Chase_Arcanum
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Posts
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Quote:Thanks for the feedback. Nothing there that's too unreasonable, really- at least you KNOW when your ideal solution isn't feasible, and you have more realistic expectations when they aren't. Your proposed structure really would allow me & Cinder to get more out of the Incarnate system, actually.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
....all very reasonable and rational responses.... -
Quote:Ah, Mothership raids.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I can play the game AND post on the forums. Sometimes simultaneously.
....Not only can you chat in between attacks, you can strike, queue up the next power, post lengthy debates on the boards, then repeat without ever interrupting your attack chain...
Gotta love them. -
Quote:I'm with you on this... don't get me wrong. I'll run an occasional trial, but when the missus and I play, we duo (second PC can't handle large groups).Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That, in point of fact, is all I've ever claimed to say - an alternate path to Incarnate... Err... Incarnatitits without having to go through huge raids, and simultaneously one which doesn't take multiple years to achieve on one character.
So,
1) What do you consider a REASONABLE time to get the first tier of an incarnate unlock for solo play? How many hours of play? Should getting to the "level shift" tier be AT LEAST equivalent to what you'd expect if there was a "level 51"? Is it wrong for devs to add incentives to team play by making that progression faster?
2) What do you consider to be a reasonable amount of repeated content? Would you be satisfied with JUST a better reward drop rate and no new content for 50's? Should the devs make so much content for the solo-able path that they never have to repeat anything? Should they bother with at least one solo quest for each Trial, but you could run it dozens of times? Should you have a chance to fail, like the trials, and if so, how would you balance that against the varied soloing capabilities of the archetypes? -
Quote:You're misreading the point.Originally Posted by Daemodand
I like to call it, as inspired by South Park, the "No Life Principle". You cannot kill that which has no life, meaning you cannot stop your top-end players from blitzing through your content.
The multiple currencies failed to do their job. As expected.
The issue isn't to prevent high-end players from blitzing your CONTENT. It's to
1) Prevent high-end players from buying all the reward without PLAYING the content. (by using pre-existing rewards to just buy what they want).
2) Prevent players from repeatedly doing ONLY the easiest single mission in the game to maximize that single currency then buy whatever new reward the devs release.
3) LETTING players use old currencies like most games use points (an almost constantly-increasing value) as studies have shown players enjoy this. Rather than battling mudflation and making a player feel taxed to death by constant currency penalties needed to keep any currency relevant, they introduce a new reward metric that ignores the previous one (or requires harsh conversion rates if you DO want to use them.) -
Quote:As you advance in your power, you become aware of greater and greater threats-- thing you'd never have been powerful enough to take on yourself, and things that are STILL well beyond your capabilities...Originally Posted by Adelie
This is something that has always struck me with City of Heroes, right from the start. Why does the required number of heroes to run a TF go up as the level requirement goes up, even though there are more players at the lower levels (this has become less true has time has gone by but still the point stands, especially since higher level characters can examplar).
Now with the raid content, we are expected to find not just a full team of players to start it but multiple full teams of players. Thank goodness for the new team formation que thing. Without this this would fail completey on all but the busiest servers. It still may as time goes by and the novelty wears thin.
I always thought it was kind of odd that Positron can be done with so few heroes and yet all (or most) of the level 40+ TFs require 8 players. Should you not feel MORE super as your career progresses and not less so? You get more powers and get better rounded, etc. Controllers get pets later on in their careers for example and would be more able to solo or small team content, and yet the solo or small team focussed stuff is designed for the low level characters?
It just all seems very backwards to me.
... but in your adventures, you've made allies with their own diverse powers. Where any single one of you wouldn't stand a chance against some threats, working as a team you can face and overcome even these immense challenges.
And it isn't a sign of weakness at all. If anything, its another sign of your accumulation of power. True power doesn't just lie within. A mage may put to use the energies around him to cast spells. A power-armored super uses the technologies at his disposal. A martial artists uses every bit of his being to become the ultimate fighting machine. All of these ALSO have the ability to harness the unique talents of the allies they accumulate along the way, making them much more powerful than if they tried to go it alone. -
Quote:I think the concern is that they're seeing Incarnates as ADVANCEMENT, and therefore, they're feeling locked out of advancement. PvP is its own entity. Noncrafters can buy SO's. If you want to be at the 'top of the game,' you gotta do the incarnates.Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
But this is a special case because it's you who is feeling left out this issue, right?
Not like the people who didn't want to PvP? Or the people who didn't want to craft? Or the people who had no interest in playing another alt to try Kheldians or Soldiers of Arachnos?
It's disconcerting to me that so many long time forum posters don't realize how this game and its issues work yet.
If they'd made ALL the incarnate powers be exclusively used ONLY in incarnate content, they wouldn't have much of a complaint, but because the incarnate powers affects their normal PvE game to some degree, those that don't like it feel slighted. -
Quote:Well summarized.Originally Posted by Sardan
I wasn't able to test i20, I only read about it sporadically on the forums. So I knew about the 2 new trials, and I was concerned by the high failure rate reported. I also read just enough about all the new Incarnate salvage that it made my head spin.
When i20 went live, the amount of doom-crying was high:
- The new Incarnate Trials are way too tough compared to the rest of CoH content.
- The time commitment required by an endgame system is unreasonable and counter to CoH's casual-friendly past.
- The new Incarnate salvage is confusing and unnecessary.
- Having only 2 Trials means having to repeat/grind the same content far too much.
I predicted that within a couple of months people would have strategies figured out and the presence of people on leagues who already had lots of beyond-Alpha slots unlocked would make the tasks easier. I was wrong. The transition from "OMG this is too hard!" to "If you listen to simple directions this isn't very hard" happened some time before I started playing on Saturday. So what I predicted would happen in a couple of months took less than a week.
Not casual friendly?
Many people have wrung their hands because part of CoH's appeal is being the casual-friendly MMO and they worried about end game raiding ruining that. While the Incarnate Trials are definitely harder than regular content, they are fast and can easily be done by a first-timer as long as he or she will follow some simple directions. I think that qualifies as a casual-friendly end game!
I can't stress enough my gratitude to the devs that even though the Incarnate Trials are intended to be hard, they're designed to be sub-hour encounters. If these were multi-hour encounters, players like me would only be able to participate rarely.
Yes, the Incarnate system IS designed to be a time sink. Welcome to MMOs. If you only do a couple of Incarnate Trials a week it will take you a long time to unlock and equip the various slots. But that's by design; just as you're not intended to get to level 50 in a weekend, you're not intended to blaze through the Incarnate system in a few days either.
Incarnate currency overload?
While I understand Posi's reasoning for the new Incarnate currency I strongly dislike it. This is one area that I think might inhibit vets from returning to the game. Just try explaining to someone how to create set IOs and the benefits they give, then the Alpha slot and shards, then the other Incarnate slots and threads. Bleah.
Incarnate grind?
This one I now strongly sympathize with. It really gets old fast having to run the same 2 tasks repeatedly. Still I don't blame the devs. I'd rather have i20 now than wait for more Trials to be created/tested. Too grindy? Take a break and do something else. This is a problem that will solve itself after they release a few more Incarnate Trials.
I'm going to follow my own advice and not do any Incarnate trials for a while.
After two long days, they are indeed feeling pretty grindy.
Also- what confuses me most about the new incarnate salvage is the randomness of it. Alpha salvage is more-or-less tied to a specific task force (and uncommons are built from a predictable common plus shards... pretty straightforward).
I haven't caught on to any such pattern for this next generation of salvage options. Their name doesn't give a rationale to how to get it (as it would in some other games) nor does the variety encourage interplayer trade (they're bind-on-pickup). It adds some additional work for the player to get to his goal (ARG! that's not the uncommon I needed) and might encourage some people to dabble in alternate builds (might as well make THAT... since I can...) but that's at a bit of a cost to user-friendliness. -
Quote:You're right, of course. If most people are boneheaded enough to run through 10 trials a day while hating it, they're not going to want to see that content again once they're done. You sure won't find ten a day running.Originally Posted by Test_Rat
Everyone who is offering Shard/Thread conversion as a viable method for progress are as disingenuous as the devs.
Its not offered as a viable option, but as a bullet point: Look there is another way!
Even though that other way is a massively punative monument to stupidity!
And for the people telling me: Take your time:
Well the Trials are already petering out on virtue. Its getting REALLy hard to get into a lambda run after a week as people have stopped playing it. I haven't really STARTED on my Freedom toon and I am massively worried.
So If I don't man up and put up with repeating these two missions NOW while the rest of the playerbase is Putting up with it, its less and less likely I will ever get slots done.
Things will be even worse come the next slots because we all know they will be using INCARNATE SOULS or something, that will have an even more punative conversion method, and no one will be running the "old" trials any longer.
Most people I know are getting one toon kitted out and then they stop logging in. Its probably what I will do once I finish my mains on Virtue and Freedom.
They may someday be as scarce as other content that's several issues old... like Mothership raids (run several nights a week on my favorite mid-population server) or the ITF.... or... even the occasional Hamidon. Heck, once people KNOW the mechanics of these trials (many STILL fowl up the simplest parts Lambda) AND have their 3 level shifts, you won't even need a full team to take them down.
Yes, people will get their one ultra-rare unlocked and then slow down, but they'll always have the (lesser) reward of unlocking other branches, in case they ever need more flexibility in the build. It won't be the COMPELLING urge that the first one may be, but it will encourage people to participate... casually... when the pain of overexposure has subsided. Heck, the devs have all but said that astral and Empyrian (sp) will be used in future rewards, so stockpiling these won't be for naught. -
Quote:Good points.Originally Posted by EvilGeko
It's only worth anything if you fill your T4 slots? This is the essential hyperbole which bothers me so much about this view. You get a substantial boost from even the common abilities in the upper tiers. The uncommons and rares get you the majority of the benefit possible. The T4s are intended to be very long term goal. Sure some folks who are very lucky or who run the trials constantly will get them quicker, but that doesn't mean they are anywhere near necessary.
As an analogy, I have several characters who don't have a single purple IO or PvP IO. They're still extremely powerful characters and I have no intention of getting them purples. Likewise, I only want T4 in Interface and Destiny. And I'm more than happy to be patient while getting them.
And people are STILL talking about blindly going ONLY Trials or NEVER trials. Mix things up people! Do trials when the opportunity presents itself, but not overboard. Do shard runs likewise. Neither burns you out then, and neither makes you feel abused. -
Quote:I can (shudder) back GG here. I've run Lambda only twice on two different toons, but got 54% and 58% each, respectively.Originally Posted by Clouded
I call shenanigan's.
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Quote:I dunno- seems that many people have been giving feedback that 10 Trials in 1 day is a rather foolish choice, too.Originally Posted by Test_Rat
Solo and conversion method of the Incarnate system is a fools choice.
What would you rather do: Go get some Ice Cream or be at the center of a Nuclear Blast.
Most people would pick the ice cream.
The "solo and convert way" is slow, but there's no reason not to run other stuff to break up the monotony of the trials and use what resources you get.
Seems like you're determined to be miserable to yourself and to try to convince everyone else to be miserable with you. Have fun with that. -
Quote:1) Obligatory "Progress in a game is illusory anyway" comment. The only metric of any value in any game is whether you enjoy it. Of second value is whether other people enjoy their time with you. Everything else is just inconsequential bits, inflated egos, and oftentimes bait for guild drama.Originally Posted by Test_Rat
But unless I am doing these trials I am not making any effective progress on my characters.
If I am not making any progress why log in?
2) What were you doing before there were trials? What have you already done? What haven't you?
The trials will always be there for your 50's to explore, and new ones will be added. Heck, you don't even have to alt. Shards convert, shards drop from all content for level 50's now (barring AE), so explore Ouroboros. Explore the tips. explore other zones. You'll get shards and you'll progress, just not as fast. "Fast and bored" works against #1 above. Be just as fast as you find enjoyable, never more. -
I was pretty concerned with this since only my /sr scrapper has an alpha level shift, so she was going to be my main incarnate-trial character.
After doing a few: don't worry. Yes, you're a little less survivable, but in a 16-to24 man event, you're bound to have more than enough tanks (or other AT that's capable of acting as a tank) to meat-shield everything.
When they're filling their role right (read: remembering that their best way to contribute to DPS is to keep the high-dps squishies alive... NOT all pound on the big guy while the squishies do hospital runs after all the other littler baddies stomp em) you'll find that they easily reduce enough of the attacks aimed at you to make up for the +toHit difference. -
Quote:44% here.Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
Bah!
*shakes fist*
Haven't even got Destiny unlocked yet!
On 88%...and besides, going for the very rare Judgement first, nearly there though
Wait... I don't even have the ALPHA rare on my main yet... (sigh) -
Quote:thanks, that makes a lot more sense nowOriginally Posted by Grouchybeast
There is good speed TFing and bad speed TFing.
Good speed TFing means matching the tactics to the team. On teams where there are enough support characters to hand out appropriate amounts of buffs (mmm, Cold shields), then the teams can split and clear out the cysts long before the shields wear off and the squishies will be fine. Sometimes, a squishy might take a string of unlucky hits and go down, but on speed runs I take part in they probably won't have time to make it back from the hospital before the mission is over. On the other hand, if there isn't that level of buffing, then squisihies need to bring plenty of purple and orange protection of their own, or the team needs to stick more closely together.
But, certainly, with the right team makeup, splitting up for the cysts can be blindingly fast and safe. -
I've only run 3 ITF's ever- 1 speed, 1 Shard farm, 1 unspecified so I'm far from an expert, but I wonder if there's some difference in perception of what really is the fastest technique for some of these missions. From my own limited experience, the "speed" ITF failed to do the shards faster or more effectively than either of the others.
Now, there are probably many different ways to "speed" through the cysts, but my experience was: "everyone run/sneak past the mobs, take a cyst down, then run/sneak to the next one." In this case "everyone" translated to "non-squishies that can survive the attacks of the chasing mobs." The result was that the groups were split, the sqishies dead along the route, and when the ambushes came, they died again, as did some of the others that got distracted trying to pull things together (I, the TF newb, lived, but I was blindly following along with the stealthers, ignorant of the squishie death till the cursing started).
It was slow and ridiculously inefficient.
In the "shard farm" and the unspecified one, our squishies stayed with us, kept us fully buffed, had their pets out, and everyone AND their pets remained at constant fulcrum shift. We STEAMROLLED through that map with no deaths and at an easily-faster rate than the speed ITF did.
Is that just random chance, or are there times when the fastest resolution for a task force IS to actually kill everything between you and your objectives? I mean, three samples hardly makes me an expert on these... -
... I've yet to do any of these since I20 launched.
Granted, I've only unlocked a level-shift alpha on one alt, and only did one WTF since they offered that... so that's rather unsurprising to anyone that knows me. -
Quote:Heh... I knew I shoulda kept my commentary limited till I had a chance to play I20 and poke around a bitOriginally Posted by Kailure
There actually is a progress meter for the badge, which isn't any more different than the exp bar as you said.
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I'm surprised by some of the complexity- or the perceived complexity. It really isn't anything too different than what we already have:
-Incarnate XP could have just been a "progress meter" on a badge. Get enough to earn the badge and you unlock an incarnate slot. People are used to badges... they're even used to progress meters on them, so this would have been rather transparent.
Why didn't they do this? Possibly out of a desire to give people MORE information. Questions of "how much progress do I get for X" are bound to pop up. Plus, all Incarnate info appears in the Incarnate UI... and there are no badges there. Using the badge system would thus separate it from the Incarnate UI. If it helps, just treat it as that badge progress meter... and keep doing whatever causes you to getting closer to unlocking that badge.
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Astral, Empyrian, threads, shards, etc. Call them "stuff." All through the game, we get stuff. Some stuff is very general-purpose and appears all over the place. Other stuff is specialized to special content.
- We get architect stuff from architect content
- We get vanguard stuff from Rikti content (after becoming a member)
- We get hero/villain stuff from remaining a hero/villain in tip missions.
- We get Halloween stuff from Halloween events
- Some of that stuff is used to make other stuff
- Some of that stuff can be traded for other stuff
- Some of that stuff can be converted to other stuff.
But its all just stuff.
We see the generic stuff very early in the game, but the specific stuff is introduced to us gradually, so there shouldn't be too much information overload to the non-powerleveling-newbie. (no hero/villain stuff till tips at 20, no Vanguard stuff until 30, etc). We don't even have to track all this special stuff at once. You won't earn "halloween stuff" while going after "vanguard stuff" much. All that stuff (more or less) has a place.
... and you won't even encounter the incarnate "stuff" until you've reached level 50, so by then, all this stuff should be old news:
Each event has stages in it
- you get stuff for completing a stage
- you get other stuff for completing an event
- you get a chance for rare stuff when its all over, too.
And as the devs add new content, you can bet they'll add more stuff too. -
Quote:100% agree. In Fact, I think we should schedule MORE server downtime so we can have more of these UStream broadcasts.Originally Posted by Mourde72
So, today, while the servers were down, Zwillinger was kind enough to open a UStream broadcast and entertain us. Even better, there were cameo appearances by Dr. Aeon and War Witch. Codes were given out, Lore questions were answered, and a bit of fun was had by all. Personally, I'm a fan of this, and I hope that you do this more often Z. Anyone else feel the same?
...Especially if I'm at work during that downtime anyways...
:: Toggles up defenses and hits elude, ready for the projectiles.
:: Remembers how the I20 content cuts right through defense softcappers... and decides to hide instead. -
Quote:This isn't new. Teaming with you has always counted as a kind of intentional handicapping, hasn't it?Originally Posted by Anti_Proton
Half my TF members are gimped!
Sorry, Anti-Proton. That's my characteristic friendly /poke at rian_frostdrake. He hasn't been around enough to abuse, so I'm taking any target I see
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Quote:New release. Unforseen bugs. The impact of some bugs could become progressively worse while players continue to play as you work on a fix, so you take down the servers and workreallyreallyfast on the fix. Then work reallyreallyfast again to fix the bugs caused by the too-fast-previous work... then rinse, repeat..Originally Posted by Cobaltix
Whyforhowcome!?
Just guessing... -
Quote:Right- after playing the Praetorian zone events, you can see the natural progression to trials-- multistage, often timed events that can take planning, preparation, and teamwork to succeed (or just bring in a much-higher-level character :P ).Originally Posted by Fiery-Enforcer
Why are people saying the trials are so different from the rest of the game? Everything still plays the same except you do these with more people and they are more difficult than everything else, like it's suppose to be.
Personally, I'd love to see MORE of these trials masquerading as revamped zone events through all the levels. Redo the troll raver so they have GM Code, the progress meters of the syndicate trial, and an indoor "destroy the dyne lab" stage, for example.
I generally dislike the high-level gameplay (much prefer the feel of the game in the teens through mid 30's) so I'd love to see more of the "trial/zone event" type of event... just not at the level cap
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Misleading and incomplete. Corrections below
Quote:There is just one of these to track. It is called different things from different perspectives, but it isn't 3 separate items.Influence
Infamy
Information
These each come in common, uncommon, rare, and very rare (for recipies). There's also event salvage (which you missed). There isn't much sense counting these and then counting 'rares' and 'uncommons' separately. heck, you counted 'purples' and 'very rare' twice already!Quote:Salvage
Recipes
1) IO's aren't loot rewards, they're craftables made from salvage and recipes combined. They don't belong on this list.Quote:IO's
SO's
DO's
TO's
2) SO's DO's, and TO's are simply different degrees of a single item "Enhancements." If you're going to go through the lunacy of treating them differently, you might as well go all the way and itemize each KIND of IO (knockback, endurance reduction, damage, etc) and even its level.
You forgot "Vanguard Merits"Quote:Merits
Hero Merits
[/quote]
Threads
[/quote]
Shards, incarnate common salvage, incarnate uncommon salvage, notice of the well, etc... or we just easily lump all of these into "Incarnate Salvage."
Most of these are noted above in salvage/recipes. I'll count PvP recipes separately since the do drop via a different system.Quote:Uncommons
Purples
PVP drops
Rares
Very Rare
Quote:I am seriously for the first time in many years doubting whether I care to play this game any longer. These rewards "tables" are becoming ridiculous. How many types of rewards do you have to keep inventing?
The cheese is becoming far less tasty lately.
Ok, so a better list would be
- inf- whether influence, infamy, or info
- salvage (common, uncommon, rare)
- event salvage -- listed separate since they only drop during certain times/places
- *base salvage -- listed separate since they no longer drops but exists as legacy junk in-game
- recipes (common, uncommon, rare)
- recipes (very rare) -listed separate since theysince it only drops from level 50 foes
- recipes (PvP) -listed separate since they since they only drop from other players
- Enhancements (TO/DO/DO)
- Enhancements (Hamidon / Special) listed separate since they have special drop conditions/events
- Architect Entertainment Tickets (you missed that one)
- Inspirations (missed that one too)
- Merits
- Hero Merits / Villain Merits
- Vanguard Merits (boy, you missed a bunch!-- see, there was no need to artifically inflate things by doublelisting above)
- Incarnate Salvage (Ok, we could count each component differently, since they do drop from different incarnate events, but we could also count each item of salvage differently too... just makes sense just to lump the stuff that's used to craft incarnate items together, like other salvage)
- Incarnate XP (again, could count each differently, as this is the xp for each unlock... but heck, this is essentially the same as easier to find/read "progress meter" for a badge. You're doing X until you unlock Y after all.... oh, but that reminds me...
- BADGES- they are, after all, something you get for something you do-- a reward. Heck, want to really inflate this.... these all unlock differently, so we can count them as 'achievement, history, exploration, accolade, etc.
- Prestige-- almost forgot it too
I'm still missing some obvious stuff, I'm sure.
...but enough of that.
I disagree with your conclusion.
Many of the additional rewards you mention are gated to alternate content where it makes sense to give out its own "point/reward" system- you're rewarding the user for participating in a particular activity, and you don't want that reward to lose value by making it too easily available to people that haven't earned it, simply because they have a surplus of another salvage handy. (There's some conversion available between some rewards, they're usually rather inefficient to discourage the practice, but give some flexibility in extreme circumstances of surplus/demand)
Some of the awards work just the opposite- making something that would otherwise be locked to a specific item (task force completion recipes) to those doing the TF-- while counting all TF's, long and short, at a common level. Applying merits to these (and story arcs) gave us enhanced flexibility.
The gating doesn't overwhelm new players because it IS gated- you learn that you get AE tickets by doing AE missions. If you're not ready to experience AE, you never need to worry about the tickets. Pretty much the same with Vanguard Merits. If your're interested in making a supergroup base, prestige will become relevant. If you're not... you can ignore em or even remain blissfully unaware of them. -
Quote:Ok, haven't run the new content yet... not really that interested in making it the focus of my play, but am curious enough to want to dabble... and I'd rather not come of as completely useless when I do.Originally Posted by Zombie Man
So... If I get enough defense, I should be guaranteed that nothing in the game will ever challenge me? Is that Defense located on a button that says I WIN?
The only level 50 that I bothered unlocking the level shift with is my MA/SR scrapper. I can see how other soft-capped-defense sets can use alternative builds to mitigate these issues, but with everyone saying how the high-level-game is balanced against the soft cap... what should I look at doing with the /SR scrapper... aside from playing it like a nearsighted blaster.
Is that it? Don't tank, use things like the smoke flash and day job placate to keep the big guys' aggro elsewhere... or hope your team has lots of +resist buffs?
(This isn't a whine-- I'm really trying to get feel for what'll be expected)