f13.net

At least it's not World of Warcraft. (http://www.f13.net/index2.php?subaction=showfull&id=1082703117&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&)

Regarding mobs, I believe they have said that they have half a dozen or so new villian groups ready to go in if launch goes well...  But that is just words and they are not worth too much.

While itching to see Eden, you should add Dark Astoria to your list.  It is supposed to be absolutely bitching.  Yes.  I used the word 'bitching'.  I am ashamed.

I also hear there is a mission or task force on a crashed rikti spacecraft.  That could be cool.  Hopefully it will look unique and not like a crey mission.

Guildhalls:
I think your ideas for guildhalls is abit sticky.  I think a lot of the player base wants the huge shiney Hall of Justice type building.  And being an old warehouse on the corner of 5th and Main won't exactly be what they want.  I have a feeling there will be a new instanced zone for housing.  It will make some happy and others not.  I don't know of a way to make housing to make all happy.  Needing X number of players in the group and doing a set of missions for it is great though and should for sure be the way it is done.  I also have little doubt it will be done since so many things in the game are unlocked by missions already.

Capes:
I don't think capes are just capes.  Capes is a cloth physics system from what I understand.  It will allow capes, but not just capes alone.  Women may also get long skirts.  Men may get kilts and hundreds of angry scottish superheroes would emerge.  Wings may come in at the same time.  Capes may come in at the same time as the particle effect clothing system for things like fiery hair.  I think it will be more than just capes.  For that reason I think it will be cool.  I personally think capes is pretty stupid.  They just make everyone look too similar from behind.


The success of this game will be heavily based on the rate of content addition.  There is really no player made content AT ALL in the game.  Devs can't blame players for not making their own content like they tried to do in SWG.  Other than making a new character there is little the player can do to extend content when it has gotten stale.


Good writeup.

Overall I think CoH has had a fantastic beta and can really improve from here on in once they start adding in more content. Sure, CoH is one bad patch away from sucking, but to this point they have shown a lot of promise that they can pull off a successful mmog.

Well, until they cave to the pressure and introduce pvp and crafting.

Mob diversity does improve alot with levels but I agree it does start a bit slow.  You start off working with mostly human gangs and the higher you get the more and more different stuff you start to see. Also each gang can have a great number of models but some seem rare.

With 5th column you mostly see their troopers but once in a while you will see their flying pods or their awsome warwolf powerarmor/mechs.

Some types of foe have a wild ammount of diversity inside one gang.  Devouring earth I think has the largest ammount of diversity in mob types and looks of any of the foes I have fought. They range from swarms of sentient insects to HUGE monolithic treant looking things.

The super hero HQ thing was one of the originally planned things and is something I expect to happen eventually post launch although I expect it to be more of an instanced thing.


One thing I have started to see more and one thing I hope they continue to improve especially at lower levels is mission area diversity. There are a metric ton of floor plans but at least until level 10 or so you are mainly stuck in either a sewer or a office building/warehouse.  At higher levels you can go from underground cities to crey buildings,  to nazi bunkers and all sorts of other very diverse mission type areas. It really helps break things up if you are not going oh not an office building again.

Thankfully with the way they do instancing I fully expect that adding new types of mission styles/floorplans is something that is very easy for them to do and very modular.



The ground work is laid for a fun game and of all the most recent betas I have done I don't have any big gripes.


I think the only thing that would kill their release and give them a bad release day experience is billing. The game handled some HUGE ammounts of folks online last night and if the fight in founders falls did not cause the server to burst into flame then nothing will. Sure it got chuggy but there was about 200 people and as many rikti all capping off their aoes and what not rapid fire and it was still playable and I never map discoed onece during the fight.


Kaid

Billing will be a BIG concern. I don't think anyone has gotten this right, ever, except maybe DAoC. Hopefully, any fuckup they make on release day billing will be of the small variety, instead of the "OMFG I got billed 15 times because the web page wouldn't load" shit that Horizons had.

I wish I had seen the Rikti invasion, but my computer decided to give up the ghost on Tuesday and I haven't played since.

It was fun in a "let's follow the crowd and watch the gankfest" sort of way.  They started small, initially, but quickly caught on that:

1.  Players had access to the shout channel and would quickly converge, en masse, on any lone Rikti that appeared anywhere.

2.  The "heal all heroes in the vicinity" powers (they're quite common) are just sick when the healer has 200+ heroes in the vicinity.

So what followed were armies of riktis, spawning in multiple places, and especially the hospital (the "spawn here after you've died" spot).  And then it was just hilarious, energy attack overload lol.

Plus, the aliens were phisically rather big, and high level, but they had these fricking monkeys that were tiny and in my level 5 range, that would appear I think whenever the bigger guys died, so you'd be attacked and like "wtf is that dmg coming from" till you looked down.

Movie, slow download.  Nevermind, guy's overloaded and losing his ISP. (http://www.coh.com/forums/showthread.php?s=2ddace55f0699fed8f5ee1fe0285c1fc&threadid=47503)
Some guy posted 56 pics. (http://www.dark-democracy.com/index.php?module=My_eGallery&do=showgall&gid=11&offset=0&orderby=titleA)
Lotsa rikti, few heroes here. (http://www.thehighborn.com/0019.jpg)
More pictures. (http://www.coh.com/forums/showthread.php?s=2ddace55f0699fed8f5ee1fe0285c1fc&threadid=47285)
Gamespy article on it, heh heh. (http://www.gamespy.com/articles/508/508603p1.html)

I took a few pics myself but for some reason my graphics editors find the .tga's badly formatted and I can't open them.  None of the pics out there captured the real crowd, so you won't get an idea of just how many superheroes did squeeze into the small area around mobs, heh.

Billing: It's always a fuck up.  You expect it, these days.  While everything else in a game MIGHT be a fuck up, you can always put your money on billing... or not put your money on it, as the case may be.

Capes:  I'd like to see them, though I won't use them.  It really is a very superhero thing, isn't it?  Well, I assume so... I'm not big on comics but I do seem to remember lots of capes.  Cloth movement is not the easiest thing to get right.  I have a feeling that this team has a good chance though.  They did a wonderful job on reflection and movement.  I especially liked the indoor floor reflections... something many games either botch or ignore.  It truly looked like marble to me.

Sidekicks:  Best idea EVER.  They have found a way to allow every level to group with each other, with no real detriment to anyone.  At level 2
E-Blue sidekicked me and I was actually able to function, with minimal death, for some level 13 or 14 missions. (I forget what level, exactly) They should erect a statue in the honour of the developer who came up with this idea.  Replace that one of the bloke in AP who looks like he should be flying but isn't... that one makes me feel anxious.

I have no excuse for missing the end of beta event other than I was exhausted and kept falling asleep.  I went to bed very, very early.  I'll be taking part in the catass, though, as Righ is off work for the entire week and I have no 7 AM wake ups to deal with.  Playing this game during the night with the lot of you has had a bad effect on my energy level.  After next week I'll probably be back on my day time playing and night time sleeping routine.

They have announced the City of Villains expansion:
http://www.plaync.com/about/press_release_042304.html

Oh, and the 'capes' issue is actually a bit larger. It is the flowing art that is the problem but getting it down will also allow robes and long skirts, which some people have asked for. A lot of the female players hate that all the skirts are minis.

Scorus

After you reach a certain age and are no longer interested in being picked up in clubs... nothing that reminds you that your legs need shaving is welcome.

On a geekier note... now you can make those little star wars desert critters with the glowing eyes.  I forget what they're called.

Jawa.

-5 geek points for Signe.

Irony noted about the pvp bit (http://www.plaync.com/about/press_release_042304.html).

Once they get capes movement "right", expect to see the introduction of trenchcoats, moving tails and others along with the previously mentioned skirts and robes. I can imagine long skirts being popular with the flying female population - not every girl wants to give the city an eyeful every time she takes to the skies.

Seriously though, tails were almost cut from release because they didn't move. However, enough people voted to keep the static tails, so they stayed.

Just a note for those that were not present, at last year's E3 in LA the SAME (toned down) Rikti invasion occured at the behest of the playtesters that were present and playing. The event was *not* new for the end of beta. In fact, from my e3 review of last year (it has since been taken down from the web since our guild web page got hacked ;() this is what I said about CoH (it used to be all hyperlinked):

I wandered over to the City of Heros setup, not before getting a picture with some 'booth babes'.

[snip]

Concentrate. Back to City of Heros. There were like 12 computers set up in a little LAN all connected so you could play with the other fucks there. There were no spots avaliable on them, so I asked one of the developer girls (Yes, it seemed that there were developers there that are actually female. Okay, let's not kid ourselves, they were community liasons.) if I could use thier machine. She obliged. She went away and left some dude to take me through character creation.

  Pic 5: Ragtop girth making purty girlies.  
I was like "How do I fly? Does this make me fly? When can I fly? Why am I not flying?". He was like "No. No. No. No, you can't fly yet.". I was bummed. The character creation was soo customizable that I made a girl with a flame sword and a red eyepatch (ARRR!! ). She also shot out fire from her hands as her ranged attack and had super speed (but on the ground!). Anyways, I started playing.

The game sucked. Basically it took place in a city and there were people everywhere. You could target them, but you could do nothing else. Basically, there were all these movable things and you could do nothing to them. Bad. I was like 'wtf?' and the guy said that I needed to go into the alleys and such where bad guys would typically hang out. So I hopped a fence (wow, actual nice 3d implementation) or two and fought some thug. I shot him with my ranged fire, then ran up to him and used my fire sword. It was very point and click. It was ALL point and click. There is a time where you have to wait for your powers to recycle before you can use them again, so I basically didnt do anything other than beat some thug into submission with my fists not even using my powers. Whoopdeefreakindo. I was about to leave, when the developer said that there was an alien invasion! So I sped into the middle of the city at city hall or something (Note: The city seemed very small... but it could just be the beta). There was a huge mothership like in Independence Day above the city hall with random aliens spawning in the city hall. There were like all 10 of the other players there, some had to have been 'leveled up'/developed because they were kicking the crap out of the aliens (with thier fists, since it took thier powers like 10 seconds to recycle and the mobs died in like 2). Anyways, the aliens all died, the mothership left, and so did I.


I may have been overly critical at the time, and I guess my point is, I don't know how 'extensible' the engine is in so far as generating content if they are still using the same content they generated from last Feburary/March.

(edit: my complete review of last year's e3: http://www-scf.usc.edu/~marthale/random/e3/e3.html )

I'm pretty highly convinced the invasion wasn't an events test as much as it was a "how many people can we cram into one instanced zone without burning out a CPU" test.

Just my thoughts.

Wow, I would have thought you would not have wanted to post that again gith considering all the stupidity that was in it.  But far be it from me to get in the way of stupid.

Have you ever played any other MMOG before? When I see the questions like "When can I fly?" and see you getting upset over not being able to fly, I gotta refer you to go try EverQuest for a day... hell, an hour, if you can last that long. Somewhere around the 4th rat, you should be asking yourself if it ever gets any better than this. And that boring punching has NOTHING on autoattack4tehwin! Heh. But I'm just picking nits. Compared to other MMOGs, CoH is a huge breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, if you are new to MMOGs, perhaps that air is still a bit stagnant.

yeah i have played one or two other mmorpgs before. that actually hurts my feelings. :(


at the time i was playing shadowbane and was flying around in the air at various static levels with my warlock and I think I had made a gripe about it on my guild board or something, and I wanted to try out an engine that contained 'real' flying (is it pretty much the first?). and all the other mmorpgs that I played that day had pre-leveled characters so that the players/guests/etc. could experience some of the cooler aspects of the game (in WoW I used a level 53 huntress, Lineage2 there was a level 55 necromancer, etc). I guess the CoH people valued thier character creation over the cooler aspects of thier true 3d engine (jumping from building to building?).


I guess my point was just expressing doubt about how scalable/extensible/dynamic the CoH content scripting language is: can they add events/quests/ideas with minimal effort? or does it take 3 developers and 13 artists 3 months to plan one rikti invasion? can they generate monster spawning without admin control? I think that the easier it is to add content to the CoH engine, the better the PvM game will be.



Alluvian, in 3 weeks I'll have even more stupid avaliable.


:/

You have some good points and I understand that that was a review from a year ago so apologies for sounding so snip with you. I see your point and it makes sense. The CoH folks should be damn proud of their work with the Z axis and they should have people flying around when giving a demo at E3. Perhaps flight wasn't complete at that time.

That sounded like a threat to me.

Yeah, he was actively comparing COH gameplay to SB gameplay and came away thinking COH 'sucked'.  Takes all kinds I guess.

Tell me when that extra stupid comes out in three weeks so I can actively avoid accidentally looking at it.  Maybe post it on your own site or something so I can install some child protection filters to my web browser and add that IP address or something.

As a gamer, you almost have no choice but to compare games that you are currently playing with everything else that you run across. Especially if you are playing that game 2-5 hours a day. Luckily, I haven't been gaming at all lately, just being an armchair-designer, so this year's e3 will hopefully be somewhat fresh.

And Alluvian, there are going to be so many e3 reviews scattered all across the web in three weeks (guild sites, this site, other sites, comic sites, computer sites, etc etc) that you will best just not browse the web for like 2 months. And the only reason that I brought the review up was to point out the re-use of the code to people that weren't playing/following CoH back then and would like to have known that the current beta-ending event was not new.


P.S. I wasn't going to post a review this year, but I will now. AND do it here!! (and that's a promise!)

So you compared a war sim fantasy PvP RPG to a superhero PvM action game.  Uhhhhh ok.

Apples and oranges, anyone?

Knock yourself out.  I'll just skip it.  Or maybe I should read it and look into the games you hate and ignore the games you like.  I am as of yet undecided.

But post away.

I just don't see how you compare SB and COH gameplay and come away disliking COH compared to SB.  It does not compute.  SB was an abyssmal game where the pvp was the ONLY high point...  And that was too riddled with technical issues to enjoy.  But did you actually like the early levels of SB more than fighting thugs and running missions in CoH?

If so, does everyone wear little goatees and wear their uniforms reversed where you live?

Uhh, I didn't.

I don't think that I mentioned anything about the game play of SB at all. In fact, rereading my posts, yeah I didn't. I did say that in CoH waiting for your powers to recycle at early levels was boring. And hell yeah I'll still stand by that, 'cause it is. I don't mention SB gameplay at all so I don't see how I could compare them (you have any bones to pick? :p).

SB was the only mmorpg up until CoH that I know of that allowed player characters to fly and since I was just comparing the engines, then I think the two games deserved the comparison in that regard. Especially when someone brings up the fact that thier Z axis implementation is the best that I've ever seen. Apples and apples.


It just seems that people can't differentiate between a game's engine and its gameplay. A design and an implementation.

Shadowbane, for example, has a very niche game play perspective as a "war sim fantasy PvP RPG", and that, in itself, was a good thing. The laggy Arcane Engine with its outdated graphics and SB.exe exceptions did not help the game-play at all and forced many people to quit playing a game that they might have enjoyed gameplay-wise. It was a simple enough implementation that allowed characters to build things and affect the persistant world (in a true-3d environment). It was basic yet it allowed the player characters enough involvement in the war sim fantasy aspect of the game that they felt ownership of things which lead to more emotional clashes.

From what I have seen of the CoH engine, it is amazing in some regards. The z-axis implementaion mentioned above with all the buildings avaliable to travel on or over. It is a great engine for the pvm super hero type game. Yet, in one of those blurring game-engine and game-design things, heros cannot hurt, heal or interact with all the citizens of Paragon City. Nor can they change the world in any acknowlegable way: no matter how many thugs they kill the only record of it will be in the information terminal somewhere and the buildings will always have thier back alleys where the criminals congregate. It was a choice to program instanced content in this regard. And I'm not saying that it is good or bad, just that the engine does fit the game type very well. And that it is fun.

I understand now.

You are one of those "I want to change the world" people. I think you're looking for a single player game.

Go play Anarchy Online and buy your character a Yalmaha, noob. Or don't vehicles count? WW2OL also wants a word.

Nope. Not if the level 40 is the Blob and the level 1 is the Flash.

I'd rather see designs based on comic book lore than on the crappy mmorpg formula aka 'reward the catass!'. Toss aside your preconceived notions of failed formulas and embrace the fun without question!

Please direct you posts here http://cohvault.ign.com/

I think Gith's comments are right on the mark and am quite amused by the responses directed at the non-believer.

Do tights really go with pitchforks and torches?

Mental note made to revisit this thread to bring it back to life in 3 months for a laugh.

They do if you're Amish Man.

I don't.  I think they are mostly indicative of yet another case of someone having heard about something and then in thier mind fitting it to a certain mold and then once they experience it and realize it's not what they dreamed it was they rail horribly against it.  Gith's posts all have the earmarks of that type of behavior.  You can note this most easily by the refusal to relate the subject to anything like it's actual self and instead constantly returning to a point how the game comes up short of some 'ideal' only he happens to be aware of.

Mostly, as far as I can tell, the basis of his arguments come, not from having played the game extensively but, from that while demoing the game at E3 last year they didn't let him play a character that flies (good luck getting that rectified) and that they decided to use the Rikti invasion theme again rather than do up a new supar-special end of beta event.

That they used the same event again is indicative of nothing other than they like Rikti invasions, no matter how much weight Gith wants to give to it.  Maybe once we have had 217 identical Rikti invasion events I'll lend the thought some credence.

Maybe it's also the fact that the main backstory is the Rikti conflict? It's like bitching about a stormtrooper invasion event in SWG, it's gonna happen. A lot.

And a level 40 player DOES run faster than a level 1 player anyway.  If the level 40 took super speed at 14 he runs WAAAAAY faster than the level 1.  Even if the level 40 didn't  take super speed, they could stick a single origin speed enhancer on the sprint power and be noticably faster.  Throw a few on and you have some pretty good speed.

I believe the above comment could equally be applied to every negative review I have ever read.



He also mentioned the waiting for powers to cycle and thumping thugs, both of which I experienced.  Daft as it sounds when you mention a superhero to someone, the most well know is probably superman.  Can leap a tall building in a single bound, faster than a speeding bullet, can fly.  I didn't experience any of thoses before I got bored and quit, that the E3 demo should have included them, I think is a valid comment.  What exciting elements of game play did I miss apart from killing mobs and waiting for powers to cycle?

I find it very interesting that "waiting for powers to cycle" is a concern.  I'm a level 9 (almost 10) fire/fire blaster.  I have 2 single target direct damage, 2 area effect, one dd with a small DoT, and the other a heavy DoT, and a single target DoT/root.  I have each socketed for damage, precision, and endurance reducer.

I never find myself sitting and waiting for powers to recycle.  Endurance is so much more of an issue for me than power cycle times.  My ae DoT and ae dd have the longest recycle times, so a typical group battle for me goes like this (I'm almost always grouped):  Wait for the controller to open up with an AE root of some form.  Rush in and use my cone AE DoT (it's low range so I have to be close), attempting to get as many targets in the cone as possible.  This usually gets EVERYTHING to aggro me, so I run back behind the group praying for a heal.  When I get out of range, I turn and fire my AE dd + small DoT at the group, if they weren't pissed at me before they will be now.  I then find the boss or lt of the group and focus on him with my single target dd spells, rooting with my DoT/root if he gets loose from the controller.  When my AE dd becomes available again I'll blast the largest gathering I can find with it.  Repeat like this until the battle ends (usually just a few seconds).

I took the power hasten from the speed power pool and I almost never use it.  I hate myself for having taken it instead of hover, because everyone I group with has hover and thus I'm constantly trying to find my way around/over things so I can keep up.  I'm hoping that hasten becomes more useful with my later powers or that some day there is a way to respec.  When I do use hasten (like during a big boss fight) you can guarantee I'll run out of endurance and have to use a catch a breath inspiration or two during the battle; however, I can easily run myself out of endurance in a battle without hasten.   I'm not fast enough to keep up with power cycling when I use haten so it's mostly a waste because I'll often have several powers sitting waiting to be used while I'm working on deciding what to do next.

Power cycling was a HUGE concern for me.





...in the tutorial with a character that had one passive power.

Gripe about something you know about next time, so you don't look so ignorant.

Nothing, nothing. Just say you don't like it and move on, man. Move on.

If you ever solo you will like hasten.  When leveling up in beta I could rather easily do groups of 10+ minions a level or two higher than me.  Fireball, fire breath, fire rain and then the second fireball is ready again.  This just DECIMATES groups.  Depending on the clustering it will kill about half of them outright and the rest will be fleeing and almost dead.  Easy targets to oneshot with fireblast or flares.  It works without hasten, but is more painful.

And hasten has a lot of uses like when you JUST want to concentrate on one target and don't need to waste the large endurance drains of the aoes.  Or if you are facing big groups, with just one recharge timer on my fireball I can get off Fireball, firebreath, fire rain, fireball all without even a moments pause if using hasten.  In a group of two, just me and a controller this combo will kill every single one of a bunch of 10-15 evens without much endurance usage and with pretty much no damage at all.

And there will be respec in the game eventually.

Ice/Ice Blaster made it to level 7-8, had 2 cycling offense powers even in the tutorial, think had 4 cycling powers by the time I quit.  Maybe I should have mentioned the class, though judging by the rank smell of fanboi round here doubt it would have mattered.




That's what I thought, I don't like it, agreed I will try not disturb the happy thoughts anymore.

Something in that "Arthur_Parker" missed in his 2 levels of gameplay.

Great implementation of the Z-axis and a great integration of the game world/environment into combat tactics.

Every other MMOG I have played, the environment is simply a graphical skin that "gets in the way" in combat by lousing up pathfinding and creating geometry exploits. In this game, the environment is used in combat, and there are valid tactics involved. For example, using knockback powers at the top of a building as a form of crowd control.

P.S.
It's so very kewl to be contrarian

2 levels?  

STONE THE UNBELIEVER STONE HIM STONE HIM.

Are you at the back in a bad fake beard?

This reminds me of my friends trying to convince me to like sushi.

There's no accounting for taste. Sometimes when we really like something, there is an impulse to evangelize. There's no need for stoning. My apologies.

You are aware that you can improve the recycle times up to 240% faster than they are initially yes?  Or that by the mid game you will have somewhere around 10 -15 powers many of which other ice/ice blasters won;t even have?

No sir, I don't think its cliqish fanboisism calling you wrong I think it's merely the fact that you are utterly wrong and picking at nits.  Come up with a legit gripe and people here will pay attention, but as long as you are going to make mountains out of mole-hills don;t expect a lot of sympathy.



Really?  Do you think at E3 this year SOE should organize a 6 hour planes raid to show off the new high end content for EQ 2?  Is that really your argument?

No need for that, my own fault for getting involved in the discussion, Gith's thoughts clicked with mine and I found it hard to resist.

Aware of the 2nd, the first to a lesser extent, that is pretty good.



No pvp, all you do is kill mobs, I shouldn't have even tried it, only did cause all the reports were so very good.  

I wasn't expecting sympathy (...wtf?).    Just put my interference down to an honest desire to prevent a new cult forming and a horrible mass suicide of purple robbed followers when they nerf the phonebooth change ability.  CNN turning up on my doorstep to ask about it, I can do without.



I think they should certainly show the end game of EQ2, a 6 hour raid from start to finish might stretch the non-eq player's time a little, I'd go with more of a highlight job personally.

Here's my problem with your comments. If you can't enjoy CoH for the PvE it offers and character skill types it offers, how can you enjoy ANY MMO? This is just the most polished aspect of one of the best parts of MMO's. While ATITD covers crafting, CoH covers combat.

Well I would like to honour my comment to Sky and retire from the thread, my problem is what's the point?
You know when you log in you will be stronger than when you log out, each day beings you closer to the day when you defeat the biggest challenge in the game, everything is predictable.
It lacks soul, it lacks depth, it lacks an element of danger for me that only unpredictable interactions with other possibly hostile players gives me.

And for that you're willing to put up with garbage like Lineage 2?  Where you have like 3 skills for 20 levels?  

I guess it takes all kinds.

Afraid so, playing a dwarf too, so it's 2 skills spoil and sweep.  Half way through the level 20 class change quest though, I get combat skills soon! :P

Edited to add quest, wasn't sure I was clear.

Game. Set. Match.

Pop music is kinda like that too.

And Lineage 2? Good god man! Are you insane?! My gripe with them is that they advertised Seiges and Flying mounts for release and they didn't get them complete in time. Tsk tsk. Same old MMOG syndrome. ;)

I can't imagine even the PVP in L2 being any good.  Even after the class change all you have is like 5 skills (only 3 active if I recall), 2 of those shared with every other of initial class (Knight for instance got two warrior skills and a heal thing if I recall, the evil knight got the same two warrior skills and a lifetap, the warrior got three passive weapon skills...)

Target and auto attack is just as boring vs a human as vs a mob really.  You are still not matching your skill vs theirs.  You are first off matching your character vs theirs, and if the characters are identical (like oh so many are) you are more matching your connection with theirs.  In fps connection speed makes a difference as well, but a skilled player can compensate for that, and a poor player on a great connection will still be poor.  In L2 there is just no interactivity in combat.  I don't see suddenly adding PVE at X level will make it any better.  Unless you enjoy picking on noobs and azzraping them.

Shit, who doesn't?

Personal attack for teh win! I forgot how much fun this section of the community is :|

Any PvP game framed in a level-based system is TOTALLY FUCKING MORONIC. Let's reward the best PvP player, or he who can grind exp and camp gear the fastest? I love PvP. But only on an even playing field, like UT or BF, and to an extent, Planetside. But when I'm told to go whack a mole for another month because Billy Roxxiznatch is 20 levels higher than me....well, that's just dumb.

imo

Personal attack for teh win! I forgot how much fun this section of the community is :|

Gripe about something you know about next time, so you don't look so ignorant.

Sky didn't attack your person at all.  He called the game dumb, but no where in his post did he even remotely attack you.  I know you are attempting to be witty, but it's really just making you look stupid.

I was referring to his earlier post where he commented I was ignorant, you may not take that as a personal insult but I generally do.  Especially when the facts relating to the element of coh he was talking about, the tutorial were in error on his part, not mine.

Following that up with the statement that I was starting the personal attacks, when the opposite was true, then with a sweeping statement that "Any PvP game framed in a level-based system is TOTALLY FUCKING MORONIC. "

Shows to me that well, further conversation seems to be rather pointless.

He wasn't being insulting, he was being honest, you did look ignorant.  Out of the hundreds of things that you could have mentioned about the game, you picked one area where there simply is no problem.  Then you preemptively attacked anyone who disagreed with you by saying they are all fanbois.  You clearly started the personal attacks, and I still haven't seen anything other than honesty from Sky.



Why would further conversation be pointless, are you conceding to the fact that Sky is right?  Level based PvP games are, to quote the man "TOTALLY FUCKING MORONIC."  Basing the ability to PvP on time invested, rather than skill at playing the game, is a moronic way to scale PvP.

Which area was that?



No I'm not conceding Sky is right.  PVP games in which the game design allows in-game tactics and character creation choices to affect the outcome of battles.  Where it is possible to win against a higher level, where twitch is a small factor, where random elements and the use of terrain can affect the outcome.  These type of games have an audience.  But failing all that when the level cap is reached the playing field is equal anyway.  So what you really are complaining about is the length of the grind, again.

The comment that time investment PVP games are moronic fails to acknowledge the obvious fact that character advancement is impossible without time investment.  So therefore what you are really stating is that character advancement and PVP cannot co-exist, am I the only one left here who actually enjoyed UO for the freedom you had?

Further conversion is pointless because

A. You will never convinced me that a pure PVE game is worth playing

and

B. I will never convince you that every person out there who likes pvp in mmorpg's does not want to digitally invade your anus.

No, you have failed to acknowledge the fact that character advancement doesn't have to equate to power.  I'll say it again characters can advance without gaining power over other characters.  You can design your character advancement around depth of character rather than the power of the character.  There are games that already do this, Sky mentioned a few, there are games coming out that plan on doing this in the future.  Levels don't have to equal power.  Time invested doesn't have to mean power.



That's a bullshit ad hominem with absolutely no fucking basis in reality and it just goes to show that you fucking have no clue what you are talking about.  I took part in the design and implimentation, and ran a PvP+ MUD for years.  I was one of Shadowbane's biggest fanbois from the day I entered beta.  I love PvP combat.

Just because I think you're an idiot for because you picked the one aspect of CoH that is a non-issue to target and then resorted to ad hominems rather than arguing your case when it was pointed out that you were ignorant on the topic, doesn't mean I hate PvP.  Not everyone who disagrees with you is some PvP hating carebear.  The fact that you are wrong is why I disagreed with you, it had nothing to do with PvP.  You are an idiot.

Thank you for acknowledging that in every mmorpg on the market today character advancement does equal power.









And now you are playing COH.  You all jumped on the SB bandwagon after knocking it for years (maybe not you personally) then everyone jumped on the SWG bandwagon, remember all the Raph threads?  This is just history repeating itself with COH.



Personal attack for teh win! I forgot how much fun this section of the community is :|

Let me give you another chance to use that quote:

You sir, are a fucking idiot.  Now, continue to play the part of the stupid paddle in this game of board pong.

Just because no one has gotten in right doesn't mean it's not the right way to do it.  And it certainly doesn't even remotely help prove your point about CoH.



Nice fucking try but I didn't even remotely say that second quote, and I didn't even come close to saying it was right or even acknowledging that it existed in the thread until this very moment.  You took a quote that someone else said and then used it as evidence against me in a strange assumption that I had something to do with it.  You have proven yourself to be a grade fucking A asshole.



And?  I've never said that CoH is the end all be all of games.  I think a lot of people here are going to be disillusioned very soon.  It's fun, Shadowbane was fun for awhile, SWG was fun for a shorter time.  I play video games to have fun.

I've said it 10 times in this thread, and I'll say it again.  There are a lot of things wrong with CoH and had you pointed at any of those things I would have agreed with you.  But you pointed out the one area where there are no issues.



And?  I never said I wouldn't call you a fucking moron, you are a fucking moron.  You're a moron who fucking takes quotes from entirely different people and tries to use them as proof that I said something that I didn't even remotely say or even imply.  You are the lowest form of moron.  You don't deserve the air that you breath.  You are a fucking idiot moron asshole.

Ohh you must think I'm Sky, he was the one chastising personal attacks, not me.  Me and Sky, just like me and Alluvian, are totally different people, moron.

I'm only commenting because I also played CoH at last year's E3, also wrote a review about it and also looked forward to it. It stuck with me, though the review itself was lost when WT.o #1 because WT.o #2.

I must have played a different CoH than you. This isn't fanboi speak, just clarification.

Rikti invasion was the same. I actually think they handled it better last year than they did this. However, I also think they're saving the "good" one for the paying customers, maybe as part of story-arc dealio.

Flying wasn't in? What did you play? Every character I tried had Super Speed and Fly and Super Jumping. I had a great time jumping really high off a building then hitting Fly then hitting Super Speed. Sucked up a lot of time.

The characters were all pre-rolled. Duh. Demo. Alpha.

Point-and-click? Shit. W-A-S-D movement and # keys for powers was in even then. People who activate powers by selecting target and hitting activation buttons die. A lot.

Power Cycling, yes, that was an issue. I immediately didn't like having to stand there getting beat while my powers refresg

So what has changed from last year? Not a lot actually. The UI, the quantity of content and the fleshing out of the archetypes really. The game was what it was going to be a full year ago, and it was playably polished even them.

Not liking it is one thing. With all of the PvE out there, even good PvE can be boring. But holding on to impressions that were wrong even when they were written is not going to win debates :)

Emphasis mine, just in case you missed it on the first read.

I rather thought not providing a link to one, yet linking to a unreleased one meant he couldn't think of one off hand.  Notice you didn't link one either.

Sky had already linked one, Planetside.  I was too pissed at you using Alluvian's quote against me to make a new link, that's why I mentioned he mentioned it above.

For the record, this was WAY over the top, and I apologize.  I forget that I have that f13.net title under my name now (it doesn't grant me any mod powers, it just gives me an outlet to post front page updates) and that I need to keep myself more in check.  Anyways, I'd delete the post but I don't want to appear to be covering up evidence of me being a jerk, so I'll let it stand with the caveat that I'm just a jerk..

No worries.  Thought planetside had character advancement as heard it was increased in first week after release, never played it though so wouldn't know for sure.  Not really sure what the one thing I was complaining about COH being and that not being valid, apart from not liking it that is.

Planetside had character advancement, that was my point, the more advanced your character becomes, the deeper his skillset becomes, but, for the most part, you do not become more powerful.

When you start Planetside you have a few skill points, you can spend those skill points on any skill in the game, once you have the skill (actually it's called a certification) you can use it to the same degree as anyone else, i.e. if you get a "Heavy Weapons" skill you can use the same Heavy Weapons at level 1 as you can at level 20.  As you gain more levels, you get more skill points which you can use to unlock more skills, but it only lets your character become more versitile, not more powerful.

A level 1 Planetside character vs. a level 20 Planetside character is an equal battle, the only difference will be the skill of the player controlling the toon.  PvP games should be designed around depth of character instead of making time invested = guaranteed win.  

The only other option, and one that almost worked, is to have extremely fast leveling to the cap like Shadowbane.  Shadowbane also didn't put much emphasis on levels, as a level 45 character I could take on level 55+ characters, and with some skill I'd usually win.



Waiting on powers to cycle was the thing I thought was silly.  Out of all the potential things wrong with CoH (ex:  it's not PvP), it seems silly to argue that waiting for powers to cycle is an issue.  I almost never find myself waiting for powers to cycle.

Planetside has already been mentioned a lot, I think CoH gets a minor honarary mention with their differentiation between SECURITY level and COMBAT level.  Security level is your actual level, Combat level is your sidekicked level.  The Security levels give you depth and diversity, and also one more combat level.  But the combat level can be boosted with the very nice but not perfect sidekick system.  So you can be security level 3 and competitive with security level 30 if your combat level has been boosted by sidekicking.  But the 30 still has the extra depth and versatility (powers and enhancement slots) that those levels have awarded him.

The only real problem with the sidekicking is that you can only sidekick on person per player.  So you can get in problems with uneven numbers of players leaving out a few lower level players.  Still the best system to date, but could have been better with a group sidekick feature or something.

And my comment about azzraping was taken pretty out of context and was entirely meant as a joke.  I should have turned on my sarcasm flags apparently.  I was looking for how the PVP is supposed to be fun in L2 because I am not seeing it with such limited character diversity and in-combat trigger-able skills.  I only stuck the assraping line at the end because we all know there are people out there who will always enjoy doing that in mmogs.  I don't even see how a perfectly balanced combat will be in in L2 though.

I said ignorant, not stupid. Pointing out that you don't know what you're talking about is not an insult. Sure, I don't know L2, but I've played several level-based pvp mmogs, so it's not like I'm ignorant of the basic concepts involved. If I had called you an ignorant asshole, that's different, but I didn't.

*sigh* I shouldn't bother, but...

No, I was talking about my own experience, and I stated it as such. So you have to deal with slow power cycling for what? An hour? Two? Out of how many hours you'll eventually spend playing the game? Yeah, I'd much rather spend those 18 levels wasting time grinding exp on useless levels, as you've admitted the first 18 in L2 are. Does it take an hour or two to bypass those levels? If so, nm, but I imagine (don't know!) that it's longer than that.

So you have unbalanced pvp all the way until you've hit the end of the treadmill. Then why have the treadmill? And I will /always/ complain about the length of a grinding treadmill, if the game isn't fun or if it's not necessary (see Planetside), but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about level-based pvp and my OPINION that it's fucking moronic. Because really, it is. In my opinion. Maybe you could try to change that opinion, since you seem to like level-based pvp a lot.

That's pretty much what I'm saying. I believe that in a pvp-centric title of ANY genre no character should be outright stronger than another just because he's been played longer. A newbie and a vet should have the same potential. The vet will have developed skills and knowledge that make him more effective.

As cev pointed out, character advancement != character power, nor should it. The only reason one character would want an artificial advantage over another is...well, let's just say it's negative reasoning. I don't want that to be mistaken for an 'attack' on you, I'm not high enough level to defend myself :P

This is one of those moronic things. I shouldn't be gimped because I have a social life imo. I'm not gimped in Battlefield because of it, but I am in mmogs. Battlefield I feel is great pvp, mmogs not so much.

Wasn't even trying. In fact, I believe I said if you don't like it, just move on. You generally won't see me talking much about Lineage2 because I just don't care about it. In fact, you'll see me talk about how much I don't think pve belongs in pvp mmogs at all as a basis for advancement, because it's disconnected from the actual meat of the game and could easily be done away with for a new system that makes more sense within the product as a whole.

Want aside, if I'm level 25 and he's level 50, that's what's going to happen. Which is of course so much fun for the 25th level guy, I'm sure.

That's what I'm saying. Damn work for letting cevik debate this for me, hah. But I kinda like it...

I agree with Cevik and Sky.

Also found this funny in light of your comment on the other thread about your future wife and kids:



By the time you get two dwarves leveled up to 40 (one dwarf is pretty useless by himself) with your RL commitments the City of Villians expansion and pvp might actually be implemented.  We shall see, hehe.

[Edited to add:]
The only PVP I think would really work well in CoH would be instanced objective based encounters balanced to team level.  But winning the missions should give you a big exp boost.  That way the pvp crowd would have a way to play the game and advance with no pve.  PVE and PVE are like water and oil.  They just don't mix in the same game.  At least not in any game made to date.

Sky, you can't have it both ways, either I drop it and move on as I happily agreed to do, at your very first request.  Or I don't.

I fail to see the logic in you writing a long ass post like that, with another drop it and move on in the middle, and then expecting a response to your comments.

I'm dammed if I do, dammed if I don't.

It had to be a different demo then.

I didn't know if they were just promoting the character creation process at the time, but that was what everyone at the time was doing. No super speed, flying or jumping. Just the typical newbie skills and content. (and there were no missions at the time, so all there was to do was jump 'the fence' and kill the thugs and I wasn't even close to level 2 by the time that I left) And at level one, EVERYONE knows that it sucks waiting for your one or two powers to reset. Thats what I experienced.

I played the beta for a few weeks so I know that the game changed and is good. I didn't preorder it, but will probably pick it up in a few months when the price comes down (if there are still people playing it).

It is one of those "we shall see" things, if it takes the Cryptic people forever to add new content to the game, or if there aren't creative or special developer-lead events then I believe that the game will stagnate. Which was the point of my original post, which was to let the beta testers that this rikti invasion was not special and to question how well the CoH content is going to be created.

Agreed with that gith, the game will live or die on future content generation.  And it will never be huge, because by design it is focusing very heavily on just one aspect of mmog gaming (combat) which is pretty much the definition of niche.

Haven't read the thread after this comment yet, because I just had to comment.

Please to tell me where in games like Lineage 2 terrain affects anything but your view of the world. Or in-game tactics. The only thing that matters in PVP in Lineage 2 is level and character creation (which in a grind-dependent game like L2, means shitloads of time invested).

I think you've missed the part where a good number of people enjoying CoH are people like me, who swore they'd never enjoy another game that didn't have PVP. Sure, it's somewhat predictable, sure the scale is weighted so that the player will always (eventually) win, but the process of playing is fun all along the way. You didn't enjoy your brief time in it, that's cool. I had the same problem with Lineage 2; nothing in it's first 5 levels impressed me at all.

I'll take the name of CoH Fanbois, mainly because it's the first MMOG in a LONG time that I actually felt deserved evanglization.

CoH is the first MMOG I've played... in 3 years? Longer maybe?

Anyway. It's fun. And the hour or so a night (with perhaps a bit more on saturday) seems to be working just fine.

*shrug*

I cannot say the same thing about my attempt at Lineage 2.

In game tactics, sure take any pvp game, draw up 2 sides of 12 players each, try to balance their abilites and classes to make each side as even as possible.  Watch them fight out a battle against each other a few times, what you will see as the number of encounters increases are tactics.  Terrain, even easier slap a hill between the 2 sides and watch the tactics change.

As for your other comments, I don't have any real axe to grind about coh, it's just not for me as L2 is not for you.  I can't really comment on it in depth as it didn't hold my interest long enough.

First major screwup.

Patch nerfs some powers into the netherworld. Boards go bonkers. Patch is rerolled. Devs plead to be forgiven. Damage done.

Said nerfs confirmed for future patch. Reaction to Mr NoLife getting to 40 in 2 weeks (huh? what`s new?). Powers supposedly to be adjusted on the altar of balance. Those who play can count the upcoming nerfs on the fingers. Unfortuately those will be the cool powers that make the game fast (again: what`s new?).

Level-grindification to be expected to guarantee longevity. Game-cancellation also expected because, really... what`s new?

~bignatz

Bignatz-
Nice whining on the City of Heroes official forums. Thanks for contributing your pollution there.

To me, you signify a deep problem with the fanbase of MMOGs that require balancing. An overpowered skill gets "nerfed" in fucking week 2, and you cancel even though you admit you "like the game".

Nice work.

I think this phrase should be credited to J but...

Call the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahmbulance.

I'm not whining about the nerf. I'm whining because of the nerf sans respec.

Nerfing/balancing is obviously necessary. Rerolling after nerfs is something that I stopped doing a long long time ago.

Respec is my only insurance against the stop-n-go of these games. Thought I made my reasons clear, guess I didn't.

Not sure how that makes me a deep deep problem (except that I quit paying... that's what you meant?), nor am I still part of any fanbase.

Some foresight might have helped here, then.

Look at the Hasten power through an objective view:
A power that with 2DO enhancements can be always on, and gives the equivalent of 1SO recharge reduction to every power.

Hm, does that seem balanced?  Hell, not to me.  I expected some balancing would be done to that power.

"Nerfed into oblivion" is a gross overstatement, as well.  It's obviously still a useful ability.

One thing the developers should have learned long long ago is that you should never expect your players to have foresight.  Yes, any intelligent person who contemplated the power would have realized that it's overpowered, but by and large, intelligent people don't play MMOGs.

If you doubt my assertion, click here.

Criticism accepted.

I was in beta, where Hasten was openly discussed and nerfed twice. Someone (Geko?) stated at the end that it worked now as intended.

I'm not on the inside track in CoH. I don't have access to the level 30 insider info of what's the uberpower du jour. I made it to feaking 19 since launch...

Now, of course, I'm completely mixed up... Stamina next? Leadership? Lingering radiation... which screws up MOB AI just like Caltrops did?

Whatever... I broke my principle of not playing level/class games without a respec. My own fault.

Did you even bother logging into the game to actually play before you started spewing your whines on every board you could find?

Really, what did a Hasten nerf actually do? It slightly decreased the power of your character. It slowed down your levelling curve.

So, you are going to take your ball and go home because they made the game a little more difficult? Because you won't hit level 40 as fast? I say this with all due respect: I think you should be posting at the city of heroes vault.

I don't doubt your assertion one bit.  I never claimed people WOULD have foresight.  I'm just pointing out that whining that a power that is overpowered is balanced down is quite hilarious.  I have no sympathy for these people who complain that hasten is no longer a "must have".

Useless?  Hyperbole.  It's still a VERY useful ability, it's just not overpowered anymore.  So I'll point and laugh at those who were dumb enough to think that such an obviously overpowered skill was going to remain so.

Anyone who took hasten because they wanted a useful power still have a useful power, whining aside.

Very true.  I use the power exactly the same as I did before, as a supercharge for tough battles.  In fact it wasn't until one of my groupmates last night asked me about that "nerf" that I even remembered that it had been nerfed.

Anytime a flaw in a power is demonstrated that makes that power far more overpowered than it should be, it SHOULD be reduced in effectiveness.  Balance is more important than whines.



So why do you care about the nerf?  The power still works, it still reduces the timers the same amount as before, you just can't use it ALL THE TIME.  Duh.



If Mob AI is screwed up by a power, I EXPECT it will be corrected.  Furthermore, you won't hear me whining when it is fixed.



I have no sympathy for this stance.  If I have a character and take abilities/powers, I take them because they fit my character conception.  If those abilities/powers turn out to be overpowered and are reduced in effectiveness, it doesn't alter my decision to take them at all.

I suppose if I was a powergamer, and took abilities because they would make me the most effective character possible I might care, but since those kinds of people annoy me... ...I think I'll laugh instead.

In MMORPGs there will ALWAYS be nerfs, and always people who complain about them. The same thing happened in FFXI, they change something obviously broken and suddenly a bunch of people are making threads titled "OMG CAN U TRUST SQARE NEMORE?"

I can see people being upset if a nerf goes too far and really screws them over. If it just normalizes something it's just whining.