Do you think the game got TOO user friendly at the end?

[DBadger]

Biggest plus for me was when the map started actually showing enhancement stores, rather than having to memorise where they were. (and needing to find the right one to maximise inf due to it being in fairly short supply on my 1st alt, I couldn't even afford a full set of SOs at 27)

A lot of what was added would have made more sense if it were implemented from the start, ie, having a travel power to cross the Hollows would have been great when everyone actually did the Hollows storyline (which I loved)

The game evolved in a mostly positive way, which makes it sadder that we can't play it, all that work by the devs just nuked in favour of half assed games with so little content.

[Nealix]

I liked that I felt powerful at standard difficulty level but if I really wanted a challenge I could ramp up the difficulty.  Being on one of those PUGs that just tore through top level stuff at the highest foe ratio was always a blast.  I also loved being able to really improve those level 50s with incarnate powers.  It gave me a reason to play those toons again.  Before incarnate content I pretty much used to abandon characters after they got to 50 since the goal in my head was still to get experience and grow the character.  I wanted more incarnate trials in the game and more incarnate powers.

[Mistress Urd]

Nope, those were nice improvements which may have possibly came too late.

[Angel Phoenix77]

When I started there wasn't even an Icon. Then by the end almost every npc character seemed to be a tailor.

Personally I loved when the only way to get to Founders was to go thru Talos or to get to DA you had to go thru Talos.

Or when the Green and Yellow lines where actually not connected. Same thing for traveling in the villain zones.

I just thought it was silly that a trainer was also a tailor. Did people just get to lazy or did the devs just want to make it so easy to do the travelling and other things so people could just spend more time on missions?

I thought it got too complicated. there were to many systems in place.

[General Idiot]

I never really understood the trainers as tailors thing. The only real reason for it was so low level characters wouldn't have to run across Steel Canyon to get to one, but then in the same patch they added an Icon in Atlas Park and a Facemaker in Mercy Island. So even that wasn't a problem anymore.

[healix]

I thought it was great. It was less time running/flying around and meant more actual playing time. For me, that was more of a grind than doing the same missions over and over.

[Kaiser Tarantula]

Too user-friendly?  Honestly, I don't think so.  I can accept some plausible loss of verisimilitude in favor of convenience.  Placing new Icon/Facemaker branches in Atlas Park and Mercy Isle?  Sure.  Merging the tram lines into one?  Please.  More Wentworth's/Black Market Branches in starter zones?  Absolutely.

I will say that having every trainer be a tailor was a bit irksome, mostly because it encouraged people to hang around the trainers more than they already did.  Icon was just a short run from Atlas park, too, with any mobs being easily avoidable, so IMO there was no need for it.

I don't mind the Fitness pool being made inherent.  Just about everyone took it anyway, so why not?  It made characters not only more convenient, but also helped you feel more powerful.  How often do you see a superhero character that isn't in prime physical fitness, after all?  Aside from its usefulness, it served as a nod to comic-book tradition, IMO.

I loved the 5th powers in power pools, unlockable by having several powers already from the set.  It made a lot of sense - someone with a lot of talen in a particular skill will be able to do things most folks can't.  Take the Fighting pool for example.  Basic punches and kicks are something anyone can learn how to do well, but delivering a perfect cross-body blow requires a bit of skill.

By and large, I didn't mind the changes a bit.  They were subtle but pervasive, excepting the one example I noted.  They were well-thought out, didn't harm the verisimilitude of the game, and were on the whole, a breath of fresh air in mechanics that would otherwise be a bit stifling.

[adarict]

I never knew that trainers could be used as tailors.    When I went to a trainer, it was specifically to level up, and I didn't even look at the other options.    I was just used to tailors being at Icon, or in RWZ.  Never even looked anywhere else.

[Dr. Gemini]

Trainers as Tailors made no sense on an aesthetic level. So my gut reaction when the news came out was "that's just silly, it should stay at Icon". However, I had to remind myself that, as a costume junkie, who would often end up at the tailors making minor tweaks, I never entered an Icon except to do the missions to get new costume slots. The rest of the time I ported to the Pocket D VIP room, because it was so much quicker to get there. Kind of hard to criticize that change when you're doing that.

As to the merging of the lines, I loved that change. I used to loathe getting a mission in Talos that would ask me to go back to Atlas or one of the other zones that would require me switching lines. It would have been fun (for me) if I were running through zones that had threats in them, but having to run across an entire zone of greys to change trams was not.

[corvus1970]

The merging of the tram lines was a stroke of brilliance that made everything SO much easier, particularly during various Task-Forces, or during Team-play in general. It didn't make things "too easy", but rather made it the way it should always have been, and was a significant upgrade to QOL.

Same with the fitness pool being made inherent. That too was something that really should have been that way from launch, although I can understand why it wasn't. And while you no longer needed to sacrifice a power-pool for it, you still had to decide whether or not to devote slots to the various fitness abilities. So again, not "too easy" at all.

There's an argument to be made that trainers becoming tailors was a bit much, but it really didn't bug me at all.

[Kederren]

Trainers as tailors seemed silly to me as well on a story level, but I understand that they were trying to add the QoL functionality without spending time on art assets that they otherwise were able to put into more important activites(Powersets, story arcs, etc).

Maybe they could have handled it with a menu option of "Oh, you're not happy with your outfit? Well, I can't help you, but I know someone over at Icon that can. Here, let me hail you a cab." Teleport to Icon.

I loved all of the travel QoL that they did. If they gave me a 0 End, 0 cooldown, instant Goto____   button/menu, I would have been one happy gamer. Travel is the biggest waste of my time, I can't stand it. I get exploration and I appreciate the effort of the artists to create a visually appealing environment, but don't force it on me when all I want to do is get to the next mission/quest. Ther are times when I have 15 minutes before work and all I want to do is one quick mission. Then, later that evening, after work, I'll slow down and enjoy the view.

I'll admit, I was probably The Guy that said, "Inherent Fitness?!?, We need this ?!?"  I LIKED to have to make choices in my build, to find that balance of recharge, endurance reduction, damage and accuracy that I could sustain. I didn't mind having top slow down a little between mobs to catch my breath. Yeah, we were all SUPERheroes/villains and all of us could out perform any standard human being, but we weren't all at the same level of physical perfection. I had built my main with a slightly lower damage output per second, but his damage per endurance was sustainable virtually for ever. He couldn't take down GM's solo, and there were quite a few AV's that he trouble with, but that's what teams were for.

I was also surprised by the AoE buffs. I didn't know that we neede those either. I thought that feature was all a bout a few whiny defenders/controllers who were having trouble keeping up. I'll admit that I wasn't much of a buffer at the time, so I didn't realise the dificulties that they were having. But, I was never one of those rude consumers of buffing services that made demands on my teammates. I went into any fight expecting to do my part on my own, so buffs were an added bonus that made things easier, not a requirement to get the job done. I was always more of a DPS or debuffer. After trying out a few alts, I have to admit that the AoE feature was useful for me to buff up my teammates then get back to DPSing.

[corvus1970]

Yeah, there was always a certain contingent who approached team-buffing as an absolute entitlement. And would get huffy if the buffs didn't come on cue.

Fortunately, those folks were a minority.

[Nealix]

I remember getting booted from a team because I wasn't buffing the way the team leader wanted me too.  It wasn't malicious, I was just so busy buffing I wasn't paying attention to team chat and he didn't bother to send a tell, which would have made a sound notification, but I figured I was better off without that team anyway.  Actually there were 2 of us booted off the team.  We were both time manipulators and it was right after that set launched so we were still learning it.

[thunderforce]

I was also surprised by the AoE buffs. I didn't know that we neede those either. I thought that feature was all a bout a few whiny defenders/controllers who were having trouble keeping up. I'll admit that I wasn't much of a buffer at the time, so I didn't realise the dificulties that they were having. But, I was never one of those rude consumers of buffing services that made demands on my teammates. I went into any fight expecting to do my part on my own, so buffs were an added bonus that made things easier, not a requirement to get the job done.

That might be a reflection of the game being... too easy. In my view, if you're on a team with a significant buffing component and you aren't getting buffed, you might well expect to be in trouble.

But, pick an extreme example; forcefields. I remember the two guides on the EU forums with names something like "you are not a bubble-bot" and "you are a bubble-bot". I fell comfortably on the latter end of the spectrum; if you don't have two bubbles on you, either I'm lying on the floor, you've run off to the other side of the level, or I am at fault; you should feel free to make demands and I should rectify the situation forthwith. There's other good stuff in the set, but to keep bubbles on everyone is my job.

However, put me in a team of 8. 14 bubbles without significant End Redux (eg, at low levels) is more blue than I've got. Now put a mastermind on the team with minions desiring bubbles as well. Now, suppose I'm not a defender but a controller, and if I'm gasping for blue when we get to the first group, that's not ideal.

None of this really showed up after Inventions, because the game was then so easy you could be incredibly sloppy and get away with it; but before then, I wrote a Perl script that used voice synthesis to say "one... two... three" (etc) at evenly spaced intervals around a four-minute cycle, with keystrokes to know how many were on the team and what my position was. This meant after the very first round of bubbling, the endurance drain was as spread out as possible - even after between-mission travel, you'd only have missed some teammates' bubbles, and in-mission it worked beautifully.

Point is, for a buffer who really tries to get maximum effectiveness, the sheer amount of busywork could be quite significant, and the endurance effects made it impractical to do everyone at once. On the other hand, this change rendered End Redux and endurance management for buffers more generally a bit irrelevant.

[Metal Mountain]

I think the game did become too user friendly.. The sewer trial thing essentially negated the game from 1 - 15; so long Perez Park and the Hollows - teaming in Atlas or doing the old Sewers.  Some people like this but this was taking parts of the game that I enjoyed away (really if there was noone to team with, it was taken away).

The game was getting hella easy - when the Terra Volta reactor trial was first out - it was hard.  Before the game shut down the change was very noticeable, it had become much easier. 

And finally with all the automatic travel powers and tp's to missions you were no longer travelling the zones to get to missions; sure it was repetitive but it was still part of the enjoyment of the game.

It felt to me the game was being watered down for a crowd that struggles with challenges in games/ get discouraged easily/ and find it difficult to enjoy the aesthetic experience of the game.

[JaguarX]

I think the game did become too user friendly.. The sewer trial thing essentially negated the game from 1 - 15; so long Perez Park and the Hollows - teaming in Atlas or doing the old Sewers.  Some people like this but this was taking parts of the game that I enjoyed away (really if there was noone to team with, it was taken away).

The game was getting hella easy - when the Terra Volta reactor trial was first out - it was hard.  Before the game shut down the change was very noticeable, it had become much easier. 

And finally with all the automatic travel powers and tp's to missions you were no longer travelling the zones to get to missions; sure it was repetitive but it was still part of the enjoyment of the game.

It felt to me the game was being watered down for a crowd that struggles with challenges in games/ get discouraged easily/ and find it difficult to enjoy the aesthetic experience of the game.

yeah. It seemed like a last ditch effort to attract more general gamers.

You know, I thought about this for a few days now. I wondered what is better, a challenging game or a fun game? After asking a few people I realize sometimes they can be the same thing and sometimes different things depending on the person. One brought up the logic of cheat codes. You have some that refuse to use cheat codes at all no matter how hard the challenge is. That is what fun to them. While others, will buy a game, immediately look up cheat codes and that is fun to them.

Like some people love the grind, they love having to spend months and countless hours just to get to level two and to them anyone that doesn't love that style of grind is a gamer that don't enjoy challenge and working hard for the rewards and gets discouraged easily. While others, they don't give a crap about leveling and if they could they would build a top level toon right off the bat and sometimes don't understand how grinding and that other challenging stuff can even be fun or enjoyable. Then there are those in between where they think the game is challenging enough but not too challenging and any attempt to water it down means it's catering to gamers that don't like challenge and give up easy while hardcore grinders look at them in that same light, while casual ones look at it as those players are part of the grind group. Out of the three groups, the ones in the middle are in the largest pickle due to the wide range of what is considered challenging and too easy and while those in the middle category usually claim casual gamers they look down on the ones that more casual just as the hardcore grinders look down on them as ones that don't like challenge/get discouraged easily and both group think they (the middle group) are luke warm gamers. Neither hot (grinders) nor cold (casual) but have the worse side of the attitude of both worlds by looking down upon those that don't like their level of challenge as people that get discouraged easily and looking at grinders as people as game nutcases that don't know how to have fun. In the end middle ground ones lose out. You have grind fests that have millions upon millions of players then you have dead simple games like Farmville and candy crush that also have millions upon millions while the middle, struggle to maintain 100,000

[healix]

CoH had something for everyone, and you could play the way you wanted. Personally, I don't find it fun to continually die because a game is too hard...if it's too easy, it's no fun either. If you have to team in order to play, it's not for me. I liked to solo a lot, but loved teaming with good friends/sg mates. Never did like PVP but was glad it was in the game for folks who did. CoH might not have been a perfect game, but it was perfect for me. I want the hole in my heart filled.....I want my City back, and that feeling has not changed since Black Friday.

[Blackshear]

Do you think the game got TOO user friendly at the end?

No.  Next question.

[Richpur]

Trainers as tailors made sense once we got power customisation; having to run to the facemaker because my new power was tinted differently in daylight would suck.

There are travel shortcuts everywhere, but they're all optional. Some days I'll use every vet reward and portal to avoid travelling, others I'll run between missions around Grandville rather than fly.

AE did give us more level 50s that don't know their way around the city/islands; but even that's easy enough to pass off IC. Why should every hero learn their skills in Paragon? We've got an interdimensional invasion going on here; of course we've got new people turning up to help out! You don't lose all your job experience when you move to a new town but you probably can't find the post office without directions.

... I just realised I wrote all of that present tense. 

[General Idiot]

That's probably the best in-universe explanation I ever heard for the existence of AE babies.