Nethergoat

An occasional tough boss or spawn is part of the game.
So no, you don't want to "play the game", you want the game changed to accommodate your inability to deal with the small amount of actual challenge & adversity it presents.

I'm not saying "get a team together", I'm saying ask for help from a kitted out level 50.
That's the work of a few minutes- in my experience others are happy to lend a hand when someone is stuck.

Because those take a large investment of time and energy and inpsirations are available at the market & from assorted other vendors? Also because the game itself explicitly states that inspirations are there to help you get past troublesome, difficult encounters?

All my suggestions work fine for players who're looking for solutions rather than excuses to complain.

I've been playing these things since the first console game showed up in the local arcade, which had previously hosted only pinball, foosball and air hockey machines. I played games on an Apple II's tape drive. Having surveyed the history of the industry firsthand, I have an excellent idea of what works and what doesn't.

In this particular instance actual game devs actually worked on a system very like the one you describe before chucking it as a bad job.

But by all means carry on bloviating over something that will never happen in an MMO setting because its very structure is inimical to how MMOs function- these are forums, after all, and where would they be without hollow posturing.

Very true.
Several of the better story story arcs are moderately to extremely tedious to actually play through because that story is basically recited to you by the contact in between interminable strings of generic warehouse clearings & street hunts.

The newer content does a generally strong job of making each mission "count" in a story sense, so although they're functionally very similar to the old ones (there's still a lot of going hither and yon to clear out sewers and warehouses) they feel a lot fresher and more involving.

Not having fun, which is why I deleted that MM.

I have a ton of fun characters to play (including a couple of other MMs), I'd rather not waste time on trying to keep a bunch of ridiculously fragile, brain dead ninjas alive.

I'm sure some enjoy that "challenge"....I'm not one of them.

And I'm sure it was much more difficult & irritating than leveling just about anything else would have been.

The game's forgiving enough that anyone can level anything to 50. And even the lamest MM (which I'd say ninjas are, by a fair margin) are still 'easy mode' compared to playing a blaster.

But I judge characters by how fun they are to play....and I had less fun with ninjas than pretty much anything else I've tried over the years.

Quite often.

You don't enjoy them, great.

That doesn't mean others must join you in the ritual sniffing and posturing of cultural superiority.

Again, you're talking about things that work great for single player games and simply are not practicable for MMOs.

If a single player RPG is like a speedboat, an agile and flexible vehicle built to carry a single person, an MMO is a giant cruise liner, built to carry thousands, ponderous and relatively unstoppable once set on its course.

If any MMO designer out there thought such a system would be a good idea, they'd have done it. Not only haven't they done it, this game tried it and junked it as a waste of time.

So.

If your table top RPG players had options at hand to largely nullify/avoid/defeat a troublesome encounter and they *kept wiping anyway*, that's not the fault of the GM and altering your scenario to cater to a group of incompetents would serve neither the GM nor the players best interests. It's like your dungeon party had in their possession a satchel full of mighty potions to augment both their damage and their survivability, plus the ability to call on a Hero of the Realm to aid them in their quest AND a Sigil of Power with the ability to overcome any encounter and whos potency was renewed every few days.

How, given those tools, would they KEEP FAILING?
And how would any GM intervention on their behalf be anything but divine hand-holding and coddling?

The game provides ample tools to deal with problem encounters, and in any case such encounters are rare as hen's teeth considering the breadth of content available to the soloist.

The game is generally speaking really easy.
I disagree with allowing players to opt out of what minimal difficulty it does possess.

Not relevant to the point I'm making.

Players seek efficiency, and if you give them an efficient route through content, be it TFs or story arcs or newspaper missions, they're going to take it.

Which means energy spent on 'alternate' ways to complete missions is largely wasted- players will find out what's efficient, they'll run that and they'll ignore everything else.

Then it's a waste of time and energy for the devs.
Players will find the most efficient set of actions and that's what they'll do.


The kind of story-driven mechanic you're talking about works fine and has a place in single player RPGs.
It simply doesn't fly in MMOs.


/edit
and it occurs to me you don't even have to take my word on this- the devs for *this game* spent a whole lot of time and energy on such a system before abandoning it as unworkable.

Unfortunately none of that would work in an MMO.
Everyone would quickly figure out which method of completion was most efficient and that's what everyone would do henceforth.

Direct correlation- at CoV release you could stealth newspaper missions, complete the objective (kill boss, get X) and collect your mission exp. I/E, choose whether to beat up a bunch of guys or sneak in the back door.

It was so efficient pretty soon everyone was doing it and the objectives were changed from 'kill boss' to 'clear final room' & collection missions also began requiring clearing the final room. This was *still* too efficient and maps were changed around so that the 'final room' was usually something huge like the layer cake cave room or a great huge warehouse.

Mechanisms that work well in single player games don't generally translate well to MMOs.

Everyone in the game has options to overcome these "impossible" missions- there's only so much hand-holding the devs should be doing.

Option One:
Recruit help.

This is what we did back in the day when an AV popped up in our story arcs- "any 50's want to help me clear an AV mish?"
People were generally happy to help, as they remain today.
Yes the situation is a bit different with the changes to sidekicking, but even so a fully kitted 50 should be able to make short work of any lower level EB in the game.

Option Two:
As I noted earlier, fill your tray with giant inspirations. I dimly recall in-game advice to the effect that inspirations can help you past difficult situations. It's true! They're great! It's amazing what short work*any* character can make of an elite boss after popping five or six big Reds backed up by a steady stream of big purples, along with break frees as needed for the squishier ATs.

Option Three:
Autocomplete Mission.
The ultimate in frustration avoidance.
I generally burn them on annoying fedex's to distant zones & ridiculous Hunt mishs, but if you really, really, really hate tough fights, save them for that.


All three are reasonable responses to a mission you feel is beyond the scope of your character. All three are simple to impliment. One of the three should work for pretty much anyone who finds themselves facing a too-tough boss.

psssht, I'm a full contact guy.
No need to worry about my delicate fee-fees.

One person?

Nope.

Well, unless they're a dev.

Except in this case, an alternate universe exists where Dewey won the election and his wonderful, super fun ideas rule the land!

=P

Hey, I've got nothing against getting snark for snark.

As you apparently do, the answer is 'NO'.
It was scrapped for being not fun (unsurprising, as it was Jack's baby) and replaced by the IO system.

the only blasters I've played to the level cap is my fire/ice & ar/dev- my fire/ice was by far the more fun of the pair.

Great damage from fire, superior survivability from ice- Ice Patch corner, pull spawn, blow up while they flop....or if there are any particularly tough enemies, hit them with Shiver to keep them at a safe remove while you blast away.


And while /devices has a lot of problems, it also has Caltrops, a terrific power for keeping the enemy at a safe remove. Pair it with anything other than AR and it would be a solid choice.


Generally speaking your best performance/survivability strategy with IO's is to stock up on ranged defense bonuses in search of the elusive Soft Cap for defense. Combine high ranged defense with either a mitigating power like Caltrops or Ice patch, or take Hover to create some vertical space.

plus, a big INCARNATE, SO WHAT from everyone playing a blaster 1-49.

Also, I have two 50 blasters, one because he was fun to play (my fire/ice) one because I was determined to see if I could make him suck less with a max level IO uber-build (my ar/dev).

Neither of them has a lick of Incarnate-ness slotted, although my fire/ice has unlocked the alpha & is running the DA stuff, so he'll eventually get a taste.

But it's no answer to any of the issues plaguing blasters.

I thought we were dealing with statistically significant figures (which I'd say pretty much every other system (even pvp) can muster), not one guy living in a coldwater flat still using AOL.

Carry on!

except Gladiators.

=P