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Starting the Evolving the Hamidon Further thread for some constructive suggestions about how the Hamidon (or future raid activities) can be improved.

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All good points. But like any global change everything would need to be adjusted to get the balance just right, including handling AOE damage and drop rates.


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Given that how one enemy treats one power generates this much energetic discussion, I doubt the devs saying, "We are now tweaking AoE damage since you'll be fighting more enemies," would be met with enthusiasm.

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Will a change like this necessarily bring back those that left and/or new players? Personally I think it would, but that's just my opinion. Unfortunately we'll never know cause I doubt it'll ever see the light of day.

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Also, given that the major complaint leveled at CoH/V is that all you do is fight enemies, I don't think giving players the option to fight more enemies per mission is really going to draw the crowds back.

CoH/V is already one of the most action-packed MMOGs on the market. Personally I find 'fun' in a mission where a team gets into that zone of continuous battle where things are operating like a machine. Had a great Safeguard team yesterday where we fought running battles against blue- through to yellow-con enemies.

Also, previously you mentioned that if the number of enemies increased, the devs should drop per enemy xp to 80% (or by 80%) to reflect their less threatening status (because they'd also been reduced in power). I can only imagine how badly "the devs nerfed xp!" would shake these forums to their very core.

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Go watch some old Batman shows , sure you'll see plenty of KABAMs! and POWs!, but you also see Batman and Robin out thinking traps , almost inescapable situations, and actually thinking of solutions to the criminals master plans.


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Three words: Bat Shark Repellent.

Many comic book characters don't think their way out of situations, they are given convenient escapes by the writers.

CoH/V missions have no writers in terms of what goes on during a mission who can edit in a convenient escape for players. Either it is there from the start (ie click the glowie, end the mission) or it isn't.

If Cryptic doesn't improve on the current CoH/V mission format in MUO and their other releases, I'll agree that they've become stagnant. However, for CoH/V, just turned three, they are still pretty close to the comic book experience that I am familiar with.

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The players are saddled with more limits with almost every issue. Chew on that in your "limitless" universe

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I wish I had an axe to grind that had nothing to do with the OP...

It was actually meant to be 'Longbrau', which is Longbow's beer division, but a sub-editor screwed it up.

Talk like that sees Cryptic raise the subscription price.

It is only through cold, cynical dissection of all development decisions followed by firebrand rhetoric and borderline flaming that the devs know that they are truely appreciated. Why else would you be a developer if you didn't want every decision you made widely discussed as being "obviously wrong" at the very least?

Just kidding. :-) Communication from the devs / CMs for this issue has been fantastic.

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No offense to anyone but is it me or is Stateman's speech sounding something along the lines of what President Bush gave to the public before invading Iraq.

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Little does Statesman know that the Web's true purpose is to pirate free cable TV to the citizens of Grandville and all of the Rogue Isles!


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Statesman is all about DRM.

Another great Paragon Times article - I hope these continue, rather than this just being a one-off.

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A villain group returns with a dramatic change that will shake the very foundation of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles.

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Issue 10: The [censored] Horse is Finally [censored] Dead

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Amen.

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An old friend returns as an enemy.

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Zeb Cook?

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Zing!

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Ex Libris, given that this thread has derailed so much it's jumped tracks and is now heading to Chicago, do you think it would be possible to rename it something else relevant, allow this discussion to continue and to start a new thread that is purely about getting I9 guides organised?

I'd prefer this thread isn't pruned to bring it back on topic, since the discussion has been pretty good thus far.

You can subscribe online through your PlayNC account if you've got a credit card (which I'm sure you know, but just in case you didn't...).

Alternatively, I'd start looking at online games distributors in Australia. I'm sure some would be carrying the game cards.

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There is no legitimate reason why there can't be an official Cryptic/NCSoft online database/guide of exactly how this game works that is 100% current and up-to-date. Period.


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Actually, there are plenty of legitimate reasons. The decision was made long before launch not to burden players down with numbers, which had both positive and negative impacts, but did fit with the "casual" nature of CoH (and later CoV). Putting the numbers out at this point would require programmer time and effort and I'm not sure that someone like Castle would see much benefit in opening up his spreadsheets to the eyes of the player base.

Also: are there any MMOGs that actually do this ie the "official [...] online database [...] that is 100% current and up-to-date" with all the in-game figures? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any.

I'm having ISP troubles from home (which should teach me to switch to Bigpond, despite knowing better) so I won't be able to see this 3rd Anniversary Party (not that anyone will miss me :-). I'm hopeful I'll be able to get back on in time to hopefully get any 3rd Anniversary badge though!

Have fun everyone!

I saw some CoV gamecards at my 'local' Perth, Western Australia EB the other day, next to the Good vs Evil CoH/V boxes. It may be that EB isn't recalling the gamecards so much as not restocking them.

By the same token, I saw few copies of WoW gamecards either (but I wasn't looking that hard either...).

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An elegant synopsis. I think I'm going to have to go find this article. However, I doubt Jack will be reading this, which is a shame.

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*ahem* I read the boards every day!

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Statesman also drinks a bottle of scotch every day. The two events are not entirely unrelated.

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Haven't they learned after all these years? Instancing works!

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This is one thing that gets me when game developers say, "Players don't like instancing! It ruins the immersion! They want wide open worlds!"

Wide open worlds are great, sure, but nothing kills immersion like being the 8th in line to acquire a supposed unique item from a mob that respawns every 15 minutes.

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When we sat down to design CoH, we wrote on the white board: "fun." Seems obvious, but many games seemed to miss the mark. That's OK; some games don't need to be fun in order to be successful (I won't name them, but they're out there). We wanted to make a game that had fun moment to moment gameplay. Hard to quantify, but easy to identify when you find it.

Cool posts, BTW.

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Walk over to the MUO design whiteboard, and under "Fun" erase whatever is written and write "balanced" and "mathematically sane."

Then find a copy of my Open Letter to Cryptic and tape it to the board. Thanks.

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While being balanced, mathematically sane and fun isn't necessarily impossible for a MMOG, if the devs had to choose one to focus on, I'm glad they picked fun.

I'm looking forward to see how (and if) Cryptic can improve on their success with their future projects.

It's a historically orientated list. Go back to in it 5 years time and you'll be able to see how people rated EQ and CoH/V compared to, oh, World of Darkness Online and MUO.

It's based on reviews made for the game at the time.

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Two separate Cryptic teams? Yeah ok. Whatever you say.

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I have fairly direct knowledge that this is in fact the case, as incredulous as you might be.

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It's at least two, given that I doubt a lot of people could be multitasking across CoH/V, MUO and the other projects Cryptic have on the burner right now. Apart from those at the highest level of management and those who might be working on basic systems like the proprietary Cryptic engine (and I say 'basic' as in 'base that other things are built on', not 'simple'), it simply wouldn't be feasible for people to be stretched across multiple projects on different programming platforms ie Xbox360.

So yeah, there are at least two separate teams within Cryptic, at the very least to avoid being sued by Microsoft.

Hahaha - I just read Jay's intro.

At one time I wondered why Positron et al didn't give Jay a redname - now I know why. He's like an ADHD version of UncleBob.

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Honestly, I burst out laughing when I heard about it. Makes perfect sense in the 'how' it works. Brilliant thinking, guys.

Is it what we intended the power to be used for? Not even close...but it's a great idea.

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Yeah, like teleporting your auto-turret or acid mortar around.

...

/em throws Castle's dogtags into the ocean from the carrier deck

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For those with memory problems, the change was made because some players were griefing by teleporting Malta Turrets, dropped during zone ambushes, into areas where they were killing lower-level players. Auto-Turret and the like seem to have been caught by the change because all of the summonable turret pets share the same teleport properties (ie either on or off).

Fixing turrets so that "friendly" turrets can be teleported while unfriendly turrents can't be probably isn't a particularly high priority fix.

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Yeah, the 50 players cap on The Hive/Abyss should be interesting to see how it play out.

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I really don't like Cryptic making this exclusionary move. It screams "Hi, we're too cheap to provide the adequate resources to handle a raid of over 50 players." It shows up Cryptic's continual lack of committment to its own game and its own player base.

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Alternatively: "We aren't redesigning a core system from the ground up for one piece of content. Instead, we'll spend that programmer time on things that a larger proportion of the player base can enjoy."

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Interesting article. I noticed the 50 player cap too. I never raided Hamidon before, how many people could you get in there before?

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I think the Hive instances at about 200, give or take 20-30.

This Hamidon looks to be interesting to fight. It'll be good to shake up the good old "clear mitos, hold Hamidon, kill Hamidon" strategy. It's served us well, now it's time to move on.

Wait a second, I just spotted a flaw in the set up.

Max members in an SG: 75
Max amount of characters in the Hive/Abyss: 50

So... Does an SG make a Hive 2 and do a 32/33 man raid in each?

Fun idea: The Hami-race. Spawn two or more Hives/Abysses and see who finishes first. You only need 50+N characters to create N instances. (Leave one character in Hive 1, 50 goes to Hive 2, spawns Hive 3 and so on.)

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And what about SG's that have several "chapters" to the the pathetically low limit of members per SG?

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I guess they can split up and do several instances of the Hamidon at once. So instead of one raid of 200 people from this hypothetical SG (and all associated chapters), they can have 4 raids of 50 each. Which would be easier to manage on a per raid basis, I would think.

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Looks like the site is down. Some kind of Python error.

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I got that to, but just start deleting the end of the URL until you find a path that works. I found that by taking off the very end piece and just loading it from ../articles/ let me get to where I wanted.

A good article and some good stories there.

Now I'm disappointed that I didn't submit something. I'll get you next time, Arctic_Sun!

err...

Sorry, force of habit. I mean, I'll submit something next time such an opportunity presents itself :-)