Samuel_Tow
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Posts
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Quote:I don't fear criticism, either. But placing my work as an example of "good" when criticising the "bad," myself, usually invokes less criticism per se and more tearing down the opposition. I typically write for fun, not to compete.Originally Posted by Venture
I don't fear criticism. It's an important part of improving your skills. -
Quote:Clever solutionOriginally Posted by Tunnel Rat
I wouldn't call it new tech, though maybe a new technique. I believe the solution would be similar to what we did for Path Auras, which activate with an indicated animation state. If each weapon has its own animation state, the need to add an unwieldy number of options in the menu may be eliminated.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that pretty much what Build Up does for weapons sets already?
This does raise a counter-question, however: Does that mean that these auras would be universal between all weapons? I ask this for the same reason as above - Build Up. The powers "aura-like" effect takes on the shape and size of the Legacy weapons. These are both oversized and somewhat specific. It's rarely telling for swords, but I have a recent example with Battle Axe: When using the Vanguard Axe, the Build Up aura shows up very off-model. The reason is because the Battle Axe Build Up aura shares the shape of the Legacy Battle Axe, which is a double-headed axe. The Vanguard axe, however, is a single-headed axe, yet the aura appears to describe a second head on the reverse side.
If you make auras separate from weapons, doesn't that run the risk of having those auras be very off-model for the weapons they're supposed to be used with? For sowrds, some are broaders, some curved and some are small. For axes, not all have two heads and some of them are curved, as ell. For War Mace, some maces are very short and some are actually hammers with large heads not consistent with the Legacy War Mace morning star ball.
I don't mean to shoot down my own suggestion (wouldn't that be ironic), but the actually is a concern of mine. I wonder if it's not possible to rig weapons like Shields. In fact, they already are rigged like shields in the new editor when they weren't in the old one. As such, I wonder if it's possible to add auras as a weapon detail like the spikes on the Targe, the skull head on the Tribal Shield and the emblem on most others. Or would creating one aura per weapon be considered too much work even without the UI bloat?
Finally, if the decision is made to go with a single aura for every weapon class, will be you be trying to make it big enough to fit most weapons and trusting us to just not use it with weapons it doesn't fit or simply disabling it on off-model weapons?
I apologise if these are all technical questions that we really shouldn't worry about.
Yeah, that's what I was afraid of, and it's what I had noticed, as well as what I'd inferred from the Wikipedia articles on additive colour that BABs used to link us to.Quote:Originally Posted by Tunnel Rat
Unfortunately, I don't think an opacity slider is going to help you with this. The reason many fully saturated hues are transparent is that they are mid or low value colors. This basically means that if you were to convert them to grayscale, they would appear to be gray or dark gray. With additive particles (particles that add light to the scene), the only truly opaque value is white. Anything less bright than white will have some degree of transparency. So an additive blue, for example, cannot be opaque, and will always be influenced by colors in the background.
Speaking of which, would it be possible for you or one of your colleagues to one day make a guide to colour transparency in City of Heroes? I have some vague idea of how to predict which colours will be transparent on what backgrounds, but I spent days reading up on it and I still get my additive colours wrong as often as I get them right. Questions like "Does the game calculate everything in greyscale or does it use RGB or CYM?" and "When are primary colours more transparent and when are they less?" come to mind, among others. Considering this is not part of the game's combat and reward balancing, having us know the ins and outs shouldn't give anyone a real advantage (unless we count wisdom and skill) to know this.
Obviously, it's a question of time and inclination and not at all something we have any right to demand or expect, but I still feel it would be VERY helpful. I, myself, have had to explain additive and subtractive colours to people before, and considering how little I know about the subject, it's been the blind leading the blind a lot of the time.
There's something I want to say here: Pyronic Judgement is AWESOME! I love it! It's easily my favourite effect in the entire game, and I say this without exaggeration. The first time a friend of mine showed it to me and I saw this thick, dense, opaque fire, I thought to myself "THIS is the kind of fire I want! Why can't Fire Blast/Melee/Armour look like this! Argh!" I love it, I want more of it, and if you could ever find the time to do the same to more existing sets as a power customization option, I would be positively ecstatic. Trust me - I'm a pretty hard guy to impress and please, but this leaves me speechless in awe.Quote:Originally Posted by Tunnel Rat
There are ways around this, such as setting additive particles in front of nonadditive particles. Pyronic does this, which makes the colors brighter and less influenced by the background. However, most of the older effects use purely additive colors. If I get the opportunity to make alternate effects for some of these additive sets, I'll take an approach closer to what we did with Pyronic.
In the word of the poet: WANT!!!
My thoughts: Go for it. I've always, always, ALWAYS hated the Quarry model swap, with its gimp toe and funny head and perpetually extended middle finger. Even without power customization, I'd still want to see the Granite Armour model go away. On the downside, transforming my character into a giant monster of solid rock was fun, and it was the cornerstone - if you'll pardon the pun - of one of my signature characters. On the upside, the existing model is terribad and I would not be sad to see it go for a moment.Quote:Originally Posted by Tunnel Rat
In other news, I expressed on the last Ustream marathon that I believed Granite Armor could be made customizable. I'll be devoting some of my free time to exploring this possibility. The trade-off would be that the Devouring Earth model is done away with, and replaced with a more generic-looking model that is placed over the character's body, similar to the rest of the Stone Armor powers.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this trade-off. Thanks to those who have already posted their opinions!
I don't know if that makes me biassed and my opinion less valid (a point I wouldn't contest), but what you suggest sounds like a huge improvement.
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And, wow... That's all I have for now
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Quote:Speaking of which, you know what I would have appreciated for women in terms of gloves? Bigger hands! Man-hands, if we want to be low-brow about it. I propose an experiment of sorts. Go into the editor, make a female character, make sure you're using Smooth/Bare gloves and note the size of her hands. Now tab through the options and pick either Large, Banded or Large Robotic and note how much bigger the actual hands of the model are. Not the forearms, not the elbows, not the big metallic junk. I mean the actual hands - palm, fingers, knuckles, thumb. I want hands like that for my female models, only without the gloves.Originally Posted by Aneko
Don't forget the complete lack of gloves.
In fact, the Barbarian set was the perfect opportunity to give women bigger, more muscular arms in Robotic Arms, and give men EVEN BIGGER, more freakishly muscular arms for theirs, since the male arms are already way, way big. Hell, if I had a working pigg diver and a road map, I could probably graft Foreshadow's arms on an existing female model, but I don't want to risk getting myself banned with this. Suffice it to say I'm pretty sure it's doable. Well doable, in fact. -
Bases don't interest me in the slightest, especially with Matt Miller making it very clear that bases were meant to be TEAM content, so if they ever allowed you to invite offline characters, this would NOT extend to your own. Fine, Matt. You win. You can have your bases back. I don't want them any more, since I have no use for them any more. Not even a theoretical future one.
I say this not as a putdown (against base-fans, that is), but rather to provide context as to why I will only be focusing on discussing costumes below.
The importance and priority costumes in this game have been given since it was made back in 2004 astounds me. It took us, what, until I4 to get a SINGLE new piece entered into the game? Admittedly, it's a lot better these days. Prior to Freedom, we were getting about one full set in a Booster every three to four months. David has been very exciting about what Freedom will let the art team create in terms of costumes, but I have the feeling that's his enthusiasm speaking ahead of marketing and management.
The fact remains that SO MUCH MORE could be done with costumes, both in terms of the volume of costumes added and in terms of complexity of their design and the subsystems required to make them happen. But more is explicitly and intentionally NOT done because costumes as a general thing just never seem to be a major priority. Not even when we were shelling $10 for them, which surprises me. Categories like Robotic Arms, Assault Rife, Medieval Helmet and more have not had additions to them since farther back than my memory goes, and some have not had additions to them AT ALL. Weapon Sets like Assault Rifle have over half their inventory comprised of ugly, untintable, inappropriate stock weapons pulled out of NPCs and the only Robotic Arm with a big glove to this day remains Tech Wired/Steampunk, from seven years ago, with a whole of TWO extra robotic arms - Clockwork and Cyborg - added to it, both of which we had to pay for in one way or another. If I want to have an asymmetric large glove, it HAS to be Large Robotic Tech Wired.
Then we hear that power customization is not considered a priority and is not being worked on. Even if that's a rumour, it's what I was thinking before I heard it, anyway. The last attempt at power customization additions was the new Blaster animations, some of which were actually good, but which was faced with a profound cry of "That's it?!?" It's very much appreciated, but I know it for a fact that people wanted, and indeed expected much more.
I don't know what the art team is doing. I'm sure they're sunk up to their ears in hard work - I don't doubt their skill or commitment even for a second. City of Heroes has never looked this good. My question, however, concerns WHAT it is that they're doing and WHY it is that they're not making more costumes. Call me crazy, but I'm tired of new zones and new enemies. I want new things to put on my own characters.
For instance, have a look at this. This is Stardiver, and she could never have even existed were it not for I21. She's a combination of IDF and Celestial bits, with some Stealth and other bits thrown in. And I love this costume to bits! Yet without new costumes, it could never have happened. This is important. It needs to have a much higher priority than it does. -
Quote:Eastern Europe, former Soviet block until 1989Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Sam, where are you from? I've been trying to make my own inference but A) your English is impeccable and B) I know you don't speak it natively so, being American, I'm stumped. I don't generally make a secret of my nationality, but I try not to rub it in people's faces lest I start to sound pretentious. Well, MORE pretentious. I was fortunate enough to study English for the entire 12 years of my primary and middle education, but as I tell everyone who asks - studying English doesn't teach you English. Using English does. Believe it or not, it is these very forums that gave me both the practice and the examples of good language that eventually taught me how to speak and write properly
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Quote:Yeah, that's exactly what I like about it. As the ONE SINGLE muscular skin for females in the whole damn game, I revoke your right to complain about it. Ever.Originally Posted by AmazingMOO
Second, that Barbarian top with skin is awesome, but it comes with a REALLY muscular texture for the model's chest, arms, neck and waist.
About the only problem I have the Barbarian set is that all of the chest pieces come down to below the solar plexus and cover up the abs. What's the point of using a muscular texture for the top if I will then cover up the abs? -
See, this is why I don't have my own (very old) Architect arcs in my signature and why I don't hold them up as examples of great writing - because they really aren't. About the only time I cite my own work is to prove the point that you CAN have a story arc without a contact that still works just fine within the game's mechanics without putting thoughts in your head.
In short, I hide my arcs because I fear the criticism
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I get that the huge ungainly coins are a good way to attract the short-span attention of new players' FPS/ADHD-addled minds (as well as a good way to demonstrate utter contempt for said new players, but I digress), and I appreciate the effort, but I honestly don't see a reason why we can't turn those abominations of graphical design off just the same. They throw a shadow, for cripe's sake!
Please let me turn them off. They're very ugly and I know who my contacts are without them. -
Quote:Great googly moogly! I knew about inspiration combining and even I forgot to mention it not having been taught in the new Tutorial! Yikes... Shows how blind we become to usability issues once we become familiar with a system. Thank you for reminding me. That's a damn useful bit of advise.Originally Posted by Rapthorne
including a VERY CRUCIAL game feature of combining inspirations(because you never know when you'll need to do that to get an arise).
To be fair to the new tutorial, none of that has EVER been explained, to the best of my knowledge. Task Forces exist, but you're never told about them. Back in the day when City of Heroes was supposed to be more like EQ (and before WoW even existed), you weren't told jack ****. Stores in the game existed, but no-one told you of their existence or where to find them. A paper map of the city came with my box edition back in 2004, and little squares on it led me to locations where I found Origin stores. I didn't know origin stores were even IN the game. I thought DOs and SOs were supposed to be just random loot drops.Quote:Originally Posted by Rapthorne
I only found out about task forces through a friend, about the sewer trial by an accidental misclick and I still don't have the faintest idea about certain (pretty important to some) aspects of the game such as PvP, badge accolades, what the fire alarm in x area thing means, or what a "bank raid" is.
Back in the day, the game didn't tell you almost anything. You were expected, I infer, to find TF contacts on your own, guess what they were for, how many people they needed and what their level range was and how to run them. Sure, the original ones were right next to trainers so you were expected to run across then and, naturally, try to speak with them in a time before contact coins or ground circles. But then they started throwing TF contacts around on an empty field somewhere on the butt end of nowhere (hello, Moonfire!) so good luck with that. As for the LFT system, I still don't know where it's explained. I was here when it was introduced and I still don't know how it works.
Granted, the game was always bad about documentation and player training. Somehow, I don't think making it WORSE was the right solution. -
Where
do I
begin?
Hideous writing
Roy Cooling: This story arc is a mess beyond description. It feels like someone's stream of consciousness put to digital text with missions drawn up around it. It makes no sense, it gives no context, it explains nothing and it makes no sense. Also, it makes no sense. The writing is rife with spelling and grammatical errors, and not just from Roy himself, the plot is a disjointed sequence of events which falls apart when you think about it and it's the exact same godawful boring "stolen item" plot in every story ever told. Item (or schematics, or data, we're not sure) gets stolen, thieves get played for fools, someone gets kidnapped, hostage exchange. It's a by-the-numbers story that still somehow manages to fail at absolutely every level.
Dr. Greaves arcs 1 and 2: Biggest mess of railroading nonsense in the game by FAAAR. This arc commits the cardinal sin of putting words in my character's mouth which are also incredibly stupid, making me feel like a knuckle-dragging idiot. You don't write stories like this in a game where people make their own characters. You simply do not. If words must be put in characters' names, then options must be given. This storyline commits more travesties against player characters than I can count. And it's written VERY sloppy, to boot. I quoted a random text for unrelated reasons out of one text box, and it ended up having a "viscous stare" in it completely by accident. It's rife with typos and suspect grammar, and it is NOT written as a story arc should.
Crimes against canon
The Origin of Powers: Never in my life have I seen such an amazing fictional universe so thoroughly disembowelled by a horrible idea. The Origin of Powers' entire storyline takes what is a very open, very varied world and not only clenches it by the throat, suffocating all creativity that ever existed, but it uses deus ex machina to reduce EVERYTHING EVER down to a single plot point. This is a crime against fiction so bad I don't think I have an apt metaphor to describe it, though I'm sure if I actually read comic books, I might. DC's Countdown comes to mind as a comparison, though.
Mercedes Sheldon: Specifically her final arc. The Warriors, as such, were originally intended to be a modern-day street gang who sought to replicate the Greek ways in search for honour and glory, essentially. They accepted their ideals, but still adapted them to modern gang warfare. Mercedes Sheldon takes what is an otherwise conventional gang and has then re-enact the Iliad for no real reason. Alexander "The Great" Pavlidis was an ordinary, sane man who simply borrowed the name of a great (Macedonian) ruler as his moniker. He didn't believe he WAS Alexander the Great.
Godawful BORING
Unai Kemen: To clear a thousand outdoor instances is the game's single worst, most boring arc by a wide margin, and I say this with no hyperbole. Unai's entire arc is one case of "Your princess is in another castle!" after another. Oh, are the scientists in this dimension? No. Are they perhaps in THIS dimension? No. Are they in this one here? Yes! But only half of them. Are their other halves in this dimension? No. And so on and so on and so ******* on! This whole arc is a time sink, nothing more. They had enough plot for precisely three missions, and they stretched it out to 23. Argh!
Dr. Quaterfield: If Unai Kemen has the game's most boring arc, Dr. Quaterfield has the game's most boring TF. Go to ParagonWiki and read the souvenir. "You cleared the first base. Then you cleared the second base. The, finally, you cleared the third base." This entire TF has no plot. At all. It doesn't even have a setting. Here, I'll spoil the whole "story" for you: Crey have an inter-dimensional portal. Full stop. This did not deserve to be a 20+ mission long marathon of utter boredom.
Harvey Maylor: His arc is a horrible, boring, repetitive, pointless arc. It has no right to be even half as long as it is, yet it wastes my time by sending me on pointless missions. "Go to the spirit world!" the game says, and I go. I find nothing, and I'm told "Oh, you found nothing. Guess that trip was a waste of time." Ya think?!? Half the arc consists of going to the Spirit world fifteen god damn times, each time getting one more clue as to Vanessa's past, all of which could have been condensed into a single mission, or two missions at most, saving me the time and pain of repeating essentially the same two instances ten times over.
Idiot ball bonanza:
Kelly Uqua: Christ almighty, this arc treats both me like I failed my IQ test. Kelly Uqua is a Rikti spy by the name of Kel'Uqua. I'm not spoiling anything, that's obvious pretty much from the word go. And yet I have to spend the entire arc scratching my head like a knuckle-dragging idiot trying to figure out why the woman who looks like a Rikti, acts like a Rikti, cavorts with Rikti and is said to be a Rikti spy by no less than two separate people seems suspicious. If I end the final mission, I never even suspect. If, on the other hand, I fail the final mission and the Ballista's message goes through, I begin to suspect that maybe, just maybe, there was something wrong, but I don't know where. Because I have the IQ of a box of hammers.
Dr. Graves second arc: "Mental time bomb" is all I have to say. The game has me act like a complete idiot, it has Dollface, Dean John ******* Yu and even Dr. Graves make fun of me, all while I don't even realise I'm being mocked. I'm not a smart guy in real life and I still found that offensive to my intelligence. It's not funny, it's just degrading. To me, personally, let alone to my character.
Continuity snarls
Tina McIntyre: In her arc, Vanessa DeVore makes an appearance. I appear to know full well that Vanessa DeVore is the leader of the Carnival of Shadows, and she appears to make no effort to hide her identity. That's a 40-45 arc that I tend to play around 41-42. Then at level 46-47, I take on Harvey Maylor's arc (levels 45-50), where his very first mission has me invited to a party by Vanessa DeVore, who everyone knows as this famous socialite that I'm there to rescue. Apparently, neither I nor Harvey know that Vanessa is the leader of the Carnival, in the level range AFTER she is played as an obvious villain. So which is it?
Maria Jenkins: Meeting several of the recurring Praetorians in that arc causes them to react like they know me, Marauder saying "I won't lose to you again!" or something to this effect. This presumes that I have played Tina McIntyre's arc which... I actually haven't on nearly every character I took through Maria's new arc. Why? Because Tina's arc is 40-45, and the characters I took through Maria's arc were 50 before their arcs were renovated.
Angus McQueen: Most of his entire arc, the man spends his time trying to prevent the second Rikti Invasion, apparently blissfully unaware that the second Rikti invasion is already taking place in the Rikti War Zone. His arc is still good - one of the best around, in fact - but it makes no sense within continuity.
Out of character characters:
Anything to do with the Rikti War Zone: The Rikti don't "talk." They have no mouths. They communicate with each other telepatically. What they say isn't just funny speech or a "translator," it's simply the best we can comprehend of their speechless thoughts. Once upon a time, the Rikti never spoke. EVER. One particular mission even specifically states how the Freakshow fight with taunts and insults but the Rikti fight in complete silence. But apparently, because "Rikti talk" is funny, the writers decided to give them sitcom-style dialogue, and now they blather absurdities all the time in all of their arcs. Because it's funny.
Malta in paper missions: Malta are supposed to be a clandestine, secret conspiracy which rules the world behind the scenes. They are the Illuminati, they are are the Knight's Templar, they are the New World Order. No-one knows they exist, and when they act, no-one believes it was them who did it. And then Stupid-Fool-1-0-1 challenges me to a duel in the local paper. Smooth move, guys. Smooth!
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That's all I can think of at the moment, but there are more. -
I don't think it's so much a question of ability or opportunity as it is of priority. For some reason, the simplest of costume additions always seem to have the lowest priority irrespective of the amount of work they would take to create. It seems that everything which requires someone to sit down and devote a day's worth of work to and so needs to be scheduled officially suffers from the "Shadow Shard syndrome," or the "Perpetual Soon syndrome." Take your pick.
I hope weapons take on a higher priority, but considering that in order for more weapons to be made, something else WON'T be made, then priorities would have to come into question, and I'll need a bit more convincing before I fully trust Paragon Studios' priorities again.
I mean, seriously - what precisely is keeping me from using Beam Rifle weapons for the beam rifle attacks in Mastermind Robotics BUT development priorities? -
Quote:You can turn them off if they annoy you. There's somewhere in the general options menu, I believe. The only reason I haven't turned them off is I keep forgetting to do so. That, and I'm paranoid a Pop Tip might be introduced that I haven't read, for what that's worth when I don't read the ones I see now anyway.Originally Posted by Mr. DJ
The Pop Tips are an annoying QoL feature that I wish would go away...
And I'm not really saying the game will befuddle new players with its staggering complexity (though to be honest, I've had that in a lot of MMOs) so much as I just wonder what the point of having a tutorial is any more when it's not really a tutorial as such. It's cinematic, I suppose, but it no longer seems to retain its original function.
And honestly, I don't think a tutorial has to choose between being boring but informative or being "exciting" but sparse. Look back to something as simple as the original Half-Life tutorial to see how well that integrates as part of the actual game. Sure, it can be preachy, especially when you know what you're doing, but it doesn't sacrifice tutorial explanations for the sake of a more action-packed game. To be honest, I actually kind of like my tutorials to be calm, slow and methodical so that I have the time and concentration to focus on what I'm being told and practice it, rather than just being told about it and tossed off the deep end to figure it out at a later time.
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I have, if you'll permit a slight tangent, seen quite a few games which start off tossing people in the heart of hectic but easy action without so much as telling players what their controls are. Over the course of this action, basic functions are explained as they become prudent just so players know they exist, and by the time the tutorial is over, players are stripped of whatever awesome power was making them invincible, dropped back to beginner status and started all over with the basic controls and functions. That's exactly what Darksiders does to introduce a lot of its in-game mechanics even long before you need to use them, such a that of the Chaos Form or the Block Counter.
To be honest, I'm not a great fan of these kinds of tutorials because they fail to ground the game for me, and grounding the game into the framework of player responsibility is important. You don't become truly aware of the danger until you get killed and start keeping an eye on your health. You don't become truly aware of your offences until you find them insufficient and have to worry about managing them. You don't worry about your inventory until you start to need to think about it.
To me, a tutorial should not be a completely safe environment that trades hands-on experience with the game for basic flash, because what a tutorial needs to teach players is responsible gameplay: Don't die, don't swing like a spastic monkey, keep an eye on your inventory, keep an eye on your goals. Of course new players need to have their hand held, as there's nothing worse than a game which stomps your face in 60 seconds in, but the hand-holding should be to highlight the player's responsibility, not hide it.
This isn't about not being able to die in the new tutorial, not entirely. It's about not really having to do anything or even think to pass it. You can't die, anything you so much as touch explodes and the Giant Shivan gets pushed back into the put whether you attack it or not, even with no other players present. The tutorial shows us a lot, but it doesn't ask us to DO a lot, and so we're prepared for a hands-off experience that one can sleep-walk through, and that's really not the case for the low levels, ESPECIALLY not for brand new players deprived of veteran powers and veteran wisdom.
To me, a good tutorial should NOT complete unless the player demonstrates the ability to replicate the knowledge he is being taught. -
Having some sort of points-to-goods transaction history sounds like a very good idea to me, both so I can remember what I've bought and when and so I can keep an eye on what's taking place with my account. Call me paranoid, but I don't like anything happening with my money (or surrogate money, in this case) without me being explicitly notified every time it happens, which in the case of Paragon Store purchases with points isn't the case.
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Quote:I don't know. It seems like getting anything done that has artwork attached to it is like getting blood from a stone around these parts, especially if it's not something high-profile like a whole new zone or a whole new powerset. David spoke of being able to make costume pieces now which, unlike before, didn't have to be part of large sets, but what it would take for those costume pieces to actually be new weapon models, I couldn't tell you.Originally Posted by Zem
At the risk of invoking a Standard Code Rant, is a weapon model really that much work? You could practically take some of the existing sword models and just lengthen the handle and make it work with katana. Or is this little bit of model work followed by weeks of pain-staking hand-animation done by Tibetan monks or something?
Adding weapons to existing weapon sets seems to be in the same boat as adding new power customization options to old powersets - it's not a priority. Sure, the NEW weapon sets seem to get a modicum of love, with Beam Rifle getting a lot of really cool options, but old weapon sets that aren't Broadsword just seem to be ignored.
We'll see how that goes, but my bet is we won't see very many lone costume pieces sold in the store and not very many of those will be weapons, and not very many of those will be for anything other than swords. -
Quote:No, no, no, of course not! Nothing is as bad as a two-hour wrestling show with six minutes of wrestling in itOriginally Posted by Matt_King
Easy now, I don't think anything in this game is /that/ bad.
No, but I mean that in the sense that little by little, the talking time is starting to encroach on the wrestling time in City of Heroes in a similar way. I like complex game mechanics as much as the next guy, and I do - believe it or not - really appreciate dialogue trees. But I also want action out of my gameplay. You know - a little less conversation, a little more action, please. I don't mind long talking scenes if that's what a story demands, but I'd also like to see long gameplay scenes in-between, and the newer style of mission design doesn't really seem to account for that.
I can understand this being the case in a tutorial arc if much of this talking... If the talking were about tutorial stuff, but it's not. And it worries me that this is considered great design because the development team has started outright removing older missions from the game and replacing them with new ones, and if more talking than action is to be the standard of new arcs, this has me REALLY concerned. Especially if said talking makes my character sound like a hollow-head caricature of a proper person written by someone who wanted to make me as low-brow as the rest of the intentionally-contemptible cast. -
Quote:Yes, but the thing is - what I "learned" in the Tutorial, at least when I ran it, I learned from the Pop Tips that aren't really unique to the Tutorial itself. It's quite possible I missed some of the instructions, I admit, but I don't recall there being other such than the Pop Tips, and possibly one or two additional pop-ups. About the only real thing I learned, as you said, is how to level up as there was a trainer actually IN the tutorial, training with whom was part of my mission objective.Originally Posted by Mr. DJ
As far as I know, the Pop Help Tips are there if you decide to skip the tutorial, much like how Twin Shot sends you to Ms. Liberty to learn about training, even though it's a bit late.
Beyond that, though, the Tutorial doesn't really have you do anything the game wouldn't have had you do if you skipped it, and it doesn't tell you anything more than it would if you skipped the game and relied on Pop Tips. In fact, let's review what we're asked to do in the tutorial:
1. Jump over a pit, so jumping, which is subject to Pop Tips.
2. Run to a waypoint.
3. Click on an object and make a moral choice which WILL NOT show up in the rest of the game in the form that we see.
4. Run to a waypoint.
5. Defeat 3 enemies, with no explanation given as to how aside from Pop Tips not unique to the Tutorial.
6. Train up, which is a legitimate lesson.
7. Fight in an event that, to be best of my knowledge, doesn't resemble anything else in the game, at least nothing I've ever done. If anything, it resembles the fight against Strage from the Darksiders tutorial which also doesn't teach you jack ****.
8. Purchase from the Paragon Market. Of course.
9. Enter a helicopter that you won't see for the next 20 levels at least.
None of the things I mentioned come with any real instructions. You're just sort of told to do them in the same vein as that Penny Arcade skit where a man is drowning and a helpful person is giving him advise like "OK, now drown less." What instructions there are come in the form of Pop Tips that would have popped up with or without the tutorial.
So here's my question - in what way is it better to start a brand new player in the tutorial as opposed to starting him in the game proper? What knowledge would he be missing which he would have had otherwise? -
Quote:That's kind of a veteran thing, though, and speaking as a veteran, I have that power which generates three medium or often even large inspirations every 30 minutes.Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
True, but I do prefer using the tutorial inspirations (singular now) as my start up capital on my characters over using other characters as ATM's.
All of which I learn from Pop-up Tips that pop up regardless of whether I'm in a tutorial or not. The first time I jump, the game tells me how to jump. The first time I target an enemy, the game tells me how to target enemies. The first time I take damage, the game tells me about hit points. The first time I run out of endurance, I'm told about endurance management tools. I know all of these because I constantly neglect to turn off Pop Tips and I see those pop up over and over again on every damn character I play, new or old.Quote:Originally Posted by Mr. DJ
-learn how to move
-learn how to target
-learn how to train
you don't like it, got'cha, but don't be obtuse.
And I wouldn't call this being taught how to train, because the actual process of training up is not complex. Where people fail the most is being able to locate their trainers in the overworld, not knowing that they can use their map and what the icon for trainers is. This is something the old tutorial didn't teach, either, as I've seen at least a few people get to level 6 without realising they could train up to get more powers. I recall a person who got to level 20-ish not knowing that he could slot more than one of any type of enhancement, which I still haven't seen explained anywhere, in the new game or the old, or indeed in the old Manual, which shows a power 5-slotted with five different enhancements.
Let me reverse the question on you: What do you learn in the tutorial that you wouldn't have learned through Pop Help tips if you'd skipped it? -
Quote:Normally, I'd agree, but even without Issues, Issues still seem to exist by virtue of some things being emphasised and other things being forgotten. Were I at all convinced this were as simple as one graphic artist taking some time away from making Crotch Melee to cobble together a couple of Katana options and put those in the store, I would LOVE that as an option. However, even with the freedom to create costume pieces a la carte, creating costume pieces a la carte still doesn't seem to be an option if those costume pieces aren't part of a theme that is currently being worked on.Originally Posted by Zyphoid
No need to even do this any more. Just have the art team make a few a week and add them to the store. Shoot, one new weapon a week would be awesome, and I am sure be guaranteed purchases for the majority of the player base.
As we recently found out with the proliferated sets, the Art Team was working on something else and couldn't be spared even for one rotten Assassin's Strike animation, let alone being spared for any meaningful number of new weapons. They're always busy with something big, so I'm simply proposing that that something big be a big load of weapons once for a change.
Of course, if we CAN get one new weapon for a different set every week, then I would buy those every time. Why would I not? I would also buy Beam Rifle if its weapon options worked for Mastermind Pulse Rifle, but apparently they don't, so I end up having no use for the set. Too bad. -
Quote:Would that they were fun missions, but that's the final nail in the coffin - they aren't fun. Like the new tutorial, the actual missions are a waste of space because they don't allow me to do anything. Half of them are entirely and solely dialogue and the ones that aren't only have a couple of spawns in them. Other than the couple of showdowns with Zephyr and Dollhouse's mansion, almost all of them take place on tiny maps with a handful of spawns an tons and tons of fiddly objectives, one of which I managed to break by speaking with a Skull captive before the game expected me to do so.Originally Posted by Matt_King
Just relax and enjoy them for what they are: new, fun missions for a low-level villain.
As missions, neither Dr. Graves' nor Twinshots' arcs are any fun. They are slow, plodding, gimmick missions that have me read text for hours on end and hide all the action from me. The only fun to be had with them is the narrative, and when that narrative is insulting, there's nothing else left in the arc to enjoy. The combat certainly isn't any fun, since I have to wait half an hour just to run through five spawns of something.
I praised Veluta Lunata's arc recently, and the contrast couldn't be sharper. All Veluta ever required me to do was go inside a large instance and then find a boss or an objective and either kill it or click it, respectively. What happened in-between was pure City of Heroes - solid, balanced fights that didn't interrupt the action with more gimmicks. THAT was the game I fell in love with.
For all their talking, it's amazing how neither Twinshot nor Dr. Graves spend much time talking about the game's mechanics that they're supposed to be teaching. I'm starting to feel like I'm watching TNA Wrestling here. -
Quote:More American TV, you mean. I don't get that on local TV here, as it looks like a commercial. That's not to say we don't get US commercials, but they're usually dubbed over, swapped for completely different products and re-written, but I haven't seen this one.Originally Posted by Mr. DJ
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Quote:Non-rule, indeedOriginally Posted by Silver Gale
I'm guessing this particular instance is someone trying to follow the non-rule of "never end a sentence with a preposition". And, really, as a non-native speaker, these just aren't things I should be holding people to task with as most of the time I'm simply told "that's just how some people speak." This one, in particular, stood out to me as the last in a long line of other such poorly planned sentences sprinkled throughout the arcs' briefings, clues and most notably dialogues. It may be nit-picky of me to be annoyed by these, but they make the arc come off as unpolished, crude and rushed, which drastically lowers my tolerance for the other, more subtle and subjective shortcomings.
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Quote:Or here's another even more alien suggestion to me - don't play that waste of space and skip the tutorial altogether. It doesn't teach anyone anything, it's not fun, it's not exciting and it's not well done. I'd rather beat up random Skulls and Hellions in the streets than get through that hectic mess a second time.Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
Or here's another, alien and out there suggestion: go and play the tutorial and wait on setup until AFTER you're out of the tutorial.
I didn't like the "alien invasion" tutorial in Champions Online and I don't like it any more in City of Heroes. -
Quote:It's hard to miss Twinshot, but there's nothing about her that says "Tutorial." When I played this without even knowing there were "continuing tutorial missions," I simply stuck to my originally-presented contact chain which seemed to offer a consistent storyline and left Twinshot for last. I didn't realise she was supposed to be a tutorial contact until I think three missions in when I was told to go to the hospital, then the police station, then the Market and wait a minute! Are you trying to show me that these things exist? Is that one of those "continuing training missions" I heard about? Well, that would have been useful to know ahead of time!Originally Posted by reiella
I dunno, it's pretty hard to miss the big popup that tells you that you got a new contact and how to reach them... Not like you have to chance on either of them or anything.
If new players are supposed to run these arcs and learn from them, then it makes sense to at least let them know that, doesn't it? I'm a seven year vet and I had no idea this was supposed to be a tutorial arc before OR after I spoke with Twinshot. -
You do know that sharing accounts is against the EULA, right?
*edit*
Also: "Man law?" The hell? -
Quote:Unless they were setting up the character of the writer as someone lacking an editor, then syntax, spelling and grammar errors in the arc just make the execution come off as shoddy and amateurish. And when the arc is already degrading, that just adds fuel to the fire.Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
Really now? We're going to have people (or just Sam) posting 3 page long rants about spelling or syntax errors, some of which were probably intentional to set characters up?
I'm glad you enjoyed it, I really am, and that's saying something considering I don't like you. But you appear to have liked it for exactly the reasons I hated it. I hate the Chosen One storyline and was hoping against all hope that it would simply be forgotten like the Shadow Shard. I hate being made someone's servant, I hate being someone's stooge and above all, I hate dialogue trees that make me say things my character never would.Quote:Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
The villain arc did something that City of Villains never was able to do before: it made me feel like the Arachnos/Chosen One stuff mattered but that doesn't mean I get to be a Mary Sue right out of the box. These are villain characters. Them calling me a n00b or an idiot or trying to set me up the bomb is to be expected. Yes, the twist at the end was telegraphed almost from the first mission, but that doesn't mean it's not miles above what we did have before: aimless missions that randomly sent you to fight Snakes one second, Infected the next, then Arachnos.
To be honest, I'd rather have missions that have me fight random things than missions that put words in my mouth. Yeah, the "Go there, do that, get paid, get lost!" shtick of red-side was always a load of crap, but at least it didn't make a fool of me for running it, Kelly Uqua notwithstanding. They were just missions that I accomplished, saying NOTHING in the process.
It's the dialogues that piss me off the most, by FAR. If the arc had had me play the same part in it, but played me as a Gordon Freeman style of silent protagonist, I would have probably even enjoyed them. Have people tell me things, assume my silent - SILENT - agreement and just roll with it, and I would have been considerably happier. But no, whoever wrote it wrote it for his own villain and when I play it, my villain has to roleplay as the writer's villain. I have the unfortunate misfortune of actually having an aide of how my villains would behave, and the parody of a villain that this arc requires from its protagonist isn't something I've ever written for any of my own.
You nit-pick my arguments and ignore important points, Tazer, but the ones you ignore are the most vital. I don't want to sound like an evil Daffy Duck. If the arc had given me a choice in how I sound, fine. I'd have picked the most appropriate version. If the arc hadn't had me sound like anything at all, fine. I can deal with the plot elements. But to put words in my villain's mouth is just bad writing.
To be honest, I actually enjoyed the third arc greatly, myself. Partly it's because my character doesn't have all that much to say which couldn't be boiled down to (suggest <character> help you), and partly because I actually didn't see the plot twist coming quite as it did, despite having seen screenshots of Dollhouse's Mansion. For the FIRST time in all three arcs, the narrative actually took itself seriously and presented both a legitimate encounter and a dramatic moment, and the final arc is considerably better for it.Quote:Originally Posted by BeornAgain
Now, for the first 2 sets of missions for Dr. Graves, I admit, I was thoroughly disappointed. Every hack plot device, every M.Night Shamalamadingdong "with a tweest!" twist, and every tired and weary (and very 'not me') dialogue tree I trudged through just because I wanted to get it over with.
Then, along comes the 3rd and final story arc. Admittedly, I saw this coming a mile away. However, I enjoyed the 3rd one much more.
The first two arcs are parodies of the game and the source material - and of my character, to boot - but the final arc is a proper story in itself, and well told at that. If I could run JUST the final arc, I probably would. In fact, I could probably write a reason why you're running it without having run the previous two within the span of 15 minutes. That final one is great, but the first two arcs of crap are not worth trudging through just for that. I will not have words put in my characters' names if I can help it, especially when said words are neither neutral nor give me a choice in the matter.