Furio

Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA

I've just read the first 2 in a week and a half, so this is my plan now, at least so I can get to bed before 1:30 and get some sleep. I need a few weeks off (but will probably end up weakening as I pass a bookshop on my way home).


I started reading when I was about 7 episodes in and being able to visualize the characters saying the lines is a great help, especially when you're faced with so many of them.

Originally Posted by Stealth_Bomber

Ok, then I want a zipline like Bats or Spidey. I don't care if it doesn't attach to anything in half the zones, I still want it!

Originally Posted by Texas Justice

There are quite a few people I know that refuse to install the crapware Steam Client on their computers. Oddly, all are computer technicians that have had to remove some really nasty malware from multiple computers.

EDIT: It seems rather ridiculous to require the installation of the Steam Client just to be able to claim a game code to apply to an existing game account that isn't accessed through Steam.

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

Here is the rub on this. Very few people are particularly upset that trials were added to the game. I actually enjoy the trials on their own merits outside of the reward system. But I feel that basing an entire, unique reward structure on trials is a huge misstep.

Compare the trials to TFs. TFs exist in the background. You can do them if you want to; they are always there. But they are not a leveling structure in themselves. And we have certainly never had a situation where running the STF, ITF and Dr Q over and over was the path to a huge boost in power and told, "don't worry, we don't have the resources to release the whole system at once, but Khan, Apex and Tin Mage are coming soon!"

Some people are going to frame this as a "if you are a real fan, you'd power though the lack of content without complaints." Unfortunately, being bored is a healthy reason to stop playing a game. I did this exact thing to this game's competitors. And playing a game anyway isn't a sign of "maturity" as some people have put it, it's a sign of addiction. So I play other games here and there and work on personal projects and hope this one gets fixed. I use the word "fixed" because I don't consider this just a lack of content issue. It's broken because the whole system hinges on content that can't be delivered, when that never needed to be the case.

I do still like this game and respect its developers. This is not the same as agreeing with where this game is going or making a promise to continue sending it money.

Originally Posted by Spectral_Hunter

Again I think this is where we differ on what we consider the end game. You are saying the end game is multi-team trials. I'm saying end game is the ability to continue to progress your character. Could it be that people quit because in the past they hit 50 and could no longer progress their character? Could it be that players are so conditioned to raiding that they automatically equate character progression with raiding even though it doesn't have to be that way?

Let me make this clear. The devs should make trials. But I am saying that should not be the focal point of their end game.

Originally Posted by Spectral_Hunter

You made some great observations.

Trials aren't inherently better than solo or small group content. If it were, they would stand on their own merits. They wouldn't need to reward people with better stuff. That's also not saying there are people who truly do enjoy running trials. But even that I think is secondary.

The primary goal for the vast majority of players is to be able to progress their characters at a reasonable pace. Thats why people always predominantly take the path of least resistance. Soloing, grouping, raiding is just a means to the ultimate goal. Sure people have preferences but in the end most players generally want the same thing.

The idea of trials isn't inherently better but I think I understand why devs go that route. We all know of someone who sticks around a game only because their friends play it. If a player is invested in the game community, they are less likely to quit. So the popular method is devising end content that "forces" players to play together hoping by doing so, it will foster community.

The problem with CoH is, historically the game wasn't designed that way. It was designed to let players play as they wished and afforded them ways to progress in multiple ways. Again I don't see the rationalization of altering how the game functioned after seven years. If this game were like that game with night elves, it'd be different since that game from the onset made it clear the endgame is raiding.

And like you said at the end, with a smaller population, isn't it more viable for CoH to continue to provide end game content for those who don't want to run trials?

Originally Posted by Anti_Proton

I like where your vision is pointed.

Originally Posted by Lily Inverse

As I understand it, the reason behind not allowing cross-side bases is mostly technical - the system makes an assumption that every character is a Hero or Villain, and this assumption is tightly woven into the base system.

IE, from the base system's perspective, there are no "rogues" or "vigilantes", just "villains" or "heroes" with an extra tag that means nothing. And that changing this requires throwing out the entire base system and starting again from scratch.

Not impossible, but not something that will happen except as part of a major upgrade to the system.

Originally Posted by reiella

Eh, in Lambda I tend to agree. But my runs with BAF have shown a problem to me. Not sure why it's occuring, but I'm getting significantly less iXP per run than before. 2% per run is a bit harsh. Especially when I'm getting around 7 to 11% with Lam [which I do understand gives more ixp typically, but not that much more]. Haven't done KIR with that character so I dunno if it's unique to baf or 3party groups, but I think there's something off going on with the iXP share.

Originally Posted by rsclark

I certainly think the next content out needs to be 1-8, but just as a multi-team trial represents a different type of challenge, a max 4 trial would do the same. It is no more exclusive than the current trial content is.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

By virtue of that being almost exclusively what we've gotten since Incarnates came to the scene. If Matt Miller's explanation had held water, we'd have seen at least a comparable amount of non-Incarnate content being developed, but this hasn't happened. Now, again, this may be a case of most of the studio working on Freedom content so there being few people left, but we were promised the game wouldn't focus on end game all of a sudden, and it has.

This isn't about patience or preference or accusations. It's about the simple fact that one of the developer-stated problems and reasons they didn't want to do end game content to begin with has happened exactly as Jack Emmert and Matt Miller predicted it back in 2004, and Matt Miller's promised solution to that problem hasn't worked.

Also, the mere fact that they delayed Going Rogue, then launched it without End Game and had to wait a whole other Issue to so much as add it, and then wait a half-issue to add to it tells me that there's a hell of a lot more work involved with Incarnate than anyone cares to admit and, quite possibly, than anyone expected. They've blown several soft deadlines already, and the first couple of months after Going Rogue release were spent with people demanding their end game that they paid money for.

I'm more than positive that Paragon Studios bit off more than they could chew, and the small amount of content that gives Incarnate rewards is proof positive of that.

Originally Posted by Rock_Powerfist

Clearly there is a problem with change, hence this thread. Some peolpe played pre Itrials CoX because it didnt require you to do raid sized content to get at thing. This has now changed, what are these folk now meant to do ? given that they havent changed.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

When Matt Miller talked about Incarnates when he stepped down as Lead Designer of City of Heroes and promoted Melissa Bianco in his place, he talked about leading a separate design team which would work exclusively on the end game system. He said this both to reassure us that development on Incarnates won't eat into development of everything else (a statement proven false on its face, eventually) and so that they could have creative freedom to design something truly spectacular and groundbreaking.

Originally Posted by Arilou

Actually yeah, we did. Not you, but lots of people kept going on and on and on about it.

Originally Posted by StratoNexus

We didn't have raids (outside of the two you mentioned). But the STF, LRSF, LGTF, Kahn, Faathim, Sara Moore, and ITF were to varying degrees different from regular content and amny people seemed to consider them enjoyable enough to repeat. Apex and Tin Mage seemed workable. Adding a greater variety of task forces could have been plausible. OTOH, I do know a lot of peeps were interested in raids too, I just did not expect raids to the exclusion of lvl 50 task forces.

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

I'm not asking for a standard difficulty path. I fully expect higher difficulty. However, AVs are essentially a gear check. Either you can kill it before it kills you or you can't. Even if you can, it's pretty boring. I would hope that Incarnate content would present an actual challenge besides "can you beat down this giant sack of HP."

Originally Posted by StratoNexus

Why large scale team stuff? Is it not possible to design 4 to 8 man team content with incarnates in mind? Are the rewards limited to raids solely because if they were not, people would avoid the raids? When these supposed people left and filled out the form saying they wanted more end game stuff, did they mean raids or would they have been fine with lots of interesting level 50 task forces?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

They are not solo standard content within the definition of standard content difficulty. However, while asking for a soloable path to at least some incarnate progress is likely asking for the eventual, asking for a solo standard content difficulty path to reasonably efficient incarnate progress is asking for the incredibly unlikely.

Originally Posted by Black Zot

Just throwing the following baseline out as a suggestion:

Given a mission designed for soloing (ie you can start it and get credit for all objectives while you are not teamed with any other character), the mission should be feasible to complete with any AT at +0/x1.

"Feasible", in this case, would mean you can go in with SOs and maybe a handful of generic IOs and not find yourself pitted against spawns you are mathematically unable to take down without dying or chugging multiple inspirations.

Originally Posted by Pacur

The line of reasoning int he first part is just splitting hairs. I already said that singling out a single power and using it as an example of all the others, is not good logic, the same way if I held out pixels and used it as a yardstick.

Also, I've said numerous times about my feelings on them being not flashy. Choosing to ignore my answers, and asking the same question again and again and again is a logical pretzel in itself.