Old Complaints ~or~ 'A More Perfect Superhero Simulator'

Well, I don't really mind the current interface, but turning the Enhancements screen and the Tailor screen into actual windows will solve one of the ugliest graphical problems the game has - that it scales full-screen images. Unless you're playing on a 4x3 resolution (and chances are you're not), the game will try to stretch full-screen images and menus to fit, turning circles into ugly squashed ellipses. Ideally, I'd like to force the game to just centre these, rather than stretching them, but making them into windows would help, too.

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.

Some of the warehouse maps aren't completely out of line with real warehouses i've seen where additional wings/buildings were added onto the original structure as the company expanded, but generally they would make more sense if most were redesigned to be factory maps, which do tend to be more compartmentalized than warehouses.

Actually, i've been in a lot of factory/warehouse/industrial sites that are a cluster of interconnected buildings and spaces. Usually not quite as random/puzzling as CoX maps, for one thing the elevated areas are generally office and administrative areas instead of being more storage, but many older industrial sites are sprawling and counter-intuitive layouts.

While it's not much of a "cure" for it, pretty much all of the relevant maps have a lot of doors attached to the walls, suggesting a possibly less...psychotic building layout.

Seriously, someone needs to go back and fix up the old content, especially on the blueside. Laying more and more new stuff over it just makes it look even worse. Just making sure that contacts give their phones by the 2nd mission, moving more of the missions into the same zone as the contact, and cutting out most of the effin' defeat alls would do wonders. Especially for the TFs and Praetorian arcs that suffer badly from Defeat-All-Itis.

I really want to be able to set a flag on my account "Yes, I already know about the PvP/Hollows/Faultline/Cimerora zones so STOP BOTHERING ME!"

The trouble is people have said this time and time again even to Positron's virtual face during the Euro test server Q&A session in Pocket D. It honestly seems like Positron doesn't quite have any understanding of why the early game needs a revamp.

I asked him this very question and his response was, "wouldn't you prefer a new zone over a revamped zone?"

He honestly couldn't see the value in revamping the crappy hazard zones (of which there are many infact...aren't ALL of them which haven't been revamped beyond pointless now?). He did explain that a Faultline/RWZ style revamp takes nearly as much time as creating a new zone.

However the big WoW shaped Gorilla in the corner is going "Yeah...our vanilla content was kind of crappy, you know what, next expansion we're doing a huge revamp of it all!"

The old crappy zones make a poor impression on new players and slapping more and more new zones down merely makes the original crappy zones look even worse but it's like talking to a brick wall at times...

I completely concur with everything you've said.

I will freely admit that I left COH for 60 days to play AION. And one thing that struck me that was positive about AION compared to COH was the sheer volume of things to do in the early levels, and the free-form order in which you could do it. (Sure, you had the Campaign, which was story-driven and required you to complete it in stages, but you had just a mind-boggling array of things to do.)

What COH really needs, and what would seem to be fairly easy to do at this point, is a revamp of the zones with a Meg Mason style contact in each zone. Yes, absolutely, GR is coming out Soon™, but we have no idea how soon Soon™ is. In the meanwhile, you have to think about what is going to draw and retain new subscribers. And five year old content doesn't seem to be doing the trick (anymore).

Certain zones in the game seem to never get used at all anymore. Boomtown is a ghost town unless you have a mission there. Dark Astoria is the same way. Independence Port is dreaded because it's so large that travel times from one mission to another are often excessive (quick fix: move all contacts closer to the trains/gates/base portals and have them give out their numbers much earlier). I could go on but you get the picture.

In my personal opinion, I'd rather see the zones revamped with new content added to them than a new zone. Yes, a new zone would be very cool. But it would only stretch the existing player population out over an area that doesn't really need to be made any wider.

Just to be contrary and provide opposing evidence I'll mention that I just recently made another alt for the sole purpose of farming zombies in DA, and I love that zone. While levelling up this character I went to Boomtown to grind for xp. I love that zone too.

Now, I agree that the hazard zones could perhaps use some new touches here and there, Hollows-style, but I don't want to lose the thing I love about them which is endless huge spawns of enemies in close formation... Adding some missions and a TF in each zone to tell the stories behind them, sure, but don't mess around with spawns and things like that for no good reason.

Independence Port could use an internal transport system, perhaps ferries located in the north and south end, one near the train station and one at Terra Volta. These ferries could also connect to the ferries in Talos and Peregrine Island. That's all I would change about IP.

/Signed

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I would agree with you, if ship maps didn't completely and utterly SUCK! Seriously, I can't stand those maps. They are completely and utterly uninteresting. They're just three or four large rectangular rooms with crates scattered about. No, thank you. I'd sooner have paradoxical warehouses than anything even resembling the current ship maps.

In fact, I'd like to see ship maps replaced with maps on cruise ships, with decks, corridors, rooms, bridges and so forth. Only a very few missions require you to be inside a cargo ship anyway.

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.

I just realised what we're missing - a Factory tileset! You know, not just a room with shipping containers and crates in it, but a tileset comprised of rooms with large machines, pipes, catwalks and so forth. Even as recycled as the environments in Fallout 3 were, the factory locations were still a lot of fun. We desperately need factories in addition to warehouses.

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.

This is also complicated by the fact that "superman" is itself a very generic term. "Shamrock Superman" could have claimed that his name was a reference to Nietzsche.

An Irish Nietzsche would be a thing of fear and terror.

Quoted
For
Truth

End of thread..?

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

I want a "cigarette" option for both males and female just as we already have a "cigar" option for males.

We have cigar smoking males and cigarette smoking NPCs of both genders so I don't see why my female characters can't have a smoke.

Yeah. Unless I'm exploring or badge hunting (which tend to be one and the same), I find no reason to go to a lot of the Hazard Zones; I only visit them if a contact mission requires me to go to them.

As far as Hazard Zones go, the only one I spend a lot of time in is the Hollows. It's got things most of the other hazard zones just don't; a story arc of its own that spans several contacts, a battle with a villain group leader (Frostire), its own hospital, and the Cavern of Transcendence.

Oh, and it has one thing I've not seen except in newer or revamped content; a significant presence of heroic groups like the PPD (who hold the fort at the Atlas Park gate), Legacy Chain (who openly battle the Circle of Thorns), and Longbow (who work with the PPD over at the Skyway City gate). I like seeing the other hero groups trying to hold down the zone; it really does breathe life into the game, especially if you happen to be in a quiet zone where no one else is around.

You can see that in the revamped Faultline, too--PPD officers in New Overbrook are doing their job and reigning in the defiant members of the Lost. I've not been in Overbrook Dam much, but it looked like Longbow's regulars actually get involved in the Sky Raiders/Arachnos fighting that happens there.

The discrepancy between hero group presence in places like Faultline and The Hollows as compared to more normal zones (Atlas Park, Galaxy City, Kings Row, Steel Canyon, Skyway City, Independence Port, Talos Island, etc.) is such that when I visit the normal zones, I find myself wondering why the PPD, Longbow, or Legacy Chain aren't making more of an effort to control crime there.

Speaking of that--it might just be me, but I've noticed that in the Hollows, villain dialogue is more interesting. In the other Hazard Zones, villains seem to rarely speak. If you go to Perez, you'll see huge groups of Hellions and Skulls just hanging out, not saying a word; encounters are more interesting in the Hollows, even if you're just passing by.

You'd expect a zone like Perez to be in the throes of a full-blown gang war between the two groups, or at least see some of them mixing it up ... Perez could do with some Hollows-style quests/arcs involving the gang war there. The issue with Everett Lake, which is only covered by contacts in the level 30-34 range, could also be made into a series of missions or an arc for the lower-leveled crowd.

^ /signed

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

We don't let female toons smoke because we have a commitment to focus upon their healthy ... lungs.

O.O

They probably don't want to encourage smoking - Heroes are supposed to be clean living

Actually, Striga's not bad. It's not usually as populated as The Hollows, and it doesn't have a hospital, but it does have 2 TFs and arcs which give temp powers, which is nice.

The hazard zones that lack content are: Perez, Boom, TV, DA, CF, and Eden (more or less).

Also, some zones are story zones, while others seem to be more story-neutral. A story zone would be where there is basically a single, multi-layered story told for the zone.

The story zones are: Hollows, Faultline, Striga, Croatoa, Ouroboros, RWZ, Cimerora, and the Shadow Shard.

I'm not sure how to count Peregrine Island, as it is mainly about the portals, but not entirely, and while Eden is obviously focused on the DE, unless I'm mistaken there's not a lot of mission content there. Likewise, Terra Volta has the respec trials, but otherwise not much going on.

The heroic zones that are neither hazard nor story zones are: Atlas, Galaxy, KR, Steel, Skyway, IP, Talos, and Founders'.

Did I miss anything?

That's why I cited the cigar option for males. It's sexism!

Also, my villains might want a smoke. You can't turn 101 dogs into a coat without a good cigarette beforehand.

Yeah, Striga's a good place. I spent some time there recently. Definitely one of the few Hazard Zones that doesn't fall under my statement about most Hazard Zones lacking the stuff the Hollows offers!

That said--your assessments are right on target. Perez Park, Boomtown, Terra Volta, Dark Astoria, Crey's Folly, and Eden ought to be given some sweet dev lovin'. Give 'em the same kinda treatment the Hollows has, with story-driven arcs, a repeatable contact like Meg Mason, a hospital, and the like. It'd also be nice to see more hero group presence.

I went checking Boomtown just now to see if the Council vs. Fiftth Column battle is in full force there--I'm happy to see that it is. Though, it does bring up something ELSE that's bugged me ...

A number of hero and villain groups (such as the Fifth Column, Council, Arachnos, Longbow, etc.) include characters who are clearly built for ranged combat. Yet for some reason, they seem eager to close ranks like they're melee fighters.

I was watching that in Boomtown. Fifth Column and Council guys would bunch up into a mosh put, all shooting at each other at point blank range, with assault rifles and rocket launchers.

That just kind of ... weirded me out. It might be a nitpick, but one of the minor detail things I'd like to see is have characters who clearly were meant to fight at range try to stay in ranged combat--not immediately rush up and melee just because they have an inherent Brawl ability, but only melee if they have a Scrapper/Stalker or Tanker/Brute rush up and start clobbering them.

Maybe add a ranged substitute for Brawl that they will use if they aren't within range for a melee attack--call it Potshot or something, looks like their normal ranged attack but only has the damage potential/damage type of Brawl.

To her, they are like Deputy Barney Fife. One bullet, in the pocket, please.