I'm getting in late on this thread, so first, I just wanted to say a quick "thank you" to Statesmen for giving consideration to us solo players. With my first character I played City of Heroes mostly solo, teaming up only when necessary, and I found I enjoyed it quite a bit. Lately, since I started a new character and founded a Supergroup with him, I've teamed a lot more, and while I do enjoy teaming up now and then, I've come to miss exactly the thing Statesman mentioned -- being able to get on for an hour or so and solo a mission. The new boss changes left me feeling very unable to solo, so I'm grateful that the changes have been rolled back. So, thanks, Statesman!
Second, I like the mid-term changes. I prefer story-driven play, and it seems to me that the mid-term changes are perfect for those players who enjoy such play.
Third, I heartily give out a cheer for the long-term Mission UI upgrade. Recently, I was extremely angered when I chose a mission that gave no clue to its nature other than, "Hurry, hero!" and promptly logged off, figuring I could save it for later since there was no timer. Lo and behold, the next time I logged on I got a big "Mission failed!" banner across my screen. (What's worse, an NPC gave me crap about failing the mission, adding insult to injury.) So, I'm all in favor of any upgrade to the Mission UI that lets us players know exactly what we're getting into.
Finally, unless a lot of other players are screaming about it, I wouldn't worry about giving us players the ability to drop missions. With the new mission difficulty sliders, I would think that old missions can be powered up so as to be useful, XP-wise. But that's just my opinion; I don't know what the community at large thinks. I just think that the ability to drop missions is something that can be back-burnered if it conflicts with something else.
NewScrapper
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I will ask, though...can anyone tell me what the future holds now? Does "we will revisit the Boss difficulty after mission abandoning is in" mean that this is something I can look forward to getting back?
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That was certainly my interpretation of it. I.E. that bosses would be cranked back up once people could avoid them completely in solo mission by setting the difficulty slider down, or simply having the mission removed from their list. This way people who wanted the tougher challenge presented by the new bosses could have it while people who didnt want it never had to fight them in a solo mission.
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I loved the boss changes coupled with a maxxed mission slider. At least my controller likes it, My blaster had a difficult time. With that in mind, If the boss changes stay in the old"softer" version, can we have one or 2 more lvls of difficulty on the slider?
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I dont think this is possible. At impossible you already get mobs spawning at +4, bump it up any more and these turn into +5 and are simply not practical to kill. Even if you can they take FAR longer then they are worth. The purple patch is so long ago I forget the exact numbers but any power you use on a mob gets reduced to something like 25% of its normal effectiveness on +5 mobs. I.E. all damage, holds, taunts and debuffs work at approximately 25% of their normal value. This includes both their effects and chance to hit.
I hope that they'll look at some increases, but with a more subtle approach than this huge across-the-board increase that is being rolled back. Beyond the question of soloers, this increase caused problems in situations where you can wind up with lots of bosses (respec trial, second wall in eden trial, and to a lesser extent the sewer trial). Going from no buff to full buff at 25 meant those at 25 who are just starting to get a few SOs are being hammered with a change aimed at people with five or six SOs in offense and defense powers. And, while some bosses do need buffs, others clearly don't.
I agree that in the 40+ range most bosses need some increase and in the 30+ range some bosses need some increase, but it needs a lighter touch and more focused changes.
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That was certainly my interpretation of it. I.E. that bosses would be cranked back up once people could avoid them completely in solo mission by setting the difficulty slider down, or simply having the mission removed from their list. This way people who wanted the tougher challenge presented by the new bosses could have it while people who didnt want it never had to fight them in a solo mission.
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I hope that any later change would be more gradual, & more focused, than Issue 3's massive ramp-up so that there is not a dichotomy of "Issue 3 boss or no boss at all" on the difficulty slider.
Thank you Dev's.
Please continue to listen to both the postive and negative feedback.
I agree with those that wanted the rollback. To me the changes made it much harder for solo play and the team play was very binary. 0 - Either it was too hard and there was a lot of debt. 1- Most of the minions were still easy, they just took longer to 'arrest' but the bosses were a challenge.
Please continue to reward team play. Is there a 'team' badge yet (# hours with 8 player teams logged)? Is there a SG badge yet (# hours with a team of only SG members)?
For those that requested it - contiune to offer harder settings for the mission sliders.
Thanks again Devs.
Confirmed Alt-aholic
Want to add my kudos to these changes (although my tank wasn't noticing a significant difficulty with the new bosses I know other ATs were seeing a problem). It is a pleasure playing a game where the devs and, in particular, the lead designer, not only create an amazing, detailed, rich world but listen to well-reasoned, thoughful player posts, even when those posts disagree with changes made to the game.
Thank you for being thoughtful and thank you for caring about the game.
Too many alts and not enough time.
Excellent.....
BUT
According to the notes up on the training room, the rollback changes are NOT across the board, but only apply to bosses lvl 25+....so the lower level players have to still deal with nigh-unbeatable bosses?
Hardly seems fair.
CuppaJo: **waves wand - you are mesmerized by the shiney bouncing Positron**
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Excellent.....
BUT
According to the notes up on the training room, the rollback changes are NOT across the board, but only apply to bosses lvl 25+....so the lower level players have to still deal with nigh-unbeatable bosses?
Hardly seems fair.
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The bosses below level 25 were never buffed up to begin with.
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if a player wants to do something solo, it should be CHOICE.
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AMEN!
Awesome Statesman, Awesome! Thank you for listening.
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I'm forced to wonder how much of this is due to hemorrhaging players to WoW. I'm sure part of this because CoH was released six months ago and even die-hards are interested in a change of pace. But it also bears mentioning that WoW is MUCH more solo friendly than CoH, even with these changes.
There are no 'support classes' (what a dumb idea) in WoW. I've played every class, and havent found one that couldnt be self sufficient.
And rather than forcing the players to chase after contacts and missions all over the world, you are given missions and can do them when you like, or drop them if you dont want them anymore.
Many of the core mechanics (sidekicking, power menus and solo instanced missions) are far superior to WoWs. But the implementation was driven by an outmoded-EQ style vision where the player was trying to match his play to the Devs vision of forced grouping and missions that are handed down from on high, at an advancement pace that become slower and slower until very few casual players wanted to keep grinding past the 30's.
Even with current changes, why would I want to play a handicapped controller or defender, when I could play a class that has both offense AND defense AND group utility? Why would I want to go back to EQ-style advancement where I could play for 3 or 4 hours and not be 1/4 of the way through a level?
I wonder very much if CoH hasnt come to Jesus far too late.
Their only hope is that Blizzard will continue to screw the pooch in responding to post-ship problems.
For those who think CoV will boost sales, I wouldnt pin your hopes on that. It doesnt ship for six more months, by which time WoW will hopefully have an expansion coming (if Blizzard is smart) and other MMO's will have learned the lessons CoH didnt.
Has the rollback happened yet? I've been checking the patch notes and saw no mention of it.
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I'm forced to wonder how much of this is due to hemorrhaging players to WoW. I'm sure part of this because CoH was released six months ago and even die-hards are interested in a change of pace. But it also bears mentioning that WoW is MUCH more solo friendly than CoH, even with these changes.
There are no 'support classes' (what a dumb idea) in WoW. I've played every class, and havent found one that couldnt be self sufficient.
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Then you haven't played past 40 (WoW's top level is 60). There's a reason most people are playing Rogues or Shamans in WoW. Warriors AIN'T self sufficient either when you start to hit mid levels. After that there's the issue of server stability in WoW.
But, to the Devs credit, with the game only being two months old, they've already given out close to 3 weeks of comp game time to their subscribers, which at least shows they are aware of and acknowledge that the network setup NEEDS a major fix/overhaul.
But, play a Priest or a Warrior to 40+ and you'll see how non-self sufficient they are in comparison to other classes. WoW is not the 'soloer's paradise' of MMORPGs by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, overall, CoH is just slighty more 'solo froiendly' imo.
And CoH player population is rising again. That's probably people who are sick of hearing the WoW Devs constant apologies for the server and bug issues. Two months into any game these issues should be getting better, not worse. I know the WoW devs are working on it, but they seem unable to nail down the actual problem. They seemed to think upgrading the hardware would do it (It didn't seem to); and now they think the boats are a problem.
Well.. playing a shadow spec priest right now. He's tons more self sufficient than either my dark/energy defender or ill/kinetics controller. And warriors are the weakest class in the game, hands down.
I make no bones about the fact that CoHs developers at least communicate with their player base much better and much more than WoWs.
I actually tried playing both my defender and controller today. Controller was just unbearably weak after empowerment of WoW. Defender was tolerable but still frustrating (even partnered with my wife's scrapper).
Did I mention I'm not playing a paladin or shaman in WoW? I'm playing a priest.
And he's more superheroic than my characters in CoH.
Hail, Statesman.
Hope all goes well! I wanted to thank you for your post, as well as for the changes you -- and the development team -- have made and are considering making for mission difficulty. I believe that making missions more solo-able, as well as better informing the players about their missions are great ideas and further increase the overall playability and decrease frustrations associated with the game.
While you consider changes on your end, I have an idea of my own that I believe will help increase the overall fun factor of City of Heroes. I propose that you add an option to the existing mission difficulty selector that when activated, would increase the number of villains within missions by a positive factor. City of Heroes features massive combat situations, and this option will further enhance the feature. Some archtypes are naturally able to handle a larger number of enemies; and the added option will make their soloing experience more engaging. Certain archtypes are naturally unable to handle too many foes at once; however when teamed up, they enhance group capabilities exponentially, enabling the team to tackle much larger villain groups. The added change will also reduce the amount of "herding" on the streets of Paragon City, thereby reducing unintentional "griefing".
City of Heroes has the shining feature of massive combat situations, where players and teams are often required to -- and are equipped to! -- best large hordes of enemies. In previous games, if the team attracts aggression from more than one or two foes at once, the team would likely perish. As you well know, there are variations in difficulty amongst the villain supergroups in City of Heroes (e.g., Devouring Earth is arguably more difficult than the Council of War). I have found that, when fighting a relatively "easier" villain supergroup, facing a larger troupe of villains would have been even more exciting, as well as calling for better strategy and faster reaction times, giving an overall more immersing experience.
Personally, I play an Ice/Radiation Controller, and he's at level 40 at the time of writing. While I don't have any proof or massive evidence to support this, I believe that many Controllers -- myself included -- think that solo missions at the current 'Invincible' setting is too easy. There simply isn't enough foes at the one-person-army, 'Invincible' door mission setting! With the option implemented, solo missions will be more fun because there will be a lot more enemies to combat, adding to the intensity of the battles.
On the other hand, some archtypes are by nature less well-equipped to handling a large number of foes at once. Several versions of the Defender archtype comes to mind, as well as some Blasters. In addition, some players may simply find the added challenge a little too overwhelming when soloing. In these cases, the player merely has to visit the Hero Corps Analyst and unselect the option. The upside to these kinds of archtypes is that when teamed, they often receive the support necessary to increase the team's potential exponentially, thus enabling the team to handle far larger groups of villains than before. Defenders and Blasters certainly fall into this category, as do Mind Controllers.
Often, archtypes who can successfully handle larger groups at once, do so in the streets of Paragon City, leading to the problem of herding and unintended griefing. Frequently, these players do so because door mission mobs are insufficiently challenging to them. An option to increase the number of enemies within a door mission with would gives these kinds of players an incentive to perform more door missions, thus reducing the amount of herding and unintended griefing in the streets of Paragon City.
I hope I've managed to clearly present to you the excellent benefits of adding an option to increase door mission villain group sizes. It would make the grouping experience more engaging, especially when fighting the "easier" villain supergroups. Players who like to solo will be better challenged in solo door missions, since to some players, the current 'Invincible' setting for door missions is still too easy when performed alone. Certain ATs are by nature less able to handle larger villain teams but contribute greatly when teamed; this option gives them the flexibility to adjust the game for their maximal enjoyment. Lastly but certainly not in the least, this option has the potential to draw some of the herders off the streets of Paragon City and into their now-more-challenging door missions.
Thank you for reading this far and your consideration of my proposal. I hope you've enjoyed the read, and I sincerely look forward to your response.
-- MasterMarbles
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I haven't read the entirety of this thread so I'm gonna ask a question that may have already been asked.
When changes go live, will the bosses remain at i2 strength (if you want to call it strength) or go up to i3 strength if you have your difficulty slider cranked up? If everything is gonna remain at i2 levels, I'm really, really gonna miss challenging battles.
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I haven't read the entirety of this thread so I'm gonna ask a question that may have already been asked.
When changes go live, will the bosses remain at i2 strength (if you want to call it strength) or go up to i3 strength if you have your difficulty slider cranked up? If everything is gonna remain at i2 levels, I'm really, really gonna miss challenging battles.
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Statesman said something about having another solution to the problem. I assume that is what the "rollback" is waiting for.
I'm with you though, for the builds I have played I prefer the I3 bosses and boss experience.
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
Wouldn't it be cool if you could set it to super impossible where every normal minion is converted into a lt or boss, lts turned into bosses, bosses turned into elite bosses and elite bosses turned into AV's? (someone please help me kill the AV Frostfire).
Thank you, Statesman!
This was kind of a make or break issue for me, and I really appreciate the fact you went back and looked at the effects of your previous decisions and not only changed your mind, but are implementing a system that is better for everyone (both solo and team player) in the long run. Thank you.
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A little late in responding here (I just started playing again after a month away) but I have to say BRAVO.
REWARDING players that team up rather than punishing those that do not is absolutely the right way to go. Keep that in mind and any future decisions you make should be the right ones.
Ever since the last expansion the game has become too difficult even at the Hard-Boiled level. It is impossible to solo missions now and you promised the game would be soloable.
My husband and a good friend and I play nightly and with our level 23 characters even with phantom army we cannot succeed in door or street missions now. There are too many yellow and orange cons in door missions. The missions have become impossible to do even when the missions were taken at the current level.
If we wanted to play Everyquest we would be playing Everquest. You keep trying to make the game harder and harder to please the snot-nosed teenagers who constantly want more and more of an adrenaline rush and in the process you ruin the game for the adult casual players who are trying to escape the frustration of their daily lives. We don't need more stress, folks.
This latest expansion has also introduced an unacceptable number of bugs in the game. For example, there is now a clipping plane bug where you cannot see groups of mobs until you are right on top of them, there are now earthquakes when you zone from one zone to another using the highway tunnels, a player used to return to full hit points when zoning out of a door mission and this is now no longer true, and a player at full hit points when zoning into a door mission is now at half hit points when he/she arrives in the door mission.
I have reached the point where I dread every expansion because the game direction goes where the casual player does not want to go and the game becomes too difficult. I am not asking for a cakewalk of a game. I just want the game to be reasonably playable at any given level; which it is not since the last expansion. And the door missions are certainly not soloable.
I am also concerned about the increasing length of time door missions take as a character levels. As I mentioned earlier, my husband and I and a close friend play nightly. My friend and I are both completely disabled and the increasing time sitting in front of the computer becomes very hard on us physically.
We would prefer to be able to do 2 shorter door missions in a 2 and half hour session than have to do one mission that takes 2 and a half hours because we cannot guarantee that our health will allow us on any given night to sit at the computer for 2 and a half hours straight.
Heidi Ho (Level 23 Illusion Controller Infinity Server) and others
Hiyas!
In regards to OldHero's post. I have a 24 Illusion controller and found door missions to be too easy. I jumped the mission difficulty slider up two notches and still find the door missions to be missing any significant challenge. Granted, I often solo my door missions, but recenlty joined a team of 4. We were fighting mobs that were purple to me. No problem.
Door missions take 2.5 hours? Some of the longer ones drag on. Most over in 20 minutes.
You can't say fairer than that. Thank you.
--Robyn on Triumph
The bosses changes for me were a huge headache. Despite being in debt all the time, I don't like it, I haven't got used to it, and it's dreary. I'd like to advance, get new powers, all that stuff; not sitting around at half experience and constantly running back from the hospital. A defeat here and there is to be expected, but perpetually being overcome by random villains doesn't make for a very heroic feeling at all, does it?
So when Statesman said the changes were going to be rolled back, I was very happy! Honestly, I was going to cancel my account I was so frustrated with the game. But that was ... 2 weeks ago? Subscription fee time has come and gone, and we're still looking at major frustration.
So, Statesman, WHEN are they going to be rolled back? Should I bother hanging around?
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Ever since the last expansion the game has become too difficult even at the Hard-Boiled level. It is impossible to solo missions now and you promised the game would be soloable.
My husband and a good friend and I play nightly and with our level 23 characters even with phantom army we cannot succeed in door or street missions now. There are too many yellow and orange cons in door missions. The missions have become impossible to do even when the missions were taken at the current level.
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Only 2 changes were mant in Issue #3:
1] Increase in Boss Dificulty after level 25.
2] The mission Dificulty Slider was added.
#1 shouldn't be effecting you now, and #2 is volentary. Did you increase it?
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This latest expansion has also introduced an unacceptable number of bugs in the game. For example, there is now a clipping plane bug where you cannot see groups of mobs until you are right on top of them,
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Never seen it.
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there are now earthquakes when you zone from one zone to another using the highway tunnels,
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Neve seen it.
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a player used to return to full hit points when zoning out of a door mission and this is now no longer true,
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Because it was a bug that was fixed.
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and a player at full hit points when zoning into a door mission is now at half hit points when he/she arrives in the door mission.
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Never seen it.
NCIS: Best gorram show in the 'verse.
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Even though I applaude you on your changes, I will still not renew my account for a while. I will only renew my account when I see all of the changes mentioned become reality.
Also I would like to see improvements to teaming where it would not take as long to form a team and make it easier to gather the newly formed team together. Maybe it only takes ten minutes to form a team. I would like to see improvements in super group management by making it easier to find the right super group for your hero.
When this game truely fits the genre of the world of super heroes then I will return. I can understand forced grouping in sword and sorcery type of mmo's. Why, because look at any sword and sorcery movie and you will find that it took a team to win the day. Even if the only thing the team mates do is to help the hero make it to the final fight.
Examples are movies called "Krull" and "Willow". The same holds true for science fiction, just look at "Star Wars" and you will know what I mean. Why even Captain America rarely called for backup in his own comic. I hope that one day I will return to this great game because of two main reasons. One, Marvel loses their lawsuit (being thrown out with prejudice). And two, that this game makes all heroes feel like they have accomplished something special during their career because they as a player feel like they are an improtant part of this game. I believe that the devs just might be able to properly encourage teaming and joining super groups. Until then I hope that all have a prosperous year, and continue to have fun playing this game.
Ebony Fists: Level 50 DM/Regen Scrapper, Gloom Piston Robotics/Dark mastermind level 34, QueenFireMare: Level 34 Fire blaster (pure fire),
sayeth Statesman (emphasis added):[ QUOTE ]
Lets not start pointing fingers the whiners had their way or the games too easy, make it harder because I think the Boss changes violated a basic principle. Namely: never let a person make an uninformed decision. And right now, people arent clear when a mission requires a team up and when it doesnt. Plus, they have no ability to drop a mission if they dont feel like doing it. Besides, weve introduced our Mission Difficulty Slider to satisfy the demands of those who want something more challenging in the future.
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Does this mean you will be giving us hard numbers on power effects? As things stand now, power descriptions are vague and "cap" information is virtually non-existent. Players can only find out after the fact what their powers do, and whether their enhancements will have been wasted.
Yeah, yeah, I know that players can find out what they need through extensive testing (even using the test server to avoid having to use respecs during the testing process), or can wade through the forums in search of (often conflicting and/or outdated) reports from others' research. But is that what this game is about? (the same arguments could be made for the "players need to know when missions require teams, etc", and it's clear where you stand on that issue)
I don't mean to hijack this thread, so here's a link to more that I have to say on the subject:
Re: Ask Statesman Questions Thread
Thanks for your time.
EDIT: If this post (or the linked one) sound overly critical or negative, that's unintentional. Just meant to be constructive criticism to improve a really good game.