SablePhoenix

Lots of enemies is the way to go, baby. I love mowing through hordes of yellow-con minions and orange LTs. Orange minions are okay... reds just start to get tedious. I would love it if you could use the difficulty to actually set spawn size and enemy level; I would choose the largest groups of +1s that I could.

Of course, I always prefer a mission to end with a fight against a Boss at least, or an Elite Boss if possible. Something to cap off all that minion-mowing with a good minute or two of trading blows with a single tough target.

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Wow, that is every bit as bad as I thought it was.

Castle, is there any chance we can get lethal damage attacks boosted, across the board, to make up for the fact that they're almost universally resisted?

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Yeah, this would be a good thing. Or perhaps, since they're, you know, cutting and piercing, they could have a certain percentage of their damage be unresistable, or something, to simulate their armor-piercing nature.

No.

Nothing can. It was tacked on as an afterthought and will always remain an afterthought. It is unfixable.

Great satire, but... what exactly are you satirizing? I must have missed the uproar about multiple characters per account that inspired this...

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I think the gripe about having broken missions clogging the search results is valid.

My own mission is broken, and will remain listed but unplayable until I have a chance to to do a significant rewrite (as it used not just one but both of the maps that got yanked last patch). I'd prefer to pull it down until I can fix it, but the way the system works, there's no way to do that without killing the accumulated plays and ratings.

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Hey, someone got the point, and didn't lapse into any strawman diatribes about farming. I have a reading comprehension award somewhere to give this person...

So after the big hammer descending on the MA with the last patch I haven't really used it. I just decided to go back and check it out on a whim. Not only is it empty, but half the arcs I choose do not even start. I'm guessing that they were invalidated when the patch hit and the players just decided it wasn't worth fixing them.

So great work on wrecking the entire thing. I doubt I'll bother with it any more, either. I get the feeling it's not worth it, much as the mission creators must have.

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I am anti-farming in general, its clear to me that it hurts the game in the long run if allowed to run unchecked to some degree.

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An easy thing to say. Back it up with some proof.

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Blasters do not, in fact, contribute mez or crowd control. An ice or psi blaster will have a little, but almost all blasters have only an immobilize power. Their secondaries are focused on damage, the same as their primaries. The difference is that the secondaries are more about melee damage than ranged.

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Defeat is the ultimate control.

But, that's also not including secondaries like, say, Devices and Ice Manipulation (that have a lot of control potential as mitigation). Or Mental Manipulation (Confuse/Fear) and Electric Manipulation (End-Drain [A very potent soft control if you're built for it]/Disorients/Knockback [Another soft control]).

That leaves us with Fire and Energy that don't... Oh. My mistake. It would appear that Energy's built on Knockback/Disorients on a random effect (barring Stun and I do believe Total Focus got moved to a guarantee of Disorient, didn't it?), whereas Fire has Afraid (in both Burn and Hot Feet).

It's not much, but that would technically meet the qualifications of 'low' control in just the secondaries.

And then there's primaries like Ice (2 holds) and Sonic (Area Sleep), and to a lesser extent Psychic Blast (ST Disorient), Assault Rifle (ST Disorient), and Electric Blast (Hold, End-Drain).

:3c

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If you can't reliably control a boss, you cannot rely on it to enhance your survivability. If you cannot reliably control multiple targets at once, you cannot rely on it to enhance your survivability. Other than ice blasters, which are fairly adept at handling bosses, and psi blasters, which can handle crowds in some situations, no blaster has the ability to do these things. Their survivability remains the lowest of any AT.

My point is that expecting blasters to be adept at crowd control as a secondary role is setting yourself up for disappointment. If you want control paired with damage, go with a Dominator.

Blasters do not, in fact, contribute mez or crowd control. An ice or psi blaster will have a little, but almost all blasters have only an immobilize power. Their secondaries are focused on damage, the same as their primaries. The difference is that the secondaries are more about melee damage than ranged.

If you're equating "CC" with "survivability", you [u]will[u] be disappointed with a blaster.

Also, Dominators are not medium control; their control is functionally the same as the Controller's, with the main difference being a reduction in duration. Once Domination fires off, though, their control is superior to anything in the game.

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Twisted_Toon,

There is no right or wrong. However, if you're not capable of fighting non-stop with an attack/buff/debuff/control animating every moment that a enemy is within range, then you're not contributing to the team effort as much as I would want you to.

OTOH, I've been told before that the pace I run at is "excessive."

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That is where the "problem" is. not with Stamina or Endurance, but with the players' play style, perception and standards. Not everyone "has" to play at warp 9 every second they are in the game. Unless, of course, they play with you BillZ.

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Warp 9 (whatever that is) isn't necessary. However, being able to run from one spawn to another within a mission with no down time is. Regardless of AT and powerset, any player at any level ought to be able to run a mission from entrance to completion without stopping if they want to.

The game doesn't permit this. There is no reason for such restriction.

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That mechanic is prevalent in ALL of the MMORPGs. It's a basic part of the genre. Whether it's called mana or endurance or powerpoints or whatever, all players start out at a base level and build up from there. No MMORPG I know of lets you go continuously without stopping right from the beginning. You say there is no reason for that restriction, but all of the games do it. The reason is to let you experience that character growth that I just mentioned. If you want a game where that doesn't happen, then you'll have to look outside the MMORPG genre.

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Not true. I can even name one I have personally played; Guild Wars. No matter what level you are in that game, once you get out of combat, after a short delay, you begin rapidly regenerating both health and energy until you are full in a few seconds.

Enforced downtime is an unnecessary restriction.

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Twisted_Toon,

There is no right or wrong. However, if you're not capable of fighting non-stop with an attack/buff/debuff/control animating every moment that a enemy is within range, then you're not contributing to the team effort as much as I would want you to.

OTOH, I've been told before that the pace I run at is "excessive."

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That is where the "problem" is. not with Stamina or Endurance, but with the players' play style, perception and standards. Not everyone "has" to play at warp 9 every second they are in the game. Unless, of course, they play with you BillZ.

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Warp 9 (whatever that is) isn't necessary. However, being able to run from one spawn to another within a mission with no down time is. Regardless of AT and powerset, any player at any level ought to be able to run a mission from entrance to completion without stopping if they want to.

The game doesn't permit this. There is no reason for such restriction.

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Maybe it really is the game design that's the problem. If the late game can keep our interest, the early game can too. It doesn't. That's a problem.

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That is your opinion. Please, don't speak for me. You don't do it well enough.

I quite enjoy the game at all levels. Otherwise, I wouldn't have 70+ alts and only 3 50s in my 4.7 years of playing.

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Where did I say I was speaking for you? Where does "our" mean "you"?

Maybe you enjoy being weak and slow, but the majority of players don't. You are the only player I've talked to or heard mention this subject who has ever said that the low game is enjoyable on its own, much less more enjoyable than the higher levels.

And maybe, just maybe, the fact you don't take the opportunities available to mitigate that endurance usage at higher levels could be contributing to the fact that you find higher levels slower. Well, that's your own fault. But don't saddle the rest of the players with your poor choices. Your view of the game is not normal (i.e., shared by the majority).

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Glad they told people that an enemy that was behaving exactly as it always had was an exploit.

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"As it always had"? You do know that Comms used to give normal minion xp, right? And then datamining showed that they presented more of a challenge as part of normal Rikti spawns, when they weren't getting instantly killed before summoning their portals, so the xp was raised accordingly to reward the extra risk under normal circumstances? You do know that, right?



Actually the Com Officers were raised and their Portal XP nullified Before Com officers had normal xp and the Portals gave xp.. Back then the goal was to get the comm officer to open a portal

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Actually, this entire scenario was precipitated by attempts to stamp out farming.

Originally Rikti comms were the same XP as any minion, and the enemies their portals spawned also gave normal XP. So, just like the Circle Portal rooms, people farmed Rikti comm officer portals, leaving the officers alive and wiping out the incoming enemies repeatedly.

For some reason this was determined to be too easy (although if you ever saw some of the gigantic groups that would accumulate you'd wonder how the devs thought that) and so the spawned enemies were stripped of any rewards, and portals themselves were given very high rewards. Of course then people would aggro the spawn till a portal dropped, then smash it in a couple seconds.

For some reason THIS was determined to be too easy, too, so the portals were stripped of rewards altogether, and to compensate the comm officers themselves were given LT level rewards.

Then MA happened.

So the worst farming problem in the history of the game was caused by the devs trying to eliminate farming.

There's irony there somewhere, should you care to look for it.

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besides. That sorta attitude is what annoys me. "oh noes, a playerbase niche unlike mine isnt happy, too bad, hahahahahaha"

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The "Oh, no! What is wrong with me abusing the content?!" kind of attitude is what annoys me.
Well that and "The game is only cool if I can abuse the content!" attitude.


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Oh I know! Those attitudes are WAAAY annoying. Like, they're almost as bad as the "I want to force you to play the way I like to play" attitudes! And like, the "I'd better spend time making sure you don't play the way you enjoy because I don't think you should" attitudes, too. Totally.

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Fun isn't about slow leveling, it's about action.

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In your opinion. Personally I spend enough time in the higher levels running through hordes of unthreatening enemies that I find the slower, more cautious pace of the low level game quite refreshing.

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Eliminating TOs and DOs entirely and starting with SOs at level 1, as has been proposed by others, would go a long way towards fixing the problem, but it's still not sufficient because there simply aren't enough slots available to a pre-22 character to make a significant difference. Something like a universal reduction in end costs to every power in the game, or something easier, like a universal boost inherent regen and recovery, is needed in addition to that.

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Are you seriously proposing that the upper two powers of the Fitness pool should become an inherent? Why not make the Tier 9 an inherent as well? What's the difference?

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Oy. Where did I say that the Fitness pool should become inherent? Where?

Reading incomprehension+straw man argument=epic fail

I am not proposing that. I merely said one of the simplest solutions would be to increase the inherent regen and recovery rate. Nothing about movement or jumping speed, nor did I imply it should be a boost up to the level of Health and Stamina. *sigh*

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Alright, then we'll call them Health Jr and Stamina Jr. If they were significantly lower than the two pool powers would they actually have that much of an impact?

Also, I said nothing about movement or jumping speed. I added some bold to my original comment to draw that to your attention, so please don't make remarks about my 'reading incomprehension' when you're demonstrating that you didn't read what I said.

I've noticed that most of the suggestions about making the low level game easier and/or faster come from vets of several years. Did you ever think that maybe it's not down to the mechanics of the game that you don't enjoy the low levels so much, but rather that you've been playing it for a very long time, and have, presumably, ran through those stages so often that you've exhausted your interest in them?

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If that were the case, why wouldn't we be tired of running through all the states after 25 repeatedly? Or breaking out the level 50s, where there's literally nothing to do besides what you've already done before?

Maybe it really is the game design that's the problem. If the late game can keep our interest, the early game can too. It doesn't. That's a problem.

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I pose this question, if these games are not about leveling or maxing out one’s AT to the best of their ability, then why offer levels at all?

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It's funny, I was just thinking the same thing about that sentence. Less than half the letters you used there were vowels. Clearly that sentence was not really about the vowels! What I can't figure out is why you bothered to use vowels at all.

Wait! I think I figured it out! The vowels are a significant part of your sentence, while still not being the only important part, much less the whole reason for your sentence to exist in the first place.

Thanks for that illustration! It makes so much more sense now!

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Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

*deeeeep breath*

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha...

One of the best satires I've ever seen in a post. Bravo! Bravo.

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Okay, another idea I've been kicking around, which may end up with its own thread at some point. This would be separate from any other possible adjustments like changing the recharge on rest.

One of the problems (as I see it) is the binary nature of endurance. Either you have endurance and can do anything you want with no problem, or you don't have endurance and you're helpless: no attacks, no defense, no nothin' until your endurance comes back. (With attacks, this just slows your attack rate. Defense is more problematic, as your toggles all drop.)

My suggestion would be to make it possible to execute powers -- and keep toggles running -- regardless of whether or not you're out of endurance. However, if you're below some value -- I'm thinking 5 or 10 -- you would be in a fatigued state, and all your powers would be reduced in effectiveness by some significant amount -- here I'm thinking a 50% reduction in effectiveness. So, a 10-second hold would become a 5-second hold, a 200-point attack would only do 100 points of damage, Mag-10 mez protection would only give 5 points of protection, etc.

Alternatively, it might be easier to implement to make Fatigued into a status effect, involving large debuffs to movement speed, damage, control durations, etc. I think the other way would be preferable, but I have no idea how easy it'd be to implement.

This would eliminate the complete helplessness that comes with running out of endurance, and is consistent with other MMOs. Thematically, it makes sense -- if you go until you're exhausted, you can still run, just slower. You can still punch someone, just not as hard. There's still a substantial penalty for not managing your endurance, but it introduces more choice into the matter -- do I keep fighting even though I'm really tired and not going at full capacity? Or do I regroup until I can hit harder again. And it would eliminate that gosh-awful, "You Suck!" "Out-of-Power" thing, which I really, really hate.

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I love this suggestion. I think this, combined with SOs dropping at every level, could be the big answer we're looking for.

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End isn't that big a deal if a) you slot some end red in your attack chain and toggles, and b) you don't try to play like you're already level 22.

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That's exactly the point.

You're just reinforcing the argument that the system is flawed as it currently exists. At level 1 the game ought to play like 22. The game doesn't even start to become fun until after 22. Downtime is bad. Downtime is boring. Forcing downtime on the players is not good design.


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That's really just an opinion. All games I've played have had some sort of downtime. All of them. Every. Single. One. By your definition, all of those games had bad design.

The thing is that games need to have the "bad" things that you can overcome. For instance, if you died and were able to just click a button and have full health with no penalties, there'd be no feeling of challenge. It'd be like if you had a god mode and couldn't be hurt. Dying is bad, but lack of dying would be boring and not challenging.

Downtime for endurance recovery is not a good thing, but having it gives you something to aspire to through slotting and choosing powers and endurance-saving strategies. Because of this, I don't believe the game should play the same at level 1 as it does at level 22. What would the point of progressing be? I want my character to feel stronger as he gets higher, not just have a few more power choices.

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Let me ask you... do you truly, honestly not feel any more powerful at 50 than you did at 32? At 22?

Is there seriously so little to look forward to, at level 1 no less, that you have to cripple the player just so he can heave a sigh of relief at 25?

If you admit that it's bad, why not fix it?

The thing about the downtime in later levels is that it is much more malleable to the player's choice. Does he wish to mow through a mission nonstop (and if he's a Brute or a Dom, he'd better, because the game mechanics themselves demand it)? He can. The downtime comes either from making bad decisions, or because the player wishes to take a break. This is the key disparity between the level brackets. At level 1, or 10, the player has to take downtime not because he wishes to, but because the game mechanics give him no choice.

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If the end redux were actually effective it might be a different story, but until you reach SOs, you might as well not even bother with enhancements; the difference they make is negligible.

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I agree with this. TO endurance reductions are just about worthless. DOs are somewhat effective. SOs are when you can really make a difference. Though I think using IOs from sets is the best way to do it.

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Eliminating TOs and DOs entirely and starting with SOs at level 1, as has been proposed by others, would go a long way towards fixing the problem, but it's still not sufficient because there simply aren't enough slots available to a pre-22 character to make a significant difference. Something like a universal reduction in end costs to every power in the game, or something easier, like a universal boost inherent regen and recovery, is needed in addition to that.

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The thing is that endurance reduction is so tightly woven into the mechanics of the game, universal changes would be excessively disruptive as everything would have to be adjusted across all of the various levels the player could be. Hearing the devs talk in the past about endurance management, I've gotten the impression that they really wish they did it differently, but accept the fact that it's such a rewrite of the game mechanics, it's best to just live with it and address it in specific areas.

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I agree with everything else you've said here, although I don't think the problem is as insurmountable as you seem to.

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No, the first 10 levels or so are easier than ever thanks to "Beginner's Luck". Now you can mostly ignore Acc enhancement in the early levels and either slot damage or endurance. Even with TOs, 3-4 in a power will make a noticeable difference. I prefer damage first. The faster they are dead, the less time/insps I spend putting myself back together after a fight. Even before Stamina, endurance still comes back faster than health.

But by 10, I can already feel things slowing down. Mob hitpoints are scaling up. Beginner's Luck is fading, and enhancements aren't doing much more than they were at 1. DOs help, of course, but it still becomes a chore until Stamina and SOs. I generally find levels 10-22 the least fun of anything in the game.

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This is my experience as well. Very correct.

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You're just reinforcing the argument that the system is flawed as it currently exists. At level 1 the game ought to play like 22.

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Fascinating. o.0

I find that I am able to defeat foes much faster at level 1 than I can at level 25. Generally, 2 hits will take down any minion at level 1. 1 shot from the Vet ranged attacks. At 25, 1 shot from the Vet attacks will take half, maybe more, of their health and leave the rest to me.

I am also able to run (with sprint on) from mob to mob to mob to mob to mob to mob to mob, with out having to rest, at level 1. That is with most of the powersets from all of the ATs. Yes, even the Tanks can do so, although a little slower.

Seems to me that I'm using less End per mob at level 1 than I am at 25. Of course, I may be "doing it wrong".

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All of what you say is true, except for the running with sprint on from mob to mob to mob. I have yet to see a powerset that can make it through an entire mission without Rest at those levels. In fact, many (I would posit most) powersets have to Rest after fighting ONE SPAWN, two at the most. Try doing it without the Vet weapons to one-shot one of them first, remember that not everybody has them and we can't rely on them as an equalizer.

Your end comes back comes back far slower than at high levels, and I would doubt you are using less end per mob as well, taking into account all the EndRedux you probably have slotted by that time. I do not have hard numbers on that however, but functionally, you're going to hit Rest a lot in the early levels, and most likely never once you get to 32.

Holy cow.... I can't recall the last time I have seen so many assumptions or so many words put in my mouth.

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The game doesn't even start to become fun until after 22.

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I disagree. I often find the post-22 game less fun. The slowest levelling I've had on my higher level characters has come at points when they are trouncing just about everything they meet.

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If the end redux were actually effective it might be a different story, but until you reach SOs, you might as well not even bother with enhancements; the difference they make is negligible.

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Do you solo much?

The reason I ask is that I solo a lot, and if my TOs or DOs go red I will notice. On a team... not so much, if it's a reasonably competent team, but then a lot of carelessness can go unnoticed in a team.

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I solo almost exclusively, and am an excellent player when on a team (since I have been playing for five years with a few extended breaks).

Fun isn't about slow leveling, it's about action. The more constant the action, the more fun. I find it very strange that you would equate fun with fast leveling.

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Eliminating TOs and DOs entirely and starting with SOs at level 1, as has been proposed by others, would go a long way towards fixing the problem, but it's still not sufficient because there simply aren't enough slots available to a pre-22 character to make a significant difference. Something like a universal reduction in end costs to every power in the game, or something easier, like a universal boost inherent regen and recovery, is needed in addition to that.

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Are you seriously proposing that the upper two powers of the Fitness pool should become an inherent? Why not make the Tier 9 an inherent as well? What's the difference?

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Oy. Where did I say that the Fitness pool should become inherent? Where?

Reading incomprehension+straw man argument=epic fail

I am not proposing that. I merely said one of the simplest solutions would be to increase the inherent regen and recovery rate. Nothing about movement or jumping speed, nor did I imply it should be a boost up to the level of Health and Stamina. *sigh*

Try to present actual arguments if you don't agree, rather than just attack opposing positions, mkay?

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Downtime is bad. Downtime is boring. Forcing downtime on the players is not good design.

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Handing everything to the players on a plate isn't good design either.

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Another straw man... I was going to refute it but it's so patently ridiculous on its face that I don't really need to bother. Except for this...

... Where did I say anything about "everything"?

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You're just reinforcing the argument that the system is flawed as it currently exists. At level 1 the game ought to play like 22.

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It's important to understand that the above is an opinion, and not a fact.

While I'm not a fan of being weak and slow, it's not an opinion I agree with. I beleive we should start weak and grow stronger. I absolutely do not believe we should start the game at level 1 as strong as we are at level 22.

Do I think there's no room for change? I wouldn't say that. I could agree with the notion that we don't have to be as weak and slow at level 1 as we are. But everyone's degree of tolerance for how we do function at level 1 is different, and your particular lack of tolerance for it is not a hard-and-fast proof that the system is "flawed". It just means you really dislike it.

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I did not say "as strong as". I said "plays like". Big difference.

The game is set up so it is physically impossible (or programmatically impossible if you prefer) for a level 1 to be as strong as a level 22. However you could easily make a level 1 PLAY MORE LIKE a level 22, and that would only be an improvement.

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End isn't that big a deal if a) you slot some end red in your attack chain and toggles, and b) you don't try to play like you're already level 22.

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That's exactly the point.

You're just reinforcing the argument that the system is flawed as it currently exists. At level 1 the game ought to play like 22. The game doesn't even start to become fun until after 22. Downtime is bad. Downtime is boring. Forcing downtime on the players is not good design.

If the end redux were actually effective it might be a different story, but until you reach SOs, you might as well not even bother with enhancements; the difference they make is negligible.

Eliminating TOs and DOs entirely and starting with SOs at level 1, as has been proposed by others, would go a long way towards fixing the problem, but it's still not sufficient because there simply aren't enough slots available to a pre-22 character to make a significant difference. Something like a universal reduction in end costs to every power in the game, or something easier, like a universal boost inherent regen and recovery, is needed in addition to that.

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end at the low levels just isn't a big deal for most ATs.

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So very very false. End at the low level isn't a big deal for SOME POWERSETS. For most powersets across all ATs, it IS a big deal.

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Let's add on to that the creation of anything involving the MA system:

Involves considerable effort to populate and choose maps (which may be gone the next patch), and fill in good writing into all the blanks, using a clunky, character-limited text editing interface (for those who are serious about it),

plus the repeated runs to test for balance/challenge factor (which can again change without warning from patch to patch)

all in an attempt to either enjoy the map for oneself (except repeated playthroughs may just hit an invisible tripwire that calls CS attention to your map)

or to attract other players to your arc for fame and recognition, with a borked rating system, a proportion of players who are no longer interested in playing anything MA due to reasons stated above, and the added risk that as you get more popular, people may mark you down or find something in your arc to "report for content."

Following which, your arc might get pulled due to overreaction about possible farms (be it CS following their hunches or a player reporting what they perceive to be a farm) or some other nebulous "you know it when you see it" guidelines.

My personal reaction? Meh. Too much trouble for now.

Perhaps in I15 or Going Rogue, they'll put in more flexibility for choosing powers and branching dialogue choice systems for better storytelling, and/or have worked out all the "farm/not farm" kinks.

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Yeah, this. Way too much risk for way too little reward.

... um, I mean too much work, for too little return. Yeah.