Samuel_Tow

Does it count as managing my expectations if I expect absolutely nothing to come of this that's going to help me?

Yes, but occasional knockback isn't the issue with knockback in general. What's the issue is chain knockback, since just about every critter in the high-level game seems to have knockback of some kind. For this, Hover does not work. At all.

My usual example is a swarm of Rikti Drones. About five will do. Fight that and you have a pretty good chance to be tumbled in the air with no repieve. I've seen it happen before, and it's not pleasant.

Hover provides partial mitigation by making knockback suck less, but it doesn't solve the core problem, which is that enemies have the capacity to immobilize you almost permanently if you happen to take on enough enemies at once. Only knockback protection solves that, for which reason I'd be perfectly happy to see an Acrobatics clone in Flight.

You appear to fail to grasp just how overpowering this would be and, by extension, just how big of an impact it will have on the game. Gating it behind veteran status only serves to create a community of haves and have-nots. Bad idea, just on its face.

Any time someone says "easy fix," you know you're in for a heap of trouble. There are no easy fixes for anything. Any time an "easy fix" is brought up, it just means we're discussing a "bad fix." The Arachitect should have been your evidence why it's pointless to design an entire elaborate game system if you're not going to let players make the most out of it. If you limit it so severely that only the stupid will want to use it, then the system is a pointless waste of resources.

This is like requesting that the developers port the game into the Unreal 3 engine just for the sake of having animated hair, and then gate animated hair behind the requirement to own AutoAssault. It's expensive, it's pointless and it's self-defeating.

To answer your question with a question: Are YOU serious? Because you are operating off assumptions which are wrong. First of all, precisely 71.99% of all statistics are made up, so I could easily counter your numbers by bringing in my own research suggesting that approximately 150% of the player base would fail to notice a launch screen notice.

Furthermore, you fail to account for the fact that "a launch screen notice" is a one-time thing. You can't clutter the Launch screen with announcements that "Hey! This new horrible system we just added is great!" when it's three years down the line. You can't put that in the MOTD, either, and since new people join the game and old players take breaks, you have to ensure such a message exists in the game for the long term. This is what I'm talking about when I say there are no easy solutions, just bad solutions. Your solution is bad.

Additionally, for a developer to take the position that the players will figure it out and write his documentation for him is remarkably stupid, to say nothing of a complete travesty of the job of a game developer, which is to deliver games which we can actually play. Games that ship without documentation don't last long, even in "this day and age."

Furthermore, you seem to be operating off the belief that you know better than the development staff, in regards to how many people visit the forums. They're the ones that have the real numbest, and the "only 10% of players visit the forums" stat is coming from them, and as such is a REAL statistc. Possibly a rounded one, but real nonetheless.

And, no, it's not the player's duty to trawl the 'net, looking for a manual for the game he just bought. It's the developer's duty to provide one, as well as to provide in-game instructions. To fail that is to fail as a developer.

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You have a remarkably high opinion of yourself. What you are pushing for is a largely unimportant, uninteresting little gimmick that has an enormous opportunity cost, massive support challenges and brings just about nothing to the game, but the fulfilment of a personal pet peeve, and worst of all, it flies in the face of established precedent. Don't act surprised with the responses you're getting.

I can find content, that's not the issue. I would like, however, to find content that:

1. Allows me to make progress after 50 and
2. I actually enjoy

I never said "repeated," I said "repeatable." Repeated content has no connotation within the context of an MMO, especially not one as heavily based on replay value as this one. It's just content. Repeatable content is significant, however, in that it's designed to be modular, vague and, most importantly, is is intended to be repeated over and over and over again in a short span of time. Sure, I have have run the Library of Souls arc many times already, but every time this has been done over a long stretch of time and with different characters. The Library of Souls is not designed to be restarted as soon as you finish it.

Paper missions, by contrast, are designed for a player to run them back-to-back. That's why they use basic frameworks with item and character names find-and-replaced. These missions have very little story, very little interesting gameplay, no characterisation thanks to being basic one-offs, and as such grow really old really fast. This is not true of story arcs.

Now, I'll grant you that it's perfectly possible for a player to sit down and run a story arc over and over and over again via Ouro. To each their own. But at every point in the levelling process there is the option to run a story arc that this character hasn't already done. I may be repeating said story arcs, but chances are the last time I ran any of them was months and months ago. About the only arcs I repeat every damn time are the Midnight Club and the Cape ones, simply because they serve as gates more so than content.

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I think it may be a good idea to run more characters through Praetoria, come to think of it. I haven't done that in a while. I'll probably do that once I'm done with my sabbatical. Speaking of which - I'm on the forums right now because I have one last day of work and not a lot of work to do.

Who, then, is a 35-40 contact, who further only speaks with you if you've done a respec, or used to anyway. And I've run his missions, too

I'll have to think about that. Before, my excuse for not exemplaring was that I would lose Stamina (which I got at level 49), but now that it's inherent, I suppose I could drop down into the 40-45 range, as well. Doesn't flashback put you in faux TF mode, though, or did they fix that?

That's still an option. Not sure how I feel about it at this time. Will have to come up with an answer.

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Mostly, I think I'll give City of Heroes a rest for a short while. See if I'm not just bruning out. I have a heap of things to do on Steam. Will try to do enough so that I forget where I was and try to start fresh. Probably means I'll have to stay away from the forums for a while, too, though at this point that's probably a good thing. Probably shouldn't mention other games for no reason, but I'll stick to playing the one that just came out for a while, I suppose. Maybe the problem with not wanting to "bother" will go away on its own.

I'm pretty sure 204 is a 40-45 contact.

I'd love to, but someone decided to make the unlock process SUUUCK, so that's not an option. I am NOT farming Paragon Protectors in some God-forsaken mission, and I'm certainly not about to slog through the Fab looking for the things. As repetitive goes, that's probably the worst of the lot.

That I've already run with this one. I wish I hadn't, as it's somewhat insulting to his intelligence, but I've done it either way.

Rein... Rein... Isn't Rein the one who directs you to your Patron? I'm not cross-checking on the wiki so I could be wrong, but if he is, yes, I've spoken with Rein and picked a Patron (Ghost Widow) and done all of those missions, up to and including the Time After Time arc. That one was pretty good.

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Beyond that, I've seen a couple of interesting ideas I hadn't thought of, but I don't want to do too many multi-quotes.

Architect: Not a bad idea. I keep forgetting that exists because it's so full of the dreck of society, but there are occasional arcs in there that are genuinely good. I don't think I have a good way of picking those out, especially since I hate "funny" ones, but I believe the bigger problem is that the Architect does not permit Incarnate progression, even towards the Alpha slot.

I meant to imply that, but let me state it clearly - I'm looking for things to do that will allow me to make some progress towards at least the Alpha slot, not just content to rerun for the love of the content. There's very little I haven't done multiple times now.

Side-switching: Again, not a bad idea in general, and one I'll consider undertaking with other characters, but this one is my flagship villain. He's evil. Unrepentantly so. He's unconcerned with simple wealth and certainly unconcerned with any kind of heroics, so that doesn't really work well for him. Not a bad idea, though.

Ouro old content: I keep dismissing this, but I suppose it's worth at least a consideration. It's been, ooh... Years since I last played a 45-50 villain. I think my last one was in 2008 or 2009 at some point. That might be an option, since I've just about forgotten all the arcs that took place there I don't even remember all the contacts' names.

Truth be told, though, I'll probably shelf the guy for another time. I have a few very old 50s like him, mostly villains (my old 50 heroes WERE Blasters, and are now low-level other things), and I guess I'll just have to let them sit around for the time being.

I'm kind of in-between characters right now, looking to play one that doesn't hurt me to stick with. My Dark/Dark Scrapper didn't really work out very well. I could only manage to stick with him from 38 to 44, so that's barely six levels (even if that's a lot in that level range) but he just isn't cutting it. I'm looking for something else that's good, and I was hoping this guy would be it. I guess not, but there are always other things to try.

*edit*
Just a quick note, and this is not a point I want to argue: Teaming would help, but only tangentially. I need a character to play full-time, meaning a character I play for a long period of time without swapping to others. I can't team ALL the time and I don't want to log out every time a team is not available doing what I want or every time someone pisses me off. I need a "fallback" option, at the very least, which is solo content. I'm not saying I CAN'T run TFs, more so that I want something else to do besides. Same with teams, as well. Would love to play on some, definitely, but not all the time, and I have no fallback for the rest of the time.

Back to browsing my character select screen.

I've been trying to teach people around my workplace to stop storing thousands of files on their desktop and instead, you know, file them in appropriate folders and instead put links to them on the desktop. It never works. Doesn't help that Firefox likes to save things to the Desktop unless you tell it otherwise.

...

Knockback consists of more than just being physically moved back. It also includes the time taken to recover from it. Without that time, knockback is nothing more than repel, only not continuous. There are VERY few situations where being slid 10 feet back without losing the ability to fire powers is meaningful.

I dare say the loss of control and the ability to use powers IS knockback. The distance travelled there is largely irrelevant. So inability to use powers until you get back IS knockback. So no, not just what was asked.

I want to take every chance I can get to bring balance to the world and agree with Leo, so here goes:

I agree with this. Asking for regular enemies to be made stronger is exactly the WRONG way to add challenge to the game. We've already seen the wrong way instituted in the Tin Mage TF, where all of a sudden simple Malta grunts can punch holes in supposed Incarnates with their basic Brawl, and Director 11 - SOME GUY - has the ability to lay mines without touching them, and these mines are capable of blowing apart supposed incarnates without doing any meaningful damage to a common warehouse.

What's the point of becoming godlike if we'll still be fighting the same old scum that we were dominating before? Did they become godlike, too? Why aren't we fighting NEW enemies? Even the IDF barely count, since they show up in 45-50 content.

Enemies that scale up with us is a good idea, provided they don't scale up for too long. The regular game makes a point to swap out old enemies for newer, "more powerful" enemies, in storyline if not in practice. This is the right way. Just slapping more levels to Hellions, on the other hand, is not the answer. I'm sure it's a simple task to slap 60 level shifts to a Hellion Slugger and use that as a default enemy, but who will that help?

To be honest, these guys have always bugged me. They're like contact introduction missions that take you to faraway zones you had no intention of visiting anyway, only slightly less obtrusive. It's twice as needless since you don't actually need to speak with him to enter. He's like some kind of attention-seeking mall cop who yells at people for loitering just for the sake of justifying his pay check, all the while people completely ignore him and mock him behind his back.

I don't remember if the Vanguard DOORMAN ever held useful information, but I see no reason why that information can't be put in a more prominent place, like in a contact's introductory mission or an obvious console somewhere. Just as long as it's something that either I have to go seek out, or that calls out to people in general without specifically calling ME out.

Though I must admit these guys occasionally highlight some remarkably stupid names that I normally just scan out of my brain. Like:

or

This is something of a psychological pitfall, in that if handled irresponsibly, it can do more damage than good. Allow me to explain.

A large part of "social" retention does indeed centre around making friends and seeking to be with friends. After all, we want to be with the people we like, even if they aren't always doing the things we'd want to do. The person, in thee cases, is more important than the activity.

I feel that an equally large part, however, also centres around the need to belong to something larger than yourself. I'd call it "herd instinct," but that's insulting and I don't want it to be. I don't want to call it "community instinct" since that's a bit more credit than I want to give it. In general, people need to feel that they're accepted, that they're "normal" and that there are others like them out there. MMOs are a great tool to foster that kind of emotion.

However, it's very important to foster that emotion without assuming that this is a MANDATORY part of social interaction. An MMO which gives you the tools and opportunities to belong is a great thing. An MMO which treats you as an outcast unless you belong to "the community," on the other hand, is a very alienating thing in the long run, especially for people who - like me - are by nature much more private than that.

There's this idea that if you FORCE people to cooperate, they will grow a sense of camaraderie and grow fond of each other, when in fact the opposite is also very possible - that people will resent each other and be turned off the game as a whole. I know a thing or two about how easy it is for a series of bad interaction events to make one view "the community" as horrible, unfriendly and unpleasant, and all it takes two or three persistent jerks.

I feel that MMOs which seek to retain players solely or even primarily on the quality of the personality of other players are making a mistake. In my eyes, a "live and let live" approach is much more profitable. We've seen time and again how people say "If I have to solo for more than a few missions, I go find another game to play," so we know there will always be a drive to team even absent of circumstances. Encouraging taming, even mandating it from time to time, is indeed a good thing, but leaving an out for people who don't want to "belong" and don't really need the company of others so much as they need a decent game is a definite must.

To give some context, City of Heroes' 1-50 game has about the right balance. If one were so inclined, one could do almost everything alone. Missions can be soloed, there are plenty of ATs that can play by themselves without much trouble, most rewards are there for the taking. There really is nothing to worry about. But if one were to hop on a team, then everything is easier, everything is faster, the dynamics of the game become more complex and many other things are improved. Incentive exists, but not in the form of mandate. In short, perfect balance.

I think a better example would be TrackMania, since ReVolt's track editor made floating platforms, as far as I remember, whereas TrackMania's editor was more along the lines of designing a real-world course with props, terrain heights, walls, lakes and so forth. Very, very powerful stuff that made for much creativity and entertainment.

There is that, yes. The problem with some maps is that room entrances can be at different heights, and not all maps conform to a specific tiered levelling structure. Offices do, they have a low, medium and high level to their rooms, so it's easier for them to snap together, but I'm not sure if the various cave maps do.

The tileset pieces do indeed match up against their entrances cleanly enough, the problem is that I don't believe there's any system in place to "snap" them together, so they need to be aligned by hand. In fact, pay attention some time and look for the "rings" around where tileset pieces are connected. In warehouses these represent a raised surface on the floor, walls and ceiling. In offices, this is sort of a step on the floor and a ledge around the ceiling and floor. In Arachnos maps, it's one of the mesh support rings. In almost every case, the joints between different tilestet pieces are hidden by extra geometry. Praetorian tunnels don't really have that, as large rooms are actually comprised of smaller pieces with walls missing, if you've ever noticed, but they're the exception, and the joints between them can be somewhat visible if you know where to look. I think...

But, in general, I agree. The developers need to work on making an actual map editor, even if it's just for their own use. Having a system of pieces which can be arranged to fit together is a great plus that needs to be exploited for easier map making.

I believe the problem is that there is no standardised "grid" that the various pieces can be arranged in, since corridors are not of a standardised length, so you end up having to judge distances by eye and set distances by hand. Remember, most track editors tend to have track sections that are one square long or two squares long and so forth, and larger pieces that are, say, 3x3. Now imagine if you had a track section that was 2.31 long, one that's 1.17 long and you had to connect pieces of 1.99x2.87 and 0.89x1.11. Not very easy to do, and would require a lot of manual work. So, yes, working on a level editor may entail tweaking existing tileset pieces to force them to conform to a given standard, and it might end up invalidating pretty much every single older map, but I still feel it is worth it.

Again, "the instances" are easily the number one complaint I've seen over the years, so they really ought to get a much higher priority than they do. If it costs time and money, then that's just what it costs. This IS the core game, after all. And this statement is not an opinion. Instances ARE the core game.

"A slight case of severe brain damage" is a Portal 2 quote, though the game is probably still too new for the memes to propagate. Sorry, I know it's not important, but I just wanted to try and ruin the joke. It's what I do.

Not like there's a point to posting on topic, other than to say that I don't regret putting The Coming Storm on ignore. If I'd known this was his thread, I wouldn't have even looked, but I have the bad habit of not looking at thread starters before I load a page.

Why not both?

Did I mention English is not my first language?

I have to disagree here. Not completely mind you, but disagree nonetheless. To boil down missions to "go kill" or "go click" is, in my opinion, to miss an easy half of what makes City of Heroes a great game - the story. I've played quite a few games in my time and seen quite a few fictional universes. This one is BY FAR the most interesting, for the simple fact that it's somewhat unusual for a game. I haven't read many comics, so those might be even more interesting (though Linkara makes it clear that they aren't always), but the point remains - the story matters.

At least, it matters in regular content, or did at one point, anyway. Incarnate content just doesn't seem to have much of any. Sure, the Ramiel arc is pretty well-written and there does appear to be a plotline behind the Incarnate system. It just never comes into play much at all. It's like the WoW story - who cares about why I have to go raid a floating castle in the sky? There be loot in there! S'all that matters. That's not a good thing.

Maybe I'm biassed, I don't know. I've been ragging on the story for quite some time now, because it feels like a great many of the newer stories we've been getting have been half-***** with the assumption that no-one would care, and that's a cryin' shame. But really - who COULD care about the story behind the Lambada or the BARF? Who, after running the things 16 times in a row? I live for the story and I wouldn't care. Hell, I've been running Tips in search for Hero Merits for some times and I stop reading their briefings the third time I come across one. How much do you think I'd care for a Trial the 20th time through?

I've always seen City of Heroes as a largely mediocre GAME that's good only because I can bypass most of its challenge anyway. What keeps me here are the amazing characters I create and the inspiring storylines I take them through even after all these years. Take that away, and all we have is a very old, fairly ugly static game that can't compete with the newer, shinier MMOs.

Yeah, it's probably not quite ten, but there aren't many. I know I always end up repeating Tips on the way to even just one Morality Mission, definitely repeating at two. That's not to say Paper/Scanner missions don't repeat - they do - and they are of a VASTLY lower quality, so I definitely have to give props to that. But no matter how much I like Tip missions, the fact remains that I stop reading them LONG before I get my second Hero Merit for the BotZ Knockback Protection thing.