Dispari

You're way off base here for about a dozen reasons.

One, if you haven't met anyone who doesn't like the difficulty in Praetoria yet you have your eyes and ears covered. There are a lot of threads complaining about the difficulty, a lot of people who complain about the enemies in Praetoria, and a lot of people who are worried they're too strong. Heck there are like half a dozen in this thread alone that are worried about how hard the stuff in Praetoria is. It was an issue all through beta, is still an issue, and still the thing I hear about most in my global channels is how group x is too hard.

And two, no, I don't want things to change because I want things to be a certain way for selfish gain. I want the game to be easier for new players, and then you can have your ability to ramp up the difficulty if you so chose with the difficulty settings. EVERYONE wins. I'm not enforcing my will on you, I'm adding more options to the game. If you think that me changing the game to suit my needs and ignoring everyone else, you're wrong.

My incredibly flawed argument is that people who are playing this game for the first time are forced to run through the hardest content? And that's their first experience with the game. If the first time you play a game you lose repeatedly tons of times, and are forced to overcome the really difficult stuff before you're allowed to play the regular stuff, that's not very fun. And as a brand new player you may not even know that there are easier options out there. Maybe you just think it gets harder from that point on.

But I'm not too heartbroken since you seem to be handing out tickets of no-reputation left and right anyway.

People who buy GR and activate a new account have to make their first character in Praetoria. After that they can make others, elsewhere, but they still have to experience Praetoria first.

I'll stop you right there. The answer is because new players CANNOT start anywhere but Praetoria. New players will only experience the hardest starting difficulty there is, whether they want to or not.

The 1-20 villain side is harder than the 1-20 hero side. I agree on that. But I think the 1-20 Praetorian is even harder than that. In primal Earth you end up fighting a lot of the same badguys. Hellions, Skulls, Council. All of those pretty easy gangs. You do fight some extras like Snakes that can be difficult. And there's Arachnos which you fight more of redside. But Arachnos and Longbow don't really do anything in the low levels so they aren't a problem. And if you get a team going you can start to run +1 and +2.

In Praetoria you have enemies that are chock full of powerful AoEs starting at level 1, and enemies running around with defense, Tactics, and Super Strength. You can't edit the difficulty but I can't imagine doing so on purpose if we had the chance.

It should be noted, I think, since someone will bring it up, that there may still be ways to improve your gameplay and do better. The problem with that is, you're pretty much requiring a level of player competency that exceeds even standard veteran skills.

There are real players around and in this thread stating they have absolutely no trouble with Praetoria whatsoever and they don't know what people are talking about. I'm sure there are some people out there who are good enough that they aren't at all challenged by the new enemies. But there are real, actual veteran players who are pretty good at this game already, and while maybe they aren't the best players around, they are having real, actual problems dying to these enemies despite their numerous advantages such as knowledge of game mechanics and veteran rewards.

The problem though is you're expecting brand new players to attain this level of skill. And right away. It's about like introducing someone to a fighting game by handing them the controller during the final boss fight. Absolute experts at the game may find this very easy as they've memorized every intricate detail and the moves and patterns, and know the ins-and-outs enough to play to their advantage. Normal veteran players may be good enough to run the rest of the game okay but still struggle with this fight. A brand new player experiencing this for the first time with no proper training and time to learn is just going to die repeatedly, throw the controller, and leave the room.

And by leave the room I mean go play another MMO.

Interestingly enough there are three Defender sets (Rad, Storm) that can upkeep -37.5% ToHit (base) or more (Dark Miasma) all the time -- and most of those autohit. There are also two sets that can offer 20%-25% (base) or more DEF all the time (Cold, FF) which isn't resisted. So a brief -30% ToHit would probably still leave this set underpowered.

I know it wasn't directed at me, but you pretty much asserted that your one experience with one Controller means nothing in Praetoria is difficult so the experiences of other posters are completely irrelevant. Which I found insulting and had to comment.

Having leveled a Dominator twice, a Mastermind, two Scrappers, a Stalker, a Blaster, a Controller, a Corruptor, and a Brute in Praetoria I found that the Scrappers had a hard time, the Mastermind had a hard time (ninjas), the Blaster had a hard time unless I kited CONSTANTLY, the Corruptor had a hard time, and the Stalker (while easier than most of them solo) had a REALLY hard time in teams (where everything has AoEs and Tactics). I found the absolute hardest gangs to be Seers, then Clockwork (-regen and fire and Super Strength), then Resistance (especially for anyone who has to suffer their high damage energy punches). Destroyers aren't as hard as they were in beta, and Syndicate just got toned down, and I never found Ghouls to be a problem.

And trying to level numerous toons without using vet powers or picking weaker sets like ninjas proved to give me a rather high number of deaths. That is MY experience. The gangs in Praetoria are pretty hard, even for experienced players.

I feel it's worth noting that there are a number of factors that lend to you having an easy time with that Controller you mentioned, such as,

1) You are a veteran player. You've been around for at least three years. You no doubt know the ins and outs and know how to do things like pick good powers, form meaningful attack chains, leverage inspirations, and no doubt pull. Which leads me to,

2) While it's entirely possible you didn't, it's also fairly likely that you played using vet reward powers, adding to your arsenal and allowing you to do more damage more often than a new player. This is ESPECIALLY an advantage if you play an AT that has low damage or few attacks to begin with, because,

3) AT damage modifiers aren't in full swing until past 20, so at the low levels (especially the exceptionally low levels), everyone is doing the same damage. That means while at 50 your Controller may be doing 55% damage while a Blaster is doing 112.5%, at level 1 you're both doing 100%. Add to that the fact that your Controller also mezzes with each attack, AND gets containment so does 200% damage, means your Controller is actually doing pretty darn well below 20.

As all ATs run around doing the same damage below 20, the advantages for each AT and soloing are almost the opposite of what they usually are. For instance, the ATs that probably have the EASIEST time soloing low levels would be Controllers, Dominators, Brutes (Fury allows them to run around doing 250%+ damage), and some forms of Defenders. The ATs that probably have the HARDEST time soloing would be the ones that only have damage going for them to begin with and have nothing to back it up when they're doing the same damage as everyone else; ATs like Blasters and Stalkers likely suffer the most. And because of this,

4) You picked an awesome AT for soloing low level content. As a Controller, out of the box, you have the ability to reduce 33% to 100% of all incoming damage just by taking your hold at level 1. Most spawns set for one have 2-3 units, of which you can always just hold one and immediately reduce 33% to 50% incoming damage. At levels where nobody else, even Tankers, are going to have even basic shields, and HP levels are all very close, you're reducing damage far more than everyone else is. Add to this the fact that you also debuff and you're dropping incoming damage way more than anybody else. But it's not just the AT,

5) You picked an awesome primary set for soloing. Through beta we mostly complained about Elec being poor for teaming situations. But one thing it is really good at (and may be the reason the devs didn't want to change it) is soloing. You have a very potent pulsing AoE sleep which is available to you extremely early, which as I mentioned above can equate to pretty much 100% mitigation for every spawn. Add to this your ability to drain endurance while enemies are asleep and no enemies will ever really have to attack you. You can always get the drop with hold, knockdown, sleep, and end drain, and never fight anything. Most of this even occurs by level 8.

If you really want the full Praetorian experience, try soloing a Blaster or Stalker without using any vet powers through Praetoria. You'll find that the enemies actually do a ton of damage (Resistance, Clockwork, Seers), and are capable of keeping you mezzed and knocked down when you don't want them to. And that when you can't simply hold the numerous bosses (even scaled to lieutenants) that use Super Strength powers, they can kill you in just a couple attacks.

Your argument will warrant some credibility when you have taken the time to level more than just a Controller through Praetoria. I won't argue that Controllers, especially Elec ones, will have a fairly easy time breezing through the missions. I personally soloed over half the ATs with various different powersets and builds, and found many of the gangs significantly difficult. You should try it. So please post back when you do and tell us how YOU did. Thanks.

I really have to say you're in the minority here. Without even saying "this isn't other RPGs," the ones that even use the "you figure it out" mechanic all have guides and plug-ins to make it easier.

If you've played WoW for more than 20 minutes, you'd know everyone runs a helper tool that installs an arrow in your UI to help you know where to go. Kind of like the one CoH has, because if you get a mission that says "Talk to this person" and you don't even know what ZONE they're in, much less where in that zone, that does not equal fun gameplay to basically anyone.

What you're basically saying is that we should force absolutely pointless fluff for no reason whatsoever. You think it's preferable to be as vague as possible with missions and objectives because you think people would enjoy wandering aimlessly or having to look up guides, or ask people for the solution.

Nobody likes this. Nobody likes the pointless fluff of having to find a hidden glowie; that's why we installed the glowie-finder in missions. Nobody likes having to search for and memorize the locations of stores; that's why they were added to the minimap, that's why they're added to zones like Hollows, that's why CoV, new zones (RWZ), and Praetoria have adopted an "all stores here" approach. Nobody likes having to walk all the way across IP for no reason; that's why CoV has less zone-switching, that's why we have mission teleporters, that's why Sprint and Fly just got buffed.

Nobody likes this completely unnecessary fluff you're advocating. Nobody wants to wander aimlessly trying to find objects that could literally be anywhere. If someone wants to look at the city, they can look at the city. "Guess you get to look at the city since you'll be spending an hour seeking out trash cans in alleyways" is not a selling point to anybody.

Fluff is only a waste of time. The longer you spend walking to missions, trying to find objects, or anything that involves "not accomplishing anything" the less fun you have, and the less you want to play. The more time someone spends playing a game where they're not doing anything, the more likely it is they're going to find another game to play.

Not so new as to not know what the colors and con system mean I guess. The first few levels teach you about the game and get you acquainted with your AT and your powerset. If you're incredibly amazing and don't need that, that's fine, but not everyone is as gifted as you and wants to go straight to soloing EBs.

If you want difficulty that's fine, but you should realize that THE STARTING ZONES are the worst place to add "really hard, difficult stuff for veteran players." Because um, those zones are for newbies. New players, new characters.

Supposedly i19 will have your really tough content for vets. Wait a bit.

Ugh. You really can't think like a new player at all. One of the biggest questions in broadcast is what to do about this mission. People don't think about outside glowies. Some people don't even know what glowies are if they're new. Also normal glowies don't show up on the map even in glowie missions until you've cleared a lot of the map. "Walk around looking for glowies" isn't the first thought on a lot of people's minds.

Even if it is, the mission is a teaching/learning tool. The flowers may be easy to find even without the map, but not all of them are like that. I did one yesterday with trash cans. I had to find 10 and they were spread far and wide across the entire city. Without the map this could've taken me hours, scouring through every alleyway and checking under every rock and pebble to find glowing cans. And for basically no exp. Yeah that's a fun mission.

AoE DoTs, as well as people like Resistance and Clockwork being really AoE heavy in general (if you don't stand in the right spot you get smacked as part of the alpha). Not to mention all the allies that take away your stealth, and the fact that several bosses have Tactics. Been hard playing a Stalker.

On the other hand, there are a handful of missions that let you just ghost straight through them if you want. Although given the low exp for that I'm not sure that's a tradeoff.

I've had similar problems where after I play for a while, characters will simply not get tip drops. I even experienced and reported this on beta. But I might get one tip, then not get any tip drops for hundreds of kills. Then as soon as I zone or drop a mission, I start getting them again and can fill up my tip inventory in a couple spawns.

This happens a lot after I've done tips on several characters. I'll get one or two, and then not be able to get any more until I zone or relog.

Although the pattern is somewhat random, it's still consistent enough to have me believe it's a bug and not just luck. For instance, I've never been unable to get my FIRST tip. Just second and sometimes third. It also starts back up as soon as I relog or zone. And it usually doesn't start happening until I've done tons of tips on multiple characters in one day. Never just right off the bat.

I have a feeling this one is the opposite of what it sounds like, in which case it's a bug I reported in beta getting fixed, woo.

Wait, what's new?

If 5% to hit is "for all intents and purposes zero" then a 5% chance to miss should equate to the same thing: practically nothing. And if they only have a 5% hit rate against you, not only can they not hit you 5 times in a row but they can't hit you even twice in a row, due to streakbreaker. All of this is just your perception of luck. It can be annoying, and it can also be really handy. Our human brains only focus on the bad luck though.

Also, I'm almost completely certain that no two creatures from a single spawn will run the same toggles at once -- I'm practically 100% sure they're coded so they don't all run painful toggles like these at the same time and create situations like you're describing. So either those Death Mages were from different spawns, or they weren't running their toggles all at the same time like you say.

That depends on if the fork is fighting back.