Samuel_Tow

You need to say things like that more often, Tech. This is so going in my quote box

I'll have to look into that. I'll probably always need a router because I have a laptop's wireless network to support around the house, as well as the main PC. I should probably set up some form of port forwarding at least for the PC here, but I'll do that when I swap providers. Which hopefully won't be too far away.

This is a very fundamental disagreement I've had with quite a few people, so I may well be in the minority, yes. But to me, flash and show has always, always taken precedence over raw numbers. Sure, I'm not the sort of person who believes numbers shouldn't matter and we should all just win everything. I have a degree in mathematics, after all. But what I'm saying is that numbers should always be slave to flash, and be designed to reinforce flash and back it up.

A friend of mine once joked "Never judge a man by the colour of his name." and I've been using this as a motto ever since. When my enemies are designed to be so difficult that I should be afraid of them, I don't want to be afraid of the colour of their name. I want to be afraid of THEM. A big flaming demon is scary, and I can see being afraid of that. A giant robot firing missiles at me is scary, and I can see being afraid of that. The all-powerful ruler behind a massive empire is scary, and I WANT the game to make me be afraid of him (not giving him Elvis hair and an admiral's uniform would help).

What I don't want to be afraid is a +8 purple Hellion. Because, really, take a basic Blood Brother Slugger, scale that up to, say, 60 and pit players against that. Because that would suddenly become hideously problematic. This goes for all high-level non-worthy enemies, like the Family. What business do these guys have showing up in the 40s when I'm fighting space aliens an mythical monsters? They're just thugs in ugly suits hitting me with black jacks and brass knuckles. They don't deserve to be as threatening as they are.

Ideally, what's numerically threatening should reflect what's canonically threatening. The War Works robots I can see, they make sense. We'll just say we're fighting stronger versions in that TF. But Malta? Yes, I know they're supposed to be strong enemies, but brawling me for close to my entire hit points bar with a punch is NOT one of the things they should be doing. Want to make Malta look more threatening post 50? Make all of their minions into Hercules Titans, make their lieutenants into Zeus Titans and come up with something more interesting for a boss. A Victoria-style super-efficient robot assassin, why not? Or, hell, say they learned how to clone Moment and put shapeshifters as their bosses. Or why not honest-to-god heroes they've brainwashed? THAT might convince me that they're a threat big enough to knock my socks off, but guys with guns should NOT be this strong. It's a stretch already, but scaling them up to 54 is just going too far.


This is actually my biggest fear for this. For YEARS some people (not always the same people, to be clear) have been asking for everything to be made harder and erupt in revulsion when something is made easier, like the Terra Volta respc, yet break out into cheer when something is made harder, like Trapdoor. What I worry more than anything else is that the developers have decided to cater to that notion WITH THE INCARNATE SYSTEM. I've no problem with putting in greater challenges for those who want more. The RSF and STF were good examples of TFs I've never done and will never do, but that I feel are a good thing to have nevertheless. But from where I'm standing, it seems like the entirety of the Incarnate system is precisely that - just a higher challenge for the sake of having a higher challenge.

Normally, I'd live and let live, but the problem is that the Incarnate system monopolises what I'd define as the most interesting plotline in the entire game by several orders of magnitude. The Hollows, Striga and Croatoa notwithstanding, TFs have generally been "another complete story," adding lore and adventures to the game without taking anything away from the more mundane content. This does not appear to be the case with Incarnates, and I'm only growing more concerned by the announcements of new Trials in I20. What I really don't want to see happen is being told "This is where your game ends, and where a completely different game begins." Because I was never really looking for a completely different game. That's what's been pissing me off all these years - I was never looking for a different game. That's why I stuck with this one.

Sure, add a brand new experience, I'm all for that. But don't treat the old experience like it's obsolete.

*edit*
You know what I'd LOVE? A bunch of arcs, say five or six, all to do with Incarnates, all dreadfully simple. Go to instance, defeat everyone, defeat boss, click glowie, report back to me. As long as they have a decently written story behind them and they're drawn up as Incarnate-specific content, I'll be happy. Sure, elaborate, high-production-value story arcs like the one from Vincent Ross are cool, but right now, the Incarnate system needs a body of content it doesn't have. And I'm willing to sacrifice quality for quantity for some time if it means not running out of content. Because I'll still take Unai Kemen's To Save a Thousand Worlds over NOTHING AT ALL.

I remember this happening to me. I brought an Axe/Shield Brute to the ITF, and at one point I realised I wasn't doing any damage to the Honoree. "Wait, are we even damaging him?" I asked in team chat, and was told that he was immune to physical attacks, to quote a Diablo 2 term. "Oh, OK." I said, and then just backed out of the melee and took my hands off the keyboard, because... Really, I might as well have, at that point.

The reason I've always had a problem with "challenge" as it used to be presented in older content is that it just constituted a different kind of math that required different kinds of numbers. It wasn't actually challenging in that it tested player skill, but was rather more of a mathematical optimization problem, requiring players to deduce a solution and then enact it. It turned the game into a numbers puzzle.

Now, I have nothing against action game. Hell, I prefer them. In fact, when it comes to "challenge," I much prefer fights like what we've been getting lately. I keep mentioning Protean, because his gimmick is pretty much as simple as they come, yet it makes the fight both interesting and exciting at the same time. It's not something which requires a specific build or enough DPS or pulling the right things to the right place or what have you. All it requires is that you see what he's doing and react to it, and I think the time to react has been increased, of late. I remember him taking around four seconds to drain, which sucked when some attacks have animations longer than that. But he seems to charge up closer to eight seconds these days, which is enough time to finish animation and duck around a corner.

This is the kind of challenge I prefer when challenge is the name of the game.

A tune-up of what? My router is almost brand new. Can't be more than a few months old. And this just about a fresh install. I did a full format of my hard drive and a fresh Windows 7 in I think September or October. I mean, none are BRAND new, but they're not old by any stretch.

A lot of that actually comes down to context and build up. As much as I praise City of Heroes for its storytelling (and I do, it's been my eternal inspiration), the one thing this game does exceedingly poorly is build up to credible threats. For instance, I mention CoV building up to Reclue's power... But that's only ever implied. For instance, at level 50, what do you know about Recluse? What is his personality like? What does he like and hate? What has he done, other than somehow form Arachnos? How strong is he in comparison to... Anyone at all? None of these things are ever addressed.

Lord Reclue's biggest contribution to City of Villains is quite literally acting as the game's poster child. He never does anything, he almost never says anything, he never appears in anything, he never fights anyone. He's barely even IN the game. When I fight him, I know he's supposed to be "very" strong, but I have no frame of reference as to how strong he should be, so my thinking is "Eh, how strong could he be?" Because I have no way of knowing.

You know, people laugh at me when I say this, because it IS silly, but the one thing Dragonball Z did well was establish a villain as being a credible threat. How? Well, suppose you want to set a big bad as being a big bad. So you send a smaller big bad in first to be very tough fight for the heroes. Let them beat him just barely, then let them learn and become stronger for it. Then send another bad guy who shows the heroes that no matter how strong they may have gotten, the bad guys are still VERY strong. Then as that story's taking place, keep dropping hints that the actual big bad is much, much stronger than even that. This way, when I actually get to the big bad, I'll be thinking "Holy hell! I barely beat that underboss, and the boss is supposed to be even stronger? Not good!" That builds suspense and it lets me feel like that particular big bad SHOULD be a credible threat.

How many named villains can you say that about? Nemesis almost had a build up, but then completely didn't. His Fake Nemesis are said to be incredibly strong... But they're really isn't. There's every opportunity to present the one in Mass Duplicity as this hideous monster by making it into an Elite Boss and changing the story to say it completely wiped out several Rikti bases before you got to it. So when you beat THAT, you've only gotten a taste of the horrors to come. Instead, the Fake Nemesis in that story is completely ineffectual, because you catch it before it's done anything and beat it down like any other boss. And people wonder why no-one takes the Nemesis Army seriously any more.

Amusingly, the character who gets probably the most development is Akharist, simply because whoever wrote for him seemed to be having a lot of fun with the character and because he shows up so much. But someone like Virgil Duray is just a name drop, if that. And who the bloody hell is Hopkins and why should I care?

I'm sorry if this sounds mean to you, but people don't call each other "delusional" every day for little reason. You're essentially making the House MD argument - it's OK to say anything at all to people as long as it's true. But by that logic, I can do the House thing and call people "idiot" all I want and claim it's just how I talk. Or I can stick the word **** every other sentence because that's just what I do. And, indeed, over this thread, I've had the urge to stick that word in plenty of my sentences, but I chose not to, for the simple fact that I didn't want to offend anyone.

Were I trying to present a case in court, I'm sure proof and evidence would be vital and irreplaceable. However, for me experience is enough, and my experience with the development team, before and recently, tells me that I'm right. And when the next few issues roll around and I'm proven right, I'll make sure not to make a scene about it. You're not going to convince me that I'm wrong for the simple fact that I'm not subject to being convinced otherwise on this particular subject. There's one easy way for me to admit that I was wrong, and that's for the developers to contradict me. In six years, they've contradicted me precisely once by bringing back the 5th Column. Six years after I swore up and down that they never would.

I'm not opposed to being wrong. However, I will only admit to that when I am PROVEN wrong. I mean no offence to anyone in particular on the development team, but that's the extent of faith I have in them, and indeed have had in them since this whole drive for end game started. As far back as when this was first announce, the IMMEDIATE concern I brought forward was what happens if this new system is only accessible through TFs, Trials, Raids and Giant Monster zone events? About a year later, I've been proven completely right to have been afraid of this, because this is exactly what happened. What reason do I have to not be convinced I'm right this time, too? That I have faith that the development team is better than this? Sorry, I no longer have faith in them. Not when it comes to this.

Look, you talk like a saint, but the fact of the matter is that people who claim to try to want to "help" me don't seem to want to accept that my problem isn't that I CAN'T take part in end game Task Forces. It's that I DO NOT WANT to take part in end game Task Forces. I don't want them to be easier. I don't want my characters to be more optimised. I don't want to know even better tactics and secrets. I do not want to participate in them. And when I say this, people scoff in my face and tell me that I shouldn't be trying to use the Incarnate system, then.

I appreciate the efforts of people trying to help. I doubly appreciate the level-headedness of people who jump down your throat when you refuse to use a particular strategy, engage in a particular form of gameplay and so on and so forth. These kinds of people are FAR rarer than you may want to believe, and I've been involved in pretty much every thread on this subject, at least here in General Discussions. I've seen how it goes. And it's nowhere near as benevolent as you make it out to be.

OK, I can work with that. Open my mind to what? Honest question here. Are you trying to teach me how to enjoy the Incarnate Task Forces? Can't, won't, don't want to. And I'm OK with that. I've ever liked Task Forces, not in 2004, not now. I disagree with the fundamental idea behind the very notion of a Task Force, to which my solution has been to not do them. We'll see how much of an option that remains, but I'm thinking "won't" is the most likely.

And if not that, then what? To be optimistic about the game's future? I've never been optimistic about it, and I've been right not to be about half the time. When we heard about new animations coming in I19, my first reaction was to think "They hype them up, they won't be anything special." And yet somehow the new animation still managed to disappoint me even beyond that. There are the few times when my mind has been blown, such as when Castle actually admitted that Blasters were the least popular AT and set out to fix them. That was inconceivable to me at the time, because I was convinced the developers' view of balance was about diametrically opposed to my own. Then with the Stalker and Dominator changes, I almost managed to believe things were going right. But that was short-lived.

I'm not opposed to opening my mind. Far from it. But what you have to understand is that I'm not looking for a new gaming experience. I'm looking for ways to retain the old gaming experience. That's really all this comes down to, and why that bothers so many people I don't think I'll ever know.

I'm not sure that's mechanically possible, but if it were, I'd go for it. Busywork I can handle, as long as it's not all the time, and if I could pile up my busywork in larger, less frequent clumps, I definitely would.

Johnny gets vilified a lot around here, in a lot of ways because it's the hip thing to do, but some of what his says is actually true. There is nothing as demoralising as a game that keeps insisting you're getting stronger and stronger, but always making you feel weaker and weaker still. See, if the game tells me I have become stronger than the gods themselves, but it makes my enemies four times as strong as the gods and then some, I'm not going to believe it. Bigger orange numbers do not make me feel more powerful. Proper context and storytelling does that.

You know what made my villain feel powerful? The Time After Time arc, and the fight with Lord Recluse. Sure, it's not an easy fight, especially solo. And, sure, it just goes to show that Recluse is indeed overpowered. But the context of the fight is great, because it puts me up against the biggest baddie the game has to offer up to that point, someone whom the entire game has been trying to build up as the biggest of the bigs, and it lets me win against him. It doesn't come with cheating powers named after forum memes, it doesn't come with thousands and thousands of damage per hit, it doesn't come with a mosh pit of a battle. But it doesn't have to, because the story is so framed that the achievement FEELS significant, and I'm allowed to have it all to myself.

The Incarnate TFs lack any sort of feeling of this nature, because they are purpose-designed to make every single participant feel like a gnat that is only tangentially able to survive by the skin of his teeth. And while there's a certain amount of pride that comes with that, obviously, it's not the sort of pride that comes from a feeling of power and authority, but rather one of survival and being the underdog. And really, when you start swinging around the power of the gods, ego-stroking story arcs where you AREN'T the underdog really seem like the logical place to go.

And, shoot me for saying this, but 8-man Task Forces are not the sort of story that caters not-underdog ego stroking, if for no reason other than because they're intentionally designed to crush any one single player with overwhelming force.

And I am tired of people telling me this when it is patently and clearly not true if one stops to think about it. Consider the following:

1. We grow in power via Incarnate powers whereas the content does not. Sooner or later, we will become far too powerful for regular 45-50 content and will no longer have a reasonable claim to progressing as Incarnates off enemies that are beyond easy. All it takes is a couple of level shifts to do this.

2. The costs of Incarnate abilities increase, and by a fair margin, the stronger the abilities become. You can choose to assume that those costs won't inflate greatly as both rarity and slot level increases, but that would be a mistaken belief given practically the entire history and framework of the game. The Shard drop rate isn't great even now with the costs we have. It's only going to get worse.

3. There is no point in pursuing Incarnate powers if one cannot participate in the actual Incarnate stories because those stories are only ever told through Task Forces and trials. Becoming overpowered over existing content we were balanced against to begin with is an empty venture.

You guys take such pleasure in calling me deluded, ADD, unreasonable and so forth, and then you wonder what I'm talking about when I say the community isn't what it used to be. We didn't use to take pot shots at each other like this. Not over everything all the time. And then when I actually turn around and say it, people are flabbergasted that I'm taking everything like a personal attack when these are the things you say to me. What did you think was going to happen?

No, "awesome" isn't anything even close. "Disappointing" may not even begin to describe it, but it's still a hell of a lot closer than "awesome."

They give us a system that allows our characters to be incredibly powerful, stronger than even the gods themselves, if the "Well" is to be believed. Yet the only content we have, and the only content it looks like we'll have, which has anything to do with those powers, is content that's designed to make us require help.

Losing the ability to fight at least SOME of my own battles represents a marked step DOWN in apparent power in my eyes, regardless of what the numbers may say. Having alternate Incarnate activities that don't require a team would solve this, but such have not been added, announced or, as far as I can tell, even considered. And that's the disappointing part. Keep telling me I can't know. We'll see who's right and who's wrong when it happens.

This is the only game I've found that's ever been a decent enough fit for me to last me, that's the thing. I like the game for what it is. And I'm dead serious here - there really isn't a game out there that I'm aware of with which I can swap this, and for a simple reason - conteporary-settings games are pretty rare, at least in this genre, and games that offer such a wide variety of super powers are more rare still. It's essentially this, Champions, DC Online or Freedom Force. That's not a lot of options, and that's before you consider the quality of the actual games.

It's not "some content" that bugs me in this case, but rather what I see as pretty much the final step of a focus shift in the game's actual design. If I had even the slightest doubt that the game is going where I think it's going, I would never dream of claiming to be looking for another game, much less actually doing it. But nothing at all that I've seen since the moment this new system and this new direction was announced that makes me in any way, shape or form doubt what I feel would happen. I can't know the future, but historically, I've been write about these things more often than not.

What bugs me so much isn't the system itself. It's that the narrative is finally going to a place where I've always wanted to see it go. I discussed this with a friend of mine the other day, but the Incarnate system is really levelling the playing field, putting our own characters on basically equal footing with the signature characters and even the gods of fiction, Merulia at the very least, to say nothing of Hequat. If I've had a single complaint about the game's story FROM DAY ONE, it's that signature characters have always been painted as unrechable gods, especially back in the day when the Statesman used to spawn as a level 54 super-overpowered AV in the Hero's Hero arc, just to show us he's still ten times the hero we were.

So JUST when we're finally getting the kind of narrative I've always wanted to see... It gets stuck behind the most basic example of raid grind I've ever seen in a game I've actually played high enough to see it first hand. "Disappointing" does not even begin to describe it.

That's OK. Santorican has been looking for new and creative ways to take jabs at me today. I just roll with it as it comes.

*edit*
And it looks like I spoke too soon. Forums are still acting up, though much more sporadically now, instead of constantly and consistently like it was earlier. And I keep saying it's something in the forums because all of a sudden EVERY page on the forums will load infinitely, while the rest of the 'net and even the official site load without problem. Then all of a sudden all pages I've opened and left loading will all load just about simultaneously when whatever it is that happens to let me load happens.

I never agreed with what they did with Faultline, because I never felt it needed such extensive changes, or precisely THESE changes.

However, I do agree that when the developers said that revamping an old zone took as much effort as making a new one was at and around Faultline's revamp. I know this specifically for the fact that War Witch explained how they could either focus on redoing the Rikti War Zone or focus on redoing the enemies, stories and mechanics. And in my opinion, it turned out pretty cool.

I take issue with the notion that updating an old zone takes as much work as making a new zone because that's assuming the zone needs to suffer extensive changes and alterations, when that simply isn't true. Dark Astoria is a good example, as is actually something like Terra Volta. What these zones need isn't different buildings. It's contacts and stories put into them. In fact, Dark Astoria can get away with not a single cosmetic change at all.

You are saying that spending seven years with a single game speaks to attention deficit. I'll just let that conclusion speak for itself.

The way City of Heroes scales with level is both a blessing and a curse. It means that, as you level up, the game doesn't really expect you to DO anything more. Your stats simply scale up to match enemy stats automatically. Yes, they do "settle" into their final values at around level 20, but from then on, not a lot changes. So when the game does all of a sudden require you to actually do more or be more, it's jarring, and often very unfair. Malta are a good example of this, as they are far more deadly and more tricky than other enemy groups. Malta are also an extremely BAD example because they're not worth extra rewards, but that's besides the point.

Going forward with the Incarnate system, I would hope that what the system "expects" us to have is actually the previous Incarnate Boosts. I have no problem with the content associated with the next slot (was that Judgement?) expecting me to have an Alpha Paragon in order to do well, even if I'm technically allowed to try to unlocking even if I have just a basic initial Boost. That's fine with me, because it creates self-contained difficulty - the "things" the system expects and requires are things the system itself provides, which is how game design should be, in my opinion.

I liken this to special events, like the Steel Canyon fires. Yes, you can indeed fight the fires with Cold powers, even just Cryo Ammo for Dual Pistols (I know that for a fact), but the event cannot expect you to be able to do that, so extinguisher packs are provided. Or take the Hydra Trial. The Hydra Head is immune to all damage, but the tools to damage it are provided to you in the Trial itself. Sure, obtaining them isn't exactly easy, but they're still there.

To quote Yahtzee's review of Alpha Protocol: "The game is all too happy to let you sink all your points learning to waltz only to stick you in a mandatory freestyle disco competition." Having a game which allows people to put themselves in a no-win situation without prior warning is just no something I want to see. And I don't think there's good enough reason for it, either.

The lack of a decent alternative. Champions Online was a terrible disappointment and DC Universe Online looks like it'll be something completely different, so right now, I have no options. But this is probably the first time in my history here that I'm going to say this:

If I had an alternative, I just might take it. Permanently. I don't say this as a threat, as a temper tantrum or as an exaggeration. Anyone who knows me will know just how much I love this game and just how much I've never wanted anything else. The fact that I WANT something else "for real" is actually a great concern to me, personally. And that's not a case of burnout. I haven't played the game seriously-seriously in quite some time, and I took quite a few breaks.

If ever I should be excited about the game, it should be now, and I'm just not. Not when I look a year down the line and see a future that's essentially a completely different game from what I joined back in 2004. I hope I'm wrong. I hope the developers will prove me wrong. But they've taken such pride in their raids I just don't see it.

And the worst part is I just don't see any alternatives right now. There are no decent games that can hold my interest for more than a few days, certainly not MMOs.

That's actually part of the problem, yes. I'm not accusing you in person, but I know it's gotten to the point where I'm outright reluctant to seek advise because the first time I reject a suggestion because I can't or, worse still, WON'T do something, the person giving me advise has a 50/50 chance of exploding in my face. Now, granted, some of the refusals I've seen are absurd, such as refusing to use inspirations or refusing to not rush headlong into bad situations.

Of course, on the other side are the absurd suggestions, like people who've said they didn't have any problem with this or that because they used Geas of the Kind ones or because they had something like 50 temporary powers left over, or because they had a zillion purples or so. These are the times when "No, I can't do that." seems acceptable.

But then there is that sort of grey area in the middle, where the people suggesting it really feel it should be standard practice, but the people on the receiving end really don't feel it should be, and that's where a lot of these problems occur. The easiest controversial subject is Shivans, and Nukes when those come up. Granted, with PvP in the sorry state it is in now, getting them shouldn't be THAT much of a problem... But then they ARE sort of an unpleasant crutch, and they involve combat with PvP rules, which I haven't even begun to look at, because I don't PvP.

And then there is the subject of build. More precisely, a specific build. "So just Hold him" is an easy answer, but then we get into corner cases of ATs and characters that don't really have access to holds. Or slows, or knockback. Or, otherwise, who don't have access to enough raw damage. Which then devolves into building specific builds for specific situations and that's all sorts of wrong, in my opinion.

And then... Well, there is Inventions. I've personally never invested into the system, but I've been told they make a huge difference. Thing is... I and at least a few others just don't want to get into that for various reasons. And then the bickering starts, because those who invest in Inventions are convinced it's not that hard, it's not that complicated, the Market isn't a problem and so on and so forth, where, which brings us to the "But I don't want to play the Market," which brings us to the "you want everything given to you" and on and on and on. I've been down this road. A LOT. To the point where I will no longer mention not having or wanting Inventions, because every time I do, I always have to spend two pages explaining WHY I don't and how I'm not stupid for being that way.

What I'm trying to say is that it's very easy to go from good advise into outright accusation, and it's not always a clear step. Historically, that has happened before. Many times over. But this is the first time when that's actually becoming quite as relevant, which is what makes so many people clash over it. Before, if I didn't want to get into Inventions, I simply got scoffed at, and we both lived happily ever after. Now if I don't get into them, in some people's eyes I don't deserve to get into Incarnates, either, and this causes a problem that goes beyond game balance.

This is actually a pretty good way of putting it. For people who have more of an RTS mindset, these kinds of battles are probably great. The problem with me is I really, really, REALLY don't. The one thing I've never, ever been good at and I don't think I'll ever be good at is RTS style games. I just don't have the mental capacity for it. The reason, as best as I can tell, is that I make decisions slowly, especially when I'm not prepared for it. If I can't keep a good overall view of a situation and its details, then every time I try to make a decision, I draw a blank. I don't know what I'm doing and, worse still, I don't know what I WANT to do.

That's not to say that City of Heroes is turning into an RTS. Far from it, in fact. But a large battle with many team-mates, many enemies and many abilities and interactions thereof requires kind of this kind of thinking - the ability to filter large masses of input and make fast decisions based on that. And this is a skill I simply do not have. It's actually a problem I experience in squad-based single-player games like Baldur's Gate, Dungeon Siege and even the old X-Com games, when I'll often resort to just letting squad members do something simple, like just cycle the same power simply because I don't know what it is I want them to do right at that very moment. It's also why I tend to command my Masterminds' henchmen as a whole, rather than subdividing them into groups, and will otherwise let them focus on a hard target and FORGET THEM while I focus on either support or otherwise singling out one specific henchman that needs unique orders.

TFs, especially large-scale ones, simply present me with information overload, reducing me to doing "whatever," which usually results in me auto-targeting the nearest enemy and just keying whatever attack I see is up at the time, usually dying from something I can't identify because I didn't realise my health was low or that half my team was dead or in another room. It's doable, yes, and I don't tend to complain, but it's not the part of the game I sit down looking forward to.

I have the power bound to B, and I have Sprint bound to V. I've had several instances when I've accidentally hit B instead of V, and I am then stuck not starting the next fight for 30 seconds, or however long. It's just an inconvenience, and it feels like unnecessary balance by annoyance.

But, yes, that's not the point, I agree.