Lothart

All purpose video game design

Your <arbitray level reched by running the developer's treadmill long enough> characters will still be fighting <set of 1s and 0s represented by a set of pixels> in every battle. Oh, but these aren't just any <set of 1s and 0s represented by a set of pixels>! They still look like <sets of 1s and 0s represented by a set of pixels>, they're still a computer generated opponent designed to offer a fixed degree of challenge. They're may be giant l<sets of 1s and 0s represented by a set of pixels>, , or even differently colored pixels. But these l<sets of 1s and 0s represented by a set of pixels>, have new arbitraily designed and added algorithms designed ot make certain they always stay at your releative power level! Oh, yeah, and every third <arbitrary set of tasks designed to earn an imaginary reward> or so we let you deceive yourself into believing that "defeating" one <set of 1s and 0s represented by a set of pixels> is somehow more interesting or meaningul than defeating any other <set of 1s and 0s represented by a set of pixels>.

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I've italicized some text here to further highlight something I think a few people have missed. Not a certain chance for a defeat every mission, but the possiblity for a defeat.

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It also says a group of all sizes. That means a team of 8 on Heroic should still face the likelihood of a defeat. That means a WIPE. If one or two people die in the process, that's not a defeat.

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If that's the standard the dev's are shooting for then I'm really going to hate this game when we get there!

Please post a reference. I have a hard time to believe that this is their intended level of play.

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This is Statesman's comments from an "Ask Stateman" (emphasis added)

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Q: Why did defense need to be scaled back so drastically?

A: Here was my goal. Have every type of build able to play on Heroic with perhaps one defeat on groups of all sizes, and do the same on Invincible with at most a handful of defeats. Also, Tankers needed to tank, and Scrappers needed to survive long enough to contribute. We tested and arrived at our numbers.

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Sounds like a defeat ratio to me.

They have never said it's scrapped only back burnered until they figure out some method to make it fun.

Aren't goodbye posts against forum rules?

I wish you well in your future endeavours.

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True, I was not specific... play a regen and solo heroic missions... or any AT for that matter on heroic.


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I do, well actually I solo on the 3rd level of difficulty. At 40 I've had so few problems I can't see how it would become impossible to manage soloing at 2 levels lower over the next ten levels but hey, I may be wrong.

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What do I do to play a mission? Solo on heroic of course... what happens? I nearly die to the +1 freakshow juicers and stunners because my inv/ss tanker's energy res was tossed out the door.

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You "nearly" die? And you are complaining? The standard for Heroic (as statyed by a developer at one point) was designed to be roughly one death per mission. Anything better than that means you are ahead of the curve.

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Let's take a step into reality shall we? Most of us have school or even jobs we attend, which cuts into our playing time, and having to hunt for groups cuts in even more; a number have limited funds for the game, and need to value each second they spend on the 'content filled Super Hero MMO', and when they get killed a lot merely because they have to enjoy, or, endure every second of a game that is impossible without 'perfect tactics and maxxed out in usefulness abilities', it cuts into their wallet since they have to 'become a super hero' according to others and not make their own hero, but, a carbon-copy of some person who wanted to twink out their toon as best they could and still have a legal character who caused others to suffer.

Now, even more of us have limited time and money, which makes us casual players; we don't have time to team up and do insanely hard and long missions for a few bubbles of capped out debt, we'd rather solo at our own pace, using our own self-made toons to kick some villian's sorry butt.

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If you don't have the time to focus on CoX that others do why do you feel you should be able to play at the highest difficulty level? What difficulty level will the people who DO have the time play on then?

I play Civilization Games, I don't obsess on details, I don't study strategy guides, etc. And, as a result, I will never be able to beat the game on the 3rd highest difficulty level, let alone the top one. What the heck is wrong with that?

No one is saying casual players should not be able ot solo their missions on heroic or even higher but the point of a difficulty slider is to challenge people who aren't casual players. If it doesn't do that, what's the point?

I'll just ignore the remainder of your demands since, IMO, they are absurd and I too wish to remain civil.

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Look at Statemans post and see if you can find any lies in them, i have seen lots. But that is what i was trained to do.


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I keep a large database of Statesman's posts. Never once have I found anything I can class as a lie. Never once has anyone been able to provide proof of a lie.

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Providing proof to you is not worth the time. It will never change your mind, even when it slaps you in the face. So many have provided it already, and they have stated it better than i ever could.

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Quite the contrary. I am always looking for evidence. It's what I do. Demand people back up claims of facts with actual facts.

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I wish i could give you the Proof on like ED but that could get ppl in legal problems with Cryptic. Sucks when they send in co. emails and they go to the wrong ppl isnt it...

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So in other words: A wizard did it?

Accusing someone of lying is a serious claim, especially in print. It opens you up, in turn, to charges of libel. If you can't prove the charge, don't make it.

Ok Broomhilda,

Please provided the stated proof that a lie was told. Please be sure to include the full and complete text of the original "lie".

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Worst part is many have proven States lied

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No, the worst part is that people were gullible enough to buy this so-called "proof".

I7 draws closer, no specifics yet though...

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If the team size and mission difficulty are ABOVE a certain level, an Archvillain spawns. Below that, players will face only an Elite Boss. If the mission is set on the first two levels of difficulty, it takes 4 heroes or more to spawn an Arch Villain. On the third level, 3 heroes or more. On the fourth level, 2 heroes. On the highest (Invincible), a solo hero will spawn an AV. Note this works in BOTH City of Heroes and Villains.


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Was this in the patch notes? Is it explained anywhere but in this obscurely named thread on the developer digest of the forums that devs claim less than 10% of players read?

Something is coming in I7...

I hate waiting but...

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1. Stop taxing us in a way that creates, sooner or later, a prestige cap. That's communism. You're not communist, are you statesman?

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Ok, what form of communism?
Marxist/Leninist communism? Who are the workers then? How do they control the means of production?
Soviet Style communism? Who is the polit bureau?
Maybe it's merely trade unionism? But again, who are the workers and who is protecting their rights?

Looks to me like you have no idea of the principles behind communism and simply use it as a hot button term designed to illicit support for a point you can't be bothered to actually develop. Of course my view could be being coloured by your opening statement where you basically tell every other poster in the thread their views aren't worth your time to read.

This is not communisim. Not remotely. In communism no group could control a private base at all.

This has gone way, way, way off topic and I have no interest in debating economics with someone who is stil referring to the "Invisible Hand of the Marketplace" that's been discreditted since John Nash.

However,

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As to the players, most of them lack the overall knowledge to judge what will increase or decrease player subscriptions. I've seen many popular changes made in other games that, nonetheless, hurt those games in the long run.



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I seriously doubt you could prove that in any substantive way. More likely, your assumption that your tastes and ideas of what's "good" for a game, and its lack of popularity with the people on these boards, is leading you to defensively assume a posture of undeserved superiority, so that you can reassure yourself that all these plebes calling for this "stupid" change just don't know any better. I would beg to differ. But I don't think it would do any good.

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I was on the administrative team for a game called Film Mogul (an re-incarnation of Virtual Producer). If you run a websearch you may still find some fan sites referencing it.

The game primarily consisted of people writing or adapting short screenplay treatments (though some were full length) and then posting them for other players to read and rate. To add game elements real life stars were used, fake posters made for the movies and box office formula determined virtual revenue which allowed to pay for larger and larger budget virtual films.

At a later stage in the game players requested the right to open Virtual Talent Agencies and manage real life stars. This feature was added.

Players began opening their own websites for these virtual agencies and, despite implicit instruction in the game rules that all sites must clearly be labeled as part of a game one day the owner received a cease and desist order from a major talent agency. A Japanese compnay had contacted one of the virtual agencies believing it to be a real agency and had eceived, from a player a rude reply. When they did contact the real agency they found the site themselves, found the site it was connected to (i.e., Film Mogul) and threatened to sue. The owner, faced with either a major redeisgn of his game or a lawsuit (when he himself was just coming up before the bar) opted to simply shut the game down.

Now, by your own logic a game closing is bad, right?

So, I'd say players adding a change that caused the game to close under the threat of legal action would fall under the category of "hurting the game in the long run", wouldn't you?

Should you wish to verify the facts behind this story pm me and I can put you in touch with a relatively well known blogger who can verify the story.

Now that I have provided a substantive example would you care to retract your personal attack(s)?

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And Lothart, in the PM you and I have had going back and forth, I noticed something...you said once that you group almost constantly with a set bunch of friends and sg-mates. But your main complaint about this seems to be that, if you were solo and on a low diff setting, you would get an elite boss...the thing is, if you upped your difficulty setting OR were with your friends, this wouldn't be an issue, so really aren't you making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill? I mean, the percentage of missions that HAVE AV's, the percentage of time that you would be alone, and the ability of MOST toons to solo successfully on the middle or higher diff settings would seem to almost guarantee that your liklelihood of having to repeat any given mission would be....well, pretty low.

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No, what I said was I solo mopst of my OWN missions because I earn a lot o XP when I group with my SG so I like to stretch out the contacts a bit by taking my own missions. I failed to mention I sometimes lower the difficulty just o earn less XP from these missions.

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And since your main concern, according to you, was that if you had to repeat a bunch of missions, you'd outlevel your contacts, but you can only GET a lot of AV/Hero missions (and by a lot I mean like an average of one every three missions) is in the late-game), it just doesn't seem like much of a problem.

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It means AVs are rare in the levels I actually /play/. I've never broken 40 in a year's accumulated playtime. Which only makes it /more/ important I don't miss the few out there.

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Not to minimize your dissatisfaction. Just seems like you're expending more energy in fighting this than you would in just repeating a few missions.

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Fighting what? I've repeatedly said I'm not asking the announced changes not be made just because I don't like something doesn't mean I am calling for a change! It is possible to accept that a change you don't like will be made to the game.

I'm just asking for a few more things I feel are Q.o.L. changes that will make me dislike the change (which I accept as inevitable) a little less.

And the sole reason I posted so much all day was I had NOTHING to do at my office. I'm going /nuts/ from boredom there.

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a post should be either funny, informative, a question or a combination of the three.



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Which was yours?


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Lothart, if you cant figure out mine was an "informative" post, I feel bad for your brain cell. may it live long and prosper.

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poisonbox,

Judgemental !=! Informative

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a post should be either funny, informative, a question or a combination of the three.


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Which was yours?

Aw man, now my Invuln Tanker may be overpowered again.

I wonder what they'll have to take away next...

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Can you make a QoL thing so that when you except a mission you can clearly see that AV is possible with a large enough team. Just simply adding color text to the AVs name would be sweet.

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Thanks Ice_Hot, same point I've been making all alone.

It's occasionally nice when someone conclusively proves I'm not a minority of one

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When the GM charges you to play his game he gives up all rightss, privilanges, and obligations to build a game only he likes unless he wants to give up the green backs, once you charge someon its theirs not your any more.

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Nope. Don't agree.

I have run numerous live action role-playing games where I was required to charge in order to cover site fees.

I surrendered NO rights. There were times when I had large numbers of players asking me to make certain changes I stronglyu opposed.

My reply was always the same:

"I'm sorry, but I would not feel comfortable running a game under those parameters. So I am not going to. If you would prefer to run a game under those circumstances and the majority of the players would prefer to play your game I'll cease running mine."

Edit: And, legally intellectual property is not surrendered with payment. You pay to play this game the same way "buying" a CD only legally entitles you to use the music on it in certain ways.

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Sorry, but this overly simplistic generalization simply isn't true. There are variations of "broken", and different kinds of "improve"ments.

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Hence, there is no objective definition of an improvement unless it is set by an arbitrary group designated to set it for a particular sphere of their influence. In this case, that group is Cryptic's development team led by Statesman/Jack.

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If the customers are dissatisfied, and the reasons make sense, then the marketing department, as well as the wise game designer, will realize that the game is, indeed, broken, even if it is "working as designed" (software engineers in the crowd will catch that joke).

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So? A well designed game is not inherently a commercially successful game. The market does not define artisitic success, merely financial success.

Now, you mention that the reasons must "make sense". But to whom? The marketing department? Who are they to judge? The only people qualified to determine if a change "makes sense" are the developers.

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Similarly, if the majority of the players believe a certain change would "improve" the game, and hence increase the likelihood of their continuing subscription, the marketing department (and the wise developer) will view it as an improvement, as well, unless it critically alters an aspect of the game of which the playerbase is currently unaware.

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If the game design is being defined by the marketing department please let me know so I can be sure to never resubscribe. I no more trust the marketing department of a game company to determine what is good for a game than I would trust the marketing department of a hospital to perform surgery.

As to the players, most of them lack the overall knowledge to judge what will increase or decrease player subscriptions. I've seen many popular changes made in other games that, nonetheless, hurt those games in the long run.
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Example: A GM in a PnP game alters the levelling/xp gain process to make what he sees as an "improvement". In this matter, he has become a "game designer". But if his players HATE it, or find it to be "broken", he would be wise to "fix" it, or eliminate it entirely. Otherwise, his opinion will rule over an empty table.

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And? You would prefer the GM to run a game he dislikes? To resent his own game? Would you expect that to be an enjoyable experience for the players?

If a GM cannot find a large enough group of people who enjoy playing a game they enjoy running they should simply not run a game. It seems foolish to expect that while running a game they don't enjoy they will be able to keep their players happy.

Similarly, if Cryptic can't design games that work the way they intend them to and still find sufficent audience to remain in business they should not be in the game design business.

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Sorry, but that's the way it works.

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Or doesn't work as the case may be. If you want to play a game run without a central design philosophy I'm certain there are still some out there that survive. I would prefer not to.

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And under the current system I have to spend half an hour to get a team wipe because I found an idiot blaster who can't control aggro, or take a week to finish an arc so I can get my SG together.

Then if I want to do Maria Jenkins, I have to do this for every single mission.

Personally, I prefer to have your "problem" Lothart.

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And I'm proposing a way neither of us will have this problem. By marking, clearly and explicity, every mission that can spawn an AV so that everyone has a clear choice whether they get to face an AV or not.

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And it doesn't hurt anyone. If you still want an AV, it's really easy to get one.

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I fail to see how it is "easy" to memorize every mission in the game in advance in case it might spawn an AV so I know I have to form a large team OR raise my difficulty to a level I can't deal with just to SEE an AV.

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Folks, he's not complaining about the change; he just wants them to let him know when an AV is coming up so he can prepare to face it on the terms he wants to face them on, just like knowing when you go to a PvP contact they implicitly state that PvP is involved. Did I read you right Lothart?

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Well...make no mistake I am complaining about the changes.

I just am not calling for them to be repealed (wait, can you repeal something in advance?) and suggesting some ways that I will complain less about the changes.