The News Thread

[schild]

Yea, already got the entire show. That is some fucked up shit. See, Jungle Wa is just funny. This show - just Japanese.

She sounds perfect for you, Schild.  Do you want me to try and set you up?

That doesn't make sense.

[Signe]

It does to me.

[Llava]

Effective immediately, NCsoft will be stopping billing on active accounts held by our customers in areas severely affected by Katrina. This policy will be evaluated periodically based on the situation in severely affected areas, but is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Thanks,

Tisirin

[Signe]

There's a City of Heroes novel?  Good grief!!!

[Signe]

Here's lots and lots and lots of information on CoV.

[Llava]

Next zone update revealed.  Or, at least, the name and fiction behind it.  I like this one, actually.  City of Heroes doesn't frequently address the "failed hero" theme, which is one I think should thrive in a setting where almost anyone can try to be a hero.  If the last few zones are any indication, though, we'll have a series of missions leading us to find out what "really happened" in this zone.

The story, however, seems more than a little akin to the recent New Orleans situation.  I'm not sure if that's a good idea.  Clips:

It is well documented that within days of the explosion, Councilman Chard requested aid from FEMA to help repair the damaged War Walls. He later withdrew this request. When questioned about this reversal, Mr. Chard at the time cited the NRC’s initial report that the area was still too hazardous to work in. Now that the radiation levels have fallen to within an acceptable range, the Times asked the councilman if he was reconsidering FEMA’s help. “Not at this time,” he said in a phone interview.

To my knowledge, FEMA has never been mentioned in the CoH world before so it seems strange to bring it up now.

Also:

From its importance as a major oil refinery to its burgeoning high-tech industry, Siren’s Call was a vital part of Paragon City’s recovering economy, and could well be again. Though the government’s questionable actions in the hours and days that followed the disaster warrant closer scrutiny, it seems that finally the recovery of Siren’s Call has begun in earnest. To the thousands of affected residents, this is welcomed news.

But at least it was destroyed by a radioactive blast and not a hurricane.  Don't think they have too many hurricanes in Rhode Island.

More than likely this is just coincidence, as I do know that this zone has been planned since before the disaster (well before).  I can't say that with certainty for the story, but more than likely it applies.

[tazelbain]

I am not sure how you'd handle FEMA in a world where a good chuck of your population are WMDs.

[Llava]

I believe Marvel calls them PMDs, or Persons of Mass Destruction.

The government has the FBSA (Federal Bureau of Superpowered Affairs) keeping files on all that stuff.  Not sure how good a job they're doing, given that vast areas of Paragon City alone are completely uninhabitable, superpowered crime is a fact of life, and god knows how the rest of the cities in the world are doing.

[Trippy]

To my knowledge, FEMA has never been mentioned in the CoH world before so it seems strange to bring it up now.

I seem to recall having to rescue a FEMA working during one of the newbie missions.

[Glazius]

To my knowledge, FEMA has never been mentioned in the CoH world before so it seems strange to bring it up now.

I seem to recall having to rescue a FEMA working during one of the newbie missions.

The Circle were raiding a FEMA office to get the plans for the Paragon City Dam - that's one of the first missions in Positron's task force.

It's now an escort mission, meaning you have to shepherd the workers outside and as long as they're traveling with you you get ambushed by the CoT every so often.

(Fortunately they've still got pedestrian immunity.)

--GF

[Llava]

Well, I stand corrected.  I generally zone out on Positron.

[ClydeJr]

Some selected parts from the "Ask Positron" Q&A post:

Can you tell us anything about the hinted Archenemy system?

I designed (meaning wrote up and worked out) an Archenemy system for City of Heroes where you collected “tips” about a super-powered Villain, and then when you got enough tips, turned them in and in essence crafted your Archenemy. This Archenemy would show up on your normal missions until you worked out with your Contact that you wanted to “take him down”. That would spark a short story-arc ending with your Archenemy thrown in the Zig. Tips would then start dropping again, so you could craft a new Archenemy to plague you. Eventually, your rogues’ gallery would break out of the Zig and hunt you down collectively, and you’d have to defeat them all and stick them back in jail.

Sound cool? Yeah, I think so to. Problem is, it’s a HUGE system to implement, involving multiple teams to get everything working just right. I’m being a stickler about it too, I don’t want it “half-implemented” or a simplified version of it done. Stuff keeps coming up that needs one or more of the teams that could be working on Archenemies, so it just has never had a chance to happen... yet. I keep pushing for this, and hope that someday it will be a reality for the users to play with.

I am level 50 and there is very little to do. Any plans for a better Endgame?

Statesman has definitely heard you guys about the lack of an Endgame for CoH, and has personally designed a system that will allow your characters to grow in power. He pitched it to the senior designers and we all love it. You definitely WILL be dusting off those retired 50’s when this hits.

Are Defenders getting an Inherent Power?

You sure are! Vigilance: As teammates within 300’ of you are damaged, you get a discount on Endurance usage for your powers. This is based on the overall % of Hit Points they have remaining. (So the more damaged they are, the cheaper the Endurance cost on your powers).

Has there ever been occasions where an issue didn't prove true in datamining, yet you still felt merited attention due to player comments?

Yup, happens all the time. Debt is just one example. From reading the boards you’d think everyone was in perma-debt (always repaying debt from defeats), when the actual number is a very low percentage. We reduced the debt you got when you were defeated on an Instanced mission due to player comments, not datamining.

[Der Helm]

I am level 50 and there is very little to do. Any plans for a better Endgame?

Statesman has definitely heard you guys about the lack of an Endgame for CoH, and has personally designed a system that will allow your characters to grow in power. He pitched it to the senior designers and we all love it. You definitely WILL be dusting off those retired 50’s when this hits.

Uh oh, Realm Abilities anyone ?

[HaemishM]

MUDFLATION... HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

[schild]

The ArchEnemy system sounds like something great that will be badly implemented. There will probably only be 5-10 possible archnemesis to encounter when really it should be some sort of algorithm that makes the enemy based on the oppisite abilities and costume of your character.

[Llava]

ArchEnemy system does sound pretty damn awesome.

I'm not against a Realm Ability like system for CoH.  That assumes, of course:
1) BALANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) The ceilings aren't so high that the catasses are infinitely more powerful than the casual.

Anything I can do solo or with a single group that takes 2 hours or less a pop (like the whole system doesn't have to be doable in 2 hours, but there should be break points after about 2 hours of play built into the system allowing teams to break up, reform, characters to go do different stuff, other teams to form, or just let everyone log off for a couple weeks and then come back and pick up where they left off).

Personally, I'd really LIKE to dust off my 50.  I spent a lot of time on him, but every time I log him in the only thing I get is more influence... and he already has about 30 million.  I don't need more.  Give me something else.  I didn't play him to 50 because I dislike playing the character.

[Stormwaltz]

Don't think they have too many hurricanes in Rhode Island.

There was one when I was there. Maybe five years ago? More? It didn't do that much damage. I remember standing out in the backyard, leaning into the wind and being vaguely disappointed.

But aside, one of the devs spoke about the synchronicity of Siren's Call and New Orleans:

Coincidence, pure and simple. I was mindful of the whole Katrina mess... but it's truly difficult to write about a fictional disaster (even one this long in the planning) without unfortunate comparisons arising.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=3692711&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&vc=1

[Signe]

Another Statesman interview.  I don't think I'll make new threads for them anymore or copy them here.  They're just not that important.  Go read it yourself.

Dammit.

[Xanthippe]

Some cool stuff in that interview that I didn't know about.

PvP between villains and heroes (battling at supergroup bases) sounds neat.  I hope it works.

Ability to go rogue and change sides.

But I'm not quite sure what this exchange means:

What are your thoughts about the powers that are perceived as mandatory such as stamina?

Players talk about it, but I think the important thing is that I can play any character without stamina and hasten. So it’s very difficult for me to perceive them as necessary. Do they provide and advantage? Sure, but any power provides and advantage.

So I am very dubious about that. Now, is Hasten for instance very powerful? Yes it is. Is it too powerful for what it is? Perhaps. I am not looking at nerfing the power per say. I’d like Issue 5 to be done with the powers for a while. I am sure we will always have small changes, but we are going to address this stamina and the hasten issues a little bit differently in the near future.

"not looking at nerfing the power per se."

Per se?

Why not give hasten and stamina as inherent powers for all, instead of being in a powerpool?  I choose them to a) avoid downtime and b) to be heroic!  It increases my fun.  I'm all for increasing fun, particularly mine.

Oh, and I think he's got it wrong when he thinks the game is too easy and easy=boring.  That's not it.  Tedious = boring, and the game gets tedious at certain levels, which has nothing to do with easy.

[jpark]

I5 looks big - numerous changes.  Looks good mostly - although I am surprised Blasters got a boost to damage and hit points.

[Signe]

I5 looks big - numerous changes.  Looks good mostly - although I am surprised Blasters got a boost to damage and hit points.

He does seem to like to chat to the UK lately.  I think they must still like him over there.  The I5 patch notes are somewhere around here, in this mess of mostly useless threads.  I'm in the CoV beta so I can't say much of anything and I'm still getting a lot of new info from these interviews and stuff.  However, I will say this... I have no idea, from the interviews, the beta test, the gamespot splash... nowhere... what the time frame is for all this stuff.  I read one interview and Statesman blabs about something and makes it sound like the implementation is right around the corner.  I read another interveiw, not long after, and it's "some time down the road, in the future, after release"... it makes me a bit nuts.  I don't know if he's mealy mouthed and indecisive or a spin doctor verging on out and out lying.  He confuses me... not in that sexy mysterious way that sekret agents do, either.

[Llava]

Sonic Resonance buff effects being changed.

It won't strobe anymore, just have the mostly transparent spinning rings.  It was making people sick.  Personally, I had no problem with it but I could absolutely envision one of my friends throwing up her guts after looking at it for a few seconds.  She couldn't play Guild Wars due to motion sickness, this would make her head explode.

Also:

Sally Spawn Rate
#3729707 - 09/20/05 04:51 PM    

Ok, we screwed up.

We knew that Sally was going to be rare. We knew that with 1 HP she was going to dive under the water before most people ever saw her. This was going to lead to her being "mythical" and rarely seen on a server. We had a spawn rate in mind when we designed everything, including the lowering the requirements down to 2 Sally Defeats for the Believer badge.

Then I noticed someone asking that the spawn rate be "lowered to 2 1/2 to 3 hours". I said to myself, "Self, that doesn't sound right, she should already be spawning at a better rate than that." So me and one of the programmers went in and looked at the spawn rate.

Yikes.

A minimum of 10 hours between spawns was NEVER our intention. This means Sally would spawn once or twice a DAY. Defeating her twice at this crazy rate is a task I would never wish upon CoH players.

We have fixed it today (I don't know when it will make it to the Training Room server) so there is a maximum of 1 hour between spawns. This still makes her "rare", but it's now within the realm of possibility that casual players will get to defeat her twice within their time in Croatoa, and thus earn the badge.

Again, we are very sorry about this.

(Nip in the bud time: The spawn was set up in a way that we intended to have her spawn at a much faster rate than she was, but the fact that the spawn was ALSO set up to make sure that only 1 Sally was active at a time prevented her from being spawned at the faster rate. This was not obvious until we investigated claims that it was taking over 4 hours for her to Spawn. In our original thinking, it was just "someone else got to her before you did", but comments from you guys had me go in and investigate it further).

Let's see... not many other updates.  Positron made mention of one of the reasons behind the Phase Shift change- and that's Masterminds.  Frankly, I can see his point.  A Mastermind could leave phase shift on just about all the time and still operate at near full ability with their pets with absolutely no personal risk.  So that throws the "this is a PvP only change that's being forced on PvE!" theory out the window.

[Nevermore]

Let's see... not many other updates.  Positron made mention of one of the reasons behind the Phase Shift change- and that's Masterminds.  Frankly, I can see his point.  A Mastermind could leave phase shift on just about all the time and still operate at near full ability with their pets with absolutely no personal risk.  So that throws the "this is a PvP only change that's being forced on PvE!" theory out the window.

Yeah, I saw that as the reason behind the change the second I got into the beta, but obviously couldn't say anything about it on the boards due to the NDA.  I didn't like the change because I'm an explorer type and loved Phase Shift to get around and see new things, but it's obvious they absolutely had to put a limit in because of Masterminds.  Here's another part of his post that I found promising:

I am happy with the way Phase Shift works now. The only thing I want to change is a speed-up of the animation time before it kicks in. Then it will truly earn its "I NEED TO ESCAPE NOW" stripes.

I was arguing pretty strongly that Phase Shift needed to activate like Invisibility or Temp Invulnerablity: pretty quick with no root.  It's nice to see a dev agrees, now they just need to patch it in.

[Cuular]

She is a 350 pound, computer geek.  So yeah, go ahead and set em up.  :mrgreen:

[Llava]

Gilgamesh, CoH Web Content Editor (everything you see written on coh.com is him, fiction and all), just quit apparently.  He made his goodbye post here.  They apparently already have a replacement (which sucks because my eyes started sparkling like a vulture's when I realized that Gil's position might be open- my hopes were dashed!  Dashed I tell you!) in mind, though as they haven't actually given a name I think it's someone new.

Not a gameplay change, but for those of us who read the articles on the main site it is important.

[Xanthippe]

That guy did a fantastic job.  That's one thing that CoH got really, really right, and it draws me into the game the way I want to be drawn in.  I don't like to watch the bar; I like to experience the story.  CoH does a tremendous job with the story.

I wish him good luck, and hope his replacement is as good.

[schild]

On the spawn rate topic:

Two spawns a day is too slow?

How about two levels a month for casual gamers?

Christ.

[Llava]

On the spawn rate topic:

Two spawns a day is too slow?

How about two levels a month for casual gamers?

Christ.

You mean for Sally?

Sally is a monster that dies on one hit (she submerges again).  And to get the badge for defeating her, you have to defeat her twice.  So you can bet that each time she appears, one player will only get one half of what they need to get the badge for her, and that badge is part of an accolade.  So yeah, two spawns a day was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too slow.

[schild]

Sally is a monster that dies on one hit (she submerges again).  And to get the badge for defeating her, you have to defeat her twice.  So you can bet that each time she appears, one player will only get one half of what they need to get the badge for her, and that badge is part of an accolade.  So yeah, two spawns a day was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too slow.

Yea, I understood. I was comparing their concern of that spawn rate to their complete lack of concern for the crappy grind.  WoW has shown us that a game will keep players if it has a proper ding generation cycle. CoH has a ding cycle that is far too slow. Needs more ding.

[tazelbain]

But its just a badge, you have no right to get it.

[Glazius]

Sally is a monster that dies on one hit (she submerges again).  And to get the badge for defeating her, you have to defeat her twice.  So you can bet that each time she appears, one player will only get one half of what they need to get the badge for her, and that badge is part of an accolade.  So yeah, two spawns a day was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too slow.

Yea, I understood. I was comparing their concern of that spawn rate to their complete lack of concern for the crappy grind.  WoW has shown us that a game will keep players if it has a proper ding generation cycle. CoH has a ding cycle that is far too slow. Needs more ding.

The same lack of concern for the crappy grind that made them bump experience post-25 by 30%, right?

The only time I ever really "ground" for anything in CoH was, paradoxically, when I was close to dinging 36, 41, or 46 and thus leaving contacts behind forever. The reason I say paradoxically was that I basically suicided enough to go out fighting crime with max debt, stealthing through missions whenever possible to get minimal experience, just so I wouldn't leave a contact behind. Instead of grinding XP I was grinding missions... and I _still_ managed to miss missions I wanted to see. Make of that what you will.

One year later, the game is still fun on the atomic level (punch things in the face while looking really good). Maybe that makes me some kind of degenerate gamer or something.

--GF

[schild]

The same lack of concern for the crappy grind that made them bump experience post-25 by 30%, right?

I should have been more clear. Levels 10 through the end.

[HaemishM]

But its just a badge, you have no right to get it.

Apparently, you have no right to get to 50 without 6-12 months of "work" either.

The grind is having to do too much of the same thing to get to the next ding cycle. It really becomes glaringly obvious when you are working on debt.

[tazelbain]

ok, not defending CoH level grind.  It sucks; it's pointless.  But a badge is just a shiney, so the grind in this case isn't preventing you from playing the game or experiancing content. This is exactly where the grind should be, unimportant collector items.

[Xanthippe]

Pre-I5, I agreed with Schild about the grind.  No more.

My controller is now 25, mostly soloed up.  I never watch the xp bar, because I go for the story arcs.  I'm outlevelling my contacts faster than I can get all the story arcs for my level.  I skipped Positron on this toon, and have 3 task forces to do before I outlevel those.

Maybe this will change at 30, I don't know, but for now with the changes to mission xp, it seems fine to me.  Much faster than it used to be.  But I rarely die with this toon (ill/ff) because I have so many escapes.  If I died a lot, I might feel differently (but then I'd have more influence with which to buy SOs).

Without an endgame, there really isn't a grind, at least if you're interested in following the stories.  I expect all that to change once team pvp enters the picture.