Discussion: Dev Diary on Issue 19 Task Forces on Massively.com

Lord_Apollon · 10-29-2010 06:34 PM

So when will the info on the alt animations come out?

Golden Girl · 10-29-2010 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker

What I took away from that interview was the complete absence of mention of the Lady Grey TF.

Dr. Aeon doesn't have Omega clearance.

@Golden Girl

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Johnny_Butane · 10-29-2010 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dollymistress

except with difficulty increased by forcing players to think more, like when fighting Protean.

There's little thinking involved with Protean, and he's a poor example of design.

He's basicially the devs flipping off melee ATs because really they are the only ones who have to adapt to, or are put at disadvantage by, his gimmick. That makes it a poorly designed gimmick IMO. They wouldn't do a boss fight with an enemy 100% immune to all ranged attacks, so why should the inverse be acceptable?

Positioning as a fight gimmick may work in other super hero MMOs but they don't have long rooting animations, movement supression and as big of a melee/ranged division as this game. Those fights can be more dynamic because that game and its combat was designed to be more dynamic from day one. It doesn't work here because this game wasn't. Here, the devs went out of their way to discourage jousting and run-n-gun by design, so creating an encounter where you force it on 50% of players is bad design as far as I'm concerned.

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Noxilicious · 10-30-2010 07:56 AM

I dunno about anybody else, but after the first few times I have yet to get hit by his Siphon Power on any of my melee toons. Sprinting backwards is not exactly rocket-science.

Zombie Man · 10-30-2010 12:02 PM

Protean was fun to joust on my Defender.... the first time.

The next time, I was going for Speed and the Shivan took him out in 10 seconds.

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Nethergoat · 10-30-2010 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilRyu

....if the devs truely mean what they say on this then we better have no cheating of NPCs abilities. Make up for it with better AI instead.

The only game AI that can't be 'solved' and trivialized by players....are other players.

That's a great interview, I'm much more excited about Incarnates and the new TFs than I was previously. Especially happy with the 1 hour design goal, which means I'll actually be able to PLAY them.

r/e his comments about 'every minute' of the TFs being meaningful, that's the feeling I got from the Halloween tip mission, which seemed more like a mini-TF than just another one off mission.

Very hopeful these TFs will raise the content bar to another level.

The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.

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Bad_Influence · 10-30-2010 02:01 PM

Quote:

The idea of making the toons with the least amount of HP and resistance/defense also the one gaining the most aggro is very, well, it won't be fun at all for people playing those toons.

Maybe debuff-heavy Defenders and Corruptors might be able to deal with that, but most buffers buff, you know, the rest of the party, not themselves. So we have an AT with powersets that are meant to make others more resilient and more capable at taking and dishing out damage, and then make it all useless because the enemies will focus on you anyway?

As time goes on I become more and more melee-centric. Good thing too, from the sound of this!

Q_Candy · 11-04-2010 12:20 PM

Being forced to do Taskforces to advance a character in this game is wrong.

At no point in my life do I ever want to be in a situation where my loved ones/family say "Could you log off the computer?" and my reply would be "No I cannot, I am on a TF".

It's irresponsible to force players to sit at a computer for 3 to 5 hours a time and not be able to log off if they need to. It's beyond ridiculous and the aspect of this game I hate the most. I forgo all my accolades because I refuse to put myself in that situation... but finding out now that all the new expansion stuff is going to be a task force grind just makes me angry.

I play this game because I do not want to grind to advance my character, I don't play wow, I chose this and you continue through the past 2 years to rip the heart of this game out and turn it into a massive warcraft style grind.

I resent you for that, deeply... and have only stayed around because I have so much invested in bases and vet badges.

Just stop with the force taskforce crap, 1k+ hours for hero merits and a purple set is already beyond evil.

Noxilicious · 11-04-2010 12:53 PM

You got quite a lot of things wrong in that post there, Q_Candy.

First off, nothing suggests right now that you need to do the new TFs to unlock the Alpha Slot. In fact, it's suggested that you need to get the Alpha Slot before being able to do those TFs. Chances are you might need to do an Ouroboros TF to unlock the Alpha Slot, but the funny thing about the Ouro TFs is you can do them by yourself, no team required.

And if the I18 closed beta notes are any indication, giving solo-options to fill that Alpha Slots are part of the design. Read this post for more info.

As for TFs that last three to five hours being a problem? The funny thing is that devs actually agree with you. We hadn't seen five hour TFs ever since the Shadow Shard was made and even the Posi TF, once a three hour TF, was recently made into two one hour TFs. Even the two new TFs in I19 will follow that model. A year ago they might have been a single two hour TF, but as Doctor Aeon said, instead it's split into two one hour TFs. Much more manageable, don't you think?

Oh, and lastly, if you really cannot quit while you're on a TF, you might just want to consider quitting MMOs as a whole because that's a bit of a sign for addiction. I never had a problem quitting on a TF when something important came up, and I witnessed quite a few times how people quitted on my TFs because something regarding their children or spouses or work came up. If you got your priorities in order, you really shouldn't have any problems with quitting on a TF when you really have to.

Aurora_Kai · 11-04-2010 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Q_Candy

Being forced to do Taskforces to advance a character in this game is wrong.

At no point in my life do I ever want to be in a situation where my loved ones/family say "Could you log off the computer?" and my reply would be "No I cannot, I am on a TF".

It's irresponsible to force players to sit at a computer for 3 to 5 hours a time and not be able to log off if they need to. It's beyond ridiculous and the aspect of this game I hate the most. I forgo all my accolades because I refuse to put myself in that situation... but finding out now that all the new expansion stuff is going to be a task force grind just makes me angry.

I play this game because I do not want to grind to advance my character, I don't play wow, I chose this and you continue through the past 2 years to rip the heart of this game out and turn it into a massive warcraft style grind.

I resent you for that, deeply... and have only stayed around because I have so much invested in bases and vet badges.

Just stop with the force taskforce crap, 1k+ hours for hero merits and a purple set is already beyond evil.

It's called finding a decent supergroup, Candy. You do NOT have to do a task force all in one log in. My SG mates and I have, on more than one occasion, started a TF and then, when people got tired, or had things to do, stopped and then finished it the next day, or whatever. You can't just have everything handed to you.