Just what in City of...is broken? Not a technical question as such

Hello all.

I've written to the forums asking and wondering before what ways the game could be improved in, but I've never really wondered before now about what is broken. And I don't mean this in a malicious way...

Browsing other forums about other MMO's out there, I noticed some comments about Champions, which I also play and I definitely take on board the comments about some aspects of game balance and play that wind up being indicative about the pace of game development and so on. So it got me to wondering....

What is broken as such with the City of games? I know one thing that stands out to me is the infamous clipping issue of costumes, but that seems to be a double-edged sword, as the more creative costumers out there embrace costuming and the happy accidents that occur as a result of it.

I know some of the Task Forces are 'broken', but only in the sense that their writing and designing isn't as polished (as Positron admits about his own Task Force) as it could be.

So what's broken? And more interestingly, can the broken bits be fixed? Obviously a lot of things (power customisation/coloring, walking, emotes and so on) have been addressed, but are these things still broken in some way? I'd really like to hear from people.

S.

I think both. There's always a theory that runs about MMO development that whatever you get wrong in one game, you can't fix but try and improve on in the next. It strikes me that the NCSoft team want to try and buck that trend with what they've been doing lately, but I'm wondering if there's things that just can't be fixed (due to the game engine's age or things that are 'set in stone') and yes, if there's more serious issues as well that only something like a 2.0 version of the game could address.

S.

One of the missions in Seer Marino's arc. It still doesnt point to the right way point. I completely stopped bugging it because I know its never going to get fixed so why bother. Many of the game mechanics are broken like how some avs have gawd mode powers on too short of a recharge. Also there are some npcs that 100% resistance to a damage type. If players cant get this neither should npcs. It just makes you useless on a team.

Someone needs to fix that hole in the map where all our bug reports go. Seriously, I'm not referring to beta feedback that isn't implemented. For that, we recommend, the devs implement as they feel necessary and appropriate. Then we gnash our teeth.

I'm talking about bugging something thirty damn times, and then some redname posts on the boards "Well, no one's ever complained about it before. If you'd appropriately bring it to our attention, then maybe..." I don't /bug anymore.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Known_Issues

There are infinite spelling issues and typos all across the game. I think they should pay someone for two weeks just to do nothing but go through those texts and fix all those little problems. It hurts my inner grammar Nazi every time I see a typo that I KNOW has been in the game since the beginning still there.

Task forces still can't be played on anything other then easy mode(what the old heroic was)
Super strength and Martial Arts new animations don't play with a shield out.

These 2 bother me the most and they have been in the game for what feels like forever.

A strong case can be made that our current Search window is broken. It's indefensible that it allows filtering on the origin of characters (which is completely pointless) yet can't filter out people already on a team or solo in TF mode (Ouro flashback, AE mish), or find characters of the opposing faction for co-op TFs. More details on this at the end of this post.

It's also well past time that they added a Team Looking For More function. While it might be a stretch to call missing functionality "broken", the fact is that this is an MMO and for most of us (I know, Sam, not all of us!) teaming is central to our enjoyment of the game. Many regular forumites are part of strong SGs so they may not experience this, but I mostly play in PUGs nowadays and I would say at least 75% of the player base is allergic to having the star. So what happens is when the original team lead has to log out, the vast majority of PUGs simply disband. Having a LFM function would be a huge quality of life improvement by making it trivial to recruit for a team.

Warning: long bullet list incoming!

Search window improvements they should make:

• Searches by default should not include players already on teams and solo players in TF mode (e.g. Ouroboros flashbacks). Seeing all those greyed out names then the message "this list has been truncated" drives me nuts.
• Level range increments should be by 5's, not 10's.
• Player ratings (stars and notes) should show up in the search window.
• GIgnored players should not show up in searches.
• The Origin filter is pointless and should be removed.
• The window should be resizable.
• The list should either not be truncated or have a higher truncation threshold.
• When in a co-op zone, allow me to search for characters of the opposite faction.
• When searching by name, match against any part of the name, not just the start of the name. If I can't remember if someone was "Mr. Panda" vs "Mister Panda" I could just type "Panda".
• Remember my settings from my last search. If someone drops from the team, it'd be convenient to do a new /search and have the options already set for me from last time. It doesn't have to persist after I log off, but make it persist during a game session.
• Make comments searchable. About to do the Nightstar Praetorian AV? Search for people needing her for the Portal Jockey accolade.
• Add a "Looking for AE missons" flag.

C o m m u n i c a t i o n

I am 100% behind Sardan's suggetsions and would like to add that team leaders should have an indicator (star, maybe) in the search window.

Looking forward to the "Team LFM" ideas.

I'm really surprised nobody has mentioned this yet:


Base Raids are broken.

... Broken so bad that they have literally been turned off.
An argument could be made that the whole base system needs a serious overhaul... but a lot of base folks would be happy with a bone tossed their way as a "tide-me-over" kinda thing.

I think one of the things that is "broken" in this game is the "uselessness" of IO sets below 30. I hate to use the word useless as I know some players out there may find a use for them, but I suspect the broad majority of players find them to be a waste (procs aside). I think there are two reasons for this; the speed in which you progress in the lower levels, and the effectiveness of the enhancements themselves. Even when considering set bonuses regular IOs surpass set IOs pre 30 IMO. On the flip side as mentioned earlier are procs, which are generally better the lower they are.

Personally I would get rid of all set IOs below level 30; remove the level enhancement from all procs and allow them to work at any level. The damage can scale with the player level.

Or add an incentive to use set IOs below 30. I can't really think of one though.