I9 is live

[Trippy]

How does I9 reduce the grind?

Playing the market is one more thing to do.

But even if you don't want to do that, you have more things to shoot for than just the next power - namely, plain or set IOs and the parts to build them. Though getting the exact rare part you need is still something of a pipe dream. Regardless, this means more goals to accomplish in a reasonable amount of time which means more accomplishments per unit time which means... less grind. Assuming you want IOs.

None of that has anything to do with reducing the grind.

Also, some of the set bonuses can reduce miss rate, recharge-based down time, and endurance-sink-based down time.

Yes, if you have bucket fulls of Influence that can help but that either means you are spendings lots of time in the CH or you have a SG that's farming Influence by the millions per hour and in that case you can just have them PL you to 50.

[eldaec]

How does I9 reduce the grind?

IOs make everyone more powerful. Hence everything dies faster. Also not be sniffed at is the easier availability of HOs and SHOs.

Plus, assembling your IOs means less time between occaisions when something happens, whole new powers aren't the only interesting thing anymore.

Yes, if you have bucket fulls of Influence that can help but that either means you are spendings lots of time in the CH or you have a SG that's farming Influence by the millions per hour and in that case you can just have them PL you to 50.

I have no idea who these people are who need to farm influence. I can only imagine when people go on about this they can only be talking about people trying to maintain an oversized base for a dying supergroup.

Couple of times a level you recieve a rare arcane component, these sell for 3-4 million a pop. Each mission will also now give you a couple of common recipes to go alongside the enchancements you always got, and which sell for similar amount at stores. So we're close to double inf income, plus the occaisional multimillion drop. I have never seen so much inf since I9 started. As ever, the cost is only sky high for the IOs that form the absolute best sets, you'll only buy these once for a character. Using common IOs or cheap sets (which you can easily afford if you've played for any length of time post I9) you still get a noticable power jump.


This still doesn't change the core gameplay of CoH, obviously, and if you don't enjoy that, the game will always be grindy to you.

[Trippy]

How does I9 reduce the grind?

IOs make everyone more powerful. Hence everything dies faster. Also not be sniffed at is the easier availability of HOs and SHOs.

Unless you are going crazy on the sets the effect is not that large especially given that you still have ED to deal with.

This still doesn't change the core gameplay of CoH, obviously, and if you don't enjoy that, the game will always be grindy to you.

Ding ding ding!

[eldaec]

Unless you are going crazy on the sets the effect is not that large especially given that you still have ED to deal with.

The real effect is that you can now assume you will reach 95% bonuses to all relevant enhanceable aspects of just about all your powers. The new way the %s are laid out means by level 40 it's like getting a free DO with every SO, only most SOs are now cheaper and never need to be replaced.

The set bonuses are a side effect that also enables non-trivial advantages like perma hasten. But you're right that they aren't the big deal.

I didn't think the IOs were a big deal until everyone got them, but suddenly everyone is powering through missions in a way I haven't seen for a while.

Having +95% acc AND +95% damage AND a healthy wodge of Recharge on everything and without needing HOs or similar is a big difference, and enables you to run higher level missions much quicker.

[eldaec]

This still doesn't change the core gameplay of CoH, obviously, and if you don't enjoy that, the game will always be grindy to you.

Ding ding ding!

Also, if this is the case, then the problem isn't grind - the problem is that you just don't like CoH. Calling this a grind problem is like dropping out of your office cricket team and calling batting and fielding 'too grindy'.

There is nothing after the level 40-50 missions, they are the last thing the game has to do, there is nothing to grind *to*, playing them if you don't enjoy the CoH combat mechanic is pointless.

[Trippy]

There is nothing after the level 40-50 missions, they are the last thing the game has to do, there is nothing to grind *to*, playing them if you don't enjoy the CoH combat mechanic is pointless.

Exactly. Nobody is trying to do the new Hami anymore on Victory because STF is much easier to do for a similar payoff and then people stopped doing STF when they realized it was much much easier to farm the Katie Hannon TF for rare recipes (no HOs though). And the Cathedral of Pain is *still* broken, even though that sort of thing doesn't interest me. Hence the reason I currently have 19 new alts plus one villain to figure out if it's worth trying to level another character to 50 again.

I9 really just brings things back up closer to what they were pre-I5 so while things may be quicker for some people that's only cause they started after I5 or forgotten what it was like before the massive nerfs hit in rapid succession.

As for the grind itself, I actually missed most of the 40s grind since once I hit 42 it was like a constant stream of invites to bridge/pad groups. One of the advantages of being */Kinetics I guess.

[Typhon]

This still doesn't change the core gameplay of CoH, obviously, and if you don't enjoy that, the game will always be grindy to you.

Ding ding ding!

Also, if this is the case, then the problem isn't grind - the problem is that you just don't like CoH. Calling this a grind problem is like dropping out of your office cricket team and calling batting and fielding 'too grindy'.

There is nothing after the level 40-50 missions, they are the last thing the game has to do, there is nothing to grind *to*, playing them if you don't enjoy the CoH combat mechanic is pointless.

If there were no character progression in this game, or if it stopped at 40, or there was a significant amount of variation in how individual battles turned out (and you had some sort of bragging rights vis a vie the office two floors below you), I could see your point.  But there is, it doesn't, there isn't (and you don't).  So while I sort of get where you are trying to come from, I just cannot understand how you got there.

[eldaec]

This still doesn't change the core gameplay of CoH, obviously, and if you don't enjoy that, the game will always be grindy to you.

Ding ding ding!

Also, if this is the case, then the problem isn't grind - the problem is that you just don't like CoH. Calling this a grind problem is like dropping out of your office cricket team and calling batting and fielding 'too grindy'.

There is nothing after the level 40-50 missions, they are the last thing the game has to do, there is nothing to grind *to*, playing them if you don't enjoy the CoH combat mechanic is pointless.

If there were no character progression in this game, or if it stopped at 40, or there was a significant amount of variation in how individual battles turned out (and you had some sort of bragging rights vis a vie the office two floors below you), I could see your point.  But there is, it doesn't, there isn't (and you don't).  So while I sort of get where you are trying to come from, I just cannot understand how you got there.

It's a dikumud.

It has more variation in battles (espeicially past 40) than any other mainstream dikumud on the market.

But like every other dikumud, once your character is functionally complete (which happens somehere between 30 and 40 depending on AT and powerset) all there is left is to either enjoy the combat mechanic and power fine-tuning or stop playing. Shit or get off the pot. Don't sit on the pot complaining that you don't want to shit, and that if you did want to shit, you'd want to shit quicker.

If what you are saying is 'I don't like dikumuds' or 'I don't like the coh combat mechanic' then that is fair enough. But shortening what is being refered to as a 'grind' wouldn't do a damn thing to change that. If you didn't enjoy playing levels 1-30, you won't enjoy playing level 49 either, no matter how quickly you get there.

[Trippy]

But like every other dikumud, once your character is functionally complete (which happens somehere between 30 and 40 depending on AT and powerset) all there is left is to either enjoy the combat mechanic and power fine-tuning or stop playing. Shit or get off the pot. Don't sit on the pot complaining that you don't want to shit, and that if you did want to shit, you'd want to shit quicker.

People do want to shit quicker. Look at the massive increase in the number of people playing during the last double XP weekend.

[Shrike]

The number of people that did want to shit quicker surprised me.

The real issue is why? There's nowhere to take your shit past level 50.

So, when you hit 50, your shit is done. You're shit-outa-luck.

Jesus, I can't take this shit anymore.

[eldaec]

Oh, I agree that rapid shitting is attractive to people.

I just think that even if CoH was in perma-diarrhea mode, people who don't like the grind now would not suddenly enjoy CoH just because the game would ask them to shit out fewer missions. They'd try it, wouldn't feel any different and then complain that they still weren't shitting quickly enough, and if only their bowels were looser, they would be sure to enjoy the really big shits at level god-only-knows-what.

How long do we think it should take to gain a level in CoH?

One level for a solid evening's play  (3-5 hours) feels about right to me.

[Signe]

Most of the people who I know who play CoX, play sporatically, just like me.  I bet something even like rested experience would go a long way.  I do know that one of the reasons people tell me they have quit or don't play very often is because of the level grind, and not because they don't like the game.  Nearly everyone seems to enjoy the character creation, atmosphere and combat. 

[UnSub]

I've played CoH since launch, but do so only a few hours a week.

If I were to sit down and to grind it out (which I've done on TFs and Trials) then yes, I would have burned out by now.

The leveling speed could be upped a bit, but doing so isn't going to change the game dramatically either.

[Typhon]

This still doesn't change the core gameplay of CoH, obviously, and if you don't enjoy that, the game will always be grindy to you.

Ding ding ding!

Also, if this is the case, then the problem isn't grind - the problem is that you just don't like CoH. Calling this a grind problem is like dropping out of your office cricket team and calling batting and fielding 'too grindy'.

There is nothing after the level 40-50 missions, they are the last thing the game has to do, there is nothing to grind *to*, playing them if you don't enjoy the CoH combat mechanic is pointless.

If there were no character progression in this game, or if it stopped at 40, or there was a significant amount of variation in how individual battles turned out (and you had some sort of bragging rights vis a vie the office two floors below you), I could see your point.  But there is, it doesn't, there isn't (and you don't).  So while I sort of get where you are trying to come from, I just cannot understand how you got there.

It's a dikumud.

It has more variation in battles (especially past 40) than any other mainstream dikumud on the market.

But like every other dikumud, once your character is functionally complete (which happens somehere between 30 and 40 depending on AT and powerset) all there is left is to either enjoy the combat mechanic and power fine-tuning or stop playing. Shit or get off the pot. Don't sit on the pot complaining that you don't want to shit, and that if you did want to shit, you'd want to shit quicker.

If what you are saying is 'I don't like dikumuds' or 'I don't like the coh combat mechanic' then that is fair enough. But shortening what is being referred to as a 'grind' wouldn't do a damn thing to change that. If you didn't enjoy playing levels 1-30, you won't enjoy playing level 49 either, no matter how quickly you get there.

It's a dikumud.  If you are playing it and liking it, a large part of what you enjoy is that your character is growing in power over time (yes, even if it's all just an illusion... it's a game, it's all illusion).  I (and apparently a number of other people) enjoy the 1-30 game quite a bit, 40-50 game not so much.  Unfortunately I like to max out my chars because I get attached to them and want to see them at the top of their game.  Ignoring the 40-50 game to me mean that I'm going to have an even longer wait to get new content in this game - because all the times that the developers spend on 40-50 content is time they aren't spending on anything I'll be playing with.

Again, it's a dikumud, that's the way it supposed to be - players focusing on their character's development.  If your idea of what a dikumud is differs from "follow the story of a character from rags to riches", or in any way you think that a dikumud is like playing cricket with your office mates... again, I don't know how you got that impression.