Sardan
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Ah that makes sense, and also explains why the escapee phase is so laggy: the server has to generate large numbers of minions <s every few seconds.Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
It's not "mobs standing around and patrolling." The lag comes from the server generating about 60-70 mobs at a time (or more) every few seconds. If they were pre-spawned there would likely be much less lag. Remember, the ITF lag only happens under the Bridge where spawns will rush out of the doors when each General is killed. This is why you can herd up both of the towers in the ITF'S last mission with relatively no lag; the mobs have been generated already. The enemies under the Bridge and in the BAF's second phase are not, so the server has to spit them out. -
When broadcasting looking for a Trial league, I think it's a reasonable shortcut to refer to a character as 53 because typing "50 (+3)" just seems overly pedantic.
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I sympathize with your friend. Many people have posted here on the forums who like to either solo or run small teams.
Instead of talking about strategies to let your friend unlock his Incarnate slots, I'm going to take it a different direction and suggest he completely ignore the Incarnate part of the game. If he likes running teams of 5 or so people, Incarnate powers will just trivialize the regular mission content and eventually make it un-fun.
I only have 1 character that I've done i20 content on, a Dom. I unlocked all four new I-slots and I have tier 3 powers in all of them. I decided to help out a scanner mission team running in PI last night. I had fun showing off for about 3 minutes. Honestly I could've easily solo'd the entire mission. After a couple of missions I quit the team because there wasn't any challenge at all.
Not every new shiny in the game is going to appeal to everyone. I know it's probably going to be bitter medicine for your friend, but in my opinion the only reason to invest the time to unlock & equip Incarnate slots is to participate in the new endgame. But if he can't stand teaming with large numbers of people who aren't close friends, I'd urge him to realize that the endgame is just not going to be his cup of tea. Sure, I can think of contrived circumstances where having Incarnate powers would be cool outside of the endgame content. It'd be a fun challenge having a team of 4 heavily Incarnate-slotted characters solo the ITF or LGTF, for example. But normal mission content will be trivialized to the point of rapid boredom. -
I think all the hand-wringing worrying that blasters will be marginalized by teams or leagues full of AoE-weilding teammates is unwarranted. The way all MMO gear-oriented end games are structured, you get the early gear to prep you for the harder content that allows you to get later gear.
So we're going to see even harder content released that unlocks the later Incarnate slots. I don't know what that content will be, but I guarantee just having everyone equipped with Judgement nukes won't be enough to steamroll it. It's going to be designed with that as a baseline! Blasters will continue to be highly useful and much desired. Especially on leagues where lots of buffs are available: a mez protected, recharge boosted, damage capped blaster unleashing AoE hell on a spawn is a sight to behold. -
Quote:Agreed. My Mind/Fire Dom has strong single target damage. Couple that with permadom and I can find a crate and lock down an entire level 54 spawn long enough to destroy the crate solo. It's a very satisfying feeling to be able to do something most squishies can't (solo the crate spawns with no insps).Originally Posted by Obitus
Yeah, but on the upside, the boss-rank 9CUs that reinforce Siege -- and accrue outrageously high +ToHit and +damage buffs just for staying alive -- heavily favor Domination-fueled control powers. Bonus points if they're long-duration powers like Mass Confusion.
And in the Lambda sabotage phase (the most crucial phase of the trial, arguably), Mind/* Doms are spectacular, particularly if they have stealth. -
Quote:Yeah, it's frustrating playing a Mind Dom in the BAF during the escapee phase. And as if all that isn't enough, the Mass Hypnosis sleep power is useless 99% of the time because of all the rains/AoEs that are used.Originally Posted by Seldom
Too bad terrify has no effect, and confusion is useless.
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Odd, they posted patch notes then took them down. The most significant new change is that they've added an option for you to start a solitaire game while the BAF cutscene plays.
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My favorite cut scene is in the Alpha slot arc where Mender Ramiel explains about the Well, and you get to see a parade of Incarnate heroes and villains against a background of a night sky. It feels totally cinematic and (I know this is an overused word) epic.
In the BAF cutscene what annoys me there are -all- -the- -hyphens- they throw into Mother Mayhem's dialog. What are they supposed to be? Emphasis? Use boldface or italics or underlines. Pauses? Use ellipsis or emdashes. It makes it hard to read and it's just puzzling and immersion breaking. -
Quote:This bothers many of us. There's probably legacy code reasons for it but it just feels arbitrary. Hopefully they'll change it at some point.Originally Posted by IanTheM1
why can the queue zap people together from anywhere in the game, but pre-made leagues have to be in the same zone?
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"Exterminate! Exterminate!"
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Quote:My objective wasn't to do a broader critique, it was to contrast my experience with the expectations derived from the most widespread complaints I'd read on the forums.Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
I'd mostly agree wtih your summary, but I think you're missing a couple of points.
If I allow myself to stray outside of that framework, my biggest gripe by far is how the client UI gets out of synch with the server especially during the prisoner phase of the BAF. Not being able to fire off powers that appear to be recharged is maddening. I was playing my Dom and it was seriously un-fun to wait until a bunch of mobs grouped up just so for maximum AoE hold effectiveness when... surprise! The AoE hold wasn't recharged after all! Grrr.
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Quote:I should've linked to it. It's from his MMO Designer blog. Here's the entry I was referring to.Originally Posted by Winterminal
Would anyone mind posting an explanation of his reasoning? Or just posting a link to where I can find it? I seem to have missed that big while reading up on ALL of the other stuff
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Quote:I sympathize. The traditional rejoinder to this is "Just do what you did before there was an endgame: roll an alt and enjoy!"Originally Posted by Test_Rat
But unless I am doing these trials I am not making any effective progress on my characters.
If I am not making any progress why log in?
My problem is that there are no new powerset combos that I find compelling, so I have no interest in rolling an alt. I find myself wanting only to advance a few of my 50s. Yet the resultant grind of trying to advance multiple 50s through the same 2 Trials is a strong disincentive.
I'm trusting that over time as they release more Incarnate content it will not feel as grindy. -
I wasn't able to test i20, I only read about it sporadically on the forums. So I knew about the 2 new trials, and I was concerned by the high failure rate reported. I also read just enough about all the new Incarnate salvage that it made my head spin.
When i20 went live, the amount of doom-crying was high:
- The new Incarnate Trials are way too tough compared to the rest of CoH content.
- The time commitment required by an endgame system is unreasonable and counter to CoH's casual-friendly past.
- The new Incarnate salvage is confusing and unnecessary.
- Having only 2 Trials means having to repeat/grind the same content far too much.
I predicted that within a couple of months people would have strategies figured out and the presence of people on leagues who already had lots of beyond-Alpha slots unlocked would make the tasks easier. I was wrong. The transition from "OMG this is too hard!" to "If you listen to simple directions this isn't very hard" happened some time before I started playing on Saturday. So what I predicted would happen in a couple of months took less than a week.
Not casual friendly?
Many people have wrung their hands because part of CoH's appeal is being the casual-friendly MMO and they worried about end game raiding ruining that. While the Incarnate Trials are definitely harder than regular content, they are fast and can easily be done by a first-timer as long as he or she will follow some simple directions. I think that qualifies as a casual-friendly end game!
I can't stress enough my gratitude to the devs that even though the Incarnate Trials are intended to be hard, they're designed to be sub-hour encounters. If these were multi-hour encounters, players like me would only be able to participate rarely.
Yes, the Incarnate system IS designed to be a time sink. Welcome to MMOs. If you only do a couple of Incarnate Trials a week it will take you a long time to unlock and equip the various slots. But that's by design; just as you're not intended to get to level 50 in a weekend, you're not intended to blaze through the Incarnate system in a few days either.
Incarnate currency overload?
While I understand Posi's reasoning for the new Incarnate currency I strongly dislike it. This is one area that I think might inhibit vets from returning to the game. Just try explaining to someone how to create set IOs and the benefits they give, then the Alpha slot and shards, then the other Incarnate slots and threads. Bleah.
Incarnate grind?
This one I now strongly sympathize with. It really gets old fast having to run the same 2 tasks repeatedly. Still I don't blame the devs. I'd rather have i20 now than wait for more Trials to be created/tested. Too grindy? Take a break and do something else. This is a problem that will solve itself after they release a few more Incarnate Trials.
I'm going to follow my own advice and not do any Incarnate trials for a while.
After two long days, they are indeed feeling pretty grindy.
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They discovered a problem that was serious enough that it could crash a server. Hence, emergency maintenance.
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Quote:Agreed. But this will change in time. More content is on the way. Upthread someone noted that they've previewed an additional two Trials to some folks in the media.Originally Posted by Futurias
Except they decided that Alpha was too inclusive. Please only play two (possibly very annoying) missions over and over and over to get them.
The slots themselves are fine. Even the trials can be very fun, even if the learning curve is a bit steep and they shivved Defense in the back.
The grind is not fun. -
Quote:Good question. After all, the typical gear-oriented end game goes like this: you do a task to get better gear which enables you to do a tougher task to get better gear which enables you to.... you get the idea.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Question: What happens when/if newer Incarnate Trials expect you to have level shifts?
So it's reasonable to expect that they will have to create content that is designed to be a challenge for players with all the then-available Incarnate slots unlocked. But having slots unlocked doesn't necessarily mean you have a specific tier within the slot equipped. Given that the Trials accept large numbers of players, I'd expect that a player would be able to perform just fine even if he didn't have the elite levels equipped.
For a while I ran several ITFs a week. They certainly went faster when there were experienced purpled-out players on the team. But a balanced team could bring along an SO'd first timer and still succeed. I expect that analogy to hold for Incarnate stuff too.
If the game had a much, much larger player population I could envision trials that were gated to only allow elite players that had the very rare slots equipped. But I can't see that ever happening in CoH; there simply won't be enough of that type of player to justify creating content playable only by them. -
Quote:My bet is that the devs have discussed this ad nauseum among themselves, but it'll depend on how the Incarnate stuff is received. If in the end the players don't care for it, the devs will invest resources elsewhere. If players enjoy it, my guess is that they'll continue advancing the Incarnate system until they pull the plug on the game.Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
The bigger question to ask is will there will be a continuation of this end game after Omega slot?
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Quote:You're exactly right. The devs DON'T want everyone to get the top tier rewards. Look at how they did the set IO system. They put purple and PvP IOs in there. I've seen endless complaints on the forums from people who feel that since those IOs are in the game, that they personally are entitled to them. They're outraged that they're out of reach of the casual gamer.Originally Posted by Ice_Wall
Look I like the Devs, and since NCsoft took over CoH the game has grown in great ways... But looking at what it'll take to get the top tier rewards in this game.... It's exactly the reason I don't play WoW. It's like the devs don't want people to get these rewards.
But purples and PvP IOs are meant to be elite-level rewards for a small subset of ultra-dedicated hardcore gamers. They give the hyper-focused person something to strive for. You're in no way gimped if your build doesn't have these IOs in it.
It's the same with all the new Incarnate slots. Without exception all the top tier unlocks require crazy amounts of time investment. Some people will pursue them and will be rewarded. Most people will simply ignore them and still end up with perfectly fine Incarnate builds. -
Quote:I guess this is a case where the devs are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The number one knock I heard against this game from new players is "there's no end game? Pffft." The counterargument of "the journey is its own reward, just roll an alt when you hit max level" struck most of these people as a phoney rationalization for the lack of an important (to them) partof an MMO. A lot of players in other games like the option of being able to stick with an alt and basically be able to gear them up indefinitely.Originally Posted by firespray
City of Heroes has never been the kind of game that is designed for that sort of people though. It's never been the raid/grind style of MMO. It's always been much more casual. That's always been a big part of its identity, and I don't really think that changing that is a good thing. Do we really want to play in another WoW clone?
I think that's overstating things. Yes, if you want to play your level 50s, the action is going to be in the Incarnate content. But nothing is preventing you from rolling a new character and playing the sub-50 game just as you've always done.Quote:In the end though, I think my biggest problem with the new Incarnate content is that it's required. It's pretty clear that if I want to participate in the majority of content coming out in the near future, I'm required to participate in the grinding.
Yeah, it's disappointing when a new issue releases with nothing in it that's personally appealing. I sympathize. Hopefully there will be more of a mix of content in future issues.Quote:Now sure, I could just ignore it if I wanted, but then I'm essentially getting no new content for several issues in a row, and to me, that feels like a waste of my money every month. -
Quote:Nice summary, well said.Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
The entire MMO industry has only come up with three "end games" to keep people busy between content releases: alt-itis, PvP, and gear-grind raids. CoH does alt-itis better than any other MMO in history, bar none, nobody even comes close. CoH does PvP worse than any other MMO in history, bar none, nobody even comes close. Until i19, CoH didn't even pretend to have gear-grind raids; now it does. Call it progress, call it a step backwards; for some people, "an excuse to keep playing the same character once I hit the level cap" is a check-off item, a minimum requirement.
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Quote:I think you're the one with the comprehension problem. The entire endgame system is far from complete. So yes, right now there are these two trials. That's not the entirety of the end game content.Originally Posted by Battler
If you have a comprehension problem, then that's not my fault, but if you can't work out I have no problems with end games in any game. The way it has been implimented in this game just beggers belief.
You can fail and still get rewarded and the marvelous endgame here involves running just TWO Trials over and over and over and over....
And as to the "you can fail and still get rewarded" part, that was a game design decision that I believe is much welcomed by the vast majority of the players.
What's strange to me is that you appear to have liked CoH prior to the Incarnate content. Why not keep playing that game? When you hit 50, just roll an alt. There's more low level content than ever, and as I noted in another thread, there's going to be a ton more in i21. How do I know? Ponder this: there is a wide spectrum of dev jobs. This issue has been a lot of programming work. But all the artists, designers and writers who do new missions, tilesets, powers, and costumes have to be working on something all this time, and it sure as hell wasn't i20 (or at least, not much). They've been hard at work on i21 for weeks, if not months. I would expect i21 to include a new Incarnate Trial or two but also a whole lot of non-Incarnate stuff. -
Quote:I wonder. I don't play WoW but I've heard the mantra repeated many times that the game only really gets interesting there once you hit the level cap and can start raiding. I believe it's common there to have fewer alts that you invest more time into. Perhaps the new CoH end game will attract players that saw CoH as being shallow when it lacked one?Originally Posted by Winterminal
"Veteran players getting bored and quitting" is not the only reason games lose population. You also have to offer things that may draw in new players, or draw back deactivated players, and i20 caters to neither.
Entirely agreed. I do worry about this new complexity alienating players that are considering returning.Quote:And let's be realistic: this new content is confusing and convoluted even for players who have been paying attention. The amount of new things a returning player would have to read and comprehend is daunting and probably a turn-off.
There are a whole spectrum of devs. They all do different jobs. This issue has been a lot of programming work. But all the artists, designers and writers who do new missions, tilesets, powers, and costumes have to be working on something all this time, and it sure as hell wasn't i20 (or at least, not much). They've been hard at work on i21 for weeks, if not months. I would expect i21 to include a new Incarnate Trial or two but also a whole lot of non-Incarnate stuff.Quote:Issue 21 needs to change the pace. Let's temporarily switch our focus back to the 1-49 game. -
Quote:This too will improve over time. We have only the first 2 trials so they're unavoidably grindy. But they're going to be adding additional trials over the next several issues. I'd expect that next year players will have many more options which will reduce the grind. You'll still need to put in a lot of hours but you'll be able to choose from a wider variety of content.Originally Posted by Kelenar
And if you still have to do them ten times, that's too much repetition for me. I'll be giving these a try this weekend, but unless I love them, I can't see myself doing ten (or even eight) runs of the same thing in any reasonable time frame without getting astoundingly bored. The list of things I've done ten times within the past two years is probably the LGTF and the ITF. And I don't tend to love anything that can be vaguely described as raid content. I'm fine with difficulty, but a boredom tax isn't my thing.
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Quote:I fully expect the doomcrying to calm quite a bit in a few weeks as people work out tactics for these encounters and get geared up.Originally Posted by DanZero
2 Lamda's. One success. Unlocked Interface. Justice 78% unlocked. Got close to 30 Threads. 3 merits. 1 Purple. Both Lamda's were less than 45 minutes. So, 3 hours. And I'm by no means a hardcore player.
The doom is way over rated people. If I can do it (and feel free to ask around if I'm any good at this game, I'm not), anyone can.
This is the most casual end game content on the planet.
Right now the trials are being run mostly by folks with only Alpha slots unlocked. But a couple of months from now, I'd expect teams to include a healthy dose of players that have other slots unlocked and equipped, which will make the whole encounter much smoother for everyone.