Alpha Slot Removed from Going Rogue
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-07-12 11:36 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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So do I. My bars are big enough for NINE enhancement slots. But if I switch to windowed mode and resize the screen to roughly 4:3 (non-widescreen resolution), six enhancements fills the bar again.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
The title bars for powers are currently longer than six slots. There is now room for a seventh slot on each power. Before I17, the bar was basically exactly six slots long.
I play on a wide screen. |
Old new is old. This was confirmed by a dev (Ghost Falcon, I think) to just be a side-effect of the changes to the screen to make it support widescreen modes.
@Roderick
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Yeah, that was kinda my point. Before I17, on your wide screen your enhancement window was a 4:3 window stretched. So the bars were exactly 6 slots long, but the slots were oval, not round as they were stretched to accomdate a 16:9 screen.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
The title bars for powers are currently longer than six slots. There is now room for a seventh slot on each power. Before I17, the bar was basically exactly six slots long.
I play on a wide screen. |
In I17 they fixed the window to scale for 16:9. The net result of this was users on 4:3 screens see no difference, they still only have room for 6 slots. Users on 16:9 screens now have stretched title bars but round slots. This has lead to many many users thinking more slots are coming, but, unless they are implimenting options for widescreen users only, it's not likely.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
Indeed.
People shouldn't necessarily assume that the problem was with the mechanical system itself. (Or least what part of the system was involved in the "sneak peek".) The problem may have been that there was not enough to do with that mechanical system. Positron's post talks about drops, which implies some degree of "grind" or time spent. What if that was just imposed on existing content, or on a really small set of new content? Would that really satisfy people who want more to do with their 50s? |
Well it would satisfy us more then nothing that's 100% given.
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Except the Dev's are saying that the Beta testers dissagree with you.
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Originally Posted by Lucky666
Well it would satisfy us more then nothing that's 100% given.
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Speak for yourself. There's tons of people that would rather have nothing (for now) then have some crap that doesn't work right.
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Lucky666 talks out his rectum: Well it would satisfy us more then nothing that's 100% given. |
Dec out.
I think we should keep in mind that the list of features we were given for GR is what was planned. Anything can and will change during a beta test. Things made be added; things may be removed; things may be changed. That is the reason they are tested before the general population gets their hands on them. Am I disappointed it is pushed back? Yes. But I am OK with it. As others have stated, I would rather have something that works better and is more fun to do than something that is not done right.
Liberty Server (@enderbean)
Arcs on Live
#1460 Hometown Rivalry
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They must have a heck of a lot of friends and family then to be able to have the numbers they need for testing something as big as GR.
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Originally Posted by Hydrofoil_Zero
Not likely. I'm supposed to be in both the other tiers for the loyalty program and the pre-purchase.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
I have to say, anything limited to level 50 content will be so specialized as to be hard to justify. Things 50's can do:
villains, level 50 arcs: 27 vs. 98 sub-50
hero, level 50 arcs: 20 Vs. 74 vs. sub-50
strike forces @ level 50: 5, 1 respec vs. below 50: 6, 2 respecs
task forces @ level 50: 7, 1 respec vs. below 50: 13, 2 respecs
If they are insistent on incarnate/alpha stuff being level 50 alone, I'd hope they'd match the post level 50 development with level 50 content to develop while doing. Because those level 50 story arcs? Done 'em all. The strike forces? same. I really don't want to have to go through them over and over just so that I can get more powerful to go through them again.
There's a reason I build my character to be able to work well exemplared: it's where most of the gameplay is.
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That's correct - reading his post, there's nothing about the way the Alpha slots works or is unlocked being the problem - the problem is that it's not useful if there's no Incarnate content to use it on, as it doesn't scale down when you exemplar - it'd be similar to if when they'd added PvP to the game, they hadn't finished making the Arenas |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Indeed.
People shouldn't necessarily assume that the problem was with the mechanical system itself. (Or least what part of the system was involved in the "sneak peek".) The problem may have been that there was not enough to do with that mechanical system. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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The new incarnate content involves new zone events of some kind - those are what we're supposed to use the new incarnate abilites on - but as there's no Incarnate content in GR, that makes the Alpha slot a pretty pointless thing to give us in GR.
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Originally Posted by Seldom
I have to say, anything limited to level 50 content will be so specialized as to be hard to justify. Things 50's can do:
villains, level 50 arcs: 27 vs. 98 sub-50 hero, level 50 arcs: 20 Vs. 74 vs. sub-50 strike forces @ level 50: 5, 1 respec vs. below 50: 6, 2 respecs task forces @ level 50: 1 respec vs. below 50: 13, 2 respecs If they are insistent on incarnate/alpha stuff being level 50 alone, I'd hope they'd match the post level 50 development with level 50 content to develop while doing. Because those level 50 story arcs? Done 'em all. The strike forces? same. I really don't want to have to go through them over and over just so that I can get more powerful to go through them again. There's a reason I build my character to be able to work well exemplared: it's where most of the gameplay is. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Consider the possibility that as previous posters have said, the problem may lie in how the feature has been perceived by beta testers vs. Dev expectations. The system/mechanics may be perfectly working as intended, but they're not being reacted to in the predicted fashion. If the Devs can see the whole iceberg from the drawing board up, they might not have really been able to see how the populace would react to seeing just the tip.|
Originally Posted by Diggis
Except the Dev's are saying that the Beta testers dissagree with you.
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Personally, I can't help but be disappointed in having to wait longer for something further to do with my high level characters. I really don't like alting - I tend to prefer sticking to something and making it better. That said, after having time to really evaluate the decision, I have to support it, if for no other reason than because it reminds me that this Dev team really is working for us, not just the bottom line.
I base this on an example from way back when I had the mixed blessing of talking to good ol' Statesman at an event, and I asked about Hamidon and raid content (this was just after Hami had started getting farmed nightly on almost every server). Before I could even get the question out, he got this look on his face of sheer frustration, and said he didn't want to talk about that, that that was NOT what raiding was supposed to be about. I was a bit confused, until a month or two later when they nerfed the effectiveness of HO enhancements. The problem was that the playerbase had broken the system - States, in all his omniscience, had never foreseen any way to defeat that encounter outside of his own, and had therefore released it confident in it's epicness. Only to find that soon enough, raids were running frequently in the 30-45 minute range, with zero deaths at times. Milk runs, not epic. Arrogant design philosophy. Course, this is the same guy who repeatedly told some of the most skilled players I've ever seen "Once you learn how to play the game more, you'll understand why it's better this way" to almost every suggestion they had...
This team, on the other hand, is effectively saying "It's epic, but you can't see the whole yet, and you've already broken the model we had envisioned. Broken model = bad. Let's give you the whole picture so you can see it the way we do. Hang on for a bit longer please" Maybe we'll still see it differently, but at least they're willing to take the rather nasty hit now for the sake of being able to show us what they see, rather than trying to crowbar in a lens shift for us after we establish the wrong impression based on limited info.
I'd love some new epic level 50 content right now. I'll settle for a design team that actually wants to give it to me, as opposed to one that wants to tell me that what they have given me is epic, but that I just don't understand why.
Marut, 50 FF/Rad/Power Defender - Champion
Leader of The Earthguard
Leader of The Galactic Empire
"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised."
George Will
"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. "
Benjamin Franklin
"Procrastination FTW"
Another_Fan
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See, I'm still not sure where you are getting broken from. Posi's post implies that the testers aren't getting any use out of the Alpha Slot, not that it's broken.
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Originally Posted by Marut
This team, on the other hand, is effectively saying "It's epic, but you can't see the whole yet, and you've already broken the model we had envisioned. Broken model = bad. Let's give you the whole picture so you can see it the way we do. Hang on for a bit longer please" Maybe we'll still see it differently, but at least they're willing to take the rather nasty hit now for the sake of being able to show us what they see, rather than trying to crowbar in a lens shift for us after we establish the wrong impression based on limited info.
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The zone events have been hinted at, but no details put forth. I doubt they'll be doing non-stop zone events, and if they are, I won't be doing them nonstop variety is the spice of life after all.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The new incarnate content involves new zone events of some kind - those are what we're supposed to use the new incarnate abilites on - but as there's no Incarnate content in GR, that makes the Alpha slot a pretty pointless thing to give us in GR.
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But I do agree on the point that the post-50 advancement should match to the content.
I think I understand the reflex against exemplaring: if level 50's can blast through things at nigh invulnerability at well below their level, that throws the merit rewards and game balance off for non-50's. so, you put that crazy new power in a specific range where people are all more or less able to handle high challenge, the advanced 50's then can go crazy without throwing as much stuff off. The trick is by limiting the field you are also enforcing a bit of repetition...the onus is one them to make the post-50 stuff less limited.
This presents an odd conundrum: is separates things a bit, and makes the level 50's desire more and more content for a limited part of the community. I just hope that the post-50 stuff they do is not gated, so that I can still bring along my buddies who want to play a level 30, or 40, or 20 character.
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Well, at PAX East, Positron did say that the new zone events were the Incarnate endgame content - no mention was made of any other type of Incarnate content.|
Originally Posted by Seldom
The zone events have been hinted at, but no details put forth. I doubt they'll be doing non-stop zone events, and if they are, I won't be doing them nonstop variety is the spice of life after all.
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EDIT: Go to 6:00 here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT9O0HM2-QM
The GR bit is out of date now, but the basic system details are interesting.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Apologies if there is confusion - I was not saying that the slot or the mechanics are broken, but that the model is broken; as in "We had a model of the playerbase responding THIS way to this implementation, but instead they are responding THAT way." The expected model encompasses everything from the design and implementation to the way the players receive it. One piece of that model breaking changes the whole way it works.|
Originally Posted by Diggis
See, I'm still not sure where you are getting broken from. Posi's post implies that the testers aren't getting any use out of the Alpha Slot, not that it's broken.
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RL example = The Edsel. Famous in common knowledge for being a terrible car, to the point of the name being synonomous with failure. In fact was not really a bad car, but a marketing disaster made worse by poor implementation. Perception of purpose is just as important to a consumer model as the actual functionality.
Marut, 50 FF/Rad/Power Defender - Champion
Leader of The Earthguard
Leader of The Galactic Empire
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See, I'm reading this very differently than most people. I don't see him saying that whatever power you get with alpha 1 is not powerful, just not useful. And then there is another paragraph explaining why it's not useful - because it doesn't exemplar down.|
Originally Posted by BigMoneyHustla
You said about the power not exemplaring down ... you mean like every other power you don't have use of when you exemplar below it's level ? I could completely understand not having access to that power (we get new powers ?) when you exemplar down, you lower your power level, that is why you can't use it.
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Maybe the problem is there is a new form of content - incarnate content - which is the equivalent of level 51+. So, if you're running an incarnate mission (whatever that would be), you have your alpha slot power. But since GR only had the very beginning of incarnate content, by the time you get the slot, you've already run all that content. You could go oro LGTF, but since that is only 50 content, you'd be effectively exemplared down out of incarnate content and not have access to your new power.
The power could be there and really useful, but not have any meaningful content in which it can be used - repeating the same incarnate 1 content over and over or the occasional zone event, but no TF or AE or normal missions.
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Understood, I just meant that you and I and many other players can't say right now how significant an amount of content said events represent. If we're going off of past zone events, they're a random half hour here and there, so the value of having crazy incarnate abilities for them seems limited. |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Well, at PAX East, Positron did say that the new zone events were the Incarnate endgame content - no mention was made of any other type of Incarnate content.
EDIT: Go to 6:00 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT9O0HM2-QM The GR bit is out of date now, but the basic system details are interesting. |
Hence why I'm saying I'd rather they wait on post-50 powers until they have more post 50 content to use those in.
I'm torn a bit on this one. I don't want a system that isn't polished and nice, but it was one of the main features I was looking forward to.
But I'm also not surprised, and didn't preorder (figured I could wait for the powersets) because I learned from being disappointed by CoV on speculation compared to what actually happens. The fact that this was toted as a release feature, officially or unofficially the devs spoke about it, and preorders could and were made because of this specific feature and now it won't be in release is just bad business. If I had preordered I would be really pissed off. If I were to tell my boss that my main project was only 90% complete (hell even 99%) on the release date to my customers, my boss would tell me to start getting some take out because I'll be living at work to make sure it's ready be release... honestly don't see why this isn't the case here.
The "good call on waiting" from so many people bug me because it's a feature in a paid expansion that people have already ordered. If it was a free release, or no one had purchased it yet, then this wouldn't be a big deal at all, and I would probably agree with the good calls.
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I preordered on the promise of new 1-20 content and switching sides, nothing more. Anything else, or the lack of anything else, doesn't matter. |
Originally Posted by MrTogo
The "good call on waiting" from so many people bug me because it's a feature in a paid expansion that people have already ordered. If it was a free release, or no one had purchased it yet, then this wouldn't be a big deal at all, and I would probably agree with the good calls.
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Thus, as long as those are delivered, I can say good call on the delay of the Alpha Slot.
Our views differ, just giving my reason is all.
Arc #345863 - When The Bough Breaks
"Curse you Perry the Plata...wait, is that Love Handel?" - Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb
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Well these are the people that weren't looking forward to the Incarnate System as much as they were the rest of the expansion. This is why it's not as big a deal to some. Unlike some games that do this though, they still plan on having it. They are just making changes and haven't thrown it away.
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Originally Posted by MrTogo
The "good call on waiting" from so many people bug me because it's a feature in a paid expansion that people have already ordered. If it was a free release, or no one had purchased it yet, then this wouldn't be a big deal at all, and I would probably agree with the good calls.
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I may have misunderstood somewhere along the lines, but I thought that the inclusion of the first of ten incarnate levels was a bonus that was being offered as a preview on the release of GR. The actual incarnate system was not being released until I19 and thus was a future feature to be offered to those who purchased GR.
The actual features with GR are the Praetoria Zones, side switching, market merger, new 1-20 content, costumes, etc. The thought that you would consider revoking your pre-purchase/pre-order because of bonus material isn't included can be compared to asking for your money back at a movie theatre because there were no trailers before your movie. I do not mean to be flaming anyone here, but seriously folks....you're kidding me right?
If you purchased the game based solely on a bonus preview rather than the actual content associated with the release, then you have my condolences. But you cannot blame the devs for your choices.
I would much rather have to wait until the actual release of the Incarnate system and see it done right, then to get a preview of it and have it all screwed up.
Oh my god some people will whine about ANYTHING.
I'm glad they pulled it before go-live if it's not living up to expectations. Better that than a repeat of the old CoP trial. I only have two 50's right now so I'm not terribly upset by this and will be happy to wait until it's RIGHT.
If you pre-ordered GR only for the sneak peak of the Incarnates system, then I have a great deal for you. 76 Gremlin with 200k miles and a brand spankin' new carbon-fiber gearshift knob. Only $10k.
That said, I would appreciate the Devs looking into going back and focusing their efforts in issue 20 towards fixing extant content and systems that are not WAI or don't match the new GR stuff. Fixing PVP and Base raiding, debugging old broken missions, giving the Rogue Isles and Paragon City an Ultra Mode facelift, and ironing out the wrinkles in the Costume Creator (missing parts, updating legacy textures, gender parity, etc.)
This game is starting to show its age and needs a little loving to make it feel fresh and new again across the whole experience. When GR drops, and the newcomers to the game leave Praetoria for the first time and get dropped into Paragon, or worse, the Rogue Isles, it's going to come as a shock at the decline of visual quality.
Sorry for the threadjack. Back to your regularly scheduled DOOM and entitlement issues.
Hello, my name is @Caligdoiel and I'm an altoholic.
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I sincerely hope that the Developers occasionally log into the live servers, as sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men... |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Well, at PAX East, Positron did say that the new zone events were the Incarnate endgame content - no mention was made of any other type of Incarnate content.
EDIT: Go to 6:00 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT9O0HM2-QM The GR bit is out of date now, but the basic system details are interesting. |
Problems with zone events in general:
i)Need outside triggers, like Lady Grey for zone raids or salvage redemption for Zombie Apocalypse;
ii)Low-pop servers might only draw 15-20 people in zone;
iii)Zone content focused only on level 50s doesn't exactly jibe well with the Super Sidekick system or the pick-up nature of the game;
iv)People get bored of zone events after about 5-10 minutes. Expecting people to exit more profitable missions (Influence, experience gains, merits, drops) to go fight "the big threat" is...naive, to be nice about it.
All those factors together would lead one to hope that the Devs have learned from previous iterations of zone events. Players want control over their environment and they want to be able to participate. IMO, there just aren't a lot of level 50s out there compared to the level 1-25 band. Part of this is due to altitis, boredom with the game and a perception of there being not much to do with the game at level cap.
I'm not in Beta...but if I had one piece of advice to give to the planners, it's that they not put all their eggs into the zone event basket.
I'll be brutally honest. I like soloing and I like doing task forces and missions. I don't generally street sweep unless bored or do zone defeats unless tied to an accolade or greater reward. Once I get badges for zone iterations I generally leave them alone.
One hopes that there will be more to the Incarnate System than just mad zerg rushes of Rikti Warships, Zombies, New Event Things and so on. In fact, the Devs should be planning at least one, if not more, level 45-50 or even level 50 Task Force/Strike Force in which Incarnate abilities will be a definite asset, though not an exact requirement, since Jane and John SuperDoe may want to try it with their friends and being locked out would be proverbial, dare I say it, slap in the face.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
Ah, I see i've come along just in time to follow some doom and gloom.
Too bad it's not going to be in as I was curious, not that I play my 50's constantly, as I still enjoy the earlier game - maybe because i've only been here for 2 years. I definitely would rather see it done right rather something disappointing being served up. Of course, i'm less sure as to whether i'd be more disappointed myself at playing something less than great or just not interested in hearing the whiners clawing over one another attempting to be the first and loudest in shouting Doom! 
The latter never gets irritating when taking one of my lowbie characters through it's paces in Atlas.