Samuel_Tow

I've only done the Khan side of that TF, but my impressions were... Well, it could have been better. The final fight was very atmospheric, I loved that last room and I just LOOOOVED the dynamics between the AVs. But the fight itself was SO. BOIRNG! Half an hour pickaxing a mountain of hit points, and it just would not end. He cycled the same attacks, we cycled the same attacks and we just chipped away at his hit points. Yeah, it was hard. He'd one-shot anyone who wasn't our granite tank. But it was also so boring.

To me, a big mistake that City of Heroes often makes is mixing up the notions of difficult and tedious. While in a purely technical sense, a tedious fight is difficult, it's difficult for the wrong reasons. It's difficult to sit through it and not question the point, much more so than it is to actually win it. Passive difficulty, or the "mountain of hit points" or "hits like a train" phenomena, are the bane of MMOs everywhere.

Art direction and general style aside (I HATE what it turned into from its original) there are only a couple of spots in Warrior Within that I'd call truly, really cheap and annoying. They are just spots where the difficulty ramps up significantly, or where you run into a particularly sinister trap, but overall the game is still on a decent level of difficulty. It's STILL harder than Sands of Time, however AND more random, to boot. Sands of Time depended a lot on timing and knowledge of your enemies, such that single hits could often put enemies down. Warrior Within switched form having enemies with strengths and weaknesses which could be taken down quickly if you were on the ball and gave all enemies lots and lots of hit points, so sometimes you'd have to pull off multiple combos on a single grunt before it would go down. Again, this is an instance of picking hit points over clever tricks, because all the tricks ultimately just drained away enemy hit points. The Two Thrones isn't much better, though Quick Kills make up for it.

And, yeah, the Prince of Persia games aren't terribly difficult but for a few specific encounters (All games have those. We have Nosferatu.), but they more than make up for it with oodles and oodles of style points. And, really, neither Warrior Within nor the Two Thrones gave me that sense of "Come and get me!" like Sands of Time. In Sands of Time, I knew that no matter the enemy, no matter how big and no matter how hard it hit, I could always outwit them, knock them down and absorb them. In fact, it became somewhat of a goal of mine to fight entire large-scale battles without taking a hit, scoring imaginary Cool Points for doing so. Not all battles went that way, of course, but it was fun to try.

So, essentially you have a statistical precedent of one, is that how I should take it? One event in five years where a major performance reduction coincided with a major content introduction, and that formulates your entire opinion that this is serial, expected behaviour? Even despite the fact that the company was under what has been proven to be vastly different management?

So let me see if I can follow that logic. Because ED was the biggest reduction in power and it came out in I6, then logically the next one will come either with I12 or with I18. We're looking at I17 some time next year, so I18 would be some time Q2 of next year and... Oh my god! You're right! They WILL move forward with Diminishing Returns in PvE. After all, it fits the pattern! I6's ED was a form of diminishing returns on enhancements, they skipped one multiple of 6 and now I3x6 will have diminishing returns on power stats! It must be true!

Seriously, man, you're operating off hurt feelings here. Give it a rest.

Do you realise that this makes absolutely no sense? Time and time and time again the developers have said, confirmed and reaffirmed that 1) PvP will not affect PvE and 2) the PvP game is vastly different from the PvE game, which is why powers are coded with two effects, one for PvP, one for PvE. Have you any concept how little sense it makes from ANY standpoint to just plop down the PvP numbers in PvE and cross their fingers despite it being well proven PvE works nothing like PvP? The balance of power is simply not comparable in the slightest.

And, really, look at it logically. People complained the game was too easy, and the developers responded by making extra-hard encounters like the Recluse SF, the Statesman TF, the Imperious TF and now the 5th Column TFs, not to mention tweaking the Hamidon several times. It seems to me THAT has been their answer to the call for harder content - to plain old make harder content. What kind of sense does it make to design this overpowered Reichsman and then turn around and slap diminishing returns anyway?

Seriously, you can claim we just don't know until you turn blue, but your tone and conviction contradicts your words. You KNOW what's going to happen, and there is no convincing you. Well, good luck with that. I'm still waiting for 2012.

Personally, my biggest problem is that I really dislike powers which depend on the environment, especially when that environment was not made to accommodate these powers to begin with. Yeah, you can retrofit all instances with extra liftable debris, but I think you sorely underestimate how MANY instanced maps need to be edited and how many maps are ALWAYS missed when such a thing happens.

For instance:

The Hydra outdoor instance that's a section of Perez Park had a hole in the shield wall. That was fixed on the original map, and on the Burning Perez Park map where you go to fight the Rikti Assault Group for Levantera. It has not, however, been fixed on the Burning Perez Park map where you fight Giovanna Scaldy, despite it being a carbon copy of Levantera's map. It's still there.

Also, the Blue Labs tileset had a hole in the wall in the Lab Room. When Longbow Labs were created, they were a reskinned blue lab, and so inherited the bug. The big was subsequently fixed in the Blue Labs tileset, but still exists on the Longbow Labs tileset. I cannot confirm whether it exists on the Portal Corps maps, as I don't believe they had a lab room.

And there is still the occasional bugged CoV map where spawns don't show up properly, a problem which was fixed somewhere in 2005-2006, it just didn't filter to unique maps that aren't played often.

Even if the developers commit to filling up maps with enough throwable debris for such an ability to be useful, you are bound to hit a dry spot where there's nothing to throw, and that looks REALLY bad. It's like playing Half-Life 2 and discovering that Valve apparently forgot to put ANYTHING for the Gravity Gun to toss in the museum. Like, AT ALL. Ravenholm is filled with throwables, but as you move forward, they get less and less, until you have almost nothing by the end of the game.

That's why I said it's too late in the game. The power and even the power mechanics may well be possible (even if I doubt they'd ever look good - those in Champions looked pretty bad), there is just too much dead space in the game for the developers to fill it up with things to throw. Worse still, you'll end up like you do in Mayhem Missions, where you run by a trash can or a fire hydrant that isn't made into an object, and as such isn't destructible even though it should be. Say they add more boxes and throwable parked cars. What about the old, immovable parking metres? What about light posts and the old trash cans, crates and barrels? What about the old parked cars? It's not a good idea to have only select items be throwable while identical legacy items remain immovable, yet retrofitting the world to account for this seems like far too much trouble for what it ultimately does.

I'll be frank on one point, though: I've seen heavy object tossing in a lot of games, and I cannot recall ONE game in which it looked good. In fact, Prototype was probably the WORST incarnation of throwable debris I have EVER seen, and that was probably the last thing I played before Champions.

Based on previous experience, I'd have to say it'd be more of a nuisance. For a time limit to actually matter, it has to be tight, and a tight limit on a hard boss fight is just a double whammy that steps both feet into the territory of cheesy made-up difficulty. The fight with the Supreme Hunter in Prototype was exactly this one giant load of cheese. Not only is the Supreme Hunter a cheap and dirty enemy, having the clock ticking down something like 90 seconds to bring him down at one point is just unfair. I've rarely felt like I wanted to punch my monitor, and this was one of these times.

I generally don't mind time limits in City of Heroes, because they're not at all tight, more of a "You need to finish this before you go to bed tonight." sort of deal. Getting two and a half hours to de a mission that can be done in 20 minutes is plenty of leeway, so much so that the only way to fail it via real life emergencies. I've only really lost them when maintenance kicks me out of the game or when I lose power or network connection. I've not failed a timed mission for lack of time in years. About the only place where this comes to play is the Hydra Trial, as that damn timer is the worst enemy of all.

Why ask me that, though? I'm just curious, because I completely fail to read any intent behind it, which is somewhat unusual for me. Do you mean to present that as an alternative to difficulty, where I can feel strong and be strong, but be pressured by time instead of difficulty? Because if that's the case, I'm actually not sure I'd rather have limited time than limited power. Heated battles tend to develop their own internal timers, such as how long it takes before the boss lands that crippling blow and wins, or how long it takes me to whittle him down and if I can survive. I tend to prefer those "counters" over a timer counting down, because a timer usually just compounds a problem. And losing via timing out is actually WORSE than getting killed

I am by no means a history buff, so I can't really give you a good number on this one. I watched (well, listened to while I played) a documentary about them, which explained that the Mayan calendar pointed to many dates as a possible end of the world, many of which have already passed. The 2012 year predicted is, I believe, an extrapolation of the way they measured time, the state of celestial bodies and their movement and the Mayan interpretation of what those meant. I picked that particular date both because it's at least slightly famous, and because it belongs to a civilization that DID see the end of their world already. I wanted to have at least a little credibility

To be fair, I added this for emphasis. I'd never take a swing at another person

But, honestly, large-scale battles are what makes a game for me. As I've detailed elsewhere, every fight being a veritable boss battle with strong, dangerous opponents all the time is just depressing from a conceptual point of view. I'm supposed to be super strong, damn it! Why am I kill frogs, one frog at a time?

I'll grant you that not all characters are slated for massive AoE, but you know, I actually enjoy taking on large groups with them, anyway. My ideal is something akin to what happened in the old Phobia game. You have a big, mean stationary chaingun with aliens coming in front and centre. Your job is to shoot them dead before they reach you. That's sort of what I like about single-target specialists taking on large spawns. Especially with a Blaster, it's possible to pot-shot probably half a 6-minion spawn before it comes anywhere near you, and then one-punch-kill much of what's left. By that time, the last minion is usually running away, ideal for a snipe to the back.

It really comes down to visuals. A large-scale battle where enemies drop fast is exciting. A small-scale battle between a tough hero and a tough monster is interesting as a plot point, but as a spawn-to-spawn occurrence, it just GRATES. It feels like hard work, really, and that's not what I play games for.

We're actually talking about the same thing here. Even if the Thing loses to the Hulk, his reaction will never be one of panic or despair, as used to be my reaction when my Blasters met a two-boss spawn. Even if he realises that the situation is pretty dang bad all around, his reaction is always the same: "It's clobbering time!" Win or lose, in fear or in anger, he knows that he is strong and he knows that he can rely on his strength when it really comes down to it. He doesn't have to win, but that sort of confidence is something I value very highly.

Oh, I'm certainly not arguing against surprise in games, far from it. Pitting a strong hero against a vastly different but equally strong villain is pretty much the quintessential root of what I enjoy in a story and a game. But my reaction to surprise should be excitement and trepidation, not terror and dread. I don't want to be afraid of attacking an enemy I've never seen before for fear of being torn in half. I want to be exited to face an enemy I've never fought so that I may test my strength. Win or lose, I enjoy feeling strong. It's not really even the victories so much as the presentation and the feel of things.

I like the thought of facing an incredibly tough opponent and being able to stand toe-to-toe with him and fight him on his home ground. I doesn't have to be easy and I don't have to win every time, but I need to feel like I can take care of myself and like I have a chance.

Playing Blasters used to be nothing but terror and dread. Before the Defiance changes, and even farther back before they got their hit points boost, every boss was panic and disaster. It was a fight where I was a victim and he was a monster and the only way I could survive was by hard, hard struggle and lots of crossed fingers. I don't enjoy that. I can handle losing, as long a I know I fought well. Held by a boss right off the bat then two-shotted within 5 seconds does not make me feel that way. Been there, done that.

But, you see, that was the whole point of the thread - I can keep up this endless elaboration all day, and I'm sure it's boring to just about anyone but myself. That's why my revelation made me so happy. I can now express this quite simply. I want to face a boss who threatens to kill me, and I want my response to be "I would love to see you try!" If I'm in a state of mind where this is the first thing that comes naturally to me, the game is doing well.

Actually, you have a point here. I'm not married to the idea of this being copies of yourself, come to think of it, and I'd be just as happy to work with man-shaped shadows as I would be with clones. About the only problem I have is my idea for a fast-click teleport, since that would require a shadow to somehow pass for the real thing. Essentially, it's my ripoff the classic ninja "replacement technique" where it turns out you didn't cut a real person, it was just a log.

Actually, I could see this as a self-resurrection technique. You get killed, you drop down, and when you resurrect, it turns out it was a fake all along, it explodes in blinding light and you walk in from off-camera ala Mercenaries/Soldiers. Though... That would actually go in a secondary. Hmm... Either way, that power aside, I'd be just as happy to work with what may as well be shorter versions of the Phantasm.

I'm not sure how well that would work for Super Speed when I have things like waves of running doubles and doubles attacking while you're clearly standing in another place, but I'm not opposed to the concept.

*footnote*
The problem with "multiple selves," as I understand it, is that the powers and costume subsystems don't communicate with each other well enough for you to alter an entity which is summoned as a pseudo pet. I believe that was the reason given why Masterminds don't, and may never, have henchman customization. On the other hand, I'm not sure if that's impossible to do if used as a power EFFECT, as power customization already allows power effects to be altered on the fly. Whether those alterations can be hooked into creating the image of a costume without creating an actual, lasting pseudo-pet is questionable, as no precedent about this exists. The lack of ability to use the weapon emotes Architect critters can suggests that's not possible.

Pretty much, yes - doubles who attack and then fade away. I've nothing against a Mastermind powerset of the same, but to be honest, I don't find it as interesting because henchmen that stick around need to have actual powers, and having a big throng of people who only kick and punch just isn't as exciting as, say, a throng of ugly demons that spit fire, I presume, or even as having a big throng of people who just shoot things.

I based this powerset on somewhat of a staple of certain fighting games, where you can call in assist characters, with some characters calling in copies of themselves. Marvel vs. Capcom has that in a big way with their Assist characters, who essentially jump in, throw an attack and jump out. Captain Commando, additionally, can call in any of the three other characters from his game (the mummy, the ninja, the baby in a mech) to do just that - drop in, hit once, drop out. As an avid MvsC player, I can tell you that this is a pretty exciting way to play for a couple of reasons.

Now, one of the best things about this sort of gameplay is that it breaks up the linear nature of fights, that is to say it's more than just walking up to people and hitting them, or shooting at people from range. Having the ability to place a double anywhere around an opponent and hit like that is interesting, especially when that double pops in, hits and disappears, only to pop in from another direction. And my Build Up idea was actually borrowed from Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom's predecessor. In there, the Power gen would grant Captain America something like 5 shadows, each a few frames behind the previous one, transforming each hit he does into 5-6 consecutive hits, both for extra damage and for keeping the enemy reeling/blocking longer.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of duplicating yourself, because it works better in a story or a movie where the use of doubles is regulated by... Well, the Plot Device. In a game, having multiple copies of yourself just hanging around isn't as exciting. That, and having them run around actually prevents you from mixing in with them and switching places. Ideally, the doubles would be EXACT doubles of the original, and it's pretty difficult to do that with a Masterminds' tiered henchmen system, as well as the fact that Henchmen tend to be stronger than the Mastermind, himself.

Basically, a melee (or even blast, with imagination) set dealing with self-multiplication is, at least to me, more interesting in that it's more dynamic and uses doubles that are much more transient. Essentially, all they do is appear for one attack and disappear again. That sort of dynamic combat is, to my eyes at least, a better way to represent a person not having any traditional super powers, like enhanced strength or futuristic weapons, but manages to win anyway through clever misdirection and use of copies of himself.

Incidentally, what's wrong with a double showing up, throwing a punch and disappearing? Serious question here.

NO! Go away and never bring up this HORRIBLE idea again. Listen, I WANT a Huge Female model. I've been asking for it for years. But probably the WORST way to make it is to just retrofit the MALE Huge model. A Huge female is not some sort of disproportionate monstrosity with a vaguely female head atop a male body. Not outside the groutesques of female mass bodybuilders. A PROPER Huge Female model would be something on the order of the She Hulk - tall and muscular, but not tumour woman to the Huge's Tumour Man.

Essentially, a Huge Female would ideally be taller and have muscle sliders tied to actual muscles, rather than to the size of the butt and the size of the breasts, would have its own set of running and jumping animations, would have a more ripped base skin texture and would start out bigger. A lot of those things can actually be retrofitted into the current female model, but sliders, height and better upper arms can't.

And he's right. Sticking a Buster Sword in the Katana powerset would look patently stupid. Hell, some of the katana in there are pushing the limits as it is, a sword bigger than the player just doesn't work with these animations. A Buster Sword would require its own powerset to give it the feeling of mass and momentum it needs. BABs didn't say no to giant swords. He said no to giant swords in sets with small, light-weight swords.

That was a joke.

This isn't a question of "making it work." To grapple, you need something to grapple to, and unless you're grappling clouds or subscribe to the ridiculous idea of shooting balloons in the air and grappling them, there's nothing to grapple to in the middle of open ocean, over a low-tree-line forest or just generally anywhere away from tall buildings. Even Spider-Man who generally enjoys creative freedom still suffers from this limitation.

I think your reading glasses are foggy. "Aquaman is lame" was just a footnote joke. The actual reasoning is what we've been discussing all along - you need a TON of work to make the underwater experience anything other than ugly and crappy, and that just isn't happening.

It's not falling on real world physics. It's falling on real world aesthetics. I don't want an underwater world of epileptic trees where smoke billows without dissolving into the water, where fire burns without creating bubbles and where explosions produce high-pitched bangs instead of the low-pitch rumble you get underwater. Powers need to work that way not because it's realistic, but because if they don't it looks UGLY and STUPID. And I'm not saying that to be insulting. It's just ridiculous on the same level as Baron Münchhausen picking himself up out of the water by his own ponytail.

And then we're back to the old debate. Why should I put a respirator on a character who already has a gas mask or a full-face helmet? It's like iron-man shoving a scuba gear mouth piece in his mouth slit if he has to go underwater, even though we've seen that his suit is a sealed environment. So then DON'T put on a respirator and... What about characters with an open face who SHOULD have a respirator? It's a solvable problem, but it's not as simple as you make it out to be. And it's not even the biggest problem.

Actually, that's a pretty good idea. Boss and lieutenant Gunslingers are frikkin IDENTICAL! Can we at least make them shoot differently so there's some variety?

I'm actually on the fence of retro-fitting gunslingers with the new Dual Pistols animations. On the one hand, it'd made sense, since they're supposed to be this incredible threat to heroes, but their bag of tricks is essentially "shoot guns a lot." On the other hand, "just shoot guns a lot" kind of fits in the Malta Groups' modus operandi. And yet on the OTHER hand... Well, cowboy hats and six-shooters and that description... I don't know.

Either way, we have three sets of possible animtions - the old one-handed ones, the current Mastermind ones and the new Dual Pistols ones. I'm not too picky about what they end up getting, but the bosses HAVE to get different animations from the minions. It HAS to happen.

The Mayan Calendar has several dates as a possible end of the world, one of which roughly coincided with the Spanish invasion of their lands and the utter annihilation of their entire nation and their entire culture. So, yes, it has precedent.

Ah, the Fish in Opposing Force. Never in the history of gaming has there been a deadly weapon that has been so cute If I weren't a heavy weapons fanatic, this would have been my favourite, but the raw power of things like the heavy machinegun, the shotgun and the magnum won out in the end. Still, it was actually not that freaky a weapon, all things considered. Not even remotely on the same level as the detached barnacle creature.

I have to disagree here about as much as it is possible for one person to disagree with another short of coming to blows. When it comes to combat in fighting games (and let's face it, that's what City of Heroes is), there is NOTHING more important to me than a good, nice, spectacular fight where I face off against hordes of enemies. There very much IS a difference between fighting 3/5 enemies and just fighting one, and it's a difference like between night and day.

Recently, for instance, tweaked my difficulty from 0x2 to -1x3, and I cannot DESCRIBE how much more exciting the game has become. Before on the old Tenacious, over half of the things I fought were either a single +1 lieutenant or a +1 lieutenant and a +1 minion. If I was lucky, I would get three +1 minions. I outright did a little dance every time I struck the six even con minions spawns, because they were so cool. Now... Now EVERYTHING comes in big spawns. I played a Scrapper against that, and I literally could not stop giggling like a moron the entire time. If there were psychiatrist in the room, I would probably have been committed. It was THAT much fun just running into huge spawns and laying some serious smackdown. I couldn't stop giggling and thinking how cool this was and wishing it had been like this all along.

Fighting multiple enemies at once is the quintessential combat characteristic of this game that keeps me here. Battle mechanics aren't all THAT exciting, but DAMN if fighting huge hordes of bad guys isn't just too awesome to worry about anything else.

That's pretty much how I've always felt about them ever since I first tried the game. I was just never able to sum it up in a single sentence before, but it's true, isn't it? That feeling of staring down the hordes of evil, all chanting and roaring, screaming how they will eat your guts, then cracking your knuckles, putting on a mile and proclaiming "Oh, I would love to see you try!"

It's such a... Basic feeling, to be honest, but that alone has made so many games and movies for me, and I could just fall in love with any story which has that as a climax.

P.S. And, of course, I got negative rep for this:

Yeah, I know. That's kind of what the forums are for.

Point taken

As long as we can avoid "squid on a stick" designs for the most part, I see no problem with borrowing a few of WoW's weapon designs. Battle Axe could certainly use a few more options, and as I said, a few flintlock rifles and pistols would be very welcome.

By the way, it's funny you should mention "squid on a stick," because I recall the Tech War Mace being described as "microwave on a stick"

I personally just love it that City of Heroes allows me to rest and fill up on everything in under 10 seconds. Most other games would have you bring along a healer or use expensive potions, or some other limited-use supply. In City of Heroes, you just take a kneed and you're set. About the closest I've seen to that is 9Dragons and their meditation skill, which had an instant recharge, but because it healed based on hit points and not percentage, it became rather slow as your hit points pool increased. Several times slower than Rest, at any rate. Really, there's nothing worse in a game than realising you're out of health and out of mana and there's nothing you can do about it in the next 5-10 minutes.

Hell, the mere fact that we don't have to keep pumping "money" into our characters all the time to account for supplies, consumables, repairs, travel and so forth is something I really love. Travel is free and fast, inspirations drop in sufficient numbers, and with inspiration combining, you can almost always have what you need, our guns don't use ammo, our stuff doesn't break, we don't pay a fee when we die. Even enhancements upkeep can be gotten around with Common Inventions. There's no upkeep you need to keep up lest it keep draining your purse, and that sort of thing counts for a LOT in my book.

That depends on your standards. If you don't want to deal with Inventions and the Market, do what I do and lower your difficulty. It's not shameful. No, seriously, there is no shame to play against even con enemies.

And as for an ACTUAL actual suggestion, from where I stand, you have two options. As the Goat suggested, do something new, or try to rediscover something old. For me, this means switching characters. Don't reduce your characters to AT and powersets. Try to get a feel for them and try to either make a new one or rediscover an old one that feels right and go with that for a while. I'm not sure if that'll work for you, but the advice to just do something different stands.

Failing that, play another game. I'm actually serious here. Every time I get burned out a little more, I play something else. Usually some single-player game that I can clear in a couple of days. I usually use either the Half-Life 2 series or the Prince of Persia series. Right now I'm actually playing Torchlight, which I don't foresee holding me much longer than the end of tomorrow. Just get a change of pace, let the City of Heroes experience sink in a little bit, then try the game again and see if it feels better.

And that's about all I have.

Interesting... I used to do the same with games that didn't require direct player-to-player interaction. Like, say, playing Monopoly without trading anything. Chess doesn't quite work, because a lot of it relies on planning strategies the other player isn't aware of, which doesn't work with a single player. A lot of card games work just fine, though. And I wasn't an only child, but my older brother is 11 years older than me, so I might as well have been.

I learned one thing, though - basically anything that's turn-based and doesn't need players to communicate, either overtly or covertly, is perfectly playable by yourself.

While I'll be the first to say WoW's weapons designs are decidedly silly, I will agree with you completely that a lot of them could at least serve as inspiration for City of Heroes weapons. Unlike most MMOs, WoW doesn't go for a photo-realistic look, but it still keeps the overly-elaborate, complicated design of the genre, so we get things like rifles with skills and tusks and chains hanging off them, or a staff with a gargoyle sitting on it and so forth. I never actually played the game, myself, but my friend has a Hunter he likes to show me, and I've seen a good deal of the game's rifles, bows and crossbows, and a lot of them, while cool, would be FAR too ornate for the style of City of Heroes. I picked this rifle specifically because it's one of the cooler ones that's still pretty simple.

And I still want to see at least one or two brand new flintlock pistols. Playing Torchlight and running dual pistols for a while there has given me a brand new degree of preference for these things