Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 18, 2024, 07:41:48 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  MMOG Discussion  |  Topic: User Created Content [CoH] 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Pages: 1 2 [3] Go Down Print
Author Topic: User Created Content [CoH]  (Read 29296 times)
justdave
Terracotta Army
Posts: 462


Reply #70 on: April 15, 2009, 12:54:51 AM

Okay, aside from bizarre farming corner-cases, you have, then.  Ohhhhh, I see.

"They started to resist with a crust that was welded with human brain and willpower."
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23611


Reply #71 on: April 15, 2009, 12:57:58 AM

The thing is is they aren't really corner cases (at the moment). Hence the reason why NCsoft is patching the game almost every day to get rid of some of the worst offenders.
justdave
Terracotta Army
Posts: 462


Reply #72 on: April 15, 2009, 01:11:48 AM

Just because they're slow on getting to the holes doesn't make them not-holes. :)

Really, though, my discontent is not about martian maps, it's more about providing user-creation tools that make possible something quantitively different than the last few years. I entertained the possibility that an MMO on the downward slant might stick it out a little (yes, Koreans, I know, but the Norcal part might have run rampant) and made some more fun.
Nothing more than opportunities for extra-witty between-mission writing and strange mob distribution is kind of a letdown.

"They started to resist with a crust that was welded with human brain and willpower."
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23611


Reply #73 on: April 15, 2009, 01:39:55 AM

Not sure why you expected anything different. It's not like they were going to give us something on the order of the NWN toolkit where we could build our own levels, write our own scripts, events, cutscenes, etc.
UnSub
Contributor
Posts: 8064


WWW
Reply #74 on: April 15, 2009, 02:06:55 AM

Early on it was indicated that even the devs hate doing cutscenes with their current tools, so they certainly weren't going to give such an ability to players.

Custom maps, however, are a must for future releases. If anything, MA reveals CoH/V's greatest weakness in an even clearer light.

justdave
Terracotta Army
Posts: 462


Reply #75 on: April 15, 2009, 02:32:01 AM

If anything, MA reveals CoH/V's greatest weakness in an even clearer light.

This, pretty much. And custom maps will never happen.

Fuck cutscenes, any kind of break from the exact same model of every other CoX mission ever would have been a nice change. Even a wee one.

"They started to resist with a crust that was welded with human brain and willpower."
justdave
Terracotta Army
Posts: 462


Reply #76 on: April 15, 2009, 02:41:31 AM

And it wasn't a matter of 'expected', so much as it as a matter of 'briefly allowed the cold little rock that is my heart to have a sliver of hope'.

"They started to resist with a crust that was welded with human brain and willpower."
UnSub
Contributor
Posts: 8064


WWW
Reply #77 on: April 15, 2009, 07:02:56 AM

NCsoft NorthCal renames itself Paragon Studios.

Funnily enough I don't think they have 45 people just working on CoH/V. Unless that picture includes admin staff (and it does include CS staff).

Glazius
Terracotta Army
Posts: 755


Reply #78 on: April 15, 2009, 08:18:19 AM

Just because they're slow on getting to the holes doesn't make them not-holes. :)

Really, though, my discontent is not about martian maps, it's more about providing user-creation tools that make possible something quantitively different than the last few years. I entertained the possibility that an MMO on the downward slant might stick it out a little (yes, Koreans, I know, but the Norcal part might have run rampant) and made some more fun.
Nothing more than opportunities for extra-witty between-mission writing and strange mob distribution is kind of a letdown.

...uh, okay, I confess to being a little confused here.

You're complaining that the game doesn't stop being what it is and start being something else entirely? Like that one level of No More Heroes where Travis falls asleep on the subway and dreams he's inside Galaga.

I respect your right to not like the gameplay, but is it really a "weakness" of a game that you don't like it?
Lantyssa
Terracotta Army
Posts: 20848


Reply #79 on: April 15, 2009, 09:25:02 AM

Funnily enough I don't think they have 45 people just working on CoH/V. Unless that picture includes admin staff (and it does include CS staff).
Is that Llava on the left with the shades and CoV tee!?

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
Nevermore
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4740


Reply #80 on: April 15, 2009, 09:57:05 AM

Could be!  Didn't he apply to work at Cryptic in some kind of lore capacity a while back?

Over and out.
PalmTrees
Terracotta Army
Posts: 394


Reply #81 on: April 15, 2009, 11:42:43 AM

It's reinvigorated my interest in CoH a bit. I'm enjoying making and tweaking missions.

Running other peoples missions is a bit iffy though, especially for my controller. So many eb or av downgraded into eb. Bosses and below with some status protection can make for difficult but fun fights. But ebs, especailly with tanker armors or /regen, I just can't kill.  Even if they only have melee attacks and I can immobilize them and attack from range. Just like the way they specify mission objectives, the mission breakdown should list if there is eb/av.

On the other hand, my claws/sr scrapper is finally running into some challenges and not just slicing through missions on autopilot.

I like not knowing what I'm gonna find but even though many times it's not good, I'm still finding enough diamonds to keep looking.

justdave
Terracotta Army
Posts: 462


Reply #82 on: April 15, 2009, 01:18:01 PM

...uh, okay, I confess to being a little confused here.

You're complaining that the game doesn't stop being what it is and start being something else entirely? Like that one level of No More Heroes where Travis falls asleep on the subway and dreams he's inside Galaga.

I respect your right to not like the gameplay, but is it really a "weakness" of a game that you don't like it?

I never said anything of the sort. All I'm saying is that I'm a little underwhelmed, is all.
It's not like I'm not making and playing missions in it, and enjoying it, I am. Some of the ones that aren't farm maps are fun, and I'm enjoying seeing the mob  powerset/team makeup combos that the devs would never use in a million years because they're hot and cold liquid running non-consensual sodomy from both taps.

The implementation of the MA itself is very well done, and they deserve extreme kudos for that. It's good enough I don't even care that I get disconnected when I go to start a MA mission 10% of the time.

If I had a fundamental problem with the gameplay, I wouldn't have been subbed on and off since CoV came out. It's just not going to break the cycle when I re-un-sub in a month or so from the malaise of escorting X through ambush Y in office_building_001 for the trillionth time.

EDIT: And I'm not talking about 'the game', I'm specifically talking about the Mission Architect.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2009, 12:44:43 AM by justdave »

"They started to resist with a crust that was welded with human brain and willpower."
DaZog
Terracotta Army
Posts: 46


Reply #83 on: April 15, 2009, 10:05:51 PM

Not sure if the missions are cross-server or not. If not, they're on Virtue..

#39941 Villain themed arc. It was my first one, mostly getting the hang of the toolset. The boss at the end can be a real beast to some ATs, so I'm told  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

#72324 Hero-themed arc, where I tried a little more storytelling.. I'm not going to win the Pulitzer or anything like that swamp poop But it features one of my favourite, and oft-times neglected bad guys, the Tsoo.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23611


Reply #84 on: April 15, 2009, 10:12:37 PM

MA is not only cross-server, it's cross-continents (Euro MA and NA MA share the same server).
DaZog
Terracotta Army
Posts: 46


Reply #85 on: April 15, 2009, 10:37:54 PM

Explains why the arc ID# have gone up so fast. Hot damn.

Learn something new everyday swamp poop
cironian
Terracotta Army
Posts: 605

play his game!: solarwar.net


Reply #86 on: April 16, 2009, 09:51:42 AM

But ebs, especailly with tanker armors or /regen, I just can't kill.

So why don't you just switch the difficulty down? AFAIR if you play solo at the very lowest difficulty, EBs get further downgraded to plain bosses. Or does that not work with the MA missions?
PalmTrees
Terracotta Army
Posts: 394


Reply #87 on: April 16, 2009, 03:04:25 PM


So why don't you just switch the difficulty down? AFAIR if you play solo at the very lowest difficulty, EBs get further downgraded to plain bosses. Or does that not work with the MA missions?

I don't play anything on heroic once I slot do's at lvl 12, so I'm not sure what happens to ebs.

The ma uses the task force system, so to make difficulty changes apply to an already spawned mission I'd have to log out long enough for the mission to reset. About 5 mins iirc, had to that once on a synapse tf when we lost a bunch of people. Between logging out and starting over vs. just dropping and moving on, I'd just drop and move on.
UnSub
Contributor
Posts: 8064


WWW
Reply #88 on: April 16, 2009, 05:52:27 PM

Everything does get downgraded, but AVs turn into EBs and go no lower. As such, you can still face a heap of EBs if the designer is "gifted" enough.

I had an EB fight last night with my Blaster where he started running at 90% health. Whee.

Kageru
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4549


Reply #89 on: April 27, 2009, 10:21:13 PM


Another attempt and another miss. Plus an example of why we can't have nice things.

I've done a number of missions which all involve an open plain, huge clumps of I assume underpowered mobs (Rikti communication officers seem popular) and massive XP gains to be had. Interactive objects are being used to spawn yet more XP dispensing mobs. As a result people are forming large groups and farming their little hearts out in story-less and uninteresting missions with amusing flavor text like "go kill them all". The MA clearly isn't able to balance challenge in any meaningful way although I am surprised it allowed only a single opponent type to be designated. That seems like an obvious oversight.

I doubt a solution can be automated but having some mechanism of flagging the mission as broken / exploiting and then disabling it when enough concerns are raised, till someone can cast an eye over it, would at least reduce the damage the game is taking in terms of the levelling curve being blown. Not that I mind per-se, since I consider the game to be on an inevitable decline I just wanted to see the higher level game before they turned the lights out. So it's actually quite convenient for me.

Of course the most likely solution is they'll just massively nerf the gains from running MA missions.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Glazius
Terracotta Army
Posts: 755


Reply #90 on: May 01, 2009, 09:30:31 AM


Another attempt and another miss. Plus an example of why we can't have nice things.

I've done a number of missions which all involve an open plain, huge clumps of I assume underpowered mobs (Rikti communication officers seem popular) and massive XP gains to be had. Interactive objects are being used to spawn yet more XP dispensing mobs. As a result people are forming large groups and farming their little hearts out in story-less and uninteresting missions with amusing flavor text like "go kill them all". The MA clearly isn't able to balance challenge in any meaningful way although I am surprised it allowed only a single opponent type to be designated. That seems like an obvious oversight.

I doubt a solution can be automated but having some mechanism of flagging the mission as broken / exploiting and then disabling it when enough concerns are raised, till someone can cast an eye over it, would at least reduce the damage the game is taking in terms of the levelling curve being blown. Not that I mind per-se, since I consider the game to be on an inevitable decline I just wanted to see the higher level game before they turned the lights out. So it's actually quite convenient for me.

Of course the most likely solution is they'll just massively nerf the gains from running MA missions.

You can make a custom enemy group out of any enemy in the game.

Comms officers are an enemy in the game.

You can make a custom enemy group out of only comms officers.

Likely nerfs to address this problem:

- scale back comms officers to minion XP when specifically used in a custom group
- scale back comms officers to minion XP in general
- disable comms officers from being used in a custom group, in the same way that you can't have 10 sky raider engineers and their FF bubbles following you around
Kageru
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4549


Reply #91 on: May 01, 2009, 06:39:56 PM


It's got to be a bit more deep than that. If you can make groups consisting of only a single mob type then farming missions will be made with the weakest mob available. Either they need all their mobs being roughly balanced in challenge (good luck, they weren't designed for that), they need to nerf XP in general or they need to make each mob "pollute" its pool by bringing in reinforcements from a similar type of unit.

Ran into another nice one using "Holo trainers" who have no ranged attack at all. The mission also had two allied arch-villains. So the character who built it would fly above the mobs nuking with almost complete immunity while the allied NPC's finished off mobs for her. Although as a whole the map failed because its dependence on PC flight meant most of the group quit leading to less DPS/XP for the creator.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
UnSub
Contributor
Posts: 8064


WWW
Reply #92 on: May 01, 2009, 09:52:21 PM

Freakshow is another group that is popular in MA because they offer bonus XP - they've got a self-healing, self-rez power that allegedly makes them more difficult.

At some point - and I think it will be some point soon - there will be a massive purge of MA creations. It will be a mercy killing.

Don't get me wrong - I've played some good missions. But I've seen some absolutely awful ones too.

PalmTrees
Terracotta Army
Posts: 394


Reply #93 on: May 02, 2009, 12:44:04 AM

From what I've read, on the test server they've given all MA mobs a ranged attack. They're also changing the selection of powers in the standard-hard-extreme scale. This has been met with mixed reviews as people have to re-balance their mobs, and the mandatory ranged attack isn't always in keeping with custom themes.

Not sure how well that would work but they could ban people from making missions after they have one deleted for farming. But that seems too draconian a move for the CoH guys.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23611


Reply #94 on: May 02, 2009, 01:07:59 AM

Comm Officer exp is down to minon levels as well.
Kageru
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4549


Reply #95 on: May 02, 2009, 01:13:51 AM


I assume that's been hotfixed? When I logged in a while back atlas park was suddenly quiet.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23611


Reply #96 on: May 02, 2009, 03:31:31 PM

Not as of yesterday. I haven't done my usual Comm Officer farm today, though.

Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23611


Reply #97 on: May 04, 2009, 02:55:41 AM

Sometime between early Sunday morning and late Sunday evening they purged a whole ton of farming missions. Rikti Comm Officers are still giving LT-level exp (I made my own Arc with them, for testing purposes only of course) but they got rid of all but a handful of those maps.
Zetor
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3269


WWW
Reply #98 on: May 04, 2009, 03:46:36 AM

I messed a bit around with COV during the free reactivation weekend with my guild... the arcs are surprisingly fun and rewarding [we mostly played the 'AE choice' ones, so YMMV], pretty varied, and way-way-way more accessible than other typical task forces / mission series. We might actually leave LOTRO behind for this...  why so serious?

A somewhat-related question: did they boost xp gain (or reduce xp requirements to level)? The 5 of us villains in the 38-40 range basically got a level after only 2 hours of AE missioning, which was rather unusual compared to a few years ago when we last played. Of course a lot of that is from rest xp... but still, the xp payout at the end of custom arcs was massive.


-- Z.

Glazius
Terracotta Army
Posts: 755


Reply #99 on: May 04, 2009, 04:28:07 AM

I messed a bit around with COV during the free reactivation weekend with my guild... the arcs are surprisingly fun and rewarding [we mostly played the 'AE choice' ones, so YMMV], pretty varied, and way-way-way more accessible than other typical task forces / mission series. We might actually leave LOTRO behind for this...  why so serious?

A somewhat-related question: did they boost xp gain (or reduce xp requirements to level)? The 5 of us villains in the 38-40 range basically got a level after only 2 hours of AE missioning, which was rather unusual compared to a few years ago when we last played. Of course a lot of that is from rest xp... but still, the xp payout at the end of custom arcs was massive.

-- Z.

Actually, rest XP doesn't apply to architect missions. What AE cuts down on is the need to run somewhere else to get in on the mission. Since a few months ago, lieutenants and bosses have had their XP boosted, as has everything after 25 or so.

The payout at the end is just five missions' worth of end-mission bonus all lumped together, and I think boosted a bit for later missions and for missions with complicated objectives.
PalmTrees
Terracotta Army
Posts: 394


Reply #100 on: May 04, 2009, 01:29:22 PM

A somewhat-related question: did they boost xp gain (or reduce xp requirements to level)? The 5 of us villains in the 38-40 range basically got a level after only 2 hours of AE missioning, which was rather unusual compared to a few years ago when we last played. Of course a lot of that is from rest xp... but still, the xp payout at the end of custom arcs was massive.


-- Z.

They did some  'xp-smoothing' a while back. So, yeah, xp flows a little faster than it used to.
UnSub
Contributor
Posts: 8064


WWW
Reply #101 on: May 06, 2009, 01:28:49 AM

Positron appears to say that the people who talked to him during a live event don't like farming. So no farming missions, or face character deletion or account bannings. And the forum goes wild with nerdrage.

Quote
• Players that have abused the reward system egregiously may lose benefits they have gained - leading up to and perhaps including losing access to the characters power-leveled in this fashion.

• Currently, some badges are being modified, and some may be removed from the game entirely. The list of changes being made to the MA badge system is not final yet, but you will be made aware when we have a concrete plan.

• Players who knowingly use an exploit when creating an arc, run the risk of having access to MA suspended, or worse- depending on the severity of the action, their account banned.

Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23611


Reply #102 on: May 06, 2009, 04:52:47 AM

UnSub
Contributor
Posts: 8064


WWW
Reply #103 on: May 06, 2009, 07:50:43 AM

I'm doing well today.  Ohhhhh, I see.

Pages: 1 2 [3] Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  MMOG Discussion  |  Topic: User Created Content [CoH]  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC