New efforts!

[Harpospoke]

Hey...a question.

I saw a discussion a few pages back about how animations on some powers discouraged some players from playing certain power sets.  Got me thinking...

Did most people play in 3rd-person mode?   My brother used to play in 1st-person mode and it drove me crazy to watch him.   Seemed like playing blind.   Plus...I spent a lot of time on my costume and liked seeing it onscreen!   I don't think I could ever get used to that.   My brother probably did it because he plays all those 1st-person shooter games (that all look the same to me).

[MM3squints]

True for basically all major system changes in City of Heroes, and for that matter every other MMO.

We had a lot of input and feedback channels into the CoH dev process, more than I've ever seen anywhere else, but there were limits and those limits were simply never going to change, nor do I think it would have been practical for them to change.  Two things we could do, and did do: we could suggest something that didn't exist before, and the devs could then add that thing.  That happened a lot.  We could also tweak the details of new things that came along, once those things were announced and beta tested.  That also happened a lot.

What we couldn't do, and would never really be able to do, as players, was ask the devs to take something they had spent significant time implementing, and tell them to simply scrap it and replace it with something else.  I would often tell players not to make such suggestions, but to instead find ways to take what was there and try to change it or shape it in directions the players preferred.  Some players never took that advice, but I can say that never in the history of the game can I think of an example where the devs spent considerable time on a major systems addition or change, and simply abandon it because players didn't like it.  The closest example I can think of that is close is Blaster Defiance.  The devs did eventually remove it, but only years after introducing it, and only after they had already decided to replace it with something else.

If players were smart, they would have tried to work with the devs to improve ED, rather than just saying "get rid of it."  All that energy went exactly nowhere.  There were lots of ways to improve it, but those of us that advocated that were drowned out by the general cacophony of hyperbole and insanity.  The same was true for diminishing returns.  Lots of ways to work with the devs to improve it, but since most of the vocal PvP players basically told the devs "you don't know what you are doing, do what we demand or we're leaving" that's all that happened.  If you think the strategy of "do what I demand or I'm leaving" has ever been a productive strategy in the history of MMOs, time to brush up on history.  If that's how players feel, they should simply skip straight to quitting, because nothing else is going to happen.

There were things the developers could do, and things they could not do.  The players that understood that often got a lot of good things done in the game.  Those that didn't pounded their foreheads against the pavement until they calmed down or quit.  The primary choice players had, was to decide which group they wanted to be in.

I don't mind working with devs to make stuff better or have changes affect the game. Heck all through the test before i13 the PvP community tried working with the dev (in particular Castle) It is wrong to say because the PvPers didn't have it their way, they packed up their toys and left. The PvP community did try to alert the devs with exploits and input. The problem with i13, there was no input from the PvP community. Heck we even had a list on the PvP Board on how PvP can be made more accessible since i6, but Castle didn't care. Basically Castle had an idea of how PvP was supposed to be and how awesome it was going to be, and we were told to go pound sand because the PvP community is an "acceptable loss" (that is the unfortunate quote that  got Lighthouse fired) After that comment seeing they really didn't appreciated our voices, majority of the PvPers (who usually had multiple accounts), voiced their opinion with the power of their wallet and just left the game.

The best part in Castle grand PvP idea he tried to intense people to PvP with PvP IOs. There were so many events to try getting people PvP, but all failed. How do I know Castle's PvP failed? When they started allowing you to use Merits in PvE content to get PvP IOs (plus Castle got let go from the company) So what was accomplished from i13? A small part of the community got alienated and left, Paragon Studio spend countless dollars on PvP  (IMO would have been spent better on PvE if they left PvP alone) content people even more rarely used, and forgoing the warnings from the community who did say "your idea won't work" end up not working. You really didn't need a crystal ball to realize i13 PvP wouldn't be as fun,  just PvP the difference between i12 and i13.

I don't think the PvP community would have had such a visceral reaction if i13 PvP was implement (after all PvPers adapt, when the system change, you change with it) it was the fact the voices were not taken into account and that fact we were called "acceptable loss" that caused the mass exodus.

[brothermutant]

Side question (sorry to post here but I am sure someone can answer it quickly), I just got the tequila/titan download working and was wondering if anyone knows a way to get a travel power at lvl one (was hoping to make a kheldian to fly around the ol' cityscape but alas, there were none to be found)? If there is a secret way to give your fake toon a travel power, please let me know.

Back to your pre-scheduled broadcast.

[ivanhedgehog]

I saw a lot of that too and that was probably why I put almost zero effort into making a PB/WS.   I don't know about the "If that bothered you, it means you were a lousy player" thing.   They sure seemed to cause a lot of chaos and death.  I would sometimes get private tells complaining that I had added a PB/WS.  Might be something that isn't meant for casual players.

we had a team that ran with a PB and a ws. we were very good at proactivly targeting the mobs with the special weapons. she would go head on at crystals, we were good about letting our stone tank and khelds go in and do the close in work. we got very good at dealing with it. in the time I ran 34 toons to 50, i never completed a kheld. but if you work smartly, they really were not a problem, and could be quite an asset.

[ivanhedgehog]

Hey...a question.

I saw a discussion a few pages back about how animations on some powers discouraged some players from playing certain power sets.  Got me thinking...

Did most people play in 3rd-person mode?   My brother used to play in 1st-person mode and it drove me crazy to watch him.   Seemed like playing blind.   Plus...I spent a lot of time on my costume and liked seeing it onscreen!   I don't think I could ever get used to that.   My brother probably did it because he plays all those 1st-person shooter games (that all look the same to me).

I stopped playing my stone/em tank after the em nerfs. it just never played right for me.

[Graydar]

Never during the course of playing CoH have I ever encountered prejudice against PB/WS classes. Straaaaange.

[mrultimate]

Side question (sorry to post here but I am sure someone can answer it quickly), I just got the tequila/titan download working and was wondering if anyone knows a way to get a travel power at lvl one (was hoping to make a kheldian to fly around the ol' cityscape but alas, there were none to be found)? If there is a secret way to give your fake toon a travel power, please let me know.

Back to your pre-scheduled broadcast.

I haven't messed around in Icon in while but I beleive you can activate Fly by pressing the 1 key on your keyboard.

[CrimsonCapacitor]

Never during the course of playing CoH have I ever encountered prejudice against PB/WS classes. Straaaaange.

Me neither.  I took a WS to 50 (and once IO'ed out... He was a beast).  I went triform with him, otherwise... why not just play a tank?  (That's my opinion)  It seemed to me that the PB/WS trajectory goes something like this:

Levels 1-about 15:  Wow.  This is cool!  Liking this toon!
Level 15-35:  Why did I roll this toon?  This is a SLOG.  It used to be fun!
Level 35-45:  Now I remember why I rolled this toon.
Level 45-50+:  I'm the MOTHER F'ING WARSHADE!

Perhaps it was because I tended to run with a decent sized, but limited, group who would gladly alt around to make up for whatever the team needed, as opposed to PUG's, that I never encountered Kheldian bias.

And once the Void Hunters damage got changed from Anti-Nictus to negative energy, they actually weren't too bad to go against.

And I'm sad I never got to run an all-Kheldian ITF. 

[Darkojin]

Perhaps it was because I tended to run with a decent sized, but limited, group who would gladly alt around to make up for whatever the team needed, as opposed to PUG's, that I never encountered Kheldian bias.

And once the Void Hunters damage got changed from Anti-Nictus to negative energy, they actually weren't too bad to go against.

And I'm sad I never got to run an all-Kheldian ITF.

I think I dropped off with my Warshade at around level 27ish, I honestly just no idea how to play the class. As for the Void Hunters, I actually got teamed up with a Warshade that refused to fight against any group of enemies that had a Void Hunter in it. He stayed back and waited til the Hunter was dead before doing anything. Good thing I was on my Archery Blaster at the time though, could pick the Hunter out of the group so it was less of a problem.

[umber]

in the time I ran 34 toons to 50, i never completed a kheld. but if you work smartly, they really were not a problem, and could be quite an asset.

Khelds were a weird gap in my own collection, just pulled up an old document and had... 49 L50s but the highest peacebringer was L28, the highest warshade was languishing in the single digits.

They never did much for me.  I was always the one to switch alts to best suit the team so when they first popped up I'd play a defender or controller to better help them do their thing.  Later on their niche-switching gimmick wasn't too appealing as I'd just to an actual tank if the team needed a tanker, an actual blaster if the team needed damage output.  Always felt like I was being a burden on the team when bringing a kheld instead of a benefit.

Didn't care when others played them but they weren't my cup o' tea.

[Pyromantic]

I aborted my first attempt at a WS, funnily enough at 37 I think.  I just got bored of it, or distracted by something else.  Can't imagine why in retrospect, as I later played a WS to 50 and put significant time into it afterwards.  One of my favourite toons for sure, and given the chance I will definitely play another in short order. 

While I found nictus somewhat annoying before the damage change, once you had the hold (level 18 IIRC) I didn't find them to be much of an issue if you paid attention.  After the change I found them practically irrelevant.  I rarely came across complaints about crystals, but IMO teams as a whole were either hardcore enough to handle them without incident or casual enough that they shouldn't complain about someone's choice of AT.

[CrimsonCapacitor]

Khelds were a weird gap in my own collection, just pulled up an old document and had... 49 L50s but the highest peacebringer was L28, the highest warshade was languishing in the single digits.

They never did much for me.  I was always the one to switch alts to best suit the team so when they first popped up I'd play a defender or controller to better help them do their thing.  Later on their niche-switching gimmick wasn't too appealing as I'd just to an actual tank if the team needed a tanker, an actual blaster if the team needed damage output.  Always felt like I was being a burden on the team when bringing a kheld instead of a benefit.

Didn't care when others played them but they weren't my cup o' tea.

*points and screams in the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" style*

[Floride]

Hey...a question.

I saw a discussion a few pages back about how animations on some powers discouraged some players from playing certain power sets.  Got me thinking...

Did most people play in 3rd-person mode?   My brother used to play in 1st-person mode and it drove me crazy to watch him.   Seemed like playing blind.   Plus...I spent a lot of time on my costume and liked seeing it onscreen!   I don't think I could ever get used to that.   My brother probably did it because he plays all those 1st-person shooter games (that all look the same to me).

I played in 3rd person most of the time. It was only in some maps with tight walls and low ceilings (like the Oranbega maps and the baby new year cave) where I found 3rd person camera got too jittery to manage. The only other time I used 1st person was at Wentworths just to avoid accidentally clicking on a nearby toons.

[Sinistar]

I aborted my first attempt at a WS, funnily enough at 37 I think.  I just got bored of it, or distracted by something else.  Can't imagine why in retrospect, as I later played a WS to 50 and put significant time into it afterwards.  One of my favourite toons for sure, and given the chance I will definitely play another in short order. 

While I found nictus somewhat annoying before the damage change, once you had the hold (level 18 IIRC) I didn't find them to be much of an issue if you paid attention.  After the change I found them practically irrelevant.  I rarely came across complaints about crystals, but IMO teams as a whole were either hardcore enough to handle them without incident or casual enough that they shouldn't complain about someone's choice of AT.

I had a PB and WS on each server that I played on, all were L50 and fully incarnated. While the knockback from a PB can be a mild nuisance, if the player knew what they were doing it wasn't a problem.  There were some players after seeing me using my tri former builds on PB and WS asking me for tips on how to build theirs up and what my build was.

Of course there were also the idiot players who whined about cysts spawning on maps.  Too bad for them in some cases I was the team leader and had the star and a shiny kick button if they got too far out of line.  :)

[Optimus Dex]

I think I dropped off with my Warshade at around level 27ish, I honestly just no idea how to play the class. As for the Void Hunters, I actually got teamed up with a Warshade that refused to fight against any group of enemies that had a Void Hunter in it. He stayed back and waited til the Hunter was dead before doing anything. Good thing I was on my Archery Blaster at the time though, could pick the Hunter out of the group so it was less of a problem.

I leveled two Peace4bringers to 50 the first was single form the other triform. I liked the single form better. Warshades I started 3 of them at various times - one actually was at lvl 27 at shutdown.  Veats  I liked  had Fortunata, Soldier at 50 but only got a crab too 45.

[PsiBug]

Did most people play in 3rd-person mode?   My brother used to play in 1st-person mode and it drove me crazy to watch him.   Seemed like playing blind.   Plus...I spent a lot of time on my costume and liked seeing it onscreen!   I don't think I could ever get used to that.   My brother probably did it because he plays all those 1st-person shooter games (that all look the same to me).

3rd person all the way, baby!

[Joshex]

I play both alternately, 3rd person  most of the time and if I have a hard time tabbing to select a specific target then first person. I prefer 3rd person.

[Arcana]

It is wrong to say because the PvPers didn't have it their way, they packed up their toys and left. The PvP community did try to alert the devs with exploits and input. The problem with i13, there was no input from the PvP community. Heck we even had a list on the PvP Board on how PvP can be made more accessible since i6, but Castle didn't care.

As a matter of act, I specifically posted in the PvP forums a list of the suggestions made by the PvP forum that the devs were either incorporating or looking to incorporate into PvP at that time, and I was told to "go pound sand."  I was repeatedly told that a) my opinion didn't matter and b) the devs opinion didn't matter and c) if the devs didn't do what was "obviously the right thing" based on PvP forum posts, there was no point in doing anything except setting the place on fire and leaving.  I'm not paraphrasing that.  The version of history you're expressing is not the same one I witnessed at the time.

Incidentally, travel suppression was explicitly a suggestion made by PvPers on the PvP forum (just as Enhancement Diversification was actually a suggestion first made by players).  Just not, apparently, made by the right PvPers.

[Arcana]

I stopped playing my stone/em tank after the em nerfs. it just never played right for me.

Since you're using a plural, I'm wondering what nerfs specifically you're referring to.

[ivanhedgehog]

Since you're using a plural, I'm wondering what nerfs specifically you're referring to.

I should probably say the animation changes...most specificly energy transfer. the set didnt play the same after they changed it. I wont debate whether it was needed or not, it just didnt feel right to me afterwards and I had other toons that remained fun for me. I felt the changes took the fun out of the set for me