Fire_Away

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dr. Aeon View Post
    Hey guys!

    We have been reading people’s feedback regarding the EB’s in Dark Astoria. Right now, we’re planning on leaving them the same. The goal of Dark Astoria was to provide challenging content for solo players and small teams; upgrading these EB’s to be AV’s that scale down, at this point in development, has the risk of causing a number issues that could hamper this experience, which is something we want to avoid. However, we are taking the feedback into consideration for future arcs, so please continue to give us your opinions about this. Thanks!

    Dr. Aeon
    Well said Dr. Aeon. WTG devs for hitting the "sweet spot" for solo and small team incarnate content... just like many of us asked. It feels good actually being an incarnate (as opposed to say getting hit by a rock by some punk civilian and dropping like a stone). Nice to see you recognize that not everyone has a min/max build out of the gate and can go to DA and have fun. I believe you (you guys are the experts and there is no reason not to) that an AV "scale down" could cause problems with my solo play experience this time. Keep up the good work.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion View Post
    I started an SG in late December for some themed characters. Only I am in it. With many alts. Just loading in the final teleporters this week. Blueside, all zones. And I got cheated out of some prestige when I side swapped to get one characters Patron powers and was not in SG mode for like a week of trials and did not realize it. Argh. Always re-SG mode when side switching.

    As far as the post about the Devs not wanting solo SGs? was getting around it for years by having someone invite my alts. (This is not my first solo SG, more like my 7th) Now I have a Free-premium account that I invite through. The Devs keep trying to tell us how to play the game, without looking at how we play the game. Another example. The team up Teleporter. In their minds we would all Queue like good little Praetorians. Completely ignoring the fact that we preform teams for all content on everything we do. Then they look at the player base and are like "You are doing it wrong, thats not the way it is designed to be used." Uh huh. Maybe the Devs should start designing for the real people player base they got instead of that mythical princess player base they have in their imagination.
    I have to agree. My "entering argument" to any debate has always been that CoH is awesome (have played nearly every day for nearly seven years) and that the devs are wonderful, brilliant, and dedicated people (it's hard to meet and talk with them in person and think otherwise). But... I too am convinced they are blowing this one.

    As a result, the competition has trumped them and made greater strides with the concept of in game personal living space. Also, what we do have has become less relevant to the general population of players in a multiplayer format.

    I get the whole "legacy system" and the desire to treat the existing code like it has some kind of disease arguments. I've heard them for years. But it will be interesting to see whether or not a new producer (one with a background in game world design) will bring a new perspective to the table. In my opinion, she should.
  3. Is there any truth to the rumor that there will be a new badge called Super Packer (guy with cheesehead) for buying more than 50 packs? That will surely spur sales.
  4. I'm kind of in hostile territory here (the base construction forum) and I fully expect disagreement with my views below but I'm going to give them anyway along with some clumsy analogies.

    The words "base love" get thrown around a lot. There's universal agreement on the player side that we need "it". But when it comes down to what "it" is (despite our "lists") in terms of what can and should be accomplished, there are many conflicting opinions.

    This happens in the real world too all the time. Both the Endowment for the Arts and Habitat for Humanity want and need resources. I'll tell you up front that I'm a Habitat for Humanity kind of guy. The Pyramids of Egypt have a timeless beauty... but they were built on the backs of slaves and today serve little practical purpose other than tourism and archaeology.

    If you really want an exercise in frustration with the devs don't be an elite basebuilder. No sir. At least those guys get to "ooh and ahhh" over each other's work, receive dev praises/promotion via contests, and organize to push their agenda. Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing... to a point. But for a real sense of frustration try pushing for something for the lowest ranking person in a supergroup and his or her life in an SG or base.

    IMHO the whole supergroup / prestige / base thing has become woefully distorted. The "little guy" out there has either (1) given up, (2) gone his or her own way or (3) submitted (to the hopefully benevolent will of the SG leader). What's left are the elite basebuilder cries for a new exclusive basebuilding system as the definition of "base love". :Sigh:

    IMHO this whole thing needs a shake up. We need to get back to our roots... if it isn't too late already that is. That means supergroup activities, rewards, functionality, convenience, and yes... even decorating... available at the lowest level. If the supergroup concept collapses then the prestige to build super decorative bases should collapse with it.

    I've been accused on more than one occasion of rubbing people the wrong way with these opinions. I've been told to be more diplomatic and patient. I've been told that if I just "go along" with the elite decorators (since they have the "ear of the devs") that eventually the kinds of things I'm looking for will happen. Well... so far... they haven't. It's only getting worse.

    Now back to our regularly scheduled program. A call for a new base editor!
  5. Ok I'm curious. How much work do you think this would be? Who would benefit (be honest... not who could... but who would)? What should be the priority (what doesn't get done to accomplish this)? What's the impact on the play experience of others (servers, instanced missions, etc.)? How much would it contribute to the bottomline? I'm no expert in any of this. But I'd bet real money that the people who are, and are forced to think in these terms... would find a new base system based on the AE "experience" (which isn't Paragon Studios' biggest success story either) would not pass whatever such considerations they use to proceed with development.
  6. Personal lairs - I've always been pro this whenever the subject comes up (and yes the subject has come up often... both with and without the personal prestige angle). Latest dev resistance to the idea is based on the impact on the servers... there are already mumblings/ grumbling on the amount of server storage and instanced impact existing highly decorative bases are having... no real desire to add to the problem with giving "everyone" their own "mini base".

    New base system tied to AE "text" files - I've heard about this too a lot lately and every time I do I scratch my head. Bases and AE are "stovepipe" systems developed at completely different times for completely different purposes. By all accounts this would be a major undertaking. So what's the priority on something like this?... to do what?... more decorating? No thanks. Let's try and do more with what we have.

    Selling prestige on the Paragon Market - That's a new one on me. It seems to me that could help jump start the "low end" of base building. Of course on the "high end" we have a more pressing problem (mountains of prestige and nothing but decorating to spend it on).
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater View Post
    And while a complete overhaul of bases would be great, the return on such an investment makes it highly unattractive. Bases exist to serve three practical purposes: storage, transportation, and (theoretically) content in the form of raids. Everything else is extraneous.
    Yes sir, I have to agree with you there and I note the absence of "decorating" in your statement. Contrary to popular opinion about me and what I am about to say, I'm really not opposed to pinball machines (better textures, clear windows, or anything else) making an appearance in the base editor. That is all well and good. But to even suggest that a complete overhaul of the base building system is needed so that a tiny minority of the player population can make bigger, better, "castles in the sky" may not be the most effective use of resources (and that is the nicest way I can put that).

    We have a real opportunity here. It's great to see both dev and player interest in this topic. Now we (devs and players) need to not blow it. If you ask me (and nobody did but I'm going to give my two inf anyway ) the real focus ought to start, not with a major base editing effort, and not even with more decoration, but with the concept of a supergroup. Specifically, how do you make the lowest ranking member of a supergroup hard earned prestige count more? That said another way is: how do we better integrate bases (edit add: and if not bases then something else prestige/supergroup focused) into CoH gameplay? If we can make strides along those lines first by making bases (or something else) more of a hub of content, convenience, and functionality then we would really be getting somewhere.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum View Post
    What kind of base improvements would you be looking for? I'd wager that "adding new items" to bases (and adding new tilesets) would possibly be the easier changes, since it should be just adding data to existing datasets, but anything else probably would get really wonky really fast.

    Take, for example, trying to make base raids feasible again. Even if all the code issues were addressed, you'd have the issue that, since that idea was conceived, we've allowed base item placement in ways that would be easily exploitable in raids-- to the point that you'd need to either create a validator that would flag a base as "raid-compatible" or not (or invalidate so many of the creative base designs that we have out there.

    So... maybe make bases more of a "social space?" with more interactions with objects (like click-to-sit-on-chairs, etc).... you know... make them something that will get USED more often... well, that runs into one of the other issues with bases- according to Positron, they consume more resources than other instanced maps... and from what I can see via my end, he's right- for many of these bases with staggering numbers of items, it consumes a LOT more resources.

    That's not necessarily bad, but additional resources means additional costs.... and in a FreetoPlay system, you try to stress the opposite- encourage play that takes less resources.

    When you realize the resources that are just used to instantiate an extremely-decorated base just so a character can rez in the base and run out the nearest teleporter, it really does seem to be a ridiculous waste (and I AM one of those people that loves to tinker with ridiculous base settings). I'd half expect them to offer new base enhancements that'll let you use the base teleporters, storage, & medbay without ever entering the base, just to eliminate this drain. Whether that would be seen as a "base improvement" by the people that use bases, though, remains to be seen.
    Good post with several valid points. Since you asked me specifically, I'll respond one last time (this subject is near and dear to my heart but I don't want to threadjack this too much... we can take this to the base construction forum if you wish).

    First off, there are lots of bad consequences from a "systems" perspective with continuing with the status quo. With mounds of prestige piling up with absolutely nothing to spend it on but decorating, nobody should be surprised that mansions of glory have spung up everywhere consuming considerable server resources. Next, add in limited storage capacity and next to nothing in terms of supergroup activities and rewards and people (especially the devs) should expect major growth in solo bases. And, I'm sorry but, it will take more than banning offine sg invites to stem this tide which is another "bad thing" according to the devs. The "do nothing" alternative is not really as attractive as it might first appear.

    I'm going to forego the temptation to list bullets (again) to answer the question of what I'm looking for. Suffice to say that has been done many times over... mostly to no avail (although many of the included ideas are quite good; see base construction forum stickies). Ultimately, what I'm really looking for is a change in mindset. I'm looking for a dev that won't do "the pained eye roll" every time you mention bases face to face. I'm looking for a dev that can look beyond liability and see opportunity. I'm looking for a dev that sees that supergroups tie in very nicely to the lore of comics in general and can tie in nicely to the lore of this game. There once was such a "vision". But it's been warped by players after being largely abandoned by the devs. I'm looking for it to come back. Will it? I dunno.

    And with that, I'm out.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
    We add to SG bases as time allows. over the last 2 Issues we've made some decent QOL improvements (More easily manipulation of objects in the designer and increased nodes on the telepads) and we'll most likely do more as we're able to.

    When it comes to bases we tread very lightly. It's a legacy system which takes a significant amount of time to reverse engineer any time we want to do *anything* to it. Because player bases are tied to it, and subsequenty a significant investment of your time, anything we do is going to be done in a methodical and cautious manner.
    Any more methodical and cautious and rigor mortis would set in. Truth be told, I thought base improvements were pretty much dead until these last two QoL items happened. Any way to maintain the recent momentum?
  10. Compared to the winter and especially the fall event this is way lower on the fun scale. Started out getting sent to the Ski Lodge door for a mission which I could not enter. Then got hung with the Botched Ritual nerf for almost a day. Then it was a do over for the co-op mission. Then got a bunch a v-card drops I could not deliver anywhere because of my alignment.

    Not a rant but... this needs a rethink if the goal is to put it on par with other holiday events.
  11. I'll try to help. I'd like to see a lot more fear, groveling, and hopelessness from the general public as a villain. Surely that could be written in more into villain events somehow. By the time you reach Incarnate stage you should be viewed as the ruthless master of some kind of domain. Instead we have some punk regular guy picking up a rock at the TPN and you go into an immediate face plant. What's up with that?
  12. I'm for anything that makes bases more fun and functional for supergroup members. If the devs are so bent on this idea of "multi player content" (and they sure seem to be) for bases then it would be nice if they did something to foster that. The only and closest thing we have is the current CoP and it isn't really an SG activity with SG rewards any longer.

    I took a survey at the last player summit where they asked what was my favorite thing about CoH. My response was "Doing stuff with my SG... and the fact that you have done little to promote or encourage that makes me cry."
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Roderick View Post
    According to a response in the Freedom Friday Facebook posting a couple weeks ago, the issue with player housing is server storage space. Each player apartment would take up comparable room to a base, but instead of having one for almost every Supergroup, you'd have one for almost every player.
    I've heard this inferred from other sources.

    Quote:
    I don't think I've ever seen a definitive "No", but I've seen several firm redname responses that basically boiled down to "Don't hold your breath".
    Avoiding a cheap shot here on the time it takes for base related development ivo recent events like xyz placement and better teleporters.

    Quote:
    I wouldn't complain about housing becoming an option though.
    Me neither. It's high on my wish list too.
  14. I have a related question. Do Incarnate to hit debuff powers effect each other? If I have an Alpha Intuition Radial Paragon that includes a 20% to hit debuff, will that apply to Diamagnetic to hit debuff? If so how (does the 20% increase mean the to hit debuff goes from 5% to 6% or 5% to 25%)?
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Codewalker View Post
    This, along with all the quotes above about using Storm powers, just goes to show how much controllers get shafted on Incarnate trials. Think about it, the answer to "What do I do in trials?" is consistently "Use your secondary".

    What does that say about the primary powers?

    Okay, so that's not completely true. Controllers are useful against the regular spawns in trials that have them. They're probably most useful in Underground due to the sheer length and number of enemies.

    However, a significant amount of time in all iTrials is spent fighting AVs that are completely immune to all control effects -- i.e. your entire primary powerset. They're also immune to recharge debuffs, which is unfair to Ice-based powersets, but that's another matter.

    BAF is worse due to one of the phases having Lieutenants that are highly resistant to controls. Contrary to popular belief, they're not immune, and can be overcome if you manage to stack a mag 50 hold or stun on them. However, it's much easier to just kill them, and BAF is so easy in general that it hardly matters. So again, use your secondary!

    BAF also has adds that ambush you during the AV fights. You might think that Controllers would be useful there, except that the adds are designed to get a stacking buff. If you just control them and don't kill them, they'll eventually break free and overwhelm everyone.

    It's bad enough that in Issue 22, Controllers are being given automatic Containment on trial bosses. So yay, more damage, but really it's just a band aid for the fact that the devs have absolutely no idea how to balance Controllers in endgame content.

    Dominators, you're in the same boat. You have attacks, and damage is the best thing you have to offer in an Incarnate trial, so the message is clear: use your secondary.
    I guess the grass is always greener... I really don't have an issue with this any longer.

    The truth be told, when it comes to itrials, there are times when the Tanker can't be a meat shield, when a Scrapper can't go into scrapperlock, and when a Blaster's AoE is just about the worse thing you want to do. In general, there will come a time when (pick your AT) should not use at least something in their primary "toolbox".

    So yeah, I've accepted that you are going to have to use secondaries, available incarnate powers, and team buffs/debuffs to up your chances for success in itrials. If you consider that a bad thing then itrials probably are not the thing for you.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Impish Kat View Post
    I understand they will cost more in prestige, but have they left eng/ctrl costs the same?
    .
    The Hacked Teleporter and the Basic Teleporter look the same (to me anyway). They use the same energy and control (50 and 25 respectively). The differences are six destinations vice two and a placement cost of 22500 vice 15000.

    I was still unable to make beacons to the "opposite side" (for example to blue only zones from a villain base).

    The Pocket D beacon looked nice and I heard the Grandville one was fixed too.

    All I know so far.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
    Well, apparently the CC tool doesn't work. So they evidently don't want this tested by anyone.
    Lol, my New Year's resolution on this base stuff was to be more grateful, hopeful, and patient. But I gotta admit, it hasn't been easy... both in terms of the long wait for development and the hopefully short wait for character copy so I can to convert inf to prestige for testing in beta.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kheprera View Post
    Where is this announcement? Oh the joy!
    I know huh? This is wonderful!
  19. As primarily a soloist with an incarnate Stalker and a long time advocate of functional improvements for bases and a short term interest in improving the team up teleporter, I'll say without hesitation I'm very jazzed about I22. Great stuff devs!
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
    Believe what you want. The devs aren't afraid of the big bad solo SG boogeyman. Posi isn't losing any sleep because there might be a solo SG hiding under his bed and it might get him if his night light goes out.
    Ok I'm out. If you can't believe a direct, in person, eyeball to eyeball contact direct question and answer backed up by post summit video evidence then I guess we have no common ground. Wow... just wow. Yeah, in this case, I will believe what I want to believe regardless of your input. Thanks and see ya.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
    Please feel free to believe whatever you want. It isn't going to change the actual facts. The devs aren't afraid of Solo SG's. If they were it would have been ridiculously easy for them to simply code it so we could only have one character per account in an SG.

    No they always intended to let us have multiple characters in our SG's, but they also intended for SG's to be group oriented content.
    Tell you what... I was there at the last summit. And just for the heck of it, today I listened (again) to the Q & A on the topic of inviting alts to SGs and Posi's response on the subject. I recommend you give that a shot... then tell me again believe what I want.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
    No it isn't, since the devs have gone on record saying that if they were to add such a feature they would specifically block us from being able to send invites to our own characters.
    LOL, this is a lost cause that should be abandoned. In today's world of f2p account creation (with Paragon Market spending providing the necessary token vet reward level), 99 cent sales with one month VIP type access, and the use of proxies (other players) they aren't going to be able to determine whether the net effect is I have SG invited one of my own characters or not (now or with offline invites). And I believe that this result rubs the devs the wrong way and fuels their fear of too many solo SGs comprised of just one player and multiple alts. That, in turn, is hurting the implementation of the feature. I'll stick by what I said before.

    Time to eliminate the silliness and go with a straight offline SG invite system of inviting yourself or whomever you like.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rodion View Post
    One does not need to ascribe arrogance or stupidity or even greed to Positron to understand why emailed SG invites would be extremely low on his priority list. They have thousands of other things on their to-do list that will draw in a lot more customers than solo SGs will, and we can already do it ourselves with a minimum of effort and expense.
    You can say this about pretty close to any QoL feature proposed for the game. Tell me what you would like to happen QoL-wise in game that I could care less about and I'll be at the ready with the above comment.

    What we are really talking about here is offline SG invites for everybody... not solo bases. Solo bases is just the latest (IMHO poor) rationale for not doing it. I know from personal experience that this gets a lot of "air play" in terms of requests from the player community (hits the forums often and gets mentioned at many dev/player gatherings; including the last one). That in and of itself merits consideration... if the devs are indeed listening to the desires of the playerbase over personal bias.
  24. You know... maybe I'm the only person who was at the summit who felt this way but... it sure seemed to me that there were serious concerns on the dev side about doing ANYTHING (customized pets, female pets, you name it) that had the potential of dramatically increasing the MM population in game near term. This is the the whole "one MM with six pets equals the server impact of seven players and the need to consider the effects on the play experience of others" argument. Let's say, for the moment, that female pets would be as wildly popular as many have implied. Would that mean Lag City for all of us?

    BTW, for the record, I'm not opposed to female pets per se personally, the above is just my take on part of what the devs had to say on the subject (and yes worries about 'abuse' of female pets was mentioned as another possible issue).
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
    Still hoping the devs will change their minds on this tho.
    Me too. One of the mantras that came out of the November summit (both before and after Posi's comment on solo bases) was "If enough players express an interest in something we will listen and try to deliver". So I figure it doesn't hurt to keep asking. I think that one reason we will eventually see things like revamped zones (e.g., what's coming for Dark Astoria) ... is that lots of players requested that.

    FWIW here's what I read into Posi's comments: Bases act like instanced missions and if "everyone (or too many folks)" makes a base with just themselves and their alts it could present server load problems.

    What gets me with that reasoning is: Ok but you did reduce pricing and, at the same time, eliminated SG unique activities and rewards (there really aren't many advantages to being in a multi person SG... other than social; which can be had by other means such as global channels). What were you expecting to happen if it wasn't a rise in solo bases? Also, today lots of the bigger SGs have oodles of prestige and nothing to spend it on.

    Bottomline is offline SG invites should happen anyway.