Power Creep video
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-06-28 17:14 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I liked the video. I'll agree with what others have said that CoH doesn't have too much power creep in it.
Yes the Incarnate stuff does have it to some degree (the lvl shifts are the biggest red flag) but overall; not bad.
I agree with Arcanaville, and have stated before as well, that there should be other ways to complete missions. Why can't controllers/doms hold a mob to "defeat" him and get xp? Why can't there be side-objectives to heal NPCs and keep them alive but never attack the mob(s)?
I remember reading a review for, I think, Superman 64 (for the N-64 
) and they said (paraphrased), "since supes is basically invulnerable, instead of giving him a health meter and worrying about some thug beating you up, we gave the city a health meter."
I never played the game (think it was rated poorly due to bugs) but the whole "save people from x" or "put the fire out" may be better for some ATs (player controlled toons) than others.
Edit:
As far as new incarnate slots I really hope the devs continue to limit the newer iTrials. But not just by "needing to unlock" destiny/lore (or Hybrid) but actually slotting the t3 ability so that at least the person is lvl shifted and can be of some help. *shrugs*
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Quote:
I think its simply the case that the devs consistently underestimate the probability that the player community will farm the hell out of something when given half a chance. And in the specific case of the iTrials and the incarnate slots, I don't think they really considered that by linking the two together they would create a feedback loop that encouraged momentum play. Which is to say that everyone wanted to get in on the trials while everyone was getting in on the trials to unlock the slots that they could use in the trials. On many servers, if you were not doing them when they first come out, the ability to do them dropped over time as the core group of higher content players moves on to something else. Even on high population servers there were shifts in popularity for the trials: on lower population servers those shifts could mean the difference between finding a trial in a few minutes and waiting hours or not seeing one start during your playtime window.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Personally I think they slowed down on slot releases for two reasons. First the initial release of four slots together meant that people farmed the hell out of them just on BAF and Lambda and then burned out. If they'd just released two slots with BAF/Lambda (possibly moving the level shift form Destiny to Interface so we got one shift then) and then released the othe two later as they built up the number trials I think it would have gone a lot smoother. Hybrid (and presumably Genesis, Mind and Vitae) uses a new type of iXP so rationing the slots out while they build up the number of trials with new iXP helps prevent burn-out.
My second reason is more speculative. I think they may be feeling their way into how they want to gate access to the higher tier slots. People complained a LOT about the switch from Shards to Threads to the point that the devs felt compelled to pretty much promise "No New Merits/Salvage". Now this is pure speculation on my part but I suspect that somewhere on Positron's hard drive is an old design document detailing the new Salvage and Merits that would be used for building Hybrid, Genesis, Mind and Vitae abilities. Given the push-back from the community they've obviously shelved that idea (assuming they did have it anyway) but that may well have made them more cautious about how they award the new slots. With Hybrid it's just a new form of iXP which means most people just farm the kills at the start of the trial to unlock the slot and then run older and easier content to make abilities. By releasing only one slot they can observe player behavior and then decide if they want to change things up a bit for the next slot (for example for Genesis they could make the requirement that you have to get the requisite iXP but also need a particular Trial Completion Badge to unlock the slot or change the trial to back-load the iXP). |
Giving us all the slots at once and hoping we play through slowly is like going on a month long vacation and leaving all your dog food poured out onto the kitchen floor for your dog to eat whenever he's hungry.
Now that they know that, they'll probably be more cautious about handing them out too quickly. And I think they have no schedule for them at all: they will hand them out as high end rewards for doing special high end content, as that high end content arrives. If it does, we get the slot. If it doesn't, we don't until it does.
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Outside of Limited (booster draft, sealed deck, etc.) mill strategies have always been a joke. Milling cards has no immediate effect on the game state, and all it takes is something like a single copy of an Eldrazi Titan in their deck (which causes the graveyard to be shuffled back into the library when it enters the graveyard from anywhere) to render all that work meaningless.|
Originally Posted by Hatred666
Some of the mill decks are no joke. The ones built around the plainswalker cards like Jace Beleren are almost unbeatable if built and played right.
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Every version of Jace costs at least 4 mana to play, and even a <$100 burn deck should kill you by turn 4. And I'd love to see a planeswalker-focused mill deck fight through a permission strategy. But that is why WotC has weakened those non-interactive deck archetypes (burn and permission) because while they're quite potent, they're just no fun to play against.
There is no form of deck in Magic that is unbeatable. That's one of the best things about the game, every strategy has a foil, and nothing is 100% effective.
That is also why City of Heroes is so much fun, because the devs don't force you to play your character in some pre-determined fashion in order to cover a specific role. The archetypes inform the player what the character is meant to do, but there is a LOT of wiggle room as far as build priorities. My plant/storm controller feels more like a DPS class than a controller a lot of times, with tons of great AoE damage and lots of fun chaos-inducing powers. However, I am still providing controls and buffs/debuffs while I'm at it, so my primary role is still fulfilled.
Quote:
People prefer to simply farm Magesterium mostly because it's a poorly-designed trial. 95% of the exp is in the initial phase, which is trivial to complete. Then you have a series of random-feeling boss battles with fairly simple, run-of-the-mill gimmicks that any league should have no trouble handling. Then BOOM, Tyrant, who is just far more difficult than any fight in the history of the game. The worst part is, it isn't even a climactic fight. I've literally never seen a league wipe against Tyrant, it's just 20min of banging your head against the brick wall of his obscene regen until everybody gets discouraged and quits. I'm sure it would help if the trial launched with the level-shift mechanics working correctly, but without them, the fight was just too strict in its requirements when compared to previous content.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Personally I think they slowed down on slot releases for two reasons. First the initial release of four slots together meant that people farmed the hell out of them just on BAF and Lambda and then burned out. If they'd just released two slots with BAF/Lambda (possibly moving the level shift form Destiny to Interface so we got one shift then) and then released the othe two later as they built up the number trials I think it would have gone a lot smoother. Hybrid (and presumably Genesis, Mind and Vitae) uses a new type of iXP so rationing the slots out while they build up the number of trials with new iXP helps prevent burn-out.
My second reason is more speculative. I think they may be feeling their way into how they want to gate access to the higher tier slots. People complained a LOT about the switch from Shards to Threads to the point that the devs felt compelled to pretty much promise "No New Merits/Salvage". Now this is pure speculation on my part but I suspect that somewhere on Positron's hard drive is an old design document detailing the new Salvage and Merits that would be used for building Hybrid, Genesis, Mind and Vitae abilities. Given the push-back from the community they've obviously shelved that idea (assuming they did have it anyway) but that may well have made them more cautious about how they award the new slots. With Hybrid it's just a new form of iXP which means most people just farm the kills at the start of the trial to unlock the slot and then run older and easier content to make abilities. By releasing only one slot they can observe player behavior and then decide if they want to change things up a bit for the next slot (for example for Genesis they could make the requirement that you have to get the requisite iXP but also need a particular Trial Completion Badge to unlock the slot or change the trial to back-load the iXP). |
Coming from games like EQ and WoW, folks understand the idea that you need a strong, well-designed raid force with the correct buffs/debuffs and mix of tanks/DPS to have a chance against the high-end content. But CoH has never really been that way. It's always been a more casual type game, where you're not expected to have to IO-out with the very best enchancements, maintain a top-tier build, and recruit a tight-knit group of experienced raiders on specific required characters for each given challenge. People expect to just get 16-24 people together, and then run through the trial. It's actually pretty rare to fail iTrials, in my experience, assuming you have a full roster and no major lag issues.
But Magesterium is actually a real challenge. You need a well-coordinated force with the right powersets to reasonably expect to beat Tyrant. Then, to top it all off, the reward is pathetic. Kill Tyrant: get a common component. I mean, seriously? Why even bother fighting past the initial phase, where nearly all the iXP is obtained anyways, when you could probably finish BAF twice in that time? You don't even get the badges you earned during the earlier phases unless you beat Tyrant, so there isn't even a reason to bother trying for some extra bonus astrals. In fact, Mag is probably one of the least rewarding trials, even though it's arguably the hardest.
Note, I haven't bothered running Mag since the first few days of release, after getting all my incarnate characters' hybrid slots unlocked, so I don't know if things have been adjusted since then.
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Originally Posted by The_Cheeseman
Outside of Limited (booster draft, sealed deck, etc.) mill strategies have always been a joke. Milling cards has no immediate effect on the game state, and all it takes is something like a single copy of an Eldrazi Titan in their deck (which causes the graveyard to be shuffled back into the library when it enters the graveyard from anywhere) to render all that work meaningless.
Every version of Jace costs at least 4 mana to play, and even a <$100 burn deck should kill you by turn 4. And I'd love to see a planeswalker-focused mill deck fight through a permission strategy. But that is why WotC has weakened those non-interactive deck archetypes (burn and permission) because while they're quite potent, they're just no fun to play against. There is no form of deck in Magic that is unbeatable. That's one of the best things about the game, every strategy has a foil, and nothing is 100% effective. That is also why City of Heroes is so much fun, because the devs don't force you to play your character in some pre-determined fashion in order to cover a specific role. The archetypes inform the player what the character is meant to do, but there is a LOT of wiggle room as far as build priorities. My plant/storm controller feels more like a DPS class than a controller a lot of times, with tons of great AoE damage and lots of fun chaos-inducing powers. However, I am still providing controls and buffs/debuffs while I'm at it, so my primary role is still fulfilled. |
I would agree but when the Dev's try to add new exciting things to AT's that they couldnt do before the player base freaks out and cries against it for some odd reason. See Bio armor's -regen debuff for example.
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One thing that is always true of MMO communities: there will always be a vocal minority who will complain loudly about ANY change to the game, regardless of how positive or trivial it may be.
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Originally Posted by RevolverMike
I would agree but when the Dev's try to add new exciting things to AT's that they couldnt do before the player base freaks out and cries against it for some odd reason. See Bio armor's -regen debuff for example.
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That's really weird, because out of 11 full Magi trials, I've only been on one that failed, and that was due to a dc bug that affected quite a few of the people in the league.
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Originally Posted by The_Cheeseman
People prefer to simply farm Magesterium mostly because it's a poorly-designed trial. 95% of the exp is in the initial phase, which is trivial to complete. Then you have a series of random-feeling boss battles with fairly simple, run-of-the-mill gimmicks that any league should have no trouble handling. Then BOOM, Tyrant, who is just far more difficult than any fight in the history of the game. The worst part is, it isn't even a climactic fight. I've literally never seen a league wipe against Tyrant, it's just 20min of banging your head against the brick wall of his obscene regen until everybody gets discouraged and quits. I'm sure it would help if the trial launched with the level-shift mechanics working correctly, but without them, the fight was just too strict in its requirements when compared to previous content.
Coming from games like EQ and WoW, folks understand the idea that you need a strong, well-designed raid force with the correct buffs/debuffs and mix of tanks/DPS to have a chance against the high-end content. But CoH has never really been that way. It's always been a more casual type game, where you're not expected to have to IO-out with the very best enchancements, maintain a top-tier build, and recruit a tight-knit group of experienced raiders on specific required characters for each given challenge. People expect to just get 16-24 people together, and then run through the trial. It's actually pretty rare to fail iTrials, in my experience, assuming you have a full roster and no major lag issues. But Magesterium is actually a real challenge. You need a well-coordinated force with the right powersets to reasonably expect to beat Tyrant. Then, to top it all off, the reward is pathetic. Kill Tyrant: get a common component. I mean, seriously? Why even bother fighting past the initial phase, where nearly all the iXP is obtained anyways, when you could probably finish BAF twice in that time? You don't even get the badges you earned during the earlier phases unless you beat Tyrant, so there isn't even a reason to bother trying for some extra bonus astrals. In fact, Mag is probably one of the least rewarding trials, even though it's arguably the hardest. Note, I haven't bothered running Mag since the first few days of release, after getting all my incarnate characters' hybrid slots unlocked, so I don't know if things have been adjusted since then. |
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Hmm... How recently was this? Like I said, I was running them the first couple days it was live, and from all the chatter I heard in Pocket D, as well as people discussing it in various leagues throughout the night, almost nobody had actually managed to win. I heard people saying they'd tried 4-6 times and never managed it. Between my characters, I was only around 1/6 (not counting intentional farm runs).|
Originally Posted by JayboH
That's really weird, because out of 11 full Magi trials, I've only been on one that failed, and that was due to a dc bug that affected quite a few of the people in the league.
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But then, the level shifts granted by the lights weren't working at the time (The level shift effect was only be applied to a max of like 16 entities, including pets). Not sure if that's been fixed since.
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It's been fixed now. Prior to the bug fix I found that Magi was pretty easy as long as you kept the team relatively small. Since the bug fix it's even easier. I was on a team a few nights back that got "The Hard Way" by accident. We weren't trying we just beat him in less than two cycles of the lights.
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Originally Posted by The_Cheeseman
Hmm... How recently was this? Like I said, I was running them the first couple days it was live, and from all the chatter I heard in Pocket D, as well as people discussing it in various leagues throughout the night, almost nobody had actually managed to win. I heard people saying they'd tried 4-6 times and never managed it. Between my characters, I was only around 1/6 (not counting intentional farm runs).
But then, the level shifts granted by the lights weren't working at the time (The level shift effect was only be applied to a max of like 16 entities, including pets). Not sure if that's been fixed since. |
I ran one full Magi on I believe the first day, and it failed. However, on the surface, it seemed obvious why it failed, which was that people weren't doing what they were told to do. If that really was the problem, I assume they almost all succeed by now, but I don't know and it doesn't affect me now. I hated being forced to play it at all (Why couldn't I trade threads for iXP like the other slots? I'm a soloer.), so I farmed it with no mercy and no shame, then never went near it again.
The level shifts seem like pretty clear power creep, but I also consider Destiny to be overpowered. Even as an individual buff it's huge, but as a full team buff? Stackable? OK, I'm on a big team as rarely as I can get away with, but doesn't it get ridiculous?
That said, it's been better than I expected. I expected that when they added levels, all my IOs would become worthless, and I'd have to get a whole new set. I'm glad to see that we don't have to buy all new IOs every time they add a new level. That probably would have driven me from the game by now.
I'm very worried about our and our opponents' rapidly increasing power, but so far, I'm still enjoying the game. It was the lack of a solo incarnate path that drove me away for half a year. We have that now, and I'm happily grinding away.
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The moment the servers went up after the patch, I actually ran 6 in a row on Freedom as my favorite character Flint Eastwood, and the first one failed. I took one of my wife's characters and ran 5 about a week and a half later. They all succeeded. I was on several others that I didn't lead with a tanker of mine and we won all those too.|
Originally Posted by The_Cheeseman
Hmm... How recently was this? Like I said, I was running them the first couple days it was live, and from all the chatter I heard in Pocket D, as well as people discussing it in various leagues throughout the night, almost nobody had actually managed to win. I heard people saying they'd tried 4-6 times and never managed it. Between my characters, I was only around 1/6 (not counting intentional farm runs).
But then, the level shifts granted by the lights weren't working at the time (The level shift effect was only be applied to a max of like 16 entities, including pets). Not sure if that's been fixed since. |
You just have one team in charge of knocking out Well Beams when they come up and just have everyone pounding on Tyrant when they are gone. Just wait in place when you get the warning about his lightning attack and move the instant they appear. It's really not that hard at all.
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Actually this is another interesting topic - is it a personality issue that causes the anti-social behavior desire or is it something in the game design that needs to be addressed that would encourage teaming? Is soloing a 'preventable anxiety' move so that people can go at their own pace - etc?
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Originally Posted by Werner
I ran one full Magi on I believe the first day, and it failed. However, on the surface, it seemed obvious why it failed, which was that people weren't doing what they were told to do. If that really was the problem, I assume they almost all succeed by now, but I don't know and it doesn't affect me now. I hated being forced to play it at all (Why couldn't I trade threads for iXP like the other slots? I'm a soloer.), so I farmed it with no mercy and no shame, then never went near it again.
The level shifts seem like pretty clear power creep, but I also consider Destiny to be overpowered. Even as an individual buff it's huge, but as a full team buff? Stackable? OK, I'm on a big team as rarely as I can get away with, but doesn't it get ridiculous? That said, it's been better than I expected. I expected that when they added levels, all my IOs would become worthless, and I'd have to get a whole new set. I'm glad to see that we don't have to buy all new IOs every time they add a new level. That probably would have driven me from the game by now. I'm very worried about our and our opponents' rapidly increasing power, but so far, I'm still enjoying the game. It was the lack of a solo incarnate path that drove me away for half a year. We have that now, and I'm happily grinding away. |
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For me, it's personality. I don't like playing with random strangers. I do play with people I know personally (real world, not forum), but only a few of those play CoH. It probably breaks down to about 65% solo, 30% duo, 4% team of 3 or 4, 1% larger.|
Originally Posted by JayboH
Actually this is another interesting topic - is it a personality issue that causes the anti-social behavior desire or is it something in the game design that needs to be addressed that would encourage teaming? Is soloing a 'preventable anxiety' move so that people can go at their own pace - etc?
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I also hate playing with NPCs, though, and even with my own pets (like the Lore pets). So it's not entirely about people.
Further confusing things, I used to do the old Hami raids all the time, and enjoyed them.
I'm not sure if anything can be done in the game to encourage me to team. What I know I HATE is when they encourage teaming by REQUIRING it to get some specific reward. That doesn't bring me into the fold. That makes me see red. But I also don't think there's any need for the game to encourage me to team. So what if I mostly solo and duo and enjoy the game that way? That's not a game failure. I'm paying and playing.
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Thank you for constructive feedback - I was nervous that I might not have worded that correctly because it is an honest set of questions that I would like answers to.
That's fine and understandable. 
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Totally disagree with this. I have been milled to death on turn two by Painter-Stone combo as well as Brain Freeze Storm. The Eldrazi Titan sounds like a great plan until you realize that Tormod's Crypt can be activated in response, or simple use of a Planar Void and this idea no longer works.|
Originally Posted by The_Cheeseman
Outside of Limited (booster draft, sealed deck, etc.) mill strategies have always been a joke. Milling cards has no immediate effect on the game state, and all it takes is something like a single copy of an Eldrazi Titan in their deck (which causes the graveyard to be shuffled back into the library when it enters the graveyard from anywhere) to render all that work meaningless.
Every version of Jace costs at least 4 mana to play, and even a <$100 burn deck should kill you by turn 4. And I'd love to see a planeswalker-focused mill deck fight through a permission strategy. But that is why WotC has weakened those non-interactive deck archetypes (burn and permission) because while they're quite potent, they're just no fun to play against. |
Also, the first Jace printed only costs 3, and is arguably the best for milling someone.
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Originally Posted by The_Cheeseman
There is no form of deck in Magic that is unbeatable. That's one of the best things about the game, every strategy has a foil, and nothing is 100% effective.
|
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Ahh, I see what you mean here. See, I would consider both of those strategies to be just combo decks, not specifically mill decks. Painter/Stone is a cute 2-card combo, but it's fairly easy to find such things and build a deck around them. As for Brain Freeze, I'd be hard pressed to find a reason to base a storm combo deck on that rather than Tendrils of Agony, because it's basically going to be the same deck with just a different storm card. So yes, I will concede the point that milling can be effective, but only when it's as part of an instant-win combo strategy.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Totally disagree with this. I have been milled to death on turn two by Painter-Stone combo as well as Brain Freeze Storm. The Eldrazi Titan sounds like a great plan until you realize that Tormod's Crypt can be activated in response, or simple use of a Planar Void and this idea no longer works.
Also, the first Jace printed only costs 3, and is arguably the best for milling someone. |
My mistake on Jace's Beleren's cost, I never paid much attention to that version. Jace the Mind Sculptor of course everybody knows, and I actually did quite well in a booster draft using Jace, Memory Adept (most of the wins were from milling, which is definitely effective in limited). However, my point stands that there is no form of Jace that will mill an opponent to death before turn 5, at which point any competent aggro deck will have you dead.
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I guess it's entirely possible that I just happened to get on some terribad leagues that evening. However, from what I observed, we never had much of an issue killing the lights off within merely a few seconds of them spawning, and the lightning generally didn't drop too many folks (after the first couple instances, for people to get used to it). We just weren't able to keep up with his regeneration, he'd get down to about 25% and then he'd just kinda stay there. Actually, looking back, the one time I did win was a run where that exact issue occurred, and when the timer got down to about 3min, half the league bailed. I died with Tyrant still at about 20%, and while I was in the hospital, suddenly we won. In retrospect, losing all those people probably allowed the ones present to get all the Light level-shifts, which enabled them to finally do enough DPS to take Tyrant down. At the time I just assumed there was a bug or something (I wasn't about to complain!)
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Originally Posted by JayboH
The moment the servers went up after the patch, I actually ran 6 in a row on Freedom as my favorite character Flint Eastwood, and the first one failed. I took one of my wife's characters and ran 5 about a week and a half later. They all succeeded. I was on several others that I didn't lead with a tanker of mine and we won all those too.
You just have one team in charge of knocking out Well Beams when they come up and just have everyone pounding on Tyrant when they are gone. Just wait in place when you get the warning about his lightning attack and move the instant they appear. It's really not that hard at all. |
Yeah once you get him down enough, he loses his connections to the well, shrinks, and even cons gray to 53s - he's a joke at that point.
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Most Storm decks do use Tendrils as the primary win condition, but there are cases where this is not optimal. Some people have ways of dealing with that much loss of life, in which case it's easier to mill them to death. Empty the Warrens is another such alternate win condition, but usually if losing 20 life doesn't scare someone, neither will an army of tokens.|
Originally Posted by The_Cheeseman
Ahh, I see what you mean here. See, I would consider both of those strategies to be just combo decks, not specifically mill decks. Painter/Stone is a cute 2-card combo, but it's fairly easy to find such things and build a deck around them. As for Brain Freeze, I'd be hard pressed to find a reason to base a storm combo deck on that rather than Tendrils of Agony, because it's basically going to be the same deck with just a different storm card. So yes, I will concede the point that milling can be effective, but only when it's as part of an instant-win combo strategy.
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Mind you, I've also seen a merfolk mill deck, which is also a form of control deck. It will take its time milling you to death, but there's nothing you can do in the meantime. These kind of things do exist, but they are far less common.
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Originally Posted by The_Cheeseman
My mistake on Jace's Beleren's cost, I never paid much attention to that version. Jace the Mind Sculptor of course everybody knows, and I actually did quite well in a booster draft using Jace, Memory Adept (most of the wins were from milling, which is definitely effective in limited). However, my point stands that there is no form of Jace that will mill an opponent to death before turn 5, at which point any competent aggro deck will have you dead.
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Quote:
I love a good sadistic control deck, sometimes the jankier your win condition, the more fun it is to play (though, you may lose friends in the process). I've thoroughly enjoyed a permission shell that won via Illusions of Grandeur/Donate in the past. I once even built a deck that was nothing but walls and destruction abilities that just waited for the opponent to draw every card in their deck, one-by-one (it was a joke deck, which I titled, "Pink Floyd"). It was terrible, but it did beat a few of my buddies' casual decks back in high school.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Mind you, I've also seen a merfolk mill deck, which is also a form of control deck. It will take its time milling you to death, but there's nothing you can do in the meantime. These kind of things do exist, but they are far less common.
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When I said "mill is a joke" I was mostly referring to those decks that try to use various one-shot mill effects as a form of aggro strategy. That's the kind of deck I usually hear referred-to as a "mill deck". Usually, if the deck is actually a competent combo or control shell that just happens to use milling as its win-con, I don't hear them called "mill decks" but I guess that's just a matter of regional vernacular.
Oh and sorry to non-Magic fans for the threadjack, but I do enjoy discussing that game!
Quick Commenting on the video without reading yalls posts:
This seems like a definitive proof that Power Creep is not happening in the game. Especially since things like Fire Armor, Invuln, Elec, DA, Stone, as well as Dark Melee, Fire Melee, Katana, Fire Blast, and other sets that are almost as old as this game (older than 'newer' stuff) are still considered great and even sometimes better than some of the newer stuff. (Dual Pistols, Beast Mastery and Staff Melee anyone?)
New sets have ADDed to the game without making the old stuff obsolete. In fact, besides the two level 40 trials, Eden and Sewers, and Regen 
I cannot think of too many things that were once really awesome to now being meh and even bad. (Titan Origin Enhancements anyone? Who wants to pay me 5 mil for mine?)
You _could_ say that IOs made SOs obsolete, but all the Free to Play people need em, as well as people who are leveling often use SOs over IOs.
Perhaps FBZ content not being done at all anymore... though, was it ever really popular?
That is my take on the fabled Power Creep. I just don't see it.
Your character does not have capped defense. Depending on your AT the cap is between 175% - 225%. Your defense is not teal in the combat window, it can go higher. STOP SAYING IT IS CAPPED! The correct term is Soft Cap.
I enjoy playing in Mids. I specialize in Melee Characters, other AT's usually bore me.
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You failed to mention Incarnates. I think THAT is what folks refer to mostly when they talk about power creep.|
Originally Posted by _Pine_
Quick Commenting on the video without reading yalls posts:
This seems like a definitive proof that Power Creep is not happening in the game. Especially since things like Fire Armor, Invuln, Elec, DA, Stone, as well as Dark Melee, Fire Melee, Katana, Fire Blast, and other sets that are almost as old as this game (older than 'newer' stuff) are still considered great and even sometimes better than some of the newer stuff. (Dual Pistols, Beast Mastery and Staff Melee anyone?) New sets have ADDed to the game without making the old stuff obsolete. In fact, besides the two level 40 trials, Eden and Sewers, and Regen I cannot think of too many things that were once really awesome to now being meh and even bad. (Titan Origin Enhancements anyone? Who wants to pay me 5 mil for mine?)You _could_ say that IOs made SOs obsolete, but all the Free to Play people need em, as well as people who are leveling often use SOs over IOs. Perhaps FBZ content not being done at all anymore... though, was it ever really popular? That is my take on the fabled Power Creep. I just don't see it. |
With that said I think folks make waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too big a deal about powers that can only be used in the last 5 levels of the game, AFTER you've already hit the final level.
/shrug
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
While there certainly has been some power creep in this game, let's consider where it stands with respect to where things were in I1. When I returned after being away from the game for a couple of years and learned about the IO system, I said, "Hrm, so they have given us a way via crafting & marketing to get back to where we were before E.D. Interesting."
And honestly I'm not even sure today's "purpled out" builds can do some of the crazy things that were possible back then.
Incarnate levels (+1 aside) are an example of the "final option" mentioned in the video, since they don't apply to most game content.
The CoX devs are not dumb. They made the decision to allow a little (global) power creep in, which many players do like, but not to go whole hog with 10 new levels, + super enhancements, etc. The rest of the new power was added in a way that was restricted to special content. Probably a smart move.
@Jumpman
Ink Jet - 50 DM/SR - Virtue
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