CoX, How can it be improved??

[Der Helm]

... so we can talk about MY needs now?

I put on my robe and wizard hat.




Damm. To late for the party 

[dEOS]

I'll second the 'lower the fucking grind' and explain a little about why. When you get a new power it changes the game slightly, that change helps keep the game interesting. Once you hit level 30ish not only does it take longer to gain a new level, it takes more levels to get a new power.

This seriously slows down the rate at which gameplay changes, which means it becomes stale and boring. There isn't enough variety of enemies to compensate for this slowdown. So, my suggestion is to add more 'new shiny' moments - not necessarily new powers, the long postponed skill system or similar would help and/or add a wider variety of things to fight. Not new models, but genuinely new fights, different AI, different powers. Anything to introduce more changes to gameplay.

Exact same.
CoH/CoV is semi-intended as a casual player friendly game. Past-level 30 it clearly is not. The XP grind hits you in the face. Not only do you start leveling at snail pace but powers are far and far between.

My toons are all stuck between 30-40. No point at all in leveling for dozens of hours just to gain one level.
Sometimes I just fire Herostats because I can't just believe my eyes... that XP bar just isn't moving even though the perfect group I am in kill dozens of enemies per minute.
Time to level: 10+ hours. Eeeeeek !!!

This is only seconded by:
- Make Stamina inherent. Get over it. Everyone is getting it.
- Get a clue and balance influence costs. Being piss poor from level 1 to level 32 is not fun. Being uber rich post 32 isn't either.
- Change CoH so that most zones are not dead... and contacts don't make you cross 2 zones just to get to your new mission and those kill 40 x ceased to be a challenge after the third one in a row.

d

[UnSub]

For those with ATI problems - a small patch has gone live that has fixed some people's problems. YMMV.

To improve CoH/V:

 - More powersets. I want more options for my hero / villain.

 - CoH has to be updated to take in all the good stuff from CoV. This is going to take time and not attract any new players, so it probably isn't a priority.

 - Some zone events would be nice too - the kind that have a meaningful outcome, that is...

[Glazius]

My toons are all stuck between 30-40. No point at all in leveling for dozens of hours just to gain one level.
Sometimes I just fire Herostats because I can't just believe my eyes... that XP bar just isn't moving even though the perfect group I am in kill dozens of enemies per minute.
Time to level: 10+ hours. Eeeeeek !!!

Funny, I get mine in about 5. Granted, it's solid yellow, orange, and red to get there, but that's even with pickup teams.

This is only seconded by:
- Make Stamina inherent. Get over it. Everyone is getting it.

No they're not. Stamina isn't nearly as awesome as anyone thinks it is. The REAL benefit to getting Stamina is NOT having three more powers to press as fast as possible and whittle down the blue bar. Stamina's alright for soloing but in a decent-size team there's generally somebody who can pick the blue bar back up.

- Get a clue and balance influence costs. Being piss poor from level 1 to level 32 is not fun. Being uber rich post 32 isn't either.

Supergroups bleed off the wealth after 32. As for the rest? Don't fill up on DOs at 12 or SOs at 22. The game doesn't assume you've got them slotted until 20 and 30.

- Change CoH so that most zones are not dead... and contacts don't make you cross 2 zones just to get to your new mission and those kill 40 x ceased to be a challenge after the third one in a row.

Now that I can get behind.

--GF

[Lantyssa]

Rikti Guardians are a good example of support.  The Surgeons aren't so much- one heal every so often that heals about as much as one decent attack isn't really worth a lot.  Nothing compares to Sorcerers or Pantheon Shamans, though, in pure levels of "omg, kill them first ALWAYS".  They make fights interesting.  The Council's almost a shame, because there's so much effort in there to make them a varied group, but very little of it actually shows in the gameplay.  Varied bosses are a great idea- Longbow Wardens and Tsoo Bosses are my favorite to fight, because it's always something different.  Freakshow bosses... it's either smashing damage or lethal damage, otherwise no difference.  I go up against Tsoo, I could be dealing with a kinetic, a stormer, a spines scrapper, a fire blaster....... same with Wardens- sonic, storm, empath, super strength, martial arts, the list goes on.  Much more fun.

Surgeons don't even get to heal if someone with an aura stands next to them.  I didn't realize they had a heal until I had been doing Crey missions with my tank for several levels.  I had to purposefully not get close to one to confirm what power they used because it was the first use of Aid Other I had ever seen.

Tsoo were always my favorite group because of their diversity.  My friends thought I was crazy.

I don't mind the Freakshow as they are.  They have some of the best dialog.  A little variety would be nice, but if they were given annoying powers and I had to fight them a second time because they rezzed it could get tiresome.

[agathon]

One more vote for lowering the grind.

I've been level 39 for about eight months for one reason: I ran out of missions. I have a new set of contacts but they won't give me a job until I hit 40. I play casually (usually do a mission or two a couple of nights a week), and solo grinding is now my only option. If the grind weren't EQ-hell-level painful, I might be arsed to continue. As it is, I log in, smack some fool Crey in FF, notice my meter is not moving, and log off in disgust.

[shiznitz]

Logging on to smack some fool Crey and logging off makes you a highly profitable customer. That is not the way to communicate displeasure. If you truly log off in disgust and continue paying them each month, you lose.

[Modern Angel]

They have an endgame. it's called making an alt. I've subbed, cancelled, and resubbed to this game at least eight times. Every single time I get a character to about level 15 or so and say, "Fuck this shit." Let me get to 50 or whatever, get some PvP going and then make alts. Don't make it more fun or whatever because the fun is running a bunch of toons with super powers around beating the shit out of stuff... but not in a static environment. Taking a month to go five levels up near the cap is about a static environment as I can imagine.

I also want to thank Cryptic for fucking their download servers with Issue 7. Saved me fifteen bucks.

[Glazius]

One more vote for lowering the grind.

I've been level 39 for about eight months for one reason: I ran out of missions. I have a new set of contacts but they won't give me a job until I hit 40. I play casually (usually do a mission or two a couple of nights a week), and solo grinding is now my only option. If the grind weren't EQ-hell-level painful, I might be arsed to continue. As it is, I log in, smack some fool Crey in FF, notice my meter is not moving, and log off in disgust.

Two words: War. Burg.

Two other words: Pickup. Team.

One of these sets has to scare you less.

--GF

[Glazius]

They have an endgame. it's called making an alt. I've subbed, cancelled, and resubbed to this game at least eight times. Every single time I get a character to about level 15 or so and say, "Fuck this shit." Let me get to 50 or whatever, get some PvP going and then make alts. Don't make it more fun or whatever because the fun is running a bunch of toons with super powers around beating the shit out of stuff... but not in a static environment. Taking a month to go five levels up near the cap is about a static environment as I can imagine.

Do you mostly team or mostly solo?

CoX soloing is very low-frills. Two different teams will turn "the same mission" into something very different.

At least they do for me.

--GF

[Big Gulp]

Two other words: Pickup. Team.

If I wanted to be forced to group there any number of other, better, games to suit my taste.  If I want to solo I have WoW, also a better game.

They need to hand Emmert his fucking walking papers and revert to issue 3.

[Llava]

You guys need to get off the Emmert thing.  He's not even the lead designer of the game anymore.  He's still with Cryptic, and still has control over CoH if he wants it, but the day to day stuff and most of the design is done by Positron these days.

But, frankly, I don't want the game to revert back to Issue 3.  I'm having much more fun now than I was back then.

[stray]

Until Positron undo's Emmert's decisions, it may as well be about Emmert. People still had legitimate complaints about SWG (1.0) even when Raph left. Because it was still his game. He designed it.

I like you Llava. Honestly. But you and Glazius both are deep in fanboi/apologetic territory when it comes to these discussions. Always with the convenient little excuses and workarounds that, in effect, lay fault at the players somehow instead of the devs. You guys rarely admit to anything negative about the game itself. It's irritating.

[edit] OK, I'm being a bit unfair here, but the last few posts seemed to be spiraling down that path.

Sometimes I just find (Glazius more than you) that you guys have more solutions and advice for the people who want to like this game than the people who are making it.

[Modern Angel]

I mostly solo where I can and group where I have to. That doesn't matter. The problem that *I* have with it is the grind. Shake things up a bit. Give me different stuff and faster. If I get to 50 and there's nothing to do but PvP, then I'll make a new toon (which is the real charm of this game) and PvP some. Just explicitly make the "endgame" about making alts; it is in reality so quit dicking around with it.

[MisterNoisy]

Ditch debt.  Speed up leveling.  Eventually they'll realize that the character creator is the best 'good' thing they brought to the MMOG space and let people experience it more regularly without having to worry that they're wasting time by not playing their main.

Everything else is pretty optional, though (as a guy with a Dominator main) I'd like them to get rid of the purple triangles on boss mobs when fought on lower difficulty levels and maybe reduce the effectiveness of BF's in PvP too.  That said, I'm willing to cede never being able to matter (ever) in an AV fight or in PvP if it doesn't take so goddamned long to hit 40-50, though.

[Big Gulp]

Truth be told, even with my "Fire Statesman, bring back I3, beeyotch!" attack, that wouldn't make a difference either.  CoX is in the death spiral, and the only thing we have left to look forward to is the long, slow, but inevitable continued dwindling of playerbase until, like an old dog, they put the old bitch out of her misery.

[Jimbo]

Stuff

I'm glad you said it, as I was begining to wonder if they weren't Jack and Positron, trying to somehow mind control us into thinking the game is super great even though we are pissed about what has happened to it.

Reduce the grind to like WoW and the game might have still had a ton of people playing it. 

[Glazius]

I've been staring at this box for about an hour, trying to think of something to say that will make sense.

I guess what it boils down to is: for me, CoH is fun at an atomic level, and in some way that keeps me from understanding how it can't be for anybody else. Me and my team, one spawn, one fight, fun. Advancement doesn't matter, as long as we're not fighting just to get to the next level. When they nerfed tanks and AoE controls that atomic level got more fun, because it wasn't just a matter of "tank wads them into a big ball, controller perma-holds everything, damagedamagedamage."

Putting in more enemies who do "support functions" would put a little blip even inside that atomic level, and for that reason I should technically stop CALLING it the atomic level, but nyeah. Taking a sorceror or a shaman or a radiologist or a voltaic tank or a DE emanator out of the fight is a way to immediately turn the tide, to stop your enemy from getting stronger or making you weaker.

Putting more mini-objectives in missions, like people to escort, NPCs to fight with, or objects to protect, gives a fight scope beyond the fight itself but narrower than the dozens of fights inside your average mission - for some period of time you can't control the pace. The NPC will start his own fights ("man, look at all those Red Caps. Okay, you drop an ice slick here, I'll snipe from the tree, you have that nova charged and ready, and-" "Alright chums, let's do this! KAAAAATIIIIIIIIEEEE HHHHHHHHHHHANNON!" "oh my god she just flew in"), or your escort/object will get hunted down. But when that's over you're rewarded both with the objective's reward and control of the pacing again.

I can understand those. What I can't understand is the assumption that somehow, the atomic level stops being fun. Because... it's been two years, and it hasn't, yet.

--GF

A straight week of awesome pickup teams probably doesn't help either.

[Llava]

I guess what it boils down to is: for me, CoH is fun at an atomic level, and in some way that keeps me from understanding how it can't be for anybody else. Me and my team, one spawn, one fight, fun. Advancement doesn't matter, as long as we're not fighting just to get to the next level. When they nerfed tanks and AoE controls that atomic level got more fun, because it wasn't just a matter of "tank wads them into a big ball, controller perma-holds everything, damagedamagedamage."

Bam, nailed it.  That's exactly what I'm trying to say.

And most of the player base, which is by even the most grim estimates still over 100k, agrees.

The problem here is that you guys are trying to turn the game into something the playerbase doesn't want it to be.  That's fine that it's not the game for you, but I like CoV like it is- please don't fuck with it.  Go make a different game.

Does it need improvements? See my above long ass post.  But reverting back to Issue 3 or whatever is a fuckup approaching (not matching, but approaching) the level of the NGE in taking a game people like and turning it into a completely different game.

Therefore, I suggest having our cake and eating it too:  alternate server rulesets.

Downside, of course, is there are about 500 different incarnations of CoH people would want to have their own servers.  But for you guys, they could just make a "purple server".

2nd downside is that I doubt they want to start up whole new servers as it is.

[Big Gulp]

2nd downside is that I doubt they want to start up whole new servers as it is.

I don't think it's a matter of want, I think it's a matter of "can't afford to/not enough players to justify it".

And I understand the atomic level of enjoyment for CoH, because I used to share it.  I'd been subscribed for over a year, playing from launch, and only quitting in disgust after seeing CoV.  Shit, look at my back posts on this game; I was the number one CoH fanboy on this site.

The thing is, that atomic level of enjoyment has been killed off in the countless deluge of nerfs this team has served up from month to month.  Fuck, I could even handle the grind, which is the biggest complaint most folks have.  The continual need to respec, the neutering of my tanker in favor of balance, the lackluster, truly shitty PVP, and the dictum that "thou shalt only be capable of whupping three even minions" led me to say fuck it and take my money where it was better appreciated.

[Llava]

2nd downside is that I doubt they want to start up whole new servers as it is.

I don't think it's a matter of want, I think it's a matter of "can't afford to/not enough players to justify it".

And I understand the atomic level of enjoyment for CoH, because I used to share it.  I'd been subscribed for over a year, playing from launch, and only quitting in disgust after seeing CoV.  Shit, look at my back posts on this game; I was the number one CoH fanboy on this site.

I've always been the #1 CoH fanboy on this site, Mister.

And regarding "can't afford to", yeah that's pretty much what I meant.  Or, rather, I'm sure they could afford to but it'd be a money losing prospect.

[Jimbo]

It is not that we can't understand why you 2 want to keep your slow leveling, but why you all are defending it tooth and nail against everyone who has quit because of the grind or stopped playing past 30 because of the grind.  If you all think CoX should keep just a smaller base of players around 100k that is fine, but why stem the potential that could come from a larger player base.  More accounts into CoX = more stuff they could pass along in content.

Things that most people want is to feel like Hero's  not just a reskin of EQ with capes, especially a EQ clone that was bent on keeping the leveling slow.  We want the old system of letting us level up fast solo or level up even faster grouped.  We want to continue where pick up groups rocked, because you wanted 8 people to spawn an ungodly amount of villians and it made if feel super hero'ish because we could take them down.

I don't mind adding skill, but the only thing they were focusing on for a long time is how they could slow the game down.  And the lame ass-ed posting Jack would do on the official boards about how a character shouldn't be matched up with more than 3 equal con mobs, god that was so annoying and the fact that we were used to blasting so much more and then he wants to change it.

[Llava]

Okay.

I'll say it again.

Leveling isn't any slower than it was before.

You're not fighting as many guys at once, true, but they are worth more now.

I say this being one of probably 2 or 3 people on this board who have leveled all the way to 50.

Herding wasn't fun.  I know you remember it as being fun.  It wasn't.  Memory and reality sometimes clash.

Lastly, I'm not fighting for slow leveling.  I think the grind /should/ be reduced.  And I've said that.  A lot.  In this thread.  But that alone isn't going to fix anything.

[Glazius]

I don't mind adding skill, but the only thing they were focusing on for a long time is how they could slow the game down.  And the lame ass-ed posting Jack would do on the official boards about how a character shouldn't be matched up with more than 3 equal con mobs, god that was so annoying and the fact that we were used to blasting so much more and then he wants to change it.

Riiiight. You should only be able to match up with three even-con mobs.

That must be why there's someone in every zone who can tune your missions so you're fighting twice as many +1 mobs! That's why you fight elite bosses to cap off your storyarcs!

So many people seem to willfully misinterpret that. Three even-con mobs isn't the ceiling, it's the floor. It's what every combination of power sets, even the force field/psychic blast defenders, has to be capable of.

It is not that we can't understand why you 2 want to keep your slow leveling, but why you all are defending it tooth and nail against everyone who has quit because of the grind or stopped playing past 30 because of the grind.

It's because everybody who quit "because of the grind" didn't actually like the gameplay to begin with but was entertained by the shinies. There's nothing to grind to! I can sidekick up a level 20 out to fight the level 53 Praetorians who are holding Statesman hostage, fercryinoutloud. Can't handle purples anymore? Reward-wise, oranges (what you get on Invincible) are BEYOND where purples used to be, and that's just assuming you're fighting the ordinary rank and file. If you're throwing down with like Fake Nemesis or Malta, the "challenge XP bonuses", which weren't even _there_ pre-purple patch, make orange into deep purple and red into, like, cosmic radiation or something.

(Besides, when you were fighting purples you were only getting XP for them like they were reds. No, seriously.)

--GF

[Big Gulp]

I say this being one of probably 2 or 3 people on this board who have leveled all the way to 50.

Herding wasn't fun.  I know you remember it as being fun.  It wasn't.  Memory and reality sometimes clash.

Spare us the "I know better, I'm 50th!" horseshit.  Getting to 50th is not difficult.  I did it with my tanker and my Kheldian, and I'm here to tell you that playing an invulnerable tank being swarmed by purples while your teammates lay down AOEs, scrappers lay waste, and imps run amok  was fun.  I DIDN'T FUCKING CARE ABOUT THE XP, SINCE I WAS ALREADY 50TH.  I had my own SG, and we had around 50 members, 20 of which were on practically every night.  This was not a game that I just left willy nilly.

What I cared about was feeling like a comic book version of the Hulk or Juggernaut.  Having to constantly watch your endurance bar while fighting 4 or 5 oranges just wasn't fun after taking on legions of the naughty for the good of your SG.  And guess what?  All that COH had going for it was combat.  When that's no longer fun it's time to pull up stakes.

[stray]

Herding wasn't fun.  I know you remember it as being fun.  It wasn't.  Memory and reality sometimes clash.

No, it was fun.

Two can play at the infallible declaration game.


I got to kill as many guys at once as I do in every other superhero or action game. Quickly. I like that. That's better than killing less guys at a slower pace (and in turn, getting bored easier). General apprehensiveness in pulling is encouraged in the latter situation too --- Seeing that 9 out of 10 camps are filled with 6 mobs or more.

[Mitrediabolo]

Herding got boring after awhile. What i loved to do was run the Ghost Falcon rikiti PL mission, the number of mobs was just fun to fight against.

[stray]

And on a more general note, only in the MMO world will I see someone actually encourage less heads being rolled -- and at a slower pace. Only there would someone find that more "fun".

For me, the minimum minion body count in an action-y type game is half the fucking screen....At the very least. All able to be wiped out in 30 seconds or so.

Maximum downtime after that is .5 seconds (the time it takes to swallow a potion) -- and on to the next group of baddies.

Reference God of War or (if RPG's are more suitable to be mentioned here) Dark Alliance to see if I'm exaggerating.

You tell me what's "fun", but I don't think you understand how extreme I'd be willing to go if I was allowed to adjust City of Heroes to my kind of "fun".

[raydeen]

Lotsa words in here. I skimmed and didn't see any mention of my idea (if it's already been said I apologize). Would CoX be more fun if they implemented an instant 50 level character type just for PVP ala Guild Wars? No grind and all the blasting you can stand. Well, maybe a little grind. Any influence you got could be put to your groups base or the augmenting of your existing powers.

[agathon]

What Stray said. My tanker, Flame Boy, used to be one seriously tough (Fire/Inv) fellow, even at level 24. Now he fears the wolves on Striga Isle. He gets no play any more. When I killed things slowly, but could stand the damage and keep my group safe, it was a blast. Now that I am a poor man's WoW prot-spec warrior, it is no fun.

When Vegemite, my 39 scrapper, could jump into a fight with a ton of yellow and orange mobs and trust to his fists, feet and occasional use of an inspiration to keep him alive, it was fun. Getting alpha'd by two yellow-con lieutenants is decidedly non-fun and non-heroic.

CoH used to be fun for me at an atomic level, too. To some extent I still derive some joy from my lowbie brute on the villain side. And so I play a few times a week, mostly my <20 characters, mostly grouped with my 8-year-old daughter. But i sure don't look forward to playing the game every night, nor to I make time in my daily schedule to do it. Maybe keeping my sub running encourages bad dev/designer behavior, but for me the gaming with the kid makes the money worth it. I just wish the game compelled me to play on my own as well. But when I play solo, I feel less like a hero and more like a catasser. So i don't.

[Llava]

When Vegemite, my 39 scrapper, could jump into a fight with a ton of yellow and orange mobs and trust to his fists, feet and occasional use of an inspiration to keep him alive, it was fun. Getting alpha'd by two yellow-con lieutenants is decidedly non-fun and non-heroic.

You're either exaggerating or built very, very poorly.  No class should get alphaed by two yellow con lieutenants.  My Controller could stand next to them with no pets for a good 15-30 seconds before even having to do anything.

From levels 1-50 I simply cannot imagine a build or scenario that would cause this.

[Typhon]

I just got tired of it seeming like they spent all of their development cycles dicking with the game mechanics.  I know that isn't the case, but for some reason that's exactly what it feels like.  Villain missions just didn't seem substantively different then Hero missions (yes, Villain ATs play differently then Hero ATs, but the underlying mechanics being the same made that difference no much different then playing a different Hero AT).

Got to admit the Stalker conversations annoy(ed) the hell out of me.  In my book Cryptic ends up being another MMO developer that puts a stealth-glass cannon in the game and is surprised when there are balance issues. fucking duh!

In retrospec, I guess I ran out of patience with the development house, rather then the game itself (although that is largely a symptom of feeling like I just keep doing the same thing over and over again while in-game).  I'm only speaking for myself here, but I just got real damn tired of them adding shit to the game that only ended up annoying me (ED, Stalker, base PvP implementation, travel suppression, endless stream of patch-day bugs, etc)

[agathon]

You're either exaggerating or built very, very poorly.  No class should get alphaed by two yellow con lieutenants.  My Controller could stand next to them with no pets for a good 15-30 seconds before even having to do anything.

From levels 1-50 I simply cannot imagine a build or scenario that would cause this.

I concede; it was two yellow con bosses. Paragon Protectors. And, regardless, my point stands. I used to feel like a hero. now I feel like a Diku-er.

[Glazius]

You're either exaggerating or built very, very poorly.  No class should get alphaed by two yellow con lieutenants.  My Controller could stand next to them with no pets for a good 15-30 seconds before even having to do anything.

From levels 1-50 I simply cannot imagine a build or scenario that would cause this.

I concede; it was two yellow con bosses. Paragon Protectors. And, regardless, my point stands. I used to feel like a hero. now I feel like a Diku-er.

Two yellow-con bosses with access to what would be a tier 9 melee power for any hero?

Even then, since you're regen, they would have ganked you at launch. Because when you get alpha struck, regen doesn't actually have time to work. This has always been its greatest weakness.

...well, that and popping Moment of Glory against psychic archvillains.

--GF

[eldaec]

CoX grind lowering would undoubtedly help in the short term, but the real issue is that if you feel the grind it's because you did everything in the game, and you might as well move on.

The game still has the best group mmog combat out there, and undoubtedly also the most varied. But ultimately you are always going to tire of the combat system and then move on. The only way I'd play more regularly than an occasional one month resub is if there was something different to do when tired of group missions.

It's a decent game, and they were pretty brave about trying to balance powers to be as swingy as they are. Personally I always felt that while some pretty crazy nerfs have been tried out on test, by the time they reach live they've never been half as bad as the forum whining would suggest.

The 'I don't feel like a hero because I can't kill x' argument always seems dumb as well.

Superman spends most of the time killing grey shit in atlas park. That's why he kicks ass most of the time. When superheros fight something 'yellow' (ie. as powerful as them) they get their collective asses kicked repeatedly until the big showdown in the third act. If you want to act like a hero, go rescue old ladies in atlas park for 90 minutes before fighting a boss in Peregrine Island.

I can understand the criticism from people who want to solo. But I never really understand either why such people want to play MMOGs in general, or CoX in particular where the best experiences have always been group based.