Task Force Suggestions

I suppose so. No strong opinion either way, but I'm not sure the devs would want to be seen to be 'encouraging' speed runs.

Too much work for too little return, and having played voiced MMOs I'm quite happy that CoH isn't. Apart from anything else speech in battles is mostly just cues for "Here comes my big attack - DUCK!"

More importantly it would draw massive attention to the fact that the game has no facial animation.

Besides, I know what the better written characters 'sound' like, and if they did go for voice acting I'm certain some of them would sound... wrong.

If this skips cutscenes for the entire group then absolutely /unsigned. You may have seen those scenes a million times, but I might not have. Half the time the only way I have even the slightest idea what's going on in a TF is through the cutscenes, and I don't want that taken away from me by someone trying to shave 30 seconds off his speedrun time.

Having played voice MMOs in the past, I disagree. Voices can be used for more than just battle cues - it gives life and character to the enemy. This game is just too silent.

Different issue, but I wouldnt be opposed to having facial animations added.


Agreed. The person who wants to skip could skip it, the persons still viewing would either be greyed out, or show as "zoning in". There could also be an option on the TF to either turn off cutscenes or allow the group leader to skip it for everyone. It would be the responsibility of the leader to say "speed tf. no cutscenes. everyone ok with this?"

nononononononononononononononononononononono

No.

The last thing I want in this game is the atrocious voice acting of "the other game".

No... I have nothing personally against Speed Runners but a top ten list dedicated to "See how fast we managed to run that! Yeah we had 100 deaths. Yeah the 40 level on the team barely wnet up two bars. What's you point?" And while I have done a few MO runs here again I have seen way too many where the strategy is .. "You 6 guys stay here and DON"T do anything. When we finish up we will teleport you to the end so you can help with the AV." Yeah both of those are so much fun for the majority of the players on any team LETS GLORIFY THAT!

Sorry unsigned here too... the game lags bad enough at times without adding a ton of voices and as DarkGob mentioned what quality actors will be lured to do these voice overs?

Again as previously mentioned I have to say no. YEAH I feel your pain here myself. After 13 Kahn TFs in a couple days I was ready to go to Grandville and personally pound the crap out of him but just because we have seen it a hundred times doesn't mean it's not the first time for someone else. Unless they can find a way to do it on an individual basis I can't agree to that.. and even if they could it brings up another issue. Everything sort of freezes while a cut scene plays so that when you return to the game that 5th column warwolf that was about to attack you is still a foot or two away. If some players on the team are not watching the cut scene and still fighting does the game freeze for those that do watch? or do they return from viewing and find themselves dead? Too many variable .. leave it alone

1. Shrug, what other statistic would/could you use? Time to completion is a good measure of how quickly you can meet the objectives of each mission.

2. Ok, by this logic, we should ask for no changes. Now would be a perfect time to bring CoH up to modern MMORPG standards.

3. I gave scenarios how to get around the problems. The user is zoned out until he/she views the cutscene. Hence no issue with being ganked while viewing the cinematic. As to whether the devs could actually code it this way, who knows?

I seriously doubt my computer would lag, and if yours would, the sound pack could be completely optional.
They could go to the acting department of the nearest university ... I'm sure there are plenty of students who would love to have this on their resume.

I wouldn't. I personally(And you're allowed to disagree) think that a "Top 10" for TF runs is just a bad idea.

Did I say that? No. That wasn't a blanket statement for all suggestions, but an opinion for this particular suggestion. Also, just because (Insert name of popular new game here) has (Insert various feature) doesn't mean we need that same feature.

Zoned out? As in, no longer in the mission? Or do you mean that they are phased out? What would then stop the mobs you're fighting from getting close to the phased/zoned out person and ganging them the moment the cut scene ends? When it started no mobs were around him/her, and when it ends they could be surrounded, and easily overwhelmed.

Fair enough, we can agree to disagree.

Ok...again we agree to disagree. I happen to like the voice option, and again if it were made optional, I dont see how it would impact your gameplay. I'm sure there's a good percentage of the population who would enjoy the extra immersion provided. You dont like it, it could be turned off or not installed.
The technology already exists, try standing near a robot vendor in Praetoria and listen for a couple minutes.

Zoned out or phased out - either would work.

As en example, in the STF, the cutscenes *usually* occur when you're entering an area where there are no mobs. The only exception I can think of is in the ITF, when you see the cutscene in the final mission. You'll occasionaly have a teammate who jumps the gun while you're still fighting - existing issue. I've yet to be ganked when coming out of the cutscene though.

Why should only the TF/SF leader get the glory of being listed? I don't technically have anything against people who like to do speed runs, but enforcing the "competition" aspect amongst individuals with an arcade game styled score list just doesn't seem appropriate for this game for all sorts of reasons.

People who like speed running already share their "best times" amongst themselves anyway. Why would I care what the current best times are when I don't personally care about record-setting speed runs?

On some level it'd be nice to have this detail. But again there are probably too many problems associated with it to make it a worthwhile effort from our Devs.

Yes I've seen many of the cutscenes a million times myself. But until you can suggest a good way to handle skipping them for the entire team I'm not sure there's really a "solution" to this issue.

I realize there are a lot of GOOD people out there leading Mo Runs and I admire there determination but personally the Master Of Requirements just sort of turn me off. 1) no temp powers.. I worked to get those one way or the other.. Vet Powers I earned by continuing to PAY for my account here, Day Jobs I earned by faithfully returning my character to the "Job" site every time i used them and the others? .. I ran missions and defeated countless enemies to earn the right to have them so someone suddenly yanking them away from me is a bit insulting. And 90% of the time I don't use them anyway LOL 2) no deaths.. I've been on teams that did a TF and when it was over we realized that not a single player had dropped and it felt GREAT. Joining a team where the overall feeling is "If I mess up and die we blow this thing!" isn't great .. its stressful and I think the vast majority of the players here come to COX to release Stress and relax not ADD to it. Any time I have been on a MO run I have found myself getting away from my normal play style.. being much more conservative because I personally didnt want to be the one that blew it! I have some horror stories of runs I've been on but I wont list them here. I did have one nice MO run recently when Kahn was the WST. My tank joined a team and we decided to try for a Master of badge.. now the leader was very cool, and this was a PUG, and said if we failed we failed no big deal.. Well I'd already done a couple runs with my Tank and knew I could pound on Reichmann all day without him hurting me so I played my normal style and things went great. We got to the final mission and had just taken out the last of Reichmann's AVs ( I think it was Countess Crey) when one of the Squishier team members got a little too close as Reichmann delivered one of those Lightning bolt attacks of his and POOF the MO was gone.. about one minute later so was Reichmann and no one cared one way or the other.

The main thing here is just what justifies anything being TOP FIVE? the OP wants to use time and glorify Speed Runs.. Well I joined an ALL VEAT ITF a while back and we did a kill all. With 8 VEATS stacking defenses and improving accuracy nothing could touch us and everything dropped that got in our path. About the only thing we didn't do was climb the stone walls in mission three and take out the Cimeroran Traitors up there. When Romulus fell we had completes the TF in 50 minutes.. No deaths and we stuck around afterwards to clear towers, walls etc.. I left with 11 shards, my Salvage, Recipes, and enhancement trays full (including a purple recipe I got 400 million out of at Wentworth). Now I have heard of SPEED RUNS finishing in 15, 16 ?? whatever minutes. YEAH your fast.. but how much richer are you? Did you get X number of Purple drops? How many shards did everyone get (since this has become a pretty big issue lately)? See my point? I am not saying there is anything wrong with Speed Runs or MO Runs but aside from a FEW people's opinion that THAT is some sort of standard all TFs should be judged by how is getting done fast any better than getting done SLOW but finishing with a TON more stuff?

No matter what sort of standard that is applied it will upset SOMEONE so lets just NOT have a TOP FIVE list and keep everyone from finding another reason to *****, gripe and moan at one another here and in game.

This right here perfectly encapsulates what I don't like about speed runs. I want Inf, I want recipes(50 IO ones sell for around 100,000), and I want shards. You are essentially screwing yourself out of all these things when you skip most of the content by doing a speed run.

Plus, I actually like to play the game for it's own sake. Like someone else said on these boards not too long ago, "I'm just here to kill s***". If I only wanted to make a bunch of numbers go up real quick, I could always just play Progress Quest.

I like the cutscenes. I always get a smile out of Arbiter Sands and his cup of coffee on the STF. Please don't alter them.

1. Temps are disabled in order to prevent Shivans and nukes from being (ab)used to make the run easier.
2. Yes, the "no deaths" stipulation does put an unwanted pressure on the whole thing, which I suspect is why the Master runs for Apex and Tin Mage have different requirements (that and because of how often people die on those TFs). The Master runs for the BAF and Lambda Sector trials next issue will work similarly to those, so I suspect old style Master Runs will remain a thing of the past as far as future badges goes.

What would be nice here is to give people the option to vote. Have a little message down the bottom of the screen saying "Hit ESC to vote for skipping this cut scene." Maybe display a counter "3 of 8 teammates have voted to skip." If everyone on the team votes to skip it, the cutscene ends. If there's someone on the team who's never seen it, or wants to watch it again for whatever reason, it plays through.

Actually, if I remember correctly,this is the way guild wars handles it. All players have to hit ESC.

That would work. Or just have an ON/OFF setting in options.