Like the subject says, what's the difference between Heroes and Villains and the Phoenix Project? I just want to play a game just like CoX, mechanically.
I could give a sensible answer or a snarky one, the sensible one is probably better, personal opinion only.
H&V is probably going to be closer to CoH both in lore and mechanics although for legal reasons the intellectual property will have to be different.
TPP is probably more ambitious and going to be closer to CoH2, keeping the feel, but somewhat further away.
Be interested to see whether others feel this is fair.
Quote from: Minotaur on December 06, 2012, 07:48:10 PM
I could give a sensible answer or a snarky one, the sensible one is probably better, personal opinion only.
H&V is probably going to be closer to CoH both in lore and mechanics although for legal reasons the intellectual property will have to be different.
TPP is probably more ambitious and going to be closer to CoH2, keeping the feel, but somewhat further away.
Be interested to see whether others feel this is fair.
That just about sums it up for me.
Well, this bums me out even more. From the vibes I am picking up, TPP (The Phoenix Project) has a lot of support, but isn't apparently going to really be CoH, it's going to be some folks ideas on what they would do if they made their own superhero game. And HaV (Heroes and Villains) seems to be the game I want to play, but doesn't seem to have nearly as much support, backing, and personnel.
So that's upsetting.
You see, the thing is, IMO City of Heroes circa Issue 24 was virtually PERFECT. I mean, *practically* perfect - it had its issues, but it was fun, playable, awesome. It was the pinnacle of not only superhero MMOs, IMO, but ALL MMOs - possibly all video games. (Keep in mind that I speaking from my own perspective here.)
When you have something that good, you don't reinvent it. You protect it and guard it. Here a VERY *tiny* list of some of what I loved about the game:
-Always being able to get any recipe I needed, even the purps, on the market
-being able to take SuperSpeed, throw a +Stealth IO in it, and having full Invisibility.
-the way it doesn't matter if the baddie is level 50 and I am level 1, invis still works - ie, level range does not affect Perception.
-slotting IO sets for insane bonuses to Recharge, to Defense, Global Damage, etc.
-Being able to build a stalker that was Def capped to even Incarnate content.
-Being able to build a blaster that was Def capped to 1-50 content.
-franken-slotting IOs to get a lot out of few enhance slots.
-using mids and spending one or two weeks researching and building my character before even creating him in game
-bringing a character to an ultimate place with power selection and IO use to be able to basically have almost capped recharge and so much endurance (via +recov or powers like transference/stamina) that I basically can fire all my powers as fast as they come up, furiously
-having so many build choices, not just in terms of ATs but Primary and Secondaries that feel and play completely differently that although I had 20+ levels 50s, I felt like I could make another 20 without repeating gameplay experience, allowing me to design a character, take him from 1 to 50 (through both solo newspaper mishes which I loved and pickup groups), then permanently shelve him and start over again.
-And having amazing ATs with each being very different, unique gameplay, and interesting AT powers - like the latest Defiance or Domination. (Domination, which I *perma'd*, btw.)
-and the Issue 24 blaster changes were going to perfect blasters! More range, better snipes, crashless nukes, more survivability!
To put this all another way, I guess looking around at the other MMOs and such, I am not a standard gamer. I don't want challenge, I want fun! I don't want to be tested, I want to easily overpower my opposition. And above all, I want my MMO deaths to be extremely rare *without* having to compromise my playstyle and act uber cautious or water down my xp/minute.
City gave me all of that. With judicious power choices, clever slotting, leaning on IOs, and basically leveraging everything added to the game for the last 8 years, I could make a character that almost never died - that even had built in safety nets so even if *everything* went to crap, my character wouldn't die. Even during pickup team teamwipes, I don't generally perish. And not only that, with my Numina's and my Miracle's, with my 5 Luck of the Gambler's, my Kismet, my Positron's Blast sets and everything else, I got my powers enhanced to max (diminishing returns) while *also* getting amazing global stats.
I was able to build Blasters, Corruptors, Dominators, Brutes, Masterminds, Stalkers, and Controllers that in any other game would be considered way overpowered.
But in this game I could have my cake and eat it too. With clever building, I could be extremely safe and extremely powerful.
And I think the chances of anyone making a game like that again from scratch are very very low.
One last example: One of my favorite expereinces was in playing a Mind/Fire Dominator. By level 8, I had Mesmerize, Dominate, and Confuse, meaning that when soloing in a newspaper (or radio) mission, I could immediately shutdown 3 baddies, and then begin beating up their helpless selves with FIRE. While they could do NOTHING.
This to me, is fun. (And when I finally got perma-dominate courtesy of Hasten and a lot of IOs, I could do that to bosses too!)
What's not fun for me is the anxious uncertainty of facing an in game challenge that I don't know I can powerfully handle. No, City gave me the closest thing to godmode, and unless some makes a copy of City or brings it back, I am probably utterly screwed.
And that sucks.
Wait to see what develops, I'm sort of participating in both efforts so desperately trying to be fair and I don't think your characterisation is quite right.
The IP has to be different, NCSoft owns that.
If the mechanics, look and feel are too close to CoH, there is a lawsuit danger too, so you can't just straight up mimic the powersets.
There was a difference of creative direction between one of the main people on what became TPP and the rest of the team leaders, so she went off to create HaV. She is also using a different engine for the game, and I'm not technical enough to know exactly what that's going to mean, but I do know that the engine she's using was rejected by the TPP team.
Wait to see where the games go, my suspicion is that you will be able to get godmode in either, but not at +3x8 (standard for several of my toons) like you could do in CoH.
sindyr:
Oh, see, that's all gameplay. Difficulty, mechanics, stuff like that. No one here cares or is talking about that stuff.
It's all about the lore, and wanting to do it Better, or As Close As Possible Without Getting Sued.
All those ways you came up with to increase the size of your epeen, to be uber, untouchable, invincible?
No one cares.
;) :P
Quote from: Minotaur on December 06, 2012, 08:48:13 PM
If the mechanics, look and feel are too close to CoH, there is a lawsuit danger too, so you can't just straight up mimic the powersets.
As I understand it - and I freely admit I may be quite wrong:
You can't copy the power's name, unless it's quite generic. Blazing Bolt would be renamed, perhaps, Fire's Arrow.
You can't copy the animation or art assets, or the sounds - so new animations, sound effects, etc would have to be created.
You CAN reverse engineer and copy the mechanics, which are NOT protected - so your new Fire's Arrow, which still looks like an impressive long range and intense aimed fire attack albeit not like Blazing Bolt can nonetheless do EXACTLY the same damage with EXACTLY the same secondary effects (in this case, a DoT.)
In other words, you can xerox all mechanics, you just need to modify the names and art assets.
We *could* have a CoX clone, legally, under those conditions - and if the new art was up to snuff, it would be just as fun and work just the same.
Quote from: Megajoule on December 06, 2012, 08:51:49 PM
It's all about the lore, and wanting to do it Better, or As Close As Possible Without Getting Sued.
Lore is fluff, I pay no attention to it.
As I was saying...
An answer was here for those who wanted to read the long Opening Post :P
http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,6724.0.html
Quote from: sindyr on December 06, 2012, 08:56:20 PM
As I understand it - and I freely admit I may be quite wrong:
You can't copy the power's name, unless it's quite generic. Blazing Bolt would be renamed, perhaps, Fire's Arrow.
You can't copy the animation or art assets, or the sounds - so new animations, sound effects, etc would have to be created.
You CAN reverse engineer and copy the mechanics, which are NOT protected - so your new Fire's Arrow, which still looks like an impressive long range and intense aimed fire attack albeit not like Blazing Bolt can nonetheless do EXACTLY the same damage with EXACTLY the same secondary effects (in this case, a DoT.)
In other words, you can xerox all mechanics, you just need to modify the names and art assets.
We *could* have a CoX clone, legally, under those conditions - and if the new art was up to snuff, it would be just as fun and work just the same.
You have to be VERY careful, the problem is that if NCSoft don't like it and think you've ripped off their game, they can sue and even if you win eventually, your game can be crippled by the costs and delay caused by the case. This is one of the problems with the american legal system, a man is considered innocent until proven broke.
I Liked Liked City of Heroes/Villains. I believe one could created a Good Good MMO minus the specific CoX IP.
1) Superpowers are Superpowers, regardless of IP, e.g. the Flash does not "Own" Super speed.
2) Though I will miss the Signature Heroes & Villains, you cannot create a new "City" if it is attached to the old "City" because of IP.
3) Paragon City was great, but Superheroes have never existed in a single city, nor lore.
And, CoX did need a new "Engine" anyway.
I would believe that a new MMO as Great or Greater than CoX can use what we learned and move forward. IMHO the Game is not so much about the Mechanics, though good mechanics is essential, it is more about the Community you get to play with. The Real Super-Heroes/Villains were those Players I played with/against. Yes there were the likes of Clock King and the Rikti, but there was also the Tank "Roscoe Hammer" that kept you, the Blaster, from gaining Aggro. Or the Defender "Priscilla Mist" who kept us Healed when we were fighting.
Roscoe and Priscilla are the Real Benefits for a good Superhero MMO.
Actually, our tech team is having a meeting about powers and gameplay this evening. ;) As I'm understanding it (bear in mind that I'm not a tech), the goal is to maintain the gameplay feel and "Super" feel of COH while expanding on the possibilities of non-combat, puzzle-based, and other forms of gameplay as well. It IS well understood by The Phoenix Project that part of the draw of COH *was* being able to what you're describing, Sindyr, and that it's an element that we will need to have in our game as well. I believe that the tech team has already decided to maintain the same basic power levels vs mobs that COH had. I.E. any character of any class should be able to solo at least 3 minions, 1 lt +1 minion, or a boss without feeling like it's a desperate battle against terrible odds.
We actually have a thread specifically dedicated to COH in our forums here on Titan. It's in the general discussion forum for Plan Z: The Phoenix Project, and we're taking notes on it. Don't worry about possibly repeating what others have said - The more people that say something, the more information we have that this is something that was well-liked and should remain a part of gameplay. We WANT to know what you felt the best and worst parts of COH were, because this is ultimately a community effort for the community, and we would be remiss if we didn't take the community's feelings and desires into consideration.
Thanks Sith, that's helpful to hear. I guess I am a little (more than a little) wary when I see all the other MMOs out there that are challenging and hard, but not fun - that plus how much I abhor dying, even with little or not death penalty.
Anyways, I *am* pulling for having that fun back in my life, so I want you to definitely succeed. :)
Quote from: sindyr on December 06, 2012, 08:57:31 PM
Lore is fluff, I pay no attention to it.
Then you're going to be sorely disappointed because the primary difference between the Phoenix Project and Heroes and Villains is lore. Golden Girl had a very different look, feel and story in mind from much of the rest of the project, and that irresolvable difference of opinions caused the split. Neither game is going to be a copy of City of Heroes.
Quote from: GoreckiMike on December 06, 2012, 09:03:36 PMAnd, CoX did need a new "Engine" anyway.
It needed a lot more than a new engine, as far as I'm concerned. I personally never saw City of Heroes as "perfect," and indeed it became less and less so as it developed. The lore turned into an infinite continuity snarly of old stories disregarded and replaced with newer ones, fudges and kludges and frankly BAD stories. Gameplay, which had once been simple and straightforward, turned into a mixture of complex statistics and much grinding, plus Market PvP. And even power balance was slated towards the need for a team. I said this about Blasters in the actual Blaster Changes thread - all of those changes were good, but they weren't enough as far as I'm concerned. You still had an AT with virtually no personal protection ("maintain" powers are not personal protection) facing enemies that can chain-hold you and hit you for over half your hit points, unless you go through the drudgery of Inventions and the classic MMO min/max build.
Suffice it to say that I feel City of Heroes could use a lot more than just better graphics. My first choice - after a cleaned up, straightened up lore - would be a character creation system that lets players better mix and match power concepts, such as guns and armour or guns and melee weapons.
Quotea character creation system that lets players better mix and match power concepts, such as guns and armour or guns and melee weapons.
To my knowledge, both of those are intended to be possible in the Phoenix Project. Guns and armor even comes in dual flavors - defense/range for all your ranged tank needs, and range/defense for the survivable blaster. Though the latter will of course likely do less damage than the 'classic' range/melee blaster build due to balance. There's also a defense/assault option, for those who want to tank at any range. I don't think there's an assault/defense though.
Quote from: sindyr on December 06, 2012, 09:18:39 PM
Thanks Sith, that's helpful to hear. I guess I am a little (more than a little) wary when I see all the other MMOs out there that are challenging and hard, but not fun - that plus how much I abhor dying, even with little or not death penalty.
Anyways, I *am* pulling for having that fun back in my life, so I want you to definitely succeed. :)
If it helps, I agree with you. :) Being Super means that we should be able to fight a whole bunch of lesser guys at once and still come out on top. (Most of the time.) It always bugged me that I was supposed to be this great hero in WOW...and still had to struggle on most classes with more than two even-con opponents for most of my levelling career. (Hunter and Paladin being a noted exception.) We're not playing fantasy. We're playing super heroes and villains. We have powers and technology beyond the wildest dreams of most of humanity. That's really a key element in COH. (And the Phoenix Project's tech team did confirm to me that they do plan to make that as possible as they can within the realms of keeping overall balance, by the way.)
Quote from: General Idiot on December 07, 2012, 01:27:20 PM
To my knowledge, both of those are intended to be possible in the Phoenix Project. Guns and armor even comes in dual flavors - defense/range for all your ranged tank needs, and range/defense for the survivable blaster. Though the latter will of course likely do less damage than the 'classic' range/melee blaster build due to balance. There's also a defense/assault option, for those who want to tank at any range. I don't think there's an assault/defense though.
No defense/range option in the guided AT. Only Defense/Assault and Ranged/Defense.
Quote from: SithRose on December 07, 2012, 03:04:27 PMIf it helps, I agree with you. :) Being Super means that we should be able to fight a whole bunch of lesser guys at once and still come out on top. (Most of the time.) It always bugged me that I was supposed to be this great hero in WOW...and still had to struggle on most classes with more than two even-con opponents for most of my levelling career. (Hunter and Paladin being a noted exception.)
This just shows how far Jack Emmert's "three minions should be the equal of one hero" mindset went into other MMORPGs... And you're quite right; we're superheroes -- we're
supposed to be head-and-shoulders above the minions.
Quote from: downix on December 07, 2012, 03:21:20 PM
No defense/range option in the guided AT. Only Defense/Assault and Ranged/Defense.
So long as I can finally have my Dual Pistols/SR character...frankly my dear, I don't give a damn ;D
Sorry about that, thought there was such an option. Should've rechecked the info before posting.
Quote from: General Idiot on December 07, 2012, 01:27:20 PMTo my knowledge, both of those are intended to be possible in the Phoenix Project. Guns and armor even comes in dual flavors - defense/range for all your ranged tank needs, and range/defense for the survivable blaster. Though the latter will of course likely do less damage than the 'classic' range/melee blaster build due to balance. There's also a defense/assault option, for those who want to tank at any range. I don't think there's an assault/defense though.
I'm vaguely aware of this. I was just saying that a flat recreation of City of Heroes isn't the best option because the game came with a LOT of problems and limitations borne out of being, quite frankly, the first game to try many of the things we now take for granted. The "holy trinity" of classes are one good example. You may argue that City of Heroes didn't have that, but this isn't because it broke the mould on classes so much as because it stretched each class's role such that it could fill a few others. At no point, however, was "range" and "defence" considered, because defence is a tanking job and range is a DPS job and if you put them both on the same character, it would be too much fun. We can't have that.
Any project that aims to create a spiritual successor to City of Heroes needs to take liberties with the source material, because the source material was FAR from perfect. City of Heroes was good, make no mistake, but it felt a lot better when compared to its competition because - let's face it - MMOs have always been very, very bad. Having an actually GOOD one was, and indeed still is, pretty much a culture shock.
Quote from: Megajoule on December 06, 2012, 08:51:49 PM
It's all about the lore, and wanting to do it Better, or As Close As Possible Without Getting Sued.
All those ways you came up with to increase the size of your epeen, to be uber, untouchable, invincible?
No one cares.
I do, but not in the same way. I would say that sort of rampant munchkinism and the grinding of late game content is exactly what went wrong with City of X in later years. When I make a serious mistake, I want there to be consequences; faceplants and fat chunks of old-style debt. I do want the game to be challenging; and I want the players I share the universe with to be under similar constraints, because where's the fun in teaming with the immortal tank-mage? And, especially, I want this in PVP; if I lose, let it be because the other player was better - not more a more persistent grinder of PVP-IOs.
Interestingly, sindyr describes themselves as not a typical gamer - whereas I suspect it's me who isn't typical in the MMO space. Presumably City of X (and every other MMO) has that sort of grinding because it sells.
If either of the Plan Z projects is going to appeal to me personally, it'll be partly because it's hard to play; if I just need to fire off the right powers in the right order, no thanks.
Quote from: thunderforce on December 09, 2012, 03:21:53 PM
If either of the Plan Z projects is going to appeal to me personally, it'll be partly because it's hard to play; if I just need to fire off the right powers in the right order, no thanks.
*This* line of thinking creeping into either Plan Z is what has *me* personally worried.
I had a TON of fun levelling up dozens of characters in CoX. It worked beautifully for me. Who know what a different take or "improvement" would do to the game experience I loved and cherish.
I am hoping - but also very worried.
Quote from: sindyr on December 09, 2012, 09:03:20 PM
I had a TON of fun levelling up dozens of characters in CoX. It worked beautifully for me. Who know what a different take or "improvement" would do to the game experience I loved and cherish.
What did you make of the pre-Invention "take" on City of Heroes where you couldn't just grind to a point where nothing could hurt you?
Quote from: thunderforce on December 09, 2012, 03:21:53 PMWhen I make a serious mistake, I want there to be consequences; faceplants and fat chunks of old-style debt. I do want the game to be challenging; and I want the players I share the universe with to be under similar constraints, because where's the fun in teaming with the immortal tank-mage?
Actually, I have a very good example of this from right now. I just came out of a game of Saints Row The Third with NuclearToast. He got it gifted recently, whereas I've played through the whole thing and unlocked everything. This includes complete invulnerability from all damage (I have no health bar at all), infinite ammo with no need to reload weapons and all weapons upgraded to maximum. Basically, you don't get more broken than this in terms of game balance... And I can't say I've had more fun in years. And it's not because I'm so much more powerful than NT, not by a long shot. No, it's because I can afford to goof off completely and nobody suffers for it.
For instance, Saints Row is primarily a shooter. It has some melee, but it's not a fighting game. If you try to fight, you get killed, and fast... Except I CAN'T get killed, so I play Saints Row like I'd play City of Heroes - rush in and start dropkicking people. It's gloriously entertaining, because this is precisely how I've always envisioned a Super Strength/Invulnerability tank working. Now all I need is a way to figure out how to keep that "super formula" permanent which makes me run fast, jump high and explode cars with my punches!
And the real kicker is I'm not really making NT's game pointlessly easy. If anything, having me clowning around, handing out grenades like candy, suplexing random civilians and throwing enemy gang menbers into traffic "for the lulz" is making the game considerably more difficult since he's always dealing with at least a star or two of alert status. But the thing is - I never played Saints Row for the "challenge." I play it because I LOVE the empowering feel of the game's narrative, where my character can basically kick down the door to any place and start DDTing her enemies with impunity. That kind of experience really, REALLY benefits from being actually literally unkillable, and I'm having a blast.
Personally, I do feel that City of Heroes made a mistake with Incarnates, but I feel it's because the system was boring as all hell and all raids to boot. The actual end result of it, however, is precisely how I always wanted the game to play out - with us overpowered and never really having to worry about survival so much as about how to dispatch our enemies while looking the most awesome. I just wish it were easier to achieve.
It's good to see your avatar back, Samuel :P
I figured that since everyone was sporting pics, it must mean we have our avatars back. And I feel so naked without my Z :)
Quote from: Samuel Tow on December 10, 2012, 05:38:42 PM
I figured that since everyone was sporting pics, it must mean we have our avatars back. And I feel so naked without my Z :)
Samuel, how about one of these? LOLOL
(https://i.imgur.com/p3CJDl.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ycEI7.jpg)
Quote from: healix on December 11, 2012, 07:55:05 AM
Samuel, how about one of these? LOLOL
(https://i.imgur.com/p3CJDl.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ycEI7.jpg)
That's a toe ;) put "Samuel Tow" on one of this kind:
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=iloverustyj.com%2Ftow%2520truck.jpg)
I did it to make him laugh since they sound the same *ebil laugh*
In a single-player game, godmode is fine. (Though I might make comparisons to certain other solitary activities.) You want to run around tapping the "I Win" Button until you get bored and/or go blind? Fine. Whatever *ahem* gets you off.
When you bring other players into the equation, however, issues of balance, fairness and risk vs. reward enter the equation. You may not care about such things, only about getting your personal power fantasy on, but the devs have to.
Quote from: sindyr on December 09, 2012, 09:03:20 PM
*This* line of thinking creeping into either Plan Z is what has *me* personally worried.
I had a TON of fun levelling up dozens of characters in CoX. It worked beautifully for me. Who know what a different take or "improvement" would do to the game experience I loved and cherish.
I am hoping - but also very worried.
So, I'd like to point out that these *are* community projects. You are very much welcome to participate in any and all discussions and shouldn't hesitate to jump in to them.
Quote from: healix on December 11, 2012, 08:13:14 AMI did it to make him laugh since they sound the same *ebil laugh*
Feel free to make fun of the name, actually. I freely admit it's a stupid name :) Back when I made it, I had a policy of "the first thing to comes into my head, then stick with it" as a means of making names organic. Because really, names aren't something you "pick," they're something you get and then you have to deal with it, so it made sense at the time to just have people named "something." You know, as opposed to "Jack Slate" or "Hunter Steel" or something obviously engineered. Suffice it to say that a happier middle ground was required :) However, tradition being what it is, I'm stuck with Samuel Tow because I basically made the name my own.
Quote from: Megajoule on December 11, 2012, 05:27:08 PMIn a single-player game, godmode is fine. (Though I might make comparisons to certain other solitary activities.) You want to run around tapping the "I Win" Button until you get bored and/or go blind? Fine. Whatever *ahem* gets you off.
When you bring other players into the equation, however, issues of balance, fairness and risk vs. reward enter the equation. You may not care about such things, only about getting your personal power fantasy on, but the devs have to.
Well that seems a bit harsh in light of what I actually said. By this point, I've played a lot of Saints Row The Third with Nuclear Toast and he has never complained about my god mode. I've asked him specifically on several occasions and he hasn't had a bad thing to say about it. And, hell, how different is that from having your level 50 character exemplar down to, say, a level 3 character's mission in City of Heroes? Sure, it's not quite god mode, but it may as well be for how easy the game is.
Besides, this isn't about class balance or player relations. It's about the concept that a game has to be "hard" and have "consequences" for failure and that if it's easy and we can just go wild and kill stuff, it's somehow wrong. That I disagree with, because easily the best part of City of Heroes' combat system was that we were all basically overpowered. I like a game where I can just curb-stomp 99% of all encounters. It makes me feel more powerful, and it makes the very rare challenging fight all the more meaningful in context.
Quote from: Samuel Tow on December 13, 2012, 11:56:05 AMBesides, this isn't about class balance or player relations. It's about the concept that a game has to be "hard" and have "consequences" for failure and that if it's easy and we can just go wild and kill stuff, it's somehow wrong.
Straw man; no-one is saying it's wrong. But I think Megajoule and I are saying it is not what we would like. From where I sit, victory is sweet because defeat was a possibility.
Quote from: thunderforce on December 13, 2012, 01:00:04 PM
Straw man; no-one is saying it's wrong. But I think Megajoule and I are saying it is not what we would like. From where I sit, victory is sweet because defeat was a possibility.
And from where I sit, my experience of CoH did not include much possibility of defeat - and if these new projects change that, they will not be spiritual successors to CoH - IMO.
Or to put another way, victory is sweet, because it's *glorious* - not because it was ever in question.
CoX was the game for me because of this - let's see if the new one(s) prioritize "challenge" like all the others, or let's smart players with interesting builds go into the godmode we have come to know and love from CoX.
Quote from: thunderforce on December 13, 2012, 01:00:04 PMStraw man; no-one is saying it's wrong. But I think Megajoule and I are saying it is not what we would like. From where I sit, victory is sweet because defeat was a possibility.
If mine's a straw man, then so is yours, because what you're implying I'm saying isn't what I'm actually saying. You're arguing for game design and what you'd like to see in a game, or more specifically, what you wouldn't like a game without. I simply hold the complete opposite opinion that I wouldn't play a "hard" game because difficulty sucks the fun out of the game for me. I don't know where you got the idea I'm criticising YOU, when all I'm saying is I don't want to play a game like that. At no point did City of Heroes ever feel like that kind of game. Not once I figured out what I was doing wrong. To me, changing that would be changing one of the fundamental "values" of city of heroes, and I consider the proposal to change it one of the most troubling aspects of the whole project.
I don't believe that "it's the effort which makes it that much sweeter," at least as far as my enjoyment comes. Greater effort simply means I expect greater rewards, and thus inherently value what I'm getting for it less. "You get what you pay for," so if I go through a very hard fight, I expect to be rewarded greatly, and the simple fact of the matter is I never am. I'm much more likely to enjoy simple, easy fights specifically BECAUSE they are simple and easy and I don't expect that much from them. They're "cheap," thus the enjoyment I get out of them isn't measured by a very high water mark and feels better.
I lost my taste for challenge eight years ago, and I've been having lots of fun playing easy games and curb-stomping enemies. I want to play another MMO which allows me to do this, more or less. I don't want the Phoenix Project to "fix" City of Heroes' easy combat, simply put.
Quote from: Samuel Tow on December 16, 2012, 03:54:20 PMI don't know where you got the idea I'm criticising YOU
I don't have that idea. This seems to be something you've imagined.
QuoteAt no point did City of Heroes ever feel like that kind of game. Not once I figured out what I was doing wrong.
I really don't understand this. The sort of munchkinism sindyr wants was only possible either very early on in the game with specific ATs and powers (pack 40 mobs into a dumpster with a fire tanker, rinse and repeat) or after the Inventions system (and if one was willing to dedicate considerable time and effort to Inventions - and, after F2P, if one was either a subscriber or had accrued enough vet rewards). For a significant proportion of the game's history - and for a significant proportion of the playerbase after that - it was simply impossible to "make a character that almost never died - that even had built in safety nets so even if *everything* went to crap, my character wouldn't die."
Simply this:
The game CoX, as it has existed for the last year or two anyways, has been a glorious experience of trashing baddies with little to no risk. I am not going to argue with anyone about which factors made that possible - inventions, etc - but it's true.
I have made dozens of characters that were highly effective. Dominators with perma-domination. Blasters with capped S/L def. Corruptors with awesome synergies. Controllers that by level SIX could sleep one foe, hold one, and confuse another, all at once!
And with the addition of the CoX store and the purchaseable boosts and other QoL items, it's even MORE fun!
You can say you didn't like what City of Heroes was when it closed down. Me, I loved it. It made each of my characters feel powerful beyond belief, and made each battle glorious fun. Because I had an UNPRECEDENTED level of control over my character, his Def, his global buffs, etc.
Even something as little as getting SuperSpeed and dropping in a +stealth for toe-to-toe ghetto invis was a HUGE deal for me. As was using paper/radio mishes, recycling through them until I got the Council enemies I wanted - which also let me avoid horrible cave missions. And the progression was fast and furious, getting to 22 to be able to slot the good IOs was quick.
Say what you like, but CoX at time of closure was insanely easy and fun. And the latest issue on beta, 24 I think, poured even more FUN fuel on the fire!
*That* is the challenge to any game that wishes to be called a spiritual successor to CoX.
Sindyr, samuel, I agree completely with the both of you. CoX was not perfect, far from it, but for my money it did what it did better than any other game out there.
I started playing CoX before issue 5 came out, and the game was indeed a lot more difficult in the early days than it was when it ended. A lot of factors came into that, and it wasn't just things like the adjustments to the level-curve, IO's and the like, but those QoL improvements that sindyr touched on: things like temp travel powers, the adjustment to allow travel powers before level 14, and the addition of things like Ninja-Run. Stuff like that meant I no longer had to use hover to cross Grendel's Gulch. Granted, that was a good time to go get a sandwich and a soda, but it got tiresome after a while.
I'm a casual gamer. Sometimes I would log onto CoX 5-6 days out of the week and play for hours on the weekends. Other times I'd slip in an hour here and there, and at other times I went weeks without playing at all. I loved the fact that I wasn't getting the short end of the stick for the times I couldn't play much, and the QoL improvements allowed me to more efficiently use my time on the game to have the most fun I could manage.
My first 50 was a Blaster, and while he didn't face-plant as much as some other Blasters I knew, he did it often enough to be occasionally frustrating. Coversely, the final new character I made and intended to get to 50 before shutdown, ILLYRIA, became my cherished favorite. She was a Street Justice/Invul Brute, and by the time the game wrapped, she had become a very tough nut to crack in any normal in-game circumstance. She was fully slotted with IO's (though not all of them at max strength as yet), and had all of her incarnate slots filled, two of which were maxed out. She was so much FUN to play, and part of that fun hinged on the fact that she was so hard to defeat during normal game-play.
As I've said before, and as I will doubtless say again in some form: I didn't play CoH to be slightly-above-average guy (or girl), I played CoH to be a Super-Hero, one who could leap tall-buildings and quickly send foes packing. That's exactly the kind of experience I want out of any spiritual successor to CoX.
Quote from: thunderforce on December 16, 2012, 07:02:36 PM
I really don't understand this. The sort of munchkinism sindyr wants was only possible either very early on in the game with specific ATs and powers (pack 40 mobs into a dumpster with a fire tanker, rinse and repeat) or after the Inventions system (and if one was willing to dedicate considerable time and effort to Inventions - and, after F2P, if one was either a subscriber or had accrued enough vet rewards). For a significant proportion of the game's history - and for a significant proportion of the playerbase after that - it was simply impossible to "make a character that almost never died - that even had built in safety nets so even if *everything* went to crap, my character wouldn't die."
You really could build stuff that against most mobs couldn't die from about level 35 onwards. I had several that died at most once on the way to 50 while picking up TF commander on the way so not AE babies. Certain powerset combos (katana/SR scrapper being one) really were very resilient even on SOs or minimal IOs. My ice/elec tank on my free account could solo +2x8 perfectly happily on SOs.
Outside of incarnate content, my scrappers and tankers VERY rarely died unless attempting something ridiculous.
Quote from: thunderforce on December 16, 2012, 07:02:36 PMI don't have that idea. This seems to be something you've imagined.
Except that's what "straw man" implies. If you feel I've imagined it, then maybe stop throwing jabs my way? Because whether you realise it or not, it's intellectually insulting.
Quote from: thunderforce on December 16, 2012, 07:02:36 PMI really don't understand this. The sort of munchkinism sindyr wants was only possible either very early on in the game with specific ATs and powers (pack 40 mobs into a dumpster with a fire tanker, rinse and repeat) or after the Inventions system (and if one was willing to dedicate considerable time and effort to Inventions - and, after F2P, if one was either a subscriber or had accrued enough vet rewards). For a significant proportion of the game's history - and for a significant proportion of the playerbase after that - it was simply impossible to "make a character that almost never died - that even had built in safety nets so even if *everything* went to crap, my character wouldn't die."
Err... Play a Brute, really. Any Brute will do. Throw a dart at a board, pick a primary and a secondary. Done. You have that character. Oh, sure, if you crank the difficulty up to high heaven OF COURSE you're gonna' die without a very solid build. But I played the whole game at +0x2 and I did just fine. I hardly ever died and if I did, it was usually because I was watching TV while playing, or I stopped fighting to reply to a tell. At worst, it's because I went and aggroed the whole map. But group to group? You bet I never went down, and even if I did, I never "died" because I always had something to bring me back up and finish the fight without having to hit the hospital.
I honestly don't know what game you were playing, but in the City of Heroes I played, my Titan/Invulnerability Brute didn't die more than a handful of times all the way to 50. Most of the time I was in any real danger, there was always Unstoppable to fall back on. Even if I do everything at my absolutely worst, even if I screw up BIG, even if I forget to turn on my toggles... Nothing can kill me through Unstoppable, at least that I have fought. I went through Imperious' god damn army, fought something like 12 bosses and 2 elite bosses at a time, and they couldn't scratch me through Unstoppable. And that's not with some ultra-super Inventions build. This is basically anything Uncommon I could find on the Market without much regard for what set bonuses it brought me. I was just looking for enhancement percentages.
Basically, unless you went out of your way to MAKE it harder, City of Heroes has always been easy mode. Like I said - as soon as I realised I needed to slot more damage and actually put something in my defences, the game became easy, and it never stopped being easy until Incarnate critters started cheating and basically broke SR, as if that needed to be any worse. But for anything not defence-based? Pshaw! Fighting stuff my level designed for my team size of one was a walk in the park, and that's just how I liked it. If anything, the occasional x4 enemy spawns in x2 missions pissed me off for existing, because it's a cheap way to make a mission harder - yeah, just scale the difficulty without scaling the difficulty.
City of Heroes was easy because it let me choose how hard to make the game, and I made it easy. Simple as that.
Quote from: Samuel Tow on December 17, 2012, 01:55:35 PMCity of Heroes was easy because it let me choose how hard to make the game, and I made it easy. Simple as that.
I think I just fell in love with you a little, Sam. ;)
Quote from: Samuel Tow on December 17, 2012, 01:55:35 PM
City of Heroes was easy because it let me choose how hard to make the game, and I made it easy. Simple as that.
1000x this, right here. Perfect! 8)
Quote from: Samuel Tow on December 17, 2012, 01:55:35 PM
City of Heroes was easy because it let me choose how hard to make the game, and I made it easy. Simple as that.
+1
And exactly!
An observation: it would not have been difficult at all for me to make City of Heroes significantly easier than it was, or more difficult than it was. This would have required no change to the game systems themselves and really minor changes to the data in the game. With trivial effort I could have automated the process.
I would think this is a very relevant observation to the question of whether either Plan Z project aims to be much easier or much harder or exactly identical in difficulty to City of Heroes itself. In particular, it seems any such aim is highly premature.
Quote from: Arcana on December 17, 2012, 08:36:13 PM
I would think this is a very relevant observation to the question of whether either Plan Z project aims to be much easier or much harder or exactly identical in difficulty to City of Heroes itself.
What about: the player is as free in Plan Z as (s)he was in City ? (I also loved the +AxB system when it came out)
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 17, 2012, 08:53:39 PMWhat about: the player is as free in Plan Z as (s)he was in City ? (I also loved the +AxB system when it came out)
I'd go with that, personally. City of Heroes was as difficult as we made it. As Arcana points out, the game's difficulty doesn't need to be carved in stone. So long as at least part of what defines it is exposed to the player such that said player can tailor the difficulty, then I believe everybody wins.
Also: Thanks! :)
Perfectly stated!
Quote from: sindyr on December 06, 2012, 08:35:09 PM
Well, this bums me out even more. From the vibes I am picking up, TPP (The Phoenix Project) has a lot of support, but isn't apparently going to really be CoH, it's going to be some folks ideas on what they would do if they made their own superhero game. And HaV (Heroes and Villains) seems to be the game I want to play, but doesn't seem to have nearly as much support, backing, and personnel.
So that's upsetting.
You see, the thing is, IMO City of Heroes circa Issue 24 was virtually PERFECT. I mean, *practically* perfect - it had its issues, but it was fun, playable, awesome. It was the pinnacle of not only superhero MMOs, IMO, but ALL MMOs - possibly all video games. (Keep in mind that I speaking from my own perspective here.)
When you have something that good, you don't reinvent it. You protect it and guard it. Here a VERY *tiny* list of some of what I loved about the game:
-Always being able to get any recipe I needed, even the purps, on the market
-being able to take SuperSpeed, throw a +Stealth IO in it, and having full Invisibility.
-the way it doesn't matter if the baddie is level 50 and I am level 1, invis still works - ie, level range does not affect Perception.
-slotting IO sets for insane bonuses to Recharge, to Defense, Global Damage, etc.
-Being able to build a stalker that was Def capped to even Incarnate content.
-Being able to build a blaster that was Def capped to 1-50 content.
-franken-slotting IOs to get a lot out of few enhance slots.
-using mids and spending one or two weeks researching and building my character before even creating him in game
-bringing a character to an ultimate place with power selection and IO use to be able to basically have almost capped recharge and so much endurance (via +recov or powers like transference/stamina) that I basically can fire all my powers as fast as they come up, furiously
-having so many build choices, not just in terms of ATs but Primary and Secondaries that feel and play completely differently that although I had 20+ levels 50s, I felt like I could make another 20 without repeating gameplay experience, allowing me to design a character, take him from 1 to 50 (through both solo newspaper mishes which I loved and pickup groups), then permanently shelve him and start over again.
-And having amazing ATs with each being very different, unique gameplay, and interesting AT powers - like the latest Defiance or Domination. (Domination, which I *perma'd*, btw.)
-and the Issue 24 blaster changes were going to perfect blasters! More range, better snipes, crashless nukes, more survivability!
To put this all another way, I guess looking around at the other MMOs and such, I am not a standard gamer. I don't want challenge, I want fun! I don't want to be tested, I want to easily overpower my opposition. And above all, I want my MMO deaths to be extremely rare *without* having to compromise my playstyle and act uber cautious or water down my xp/minute.
City gave me all of that. With judicious power choices, clever slotting, leaning on IOs, and basically leveraging everything added to the game for the last 8 years, I could make a character that almost never died - that even had built in safety nets so even if *everything* went to crap, my character wouldn't die. Even during pickup team teamwipes, I don't generally perish. And not only that, with my Numina's and my Miracle's, with my 5 Luck of the Gambler's, my Kismet, my Positron's Blast sets and everything else, I got my powers enhanced to max (diminishing returns) while *also* getting amazing global stats.
I was able to build Blasters, Corruptors, Dominators, Brutes, Masterminds, Stalkers, and Controllers that in any other game would be considered way overpowered.
But in this game I could have my cake and eat it too. With clever building, I could be extremely safe and extremely powerful.
And I think the chances of anyone making a game like that again from scratch are very very low.
One last example: One of my favorite expereinces was in playing a Mind/Fire Dominator. By level 8, I had Mesmerize, Dominate, and Confuse, meaning that when soloing in a newspaper (or radio) mission, I could immediately shutdown 3 baddies, and then begin beating up their helpless selves with FIRE. While they could do NOTHING.
This to me, is fun. (And when I finally got perma-dominate courtesy of Hasten and a lot of IOs, I could do that to bosses too!)
What's not fun for me is the anxious uncertainty of facing an in game challenge that I don't know I can powerfully handle. No, City gave me the closest thing to godmode, and unless some makes a copy of City or brings it back, I am probably utterly screwed.
And that sucks.
Quote from: sindyr on December 06, 2012, 09:18:39 PM
Thanks Sith, that's helpful to hear. I guess I am a little (more than a little) wary when I see all the other MMOs out there that are challenging and hard, but not fun - that plus how much I abhor dying, even with little or not death penalty.
Anyways, I *am* pulling for having that fun back in my life, so I want you to definitely succeed. :)
Just responding to this because I'm not sure it had been yet: Multiple of the leads on the Phoenix Project are the same sort of "non-hardcore" gamer you seem to be. We hope to have that difficulty slider that has been mentioned a couple of times to allow for anybody to have their fun, but if we must err, it will be (to the best of our ability) on the side of feeling super, not feeling "challenged." (Keeping in mind that there must be SOME game there. Nobody wants to play "You Have To Burn The Rope" or "Press Space To Win" as devotedly as we hope to have our players do!)
Ah, now that I read through all of the posts, I like the response where we could make the game as hard/easy as we wanted to in CoX. I for one was more of a semi-casual player, so had 18 level 50s but none had IOs and only a couple incarnates..just didn't have the time to work through the IO formulas. So the game was still challenging for me because I didn't max out how I could have.
I do understand that we can't copy it too much given IP infringement, I'll just be happy to be with the community again. One thing I would add is that it would be nice to have something like the Freeform AT in champions online where basically its classless and you can make your character totally custom from the ground up; if you make it poorly you suffer but its fun to do. That is also the only AT that lets you fire off multiple powers at the same time (think War Machine with rocket launcher, beams from your hands, etc) and is probably the only reason why I've decided to play that vs. DCUO until Phoenix arrives.
And finally on costume customization, allow for things to be specified for just left arm vs. right/both arms, legs, eyes, etc.. pretty nifty to see.
Quote from: Samuel Tow on December 17, 2012, 01:55:35 PM
Except that's what "straw man" implies.
No. What it says - not implies - is that when you write 'It's about the concept that a game has to be "hard" and have "consequences" for failure and that if it's easy and we can just go wild and kill stuff, it's somehow wrong' that is a straw man because no-one is saying that that is somehow wrong. That's all it means.
QuoteYou bet I never went down, and even if I did, I never "died" because I always had something to bring me back up and finish the fight without having to hit the hospital.
Er, so, you never were defeated, and here's what happened when you were defeated? All is now clear.
QuoteAnd that's not with some ultra-super Inventions build. This is basically anything Uncommon I could find on the Market without much regard for what set bonuses it brought me. I was just looking for enhancement percentages. Basically, unless you went out of your way to MAKE it harder, City of Heroes has always been easy mode.
Always? No. You make it clear yourself you're discussing the post-Inventions world here (and after F2P, the post-Inventions world for a subset of the player base).
Quote from: thunderforce on December 18, 2012, 05:06:11 AM
Always? No. You make it clear yourself you're discussing the post-Inventions world here (and after F2P, the post-Inventions world for a subset of the player base).
As he was fairly vocal on the forums, I can attest to your wrongness here. Sam didn't even start playing with IOs (beyond generics) until the last few months before the closure announcement.
Quote from: Aggelakis on December 18, 2012, 06:05:51 AM
As he was fairly vocal on the forums, I can attest to your wrongness here. Sam didn't even start playing with IOs (beyond generics) until the last few months before the closure announcement.
I can definitely vouch for this as well. Sam didn't use any IOs until he decided to run the Dark Astoria content (him checking it out is at least partially my fault, as I kept telling him that it was a good story) on a freshly-Incarnated character.
And he wasn't terribly happy with the thought that he might need IOs to deal with some of the challenges. His builds were always conceptual constructs, as far as I observed. He seriously disliked the concept of IOs (I, personally, loved them *shrug*)
Although he did cackle madly a little after seeing the insanely good +Hide Stalker ATO in action...
Let me add my voice here again. CoH was a very relaxing game for me, because I could just log in and steamroll things for a few hours when I was feeling down. I had a few frustrating moments here and there (becuase I did die, even on my favorite Brute - Invulnerability didn't protect me against Tarantula Mistresses or Carnival bosses), but it was not an irritating slog.
And if I thought things were feeling a little too easy, I could crank the difficulty up at my liesure (and I could crank it up with a system, and that system was descriptive. I know what "change +0 to +1 level" or "fight Bosses even when solo" will do to make enemies harder, but I don't know specifically what, for example, changing "Normal" to "Hard" will do. Most games don't have a difficulty slider at all)
Any "spiritual successor" would have to capture that same functionality: easy if I want it easy, hard if I want it hard, and I should know exactly what I'm getting into when I change the difficulty slider.
Quote from: Aggelakis on December 18, 2012, 06:05:51 AM
As he was fairly vocal on the forums, I can attest to your wrongness here. Sam didn't even start playing with IOs (beyond generics) until the last few months before the closure announcement.
If I recall correctly, the "post-inventions world" for Sam was like the period from April 2012 to November 30, 2012.
I dont need a HARD game.. My daily life is MORE than challenging enough. I play a game to RELAX.. I agree with what most here have said. like CoH any of the projects should have the ability to make the game as hard or as easy as you want..
Quote from: Aggelakis on December 18, 2012, 06:05:51 AM
As he was fairly vocal on the forums, I can attest to your wrongness here. Sam didn't even start playing with IOs (beyond generics) until the last few months before the closure announcement.
Er, well, you can't blame me for thinking "This is basically anything Uncommon I could find on the Market without much regard for what set bonuses it brought me" means Inventions.
But, also, I think that's beside the point. Sure, soloing with one of the more defensively minded ATs is not going to result in many faceplants. You didn't need Inventions to grind your way through mobs on a tanker, just persistence; but that's got a meaningful risk/reward result, low risk, slow rewards.
However, there's a bit of a difference between being able to solo on a brute without planting, and being able to survive teamwipes on a blaster! Then you've become a tank-mage - perfect defences and perfect offense.
Quote from: thunderforce on December 19, 2012, 10:05:46 PMHowever, there's a bit of a difference between being able to solo on a brute without planting, and being able to survive teamwipes on a blaster! Then you've become a tank-mage - perfect defences and perfect offense.
Yes, that's the point. In City, it is quite easy to become a tank-mage (or darn close to it) through many and various ways.
One of my favorite characters (out of many) was a Fire/Fire Blaster I made with 45.9% Def to S/L and 34% Def to Melee. Council in radio/paper mishes basically could not hit him, so I used him to gather up a ton of them (20-40) into a pull around a corner and just AoE'd them to death after Webnading them all down - Fireball up every 6 seconds, Fire Sword Circle every 6 sec, Burn every 7 sec, HotFeet, Crazy Stamina plus Consume (every minute or so), Rain of Fire every 25 sec, BuildUp and Aim every 30 seconds (I usually staggered them, so use Aim, wait 15 sec, use BU, repeat.), SuperSpeed+IO +Stealth for full invis, and of course for the stragglers, bosses, etc, my ST attacks of FireBlast(1.3 sec recharge) and Blaze (3.3 sec), as well as Fire Sword (3.6 sec rech), IOed KB prots, etc.
THIS was godmode, or tank-mage, or easy-mode, or whatever you want to call it. They inneffectually attacked me, to little or no damage - and I brought down armageddon on their heads. And these were not -1s, these were gobs of +1s and +2s. And a ton of XP. I was able to level him at a good clip, just as I like.
And this was far from my only character like this. I had two untouchable Stalkers, Def so high even incarnate content couldn't hit them without cheating. A Dom with PermaDom. A FF/Bot MasterMind. A Storm/Illusion troller (I think). And countless Corruptors. A couple of Brutes, including a Fire/Fire. And more.
All had tricks up their sleeve for controlling the fight, not getting hit (or getting back health fast), and dealing tons of damage.
For the last few years, playing CoX - if you were moderately clever and could afford stuff on the market as well as stuff off the CoH store especially, you could play with little risk of loss or death, and lots of fun, glory, sizzle, and kicking butt.
I hopefully look forward to more of that.
Quote from: HEATSTROKE on December 19, 2012, 04:22:09 PM
I dont need a HARD game.. My daily life is MORE than challenging enough. I play a game to RELAX.. I agree with what most here have said. like CoH any of the projects should have the ability to make the game as hard or as easy as you want..
True , I played to have fun and escape . City of Heroes was fun because you could feel powerful and - fly. Spend any amount of time in a wheelchair and the illusion of unencumberd movement is priceless.
It struck me this morning one of the fundamental differences between two projects has nothing to do with the game, with the importance of lore, etc.
It has to do with what the underlying structure is and how we're handling it.
Heroes and Villains from appearances is looking to stay forever a community project.
The Phoenix Project on the other hand is looking to turn itself into a business, with a focus on the community.
Neither approach is wrong, they are just different ways to get it done.
Quote from: Samuel Tow on December 07, 2012, 10:13:14 AM
It needed a lot more than a new engine, as far as I'm concerned. I personally never saw City of Heroes as "perfect," and indeed it became less and less so as it developed. The lore turned into an infinite continuity snarly of old stories disregarded and replaced with newer ones, fudges and kludges and frankly BAD stories. Gameplay, which had once been simple and straightforward, turned into a mixture of complex statistics and much grinding, plus Market PvP. And even power balance was slated towards the need for a team. I said this about Blasters in the actual Blah blah blah blah...
I'm really sorry. I am not trying to cause any trouble here, but I am super curious what your intent on here is. As far as I can see, a vast majority of the posters here would like to see Project: Hail Mary work to bring us right back into our City as we knew/know it. Plan Z(s) are there as a back up and it seems as though they are trying to create a game that gives us as close to what we had as they can without infringement, which most seem to accept as an alternative. And an extreme few on here express their ongoing pessimism about whether or not anything is going to happen (but still seem to want their game back).
But, seriously friend, you are the only one I have read on here (and, perhaps that's because I have only been reading recent posts) that actually has a slew of things they dislike/disliked about the game. It sounds as though you would prefer a completely different game with only slightly similar gameplay and lore. It seems so far out of contrast with the consensus here that I am really curious as to what you are here for. I think I speak for at least most here (if not 99%) when I say we want our city back the way it was. You just don't seem to fit in.
Again, not trying to start a fight or anything like that, just kind of curious.
Quote from: Blue Pulsar on December 21, 2012, 03:45:38 AM
I'm really sorry. I am not trying to cause any trouble here, but I am super curious what your intent on here is. As far as I can see, a vast majority of the posters here would like to see Project: Hail Mary work to bring us right back into our City as we knew/know it. Plan Z(s) are there as a back up and it seems as though they are trying to create a game that gives us as close to what we had as they can without infringement, which most seem to accept as an alternative. And an extreme few on here express their ongoing pessimism about whether or not anything is going to happen (but still seem to want their game back).
But, seriously friend, you are the only one I have read on here (and, perhaps that's because I have only been reading recent posts) that actually has a slew of things they dislike/disliked about the game. It sounds as though you would prefer a completely different game with only slightly similar gameplay and lore. It seems so far out of contrast with the consensus here that I am really curious as to what you are here for. I think I speak for at least most here (if not 99%) when I say we want our city back the way it was. You just don't seem to fit in.
Again, not trying to start a fight or anything like that, just kind of curious.
Actually I think most of us have our eyes open as to what was wrong with CoH, but even with those faults, it was still so much better than anything else out there. I think a lot of us would like CoH back with or without those faults rectified, there's just quite a lot of disagreements about where the faults lay.
My fear is that TPP will go too far away from CoH to be a game I want to play, while H&V won't actually fix any of the problems and will introduce more.
All I can say is that I hope you're wrong about it being so far away that it isn't something you want to play. We are doing our best to capture what the aggregate consensus is that the spirit of CoH was. We're trying to break down everything people say they liked and not just mimic the mechanism, but analyze the core, and rebuild with mechanisms designed to encapsulate and enhance that core. Many times, that means following the original mechanism, but not always.
For instance, if there was a very popular car in an area known for long, cold winters that people loved for its ability to run its heater every 20 min. for about 5 min. in order to maintain a comfortable internal temperature when people weren't in it, but that car was discontinued, we could attempt to mimic that exact feature. Or, we could just decide to mimic it in part and have the heater run all the time, or have it run if you turn on that feature but not run if you leave it off in order to save your gas/battery life/whatever.
Those would be ways to mimic the mechanism, perhaps with a little bit of change.
But if we examine what it was that people actually liked about it, we might discover that the majority of the comments are about how it's so nice not to have to sit on freezing cold seats and how their fingers didn't freeze from holding the steering wheel. They didn't care all that much about the ambient air temp. in the car, and in fact were split about 50/50 on whether it was a good thing to have it be warmed enough to keep the seats and steering wheel warm or made it a little stuffy and hot when they first got in.
So, in light of that discovery, instead of running the car's heating system to keep the car warm, we design ours to have a material for the steering wheel and the seats that is less temperature-conductive to the touch, and develop a quick-acting heater that makes the seats and steering wheel a bit warmer very quickly after the doors are opened. It's more efficient on the battery and still feels great to the people climbing in and to the driver.
It's not at all the same mechanism, but it's an effort to capture what people really liked and make it better with a more focused mechanism.
I'm not saying we're making these changes all over the place; the car still has four wheels, and everybody loved that it was a 4-door (rather than 2-door) sedan, and we're keeping those features and mechanisms the same where they worked well. It still will feel like the same kind of car, even if it's not identical. But we're hoping to make it BETTER rather than a copy. Where "better" means "more of what made CoH great, and better-emphasized."
Quote from: Minotaur on December 21, 2012, 05:11:34 PM
Actually I think most of us have our eyes open as to what was wrong with CoH, but even with those faults, it was still so much better than anything else out there.
Well, I agree that the game was not perfect. Some found the imperfections to be more bothersome than others. I am not one of those. After playing for a while, I was smacked in the face with a global powers nerf, and then ED a short time after. I was pissed for a while, but got over it. After a year or so, I got used to it and learned to just play any way I could. After a while, I got to where I could ignore the nerfs if not adjust to them.
But as you said, CoX was the best game out there. Being the best does not mean it's perfect. Being the best does not mean it can't be better. My point was that, in a thread where we are talking about the potential revival (in some incarnation or another) of our game, Sam Tow seems to stick out with a banal list of negatives that just seems out of place. I was only curious as to why he was doing so. Nothing more.
Quote from: Blue Pulsar on December 22, 2012, 12:44:10 AM
Well, I agree that the game was not perfect. Some found the imperfections to be more bothersome than others. I am not one of those. After playing for a while, I was smacked in the face with a global powers nerf, and then ED a short time after. I was pissed for a while, but got over it. After a year or so, I got used to it and learned to just play any way I could. After a while, I got to where I could ignore the nerfs if not adjust to them.
Having come in after these things, a part of me worries that development of a Plan Z attempting to be more similar to Coh may strive to be closer to such a pre nerf state. While things were nerfed or adjusted, to me, they were just a part of the game.
Besides that Elec was too weak in damage to compensate for its end draining abilities - which were useless unless the enemies hit 0. And even then...
I always wondered once IOs came in whether ED was in fact necessary. Balance IOs so that if you wanted the set bonuses, you were around the ED cap, but if you didn't want set bonuses, you could exceed it by a long way, and see what people did.
Quote from: Minotaur on December 22, 2012, 10:09:00 AM
I always wondered once IOs came in whether ED was in fact necessary. Balance IOs so that if you wanted the set bonuses, you were around the ED cap, but if you didn't want set bonuses, you could exceed it by a long way, and see what people did.
ED laid the groundwork foundation so that IOs could exist at all.
Quote from: Aggelakis on December 22, 2012, 10:15:37 AM
ED laid the groundwork foundation so that IOs could exist at all.
ED Wasn't a foundation as much as terrain leveling that was merely compliant with the rise of IOs. ED was necessary by itself, it wasn't the first step to IO.
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 22, 2012, 12:39:29 PM
ED Wasn't a foundation as much as terrain leveling that was merely compliant with the rise of IOs. ED was necessary by itself, it wasn't the first step to IO.
The invention system was, if my memory is correct, actually in the embryonic stages of conceptualization when ED was put in place. ED was said at the time to be a response to three things: the perception of "correct" slotting patterns, the power level achievable by strength overstacking, and the elimination of any opportunity to add stronger enhancements to the game.
The devs were already nerfing HOs, and realized even that step was insufficient to address the issue. They knew that higher strength enhancements were essentially impossible without something like ED in place. It wasn't the only reason for ED, but it was an exigent reason for ED.
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 22, 2012, 12:39:29 PM
ED Wasn't a foundation as much as terrain leveling that was merely compliant with the rise of IOs. ED was necessary by itself, it wasn't the first step to IO.
When the devs themselves have said that ED was required for their crafted system to go forward, then I'm going to call ED the groundwork foundation for IOs. Without ED, IOs would have been ginormously different.
Quote from: Aggelakis on December 22, 2012, 09:26:09 PM
When the devs themselves have said that ED was required for their crafted system to go forward, then I'm going to call ED the groundwork foundation for IOs. Without ED, IOs would have been ginormously different.
I did not mean to say ED was not required :-) it's just that calling ED a "foundation" or groundwork for IOs means that the idea was to introduce IOs before even designing ED, which might be true, BUT, ED also had an immediate an required effect that was munchkinism prevention (6-slot perma-haste, 6-slot Endurance, 6-recharge Foot Stomp to name a few). It's like cleaning your desk, you do it every day or week or whatever, for its own sake, but you also can't install a printer on your desk without cleaning it first. And you don't call cleaning a "foundation" of printer installation.
Quote from: Arcana on December 22, 2012, 08:42:21 PM
The invention system was, if my memory is correct, actually in the embryonic stages of conceptualization when ED was put in place. ED was said at the time to be a response to three things: the perception of "correct" slotting patterns, the power level achievable by strength overstacking, and the elimination of any opportunity to add stronger enhancements to the game.
The devs were already nerfing HOs, and realized even that step was insufficient to address the issue. They knew that higher strength enhancements were essentially impossible without something like ED in place. It wasn't the only reason for ED, but it was an exigent reason for ED.
Well, I don't know why it would be impossible to introduce more powerful enhancement without ED.
Except if you didn't want the player to access even more cookie-cutter powers stemmed by the stack of certain patterns of these new enhancements. Which was already partly attainable with what was existing.
Anyway, I think ED was already fully justified by munchkinism, and if the invention system (any global boni) was already planned, when was ED planned ? issue 3 ? ED may well have been the last measure to stabilize the game experience.
But, if it was a founding step, of course the devs wouldn't have let known what would come later with Inventions.
So the conclusion should be, we won't know wether ED was "groundwork foundation to", or "not initially part of, but defining" IOs unless we ask devs themselves.
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 22, 2012, 10:16:46 PM
I did not mean to say ED was not required :-) it's just that calling ED a "foundation" or groundwork for IOs means that the idea was to introduce IOs before even designing ED, which might be true, BUT, ED also had an immediate an required effect that was munchkinism prevention (6-slot perma-haste, 6-slot Endurance, 6-recharge Foot Stomp to name a few). It's like cleaning your desk, you do it every day or week or whatever, for its own sake, but you also can't install a printer on your desk without cleaning it first. And you don't call cleaning a "foundation" of printer installation.
Well, I don't know why it would be impossible to introduce more powerful enhancement without ED. Except if you didn't want the player to access even more cookie-cutter powers stemmed by the stack of certain patterns of these new enhancements. Which was already partly attainable with what was existing.
Anyway, I think ED was already fully justified by munchkinism, and if the invention system (any global boni) was already planned, when was ED planned ? issue 3 ? ED may well have been the last measure to stabilize the game experience.
But, if it was a founding step, of course the devs wouldn't have let known what would come later with Inventions.
So the conclusion should be, we won't know wether ED was "groundwork foundation to", or "not initially part of, but defining" IOs unless we ask devs themselves.
I will repeat myself: when the devs said that ED was required FOR THEIR CRAFTED SYSTEM TO GO FORWARD, then that is groundwork foundation in the very basic meaning of the phrase. If ED hadn't happened, IOs would not have happened as they had. That in and of itself means ED was the first building block of their crafted system moving forward. The first few building blocks of any system are, by nature, the foundation of those systems.
Quote from: Aggelakis on December 22, 2012, 11:18:17 PM
I will repeat myself: when the devs said that ED was required FOR THEIR CRAFTED SYSTEM TO GO FORWARD, then that is groundwork foundation in the very basic meaning of the phrase. If ED hadn't happened, IOs would not have happened as they had. That in and of itself means ED was the first building block of their crafted system moving forward. The first few building blocks of any system are, by nature, the foundation of those systems.
Peace, no need to shout here. Bold, italics or stars here suffice.
I will repeat myself: if the devs said that ED was required for their crafted system to go forward, then that is plannification in the very basic meaning of the phrase. They had to wait for ED to be finished before finalizing their crafted system. As you said, it would have been different without ED, so they couldn't finalize it without ED finalized. Doesn't mean the same team was on the same project and that was the first step of the same plan IOs were the second step.
Let me illustrate:
We are a european consortium designing a plane. I am the team responsible for making the autopilot. At one point, the engine specs are going to be required to go forward since I need the power output to compute flight profiles. But it's not really the groundwork foundation of making this autopilot. The mathematics would be.
Particularly, ED was already needed because of glaring exploits in the game power and enhancement system, it was made as a fix to those problems, so the crafted system was put on hold.
How is that interpretation less probable than yours ?
Quote from: Aggelakis on December 22, 2012, 11:18:17 PM
I will repeat myself: when the devs said that ED was required FOR THEIR CRAFTED SYSTEM TO GO FORWARD, then that is groundwork foundation in the very basic meaning of the phrase. If ED hadn't happened, IOs would not have happened as they had. That in and of itself means ED was the first building block of their crafted system moving forward. The first few building blocks of any system are, by nature, the foundation of those systems.
I'm with Bison. ED was the bulldozer that leveled an uneven terrain. A year and a half later, they came out with the building that would go there, and added to it. It was bulldozed because the zone was an eyesore, not specifically for the building that was to exist in the future.
To be honest, I think that IOs were, in a small part, a "fix" to how harsh of a nerf ED was. Incarnates even more so. I mean, even the different powers of the Alpha slot were designed to directly circumvent the effects of ED.
ED was an answer to a question that needed to be answered (although it was like shooting a purse snatcher with a rocket launcher.) The Invention System was a separate system and ED was not enacted to pave the way. It just worked out that way.
Quote from: Blue Pulsar on December 23, 2012, 05:51:24 AM
I'm with Bison. ED was the bulldozer that leveled an uneven terrain. A year and a half later, they came out with the building that would go there, and added to it. It was bulldozed because the zone was an eyesore, not specifically for the building that was to exist in the future.
To be honest, I think that IOs were, in a small part, a "fix" to how harsh of a nerf ED was. Incarnates even more so. I mean, even the different powers of the Alpha slot were designed to directly circumvent the effects of ED.
ED was an answer to a question that needed to be answered (although it was like shooting a purse snatcher with a rocket launcher.) The Invention System was a separate system and ED was not enacted to pave the way. It just worked out that way.
That's not my stand either =). I stand uncertain between Aggelakis' and my interpretations, so I needed to build that interpretation. There is a strong possibility Aggelakis is right, but ultimately not even the dev quote can really decide which. I would not say anything but "that's my opinion" without asking the devs.
They could have designed an IO system without ED, it would have been a different one to the one they did design, as the incarnate powers would have been too.
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 22, 2012, 10:16:46 PMSo the conclusion should be, we won't know wether ED was "groundwork foundation to", or "not initially part of, but defining" IOs unless we ask devs themselves.
I thought it was clear, but I did ask the devs themselves.
(tl;dr: last 2, bolded, paragraphs)
Quote from: Arcana on December 23, 2012, 09:43:18 PM
I thought it was clear, but I did ask the devs themselves.
That it was from the devs' unspoken thoughts was not clear ("ED was said"), and other parts are cryptic as well, but that must be a second nature to you now :-)
Quote from: Arcana on December 22, 2012, 08:42:21 PM
The invention system was, if my memory is correct, actually in the embryonic stages of conceptualization when ED was put in place.
No question here, given they said they always planned 5 issues ahead. But no indication that ED was the older brother or the ovum, to ride on with your metaphor.
QuoteED was said at the time to be a response to three things:
So I should understand that the 3 things were publicly announced.
Quotethe perception of "correct" slotting patterns,
That I heard about.
Quotethe power level achievable by strength overstacking,
i.e. balancing too powerful slottings (6-res granite, 6-rech Hasten, 6-rech Foot Stomp, ... I forgot some, and worse ones)
Quoteand the elimination of any opportunity to add stronger enhancements to the game.
That I didn't hear at all until now, but either I wasn't here at that time, or more likely, I didn't read the forum as acutely.
QuoteThe devs were already nerfing HOs,
So, nerfing "more powerful enhancement". To address what exactly ? (Sorry, it seems I came to CoV right after this story)
Quoteand realized even that step was insufficient to address the issue.
Again, which issue of the three ?
QuoteThey knew that higher strength enhancements were essentially impossible without something like ED in place.
It would have worked, anything would have worked, it just needed, or would have ended, to be less dramatic. It sure would have been different. I prefer the way it is I24 (where power levels of back before ED are largely attainable at the max with current powers/sets/incarnate now, so with significantly higher effort than before ED)
QuoteIt wasn't the only reason for ED, but it was an exigent reason for ED.
Doesn't answer if it was the
first reason that would make it a groundwork foundation, that in my mind is firstly dedicated to what is built on top. Instead it would merely be a basis or grounding.
Well, set aside my interpretation of "groundwork foundation", I was not really nitpicking for its own sake. My honest, maybe unnecessarily investigative question, is this: Did the devs think of ED first for introducing new, more powerful enhancements, or to balance the then-current power level of enhancements ?
I'm sorry for the thread derailment, I think the next answer by Arcana should end this (either by "I don't know" or "yes")
QuoteST: City of Heroes was easy because it let me choose how hard to make the game, and I made it easy. Simple as that.
A point completely missed by the game I am passing time with at the moment. I know to a lot of people, incredibly difficult = the most fun ever. Or, "I'm level 5 and dying at least once per fight = fun!" I'm not one of them.
I avoided Praetorian and zones like First Ward over this issue. I always felt like those zones were in place specifically to humble the player, and my level 10 Corruptor could not handle eight NPCs beating on him or her. You could mitigate some of this by strategy, but not all, and those NPCs aggroed very easily. So I stayed out of those zones unless on something running some good shielding.
I sincerely hope any potential successor to CoX stays far, far away from the difficult = good trap.
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 23, 2012, 10:31:38 PMSo I should understand that the 3 things were publicly announced.
In various public discussions about ED, I believe so.
QuoteWell, set aside my interpretation of "groundwork foundation", I was not really nitpicking for its own sake. My honest, maybe unnecessarily investigative question, is this: Did the devs think of ED first for introducing new, more powerful enhancements, or to balance the then-current power level of enhancements ?
Given the way game development generally goes, and specifically the way it went at Cryptic and Paragon, I do not believe this question has a definitive answer as phrased. Development was so very rarely linear in that fashion in City of Heroes. Things were brainstormed, white-boarded, and then abandoned, then resurrected many times. Often, one designer would propose an idea to satisfy a specific intent, and then another developer would pick up the idea and use it to satisfy a completely different, and sometimes completely contradictory intent.
What we know for certain is this: the devs were aware of, and explicitly stated publicly that there were multiple problems with the enhancement system at the time. Diminishing returns concepts were actually proposed *by the players* long before ED, and the devs acknowledged those ideas. And we know that by issue four runaway enhancement strength due to the rapid proliferation of HOs was considered a major problem by the devs - they specifically nerfed HO strength in response.
But as to what was the "first reason" for implementing ED, there may exist no such "first reason." And incidentally you're not mentioning the third reason for ED in your two listed options, the reason the devs named the feature after: to reduce the practice of slotting very specific, and generally highly stacked, enhancement patterns (the canonical 5/1 slotting pattern, for example). Its a somewhat illogical reason, and the only reason its canonically supportable is because of the actual name of the feature: if the devs did not name it "enhancement diversification" I suspect there would be people attempting to revise history to negate that reason as being unlikely. Hindsight is dangerous to apply to the devs motivations during periods when they did not have a good handle on their own mechanics in the first place.
Let me suggest a scenario that could have occurred given how I know other things have happened that would make your question unanswerable, even by the devs themselves. Very early on, a developer realizes common wisdom is to slot one accuracy and five damage in all attacks, and this is considered by many to be the "objectively correct" way to slot. They suggest attempting to do something to change that problem, but its considered by the design team as a whole to be a relatively minor problem not worth dedicating resources to. However, problems begin to mount: the "power ten" issue comes up, demanding a change to stores. The "full-SO" issue arrives, whereby many players begin fully slotting characters with SOs by transferring influence from higher characters to lower ones (it was explicitly stated by the devs that prior to launch it was believed SOs would be uncommon prior to the level cap and most characters would be slotted with a mix of SOs, DOs, and even TOs throughout their leveling career). And then Hami starts getting taken down regularly beginning around March '05, causing a massive influx of HOs. PvP gets introduced and they see problems arising where slotting and power strength is literally breaking the game mechanics (for example, the "negative tohit" problem that forced the devs to add the intermediate tohit floor). In each case someone somewhere advocates for some change to address the issue, but its only when the combination of issues reaches critical mass that the devs collectively decide to do something about it. By then tons of ideas from diminishing returns to enhancement changes to other mechanical changes have been on the boards for months. All of them are kicked around and enhancement strength diminishing returns is selected as the mechanic to address as many of them as possible. By then no one even *remembers* what its "original" intent was meant to be, if it ever had a singular one. But even if it had one, its irrelevant to the present discussion of whether it is a good means of addressing the set of problems before the powers team at that time.
Lots of changes to the game happened in this way. If ED was explicitly proposed to address one single problem and implemented with that intent directly, with all other issues being considered secondary, it would be the rare exception.
Thanks for the answer, good info as always.
Quote from: sindyr on December 20, 2012, 12:18:51 AM
I hopefully look forward to more of that.
But not everyone who played the game was a munchkin.
Quote from: thunderforce on December 25, 2012, 09:27:44 AM
But not everyone who played the game was a munchkin.
If you look at how easy it is to perform well compared to other MMOs, I would disagree, everybody here was a munchkin :-)
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 25, 2012, 08:38:56 PM
If you look at how easy it is to perform well compared to other MMOs, I would disagree, everybody here was a munchkin :-)
Not only this - I also think those who put clever thought into their builds and looked for all the synergies and strategies went way farther than that, into almost god-like territory. I think one of the most treasured memories I have is my S/L Def capped blaster with the 7 AoEs, herding dozens of baddies around a corner, webnading them in place, and then roasting them fast. It felt godlike.
If I was able to do something to CoH... I would make it easier... and harder.
There were certain mechanics in the game that allowed certain basic builds to become completely immortal against too much content. I would not want to turn those situations into hard situations, but it would have been nice to feel at least some urge, to think "it may not be a good idea to go afk with this guy shooting me in the face over and over."
At the same time, to deal with the immortal builds, the game enemies got continuously crafter to be harder and deadlier. The threat for the immortals never became real, but those weaker builds (*cough* blasters *cough* lowlvldefenders) simply found themselves in too hard of a game.
It's easy to make the game harder. It's easy to make the game easier. It's harder to make it easier and harder in the proper balance way. And yes, I have a few ideas on how to execute this kind of thing, but I think most players would hate the ideas in concept alone. They are the kind of mechanics that must be hidden under the rug or very creatively disguised as fun things. Like Patrol XP could always have been seen as an XP penalty after you earn X amount of XP per day, they simply painted it in a positive way.
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 25, 2012, 08:38:56 PM
If you look at how easy it is to perform well compared to other MMOs, I would disagree, everybody here was a munchkin :-)
By the common definition of the word, few players were really munchkins. Quite the reverse: City of Heroes handed so much power to the players (relatively speaking) there was far less incentive to be a munchkin in CoH than in most MMOs. In fact, with only a decent understanding of the game mechanics and how to earn influence, an average min/maxer could probably achieve 85% of the powerlevel of the strongest min/maxing munchkins in the game in almost all areas. High end min/maxing was, for the most part, a niche past time, not a competitive sport in City of Heroes.
Quote from: Arcana on December 26, 2012, 09:01:15 PM
By the common definition of the word, few players were really munchkins. Quite the reverse: City of Heroes handed so much power to the players (relatively speaking) there was far less incentive to be a munchkin in CoH than in most MMOs. In fact, with only a decent understanding of the game mechanics and how to earn influence, an average min/maxer could probably achieve 85% of the powerlevel of the strongest min/maxing munchkins in the game in almost all areas. High end min/maxing was, for the most part, a niche past time, not a competitive sport in City of Heroes.
I was in the French Speed Running community, and communicated with the English one (on Defiant. Hi Speed Monkeys !). There was quite the challenge. Our 10.41 minutes ITF was seemingly the european record (without temps), but we should have broken it soon enough. (didn't try with the new Hybrid or temporaries). We were also taking regular players with us for a 15 minutes ride, even on "Incarnate" TFs in the RWZ. They reportedly always had a blast going this fast.
There were also people trying (and succeeding) to solo TFs.
But overall you're right, it wasn't a difficult game, nor was "100%" that far from the average level the quidam players achieved. And that's really cool.
(If I may add, if one could please put the ability to remove random maps for TFs, so that the runs are always the same. Thank you ^^)
Quote from: Arcana on December 26, 2012, 09:01:15 PM
By the common definition of the word, few players were really munchkins. Quite the reverse: City of Heroes handed so much power to the players (relatively speaking) there was far less incentive to be a munchkin in CoH than in most MMOs. In fact, with only a decent understanding of the game mechanics and how to earn influence, an average min/maxer could probably achieve 85% of the powerlevel of the strongest min/maxing munchkins in the game in almost all areas. High end min/maxing was, for the most part, a niche past time, not a competitive sport in City of Heroes.
I think we did have a moderate level of "munchkins" (first time I see the term, had to google it up) show up every once in a while, when new hard content was introduce and no strategy was set in place. Things like demanding a Granite Tank for X encounter were not extremely rare at the introduction of things like Master Of badges, although once people came up with a safe strategy (other than brute force with epic builds) things relaxed heavily. Strategy or proliferation of rewards (like incarnate powers or HOs if we want to go that far back.)
Even in those situations, though, I think its rare or unheard of that any content require an exact team build. Sure, they may demand a Kin Buffer built with maximum recharge, or a Granite Tank with soft-capped defenses, running Tough, but at least half the team was running whatever.
Your statement is still likely safe, though, in that this represented a very small percentage of the player-base. Heck, even if we optimized every single team ever done in the game, we are unlikely to be talking about more than 25% of the player-base.
Quote from: Starsman on December 27, 2012, 12:33:10 AM
I think we did have a moderate level of "munchkins" (first time I see the term, had to google it up) show up every once in a while, when new hard content was introduce and no strategy was set in place. Things like demanding a Granite Tank for X encounter were not extremely rare at the introduction of things like Master Of badges, although once people came up with a safe strategy (other than brute force with epic builds) things relaxed heavily. Strategy or proliferation of rewards (like incarnate powers or HOs if we want to go that far back.)
I wouldn't call such players munchkins myself. Annoying play does not a munchkin make. There has to be an element of the belief that the game was made to be beaten by amassing the most everything possible, and anyone who challenges that belief is either naive or jealous.
If you ask for a stone tank because you genuinely believe the lack of one radically reduces the odds of completing the content, you're not a munchkin. You might be wrong, but I've also noted that often when a group of players believe they need something to complete the content, they had the ability to make that statement true.
Quote from: Arcana on December 27, 2012, 01:07:24 AM
I wouldn't call such players munchkins myself. Annoying play does not a munchkin make. There has to be an element of the belief that the game was made to be beaten by amassing the most everything possible, and anyone who challenges that belief is either naive or jealous.
Well I had to google for my definition so I can't argue :P but now that you say it that way... maybe we had a unique type of them... Badge Munchkins! 8)
QuoteIf you ask for a stone tank because you genuinely believe the lack of one radically reduces the odds of completing the content, you're not a munchkin. You might be wrong, but I've also noted that often when a group of players believe they need something to complete the content, they had the ability to make that statement true.
I think there were a few players that genuinely believed (but very small number) at some point that certain content was precisely designed as proof that the devs finally acknowledged the need to reward the most epic of epic builds.
Now that you say this, though... the "falsely believe you need X"... reminds me of a time I was told by a random guy "what is your build" (never heard people demand build names so had no clue what to answer) eventually once I get it I tell him "Im an Invuln/SS tank but not LFG right now". He replied "nvm we need a Granite anyways", I was not able to resist replying "yea those tend to be good for teams without or with bad defenders." I got a three dotted reply. I searched the individual asking and look and behold... a defender that lists himself as Emapth/Healer in his search comment :roll:
Anyways, I was thinking a "munchkins" was a powergamer that demanded to build for the most epic build possible and there to be content only he can do the job for. Didn't realize judging others was part of the definition :o
Badge Munchkins is funny.
Just to clarify, you all are using the term Munchkin to basically mean a powergamer, right? If not, please fill me in here. lol
Quote from: Blue Pulsar on December 31, 2012, 05:46:05 AM
Just to clarify, you all are using the term Munchkin to basically mean a powergamer, right? If not, please fill me in here. lol
Not exactly. Powergamer ++. Read again:
Quote from: Arcana on December 27, 2012, 01:07:24 AM
I wouldn't call such players munchkins myself. Annoying play does not a munchkin make. There has to be an element of the belief that the game was made to be beaten by amassing the most everything possible, and anyone who challenges that belief is either naive or jealous.
If you ask for a stone tank because you genuinely believe the lack of one radically reduces the odds of completing the content, you're not a munchkin. You might be wrong, but I've also noted that often when a group of players believe they need something to complete the content, they had the ability to make that statement true.
Interesting, to me a munchkin is the man with a mega billion inf build having been on a gold site, an attitude that says he's top dog, and no hint of a clue what he's doing.
Generally speaking, a "munchkin" is a player who has the worst aspects of a power-gamer, a rules lawyer, and a "as long as I don't get caught..." attitude towards "forgetting" rules that inconvenience him at the time. They're cheaters who have some mild attachment to appearing like they've "earned" it, but who will happily argue a rule one way once and the opposite way the next time, as long as it gives them an advantage. They just want to win, by any means. Even dishonest ones.
Quote from: Segev on January 03, 2013, 03:50:47 PM
Generally speaking, a "munchkin" is a player who has the worst aspects of a power-gamer, a rules lawyer, and a "as long as I don't get caught..." attitude towards "forgetting" rules that inconvenience him at the time. They're cheaters who have some mild attachment to appearing like they've "earned" it, but who will happily argue a rule one way once and the opposite way the next time, as long as it gives them an advantage. They just want to win, by any means. Even dishonest ones.
I don't think you need to "cheat" to be a munchkin, although they can be driven to do so. The clearest example I can think of to what a munchkin would be in City of Heroes is imagine someone power-leveling a character to 50, building an optimized multi-billion inf level 50 build, and then exemping back down and teaming with a bunch of natural level 25s and then charging forward and killing everything ahead of the group before they can even get there and using that as proof they are the better player. Perfectly within the rules, but oozing munchkin mentality.
Quote from: Minotaur on January 02, 2013, 11:26:23 PM
Interesting, to me a munchkin is the man with a mega billion inf build having been on a gold site, an attitude that says he's top dog, and no hint of a clue what he's doing.
Quote from: sindyr on December 06, 2012, 08:35:09 PM
Well, this bums me out even more. From the vibes I am picking up, TPP (The Phoenix Project) has a lot of support, but isn't apparently going to really be CoH, it's going to be some folks ideas on what they would do if they made their own superhero game. And HaV (Heroes and Villains) seems to be the game I want to play, but doesn't seem to have nearly as much support, backing, and personnel.
So that's upsetting.
I kinda feel the same way.
Might I ask what it is, specifically, you loved in CoH that you fear is to be left out or downgraded in the Phoenix Project? I'd love to either lay your fears to rest or to take them into consideration as we move forward, as our goal is NOT to make something that is unfamiliar to this community and its members.
No offense intended to either project, but in my opinion it is incredibly premature to judge either project in terms of the degree to which they will recapture the gameplay spirit of City of Heroes. I would withhold judgment until they launch viable gameplay platforms first.
I also suspect strongly (although I can speak for neither) that both projects, if they produce viable game platforms, would support modding those platforms. Which means to the degree either projects departs from specific City of Heroes gameplay details, its likely someone will come along and fork a version that does.
Just like with the original City of Heroes, what both teams produce will be very strongly influenced by what the community wants to play. I think the best way to interpret the design discussions that are going on now would be to consider them reference points for what the games *could* deliver, not what they will ultimately deliver.
One more thing: had City of Heroes survived, its likely the City of Heroes of 2014 would be in many ways unrecognizable relative to the City of Heroes of 2012 in terms of technological capability. It would still have looked basically the same and played basically the same, just like CoH2012 looked and played basically like CoH2004, but was far superior in terms of what could be done. Both teams should be given the benefit of the doubt to explore what can be done in 2013 that might make the games better.
We were literally days away from having a City of Heroes with a general scripting engine in Issue 24. In the long run, that was going to change *everything*. But it would have still been City of Heroes.
Curse you, Arcana, for making me wish harder than ever before for a "thank" button on these forums. ;D
Quote from: Segev on January 29, 2013, 01:51:05 PM
Curse you, Arcana, for making me wish harder than ever before for a "thank" button on these forums. ;D
I AM THINKING THIS POST WITH ALL CAPS UNTIL SUCH MOMENT AS A "THANK" BUTTON IS PROVIDED
Quote from: Segev on January 28, 2013, 03:26:24 PM
Might I ask what it is, specifically, you loved in CoH that you fear is to be left out or downgraded in the Phoenix Project? I'd love to either lay your fears to rest or to take them into consideration as we move forward, as our goal is NOT to make something that is unfamiliar to this community and its members.
Essentially, the thing I care the least about is the lore. The stories, the towns, the characters, the mobs, the NPC groups... They were all great in CoX, but I am not as attached to them as I am everything else.
1: I really don't want to see the Archetypes changed, and
2: I really don't want to see the powersets changed. To me, those were the backbone, heck, the entire skeleton of them game. I've heard tell that there were some plans to rethink these.
3: I fell in love with the UI and it only got better as time went on. Nearly everything was adjustable and every power you had could be in a tray.
4: The leveling system and style is just waaaay to familiar to me and I haven't found a game quite like it. It was simple, straight forward, and not overbearing.
5: It would be super-awesome-amazing-sweet if the crafting and incarnate system were also there. If not for those, I doubt I'd have continued to play after the shutdown announcement. They really kept the game alive for me.
I normally don't offer my thoughts to people working on a project, but I was asked. /e shrug
Edit: I'd like to clarify a few things that I thought I should say after I read this post of mine again. I do understand that the names of powersets, powers, NPCs, archetypes, and many other things can not be used for copyright/intellectual property reasons. I also understand that this can actually extend to the way powers, costume pieces, and even the UI can look. So, I understand that neither of the Plan Zs may never be quite like CoX. I guess the best I can hope for is like an alternate dimension of CoX. Where everything works the exact same way, but it just looks different and everything is called something else. Basically, I want to be able to log in and do the same things in the same way, regardless of what brutes are called or what ice blast looks like.
However, I am fairly decent at naming things, so if you want help with that, I'd love to toss some ideas out there.
Random thought here: I liked CoH's powers system better than, say, CO's freeform system. I liked having a primary powerset and a secondary powerset to define my character and give him a coherent theme, and then I could dip into Power Pools on top of that for a little flavor (with epic pools and even Incarnate powers allowing me to further support my chosen theme, or break with it for variety).
In CO's fully freeform system my characters feel slapped together, because the powersets aren't adequately balanced against each other. So while what I want is to simply recreate my namesake Magic Origin Electric Melee/Invulnerability/Energy Mastery Brute, what I'm forced to take is some Might powers (for the "Melee" and a pseudo-Fury power), some Electricity powers (for the "Electric"), with other powers taken from Power Armor (for Invulnerability), Supernatural (a big heal with a long cooldown, a la Dull Pain), Martial Arts (a heal-over-time with a very short cooldown, to simulate CoH's constant health regen, which I sorely miss), and Gadgeteering (an energy unlock, to simulate Stamina and Physical Perfection), all thrown together willy-nilly.
I don't want that sort of mish-mash character in whatever Plan Z project or projects make it to completion.
I don't know a thing about H&V, but the Phoenix Project has both freeform (like CO) and guided (like CoH) mode.
Quote from: Aggelakis on February 07, 2013, 05:18:44 PM
I don't know a thing about H&V, but the Phoenix Project has both freeform (like CO) and guided (like CoH) mode.
Er, no, it doesn't.
Quote from: downix on February 07, 2013, 06:01:33 PM
Er, no, it doesn't.
Uh. So that was thrown away since moving to your own site?
Well, that's unfortunate. Looks like my interest just went way down.
Quote from: Aggelakis on February 07, 2013, 06:03:38 PM
Uh. So that was thrown away since moving to your own site?
Well, that's unfortunate. Looks like my interest just went way down.
No, nothing thrown away. Freeform is not like CO, it's a different beast is all I mean, more flexible without becoming flavor-of-the-month builds.
Quote from: downix on February 07, 2013, 06:59:26 PM
No, nothing thrown away. Freeform is not like CO, it's a different beast is all I mean, more flexible without becoming flavor-of-the-month builds.
I didn't mean "TPP is doing freeform EXACTLY THE SAME AS CO" I meant "TPP is doing freeform {an example of freeform is CO} and guided {an example of guided is CoH}".
Quote from: Aggelakis on February 07, 2013, 07:28:37 PM
I didn't mean "TPP is doing freeform EXACTLY THE SAME AS CO" I meant "TPP is doing freeform {an example of freeform is CO} and guided {an example of guided is CoH}".
Oh, ok. nevermind then.
Yeah, the freeform character building style is not really what I am hoping for. I've tried CO, The Secret World, and a few others and freeform just feels odd.
I will say that I can't see freeform style inhibiting FoTM builds. On the contrary. Archetypes in CoX were designed to be balanced and in PvE, there was no real go-to FoTM build for average play. Even in PvP there was a huge range of good builds. But without a system of checks and balances (my option of what ATs were), it seems as though people will eventually just pick the best powers for a character and that's that.
Also, to me, the ATs in CoX offered different ranges of similar playstyles. For instance, defenders were great for buffing, healing, and debuffing. Unfortunately, that's all they could do in 90% of the situations, but they were REALLY good at it. Even the debuffs in their blasts had better debuff numbers (ie, dark, rad, sonic). Then you had corruptors come out. Many of the same powers and a similar playstyle, but more damage oriented.
Even more so; Tankers, brutes, scrappers, and stalkers. A lot of shared powersets, and the first three have, again, similar playstyles. All of them could roll as DM/DA, but each one made the sets something very different. I just don't see that happening in a freeform style.
Yeah, exactly. Brutes, Tankers, Scrappers, and Stalkers all looked the same on paper, but they played very differently even when using the same powersets. I loved that. There were so many choices. I don't feel like I have choices in other games.