PolarKnight

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I don't like to play PvP. I love playing PvE. I am sincerely disgusted that the devs statement of PvP will not effect PvE has been hit with the nerf bat.

PvE powers HAVE been changed due to PvP.

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I'm a little bit disheartened by this. My account has been cancelled for a few months now, but I'd been playing with the idea of coming back to check out Arena.

Instead, I see the same thing that led me to leave in the first place.

Cryptic has terrific customer communication, but the Devs make their "tweaks" with a giant sledgehammer.

The fact that Statesman is claiming this is a PvE change is just laughable to me. The powers have remained in their current state for the bulk of the game's life, and they're just now changing as PvP is rolled out. That anybody believes there's a substantial PvE reason for this is amazing to me.

Big thumbs up here.

This past week has gone a long way towards restoring my faith in this game and the Devs.

DA stacking, the boss rollback, AND increased team xp? I feel like I'm dreaming.

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Maybe that was the thinking behind the respec? Get an endurance draining power?
Duh DUH

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And maybe most powersets don't HAVE an endurance draining power available to choose. Perhaps you should check things like that out before you set fingers to keyboard and write something so ill informed and self serving. Duh DUH.



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Maybe most powersets DO have a power that drains endurance whether it be primary or secondary.

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Please do enlighten me on the majority of powersets that DO have endurance drain. Before you do you might want to read Kamaenda's post that pretty much outlined it statistically. You are simply flat out wrong. So again, check it out before you state something so clearly wrong and unsupported and then insult people with your arrogant "Duh DUH". Or else just stay under the bridge in the first place.



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No kidding. "Just use a power that drains a boss's endurance"? Why didn't I think of that with my controller?

"Geez, why doesn't everybody just use their pets on the bosses as well. All those Invuln. tanks who were so upset at the changes should just make more effective use of their pets."

"Most" ATs don't get even a single power to drain an enemy's endurance. Even out of all of the powers that DO get a endurance drain power, they may only get 1 or 2, which won't necessarily empty a boss's endurance in time to do any good (ie. stop him from smooshing you).

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Would I fight with Fly on? No. Would I fight with Superspeed on? I do, quite often.

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Geko's statement was something like "If Fly was as fast as Superspeed, why would anybody take Superspeed?"

Aside from the fact that it's an erroneous question (Fly doesn't have to be as fast as Superspeed to be faster than Fly currently is), there are ample reasons which have been well-stated why somebody somebody would take SS even if they were the same speed.

I (and many others) would be fine if you made Fly the "fast moving and infinitely maneuverable non-combat travel power" and made Superspeed the "fast moving and much less maneuverable combat travel power." Superjump really strikes a good balance of the two qualities. Fly doesn't.

As it is right now, Fly is the "slow moving, infinitely maneuverable non-combat travel power."

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Perhaps you should think about your reasons for disliking soloing in multiplayer games. All I've seen is repeated assertions of "It shouldn't be like that."

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I absolutely agree with this, not neccessarily aimed at who Valerian was referring to but it does seem that many 'pro-groupers' see no reason to allow any soloability except mindless street sweeping, however you rarely, if every see pro-soloists supporting changes which would deter grouping.

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That's understandable. Selfish, but understandable.

I think a lot of pro-groupers have this mindset:

1) If we allow people to solo and group, a large part of them (Y) will solo. Thus, they won't be grouping, so there will be fewer people to group (X).

2) If we disallow soloing, some of those people will quit the game (Y-A), but some will stay and group (Y-B). Thus, the pool of groupers will increase to X + (Y-B). That's a good thing to groupers, because it increases the number of people available for teams. Unfortunately, it's selfish because you're essentially making a group (Y-B) play differently from how they would want to otherwise.*

Soloers don't have this mindset; it doesn't matter how many people want to group to soloers, since they're going to solo anyway. As long as you give soloers access to meaningful content, they're happy.

*: Which would be fine, in most situations, so long as that group knew going into the endeavor that there wouldn't be solo content. This game in particular, however, was and still is advertised as a game where soloing is a viable option. That HAS to mean more than just table scraps leftover from the group content.

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And tougher bosses that can still be soloed if you do so skillfully and only occur in some missions make soloing non viable?

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I play the game to be entertained.

Tougher bosses (that are designed to give entire teams a challenge) that (even once their damage is toned down) will smear a squishy in two hits, especially later in the game when status effects can easily hold you later may still be beatable, but it's a pain in the [censored] and misses the "fun" component entirely.

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You were soloing missions that were never intended to be easily soloable, if anything you got more value then you were promised out of the deal.

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I was promised the ability to create a "lone wolf hero" and live out my wildest "comic book fantasies," so I'm not sure I agree with you.

And you still seem to be missing the point that, even if the game WAS originally intended to be that way, its solo component has functioned fine without these changes. If its team function was lacking, changes could have been made to fix the team function without stripping even more enjoyability from soloing.


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How many task forces and trials are there? How many missions? Even accounting for the different lengths TF’s and trials make less then 1% of the games content.

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By my count, there are 19 or 20 trials/tfs with issue three, and most have at least 10+ missions. I doubt that's 1% of the content.

And even if it WAS 1% of the content numerically, those are often where the most innovative content in the game is found. You just can't compare the Tsoo Shenanigans story arc (much less the Kill X missions, which are glorified street sweeping) with the Eden Trial for spectacle or fun.

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but god help you if you get one of the hidden team missions or missions with an unannounced boss.


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If this happens it’s a bug. Petition the GM’s that’s one of the reason they are there.

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I think it's unreasonable to expect people to send petitions every few missions. The game is riddled with these missions.

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The fact that the overwhelming number of games for PC are solo games (or solo games, with an afterthough MP component to it), to me at least, indicates that there's a huge market for soloable content.


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It also indicates that it’s far better to deliver solo content in other game formats, which is why any MMO is going to place team content first.

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That's your opinion. Personally, the emphasis they placed on solo viability was why I picked up the game. I suspect it's what drew quite a few others as well.

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Which is all entirely beside the point... solo players want, at the very least, missions that can be soloed. If you have content not designed to be soloed, I'd gather most people are fine with that... just don't stick it in a single player mission.


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There are plenty of missions solo players can do. Most people can even solo those missions with bosses in them once they adjust. If you stopped assuming every single mission in the game was a “single player mission” perhaps you would no longer have reason to complain.

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I don't assume that every mission in the game is a single player mission. I didn't even before the I3 boss changes. I wish they were, but they aren't. And I do have a reason to complain: the portion of missions that WERE solo viable pre-I3 became significantly smaller with the addition of boss changes.

Pre-I3 missions that weren't soloable for everybody included missions requiring simultaneous actions and missions requiring you to defeat an Archvillain. Now, a great many people find "any mission with a boss in it" added to that list.

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It is becoming more and more apparent that the real source of much of the discontent is coming from solo players who have appropriated 99% of the games content...


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99% would entail a whole lot more than "some missions" and "some streetsweeping." But nice try.


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Ummm ya it entails more then some missions and street sweeping. That is after all the whole point. The solo content you were promised is street sweeping and some missions. The content the devout soloists have appropriates as their own and refuse to give up is everything that isn’t a task force or trial.

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Hogwash, again. And I don't appreciate you misquoting me. I fixed it in this post, but your post is incorrect.

You say that "devout soloists" have tried to "appropriate" 99% of the game's content:

Soloists, from the beginning, have had:
SOME missions minus the few in the 30's with an archvillain
SOME streetsweeping.

Issue 2 rolled out, and all of a sudden they had:
SOME streetsweeping
SOME missions minus the few in the 30s with an archvillain minus the host of 40s missions with AVs minus all the simultaneous clicky missions.

Post Issue 3, soloists have:
SOME streetsweeping
SOME missions minus the few missions in the 30s with an archvillain minus the plethora of missions in the 40s with an archvillain minus simultaneous click missions minus any mission with an Elite boss minus any mission who the difficulty increase has made too tough.

In contrast, Team players have access to:
EVERYTHING

And soloists have appropriated 99% of the game's content? You can say that with a straight face?

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No, they became outraged when the one area (missions) that everybody should 100% be able to participate in (soloists AND groupers) was unneccesarily changed so that only groups could do all of it. It was bad enough with the missions that have AVs showing up. It's even worse with bosses now.


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missions = 100% of the ongoing content of the game. Making them all soloabel and trivial for groups makes this a nearly 100% solo game. Again it comes back to the point of the people opposing this change thinking nearly 100% of the games content was specifically designed for them.

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In addition to the points I just mentioned (hopefully) showing you how silly this is, missions in no way equal 100% of the game's content. Task Forces and Trials make up a substantial amount. Events, which usually have an Archvillain or at least one of the new solo-unfriendly bosses, make up another portion of he content.

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Repetition on your part doesn't make it so.


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Nore does such silly comment on your part make it not so. A truth does not become untrue because it’s repeated. Since you seem to have trouble with the search feather I took the liberty of doing a quick search on your behalf and came up with the following quotes from statesman.

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Great? You refuted what? That all missions aren't soloable? Who said that?

For an umpteenth billion time, so you'll hopefully comprehend:

In my opinion, I wish all the missions were soloable.

I, however, am accutely aware that all missions aren't soloable. The problem is, however, that the boss changes (the ramifications of which it appears Statesman wasn't fully aware, since he thought bosses don't normally spawn in missions without warning) severely reduced the already minimal level of soloable missions.

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They are. They are trying to get a badly needed fix to team play removed on the grounds it prevents some people from soloing 100% of the games content. The only way one could ever justify such a position was if they considered this a solo game with an option to team if you want. This is the complete reverse of what Statesman has repeatedly stated as his vision for the game.

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Hogwash.

First of all, people aren't trying to do anything to the boss change because it prevents people from soloing "100% of the game's content." People are upset about the boss changes because it prevents people from soloing a portion of the fraction of the game's content that WAS soloable... that's a longshot from "100%."

Statesman wanted to make bosses non-trivial for groups. That was his "goal" from the first post. Right now, he's changed the game so that an even con boss is non-trivial for a group and extremely dangerous to a solo player.

He could make the "badly needed" fix by rolling back the boss changes and simply making bosses in a team mission spawn at a higher level than bosses in solo missions. Then, bosses would be a challenge for a solo player (because they're even conned) and a challenge for teams (because they'd be + conned). The problem, which you seem to not understand, is that the + conned bosses (which are meant to challenge teams) are often one-shot death to soloists... and they FREQUENTLY appear in missions. We ALREADY couldn't do 100% of our missions due to mechanical functions such as "simultaneous disarms," (which rubbed many wrong) and now we can do even fewer thanks to difficulty. And for those of us who still CAN do missions with bosses, it's just not fun... it's just tedium.

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Solo play as an option does not mean being able to solo 100% or even 90% of all missions. It means there are always things you can do solo. There are and even if no one could ever solo a boss there will continue to be.

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Solo play doesn't necessarily mean being able to solo 90%/100% of the missions, but I have yet to see a compelling reason why it shouldn't mean that.

Even if we followed your hypothesis that the game is primarily intended for teaming, let's look at a list of what exclusively team players can do versus exclusively solo players:

Content available people who exclusively play on teams:
100% of Task forces
100% of Trials
Street sweeping
100% of Missions
Giant Monster encounters

And if those are too easy for a group, there's a difficulty slider to allow the group to play with a greater challenge.

Here's a list of what exclusively solo players can do now:

Content available to people who exclusively solo:
Some street sweeping
Some missions

Now tell me: why can't you change that list to:

Content available to people who exclusively solo:
Some street sweeping
100% of missions

Compare the Team list versus the Solo list; even if you made the change, allowing soloability of 100% of missions wouldn't endanger the "team emphasis" one bit. What are the reasons for the reluctance, other than you disliking soloability?

If the concern is "players are killing things they shouldn't", that can easily be fixed by keeping the things they shouldn't kill out of a single player's mission. If the solo player finds it too easy to not fight bosses, he can raise the difficulty slider.

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No, it wasn't. It was marketed as a MMOG that was solo friendly, unlike most MMOGs that ARE team games.

Most of the ads I've seen say something to the effect of "Prowl the streets as a lone wolf hero, or join a supergroup to combat evil."


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I have never seen a single statement by anyone form NCsoft or Cryptic indicating the intention of placing solo play before team play in City of Heroes. BTW, even an average character can still prowl the streets solo and do a large number of missions solo so even the current situation far exceeds what they have promised in terms of solo play.

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Every time somebody says to you that the Devs promised solo AND team play, you keep replying as if people are demanding solo play to take priority. That isn't the case, so rebutting that notion is a waste of your time.

Just to clear it up for you:

Solo Friendly is one trait.
Group Friendly is another.
Most MMOGs are Group Friendly but not Solo Friendly.
CoH was advertised as being a departure from most MMOG's, because it was also Solo Friendly. That means it's Solo Friendly and Group Friendly.

What people like you are trying to do is minimize the solo component of the game to scraps. You can do SOME streetsweeping solo. You can do SOME missions solo, but god help you if you get one of the hidden team missions or missions with an unannounced boss. You can't do any TFs/Trials solo. So some streetsweeping, some missions, and all TFs/Trials are exclusively group designed right now... AFAIK, there's NOTHING that's designed exclusively with soloers in mind, and only fragmented content that's soloable ("ooh, you can do half a story arc solo before you run into a boss. maybe"). That's a far cry from the solo viability we were promised by the ads.

Our version, with missions defaulting to be solo friendly, still allows groups to enjoy every single bit of the solo content while grouping. Your version, however, leaves only fragmented participation for soloists. Don't expect everybody to be happy with the table scraps of "some missions and some streetsweeping," especially when there are tools already in place to give both soloers AND groupers access to the mission experience.

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This is your opinion. Please don't state it as fact. In my opinion, there wasn't ENOUGH emphasis on solo play, and there still isn't.


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Yes it is my opinion but it’s an opinion consistent with every post Statesman has made on the topic. He has said outright on several occasions that people were soloing things that rightly should have required team, and that he considered it a serious problem.

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Which is all entirely beside the point... solo players want, at the very least, missions that can be soloed. If you have content not designed to be soloed, I'd gather most people are fine with that... just don't stick it in a single player mission.

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If you want a solo game there are much better ways to go then an MMO, the fact that few exists simply indicates the market demand is small.

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That's your conclusion. The fact that the overwhelming number of games for PC are solo games (or solo games, with an afterthough MP component to it), to me at least, indicates that there's a huge market for soloable content. I'm not in favor of introducing a product into the market, claiming it's innovative for offering feature X which no other similar game has, and then eliminating feature X because no other similar game has it.

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Your premise was wrong, and so is this conclusion drawn from it. I can tell you that this game would lose many, many players if solo play was reduced to a insignificant "degree" of the overall gaming experience.


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This is a strawman. No one has suggested solo play be reduced to an insignificant part of the overall experience. This is entirely different then suggesting team play is the first focus.

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You're the one insisting team play is the "first focus." I don't necessarily agree... I think they should be co-equal focuses.


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It is becoming more and more apparent that the real source of much of the discontent is coming from solo players who have appropriated 99% of the games content...

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99% would entail a whole lot more than "some missions" and "some streetsweeping." But nice try.

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...as their own despite the consistent position of the dev team that this was a team game first and foremost.

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Not true, and repeating something doesn't magically make it true.

For example, from an interview in August 2004:
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Question: The team dynamic plays a big role in earning experience points, but the “lone wolf” approach still works. Some like partnering up while others take the solo route. Was it difficult getting the balance right between the two?

Statesman: Definitely! It’s a challenge to make a game experience challenging for both; groups can obviously hide their weaknesses easier than a solo player can and are thus far more effective than just the sum of their individual parts. Our solution for that was to create areas that are tuned for groups (certain zones, Task Forces, Trials, etc.), but make everyday tasks, such as missions, work for groups AND solo players.


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These people then become outraged when told that not all the content in the game was aimed at them.

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No, they became outraged when the one area (missions) that everybody should 100% be able to participate in (soloists AND groupers) was unneccesarily changed so that only groups could do all of it. It was bad enough with the missions that have AVs showing up. It's even worse with bosses now.

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Clearly given very consistent message from cryptic and the dev team this is a misconception on the part of these solo players, nothing more.

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Repetition on your part doesn't make it so.

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It was marketed as a team game that was solo friendly. Notice the emphasis was still on team play.

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No, it wasn't. It was marketed as a MMOG that was solo friendly, unlike most MMOGs that ARE team games.

Most of the ads I've seen say something to the effect of "Prowl the streets as a lone wolf hero, or join a supergroup to combat evil." That doesn't indicate a focus on teaming with only secondary solo aspects to me.

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There is FAR to much emphasis on solo play to live up to this prior to issue 3 and even post issue 3 due to peoples ability to solo most or all of the team content.

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This is your opinion. Please don't state it as fact. In my opinion, there wasn't ENOUGH emphasis on solo play, and there still isn't.

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Let’s face facts here. In the long run a subscription based MMO cannot survive catering to a solo audience because it offers nothing that you can’t have in a standalone game.

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That's simply not true, and it's hardly a "fact." I play this game solo quite often, but I still get things I couldn't get out of a standalone game... a sense of community and the ability to team when I so choose, among other things.

People LAMENT how bad other MMORPGs are, but then they seem to want the Devs to cultivate the same trappings as those MMORPGs (eg, forced grouping).

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This means team play needs to come first and have greater scope then solo play. This isn’t to say a degree, even a large degree of solo play is not a nice addition, but it cannot outweigh team play.

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Your premise was wrong, and so is this conclusion drawn from it. I can tell you that this game would lose many, many players if solo play was reduced to a insignificant "degree" of the overall gaming experience.

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I don't really think of them as artists (or, at least, I only secondarily think of them as artists). I primarily think of them as product manufacturers or engineers. They aren't putting out a product just so people can appreciate its aesthetic appeal and well balanced theory... they're putting out a product that people are supposed to enjoy.


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And filmakers don't? Or musicians?

I say artist first and foremost, and there is where we have a basic values clash.

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Let's use filmmakers for an examples, then.

Films, other than art films, ARE quite often tailored to give the public what they want. Movies are test screened, and sometimes entire movies are rewritten or endings reshot because the public just isn't happy about the original version. In a very real sense, movies (as an economic enterprise) will often HAVE to adapt to the will of the public if they want to succeed.

And before you reply that MMOGs should be like art films, think about whether that makes sense. Those are usually made with very limited budgets. They're usually shown in limited release to a very narrow audience. If you built a MMOG model around art films ("creative vision is supreme, and everybody else be damned"), it would NEVER be viable. You'd never be able to pay for development, much less the servers and maintenance.

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Dwindling? I dunno. Smaller? Yes, but that's to be expected for all sorts of reasons, including competition. Let's assume it IS dwindling though; the game had a high soloability at launch. I haven't seen many changes that increased that soloability, but I've seen several that have hurt it. Why the reluctance to assign the "dwindling" to the shift towards solo-unfriendly gameplay?

And guess what? A lot of these "loyal fans" you're concerned about are on the message boards saying they don't like the changes.

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Just that the industry belief seems to be that people who group and form social bonds in the game world are more likely to be loyal. That may be a myth for all I know.

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I would strongly argue that it's a myth. Part of what CoH's appeal to me (and to many others) was that it was SUPPOSED to be a departure from industry norms, with innovative features such as quick combat and solo-friendliness. As long as CoH operated under those rules, it would really be in a market unto itself.

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Then I hope I don't purchase any games by you.

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You can't at this time. I mostly worked on online web games. One was bought out by a major competitor just so they could close it. One got embroiled in a legal issue and the site owner felt it was not worth the trouble of fighting so closed it.

However, I did have a fair amount of design input as one of the core playtesters on the upcoming WWE: Know Your Role d20 RPG so you may wish to steer clear of that.

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Gotcha. Will avoid.

Although, I'm more open to the "creative vision" idea of a fire-and-forget game that's released once (a la most console games). With those, the public knows what to expect and can choose whether to participate.

With a game that's an ongoing endeavor, however, the public would often be duped into playing if the game functions one way during its infancy (and when most of the reviews/press focuses on it) and then makes a major paradigm shift months into its existence.


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"Not working as intended" does not mean "broken." The Devs might have unintentionally stumbled upon a fun game design. If a feature is fun and the playerbase enjoys it, then I'd say it isn't broken.

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If there was a bug that levelled people to 50 by typing in a word there would be members in the playerbase who would enjoy it. Would you still say that wasn't broken?

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Maybe not, in this scenario:

- The Devs have an extensive testing period. They are aware this feature is included in the game.

- They market the game, and one of the features they solicit is "Jump to 50!"

- They release the game. It's a huge success. Part of every review heralds the "Jump to 50" feature as one of the reasons. The players love the "Jump to 50" feature as well, because it allows them to experience end-game content. They still have incentive to play the rest of the game, however, to experience that content.

With those facts, then I would say it wasn't broken, and it shouldn't be changed.

OTOH, if the game was never intended to be that way, and that feature was released as a bug, and they fixed it as soon as it was obvious, then yes.

(As an aside: Bear in mind LOTS of games have cheat codes that allow people to access all the game's features... that doesn't keep people from playing through the real content of the game.)

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Especially if the fix (the return to "as intended")makes the playerbase enjoy the game less.

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We're miles apart on core values underlying this debate. I fail to see how we can hope to reach any form of consensus.

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Agreed.


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That's extremely foolish. You're running a company. You have investors and employees. You have hundreds of thousands of customers who are playing and enjoying themselves, and they've spent at a minimum of $50 each (usually much more) to play your game.

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I'm not a capitalist. The econmoic arguements won't sway me.

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Well they should, because this is a business. Customers pay, and developers work for money.

The second I start getting this game for free is when I develop tolerance for artistic license which affects overall fun.

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They're having fun as the game is but not as you want it to be, so you'd shut it down. The customer be damned... you want a designer-oriented game.

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I wouldn't shut it down in one fell swoop. I'd fix it and hope it remained viable. Let's look at it this way. If the core design is borked how can I add new content? How can I take any steps at all to balance issues that crop up? If the designers are not happy with how the game plays do you think that's not going to affect the future of the game?

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The core design ISN'T borked, just because it isn't how you wanted it. If the game is fun and allows everybody to select their level of challenge, it's working, even if it's not working as intended.

MMOGs are a dynamic environment. Players have to deal with changes. So should Devs. If they can't deal with the game building a life of its own outside of their vision, they should release offline games over which they have final say.

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Super speeders are definitely the most noticable (animation and sound makes sure of that).

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That's definitely true. The placement always plays a role too... SSers are always right there on the ground, in your face. They usually use roadways as well. Teleporters, well... disappear every time they use their power. Superjumpers usually disappear behind buildings after a jump or two. Fliers are out of sight (although I've noticed more fliers since taking flight myself... the airways are definitely more crowded than they look from the ground).

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Great. That goes to whether the changes are crucial to their "vision" though, not crucial to the success of the game. They could end up with an incredibly successful and fun game that's miles away from their original vision.

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And I don't feel they should. Besides what is a "successful" game anyway? Is it successful if you design and build a game that you are dissapointed in?

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Two cheers for unbending rigidity, then.


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I hope they wouldn't tamper with that success in order to achieve some vision that may or may not work or be fun.

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Like any artist I'd want them to be happy with their creation.

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I don't really think of them as artists (or, at least, I only secondarily think of them as artists). I primarily think of them as product manufacturers or engineers. They aren't putting out a product just so people can appreciate its aesthetic appeal and well balanced theory... they're putting out a product that people are supposed to enjoy.

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My point was that the game thrived without the changes. The changes are thus obviously not crucial to gameplay.

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So you dispute that the player base is dwindling? This is hardly surprising yet, at the same time, now is the time to look at who are going to be the long term loyal segments of the player base and start working to keep them loyal.

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Dwindling? I dunno. Smaller? Yes, but that's to be expected for all sorts of reasons, including competition. Let's assume it IS dwindling though; the game had a high soloability at launch. I haven't seen many changes that increased that soloability, but I've seen several that have hurt it. Why the reluctance to assign the "dwindling" to the shift towards solo-unfriendly gameplay?

And guess what? A lot of these "loyal fans" you're concerned about are on the message boards saying they don't like the changes.

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Question for you:

If you were a game designer,

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I am.

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Then I hope I don't purchase any games by you.

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and you had two choices to make:

1) One choice provided equal fun for the casual player (through the default setting) and for the hardcore player (through the difficulty slider. The latter is true to your "vision" of the game, but the default setting is not.

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But the default setting is BROKEN. It is not working as intended. This is causing more and more problems for the game.

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"Not working as intended" does not mean "broken." The Devs might have unintentionally stumbled upon a fun game design. If a feature is fun and the playerbase enjoys it, then I'd say it isn't broken. Especially if the fix (the return to "as intended")makes the playerbase enjoy the game less.

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2) One choice provided fun for the hardcore player, with a game structure that's true to your original vision. It provides less fun (and at times frustration) to the casual gamer.

Which would you choose? I suspect some would choose the latter. I hope I don't ever play any games run by them. I hope the Devs would pick the former choice.

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First off, you're trying to control the terms here. Hardcore and Casual players are arbitrary distinctions you haven't even bothered to define. Hence, your entire binary choice is invalid.

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Make up whatever definition you like, then answer the question. Here, I'll make up one for you:
Hardcore: People who think the game is too easy. People who play on average 10+ hours a week. People who actually spend 1 hr+ a week on the forums.

Casual: People who think the game is just right or a little difficult. People who play on average -10 hours a week. People who don't read the forum, or read it only occasionally.

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I would implement the game I designed. If it was not commericlaly viable I would shut it down and move on.

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That's extremely foolish. You're running a company. You have investors and employees. You have hundreds of thousands of customers who are playing and enjoying themselves, and they've spent at a minimum of $50 each (usually much more) to play your game. They're having fun as the game is but not as you want it to be, so you'd shut it down. The customer be damned... you want a designer-oriented game.

If you're a game designer, as you say, please let us know which games you work on. I would like to avoid them.

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Sounds like it's an important, maybe even crucial part of their design of the game to me.

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Great. That goes to whether the changes are crucial to their "vision" though, not crucial to the success of the game. They could end up with an incredibly successful and fun game that's miles away from their original vision. I hope they wouldn't tamper with that success in order to achieve some vision that may or may not work or be fun.

My point was that the game thrived without the changes. The changes are thus obviously not crucial to gameplay.

Question for you:

If you were a game designer, and you had two choices to make:

1) One choice provided equal fun for the casual player (through the default setting) and for the hardcore player (through the difficulty slider. The latter is true to your "vision" of the game, but the default setting is not.

2) One choice provided fun for the hardcore player, with a game structure that's true to your original vision. It provides less fun (and at times frustration) to the casual gamer.

Which would you choose? I suspect some would choose the latter. I hope I don't ever play any games run by them. I hope the Devs would pick the former choice.

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I'm annoyed that everytime States attempts to up the difficulty just a bit; the legion of "What? I don't want to have to think when playing, I just want to see a group of spawns and push buttons in sequence until they drop. In essence, I WANT my 'perma-god mode'." Folks claiming that 'Heroes don't get defeated", etc, etc.

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And I'm annoyed that even though they've given us an option to "up the difficulty just a bit" (ie. the difficulty slider), some people still insist on telling other people how they should enjoy the game.

And the "perma-god mode" crap is a total cop out. My controller wasn't in perma-god mode, unless being able to get 2-3 shotted is "godly." It's just that now, I get one shotted. Or instead of taking me 2 minutes to kill a boss, it takes me 10. Whooptee.

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If you want something like that, please just go hack and play Counterstike or some other FPS where mindless fragging is the point of the game; and 'god mode' is a recognized option.

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Please don't tell others how to play, mmkay? Fun is a subjective idea, and your idea of fun is different from mine. I enjoy rewarding activities with a moderate challenge. You may enjoy more difficulty. Others may enjoy less.

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You're asking the developers to change the fundamental design of the game, a design they are only now reaching. I doubt you will succeed.

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Why not? This game was wildly successful even without that "vision" being realized, and it's not as if rolling the changes back would negate any longstanding status quo.

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Fly really is terrible for combat (due to the end usage and the accuracy debuff) and isn't all that great for travel either (it's sloooow).

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I was curious about this. Do people fight with Fly running? I usually switch to Hover while attacking and then switch back to Fly only to change where I'm Hovering.

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They don't if they're smart. That's kind of the problem to me. Teleport aside (since it isn't a toggle and has its own problems), SS and SJ are both useful in combat, as are their prerequisite powers, which can be used at the same time.

Fly isn't just "not useful." It's a downright disadvantage in combat... it has a huge endurance drain and a severe accuracy penalty.

My fear: people here are saying "please fix Fly, it isn't as good as the other good travel powers." I'm afraid Geko is going to hear, instead "Please nerf SJ/SS... they're better than fly."

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I think that the lack of a big accuracy debuff, the stealth component, the inferior end usage and the fact it's paired with hasten would make superspeed better than fly even if they were equally fast.
Really Geko, if only you would remove the accuracy debuff from fly I would keep it, but since it's strictly relegated to travelling around, and it's slow and costy as a travel power, I finally decided to remove and took superspeed.
The accuracy debuff is what kills fly for me.

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I think that reallly gets to the essence of the problem. Fly really is terrible for combat (due to the end usage and the accuracy debuff) and isn't all that great for travel either (it's sloooow).

Even if you fixed the SPEED of fly, that doesn't make SS inferior... SS is still probably the most combat-functional travel power. People would pick Fly for fast, 3D movement and speed for fast horizontal movement and combat.

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I hate to point out a seemingly obvious thing, (and if this is already mentioned I apologize, I didn't read the whole thread) but...

why not just allow flight and SS to stack? I mean...if we're gonna go through the hassle and sacrifice of taking both SS and Fly, why not let them stack so that you fly faster?

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Shush, you. That would make sense. Can't have that.

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Let's look. It took that player:
Swift (One run enhancement)
Sprint (Default Power, one run enhancement)
Quickness (One run enhancement).
Elude (No run enhancments)


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This is a misrepresentation. Elude would take no run enhancements but to make it permanent (and thus usable for a viable travel power) it would require another power (Hasten) 5-slotted and Elude to be 4-slotted with recharge. It'd also require micro-management (since only one power can be made auto) of one of those 2 powers while you are running.

Elude lasts 100 seconds, folks, and it has a 5-minute downtime unenhanced. So unless you want to consign yourself to fast running only 100 out of every 600 seconds, and sprint-speed running the other 83% of the time, you're going to have to put a LOT of slots into Elude to use it as a travel power.

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So he gets all the defensive benefits of Elude and the recharge speed boost of Quickness, as well as more than the speed of a fully slotted flight while he travels.

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Again he's only gonna get that with 11 more enhancements you have conveniently neglected to mention.

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Compared to the flier:
Sprint (he has it too, with no choice. It's worthless to him though)
Hover or Air Superiority (either is pretty much worthless while he's flying)
Flight (6 enhancements - but he could probably only use four).

So for 3 powers and at least 6 slots (at least three of which are extra), he gets vertical movement, but he also gets a minus to accuracy.


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How many of those slots have to go into making Flight "perma"?

Oh wait, it's permanent by default since it's a toggle.

Elude is not a toggle. It takes an extra power and 11 slots to turn it into what basically is one (a toggle). He also looses 100% of his endurance every 100 seconds or so as it wears off, which turns off any other toggle he might happen to have on at the moment. Does flight do that to you?

You're pretending here that Elude has no drawbacks and comes "out of the box" being a permanent travel power. That's completely false.

F

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First of all, I don't appreciate your tone. I'm not "pretending" anything of the sort. The person I replied to said "Also, it took how many powers for him to be able to travel that fast?" I answered that question. It took him ONE more power.

Second, you're adding in Hasten + 5 slots to the equation. I didn't add in Hasten for a simple reason: that player didn't HAVE Hasten. Quote (referring to how he has Elude slotted):

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No run speeds in Elude, just 5 recharge reducers and 1 defense buff (no Hasten, so I need that extra recharge)

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He's got the natural recharge boost of quickness + 5 recharge enhancers in Elude, but he doesn't have Hasten. And since he doesn't have Hasten, he COULD have Elude on auto.

I personally wouldn't consider this a viable travel power for the reasons you stated, as well as the fact that you can only get this setup late in the game when Elude becomes available. I think the speed of Flight is a major drawback (to a power that's already got several), but I'm not ADVOCATING the "SR runner" method. It's really quite rude of you to virtually accuse me of lying, especially when you didn't bother to read.

But, let's go ahead then and factor in those 5 recharge enhancers in Elude.

Then "SR Runner" spends:
3 chosen powers + 1 default power.
5 extra enhancements slots in Elude to recharge it.

Benefits:
Faster speed than a capped fly.
Very high defenses.
Increased recharge time.

Drawbacks:
Total periodic endurance drain.
Management.

A flier spends:
2 chosen powers + 1 default power
4 slots

Benefits:
Complete vertical travel.

Drawbacks:
Slower.
Constant small endurance drain.
Accuracy penalty.

The real question in my mind is this: how does this stack up if we take Elude out of the question. How does a Flier with 4 slots compare to a SR runner with Swift + Quickness, along with an extra 3 run speed slots allocated to whichever gives the greatest speed boost? In other words:

Flier:
Sprint (Default, doesn't matter b/c it doesn't stack with flight)
Hover (whatever)
Fly (4 speed enhancers)

Runner:
Sprint (1 run enhancer + maybe the extra 3 runs here?)
Quickness (1 run enhancer)
Swift (1 run enhancer)

Which of those is quicker? Which has the highest endurance drain? Which has an accuracy penalty?

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He may move faster on foot, but you can fly. Also, it took how many powers for him to be able to travel that fast?

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Let's look. It took that player:
Swift (One run enhancement)
Sprint (Default Power, one run enhancement)
Quickness (One run enhancement).
Elude (No run enhancments)

So that's 4 powers and 3 slots (zero extra slots) worth of run speed enhancers. One of those is a default power that everybody has. So he gets all the defensive benefits of Elude and the recharge speed boost of Quickness, as well as more than the speed of a fully slotted flight while he travels.

Compared to the flier:
Sprint (he has it too, with no choice. It's worthless to him though)
Hover or Air Superiority (either is pretty much worthless while he's flying)
Flight (6 enhancements - but he could probably only use four).

So for 3 powers and at least 6 slots (at least three of which are extra), he gets vertical movement, but he also gets a minus to accuracy.

That's balanced?

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No matter how you slice it, flying is ultimately safer than super speed, and offer an undeniable vertical advantage over super speed (or in this case, 4 other speed powers). If flyspeed had the same max as runspeed, why would anyone ever take superspeed?

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"Ultimate safety" is great, but you know what? A lot of that "Ultimate Safety" is overkill. Other than TP (which is dangerous due to lag related issues), I've had exactly one death with a character related to travel, and that was when I superjumped into a Consigliere.

Adequate safety is available on SS and SJ, and the benefits of those powers more than make up for the difference between "adequate" and "ultimate" safety. Those powers are in extremely useful power pools, they're fast, and they are actually BOTH useful in combat. SJ lets you close the distance on an enemy quickly, or to jump, hit an attack in range, and actually land the attack well outside of the enemy's range. SS is a god send for melee characters, and the stealth bonus is great for anybody. Both powers are easily enhanceable by the fitness pool (Swift and Hurdle). Both powers are much quicker than flight on their own, and they smoke the hell out of flight when used together. SJ/SS work really well together; Fly doesn't combine well with other powers.

Fly, on the other hand, is next to worthless for a melee character. Hell, if I want to reliably use the melee attack IN the fly power pool while in the air, I have to get a THIRD power from the pool.

Fly is slow.

Flow is draining.

Fly is worthless in combat thanks to the ACC penalty.

Fly DOES provide you with more vertical maneuverability, but most of the time it's in excess of what you really need. Other powers grant ample vertical mobility on their own. Many superspeeders pick up a second pool to add that mobility, so for them it isn't a choice BETWEEN SS and Fly.

Fly DOES provide you with more safety for traveling, but again... a lot of that safety is just excess and worthless. Fly makes you a larger target in combat than SS/SJ, since it's much slower to move, drains your endurance, and leaves you unable to defend yourself.

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I just happen to have the box right next to me. (I keep the boxes the games come in for some odd reason. I see two statements "Team up with other heros to create an unbeatable force for justice!" and "Join other heroes". Nowhere did it say, "Play by yourself or in a group, it's your choice!". Let's face it, this is an MMP. The key there is the MP.

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1. The "MMP" bit has been brought up and refuted so many times that by now the comment is likely to draw some ire. The phrase is "massively multiplayer." If that's meant to refer to teaming, and the maximum team size is 8... that's massive? Then Halo 2 is massively multiplayer too. It makes much more sense for the "massively multiplayer" to refer to a persistent game world inhabited by multiple players.

2. The original point isn't refuted by what the game box says: nearly all of the advertising for this game mentions going it alone as a "lone hero" as a viable option. It's usually presented as something like "fight crime as a lone hero, or team up with other heroes." If the game box had said "Soloing is discouraged", I wouldn't have believed those ads. I wouldn't have bought the game either.

I enjoy teaming occasionally, but that's the icing on the cake. I wouldn't have bought the cake if I'd been told it was going to be 80% icing, which is where the progression seems to be heading.

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Third TF: We had trouble getting enough people for this, so we recruited one guy just to get us over the limit (he dropped immediately). We lost an exemplar on the first mission (down to five), and another to connection problems about halfway through (down to four). All squishies; I was the only one who'd done the TF before. We finished the whole task force in NINETY MINUTES, mainly because the only bosses we encountered were end-of-mission bosses.

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I was in this task force with you with my controller (Norus Ra), and it was amazing. That was by far the quickest TF I've ever done. It was a total bloodbath.