Samuel_Tow

That's actually what the quote says. I'm not "reinterpreting."

While I agree that the general sliding scale argument of how level shifts will become mandatory because people will look for perfect teams is indeed "bollocks," I feel this is only half the point. The rest of that post still applies.

I can say with utmost certainty now and would even be willing to bet money on this (mostly because the developers have already said it, but why not make a quick buck?) that we will be seeing both level-shifted enemies and level debuffs for players. The former has been promised, the latter exists as precedent. This is not a debatable thing. This will happen. It is, in fact, just about the easiest way to add difficulty to content that I can think of, far easier than tweaking enemy spawns, enemy powers, enemy stats or task mechanics. Append a level shift to the enemies, slap a level debuff on the players and you've already made content "two levels harder" without so much as touching said content.

In this regard, level shifts may not become mandatory because players will be rabid for super teams. This has failed to happen at any previous point when it was threatened and I'm sure it will fail to happen now. However, level shifts may become mandatory because content will be built to expect them. When enemies are shifted up and you are shifted down, you begin to need to find ways to make up that difference, and given how the purple patch scales, the most direct counter is, in fact, level shifts.

And I don't feel that this is a bad thing, per se. I mean, that's how real levels work. Your enemies start spawning with higher levels, so you get higher levels to compensate. Granted, the cause-and-effect structure isn't quite similar, but there's nothing wrong with higher level enemies requiring higher level players, even if those are "false" levels we are talking about. What IS bad, however, is that said higher levels are considered elite exclusive content, so (not if but) when level-shifted content comes out, we'll be facing a rather serious question: How mandatory are level shifts now that enemies are using them for themselves and against me?

I don't have an answer to that yet, so I'll let people come to their own answers when that comes around. But I'd advise everyone to start thinking about it early.

"Things you can get shards from" are not Incarnate content, however, since they don't have anything to do with the Incarnate storyline, nor do they assume you have Incarnate powers, as I expect Incarnate content to do.

Yes, non-incarnate content can be used to earn Incarnate "points," that much I agree with, but this doesn't solve the problem of there not being much actual incarnate content. One of my capital problems is the vicious circle of "raid for stuff to raid with." The only place that really calls for your Incarnate powers right now is the same place you unlocked them from to begin with.

However, consider the following question: What do I actually DO with these powers? Go back and run pre-50 content? I could, but that'd be a lot like going back to do outlevelled content against green and grey enemies. I could, but it's a bit underwhelming.

This isn't a question of nostalgia for the familiar look of the old UI. The new UI simply sucks, and the only think I like about the old one better than the new one is that it sucked less. Additions and changes to the game should not make it worse, and it's hard for me to think of a worst UI design decision than putting text against a background of the same colour.

I don't have a problem with the basic design of the new classic team window. I have a problem with it because it's bugged and because it's hard to read. Fix the scaling bug, fix the text colours and no-one would complain any more.

Well, OK, I'm sure people will still complain and ask for the old menu, but you won't see nearly as universal a backlash against the thing if they'd actually fixed it so it doesn't ruin our eyes.

First and foremost, I realise this is a purely theoretical discussion for much the same reasons as stated before - nukes need to be looked at, and they simply won't be.

That said, I don't want nukes to be "cost free," I just want a different type of cost. Even swapping the 100% endurance drain with a 100 point endurance cost would be a vast improvement, since that can be slotted down to around 50, more if you consider Incarnate slotting. I feel a nuke's cost should be less in its crash and more in its... Well, cost. Endurance cost, recharge speed, slotting requirements and so forth. Yes, it would be less pleasant to build, but it would be more pleasant to actually use.

I don't contend that. I don't get on an ITF thinking "Man, I am so gonna' shine here!" Even I'm not that deluded. However, what I insist is that while a player need not feel special at all times, a player should have the opportunity to feel special in all content ranges. What I mean by this is if large-scale Trials aren't a great place for personal glory (and they're not), then that's fine. Can't really have it both ways. Which is why I maintain that we "need" an alternative which is both Incarnate content AND allows us to feel special in a self-centric sort of way. Hence - Incarnate story arcs.

Please read this as a pragmatic response, not an emotional one:

I've had instances where I've had to go "away" from the keyboard without actually having to step away from the computer. I have a cell phone I keep on my desk, so when that rings, I go AFK to answer it, but I don't get off my chair. Other times I need to take a break to eat something, but if said something is easy enough to eat, I'll eat it at the desk. I'm talking things like sandwiches, pizza slices, candy bars and so forth. There are quite a few things I can do where I can't play for a bit, but I can still see what's going on in the game, and sometimes even chat (with one finger of one hand).

Or, much more simply, I'll get distracted fighting a lone runner, get stuck on a table near a wall or stop to rest and watch the team go on without me.

Sometimes I'll see a team move on without me and get horribly murdered or scrape by the skin of their teeth and then return and wait for me to come back, much to my apologies. Other times the team will move on and run at a pace that is not perceptably slower and at a level of danger that does not appear to differ from when I was there. This isn't very often, but that's mostly what I'm talking about.

That's kind of what I'm talking about, yes. However, it seems to me that this is much more often the result of things going wrong than the result of how things are intended to work. Still, I don't want to diminish the concept, because I do agree with it.

Almost, but not entirely. Let's see if I can give sort of an example:

Suppose you have four people carrying one corner of a large heavy square metal plate. Each of these people is important, and if one suddenly drops his side, a corner digs into the ground and the carrying fails, not because the other three people aren't strong enough, but because it's awkward to carry like this. Now imagine the same metal plate carried by four people, one at each corner, and a fifth person sort of crouching under the centre. Sure, he might help add a bit of lift, but he isn't really needed, and the other four can still carry the plate by themselves. In fact, it'd probably be less awkward with just four. They don't have to pat each other the back and compliment each other or buy beers for each other in order for there to be clear that all four people are necessary.

I don't need to feel that people are greatful that I exist. I need my contribution to the team to matter in a clearly obvious way. Even if people don't appreciate it, that's fine, so long as I know that what I'm doing has a meaningful purpose.

I liken this to my first experience with a Kinetics Defender. At the time, I had no clue in heaven what that guy was doing. He's casting flashing lights, sure, but what does that do for me? I don't know. But the moment he left, the team stalled HARD. It was at moment that I realised that, whatever that person was doing, it was helping us a great deal. So long as I know the system is designed to account for this, I'm happy.

Oh, here's another example: The Lost Vikings. Each of the three lost Vikings can do something special the others can't, and you need all three to pass all levels. In the oldest version of the game, you had one who could jump, one who could guard and one who could fight, and all three were necessary. If you lose Eric, you can't jump over the gap and lower the bridge. If you lose Baleog, you can't kill the mummy in the way. If you lose Olaf, you can't get past the jet of fireballs. Each of them is important, and none of them is extraneous.

A big off-topic, but I suspect this may be the best approach, providing the "chain of command" functions well. The more the people a leader has to command directly, the less organised everything becomes, so splitting people into smaller units seems like a good idea.

I call back to Battlefield 2142's model of team structures. You have one overall Commander who can issue commands to Squad Leaders, who then pass those commands off to their Squad Mates, who are then expected to follow them. Squad Mates can only make requests to their Squad Leader, who can then decide if he'll pass the request onto the Commander, who will then decide if he wants to fulfil the request. By breaking the chain of command into smaller groups, you lesson the information overload on any one leader. Even teams of 8 are a bit largish, but even then, a leader only has to worry about 7 other people and his given overall objective.

This also simplifies communication overload, as well. In a monolithic group, each person has to be aware of every order, because each person is given every order, most of which shouldn't apply to said person, and he has to keep too much in mind. In smaller groups, a person only gets the orders that directly relate to him and doesn't have to care about anything else, making for more focused gameplay.

I'm not sure a super hero game is the right place for these tactics, myself, as they feel more appropriate to a military style game, but I don't want to make that argument for real.

This is probably the one part I want to comment on the most. I don't want to take away from your enjoyment of the writing, but I have to go Venture on this one and completely disagree. Praetoria's writing was pretty good, but it's ruined by the ham-handed approach to introducing morality to it, and anything since then has been a right mess. Current writing almost completely disregards the game's timeline, often ignores canon partially or entirely and doesn't actually make for a good story.

A big part of my disappointment is that newer writing is starting to feel like an unimportant excuse to bring us from one mission to the next, and no-one cares to treat it as a legitimate story. Most of the time, stories are even written with placeholders. Like, we'll be looking to recover the "thingamajig" because it's very important for the "doohickey machine." WHAT am I looking for? WHY am I looking for it? Remember those old Rikti piles of bones? "doesntmatter." And it bugs me, because it feels like stories are rushed out and not given due attention.

I don't question that the game's actual subsystems are good ideas, even the ones I don't specifically like. But the meat around those bones is starting to feel neglected. Costumes, powers, effects, animations, zones, flavour text... Unimportant. And even the systems themselves are coming out flawed at times. The new "classic" menu is horrible, for instance. The LFT queue leaves a lot to be desired, even above and beyond kicking people from it.

When I said "It feels like an EA Games project," that's what I meant. I don't question that EA Games make good games... Occasionally. But they always feel like the publisher is putting in the absolute minimum effort to produce the greatest possible sales, and supplementing lacking gameplay elements with Skinner box time sinks.

Of course, I could be wrong, but there's no changing how I "feel."

First of all, that's not actually what I said, and what you paraphrased my post into isn't what I said or what I meant. However, even if that were what I said, this isn't an accusation. This is a fact. "They" know who they are because I've already called them by name in the past, and "they" very much have vilified me with various at-length posts explaining how I'm anti-social, how I'm unworthy of having my opinion considered and various other instances that I don't feel like listing.

As I've gone on at length in the past, I don't have a problem with people who enjoy the new systems, and am actually happy for them. Who I do have a problem is the Internet tough guys who feel the need to explain how much I suck and how therefore nothing I say should be considered.

And it's not like I haven't involved myself in these past discussions you mentioned. I was here, same as you, and I took just as active an interest in them as I do in this one. Probably not as technical interest as you do, granted, but no less of a concentrated one. I'm not saying the ED flame wars or the Inventions ones were benign. Far from it. But I did not see quite as many sinister, malicious arguments as I've seen this time. And I'm not saying they're restricted to one side or the other. You'll notice I've been careful whose position I stand behind, even when a whole bunch of people are arguing the same "side" as me, as I disagree with a lot of the more spacious arguments and disagree with the malicious tactics used by "my side" just as much. This does not change the fact that my character has not been attacked so relentlessly ever before. Point of fact, and I trust my memory of how I've been treated more than your memory of how I've been treated, no offence intended.

I'm more not having fun on the forums, to be honest, which is why I give that impression. I'm also the kind of guy who ******* about what he hates, but doesn't tend to focus much on what I like. Contrary to that impression, I'm actually having a LOT of fun in the game. Just... Not with Incarnates.

I rerolled a level 50 Fire/Fire/Flame/Incarnate Blaster into a Fire/Fire Scrapper (for reasons I've gone on about before) and got her to level 36 before I even knew what had happened. LOVE the combo, and she's one of my favourite characters, too. One half of my Tale of Two Hearts (available somewhere in the RP forum if anyone cares about an 85 page story ), so getting to play get again without hating myself for playing a Blaster was a nice experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and in fact forced myself to stop playing her so I could leave on a positive note and have better memories of her in the future.

I've spent the last couple of days doing an almost complete respec of my level 38 Dark/Dark Scrapper, I redid all of his costumes, I changed up his concept and rewrote his bio from scratch, so basically I changed everything I could change without paying money. Right now, thanks to the weight of changes accumulated over the six years since I last played him, he's awesome. I LOOOVE playing him, and managed to get him from 38 to 40 in a couple of days, thanks to Zamuel's Admiral Stutter TF. He lacks much of any AoE, but he's just evil in combat, between Soul Drain and Oppressive Gloom. It's almost unfair. And he looks awesome. And after I ran his concept through the Vulpish one, we managed to craft an amazing story together. So I'm really happy with the character.

I'm pretty sure my Scrapper will hold me over until the Vanguard pack, when I have a couple of level 40-ish Blasters to remake into using Vanguard Longswords and Vanguard Claws, as well as a 46 Dual Blades Scrapper to get to 50 if I can get her better weapons. So I have things to do for the foreseeable future. I'm not done with the game. I'm still having fun. It's just... People's attitudes and ugly dismissals just rub me the wrong way. If I'd had the good mind to ignore the Evil Geko right from the start, I might not have gotten as bitter, but that's one lesson learned. Truth be told, I'm getting close to doing the same to Claws, as well, since he seems to be determined to show me as a hypocrite or some such, and there are only so many times I can clarify what I mean when words get put into my mouth before I lose patience, but I'm not quite there yet.

Yes, very likely. The reason I keep going on about not being a competitive person always feeds back into this: Failure and insufficiency does not motivate me to try harder and work more, it motivates me to not bother and try something else. I don't claim that this makes me a great member of the human race, but it is what it is. However, it does get a bit disappointing when I can't eat my cake and have it too even in make-pretend fictional worlds that I even pay to be part of. And that's not to say that "I pay $15, do what I want now!" so much as to say that I am willing to pay for a fantasy that I don't have to "work" for. I don't need other people's recognition, I don't need to confirm my worth as a human being. I just want a fantasy where good things happen to me because "I'm the hero! This is my story!" Pretty much the same reason I watch movies and read books.

As the brothel owner in DA2 said: "And for 50 silver, someone pretends to like you for an hour." I'd go for that.

The reason I complain as much as I do is because I worry about the state of quality in the game. Now more than ever. And while I have no problem with people who like the game still - hell, I DO TOO - it just ticks me off how fast I fell from "fanboy" to "troll" status for the simple fact that I stopped singing the game's praises even in the face of obvious faults and began criticising it even in the face of obvious perks. I know the few "I'm glad you like it but I don't." posts were in response to posts saying things to the effect of "Well, I like it, therefore there is no problem."

Again - I don't want to take people's game away from them. Goodness no! I just want us all to have a bit more objectivity in these discussions and see past our own noses and, more than anything else, to stop the ad hominem "well, there's something wrong with your head, which is why you don't like this" arguments. These help no-one, because they come down to an argument for why another person should be ignored and not matter. And I can count at least three instances when that has been done to me. It tends to grow old.

This doesn't have to be a war, but it can't be peace if that just means some of us simply don't matter.

To set the record straight, yes, it was How much of a joke my disappointment was I'll leave up to the reader, but that's what I was getting. Seriously, that could make for one... Interesting thread. I mean, why DID Anti-Matter design those things with breasts, anyway?

I think I misspoke and you read my post as saying something else. I'm not looking for recognition from other people, I'm looking for recognition from the system. Whether other people notice my absence or not is just a symptom of power balance. When I say "and nobody notices," I don't mean to say "I regret that my contribution was not appreciated" so much so that "the team was strong enough to run with fewer people than are actually on it." When team strength is such that my contribution is irrelevant, I feel like a freeloader, even in instances when people try their darnest to reassure me that "No, really, it's OK, you're helping."

It probably seems self-centric of me to say this. It probably is. But the fact of the matter is that praise and reassurance is irrelevant. I know most people in-game are kind souls whose tolerance for team-mates is rather much more benevolent than the forums would suggest, so I know they really have no problem with me being on the team. But what I look for is the game system facts, and the game system facts are that the team performs well adequately with or without my intervention. Whether or not my presence is appreciated, I am factually useless to the team at this point, because I am not improving anything. If I left, the team would not be worse off, lack of idle chit-chat notwithstanding.

But here's the thing - I don't need to be on a team to engage in banter and chit-chat and hang out with friends. I'm more than capable of doing that over personal tells and over global channels, and have been doing so or years. So when team dynamics are such that my character ends up being superfluous to events happening on-screen, I feel smaller and useless. It doesn't mean I get depressed, but it's not how I prefer to spend my leisure time.

About the only time I make an exception to that rule is the instances where my character may not be very useful, but either my knowledge of the game or my organisational skills do play a part, which isn't very often. The last I can recall is running an Admiral Stutter TF with Zamuel and a few others, where we were doing VERY badly against double Durays, to the point where people were saying "We can't do this!" These are the times when someone needs to step up and say "Yes, we can! Back up, regroup and let's try this another way." Since Zamuel was lagging to hell and back, it fell to me and the team leader to organise, simply because we were the two loudest guys on the team. But that really only plays a part when things go back, which is generally not something I prefer to come to.

The problem comes with difficulty scaling and character power. As teams get larger, any specific player's contribution becomes less visible, even to the contributing player. It's twice as bad for me since I don't build for power, but rather for concept, ease and comfort, which leaves me behind the curve in even more ways, for lack of set bonuses if nothing else. The simple fact is that teaming with other people simply demonstrates to me that they are better players (and they are) and ruins my ability to live in my own little fantasy world of awesomeness. Rather than motivate me to try harder, it ends up demotivating me to not bother, for the simple fact that I'm not a competitive person, or even a very driven person. I come here for fun and leisure, not for achievement.

I'm not saying I won't do large-scale events ever for any reason. I probably will when opportunity falls into my lap. I AM saying that I'd like to do other things most of my time, since "other things" is what I enjoy, whereas large-scale events feel more like work or a chore. I know for a fact I'd almost never do them if it weren't for the rewards tied to them, which ought to say something.

In case I forgot to mention it before, yes, this is indeed the Dragon Ball Z effect, where characters' objective strength is largely irrelevant, because their enemies always seem to scale up with them. The only instances where objective strength becomes relevant is when they talk about destroying the planet and in relation to how much of an explosion their power-up is going to make.

As I said before, level shifts are an easy way to keep increasing our numbers without necessarily increasing our strength.

No, it's not. In fact, that couldn't be further from the truth. I don't need other PLAYERS to compliment me, because this again puts me in a meta-game competition to do well enough to not just beat the game, but beat it well enough to impress other people. And impressing other people has never been my objective, or indeed my priority.

What I need to do is impress THE GAME. When my contact tells me "And if it wasn't for you, we could never have stopped this in time!" is when I feel accomplished. That's when I feel like THE hero. I don't have to have accomplished anything any other player couldn't have done in his sleep, and that's OK, because the illusion of achievement is what I'm after. I've never been interested in "actual" achievements in my video games, because any achievement in a video game is ultimately illusionary. I just prefer the ones that don't pretend to be real.

I've never felt the need to stand out and be recognised for my skill, knowledge or whatever else might be recognisable, even if I'll accept that when it happens. Instead, I do my best to use any talent I may be "recognised" for to help others excel in that same field, and if possible even surpass me. I have, just as a random example, been praised for my writing skill on the scant few decent works I've produced, but rather than take pride in that, I've chosen to help others who've asked me for feedback on their own written fiction.

I don't need real achievements, because I don't WANT real achievements. This game, and indeed any game, does not have to be or feel "real" in any sense of the word. I'm perfectly happy living a make-believe fantasy where all the achievements in the world are fictional and made up, and entirely based on the story and setting, rather than the people participating

I don't need anyone's praise or recognition other than the game's, and I DO get that when the story tells me so, or when I feel like my character's skills are necessary to the team. And any and every team over 4 people that I've ever been on has failed to give me that feeling, because any and every team over 4 people I've been able to walk away from the keyboard without anyone even noticing I'm gone.

This attitude is greatly disappointing, as it amounts to "I'm more important than you because you're playing the game wrong, so I have the right to ruin your fun however I like." And we used to have such a friendly community.

Well then I'm not longer interested.

I think you're misappropriating an argument here, if ever so slightly. I've somehow ended up with a reputation as a rabid hater of raids, and have indeed talked about quitting the game (but having nowhere else to go) and even I'll tell you that this is disingenuous at best.

I can only speak for myself and at most a couple of other people, but the complaint in itself was never about the specific Trials, themselves, or the specific implementations or the specific numbers. Those can be changed and tweaked as time moves on. My biggest complaint and biggest fear lies elsewhere completely. It lies in a very pertinent question: Where is this game headed?

Years ago, I'd never have stopped to ask that question, because even when I didn't get what I wanted, it was still at best a mild irritation and the game still seemed to accommodate me as a player. The rollback of the I4 boss buffs was a happy happy joy joy time for me, if for no reason other than that it reaffirmed the direction of the game as one which didn't hate players. The ability to scale AVs down to EBs was one, as well. So I knew that even if they added ugly red electricity or time sink story arcs or PvP and such, "the game" as a general concept was still heading in the right direction.

I'm not sure about that any more. I've already been told once to stop holding on to the past of what the game was, and that was not a pleasant thing to consider, seen as how what the game WAS is what I originally bought, and it seems like everything City of Heroes used to stand for in the past is slowly phased away in favour of what I can only describe as lowest common denominator fads. I used to see City of Heroes as a game being made by people who actually liked the game, whereas now it feels more like a game being made by people who like the revenue but aren't terribly particular about how that happens.

The game's complexity increases, and increases, and constantly, but the game's quality has - and I'll be frank here - not been this low for a very long time. And I'm not just talking about the numerous ugly bugs that have cropped up. The writing is "they just didn't care" bad, content is cutting corners and giving us ever less and less of a volume, "luxury" items like customization additions, costumes and environments are at a premium, developer communication has never been less frequent... It feels like I'm playing an EA Games product these days, and my concern is starting to turn frighteningly real. And that's saying something, considering how many years I spent being called a "fan boy" by people discontent.

What concerns me the most, however, is this apparent drive to sweep said discontent under the rug by discrediting the people feeling it, and vilifying them as some kind of intellectual vandals seeking to take parts out of the game down seemingly out of sheer malice.

This is a major change for the game, and I don't think you can afford to ignore its effect on the community as a whole.

The thing with that, though, is that we quickly run out of mechanics when we're looking for diversity on such a fundamental level. There really are only four power types - single target, cone, AoE and location, with AoE possibly being split into PBAoE and Target AoE, but that's still only five. Sooner or later, we'll have to repeat mechanics... Provided there's ever the will to expand, which I hear there is some of.

And again - I can't really argue against a "whirwind of death" type of melee power. Precedent exists in virtually every melee set in the original CoH game. We have Whirling Sword, Whirling Axe, Whirling Mace, Whirling Hands, Fire Sword Circle, Ice Sword Circle, Spin and even in newer sets we have The Lotus Drops and Typhoon's Edge. So there's plenty of precedent for such a power, suffice it to say.

I don't disagree with this. I just want to see more/any "regular issues" that deal with the post-50 game. It would be very depressing to think that there will be no "regular" content post level 50. That alone is enough to kill my enthusiasm. And I'm not saying I want... And I'm not saying I expect this to happen INSTEAD of multi-team Incarnate Trials, but more that I want to see it IN ADDITION to them.

And, yes, I do look to the Incarnate system post 50, because it's a new quasi-level-range, at least in how it's defined by its mechanics.

I have a counter-question to you: Why do people want wide-screen plasma TVs when simple CRTs can still display most everything? Why do people want luxury cars when any old banger will still drive you most everywhere you need?

I'll go one even simpler - why do people play video games when there is precisely nothing to be gained from doing so, any more than can be gained from sitting down and twiddling your thumbs?

"Why do people need this?" Is a facetious, to say nothing of irrelevant questions, which is tantamount to dismissing the entire argument out of hand. People want these things because people want nice things.

Hey, you just gave me an idea for something to do while the servers come up. It's just so funny that I had to dig into Windows 7 system properties to enable "Windows Games"

I more meant the fact that the arc takes you through multiple missions where you take down two Praetorian bigshots per mission, and all of them end in desperate NPC chat, like "Defeating me solves nothing!" Yeah, but I still kicked your fat ***, Mr. Top Dog!

You have a point that returning to the old story arcs with Incarnate powers does make for an air of superiority, and it's one I do enjoy. However, it also kind of feels like cheating, since that is, after all, "outlevelled" content. I mean, I'm not opposed to running it, but it's content we were dominating even before.

However, your point stands - taking your gains from the Trials into more common story arcs IS a massive ego boost. I just wish there were new ones within the context of the Incarnate system to run, rather than going back to what's starting to resemble "All that crap's grey to me." territory.