Plasma

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As to Statesman's 2nd Paragraph ... I think we ALL know what this spells out.
Controller Pets and Tankers getting NERFED at Late-Game.

And I say .....
It's about damn time.
Just make sure us Controllers get some REAL loving pre-32

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You know, I don't really think pets are as much the problem. It's that the controller secondaries are almost as powerful as defender primaries once they have access to all the powers.

The largest benefit a defender has is that they get the powers earlier, but come level 40, a controller has all the same powers, fully slotted if they want, and almost as effective. There is a difference but it's just not enough to make a large difference most of the time.

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I disagree. The controller secondaries ARE less useful and notably so. The trick is:

(1) A lot of the buffs are negligible anyhow at high levels due to the huge power of hasten, stamina, and SOs.
(2) A lot of the buffs are simply unneeded. At L10-12, an emp defender is gold. At 40, an emp defender is good for using recovery aura to charge up the blasters real quick after they nova/inferno/TB. By contrast, at 12 a tanker is possibly useful, if they've taken taunt. At 40, a tanker is all you need to own missions all day long, hands down.

Then again, maybe you're right. Let's look compare tanker vs scrapper, and defender vs controller.

Defender heal: 100 points
Controller heal: 85 points

Tanker damage from an attack (capped res): 100 points
Scrapper damage from an attack (capped res): 250 points.

Effectiveness ratio for controller secondary: 1:.85
Effectiveness ratio for scrapper secondary: 1:.4

In other words, a controller secondary is over 100% more effective than a scrapper secondary.

The fact is, though, that the *real* issue is that the 'big 2' controllers (illusion, fire) and almost all tankers simply *do not need* defenders. My ill/kin controller will at most need to duo to beat 95% of AVs, and the other person can be any AT/sets. I fought envoy with a kin/psi defender, and Bile with an ar/dev blaster. I think with the change to speed boost I could probably solo both thanks to the ability to have barely-overlapping PAs.

That said, regardless of the relative value of the ATs, if people aren't taking any real damage, then defenders are only valuable for their non-res/non-def buffs. i.e., speed boost might be great, but disperson bubble will be useless. Does an invlun tank need dispersion bubble? Not by a long shot. (For that matter, does ANY post-22 tank? Probably not)

This post is ridiculously long. The take-home executive bullet-point: the game is not challenging enough, especially at high levels, especially because of hasten, stamina, and SOs; make it harder and defenders become a great deal more necessary. Also, beware of enhancement caps and how they marginalize buffs.

My own perception, as a non-defender, is that they're generally useless to me. If I have a tank at high levels, they can take all the aggro and never take damage. If I have a controller, they can lock down groups in their entirety... if not just slaughter them wholesale with controls and pets.

Tankers: control aggro
Blaster: Great if they're AOE
Controllers: Lockdown, and buffs
Defenders: Buffs that I could get from a controller, and pitiful damage
Scrapper: decent single target damage, but not much otherwise.

So when I'm forming a group, I prefer AoE blasters to all other damage dealers. I prefer scrappers to single-target blasters, and single-target blasters to defenders. I like a tank or two for aggro control, and/or a controller or two for their immense control with a nice benefit of their buffs.

As I see it, there are several fundamental design issues plaguing the game and the AT balance, most of which stem from enhancements or powers that are wonky:

(1) Hasten. This power all alone provides a collossal 70% rech boost. Whereas speed boost would cut a 10 second rech time power from 10 sec to 7.7 seconds without hasten involved, with hasten involved, it cuts it from 5.88 to 5. That's pretty negligible. (I'm assuming here that defender and controller rech rate buffs are equal; I know some things like buffs/debuffs on damage and heals are not, but I think speed boost is, say)

(1.5) Stamina. Can you imagine how valuable accel meta, speed boost, and recovery aura would be without stamina in play? Good god. Kinetics would be king. As it is, only blasters and *maybe* scrappers ever seem to need to worry about their end at all, and it only slows down their dps a smidge.

(2) Enhancements. I have a controller with kinetics secondary. When you zoom in and drop fulcrum shift on a tanker in the middle of a huge pack, it can be impressive - I've had like 30+ buff icons from FS on myself. But the damage caps are meagre by comparison to enhancements. Look at a fire blaster. With targetting drone, their slotting is likely to be 6 damage (I have a 50 fire/dev, and that's what my slotting was; and I went 1-50 in about 110 hrs play time). That means that with 6 +3 SOs and aim, they are at +280% damage, or 20% short of the cap. What is fulcrum shift giving them? A 5% boost of their enhanced damage. Feeble. Because people generally build to solo AND group, they build conservatively - that is, so they are solo-effective, and that means not a lot of end-red or rech enhancements. Data mine the 30+ crowd and look for non-acc/non-dmg enhancements in their attack powers. Outside of things like the 9th-tier blaster powers, which many people slot rech in, you're unlikely to find much.

(3) In the high level game, it's a question of damage, not survivability. If you want to know what I'm talking about, datamine for L50 characters running Ghost Falcon's mission. Or I could post some screen shots showing a *tidal wave* of rikti swarming all around a fire tanker as he kills hundreds and thousands of rikti in the course of 90 minutes. Tanker: 10,000 - Rikti: 0. There's no defender here, just a bunch of people riding the PLing train and handing over purples. I'm not ranting against PLing, mind you - but what room is there in this equation for a defender when a tanker can slaughter hundreds of +2 rikti at a time? It's the same for a controller. The *only* group I've had trouble making mincemeat out of with my ill/kin is Rularuu, because of their insanely wide/huge AOE "shimmy blasts" and their ability to easily see through even superior invis. Everything else is a lamb to the slaughter. I have yet to meet an AV I can't solo (although I didn't bother trying with Mind Mistress; I hear the regen is too fast). Again: where do defenders fit into this equation?

By contrast, my emp/psi defender feels incredibly useful at lower levels. At 12, I'm in there with fortitude, resurrect, and all 3 heals, and I can keep a party alive and they often need it. 10 +2s is a serious threat to our tanker and just losing aggro on one or two can be a quick death for our blaster or controller. Just the fact that I'm focused and slotted for healing makes me good as gold.

Now, defenders CAN still be useful, but very unequally so. For example, a group light on damage will get great use out of the -res debuffs of a rad defender, and unless stuff dies instantly, so can any team. Kinetics and empathy offer very powerful end recovery boosts - but stamina is wrecking that.

My verdict: enhancements and a few general powers break the game. Hasten is definitely the worst offender. Stamina is bad, but harder to get. But given both are nearly mandatory for almost every build... Data mine this: accounts open 60+ days, character played most on that account in the past 15 days. What powers are they most likely to have? I'd bet hasten in 90%+, and stamina on 85%+ of the L30+ crowd.

Meanwhile, you need to ask this question: if enhancements can cap a power, what is the point of defenders? You can say, "You don't HAVE to cap a power", but that's irrelevent. It *will* be capped if that's expedient. Sure, fortitude will still help a +res tank, but so? He's already nigh-invincible.

I think there's an opportunity here, however. I'd suggest considering a few drastic changes:

(1) Get rid of store bought enhancements entirely, and get rid of the tiers. The Diablo 2 method of doing drops would be IDEAL here. I have been pitching CoH to people for a long time, and I hate to say it: people want loot. All I hear is, "At least in Game X, I can look forward to a cool drop..." You have a level grind. You either get rid of the grind entirely, so it's story and you advance as quick as you want, or you put in entertainment along the way. Drops are that entertainment. I could talk about the gambler's psychology of MMOs in general and how the drop method fits it; or I could talk about how popular Hami raids are because people love powering themselves up with harder-to-get goodies. What you'd HAVE, however, would be differences in characters. Can you really keep that +17% damage, +8% accuracy enhancement in that slot when you find a +20% endrec, +24% rech, +5% dmg?

Whatever you do, it gives you room to make it harder to hit the ceiling on powers. I'd suggest that enhancements have the same percentage ranges, say, 5% to 25% for a given aspect. A training enhancement would be +1 thing. A Dual-origin would affect 2 things (+dmg, +acc), and an SO would affect 3 things (say, heal, endrec, rech). The percentages would be random but logarithmically tilted towards the lower end. (ie, it might be 5x as likely to get 5% as opposed to 25%) As you went up in level, you would be MORE LIKELY to get SOs, but the percentage (5-25%) and the logarithmic curve would never change. Whether enhancements would have the +3/-3 behavior, I'm unsure about. I want to say yes, since it lets people grind away at the high levels for loot.

It also gives you a chance to further balance out mobs. Instead of just changing xp values (And I've already complained enough about goofy stuff like fake nems being worth more than ACTUALLY hard stuff like overseers), you can change drop percentages. A typical mob might have 95%/4%/1% drops for training/DO/SO; but maybe rularuu are 90%/8%/2%. Maybe you're more likely to get damage from rularuu and endrec from council. I don't know. You're not paying me enough to design the whole system (but when you want to, let me know )

(2) Get back to work on that skill system and find a way to make it gameplay-relevent, and make defenders useful for it. Example: your character has a hacking skill. You enter a council base for one of the endless "hack computer, plant virus" missions. Yes, you can hammer your way through killing everything. Alternately, you can hack a console you find only a little way in. It requires a hacking skill check, but a speed boost gives +hacking, and an O2 boost (due to enhanced brain activity) gives a bigger +hacking skill. Moreover, have enhancements that boost +skills. More loot.

(3) Go ahead and tie the skills system into the game with combat relevent skills as well. To help the scrappers and blasters who get hurt on the damage side when you scrap the current enhancement system, in come combat related skill trees: "Duelist" gives a +acc/+dmg boost in line with skill level when you're using a single-target attack and are only being attacked BY one enemy. "Battle commander" gives your team a modest boost (yes, this is now duplicating the leadership powers; trust me, they stink, there's room in the world for both).

(4) Rethink recharge times and endurance costs. As it is now, hasten and stamina help a lot of power selections become merely a matter of DPS patterns. That is, you discover that disembowel, headsplitter, hack, disembowel is better than hack, slash, slice, hack slice, slash; stamina keeps your end plenty high and hasten allows you to chain the high-dps attacks together a LOT faster. If you tweak things to the point where players are choosing between dps, endurance, or slot conservation, you're making room for defenders to come in and shore up the gaps. A player should be able to sustain their end level, only slot less than their full set of attack powers, OR maximize their dps. They should not be able to do all of the above. In other words, getting a cycle of your higher-tier attack powers should require rech enhancement; keeping your endurance up should REQUIRE some end red; but you could slot every attack with endred and neglect recharge and use the larger number of powers to compensate.

You've always said you wanted ATs to have roles to play. I like that, but the problem is: they're so good at their roles they don't need help any more.

Moreover, you've designed street hunting so it is inherently preferable to missions in terms of xp rate. It is easier to select a place to street hunt only specific mobs, AND to control their group sizes. For *most* level ranges, I know where to find endless on-the-street groups of almost anything you'd want, and to do it while avoiding "dangerous" groups - Malta, Lost bosses, Carnies, Rularuu... all the things that get heroes killed. Meanwhile, we'll stick with the easy stuff: council, skulls/hellions, nemesis, freakshow.

On the "do it now" list:

(1) Give hero corp analysts a call now button once you've met them. Make the charge even more nominal.
(2) Make missions droppable (non timed, anyhow).
(3) Make killing things in missions worth more xp than outside. Yes, I mean the same mob on the street only being worth 60%.
(4) Make the hero corp analyst effect apply at the time the mission goes active, not when it is assigned by the contact. (It may be this way already, but my impression is that it is not; but if I get something at invincible, decide it is too hard, I should be able to relog or switch to another mission, then switch back, and
have my 'new' hero corp rating take effect)
(5) Add a "weaker" slider to the slider. It should be possible to fight -1s.
(6) Allow a team to set a "team level" or such. If we're a group that's 14-17, and we want to do the 14s mission, the cap on the level of the enemies should *not* be 16-17, but it is. We should be able to set it to be 19-20s to allow the 17s to be challenged and give the 14 motivation to sk up.
(7) I don't care what your reasons are. GIVE US THE CALL BUTTON SOONER. I want to run missions, not run to contacts. If I'm going to contacts, I want it to be for story reasons and I want it to be COOL.

More missions should be like mini trials. The best times I've ever had were doing stuff like the TV trial and the sewers trial. I want more opportunities to get a pickup group to run that sort of thing.

All these things help contribute to a general environment of challenged players. Challenged players need defenders. Players not already at capped defense/resistance/damage need defenders. Players that don't have a huge boost from hasten want defenders for rech time. Players without a huge boost from stamina want defenders for their end.

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* Manticore also dropped that Statesman has a unique ability which is represented on his Heroclix figure: The lightning of Zeus.

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only one problem......that lightning bolt on the figure is on ALL Heroclix figures. It shows how many attacks that figure can make on his turn. just FYI

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I was not referring to his attacks. I was referring to Quake and Pulse Wave. I baked those into the design of his dial to represent his ability to call upon the Lightning of Zeus.

~M

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I'm trying to remember if I've ever seen Statesman do anything other than fly around and punch stuff or tear stuff apart. It's clear he's hugely tough and insanely strong, and can fly. I don't remember much else.

Hmm.

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And, of course - DING! Gratz!

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Haha, too funny.

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http://www.alldumb.com/media/content/2005/05/11824.swf

Can you recognize the 12 pixel chest designs of these famous heroes?

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19/21, and that took a bit of luck.

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I have a question though. I was watching the DVD content with the movie ad for CoH. It shows Statesman over the course of several generations. Is it the same statesman and he's Immortal? or is it a title thats passed on under certain circomstances?



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It is the same man, Statesman is immortal. Look for more details about his origin, his powers and how he is tied to Lord Recluse this fall in the upcoming novel: The Web of Arachnos.

~M

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Oooh, now THAT sounds interesting. ETA of when this will be published?

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Amazon has a date of 10/30/05. NooooOoooOOOoo.... Must have it sooner!

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I have a question though. I was watching the DVD content with the movie ad for CoH. It shows Statesman over the course of several generations. Is it the same statesman and he's Immortal? or is it a title thats passed on under certain circomstances?



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It is the same man, Statesman is immortal. Look for more details about his origin, his powers and how he is tied to Lord Recluse this fall in the upcoming novel: The Web of Arachnos.

~M

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Durn it, stop torturing me. PROMISES PROMISES. I want it now!

Sounds great, especially if we can see all 3 trays at once.

(1) I'd do alliances via global chat. I haven't tested GC out, but I'd like to see GC work so that a SG leader can "subscribe" their whole SG to a custom channel that an allied SG uses. A player could turn the channel off and on, but it would be on by default.

(2) You should be able to demote/boot inactive leaders if you are also a leader.

(3) Customizable SG colors after registration. Very sad this can't work.

(4) More stuff for SGs to do together. Fixing the broken way exemplaring works in Task Forces would be a big help.

(5) More ranks. (At least one more level)

(6) Ability to get notifications for SG signons.

That's not a bad solution. However, you have to realize the boss changes were not universally bad. But you really mucked up your data by doing two things at the same time:

* Big increase to boss HP
* Large bump to boss damage

These two things both increase the boss's power, but they have a DRASTICALLY different effect on game play, especially as bosses get to the point where they are nearly one-shotting weak ATs. My Ill/Kin controller took about 780 damage the other day from an even-level freak tank, and I only have 8xx hp, iirc. (I got hit at the same time by another weak freak, so I went from full health to hospital button instantly). That sort of thing is a lot more gameplay-affecting than extra hp, I think. At least with high hp, you can do some hit and run tactics if needed. If they can one-shot you, there's NOTHING you can do to avoid it other than not let them get that attack off.

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You say above that the spawn override takes place when a mission calls for *a* boss - does this mean that ordinarily, missions entered by a single player should not spawn more than one boss?


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Typically, yes.

But...there are a few missions that have multiple bosses in a single spawn and a few more that have multiple bosses spread throughout the map. The vast majority of boss missions have a single boss appear (no matter what the team size) in one of the end rooms.

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Well, this really depends on level. When bosses get the toughest, in the late game, especially 40+, you can get some missions with a dozen bosses. I remember a mission in the World Wide Red arc where I dealt with 10+ malta bosses - Zeus titans and Gunslinger types - in the one mission, include a pair of titans.

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If solo EAP is -30% stuff and teamed (3+) EAT is 0% or more, I don't see why solo EAP should change anything. EAPs are for teaming, not solopowerleveling.

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Soloing != Powerlevelling.

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No, it hasn't been removed on Live yet. The changes are in a Build in the pipeline.

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How about the damage penalty?

And I'm not clear on this. Right now:

Kheldian human: -30% resist, -30% damage

But is that -30% damage off blaster damage or -30% off 'standard' damage?

Is nova form like an elimination of the -30% and then getting the 60% bonus that blasters get?

I wish investigating the way to play this AT didn't involve weeks worth of math research.

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It also leaves us in the hitherto unusual position of needing to get help *during* a mission, since we have no way of knowing beforehand whether or not there's going to be a boss in there. That will be awkward in timed missions.


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Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.

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Riiight. I still /bug a stealth timed mission every week it seems; there's no way every text is appropriately warning about bosses in a way that makes it clear they're bosses.

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We have NOT announced ANY date for CoV.

Until you see it on our website, take any date with a grain of salt. Actually, a huge handful.

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What he said. There's nowhere for it to be pushed back -from-. Since COV is in many ways a Whole New Game, it takes a long while. If we were brighter, we'd have done another smaller content expansion to keep folks happy (and have a new box on the retail shelves) coming out maybe 6-9 months after last April's launch, but we're not that bright and we keep giving our content away for free.

We're discussing the possibility of doing some pay-fer content (i.e. an expansion pack) in addition to our usual big-[censored] free updates and COV, but we're hella busy as it is, so we'll see. The retailers would love us if we did, and we like happy retailers (and money) - but we don't want to cut back on the Free Stuff in any case.

-jg

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For reference, the reason I don't sweat the monthly fee even when I'm NOT getting hardly any playtime is because your updates rock.

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I love Statesman, but I think we need to be fair here:

Global chat is not content-related under any circumstance whatsover. If anything, the clunkiness is more aimed toward powergamers than casual gamers. Also, if you're soloing, why would you need global chat? (Ie., a team-oriented feature.)


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If you're a casual gamer, you're more likely than a PGer to be an alt addict. PGers want to level up, alt-addicts just love playing around with stuff. The ability to use a global "handle" across servers means you can alt yourself to death with like 80 characters and STILL be in touch with your buddies.

If you're soloing, you need global chat more than a team player, because you're more likely to need a buddy to be Johnny-on-the-spot to help you defuse 3 bombs or pull 2 levers simultaneously, and even soloers like to complete those, so they team up oh-so-briefly (at least, that's how I am when I solo).

Also, Statesman wasn't explicit but Kheldians bring fun goodies to OTHER players besides the L50s that play them.

(1) They're new group mates to learn to interact with and
(2) You can join them on their story arcs. I really enjoyed the opening story arcs - which don't come with a souvenir but are still pretty fun - that accompany the kheldian ATs. I will be grouping at L2 with my new kheldians.

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Best I can say is...soon.

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That's a lot easier to misinterpret and be disappointed about than almost any concrete answer

Phrase it as tenatively as you like. But I'm just wondering if #3 is expected, say, 'hopefully by Christmas', or something.

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This term came up in a discussion I had a couple of days ago as an alternate way of describing the Paragon City mindset. Even most of the female characters running around seem to be consumed with it.

When "busting heads" is the only thing the game rewards, is that really the sort of message we want young players to come away from the game with?

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Young players shouldn't be playing CoH. Send them outside to ride a bike, or give them something age-appropriate. I certainly don't want them in paragon city.

Sweet. I like how the game is getting deeper and more complex without sacraficing what makes it fun. This looks like a great enhancement, and still good for both casual and hardcore gamer alike.

If CoH and CoV players are in the same game world, it's the same game. I don't care if it's different clients and software, if you can use one half without the other. One game world == one game == one charge. If you try to charge for the two separately, you will simply end up with unhappy players choosing one or the other when you could have happy players that play whichever one they feel like at the time. I'm rich, I spend 10x as much on coffee as I do on CoH, and I still wouldn't pay for a subscription to both CoH and CoV... there's a principle involved.

Statesman has said elsewhere he wants to see people be able to play CoH or CoV as they choose for the same monthly charge. You better hope he gets his way, or you'll incur a lot of angry players and minimal financial gain.

What *is* crystal clear is that Cryptic likes living up to their name.

I don't think the hollows will be that hard when you remove the "+1 bug" from the mix. Outcasts and trolls are being toned down, per statesman, so there's really no point in whining about it. I do think it's wacky to have minions that stun, but aside from that I thought they were neat. The power variety was great.

The +1 bug made the missions pretty tough. Frostfire and the double-boss battle in the previous mission (Snap from Outcasts and I forget the troll boss) are pretty hard. My group of 5 last night was fighting around 20 total enemies, including the 2 bosses, all +1 to our highest level person (me). We didn't NOTICE there were two bosses at first and got hurt bad - the second time around we locked them both down (we had 2 controllers), but it was still hard.

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The first was equipment. There is a competitive side in all humans; it varies in intensity in different people. For a long time on my server I was the “Top Druid” and later one of the “Top Monks”. What drove me was the thrill of being one of the top players. This commitment though, to compete at that level required massive amounts of time invested as well as a lot of political involvement. But, alas, I was in love with becoming more powerful as a player. Saddly, CoH has no equipment to strive for. It could be argued that the super powered enhancements that you get from Hamidon would be “Striveable” worthy, but they just don’t peak my interest.


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There's also accolades from badges, and coming up you'll have signature weapons. But really, the EQ model of camping and guild control is absolutely nauseating to me. The first time I had to hand over some drop I needed to a groupmate who couldn't use it so he could give it to his level 6 alt, I'd uninstall in irritation.

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The second was accomplishment. It was exciting to conquer new things. I loved the Planes of Power expansion in Everquest, and I loved stealing my first relic in Dark Age. Nothing got the blood pumping like a massive raid on a keep or downing a God/Dragon for the first time. I guess it could be argued that the Archvillians and Task Force missions are strivable events, although in general they don’t take much to get through.


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I'd say the badge system adds a lot more to accomplish. There's also task forces, of course. Also, there's a fair bit of fun in finding ways to beat tough individual tasks - like when you get the L35 vampyr spawn and you're L31 and the purple patch (v1) is in. That's a tough fight. An aberration, sure, but you run across lots of weird situational challenges in CoH.

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The third reason to getting to level 50 was for Player Hunting/Player Killing etc. While the EQ PK system was flawed, it evolved over time making higher levels worth while. Dark Age of Camelot was centered on the combat aspect, the reason TO get 50 was simply to eliminate the other guy. As a Midguard (and you other mids know (ps Albs suck)) it was *always* a challenge to fight for what was yours. There were also the MUDs, that rivaled any MMORPG in their time. While they were text based, some of the most exciting battles I’ve ever been in were through a little telnet connection


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I played several characters that were absolute monstrosities on Carrion Fields, the mother of all PK Muds. I am *very* skeptical than an MMO will have balanced PK, especially if it isn't just rock-paper-scissors with builds. I think for that, we'll have to wait on a game that combines reflex-based play that benefits from "practice" with a true RPG setting like CoH. But I think it's safe to say that L50 will be useful in CoH, too.


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The final reason to reach the maximum level was just because it’s fun to get to the end level. When I play a MMORPG, leveling should just be something that happens while I’m doing other things. I don’t think any game has quite nipped that yet though, except for the text based MUDs and games that were designed as single player games, with a multiplayer aspect thrown in.

I just recently beat the game Fable after a measly 16 hours of game play, which comes down to $3.15 per hour of game play. Granted I’m going to play a second time to try the evil path, but really that’s pretty sad. City of Heroes has to me only one reason out of four to get to level 50, and it’s the same reason I got to level 99 in Diablo, “Max Power” in Fable and many other games…just because it’s fun to get to the end. That being said, I’m missing something currently, that’s the fun part. This isn’t City of Heroes issue, it’s solely mine, so please don’t take this as a flame.


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My suggestion? More social interaction. How much of your grinding was solo street hunting? It's dull, and it's not the game as it was meant to be played. I'm doing it, but I have a fairly optimal fire/dev blaster who can get 2+ bubbles per hour even at 42. I play him in fun little snatches of time, here and there.

Also, note other goodies that you get from levelling up, and hitting 50: capes, auras, costumes, and coming soon: Epic ATs.
Personally, I like that there are so many ways to play. I can hunt with groups, or solo. I can mission with groups, or solo. I can roleplay, or not. There's task forces, and when it's all said and done, it's a fairly different game with a new AT. I am inspired by the rapid influx of new goodies, and heartened by comments about new missions coming (since Statesman said they are working to make it easier to add missions). I am hoping that by the time I play through most of the existing missions, 50% of the "new" missions I get playing as an Epic AT will be different.

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When I log into CoH it’s *work*: boring, tedious work. Why does it take so long to level in City of Heroes, I believe the answer is very obvious, it’s because City of Heroes is a business, and businesses exist to make profit. If City of Heroes was like the game Fable, they would no longer be making a lot of money, their money would come in one big surge. You invest a million dollars, then pray you sell a million copies at $35.00 a piece. With MMORPG’s their goal is to make the initial surge of money, then make money over time, as well as micro-surges of cash in the form of expansions once a year or so.


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To some extent that's true, but the game isn't a big sham; an MMORPG makes money by keeping its customers happy. At this point, CoH is fun and is investing a lot into making the game better. I'm *hopeful* that their better-than-expected sales and subscriber base will speed development along.

CoH has gotten so much *right* - and it's very ambitious. Some comments from Statesman have as much as implied that CoH wasn't *really* even a complete game as it was released; and it is still quite fun. It's a lot more fun to grind across the dozens of zones of CoH that it ever was to repeat the same 2-3 maps in Hell/Hell diablo 2 that you had to do to get your last 40+ levels.


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So I guess my philosophical issue is, am I a MMORPG kinda person anymore? I no longer have desires to spend 14 hours of a day camping a zone for an item, I rather prefer to log on for two hours here and there, and then log off. The problem is that MMORPG’s in general reward those that are most likely to cause greater profit. CoH isn’t really interested in players like me; they prefer the people that are enamored by the game.


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I disagree. This is exactly why descriptions of Everquest *horrify* me, and why I like CoH. Instanced missions and solo-ability mean I can play in little bits OR get on and play big bursts, and not be at a disadvantage. Sure, I won't level to 50 overnight playing an hour a day, but I still think a fire/dev blaster can hit 50 in 200 hours in the hands of an average player, and that's not bad, if levelling up is your thing.

Really, I'm hoping a larger RPing community forms over time. You can be *anyone*. A mage. A robot. A vampire. It's a lot of fun to interact.

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And with that long stream of consciousness type discussion, I think I’ve come to my answer I don’t expect any made it through all this, really it’s just for my own edification. My conclusion is mine, I hope that this allows others that are confused as to why they play to place their thoughts down, and come to their own conclusions, good, bad or indifferent

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I started CoH because I thought: ooh, superheroes. I played hard for the first month because I thought: flying is the coolest thing *ever*! I think I'll be playing for a long time yet because there's so many fun power sets to enjoy, and a *lot* of missions to do, and more piling in all the time. It's fairly easy to fight through stuff with a group, and easy to get a group.

In fact, my hope is that a lot of people who (like me) have teetered to the powerlevelling side will slow down and group up more in the future, RP more in the future... because there's a dearth of smart players in groups, especially at the low levels.

Either way, I see myself playing CoH for a long time to come - maybe not as much as I do now.

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In the case of making the higher level game more fun, I want to make the difficulty of the later levels resemble early gameplay. At first, some players will decry "but I can't do what I used to! Ack! I can't solo two +4 bosses anymore?" True - but they'll have fun battling 3 white minions - which is something you can say at level 15, but not at level 35. Long term, the entire game will sparkle once this sort of balance is restored - because so much of the game design hangs upon it.


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A couple points:

(1) I'm burning through levels with my fire/dev - I'd say from 18 to 40 in about 2 weeks playing an average of 2.5-3 hrs a day. I'm enjoying seeing the sights, getting a feel for higher level challenges, but I'm also looking forward to starting over. This game does NOT hinge on the idea of a single character going from 1-50 and then you quit.

(2) If I played a character that just did missions and fought whites right now, I think it's probable that in the early 30s I'd get irritated and quit. Especially if I didn't know that xp-per-level flattens out at 40.

If you're going to make advancement slower than it already is - which is plenty slow for "normal" characters - by making white cons even harder, then you better have something interesting to do.

Personally, I suggest loot. I will post it as a separate thread, but to sum up: diablo II style randomized enhancement drops, right down to "rares" and "uniques" - randomized many-property things (one might be 31% damage + 8% range + 11% end red), or a unique, say, "Backalley Brawler's Fury", that is +28% damage and +28% knockback.