City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Failing to be impressed

AlienOne

By AlienOne,
Posted on: 2010-08-20 08:20 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

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Originally Posted by Turbo_Ski View Post
Wrath still had a problem with raids being too lengthy per lockout, making it only possible to get halfway into Ulduar or ICC in PuG before people have to leave. Cata promises to fix this with more raids but smaller in length.
Cata seems to promises to entirely remove raids as WoW players know them and replace them with 25 man heroic dungeons, so to speak. They keep saying it's going to change from "raid content" to "play style for dungeon content"

 

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Originally Posted by Starsman View Post
Cata seems to promises to entirely remove raids as WoW players know them and replace them with 25 man heroic dungeons, so to speak. They keep saying it's going to change from "raid content" to "play style for dungeon content"
Not really, Raid design is going to remain similar to Wrath except the same item level drops for both 10 man and 25 mans and there will be more raids but smaller in size. They are going to continue the wrath tradition of the occasional bonus boss that is exclusive to heroic mode encounters though, like Algalon but only requiring the last boss to be defeated in heroic mode and not most of the raid.

 

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
The rest of the time when he's roaming the lands, he's basically solo doing Lord know what. I gave up on trying to figure out that game's questing system.
It works like this:

1. Get 1 paragraph of briefing narrative from contact.
2. Run to somewhere miles away.
3. Hang around waiting for the guy before you to finish killing mobs.
4. Wait for mobs to respawn and kill them.
5. Run miles back to contact.
6. Get 1 sentence of 'thanks!' narrative.
7. Repeat.

Eco.

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

 

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i bought one pre order for gr..bases it clearly on incarnates.

gr came out without incarnates and my 2nd account doesnt have gr.

i then cancelled my account which has only been active for 1 month this entire year. if posi wants my money then hed better stop pulling stuff and start making it happen.


believe it or not..incarnates was just as much a draw as the new zones or the new powersets were.

no incarnates no money..plain and simple ..buh bye sept 1st kids..keep arguing about it as much as you want.its funny

 

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Originally Posted by Severe View Post
i bought one pre order for gr..bases it clearly on incarnates.

gr came out without incarnates and my 2nd account doesnt have gr.

i then cancelled my account which has only been active for 1 month this entire year. if posi wants my money then hed better stop pulling stuff and start making it happen.


believe it or not..incarnates was just as much a draw as the new zones or the new powersets were.

no incarnates no money..plain and simple ..buh bye sept 1st kids..keep arguing about it as much as you want.its funny


Bye. See ya when Issue 19 is released, that's when Incarnates is supposed to be ready.

 

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Originally Posted by Severe View Post
no incarnates no money..plain and simple ..buh bye sept 1st kids
Don't bother coming back until Issue 25 or so, then. From what I've been reading, the Incarnate System sounds like another content-less grind for a tiny boost in power.

An MMO closure is definitely not a joke, and I have no intention of making light of it. And it can be a tough and emotional thing for players to go through, speaking from personal experience. And I know that it's often much harder on the developers than on the publisher. However, I also know that it doesn't necessarily turn you into a sad, depressed sack of tears for the rest of your life. People can move past it, and heal.

 

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I'll agree with the sentiments offered by the OP and others.

I am a bit disappointed in GR. I, too, was hoping for at least a new TF/SF (CoP not quite 'new') or two....and LOTS of new mission maps/tilesets (ported to CoH and CoV content as well). I think that's the 'biggest' disappointment for me...sure in Praetoria you get some new stuff but even that some of the tilesets are just re-painted... :/


The best thing about GR? Market merge (and ability to email stuff to yourself even if your other toon is on the opposite side of the 'fence').


I will say though...if it wasn't for the badges that I'm trying to now get with my main badger....I'd probably be more disappointed since after lvl 20 there's "nothing new" to do regular content wise.


GR is a good start but yeah....as others have said (only read first 2/3 pages)...waiting is hard for new 'endgame content'.

Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
MKW FC: 4167-4891-5991

 

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Originally Posted by HPorch0 View Post
yeah, I know what you're talking about.

it's basically the LFG tag that we can apply. instead of manually searching through everyone and cherry picking what you want, you flag yourself for... LRSF and the system groups those interested in the same thing together.
Yeah I'd like to see a system like that (above). I know there was some sort of new flag setting in GR....was this it? I haven't played with it so....don't know.

Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
MKW FC: 4167-4891-5991

 

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Originally Posted by Kobold_Commander View Post
Don't bother coming back until Issue 25 or so, then. From what I've been reading, the Incarnate System sounds like another content-less grind for a tiny boost in power.
They specifically pulled it from I18 because it didn't have content associated with it. Presumably this means that when it is released, it'll be released with content.

bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenth ur-
nuk!

 

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Originally Posted by Kobold_Commander View Post
Don't bother coming back until Issue 25 or so, then. From what I've been reading, the Incarnate System sounds like another content-less grind for a tiny boost in power.
I'll tackle the other half of this complaint: of course it'll be a tiny boost in power. People already solo AVs on every archetype. Lots of people blitz through maxed difficulty missions while watching Hulu. At that point ANY increase in power is going to be small -- when you're vaporizing every challenge, what's an "increase," shaving a few seconds off the experience? Diminishing returns applies.

This is pretty much a fact of mathematics, honestly. You can't possibly shave two hours off a Task Force you already do in 20 minutes.

It could be argued that increases in power will decrease your subjective experience of power. Right now only a few expensive builds solo AVs. Increasing power across the board might mean that every build will be able to mop the floor with AVs.

And when everyone is super-super, no one will be.

If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
----------------------------------------------------------

The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog

 

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Originally Posted by Sailboat View Post
And when everyone is super-super, no one will be.
And that's the great thing or crappy thing (depending on how you look at it) about this game. No one can stand out.

GG Syndrome.

 

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Totaly agree. If we could take a look at the last "full expansion". How many new powersets, architypes, zones, badges, etc.. did that have? On top of that.. They added 10lvls around the release of that expansion.(either right before or soon after) If you ask me GR is nothing more than a glorified issue release. It seems that they paid WAY more attention to bringing new players on then keeping the existing ones happy. I really wanted to enjoy GR and ignored how little of content it entailed, but after going through it all, I'm sorry to say I'm very disapointed. I mean, come on, they could've released all the content in GR in 3 normal issue releases or less.

 

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Originally Posted by Newb_Master View Post
Totaly agree. If we could take a look at the last "full expansion". How many new powersets, architypes, zones, badges, etc.. did that have? On top of that.. They added 10lvls around the release of that expansion.(either right before or soon after) If you ask me GR is nothing more than a glorified issue release. It seems that they paid WAY more attention to bringing new players on then keeping the existing ones happy. I really wanted to enjoy GR and ignored how little of content it entailed, but after going through it all, I'm sorry to say I'm very disapointed. I mean, come on, they could've released all the content in GR in 3 normal issue releases or less.
1) The 10 levels AFTER the last expansion (CoV) was in the issue immediately after it- Issue 7. Tuesday June 6th... 222 days AFTER CoV. This is also the longest delay between issues until I17, which was 225. Calling it "around that release" is a bit off.

2) Of the new archetypes that they had, count how many were near-direct-ports of the powerset equivalent heroside and the magnitude of the difference is much less... particularly when you look at the ones that needed wholly new animations.

3) The Praetorian content easily gives you multiple alternative paths of advancement, allowing for additional replayability. The CoV low-level-content began with just 1 path through Mercy with barely enough content in Port Oakes & Cap Au Diable to support two alternate paths as you proceed... if that. The rest fleshed out in future issues.

4) Along with the Praetoria content, there are over 200+ tips/morality missions added to the game, last I checked. Many of these have levels of complexity and depth that makes them far from being the equivalent of newspaper/police scanner material.

Not saying you're not entitled to your opinion... or that all this I hilighted makes it equal, but... it seems like much of that opinion could be better formed if its applied against actual facts.

EDIT 5) "It seems that they paid WAY more attention to bringing new players on then keeping the existing ones happy." You're assuming that YOUR interests are the norm among "existing players." The devs have access to the datamining. They see where most existing player activities lay, and they even noted that a large portion of characters stop leveling well before 40 (before 30, IIRC) for the players to create another one. They focused on Praetoria levels 1-20 for both the new players and that large portion of the playerbase that would appreciate it. They also planned on the Incarnate system for a boost to the higher-level play, indicating that they're not ignoring those other players... just placing priorities where they needed to be.

 

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What Chase_Arcanum said!

And really...you think they shouldn't concentrate on new players?

That's exactly what this game needs! Vets slowly go away. Boredom, new games, family responsibilities. I think they need to do even more to attract new players and revamp the other 2 starting zones.

Praetoria content is damn interesting compared to lots of the other COX content out there. And it actually makes me feel like I'm the one in control of the story rather than just some glorified, hired muscle.

And I'm sorry that some people can't stand pre-stamina levels. But stamina is not a requirement for an effective toon.

The whole point of GR seems(from what I observe) to make the game interesting from level 1. That should be a huge deal to more MMO developers. Giving players a good starting experience, rather than making people slog through bad content until they get high enough for the 'good' stuff. I think this is a very good approach.

 

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Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum View Post
1) The 10 levels AFTER the last expansion (CoV) was in the issue immediately after it- Issue 7. Tuesday June 6th... 222 days AFTER CoV. This is also the longest delay between issues until I17, which was 225. Calling it "around that release" is a bit off.
Yes it was 222 days after CoV but GR was announced 15 Months ago, That is 450 days! If GR was announced 6 months ago I would be fine but 15 Months for so little just doesn't sit right with me.

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2) Of the new archetypes that they had, count how many were near-direct-ports of the powerset equivalent heroside and the magnitude of the difference is much less... particularly when you look at the ones that needed wholly new animations.
And yet GR as none! How hard would it of been to do a Melee/Buff or something like that. It would be just a direct port too. Just one AT would of made GR a lot better. Heck they could of made it an Epic AT that you could only earn if you played a Preatorian up to level 20. So with that you make players at least play the new content twice, something I think they would like.

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3) The Praetorian content easily gives you multiple alternative paths of advancement, allowing for additional replayability. The CoV low-level-content began with just 1 path through Mercy with barely enough content in Port Oakes & Cap Au Diable to support two alternate paths as you proceed... if that. The rest fleshed out in future issues.
Yes CoV only had one paths but GR is too thin for 2 paths or they didn't do a good job to Introduce you to new contacts. I see new threads every day saying I have no contacts what do I do. This is just the people that come to the forums who knows how many people are out there that don't know what to do.

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4) Along with the Praetoria content, there are over 200+ tips/morality missions added to the game, last I checked. Many of these have levels of complexity and depth that makes them far from being the equivalent of newspaper/police scanner material.
Yes 200+ tips/morality missions where added but some reason to me the numbers seem to get higher at first I saw 125 then 150 then 175. I don't know how many where added. All I know is I'm getting the same ones over and over again. I just ran 5 hero ones with my Widow I have done all 5. When you looks at it 200+ tips missions is not a lot. You have 4 type of missions Hero, Vigilante, Rogue, and Villain. So lets just say 200 mission that would be 50 mission for each. Then I would assume you have different level ones too because I don't see a level 20 going againt Malta. So the numbers just gets smaller. So if you are moving more then one Hero to Villain from the same level your going to do a lot of repeats.


I wanted to like GR I was looking forward for GR. When they announced it 15 months back I was looking forward to it a lot. The longer it took to come out the bigger I was thinking it was going to be. When I got into Beta and saw how little it was, I was sad.

I know some people love it but it's not for me. I have 47 toons and 23 of them are 50s. I love to play them that is why I haven't played delete them yet. I just wanted to play the toons that I love to played with new content the tips mission where now enough. I would have loved to play a new AT, to do something new but yet there are none. I love this game and have played it way too at times. I hoping that I19 will give me something that I can look forward to. I'm just not liking GR.

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps

 

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Originally Posted by BrokenPrey View Post
When I got into Beta and saw how little it was, I was sad.
Did you react like your forum avatar?

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

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Originally Posted by Slashman View Post

And I'm sorry that some people can't stand pre-stamina levels. But stamina is not a requirement for an effective toon.

I call BS. When at least 50% of character concepts require Stamina in order to function, that is a game design flaw. And an easily fixed one that the devs continue to ignore.

 

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Originally Posted by dbuter View Post
I call BS. When at least 50% of character concepts require Stamina in order to function, that is a game design flaw. And an easily fixed one that the devs continue to ignore.
Endurance management is essential in the game, and is a skill that requires to be learned by every player.

To view it as a game design flaw is unrealistic.

Proud member of FOXBASE ALPHA and coalition associates.

Hero 50's - 25

Villain 50's - 1

 

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Originally Posted by Cobra_Man View Post
Endurance management is essential in the game, and is a skill that requires to be learned by every player.

To view it as a game design flaw is unrealistic.
It is a design flaw, just as solo difficulty in CO ranges from faceplant every minute to faceplant once a week if you take Regeneration rank 3 and stack recovery.

 

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Originally Posted by BrokenPrey View Post
Yes CoV only had one paths but GR is too thin for 2 paths or they didn't do a good job to Introduce you to new contacts. I see new threads every day saying I have no contacts what do I do. This is just the people that come to the forums who knows how many people are out there that don't know what to do.

Huh? WHA?

Ok, I'll assume you solo. I duo'ed, and I play intermittently so my mileage may vary. I did absolutely NO street hunting, NO sidekicking, and did ONE of the 4 major paths (Power, Responsibility, Warden, and Crusader)... and still got to level 20 before completing them. Others in beta claimed they needed to do two lines to make it the whole way. I'm assuming that was soloing and sticking to the strict story path with less distraction. So that's 2-4 unique story arcs from 1-50, depending on how much you mix in a little street fighting / do the occasional teammate's mission / earn patrol xp.


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Originally Posted by BrokenPrey View Post
Yes 200+ tips/morality missions where added but some reason to me the numbers seem to get higher at first I saw 125 then 150 then 175. I don't know how many where added. All I know is I'm getting the same ones over and over again. I just ran 5 hero ones with my Widow I have done all 5. When you looks at it 200+ tips missions is not a lot. You have 4 type of missions Hero, Vigilante, Rogue, and Villain. So lets just say 200 mission that would be 50 mission for each. Then I would assume you have different level ones too because I don't see a level 20 going againt Malta. So the numbers just gets smaller. So if you are moving more then one Hero to Villain from the same level your going to do a lot of repeats.
You might be right that it was closer to 150. I was going from memory and think I miscounted the level ranges in haste-- there was a thread-- there were something akin to 10-15 unique tip missions per level range per alignment. Yes, there are variations for all the major alignments. Yes, if you do more than one side switch within the same level range, you'll see the same content.

Then again, if you opt to run a second Villain through St. Martial, you'll get the same missions too. Doesn't change the fact that this expansion had ALL NEW level 1-20 content for multiple paths PLUS added a mix of 200 additional missions with complex mechanics.

Your first post ignored all the TIPS missions entirely, and grossly underestimated the Praetorian content, speaking like there wasn't much more than a single path through it. That's normal- many people tend to speak of GR content as if it's just Praetoria. They crammed a bunch more into it that's missed.

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Originally Posted by BrokenPrey View Post
I wanted to like GR I was looking forward for GR. When they announced it 15 months back I was looking forward to it a lot. The longer it took to come out the bigger I was thinking it was going to be. When I got into Beta and saw how little it was, I was sad.
Disappointment is understandable. I was very surprised there weren't some sort of zone event for at least two of the Praetorian zones, like we see in all the other non-starter zones.

I temper those feelings by looking at precisely WHAT was accomplished since that announcement. They also released three issues containing several strike / task forces, a few missions, the resource-intensive Powerset customization, powerset proliferation, ultra mode, etc. Many of these were very time-intensive code-heavy changes that carried a lot of risk and effort... and many of them legitimately could have been held off to beef up the expansion even more.

I also managed expectations by looking at what's normally made available in other game expansions, and what we got was VERY far from anemic in comparison. As pretty as it is, AoC's Godslayer doesn't have nearly the depth of content, none of EQ2's recent expansions come close, LOTRO... richly done, but little in between. In comparison, if GR had provided more than what they did, I'd have been amazed.

And as others have mentioned, CoV was released and marketed as a separate game as much as expansion-- the expansalone. GR was released, marketed, and priced for expansions.


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Originally Posted by BrokenPrey View Post
I know some people love it but it's not for me. I have 47 toons and 23 of them are 50s. I love to play them that is why I haven't played delete them yet. I just wanted to play the toons that I love to played with new content the tips mission where now enough. I would have loved to play a new AT, to do something new but yet there are none. I love this game and have played it way too at times. I hoping that I19 will give me something that I can look forward to. I'm just not liking GR.
From the looks of Incarnate leaks, I19's your baby, and you ARE well due some of that attention, don't take my arguments here as meaning that you aren't. For me- here since right after the purple patch, but with only 4 level 50's, dozens of lower-levels, and never-run-a-task-force... yeah, probably not for me. That's fine. I'll still be churning through the GR content I haven't covered yet.

... but, then again, if you ever DO want to break in a task force virgin... and I can get enough free time in one evening to do it, I've been itching to try one.

 

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Originally Posted by dbuter View Post
I call BS. When at least 50% of character concepts require Stamina in order to function, that is a game design flaw. And an easily fixed one that the devs continue to ignore.
I call BS. When most players choose to have concepts/builds that require Stamina, it's their decision. The simple fact is, a lot of people like to take the Fitness pool even when they truly don't need it. I can't tell you how many /regen or willpower builds I've seen with the Fitness pool.

Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project

 

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Originally Posted by Ironblade View Post
I call BS. When most players choose to have concepts/builds that require Stamina, it's their decision. The simple fact is, a lot of people like to take the Fitness pool even when they truly don't need it. I can't tell you how many /regen or willpower builds I've seen with the Fitness pool.
Agreed.

I had a great many of my builds as non-stamina. They worked well- particularly when teamed. Heroside, odds are pretty good that a team will have a defender or controller that has a group endurance buff. When thats' the case, endurance is rarely, if ever, an issue.

And then there's good IO speccing- full IO sets give substantial endurance discounts... and when you consider what a 60% endurance discount on a single solid-attack-chain power saves over the course of a minute, then look at what stamina recovers in that minute, the performance improvement is clear. When it's absolutely necessary, I pop a blue skittle.

I also have specced many stamina-based builds. Got nothing against them, and when I add pool toggles to my builds, it really does help with the drain.

 

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I'm finding the alignment system to be extremely underwhelming. Considering this was supposed to be one of the big focuses of the expansion, something talked about for literally years, I expected it to have a lot of shine and polish to it. Instead, it feels almost tacked on, especially when you compare it to Praetoria.

Praetoria has all these cool missions with the ability for you to decide how to progress through them. They also have some wonderfully and long overdue new tilesets. It almost makes it feel like an entirely new game, so it strikes me as odd that these things were left out of the parts of the expansion that are available to CoH and CoV.

Instead, we get the same, bland tilesets we've had for years. There is also no real morality choice like you get in Praetoria. Instead it's, "Do you want to do mission A or mission B?" From my experience, most of the missions are fairly straightforward and not too much different from the types of missions that were in this game 6 years ago (with a few exceptions).

When compared to Newspaper/Radio missions, they become even more lackluster to me. At least when you do enough of those, there is a big payoff in the form of being able to do a Mayhem/Safeguard mission, something wholly unique to the CoH/CoV experience. That's what kept me from posting in this thread for a few days. I didn't want to preemptively complain only to be told, "But you haven't even gotten to the alignment mission yet. Wait until you do that!" I was holding out hope that after going through 10 run-of-the-mill missions, it would be something that would make it all worthwhile. But nope, it was another mission in an office tileset...

I suppose these missions are worth begrudgingly doing if you want to change sides, but I can't really see any reason to do them beyond that, which is a big shame. With this expansion, they had the opportunity to add a lot of polish to both CoH and CoV, allowing players beyond level 20 to continue to experience some new and superb content, but it seems all that polish was focused solely on Praetoria.