Champions Online: The No-NDA Merged Edition

[Montague]

Cryptic with regards to respecs being more expensive than most players have gold:

Originally Posted by Daeke
We're still investigating this. The bug we fixed last night regarding Retcon may have revealed another bug that was hiding under the surface.

  beyond words. 5 minutes of testing would have discovered this.

[UnSub]

Going back, ED and GDN were introduced into CoH/V in part because some builds could solo entire maps and destroy a hundred or so mobs at once with the right power combo.

With ChampO - same as WAR, actually - the major problem appears to be a lack of accurate testing to obtain the results the devs apparently needed to work out their balance issues. Defensive powers were overpowered, but it wasn't changed to a large extent until the game went live. That's insane. Lots of alpha / beta commentary went into how powers could be better balanced and it seems like Cryptic decided to do it all at once on launch day.

Some MMO companies aim for a miracle patch on launch day. Cryptic seems to have gone for the steel-cap-to-the-nuts patch for launch. It's a unique tactic, I'll give them that.

[Kageru]

I was expecting my main entertainment from this game to come from the forum flames. but this is superb. There's just no defence for doing these changes that should have been done in beta when they could have measured the reaction, iterated to balance and not made their paying customers hate them. Doing changes of that magnitude on launch day is nothing more than a bait and switch.

I thought I'd at least have to wait a couple of weeks for people to realize the game is unfinished, the mechanics are broken and un-fun and Cryptics attention is more on other games than this lame duck. But CO delivers entertainment right out the gate.

[Trippy]

Going back, ED and GDN were introduced into CoH/V in part because some builds could solo entire maps and destroy a hundred or so mobs at once with the right power combo.

The game not having aggro/target limits is what caused the above. That had to change.

[UnSub]

Going back, ED and GDN were introduced into CoH/V in part because some builds could solo entire maps and destroy a hundred or so mobs at once with the right power combo.

The game not having aggro/target limits is what caused the above. That had to change.

Not having aggro limits wouldn't have mattered if certain builds couldn't cap defense and / or regen more damage than they could ever receive. It was a combination of factors that led to the issue.

[Trippy]

They only both need to be nerfed if you subscribe to the "players can only be slightly more powerful than NPCs" school of thought. If you can now only pull/damage a small subset of the map who the fuck cares that you can't be killed? Besides the Regen thing was just a specific power set (and a specific power in that set as well). I don't have a problem with nerfing individual overpowered powers. ED, though, was a global nerf of epic proportions and it happened cause, like I said previously, Jack was unhappy that people were too super heroey.

[Kageru]

Why are you talking about old CoH nerfs when we have a wonderful new feast spread out before us.

Guys, the way patch notes work is we write down the changes we made and those get posted to you. In this case, we tweaked some numbers in the base spreadsheets that drive the game, to fix the OP issue with defensive passives. This cascades out to a lot of other numbers in the game, hence the changes you are seeing, but it isn't like Balseraph has the exact numbers for every power that changed visible to him to cut and paste into patch notes. We're not trying to hide anything, this is just how a change like this works. Yes, we missed a few patch notes that we meant to post as well, we're sorry about that, but we try really hard to give you real info, as much of it as we can.

The developer Anti-proton explaining even they're not sure about what powers they changed on a patch that went straight to live. Also people reporting the XP nerf is back.

[tazelbain]

Guys, the way patch notes work is we write down the changes we made and those get posted to you. In this case, we tweaked some numbers in the base spreadsheets that drive the game, to fix the OP issue with defensive passives. This cascades out to a lot of other numbers in the game, hence the changes you are seeing, but it isn't like Balseraph has the exact numbers for every power that changed visible to him to cut and paste into patch notes. We're not trying to hide anything, this is just how a change like this works. Yes, we missed a few patch notes that we meant to post as well, we're sorry about that, but we try really hard to give you real info, as much of it as we can.

Nailed it!

[Montague]

They finally caved and allowed full respecs, starting tomorrow:

http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=50233

[Amaron]

Looks like they released info on the first content update (ie new power set + assorted pve stuff) to appease more people as well.   Two months for 1 power set though?   Well I suppose you can call it better than CoH.

[UnSub]

The way it is phrased that powerset appears to be made up of a number of powers, with each power being individually selectable.

[Pagz]

Missing the intense days of Beta already? Miss seeing bugs, giving feedback about what isn’t working right, and directly contributing to the health and wellbeing of Champions Online? Well, lucky-lucky, we’re here to announce our new public test shard, the aptly named Public Test!

Oh I just... I just miss it so much!

Oh...

[Amaron]

This just became even more epic.   The respec costs have been off by about 10000% (no fooling that's not an exaggeration).   They were supposed to fix that in the super nerf patch this morning.   They screwed up and raised the prices though.

So now tonight they released ANOTHER patch that was supposed to finally fix it and put in full respecing.   They only reduced the costs by 50% though AND the cost to do a full respec is about 5000 "gold" when the average level 40 has something like 100 gold when they get to 40.    Forums are of course asploding again.

[Bandit]

After trying out the release patch last night, I will tell you that the "asploding" on the forums was unwarranted.  Yes, the game is tougher and I actually died a few times.  However, I still felt superpowered as I mowed through cowboy robots in Snake Gulch.  Most of the quests were 1-2 levels above me and I could still complete them just fine.  Just a little more caution and strategy.  I found myself actively searching for objects (wagons, dynamite boxes, crates, etc.) to start the battle with instead of jumping in the middle of a swarm.

It might be a different story for those who had no defensive powers to begin with, but I guess they will get their retcon now.

[Malakili]

As much as the launch patches have been poorly received in terms of the nerfs and such, the launch was incredibly playable if you ask me.  Very stable, and I've noticed small but noticeable performance increases since open beta.

These sorts of patches don't worry me all that much.  Sure they make for good forum drama, and plenty of rage, but as much as people are bitching all over the place, the nerfs will probably get rolled back a little, and people will settle in just fine.  Its only the people that played OB or Headstart that are complaining, and not the retail people, by and large, which suggests to me that the game is still playing just fine, and people will adjust (the people that didn't need to adjust are by and large finding the balance ok).

Anyway, *shrugs*  I'm still having fun with the game.  I have as much fun bashing MMOs as the next guy though, so I don't begrudge anyone bashing this  

[Shatter]

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php

[Kageru]

It really frightens me that a game being "playable" is considered as a positive.

They'll never give affordable and full respects because it will let people quickly explore the powers and discover they're all very samey. The last minute nerfs they did are entirely motivated by their knowledge that people will have enough time to level cap, get bored and unsubscribe within the first month of the game being live. However they've badly missed the fact that players are much more analytical about games and a lot less tolerant.

[Draegan]

The last time I subbed to CoX, I logged in ONCE!     I played CO for a few days, maybe a few hours all told.  I have the game but I haven't even logged in for the head start.  It's not motivating me at all. 

I resubbed once on a rainy Sunday afternoon just to play with the character creator.  I don't think I actually played the game.

[Typhon]

After trying out the release patch last night, I will tell you that the "asploding" on the forums was unwarranted.  Yes, the game is tougher and I actually died a few times.  However, I still felt superpowered as I mowed through cowboy robots in Snake Gulch.  Most of the quests were 1-2 levels above me and I could still complete them just fine.  Just a little more caution and strategy.  I found myself actively searching for objects (wagons, dynamite boxes, crates, etc.) to start the battle with instead of jumping in the middle of a swarm.

It might be a different story for those who had no defensive powers to begin with, but I guess they will get their retcon now.

I had the same experience.  Net difference is that I have to do someting stupid with my electric/regen char to get him killed.  Prior I'd have to do something completely fucking moronic to get him killed.  Hasn't reduced the fun for me, has added a bit of tension and a need to be more careful when entering missions as the wandering patrols have to be taken seriously now.

Oddly, I haven't really noticed the decrease in speed that was applied to the travel powers, still seem as fast (maybe I cannot decern a 15% decrease in speed?)

[Morfiend]

After trying out the release patch last night, I will tell you that the "asploding" on the forums was unwarranted.  Yes, the game is tougher and I actually died a few times.  However, I still felt superpowered as I mowed through cowboy robots in Snake Gulch.  Most of the quests were 1-2 levels above me and I could still complete them just fine.  Just a little more caution and strategy.  I found myself actively searching for objects (wagons, dynamite boxes, crates, etc.) to start the battle with instead of jumping in the middle of a swarm.

It might be a different story for those who had no defensive powers to begin with, but I guess they will get their retcon now.

I had the same experience.  Net difference is that I have to do someting stupid with my electric/regen char to get him killed.  Prior I'd have to do something completely fucking moronic to get him killed.  Hasn't reduced the fun for me, has added a bit of tension and a need to be more careful when entering missions as the wandering patrols have to be taken seriously now.

Oddly, I haven't really noticed the decrease in speed that was applied to the travel powers, still seem as fast (maybe I cannot decern a 15% decrease in speed?)

I'm finding the same thing. The game seems pretty close to what it was in beta. I think a lot of the changes only apply to the mid and upper levels where you could combine a lot of OP powers to become unstoppable.

I am having just as much fun as I did in beta. In fact I have to say except for the massive forum whinesplosion, its one of the better launches. I had a few minutes of like .3 of a second lag in using some powers, but other than that, it seems stable and fun.

I am really glad they allowed full respec, and I hope they keep the cost fairly high, just not unrealistically high. I still think they should allow full retcon (respec) for cryptic bucks, and put a once a month cooldown on it or some shit. But as long as it is available I am happy.

As for travel powers, I did not notice the speed decrease on my Teleport character, but I can totally tell on my Fire Flight character.

So, does anyone have a guild I could join, or want to create one? Maybe we could get a sticky for character names?

Anyone can look me up, and please do, I find this game is really fun as a duo. I also have a vent server if anyone wants to chat while playing. Send me a PM if you want access.

My names are:

Morv@vaunt - Duel Blades/Teleport
Morfiend@vaunt - Telekanesis/Fire Flight
vaunt@vaunt - Munitions/undecided

[Triforcer]

Overpowered powers are overpowered.  News at 11.  There isn't a violin tiny enough to express my sympathy for those who can no longer round up half a zone of mobs and one-shot them. 

[Cyrrex]

Overpowered powers are overpowered.  News at 11.  There isn't a violin tiny enough to express my sympathy for those who can no longer round up half a zone of mobs and one-shot them. 

I don't think you'll get much disagreement here.  But don't we generally think that it's okay to be overpowered against, say, 3 or 4 trash mobs?  I think MMOs are more fun that way.

[Khaldun]

I guess I have a hard time disentangling an awareness that some (not all) of the adjustments make sense from the cack-handed mismanagement of how and when the adjustments were made. Pretty much every time I see something like this happening now, I think: here we go again. Specifically in this case:

1) here we go again: live management teams making changes on the fly that they haven't really tested which end up demonstrating that they don't have a good internal communication about their own code, so that when they change one feature they accidentally change a bunch of others or don't foresee the easily-forseeable consequences of two changes converging and interacting;

2) here we go again: making undocumented changes, changing non-critical features at very much the wrong time (launch day? seriously?), and generally acting like your customers are inconveniences that you'd rather do without if you could somehow get paid off running an empty game

This is something I simply don't get about MMOs at this point: who on earth would give *anyone* money to produce one if they didn't have a iron-solid live management plan that showed serious long-term awareness of past mistakes in the industry? These things are subscriber-based services, box sales are only the first step in actually making your development costs back. A live MMO is always more than the sum of its parts: you mess with the gestalt of the thing at its peril. This very much includes dramatic changes to the perceived difficulty or challenge of the game mechanics.

I can completely see making some of the adjustments they've made. I just don't understand why they didn't make them earlier, or make them more slowly and carefully if they had to wait for the game to go live. If the emergency is, "FUCK THEY'RE GOING TO BE ENDGAME CHARACTERS IN A WEEK AND OUR PLAN SAYS THREE MONTHS", seriously, go get a job licking postage stamps or something because clearly running an MMO is too much for you.

[ghost]

I'm having a hard time sorting through all this shit.  

So the summary is that this game is going to suck?

Edit:  I love the character creation process.  Every female toon has the breast size maxed out

CO knows their audience, lol.

[HaemishM]

There's just no defence for doing these changes that should have been done in beta when they could have measured the reaction, iterated to balance and not made their paying customers hate them.

Sure, there's a defense. It isn't like beta was more than 6 hours a week up until the last few weeks, and it isn't like beta didn't have multiple character wipes during that time, meaning even if testers had wanted to, they couldn't have gone through all the powersets, levels or powers available. So yes, there is a defense, the defense just happens to be "We were incredibly idiotic in our testing procedure and as a result, we didn't really test shit."

[Lantyssa]

Edit:  I love the character creation process.  Every female toon has the breast size maxed out

I hated that.  Worse is that it's larger than any comic book style I've ever known except Crumb's, and I'm not sure he counts.

[Montague]

I'm having a hard time sorting through all this shit.  

So the summary is that this game is going to suck?

Edit:  I love the character creation process.  Every female toon has the breast size maxed out

CO knows their audience, lol.

At this point it's wait and see if Roper and Emmert strangle the baby in the crib. They have the foundation for a solid game and I recommend buying the box if you like beat-em-ups. The two major issues at this point are respecs and mission content. The respec system is still totally borked and it's impossible to afford to respec anything but the last 2 or 3 abilities chosen. Mission XP was nerfed by about 20% and now content holes are showing up in the mid levels where people are having to grind mobs and repeatable missions in order to level.

The powers and defense nerfs are being overblown and were probably necessary for balance.

[ghost]

Edit:  I love the character creation process.  Every female toon has the breast size maxed out

I hated that.  Worse is that it's larger than any comic book style I've ever known except Crumb's, and I'm not sure he counts.

Yeah, I about fell over laughing when I ran through it the first time.  It was pretty damned predictable though.  And people give WOW shit for the Dark Elves. 

[Malakili]

Mission XP was nerfed by about 20% and now content holes are showing up in the mid levels where people are having to grind mobs and repeatable missions in order to level.

yeah, this is where I am right now.  Its a good thing this game is fun, or I'd be tearing my eyes out.  Luckily, even doing public quests over and over is pretty fun right now.  Hopefully by the time I'm this far on another character, they will have patched up the holes in content.

[Khaldun]

Mission XP was nerfed by about 20% and now content holes are showing up in the mid levels where people are having to grind mobs and repeatable missions in order to level.

yeah, this is where I am right now.  Its a good thing this game is fun, or I'd be tearing my eyes out.  Luckily, even doing public quests over and over is pretty fun right now.  Hopefully by the time I'm this far on another character, they will have patched up the holes in content.

I think most serial MMO players should just get this tattooed on their asses. "Hopefully, by the time I get bored, it won't be boring any more."

[Kageru]

I'm having a hard time sorting through all this shit.  

So the summary is that this game is going to suck?

It sucks now, and their game mechanics are terrible as a foundation to build on. It'll just take a week or two for people to get over the character creator and playing with the travel powers / pew pew to realize how repetitive the gameplay is, how little content their is and that cryptics focus is on ST:O anyway.

[UnSub]

I'm having a hard time sorting through all this shit.  

So the summary is that this game is going to suck?

It's a "you'll know within 5 minutes if you like the basic game mechanic or you don't and longer-term suck depends on how quickly Cryptic can get more content / zones out the door".

As for their testing, the major issue is that it was only right before open beta that everything really came together - powers, stats, super stats, builds and items. That's the biggest problem: there wasn't enough testing time on the final version of the system. Alpha tested powers without stats (for the most part) and with very few items and advantages that might work or might not exist from one week to the next. Closed beta tested powers (with more advantages, but some of these changed over time) with stats (and later, super stats), more items and with builds coming in later on.

On one hand, I appreciated how Cryptic handed alpha and closed beta - they really were willing to bend to public opinion on a good number of issues and change content / systems. On the other, they didn't enough time to actually test how various systems fit together. There were major endurance system changes that came in literally the week before open beta.

God knows what Cryptic would have delivered in a July release.

[Triforcer]

Travel powers in this game are awesome.  They feel heroic.  Character creator is awesome.  I even like the graphical look, once outlining and bloom is turned off.

But as someone said earlier, it just feels like the content end of things is lacking.  I'll play out my free month and see if things grow on me. 

[Kageru]

The "roll back the patch" thread is already upto 143 pages and the community has turned on each other ("l2p noob!") in an amusing fashion. Regardless of anything else this has to be some sort of record for the shortest honeymoon period for a new MMO.

Then there's the amazing end-game. 5 really dull soloable copy-paste dailies earning you 5 unity points. Complete them and you get another soloable instance giving you 3 points. You also get a one-use key into one of the two 5 man instances that make up the end-game (broken when I was in beta, so no idea). I assume you'll also earn more unity points for completing that, hopefully quite a few. The amusing part? Items can cost 1000 points for a primary and 250 for a secondary. That's running the dailies, every day, for over 4 months to buy one primary item and well over a year and a half for a full set (3 primaries, 6 secondaries). Of course there's very little reason to need that gear because you've already been running all the content the game has without it.

[Khaldun]

The near total lack of an endgame is why I assume they pushed the panic button on across-the-board nerfs on Day 1. Which is a depressingly familiar story. If you go live and you treat your endgame like a dirty secret that has to be protected by layers of grind somewhere in the mid-levels, you're basically like the kid who shows up to class with half of his homework undone and then pulls the fire alarm hoping they can somehow get away from the consequences.