New efforts!

[FloatingFatMan]

Silly designers. As a game programmer, I know that enhancements are powers. So either Jack was talking out of his butt or he didn't know how his own game worked. :P

ED was still the right move, just badly handled from a PR point of view. Sometimes you have to man up and tell players that they need to be nerfed for the good of the game instead of trying to hide behind technicalities or handwave things away.

Or in the case of ED, burying it in the City of Villains release and under an NDA.  We only found out about it before the CoV launch because someone on the beta decided to break the NDA...  Otherwise no one would have known until it went live...

[Harpospoke]

I'd say the only issue with ED was it being a thing pre IOs. If they'd been released at the same time, I daresay the reaction would have been far more positive. Having only Hami-Os to play with in addition to SOs after the "nerf" that was ED... I can appreciate being upset.

Agreed.

I'm another who actually liked ED.   It probably helped that I didn't have any "perma" stuff that went away.

There was something about the game that just felt different after Jack left.   Seems like there was more of a "let's give the players more choices" vibe...Much less of a "we know how you should be playing" vibe.

[MM3squints]

Oooh....Yeah. I think I'm going to hold off on THAT particular subject. I already know someone's going to be calling for my head on a pike no matter what I do with PvP. I'd like to delay when people start calling for my head on said pike.

More than anything if you just revert the rules to pre i13 pvp rules; no Diminish Returns, no travel suppression when attacked, -speed powers actually work, and controls mechanism works like before. Pre i13, mezes work only if you break the mez protection threshold. For example if someone pops a break free, it would take 3 controller holds and 2 domination hold to go through the BF. A person would need to fast calculate how many holds are stacked on them and pop bfs accordingly so you won't run out of BFs too fast and all the same time trying killing your opponent (takes some brain work xD) Post i13 mez system is mez protection is worthless. Every non controller/dominator hold will hold you for 2 seconds, controller/dominator hold will hold you for 4 seconds and a domination hold will hold you for 6. This is very dumb, not because it is so simplified, but basically makes anyone who uses offensive toggles (/rad, /dark, ice control/, etc) pretty much worthless and ironically instead of broadening the types of FotM, it consolidates it.

I guess if you put it on paper it may look good, but when the pvp community who actually tested this and told Castle this idea is stupid, but still implemented it, to me that's one guy telling the entire community go screw themselves. I know how to play your game better than you even though the only reason most of you still sub to the game with multiple accounts was just for the PvP and all you do is play for the PvP. Also the PvP community were the ultimate bug finders and testers because we literally tried to find every exploit in the game. Not just the powers but farming methods too. An example would be using a lvl 43 bridge in a 8 man actually got a lvl 1 to lvl 20 in 1 run lvl 20 to lvl 30 in about 3 runs lvl 30 to lvl 40 in about 7 runs and lvl 40 to lvl 50 in 20 runs <- notice the spike in how many runs you need after lvl 40 because the bridge rule didn't work to well in the latter end, estimated toon lvl 1-50 was achieved in 36 hours. Another exploit was the snake-be-gone where you could get a toon to 1-50 in less than 5 hours.

If any request in PvP, just make it dynamic again. Honestly there was and still now no other PvP combat system that was as dynamic as CoX. Castle tied to implement a system where everyone could have a chance to win, but it ended up with noone winning. What's the old saying, you try pleasing everyone, you will end up pleasing noone

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Agreed.

I'm another who actually liked ED.   It probably helped that I didn't have any "perma" stuff that went away.

There was something about the game that just felt different after Jack left.   Seems like there was more of a "let's give the players more choices" vibe...Much less of a "we know how you should be playing" vibe.

Two words. Real Numbers.

[BadWolf]

Can't abide the bloody things.  If you're a 5 year old little girl, they're fine... But grown men?  Every single Brony needs their mancard confiscating!

I slept on this to see if it would still bother me to the point where I needed to comment on it. And I do. I think we all understand what it's like to be passionate about a game, a TV show, a movie...something that most people don't understand. I'm sure many of us have been told that we need our "mancard" confiscated for still liking superheroes or comic books when we should have graduated to sports...or possibly just getting drunk and punching each other's shoulders, or something. We all know what that feels like, so why are we inflicting it on someone else just because their fandom isn't our fandom?

It's okay to say, "I don't like 'My Little Pony', and I don't see the appeal of it." But suggesting that someone's a bad person for liking something you don't like, even in a completely mild way, even as a joke? It's not going to feel like a mild joke to people who are fans of that thing, and I think we're all better than that. So take this as a friendly reminder to confine your friendly disdain to the series, not the fans.

[MM3squints]

I slept on this to see if it would still bother me to the point where I needed to comment on it. And I do. I think we all understand what it's like to be passionate about a game, a TV show, a movie...something that most people don't understand. I'm sure many of us have been told that we need our "mancard" confiscated for still liking superheroes or comic books when we should have graduated to sports...or possibly just getting drunk and punching each other's shoulders, or something. We all know what that feels like, so why are we inflicting it on someone else just because their fandom isn't our fandom?

It's okay to say, "I don't like 'My Little Pony', and I don't see the appeal of it." But suggesting that someone's a bad person for liking something you don't like, even in a completely mild way, even as a joke? It's not going to feel like a mild joke to people who are fans of that thing, and I think we're all better than that. So take this as a friendly reminder to confine your friendly disdain to the series, not the fans.

Me personally I thought it was funny, but then again, that sounded like a joke Chris Titus would say (Chris Titus dose very dark jokes too so I guess it's just a taste in jokes)

[FloatingFatMan]

Me personally I thought it was funny, but then again, that sounded like a joke Chris Titus would say (Chris Titus dose very dark jokes too so I guess it's just a taste in jokes)

At least -some- around here can see a joke when it's there. ;)

Badwolf, lighten up, dude.  Brony's are a standing joke on the internet, and have been for quite some time...

[JanessaVR]

Oooh....Yeah. I think I'm going to hold off on THAT particular subject. I already know someone's going to be calling for my head on a pike no matter what I do with PvP. I'd like to delay when people start calling for my head on said pike.

I avoid PVP zones - the only time I ever ventured into them was for exploration badges, Shivan Shards, or Nukes.  And I only did those in the wee hours of the morning, when they were typically deserted (at least on Virtue).

For myself, I just want Praetoria.

Oh, yes, and Seer costume pieces.  Don't forget those.  :)

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Oh, yes, and Seer costume pieces.  Don't forget those.  :)

Oh, have no doubt that I'll endeavor to have a ridiculous amount of costume options.

[FloatingFatMan]

Oh, have no doubt that I'll endeavor to have a ridiculous amount of costume options.

There was something there that I suggested to the old EU game mods many times, and the US ones a few times after the merger.

Player costume contests.  Players submit their best designs for new costume concepts, other players voted on them, and the winners got their designs included in the game!  It's a great way to get free costume content, AND a awesome chance for the players, too!

[JanessaVR]

Oh, have no doubt that I'll endeavor to have a ridiculous amount of costume options.

I seem to recall they eventually promised us costume pieces for all the NPC groups in the game, but did not deliver.  I loved having the Carnival of Light costume pieces, but I really wanted the Carnival of Shadows and the old Circle of Thorns costumes.  We finally did Vanguard costume pieces in the store, at least.  But that was always a principle I thought the devs should abide by - costume pieces for NPCs and PCs should be coming from the same pool, and readily available to the players.

[GenericHero05]

Curious, why pre-I6?

First off, I've NEVER been good with change and this was a major one.  It just seemed like it was the first gut punch from the devs and such a shock to the system.

I had just dinged 50 with my fire/force field Controller which I had mostly accomplished soloing.  We all know that, with Controllers, (at least in my case) all you have to do is look at them cross and they end up in the hospital... until I reached level 32 and now had fire imps.  Being able to spawn 6 fire imps felt like it was payback for all the debt suffering I had incurred.  Combine that with with "perma" hasten and now I had 12 fire imps at my bidding.  I could take on a whole hoard of Freakshow Tanks with my 12 bubbled imps and slaughter them.

Now granted, had that Controller not been the current hero I was using at the time, I6 wouldn't have bugged me so much.

Really missed participating in herding missions.  Didn't really care about how much XP I received just loved how it looked (I may be getting my Issues mixed up now).

I also noticed, and it may have just been a coincidence, but there seem to be a drop in the amount of people playing.  I know personally that after I6, around 4 of the people I worked with dropped CoH.

I got over it and continued with our two paid subscriptions until shutdown, loving every minute of this game.

[bugzee]

I am a little concerned with all the attention this negotiation is getting. Do you think all these news articles on the subject will negatively effect the outcome of the NC discussions?

[JanessaVR]

Oh, have no doubt that I'll endeavor to have a ridiculous amount of costume options.

That would be a good way to raise money for your endeavor, actually - take costume/aura/etc requests/commissions.  For instance, I'd love to get back my psi/psi/psi dom who's a Seer from Praetoria.  I'd pay $ to have those costume pieces developed for player use, and if I could get a purely audible "aura" of that faint telepathic whispering you can hear if you get close to them, I'd pay even more money.  Thus, you could get players constantly funding micro-expansions to the game.  Throw in an emote that lets me hover in that "Seer Trance" pose they assume just off the ground, and I'd throw in yet more money.

[Lucretia MacEvil]

It's like how I am about soloing vs teaming. One thing I loved about CoX was that you weren't required to team up just to get x power up or to x point in the story. If you preferred soloing, as I did up until the last few months of the game, you didn't feel like you were missing out on the game.

I liked this aspect of CoX very, very much.

However, in recent times, the pendulum swung the other way; some of the newer missions required soloing, and I always found it annoying to feel like I had to break off from a good team to do them (before outleveling them, etc.).  This was especially annoying if my character was team-centric or had a "the more the merrier" personality.  It just felt wrong for a character who, say, was scared of being alone to suddenly have to solo.

[Fridgy Daiere]

Every single Brony needs their mancard confiscating!

I want to watch what happens when you attempt to confiscate his man card!   ;)

Spoiler for Pic:

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=media.unamee.com%2Fmedia%2Fuser_design%2F2979%2F1404407370.png

Edit:  Sorry, I just couldn't resist!

[FloatingFatMan]

Throw in an emote that lets me hover in that "Seer Trance" pose they assume just off the ground, and I'd throw in yet more money.

Hover was always actually meant to look like that, well... the Magneto pose to be more accurate... But it had been broken since launch and they never fixed it.. Something to do with the wrong animation playing.  They tried to fix it once, when they were bandying about flight banking (which they also never got to work and gave up with), but it was never really quite right.

[Safehouse]

I liked this aspect of CoX very, very much.

However, in recent times, the pendulum swung the other way; some of the newer missions required soloing, and I always found it annoying to feel like I had to break off from a good team to do them (before outleveling them, etc.).  This was especially annoying if my character was team-centric or had a "the more the merrier" personality.  It just felt wrong for a character who, say, was scared of being alone to suddenly have to solo.

That makes sense. Just as going one way can alienate folks, so can the other.

Even from a solo standpoint, I could see it beginning to change.l with later updates. Maybe they had some planned that would have brought the pendulum back toward the middle.

[hejtmane]

Silly designers. As a game programmer, I know that enhancements are powers. So either Jack was talking out of his butt or he didn't know how his own game worked. :P

ED was still the right move, just badly handled from a PR point of view. Sometimes you have to man up and tell players that they need to be nerfed for the good of the game instead of trying to hide behind technicalities or handwave things away.

That was what got him in hot water is PR skills where terrible; They insulted the player base and he kept acting like we just did not understand.

That went over terribly I think that hurt more than the actual change.

[BadWolf]

At least -some- around here can see a joke when it's there. ;)

Badwolf, lighten up, dude.  Brony's are a standing joke on the internet, and have been for quite some time...

I know it's a "standing joke on the internet". But since several of my friends are the butt of your "standing joke", after a while it stops being funny and starts being mean. I think I'm just completely exhausted with people being mean, and I've decided that I'm going to point it out early on, when it's just a "standing joke" and it can be handled with a friendly reminder that the people you're joking about have feelings too, instead of letting it get to the point where it has to be handled with open letters to the gaming community or something. :)

So again, friendly reminder. If you want to get defensive about it and insist that you should be allowed to be mean to people without getting criticized for it, well...maybe take a step back and ask yourself why you want that right before you respond again? I don't really want this to become a big deal, but I'm not going to say that no, it's okay for these people to be the butt of everyone's jokes just for liking a TV show you don't.