Hanged_Man

Man, missed another one. Stupid job.

[ QUOTE ]
Fire - Post 32

Powers used:
Fire Imps

Strategy:
Push Fire Imps button every time it becomes available.
Find large groups of same-level mobs.
Stand and watch Fire Imps decimate them.
Repeat until you are level 50.

[/ QUOTE ]

User: Anyone, Any Archetype.

Powers Used: Griping, Whining, Describing Powers out of Context,

Goal: Nerf the Crap out of Everything except Ice Controller.

Outcome: Uncertain

LOL, I'm pretty sure the Crey have come to help the invaders sometimes. I know, I know, prolly just aggrod some tanks. But STill . . .

[ QUOTE ]
Statesman's tricky task is to re-balance the XP gain so that people who are wiping out groups of oranges now won't be screaming for his head on a platter. Increasing same-level challenge will come with increased XP, but the question is whether it will be enough. I don't know, I don't wipe out groups of oranges like you do. And neither of us are quite at the 30+ target level.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is the tricky part. I really hope these changes work. It'd be nice to bring my defenders out of storage.

IS that on Test, or Live? I think a lot of confusion comes b/c Statesman might be posting about Test server, and players are posting about Live servers.

You know nothing about my playstyle or what I like, so [censored]. As for "fun" vs. "experience," anyone who thinks getting as much experience per hour shouldn't be possible doing things that are "fun" is a moron.

If you think Hazard Zones are empty b/c they lack missions, you're just plain wrong. They're empty b/c (1) no trams go there (2) if you need a team, you can find a team more easily somewhere else; (3) you can't take in low-level SK's; and (4) you can grind just as well somewhere else.

* * *

Look. Statesman posts that, essentially, everybody already likes missions. IOW, he's indicating that per the dev's stats, right now, as we speak, missions are doing fine and therefore only need minor tweaks.

Statesman also decides dozens of posts pointing out exactly what is wrong with grouping. He has posted, several times, that he doesn't see where there's a grouping penalty. Right now, as in right now, on Live, he doesn't understand why people think there's a penalty to grouping.

So let me ask you. If the dev's think that missions, right now, are doing ok, and think that grouping, right now, is doing ok . . . what are the chances that any change is really going to fix anything?

And then he posts worthless statistics like "the majority of players are doing missions at any given time." You could also say "the majority of players is under level 10 at any given time." And in any event, a sizable minority doesn't take Hasten or Speed Boost because they think it just boosts movement speed. Just becuase people do things doesn't make it smart or right.

[ QUOTE ]
I think he's trying to make it a better game (from my perspective), not just doing what he wants to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you really think any of us think the dev's want to make a worse game?

All we are pointing out is that our experience in the game is contrary to what the devs say it should be, and what their statistics say the game really does. IOW, that they are making changes based on false assumptions.

I don't question that "the majority" of players are doing missiosn at any given time. But that statistic is bulllshit.

At any given time, Id bet a lot that most of the heroes playing are at Level 10 or lower. Go to Atlas, Kings, PP, Galaxy and do a whoall, then compare to Bricks or FF.

At low levels, missions rock. The mobs are about what you'd handle on the streets, you don't have to go very far, you can kill mobs on teh way, and the mission bonus is high enough to matter. IOW, at low levels everything Statesman says is true.

At high levels, you just can't do missions. I feel really, really bad forming a team in Brick, and then saying, "Oh, btw, I'm doing a mission in Perez Park. In the forest. Let's go." I might as well just saddle people w/ debt, b/c they're basically blowing 30 minutes of game anyway.

I didn't want to actually point this out, but I keep seeing that "Most people do missions, so missions are ok" stuff in this thread. [censored]. That isn't true throughout the game.

[ QUOTE ]
Time to roll a Mind/FF controller, they can only go up from here!

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL just wait until the "FF is Uber I can't group without one" posts you're going to see if +4's really, really are hard.

[ QUOTE ]
However, if you fight some spawns on the way - and finish the mission with the new XP rewards - I think you'll find that missions are much, much more competitive XP wise.

[/ QUOTE ]

One thing I missed earlier.

Are missions going to occur in the same zone as the contact? Otherwise, it's pretty unlikely you'll be able to hunt your way to the mission.

[ QUOTE ]
Heck, a single +4 should be a challenge to several heroes. But it's not. That's the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, that is the problem. In-game, we talk about the scaling problem a lot. It isn't much more difficult to kill +4 minions than to kill +3.

My cocern is that if the plan is to make +4's more difficult, how is XP going to scale? Right now, you need to kill mass +4's just to get to level 40 before City of Villians comes out.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In other words if you are not an AT or build with resistance to status effects you are not allowed to solo at high lvl?


[/ QUOTE ]

That's what the Inspirations are for! To help the solo player!

[/ QUOTE ]

If so, Inspirations are either going to make those mobs trivial, or still make them impossible for scrappers and blasters. Here's why.

If the inspiration truly does stop status effects, solo guys will just buy them. The cost of inspirations at L30+ is trivial. The only XP effect will be downtime going to the store.

If the inspiration does not stop status effects, like the current broken inspirations, no one will use them. These mobs will then be virtually impossible to solo.

IOW, without radical changes to how status effects work on players, it looks like inspiraitons will either be irrelevant, or make the mobs trivial anyways.

[ QUOTE ]
Something that I also see as broken... exp for a level 14 white 5th column is the same exp as a level 14 white vahz. We all love to kill 5th because relative to many other mobs they are easier. Each mob needs a system much closer to 3rd edition D&D that bumps up the exp value based on powers and how hard it is to kill and or survive a fight. A mob that can chain hold you is much more of a pain than a mob that does only melee punch damage. The chain holder should be worth X2 or X3 the exp of the same level puncher.

[/ QUOTE ]

Although this is only tangential to grouping, it is valid. Those mobs are much tougher than others. It appears that the answer is to give all mobs status effects, so that all mobs are equally difficult.

Problem is, that'll suck for soloing scrappers and blasters.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The current changes to Rikti and Nemesis bring them into line with the difficulty of other groups (Malta, Carnival). So now all groups are of equal difficulty (that's the goal!).

[/ QUOTE ]

HAHA are you serious?! The Rikti have NEVER been push overs States!!! WHY were they ever touched?? They are always a challenge and I'd see already equal to the carnies and such.

[/ QUOTE ]

They were never a problem to my Controller. I like them, they're nice and crunchy and sometimes bring in more mobs to fight. Yay.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Currently, there are no spawns anywhere that are worth tackling with a 5+ person team. Unless you are herding, which looks to me like an exploit, even 4 people is a bit too many.


[/ QUOTE ]

The Trial Zones. These are designed for teams sizes 6 to 8 or so. Those spawns are HHHUUUGGGGEEEE - and challenging (at the low and mid levels). But many people don't take the challenge.

Again, I'm not sure what "penalty" is being allueded to.

[/ QUOTE ]

Everybody talks about wanting to do Trial zones, but I can't get anyone to go. The problem is, you can do just as well not wagon-training to a Trial Zone and using a smaller team. Have you thought about making it easier to get to them?

The "group penalty" comes from the suckiness of pick-up teams. I love teams.

* * *
But here's my team experience last night in Brick (ignore it if you want:

Put on Team Seek. Broadcast. No response. No good fits for me to choose. Start soloing.

Get invited to a team - 2 level 29's, 2 level 14's. I kill blues for them for a while, then quit and move on.

Do missions, go to Talos and Dark Astoria. No one's looking to team. Invite a couple people to Sidekick, but they're not interested.

Go back to Brick, try to get a team to go to Crey's. No response.

Find a Defender hanging around Crey's, invite him to team. He's not helping me much, but I like having him around. This is fun. No one else is looking in Crey's.

Join up w/ some higher-level friends of the defender and get SK'd. Get less XP than I did duoing with him earlier. But I like the guys.

Finally find a SG mate and rocket around Bricks. We team, but solo in around the same area.
* * *

By my estimate, I lost out on at least 15 minutes looking through Find Team lists, broadcasting, sitting around wating for people, and so on. I wasted another 15 minutes on a pointless team that wasn't fun.

That's a penalty.

[ QUOTE ]
Zones are different than missions because they are broken down into 3 categories: city, hazard & trial. City zones spawn mobs designed for 1 to 3 heroes, hazard zones spawn things for 3 to 5 heroes, and trail zones spawns mobs designed for 5 to 8 heroes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Statesmen, you seem to place a lot of faith in Hazard Zones to help large groups. There's three big problems under current play.

First, almost all have a sweet spot that allow you to either solo or due far more effectively than you can do in any larger group. I get better XP duoing the front of Crey's Folly w/ another 34 than I do in a 4 person group in the back, unless I'm not sidekicked - in which case I might as well be powerleveling.

Second, it's virtually impossible to get a group in a hazard zone. I spam requests for hazard zone teams without getting a single response. Unless you have a pre-formed group, you just can't do it.

Third, Hazard Zone mobs vary wildly in difficulty. Faultline just isn't worth it, which means there's a whole level range w/o a hazard zone. TV is either easy (Sky raiders and Freaks) or too annoying to bother with (Lost or Devoured.

Hopefully, this changes come the revolution.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Couple that with the enormous penalty for grouping beyond the 4rth person and you just don't see large teams anymore.

[/ QUOTE ]

Penalty for more than 4 people? Certainly not XP wise; players get an XP bonus for having larger and larger groups. What are you referring to?

[/ QUOTE ]

Currently, there are no spawns anywhere that are worth tackling with a 5+ person team. Unless you are herding, which looks to me like an exploit, even 4 people is a bit too many.

That caps XP for large groups. Unless you split into two 4-person teams, your XP is only slightly larger in a 4-person team than in an 8-person team.

As a practical matter, XP is best if you have a 4 person team, and split into 2 groups of 2 in a non-hazard zone. My pre-nerf illusionist actually does best soloing in a group - forming a team and taking off on his own. Same w/ most post-32 blasters.

Hopefully, this changes come the revolution.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If so - can you help me w/ my football pool picks? B/c you're obviously a mind reader w/ the gift of prophecy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well... I dunno...

You're not going to teach me about broken games, even if this is one.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has nothing to do with a game being broken. It has to do w/ what exactly you're thanking the dev's for.

I think I've made exactly two posts directly critical of the dev's, and both times it was in response to lack of communication, not anything game-related. Those of course are going to happen, and nothing to get personal about.

This is a great game, and the devs have in general put out a good product. But whatever you call the dev responses on the board, they are not taking aprt in a debate. Particularly for controllers, they are not even taking suggestions on things until after drastic changes are made. Heck, they aren't even giving notice of the changes for the most part.

So what are you saying here, Ingot? Good job on a good game? That's great, but has nothing to do with posting on these boards or communication. I thought communication with the dev's was the point of your posts. And that we do not get. We get a sad little facade of communication.

But if that makes ya happy, go to it.

You just flat-out don't understand the game. Not a flame, you just don't.

First, missions suck for XP. So any argument in favor of groups that starts w/ "but missions are great! Weee" is pointless. Even if you're mission is in the same zone, you lose more XP travelling there than you can possibly make up with some uber group there.

Second, for comparison, I often go to a mission zone solo and immediately form a team with as many lunkheads as I can find. DOn't care who. I open the door, then tell them all they're welcome to come along, or just get xp, or quit. I don't care, b/c I can solo the mission nearly as quickly as I can do it with their help.

So you don't understand the game. Grouping for missions is pointless. Hopefully the mission difficulty slider and mob hp/xp change will make up for that. We'll see.

Second, even when it comes to missions, you need to

(1) find a group (which takes a long time once you hit the 20's);
(2) see what they want to do, and maybe go back to 1 if they want to streetsweep, are the wrong level or AT mix, or whatever;
(3) go the mission and finish it, getting at best as much XP as a hazard zone would give for that amount of time;
(4) figure out who's done and probably going back to (1);

Logistically, even if missions made sense, missions with a group still don't. The "group XP" bonus sucks so bad that it hardly compensates for the time spent looking for teammates, let alone the suckiness of finding missions or appropriate opponents for your group.

[ QUOTE ]
In any event, I have no intention of debating civility with the entire board, that's not my job. It's poor CuppaJo's. I made a case for civility, and tried to reassure the devs that most of us appreciate the job they are doing in an attempt to keep them talking to us. I'll just leave it at that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know how long you've been reading these boards, but here's my take so you know where some of us are coming from.

I posted things just like you early on, the devs actually communicate, it's cool, treat them better. But then I started playing a controller.

That's when you really start to notice things. Like States saying they're going to "fix" controllers . . . and then making AV's immune to holds and nerfing the crap out of the only two controllers that worked in the first place. This after you spend hours and hours looking for teams w/ your hero b/c controllers are so lame.

Then you see them make "official" threads that have hundreds of posts, without any comment by the devs. Dozens of pages without even a "ok, we're at least looking at this."

Then you see obvious misinformation in some posts. Then you see contradictory comments in different boards made to appease different AT's, as if they think we're too stupid to want to play more than one type of hero.

Then you start to think they aren't so much talking to you, as in providing information and listening, as they are trying to make you think everything is peachy and you should like the fact that your heroes suck.

Then you start to think, hmm. What am I really getting from this "give and take" with the dev's on the boards? I'm not getting any insight into their plans - they make cryptic (no pun intended) comments, then do whatever the heck they want. Sometimess better than what the boards discussed, sometimes worse, sometimes exactly what was discussed.

So let me ask you. What does it help to know, for example, that "controllers aren't solo AT's," that "everyone should be able to solo," but that "controllers may solo more slowly than other AT's?" Does that mean you're going to make a controller, or give you any insight into where the controller AT is going?

If so - can you help me w/ my football pool picks? B/c you're obviously a mind reader w/ the gift of prophecy.

Statesman, it'd help if groups didn't just flat-out suck to begin with. It doesn't matter how helpful controllers and defenders are to groups if groups get less XP than soloers.

Seriously, that's a huge problem. If teh game is going to let soloing be not just viable, but at least as good as grouping, eventually there will be no groups. It's too hard logistically to make a good group, and takes too much of an investment, for it to ever be worthwhile if the xp ends up being the same as a solo player.

We'll end up w/ a few groups made up of SG mates, and a bunch of solo players trying to get buy.

[ QUOTE ]
HOWEVER here is no question that such procedures are going to make a mess of the devs' attempts to datamine and find out whether the game is too easy in some spots or too hard in others. Especially for a game with as many problems in these areas (e.g., level 30-34 missions are a complete JOKE in terms of difficulty), anything that throws their datamining off is going to make it take that much longer for them to fix REAL problems in the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the only problem I have w/ PL. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter. What's the diff if someone spends 48 hours straight streethunting, or sits in a tram and sucks XP? Eitehr way, they're advancing faster than me. And I don't care, as long as the dev's don't use that data to determine that levelling is fast enough on average.

[ QUOTE ]
. . . with the rest of us basically meatshields and buff bots, well until I leveled up the fire tank . . .

[/ QUOTE ]

Just as an aside, isn't that exactly what support AT's should be doing in a good group? Most Tanks would be happy just to be needed as a meatshield these days.