How many games have you see where the dev comes to the community and explains himself like that?
/golf clap
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I think the genre (and the great game) attracts many of us who want some online gaming experiences, but need it to be flexible enough that we can solo at will (instead of standing around trying to form a team for 10 minutes).
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Eighth - you've hit the nail on the head! Positron and I were just talking about this; part of the beauty of the game is that you don't need to wait in order to get to fun. I don't want to lose that in the rush to encourage grouping. Like I've said, I'm going to review the missions this week and see how many have bosses at the different level ranges.
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States, I don't know what game you happen to be playing, but that certainly doesn't sound like the game I'm playing atm. I am forced to group my 39 fire/fire blaster every single time I log him on---every time. Or farm blues, whites and 'weak' yellows, slowly grinding along into mind-numbing frustration. I don't like having to play this way.
Is THAT what you mean by your statement above? Why do you feel you don't 'need to wait to get to fun' when we're telling you that we're being forced to?
*scratches head*
Cal2
My apologies if this sounds like a rant - it is to an extent, but I need to let the developers of this game know how I feel. Over the past six months City of Heroes has become a great source of relaxation and enjoyment to me. I appreciate everything that has gone into the creation of this games, and I am in fullest agreement with you that it truly shines when played as a team event. However, the superhero genre that you have so well captured is not primarily about teams. The vast majority of comic books are about single characters, and with the introduction of issue 3 you have taken that away from all of us.
I play an engery/engery blaster archetype (Quantumstar) and am part of a very active super group (The Guardians of Gaea) - we often team together for missions, and this is extremely fun. However, there are times when I play solo, either due to the lack of availability of other players or because I prefer to run by myself. I often consider these solo adventures to be the story in my character's own comic book as opposed to him being in the team book. In any event, since the release of issue 3 it has become obvious to me that I can no longer solo.
The reason for this is entirely because of the increased difficulty of the bosses. In solo adventuring since issue 3 went live I have only twice been able to defeat a boss - in all but one instance my confrontations with a boss have lead to my toon's defeat. These defeats continued even after the free respec that you so graciously gave us improved my defenses. Furthermore, in several instances a single blow from the boss defeated my character. This is hardly fun for me.
When I mentioned this problem to other members of my super group and friends, they responded with similar stories and opinions. I consider myself an average player with an average character build, and if I am having this much trouble then so are a large number of other players. It is an enormous frustration to me when I come to the end of a mission and run into a boss - because at that point I know that I cannot complete it. Instead I must call for help, and hope that someone is available. In more than ten cases I have had to abandon a mission because I could not get the help I needed.
It used to be that I scoffed at defenders and controllers who couldnt complete missions on their own, now I appreciate their anguish and suffering. Quite honestly this has become an intolerable state of affairs. Please, as a loyal player and fan of this game, fix this problem. Review what you have done to the bosses in issue 3 and devise another method of encouraging team play perhaps additional experience points for working in a team, the additional amount increased proportionally to the number of players in the group. The same could be done with drops of enhancements or inspirations, or solo characters could be penalized in some manner. Regardless of what you choose to do, please give us back the ability to play solo. You will make a considerable number of us very happy again.
Thank you for all your time and effort in this!
I'm forced to group, too, but only because this game (just like every other MMO game) gets rather dull solo.
Honestly, if I hadn't read on the boards about the bosses being stronger, I wouldn't have known it. Our super-group is still munching through the missions just fine, for the most part. We did have an awful time with a team of just four blasters but I think an unbalanced team like that deserves the debt.
Solo, my 42nd level grav/storm is still having no problems. My other characters haven't solo'd in awhile or are sub-25.
I haven't had problems with the round-a-corner-and-BOOM in a long time. But then, there isn't a hall or room in any mission where I haven't died dozens of times. I don't round corners - I sidestep with my back to the farthest wall. Preferably with stealth on and even more preferably after a melee has gone first. Even then I still get surprised, but getting one-shot'ed by a boss right at the start of a battle is very rare for me.
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Solo, my 42nd level grav/storm is still having no problems.
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Er, probably because your singularities can lock down the boss in just a few seconds (in conjunction with your Hold). Once the boss is locked down, it doesn't matter how tough he is. Just reapply your single-target Hold on the boss whenever it recycles, and let the singularities tear him apart. It's slow, but safe.
Those without multiple holds have to fight the boss the hard way.
The biggest reason why I solo is that I want to enjoy all of
the ingame stories. If I could not outlevel my contacts
and get all the stories they carry and the new stories
they get no matter how badly I outlevel them. Im sure there are plenty of other players who dont want to loose thier ingame content by grouping and outleveling thier contatcts too
I would spend more time playing Coh instead of FFIX.
Both games encourage grouping.
But one game dosent ever deny any of its content ever.
Another one that says it has rewards for grouping you loose out
on the stories it has. It gives the distnct flavor of reading
part of a comicbook while having its pages ripped out before
you get a chance to finish it and savor its good qualities
unfourtontely that game is COH. A game of comicbook heroes.
The only time I really group is for taskforce missions,
Or to help my friends out. I would group more but there is really a penalty of loss of game content.
And as for the Other part I agree Named Bosses should be better then the average hero
and the generics should be about 90% to 110% the avarege heroes power.
The Legendary Cosmological Prince Reigar 53rd Illusion Control/Storm Summoning/Primal Forces Mastery/Incarnate
It's a dark and story night. That means something bad is happening out there
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(I have no doubt that this will appear in sigs for years to come
)
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You know, that is what we call a prime example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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I think the genre (and the great game) attracts many of us who want some online gaming experiences, but need it to be flexible enough that we can solo at will (instead of standing around trying to form a team for 10 minutes).
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Eighth - you've hit the nail on the head! Positron and I were just talking about this; part of the beauty of the game is that you don't need to wait in order to get to fun. I don't want to lose that in the rush to encourage grouping. Like I've said, I'm going to review the missions this week and see how many have bosses at the different level ranges.
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My roomate that plays the game doesnt read the forums. He doesn't have a max build on his energy blaster. He takes powers that he wants regardless of the end result.
Last night all he did was cuss. He likes to solo. He is level 27 and it has been extremely difficult for him to enter a mission now and complete it by himself. He feels like the game is "ruined" for him because he can no longer go into a mission and enjoy it at his own pace (no stamina) and then get it done.
I have a maxed build, I tend to get through the missions with my main and alts.
If there was someway to stop his cussing, I would be beholden to you States.
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I am upset that now I will never have a controller or defender. Because I will never make a hero that HAS to group to play. It's just not heroic.
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Choosing to group is a fun and rewarding time. Having to group is a grind, and it gets old very quickly.
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The choices we get to make about our gameplay can make a good game great. We need to have the choice to solo or group. It might be different if it weren't 8 months into retail, but we have grown to love a game that we can actually play without a huge group, and a huge timesink. Why take that away? Again I stress, not all AT's are affected, but I will never play an AT that has been....
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Exactly.
For me, it's all about creating a Super Hero based on a concept, and then working out which AT will allow that concept.
I want to be able to play quick stealthy characters and lumbering powerful ones, Super Heroes that use fire, and ice, weather, devices, radiation, gravity, mind control. Heroes that dodge, Heroes that resist. I don't care if the game calls them 'blasters' or 'scrappers' or whatever. I just want to be able to have a hero whose powers are based on fire or ice or whatever my character concept calls for.
The problem is, as things stand now (and the way they seem to be headed), most of those characters aren't going to actually translate into true playable Super Heroes.
As long as the concept is one that can be adapted to a Scrapper, I have a decent chance of making something resembling a 'real' Super Hero (although, sadly, some 'builds' are more viable than others). Some Tankers maybe, possibly even some specific Blasters (at least up until now).
If it involves powers that only fall into the realm of Defenders and Controllers, forget it. I suppose there may be some very specific 'builds' that are the exception, but for the most part, they all fall into that lovely un-comic-book-like MMO category of 'support classes'.
I love the idea behind my little Gravity Controller (he was my original character in Superworld and Champions back in college), and my psionic radiation defender too, but I rarely play them... and the situation just gets worse the higher level they get (and the more 'team encouraging' changes are made).
I'm actually seriously considering scrapping them altogether, and just creating a couple more Scrappers with different powers instead. It would be a shame if I had to, but I simply don't have the time to be able to devote to spending an hour searching for a Team and then still have any time left to actually play.
I'm not a power-gamer or a min-maxer, but I think I want what a lot of players want (not everyone, of course)...
I want to create and play a comic book Super Hero, with all of the cool powers that go with it. I want to be able to do missions and fight villains, just like they do in the comic books.
Sure, sometimes something comes up that is so earth-shattering or powerful (ie. Task Force or Trial) that we can only defeat it by Teaming up, and sometimes we just Team up because we can (not because we have to). But most villains? most problems? I should be able to handle them myself. After all, I'm supposed to be a Super Hero, right?
Silas Dark - Magic Scrapper
Blurg - Science Tanker
Quantium X - Mutation Controller
Grey 17 - Natural Defender
Santabot - Technology Blaster
[i]"City of Heroes is at its best as a Superhero game that's implemented as an MMO, rather than as an MMO that just happens to be about Superheroes..."[/i]
Missions should definately be soloable. Not everyone wants to play in groups and should not be forced to by a game they are paying the same amount of money for as the people who like to group. I used to play a couple of other games that had the same idea of making people work in groups. Eventually there was no reason to play if you A) liked to solo or B) could only log on at night when player numbers are low. Suddenly these games where an average server used to have 1100+ people on at any given time now have 500 on the same servers. Being forced to group does not make one social. That's what chat channels are for. Overall however Issue 3 is a great lot of fun, I just really pray that this game does not end up gimping itself by casting away part of it's player base.
I like to solo. I like to play in groups. As others have mentioned, many of us can't group all the time, or even most of the time. I don't care much for the idea of having to abandon a team 30 minutes after playing because I have to help my son with his homework, or any other of a number of reasons. I like the fact that if I have 2-3 hours to spare, I can get with a team, do a task force or bang out missions, but generally, I'm a much more casual player. I'll log on for half an hour in the morning, then go do my housework, come back after lunch for an hour or so, etc.
I've never felt that soloing was encouraged over grouping. But prior to the new changes, it was at least feasible if not the most desired way to play. And soloing allows those of us who have otherwise busy lives to take a little time out from them to enjoy a great game that otherwise, we might be missing out on... or at least, not getting to play as often as we'd like.
I like to play solo as well but I like the option to play in groups.
I have a small group of around 4 players that I frequently team with. But AV's are so hard now that we can't do them with just us 4. In fact we need 8 people and most of them need to be close to lvl 50. So we have to go around a beg high lvl players to take pity on us and kill and AV with us. Even they sometimes have trouble with them. Thats not a fun time begging people to help us. We have 4 people we should be able to do it. Thats 1 Tanker, 1 Scrapper, 1 Controller and 1 Blaster all same level as AV is no match for AV. We can get them down to about 90% of their health in 10 mins but thats all. Their regen of health is at an insane rate combined with insane resists. They were hard before...now they are near impossible.
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I don't feel the new bosses are equal to a +1 boss now. I have characters who used to be able to take on a +2 boss as easily or more easily than a +0 boss now, maybe more, and my risk of one-shotting wasnt as high on the old +2.
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They are just +1.
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No they're not. They're more. In some way - both in terms of hit points and in terms of damage, they are far more than +1. I have more trouble with +1 bosses now than I ever had with +2 before the patch.
From my own comparison of numbers before issue 3 went live, bosses recieved a +40% to hit points and a +40% to damage. I don't know if accuracy was boosted as well, but I certainly hope that was not the case.
If bosses, prior to issue 3, went up 40% in hit points and damage every level, I suspect people would have complained about boss difficulty long ago.
I'm not sure what the difference is, but this +1 boost in difficulty is not true.
Also, it seems to me that making bosses effectively "1.5" heroes strikes me as antithetical to the desired genre in City of Heroes. 
These changes only really serve to make the characters - as played by paying customers - less relevant to the game world. I mean that both thematically and mechanically.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
I went from being able to do a +3 boss if careful and taking my time. To seeing a boss and running.
Feel like a minion out there street sweeping. Not a hero.
Increased HP for bosses bearable. One shot deaths is a bad idea.
From what I have read in previous posts on the forum is that this was done atleast partially to make it more difficult for the regens or invulns. If this was the case then why was those powers ever introduced and allowed to become so powerful. I3 is not hurting them to the degree that it does us squishies.
As a side not. Noticed the heal numbers going down this month. Could this be because this change has in some ways nerfed us healers? It seems you are either alive and well, or flat out dead from CHEAP one shots! 
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This all kind of reminds me of when there was the problem with mobs in missions going from +1 to -5 levels below the hero! (Ie., the frontloaded mission problem part II)
At that time, Statesman, said, "No the maximum level range in a mission is 2 levels, or +1 to -1, based on the player with the mission."
That statement was correct as far as he knew it to be but in fact it was not.
That was not his fault. He told the designers: "Do it like this" and they said, "Ok, we did," but in fact they didn't. There was no way for him to know that...other than through the forthcoming 1,000,000 posts by us saying that we were getting gray bosses at the end of missions--what a different world we live in now, eh!
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Isnt Statesman the boss at Cryptic? Is it not his job to make sure that when he tells people to do something it actually gets done? It seems like hes not actually checking to make sure his directives are being followed, and thats sloppy managment. He's the lead designer, if he doesnt know the state of the game as it is on the live servers, either he or his employees arent doing their jobs right.
Heroes
Dysmal
Lumynous
Sam Steele
Pluck
Wile
Slagheap
Pressure Wave
Rhiannon Bel
Verified
Stellaric
Syd Mallorn
Villains
Jotunheim Skald
Saer Maen
Jen Corbae
Illuminance
Venator Arawn
Taiga Dryad
Tarranos
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I have a small group of around 4 players that I frequently team with. But AV's are so hard now that we can't do them with just us 4. In fact we need 8 people and most of them need to be close to lvl 50. So we have to go around a beg high lvl players to take pity on us and kill and AV with us. Even they sometimes have trouble with them. Thats not a fun time begging people to help us. We have 4 people we should be able to do it. Thats 1 Tanker, 1 Scrapper, 1 Controller and 1 Blaster all same level as AV is no match for AV. We can get them down to about 90% of their health in 10 mins but thats all. Their regen of health is at an insane rate combined with insane resists. They were hard before...now they are near impossible.
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In my experience most AVs should be able to be taken down by a well balanced group of 4, and your group makeup actually seems pretty ideal. Granted, some AVs are tougher to take down than others (Madame of Mystery comes to mind, I shudder at what she must be like after the update). What AVs are you having trouble with?
aggreed, what about blasters, ya sure we can take a boss, only if we have a tanker taunting them with a healer watching his or her bar. i used to take on +3 bosses no problem with my emp defender friend behind me healing and forting me. now we have trouble with even con bosses aka orange. i kinda dont mind the added HP (it only means more time fighting oh ok) but i do mind the damge, what are blasters going to do?? if we get one shot by them and really cant do much damage to them but then there is a scrapper or tanker that if careful they can sit there and take the time to finish off the boss.
thanks for the invul and regen nerf, and making the bosses harder (sarcasm)
us poor blasters are left out in the cold
"Good old plan D works every time." - Col. Mitchel
"How did you die?" - Me
"I ran out of hit points!" - Alena
Wow, I don't have the time to read all these posts to make sure I'm saying something entirely fresh, but I hope you devs do
Anywho, I'm currently playing my lv 34 Stone/Stone tanker, and I've been running through a Devoured Earth story arc (lots of lawyers are involved, and they were trying to sneak into another dimension). Now, I love to solo as well, because I hate outleveling my story arcs, so I've been soloing through these.
The last 4 missions I've done post I3, and they've all had bosses spawn within them. The last one I did even had a named one. None of the missions mentioned boss spawns in the text. It was just a simple go save these folks type of thing, and that last named boss really should be a suprise for the story arc, but by that time I was expecting a boss of some kind anyways.
But there's tons of missions out there that spawn bosses and don't mention them. It's been that way all along. There's just about always one in the last room. I'm suprised in missions when there isn't a boss, to tell you how frequently that happens to me.
I'd like to adjust my missions up to +1 or +2 mobs, since I could handle those minions and lts just fine and dandy, but I'm not going to do it with all these bosses spawning when, I guess, they're not supposed to.
Either fix the solo spawning to how you say it works, or drop that boss damage down (I'm a tank, and if those Devoureds hit me twice in a row I could be dead ... they hit hard before, now they're killers). Their new hp is fine, though.
Basically as I see it the mission difficulty slider acomplishes everything and more that statesman's original post indicates is his concerns.
The increase to the base stats of all bosses only amplifies the fix to the point where many people it is excessive.
If players wish harder or more interesting missions the difficulty slider obviously provides a tool for players to "choose" when and where they want mission more difficult, instead of having all missions with bosses to be inheriantly more difficult.
Golden Avatar - 50 Invul/Mace Tanker (Infinity)
Police Drone GA - 50 Fire/FF Controller (Infinity)
I, and many others it seems from reading these forums, do enjoy that bosses last a bit longer. I fully agree with their hp increase for the most part...
however, I'm very, VERY glad that the one-shot-debt [and of course the 1-2-debt combo that always occurs if they get to melee, or if there's a minion around] bosses cause is going to be adressed.
Have you seen what happens to a pair of squishies when one gets a bit too close to the other just as a skiff's missile [or jumpbot's flamethrower] goes off? When everything boss-like cons purple because it's +2 from the highest on the team, plus boss-conning? Alright so flamethrowers are DoT so it's not too bad assuming your defender sees what just hit you [and is about to chip you to death]...
should we even bother trying to find out what the inside of the reactor looks like without rolling up yet another regen-scrapper?
At the risk of having devs 'fix' energy blasters, the only thing keeping between me and the debt-cap at all times [yeah, only like 2 bubbles on average at all times] is powerpush and constant, constant knockdowns.
I've been hearing rumors of very bad accuracy on time-bombs and new "visible tripmine-problem" [as well as them not detonating when they should], making me wonder if it's even viable to play the careful-setup game in hopes of increasing my chances, or if that tripmine field will be jumped over/ran around ruining 2 minutes of careful positioning. That in itself should be a fair tactic; it's slow, can involve good planning, and is damn satisfying to pull off.
The hp and resistances are fine; it's what makes them tough to take on and forces us to use a handful of inspirations. as it should be. The extra damage, is overkill by far.
PS: Gotta agree with that last one; the slider DOES take care of the job, and WELL. I tuned it up to tenacious, and could handle rugged [slow and steady] if it weren't for the threat of a red-con boss suddenly having me in the hospital before his attack animation even finishes.
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As for why we put Bosses in missions at all in other words, why isnt everything solo-able the answer is simple. We want gameplay that encourages the best part of the game: teaming up. Soloing is fine, but a MMP really shines when you meet other people and play alongside them.
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Wouldn't you want gameplay that encourages people to want to play? Yes a MMPORPG 'shines' in group mode, but it glows from the continual increase of players who come for all reasons and surely soloing is a massive part of CoH's pull? There is this terrible misunderstanding that people come to MMPORPG's to make friends, in truth they come to achieve whatever social desire they want. Mine happens *not* to be interacting with random people and going round being a one-man-band.. so why change the game to take *away* what brings me to the game, when it doesn't affect the people who *do* want to be here for the grouping?
I have not done a single TF, that is my choice and I know there is content I have missed on. However, to be penalised for soloing just seems pointless.
In short, why force one subsection of your customers away from the game? People who group will group, people who solo will leave. Once I get to 50, I was planning to play through my new Epic AT as far as possible.. now I know that as soon as I get to 25 it's going to be like crawling over barbed wire, I don't think I'll bother and I'm sure I'm not alone.
Your time would be better spent making grouping more rewarding, than soloing more tedious. CoH is unique as it actively supports the Soloist, don't turn it into EQ.
Hi,
I posted this originally in the General Disscusion board but I thought Id raise it here aswell.
Last night I took a timed mission and this is the exact description.
"'Defeat all villains in Base'
It seems the Council has decided to try their hand at magic. They've managed to recover the bodies of several deceased Council leaders, and they're going to try to reanimate them! Thats a dangerous proposition to say nothing of disgusting. I need you to prevent the Council from re-animating their fallen leaders. You'll have to hurry. The ceremony could take as little as 90 mins."
Now to my squishy blaster this didnt seem too bad, and seeing as my other missions are currently the Revenant hero arc and Envoy of Shadow arc, its the only mission I could do. The other 2 are impossible for me to solo... period.
So seeing as there was no mention of a boss or it being generally requiring a team I gave it a go. Nice pairs and threesomes of +0 and +1 lt's and minions were dotted around and I was getting through these ok and clicked on 3 out of the 4 glowies.
Great, plenty of time left aswell.
I entered the final room and in the corner was a level 39 named Boss called Ulor. He was one of those vampyr boss that would chain hold me into 30k debt before I can get out a snipe so I had to leave the mission.
Now can anyone find any mention of this named Boss in the mission or am I missing something?
My trouble is Im in the UK and most of my SG arent on when I play so I am currently trying to solo some of the other missions. If I get a boss its an un-soloable mission for my blaster main.
My controller is having better luck even with 2 bosses standing talking, admitedly it takes about 20 mins for me by deceiving the nearest minion to beat the bosses for me but thats another matter!
Sorry I haven't read the whole topic. All I've read is the first post by Statesman. To that I will respond with:
I completely understand where you are coming from concerning the changes. I do appreciate that you are trying to improve the overall game .
The most important thing, to me, is that you are actually looking into the "squishy" dilemma concerning insta-debt with bosses. That is most appreciated. I had been getting the impression from several posts that this was a non-issue for the Devs.
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should we even bother trying to find out what the inside of the reactor looks like without rolling up yet another regen-scrapper?
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On the day Issue 3 went life, my SG and me (claw/regen scrapper) wanted to take on the respec trial in Terra Volta. We assembled a team af 5 heroes (1 of each Archetype, levels 37 to 39) and started it.
The big problem was that once we hit the reactor room dozens and dozens of freakshow tanks showed up and really beat the crap out of us. The only one that wasable tostand more than one hit from them was our fire tanker. Even I, as a scrapper, was 1 shotted every single time they hit me in melee (their grenades did not kill me instantly, at least not when a single one hit me).
Our team was not remotely able to kill the bosses fast enough. When we had 20 or so bosses running around and banging on the reactor the trial was failed.
The damage the bosses to is real hard and i guess i have to pick up tough in order to be of any use for my team.
I think this is bad. We have a well balanced team most of the time (each archetype once) and a scrapper is one of the frontline characters so he should be able to take more than 1 or 2 hits from bosses (without having to rely on powerpool powers) while a good tanker can easily tank 5 +3 level bosses...
States said:
"...As for why we put Bosses in missions at all in other words, why isnt everything solo-able the answer is simple. We want gameplay that encourages the best part of the game: teaming up. Soloing is fine, but a MMP really shines when you meet other people and play alongside them. Ive made many good virtual friends through other MMPs that I simply would not have done if I could solo everything all the time. I admit it: Im anti-social. Its hard to get me to group up with strangers. But after I do it, I always wonder why dont I do this more often I might still be anti-social in real life, but in MMPs Im a social butterfly (I have no doubt that this will appear in sigs for years to come ) "
All well and good, States, if you happen to work a 'normal' schedule and are consistenly on in prime time. But a great many of us do not. This translates into the following:
Anti-social or social butterfly, you can't group when very few players are on and trying to do their thing with little time. Therefore, you are FORCED to try and do your missions yourself. Add LTs and even a single Boss and for Blasters, you can forget it. It ain't gonna happen----unless you've already outleveled the mission.
So, once again, I ask you: what's up with this? We're outta luck on solo content, then?
Cal2