Level 53 and weaker than a Hellion
By
AkuTenshiiZero,
Posted on: 2011-12-16 06:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I used to be an Incarnate like you, but then I took a rock in the knee.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Maybe they're hitting us in the knee...?
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I know what we need to do, send all the Primal civilians in there.
The Immovable Object meets The Unstoppable Force.
Who wins?
NO ONE
Who loses?
EXISTENCE AS WE KNOW IT
In all seriousness, it seems only SLIGHTLY odd that a character can take several lasers, plasma blasts and rockets to the face, but Gods above forbid if an angry civilian throws a rock at him! WE'RE NOT TRAINED FOR THIS!
What's funny is that a common reply seems to be "It's the -Def debuffs"
... Well, yeah but .. that doesn't change the fact that it's a ROCK
Not a grenade, or missile or even a nuke. It's a rock. And no amount of Well Juice will make it anything other than a rock (Unless they could throw them at supersonic speeds)
I was doing some playthroughs of City of Heroes. Now they will serve as memories of a better time ...
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it's defense ONLY right? Because if it's res (whil in story it makes no more sense) that might also explain it.
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Originally Posted by TheShattered
I know what we need to do, send all the Primal civilians in there.
The Immovable Object meets The Unstoppable Force. Who wins? NO ONE Who loses? EXISTENCE AS WE KNOW IT In all seriousness, it seems only SLIGHTLY odd that a character can take several lasers, plasma blasts and rockets to the face, but Gods above forbid if an angry civilian throws a rock at him! WE'RE NOT TRAINED FOR THIS! What's funny is that a common reply seems to be "It's the -Def debuffs" ... Well, yeah but .. that doesn't change the fact that it's a ROCK Not a grenade, or missile or even a nuke. It's a rock. And no amount of Well Juice will make it anything other than a rock (Unless they could throw them at supersonic speeds) |
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
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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Make their eyes start glowing and have them use the Propel animation for their rock throwing. Then they're effectively psychically manipulated and boosted puppets of the the Seers. At least it's less incongruous than apparently regular civilians two-shotting superheroes who've gained power beyond even the average superhuman.|
Originally Posted by Warkupo
They should have just given the civilians energy blast powers when they turned. Then you would all accept it as them gaining powers due to the psychic doo-dads, instead of freaking out over rocks.
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"But the Seers are debuffing you" as a reason for ordinary citizens with rocks maiming superhumans just doesn't work from a genre and player expectation/suspension of disbelief standpoint.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
Even if you debuff all the DEF away from my WP brute, she still has a nice chunk of S/L resistance. A rock thrown by an angry citizen should just bounce off without my toon even noticing. A hundred such rocks would still bounce off without causing so much as a scratch. But in TPN it only takes a few of them to exceed my set-IO'ed, Incarnate-boosted healing regen rate to become a serious threat. 
And we shouldn't have to invent our own story logic for how this is possible. We shouldn't have to imagine that for every citizen the engine is capable of rendering there are supposed to be a hundred others in the same space, ready to throw the universe's most potent kinetic projectile. We shouldn't have to speculate that, for instance, Emperor Cole has somehow seen fit to give the citizens he facistically rules over even the tiniest slice of his own power.
Everyone here trying to explain this bit of nonsense away should be ashamed of themselves.
And yes, GuyPerfect wins the post of the week award. Kudos to you, sir!
NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
Even with -Resistance, a rock should barely scratch even the meekest hero/villain, considering that every hero/villain there is probably pumped up on the Well Juice.
It just makes zero sense. Now, if they glowed purple and spat lightning from every orifice, sure, that could pass for a "dangerous civilian"
Instead, we get killer pet rocks.
I was doing some playthroughs of City of Heroes. Now they will serve as memories of a better time ...
I want those rocks the civies throw at us. I could solo the Hamidon with those rocks.
Maybe that's it. Those rocks are made from stellar matter from a white dwarf, and are thus incredibly dense. Like, so dense that it would be impossible for a normal civilian to even pick up. In fact, they shouldn't even be able to touch it. Actually, they shouldn't even be anywhere near it. OK, I give up.
Rocks fall, everyone dies!
I wrote this awesome post regarding how people were complaining about how AV's were almost always dogpiled by heroes to gain a win, and how, people were upset that it was so easy.
In my epic post...prolly the most epic one I have ever made...I mentioned that in the new trials different, stratagies had to be used to defeat epic villains and people complained about it.
I went on and added reasons, ideas, and concepts behind why people might be upset and why people would be happy that there was new challenges.
I commented on sams post...I commented and even properly use quotes!!!
Then the forum went under maintenance and ate my post.
I wept a little, but I drank beer...now I am happy, and my once epic post...is lost...and this is all I have.
Sorry.
I am sure it would have been awesome. I know I was pleased writing it. But in the overall...my point came down with the following
~People complained about old content becoming to easy
~People complained when old tacits were replaced by new chalenges "dogpiling AV's etc
Main issue is that if the story was compelling, other than just everything touched by the well of furies, then things would be ok.
Sadly my two page post was lost...and if I could regain my lost energy I would recreate it...but that moment has past.
And now I shall fade...Into my field of broken dreams.
Love
Nyx
Thank you OP, I was wondering this last night while running the trial and realized WTF?
I was thinking geez they must put something in the water in Praetoria and if this is what the civies can do then primal earth is in real trouble.
/signed
Because this belongs here, if it belongs anywhere. 
Final Straw, DM/Regen Scrapper
Solari, Fire/Fire Blaster
Real Americana, MA/SR Scrapper
Task Force Timmy, Grav/Rad Controller
Astral Paragon, Spines/Regen Scrapper
Mr Drama King, Katana/Regen Scrapper
Psi-Stunner, Psi/Mental Blaster
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You're right. I'm just a mindless drone who is incapable of free thought nor of ever being critical of anything any Dev ever says or does.|
Originally Posted by Kioshi
Huh that's weird because my non-slotted toons, even the squishies, can take quite a lot of fire and rocks at the low levels before they faceplant.
And hey I've seen Tankers with no defenses (since you mention softcap) tank the 4 STF AVs at once and then Recluse! Now on TPN the rock can kill them in 2 shots (two because they're tankers and all) (gotta love people who post anything to justify stupid game situations like they were the dev's acolytes) |
By pointing this out, you have proven to the world that you're the most intelligent person in the world and that you are 137% right.
Everyone now knows just how clever your arguments are and just how much faith to put in them. You're awesome!
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The catch here is it's not the same people holding both opinions. I've never had a problem with Incarnate powers trivialising old content because they SHOULD. We're supposed to be so strong that old content would be easy mode. That's how we tell we're more powerful. In terms of pure difficulty balance, yes, new content needs to balance its difficulty with our level of power, but this increased difficulty needs to be handled better than just inflating pre-Incarnate enemies with a basketball pump.
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The source of my objection was somewhat different.
MMOs need content that is "homeostatic." Essentially when players reach the top end, the game should not come to a halt. There should be content there that serves as a constant way to spend time.
IMO, the design of Task Forces in this game is much better than other MMOs, because of our exemplar mechanic. Exemping preserves low level content so that no matter what level players reach, they are scaled down to match the rough capabilities of the rest of their low level team. In other games, players simply invite a high level character, who does the entire task force/dungeon for them. This is the homeostasis of low and mid-level content.
When I first saw the BAF and Lambda, and the incarnate powers they gave, I was fine with them, because I thought for sure in the same issue they would be releasing a new high level zone to go with it, and incarnate difficulty Task Forces, in order to keep the homeostatic element of the game in play. But that is only just now happening in Issue 22.
For a long time, the trials have been the homeostatic content, because they both power the player up so that the years of pre-existing stuff is trivial at the same time they move all rational rewards behind a very limited set of activities. "Burning the candle at both ends," as I put it before.
Long story short, I don't think incarnate levels should make existing content "trivial." IMO that is just throwing away resources. Incarnate levels should have worked like any other kind of level, and essentially have raised the level cap. But for that to happen there has to be "incarnate content" other than just raids. We are getting that now, finally. I am curious to see how it will work out.
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AGREED!|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This.
As in, this is starting to reach ridiculous levels. I mean, I get that Crey scientists punching us in the 30s is a bit ridiculous, but they do barely any damage at all, and their real powers are their science doohickeys that raise their allies, heal them, infect us with radiation or freeze us. The scientists are pushovers and only dangerous if you let them stand on the sideline and attack you with the power of SCIENCE! They don't take you down with the power of their furrowed brows. Whoever is designing the Incarnate content needs to step back and take a good, long look at what Incarnates have become, then question if this really is where we want to go. Because from where I'm standing, by far the worst thing the story could do to us once we've become "godlike" is make everyone else ten times as godlike and have us get killed by very powerful rats... Pretty much. |
Now dont get me wrong I enjoy the trials. I am art of a grou now on virtue that gathers nightly and runs Keyes, MOM, the UG and then the tpn. The leader does an outstanding job of organizing and explaning and we rarely have any difficulties... except with the tpn. Now none of us spent a lot of time on beta learning the ins and outs of the new trials and we didnt spend hours pouring over guides developed by players that did.. in one night we managed to work out a strategy that was efective and started winning when we did MOM .. TOOK us a whole 3 tries to et it.
Last night after 6, 7 .. I lost count tries we finally beat the tpn .. and how did we do it...
we completely ignored the telepaths and the civilains outside
we completely ignored Malestrom except when we had to .. inside the building the first time and after we reached 5 hundred points of public opinion outside.
all we did was race from one building to the next taking out technicians and locking terminals... We left with all but 1 of the required badges for a master of and were done in no time.
Before that we tried to do everything we thougt we were supposed to do.. defeat the seers, try not to hurt civvies even when they were trying desperately to kill us, ran off Malestorm every time he appeared. the result was multile deaths, many at the hands of civilians with rocks, frustration over being forced to ignore half the attacks we had to avoid a cone or aoe infuriating a citizen, and time and time again watchig our po go to zero and losing despite doing all we could to win.
Oh I gaurentee now that we know how to beat it we will continue to do it nightly but my opinion is it still sucks!
We have spent countless hours earning powers, including our incarnates, only to be told on THIS trial.. dont use them you will upset the civilains! I was using my Assault Rifle .. Rad Corruptor and I had 9 attacks and was only able to use 2 of them outside.. and one was my sniper attack which any citizen with a rock can interrupt. Seven other powers including my tier 4 Ion Judegement were useless outside because they might hurt a camera or a civilain. Its worse than any master of run I have ever been on and we were not even trying for an MO. At least on a master run for sat the Statesman trial I could use allof my primary and secondary attacks to help my team. On this mess the best way to help my team is not attack at all.. yeah that makes sense..
I see this trial being nerfed.. overhauled down the road just like keyes was. But until then ill enjoy beating the crap out of technicians inside and letting the piblic do their own thing outside.
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
You're right. I'm just a mindless drone who is incapable of free thought nor of ever being critical of anything any Dev ever says or does.
By pointing this out, you have proven to the world that you're the most intelligent person in the world and that you are 137% right. Everyone now knows just how clever your arguments are and just how much faith to put in them. You're awesome! |
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They're not businessmen, they're Praetorian halflings.
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
Businessman with a pebble = Drag us around by the nose ring, probably with a whip in hand. If I wanted cheap NPCs, I'd fight Arachnoids, and at least they put up a real fight.
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Originally Posted by Energizing_Ion
Oh....I don't follow the story
(so to me... "lulzstory" amirite? )You can just explain it away that Cole (Tyrant) is just a vessel of the Well's power...he's giving it to his Lts. and the Lts. are giving it to civilians now... Or you could say that because they're civilians and you being a "hero"..you can't hurt them and don't want to so therefore the damage that they do to you is worse because they're civilians and are just confused (which they are!). |
Actually what I really am saying is that for all the good content in this game, the Incarnate story is deeply flawed and this is one of the worst examples of extremely poor writing I've encountered.
If your theory is correct then Cole just does it again and invades the Isles and then Atlas and hey, presto: He's won.
I could say that because I'm a hero I'm not gonna hurt a civillian... except that it's a Co-op mission and therefore half the time I'm on a villain who wouldn't give a flying wossname. And if I were a hero there are far better mechanics for making me avoid hurting civilians.
This is very poor writing and even worse execution of that bad story. It makes no sense.
When Stephan Richter drank from the well he said "We are become Gods."
My characters have been drinking from that very same cup - they wouldn't be on the trial if not. And Gods may we be who have battled against the odds to win through countless missions. Hell most of my toons have the "Saved the World" badge and have prevented Gigantic Roman Robots from invading our City, stopped the alien Rikti from launching their second invasion, and regularly take down either Freedom Phalanx or Lord Recluse's team - and sometimes even both. I've gone toe-to-toe with Reichsman and his unwilling allies and come out on top against Nemesis more than once.
But some numpty with a bit of concrete and no superpowers can take me down in 2 hits, because there's a Seer in the room? That's not creative, nor is it being clever or amusing. It's a hack job and writing to a budget where we as the consumer are expected to suck up crappy content simply because there's lots more content than we're traditionally used to.
Ultimately we've been served up some unimaginative drivel that makes no sense, is intensely annoying because of its poor quality and thus cheapens the game
Thelonious Monk
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I'm sorry, this name is constantly reminding me of a certain song...|
Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
numpty
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Maybe they should put that guy in the TPN trial in place of the Seers, doing that rap and calling them numpties.
Quoting Tim "Black Scorpion" Sweeney, from this developer diary last November:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11...ging-the-gods/
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Your best "universe-shaking stuff" is mundanes armed with stones, un-targetable invincible guard towers, escaped mental patients and moldy War Walkers with bloated regeneration?| We're specifically designing content that tasks our Incarnate-level players with challenges only they can stand up to. The real universe-shaking stuff. Some of our best work has gone into designing these encounters and the trials and tribulations they will put your characters through. |
Yeah, you could do better.
Can you?
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So....if we become as "godlike" as some here think we should become.....how many times can you go and faceroll everything in the game before you get insufferably bored with it and go play something else?
Yeah, getting killed by a rock is pretty silly, but do you really have to be so invincible that nothing in the game is ever a threat to you again? That just.....doesn't sound like much fun.
I know Sam's answer already, but how long could you sit and play Doom on godmode before you shut the game off? For me, it was about 20 minutes.
The devs are hopelessly screwed here. If they make things easier, people complain because there's no challenge. If they make things harder, people complain because their demigod (gasp!) lost a fight (oh noes!)
From what I've read, there's a simple solution to this: Do the damn trial the way you're supposed to do it instead of ignoring an entire aspect of it and you won't be getting killed by rocks. Seems to me like the devs are getting sneakier in their getting you to not ignore things in content. It's like "Okay, fine, you want to completely ignore this part of the trial so you can speed run it? Now you'll get killed by a rock to the head."
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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. |
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Yeah, it's not like Superman can be taken down with a rock... oh, wait...
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Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Quoting Tim "Black Scorpion" Sweeney, from this developer diary last November:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11...ging-the-gods/ Your best "universe-shaking stuff" is mundanes armed with stones, un-targetable invincible guard towers, escaped mental patients and moldy War Walkers with bloated regeneration? Yeah, you could do better. Can you? |
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Superman could only be defeated with a rock from his homeworld. These rocks are clearly Praetorian.
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So you're saying only incarnate from praetoria should be affected by these rocks?
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
Superman could only be defeated with a rock from his homeworld. These rocks are clearly Praetorian.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
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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Well, well, looks like Premium players can post on the forums now. 
So, my honest opinion on all this mess:
A lot of the things people are complaining about is a direct result of the Devs choosing to implement a standard MMO raid grind, and then implement standard MMO raid grind mechanics....in a super hero MMO.
As I've looked over the forums the last few days, I've seen all sorts of complaints about mechanics that, if I encountered them in any other game, I would simply accept them. But here? Not a chance.
When I raided in That Game Which Shall Remain Nameless, I was willing to accept that I needed to get a bunch of my friends together to beat down the Big Bad, because after all in the overall story of that game, my character was a relative nobody. It made sense that it took a bunch of nobodies to take down Mr Big Lore Character of the Week.
However in CoH, our characters are super heroes, people who have literally saved Paragon City and in some cases the world itself. They're big shots. So no, I'm not willing to accept the standard MMO raid conventions in a super hero MMO. It simply doesn't fit the genre all that well.
Now I know someone is probably going to pipe up and say "but wait! they have this kind of stuff in comics too!" And that's true. Occasionally Galactus gets the munchies and decides that Earth is looking mighty tasty today. But those story arcs are relatively rare and are not the meat and potatoes of the comics that showcase them.
For someone interested in getting their character to the absolute height of power the Incarnate system is their "meat and potatoes," it's the majority of the content they experience from one day to the next. To constantly reduce this hypothetical player to a faceless grunt in the middle of 24 other "heroes" is not telling a comic book story. Rarely are they allowed to really feel like this godlike hero they have supposedly become. The progression raid system Paragon has so foolishly decided to emulate prevents it by its very nature. Players have to go back to non-Incarnate content to have any opportunity to feel stronger at all.
As Chyll said upthread, challenge the players yes. But make the challenges appropriate for a super hero, both in terms of game mechanics and story. Getting pelted to death with rocks by ordinary humans is just bad writing that has no place in a super heroic story.
Hopefully Dark Astoria will change all that by allowing people to run content that lets them be the star again, instead of just Incarnate Cannon Fodder A98-B. I'm highly doubtful, but we'll see.
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Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Your best "universe-shaking stuff" is mundanes armed with stones, un-targetable invincible guard towers, escaped mental patients and moldy War Walkers with bloated regeneration?
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Even though it might be somewhat Lore justifiable, the enemy that I'm always irritated by is actually not the civilians, but the Victorias. Earlier tonight, while playing as a level 53 Dominator, one hit me for a little less than 1200 HP. I only have 1050 or so HP total. I have been one shot (technically two, but come on) by this particular enemy so many times now I just go into the trial expecting to die. Any character I run trials with now has Rise of the Phoenix specifically because of this sort of thing. That's not really a lore complaint, but after seeing my HP bar crash from nearly full to instantly dead so many times its definitely become a serious point of frustration.
So a character works and learns and develops - fighting against the worst that Paragon has to offer. Sometimes he is defeated, only to jump back into the fray. He works alone, pushing the difficulty of his foes to the limit. He works in teams, facing powerful Archvillains for the greater good. He (ok, or she) rises in ability to gain a status of incarnate... and suddenly, nothing can be achieved without forming leagues of allies.
I can't speak for everyone, but I doubt it is that being an incarnate trivialized the old content and something more powerful was wanted. For me it was I wanted something that let me continue to face scaled foes and challenges and continue my story (stories). Not for the the level of opposition to jump through the roof.
Being dissatisfied with this is weird? No, it is weird that when a character is supposed to be at its most powerful it feels the weakest. That is weird.
(Opposition is scaled in form of challenge throughout this game. Failure and limitation is possible, but not insurmountable because you are the SUPERHERO and meant to overcome.
This isn't your normal content tossed into some MMO. You aren't a faceless soldier. You aren't some witty smuggler. You aren't a knight. You are a superhero. And as you reach for the peak of your power you suddenly you can't do anything new alone, or even with a small team. I get that this is an MMO, and I get that many thoroughly enjoy the trials, and I've played Lam, and BAF, and Keyes, and UGT repeatedly and had fun. But for me it just doesn't feel right with the motif. And now, these two new ones.... well, I sure don't feel heroic getting crushed in confusing waves of brutal psionic attacks or letting a rock from some wickedly buffed average joe lay an incarnate out for any reason.
Give me a challenge, that is fine. New mechanics, quirks to drive cooperation and balance in the teams - these I accept. Reducing 16-24 incarnates to a struggle simply because of insane damage is neither amusing or fun. It is certainly not a challenge that I appreciate.
There is a formula for this game that is crazy fun and success from 1-50... and then suddenly the formula changes.
Again, I recognize the place for trials in an MMO. Yet, I hail the coming change of Dark Astoria, and I still contend it was an abject design failure to wait as long as they did. I hope it returns to the successful core of this game.
They bought 12 more months of my loyalty with hope before when I wavered. I am wavering again, and only DA and letting me feel like a HERO again is likely to save it. If that doesn't deliver... I will make a sad face... and I am becoming apprehensive about it.)
edit: You know, after years of being on the 'we don't need to raise the level cap' bandwagon I am starting to think that raising the level cap and adding appropriate content would have been much better...