Is Cryptic and NCSoft just getting Lazy?


Amy_Amp

 

Posted

Greetings all. I havn't posted in a while and since my return to a game I once enjoyed immencely I've seen and experienced a few new things that have risen some concern in my mind. So here we go...

Lag- What has happened? Everytime I log in here recently it's the same story... 1-2 minutes at the primary entrance loading screen. Then, if I'm lucky, I'm on and good for a while. If I'm not... getting more than 15 minutes of play time is awesome.
"It's your computer..." Nope. Comps runnin at Above Recomended requirments.
"It's your time of day playing..." Maybe, but at 3am central... I doubt it.
My answer to it... Cryptic has just gotten lazy and hasn't bothered increasing the load capacity of their servers. Hence the "Red Out's" and "Black Outs" on the more popular servers. Got servers with minimal population. Low, or maybe even 0 pop... Simple... Drop those servers and give their bandwidth to 1 of the more populated servers.

Now Lag I can deal with. Hell it's MMO life right. Here's my second and more prominent gripe...

Recycled Content- What's the point in Veteran Rewards? Customizable Content (i.e. Mission Architect)? Invention System? To keep players? Not likely. The invention system alone is aggrivating at best. Having to suffer through the lag of ppl who do nothing but log in and out at the "Aution House". The prices are seriously in need of reworks, and there is absolutly NO reason that any... and I mean ANY piece of salvage should be costing in the Millions of Influence/Infamy.

Veteran Rewards has got to be the most nicely thought out but poorly executed system thought up. I mean seriously... 6 of the rewards are the Same Exact Thing! WTF?! I'm wasting 6 months to a year to get the same "Rewards" I was already awarded? I mean understandably the well runs dry from time to time but come on...

Mission Architect- Ok, I like the idea. Conceptualy it's sound. In practice it aint to bad either save 1 massive flaw... You've spent the last 4 years trying to eliminate Power Leveling, Mission Farming, etc. Things you (NcSoft/Cryptic) consider "Game Breaking"... Ummm, you just gave me the ability to remake ANY old mission that was "Nerf'd" with a timer... and Now... I can farm it for as long as I want on any charater I want and never have to do a single solitary mission. What... You didn't like the game content that was designed. Sure players were farming missions before. It was all fine and dandy... but now. Hell you can't find a team for Anything outside of the AE... Forget trying to do SF/TF's. Can't solo em obviously... can't get a team together for em. Everyone's to busy in the AE makin stupid *** farming missions that a lvl 1 could complete in their sleep... Just get tired of makin your programmers do their job?

Inventions- Ok gettin my first big one outta the way... Wings were designed as a Vet Reward ONLY... WTF!! No need to wait the 18 months for em... just farm up whatever type ya want and boom... good to go. No, you can't get the Angel/Demon wings from Invention Recipe's... I know... but every other wing type looks better anyway... so who cares right? What... were HO's not good enough. They do the same thing, and... They were Worth getting. You had to Work for em.. IO's... Pfft... Over Powered...

"Game content was not made harder with the introduction of Invention Origin Enhancements..."

No offence... It should have been! With fully slotted IO's... Nothing... NOTHING is a challendge... Sure my tank can't kill a Giant Monster solo... but it can't kill me either... Can barely hit me... spent 10million Inf just to find out if OP was the right term for IO's... and I was right.

So honestly Cryptic/NCSoft... What gives? Recycle/Reuse... is that the new motto? Or is this MMO going the route of so many others...
"We don't know what to do now. Our mythology behind it has gone to **** cause we've tried to change it so everyone's happy. Umm... ok gimme that mission file... *change boss name... change enemy type... * Guys... I just made a new mission... we can call it New Content"

To anyone that is insulted by this... Sorry. Get thicker skin. It's the internet.. and this is Freedom of Speech...


Fyre


 

Posted

Actually, I think Cryptic are very, very busy right now

They sold the came to NCSoft, so it's just NCSoft who run the show now - and they've not exactly been lazy either - the dev team is now almost 4 times bigger than it was near the end of Cryptic's time in charge, and there are some pretty awesome things planned for the future, including Power Customization and the Going Rogue system.

And welcome back too


@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

It's far too late for me to go through this entire post, but I will address one point:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post

Lag- What has happened? Everytime I log in here recently it's the same story... 1-2 minutes at the primary entrance loading screen. Then, if I'm lucky, I'm on and good for a while. If I'm not... getting more than 15 minutes of play time is awesome.
"It's your computer..." Nope. Comps runnin at Above Recomended requirments.
"It's your time of day playing..." Maybe, but at 3am central... I doubt it.
My answer to it... Cryptic has just gotten lazy and hasn't bothered increasing the load capacity of their servers. Hence the "Red Out's" and "Black Outs" on the more popular servers. Got servers with minimal population. Low, or maybe even 0 pop... Simple... Drop those servers and give their bandwidth to 1 of the more populated servers.
  • Aside from licensing the game engine to Paragon Studios, Cryptic has nothing to do with this game anymore.
  • NCSoft has upgraded server capacity ... several times, in fact!
  • It may be neither your PC nor the game servers. It could very well be some point between the two that is responsible for your lag. Have you tried running a traceroute? I'm currently connecting to the North American servers from the Eastern coast of England, and I haven't been experiencing any noticeable increases in lag.
  • It's double xp weekend right now. The most populous servers (Freedom, Virtue, and Infinity) are likely to be very full. This could cause lag.
  • No servers are empty. The devs are not going to merge servers anytime soon. It is not necessary, since the numbers for this game are actually going up (according to The Ocho/Mod8 at Comic-Con).
Somebody else, please feel free to take the rest of the post. I'm going to bed.


Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."

 

Posted

*passes the OP a flame proof suit*


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
My answer to it... Cryptic has just gotten lazy and hasn't bothered increasing the load capacity of their servers.
1: Cryptic?

2: Don't call them lazy, it invalidates anything you say because it's total bull ****.


 

Posted

/unsigned

Sorry, same stuff has been hashed over and over in a multitude of threads. Insulted? Not a bit. For the most part, we don't see the game the same way, but hey, I am responsible for what I enjoy. If you aren't happy with the game, sorry to hear that, but me, I am having a blast.

I appreciate all the hard work that the Dev's have put into and are putting into this game.

No, I don't have blinders on, but I won't let any issues with the game prevent me from enjoying the game, because I do enjoy playing it. If I was as upset as you seem to be with the game, I wouldn't even continue playing the game.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
My answer to it... Cryptic has just gotten lazy and hasn't bothered increasing the load capacity of their servers.
Can tell you've been gone a while - IIRC:

Cryptic sold the IP to NC back in November 2007. Virtually all the CoX devs from Cryptic moved to NC to form a new studio (Paragon Studios).

Jack Emmert/Statesman/Jackalope stayed with Cryptic who are now working on Champions Online (in beta).

AFAIK the core graphics engine for CoX was developed by Cryptic and PS/NC have effectively licensed it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
Inventions- Ok gettin my first big one outta the way... Wings were designed as a Vet Reward ONLY... WTF!!
IIRC the veterans wings were always touted as the first/introductory way to get wings. I don't think it was ever stated that they'd stay exclusively for vets, even though the vets designs are exclusive.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
"Game content was not made harder with the introduction of Invention Origin Enhancements..."

No offence... It should have been! With fully slotted IO's... Nothing... NOTHING is a challendge... Sure my tank can't kill a Giant Monster solo... but it can't kill me either... Can barely hit me... spent 10million Inf just to find out if OP was the right term for IO's... and I was right.
The existing game content shouldn't be made harder - you need to keep the baseline difficulty the same for people who don't have the time/energy/will to spend great amounts of time getting an uber-build.




But you're right that more difficult challenges were needed, though to a great extent that's either been done or is about to be done:
  • MA missions allow for much more difficult missions than the existing standard dev-content.
  • I16 will see you able to set a wider range of difficulties, and decouples mob level from spawn size.
  • GR promises more difficult challenges for 50s, and I'd imagine that we'll be seeing more difficult challenges in non-GR content before too long.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
Mission Architect- Ok, I like the idea. Conceptualy it's sound. In practice it aint to bad either save 1 massive flaw... You've spent the last 4 years trying to eliminate Power Leveling, Mission Farming, etc. Things you (NcSoft/Cryptic) consider "Game Breaking"... Ummm, you just gave me the ability to remake ANY old mission that was "Nerf'd" with a timer... and Now... I can farm it for as long as I want on any charater I want and never have to do a single solitary mission. What... You didn't like the game content that was designed. Sure players were farming missions before. It was all fine and dandy... but now. Hell you can't find a team for Anything outside of the AE... Forget trying to do SF/TF's. Can't solo em obviously... can't get a team together for em. Everyone's to busy in the AE makin stupid *** farming missions that a lvl 1 could complete in their sleep... Just get tired of makin your programmers do their job?
I don't think the devs have a great problem with farming anymore as long as the risk:reward ratio stays within a reasonable range (the devs' idea of reasonable).

Yeah Dreck was 'nerfed' - but that was nearly 3 years ago iirc - a lot happens in 3 years and I think the view changed to an acceptance of some farming/Pling.

The only real problem with MA is the ability to massively skew the risk:reward ratio so that the risk drops to practically zero (e.g. dolls, multiple bubblers and mitos). It's that that's lead to an abundance of farming/PLing as the free meal is sooooo attractive to most people.

On that I think the devs wil get some balance (although I disagree strongly with the methods that the devs tend to react to 'exploits' due to their damaging affect on non-farm story arcs). Balance will take time though and until then the MA does have many potentially damaging side effects.

But regarding not being able to find a non-AE team: I take it you do actively try to create your own teams to do non-AE arcs/TFs?


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Posted

Having read the whole of yours post... everything you say is wrong... absolutally everything, not a single thing is true or without error...


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
To anyone that is insulted by this... Sorry. Get thicker skin. It's the internet.. and this is Freedom of Speech...
If you are going to rant here, at least make it look credible. This means getting the most basic of all facts correct and maybe using a browser that has a spell checker. You may have the freedom to post this kind of stuff, but I sure as hell wouldn't recommend doing it as bad as you did.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
Lag- What has happened? Everytime I log in here recently it's the same story... 1-2 minutes at the primary entrance loading screen. Then, if I'm lucky, I'm on and good for a while. If I'm not... getting more than 15 minutes of play time is awesome.
"It's your computer..." Nope. Comps runnin at Above Recomended requirments.
"It's your time of day playing..." Maybe, but at 3am central... I doubt it.
My answer to it... Cryptic has just gotten lazy and hasn't bothered increasing the load capacity of their servers.
Nope. It really *IS* your computer. The servers have been upgraded. You admit you've been gone a while - the game is more demanding than it used to be. And, FYI, the 'Recommended Requirements' are a pathetic joke.


Paragon City Search And Rescue
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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
To anyone that is insulted by this... Sorry. Get thicker skin. It's the internet.. and this is Freedom of Speech...
Quite clueless, aren't you? This is a privately owned forum. Freedom of speech does not apply.

If they decide your posts are offensive, the moderators can edit and/or delete every one of your posts and there isn't jack you can do about it.


Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project

 

Posted

^ What they all said, basically.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
WAAAAAAAAHHHH!
Some cheese to go with your whine, sir?


 

Posted

Maybe if you came out of the stone age of COH and played the CURRENT game, you'd have more fun than trying to compare it to your glory days of fire tanks and pre-ed crap.

Seriously. Dude.

Get better equipment, make sure your internet connection is actually working *all the way from your computer to NC's servers* (there can be up to what, 16+ connections between you and them, any of which might be broken or slow), read up on the changes in the game and metagame before sticking your foot in your mouth.

Really.

And how about this: I have met the devs at several cons and meets. You want to call them lazy? Why not tell it to their faces, because I'm pretty sure they'd love to hear you. Maybe they'll explain how much work it is keeping this game flowing and updated. Or maybe you're just whining because your fire tanker doesn't herd whole zones any more?


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Posted

Is our children learning?


@Demobot

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Demobot View Post
Is our children learning?
The OP sure didn't.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Living_Fyre View Post
To anyone that is insulted by this... Sorry. Get thicker skin. It's the internet.. and this is Freedom of Speech...


Fyre
First, Freedom of Speech does not apply. Second, pretty much everything you said is wrong. I would go into details, but what I quoted proves you're not the type to listen to reason.


 

Posted

Sorry to hear your so upset, but I love most of the changes the Dev's have done for us.

As to the lag issues, it still can be your computer. I was having lag and freeze ups on both my rigs. One is at my home and happens to be 4 1/2 years old. I have upgraded it a couple of years ago. Even upgraded my internet service recently. I was still getting lag. Then it was suggested to me to check my registry. So I spent $25 and got a nice little registry cleaning program, and it worked. So I put it on my rig at my BF's, which happens to be 2 years old , and it help that one too. I have a better running computer now with almost no lag/freeze ups (can still get it at times at his house cause they have wireless internet). So just check your registry that might be the problem, never hurts to check it anyway.

just my two cents....


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Posted

Judging by the tone and content of your post....

Seeya man and can I have your stuff? I mean hell you've just essentially eliminated almost every reason why you should have come back or what there is to do in the game. So since you've already made the argument that coming back was pointless I suppose you'll be living again? So I reiterate... can I have your stuff


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Posted

You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?



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Posted

Quote:
No, you can't get the Angel/Demon wings from Invention Recipe's... I know... but every other wing type looks better anyway
That all depends on what wing type your character calls for. None of the wings are really comparable to each other. Exceptions are the Angelic and Valkyrie Wings and the Demonic and Dragon Wings. And which one looks better once again depends on what would suit the character best.

I have some that look best with Dragon Wings, and some that look best with the Demon Wings. Likewise, I have quite a few that look proper with the Angelic Wings, and probably as many that look right with the Valkyrie Wings.


 

Posted

Boy, this thread is one big bowl of sunshine, isn't it? First thing I get to see in the new forums is an ill-informed, low-brow rant that doesn't even have a point. Well, business as usual, then.

For what it's worth, it's always funny when people start clamouring against "recycled content" like customization of powers, costumes and even missions is stuff NOBODY wanted. And as for making the enemies harder, let's all remember the boss buff of I4 and agree to never speak of such nonsense again.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

Posted

The OP did spark one idea, though, that I'm a bit too tired to go look it up myself in the Technical/Bugs section...

... do we have instructions there for how to run a traceroute from an individual's computer to the NCsoft servers, so that (should the info prove a significant loss of rate) the individual can pass it along to either their ISP or the tech support guys at NCsoft?

If it's an ISP issue, router issue (as in internet, not as in wireless thing you have in your house), or even backbone server issue (rare, but it does happen), then grousing at the NCsoft team is useless because the lag is not their fault.

Just something to consider.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite View Post
... do we have instructions there for how to run a traceroute from an individual's computer to the NCsoft servers, so that (should the info prove a significant loss of rate) the individual can pass it along to either their ISP or the tech support guys at NCsoft?
On the NCSoft support pages there's a page (answer id 4891, at least at http://uk.support.ncsoft.com) which links to a traceroutey type diagnostic tool that has the various NCSoft game servers programmed into it so you can send the resulting text file to their support and/or your isp.

ftp://ftp.coh.com/support_tool/ in case that answer id is specific to the UK pages.