SideshowRaheem

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
-If you remember who killed Fritz, the dirty yellow rotten [persons]


[/ QUOTE ]

That's such an awesome movie. Now I have to see if it's on DVD.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is ... I own a copy.

[ QUOTE ]
I also remember the bug that caused your cast pets to die if you then became a sidekick!

[/ QUOTE ]

I remember the bug where pets would turn hostile if someone zoned while they were active. The pet would stay behind in the zone attack heroes. I was nearly killed by a rogue Singularity in Perez Park.

[ QUOTE ]
- Crimson Death (a Fire / Devices Blaster) was the first player to hit maxlevel (40 at the time) two weeks after launch? Apparently s/he played 14 hours a day to get there... and exploited the slow powers in both Fire and Devices to stop enemies getting anywhere near them.

[/ QUOTE ]

One of the first power changes was to Caltrops because of this strategy. They changed the AI so mobs try to run off Caltrops. One of the first post-release characters I played was an AR/Dev Blaster. If you dropped Caltrops just right, you could get the mobs to continuously try to cross the caltrops to get to you.

[ QUOTE ]
Did you know that the original animation for "Storm Kick" from the Martial Arts set was completely different? It used to throw up a leg and deliver several swift kicks in succession. But the animation time was very long and there were many complaints, so it was changed to the Storm Kick we have today. I still miss the original, since it made me feel really awesome... but it was a really long animation.

[/ QUOTE ]

My wife was just saying the other day that she missed the original "b*tch slap" version of Storm Kick.

Downhill Racer on Protector

I buy my ideas from a guy that hangs out by the dumpster behind my apartment.

[ QUOTE ]
1. Actually, we've tweaked SS in the past; the issues with SJ have slowly evolved over time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ha ha ha!

You tweaked SS in the first couple of months after the game was launched. No travel power has been tweaked since. EVERY statement about the travel powers from a Red Name in the last 8-10 months has said they were satisfied that the travel powers were balanced. Does this sound like an issue evolving over time?

I really want to believe that I'm not being lied to, but this just makes no sense. I can't even imagine what the "issue" with Super Jump that has been evolving could be. Is it the odd time that one needs to Super Jump to hit a flying foe? Is that the issue? Let's examine how it's just been "solved":

Flight - I fly up, switch to Hover, proceed to smack the tar out of flying foe.

Leaping - I jump up with Super Jump, miss repeatedly, switch to Combat Jumping, and now can't jump high enough to hit him either.

Wow, you're right ... issue solved. Balance is achieved. Bravo.

[ QUOTE ]
Is PvP a consideration? Sure. Is it THE consideration? No. Each of your points were primarily PvE issues.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just playing games with us. When you say, no changes will be made to powers in PVE due to PVP, you are implying that changes that are motivated by PVP will stay there.

What appears to have happened is that PVP required a change to the travel powers. Then the question arises, should this be a PVP only change. Well, we can now come up with a reason to change it in PVE too, so let's change it in both.

This looks like a case where THE reason for the change is PVP, but you're saying it's not the only reason that CAN be offered, so it isn't the ONLY reason. That's not what was implied by your original promise ... the original promise suggested that the only time that a PVE change would happen is when PVE was the main motivation. It's not that I think you're lying, but I think you're splitting hairs with us in a manner that isn't totally above board.

I made my point about the travel powers here:

Thoughts on travel powers

Ever since the game launched, the official line on travel powers from the Devs has been that they were happy with the way they were balanced. If this isn't a change totally motivated by PVP, and I fail to see the motivation.

A couple of additional points:

1) Group Invisibility allows one to attack with complete invisibilty.

2) If this were indeed the motivation, it seems the solution would be to have all Stealth powers not stack with each other.

3) I'd like the person who asserted that Super Jump allows you to attack with complete immunity to explain how they figure that works.

[ QUOTE ]
actually, the Tsoo are definately Hmong in origin. One of the pedestrian comments in Talos is "Those Tsoo make the rest of the Hmong community look bad."

I spose you could argue that pedestrian doesn't know what they are talking about, but once you start ignoring the in game info sources, then you leap off into the wonderful realm of unsupported hear-say.

[/ QUOTE ]

One of the Skyway contacts tells you outright that they are Hmong.

I remember when "Where can you find Circle of Thorns?" would be broadcast every 5 minutes in King's Row.

I remember when the Vahzilok wasting disease could be a permanent affliction.

I remember 40 being the level cap, and an AR/Dev blaster getting there in a couple of weeks or so.

I remember Behemoths spawning on the streets in King's Row by accident.

Hi,

Just wanted to express my thoughts.

I am glad you have decided to roll back the boss changes. Especially considering the large degree of player opposition to the tougher bosses, it seems like the best decision.

My only complaint is that it's overkill to remove bosses from solo missions. I think missions are, for the most part, well balanced for solo play. Removing bosses from them entirely will probably make them too easy.

Yes, I know that bosses will reappear if I turn up the difficulty slider. The problem with that is that it will raise the overall difficulty of the missions in addition to adding bosses, which is not really the desired effect if you're trying to keep missions the way they are right now. There are already a few missions with named lieutenants in plass of named bosses (mostly Council & Lost missions) and they are, quite frankly, a joke.

That's just my opinion, mind you, and I'll be perfectly happy to wait and see on how this particular change works out when it hits test.

Overall, I'm quite happy with this news. Thank you for taking our concerns seriously.

[ QUOTE ]
2 end reducers in transference will drain a mob practically dry. Follow it with transfusion and your team has full endurance and health, and that mob has no endurance at all.

Kinetics' transference does have a very effective end drain.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I assume you mean Endurance Drain, and that may be so, but honestly now, how many people would put two slots in Transference with Endurance Drain in it, in addition to however many slots it takes to give it adequate Endurance Recovery ability? May be they should do it now, but I'm really talking about an effective number of powers to make endurance drain a viable strategy even if you don't slot for it. You must admit, with every power causing endurance drain, Kinetics Defenders are nowhere near the same class as Electric Blasters.

[ QUOTE ]
The issue is not whether or not I'm right or wrong or arrogant (I put the "Duh" thing in there becaus Kam called me selfish for saying I liked the changes, figured if he could dish it out he could take it) There are plenty of builds that have end drain and plenty that don't. The real issue is apparently "forced grouping"

[/ QUOTE ]

In this particular exchange, the issue is in fact that you are wrong. There are not plenty of builds that have endurance drain. Less than 1/5 of the possible combinations of primary/secondary in the game have any ability to drain endurance, and only 10% have enough to ever make a difference in a fight.

[ QUOTE ]
I am pretty sure the scrapper primary Dark Melee has a power which can drain endurance, can't speak for the rest.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, Dark Consumption does damage and gives you Endurance.

[ QUOTE ]
All told, 35 out of the 139 possible builds have access to some form of end drain - approximately 25%. Hardly enough to rely on being able to find for a boss battle... particularly considering that a fair number of *those* are in the form of late-game powers (Defender/Controller: L26/35 Kinetics->Transference and L32/38 Storm Summoning->Lightning Storm account for 8 of the defenders and *all 12* of the controllers).

Kam

[/ QUOTE ]

And two of those sets really do not count ... Kinetics and Storm Summoning will never be able to drain enough endurance with their single power to make a significant difference.

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe most powersets DO have a power that drains endurance whether it be primary or secondary. Most all my powers are primarily damage and only a few have endurance drain as the secondary effect.

My point is simply that once a boss is drained of endurance it doesn't matter how tough he is. And that is probably why the respec was given.

[/ QUOTE ]

No offence, but what are you talking about? Pretty much the ONLY power sets that have ANY endurance draining powers are the electric sets, and only two ATs have any access to them at all.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


I'm starting to really doubt the honesty of the answers we are getting from Statesman et al.



[/ QUOTE ]

bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha. gasp...... muwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. wheeze....hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha haha.

It took you this long?

[/ QUOTE ]

Honestly ... yes. It has not been my experience so far that his answers are completely nonsensical. In this case, I smell an ex post facto rationale offered for what is essentially a mistake.

[ QUOTE ]
Look, someone made a big boo-boo here. Statesman says this, and then he says that. Missons should be soloable (he says), bosses are not meant to be soloed (he says). Explain then why so many missions have bosses in them. Never mind 'stealthed' boss-missions and their supposed bugginess (which I don't buy for one second by the way. If this has been an issue for months, as has been stated by many, then this should have been fixed months ago). I'm talking about ANY mission with a boss, even those that are announced.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you've really nailed the problem here. I was completely flabbergasted when Statesman said that bosses should not be soloable because I clearly remembered him saying that every AT should be able to solo. I'm extremely glad that someone dug up that quote because in the last week or Statesman has come perilously close to denying he ever said that.

To be frank, I don't believe for one minute that bosses are not supposed to be soloed or that anyone at Cryptic was unaware of just how many bosses appear in the game. That's pretty incomprehensible. If you look at the history of this change, it becomes quite clear that the story is being changed to fit the circumstances:

1) Originally, Statesman says that the post-30 game is too easy for many players so they are planning on boosting the HP (note, no mention of damage) for mobs post-30.
2) For Issue 3, they boost HP & damage (though they only say HP) for all mobs over 25.
3) There's an outcry, so they remove the change for everyone but bosses.
4) This goes live, and now many ATs can no longer solo missions.
5) DAMAGE CONTROL TIME: Statesman says "oh, we want to encourage grouping" (totally new claim) and "you were never supposed to solo bosses" and "bosses hardly ever occur for solo players"

This makes no sense.

First, there was never any mention of wanting to encourage grouping until after this went live. If encouraging grouping was the idea, why boost bosses over 25? Is grouping something that will benefit low level characters.

Second, people have been soloing bosses for 9 months now. Are we really supposed to believe that no one noticed this? When purple con spawns were being beaten, they made a change to stop that within a couple of months. Why has the dreaded boss soloing gone on for this long?

Third, similar to point one, why is just fine to solo bosses prior to level 25? My level 21 Scrapper has not encountered a single boss in any mission he cannot take solo. Why does this have to stop in 4 levels opposed to now?

Finally, are we really supposed to believe that no one at Cryptic is aware that, conservatively speaking, 75% of missions contain bosses? It's not even the slightest bit plausible to me that a boost to bosses would be a candidate for either boosting the difficulty of the higher-level game or encouraging grouping if they weren't aware of just how many bosses there were. If bosses were are rare for soloers to encounter as Statesman wants us to believe, how would boosting their difficulty encourage grouping at all?

What I think has happened is they were aware that a combination of decreased game difficulty and an increased need to grind XP at higher levels was leading to too many people at high levels enjoying the game less and looking to greener pastures. They decided on the boss boost to fix this, but they boosted them too much and now have entered damage control mode. What irritates me about this is that for the first time in 9 months, I'm starting to really doubt the honesty of the answers we are getting from Statesman et al.

For the record, I don't think the answer is to decrease the number of bosses or to rollback the change entirely. I think the 60% boost should be decreases to 30% for now, and experimented with until the amount is right.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"I think every Archetype should be able to solo. The reason doesn't matter - just 'cause you're soloing doesn't mean that you should be prevented from enjoying the game."-Statesman-

[/ QUOTE ]

Street sweeping is not fun for most soloists for any appreciable length of time. It's repetitive, without story content, and therefore not enjoyable as the main solo available activity.

[/ QUOTE ]


And how does that contradict anything I have posted? Saying people can solo is not at all inconsistent with his quote on who can/should be able to solo what. It’s only your insistence on what you think you should be able to solo that is in contradiction.

[/ QUOTE ]

It contradicts it in an extremely straightforward way:

Statesman says that soloing should not prevent you from enjoying the game.

Street-sweeping is not enjoyable to most soloers.

Therefore, being reduced to street-sweeping prevents soloers from enjoying the game.

It's as damn near a syllogism as you'll ever encounter in an informal discussion.

[ QUOTE ]
The new bosses are still soloable by almost every power set of every AT with the correct power selection and tactics. The only real concern is the lucky one hit that can put many AT’s in the hospital and statsman has already indicated he is working on that.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not an argument:

Someone asserts X
You assert not-X.

Some sort of data to support not-X is needed.

On the one hand, assuming you have not played every Primary/Secondary combination for every AT to at least level 20 or so, you really have no hard data to back up this claim. Since people who actually play particular powersets are asserting that the new bosses are not soloable, and in large numbers, I would be inclined to believe them. Actual data tends to be more credible than bold assertions based upon whims and fancy.

On the other hand, anything is soloable providing it doesn't kill you. That's pretty much a truism and I'm not sure you've really stated anything stronger than that. Unfortunately, it's also a pretty vacuous claim of little to no consolation to anyone.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


Teaming wasn't broken before, and this is not a fix to it.


[/ QUOTE ]

People routinely solo missions spawned for 6+ players. How can that not be broken? If one person can do is alone what challange does it offer a team of 6?

[/ QUOTE ]

Assuming this is true, particular builds can do this, not anyone in general. Given this, your logic is quite faulty. When smoke grenade was broken, */Devices Blasters could go toe-to-toe with enormous spawns because they could not be hit. It doesn't follow from that the same spawns were no challenge to any team without a Dev Blaster.

To put the point plainly for you, any build that can solo a mission spawning for 6 is clearly broken. Fix the build, don't bugger up the game to adjust for it.

Now if you are talking about herding, that's not exactly "soloing" now is it?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Since you just love attributing statements to Statesman (while never providing a direct quote) and using that as the entirety of your argument ... I'll play ball.


[/ QUOTE ]

See the direct quotes above where he says flat out that you are 1) not supposed to be able to solo all the missions your contacts give you 2) not be guaranteed to be able to solo a boss, and 3) the ability for everyone to solo means that there is always something to do even if it’s only streetsweeping.

Seriously he says these same things with such regularity can consistency I have to wonder of some of you people even read these forums.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think all of have this wonder about someone who shall remain nameless.

You still haven't provided anything short of your own assertion that 1), 2) or 3) were said by anyone. I've been through two threads with you on this very topic, and I have repeatedly asked you to back up even one of your many claims about what Statesman or other devs have said. You have so far provided no backup short of repeating your assertions.

I have seen 2) asserted ... I have never seen 1) or 3).

(I did notice you appropriated my strawman accusation and levelled it against someone else here. Nice use of applied knowledge.)

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Do you still say that missions were only ever intended as group content?


[/ QUOTE ]

Did I ever say that? If so please provide a quote as I have no recollection of ever saying anything of the sort.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes ... and I quoted it one message above us. Here it is again:

[ QUOTE ]
The way to do this is to provide content of suitable difficulty for a team. The only reason you perceive yourself as being “punished” for not teaming is that you have appropriated the team content for solo play when it was never intended to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Every time somebody says to you that the Devs promised solo AND team play, you keep replying as if people are demanding solo play to take priority.


[/ QUOTE ]

They are. They are trying to get a badly needed fix to team play removed on the grounds it prevents some people from soloing 100% of the games content. The only way one could ever justify such a position was if they considered this a solo game with an option to team if you want. This is the complete reverse of what Statesman has repeatedly stated as his vision for the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's a challenge ... provide one solid reason why THIS particular change is the only change that will address your concerns. For example, explain why returning the bosses to their pre-issue 3 state and then sliding the difficulty slider to maximum difficulty won't accomplish what you want out of the game.

I ask because you keep accusing us of trying to eliminate your preferred mode of play, but you are the one that seems totally unwilling to compromise. Not one of us has suggested that team play should be undervalued or eliminated, you have repeatedly asserted that solo play IS and SHOULD BE undervalued and all but eliminated, yet you have the temerity to suggest that it's us who want to ruin the game for you.

As I suggested when we discussed this in another thread, I think it is you who is holding the extreme minority opinion here.

[ QUOTE ]
The way to do this is to provide content of suitable difficulty for a team. The only reason you perceive yourself as being “punished” for not teaming is that you have appropriated the team content for solo play when it was never intended to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just for emphasis, read this again:

[ QUOTE ]
Question: The team dynamic plays a big role in earning experience points, but the “lone wolf” approach still works. Some like partnering up while others take the solo route. Was it difficult getting the balance right between the two?

Statesman: Definitely! It’s a challenge to make a game experience challenging for both; groups can obviously hide their weaknesses easier than a solo player can and are thus far more effective than just the sum of their individual parts. Our solution for that was to create areas that are tuned for groups (certain zones, Task Forces, Trials, etc.), but make everyday tasks, such as missions, work for groups AND solo players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since you just love attributing statements to Statesman (while never providing a direct quote) and using that as the entirety of your argument ... I'll play ball.

Let's see the last part of that again:

[ QUOTE ]
but make everyday tasks, such as missions, work for groups AND solo players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you still say that missions were only ever intended as group content?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The only changes I've found so far in the Hollows is some graphical changes to the Outcasts, some badges, and the caverns trial now has a level cap. In fact, one of the Hollows cave missions has even been made easier. There used to be a mission with two named bosses fighting in the last room, Greased Lightning and Redrum. Now poor Redrum has gone AWOL and Greased Lightning is forced to fight a lowly Gardvord. Go figure.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ha ha ha ... Rundum, not Redrum.

Did they seriously make that even easier? The last two times I ran that with alts, the minions were all white/yellow, and then poor Rundum and Greased Lightning were green. It was ridiculously easy already.

STOP NERFING TEH RUNDUM!!!1!!!

Go Greased Lightning!

[/ QUOTE ]

What they have changed in the Hollows is an increase to ambushes once you get to Flux. You have to be very careful coming out of his back alley when he asks you to hunt down outcasts or you can be dead in short order.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? But a between Issues patch did away with all ambushes in Hazard Zones. I've seen nothing that said they were reinstated. You might want to bug it.

One of the most miserable defeats I've ever had in the game was when a duo I was in and another solo player generated simultaneous ambushes at Flux.

[ QUOTE ]
The only changes I've found so far in the Hollows is some graphical changes to the Outcasts, some badges, and the caverns trial now has a level cap. In fact, one of the Hollows cave missions has even been made easier. There used to be a mission with two named bosses fighting in the last room, Greased Lightning and Redrum. Now poor Redrum has gone AWOL and Greased Lightning is forced to fight a lowly Gardvord. Go figure.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ha ha ha ... Rundum, not Redrum.

Did they seriously make that even easier? The last two times I ran that with alts, the minions were all white/yellow, and then poor Rundum and Greased Lightning were green. It was ridiculously easy already.

STOP NERFING TEH RUNDUM!!!1!!!

Go Greased Lightning!