The things Statesman says sometimes.
By
AdHoc,
Posted on: 2004-12-15 19:11 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Why dont you stop and think clearly about what Statesman is saying for half a second instead of having a little tantrum on the forums?
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Why don't you stop and think clearly about what some of the people are saying before you go off ranting..
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City of Heroes is a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. Thats "Massively Multiplayer". You should consider yourself lucky that you can solo at all, considering many MMORPGs do not allow soloing at the higher stages of the games period and have enemies so powerful in such large mobs you must form parties, since you need every classes special abilities to defeat the mobs at those later stages of the game.
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Yes it's a MMORPG, not RGORPG (Required Grouping). I don't care what other games allow or don't. This is City of Heroes. City of Heroes has been billed as "solo friendly" since I first heard about it. However each and every "issue" has taken just a little away from that. With the boss changes coming, and the previous +1 mob increase in missions, you've pretty much eliminated 90% of the door mission form the solo players. Not one single solo player has ever stated that they expect to solo the entire game and every piece of content. What solo players want to be able to go though missions and level up at comfortable pace, without street sweeping.
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Now, the devs here have made great attempts to make sure that the players have enough missions to do so they dont have to do "hunting", which here is called "street sweeping".
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Honestly, no they haven't. They're working on it now, but it's not there, or any where close yet. If someone exclusively groups, then yes, they will run have more missions then everyone, but that's to be expected.
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You dont have to mindlessly kill enemies for hours on end with no clear agenda in this game.
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Yes you do, you have to all the time. I'm helping a level 38 friend grind his way to 40 so he can get more missions. Guess what we're doing for the next two levels. Plus when these boss changes go into effect, there's no point in him picking up missions anyway as he won't be able to do them. And I'm not even sure our normal running group will be able to handle the new bosses either.
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They designed the mission system, which is really an evolved quest system, so that you can have other players help you complete your quests and they still get rewards as well (big exp/influence boost at completion and badge awarding). They also made it so the "items" gained here are automatically awarded to party members, so there is no argueing or attempts to "loot".
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I'm not sure what you're point is here.
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You think this is done so you can solo your way through the game? I dont get why you'd even want to, the entire point of playing an online game is to play with other people. Your interaction with other people is the foundation of the game structure, whether its something as simple as online checkers or as complex as CoH is, the point is to play it with other players.
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The game is not called City of Groups of Heroes. No where on the box, or in the manual, does it say that grouping is the ONLY way I can play and it's required for me to be in a SG to play.
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Now you have already answered your own question when you asked why they have bosses you struggle to defeat solo in all spawned mobs. You know the answer is that they do not really want to encourage soloing because it reduces other players opportunity to find party members.
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It's already difficult to find people to team with and you think making things tougher is going to make it easer to find a group?? Wow that's rich. Don't know about the sever you're on, but what I'm seeing a lot of on Triumph is lots of duo-ing. These "groups" don't want more people in it and they killing machines.
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Think clearly about this; if you designed a game which fundementally is based around the fact the majority who play online games do so because they want to interact with other real live players, you do not want to make it as beneficial to solo as it is to interact with those other players. If you did, then you'd be encouraging people to not interact with other players and you would have a game world which does not provide the player to player interaction which is desired.
<snip irrelevant PvP stuff>
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And think about this. No one is asking for it to be "as beneficial" just doable. The boss changes on test make solo all but impossible save a few well built and well stocked characters. After this boss change goes live, my defender will never be able to do a mission solo again. And before you come back with the group fanboi response of that "it's a support class".. I know it's a support class and I play with a group of friend 90% of the time. But there's just every now and then that no one's on, I've spammed LFT for 15 minutes and sitting at the train heroically picking my nose. After issue 3 I'll have no choice but to log off and go play KOTOR 2.
I really don't know why people like you seem to think that because we're worried about the solo game, that we're some anti-social freaks who never group. I group all the time, but as server population is down, and crap changes to the game like this go through, it's harder and harder to find people to play with. I can't tell you how may people have passed up on Envoy of Shadows or Terra because they've killed them 10 times that day already.
I don't expect to solo the entire game, but I do expect to be able to have missions available to me that I can solo at any point in my heroes career. And you know what's the #1 reason I like to solo, is so I can follow the stories. I don't know about you, but when I'm jumping around mission to mission, group to group, it's hard to know what's going on and what story you're following, so I solo to enjoy the story.
I'm really disappointed in these changes, and don't think I can handle another anti-solo patch.
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City of Heroes is a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. Thats "Massively Multiplayer".
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This is a complete red herring and I'm sick of seeing it. Massively Multiplayer != Group-only game play. I can be chatting with 10 other members of my supergroup while I solo a mission. That's still a "multiplayer" experience. So don't pretend that "multiplayer" = "group-based missions" because it does NOT. They are not synonymous.
And I say this as someone who doesn't actually like soloing. In fact I think the solo game is boring. After 25th level or so, the missions are too easy, they are all copies of earlier missions you've seen before with different enemy names but the same goals. The stories are not enough to hold the game up in the solo experience at all, at least not to me. The only reason I keep subscribing to this game is the FRIENDS that I have in it and the multiplayer experience of being in a good supergroup. However, even though that is my preferred playstyle, I still recognize that you can have a "multiplayer" experience without doing grouped missions.
Additionally, arguments about what other MMOs allow or don't allow are silly. I can name MMOs that make soloing possible from start to finish, also. That doesn't make it right, or wrong. Each MMO has its own design philosophy.
If Cryptic's design philosophy is supposed to be that some missions are soloable and some are not, that's fine. It's their philosophy. But neither they, nor you, nor anyone else, should use "this is an MMO" as an excuse to make a mission be un-soloable. It's not a viable excuse. LOTS of other things can give you a multiplayer experience that have nothing to do with missions, and soloable or non-soloable missions do not make a game an "MMO." In fact I submit that a set of "grouped" players who silently go through a mission together, without saying a word other than, "pull", "wait", "ready" and never chat with each other, are having a much LESS multiplayer experience than the guy who is chattering non-stop over broadcast or the SG channel while he solo tanks things in Talos Island or Dark Astoria or something.
Don't confuse all the characters being in the same place at the same time (or not) as having anything to do with a "multiplayer" experience, because they don't. Heck with global chat coming I can chatter away with people not even on my server, thereby having a multiplayer experience without ever seeing anyone else's toon. I don't judge this an "inferior" multiplayer experience to one where everyone is grouped in the same mission, and in fact, in many ways, it can be a superior one if the people in the mission are not sociable.
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Now, the devs here have made great attempts to make sure that the players have enough missions to do so they dont have to do "hunting", which here is called "street sweeping". You dont have to mindlessly kill enemies for hours on end with no clear agenda in this game.
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Actually, at various points in you character's lifespan, you do. Level 33.5, my contacts all 100% dried up. Not even random "throwaway" missions were left. My new set wasn't available until 35th level. This represetned roughly 30 hours of game play that consisted of nothing but 'street grinding' (usually with a friend of mine -- see? Multiplayer -- who was in the same predicament). It took me forever to get to 35 because I could only stomach mindless street grinding in short bursts. The same thing happened at level 39 or so (a full level with no contacts), and given that at 41.5 I have already finished all but one contact's story arcs I expect it to happen again by level 43 or so before hitting the final set of contacts at 45. So it's untrue that you don't have to street sweep. You do have to.
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You think this is done so you can solo your way through the game? I dont get why you'd even want to, the entire point of playing an online game is to play with other people.
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Actually the point of playing an online game is to be able to socialize with other people. That may, or may not, including actually going through missions with them ("playing" with them), but that's a sub-set of the more general purpose, which is to be able to "hang" with other players -- which can be easily accomplished via broadcast, SG chat, and the like, without running missions together. Again I prefer running missions with my friends, but I also recognize that this is not the only means of Multiplayer experience offered by an MMO.
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Your interaction with other people is the foundation of the game structure
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Yes notice you said INTERACTION, here. Interacting and running missions are not exact synonyms. There are lots of ways to interact with other players outside the auspices of running a mission. I can trade an enhancement that I don't need to you. I can send you a tell. I can talk to you in broadcast or over SG chat. We're not in the same mission but we are interacting. That at its heart is an MMO experience.
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Think clearly about this; if you designed a game which fundementally is based around the fact the majority who play online games do so because they want to interact with other real live players, you do not want to make it as beneficial to solo as it is to interact with those other players. If you did, then you'd be encouraging people to not interact with other players and you would have a game world which does not provide the player to player interaction which is desired.
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You've just contradicted yourself. If you're right and "majority who play online games do so because they want to interact with other real live players", then why do they need any mechanism at all to encourage grouping? Won't it automatically happen since by your claim most of the players want it in the first place? It's not clear why the devs should need to reward a behavior "the majority" wants to engage in... they just... will. Won't they?
It seems to me that the necessity of forced or even encouraged grouping gives the lie to your claim that the majority of players want to hang with other players. In fact they very well may want to be on a multiplayer game... but just not run missions with them. As an example I was in a guild for a while in SWG where one of the players who joind characterized himself as a "soloist." Why then did he join a guild? Well he wanted people to hang with when he wasn't out running missions/taking down lairs. He wanted a group of friendly merchants to sell items to him at decent prices and who he would be sure wouldn't "rip him off." He wanted people to chat with in guild chat when he was bored waiting for a planetary transport shuttle to pick him up at the space port. So even though he did "soloist" activities, he still had a multiplayer experience, and HE sought the guild out (not vice-versa) for that very reason.
Again I ask, if the "majority" want to do group activities, why does it need to be pushed by the devs at all? Won't what the majority want to do just happen naturally? And if it isn't happening naturally, and has to be 'forced' (as it were), then can you really make the claim that the majority wants it?
Again note: I am a roleplayer, a socializer, and I love grouping up. But I don't see the 'grouped mission' as the only way to engage in social/multiplayer activities.
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This will become even more important when PvP is introduced. Wandering around solo in a PvP enviroment will probally be a very bad idea when you run into a team of people who all can PvP you.
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And if they make the game a free-for-all PVP environment they will lose me and probably 3/4ths of their customers. Which means they probably won't do that -- they will make it consent-based PVP (in fact they have already pretty much said they will in some way). Which means this is totally irrelevent, since a soloist just won't (a) turn on his PVP flag, (b) go into the PVP zone, or (c) join a PVP server -- whichever means they chose in the end for making it be consentual.
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If you travel in teams in a game like CoH, you'll be a great deal safer from the solo pker
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And if we have to form posses to get from point A to point B just to avoid PKer-griefers, it will signal the end of this game, almost assuredly. Unrestricted PVP does not work and almost nobody wants unrestricted PVP except the small knot of hardcore griefers who like making people miserable. I can almost guarantee the devs will not (delibrately, at least, though maybe there will be holes/bugs/exploits) allow people to grief each other like that. So your premise -- "you need groups to avoid griefing" -- doesn't hold much water. We have to assume that griefing will not be allowed and will be prevented by some means like having PVP+ and PVP- zones or whatnot. You can avoid the zone to avoid the griefing. Etc.
Fundamentally the problem with "group only missions" is this: missions can't be "given up" or aborted (unless timed), and you can only have 3 at a time. If they didn't do that... if they'd let you "give back" a mission and try something else for the time being, I'd not mind it. I'd have no problem with "saving" my group-only missions for when my friends are online, and doing my 'soloable' ones when I get up at 5 AM and can't sleep, and no one else is on (no this usually doesn't happen since I don't get up at 5, but just as an example). The problem is you can have all 3 of your missions on your board be AV missions that you can't solo, and none of your friends are on and so... now what? If you could abort them or trade them back to the contact (postpone them) to get something different, then I'd have no problem with it. But since you can't always tell before taking them that they are group-based, if you are in the mood to just do a little soloing before work... why shouldn't you be able to? And should you HAVE to street hunt as the only means of doing that? This doesn't mean you never group up... but maybe once in a while you feel like soloing. Why can't you?
As it stands now what potentially stops you is that missions, once given, cannot be given up... and you can only have 3 at a time. If they just gave you say a "solo contact" or something, so you'd know ahead of time, then I'd have no problem with how the missions work. I don't mind that I can't solo an AV. What I mind is being forced to street hunt when none of my friends are on, because all my missions have an AV in them and I can't get new missions because you can't delete the old ones.
You may say, "Well find a random group." If you want to do that go ahead. I do not. I am a roleplayer. I want to group with other roleplayers when I group. Not random strangers who talk in leetspeak or what have you. The chances of finding a roleplayer doing an LFG are so small that it is not worth it.
The main problem is that COH doesn't encourage grouping... it encourages grouping with random people. And a lot of folks who want to group, may not necessarily want to do random pickup gruops. Many members of my SG will group ONLY with other members of the SG due to bad pickup group experiences. And yet, if your SG-mates are not on and you have a bunch of AV missions what choice do you have but a pickup group -- which may be decidedly non-fun for you. So even though you want a group experience, you may not necessarily enjoy a pickup group experience. Shouldn't that me MY choice, not Cryptics?
The reality is this, despite your claims of what the "majority" want: I am on a roleplay-oriented SG with about 18 members, all of whom prefer grouping and like being sociable, but, all of whom sometimes are in the mood to solo and want to be able to do that if they feel like it. And again that some missions are not solo-able is not the problem -- but rather, that you can have all 3 of your "mission slots" filled with un-solo-able missions on a day when you just feel like soloing today. And THAT is the problem. If players could choose or trade missions back in or something, it would be a LOT less of an issue.
F
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That post....is a thing of beauty. Thank you Fraktal, for being so eloquent...now if they will just listen...
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Yeah... because making the 'find' window so easy and convenient to use, allowing you to find someone near your level, anywhere on the server... made casual grouping so hard.
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You mean that seek button I hit that never has anyone in it? That one?
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Also, introducing global chat... and adding low-level content, storys, unique missions, trials, and a lowbie zone... those pushed new and casual players right out the door.
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Oh you mean the Hollows with over powered Outcasts, or the Frostfire story that takes you 20 minutes to get a team of 8 that has to travel 1 mile across a hazard zone with no travel powers, then dies 5 times each and give up.. you mean that story? Or the 3-4 hours to finish the respec trial, even after the massive adjustment they did to it? Sure I've got enough to time to run that every night. Oh yeah and the "unique" superdyne mission.. that's really keeping me interested..
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This is a complete red herring and I'm sick of seeing it. Massively Multiplayer != Group-only game play. I can be chatting with 10 other members of my supergroup while I solo a mission. That's still a "multiplayer" experience. So don't pretend that "multiplayer" = "group-based missions" because it does NOT. They are not synonymous.
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Synonymous, no. However, MMORPG does imply that some in-game goals will require the assitance of other players. The heart of multiplayer game design is the ability to expand gameplay into new areas because of the added possibilities of teamwork, cooperation, communication, competition, etc. It's one of the founding philosophies of the genre, "Hey, this game is great, wouldn't it be cool if my friends could be right here alongside me fighting these monsters too?"
The game is clearly not "group-only" gameplay. What I'm "sick of seeing" is an army of whiners every time there is content added which requires cooperation.
All you have to do is come to terms with the fact that the game will have BOTH solo content and team content, and no there will not be "solo alternative" versions of every single task and mission in the game implemented just to appease the 2% of the people out there who outright refuse to break down and find a team now and again.
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But neither they, nor you, nor anyone else, should use "this is an MMO" as an excuse to make a mission be un-soloable. It's not a viable excuse.
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You just got done explaining that it's a design philosophy. You don't need an "excuse" to implement a particular design philosophy.
That said, "this is an MMO" is, in fact, a perfectly reasonable response, because that is the driving force behind the design philosophy. As I said above, one of the core tenets of the MMO genre is content which emphasizes cooperation. The designers of the game have chosen, as 99.9% of persistent online game designers do, to include content which not only encourages but requires the participation of more than a single player.
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Actually the point of playing an online game is to be able to socialize with other people.
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Clearly not the case as plenty of online games I have played do not allow "socilization" at all. Hardcore RPGs require in-character roleplaying at all times, and contact with other players is limited to those who are close to you geographically.
I digress, though. My point is not to contradict you, but to show you that trying to nail down "the point of playing an online game" is as difficult as trying to spell out "the point of watching a movie," or "the point of listening to the radio."
There are many reasons why people play MMORPGs. Some like the competition. Some like the socialization. Some like cooperation. The bottom line is it is up to the designers and developers to provide the MEANS to experience a variety of things. They decide what "the points" are, and also specify how people are to go about achieving those "points." i.e., if they want you to chat, they will provide gathering areas and a chat system, etc.
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You've just contradicted yourself. If you're right and "majority who play online games do so because they want to interact with other real live players", then why do they need any mechanism at all to encourage grouping? Won't it automatically happen since by your claim most of the players want it in the first place? It's not clear why the devs should need to reward a behavior "the majority" wants to engage in... they just... will. Won't they?
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Actually, no. Just wanting to do something is not reason enough to do it. For example, I often want to leave work early and go home to sleep. However, I don't have a good reason to do so and have plenty of reasons to not do so.
In the same sense, the designers provide content which requires cooperation in order to give those players who desire a cooperative experience a REASON to engage in such. They're not just going to form up and group so they can walk around staring at the pretty sprites and chatting about last night's NBA game.
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Again I ask, if the "majority" want to do group activities, why does it need to be pushed by the devs at all? Won't what the majority want to do just happen naturally? And if it isn't happening naturally, and has to be 'forced' (as it were), then can you really make the claim that the majority wants it?
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Again, no. Just "wanting" to do something is not reason enough to do it. There has to be some manner of challenge and reward involved.
You're twisting the statement semantically to make a (long winded) and poorly thought-out point. Players don't "want to group," they "want content that requires cooperation."
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The main problem is that COH doesn't encourage grouping... it encourages grouping with random people. And a lot of folks who want to group, may not necessarily want to do random pickup gruops.
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Unfortunate for them. However, the ability to group with "random" people and still manage to form an effective and well balanced group is one of the skills it takes to excel and succeed in CoH. If players don't wish to develop this skill, then they will simply have to understand that not all content will be accessible conveniently.
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Shouldn't that me MY choice, not Cryptics?
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Nothing about how the game works is your choice. The only choice you have is "play or don't."
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And again that some missions are not solo-able is not the problem -- but rather, that you can have all 3 of your "mission slots" filled with un-solo-able missions on a day when you just feel like soloing today. And THAT is the problem. If players could choose or trade missions back in or something, it would be a LOT less of an issue.
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Sorry, but that sounds like an incredibly trivial complaint to me. Almost on par with a "whine."
How often do you find yourself with 3 mission slots filled with missions that cannot be solo'd? If it does happen to occur, what are the chances at least one of those missions can't easily be completed by just grabbing one other person and duo'ing the mission quickly in order to make room for more solo friendly content?
The answer? Not bloody often. If you are in the situation, and your "mood" with respect to teaming is really such a static on/off switch, then tough luck; I suspect, however, that it would be a relatively minor inconvenience to LFT for 90 seconds in order to find one other person to help you clear up a few slots and then thank them for their time and continue on with the solo content.
Forced grouping is a terrible model. It's also a very bad idea to restrict solo ability to one or two classes. Scrappers, for example, are boring to play, and I'd be sorry if solo ability were only restricted to them.
I can sort of see making grouping *advantageous*, but beyond that I don't get. I did the forced grouping thing for 5 years in EQ, and I will never do it again.
And no, playing Morrowind or something is not the same. There are many levels of sociality between Morrowind or some single-player game, and the forced grouping model most MMOGs seem to impose these days. The more I'm forced to group, the less I'll play.
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Oh you mean the Hollows with over powered Outcasts, or the Frostfire story that takes you 20 minutes to get a team of 8 that has to travel 1 mile across a hazard zone with no travel powers, then dies 5 times each and give up..
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Uh...the outcasts are hardly overpowered. And frostfire is rough, but it's not die 5 times each rough, unless the team composition is seriously off-balance. I mean I've tanked it with both a stone and an invuln tank, and neither of those have defenses worth mentioning against elemental damage at that level, just hitpoints.
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
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Ok...thank you very much for clarifying, and I apologize if I was overreacting to the original comment. If inspirations and strategy were the "help" you were referring to for bosses, then I can agree that it's not unreasonable for them to require it.
Trading in missions would be a nice thing although people may just use it to search for specific missions. Statesman has always said you should be able to solo, not that you should be able to solo missions. This is a detail I think a lot of people miss. There are a lot of streets out there with small groups of minions and lts that any AT can solo, and that is soloing. Have at it. Convincing Statesman existing missions should be soloable, or that soloable missions should be added is another thing.
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All you have to do is come to terms with the fact that the game will have BOTH solo content and team content,
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Fine. Which has what to do with soloable content being *reduced*?
5 stars, Fraktal.
Exactly what I wanted to say, but haven't been able to lately without screaming 
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All you have to do is come to terms with the fact that the game will have BOTH solo content and team content, and no there will not be "solo alternative" versions of every single task and mission in the game implemented just to appease the 2% of the people out there who outright refuse to break down and find a team now and again.
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That's swell, I applaud a game with the ability for both. I don't think there's anybody who's reasonable that's saying they want solo options for every bloody thing in the game. However, what's causing the uproar is the fact that bosses are a dime a dozen. You trip over them walking through city zones. The vast majority of door missions have one in it that you have to kill.
If you can't kill the boss, you can't solo your door missions. If you can't solo door missions, the only option you have if you want to solo is street sweeping. Street sweeping is like watching paint dry.
Turn it around. Would you enjoy a game where the only unsoloable content was to zone herd?
I reiterate- what gets people is that the VAST majority of door missions have bosses. If bosses are unsoloable, the ONLY option is to street sweep. IMHO, that's just not enough 'content' for the soloists.
Wile E. Canuck.
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The game is clearly not "group-only" gameplay. What I'm "sick of seeing" is an army of whiners every time there is content added which requires cooperation.
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Speaking for myself, I have no problem with them adding new task forces, trials, raids, and other things that qualify as "group-only content." What I have a problem with is when they take existing content (like contact missions) and turn them into group-only content (by adding simultaneous objectives or nerfing the ability to solo bosses, although they may not be doing that inentionally).
It's fine to have group-only content. I just want to see a reasonable amount of soloable content, too (and street hunting doesn't cut it).
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That said, "this is an MMO" is, in fact, a perfectly reasonable response, because that is the driving force behind the design philosophy. As I said above, one of the core tenets of the MMO genre is content which emphasizes cooperation. The designers of the game have chosen, as 99.9% of persistent online game designers do, to include content which not only encourages but requires the participation of more than a single player.
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Hypothetically, if someone created a game that supported a persistent world, thousands of players, and RPG-like story and character advancement, but every encounter in the game could be completed solo, what would you call it?
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How often do you find yourself with 3 mission slots filled with missions that cannot be solo'd?
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Post-40? All the frickin' time. If I ever DO clear out an AV-filled mission spot, it's usually blocked again in about an hour.
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If it does happen to occur, what are the chances at least one of those missions can't easily be completed by just grabbing one other person and duo'ing the mission quickly in order to make room for more solo friendly content?
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Easily completed if you can get the RIGHT partner, maybe. Finding the right partner? Never easy, unless you have a large, active supergroup or a lot of friends who play the same times you do. And how do you tell which AVs you can duo? They don't come with labels saying "You will need two scrappers or a tank and a controller to beat Nightstar."
Do most people NOT feel terrible when a stranger or a friend dies to an AV trying to help you out?
Look, guys, it seems to me that States comment implied that using a large number of inspirations and strategy was good to take out a boss. That or teaming works.
Defenders and controllers arn't exactly that bad off. Controllers can stack holds- and hopefully if you're soloing a controller you have fighting pool attacks / air superiority / jump kick. Defenders just have to swallow one more damage insp and they're a pocket blaster. I mean come on.
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That's the situation now..taking out bosses requires inspirations and strategy.
With the changes made for Issue 3, that is out, the ONLY option for most players is get others. And that kills the fun of the game for those who spend a lot of time soloing.
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With my scrapper right now, I can take out any Orange con or lower boss out without using a single insp. I might have to blow one or two Heals, and a Luck insp for a Red, and Purples are a decent fight, but rarely a sweat. This is just using Focused Fighting, and Evasion as my toggles; and PB active. I also have the passive vs melee and vs ranged and AoE powers (all 4 slotted). IF I use Elude, vs a Purple Boss, and the Boss fails to one shot me; I can down a Purple Boss way before Elude drops without even thinking about it.
On my Tank - as long as I have 2 CABs, and 2 Damage insps, a Red Boss will fall easily. Purples are currently a full on fight.
My Gravity/FF Controller (with a lot of patience) can down an Orage Boss or below with just 2 CABs and 2 Acc Insps. He cannot solo a Red or Puirple Con Boss currently, but he's only level 20.
My point? They are only upping the Boss/AV/Monster HP by 25%. All this means is that you need to survive a little longer; which means one or two more insps used in a fight to achieve the same result with regards to Bosses. Gee, you can no longer barely solo that AV or Monster? Oh well, that's how it should have been from day one. With these changes, or my Scrapper, using Elude against Purple Bosses, it'll be only slightly more risky to be certain I drop the Boss before Elude drops on me. Big deal. I have yet to be able to solo an AV or Monster with Armsman; but it's sometimes been very close, and sorry, but if you can routinely solo a Monster or AV Class MOB, the game isn't balanced as envisioned because BOTH of these types were envisioned back in beta to require a Team of at least two or more Heros. So, again, cry me a river. If it means that some folks will actually need to do more than just herd 50 or more MOBs into a tight circle and let the AoE Tanks/Blasters mow them down in waves,with little to no risk; too friggin bad.
Being a super-hero(tm) 
does not equal 'constant god mode'. Hell, even my Grav/FF Controller has had no problems with up to 3 Yellow MOBs (As long as one isn't a Boss or a Mezzer) as long as I have the cabs; and if I can do that with a Grav/FF controller, any AT should be able to find SOMETHING to solo after the update. Of course if your definition of fun is just finding a group of MOBs and then running in immediately, with no forethought, because you're 'Super' and shouldn't ever loose; then yes, your gameplay experience may change slightly; but if you like that type of style in an multiplayer enviroment, go back to Counterstrike.
Lastly, my main is a MA/SR Scrapper who follows the ORIGINAL concept of the Champions version I've had since 1985. He's ANYTHING but a 'number crunched optimal build'. My controller and Tanker are the same (all based on original Champions pen&paper character concepts). I've soloed my Controller about 80% of the time to get him to 20 so far (and have also accumulated some debt in that time, although he's usually been debt free of close to it). Of ALL these characters he IS the most challenging, and as stated above he can STILL solo Orange bosses.
I'm not saddened by the fact that some people might have to think/prepare themselves for a fight if a Boss is mixed in with a MOB group now. But I think folks are way over-exaggerating the effect 25% more HP on a Boss will do to the game. I fully agree that if they buffed minions and LTs at the same time, due to the nature of MOB group spawn sizes, that WOULD be a bit much, but with just upping Bosses, AV's and Monster class MOBs, they are definately on the right track - including the new mission difficulty slider.
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They are only upping the Boss/AV/Monster HP by 25%.
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If that was the case, I wouldn't be too worried. It's their increased damage output along with the HP boost that I'm worried about. Even my scrappers will have a harder time, since they don't have much more hit points than blasters.
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Synonymous, no. However, MMORPG does imply that some in-game goals will require the assitance of other players. The heart of multiplayer game design is the ability to expand gameplay into new areas because of the added possibilities of teamwork, cooperation, communication, competition, etc. It's one of the founding philosophies of the genre, "Hey, this game is great, wouldn't it be cool if my friends could be right here alongside me fighting these monsters too?"
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Nobody has a problem with that as far as I can tell. The problem is when all 3 of your mission slots are full of un-solo-able missions and you -- for whatever reason, be it time constraints, in a solo mood, no friends online, whatever -- feel like doing a solo mission. You flat-out can't. And that is a problem.
You can laud game design philosophy all you want... but the fact remains, a game is about having fun. If the devs force people to do un-fun things, those people log out. If that happens enough, they ask why they are playing the game and quit playing (and paying). It's easy as a player to say "good riddance." Trust me, unless this is a "problem" player we are talking about (people who violate the EULA, etc) the devs and NCSoft are never going to say "good riddance" to any player.
The key to a successful MMO is to allow as many people as possible to have fun, but fun can only be had in whatever way is fun to you. If soloing is fun and grouping with random strangers is not, then a game model that forces pickup groups isn't going to make me have fun... it's just going to make me quit.
Since there doesn't seem to be (as far as I can tell) any appreciable HARM That could possibly come from, for example, reserving one "mission slot" for solo-only missions if the person so chooses (the could easily add something like this), there's no good reason why they couldn't do it other than being stubborn.
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The game is clearly not "group-only" gameplay. What I'm "sick of seeing" is an army of whiners every time there is content added which requires cooperation.
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From what I can tell people are not upset about new group-only content. What they are unhappy about is that MOST of the mission content (with the new boss changes) becomes unsoloable. Meaning now you HAVE to basically street sweep if you aren't in a social mood. Again remember... most people like to group some of the time, but few people are in the mood to group ALL of the time. Not being in a grouping mood shouldn't consign you to street sweeping and nothing else. We all know how boring that can be.
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All you have to do is come to terms with the fact that the game will have BOTH solo content and team content, and no there will not be "solo alternative" versions of every single task and mission in the game implemented just to appease the 2% of the people out there who outright refuse to break down and find a team now and again.
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Who the heck is talking about ANY of that? Every example I gave was of people who 'aren't in the mood to group' at the moment or whose 'friends are not online just now' and want to do a little soloing before work, dinner, bed, whatever. Add to that most people prefer to do missions and you have a problem if 99% of missions are unsoloable (as, with the boss buffs, they very well may become). This is not about trials, TFs, hazard zone raids, or end-of-story-arc missions. It's about the regular, run-of-the-mill missions that you take on a daily basis with your character, and how those should be (on principle) soloable if you so choose. We're talking about the OLD content here, not the new.
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You just got done explaining that it's a design philosophy. You don't need an "excuse" to implement a particular design philosophy.
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You misunderstand. I agree that "no soloing" is design philosophy, but I am asserting that "it's an MMO" is a lousy reason for HAVING that design philosophy. If they have some other, better, reason, then fine. But just "it's an MMO" is weak and not even logical (since as I showed above, and you did not even try to refute, multiplayer != group mission-based).
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That said, "this is an MMO" is, in fact, a perfectly reasonable response, because that is the driving force behind the design philosophy. As I said above, one of the core tenets of the MMO genre is content which emphasizes cooperation.
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That's fine but again, cooperation can be had in many ways. If we are on SG chat and I am talking you through a mission you are soloing, we are cooperating. The fact that people think only if our toons are "grouped" (which is a UI convenience and nothing more) and in the same physical "space" (which is an illusion anyway because they are just database items) can we be cooperating. That's narrow-minded and clearly does not encompass all the possible ways I could cooperate with you.
Or turn it on its head. If you are level 40 and group with a level 2, and he goes AFK and you powerlevel him for 5 hours, you are GROUPED. Were you having a Multiplayer Experience? I'll leave the answer to the reader.
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The designers of the game have chosen, as 99.9% of persistent online game designers do, to include content which not only encourages but requires the participation of more than a single player.
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Including content and "giving it to you as the only possible missions you can take" are two different things.
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Actually, no. Just wanting to do something is not reason enough to do it. For example, I often want to leave work early and go home to sleep. However, I don't have a good reason to do so and have plenty of reasons to not do so.
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That's a bad analogy. If you went home and slept in the afternoo you would (presumably) be fired. You're proving my point. MOST people, if they got paid whether they worked or not, wouldn't go into work. Which means rules have to be in place (by your employer) forcing you to work for the pay. Otherwise you wouldn't do it. So you've just proved my point: without rules, you'd do something else, something you really wanted. So the rules are there to make you do something you wouldn't otherwise do. This is the same thing. Without rules making you group, a lot of people wouldn't. This MUST be the case, because if people would group anyway, if they prefer it, you'd need no rules to force it (or "incentives" to encourage it).
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Again, no. Just "wanting" to do something is not reason enough to do it. There has to be some manner of challenge and reward involved.
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That explains why group content should be challenging. It doesn't explain why grouping has to be forced (or near-forced).
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Players don't "want to group," they "want content that requires cooperation."
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That's fine. What bearing does that have on soloable content?
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Unfortunate for them. However, the ability to group with "random" people and still manage to form an effective and well balanced group is one of the skills it takes to excel and succeed in CoH. If players don't wish to develop this skill, then they will simply have to understand that not all content will be accessible conveniently.
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Again we're talking about your run-of-the-mill missions you get from contacts here. Nobody ever said "all content should be soloable." But when I feel like doing a solo mission for whatever reason I should be able to, without going through contortions or being forced to street sweep.
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Nothing about how the game works is your choice. The only choice you have is "play or don't."
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And while YOU may not care of the rest of us choose "don't" because of forced grouping, CRYPTIC will care, rest assured. They don't want to lose customers. So saying "there's the door if you don't like it" is kind of silly. The point of a game is to have fun. If the designers are making hunks of the player base not have fun, they need to re-think things.
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How often do you find yourself with 3 mission slots filled with missions that cannot be solo'd?
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I've had it happen, though not too often for this reason: I try not to fill all 3 mission slots any more... for exactly that reason. I've had 3 "unsoloable" missions before and had to just log out until I could get group-mates together. The Envoy of Shadows arc, where you fight the same AV like 4 times, took me about 3 weeks to get through (and it was only a handful of missions) because for each one we needed to assemble a team of 4+ people to take him out. At the same time I had 2 others I couldn't solo (can't recall which). Especially over level 40, this sort of thing happens a lot.
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I suspect, however, that it would be a relatively minor inconvenience to LFT for 90 seconds in order to find one other person to help you clear up a few slots and then thank them for their time and continue on with the solo content.
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Not everyone is in the game just for the "grind." I like to enjoy playing (or I don't). I find the idea of just teaming up for people to 'get it over with' unappealing and a poor way to have to play a game. I shouldn't be 'getting it over with.' I should be having fun. If they're going to make it not-fun, then I will think about spending my money elsewhere. Again you can say "good riddance" but I doubt Cryptic would, especially if a lot of people had the same reaction.
As I have said, I prefer grouping... but forcing it is not a good idea.
F
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"For the most part, everyone will be able to solo in some situations. Some builds and ATs more than others. But there are some mobs that can be a challenge - bosses, elite bosses, AV's and monsters - where you'll probably want help. Or not."
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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This is a very significant change. While bosses were never said to be "easy" to solo, they were taken to be something that you had to deal with solo, as many missions have one or two bosses at even basic single person level.
Since when did "hard to solo" turn into "not meant to be soloed"?
Still here, even after all this time!
From a person who mostly solos, thank you. I couldn't have said things any better.
Fraktal's post was a thing of beauty, I could not have put it into better words than that.
Having said that, I'm going to add my own two cents here.
I solo. I LIKE to solo. I have a handfull of friends in real life, let alone in this game. I'm lucky to see two people from my friends list log on in the entire stretch of three or four hours that I play.
I don't like pickup groups. If there is ANYONE here who can tell me that they have never once had a single bad experience in pickup grouping, I will eat one of my CoH manuals. (I'll top it with a bunch of other stuff, but I will eat it.) Pickup groups invite idiocy. Sure, a good amount of the time you don't get idiots. With some regularity, however, you'll get a group with a person who just doesn't know what they're doing. That person that you look at, and wonder to yourself, "Idiot or EBay?"
For those of you with massive groups of friends, this isn't an issue. Believe me, if I could get everyone I knew to play this game and always group with me, I would. I LOVE to group with people THAT I KNOW AND TRUST. It doesn't happen that often, though.
When my friends are on, they also tend to want to play the game too, sometimes solo. What do you do then? Hold your friendship up as incentive to make them group with you? Anyone who tried that with me would very quickly find themselves without a friend.
I don't mind the grouping aspects. I had an absolute BLAST doing the Respec when I was successful. I also had more than a half dozen nights where I felt like I wasted my time because the pickup group I got on for the respec was dumber than a hole in the ground. That is not an experience I like to repeat.
There are soloers in the game, we like to solo. We'll group when we WANT to. I can't speak for everyone, but when I don't wanna group, I try to avoid situations that call for it. I have avoided ALL forced grouping missions that were offered to me, because I don't like being forced to group. Every time I did the respec, or a TF, I did it because I wanted to.
Dame Silverwing (50 Kat/SR Scrapper) Virtue
Professor Bikini (50 Bots/Dark MM) Virtue
Dame Silver Fury (41 Peacebringer) Virtue
Operative Velvet (50 Fortunata) Virtue
Petal Dancer (35 Plant/Kin Contoller) Virtue
Tanegashima (Rapidly levelling DP/Ice Blaster) Virtue
(and more)
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I don't like pickup groups. If there is ANYONE here who can tell me that they have never once had a single bad experience in pickup grouping, I will eat one of my CoH manuals. (I'll top it with a bunch of other stuff, but I will eat it.) Pickup groups invite idiocy.
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Hahah that made me laugh (the part about eating the COH manuals). Perhaps because it is so true... Pickup groups... every one I've ever been in has been a disaster. So "I don't do pickup groups" anymore, thanks.
Herein lies the MAIN problem with COH. We have (1) a miniscule friends list, (2) a rather restrictive (in terms of size) SG list, and (3) curently, no other ways to stay in contact with our friends. They've in fact made it quite hard to keep track of friends, especially those who like alts (4 friends with 6 alts each will fill up your friends list completely). On the other hand they have a TON of great tools for pickup groups (LFG system, broadcast, etc). So they make it really hard to keep things together with a group of known friends but really easy to do pickup groups. COH thus is very "pickup group" friendly but very "large, stable group of friends" un-friendly, as it were. And THAT is the real problem.
Getting a mission sprung on you, e.g. timed, with a boss you can't solo, in a zone you can't travel throug solo such as a low level in Perez, not only encourages but almost DEMANDS that you do pickup groups. So COH actually isn't encouraging group play; they're encouraging pickup group play. That is very VERY different from merely being a "multiplayer" experience or even "encouraging grouping."
Don't think so? Look at how they do the respec trial or TFs for instance. You need seven or eight people on some TFs, *all* within a very narrow level range, and SKs are not allowed in if they are outside of that. Thus you not only have to (1) have 7 in-game friends, but (2) they must all be online at once, (3) they must all have time to do the TF in one shot (odds of you all getting together in later days are very small with that many people's schedules to juggle), and (4) they must all be within 8 or 9 levels of each other (or whatever the limit is for the given mission/trial/TF). It took us like 4 weeks when the respec first came out for the high-level group to get a shot at it, and that was just 4 of us, because of scheduling. After failing once we gave up. Why? NOT because the mission was too hard, but because our schedules didn't match up and the only alternative was pickup groups.
See where this is going? There's nothing inherently "social" or groupy about the 4-man respec trial. But absolutely everyone I know who's finished it has had to do it with a pickup group because even a small spread in levels really is not workable (for most normal builds) on the respec. Our team has also never done the higher level TFs, because we never get 7 people online, together, at one time, all with the time to do something long like that. Again, this is UN-friendly to an actual group of friends, but highly workable by a bunch of random people who just want to grind through the TF.
So what exactly are they encouraging here? Certainly NOT sociality or friend-making (given the small size of the friends list and the rigid nature of how the TFs, trials, etc, work). The ONLY type of grouping/collaboration they are encouraging, and they are doing it so strongly that they are DIScouraging other forms, is that of the random pickup group.
Now maybe that's what they want, but this is NOT the only way to have a multiplayer experience. In fact most people find it the most inferior type of experience and far perfer to game with FRIENDS than strangers. I know about 50 players in game, mostly on my SG but some on "allied" groups. Not a single one I can think of, prefers random groups to teaming up with friends. So why is the game so pickup-group-centric? You can't use the "it's multiplayer" argument. There's nothing to suggest a multiplayer game should consist of a bunch of strangers playing together.
This, then, is the crux of the problem with "unsoloable" standard missions. Usually when people are trying to solo them it is because none of their friends are on right now. For most of us the preferred method is to group -- with friends, mind! -- and we are soloing because "no one else is on." Getting a mission we can't do forces us to (1) quit playing or (2) form a pickup group.
So this really isn't about the game encouraging GROUPING... but about it encouraging PICKUP GROUPS... which is something everyone I know in-game objects to.
F
Boss hit points went up 40%
Boss regen went up, presumably 40%
Boss damage went up 40%. Why? Apparantly, hit points tie directly into mob damage.
This is bad for soloers and large groups. Why do this? Has anyone seen a Red Name explain the reasoning? Perhaps that will occur in their new dev section.
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Boss hit points went up 40%
Boss regen went up, presumably 40%
Boss damage went up 40%. Why? Apparantly, hit points tie directly into mob damage.
This is bad for soloers and large groups. Why do this? Has anyone seen a Red Name explain the reasoning? Perhaps that will occur in their new dev section.
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Because I'm sure it's intended that I solo 2 or more purple con bosses...
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Boss hit points went up 40%
Boss regen went up, presumably 40%
Boss damage went up 40%. Why? Apparantly, hit points tie directly into mob damage.
This is bad for soloers and large groups. Why do this? Has anyone seen a Red Name explain the reasoning? Perhaps that will occur in their new dev section.
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Staesman has stated that they originally they raised ALL MOBs hit points on Test by 25% (not 40%); and that they were ROLLING BACK this change for all MOBs except Bosses, AVs and Monster class MOBs. If you know for a fact it's 40%, I'd /bug it.
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The game is clearly not "group-only" gameplay. What I'm "sick of seeing" is an army of whiners every time there is content added which requires cooperation.
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I'm sick of existing content being moved from soloable to group, and being labeled as "new". Robbing from Peter to pay Paul...
Adding new missions with eleite bosses, required people ot beat bombs, etc? Good! Heck, giving those a bigger completion bonus is ALSO good, since they require coordination of tactics and skills. More effort, more reward. Id love to see them adding a third mission option to contacts. A kill X, a solo, and a group. Now thats actual NEW content.
New task forces? New trials? Cool! Great for when I have time!
Changing, say, the PWNZ mission from soloable to unsoloable isnt good. What did that add? Groups could ALREADY do that mission, if they chose.
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To be honest, I needed help with a lot of +1 and duo bosses before this change, so perhaps it's always been a bit towards forced grouping for defenders, controllers, and blasters.
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Odd... I just soloed two bosses (Rikti Mesmerist and Crey Security Chief) in a mission last night with my Blaster. I sure hope I don't have to forego being able to do that, that would suck big time, as those types of spawns are the rule rather than the exception. I can't solo bosses with any of my Defenders, but I can with my Controllers.
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