Ultimo_

You may scoff, but as I said, for one of these raids, as I described them, to be unstoppable, there would have to be literally NO players on it.

If they're maintaining a server that's actually completely empty, then it ought to be shut down, if only for financial considerations.

Of course, I don't believe that would ever happen, so it's a ridiculous argument to say the raids couldn't be stopped.

Consider that I play largely on Triumph, which has a lower population than many servers, and I've never had ANY trouble finding a team for a raid. In fact, there's usually so many people involved that my frames per second drops to seconds per frame. Thus, I can't buy this argument that there's any real chance of there being insufficient people to stop a raid.

True enough, Snow. I'll repackage and post a revised suggestion when I have a little more time.

You're seriously telling me you think a character with two attacks (well, three, including Sands) is optimized for ANYTHING, regardless of power set?

And AGAIN, I tell you the raids would STILL be temporary, they would STILL be one zone at a time. You could STILL leave the zone temporarily until it was done while those interested could participate. NONE of these things would change. Only the implementation of HOW the raids are realized would change.

My idea wouldn't be any more disruptive than what we have now, and might even be LESS so as the raids could be stopped more quickly and reliably than they are now. The only tradeoff is that the Rikti might hang around the zone after the raid, for a while, and even that wouldn't affect you significantly.

Quite frankly, if there aren't enough people on a server to stop a raid like I've suggested, then that server should be shut down for being unpopulated. I could probably stop a raid like I've described entirely by myself.

That's just not an argument, because the odds of it ever happening are so astronomically small.



As for the Blaster working solo, I have to say that I've found that the Rikti are far more overwhelming when there are several people in a group. The reason seems to be that there are more of them, and they tend to spawn tougher rikti, such as Mesmerists. I don't doubt that your duo had a harder time than my solo Blaster.

Oh, and tell me how I can optimize a character for ANYTHING at L1?

The L1 character was a Blaster. He was caught out in the open, and used tactics like getting under cover and spreading the foes out, keeping out of melee range and such. Pretty common sense stuff. I can't tell you how many rikit I defeated, but eventually they wore me down enough that I fell back under an overpass and stayed there until I could recover (after which I went to Ms. Liberty to join the melee).

I found it a lot of fun, even though I had to retreat eventually.

In short, I'm not conceding anything. I stand by my comment. If the beaming in had been slowed down some, I likely wouldn't have even needed to fall back.

(I feel I should also note that I leveled up during the fight, which did help quite a bit, and as a Veteran player, I did have Sands of Mu to help me).


The Tank had no real trouble, inasmuch as he was able to survive. He was far less able to defeat his foes. They weren't defeating him, but he wasn't defeating them, either. He really only got into trouble when he got low on endurance.

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Yet, Defenders and Corruptors are able to solo just fine (apparently) with a damage modifier of 0.65 or 0.75.

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I have to take issue with this, to some extent. Soloing on some Defenders is downright awful. Empaths, for example, are basically playing with one power set, their blasts, and an astoundingly weak set at that.

I reiterate my belief that Defenders need equalization for the buffing sets. If they're to have good offense or good defense, it should come from their powers (that is, buffing sets that buff damage can expect higher damage and lower defense, while sets that buff defense can expect the opposite), not from a general buff to the class as a whole.

Ad Astra, Dalantia:

When the raids first came out (and even during the open beta, when the spawns were enormous), I often roamed zones by myself, looking for bombs. When the Rikti started beaming in, I would come under attack, while alone. This happened to many fo my characters, including several new characters I had made. One of them was L1, though I'll readily admit, he was very hard pressed and did have to retreat. My Tankers had no real trouble, but they were somewhat higher level by then (10ish). It does take some careful tactics. If you're just going to stand there, you're going to get overwhelmed.

Either way, if this is a problem, it should be easy enough to scale back the beam-in rate of rikti, giving people more time to handle them.


Firespray:

Well, you seem to be telling me what's fun. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I, and judging from the turnout I ALWAYS see for raids, don't agree. There are a great many who think the raids ARE fun. I'm just trying to make them a bit more interesting, and rather less laggy. You're essentially telling me that I'm not allowed to have MY fun, which is what you accused ME of.

Since you're not getting it, let me make it simple for you.

My Idea = SAME Rikti in better package
Better package = good
My Idea = good

But then, it's not that simple is it?
I've presented an alternative to one gigantic mass of Rikti beaming in endlessly for 20 minutes that will be more interesting, more immersive and less strenuous on many systems.
I presented an idea for ongoing occupation of zones that was objected to. I conceded that this objection was a valid one, and I modified the idea for an occupied zone to accomodate the objection.

Despite this, you continue to object, even though I've accomodated your objection. That's starting to look like petulance.


Basilisk:

I don't see it being like the Supatrolls (though I did like the way they were implemented once upon a time). As you say yourself, it would be a very occasional, short duration event. The Trolls were anything but.


Catwhoorg:

Actually, he's starting to really shape up. Now that he's L27, his defenses (Tough and Weave plus Dispersion Bubble) are proving fairly decent. His damage is still apalling, but he's better able to survive. The last team I was on, I was Tankfendering! By L43, he'll have 71% Resistance and more than 33% Defense! Pretty decent numbers! If only there was a way to boost his damage output somewhat.

It doesn't change my opinion of Defenders in general however.

But that's a different thread.

I don't see the problem. I've not yet seen a character that can't do some damage. ANY character would be able to take back a zone if the Rikti managed to capture it, it would just take a little time.

I mean, once the zone is captured, three objectives are created. Suppose one is a teleport grid. So, you go the grid site and attack it. There would be some guards, but they wouldn't be overwhelming (actually, it might be an idea to have the beam-ins happen only at the defense sites. That way the rikti would continue to defend their conquest).

If that hopeless character that can't do anything without a team is alone in the zone without a team, he's not going to be doing anything, rikti or no rikti. Frankly, I don't buy that any such character exists. Every character I've ever created can handle the raids as they are now, and that's even at L1-5 (though some find it easier than others).


I get the feeling people aren't really considering the idea, and are just stomping their foot down out of obstinance.

You know, the more I look at my response to Aett, the more I like it. Here's the amended idea.


Change the initial raid as I described before. The Rikti come in and attack the three targets. If they succeed, the raid moves on to an adjacent zone, and the zone they were just in becomes "conquered."

"Conquered" zones will have three rikti control points for the heroes to attack. Destroying them would return the zone to normal, and the raid would stop.

While conquered, the zone would behave normally, however raid-style Rikti would spawn in the normal spawn points, IN ADDITION TO the regular spawns.

Thus, wherever normal foes are spawning, the Rikti are spawning there too (and likely attacking the regular spawns).

This would allow those doing hunts to do them, though they would risk having to fight a few rikti here and there, and it would allow people that need to talk to contacts the freedom to do so, all while maintaining the sense of being in a warzone.


NOW what do you think? Does that satisfy everyone?

Samuel_Tow:

Ok, chill out. We're just discussing an idea here.

There has to be consequences for failure. HAS TO BE. If I play hockey, they don't call goals back because I don't like being scored on.

The Giant Monsters and the Raids and all the other aspects of the game are there to be THREATS for the players to overcome. If they stand off in a corner, they don't threaten, and therefore are pointless.

When I say they should be "Making Life Hell" I mean GMs should be wandering around, randomly attacking things. This would easily be avoided, but would at least garner some attention and provide a reason to take the GMs out.

Tell you what, I'm being forced to play characters I don't like. I want Tanker with blasts, but I can't have it. I want Shivans, but I have to risk PvP to get them, and I don't like it. Maybe the devs shouldn't have added PvP at all, people might not like being forced to do it. And tell you what, maybe there should be no debt, and the foes should not fight back. People might not like it. They could be defeated, which people don't like.

Your position is ridiculous.

What I've suggested is not a serious change, and might even serve to make the raids SHORTER, so I still can't see why you're complaining. You wouldn't be any more forced to do anything than you are right now.


Firespray:

I don't appreciate being called a hipocrite. I've not said anything to warrant it.

I made an analogy. You don't want to be forced into raids. I don't want to be forced into PvP. If my suggestion was intended to make zones PvP zones temporarily, I wouldn't want to take part, but I WOULD NOT deny it to other people if they wanted it.

You might be forced to choose going to another zone and continuing playing, waiting out the raid or participating in it. As I keep saying, there's nothing NEW here. The raids would be VERY unlikely to go longer than 15 minutes, and might even be SHORTER.

Do you leave the game when there's a 30 minute raid in Talos (I don't know why the raids there are so much longer than other ones...)?


Aett:

Even if there was a single player on the server, he could stand guard over one of the three defense points and stop the raid all by himself. All he'd have to do is hold out for 15 minutes (well, 25 minutes, as the rikti would get extra time for destroying the other two defenses), and the raid would end.

Logging in to a controlled city could pose a problem. The idea that the zones be "conquered" might be revised, it was just the first thing that occurred to me.

What if, instead of conquered zones being raid zones, it instead replaced all normal spawns with Rikti spawns. That is, they wouldn't be beaming in, so you could still talk to contacts normally. Only hunt missions would suffer, and they're fairly few and far between. Of course, you could ADD rikti spawns, so the regular spawns would be there, AND the Rikti would too.


Starchild:

It's not a zone event if it's not in the zone. One of the main attractions of the raids is that they involve active zones and are not instances.

Except that your examples would be persistent.

A better example that's similar might be if they made all the zones PvP enabled, periodically (say, an invasion from the Rogue Isles, or a Mind Control device or something). As I say, it wouldn't be something I'd enjoy, so I'd just leave the zone, or wait it out. I certainly wouldn't say it shouldn't be done if it was something that people seemed to enjoy.

In fact, there are things I hate about the game. For example, I've been DYING to play a Tanker with Blasts, but I'm not able to do so. I have to live with it, because it's part of the game.

I think people are missing that I said this:

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They would have both a limited amount of time to reach and destroy the three sites, and a limited number of troops to do it with (say, 15 minutes and 100 ground troops).

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The raids WOULD be temporary. The only way they would extend past the time of the initial raid is if no one ever stood up to them. As it is, the raids invariably have 20 or more heroes fighting. I don't forsee many occasions when no one would try to stop the Rikti.

I mean, if the heroes were quick, they might wipe out the Rikti in 5 minutes instead of 15 or more, actually SHORTENING the raid.

There's, what, 10 zones? That means that if no one fought back and the Rikti were left to their own devices, the whole city would be taken over in 150 minutes, and then the NPC heroes would restore order (as someone suggested above). That's just over 2 hours AT WORST, and this is HIGHLY unlikely to happen.

Either way, you'd only see a raid sequence when someone finishes the appropriate task force (perhaps once or twice a month) or during a special event.


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I shouldn't be forced to partake in any form of anything in this game.

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And if I don't like defeat, I shouldn't have to suffer it? If I don't like waiting to be L50, I should be able to just go straight there? I shouldn't have debt forced on me? I shouldn't be restricted from entering any zone I want? I shouldn't be subject to attacks from street thugs?

These things aren't forced on you, they're the game!

I feel the same way about the raids, as they are or as I've suggested. They're simply part of the game. Sure, you might not like them, but there are doubtless people who don't like the things I mentioned above.

If reward is going to be higher than risk, risk is still involved. Besides, the idea that it's better if reward exceeds risk is not always true either. I've been on Farms (not by choice) with floating green balls that don't even attack. There's no risk, TONS of reward, but NO FUN. Thus, I don't think of it as worthwhile. But then, that's me. Obviously, some people liked it. Personally, I think it's better that reward is porportional to the risk. Too far one way or the other isn't good.

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You'd be forcing people to clean up the Rikti before they could do any hunt missions, or possibly even talk to a contact safely. If there's not enough people on at that time, or if they are on a support character that isn't on a team, they're likely to get massacred if they try to remedy this situation.


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The Raids as they are now do the same thing. The only difference would be that now there would be a REASON to participate.

The carrot would depend on who's playing. For me, the carrot would be the more immersive fun of the raid. For you, it might be the opportunity to get it out of the way quickly.

All ATs do as well on teams as Defenders, though it's arguable Defenders bring more to teams. The thing is that no other AT suffers as severely for their contribution to teams.

Tankers bring aggro control, and have the benefit of high health as a result of their role.
Blasters bring pure damage, which benefits them as much when they're solo as when they're teamed.
Scrappers bring boss-killing criticals, which benefits them as much solo as when teamed.
Controllers have controls, which equates to defense for themselves and the team.

Defenders that debuff benefit the team with their debuffs, which also help the Defender solo;
Defenders with Buffs can buff the team, but largely cannot buff themselves, which hampers them solo.


BillZ:
I didn't say that. Please don't put words in my mouth. And I agree insomnia sucks.



Luminara:
My thread said there was a disparity between Defenders and Scrappers. This thread says there's a disparity between Defenders and Controllers. There certainly seems to be a similarity there.

I don't appreciate the attempt to demonize me by describing my discussion as some kind of "ruse." You obviously don't know my intent in anything I've posted so please don't presume to judge my intent for yourself or anyone else.


StratoNexus:
Actually, I'm forced to build a Defender if I want to make a character with certain kinds of abilities. In my case, I'm playing a Defender because I want to play a character with blasts and some kind of personal Defense. The only other kind of character with Blasts is a Blaster, and he has NO personal defenses.

However, I definitely do understand the point that what I find fun isn't necessarily what everyone finds fun. That's why I've been trying to look at objective attributes rather than anecdotal situations.

The fact is that buffing Defenders can't buff themselves. No spin anyone puts on it can change this, it's a FACT. The interpretation of this is a bit more subjective, as it seems to me that this fact puts these kinds of characters at a significant disadvantage. Personally, I think this is unfair. I'd just like to see that discrepancy balanced out.

I just haven't worked out how, because there's a lot of variables involved. I mean, you don't want to significantly alter how these sets perform on teams, but you can't simply let the Defender self-buff willy-nilly.


(Man, I totally missed that there was another page! If I ignored your posts, I apologize)

I see what people are saying, but the reason people ignore Lusca and every other Giant Monster, the reason they don't bother with the fires, is because there IS no reason to do them. There's no consequence.

Giant Monsters should roam around making life hell for people. As it is they're little more than innocent bystanders. I actually feel bad attacking them.

For anything to be worthwhile, there has to be risk involved. The risk in my suggestion is that the raid might not go away immediately. If people want to get back to hunting or street sweeping (or talking to contacts... I admit I hadn't thought about that), then the solution is to help stop the raid.

Players are penalized for losing as it is. We get debt. We can be defeated. We can fail to defeat Lusca. Doing so means debt. We can fail to put out the fire, witht he same penalty.

Granted, the penalty in my suggestion is zone-wide, but as I say, this should inspire people to take part. In fact, I would expect the Rikti to go away after a while, the question I'm trying to answer is how to do that in a way that makes sense. The suggestion of the Freedom Phalanx moving in and cleaning it up is satisfactory, I suppose.

But you see, they ALREADY happen in the game. They're not going to take them out, so why not make them better?

True, but what's being missed is that there are numerous threads that argue the same thing from different directions. I compared Defenders to Scrappers (from the standpoint that both ATs need to face the same challenges, yet the Defender hasn't the tools to do so), and this thread compares the Controller to the Defender and reaches a similar conclusion.

My build may have been somewhat unusual, but as I said there, I actually had BETTER personal defenses than I would have had without the build I had used.

Either way, how I built the character would not change the fact that the Defender has less than half of the health, damage and defense of the Scrapper.

That is, they do less damage, and they have less ability to survive damage. Since the game amounts to defeating foes with damage before they defeat you, this is the final measure of playability. You have to be able to do damage or survive damage (or both). Many Defenders can't do this adequately.

That's why I say they need to either boost damage for Defenders or boost their personal defenses. I lean toward the latter because there are sets that would benefit disporportionally from a universal damage buff. Some sets are also less hindered defensively. Debuffing sets benefit from the effect of the debuffs just as much as the team does, but buffing sets like Force Fields can't benefit the Defender as he can't buff himself. It's my feeling this is where the first look should happen.


I should add, Scrappers are not as reliant on a team, but neither are Tankers, Blasters or Controllers. No AT depends on a team as much as a Defender. When I play a Defender, I feel more like a sidekick than a hero. I need the team because I can't defend myself, and I need the team to defeat my foes for me because I'm barely able to do it for myself. No other class, not even Controllers, needs to say that.

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You know, it's funny to me that I started a thread to discuss these exact same issues and was told I didn't know what I was talking about.

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You didn't. That doesn't mean there aren't potential problems, just that you did not know how to talk about them. Your difficult experience was more predicated on inefficient build and playstyle choices and had little to do with any potential issues defenders might have (if a lot of people were to try to build and play defenders as you did, that would, however, be a problem as well; I think that is unlikely).

You might have trouble opening a drawer and conclude there is a problem with the drawer. But if you were pulling up on the drawer instead of out, you might be wrong or you might be right. Someone would have to try to pull the drawer out in order to know.

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Actually, I did.

I compared the stats of a Defender and a Scrapper, and noted that the Defender had lower health, lower damage and lower defenses than the Scrapper, then noted that the usual design of characters is to have high defense and low offense, low defense and high offense, or balanced offense and defense. I noted that Defenders have low defense AND low offense.

I was then told I was wrong, and that Defenders are gods with plenty of offense and defense and that they apparently routinely solo AVs and GMs.

I originally suggested boosting Defender damage, and was told it wasn't needed and that I didn't know what I was talking about.

I later suggested boosting the defensive capacity of certain sets by allowing self buffing, and I was again told I didn't know what I was talking about, that doing this would break the game.


Say what you like, my Force Field Defender is FAR weaker than any other character I've ever played. I have no personal defenses to speak of (in part due to my build, I don't use the standard "defenses" of Force Bolt and Detention Bubble), and almost no offense to speak of. On teams, I'm the guy that has to be babysat, and who actually does next to nothing while there. Every now and then, I rebubble the team, and then I float nearby so they get the effect of Dispersion Bubble. I can attack and contribute 30 or so points of damage (compared to the 300-600 damage the enemy is doing, or the 200 damage other members of the team are doing), but then I come under fire, and I have neither the defense nor the health to survive.

I've played every class to some appreciable level, though not all the power sets. I stand by my assertion that the Defender class is the least capable, least powerful and perhaps most tellingly, least FUN class to play.

I'd completely get behind anything done to boost damage, but I think the better course is simply to balance the hampered sets that can't defend themselves.

Perhaps I haven't been clear. If the heroes successfully defend a zone, the raid ends.

An example:

The raid starts, and three objectives appear in the zone, a military bunker, a triage hospital and a refugee camp. Rikti would attempt to reach these sites, both ground troops and ships. They would have both a limited amount of time to reach and destroy the three sites, and a limited number of troops to do it with (say, 15 minutes and 100 ground troops). Each objective they destroy could increase the time and number of troops available (say, add 5 minutes and 50 troops).

If they fail to destroy the three sites, the raid ends, and the zone returns to normal. If they succeed, the zone remains active using the beaming in style of raid we have now, three Rikti objectives (say, a transporter beacon, a barracks and a weapons dump), and another zone starts a new raid as above. If a raid is halted in any zone, all zones return to normal.

I'd also allow the zone to be returned to normal by allowing the heroes to attack the Rikti objectives in controlled zones.


The raids during the weekend are a special event. This isn't the usual frequency for this. Either way, what I'm suggesting seems to me to be FAR more engaging than what we have now.

My thinking is, if we're going to have it, wouldn't it be better if it was GOOD?

You know, it's funny to me that I started a thread to discuss these exact same issues and was told I didn't know what I was talking about.

This was part of why I posted. I wasn't sure what to do in the event that the Rikti accomplished their mission (apart from moving to another zone). Most likely you could replace the objectives that the Rikti had to attack with new ones that the heroes can attack. If the heroes take the three objectives back, the zone clears and returns to normal.

The big question is what to do if the Rikti cruise around and capture every zone? What then? Do we just leave the city in captured mode until the zones are recaptured, one by one?

I've heard this argument about people not liking the raids, but I'm sorry, I can't give it any credence. It's part of the game, and only impacts people minimally and only occasionally. You can still do your story arcs and run missions in the zones (though hunts would go on hold, that's true), you just need to be wary of the Rikti.

If we listen to this argument, nothing will ever get added to the game. Personally, I don't think that's a good plan. There's always someone who won't like something.

It seems to me that the reason people are sick of them is because they're pretty dull and meaningless and because they cause tons of lag. As I said, this idea would spread people out, thereby reducing the lag, and it would make the invasions more interesting.

Well, they wouldn't move to all adjacent zones, just one at a time. For instance, they would go to Steel, but not the Hollows and Perez and so on (or to one of them, but not the others).


Also, I would love to see this kind of thing happening more often, the zones are pretty boring as it is.


Maybe once a zone is captured (ie the heroes fail to repel the Rikti) the heroes could then try to retake it?

just going around mindlessly doing radio missions or grinding is just BORING. We need something more interactive.

I like KR. It's the only "gritty" zone around (though Bricks isn't bad) that appeals to street-level characters. Batman/Daredevil/Moon Knight type characters thrive there.

I posted this elsewhere, and received positive feedback, so I am posting it here as an actual suggestion.



I enjoy the raids, as they create a sense of accomplishing something that the game lacks otherwise. I mean, I can stand on a corner and beat the living snot out of thousands of Hellions or Council, and it makes no impact on them whatsoever. Even so, I think the raids could and should be reviewed.

The gist is that the Rikti should have OBJECTIVES. That is, they're invading, so what are they trying to accomplish?

I'd do it like this.

First, when the raid is first announced, three targets would spawn in each zone. They might be different from zone to zone, but the idea is that the Rikti are going to attempt to destroy these targets. I'll use Atlas Park as an example.

The sirens sound, and a military bunker spawns at City Hall. A couple of minutes later, the ships start flying in, dropping bombs. At the same time, ground troops will start entering from the gates. Both the ships and troops start moving toward the objectives. It will now be up to the heroes to stop them from destroying the objectives.

Note that this would require making the ships MUCH more assailable. No stronger than Elite Bosses, it would need to be possible (though difficult) for a solo hero to destroy one. They should move around the speed of unslotted hover. Their beam weapons should be much less powerful but the bombs should do actual DAMAGE, and lots of it.

If the heroes stop the Rikti, the raid ends. If they fail, and the three objectives are destroyed, Atlas becomes flagged as a war zone, and Rikti troops will begin beaming in as they do now.

When this happens, the Rikti will move into one of the adjacent zones (eg. Steel Canyon) and a new battle with three objectives will begin THERE. This move from zone to zone will continue until the Rikti are stopped. Zones "captured" by the Rikti would remain in warzone mode until the Rikti are stopped.


Signature heroes in the zones should become active and participate in the fighting. For example, when Atlas Park is attacked, Ms. Liberty would help the fighting if Rikti troops come in range of her.

As an aside, consider that this would spread heroes and Rikti out as there would be at least three forces plus ships to fight, which would reduce the apalling lag we get now.


If the entire city is captured, I'm not sure what to do. It would be highly unlikely, but you never know. I'm open to suggestion here.


What do you think?

Actually, I would completely agree with this. Remove AE buildings from the initial play zones.