Biggest Problems with the Game Today

Market is a problem because of its natural inflation, generates farm and farmers aswell;
A farmer can play the same hours as me and pay 1000M+ for any single component, as a single account player I cannot spend 100M for a single recipe even at lv 50, market is FORCING me to farm and this I really cannot agree with.
About purples: come on, you cannot full-purple all your alts without farming..
Nice addon to break up the alleged monotony, more real monotony, thanks.

Exactly. You only need to do much farming if you want one or more purple sets (or lots of LotG, Numina's, etc.) But why would I want to Purple out anything, even partially? I'm not soloing AV's and TF's, and PVP is basically nonexistent.

This is exactly my list, as well.

I have to say that most participants in the game tend to be really friendly and very willing to help newbies out. That is as true today as it was four years ago when I joined in my experience. (I could just be lucky and have chosen the best server of course, but I suspect it's universal.)

Mostly, internet forums tend to degrade into toxic environments in fairly short order, if they last long enough of course, and it's a credit to the CCs and moderation policies, and to the participants, that once an argument's over in a thread it tends to [mostly] remain over.

You'll always get snipers and mealy-mouthed cowards in any anonymous environment, but for the most part this place works pretty ok.

One thing we do have here is a chance to express negative views about the game, it's direction or other factors not relating to without getting stomped on by the CCs - not every environment is so tollerant that that is a strength of here, IMO.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

The problem I see though is that idea of making so MUCH of the game unnecessary, that it's easy to let tons of things just slip through the cracks. (Arena PvP, Ouroboros, Badges, certain TFs/SFs, etc etc)

I'd actually prefer it if sometimes, the game made you stretch out of your comfort area and DO other things. (Contacts who give bonus missions to those with a certain amount of badges, or who have played in the arena for awhile). But don't hide those bonus missions, make it apparent, i.e. at an ordinary contact (not a hidden one) that you're getting missions from, occasionally have one grayed out with a red message saying something like "This mission requires you to have at least 3 history badges."

Edit: Also I think the notion that the community overall doesn't take the anti-dev (and anti-dev-supporter) comments has some merit. I was just casually browsing and saw this post.

I meant realistic physics in regards to the boob slider. Yeesh, get your mind in the gutter already!

And actually, realistic butt physics would be lovely too. We spend pretty much all of our time staring at our characters backs and behinds. They should really be as refined as possible.

I'm altoholic and I love all my toons, why shouldn't I put any best enhancement avaliable for the toons I love?

PvP is nonexistent because it's more broken than before thanks to purple IOsets: will you ever try entering bloody bay at lvl 15 with TOs or DOs if you know there are full purple slotted enemies?

I'm an altoholic, and I simply don't have the time or energy to purple out even one toon, much less the 26 I have on Virtue alone (with more on Freedom).

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Offhand, a problem I can see: unless the requirement is relatively trivial (one easy-to-get exploration badge, maybe), that greyed-out mission is going to stay there, blocking all further missions of that type (be it hunt or door) on that contact. In effect, the contact becomes a badge contact, and we already have those.

So before this can be implemented, yet more tech needs to be put in to prevent such a thing from happening.

CoH/V's issue is one of inertia - it is what it is and that path has been continuing forward, slowly losing active accounts. The last major player increase came with CoV, but the current marketing of GoRo makes me think that we will be seeing a much more limited expansion so we shouldn't expect the same kind of active account bounce.

A lot of recent changes have been popular with the existing player base - power colour customisation, MA / AE - but it hasn't drawn that many players back. I fully appreciate the effort that went into such systems, but they aren't draw cards for new players.

Ultimately the same issues that CoH was criticised for when it launched exist today: repetitive maps, nothing really to do but combat and no real variety to the game. Some of the more interesting, more involving content appears in later updates, but it hasn't been pulled through to the earlier stages of the game - the very time when it is important to hit the new players and keep them interested.

The biggest problem with CoH/V is that it isn't releasing content that is attracting new players while also retaining the existing ones. It isn't growing in terms of active account terms. Sadly I don't think War Witch will be given the resources to turn that around and will have to come up with something inspired to likely hold steady when DCUO launches (assuming that SOE doesn't totally drop the ball... and given the amount of focus they put into learning from CoH/V, I don't think they will). Plus with Paragon Studios working on their next MMO, the focus of the studio will shift away from building CoH/V towards building the new title.

I'm waiting for GoRo to wow me, but the currently released info lacks features to get that excited about right now. Perhaps there will be a close-to-release info blitz, but that also runs the risk of those new features being buried by other news, so potential players don't hear about it.

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.

My contention is that purples aren't generally "available." It is virtually impossible, for example, to purple out 16 characters (split hero and villain) playing 5 hours a week, assuming you haven't been playing those same characters for like four years (which "altoholic" definitely implies). The only people for whom purples are "available" are the very serious players who have considerable time to invest in the game, which was intended by the Devs and is thus "working."

Also, the context of your statement seems to imply that you should be going for PvP sets; if purpling out a full server doesn't seem unreasonable enough for a casual player, how about fully slotting PvP sets on an entire server?

Basically, the problem here is that you're complaining about the lack of access to something that was put in the game on the premise that access to it should be restricted. That seems silly to me.


A fully purpled character should have enough global recharge and accuracy to stomp a proper 15, and he probably has more than enough recovery to do it all day. A couple of normal characters, working together, should still be able to handle him. As I see it, the real problem with PvP is that it's a chore; you have to go out of your way to find it, and the only rewards (other than badges) are recipes that are sufficiently rare to be relegated to use only for making money or making really hardcore builds.

It can be a fun way to kill time, but the people who are still here after this long of a PvP dry spell tend to be the ones that have fun doing other things, too. Other content can be done somewhat easily, and you always get something for it.

PvP is a hassle, and you only get badges and crazy-expensive recipes out of it; since those rewards are the two main things put in the game for people with a farming mindset, you basically have the situation that PvP is currently aimed purely at farmers. Since farmers have a lot of other things to be doing already, and since these tend to give more reliable results, there's just not much reason to PvP.

Actually, conventional wisdom has it that the entertainment sector usually has an upswing during a recession.

I can totally get behind this idea. No pun intended...or was it?

I, too, play on multiple computers, all with different resolutions/aspect ratios. It'd be nice if window settings (like graphics settings) were on a per-computer basis, not character basis.

--NT

I dunno, redesigns can go a long way towards sprucing up a map, even if it has the same floorplan. It's an aspect of atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, we do need more brand new ones but I think this is a good short term solution.

It sort of frustrates me as a newer player who plays on a smaller server. Most stuff in the game is new to me so I'm interested in them but I see so many others who are set in their ways and thus the unpopular missions and SFs/TFs don't get run. UberGuy makes a valid point in not generalizing everyone but at times I really don't know what to do outside of teaming with other new players which seems unlikely due to how I was brought to the game. Seems really hard to use unconventional powers if you don't have a static team.

Actually, some arcs have a sort of "either/or" option where two missions are given and you can pick between them. Done like this, it would be a viable concept and would be a good way to actually get mileage out of some badges.

My Arcs
-----
Mission Architect Handyman

They really don't. Contacts can offer a choice of two missions if they have enough non-completed ones. If you have an arc open and also non-completed one-offs, the contact will offer you one arc mission and one random one-off. If you pick the one-off mission and complete it, the contact will offer you the same arc mission as before and another one-off.

Just noticed this thread, the same debate occurred in a very popular channel in the EU server Union not long ago. At first it was competition, but were still above it all after latest releases. We did however all agree inflation is rife, and PvP is well Lawl.

The sad thing was while we could nit-pick and find problems with the game, all of us here on the unsafe side of the pool, settled on the fact we know our future is very bleak. Before any of you accuse me of whining, moaning, whatever, don't even bother it's not even funny anymore. Countless numbers of us have made formal and indeed informal complaints about our future.

My personal answer? As well as probably speaking for the general population of EU subscribers, please count yourself out if not:

Ignorance.

Fury

So, what? EU vs. US is the new CoV vs. CoH? I live in Europe, myself, and if "your" future is bleak as EU version players, it's only because the EU version of the game in general was an incredibly unnecessary and frankly STUPID idea. Personally, I'd expect to see both sets of servers opened up to each other in the near future.

P.S. I still subscribe to the US version of the game.

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.

You'd think, and we'd all like to see that, but the dimwits in the offices are apparently oblivious to it.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Eh. Hard for us to say if it was a bad idea, or a good idea that was badly implemented, or a good, but risky idea that just didn't work out, or a good idea that just wasn't followed through on, or if it was the best idea they could implement under the constraints in place at the time. It's probably hard even for NCSoft itself to say which it was.

Hence why I didn't move when that was offered, and hence why they made every effort to coerce me. It was a bad move, and to this day I still don't understand why they did it. Having different customer support branches and marketing branches and even different servers, that I can see. But why make the versions incompatible with each other? What business sense does that make?

I doubt you'll be forced to move or lose all of your stuff, however. As I understand it, when the US to EU transfers occurred, you got to keep your characters. With server transfers now an established service, at the very worst you'll be given unlimited transfers from EU to US servers, if the server lists are not out-and-out merged. Screwing over EU players would be a remarkably poor business decision, specifically since I'm already getting screwed over because the PlayNC store refuses to show me US versions of certain items. Stupid localisation!

Again, the US and EU segregation did not need to exist.

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.

Seriously, what purpose does having two incompatible versions of the same game that just split an already small player base even further serve? I didn't see a point in NOT being on the US servers when I was being coddled to switch over and I don't see it now.

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.