Agent White

*shrug* it's not skin off our noses, but don't expect the free ride to remain so free. It's pretty clear to a lot of players that DFB is too little effort for too much reward, and the devs do pay attention to the game metrics. The trial may be working as designed, but that doesn't mean it matches the intent with which it was designed. I find it hard to believe that the trial was intended to allow a player to powerlevel so much, or intended to be run and re-run so often.

Think of it like this.

City of Heroes is like playing a game of balll. When you start, you're given a ball, and asked to bounce it against a wall. After a bit, you're led to go play dodgeball, and then four square, and you can move on to Basketball and Soccer and so on. You start small and progress along. Now, not everyone likes bouncing the ball against the wall, it gets boring and repetitive after you've done it so much. So, the devs introduce getting to bounce a super ball against a wall instead. It's faster, more exciting, more fun. You don't have to bounce the same old ball against the wall. You get to skip it and move on faster.

But people are just bouncing that super ball over and over and over. For older players, it's not a problem, once they bounce it enough they can just go play soccer because they already know where and how to do it. But new players, all they know how to do is bounce that little super ball.

Now there's nothing inherently wrong with people finding the little super ball and bouncing it against the wall fun. Several are paying, so if that's how they want to spend their money that's their right. But the devs are still putting out other games and still want to see the old games played. Their job is to make sure that all the games are getting played, they're not being paid to make sure people are just playing with the super ball. If they did, they'd just make super balls.

Now, is the super ball broken? Well, no. It's working just fine as a super ball. People find it fun, it does it's own little thing. But they're not really supposed to play with just the super ball. If they gave people the chance, that's all they would play with. And, that is what's happening. Some people don't see anything wrong with it. Honestly, i don't have a problem specifically if people just want to pigeonhole themselves into it, but I don't deny it is poor design on the developers part because of the environment warping effect it's having. It's not healthy for the game to have something so warping. The super ball isn't broken, but it is imbalanced in terms of what else is being played.

We players don't really have to do anything and in fact I don't think we should. Obviously we can play how we like too so we'll just not play with the super ball. But I really wouldn't expect that you're all going to be playing with the super ball in the same way for as long, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. You don't have to agree with it, but we're going to point to threads like this when the devs do eventually step in (and I don't doubt they won't) to curb things. maybe the solution will just be a different kind of super ball (that is, a 2nd trial similar to DFB) but that just kind of presents the same problems, only now you just have 2 superballs to deal with.

I didn't say impossible. But given the the maces are Arachnos Maces, yes, I do feel it's wrong for heroes to go "Hey that's neat. Why don't I use the signature weapon of a horrible, malcontent group"?

if they were just plain maces, I don't see it being a problem. But they're not. it's a very specific kind of Mace you're 'mastering'.

The same with the summonables, they're all Arachnos summons.

Mace, at the very least, is just the least plausible pool for Heroes to 'just have access' to.

I was more lol'ing at the people that are complaining *about* the feedback. I think the initial kvetching is completely justified because this is an absurd market offering.

That assumes anyone likes the mess that's Torchwood Jack to begin with. Hard to care about a character that's so poorly written

Yeah, Lusca has been chilling out in the Northwestern corner of Independence Port for a lil while over on Victory. I got in on a Monster hunting team that hunted down a Halloween spawned Eochai in Perez. It was only 8 of us, we nailed the pumpkin, couldn't find Kraken anyway, so I mentioned seeing the octopus and we ran over there. I think we lasted about 5 minutes against one tentacle before we backed out, most of the team was almost wiped and we didn't even dent its health. We then proceeded to Croatoa and wiped out a dueling Eochai and Jack in Irons (though sadly, I didn't get badge credit for the 2nd Eochai, even though he was the natural one).

It was kinda fun but yeah, the rewards just weren't worthwhile. They need to at least be worth more merits if nothing else. And titanic challenges like the Seed and Lusca need to be worth considerably more >> The temp power on the Seed just isn't worth it, by that level inf is soo easy to come by and if I reeeaally want an exp bonus, I can do a day job.

Or maybe just more accolades behind them.

I dunno. They seem to be doing some great things with matching rewards to the iTrials, maybe some day eventually they'll turn an eye back to Giant Monsters. I mean, we know they're still doing them, what with the Seed so recently released.

And I'm still betting we're going to see that Giant Shivan again someday soon >>

I know right? Heart totally wins. You never saw Captain Planet getting summoned by 'lungs!' (no Wind doesn't count).

Ahh, I've just missed them then. I recognized Riptide, but missed the other 3. But my only loyalist Power run I outleveled most of the contacts in Nova Praetoria and Imperial City XD (I didn't know you could outlevel contacts before then).

I didn't mind the twist, but I kind of disagree that the entire thing underestimates you, largely because it doesn't matter. Yeah, the other contestants don't think you're that cool, but halfway through you become Scirroco's agent (and pawn). And you know from the get go since you're the player character you're going to 'win' no matter what. With Twinshot's arc it actually felt like you were participating in an event, like your character didn't have to bother if they really chose not to. Graves, on the other hand, well, first you start off better than the rest, but in the end you're more of an errand boy than anything. I don't like my villain feeling like he was just a means to an end, he's the one that's supposed to be doing that to others, not the other way around. If he's *part* of a plot, sure, but you end up being the lowest common denominator ;9

I just don't get a lot of thrill from playing the 'double agent' going behind everyone's back thinking 'oohhh you're all in trooouuble'.

Personally, I'd like to see an arc (not sure if it's doable) with a contest where you can actually fail the missions, and winning or losing affects the next mission or contact in the arc. Not sure if they could do that though :V

Actually, probably the funnest mission in the arc is setting up the stuff for the shivan meteors, getting to fight alongside the other Shining Stars and take on the Hearts of Darkness. It felt a bit more like a coordinated effort because we got some dialogue, some character development and a plot twist. Graves similar mission has no such development, it's purely 'find the glowie, beat up the heroes, watch Graves bust a blood vessel'.

Conversely though, Graves best mission is probably the final one in the mansion. Again, it's the mission where all the supporting cast gets to come together and we get to see everyone show off their stuff a bit. Actually the final showdown in Twinshot's was kind of nice, barring the fact that everyone but Maelstrom is a nobody we barely see (if at all) so they're more like placeholders. But it had the right feel at least.