EvilGeko
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Posts
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Quote:Whatever. I know what I observe. And that is that in the post-30 game, six years of teams have moved pretty much non-stop. My anecdotal evidence isn't discounted by Arcanaville's statement.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
How do you know that? What evidence do you have to back up that statement? Is it simply self-evident in your mind?
Arcanaville brought up the blaster thing to demonstrate that what we think we may "know" about the game is not always true. It was meant to caution you against believing with certainty that "the majority of characters post-30 virtually eliminate downtime." It is possible you are right. It is also possible you are wrong.
And all that is irrelevant to the issue at hand, but I do so appreciate you all bumping the thread with irrelevant observations!
Without dissent, thread like this die. So thank you. Please feel free to share any other thoughts you may have. -
Quote:The fact you offered doesn't support or refute what I stated. A lot of Blasters might have been at the debt cap because they suck. As you stated there's a lot of factors. All I said is that the majority of characters post-30 virtually eliminate downtime.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
No, I'm saying your guess as to what the majority of players are experiencing may not be accurate.
The fact is that after a certain point, you don't have to play that way except on certain fights. At low levels those same fights are much worse.Quote:Technically, within encounters to minimize what I have to do between encounters. In other words, I don't tend to play to just barely survive a single fight, which I know will put me in a position to have to rest between fights. Even with stamina and health, doing so would still mean a significant amount of downtime.
Interestingly enough, you haven't stated why you think downtime is desirable.Quote:Now look who's taking the argument to the extreme. I supported the initial recharge reduction of Rest. In fact, I argued at the time that the correct recharge value for Rest should be closer to 60-90 seconds. That would be congruent with it being up about every three to five fights or so (at lower levels) and could be slottable if you wanted to be up every other fight or so. If you really want to rest every fight, you could choose to pay the slots to do so and take Hasten, you'd just have to pay for that option just like you do every other game play option.
What I'm saying is the notion that this game is designed or intended for fights to be balanced around survive-or-die without inter-fight consequences is false, nor is it something I would like to see the game move towards. There are arguments for adjusting the recharge of rest that are valid even within the confines of the current game's design. But I reject the argument that "downtime ain't fun, so the devs are idiots for keeping it around." Its the same argument used for so many changes that are nothing more than personal preference attempting to masquerade as game design savvy. And it makes presumptions dangerous to make. CO has a virtually zero downtime gameplay mechanism. It doesn't specifically seem to be appreciated by noticably more players than CoH's constrained resource system (and I'm not making a straight subscriber comparison here: I'm specifically talking about whether the average player would, in isolation from all other factors, prefer CO's resource system over CoH's system, all other things being equal). Changing this kind of thing just because everyone "knows" downtime is bad is specifically something that I was pretty sure wasn't a safe assumption, and CO demonstrated to me that caution was justified. This is definitively not a gameplay axiom.
Lastly, I take a small amount of umbrage with the underlined. I presented my suggestion in a respectful fashion. I did not suggest that the devs are idiots and I really would appreciate if you not stretch things I say like that. I don't do it to you. -
I forget who, but someone had a FANTASTIC dungeon romp when AE first came out. They had episodes and unfortunately had to take down their first episode. I used to play that one quite a bit. They did a very credible job giving that D&D feel.
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Quote:Huh? What does that have to do with people either surviving OR NOT surviving a single encounter?Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't know that. In I11, did you know that the average blaster was half-way to being perpetually debt-capped?
Are you saying that because some folks run into spawns with less than capped levels of health/power that making Rest instantly recharge would allow them to not do that? Well, folks have the option now to be careful. It's just whether they're going to learn from their mistakes or not.
Actually wouldn't that only be true if the median blaster was debt-capped? Outliers would skew the average, no? I mean if 33% of Blasters completely sucked at it and were debt capped. And the other blasters had about a quarter of that, then the average would be 50%, but most blasters wouldn't be debt capped. No?Quote:Meaning: half of all blasters were worse off.
Within encounters? Or between encounters?Quote:And even for my maximally enhanced scrappers, this is not absolutely true. There is still some endurance and health management going on even with both Health and Stamina, when I have both.
This is taking the argument to the extreme. Downtime should only exist if by its existence it offers gameplay options that wouldn't be there otherwise. So if the resource management game is fun, then SOME downtime is acceptable.Quote:Whether this is something that requires separate action below level 20 when stamina first comes available is at least in part a philosophical question on whether downtime is ever acceptable. If its not, the entire premise of the resource management elements of the game are wrong, and tinkering with Rest would be a trivial gesture in the face of such an incredibly serious design flaw. It also begs the question of the point to sets with downtime mitigators available at lower levels (such as quick recovery). The regeneration set itself was designed to be a low downtime powerset as one of its advantages. That's a meaningless, almost ludicrous statement if the design intent of the game is to minimize player downtime in the first place.[/U]
I actually agree that a minimal amount of downtime is acceptable. I think Rest's "time-out" where you have to make sure you're in a safe place and then wait until full meets all the requirements of downtime. There's simply no need to force low level players to stand around for up to 3 minutes waiting for their health to recover. That's not fun, and really serves no legitimate purpose other than to make the Fitness pool a complete no-brainer. -
Quote:As a guy whose Regen has QR, Stamina, Health, Conserve Power and the Numina proc, I might be the wrong guy to ask.Originally Posted by Talen Lee
Yes, but are people going to have taken those health or endurance management tools if they always have Rest on hand?
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Quote:I don't believe that would happen. By the 30s you have enough slots and access to health/endurance management that even the downtime of an instant recharged rest wouldn't be acceptable to many.Originally Posted by Talen Lee
Attack-rest, attack-rest is the mechanism used in other games, games which have a deliberate investment in combat mechanics to make sure that players do not and cannot survive without doing this. This game quickly blossoms past that, to the point where rest becomes an occasional device rather than a necessity - but if players are able to constantly lean on rest, they are given reason to not expand out into that style of play.
Even in other game, I find the same to be true. As you move up you get better abilities to move non-stop. -
Quote:We know that by level 30 for the majority of characters this is exactly the situation. IF the mobs can't kill you in the current encounter, then they can't kill you. For melees playing on base difficulty, it's not uncommon for it to be, "you can't kill me...ever." I just don't see why making the low levels more tolerable is bad given that.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The problem is that content isn't balanced that way. Its balanced on the premise of managing health and endurance, not blowing them off in one fight and having nothing left for the next fight so you have to wait around to recover them. The game simply isn't designed to allow people to recover to full easily after every single fight.
What needs to change? Managing health and endurance isn't very meaningful pre-SOs anyway because you have few tools with which to do so. -
The subject is the suggestion. My argument is as follows:
1) Rest is a utility power that lowers downtime. Downtime in an action oriented game like City of Heroes should only be justified if there is a strong balance reason for including it.
2) Because Rest comes with significant debuffs while active (only affect self, -100% Resistance/Defense) any balance concerns are mitigated IMO.
3) Rest is a utility that provides its greatest benefit prior to characters reaching the ability to slot SOs or higher. Characters have weak endurance efficiency options and even characters with healing powers are limited by endurance (outliers like Regen notwithstanding).
4) Allowing more frequent use of Rest provide a space for more interesting and difficult encounters pre-20 because characters ever only need to survive the current encounter.
5) There is no five.
6) Or six.
7) I really should stop now huh?
8) OK, I'm done!
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Quote:FYI (not just to Forbin, but anyone) - the temp power jet pack recipe is VERY cheap and easy to make.Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
If they ever do move the Jetpack Vendor it should be to Atlas Park or put it on sale at the Market under fixed prices.
30 minutes of Flight. I bought and made one in Praetoria for less than the 10K the SS one costs. -
Quote:I made this same argument in beta to almost universal agreement. Reducing or eliminating Rest's recharge means you can go all out on a spawn without having to worry about not being able to do anything for a couple of minutes.Originally Posted by Heraclea
There is very little that's wrong with Praetoria, or the lower level game elsewhere, in general, that would not be fixed simply by making Rest recharge in thirty seconds. Surviving a battle by the skin of your teeth is not intolerable. Having to wait three minutes to move on to the next is.
I don't see a downside, really? OMG REST IS OVERPOWERED??? Give me a break.
Not sure why the devs ignored this easy win, but instead wishes to make Praetoria as much of a snoozefest as the rest of the early zones. -
Quote:I agree with mostly everything here. But we've had Vanguard, Cimerorans, Midnighters and PPD (Paragon Police) since the launch of CoV. All kick-butt opponents.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I think what they're doing is trying to set it up so no one AT can trivialize every bit of content it comes across.
From what I've seen, there are things I found easy with one AT that were damn near impossible on another. And then I switched ATs and it was reversed. I definitely feel that is a step in the right direction for the game. I mean, why have one AT (coughbrutescough) that can waltz through anything the game throws at it without even flinching? You have to have missions that are designed to hit the weak point of every AT.
In the game as a whole, not just in Praetoria, how many supposedly difficult missions can a stalker ghost through that other ATs have problems with? Quite a few in my experience. Stealth-ignoring ambushes are about the only thing that really slows stalkers down.
Arachnos, as much as I hate them, are actually a well designed enemy group in that regard. They have something that will be challenging to every AT. Those Fortunatas your stalker laughs at? Yeah, my dominator doesn't think those are so fun. Those Mu that keep faceplanting your corruptor? My dominator makes short work of them.
Since this is really the first time new enemy groups have been designed since CoV came out, it seems they took those lessons they learned from Arachnos and Longbow and expanded them to include mission types designed to give certain ATs problems. I think what they're trying to do is make it so no matter how tough you are, you will run across something that will be difficult or impossible for you to do. -
Quote:Plus 1 H/V merit earns you 5 random rolls which is the equivalent of 100 merits.Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
I would put the value of one HV merit at, or slightly above, 100 reward merits, since 2 HV merits will buy any pool C/D recipe in the game, and several of those are over 200 reward merits.
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Quote:My Widow is a full blown hero and she walks around in her full uniform. I actually enjoy the juxtaposition of this symbol of villainy working in the service of good.Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
With any luck my Fort/Widow will be blue-side this evening as a rogue.
I assume the heroes might make a comment or two. Until they get Mind Linked.
See? Crime DOES pay!
She won't be in her Arachnos garb though, a visit to Serge for a new cossie will be the first thing she does to celebrate. -
Quote:I've found none of the Wardens to be that way at all. Quite the opposite in fact. The Crusaders mostly don't want power, they want Cole and his regime gone and are willing to do whatever is necessary to bring that about.Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
Initially, as someone who is naturally fairly anti-authoritarian, I'd imagined leaning heavily towards the resistance but I find them to be mostly murdering terrorists who'll stop at nothing to get their own way - so no different to Cole or the Loyalist factions in many ways. The only difference is Cole has the power they want.
I haven't found ANYONE in the Resistance to be a person seeking power for their own ends. Some of them are nuts, but revenge is usually their motivation.Quote:But most of my characters in Praetoria have naturally gravitated towards a Loyalist position simply because it seems slightly less wrong (or perhaps more right) than the Resistance and history teaches us that those who overthrow governments for their own ends often come to sticky ends and have to compromise their ideals to maintain power.
As am I. I personally find that there is no redemption in the Responsibility path, but plenty of wiggle room in the Power and Crusader paths. The Warden path is unabashedly heroic.Quote:There may "only" be twenty levels to explore to date but there's a good few hours of RP and exploration to be had and I'm loving every minute of it. -
Quote:Done with a Psi/Fire Blaster. Died plenty. Had a great time. Improved as a player. That's saying something after six years.Originally Posted by Dispari
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.
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Quote:You're putting words in my mouth. I never said "you want to never die." You said that. I offered a statement "Dying sometimes is OK." If you agree with that good. But don't try to strawman me, because I'm not arguing against something I didn't say.Originally Posted by Steel_Shaman
Dying sometimes is not the issue. Why must folks with your argument take everything to extremes? People say "we think some of the mobs are too strong" and you immediately jump to "you want to never die." The two statements are not even close to the same thing.
These mobs are new and we don't instantly, immediately know the best way to deal with them. Why is that bad?Quote:I like a good challenge. But some of the enemies in Praetoria are not just a "good challenge," they're downright brutal. What I personally do not find fun is having to approach every single spawn like it's the end boss of the mission. That gets tedious after a while. I want my characters to occasionally feel moderately strong, y'know?
These mobs appear to be able to deal with the same boring steamrolling that many people use to get through this game. Why is that bad?
These mobs actually may be harder in a full group. Soloers and small teams might have a better chance. I can see why people don't like that one, but isn't it time for some variety?
I disagree. I've played this content with a mezzer (a dom), meleers (brutes/scrappers), and a blaster. It's difficult. It requires being more careful than some enemies groups hero/villain side (not all). You will die if you're not careful and sometimes when you are. I see none of that as bad.Quote:Again, you are confusing people getting frustrated with people wanting easy mode. I doubt anyone posting in this thread wants the game to be a snooze fest. You speak of strategy, but for some AT's certain GR enemies are basically a case of "kill as much as you can, die, come back, repeat". I'm sorry, but that kind of strategy isn't fun.
So you say you don't mind dying and you don't want easy mode. So how hard should it be? How often should an average player expect to be defeated on the way to 20? Is there no space for needing to improve to do better? -
Quote:Could be. Don't recall.Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
Erm...hasn't the reverse happened?
Didn't the ITF get BUFFED thanks to people on test saying that the end boss was laughably easy (He didn't have his nictus support with him in the original test version IIRC), they added in the nictus Kheldian forms boss ambush in the first map after it went live as well IIRC. They also recently made it so you could nolonger single pull the 4 Patrons in the STF, thus increasing the difficulty in general.
I play EQII which is harder actually. So got that covered. I still think there's a middle ground between snore inducing and "uber-elite".Quote:Seriously though Geko, if you want that kind of play, head over to WoW, they have the raid style bosses you want and the uber-elite 'this has to be uber-tough otherwise its not worth it' attitude to go with it.
They are tough, but why resummon minions. Why not run, regroup, hit some lucks, pray, or just die and try again? Masterminds have plenty of advantages, maybe it's good that there's a mob that beat them silly. Perhaps you have to plan for that boss.Quote:I'm sorry but the Destroyer bosses are just that tad overpowered...there is a difference between 'challenge' where there is a struggle to survive and "oh my minions get oneshotted by his AoE footstomp meaning I lose bodyguard mode and he proceeds to wtfpwn my tiny health before I can even resummon minions".
I tested Praetoria on a Psi Blaster. Got beat down PLENTY of times. I'm not uber-elite. I'm decent. I JUST DON'T MIND DYING SOMETIMES. I don't see why that's so hard. You all appear to believe that if you get defeated that it's the game's problem. Why isn't it your problem?Quote:Seriously though why the hell haven't they put in the difficulty selectors, that way the uber-elite "I'm so hardcore!" people like yourself can crank up the difficulty and the rest of us can either tone it done when say soloing a controller or crank it up when on a Brute/Tank/Scrapper. -
Quote:No not at all. I've failed the ITF more than once. I don't much anymore, but I did when I started. The couple of times I've done the LRSF, I've won, but I didn't think they were easy. I think that's a good TF.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I'm guessing you think the Barracuda and Lord Recluse Strike Forces are laughably easy, and anyone that fails the Imperious Task Force should just quit playing. Am I far off the mark?
I don't mind dying and I don't mind failing. I'm not some UBER player. I'm probably average at best.
The difference is that I don't mind being challenged. I don't /ragequit when the game throws something at me that I can't handle instantly. I don't assume that the content is the problem. I try. I improve. I practice until I get better.
You know that thing they teach you in kindergarten.
TRUE STORY: My 5 year old was playing this evening in Atlas with a blaster he created. He got mauled by a spawn he had no business running into. He giggled. He ported to hospital and went back out there. He didn't complain or say it wasn't fair. He just got back into it and tried again.
That's what I'm talking about. Dying sometime, even often, is only a problem if there is no room to improve.
It's not unbeatable. Plenty of people beat Praetoria just as it was. Was there some magical formula? No. They just were a bit more careful and used a bit of skill.Quote:The thing I love the most about this game is that they don't follow the design philosophy of "many MMOs". They follow the philosophy of "the game should be fun". Beating your head against unbeatable content because you have the wrong combination of powers or don't know the perfect, pre-designed tactic for tackling it, is not fun for me, and I suspect it's not fun for most of this game's players.
It doesn't disappoint me. I've made my peace with it. But it does limit the game to sad levels of ease. It means you can't have interesting encounters because people will whine them easy instead of trying.Quote:If you're looking for difficult content with great rewards locked behind it accessible only to the elite few capable of completing it, this game will probably forever disappoint you. But it pleases many other people, and is one of the things that sets this game apart from its competitors. -
Quote:It takes someone an hour to find the flowers that are 5 yards away?Originally Posted by TrueMetal
Are you freaking kidding me?
Angry rants in broadcast don't help build a community and running aimlesly around the zone for over an hour is not fun.
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Quote:They start at 14. But pre-10 you also have Madness Mages which mez, have Fortitude (so they hit more and are harder to hit), and psi damage which almost no one can do much about at pre-10.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
You don't run into Spectrals under level 10. I'm not sure you run into them under level 15, either.
In many MMOs, the best rewards come from the hardest content.Quote:Where did you learn game design, anyway, that you can possibly think this is even remotely good design? Difficulty sliders exist for people like you. Use them, for crying out loud!
Risk/Reward. If Incarnates are supposed to be the ultimate rewards, should they not come from difficult content? -
Quote:Please no. Dying sometimes is OK. We don't have to win all the time.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Thank you. Can we expect other Praetorian groups to get looked at in future patches?
Nowhere near as bad as CoT Spectral Lts.Quote:Resistance members having Defence, for instance, pretty much negates the entire point of the Beginner's Luck buff that was added in. Just looked at the numbers while fighting Wrencher in the tutorial; he has 10% defence, taking my first-level accuracy from 90 down to almost baseline, 80.
If the Syndicate hit too hard, wouldn't the same philosophy suggest that the Resistance avoid too much damage? -
Quote:It should be so hard on base that no one would want to.Originally Posted by LISAR
And at that level you'll be upping the difficulty in Primal Earth so you can do it as hard as you like.
I could call giving audio, visual cues and putting things on the map, and telling people to open the map is bad design. But it's not. It's just a different design. You may not like designs that require you to spend a bit of time figuring things out for yourself, but that doesn't make it bad.Quote:Also those old RPGs where you have to find item with no help and sometimes have to get an online guide to find the one hidden between a chest and a wall to continue the plot, those are badly deisgned objectives. -
Quote:I have no doubt in my mind that it won't be that tough when it releases. Positron might put it on test like that, but I've seen far to many instances of high and low level content being toned down because people complained it was too hard.Originally Posted by Dispari
Supposedly i19 will have your really tough content for vets. Wait a bit.
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Quote:Not every crime and there are dozens of caveats to that. You did say "reasonable action," and in many cases that amounts to calling the cops. The one major place where you're right is that you make use force in defense of others, but you better be DAMN sure know you're in the right.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Even regular citizens have the right to take reasonable action to prevent or stop a crime from being committed. Where their right tends to end is tracking criminals down after the fact and beating the crap out of them.
Bill's example of killing someone attacking a woman. Unless you know the score you can find yourself in prison for a long time.
Basically, the police can't just take the law into their own hands, I'm not sure why everyone else thinks they can. Having defended police officers when they've been accused of going to far, I just have a different perspective than a lot of you. You'd have to be an idiot to be a vigilante like Batman or Superman. City of Heroes did a great job in covering this by creating the fiction that superheroes are deputized and registered.
In fact, one of my villains went to jail precisely because she DIDN'T get her hero card before taking out the folks who killed her fiance.
It gets murkier still. Because you're bulletproof, the amount of force you could exert would probably be less than someone who was not. People would second guess you all the way. As a Blaster it's not much better, let's say you had all the powers in Ice Blast. You could probably go to jail if you killed the guy/gal because you had the non-lethal option of freezing him/her in place.Quote:The interesting problem is that most normal citizens that are victims of a crime or otherwise entangled in one can often reasonably claim that their lives were potentially in danger. If you were bullet proof, say, you couldn't make that claim. You could be standing in a 7-11 while it was being robbed by a man with a bazooka, and at no time could you claim that you had to act to prevent harm to yourself. You could claim to be protecting others, but if there were no others around, it can get weirdly murky as to the legal latitude you have to stop a crime when you aren't personally threatened.
Might be better to be blaster than tanker in the legal sense.
Screw that. If I develop super-powers, I'm becoming an entertainer like Spiderman did, I don't have any uncles!
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Quote:Exactly why they should have left it alone. Best way to build a community is for people to help each other and learn together.Originally Posted by Dispari
One of the biggest questions in broadcast is what to do about this mission.
In some offline and online RPGs, you have to scour and look for items that give you no visual or audio cues that they are there at all. You get a description and that's that.Quote: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.
The trash can mission, which I've done, would no doubt take longer if you had to explore, but what better way to showcase off those gorgeous zones. *Shrug*