Void_Huntress

It's possible you could make synergistic connections based off of multiple tags (that might weight differently). If you want to encourage melee attacks correlating high durability, and ranged attacks correlating with some kind of support function, you can do that as certain tags the relevant powers share with their cousins. You can then have a set of other tags for things like elemental theme.

This would encourage tightly themed specific role combinations, without ruling out themed combinations that violate role expectations, or unthemed combinations that are not a strictly consistent theme. On the outside edge, this still ALLOWS someone to go outside of both ... at notable cost.

The tricky part is giving incentives to balance the options of more powers of your tightly themed powers (perhaps different effects that are each very effective in different situations) versus different attack types (different elements/whatever that would do more damage against certain enemy types).

Different kinds of versatility. Applying Your Thing to more potential situations, or being able to do Different Things in different potential situations (but not as many Different Things as a tightly themed character... but fewer situations that would put you in a 'oh crap how do i hurt the guy that's resistant to my One Thing?' bind.)

This is possibly not entirely coherent. I blame the somnolent powers of the cat.

As an extention to this note, something that helped me a few times.. Work to hit your first goal and then see what other things you ALSO picked up along the way. You can use one of those to decide what to do for a secondary objective.

One of Turbine's games does EXACTLY this. It's all instanced combat -- there isn't even non-instanced 'sweeping' in public zones, if you're fighting, it's in an instance or it's arena PvP -- and they don't give ANY XP at all for kills in mission instances (there are wilderness instances where kills give XP, but it's a very, very small amount compared to mission rewards).

Instead, you have a base amount of XP for the mission, and each player in the group gets that XP at mission complete as long as they participated. There are modifiers: If someone dies a bunch, they lose XP. If people exit the instance and re-enter, that gets a hit to XP.

If the group hits certain bonus criteria, like killing most, almost all, or all enemies, they get bonus XP. If they hit certain optional objectives, bonus XP. There's even a bonus for killing almost nobody or actually killing nobody. This is possible in some of their missions with the right use of character abilities/spells.

They also lean VERY heavily on semi-randomized optional objectives. Things that aren't always there (but obviously are pre-set for the mission itself).

Personally, I've felt that that game had some of the best mission design from a gameplay standpoint in the industry. Those kinds of missions in a CoX style setting with CoX style character abilities and Paragon's writing (as per the Praetoria zones) would be AMAZING to me.

Another unfortunate failure case is if your target dies before you complete the animation. This results in no jumps at all. It's similar to when Twilight Grasp or Transfusion are targeting an enemy about to die.

It made me very sad when I discovered it, because I have this odd tendency in my SG teams to pick the same target for my Ion Judgement as three other blasters who are using faster attacks.

I think two out of five Ion Judgements fail in team play for that reason. I mean, obviously this isn't a great burden to the team, we're killing enemies fast. But it makes me sad, because the folks with Pyronic get to see their attack go off even if the target dies, but my Ion is conditional.

... that, and the Ion doesn't animate correctly for me anyway so it isn't very impressive. :( (To clarify: I do NOT see any animation/effects for jumps. I only see the initial bolt over my character, and the bolt to my initial target. Without the orange numbers/letters, I would not know a jump had occurred.)

Oh, that would be very nice if it was something Paragon was inclined to do.

I'm still sad they chose to go with Transgaming.

In a hypothetical system like Arcana designs, all choices would effectively be thematic choices, instead of "this is more powerful."


I don't really like the whole "small bonuses" thing. The IO system gives me a depth that the power system does not, but I'd rather not have an IO system if it meant I could have power choices that were meaningful.


How about "I have the option of taking a new power entirely or making one of my existing powers a little stronger" ? Specialization versus generalization is an excellent domain of choices that don't have definite right or wrong (or stronger or weaker) answers.

At least, if it's done correctly. *pointedly does not look at Other Game*


Arcana has made it very clear in her posts this is not what she would do.

It isn't what I would do, either. I have disagreed with her on some points, but the basic notion of designing towards "I have these two options which do completely different things, which do I like better subjectively?" is one I definitely agree with.

Good game design strives to make this impossible (or close to it), because if you can tie up all the numbers neatly and go "This is better than that", you've reduced meaningful choice. Possibly eliminated it.

The goal is to produce choices that have actual consequence but whose actual value to a player is purely subjective.

So that to THIS player, going THIS route is worth more than that route, because it provides benefits that this player likes more than the other benefits.

This is something that Emmert clearly WANTED to do for City of Heroes back in the day, but didn't understand that the way to achieve this is through different KINDS of effects, not through hiding data so people don't UNDERSTAND the effects.

I think the biggest problem you're going to face getting folks to understand some of these notions is that because of the rather inconsistent (and misleading) units we get in-game (percentages that aren't percentages of anything, but are instead added values), and the opacity of the net effects (such as the fact that the amount of damage admitted decreases at a faster rate than your defense points increase) make it hard for people to really understand what IS happening, much less what MIGHT happen under a hypothetical other design.

Not that all other MMOs manage to make this any clearer. Armor value in Certain Fantasy Games always makes my eyes cross, because I cannot tell at all how much a particular piece of equipment will help my survivability without referencing a chart.

That said, I do agree that one of the biggest flaws in CoX's AT/power design is the lack of meaningful choices. For me, I have to go to the IO system in order to get that; the core powersets (and pools) by themselves don't manage it.

Of course, sometimes there ARE choices with consequences, but in the wrong space, such as certain aesthetic options being restricted to certain ATs. I still don't understand why I can't have an Ice/Ice scrapper, for instance.

Many defender builds have sufficient damage to kill things and enough mitigation to be able to survive long enough to apply that damage. Either through self buffs, self heals, or debuffs (or in some cases, mez), a defender has many tools that are less available to blasters.

The increased damage blasters have is for some cases not enough to balance their decreased mitigation options.

It's possible to work past these limitations through playstyle, advanced build options, and threat selection, but when you look at what the base ATs offer, defenders just don't hit the floor nearly as often, so they can keep going at the same steady pace. It's not like what controllers or scrappers can do, but it is steady.

If this were to be offered, the only way I can think of would be to put it behind some kind of barrier instead of just at the actual TF contacts. A sub-zone of Oro, perhaps.

Removing it from normal game flow could reduce (but admittedly not eliminate) the likelihood that people would consider it "the normal content, therefore I should be able to do it".

When I try, Google doesn't offer a cache for the actual interview, only their feed and front page.

Neither of which is remotely useful.

The first time I was in a completed incarnate trial in beta and saw the reward table, my reaction was frustrated bewilderment (to the surprise of one of the rednames on the team). I couldn't figure out what the hell my options MEANT, because they were all flavor and no function.

I still can't, to be honest, I've just started picking things semi-randomly, because I haven't sat down to plan out ability paths yet, so I don't know what I will want. Then when I notice I already have a few of that tier, I just go 'Do I not have one of these yet? Okay, I'll grab that.'

It seems... like a very lost opportunity.

Hmm. I think I can provide some supporting evidence of this with some of my recent play-time. I've found that when I engage with an EB with just my single target attacks with standard ammo, they tend to stay there and slug it out with me. If I switch to incendiary, or use Hail of Bullets, they tend to decide to run off for a while.

They're probably 'frustrated' (I think Castle or someone once referred to it as a 'griefed' state?) enough from not hitting me, so I figured the amount of damage might have been relevant.. But if ticks count for more, that definitely could explain it.

That's a really good thought. My initial response is "And what about threads?" But ... then I remember that actual THREADS are the smaller part of the reward rate with how the trials are set up, and folks who have already gotten all of their slots unlocked have probably gotten a decent number of threads for constructing parts already.

I think I like this plan. It won't be a good one for probably a couple-few months still, but it'll be a good way to approach it long term.

I think that's a really good point. I know I've been talking to a lot of my friends after they see these conversion costs that are convinced that they can't earn influence fast enough relative their shard acquisition rates... and so I sit down and walk them through how much they get per kill from enemies even with SG mode on, how much common 50 IOs are worth, the fact that rare salvage pretty much always goes for minimum 1 mil (and frequently for 2 and sometimes 3)... And that's without touching on common/uncommon salvage and non-common IOs. And they always end up then asking: Then where does all my money GO?

I'm forced to answer, "Dunno. You should pay attention to that. It's not like we have real cash sinks or anything."


I recently ran an ITF, a few of us with level shifts and other incarnate toys. I advertised it as a 'kill most', but I'm quite positive we killed every enemy on at least two of the maps, possibly more of them.

Completion time was 59:57, and finishing off the last map took 5-10 minutes. I know I personally only got 7 shards from that run (eight after disassembling my ANF), and nobody indicated they got a higher amount.

Seems pretty typical for me.

The implementation of mechanical aspects in Praetoria is .. mixed. I think overall it's better, but where we had endless defeat alls and dozens of glowies, now we have enemy groups that are substantially more powerful than the level equivalents on Primal, and endless ambushes. The latter is definitely not cool in my opinion, and for the former, I think some of the enemies could be toned down a squidge.

I mean, I'm able to handle them on everything I've tried, but evidence suggests I'm a significantly above average capacity soloer, and rather patient when necessary. There's plenty of people who hit digital brick walls on this stuff, and that concerns me a little.. but despite that, with the availability of teaming, I think Praetoria is a superior early level range region than red or blue from a purely mechanical/implementation standpoint.

Obviously, opinions differ on story content. Subjective things are subjective.

I've been pondering that. If I ever get around to actually leading a BAF, and they haven't addressed the rewards issue, I'll probably just do something like "Last three of teams 1 and 2, last two of team 3, you're on adds."

It's less elegant. We've lost some functionality this way. But at least everyone gets paid.

Because it's awesome. Every. Time. :D

Well, I'll agree Cimerora is weaksauce, that's for sure. But it's also not when I started enjoying the story in the game. THAT happened in I18 with Praetoria.

For me, it very much is the story not the gameplay that I'm loving here. I can't stand redside because I feel THAT is "ham-handed" in that it actually tells me WHY I'm motivated to do things, and that motivation changes randomly. The redside content, through the writing, tells me my character is absolutely psychotic and unable to hold a coherent thought or objective for more than maybe 20 minutes.

Conversely, in Praetoria, the game tells me what is happening, and I'm able to fill in the blanks with WHY my character is doing this thing. For me, a lot of the things left out are IMPORTANT to be unstated, because I can finish it in the context of my character. I'm much more engaged, and whenever I hit one of the morality choices, I actually have to read the options, then mull it over for a while, the game sitting there 'paused' while I try to work out what my character will do. And it's often agonizing to me because I can see it both ways.

That, to me, is DEFINITELY engaging, and I'd like to see more of it.

Similarly, the tip missions. If I see one that doesn't fit my character, I can simply drop it, grab another. More often I just play through them and treat them as apocryphal, since I KNOW it's optional. It's harder to do that redside when you pretty much HAVE to go through the stuff that bothers me in order to advance at all.

I've frequently toyed with the idea of reviewing older content as if it was AE arcs, providing feedback on presentation and how to use the available tools more effectively. I keep deciding it's too much work that likely few people would care about, even if the idea amuses me.

Haven't done it. Don't have any redside characters of the appropriate level. I moved them all blueside, or they're only redside to grab an objective (accolade or patron) then head back blueside. Or I deleted them and started over blueside.

Maybe someday I'll get one of my praetorian characters to 20 that would reasonably go redside, and try again. I'm somewhat doubtful.


This is a symptom of how earnings are distributed. As I've mentioned before, in TWO BAFs I finished the last of my Judgement slot and got halfway to Lore, because I was on the adds team and we were hitting the badge for handling the adds.

I really think they need to revisit that, because it's unfair to give most of the rewards to one part of the league, when every team is just as critical.

Yeah, the time dilation issues are a well-worn phenomena, and I don't really understand why we're experiencing them on the trials. For mothership raids and invasion events, it makes sense; the server is having to deal with an entire zone's worth of people plus an absurd number of enemies. The trials are smaller, more contained, and as far as I can tell, with consistently fewer players and enemies than a mothership raid. If anyone has any insight into that, I'd like to hear it.

(Also, I'm totally guilty of dropping my ion on lag hill. It makes me giggle.)

Hmm. I kinda see where you're coming from..

I mean, I HAVE gotten the feeling for a long time that Paragon Studios is being micromanaged by NCsoft more than they used to be, but I disagree on some of the symptoms.

I mean, yeah. The recent crashes? That's pretty peculiar. Some balls have been dropped somewhere.

But when it comes to the other points.. I've been enjoying the I18 and later writing FAR more than most of what came before it. In fact, I've been running more of the late-game older content lately, since I've been working on things like accolades (for the first time since I joined back in.. 2006? Just never cared before), and I've been getting exposed to things like To Click A Thousand Glowies. Wow. That.. was phoning it in, compared to newer stuff. (Edit: Also, I can't stand pretty much any of redside's mainline writing that I've seen. I keep trying to play redside and I just can't do it, I always stop by late teens/early 20s, and go do something else... except for the redside tip missions. THOSE are fun to do when I dip redside for things like patron power access. Funny that.)

When it comes to content quantity.. As far as I can tell, I19 as we got it was a stopgap issue slipped into production schedule because of I18 closed beta responses. I suspect the I19/I20/I21 content distribution was originally planned differently, and some things in I20 would have been in I19, and some things that would have been in I20 probably got nudged to 21.

... and yet, I18 was a huge content infusion, I19 had an exceptionally large amount, and I20 itself is at LEAST comparable to most of the post-acquisition pre-I18 issues between playable content and new toys. And that's putting it pessimistic, I think.

I will concede that communication has... changed. We're not getting the personal touch from the people actually developing the game like we used to, and ... I miss that. On the other hand, while there was a drought in ANY communication for a while, we're getting a steadily increasing amount of responsiveness from the studio in general, between our new CM's presence on the forums and the semi-regular posts from Second Measure and developers by way of the community folks.

It's a change. I don't know how I feel about it. But they didn't just shut the door on us (albeit it was perhaps pushed to for a while), and I don't think it's fair to suggest that's the case.


That said, I do have other concerns. I'm still irate about the ncsoft launcher thing for instance (And I'm not going to consider switching to it until I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO, and even then I may have to make a decision about how I feel about the game), but everyone has hot buttons.

I still think the lack of anything that could remotely reasonably be called a 'solo path' for Incarnate stuff is a problem, but I'm willing to trust some additional options will be coming in time.


In the meantime? I'm going to occasionally run TFs, occasionally run trials.. and keep solo-slaughtering romans with my blaster and giggling at the massacre. Because that doesn't look like it's going to stop being hilarious any time soon.

In five consecutive BAFs, which was about 2 hours of play time, I got four uncommon table, and one rare table.

I also got 22 threads, and hit two Challenge badges for two additional Uncommon components. Somehow, I got two empyrean merits. Not quite sure how that happened.

A bunch of astrals, too. I'm not sure how many times we hit challenge items, but I know it was more than once for one of them.

... I also went from 0% judgement to unlocked, and 50-ish percent towards Lore.


(By the way, for those of you keeping score, yes I was previously saying I couldn't handle events of this intensity for that long. That was true then. It seems no longer true now. Go go gadget pharmaceutical corrections.)

From a production PoV, they can flip the WTF to tasks that are 'known' to work while development works on a long-term solution.

It's sensible triage that doesn't require a hotfix.

Last I checked, exemplar let you keep powers five levels above your effective level. I haven't seen mention of this changing in the patch notes, so I figured it was still the same.

I'd double-check in game myself, but I've used up my in-game joementum for the day.