Blue_Mourning
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I'm not sure I saw anyone say that. I certainly didn't say that. What I did say was that the rare and ultra rare slots on Destiny and Lore aren't all that useful for people who don't want to run the trial a lot because, in my experience, the mechanical difference on the powers is nice, but not game breakingly good, and the biggest reason to get the rare status is for the incarnate shift.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Yes, people have indeed said pretty much that. Or am I missing the point of all the "you don't need the powers if you don't do the trials" and "then don't play, go roll another alt" or "leave then" posts? I don't understand the rationale behind it either, unless they're either afraid that if a reasonable solo option was available nobody would want to play with them, or they're the kind of people who just like to gloat.
I understand why people want it, but it's not MUST HAVE. -
Quote:So we've gotten a little bit off topic.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Sure, once upon a time I might have entertained myself with intelligent discussion, but phht! Who cares about that when we can sling poo at each other, right? That's what you used to be good at. And, silly me, I honestly thought you'd changed, that you'd become a reasonable, level-headed person. I'm glad to see I was wrong. Now all we need is Excession and we can get the party started. I brought the gasoline!
I don't think anyone is claiming that there shouldn't be a more friendly small team/solo incarnate path. I think there should, I haven't read anyone saying that there shouldn't so I feel pretty comfortable saying that. I think I understand why people are pissed that the issue didn't have anything for them (even though I think it's a little bit of an over reaction). I think that people seriously just need to step back and realize that:
The devs will either add a more friendly small team content path of making your character an incarnate or they won't. In the mean time you can do one of two things: You can quit the game, and hope they add something to grab your interest in the future.
Or you can keep playing the same game that hasn't changed with the addition of i20.
This has created a storm of crap that is disproportionate with what has been added. -
Quote:You've stated that you have a particularly idiosyncratic way of playing this game, and yet you've campaigned to remove options for others? That's is either disingenuous or particularly selfish. Arguing that PVP or trials needs to be revamped or more inclusive is one thing, but by petitioning for a portion of the game for a reason that has nothing to do with mechanical brokenness is amazingly short sighted in a multiplayer game.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I have argued against the existence of PvP in the game just as I have argued against the existence of raids. I have argued against the existence of loot in the game in much the same way. You know I have, because you were there, so please don't be a hypocrite by asking me to provide proof of events you took part in.
I don't think ANYONE is arguing that there shouldn't be a better solo/small team incarnate progression option. I certainly haven't seen anyone claim that, and I hope they add one. I really do. But when Pool C and D recipes first came out there was no way to generate them except from trials and task forces. Now they've added a more reliable solo/small team way of obtaining them with reward merits, and even hero merits.
The only thing I can advise is patience and the devs will likely add another way of incarnate progression. THey haven't said anything about it, but for the past 1 or 2 years the Devs have been absolutely amazing at giving the player base what they want. Obviously that hasn't brought them any credit whatsoever. But petitioning that an entire portion of the game that others so obviously enjoy (or even if they don't enjoy it like PvP) is an amazingly selfish thing to do in a game that isn't a single player game. -
Quote:I'm starting to wonder what Venture likes about this game.Originally Posted by LISAR
You have a problem with each new issue having a new TF and a new SF?
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Quote:My point is that they've gated this stuff to team encounters before. No reason they can't do it again.Originally Posted by Venture
Pool C and D recipes came from single-group encounters.
And when Lambda can be done by an 8 man group your argument kind of falls apart. Lambda can be multi team content. It doesn't have to be. -
Quote:Pool C recipes.Originally Posted by Venture
Hamidon raids were the only thing that gave anything meaningful you couldn't get elsewhere (at the time), and what they gave wasn't that important, particularly after ED. The new trials are a whole different kettle of fish.
Pool D recipes.
For the longest time, until they introduced merit rewards.
And anyway my point is, I'm not sure you can say that finally tying substantial rewards to a multi team structure is a bad direction for the dev team to go with multi team content. Yes, it has to be fun, and yes, it should be done because its fun. But TF's aren't just done because they're fun. They're done because they give substantial rewards. Multi Team content, up until this point in the game, were not only some of the hardest to put together, but they were also some of the LEAST rewarded content. -
This isn't quite a new direction for this game - multi team content has been a part of it since before i started playing with the establishment of the Hami Raid. I'm actually not sure when zone events began to occur, but you could probably make the assertation that it started then (if they came before Hami Raids either way, which one came first isn't all that important, just that it came well before now is).
i9 revamped Hami and made it not quite so awful, and i10 expanded on multi team content by adding the MSR.
On a somewhat lesser scale, multi team content has been around since the advent of GM's, which I believe were in the game at launch. You will notice that with the exclusion of Hami, and MSR, most multi team content isn't run all that often before i20. The reward structure, save for Hami Raids, and even, possibly, MSR's since it dropped V-Merits faster than anything else, did not incentivize anyone to play them. GM's took comparatively long to drop for the XP/Inf that they give, and they didn't drop anything better than a badge. If you had the badge, or don't care about badges, there was no reason to engage in that content.
Zone events were worse. If you outlevel them the don't even drop XP/inf. The reason why Hami and MSR's are some of the most popular multi team content is, I would venture to say, based soley on the fact that it rewards you in a way that is commensurate with the time you've spent on it. In the case of Hami, in fact, it was the ONLY way to get those drops until i9 when they introduced the STF.
Multi Team content isn't new, and because of that it isn't a new direction for CoH to be going in. The only difference is that they've tied multi team content into by far and away the easiest way to gain and slot further incarnate powers. Even that isn't a new direction for this game to take since the only way to get Hami O's for a long time WAS multi team content. Yes you could trade them/buy them, but the ONLY way to generate them was multiteam content. But doing so without a market was difficult, and since it was likely the only thing you were spending your influence on I can imagine Hami O's on a server's black market (NOT the auction house, an actual black market) were probably quite expensive.
The only supposed new direction that this game is taking is with tying the easiest method of incarnate progression to multi team content, but even in a less obvious way CoH has been tying the easiest method of character progression to team content since i9 since the inclusion of IO's. In doing so, however, they've also finally shown that they're willing to develop multi team content to a more full potential, which really hadn't been done since the inclusion of multi team content.
Ultimately I would argue that the new direction for the game is incarnate content and not multi team raids. Those have been there since the beginning - they're just now finally actually being developed.
I'm not really trying to argue anything here, other than I've seen a lot of people talking as if this is some kind of new direction. I don't think it is, at least not in the way you're arguing. -
Quote:That's not quite a fair question because the reward structure of the LGTF, indeed ALL TF's, ask you to run it only once a day.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Ok, so you legitimately like the mechanics of the trials. Ok. It doesn't answer the question though: Do you like them enough that you would run them over and over if they gave the same rewards as the LGTF gives right now?
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Quote:Aren't you already complaining that the only reasonable way to get the incarnate powers is to spam the trials? We're actually getting more there than just a level up - we're getting 2 "levels" and three powers, and 1 extra proc slot. That would take FAR longer to obtain if we were just "leveling up".Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
How so? They could just as easily have you get those next levels by repeating the same two trials. There is nothing that intrinsically ties leveling up to running a variety of content, otherwise nobody would have ever reached 50 without ever having fought anything but the Dreck mission or Fire Ambush Farm #234298.
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Quote:I don't really see the need to raise the level cap in general though. There's no zone to support it, it would require a lot more content than what they're adding, and there would be a lot less attention all the other parts of the game.Originally Posted by Tenzhi
The stuff that, if you were simply a higher level you'd lose the benefits of being higher level for by exemping down anyway?
Arbitrarily raising the level cap might work for some games, but I doubt it would work for this one. The way they've done it they have added progression but not trivialized things like the Story Arcs from 45 - 50, the zones that have level 50+ enemies in them (Grandville, the Hive, PI, RWZ, Cimerora) and they would be trivialized on the first or second day because likely people would run AE into the ground, and they would have to because as it stands right now there isn't enough content to support it.
The way it is now there's progression with powerful abilities, but very little "leveling" and the bulk of those only exist in certain content. It's a lot easier to balance around and it provides a great deal of incentive to not abandon the rest of the game that isn't incarnate content. If ti had been just a simple max level, then we wouldn't likely have the new 20 - 40 TF's because the entire dev team would still be trying to hammer out new content. -
Quote:it's a matter of scope. If it has stayed with shards, it would have been easy for almost everyone, even those who just played "casually" to get the rare slots all on the first day. Now we've got a few, but not an overwhelming majorityOriginally Posted by Eiko-chan
As Positron explained in his blog post on the subject a few months ago, new currencies are implemented to keep the high-performing players from acquiring new things on day one and coming back on day two to say "okay, now what?" I really don't think acquiring things on day three is functionally different from this.
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Quote:Except it may not, if you consider that they didn't want to mechanically trivialize the legacy TF's and game (the stuff hte incarnate shifts don't work against.)Originally Posted by Tenzhi
Indeed. At that point, it will seem like they should have just increased the PC level cap in a more typical fashion rather than making players jump through odd construction hoops to get to what is essentially a higher level.
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Quote:No when the reward is supposed to be there to reward particularly difficult content. Right now you CAN chase it incidentally. It's just not reasonably fast enough. The trials are still supposed to be far and away the fastest way.Originally Posted by Ironik
Exactly my point. Chasing the brass ring should always be incidental to riding the merry-go-round. Game designers would do well to remember that. -
Quote:Except that, you know, you don't need to become incarnate to do these trials.Originally Posted by Venture
Half of the Resistance is useless, and the other half has to be shot.
The entire framing device of this festering pile of suck that passes for a plot is only Incarnates matter. Non-Incarnates can't even engage Tyrant's forces at this point. -
Quote:You can get a rare salvage drop at the end of the trial, and random salvage can drop during it.Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
If i counted correctly, i think it takes 540 threads to make a rare, unless you used a lot of empyrean merits. How many times did you do the trial to get those?
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Quote:You say that like it's a bad thing :P.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
A typical loyalist - fake and un-natural
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Quote:It would have been different. I'm not sure better applies.Originally Posted by Venture
OK, try this on for size: a Vanguard task force in which the players are sent to look into some energy readings that might be due to unauthorized interdimensional travel. Their investigations uncover a group of Praetorian sympathizers -- native Primals -- aiding and abetting some of Chimera's forces in making covert snatch-and-grab raids. They've been grabbing random people off the streets as dry runs, testing Primal security. The operation is shut down as a result of the TF, but the victims have all been sent to the BAF, where they've been mindwashed and dressed up as supers (given devices to simulate powers dangerous enough to be a threat to the public but weak enough to be easily smacked down by Powers Division). Doing the TF unlocks the BAF trial for your character, which continues more or less the same except with the fake "Primal supers" instead of Resistance.
Now, this ties into the Chimera/Mom storyline, it gives us some themes to play with in the sympathizer faction, it gives Primals a reason to be engaged with the BAF (which they currently do not have, ham-bluehandedness notwithstanding) and it gives a reason why taking out the BAF is a job for a team of supers and not an air strike.
Tell me with a straight face this wouldn't have been better than what we have.
And Praetoria's invading. What more possible reason would you need to go there and kick some Praetor tail? -
Quote:Obviously it's an opinion, but if the Lambda is tedious, what kind of content isn't?Originally Posted by Arilou
They're possibly too easy, but they're not tedious the way eg. a certain egyptian-themed dungeon in another MMORPG is. Trust me on this. (For starters, you only need one hour rather than five)
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Quote:It's responses like this that have lead me to believe that you must play this game by manipulating the keyboard with your face and the mouse with your tongue.Originally Posted by Venture
Yes, they are, and no, there isn't in any meaningful sense, and erroneous math is still erroneous.
They don't drop anywhere else but the trials, (except you know threads drop at Apex and Tin Mage, but clearly you weren't paying attention) but there is a deterministic way to get them outside of trials.
The only way you can say "it'll take more than 10 days" is if you do nothing but small team content in which case ALL your rewards are far far slower than everyone elses. That kind of pigeonholing does not have my sympathy. I think there should be a way for small team content to get it. I'm not convinced it has to be fair or balanced, not when people who engage in large team content can also do small team content and double their reward speed. -
Quote:The powers aren't tied to the trials. The incarnate shift is, but threads, and the salvage is not since there is a deterministic way to get them outside of the trails. Right now there are three rewards that are tied to the trials - Astral Merits, Empyrean Merits, and the Super Inspirations (and okay the level shifts if you want to count them as a reward, so 4). Everything else you can make outside of the trial.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
"I think they're fun" is a valid opinion.
"I like shinies" is also a valid opinion.
"They're fun because they give awesome shinies" is based on an erroneous assumption that the shinies are intrinsically tied to the trials. They are not. They are only tied to the trials because the devs chose to tie them to the trials. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Yeah, we get it, you like your shinies. Tell me, would you still love the trials as much if they gave comparable rewards to, say, LGTF? Would you still run them five times in a day?
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I can't speak for him, but the trials are FUN! -
Quote:I'm not saying that it IS reasonable. I've never actually said that. I have my doubts that he, or you, or anyone that has articulated disappointment in the speed of the solo content really know what a reasonable solo speed is. Right now, I agree I don't think it's reasonable. But it's totally reasonable to say RIGHT NOW (whether it's right or wrong)that over the course of ten days you can get a common judgment. I don't think that's reasonable. I personally think that putting in a deterministic way to get astral merits would be the best way to do it - say it's a third option at the end of a TF, so merit rewards, Alpha salvage, or Astral Merit, and on the WST it drops an Empyrian merit. I happen to like that option.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Venture's always a jerk, what's your excuse.
And no, he's not being unreasonable here. Other people have already pointed out in multiple places that it's the thread costs that are unreasonable.
"You don't need tier 4s" is not a valid argument. Technically you don't "need" to do anything in this game, but anything that is possible to get should be possible within the expected lifetime of this game, without being limited to one specific playstyle.
BUT as it stands it should be slower, because there's nothing in this game that has the kind of team work that the BAF and Lambda are asking for (which really says more about the state of team work in this game than it does about the BAF or Lambda but I digress).
And just for the record, I've nver said I wasn't a jerk. I am. What I'm not is needlessly combative and belittling towards anyone who doesn't share my opinions. -
Quote:Playing 1 BAF a day I can unlock and slot a judgement slot in 3 days. Doing one large team non trial a day I can do it in 10 - 15, and that's if it's the ONLY THING I DO. The trials make it easier to unlock the higher tiers, but if you're not going to do the trials there's almost little to no reason to. So no, you're overstating it even if I'm understating it.Originally Posted by Venture
Even if this is true (it isn't), five times as long for one quarter of one of two paths is not "five times as long".
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Quote:I already explained my reasoning up above. Mostly I was responding to Venture who remains unreasonable, and kind of a jerk about it.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Five times as long FOR WHOM?
30 threads to unlock.
60 threads to craft.
Unless you want to be horribly inefficient with your shards that's 9 days minimum. This is assuming you can earn 10 shards a day....now I have several characters who can play on x8, but in order to earn 10 shards a day on any of them I would have to play in a way that I can only call farming (using the definition of farming: running something over and over to maximize rewards.) or play one character for several hours a day. That's your solo option. How is this "five times as long?" If you can't play on x8 it would take a timeframe I don't even want to think about. -
Quote:There's too much fail here for me to respond to fully.Originally Posted by Venture
There's too much fail to quote.
- People don't pay for the past content of MMOs. They pay for future development. Ask yourself how long you would stay subscribed if tomorrow NCsoft announced there would be no future development or expansion of City, that support was now bug-fixes/maint only. My guess is that the vast majority of players would be reaching for the cancel button in seconds. If the indications are that your MMO is developing in a way that you're not going to enjoy, it's time for you to go.
- If the raiding path to character advancement takes time X which is deemed acceptable, then a solo path that takes 2X is generous, 5X is tolerable, and 10X is, to borrow a phrase, "a slap in the face". The alternate path to Incarnate abilities past Alpha is about 1,000X which moves past "a slap in the face" and straight to, say, "annexed the Sudetenland". The current "solo option" does nothing more than satisfy a bullet point and is in no way, shape or form a valid retort to those who don't want to raid. Those using it as such are being disingenuous at best.
- It has been said "if you could get the rewards solo there would be no reason to do the trials other than fun". That is true and it's the way it should be. If the trials aren't fun and are only being run because people want the shineys then they're a failure.
- People watch television every night and no one bats an eye at that. People who play an MMO every night can still be casual players. It's more a question of how many hours every night and how they approach the game that determines how casual they are.
So instead, let's get right to this:
For the most part getting a common Judgement is about 5 times as long. So by your classification it's reasonable.Quote:Originally Posted by Venture[*]If the raiding path to character advancement takes time X which is deemed acceptable, then a solo path that takes 2X is generous, 5X is tolerable, and 10X is, to borrow a phrase, "a slap in the face". The alternate path to Incarnate abilities past Alpha is about 1,000X which moves past "a slap in the face" and straight to, say, "annexed the Sudetenland". The current "solo option" does nothing more than satisfy a bullet point and is in no way, shape or form a valid retort to those who don't want to raid. Those using it as such are being disingenuous at best.
Oh wait, you're not reasonable? That's right....