How many times must I die to ambushes before I can re-complain?

I absolutely do. I absolutely reject the notion that any MMORPG should allow its default difficulty to be so easy that anyone can complete it. It creates a ton of problems for the game. There is really only one risk in a MMORPG and it's psychic. It's the risk of defeat. People like to say that it's about the risk of losing time, but I don't even buy that anymore. People play these games for years and it's all to waste time anyway.

Games shouldn't be so hard that only 1% of your playerbase can advance, but by the same token a game shouldn't be so easy that players become bored. I very often read about this game on other sites, and the #1 mark against it is that it becomes boring.

I think the whole game should have a decent level of challenge to all players. Frankly, I find Praetoria just as easy as Paragon from 1-20. But I recognize that there are tasks and missions that press just a bit harder on the player. Not as much as is being stated here. Some of the Vaz missions in Paragon are wickedly hard at low level.

We can agree to disagree on this, but I simply do not believe that there needs to be any changes to the Praetorian content. Yes, it pushes you. I think the answer is PUSH back. I don't expect everyone to agree with that view. But my view is much more mainstream OUT of this game that I think many of you recognize. People keep talking about new players. Well new players might have more of an appetite for risk that you all give them credit for.

Skip ambushes...that can and will hunt you across the whole map...and that totally ignore stealth.
So...I can't stealth them...and I can't fight them. Bloody wonderful.

Wait....what? Did you even bother re-reading that before you posted it? Seriously man...

Good for you. Other people obviously have different opinions from you, the Devs included if they included them in the game.
And they clearly do need some help (In Praetoria) if, at low levels, they have to face mobs that totally negate their entire method of defence and attack. That IS letting them go burn and, guess what? Thats BAD design implementation.

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.

Oh yeah, I have Placate that can stop...One Minion, LT or Boss. That does sweet naff-bleeding-all against large ambushes. And oh looky, AS works in Hide...which I effectively dont HAVE because the cheating shites home in and ignore all stealth! What then, exactly, amd I meant to do in this situation? Not enter the mission?

And you bet I'm complaining about Scrappers too. I've run plenty in my time, and never has one been decked with contemptous ease by ONE LT and a minion. Kinetic/SR Scrappers obviously don't bloom until at least SOs and later levels...so WHY am I facing enemies that insist on kicking my already so-so defences repeatedly in the nads, before finishing it off with an unhealthy combination of SS and Kinetics? Seriously, that combination is broken as all hell. Giving what ammounts to a fire blaster kinetics as well equates to broken in my mind. Sure, I love the concepts. But, as of right now, their mechanical implementation is NOT what level 1-20s should be facing. Not by a long shot.



Yes, and why do you think so many people took it? Hmm, maybe because outside of certain builds and heavily IO'd characters most ATs suffered without it. Having to use rest every other mob, despite good slotting, insp use and taking care with attacks suggests a lot more than just 'people whining'. If everyone has it anyway, just maybe theres a reason for that?
Thankfully the Devs listenend and fixed Jacks 'vision', which was a load of steaming turd in the first place...

Then why does the rest of the game manage it perfectly well? I don't mind the baseline 'cheaty' the computer has to employ, I know well enough how that works, and I dont mind.
It's when it strays into genuine 'Computer is a Cheating *******' levels, such as the homing-bloodhound ambushes with no break between them, whole sets worth of attacks at level 18 and exotic damage and swathes of debuffs that I think someone else entirely desinged the mobs.

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.

Difficulty is relative. We know the higher level of difficulty is difficult relative to our current playerbase. That makes it difficult by definition.

Some MMOs are more difficult than ours are, but I would argue that Going Rogue was and is not the opportunity to fiddle with the standard difficulty model, particularly at such low levels. There's nothing to be gained by that. There's only two possibilities at the moment: it scares off new players that don't want that level of difficulty, or it attracts people that want that new level of difficulty that will then leave when they discover the rest of the game doesn't have it.

Even if you think raising the bar across the entire game is a good idea, I see no logic to raising the bar an order of magnitude in the first twenty levels of an introduction section of the game only. You don't just mess with global difficulty standards haphazardly, because they are one of the foundational elements of the entire game. You can't just phase in a ton of difficulty at the beginning. You can theoretically ramp it up at the end, because there's nothing past the end. But you can't do it at 20 without doing it at 30 and 40, and making an entire leveling path that looks like it.

That's assuming you want such a path, and choose to introduce it without warning anyone, and have it ramp up as fast as it does, all three of which are questionable.


Very very far back. I don't think you want a piece of this one.

Haven't you all been saying that we're trying to attract new players? Perhaps they on average have better skills?

Agreed. We need to move quickly to deploy that level of difficulty across the whole game. The Issue 17 arcs are decent on that score. It's a rough patch of easy until the 40s however.

I agree. Let's do that.

I do. They warned us. Nice long beta. My son goes to an elementary school where they teach two grades every year. They have an ungodly amount of homework. It's ranked as the number 1 elementary school in the State of Illinois. (yes, I'm bragging on my boy. So?!) High expectations and ramping up the difficulty creates excellence.


I have the vet rez power and have MoG down to a great recharge. I'm not scared of you.

DON'T LET HER STOP YOU TIM!

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.

No offense, but that's a cop-out. I'm arguing the point. And again, I wasn't responding to you. Just because I refuse to accept that the game should be easier doesn't mean I don't consider your point. I don't find what you find fun. You aren't considering MY point. You ignore it.

I believe that the game should have a baseline difficulty that is higher than what you would set it at. You disagree. That's OK, people can disagree.

I have been considering the point, though. I'm perfectly fine with challenge and difficulty to the level you find fun being in the game.

I'm also arguing that leve 1-20 in Praetoria is NOT the place for it, however. Not only is it the forced starting zone for new players, but it's also levels where characters poweres are far below the optimal. Yet there are enough debuffs and exotic damage types to put even high end content to shame.

It's hardly a cop out. You've explicitly stated where you stand. As have I. I don't see any way to convince you otherwise. So I'm going to leave it, before one or both of us starts taking it too far and this devolves from a a discussion and arguement into the likes of a back and forth flame war.

((Oh, and I''ll respond to who I damn well want, scalebelly! ))

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.

I too believe that it should. But not in the freaking first 20 levels of the game. Especially NOT in something new players are FORCED into.

I believe you're a minority on this one.

I'm playing a Stalker through Praetoria now (my first Stalker, to boot). Without magic ambushes it would be trivial, since I just find the objective and stealth back out for most missions (granted, I'm trying to see as much of the Praetorian content as possible, so I'm deliberately not killing extra stuff).

I can certainly see the argument that ambushes should be targeted at your last known location, but if that were the case then my ONLY challenge in Praetoria as a Stalker would be "Oh no, can I handle a boss and 2 minions at the same time?"

It's not an easy choice to make. Either you give one AT what amounts to a free ride, or you unfairly handicap that AT in comparison to the rest in certain circumstances.

I can tell you one thing - if you have your way and yank my game from under me, transforming it into something far more difficult than it is, I won't be wasting my time with it any more. And that's not a threat. That's reality. People aren't "wasting their time" with this game. They play it because it's fun. As such, wasting time getting killed, travelling back from the hospital and potentially getting killed again is a legitimate threat, and one which I do my best to avoid. Debt I don't care about. Defeat I do care about, especially if it happens repeatedly.

And, yes, disagree we will. I do not want to see the level of difficulty you are asking for. I am neither as ambitious nor as competitive as you are, nor do I ever want to be. That's the life I've chosen, and that's the entertainment I've chosen to have in it. I have no problem with you having your higher level of challenge. What I have a problem is your apparent need to involve me with it. Your right to swing your fists ends where my face begins, and your refusal to accept optional difficulty is a great concern to me, as it seeks to gut the only game I've managed to stick with for any period of time.

And I'm not sure your view is as mainstream as you think it is. As a random anecdote, I have a friend of mine who cancelled his WoW subscription, and his argument was "They changed too much and made it too hard." I don't know what he was talking about or what Blizzard changed, since I don't tend to keep up on the specifics of games I don't play, but he's neither the first nor the last person who's expressed that sentiment to me. He'll probably be back when he gets tired of Aion, but I'm not sure, and frankly, I don't keep up on his gaming habits all that closely.

You have to understand that not all players enjoy "pushing back." Some of us are looking for entertainment and relaxation, and when a game pushes us, we find another game to play. There are plenty of games out there that I could be playing which push my skills and force me to be better or drop out. I recently scored the Unreal Collection for dirt cheap on a Steam Sale, and I remembered why I stopped plying UT3 - I suck at it. I've tried to improve, but I couldn't improve by enough before I said "Sod this!" and found myself an easier game to play.

In all of this, I advocate for options, and I will continue to do so. Allowing players to control their gaming experience is central to a good game, in my experience. Spartan ideals of hurting players to build character are not something I'm interested in, or will ever be interested in, because I don't play these games to become a better person, to grow hair on my chest or to become a man. I play these games to unwind and to look for inspiration. Being dead does not inspire me.

If you cannot condone allowing people to pick their own difficulty, from easy to hard, then you and I will never see eye to eye on anything.

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.

However, new players are not FORCED to play Stalkers as their first characters, and this ambush situation only applies to them (outside of reports of people getting 'triple ambushes' all at once, which I would consider/suspect to be bugs). If they choose any other AT then the fact that ambushes see through stealth is pretty much moot.

So it's an issue, but it's not as large as one as you may think.

Surely the baseline should be where MOST people want it (and looking at the responses in this thread you are NOT part of that) and those who want it harder can increase it. There are more in game options for increasing difficulty than there are for decreasing it.

Why play a Stalker over a Scrapper? There's lots of reasons but the situation with ambushes can be one. In the higher levels, I suppose it can be a problem for a Stalker of certain builds, but in the low levels? At least the Stalker has options. You may *feel* like you're not losing out on anything as a Scrap but you really had nothing to gain either.

Well, as a Stalker, you have placate. Placate *will* hide you when you use it. For a full 10 sec no matter if the enemy got a shot in on you. This may not stop the ambush from shooting at you, but it will stop the *other* spawns from noticing you while you run. Cut a corner, go up an elevator, through a tight corridor, find a safe area, rest if you have the time or just buy time. What can the Scrapper or Brute do?

...

Well, their options are bleak here.. It's either fight or die for most power combos. Some have tricks like stealth but that's a lvl 20+ power...


I don't think the Fitness pool was somehow a legacy vision of Jack's. Really, it's just the evolving expectations of the players who happened to whine enough to get what they wanted. Or perhaps it was in foresight of the new Praetoria content putting a crunch on your downtime. Personally, I find it interesting that the notion of using Rest when it's recharged somehow means you're weak. Or that slow automatically means bad. It's that idea of a gogogo style that seems to have dominated over all others. Because of it, volume is more important than all and has broken other aspect of the game that require time or planning.

I don't reprimand those that enjoy the gogogo style but that they seemed to have shoehorned this into what is 'baseline' and then turn to reprimand anything that doesn't fit does get on my nerves. But then we're getting off topic. This isn't about inherent stamina or the balance of Controllers. We're talking ambushes...

I think the best way to tone the damn things down is to increase the gap between them, and make sure they obey the spawn laws set by the mission difficulty.

In the missions that hacked me off last night, I was stuck with endless waves of Clockwork that, literally three seconds after the last one hit the deck, the next wave would spawn. In the mission after that one it was two simultaneous gaint spawns of Synidcate, that were scaled up Initiates that dropped no rewards at all, thus making them a giant big inspiration and debt sink. As soon as they died? Next two waves. Ad Infinitum.

Have an increased timer. Make Ambushes obey spawn laws. That, at the very leasy, would make them less totally obnoxious and more a legitimate 'extra challenge'.

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.

Is there a field agent guy in Nova Praetoria? I think Geko has a point in that a more challenging game tends to retain more players on average, but we have the ability to adjust mob numbers and levels for a reason. If (general) you find Praetorian mobs more difficult than 'old-style' ones, why not set your missions to -1x1? That should help a bit.

And if there aren't any field agent NPCs in Praetoria (and probably specifically in Nova Praetoria) then there probably should be.

The people posting in this thread (heck, the people who use the forums at all) are not a representative sample of the entire playerbase. They never are, for any game.

There are.

The ambushes are still tough and overpowered on other AT's. 10 ambushes on any AT is draining, given the lack of Insp drops. Not only that, the level of powers they have is higher than PC and RI including a vast array of Debuffs as highlighted earlier.

Actually, that's not true. The Placate Hidden status and stealth bonus suppresses when you are hit. In fact, in most fights it will suppress before the power animation has even played out if you don't time it JUUUST right, and even if you do time it, you usually have no more than a couple of seconds to strike before it gets suppressed anyway. Yes, I know that for a fact. That's how I got killed multiple times.

Furthermore, running from ambushes is pointless. They will follow you to the ends of the earth. They'll open doors, ride elevators, use emergency staircases and they WILL find you. You need to travel pretty much the full length of an entire instance if you want to put enough distance between them and you so you can rest. And even if you manage to do that (I found a ceiling pipe that was out of reach of the Ghouls), you'll get one shot at the ambushes. When you get damaged THEN, you are out of options but to leave the instance.

Leaving the instance, by the way, cuts aggro to even permanent ambushes and makes them wander back to their spawn point, which may be a usable tactic... But feels pretty cheap. Beyond that, however, these ambushes have the tendency to strike when you're escorting an NPC, at which point not only can you not Hide for fear of losing the NPC, but they can kill the NPC, as well. I barely got Dr. Helix out alive (all the while wondering why she has Kheldian powers).

Again - I admit that options exist, but they're not as good as they may seem.

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.

Concept. Playstyle. Certain Set combinations. Because they feel it will be fun.
I'm just confused as to what point exactly your trying to make with Scrapper/Stalker here, of which one your....yeah, Im just lost.

Wh-?
You do realise that Placate is a ST effect only? And that as soon as you take ANY damage its effects on the placated enemy are broken and you are unhidden? Sure, Placate will hide you! From one out a ten strong mob, who will then proceed to plaster your sorry corpse across the floor and walls.

Scrappers at least have higher crit chance, generally better defences at that level, and slightly higher HP (IIRC). Brutes have Fury, which even at those level can even the field, higher HP and generally stronger armour too. So, in fact, they'd likely survive...because they don't rely on the stealth Stalkers do that is subsequently negated.


I use Rest as often as I need to, as often as it's recharged. Given the stupidly and arbitrarily long recharge put on it, however, I often find I have to wait around an assinine ammount of time just to get my health and endurance back. And, yes, I will wait until Im back to full. Because in Praetoria I bloody need it.

Strangely enough, I don't find sitting around twiddling my thumbs while I have to wait to heal much fun. YMMV.

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.

No, but they get needlessly penalised if they do want to play one. Seeing as its the only AT that has it's entire inherent and Modus Operandi gutted so substantially (Trollers/Doms have it rough vs Destoryers, but only them really) I think its a larger issue than you may think.

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.

So what IS the representetive of the entire playerbase? Are you suggesting you are somehow better clued in than anyone else?

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.

I remember when Rest was on a 10-minute timer...