Slashman

I'm not even sure how I should respond to this part. I feel like I should say something...but...I just don't know what!

This! I was on a Freedom Force high and looking for more superhero computer gaming...

Needless to say, there wasn't very much of that going around. Then I started to see previews of COH popping up and saw some articles on Gamespy etc.

I jumped in from Issue 1 and have been here pretty much ever since. Took a long break right when ED and GDN came around and came back after COV had been out for a while.

It's still no Freedom Force of course. It's less limited in certain ways than FF but very limited in other ways when compared.

Still...there certainly isn't anything else out there that has come even close in years. So until something does...make mine Paragon! Or something...

Apparently, that wasn't quite fun enough...

Hey! Ninjas aren't mythical! Well...maybe the Oni...

You might be surprised. I know of several people with insanely crappy computers who have not upgraded.

It's an incomprehensible thing to me, but then again I play so many other games on my PC that if I didn't have a halfway decent box, I simply could not play them.

Some folks reason that they only play COX...so 'just barely enough' is perfectly fine. I guess its an MMO gamer thing.

Non-existent because fly and sprint are things you turn on and off(toggles).

Swift and Hurdle are always there.

Ok...so it's ridiculous to consider it a negative in your book because you always want them on every toon. Some people don't. How is this any different from the minority of people who don't like a certain dish that most people will gladly eat often?

Not everyone will like or want the same things. And to be fair, I don't think people who are objecting to swift or hurdle are saying they don't want stamina or the fitness pool to be inherent, they just want the ability to opt out of one or more of those powers as they see fit. Whether it is for ease of play for people who have trouble controlling toons(a small number I will probably admit), or whether it is for purely concept reasons...that does not invalidate their desire.

People are as free to not want swift or hurdle as they are to greatly desire them for their toons. I actually think the sensible middle ground is to make the powers all opt in. Or at the very least...keep stamina inherent(since this is really what this change is about anyway), and make the remaining 3 powers reject-able.

The fitness pool has mostly always been about getting stamina. Its the pot of gold at the end of a mostly-boring three power rainbow. Now making the pool inherent and freeing up those extra 3 power slots is a great thing, but I am pretty sure that stamina is the focal point of this change. As it should be.

Unless the devs come out and say that making the fitness pool completely opt-in is an impossibility or that it would take up too many resources to do, I don't know why people would get upset that someone might not want swift or hurdle. These are, arguably, the same people who will get up in arms anytime someone tells them that they are not playing the game the way they should be. I smell some hypocritical taint in the air...

I'm pretty much in agreement here. The things he believed were so important(and some of them may well have had merit), were many times not what people wanted to see and not related to how people wanted to play the game.

The key and difference here is flexibility. MMOs need to be free to change as they need to. That is, of course, balanced by restraint as well. But in the end, things need to move forward.

HEY!!

It's not...when I want to run slightly faster. It's not a problem for my /SR scrapper or my /elec brute. Do I want another speed boost on top of those? Well maybe...but can I have that choice instead of having it dumped on top of me? If I want to run at sprint speed, can't I just turn on sprint? Or is the trend to make sprint less relevant now?

I have a stone/stone brute that took the fitness pool exactly because the build kind of demands it. So I know what you mean. Why does this mean that I need those powers inherent on everything?

I never understood the Stealth speed debuff either. I assumed it was meant to mirror the common RPG versions of hiding which always come with a movement penalty. Still...they could just as easily remove it.

I get what you're saying and I don't imagine this will be a complete game breaker for me. But I do feel like I have to at least question whether or not a global buff to speed, regen and jump height is necessary to fix a problem with end at the low levels.

Conversely, could they not just open the fitness pool from level 2 while making stamina inherent?

I'd always liked the fact that the game was about choice. I'm never happy when it is removed in any capacity. I'm OK with making things easier for the people who complain that they cannot enjoy low levels without stamina(regardless of my agreement with that or not).

Those same people though, often complain that they cannot enjoy the low levels without their Tier 7, 8 and 9 powers. Are we going to shuffle those upward in the power pyramid as well so low levels can be more enjoyable?

There are actually some valid concerns. They may not mean anything to you but I have a few things I'd like to be made clear about this change myself.

First thing is...if endurance management is the basis for this change, why make the entire fitness pool inherent? Stamina alone as an inherent would work fine.

Second thing is...I get swift and hurdle regardless of if I want them or not. I can tell you right now, that playing a character who already has a passive speed boost power like a /sr or /elec scrapper or brute, I don't feel the need to go any faster than I do without turning sprint on. I hate my characters to feel too zippy, depending on the build. That's a personal preference that I don't think is all that outlandish.

Also, is the base regeneration rate for all toons too low now as well? Because we're all getting a permanent, free boost to regen via Health.

This change assumes that I will want the 3 other powers from the fitness pool by default on all my toons. I will not in every case. I have toons that have Stamina and others who don't and who don't need it. My level 25 DP/ice blaster has run out of endurance exactly one time that I can recall. Does he desperately need Stamina and all the other fitness powers?

This should still be an opt in for players.

As I posted earlier in this thread, we could just as easily have gotten a new inherent that globally reduces end consumption. So that slotting it reduced end costs across the board for all powers, still leaving people to determine if they needed extra recovery or not.

I just agreed with a Nethergoat post so that probably means we should expect a large scale meteorite bombardment of the Earth.

So...get under a desk or something...

That's been my point from the beginning. So what? Are we all supposed to be held hostage by emotional people waving their subscriptions over our heads? Is NCSoft supposed to? If their bottom line is not being affected, then why would they?


No one is saying that all paying customers don't matter. I'm saying that unless a significant portion of the playerbase is ready to quit over lack of endgame content, then a few very vocal forum posters are unlikely to have any effect on Paragon Studios and their future plans.

If that's the case, why do you think NCSoft is going to favor a single player's opinion over another? That's been my point from the start. They made a call on where they believed their resources needed to be focused. They made the expansion with that decision in mind. That decision was likely made taking into account all the factors that we as players can easily see and those that we cannot.

With that in mind, how can you say with any certainty that it was bad for the game? All you can say is that it was bad for your game. And after voicing your opinion you can eiter continue to play in the hopes that they will add what you want soon...or you can not play until they do.

I'm not saying: 'GTFO'. I'm simply taking a logical look at a situation and telling you to do what makes sense. If you find another game or hobby that entertains you until you want to come back, do you think you're 'cheating' on COX or something? Do you think that people are going point fingers at you and shake their heads at your disloyalty? Wouldn't not doing something that you no longer enjoy be a sensible move?

As to the rest of your post, all I can say is that if someone loses their SG and Global friends over a game change and they want to quit because of that, then I'm assuming they are adults and know full well that the rest of the game hasn't emptied out. There are other players out there.

The thing is that a lot of those people don't come looking for empathy, they come making threats and 'I told you so' finger-pointing arguments. Should they then expect a warm greeting and comfort?

When I left the game for my long break, I just left. I checked back periodically to see where things were but that was that. I enjoyed the hell out of my time playing EVE all sorts of other games until I chose to come back. And I have been here ever since.

When/if I choose to leave again, I will do so without some big fanfare and attention-grab post. I'll fill out the leaving survey for NCSoft and that will be that. Life continues on...

I was replying to the part of your post which said that all TFs could be made to scale to 50. You did specifically mention the ones with mobs that already fill their level range, but you also included all the other low level ones.

My initial reply was almost a cut and paste of what devs have said about mob groups scaling and why it is a headache to make them all scale.

Even with me missing that part, you still implied that doing it for the low level TFs wouldn't be much work. I'm pretty sure that it still would take a significant amount of work to do. Also...doing it for some TFs and not all would be awkward.

Also, your basis for doing this is that you don't want to play without some of your powers. The lower levels are for exactly that. Playing with less powers and options than higher levels. It's still the same old argument about the game not being worth playing without stamina etc.

When the devs decide that this is the case, I'm sure they will do something about it. Currently, they don't seem to see a problem with it. I'm inclined to agree...but that's just my opinion.

I agree that some tweaks to certain missions and maybe some mobs were warranted. But that's a long way from me agreeing that Praetoria mobs on the whole are meant for medium to high level encounters. My 2 main Praetorian toons are a Stalker and Dominator. Those don't exactly scream 'survivable'.

You're right. I did skip over that part quickly. I suppose they could do that with those TFs...maybe. I'm not sure they want TFs to work that way though.

You know what? I'm not near as nice as Arcanaville, so I'm going to get right to the point. There are things in this game that people will not like that will happen anyway. This is indisputable fact. I didn't(and still don't) think that MA was very good for this game. Other people disagree. MA happened anyway and I got over it.

There is, however, a difference between stating that you dislike something, and making veiled threats and dire predictions about segments of the player population disappearing due to you not getting what you want.

I'm sure you're not unaware of the number of people who post in these forums day after day about how change x or y caused their supergroup and all their global friends to vanish into a puff of disgruntled-scented smoke.

And yet still, here people are, threatening the same tired old nonsense and giving their end-of-subscription dates. Well most of us here don't give a frikkin' freem!

Maybe you play on a different set of servers than I do, but Virtue and Freedom are currently red and all other servers are yellow. And what I said still stands, simply because it makes common sense. Find something else to do that entertains you until the game gets fun for you again.

You don't have to take that advice, but no one should expect sympathy when they beat the 'I'm quitting and all my friends are quitting' drum. Everyone is tired of that particular rhythm. It's been done to death.

I don't think that's true of Praetoria mobs at all. I think they are just different, not overpowered.

This is not currently possible. The devs have stated that certain mob groups cannot be scaled up just by moving a slider. Lower level mobs have attacks that are appropriate in number and effect for their intended level range only. They are simply not made to challenge players outside of their range.

Whether or not you or I think this is a good idea, that is how the game is designed. They would have to rework each mob group to scale across all levels. Some, like the Circle of Thorns were built like that from the get-go. That's why you see them replacing their spawn composition with new enemies as you go up in level. Most, however, have a specific and intended level range that also ties into story and lore.

In essence, you will not see a level 50 Hellion unless the devs reworked the Hellion group to scale that way. Which I I honestly do not think they will.

With SR though, your defense debuff resist is really high. And I have about 4 powers with defense debuff resist in them. So I don't think I got debuffed that much...although that may have been a contributing factor.

I suppose I'll see what happens once I get 3 slots in the passives. And yeah...I probably should have had at least one purple. Still...that really hurt.

I know that defense gets really effective once you start to hit near the cap. But I think it should be effective period. Not that I never get hit...but most times I feel like I'm either dodging everything or getting pounded.

There should be a reasonable middle ground where I'm not mister untouchable, but you can't just smack me around like a redheaded stepchild either.