Good Vs Evil Edition

[Glazius]

I would rather have the option to slot how I like.  I prefered slotting defensively but had plenty of attacks to solo.  I had a couple of fun powers that brought me little benefit besides, you know, FUN.

Then I got the option to slot all of my primaries with 3 resistance and some with 1 endurance.  Anything more is pointless.  My secondaries are now all six-slotted because I have no where else to put them.  All went from 1 Acc, 1 End, 4 Dam to 1 Acc, 1 End, 1 Recharge, 3 Dam -- my DPS is identical to pre-ED in the powers that were six-slotted before, and because of the required lowering of endurance, the faster attacks make endurance drain a wash.  Only now I have more fully slotted attacks, I am forced to favor my secondary over my primary, and I had to dump my FUN powers to make up for faceplanting to groups of white minions.

Confused again.

I've done the math - the game gives you enough powers and slots to basically four-slot every power you choose except for one or two, but that doesn't even start until you're getting 6 slots every 3 levels post-30.

Exactly what were you doing that you could slot your primary and secondary as described and not have, like, a third of your powers with only one slot?

--GF

(edited: trimmed off excess after-quote)

[Llava]

Her point being that she was having more fun with a few powers that actually weren't slotted, specializing in specific powers because she wanted to.  ED doesn't allow for that, and that's its major flaw.

Most my controller contributed to a herding group was the debuffs from Radiation.  My AE Hold was too risky, because it was point blank, so if I tried to use it I'd almost always end up dead and there was really no gain in using it effectively.

[geldonyetich]

Personally, I didn't like herding much.  Oh sure, there's the potential defeat of the evil grind that is the numbah one inhibiting factor towards CoX's enjoyment.  However, after burning out from Evercrack, I've zero tolerance towards grinding for grinding's sake.  The missions/quests - things that provide context what's otherwise an exercise in killing everything that moves - are what makes MMORPGs worth playing to me now.  So it was that herding, a practiced art of killing everything that moves, is my mortal enemy when it risks becoming the dominant playstyle in the game.  It's cheap and degrading to the story - how often do we see Captain America taunting every punk in town and leading a massive gang of 1,000 of them into a corner so Iron Man can nuke them all at once?

[Furiously]

Personally, I didn't like herding much.  Oh sure, there's the potential defeat of the evil grind that is the numbah one inhibiting factor towards CoX's enjoyment.  However, after burning out from Evercrack, I've zero tolerance towards grinding for grinding's sake.  The missions/quests - things that provide context what's otherwise an exercise in killing everything that moves - are what makes MMORPGs worth playing to me now.  So it was that herding, a practiced art of killing everything that moves, is my mortal enemy when it risks becoming the dominant playstyle in the game.  It's cheap and degrading to the story - how often do we see Captain America taunting every punk in town and leading a massive gang of 1,000 of them into a corner so Iron Man can nuke them all at once?

I don't know - but damn that would awesome!

[Lantyssa]

Her point being that she was having more fun with a few powers that actually weren't slotted, specializing in specific powers because she wanted to.  ED doesn't allow for that, and that's its major flaw.

Exactly.  Thank you, Llava.

[Llava]

I aim to please.

And my aim is very, very good.

[Nebu]

It's a PvE game with no loot.  Why do they even care if it's balanced or people level too quickly?  How about worrying about if it's fun?

[Glazius]

Her point being that she was having more fun with a few powers that actually weren't slotted, specializing in specific powers because she wanted to.  ED doesn't allow for that, and that's its major flaw.

...I'm still not seeing it. Did unslotted powers become less effective after ED? Are there actually powers out there where you slot them and they get worse?

4 slots per power means that if for some reason half your powers only take one enhancer you can still 3-slot them and you're up to 5 slots on whatever's left.

--GF

[HaemishM]

It's a PvE game with no loot.  Why do they even care if it's balanced or people level too quickly?  How about worrying about if it's fun?

This is the MMOG business. Too quickly is codespeak for "Will cancel subscription."

[Glazius]

It's a PvE game with no loot.  Why do they even care if it's balanced or people level too quickly?  How about worrying about if it's fun?

...why do you think they didn't?

If it's not at least roughly balanced, people who play the classes/specs that got the short end will feel terribly inadequate ("the only thing you're contributing to this mission is more AoE fodder for XP, so sit down and shut up!") when teamed with the "superior" classes/specs. Feeling inadequate and/or useless isn't fun.

When people "level too quickly", it often means people are going outside what the developers had originally planned for gameplay into some degenerate pattern (run around the entire map, jump in a dumpster, have the blaster fire an LRM into the pack). Degenerate patterns are 95% unfun setup and 5% somewhat fun payoff.

--GF

[Valmorian]

It's a PvE game with no loot.  Why do they even care if it's balanced or people level too quickly?  How about worrying about if it's fun?

I'm sure they are concerned about whether it is "fun".  The problem is that "fun" is different for different people, and they want to make the game have at least the illusion of a "challenge".


ED was just a way to soften the blow of an accross the board nerf, because that's really what it was.  The alternative to ED would have been to reduce the effectiveness of ALL enhancements so that 6-slotting your defensive power would be the same as 3 slotting it is today. (and the same goes for Damage on attacks, etc..)

By leaving the effectiveness of enhancements the same and only allowing the first three to have full effectiveness, they were able to achieve their goals of a power reduction while still giving the small condolence of being able to have more powers slotted to the new "limit".

[geldonyetich]

Her point being that she was having more fun with a few powers that actually weren't slotted, specializing in specific powers because she wanted to.  ED doesn't allow for that, and that's its major flaw.

Exactly.  Thank you, Llava.

But that isn't true.  You could drop 6 of the same enhancement on the same power if you wanted to.  Yes, it would be with diminished returns after the 3rd or 4th enhancement, but having 6 enhancements would still be  perceptably more potent than 5. 

Thus, you have a choice about whether you want more potency in that power at a diminished return, or if you'd rather have those slots spent elsewhere.  One is actually exhibiting one's freedom by saying, "I don't think that power is worth 6 enhancements, just 4 gives me all I want out of that power."  All the ED does is encourage players to make that choice, not force them.   Granted, I realize that you may not think so if you've decided that encouragement = forced.  Especially if your mindset is still adjusted towards the days when the ED didn't exist.

It's a PvE game with no loot.  Why do they even care if it's balanced or people level too quickly?  How about worrying about if it's fun?

This is the MMOG business. Too quickly is codespeak for "Will cancel subscription."

If I look really hard at it, levels serve as a means to control content flow so you don't go through the entire game in a single week.  (*cough*DDO*cough*) 

The question that many developers need to ask themselves is this: "Does the content of my game sufficiency justify the amount of time I expect players to spend in this level range?"  This is a very important question, because if you set that time too long then players feel the grind, and if you set that time too short then players finish your game too soon.

On a somewhat encouraging note to people who fear the grind, take a look at World of Warcraft.  The current level distribution chart looks something like this, with a giant spike of players sitting at the maximum level.  Most of us here know why: Because WoW's grind is pretty fast.  About 300 hours to maximum level, last I heard.  Players go through content in that game as a ferocious rate - you could probably consume the whole thing in a couple months with five hours a night.  In going through all that content, players are kept relatively pleased by being continually introduced to new content.  (Granted, when they got to the end and found EQ-style raids waiting for them at the end, they weren't so pleased... but WoW being a giant bait and switch is another story.)

Taking a look at City of Heroes, you can see a longer grind manifesting.  Players are given a change of scenery about every 5 levels, but each of those levels take longer and longer to get, and it's only a matter of time until the content can no longer sustain the player's enjoyment.  (Granted, this will vary from player to player, for purposes of this conversation I have to speak in generalties.)

WoW's leveling rate is relatively constant, and it's doing pretty damn well so far as subscriptions are concerned.  (Okay, that's an understatement - WoW is doing "pretty damn well" in the same way that nuclear fusion is "pretty damn hot".)  So I'm going to say that Cryptic's belief that people exhausting their game's content in 300 hours will kill them is misplaced.  Especially now that they've a whole other side of their game (City of Villains) for players to grind through.  They really need to consider adjusting that grind accordingly.

In other news, I'm thinking it's time for me to resub to CoH.  It's good in small doses, while the novelty lasts.  Frankly, I wonder how much of my whining about the grind is influenced by the fact that I keep starting over again.  It's a catch22: I start over again because the grind annoys me, but the content can't keep me amused as much as it did the first time around so the grind asserts itself more.

[Nebu]

I'm thinking I should use green text next time. 

[Lantyssa]

...I'm still not seeing it. Did unslotted powers become less effective after ED? Are there actually powers out there where you slot them and they get worse?

4 slots per power means that if for some reason half your powers only take one enhancer you can still 3-slot them and you're up to 5 slots on whatever's left.

The power I no longer have because I had to pick up several others to compensate for not being able to survive became a lot less effective.

I do not find having pretty much one way to build my character fun or enjoyable.  Dying a lot if I try to fight the system is not fun, either.

But that isn't true.  You could drop 6 of the same enhancement on the same power if you wanted to.  Yes, it would be with diminished returns after the 3rd or 4th enhancement, but having 6 enhancements would still be  perceptably more potent than 5.

Are you being pedantic or do you really feel a 5% increase to a defensive power which gives 10% resistance is perceptively more potent?

My point is still being lost.  I have a plethora of slots.  Way more than I need.  Sure I could over-slot some power for a trivial increase but that still fails to make up for the fact that I had to completely remove powers I enjoyed to take powers I am now required to have lest I die regularly.  It puts me in the position of either not enjoying my daily play experience or not enjoying my character.  I lose either way.

This is not about numbers.  This is not a fact which can be debated, it is about my opinion.  It killed my enjoyment of the game.  I am only trying to explain why.

[geldonyetich]

Are you being pedantic or do you really feel a 5% increase to a defensive power which gives 10% resistance is perceptively more potent?

Not the fairest example, as good tanker power would have about a 25% base resistance.  10% is maybe a passive (no endurance cost) scrapper power.  I've got to get the actual numbers before I can really look at this, but I'm pretty sure a Single Origin (40%) enhancement wouldn't be so diminished by the time it gets to the 6th slot that it's just a 5% increase.  (Or would it?  It's been awhile since I played CoH.)

You feel the game was ruined for you because of the ED because it forced you to drop certain powers.  I'm not saying you're a lair, but I am saying I'd like to put that to a scientific test to see how much of that was due to opinion versus actual numbers.  (Ah, now there's a City of Heroes message board vibe for you.)  Changes of balance are often quite deceiving this way, that the true value of an aspect of the game is obscured under the expectations of how it used to be.

You could call that pedantic, but that's the bottom line of proving that the ED really is limiting your freedom as opposed to you, yourself, choosing to limit your freedom.

[Lantyssa]

SOs for defensive powers are 20%.  Passives are 10% for tankers now, Scrappers 7.5%.  (Or very close, I don't really have the need to go searching.)  Smashing/Lethal can still be made close to 90%.  I remember the breakdown for what I finally respeced into being something around 86% physical, 33% elemental, and of course 0% psi.  The defense penalty of Unyielding nullifies Tough Hide.  Invincibility does give defense but I stopped trying to follow how much after so many changes to it.

(Are you including the Issue 6 defense/resistance changes, which were supposedly taken into account when designing ED?)

I could make a survivable character after respecing.  That is STILL not my gripe.

[geldonyetich]

I'm not going to press you for the specific reason why the ED killed the game for you, as there's oft vague reasons why a change will kill one's enjoyment of the game that are about as easy to figure out as do-it-yourself brain surgery. 

My only qualm was with the statement that six-slotting something with the same enhancement would be useless.  I feel that might be overstating things a bit.  Would it be as useful as pre-ED?  Not at all, but even a 2.5% resistance difference can be worthwhile in the long run.  Passives suck, but that ws the same before and after the ED.  Scrapper Super Reflex passives actually went up in potency a bit in Issue 6, I recall - prior to that, they were 2.5% base.  Pathetic.

[Llava]

I've got to get the actual numbers before I can really look at this, but I'm pretty sure a Single Origin (40%) enhancement wouldn't be so diminished by the time it gets to the 6th slot that it's just a 5% increase.  (Or would it?  It's been awhile since I played CoH.)

It would be lowered to 5% by the 5th SO of the same type.  The 4th would be around 7%.  For a comparison, the 4th would be about 25% and the second and first  would be 33%.

[geldonyetich]

Ah, I see it kicks in after you reaches a certain percentage point depending on the kind of boost it is.  For damage resistance, it starts being affected at 40% and becomes "more severe" at 60% or beyond.  Statesman, once again, wrote a fairly reasonable but heavily controversal thread about why the balance change was needed.

I did play a lot earlier in this year (Spring - Early Summer), long after the ED was introduced, and didn't feel that badly influenced by it.  I actually thought ED made things more interesting with diminishing returns.  But then, I wasn't playing a hero/villain that relied heavily on maxing out a power to survive.

[ClydeJr]

My favorite was the final room in the Eden trial. Send a tank out to herd a ton of Devouring Earth back to the beginning where you dropped in. There were a couple pits you could herd all the DE into. Once they were there, I'd take my energy blaster and hover over them, aim/buildup, stop hovering and drop into the mess, then use Nova. You'd take out most of them and the rest were easily cleaned up.

[geldonyetich]

Advice: Go into your PlayNC account right now and make sure they've got a good birthdate on file for you.

Due to the August Lineage II password leak, and my having played a one-week trial for Lineage II tied to my main account, they randomized my password.  Due to the password recovery system involving birthdate identification and apparently their records for me are incorrect, I'm unable to recover it. 

Suckage.  Been trying to resub to CoX for two days now, and their customer service hasn't managed to do more than merge two tickets in the last 48 hours.

[Llava]

My favorite was the final room in the Eden trial. Send a tank out to herd a ton of Devouring Earth back to the beginning where you dropped in. There were a couple pits you could herd all the DE into. Once they were there, I'd take my energy blaster and hover over them, aim/buildup, stop hovering and drop into the mess, then use Nova. You'd take out most of them and the rest were easily cleaned up.

The Eden trial is the one case where I miss herding.

That last room was insane.

[Glazius]

My favorite was the final room in the Eden trial. Send a tank out to herd a ton of Devouring Earth back to the beginning where you dropped in. There were a couple pits you could herd all the DE into. Once they were there, I'd take my energy blaster and hover over them, aim/buildup, stop hovering and drop into the mess, then use Nova. You'd take out most of them and the rest were easily cleaned up.

The Eden trial is the one case where I miss herding.

That last room was insane.

I miss the spectacle.

I don't miss having my computer fall over clutching its heart after the blaster connects.

I'll see if I can persuade my current SG to take on Eden, dunno if we can get together enough people for it, but I'd like to see how it goes in the new new millennium, or whatever.

--GF

[Xanthippe]

Actually I was told that 60-70 will be like going from 1-60 in person, face to face, by a WoW player.  I don't really keep an eye on WoW news because I don't play it.

WoW does get grindy, but not until 60, if one continues to play past 60, is a crafter, and wants to make things that require faction.  So a lot of WoW players really don't care about the 60-70 grind, because they are already out killing mobs for loot, cash, crafting components or reputation.  At least now they'll have quests and a direction to go.

Currently in Wow, at 60 the game is either over or you raid or pvp or craft (which means rep grinding).

I've played WoW a great deal more than CoX.  I've come back to CoX more than any other mmo, to check out what's new, but seldom last more than 2 or 3 months.  The first couple of months are fun, but then things get to be too slow and too much the same, as other posters have said.

It's weird, because it's the most accessible, mmo I've seen in terms of jumping in and feeling powerful and heroic at the beginning.  But sometime in the 20s it just ... stops being so fun for me.  And when I go back to playing again, if I start a new toon (like I did with CoV), I have a lot of fun and feel great until sometime in the 20s.... and then it just stops being so fun again.  I don't know what happens after that, because I think the highest I've gotten anything is 32 or 33.

It's got so much going for it - a great community, best toon creation tools out there, fun theme, communicative devs - and this coming from a person whose focus has largely been in crafting in mmos whereas CoX doesn't even have that - but it just falls apart for me mid game.  Well, not mid-game, because it gets so damned slow, I'm sure I haven't even seen half the played time to get to 50 or whatever it is yet.  The curve is just nasty.

I'll check it out again, I'm sure, but I doubt I'll stick with it - at least the levelling part - until they do something about the grind.  IMO, they should have capped it at 40 or increased the xp gain or something.

[Sky]

While I haven't been back since CoV came out, I was the same way. Go back every few months, have a blast, get bored and quit. I think it was half the grind and half the repetetive nature of the game. I wish I could have a character with the game mechanics of my flying energy blaster in other games. So much fun to zip around knocking stuff all over the place.

[geldonyetich]

I wish they'd get around to rolling the powers on to the server.  I want my $9.99 jump-pack and Pocket D hearthstone.

[Lantyssa]

I just received an email saying my account is being activated between now and Sunday, October 8, as part of the promo for Good vs. Evil.  I do not know that I will have the time to take advantage of this, but those of you wanting some CoX without a full month subscription might want to see if it works for you

[UnSub]

I wish they'd get around to rolling the powers on to the server.  I want my $9.99 jump-pack and Pocket D hearthstone.

GvE should be available for download Oct. 6. Lord knows why there was a delay in getting it into NCsoft's own online store, but there was.

[Llava]

I wish they'd get around to rolling the powers on to the server.  I want my $9.99 jump-pack and Pocket D hearthstone.

GvE should be available for download Oct. 6. Lord knows why there was a delay in getting it into NCsoft's own online store, but there was.

It's up for download right now.

For some red tape reason, though, Mastercard isn't accepted.  Not my problem because 1) I probably won't buy the code and 2) I have a Visa.  It's everywhere I want to be.

[geldonyetich]

Hmm, I wonder if they've actually rolled those power sets on the server?  That would explain that "back end patch" they did yesterday that required a larger than tiny client patch.

[Llava]

You confuse  me when you say power sets.

You mean the jump pack?

I would imagine so. But I can test.  I just saw a screenshot of the costumes and decided, fuck it, it's only $10.  I'm a weak man.

Yup.  It's there.  It's weird.  Basically it's on for 30 seconds, and you can just keep on jumping when it's there.  Hold down the space bar and you keep going higher.  Course, you can't hover, and that means you couldn't perform any interruptible attacks while doing it.

[geldonyetich]

Cool, I'll grab it when I get home.  I, too, am weak.  For me it'll probably be a bit handier because my travel power is superjump.  Vertical movement is my main shortcoming. 

That PocketD recall should be handy as well.  I'm hoping it'll also make PocketD a good congregation area, increasing the social aspect in CoH that is often lacking.  PocketD never really was terribly popular, and it's application as a handy shortcut was cut short by base teleport pads.  Everybody who bought access to the GvrsE powers but doesn't have the Recall to Base veteran reward should end up a regular patron of the PocketD now.  That should mean that that many people will end up flowing through the area.  Social aspect boost granted, right?  It's hella better than sitting under Atlas's stone pants all day.

[MisterNoisy]

Cool, I'll grab it when I get home.  I, too, am weak.  For me it'll probably be a bit handier because my travel power is superjump.  Vertical movement is my main shortcoming. 

That PocketD recall should be handy as well.  I'm hoping it'll also make PocketD a good congregation area, increasing the social aspect in CoH that is often lacking.  PocketD never really was terribly popular, and it's application as a handy shortcut was cut short by base teleport pads.  Everybody who bought access to the GvrsE powers but doesn't have the Recall to Base veteran reward should end up a regular patron of the PocketD now.  That should mean that that many people will end up flowing through the area.  Social aspect boost granted, right?  It's hella better than sitting under Atlas's stone pants all day.

As long as the elevators don't go carnivorous again like they did right after I7.  ;)

[Llava]

Pocket D is the main area for socializing on Virtue.  Virtue, being the unofficial RP server, has a vastly more social community than my  previous server, Infinity.  I'm waiting for character transfers so I can bring my heroes over with me.  I definitely enjoy myself much more where I am.

[Glazius]

Power sets are in.

However, there's no indication you get them.

But if you open up your powers tab, there they are, ready to be dragged onto your powers bar.

--GF

Pocket D teleport is love, too.