Probable_Claws

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Its nice and all but please dont tell me we waited a whole week just to hear something we already knew about? Please tell me there is more to come later today?

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Well, while I understand your frustration with lack of information on I12 so far, let's at least give props to Melissa for taking time to fill out the Dev Diary and let us get a glimpse of how she went about re-tooling the Hollows. I thought it was a fascinating insight into how one person / developer can make a significant difference to the game.

You damn well know if we had the Sapper attack every Moe, Larry and Curly would be playing Elec It would be nice to have though

I agree with the poster - if you want Uber, you don't take Elec - but the set has a "flare" to it that is just great. It plays fun.

Megawatt Maniac, lvl 26 Elec/Elec Brute, Justice

For the record, I can deal with "balance" issues like nerfing EF - what irriates me (and a lot of us) is that we were essentially called liars for pointing this out over a month ago, in an attempt to discover if it was a bug or intended.

The Devs are leaving us "out of the loop" when it comes to the overall design of the game, yet expect us to be their first-line Quality-Control force. It is *really* hard to act in a quality control role when you have no idea what the "features" are supposed to be (since the Devs *sneak* in "features" all the time).

Case-in-point: Teleport was changed at least a week before going live. It is much harder to use now that it has a double-animation. I started bugging the behavior. Lo-and-behold, it made it to live. Far as I'm concerned, if a new "bug" makes it to Live, then the Devs are treating it as a feature.

Now Statesman sends me a private tell informing me he is looking into the issue. That speaks volumes to me. That means he *wasn't* aware of it before. Why the hell not?!? Those bug reports should have been on his desk two weeks ago.

I just cannot frickin understand why this development company thinks it is acceptable to let bugs "slide" into Live, and then deal with them piecemeal from that point on. It is so against the "Pragmatic Programming" principle.

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While I don't much like the reduction to Enervating field at least it's recharge time didn't get doubled to the point that the power is often not available when you are ready to use it. It's getting really old twiddling my thumbs before engaging a new group because my powers aren't rechaged yet.

Nogala

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I suggest you stay away from the entire Trick Arrow set then - perhaps TA is the way the Devs want Defenders to play. I can just see it now. Empath's heals recharging once every minute because "heals were never intended to be as strong as they are".

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Errr.. Why isnt Cuppajo cleaning all these messy and uncalled for posts ? All im seeing here is a bunch of trolls . You dont like I5 ? Then tell us why . You like it ? Tell us why . Dont tell us that the guy who likes it or not is stupid . That , we dont want to know . Stay courteous


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She's probably busy atm. Frankly, I still believe that everyone who is complaining about Issue 5 doesn't see "the big picture". They are still so wrapped up in being the "super-de-duper super hero" that they are oblivious to, or choose to ignore, the fact that the game quits being challenging somewhere in the mid-30s for almost every AT out there. It then becomes a "grind fest", where people are focusing on the most efficient means to reach lvl 50 as fast as possible (don't ask me what the great rush is - maybe it is so we can complain about the complete lack of content at lvl 50, even though we ignored 95% of the content below 45).

Personally, I find Issue 5 to be a breath of fresh air. Sure, my toons are harder to play in some case. Fine. I'm willing to accept a change to the system if it means that *other* players in my team will feel included in the fun. Say whatever you want, Issue 4 allows a team of 8 to be "driven" solely by a talented tanker, where all the other players feel like a 5th wheel. Controllers were changed because they can play a game of perpetual lockdown and efficiently take on spawns meant for medium-sized teams on their own, every time, with little application of skill and little to no risk. Scrappers (and Tankers) were changed because [most of them] were still so tough that they didn't *need* the help of other players when on teams.

I've played every AT over 32. I've seen the point at which the games becomes "easy" for each AT. I ended up deleting a lvl 37, and two lvl 35s because they were no longer a challenge (and based on my higher-lvl experiences, would continue to be so). I, for one, am happy with the I5 changes. For those of you who are distressed by I5, I do feel sorry for you. Your characters are no longer the golden gods they once were. Your game has been turned upside down, and it sounds like you lack the flexibility, or the desire, to embrace what very well could be the dawn of a new age.

Be happy though, for your pleas do not fall on deaf ears. I'm sure that my opinion falls into a fairly small minority of the player base. Most of the people I've met in game seem like they would much rather have the game be "easy" than "challenging", even when playing on Invincible.

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I did say one other thing - that dropped Enhancements are useful only for what you can sell them for - because everyone purchases their Enhancements at the store (or at least most of them).


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Statesman, I know that the state of the game right now probably doesn't fit your "original" model, but games evolve (usually for the better). I would hope that if changes were made to the enhancement model, that they would be made in such a way to "streamline" the process for acquiring them. Take, for example, the original model you described. While it certainly promotes more Contact interaction (a great thing in my book), the necessity to trade between players would create a cumbersome system and a "haves and have-nots" situation (worse than it is now), dependent upon who you know.

City of Heroes is still a great game. It offers a very different experience from most of the other MMOs. One of the big "draws" for me was the fact that the only "loot" in game was these enhancements which were readily available to the entire public at storefronts (this was before I realized there actually *was* loot in the form of HamiOs). Obviously, you are totally correct that the current dropped Enhancements are widely viewed as nothing but an influence earner. With the availability at storefronts (a good thing in my book), what else *could* they be?

One suggested revamp of the system that I saw was to do away with enhancements altogether, replace it with the ability to directly *buy* upgrades into your slots. Truthfully, the enhancement system seems a little ridiculous from the "realism" standpoint anyway for some of the origins (how exactly is that grenade supposed to cause my Energy Blast to do more damage again?). The idea proposed was to just charge for upgrades directly on the enhancement-slotting screen, allowing for DOs at 15, SOs at 25.

Another suggestion might be to simply reduce the likelihood of enhancement drops by an order of magnitude (or altogether), possibly increasing the influence reward to compensate a little bit. This might help to alleviate the ever-growing inflation problem that this game is encountering.

Finally, you might throw in the possibility of more "rare" drops, similar in nature to those generated by the Eden and Hydra Trials, and do away with the "normal" drops altogether. Personally, I don't like this idea, as I think it just reinforces the "have and have-not" mentality, but that's just me.