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The great games I have come to find, mix challenges with relaxing moments in the game or give the player time to come down off of his edge and steel himself for the next challenge.
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A long, long, time ago, I suggested that the most important MMO concept that CoH decided to keep, that they should have jettisoned, was the concept of XP itself.
In my pie-in-the-sky, naive view, what CoH should have done, which in my opinion would have fit the genre better, and satisfied by hardcore and casual players better, was to eliminate the idea that you kill things for XP, and then when you have enough XP you go up one level, and go kill other things for XP. What they should have done instead is designed the game so that it took a specific event or set of events - call them task forces or trials if you like - that gained you a level. If you wanted to level fast, you could focus on those. Passing the right trial(s) took you to the next level. If you didn't want or need to level as quickly, there would be all sorts of other activities you could do, all designed to be enjoyable in and of themselves. Missions that earned you things you could only use at that level, say, or story arcs you could run that would put you up against special villains that only existed at that level. The rewards for these activities would be something other than XP, but still fun. Unlockable things, if you will. Today, we'd call these things badges, temp powers, accolades, special enhancements, maybe even inventions.
The idea would be if you wanted to relax and cruise in the game, you could do cruising missions that weren't designed to kill you, they were designed to be Superman flying through Metropolis knocking off the occasional bank robber - not a challenge at all, just something fun to do. When you really wanted to put your nose to the grindstone, you could do the "get to level 22" trial, and continue on.
Because the content of the game would be specialized to each level (or level range), there would be no point to racing to 50. You would play at level 21 for as long as you wanted, and no longer. Once you were bored, you would hit the level 22 trial, and you'd be 22.
I even posted something called "all fights should be AV fights" or something like that, as a part of this idea. The notion was that the stuff that *really* counted, should be like one AV fight, not like 1000 minion fights.
A very amateurish idea, with a lot of hanging threads that would need to be addressed for it to be at all workable. I find, though, that as time passes, the idea looks increasingly better, and not worse. In fact, mayhem and safeguard missions seem to echo at least some of these ideas, if not the central one.
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Anyway, people are fond of pointing out the incredibly powerful nature of comic book heroes as compared to our CoX heroes while in the process of finding flaw with the "heroes" in-game.
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You missunderstand, I am reffering to making us weaker compared to the way we were in past issues.
But to comment on what you said, there is always challenge. The difference is back in I3 when HO's were maxed and powers were unhindered, I would have to go out and find a challenge, as opposed to every danm thing being challenging. It feels heroic to take on 20 +2 minions. It does not feel heroic barely survivng 5.
After lusting after the power for 37 levels, my FF/EB defender is about to respec out of Nova because it's totally useless.
As other posters have noted, the low damage (which is even worse for a Def) makes it less than useful as an Alpha strike. That's OK, I'm a Def. (Though a team with 2 defs really ought to be able to do a double-nova alpha strike and we've found it's just not worth it, see below.)
The long activation means I can't use it in an emergency when the battle is going badly. And the Defender inherent, which is already useless for non-healers, doesn't help in this situation where it should because the problem is the loss of recovery, not the END cost itself.
So here I have this power I waited for level 38 to get. It:
* Does some damage. Highly variable, so it can't be counted on to end a fight.
* Gets some knockback but
* Leaves me disabled far longer than the enemies take to stand back up
* Drops all my toggles, which as an FF/Leadership defender are an enormous part of my team's capabilities.
So the net effect is that this *supposedly great* power is a drastic net loss. It completely negates my high-powered team buffs for many seconds, in return for ridiculously low damage and some knockback (which I could get from Explosive Blast with more benefit and less bad side effects).
Nova, et al, might have been balanced for six SO damages before ED, but they are not good now.
Please get rid of one of the drawbacks to make the powers worth their exalted places in the power sets.
- Preferably, remove the recovery penalty. This would be the best choice, allowing Defenders to use the power in conjunction with their inherent as a real team-saver and allowing all characters the option of slotting for END reduction if they don't want their toggles dropping.
- Alternately, upscale the damage by a factor of about 2.0 so a Blaster will get 100% damage on a +1 Lt. if the power hits but the random extra damage ticks don't fire. This will make a 3-slotted post-ED Nova do a bit more damage than a 6-slotted one pre-ED would, making Blaster novas a viable (if risky) solo alpha strike and Defender novas worth the cost, at least to toggle-light builds like Empathy.
Sigh.
And just to bring this back on topic a bit. I've also noticed the kinda "meh" feel to nukes in the game. Pre-ED nukes could be used solo to simply wipe any single spawn (or group of spawns) off the map. With the exception of misses, everything not at boss level or above was defeated with a nuke. They could be used in teams in either the same manner (wipe any single group of bad guys), or as a clean up. You basically cleared virtually all the minions and Lts with a nuke in a team, leaving the bosses and a few stragglers left for the team to finish.
In either use, you tended to fire it off whenever it was up (waiting for a decent point to use it of course). It was pretty much *always* worth using.
Now. I find I only ever use it on teams. And even then, it's marginal because on most teams where it's "safe" to use nuke, they're wiping through the spawns so quickly that I've actually had my nuke do very little because there's only a couple bad guys left by the time the animation finishes. You're forced to wait until there's a "large" group (or multiple accidentally agroed spawns) in order to use it. While herding whole maps was abusive and needed to be stopped, not allowing herding means that groups don't agro multiple spawns at once (if not herding, you tend to avoid that if you can, right?). Thus, it's much rarer to run into a situation where the full nuke AEs are that great. Smaller AE attacks, which are available repeatedly end up being much more significant.
For example. On my elec/elec blaster, I use my ball lightning power constantly on groups. It does good damage, recharges fast enough to be used over and over, and most importantly it's never wasted when it's used (or if it is, I don't care that much). But TB? I *might* use it once in a mission. Maybe.
The problem is that the conditions required for a nuke to be worth using are much rarer then they used to be. When soloing, it's pretty much *never* worth using. I also find that it seems like there's always a target or two that gets missed or doesn't get defeated. The problem here is that in a solo mission, you're just not running into large enough spawns to make it worthwhile. Worse, it seems to not work unless it's a spawn of yellows. If the spawn is +2 or higher, it seems like there's always a couple survivors. I'll occasionally use it for fun on a spawn and am horrified to find that even dropped on spawns of 3 or 4 NPCs, it's not uncommon for one or two of them to survive.
When you calculate in the recovery time for using TB, even if you hit and defeat every single NPC in a typical solo spawn, it's not worth using. And the bigger/badder the spawns, the more likely that more NPCs will not be defeated, making it a killer to use.
I'm not asking for the world either. However, I agree that a power that has as many limitations as nukes have should basically defeat anything less then boss level that it hits. Either that or dramatically reduce the crash effects. I'd use it much more with either case. We're still talking about a power that has a 6 minute recharge time. Given the 16 target limit, the real question is: "Is it really unbalancing to allow a blaster to defeat 16 targets every 6 minutes with a single power?". I think it's pretty obvious to everyone that I'm going to defeat far more then 16 targets in the 6 minutes I'm waiting for TB to recharge, using other powers that *don't* crash my endurance/recovery in the middle of the combat I use them in.
And that's ultimately going to affect the use of nukes. They're neato, but not terribly effective at actually defeating opponents.
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I even posted something called "all fights should be AV fights" or something like that, as a part of this idea. The notion was that the stuff that *really* counted, should be like one AV fight, not like 1000 minion fights.
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Where was I for this? Man, I really missed out by missing that thread. I would have been behind the concept whole heartedly. Honestly, the big fights are what make comic book action entertaining, it isn't the hordes of minions. I will say that if you are going to fight hordes of minions, it should be done well and the gameplay should reflect and provide the visceral never ending combat that you are in. I always fault CoH for not really enhanceing it's strongpoint in my opinion.
In other news, what do you think of Alan Wake? It looks like a great game, part shooter, part puzzle solveing, part RPG and the pace is kinda left up to you the player. I think it may be a model for how a non-linear game should be designed, but I may be getting ahead of myself and reading too much into the reviews.
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I even posted something called "all fights should be AV fights" or something like that, as a part of this idea. The notion was that the stuff that *really* counted, should be like one AV fight, not like 1000 minion fights.
[/ QUOTE ]
Where was I for this? Man, I really missed out by missing that thread. I would have been behind the concept whole heartedly. Honestly, the big fights are what make comic book action entertaining, it isn't the hordes of minions. I will say that if you are going to fight hordes of minions, it should be done well and the gameplay should reflect and provide the visceral never ending combat that you are in. I always fault CoH for not really enhanceing it's strongpoint in my opinion.
[/ QUOTE ]I agree 100%
We should make a new thread...
Not it!
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I will say challenge is fun when you have the opportunity to shine in overcoming them... at least as far as gaming is concerned. Just getting beaten to a pulp is not a challenge, it's merely a device that eludes to a challenge. In otherwords, you can play a super-powered character and still be very challenged. And challenge is only as good as the rewards for completion. The trick is to balance it all.
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I think the issue here being that, at least in our standard MMO madel, to which CoX adheres, they are having a hard time reconciling the "comic book power lvl" with the concept of having an actual challenege in-game.
Since we ARE in the standard MMO model, in which powers and abilities are player based and grow with lvl, and the challenge comes from entities in direct combat with the players, then in order to the challenged we have to be faced with enemies comparable with us.
Now that, of course, doesn't feel super. You're playing a blaster or whatever and that freak tank knocks the toast of out you - you're lying there and the ground and he's doing the /deance emote over you - who's the hero here? He just whooped your tail and he's not even a named villain? What kind of hero are you, anyway?
As long as we're in the "standard MMO model", these two parties, the "its should be like a comic book" and "it should possess the standard challenge lvl of any MMO" shall have a hard time meeting and having a coffee together.
In any case, if you made it "like a comic book" in its current form, it would be fun for about 1 week for players as they strode over paragon sweeping hordes of enemies before them. I'm sure we'd have a percentage of players who would stay just for the feel, but, again, what defines a game are the rules and the challenege they present to overcome - if there is little to overcome then the majority of players will move on.
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Anyway, people are fond of pointing out the incredibly powerful nature of comic book heroes as compared to our CoX heroes while in the process of finding flaw with the "heroes" in-game.
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You missunderstand, I am reffering to making us weaker compared to the way we were in past issues.
But to comment on what you said, there is always challenge. The difference is back in I3 when HO's were maxed and powers were unhindered, I would have to go out and find a challenge, as opposed to every danm thing being challenging. It feels heroic to take on 20 +2 minions. It does not feel heroic barely survivng 5.
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I have nothing to say to that - I have said nothing encouraging them to make us weaker, nor do I support such a move in general.
All I am saying is that, at least in this MMO model, we cannot be as "strong" as a lot of comic heroes or the power inflation would go through the roof and every mission would have to spawn hamidon.
I don't know whether or not I need to defeat 20 heroes at once to feel powerful. I don't think that is the case. I think smaller battles vs. names, tough enemies would make me feel just as powerful.
But let's face it, in comics, henchmen are cannon fodder - even 20 wouldn't challenge most "super" heroes. It's just more paper to burn.
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As far as "valid arguments"... man this place makes me sad today... I'll only go so far as to say 'challenge extends gameplay'. This is of course only true with respect to gamers who enjoy challenge, which are in turn the only gamers I respect.
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This is true to a point.
I have great fun setting up difficult battles for myself in Dawn of War Dark Crusade (2 computer opponents or maybe a map not in my favor). Now, I am [censored] while I am playing, but I have a blast watching the replays and seeing what my opponents are doing while they fight me. It keeps me fresh for LAN nights as well, but that is a side benefit. Really, I just enjoy watching that really tough fight I had and what happened dureing it without haveing to worry about the outcome. Lets me watch a good battle without getting stressed out.
When I am relaxed and feeling pretty good, then I'll gear up for a challenge again.
What am I getting at? It is good to have challenge but it needs to be in moderation. When game developers stop putting the challenges in moderation, I start breaking out the cheats just to relieve my stress. Dawn of War is great. I can fight a really tough battle, then relax, then do it all again if I want.
Now, depending on what a players goal is every player will have a different challenge in this game. If your goal is to defeat the enemy, then the challenge doesn't exist in this game. If you are trying to hit 50 in 3 months then you have a different sort of challenge.
I realize this is a bit off topic, but several people have been talking about how difficult or not difficult some new games are and it has inspired me.
The great games I have come to find, mix challenges with relaxing moments in the game or give the player time to come down off of his edge and steel himself for the next challenge.
MMOs don't really do that though, unless they have crafting. Then the player basicaly takes a break from the grind and goes about crafting. Even crafting can be a form of a challenge though and eventually some players may view it as not so much as a break but a hinderance of their goal to the end game.
In CoH the breaks in the game are the Paragon Dance Party, and Travel time to contacts or missions.
I had a point to all of this, but I think I forgot it somewhere along the way. Maybe I am just hinting that if someone is challenged enough for too long, people just start getting burned out and looking for a new form of release.
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Zen, while I agree with you whole heartedly, you're response begins "to a point" when in fact you are not disagreeing with me at all when you mention degrees of challenge.
When I say "a game needs challenge or it will not hold interest" then responding "there should be various lvls of challenege within the game" does not contradict that idea at all.
You create a picture of a challenging game with moments of relaxation or "less challenge" where-in one could take a breather and enjoy the sights. It sounds ideal, but never the less the key factor there is "challenge" - no matter what the level or frequency, if the game doesn't have it on some lvl, the game won't survive.
But we were on the subject of making our heroes more "comic powerful" - I feel this would remove the challenge in the game as it stands as it would create a power inflation the devs would be incapable of staying alongside, using the current MMO model around which the game is built.
AIM+BUILDUP+Transference or FS if you have it and you hit your damage cap PDQ.
AIM+BuildUp alone are great help when soloing ...
Still I miss the days when my 50 could single-bolt grey 35's minions ... 
HASTE+Recharge ENH +3 FTW! 
I was specificaly responding to the concept in that quote, not your entire post Enmity. Challenge is good, to a point. That was my point. 
And back to the topic at hand, I spent the evening nuking everything in sight and simultaneously visiting the debt cap.
In conclusion, I have to agree with Arcanaville again, but with a bit more specifics this time.
Nukes need short activation times like Dreadful Wail.
Nukes need "slightly" increased damage, if right now they are 87.5% odds of taking out a +1 lt, those odds need to be raised to 95%. A bad roll can still happen, call it a critical failure, but it should not happen more than 1/20 times, preferably a bit less.
Nukes Stamina Crash needs to be removed. This seems the most practical solutions. When considering how many possible mobs drain endurance, zero endurance with recovery becomes a very untennable solution. You still get 20 seconds of 0 recovery, and so fight at a reduced effectiveness, but reduced is better than none.
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I even posted something called "all fights should be AV fights" or something like that, as a part of this idea. The notion was that the stuff that *really* counted, should be like one AV fight, not like 1000 minion fights.
[/ QUOTE ]
Where was I for this? Man, I really missed out by missing that thread. I would have been behind the concept whole heartedly. Honestly, the big fights are what make comic book action entertaining, it isn't the hordes of minions. I will say that if you are going to fight hordes of minions, it should be done well and the gameplay should reflect and provide the visceral never ending combat that you are in. I always fault CoH for not really enhanceing it's strongpoint in my opinion.
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All I remember is that I got a couple of "that's interesting" replies, and a whole megaton of missing-the-point "it'll take forever to level if we had to fight nothing but bosses and AVs all the time" replies.
I think if I redrafted the idea today, I'd probably get a much more animated discussion around it. Although, who knows: perhaps half the responses to my "Open Letter to Cryptic" post were of the form "that's basically impossible" (fortunately, and predictably, I don't think the devs themselves concurred).
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In other news, what do you think of Alan Wake? It looks like a great game, part shooter, part puzzle solveing, part RPG and the pace is kinda left up to you the player. I think it may be a model for how a non-linear game should be designed, but I may be getting ahead of myself and reading too much into the reviews.
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I only know what I've read: its by Remedy, it looks way cool, and the game play is episodic in nature. If they pull the episodic part off well, that could make it great.
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I lovem y nova its the best
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Nukes need "slightly" increased damage, if right now they are 87.5% odds of taking out a +1 lt, those odds need to be raised to 95%. A bad roll can still happen, call it a critical failure, but it should not happen more than 1/20 times, preferably a bit less.
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Essentially, that's the same thing as asking for the base damage prior to the two probabilistic waves being able to take out a +1 LT, because none of the nukes are autohit, and therefore all of them have the 5% minimum chance of missing altogether.
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Nova with 3 damage SOs + Aim + Build Up + 1 small damage inspiration = 87.5% chance of killing a non-resistant +1 Lieutenant. I think this is a perfectly reasonable amount of damage for the drawbacks of the power. I don't think there should be a guaranteed one-shot AoE kill for +1 Lieuts; I think it should stay as a high chance of one-shot kill as it is currently.
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After thinking this over some more, I'm not sure I agree. I've run through the math and I don't see how nova w/ 3 SO's, BU, aim, and 1 small insp (1+0.95+1.00+0.65+0.25=3.85) defeats a +1 lieutenant if only the base ticks hit. At least the first optional tick needs to hit to defeat a lieutenant. That tick occurs only 75% of the time. So, in addition to a 5% chance to miss entirely (assuming capped tohit), you also have a 23.75% (0.25x0.95) chance that nova will hit but fail to defeat a given lieutenant. That suggests only a 71.25% chance of killing a +1 lieutenant, not 87.5%.
Code:[/color]Level Dmg_Mod Scale Dmg Enh Enh_Dmg Lt_HP
33 43.84 3.0 131.5 3.85 506.4 650
40 50.90 3.0 152.7 3.85 587.9 780
50 55.61 3.0 166.8 3.85 642.3 860
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Nova with 3 damage SOs + Aim + Build Up + 1 small damage inspiration = 87.5% chance of killing a non-resistant +1 Lieutenant. I think this is a perfectly reasonable amount of damage for the drawbacks of the power. I don't think there should be a guaranteed one-shot AoE kill for +1 Lieuts; I think it should stay as a high chance of one-shot kill as it is currently.
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After thinking this over some more, I'm not sure I agree. I've run through the math and I don't see how nova w/ 3 SO's, BU, aim, and 1 small insp (1+0.95+1.00+0.65+0.25=3.85) defeats a +1 lieutenant if only the base ticks hit. At least the first optional tick needs to hit to defeat a lieutenant. That tick occurs only 75% of the time. So, in addition to a 5% chance to miss entirely (assuming capped tohit), you also have a 23.75% (0.25x0.95) chance that nova will hit but fail to defeat a given lieutenant. That suggests only a 71.25% chance of killing a +1 lieutenant, not 87.5%.
Code:[/color]Level Dmg_Mod Scale Dmg Enh Enh_Dmg Lt_HP
33 43.84 3.0 131.5 3.85 506.4 650
40 50.90 3.0 152.7 3.85 587.9 780
50 55.61 3.0 166.8 3.85 642.3 860
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I haven't spent time verifying Iakona's probability numbers for nova, so I'm assuming for now they are accurate. I think what Iakona is saying in his nova numbers is that the first tick has a 75% chance of hitting, and the second tick has a 50% independent chance of hitting, so there is an 87.5% chance of at least one tick hitting (i.e. the second tick is not contingent on the first).
That would still mean there was a net 83% chance of defeating that +1 LT, because of the mandatory 5% chance to miss, as you mention.
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That doesn't jibe with my understanding of the power, which is that the ticks are not independent. I think that the 50% tick is only considered if the 75% tick occurs. This matches all the player testing I have ever seen going back to I2 (when I rolled my En/En), which shows a 25% chance of 0 ticks, a 37.5% chance of 1 tick and a 37.5% chance of 2 ticks. If the probabilities were independent, it would be 12.5%/50%/37.5%.
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That doesn't jibe with my understanding of the power, which is that the ticks are not independent. I think that the 50% tick is only considered if the 75% tick occurs. This matches all the player testing I have ever seen going back to I2 (when I rolled my En/En), which shows a 25% chance of 0 ticks, a 37.5% chance of 1 tick and a 37.5% chance of 2 ticks. If the probabilities were independent, it would be 12.5%/50%/37.5%.
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To be honest, I've never tested the probability of nova's waves to hit. Its not a difficult thing to do, so I'll probably do so at some point (like, after I catch up with all the I8 badges). As I said, pending actual testing, I was suggesting where Iakona's 87.5% calculation came from.
He might have also just done a quicky calculation and not even checked his own data to see if the second tick was dependent on the first, and simply made an error.
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As far as I can tell, the ticks are completely independent. I've seen nothing at all that would indicate any dependency between the seperate chances. So yes, Arcana is correct in where I got the 87.5% number, and no I didn't account for the minimum 5% chance to miss.
I will say challenge is fun when you have the opportunity to shine in overcoming them... at least as far as gaming is concerned. Just getting beaten to a pulp is not a challenge, it's merely a device that eludes to a challenge. In otherwords, you can play a super-powered character and still be very challenged. And challenge is only as good as the rewards for completion. The trick is to balance it all.
Quixotik
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