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I have nothing against AE per se. And, in fact, I am a proponent of the idea of user-created content. I would support efforts to encourage the devs to weave AE story arcs in with the canon somehow. But I think it needs to be taken much further than that, otherwise it just sort of feels like a little sub-game within the larger game.|
Originally Posted by Demetrios Vasilikos
to discount AE to me smells far to much of the anti AE attitude Ive seen hurt COX since AE release. sure it is used to farm, so is alot of main content at one time or another. but the fact is we are really the only MMO that has infinite content. if anything it would be great to see a more collaberative effort of virtue lore rpers try and create more AE arcs working with game lore, and try to get enough positive ratings to encourage the devs use them as official canon and a way to take the game in a new direction evolved by the people living in its virtual world.
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I have the same problem with the "battlegrounds" PvP systems in WoW. They have absolutely zero impact on the game world outside of them, and in effect they are nothing more than sporting events where nothing is actually at stake with regards to the larger narrative of Azeroth. To me, it is a total waste of time except as a practice grounds for...well...nothing meaningful. There is no world PvP in that game anymore, so training for battlegrounds PvP is only useful for battlegrounds PvP, which makes it its own little insular world unconnected to anything else going on.
I don't want to have to do all the work of making the game world feel immersive. I don't want to have to imagine for myself how the narrative strands weave together and create a dramatic tapestry. That's the job of the devs (akin to the job of the GM in a tabletop game). My actions contribute to the greater narrative, sure, and in that sense I am part of the creative act, but I want to be an actor in the (interactive) plot, not its writer or director. This isn't a failure of imagination, but a declaration of the role I wish to take as a consumer of game content and a participant in an interactive virtual world created by someone else.
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Originally Posted by Vox Populi
If your character concept is "god" then you're a god. Thor's a god, and he still teams up with a guy with a bow and arrow.
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This. So much this. It never ceases to amaze how different the concepts of deities can be from person to person. But, at the end of it, whether you are referring to something on the level Thor from the comic books, or all the way to Adonai Himself, the scales of power is ultimately in your head.
The way I see it, "incarnates" has less to deal with anything remotely divine, instead dealing more with the well of the furies. The term is just the term used, adopted not out of literal meaning but out of habit. But, if you want to see it differently, that is up to how you write the stories in your head.
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This strikes me as conspiracy theory of the kind that just makes me feel ill to listen to it. No offence. I'm sure you like this drastic reinterpretation of everything and anything, and I'm glad the Architect could provide you with the opportunity to tell your own side story, but here's the thing - it's not canon. At the end of the day, the Architect is just fan fiction, and if fan fiction is what I want, I'm more than capable of writing my own without needing a game to do it in. The reason I play a game with a set storyline and existing characters is because I don't want to be the only one doing the work, because I want some sense of mystery and broader storytelling and more than anything else, because I don't want to be the one doing all the heavy lifting.|
Originally Posted by Demetrios Vasilikos
sorry way to lack imagination. AE lets us make the world we want. canon is easy to interpret in a number of ways. For me for example its clear that our earth is ruled by corrupt evil meta and the real heroes are groups like crey,sky raiders, and even the old school cirlce of thorns and thier demon allies who fought to free humanity from the tyranny of gods. All gods are imo in cox lore EVIL, the only remotely good one was ermeeth who as far as I can tell lost his status giving knowledge to humanity and encouraging them to not worship other beings needlesssly.
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You can "pretend" that you're playing a completely different game with a completely different story. Matt Miller (I think it was him, one of the developers at any rate) seems to have been very amused by some player remaking the Doom game in City of Heroes, and I just have to shake my head at that. What we need is a story that more consistent with itself, not one that's comprised of whatever contradictory fan fiction various people put together over the years. Since CoV, pretty much, I've been campaigning for consistent, persistent and well-written storylines, and what you're extolling as the Architect's selling point is its single biggest downside.
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Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid
This. So much this. It never ceases to amaze how different the concepts of deities can be from person to person. But, at the end of it, whether you are referring to something on the level Thor from the comic books, or all the way to Adonai Himself, the scales of power is ultimately in your head.
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The very basic fact is that a god should not need help in order to progress in EVERY way available to him through content at or around his level. Dark Astoria promises to fix this problem, but like always, I'll believe that when I see it.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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I look at the words "Gods" and "Superheroes" as one and the same.
In Hancock Charlize Theron's characters says "they use to call us gods, now they call us superheroes".
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If your character is so powerful and divine that the idea of being challenged by a well trained marksman is ridiculous to you, avoid content where that happens. Run shadow shard missions and TFs, circle of thorns missions, the ITF, the STF, et cetera. You can't say, "My concept, which I plan to rigidly adhere to, does not allow for these peons to mess with me and I want to be able to run every mission in the game anyway!" Well, you can say that, but you should see how insane it would be for the developers to try to accommodate you.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
No, they're not. When a citizen can take me out with a tossed rock, that's not in my head. When a guy in a flack jacket and a rifle can take me out, that's not in my head. When a guy I've consistently beaten for the entire 50-level spectrum all of a sudden can one-shot kill me repeatedly from across the map, that's not in my head. City of Heroes is not a PNP RPG, it's not all in our heads and our imaginations. It has a very real visual representation that needs to be consistent with the story the game is trying to tell, and when it comes to Incarnates, it simply isn't.
The very basic fact is that a god should not need help in order to progress in EVERY way available to him through content at or around his level. Dark Astoria promises to fix this problem, but like always, I'll believe that when I see it. |
Even if you're only talking about trials, you still have choices. Don't like the possibility of being hit with a rock? Don't run TPN. Feel free to keep running BAF because I see no reason to assume that magical robots from another dimension are beneath the notice of gods. Pretty much everything other than maybe TPN and Lambda should be fine for you, really. What I take issue with is the feeling that all content should be redesigned for your godly character. I'm gonna go ahead and say that the vast majority of characters that exist were not designed expressly to be omnipotent.
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This.|
Originally Posted by Vitality
I look at the words "Gods" and "Superheroes" as one and the same.
In Hancock Charlize Theron's characters says "they use to call us gods, now they call us superheroes". |
Also, the brilliant monologue from Kill Bill vol. 2 about Superman, specifically relating superheroes to modern mythology. Which, through the right perspective, is the absolute truth. The only difference between Superman and Hercules is that someone is specifically paid to actively write a continued storyline for Superman.
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Look at what I'm responding to, though: "The scales of power are all in your head." No, they are not all in my head. They are written into the content. They are canon. Nothing is more official and working as intended than this. I can close my eyes, plug my ears, go "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!" and pretend what I'm clearly seeing on the screen clearly isn't happening... But the thing is, I shouldn't have to. Like every time this has come up before, it's a question of presentation.|
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
If your character is so powerful and divine that the idea of being challenged by a well trained marksman is ridiculous to you, avoid content where that happens. Run shadow shard missions and TFs, circle of thorns missions, the ITF, the STF, et cetera. You can't say, "My concept, which I plan to rigidly adhere to, does not allow for these peons to mess with me and I want to be able to run every mission in the game anyway!" Well, you can say that, but you should see how insane it would be for the developers to try to accommodate you.
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For instance, look at the Malta Group. They're guys with guns, so it's a bit iffy on face value, but they really work. Sure, the Operatives are peasant, but you have Sappers who have weapons designed to depower super beings. That's serious. You have Gunslingers armed with special, exotic weapons. That's serious. You have frikkin' giant robots! That's some serious ****! While on the micro scale, the Malta Group seems like it doesn't belong in the 40s, overall, they have enough serious gear to present a legitimate, credible threat. Hell, just the Kronos Titan itself is credible enough.
The problem is that THAT serious gear is what should be threatening us, NOT Director 11 or whatever his number is. I get that authority equals asskicking, but it's much better presentation for the Malta Group leaders to be the bald, fat old bastards, the bigots and racists of the old guard, the 50- and 60-year-old men who rule the world from behind closed doors while the strong, young, capable fighters and future tech is at their beck and call. That's a much more grounded type of conspiracy. It shouldn't be Director 11 that threatens us, it should be an Upgraded Kronos Titan that does this, or some kind of hyper-advanced Zeus Titan with technology stolen from the Praetorian and the Rikti and Arachnos put together into one machine. It should be what's threatening about the Malta group that's threatening, instead of being threatened by what should be decisively harmless for dramatic reasons.
Sticking our heads in the Architect and pretending this problem doesn't exist is only going to make it worse. This game needs to get its presentation of threat straight first, and when that's actually consistent with itself, then we can head off to the Architect and expand on it. My point is that the Architect should not be used as workaround to broken storytelling and as an excuse for why storytelling doesn't need to be better. It should be used as a supplement for GOOD storytelling. Some of the best arcs out there are inspired by the actual game, and for this to happen, the actual game needs to aspire to inspire, not resign itself to mediocrity.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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 Samuel_Tow
No, they're not. When a citizen can take me out with a tossed rock, that's not in my head. When a guy in a flack jacket and a rifle can take me out, that's not in my head. When a guy I've consistently beaten for the entire 50-level spectrum all of a sudden can one-shot kill me repeatedly from across the map, that's not in my head. City of Heroes is not a PNP RPG, it's not all in our heads and our imaginations. It has a very real visual representation that needs to be consistent with the story the game is trying to tell, and when it comes to Incarnates, it simply isn't.
The very basic fact is that a god should not need help in order to progress in EVERY way available to him through content at or around his level. Dark Astoria promises to fix this problem, but like always, I'll believe that when I see it. |
You have completely missed the point. The location on the power scale in which something can be called a "god" is ultimately subjective. It is well within the realm of possibility that someone playing this game has a concept of deities in which a 50 caliber rifle would pose a serious threat to them. As shocking as this is, it shouldn't be a surprise that people have opinions during pretendy fun time that are different than yours.
If your concept for a character is one that directly conflicts with the game design in which you have decided to immerse this character, then that is your problem. It is not your authority to impose your idea of pretendy fun time on other people, and it certainly isn't your authority to impose it on the people who make the game that you have put your character in.
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Fighting increasingly fearsome opponents is a staple of the entire RPG model, going back to before the invention of video games. D&D has always followed the basic model of goblins->orcs->ogres->trolls->giants->dragons, with a few variations. The entire MMORPG genre is built on making you feel like you are becoming ever more powerful and important. This is way the Freedom Phalanx can't be perpetually superior to even the most dedicated and deep-pocketed player, and more relevantly, this is why you need your mobs to be ever more powerful as well.
There should be an option to decrease your level (and then immediately restore it to whatever the highest you've yet achieved is) in case someone's concept for their character just never moves past "beat up Skulls and Hellions on the streets of Paragon City," sure. But the narrative of the game needs to support the mechanics of the game, and the mechanics of the game have us being forty-nine levels and a bunch of hard-to-quantify Incarnate abilities above where we started.
I do feel I'm judging a bit too soon, though. I haven't even reached high-level play.
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I see what you're saying of course, but I think a small amount of imagination easily explains away your concern here. I think they called him Director 11 specifically because of thinking similar to yours: he isn't the CEO of the Malta Group, he's just one of many leaders. Unless I'm missing something we don't really get much detailed information on him at all beyond the fact that he's there in Warburg. For all we know he could be an exceptionally talented gunslinger, or a one-off experiment of some sort, or anything else you could come up with. The fact that there are two Malta AVs who are human-looking doesn't imply to me that all or most of the leaders of Malta are super powered. You simply don't see the ones who aren't (except on Crimson's arc) because they wouldn't be interesting to fight.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The problem is that THAT serious gear is what should be threatening us, NOT Director 11 or whatever his number is. I get that authority equals asskicking, but it's much better presentation for the Malta Group leaders to be the bald, fat old bastards, the bigots and racists of the old guard, the 50- and 60-year-old men who rule the world from behind closed doors while the strong, young, capable fighters and future tech is at their beck and call. That's a much more grounded type of conspiracy. It shouldn't be Director 11 that threatens us, it should be an Upgraded Kronos Titan that does this, or some kind of hyper-advanced Zeus Titan with technology stolen from the Praetorian and the Rikti and Arachnos put together into one machine. It should be what's threatening about the Malta group that's threatening, instead of being threatened by what should be decisively harmless for dramatic reasons.
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Incidentally, the other human Malta AV, Slinger, has a more elaborate costume than Director 11 and has "additional powers" baked into the mission's scripts. I've never heard you criticize him, is that the difference? Director 11 is just too boring?
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It doesn't even come close to making any world or story settings I want.|
Originally Posted by Demetrios Vasilikos
sorry way to lack imagination. AE lets us make the world we want.
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For instance, I want to make a series of jungle adventures, but all I get is two maps with any sort of actual woods.
I want to set up a mystery in a mansion, no map at all exists for that.
I want to have heroes stop a airplane's hijacking while it is at the airport. Hmm, don't see a map for that, either (and an airport does exist in Cap). Or, similarly, I have an idea for a story to stop the launch of a rocket (i.e., Warburg) by some villain that intends to spread some plague or other mass influencing effect.
I can write all the pretendy story to fit any of those, but without the proper maps to have actual play in then it's like AE in general: fake.
Which comes back to the topic: we're fake gods.
My "goddess" was taking bullets, flamethrowers, grenades, and other damaging attacks and shrugging it off, yet in TPN she was taken down by a few rocks. This destroyed any sense of doing incarnate stuff ever again. And, I haven't. The Dark Astoria/solo thing I will wait and see what it brings.
For the record, Thor has been KO'd by a sniper's bullet and Silver Surfer by a brick.
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Yes, some gods in mythology (like the Asgardian gods) are extremely powerful and long lived, but they are not immortal like the Olympian gods. And even mortals have felled titans. But this is nitpicking. Sam is referring to the feel of the Incarnate system, which should be godlike enough for its namesake; something many players are hoping will improve with future issues.|
Originally Posted by 80sBaby
For the record, Thor has been KO'd by a sniper's bullet and Silver Surfer by a brick.
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I, too, sorely want attention to be given to solo Incarnates. But at the same time, remember, we've all been basically told from the beginning that the whole point of the Incarnates will be to rise up against impending threats that will be more dangerous than anything all the world's super heroes have ever faced. I want solo Incarnate content more than anything (even if it's just a well-sized collection of Incarnate "side stories"), but I know the most crucial, central Incarnate content will probably always involve numbers of Incarnates.
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Funny you should talk about opinions, then go ahead and tell me I should shut up and hold mine in. Sadly, that's not how it works. As long as I am a paying customer with access to the forums, I WILL make my opinion heard by the other players and by the developers and I WILL campaign to get my ideas into the game. Whether you like it or not. Precedent shows that the development team are not locked up in an ivory tower, and are more than willing to listen to reason when reasonable arguments are presented.|
Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid
If your concept for a character is one that directly conflicts with the game design in which you have decided to immerse this character, then that is your problem. It is not your authority to impose your idea of pretendy fun time on other people, and it certainly isn't your authority to impose it on the people who make the game that you have put your character in.
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I try to present a reasonable argument for my own point of view, and you tell me that it's not my place to argue for myself. Not only will that not happen, but you've also ensured that I no longer feel inclined to respect your point of view if you'll disrespect mine with such abject dismissal.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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If you're talking about Grimfalcon or whatever his name is from the Reichsman TF, then I don't talk about him because I like to pretend that TF never happened. It's such a hideous bastardisation of canon characters and concepts and such a horrible boring fight on top that it ruins my fun of the entire game if I admit to myself that it exists. "The leader of the Malta Group" shouldn't exist, because Malta don't have A leader. They have a board of directors. Roger Vrable may have been an authority figure, yes, but he's been dead for quite some time now.|
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
I see what you're saying of course, but I think a small amount of imagination easily explains away your concern here. I think they called him Director 11 specifically because of thinking similar to yours: he isn't the CEO of the Malta Group, he's just one of many leaders. Unless I'm missing something we don't really get much detailed information on him at all beyond the fact that he's there in Warburg. For all we know he could be an exceptionally talented gunslinger, or a one-off experiment of some sort, or anything else you could come up with. The fact that there are two Malta AVs who are human-looking doesn't imply to me that all or most of the leaders of Malta are super powered. You simply don't see the ones who aren't (except on Crimson's arc) because they wouldn't be interesting to fight.
Incidentally, the other human Malta AV, Slinger, has a more elaborate costume than Director 11 and has "additional powers" baked into the mission's scripts. I've never heard you criticize him, is that the difference? Director 11 is just too boring? |
If that's not who you're referring to, I don't know what we're talking about, then. I do have a hunch, however. I suspect you're thinking of Director 17, the boss class Gunslinger that shows up at the end of World Wide Red as the Director I'm complaining about, and I'm really not. He's not an Archvillain, he's a simple boss. A bit overpowered, but we can say that the guy was a decent soldier who had exotic weaponry. Boss level is about right, considering he's not THE final boss of that arc. The final boss is, of course, the backup Kronos Titan trying to tear down the War Walls. As it should be. Director 11 is the level 54 AV who shows up in the Tin Mage II TF.
You're entirely correct - this CAN be explained. However, I see such explanations as an excuse, in the sense that we know it's not a good, thought-out story, but we're trying to make it work anyway. We, as players, shouldn't have to be put in the position of having to salvage official storylines by explaining away plot holes. I'm not averse to it, mind you, but I just want to hold the development team to a much higher standard. I don't want them to settle for mediocre writing for the sake of explaining away a gameplay element, I want them to write good stories that make sense when you walk away from them.
I have no problem whatsoever with human-looking enemies threatening my godlike characters. Even basic humans with guns can be believed, but what matters is presentation. WHY are these people so powerful? What makes them such a threat? How is a basic human able to deliver a bare-hand punch more damaging than a burst from a high-calibre rifle? Hell, even the crazed civilians on that sped-up world have a reason to be threatening. Their time has been sped up, so we can assume this has given them enhanced strength and speed, as well as driven them berserk, thus making them even more dangerous. And even they seem somewhat goofy by comparison.
City of Heroes needs greater internal consistency. We need to be able to compare two situations on equal terms and be able to make conclusions based on the difference. We need to have some kind of consistent context, otherwise the game's story is just an amorphous blob of vagueness.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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It's possible that the CoX team wanted to mimic comic books, where character power levels are mostly static, but they do learn a few new tricks, especially in their early years (it took quite a while for Batman to get batarangs, for example). And that's actually totally doable as a game concept, even for an MMO. Unfortunately, that is not what CoX actually did, and unless they want to totally rewrite their game from the ground up, they should start writing their stories to match their mechanics.
If you wanted to make a game where the heroes, like Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Superman, stay at mostly the same level forever (while quietly ignoring the fact that one of these concepts is wildly more powerful than the others), you'd have none of your stats ever increase, just new powers and new enhancement slots (and a bigger inspiration tray and etc. etc.). That thing where headed to a higher-level area just kills you dead because the minions shave off a fifth of your HP with one attack? That can't happen anymore, because some archetypes will never have more defense, resistance, or HP than they started with.
That's an interesting idea, but it's not how the game works. The game starts you as being strong enough to take on Skulls in Hellions in the nice parts of town, progresses through super-powered and magical gangs lke the Outcasts and the Circle of Thorns, and then ends up taking on ancient conspiracies and eons-old demons. And by the time I'm level 50, the gun-toting thugs shooting gangsta style down in King's Row just aren't even a threat anymore, mechanically speaking, which means they shouldn't be a threat in the narrative, either.
I dunno Sam, it seems like the devs have been trying to give more context to the whole team by adding cutscenes and dialogue parts to missions and a lot of people on this forum at least don't like that either. I don't really mind either method; it's nice to see a well thought out cutscene now and then (which not all of them are, but neither are all of them not), but I'm also fine with a bad guy showing up and getting right to the fighty part without much chatter.
I forgot Gyrfalcon existed because he is so profoundly bland. Slinger appears on the Recluse Strike Force, so if you don't play villains that would explain why you haven't seen him. He is a slightly cybernetic looking gunslinger and he summons dozens of robotic minions during the fight, which seems suitably interesting to me.
Eventually we're all just gonna be called putzes.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
Remember a few things about the incarnate system:
1. This is not THE incarnate tree, this is the first incarnate tree. We aren't halfway done with the incarnate system, and we don't know how far we have to go.
2. We aren't full-scale incarnates. We are regular superheroes eating the scraps from the table that full-scale incarnates are eating from. We still may be able to get to their level, but it is going to require some help when they are eating a pot-roast and we are eating bread crumbs.
3. We attack those eating at the table to get more than crumbs (aka trials v. soloing).
It seems like people hear incarnate and think "Omnipotent", or at least strong enough to take on any threat. However, we really aren't that high on the ladder, and we always seem to forget that. Other than the rocks on the TPN, I think that the iTrial system is justified by the lore/mechanics.
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It's how the storyline is budgeted that really gets to me, though. I'm perfectly happy to separate my gameplay from my storytelling. If I can leave story for when I leave the mission and go speak with people and then leave fighting for while I'm in the mission without interruptions, I'll be the happiest. But it's not just context, it's presentation, as I keep saying. There's something fundamentally wrong about a common person hitting a level 50 hero with a tyre iron and causing lots and lots of damage. There's something wrong with a revolver not too dissimilar from those used by the Hellions shooting a level 50 hero for massive damage.|
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
I dunno Sam, it seems like the devs have been trying to give more context to the whole team by adding cutscenes and dialogue parts to missions and a lot of people on this forum at least don't like that either. I don't really mind either method; it's nice to see a well thought out cutscene now and then (which not all of them are, but neither are all of them not), but I'm also fine with a bad guy showing up and getting right to the fighty part without much chatter.
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A lot of the time, enemies don't even need that much story to show that they're a credible threat. Look at the bug things from the new Dark Astoria screenshots in that news article. These guys look DEADLY and I don't know anything about their backstory or motivation. They just look the part. Civilians with rocks just don't.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
I forgot Gyrfalcon existed because he is so profoundly bland. Slinger appears on the Recluse Strike Force, so if you don't play villains that would explain why you haven't seen him. He is a slightly cybernetic looking gunslinger and he summons dozens of robotic minions during the fight, which seems suitably interesting to me.
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That's kind of what I mean - when the missions use enemy groups' ***** properly, they can be compelling even before anything is written about them. It's when mission writers mishandle which group has what strengths and is a credible threat for which reason that problems start occurring.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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Ok, gotcha.|
Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
Yes, some gods in mythology (like the Asgardian gods) are extremely powerful and long lived, but they are not immortal like the Olympian gods. And even mortals have felled titans. But this is nitpicking. Sam is referring to the feel of the Incarnate system, which should be godlike enough for its namesake; something many players are hoping will improve with future issues.
I, too, sorely want attention to be given to solo Incarnates. But at the same time, remember, we've all been basically told from the beginning that the whole point of the Incarnates will be to rise up against impending threats that will be more dangerous than anything all the world's super heroes have ever faced. I want solo Incarnate content more than anything (even if it's just a well-sized collection of Incarnate "side stories"), but I know the most crucial, central Incarnate content will probably always involve numbers of Incarnates. |
I haven't played any of the Incarnate trials, yet. But, I agree with you that soloing would be the better course of action based on what I understand it to be.
To continue using comic examples, when Thor or Superman are on a team, they're generally written down so they don't overshadow the others, which makes sense. When they're solo, however, you get to see them truly unleashed. These are the times when Thor takes on Galactus or Thanos, Supes beats down Darkseid, etc. When a team of this stature DOES form (see any Crisis, Annihilation, etc) then it's a truly EPIC fight, with some of the most Uber-cosmic baddies involved.
If I'm now understanding correctly, this is what some people want with Incarnate.
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You're not stating these things as your opinion. You're imposing. And when someone starts imposing, that crosses the line for personal benefit. My statement (again, point completely missed) is that imposing is a problem. Merely having an opinion isn't.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Funny you should talk about opinions, then go ahead and tell me I should shut up and hold mine in. Sadly, that's not how it works. As long as I am a paying customer with access to the forums, I WILL make my opinion heard by the other players and by the developers and I WILL campaign to get my ideas into the game. Whether you like it or not. Precedent shows that the development team are not locked up in an ivory tower, and are more than willing to listen to reason when reasonable arguments are presented.
I try to present a reasonable argument for my own point of view, and you tell me that it's not my place to argue for myself. Not only will that not happen, but you've also ensured that I no longer feel inclined to respect your point of view if you'll disrespect mine with such abject dismissal. |
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Quote:
How does one do that anyway? By putting "IMO" somewhere in every single sentence? Oy veh.|
Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid
You're not stating these things as your opinion.
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For some reason I have no problem parsing Sam's posts as expressions of his personal opinion. If I can do that, anyone can (and I figured they did). If you feel Sam believes himself to be all-knowing and incapable of error, then you may be a wee bit oversensitive to strongly expressed viewpoints, and maybe the Internet is not for you.
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
Quote:
You've just described what I see as the key difference between Champions and D&D, which is intriguing since Emmert always claimed a fondness for Champions. Yet that is not evident in any aspect of CoX, except perhaps in dumbed down form in the power enchancement system.|
Originally Posted by RuthlessSamael
If you wanted to make a game where the heroes, like Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Superman, stay at mostly the same level forever (while quietly ignoring the fact that one of these concepts is wildly more powerful than the others), you'd have none of your stats ever increase, just new powers and new enhancement slots (and a bigger inspiration tray and etc. etc.). That thing where headed to a higher-level area just kills you dead because the minions shave off a fifth of your HP with one attack? That can't happen anymore, because some archetypes will never have more defense, resistance, or HP than they started with.
That's an interesting idea, but it's not how the game works. The game starts you as being strong enough to take on Skulls in Hellions in the nice parts of town, progresses through super-powered and magical gangs lke the Outcasts and the Circle of Thorns, and then ends up taking on ancient conspiracies and eons-old demons. And by the time I'm level 50, the gun-toting thugs shooting gangsta style down in King's Row just aren't even a threat anymore, mechanically speaking, which means they shouldn't be a threat in the narrative, either. |
One of the game's flaws, as I see it, is its slavish devotion to the D&D concept of classes and levels, and its tradition of starting new characters at level 1. That's why we have the non-comic-book progression from thugs to cosmic entities in the player character experience. Had it been based on Champions, however, you would have had more or less the alternative that you describe: characters that are mostly at their peak potential right from the very beginning, but who get to refine their abilities in subtle ways over time, or alternatively, save up their "experience rewards" for a big change (ala "radiation accident") somewhere down the line.
In a game like that, the rewards for succeeding turn out not to be the shinies that contribute to "character progression," but the unlocking of new content and the promise of new opportunities to feel like a superhero some more. The game mechanics should be so much fun that exercising them is its own reward (and the main one). I know this concept is probably alien to most gamers, but it is precisely how Champions felt to me for the 10+ years I played it. I rarely spent my xp because I was too busy playing the next scenario to bother figuring out how to "improve" my character. Usually my xp was spent lowering endurance costs, or adding some small utility ability. Enhancing my character was really no big deal given how effective it was right from the start. What made the game addictive was the actual game play and how it made me feel like a superhero, not the inconsequential meta-rewards that resulted from it.
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
And many good arcs exist that are able to help fill the gaps as it where. For example in your story about players RPing about the battalion. Nothing is stopping them from running an arc custom made where they go through a portal to investigate a rikti lab, find some data on the battalion, maybe encounter some battalion enemies. Sure for now they could be just whatever, but certianly an easy update to moidfy to fit any future release once we know what battalion really are.
to discount AE to me smells far to much of the anti AE attitude Ive seen hurt COX since AE release. sure it is used to farm, so is alot of main content at one time or another. but the fact is we are really the only MMO that has infinite content. if anything it would be great to see a more collaberative effort of virtue lore rpers try and create more AE arcs working with game lore, and try to get enough positive ratings to encourage the devs use them as official canon and a way to take the game in a new direction evolved by the people living in its virtual world.