Old Complaints ~or~ 'A More Perfect Superhero Simulator'
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-01-08 17:49 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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This post just made my day. A mental picture came into my head of you holding a marketing person by the shirt slapping him and yelling "THEY TOLD ME TO!"|
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
Concerning what exactly?
I could just go in and slap them and be perfectly content...but it might help if I can scream something at them while the slapping action happens. |
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NEED NEW NEWS ABOUT GOING ROGUE!
The marketing Department has failed this game at almost every possible juncture. I am still telling gamers about this game as they do not know it exists.
We are your loyal followers... loyal subscribers... and we are getting bored waiting around for information.
Tell marketing they suck.
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/signed
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Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain
Go and slap them because we just sit around waiting for news of Going Rogue... or frankly Anything... Anything.
No news is boring. |
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I'm getting this mental image of the Paragon Studios office being a peril-filled land of arbitrary slappings.
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Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
I could just go in and slap them and be perfectly content...
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
I'm taking an extended break from CoX right now, but I do glance at the boards now and again, and this thread caught my eye. I had to really think about "what kinds of things would really spark that desire to play CoX again?" Sorry to say, it wasn't puzzles, or tetris, or random maps. Here were some of my initial thoughts of improvements that could get me excited about the game again:
1) Better mechanisms for involving players in stories. I'm thinking particularly of custom maps, scripted events, and cause and effect type scenarios. Once upon a time, a long time ago, I ran the Hess TF for the first time. When my team discovered the "trap" and the room full of robots coming to life, I was really impressed, and I thought "Surely this is the face of things to come for CoX". Sadly, it was not to be.
2) More (interesting) high level content. Ideally, this should go hand in hand with #1. Give us some new story arcs and TFs that keep 50s looking for that next epic adventure, rather than hanging out at the retired heroes home. As an aside, finish and/or flesh out some of the high level content already in the game. I'm looking at you, Shadow Shard. Sometimes it feels like there are too many unfinished story fragments in this game, and some of them could really be a great starting point for our 50s to really feel like heroes (or villains) again.
3) Further improvements for LFG system. Super Sidekicking was a great start, but we could go further. How about a way for existing teams add more members with a "looking for more" feature? It would cut down on those "Do you have room for a [insert AT]?" tells. And since I'm indulging in wishful thinking... another MMO (which can remain nameless) just added cross-server instancing. I know, probably not feasable here, but it sure revitalized my interest in teaming in that game. I have a lot of characters on small servers here, and I don't always want to switch out to a character on Virtue in order to find a team...
4) Give us better tools to find (and share with our friends) the kinds of AE missions we want to play. Sorry, the rating system is useless, and "Devs Choice" just tells us what kinds of missions the Devs want to play. I'm more interested in getting recommendations or shared "favorites" from my friends or SG-mates. I'd pretty much given up on the AE out of frustration, but I would come back to it if it had a mechanism for community/social involvement.
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Allow me to reverse the inputs into the Dev-o-meter:|
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
Concerning what exactly?
I could just go in and slap them and be perfectly content...but it might help if I can scream something at them while the slapping action happens. |
(Click to see Player-o-meter translation)
I think that encapsulates the current playerbase evaluation of NCSoft marketing to within 1.2% margin for error.
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Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
Concerning what exactly?
I could just go in and slap them and be perfectly content...but it might help if I can scream something at them while the slapping action happens. |
This is a fine example of when to slap first and ask questions later.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Allow me to reverse the inputs into the Dev-o-meter:
I think that encapsulates the current playerbase evaluation of NCSoft marketing to within 1.2% margin for error. |
100% agreed. The devs are gold. I am, however, calling for Marketing's Heads
Global: @Pandemonia
We're sorry. Due to the lack of adequate marketing, user patience has died 90+ days ago. Please try again sans "Soon."
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I was quoted by Babs, the highlight of my forum life!!!!!|
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
Dodgeball with travel suppression...sounds fun!
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I'd like to thank everyone that made this possible. My parents for having me. To my wife and her patience with me and also for Dragon Age for distracting her for the past month so I could play other games. For Back Alley Brawler, you know what you did! And Mel Brooks for making Space Balls.
How about just adding a dodgeball emote, that would add hours of fun
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Hence why I said players would need to formulate a strategy/read a walkthrough rather than just tanking and spanking everything in the entire game.|
Originally Posted by Kelenar
This doesn't so much require 'tactics' as it requires 'knowing exactly what happens and how to avoid/counter it.'
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
If, for example, you took in a team with a few scrappers, it sounds like they'd be hitting the floor around the 2 minute, 3 second point unless forewarned..
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
The 1 minute point debuff would be trivial if you brought a character with the right Clear Mind clone, a full team stop if not. .
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
I'd like to put forth the theory that any content that a well-built, well-coordinated team of veterans is practically guaranteed to fail without trial and error is bad content..
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
Of course, this is assuming the AV would be built to be able to get all this stuff off. Killing a normal AV in less than a minute can be trivial for a team of 8.
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Also, if you re-read my description of the fight there isn't anything that requires a particular team make up. You could beat the AV with just a team of blasters if you learned how to kite effectively or a team of scrappers if you took turns getting the aggro. The problem is that the average CoH player is used to just jumping into/herding a mob, trouncing them all in a matter of seconds and then moving on. Having to learn actual boss fight dynamics would be a bitter pill to swallow for people used to mashing buttons on their keyboard whilst rooted to the spot.
Whereas people like me will happily team wipe a thousand times trying to figure out a tactic for a certain boss and think it's all worth it for the adrenalin hit of finally defeating the sucker. But i'm in the minority so there's no point the devs bothering to spend time creating this kind of content. Instead i'll take my own group of fully IO'd veterans and tank and spank my way through 18 months of Going Rogue development in 2 days
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Some things make sense to be random - caves, for example. Caves are random things that come into existence by the power of water to dissolve stone. They should be quite random and still logical. |
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
A fine example of how two players have two completely polar, and opposite desires for content. One wants more unpredictable, random maps...the other wants maps with more carefully planned, and logical layouts.
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The lairs built into caves should be somewhat random, though only certain types of cave shapes should get "logical" pieces built into them. The multilayer room found in some of the Council lair maps is pretty logical. The weird staircase/multilevel/trapped inside till you go back up the staircase aren't very.
Some things should be logical and, if random, only within very constrained parameters. Office buildings are like this. Elevator placements especially.
Both logical labs and crazy/random ones would make sense depending on plotline: logical for businesses, crazy/random for mad scientists' secret labs...
There are already a few logical, nonrandom maps, like the casino map, the pawnshop, the map for the salvage run in the University tutorial.
It's not as bad as you imply... there are compromises that would improve things for both the commenters above. Examples of random map generation that makes sorta-enough sense can be found in games and other applications long before CoH was even begun to be developed.
There's a feel to, specifically, the office maps in CoH that give the impression they were purposely created to give you the feeling you were in a crazy maze office, not a real one. Doors that are painted on and don't open, the rooms they look like they should be leading to: nonexistent. Hallways that dead end. Stair cases and balconies and especially the elevators that go to one next floor. What about a map with an elevator bank, where each one goes to a different floor? Where all the floors are similar so it looks like they're really one above the next in an actual building? Where the doors all click to open or are destroyable like jail doors, and 'doors' aren't used as wallpaper?
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Presumably, the idea is that players don't want to 'finish' a floor only to have to run back through an empty level to get to the same elevator they started at. |
Originally Posted by Dispari
I always did wonder who keeps hiring the architect that thinks it's a good idea to make elevators that only go between two floors, and put them on opposite sides of the building.
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Could solve that by making the maps into loops, so you end up near where you started. I've seen plenty of real-world office buildings with cubes/offices on the edges and a solid block of conference rooms in the center, effectively forming a loop.
Or put elevators at both ends that can either access any floor, or at least let you choose between 'up' and 'down'. Possibly include clues on one floor that let you access the floor with the main objective on it, and you've got to randomly pick floors until you find it. Real office elevators can have access-controlled floors with cards, codes, and such.
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A decisive non answer. You address my question without addressing my question. *blank faced thumbs up*|
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
If we attempted to answer every question or concern directed our way, we'd 1) fail and 2) not have any time to actually work on the actual game.
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Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
A fine example of how two players have two completely polar, and opposite desires for content. One wants more unpredictable, random maps...the other wants maps with more carefully planned, and logical layouts.
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A thread about the stuff to get rid of/change? AWESOME!
I submit this:
Get rid of the stupid NPCs that run around inside missions! They just get in the way, and piss me off. If they worked like rescued NPCs on the streets, and ran to the nearest exit, I'd be happy. But nooooo. They run around like heads with their chickens cut off, getting in the way, and making you wish you could kill them!
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Concerning this. Marketing team is Fail.
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Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
Concerning what exactly?
I could just go in and slap them and be perfectly content...but it might help if I can scream something at them while the slapping action happens. |
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Having re-read your description, I am convinced that neither a team of Blasters nor a team of Scrappers would be able to defeat your AV, regardless of the number and type of inspirations they happen to have on them at the time. While the AV is spamming a massive-damage AoE, the scrappers will take turns running up to the AV and... face-planting, perhaps having been lucky enough to get one or two hits in. Insp trays are only so large, how can one carry enough to fill all the niches required by this specific AV? |
Originally Posted by Draxion_EU
Also, if you re-read my description of the fight there isn't anything that requires a particular team make up. You could beat the AV with just a team of blasters if you learned how to kite effectively or a team of scrappers if you took turns getting the aggro.
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Let's examine an AV I think they did right: Rommy. He has three "pets" which have various functions. The pets are very hard to kill on their own, nearly impossible to mez, and if you really want to drag them away from Rommy you need two serious taunters. However, killing the nicti individually is *possible*, which is good since sometimes Rommy gets out of Line of Sight at the last minute, and then you're stuck with these really hard-to-kill things. Ideally though, a group kills Rommy four times, trying to mitigate the nasty effects from his pets, and then lets Rommy take out his pets one at a time each time he himself is killed. While it's still a hack-and-slash fight, there's room to fiddle with the idea. I haven't done the 5th Column TF red-side yet, but I take it that the Reichsman fight over there has something of a technique to it too.
I'm not arguing the point that we could use more interesting fights, but I don't think the one you described would be interesting - at least not to me: it would merely be frustrating. It's not the death or debt.. I've been playing this game since live launch, my first toon was a blaster, and she spent her entire career until the mid-30s either at or near the debt cap (which was five bars at the time, and there was no debt suppression for any reason what so ever). It's not because she had debt that I hung the character in the dark recesses of my closet with no intent to return - it's because she could do NOTHING ELSE besides die. She wasn't an effective Blaster. I have since learned enough to make her much more effective (THANK YOU MIDS, AND LIZ!) but at the time I would get *so angry* because she couldn't kill even kill green- and blue- con minions, because she was too busy eating floor. That's what your fight sounds like to me: unless you have a meat shield, someone with an anti-mez power, some ranged damage, and an otherwise perfectly calibrated team, you're just not going to win that fight.
Anyway, we're in agreement that more interesting AV fights could only improve the game, it just boils down to how it's implemented.
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Seconded. How about the fact that anyone who isn't already online has no idea what CoH is? How about the fact that the only reason *I* play this game is because my roommate had it, and he got me hooked? (And likely the only reason he knew about it is because he preorders and plays just about every online game that comes out.) And the fact that if he hadn't, I still would NEVER have heard about this game from ANYWHERE I EVER GO. I have never seen ads for City on any website, never seen a commercial for it on TV, and in fact would have no idea this game exists except for one person having shown it to me. |
Originally Posted by Kheldarn
Concerning this. Marketing team is Fail.
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*That* is marketing fail.
(And I love this game. I am SO HAPPY to have found this game, slim as the chances were!)
The animation/level design might take a little work but I think that most of the office map elevators would be slightly more sensible if they were designed as escalators (or stairwells) as opposed to elevators. The whole "only goes up one floor" thing would make a bit more sense that way.
And a big YES for more interesting encounters.
Honestly, I'd just be happy if "Tab to Next Enemy" had an adjustable range, or a range limit.
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Well, there's that--but I think, as BaBs said, that guy was thinking more of the puzzles you'd find in, say, a Legend of Zelda game.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
Yea, since I found a walk-trhough for Tetris, it lost all the fun!
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Concerning what Golden Girl said, I always wondered what it would be like if an MMO used minigame puzzles (e.g. Tetris or Bejeweled) of variable difficulty for things such representing a certain task in a mission (like cracking a safe/secured door or hacking a computer). The difficulty could be adjusted depending on the task and the character's powersets/origins/task at hand/etc.
I for one thought it amusing that our characters fiddled with a Rubik's Cube in order to craft inventions.
Actually, does anyone remember System Shock 2? That had a nice "minigame" model for hacking systems and modding weapons which varied in difficulty depending on system security strength, complexity, and character stats.
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Originally Posted by Another Space
I play FFXI. That game is loaded with hide-and-seek quests, mini-games, and mazes. All of it is required to get some bit of cool loot.
I've never met a single player who enjoys any of it. |
Or, give the option where players can allow the game to do it for them as is currently done in the game--or let them attempt to do it faster via a minigame.
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Originally Posted by Scientist
In a more general scope, having some noncombat options would be great. [...] How many people stop to fight fires in Steel Canyon, for example, once they have the badges for it?
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I gotta admit; I'm a badger. I get a kick out of hunting down the plaques and exploration badges, then reading information on the CoX universe that comes with each one. Must be the SEAK in me. The idea that some badges give boosts to stats or adds additional powers has always ticked me pink, though.
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Originally Posted by Silver_Streak_NA
I suppose, since they actually got sued by Marvel, they do it as a goodwill gesture toward them and other copyright holders, hoping to avoid further lawsuits. Whereas, perhaps Cryptic, having actually been working with Marvel for awhile, has a better understanding of exactly where the line is drawn?
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You play City of X and decide to make a character in-game based on your own original character. Would you still be subject to the IP protection practices?
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Nope. But if a relatively well-prepared group with good knowledge of tactics either needs to face trial and error or read a guide in order to beat something, it's probably not well-designed. Formulating strategies is awesome. You can beat a lot of things in the game that people think are practically invincible with good tactics. But being good at making strategies isn't always going to make up for things like "2 minutes into the fight the AV starts to spam an AoE attack that does massive damage. Only a tank having direct heals placed on them constantly will be able to take the damage." Heck...|
Originally Posted by Draxion_EU
You always want to beat everything in the game with your cookie cutter group of veterans on the first attempt using the same tank and spank all the time with no challenge whatsoever?
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| You could beat the AV with just a team of blasters if you learned how to kite effectively or a team of scrappers if you took turns getting the aggro. |
For strategy to really come into play, the characters have to have a decent chance of surviving whatever happens so that they can formulate a plan. If you make an AV that lets off an auto-hit 5000 damage nuke with a 200 yard radius when he hits 50% health, sure, there are ways to deal with that, but the first time you fight him, you are going to die. Period.
tl;dr: Strategy: awesome. Almost absolutely needing to to read a guide or go through several trial-and-error runs: bad.
I suppose my definition of a good strategic encounter would have to be: A decently-prepared team will never wipe in seconds with no chance to redeem themselves, as long as their actions are reasonably careful; any wipes will take long enough that the team has time to change tactics once they realize they're going about it the wrong way. There will be plenty of opportunities for them to wipe, but these will all be ones which can either be anticipated and dealt with, or which aren't deadly enough to cause an immediate wipe but require immediate adaptation and replanning. If the team does wipe, it should be because of a failure to deal with circumstances that fill the previous criteria.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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On top of that, superheroes do rely on getting good intel to work as a team as much as they do their superpowers, right? |
Originally Posted by Kelenar
tl;dr: Strategy: awesome. Almost absolutely needing to to read a guide or go through several trial-and-error runs: bad.
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That's one of the things I appreciated about seeing the Intel Officers show up in hazard and trial zones. (Though I always did wonder who they're working for ... )
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As I understand it, the character in the game becomes the property of Paragon Studios. I think if you then tried to publish something with your character (outside of the game), you could potentially get sued. Not that I think Paragon would take such action, but in other words, don't put your original characters into the game. On other hand, if you've already published a character and own the copyright, you would probably still be reported and generic'd, and would then have to prove that you're the copyright holder, at which point they may or may not let you use the likeness again, but at which point you would also probably face repeating the incident if someone else reported you. I'm no expert, but that's how I understand it to work.
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Originally Posted by LittleDavid
You play City of X and decide to make a character in-game based on your own original character. Would you still be subject to the IP protection practices?
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While he's spamming massive AoE damage the scrappers all run away for the 1 minute that he does it. Being scrappers they do a lot of damage and can easily kill him faster than a 'perfectly balanced team' so they could still down him within the 5 minute limit without being able to fight him for that 1 minute.|
Originally Posted by Sapphire7
While the AV is spamming a massive-damage AoE, the scrappers will take turns running up to the AV and... face-planting, perhaps having been lucky enough to get one or two hits in. Insp trays are only so large, how can one carry enough to fill all the niches required by this specific AV? .
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Originally Posted by Sapphire7
Let's examine an AV I think they did right: Rommy..
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Originally Posted by Sapphire7
She wasn't an effective Blaster.
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Originally Posted by Sapphire7
unless you have a meat shield, someone with an anti-mez power, some ranged damage, and an otherwise perfectly calibrated team, you're just not going to win that fight.
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Originally Posted by Sapphire7
Anyway, we're in agreement that more interesting AV fights could only improve the game, it just boils down to how it's implemented.
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I could just go in and slap them and be perfectly content...but it might help if I can scream something at them while the slapping action happens.
How about not including any of that awesome merch (that always manages to show up at cons) in the online store?
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