Liquid
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Though it's been proven that EG didn't say this, I do think plenty of people think "I ran it in 30 minutes last night, that means you have no reason not to run TFs despite your time limitations". So I'd like to share this anecdote and resulting thought:Originally Posted by Toony
Not the point. The point is gecko is passing it off as if every team does this and it is almost a surefire thing this is always going to be 30 minutes or less. That is a bold face lie.
The other night I had an hour. I hopped on a Barracuda, knowing that the last two I'd done took less than an hour.
This one got started 15 minutes after I joined (waiting on people to switch characters and stuff), and took 1.5 hours. At 50 minutes, I realized that I was at a point where I could quit the team, and possibly make the end encounter unwinnable for the team due to lost buffs, debuffs, and DPS (I was a Corruptor), or continue, and be late for my RL obligation. I opted for being late, and got "in trouble". Next time I will not do it at all under those circumstances.
This is the problem with the "I ran it in X time, so can you" thought process: you cannot guarantee that the team activity you are doing will take a specific length of time unless the activity gets started immediately, and has an actual time limit on it of that time. Soloing is the usually only option for people who have lots of RL obligations because they can get started immediately, and if they underestimate how much time a task will take, they don't screw anyone over if they have to leave early. -
Quote:It's aptly named.Originally Posted by Void_Huntress
God help me, I'm agreeing with Eiko.
Apparently, the developers have decided a WTF is worth approximately 100 million influence and 88 shards. I'm a little bewildered by that. -
Quote:No, I'm not. I'm specifically asking about how the LFG queue works.Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
I think you are overlooking the SG/global channel factor just a little bit here.
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Quote:What about the Leagues themselves? If 112 Scrappers, Blasters, and Stalkers are in the queue, and 24 Defenders, Corruptors, and Controllers are in the queue, are you going to get several Leagues filled with no support? Or will it try to distribute ATs among Leagues in some attempt at a balanced manner?Originally Posted by Positron
The League Leader can rearrange teams by dragging and dropping in the League UI.
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Thank you for continuing the Producer's Letter. More information is always helpful.
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Quote:It's all in how you define "end-game", for me. If the "end-game" was more fun things to do that don't also extend progression, I'd love it. If it is more fun things to do with occasional added progression that can be reached in the near future (like when Purples were added), I'm okay with it. If the "end-game" is intended to be a long, long road of endless progression, I'm not looking forward to it. At some point I want my characters to be "done", and then be able to play them without concern for progression.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I think I might, in hindsight, agree.
I like getting to a point where I feel my characters are at a level equal with Batman or Spider-man-- they aren't learning anymore. They have acquired all of their skills or learned how to use their powers, and now they have reached their potential and are fighting/perpetrating crime, or saving/taking over the world. I've reached that point multiple times with my favorite characters: once with HOs, once with IO sets, again when Purples were released, again with the Alpha slot, and now the rare Alphas. Each time I felt relieved and able to play the game in a more relaxed manner once I completed progression on those characters. Each time some form of new power at 50 was released, I felt my work was undone.
Gradual increases in power can be used as a tutorial of sorts in games-- teaching you how to play. In many games, at some point, the increases stop, and you play the rest of the game with your full arsenal of skills/weapons/whatever. But for some people, progression is a game in itself, and MMO developers and players have decided that it should be the focus of their games. That's not for me, and I'd really like to be playing a superhero game that allows me to both create my own characters and play with my friends, where that isn't the case, and new things to do (but not get) are continually added.
Three.Quote:Originally Posted by Lycaeus
Speaking only for myself as well, you're not the only one. The exact same things run through my mind in all of Nethergoat's posts in this thread.Quote:Originally Posted by Nethergoat
And speaking only for myself, a game design trend line drifting toward industry norms is cause for concern. I play this game because I like this game, the more it hews to MMO orthodoxy the less appealing it becomes.
And yes, of course it's a question of degree. It may very well be that we are the only two players of CoH that feel this way -
Quote:Ugh. I hope they make the anniversary badges account-wide soon so I can change my badge character. I'd rather afk-farm the Empath badge again than run 100 TFs (I generally don't have time for more than 2 TFs a week, if that, and the quoted text is missing that the WST has to have already been done once before in that week to get badge credit) with that character.Originally Posted by Dispari
WOW! The new badge requires I do a task force FIFTY times with one character? I was thinking it'd be like 10 or something!
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Issue 16 Martial Arts (the one with punches)
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Love these. Nothing character-defining in them, nothing that players don't already have access to via other means, but very nice to have.
Much better than costume parts and unique powers. -
Quote:Mine was, "why can't I choose Super Strength on the offensive melee AT?"Originally Posted by Arcanaville
My first reaction was "why can't I walk into this train when the doors open?"
I wish I was kidding: I really really do. -
That's just bizarre. And it's not like it could be some kind of datamining test to see what the effect would be if they extended that buff to other mobs-- the Quartzes are going to throw the stats all out of whack.
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Quote:I'd never heard of this. Is there a reason for this? I mean, aren't the +200% toHit Quartzes they drop enough?Originally Posted by UberGuy
In the DE mishes, they all have +14% base toHit, which means I need to either fight them much more slowly or turn down my difficulty so there are fewer of them.
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Thanks to Bubbawheat for running this and to everyone who voted. I was honored to have my arc be nominated and voted for, and I apologize for not voting myself-- I've been really busy and just didn't have time to run MA arcs after the awards were announced.
Edit: and yes, congrats to all the winners! -
Quote:My post was in regards to the balance problems with using level 54s to provide "challenge" in the end game (or "leveraging the purple patch" as you put it). I'm not talking about the level shifting that player characters will be getting with the Incarnate system (though I recognize that there may be issues with that). I probably should have been more clear about that, sorry. I misunderstood that you were mostly talking about player character level shifts.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I think it was a bad idea also, but that's a separate issue from the issue of level shifting affecting pets.
Of course, it isn't just mastermind pets. There's also controller pets. There's interesting untouchable (and thus normally unbuffable) pets, such as the phantom army. There's pseudo pets, like rains, or fulcrum shift. All have solutions, but it'll be potentially a lot of little solutions rather than one holistic one.
But that's why I'm reasonably certain the devs have or are working on a solution to this issue. Because its not just masterminds: its a lot of things affected across the board.
I'm glad to hear that you believe they're working on resolving the issues with player character level shifting, but I'm hoping they plan to work on resolving the balance issues caused by all the end game content using level 54s.
Just to illustrate to people who aren't aware, while all non-pet powers lose 26.2% tohit and damage when facing +4s vs +3s, Tier 2 Mastermind pets lose 37.5% tohit and damage, and Tier 1 pets lose 50%. When facing level 54s in Apex and Tin Mage, non-pet powers are at 48% of their base tohit and damage, while Tier 2 mastermind pets are at 30% of base and Tier 1 pets are at 15%. Enemies also hit them more often and deal more damage to them. Combine this with the movement requirements for the new content, and you might as well be a petless Mastermind in the end-game.
I'm not really a big mastermind player (I have two, one level 50 that I rarely play, and another level 30ish one that I haven't played in 2 years and plan to delete when I need the character slot), but this just seems like an obvious balance problem that needs to be resolved if they're going to continue to throw us up against level 54s. -
Goodbye Ocho, thanks for your work with the community, and I hope your new job is everything you want it to be.
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Quote:Why wouldn't you instead make all Tier 1 and Tier 2 mastermind minions +0 and reduce their stats to compensate? Personally, I think that making them -1 and -2 to reduce their power was a bad idea to begin with, as it makes them lose more power than other ATs when facing higher level enemies.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Its also theoretically fixable, or at least addressable in some fashion. I have no specific information on this matter, but in theory the devs could add a mastermind fix to all Alphas with level shift by playing games with Bodyguard. It would probably require some tech to do it, though.
I recognize that the goal of lower level Tier 1 and 2 pets is to make sure that the difference in gain between getting your second tier 1 and third tier 1 is not so dramatic, but perhaps they could summon different, lower powered entities instead of deleveling the same entities, so that the purple patch doesn't affect Masterminds disproportionately. -
Quote:Wow, I didn't realize you were reviewing my arc, thanks so much!Originally Posted by Coulomb2
Legacy of a Rogue #459586 (5 stars)
An extremely well done story that really draws you in. Put simply, this was an excellent arc with a very compelling story.
What I liked: just about everything. If I’ve got to name a few specifics: the idea to make a recurring, if relatively minor, villain of the arc’s iconic hero a “redeemed” hero herself (who then later fell from grace – but just a bit), and, ultimately his lover to boot was a very cool twist. I saw it coming – but the fact I *wished* the plot was going to take that twist is why I think the author did such a good job. Then to use the twist to play up the bitter anger this brought up in the hero’s once devoted ‘original’ sidekick added even more. And the custom group was very well designed, visually. But…
What I didn’t: …eh, the custom group, while extremely neat looking, did seem a bit overpowered – although a few rather difficult ambushes probably contributed to that impression. And the level range for the arc meant the Circle spawns where heavy with the ‘spectrals’ – and dear LORD I *HATE* those things…
…but don’t let that fool you. This was a great arc.
Score: 5.295
I just want to let you know: I tried my absolute hardest to make that group as easy as possible while matching the name/concept for each of them and without harming the XP value. It just goes to show how hard it is to make a balanced custom group that doesn't have totally neutered XP. Sorry about that.
And yeah, I've gotten a couple of complaints about the Spectrals. I had to use that range if I wanted to use the BP. Maybe I'll remove the BP from the arc and bump it up to 30-35. That way the final boss would be within the proper range, too. But then they'd have Earth Thorn Casters.
I'll add that to my list of notes of possible changes to improve the arc, and think it over.
Thanks again, and I'm so glad you enjoyed the arc! -
Wow, thanks for adding my arc to this, PoliceWoman! I'd been hoping that one day one of my arcs might get on your list.
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Quote:This was one of the greatest things about Castle getting that position. Before Castle, it was very rare to have a conversation with a developer about exactly how things worked. You got vague statements like "the more damage you do, the more aggro you get", which people took to mean all kinds of things. There were a lot of misconceptions about how Taunt worked until he and Ghost Widow took the time to discover it and he explained it to us, for example.Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
I've always appreciated your willingness to be honest with the players, and even moreso, the fact that you've done so without talking down to us.
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I'm sorry to see you go, Castle. Again I'm reminded that nothing lasts forever.
Thank you for everything that you've done. I remember how much better I felt about the future of AT and Powerset balance when you took over the reins, and though obviously it's not (and never really could be) perfect, the difference you made in the past several years was huge. I remember the state of Fiery Aura when Healing Flames only healed around 17% due to a broken AT modifier. I remember AVs being immune to Gauntlet and Taunt auras. I remember how much less effective Dominators and Stalkers were than other ATs, and how Invulnerability seemed out of date after Willpower came out. I remember Energy Aura and Electric Armor being really, really terrible defensive sets compared to the others. I remember that you fixed all of them, and more.
Nobody is going to agree with every decision you made, but I sure appreciated the vast majority of them. Good luck with your future employment, and know that not every player has hostile feelings towards you.
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My four biggest problems with the AE:
Architect Entertainment
Like others, I have a great deal of difficulty getting over the whole "playing a superhero who is playing video games about fighting crime in a company created and run by two supervillains, instead of playing a superhero that is actually fighting crime" bit. I also don't like being stuck in that building-- there's a whole world out there, and I'd much rather actually go (or at least have the option to go) to Steel Canyon than have a holographic contact tell me that I'm going to Steel Canyon. It is also important to me that my own stories are treated as real events and not simulations unless I specifically state in the story that they are simulations.
I know that this was done to separate player content from official content to make it clear to players which one they are doing, but this should be made clear to the player, not the character. This can be done through the user interface, by putting a clear "Player Created Mission" in the Nav bar under the mission objective, or having it clearly marked when you accept the mission in the first place.
The Search Interface and Rating System
The star system has been revealed to be garbage, especially the ability to rate an arc without finishing it. It should be replaced with a "Like" button, and maybe a dislike button (but they should be displayed separately, not cancel each other out!), and neither should be able to be checked without completing the arc.
Dev Choice, Hall of Fame, and Guest Author arcs need their own tabs, and the default first page should be completely random to spread the exposure out more.
There needs to be an easier way to separate arcs intended to be story driven from ones that are farms. I don't really care about people farming for tickets, inf, and XP as long as they aren't exploiting, but people looking for stories need a way to ignore these arcs.
Spawn Placement
We have preset spawn points for a reason, and that is great. I totally understand it. But if I want certain events to happen in a certain order without forcing players to run back and forth across the map, I need to be able to say "I want Boss A in Boss Spawn Point 1, and Boss B in Boss Spawn Point 2". Most of the time "Front", "Back", and "Middle" don't work so well-- The first spawn after entering the mission can often be a "Middle" spawn point.
The last time we asked Dr. Aeon about this, he said something about exploits and cramming spawns into corners, which showed that he misunderstood what we were asking. We need to be able to place a given objective on a specific spawn point placed by the devs. We don't need to place our own spawn points.
Custom Critter difficulty
Custom Critters have requirements for full experience that result in them being far more powerful than canon enemies. It's very difficult to create a group that is similar in difficulty to a canon group without feeling like a cheater. Meanwhile, playing against custom critters can be extremely frustrating if the author wasn't extremely careful about how they chose their powers and the makeup of the group. There needs to be an easier way to make a "canon-like" group that authors can then make costumes for. The existing critter creator seems to be aimed more at turning player characters into NPCs than making a well balanced group that won't be far too easy or far too hard. -
Quote:So it turns out that it actually said it was used because I used it! Woohoo!Originally Posted by Liquid
It came back up, but then told me the code I'd managed to get had been used.
Unfortunately, my account got hacked that night so I didn't know until I got access to it again. Weird. -
It came back up, but then told me the code I'd managed to get had been used.
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Me too.
Edit: Aaaaand the site just went down for maintenance. -
I hate my main (who is only my main because she's one I was playing when I met my SG, and therefore who everyone associates me with), a DM/Regen Scrapper. I love her concept, I love her as a character, but she was made for reasons that no longer exist and her playstyle has changed dramatically.
I made her in Issue 2 because I wanted a puncher who had full mobile status protection without Perma-Unstoppable. After months of frustration with my Invuln/SS Tanker, she felt great. Then Issue 3 hit and Invuln got full mobile status protection, making my Tanker fun again, and eliminating the reason I made the Scrapper in the first place.
I still enjoyed my DM/Regen, because she punched fast, and with Toggle Instant Healing, I didn't have to manage her defense, just punch the bad guys. Then Issue 5 hit, and she wound up with the most clicky secondary in the game.
I dealt with it, after all, she still punched fast (her only attacks are Shadow Punch, Smite, and Shadow Maul, since her concept involves negative energy around her fists, and Siphon Life and Midnight Grasp aren't punchy). Then Shadow Punch had it's animation time lengthened, and now she doesn't punch so fast, which is both less fun and less effective. I wasn't using one of those proc-laden "Buzzsaw" builds or anything, but the speed still helped make up for skipping two better attacks for the sake of concept.
So yeah, now she's not that fun anymore. Her offense is mediocre (self-gimped due to concept, sure, but it used to balance out with the extra speed of Shadow Punch), and her defense requires more micromanagement than I enjoy. But what really makes me hate her is the fact that since she's the only one of two characters that have all of the anniversary badges, and the other is also a character I don't enjoy playing that often, she's my badge character. So I am forced to play her much more than I'd like to, if I want to continue collecting badges.
Also of note is my Tri-Form Peacebringer. She used to be an absolute blast to play, but whatever they did to transitions made it so that half the time my trays swap but I don't actually change forms. It's a big headache.