Winter Event Test ~ Official Feedback thread
By
Abraxxus,
Posted on: 2009-11-11 17:41 in The Global Training Room Test Server
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I could actually tolerate it if it was just an ST hold of ridiculous mag and not an AOE hold. As is, it just utterly destroys a team. As an ST, it would target on person and remove them from the equation but allow the rest of the team to either protect them or keep fighting. I mean, I was getting 1 shot by Footstomp one time so LW seems nasty enough without any form AOE hold.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
I was told after the first test that the hold is a mag 100 version of Glacier. In short, there is nothing that can either prevent this or break out of it without significant stacking (10 Clear Minds for example).
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Mag 100, that sounds like a big number. So, I shouldn't feel like a flunkie for getting whooped, right? Right? Yeah, the Hold is not fun.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
I was told after the first test that the hold is a mag 100 version of Glacier. In short, there is nothing that can either prevent this or break out of it without significant stacking (10 Clear Minds for example).
I struggle to understand what's supposed to be enjoyable about being subjected to such an effect. |
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I know I've said it before, but I'm glad to see some others reiterate the sentiment. The phase state has to go. It's one of the worst mechanics in this game and to see it attached to an special event is disappointing. The are other options that I would consider, for example a storm that knocks players back. If you must keep the phase state then consider having him use the hibernate animation so that it is more obvious what is occurring.
That said I did see some positive changes. It seemed friendlier to small teams than in the first run. The change in difficulty coupled with the greater merit reward is very welcome. Also, I like seeing the Winterlord spawn tied to Frostling defeats. Winterlord hunts last year happened in low-level zones because it meant people could ignore the spawns, much to the chagrin of the natives of that zone. I'm sure hunts will still happen in low-level zones, but it's good to know that there will not be so many roaming spawns waiting for innocent by-standers.
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My lovely emp healer Delicious Jailbait was on Miuramir's team and was also popped out into the great beyond when the zone timed out. She fell for a bit but activated hover and then flew over to heal Miur (I think) who had low health when Dj appeared. |
Originally Posted by Miuramir
Several of us were kicked back well outside the map of Steel when the WL zone timed out. My location: 2468.2 -2000.0 1500.3. /bugged in-game for extra info if needed; I don't believe I moved (well, other than falling at first).
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Enjoyed the event. Noted that presents appear in fixed locations and managed to get a set route between two that had them appearing fairly consistently at each end of the trip. Ended up with 48 candy canes between downing 2 LW and getting a few presents.
Wasn't sure how to leave the WL Zone other than to go to another WL Zone which is why I was still in it when the zone timed.
Haven't tried the BNY stuff yet.
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With the way we can stack buffs in this game, there's a big issue with things being either too easy or too hard. With 2-3 teams of people fighting one enemy, there's practically nothing you can do to make him any challenge. You can stack buffs up to 90% RES and 45% DEF, and dodge almost all attacks and reduce damage dramatically.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
I was told after the first test that the hold is a mag 100 version of Glacier. In short, there is nothing that can either prevent this or break out of it without significant stacking (10 Clear Minds for example).
I struggle to understand what's supposed to be enjoyable about being subjected to such an effect. |
Outside of detoggling, unresistable damage, and massive mag mezzes, all of which are pretty much equally lame, he's just a big sack of HP. It's pretty hard to make an enemy that doesn't employ "cheap" tricks that can pose a threat to even a standard team of 8, much less 2 or 3 teams. It's also kind of hard to generate fun too. If it's too easy, it's a snoozefest. If he just does a bunch of irritating stuff like do unstoppable holds, that's not fun either.
The devs redid Hamidon to try and create an encounter that works for large teams, but it's way too gimmicky in my opinion.
I agree stuff like detoggles and mag 100 holds aren't that fun, but I can't really think of anything else they could do to make the encounter mean anything. At least they're trying.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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I sort of disagree. I actually feel that phasing more than has its place in the game but LW needs better visibility of when this happens. It's also a shame that the enemy phase moves (Dimension Shift, Detention Field, and Sonic Cage) can't be used to pull him out of it.|
Originally Posted by ketch
The phase state has to go. It's one of the worst mechanics in this game
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I sort of agree with Dispari that with the way many things are designed and the fact that PvE lacks diminishing returns, LW may need to be broken in order to even matter against three or more high level teams. The problem is that it's a nightmare if you have fewer teams and have lowbies mixed in.
Also, I did an emergency Anything But Another Snowman outfit for Lord Winter. Even if this specific costume isn't used, he needs something more interesting than what he has now.
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If phasing in PVE worked like phasing in PVP I would agree that it could be an interesting mechanic. |
Originally Posted by Zamuel
I sort of disagree. I actually feel that phasing more than has its place in the game but LW needs better visibility of when this happens. It's also a shame that the enemy phase moves (Dimension Shift, Detention Field, and Sonic Cage) can't be used to pull him out of it.
I sort of agree with Dispari that with the way many things are designed and the fact that PvE lacks diminishing returns, LW may need to be broken in order to even matter against three or more high level teams. The problem is that it's a nightmare if you have fewer teams and have lowbies mixed in. Also, I did an emergency Anything But Another Snowman outfit for Lord Winter. Even if this specific costume isn't used, he needs something more interesting than what he has now. |
As long as the player has some option to deal with the current situation then it's much less frustrating. For example, Lord Recluse in the Stateman TF. He's pretty much untouchable, but for a reason that players can see and react to. Let's say Lord Winter summoned all four guardians at once. They do a little animation encasing him in ice which makes him untouchable until they are defeated. This in my mind shows us a little cause and effect from which we can derive a solution.
Simply saying you can't touch this because it's at 75% health is just lame. From a gameplay point of view it's frustrating and from a thematic point of view it makes no sense. I think there are better alternatives, but I'm afraid that at this point it may be too late to instate them.
I think the phase state is fine in and of itself. I went into this test with little foreknowledge and aimed to present my qualitative observations from the perspective of 'the average player'. If I had of known about the mechanic before entering the fray I would have had a lot more fun. Forewarned is forearmed. I think keeping the phasing and the Guardians in the mix is what makes the encounter interesting, darn, it pretty much is the encounter.
As far as difficulty goes, if a team of 8, or even a soloist could potentially trigger the event, shouldn't they stand a chance of completing it? I can see how our trusty band of villains (trusty villains, lol), could have completed the encounter potentially once we knew what we were up against. I don't know how a solo toon could complete the challenge though.
Essentially it's a raid style encounter with a really challenging set of creatures which requires a little planning, some team composition to get a good mix, and a fair number of heroes/villains to complete. I'm looking forward further testing, now that I know what I'm up against.
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Originally Posted by The_Killbot_5000
Essentially it's a raid style encounter with a really challenging set of creatures which requires a little planning, some team composition to get a good mix, and a fair number of heroes/villains to complete. I'm looking forward further testing, now that I know what I'm up against. |
That's, essentially, the kind of things this game doesn't like to do, hence where people have the problems.
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Yep, this would seem to 'present' a bit of a logic problem. (pesudo-pun intended)|
Originally Posted by The_Killbot_5000
*snip*...
As far as difficulty goes, if a team of 8, or even a soloist could potentially trigger the event, shouldn't they stand a chance of completing it? I can see how our trusty band of villains (trusty villains, lol), could have completed the encounter potentially once we knew what we were up against. I don't know how a solo toon could complete the challenge though. |
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Essentially it's a raid style encounter with a really challenging set of creatures which requires a little planning, some team composition to get a good mix, and a fair number of heroes/villains to complete. I'm looking forward further testing, now that I know what I'm up against.
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Originally Posted by brophog02
That's, essentially, the kind of things this game doesn't like to do, hence where people have the problems.
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This yer's Winter Event and this year's Halloween Event - seem like they were more likely designed by WoW Devs, rather than CoH/CoV Devs. I say that because in both cases the "new stuff" for this year is... pretty much (WoW-style) "Raids".
In the sense that - it might not, 'look like a duck' but it sure does 'quack like a duck'.
The real problem with this is that In my experience - the seasonal events have mostly PUG teams & been very solo-friendly. Which was fortunate - due to so many players/badgers rotating thru all their alts (or at least trying to) to get all the various badges - especially in the winter event to get all the candy canes required to unlock all the costume pieces/snag temp powers/etc.
And in previous years players only 'needed' to get a team together to fight Eaochi, Jack, or Winter Lord for that last badge or two. While this year it seems like the event are designed to primarily focus on that previous, typically "last hurdle" = of gathering a team (or possibly a pair of teams) to defeat GM's.
The trouble is, that's really only fun once or maybe a handful of times. And thereafter, it just becomes an annoying/boring chore, (or maybe an obssesive 'compulsion' for some die-hard badgers), and a probably a nightmare for those with some degree of actual OCD.
I know some people have gone on "GM Hunting/Farming Teams" for the 2 Merits per Kill - and they may have abused that to some extent(?)
And while I'm sure there were some people did this - they've taked about it, But it feels like this year's Winter Event was designed to:
1. Heavy-handedly discourage "GM Farming" - doing the whole 'defeat ReichSnowman' aka LW & 3 WL GM's, for 6 Merits (now bumped to a grand total of 8!
) How long does the whole Lord Reichsnowman Raid take ?, compared to the time it would've taken last year to kill-off 4 Winter Lords for 8 Merits.
I don't know about you, But I definitely smell someone burning nerf around here!
2. It seems like this was designed to emulate thee "Raids" in 'other games' - that might sound like a good idea, but I don't think it will sit well with the long-time vets around here... you may snag some recovering 'WoW-addicts' - but when the Winter Event is over they're going to find out that the only other things around here like that are Hamidon Raids (and maybe Reichsman - but that's only a team of 8), or possibly Rikti Ship Raids??
Heck, what do I know? But, IMO it seems like a well intentioned... very bad idea. *sigh*
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
City of Heroes didn't fail, City of Heroes was killed. If a 747 dropped on your house, you'd say you were killed, not you failed to find a safer dwelling.
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This here would be an excellent way to solve the problem since it would be more PUG friendly and easier to notice in all the confusion.|
Originally Posted by ketch
For example, Lord Recluse in the Stateman TF. He's pretty much untouchable, but for a reason that players can see and react to. Let's say Lord Winter summoned all four guardians at once. They do a little animation encasing him in ice which makes him untouchable until they are defeated. This in my mind shows us a little cause and effect from which we can derive a solution.
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Originally Posted by Cardiff_Giant
It seems like this was designed to emulate thee "Raids" in 'other games' - that might sound like a good idea, but I don't think it will sit well with the long-time vets around here...
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I have to agree!! I like that idea of the small raids that only need maybe 2 teams or one really good team. It's faster than a TF (at average speed not the 25 mins ITFs). Good Mid-ranged reward tasks are just what CoX needs. I personally wish they would re-do some of the current zone GM encounters into mini-raids that made it worth doing. I think people would go after Lusca if it was a mini-raid that was worth more than just 2 merits and a badge. |
Originally Posted by Zamuel
This here would be an excellent way to solve the problem since it would be more PUG friendly and easier to notice in all the confusion.
It could be just my views as a much newer player, but it would seem like these "brand new" mission types would be designed to keep vets because they are a little different than what's already been in the game. Granted, it's a fine line to tread between newer ideas and "that's not my COX!". However, I think the effort should be made, it's just that the kinks need to be worked out. |
I think that these 2 events (halloween and Winter) are tests for similar events we will see in the future (GR).
Level 50s: to many to remember at this point
Based on my redside experience last night, I really have to agree and cannot stress enough that the trip to snowy Croatoa to defeat Lord Winter et al., seems like something that your average PuG will not be able to accomplish.
What I foresee is that this year, most of my alts will continue to open presents, contributing to the count to spawn a WL, but mainly to accumulate the other stuff you get from that activity (canes & temp powers). Heck, I may even go beat on the WL that spawns.
But I probably won't spend the time to go defeat Lord Winter. That's 15 (?) minutes that I could spend doing something more fun than getting Held & Footstomped.
3 or more PuGs can do it together - I was on a couple of runs blueside that did so - but on some servers getting those 3 together in the same zone consistently will probably not happen. That's just not how we tend to operate in this game.
So that leaves a big amount of dev work to change the event that will go primarily unused, very unfortunate.
I really like the mechanic of the Big Bad summoning helpers, and the need to defeat them before you can go further to defeat the Big Bad. But the mag 100 holds and insta-death Footstomps, etc., stripped all the potential fun right out of the encounter.
My poor level 39 Corrupter died at least 6 times last night while 9 villains (full team + 1) were trying to beat the timer and take Lord Winter down. I was spamming my AoE heal like crazy (when not Held) and we still all had to make multiple trips to the Hospital. 6 deaths in 15 minutes, plus getting held to inactivity, means that I was actually contributing very little damage to take him down, but that was kinda the case for the rest of the team as well - a brute faceplanted loses all built-up Fury.
So I will be opening presents for canes again this year, same as always.....
Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."
Except for being booted back to AP when the first event timed out, everything went well on my end.
I like the fact that it was an instanced co-op zone. I appreciate the marker on the map for the exit(s).
I didn't notice, because I didn't die, but is there debt when fighting the LW? If there is, maybe a reduction in debt would be more enticing for the squishier AT's?
You don't hit smiling monsters - Sister Flame
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An idea occurred to me...|
Originally Posted by GadgetDon
Second, the Winter Lord's special powers just aren't that much fun. Mag 100 hold is cheap but not unheard of, the detoggling is a complete fun killer (in part because, if you aren't watching your toggles, you may not notice). The detoggling pretty much killed any desire to face him again, so for me, it would be one and done for my badger. Which is a pity, because a lot of it is very cool.
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Can we have a big red player only piece of text float over our head if we are detoggled?
Like a red... "Power loss!"
Kinda like "Assassin Strike" and "Critical hit" appears over enemies heads?
I also mention player only so lots of people are seeing grey or red words over other peoples heads and perhaps getting confused by it.
Therefore players have a warning of some kind of being detoggled.
x Jeremy M.
Global Handle: @JeremyM
City of Heroes LiveJournal Community
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Why not use the ice hibernate power instead of phase shift?|
Originally Posted by Miuramir
* Even with all the prompts and with some of us explaining based on last test's knowledge, people were still just banging keys at Lord Winter wondering why his HP wasn't dropping. I really, really hate to say this, but I think it needs to be more obvious. Or I need to write a macro that explains this thing and expect to push it nearly as often as my attacks :/
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It would be thematically appropriate, and it would be more immediately obvious that if the big bad is encased in a huge block of ice... you may not be hurting him anymore till the guardian is down and the ice block goes away.
x Jeremy M.
Global Handle: @JeremyM
City of Heroes LiveJournal Community
Question for people that had the problem exiting Lord Winter’s realm and arriving outside the map:
- Was it Heroes only, or did any Villains experience it?
- Did you exit by clicking on the portal, or did you wait for the timeout to kick you from the zone?
- Did you just enter the first instance and stay there, enter the second and stay there, or enter the first and then transfer to the second?
- There was a short period when entry to the second did not work at the white present. Did you try and enter the second zone during this period and fail?
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I played Villain side only and did not experience the issue when kicked from first instance which I had just stayed in.
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Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
Question for people that had the problem exiting Lord Winters realm and arriving outside the map:
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K5K - The Killbot 5000
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1- It happend to me on a Hero in Steel Canyon.|
Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
Question for people that had the problem exiting Lord Winters realm and arriving outside the map:
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2- It happened when the timer expired. A strange thing I noticed too is that the timer when it reached 0:05 started going up, and I got the load screen at around 0:09 seconds.
3- When I zoned in, I was in Lord Winter's Realm 1. After he was defeated, I clciked the portal and went to Lord Winter's Realm 2 where he was defeated again. The timer expired when I was in that instance.
4- I had no problem to switch instances.
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Unknown, I only witnessed it in Steel Canyon. I suppose the zone it's launched from could be the issue. I do know that in Steel Canyon, we were all dumped somewhere around a half mile west of Gimry Ridge (the map ends a few hundred yards away, so we were way off the map).|
Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
[*]Was it Heroes only, or did any Villains experience it?
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Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
[*]Did you exit by clicking on the portal, or did you wait for the timeout to kick you from the zone?
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Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
[*]Did you just enter the first instance and stay there, enter the second and stay there, or enter the first and then transfer to the second?
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Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
[*]There was a short period when entry to the second did not work at the white present. Did you try and enter the second zone during this period and fail?
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I was on hero side. |
Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
Question for people that had the problem exiting Lord Winter’s realm and arriving outside the map:
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I had moved from the first WL instance to the second instance. (much as Photonstorm described)
In the second instance I waited for the timeout after hunting for a while (because I hadn't figured out how to leave :S )
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Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
Question for people that had the problem exiting Lord Winters realm and arriving outside the map:
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- Was it Heroes only, or did any Villains experience it?
Personally experienced 3/3 on heroes, 0/1 on villains. Incidentally, this involved being kicked from at least 2 different maps heroside.
- Did you exit by clicking on the portal, or did you wait for the timeout to kick you from the zone?
AFAIK it only affected the people who were kicked out of the zone by timeout. In each case of mine that was the case, and based on conversations I think that holds for everyone.
- Did you just enter the first instance and stay there, enter the second and stay there, or enter the first and then transfer to the second?
In the first (coordinated) test, entered the hero (first?) instance then transferred to the other via the on-map cave portal. In the second and third hero side spawns, there was only the one instance.
- There was a short period when entry to the second did not work at the white present. Did you try and enter the second zone during this period and fail?
No, and this would have only applied to the very first spawn in any case.
There was one initial coordinated spawn, then at least 2 more hero ones which I was at; then another hero one that I missed while we were trying to get a villain one to spawn, then the second (final) villain one which barely missed being co-op (less than 30 sec), and possible one more hero one although I'm not sure.
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only was able to test the event hero side. tried to do it vill side but cap was deserted|
Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
Question for people that had the problem exiting Lord Winters realm and arriving outside the map:
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I waited till the count down reached 0 and kicked me out
I stayed in the first instance, never used the multiple instance portal
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So you can BUY respec recipes now for a brief moment . . . . . . interesting . . . . . . .
Looking forward to playing this, sounds fun from reading the feedback posts 
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I struggle to understand what's supposed to be enjoyable about being subjected to such an effect.
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