EvilGeko
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Posts
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Joined
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As much as I like CoH, I would regret that CoH was one of the things that I was thinking about on my deathbed. I would hope I had something more salient to spend my last moments thinking about.
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I23 was pretty underwhelming. So I24 doesn't need to do much to excite me. Just hoping the Blaster revamp finally does the job.
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Quote:While I have some concerns about some of the things sold in the market (Hi Amplifiers, Hi purple inventions), the devs have stepped up the difficulty noticeably since Issue 18.Originally Posted by JKCarrier
And I'm sure it's totally a coincidence that this started happening at the same time they started selling various buffs and boosts in the Paragon Market... -
Quote:The existence of self-resurrection powers (including inspirations) contradicts Sam's opinion. This is a game, not an interactive comic book. Many times in video games, we are expected not to win on the first try.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Any encounter where the proper solution involves dying on a character that doesn't have self-resurrection as a strength is a flawed encounter, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe in an arcade game where lives are limited and can be seen as using a resource, maybe? But not in City of Heroes. And I don't just say this because I consider going to the hospital to be a sign of defeat that should reset the mission, that's just my own personal thing. No, I consider the hospital a sign of defeat because that's where a LOT of mission stories break down and remain held together only via metagame.
You need to capture a fleeing criminal, he kills you, you go back to the hospital, buy supplies, call up your buddies, come back... And he's still there. You get trapped inside Mot, you die, you get to go back out and try again. You're deep within the Shadow Shard, you die, you get bumped back to Earth. It breaks down the narrative in a very evident attempt to NOT institute permadeath, even in situations where getting killed and leaving the instance should be fatal for the mission.
Again, any encounter where intentional failure is part of eventual success is badly designed, as far as I'm concerned. The last thing we need is a retread of the "vengeance bait" mentality.
This truly demonstrates the essential flaw in Samuel Tow's thinking. He never wants to lose....ever. Reading his posts in this thread, it becomes clear that he jury-rigs the game to the extent possible to eliminate all risk. So, of course, he never gets better at the game. Of course, he complains about every mission that's difficult. He's spent the better part of a decade trying to eliminate all risk.
I love the anecdote about trying other games. I have no doubt that playing other MMORPGs where the game enforces a minimum level of risk would be difficult. I have little doubt the developers intentionally have been stepping up the risk in the game. This is a good thing. Players have an extremely deep set of resources in this game. There is no solo mission where minimal preparation could not result in a win. -
Started Night Ward. It's refreshingly difficult even on the base setting. I'm playing with a Fire/Pain Corruptor and darned if I don't have to pay more attention in this zone that I ever have before. It's fun.
The extreme amount of mez is a bit tiresome, only because if I took a melee through here they would ignore it completely, which seems a bit unfair to the squishies. But what else is new. -
Quote:No, not at all. Not sure where anyone got the idea that they developers can't enforce a minimum level of difficulty. The difficulty slider allows 4 things:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'm the next person after that and I don't like tough fights forced on me. Isn't that what the difficulty slider is for?
1) Relative level of the mission - With the caveat that all missions can have spawns +1 to the mission level
2) Number of heroes/villains spawned for - This doesn't mean that with one character the spawns can't be larger than normal.
3) Whether BOSSES spawn as Lts. - Please note, the rank says bosses, not bosses and above.
4) Whether AVs spawn as Elite Bosses - At the time of the original slider, AVs used to spawn in missions. From that point, and for the next SEVEN years, it has always been possible to see Elite bosses in missions, even where you are down-tiering bosses to lieutenants. -
Flames don't make your point. It just makes it seem like you have no argument. Which, you don't, so I understand.
Quote:Elite bosses have existed on the base difficulty since the difficulty slider existed. And no, you should not be able to fine tune your challenge in all instances. Particularly as it relates to the Incarnate content. That content gives rewards that in LORE and in FACT suggest a superior character. Being able to have it on face-roll difficulty at all times just cheapens the experience.The point Samuel has made, which is entirely valid, is that the difficulty slider doesn't work. And it doesn't work because the people making the missions are not holding themselves to a consistent standard. The difficulty slider is a wonderful idea, and it should solve all problems....if everything it was attached to was in any way playing ball. You should be able to use it to precisely fine tune the level of challenge you are presented with. It breaks down, however, when someone decides to put excessive numbers of things in a mission which are unaffected by the difficulty slider (Elite Bosses despite choosing 'no bosses'), or change spawning sizes in a fashion that makes the difficulty slider no longer work properly, such as the example he also provided where Dark Astoria content won't level correctly even just from 0/+1 to 0/+2.
Some situations will always be more difficult than others. Are you seriously suggesting that every villain group at a particular level have the same level of challenge. What a boring game that would be.Quote:Of course, it is also rendered meaningless when factions are no longer being held to any consistent standard either, which can be seen in Praetorian content. The difficulty slider is clearly not working if you have to fiddle around with it every time you run into factions, usually new, modern ones, which don't appear to be balanced to the same level as others.
The difficulty slider does work. There is a base level of difficulty, which isn't guaranteed to be easy mode. And you can make it harder than that if you want. If you can't handle the base difficulty, there's mountains of content in the game to do where you won't be challenged at all.Quote:The difficulty slider should work. Samuel should be happy, PRAF should be happy, everyone should be happy. But it doesn't work, because no-one at Paragon Studios appears to be making sure the game stays properly balanced with itself. The impression they're giving is that their entire design process is decentralised to the point of not existing beyond some vague group work to put together the concepts and then let the teams just do their thing. This isn't beta-tester stuff, this is enormously boring, team of interns and wage slaves poring labouriously over numbers stuff. It should be internal. There should be at least a couple of people bleeding from their eyes as they hand over the mind numbing results of their latest test on the new faction and missions and the number tweaks that should happen so they're not out of whack with other things in their level range.
These people are going to be making CoX2, or something like it. I want it to be good. I don't want it to be a cobbled together mess that gets more and more filled with amateurish problems as time goes on because no-one thinks that enforcing distinct standards from the very beginning, with a stick if necessary, isn't worth doing. -
I've said it before, but only in this game is it considered problematic to suggest to someone that they practice to get better at playing the game. Folks post these long tirades about how the game is so unfair, but they never try very hard to fix their own problem. In most games it would be absurd to suggest that every piece of content must be able to be completed first time through. In fact, everywhere I see that people complain about it.
It's simple, not every bit of content in this game is going to be for everyone. Just because something is a story arc mission doesn't mean it has to be face-rolling easy on the base difficulty. The difficulty slider is intended to provide superior challenges for those whose builds can handle them, but the base difficulty is supposed to provide a moderately challenging experience itself. -
Quote:Who said Positron knows about Patrick? It's entirely possible that Patrick was the result of a mistake when Positron was a teenager and the mother (Miss Duncan) had the child without telling Positron.Originally Posted by DJ_Korith
Well, people can have two grandfathers (maternal and paternal).
That would make Ms. Liberty's father (Patrick Duncan) the son of Positron.
Typical last-naming conventions would defy this, though Patrick Duncan could have been adopted while retaining his old family name.
EDIT: Hmm... wonder if I have a spare AE slot!
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Got Cosmic Smash today. Was pretty happy about that. That sounds plenty comic-booky to me. Just wanted to share.
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Quote:On my Ice/Energy Blaster with no level shifts; and only uncommon IOs, I split the spawns by kiting, using my slows, using Boost Range. It was slow, almost tedious, but that character never accepted help and it was some of the most fun I've had in awhile.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
OK, so what's your advice when I'm staring down a spawn of 12 bosses, a neat mix of Cyclops and Minotaurs plus Nictus Romulus Plus a Keres, and all of my NPC helpers are dead and my inspiration tray is completely empty? Go buy more? OK, so I go by more and go through pretty much all of them in the next two spawns. Now what? Go buy more? Right, how many times per mission do you envision me zoning out of the instance and trekking half-way across a zone to do this? My machine loads fast, but it doesn't load that fast.
Not that Sam will see this since if you challenge his worldview long enough, he just ignores you. -
Not gonna lie. I haven't done any of the Night Ward missions, because I'm generally sick of low level stuff. But what you guys are describing sounds awesome.
ALT TIME!!!
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Quote:Captain Britain wasn't a captain (at least originally)Originally Posted by Traska
Ranks don't work (other than Captain, ad that often sounds pretentious) unless your character is of a military mindset.
Duke Nukem, Chemical King, Moon Knight say hi!Quote:titles of nobility don't work unless your character *is* pretentious, or they're legitimately nobility.
Green Lantern, Red Hood, Spiderman (Spider modifies Man) say hello!Quote:And the adjectives and adverbs idea (especially the examples given) honestly make me think of "The Deadly Bulb". A good superhero name should *never* make me think of The Tick.
No offense, but it sounds like you don't want any solution other than having the exact name you pre-selected for your character. Well, that's not likely to happen. The devs could probably force us to append our chat handles to our names, but plenty of people don't want that. If you can get the devs to believe a majority of players want this, you might get your way. -
Take your desired name; add:
Ranks (Captain, Sgt., Major, Lt.)
Titles of Nobility (Lord, Count, Duke, Baron)
Adjectives & Adverbs (Sassy; Psycho; Stinging)
I have NEVER been unable to get a name that fits my concept. And usually in the first couple of tries. The game is 8 years old. All the single word easy names are gone. Accept it and move on. -
Quote:I've done Citadel, no less than 50 times and I still don't know what it's about. Something about the Council.Originally Posted by Agent White
Eh, Citadel is more tedious than outright annoying, but that's largely because of the villain group involved.
Revamp Synapse and Citadel and the Freedom Phalanx TF series is no longer a chore. Manticore and Numina's aren't bad at all. -
Quote:Not sure if this is serious, but EA is a top tier secondary. It performs quite well and needs no improvements at this point.Originally Posted by Boy Reaper
When I first started playing CoH, I rolled a DM/DA scrapper. I didn't like it very much so I decided to roll a Super Strength/Energy Aura Brute. Since then, I have been told that EA is a terrible secondary and the likes. I would love to see this set buffed up, as it fits my concept very well and I have worked very hard on my character.
Thanks. -
From the hints, it looks like a more global change with Ranged Blasts, and not just Blasters alone. That would be great.
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Blasters need significant crowd control abilities IMO. There's really no justification for denying Blasters decent CC. Controllers and Dominators have overwhelming crowd control that makes both ATs extremely survivable.
I also think Blasters should have some 'behind the scenes' work. I've often wished their defense/resist buff mod was something crazy like 2.0. Since they don't have the powers to leverage it like the melees, all it would do is supercharge powers like Tough/Weave and the epic shields. -
Quote:It's funny, but I think water would be a better agent for CC effects than Fire.Originally Posted by Dr Harmony
I'm in no big hurry to read the words "You immobilise an opponent by using your control over water" (or Radiation or Sound) in the UI.
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Is that they don't have enough thematic secondaries.
Water Blast is sexy and it knows it, but I don't want to use Ice.
A sad EvilGeko is sad.
Just needed to put that out there. -
Quote:If the numbers are right (I was having too much fun to check), Water Blast will be significantly better than Fire.Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
IF WB turns out to be competitve with Fire (which from the numbers i saw on beta *cough* it has a strong chance to be), I'll either make a water/cold or water/kin corr.
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Quote:Did they actually say that? Or are we interpreting their intentions?Originally Posted by Snow Globe
The problem is that it isn't supposed to be limited to 16 entities according to stated developer intentions.
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Quote:Perhaps there is a way to ensure who gets the buff. Like perhaps the buff radiates from the person using the quills and hits the first 16 buff-able entities. If so then you might want to have the damage classes dropping the wells.Originally Posted by Zombie Man
The problem may be that Notice of the Well, while it has a 5000 foot radius (sphere) and it definitely meant to be zone-wide, only has a target cap of 16. WAI or OOPS?
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Quote:No strawmen here. I didn't say you said that.Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
I hate strawmen. If you are going to bother typing answers out please make comparisons that directly relate or just stay specific to the "actual" issue please. The strawman case you bring up is different and does not have "anything" to do with what I said because it is too extreme there is no I win button and I win is not at issue here.
You've said more than that, but ok.Quote:GD it here you go again. The "only" thing I have said about the market or Supergamble packs is that anything sold should be earnable in the game. Nothing more nothing less.
I guess all that would be relevant if I were advocating removing side kicking. All I did was answer a poster about why, in my opinion, other games don't add it.Quote:Side kicking is a separate not equal issue that stands alone on its own merits regardless of the multiple deals you got going on there. And once again thanking the deity on bent knees at least the devs see this and in the end that is all that matters.
Again, my original post which seems to have gotten under your skin doesn't even on its own terms define my opinion other than to say I don't care for side-kicking. You seem upset, I suggest a good nap.Quote:Yeah there is no way this is how you put it at first but yeah ok.....
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Quote:The best way to think about it is to consider how MMORPGs are usually structured. In many MMORPGs, including this one, you move from more mundane tasks to much more grandiose and important ones. And the enemies and locales tend to match.Originally Posted by Crystal_Smoke
Not sure I follow what could be considered cheating about it? Is it because it can be used to level up a lowbie very fast?
So heroes start here:
But by the time they hit the high levels they will be exploring places like this:
The ability to explore a place like the Shadow Shard is itself a reward. It gives you a eye candy representation of your increase in power. In fantasy games this is even more pronounced.
Now originally, even in City of Heroes, you could only side-kick in standard zones. Hazard zones like the Shadow-Shard were actually off-limits until your natural level was appropriate for the zone. Why? Well, I don't know, but I doubt it was because they were concerned for player safety. If so, they would have kept you out of Peregrine. No, I think the idea was to make exploring these places an actual reward for leveling. Now if side-kicking allows you to circumvent that, it's a form of cheating. Not BIG 'C' cheating as you need to ban the person, but cheating as in "You're cheating yourself out of the experience". That's what I meant.