Dasher

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Long time player, 7th time poster. Call me crazy, but when I think of Super Heroes/Villains, the last thing on my mind is what kind of 'weapon' they can wield. This is not D&D, WoW, etc. Why in Heaven would you devote a THIRD power set to SWORDS!?!? Very disappointing

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Because the players asked for it.

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The players asked for this ALOT!!!

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Well, I like the Dual Blades set. Willpower is a joke, it should have been available to all ATs, but instead it's one more round of shafting to Blasters. (Calm down; I have 24 Heroes, and only four are Blasters, and one of them is a "Blapper".)

However, as regards what players ask for and what they get...

The players DID NOT ask for Travel Power Suppression or Enhancement Diversification, nor did they ask for their Inf to be de-valued vis-a-vis Prestige to the point of 1931 Deutschemarks...

But they got all that anyway.

Funny how the players only seem to "get what they ask for" when it's something the Devs want to do...

Dasher

Re: Lighthouse' light-hearted remark:

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Besides, we just like to give the game away

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Sigh... Gee, that's really nice for us longtime, loyal customers to hear, after we bought the Pre-Release, bought the publication issue, bought the Special DVD Edition, bought City of Villains, bought the Special Edition of THAT, and bought the Gvs E upgrade, all the while paying our monthly fees.

Nice to know our support went toward making it possible to "give the game away". (You're welcome, by the way, to all those newcomers who have been able to come aboard for a mere $30.00 investment; really, it's our pleasure...)

But hey, at least we saw a return on our investments... we got to have our Travel Powers Suppressed, our Enhancements Diversified and our Influence reduced to the value of 1932 Deutschemarks... Oh, and we lost about 83% of our player base to "That Other Game That May Not Be Mentioned" because of such abuse.

But we stayed anyway.

P.T. Barnum would be so proud...

Dasher

"If God had not meant for them to be shorn, he would not have made them sheep." - Eli Wallach, The Magnificent Seven

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or jetpacks, I need a jet pack, not a big 1950's version from a level 5 SG mission. I want a sleek awesome pretty jet pack! thats not going to turn off!

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...and I want the big 1950's version in red trim 'cuz it fits perfectly with my red-and-white Russian blaster!

Also a dual-tube "Commando Cody" version!

More Options means More Happy for everyone!

This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks; with what the Devs learn from implementing these changes and stabilizing them in-game, they will be able to make more and more options available; just enjoy what we get as we get it and more Super Happy Funness will follow, as it has for the last three years.

I know, I am the figurehead on the bow of the Viking Raider Ship "Complaint", but I always give credit where it's due, and while the Devs have left some truly AWFUL BAD SCREW-UPS (Travel Power Suppression, ED, Prestige) in place, they have also provided some pretty wonderful stuff, and Issue 11 promises to be a good example of that.

Dasher

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So will we be able to change blaster color powers? Such as, Energy can change from blue to green, Radiation from green to red, Fire from Orange to Blue, Electric from white blue to a gold.

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I think as of the posting, they will only be offering the option to change the physical appearance of weapons, not the in-game effect of powers.

For example, a Claws Scrapper could have the kind of claws that a Claws Stalker gets, or vice-versa.

No doubt the power visual effects changes will come along eventually, tho.

"Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it."
- Emperor Palpatine; the Peace, Prosperity, Law and Order Candidate (and a close personal friend)

Dasher

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What is a Main-gauche? A Faer Dagger? Dragon Dagger? Any pictures of these?

I am picturing a dual RedCap dagger/willpower brute on day one. I will have to take a few days off for this one.

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Maine Gauche means "Left Hand", it's a common name for an off-hand, long-bladed dagger with an ornate hilt used in dual weapon fencing as both a parrying weapon and sword-breaker. An Asian equivalent is the Japanese Jitta or Tsai.

You can see them used in Richard Lester's "Three Musketeers" movies.

As to the other weapons, prolly variations on the theme.

Dasher

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Since we've got new weapon options, are we getting sheaths and holsters as costume options as well?

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Yeah whatever happened to quivers? Or dual guns?

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Quivers would be great, but they are probably a difficult thing to render with capes, which a lot of archer characters have and/or will want.

All in good time, tho, I'm sure.

Dasher

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Well, weapon customization is nice... but it's still not really any content for my 7 lvl 50's.

No thanks... both accounts are cancelled in 2 days.

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You missed the fact the in the Feature announcement that there were details of brand new missions. But I doubt that matters to you. Bye!

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And good riddance We don't need naysayers, not when the future is before us! Or the past! Or...erm..nevermind!

-C.A.

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Actually, we DO need naysayers. Everybody does, just to keep folks in line with a reality check now and then.

Don't forget; the Devs are the overhead. WE are the profits.

Dasher

Okay, I could accept the comic book feel, too, IF they weren't animated.

A far better choice would have been to present the cutscenes as comic book "panels", harking back to the game's inspirations, then renewing the wonder of the game when the panels come back to "life" in the game environment itself.

As far as the villain wacing poetic, if you mean Dr Aeon, that is the perfect example of the unspeakably egregious awfulness of the "cutscene concept" and the way it is executed in the game. Oh, if only "executed" was an option for these cinamtic road apples!!!

These 6th-grade-film-class animations, and the dialogue... the awful, awful dialogue... is enough to send one racing to pray to the porcelain god.

Plus, it probably wouldn't kill the Devs to play for serious effect now and then. A little actual drama can go a long way in Spandex Land.

Dasher

Hooray for just about everything, EXCEPT...

Oh, dear god, please, not MORE of those execrable cutscenes!!!

Please, please, please, NO MORE CUTSCENES!

The animation is lame, the dialogue is insufferably awful and the interruption is incredibly aggravating... it's like getting stuck watching commercial TV before TiVo!

But the "acting" is... is... oh, lord, it's just the WORST DIALOGUE EVER... "But Bossssssssss... what about usssssss Ssssnakesssss and our dissssabling lissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssps?"

And it all goes downhill from there.

Please, please, PLEASE, give us the option to disable cutscenes!

STOP THE LAMENESS!!!

Dasher

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Of course, it would be nice if it didn't cause such apparent server instability and lag. It might be a bit more enjoyable then.

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True enough, but a lot of that - not all, but a LOT - is the fault of the players.

A group of 20 people, even groups of as few as 8 (one full team), will spawn as many Rikti and Rikti Heavy Assault Units as any reasonable human being could ask for, yet every time there is a raid in, say, Talos, everybody in the Zone clusters around the train station because there are so many irrationally greedy ADD-afflicted yahoos who "Gotta Catch 'Em All" as fast as they possibly can.

I have been in a Raid zone with five teammates, stayed far away from the Herd-of-Sheep-Clusters of such players and we've gotten the Elusive Mind accolade in three raids with no lag.

There is also the very likely prospect that the "jumps" from a player's home through various servers until they reach - and return from - the actual Cryptic game servers causes problems along the way...

...everyone knows we don't connect directly to the servers we play on, right?

But a lot of the event lag is caused by the players themselves, who just can't bring themselves to disperse.

Now, granted, that was something the Devs were warned about in Test, and they should have found a way to compensate for it.

One good suggestion I have heard was to have the Rikti Assault teams de-spawn (retreat) and re-appear elsewhere if they were faced by more than 20 heroes within a certain area. Unfortunately, then you would have spoiler players jumping in to "drive off" the Rikti just to mess with people who actually wanted to fight them. (Let's call these idiots "Nelsons", and give them a battle cry of "HAH-hah!")

For me, the best part of the raids is that it does something I asked the Devs to try years (yes, years, plural) ago: Make all enemies "Giant Monsters", without levels, so everyone can fight them and get rewards relative to their level without having to be sidekicked or exemplared. Eventually, this can mean the end of levels for players as well, I hope I hope I hope. The Rikti raids allow this system to be tested with no drastic changes imposed on the players.

So what we have now is a system for an fun and exciting addition of new content, and anyone who doesn't want to participate doesn't have to.

Which is SO MUCH BETTER than Tyra- errr Statesman's philosophy of "Make the players do this, whether they like it or not".

Travel Power Suppression, Enhancement Diversification, Prestige... all unilateral choices forced on the players, all disasters.

Rikti Assaults, take 'em or leave 'em, huge success.

Dasher

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In a Rikti attack, everyone in the zone, who is not inside, has mobs spawn next to them to attack them. Even on high roofs above the dropships.

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Yeah, that's kinda the nature of a hostile invasion, the attackers choose when they are going to move on the target, not the other way around.

And there is this sort of underlying theme in this game that all these superpowered beings are running around defending the city, either as Heroes or Villains, so there is the argument to be made that there may be some sort of obligation to actually defend it from time to time.

It's also very clear in every Admin announcement of the invasion: "Noncombatants are advised to seek shelter." With that warning we can decide whether or not we are going to be Combatants or Noncombatants, and we have options.

1. We can fight the Rikti, maybe even help other players get badges for doing so.

or

2. We can go to a Zone not under attack, go to a Zone that NEVER gets attacked (Croatoa, Striga Island, a PvP Zone), go into an SG base, go into Pocket D, go into a mission, go into a building, go into the Sewers, go wherever and hide until it's over.

Sometimes, in a dynamic environment, chaotic things happen which don't care much about our personal agenda, and which have no other options but to deal with them or run and hide.

The Rikti assaults make CoX an unpredictable, "dynamic environment". For that reason alone, I praise the Rikti assaults to the heavens, and I hope they never, ever, EVER go away.

Dasher

Looking ahead, once this new assault wave is over, will Rikti attacks still be triggered in random zones by players doing You-Know-What?

Cuz the attacks are just too much fun to lose entirely!

Also, it would be kinda cool if we could actually fail to drive them off, somehow...

F'rinstance, too many unexploded bombs allowed to detonate might:

... shut down the Hospital/Base telportation system (suggested elsewhere by another poster);

... lock down the Auction Houses/Black Markets for a while (actually closing the doors and making them inaccessible);

... cause street contacts to disappear for a while. It's been both amusing and annoying to see the Freedom Phalanx standing idly by while we have been fighting off the raids; we don't want (or need) their help, but we would greatly apprfeciate it if they would get out of the way while we're saving the city. ;

...turn off all the lights in the zone. This would be solely cosmetic, but it would create a cool background effect;

... rubble-out some of the buildings and the big statues of heroes (!). How fun would it be to be able to earn a badge actually helping repair the city? Superspeedsters using "Whirlwind" to clear away debris, Grav Controllers restoring noses to statue faces, whatever.

Yeah, yeah, I know, this last one's a coding stretch, but hey, you've tried almost everything else I have suggested in the last three years, so I am just continuing to be supportive.

Anyway, thanks again for keeping this great event going!

Dasher

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What kind of invastion gives us the dates of their arival?

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An American.


The others just don't believe it.

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Heh heh, also, it doesn't matter if they do believe it or not...

Nothing can stop an American invasion.

Dasher

I suppose it was too good to last.

Pity.

The Invasion events were the best times this game ever saw, at least since before Issue 4 and the Invasion of the Blanket Nerfs.

Dasher

Wow...!

I think this is about the shortest time from Issue announcement to release I have seen since CoH started.

Way to go, Devs! Good job!

Now just get rid of Travel Power Suppression and you're on your way to being real game designers.

But, sincerely, kudos on the rapid release of Issue 10.

Dasher

Hey, that's great!

I'll bring my petition to Rescind Travel Power Suppression! I had to gather it off-forum because we aren't allowed to say anything negative here, but even so I have 3,247 signatures of players with account names so far, and almost ten percent them haven't bailed on CoX for WoW... yet.

Maybe it will come in handy in case the convention runs out of toilet paper, for all the Devs care about what players want...

Dasher

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As the more stalwart and less respectful PvP'er would say,

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Yeah, the moment I perceive anyone as "less respectful", whether they are PvE'ers or PvP'ers, that's when I stop listening.

I'm not advocating PvP in the co-op zone, I'm just saying an all-Hero or all-Villain team should have just as much chance of success in the TF as a mixed team.

Playgrounds are superior to theme parks.

Dasher

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Sorry but... Hero/Villain co-op zone is lame. Total copout for content sake.

What about my villain who also is hell bent on the destruction and/or conquering the planet?

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Nah, I'd have to disagree with that. That's an expression of personal preference; the concept may be distasteful to some, but that hardly makes it "lame".

Now, if the TFs in the new co-op zone can ONLY be accomplished by combined hero/villain teams, then that IS a Bad Thing, because anything that dictates tactics or in any way forces players to achieve a goal by a particular "keycode" is, by definition, "bad". Not just "lame" (although it s that, too), but actually Bee-Ay-Dee, BAD.

That's why PvP is such an empty bag; characters built for optimal PvE are useless in PvP and, very often, vice versa; when optimal build solutions are available, then the build becomes the game, which is nothing more than Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon and folks, THAT is as lame as lame gets.

But as long as the team-ups are voluntary, it's a great idea.

I have maintained since CoV Beta that all ATs should be available to everyone, and that our choice of contacts, mission paths and story arcs should determine our status as "Heroes" or "Villains". Now I finally have a "good" reason to get my few villains to Level 35, so they can team with my hero buddies.

However, I am 100% behind you korgat in my belief that we should be abe to pursue a goal of coquering/destroying the planet. I'd be satisfied with just being able to carve my name in the moon with a giant space laser... I'd even be satisfied with an orbital platform for my villain/hero base... or a facility as nice as the Sky Raiders have... or one of those cargo ships in the harbors... I would be happy to settle for a Blimp!

Heck, who am I kidding? I'd be over-the-moon if they just let us have an actual street address for our SG bases instead of making us enter them by jumping down a rat hole...

Dasher

Told ya so!



Yay, can't wait...!

Dasher

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So, while the City of Heroes comic comes to a close, that in no way diminishes the energy we are devoting to maintaining and enriching the City of Heroes experience! We look forward to your support and involvement as we work to make our many community goals a reality!

Yours truly,

Alex "Lighthouse" von Minden

Online Community Manager
City of Heroes / City of Villains

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Well, that's a shame; I will be very sorry to see it go.

On the up side, it will help with Admin credibility to have it go away; originally, the CoH comic was supposed to be a perk of our monthly fees, then one day "oh, gee, sorry, if you want the comic, that's an additional charge".

This is a very basic marketing mistake - and a very bad one - that most young companies make; over-promising then finding that the reality of business means they will be under-delivering.

So if Cryptic is learning the hard way, at least they are learning.

Ave, atque, vale to the Top Cow comic; we hardly knew ye...

Dasher

Happy Birthday, Positron.

Dasher

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acknowledge that an 80 CHARACTER SG may be less than a dozen PLAYERS, and scale bases accordingly.

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I disagree with your conclusion.
Instead of adapting bases to the current state of SGs, I think SGs should be reexamined so they can become the collections of 75 *players* that they were originally envisioned to be.

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No, that's no good. That just keeps the rich SGs rich and the poor SGs poor.

I know of several SGs who have all 75 slots filled by a couple donzen friends and all their alts. That's how they want it, that's how they like it, and there is no reason to impose sanctions on them simply because they choose to use the tools given them - and which they pay for - to enrich their game experience in a way not in line with the preferences of others, especially including the designer.

"But I don't WANT the party to go down THAT hallway! I designed this dungeon so they would have to see all the cool stuff I did by going down the STAIRS!!! I know, I'll have the roof cave in! Heh-heh, heh-heh, that'll show 'em who's boss!!!"

Right now our own SG base is used for storage and Telepads. If the CoP/IoP Experience is not enjoyable, we'll rip out the Vault and go back to that.

But the current system of paying a fortune in "non-money" Prestige and continuing to pay, and pay, and pay is absurd.

"Rent" is essentially "tax", and it's a basic principle of economics that higher taxes suppress investment, lower taxes encourage incentive. In other words, if you want to encourage people to do something, you make it easy or pleasant for them to do it, not unpleasant more difficult.

The obvious fix here is to come out and say "You know what gang? We messed up on this whole Prestige thing, so we're going to get rid of it entirely and let you spend Influence on the bases; and no more rent. Play around with the Bases, have fun, and we'll work on adding cool in-game content to the Bases in future Issues."

But this confronts the core problem with everythiong in CoH/CoV.

It is obvious after reading Emmert's speech that he is one of those people who cannot tolerate criticism - witness what happens on these very boards - because he simply cannot entertain the notion that anyone else can be right once he has made up his mind about something.

Any time some change was poorly received or flat out didn't work, he maintains it was because "the players didn't get it" and not because the change was flawed in conception or implementation.

Now THAT is a problem with perceiving reality, and it's not the players' problem, but the designer's.

Okay, so a cloistered academic mentality might an acceptable personality quirk in an ivory tower academic, or if you're Stephen Hawking, but it is a disaster in someone running a company.

Because believe me, States, and I say this with no offense intended... you ain't no Stephen Hawking.

Dasher

"None of us is as smart as we'd like to think we are. More important, nobody else is as stupid as we'd like to believe they are."

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It seems Statesman doesn't get why bases are so unpopular.

They just need to do something in the game (make raids operational, please) and they need to be affordable (nix upkeep entirely, reexamine prices).

Do these two things, and base popularity will probably increase.

Also, find other uses for bases for PVE.

I hope a dev reads this thread.

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They also need to be one-tenth the price they are now. Or leave them at the price they are but let us pay in Influence instead of this cheesy "Prestige" nonsense.

Dasher

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Wow. Just wow. What a complete and utter lack of understanding of the player base...

Not that I'm surprised that much though.

*sigh*

*waves to the Devs*

Yoo Hoo! States! We don't talk about how to improve bases and make them more accessible to more players for nothing! Try actually reading what we post, then you might understand why people don't use bases...

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That'd be a first...

Dasher

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And I quote . . .

“We spent more time developing [bases] than any other feature in City of Heroes or City of Villains,” he says. Although bases are built by a team, Emmert and his team viewed them as being “incredibly, incredibly individual” because each piece of the base is designed and added by individuals."

I have said for over a year that Jack is out of touch with his own game and his own players. What happens more times than not is all ranks of a SG are expected to contribute to Prestige (and in some SGs, even long after it starts biting into Influence) but only a select few (i.e. the highest or two highest ranks) are allowed to add anything to a base or have a say.

In very few cases does a base become an extension of a SG. It becomes a resource (Prestige and then Influence at the higher levels where the split-off occurs) hog for a few features that barely contribute to in-game quality of life.

It becomes a personal extension of those in control of the SG.

Travel powers are great. I have yet to need to harness the base teleporters, which makes the cost of them even more expensive than normal, because the return on the investment is even greater diminished.

The enitre Base feature seems poorly thoughout, poorly designed, poorly tested. Lip-Service on bases has been fast and furious. Unfortunately, adjustments have not, and the issue was complained about in CoV Beta a year and more ago.

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Welcome to the band, brother. You take the next set, my voice is tired...

Dasher