Blue_Mourning

Right now - right at this moment - the leveling process from 1 - 50 is shorter if all you do is team from 1 - 50. Is that broken?

Having taught students and being, in some fashion, a professional writer, I have to say this: When you're expressing complex ideas in a clear fashion you need a lot of text. What Arcana (and given that she's probably one of the most articulate posters I've seen on any forum on the internet, even if I don't always agree with her) said was about complex design philosophy and any time you're going to boil it down to what you said you're going to lose a lot of resolution, to the extent that the image that she was trying to paint with her words wouldn't even be the same image anymore.

The school of thought that you are espousing is the proverbial ten word answer when things are rarely simple enough to express using ten words or less without losing a lot of resolution of concept.

What she was saying is more complex and goes back to design philosophy of reward structure of MMO design and, to me at least, it makes complete sense. There are very few dedicated soloers in this game and even fewer dedicated team players. At some point everyone but the most ridiculously team oriented defender will probably solo in this game. The idea that solo-ers need the same reward benefits that teamed players get means that players that both solo and team will see very little reason to put the time in to actually make a team, which is at least in some way shape or form a gated activity (gated by time/commitment/willingness). It takes *effort* to get on a team (and more effort to make a team), which is at the heart of the MMO experience. If the purpose isn't to create in some way shape or form a kind of shared reality then you may as well have created a solo console game, and that's not what the MMO is supposed to be. That's not even what CoH has ever been since I've played the game (I signed up in I9).


I could be totally off base, and completely missing the whole point of this, in which case I apologize for the above paragraph. I just worked a fourteen hour day and right now I am dumb. Anyway, my whole point is, don't try and reduce a complicated and nuanced position into a much shorter statement. Shorter does not equal concise.

I don't necessarily agree with that because the well is specifically divorced from any kind of morality system. Therefore by doing morality missions, I'm not sure it should specifically reward incarnate content anymore than dropping incarnate shards, which all level 50 content does.

If you were directing your hyperbolic vitriol at the other posters I would agree with you. Instead your response has been "The devs don't #%$ing care about us and they're not communicating with us!" when in reality they have shown that they're listening and they're investigating, which is all we ever get from them regarding issues like this. So, yes, if you're expecting more communication from the devs, you shouldn't redirect your anger at them when you're angry at other posters beating you over the head.

My problem with the NotW being craftable by shards is this: The devs have seem to decide that it shouldn't be craftable becuase they didn't make it craftable. They could have just done that and have been done with it. The system they put in instead rewards an action they've deemed worth getting the attention of the well. Simply by crafting incarnate shards doesn't exactly jive with that design intent. So it's got to be more than just saying "We should craft it by using incarnate shards" because that would be a fairly easy system to implement because it would already be there.

The thing is though - they've never been able to be definitive when they don't have a system ready to go because that's the nature of the beast. Why should this be any different?

This is the best argument I've seen for why there should be a solo way to get a NotW. Actual level advancement - which is what levelshifting ALMOST is, shouldn't be gated behind teaming activities like TF's, because of their restrictive nature. Not everyone can get on a TF for more reasons than being an introvert (which I don't consider a good reason for not wanting to do a task to get a reward in a game if only because there are some activities that you're not going to want to do depending on personality type in a game this comprehensive - Introverts aren't banned from doing TF content. People with children or RL duties [being on call a lot] might).

Honestly the best thing I can think of (and it's been suggested here) is to have a solo arc that can be done ad naseum, but only drops a NotW once a week. Here's the thing though, it should act as a solo TF and it should be difficult, and consdiering how many people regularly complain about Trapdoor, I'm not sure that will make anyone happy.

I don't know, I prematurely self contragulate myself all the time. Nothing wrong with that. Grows hair on my palms.

Oh, wait, you meant to be derogatory. Well....that's okay.

In all seriousness though, yes, I have an opinion. My opinion is that you're setting up and then moving goalposts for the devs - they haven't added solo content and you want them to acknowledge it...which they did. Only when that happened some on that side of the argument thought that that wasn't good enough. And maybe he shouldn't have mentioned that we should expect team oriented content in an MMO, but he DID mention that they were looking into it. There might be several reasons why they need to think about how to implement a solo option when they clearly have a deterministic way to get a notice of the well in team content but they're not sure how to also implement that in solo content. I can think of several reasons why, off the bat for instance, it might not be workable with their current ideas with how the system should work to not make the Notice craftable by shards. It actually defeats the purpose of making the Notice drop when you complete some kind of task. It also might make it difficult for them to decide whether you should be a recipient of the WST other drops if you got the Notice in a solo fashion and then did the WST, which clearly shouldn't then drop another notice.

With all of that said, moving the goal posts for a dev who's job description doesn't really include talking with people on the forums is at best annoying and at worst disrespectful. Complaining that they also don't care about you when he just spoke on the forums to specifically say they're looking into it is the kind of desperate hyperbole that makes the devs not want to post on the forums in the first place.

I'm not an advocate of dev worship. I'm an advocate of purposeful constructive intelligent debate, none of which we're really getting. I understand that that's the internet, and I understand that I'm essentially tilting at windmills hoping for something different, but I'll just keep trying. Hey, I teach teenagers for a living. What do you expect me to be? Rational?

I find it hysterical that with that kind of attitude you've proven her right....

Considering the sheer amount of content there is in the game around 90% sounds about right.

My only point in the first paragraph was this - we can assume that the progression of the Judgement power is going to look similar to that of the Alpha slot because they have technology in place that makes sense (even if you disagree with how the upper tiers of that tree are unlocked; and that is NOT to say that I agree that soloers shouldn't have access to it. They should). So therefore I can only assume that as it stands right now casual players that CANNOT play TF's won't have access to some of the upper tier stuff right away at release. Which could change tomorrow.

Those are extrapolations from both existing content (which is extraordinarily friendly to causal gamers) and the devs stated design intent (which is that they want to be friendly to casual gamers). If either design intent or the huge wealth of existing content disagree that extrapolation becomes moot. Since they don't disagree, and we had a dev come and say they were investigating a way to make everyone at least content with the content (haha) I can only assume that if and when they make incarnate content for casual/solo players, they will also make sure that a way to obtain a level shift for said players will be in place.

I'm with you. I really am. I want the devs to not gate the content behind TF's only because, while I enjoy a TF, I don't enjoy it all the time on every character. Where I'm not with you is in your extrapolation that the devs have abandoned you and will forever keep you in your abandoned and sorry state. There is too much content and design that flat out disproves that they don't care about you, and you seem to stamp your foot down and flee to the extreme side of the arguement, which, frankly, is one of the things I hate most about the internet and about our society in general.

There are two extremes here: The hardcore casual players who take their casual playing seriously (heh) who believe that the devs have just pissed in their cheerios and will continue to piss in them throughout the year, and the hardcore whatever-the-heck-they-are who maintain that in an MMO there should be gated content. The issue is that there aren't just two sides to this argument (and, indeed, in many arguments), but a whole slew of them in-between. Where do I stand? I want them to make a way for casual/soloers to obtain a Notice, even if it's slower, but right now they clearly don't feel comfortable for whatever reason making it a non-TF reward. I am happy they released it and allowed some people a way to obtain a notice because otherwise it might have been much much longer for them to sit on it going nowhere. I hope, and I'll petition, for the devs to give us a way to obtain a notice casual, but if it comes down between the way their comfortable with now, or no way at all, I'd like to at least have the option now and figure it out later.

The devs have not abandoned you. In fact, up until now, all of the content released with Going Rogue was a casual players wet dream. It allowed a deterministic way for everyone to obtain a rare/valuable recipe in 4 days time; it allowed side switching in 4 days time, and access to new zones in 2. It provides a whole alternate leveling path in 6 new zones for levels 1 - 20. NONE of that is end game/hardcore/team content. Yet, save for a few malcontents that were relatively quiet, no one raged about the lack of endgame content right away. For the past several issues there have been a lot of attention payed to the casual player. Do you really think the dev team is going to say "Well, we've done enough for them, let's forget the exist!!!!!"? Because I don't. And insinuating or flat out saying that they are is disingenous at best and detrimental to your cause at worst.

And I know that there are two extremes and just in case if you're wondering why it seems like I'm picking on you, I'm not. It just seems that your extreme is, right now, a more logical position. It's also the more vocal.

My speculation is, at least, consistent with what the devs have stated as design intent, and is also consistent with the majority of the incarnate system thus far, and with the terminology we know the Judgement slot will have (Ion Final Core/Radial Judgement or something like that). Given that they have a working system and that any development team will want to reuse tech where they can it makes sense to not abandon either the interface or the tree when looking at the other slots. We even know in the Judgement slot that there's going to be four trees.

And while all of it is speculation it's also extrapolation. What you, Toony, specifically have done is ignore much of what has been stated by the Dev team as a whole on this matter, and have chosen to latch on to a singular thing that Black Scorpion has said, which was some content in an MMO will be team oriented. While that is an important thing to latch onto, I would direct you to what he said prior to that (or perhaps after that) which was while he wanted the incarnate content to be highly difficult, he also wanted it to be inclusive for most gamers. If we add it all up, I can only assume that, at this point, the non-level shifted incarnate stuff is going to be open and relatively easy to get for everyone. the level shifted stuff, in the future, MIGHT stay behind a forced teaming wall.

Now some people have been rude to you and the "soloist" camp as a whole, and you and that camp have tended to speak in terms of hyperbole. You have just told me that I should not speculate, yet that's the only thing that's been happening because, frankly, there's been a dearth of information from the devs on the topic, which I can only take to mean they're hard at work on planning a solo way to get notices of the well.

To those people who would tell you to sit down and shut up, I would join you and call them stupid. However, the opposite reaction - what has largely been your reaction - is to claim that the devs have abandoned you and the game is no longer playable because you've been abandoned by the endgame mechanisms - and endgame that, according to your rules you probably woudln't play anyway because, right now, it's TF content.

Given that the developers have always made content causal and solo friendly, and given that they've said that their design intent for the Incarnate system is to make it inclusive instead of exclusive, I can only assume that the near future will have arcs and the like for a wider playerbase to make use of.

Speculation is, in of itself, not a bad thing. Speculation without support or evidence is. None of my speculation is without evidence in the form of a great deal of history, and the devs own words about their design intent. So while my speculation is just that, it is also a logical extrapolation of the facts as we know them to this date. All of which is far more helpful to your position of eventually gaining Casual friendly incarnate content than the rampant hyperbole which has been fueling the "casual" player's rage (mostly claims that the devs don't care about you, which is pretty much false, aggravating, and patently annoying).

Time will tell whether the WSF is an ill-conceived notion. But in these first few days, at least, the evidence is against you. It's the first week so we won't know anything yet. We'll know more next week when it moves on to Kahn - a TF, by the way, that is far more casual player friendly because of it's short duration and relatively straightforward tactics (Reichs, save for some stuff atht he beginning, is completely tank and spank) (granted villains have a complaint because BSF is significantly harder than KTF).

You would think so but people have gotten in trouble for cases of fictional child pornography. I believe I hard someone getting in trouble for writing Harry Potter slash fic for instance. I understand why they're reticent to do it.

I'm pretty sure right now that, despite it not being explicitly stated all the incarnate slots will be gettable without teaming, but that not all the trees within the slots will be without getting a Notice or something like it. Meaning that right now, as of this moment, 2/3 of your requirements are met. Currently no content requires anything more than a common and quite frankly we can't speculate too much on future content.

But right as of this moment there's also not ANY solo incarnate content. Still, I would suspect that you're going to be able to obtain at least the common slot solo for all the slots. And, yes, I know that's speculation. But given the tone of the devs since this has come out, and the desire to make it inclusive of most if not all play styles, I don't think it's all that rampant.

That's all well and good but the WSF won't always be lvl 50 content, so people, outside of the first week, will be running that content for several reasons - XP bonus, Merit bonus, badge credit for the WSF. While I doubt that it'll be run as often as it is this week, it will still be run, and I bet it'll be run at a decent clip. Unless they choose Dr Q, then it'll never be run :P.

As mentioned the upcoming WSF, Sister Psyche (in 3 weeks I think) only needs 5 to start. Next week's Kahn needs 8, but can easily be banged out in an hour or much much less. Recruiting 3 people for the WSF should be pretty easy. To those people who literally don't have the time to sit in front of a screen for an hour or two to do the TF I think that sucks, for sure, but ponder this: there is currently nothing for you to do as an incarnate that requires you to BE an incarnate. The only incarnate content at this point is team oriented, so I'm not entirely sure what you're missing out on.

When they do add non-TF incarnate content I'll assume that there's going to be a non-TF way to advance. If not I'll be surprised. but right now, I'm not entirely sure what you're missing out on.

This, again, I don't really get. After a certain number of AoE's, another AoE just sort of becomes diminishing returns. If we have one or two fire blasters on a team, that should be enough to melt everything but the bosses, and at that point it makes sense to have one or two single target oriented builds to deal with bosses and the like, and to me that means stalkers, scrappers, ST oriented blasters/whatever. Whole teams consisting of AoE's melt spawns, but I kind of wonder just how much damage is needed after the first two AoE oriented builds.

But that might just be me. Anyway, a certain type of person only recruits certain builds and to those people I more or less ignore them. I, on the other hand, will take just about everyone, including that second tank on the STF, or a stalker, or whatever. Most people I've met do that. The regen on a stalker thing might be a problem, but I think you're running into people who just don't know what they're doing when they're putting together teams.

On the toher hand, why don't you just put together one yourself? No one can say "lolstalker" when you make the team.

Fair enough, but that's not the STF's or the LRSF's fault. They're not particularly intellectually challenging. Not easy mind you, and I fail it plenty, but the problem isn't one of intellect. Although to be fair, most of the times I've failed it is because someone's not paying attnetion to the chat box. A couple of times it's because there were build issues, either on an individual level or team make up level. But I've also finished it with 3 tanks, 2 scrappers, 1 defender and a couple of blasters, which is no way is a reliable set up.