Well. Since I've already cancelled my subscription over the boss changes, let me be the negative voice here and explain why this isn't going to get me to re-up.
Statesman, a number of us told you repeatedly, the entire time the boss change was testing, that "part of our games strength is the ability for a player to log on for a half hour, have fun, then log off" and "people arent clear when a mission requires a team up and when it doesnt" and even "Mission Difficulty Slider to satisfy the demands of those who want something more challenging in the future"
We said all those things, and you ignored us, and the change went live. And now suddenly (because you are losing subscriptions, I imagine) you come and parrot these things back as if they were your idea all along.
Also, in this post, you say that story arcs are not normally given until a contact has been fully raised. This is not correct. In fact, I have almost never received a new story arc from a contact after their bar is 75% full; most often I receive the first mission of an arc as my third or fourth mission with that contact, so.. roughly 25% full.
This troubles me, because when we originally complained to you that raising boss difficulty would be problematic for soloers doing missions, you said that mission text always warns when a boss will be present. That also was not correct, and we said this to you, and I don't believe you ever retracted that statement or said that mission text would be looked at and corrected.
In short, I think it's offensive that you ignore the players and then try to pass of our warnings to you as things you yourself thought of, because clearly you DIDN'T think of them, or the change wouldn't have gone live. I also think it's very disturbing that you have repeatedly made statements about the state of live gameplay which are not accurate, implying that you are actually not familiar with your own game.
My confidence in you, the devs, is non-existant at this point. I always appreciated the fact that you would come this board and respond to what we have to say. But now I realize that the only thing worse than devs who don't listen is devs who just pretend to listen.
Well, I've got nothing more to say to people who aren't really listening. So I'm out of here.
Very nice. You took several of the ideas for getting what you want done in a better way and improved them. I think you could have kept the boss hit point increase in, that increased the strategy. It was the boss damage increase that killed the strategy. But it will be nice to feel like a superhero again.
Scorus
Holy cow. I am floored, I really am.
Thank you very, very much -- and I say this as a player who's come to love teaming with a passion, but often simply isn't able to; my hours are anything but convenient for other players, and I'm frequently afk during them, making teaming with me for any significant duration a real pain. I love this game's story arcs, and I'm delighted to know that I'll be able to complete them -- *and* that AVs will remain unchanged. Just how it should be. Thank you!
Thank you.
Thanks very much, Statesman. This makes me feel a lot better about the game's direction...I was getting worried after some of the initial things you said at the beginning of the whole boss changes debate, and I'm very happy to see that it looks like you intend to keep solo play as viable as ever.
As long as I'm posting, I just wanted to throw my support behind this suggestion...
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What I would like to see, for groups, is the ability to complete the same mission from multiple team members at the same time.
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...as something that would, to my mind, lower some of the barriers to asking for help on missions. I realize it might conflict with the goal of providing "too much content" in that it would allow people to finish contacts faster, but I think it would help to change group-requiring missions from "A hero begging for help" (which is how I see individual AV missions currently, although I realize others may not share that perception) to "A group of equals taking on a tough challenge" (which is more like how I see Task Forces currently).
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Lots of whining from geekchick. Don't let the door hit you on the way out...
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Except for the fact that Statesman said it was the FORUM POSTS that helped him come to this conclusion. He didn't take the credit for this anywhere in any of his posts here.
Goodbye. Go be negative and demand the world in another game.
I think letting multiple players complete the same mission at the same time is a good idea but I also think it would have to be restricted to people who actually have that mission in their mission list, not just those who have a contact with that mission available. Otherwise you have the potential problem of people completing missions they haven't reached yet in a story arc. Imagine joining a buddy to help him take down an AV and at the end finding out that you just completed an arc you hadn't even begun yet. Though I suppose the proposed "flashback" missions would allow you to go back and do the rest of the arc.
"Tell my tale to those who ask. Tell it truly, the ill deeds along with the good and let me be judged accordingly. The rest is silence." -- Dinobot
Thank you. That makes my various squishy alts feel much better about leveling.
Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Fighting The Future Trilogy
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Yay!! Great news!!
One comment to the CoH community though... PLEASE, for the love of Pete, don't come in here changing your tune and getting all pissy when the "group xp increases" aren't as high as YOU think they should be!
While I agree that they need to be raised, especially in a full team of 8, the reasoning for why xp scales down with team size makes a lot of sense: i.e. It's much, much easier to kill things in a larger team.
Also... no more Hard-Boiled??? Awwww!!! I loved that name... and the reference!
Damn sorry I jinxed it guys, there's always one bad apple in the bunch. Anyway I'm still supportive of these changes regardless, it's a really great step in the right direction.
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Team up XP bonuses will be increased.
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YAY!!!
OMG
*loses breath*
States, thanks for listening and caring. You folks just keep getting better and better as we go along.
Careful! with attitudes like this, yer gonna have me for a life-long customer---and then where would we be?
You guys ROCK!
Cal2
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Task Forces and Trials will continue to contain Elite Bosses, ArchVillains and Giant Monsters. There will be no changes here.
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Statesman,
First let me say thank you for rolling back the boss changes. Best thing you could've done.
But I have a question concerning the quote above. Will the TF's and Trials only spawn Elite Bosses now instead of regular, non-pumped up bosses? Mainly I'm asking about the Respec TF in that they will be bumped back down, i.e. the 34-43 Respec with all the Tanks at the end? I just may not be understanding the semantics here and am just curious.
Also will the rollback of the boss changes affect Monsters and AV's? These types keeping the upped damage / health I don't mind at all seeing as how they are supposed to require a group in the first place. Again, semantics of the post, its late for me reading / posting this. Just curious.
I don't remember seeing anything about this in the thread, although admittedly I skimmed through most of it looking for red names.
Thank you again.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Task Forces and Trials will continue to contain Elite Bosses, ArchVillains and Giant Monsters. There will be no changes here.
[/ QUOTE ]
Statesman,
First let me say thank you for rolling back the boss changes. Best thing you could've done.
But I have a question concerning the quote above. Will the TF's and Trials only spawn Elite Bosses now instead of regular, non-pumped up bosses? Mainly I'm asking about the Respec TF in that they will be bumped back down, i.e. the 34-43 Respec with all the Tanks at the end? I just may not be understanding the semantics here and am just curious.
Also will the rollback of the boss changes affect Monsters and AV's? These types keeping the upped damage / health I don't mind at all seeing as how they are supposed to require a group in the first place. Again, semantics of the post, its late for me reading / posting this. Just curious.
I don't remember seeing anything about this in the thread, although admittedly I skimmed through most of it looking for red names.
Thank you again.
[/ QUOTE ]I'm pretty sure he meant that Elite Bosses such as Frostfire will stay the same. This is also true for AVs and Giant Monsters.
I am disappointed.
Statesman,
I agree with most people on this forum that you, the dev team, and everyone else involved with the game defintely have the pulse of the players. By far CoH is the most player-receptive game I have seen.
As much cajoling and ranting as I have seen on the boards, I know the CoH team works hard to make this game appealing to as many people as it does. Stories, game physics, new zones, new ATs... its all good stuff
Thanks to you and yours for all of your hard work!
Thank you. This is exactly what I wanted to see.
In a realated note let me stay that something that would enhance team play for me a lot, is if it was easer to follow the story in other people's missions and on taskforces. As things work now only the player who's mission it is that you are on or the taskforce leader gets to see the clue text or the mission wrapup text. Also even if it is your mission, groups are often moving at a rate that story text gets only skimmed. I think that is realy too bad since the stories are a big part of what makes this game cool.
I would love it if there was a log that I could review of the missions and text that I have done. It would be even better if the log told me who's mission it was and who all was on the team. That way when there was the inevitable down time I could review all that I had done. I realize that this is not a simple request but I think it would add greatly to the team and story experiance. As it stands now I basicly only get the story when I am soloing.
I3 is now officially perfect! Thanks guys! You are awesome.
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Players normally receive story arcs only after theyve leveled their Contact up to the highest level
[/ QUOTE ] Statesman, I have a serious issue with constantly out-leveling my contacts when I team. With the mission slider, this is now going to be even more likely than before. Please address this issue.
Thanks for being into the game.
Awesome! I will be reinstating my account, thanks for listening to your customers, Statesman!
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Well, I've got nothing more to say to people who aren't really listening. So I'm out of here.
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Probably getting out of here on the waaaambulance
Anyhow...
Thank you. This is great. This often soloing player and often grouping player is very happy.
A few thoughts. First, instead of changing the low level to have no bosses, why not either create a new level between hero and tenacious where you see bosses, or include bosses in the default level but have a lower level with no bosses and all villains appear at your level (no +1s). At the lower levels, +1 lieutenants and even +1 minions can be tough.
Secondly, the best way to encourage more teaming will be more team content. Maybe mini-task forces. Not as epic in scale as the existing task forces, more in scale like the current story arcs. Maybe all those new hero corps reps could also have tasks available. More flexible than a task force (can add players to the team as you go along, do other missions, see contacts), just connected missions that are designed to be run as a team.
Again, thanks.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
Awesome. That was the right answer, no doubt about it.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
Hey, now. Enough with the bashing.
As pleased as I am by Statesman's reversal on this issue, geekchick does make some valid points.
She's a tester, and lately it seems that the testers aren't being listened to - stuff like this is going live, despite extensive negative commentary and outright bug reports, and only then does it seem to get looked at. What's the point of having a Test server, then?
There's also the question of just how much Statesman knows about the current state of his own game - he's a busy man and has to leave a lot of the basic work to other people, and sometimes there's miscommunication (like the Atlas plaque being changed, the pretty-well-disproven statement about bosses being mentioned in mission text, etc). This ties back into the ivory-tower image.
I'm encouraged by this change, and I hope it's the trend, not the exception.
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
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Whats our goal? Simply put: if a player wants to do something solo, it should be CHOICE. Teaming shouldnt be required, but rather encouraged.
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You are my hero. You should end your posts with "Statesman- AWAY!" from now on.