Nearly 7 Years Later... What Would You Have Done Differently?
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2010-11-16 24:14 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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ED paved the way to allow for the degree of power we now enjoy with IOs and soon the Incarnate system. While I can agree that the steps along the road between when ED hit and where we are now took many years and were annoying to various degrees, I'm firmly convinced we now have a better game for it. As always YMMV.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
No, I'm upset about ED, because it's a stupid system. I don't mind being capped at around 100% enhancement from enhancers. I hate the way ED does it. I hate that ED is so obtuse. I hate that ED enforces Statesman's stupid punishment of min-maxers.
ED was about the worst way to fix a non-problem. Inventions only cover up the stupid. Pre-ED we did not operate in an "unchecked" system. There was a check: 200% enhancement to a Pool A attribute. ED added a secondary check on top of the original check of six slots. It hurt Blasters in ways that later had to be corrected via the Defiance changes. It all but crippled defense sets who didn't have the benefit of the critter accuracy changes then. We all forget now, but the game sucked pretty bad in the early post-ED days. It took a number of buffs to various ATs to get us near to a good place again. ED was put in because the devs wanted to avoid having to nerf the CoV ATs as mercilessly as they did the CoH ATs. It was an overcorrection on top of the Global Defense changes in Issue 5. Were it not for my long-standing personal rule never to /ragequit, I would have been gone. ED accomplished nothing other than breaking the game. And it took about three years for the worst of the damage to be corrected. |
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It is still worth it to be upset because we were punished, severely, for their game design mistakes. And it was their mistakes. It boggles the mind that the Devs did not expect that players would try to squeeze out every ounce of maximum performance they can for their characters or play them contrary to the Devs' envisioning.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
Well I suppose that "gap" between ED and IOs is worth remembering as a period of time that shouldn't have lasted two-odd years. All things considered they probably should have hit us with both things at the same time. Heck in a perfect game we would have had both ED and IOs on Day One.
 But really, while that gap was not ideal it's hardly worth -still- being upset about is it? |
We paid for a broken game while the Devs got their act together. That wasn't exactly fun.
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Sorry to hear that. ED actually barely affected me because ironically enough I slotted most of my characters with a "diversified" mindset to begin with. I didn't even really have to respec for it to any great degree. *shrugs*
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Describing a two year span as "not ideal" is a masterpiece of understatement.
It didn't bother you, great. I quit playing over it, so we'll have to agree to disagree. |
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ED barely affected me because I joined after it and had no idea what I was missing, which is essentially what I was wishing upon everyone else.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
Sorry to hear that. ED actually barely affected me because ironically enough I slotted most of my characters with a "diversified" mindset to begin with. I didn't even really have to respec for it to any great degree. *shrugs*
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No argument that it took too long to realign everything.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Well said.
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I still contend the final product is a good one.
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"It didn't bother me, so there was no problem" is a pretty awesome philosophy to live by.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
Sorry to hear that. ED actually barely affected me because ironically enough I slotted most of my characters with a "diversified" mindset to begin with. I didn't even really have to respec for it to any great degree. *shrugs*
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Gratz.
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Yes I agree it's unfortunate they didn't apply the ED concept to the game from Day One. It should have been something they should have accounted for from the very beginning. Because of that lack of vision we went through a period of great whining and chaos that we could have otherwise avoided.
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Originally Posted by concreteshift
It is still worth it to be upset because we were punished, severely, for their game design mistakes. And it was their mistakes. It boggles the mind that the Devs did not expect that players would try to squeeze out every ounce of maximum performance they can for their characters or play them contrary to the Devs' envisioning.
We paid for a broken game while the Devs got their act together. That wasn't exactly fun. |
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The only real "problem" was that the Devs let us get away with playing with an unchecked system from the beginning. Once again if it had been in place since Day One nobody would now know the difference.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
"It didn't bother me, so there was no problem" is a pretty awesome philosophy to live by.
Gratz. |
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This was the case for me as well however I certainly understood/understand why many were/are angry about it and especially how it was announced.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
Sorry to hear that. ED actually barely affected me because ironically enough I slotted most of my characters with a "diversified" mindset to begin with. I didn't even really have to respec for it to any great degree. *shrugs*
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It came during a season of nerfs on top of everything else. While they may have been necessary I wouldn't expect anyone affected by it to be okay with it. And I think people posting about it have certainly cooled down quite a bit. Two or three years ago it still evoked angry posts as much as the week it was announced.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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We weren't "getting away" with anything, we were playing the game as tested and released.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
The only real "problem" was that the Devs let us get away with playing with an unchecked system from the beginning.
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The players weren't putting anything over on the devs by seeking performance efficiency- it is a completely predictable response. That they failed to predict it or compensate for it is their responsibility, not the players.
A reasonable, rational response was also their responsibility, and instead we got a juvenile freak-out followed by two wasted years of gimped characters limping through the content.
But hey at least it didn't impact you personally, right?
So it's all good.
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I'm back paying my sub, so the answer to that is "yes".|
Originally Posted by SwellGuy
And I think people posting about it have certainly cooled down quite a bit.
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=D
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I would never have altered powers in PvE because of PvP. There were quite a lot of changes made to powersets because of PvP (quite true, even though many forum posters insist otherwise). Also, I would have added a dueling feature.|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
Looking back, what in terms of content updates and quality of life improvements would you have done differently? Do you give all 19 issues of content the thumbs up our would you have swapped a particular feature out just to have something else?
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I would have made every effort to open up the back slot for costume rocket packs, backpacks, quivers, etc. Seven years and counting, devs.
I would have altered teleportation considerably, because it's a lame, annoying travel power that only got worse with ED. Extend the base range considerably, please.
I would have implemented a secret identity feature, and added some events and places to the city that "regular folks" could attend. I would have added personal apartments. The contrast between everyday society and the superhero world is a large part of what makes comics exciting.
I would have steered the game away from Statesman's original "arcade game" idea and added some depth much sooner. An economy from the get-go, various detective or inventing skills, etc. Instead, anyone can make any temp power or gizmo, which does nothing to individuate the heroes/villains.
I would never have cordoned off villains from heroes as if they were separate games. And I would have added the option for villain characters to infiltrate hero missions and vice versa. Also, an archvillain feature (entirely optional).
I would have started early on the idea for destructible mission environments. Currently, that's a feature that is still only available on bank missions, and to a limited extent.
And new zones: alien worlds, underwater zones, outer space zones. Possibly I would have spent the development time on these exotic zones rather than the now hardly-used villain zones, and villains would roam the same cityscape as the heroes.
And veteran rewards would scale up in quality, not fade over time into mere meh tokens. I wouldn't have bowed to the impatient forum loudmouths who feel entitled to all the vet rewards on day one. I would have made the vet rewards a real incentive to hang around.
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I wouldn't have 30000+ posts on the forum.
Be well, people of CoH.
Branching missions, Detective missions, RV style zone effects or simply Dynamic Content.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
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I would never have implemented veteran rewards in the first place. People that need "incentives" to hang around, other than the game itself, probably aren't going to be good for the game community, and a good community is better than a bunch of folks hanging around for the next great reward. |
Originally Posted by Goldbrick
I would have made the vet rewards a real incentive to hang around.
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I also would have had ED from the start (I started playing with CoV, so I never saw the period before ED; the way it works now makes pretty good sense to me, though.) It just seems to be a sensible way to have designed things from the start (though, honestly, I'd do ED without the slow-build peter-out and just have a hard cap.)
I wouldn't have included PvP. The game would be a lot healthier without the ire that was created by the introduction, and inevitable failure, of the PvP system.
I would make the help channel easier to use (probably including mention of it in the tutorial) and made sure that faction didn't matter in chatting (lack of PvP would probably to much to ameliorate any problems created by hearing the "other side") to make the help channel and even greater asset to the community than it already is.
I would have worked hard to make sure global channels didn't need limits (in membership or number), or at the very least made sure auto-pruning happened automatically.
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I agree with you on everything you said but the nerfing of the CoV ATs. They actually did pre-nerf them coming out of the box. Until VEATs there wasnt a CoV AT that was on equal or better footing as the Hero ATs. What I hate the most about this game is the AT system or more so how it was implimented in such a way that it slants everything towards heroes except VEATs. VEATs was about the only thing they did right coming out of the box. Just look at the Villain AT inherrents, each one of them is just a huge cover up for making them work harder just to do their jobs. If you take all the hero inherrents away they are still fine but do this to the villains you have hugely underpowered characters.|
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
No, I'm upset about ED, because it's a stupid system. I don't mind being capped at around 100% enhancement from enhancers. I hate the way ED does it. I hate that ED is so obtuse. I hate that ED enforces Statesman's stupid punishment of min-maxers.
ED was about the worst way to fix a non-problem. Inventions only cover up the stupid. Pre-ED we did not operate in an "unchecked" system. There was a check: 200% enhancement to a Pool A attribute. ED added a secondary check on top of the original check of six slots. It hurt Blasters in ways that later had to be corrected via the Defiance changes. It all but crippled defense sets who didn't have the benefit of the critter accuracy changes then. We all forget now, but the game sucked pretty bad in the early post-ED days. It took a number of buffs to various ATs to get us near to a good place again. ED was put in because the devs wanted to avoid having to nerf the CoV ATs as mercilessly as they did the CoH ATs. It was an overcorrection on top of the Global Defense changes in Issue 5. Were it not for my long-standing personal rule never to /ragequit, I would have been gone. ED accomplished nothing other than breaking the game. And it took about three years for the worst of the damage to be corrected. |
Stalkers initially only crit from hide and status effected mobs where as scrappers didnt have this. Stalkers still dont do the same level of damage of scrappers, eventhough they rightfully should considering what they give up for the whole hide AS setup. Doms were done the worse, horrible control durations and damage starting out. It took them making the VEATs to realize its possible to make a support AT and have them not be overpowered. For this reason I think thats what made them finally put dom damage to acceptable levels. Brutes either should have been closer to scrappers or tanks instead of putting them some where in between. They had to work for their damage with fury but cant take a hit to save their lives in non-granite. Masterminds are just what controllers should have been initially.
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
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Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
never would have added pvp, if you aren't going to commit to it, implementing it halfheartedly does nothing. it wasted everyone's time, the game would be better without it.
Would have prioritized more art assets, similar to the pvp comment, stick with your strong competitive points. maps, costumes, weapons, animations, that is coh's strong point, not attracting gamers who already are invested in other games that integrated what they do well from the beginning. EVERY issue should have a significant number of costume options.
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totally agree and no matter how many times it was needed or not needed its still left a bad taste
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
their handling of the whole thing was inexcusable.
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No it didn't. ED is wholly irrelevant to Inventions. This game is not balanced on difficulty. It's balanced on time. They have stated this expressly. It's also consistent with merits (another example of poor implementation). It is revisionist history based on Statesman's lies about ED being needed to open up more power.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
ED paved the way to allow for the degree of power we now enjoy with IOs and soon the Incarnate system. While I can agree that the steps along the road between when ED hit and where we are now took many years and were annoying to various degrees, I'm firmly convinced we now have a better game for it. As always YMMV.
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That it was two years later shows that they had no plan in place at the time and purely put ED in to cover their behinds with CoV.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
If I could do things differently? I'd never mention ED ever.
Also, anyone else consider it ironic that ED was such a flop?
I think most of us could agree that had they been able to roll out some the more recent issue features (even little things like the CoP trial being broken for years) the game wouldn't have gotten as stale to some of the base who moved on.
Also City of Villains, by Jacks own post buyout admission, was a large missed opportunity.
But, still the game marches on, hopefully for many more fun years to come.
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eh, i could never get excited about it.|
Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay
If I could do things differently? I'd never mention ED ever.
Also, anyone else consider it ironic that ED was such a flop? |
try the roast beef.
In another game, there was a fascinating design decision. Early on, they designed the game so you got reduced XP after playing for a while. People hated this.
So they doubled all the XP requirements, and gave you an XP bonus when you hadn't been playing much recently.
People loved this.
Note: There was NO mechanical difference at all. There was no combination of when you killed stuff and what you killed which levelled you faster or slower after the change. None. It was identical to the last decimal place. But it was a bonus.
IMHO, ED was a "bad thing" because it was a huge nerf. However, if the system had just been designed that way to begin with, I don't think it would have been an objectively bad design. The problem wasn't that the resulting game was unplayable; it was that the game was no longer playable in the way it had been before.
FWIW, I came here late -- started in July of this year. From my point of view, the game is pretty cool. I came in to find lots of choices, a viable (if a bit weird) marketplace, an insane variety of options and customization choices, and so on. So maybe it took them a while to get here, but this is a Grade A experience now. The only thing I've found frustrating to the point where it prevents me from playing some characters is the Fitness Tax. Which will be fixed "soon".
I expect some raeg on the part of this, but oh well:
Never implemented the Fitness pool.
GDN, ED, purple patch, defense scaling, travel power rebalancing efforts at release.
Made Tier 1 and maybe 2 attacks (not heals, buffs, or anything else) for most ATs cost 0 endurance.
Ensure that PvP has something other than Team Derpmatch (and for that matter, a rewards system) to recommend it before its implementation, along with making sure that all Powersets were at least viable.
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
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The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone