Samuel_Tow

I stopped seeing these forums as the friendly, mature community that "we" like to pat ourselves on the back as being about six months ago. I'm not sure if that's when the change happened, or if that's when I personally noticed it, that being the the first time I started to get actually concerned for the game and expressing "unpopular" opinions.

However, the mere fact is that if you hold an unpopular opinion here and you dare express it, you become a pariah, and otherwise reasonable people will not think twice to resort to surprisingly low-brow insults, passive-aggressive goading tactics, false dichotomies, opinion-as-fact and a whole slew of other malicious argument, all seemingly with the hope of stamping out dissenting thought.

When my stomach turns just seeing certain people's names, I can no longer say that this is a nice, friendly community in good conscience, because it isn't, not unless you filter out a great many people.

I hold no obligation to be "understanding" of the work of a professional development team, a team that I am a paying customer to. If I like the product, I will say so, and have on many occasions that people conveniently forget. If I don't like the product, I will also say so. That's what the forums are for. City of Heroes differentiates itself from other games through the direct line of communication with have with the development team, however much some posters would like to sever that line. I intend to use this to make my opinion know, for what that counts. My honest, unedited opinion, not a reined in version that omits important points.

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I don't like I20. I like it even less than I thought I would when people were insulting my intelligence and telling me how much of an idiot I was for doomcrying without having seen what's in the Issue. In 20 Issues so far, I have not seen one that has had so little for me, and I count things like PvP which I don't do, base building which I don't care about, Inventions which I'm not interested in, Safeguards which I hate, badges which I'm not interested in and and really any Issue that I can think of to name.

Furthermore, I have never before felt so genuinely depressed for the future of the game than I do right at this moment. I see a feature list which horrifies me to my very core, and I can just see the pride with which it is written, as if saying "Tune in for more of this!" I'm a patient man, I'll see this through... But I've never, ever had to rely on patience before.

This is my opinion of I20. If you don't like it, you are free to not read anything I say ever again, because it doesn't look like I'll be saying anything new. If my dislike of the Issue makes you angry, then that reflects on your own personality more than anything else. Me not liking the Issue shouldn't take away from your ability to enjoy it because - as I was reminded countless times - my $15 is worthless, so no-one should really care if I stay or go or how I feel about the game. I'm one of those repugnant solo players, after all, and as such you won't be teaming with me anyway. There's no reason for you to care.

I'm done arguing for my right to have an opinion, an I don't intend to do so again.

What do you want from me, man? To just shut up and go to hell? I don't like these changes. At all. What, do you want me to just stop talking altogether? If you don't like what I'm saying, then don't respond to me. If it bothers you that much, then put me on ignore. But please, stop trying to "fix" me.

You're happy. I get it. We all get it. Can I please be allowed to be unhappy, then? I never hounded you for being unhappy. Why are you constantly hounding me?

Kragoss, my embodiment of destruction, wields a power that is the manifestation of pure destruction, reducing matter into complete nothingness. It spreads and catches like fire, but gives off no heat and instead consumes energy.

I'm not sure if that counts, but I like it

I hold no obligation to be nice to the developers and look the other way when they do yet another thing that takes me out of my skin. Not any more. Their credit with me is up, and I am done holding my tongue.

I'll hold my breath and wait. Not indefinitely, but I'll wait. However, you have no right and no place to ask me to LIKE it. I don't, and I won't, irrespective of how much you may like the new additions. I'm happy you're finally getting something you want. It's only been, what... Five, six years for you? You deserve it, and I mean that seriously.

But please don't insult my intelligence by accusing me for not being all sunshines and roses when I have never, in my seven years here, been less excited about this game. It's getting to the point where just reading new Issue features is making me physically ill, and I mean that in all seriousness. Sure, it doesn't help that I'm already ill, but reading over that list of features was just that little bit extra I needed to just lose it completely.

I'm still here, I'm still waiting, I'm still giving the game a chance. You have no right to ask for anything more than that.

You keep twisting my words. I never said anything about "100% acceptable to everyone." But can you see how I might be disappointed that what was announced is about 1% acceptable to me?

I'm far past asking to be thrown a bone here. If the forum population hadn't made it clear to me that I'm no longer welcome, the development team sure just did.

Like I said, I'll give the game another year or two. I don't think anyone can argue that's not enough time. But what I've seen in these last months has robbed me of any enthusiasm I might have had, to the point where it's starting to eat into my brand loyalty, and THAT concerns me.

Let's not forget that it's an Issue I paid money for, as well. But you're making the I7 argument, essentially: I7 was villain-centric, which apparently made people so mad that every single Issue since has been hero-centric, to the point where we have to keep reminding ourselves that villains still exist, and aren't, in fact, stand-ins for the heroes. But they still don't have their own content, they're just allowed to tag along on hero content.

But, yes, I know how you felt. Can we call it even now and try to strike a middle ground?

Would that it were. However, the more we see of the intended storyline, the less this holds true unless one were to indeed just stop reading any in-game text not found in the combat tab. And this isn't a recent thing, either. Railroading storylines that sideline our characters as second fiddles to the NPCs who actually act out the plot have been with us since day 1, but they didn't become truly prevalent until City of Villains decided we all wanted to be Arachnos lackeys, even if we didn't want to want that. And where Going Rogue promised to offer more freedom, it ended up railroading us even more, just giving us two sets of tracks, both of which heading in the wrong direction.

In a way, I almost feel sorry for the 1-20 Praetorian writers. They clearly put a lot of effort and talent into bringing that world to life, only to be hamstrung by an unnecessarily resterictive gameplay structure and a storyline which eventually made all of their efforts irrelevant since the Praetorians are now Invading Aliens #1123422.

I am literally sick (as in, running a temperature) and seeing still more reasons for heroes and villains to band together to fight a common goal only makes my head hurt more. I've said it before - the less reason heroes and villains have to work together, the better. After a certain point, the faction divide becomes meaningless, and contacts' vein attempts to account for why villain players exist in hero content comes off more as irritating than appropriate. So much of the most recent "banding together" just feels like hero content that villains are let in on, that I can't even bring myself to hate Levantera for her "Don't like it? You should have joined Longbow!" line.

Why would I play a villain if I'll end up filling in for the heroes anyway? Why would I ever play anything other than a hero when the game's primary storyline is heroes protecting the world from various flavours of invaders while villains, um... Exist.

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The Praetorians can feel proud of themselves for having joined Longbow and Arachnos in the trifecta of factions people got sick of almost as soon as they were introduced. And the reason for this reaction is simple - one day I woke up, and the whole world was about the Praetorians. Out old big bads took a back seat to the Praetorians, at least those who didn't join them, and all our big goods were involved fighting the Praetorians. All of out new systems involve the Praetorians, and all of our new storylines deal with the Praetorians.

It's Nerva Archipelago all over again. And the factions are only getting more and more monolythic.

Weren't there alien invaders threatening to open a portal back to their homeworld? Wasn't there a ravager trapped in an alternate dimension waiting to come back into ours? Wasn't there a nazi ubermenschen waiting to take over our word? Wasn't there a dark god waiting to awaken? Wasn't there a Leviathan? By my count, I17 had to do with the Praetorians, as both story arcs harkened back to that, I18 WAS Praetoria, I19 was two Praetorian TFs and one Praetorian-centric story arc, I20 is mostly Praetorian, and I can't wait to see what I21 does. In the meantime, the 5th Column made the world's most embarrassing comeback I've ever seen, but apparently we don't talk about that.

I'm not "demanding" anything. I look at the new Issue and discover it has two Trials, two TFs, an improvement on the system for finding Trials to play...

And Respec Badges plus more Black Helicopters in Nerva and Grandville, I assume one near the Primeva beach and one at the Fab.

I don't even see any new costume pieces, let alone customization options or powerset proliferation, or any regular storyarcs or really anything much that doesn't have a minimum team size requirement.

I know I'm going to get belittled for this, but can you see how this might be ever so slightly disappointing to me? I20 has not a single thing I actually want. I don't recall another Issue that has had less I could use, and I count I4 in there.

Or forced teaming isn't the light of your life, but we all know that people who like to play solo shouldn't play MMOs, so eh.

As I said: "Rebalancing in a lot of places." Removing Endurance as a mechanic is not viable for this game, as it would turn it into an entirely different game, without enough of a benefit to justify this.

All I'm saying is that IF it happened, I don't think I'll regret it.

It'd need rebalancing in a lot of places, but in an ideal world, I'd like that. I've never seen Endurance as anything more than an irritant limitation there specifically to prevent me from doing what I want to do. I recognise its merit as a balancing mechanic, so I can't say it's a BAD idea, but by the same token, I would not be sad to see it go.

Yes, it does. I don't know about you, but I don't have a habit of playing ugly characters. If I have a blue fire primary and a blue fire secondary, I WILL NOT play a character with an orange fire epic. I will play another character instead, and so Kragoss will rot in limbo until the developers add Epic customization, or until I delete him. Yes, seriously.

I never said anything about "showstopper" bugs, nor did I ever implied they were. As for a REAL!!! negative impact on gameplay, yes, they very much do have that. Every time I meet with one of those irritating bugs, I get a little more pissed off. After seven years... Sorry, I'll do it your way: After SEVEN YEARS!!! of having my character drop out of combat mode and running into the same damn typos, I start getting a little bit upset.

It's like having a pebble in your shoe - sure, it won't cause you physical injuries, but every time you pull your shoe on, it's aggravating, and every time it becomes just a little more aggravating than before.

It's to the point where the entire game is starting to look quite frankly unprofessional, sloppy and amateurish. A good game title should not be rife with lazy bugs and unwieldy design after seven years of existence.

I don't know about you, but I don't have the habit of playing games I don't like. After all, didn't people recently go out of their way to tell me that "The Incarnate system is not mandatory! You don't have to play it!" or do I remember wrong? Because no-one is forcing me to do something I don't like, I tend to not do things I don't like, and that includes avoiding shoddy writing and buggy gameplay. Therefore, they very much do prevent me from playing the game, or at the very least enjoying the game when I play it, and again: I don't play games I don't like.

If you don't want to communicate with me, then here's an idea: Don't. Put me on ignore, and you'll never hear from me again. But if you DO choose to communicate with me, then please don't insult my intelligence with passive-aggressive jabs at my person and preferences. I didn't sit you down and force you read what I wrote, and I certainly didn't force to respond to me, so kindly take responsibility for your own actions.

*I cannot customise my Poison Gas Trap because the summoned gas cloud does not take custom colours and is always blue.

*I cannot customise my forcefields, because when they do, they become displaced and ugly.

*I cannot level up my Fire/Fire Brute because the Fire Epic cannot be customized.

*Every time I use Build Up without having entered into combat mode, my character enters as weird "fake" combat mode where he or she will drop back to idle after every attack, interrupting animations.

*Certain characters will be prevented from using inspirations after using an Awaken and before they fully get up, causing them to be rekilled and unable to awaken, while others won't be so limited.

*If you talk to the Ghoul King, die and log out, then the mission becomes uncompletable.

*If you get stuck in the trench behind the Terra Volta Reactor Complex without jump of flight powers, you can never get out.

*In the Chantry, Storm Palace and their copy in Black Swan's Shadow Earth, you cannot use reticle targeting, making summons and pseudopet powers like Ignite and Caltrops unsuable

*Stalker Placate is still ineffective if the placated character has a prior effect applied on them, such as the secondary effects on your attacks.

*A Stalker Placate can be broken by the character you are placating attacking you at just the right time, which happens quite often.

*A Stalker on a team will be attacked and his Hide broken if a team-mate attacks a spawn, even if that Stalker takes no action.

*Mastermind henchmen are idiots.

*Thugs will still not show upgraded costumes if upgraded too fast.

*There are still no Shiny Tights, and now no Animal Fur, on Large and Banded boots.

*There are no "short" versions of any of the Origin capes, the Valkyrie cape or any of the Magic Pack capes.

*Praetoria's contact introduction always consists of the "This contact I have introduced you to should blah blah blah" placeholder which was never fixed.

*If a team-mate is the first to enter Agent Keith Nancy's final mission, "your" double will be a double of said team-mate.

*The double in Keith Nancy's final mission is supposed to have dialogue. That dialogue is no longer available, as the double flees as soon as the fight is over.

*Robert Flores' mission to hack three cameras only lets you hack one, at which point the mission is over, giving you a clue detailing how you hacked three.

*Masterminds will, by their very presence, cause bosses and elite bosses to run away wildly, reducing iconic fights into the Benny Hill show ending. And that bites.

*You can still override power animations by hovering, moving forward, using Build Up or an inspiration and never stopping to move. I've reported this multiple times and even been moderated for it, and nothing has happened to it.

*NPC dialogue, especially from the Launch era, is still rife with ugly, illiterate typos that even a cursory read would have caught.

*Angus McQueen's story to prevent a second Rikti invasion makes no sense when the second Rikti invasion has clearly happened in the Rikti War Zone.

*Crimson and Indigo's secrecy no longer matters, since Roy Cooling makes it clear that knowledge of the Malta Group is quite public. Before him, Ancient Roman Daedalus seems to know about them off-hand.

*Harvey Maylor's secrecy about the leader of the Carnival of Shadows' true identity makes no sense, since Tina McIntyre's arc reveals that to be Vanessa DeVore for absolutely no reason.

*Neither the Reichsman TF nor the Reichsman SF make any god damn sense, in our out of context.

*The storyline of the Column vs. Council struggle is irrational and illogical, and no attempt has ever been made to fix it.

*Kheldian White/Black Dwarf form has high magnitude status protection when active and can be activated while held, but if you are held WHILE it is activating, it is interrupted.

*You are unable to disable ANY toggle when held, including Hover so as to land, or Rest, so as to get out of a ten-times-duration hold, if you rest with one while your click status protection times out.

*Hunting 50 Carnival of Shadows performers in Peregrine Island still exists, and several times over. There can't be this many on the entire zone.

*Mission entrances still send you to Architect Entertainment or, worse still, to Monster Island.

*Clicking on a Longbow helicopter pilot and selecting a destination still leaves you waiting for over 10 seconds before anything happens.

*The game still spawns ambushes without staggering waves in many missions, causing multiple waves to appear on top of you simultaneously.

*Sister Airlia's mission to protect Ghost Widow can still be taken at level 35, but both the Ballista and the ambush of that mission never spawn below level 40.

*Devouring Earth creatures spawning level 45 and up have no variety other than just Granites and Sentries.

*Missions will still occasionally spawn enemies 2, 3 and even 4 levels below their set level, even when said enemies exist at the mission's set level.

*Protean still attacks the "dead" scientists in the last mission of Leonard's arc.

*The PPD Sergeant who's supposed to help you in Roy Cooling's second mission is still unable to get past the sewer entrance and disappears.

*Enemies still get into the walls of caves and the ceilings of office buildings, making them unhittable.

*Masterminds still sporadically lose ownership of their henchmen when zoning, including losing the ability to unsummon them short of using /releasepets, which few people know about.

*When creating a new Mastermind, your default options and window settings will be loaded. If you saved those from a non-Mastermind character, you will have no pet window, and finding out how to enable that is not trivial.

*"Real" numbers still refuse to acknowledge the existence of pseudo-pet powers like Fulcrum Shift or Blizzard, giving you false stats on these powers.

*There are still NO numbers, real or otherwise, for Mastermind/Traps/Detonator. There have never been such.

*Combat Stats for toggles are still screwy, showing multiple instances of the same power and jittering as toggles stack with themselves, a problem which was NOT present when Combat Stats were introduced.

*Mastermind default binds still lack one that puts henchmen into Bodyguard mode. No explanation that this even exists is in the game anywhere that I've found.

*There is no channel select option for the Help channel, either in the chat dropdown or in the tiny chat icons above the chat line.

*The text editor for writing bios and e-mails is still completely ******, not to put too fine a point on it. It won't pass new lines, it will write symbols in memory but not put them on screen, it will refuse move the cursor properly, the cursor is hard to see, it will randomly ad tags like "br" or "nbsp;" for no reason, it will "lose" its new lines, it will write outside the text box, it won't scroll with you as you write...

*The chat line will occasionally remain open even when you've sent a message, preventing you from moving. It will also occasionally write text in memory but not display it onscreen, dumping it in the chat line the next time you go to write in it.

*The "Your reputation has grown! Go seek broker/detective!" pop-up will still randomly pop up for no justifiable reason.

*Cysts and Voids and Quantus oh my! These will keep spawning even when the Kheldians on the team have left and logged out.

*People will occasionally be set to Hidden when they did not choose to hide, causing messages to appear to bounce, necessitating that they hide for real, and then unhide.

*Global friends will still remain green even when they are offline, causing you to think they're online and sending them offline messages, instead.

*Global friends will still sporadically drop friendship, but only one-sidedly, necessitating the other side to remove said friend, and only via the Remove button, before two-sided friendship can be re-established.

*Sending a team invite to a person who's zoning, or just before he zones still cancels the invite window without giving the sender any notification.

*You still get stuck on tables, ladders and chairs without being able to jump without backing up first. You still get stuck "sliding" on the edges of buckets, waist bins and tubs on the floor.

*Teleporting to the ceiling still does not work. Red reticle of doom.

And that's just off the top of my head.

I disagree. CoV has markedly inferior writing to the original Launch content, for the simple fact that it assumes too much. It assumes we want to be Arachnos fanboys, it assumes we're afraid of the Arachnos patrons, it assumes we want money, and the majority of missions consist of mercenary work, doing menial, meaningless tasks that lead to no storyline progression and no revelation, just so we van get "paid." It's much easier to be your own hero in City of Heroes when contacts just offer you leads you could choose to follow. Not so easy to be your own villain in City of Villains, since the storyline does not give us opportunities to shine, it gives us jobs to pull.

Praetoria is actually even WORSE in this regard. The entirety of the story line - every single mission - sees the player as subservient to either the Resistance or the Loyalists. Every "moral" choice is a choice of faction loyalty in practice, a choice between whose faction you want to be a lackey of. That world is intentionally designed to rob you of any other choice BUT to belong, even though these choices could easily have been written for and missions designed for them.

Not to mention the seriously diminishing quality of writing over the years. Montague Castanella's dialogue is horrible, whole Darryn Wayde's is only about passible. Neither storyline is a story LINE, so much as an unrelated sequence of events that have no ultimate meaning. And the content that came after them hasn't been much better, especially Roy Cooling's god damn arc. Tina's arc barely makes sense, and Maria's new arc is only better than the original because the original was utter garbage. Praetoria does have a sprinkling of truly powerful arcs, I will admit, but the whole narrative framework is so hamhanded that it makes me disinclined to make my own characters in it, when I can't follow MY OWN story through such a railroading plot.

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The old Launch content can indeed do with a facelift. Somewhat. But I DO NOT WANT gimmick mission after gimmick mission after gimmick mission. The entire time I play through Praetoria, I'm praying to God to "Please let me have at least one simple mission!" Please let me have at least one mission that I don't have to be on my toes on, expecting ambushes, or a sudden timer, or some other *** backwards mechanic that's going to irritate me the third time through. Let me just kill stuff every now and then.

The occasional complex, unique mission is great. I love that. Making EVERY mission complex and unique? No. Not only is this unnecessary, it's actually irritating to the point of anger. Save the gimmicks for the special occasion, but let me run most of my missions in peace, damn it!