Dante
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:This is pretty much my take too. Union is my home and if we all scarper off to the VIP server, it just makes us a bunch of snobs.Originally Posted by Lye
I, too, will be staying on Union. It's where Europe's roleplayers are and for the most part always have been. Also, moving out of reach of potential new RPers; people who would like to try the game and shared 'verse we've created and maintained, is a bad move.
Well, okay, we roleplayers can be a bunch of snobs but hell, there's going to be loads of new people coming through the door, some of which might want to get involved with the RP side of things. Some could be good, some could be bad but if we all disappear then we'll never know.
Besides, I've been roleplaying on Union for nigh on six years now and the Militia has been running for five of those. I'm not about to drop all that history just because some tool might upset some RP sometime. Also, I21 is about to drop some juicy opportunities for RP on our laps, I'm not about to miss that.
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I hate Controllers.
No seriously. I really dislike them. I've never successfully played one because of how painfully they solo and how it seems to take forever to kill anything. Hate them. Give me a Dominator anytime and twice on Sunday....
And then I rolled my Plant/Storm.
Seriously. They are as good as you've heard. Even at level 18, I was Dropping Seeds, Roots and Freezing Rain and then giggling maniacally as mobs decimated themselves. And that was solo. And with a level 50 Stormy, I know what chaos is coming further down the line. I just can't wait to see what chaos it causes with Plant adding controls and damage.
Plant/Storm. When you absolutely, definitely have to obliterate everything in the room.
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Quote:I ask this question occasionally as well but probably not for the same reasons you are.Originally Posted by blueruckus
Sooo what was the point of Praetoria?
Personally, I welcome the ability to choose any AT and work my way through Primal Earth instead. -
Late to the party here but that’s mostly because I have never really had much of an issue with any of the visual FX in game. With power customisation, I can pretty much retool most sets to look close to whatever I have imagined. However, over the weekend, while looking at softcapping my Blaster, I realised there was one effect that really grates on my eyes. As this thread is rather long now, I apologise if this has come up before but hopefully my suggestion will still be useful.
So. Ice Armour.
I really dislike the ‘Ice Cube Man’ effect that this power has. It has, subconsciously, prevented me from rolling an Ice Tank, a Cold Domination user or using the Cold Mastery epic. I dislike the way it obscures my costume (although, admittedly, that’s not exclusive to this power) but also how it sort of looks like Pre-Vis SFX for the film industry. If I could make it opaque and grey, I could roll Pre-Vis Man.
Anyway, I didn’t have a solution in mind until I drew some inspiration from the excellent Steampunk Pack (gender-gated coats aside, but that’s another issue). Namely, the Victorian Décor Aura. This aura sits nicely above a costume but doesn’t obscure it. Whether that is because of its ‘partial’ nature or because it pulses occasionally, allowing the costume to show through, I’m not sure. But I thought that if the décor could be switched out and replaced with a ‘frost’ type texture, it would still be within the theme of ‘coating a character in ice’ but would not be as obtrusive or dominating as the current Ice Cube effect is.
If it is within your remit, you could perhaps offer a few different ice themed textures such as frost, slabs of ice or even just a hazy effect like ice as it sublimes into steam. If they could all be positioned in the same way that the Victorian Décor ‘hovers’ over the costume, I think it might make for a nice change to the huge, blocky nature of the current FX.
While we’re on the subject of Ancillary shields, there’s a couple more suggestions I’d like to make. Firstly is to offer the option to remove the Patron symbol from armours in the PPPs. Some people pick these as they’re great sets not because they hold any loyalty to the Patron. Secondly it would be nice to update Psychic Mastery’s Mind over Body effect to match the one from the Willpower set. Strength of mind doesn’t always look like pink bubbly circles.
Thanks for reading.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Silver Gale
I think the Devs messed up the balance of Quality vs. Quantity a little. The Quality is great (technology-wise, at least, the issues with the writing are well-documented), but the Quantity is somewhat lacking. Look at the RWZ: a whole zone with a four-part storyarc (can be done solo or in a group, over many days at one's leisure), repeatable missions (easy but slow source of shinies), a Task Force (suitably epic, following on the storyarc but not required) and a Raid (best source of shinies, easy to put together, feeling chaotic and action-packed). That, I think, would be a good model for Incarnate content.
Absolutely this.
Watching the ongoing disaster that is the Incarnate system from the sidelines, I have taken to looking back over previous issues and have concluded that the i10 model would have been far superior in terms of introducing the new content. Issue 10 worked so well because it covered every base for PvE content. There was something for soloers, small teams, large teams, League sized teams. And there was a new currency that was well managed and distributed depending on how large a team you wanted to work with. Got to get all the VMerits now? Raid the mothership until your heart bursts. Prefer to take a more casual path? Theres the story arcs and repeatable contact. It was, in my honest opinion, a work of genius.
If what Aracanaville says is true about not including old content in the Incarnate system (and I have no reason to doubt that it is) then it actually makes me more concerned for future. As it makes me wonder if the Devs have a grip on what their playerbase likes and what makes their game successful. The fact that they seem taken aback at people crying for solo content and that, from what we can glean from various sources, it never seemed to be on the design table, makes me wonder if they have forgotten the very things that has kept this game going so long. Casual, alt-focused and varied content is one of the best things about CoX and what makes it stand apart from other MMOs. To purely focus on the part of the playerbase that likes to speed run ITFs over and over again seems like a woeful misjudgement.
If the Devs manage to play catch up and institute more ways to access Incarnate abilities through a number of different playstyles, I think a lot of that concern will fall away (poor, shoehorned in storylines aside). And, from what we seem to have heard about solo paths being considered, that may well be true. And, although I do take the point about staggering content, despite the quality of the trials, I feel that releasing just those two and only those two is too little content to be able to point at them and say Yay, we have an endgame. As it stands, two (soon to be three) trials is far too little and will inevitably lead to excessive grinding and resentment by some players. It seems to me to be terribly short-sighted. -
Boo! New splash image needs more villains.
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Quote:From the CoV website:Originally Posted by MTS
IIRC it's in the info box when you look at the description while targeting a shivan.
Quote:That same summer, the infamous meteor shower of Bloody Bay began. It wreaked havoc on the island, causing not only direct damage but radiation sickness and other, more sinister maladies as well. Perhaps strangest of all, weird energy from the meteor formed around the corpses of the dead and created protoplasmic entities filled with Shivas destructive rage. Those few who know of Shiva wonder if these new creatures, the Shivans, are somehow trying to reassemble the pieces and resurrect the Destroyer of Worlds. -
Also one could argue that it's been more than 2 months. Technically, Incarnate content began with the launch of Issue 19 back in November last year.
Still I agree, this isn't what I've come to expect from CoX but I too hope we can look back on this in a year's time and laugh at our concerns. I'm just waiting to see a glimmer of light at the end of a dark tunnel. -
If the developers were so paranoid about players not playing the trials, I would have thought a far more elegant solution would have been to keep a few components locked behind them the same way that you can't craft a tier 3 Alpha ability without a Notice of the Well. (Therefore obliging you to either cough up 80 shards or, far easier, run whatever the WST was that week.) That way, you could still make some progress doing other content but would have to try the trials in order to complete your recipe requirements.
Instead, by locking them all behind the new trials, it's impossible to progress in any meaningful way outside of the trials. Oh, and of course, we then get a fun* new currency and yet more annoying, story-free, hideous looking vendors cluttering up the place.
(*For 'fun' read 'unnecessary and confusing'. The sarcasm lever seems to be set to 'high' today.
)
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Hell, I don't PvP and I would revert the changes back to pre-i13. The few times I have dipped my toes into a bit of friendly PvP before i13 were vastly more fun than the last time I tried a few months ago...
Of course, that would require an honest admition of a mistake so I'm not holding my breath.
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I will confess to having quite a degree of contempt for the iTrials and the Incarnate System in general outside of the Alpha slot (which was, quite frankly, brilliant). It feels to me as if someone looked at what other games use as endgame and then tried to adapt it to CoX while ignoring the casual, alt-encouraging, solo/small team friendly nature of our game.
So when in the latest interview it was stated that inspiration was gained from the forums, I had to, at least light heartedly, wonder what on earth we said and who they were listening to when they gained the ideas for it. I have, for a long time, held i10 as being a far better model for this kind of thing. Issue 10 gave us a new currency to collect for phat loot but it gave us a new zone to street sweep, four story arcs, a repeatable contact, a grand TF and a fun raid for those people who enjoy that kind of thing. It had content which catered to every crowd. In comparison, all we've been given to gain the new currency is two Trials which, IMHO, feel more like the boss fight from a TF.
Which in all is kind of frustrating. I do want to advance my 50s but I detest the endgame as it stands hence why I've been working on my lowbies instead. After seven years af waiting and expecting something amazing, I can't begin to express my disappointment at the engame as it stands, even if it is a work in progress. I can't help but feel like saying, "This? This is what we've been waiting for? Oh dear."
P.S. I'm not keen on having to pay a ton of inf for converting shards either. It feels like I'm being fined because I chose not to grind iTrials until my ears bleed. Hmph. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Wicked_Wendy
I know the Keyes island Trial is coming but to be honest while I enjoyed it on Beta its really only giving us one more option and how long will it be before we all get sick of looking at that over and over as well?
It's been asked for repeatedly but SOME people here seem to be dead set against it.. we need Incarnate contacts that will allow us to solo or throw together a 2,3, 4 5,6 , 7 or 8 man team and run missions and/or arcs earning threads and even some random components toward slotting the powers. Maybe even a new praetorian zone for 50 levels .. this has been suggested before as well. Put everything a players needs in the zone
Hospital with combat nurse
Wentworths/black Market
Io Vault
IO Crafting tables
Store (to buy or sell SO enhancemenets)
Add several contacts with arcs, and even some solo missions, to give us that solo/small team path and it would also be a great place to launch the other trials from.
Make the arcs a challenge of course.. missions involving battles against a variety of Cole's Praetors sometimes even two in a mission (similar to what we have now through Maria Jenkins).
Keep adding trials as well since they can be fun but quickly grow old when you have done it 100 times or more. So far we have gotten to battle Siege and Nightshade, Maurader and Anti-matter is next in line. At some point give us Mother Mayhem in more than a cut scene cameo role. In all there are 14 Praetors and including the Apex and Tin Mage TFs we have only battled 6 ( 7 once 20.5 hits) We have plenty more to deal with so get them out here and let us pound on them.
This would completely turn around the Incarnate system for me from being 'oh god no' to 'oh hell YES!'. I like the trials but they are tightly scripted and feel more like the end fight of a TF, packed with gimmicks to take down the AV. Which is nice, but I like the build up of a TF with different enemies, rising to the challenge of the final boss be it Romulus, Reichsman or Recluse.
I keep dipping my toes into them but I just find them too repetitive, scripted and grindy to give them anymore than a passing glance. -
Gods damn it...
You know you lot are just feeding my altisis don't you? And there I was thinking I'd got it under control... -
Quote:Yeah, you're right but it was something that just sounded so damned cool I was excited to see Ouroboros added to the game and have been waiting for the Coming Storm eagerly since then. To see it dumped in favour of the dreary Well plot would be disheartening.Originally Posted by reiella
That incident would have also been a rewrite/replacement of the general idea that Battalion was supposed to be a factor of the invention system.
In all, until in canon, prolly best not to worry or grump over it changing.
I guess we'll see. But I'd love to see something epic that didn't involve that insipid little puddle. -
Quote:Not really. I knew some behind the scenes stuff from when Ouroboros was first introduced although I expect it could all have been ripped up and replaced by now. Unfortunately.Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
You're assuming that the Coming Storm and the Battalion are the same thing. We've never had a lot of solid info on what the Battalion is or has done. You're also assuming that what you're thinking of as two different plot lines aren't actually tied into one another, although that is also speculation.
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Quote:Yeah, I kinda stopped short of saying "what on earth did we say to get this endgame" but I feel I've been bashing it a little too much lately. However, it does make me wonder about that theory of how AE proved players love grinding the same content over and over and over...Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
It's what they didn't say at the end of that...
"We turned to the forums. After laughing heartily at those wanting fixes for long-time issues and forgotten systems like AE (good work, farmers, getting your fire farm into the HOF!) PVP and base editing, we decided to write more stuff in for the well. Now Fusionette's your only hope for not being Well-Zombied."
But some love for any of those things Bill listed would be great IMHO. -
Quote:Grind?
The new endgame, however, fills "a perceived need. It was something lacking in our current content."
Oh my gods! What did we say!? What did we SAY!!!???Quote:Like any good MMO developer, Miller turned to the forums, not to the competition. -
Hogwash.
The Coming Storm had zip to do with the Well. Although now Ouroboros and their preparations for the Coming Storm have been completely hijacked by the Incarnate plotline, gods alone know what's become of the Battalion now.
By now the Coming Storm is likely to be an army of Emperor Cole clones, all wearing a comedy seagull on their heads that will take 48 Incarnates all equipped with Dimension Shift.
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Quote:I reckon it'll be that turncoat Tesseract. You can't trust her you know.Originally Posted by Myrdinn
ThaI'm still of the opinion it will be player heroes who will eventually destroy Oro.
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Quote:I totally agree. And yet this same point made no difference when the needs of inactive users was placed over those of active, paying EU subscribers. This whole thread is very familiar to me...Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Yeah, out here your name is only part of your identity. In a superhero game, your name is your identity.
If they are considering character@global, they should purge the inactive globals first, period. -
Quote:And for that, I am immensely grateful.Originally Posted by DarkGob
The Incarnate System doesn't end with Praetoria and Cole's invasion. The endgame will continue to develop as the storyline moves on from Cole and toward the Coming Storm.
I expect it to be the first signs of the Storm as well. The Shiva mission probably just encountered its long range scouts, causing the devestation of Bloody Bay. I fully expect any more meteorites to be advanced probes perhaps.
That said, given that Mender Silos travelled back from several thousand years into our future, it could be a very, very long war indeed...
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Quote:And it would be great publicity for the game...Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Isn't it obvious? So NCSoft can throw money away for no good reason instead of using it to improve CoH.
Is our marketing department that crazy? Please tell me no... -
I always love the opening combo I sometimes pull off on my Sonic/En/En Blaster.
Boost Range > Repulsion Bomb = spawn hits the floor...
Screech takes out the mezzer or buffer...
Build Up > Shout > Run in & Total Focus on the boss > Bone Smasher > Power Thrust...
Mop up spawn at leisure.
It feels powerful and being able to stun foes and knock them about is great fun especially the Bone Smasher/Power Thrust combo. It's like saying "Take that, now get out of my face!"
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*Applause*
I approve.
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Quote:Amen, amen, amen.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
I'd rather see a @Globalname purge. Because I'm damn sure my REAL name (@Techbot ALPHA, not @TechbotALPHA) is held by a long since dead account.