i19 does not bode well

I clicked, I tabbed to him, I could see his health go back up but that was it! I stood next to him in the lava for awhile, nothing. I think the issue was he was completely covered.

You could have sent in a /petition and have a GM pull him out of the lava. It could have been that a blast sent him into one of the rocks and trying to stand up put him under it, perhaps putting him just out of conversation range. <shrug>

Angel Red
"We're heroes. Fighting injustice is the thing we do." ~Rebel Scum

And having an NPC getting stuck like that is something that can happen in all MMO's by accident. It's not bad mission design, it's an occasional glitch in the system that a GM can fix.

Pull him out of the room he spawns in back into the cave.

His clones will NOT follow him, and once he gets out of the room he loses the regen bonus they give him. Did that on a scrapper and he dropped in less than a minute, should be nearly as easy on a blaster.

The funny thing is: You already ARE playing on the server that has the most Aussies on it. Justice has been the unofficial Aussie/Kiwi server for several years now. Try joining some of the global channels that cater specifically to Oceanic players and you should have a lot less trouble finding teams.

Just because something takes longer to do while solo than it does while teamed is not a case of bad game design. It's actually GOOD game design that an MMO should encourage people to team up to do things. If you got stuff just as fast or faster while soloing, there would be little incentive for anyone to team at all.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

All right, then we don't have a problem

People are soloing ITFs (so with Romu as an AV) more than you'd think though. With the AV's scaled back to EBs I could do it myself, quite simply.
And as much as I like some effort with my content I'm not a min/maxer (almost as boring as farming) in the slightest.

Why is that weird? I play three different MMOs solo. This game has far more content than any single player game that I'd like, it's quite soloable from 1 to 50, and it's a great superhero game.

Soloable incarnate content would be nice, along with the TFs and raids, but I'm not really concerned about that. End game stuff doesn't really interest me.

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Originally Posted by Mirai Why is that weird? I play three different MMOs solo. This game has far more content than any single player game that I'd like, it's quite soloable from 1 to 50, and it's a great superhero game. Soloable incarnate content would be nice, along with the TFs and raids, but I'm not really concerned about that. End game stuff doesn't really interest me.

While 'weird', I think, is a wrong choice of words, you have to accept that an MMORPG would be directed more at co-operative and competitive game play with other players. Sure, it -allows- you to solo, and that's a big bonus, but it certainly doesn't -have- to, due to the genre of the game. Just because you solo often, it doesn't mean the game is specifically designed for solo play. It just allows it.

Still, CoH is very very solo friendly as-is, and I'm happy about that. I usually don't team beyond Task Forces and such because I like to fight at my own pace.

Nothing weird about it. Playing solo is awesome.

For a lot of people, the answer is "yes".

Think about it. We live in a society where you don't have to put any effort in to graduate high school because of the "No child left behind" rules. We live in a society where it is not only possible, but extremely easy to live off the government with no effort expended by yourself.

So, yes, the idea that you have to work to receive something is a foreign concept to a depressingly large number of people.

(I'm not trying to start a political discussion, just pointing out that a lot of people truly don't understand why they have to put effort into something to be rewarded.)

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

I'm going to guess that you don't spend a lot of time in the Market/IO forum, or you'd know that the answer is often, Oh, hell, yes!

That's a very one-sided way to look at it, Claws. Some of us are well aware of what work and cost mean, and play these games specifically to get AWAY from those real-life concepts. In real life, I'm a wimp. I COULD spend hours and days and years training up to become a professional athlete, but I'd just fail in the end, so instead I load up Prince of Persia where I can scale walls, vault between flagpoles, leap great distances and heal by drinking the water I'm standing in with my dirty boots. I play video games to get what I can't get in real life because I'm not good enough.

I don't try to tell my boss that I should be paid more because it's unfair that those more skilled and driven than get paid more. I don't complain to the state that the bus fare is unfair because I feel I shouldn't put forth the effort to make enough money to buy a ticket. I don't do these things because that's just how life works. But I just happen to not very much enjoy how life works and I wish that, at least in my pretendy fun games, I didn't have to be the one who sucks and the one who never gets anything simply because I don't want to put in the "work" in an activity that I engage in to get AWAY from work.

You cannot ignore or "fix" some people's desire to get back home after a hard day and sit down to relax with a game that lets you fly around and blast zap people in the balls, and where you don't have to deal with the stresses of real life. For some of us, we want this game to remain just that - a game. Not a job, not a sport, but a game.

Furthermore, I highly disagree with the notion that "It is the effort that makes it that much sweeter," to quote Farah. I know what I want. The things I want have a certain value and a certain cost associated with them. Quite on the contrary to the belief that the higher the cost, the higher the satisfaction, the higher the cost, the less an item is actually worth, because the higher its value has to be for that item to be worth it.

People always examine these situation from the viewpoint of already having put in the work. Once you've paid the price, OF COURSE whatever it is you paid it for will feel very satisfying, because its cost is already past and it's only the value remaining. I always look at these things from the other side of the shopping window. I want all the good toys, obviously, but before I even consider what it would be like to have them, I need to consider if I can, in fact, afford them. Most of the time, I actually can't. Every time I see FLIR camera footage, I remember I want to have one. Man, it would be SO AWESOME to have one of these... Until I remember that these things cost multiple thousands of dollars, which is multiple dozens of times more than I can actually ever conceive of paying for something that has this little practical use to me, personally. Would it be cool to have if one were given to me for free? OH HELL YES! Would I want to PAY for one? I wouldn't, because I couldn't.

Real life can be unpleasant sometimes, but the point of games is that they AREN'T real life. Even if real life isn't as pleasant as I'd like it to be, my games can always provide the kind of pleasant fantasy that makes the harsh reality of life more appealing. Facing situations in my games where I have to either work my *** off or go find a game for babies does not motivate me to try harder and excel. It motivates me to throw my hands in the air and go away. And I don't like it when games make me do that.

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.

First of all you dont need to make another thread if you wanna cry there are already 2-3 threads just like this so just post on those.

Second of all you dont need a team to get alpha. The remial arc can be completed solo. trapdoor can be pulled into lava killing him in like 30 secs.

Last but not least you dont need to do TF's you can get shards by farming any mish lvl 50+ and you can make the ingreediance needed with shards. Yea, it goes alot faster if your doing TF's and have a full team but you dont have to. I dont know about other servers but on freedom getting a team is as easy as broadcasting whatever TF of mish your looking for.

My take on this is that people have gotten used to a certain overall level of difficulty in the game. For some, it's jarring and disconcerting that the Incarnate system is (apparently) designed to operate at a different level of difficulty than the game that got them to 50.

People will adjust. I remember when the ITF came out and people complained how it was hard and without the perfect team you couldn't defeat Romulus and his healing Nictus. Then people adjusted and those complaints ended.

I think Trapdoor is a perfect example of this. The first time I fought him I didn't realize his clones were affecting his regen. I couldn't understand why I wasn't making a dent in his health after good initial progress. Then I figured it out, took out his little helpers, and it went swimmingly. If I would've given up after my initial setback my impression would have been of an overwhelmingly difficult encounter. As it is, I ultimately found it creative, fun, and not particularly difficult.

No, it isn't. I mostly play solo. The option to socialize is there *IF* I wish to do so, which I generally do not. However, I don't expect to be able to solo Task Forces, nor do I expect solo missions to be quite as fast as a full team. (On the other hand, I've been on full teams that weren't much faster than I can solo.)

The Incarnate unlock arc can be done solo. In fact, on the scale of "stupidly difficult Elite Boss encounters," I'd consider even the Honoree mission to be less frustrating than most of the places where a Freedom Phalanx member shows up. My villain finished the Incarnate slot arc, and the only part where I had help was the actual fight with the Honoree. I'm fairly sure that if I did it again I could manage it without help.

Immediately afterwords, I did Dark Watcher's "Horrors of War" mission where you have to fight the Manticore Automaton, and after about the tenth hospital run, I ended up just auto-completing the mission. Explosive Arrow does terrible things to my zombies, and as a /Dark Miasma Mastermind there isn't really all that much I can do about it. Considering that no matter what I hit him with first, Fake Manticore could pretty much ignore the first few debuffs I hit him with.

I'm sorry to say this Sam but what Claws is describing is something that we see happening a lot in the U.S.. You could say we have an epidemic of people that think they are entitled to get things for little or no effort.

For example we (in the US) all know someone that will go to a store and buy something on their credit card, take it home and use it, then return it to the store for a refund and lie about why they want their money back. Worse these people don't think they are doing anything dishonest and they've been teaching their kids to act the same way.

That happens when people spend all their time door sitting in AE missions.




Note: The above doesn't apply to everyone.

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Originally Posted by Grouchybeast I'm going to guess that you don't spend a lot of time in the Market/IO forum, or you'd know that the answer is often, Oh, hell, yes!

I guess I just overestimated our community. :\

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow That's a very one-sided way to look at it, Claws. Some of us are well aware of what work and cost mean, and play these games specifically to get AWAY from those real-life concepts. In real life, I'm a wimp. ... ...quote snipped to preserve space... ... Facing situations in my games where I have to either work my *** off or go find a game for babies does not motivate me to try harder and excel. It motivates me to throw my hands in the air and go away. And I don't like it when games make me do that.

I think you missed the point of the post I posted, to which Claws replied.

I'm not saying that video games should be based on rewards for the effort you put in like in real life.

The very basic notion of a game (any game) involves creating a notion of a 'goal' and an 'achievement' for a player. The path to this goal should be composed of various challenges and tasks that are considered 'fun'. This makes playing the game fun and interesting. To provide the player with satisfaction, the game then will award the player when they reach that goal. This reward can be anything as simple as a higher rank on some scoreboard, or a badge.

That's the basic structure of any game, or even sport.

In City of Heroes, there are a variety of goals a player can aim towards. A most obvious one is "hitting 50". Issue 19 brought a new goal, and that was unlocking the Alpha Slot and equipping it with an Alpha Slot Enhancement. That's the goal. The designers seem to have decided that this goal should come at great cost, not only because of the concept, but because it would make it be something of great value rather than simply "Oh hey, I got some +RECH in my build. Neat. What's next?". It's about going through a journey and reaching that goal, and finally be rewarded with your new ability.

Saying "I want Incarnates to be 100% soloable and still get the rewards in X amount of time like everybody else!" is like saying "I want level 50 to be 100% soloable and still get to 50 in X amount of time like everybody else!"

It's a matter of choice, cost, and benefit.

You CHOOSE to get the incarnate slot. That CHOICE comes at a cost. You could either spend Y amount of time and farm missions to get the shards, or you could spend a fraction of Y and join a TF and get the shards. That's YOUR CHOICE.

It's up to YOU to decide which path is more profitable and gets you to your goal faster, and THAT'S PART OF THE GAME. It's what makes "the path" actually INTERESTING.

I don't think I can elaborate into further detail.

PvP what now?
No, seriously, you've lost me...

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.

While I do, I think, understand your viewpoint on wanting the game to not be real life Sam, this statement is just not true.

I do not think the time and effort involved to attain the highest tier of power in City to be, in any way, 'too much' and I have NOT reached it. I am close on a couple of 50's, but not really there.

Effort must be expended in an MMO to attain the various tiers of power if it is going to thrive. Doom on God-Mode is fun for an hour or so and then I don't want to play it again.

I would be out the door and I think there are quite a few that would be in line with me to leave, if this game was nothing more than Gauntlet with a Hero skin. It may well attract other to replace those that leave who enjoy such a play style, but I do not think there are enough to make it thrive as an MMO.

If the particular effort involved is not pleasant for one as a gamer, then by all means, find something fun. That's why I stay here, even after trying pretty much all the others.

One of the edge topics this is really hitting on for me is the notion of the game ever being 'work'. Sure there are portions that are tedious now and then. There are certainly portions that are time consuming.

But Work? Right now, I am an IT Director. For years I was a waiter and many other things. During all of that time, there has never been any game I found to be 'work'. Tedious, time consuming or simply not fun, but 'work' never enters into it for me, personally.

I think the problem is that some people in general think that just because there is an item in an MMO, no matter if it is a weapon, a badge or an enhancement, that they are entitled to have that item simply because they bought the game. Not even single player games are built with that in mind. Some level of effort must be expended to attain the goodies in a game.

Well, that depends, I think. I play WAR semi-seriously and when you're guildmates need you to do something you don't really want/need to do (but you do it becuase yuo feel an obligation, and becuase they'll help you with your stuff in return) that CAN feel a bit like work p

There is a progress-based path though, things like the Lady Grey TF and the other recent end-game TFs (obviously not the i19 ones).

I was thinking mostly for soloing. I don't think the incarnate drop rate is unreasonable (in fact I'd lower it slightly) but I do think there should be a way to gain shards consistently (a-merits would seem a decent enough proxy, and I'm surprised it doesen't happen already)