sorry, but the low end (1-20) is NOT fun now.
By
7onTest,
Posted on: 2004-09-22 06:23 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Oh - we did make Nemesis and Rikti more difficult by giving them more powers - at the higher levels.
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Don't forget that the Devouring Earth now are much harder too because of the sentries and the other new type, although this is also in the higher levels.
Fighting DE nowadays is HELL. Normally you have to take out those mushroom like LT's and minions right away, or hold them which they usually have a defence to with dropping their own fungi. That was bad before, now we also have to worry about the sentries dropping cairns which makes it impossible to drop the mushrooms fast, leaving holds which I've already mentioned they've got a defence to up if you miss or something else goes wrong. Many many times you will end up trying to kill the shrooms but can't because of the cairns, can't hold them because they've dropped their fungi, and you are being chainstunned by them so that a wipe is imminent. The best thing to do which still is quite a gamble, is to try to double-hold the shrooms while you take out the cairns, then the shrooms, then the sentries before they drop their second cairn. Feels like fighting in quicksand. Let me fight Freaks, Nemesis or 5th anytime nowadays but the DE are hell.
Do a bit of datamining and I guess you'll see that deaths to DE is rising steadily.
Don't mean to disrespect in any way, just want you to check over this a bit more. The DE seem too hard compared to the other factions at the moment. At least in the 30-40 range.
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I noticed the missions were harder, but I was still able to solo them, so again I thought it was intentional and so never bugged it.
Signed one embarrassed (volunteer and amateur) tester
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LOL!
I spent hours playing with my then-retired 20th level martial arts scrapper on the test server. Then even did my timed auction mission (chock full of outcasts).
All I could think was...so you outcasts got new tricks? Yeah well check out mine! I think I was so pleased with his new speed and storm kick I didnt even think twice about the extra mobs. They were just more wheat for the whirlwind.
(never thought once..hmm...what if this was my emp/psi defender in here???) 
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Oh - forgot another change - shrunk the size of wandering patrols.
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why are they gonna nerf the patrols, too?
shouldnt we just get the "plethora of +1s" bug fixed and see how that works out first before overcompensating even more to make the missions the yawnfest affairs they were before?
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Do you ever use the Discipline inspirations that drop constantly?
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...oh, oh my...that's just precious, isn't it.
Disciplines dropping constantly...I don't know what game you are playing, but it isn't City of Heroes. Including various restarts (including deleting a level 35 so I could use the name again on the new version), I have a couple hundred levels of characters, and in that time, I would be absolutely stunned if I have ever seen more than 20 Disciplines drop, since day 1 of release. Compared to probably a couple hundred awakens, and for the 5 common types, there have been thousands and thousands of each.
Constantly dropping...you should do stand-up with lines like that.
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Rest of the thread has devolved into pointless flaming, so I'll reserve my opinion on the issue for more civil discussion, but that line was just too hilariously wrong to ignore.
Great Wall of Prophecy, reveal to us God's will that we may blindly obey.
Free us from thought and responsibility
We shall read things off of you.
Then do them
Your words guide us.
We're dumb
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Just out of curiosity, for those complaining about massive debt did it ever occur to anyone to stop doing what they were doing to get debt in the first place. If the mission was too hard to solo and you died did you keep going back just to get killed again without taking a different approach?
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yes, i kept going back again and again . . . until i beat those bastige RED con bosses!
it was awesome!!!
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Huge outcry? lol... You do realize that those that visit this forum makes up for an amazingly insignificant amount of the actual player base right? And even then only a few among this number(you included apparently) actually whine about the changes. The rest are all positive posts saying how they loved the changes. It seems to me there's a few griefers here trying to wreck the fun of others by calling nerf just because they don't have a clue of how to play this simple game. Trust me the "difficulty" of this game is very very vastly lower than most MMOs out there. You wanna go try EQ2? WoW? go ahead, you'll be killed by a single even con rat or beetle in the newbie zone if you think CoH is hard.
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Logmo - Why you gotta bash people, especially when you're not even right?
Not a huge outcry? Did you notice how many threads people have posted about this? Have you noticed how many times statesman has responded to this? It's probably the most posted and replied to complaint since launch.
Why is it a huge outcry? It's not because "only a small portion of people use the boards." you say? Irrelevant! A large % of people doing anything won't complain if there's a problem. What matters is the volume of posts complaining about this vs the normal post volume for any other given issue, thanks given, or whatever. Ask any customer service group. If it helps you see the issue better, I run with an SG of 8 people. Everyone in it disliked the +1 lvl bosses. However, I am the only one who posts here.
Anyway, enough about complaint handling. You'll either learn or not.
I love a lot of the new update additions, however it does seem to me they tried either to do too much or release it too fast. I could have waited for any of the new things, and now I'm in a position where my lvl 8-20 or so characters are fairly unusable for the way I play the game (and of course I'm far from the only person who plays missions, or had issues with the +1 con bosses).
BTW: Logmo - You say this game is easy compared to EQ or WOW? Yea right. Whatever. Way to just toss out stuff. This game can be hard or easy depending on how you play it. In your earlier post you already showed what kind you are. You go for perma-hasten, fitness ect. with every character. Well, yea if you make the game as easy as you can it'll be... um... easy? This game doesn't have any kind of easy to hard slider (yet), so if you make only the best builds it will be easy unless you make it hard by fighting +4-6 lvl mobs, bosses, tougher villain types, etc.
Dating fat, ugly, low self esteem girls is a lot easier than dating other girls. If someone complains that dating supermodels is tough and getting older makes it tougher, don't roll out your ugly 300lb girlfriend to proove them wrong. (Do I need to explain this analogy to you?)
OK, I feel I've bashed you now. Not my intention exactly, but jeez man, you were asking for it.
I've wondered if character copying has hurt low-end testing. Traditionally once players have a way to test higher end stuff it is much rarer to see them doing the basic low-end stuff that needs to be tested for each patch (e.g. creating new characters of different types and looks, doing the tutorials, looking at the new content from a newbie perspective to see if it makes sense, low level hunting and missions, etc.). Wish there was a way to make them put in that kind of time if they want to play with the new high end stuff.
Hope you don't give in to the group that want free levels on test, that will just make this problem much, much worse.
Scorus
Really? I slaughter red+ de's in large groups now for FUN. I USED to have to avoid them. Now I look for them.
DE's turned into a cakewalk...except the sentries. I hate those. lol I'll take 'em out when I need to on an indoor mission, but I avoid them in the open.
Those holds/stuns have got to go. I just visited a contact on Talos. Took a mission to get the Tsoo. Was stopped for a sec looking at my enhancments when I was ambushed. Yeah I should have expected it but I wasn't thinking since I was using Stealth. Got held and my stealth turned off and my health declined. Managed to use insp. to get health back to green and flew to escape. Got held -- fell down and was killed. This is NOT fun. It stinks. What good is stealth if it doesn't work? How can I defeat being held and defeated constantly? I am in continuous debt which is not fun. I cannot level at this rate. Either remove the debt thing (which is probably good to keep in the game so one is not too reckless) or remove these stuns. I am getting very very very frustrated by these stuns. I play two blasters and these characters are now just frustration. I am not a power gamer and have a 30 minute/day window to play. I dislike this game since Patch 2. I am not a super hero -- I am a debt collector who gets held and killed. The last 2 nights I have played, I have logged off within 3 minutes of playing. Just held/stunned and killed. Not fun.
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Really? I slaughter red+ de's in large groups now for FUN. I USED to have to avoid them. Now I look for them.
DE's turned into a cakewalk...except the sentries. I hate those. lol I'll take 'em out when I need to on an indoor mission, but I avoid them in the open.
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I'm not talking solo outside. I'm talking teams of 4+ doing indoor missions where the sentries and shrooms cover each others [censored] with their "pets" and there isn't much space. Try doing a few missions in a large team where there are multiple shrooms. They'll chainstun your team while the rest bash you to death and the damage you do is minimal due to cairns. That is unless you find a good tactic, but even if you do there's a large chance of a wipeout or at least a few deaths. Well, there's a lot of talk of risk vs. reward nowadays and sure, keep the DE as they are but then increase their xp given, it's only fair. After all, a group indoor mission with DE in it usually takes double the time of another mission of the same size nowadays, even with good tactics. Yeah, I'm just talking of my own experience, and sure there will be people that like the added difficulty, but shouldn't the DE be roughly the same difficulty level as the other factions?
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I've wondered if character copying has hurt low-end testing. Traditionally once players have a way to test higher end stuff it is much rarer to see them doing the basic low-end stuff that needs to be tested for each patch (e.g. creating new characters of different types and looks, doing the tutorials, looking at the new content from a newbie perspective to see if it makes sense, low level hunting and missions, etc.). Wish there was a way to make them put in that kind of time if they want to play with the new high end stuff.
Hope you don't give in to the group that want free levels on test, that will just make this problem much, much worse.
Scorus
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from the first day Update 2 hit the Test Server i played nothing but new characters from level 1.
it never occured to me to /bug the "plethora of +1s" becuase, in my book, fun isnt a "bug".
the only reason people are calling it a bug is becuase the devs have labelled it that. i just thought it was Cryptic's first, small step, towards actually giving us some challenging content.
Ahhh..did it. Terra/Tanya Tyler story arc... 
Same holds true, and I was the only melee usually. (yes...lots of people in a group, ran the arc. Yupyup.)
My suggestion... caltrops should NOT stack. ugh... since every Tsoo minion likes to toss those out I'm often standing on top of 3,4, one time even EIGHT stacked caltrops. Could not move to fight back (claws scrapper), and my health was getting drained at an enormous rate.
I've skimmed thru this thread, and I guess this is the best place to lodge my own complaint.
This is my first complaint ever. I've played this game for 4 months now, and I have till now been very happy with the changes made. Sure, there were bugs, mapserver disconnects, and various issues in gameplay. All these have been addressed promptly and well. I was even floored when Statesman came out with his Mea Culpa post, where he admitted that things with issue #2 went very badly, and the patches that followed fixed most of these. My already high esteem for this game skyrocketted.
One problem still remains, and according to the devs, it's by design. The Hollows is a danger zone that is completely impossible to play!
I've tried it with several of my new characters, lvl 7-10: Tankers, Controllers, Scrappers, and Blasters. All keep getting felled over and over, racking up the capped debt count.
Of course, this area isn't meant to be solo'd. Never claimed to be able to successfully manage this zone on your own. But when you have a full team of 8 experienced players, all doing their jobs in the group and everyone ends up sucking carpet, then there is something SEVERELY wrong here.
Dying 4 times in 20 minutes is not fun. Perhaps some of the powergamers manage these missions at the current difficulty level, calling it fun. But most of us are not powergamers. All I end up doing is quitting and leaving the sodden mission in my tray till I've outgrown it. I'll solo the stupid thing till it gets erased and I'll move on, leaving me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I don't think this is the attitude the creators want their players having in this game.
Give me a challenge, fine. Force me into a set of missions where I die on each and every first conflict...that's not right.
Why does every one of my contacts keep pushing the Hollows on me? Ok, it's a cool zone and people should go to it, but give me a chance to avoid it, if I so choose. Making this mandatory only smacks of a 5 year old saying "Didja see what I dun, dija, huh? Didja? huh??? didja?"
Do something to remedy this, please. I love this game, intend on staying with it for a long time. But the current fashion, cowtowing to powergamers, will not keep the longtermers like me interested.
Guardian:
Fist Law Scrapper MA/Inv Gneiss Guy Tanker Stone/Axe Dr.Killjoy Stalker Kat/Nin Dark Fist Law Brute DA/Inv
Straight Shooter TA/A Defender
Freedom:
Mestre de Jogo Scrapper MA/SR Afro Dizzy Yak Tanker Ice/SS
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Oh - forgot another change - shrunk the size of wandering patrols.
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why are they gonna nerf the patrols, too?
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Because of the *(&^*(&%^ whiners on this board thats why!,
jesus people cry me a *&^(*& river.
I read threads like this and feel disgusted by the boards in general. Whine Whine Whine cry cry cry.
IT IS GETTING FIXED.
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
learn it, live it , love it.
Well, I read the posts from time to time, and I think once the +1's are fixed, as I know your working on em, and later the mission difficulty slider. They only thing I have found obsine, is the Ice Controler Primary power and Fire Controler Primary powered Boss, I found, at 11th summoning fire imps and jackfrost, chain freezing me and my team. Beyond a few things like that, and some badges pending I am having fun, and have remained sense release all below 20's. Anyway, I digress. I do want to give you and your team an Atta'boy, cause A. everyone needs one from time to time. and B. Progress takes time.
Infinity
Wild Strike 14th lvl Defender Weather/Electric
Shirokaze 15th lvl Blaster Fire/devices
and many many more...
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Because of the *(&^*(&%^ whiners on this board thats why!,
jesus people cry me a *&^(*& river.
I read threads like this and feel disgusted by the boards in general. Whine Whine Whine cry cry cry.
IT IS GETTING FIXED.
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
PRE LVL22 Difficulty increase WAS NOT INTENDED !!!
learn it, live it , love it.
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Wow! Someone's a bit tense ne? Here's an idea ... If you don't like what you are reading, and that's your opinion of people's thoughts here on the boards ... Don't read them. Quite simple really and it saves your blood pressure.
Well, I for one am still here and playing; but I have to admit several of my friends and SG members have cancelled their accounts since Issue 2. That's not good. This also happened with my playing SWG, where friends and mates dropped like flies in the weeks following the Jedi Revamp publish.
I find some missions are insane, and some I seem to get lucky at (even as a Controller) and get right through despite the new spawns.
I do, though, even though my account isn't going anywhere, have to agree with earlier posts that the "bug" excuse just doesn't hold real water. Way too many changes in the MOBS for that one. I've played enough MMORPGs. Not saying anyone is lying, or that I know about programming these things . . . just my opinion based on past MMORPG experiences.
Anyway, gonna log on and play. Take care everyone.
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Here are some of the different posts in the test forum pre issue 2 launch
All missions now +1?
The Hollows - Some Constructive Feedback
Rikti Change in Update #2
So, I went out and tried those new Rikti...
Outcasts should NOT get Hurricane
12 things that should be reconsidered
Statesman - why the changes to pre-L25 difficulty?
thought about the increased difficulty of missions
And this is most likely not all of them but from what I can see its not like nobody said anything. It was tested and found to be an issue and from the looks of it ignored until after launch.
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Thank You, Ashey for these informative pre-update posts.
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Lots of people have told me that pic is funny.
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It is petty. Do *you* feel better about yourself having created that pic? Do you feel the "big man" now? Did ya get Statesman GOOD?
I am not happy about what Statesman is doing, but I'll be no better than a little spoiled child if I ever attacked him personally. What is funny to ONE person, is quite the pysche enlightener to MANY others.
You gotta give statesman credit for posting here. Can you imagine seeing mark jacobs posting on the DAOC forums.
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BTW: Logmo - You say this game is easy compared to EQ or WOW? Yea right. Whatever. Way to just toss out stuff. This game can be hard or easy depending on how you play it. In your earlier post you already showed what kind you are. You go for perma-hasten, fitness ect. with every character. Well, yea if you make the game as easy as you can it'll be... um... easy? This game doesn't have any kind of easy to hard slider (yet), so if you make only the best builds it will be easy unless you make it hard by fighting +4-6 lvl mobs, bosses, tougher villain types, etc.
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"This game can be hard or easy depending on how you play it" HAHAHA... Thank you very much for the quality reading, if you are serious, and I hope you're not, you should consider that playing like a total moron often makes a game hard no matter how easy it is.(Of course obviously you fit into this category) And if you knew anything about other MMOs like EQ you would realize that CoH is nothing compared with the level of difficulty on eq. In EQ in order to reach any sort of content you literally have to join a high end guild who raids about 6-8 hours daily in order to achieve the items and access the game offers. Green mobs will literally one round your lvl 65 pets or your epic pets like they are nothing. Literally no one can solo on the scale that CoH characters can. Lvling is about 50 times slower on average. In order to even get access to some of the higher lvling zones you had to complete long and difficult quests that require the help of many many people.(This was altered but still alot of zones were closed without questing for it) Later on blue mobs single can kick your [censored] in seconds unless you are grouped and your group focuses on the mob.
Anyways back to the point, your statement is funny yet filled with BS that shows your lack of knowledge and ignorance. Of course there are optimal builds and [censored] builds for characters in CoH, if you totally gimp your character out with wrong choices then don't whine about it when he sucks [censored] and can't kill anything, because that's clearly the choice you made.
With the right choices any AT can do decent in the game, it's just some ATs got a steeper learning curve then others on making right choices.
Don't whine when you 6 socket end regen in your primary attacks and can't solo yellows+.
Don't whine when you're lvl 5 and expect to solo a whole group of 12 lvl 5-7 outcasts and can't.
I can understand and endorse reporting of bugs and other errors in the game, but I just get irritated at the amount of whining and crying and threats to cancel accounts just because some idiots didn't know how to play the game and died while trying to solo clumps of even or higher cons at low lvls with their gimped characters which needs respeccing.
And if you seriously think that CoH is hard compared with EQ, then you've just shown you have never played EQ because in EQ almost no class can solo efficiently at all, and grouping/raiding with uber guild is REQUIRED to advance.
Btw I love your crack at the girlfriend thing and your implied insult against heavyset females as well as me, which really shows the only female that you'd ever get to like you is probably your mom. (You're just her "special" little boy aren't ya)
Edit* Btw I know what I am talking about when it comes to EQ, I don't just "throw stuff out" as your pile of refuse of a post implied. Been in hardcore raiding guild that has raided a majority of the content as it stands. Was burned out on raiding and the tediousness and decided to come to CoH for an easy casual atmosphere. If you really don't understand and think that somehow this game is hard then you should do us a favor and just quit and move to EQ, we'll see how you handle the forced grouping and raiding there, as well as not even being able to solo greens higher lvl.
Oh, and about the outcry thing, the large quantity of outcry(read whining) coming from a few posters don't mean that the rest of us are all pissed off. It's the principle of the silent majority vs. the noisy minority(Yes I am aware of the Nixon theme 
). Anyways if it is the case that many people are dissatisfied it is only logical that they flood to the boards here to post their complaints. Since this forum makes up for less than 1% of the player base and I haven't seen any jump in the number of new posters, I can only conclude that people either don't care enough or that they simply find the new issue challenging and fun as opposed to "impossible" like some whiners here(you included) have put it or implied.
I leveled one char to lvl 21 and another one to lvl 12 after the release of issue 2. One was a dark/dark defender and another was a scrapper. I went through both hallows and perez park without undue trouble so I don't see what the real complaint is. I died about 3 times between the 2 chars, and the deaths were in a group. Unless you play like an idiot and don't plan your targets and skill slots wisely you shouldn't have too much trouble lvling in the lower lvls even with issue 2.
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From Statesman:
Hmmm. So the fact that we've....
1) rolled back stun attacks on Trolls and Outcasts
2) removed stun from Nemesis minions
3) made the Terra Volta trial easier several times
4) fixed the bug where Rikti Greater Swords were doing double their damage
5) Shrunk the level range at the entrance of the Hollows
6) Moved Contacts in the Hollows into safer locations
Does those actions perhaps support my "intentions..." about the lower levels?
I cannot stress enough - the +1 mobs everywhere are a BUG. We did NOT notice them on the Training Room server. It happens. I made a mistake. We're fixing it (though it isn't live yet).
Oh - we did make Nemesis and Rikti more difficult by giving them more powers - at the higher levels.
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I play the lower levels. I doubt I will EVER get a toon above 12. I have to be honest and say that since the big rollout, I have had trouble even logging on. I did a couple of times over the weekend and tried my clockwork mission in Steel Canyon. I did not get chain held by the Tesla Dukes anymore, so that was an improvement. Thank you. I still died without completing after 3 or 4 more tries. Since then, I have clicked to play, gotten to the log in screen and closed it down, uninspired.
Three out the six things you speak of are not "lower levels". Or maybe I am mistaken in that 20th level is considered low. I consider that MID level. I tried the Hollows once briefly and found it was more Perez Park than King's Row so I never went back. Not my own personal cup of tea. There goes two more fixes that went unnoticed by me. My apologies.
The fact remains that what I read about before CoH came out and in the first few months (what drew me in) is not the game we have today, a mere six months later. Change is the plus of MMOGs. One can always look forward to new content. I do not see viable soloable classes across the board. I see MANY unheroic ATs and powerset combinations that rely on groups to get anywhere.
The fact that you even HAVE a respec trial is a HUGE indicator that you KNOW the game mechanics are messed up. You have admitted that there are powers that just plain suck and that players CAN and DO make gimped builds.
With the introduction of the status symbols (led off by the capes at 20), this game gets ever so closer to every other MMOG that I have stoppped playing.
I dislike myself for not being the "usual MMOG level grind loving player". I find myself complaining just like the people I try to NOT be like. Usually, I just quit and go on to something more my cup of tea. I feel in this instance I was misled, though.
The "idea" behind CoH is superb. I commend you on that, Jack. I think your vision was true to what you originally thought. I just hope that the product that now is called CoH is due to "the big guys" calling the shots and things being somewhat taken out of your creative hands. I pray it is not because so many here want another EQ/DAoC/SW:G/whathaveyou in a Super Hero genre. The game is so screwed up in my opinion that going back will never happen. You wanna see an uproar? LOL
I appreciate what you do, Jack. I did have fun for a couple of months. I applaud your vision. I am sorry I am lost now.
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From Statesman:
Hmmm. So the fact that we've....
1) rolled back stun attacks on Trolls and Outcasts
2) removed stun from Nemesis minions
3) made the Terra Volta trial easier several times
4) fixed the bug where Rikti Greater Swords were doing double their damage
5) Shrunk the level range at the entrance of the Hollows
6) Moved Contacts in the Hollows into safer locations
Does those actions perhaps support my "intentions..." about the lower levels?
I cannot stress enough - the +1 mobs everywhere are a BUG. We did NOT notice them on the Training Room server. It happens. I made a mistake. We're fixing it (though it isn't live yet).
Oh - we did make Nemesis and Rikti more difficult by giving them more powers - at the higher levels.
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I play the lower levels. I doubt I will EVER get a toon above 12. I have to be honest and say that since the big rollout, I have had trouble even logging on. I did a couple of times over the weekend and tried my clockwork mission in Steel Canyon. I did not get chain held by the Tesla Dukes anymore, so that was an improvement. Thank you. I still died without completing after 3 or 4 more tries. Since then, I have clicked to play, gotten to the log in screen and closed it down, uninspired.
Three out the six things you speak of are not "lower levels". Or maybe I am mistaken in that 20th level is considered low. I consider that MID level. I tried the Hollows once briefly and found it was more Perez Park than King's Row so I never went back. Not my own personal cup of tea. There goes two more fixes that went unnoticed by me. My apologies.
The fact remains that what I read about before CoH came out and in the first few months (what drew me in) is not the game we have today, a mere six months later. Change is the plus of MMOGs. One can always look forward to new content. I do not see viable soloable classes across the board. I see MANY unheroic ATs and powerset combinations that rely on groups to get anywhere.
The fact that you even HAVE a respec trial is a HUGE indicator that you KNOW the game mechanics are messed up. You have admitted that there are powers that just plain suck and that players CAN and DO make gimped builds.
With the introduction of the status symbols (led off by the capes at 20), this game gets ever so closer to every other MMOG that I have stoppped playing.
I dislike myself for not being the "usual MMOG level grind loving player". I find myself complaining just like the people I try to NOT be like. Usually, I just quit and go on to something more my cup of tea. I feel in this instance I was misled, though.
The "idea" behind CoH is superb. I commend you on that, Jack. I think your vision was true to what you originally thought. I just hope that the product that now is called CoH is due to "the big guys" calling the shots and things being somewhat taken out of your creative hands. I pray it is not because so many here want another EQ/DAoC/SW:G/whathaveyou in a Super Hero genre. The game is so screwed up in my opinion that going back will never happen. You wanna see an uproar? LOL
I appreciate what you do, Jack. I did have fun for a couple of months. I applaud your vision. I am sorry I am lost now.
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Here's my view on your situation, if you want to lvl, then you should avoid the missions because they are simply not effcient for exp gain. You won't be missing the story either, because there really isn't one. There's nothing blocking you from lvling fast and safer in the streets, or even in a hazard zone with a team. You can always lvl up higher and come back to finish a mission that you found hard before.(which will be balanced by the lvl when you got it so it will be easier when you lvl once or twice and come back to finish the mission.) The key thing is that missions aren't mandatory and sometimes they are even really tedious and always are bad, inefficient exp. It's much better and dare I say funner to solo in the streets or group with your SG members or friends to advance.
Seriously though, if this game has put you off so much due to the speed and tediousness of the lvling system I think you should look for a totally different genre, because as far as MMOs are concerned, this one is one of the fastest and has one of the lowest learning curves.
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1) rolled back stun attacks on Trolls and Outcasts
2) removed stun from Nemesis minions
( ... )
Oh - we did make Nemesis and Rikti more difficult by giving them more powers - at the higher levels.
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The higher level Rikti (42ish) seem to have stuns on the rifles/pistols the minions carry (Conscripts, Infantry). Is this intentional?
The Drones having knockdown and all the minions having stuns makes them painful for anything without mobile status protection.
Chain stuns are not fun.