RemusShepherd
-
Posts
703 -
Joined
-
Quote:I didn't say that I couldn't adapt, nor did I say I couldn't do it. I said it wasn't fun.Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Please see my reply above. I'm arguably one of the squishiest ATs out there when inside that maze, yet I'm able to cope.
It is not poorly designed. You just need to adapt.
I don't go on speed TFs because I don't like them. I don't like the lab run either. -
Quote:Excellent post. I agree with everything you had to say except 'The Grind' -- I feel the grind is excessive. Casual players will not be able to access the new incarnate slots in any reasonable length of time.Originally Posted by Kelenar
The forums may not really need another thread on the topic of these two trials, but hey. Here it is.
To fix the BAF I think they should remove the AE confusion from the escapees. It doesn't have that much effect; in about a dozen runs, I think I've hit a teammate only once by accident. Taking away dozens of AE procs should reduce the lag to a level that's more playable.
The Lambda trial just can't be fixed. As designed, the speed-run through the labs is just never going to be fun for squishies. It's a badly designed trial but I think we're just going to have to accept it for what it is. Which is a shame, as the final fight in Lambda is very satisfying -- I like that fight better than any of the Siege or Nightstar encounters. -
I have an Earth/Thorn assault dominator that works very well. Both of those powersets debuff defense, so my guy is a walking can opener against high-defense opponents. And Thorn assault has a lot of ranged attacks so it goes well with Earth control. It's a combo with a lot of synergy.
-
Quote:I like playing support characters. You are describing a game in which players no longer need support.Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
Yes.
The idea that a team must be composed of specialists each with their own area of powers should be taken out into a field and staked through the heart.
I was just on a PUG group where my offer of Accelerated Metabolism was laughed at. Then a scrapper cast a Destiny buff that was about 10x better.
This is terrible game design. In my opinion it will be the end of this game. It's certainly diminishing it for me. -
Quote:I was watching some Destiny buffs on my characters last night. It appeared to be something like this:Originally Posted by Seldom
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall destiny had a rapid decline in power so that they have a high peak that rapidly weakens into a valley.
+90% for 10 seconds
+30% for 50 seconds
+5% for 30 seconds
then 30 seconds downtime.
Of course I had distractions, and there's a question of how often my client displays the numbers. It could be changing and I'm not seeing it, or I could have missed a fourth stage in there. But that gives a rough idea of the power of the buff.
Even with the new, more accurate enemies, the defense soft-cap is around 80% defense. If you're soft-capped to the old content, one Destiny buff will soft-cap you to the new content for 1 minute out of every 2.Quote:For the incarnate content, the big +damage, +tohit buffs enemies get mean that the only thing better than destiny is a shielder layering even more +defense/+resistance to counter enemies. 'Extraneous' defense even counters cascading failure by -defense attacks.
The resistance hardcap is 75% for squishies, so you'll need about 2 Destiny buffs to get there. For tanks it's 90% but most of them will already have high numbers.
The FF shielder is obsolete. Would you rather have one teammate give you +47% defense, or seven teammates give you a stackable +30% resistance and defense, each of them half of the time? -
Quote:I don't play lower level content with my 50s, except for one or two WSTs. But even if I did -- is it worth taking a power (buff, nuke, rez) if it's only relevent when exemped down?Originally Posted by SteelClawI don't currently have a 50 so I'm unsure of the answer but.... Don't you lose all your Incarnate abilities if you exemplar down below 45th level? If that's the case then respeccing out of so-called "obsolete" powers would leave you completely without them should you team with lower level characters.
There's an Interface slot ability that debuffs resistance *and* applies a fire DOT. But the numbers seem small enough that Sonic Resonance is still superior. For now.Quote:Originally Posted by Gemini_2099Yeah there isn't anything Incarnate wise that impedes on the Sonic Resonance...yet.
You don't need a second nuke per character. Let's say three simultaneous Judgement nukes can clear a spawn. (It will almost certainly clear the minions and Lts.) A well-coordinated League can have their players work in teams of three, each nuking in unison. With a 24-person League, that's 8 spawns cleared every 2 minutes, or 15 seconds per mob spawn. That's an impressive clear rate for normal play. It becomes ridiculous when you realize that performance is reached without using ANY other powers. It's '3-2-1, hit a button, move to the next spawn and repeat'.Quote:Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
The cool down on the Incarnate nukes are reasonable for now, but if a second nuke is introduced in the future, as an example, then you can stagger the two Incarnate nukes between each spawn, which then would make other powers obsolete for sure.
A coordinated Judgement League can turn CoX into a one-button game. Are you feeling obsolete yet? -
Quote:I understand that, but...you already have a katana that can cut through a Freak Tank's armor, and your super reflexes allow you to dodge fireballs and radiation emissions. You're already using magitek. Is it that difficult to envision an extra layer of magitek to explain the incarnate abilities?Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
When I say "super reflexes, katana, pistols," I mean "super reflexes, katana, pistols." Not "and psychic powers" or "that and super tech" or "that and magitek gadgets."
[/quote]Quote:This is the character I want to play - super reflexes, katana, pistols. And nothing else. If I can't find a way to explain his new-found powers as an extension of his own skills, then he will not have such powers.
In a broader sense, Judgement powers seem very hard to justify for weapon users in general, and I have MANY of them. I have 2xAxe, 2xMace, 4xSword, 3xKatana, 3xDuam Blades, 4xClaws and really very few of them have an elemental secondary to match their weapons. Most of those are pure weapon users, and at least 6 are at or near level 50. Suffice it to say that I have a lot of thinking to do.
Well, Pyronic is a ranged AoE, and Cryonic is a cone. It wouldn't be hard to justify them as special ammunition for a gun, *if* we could change the animation to use a gun when the powers are fired. That's a big 'if', though.
To be honest I don't like any of the options in the Lore set, and for most of my characters I intend to slot Lore but never summon the pets. Even if my heroes *had* the ability to summon the souls of defeated enemies they wouldn't *do* it. It's an incredibly unheroic thing to do.
Maybe you could slot the incarnate powers for the level boost, but just not use them? -
Quote:I agree with almost everything you wrote, because you carefully avoided the problem cases. For example you didn't mention rezzes -- the Barrier power *is* superior to an empath's rez.Originally Posted by Seldom
A team with a huge +defense power every 90 seconds can't cover the team as well as someone with constantly available everywhere, every time forcefields.
But what you wrote above is the one thing I can disagree with strongly. A single incarnate with the huge Destiny buff *can* cover the team as well as a forcefielder and with much less effort. The buff is *that* huge. Consider -- a well-slotted FF shield gives about +40% defense for 4 minutes. The Destiny buff gives +30% defense for 1 minute out of every 2, or about 50% of the time, *in addition to* +30% resistance and a brief period of +90% to both that's easily timed for the start of a fight. And it's *one click*. Do you know how hard a FFer needs to work to keep his team buffed? On its own the Destiny buff almost obsoletes the entire FF powerset.
When you consider that every AT can get the Destiny buff, and you will be playing on Leagues of 16+ people... The FF powerset is now a fossil. It serves no purpose in the high-level game. The only thing keeping Sonic Resonance relevant is its debuffs. -
I didn't think my original post was *that* long.
Okay for you tl;dr people, listen up --
It's not whether your incarnate powers help your character. It's whether you are made obsolete by the powers on the rest of your team. All ATs can now buff, rez, and nuke. Is that healthy for the game? -
Now that I've looked at the new Incarnate powers a bit, I'm worried about them obsoleting old powers and in some cases entire archetypes.
I'm not up on all the names just yet, but the best example might be the Destiny PBAoE aura that rezzes teammates. This essentially gives any AT the Resurrect power on a 2 minute timer, with a bonus AoE heal. Empaths and other ATs with ally rezzes might improve their builds by respeccing out of the rez powers and getting the Destiny rez. Rez as a powerset choice is obsolete.
There's also a Destiny aura that gives massive +resistance and +defense that slowly fades with time. By itself it doesn't *quite* make Sonic and Forcefield buffs obsolete. Doing some rough time trials, it seems to provide +90 resistance and +90% defense for 10 seconds, then about +30% for a minute, then +5% for another 30 seconds, with 30 seconds of downtime. It completely obsoletes *any* buffs for taking alpha strikes, but buffing characters have an advantage in that their buffs can be permanent (albeit that can take a lot of work).
But consider that *any* AT can have the Destiny aura, and you see how likely it is that three or more characters in a 24-character League will have it. With just a little coordination three incarnates can layer their Destiny buffs so that the longest-lasting part of the buffs becomes permanent. +30% to resistance and defense to an entire team or league, all with a single click -- that completely obsoletes even the most dedicated Sonic or FF bubbler. Buffing ATs may well be obsolete. Sonic defenders at least have some debuffs to fall back on, but FF defenders are well advised to respec out of *their entire primary powerset* once they achieve the Destiny incarnate powers.
It's not just Destiny. The Judgement powers are equivalent to blaster nukes, but with no crash and a much shorter recharge time. I cannot see the point of any level 50 taking or using a blaster nuke again.
The new incarnate powers obsolete individual powers from many support sets and all ranged blast sets, as well as a good fraction of all Defender archetypes. In my opinion this is poor design, and unhealthy for the high level game. At a minimum the incarnate power options should have been restricted by AT, to preserve the boundaries between offense, defense, and support that the rest of the game thrives on. Without those boundaries, a lot of game mechanics become obsolete relics that nobody will use. City of Incarnates is just not as interesting nor as diverse as what we had before. -
My Plant/TA controller is a Natural hero who wears body armor, carries a bow with trick arrows, and has a bag of ancient quick-grow seeds she found in an archeological dig. She'll be getting the Pyronic Judgement power and rationalizing it as a high-tech incendiary device that Vanguard is letting her test.
My Sonic defender is a Tech hero with a cloak made of piezoelectric fabric he invented that converts electricity to sound. He'll be getting the Clarion Destiny and probably the Void Judgement, and rationalizing them as advanced tweaks to his super-tech sonic cloak.
My Thugs/Traps MM is Natural. She's the ringleader of a carnival troupe with a lot of black ops gadgets. She already has the Fire APP, which is just carnival tricks (rings of fire and such) applied to combat. She'll probably be rationalizing the incarnate powers as high technology gifts from an alien or a praetorian that the carnival is now sheltering.
In a universe as open-ended as this one, there's a way to work cosmic powers into any character concept. -
Quote:And if I don't have a regular group, then you're saying that I should never expect to succeed.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
The TUT is for the times when your regular group is not online and you just want to hop on and see if you can get on a trial. I don't EVER expect to succeed on trials like that. And that's not bad as you still get a chunk of Ixp and threads.
That's a bad game design. -
Quote:Uh, voicing one's opinion is the first action one should take. It is not immature to give rapid feedback, especially when you are a paying customer.Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I'm asking people not to voice their opinions until they've had some time to experience the trials and formulate decent opinions from experience.
It is reasonable to wait a few weeks and acquire experience with the new content before deciding whether or not to press the 'cancel account' button. -
Quote:I think the problem is in the assumption that all players have the same tools at their disposal. Some challenges require changes in individual gameplay or tweaks to an individual's build. Some challenges require changes in team gameplay or tweaks to a team's AT composition. Some challenges require mass coordination between leagues of players.Originally Posted by Lothic
Related to that is the idea that some people seem to hate MMOs that might actually challenge them to come up with new strategies to overcome new situations. They'd rather float through content without having to think instead of facing something new and learning how to deal with it.
Soloers only have access to the first. People with few friends who mostly PUG only have access to the first and second. That leaves a lot of people who are completely unable to access the third. For those of us without 20+ trusted friends, raid content is unfun if not impossible. And there's nothing we can do to improve the situation.
Or wave goodbye as they go somewhere else.Quote:Basically there's nothing the Devs can really do about that player mindset other than to march forward and drag those people kicking and screaming as we go. 
-
Quote:No, you don't need to, but the design of the trial encourages it. And it's a wasted effort to try to get three teams worth of people not to do what the game is begging them to do. It's a bad design.Originally Posted by Soul_Stormer
and you don't need to speed through the collection phase. a team can clear the halls to each one and have enough time due to both teams getting items will add extra time.
-
Quote:Because there's a new LFG tool that lumps ignorant, uncoordinated PUGs together with the suggestion that they should be able to handle this content.Originally Posted by Soul_Stormer
knowledge and coordination are key. i don't know why players are complaining that they need these to win. its not rocket science.
And I should note that for the last seven years, I've been able to play this game solo and with PUGs just fine. Now I need to join a guild? Does anyone know if the Goonsquad is hiring, or do I need to get the requisite lobotomy first? -
Quote:The 'as designed' concept is for you to fail over and over and over again until you have enough experience to unlock and slot one of the new abilities, after which you may have the power to not fail.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
What the hell do you think I do?
And die again.
And die again.
And again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and bloody again because the team is getting killed off by the huge mob of Battle Orb spamming Bosses and LTs!
We killed the Portals! We killed the other mobs! We take on Marauder and DIE. What the ruddy hell do you suggest, oh font of all bleeding wisdom?
It will take you about ten failed trials to unlock one slot. There are four slots. You may die about a dozen times on each failed trial. I figure that about 300 suicides for a fully empowered character is about what the devs intended.
Congratulations. After hundreds of worthless deaths, now you're a hero. What was that old saying, a brave man dies a thousand times, a coward...no, wait, something's off there... -
Quote:Oh, yes, it's obviously designed so that that is the intention. It's a BAD, BAD design. It makes half of all ATs worthless during that segment of the trial. And the devs CHOSE it to be that way.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Also they are timed. They want you to speed it.
I'm just...at a loss to explain it. I thought we had people who knew how to make a game. -
Quote:That's another thing. This is bad design. It's as if the devs said:Originally Posted by Furio
Ran 3 last night on Virtue. 2 failed Lambdas with me as the lead and minimum numbers. The sabotage part is where things got ugly, as people aren't used to the hit and move strategy that it seems to require.
"Gee, players sure like speeding through TFs. The tough ATs head for the objectives while the squishies fall behind and die a lot. We should design a trial so that speeding through it is encouraged! We hate support characters anyway!"
The sabotage part of the Lambda trial encourages the 'speed TF' mindset of running through the mission leaving hordes of alert, aggroed enemies in their wake. I don't play speed TFs. Most of my characters are support ATs -- I enjoy being the glue that holds a team together. I do NOT enjoy dying because the scrappers and tankers have aggroed fifteen mobs and expect me to keep up with them.
But before I could avoid TFs like that. Now we have one that's like that by design.
BAD, BAD, BAD devs. You should KNOW better than that. Don't pander to bad players. You should be encouraging smart play. -
Quote:Sounds like you had to spend a good amount of inf in there, also. May I ask how much? Either way, it's not far off from what I said -- 3 successful attempts plus a small fortune. (In your case it's 2 successful, 2 failed.)Originally Posted by ArbeglaI ran 3 Lambda trials, failed 1, succeeded in 2, with a group built entirely from the LFG system, and me leading, having only ran 2 (one failure) lambdas on test, which i did not lead. I was able to unlock my interface, and after running a 4th lambda (i was 5 threads short) able to craft my t1.
I do not believe that, not without a significant dumping of inf to convert a lot of lucky thread drops. I got 10% physical experience and 3 threads on a failed run. If one thread is worth about 4% experience (from what I'm hearing on the forums), that's 22% and a lot of inf spent per fail. You would have to have been extremely lucky with the thread drops *and* spend a small fortune in order to unlock in only 3 failed attempts.Quote:Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare
I failed 3 times on the Lambda trial unlocking my Interface slot and making a little progress into my Destiny slot - I scored about 15 Threads and made some Inf.
I'm not calling shenanigans, yet, I'm just saying -- what you describe is contradicted by what I have seen so far. -
Quote:There's a new LFG tool that creates random PUGs specifically for these trials. Isn't that a strong suggestion that such teams should be able to handle them?Originally Posted by AkuTenshiiZeroI hate to break it to you but there is no way that an average 8-man, randomly-selected PUG can deal with this.
Quote:Originally Posted by Demobot
I'm baffled that anyone would believe this was intended. -
Quote:Because my idea of fun is to set goals for myself and attain them. 'Defeating an enemy' is a good goal. 'Committing suicide 100 times' is not.Originally Posted by TonyV
My question for those that are having a hard time staying alive:
What the hell difference does it make? "Dying" in this game has such an insignificant penalty that it seems kind of silly to me to get all worked up about it. I mean, for crying out loud, you're level 50 already. Is it going to make getting to level 51 that much slower? Oh yeah, that's right, you can't get to level 51. You have nothing to lose when you "die."
Content balanced around the concept that characters are able to die over and over again is not fun. Period. It's a bad, bad, bad game design. -
Quote:Incidentally, I took my dark armor tank to the BAF. It was ridiculous. I said out loud, "I'm one hell of a tank. I've tanked Recluse and Bobcat. And I'm running away from a robot boss."Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Congratulations Miss Chief, you have figured out that you need to ADAPT.
The same mindless button mashing that has always worked will not anymore. Learn. Adapt. Grow.
It's not a matter of 'mindless button mashing', or adapting in any way. All our characters have kryptonite -- energy damage and recharge debuffs are mine -- and the new trials are packed full of it. There's no way to adapt one's build or playstyle to handle this new content. The only hope is in coordinated multi-team support, which does not and will never exist in PUG leagues. -
Quote:But raid content requires large communities of players who can coordinate with each other. CoH is full of casual players. We live on PUGs. This new content is disaster for PUGs and thus inaccessible to casual players.Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
That is how raid content is designed, as you gear up the encounter becomes easier because it is designed with the gear in mind.
To make things worse, they helpfully gave us a queue to form PUGs for the trials, which is the same as helpfully building a chute to show cattle the route into the slaughterhouse. You'd think that if you were given a system to randomly group people together for content, the content would be the sort that random people could handle. But...no.
This is just stunningly bad design. -
Quote:I'm trying to figure out how much sarcasm is in your post, Lazarillo. Is the above your opinion, the opinion of the majority of beta players, or the apparent opinion of the devs in reaction to the beta feedback?Originally Posted by Lazarillo
Lesson from the Beta boards: if you have a problem with the grind, you don't actually have a problem with the grind. You're just whining because it's too hard or because you don't get to have all your slots filled with Very Rares in the first day of playing. You might think you think the issue lies somewhere else, but it doesn't.
The first case I can ignore (no offense; I don't know you). The second case is troubling. The third case is grounds for leaving the game.