Biggest Problems with the Game Today

My gripe isn't really a problem with the game, but something I find ratehr annoying.

Merits have become almost a must if you want to acquire certain recipes in game, but are not easily achieved unless you sink a lot of time into getting them. Even so, the time invested out weighs the rewards in many TF/SF cases. It also encourages people to find quicker ways to hurry up and complete the TF/SF just for the sake of merit/time ratio. Also completing story arcs take longer than TF/SF in most cases but reward much fewer merits.

Additionally, the random roll mechanics need to be reworked. As a level 50 I may want to slot level 35 enhancements. There's no way I can roll and get a the recipe I want at level 35, my only hopes would be to buy it from the market, which may or may not be an option.

I also think it's a waste of time doing random rolls at levels other than 0s or 5s. I learned this the hard way a long time ago, I was level 37 rolling for level 35s and hoping to get somethings I could use, not only were the 10 recipes "Crap of the Hunter" types, but they were 37. Useless to me and almost worthless on the market.

I honestly think merits should also be awarded on enemy defeats, much like Vanguard merits only at a much rarer rate. This would allow players to accumulate merits while partaking in the most fundamental aspect of the game.

I am going to start off by saying I love this game, if I didn't I would leave. But just because I love this game does NOT mean I think it is God's gift to MMOs, it has flaws just like everything else in life.

1. My number one biggest complaint for this game actually has nothing at all to do with the Devs and it is hardly something they can fix. But the point of this thread is to ask what the biggest problems are, right? The community. I will start this by basically giving my histroy in the game that lead me to feel this way. I started on Liberty with my friend in real life who got me into this game and I feel in love. I spent my first few months in it playing around figuring out what character I wanted to play and once I did I got into what used to be the best part of the game for me, PvP. I started off as a lolzone PvPer and started to learn the ropes from the big names that started there such as Whirligig and Bedlam. Eventually I joined up with Bedlam and finally had a chance to get a small taste of organized PvP. When server transfers opend Bedlam moved to Freedom and became Renegades and of course I followed them, everything was still good. But I grew tired of PvP after about two years and decided to give some other stuff a try, so I rolled some toons on Virtue to RP. I know a RPing PvPer is unheard of right? Well along came i13 and with it my entire global friends list quit the game in the span of one week and most everyone I knew from Renegades left. So I went full time to Virtue which was nice enough at the time but of course I was a little jaded seeing as I just lost my entire friend base in the game.

This is where I feel the game started to loose a lot of its player base, not BECAUSE of i13 but because people were just getting bored or taking breaks. I still see this trend as I see less and less people on everyday as they cancel as they wait for GR. So it was really hard to find anyone to play with much less make new friends on the game. I joined a couple of RP VGs and SGs on Virtue but they were all either dead by the next week or so insulated that I felt as though I were an outsider looking in and that didn't appeal to me at all. The more people left the more insulated the game began to seem, everyone had their group of friends and hardly went outside them. Then of course everytime I did find a relativly decent group the second they found out I was a PvPer and from Freedom of all places I was kicked out! I have been kicked from teams, SGs, even a Mothership raid BECAUSE I used to PvP.

Finally just look at this thread and the way that people treat each other for merely suggesting that the game isn't perfect. Does anyone honestly believe we have a great LFG system? It is perfectly useable but compared to others it is pretty bad.

2. PvP. Yeah most everyone else has covered this but relating back to number one how many times do you see someone say, "I don't like PvP and hope that it doesn't get any attention. I hope it dies." Or something along those lines? I just wish that the Devs would admit they were wrong with i13 and realise it just made things worse.

3. Content updates. I am with most people when I say that this game does need new maps. At the same time I completly agree we do not need more zones! I think we need to see more Faultline like revamps of older zones to make them more enjoyable for all. I don't really mind the static world though...if it was ever changing then a lot of people would feel left behind if they couldn't keep up.

I mean I could go on and on but I still love this game and I KNOW that someone will probably just tell me, "If you don't love it, leave!" Or some other useless BS. It seems like the "core players" of this game don't want new players and don't want anyone who wants the game to change in any small way.

New content, and by that I mean specifically:
New events
Zombie and Rikti invasions are a nice start, but they are really pretty much the same thing. More giant monster attacks, building fires, Outbreaks in non-haz zones, temporal anomalies (dinosaurs, anyone?), etc etc.
New mission styles
Not just a redecoration- new styles of objectives. I want to rescue/capture a teammate that's been turned into a monster. I want to BE turned into a monster. I want to be miniaturized to fight nanobots in the President's bloodstream. I fight to do battle with my own inner demons in a coma dreamscape. I want to unravel the mystery of why everyone in Steel Canyon has turned into a GORILLA. [EDIT - not collectively one singular gorilla. That would be just silly.]
Okay, so maybe its crackers, but comics book heroes have faced all kinds of demented weirdness and oddities. And I want to as well.
CHOICES
Yes, CHOOOOICES.
Not just "do I use the medium punch or the heavy punch?" Decision trees that effect mission archs. Enemies that might hate or align with me based on my origin. Or powerset. Do I arrest that boss, or get him to work with me? Gain an ally or a potential Judas? Go in guns blazing or undercover (hey, a use for souvenirs!)? Lead the hostage out or let them fend for themselves? Confiscate the Superdine or TAKE the superdine for myself? Work with the cops, or defy them? Align with factions or against them? Break my treaty with the Malta and fight them along side my team, or break ranks, join the Malta and turn an ordinary door mission into a PvP slaughterhouse
the kind of things that would actually encourage REAL Roleplaying. Not just cutesy keybinds and wardrobe changes, but making decisions in a hero or villains career based on who I feel they are. Having actually free will and consequences would breath a whole new layer of depth and replay value to the game.

Yeah, it would be a lot of work. And coding. And testing.

better get crackin'!

My biggest problem with the game today...


The fact that all I can do is beat your face in until you hit the ground. I can't force them to surrender or talk them out of fighting or "permanently" hold someone. Yeah, ok, that sounds kind of lame.

But what I'm getting at is that the only way to beat someone is to break their body. I want to break their will to fight.

As an example.

Add in a, lets say, orange bar under End. The Will bar.

If their Will hits 0. They give up. And you get experience as if you defeated them. Things that could lower the will bar...

Seeing their friends knocked out. If you just footstomped 15 guys across the room. That 16th drops his gun and gives up on the spot.

Status effects. Immobilize having a small effect, hold and fear having the biggest effect. Slowly DoTing the will bar. Many many times in comics. The hero just plasters a guy to the wall and leaves them.

Losing their own HP or being at 0 END for too long. Seeing the boss knocked out. If Tyrant goes down, are his minions really going to try and beat the guy that took him down?

Of course, various monster types should have varying levels of will. I don't see a DE monster surrendering any time soon. You could throw in all sorts of variables. Resistance to will damage. Weakness to some types of damage over others. Vahz zombies might be highly resistant to fear(the dead don't fear much) but take out the morts and watch them mentally shut down.


I guess what I'm asking for is more depth to fighting foes. Beyond just beating group after group of them up.


Heck, on that note I'd love to see their tactical options expanded. If you trip the council alarms, let them send some ambushes at me. Maybe if one of them runs off they can warn the guys in the back of the mission that "Hey, it's a fire based hero. Whip out the cryo rounds!" Or have them set up barricades. Close blast doors. Bring up automated defenses or even manned ones. Getting to the end to find the boss has set up mini-gun turrets and has his minions tucked behind rows of sandbags.

*ahem*

I could do this all night. S'yeah. More options. More choices. More interaction.

Blue Caves.

That is all.

New Maps. Cimeroran Tunnels were still just the same old cave kind of map, but at least they LOOKED new even if you recognized their layout. Seriously, Praetoria would best be having new mission maps.

I hope Praetoria has a third market. If merging the red and blue markets is impossible then put it on the tertiary Gray market that everybody can use!

Small playerbase is a problem, but it's an older game. It's sort of hard to draw new people to it. It's an accomplishment in itself to have survived 5 years running...just look at the new crop of MMOs, and I'd be amazed if some of them managed to have a Lifetime of more than a year tops. Hopefully, between red and blues being able to intermingle in Praetoria and the continuing expansion of the free server transfer service things and finally a new expansion pack things will be getting better.

I think random roaming respawns behind you could liven things up a bit. You'd have to watch your butts for the first time ever. Actually I think the rock dudes in the Hollows trial DO respawn but it's been an age since I ran that so maybe I'm just misremembering. Bring a Friend code is...eh. It might just make it easier to pull the whole room, if you end up flagging an enemy to run to nearby spawns an Alert them to your presence and get that gang to go train your group. The Tanker can be like, "cool that dude is doing my job herding the room FOR me!" Not to mention, in an outdoor map like ones in the ITF...oh man. It's already so laggy. Just imagine every soldier dashing off to aggro more of the many, many soldiers all over the place...oh man. Epic, neverending slugfest.

lol...
So go join another MMO (in my case LOTRO) and spend 35 levels jogging, and unable to leap a short fence.

You know what, their game play is repetitive too, and the characters have way less variety between them, especially within their version of archetypes.

It amazes me that their is no sidekicking in it, with how nearly identical characters of the same level are in their field.

That said ...sure.... give me an enemy AI slider... from dumb as rocks (pretty much where they are... a fight going on behind me... somebody else's problem) to tactical genius level)

Anyone remember when the Hollows first rolled out, the AI changes that were present there... outcast electrical guys healing their team etc... I remember folks saying that the ordinary missions were harder than TF's they had done before

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Enter "quick teams" that are formed by the computer. You don't have to use them if you're good at leading a team, but you CAN use them just the same.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ravenswing This has revolutionised WoW. Though, of course, we'd be accused of copying WoW if such a system was introduced.

I suggested it before WoW was launched in the Ideas and Suggestions forums. And 3 times since that first time. Forum monster may keep eating it but I am sure Google has it cached somewhere.

5yrs of same ol same ol, but oh well.

Market, we dont have the player base to support what it has become, not even WoW is that bad & they have the player base to support it if it did get that bad.

Honestly, Overhaul of everything, they should just work on CoH2


JJ