OMG THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
By
7thCynic,
Posted on: 2009-07-16 11:58 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Patch that brought the current spawn rules: 2008-03-05
Patch that brought the interim 'never spawn below the minimum' was 2008-02-12 and was obviously chnaged by the above.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
Hooray and thank you for the new difficulty settings! I expect to see broadcast spam shrink drastically now. I am going to put my favorite tank through the wringer and see how good she really is. Invinicible wasn't hard enough (except for AVs).
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So the time investiture really isn't much of an argument if you ask me. So A and C in Billz' list are pointless. Leaving only B: The Antisocial player.
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Also D: The player who wants the full story, and to take it at his/her own pace.
Putting together a team of 8 people to do a TF may not be that difficult. Putting together a team of 8 people who don't want to speed run it is difficult.
I like TFs - there's a lot of good stuff in them - interesting stories, unique maps, encounters and enemies. I'm just tired of going to the Wiki following a TF to find out what I just did.
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Putting together a teamof eight that wants to roleplay it on a server other than Virtue....
I and a friend have 50s on Liberty(who have been 50 for quite awhile) that haven't done the LGTF yet because the LGTF is very important to character story. Finding a team that is willing to do the task force long form fighting through every map, not killing Infernia and Glacia, and who are RPers and willing to spend add in a couple extra hours for RP? It is not going to happen.
Doing the TF otherwise would be a killjoy for these characters.
It's an extreme example, but it is one case where duoing a TF that is a teamsize of 8 would be useful. We could load up on warheads, shivans, HVAS, warwolves, wedding rings, etc.
I can see why the developers would not want to do this. I believe the TF merit farming by certain builds(*cough* Ill/rad soloists) and PLing characters with those builds specificially to do so would occur. It would also have an effect on teaming. Why build a team for a TF if you and a few friends could solo it? That's desirable from my POV, not necessarily from the developers'.
I agree that forced teaming is bad for a game. It's why I play COH where I can solo just about everything instead of other games where I can solo just about nothing.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
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Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
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I can see why the developers would not want to do this. I believe the TF merit farming by certain builds(*cough* Ill/rad soloists) and PLing characters with those builds specificially to do so would occur.
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There is nothing really stopping those who want to farm TF's for merits solo from doing so now. The type of player that is dedicated/hardcore enough to want to farm TF's for merits, is not deterred by the current requirement to pad the team to start a TF.
Add to that, the whole point of farming is to maximize rewards vs. time. There would be very few, if any, players or builds that could speed through any of the TF's faster than the current speed teams. The only exception to this that I can see, is Positron, which can actually be done much faster with a small team or solo.
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Now you know why I think this idea is perhaps the most intelligent thing they could have done - buff the ability for farming so it would be discouraged? Who knew?
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Remove the necessity to have fillers and padders and thus PLing lowbies, many of whom are new to the game.
Farming isn't the real evil, PLing AE newbies is.
That's my take on this. I'm glad to see the change.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
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I'm confused by this sorry if I do not understand - which zone are you taking your AE missions in?
I go to Peregrine with my 50's when I want to do AE missions - never see any lowbies there 
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Well, that's a change from the old PI, eh?
Redside doesn't have an AE in Grandville (if it does, they hid it well). The zone of choice has become Cap Au Diable. It's the most convenient zone, having the university, market, vault, and AE in one small convenient location. There's a small bit of satisfaction saying 'no, thank you' to the beggars.
The focus of the post was that come issue 16, the need for the role of the padder is gone - and with it, the non-contributing doorsitter, which includes the lowbie, whether or not he's trying to brawl a ~50 to death. This is why I'm happy.
Oh and of course, the end result of encouraging these lowbies to get out of the game and play. The cynic in me tells me that the lowbies will just offer to pay for their levels, which will leave them broke, at which point they will post on the forums asking for more inf drops.
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Seriously, though, to the best of my knowledge we won't be changing minimum sizes of TF's/SF's. The minimum sizes stand as "warning labels" to newer players that these missions are more difficult/time consuming/whatever than other missions. It's a small, but important function.
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TF team sizes really need to change, besides the Positron TF and Numina TF of the original 6, they all have AV's at the end. Why would you need more players to defeat the AV's as the levels increase? Hopkins is no harder than Vandal, and I think the Clockwork King and Clamor are tougher than either, but require less to start. All TF's should be at least lowered to 4 to start, and provide a recommended number of players, I think the new TF's do this. The shard tf's I think would get a lot more play as well if the starting requirements were lowered.
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Oh and of course, the end result of encouraging these lowbies to get out of the game and play. The cynic in me tells me that the lowbies will just offer to pay for their levels, which will leave them broke, at which point they will post on the forums asking for more inf drops.
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The other week I rolled a new character on Freedom about an hour after the Hami fix went live. While running around battling Hellions I saw several people in broadcast offering to pay for a spot on a farm team. Presumably lvl 1s aren't in much demand for the boss farms...
So if that was the immediate response to being shut out of just one type of farm then Atlas Park broadcast when I16 goes live should definitely provide some free entertainment
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As you continue to ignore that the difficulty will remain the same (minimum 7 team members means all spawns stay set for 7 members even if you're solo) you will continue to lack any punch with the statement "the task will be degraded."
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um, are you aware that they do NOT work this way now?
If you start a task force with a minimum of 7, and then 5 quit the TF, it will spawn for two.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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As you continue to ignore that the difficulty will remain the same (minimum 7 team members means all spawns stay set for 7 members even if you're solo) you will continue to lack any punch with the statement "the task will be degraded."
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um, are you aware that they do NOT work this way now?
If you start a task force with a minimum of 7, and then 5 quit the TF, it will spawn for two.
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Covered later on. The fact that TF/SFs degrade themselves now pretty much shot the whole case of "allowing them to be started by a soloist would degrade the worth of the TF/SF" out of the water.
Allowing the soloist to start the TF/SF but only if his VTDS was set at or above the minimum team size called for means that the TF/SF would retain its intended content difficulty, thus improving on the current implementation. Especially if you were incapable of lowering the VTDS while in TF mode.
Be well, people of CoH.
Thanks! Today: I learned somthing.
*files info away for future reference*
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They drop to match however many players are left on the TF, whether they are logged on or not. Example: 8 players start a Positron TF. 6 quit, leaving 2. New spawns will be sized for 2 players.
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Hmm, that is not my understanding of it, I thought that is how it used to work, but they changed it to not go below the minimum requirements of the TF some time ago (about I10 or 11). Hmmm, I wonder how easy it is to verify this.
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Very easy. Start a Posi TF with 3 people. Notice that many spawns now contain bosses and the size of those spawns. Have one person quit the TF. Spawns are now smaller, and there are no annoying bosses, other than the ones that are mission objectives.
I run Posi solo or duo about once a week or more, and I can verify that this is the way it works.