TomTrumpinski

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I really hate some of Statesman's replies. If I gave this little of information that something was wrong I would get a reply of how many in the typical mob? What level were the mobs? How many LTs? Bosses? Were you street hunting(my guess he was) or doing missions. Maybe a slotting/power question.

States with all due respect you need to give out what you ask for if you want us to give your responses credit in such scenarios. I know it is extra work, but would make it easier to swallow. Big difference if you were fighting 4-5 blues and whites or 6-7 yellows and reds.

When a long time player says I feel such and such is off they get hammered with give more info, when Statesman does it we are suppose to take it for face value.

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To a long-term player, he gave enough information for us to determine what the spawns looked like--level 52, two bosses, 4 lieutenants and about 10 minions. They would have been +3 to Statesman's tank (in other words, red minions, purple anything else.) Not a trivial spawn by any means.

I have a lot of sympathy for him in that I've run a lot (dozens and dozens) of test teams during the various issues. No matter what results I came up with, someone always had some issue with the test.

One way to examine the effectiveness of the tank would have been to make a few copies on test of the character with the mission, then run through them with the other ATs taking the place of the tank. That would give some idea of whether or not the tank was being beneficial in this case.

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Statesman, so it's expected that the rest of the team will still be getting hit even with a Tanker? Not complaining or fighting with you, just asking.

I know this isn't every other game, but this is a question of expectations. In most MMOs, a tank that can't handle most to all aggro is not considered to be much of a tank unless the rest of the team is off throwing Ice Comets off (silly Wizards ).

It seems that what you're saying is that the tank is there only to return the majority of the team to the solo standard of 3 white minions or slightly better.

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I agree with what you said, but there's more to it. Just as there's synergy between members on a team, there's also synergy within an 16-enemy spawn for a team of 7. On rugged, that spawn would have been 52 carnies, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The tank can pick and choose which of the enemies to get the aggro from, while the scrapper cannot. This does give the tank an advantage.

The question is, is this a big enough advantage to be important?

OK, now that Statesman has given us his idea of the Role of the Tank, I have to ask the questions:

With the resources we have at the present time, can we fulfill that role?

Are there Primaries that would not have been able to fulfill that role? Secondaries?

Is the role a reasonable one that we can live with, long term? If not, how can we expand on it? If the DEVs can expand on it, what is reasonable to ask them to do that will not unbalance the game?

It's really encouraging to me that you're coming out, Statesman, and playing in the "Real World" every now and then.

The definitions you've given of the role of a Tank are very close to what I've thought that they should be since I started playing mine 16 months ago.

A while back, when you were talking about Tanks herding missions while the rest of the team sits by the door, you said something like "every AT needs to feel needed on a team."

What I'm seeing in the Tanker community at large is a deep-seated fear that a team like the one you were on would have been better with either a specific type of other AT or, in extreme cases, *any* other type of AT. In other words, that the Tank is actually a detriment to the team.

It might be a good idea to keep an eye on this and make sure that it isn't true, or if it IS true, to work on fixes for it. The "Fall from Grace" for the AT was a pretty hard one over the last few months, which is one of the reasons I started this topic.

In any case, thanks for coming in and answering the poster's question for us. We've got a baseline to discuss now.

SpiritWraith, can a Stone tank hit DR cap solo with his powers as they are now including the Fighting Pool but not counting Granite Armor?

AettThorn, the more information that you can give us, the better. If Ice really is the new standard, this kind of information could be very important.

Got a couple questions for you guys.

Do you think that a tank now is safer soloing than a scrapper prior to level 40?

Will you actually die less often than they do? (Different answers for different level ranges is ok.)

What do you see the role of inspirations in tank battles, either with or without a team?

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I have thought about this question a lot. And really I think it can only be answered by the devs. If they don't have a clear idea as to the role of the tank, we don't really have much of a chance. (And any niche that we may be able to eek out would likely dissapear with the next set of tweaks). What we need is some actual dialog with the devs on this.

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Well, to tell the truth, we have at least two people who are fairly close to the DEVs--Kali and Circeus. However, from what Circeus has been saying over the last week, it looks like the standard for Tanking is going to be Ice and that INV is going to get hit some more.

From what he says, the hope of major change in a buffing sense from the DEVs' side is a probably vain one, which is why we need to start asking the hard questions.

It's sort of like the folks who die in a disaster waiting for the Government to help them--if we wait for the DEVs to give us something that satisfies us all, it may be six months to a year. The AT will struggle if it goes without a rudder for that long.

If Ice is the new standard, perhaps we can get some idea of what Ice Tanks do for a team? Any of you out there care to comment?

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The new "role" for my tanks consists of standing around in their colorful costumes and looking pretty for the public. They get to spend the day signing autographs and telling stories to the up and coming heroes of the 'good old days' when tankers were gods and villains cowered in their presence.

Now when villains come around (and my tankers are forced to fight) they turn around, lean against the wall, and assume the "gaping" position.

Yep. Thanks to ED I have learned that I don't have do a sentence in the Big House to get man handled and donkey punched.

Okay. Seriously. I solo. A LOT.


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Now folks, the above is an example of what we DON'T want in this thread.

It is somewhat amusing, however it does absolutely nothing to solve the dilemma that we find ourselves in.

Amusing 'we suck' threads are a dime a dozen.

Now the last line is a good place, however, to begin. Is Soloing our future?

There have been a lot of threads bemoaning the fate of the tank post-ED.

This is not to be one of them. I would recommend not replying to any comments here saying that "Tanks suck now." Everyone knows that already. The last thing we need is to have it reiterated.

This is not a thread for "I'm quitting because of ED." We all know that, too. In some cases I'm sorry, in others, good riddance.

This is not a thread for "I can still solo AVs on Invincible." In that case, I heartily congratulate you and remind you that your powerset may be under the microscope, since Ice seems to be the new standard for tanks.

What I want this thread to be is a Forum for ideas beyond the Pale. What is the role of the tank with our reduced Primaries, our Secondaries that are Defender level and our reduced Aggro-holding abilities? What should a tank be doing on a team? How do we produce the information that will be given to new, young tankers who have only read the CoH manual and don't understand the current reality?

No flamewars, no snide comments. Intelligent commentary only. Personally, I will put anyone violating this on /ignore so I will not be tempted to reply to them. (It might be temporary, it might be permanent.)

This is a big question folks, and will have repercussions on the next six months. This thread is in no way urging that the tanking community cease its campaign to get some of the changes rolled back and/or compensation for the weakening of the sets. That should continue. This thread is going to operate under the assumption that the changes will not be rescinded, and will explore methods of dealing with the reality of the situation as it is now.

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Because Economic Competition is a Zero-Sum Game!

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I think Mr. Ricardo and Herr Mises might wish to have a little word with you...

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Right. It's only a zero-sum game if you can have only one computer game on your harddrive at the same time.

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I DO find it Interesting that Statesman always refers to MMORPGchart.com's numbers, but never the actual numbers posted by NCSoft itself where you CAN see subscrber actual hard subscription and usage number (just look at the MX-Excel spreadsheet they have - on opening it, while the tabs are in Korean; the info is tabulated and in English). My point is: The numbers ARE EASILY available to Jack and Co; yet he likes to refer to Sir Bruce's numbers, which even Sir Bruce himself admits are often speculation on his part because many games DO NOT publically publish numbers.

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Where do you think SirBruce gets his numbers?

Yeesh.

What's great is that people have been saying we're ddddoooommmeeedd since launch, and yet surprisingly, here we are.

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Give it time States. Already cancelled my rebill. Looking ofr th epost saying that ED is going away. I'll come back when I do.

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Could I have a list of your under-35 character names?

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I DO find it Interesting that Statesman always refers to MMORPGchart.com's numbers, but never the actual numbers posted by NCSoft itself where you CAN see subscrber actual hard subscription and usage number (just look at the MX-Excel spreadsheet they have - on opening it, while the tabs are in Korean; the info is tabulated and in English). My point is: The numbers ARE EASILY available to Jack and Co; yet he likes to refer to Sir Bruce's numbers, which even Sir Bruce himself admits are often speculation on his part because many games DO NOT publically publish numbers.

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Where do you think SirBruce gets his numbers?

Yeesh.

What's great is that people have been saying we're ddddoooommmeeedd since launch, and yet surprisingly, here we are.

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And yet again, Jack pops up to take another popshot when I said that if after all this is said and done if the posted numbers showed CoH was groing beyond it's original 190,000 subscribers that it staeted with, I'd happily eat crow.

Unless Jack want's to actually come out and post the current subscription numbers, show that it's grown since April 2004; and REALLY put me in my place.

But hey, it's the Internet, people often like to just quote snippets for a quick drive by (myself included on occassion).

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Definitely got his taunt three-slotted.

My best guess as to the numbers that are actually playing the game right now would fall in the 220k range. I think that the September numbers (announced tomorrow) will be in the 170k range.

Now, that's just me.

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After I5, some people were saying the same thing..."the game is a ghost town"...to which my reply was, "but we're gaining customers..." Naturally, my reply was dismissed.

And yet then good ole' SirBruce posted his MMP numbers - and City of Heroes was shown gaining subscribers. Odd, isn't it?

;-)

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There's also more people on the planet every day. You fail to make a valid point. Paragon City has turned into a "ghost town" in many aspects.

The game does seem like a ghost town now that everyone is split between CoH and CoV, plus the little add in hazard zones which occasionally see use.

I know that the server population bars don't show the same number of dots as they once did. Freedom used to be packed full, now it's rare to see another hero anywhere aside from a train station, gate, or a store in a zone.

I don't even recall the last time someone got into an arguement with me over KS'ing. That was at one point fairly commonplace.

Care to comment on that Statesman?

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He doesn't need to. You can find out your server population at any given time just by typing /search in the chat window.

Server population prior to ED was approximately 1600 on the popular servers like Freedom and Virtue down to a low of 1100 or so on Triumph. This was mid-evening numbers.

You'll find a 40-50% increase on the numbers right now. Don't trust us, just check it yourself.

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Well, as I recall, the I5 release coincided with a 'free trial' promotion too; and because of that, for a week, I was seeing 1800+ on line right after I5 on Guardian. BUT, even then the numbers soon dropped back to 'normal' meaning (I assume) plenty of people tried the game but not a lot stayed.

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I guess I'm feeling masochistic today.

SirBruce's numbers are PAYING customers. NOT FREE TRIALS. You can e-mail him about how he gets his numbers and what not, but as far as I know, his source records ONLY paying accounts.

So, sorry, the free trial routine doesn't really hold water (not the first time I've read that either).

Also - another comment on discounted games - currently, City of Heroes is $29.99. Certain stores can run sales - like Lineage 2 is free with a Guild Wars purchase at a local chain.

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RED SERVER = BAD! I'm glad for this, however....I'm really not seeing these players online States. I can LFG for days and never get a response. Cap Au Diable and Sharkhead Isle on Infinity were freaking empty. It was me, my lackey and I kid you not....2 other people. That's all I saw in Sharkhead. There was a few more people in Cap Au Diable, but not many. Yes I know people might be in missions....but still....zero broadcast traffic all day except for someone to say "OH #$&* I GOT KILLED BY SCRAPYARD'S GHOST!" And that was my lackey....

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

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Checked the numbers on Triumph last night at 9pm Central time--1684 unhidden players.

To the best of my knowledge, that's the highest numbers I've ever seen.

Keep in mind that Triumph *was* the second lowest population server prior to CoV coming out.

Those of you who are crying "ghost town" should just do a global search....easy as hell, just type /search and hit the search button.

You might even find a team that way, eh? Then you could be playing instead of vainly searching for a team.

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After I5, some people were saying the same thing..."the game is a ghost town"...to which my reply was, "but we're gaining customers..." Naturally, my reply was dismissed.

And yet then good ole' SirBruce posted his MMP numbers - and City of Heroes was shown gaining subscribers. Odd, isn't it?

;-)

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My goodness, you've got your Taunt three-slotted tonight....

Ah, yes, and the League of Rogue Nations, the VG made up of the arch-nemeses of the Global Heroics heroes.

While our core is made up of GH members, we will accept players new or seasoned. The requirement for membership is a connection with a current GH hero who is your enemy.

RP optional.

See, the thing about the Mancusan (and for the most part, the entire Synergistic Spectrum changes planned in Modification 15) is that there are those of us who have been playing their Beetleknockers as if they were Kravitzes all along. If the DEVs had wanted us not to do so, they would have prevented it in Modification 14, wouldn't they?

A quick poll of Beetleknockers (sample size 30) shows that there are three main ways of playing them:

15 play Beetleknockers using the Wingspan approach
10 play them as Kravitzes
5 use the WeldonBangers to give themselves Inequity.

So, the "supposed nerfs" will remove some of the abilities of the Beetleknockers, however, it should move them more towards the DEVs' original vision prior to their severe mistake in including the unenhancable portion of Alacrity in Modification 5.

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Ah you see this is the kind of thing i like to see and a reason i have some faith in this development team. This is a benefical alteration of our powers and DOES promote enhancment diversification.

whereas ED itself takes something away instead of giving something, this change will improve our potential instead.

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Ssssh. This is to fix some of the problems ED is creating....

Everybody keep complaining.....

Ok, you're right about Croatoa. I tend to even forget that the zone was added with all the hoo-rah over the rest of I5. Point taken.

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Obviously you didn’t get the point.... You must have been to busy kissing Statesman’s [censored] to see it.

The community as a whole brings a sense of logic into the game. Things that we want that make sense. Statesman brings in things that do not make sense to us, the player. Things he says should make the game more fun, which ruin it.

Therefore:
Statesman = You will have more fun
Reality = It's NOT more fun

Thereby proving that at the VERY least Statesman is wrong about making the game more enjoyable. But maybe not that the community is more logical. Though if you look at 80% of the posts on the boards I don’t think you would find to many people who are against bringing back perma-unstopable, perma-mog, and our old pets back. Not to mention rolling-back the ridiculous changes to my poor regen and my fire tank.

Issue 3 was truly a city of heroes.... Issue 5 is more a city of zeroes....


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Obviously, I must post more often to bring my percentage up.

I played my INV tank from late July on to present, and I would *never* want Perma-Unstoppable back--ruined the game.

The game's a lot better, in my opinion, since I5, especially where teams are concerned.

I am also convinced that when CoV hits live, everyone will understand I5 a lot better.

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I don't think everyone(all) is right.
1) Some (many?) understand most(all?) of the I5 changes already.
2) If they do not currently, CoV will only bring enlightenment if they:
a) get CoV
and
b) do PvP
and the enlightenment will only be to those changes related to PvP.

I do not believe that all the I5 changes were for CoV related PvP any more than I believe none of them were primarily because of it. (That is in a world without CoV some I5 changes would not have happened and some would have anyway.)

Hope I didn't mangle that too badly. I am sleepy.

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I was not referring to PvP.

And, I *meant* everyone, since even if folks don't have CoV, if they read the boards, or talk to folks in game, they'll eventually get the knowledge of the other game.

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Obviously you didn’t get the point.... You must have been to busy kissing Statesman’s [censored] to see it.

The community as a whole brings a sense of logic into the game. Things that we want that make sense. Statesman brings in things that do not make sense to us, the player. Things he says should make the game more fun, which ruin it.

Therefore:
Statesman = You will have more fun
Reality = It's NOT more fun

Thereby proving that at the VERY least Statesman is wrong about making the game more enjoyable. But maybe not that the community is more logical. Though if you look at 80% of the posts on the boards I don’t think you would find to many people who are against bringing back perma-unstopable, perma-mog, and our old pets back. Not to mention rolling-back the ridiculous changes to my poor regen and my fire tank.

Issue 3 was truly a city of heroes.... Issue 5 is more a city of zeroes....


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Obviously, I must post more often to bring my percentage up.

I played my INV tank from late July on to present, and I would *never* want Perma-Unstoppable back--ruined the game.

The game's a lot better, in my opinion, since I5, especially where teams are concerned.

I am also convinced that when CoV hits live, everyone will understand I5 a lot better.

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While I agree that enviorment changes might affect some players less than power changes, this:

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I5 wasn't about nerfing the casual player.

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This isn't the case. Or, more precisely, nerfing the casual player was an unintended (severe) consequence.

The power changes radically change how some power sets play. It more importantly alters most pool powers.

This will make anyone without knowledge of the new numbers (casual players) choose and slot powers inappropriately.

Joey Smith has no idea that Weave is now 4.33% base in Issue 5.

In fact, unless he's astute, he might not know that it was dramatically changed. All that will be obvious is that, even after mob to-hit reductions (if he even read the patch notes), he's getting hit more and dying more.

A halfway decent no-numbers player might even notice this and, say, 6-slot Weave, thinking that there would be an improvement to his Hero for those 5 slots.

That's what I see happening to the casual player. And, let's not forget, a truly "casual" player isn't extremely loyal to this game.

If it's less fun, they'll leave, and they won't try Hero Planner or come to the message boards first. They'll just cancel.

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You've got a decent point about the effect on the casual player. I think that you're right to a certain extent. However, I'd be willing to bet that you don't believe that that was the DEVs' intent.

As far as the numbers go, let me posit this:

In the past two weeks, we on the boards have found out that DEF doesn't work *anything* like we thought it did. We made lots of characters, particularly Ice Tanks thinking that there was stacking with Pool Powers prior to this information becoming known.

However, we *acted* like it worked before we knew any better, even going so far as to say after they had been nerfed that our characters are less playable. Even experts have been fooled.

What I expect the "casual player" to do is not to quit the game. I expect damn few of them to even notice, since they are playing so far below optimum that a few percent here are not going to really make much diffference at all.

If anything, I expect them to see that suddenly *every* combination of ATs and Powersets work on a team at their levels, which is the big plus of I5.

[I know that you claim that this is not true, but I have led run after run, played in pickup team after pickup team, and it is true, much more so than before I5. Remus Shepherd was a big supporter of your point of view until I took him out with me on a couple runs and showed him the truth. I am willing to do the same for you.]

For the most part, I expect casual players to compensate without really realizing what they're doing. If they're smart, they'll do just fine. It's only the "elite" that will even see a difference.

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Statesman,

Several friends and I still think that leveling is slow and tedious even after I5, especially during the hours when its hard to find teams. We have a bias because we have experienced playing WoW to be honest. I know CoH is not WoW, but we cannot help compare how relatively easy it is to level in WoW due to the amount of xp earned during their quests, whether its solo or on a team. It's still a grind to gain xp in CoH missions.

Can you increase the xp even more on mission mobs, or decrease the amount of xp needed to level?
Can this be done in any way shape or form both low and high levels?

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It's certainly within your rights to request this from Statesman and/or the other DEVs.

There is a problem, however. In CoH, there is *virtually* no end-game content (Kheldians, The Shard, Hammi, PvP and Exemping, that's it.) It is extremely different from WoW in that respect, since in many ways WoW only really gets going at 60. I would really suggest, therefore, that he holds off on doing this until after they add a reasonable amount of end-game content to the game.

After all, we've only got about 8% level 50s in the game, and look at how many complaints were getting now from them about lack of things to do.

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See, they did that once last January. Not even the minions, just the lieutenants and bosses.

Don't you remember the incredible outcry? The screaming was so loud that they rolled back the changes in two weeks.

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IIRC, the problem was that they boosted the boss HP and attack percentage without paying attention to the game mechanics they'd created. Because the damage that a mob does was dependent on their base HP, increasing the boss HP also increased the damage they did -- so the 'boss buff' not only made them significantly harder to take down, but made them hit significantly harder, too, doubling the effect of the change, which they hadn't actually intended. So, rather than rewrite the whole mob-damage computation, they rolled back the changes while they looked for other fixes.

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I agree that that was the precise problem. Unfortunately, *any* change that boosts the enemies' abilities is going to run into the problem that I mentioned above. Since all players meet the same enemies, their improvement is going to impact more on the "casual" players and make their game harder.

Since they have a rougher time already, it's going to amplify that.

I5 wasn't about nerfing the casual player. I believe that it was to align the abilities of the powers in the powersets with CoV and within teams, make the Arena PvP more equal and lowering the abilities of those in the top 10% of the playerbase who were rapidly PLing all of their buddies.

It's not those of us with level 50s and/or post to the boards who are important to the continuing health of the game, even though we are the best players of the game. It's the *other* 90% of the players that should and will be considered in changes to the game mechanics--rightfully so, since I would guess that they contribute at least 5 times as much money to the game as we do. (Not 9 times because we often have multiple accounts and stick with the game longer.)

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Be that as it may Kat... the psychological impact is drastically different. People are attached to **HOW** their heroes/characters are.

If you increase the difficulty via the environment, people will rise to the challenge.

If you increase the difficulty via character nerfs, people will rise in complaint.

Same net game results, drastically different player results. This is precisely why the devs should have looked at the boss upgrade they did and backed off from and changed it slightly then tried again. They were on the right path there but implemented it wrong. They could have tried many other options. They CHOSE not to.

Something I wish they had tried... Make all +0 minions act like +1 minions with regards to Hit chance against heroes and damage (both giving and receiving). Keep them the same otherwise. It would have made the game more challenging YET not made it substantially harder for low damage ATs to accomplish mob defeats.

But instead, they chose to alter the characters and make them dramatically weaker rather than tweak the mobs. It makes far more sense to balance by giving and taking rather than TAKE TAKE TAKE. It's just like training a child or a pet. You don't use *just* positive or *just* negative reinforcement. You use both. You punish bad behavior and reward good behavior.

It works the same in game balance too.

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See, they did that once last January. Not even the minions, just the lieutenants and bosses.

Don't you remember the incredible outcry? The screaming was so loud that they rolled back the changes in two weeks.

A number of people, myself included, really felt the way that you did about the idea, but we were vilified and the game went back to the way it was.

If the enemies are increased in danger, the casual player suffers. If the maximum abilities of the heroes are reduced, the main people that suffer are the min/maxxers.

There are a lot more of them than there are of us, so we lose, and in exchange, the game wins and continues.

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Up to AVs, any team of any composition can do CoH missions on Heroic since I5

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Does the fact that I duoed a friends Vanessa Devore Mission him using an Ill/Kin troller and me using my En/En blaster make the game broken?

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Nope, it makes you two 133t.