City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Level 53 and weaker than a Hellion

AkuTenshiiZero

By AkuTenshiiZero,
Posted on: 2011-12-16 06:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
What's more demoralizing? Death troops shooting bolts of light at you, or the civilians you're supposed to be setting free sneering angrily and resentfully toward you while throwing rocks at your head?
Blueside still saves redside every time planet is in peril and the only thanks they get is wailing about having to take time out of their granny mugging to help (even though they don't have to be there).

 

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
Speaking from experience... they're very closely related.
One is a bit more short-term than the other, to put it mildly.

In any case, it's obvious that the devs have seen the thread. I doubt anything will come of it but we can hope.

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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle View Post
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig View Post
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

 

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Hm... looking at the trial here on the wiki I just noticed that there's a badge for defeating the Telepathists and preventing them from converting any of the citizens against you. Hm.... I wonder what that means.[/sarcasm]

 

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
Hm... looking at the trial here on the wiki I just noticed that there's a badge for defeating the Telepathists and preventing them from converting any of the citizens against you. Hm.... I wonder what that means.[/sarcasm]
There's also a badge for reducing Anti-Matter below 10% of his health on the first reactor. That doesn't mean it's a good idea or conducive to a successful trial.

 

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This is a stupid argument. I'm not going to get all pouty 'cause somebody threw a rock at me.



Also, you only need to deal with a griefer once, MAYBE twice if your the forgiving type. If you keep inviting him after that, you're probably an idiot.

 

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
As someone stated earlier, they probably don't con gray to keep someone from griefing the trial.

Hero Boy: We're almost there, team!

Grief Boy: *Judgments a bunch of gray-conning civilians.* lulz.

Trial Failed!
I have a question: if that's the case, why are the cameras level 1?

Click here to find all the All Things Art Threads!
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

 

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Originally Posted by ketch View Post
There's also a badge for reducing Anti-Matter below 10% of his health on the first reactor. That doesn't mean it's a good idea or conducive to a successful trial.
And yet you're ******** about the rocks that the converted throw at you. It seems to me that the people upset about the rocks beaning their Seer debuffed ***** have no one to blame but themselves.

 

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Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel View Post
I have a question: if that's the case, why are the cameras level 1?
Isn't killing civilians something of an auto-fail?

 

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
And yet you're ******** about the rocks that the converted throw at you. It seems to me that the people upset about the rocks beaning their Seer debuffed ***** have no one to blame but themselves.
Easy there, killer. No need to get angry when someone points out your faulty logic. Maybe you should have noted earlier when I mentioned it, but in my experience trials have been more successful when people completely ignore the Telepathists. It's been far easier to build up public opinion with the whole trial in doors because the civilians deal so much damage. Heck, I even supported the notion that we could let the civilians do large amounts of damage, but that it should be psi damage (with some heal back) to represent the wounded morale.

I also feel that Pacification needs some sort of visual indicator that also indicates how many times it's stacked on you. Perhaps, maybe even a little cutscene the first time the Telepathists show up, demonstrating how our minds are wracked with pain, guilt, whatever.

You seem to think that I have an issue with the mechanics when, in fact, my issue is almost entirely with the very poor presentation.

 

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Originally Posted by ketch View Post
Easy there, killer. No need to get angry when someone points out your faulty logic.
It's your logic that's faulty.

"WAAAHHHH! I'M AN INCARNATE AND THESE CIVILIANS ARE HURTING ME WITH ROOOOCKS!"

"Well, why don't you take out the Seers to keep them from debuffing you and converting the civilians?"

"OHHHH BUT THAT TAKES WAY TOOOOO LOOOOONG!"

"You could assign a few league mates outside to take out the Seers while the rest mash IDF inside. There's only about 6 of them."

WAAAHHH! BUT ROOOCKS!! SO SILLY!"

 

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
It's your logic that's faulty.

"WAAAHHHH! I'M AN INCARNATE AND THESE CIVILIANS ARE HURTING ME WITH ROOOOCKS!"

"Well, why don't you take out the Seers to keep them from debuffing you and converting the civilians?"

"OHHHH BUT THAT TAKES WAY TOOOOO LOOOOONG!"

"You could assign a few league mates outside to take out the Seers while the rest mash IDF inside. There's only about 6 of them."

WAAAHHH! BUT ROOOCKS!! SO SILLY!"
Quite mature there.

Here's a simple reasoning: outside you want high single target dps so that the league mates defeating Seers don't injure civilians. You also want high single target dps inside to take out technicians without drawing aggro back to the terminals. If you send people outdoors, they lose the benefits of the buffs the league has to offer and fall quickly because of the Pacification debuff. If you keep them indoors they can quickly take out technicians, help build public opinion, and be buffed to compensate for the Pacification debuff. There is no need to send people outdoors to deal with the Pacification debuff, because it is only an issue outdoors where it is paired with the thematically poor implementation of the civilians.

On Virtue, it has almost become standard practice for everyone to stay indoors because it is far easier. No one wants to go outside to be beaned to death with rocks and Moltov cocktails and there is no need to do so. It's an arguably poor mechanic and definitely a poorly written gimmick. I hope I've relayed this point clearly enough because I do not intended to respond to your posts until you demonstrate that you can debate the matter with some civility.

 

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Originally Posted by ketch View Post
On Virtue, it has almost become standard practice for everyone to stay indoors because it is far easier. No one wants to go outside to be beaned to death with rocks and Moltov cocktails and there is no need to do so.
And there's where your argument keeps falling apart. You wouldn't have to deal with rocks and molotov cocktails outside if you actually bothered to stop the Seers.

And considering DPS, its not like you're limited to a certain number of high damage archetypes.

 

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[QUOTE=Scythus;4043776]And there's where your argument keeps falling apart. You wouldn't have to deal with rocks and molotov cocktails outside if you actually bothered to stop the Seers.

[QUOTE]

I think you are missing the point.

The point is not the mechanics. Being debuffed into oblivion would be just fine if the presentation of the things damaging the players were either suitably epic or well presented.

If everything were exactly the same, but the graphic of the ranged attack damaging the players were changed to a psi blast from a Seer channelled through the citizen, half of this thread would go away.

If the debuff were not zone wide, but a visible cloud around the Seers, half of the thread would go away, and not just because the debuff could be more easily avoided; because it would be clear what is debuffing you.

If the debuff made the fights inside the building uber killer as well, that would be an improvement. Not in terms of fun or gameplay, but at least it would be a consistent effect. NOT a suggestion, by the way.

Certainly there are ways around the debuff.

The point is that the visual of Superman being downed by a thrown rock is anti-epic, no matter how justified it is.

If our heroes got pecked to death by chickens in the next iTrial, it would not be well-received, no matter how strong the justification or fair the mechanics. However, replace the chickens with Godzillas and we're all good.

Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

 

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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
The point is that the visual of Superman being downed by a thrown rock is anti-epic, no matter how justified it is.
And there's ways to avoid that.

The Seers are Kryptonite. They're what's causing the problem both mechanically and narratively. When around Kryptonite, Superman can be hurt by anything. Even by a two-year old kicking him in the knee.

I really don't see why this is so hard to comprehend and I'm getting tired of repeating myself.

 

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
I really don't see why this is so hard to comprehend and I'm getting tired of repeating myself.
We aren't saying we can't avoid it.

We aren't saying we can't understand it.

We're saying we don't LIKE it.

We're saying we'd rather have our butts handed to us by Mongul, Darkseid or Doomsday instead of thugs with Kryptonite.

Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

 

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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
We aren't saying we can't avoid it.

We aren't saying we can't understand it.

We're saying we don't LIKE it.

We're saying we'd rather have our butts handed to us by Mongul, Darkseid or Doomsday instead of thugs with Kryptonite.
Really? Because I recall a number of claiming in this thread that it didn't make sense. I wasn't aware dislike and confused were synonyms.

 

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
Really? Because I recall a number of claiming in this thread that it didn't make sense. I wasn't aware dislike and confused were synonyms.
Well not in the Queen's English, but in American?

But yes, there are people who are unaware that the debuff exists because there isn't an unmistakable graphic (due to it being zone wide).

There are also people who don't understand how a telepathic debuff can debuff their powered armor, robotic parts, ancient enchantments or whatever it says in their bio.

There are people who don't understand why this capability is presented here without a handwave explaining why it hasn't been used before (I actually beleive it is explained that this is a newly developed technique/ploy related to Mother Mayhem getting control over Princess Penny, but I could be wrong).

There are also people who just don't like having their Incarnate defeated by unpowered normals, because what was the point of becoming Incarnate again?

I personally understand it. I beleive I know what they were trying to present. I can totally get behind the concept of being telepathically induced to essentially surrender.

I just don't think it comes off well ingame, and this thread is evidence of that.

Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

 

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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
Well not in the Queen's English, but in American?
That I could believe.

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But yes, there are people who are unaware that the debuff exists because there isn't an unmistakable graphic (due to it being zone wide).
Um... buff bar, anyone?

At least I would think it would show up there. Even the RWZ debt protection buff shows up there.

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There are also people who don't understand how a telepathic debuff can debuff their powered armor, robotic parts, ancient enchantments or whatever it says in their bio.
And yet they can be injured by psychic blast and not have a trouble understanding that? It's a similar concept, save one is injuring and the other is debuffing to allow injury.

lulz

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There are people who don't understand why this capability is presented here without a handwave explaining why it hasn't been used before (I actually beleive it is explained that this is a newly developed technique/ploy related to Mother Mayhem getting control over Princess Penny, but I could be wrong).
Yeah, TPN's supposed to take place "before" the MoM trial.

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There are also people who just don't like having their Incarnate defeated by unpowered normals, because what was the point of becoming Incarnate again?
Malta? Longbow? Arachnos? Knives of Artemis? Natural origin PCs (assuming the character is supposed to be human)?

That logic crumbles underneath scrutiny.

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I personally understand it. I beleive I know what they were trying to present. I can totally get behind the concept of being telepathically induced to essentially surrender.
It's the psychic villain's stock tactic. I know, because I recall a lot of psychic supervillains getting in the hero's head and repeating "submit submit submit" when reading comics in the past.


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I just don't think it comes off well ingame, and this thread is evidence of that.
Actually I think it's evidence of something else, but saying it would be a moderation-worthy offense.

 

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
Really? Because I recall a number of claiming in this thread that it didn't make sense. I wasn't aware dislike and confused were synonyms.
I don't like it because the damage from stones and molotov cocktails are doing damage comparable to the IDF weaponry while under the same debuff. To me, a thrown projectile and a high tech weapon shouldn't be near comparable. Of course, we do have things like Archery and Martial Arts stacking up against Beam Rifles and Titan Weapons, but those err on the side of making the players feel powerful, in other words, making our characters enjoyable.

From the producer's letter discussing Incarnate's:

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Originally Posted by Second Measure View Post
Powerful
We want you to feel powerful in City of Heroes. Does that mean you will beat every Incarnate Trial on the first attempt? Even the mightiest characters in comic book lore have to suffer a few setbacks every now and again to demonstrate that the stakes are high, and the stakes are really high in the Incarnate Trials. You will need to experience the fights a few times to get a handle on the mechanics and figure out the best powers and the best strategies. But once you triumph, you will realize you had the power the whole time to defeat some of the most challenging content ever in City of Heroes.
Does the TPN make us feel powerful? Obviously, it does not for many people. Even after learning the mechanics of the fight, for a better rate of success, we avoid civilians. We are avoiding normal people with impromptu weapons because it has provided a higher rate of success than the following the developer's script and because it makes our characters feel inherently weak.

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Part of the power you experience will be in the Incarnate Abilities. You’ll be able to do some truly impressive things to help you and your team, and we have gone to the next level with the visual and audio effects for many abilities, as well as their effect in the game. As you wield higher and higher levels of power, you should stand out in a crowd. Incarnacy may be its own reward, but it’s nice to make a big impression, too. (Note that I only say “Incarnacy” because it bugs Positron when I do.) Eventually, once we release all of the Incarnate Slots, you’ll even be a little overpowered for the first waves of Incarnate Trials, and by then, we’ll have something much more challenging for you to do with your newfound power. (Evil chuckle redacted.)
Arguably, the most powerful effect in the TPN is the Seers' debuff, but there is no visual or auditory indicator for it. There is only a bit of text under your health and endurance bars. That seems to go very much against the grain of making these epic trials visually impressive. Kryptonite, which people like bringing up for a genre comparison, at least had an ominous green/red glow.

 

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
Awesome (demi)godlike power is not necessarily something you just wake up one morning and have completely harnessed.
I'm reminded of a section from the book Mutineer's Moon (free read, check it out) where the main character complains it's not fair he has to exercise his artificial muscles just as much as his real ones after he gets his strength enhanced to something like 10x his normal strength.

Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net

Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.

 

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
I'm not asking you to agree with our story telling decisions 100% of the time. I am asking you to discuss the story for it's merit.

Also, if every single fight was against Galactus, it would get a little boring after awhile.
I was going to write up a long response to this, but Samuel Tow said it better than I could: "Everybody always says this, but has anyone actually tried it? I keep hearing people say that you can't always fight gods and goddesses because it would grow old. Will it? How do we know? I've never seen a game which let me do that."

To that I'll add: Isn't fighting God-Like beings what Incarnate content is supposed to be about? What's God-Like about a bunch of angry folks throwing rocks again?

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
Personally, I view it more of, you have to learn to walk before you can run.
Yeah I get that, but our characters are already level 50 before we even get to try the Incarnate path. We've already 'learned to run.'

Having Superman (aka our 50th level characters) being taken down by a couple of mundanes with pebbles is inconsistent story telling to begin with, doing it without explaining the hows and whys to the audience is just plain bad story telling.


P.S. Its is possessive. It's is simply a contraction of it and is. Sorry. One of my pet peeves.

 

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Originally Posted by Peregrine_Falcon View Post
Yeah I get that, but our characters are already level 50 before we even get to try the Incarnate path. We've already 'learned to run.'
This is precisely my problem with the whole system. "Learning to walk" is something that I can easily see us having to do at level 1. At level 50, we're already super heroes. We shouldn't have to be knocked down to basics in a way that drops us far below what we were when we were level 50. I'm not saying it's unrealistic or it wouldn't happen, I'm saying it's humiliating and it SHOULDN'T happen.

I think it's a mistake to view our progression through the levels as just one of power. I prefer to view our progression as one of prestige. The higher level we are, the more prestigious we are as heroes or villains, and the better the narrative treats us. At level 1, everyone is worried about what we can handle, we're prone to goofing up, there are many enemies we're too weak to confront and so on. By the time we're level 50, people should be confident in our abilities and actually rely on us to defeat seemingly impossible odds, we should be expected to succeed every time, we should be expected to face down any enemy that needs to be faced... We should be treated with respect both by the in-game characters and by the meta-game story writers.

When you look at game progression as the progression of prestige, then suddenly losing prestige and becoming the cub all over again seems more like regression.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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.

 

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
My interpretation of the point being expressed by those in this thread is that you believe that being defeated by citizens throwing rocks isn't representative of your Incarnate status, from a story standpoint. I get it, and understand your viewpoint.

I steered the commentary in that direction during Ustream, and made some comments to explain our story driven reason behind that (telepaths weakening you and whipping ordinary citizens into a mentally induced rage). If that didn't come across, then I apologize.
It really doesn't come across very well in the trial at all. It requires metagame knowledge basically. Like I said, there's no indicator, aside from the mechanical one in the buff bar, of what's going on.

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We have a reason that the story is told in whatever way it is. Whether it's due to a nuance of the actual story or because of limitations imposed by mechanics (it could be either or in this particular case, I honestly don't know), we wanted there to be the chance that you could be brought low by a guy throwing a rock. I'm not a story designer, so I'm not going to pretend to know why TPN was written in the way it was, but I know the way that Positron, Protean, Baryonyx, Viridian and Dr. Aeon work: Deliberately and with purpose.

I'm not asking you to agree with our story telling decisions 100% of the time. I am asking you to discuss the story for it's merit.

Also, if every single fight was against Galactus, it would get a little boring after awhile .
It's a complicated matter because the mechanics are part of how we perceive the story. Unfortunately, the current implementation isn't telling the story in a very good way. A bit of expositional text that's likely to get buried under the league leader's explanation just isn't cutting it. Powerful effects call for powerful visuals.

Also, see Shadow of the Colossus.

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Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
And there's where your argument keeps falling apart. You wouldn't have to deal with rocks and molotov cocktails outside if you actually bothered to stop the Seers.

And considering DPS, its not like you're limited to a certain number of high damage archetypes.
You have to deal with them far more frequently if you're trying to defeat the the Seers than in the 10-15 seconds it takes to run from building to building. If the people assigned to Seer duty are up to the task then the civilians really are little more than a nuisance. However, Seers, IIRC, convert a civilian every 15 seconds they're present. Even faltering for a few moments means converted civilians with no way to undo the process. If the individuals assigned to this duty begin to struggle with it the problem quickly escalates as they suffer from the debuffs and growing damage. If you're uncertain about league mates dps why not take the safer route? Why risk a humbling defeat when the Seers can simply be ignored for a better chance of success over all?

Also, unfortunately, yes we are limited to a certain number of high damage individuals. Unless you've custom built they league with friends and associates you may end up with a lots of debuffs and AoEs and very little single target damage. There's so much variance within ATs that simply recruiting a scrapper, for example, could give you a high single target DPSer like Street Justice or an AoE centric build like Fire/Shield. Again, a reason why leagues will tend toward the simpler, surer, and less embarrassing method of ignoring the Telepathists.

 

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Using trials for everything was a mistake too, it has ended up cheapening them and damaged the overall story of praetoria because 90% of the time you either have no idea when theres story happening or you can't read text because the other 24 people on your team want to "GO NOW!". The only things by this point that should have been trials are Keyes and MoM. Lambda, BAF, TPN and UG should all have been made iTFs and would have overall improved the story. Lambda would have felt more like you were attacking the biggest military instalation in their world because you would see many more levels instead of just the courtyard and 2 warehouse sized maps. Likewise with the BAF, you see more of it in the praetorian story arcs then you do when you're actually fully assaulting it. The entire time you're fighting its usually a battle to take......THE TENNIS COURTS! Dun dun duuuuuuun. The keyes could actually qualify as a trial because he's plugged into 3 nuclear reactors, made himself a walking chernobyl and has an ion cannon pointed at you. That sounds mildly epic compared to conquering the lambda's parking lot and the BAF's tennis courts.

Yes the trials have all been challenging but when you actually pull back the stories in them feel bland because theres no time between the instant kill/instant fail mechanics and your 32 man team of ADHD afflicted murderous woodchippers to tell a decent story. At this moment the only reason I know about Cole's secret, the battalion, and what the battalion does with other species' wells is because one of my teammates who's actually gotten through everything told me. Maybe I just have really ****** luck getting good trial teams but I still haven't been on a successful UG, TPN or MoM. Hiding massive chunks of story behind trials isn't good storytelling. If you're going to attatch an important story to something that should come first. A DM who writes out half a novel of plot and settings for his players to explore would be shooting himself in the foot if from the word go he kept trying to pull a rocks fall everyone dies. Trials should be mostly optional challenges that are there if you want to do them, like unlocking super hard/insanity mode in a game after you beat it. Not the main course and the main way the story will move forward.

There is a difference between retreating and giving up.

"A good evil villian kills with style"-Galgarion
"Ha you're more full of yourself than I am!"-Jack Spicer

 

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The rocks sound silly because they are silly.

It's not that I don't understand it, it's that I think it makes no sense within the story (whatever is left of one by this point). If these telepathists are so damned powerful, that they can strip an Incarnate down to being defeated by a mob with rocks, why haven't they been sent against Primal Earth yet? Or built up to in some way as you would any really powerful threat that we've not faced yet: "Beware Incarnates, you may have faced Cole's Seers before but you've yet to face his dreaded Telepathists!" Plus the fact that the laser beams and other weapons don't leave us as greasy smears on the floor goes to show there's some terrible internal inconsistencies at play.

Add to that the 'Anti-Non-Incarnate' ray from the Apex and Tin Mage TFs that Cole seems to have mislaid somewhere and he could waltz all over Primal Earth forces.

To me, it seems painfully obvious that the mechanics of the trials are worked out first and then the lore twisted and abused to fit around it. And after six trials and two TFs, the Praetorian Invasion story has been so mangled by this that it has holes in it I could fly the Nostromo through. Just what will happen to Cole if we do change public opinion of him? What is the average citizen going to do? Pelt him with rocks?

Scarlet Shocker said it best, that the story telling aspect of CoX has taken a nose dive in recent years. Part of this is that Trials are an appalling way to communicate story and no, adding Prometheus to spout walls of text at us does not help, especially when it doesn't add up and looks like a giant Band Aid over the inconsistencies. Plus the multiple contradictions and inconsistencies demonstrate that the mechanics and 'I Win' gimmicks come first, lore somewhere way down the list and that really puts me off.

This isn't meant as a rant, I don't want an argument, I've never been a fan of the Trials and I've been hanging on, waiting for them to get better or feel epic. I want to like them, I want to embrace them as a new and exciting challenge in CoX but the abuse of lore and feeling lost and irrelevant in a team of 24 has pushed me further and further away from the Incarnate content. I'm just holding on for the revamped DA to see whether it's worth me continuing to subscribe. And if I don't, that will be a sad day for me after six years of fun and enjoyment.

Sorry for the wall of text.

@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk