LaserJesus
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Posts
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Joined
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Of course the difficulty isn't insurmountable. I mean, I beat it, after all. The point is, should it be like this? Should the average player have to contend with sudden bursts of lots of damage and accuracy from lieutenants and up? I'm going to say no. There are one, maybe two enemies in the standard game that have build up, both faced very occasionally. I can't think of any single enemy that has the kind of regen that Captain Dynamic has. And you fight him in an arc that is tagged solo friendly. I mean, sure, you can just run away and wait for his instant healing to wear off, but again, why should I have to? That's boring. Sitting around waiting, doing nothing for a couple minutes before I can even deal any appreciable damage to an enemy.
This isn't an "Oh my god, this is too hard and I lost" post. This is a post saying that these arcs suffer from some bad critter design, and people will have problems. Some won't, but enough will, and in an annoying enough fashion, to be a problem. -
Quote:+0, 3 teammates, bosses. And the bosses are shield, meaning they resist my damage. Yes, I can kill them pretty fast, but that's really beside the point. Fiery Embrace and the shield +damage aura is a lot of damage buffs. Fiery Embrace alone is incredible, considering that it's a +100% to all fire damage (the only type that the bosses use) for 20 seconds. That's rough. Too rough. Even though some characters can take it. My character really didn't die except to Croc Pot, thanks to his build up giving him so much to hit to cut right through my defense, but other characters not built to take a ton of damage will find quite a lot of the custom enemies in these arcs too much to handle.Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
But you also have lots of damage. I don't know how your kat/sr is spec'ed but at the settings I'm talking about (+2 to level), couldn't you simply burst damage and kill the bosses outright? BU -> Golden Dragonfly -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut is a lot of damage.
What difficulty settings are you playing at? As I said in my first post, I'm playing with +2 to level/no bosses, and it seemed really easy. -
Going to have to agree on Captain Dynamic's regen being too insane, but then, regen's pretty much impossible to have a decent difficulty, since standard is just the auto powers, they refuse to use reconstruction, they use dull pain immediately, and their only other protective powers are MoG, Instant Healing, and Integration, which are all annoying in their own special way.
I enjoyed The Great Face-Off more than Mission: Awesome, though. It had more funny moments and felt less like I was being talked down to.
Too many ellipses in both of them, though. But that's partly my personal pet peeve showing through. I can't stand ellipsis overuse.
EDIT: However, upon thinking about it, that may be a symptom of their writing being primarily for videos. Since their work is more or less only heard out loud instead of read, there's not as much impetus to ensure proper sentence structure to lend to the voice of the character. -
Quote:Your traps defender also has a good deal of debuffs and control. A Katana/SR Scrapper really only has defense, and some knockdown/up. When enemies are capable of ignoring the entire thing my secondary uses to protect me by way of insane boosts to their to-hit, and a large increase in damage as well, it leads to a very frustrating experience for me. This is my main character, who I've been playing for 5 years, and the one I do pretty much all of my AE stuff on, since I want him to get the tickets. Getting smashed in the face for around a third of my life by nearly every attack for the first 10 seconds of fighting a boss is not fun.Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
I guess I don't see build up / aim / FE as a problem. Yes, I was hit with those attacks, but I just ate a green inspiration, ran away and then came back. My traps defender is pretty reliant on defense so they did sting. However, they're just two critters on the entire arc. I'd have much more of an issue if the minions and Lts were more powerful, but I didn't feel that they were.
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Quote:The LTs aren't too much of a problem, Follow Up isn't as strong as say, build up, and it requires them to hit you in the first place. Mainly the issue was with the chiefs, Croc Pot, and LOLBAT, the first having fiery embrace and the latter two having build up in addition to their mace and martial arts powers.Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
I'm going to have to retry that arc with bosses in it. The Lts I faced didn't seem that bad at all. In fact, they presented no problem whatsoever.
That said, I played Mission: Awesome, and I have to say I was kind of disappointed. While nothing was too powerful besides an elite boss and the lieutenants having Aim (when an SR scrapper suddenly finds that a -1 lieutenant has a 95% chance to hit him, something has gone wrong) the humor was just frankly not what I expected from Rooster Teeth. The only chuckleworthy parts were the letter from Great Face in the first mission, and the mission in the phone company. It seemed like most of the dialogue that could have been used for humor was instead used to tell me how to do their missions, which isn't too hard to figure out. I don't need to be told 4 times that the cat is in a box, when there's only 2 glowies in the mission. (One of which tells you that the cat is in a box.) If that's supposed to be some kind of meta-humor, it sailed over my head. -
Quote:I'm going to have to disagree with you completely. The chef bosses have fiery embrace and shield's +damage aura. The chef bosses have follow up, which isn't quite as bad, but it's still worth mentioning. Essentially, nothing in that arc has anything set below hard, for better or for worse. Some powersets are fine on hard, others will completely dominate most people.Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
The arc is well balanced for difficulty. I don't think my Traps Defender would have any difficulty handling it at +4 level with bosses. None of the custom mobs are very difficult. The colored Red Caps on the other hand could be problematic...
Which is a shame, because I enjoyed the writing. It wasn't the best, but the villains are suitably ridiculous, and no, the whole thing isn't ZOMGLOLBBQ speak. Seriously, it's just one character. I don't understand the extreme trepidation some of you have. -
It seemed really unclear how exactly we got progress on the red bar for the banners to move. I'm still not sure why or how it suddenly started moving.
Also, the distance to the greater mystic aspect updated so slowly as to be entirely useless to anyone with a travel power. As in, practically everyone.
Otherwise, fun event. -
Quote:The more, the better.Originally Posted by Lazarus
Depends, did many Bothans die in the process?
Damn Bothans. -
I'm posting 'Tis Nobler in the Mind for best hero story, Fighting Freedom for both best villain and best custom group (didn't see any rule that said I couldn't submit one arc for multiple categories) and Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood for best original story.
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More edits.
Small typo fixes in some of my arcs, reworked some dialogue/clues etc. to read better.
'Tis Nobler in the Mind: Recolored one of the standard NPCs to fit better with the story, added animations to some bosses that didn't have any.
Drakule (All): Changed some descriptions of major NPCs to include more humor. -
You're right, I found the patch note, buried deep within the patch notes.
However, it should still help people to know if they're confused as to why their custom group is invalid. Had to help someone with this last night. -
I got two purples last night, which is more than I usually see in a month. As far as I'm concerned, things are looking great. If you're getting crap, then it's just bad luck at this point, really.
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I didn't see any threads mentioning this, so I figured I'd give people a heads up. Apparently all the quantum gunners that were listed as part of standard enemy groups (i.e. Headman Quantum Gunner, Wing Raider Quantum, etc) were taken out of the MA, and didn't get a patch note. If you have an arc with a custom group that has them in it, and if you go to edit that arc, it'll say that custom group is invalid, and won't tell you why. You'll have to remove all of the Quantum Gunners from your custom group in order for it to be valid again.
Void hunters are still in the MA, however. -
Changed the level range of Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood's level range to 40-50, since Dethe decided it would be awesome if all of his lower level minions like level 25 spectral demons would spawn with him when you try to play it at high levels.
Changed the final boss of 'Tis Nobler in the Mind to no longer have Phantasm, as I realized it could probably make things a bit too confusing when you fight him, especially if you fight him with a team, or are set to have things spawn as a team. Also, by the way, playing 'Tis Nobler in the Mind at more than x2 teammates while solo is probably not a good idea. The peculiarities of the custom group, where I have the lieutenants and boss stronger to compensate for weak minions, mean that when a lot of them show up, things can go really bad for you.
Also tightened up a lot of text and added idle animations to a lot of bosses in Fighting Freedom. Apparently, I hadn't done that when I15 went live. -
*blows dust off of thread*
I attempted to play through Arc #156813, The Computer Loves You on 3 separate occasions, and each time I was unable to finish due to required objectives not spawning, a file cabinet in the first mission, and an AV in the last mission twice. As such, I have not reviewed it, nor rated it. If the author is able to fix the problems, I will attempt it again. -
Quote:Conveying the fact that people don't find it viable as a leveling alternative is very different than helping them to get it to a point where it is. It's incredibly easy to say "I hate this. Fix it." If the developers knew how to please everyone, they would have done it already. The only way they're going to have a chance at getting this right is if they're able to look at reward rates without widespread abuse being involved. And now, they can do that.Originally Posted by Hydrophidian
Now you're suggesting I should continue to use the AE as a leveling alternative... to send the message that I don't find it usable as a leveling alternative?
Noop. Ain't gunna do that. That sounds bass-ackwards to me.
Here's all the hard data the devs should need: after I16 was launched, MA usage went into the gutter.
It ain't rocket science.
If they can't see that in their data, we have bigger problems than having one feature on the ropes.
I agree. I don't really want to think that's the case, because if it is, then there's no winning. That's why I'm hoping that the reduction wasn't so much of a case of "Customs are too easy, let's cut the rewards" and more of a case of "What can we do right now to reduce the rewards rates without requiring too much extra code so we can get the rampant abuse stopped," because while that is still a case of overdoing it and missing the mark, the reasoning behind it isn't rooted in a fundamental disconnect from how their game is balanced.Quote:Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
To set Hard as the "baseline" difficulty, then pack it with powers that no or very few dev-created critters have (Aim, Build-up, Auto-hit end drain, Rage, "toggle" debuffs that can't be shut off through mezzing, the list goes on) and therefore player powersets aren't balanced against, would indicate that the devs are completely out of touch with the design of their own game. -
Quote:Part of me thinks that with the AE building not packed with people farming for quick XP, reward rates can be properly gauged in MA missions. Honestly, with the decision to reduce the standard and hard level and leave extreme at full experience, then to switch it down to just standard being reduced, all while not making hard less completely insane than it is for quite a lot of powersets at the same time, tells me that something went wrong. I can't really think of any way to exploit custom critters on standard settings that couldn't be achieved just as easily by using canon critters. This also sends the message that Hard is the baseline, which doesn't fly with me. If the "Hard" setting is the baseline, then that implies two things:Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
We may know, or at least suspect, that those things are true (although even before the xp reduction a lot of people may have been turned off custom groups by the fact that so many of them are poorly designed) but how exactly do you propose we go about gathering hard data?
A) The difficulties should logically go Easy, Standard, Hard if that were the case.
B) The developers think Hard Lieutenants are roughly the same challenge as a Vortex Cor Leonis Adjutant. Some may be, but if I were to make a Battle Axe/Illusion Control lieutenant with both on hard, they would have 3 melee attacks, a PBAoE attack, build up, two ranged attacks, a hold, and spectral terror. Terrorize is pretty much the least resisted attack type, and it has two powers that do it that also have a -15% tohit debuff, one of which is an aura. Extreme example, but you can see how hard enemies can easily get stupidly powerful.
To me, the only logical conclusion that I can come up with as to how this came around, was that they felt that reduction of custom critter XP was necessary to reduce farming. However, by adding the full roster requirement, they pretty much squashed practically every popular exploit. And still, there's no situation that someone has been able to present to me where a cherry picked custom group of standard critters can't serve the same ability to be "exploited" as a group of standard difficulty customs.
What this means, to me, is that their data was probably completely offset by the huge amount of farming going on in the AE building. They took drastic action to get it under control, hitting everything they could. It's likely that coding in reductions to XP for standard critters isn't as easy as putting in a bit of code that says "If in MA, give 75% total." or whatever. So they did what they could with what time and resources they had, and reduced custom critter XP.
That paragraph above is all wild conjecture of course. I could be totally wrong. However, the point is, now that the MA isn't being used by a ton of farmers now, people playing it for its intended purpose can then be used as a proper set of data for the developers to see exactly how much of a difference in risk versus reward there is between standards and customs, general leveling speed in the MA, all of that. The XP reductions were a quick stopgap for what they saw as a huge problem. For them to rachet it back up to acceptable levels, we're not only going to need to give feedback, but we're also going to have to just continue to play it so they have a decent dataset to work with. -
Quote:By my experience, most arcs that had a group of custom critters usually had all three of the ranks. I doubt that specific change affected most people as much you think it did. Especially as some threw up their hands and gave up on AE even before I16 launched and had time to adjust to the changes and have time to see how they play out.Originally Posted by Hydrophidian
Sounds like a nerf to me. I'd hazard to guess that it'd sound like a nerf to most everyone. And that it may have been an "exploit fix" does not preclude it from being a nerf.
Granted, it was a nerf I didn't mind so much... but it's still a nerf, a significant one, and it came along with the custom critter nerf, which was pretty significant as well.
Hence, "significant nerfs". But whatever you choose to call them, the result is the same: mass abandonment of the feature.
Considering pre-I16, the common perception going around was that everyone in AE was farming for XP, if we're going by that metric, then I doubt we'll see the Atlas MA building crammed with people. However, I don't really think that was the design intention, was it?Quote:Oh, okay.
So when do you expect significant numbers to return to the feature? No new story content was added in I16, so it should be fairly soon, right? A week? Two? A month?
When do you think?
This is not a rhetorical question. I'd like your prediction on when MA activity will be back to being at least in the ballpark of pre-I16 levels.
The day before I16, AE was in use by a great many people. The day the issue launched, usage plummeted. It wasn't CO that launched that day. It wasn't any other game. It was I16. And the usage has remained diminished since.
I predict it's going to stay that way until this XP situation is revisited.
Let's see your counter-prediction.
You're operating under the assumption that it's all or nothing, either everyone left because of the changes, or no one did. I'm not saying everyone will flood back suddenly after some certain date, especially since the changes were made pretty much to address the fact that so many people were using AE instead of normal content to gain rewards at a greater rate. What I'm saying is that levels of inactivity in this forum, and lack of plays on current arcs likely involves more factors than just reduced rewards. Sure, it's probably the main motivating factor, but you can not discount the fact that there are some like myself who were simply doing other things.
Way to completely miss the point. In your post, you said this:Quote:Oh-- wow. So... if I just use AE as a leveling alternative, everyone else would come back to it?
C'mon now.
Then, you said this:Quote:Originally Posted by HydrophidianPlayers who were using it legitimately, like myself, have also written it off.
While you said you'd be using it sporadically, it still doesn't change the fact that you and some others in this thread have all basically said the same two things:Quote:Originally Posted by HydrophidianI think MA could still be an industry-changing feature, and I really, really want it to be. However, in order for it to have that impact, it needs to be widely adopted. I understand that some people would rather have it be this obscure little feature in the corner utilized by only a handful of extremely devoted players (of which I'd be one, if only sporadically). And that's fine. But I don't see that as the goal, and I don't think the developers do either.
A) If the developers drive off too many people, then it will be an underutilized feature like bases and arenas that will not receive developer attention, and thus languish.
B) I'm pretty much done with the AE.
You see the problem here? If everyone stops using it now, then you're only helping it towards it's grave. Plus, while making posts can help to sway developer opinion, as instead of standard giving out half like it did early in I16 testing, they changed it to 3/4s based on feedback, you know what works better? Solid evidence. If you're sure like I am that the reduction in custom critter experience was totally pointless and did more harm than good, then the only real way for us as players to prove that to the developers is to play AE content so the developers can have hard numbers to look at.
Don't get me wrong. I think the AE is in trouble. I think it needs help. However, I think that everyone posting that they think that AE's being hurt by the changes to XP, and giving up on playing it is not going to solve anything. Feedback only got us this far in beta. Giving up is only going to ensure that the feature doesn't get the attention it deserves. In order to prove our point we're going to need to come back with hard data. -
Quote:First and foremost, the only significant nerf was to custom critter XP. In my eyes, the change that you need all three regular ranks to get full XP is really an exploit fix. If I were to review a mission and find that a custom group that's used as the main group to spawn throughout a mission doesn't have a full group to begin with, I would point it out and suggest that be changed. Not having a full group to fight is either not fun due to lack of stronger enemies, or too hard for a lot of people due to lack of weaker ones.
The issue carried significant nerfs to the feature, and usage bottomed out right after its release. To be blunt, trying to claim anything else was the cause is disjoining yourself from reality.
Secondly, while I highly doubt anyone claims that nerfs to critter XP didn't drive anyone away, but the sole cause? Doubtful. New issue drop, even one that has no new missions or task forces, means that most will go play with the new stuff for a while. This includes new difficulty settings, new powersets, new Master of badges, and one of the reasons I've been out of the MA building for a while, it being much easier to get some badges. Even Ouroboros badges got easier to get due to the fact that you get powers as if you were 5 levels higher than your combat level while exemplared. Combine that with the fact that Champions Online just launched, and Aion's gearing up for launch, and the holiday game season is gearing up, you have plenty of reasons not to be in the MA building right now, nerfs included.
Lastly, you say that in order for the MA to be successful, it needs to be used for its intended purpose a lot. I agree. Which is why nerfs or no, I'm still going to run my review thread, and play random arcs from time to time. If you accept that if the feature isn't used, it will languish, then you can not stop using it just because of a 25% or less reduction in experience to custom critters, or the possibility that an arc might have an improperly put together custom group that doesn't have all ranks. If you do, then you're just creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. -
Just a reply to the whole farming discussion.
Since AE launched I've held the same opinion on farming, and nothing that's happened since has changed it. Farming is not a problem. Exploits are a problem.
Farming is simply repeating content to receive rewards, like experience, currency, and loot. There's nothing wrong with that. When you get right down to the mechanics of an MMO, that's really the only end goal. Note that I'm not saying that wanting a good story in an MMO is somehow wrong, I'm merely stating that as a game, the objective is to make your character better. Things like story and socializing are separate from that.
If someone wants to mow through a whole mess of enemies for experience and loot, solo or teamed, I say more power to them. They're having fun. I have no reason to believe that the developers think any differently, especially with the fact that they reworked the difficulty system to make it easier for people to fight large amounts of enemies to get their rewards without having to get a bunch of fillers. (Possible bugs with drop rates non-withstanding. Please don't argue about that, this isn't the thread for it.)
Now, what's not good, is using exploits to gain rewards at a ridiculous rate. Going from 1-50 in a matter of hours? Not good. Especially when done in AE. Even if you're not a new player.
Here are a few reasons why. First off, new players. I don't know about you, but it took me a long time to figure out exactly what it takes to build a good character. I'm going to be perfectly honest now. I didn't have stamina on my Scrapper until Issue 2, when I was able to respec into it. Note that I was playing since pre-order. Now, I'm sure not everyone will make such rookie mistakes, some will take the time to research, but the majority won't. Now, even without stamina, I was still doing decently enough, from learning by trial and error to learn how to properly slot my powers. The fact that you slot powers every couple of levels helps with this. You learn which powers as you play that need to be slotted for various things. If you're going from 1-50 in the matter of a day, and this is the only way you've been doing it, you don't know what the hell you're gonna do with all these slots.
Speaking of slots, reason number 2. Less time leveling, especially in AE, means less time to get the drops necessary to slot out your character. Sure, you get tickets, but chances are you'll be using those to try and get things that sell well on the markets. Even if you're not, you can't specifically buy any recipes that you want to slot out your brand new level 50, and you certainly can't get any purples. So this level 50 you got in practically no time at all is going to buy a ton of stuff on the market at once. Everyone who's getting fast 50s needs a bunch of stuff to enhance their character as well, meaning there's a lot more coming out of the market than going in.
The third reason is a less tangible one, and that's stigma. If people are using an exploit to get ahead, and the usage becomes widespread enough, then the exploitive behavior is conflated with the practice of farming. The guy who's farming just wants to kill things to get his stuff and experience. Note that the farmer's a good thing, someone who gets more rewards than he can use, and thus puts the rest on the market, which the community as a whole can benefit from. See reason 2 for why this is the exact opposite of someone who's getting tons of level 50s by exploiting AE.
Level 54 ship raid rikti, Level 49 Green Mitos, Immunes Surgeons, and to a lesser extent lieutenant farms, these are all exploits. Lieutenants really aren't that much of a bigger threat than a minion to a team, and give more than 3 times the experience if I remember correctly. All boss spawns, however, can be rather rough.
Farming really isn't bad for AE in and of itself. I will say that the overabundance of identical farm missions is, however. Unfortunately though, with the stigma that's been put on farming, and with the developers' decree that AE is not for farming, (note: different than saying farming is bad) people who do want to make farms will make their own farm. The likely reason being, if there's one farm mission that everyone is playing, it'll get noticed very quickly and likely be removed.
Wow, that was a much longer post than I thought it would be. I guess I'm in a contemplative mood tonight. I was going to post some thoughts about custom critter experience, but this is long enough for one post. -
I just wanted to pop in and say that my review thread has been inactive not because of me being done with MA, but rather because of games like Arkham Asylum and then Scribblenauts.
Seriously. Scribblenauts is freakin' awesome. -
Quote:While a creation is purely in the hands of a creator, that doesn't mean that outside advice is completely useless or unwarranted. Just because a creator is well within their rights to do pretty much anything, that doesn't mean that anything that they do will be liked by their audience, or be a good idea.Originally Posted by Mr_Bandwagon
I think the best reply is already in MrCaptainMan's signature...
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Quote:I'm an incredibly jaded individual when it comes to the internet. Meatspin would get at best a sigh from me. It certainly has more humor value than Rickroll due to shock factor. Rickroll went from slightly entertaining to downright stupid when it made Rick Astley a bigger celebrity than he ever was when he actually made the damn song.Originally Posted by Roderick
So.... You'd have a problem if someone Rickrolled you, but not with getting Meatspinned?
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I changed one of the Elite Bosses at the end of 'Tis Nobler in the mind to remove Call Enforcers. I've decided having them makes him just a bit too annoying, considering how the encounter is set up.