Eva Destruction
-
Posts
3975 -
Joined
-
Well ok so this one time we were doing an ITF. Most of the team wasn't 50 or heavily IOd, including the tank. I was playing my DM/SD Scrapper, so because I could, when people started jumping up the cliff to the altar in the first mission I started up the path, because that's what I do. Those two spawns of Romans on the path get bored, because they always get skipped, so I give them some entertainment just to be nice. Anywho, a few people followed me, while a few went up top and started doing whatever it is they do up there. Ambushes showed up. We were split. Those of us on the path ran up top dragging a herd of angry Romans behind me.
So there we were, surrounded by Romans and an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet, and people started dropping dead. The mostly SOd low-40s SS/SD tank lasted a while, but with no support he eventually went down. Then it was just me. As soon as anyone rezzed, they got squished. The petless MM did manage at one point to get up long enough to rebubble me before getting squished again, but otherwise I was on my own, merrily tearing my way through what I later would come to realize is a Scrapper's dream. After a few minutes of this someone pointed out that maybe I should lead Sister What's-her-face to the altar...heh. Scrapperlock jokes ensued, but I won, so pttttht.
Then there was this other time, I was hanging out in Founders' Falls with my team, I was kinda bored and impatient so I started hopping around to taunt my husband the stone tank, I got stuck on the geometry, and suddenly the ground started shaking, then I was on fire, then I was dead. The Kronos ambush is always epic. -
Quote:On the other hand, phasing won't work in the RSF, but BAB doesn't need to be there for players who haven't done the arc yet, now that he's not a member of the Freedom Phalanx. I am wondering how they will treat the villain arcs where you fight him; I believe they're all 30-40 arcs so if the finale is level 40-50 you will have outleveled them, but if you're holding on to an old mission....Originally Posted by Ultimus
Please see number 6, 1:30 in the Dev video. They state the character will be removed via the phase technology they added.
In order for phasing to work, a zone has to built from the ground up with it. (Hence why they had to revamp the two starting zones to support phasing)
And, the black guy always dies. BAB can't be the token black guy who gets to live and continue to be the token black guy because he's not a member of the Freedom Phalanx.
And, the old guy always dies. -
Quote:His picture is on the box and his mom thinks he's cool.Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Oh, and does anyone else find it bizarre that Maelstrom is a solo'able wimp in the Hero Tips mission, but a one-shot killing machine in the TPN Campus trial? Really? This is the same guy? What explains his sudden cosmic jump in power level?
Well if they didn't want us to have egos they should have thought of that before they started giving us badges like "Saved the World" and "Weapon of Mass Destruction" and called the game City of Heroes.Quote:Originally Posted by Paladin
The charge of being poorly written is going to be tossed around at anything the Dev's come up with. It may not something you'd enjoy, but it's a trope I find fun. If it helps deal with the egos people have grown while playing their characters, so much the better. -
Quote:Then 20 minutes while the leader explains the trial to newcomers. Due to the large numbers of players required, there is usually at least one newcomer.Originally Posted by Optimus_Dex
A couple of things I hate about the trials - waiting 20 minutes or so while they get organized- brb's , zoning , alting .
Well then, in that case the trials would have to be designed so that the "officers" get most of the rewards while the grunts get next to nothing. If you're being rewarded for doing difficult content, then it's only fair, since the grunts aren't doing anything difficult.Quote:Originally Posted by Bosstone
The best solution, then, is to design the trials such that the players can self-select to be officers or grunts; the officers do the fiddly things and think about where to go and what to do when, while the grunts follow along and mash buttons. BAF does that well. At any given time the only targetable things are those things you're supposed to hit, so grunts aren't penalized for attacking them, while the officers can lead the groups to the right areas for the prisoner escape and pull the AVs to the killing ground. Badges take a little more effort, but still aren't too hard as long as players know which team they're in.
Oh wait...would that mean nobody wants to be a grunt anymore? Probably. Which is the inherent problem with designing content that requires so many grunts. People only want to be grunts because it means they're getting their rewards essentially for free.
Yeah, and the trials reward Little Timmy for continuing to push buttons. He may have to push specific buttons, but it's still button-mashing. Little Timmy is a grunt. He's not there to think. He's there to follow the leader.Quote:Originally Posted by AkuTenshiiZero
My issue is that levels 1-50 hold your hand and basically give you levels. iTrials, by comparison, are sorta difficult. So after the game has finished carrying Little Timmy through 50 levels, he has learned that all he has to do is mash buttons until happy fanfare plays. Then he goes into an iTrial and mashes buttons. When the League leader tells Little Timmy to stop mashing buttons and click his temps of the War Walker, Little Timmy is puzzled and responds by mashing buttons. When the League leader spends 15 minutes explaining to Little Timmy that using his Ion Judgement while confused will, in fact, kill the raid, and all he need do is keep himself Break-Free'd the whole fight, Little Timmy responds by mashing buttons (and murdering the raid). -
Quote:Now allow me to be a jerk about it:Originally Posted by Amygdala
A bunch of stuff that explains why people would exclude fresh 50s from trials without being jerky about it.
I don't want to carry your mooching ***. I don't expect anyone to carry me, and I don't expect to carry anyone else. BAF, Lambda and Keyes still form frequently. Run those, get yourself a level shift or two, then ask again to join a higher level trial for higher level people. I'm fully behind any leader who insists on level shifts for UG, MoM or TPN, as well as any badge attempts on the easier trials.
Now if someone is excluding you from BAF, Lambda or Keyes on account of a lack of level shifts, then it's probably because a) they think they need the level shifts for the trial to succeed, which means their league sucks and has to rely on brute force to win, or b) they think including only level shifted people will make the trial go faster, which it doesn't, because the pickier you are the longer it takes to form the stupid thing. Either way, they're not someone whose league I'd want to be joining. -
Quote:I haven't done TPN yet but as someone who still plays villains sometimes I object to a "don't kill the civilians" mechanic on principle.Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
They could put it in the game proper, with every civilian NPC. Every time we accidentally kil one, we lose a level. That would sort out the men from the boys.
Villains would gain a level.
Eco
You don't. Your Electric Melee character gets assigned to the inside.Quote:Originally Posted by rsclark
And you do that on an Electric Melee character how, exactly?
Of course, if everyone brings their AoE-focused farm character, then you're screwed, aren't you?
Of course, if most of the rest of the game wasn't AoE-focused, you wouldn't have that problem. -
Quote:The tip missions say heroes abide by black and white morality, despite the garbage prison system. Also, the comic where Manticore got in trouble for killing a supervillain who killed his parents and was about to kill BAB says certain members of the FP abide by black and white morality.Originally Posted by G_Savior
Yep, because the better option is to let the guy who was at the cusp of breaking you mentally and killing another person off scott free so he can try it again later. There isn't anything saying she has to abide by black-and-white morality. And lets face it, prison security in Paragon is garbage.
The timeline is only shaky because they made Vanessa her mom in Praetoria, despite Harvey's arc suggesting that Vanessa is too young.Quote:Originally Posted by Lazarillo
Regardless, Penny's parentage and the timeline involved is still a little shaky.
I always got the impression that he was young when Blue Steel beat him up, and time spent as a brain in a jar doesn't count toward your age for creepiness purposes, just like time spent frozen doesn't count. So I never really found it skeevy in and of itself to have an emotionally immature man essentially in his 20s with a crush on a girl in her late teens. Of course, he gets all stalkerish and creepy anyway, but that has nothing to do with his age.Quote:Originally Posted by Liquid
The Clockwork King being in his early twenties at first made me say "whaaa?" Then I realized that most characters in the superhero genre, unless specifically designed to be otherwise, are usually under 30. I just always had this impression that the Clockwork King was 40+. -
Ok, I have said this before, other people have said this before, and I and other people will keep saying it until the devs start to actually listen:
LEARN TO ******* PROOFREAD!!!!
There is a spelling error in the nav text for mission 1 hero-side. "Assasinating" indeed. This is only the first of the glaring errors in this arc. It is sloppy, it makes you look like you don't care. Also, in the final mission, Malaise is into crossdressing now? A "mirror of Sister Psyche" looking like Aurora makes sense kind of (although I'm sure it's not intentional, just another example of sloppiness) but a "mirror of Malaise" using the Aurora model? COME ON. If you're not going to put these up for us to test and send /bug reports that you will ignore, at least test them yourselves. Repeatedly. On x8.
Now on to the actual arc:
Why is the demon-hunter Hardcase helping Johnny, the guy who made a deal with demons?
Malaise's death is totally gratuitous. I'm wondering if Psyche is going to have to deal with any consequences for killing someone. Probably not.
Seriously Psyche, you have issues with Swan's outfit? Seriously? You?
I thought I was playing a video game, not watching a movie. That last mission is pretty much watching a movie with a few ambushes thrown in as a token nod that I am playing a video game, not watching a movie.
Villainside I supposedly put in ear plugs to not hear the Dirge of Chaos, but I still get the song in captions. So which is it? Am I hearing it or not?
Overall the story is meh, and the gameplay suffers from too much standing around listening to other people yak, especially heroside. I pretty much felt like a spectator throughout the whole thing. Heroside, I wasn't doing anything someone else couldn't have probably done better, and Villainside, I'm not entirely sure what my motivation in the whole thing was. That last map shure is purty though. -
Quote:I see quite a bit of "gratz" on trials when someone announces they have unlocked a slot.Originally Posted by SkyRocker
Just wanted to throw that out there, see if anyone else had noticed. I *think* one reason is that people are playing a lot more on their 50's and maybe just got out of the habit because 50's don't level? Something like that?
Personally, I still gratz if I see you ding, I don't gratz if I don't. If it's a low-level team, I don't bother. -
Quote:Steampunk did have a jacket, that's what's so galling about it. It had a froufy little bolero jacket with puffy sleeves. We already have a bolero jacket and puffy sleeves. I suspect the long coat was automatically a no-go when the bustle belt was thought up, because they wouldn't be able to be worn together...which is another problem with costume sets. The costume sets are designed and marketed as a complete set, to be worn together, so the female pieces are very revealing in marketing and when you click the set in the costume creator.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Steampunk was mostly fine with a 'feh, no jacket' which was a major complaint from the Magic Pack two entire years prior. Surely they should have noticed that back then? Apparently not. -
Quote:With lasers?Originally Posted by Doc_Reverend
EDIT: Also: Shark heads. With a shark fin "backpack"
Speaking of Canadians, we have no toques. Or hockey masks. Or anything made out of duct tape.Quote:Originally Posted by MisterMagpie
Those... furry ear flappy hat things I see my fellow Canadians wear when it gets cold. They're kind of like deer stalkers, but dweebier. I love them. -
Quote:The thing is, because this content must be repeated, it will get in the way. No matter where you put it, it will get in the way. Don't kid yourself, they won't put it in some out of the way place where only die-hard lorehounds ever have to look at it. If they make it, it'll be for everyone.Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
No problem; I'm just saying there is a place for complexity, it just shouldn't be in your way
I don't want the solo content to necessarily lack it completely.
There is also the undeniable fact that complex content takes up more resources than simpler content. The fancier it is, the less there will be of it. -
Quote:Well, no, because firefighter options aren't objectifying. Firefighter options emphasize heroism, not boobs. (I'm assuming we're talking about actual options one would fight a fire in, not something someone would pose for a calendar in.)Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Its highly unlikely anyone is hearing "there's too much whorish female options" and hearing something no different than saying "there's too much firefighter female options." Not when the complaint rises to the point of saying its symptomatic of a lack of respect for female game players. You don't say that about an option you think is noble and respectable but there's just a few too many of.
No, they wouldn't, because it'll never happen.Quote:No one would say "this blatant lack of respect for women which is typified by costume set after costume set of armored suits for women cannot be tolerated." -
Quote:The waves come when the previous wave is dead. You can leave one guy alive, stand there with a taunt aura on and go make a sandwich, and no more enemies will come.Originally Posted by EricHough
Defend the Henges is 15 minutes. The only reason its not bad is the enemies come in evenly spaced waves and always enter the fenced in area at the same point - so setting up to ambush them is fairly easy. Its just long and boring.
-
All I want for Christmas is a board with a nail in it for Titan Weapons.
Edit: And some of the stuff the Lost wear, like the stop sign breastplate, and of course the classic TV on the head. -
Quote:These can be done at the same time. See again, Library of Souls. The writers just aren't bothering to do it.Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I prefer even bad (but readable and understandable) lyricism, emotion and characterization to info dumps.
Nobody is going to take the time to make a cutscene that nobody is going to watch. Until they're fully skippable at the press of a button (I still sit through Anti-Matter's monologue and Mommy's boob job showcase more often than not) figure out how to tell the story without one.Quote:I like cutscenes and similar cinematic work, although I agree they should only be in optional side content.
We do that all the time. It used to be that the people we rescued were smart enough to make their own way out. Now half of them are dumb and make you turn your stealth off, or want to "help out" and get killed and fail the mission.Quote:"what about Heroes actually rescuing people?
Doesn't scale well to team sizes or high difficulty settings. We had a defend objective mission in Terra Volta. People complained that it was too hard. They made it easier. People complained that it's boring. We have two in Croatoa. People complain that the Stop 30 Firbolg mission is too hard. I'm not sure if anyone complains about the "Defend the Henges" mission.Quote:Defending objectives?
Whoever decided to make an AV with Quickness one of those fleeing villains should never be allowed to write a mission again. I'm not sure if it's the mechanic itself that gets all the hate or the fact that in most cases it was used badly. I don't remember nearly the hate for the fleeing enemies before i7, which is when we got Crimson and that Arachnoid EB, and then that lovely bug where the mission would automatically fail if you used a Knockback power. I managed to fail one by using Havoc punch on a Brute, still not sure how that happened.Quote:Catching fleeing villains? -
Quote:Cut-scenes and in-mission conversations between NPCs are even worse than wordy contacts, because you have to sit through them every single time. Furthermore, they reduce they player to the status of a spectator. Sometimes they hijack your character while they're at it.Originally Posted by Winterminal
I will take 3 simple story arcs over 1 cut-scene filled, new-fangled complicated story arc any day of the week.
-
Quote:And my point is that the clues in the Envoy arc are only infodumps, while the clues in the Library of Souls arc serve as both infodumps and to establish the character of Akarist. Two birds, one stone, half the text. This is what they should aim for. Try to get as much information across in as little text as possible, not have three different contacts give you their perspective on the same thing because whoever wrote the arc thinks they're all "interesting characters" that we should get to know.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What I meant is that if you don't like Akharist's infodumps, you don't have to read them and your understanding of the plot on a factual level won't suffer. The Envoy of Shadows wants to bring about the end of the world, the Circle of Thorns want to help him, but one sole traitor is helping you stop it. The "why" of it and the "behind the scenes" stuff is put away in Akharist's writings (which I rather like), meaning you can have your walls of text and infodump AND still keep the core story concise for those who don't want or already know the side details.
-
Quote:Actually, the Envoy of Shadows arc seems to suffer from the problem of being being written by a different person than the Library of Souls arc. Akarist's writings in that arc are more simplistic and concise than in the Library of Souls arc. They are basically an info dump.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Long-winded, elaborate, intricate exposition and character exploration is still a good idea, but done as separate, non-central art pieces. Akharist's writings on the Oranbegan war are a great example. Every other mission in the Envoy of Shadows arc, you get an Akharist excerpt written in his pretentious style. It tells of the story of the ancient Oranbegans, but that's all flavour text and backstory. If you simply didn't read it, you'd still be able to follow the central plot without much problem.
The notes in the Library of Souls arc on the other hand, are a great example of a way to establish a character while providing plot-relevant information. That is what I'm talking about when I say that the signal:noise ratio is skewed. If the writer has a good sense of the character, I don't need to listen to their life story to get a sense of them. I don't need to eavesdrop on their lunch-table talk to get a sense of their relationship. It can all be done while furthering the plot.
And Sam, I really don't think you'd be able to get anywhere near the ratio of talk:fight that you see in the first First Ward arc in AE, not without resorting to some convoluted mechanical tricks and without having nearly everyone who plays your arc giving you a comment to the effect of "tl;dr." I know I've been accused of being overly wordy (justified, I'm just procrastinating on the edits) even though I don't think I approach nearly the level of yakking seen in the newer dev-created content. -
Quote:I completely agree with you on this, you just happened to pick examples that, to many players, are just as bad or worse than all the new gimmick-overloaded missions.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Those were just examples, really. What I meant to say is that there's nothing wrong with having a simple if big mission that has only a single objective. We don't need cutscenes in every mission, we don't need dialogues in every mission, we don't need gimmicks in every mission. In a lot of ways, I'm perfectly fine with the game telling me to go somewhere and do something and simply providing me with a reason to do so. That's more than enough. I don't need scripted events and complex mechanics. Tell me what I need to do, tell me where I need to go to do it and tell me why I'm doing it. That's enough.
It would be nice, wouldn't it? However, the current trend seems to be toward walls of text that explain everything down to the last detail, from three different viewpoints. If they won't let go of their beloved walls of text, they should at least shove them out of the way somewhere where we can read them once and then never have to click past them again.Quote:I've always been of the opinion that story is best delivered through context rather than shoved into your face. What I mean by this is we can have side characters who provide exposition or background if we choose to explore that option, we can have extra, non-critical clues that hold extra information and, more than anything else, the narrative itself doesn't have to explain everything to the last detail. It can suggest, infer and allude, and that will be just enough.
They would need to significantly cut the noise to do that. Again, I think the writing team loves its walls of text and "cute" characterization too much. This is why I think they should be forced to mock-up all missions using the AE before they're even allowed to think about dialogue trees and fancy gimmicks. AE severely limits your text space. There's not much room for noise in there.Quote:A lot of the narrative in City of Heroes can be pulled off the main briefings and out of the lengthy conversation and put away in clues, NPC comments, side characters and basic allusions. If the game's writers accepted that this game will never really be "cinematic" and worked with its design, the stories would flow much more smoothly. -
Quote:Honestly, I think this is an example of legacy design that has little relevance to today's late-game. Enemies just plain don't live long enough for a single enemy to stack mezzes on a melee. When melee gets mezzed, it's usually because they get hit by multiple mezzing enemies at once.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Melee gets mez protection: mez just doesn't affect them, at all. If we gave blasters mez resistance then the *duration* of mez would decrease but they'd still be affected by it. That wouldn't make mez pointless. In fact, it would cut directly to the heart of one particular problem with mez. In order for mez to have *any* chance at affecting a melee archetype - and they are supposed to be *theoretically* threatened by mez - it has to stack. To stack, it has to last long enough to have a chance to stack.
That philosophy is itself problematic for squishies, since it means that there may be more mezzers in a spawn than a Blaster can hope to neutralize with their few control powers, and that enemies pretty much have to open with mezzes if they're to have a chance to use them at all, but it renders the 30-second stun grenade obsolete. -
Quote:This. So much this.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I would hope there is more than four hours' worth of content, to be honest. I'm really not interested in over-complex Incarnate content, but more just a large volume of it.
I don't think you necessarily need to have any defeat alls, and you certainly don't need a million glowies, but for content that is used to earn iXP and threads, you certainly need to include the option to defeat lots and lots of enemies.Quote:Again - I'm not expecting poetry and theatre mission after mission, and I have no problem being told to go into a huge instance and kill everything I can target. I'm perfectly fine with missions that have large maps and simple objectives. I rather enjoy "Defeat boss and crew" or "click 21 glowies" and indeed even love the "Save 21 mystics from Oranbega." Missions don't need to be complex or expensive, they just need to be numerous.
Again, this. Before they start adding talk-to missions and walls of text and conversations, they need to ask themselves: Is anyone going to care about this crap on their second play-through? The answer will inevitably be no. Then they need to ask themselves: Is anyone going to be annoyed by having to click through all this crap on their tenth play-through? The answer is yes.Quote:Simple, straight-forward, laconic missions are much easier to replay when it comes to that.
And no to bosses that turn friendly and start talking to you once you beat them down to 1/4 health, so you get no reward for defeating them. An even bigger no to bosses that heal up to full health at every dialogue option so you can listen to them yak some more.
You want to give us a history lesson? Add a guy like Prometheus in a prominent location. Have the first contact mention him, but NOT send us on a fed-ex to talk to him. Players who want the backstory can choose to go talk to him on their own time, players who don't care or who have already read everything don't have to run halfway across the map just to impatiently click past ten pages of dialogue. -
Quote:Nice try, but he's obviously wearing pants.Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
I colored him green to reduce the shock value, but for anyone who thinks leather chaps and a harness aren't stripperific, take a glance.
Plus, you used pieces from the barbarian set, and nobody is arguing that the barbarian set isn't stripperific for both genders. It totally is. Which is fine. Because barbarian = partial nudity. For everyone. Which is why it is fine. -
Quote:My husband and I were talking about this the other day. We thought a "streetwear pack" would be awesome for this. It would allow them to revamp the Hellions, Skulls, Outcasts, and Trolls, while giving players new pieces. Like ripped jeans.Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare
Politics aside; a revamp making its way through more of the established NPC groups, where/when feasible, would be nice.
I'd still be fine with the Hellions and Skulls not having any actual female members, due to the nature of the groups. Outcasts would be more likely to include women. Trolls supposedly do, since Superdyne is supposed to make you androgynous, but I wouldn't mind seeing actual female Trolls. It would also provide an excuse for some more muscular textures for women. The barbarian top is win right there.
And the Steampunk and Barbarian corsets are just plain better-looking than the ones in the Gunslinger pack. Why in the world would I want that stripy thing when there are already two corsets, one of which has quite a few variations, available? Three if you count the old-school Tops with skin > Leather piece.Quote:Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
CoH already has a surfeit of corsets, as people already complained about in previous threads. -
Quote:Yes, that was the female boss I was referring to.Originally Posted by M_I_Abrahms
Longbow kill Ms. Liberty at the end of a level 5 arc?
(EDIT: Sorry, combining two poster's info, but I'm pretty sure the female boss Eva is referring to is Ms. Lib.)