Q_Candy

Being forced to do Taskforces to advance a character in this game is wrong.

At no point in my life do I ever want to be in a situation where my loved ones/family say "Could you log off the computer?" and my reply would be "No I cannot, I am on a TF".


It's irresponsible to force players to sit at a computer for 3 to 5 hours a time and not be able to log off if they need to. It's beyond ridiculous and the aspect of this game I hate the most. I forgo all my accolades because I refuse to put myself in that situation... but finding out now that all the new expansion stuff is going to be a task force grind just makes me angry.

I play this game because I do not want to grind to advance my character, I don't play wow, I chose this and you continue through the past 2 years to rip the heart of this game out and turn it into a massive warcraft style grind.

I resent you for that, deeply... and have only stayed around because I have so much invested in bases and vet badges.

Just stop with the force taskforce crap, 1k+ hours for hero merits and a purple set is already beyond evil.

Yea something is messed up again tonight.

It's not the graphics cards... the servers are having troubles every night lately.

This is my first post in two years. I never post here, because if you are not in the click you just get shouted down.

But reading the comments on this thread upset me.

I liked Brutes because they were one of the few AT's in the game that felt "superheroish" because, lets face it... most AT's in this game are underpowered and horrible especially at low levels and especially if you have to solo them up because the population of this game is so very low (aside from the expansion ebb and flow).

I could actually solo to 50 in a reasonable amount of time... without pissing away a very unreasonable amount of my life online. If you have to play 10 hours a day for a month or two just to level one character you are SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME playing a video game.

The brute I am leveling now moves less than half as fast on the experience bar. I cannot max my fury bar even when I am taking on enough mobs to pound me into the dust. I die way more easily... so really now I am forced to take all my IO's off my Brutes and move them to Scrapper or Tank.

Really now a well built scrapper can tank as well a brute and do almost twice the damage, so how is that balance? I am sure the scrappers are happy but how exactly is that balance?

Tankers are still so poor that playing them is like watching paint dry on a wall, but again who benefits from that? Really do we make a class that boring and low damaging for the "benefit of the game". No we make it that way because a very small minority of opinions have a stranglehold over this community.

Do you notice that except for this new expansion NOBODY PLAYS THIS GAME! And in a few months it will be a ghost town again. Yet the same people are applauding how well the developers "balance". Are you kidding me? This is the very worst balanced MMO of them all, by a substantial margin.

The only reason I play this game is because you can create your own unique character. I love being able to be unique and not look like all the other characters who go to X dungeon and get the pink breastplate of uber shiny. But that's it, that's the only reason to play CoX because aside from being able to customize your character and create a unique identity. This is a terrible game as far as balance and playability for at least 60% of the power/class combo's.

Brutes were one of the things "not horrid" about City of Heroes and here you all sit celebrating their descent into "horrid". I cannot explain your acceptance of the )$@*# you are being forced to swallow. Do you all have Stockholm syndrome or are your noses just so brown you can't smell the stink?

I will go back to the shadows, and in a few weeks when I am tired of the emperors new clothes my subscription will be canceled again, just like so many others.

Meanwhile you can pat yourselves on the back and be satisfied that all the "whiners" are silenced.

Good job.

Bye again.

I have not seen one person really make the argument yet that they love doing long 4 and 5 hour taskforces which is in truth exactly what this update is all about.

And what I said about being friends with the dev's isn't a "git" it's an observation about a regular core of posters here who's noses are browner than the air in Bejing.

Don't accuse me of drama because I had the guts to come in here and dissent and tell the truth.

Here is one of them:
"The vast majority of players do not like long TFs"

So the idiocy of using the Merit system to force gamers to do more long TF's is obvious. Defending this merit system as is, is buffoonery at best and you can all insult me and flame me all you want.

This Merit system isn't like a bad nerf or taking away a power. where you can just ditch one alt or respec. This is a sweeping epic game change for the worse.

I had to say it just one more time, and to those of you who have been rude and insulting to me because I had the audacity to state the merit system sucks - happy thanksgiving!

So, finally here is the door hitting me on the way out...
*wave*

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Ok everyone, come back with me.... all the way back to issue 8. There's no such things as IOs. The best enhacements in the game are SOs and the occasional HO (Hami) and omg, anyone remember CTOs?.

To summarize any 'nerfing' of the IO system with merits - I wouldn't even care if they did away with the whole Invention System - say Dr. Brainstorm's equipment was stolen by Rularuu the Ravager and we all have to do the Cathedral of Pain trial to get it back.

Essentially they are making something harder that didn't even exist until a few short issues ago. Most of my characters never touch IOs and stick with good ol' predictable cheap SOs so what the merit system means to me? Nothing absolutely nothing.

Does anyone remember why you would do a Katie Hannon TF before issue 9? Umm....: Badge for an accolade, fast xp from lvls 30-34, achievement badges for cabal and red caps for an accolade, and most of all [u]for fun.[u]

As for PvP, now maybe you have to TRY to win. Stalkers, TP foe, pocket emps and sonics, Energy Melee/anything, and previous 'i win' powers and powersets now have to use strategy and perhaps put forth some kind of effort to defeat people in PvP instead of mashing a total of 3 buttons.

For all you dramatic whiners out there canceling accounts, all you're saying is "now that the game isn't as unintentionally easy for me to win anymore, i'm going to quit" and "now that the game is how it was supposed to be, i'm going to quit". To those people I say, good bye and good luck - less lag for me. Maybe if you squint at whatever game you're changing to it might give you the illusion that that game has as much detail as this game you left without reason.

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As a matter of fact just take all the updates away... wipe the slate clean and don't try to make the game better at all. Or even better, NERF all powers by at least 50% - that way everyone but the mostly manly of men will quit.

They you can wave your little unit around and brag about how you can play in even the must miserable setting all alone, and how it's better that way and you still love CoH!

Now that we've "summarized" what would make you happy...

Can we find a single argument here that doesn't involve sticking our heads in the sand and accusing any rational dissenter of being a whiner?

I mean really I am starting to suspect that the developers just salt these forums with their close friends or maybe even post as random customers. There are so many suck ups and "yes yes yes" people here that I begin to wonder if ANYONE has noticed that this is the only superhero MMO on the market at a time in history when the most successful entertainment medium is "superheroes" and it has been consistently shedding customers and suffering population declines for months and months on end.

Meanwhile a game like WoW which exists in a saturated market and has terribly outdated graphics and a crumbling infrastructure is pulling in MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of subscribers simply by listening to customer demands and giving them some or not most of what they ask for.

Is it too hard to ask anyone to understand that the "punishment" mentality of game development does not gain customers, it loses them?

Can you just suck on that lifesaver for a second and let the flavor register before you go on another pointless posturing lecture about how making a game harder is always the better choice?

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So really, I think your perspective is rather skewed and full of hyperbole. Furthermore, you're assuming that the Devs aren't willing to adjust the variables of a variable system (Merits) if they see a problem when the issue hits Live.

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Getting 2 sets of purples and a few nice IO's in an entire year of playing time is not "wanting it all now" and I resent your pedantic snotty stance and your killjoy conservative gaming outlook.

Maybe you love sludge and drudge and gaming to be a painful slow and steady but I for one LOVED doing fast Katie's and Edens and Caps even when I got nothing for them. And hitting the lotto with them was fantastic.

It was one of the funnest things I have ever done in any online game. I am saddened that the glum conservative "grind it out... make them pay" mentality of gamer has won the day.

In any case, I have said my piece, canceled my subscription and made other plans for my indoor time in December. I will check back in January to see if everyone has come to their senses or if I am gone for good.

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Second, if you play exactly the same way you do now, assuming you run story arcs at all, you'll still be able to make a few decent recipes a year. What you may miss is a feeling of immediate gratification when you get that great drop at the end of the TF. You'll either get that feeling of gratification when purchasing a random roll from merits, or have a sense of accomplishment when you purchase exactly the recipe you want.

Now, I don't think the system is perfect. There are a number of suggestions I hope the Devs will take into consideration. But your behaviour of "they changed stuff, I don't want to change, I quit," is a bit hasty. If you want to quit, then that's your call. However, I think it'd be worth waiting a month after Live release to see how it truly pans out. Even if you do leave, then keep an eye out to see if things change afterward.

Some gamers in these forums are die-hard CoX fans, it's true. But the difference between a real fan and a bad one is that the good ones will keep on pushing for changes in an intelligent and well-explained manner, even after an Issue's release. We've seen it work in the past, and I'm sure that it will continue to work for the foreseeable future. Taking your ball home to sulk (i.e. protesting with your feet/by withdrawing your cash) has actually not been an approach that's gotten a lot of change done.

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You are simply wrong.

The way I play now I have many IO's... so far about 4 full sets of Numina, 2 purple sets, just about every proc I want on every toon, et. I do quite well - I am not crawling in wealth like the farmers but I am ok.

Under this new system my ability to gain those rewards will be down to nothing. I have run about 15-30 arcs this past year that would get me what in this new system?

Furthermore those arcs take hour and hours each from my time. I've run about 30 katies and maybe 50 15 minute edens this year. That's right around 25 to 30 hours of my time that gives approximately 75% of the influence and IO's everything I have.

Now they are asking me for an estimated commit 300 hours of my time for about the same reward and the 300 hours they are asking for won't be nearly as fun as the 30 hours I spent this past year.

Again, this culture is in a mode of "Oh don't upset the balance, if you complain you are 'sulking' 'wining' et."

You know what that gets you?

Screwed that's what it gets you. When someone does something incredibly stupid and tries to take advantage of you you take a stand.

Most people play this game because they are a captive audience, there aren't really any Superhero MMO's out there so the developers have gotten into the easy mode of doing whatever they want to the fan base and expecting you to take it.

Your post tells me exactly why they have gotten away with it.

You are basically telling me.

"Yea, I know they are giving it to me... but if I just wait a little while it won't hurt as bad and maybe I can talk them into being a little less abusive down the road if I am sweet and submissive."

That's not the right attitude. That's an attitude of a dependent or a hostage or a junkie who needs the fix and has no way out and no alternative other than to accept what is given them.

I made my living in private business and I did my job well and put myself in a good position in life. I didn't do that by giving my customers less and charging them more!!!!

And this is exactly what the devs are doing. I don't care if they want to go to a merit system, but to expect us to give more time to the game and get less in return is CRAZY.

Furthermore it's wrong on both a business and ethical level. Not only are they giving it to the customers they are giving it to themselves.

Many people playing less hours > less people playing many hours.

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Okay, here's what I don't get: you blame the Devs for making this game a grind when what do you spend your time doing? Grinding the same TF for loot.

The merit system is tweakable, and allows players to play regular story arcs in order to work towards either random rolls or specific IOs. That's actually less grind (i.e. playing the same content) overall then just running a Katie a day or more.

I think there may be some things to do with recipe pools that may alleviate any further concerns about the Merit system, but altogether, it's actually not a backwards step when looked at overall. You simply end up running other content beyond Katies or Caps.

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I don't grind, period. I do what? Sometimes 3 or 4 katies or caps in a week... sometimes not one for weeks at a time. That's a total commitment of 2 hours a week - that's not a grind. And I consistently end up with decent recipes over the course of a year.

The "other content" gives almost zilch merits... the only way to really pile up merits and have anything decent in this system is to start grinding out 4 hour TF's and you know what that does?

That means that nobody but hardcore gamers and GOLD FARMERS will own all the recipes now.

Do you know why? Because they get paid to sit in front of the computer all day and grind this stuff.

I've seen this happen time and time again in every game I have ever played. I also see the same people on the forums in said games defending every move the developers make and saying "oooh stop whining oooh stop wining" it's just fine.

They could nerf your avatar into oblivion and give you a fart in the glass and you would yell "Stop whining, my toon is better than ever and I drink rose petals!"

Sooner or later nobody is left playing the game but the "yes" people. And in the end... there will be a whole dozen people with their 100 veteran stars when they shut out the lights.

Then again, like the poster above said - you can rub your hands and cackle gleefully that you have gotten rid of all the players without a million vet rewards... after all, without the fresh blood you can play in solitude and talk about the glory days as they dust the cobwebs off the rikti dropships every few weeks and throw them at you like cake.

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You don't HAVE to participate in the merit system at all the only thing they took away was random drop option. You still get infamy, you still get recipe drops. I've done countless SFs in my villain career and I've only ever gotten ONE LOTG drop on random. I'm not seeing what you actually have to complain about. Furthermore I'm not surprised to see yet another complainer.

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What am I complaining about?

Long TF's stink, everyone hates them... people love to do Cap and Katie and ITF et. because it doesn't suck up your entire day rolling through miserable hours and hours of TF's where everyone logs off in the first place.

It's a very basic principal.

We hate long TF's.

We love short TF's.

We like radio missions.

So what do the developers do? They say... "Ok from now on we give you virtually nothing for short TF's and zilch for radios... but hey! That's ok because we will FORCE YOU to grind endlessly on long TF's and zone jump for story arcs you have all seen a million times for - well, mediocre merit reward."

That sucks, it's rotten.

You are punishing your playerbase and taking away something they like to do and replacing it with something they don't like to do.

It's plain mean spirited.

I'd rather play windows solitaire while being tortured to death than have to log on every day and endure 3 and four hour miserable grinding TF's and run around story arcs.

I'm not trolling, I am very upset that I have been pushed out of the game. I really loved it. - I loved doing Katies and other short taskforces and squeaking out just enough money to get like 1 purple set every 3 months or so,

Now there is nothing I can do unless I want to stay logged on for 3 or 4 hour spurts and I simply cannot do that.

For everyone who can sit down and play for 6+ hours several days a week I am sure you are happy, as will the gold farmers who will be enjoying the huge price and demand increase on purples. No doubt they will raking in the real life cash now because it's going to be about 100-200 million in game for 1 purple.

Dear Devs:

You ruined this game and turned it into a long freaking grind to get anything - thereby pushing a casual player like myself out of the equation.

I had to cancel my subscription today, right on the cusp of finally getting my angel/demon wings and I am ticked off.

What a mess this is. I did not want to try to go out and find a new game before Christmas.

Subscription canceled.

You can take your WoW like faction grind you are creating and stuff it.

The best thing about this game was the fact that you didn't have to grind for good things, it was the ONLY GAME out there you could escape the grind with... and now you completely re-centered the game around a stupid boring grind for merits.

You might as well have us raiding endless hours and forcing us to do DKP supergroups and start raising the level cap every 3 months.