UberGuy
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Quote:I do want to note that I was strongly opposed the way the DA arc initially required one to complete the DD trial. It didn't make sense to me given the awareness that people who quite reasonably could have no level shifts at all would end up channeled into the most level-shifted trial we have had to date. Honestly, that it was like that is even more perplexing in retrospect given Dr. Aeon's clarifying statement of intent for DA's design.Originally Posted by GlassGoblin
I won't disagree with that, but communication of intent has always been a hit-or-miss proposition around here. But I also know that there was a huge amount of debate as to the appropriateness of ending the DA arcs with another iTrial, debate which would have been rendered moot if the stated intent had been to create content capable of providing a challenge for full teams of tricked out 50+3s.
I'm not sure they're completely different, but they definitely wouldn't be identical. The most likely change seems to me that they would end up with the PToD. There may be other considerations I'm not aware of, but that's the one that seems most certain. Even PToD aren't strictly mandatory, but if the AV versions had it, I'm pretty sure the "downgraded" EB versions would have to. I'm not aware of tech that can sub in a completely different entity based on difficulty. I think what it does is basically change their AT mods from the "AV AT" to the "EB AT".Quote:Would it have been nice to have the option for carnivores to set difficulty wherever they want? I guess so, but based on what I've seen -- and I'm sure Arcanaville will correct me if I'm mistaken -- it looks like the downgraded EBs are completely different entities from the DA EBs. I don't know if the tech exists for them to completely change entities based on difficulty, as opposed to scaling them up or down, but if it exists it wasn't used. Maybe the next set of content -- which is likely to be almost entirely iTrial oriented, to move the War of the Incarnates toward its conclusion -- will consider such options. -
Quote:Some of us use those additional powers to do more, do it faster, etc. If you can't find a way to make the 50+ game a challenge, I'm fairly sure you can't be bothered to try.Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
I find it odd someone would think that. In CoX the higher levels are the training wheel levels. You get more powers and things to prop you up as you level. Your character gets more powerful and the game gets easier. By level 50 the game is a tricycle.
Those of us who would feel that level 16 is boring and easy feel that way because the limited scope of characters' powers means that they can do comparatively little, and comparatively achieve it much more slowly. -
Quote:Perhaps it should occur to you that it very much matters, or no one would be talking about it. Given the entirety of how it was presented is fundamental to why the "vegetarian" analogy did not make sense. If the steak eaters were being told that a vegetarian-only menu was being assembled, then they wouldn't have been asking for quality meat as part of it. They were never told that, and now we have a statement after the fact, saying "oh, yeah, that was the point all along."Originally Posted by DMystic
Bolded the part that runs counter to your statement Uberguy.
Whatever it was called in beta or after doesn't really matter as Aeon said the design goal was in fact solo/small team.
And again I raise the point that creating content that's specifically easy for the sake of soloists and "small teams" (easier in certain ways than the rest of the 40+ game [35+ in CoV content]), is in stark contrast to the way Incarnate Content has been tied up until now with over-the-top challenges found in iTrials. Saying DA was "non-trial" as opposed to "solo-centric" was compatible with that presentation, because "non-trial" does not imply anything about being easier than other non-trial content, while saying "yeah, we avoided AVs for the sake of soloists" very much does.
Perhaps you might see how I would consider this a significant failure of communication of intent. -
Even in beta, DA was never touted as content just for "vegetarians". DA was never "solo" content. The feedback and bug threads for it were (and still are) titled, and I quote, "Non-trial Incarnate Progression".
The closest that comes to your analogy is a set of menu items from which one can create a vegetarian meal. iTrials are heaping plates of rare steak, but the DA content has only processed meat patties. -
There is no significant information on it. It's dark (literally shadowy), and the energy found there causes fear, weakness and dissolution here. It appears strongly related to the undead, as they often wield powers found in Dark * powersets.
Personally, I prefer it as abstract as it is. That leaves a lot of what it really is open to interpretation. -
Quote:And Blasters are a lot of fun for a lot of people, but there's a big thread about there being something objectively dysfunctional about them. I'm not arguing that DA sucks, or that it won't appeal to a wide array of people. And I happen to like iTrials. But devs posting that DA's difficulty is basically working as intended immediately slams up against the explanations I have seen for why iTrials are like they are. I want to know either what's wrong with those explanations (or possibly my understanding of them), or why we have a sudden break from what was explained.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The flood of NPC helpers, lack of timed missions and zero ambushes does kinda make DA "Incanrate lite" - but it's still an awesome zone
Something worth noting - there is very likely a direct relationship between the rewards in DA and the difficulty of the content. The easier the content is, the worse the drop probabilities will likely be, because determined players will find it easy to take advantage of the ease to pursue the best reward rates they can. -
Quote:That's not how the iTrials have been presented.Originally Posted by White Hot Flash
Devs are only providing what the players keep asking for. YOU may not be asking for it, but enough people did that democracy prevailed.
Edit: Specifically, Incarnate content has been presented as the "end game", and that "end game" content was presented as having different norms. iTrials are a kind of Incarnate content - the kind we got first. Now we get DA, and DA does not meet that standard.
So either Incarnate content and the "end game" are not synonymous as they have been explained up until now, iTrials are not hard because they are Incarnate content, or Dark Astoria is too easy to be Incarnate content. Something doesn't fit the patterns and explanations that have been given previously. -
Quote:I argue against that the claim that downgraded EBs is actually an issue for any "small team" of more than one character unless they are poorly built characters, even for SOs.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Irrespective of whether it happens in other instances, scaling EBs up has issues. Scaling *upward* always has issues, because things designed to be a particular rank tend to be more intrinsically powerful, separate from the rank scaling. A scaled up EB is weaker than an intrinsically designed AV most of the time. But they award AV-level of rewards. That's not a good idea on its face. Is it worth creating that one problem to solve the alternate problem of the content in DA not scaling to larger or more powerful teams? Not in my opinion because the design intent of DA is to focus on the solo and small team incarnate progress experience. Therefore, solo and small team issues should *always* override teamed ones in essentially all but the most problematic cases. There's no overriding compelling reason to allow the issues associated with scale-up here, so there's no reason to do it. "Because why not" is not a reason, ever, anywhere.
The alternative is to design them to be AVs that scale downward. But that's also problematic because we now have game designers primarily designing the solo and small team path for a completely different target, and then making them scale down hopefully to the right level. And again this violates the design imperative of DA: to serve the solo and small team players and the solo and small team experience.
Based on the developer response, I am extremely disappointed in our devs for creating a dichotomy in difficulty that did not need to exist and, in my opinion, should have been avoided. That dichotomy is between these two situations.
- "Raid"-sized content in the form of iTrials, which is explicitly designed to be harder than normal content. Everything about iTrials, from the levels of the foes to the special mechanics of the trials, to the simple fact that they are timed, has been repeatedly explained in terms of "end game" content representing a fundamental difficulty break from the 1-50 content preceeding it.
- "Small Team"/solo content. This content, on the basis of the confirmation that DA is Working As Intended, is easier than the rest of the 1-50 game. You face "story bosses" who are EBs almost exclusively instead of the more typical AVs found in the 1-50 game. Facing foes above level 50 is almost entirely optional.
So on a difficulty scale of 1-10, I have a choice between 1 and 11.
I now question the validity of everything that has been used to defend all the exceptional challenge mechanics included in the iTrials. If Dark Astoria is aimed at being gentle on soloists, how is exceptional difficulty (by CoH standards) justified on iTrials? -
Quote:I am now certain that the Paragon Studios office building is composed of immense green stones which fit together in non-euclidean ways.Originally Posted by Android_5Point9
If you try to make sense of it in a completely binary manner, of course it doesn't make sense. The marketing "plan" behind it all makes perfect sense though, and as we're all well aware, marketing is an evil Lovecraftian cthulu monster who sits 3 cubicles down from Positron's desk, spreading its unholy influence to the development team.
"That which is in beta can eternal lie, and with strange schedules even double XP can die." -
Quote:Did you by any chance have prompts enabled, and get a prompt to confirm the 45,000,000? (As a regular market user I'd be a little surprised if you have those prompts enabled, but one never knows.)Originally Posted by Plasma
I wasn't trying to sell it at all. I had put in 45,000,000 on an ATO, and intended to list a 2nd ATO for 45m. Somehow I accidentally clicked and listed the Nuc instead.
What I have concluded is that when you click on the "OK" for such prompts, and the market interface is under the prompt popup, the mouse click to accept moves the market cursor on the underlying market interface, which can result in selling the wrong item. Before we could consistently disable the prompts, I came to always cancel any transaction that gave me a prompt, disabled the prompt, and resubmitted the transaction without one. After that, I never once mysteriously sold the wrong items. -
Quote:As long as we provide the units, none of us will be wrong. Well, unless we do the conversions incorrectly. >.>Originally Posted by Codewalker
Translation: You're BOTH wrong! Ha ha ha!
I think we should start referring to all of them in Gradians, so that everyone loses. -
Quote:Were that the case, I think it would be both much more reasonable and significantly less confusing to players who are wondering what the heck is up with Inner Inspiration.Originally Posted by Codewalker
It might could be a bug if it was meant to be real time rather than game time.
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Quote:I'm not sure what you mean, because the mechanic is not imaginary. There is a power called "Inner Inspiration Lock" which lasts for 30 minutes of game time (not just "real time") and says in its power description that while it is active, you cannot use Inner Inspiration. You are granted this power when you click Inner Inspiration.Originally Posted by Tohopekaliga
Like I said here, I don't think that this is some secret conspiracy theory mechanic, added to suppress the evil desires of people who wanted to "exploit" (read as 'Using the power as advertised') getting 3 mediocre inspirational boosts every 30 minutes. I think they broke the power and it's bugged.
I linked to the details of that power a few posts down from your post you linked to here.
That seems awfully explicit to be considered a bug. -
Quote:The beta sequence was something like this.Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Did you guys voice these concerns in the beta? Or did they change the rates from beta to live?
- Wow, really slow, but hey, it's beta.
- Hey, these are pretty nice.
- Ouch, these aren't much better than (1).
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So the new bug is that the Paladins are standing casting their summons for no reason? We used to get multiple Paladins stomping around in that little park before, and they didn't used to do this.
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Quote:In the internal representation, yes. In RedTomax and Mids, it's in degrees. Since I assume more people look at RedTomax and Mids than in pigg files, I think it's safe to state it the way I did.Originally Posted by Codewalker
Except there's no /360 since Arc is in radians
(Note I also included a "degrees" symbol!)
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Quote:Indeed. An example of such AVs is Johnny Sonata's soul.Originally Posted by Codewalker
Most of them do, but it's not inherent to the class. An enemy designed as an EB and scaled up to an AV wouldn't have them unless the designer specifically added them.
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Quote:Er, there was a long post by me already on this topic, talking about my example level 44 Mind controller who is soloing +2 AV->EBs who have PToDs in the standard game on very limited build fanciness.Originally Posted by Caulderone
One thing to consider that I haven't seen noted here is default AV = purple triangles, even when stepped down to EBs.
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I thought this sounded amusing and very mildly interesting. But now it also sounds painfully expensive. Considerations of opportunity cost say "nay" to this one.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Kiken
I don't want to run Trials. But I might want to fight AVs with a couple of friends. Where's my choice?The question would be: why should the ability to also do that in DA be excluded? The argument that it's a place where we should "feel more powerful" has been answered many times already.Quote:Originally Posted by Everything_Xen
Pretty much the rest of the game.
I dont see whats so special about DA that makes that not possible.
- DA is not solo content, it is non-trial content. Team considerations are included in DA, and EBs are speedbumps to even small teams.
- The ability to fight AVs would not prevent anyone from still fighting EBs. Actual soloists would not be meaningfully affected.
- While some people feel empowered by being able to curbstomp an EB, others feel it cheapens the supposed experience of actually being more powerful, rather than the game simply throwing weaker foes at you than it could. Arguing that only one perspective is valid when the tools to service both are available is very childish.
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Quote:I know I wouldn't be happy about this.Originally Posted by Codewalker
Yes, even one that makes them perform better in many cases. There still would be wailing and gnashing of teeth about them performing worse in quick recharging AoEs.
Primarily, it seems mostly like change for the sake of change. Right now procs work best in fast cycling powers. After the change, procs would work "equally" in powers of all cycle times, unless they are fast-cycling AoEs. Is that "better"? It just seems mostly different to me.
By the way, we have redname statements but (so far as I know) no empirical evidence that the AoE modifier (A) is a function of both MaxTargets and area of effect. If it really does count both, that seems like a double hit on AoEs. Big AoEs usually are the ones with high MaxTarget values. I'm not sure why both should factor in. Based on anecdotes, it may be that AoEs with angles of effect less than 360 degrees (that is to say cones instead of spheres) actually have their proc chance reduced less by MaxTargets. Perhaps there is a Arc/360° factor somewhere in the proc rate calculation, and that was what was being referred to. -
Quote:It's off-topic for the problem, but I'd be careful about assigning that motive to the design. There's a decent chance they based it off of base values to reduce computational cost. Otherwise, it would need to recalculate its chance to proc dynamically. (Even if they tried to account only for slotted +recharge, as opposed to potentially dynamic global buffs and debuffs, enhancements are ultimately just a kind of buff.) That might not sound expensive, but done even a couple of times a second across potentially thousands of players (and potentially across multiple procs per player - regular SBEs like Mako's and Touch of Death use PPM mechanics too), it could end up being a noticeable extra server load.Originally Posted by Grim Saint
Obviously I am more in favor of the former if only because one ought to be rewarded for successfully using +recharge for maximum gain in their build, and judging by the decision to have ppm apply to base and NOT enhanced recharge, I'd wager the devs agree.
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Quote:True, but I see that as far less of a barrier to defeating him solo than his having 120,000 HP or whatever his Khan/Barracuda version has. Don't get me wrong, it's still an extremely dangerous ability, but of the two, its the one I'm pretty sure I could actually find a way to deal with as a solo player.Originally Posted by DarkSideLeague
Well, he DOES have his mag 100 Stun Blast.
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Quote:Well, since you've gone there, why isn't that the solution that works for you? Why can't you go to the AE, pretend your tanker is on par with Clark-El, and free us all from your attempts to argue that your view of what the game should be is so superior that we shouldn't even have the use of pre-existing in-game technologies to make our Incarnate progress experience more challenging if we want to?Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Of all the people in this thread, JB, you're probably the one with your head most deeply buried in the sand with respect to this game's nature and experience. From what I can tell, your viewpoint in this thread is just a small part of that. That you should be in here telling anyone else that they should get their way via the AE is a very deep irony to me. -
Quote:There are lots of things most people would like. That doesn't mean they're the best thing they should have. Full-time cocaine highs come to mind.Originally Posted by Cheetatron
i'd rather have the benefit as long as possible most would
It is always the best situation that anything that is most likely overpowered be reviewed and changed ASAP. The longer it goes unchanged, the more general dissatisfaction is created by the act of changing it. Depending on the thing in question, it also may allow dissatisfaction to fester in the playerbase while the situation persists - if there is something that's a clear winner, people often resent the perceived need to play/do/buy that thing.
The quicker such things are addressed, the less overall dissatisfaction is created. The ideal is that they never happen. Once they happen, though, it's always better that their persistence is as brief as possible.