Some Stuff From Statesman.

[Llava]

You can SAY they won because they considered their opponents' strategies, but then you're just forcing your own perspective on the stories to make your point.

It also makes for a more fun game...But that's probably asking too much, isn't it?

<shrug>  You prefer the one on one fights.  Some people prefer not having their fights against epic enemies trivialized because they chose to group.  Then there's the problem of archetype.  Some archetypes do not solo as well as others because they are meant for groups, and that's a tradeoff found in every single class-based MMOG I can think of that's out there.  So if everything should be soloable by every archetype, then it's pretty trivial for a scrapper to tear through an archvillain balanced for a defender now isn't it?

You guys are trying to bash one of the most solo friendly games around for having a smidgeon of group-only content.  The only change I can see that needs to be made is that they need to remove the 3 missions-at-a-time limit and allow folks to abandon missions.  That way if you don't want to group, you don't have to.  Go do something else.  Christ, there's a contact for the 46-50 people that specifically gives missions with archvillains.  Just don't talk to her, problem solved.

Aside from that?  Maybe more distinctive bosses, like Moment.  Moment was a cool character, felt like a comic book nemesis, and he was only a boss.  The game needs more bosses with personality, then people won't feel like they have to fight archvillains.  And if you do still feel like you absolutely must fight that archvillain, deal with it and get a group.

Fuck if I know how you managed to tolerate any other MMOG with their high-end raid bosses that you actually do have to kill if you want to have any chance at staying competitive.  All CoH does is offer the bosses and still you bitch that you can't do them on your own.  At this point, I have to ask why you're even playing a game in a genre with forced social interaction.  Diablo II is still up and running, and you can solo anything in that game.

[tar]

btw, as you will already know AVs are puposefully rare. There are about half a dozen before level 45, and if you solo you are most unlikely to meet more than a couple of them. There are no circumstances in which you are forced to fight them. There are not even any optional accolades that require you to fight them. (as you will be aware, accolades are the badges that have effects beyond optional titles)

I've pretty much agreed with all you've said, and I'm only bringing this up because it's (not what you said, the situation) pissed me off and is a big reason why I've hardly played CoH over the last few weeks. There are two story arcs in the 35-39 range where you are forced to fight AVs.

Once you've started the story arc, there's no way to clear it other that completing it. Since you can only have 2 story arcs open at any one time, you must fight these two AVs in order to get any new ones. Short of hitting spoiler sites etc., there's no way to know that a story arc will end up with you having to fight an AV. Hell, there's no way to know a mission is going to start a story arc so there's no way to avoid locking your arcs. This (along with stamina being essential to have fun) is pissing me off enough to get me thinking about quitting. AVs shouldn't appear in story arc missions unless there's at least 3 people on the team or the difficulty level is above the basic. They should  be downgraded to bosses or at most elite bosses.

I'd group to clear them, but grouping with randoms=annoying and the people that I do know and would team with are too low level. I can only SK one of them up and two people ain't enough.

/bitching ends

[eldaec]

On Envoy of Shadows I'd agree with you, he is someone whose arc needs better labelling, if only because the Envoy is a bitch under any circumstances but especially at those levels, grouped or not - and the better labelling is something the devs have recognised as an issue (they already went through and made sure it is clear where bosses and eltie-bosses are probably in missions - some people balk even at them). I guess the other solution is to go the Terra route, Terra doesn't have most of the typical features of an AV but is rather dull as a result.

[tar]

While not having AVs actually be AVs and instead being bosses/elites if there aren't enough people on the team and the difficulty level is minimum (story arc missions only, not TFs or any other time you encounter AVs) is my preferred solution, I'd also be okay if you could lead a team and 'force' the team to your level. Kinda like mass sidekicking/exemplaring. To my mind this could solve an awful lot of grouping issues and I can't see any fiction or game breaking reason why this couldn't happen.

[stray]

You guys are trying to bash one of the most solo friendly games around for having a smidgeon of group-only content.

Not exactly. I'm bashing MMO's in general (feel free to exclude me from this discussion if you wish....I know my opinions here aren't exactly helpful or constructive). I have nothing against teamwork and group content necessarily, and everything against games that use time investment as the main barrier to entry. In single player games (generally speaking), the player advances after he wisens up to the weaknesses and patterns of his enemies and/or obstacles. Not because he "trained" or what have you. "Training" certainly has it's place in the world (and yes, it often it occurs in hero stories), but as far as games go, it's bullshit and goes against everything that's fun about them.

[Glazius]

While not having AVs actually be AVs and instead being bosses/elites if there aren't enough people on the team and the difficulty level is minimum (story arc missions only, not TFs or any other time you encounter AVs) is my preferred solution, I'd also be okay if you could lead a team and 'force' the team to your level. Kinda like mass sidekicking/exemplaring. To my mind this could solve an awful lot of grouping issues and I can't see any fiction or game breaking reason why this couldn't happen.

Pre-Praetorians you can take down an archvillain with a 4-hero team. (You can do that for some of the Praetorians too.) I remember toppling the Clockwork King with a tank, a blaster, and someone else kind enough to buy inspirations for the both of us. All you need to do is find one other person near your level and then you can get an AV-capable team "forced" to your level. Since "seek team" gives you access to everybody in-game (and it's being vastly improved in I4) this is generally not hard to do. I've put together pentad respec teams in 10 minutes, 8-man 8-hour task force teams in 20.

I've noticed that in the arcs that lead to archvillains the missions are usually pretty good about saying "this could be the start of something big". There are a few ones that are a little misleading, but sometimes I wonder if that's deliberate. "Hey, GenericHero310, I want you to go have a look at this totally innocuous-sounding dimension and HOLY SHIT ARCHVILLAIN + DEFEAT ALL".

But the weird thing is, CoH is the first MMOG I've played where I _want_ to group.

Make of that what you will.

--GF

[HaemishM]

The only change I can see that needs to be made is that they need to remove the 3 missions-at-a-time limit and allow folks to abandon missions.  That way if you don't want to group, you don't have to.  Go do something else. 

I completely agree with this. While it would be somewhat fiction-breaking, it would serve the game better. And since we are already breaking fiction daily (by walking/flying/running/jumping) past crimes happening on the street that are too low level to give us any experience or influence, I don't see it as a big deal. It would certainly make the game flow more smoothly.

[CmdrSlack]

The only change I can see that needs to be made is that they need to remove the 3 missions-at-a-time limit and allow folks to abandon missions.  That way if you don't want to group, you don't have to.  Go do something else. 

I completely agree with this. While it would be somewhat fiction-breaking, it would serve the game better. And since we are already breaking fiction daily (by walking/flying/running/jumping) past crimes happening on the street that are too low level to give us any experience or influence, I don't see it as a big deal. It would certainly make the game flow more smoothly.

The abandoning missions thing would be huge, especially now that I know you can only have two story arcs active at once.  Not like that matters too much, I am starting to get the feeling that doing all of the Hollows missions, and now on my third contact in Striga, I may be missing story arcs anyway.  Striga is great and I like the story and watching the Sky Raider Skiffs scrambling off the runway, etc. but at the same time, I really dig story arcs...so it's kind of a tough one.  Even if I keep up with my contacts in Talos and IP, I have a very strong feeling that I'm missing out on arc triggers.  It would be nice to be able to abandon missions...especially if it allows me to manage to trigger arcs by better mission picks.

[Glazius]

The only change I can see that needs to be made is that they need to remove the 3 missions-at-a-time limit and allow folks to abandon missions.  That way if you don't want to group, you don't have to.  Go do something else.

I completely agree with this. While it would be somewhat fiction-breaking, it would serve the game better. And since we are already breaking fiction daily (by walking/flying/running/jumping) past crimes happening on the street that are too low level to give us any experience or influence, I don't see it as a big deal. It would certainly make the game flow more smoothly.

The abandoning missions thing would be huge, especially now that I know you can only have two story arcs active at once.  Not like that matters too much, I am starting to get the feeling that doing all of the Hollows missions, and now on my third contact in Striga, I may be missing story arcs anyway.  Striga is great and I like the story and watching the Sky Raider Skiffs scrambling off the runway, etc. but at the same time, I really dig story arcs...so it's kind of a tough one.  Even if I keep up with my contacts in Talos and IP, I have a very strong feeling that I'm missing out on arc triggers.  It would be nice to be able to abandon missions...especially if it allows me to manage to trigger arcs by better mission picks.

Nothing in the Hollows or in Striga counts toward your current arc limit. Yes, you may end up with a running souvenir, but that doesn't lock you out of future arcs.

Abandoning is currently in the dev pipeline, but we haven't heard anything about what issue it's going to show up in yet.

--GF

[CmdrSlack]

Ah, sweet.

Time to go kick some more vampyr ass then, I guess.

[HaemishM]

What level do the Striga Isle missions start to run out? I ran out of the two contacts in the Isle I've gotten since I hit 28, and they haven't given me new contacts. I love that zone, and didn't really start pounding on it til I hit 24. Am I just out of missions there?

[CmdrSlack]

I'm on my third contact there.

I had the first woman, then the longshoreman guy, and now another dude deeper into Striga.  He wouldn't give me missions until 25.  I started in Striga at 20.  I'm of no use to you, apparently.

But hey, if you want to meet up when you normally play, I'm at 25, almost 26 right now.  You could exemp down or I could ratchet up the difficulty to eleven and we could run thru some of the stuff if you're somehow bugged out of further Striga goodness.

I'm running a home office now, so I'm either here or out on the bike.  Mostly here, it's too cold to ride lately.

[tazelbain]

I believe there are 2 arcs in Strige.  One leads to base infilitrastion and the other leads to an AV.  I don't know if you can get both arcs.

[eldaec]

There are 2 contacts that handle 20-25. 2 more for 25-30.

Plus a TF contact, and a second TF contact that you can only get if you complete all the 4 mission contacts.

They don't use formal arcs, though the missions do make up a story.

You also get a use based temporrary power for completing each set (2 hours of resist to all damage, 75 holy shotgun shells, 5 uses of a werewolf summoning whistle, etc etc).

The AV refered to above is probably Maestro, who is at the end of the second 20-25 contact.

If you are 28 and still only have Stephanie Peebles and Long Jack, you should probably talk to Jack again.

[HaemishM]

I ended up outleveling Long Jack before I could do his missions. I've already done the missions for Lars and his brother. Other than the TF, I'm plum out of missions there. Shame. One of the best zones they've done so far.

[eldaec]

For me the most exciting thing about CoV is that the devs have claimed that the pve content has all been developed with the Striga/Hollows lessons incorporated. Meaning less travel between zones, more coherent stories between missions, no stupid low ceilings or really dark tilesets that make navigation unfun, temporary powers consistently being use based and therefore hoardable, more 'elite' bosses (which generally means bosses with a few high level hero powers) etc etc.

[Llava]

The only thing about mission abandoning is that it can't be a band-aid fix, they have to go the whole way with it.  Otherwise, people could end up locking themselves out of story arcs, or abandoning missions only to find that that's the only mission left for their level bracket and they have nothing else to do... or abandoning a "high priority" mission that appears across contacts and basically being forced to do it (like the security chief missions, for example- if your contact wants you to do that, chances are some other contacts want you to as well).

There's an intrinsic problem with some missions, though.  That's that the story wants you to be surprised at the outcome, and the game sometimes suffers because of that.  Like an above post mentioned, it's one of those "Go check out this innocuous little dimension that certainly has nothing important on it and you're just on a quick reconnaisance mission HOLY SHIT PSYCHIC CLOCKWORK KING".  It's a tough call.  That particular example doesn't show how important those twists can be to the story, but I think we can imagine that.  But the other side is that players always want to know exactly what they're getting into.  MMOG players don't like risk/reward.  They like "This is EXACTLY what will happen, this is EXACTLY what you will get."

Look at Warcraft.

[jpark]

I do like the idea of increasing the mission difficulty comensurate with increased reputation benefit.  I am not currently playing, but up to level 37 I found that if I really wanted a tough fight I had to go to the street - missions were generally too easy.

This at least is a move in the right direction for me.

I don't have a problem wiht increased SO cost - it seemed to me I was pretty maxed out and fitted most of the time - so that would provide some more challenge.