New efforts!

[ryuplaneswalker]

Ever since Cataclysm, Blizzard has dumbed down its already-simplistic classes to preschool levels.  The pets in the pet battles have more skills than the classes do these days.  WoW is little more than a Facebook game at this point (and Garrison follower missions, where you send the followers off to fight and you aren't even involved otherwise in those "battles" are a prime example). 

You realize that in TBC..one of the better Warlock specs, was quite literally pressing one button right?

[Surelle]

You realize that in TBC..one of the better Warlock specs, was quite literally pressing one button right?

As my main was a Destruction 'lok for years, I can't say it was like that for Destruction.  Juggling soul shards, draining to layer this debuff and then that attack which would trigger a mez in a certain next attack, and then using another attack as a finisher to get another shard but only if you timed it right....

Look, WoW has *always* been a kindergarten game.  Cataclysm just reimagined the classes into preschool ones.  If you want literally being stuck just pressing one button, that's nowadays, and for every class.  Hunters can't even change weapons on the fly; you can't even wield more than one, period.  Blizzard thinks its player base is that stupid.

They've been trying to compete with Facebook games since launch; it's just that they didn't totally achieve it until Cataclysm.  The follower missions in the garrisons where you send avatars off to war and you aren't even there for the battles is merely the icing on that cake.

[ivanhedgehog]

Yeah, I had the idiots moaning about my PB's knockback too... Until the first mob, when instead they were all "Whu?" and by the 5th mob, they were "Uh, can I shoot something too?" :P

for every PB that could do that, there were a dozen "flingers" that couldnt learn to do it right. it was the same with storm. I played with a few that really knew their stuff. and I played with some(briefly)that felt that blowing things all over te map was controlling. One really annoying specimen wanted to stand next to my stone tank on an ITF. he was enjoying aggroing large areas so I just stopped taunting and let him tank. he didnt last long..over and over

[Azrael]

I was actually so good at using knock on my energy blaster for mitigation purposes right from the get-go that I had no idea I was a glass cannon until I started running into knockback resistant things and started taking actual damage.  I used to do laps around Talos where I would just pound on the large spawn groups with torrent and explosive blast (and using stealth to guarantee getting the first strike) and then plinking whatever was still alive with single target blasts.

That's what I did.  Lots of fun.  And no tanks to moan about you doing so either. :)

Azrael.

[Felderburg]

Yes, that means Peacebringers could get Flight twice (three times if you count Mystic Flight from Sorcery). But the "no foot shooting" rule was one of Jack's legacies that was finally starting to be done away with.

Do you mean preventing people from "shooting themselves in the foot" by taking powers that are redundant / don't work well together? Because that was the main motivation behind the whole archetypes & power sets paradigm, wasn't it?

[Twisted Toon]

........ joke ..........
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.....your head......


;)

I got it...and so did you.  :)

Angel halfway got it... so,  :) for them too.  :P

[Azrael]

Yeah, I had the idiots moaning about my PB's knockback too...

PBs rocked the house.  I loved stacking Solar Flare in Dwarf and Human Form.  Anybody who couldn't cope with knock back *points to the door...and take your 'meat shield' and 'charmed life' scrapper with you...

Before they capped the Energy Thrust and Power Push I used to love x4 SOing KNBK to send mobs flying to the other side of the district.

Torrent?  Probably my all time favourite CoH power.  Stacked with Ex Blast..?  An even con' mob crippler.  I have fond memories of playing 'skittles' with greens and blue trolls in the Hollows.  (Great to listen to in stereo through headphones...)

Azrael.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Also for an example of heavy censorship when converted to Amercia, what the original VOLTRON cartoon then watch it in its original form GOLION

Forms. Can't forget about Dairugger XV.  ;D

[Arcana]

Do you mean preventing people from "shooting themselves in the foot" by taking powers that are redundant / don't work well together? Because that was the main motivation behind the whole archetypes & power sets paradigm, wasn't it?

That claim was made that it was *a* motivation, but I have always suspected that the archetypal structure was as much to help the designers launch the game as it was to help the players.  Archetypes (at least conceptually) are a Jack invention, and Jack wasn't made the lead designer to make the game more player friendly: he was made lead designer to streamline a game whose implementation appeared not to be leading towards a launchable product.  That's why launch CoH is far reduced and simplified from the original promises of the game from its early alpha previews.

For all the mad-on that Jack gets from players, I think its always important to remember that the same desire for a simple, structured, scope-limited game that's straight-forward for developers to implement and accessible to players that he was knocked for after the game launched is probably the only reason we had a game at all.  Without that Vision of something they could actually get into player hands, CoH could have meandered along trying to do too much with too little dev resources until WoW came along and sucked all the oxygen out of the room and caused NCSoft to quietly shut down development.

I wasn't there in the room, but it seems blatantly obvious that the Cryptic of 2002-2004 could not possibly have built what they were claiming CoH would have back in 2002, not even given years more of time.  So someone had to have taken that expansive stone-soup version of CoH and turned it into the version we saw at launch, and that happens coincident with Jack becoming the design lead.

[Rejolt]

Arcana, there lies my biggest worry for the successor projects. Less is more. Don't try to reinvent what CoH did well. Don't try to fix everything CoH didn't do you wish it did. Get a workable, simple game out with a set vision (which I hope is a team-oriented action game with customizable costumes and powers).

If it works enough (considering volunteer help plus how most MMOs are at launch) then you can start to adding to it. Also, it's nice to have something else nice to say about Jack.

[FloatingFatMan]

Also, it's nice to have something else nice to say about Jack.

Lots of people like to rag on Jack, but there's one thing we must ALL remember.

If there'd been no Jack, there'd have been no City of Heroes.

Thanks Jack! :)

[Rejolt]

That's usually the "something else" that initially refer to lol. Also, the E3/early 2000s video of Jack talking up CoH... the man has the infectious, flustered enthusiasm of a child on a sugar rush mixed with a nice bit of nerd know-how. Without that vision/push I don't think we got the game we did, either.

[Angel Phoenix77]

I got it...and so did you.  :)

Angel halfway got it... so,  :) for them too.  :P

:D

[LaughingAlex]

So, you're complaining about inertial drift in a zero g environment!? Dude, that's a bit...weak.

Oh, theres more to the rant beyond that.  Hadn't uploaded it yet, it focused on the really, really bad stuff.

Part 2 focused on much larger problems than just linear maps with bad gameplay.  To me, bad gameplay is a major problem.

In the mean time, decided to have a little fun with the myth tags again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqETAQJ1-A4

I think i'll upload part 2 of the rant tonight.  There is a saying; don't unleash your best to early.

Edit: Another thing, have you seen people move in zero g?  They propel themselves along with anything they can grab, there is ZERO control in the mission.  Zero.  It doesn't look bad there, but play it yourself, try toying with super speed especially.  You'll get stuck on a wall.

Gameplay FIRST or ELSE.

Another Edit: And i'll explain a bit more as to WHY you get stuck; your inertia continues even after you hit a wall.  Your MOMENTUM keeps going into said wall so even if you hit back or strafe the opposite way, your still stuck.  Then of course you cannot accelerate anywhere, god forbid, if your unlucky half the time.  There is ZERO consistency in the movement in the mission.  It only decides if you can move or can't and it has nothing to do with enemies.

Third Edit: I might just remake the video and re-record though, till I can capture the problem live better.

[LaughingAlex]

Went ahead and started uploading part 2, which complains of the bait and switch nerfs and generally stupid decisions CN made.

It's also a bit better done, compared to part 1.  Honestly though, this is more practice I guess, and it was kind of something I wanted to get off my chest.

[FloatingFatMan]

Edit: Another thing, have you seen people move in zero g?  They propel themselves along with anything they can grab, there is ZERO control in the mission.  Zero.  It doesn't look bad there, but play it yourself, try toying with super speed especially.  You'll get stuck on a wall.

Sounds more like just a bug in the collision detection than anything.  Hardly unexpected when your supreme overlord is a company like Perfect Worlds.  Every single game they touch turns to crap.

[LaughingAlex]

Sounds more like just a bug in the collision detection than anything.  Hardly unexpected when your supreme overlord is a company like Perfect Worlds.  Every single game they touch turns to crap.

I agree with you there.  Know, I think i'll just focus on making myth 2 videos when bored.  Just got a landmine to work, hahahaha.

[LaughingAlex]

Deleted the first video.

[pinballdave]

I had the dream again. I was a Kin/Psy defender solo against a room full of robots, so frustrating all the psy resistances.

[Angel Phoenix77]

Sounds more like just a bug in the collision detection than anything.  Hardly unexpected when your supreme overlord is a company like Perfect Worlds.  Every single game they touch turns to crap.

I can defiantly agree with this. Sto is slowly going the crap highway, how can a company for 5 years build up the big bad and in Star Trek one of the biggest they make the Borg look meek. I am talking about the Iconians that game only got 2 soloable missions and a few group missions. The latest issue was a huge let down. Then co nothing will make that game make a return.