Disappointed

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Originally Posted by Not_Rhino I did not say Going Rogue was a bag of crap, nor did I suggest anyone else thought so. I was merely expressing how I view many of the elitist members of this forum, who have a tendency to defend the game and the developers even to the point of pretense, and give a ridiculous example in which that kind of attitude would be extremely unhelpful. I did not make any accusations, nor did I ever say I was disappointed personally with this game. You crack a joke about my supposed inability to comprehend classical debate techniques (something I admittedly have no interest in), but your inability to even read my previous posts in full before commenting on them is obvious. I did not come here to debate. I did not come here to make accusations. I have not done either, at least not intentionally. I was merely trying to offer another perspective to those who are unable to comprehend the idea of disappointment with the new expansion and its announced features. And someone DID say that the opinions of anyone who is disappointed with GR's announced features should be "disregarded", in fact it was on the very last page. What was also on the very last page was a post by me, in which I expressed my own personal excitement over some of Going Rogue's features.

Alright. Seems like I misunderstood your post. It sounded like you were accusing me of something. I'm sorry for that.

Back to the point at hand, however, it's just a matter of exprience. I'm honestly shocked that you think the elitist members are defending the game. I've seen countless people with the "I'm a veteran in CoH. I don't like how CoH is doing. My opinion is better than your opinion! And if you don't listen to me, I'm unsubscribing."

I just think your examples back there was extremely over-the-top, and that you're having a biased view on things. And as I said, anyone who believe the opinion of their opposition should be disregarded is really just plugging their ears and screaming "LALALALALA!"...which is not really something mature human beings generally do.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

I see a lot of those posts as well, but the typical poster of such things has very few forum posts and doesn't read the forums much. Many of the, uh, "high post count" folks tend to have a ridiculously positive, almost blind view of the game. I've been in lots of heated discussions on the forums before, usually with people ganging up on me when I disagree with something the devs do or express dissatisfaction over something in the game. Such behavior is neither mature nor constructive, but it happens. Look at the guy who made this thread, and how much negative rep he got as a result. And it's not like he was trolling, or being inappropriate or rude. He just expressed his disappointment, and he was bombarded with negativity, name-calling and just immature, destructive responses in general.

I should hope so, but I don't like to have too high an opinion of myself because it leads me to fall into a sense of arrogance that is REALLY dangerous in the long run. I'd rather be clear of people's appraisals (which is why I read my rep comments even though I have rep turned off) than to assume they mean well because I'm so awesome. Hence, the question of clarification.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

*rollingfacedesk*

Am I losing my mind or did I accidentally step into the twilight zone? You don't think there will be more than the two new powerset in Going Rogue because... What? Because they weren't announced? Thing back to how much you knew about City of Villains 6 months before it was released. Did you have a printout of all "10" new powersets that you could point to and say "Here, that's what will be in it!" Because, you know what? I was in CoV Beta, and who had what changed TREMENDOUSLY over just the last few weeks. A couple of examples:

Up until one point, Brutes had access to Ice Melee and Ice Armour. I even had an Ice/Ice Brute back in Beta, but we were asked to delete all Ice Brutes and not play them any more, so I did. This happened no more than a month before release, and more like a couple of weeks. Two whole sets, gone. *poof*

Masterminds only had access to Ninja, Robots and Zombies for the majority of Beta. Mercenaries weren't in the game at all. Not as half a set, not as a placeholder set, not even in name only. They were plain not in the game in the slightest. A few weeks before Launch, *pop* We now have a new primary: Mercenaries! This was no more than a few weeks before the end of Beta. I was pretty active on the Beta forums, and I never saw even a hint that the new set was coming before I saw it in the actual game, though it's obviously possible I could have missed it. I know for a fact positive that NO-ONE outside of Beta had any idea that this set was coming at all, not up until Launch, unless a friend of a friend leaked it around.

Basically, that's why I find it so mind-bogglingly unreasonable to try and guesstimate what will be in Going Rogue. I'm not exactly a veteran of many Betas, but having seen how the CoV Beta went and how much we under the NDA knew vs how pretty much diddly squat regular players knew, I wouldn't even begin to try and ascertain what may or may not have been left unsaid.

I just don't get this "they didn't say it, so it won't be in" mentality. They WON'T tell you much of anything now OR later, and may only start dropping hints and disclosing "sneak peeks" when the expansion rolls around to Launch time. You will never ever get a full list of features half a year before the product is even finished.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

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Originally Posted by Not_Rhino I see a lot of those posts as well, but the typical poster of such things has very few forum posts and doesn't read the forums much. Many of the, uh, "high post count" folks tend to have a ridiculously positive, almost blind view of the game. I've been in lots of heated discussions on the forums before, usually with people ganging up on me when I disagree with something the devs do or express dissatisfaction over something in the game. Such behavior is neither mature nor constructive, but it happens. Look at the guy who made this thread, and how much negative rep he got as a result. And it's not like he was trolling, or being inappropriate or rude. He just expressed his disappointment, and he was bombarded with negativity, name-calling and just immature, destructive responses in general.

Well of course that's the case. People who are on the forums with high post counts are people are genuinely love this game, me included. Why would someone who DOESN'T like this game be on the forums to begin with to agree with your negative opinions?

Personally, I try not to bash on people who disagree with me on something. But a lot of people do; it's a natural theme on internet forums. So...you go into a forum full of people who love this game, post a negative opinion regarding a change a ridiculous portion of the community is super-excited about, and you expect to be handled maturely? It's called "party pooping". Of course you'd get a negative reaction, mature or otherwise.

Sadly, people who want to express their negative opinions in the middle of a group of people who are partying happily over the said opinions don't even try to make it subtle. If the original poster of this thread didn't attack Going Rogue so bluntly, maybe he would've gotten more mature, serious responses.

Regardless, that still don't provide justification for your example. This very same crowd who are partying over GR aren't as blind/stupid as you put it. At least not most of them.

Speaking for myself, I'd have paid $20 for CoH: GR even if the only feature they included was a graphics upgrade. As of now, I'm more than satisfied with GR, and logic tells me that I can only be more and more satisfied about GR as months go by. But I'm not someone who'd pay money for a genuine piece of crap (i.e. City of Heroes: Bag of Poo). I actually told a lot of my friends that if GR doesn't come with a graphics upgrade, I'm leaving the game.

I just think you're generalizing and exaggerating too much.

Because they were the issues with the most visible improvements or gameplay extensions. If your theory was correct, they would *also* tend to be the issues with the largest nerfs, because your theory is that when the devs want to nerf, they wait until they can bundle it in an issue with enough positive changes to balance out. PvP was certainly a highly requested feature back then, as was power customization. Neither came with large nerfs, relative to the average issue. XP smoothing and the Architect were heavily marketed and (at least initially) well received announcements, so they should have also been significant targets for bundling nerfs, but neither of those did either (at least, not planned ones).

On the negative side, there's no question that the PvP changes were performance reductions, and the devs had a pretty good idea they would be very controversial. That means, according to your theory, they should have saved them for an issue they could have offset them with a major positive change. But they didn't do that either.


So your theory is that the devs always bury large performance decreases of the order of ED in content issues, and your evidence is the *one* time there was a performance decrease on the order of ED, and every single other large-scale performance reduction is an exception to your theory?

Is that your final answer, or would you like to phone a friend.


Your theory is already wrong no matter what happens. If your theory is that the sun will rise tomorrow because the sun likes pizza, that theory would be wrong as well regardless of what happens tomorrow. If you're simply guessing wildly that GR will have DR, you're either right or wrong. If you assert that you have a theory that suggests you're right, that theory can be right or wrong regardless of whether GR has DR or not. In this case, there's no evidence for your theory.


Good question. When ED was announced both Pilcrow and I did analyses showing that for damage-dealers ED was unlikely to reduce overall damage output for the average player by a significant amount provided the blasters changed slotting to an ED-conformant slotting. Only characters loaded with HOs would see a strong difference. So for blasters in particular (who tend to have limited defenses) ED was unlikely to affect the performance of the average player, but its also true that total damage output in general was unlikely to drop by much, and as a result the average performance (xp progression in particular) of the playerbase was unlikely to go down by much. In fact, when you combine the damage calculations with the notoriety sweet-spot calculations that were done at the same time, the conclusion I reached was that ED was likely to steer players towards higher XP reward levels (i.e. around +2/+3) which would counterbalance by a significant percentage any reduction in overall kill speed due to ED. ED was more likely to moderate extremes than reduce performance across the board ("performance" in this case being xp progression and reward earning rates). The largest impact to average player performance was going to come from the reduction in available endurance, which was mostly mitigated by the endurance normalization changes.

The difference between ED and DR is that ED has an extremely sharp cutoff, while DR has a much shallower diminishing curve. This means ED tends to act as a "soft-cap" while DR acts as an actual across-the-board performance reducer. DR would have a much higher numerical effect on *everyone's* performance than ED would.

Put it another way: you can't even *notice* ED until you get to the point where you can slot SOs *and* are slotting more than three of them into a single power. You'd notice DR in the teens.

On the subject of average players noticing a 20% difference in damage. I'm pretty sure they can notice that. That's only about half the archetypal difference between blasters and defenders (42%).


Now, since the GDN was released in I5, long before CoV, the GDN is an exception to your theory, not a supporting fact. Unless your theory is that the devs want to release strong performance reductions in sync with other positive changes or several months before positive changes in which case your theory falls into the category of "can't be disproved, because says nothing."


Just as an aside, I don't think that word means what you think it means.

I'm referring explicitly to the fact that Defiance 2.0 was designed to improve blaster performance in a significant way, because blasters as an archetype were lagging average performance by a wide margin (wide margin in this case being > 25%). As Defiance 2.0 includes a significant damage boost, your assertion that PvE DR would not affect PvE performance is without foundation. It doesn't matter if mezzed-shooting is "more significant" than the damage buff, it only matters if the damage buff is material. For your assertion to be true that PvE DR would have no effect on PvE balance, you have to demonstrate that the damage buff in Defiance 2.0 is immaterial. That if it was removed entirely, blaster PvE performance would not be materially affected.

Good luck.


I am not arguing it both ways. You're saying the devs have "invested" a lot of time in DR that they have every intention of leveraging by applying DR to PvE. I'm saying that *if* they apply DR with the PvP numbers that will cause all sorts of problems including ones you dismiss - namely that it would alter the performance of at least some archetypes enough to be a problem. My numbers are only there to prove that is true: that applying DR with the PvP numbers - the only way to "leverage" that time investment - creates problems.

The only way to dodge those problems is to redo DR with different A/B values. And that means virtually all of the time investment the devs made into DR for PvP is not transferable to PvE. Which means your assertion that the *reason* the devs are likely to apply DR to PvE is due to the time investment is false: no such investment helps. The *only* time that can be leveraged is the time spent adding the tech, which was low relative to the time spent attempting to balance the PvP DR parameters.


Actually, if they always intended to apply DR to PvP and PvE, then applying it to PvP alone first required significantly more work by Castle: he had to add all of the PvP requires clauses into all the player powers, and work to get maps tagged with PvP flags.


Yeah: as I said before, my issue is not with your DR guess, but with the fact that your theory itself is foundationless. That means right or wrong, its basically doom-crying. I actually have no strong guess as to whether GR will include PvE DR or not. In fact, all other things being equal, I'll assert that it would be more likely that GR would have some form of DR (but not the PvP one) if I was in charge than the chances of the devs deciding to implement it. But that only means I think the probability is low, not exactly zero.


Only one of us is far more certain than they have any right to be.

As someone who's been posting on these forums for a long time, I can tell you that this argument was funny back in 2004-2005, when the "fanboy" moniker was still in style and people who used it weren't just laughed out of discussions on face value. These days, it's more trite than anything else. It's a needlessly one-sided argument that reduces the validity of people with a positive outlook to nothing more than mindless worship of a game DESPITE its qualities, rather than BECAUSE of them. It was insulting to the people who try to have an actual discussion based in logic and reason when some self-professed "objective arbiter" drops by to dismiss arguments out of hand.

If you want to cherry-pick the posts you were addressing, then maybe you can fudge some semblance of an argument, but within the context of the thread, we are neither discussing our love of the game nor our loyalty to the development team. What we are arguing is the speculation on possible new content (or lack thereof) based largely on precedent, experience and extrapolation thereof. To reduce this discussion to an ego arm-wrestle does nothing but to further the problem you speak against.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

Actually what you're doing is trying to put thoughts and feelings into people's mouths when it's far too early to judge, and you're doing by setting an unrealistic standard.

By which I mean, you're arguing that quantity is more important than quality.

Lesson learned, rep disabled. useless feature imho.

Besides the user created content in the mission architect, is there a topic on the forums i could read with users suggestion and ideas that have been implemented in the game or what part of cox's development was affected by user criticism or massive request(besides bugged and gamebreaking exploits).
Just curious, and i am aware of the Suggestion and ideas forum section, just that i want to know/read about the players participation in this game's development.

Someone had a long list somewhere, but off the top of my head, things like custom weapons, power customization, a whole plethora of costume pieces, Dual Blades, Shields, Willpower, Inventions... Just about all the big things have been either asked for or suggested for years before they came into the game.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

Before reaching for the motes you're seeing in everyone else's eyes, you should get that huge freaking beam in your own taken care of. Just because someone is not disappointed with advertised updates doesn't make them white knights or "blind fanboy sheep" and whether or not such insults are applicable is not a simple difference of opinion. Differences of opinion are when you disagree about whose favorite team is most likely to win the Championship or whether a movie is good or bad. When you're telling people what they really think deep in their hearts and souls, you've departed the realms of opinion and walked into personal attacks.

Also, this isn't a forum where negativity is hounded and attacked until the poster goes away. Yes, a lot of people are happy with the state of the game now and say so, and there are people who attack negativity they disagree with. But I have looked into that abyss, and this forum is on an extremely even keel in comparison.

Common IOs being purchasable was I believe due to player suggestions during I9 beta. The difficulty settings for custom AE critters was definitely affected by player suggestions during beta (originally all critters were locked essentially at "extreme"). Willpower's power order was changed in beta due to player suggestions (QR used to be tier 7 instead of tier 6, which meant it became available long after stamina, rather than at the same time as stamina).

There's also an uncountable number of little things that are likely to have been influenced by player suggestions or comments as well. Just because someone mentions it before the devs do it, doesn't necessarily mean the devs did it because of that suggestion, but there are a very large number of changes which are almost certainly the result of direct player feedback or have been acknowledged to be such by the devs.

A lot of people will compare CoV and GoRo in terms of value. If GoRo costs the same to buy as the other games ($90, locally) then I will feel shortchanged if it doesn't provide the same amount of content (i.e. lvl 1- 40).

However, when you put it like that the announcement of lvl 1 - 20 makes sense. Players have been requesting a new starting experience for a while now. GoRo would serve that need without the requirement of going back and upgrading early content.

As for what else GoRo might have: even the devs don't know yet and all we can go by is what is announced (and even that is subject to change).

This is patently untrue.

I'd just as soon take a typographical machete to the devs as look at them sideways when they do something I consider destructive or ridiculous. Ask around, anybody'll tell you.

But when it comes to people leveling ludicrous accusations, or blaming the devs for their personal lack of proportion & understanding of the MMO business....yeah, I'll defend them.
Because it's not their fault so many of their players need to wear bike helmets when they go grocery shopping.

Definately the latter(that you do). Sorry I was a bit vague. I was in a hurry when I posted. What I meant was that far too often, what is meant as healthy debate is misconstrued as negative attitude, trollling, or worse. And usually by those that weren't involved in the debate to begin with. Inevitably this leads to namecalling, trolling, and rediculous -rep.

I'm stubborn, hot-headed, and impulsive.....and also kind, generous, and empathetic. Unfortunately the former rear their heads more often during strong debate for me than the latter. Soo....I normally sit on the sidelines, letting posters like you(and others) talk for me...usually more eloquently and with more finesse than I have.

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Originally Posted by MageX Some users on this forums need to know and probably understand that every user of this forum and every player of the game is different from eachother and likes the game in a diffferent way. Some are very fond of this mmo some play it casual and some stopped playing at all. Its one of the many that we bought to play for particular and individual reasons. Further more regarding upcoming products of any sort , expectations are built withing the consumer based n the products marketing. SOme will be dissapointed and some wont. The only thing i like and enjoy about CoH is the character customization. I like playing it with my friends still. But also keep in mind this game is based on a monthly subscription that adds up every few months to the full price of a stand alone game or another mmo. I dont want to seem cheap about it but its true. I'm not expecting massive content aditions every few months to equivalate (not spelled right i think) another game but i do have my own expectations upon what i want to spend my money on. I do understand the massive workforce and focus behind going rogue and that it probably be a big hit but lets face it, there are so many topics about the same old boring mission maps, and other things that were requested over and over. I dont find it fair to have an issue lie i15 being released with that costume and pattern and have to pay for a booster pack for some better looking pieces. I find it fair to constantly update your game's heart and core considering you have anime fans, fantasy fans etc. I would take an issue with costumes varying multiple themes any time over the 15th issue. Same thing with weapons. Or mission maps. Anyway, tons of thing i expected and still expect. But thats just me and what i like. I also like blasters but they feel more like a hero wannabe faceplanting so often. I still hope to ge able to get some defense without trading offense and somewhat in the early levels.

That's perfectly valid and reasonable.

I don't know about others, but I have nothing against -you-. I do disagree with you, but that's just a difference in opinion.

What I -am- complaining about are people who take their opinions to the next level, and pretend like simply because THEY don't enjoy GR as of now, GR will be the final nail in CoH's coffin for ALL of us. And when people oppose them, they hold their heads up and go on and on and on and on about their "evidences" and "data" to try and justify why CoH is dying to them.

I.e. They want to blame the developers for not personally liking CoH, not themselves. Why? Because, god forbid, they are NEVER wrong!

The only thing I take issue with is the whole $15 a month thing as a crutch. It's a pittance in today's economy really. Buy two less packs of smokes. Don't go out to eat once less a month. Commute to work. Watch the game on TV once a month...etc. The way I see it, we're paying for nearly 24 hour a day entertainment for cents on the dollar. It's a bargain really.

Now...don't get me wrong...I came from poor white trash. There were times when we could barely afford basic things like FOOD when I was growing up. If you can't afford to play the game, then don't friggin' play it. If you can, look at what you get before using that $15 month as a negative.

Edit: I have to admit it's much easier for me now to say that $15 a month is a pittance as compared to a decade ago....I make pretty darn good money now. I will say, that I like the game enough that I'd make a sacrifice or two from my vices(mentioned above) to continue playing.

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Originally Posted by Ignatz The only thing I take issue with is the whole $15 a month thing as a crutch. It's a pittance in today's economy really. Buy two less packs of smokes. Don't go out to eat once less a month. Commute to work. Watch the game on TV once a month...etc. The way I see it, we're paying for nearly 24 hour a day entertainment for cents on the dollar. It's a bargain really. Now...don't get me wrong...I came from poor white trash. There were times when we could barely afford basic things like FOOD when I was growing up. If you can't afford to play the game, then don't friggin' play it. If you can, look at what you get before using that $15 month as a negative.

I already cut down on my food budget for CoH. How sad is THAT?

I agree with Kali on this one. As far as entertainment goes, this game is probably as cheap as it's going to get for me. $15 a month isn't LITTLE money in my country, but compared to everything else... Let's just say I'll blow away more money if I went to the movies twice or to a bar a few times. In fact, I made the mistake of going out to a couple of pubs in the UK once, and I ended up spending TEN POUNDS. By today's estimate, that's $15 in a single evening, and it wasn't actually all that enjoyable.

And it doesn't even compare to standalone games, either. A new game goes for around $50, which is over three months of CoH subscription, and I've not played a single-player game that could hold my interest for more than two-three days. I'd need a HECK of a lot more than a new game every three months to offset that. Now, granted, when I was a kid I could replay the same game over and over again day after day, like I did with the original Diablo, but I can't do that any more. I can't force myself to suffer through burnout like I used to, and frankly, I have more fun with my games now because of that. I can and do certainly go back to old games and replay them plenty, but even then I need more than I can afford. And, yeah, I know you can pick up certain games for $20 at a discount or over Steam or such, but even then, they can't hold me a month. I bought Portal for about as much recently, and the whole game from beginning to end is exactly an hour and a half. I played it once a day, all the way through, finishing it I think three times, then I played the Flash Version map pack, I think three or four times over, once a day, and that was still no more than a week of playtime. After that, I went back to City of Heroes.

As far as money spent goes, City of Heroes is by FAR the cheapest entertainment cost I'm currently aware of.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.