City of Sewers

Exactly what I was going to point out. And since most people prefer to run in 8 man teams, the actual figure is probably closer to an 80% reduction in the number of instances. It would be higher but you have to take the instances created by MA missions being run by low level players into account. Of course, most of those are teams, but since I don't have real numbers, i want to be liberal in my estimate.

In all fairness, I can only think of one other game that offers instanced content for single player teams. Even in that case, the content is not scaled based on team size, and not every character or player is actually capable of running the content alone. In the case of that game, they have never offered the instanced content until a certain level was reached. CoX was unique in offering instanced content all the way from level 1 to the max level.

I've said before and will say again that I do not really like this change. I prefer instanced content over open world content. It's one of the reasons this is my MMO of choice.

This doesn't make the reasoning behind the change invalid though. I am willing to accept the change for low level content. I am even willing to accept the possibility of more open world content being added at other levels, but not at the expense of existing instanced content. Removing instanced content from Atlas, okay... removing it from other higher level zones...not so much. Such a move would likely push players like myself to Mission Architect, where ALL content is instanced. Most of it is plotless farms, but there are enough threads on the forums about story arcs to keep players busy for a few trips from 1 to 50.

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

In teams. Rather than running the lowbie missions solo. So, yes, it is still dramatically reducing lowbie the instances.

That's one map for 4-8 people, not 8 separate maps for 8 solo people

Very little of the AP Origin content sent people to Galaxy City so they could have left that alone and worked on giving the Galaxy Origin content mission doors in AP.

Yes, they also need to go through and make sure that textural references to Galaxy City are removed or edited, as well as make sure that they don't ask you to go talk to someone in Galaxy City, as well as make sure when they introduce you to a new contact, it isn't one in Galaxy City. None of these may seem major, and they may or may not actually be very difficult. You have to remember though, a lot of the folks who work on missions were busy designing the new tutorial zone, all new starting arcs in both Atlas Park and Mercy Island, and who know how much other fresh new content.

That being said, I would expect that at some point within the next few issues we will see one or two alternate threads added to both Atlas and Mercy. Remember, when Mercy Island was first put out there, there was only Kalinda. There was no Burke at all. All you had was one story arc to run if you started off as a Villain. Burke was added an issue or two later. Right now, both Atlas and Mercy are back at that point with one single, all new, arc. There's no reason to expect that it will stay that way forever though.

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

They're still fine combing out all the other references in content that's still in. The Jenny Firkins arc in Founder's Falls that sends you to all the signature heroes still tells you to hit up Back Alley Brawler in Galaxy even though the mission sends you to Blue Steel in King's Row (Then sends you to Synapse in Skyway, who they say is taking care of King's Row XD)

Having run thru the tutorial and the new AP mission arcs I can honestly say that's nothing to be proud of. The new tutorial while pretty doesn't teach new players anything, and the new story-arcs are insulting. Why are players being told about trainers at level 5? That should be either in the tutorial or the first mission upon entering Atlas Park/Mercy Island. The old content was a hell of a lot more informative than this new stuff.

The entire point of the new tutorial was to keep it short and to have the players getting out into Atlas Park as quickly as possible. It teaches nothing but the bare essentials...how to move...how to jump...how to target...how to attack...how to interact with NPCs...exposure to a scaled down "giant" monster.

Twinshot's arc, and the equivalent on the Villain side, were intended to get more in depth in teaching about the game. That's precisely why these missions have you doing seemingly "insulting" stuff like talking to a trainer (trainers are actually introduced briefly in the tutorial), explicitly going to the train station, the market, and the AE building (so that you know where they are), later on talking to a Hero Corp Analyst (or Fateweaver), etc. It was a way to introduce these things in a way other than a long wall of text which most players wouldn't read.

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

It does it poorly though. As stated, you shouldn't be taught about trainers at level *Five*. Or the Fateweaves/Analysts so late.

The theory is sound but the execution is dead stupid, new players need several things it's teaching MUCH sooner.

Compare to the Praetorian intro. Teaches you almost everything you need to know in a short 5-10 minute mission then dumps you right into an area that fills you in on a large chunk of the rest. There is no reason to stretch it out into a 5 to 15 3 arc mega-tutorial.

You aren't taught about them at level 5. You are taught about them at level 1. Twinshot's mission simply has you talk to one again. During that conversation, if I am not mistaken, the trainer briefly talks about some of the other things the trainer can do like setting titles, switching builds, and (*cringe*) customizing your costume (still don't really like this addition to their repertoire).

The Praetorian tutorial was designed in the style of the older, longer, style of tutorials though. The reason the arc is so long is because they try to do it in a more entertaining way by doing it through a story rather than through a textbook.

Between enhancements (just normal enhancements), inspirations, the invention system, and mission architect, there is simply too much information to cover (or even touch on) during a tutorial without putting the player into information overload. You give them too much text to read and they won't read any of it at all. So they came up with abbreviated tutorial to get them into the game very quickly. New players don't want to read. They want to play.

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

No, you're not taught about trainers at level one. All you're told is 'talk to X to get a new power'. That's it. This doesn't teach you about trainers. As soon as you appear in Atlas Park/Mercy island your first contact should be the trainer, then they can direct you to the mission contacts.



As an MMORPG there is *always* going to be some amount of reading. It's not an action game. Maybe the original tutorials were too long and wordy, but this new mega-tutorial takes far too long to introduce simple concepts and systems that the players will already be using, or if they aren't it's been too long since they *should* be using them. Adjusting the game's difficulty should not be introduced around level 10.

And the only thing you *need* to know out of your list is enhancements and Inspirations, which are very easily explained without 'omgtext'. Inventions don't come along til Level 10 and Mission architect is hardly a required element of the game, both of those items are okay to weave in later.

Basically, for whatever you want to say is wrong with the original tutorials, the new ones have the opposite problems. Given a choice between the older tutorials and the new tutorials, I feel new players have more to gain and learn from the older ones.

The tutorial doesn't teach enough of the bare essentials like it used to. and Twinshot's arc is teaching stuff players have already learned during the first 5 levels of playing, and it's insulting to send them back to go over the things they already learned.

Ah, but "X" IS a trainer and the text in her/its dialog is "Train to a Level of Power" exactly as on a trainer. There is one flaw in the training setup they use now though. Twinshot's arc doesn't unlock until you have trained to level 4. If it unlocked BEFORE you actually trained, there would be nothing wrong with having her introduce you to trainers.

To assume "People already know this stuff at level 5" is an assumption, but not necessarily an accurate one.

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

Having a trainer in the intro and actually teaching you about trainers are two different things. Talking to the trainer shows you that that person is a trainer, it does not tell you *about* trainers. Just showing someone something is not the same as actually explaining it to them. The intro trainer shows you the trainer/level up interface, but it doesn't actually explain things like "There's a trainer in most zones"

And see if someone *doesn't* know what a trainer is and they make it to level 5 that's an even bigger crime because that's 3 levels (since you go from 1 -> 2 in the intro) that they haven't picked slots or powers. That's far far worse to me.

In fact that's even contradictory. You cannot say it's adequate to include both a trainer in the introduction and still have to be introduced to trainers in the level 5 arc. Players *should* know what trainers are by level 5 because they met one at level One, so its a redundancy.

There is also the issue that there is now ONE singular path in the beginning of COH.

Which is why many players and vets are doing DFB till their eyes bleed.

Go elsewhere. Do other things. Start your own teams. Stop whining.

(Disclaimer: I've run the sewer trial twice.)

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Actually, I'd say most are doing it because it's -fast- xp and grants 4 nice buffs for a lowbie to hold you over til SOs.