UnicyclePeon

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Each and every power in the set is liked to some degree by some users of the powersrt.

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Still, they changed the one interesting and effective power Gravity has. I mean, come on! I just think they gave gravity a nuke and are married to it. Also, there are so few powers that phase things that they are married to that one too. LOTS of people use wormhole now, the current one, not the test one.

Ugh.

I'm going to work yet ANOTHER controller to 32 and I'm still not going to have my control gap filled in my primary am I? I'm glad I made this 5th incarnation of Ms. Jupiter so that at level 38 I can get a second hold (Radiation/EM Pulse). None of my other secondaries had any real backup control.

That brings up another point. Unless you have /Rad or /Storm, you dont have any powers to combo with Crushing Field. Do ya like retaliation strikes? Sure if you've got a tanker and a fire blaster on your team, its not totally useless. I mean, it doesn't seem like an AoE Immob used on the short duration of the new Wormhole would be significant.

Ah well I stayed up too late reading comic book spoilers. Bedtime.

Lewis

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Well, now we have a whole lot MORE control over position, if we just take some time to figure out how to use it. Now we can affect the position of entire GROUPS.

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I think the power to move groups is neat. However, it is only as good at combining groups for one hold for as often as you can use your one and only real hold. I hated my gravity character because I couldnt do a group hold every fight at the rate groups move through stuff, and if a huge add came along, I didnt have a backup hold (by this I mean a group friendly hold, not a game-halting dimension shift).

SO my biggest gripe with the new wormhole is that they traded one neat placement tool with another but the loss of the original is too much. Look at the horrible powers (Dimension Shift, Propel) they could have changed instead so that we didnt have to lose the old functionality. Heck, while useful for the ability to juggle bosses with Lift, I'd still rather lose that than the live version of wormhole because isolating a boss (WITHOUT his followers) is way better than juggling a boss to me.

So, the problem is they ripped out one good tool and replaced it with another good tool. Why the major loss? And how does this fill my control gap? It will be nice for opening a fight if you also have GDF available, I'll grant ya that. Nice for engineered kill zones. But I wanted bread and butter control available all the time (like Flash Fires and Stalagmites) with a GDF type hold my backup pocket power.

Lots of other sets have other control options, and GOOD ones, other than Immob, Aoe Immob, Hold, Aoe Hold, and AoE Disorient. Fire has Bonfire and Smoke. I'll admit Hot feet is a wash. These are "decent" optional options but fire has the ultimate control, damage. Ice has crazy stacking and self-stacking slows, a crazy Aoe Knockback, a sleep. Earth has all that AND a disorient.

For Gravity to step up with the others it has to have round-the-clock control like a disorient AND it needs something cool like the old wormhole, AND the new wormhole.

If I had my personal wish, I'd change Gravity like so:

1) Propel: becomes an Aoe Disorient Cone (keep the same animation; conceptually, the object hitting the enemies is the explanation for the disorient; get rid of damage)
2) Dimension Shift: becomes the single target Port (current Wormhole)
3) Wormhole: becomes the new test server AoE wormhole (as-is)

The above would be some real control and some real versatility. Maybe even enough to justify the horrible 3+ second activation times but I'm not sure.

The extra control options we really need would all be there. Anybody who lilked Dimension Shift as it is for a divide and conquer (or a panic button) would get much more mileage out of the new AoE wormhole and my proposed propel disorient than they ever got from Dimension Shift. As for the loss of damage from propel in my suggestion, EDIT: it would be worth it. Gravity isn't a damage set, the original Propel seems like a misguided afterthought (the animation was inspired), and I think Illusion should have the distinction of the only nuke (damage is its thing).

Lewis

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And my experiments with the New Wormhole on Test have all been solo. Need to do some teaming now.

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My guess would be that on a team it won't be too great for reacting to "need more control now" but it probably will contribute to that form of control known as "making the mobs dead."

I see cool uses for the new version in teams. Got en earth control buddy? Drop some foes in their gasses. Got a /Devices blaster pal? Have him set up a bajillion trip mines, then a time bomb, count a few, and drop a new pack into the trip mine pack safely. Other forms of kill zones come to mind.

In a team I'd say this new Wormhole would be darn fun. The problem is that the actual control issues wont be met and the old uses of wormhole will be gone.

I'm gonna try to get my GC to 26 tonight or saturday or something and then do some testing myself.

I'll say one thing, having these big changes, good or bad, has at least got me looking at the set again and yearning to have a reason to dust off the old gal and really do something with her.

Lewis

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Have the wormhole teleport only ONE enemy, but have the destination area qualify for an AOE disorient.

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Very cool idea! Well so long as the duration of the Disorient is 80% or more of the duration of Flashfires. To balance it some, I would remove the disorient on the ported target. That way, if you are moving a boss or foe or FF gen far away, the disorient wont be hitting anything and you'll still want to have Crush or GDF on the victim before they port off or else they will run back. On the other hand if you use one guy to disorient another pack, odds are you are using one of the guys in the pack so it isnt too powerful and even so that guy (or a foe pulled from elsewhere) will be in the disoriented pack but not disoriented himself and ready to whack ya for porting him.

The cool animation would be to have the disorient go off and THEN have the porter appear.

Anyway cool idea, and it retains the precision for when that is needed since only 1 thing is moved and its the destination thats disoriented. COOL idea!

Lewis

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I think that the animation times should be lowered for certain powers of the set: Lift, propel, crush, and worm hole.

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I find the animation / cast times for the actual holds to be far too long. Gravity Distortion and Gravity Distortion Field have a casting time of 3. No other controller hold I know of has such a long time except Flash (also 3). Everyone else has 2 for the cast time for the most part, and Fire has a cast time of 1 for most stuff.

Also to the poster who said he felt gravity was fine and didnt have a control gap or he didnt notice or care .... others clearly notice it and care. It is not for no reason at all that KingSnake has the quote that he is a level 50 Grav/Kin and "Trust Me ... I know what I'm doing." You HAVE to with gravity, you don't have the luxury of control that most other controllers have. I don't have pets now on my level 24 Grav controller and neither did my highest former gravity controller (level 26 or 27 before I deleted her) but I've teamed with a couple of gravity controllers and they can't handle the extreme amounts of foes I can with my fire or ice controllers (who are 33 and 37). Believe me, while playing my various Gravity Control incarnations (5 of them I think), I REALLY had to hoof it big time to measure up. The control gap is there. I don't see how a brief disorient from Wormhole helps the attribute I'm missing. I do see how what I liked wormhole for is now gone from the set.

Dimension Shift. It doesn't matter WHAT they do to this power, as long as it is an AOE intangible, it will interfere with gameplay in 99% of encounters. That's a panic button at best, not the bread and butter control a controller needs. I havent tested the new one and I'm confused on the wording of the patch notes but it seems the rechartge is higher. I dont know if that means it recharges sooner or longer (turn the Air up! Do you mean hotter or colder?) but in either case, its lose / lose. Make the phase longer and it makes people wait more. Make the phase last shorter and it no longer lasts long enough to be a panic (HIGHLY situational) or divide and conquer (extremely slow) button, but you get to irritate people more frequently. Modifying its other attributes seems, on paper, to give similar non-helpful results (nerfs even depending on your PoV).

About the only thing that can be done for it and still have it be an intangibility effect would be make it single target. Maybe. Dimension Shift is not bread and butter control. I can't wait until I get my new grav to 26 so I can copy a couple of instances to test and test it and wormhole again.

As for wormhole, it is a situational power in the old form but MAN talk about fun! Talk about precision. From the descriptions I've read, that tool is gone. Teleport Foe won't help because you can't drop the target far enough away to get the use from Wormhole you used to get. The new wormhole is powerful, but quirky in a way that removes precision. Until the disorient time equals that of other controllers, or darned close, on the base time, the new (test server) wormhole becomes yet another funky power that, sure, you can use, but using it or not using it wouldnt seem to be the reliable bread and butter control power we are missing.

Also, I know some people say the singularities are additional control but I'd say that balances their lousy damage. Despite the sings, I don't see how 2 or 3 of them are going to help you with getting swamped by a new pack of 30-40 guys bursting from a portal suddenly. My Fire controller would whip out the Cinders I had in my back pocket while perma-cycling Flash Fires, and for most foes my Ice controller would drop another Ice Slick or two, or since I'm probably already using the slick, drop the Glacier I'm holding in my back pocket. Gravity, if it just used its only real hold (GDF), isn't going to be able to handle 40 adds with 3 singularities. Also if a team is mowing through groups quickly or efficiently, Gravity only has a good group control power every 2-3 fights, depending on your slotting and power selection (Hasten). Last night when teamed with a friend, I had my GDF available about every other fight, and I have perma hasten and 1 recharge in my GDF.

So, the control gap is still there. Wormhole and singularities don't give what we need. And again, the nice single target control on the Singularities (they tend to lock down only a hand-full of foes and sings share some targets, minimizing that number more) is balanced by their low damage. Nothing balances the control gap.

I'm sure there are more things but I'm tired. Need a nap.

Lewis

OK! So this thread is part of the Training Room now. Cool!

I don't see it listed but post your Gravity testing here eh?

Lewis

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I can't stand the new Wormhole. Making it AoE pretty much removes most of the utility from the power. I posted most of my comments about Wormhole Here and Here . No need to cut and paste hehe.

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There might be a need. If we were going to have one thread for all the gravity testing and threads, this one has the most useful general title. Maybe we could put our likes, dislikes, agreements, disagreements, tests, etc in this thread.

Lewis

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How big is the area of Wormhole?

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Same size as GDF.

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Egad!

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Why does moving a group matter? Well, if I can clump everyone together I can get better payout for my AoEs, like GDF and FS.

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My problem with this would be that I use my area power (GDF) as my opener because I want to avoid aggro. How does moving a pack of foes help me avoid that? It doesn't. It opens me to aggro. If I move a group for ideal placement into the other group, sure, the disorient will keep the first disoriented a bit. However, I'm worried that the group I didn't disorient will react or that I'll have to be in range of both and have to take aggro from one pack or the other (and apparently the larger pack).

So, if I'm using GDF as my opener, moving them AFTER won't help much. Moving them before seems risky. Either there are enough guys that the aggro I suffer will be scary, or else I'm just making small groups and singularity feeding more efficient. That's something gravity is already good at.

I deleted my gravity controller so I can't test. I will rely on you guys. I'd LIKE to have a reason to go back to gravity. Chewing small packs more efficiently at the cost of the isolation utility doesn't seem worth it to me ... YET. I want to hang with the big dogs on huge group and reliable mass pack coverage. That's why I switched to Ice.


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And you guys do know that if you don't like the new wormhole, it is probably our constant call for a secondary AoE mezzer that caused it to get changed. . . . Ready, aim, fire! Ouch! My foot!

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I just wish it had addressed what I felt was missing. To me, one of the few satisfying joys, albeit a minor one, was the single target extraction. That is gone now. How big is the area of Wormhole? I doubt I'd be able to move FF generators and DE droppings without getting allies. At least in the case of some of them, the droppings dont move so any moved allies may re-approach me and so it would be a reduced extraction. Maybe the wimpy disorient time would give just enough time to get a "more than just the one I wanted" extraction under control again. I don't like the idea of moving rank and file foes out of my focus area.

Oh well.

Lewis

I deleted my gravity controller some time ago out of frustration so i can't really test the new changes, I've just been reading about them.

To me the new Wormhole ruined the power, but saves me some slots since now I don't need to bother at all. The last thing I'd want is a 5 second disorient mass TP. Why does moving a group matter? A small group could be fed to the singularities, I guess, but that just makes gravity more efficient at chewing through small packs because stragglers become less tiresome. Big deal, that isn't where gravity lacked, and Wormhole could already do that one at a time. Plus, now you can't extract force field generators and other annoying enemy drops. To those who say that a hold will deal with those, that isn't true for some types of DE drops, and I liked the ability to totally move the object away and forget about it. To me, the new wormhole is a loss.

Dimension Shift. I'm not sure I understood what changed. I dont have this power (no thanks) so I can't test it. The notes say recharge time increased and end got less (PvE). Does that mean it can be used less often? I don't follow this one.

Lewis

Yeah 3 second animation times, a 4-5 second AoE disorient, and more damage on propel but with such a long recharge it isnt worth it (Spectral is barely worth it in DPS) .. the disorient could have made everything else merely irritating if it's base duration was 80% - 100% of Flashfires. It could have been enough.

Now I can't imagine what I'd do with Wormhole other than drop a bunch of foes inside a Choking Cloud or a trio of Singularities. Doesn't seem worth it.

I guess I'll just keep watching the forums. The mad rush to level my Gravity Controller ended as fast as it started though.

Lewis

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I just noticed Lin's trousers - they're all ragged and torn up on the cuff - I can finally create my homeless sewer-mutant in full glory! God bless you Cryptic!

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I also noticed about her and Miki that they both have faces that I could vaguely interpret as Asian. I knew they were adding some controls to the faces, is that going live in this feature too? That would be nice, my Katana Scrapper looks like he could be a member of Iron Maiden, but in no way does he look Asian. I've not found any passable face, I'd look forward to some customization.

Lewis

Eep! I use the IP-KR connection all the time on my higher level characters when they have to go to Atlas but I never actually thought to use it on my lowbies to go to the second tier Icon Store. I just considered it "beyond my means."

Duh, my bad. And thanks!

Is there a vendor in KR I've missed?

Lewis

I also wish they would put an Icon in King's Row, and also a Hero Corps vendor so I can sell my enhancements.

As it is, I'm having to use my second account to port my character to Icon in steel when I'm level 8 and realized "my mask makes me look stupid" or whatever.

Lewis

I like this plan. All I use Ctrl+Num for is the scorecards, and I almost never actually do it anymore. So, go for it. Sounds like a good plan.

Lewis

One problem with a supergroup costume (as opposed to colors) is that you'd really have to have one for each base model, and someone (I guess the Owner or all Leaders) would be the one to set it.

The real problem would be that a guy who was a robot might suddenly NOT look like a robot because the default costume exposes a face and has tights instead of power armor. They would have to use one of their regular slots to come up with a compromise where they still look "in costume" and still look like a Robot. Or a Vampire. Or whatever.

It would be convenient in this case to allow costume copy inside the editor of any costume. For example, lets say I'm editing my level 20 costume slot. I could at any time during the edit click a check box that let me copy costume 1 to the current costume slot I'm editing, or costume 4, or the SG costume. That would allow you to easily import the SG costume over as a starting point and then use the "reset" button on individual pieces to come to a compromise without having to totally wing it.

Lewis

Statesman,

Thanks for all of this. I think these changes will allow ALL players of all styles and intensity levels to play in the same game world, as they choose. Much appreciated!

Lewis

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They are just +1.

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Fair enough. Thanks again for the replies.

Lewis

Statesman,

Thanks for the reply.

I don't feel the new bosses are equal to a +1 boss now. I have characters who used to be able to take on a +2 boss as easily or more easily than a +0 boss now, maybe more, and my risk of one-shotting wasnt as high on the old +2.

I don't know, it just feels like the change was more severe than that.

Also, I don't have access to data mining, but I will be interested to see how this impacts solo behavior and how frequently people do missions. I would almost expect it to polarize player types. People really into soloing will be stubborn and be finding themselves in more debt or going to the streets, and people who like teams will be doing that more.

Can't you please consider a difficulty slider for "classic" mode for normal bosses? Even if it only works if one player is in the mission (reverting to hard-boiled otherwise)?

Finally, I don't like someone else making me team up ... or stacking the odds against me so I'm more likely to team up. Let me assure you, I'm not more likely to have fun when I do feel obligated to team up. It's like someone making you watch a movie you've never seen before at a time you didn't want to watch a movie. Bad choice.

I feel like I did when my mother made me go to the prom back in '85. Can't wait to get home.

Still, thanks for answering the question. At least now we know that you want people to do missions and you want grouping. You've given people who slept walk through bosses a reason want to do missions (slider) and a reason for other players to have to do missions (bosses).

At least now I know and I can design my characters accordingly. I will be designing for street fighting and I will ignore packs with bosses when possible, even on my "group" ATs.

This is not a complaint. I am honestly glad you answered the question so I can maximize my fun within the constraints of the system. I appreciate that you stepped up to the plate and answered the question.

Also, since it goes too often without being said, great game, and thanks for the hard work!

Lewis

Thank you Statesman!

Lewis

CuppaJo,

I feel that Statesman mis-understood question 5 and would like to have him re-answer it. The question wasn't asking why there was a mission slider now. The mission slider is a great idea and his question would answer "why is there a mission slider" just fine.

The question is, why did they make a mission slider AND increase BASE boss difficulty level (at level 25+)? For those of us who dont want to increase the slider, we are still forced into a greater difficulty in missions because of the bosses are much harder even at the default difficulty.

Therefore, since I want to control when I do or don't face a boss, and don't want to be put off halfway through a mission, I will instead be LESS likely to do missions and more likely to street sweep, because on the streets I can avoid these harder bosses or take them on only when my tray is full of inspiration.

So, why BOTH? Why increase bosses for everyone, even builds who were having problems with them already? Was the mission slider not enough? The Boss Upgrade undermines the level slider. Could we get a -1 level on the slider that just scales the Bosses to the old way? Then I'd do missions again.

I think that was the point of question 5.

Could he re-answer this question with that in mind?

Thanks,

Lewis

I don't like the Hollows because it isn't as solo-friendly as King's Row. I know some players solo it, and I've done soloing there and in Perez and Boomtown, depending on my build, but generally, it is tedious to solo. Of course, I'm not knocking the zone. Its presence keeps many people out of KR which makes it easier for me to solo un-interrupted.

I also don't like the Hollows because the story arcs, being newer, are harder, and filled with more named bosses, and stuff like that. I hear the story is good. I've even done most or all of the missions while in teams doing other people's missions. I never take missions there though because they are less likely to be soloable.

What I DO like about the Hollows is that I usually like to solo until about level 10 or so (when KR dries up). Steel Canyon is a tough nut to crack solo (since just before I2 came out, when they upped mob levels by 1-2, added LTs and Bosses, and increased pack sizes) until 12-14 depending on the character. So, the Hollows, being the hot spot for teaming these days, is a good place to jump in a team and play for 1-8 hours straight doing mindless killing. I'm not saying I don't use tactics. I'm saying its mindless because, since its not my mission, I have no personal interest in the outcome or time schedules of any particular mission I'm on. Therefore I can focus to the fullest while still feeling relaxed. While I still do Perez and Boomtown team hunts I have found that the Hollows is good for that too, especially getting me over the hump so I can cut it in Steel Canyon for soloing.

Another thing I like about the Hollows is that it is a pretty zone, it looks cool, and has its own style, despite borrowing from traits of other zones.

Lewis

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"Investigate psychic disturbance" (leads to the Psy Clock King, who you MUST defeat-to-complete).

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In my opinion, this isn't good enough either, if there are related stories prior to it in the arc, unless each of those stories also says "(this is a story arc with multiple Bosses)" or "(this is a story arc with multiple bosses and an ArchVillain)". It stinks doing the first 5 of 6 missions only to discover that the 6th requires a team. Please let me NOT ride that train from the beginning. It would be nice if you could select a checkbox on each contact (or maybe it would be global for all contacts) saying "don't show me any group-only content" or "dont show me any group-only content, including solo stories that are part of arcs including group-only content). That way out of a contact's 15 missions or whatever, I can just see the 6 I can do without help instead of the full 15 I used to always be able to do with my other 20 alts.

Lewis

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Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.

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This still seems inappropriate for a couple of reasons.

1) Until I'm able to delete missions or say to the contact "no, I never want to do this mission" or "show me another mission instead" then I'm blocked on getting more missions unless the contact happens to have 2 being offered at that time. Some soloers street sweep, some do missions. This blocks mission soloers who don't want help. At least having an in-game mechanism for telling the contact "That's got a boss, I'm not up for it, give this mission to a team" would alleviate this blocking problem some. In fact there needs to be a way to abandon a mission with a boss in it, a "calling for backup" option where I call the contact in-mission and say "I can't complete this along and no other heroes are available, you'll have to assign it to someone else." If influence is lost because I'm a wimp or it was timed, fine.

2) Despite what you say, I'm sure I see missions all the time that don't say thay have bosses, but that do. Maybe I just have poor reading comprehension skills. I know the day before Issue 3, I took the Freakolympics mission, which I've done many times before on other characters. It may mention bosses, or maybe bosses are implied by the fact that its factions of Freakshow competing ... so the presence of a boss may be implied. Maybe it says it and I don't remember. If you guys are now going to take the position that any mission with a boss in it is now a group-recommended mission, at least take the extra step and BOLDLY FLAG IN RED missions that have bosses in them.

In fact, expanding point 2, sometimes you get involved on a long story arc where in one mission you found something weird going on (no boss), in another you found some evidence tying into it (no boss), maybe the next mission your contact sends you to investigate ("be ready for anything in there" must translate to "bosses, you'll need a team") and then later they'll refer to a boss by name that you have to take down. Well, the entire arc needs to be flagged as having a boss in it somewhere OR there needs to be a way to back out or skip an arc later if you cant handle it solo and you don't want to pursue the arc anymore. When I start an arc, I want to finish it. I don't like teaming for my own missions. 3 missions into an arc, I'm shafted, unable to beat the boss, unwilling to get help because I want to be able to say I soloed my character, and unable to progress because that's the next mission, or the mission I am on.

OK now some general comments.

The mission where I had to stop the Freakolympics, I took it the night before I3 and I logged. Next day I tried it and with my Ice / Energy blaster who EXCELS at killing bosses if nothing else, I got my butt handed to me. I only died once but I was running constantly. My blaster's mega one-target damage output seemed almost inconsequential. I would have been better off doing this with a defender. I tell you what, if I had any Rad characters, I'd respec and make a 6-slotted rediation infection and 3-slotted Enervating Field my #1 priority over everything else in the game, just out of necessity. Anyway, I always used to pride myself on being able to beat a Boss quickly and with footwork. The risk was that I might get a stun in on me, and get 2-shotted. Now the risk is that I can get 1-shotted at any time (unless at absolutely max life) and there is no room for error on the ground. So, while I had always prided myself that I wouldnt have to hover 15 feet over a tank boss and merely shoot, thats what my risk-oriented ground-pounding ice blaster has become. A hover monkey, who *plinks* away at bosses.

Just lovely.

Finally, with this (what I consider to be) RADICAL change to bosses .... not just the HP and Damage but the Dev approach that any misison with a boss in it is one where a team is probably needed, I feel like the charade is over. Let's not have any pretense that soloing is of high concern. Since just before Issue 2, most street packs have Bosses in them. Does this mean that street sweeping is no longer solo material? And yet now missions are set up to where you can be part way through an arc and get a boss, or you cant say "no" and get the next misison. This means that many missions, and you never know which ones (because even if there are bold hints, I dont know that the NEXT mission in the arc has a boss, or even if 2 missions that seem connected to me are even part of an arc) have bosses, so you never know which ones are soloable.

As a solo player, this will drive me AWAY from missions, and onto the streets, because even though Streets are officially team content (many packs from steel onward have bosses in them), at least with a lot of hunting around, I can occasionally find a pack with no boss, which means I can control my gaming experience.

So, as a player who liked solo more but likes grouping also, I have some requests involving contacts.

1) We need BOLD INDICATORS stating whether a misison is part of an Arc, has a Boss, or will require a team (presence of a Boss, or multiplayer triggers, etc), is timed, etc. FULL DISCLOSURE. These indicators should be turned OFF by default and players that want to see them can turn them on.

2) We need a way of saying to a contact "no I will never do this mission" as well as "my allies aren't available now, unblock me and give me a solo mission, I'll come back to this one later" as well as a way in the mission to say "I know I'll lose influence but I want to call in for back-up and have another team finish for me" (abort mission).

3) Provide 3 fully distinct contact types. 1 contact type that is for trials, task forces, and team mission EXCLUSIVELY. When you go to that contact, you know that somewhere in the arc there WILL be team-only content generally at every stage. 1 contact type that is the normal kind, the "mix it up" kind where you never know if you are doing an arc or a one-off mission or whatever. Finally, we need 1 contact type that ONLY gives solo missions. I know when going to that contact that I will never EVER have to worry about any mission that might be better with a team. If I want to take a team, it should still scale to one, but the default should scale to one person. That means, apparently and sadly and officially, no bosses on these missions, because if there were a boss, "you might want to get help". Heck they could even re-use the same missions from other contacts that are on-offs.

By splitting into these 3 contact types, solo players could stick to solo contacts, people who wanted a team mission could go to the team mission contacts, and people who liked surprises or wanted to mix it up or do it all could go to the normal style contacts.

Thanks,

Lewis

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One aspect of casual gameing is the ability to solo and progress through content.

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And with that fallacy as a central premise I can easily ignore the rest of your post.

Preference for soloing or grouping has nothing to do with casual vs advancement driven play.

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Time invested is a big factor for determining whether someone is a casual or diehard player. For people with short windows of time (casual players), soloing is more important.

Casual players can and do group, but so long as finding a group takes time (varies by luck and player social ability), playing for short periods of time will tend more towards a solo player. So, it could be said there is a stronger correlation between casual and solo play.

Not saying I agreed with everything in his post, just saying there is a relationship.

Also, casual players who group will be less likely to complete missions designed for diehards (Task Forces). It can be done, but their numbers will be lower, especially for the long ones. That creates a link between certain grouping activities and diehard gaming.

So, there is a relationship. But "solo = casual" is definitely not a true statement. I always play solo and before I became addicted to EQ 2 and split my time, I played 40 hours a week, mostly solo. Darn alt-a-holism.

Lewis