Fasque

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"if the power is not being taken by the players, replace it with something that is."


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Did you replace all the powers with phase? That's what you did, isn't it?

Or was it confuse? Did you replace all the powers with confuse?

Or was it bugged powers? Did you replace all the non-bugged powers with the bugged powers? I bet that's what it was.

Well, just so you fixed the hvy and AV ai in rv. So that hvys wont get stuck on the stairs. And AVs will actually take the pillboxes. And the game goals have a greater reward than the farming goals. That would be an improvement without even giving everybody what everybody was taking in order to farm and phase and lol.

Cool.

Yay.

Go go good team.

Based on my experience, twiddling with the profanity filter not gonna work in pvp tho.

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One critical aspect of immersion for children (and/or cats) is the visual component of the game. Always thought that entering certain missions/experiences in the game should lock you into a more realistic pov. As you scroll your camera outward and far away, you enter more of a systems perspective, which tends to make things more abstract and less child-appealing. Thus, I'd be curious to learn what sort of camera/graphics options children seem to enjoy best.

VERY good post. I can quibble with some things (decreasing npcs in zones -- thats what arena is for), but overall very extremely good, particularly in revealing the loc of the arena map problems and related exploits.

My top priority (by far):

* The difficulty of leveling and equipping toons decreases the number of people who can get involved in competitive PvP. Make a paid PvP expansion where you can auto level to 50 and get unlimited loot for a toon, but can only play in the arena and PvP zones.

GJ, particularly in noting the disadvantages to slotting the IO sets, which seem to have been largely overlooked. Lots are screwing up their characters in blind service to loot.

Related point: If you have a full set of HOs already in place, the value of the IO sets is correspondingly less. You mention that players CANNOT place the Acc/Dam from, say, Crushing Impact, more than once in the same power. However, you CAN place more than one Acc/Dam HO in the same power. And the ability to slot multiple instances of the same HO (usually x3) in the same power emphasizes the point you make: that slotting a full IO set within a single power will often make that single power MUCH weaker than it was prior to the IO-set slotting. And the set bonuses are then a poor subsitute for what the power used to do.

On top of this, the respec system makes it difficult for players who currently have HO-slotted builds to improve their characters piecemeal. Adding IOs over time (and building up the set bonuses slowly) both forces players to permanently delete old enhancements (old HOs, for instance) and severely gimps the character during that process. And attempting to respec and do the rebuilding all at once means that many currently slotted enhancements must be loss (you can only keep 10 old enhancements in your avl slots after a respec).

The IO set design seems very awkward and gimmicky to me. Lacks elegance -- which would be okay, I guess, if players ultimately got something really cool out of it.

But, based on the amount of frustration I've seen around wentworth's, the sets are neither very player friendly nor, in most practical cases, player helpful.

Well.

I have no interest in the commitee nor what the committee is doing. Most interesting thing I've picked up is that Genna resigned or something. That sounded kinda cool actually. But really, don't care.

If some kind of event comes out of this that's fun, I'll do it. If it's not fun, then I won't. If it's on test, I probably won't do it, but I might. But probably not.

I don't care who designs these events or how many badges they get for snuggling up to the devs. Just don't care.

Regardless, tho, based on my relative uncaring about all the little dramas, I can say this: My opinion is that 1) Ex Libris is clueless about pvp, and 2) this pvpec thing is one of the more divisive threads I've ever seen on this forum. You can excuse a community service rep for #1 -- may not be her cup of tea. But #2 is exactly opposite what that rep is supposed to accomplish.

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Guys, i don't think the question is "Do you know the current defense values?" like some people seem to be answering. It's more "If you designed the game, what chances to hit would you design in these situations?"

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Correct.

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You asking about the psychophysical -- see, for instance, Fechner's Law. Related: the streak-breaker in CoX, where designers create an illusion of probability that is more compatiable with belief/perception than with fact/reality.

You can see from the replies to this post that players draw analogies between what happens in game to what happens outside the game. When you ask someone how often they should hit something, they think, well, how often would I hit a paper bag, or a cardboard box, or a rattlesnake... etc.

Once inside the game, however, these real world analogies tend to be eventually replaced with what's "fair" (first) and what's "effective" (ultimately).

Designers will tend to replace the real world with what's fair and implement "balanced" designs. Players will tend to support such an environment until they begin to play within it, at which point, their preferences obviously become much more selfish.

What's "effective" within a game then really depends on play and players, not expectations -- like those expectations of how often I would hit a paper bag, or those expectations of what is and isn't fair, for instance.

During play, we often want something different than what we say we want AND different than what we think we want. If you knew what you wanted -- what you ARE -- during play, then you wouldn't need to play to find out what you are. You could just think about it -- like for instance, some of the more meticulously detailed posters in this forum tend to do.

But you can't.

So you have to play to find out about play (and yourself), and designers have to observe play to find out about play (and their games). If a phenomenon is unable to be articulated, if it exists prior to and beyond articulation -- and play is good example of such a phenomenon -- then a survey really isn't going to tell you very much about it.

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3. pvp play is inarguably more engaging, visceral, and immediate than pve play -- which doesn't mean pve isnt fun. grinding through a "narrative" can be entertaining, but honestly id really rather just watch the movie.

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Uh, yeah, that's entirely subjective, so saying it's "inarguably" more engaging etc is a crock. Several people in the thread have already said that isn't the case, which disproves your statement (the "inarguably" part) right out of hand. But good try.

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On that: You're arguing from your own experience, or from the experience of others. Means nothing. There are common pvp and pve experiences that are neither subjective nor anomalous. Think of them as average or prototypical experiences. Of these, the pvp experience is more immediate, visceral, and engaging. This is a comment on the phenomenon of play within these two separate contexts of play, not a comment on either the description or interpretation of that phenomenon by individual players, which will be more varied.

On balance: mathematics, like any other sign and symbol system, does not determine human behavior. Because sign and symbol systems originate in human behavior, they are, in part, analogous to human behavior, but only in a descriptive (rather than predictive) sense. And that description is inevitably impartial and incomplete. If so, then it will be impossible to mathematically ensure a balanced pvp environment in any context of sufficient complexity involving, for instance, the large numbers of players involved in an mmo the size of CoX. (Economists, btw, are slowly finding this out now.)

If, however, you prioritize human behavior (in this case, play) more highly than your prioritize mathematical models of that behavior, then you can, conceivably, balance any closed system of human behavior, such as CoX, by pretty much the same means that horse races are balanced. You handicap.

If, for instance, data are available that demonstrate, within pvp across all context and servers, death/defeat rates for certain ATs are more or less than defeat rates for other ATs, then you bump the hit points of the losing ATs. You bump these hit points (or subtract as necessary) until the defeat rates are no longer significantly distinct. And, if at some future point, due to player innovations or whatever, the defeat rates get again out of whack, then you continue to bump/subtract as necessary.

But, regardless, you base your decisions on what sort of bumping/nerfing works or doesn't work not on a mathematical model of what should or shouldnt work, but on the practice of play and players.

Game play is not a beast to be tamed; it is a path to be followed.

On metagames: I'm sick of hearing about metagames, frankly, at least and until the same design practices that apply to plain old games become somehow inapplicable to the so-called "meta-games." All fair (and fun) "metagame" goals are implicit in the plain old game rules. To the extent that metagames abide by those rules, we should just call them games. To the extent that metagmes do not abide by those rules, we should probably just call them cheating.

Most "metagames," for instance, are "won" by having something or by doing something (guild connections, tricks and exploits, large amounts of play time) that is not available to be had or to be done by individual and common players.

On the other hand, the extent to which "metagame" refers to the recontextualization of play during successive play experiences is a valid way to use the term. But then "metagame" does not apply to any sort of play more than any other. Contextualization and recontextualization occur all the time -- throughout, for instance, an individual's history of CoX play. (Think how differently you think of and play with your characters now then you did, say, a year ago.) But to establish the "metagame" as something either apart from normal play or as an aspect of play that is only practiced by "elite" players is by and large a self-serving crock.

Well lets see.

1. Watching the youtube vid made me a lot more interested in warhammer than I was before.

2. Any designer that uses an auction house as representative example of pvp has some serious misunderstandings of the pvp experience and its appeal to players.

3. pvp play is inarguably more engaging, visceral, and immediate than pve play -- which doesn't mean pve isnt fun. grinding through a "narrative" can be entertaining, but honestly id really rather just watch the movie.

4. loot sucks. theres no way around this.

5. dont devs want to be innovative, to do something original, rather than the do same old thing everybody else does? sure, its a business and you got to make a living, but when did game design become widget production?

1. good original post.
2. fly+tp is much better than fly alone. and in the fly+tp combo, tp is the more important part.
3. whats the deal with jumpers doing something that allows them to successively jump in midair and thereby remain indefinitely off the ground (or go as high as they want to go)? seeing more and more of that now

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Even though I play on another sever. I salute you guys!!! How did you get past the last leg of it?

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Many corruptors and Vengeance. We didn't pull any Hero. Straightforward RUSH! Leeerroooy that.

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Congrats. And a zerg is usually what it all boils down to eventually anyway, huh?

Good team composition, by the way. Looks like what is good for individ pvp is gonna be even better in teams.

You design the team makeup like that on purpose, or it just work out that way?

MoG is pretty darn good in RV right now. You'd be stupid not to take it.

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It is always said the game isn't balanced for 1 vs 1... this is my view of the current balance:

1-2 Damage AT's > 1-2 Support AT's
2-3 Damage AT's = 2-3 Support AT's
4+ Damage AT's <<< 4+ support AT's

Anyone that has ever run an all defender, controller, or corrupter team knows this is true. You can make even more potent combinations with some mixing, but the price of being good in a duo or solo is reduced contribution to a group. That is how this game is balanced.

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There's some truth to this, but it assumes that the support ATs sit in a pile AND that the damage ATs come forward like little lapdogs and attack that pile.

Same thing for teams in general. How many times have you seen established teams sit behind their bubbles, their buffs, and their vents and wait for the solos to run up to them and be killed?

Solos/dam dealers do that little death dance because it's fun and a challenge, not because it's most efficient. If doms require more than one to be effective, then you don't fight more than one. You pick them off in transit, or you tp them to where you want to kill them.

I'm beginning to think that RV may be more fun than the other zones, because there is some motivation for teams to MOVE AROUND -- rther than just sit on the beach in warburg and do their broadcast taunt thing.

Of course, there are currently villains sitting outside of the base in RV too, so I don't know if the motivation to take the bases is great enough to force people to accept some risks. We'll see.

I still tend to think that taking the bases will get old and roaming the zone for the prestige bonuses or whatever is going to start to look and feel like farming the freak missions, with only the truly dedicated (or addicted) doing it over and over and over again.

Just like work.

But we'll see.

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I found a nice Stalker (Stalkerbot1 I think?) that wanted to test it as well and he proceeded to let me wail on him for a bit.
I had FA(2 slots for ToHit)/Buildup(1 slot for ToHit)/Invince(3 slots for ToHit) and 2 Accs in all of my attacks - pretty accuracy heavy build. Without his Elude I was hitting pretty consistently. When he popped it on I was completely floored. I believe my numbers were at about 18% with buildup - and around 12% without. I added one Large Acc Insp and got it up to about 22%.
#5486727 - Tue May 09 2006 01:37 PM

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Absolutely true. Seen it often during many hours in RV. Best strategy to exploit: elude AT loads up on heavies then uses them with impugnity since none can ever hit their master -- except with the occasional buildup/aim, and that is easily overcome by an aid self or two.

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The more I play in RV with my EM/SR Stalker and my DM/EA Brute the more apparent how bad it is. I was chased and hit consistantly with Elude on this morning by both a Katana/Regen and some sort of Ill Controller and was unable to lose them and escape. THey could see me at quite a distance and they NEVER failed to hit me.


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Totally false. Never seen anything even remotely like this happen after many hours in RV.

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Glad to see i7 downloading on live. Might stop this thread from getting increasingly far-fetched and self-serving.

If you read what I said closely, I said you're flat out wrong.

You are.

But keep posting. You say something wrong long enough, it's still wrong.

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Then there is the Focused Accuracy debate. Now having played my lvl 40 SR stalker in RV I know all the Doom sayers were right. It allows Tanks and Scrappers to see you from quite a distance and just plain NEVER miss. And I mean even with Elude or Overload on NEVER miss. The right build, which isn't hard to do, can completely NEGATE, yes NEGATE the entire defensive line. And by Negate I mean that it offers NO decent protection even with the lvl 38 uber-power running against anybody who cares to make a build to PvP. Focused Accuracy or a power like it is a game-breaking discrepancy.

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I was with you, more or less, up to this point. But you don"t know what you're talking about. I've played MANY hours in RV with a dm/regen, 3 nucleolus all attacks, 3 cyto tactics, 3 cyto fa, and I hit sr/ninja scrappers very little -- most particularly when elude is up. I would estimate MAYBE 5% of the time.

I've seen several stalkers come into the massed heroes in front of the villain base and get kills without worrying about a thing, despite the fact that everyone can see them. Cotton Candy Killer is one that springs immediately to mind, but there are several others as well.

You're just flat out wrong on this point and it calls into question everything else you say. If I were you, I would change my argument.

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Comprehensive list of AT's that can two shot a dom in Recluse's Victory:
electric/electric blaster
Ice/Energy Blaster
Energy/Energy Blaster
Fire/Energy blaster/
Ar/Energy Blaster
Broadsword scrapper without any criticals.
Katana Scrapper
Claws Scrapper
Spines Scrapper
/EM tank
Illusion Controllers with phantom army out.
Any troller with the fireball epic after being held.


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Im a dm/regen scrapper and im not in the list, so let me tell you my reaction from the opposite side of the equation.

Doms in RV are the only AT the feels like a different fight in i7. Everything else is pretty predictable, but doms seem changed. They are just as squishy as before, but their holds seem to break through more often. I think it's because of the toggle drop changes. Doms get the highest chance to drop toggles now, plus, if the mez protection toggle drops, then boom, you are held and ALL the toggles drop. No other AT can do this and it happens fairly often if you have two or more doms attacking you.

Now, having said that, doms still cant kill me. The only threat is if the dom is teamed.

So, if I were a dom, I would probably think that a) I need to team with at least one other dom, b) I need to team with at least one other dom and a damage dealer, and c) I need to team with one other dom and a damage dealer and someone who can taunt or otherwise protect me all the time.

Which means: doms are far too situational, unfriendly in pvp, and a pain in the rear. They need help.

The rule is to give players enough information to make informed decisions. If you don't, then players complain because effects are "too binary" -- which really means that something happens, or doesn't happen, without any ability to counter it. Toggle dropping gets that complaint, AS stalking gets that complaint, etc. Not because you die from it, but because you don't have the chance to react to it.

For instance, if you see AS coming, then you can do something about it: try to interrupt, try to break line of sight, pop a green, whatever. That's fun, even if it doesn't work and you die. If you don't see the AS, then there's nothing you can do (but keep on the move all the time). Not so much fun. That's why all my scrappers have tactics now -- every single one. Not because it's safer necessarily, but because it's more fun.

Toggle dropping is a kludge in a lot of ways, but still could be fun if players could see it coming. The devs just spent all this effort in implementing the "Eluded" or "Avoided" or "Deflected" signals in pvp combat -- but for what? Nothing but eye candy. Imagine, however, if there were a similar signal for toggle dropping. Eg, I get hit by a blapper and, above my head flashes "Toggle drop: Integration." And then, 2 SECONDS LATER, the toggle drops. In that two seconds, I have the opportunity to do something -- run, build up, call for help, etc. My choice. Then, all of a sudden, the effect would not be so "binary."

The problem with the toggle dropping is not the percentage of the time it happens; the problem is the inability of players to know when it's going to happen. Having fun depends on the ability to act/reacte; the less there is to react to, the less fun.

This message seems to be asking players to harass other players by submitting unjustified petitions.

I'm petitioning this message.

I'm also petitioning the mother of the person who wrote it.

And their dog.

And their cat.

(Edit: I added the part about the cat.)

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1. Actually, we've tweaked SS in the past; the issues with SJ have slowly evolved over time.

2. Disciplines haven't been around all that long; we've changed the way they work and their duration in response to player feedback - in PvE AND PvP. The "Break Free" changes started before the Arena was even implemented (internally, at least).

3. I think I explained the issues with perma-powers in the explanations. I've mentioned my concern about them for quite some time.

Is PvP a consideration? Sure. Is it THE consideration? No. Each of your points were primarily PvE issues.

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Well, whatever.

But these responses are beginning to sound more and more disingenuous.

Going to give a respec for issue 4? "very doubtful"
Surprise: May respec.

Going to let pvp affect pve? "No, never should."
Surprise: -acc on SJ and SS.

I think there's more a sense of dread than joy when clicking on redname announcements these days.

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Just to clarify, this means that the official stance is that from levels 45-50, COH changes from being a loot-free game, to being a loot-based game. I'm not sure why the devs want this, but it's their game. Shame, some of us liked COH because it wasn't like other mmos.

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Amen, brother.

I had held some faint hope that hso's were not going to be used in pvp because of the design problems associated with hso distribution and, in fact, with loot in general.

But nope. No original ideas here.

Been there. Done that. Not fun. Too bad.

Well, looks like the train has left the station, but I agree with MintCondition. Once you have several trays full of powers -- e.g., once you have a shape-shifting Kheldian -- cntrl-# is very useful for switching between pre-arranged trays and keeping the proper powers readily accessible with a single (left) hand while the right hand continues to work the mouse.

Custom binds might retain such a design, but custom binds are always cumbersome, neither understood well nor implemented often by the majority of player population, and still somewhat unpredictable as to when and where they will function properly.

Frankly, when i wish to target a team-mate, I have always found clicking on their name in the team list to be more efficient than shift-#, since a single mouse-click requires less coordination than a simultaneous double keystroke, which often forces your attention from screen to keyboard.

Therefore, as a general rules, I would prefer not to be forced to make battle and/or tactical decisions through double keystrokes. Double keystrokes should be relegated to before or after battle activities, not during.

My question would be how (or why) internal playtesting determines what should and shouldn't be looked at. Are you still laboring under the notion that the game simulates the comic book world?

The biggest issue I face in the mid-40s is not which power is l33t or gimped or whether /regen should be nerfed. It's those endless tells: "Hey dude, want to be a middle in a wolves mission?"

Do you ever do external playtesting? Datamining is one thing, experiencing the way the game is actually played is another. CoH at the higher levels (pretty much all post 40 play) is rapidly becoming nothing but some idle chat and a single-minded grind to get to 50. Nothing but. And, frankly, I don't see too many superhero comic books built around farming, middles, debt management, and power leveling.

Some very basic things I was stupid enough not to realize when I began the game (in no particular order).

You don't need to run through Independence Port to get to King's Row. You can take the tram. Duh.

You can run up the ramps below the bridges in Kings Row (and get on top of the bridges). The width of the ramp looks too narrow, but you can do it.

You will at first be unable to find Circle of Thorns in Kings Row. Don't worry about it, it's not your fault. It's the devs' fault. The devs should have to find Circle of Thorns in Kings Row each Friday before receiving their paychecks. Then things would get better.

You can walk on the telephone lines, though sometimes its hard to get on them.

Don't use an awaken if you are within sight of an enemy mob. You will be disoriented when you awaken, unable to take any action, and you will be killed again.

If you are dying too much, or not leveling fast enough, or simply not having fun, it may well be because you have chosen poor powers. As said elsewhere in the thread, there are some powers that are comparatively worthless. The manual will not tell you this, the devs will not tell you this, but it is true. But don't give up on the game, there are powers that actually do work and are fun. EVERYONE rerolls at some point.

Most players know less about the game than you do, regardless of how little you believe you know. This is hard to believe, I know. But it is true.

You will die more often in groups than solo. Always.

If you are in Perez Park, you will always die more often in large groups than in small groups. Always.

You will be trapped and die at least once inside the woods of Perez Park, regardless of whether you are grouping or not. This is not your fault. It is the devs' fault. The keys to the devs' cars should be placed inside the woods at Perez Park every morning at 7 am. Then things would get better.

At some point, you can CALL your contact instead of physically travelling to their location. Duh.

Some missions are "front-loaded" with the tougher monsters first and the weaker monsters later.

Glowies emit a throbbing sound when you are close by.

You can click on the "Mission Accomplished" green letters to exit the mission. You don't have to run back to the door. Duh.

The "follow" command will not effectively jump your character over fences, go up stairwells, etc. Don't expect it to function unattended.

And one more: Galaxy City is a better starting point than Atlas because a) you don't have to run around the fences encircling that darn industrial park, and b) Gemini Park is the best early char farming ground.