Clintonian

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For the people who don't like the PPPs, there is really nothing to try.

My Stone/Stone Brute (that's based on STONE) does not want to spray anyone with chum.

My Plant/Thorns Dom (that's based on PLANTS) does not want red lightning or a big frickin' mace.

It's really that simple.

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Perhaps you will have a happier life if you wait with the hate 'till you have something better than press releases to base it on. Like, say, five minutes of experience.

It's really that simple.

I promise, I'll be right up there on the baricade with you if I try it out and find that I hate it. I'm just not psychic, so I'll have to wait for I7 before I can form an opinion based on anything concrete.

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I don't get this response. You quoted On_Demand's post in its entirety, commented on its hate content, yet there is no hate in his post...

Wha?

Beyond that, you keep telling people who have thematic concerns that they should wait and test content of which we already know the thematic quality.

Huh? I'm fluent in English, yet I feel like I've stepped into a bizarro world of logic.

All that's left is to Brawl index the powers and explore the missions tied to the powers - neither of which is what the OP is all that critical of. We can assume that you could team with people of other Patrons to get a taste of the segregated mission content. I hope so.

Once again, somebody is telling another poster who has been around the block many times with this game to take a "wait and see" attitude to everything when it's pretty easy for vets to piece together the basics without investing play-hours. So far, the 'wait and see' crowd's not even batting a .500 compared to the realistic predictions. I7 is going to be pretty cool, all-in-all, when it's finally released, but much like I4 and I6, there's a fair amount of content that caters to specific tastes and circumstances. Some people are going to have honest mixed feelings about it and probably the best thing to do is acknowledge it and move on.

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Oh geez, Posi and them already said they will look into it. The reason they couldnt do it differently right away was because of the fact they never put tech into CoH/CoV that allows you to completely breakoff a contact and lose any souviners/story arc progress.

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I think if the company had offered true APP equivalents of a universal/elemental nature in addition to unlockable PPPs this would be an almost moot conversation. I think it may speak to how ambitious and thinly-stretched they are, resource-wise, that they didn't.

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Maybe they feel that allowing those on the Villain side would obligate them to providing PPPs on the Hero side---and all the griping about not having these powers available at the outset. Then there's the whole issue of respecing completely out of APPs or Epics whatever into PPPs on the Hero side and so on and so on.

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I'd say this is the most likely scenario. I'd also imagine that they looked at the CoH APPs and said, "Y'know, it's going to take almost as much time to convert/playtest these universal pools for CoV ATs and throw in a few unique powers/effects to boot, as it would to create new pools based on some unique animation work we have for signature villains. We can always come back to APPs later and the priority now is to further differentiate the two games, which recyling APPs does not help."

(Just finished my Mind Reading Throught the Past 101 class. It was only Pass/Fail but fun.)

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In all honesty, I think 90% of the gripes round here (well, ok, 80% maybe) would disappear or never happen if we simply had more information available on a timely basis. I mean, of course, design information. ... I do, of course, realize that this can hardly happen if we expect these people to get any work done whatsoever heh heh.

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Yes. Considering how easy it is for the average player to not be informed by the forum, it seems pretty doable to post more nuts and bolts stuff and not spoil the fun for those who don't want "the magic" explained succinctly.

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Any talk of changing the permanent part of Patrons or something?

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It's really not as simple as "let's let them respec it!"

Since Patron sets are tied to Contacts you receive, you get the set of the Contact you choose. We'd need to add a bunch of technology to take away access to Contacts (something we don't do currently), to make sure you couldn't end up with multiple Patron Pools.

We have talked about it though, and are not through talking about it either.

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How about offering one more choice? Either we choose the Patron route to Epic powers OR we choose the generic route (which I define as the choices Heroes have). Doable?

Cal2

PS: thanks indeed for taking the time to answer some questions, man. I appreciate it very much. Half my teeth-gnashing has been nullified by just a few of your responses.

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You know it's doable, Cal, it's just not been worked on yet.

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4. Will you folks ever do what you did in 2004 and sketch out roughly the year ahead what we players can be looking forward to, either via convention panels or 'State of the Game' forum post?

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Yes, answer this one, please.

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Since you said please...

Yes.

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Hey Foo, (lol funny how that works) what were you guys talking about? Were you guys referring to the Ask A Dev series?

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Not entirely, speaking as the person who asked the original question.

Back in the summer/fall of 2004, Emmert/Statesman went on the convention circuit and spoke on various panels about CoH. He roughly sketched out what the plans were to expand CoH through 2005, introducing concepts like the EATs, where the Arena was in the pipeline, and where CoV fit in the schedule of updates - all done without really specifying dates.

The 'Ask a Dev' series is sort of similar, but not. Obviously not, since by September 04, forum commandos had a pretty good idea how the year was intended to play out and the same cannot be said today. The 'Ask a Dev' series was more about personal interaction and getting to know the devs.

Here are some examples from 2004:
A Chicago con report thread 08/20/04

From Statesmans Mouth - GenCon seminar 08/21/04

Future of CoH thread 08/22/04

WizardWorld Dallas 11/08/04 info roundup

Enjoy gazing into the past!

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Happy Fun Taser sux, bring back Brooding Attack Dog Taser.

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He's already made an appearance this week and contributed to having the mods gut a thread. You gotta be quick, Brooding Attack Dog Taser fans.

Stop reading my mind!

*clutters thoughts with Depeche Mode lyrics*

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Positron,

Would you and your staff like some pie? *holds out pie* With the storage capability of bases coming in i7, will we be able to store infamy/influence as well? sort of like a treasury with permissions settings?

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Inf Banks have been back burnered, and may even be off the stove right now.

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Strangely, I'm mildly relieved to read a relatively conclusive answer to an old, old question from CoH beta.

Thank You, Positron, for finally putting a little bit of closure out there.

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Any talk of changing the permanent part of Patrons or something?

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Positron:
It's really not as simple as "let's let them respec it!"

Since Patron sets are tied to Contacts you receive, you get the set of the Contact you choose. We'd need to add a bunch of technology to take away access to Contacts (something we don't do currently), to make sure you couldn't end up with multiple Patron Pools.

We have talked about it though, and are not through talking about it either.

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We couldn't possibly know if it's less or more work, but adding a few APP-style post-40 pools would alleviate some of the pressure. Half the angst in the forum towards PPPs is having a trapped feeling with PPP choices. Some of it will go away once the players get a look at the PPP content, I'm sure, but then again, a chunk of players are all about the PvP with PvE stuff being a necessary evil.

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I'm crazy busy right now, but I'd be happy to answer a few questions, as long as none of them are "when is I7...?"

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1. Is Hero PPP content in development for sometime in the next year, or is it a "Neat idea, maybe sometime" thing?

2. Villain APPs: in development for sometime in the next year, or is it a "Neat idea, maybe sometime" thing?


3. Is there a late summer 'mini-Issue' or seasonal event planned?

4. Will you folks ever do what you did in 2004 and sketch out roughly the year ahead what we players can be looking forward to, either via convention panels or 'State of the Game' forum post?

5. Back to 'mini-Issues' a sec: That'd be a great time to introduce an infinitely repeatable Respec Trial if you folks are still considering implementing that. Actually, is the mythical infinitely repeatable Respec trial in development for sometime in the next year, or is it a "Neat idea, maybe sometime" thing?

6. Mission/Contact structure revamp for CoH so that it's more comparable to CoV's: pipe dream or something happening in the roughly next 12 months?

That's all I got. Have a good weekend.

mmorpg.com has a 'new' Q&A w/ Positron on Friday, 4/21/06, FYI.

Can you get suspended or banned for chronic thread necromancy? I guess Kitty will find out eventually.

+1 IBTL

Talk to the guy who hacked the forum recently. He has ways.

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What I can say is I can no longer play they way I had for the 1 year and a half when I got to Lvl 50. It was fine for that time frame, why is it bad now?

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Yes, nothing's changed about the game mechanics at all since launch. Nothing new has been learned about powers or about how powers work together, nothing's changed about xp rewards, and no isolated gaming of the system has gone mainstream. You're right. It's all about screwing with your head because the devs have said, "This time - it's personal!"

Welcome to MMOGs. Gameplay may change over time no matter which one you pick.

Whether the mobs get buffed up or your powers get tweaked in some way, change is change. I can see your point that you want to retain the illusion that nothing has happened to your character, but the fact remains that the challenge bar has nonetheless been raised for your character. I don't buy into the illusion, so I made the splitting hair comment. You should feel free to hold onto it, though. We all have them in some way.

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Agreed... but it should be the enviornment... not the toon

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Why? This kinda seems like splitting hairs. I think you're identifying with your character a bit too strongly if you expect it to remain an inviolate fixture (something that's nigh impossible for anything in a MMOG).

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I can't think of any "change for change's sake" things the devs have done, so I don't really agree that change in and of itself is needed to maintain a player's interest.

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Me neither. Who was suggesting 'changes for changes' sake'? I thought MissDemeanor was talking about how MMOGs were complex systems (and often rushed to market) that were regularly being tweaked because of player and company concerns. Not sure what you're responding to.

I think she had it right in her head, but was too concise in her statement.

Computer game companies who make relatively 'static' games don't have to do much to maintain those games. Often 'static' games aren't responsible for entertaining a player byond 40-100 hours and don't require a subscription. A minor patch or two a year, maybe, because there's little money to be made by futzing with 'static' games. 'Fluid' games, like CoX and many MMORPGs, have a valid financial motivation to futz with gameplay over time to maintain their playerbase and the reoccuring income.

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Once again, I fall back on the idea that the game is to be fun for the customer (us). As long as I don't interfere with other players enjoyment, I should be able to play the way I want.


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And if this was a standalone first person shooter game, you could. In a MMOG, you do not play in a vacuum, even if you never team. Anything you can do, a teammate can do and will do, and will therefore impact general gameplay.

The devs have a general idea of the range of levelling speed they want players to have. The devs have striven to create a specific range of challenge for any player with any build at Heroic difficulty. When something comes along that throws off the curve demonstrably for either of those concerns, it is tweaked to attempt to put it back within the range they intend. You may not like it, but, really, it's very similar to what a GM would do if you were playing a pen-and-paper rpg with other people except there's the added factor that a GM wouldn't have a business plan.

Ultimately, a GM would tweak the table rules or up the difficulty of the challenges if a party was burning through campaigns in record time every time. The devs attempted to raise the difficulty of mobs across the board back around I2 and it disproportionately punished concept builds and builds on the lower end of the power scale. So, they have been tweaking the top end of the player optimization AND fixing/buffing the bottom end. They can only generate more content at a certain pace and having a sizable chunk of the playerbase burn through it too quickly doesn't provide sustainable entertainment value for the those players nor a reliable subscription revenue stream for the company who ain't doing this purely out of love.

Quibble with that if you will. That's a rough rationale for design tweaks you seem to be bewildered by.

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Sometimes the unintended is good!

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Yes, it is. The devs have not tweaked everything that has been 'unintended'. Occasionally the devs have brainfarts, but they are not dimwits.

I think the commentary on the mildness of 'doom' posts was more in the general than the specific.

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You know...I am not sure I like this patch. I am not really feeling the DOOM here.

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True. I'm feeling the AW SHUCKS!!!

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Please discuss the merits of Chum Spray....thanks

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Chum Spray is the new pie.

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Aimed Shot looks very cool and the animation time isn't bad at all. Why can't you replace Blazing Arrow and Ice Arrow's animations with that?

It's all well and good to say "these animations look better," but you're missing the point: no one is playing these powersets.

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zing!

It's never a for sure thing. I think I remember once that a red name gave notice that an Issue would be going up the next day, but it's not routine. The only thing close to a routine is that a new Issue has gone up on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays (as far as I can recall). Any Monday developements are rare because companies tend to hold department meetings and do final checks of reports.

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Are we allowed to complain yet?

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Nope not yet. As they say, "We have to wait for numbers".

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Kinda like we weren't allowed to assume that villain PPPs I7 would all be Patron-themed sets of 4 powers, with no alternate elemental sets, because it hadn't been spelled out in bright neon? I prefer calling it a discussion with a critical eye towards likely pitfalls.

I don't think PPPs are gonna be sucktastic except for people who wanted the thematic variety of hero APPs. Their potentcy and utility will almost assuredly be similar to hero APPs, if for no other reason, because the game franchise is going through a very PvP-centric phase right now. Not sure about the merits of the MM sets, though. I'm sure there'll be a lot of initial scutiny of those right off the bat next week or the week after.