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Darnit all. If I can't defeat a mission single-handedly every time without having to ever worry about dying, what's the point of me being a hero? 
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Funny, I didn't read any such sentiment in his post. Sounded to me like he was just saying that he'd rather the missions/mobs changed instead of the heroes. Next time you decide to wow us all with your witty sarcasm, you might want to reply to a post that's at least relevant to your comment.
Or just troll...that's always fun too. 
[/ QUOTE ]I wasn't responding to any specific post in particular.
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Darnit all. If I can't defeat a mission single-handedly every time without having to ever worry about dying, what's the point of me being a hero?
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Funny, I didn't read any such sentiment in his post. Sounded to me like he was just saying that he'd rather the missions/mobs changed instead of the heroes. Next time you decide to wow us all with your witty sarcasm, you might want to reply to a post that's at least relevant to your comment.
Or just troll...that's always fun too.
[/ QUOTE ]I wasn't responding to any specific post in particular.
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So it's just random trolling instead. That's always fun.
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
- Thomas Jefferson
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See, they did that once last January. Not even the minions, just the lieutenants and bosses.
Don't you remember the incredible outcry? The screaming was so loud that they rolled back the changes in two weeks.
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IIRC, the problem was that they boosted the boss HP and attack percentage without paying attention to the game mechanics they'd created. Because the damage that a mob does was dependent on their base HP, increasing the boss HP also increased the damage they did -- so the 'boss buff' not only made them significantly harder to take down, but made them hit significantly harder, too, doubling the effect of the change, which they hadn't actually intended. So, rather than rewrite the whole mob-damage computation, they rolled back the changes while they looked for other fixes.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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See, they did that once last January. Not even the minions, just the lieutenants and bosses.
Don't you remember the incredible outcry? The screaming was so loud that they rolled back the changes in two weeks.
[/ QUOTE ]
IIRC, the problem was that they boosted the boss HP and attack percentage without paying attention to the game mechanics they'd created. Because the damage that a mob does was dependent on their base HP, increasing the boss HP also increased the damage they did -- so the 'boss buff' not only made them significantly harder to take down, but made them hit significantly harder, too, doubling the effect of the change, which they hadn't actually intended. So, rather than rewrite the whole mob-damage computation, they rolled back the changes while they looked for other fixes.
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I agree that that was the precise problem. Unfortunately, *any* change that boosts the enemies' abilities is going to run into the problem that I mentioned above. Since all players meet the same enemies, their improvement is going to impact more on the "casual" players and make their game harder.
Since they have a rougher time already, it's going to amplify that.
I5 wasn't about nerfing the casual player. I believe that it was to align the abilities of the powers in the powersets with CoV and within teams, make the Arena PvP more equal and lowering the abilities of those in the top 10% of the playerbase who were rapidly PLing all of their buddies.
It's not those of us with level 50s and/or post to the boards who are important to the continuing health of the game, even though we are the best players of the game. It's the *other* 90% of the players that should and will be considered in changes to the game mechanics--rightfully so, since I would guess that they contribute at least 5 times as much money to the game as we do. (Not 9 times because we often have multiple accounts and stick with the game longer.)
Mr. Lithuania
Jessica to Nathan in bed: "I'm not really bad, Isaac just drew me that way."
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Darnit all. If I can't defeat a mission single-handedly every time without having to ever worry about dying, what's the point of me being a hero?
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Funny, I didn't read any such sentiment in his post. Sounded to me like he was just saying that he'd rather the missions/mobs changed instead of the heroes. Next time you decide to wow us all with your witty sarcasm, you might want to reply to a post that's at least relevant to your comment.
Or just troll...that's always fun too.
[/ QUOTE ]I wasn't responding to any specific post in particular.
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So it's just random trolling instead. That's always fun.
[/ QUOTE ]Seeing as where this thread's gone, it seemed to fit the purpose.
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Right. I suppose it's totally illogical to want changes to the AI and environment in order to increase the level of challenge instead of taking certain things away from our own characters.
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Nope but lets take a look at your analogy.
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When I was in the military, we were required to qualify with a certain proficiency in firing an M-16. You started at 200 meters and fired while sitting and standing. To increase the challenge, you moved back to 300 meters and fired while sitting and kneeling. To further increase the challenge, you moved back to 500 meters and fired from the prone position.
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This analogy is useless since not everyone was actually starting at 200M on the firing range. That was a large part of the problem. They attempted changes to the villains and these ended up being disastrous for blasters and defenders and controllers to a lesser degree but only annoying to scrappers and tanks.
Statesman,
Several friends and I still think that leveling is slow and tedious even after I5, especially during the hours when its hard to find teams. We have a bias because we have experienced playing WoW to be honest. I know CoH is not WoW, but we cannot help compare how relatively easy it is to level in WoW due to the amount of xp earned during their quests, whether its solo or on a team. It's still a grind to gain xp in CoH missions.
Can you increase the xp even more on mission mobs, or decrease the amount of xp needed to level?
Can this be done in any way shape or form both low and high levels? 
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Statesman,
Several friends and I still think that leveling is slow and tedious even after I5, especially during the hours when its hard to find teams. We have a bias because we have experienced playing WoW to be honest. I know CoH is not WoW, but we cannot help compare how relatively easy it is to level in WoW due to the amount of xp earned during their quests, whether its solo or on a team. It's still a grind to gain xp in CoH missions.
Can you increase the xp even more on mission mobs, or decrease the amount of xp needed to level?
Can this be done in any way shape or form both low and high levels?
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It's certainly within your rights to request this from Statesman and/or the other DEVs.
There is a problem, however. In CoH, there is *virtually* no end-game content (Kheldians, The Shard, Hammi, PvP and Exemping, that's it.) It is extremely different from WoW in that respect, since in many ways WoW only really gets going at 60. I would really suggest, therefore, that he holds off on doing this until after they add a reasonable amount of end-game content to the game.
After all, we've only got about 8% level 50s in the game, and look at how many complaints were getting now from them about lack of things to do.
Mr. Lithuania
Jessica to Nathan in bed: "I'm not really bad, Isaac just drew me that way."
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I5 wasn't about nerfing the casual player. I believe that it was to align the abilities of the powers in the powersets with CoV and within teams, make the Arena PvP more equal and lowering the abilities of those in the top 10% of the playerbase who were rapidly PLing all of their buddies.
It's not those of us with level 50s and/or post to the boards who are important to the continuing health of the game, even though we are the best players of the game. It's the *other* 90% of the players that should and will be considered in changes to the game mechanics--rightfully so, since I would guess that they contribute at least 5 times as much money to the game as we do. (Not 9 times because we often have multiple accounts and stick with the game longer.)
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That be all fine and dandy but there populations have dropped dramatically since I5 and do not tell me I am making it up. I can see with my own two eyes at logon they have dropped more people than I think they wanted to.
1st there where 2 servers that where generally yellow at login one which was yellow all the time in freedom the other was infinity yellow quite often in the last 2 weeks freedom is yellow rarely including peak hours infinity I have not seen yellow in 2 weeks.
This means people are not playing or have canceled their accounts and more than a few. If the big servers are taking hits you know the smaller servers have taken the hits. That means I5 was not kind to the casual player either.
I5 was a complete failure in all regards
Pinnacle
Langar Thurs-Katana/SR 50; Hejtmane-DM/DA 50
Rogue Spear-Spines/DA 50; Hypnosis-Ill/Rad 50
Sir Thomas Theroux-DM/SR 50; Melted Copper-Fire/Shield 50
Byzantine Warrior-DB/ELA 50;Blade Tempo-50 DB/EA
While I agree that enviorment changes might affect some players less than power changes, this:
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I5 wasn't about nerfing the casual player.
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This isn't the case. Or, more precisely, nerfing the casual player was an unintended (severe) consequence.
The power changes radically change how some power sets play. It more importantly alters most pool powers.
This will make anyone without knowledge of the new numbers (casual players) choose and slot powers inappropriately.
Joey Smith has no idea that Weave is now 4.33% base in Issue 5.
In fact, unless he's astute, he might not know that it was dramatically changed. All that will be obvious is that, even after mob to-hit reductions (if he even read the patch notes), he's getting hit more and dying more.
A halfway decent no-numbers player might even notice this and, say, 6-slot Weave, thinking that there would be an improvement to his Hero for those 5 slots.
That's what I see happening to the casual player. And, let's not forget, a truly "casual" player isn't extremely loyal to this game.
If it's less fun, they'll leave, and they won't try Hero Planner or come to the message boards first. They'll just cancel.
Currently playing:
Infaerna Who knew Fire/Fire Brutes were fun to play?
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While I agree that enviorment changes might affect some players less than power changes, this:
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I5 wasn't about nerfing the casual player.
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This isn't the case. Or, more precisely, nerfing the casual player was an unintended (severe) consequence.
The power changes radically change how some power sets play. It more importantly alters most pool powers.
This will make anyone without knowledge of the new numbers (casual players) choose and slot powers inappropriately.
Joey Smith has no idea that Weave is now 4.33% base in Issue 5.
In fact, unless he's astute, he might not know that it was dramatically changed. All that will be obvious is that, even after mob to-hit reductions (if he even read the patch notes), he's getting hit more and dying more.
A halfway decent no-numbers player might even notice this and, say, 6-slot Weave, thinking that there would be an improvement to his Hero for those 5 slots.
That's what I see happening to the casual player. And, let's not forget, a truly "casual" player isn't extremely loyal to this game.
If it's less fun, they'll leave, and they won't try Hero Planner or come to the message boards first. They'll just cancel.
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You've got a decent point about the effect on the casual player. I think that you're right to a certain extent. However, I'd be willing to bet that you don't believe that that was the DEVs' intent.
As far as the numbers go, let me posit this:
In the past two weeks, we on the boards have found out that DEF doesn't work *anything* like we thought it did. We made lots of characters, particularly Ice Tanks thinking that there was stacking with Pool Powers prior to this information becoming known.
However, we *acted* like it worked before we knew any better, even going so far as to say after they had been nerfed that our characters are less playable. Even experts have been fooled.
What I expect the "casual player" to do is not to quit the game. I expect damn few of them to even notice, since they are playing so far below optimum that a few percent here are not going to really make much diffference at all.
If anything, I expect them to see that suddenly *every* combination of ATs and Powersets work on a team at their levels, which is the big plus of I5.
[I know that you claim that this is not true, but I have led run after run, played in pickup team after pickup team, and it is true, much more so than before I5. Remus Shepherd was a big supporter of your point of view until I took him out with me on a couple runs and showed him the truth. I am willing to do the same for you.]
For the most part, I expect casual players to compensate without really realizing what they're doing. If they're smart, they'll do just fine. It's only the "elite" that will even see a difference.
Mr. Lithuania
Jessica to Nathan in bed: "I'm not really bad, Isaac just drew me that way."
I like the number 5!
So...you're basing it on how many dots a server has? That's server performance, not population. If you want population, go in-game, hit team, find member, then search and look at the number at the bottom.
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So...you're basing it on how many dots a server has? That's server performance, not population. If you want population, go in-game, hit team, find member, then search and look at the number at the bottom.
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Actually it is population. A server turns yellow at around 1500 people though and if you check I think you'll find many are still close to that number and Freedom seems to still be yellow nightly.
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So...you're basing it on how many dots a server has? That's server performance, not population. If you want population, go in-game, hit team, find member, then search and look at the number at the bottom.
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Okay, then, we'll do it by numbers. Last night, on Pinnacle, while I was playing, the population of Founder's Falls varied from six to eighteen while I was in that zone, the population of Croatoa varied from seven to twelve while I was in that zone, and the population of Talos Island varied from fourteen to twenty-five while I was in that zone. I was playing from about 1600 PDT to about 2100 PDT, taking two hours out on an alt to help school Hamidon again. An any-map search I did at about 1800 PDT returned a total of 624 unhidden heroes. I remember, prior to I5, regularly seeing in excess of 50 people each in TI and FF when I would be playing Sunday evenings.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
We can thank CoV beta for the shortage of people too.
I do Thank CoV for the shortage of people, as if i5 wasnt a pain before, if the people came back from CoV beta, my lag would go right through the roof, On i5's release i got a tank dropped down to a petty thug, and i got Lag, lots and lots of Lag. Now NC is trying to tell me its on my end, not theres. Funny since i have a 3 month old gaming PC, and i use a cable connection. Yeah, sure the lags on my end. Morons. W/e, im only still here because i pre-payed, and i cant get a refund.
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We can thank CoV beta for the shortage of people too.
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Beta only runs for a few hours at night...wouldn't account for that big of a drop off in numbers.
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So...you're basing it on how many dots a server has? That's server performance, not population. If you want population, go in-game, hit team, find member, then search and look at the number at the bottom.
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The little yellow dots tell you a lot. Freedom use to be yellow all the time and I mean all the time no matter when I logged 1pm; 2am weekday; weeknight or holiday did not matter. Now it is yellow sometimes and nothing like it was .
So what does that mean it means that you have x many accounts logging into that server and to sustain yellow all the time at all hours you need lot of accounts because generally you have peak hours and then it cycles and for Freedom use to have a ton of people. When your yellow dot start disappearing and show less frequently that means you are losing accounts (not a few a lot) or they are not playing. You hope they are not playing but since this game does not have housing that you have to login to keep I doubt it is people not playing my guess it is people letting their account expire.
So the dot tells us a lot more than you realize and more than what some people want to acknowledge
Pinnacle
Langar Thurs-Katana/SR 50; Hejtmane-DM/DA 50
Rogue Spear-Spines/DA 50; Hypnosis-Ill/Rad 50
Sir Thomas Theroux-DM/SR 50; Melted Copper-Fire/Shield 50
Byzantine Warrior-DB/ELA 50;Blade Tempo-50 DB/EA
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We can thank CoV beta for the shortage of people too.
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Beta only runs for a few hours at night...wouldn't account for that big of a drop off in numbers.
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Since many people often only have a few hours a night to play it could account for a bigger drop off than you think.
That... or the fact that i5 may have hit some people in the wrong place.
You know this may actually be the change in gameplays fault and lack of and end game... Imagine that
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That... or the fact that i5 may have hit some people in the wrong place.
You know this may actually be the change in gameplays fault and lack of and end game... Imagine that
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I've said it before, I'll say it again: i5 made the game more fun for me even though in some respects it depowered some of my characters. I've also seen more old and familiar faces back and playing again, so my experience is counter to the ones presented.
The point being: personal experiences are just that... Personal. Since we associate with like-minded people its natural to assume that someone who hates i5 is going to associate with people who hate i5 and who may just move onto another MMO if they disliked it.
As for the CoV beta, I know a few people in it who are likewise positive and upbeat about i5 (or who just don't consider it a big deal at all) and I never see them in CoH either. Mostly because they're either busy with non-MMO life or they're playing in the beta itself.
If I were invited to it, as positive as I am about CoH/i5, one would hardly see me on either! That would hardly be grounds to say "See? Even Katahn hates it!"
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That... or the fact that i5 may have hit some people in the wrong place.
You know this may actually be the change in gameplays fault and lack of and end game... Imagine that
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I've randomly run numbers for my server and several other of the high population servers and the numbers pre and post i5 are not all that different. The lack of endgame is a problem Statesman has acknowledged and is attempting to fix by adding PvP elements first then the Legends System when it is completed.
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If I were invited to it, as positive as I am about CoH/i5, one would hardly see me on either! That would hardly be grounds to say "See? Even Katahn hates it!"
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I think a lot of people might not be in CoH lately due to CoV beta akin to the reason you tend to avoid eating if you know you are going to your favorite restaurant later that day.
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Be that as it may Kat... the psychological impact is drastically different. People are attached to **HOW** their heroes/characters are.
If you increase the difficulty via the environment, people will rise to the challenge.
If you increase the difficulty via character nerfs, people will rise in complaint.
Same net game results, drastically different player results. This is precisely why the devs should have looked at the boss upgrade they did and backed off from and changed it slightly then tried again. They were on the right path there but implemented it wrong. They could have tried many other options. They CHOSE not to.
Something I wish they had tried... Make all +0 minions act like +1 minions with regards to Hit chance against heroes and damage (both giving and receiving). Keep them the same otherwise. It would have made the game more challenging YET not made it substantially harder for low damage ATs to accomplish mob defeats.
But instead, they chose to alter the characters and make them dramatically weaker rather than tweak the mobs. It makes far more sense to balance by giving and taking rather than TAKE TAKE TAKE. It's just like training a child or a pet. You don't use *just* positive or *just* negative reinforcement. You use both. You punish bad behavior and reward good behavior.
It works the same in game balance too.
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See, they did that once last January. Not even the minions, just the lieutenants and bosses.
Don't you remember the incredible outcry? The screaming was so loud that they rolled back the changes in two weeks.
A number of people, myself included, really felt the way that you did about the idea, but we were vilified and the game went back to the way it was.
If the enemies are increased in danger, the casual player suffers. If the maximum abilities of the heroes are reduced, the main people that suffer are the min/maxxers.
There are a lot more of them than there are of us, so we lose, and in exchange, the game wins and continues.
Mr. Lithuania
Jessica to Nathan in bed: "I'm not really bad, Isaac just drew me that way."