2 months and done why play @ 50?
By
Adult_Swim,
Posted on: 2009-07-14 13:20 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Okay, a couple of things
1) Characterizing the game as "young and growing" is not really erroneous. There's a new box on the shelves and we've got an expansion on the way. This is not EQ. In MMO terms we're still relatively young and we are most certainly growing. Speaking of the game in the past tense or characterizing it as dead/dying/stagnant is a significant overstatement, to the point of hyperbole.
It's not just 'roll an alt'. In addition to Hamidon and Rikti Mothership raids (the two 'classic raid' style content pieces we have), there are a plethora of TFs, there's badgehunting, there's Inventions including the sought-after Purple recipes, there's PvP, there's a number of social events run by players, there's RP and there's a regular infusion of new content to try.
If a player is one of those that simply must be getting 'phat lewt' or leveling up in order to feel a play session is worthwhile then this probably isn't the game to be playing. There's purples, of course, but the game isn't centered on having them the way a raid culture game like WoW is. You don't need the phat lewt to participate in the top-tier content. You don't need it for anything other than bragging rights. The additional power is nice but not necessary. The day the Devs turn away from that fundamental design philosophy is the day they lose a lot of players. And I mean a lot.
2) WoW is an aberration. Comparing this game or any MMO to WoW is not a valid comparison. Arguments that say "this game could be like WoW if it did X..." are usually invalid. WoW is the phenomenon it is because it's made by Blizzard. It's based on the known and popular IP that Blizzard introduced in the RTS Warcraft games and, more importantly, Blizzard has a huge bank to sink into promotion, demo CDs, advertisments, etc to promote the game.
No other MMO has anything close to that and no changes to the gameplay of any MMO is going to give it WoW's numbers unless you can put a bankroll comparable to Blizzard's behind it. This MMO is a success by the standards of the industry. The fact that NCSoft bought the IP and is further developing it supports this.
Some more stuff to do at 50 wouldn't be a bad idea, but we already have a good deal of things to do for those that choose to take advantage of them. Changing the game over to an endgame-centric raid culture like that of WoW would be a serious misstep.
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I agree with you there that making the game like wow (end game centric) WOULD BE A MISTAKE. But that doesn't mean the game couldn't use a little more content at that end of the spectrum.
I wasn't the one who compared CoX to wow initially. I merely pulled from a prior person's post for examples. I fully agree with you that wow is an aberration. It is certainly a phenomenon. But I don't agree that its simply money and promotion that makes it so.
The history of MMOs is filled with innovative ideas. Each mmo taking good elements from those that came before (or are currently still running) and adding their own spin to make it part of their game. WoW did it (just like every other MMO such as WAR, Lineage, LOTRO, etc) and I am merely suggesting that CoX could stand to do some of that too.
An endgame doesn't have to monopolize the entirety of the game like it does in WoW. In fact I wouldn't want CoX to do that. I like the general format for CoX. But I do think there's room for some content at the lvl 50 end of the spectrum. Content that's just as engaging and rewarding in it's own way, but different than the content you level up on.
While I personally can't see CoX as a "young and growing" game since I've been around since its beta (hey its been what? 4 or 5 years now?), I never said it was dead/dying etc. But I do believe there is stagnation at the level 50 end of the spectrum.
You have to understand... I am not against CoX. I want the game to be as successful as possible. That's precisely why I want there to be more things to keep people playing and to encourage new players to join. While I don't have any illusions about reaching WoW level numbers I think CoX could have more of a following than it does currently. And with that following it would lead to more income for the devs and more content for us.
I had little love for some of the devs in the old days. Their ideas and stances on things were very rigid and "unfun" in many ways to me. But today's devs are a much better group. They are the reason I came back after a hiatus. I LIKE the content they've been adding... I am merely saying after all these years maybe it's time to flesh out the end game a bit.
Maybe I don't have the right words to describe it. But I just feel like there's something missing at the level 50 end of the game. The thing that makes you really want to keep playing THAT character.
It's like hypothetically... if you made every character of every spec possible and got them to 50 (far fetched I know but bear with me for the example) what do you do then?
I guess I am looking for that hook that really makes people enthralled with a game. I'd like to see CoX grow in population and for devs to make a bigger profit so they have more resources to expand the game further.
You and I aren't really opposed here. We both play and like the game and want to see it flourish.
Jem - Ill/Rad Controller Lv 50+3 Nic - Mind/Psi Dominator Lv 50+3 Lady Liberation - Invuln/SS Tanker Lv 50+1 Invicitx - Demon/Pain Mastermind Lv 50+1 Celeste - Emp/Arch Defender Lv 50+1 Nightsilver - DB/WP Scrapper Lv 34 Dusk Howl - StJ/Regen Brute Lv 32 Kyriani - Time/Energy Defender Lv 41Psifire - FF/Psi Defender Lv 50
Star Lighter - LB/LA Peacebringer Lv 30
Fair enough. I suppose I'm just having trouble with your characterization of the game as 'stagnant' or even 'stagnant for characters at 50'. I've been playing since launch and I still play my 50s. I do TFs, I badge-hunt, I play the market, I badge-hunt and I do a fair amount of socializing (okay, a lot of socializing). Also I badge-hunt. 
Pretty much the only things I don't do much of are PvP (which I loathe) and RP (which I'm not particularly good at). As I said above, I'm certainly not opposed to more stuff to do at 50, but neither do I see a clear and present need there. We just got a new 45-50 TF on each side of the game. Neither has been getting what I'd call rave reviews, but nevertheless it's new stuff to do at the endgame.
I'd argue that a far more pressing content hole would be the 30-35 game redside. There really needs to be an SF with that range.
Iscariot's Guide to the Tri-Form Warshade, version 2.1
I'm sorry that math > your paranoid delusions, but them's the breaks -- Nethergoat
P.E.R.C. Rep for Liberty server
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Fair enough. I suppose I'm just having trouble with your characterization of the game as 'stagnant' or even 'stagnant for characters at 50'. I've been playing since launch and I still play my 50s. I do TFs, I badge-hunt, I play the market, I badge-hunt and I do a fair amount of socializing (okay, a lot of socializing). Also I badge-hunt.
Pretty much the only things I don't do much of are PvP (which I loathe) and RP (which I'm not particularly good at). As I said above, I'm certainly not opposed to more stuff to do at 50, but neither do I see a clear and present need there. We just got a new 45-50 TF on each side of the game. Neither has been getting what I'd call rave reviews, but nevertheless it's new stuff to do at the endgame.
I'd argue that a far more pressing content hole would be the 30-35 game redside. There really needs to be an SF with that range.
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I agree with you there on the redside business. They could definitely use some more fleshing out. You know what might be cool? More stuff that gets unlocked by doing the high end TFs. Like how you get those costume pieces for doing the ITF. Things like that are what appeal to me... collecting things... fleshing out my character, opening new content.
Maybe in the future they can have other costume parts or maybe even base options open up from doing TFs or Trials etc. They already have some weapon options unlocked in that manner... would be cool for other things too.
Jem - Ill/Rad Controller Lv 50+3 Nic - Mind/Psi Dominator Lv 50+3 Lady Liberation - Invuln/SS Tanker Lv 50+1 Invicitx - Demon/Pain Mastermind Lv 50+1 Celeste - Emp/Arch Defender Lv 50+1 Nightsilver - DB/WP Scrapper Lv 34 Dusk Howl - StJ/Regen Brute Lv 32 Kyriani - Time/Energy Defender Lv 41Psifire - FF/Psi Defender Lv 50
Star Lighter - LB/LA Peacebringer Lv 30
My main is in semi-retirement now. I still play him, just not to the extent that I used to.
This is mostly because, after 3 YEARS he finally ran out of content that I can do solo. There is stuff I can do still, Ouroboros TFs, a couple of the Shard TFs need done, I have badges to get yet, but he has ZERO normal contacts left that he can get missions from. That put him in semi-retirement. I still log him in for my aforementioned killing sprees, and if someone needs a scrapper for a TF he's my go-to guy, but other than that I have other characters I'm focusing on.
After 3 1/2 years I finally have a controller I like playing (Fire/TA, I don't play him like most Fire controllers, he doesn't have Hot Feet and hovers at range) and a defender that needs 4 more levels before I start soloing GMs (Rad/Sonic of course 
)
And with the next issue I'm sure there will be something new that Claws can do, until then he waits.
I'm all for new content, but I don't think the game really lacks content. There's at least 7 TFs blueside that a 50 can run. I'll agree that redside needs more, but I don't even have a villain in the 40s yet (look at that, something else I can spend time doing) so it's not really an issue for me yet.
I'll reiterate my previous statement: If you are that bored with the game as it stands, then play something else, because the game is unlikely to change enough to keep you interested. At least not overnight.
Also, if the devs release a whole lot more level 50 exclusive content we will run into even more of a problem with people PLing to 50, burning through that content in a few weeks, and making the same "I'm bored, we need more to do" post they made a few weeks earlier. It's kind of a double edged sword and I'm sure the devs are aware of it.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
I'm actually in agreement with the OP somewhat. Relative to the competition, this game doesn't take very long to get to the endgame and the endgame content is not very developed.
Where the OP and I differ is that I LIKE that about CoH. 5-6 years ago I used to have a schedule where I could game for 50-60 hours a week. If I was still doing that, I wouldn't be playing this game. Now i'm playing about 10 hours a week, and yet CoH allows me to still play at the highest possible level of the game.
I gotta make pain. I gotta make things right. I gotta stop what's comin'. 'Least I gotta try.
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I'm actually in agreement with the OP somewhat. Relative to the competition, this game doesn't take very long to get to the endgame and the endgame content is not very developed.
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This is mostly a mindset/habit thing, I believe. The assumption that a player grinds her way to level 50 and then plays the level 50 endgame over and over is something that's been reinforced by dozens of existing MMORPGs, but it's not the only way to approach play.
Consider a hypothetical variant of City of Heroes without levels. It could be implemented by effectively auto-sidekicking every player to level 50all the time; critters would also all be bumped to level 50-54 (depending on difficulty level). TOs and DOs would be replaced by SOs throughout. You would still gain powers and enhancement slots through experience gain, but in principle you could access any of the content at any time (Obviously, tanking Lord Recluse before you got any defensive powers might not be such a hot idea unless you've got lots of buffs, but in principle you could try). As a matter of fact, Rikti invasions and Giant Monsters already work based on similar principles.
In this variant, there is no distinct "endgame" anymore that is separate from the rest of the game. (I'm actually thinking that such a level-free design would have worked better for a superhero game, but that ship has sailed -- you cannot retroactively remove levels without upsetting a lot of the playerbase.)
As it happens, the "real" City of Heroes is actually almost like that if you are level 50. You can access ALL the developer-created content at level 50, either via Ouroboros or as a taskforce/trial. That does mean that you get exemplared if necessary, and you may not like that, but it doesn't mean that that content is banned from you or pointless (in fact, some Ouroboros arcs are specifically done by level 50s for temp powers and a lot of people wait until level 50 before they start on the taskforce commander accolade; that the Katie Hannon TF was a level 30-34 TF did not stop level 50s from running it over and over and over).
Personally, I do not view the game at level 50 as being particularly different from the game at level 30 (pre-SO levels are another story, of course, but they are a topic for a different thread). I would like it if level-based restrictions for taskforces and hazard zones were relaxed a bit, I think, but otherwise it's not as though the game is fundamentally different at level 50 than it is at level 30.
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I'm actually in agreement with the OP somewhat. Relative to the competition, this game doesn't take very long to get to the endgame and the endgame content is not very developed.
Where the OP and I differ is that I LIKE that about CoH. 5-6 years ago I used to have a schedule where I could game for 50-60 hours a week. If I was still doing that, I wouldn't be playing this game. Now i'm playing about 10 hours a week, and yet CoH allows me to still play at the highest possible level of the game.
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What i underlined. Maybe THAT is the problem.
On a sidenote, there is level 50 content as of now and some was added recently ( Dr Khan and Barracuda TF/SF ) but players never can get enough because it simply gets old fast. What more could devs do? Add even more stuff that unlocks more stuff at 50? Gated content and shinies for level 50s? I do not think it would be a good idea. For instance i am very happy they did not gated Cimeroran zone to level 45-50. I think it is best when most content can be run my as many people as possible. Adding even more elite rewards? Another bad idea since players already trivialize most content in the high level as of now. Purples and HOs are way enough elite gear for the game imho and they are Endgame Only content so far.
So what then? Whoever is campaigning for more endgame content, how about giving "specific" exemples of what you would like to see? And how about thinking of something that would have a high replay value for one single character? Thing is, i see none. It all ends getting old and boring ( i am looking at you Hami raid and RWZ raid ). You can only do so much the same thing over and over again with one character.
Personally i keep thinking that devs were geniuses when they decided that the best replayability for their game was to be playing alternate characters.
The AE is another form of more 50 endgame content where players can find crazy challenges devised by other players but know what? Seems like fighting 54 bosses with baseball bats is more popular so what then? I am not sure what players really are expecting and looking for to do at 50 but whatever devs could come with, it seems it would not be what players want. So what players want? Hell if i know. I just don't get it.
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire
It doesn't take long to get to 50 if you wanna PL, but if you take your time and enjoy the journey, doing as much content as possible along the way....it takes quite awhile. This is why I think all the AE farming will ruin the game. All these noobs are goona get bored and leave because they think getting to 50 as fast as possible is the point of the game, when in fact the journey to 50 is what this game is all about. Once you get to 50, eventually things do get repetative and boring.
Can someone tell me what other MMOs have as an "End-Game" that they consider it so dull here?
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
I have a suggestion! Do something besides farms. If you are tired of them, why do them? There's a lot more to the game than farming.
In fact, you could even pop over to Virtue and do a little bit of RPing. That adds an entirely new level to the game!
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I have a suggestion! Do something besides farms. If you are tired of them, why do them? There's a lot more to the game than farming.
In fact, you could even pop over to Virtue and do a little bit of RPing. That adds an entirely new level to the game!
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Personnaly i prefer when my in-game character abilities are put to good use and i can understand players that like playing their 50s with all the powers slotted and available to them.
But that is exactly what AE permits players to do. It IS endgame content if one wishes so. Endless different missions to do with endless different enemies to fight. But know what? Like i said earlyer, players do not seem to see AE as endgame content. What give? They do noy like because there is not enough shinies attached to it? Well then, it is not endgame content these players are looking for, they only want more shinies.
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire
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This is mostly because, after 3 YEARS he finally ran out of content that I can do solo. There is stuff I can do still, Ouroboros TFs, a couple of the Shard TFs need done, I have badges to get yet, but he has ZERO normal contacts left that he can get missions from.
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I was just wondering yesterday if there is a point at 50 where you run out of contacts. 3 years huh?
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Can someone tell me what other MMOs have as an "End-Game" that they consider it so dull here?
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For many games, it's a raid culture. This means (and this is an oversimplification) you must grind for the best loot so that you can contribute and play your role during a raid, join a large clan/guild/etc so that you can do the raid at all, and then attempt the large-scale raid to get the rewards. At some point, there's a level cap raise and new raids introduced and all of your stuff is now worthless.
Repeat the above process.
Now, these raids are designed to be done by large groups of players and some of them have very impressive stories to tell and general spectacle to see. In other words, some of those raids are pretty damn cool. However, the underlying design is one that keeps you perpetually grinding to reach the next carrot, only to have the rug yanked out from under you once you've finally managed to gather all your loot. Personally, I'll pass.
Iscariot's Guide to the Tri-Form Warshade, version 2.1
I'm sorry that math > your paranoid delusions, but them's the breaks -- Nethergoat
P.E.R.C. Rep for Liberty server
"Progression raiding" is actually a fairly logical continuation of the leveling process. Instead of giving you increased power through new levels (and better stats and new powers that come with it), progression raiding increases your power through giving you better gear. The advantage is that gear improvements can be handed out in smaller increments than level improvements, so the process can be spread out longer.
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It doesn't take long to get to 50 if you wanna PL, but if you take your time and enjoy the journey, doing as much content as possible along the way....it takes quite awhile. This is why I think all the AE farming will ruin the game. All these noobs are goona get bored and leave because they think getting to 50 as fast as possible is the point of the game, when in fact the journey to 50 is what this game is all about. Once you get to 50, eventually things do get repetative and boring.
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Uh..one, 50 isnt boring for everyone, and two, one can easily hit 50 in a month without really trying.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
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"Progression raiding" is actually a fairly logical continuation of the leveling process. Instead of giving you increased power through new levels (and better stats and new powers that come with it), progression raiding increases your power through giving you better gear. The advantage is that gear improvements can be handed out in smaller increments than level improvements, so the process can be spread out longer.
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Yes. it also means that for people who enjoy trying things for the lore or for the fun of seeing new things, that theyre FORCED to grind the living hell out of an instance or three they might not enjoy just to get the carrots needed to see the new shiny.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
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"Progression raiding" is actually a fairly logical continuation of the leveling process. Instead of giving you increased power through new levels (and better stats and new powers that come with it), progression raiding increases your power through giving you better gear. The advantage is that gear improvements can be handed out in smaller increments than level improvements, so the process can be spread out longer.
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Yes. it also means that for people who enjoy trying things for the lore or for the fun of seeing new things, that theyre FORCED to grind the living hell out of an instance or three they might not enjoy just to get the carrots needed to see the new shiny.
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An unfortunate side effect of this is that the lower level instances' stories are completely skipped. There are some interesting story bits at low levels that become lost or ignored because the game, as they say, "starts at the level cap" when you use gear as a means to give your players power.
The constant "gear race" is something that turns many people off of the MMO genre, and the fact that our game doesn't require such measures to be effective is likely the major reason it's stuck around so long. We're "the MMO for those who don't like MMOs", so to speak. Players aren't in a gear race if they don't want to be in one, and not being part of the race doesn't rule you out for the prizes at the end. You can play what you want, when you want, for whatever reason you want and (usually) you'll contribute to the team without realizing it.
"Nothing to do at 50" is a mindset. Not everyone shares that mindset, and I'd wager that the majority of CoX's playerbase is of the opinion that there's plenty to do at 50.
Main Hero : Annilixxion -- Lv50 Blaster
Main Villain : Menkaura -- Lv41 Mastermind
@Laxx
"You will bend to my will, with or without your precious sanity." --Dragon Mage
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Yes. it also means that for people who enjoy trying things for the lore or for the fun of seeing new things, that theyre FORCED to grind the living hell out of an instance or three they might not enjoy just to get the carrots needed to see the new shiny.
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Agreed. Just to be clear, I'm not exactly fond of the whole process myself (my husband and I decided after Gurtogg Bloodboil that we really could do better things with our time than following the WoW raid grind). I'm simply saying that it's a logical way for an MMORPG company to extend progress at the maximum level.
It's also why I rather like the fact that City of Heroes doesn't follow that model and why I think that people who want more endgame content similar to WoW may want to be careful what they wish for, lest they get it.
I just want to add that I`m a recent ex-WoW player who was fairly involved in the raid grind. (I was about halfway through the newest instance)
I am so completely sick of it. I should preface this with the fact that I was a healer. All I was ever allowed to do is heal. I was good enough at my job that I could cheese weaker groups through content that they weren't really skilled enough or geared enough to complete otherwise. I was in lots of guilds over the years doing other things, but one thing never changed. I was responsible for other people's ability to even BE in zones, so I was responsible for their fun.
When the last expansion came along I tried to use the level cap upgrade to switch to a tank, for a refreshing change. I got to the end only to find that there were suddenly too many tanks, and nobody wanted to group with me, even though I was decently skilled. There was a huge shortage of healers though, as always because it's as necessary to have in a group as it is not fun. If I wanted to do the shiniest newest stuff, and if I wanted to play/ be useful to my friends and guildmates, I had to go back to heals. /wrist
Three years of pressing the same three buttons were replaced with 6 months of pressing a new set of 4 buttons to do the same thing. Every time I tried something else, the raid culture made everyone try and push me back into it and made me feel selfish.
Fast forward to now: This game is great for me! Nobody cares what I am and what role I`m doing, they just get impressed when I do it well. When I leave, the team doesn't grind to a halt and disband, they smile, wave, and keep going without me. (No matter what I was on!) I don't have to rush to the end of the game to actually play and I can actually find groups for low level stuff. (Which is like, OMG!)
The moral of the story is that having an incredibly unforgiving endgame (in terms of gear/enhancements) will inevitably cause people to go into those endgame areas undergeared/underenhanced. They will die a lot, and then realize that they die less when they have fairly rigid setups. You will have to have this and that and the other thing. Certain specs will be shunned and certain specs will be so important to success that groups will just sit there for hours trying to find one.* People like me will get stuck doing jobs they don't want to because it's the only way they can get their group of friends through the content, and they'll hate you for asking the devs to make the game more like WoW. >_> Don't ruin this game for me! I just found it, and it's perfect for me right now. <3 I hope it stays strong for another 3+ years for me.
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The rest of this is just further ranting that you can ignore, but it's just more reasons not to make this game raid and gear progression centric:
*Blizzard had to make certain buffs not stack with itself and with other buffs from other classes, because people were just stacking lots of certain classes and ignoring others. This would happen with this game if the endgame was regimented in a similar way. There would be cries for nerfs to the stacked things and buffs to the not stacked thing.
Many other miniscule things that don't matter for anyone but undergeared people beating their face on stuff they shouldn't be in will get huge stupid changes that will take dev time away from stuff that actually matters. I dunno a lot about this game yet, but I`m noticing the leadership pool stacks for instance. I bet everyone would be forced to take it. Heck, I bet people would be forced to not even take their travel powers so they can take more stuff that would make them fight better and clear raid bosses more efficiently. (Like the recharge thing in the speed tree and the endurance thing in the fitness tree.)
You'd probably get laughed out of the room for certain builds too. There would be one build that's good for pve and everyone would be that. All brutes would have to be -insert slightly most effiecient according to elitists thing-/-insert slightly most efficient thing according to elitists-, etc. Pretty much, you'd have to kiss that freedom you have in experimenting with builds goodbye, because everyone would expect you to min/max according to what the hardcorest of the hardcore type up in their blogs.
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"Nothing to do at 50" is a mindset. Not everyone shares that mindset, and I'd wager that the majority of CoX's playerbase is of the opinion that there's plenty to do at 50.
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Interestingly, I think this may not have been true much before issues 6-9. The exception would have been people who were well-invested in the social scene, which essentially gave them something to do with the game aside from playing it for combat and reward acquisition.
Once upon time, TFs didn't auto-exemplar team members, and you could not run them if you passed their level range. Newspaper and PvP missions naturally didn't appear until CoV was released, and it was a couple of issues after that when heroes gained police scanner missions.
Before these things there were only two common sources of "repeatable" content - running level 50 contact content with other people (the Praetorian arcs were a common favorite) or visiting the place that had repeatable contacts that had been in the game since Issue 2: the Shadow Shard. Of course, the Shard is considered out of the way, often viewed as difficult to traverse (it used to not have the extra gates and wormholes it does now) and its foes are some of the more challenging around. That combination didn't make those repeatable contacts wildly popular.
It would be a huge omission to fail to mention that level capped characters gained something new to strive for in I9 with Inventions.
So I think that, once upon a time, there was far less reason to play a 50. Multiple things have changed that make it more reasonable now, and possibly actively attractive. I know that I rarely played my 50s before issue 9, and now I play my 50s more than my lower-level alts.
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
Could not have said it any better Falafelcopter!
And welcome to CoX. Hope you have a good time playing whatever you want whatever way you want
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire
For me I have always seen lvl 50 as the death of my characters. Prior to IOs those characters didnt get any playtime unless it was for a badge or something. Now I only play my lvl 50 to get merits or tickets to cash in for IOs or salvage. Outside of IOs I have no use for level 50 characters as that time could be used towards another toon. I would say the biggest advantage of playing a lvl 50 is how easily you can twink out your other toons due to that. To me thats been a huge help in making many powersets playable to me that previously I couldnt even stomach to play.
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
Uberguy: While these things you say are true... City of Villains was four YEARS ago. Used to be there were no respecs either. . . free, bought,earned, nuttin'. Been a long time since that was true, too.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Uberguy: While these things you say are true... City of Villains was four YEARS ago. Used to be there were no respecs either. . . free, bought,earned, nuttin'. Been a long time since that was true, too.
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I'm not sure where you're going in pointing that out.
I'm saying there used to be nothing much to do with 50s, and that's no longer true.
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
Okay, a couple of things
1) Characterizing the game as "young and growing" is not really erroneous. There's a new box on the shelves and we've got an expansion on the way. This is not EQ. In MMO terms we're still relatively young and we are most certainly growing. Speaking of the game in the past tense or characterizing it as dead/dying/stagnant is a significant overstatement, to the point of hyperbole.
It's not just 'roll an alt'. In addition to Hamidon and Rikti Mothership raids (the two 'classic raid' style content pieces we have), there are a plethora of TFs, there's badgehunting, there's Inventions including the sought-after Purple recipes, there's PvP, there's a number of social events run by players, there's RP and there's a regular infusion of new content to try.
If a player is one of those that simply must be getting 'phat lewt' or leveling up in order to feel a play session is worthwhile then this probably isn't the game to be playing. There's purples, of course, but the game isn't centered on having them the way a raid culture game like WoW is. You don't need the phat lewt to participate in the top-tier content. You don't need it for anything other than bragging rights. The additional power is nice but not necessary. The day the Devs turn away from that fundamental design philosophy is the day they lose a lot of players. And I mean a lot.
2) WoW is an aberration. Comparing this game or any MMO to WoW is not a valid comparison. Arguments that say "this game could be like WoW if it did X..." are usually invalid. WoW is the phenomenon it is because it's made by Blizzard. It's based on the known and popular IP that Blizzard introduced in the RTS Warcraft games and, more importantly, Blizzard has a huge bank to sink into promotion, demo CDs, advertisments, etc to promote the game.
No other MMO has anything close to that and no changes to the gameplay of any MMO is going to give it WoW's numbers unless you can put a bankroll comparable to Blizzard's behind it. This MMO is a success by the standards of the industry. The fact that NCSoft bought the IP and is further developing it supports this.
Some more stuff to do at 50 wouldn't be a bad idea, but we already have a good deal of things to do for those that choose to take advantage of them. Changing the game over to an endgame-centric raid culture like that of WoW would be a serious misstep.
Iscariot's Guide to the Tri-Form Warshade, version 2.1
I'm sorry that math > your paranoid delusions, but them's the breaks -- Nethergoat
P.E.R.C. Rep for Liberty server