It's getting worse (new content)

My own feeling is that First Ward was visually stunning - beautifully described and presented.

I have run the story once because the story itself didn't grab me (as somebody's already pointed out, the zone completely ignores the notion of being a villain) and I felt that - as with much of the newer content - I was reading a book and button mashing. The notion of interaction has rapidly declined over the last 18 months or so. We're funnelled down a tunnel.

Even when offered "choice" it's generally the option between "Knock him out" or "Break his neck" - both of which are pretty ridiculous - if we've had to fight to get to that stage, and reached the big bad boss who's meant to be a challenge we can suddenly do either/or without breaking a sweat. If we're going to get those kind of choices, then we need two alternate resolutions: We either get to fight some more and then defeat the subject, or the subject manages to escape to thwart our plans another time.

Personally, the thing I've noticed the most is that since Going Rogue was released, the visual environment has become far far better, whilst the stories have become much less engaging. This clearly seems to be a question of priorities - better graphics, because once they are done they are done, and lots of low quality content rather than less, but much better, story-telling.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I thought FW was pretty awful because of the horrendous walls o text and the rage-inducing ambushes.

I was going to run it again on my lvl 42 tanker to see if he fares better, but if he's outlevelled it then I won't bother.

I don't do Ouro.

Eco

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

I really liked First Ward. I loved the content, and the ambiance of the place. I didn't care for the huge counter that popped up whenever I had to cross the water, which I couldn't move enough for it not to be an annoyance, I'll grant you that. Grr! And there were issues of needless running back and forth, which I really thought they'd said they were getting away from.

But loved the content! Enough that my villain-turned-rogue (only to find teams) actually turned into a hero! "Sticking up for your friends, and mashing d-bags is what heroes do?! I thought they just flew around in ugly red and white jumpsuits shooting everyone for spits and giggles?"

Then I tried to run it on my next up and comer, and found that the poor troller she is, couldn't solo the material (till I passed out from boredom in the attempt, anyway). Almost impossible to find teams there, and the one time I did, I had NO idea what was going on.
I quit the team and went to Talos.

Finding I wouldn't have gotten any merits there anyway makes me certain I won't team there. Missing the content AND the rewards?? That's nuts!

Too bad. I found it really interesting content, and occasionally hysterically funny.

I posted a few months ago about this and saw the same Golden Girl drivel then.

We get it you are in love with everything CoH and it can do no wrong.

Spending over 2 hours running an Arc and getting only 2 merits felt like an insult. I can do a Synapse TF in less time and get 32 merits. I can SOLO the old Positron TF in a little more than an hour and get 40 merits.

So you make me fight harder foes and give me less reward? A really winning combination there. You also don't give teammates any merits? Yeah that makes it hard to team.

What would I do to fix it? Make each arc worth either 4 or 6 merits.
Let my teamates get merits as well.

• People complain that arcs dont involve their character enough.
• People complain that when in a team, the rest of the team can't see the contact text thus not understanding the purpose of the mission.
• People complain about walls of texts explaining the situation inside a mission.
• People complain that the content is too easy.
• People complain that the content is too hard.
• People complain about the lack of post 20 Praetoria related content.
• People complain about having content post 20 related to Praetoria.

• People will complain that the solo option in revamped DA is too hard.
• People will complain that the solo option is too grindy.
• People will complain about the difficulty of DA.
• People will complain about the change in the "feel" of the zone.
• People will complain about certain holes in the lore that the new content will miss.
• People will complain about the rewards in the new DA.
• People will complain non-stop for months about the new trial with next to no actual experience of it.

On the MoM Trial, Calvin Scott is shown to be mentally disturbed, and is removed from his position as leader of the military side of the Resistance movement.

complaining about merit rewards for content is just silly

if you play for merit rewards find the one or two that give you the most for your time and do them. That's what you are going to do anyway, so complaining that everything does not give you the most for your time is just being silly. If FW gave the most merits for time people would play that and then complain that Synapse did not give enough merits.

I like all the new content as well, including First Ward (well, I don't like what they did with Katie Douglas but that's another story). However...

All the Praetorian arcs from level 1 through FW need to get assigned a real reward merit value and not just the 2-merit place holder. It's pretty bad when you can almost double your merit total there by getting the exploration badges. I'm not running the stories for the merit reward but I have a lot of choices at level 20-29 and the lack of merit reward is going to influence that decision.

The devs have forgotten that co-op zones do not erase alignment. Cimmerora and Midnighters managed to have both hero and villain content (Midnighters club did it in the same contact) but not RWZ and now not FW. Judging from the answer to a question I made on FB about DA, it won't have separate hero and villain story arcs either. FW should have had a branch someplace that took heroes and villains in different directions even if they had the same ultimate result. It's how you accomplish something that makes the difference between the hero and villain in situations like that. That or at the very least give the contacts different dialog depending on their alignment (hero, villain, resistance, or loyalist) to make me feel better about bringing a villain there.

For me the problem is that for each zone remake or new zone since faultline they've only put a single storyline through the whole thing and rushed it horribly. Using faultline as an example, taking out the missions where we go to a contact for an exposition dump there are only 20 missions, and half of those are on tiny one room maps. What's the plot? We chase a plot device that is only connected to faultline because of some back story that gets dumped on us. Then we fix it by handing the plot device to a plot device in a baseball cap. Do we deal with the crazy lost and their prophecy about the earthquake on the moon? (a plot point I can only assume they've tossed in the trash with every other non well related plot) No. Do we do anything about the sewer monsters starting to find their way in? Nope. Do we do anything about the fort the freakshow have set up. Nope. Do we do anything about the crumbling dam and the clockwork hindering reconstruction? No. Do we do anything about the BASE AND AIRPORT that arachnos and the sky raiders respectivly set up right next to the dam? Not a bit. Did we even do anything that involves the dam, THE MAIN SETPIECE OF THE ZONE! A single mission where we let a villian in to find out where Arbiter Sands is hiding that has nothing to do with it other than location. ("Durr I wonder where an arbiter would hide? Definitly not da bases they have set up next door, nope nope nope.")

Flying over FW I noticed 4 main things I expected to deal with. The DUST base (nope), eltontown (extremely briefly), the giant swirling doom vortex (told what it is, don't actually fix it) and mother mayhem's evil hospital base (a single mission then completely forgotten). At the end of the story what have we accomplished? We destroyed half of the carnies, helped eltontown just a little bit, allowed DUST to move back in, reactivated the seer net and trapped one of our allies in that hell on purpose, left the swirling vortex of doom, left the DE and completely ignored Mother Mayhem's evil lair so that she can later enact her doomsday plan and cover it plot armor even though to stop that from beginning all it would have taken was a boot to the door and a liberal application of high explosives throughout the complex. So what did we spend most of our time doing? Running around trying to keep people from giving into anger ("give in to your anger...") and instantly turning evil.......and epically failing at that and needed to kill half the carnies in the process effectively taking them out of the fight for praetoria for good probably.

I fear CoX is starting to follow the path that comics took, it wants to be dark, gritty emotional and angsty. The exact reason I never read new superhero comics as a kid.

"Oh, Iron Man! I've always liked the idea of having my own flying suit of armor!"
*Opens book and goes through 34 pages of Tony drunk and screaming at people while having inner monolouges about hating himself.*
"Screw that."
*Tosses comic and leaves, never turning back.*

We're starting to slide into the dark age of comic books where it's less about heroes and villians and more about how the world is a dark and hopeless place and where more bad things happen than good. And lots of really bad writing.