EvilRyu

Originally Posted by Nethergoat

Broadly speaking the point of 'rewards' is to allow the player to face more potent challenges, not to let them walk over existing ones.

So, uh, welcome to every game ever made, ever.

casting an eye back to my pen and paper roots, we didn't earn glowing plate mail and magic swords so we could wale on Kobolds more efficiently, but so we could go after dragons.

Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen

LMAO.... Use a bit of tactics, and LOOK down over the edge of the building before exiting through the door to see if it is safe to exit. It ain't exactly rocket science here.

Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane

I guess our definitions of "ludicrous amounts of power" really are vastly different.




I'm thinking it has a fixed recharge of 15-20 minutes, isn't buffed by Rage or Build Up and has a sizable endurance footprint.



Knowing me, do you really think I'll be getting Lore?




I think you mean Interface and Judgment.




Because the devs pull crap like forcing level 54 mooks on us just because, using GM code on Lady Winter to negate Level Shifts and adding arbitrary downward Level Shifts on TFs (because as is the having an Alpha is pretty meaningless to the Apex otherwise). I fully expect content like the STF to get 'retouched' to use GM code on the AVs and other "fixes" to largely negate any real gains players make.

In short, I don't trust the devs to allow there to be standard content anymore, or even to allow the new content to demonstrate we're supposed to be growing in power beyond heavy handed novelty missions like the first mission of the Ramiel arc.


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Originally Posted by Benchpresser

To quote some of the more.... rabble-rousing posts on this thread- "And so it begins". What begins ils that people ***** and moan about virtually everything released in this game but offering NOTHING to counter it with. I've run Apex just once.. on a melee toon (elec/elec/energy Brute). The Blue Zones killed me a few times till I figured out the "warningo" signs.. then all I did was keep Superspeed on and.. move. (shocking tactic I know) Same EXACT tactic I would do on an ITF to get out of LoS of Romy's Nictii buddies when they rez him. In other words.. I learned how to adapt to a tactic using an already established (BY THE GAME) action.

The thing that has me shaking my head is.. people have been screaming for endgame content (rightly so...). Now.. shouldn't endgame content be tougher then anything else in the game???? People complained that the Reichsman SF/TF (again, rightly so) was nothing mobre then beating on a HUGE bag.'o Hit Points for a long time. That shouldn't be under anyone's definit.ion of fun! So what does the Dev team do? Create a challenge within .the existing framework of the game tahat doesn't require just standing there and hitting it over and over and over. (OK, all MMO's requi re that.. but you get my point.)

Apex is challenging just enough. you need to change from the way you've playned the game, as (without sounding cheesy) this IS a whole new level. Wue have all heard the same old whining at every "high-end" TF- oh its not fun it's too hard. Then less then 2 months later there are speed runs. The same will happen here, only slower due to the special requirements needed for the TFs.

Oh.. something else about Apex. BECAUSE of the requirements of the TF.. is it any wonder that its barely getting run 2 weeks out compared to a LGTF that's been out for what.. 3 years now? The idea the the 'jury' is in on Apex and no one plays it because of that observation is a nonsensical conclusion and argument.

(one last thing.. I'm not a fanboi/apologist.. I do think Trapdoor was handled extremely poorly even if he is still VERY soloable. Personally I would have liked to see him able to be dragged out but divide his regen in half, so even out of LoS he would still benefit from the clones, just not as much)

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Its really not humanly possible to make an MMO that doesn't frustrate you.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

The difficulty level of the end game is no more a "new development direction" than Praetorian Clockwork are. The end game content is being simultaneously designed for escalating difficulty to be commensurate with the Incarnate system and more complex content introducing new mission technology: the Incarnate intro arc is just a hint of that new difficulty level. If you don't like it, don't play it. There will be other standard content developed with the conventional difficulty and complexity downstream.

I would expect, still this soon after the Alpha slot was introduced, that people would still be farming shards. If the ratio of ITF to Apex was less than 100 to 1, I would be surprised. I don't consider that to be a reasonable metric of the success of the end game this early in evolution.

In any case, we'll eventually know if the playerbase actually wants an end game progression system that is fundamentally different than the current content. If they do, this is it. If they don't, we're not likely to be getting a progression system that is the same as the standard content, we're just not going to get a progression system at all. A progression system without actual progress is what is known in the game industry as "retarded." And if all the playerbase wanted was more of the same, there would not only be no need for the Incarnate system, there would also be no possible balance-proper way to *add* the Incarnate system as it is remotely envisioned. Its a ludicrous amount of net power to be solely used to stomp on level 50 tip missions.

I'm confident that over time the playerbase as a whole will adjust to the new difficulty, it will just take time. They've done so in the past on smaller scales, vis-a-vis LRSF. Its just a question of culture. The current player culture is heavily influenced by quick Katies and broken AE missions. Future players will grow up in a game with a constellation of content with Trapdoors and Tin Mages, plus ten levels of Incarnate power, and will not consider either of them quite so out of the ordinary.


In any event, the same masses that think Apex is not worth playing as much as ITF also think your tanker theories are tapioca, based on my informal count of players actually playing tankers and thus validating the tanker "direction." Don't get cozy with the mob, the mob is notoriously fickle.

Originally Posted by Rikis

I'm well aware of speed runs doing LGTF or ITF in 20-30 minutes, but I've never been on them. My average for both is 50 minutes to an hour and change. My average for both Apex and Tin Mage is an hour and change. So timewise, they take the same. But here comes the rewards, for the LGTF or ITF I get a choice of a common incarnate component or 36/26 merits respectively, while for Apex and Tin Mage, it's true, I don't get a choice, but I get both 40 Merits AND 2 Incarnate Shards. With a toon that already has stockpiled common, uncommon components, and shards, I know which one I'll be choosing reward wise, and it isn't a pre-i19 TF.

Originally Posted by Heraclea

This has always been the game I come home to.

And the reason why I always come back to this game is that other games too often feature gimmicky fights that have to be failed over and over again until you get the precise choreography down to defeat them. With practice you can master the steps; then it becomes largely a test of the latency of your connection.

I dislike gimmick fights for many reasons. I don't play games to experience frustration, which is what I hear when people start talking about "challenge". I want a relaxing experience where you get to roll over stuff at a fast pace. This has always been this game's chief attraction for me, and I hesitate to lose it.

More importantly, gimmick fights increase tension in the player base. If you can wipe the raid by being out of place or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, the more experienced player will look at the "noob" player with elitism and condescending intolerance. They're likely to do the wrong thing and cause a failure. If they had our experience and skills we would have won. Our community is more sweetness and light than most games' because our game is easy. I say we should keep it easy.

The problem with Trapdoor is that it is either trivial or tedious. If you can keep Trapdoor held, it's trivial. If you have to chase down each clone it is tedious, even if you have the DPS to eventually succeed. It's particularly tedious on melee sets without holds. The only way to make it not tiresome to all power sets, including melee sets without controls and low damage ATs without holds, is to re-enable the "break LOS" strategy.

When was the last time anyone went recruiting for a Cathedral of Pain trial on your server's global channels?

Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane

Just for fun I went around to several servers last night during "prime time"; Freedom, Triumph, Virtue and Infinity.

Apex and Tin Mage sat alone while Lady Grey and Imperious had plenty of company with people lined up to do their TFs.

I think that speaks volumes on what the average player thinks about Apex and Tin Mage, as opposed to the vocal minority of Muchkin power gamers on these forums who've propped up these two disasters.

May the i19 TFs and the devs "new development direction" be swiftly ignored, fall into obscurity and forgotten like the Shard TFs and other wastes of development resources.



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Originally Posted by AmazingMOO

Since the most recent patch, I've been hearing one thing over and over again:

"Trapdoor is impossible now."

Of course he isn't. He's not even hard as an elite boss goes, but he highlights in very specific terms what's possibly a new development direction, or perhaps even a new encounter theme for City of Heroes.

Out of curiosity, I took some, shall we say, very specifically optimized characters to fight him solo. These are characters that are slotted to the extreme end for teaming, including a sonic/sonic defender, an ice/ice blaster, and a dark/ss tank. In each case I was able to defeat Trapdoor with no temporary powers.

The difference between being able to fight him successfully and not being able to defeat him boiled down to two things: I was willing to think about how the encounter worked and was then willing to do what was necessary to beat him. It doesn't sound hard. The mission gives you all kinds of hints and clues as to what's needed, so it wasn't very hard to actually do, either.


The wonderful Apex Taskforce is another example of this new theme. In the second mission, players are given some broad visual clues as to what's needed to survive and then defeat the arch-villain at the end.

The reactions of players to those clues has ranged the gamut. Some people outright ignore them and are then frustrated that they can't win by the tired old rotes they're used to.

Some people misinterpret them dramatically. For example, I've seen more than one taskforce leader demand that players not fly during the encounter. Why? Because, 'it makes the death patches appear in the air where you can't see them to avoid them when they kill everything below them'.

AOE spheres be damned. Battle Maiden's death patches have become 'columns of death' that can reach from floor to ceiling.

Of course not only is misinformation spreading faster than a bootless truth, but the encounter is singling out those who lack an understanding of how certain parts of the game works.

Those who understand or are willing to learn about how the game works, however, and are also willing to take a look at the encounter as something that requires thought and action they may not be used to are quickly finding themselves with the 'Already Dead' badge and some other fun shinies.


"You are NOT gonna win this fight by standing still and clicking your power buttons over and over again. You're gonna THINK and you're gonna MOVE, or you're going to lose."


Good job, Devs. I appreciate the fun new content. And kudos to the players who get it!

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus

While I'm no fan of damage you can neither resist nor mitigate against through proper build choices, or titanic debuffs that reduce your recharge to the negative cap (Shout out to Famine), etc. - let's look at it from a developer perspective.

How else are they to make encounters more difficult?

Enemy AI in this game is what it is, it might be tweaked a touch or improved a little, or particular mobs could be given a particular script - but due to the number of enemies we encounter on a single map we will most likely never see any huge leaps in AI tactical capabilities.


If I have a choice, I prefer enemies like Arachnos, Vanguard, Longbow, etc. - They are varied and usually have a decent mix of capabilities per pack you encounter.

As opposed to say Cimerorans who have one main debuff that is spammed at a ridiculous level.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison

We all know that buffs and debuffs are extremely powerful in this game. The only problem is, the enemies don't seem to notice. Clearly, smart enemies would attack the force field defender first, most notably because he has the least defense. Think about an ITF - we all know to hit the surgeons to make it easier to take out the Elite Bosses. The problem is, the way aggro is calculated, there's no way for the enemy to figure that out.

So here's my question: what if player targeted or PBAoE buffs also had a taunt component?

First, I realize it's way too radical of a change to ever get implemented. This is all rhetorical and pretendy fun time games.

Just think about it for a moment. What would it actually do? The empathy defender uses Heal Other on a player, which creates a gauntlet like taunt to five enemies within a radius of that player. PBAoE buffs, like Accelerate Metabolism or Mind Link taunt any enemy in radius of the heal. Toggle powers like Dispersion Bubble, even the one FFG produces, become slight taunt auras.

I think this would produce an effect of seemingly smarter enemies. Suddenly the real threats become easier to see. "Hey, I'm not going to kill anyone while that FFG is giving the team softcapped defenses." It may force us to play smarter, or make good tanks more valuable.

What do you think?

Originally Posted by Hyperstrike

IIRC, this mission is un-auto-completable and undroppable. I could be wrong (but I don't think I am).

Originally Posted by Hyperstrike

Wouldn't help you anyhow. His regen's been buffed to the point that he can stand in the lava all day.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

I think they must have been, recall that pre-AE there was quite a bit of variation in T3 rare salvage prices. Some (such as Diamonds and Rikti Alloy) went for <100K while the more useful ones were going for 5-10million. The AE stabilized the prices by introducing a steadier supply of the more useful rares (such as Magical Conspiracy). With level 50s leaving the AE to farm incarnate shards we seem to be seeing rares returning to their pre-AE prices variations.

Originally Posted by Dispari

Still, though. I've soloed him with 6 characters ranging from Corr to MM (necro, low damage output) to Brute to Blaster to Dom to Widow, who have everything from a complete IOed out build to a regular SO build. I popped a few inspirations and had no issues taking him down.

I even ran the entire arc, including the captain and Honoree, with an Elec/Nothing Blaster. I rolled up an auto-50 Blaster and gave her nothing but accuracy and damage SOs, and didn't even slot a secondary or pool powers. I defeated all of them using just 4 stock attacks and inspirations.

Originally Posted by Kiwi

I'm fairly aware of that, most of my characters are Masterminds, I've tried all primaries (Except Mercs, I can't get a concept or combo I like)



Ahh, another "MM's should meatshield not Tankermind" person... Sometimes it is more efficient for the Mastermind to be the one to get attacked because it's easier to keep the pets and yourself alive when everyone is taking small amounts of damage due to bodyguard rather than having pets take large chunks, especially with ninja's when 3 of them can and will get one shotted.



That's implying that Tough/Weave and bodyguard mode are mutually exlusive... I would be better to use both to keep myself and my pets alive.

Originally Posted by Come Undone

[sarcasm]You're so right, posion debuffs are compleatly worthless. That's why on LGTF my nin/posion can drop 2 1/2 riders in the time it takes the rest of the team to drop one, and why I've had AVs drop in TFs before the rest of the team noticed they were in the group pulled [/sarcasm]
It's true that nin/posion is squishy (after all, you can only heal one at a time, and your heal is one of the worst available to any AT). It's also true that you lack alot of AoE goodness (ninjas only get a couple AoE attacks, and aside from neurotoxic breath and your t9 all debuffs are single target), but posion, and especialy nin/posion tears through single hard targets like tissue paper, especialy if you can get someone else to take the hits so the ninjas all stay alive.


Now kiwi, looking at your build, /posions posion trap is useless, even as a mule. I'd recomend picking up a personal attack and slotting it with thunderstrike instead. Also, I think you'll be getting more recovery sticking that extra slot in health and going with numina and miricle uniques. You're pets would be more effective frankenslotted, and achilies heel would be better off in joinin, although that would have the negitive side effect of dropping you from energy softcap, so guess it's your call if you think it's worth it. Not exactly a build wizard so nothing else really jumps out at me.