Anyone else wish IOs never happened?

I love the benefits of IOs as much as the next guy, and I use them on all my characters. However, they sure do make a lot of powers and ATs feel broken or obsolete. Part of me wishes that the invention system was only ever crafting temp powers. I love using craftable temps on my characters, and would love it even more if there were more options. Keep in mind, I'm in no way advocating that IOs be removed or anything like that. They've been around far too long to go back now. I was just wondering if anyone else ever longed for the good old days when teams ran around more often because it meant something more than "those people I need to start the TF".

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian

I am very glad that IOs happened. I do, however, wish that the Devs had spent a LOT more time creating more balanced sets. There are currently a LOT of ways to get significant Defense, Regen, HP, Accuracy, and Recharge. However, there are few ways to get things like Resistance or significant Damage.

And before they released IOs, and ESPECIALLY before they tweaked the Defense set bonuses, they should have looked into AT Defense caps.

I'd have quit the game a while ago without IOs - what I wish never happened was Incarnate stuff past the Alpha slot. Nothing makes you feel as insignificant as having an IOed-to-the-gills toon go try to solo a spawn, only to have someone one-shot the entire spawn before you get there with their Judgement.

I know I can get one too, and I know that I don't have to team with a bunch of other incarnates. But it's still annoying.

Nope, I love IOs, building a strong IO'd characters adds a lot of enjoyment to the game for me.

I do agree with Aett that it would be nice if the IO meta-game was more nuanced. It really does feel like the only viable options for most characters are Defense and/or Recharge (and maybe regen for certain builds) with Hit Points and Accuracy as secondary benefits. It would be nice to have options to allow for more trade-offs in builds.

Purple IOs are even worse, they are almost all Recharge based and a few Defense options would be nice for variety.

i personally dont mind IOs, incarnates are nice but i mostly worry about the alpha lore and interface slots, the destiny next and judgement last

the thing that personally gave me a sick feeling was when they decided to gut all the badges from AE and the fact they are barely give us any new badges per issue (and some of the ones that they have been giving out were just plain awful), i love badging and thats about 85% of the reason i play, i think i stopped playing almost 2 weeks after i lost 70 badges due to the AE badge removal

now more on topic i do love IOs and build planning, some of my toons are crazy good once i get all the IOs on to them

I am glad for IO's in that I buy them at 22, then add as needed but never have to replace them if I don't want to. I hate dealing with enhancements and character planning - IO's has helped reduce that.

I am fine with IO sets, frankenslotting, etc as long as the devs stick with balancing everything for SO's. If other people want to pay to play the game with them I am happy as it means the game continues, but if it becomes forced on us to balance those players I will stop playing.

Mostly I think that the whole IO thing is a big positive to the game.

The only pea under the mattress it adds for me, and I know that I am in a minority for this, is the additional baroque filigree it adds to the unending arguments about what the BEST build for a character is.

In extending the upside development for top level characters I think it works. The fact that it encourages even the most antisocial player in swapping and trading recipes and salvage to efficiently make their desired items it is good. In making more choices available in how you build your character and what they can do it is pretty successful.

It does have some downsides in that it is more complicated than more traditional Equipment based systems that I have seen. Providing more choice for players means furious debate between players about what you MUST have. The system can seem random and unfriendly to those who are unwilling to throw themselves on the wine dark sea of the Auction House.

The impact on difficulty seems to me to be a non issue. I have been surprised at the degree to which even a small team can turn up the difficulty both in +level and xplayers and in some ways it seems to undermine what I would think of as best practise play, but as long as people are having fun and not forcing me to play in a way that isn’t fun then the game would seem to be doing a good job of keeping everyone happy.

Regards, Screwloose
“I am not young enough to know everything.”

If IOs didn't happen, they should have repealed GDN/ED and unnerfed Weave.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neggy Z Nothing makes you feel as insignificant as having an IOed-to-the-gills toon go try to solo a spawn, only to have someone one-shot the entire spawn before you get there with their Judgement.

Unless they're fighting mobs of only minions, that's not happening.

I do kind of wish IO's never happened. Well, there are a few of them that I can't live without (some of the uniques), but other than that, they add a lot of tedious work, which I personally don't enjoy at all. With SO's, you can fully slot a toon in like 5 minutes. With IO's, it can take days or weeks. And I just don't enjoy that part of the game at all. But of course I do enjoy the benefit.

I will say this though: No doubt in my mind that PvP would have been better off without IO's. At this point if you haven't spent 15+ billion on your build, you may as well not even set foot in PvP, at least if you're new. It's absolutely insane to require that much of an investment just to TRY something, considering 99% of the game population will NEVER have that much inf.

Allowing only SO's would have put everybody on the same level, so things would be decided by skill, not by who spent more on their build. Of course IO's weren't the only (or even nearly the biggest) thing that destroyed PvP, but I fully believe it would have been better off without them.

I think they should not gone over board with all the sets giving defense bonus because we are seeing the effects now in the Itrials with the auto hits and lame tricks to deal with the fact that a good half of the player base is softcapped for defense now.

And I think the fact they are now realizing that when making new IOs is nice but kinda too late.

Absolutely not.

The invention system adds a completely optional layer of complexity to the game. Without it, I doubt I would have come back.

I enjoy not being forced to rely on other players. It doesn't mean I don't team. Last night I recruited a mixed group of newbies and a couple of other veterans and dragged them round Atlas Park for some fast and furious XP while I did my hero tips (which I run at +1/x6 on my own of no-one joins me). We chatted, fought crime together, and had fun. I couldn't have done this without IOs - I'd have been having to pick teammates much more carefully.

I'd much rather team-mates were there for the social side of the game rather than because I'm afraid to set foot in a mission without a Tank and Support, or incapable of doing enough damage on my own.

I like IOs for PvE builds. They're just fun for me to make and work towards. I don't tend to get very expensive ones though.

But yes, for PvP, it's ridiculous. It's an inherent inbalance into what should be as level a playing field as possible. Especially since PvP builds are so different to PvE builds, you basically have to spend a ridiculous amount -twice- if you want good performance. PvP is solely for the 'elite', not in terms of skill but in terms of investment.

Real-money IOs are anathema however. Performance of a particular character should not be based on real-money investment.

Without IOs I would have quit quite a while ago.

I suppose something that is different for me from a lot of people is also the fact that many people enjoy making IOs and spending days and weeks for their build to be just right. I'll admit I like making builds. I do it all the time on the forums. What I don't like is actually going through the process of crafting them in game. It really isn't very hard to buy SOs at a store, and takes much less time than buying/selling everything you need for IOs.

I also don't think everyone should be able to softcap. In fact, I think the fact that the softcap exists is kind of sloppy design. It would have been much better for the game if the defense numbers were different and the hard cap was 45%. Incarnate content would not need a different cap, and ATs would still have distinguished roles to play on teams.

A lot of people are saying that without IOs they would have quit the game. I have a hard time seeing why unless all you ever do is craft IOs. Nothing else changed when they put IOs in. I would have much rather seen us getting new powersets and content at the speed we do now than see IOs introduced back then.

The other thing that irritates me about the IO system is that everyone appears to believe it's optional. It isn't. Enemies may be balanced around SOs, but a major percentage of players have IOs. A character on SOs is markedly less effective at tank-maging their way through spawns than a character on IOs. Which means, if you want to compete in terms of survival and kill speed with other players, you have to use IOs.

@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian