Samuel_Tow

The problem is that this doesn't reflect my own experience. I got a time bonus for around 3 parking meters. I then razed a paid parking to the ground, destroying no less than 30 parking meters and probably as many cars. Neither gave me a time bonus, and that was on a duo.

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Was my mission bugged then or what? I'm almost positive that I was getting more than one bonus for destroying the same type of objects. ie destroy 1 car, time bonus! destroy a few more cars, time bonus! etc. etc. Im sure I got a time bonus for the same types of objects more than once. Also you get time bonuses for "resisting arrest" (ie defeating police), and Im sure I got that one multiple times as well.

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So I hear, but that would have to be a bug. The briefing I posted a picture of in the original post clearly indicates a single time bonus for destroying items of a given kind.

Resisting Arrest, on the other hand, is given out for each group of police-like enemies you defeat, as well as when Longbow soldiers spawn on the map.

Though that wasn't my intent when I made the thread, I have to agree with Miss Kitty's general statement - there's too much rushing around in those missions. I don't mind timed missions, and I don't mind perpetuating timed missions as we do in mayhem missions. But I also don't like to rush, especially since Stone Armour doesn't yield itself to rushing.

I can understand the need for the time in Mayhem missions, but I don't understand the limit on items we destroy. Shouldn't this be about causing mayhem and destruction? If it should, then why are we avoiding certain items? Oh, I broke too many cars, better not touch any more. There's no point, plus I should be breaking carboard boxes. It's an undue strain on my memory to try to remember what there's any point to destroy, and it's an undue strain on a mission that's supposed to be about destruction per se, not destruction of specific stuff, like parking meters over police cars.

I'm not asking for the sky. I'm just asking for a little more time, maybe 20 minutes to start with. I'm asking for time bonuses for destroying things not limited by the "one time only" rule. I'm asking for the heist itself to provide a time bonus after defeating the hero.

Am I the only one who wishes we had a little more time on this? Then maybe I'd have time to actually explore, rather than rush everywhere.

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But... if you got a wanted poster, then it's not a dud. Go free the person from the jail and get an extra... 3 minutes, I think it was? Either way. It's extra time (which is pretty much spent going to the jail, breaking the person out, and leaving).

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Point taken, but it's never really explained. Will edit my original post if I still can.

*edit* Craps! No-go, sorry. It timed out.

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Sorry, if I'm misunderstanding this, but I can state that most of the time you do in fact get a key that spawns a waypoint. Not always.

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Exactly. Going off Positron's comment that the number of side missions is level-dependent and my experience of getting dud clues (I got a wanted poster) would suggest exactly that.

Since I've been seeing some recurring questions about Mayhem missions, a lot of which remain unanswered or uncertain, I've decided to post the briefing message that I got about them. I have seen evidence that not everybody seems to see that briefing message, so I've decided to put it here for all to see. You'll notice I cut out the acrual mission briefing and left only the explanatory text displayed in blue.

Mayhem Mission Briefing

For the sake of consistency, I'll transcribe the text below:

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This is a mayhem mission. You can earn extra time by destroying property and creating diversions away from the bankitself.
.
Ech type of item rewards a single time bonus after you destroy a certain number of that item. For each person on your team, you will need to destroy more of that particular item to get the time bonus.
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Five side missions can be found on this map. Keys (found by defeating certain enemies) are needed to unlock these side missions. Each completed side mission also rewards a time bonus.
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Each character that is at least level XX the first time they successfully complete this mission.

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Point for point, let me explain what these mean.

You get time bonuses for destroying items, but you will only get the time bonus for a given type of item once. Period. Once you've gotten a time bonus for, say, carboard boxes, you will never get another one for them, regardless of how many you destroy.

Also the ammount of items you need to destroy is dependent on your team. What that means is that wile solo you only need a couple of cars to get a time bonus, on a team you may need to destroy them in their dozens for that same bonus.

As per Positron, you can get UP TO 5 missions on any given Mayhem Mission, however those depend on the level of the mission. Extreme low level missions (6-10) will usually have just a single side mission, whereas extreme high level missions (45-50) will have all five side missions.

To gain those missions, you need to defeat the villains in the zone where the Mayhem mission is taking place. Those are enemies who are not PPD, Psi-Cops, Police Drones or Longbow, and are usually some form of villain group resident to the zone. However, defeating those villains will only yield a dud clue. That's a clue that doesn't mean anything and doesn't give a key. It will also not generate a waypoint, or so has been my experience.

You can gain a temporary power from a Mayhem Mission of a given level range only once, and only if you're above the lower end of the level range. For the mission I have a picture of, that means characters above 40. It doesn't have to be your missions, and once you gain your temporary power, you can never gain another temporary power from that level range of Mayhem mission ever again on that character. You may, however, find other temporary powers in some of the side missions, I am told.

I hope that helps, and I hope it's not a duplicate of somebody else's post.

I just thought I should share some interesting reflections I had a couple of days ago that may pertain to this very topic. As you might remember from the beginning of the thread, I shared with you how excited I was about CoH's Epics and how unexcited and disappointed I was with CoV's PPPs. You might remember I explained at length how CoH's Epics allowed for such great freedom, and how CoV's PPPs gave me nothing to look forward to.

Well, I was wrong. You see, I had done something over a year ago that I had already forgotten about - I took a character to 50. That happened in January of last year, so my memory of the event and the process was understandably foggy. Recently, however, I began going over my old builds and characters. and I came accross something interesting.

Samuel Tow himself, 50 since as long as can remember, reminded me exactly how CoH's Epics aren't complete, themselves. He is a SR/Kat scrapper, and his concept and his build drove me to take Body Mastery. Conserve Energy for the soul, and Foccused Accuracy for the concept. None of the others really fit at all, to be honest. But then, neither did hald the Body Mastery pool, as there was NO way to reationalise Energy attacks. So what did I do? I took Stimulant and Aid Self, because they were sorta-in-concept. And the end result was that for the last 6 levels I had absolutely nothing to look forward to.

Wasn't that exactly what I was complaining about? Wasn't that exactly what was so disappointing? Well, not entirely, but that was a very, very large part of it. And I was wrong. I've gone through this once already, and somehow I didn't complain back then. So why am I complaining now? Honestly, I don't know. I suppose that all the concepts I've made since then (AR/Dev/Munitions and Dark/Dark/Dark mostly) have skewered my perception since then, and I have forgotten what I had been through.

I don't know, but I believe I just lost a whole lot of ground to base my disappointment on. I'll admit it, I was wrong. Even so, however, that doesn't make me like the PPPs, or look forward to them any more. It doesn't make me dismiss the problems we all see with them, and it doesn't make me want generic Epics any less. In a sense, nothing has changed. The direction of the game remains disappointing, as does the post 40 power selection. What has changed, however, is my will to play it through to the end. If I've done it once, then I can do it again. I may complain, but it no longer seems as hard as I believed it did.

Ah, how quicly we forget...

Well, that in itself speaks volumes about our community, I would say. I don't have a lot of experience with other MMOs and their communities, but ours seems to have a great many players truely interested in the game, the fiction and the story, as opposed to the game's mechanics and statistics.

I won't berate the so called powergamers for playing as they find fun, but I will admit that this is foreign to me. I will also admit that while I do respect their right to play as they wish under the system, I feel more comfortable around people less concerned about mechanics and more concerned about immersion.

Yeah, I too find it funny that with all the supposed nerfs, all the ballancing changes, all the fixes and so forth... With all that material for complaints, it had to be cosmetics that really disappointed me I guess we all have out axe to grind

Err, I guess I type too slow. I edited (or rather appended) my post, so have a look at it

And, yes, you're right. "Can I have your stuff" is really just as insulting (both to myself and the person I direct it to) as "I quit!!!" In a sense, I've undermined my own position by resorting to it. But I have this weakness that when I do not feel communication is possible, I tend to, as Samurai Jack put it, "fight on their level." When discussions degress into "I'm rubber, you're glue," then there's really not much reason can acheive.

I suppose "can I have your stuff" has outlived it's purpuse, now that I think about it. Rampant "I'm leaving" posts have not taken place, so a stock response is no longer necessery. If it ever were, it was to combat the sheer number of them.

So I'm disappointed. I'm not throwing my weight around and making statements. I have no respect for people who trump that they're leaving like it adds any weight to their argument.

So, "can I have your stuff" is the canned response to that sort of sense of entitlement. Whenever I'm so disappointed that I decide to leave, I guarantee you won't hear about it. If I'm leaving, then that means I've given up hope of addressing issues. To me, "I'm leaving so there!" is only a vindictive statement meant as a last act of vandalism before leaving. Like when you tell your boss to "take the job and shove it" then spit on the floor before you leave.

That's not disappointment, that malicious anger.

*edit* This is getting far more aggressive than I had originally intended. Then again, it is no longer on topic. It hasn't been for half the thread. My original intention was simple - to post my feelings about the game and explain why I was sissatisfied and disappointed. It was never my intention to make demands, argue opinions or start a controversy. I did everything I could to present it in a cool, calm and collected manner. All I really cared about was what other people thought, if they felt like me, and if they felt that a chage was warranted.

And for the longest time that's how it went. I honestly wasn't expecting much of a response. I'm used to having an unpopular opinion, so the popularity of some of my concerns surprised me. But even with clashing opinions and disagreements, we still managed to keep the tone calm and the discussion friendly.

And then the Statesman posted. As glad as I am that he did, and as reassuring as having the man respond is, it brought exactly what I was hoping to avoid - angry, bitter, ranting people who had no intention of participating in a dialoge, but only cared to vent their pet peeves the world and who were prepared to slit the throat of anyone who disagreed. The above "I quit" equivalent was merely where the whole thing bottomed out into a flame-fest.

And that's not what I wanted.

I was disappointed, yes. Haven't we all been at one point or another? I was disappointed, and I had my reasons. But what I wanted to do with that disappointment was to initiate constructive criticism and maybe initiate dialoge. And for a while I did. What I DIDN'T want to do with my disappontment was to launch it out of a cannon directly into statemsan's face and laugh and laugh and laugh.

One can be disappointed with a product and still like it, and one can express disappointment with a product without making demands and unwarranted personal attacks.

But I realise that this is a lost cause now. I'm just hoping that whatever dialogue this thread had the potential to acheive has already taken place, because I don't see it going anywhere but to hell now.

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I've been lied to, misled, tricked, cajoled and deceived since this game went live. The days when I continue to pay for this stupidity are numbered...and the numbers are running out.

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Ah, we've come down to this, have we? Can I have your stuff?

And to think I respected a person capable of the lowest of lows, the "I'm leaving so there!" bomb. You're washed up, buddy, and that's without even addressing the rest of your post.

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This is true; there are a number of disappointing aspects with the Patron Pools, but this is complaining about one small part of an update that looks to contain a lot of other stuff that's really cool. We're not going to like everything in the game; it's best to just accept it and move on. Making minor parts of an update a pet issue that fortends doom for all and bringing it up constantly is a bit much.

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Of course. It's more than just a few Patron Powerpools that I'm disappointed about. If anything, the Patron Powerpools are a good idea in and of themselve. No, my disappointment has just built up over time from alittle things here and there that I don't wish to list. It's not important. It's a feeling I've been getting from the game and from changes and additions done to it that ultimately reflects a personal disagreement.

If anything, turning it into a problem as I have in numerous other threads was a mistake on my part. I guess it took some time for it to sink in that it wasn't Patron Powerpools and red electricity alone that I found disagreeable, and that there was more to it. If anything, Statesman's post only confirms my fears, because I was afraid they were doing exactly what he said they were doing. I don't want to explain it further.

And yet, I don't know why, but now that he has taken the time to respond to the issue personally, I feel that in some way we matter. That the development team is willing to communicate is really what brings me hope for the game. _Castle_ is making leaps and bounds in that departmen, and I feel this, albeis isolated appearance by the Statesman, himself, is just a sign that big brother is indeed watching and listening. In a sense, I had a mental picture of a stubborn development team pigheadedly making changes and updates their way. And while his post does not do a lot to disprove this, I no longer feel that way. I guess I'm easily pleased.

Not that I won't feel even more disappointed should the game keep going where I don't want it to go, but for now I'm satisified. I cannot expect the game to conform to my desires, that is unreasonable, but I like to think that I'm at least being heard without having to shout.

I would like to refrain from further dev-bashing for the sake of it. I don't agree with Statesman's position on the matter in the least - that's what I found disappointing to begin with. However, I'm far from asking for the guy's resignation or calling him names.

I've been called fanboy for less, and frankly, I might be. I just don't feel that the development team owe me anything. I don't feel entitled to making demands and pointing out errors, unless they're purely factological. "Accuracy is 50%" "No, it's not. Check again." "Oh, right. Fixed."

Anything else is personal perspective and opinion. And I've never been one to trump my own opinion, be it on other posters or the development team. If my opinion happens to differ from theirs, then I will do what I can to convince them. If I don't, then that just makes me like the game that little bit less. Enough of that and I won't like the game enough to keep paying for it, and I'll quit. It's as simple as that.

I don't hold grudges and I don't get angry over decisions, disagree with them though I may. In the end, I abandoned the notion that this would be the perfect game and that everything will be exactly as I wanted a long time ago. All it took was placing capes at level 20 to serve as a wake-up call that this isn't a super-happy-fun-place where all my dreams come true, but a reality that just happens to have lots of things I like.

In the end, being diasppointed, discussing it is all I can do. I don't feel entitled to the kind of ballance I want just because I pay 15$ a month. I can argue for it, and if I present a solid enough argument and get enough popular support, then that would present a point worthy of Dev attention and perhaps reconsideration.

Lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. I started a thread attempting to express my disappointment with the direction the game is heading in a civil and concise manner, people came to debate it and we got developr attention. It may not have been exactly the answer I wanted, but hey, it's an answer. We can't really do more than make our feelings known. Throwing fits and making demands doesn't really account for anything, and it's certainly not going to get us what we want.

I don't know, but I think that if we all calm down and discuss our problems and dislikes rationally and in a calm tone, then we could both make the forums a much more pleasant place to be, as well as actually improve our prospects for communication with the development team. They have proven time and time again that they are more willing to communicate where communication is appreciated, and less likely to communicate where communication is ambushed. And I can't blame them. I certainly wouldn't want to have anything to do with half the people on the boards.

Take that for what it's worth.

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But with that said... it still irks me when a hallway is 'blocked' by a stack of crates. Sorry, end of map, you can't walk down this hallway. Damn superglued crates

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Or closed door in offices Yeah, apparently we don't have the motor skills required to open a closed door, so the only doors we can get through are those left conveniently wide open. Just hope that the door to the loo is open in case of emergencies.

I have to agree, if a system of puzzles and obstacles is ever introduced, it better well be very elaborate and lax about what cannot be done. For example, you need to get through a locked door. Do you:

A) Pick the lock
B) Smash it
C) Find the key and unlock it
D) Find another rout
E) FInd a character in the building who can open it for you.
F) Other (teleport if you can, phase through if you can, etc.)

That sort of system would reward people with the proper skill with a faster and easier progression, while still allowing unskilled people to get through, if through more effort and more time spent.

Frankly, I just cannot understand why they haven't added the bare essential puzzles - switches that open doors and keys that open doors. Even Doom had that much puzzle in it

But I think we're going a little off-topic here. My real concern was the direction the game was being taken. In a sense, Statesman's post only reaffirmed what I was afraid of - they want the game to be more involved. However, his making a post here tells me that they see this as a valid concern for some people, and that gives me some degree of hope that a compromise might be acheived down the road. You know, when you see discussion after discussion on the same topic and no official response, it meakes me feel like we're children arguing about how "my dad can beat your dad." To a point, having the Statesman personally acknowlege that he recognises this does alleviate some of my concerns.

It's pretty clear that whatever is going into I7 is going in as-is. That was never a point of debate for me. My concern was about what the future held, and what it seemed to hold was just more temathic restriction. Wanting to keep the two games different is a very scary prospect for me (because either game will be missing out on good things), but at least I hope that our time on the boards expressing opinions and debating ideas is not going to waste.

So let's see how it turns out

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CoX seems to be opposed to the idea of content that requieres any particular skill set. There are few if any missions where the inabilityt to fly precludes you from completeing or accepting a mission. THere was one mission where I had 5 minutes to disable a computer network upon leaving another mission. Without Super Speed and Stealth, I would have not been able to complete it in time solo. That was only one mission among hundreds and hundreds where I need any particular powers...and I just got lucky with the right tool set. But the problem, imo, is you don't do this enough.

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Actually, I'll have to voice a concern against skill prerequisties. There has been nothing more frustrating to me in a D&D game than having a party of 6 and not having a single person who could open that frikkin door to the "phat lewt" treasury, so I had to pass it by. And I had a thief, mind you, just apparently not a good enough one. In Fallout, I'd spend countelss skill points on lockpicking, just because half the game world is hidden behind locked doors to which there are no keys.

I believe that skills, while a good thing, should be made into a system that is not exclusive. There is no more frustrating thing in a game than being told: "You just cannot do this thing. Period. Go away and never come back." This sucks, quite honestly, and has turned me off on more than one occasion.

IF there is ever a skills system, it needs to be capable of being overriden in some way. Can't unlock the door? Smash it, but raise an alarm. Can't reach that high terrace? Break the pillars and bring it down to you. Can't get past that spinning laser corridor of doom? Find the generator and shoot it until it smokes. Make having the skills make life easier, but not be the only course of action.

Well, that's certainly a medal for the rack. Not only did I get a red name responce to my post (which wasn't a mod warning), but I actually got THE man on the line. Score Too bad he's useurped my thread now, though.

A little more seriously, I do appreciate you taking the time to talk to us, states. While this certainly wasn't a showstopper, it appears to have bugged enough of us to bear a notice.

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If I were to wax philosophical for a moment – I wonder whether it’s the genre (super heroes), the medium (City of Heroes) or the nature of the internet which has led to a greater demand for individuality.

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Actually, that's your own fault. You guys have given us so much customization in this game that I have not seen any other game come even close to, that we've been spoiled Before CoH, I was happy to be playing whoever the developers of a given game had written for me to play and didn't complain. A generic Barbarian? Fine, so be it. The great Dark Jedi Raven who had his memory wiped clean? OK.

But after finding a game where I could actually create a character of my own, just the way I wanted to, with just the right appearance and just the right powers... Well, I got used to it. A little too used to it, it would appear, as I was expecting more options that I should have. And that's why the Patron Powerpools disappointed me. I expected more options for my concept, and I got something else.

The truth is that I don't mind Patron Powersets. They're certainly an important part of CoV, and a good concept for SOME character. If anything, I'd like to see them come to CoH, so that we can cooperate with Miss Liberty, or Back Alley Brawler, or even the Statesman himself. I don't guarantee I'd take them, but I just might, and I have plenty of other choices if I don't want to.

However, what really disappointed me was this "different experience." This is directed to the public, but I didn't need the man to tell me he wanted to make CoV different for me to sense it. The game has changed in ways that tell exactly that story. And frankly, I'm not happy about it. The development team may have wanted something more out of CoH, but I didn't. It was perfect just the way it was - that's why I bought it in the first place.

Now, I wouldn't mind one bit if CoV were upgraded with a new feel and a new direction. What I do request, however, is that the old feel, or at least an option for it be preserved. I'll never complain about an addition, even if it's not something I'd use, as long as that which I'm used to remains an option.

What do I want? Simple Epics or equivalent in CoV, and Patrons or equivalent in CoH. The two games don't NEED to be different, as long as the option to have a different feel is there. It's a stupid decision to make, when I wonder if I should make a hero or villain depending on weather I want to be immersed in the storyline or not. It's an unfair choice to associate one with the other, and as it stands the choice between hero and villain takes more than concept into account. I'm not even talking about game systems and powersets. It's just that this different feel is irrevocably tied to our alignment, which it has nothing to do with.

But I do hope things will be equilised as time goes on.

Oh, I would agree that changing power colours is not as simple as changin a few variables. A lot of powers are made up of several sprites, or several arrays of sprites, and a lot have 3D components to them, with their own textures and geometry.

The developers have shown that, creation time notwithstanding, they can easily swap out animations, sprites colours and shapes. Once. Even if changed, those things remain hard-coded and editable only at a code level, not an interface level. For us to be able to edit the colours of our powers, this needs to be made dynamic and integrated into the interface in some way, and that's just a whole lot of work to do.

I can see how it would be a lot of work, that's why I don't believe I'd live to see it.

Yes, you're right. I did come off more harsh towards the leather and chains additions that CoV brought to the costume generator. I personally don't like them, but I didn't mean for my dislike to be portrayed as objective disapproval. It's not, that's just something I don't like. It's also not something I can decry without being a hypocrite, as I really see a need for them in the game.

No, the costumes were a cheap-shot means to illustrate my point - they provide enough choices to allow me to look the way I want to and not look the way I don't want to. That is good, and that is what I want about powers, as well. For the longest time I thought I could put up with the powers, but it appears I was just lucky to like most of them.

And as for the assault rifle model, I may be the only player of CoH who actually likes it There just doesn't seem to be a way to stich in a clip, grenade launcher, flamethrowers, gas tank and rocket launcher on a rifle without making it into a frankengun. I probably won't mourn the loss of the model if it were chaged, but I like it as it is. And if it is ever changed, I'd like to have the option to keep it.

I believe my point is being lost in this discussion, so I would like to restate it. This is not a matter of "can't," this is a matter of "don't want to." I CAN fit my concepts into the framework presented, but I really, really DON'T WANT TO.

The comparison to Stamina was a good one. I never wanted Stamina, even when people were telling me I HAD to have it. So I didn't take it on any of my characters. I haven't taken Stamina on any character to this day. I slogged through a game ballanced around 6-slotted Stamina, slotted tons of endurance reducers, rested like an astmathic kitten every few steps of the way and never raised my difficulty above the second one, and even that only to get bosses.

Much in the same vein, I do not like the Patron Powerpools. There's nothing to test. There are no stone Patrons, and that's what I wanted. So I'll do what I've always done. I'll play the game as best I can without taking the Patron powers. If I'll miss out on cool stories, then so be it. If I'll miss out on great power, then so be it. My concept is more valuable to me than any part of the story of the game. I have suffered for that before, and I will suffer for it again, it would seem.

But that's not the point. Life goes on and there's still a game worth playing post 40. And play it I will, there's no reason not to. But I am just no longer as enthusiastic about it as I was. I'm also no longer enthusiastic about new additions to the game. As Taser said, the developers are really trying to tie us into the story, and I know that to a lot of people that is a good thing. To me, it is a bad thing, and I'm not excited about where this is going. I'm starting to think that I'll never see what I want, because what I want is (or appears to be) old news for the developers.

To be honest, what I really want is a choice. I've never been one to decry an addition just because I don't like it. Sure, I may not like it, but I'm certain others would, and this game does not revolve around me. But I do want a choice in having a viable alternative that accomplishes what I want.

In a sense, City of Heroes has given me expectations. I played this game for the longest time, and I loved every minute of it. I expected City of Villains to be similar. I mean, why fix something that isn't broken? But apparently the powers that be fealt it was broken, and I just don't like the fix. So my expectations turned out to be false. The choice I expected to have simply wasn't there. Instead, I had to choose between something that I never even expected to see, or understood the need for. Since then I've accpeted both the need and the merits of this addition, but I have not lost my desire to have what I used to. And, unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be on the list of "anytime soon."

But it's not just Patron Powerpools. The whole game and the whole atmosphere is being severely warped into a mold. We are evil. We are told we're evil. We are shown we're evil. We are made to do evil. Constantly we are bombarded with red and black colour shcemes, ghettos, drunken bums, crime, slavery, more slums and ghettos, the darkest nights I've seen in my life, every night, days as dark as Paragon City's nights. And now red electricity. Can we get any more overt?

I don't want to ooze evilnessnessness. I don't want to be a neon advertisment for Evils-R-Us. I don't need to be told, shown, demonstrated and reiterated that I'm evil. I KNOW I am, I made the character. I want a subtle-looking villain. I want a concept that is less overt, less evil-looking. I understand that some people like that, and that's what the chains, spikes, skulls, horns, hooves, ugly faces and so forth are for. I may not use them, but I understand the need to have them.

But I don't need to be, say, a demon from hell come to eat children and kick puppies to shoot fire. No, I can be a little girl called Cindy, who likes kittens and white, fluffy clouds if I so fancied, and still be able to shoot fire. But if red electricity is anything to go by, that will not always be the case.

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I like my villains to be more subtle than the skulls and chains and bloody stuff that dominates the costume selections. Sure I like those options and use 'em, but I just wish more subtle or neutral options were available too. It's the attitude and actions that make somebody villainous, not necessarily their outward appearance.

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Exactly. We got chains and barbed wire and horns and spikes and hooves and lord knows what else. My first reaction was "Cool!" Except I've never used them. Of course, I'm not arrogant or selfish enough to decry them - that sort of thing is an integral part of villainy.

However, if I had nothing but leather and chains (shut up!) to make my villains out of, I'd be pissed. Very much so. But we don't. We got all the "I eat babies!" evil gear, but we also got all the stars-n-stripes, polyester and tights hero costumes. So, if I didn't want to make an "I R Evil" concept, I didn't have to. And I haven't.

This appears to be increasingly less the case, however, and it bugs me.

I seem to have started quite a discussion on what may well be a volitile subject for some, so I'm glad to see we've kept it as clean as we have. Thank you for that.

There are a few points I need to address:

Try it first - I don't think I will, because the thing I don't like will not change with trying it. I want a Stone Epic to finish my Stone/Stone brute. That isn't there, and I don't need to test to see that. I'll say that again - it's not the Patron Powerpools that I'm against. I don't mind having them. It's the lack of, you know, other stuff. Generic stuff. That is missing. I don't have a choice at the moment. Either I take a patron, or I don't take anything at all, and I find that distasteful.

Serving Arachnos - Yes, the world is built like that, and yes, had I no other choice, I would conform my characters in one way or another. That doesn't mean I have to like the few choices I have. I don't. I prefer to choose the allegiance of my own characters myself. CoH allows me to do that. CoV does not.

You know, the funniest thing is that in CoH, where absolutely no allegiance of any kind is required, my main character and namesake, Samuel Tow, is depicted as a servant of the city. Not out of necessity, but because it's the right thing to do, and because he'll be protecting the city one way or the other. I wasn't forced to, I had a choice, and I chose allegiance. I don't need it forced on me in CoV any more than I did in CoH.

The point is that I'm not trying to decry the new additions. Certainly Patron Powerpools are not a bad idea, although I wish they hadn't dug themselves into the hole they had by building a system for which they didn't have the appropriate software. Red electricity certainly isn't "a bad thing." Some people like it. I happen to dislike it.

No, the additions coming are all well and good, but they're not what I wanted or expected. The additions present options that I find unacceptable. And while I realise not all people would find them to be so, for me there are no other options. It's either an option I don't like, or bupkis, and that is a loaded choice.

I used to hope that what I don't like will be fixed sooner or later. But the recent moves really disappointed me. I'm no longer certain if what I want is ever going to come. I'm beginning to thing that the developers have turned over a new leaf and are bringing the game in a direction I don't like. I was never one to complain about what I'm NOT getting, and I suppose I had built up my hope to a level I should not have. That left me disappointed when it dawned on me that what I wanted just wasn't coming. And I learned, and I adapted. Now I have brought my expectations down to the bare minimum. I've resigned to not hoping and not looking forward to anything again, because I just don't want to be disappointed like that any more. I still love the game for what it is, and I still love playing it, but my enthusiasm is gone. I'm not angry, really. Just disappointed.

And a point needs to be said about artistic freedom. I realise there is a world set before us, and I realise we need to conform to it. To argue with official fiction is stupid, that much everyone will agree with. So I'm not complaining about what I can and cannot do, I'm complaining about what I have and what I don't have to do. I don't want to allign some of my characters with Arachnos in any way, shape or form, but I'll have to. And every time I think about what I'll have to do, I just get the urge to stop playing altogether. Ever since I learned about the Patron Powerpools and the lack of Epics, I've been employing an escapist strategy. I play for the moment and try to build my characters on the here and now. But this is pathetic, especially in ligh of my full knowlege of what is coming. And I don't know how much longer I can go on pretending I have anything to look forward to post 40.

I know it's funny to be asking for the two games to be more similar, but CoH is the game I fell in love with all those years ago. It was perfect then, and it has become even more so since then. Sure, ballancing issues and changes have happened, but I don't really care. My characters remained true to my own vision. That is what I loved, and I will never understand why the developers decided that it needed to be fixed. I suppose my major disappointment comes from having played CoH for a year and a half and loving every second of it, and expecting CoV to be the same. CoV, however, appears to be going in a different direction.

And that just makes me a little sad.

To be honest, this point was really driven home yesterday. A friend of mine came over to visit, and so I played an old character he made. An old Ar/Dev blaster that I stopped playing at the eve of Issue 2. Just planning what I was going to do with that blaster had me salivating. I have all the AR attacks, everything from Devices up to except Time Bomb and Auto Turret. I was just thinking ahead, planning what else I was going to take. Body Armour - great, he wears power armour. Freeze Ray and Whatever Gas, even better, he uses the same assault rifle. LRM - the cherry on top. A tech-looking powerful attack to add to Flamethrower and Full Auto.

And then I came back to CoV and started playing. I was trying not to think ahead, because I knew what the 40s would bring me - nothing. I'd have all my powerset powers by 38, so what else would I take? Kick, Tough, Weive, something else I haven't decided on. Extremely underwhelming. So much so, that I really don't want to think about it, because it's depressing.

Building characters and playing them was my draw to this game. Playing them can always be adjusted, but building them just makes me compromise more and more until I just give up.

I don't know what they were trying to acheive with CoV. In all honesty, I don't know what is so different about it. But what I do know is that everything in CoV is several orders of magnitude more specific than it is in CoH. I just don't want to be turned off a good game for a reason as stupid as red electricity or something like that. Because there is no reason for it to BE red other than to make it look like evilnessnessness. And that is disheartening.

Let me say beforehand that this is not a whine, rant, complaint or demand. I don't mean to start an argument or even to vent. This is just something I feel I need to say, because it's been bothering me for a while.

You know, it's funny. I've been with CoH since a month after release, and with CoV since Beta. I've gone through changes by the dozen. I could have complained and ranted about so many supposed "nerfs" and ballances, but I never did. I suppose I didn't really care. No, after coming on two years, I have to be stuck up on cosmetics.

I'm really beginning to be disappointed about where CoV is going. When I got the game, and when I played it to some level in Beta, I was convinced I would have the same artistic freedom in crating and shaping characters as I did in CoH. That has turned out to not be the case, and the freedom that initially sold the game to me is disappearing before my eyes.

Once upon a time, City of Heroes allowed me to create a character - any character I like - and outfit them with generic powers that fitted a broad range of concepts. Somehow, no-one ever fealt the need to make the powers feel "good" or "heroic." We weren't made to shoot stars and stripes, and were weren't expected to throw rainbows and unicorns at our enemies. On the contrary, we had fire and brimstone, evil dark energies from the neatherworld, leather weapons, sharp pointy sticks. Sure, out costume selection was kind of sparse and pretty generic, but it made for good superheroes.

And yet CoV has not gone down the same path. With the very launch of the game, we got a wide assortment of "evil demon from the deepest depths of deep hell here to krush kill and destroy" costume options. Ah, well, it takes all kinds, right? Can't argue with a few more specific and menacing costume options, and in all honesty villains needed those costumes, because a lot of the concepts required them.

Then I am told we will be getting something called Patron Powerpools, instead of the Epics I was looking forward to. Unlike the generic and easily applicable Epics, Patron Powerpools turned out to be highly-specific, hard-coded into the storyline, and based on our service of a patron. That took a axe and applied it to just about any artistic freedom I had planned, while at the same time removing what I expected would make a no-brainer transition. That was disappointing.

And just yesterday I realised that the new electric brute powers I had been looking forward to will be red. Red is evil, I am told. Yes, the "I R Evil!" sort of evil, I will agree. Certainly more evil and less refined than I had in mind, and a lot less applicable to my plans. Can I make it work? Sure! That's the easy bit. But it just won't be as cool. Not even half as cool as I had hoped. That was disappointing.

And those have just been the most major moves that have disappointed me. There are little bits and pieces that add to the matter. In the end, I still like CoV. It's a great game and I will go on playing it. But my enthusiasm for it is now gone. Not one thing that expected or hoped for came through. Instead, a lot of what came through was almost exactly the opposite of what I wanted and expected. In a sense, now I'm being drawn back to CoH, where I could build my characters just the way I wanted them, without having them coralled into the theme of the game. Even though CoH's systems are now old, and it hasn't been significantly updated, it still has that which made me buy the game in the first place, and it has that which the developrs saw fit to not carry over to CoV. The two games are becomming far too different for my tastes, and all these differences are countering points that sold the game to me.

In the end, I'm just disappointed. I no longer have any hope for the future, nor for any future updates. Nothing I have hoped for has materialised in the last year. I'll keep playing and having just as much fun as I had before, but I no longer expect that fun to be extended or expanded by any Issue I'm likely to see. And I didn't use to feel that way.