And when you're a nobody who barely understands the game and barely understands game design, it's incredibly easy to say you'd do it 'right.'
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No, it's amazing that an iconic powerset such as Super Strength was almost an afterthought on the part of the devs from the begining. Hell, it was a few months in live before KO blow did any damage. Punch that doesn't look like any kind of punch I've ever seen. Haymaker that looks nothing like a haymaker.
[/ QUOTE ]Being one of the most powerful sets in the game = an afterthought?
Right.
The reason people don't cater to please you is because you're exactly the kind of person who will not be pleased by anything they do.
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Note, SS is now one of the best offensive sets a tank can get. At live it was horrid. Wasn't till KO Blow did damage, and I believe they upped the damage quite a bit on Footstop that it did get to the position it is now. Yes, SS appears to be an afterthought on the Devs in a comic book genra MMO.
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Some people have some funny ideas of how Tankers operated back in the day.
Before KO Blow was revamped (and no, Footstomp never had its damage changed to my knowledge) you didn't have ED. This meant an Inv/SS Tanker could run perma-Hasten, perma-DP, perma-Unstoppable, triple perma Rage (which put us at the damage cap incidentally), and with 5 mobs around us we were virtually unhittable.
Tankers did just fine with damage, trust me (at least certain sets). Now comparative to a Scrapper built well back in those days it might have seemed pultry but again there's only so much damage that you *need* to do.
The KO Blow change made SS comparable to the other sets post-ED, because at that point some brain child at Cryptic figured out that SS was the only Tanker secondary to have two non-damaging and essentially worthless powers (Handclap being the other).
As for changing Hurl to mimic the Controller's power, it was stated by Geko quite awhile ago that it was easily feasible, just not a high priority. It remained a low priority (if priority is even the right word here) or more appropriately a non-issue all the way through today. Considering the changes that the game had/has needed I can't fault them for that.
Except Babs hasn't got a reputation for being retarded, and Geko does.
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Well, I'm not saying they did it badly, I'm just saying I'd have done it differently; I'd have been sure not to release the game until it more closely resembled the comic books.
That would mean allowing people to fight while airborne without gasping for breath. That would mean making super strength able to do things like lifting objects that are heavy. That would mean giving the heroes more to do than just hit things. I could go on and on.
By no means do I mean to say it would be easy, even with today's technology, let alone the technology available at that time. I'm just saying my priorities would have been different.
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'im guessing you werent here when cryptic was sued by marvel and dc due to there being claws and regen as a combo as well as others?
they cant bet THAT close to the comics we know, they will be sued to the ground.
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Except Babs hasn't got a reputation for being retarded, and Geko does.
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Thanks Corky.
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Except Babs hasn't got a reputation for being retarded, and Geko does.
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Thanks Corky.
[/ QUOTE ]What the hell are you talking about?
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I have said several times that the epic pools are nice, but they come at the very end of the character's existence. The character concept is often, even usually, the first thing created. Thus, L41 is an awful long time to wait to finally realize the character's original conception, and even then only to a limited degree.
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Honestly, you don't deserve to be granted the AT that you seek if you believe what you wrote above. Why would the devs give you the exact character concept that you want when you're not even going to play it to max level? Just seems ridiculous, especially considering all of the alternatives that already exist and the issues with aggro control and damage that would come of it.
Level 50 is not, by any means, the end of a character's existence, so basing the discussion off of a lack of motivation for playing the characters you create is pretty useless.
Just sayin'...
I agree with your points except your last one.
Sadly in CoH your character's future at L50 is of a very limited scope (more then in most MMOs).
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I agree with your points except your last one.
Sadly in CoH your character's future at L50 is of a very limited scope (more then in most MMOs).
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How is it limited? You can, now, go back and do every piece of content in the game, on every level 50 that you have, as much as you want.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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I agree with your points except your last one.
Sadly in CoH your character's future at L50 is of a very limited scope (more then in most MMOs).
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How is it limited? You can, now, go back and do every piece of content in the game, on every level 50 that you have, as much as you want.
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Limited in character growth. IOs and badges (and by proxy Accolades) are the only form of character growth at L50 and both are extremely finite.
For the PvP oriented there is a bit more robustness at being at L50 and for doing said earlier content, however PvP is an extremely small part of this game and for most, not a viable alternative to lack of stimulating content.
Also the idea of being able to do the "content" that you've missed (or worse, re-doing content that you've already done) is a fairly ornery chore at best. "Content" in CoH being as extremely limited in scope as it is (as in "kill all enemies and click all blinkies").
As for the interest of the content itself (the story lines) some are interesting while most tend to be extremely basic and rehashes. This is of course my opinion. But one thing that does hold up is that the popularity of MMOs are based on "living worlds" with content that's interacted with. This is the basis by which MMOs (and gaming in general) supersede static content mediums such as books and television. CoH in this regard does a very poor job of bringing a "living world" to the player. This has always been its biggest problem in my opinion.
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I agree with your points except your last one.
Sadly in CoH your character's future at L50 is of a very limited scope (more then in most MMOs).
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How is it limited? You can, now, go back and do every piece of content in the game, on every level 50 that you have, as much as you want.
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And the MA has opened up a near inexhaustible supply of new post 50 content.
"I am a Tank. I am your first choice, I am your last hope." -- Rune Bull
"Durability is the quintessential super-power. " -- Sailboat
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I agree with your points except your last one.
Sadly in CoH your character's future at L50 is of a very limited scope (more then in most MMOs).
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Fair enough, but to call this finite content "the end of your character's existence" is quite a reach, wouldn't you say?
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I agree with your points except your last one.
Sadly in CoH your character's future at L50 is of a very limited scope (more then in most MMOs).
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Fair enough, but to call this finite content "the end of your character's existence" is quite a reach, wouldn't you say?
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Well I'm not saying you hit L50 and your character disappears and that's it. Obviously that's not the case.
However (at least for me) for me to stay interested in a toon at maximum level, there has to be some form of character growth still possible. While CoH has extended this a tiny bit, it is only a very little tiny bit. Most other MMOs have expansions and expanded content (and items, and skill, and crafting and so forth) to keep high level toons entertained. CoH lacks these. While it has added some new high level Task Forces, these by themselves aren't enough to keep me entertained on a single L50 for more then a few weeks (maybe a few months if I was really determined to purple out a toon).
PvP would normally be a viable option for me. Nothing is better (to me) then getting that new shiney whatever, and then going out and beating your neighbor over the head with it. However PvP in CoH is essentially busted for all intents and purposes. As opposed to a decent rock paper scissors scenario, or flattenend form of balancing, you just have some sets that "work" and some that don't. Period. And given that state, this is one of the main reasons most PvP zones (at least on Justice) are a ghost town.
But the most telling aspect here ... I am literally the only I1 L50 toon that I've seen since I've been back. In fact, *all* of the L50 toons that were on my friends list from the last time I was in CoH (around I8 or so) have neither been on (I came back at the beginning of I13) nor have come back with I14.
I've seen some of their owners from time to time (and very sparingly) but I have yet to see them play any of their old toons.
And it's a shame ....
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I agree with your points except your last one.
Sadly in CoH your character's future at L50 is of a very limited scope (more then in most MMOs).
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How is it limited? You can, now, go back and do every piece of content in the game, on every level 50 that you have, as much as you want.
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Limited in character growth. IOs and badges (and by proxy Accolades) are the only form of character growth at L50 and both are extremely finite.
For the PvP oriented there is a bit more robustness at being at L50 and for doing said earlier content, however PvP is an extremely small part of this game and for most, not a viable alternative to lack of stimulating content.
Also the idea of being able to do the "content" that you've missed (or worse, re-doing content that you've already done) is a fairly ornery chore at best. "Content" in CoH being as extremely limited in scope as it is (as in "kill all enemies and click all blinkies").
As for the interest of the content itself (the story lines) some are interesting while most tend to be extremely basic and rehashes. This is of course my opinion. But one thing that does hold up is that the popularity of MMOs are based on "living worlds" with content that's interacted with. This is the basis by which MMOs (and gaming in general) supersede static content mediums such as books and television. CoH in this regard does a very poor job of bringing a "living world" to the player. This has always been its biggest problem in my opinion.
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I had an idea that it would be great to add new to the game on a quarterly basis. Have them open originally as hazard zones only accessible to levels 45 and above but over time their threat level is reduced until they are normal hazard zones set at whatever level or city zones open to anyone.
The idea is to have the higher level players be an advance exploration force that establishes a beachhead and secures the area for other heroes. The zone would change in relation to the time spent doing missions and exploring areas within the zone based on several way points on the map. As time goes by the higher level heroes will have made the zone safe enough to adjust the level and zone type to match it's original intent.
"I am a Tank. I am your first choice, I am your last hope." -- Rune Bull
"Durability is the quintessential super-power. " -- Sailboat
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I agree with your points except your last one.
Sadly in CoH your character's future at L50 is of a very limited scope (more then in most MMOs).
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How is it limited? You can, now, go back and do every piece of content in the game, on every level 50 that you have, as much as you want.
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And the MA has opened up a near inexhaustible supply of new post 50 content.
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Actually I14 has more clearly demonstrated what's been the problem with CoH since its inception then any other debate or issue I've heard talked about.
The fact that the designers of this game, past and present can't break away from their world builder tool enough to expand the content in the game the way it should be is appalling. Giving it to us as a "content update" is insulting.
But to each his own.
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I agree with your points except your last one.
Sadly in CoH your character's future at L50 is of a very limited scope (more then in most MMOs).
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How is it limited? You can, now, go back and do every piece of content in the game, on every level 50 that you have, as much as you want.
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And the MA has opened up a near inexhaustible supply of new post 50 content.
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Actually I14 has more clearly demonstrated what's been the problem with CoH since its inception then any other debate or issue I've heard talked about.
The fact that the designers of this game, past and present can't break away from their world builder tool enough to expand the content in the game the way it should be is appalling. Giving it to us as a "content update" is insulting.
But to each his own.
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Define content for me as you see it. I'm having trouble seeing MA and new content as mutually exclusive of one another so I'm interested in expanding on your point of view.
"I am a Tank. I am your first choice, I am your last hope." -- Rune Bull
"Durability is the quintessential super-power. " -- Sailboat
Indeed, to each his own. 
I think MA is right in line with the spirit of this game, giving players complete customization of their gaming experiece here instead of just the in depth customization of their characters. But we digress.
My only point here is that it is pretty ridiculous for a person to announce that they aren't motivated enough to play a character that they supposedly love up to level 41, let alone level 50, and attempt to remedy this by asking the devs to give them another type of character whose progression they will more than likely ignore in the same manner. I'm not really feelin' that.
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I had an idea that it would be great to add new to the game on a quarterly basis. Have them open originally as hazard zones only accessible to levels 45 and above but over time their threat level is reduced until they are normal hazard zones set at whatever level or city zones open to anyone.
The idea is to have the higher level players be an advance exploration force that establishes a beachhead and secures the area for other heroes. The zone would change in relation to the time spent doing missions and exploring areas within the zone based on several way points on the map. As time goes by the higher level heroes will have made the zone safe enough to adjust the level and zone type to match it's original intent.
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Good concept. Incentive to the higher level players, while not excluding lower level players. I like it.
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And when you're a nobody who barely understands the game and barely understands game design, it's incredibly easy to say you'd do it 'right.'
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Except Babs hasn't got a reputation for being retarded, and Geko does.
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Good lord, is it possible for you to post without trying to insult someone? Honestly, we're not interested in yout case of colic. If you have something constructive to contribute, you're welcome to do so, but try communicating in a civilized manner for once.
Honestly, I can see Marvel's point. I mean, the claws set could have been talons or extra hard fingernails, but instead we got three metal claws springing from the backs of our hands. It's pretty obvious it's intended to hearken back to Wolverine. However, that's not quite what I mean. I'm speaking more generally.
In the comics we see things getting knocked around by strong characters, we see them uprooting trees, stopping trains and doing "strong" things. In CoH, we only hit things.
In the comics we see lots of collateral damage. In CoH, we see almost none. The only time you see debris is if you happen to be fighting next to a garbage can or something, or if you're on a mayhem mission.
You can't grab a foe (or anything else), which we see all the time in the comics too.
Like I say, I'm just speaking in general terms. These are just examples, a definitive list of similar shortcomings would be long indeed.
L41 is a high level. To have to wait that long is extremely disappointing when you're playing a character with a concept. It doesn't mean people won't play the character to that level, it's just a long time to wait. It also has nothing to do with who "deserves" what.
Of course, I can "go back and do any content I want," but in so doing, I give up the very powers I spent all that time waiting for.
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Also the idea of being able to do the "content" that you've missed (or worse, re-doing content that you've already done) is a fairly ornery chore at best. "Content" in CoH being as extremely limited in scope as it is (as in "kill all enemies and click all blinkies").
As for the interest of the content itself (the story lines) some are interesting while most tend to be extremely basic and rehashes. This is of course my opinion. But one thing that does hold up is that the popularity of MMOs are based on "living worlds" with content that's interacted with. This is the basis by which MMOs (and gaming in general) supersede static content mediums such as books and television. CoH in this regard does a very poor job of bringing a "living world" to the player. This has always been its biggest problem in my opinion.
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I agree with every single word in this quote.
What about just giving them a scaling damage buff in the early levels. Much like the accuracy buff that becomes smaller and smaller the closer you get to SOs (or did they take that out?).
It would solve a lot of low level tank problems.
Virtue:
Miserya - 50 EM/ELA Brute (Perma-shelved)
Adriana Rayne - 42 Katana/Dark Scrapper
Cyberpulse - 26 Super Strength/Willpower Brute
Steel Heart - 24 Invuln/Super Strength Tanker
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And when you're a nobody who barely understands the game and barely understands game design, it's incredibly easy to say you'd do it 'right.'
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Except Babs hasn't got a reputation for being retarded, and Geko does.
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Good lord, is it possible for you to post without trying to insult someone?
[/ QUOTE ]Yes.
You make large claims that you cannot substantiate and impugn the ability and integrity of the developers of this game, people who you have demonstrated time and again have created something much more complicated than you understand it to be. Quoting a developer who left literally years ago when we have much more up-to-date consensus from someone who has been very transparent about the work he can and can't do on this game is just chasing misinformation to support your point.
Now, if I say you're intellectually lazy or don't understand something, that's not necessarily an insult. It's an insult if I mean it to be demeaningly, and I don't - I merely mean to point out that you don't understand what you're talking about and perhaps should consider taking a less arrogant stance. If I was trying to insult you, I don't doubt I could find all the fodder in the world, but I'm sure you could simply send a PM to Arcanaville asking about Geko's Greatest Failings and hear a tale or two.
In the end, you simply insist that the things you want must be easy or attainable or important enough to make a necessity, and yet, here we are, with a game that's operated for five years without your input or say so and without these seemingly-essential components. It might be unpleasant to consider, but maybe you should seek to learn before you seek to teach.
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What about just giving them a scaling damage buff in the early levels. Much like the accuracy buff that becomes smaller and smaller the closer you get to SOs (or did they take that out?).
It would solve a lot of low level tank problems.
[/ QUOTE ]They have this. Before level 20, the damage scalars aren't behaving properly.
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"In the end, you simply insist that the things you want must be easy or attainable or important enough to make a necessity, and yet, here we are, with a game that's operated for five years without your input or say so and without these seemingly-essential components..."
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My thoughts exactly!
The game has all of the tools for you to make the exact concept that you've described, but you don't want to play long enough to have your idea realized? Considering all of the given information, I think the only logical response to your suggestion is... "Too bad."
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Define content for me as you see it. I'm having trouble seeing MA and new content as mutually exclusive of one another so I'm interested in expanding on your point of view.
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Mutually exclusive? Not in the technical sense since it's technically "new" content with each new published MA, but the *style* of content hasn't changed at all and has only changed very minutely since the release of CoH.
"Kill all bad guys and click all blinkies". Without an exception (that I can think of at any rate) and without reading one mission arc (either MA or normal content) you can accomplish literally 99%+ of the content in the game by doing just that. The style of content is extremely lacking in diversity. Now they have made some baby steps with a few newer encounters (LGTF, STF and ITF) where the boss mob actually now requires a minimal amount of strategy to kill ... but it's still very basic and only 3 encounters in 5 years of production to show for it.
For another part of the equation lets take a look at risk vs. reward. Eventually this must always boil down to time vs. reward in an MMO simply due to the limitations of what you can program into the AI. In other words, complex fights eventually become memorized fights through repetition and thus not really "risky" but rather just time consuming (keep doing said encounter until whatever it is you want from it is yielded). However CoH started from the premise of "time vs reward" from the very beginning. The early versions of Trials (Hami, Sewer, et al) showed this in that random multi-enhanced enhancements would drop and you would need to do said encounter(s) many many times to fill up on what you wanted for your character. That's fine ... if the encounters themselves weren't fairly easy and/or as stagnant as they were. They were on the right track however with the original Terra Volta trial (and original Sewer I might add) in that these fights were a little more dynamic (read as "controlled chaos") but the general population found them too difficult and they were thusly nerfed into a mode more in line with current content (i.e. easy enough that a three year old can do it).
The lack of substantial reward has been a big plague on this game as well (which goes towards character development again) and only fairly recently addressed with IO sets. However the meaning of that reward is lost when content hasn't progressed past the stage of needing SOs. In other words I can do all of the content in this game (every single bit of it) with a team of SO equipped characters, which renders the IO sets fairly meaningless except for bragging rights and slightly easier management (in a game where the difficulty is sub par already I might add).
Finally, we get to the end of our toon's levelling, and what is there to actually do? PvP in a vastly revamped (and imo broken) system never designed for PvP in the first place, badge gathering (of which only a minor fraction are actually relevant to get Accolades), Accolades (see badge gathering) whose bonuses are not merely only a trifle but as fairly useless by and large as IO sets and finally the IO sets themselves if applicable and we've already discussed those.
What would be *real" content to me? Dynamic encounters. All bosses and various other areas which introduce random and/or multiple elements into the scenario.
Stepped content. Design higher end content for max level toons that require IO sets and Accolades to be able complete. This gives those rewards a "real" meaning while at the sametime gives your population a purpose and goal to aspire to even at max level.
Non-static spawns. Make each spawn in a mission (and on the street) have a patrol area. Add many MANY more *real* patrols to both missions and outdoor areas.
Introduce tougher challenges to Hazard zones and increase the drop rates of enhancements and recipes in those zones, while at the same time eliminating drops and influence for gray con mobs.
Expand crafting to include making up salvage from other salvage (i.e. the converter but more smartly done). Add additional IOs that have other effects such as changing the hue of your attack powers, or allows you to transform into other mob types in the game (i.e. the Freakshow mission disguise) and makes these items *very rare*.
Develop the non-combat system you promised (Detective System). It doesn't have to be much more then a "choose your path" type of story mechanic in the beginning but at least it expands your content base. Adding dynamic puzzles and riddles to this would be a huge plus and fairly easy to do if thought were given to it.
Finally reset PvP so that powers work as they do normally. Then "fix" the really large holes with uncommon to rare (not very rare) IO's (such as an anti-teleport IO, etc ...). Keep toggling the way it currently is.
Actually fix long animation times across the board. While pretty, they invariably become to be considered pretty useless. Fix the final few powers with negative drawbacks. You don't balance a game by making it awful to play ... that's just silly.
I could go on and on and this already should be in another thread but I think you start to get the idea. All of these can be readily accomplished with current technology and most of it with the current technology at CoH's disposal.
One final thing ... get rid of MAs and burn your world builder tool. I think it's far past the time for a more robust tool then something as simplistic and static as what they are using.
Unfortunately, when the company that's publishing the game is different than the one developing it, when one releases it isn't always up to the ones developing it.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict