Speed TFs make me sad
By
Anti_Proton,
Posted on: 2011-02-22 08:46 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I do speed runs. I still haven't quit TonyV. 
Playstation 3 - XBox 360 - Wii - PSP
Remember kids, crack is whack!
Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
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Instant humor. Just remove commas.|
Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
I still haven't quit TonyV.
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Oh, wait. You already did. ;P
@Roderick
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I won't quit TonyV, he's a valuable community member. |
Originally Posted by Roderick
Instant humor. Just remove commas.
Oh, wait. You already did. ;P |
Playstation 3 - XBox 360 - Wii - PSP
Remember kids, crack is whack!
Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
I really don't see the need to denigrate players who prefer to play the game differently from you. Form your own team and set your own pace. If you join someone's team, you have to respect the wishes of the leader. It's really that simple. Aren't we all adults?
I used to bail out of teams at the slightest perceived provocation. I'm glad I've grown out of that prima donna attitude.
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I want the badge, but not so much that I am cramming in more TFs just to get it. I'm an active badge hunter, but I'm fairly lazy about it.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
See, what I don't understand is your need to get that badge right now. How many years have you been playing? Do you think that badge is going away next week? Have you ever actually run across someone who said, "Wow, you have that badge already? You're awesome!"? Two years from now when we both have the badge, will yours be in some way superior to mine because you got yours now and I do one extra WST a week and get mine in a year? Do you plan on quitting soon and you're trying to jam it all in now, and if so, why do you care whether you have the badge or not?
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I do want the Incarnate slots, and yes, I'm the kind of player that cares about, say, the difference in the Rare and Very rare versions, at least on several of my characters. When it comes to something that I will get some kind of increased performance from, I'm definitely not willing to wait years to have it. Those years are time I could spend playing with the thing I want, and having it to play with is the point of wanting it - it's not an abstract goal. Also, I don't know if CoH will be here next year. I don't know if I will be here next year. There is a limit to the timescale to which I am willing to defer goals.
Here's the thing - I'm not actually hugely manic about getting things like this either, but I've learned a lesson about the social behavior behind things like this, from years of past experience with how the community reacts to other time-gated events, like holiday badges. Here's what happens. When the gates open, tons of people do pile in and work on the event. If you join then, it's really easy to make progress or achieve the new shiny, because there are lots of people doing it.
The longer one waits, the more "desynchronized" the community becomes in terms of performing the activities in question. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to find other people doing the activity of interest. In my experience, even if I don't actually have a burning desire to blast through an event's shinies in one day, I find that if I wait until the hubbub has died down, actually getting the shiny takes far longer - and for annual events, that's longer than I am willing to wait. So I cram my activities in when the hordes are pouring through the gates, even if I don't actually want it so badly that I need it on the time scale that results in. I actually want a middle ground timeframe, but one that meets my wishes isn't usually available.
Incarnate content combines this kind of time gating with performance-related goodies previously associated more closely with either leveling or with Inventions. Those are both things that, while playing with other people can help with progress, there's really no equivalent to something like the WST. (The closest equivalent I can think of would have been using TFs to earn Reward Merits to obtain IOs.)
So combine these, and I want to run a lot of very specific TFs, I don't want to wait months and years to finish them, other people are running them right now, and to take advantage of as much of that as I can, I want to fit in as many TFs per time as I can, which means I want those TFs to be short. That means I want people to run speedy TFs. Fortunately, I know a core of other players who share my play goals, if not my specific motivations. We don't really do pug TFs, though we do invite others to join ours. Most of us tell people it's a speedy run when we advertise those pick-up spots, and I always do if I'm forming the TF.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Some people see badging as a competition, or a race. So they have to have more than you, and they have to have them as soon as humanly possible. I don't get it either, and frankly the people I've met with this mindset are people I will never play with again. I've found that they show very little consideration for others in their quest to get all the badges before you.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
See, what I don't understand is your need to get that badge right now. How many years have you been playing? Do you think that badge is going away next week? Have you ever actually run across someone who said, "Wow, you have that badge already? You're awesome!"?
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
We don't really do pug TFs, though we do invite others to join ours. Most of us tell people it's a speedy run when we advertise those pick-up spots, and I always do if I'm forming the TF.
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On an unrelated note, Imperious can die because what he is doing with his Hand Clap spam is the opposite of help. One day the devs will realize that NPCs are too stupid to be allowed to have knockback, and on that day NPC helpers might be welcome. Until that day, Imperious, Fusionette, Sefu, and their ilk can all go die in a fire. Last LGTF I did someone stealthed ahead to free Infernia so we wouldn't have to backtrack (we were intending to save them.) She died while she was yakking. So she got herself killed. She can die too, if she wanted to stay alive she'd shut up and follow. Her dialogue is not funny. Penny doesn't deserve to die, since she's bugged so you can skip the long trek back to the door. If they ever fix that, I'll probably be advocating letting her die, since by the time that TF was created we'd already established that nobody likes long lead-outs with stupid slow hostages that get stuck on everything.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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I guess I can't speak for every server, but I'm on both of Justice's "main" global channels and I think that just about every single TF hail includes information that one can use to discern whether it's a speed run or a slow run. They use words like "non-speed," "kill-most," "shard run." I team often with Uberguy and, like he says, when we send out invites to fill our team, it always reads something like: "Fast ITF, one spot avail, pst" or "speedy LGTF, 1 spot, pst."|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Unfortunately you're a minority. Many people just assume a speed run as the default, and if you don't do it that way you're doing it wrong.
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The only times you won't see that are on TFs that are not really speedable like the Posis, Citadel, Synapse, and the like.
Never argue with stupid people. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
@vanda1 and @nakoa2
I always get a chuckle when someone posts about how others should play.
Just because speeding has rewards doesn't mean that everyone is in it for 'teh phat lewt'. Sometimes people speed because they like to go fast.
Driving a fast sports car slow can take more discipline than going fast, and sure as heck won't scare the living daylights out of the passenger (which works well to get new folks interested and trained), but going slow all the time sure is a waste of a high horsepower machine.
The same thing goes for powerful toons and teams. Yeah, this may be the special olympics but I'm still gunning to win!
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This!|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Fortunately, I20 will help with that. My understanding is that, presumably assuming your "native" level is 50 and you have your Alpha Slot unlocked, you will get Shards even while exemplared.
I'm pretty sure that's a welcome change to folks regardless of their preferred approach to TFs. (I just wish it was already in place now that we're getting Sister Psyche for the WST.) |
I know I must be missing something or not getting the whole picture because for the life of me I can't fathom the reasoning behind the decision to put Sissy P as this week's WST. Not when there are still a few level "50" TFs to cover.
Who do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
Arc Name: Tsoo In Love
Arc ID: 413575
So last night I decided to join a Silver Mantis SF on my lvl 26 brute, and taking the advice of many folks on this board I started the team myself advising folks that as a predominately blue side player,this would be the first time I've run this particular SF and would like to take my time about it. Didn't take long at all to get a team of six together. After everyone made introductions, we found that no one on the team had ever run Silver Mantis. That made for a very interesting and extremely fun TF. Not sure how long this TF generally runs, but we finished in about 90 minutes. It was awesome having to strategize through each mission as apposed to just following the orders of someone who has run it 15 times in the same day. I imagine this is what the game felt like in the beginning.
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That sounds like fun. But seriously, you went out used the tools provided in the game to organize a team that did what you wanted, and you had a good time. That's not how it's done. You are supposed to whine and complain about how terrible everything is and take no responsibility yourself. I think you are also supposed to threaten to quit.
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Originally Posted by Irish Fury
So last night I decided to join a Silver Mantis SF on my lvl 26 brute, and taking the advice of many folks on this board I started the team myself advising folks that as a predominately blue side player,this would be the first time I've run this particular SF and would like to take my time about it. Didn't take long at all to get a team of six together. After everyone made introductions, we found that no one on the team had ever run Silver Mantis. That made for a very interesting and extremely fun TF. Not sure how long this TF generally runs, but we finished in about 90 minutes. It was awesome having to strategize through each mission as apposed to just following the orders of someone who has run it 15 times in the same day. I imagine this is what the game felt like in the beginning.
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I too hate speed runs and here is why. Imagine a different scenario.
Imagine that you like watching movies (ok you probably don't have to imagine that) and you want to watch Iron Man. The group you are playing with starts the movie and you watch the beginning and are getting into it. The weapons demo scene, the ambush scene, yeah this is fun.
Then the person with the remote hits the scene skip button until the Iron Man prototype busts out. Then the first flight scene etc... If you try to question them you just get the response "Those scenes are dull. It's all about the maximum action in the minimum time." And if you have never seen the movie before they don't care. You'll just be told to keep up and figure it out. Try to start a showing of the movie yourself and you'll find people saying that "It's stupid watching it this way. I'm not wasting my time" and leaving the room.
That would be pretty idiotic right? You would think that those people are way too ADD if they can't take the time to watch a movie normally. Yet that is the way that the great majority of people want to run TFs. It isn't about playing the game, it's about winning the game. Or at least winning the most prizes.
Yes you can sometimes find a team that wants to run the TF/SF normally, but it's rare. And unfortunately unlike a dvd you can't start watching just by yourself or with a single friend. And if you start the movie with the help of a few other people who then leave you are still required to consume enough popcorn and drinks for 8 people before the movie is done.
Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
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Well, all the TFs have bonus merits involved as well as a huge chunk of XP as a bonus at the end. |
Originally Posted by EnigmaBlack
I know I must be missing something or not getting the whole picture because for the life of me I can't fathom the reasoning behind the decision to put Sissy P as this week's WST. Not when there are still a few level "50" TFs to cover. |
They are probably spreading it out so those players who don't have a 50 at all don't feel like they're being shafted by the WST only being for Incarnate characters. The WST is for everyone, not just Incarnates, and not just for people that bought Going Rogue. Everyone gets the bonus XP and bonus merits, and Incarnates get a Notice of the Well along with it.
I'm planning on running it with characters who need it for TFC, or who I want to get a little closer to 50, because that bonus xp (1/3rd, half, or 2/3rds of an entire level) is HUGE for a character in the 40s. I may or may not run it on my main, depends on how I'm feeling at the time, and being a Claws/Regen he exemps well.
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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 will say that in two attempts this week I have had no problem whatsoever in putting together kill most/kill all TFs. The important thing is to advertise it as such when you recruit in global channels, broadcast, etc. There seem to be plenty of people out there who enjoy taking time to smell the roses to accomodate us slow TFers.
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If I made the decisions, Mission Fail would equal Task Force Fail. This would serve dual purpose of making the developers carefully consider the challenges presented and the risk of failure, and make players less apt to exploit (and I consider failing a mission purposefully to speed up the task force an exploit) the system for better rewards. |
Originally Posted by TonyV
I have, for example, left Lady Grey task forces when someone deliberately gets Penny killed, after telling them, of course, "If you do that, I'm leaving."
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I got a LGTF together Monday night (no one would take me as I was on my Brute, so I had to lead it myself), specifically advertising a "slow run". Everyone seemed to have great fun (in the final room, I charged forward while the Tank was saying "pulling AV", then someone else said "Or we could just aggro the whole room"; things seemed to go pretty well - as I said, "We can take it!" (and we did.)) We rescued Penny, rescued Inferna and Glacia, stomped Hami and stomped Hro'Dotz and Honoree. I couldn't imagine doing things any other way, even though it meant having to endure a two hour play session (I logged off shortly after it finished.)
But I'm a tortoise. Slow and steady is how I go.
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I would change it to be like Katie, where if you fail the mission you have to do it over. However I'd change the third mission to only require rescuing the sisters, not leading them out, and I'd have them both spawn when the mission begins. It's a long mission, and all the backtracking and leading out and listening to Infernia babble just makes it draaaaag. Penny isn't too bad because it's only one lead out and you can Assemble the Team to skip all that running, losing her, and having to go back for her.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
If I made the decisions, Mission Fail would equal Task Force Fail. This would serve dual purpose of making the developers carefully consider the challenges presented and the risk of failure, and make players less apt to exploit (and I consider failing a mission purposefully to speed up the task force an exploit) the system for better rewards.
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Keeping NPCs alive is a bad "challenge" anyway. They are as dumb as a sack of bricks and tend to kamikaze, and are usually too squishy not to die from it. "Keep alive" challenges can be fun when you actually have a good chance of keeping whatever it is alive.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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Imagine a scenario where the people you are with have a choice of Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Deliverance and 6 other movies that everyone has already seen for over 5 years.|
Originally Posted by Mandu
I too hate speed runs and here is why. Imagine a different scenario.
Imagine that you like watching movies (ok you probably don't have to imagine that) and you want to watch Iron Man. |
There are no other movies to watch.
Everyone sits through Iron Man in absolute silence listening to you mow down all the popcorn, and shushing them whenever they make a peep. The lights turn on. Everyone else is asleep. You are eaten by a grue.
Bad analogy is bad.
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Yes, but what if Marvel Studios paid you $100 every time you finished the movie? Would you watch it faster the next time, skipping parts so that you could get to the end more quickly? Would you, at least, be more understanding why your fellow movie watchers would like to skip to the exciting parts and get to the $100?
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Originally Posted by Mandu
Imagine that you like watching movies...
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Never argue with stupid people. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
@vanda1 and @nakoa2
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Or I could just watch Iron Man with my friends who actually like Iron Man as much as I do and would like to watch it again with me. |
Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Imagine a scenario where the people you are with have a choice of Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Deliverance and 6 other movies that everyone has already seen for over 5 years.
There are no other movies to watch. Everyone sits through Iron Man in absolute silence listening to you mow down all the popcorn, and shushing them whenever they make a peep. The lights turn on. Everyone else is asleep. You are eaten by a grue. Bad analogy is bad. |
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Wanna watch all the exciting parts of Iron Man with me? |
Originally Posted by Dispari
Or I could just watch Iron Man with my friends who actually like Iron Man as much as I do and would like to watch it again with me.
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You're going to watch the parts where he isn't wearing a shirt with me? |
Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Wanna watch all the exciting parts of Iron Man with me?
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I wanna watch the whole thing. Even the previews before the movie starts. For movies I've already seen.|
Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Wanna watch all the exciting parts of Iron Man with me?
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I mean, later I might want to just watch the fight scenes from Matrix Reloaded. The rest of that movie sucked but those parts are good so we can just fast forward. But at the moment I want to watch a whole movie.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Depends. What are we doing after?
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
You're going to watch the parts where he isn't wearing a shirt with me?
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Depends. What are we doing before that?
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I wanna watch the whole thing. Even the previews before the movie starts. For movies I've already seen.
I mean, later I might want to just watch the fight scenes from Matrix Reloaded. The rest of that movie sucked but those parts are good so we can just fast forward. But at the moment I want to watch a whole movie. |
Maybe that's your idea of fun, but I just can't imagine it. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate you or anything, but you're one of the veterans I mentioned above who I wish would start thinking less about getting stuff and more about how you can personally make the game more fun and exciting for others. Don't you hang out with Belle sometimes? She's the master of that. I wish she would rub off more on other players, because no matter how many times we've run a boring old mission, we always manage to amuse each other and inject something new into the experience, making it fun and exciting every time.
But then, of course, we've never run the same task force 14 times in one week.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)