very personal experience which isn't replicable. With people focused on rewards and efficiency, with content just there to get in the way, how can I really hope to do something like this? Well, to my eyes, if such a thing should be done, I don't believe it should be put BETWEEN people and their missions. For those who like the convenience of an urban environment and pick speed over trudge, the game really SHOULD NOT change. I'll be the first to admit that wanting to get somewhere and facing a ridiculous trip to get there sucks. I climb a 50 meter hill with lots of sections of over 30 degree slope on my way to work every day. If anything ought to be done, it ought to be done either as "outer reaches" zones or, ideally, as instanced missions.

A point was raised about a planned route not being exploration. Well, to a point I will agree and to a point I will disagree, but let's say I agree for the purposes of the discussion. How do we make a mission that has to do with exploration and hiking more so than with fighting bosses and rifling through crates? Well, I'm no game designer, but here's how I see it:

You have a large outdoor instance, fairly larger than the ones we have now. Say, about as big as the flooded Boomtown map PLUS the water. However, you are in no way expected to visit the whole map, or even much of it. You are expected to get to a certain point. Why use checkpoints, then? Well, when exploring, one of THE worst things that can happen to a player is being defeated and carted off to a hospital back in the city, or even at the start of the mission, having to re-trek what he's already trekked. Not only does that KILL, but it also ruins the atmosphere. But still, defeat has to be planned for, so what do we do?

Enter checkpoints. A series of checkpoints are scattered throughout the map. The player isn't required to visit any of them, but visiting the checkpoint will then allow the player to respawn to that location if defeated.

Let's look at a vague example to give you an explanation. You have to get to a villain's mountain base, but you have to stay under the radar or the villain will explode the bomb, so you walk. You start off from your dropoff point, and then a while in you find a hut. This is your checkpoint. If you are defeated, you "drag yourself back to the hut" to recuperate. Moving on, you find a large, convenient cave. This is your next checkpoint. Later on you find an abandoned camp site. It goes on and on.

In fact, I wouldn't mind such a mission being linear, as without travel powers, defining allowable area should be fairly easy without the need for "emergency forcefields." Of course, a large open square map with various paths and approaches isn't something I would refuse, though I fully appreciate such a thing might be TOO costly to make (leaving us with blandness like "Canada" or "The Desert"). In fact, I suspect a vaguely branching path reminiscent of the original Dungeon Siege (I'm talking about the forest stages, NOT the one dungeon stage) might be relatively cheaper to make, and thus allow for a greater variety of these.

Of course, I realise these things have nothing to do with reality, but they are interesting to think about nevertheless, specifically because it seems that they should be at least mechanically possible for the most part. More than anything else, though, this sort of approach would make getting to an objective into the objective itself, and if rewards were tied to that, then perhaps even reward-driven players could be enticed to try this.

But, really, it's just that it's nice to get out of the grind for stuff from time to time.

Yeah, but the point is it's not just things to SEE. All of those are hidden little places just slightly out of the way. Even the Rikti War Zone's mothersip site isn't that far away from civilization, especially considering you can just super-jump around it and out of harm's way.

I mean more a sort of wilderness that's "out there" and not as part of this big, sprawling city, in the way the Shadow Shard is. Of course, devoting entire zones to this has been proven to be a mistake, as seen from the popularity of places like Eden, Terra Volta and, yes, the Abandoned Sewers. And, in fact, as seen in Champions Online - large stretches of no-man's land are cute as a concept, but grow boring pretty quickly, especially when the game takes you up and down the damn thing all the time.

But, on a certain level, I do want to see travel as the actual OBJECTIVE of a taste sometimes. Not merely as an inconvenience suffered in the process of getting to the actual objective, but as the objective, itself. I've gone on the record before as suggesting instances that disable travel powers and the only objective of which is "get to the other end." In fact, if I went into making an actual suggestion, I'd probably work this on a system of checkpoints and respawn points and so forth, but I still see some potential in this. After all, as long as you're moving through a map and killing stuff, you may as well do so with the objective of getting somewhere.

You know, I've seen a lot of discussions about the merits of travel powers, the banes of cross-zone travelling, the benefit of having all missions in the same zone and close by and so on and so forth. I've always been of the opinion that these travel powers spoil us a little too much, myself, but as always that's subject to debate. However, I did something yesterday that I hadn't done in a while, and it reminded me of one of the biggest things I miss in City of Heroes.

Yesterday, my level 39 Broadsword/Shield Defence Scrapper got the infamous Hunt 50 Rikti in Abandoned Sewers missions. I've wised up over the years, so I hopped off to the Atlas Park entrance to the Abandoned Sewer Network and proceeded to trounce 50 con -3 Rikti in the span of maybe 10 minutes and returned to the exit. However, before I left, I got another mission from my contact, one in Brickstown. I though... You know, instead of zoning to Atlas, I could go to Steel Canyon and take the Green Line from there.

Think about that for a second: I went from the Atlas Park entrance of the Abandoned Sewer Network all the way through Underworld to the Steel Canyon. Linearly, they are about half a mile apart, but because of how the sewers are structured, I ended up zig-zagging through the network and covering probably three times the distance. And as you know, the sewers are too narrow to avoid enemies (or avoid aggro, anyway), so I ended up fighting everything along the way.

And it was awesome!

I started off at the Atlas side, fighting level 36 Hydra and Rikti. Those fights were easy, but since every spawn I fought had at least two bosses, not THAT easy. This went on until I hit a sewer junction. I knew I had to go through Underworld, so I took the turn in there, and right away I hit upon a huge spawn of Rikti with a Chief Mentalist and a Chief Soldier plus about a dozen Infantry. Shield-Charging into them imploded the minions, but by the time I realised the bosses were, in fact, level 39, I was already in trouble. I came out victorious, of course, but this was only a taste of things to come. See, the things in Underworld are quite a bit higher in level 38-39 and thereabout.

Underworld was a slog, but at least I was getting decent experience, levelling up to 40 along the way, which made things rather a bit easier. The Rikti bosses' resistance to my damage type was annoying, but it was generally smooth sailings. I even passed by the Hydra Trial gate, and I still get all tingly when I see it. Mad as it may be, the Hydra Trial is still one of the coolest ones in the game. I couldn't partake in it, obviously, but it was nice knowing that was now at the DEEPEST part in the city, looking up at my waypoint at the Steel Canyon exit so high up above. This marked the midpoint of my adventure, as every incline from there on out was up instead of down.

Coming out of Underworld, things began to take an unpleasant turn. The Rikti spawns began to give way to Circle of Thorns spawns, sometimes consisting entirely of level 38-39 Death Mages, up to three or four of them. Death Mages aren't resistant to my damage type, but they heal each other, stack debuffs on me and are generally a pain to fight. Still I pushed through, ever onward even though my objective seemed to never get any closer.

Then I hit another junction, this one splitting off into Boomtown and Steel Canyon. I knew from out-of-game sources that the Steel Canyon sector was a red zone, so I was a little apprehensive, but I'd done well up until then. How could it get any worse? Well, spawn after spawn of there or four level 40 Death Mages (I didn't even know 40s spawned there at all) slowed my progressed, hurt me badly and depleted my inspirations. Luckily, bosses being as drop-heavy as they are, they tended to replenish the inspirations I lost with large ones, which then got eaten up in the next fight with four Death Mages.

But I kept moving ever upward, ever onward, and finally my goal seemed to be within reach. I'd even started seeing Hydra again, and some Rikti, as well, and levels eased off into the 38-39 range again. And then, right at the last choke point before the final exit, a nasty spawn of four Death Mages, two Spectral Demons and a few Air Thorn Casters stood in my way, the final obstacle. That was a nasty fight, but I managed to take them out and proceed, emerging into Steel Canyon beaten, tired and with my Inspirations, Enhancements, Salvage and Recipes full, as well as with having gone from a quarter to level 40 into a good bit over a third into the level.

The whole experience took me around two hours, so about as long as a run-of-the-mill TF. The rewards weren't all that great, though they did earn me 6-7 million on the market just selling them. I didn't get too much experience, but I got enough to help make things possible. Crucially, I hadn't died once, not a single time, and that's with me having taken on spawn after spawn after spawn of multiple bosses. I no longer feel that Shield Defence is a weak set, and I have a new-found appreciation of my lovely Scrapper.

I gotta' say, looking back on this past year... That has got to be one of THE most fun, coolest, most amazingly entertaining things I've done, easily trumping ITFs and just about any team I've been on. More than anything, the atmosphere was incredibly appropriate. Deep into the bowels of the sewers, I was alone, far from home, far from the amenities of the city far above. No vendors, no hospitals, no transpiration. So deep below, no-one could even come to help me. And there was no-one to call to, as well. I was the only person in the entire sewers complex. I remembered the sewers for the most part. The maps are just taken from sewer instances and cobbled together, but it was still really cool to explore them. The tangible sense of going down, deeper and deeper and deeper was quite a novel experience.

Look, I've gotten used to the amenities of modern-day City of Heroes. I've gotten used to the trains, the teleporters, the shortcuts and alternate dimensions, the ability to drop any mission I wanted. And if anything was ever really hard, I could just ask for help and have it dealt with. But here, alone in the sewers, I had none of that. I couldn't override the dangers and challenges, I couldn't just hand-wave the hardship and I most certainly couldn't get anyone to come do it for me. I was by myself in a place that is about as wild and unexplored as any place in the city, and I pulled through. That sort of satisfaction just isn't replicable by anything short of exploring the far reaches of the Shadow Shard. That remote, desolate feeling of being in a place where you were LITERALLY alone and far away from civilization, where there were no easy ways and simple solutions, is just something I've always felt the game was missing.

In our day and age of grinding missions without having to leave the room and people hissing at the thought of changing zones like a vampire at a cross, it just seems the game is missing something. I guess I could just call it "exploration," but the problem is that the game has become a little too much about the destination and a little too little about the journey. All that matters is XP/min, Inf gained, number of drops, merits and so on and so forth. The less done to get them, the better. Less travel, less fighting, less work, less game. I just committed two hours of my life towards achieving NOTHING, and yet the reward for doing so easily trumped the millions I earned doing it and the experience it gave me. Even I occasionally have moments I catch myself playing this game for prizes. But yesterday, I played the game for fun in a way I hadn't done in over a year.

And I'm not sure I'll be able to replicate that again any time soon.

To be fair, a flashlight of some sort would make CoV a LOT easier to play during the real-life day.

Personally, I'm still waiting for an Axe Scrapper, but I will be very happy with my Inky Blue Dark Fire Brute in the meantime

I have to say I'm probably the first person to flock to a fun but not very rewarding activity (I fight Steel Canyon fires, for Pete's sake!) and I'd always pick a cooler story or a more novel one over a very rewarding but boring one. And yet, even I have to say that playing missions with vastly inferior rewards would deter me from trying them. Once in a while, perhaps, when I consciously devote some time to burn. But as long as I'm playing, I can have fun in many ways, and so it doesn't make sense that I'd pick the one which gives no reward as my baseline. It's just not worth it.

I don't mind people playing the Architect too much. I, myself, am just not a fan of the setup and the fan fiction, but I still play there from time to time. If this goes through and Architect experience tanks even worse than it does now (no Patrol Experience, no end-of-mission bonus, various less-experience enemies, allies steal experience and so on), then I'm afraid I will simply never find playing it worth the time. If I could find some amazingly brilliant content there that blew my socks off, I might be tempted to try, but I wouldn't be tempted to LOOK for it.

If anything, I wish there were a way for the developers to castrate the massive abuse of the system without slicing the whole system in half. It's a good idea, limited, realistically speaking, only by the measures put it to prevent abuse. Pity.