Discussion: A Sneak Peek into Issue 20 - The Behavioral Adjustment Facility
By
Avatea,
Posted on: 2011-02-10 11:33 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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Somehow I don't really think the devs were shooting for 'relative ease' when designing this. Ten seconds may very well end up being too short a period of time, but they seem to be trying to make something that's challenging and requires co-ordination. I also kind of doubt they were trying for well-nigh-impossible either, so the closed testers have likely had at least some success at the trial.
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Originally Posted by Chaos Creator
Have the CB testers managed it with relative ease? if So I'm willing to accept it but if it is incredibly difficult then I think the 10 seconds should be looked at.
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MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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Nothing I saw in this announcement was solo-friendly. It sounds like I'm going to have to be willing to be whisked into a bunch of strangers and then stand around being told what I'm supposed to do, and then have to do it juuuuuuusssst right or the whole thing will be a waste of time...|
Originally Posted by Dispari
They already announced there are solo options available coming with i20. It was in one of the public address thingies (there are like 10 now so it's easy to miss one).
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I know that's fun for some people, but not for me. My friend that's into that other game is always telling me how fun the raids are and how he feels "accomplished" when he participates and wins. Well... if I want to accomplish something I'll build a cabinet. Or tune-up the car. Beating a boss in a game is, in the grander scheme of things, not that big a deal. I play for fun. Stress does not equal fun. And raids just sound like a lot of stress to me.
I love the story-lines the devs come up with (Praetoria's stories are wonderful), but I don't understand why you have can't have *all* the story-lines available to solo players who play in a more casual manner and aren't rabid raiders.
I say again -- everything in i20 makes CoH sound more like World of Warcraft, and I never thought that was the goal with this game.
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No, you won't.|
Originally Posted by Heroid
Nothing I saw in this announcement was solo-friendly. It sounds like I'm going to have to be willing to be whisked into a bunch of strangers and then stand around being told what I'm supposed to do, and then have to do it juuuuuuusssst right or the whole thing will be a waste of time...
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February's Producers Letter;
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Originally Posted by Second Measure
About That Accessibility Thing
For our more casual players, we have added an option for you to continue to build your way up the Incarnate Tree by collecting Incarnate Shards without doing any Incarnate Trials--you will even get Incarnate Shards when you are exemplared down. It will take longer than it will take by participating in Incarnate Trials, and youll miss out on some epic storylines, but you will be able to claim your seat at the Incarnate table nevertheless. |
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Well, if the minimum Trial size is 12, then at least 6 players on each AV should make it easier to coordinate the double defeat.
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Originally Posted by FitzSimmons
Eh, the 10 second thing sounds like it's going to be a pain in the ***.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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They basically said you'll get shards doing everything in the game, even while SK'ed down in I20 and that you'll be able to build rare and very rare components with shards.|
Originally Posted by Heroid
Nothing I saw in this announcement was solo-friendly. It sounds like I'm going to have to be willing to be whisked into a bunch of strangers and then stand around being told what I'm supposed to do, and then have to do it juuuuuuusssst right or the whole thing will be a waste of time...
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That's not exactly adding in new solo-friendly content (Incarnate specific story arcs would actually be rather nice too if you ask me) but it is somewhat getting rid of that power cap disparity between people who have time/inclination to group and run TFs/SFs/Trials and those who don't.
Edit: Curse my slow typing!
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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See, that's what I love about 7 years of experience. You guys know what we're thinking before we ask it.
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Originally Posted by Positron
There is plenty of time before the Trial starts to set up strategies/communicate/talk about the weather, before you actually begin.
Since the UI shows both Siege and Nightstar's health bars (and you can click either health bar to immediately target them), coordinating the "10 seconds" shouldn't be a monumental task. Difficult? Possibly, but by no means impossible. |
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
Also, we already have the "2 health bars to watch" mechanic in the TMTF with Neuron and Bobcat.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Yes, it is, despite the assurances that soloers/small-teamers will be able to build the components via shards. Remember: we don't matter - only those who like large-team/horde content. Anything we get will be a mere afterthought.
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Originally Posted by Heroid
I was talking to a friend who is big into Mr. T's favorite MMO and this sounds a LOT like what he was describing to me. So far, all of the "end-game" content has been team/raid oriented. So if you take a character through the levels doing mostly solo stuff you suddenly have to change the way you play to enjoy the high-level content? Is CoH gravitating toward the same mentality as that other game? If it is, wow, that sucks.
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This sounds like a ton of fun and might be a good excuse for me to finally try Vent again.
Guides: Dark Armor and IOs | SS/DA | Crabbing | Fortunata
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Ah yes, using a very small group of players who always play together on the same toons every day around the same time is an excellent base for success of new content. It may take them all of closed i20 alpha/beta, but of course they'll succeed at least one time. |
Originally Posted by Oliin
I also kind of doubt they were trying for well-nigh-impossible either, so the closed testers have likely had at least some success at the trial.
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/snark
The 10 second period of time may work in the long run as people get used to following orders and playing with one another (since I believe only a small handful of players will continue to do this Trial after getting the badge I assume will be awarded). However, in the first few weeks on a Live server, it's just going to be fail after fail after fail which will, naturally, cause many of the players to simply give up on the trial altogether (see the Barracuda Strike Force or the Apex Task Force for some).
The timer on the Cathedral of Pain Trial works because the Psionic Resonators have so little Health. A team can take it from 100% to 0% in very little time. An uncoordinated/low damage/low debuffs/low aggro-magnet League/Team/PuG/whatever that cannot keep the two Archvillains within a certain differential margin of Health will never finish the trial due to both Nightstar and Siege having AV Health, Resistances, etc. Add to this the fact that the squishies will be constantly dodging waves of OP'd Victorias and 9CUs (and the turrets), yeah, this is going to be "fun".
Here's hoping I'm wrong.
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Uh...hardly. Sure, crafting it via shards will be slower...but do you honestly expect soloing to be faster than a teaming option? And, bear in mind, this is me talking as someone who was fighting tooth and claw for a solo option in earlier threads.|
Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
Yes, it is, despite the assurances that soloers/small-teamers will be able to build the components via shards. Remember: we don't matter - only those who like large-team/horde content. Anything we get will be a mere afterthought.
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If this WAS as bad as That Fantasy MMO, then there would be NO option for solo-ers. You would have no option at all, and the standard would response would be "Yeah, suck it, we have 6million OTHEr subscribers. So, no, you dont matter."
If you seriously think the same is true here...all I can say is you have a very stranger perception issue, IMO.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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No. However, I do object to it being deliberately made slower - it screams of "Do our large-team/horde content and leap forward, or else crawl to the finish and be glad we let you play at all."
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Uh...hardly. Sure, crafting it via shards will be slower...but do you honestly expect soloing to be faster than a teaming option? And, bear in mind, this is me talking as someone who was fighting tooth and claw for a solo option in earlier threads.
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I heard that any player who doesn't take the Trial path to becoming an Incanrate will have their global handle changed to "Miserable Worm", followed by a designation number, and will receive hourly tuants and abuse from the devs via Tells and in game e-mails.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Right. Soloer's won't experience the new content. They will just pick up crumbs as they go along. It didn't matter so much with Task Force content because at all levels there were great story-arcs to play. But what they're doing here is a blatant case of trying to STRONGLY encourage people to do raids. In fact, a friend of mine says that's what's wrong with CoH, is that there aren't enough RAIDS! But I personally have no interest in raids.
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Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
No. However, I do object to it being deliberately made slower - it screams of "Do our large-team/horde content and leap forward, or else crawl to the finish and be glad we let you play at all."
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Because what dominators and controllers need is to be further marginalized by high-end content.| Hardened Resistance Commandos have a trick up their sleeve: they cannot be Controlled, so they must be taken down as quickly as possible. |
On the subject of solo advancement:
I'm a hard-core soloer. I team very very rarely, because I just plain don't like teaming. The devs are giving us exactly what we asked for last week. We now have a way to acquire everything needed for Incarnate advancement solo. We whined all last week about how we wanted a way, any way, even if it was painfully slow.
We got that. We even got one better. We will be able to get shards while exemplared in I20. That's huge! That's awesome!
Anyone who is still complaining at this stage is just as self-entitled as the teamers were saying we were last week.
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Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
No. However, I do object to it being deliberately made slower - it screams of "Do our large-team/horde content and leap forward, or else crawl to the finish and be glad we let you play at all."
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Originally Posted by Heroid
Right. Soloer's won't experience the new content. They will just pick up crumbs as they go along. It didn't matter so much with Task Force content because at all levels there were great story-arcs to play. But what they're doing here is a blatant case of trying to STRONGLY encourage people to do raids. In fact, a friend of mine says that's what's wrong with CoH, is that there aren't enough RAIDS! But I personally have no interest in raids.
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Or you can see it as soloists getting the stardard rate...and teams getting an acceleerated rate due to more people partaking? Like, I dunno, every other bit of content in game since I0?
Or you can keep on being kvetching little cusses who want it all now, on a silver platter, and team players penalised for daring to have shiny things.
(Again, I was arguing FOR a solo option in every thread it came up. There now is one. And you now want it to be FASTER than teaming? Sorry but, frankly; get real.)
In CoX, so long as you fulfill the one baseline (Incarnate Enabled) you can join.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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For one section of it. |
Originally Posted by Gearsinger
Because what dominators and controllers need is to be further marginalized by high-end content.
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Try an MM, our pets are pants on head retarded and get one shotted so fast it's not even funny. THEN come back and cry me some more
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
For one section of it.
Try an MM, our pets are pants on head retarded and get one shotted so fast it's not even funny. THEN come back and cry me some more |
But Masterminds are ever so well loved for Barracuda!
I just wish we could find a better way for control to work against hard targets (AVs, GMs, PToD EBs, etc.). Having your primary shut down is no fun for anyone.
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You're telling me things I already know, pal |
Originally Posted by Gearsinger
But Masterminds are ever so well loved for Barracuda!
I just wish we could find a better way for control to work against hard targets (AVs, GMs, PToD EBs, etc.). Having your primary shut down is no fun for anyone. |
Try using an MM against any AV with heavy AoE capability, and you start cursing MM set up time and whatever cuss programmed the A.I. very, very swiftly
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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I really hope this doesn't mean what I think it means, or that if it does, there has been or will be extensive testing on the griefability of this mechanic. All too often neat features get introduced with no thought to how players will be dicks to each other, ruining the entire encounter.
| She has the ability to sequester her target. Her current target is issued two warnings that they are about to be sequestered, before the third warning locks down the target and all who are nearby. The only way to prevent this is for someone else to draw her attention! |
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I remember how difficult the ITF seemed at first and how people were moaning and complaining that it wasn't doable without highly tuned teams. After a while, people learned and adjusted and now it's considered pretty straightforward. |
Originally Posted by Paragon
Ah yes, using a very small group of players who always play together on the same toons every day around the same time is an excellent base for success of new content. It may take them all of closed i20 alpha/beta, but of course they'll succeed at least one time.
/snark The 10 second period of time may work in the long run as people get used to following orders and playing with one another (since I believe only a small handful of players will continue to do this Trial after getting the badge I assume will be awarded). However, in the first few weeks on a Live server, it's just going to be fail after fail after fail which will, naturally, cause many of the players to simply give up on the trial altogether (see the Barracuda Strike Force or the Apex Task Force for some). |
So the 10 second timer might be too difficult, but I'm going to withhold judgment until it's been live for a few weeks.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
Disclaimer: I love doing TFs with Friends (and Even PUGs, if you're on Justice United you've probably seen me [/waves to Heroette])
That being said, I totally see where Heroid is coming from.
Can soloers build up Incarnate abilities? Yes, but only by doing the same content that they've already been doing already. They're just adding Shard drops to the existing mobs out there.
There's been zero indication that there's any new solo/small group (less then 5) content being put out.
Not even a new story arc like they did with the Clones/Dupes and the Rogue Legacy Chain/Rogue PPD arcs they put in last issue.
Heck even Mender Ramiel can be done solo without too much effort (at least if you're willing to get a Shivan)
Simply itemizing existing Mobs to drop an item that allows you to build Incarnate abilities is NOT "adding new content". Imagine how Ticked you'd be if they announc "Ok for I21 we're adding 'Fluzzle Stones' to all level 51+ mobs. For every 10 Fluzzle Stones, you can combine them into a level for your [Limitless Radial Freeeem] ability. See you in I22!"
I see there's also a new feature where you can flag yourself as a new player needing help, or as a helper - which is awesome.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Yes...that's because he is ONLY talking about the BAF Trial. It's a 'Sneak Peek'. Maybe that suggests, y'know...that just maybe this isn't everything in I20? Hmm?
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Originally Posted by DocBot
There's been zero indication that there's any new solo/small group (less then 5) content being put out.
Not even a new story arc like they did with the Clones/Dupes and the Rogue Legacy Chain/Rogue PPD arcs they put in last issue. |
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Your bud in the high-powered armor,
Black Scorpion
Oh, and did yet another 'lackey' suddenly wise up and beat you up for the 'incarnate powered armour' you used to have?