Issue 5 Features Preview: Forest of Dread


Accualt

 

Posted

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It would simply be nice to have more distinctiveness for both. Please refrain from telling me what I want, but you are certainly free to suggest what might be a better idea.

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Christ, get over yourself. If you can't get past a figure of speech like that let me know now so I can add you to my ignore list. I don't have any use for drama-ridden BS responses like that when I'm having an otherwise civil conversation with you.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

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I am having a problem with posts like the above, complaining about the level of Croatoa. Everyone who has complained stated it's because they want a higher level zone. I have been playing since June of 04, and correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the first new added zone, in Issue 2 - I believe, the Shard? And isn't the Shard a level 40+ zone?

Hmmm.. so the high level players got a new zone before everyone else.. and now the devs are creating zones for the other levels and people are getting upset.. seems like a poor reason to get your underwear in a knot.

And all of this new content is free... gee.. I think I'll complain that there isn't a new zone for levels 1-5 because I am so over GC and AP.

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They created a zone in I2 with very little content. A zone that no one visits or fights in due to A) Travel restrictions and B) Terrible missions. They could have spent some time to improve the zone, but they did not and so now you have a ghost town called Shadow Shard. Have you ever in your heroing career been given a mission from Paragon City to go into the Shadow Shard? No you haven't. They do not exist. Heroes are given no reason to go there and in fact you never have to go there at all. They are spending a great deal more time on the lower levels by improving their missions, creating new zones, and Task Forces. I think the higher levels have gotten a new throne room for Tyrant.

Do you really think that it's fortuitous to continue pushing back content for level 40-50? It sounds like a method to thin out their long-term subscribers more than anything. A new player could very easily roll up a hero today and have him past the level 35 range by the time that Issue 5 goes live. The only thing that would be more pointless WOULD be to create a new level 1-5 zone. A level range you can go through in an hour of play?

I'll reiterate. In a game where all you're doing is beating up bad guys, you need to give people a reason to keep playing with a main. Creating new low level zones isn't it.


 

Posted

Once COV comes out and SG bases are available, the shard will see alot of activity.

The "objects of power" that will be needed for bases raids will come from the Rularuu himself. I guess this will be a sg tf of some sort.

Since this will be added to the shard, other content may be added as well.

But, this is still a long ways off.


 

Posted

If it has not been put in before, Croatoan was the word inscribed on a tree at Roanoke, NC at the Lost Colony where the story of Virginia Dare began. The entire colony vanished and that was the only "evidence" that could be found. Croatoan was possibly a nearby Indian name for an island, and according to what I remember from NC history class, a later investigation of the descendants of the people on that island (50 years later) showed that some had European features like bue eyes, etc.

A history link is here:
History of the Roanoke Colony


 

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When doing these missions, either the thing gets saved, or there was never a chance to save it because it happens too fast.

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This has not been my experience on the Cape mission or the Respec trial. Every time I've been on a team that's failed one of those, it's because we got wiped at the glowie or reactor (or 90% wiped and the one guy who got away doesn't have time to rez everyone). That seems to me to be a reasonable standard--if you go down while protecting the thing, you lose.

I haven't run into many of the other protect missions yet, although I do remember one where the glowies did have the problem you're describing, in that it was nearly impossible to keep them from blowing up. (Strangely, this didn't cause the mission to fail; not sure if it was bugged or what.) I guess I'm just pointing out that if the reactor and the cape mission are okay, then the problem is that the other protect missions aren't balance properly, not that protect missions are just a broken concept.


 

Posted

There was no mention of character transfer between servers on the I5 updates page.

PLEASE put this into I5!

If there's any kind of issue with doing this, how about letting us know about it, so it can be discussed?


Partial Character List: http://www.warlock-inc.com/CharList.html

 

Posted

I've experienced two missions where there was no chance in hades of protecting the object. One was the "other" Outcast auction mission that has destructo glowies in it. After laying out a careful plan for how to deal with the foes and keep them off the glowie, my team of three, which was a Blaster, a Tanker and a Controller, took action. As soon as we had aggro the foes (which included a red boss - this was just after I2 and the insane numbers of +2 bosses you got) turned on the glowie to a man and fired ranged attacks on it. It died instantly.

The other was just a couple of weeks ago. It was, admittedly on invincible. The mission was recently changed, becuase it never used to have a exploding glowie in it - it's the "Learn about Nemesis plans" mission that you get as the introductory Nemeisis mission. They made gas cannisters that Nemesis is going to unleash be things you have to protect rather than click on and destroy.

Alone in my Invincible mission, (warehouse tileset) I clicked one of those garage door sliding doors that opened to reveal no less than 5 LT + crouching Minion pairs, all standing within about 10 feet of the first glowie.

I actually called for help from my SG, and even with the aid of a Taunting tank we could not stop them from attacking the cannister. One actually ran from the two of us and shot it from range. We lost the cannister and I reset the mission. On return it spawned such that it was on the near side of that sliding door with only one group standing near.

The idea of the missions is fine, but they:

*) Don't scale the objects appropriately with team size. In general taking a team of 3 or more is asking to fail
*) Don't scale the objects appropriately with difficulty slider. (Yeah, the slider should make it harder to save the glowie, but a +2 or +3 boss can defeat them in a heartbeat).
*) Mysical, magical patrolling mobs are vaguely unfair in combo with the glowies. CoH is basically about fighting as a close-knit team. Should someone have to stay behind and guard a a glowie you found four floors ago?


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

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They created a zone in I2 with very little content. A zone that no one visits or fights in due to A) Travel restrictions and B) Terrible missions. They could have spent some time to improve the zone, but they did not and so now you have a ghost town called Shadow Shard. Have you ever in your heroing career been given a mission from Paragon City to go into the Shadow Shard? No you haven't. They do not exist. Heroes are given no reason to go there and in fact you never have to go there at all. They are spending a great deal more time on the lower levels by improving their missions, creating new zones, and Task Forces. I think the higher levels have gotten a new throne room for Tyrant.


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The Shadow Shard is actually four separate zones with a couple of mission arcs and several task forces. I wouldn't exactly call it devoid of content. Its not really meant to be street-swept, so people don't naturally congregate there just to see the sights, but people do run the task forces that are there.


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Do you really think that it's fortuitous to continue pushing back content for level 40-50? It sounds like a method to thin out their long-term subscribers more than anything. A new player could very easily roll up a hero today and have him past the level 35 range by the time that Issue 5 goes live. The only thing that would be more pointless WOULD be to create a new level 1-5 zone. A level range you can go through in an hour of play?


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I don't know how to answer that. Is it fortuitous? Certainly not, I don't believe its accidental at all. If you're asking if its beneficial, it certainly is beneficial to the long term health of the game to have content continuously added for all level ranges, and not focus on only one.


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I'll reiterate. In a game where all you're doing is beating up bad guys, you need to give people a reason to keep playing with a main. Creating new low level zones isn't it.


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There's a level cap. They devs expect people to eventually reroll alts. The only way to encourage that is to continuously add lower level content to make it worthwhile to play through again. They expect to add content to the higher level part of the game so people can return to their mains periodically and see it. But they are also adding things like autoexemp to task forces so people can play their "mains" and experience bypassed content. In a sense, autoexem is in fact a form of higher level content.


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Posted

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There was no mention of character transfer between servers on the I5 updates page.

PLEASE put this into I5!

If there's any kind of issue with doing this, how about letting us know about it, so it can be discussed?

[/ QUOTE ]
Grande Agree!


 

Posted

Some very positive changes listed here towards adding variety to the mission structure. Not enough, mind you, but a very good start that I am looking forward to trying out.

I am curious about the half xp debt in missions. While appreciative, since this is by far where the majority of my deaths occur, I wonder if this is meant to imply further negativity or discouragement towards street hunting.

I would like to see something done to make street hunting made more viable again simply as an ALTERNATIVE to missions UNLESS more street missions ae given or the variety of missions changes enough to where players are simultaneously encouranged and engaged to spend most of their time with missions.


 

Posted

I just have a question that I haven't been able to find an answer to in other threads. Statesman said awhile back that there were a couple of powersets he wanted to add, plant control, a scrapper brawl, and archery. We have archery, I would imagine plant control could be hard, but no scrapper brawl subset. I want to make a scrapper, but I don't really like any of the choices. Is there gonna be a brawl powerset.


 

Posted

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The Shadow Shard is actually four separate zones with a couple of mission arcs and several task forces. I wouldn't exactly call it devoid of content. Its not really meant to be street-swept, so people don't naturally congregate there just to see the sights, but people do run the task forces that are there.

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While there are four separate "zones", they are all the same landscape. I'd hardly consider each separate from the other. I have done the 4-5 different flavors of missions and 3 of the 4 Task Forces. It could very easily be street swept as it's the only zone with level 51+ mobs in it...but it's so hard to navigate that no one ever does. It's a poorly designed zone.


[ QUOTE ]

I don't know how to answer that. Is it fortuitous? Certainly not, I don't believe its accidental at all. If you're asking if its beneficial, it certainly is beneficial to the long term health of the game to have content continuously added for all level ranges, and not focus on only one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fortuitous clearly wasn't the word I was looking for. Beneficial is even worse. I think prudent is what I was looking for I think that while having addtional content at all levels of the game is a good thing, alienating your high level playerbase is going to be bad for business. Considering that half of my original SG quit out of boredom, more things to do at endgame is needed to keep people playing long-term. There is a very large number of heroes with nothing to do (level 50) and everyone else 1-49 with plenty to do. Any content that you can do between the level ranges of 1-49 will not be accepted as level 50 content.

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There's a level cap. They devs expect people to eventually reroll alts. The only way to encourage that is to continuously add lower level content to make it worthwhile to play through again. They expect to add content to the higher level part of the game so people can return to their mains periodically and see it. But they are also adding things like autoexemp to task forces so people can play their "mains" and experience bypassed content. In a sense, autoexem is in fact a form of higher level content.

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All games have a level cap and not all games expect you to continue to roll alts. That's an unfortunate side effect when you're in a game that's very XP friendly. Sure. Auto-exemplar is a form of high-level content...if you've somehow skipped all of those task forces and trials. If you have done them, well it means very little to you. Flashback would help too, but there is very little replay value for an individual hero.

Personally I hate the mindset that alts are the accepted way to keep playing. That's bad MMORPG design. You should never run out of things to do with one character. It sounds more and more like people just want this to be an Action/Adventure game instead of a MMORPG. You are not supposed to beat a game in this genre.


 

Posted

most impressive!

thanks for the nods to Harlon Ellison and the fabled Lost Colony.


 

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Personally I hate the mindset that alts are the accepted way to keep playing. That's bad MMORPG design. You should never run out of things to do with one character. It sounds more and more like people just want this to be an Action/Adventure game instead of a MMORPG. You are not supposed to beat a game in this genre.


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"Easy to level and easy to run missions" isn't really compatible with "you should never run out of things to do." Friendly to one is hostile to another, unless you have a maniac dev team that can crank out one issue a week.


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Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Fortuitous clearly wasn't the word I was looking for. Beneficial is even worse. I think prudent is what I was looking for I think that while having addtional content at all levels of the game is a good thing, alienating your high level playerbase is going to be bad for business. Considering that half of my original SG quit out of boredom, more things to do at endgame is needed to keep people playing long-term. There is a very large number of heroes with nothing to do (level 50) and everyone else 1-49 with plenty to do. Any content that you can do between the level ranges of 1-49 will not be accepted as level 50 content.

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Then I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your SG mates were going to quit eventually anyway, sooner than later.

Lets imagine if Issue 3 had included a new lvl 50 Taskforce with cool reward (something like HOs are now), already the same people complaining about no content now would be here complaining about no OTHER content.

What keeps a game fresh is REPLAY value, not PLAY THE FIRST CHARACTER I MADE OVER AND OVER value. Yes post 50 content would be nice (although I still haven't finished all the 45-50 stuff yet) but I don't think it is asking too much to expect people to REPLAY the game to see the new content added now while they wait for it.

On the other hand however, I think it would be prudent for the developers to go back and tweak the Shard and PI a bit. Add roaming mobs in PI, some that enter portal corp square of their own accord (not being pulled) and give people a reason to see the other islands there, like badges or even Trial like missions (clear off Monster Island anyone?) and the Shard could be given a new variety of missions, but with new kinds of missions being introduced in I5, maybe the Shard will get some of them.


 

Posted

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It would simply be nice to have more distinctiveness for both. Please refrain from telling me what I want, but you are certainly free to suggest what might be a better idea.

[/ QUOTE ]

Christ, get over yourself. If you can't get past a figure of speech like that let me know now so I can add you to my ignore list. I don't have any use for drama-ridden BS responses like that when I'm having an otherwise civil conversation with you.

[/ QUOTE ]

That wasn't even close to drama. I'm sorry, but saying "What you really want is..." feels condescending to me. So, I commented on it.


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Posted

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This has not been my experience on the Cape mission or the Respec trial. Every time I've been on a team that's failed one of those, it's because we got wiped at the glowie or reactor (or 90% wiped and the one guy who got away doesn't have time to rez everyone). That seems to me to be a reasonable standard--if you go down while protecting the thing, you lose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I wasn't talking about the reactor trial or the cape mission. I was talking about the Council mission where you have to save the artwork from destruction. It's really a defeat all, though, and losing the items doesn't boot you from the mission. This is good, because the Council will kill things faster than you can really react.

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I haven't run into many of the other protect missions yet, although I do remember one where the glowies did have the problem you're describing, in that it was nearly impossible to keep them from blowing up. (Strangely, this didn't cause the mission to fail; not sure if it was bugged or what.) I guess I'm just pointing out that if the reactor and the cape mission are okay, then the problem is that the other protect missions aren't balance properly, not that protect missions are just a broken concept.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I'm just pointing out I wasn't talking about the cape or reactor mission.


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Posted

on another topic but still in this general topic of I5... saw this on another board and I couldn't agree more.

I'm a bit miffed from a cultural perspective. The Tuatha deDannan were the Faerie Folk of Ireland, not big shaggy monsters. It gets a bit tiresome seeing the religious beliefs of my ancestors ground up and spit out in a totally outrageous form. No one depicts the Roman Gods or Norse Gods or even Egyptian Gods as shaggy monsters, but hey, who cares about the Irish!? We can do whatever we want to their Gods, right?


 

Posted

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[ QUOTE ]
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It would simply be nice to have more distinctiveness for both. Please refrain from telling me what I want, but you are certainly free to suggest what might be a better idea.

[/ QUOTE ]

Christ, get over yourself. If you can't get past a figure of speech like that let me know now so I can add you to my ignore list. I don't have any use for drama-ridden BS responses like that when I'm having an otherwise civil conversation with you.

[/ QUOTE ]

That wasn't even close to drama. I'm sorry, but saying "What you really want is..." feels condescending to me. So, I commented on it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You apparently have a much more narrow definition of drama than I. You took exception with how I worded something and made a passive-agressive statement marking clear displeasure. In the middle of an otherwise intelligent exchange of ideas I take that as a highly emotional and extremely unproductive diversion.

With all due respect, as someone who is as active here as you are I would think you would have a much stronger filter for the specific wording someone uses in forum posts.

No condescention was intended.


Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

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Also, Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings.

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Yes, that would be the Quarrymen.

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Showoff ;-)


My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.

 

Posted

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This all looks pretty fun. I'm especially looking forward to the added powersets! I can't wait to make an archer, which brings me to my point... Why does the blaster only get archery, but not trick arrows (where as the defender gets both)? I'm assuming archery would be something along the lines of different ways of attacking with a standard bow and arrow, and trick arrows (as the name implies) utilizes various types of arrows, like net arrows, exploding arrows etc. etc. It seems like these would make a great primary and secondary set for a blaster, something akin to how the assault rifle and gadget power sets go great together now.

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Trick arrows are ranged debuffs/status effects, from what people sneak-peeked at E3. Thus, much more Defender than Blaster.

And the truth is that Controllers and Blasters get to share what is a Defender's powerset. Blasters get the damage part of the set, Controllers get the debuff/status part of the set, but the only "real" Archers or Sonics will be Defenders.


 

Posted

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on another topic but still in this general topic of I5... saw this on another board and I couldn't agree more.

I'm a bit miffed from a cultural perspective. The Tuatha deDannan were the Faerie Folk of Ireland, not big shaggy monsters. It gets a bit tiresome seeing the religious beliefs of my ancestors ground up and spit out in a totally outrageous form. No one depicts the Roman Gods or Norse Gods or even Egyptian Gods as shaggy monsters, but hey, who cares about the Irish!? We can do whatever we want to their Gods, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Speaking as someone of Irish ancestry, I couldn't agree less. I mean, what's the big deal?


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Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
on another topic but still in this general topic of I5... saw this on another board and I couldn't agree more.

I'm a bit miffed from a cultural perspective. The Tuatha deDannan were the Faerie Folk of Ireland, not big shaggy monsters. It gets a bit tiresome seeing the religious beliefs of my ancestors ground up and spit out in a totally outrageous form. No one depicts the Roman Gods or Norse Gods or even Egyptian Gods as shaggy monsters, but hey, who cares about the Irish!? We can do whatever we want to their Gods, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Speaking as someone of Irish ancestry, I couldn't agree less. I mean, what's the big deal?

[/ QUOTE ]

hmm... well... I guess that perhaps some of us of Irish decent are tired of seeing what our ancestors held precious presented in a manner that is degrading to our heritage. If you don't find it degrading to have the mythology of our people completely trashed then I guess you don't know much about it and apparently don't care. What's the big deal? It's a form of predjudice, THAT's the big deal.


 

Posted

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The Tuatha deDannan were the Faerie Folk of Ireland, not big shaggy monsters.

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No they weren't. The Tuatha de Danaan were the People of Danu in Irish legend, not the 'faerie folk' - that's a contemporary prettification, and about as genuinely Irish as a bowl of Lucky Charms. The Sidhe, the underground remnants of the Tuatha de Danaan, were more faerie-like.

Furthermore, it's by no means certain that they WERE the Gods of Ireland. They are portrayed as kings and queens, not as deities. Some think this is a 'Christian reduction' of the original, but there's no solid evidence either way.

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It gets a bit tiresome seeing the religious beliefs of my ancestors ground up and spit out in a totally outrageous form.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey, I'd welcome the chance to get a chip on my shoulder about MY ancestors. Nothing makes a pagan happier than a bit of genuine repression to whine about!

But in fairness, they weren't the religious beliefs of anyone's ancestors at all. They were much more like Arthurian legends than Gods and Goddesses. If Cryptic want to interpret mythical figures as shaggy monsters, then well done Cryptic. I trust the Statesman (and the Manticore) to know their mythology inside out. Maybe the Tuatha de Danaan created those heroic legends as a way to mask their true nature? Who knows...


 

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You apparently have a much more narrow definition of drama than I. You took exception with how I worded something and made a passive-agressive statement marking clear displeasure. In the middle of an otherwise intelligent exchange of ideas I take that as a highly emotional and extremely unproductive diversion.

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Er, that wasn't passive-aggressive. And, yes, I have a narrower definition of drama. I don't consider polite requests to be very dramatic, or very passive-aggressive. I admit the request may be disagreeable, but that's something of another matter.

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With all due respect, as someone who is as active here as you are I would think you would have a much stronger filter for the specific wording someone uses in forum posts.

No condescention was intended.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough. How something reads is not always how it is intended, and I'm not really able to take responsibility for every single turn of phrase that somehow hits me the wrong way. I'm not trying to make anything into a declaration of all-out war, either.


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