New efforts!

[MWRuger]

I only had one guy who was doing the incarnate thing. even he didn't get to do them all. The rest of my 97 plus guys were just leveling and running around and playing the missions.

But I'll be glad to team with just about anyone except griefers. The only caveat is you have to invite me. I almost never form a team of my own.

(Listen to us talking like the game is back already! Calm down and keep hoping!)

[Golden Girl]

You know, I have to say, just speaking for myself, I was never a fan of the post 50 Incarnate stuff.  None of my guys got their powers from a well.  To have to go this direction... I think it betrays their origins.  Yeah, its something additional to do with them after 50 and in order to have them as powerful as possible and thus reach "the end" you almost have to do this stuff.  But it never felt "right".

And that's exactly where the problems could start - "betraying the origins" of the game could be used as an argument for removing things like the auction house, or Inventions, or ED - which is why having ex-Paragon people helping to oversee any revival of the game would massively reduce the chances of the game being hijacked and wrecked by a section of the community.

[LaughingAlex]

And that's exactly where the problems could start - "betraying the origins" of the game could be used as an argument for removing things like the auction house, or Inventions, or ED - which is why having ex-Paragon people helping to oversee any revival of the game would massively reduce the chances of the game being hijacked and wrecked by a section of the community.

Yeah we wouldn't want to lose the many steps of progress CoX made over the years.

Removing Inventions and ED would be a big step backwards, before ED, people IGNORED everything but the min/max on the team scale.  If it wasn't kineticism, attackless empath, blasters with tankers being the only damage mitigation it wasn't taken at all in a team.  Alot of people liked the invention system but the invention system was only possible to balance with ED.  No economy would hurt to :/.  I mean we had a lot of players and honestly in my experience those who only liked pre-ED were very much "Play only this way" kind of people from what i'd seen of them.

I'm just going by what people who only liked Pre-ED had said and also what post-ED people said to me.  I also see alot of Pre-ED people in CO who generally enjoy repetitiveness and overly easy gameplay due to enemies being weak, even though they think they are gods in the game(someone bashing a weak enemy is not a deity, but someone who merely bashes very weak opponents).  Again, thats based on what was said to me.

[FloatingFatMan]

While I agree that endlessly grinding through i-Trials may not have been the best direction to go.  I dont think the idea of "end game = start another alt" is all that great either.  IMO it's what caused the subscription numbers to drop over the years.  I personally dont want to create yet another alt, and another, and another.   I get attached to certain characters and want some reason to play those characters - some way to continue improving them.

Even with the iTrials in place, there was nothing to keep you from starting other alts, if that's what you enjoy.   But forcing others into just that, I cant agree with.

What was needed was a proper balance between new endgame content, and new early/mid game content.  It was badly out of balance in favour of the endgame and that annoyed quite a few people (me included).

Hopefuly, a new team would take note of things like that and try to better balance the two.  For sure, we need an expansion on Galaxy's City's current status.  Some mid-level content on the recovery of that would be welcomed by everyone.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

Yeah we wouldn't want to lose the many steps of progress CoX made over the years.

Removing Inventions and ED would be a big step backwards, before ED, people IGNORED everything but the min/max on the team scale.  If it wasn't kineticism, attackless empath, blasters with tankers being the only damage mitigation it wasn't taken at all in a team.  Alot of people liked the invention system but the invention system was only possible to balance with ED.  No economy would hurt to :/.  I mean we had a lot of players and honestly in my experience those who only liked pre-ED were very much "Play only this way" kind of people from what i'd seen of them.

I'm just going by what people who only liked Pre-ED had said and also what post-ED people said to me.  I also see alot of Pre-ED people in CO who generally enjoy repetitiveness and overly easy gameplay due to enemies being weak, even though they think they are gods in the game(someone bashing a weak enemy is not a deity, but someone who merely bashes very weak opponents).  Again, thats based on what was said to me.

Over time i liked every change and improvement in CoH from Issue 0 onwards. Mind you, some needed to be tweaked or rolled back, but overall by Issue 23 CoH was better than it ever had been. (In my opinion at least.) Even Incarnate content was something that i enjoyed even if i ignored some of the lore on some alts because it didn't fit. Although i felt the Incarnate system and lore was head and shoulders above the Origins of Powers story arc. The last few issues had done a decent job of adding more low and mid-range content in addition to the Incarnate stuff, especially some of the pending content in i24, but i was slightly disappointed by the removal of Galaxy City and the original starting contacts. Although most of it could've used some reworking in all honesty i rarely had the chance to do most of the earliest mission before outleveling them. i was usually doing scanner/radio missions within an hour or two and generally enjoyed them more than the original starting contact missions.

As for running content, Incarnate or otherwise, i never really had any issues since there were dozens of people in various channels and servers that i knew who would run any content with anyone who wanted to because we could and it was all about teaming with friends and doing the absurd, the difficult, and the allegedly impossible. Powers like Vengeance, Fallout, and Rise of the Phoenix made it so that even a character's defeat could be a stepping stone to victory.

[Ohioknight]

And that's exactly where the problems could start - "betraying the origins" of the game could be used as an argument for removing things like the auction house, or Inventions, or ED - which is why having ex-Paragon people helping to oversee any revival of the game would massively reduce the chances of the game being hijacked and wrecked by a section of the community.

GG, sounds to me like you misread what he was saying -- the Incarnate arcs betrayed the origins OF HIS CHARACTERS (not the game), because of the Well being the source of power, etc. 

So when he played them with his mystery man that developed the secret equation to the universe, then some "Well of the Furies" or whatever gave him the super boost rather than an additional factor in his cosmic equation -- and it didn't FEEL right.

[Ohioknight]

I do know there are people who did work on CoH. I don't know what the Dev name they went by was, sorry.

Some additional information there -- there are a minimum of two people in the new effort who were developers

So, unambiguously, at least some of the previously mentioned "people who had worked on the Game" were developers (not just executives or administrators or whatever) -- that's notable.

[Golden Girl]

Some additional information there -- there are a minimum of two people in the new effort who were developers

So, unambiguously, at least some of the previously mentioned "people who had worked on the Game" were developers (not just executives or administrators or whatever) -- that's notable.

That's very good to hear - a continuation rather than a fresh start is so important.

[hejtmane]

I played from I2  on and i can tell you the biggest crap about was ED is they tried to tell us it was not a nerf and then they said no more where coming and then nerfed us again that was what caused the biggest issue. Then Jack tried to back track on his previous statement and it was stupid.

They also over nerfed some powers and some where never fixed even when the game was shut down (I am looking at you COF).

ED by it's self was not the issue for some yes but the overall a combination of nerfing HO's the only thing worth farming in the end game previously,followed by ED which reduced the impact of HO's to a degree with no real end game in sight;over nerfing some powers and finally disingenuous posting by the lead dev. It was a perfect storm of things clashing together in a short time.

Also by the end of the game the HO's had been nerfed into uselessness so if they do bring it back I hope they fix that


Alot of the post ED world was brutal end game and as predicted by the community that PVP was not saving the game it was not a large PVP centric crowd playing COX.

I would say the two biggest things to save COH after ED where IO's and Villains those where great end game content. I thought I24 was shaping up to rock with the IO's changes when they canceled the game.

OH and before Pre ED while we did stupid things some of it needed to be changed no AOE limits etc and at one point Invulnerability had to root in place and not move from a spot and just taunt enemies and Dark Armour was not allowed to stack pre I3. Lots of things Pre ED where not good; i can say from a long time player I thought  post ED once IO's came into the picture things got better for end game content.

From a game play perspective I miss COX a lot the flexibility the travel powers and now being older and not having the time to raid due to real life the game had a nice balance for me I could solo, team or run TF's depending my schedule and I could get to where I wanted IO's wise etc. I mean I harkin back to UO online days and remember the days in DAOC of running raids that took 2-4 hours I took a break from COX for rift but once I could not raid the game become boring and limited your  progress and I was back at COX once again pretty quickly.

Here is to hoping we get the game back

[LaughingAlex]

I played from I2  on and i can tell you the biggest crap about was ED is they tried to tell us it was not a nerf and then they said no more where coming and then nerfed us again that was what caused the biggest issue. Then Jack tried to back track on his previous statement and it was stupid.

They also over nerfed some powers and some where never fixed even when the game was shut down (I am looking at you COF).

ED by it's self was not the issue for some yes but the overall a combination of nerfing HO's the only thing worth farming in the end game previously,followed by ED which reduced the impact of HO's to a degree with no real end game in sight;over nerfing some powers and finally disingenuous posting by the lead dev. It was a perfect storm of things clashing together in a short time.

Also by the end of the game the HO's had been nerfed into uselessness so if they do bring it back I hope they fix that


Alot of the post ED world was brutal end game and as predicted by the community that PVP was not saving the game it was not a large PVP centric crowd playing COX.

I would say the two biggest things to save COH after ED where IO's and Villains those where great end game content. I thought I24 was shaping up to rock with the IO's changes when they canceled the game.

OH and before Pre ED while we did stupid things some of it needed to be changed no AOE limits etc and at one point Invulnerability had to root in place and not move from a spot and just taunt enemies and Dark Armour was not allowed to stack pre I3. Lots of things Pre ED where not good; i can say from a long time player I thought  post ED once IO's came into the picture things got better for end game content.

From a game play perspective I miss COX a lot the flexibility the travel powers and now being older and not having the time to raid due to real life the game had a nice balance for me I could solo, team or run TF's depending my schedule and I could get to where I wanted IO's wise etc. I mean I harkin back to UO online days and remember the days in DAOC of running raids that took 2-4 hours I took a break from COX for rift but once I could not raid the game become boring and limited your  progress and I was back at COX once again pretty quickly.

Here is to hoping we get the game back

I was mostly just going by what people told me, the lack of experimenting with options that were there, but were ignored due to complacent gamer syndrome.  I understand alot of people still hate ED, but, thing is from what most people who spoke positively of Pre-ED, CoX would have been a game had I tried it I wouldn't have liked it as much as Post ED.  I like games that encourage you to experiment.  The RPG I played most when I was a kid was Deus Ex.  Thats a game, see, that if someone says they'd played it a number of times, it says alot about them right there and also there character.  As it had alot of depth and you had so many ways to play through it and it encouraged you to experiment with it a lot.  In fact I tended to experiment all the time in rpgs on my own, rather then just go by what builds people posted on some message board.

The game I played when I played city of heroes was, well, a game where people were experimented constantly.  Go figure though, everyone has there opinions on that.  I was myself looking forward to the IO changes and whatnot in issue 24.  Though I was looking forward to the changes to snipes and blast sets in general, tbh.

[HEATSTROKE]

I have mixed feelings about going in the "same direction" as CoH before close. I drifted away from CoH in large part because of the Incarnate trials - I would want the game to move back to its roots of running alts, not running a single main character through mindless combat smash fests. I would run some I trials, just to get their story lines on the wiki, though - they're not on the wiki now because everyone rushed through them in a mass of button mashing combat, rather than trying to actually experience them.

Exactly how did the roots of the game change? The game constant encourage Alts by releasing new powers sets.

This seems like some kind of disagreement with peoples personal play style rather than the game itself.

[HEATSTROKE]

I also have to disagree that HO were nerfed into uselessness. I found them quite useful. I constantly used HO's on  characters even in fully IO'd out builds..

I could care less about the Well of the Furies.. Not every character I created went to every level of the Incarnate that was available. Almost everyone would get an Alpha slot because it was so useful. But not everyone got every slot.. and I had around 40 plus level 50 toons and was slated to start at least three more from scratch before the shutdown.. and with Radiation Armor and Mele.. Psi Melee and the Martial Assault coming to Blasters there would have been many more alts to come.

[CheerGunbunny]

I objected, and still do, to ED.  The action itself.  Simply because capping at 3 of a kind makes NO SENSE when a power can ONLY take one kind of enhancement.  Perma-hasten, perma-unstop? Bad, need fixing.  But ED was using a chainsaw for an appendectomy.

Just something to whine about while desperately awaiting any more news on the Return To Paragon.  This bitch will be getting fall down drunk the day it goes live (again).  Gods speed the day....

[beveri8469]

Next year in Paragon

[Mindscythe]

The time of release after aquisition I would imagine within 3 to 4 months? That is just guessing on my part honestly.

A December 1st open date would have lovely symmetry. :)

[chuckv3]

I objected, and still do, to ED.  The action itself.  Simply because capping at 3 of a kind makes NO SENSE when a power can ONLY take one kind of enhancement.  Perma-hasten, perma-unstop? Bad, need fixing.  But ED was using a chainsaw for an appendectomy.

Just something to whine about while desperately awaiting any more news on the Return To Paragon.  This bitch will be getting fall down drunk the day it goes live (again).  Gods speed the day....

I actually quit the game for a few months after ED. When I came back, I realized it was a nerf, but a necessary one. The game was horribly imbalanced, and it was very easy to make characters way too good with very little effort. I vaguely remember my level 17 (18?) blaster one-shotting level 20 bosses in Independence Park (you know who I mean -- they used to throw furniture and appliances at us). All it took was level 20 SOs, six-slotting Aim, Build-up and Snipe. Any insta-win combination like that is obviously imbalanced and needs to be fixed. Invulnerability tankers were the same way. They could six-slot a few toggles and herd an entire map of mobs, often times +3 or +4. That indicates an obviously broken game mechanic (too easy to win). It's not fun to play a game where everything is insanely easy, and more than if it's insanely difficult. Right?

With crafting and Set IOs, they leaked back in a little of the over-powered abilities, but you had to work for them and spend big bucks. Incarnate abilities push it even further, and also take a lot of time and effort to obtain. Pre-ED it was too easy to be overpowered. Now it takes effort, planning and time to be SLIGHTLY overpowered. If you want people playing a game a lot longer, that's the type of balance you want in place. I bet that ED kept CoX players in the game longer because it took longer to make an impressive build.

And nothing about ED made characters unplayable. Once I came back, I played quite a few, and had lots of fun even with the increased challenge.

[CheerGunbunny]

I actually quit the game for a few months after ED. When I came back, I realized it was a nerf, but a necessary one. The game was horribly imbalanced, and it was very easy to make characters way too good with very little effort. I vaguely remember my level 17 (18?) blaster one-shotting level 20 bosses in Independence Park (you know who I mean -- they used to throw furniture and appliances at us). All it took was level 20 SOs, six-slotting Aim, Build-up and Snipe. Any insta-win combination like that is obviously imbalanced and needs to be fixed. Invulnerability tankers were the same way. They could six-slot a few toggles and herd an entire map of mobs, often times +3 or +4. That indicates an obviously broken game mechanic (too easy to win). It's not fun to play a game where everything is insanely easy, and more than if it's insanely difficult. Right?

With crafting and Set IOs, they leaked back in a little of the over-powered abilities, but you had to work for them and spend big bucks. Incarnate abilities push it even further, and also take a lot of time and effort to obtain. Pre-ED it was too easy to be overpowered. Now it takes effort, planning and time to be SLIGHTLY overpowered. If you want people playing a game a lot longer, that's the type of balance you want in place. I bet that ED kept CoX players in the game longer because it took longer to make an impressive build.

And nothing about ED made characters unplayable. Once I came back, I played quite a few, and had lots of fun even with the increased challenge.

I agree things were broken.  And in need of fixing.  I'm simply disagreeing, vehemently, with their fix.  I never said it made anything unplayable (anyone who felt that was a min/maxer obsessed with being "the best", in my opinion). ED fixed some problems, but created others.  Overall, I willingly admit, it solved more than it created. But there were better ways... 

[Ironwolf]

I was dead set against ED and for one main reason - you nerf people and then say - well in the future we will fix it!

Have the fix with the nerf.

If they said we are doing all these Nerfs but it opens up a bigger game with crafting and lots of other things to do to replace those static SO's - people would have been a bit put out but would have seen that they could turn a blaster into a tank! Or a tank into a blaster!

It would have been a better alternative to an across the board nerf and then say - well we didn't nerf you in the future. It was very poorly explained and executed. One main issue I had with Statesman was his poor ability to explan his vision. He seriously needed a PR person to check his posts.

I did have one of his in game characters on my friends list and we talked at times about the coming issues and such. I don't think he realized I knew he was Jack Emmert. I think he wanted some men/women on the street input of how the game was going. I also had Awesome Opposum in our SG and he was a Dev - forgot which one now - I don't think it was Castle.

[hejtmane]

I was dead set against ED and for one main reason - you nerf people and then say - well in the future we will fix it!

Have the fix with the nerf.

If they said we are doing all these Nerfs but it opens up a bigger game with crafting and lots of other things to do to replace those static SO's - people would have been a bit put out but would have seen that they could turn a blaster into a tank! Or a tank into a blaster!

It would have been a better alternative to an across the board nerf and then say - well we didn't nerf you in the future. It was very poorly explaned and executed. One main issue I had with Statesman was his poor ability to explain his vision. He seriously needed a PR person to check his posts.

I did have one of his in game characters on my friends list and we talked at times about the coming issues and such. I don't think he realized I knew he was Jack Emmert. I think he wanted some men/women on the street input of how the game was going. I also had Awesome Opposum in our SG and he was a Dev - forgot which one now - I don't think it was Castle.

I would have to agree he was his own worse enemy. I remember when they posted on the first HO nerfs.The post was something along the lines of we never expected people to farm HO and make builds around  them. Talk about going wtf what do you mean did not expect people to farm them you have 10 years of previous MMO's showing you exactly how that happens. UO, Ever Quest, DAOC etc etc had all been out for ever all showing that common theme about MMO's.

Wolf I would agree about Jack needing a PR person to protect himself from himself.

[FloatingFatMan]

Jack needed a brick upside the head. :p

Not for bringing in ED.  Things WERE broken and had to be addressed.

No, he needed it for the shyster way in which he tried to sneak it in with the CoV launch. He need it for not having something like the IO system to bring in with ED, so we could fix our now borked builds, and he needed it for the global defense nerf that came right after ED, after he'd promised no more global nerfs.

I thank him for making CoH, but I don't miss him in the slightest (despite that bloody targeting drone in Devices putting me off with its annoying sound effects!!)