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Originally Posted by NJMorford
XP debt. It's not uncommon for me to be soloing a mission and die to a boss or a pair of mobs repeatedly. It's probably my fault for biting off more than I can chew, or not really using the right tactics. XP debt feels like a slap in the face, taking such a significant portion of my XP away from me. I've mainly been playing a mind controller who's very fragile. His only hope of beating a boss in 1-on-1 combat requires me to render the boss impotent. If I fail, the boss typically kills me in 3-4 hits while I have virtually no recourse. It may take me three or four attempts to whittle him down, all the while earning significant XP debt that may take me fifty further mobs to wipe out. That's no fun.
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I'm guessing your memory is off a little. Experience Debt used to be a million times (literally) worse. With the introduction of the reduction of experience debt and patrol experience, it makes debt in this game a bit of a joke. Further more, and I don't mean this as a dig at your play style, but it sounds more like an issue with not understanding how to play a specific character. Mind controllers shouldn't be able to go one on one with bosses. It's one of the reason you have multiple confuse abilities. With no pets of your own, you turn the enemies into pets.
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
Miss rate: I know that this game, like most other MMOs, has a lot of RNG underpinning it, and I know that a miss is entirely governed by that RNG. I know that there are enhancements and abilities to improve my chances of hitting, but this game seems to take misses to an uncomfortable extreme. I've had many cases where I've thrown 6-8 attacks at a similar level mob and seen as few as two of them land. This is immensely frustrating and frequently results in my death. It can include attacks made against a mob that's incapacitated, too. If my toon is supposed to be trained to physical perfection, or armed with the latest fool-proof technology, and he can miss an incapcitated target with three attacks in a row at melee range, it just feels wrong, and I feel like it happens far, far too often. It feels like the RNG is weighted too much toward misses, rather than me getting a few bad rolls.
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By similar level, do you mean exact level or above your level? Your hit rate decreases the higher the enemy. Again, further more, controllers should rarely be in the middle of a mob. Unless you are built for it. Or your specific control type is designed for it.
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
Hospital runs: they make sense within the narrative of the game. But why not have a few more hospitals? If I'm locked in a death spiral, teleported back repeatedly to the only hospital in the zone, only to have to travel a mile and a half back to the mission spot, then run all the way back through the instance to the boss, it does nothing for my good mood. Even worse is the Dam region in southern Faultline, where the hospital is effectively in a different zone to the instance, meaning I have to fly back, transition through a door, navigate needlessly twisty corridors, then transition another door, then fly back to the mission, transition another door/loading screen, then run back to the boss and die again because of misses. I'm sure you can appreciate my frustration.
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I don't see how they could make it any easier. They added combat medics to the hazard zones, in lieu of going back to regular zones. And they give them the ability to purchase inspirations. Heck, even at a certain Paragon Reward level, they grant everyone the ability to resurrect during the mission.
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
The UI: within my gaming community, I'm well known for and teased about the number of UI mods I run. I love being able to tailor the UI to suit me, increasing or suppressing the information available to me, tweaking the layout or the elements visible to me or taking out the drudgery of certain operations (most hated WoW activity is probably milling herbs or prospecting ore - one click every three seconds until you run out of materials 20 minutes later. Guaranteed repetetive strain injury). CoH's UI has some glaring omissions, in my opinion, like the inability to resize the text in a name plate, or the lack of any indication whatsoever that you're out of range for your ability, other than a sound and a message on screen *after* you've tried it. Not to mention that the message text may not be anywhere near where I'm looking, so I may miss it entirely, and the notification sound may well be drowned out by the noise of battle. If we're not allowed to use third-party mods to make the UI work the way *we* want, then there should at least be a greater amount of flexibility in the stock UI than I believe CoH has.
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You can adjust the size of the text. It just happens in the size of the window. You can also alter what text appears in those windows. I don't see what alteration could be done regarding the "Too Tired" or "Out of Range" message. It appears over your character's head. It can't get any clearer than that. I'm trying to not be harsh here, but it sounds like you just need to learn where to look.
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
Graphics: why is everything so dark? Why can't I focus on anything at long range? Why, when I have all of the settings at their highest quality, do so many objects pop into existence only when I'm almost on top of them? I appreciate that it's no trivial task to upgrade the graphics engine after the game's release, but boulders the size of the average house should not be semi-transparent when they're only a hundred yards away, and I should still be able to see skyscrapers in focus when they're a quarter of a mile off.
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Sounds like an issue with your machine. The only time I run into pop-up issues is when I play on low level graphics. Even at a performance level, I rarely see pop-up. And currently, it's Eternal Night due the Halloween event.
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
Running/autorunning: this may be a bug, I don't know, but when I'm running using the forward key, I often want to change to running using the two mouse buttons held down together. However, when I press the two buttons, then release the key, I stop running. This can be bad.
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I can't speak for that. I use the keyboard for character movement and just use the mouse for attacks and camera movement
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
Being locked into an animation: I hate to think of the number of times I've died because I couldn't run away, purely because I was stuck in a long animation that I couldn't override. So I get killed, and get un-fun XP debt because the game won't let me run away just at the time I most need to.
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Risk vs. reward. There would be no reason to use the quicker attacks if your slower, more powerful ones could be interrupted when you first receive the "miss" message.
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
The LFG queue: "average wait time 4 minutes". Not in my experience. It's rarely been less than ten, often more than 20. Obviously it's entirely dependent on there being enough people in the queue, and I'm guessing that it's a much better experience at the level cap than it is while levelling, but please, just put a more accurate, recalculated time on there.
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Since you're a Free to Play player (Something odd I'll address in a moment), the only thing you can access with the LFG queue is the "Death From Below" trial and (for now) Dr. Kane's House of Horrors. And the average time is just that. If I form up a team of seven before entering the queue, I'm obviously not going to need the next 4 guys. So only the next person in line will get in. Maybe the next guy only has to wait 30 seconds for the next one to begin. And this system varies greatly by server and side, as you mentioned.
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
Missioning while LFG: Most missions require you to go into a building/sewer/cave system. You "don't dare" enter one of these instances while waiting in a queue. I'm guessing that there's a technical reason behind this, but given how much of the content of this game is instanced in one way or another (much more so than any other MMO I've tried), this limitation is utterly infuriating. I know I'll be in the LFG queue for ten minutes (if I'm lucky), but I can't do anything more worthwhile than picking on random groups of mobs out in the open world. Not fun.
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Again, you should not be entering the queue unless you intend to run the specific event. It doesn't just randomly throw teams together for mission. It's designed to organize specifically for one (currently two for the next two days) event for players not involved in the end game content. And if it bothers you that much, there are plenty of enemies not involved in missions at all levels in all zones outdoors.
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
Group combat: Again, I've not reached the level cap and have no experience of groups at high level, but at low level, this is unsatisfying. Every group scenario I have been in (excepting the one last night where most of the group quit immediately, leaving us with two people to face content scaled for 6) has turned into an anarchic free-for-all where everyone just mashes buttons at the nearest mob. I've never noticed anyone tanking, rarely noticed anyone specifically healing, and frequently been unable to see a reason why either a tank or a healer would be necessary. There are no tactics, no roles, no mechanics to learn or adapt to, no repercussions when you get it wrong. It's just a zerg to the boss and a pile of XP. If the encounters for L50 players require anything more complex than a zerg, then the previous 49 levels don't seem to have prepared you for them. Group combat just feels empty.
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This sounds just like a preference on your part. People play how they chose to. If I don't like how a Corrupter is running off into mobs and dying constantly, I write a note on them and opt not to play with them in the future. And again, weren't you just complaining about how your mind controller can't defeat bosses by himself? The class isn't designed to do that. It sounds like you're a bit all over the map about what you can personally do and what your expectations of other players.
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Originally Posted by NJMorford
I could go on, but I'll leave it there. Many of my other point are merely niggles, or just things I don't like because I'm fossilised by years of doing it a different way, but the points I've raised above, particularly the last one, are really just so big that I can't see any way around them. They take away any desire I have to subscribe to this game and unlock the features I have no access to already, whether cosmetic (more costume parts), mechanic (inventions so that I have something to do with all the salvage I keep finding) or fundamental (more archetypes and power sets).
Going right back to one of my first comments: games should be fun. For me, there are too many things taking the fun out of the game for me to want to spend more time in it. Even if you could tell me that all of these issues are addressed by becoming a VIP player, the game experience so far has already been spoiled so much that I don't think I'd want to come back.
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How are you posting on these forums? I ask because only VIP subscribers can write posts. Free players, or in your case, premium players can only read the forums.
But moving on. The game should be fun. And it is to many. It sounds like you are just looking for a different game. I hope you find it.
Take care.
PS: This isn't really the appropriate section for this post. This is more of a CoH discussion thread since most (if not all) of your issues aren't bugs. Or other technical issues.