Jack_NoMind

This isn't a suggestion I make lightly, as I have some sense of the amount of work involved, and an appreciation for its effect to control combat.

But I've been playing other games -- console games and "lightweight" MMOs -- lately, and attack rooting just isn't fun. I mean, nothing else thus far offers the comprehensive benefits package that is CoX, but I do feel like parts of the game could stand to be made more fun.

Now, sometimes I think rooting might be appropriate. For certain attacks, including sniper blasts, most melee PBAoE clicks, summons, and possibly a few other "heavy" moves, it's mechanically and thematically appropriate. But for just run of the mill slashes and fire blasts, it feels clunky and detracts from the fun of full 3d movement.

This also isn't, by the way, an advocacy of removing movement suppression. I might recommend that also, but that's a much longer and very separate thing.

I'm hardly the first person to suggest this, and I'm not sure I can evolve the discussion past the rudimentary "I want" vs "too much work" stage it's languished in. But here's trying, anyway.

Eh. Static programs with clear goals and finite length and complexity can be fully debugged. It's just, the effort to do so rises linearly as length increases, and multiplicatively as complexity does... and you may need to build a dedicated machine and OS to run the final product on.

But my "Hello World!" runs great!

Some initial problems:

Creating the skeletons for new monsters is a lot of work. Even now, five years into the game, we still don't have so much as stray cats and dogs roaming the city.

How does this tie in to the superhero genre? There are plenty of games in which players control fantasy heroes, including beast tamers or monstrous warriors. What grounds this in City of Heroes?

You say this is after "all the bugs have been fixed." But that isn't something likely ever to happen. With any constantly-evolving game like an MMO, there will always be more bugs.

Would these characters be able to participate in PvP? It sounds from the description like you're talking about RvR combat (Realm vs Realm); when you say these characters are more powerful than most heroes and villains, why would anyone ever bother trying to fight them?

Why do these monster characters deserve their own archetypes, much less faction? There are plenty of monster-like heroes and villains.

I figured they just meant that it belongs only to a Kheldian.

And by "figured" I mean, "killed my internal rant by allowing."

Er... why is this thread still running?

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Small request to have Street Fighting be called Fist Fighting.

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How about "Brawling"?

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Animal Taming isn't likely because it would require construction of entirely new skeletons and suites of animations.

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Wah wah wah. It's been five years. Bite the bullet and give us cats and dogs. =P

That aside, Posi mentioned in an interview I15 was supposed to be content-focused, so I'd more expect base improvements, new zones, and the like. If there are "new" sets, they'll probably be proliferations.

IIRC, or, "If I Recall Correctly" -- not Internet Relay Chat.

And of course, that immediately makes me think of this...

I mostly don't like heavy-handed restrictions on where people can and can't place mobs and which ones they can and can't place in MA. It limits potential for legitimate users.

2 (the first part) is probably the only one of the first three I could really get behind, but I don't think it would eliminate farming so much as help add back in some of the risk factor that makes AE farms preferable to contact arc farms. I wouldn't mind having a third power pool choice for creatures that contained powers similar to the melee EPPs. The difficulty slider could be retained for that, but even "Easy" would allow at least one ranged attack.

4 and 5 are perfectly reasonable -- I actually wasn't aware 4 was not already the case. 5 is a bit of a technical hurdle, however.

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Not sure if they would add any more to Science (Cyborg), since you already got what you paid for. I am sure Cyborg is science since it is science fiction, half man half robot. Tech would be like gadgets and stuff. But the others I like!

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To add on to Blackavaar's comment: Using gadgets and tools is more of a Natural thing. It's kind of a fine line, but basically anything James Bond would get from Q is in line with Natural, whereas a suit of power armor, cyborg implants, or an antimatter gun is Tech. Science is mostly chemicals, radiation, or drugs -- Captain America, The Elongated Man, and The Fantastic Four are all examples of Science origin heroes.

Freeze rays and time control might be SCIENCE!, but sadly, we lack that origin. ;p

So, we've seen quite a few "remove rewards from MA!" suggestions, and now there's even a "remove MA!" suggestion. Here are some of the ideas I've seen or come up with which strike me as somewhat more reasonable, and some arguments for or against them:

<ul type="square">[*]Flatly reduce experience and influence gain in AE arcs for all non-DC (or HoF?) arcs by a percentage. Since there is no QC process, an adequately datamined percentage would serve to ensure that new arcs don't exceed statistical norms.

I don't actually think this idea would accomplish quite what it intends. It punishes arcs which aren't attempting to maximize rewards, and merely encourages people who are trying to game the system to squeeze out every last drop. It's a reasonable idea, but not one of my favorites.
[*]Reduce rewards on all new (2 weeks or less?) arcs by a flat percentage. Arcs which are obviously exploit-minded should be removed by then, allowing the legitimate ones to recover their full rewards. OR reduce rewards on an arc until it achieves a certain number of ratings (20? 50?) -- sort of a mini-HoF status.

These similar ideas are better than the first one, but each has a flaw. The first is that many arcs are hardly examined -- give the arc no interesting keywords, and if nobody happens to review it while it's still brand-new, odds are it'll never get looked at. Still, this sort of arc would only be feasible for the author's own use or that of a few friends.

For the second, it's kind of the same problem, even if a little turned-around. Offering 1 mil to newbies for joining, then quitting an arc and rating it and leaving a comment with their name (so you know they actually were the ones doing the rating) is already a tactic used to generate some rating values. For a lucrative enough arc, this might be profitable enough to be worthwhile.

Still, both of these suggestions seem like overall improvements on the existing system... I just don't find them quite ideal.
[*]Eliminate influence (and prestige?) gain from AE arcs. They don't make any sense thematically, given that the arcs are 'virtual simulations,' and the lack of either would significantly reduce incentives to farm an arc for any purpose other than levelling or generating salvage (via tickets).

I'm kinda torn on this one. I don't like it, but I think it would work, and the presence of architect tickets means that characters would still be able to acquire the SOs they need to level 1-50 in AE content only (which was a stated design goal). I think it's too draconian for the issue at hand, but even the idea of simply reducing inf and prestige seems somehow out of place to me. So it's on the list, and I acknowledge that reducing inf (and prestige?) would probably make an impact on AE farming, but with reservations on my part.
[*]Provide diminishing returns per arc per account (per timeframe? with cut-ins or cut-offs?).

There are a few varieties of this suggestion floating around, and it's the one I suspect is most likely to be ultimately implemented. Basically the key concept is that all rewards in AE arcs will be a little bit like merits from TFs/SFs/Trials -- do the arc too much, and you get less from it. It's probably the most mild of the potential changes, but consequently does the least to discourage farming; creating three five-mission arcs that are reward-saturated by don't cross quite into the line of statistical exploit is perfectly feasible for any individual, and will likely occur on a slow-enough rotation to compensate for most diminishing rewards timers. If the diminishing rewards are permanent (running the arc 10 times reduces its total rewards by X percent for all future runs), rather than on a timer, you create more problems but not more solutions. For instance, are the runs tracked by account or by character? Most AE tracking is done on an account basis, it seems, and I've certainly run the Praetorian arcs (not to mention the sewers, hah!) dozens of times over all of my characters. Should AE content be less enduring? Yet even with such a drawback, unpublishing, altering, and republishing farming missions seems like an easy way to avoid the penalty. Too much loss for no gain.[/list]
Of all the above, #2 is my favorite, while I think a variation on #3 would be the most effective. I think there's probably a combination of #2, #3, and #4 that would be the best overall solution -- the goal being minimizing the exploit-like use of AE content while providing little or no change to users engaging in intended behavior.

I'm sure some people have generated reasonable suggestions (for values of 'reasonable' I agree with -- anything that reads like "nuke it from orbit" would need an awful lot of statistical work done to convince me it was truly the best course of action) I've missed. Feel free to link me to or repost them here in the discussion!

Oh, and, hey, just a tip to anyone inclined to opine that AE is "working as intended" -- it's doubtful that that's the case. I think a lot of the more extreme suggestions are largely reactionary to the new content dominating player attention, but the sad truth of the matter is that AE does currently enable relatively trivial rewards maximization to time and risk minimization... and there's probably no way to adjust this (without gutting the system for more legitimate users) by simply adjusting spawn rules and the like.

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Well, now - I'm curious, before this turns into a flame war... How much experience do you think I have?

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I'd guess 1-3 years with MMOs, a few months with CoH.

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Does lack or posession of experience thereof qualify me to have a opinion and post it about what I think is a sincere problem?

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Am I unqualified to opine to you that your opinion is incorrect? Are statements of fact or consensus (eg: "the second 50 has always been easier") irrelevant to your re-assessment of your opinions?

Don't bait, it's unbecoming.

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I think that, having been a part of RPG's for about 30 years qualifies me to know something about game balance and how it can be tweaked.

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Absolutely. For PnP. This is a different ball game.

You wanna whip 'em out, fine; we'll compare resumes sometime. I don't think you'll come out ahead.

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I have played and run publicly and privately. Feedback is always forthcoming, and the developers are as mortal as you and I - sometimes they appreciate a good suggestion.

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The low incidence of 'good' suggestions is part of why this forum is in the "for fun" section of the board rather than the "feedback" section.

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That having been said, it is my sincere and informed opinion that the AE system **as it is** is harmful to the balance of the game. The solutions I have presented were a collaborative effort with 3 other (casual) players, who don't want to become forum members - they just want to play. So, don't think of my first post as being an ill-thought out, feeble attempt to make others conform. Consider it a playtesting group who threw out the unreasonable suggestions and useless rants, came up with the cream list, and is offering it up for consideration.

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Okay. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from that. Weight of numbers? ...How large do you think the beta test group was?

I'm not sure which I find more insulting -- the alluded-to idea that of all the hundreds of experienced gamers who beta-tested i14, none of them came up with the ideas you did... or the part where you ignored me saying I was objecting to your complaints as uninformed, not your suggestions (save the accolade one. Where I explained my objection).

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Goetikmagus, I'll be blunt. I don't think you have the experience as a CoH player to be making the complaints you are.

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I think the complaints indicate either a reactionary attitude or a lack of long-term experience with the game, and his forum join date inclines me to surmise the latter.

To clarify, it's the *complaints* that seem illegitimate to me -- I don't like the suggestions, but the only one with critical problems was the one I commented on.

Goetikmagus, I'll be blunt. I don't think you have the experience as a CoH player to be making the complaints you are. The second 50 is always easier, it's been that way since the days that 16-28 was a hellish grind. If you're not making money on rare salvage, try uncommon (or even common rolls. They're far more lucrative than people seem to realize).

Accolades are farmable. In fact, many accolade badges are gained almost exclusively through farming (Unveiler being a big example). And any rewards they offer to non-farming players will be almost exactly as valuable to farmers... the question isn't "normal vs farming," it's "casual vs high-end." Casual players will not likely end up with (m)any accolades (even if many are available), but high-end players are likely to end up with all of them. Even aside from Kheldians (which are exactly blaster-tanks), there are plenty of high-end Blaster builds which can tank. Making it easier for them to do so simply widens the divide.

I'm thinking Turkish, personally.

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Until you factor in easily obtainable,

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renewable flight powers like Raptor Packs, the GvE Jump Pack, Shard Packs, etc.

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Suddenly the Super Speeder is clearing obstacles with

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leaving the Flyer

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I'm not intrinsically opposed to the idea of semi-normalizing the speed caps, but that stuff above is really just hyperbole. Speaking as someone who has used both Flight and the temp powers extensively, Fly, when slotted, is much faster than an SSer using one of the temp packs.

And Fly offers plenty of utility for melee. About half of my Scrappers fly or are planned for flight. Conversely, my only Blaster dual builds with TP and SS, and my highest-level Defender uses SJ.

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Now you're asking for something to dump your money into that may or may not have any sort of function/benefit?

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No, she's asking for something that is, ideally, *extremely expensive* for people in general to dump their money into that has no benefit whatsoever.

If you've ever had that feeling that you're not getting a joke everyone else is in on, are you having it now? Because it's not a joke, but the principle's the same.

Edit: Clarity: Post is directed at socioalchemist.

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The important fact is not that you have stereotypes, it's that you don't judge every individual as per the connotations involved with these.

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Judging my judgment...

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That seems like if you say, "two plus two equals five!" and someone else comes along and says, "No, you're adding wrong. Two plus two equals four," and your rebuttal was, "Ha-ha! Your answer uses arithmetic too!"

Y' may have missed the point a little.

No, it's...

Okay, so, when you extract a term from its original context and use it metaphorically, it can embrace a wider spectrum of meaning than it did originally. It's like if you were to call something "like Pokemon," even if in fact you it was a game about collecting dresses and having dress competitions rather than collecting pocket monsters and breeding them.

Anyway, on the subject:

Sure, whatever. While I'm dubious about the long-term benefit of any kind of inf sink, it can't really hurt anything unless it's done with spectacular stupidity or misfortune.

The issue is that adding whatever it is that's added for this stuff is still work, and so saying, "Add a whole bunch of new hat/hair options to the game and a barber shop!" isn't going to get in any faster even if the preface is, "We need inf sinks, so..."

But hey, as long as we're wishlisting... my vote for "white elephant"? New craftable decorative base items. Maybe even new craftable base themes. *fingers crossed for I15, a "content issue."*

Sarcasm aside, I agree. The patch notes are slow and incomplete -- sometimes it's like pulling teeth to find out what's actually changed.

I realize this is a period of transition, with Ex leaving and all, but I do hope the new CM gets up and on the ball (ideally, more on the ball on this issue than has been the case in the recent past, no disrespect to Ex's fabulous job as an organizer and otherwise) quickly.

I'd say ninja (plural of ninja: ninja) are substantially more ethnic -- deriving only from a single, very small nation -- than turbans, which are used in a geographic range stretching across much of East Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Or were you meaning to suggest you automatically associate turbans with people of middle eastern descent?

Edit: Forgive me a short rant here, but you know, that really irks me. The best way to promote fear of something is to segregate it. There's nothing wrong with making fun of someone, or being made fun of -- those are natural parts of integration. I understand that some things are just too dear to some people to be allowed into the public forum willy-nilly, but Eris forbid that one of them is a hat. And besides, if you want to kill a joke? Repeat it until everyone's heard it.

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Granted, the market is player-driven with supply and demand, but I would like to see the devs flood the market for a while to help stabilze prices.

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They already did.

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In some way, I kinda like the old CoH as there were no items, and inf was just used for buying new costumes. The only farms were xp farms. Now, the game is completely different.

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Yeah. I feel like overall, Inventions made the game more interesting, but they also made it much much different than it was at launch. I would put the MA on the same scale as far as change goes.

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How about international style pack that involve with indian hair, indian hat,

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Like... a turban? I don't think I understand.

Well, two things here anyway: First, you should put all costume suggestions, even Super Booster ideas, over in SexyJ's Costume Request Thread to ensure that he (SexyJ, the guy primarily responsible for costume design) will take a look at them.

Second, the first five super boosters are going to be origin-themed. We've had Tech and Magic, so coming up next are Natural, Science, and Mutant. So that's not to say there won't be more later, but those are the first few and will probably take another year or so to get fully released.