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Quote:Oh yeah, the population is down. Fewer people at all the public watering holes. I suspect it is because of Champions Online, Aion, Dragon Age, and other new games under the ol' Christmas Tree this year.Originally Posted by Major_Glory
I took a break (to play CO and Dragon Age) but came back; like I always do.
It does seem more vacant than usual though. Even high population servers like Virtue and Freedom seem quieter than usual.
Game is 6 years old almost. New shiny beats old shiny. I took off for three months this summer to try out WoW. That was fun at first, got old fast. Tried Champions, liked the character graphics, didn't like the animations as well. Some cool stuff like throwing cars.
Personally I like instanced missions. I don't care much for competing for spawns with others. City of Heroes doesn't disappoint. -
Quote:I don't know why, but for some reason I find this post the funniest thing I've seen today. Thanks for the laugh!Originally Posted by Kelenar
Welcome to the forum flamewar nostalgia cruise! We hope you're enjoying our peek back at 'AE Farms,' one of the classic flame wars of 2009. Coming up: The addition of reputation to the forums, ED, and an old classic--PvPers and/or marketeers: Why won't they stop eating babies?
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Quote:The developers didn't nerf AE because of discussions on these boards.Originally Posted by Tank_Washington
Your nearly religious insistence on a certain playstyle and leveling speed, make you and your fellow 15,000 + post counters who agree, bad for this game's bottom line and subscriptions.
People didn't quit in mass because of discussions on these boards.
Memphis Bill and the other members of the Forum Cartel have no real influence.
I'm pretty sure that 'Forum Cartel' is just a label applied to people who have a certain large number of posts. I don't think it is an actual organization. I think I'm labeled 'rookie' because of my low post count, though I've been playing for 6 years. -
Quote:Cryptic has recanted, their new expansion is now free.Originally Posted by LiquidX
Everybody is too busy hanging out on the CO forums and complaining about Viboria being Paid Content.
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Quote:I was on Champion an hour ago. Lots of people in Pocket D getting together teams for the spring fling missions. Check there if you want to see people.Originally Posted by Caverous
I played the game a year or two ago, and just started playing again last night. I'm loving running around and beating stuff up, but where is eveyones else?! I don't think I've even seen another hero yet. I'm on the Champion server, is there another server that's more populated or are the starting areas on all servers like this?
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Quote:Are you seriously suggesting that Champions Online doesn't have anything to do with similar features in City of Heroes? The Going Rogue announcement came out before Champions Online's release, but the CO feature set was public long before Going Rogue was announced.Originally Posted by Lemur Lad
Sure, let's say this even though we know it's been in the works much longer than that, and we know the how's and why's of the buyout, expansion, and development schedule.
I expect this kind of crack from certain wanks, but not you Marcian.
Competition is sometimes innovating and sometimes copying and sometimes improving. -
I'm pleased myself.
I had to force myself to play to 50 on four characters (2 heroes, 2 villains x 2 accounts) to unlock these. I really don't care too much for the game levels 40-50. I'm glad other people won't need to do that to try these out.
Personally, my feelings wouldn't be hurt if they removed the unlock and made these available to all players at all levels. -
Quote:I can sympathize, it would be nice if they would rework these to not be requirements. No, I can't give you a compelling reason. I know that they put these in so that people wouldn't miss new features, but there are better ways. And its not new anymore.Originally Posted by TyrantMikey
Enough of this insanity!
This has gone on long enough.
Doctor Trevor Seaborn, a brand new contact, decides that I need to go see Virginia Hoffman right off the bat. I go to see her. She decides that I must immediately go consult with the Bloody Bay contact at the extreme south end of Skyway.
Now, I have two options for this from Steel. I can either travel all the way to the north end of Steel and take the Green Line to the South End of Skyway, or I can take the Yellow Line from Steel and travel all the way to the south end of Skyway. Neither way is a pleasant choice.
But I make a choice and do it. Having made my decision, I talk to the Bloody Bay contact and take the Green Line from Skyway back to Steel, traverse the distance back to Virginia Hoffman from the north end of Steel to where she stands at the south end.
Virginia then decides that I must immediately go talk to Jim Temblor in FAULTLINE.
/em crushingfacepalm
She's not the only contact that does this. At some point, you will be given a contact that will give you this INSANE series of missions. Only after you've done them will she give you actual work to do. It's a mandatory time sink. And you'd better hope that that contact doesn't open a story arc.
These kinds of pointless time sinks are enormously frustrating. Another example of this is the mission to talk to a Hero Corps analyst, something I've likely already done, but which a contact feels I *must* do anyway--in King's Row--or they won't believe that I've done it to their satisfaction.
Can anyone really give me a compelling reason for leaving these types of things in the game?
I don't think that these particular missions were created as time sinks, though I do think that most missions that send you to doors and contacts in other zones were created as time sinks. The developers have pretty much abandoned sending people to other zones to waste time, but these are old now.
All that aside, you can mitigate these annoyances with a little planning.
Seaborn is a contact from levels 10-14. He wasn't a brand new contact if he sends you to Hoffman, a level 15-19 contact. You had already outleveled him before you ever spoke to him.
Bloody Bay is right next to the Faultline entrance. You can talk to one 15-19 contact at 15 to get that mission, and another to get the Temblor mission. Do both at once to save time. You can go straight to Temblor without a mission as has already been pointed out, but why not get a bit of experience for the trouble?
There is a shortcut through Pocket D to Faultline that saves you the trouble of crossing Steel Canyon or Skyway City. Pocket D is close to the train station in Kings Row. The Pocket D entrance in Faultline is not far from the Skyway entrance near Bloody Bay, or Temblor.
Frankly the whole thing takes 20 minutes out of the lifetime career of a hero. Its not like you have to do it daily. It took longer to type this message than it takes to do all that. -
Quote:They should call it I16.2, because nothing lowers expectations like a decimal point.Originally Posted by NightshadeLegree
I17: Is That All?
...because expectations have been raised too high for it to be anything other than a disapointment, especially if it takes another month or two to deliver. -
The nice thing about AE missions, is that if you aren't enjoying it, you can drop it. It doesn't follow the normal mission rules that restrict how often you can drop a mission. You only risk a few minutes before you figure out that you aren't getting appropriate XP.
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Quote:Lies!Originally Posted by Westley
They are... yummy!
mmmmmmm
I had to eat that stuff in pre-school. 41 years later and I still can't get the awful taste out of my mouth. That stuff is corn soaked in lye.
Lyes! -
Toe bombing with cloaking device, smoke grenade and trip mine on my electric/devices/electric blaster. Really it would be more efficient to just blast them away with attacks. I just like making it go boom!
Second best is spending three minutes laying out a minefield for a boss fight. With two holds I could just hold him in place and blow away his hit points faster than the time it takes to set the mines.
But...
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Really. -
I don't care for the ninja run poses for running or standing. Running does look kind of cool with shield and weapon out.
I do like NR for the leaping poses. Reminds me of old Steve Ditko Spider-Man poses. -
The difference between 4% and 12% is 8%, not 300%. Upgrading your enhancements won't make that big of a difference, you won't be 3 times as powerful. The improvement with enhancements is more noticeable when you upgrade to SO enhancements or higher level inventions.
And to answer your question, no, the game doesn't check how good your enhancements are.
If I recall correctly, the game doesn't scale damage the same way from levels 1-10, as it does from 11-50, so you feel more powerful at the lower levels than you will in your teens. -
If I recall correctly, the LFT message doesn't reset when you log. I don't team often, but I recall building a character, setting the LFT message, then not playing the character for a long time. Then I got an invite which I rejected, because I was just messing around, not interested in fighting anything. When I realized that I had the message up, I sent a tell apologizing after I cleared the message.
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Quote:Once I get a character to 50, they are like a trophy. Stick 'em on a shelf, and ignore 'em. Sometimes I'll log into one, just to see if they have piece of rare salvage that one of my other characters could use, but that's about it. I tried once to play one of my 50's, and it just wasn't fun.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Frankly, I enjoyed the fact that my characters were DONE. It gave me a sense of closure. I just know that this new thing, whatever it is, is going to attempt to make progress infinite, or at least such a pain in the *** that I'm never going to bother finishing even one, thus robbing me of my sense of closure unless I pretend it doesn't exist. And if I pretend a few more parts of the game don't exist I might as well stop playing altogether.
So, fear: kind of. Excitement: ZERO. Don't care about end game, never have, never will. Far as I'm concerned, "end game" is where the game ends and I start over.
I don't have a lot of 50's though. I usually lose interest by 40 if not sooner. A lot of them feel done, once they have their tier 9 in primary or secondary, depending on if its a good or sucky power. I always felt that the 40-50 content wasn't fun.
Adding end game content won't change any of that. Not a bit.
You are free to stop playing your 50's. Even if they add end game content, you don't have to play it. I never had to play the 40-50 content, and originally only did so to unlock Peacebringers, Warshades, Widows and Spiders. I can't see how the existence of an end game could rob you of closure, or why you would need to pretend it doesn't exist. I never needed to pretend 40-50 didn't exist.
Well, to each his own.
If its fun to do, I don't care what level it is, I'll do it.
Recent changes to the difficulty system added fun back into the levels 40-50 for me. Turns out the grindy feeling I had in those levels was from being mezzed and sapped so much. I used to turn the difficulty up because I like to have boss fight in every mission. But doing so made fighting the minions tedious in those levels. Now that I can fight even level minions and a boss, I'm enjoying content that I couldn't before. -
All the good names have been taken,
Because I have them all!
And I'm not sharing.
Kidding aside, I recently got 'Stronghold' on my first try. I don't think its obscure. And I didn't have to use any special characters or odd spellings. Usually I just use two words, like 'Blast Witch' or 'Fast Kick'. As long as one of the words isn't 'Dark', that usually works. -
I once built a sapper build with an elec/elec blaster. It was based on a posted build I read in the blaster forum. I used 3 end mod and 3 recharge reducers in Short Circuit, and was too low level to have Power Sink. It relied on the inherent accuracy to hit, along with the boost from aim and build up. This was pre-inventions, so SO's were as good as it got.
It worked, sort of. I could jump into melee range with a group, launch Short Circuit, then regular attacks and then Short Circuit again as soon as it was up. It drained their endurance, but they could still brawl.
The problem was, if instead I had opened with aim+build up+Zapp, I would have one shotted a minion, then Tesla Caged the lieutenant. That would leave me only one minion to fight (solo). I got beat up less by not using Short Circuit.
It worked better against bosses, provided I used defense buff inspirations to live long enough to use Short Circuit twice. Reducing a boss or an elite boss to using only his weakest attacks was nice, but he could still attack. It mitigated in the sense that his attack rate and damage dropped, as he ran dry, recovered a little, attacked a little, ran dry again. Boss fights were the only ones long enough to get much mileage out of it.
I tried this against an AV on a team. I think I counted around 11 applications before the AV's blue bar neared the bottom. By then its red bar was also near empty, so it was pretty pointless to try.
And as far as regular boss fights go, I recently started playing a very old Elec/Devices blaster again. I noticed that in those boss fights where I don't lay out a big mine field in advance, then the boss's blue bar eventually is drained just from spamming charged bolts, lightning bolt, tesla cage and zapp. Short Circuit isn't necessary, its just quicker.
According to the data in the power descriptions most of the electric attacks have a small chance to cause a recovery debuff for a few seconds. Attack fast enough and I guess they add up. -
Before the change in the difficulty system, I would play at the default difficulty level until I was 20-22. After that I would usually play at the 3rd difficulty level, which be something like +1/x1 bosses, no AV.
I would usually get bored with a character and stop playing them in their 30's. I didn't think this was related to the difficulty level until the new difficulty settings reset everything to the default level.
I have been having a lot more fun with the higher level characters than I used to, and I realized it was because I forgot to crank the difficulty back up.
This doesn't apply to scrappers, which feel like easy mode no matter if I turn up the difficulty or not. But turning up the difficulty on tankers makes fights more tedious, not more risky. And for squishier types winning a battle with less than half my hit points means progress at a lousy pace.
So under the new system, I'm playing at +0/x1 bosses, no AV. With the exceptions of scrappers, masterminds, brutes, none of which are my favorite archetypes. And I'm enjoying the game more. -
Quote:You can ignore what other people think, don't use mids, and build your characters the way that you want. That's what I do. But I advise you to ignore my advice.Originally Posted by Fire_Minded
Ok,what im wanting to understand is why people respond in very few ways when a players asks a question?
If someone asks of the "Fun Factor" or a particular build and AT....they get the following...
"Its not good at soloing AVs."
Well,if that was my focus,wouldnt i have mentioned that when i asked about how fun the build is?
or
"Heres a Mids map that may help the development of your build."
Great,awesome,cool....not only did you throw a outside program at me,that not only is impossibly useless in anything but telling you maxamized numbers for a power set,it doesnt tell you how your going to perform vs the things youll face in the game,like villian/mob resistances,def %,do you need massive support from a team to do anything?Or if youll even like the build,or if youll be the type to play that particual build correctly.Plus,i didnt tell you that i wanted to make a toon that i wanted to try out for the olympics.
or
"That build is meh...but with IOs,it could be halfway decent."
I see...so nothing but IOs is a contributing factor in how well you can build and play a character?My only response to those who belive you have to be IOd to be decent..is...Your limiting your self on what the game offers,your playing the same thing as the next guy because its a exsplored set...that by no means makes it a "Better" set then one less used.It simply makes you ignorant,hence the response on IOs making it decent.(NO,mids does NOT work correctly,its a insufficient program)
Then this last one is the one that urks me..because its the more seen,in the forums,and in the game its self,and its the most ignorant thing i can think of pertaining to this subject..
"Thats a horrible set,and the reason is because of....."
The reasons that follow the beggining of this comment are usually from ignorant people,from every corner of the Earth,that play this game.
From "Mids numbers arnt very high." to "Because i had a friend that had a level 50 of that build!And erased it!Cause it Sucked!",and we both know thats a cop out,to talk trash on someones choice in a less travelled,or less understood set,just for the sake of talking trash,when they never seen a player do it,or just couldnt cope with a diffrent playing style,or never tried it at all.
I also dont understand why people would suggjest there build...to everyone else...for me,and many other players,i find Cookie Cutting and copying a build that is everywhere annoying.
Some of you dont like me,and some of you know exactly what im talking about,but its those of you that dont like me,know i speak truth. -
No matter what data you want to look at, we don't have access to the numbers that are truly relevant. We don't know how many subscriptions are active. We don't know how many people maintain two or more accounts. And we don't know how many people are actually playing with their active accounts, versus those who are just maintaining their accounts for the vet rewards while waiting for Going Rogue to hit beta.
I don't need any chart or statistic to tell me active playing population is down. I see fewer people when I play at the places where people tend to congregate: the markets, the trainers, the universities.
Last year people were competing for christmas presents. The only time I had a free hand at opening them was Christmas morning while I waited for my relatives to show up. This year, there were unopened presents on the servers that I play on. Every days has been like last year's Christmas day.
I'm not stating doom. Ultima Online was still active last time I checked. So was Everquest Online Adventures (a Playstation 2 MMO most people never heard of). Old games, less popular games. MMO's reach a certain spot, they make money. But it would be nice to see more people playing.
Paragon Studios may not like pre-announcing stuff, because then they don't have to defend design decisions that players like to interpret as 'broken promises'. But I really wish that they would try to generate some buzz. Release some videos, give some interviews. Publish something. -
Quote:You know, you could edit that video to be about any nerf in any online game. Substitue COH for CO, substitute the Energy Melee nerf or whatever for the CO nerf mentioned.Originally Posted by cursedsorcerer
Still funny though. -
Now here is a question that occurred to me. How many heroes would switch sides around level 40, just to do the villain patron missions for the free respec?
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I don't think many of my existing characters will switch sides. I plan to start all new characters, most of whom will be villain archetypes playing as heroes. I don't really like playing a villain, but I prefer the archetype designs.
I'll probably start on a different server too, since I don't have many slots left on the three I currently use.
I do have one Ninja/Trick Arrow mastermind who may switch sides. My backstory for that one involved brainwashing. -
Quote:Parallel EarthsOriginally Posted by SwellGuy
Rikti? Are they still around? I thought I had pretty well wiped them all out from Earth.
* sighs *
I guess I better slap on the boots and cape and go whack some more.
Therefore Infinite Earths
Therefore Infinite Clueless Rikti