Greycat

Yes, given the cost to buy the packs and market fees. I think the concern is more one of who can take more advantage of the discounted fees and where the inf gets concentrated at the end, once the *event* ends, prices rise and the IOs get dribbled out into the market (don't want to crash prices too much, after all.) Personally - even as one of the "not rich" (I've got 100 some alts to feed...) I'm just not concerned. If I don't like market prices, there are alternate ways to get things, directly or indirectly.

Looks like we're just flat out not going to agree on this being unfair or a burden that needs fixing, Vanden. If it were higher (lower?) at even con - say, 10-15%, it'd definitely need looking at. If it did something like the potential "critical miss," or had a chance to be one, sort of like I described earlier (you try, say, a footstomp, it misses and you fall over, or you can't use anything for several seconds,) it'd be - ok, potentially funny, but yeah, it'd need changing. Even with using your definition of what makes this unfair, I just am not sold on it being big enough, frequent enough or having enough of a detrimental effect on the player to warrant changing or removal. Peace.

... just because I feel like expanding the player skill, COH not really being a "skill" game, etc. more - and don't feel like editing... When I think of a game where player skill enters into it, I *do* lean towards FPS type games, though it does come into some - let's call them "FPRPGs." Say, Dragon Age or Skyrim. There are generally three things that will enter into results. Equipment, "powers" (in game training/stats of the character - strength, etc.) and player experience and practice. You can make both your *character* better and your personal skills as a *player* better in this case. Say you're playing an archer (or ranger or whatever you want to call your ranged character.) Equipment-wise, you can get a better bow, with more power behind it for more damage or range. Maybe the bow or arrows enter into that and the accuracy as well - the level one pointy stick arrows can be wobbly and not do much damage after 50 feet, the great ones fly straight, they're sleek so they go a long distance, and they do damage. (Potions/spells/scrolls/other buffs would also fall under that.) Powers-wise, generally as you play you're getting XP which you drop into skills. Maybe there's a "the more you use it, the better you get" on top of it that comes organically, too. Not uncommon. All of these are number-side, though, after all. They're going into the math behind the scenes. You're self buffing with "Skilled archer," "Quick shot," or whatever those powers or abilities would be called. Then we have player skill. You *can* practice so you know how well X combination of bow and arrow will go. You can *practice* so you can aim at the right spots, or know how much higher to aim to get that enemy at a longer range. And yes, some randomness does enter into this - an enemy might move just after you let loose an arrow - but there are often clues a player can learn to anticipate this. Bit of knowledge, bit of skill. Take that same character, same equipment, remove the guy who's been playing it for 400 hours and can kill a monster from 1000 yards by hitting it in the eye because he's practiced and give it to a newbie and that character is just not going to perform the same. Player skill becomes a big part of the experience. In COH, though - that last doesn't really enter into it. Sure, you can have some degree of "skill" of that sort in, oh, movement for instance, but when I say COH Is more "knowledge" than "skill," your character is affected by where you're putting enhancements (and which ones,) or knowing "that sapper's going to be a pain, take him down first" or what have you. You work out an attack rotation and slot for it - but that's still just manipulating the numbers. If I take (since we're talking bows) an Archery blaster out... all I do is tab or click on targets and press keys. If I play the same character, yes, I get XP, I level up and can afford better enhancements to do more damage more often, but there's really nothing about *me* that goes into it. There's nothing to practice to make that character better. If I take a level 20 character and stick level 20 common IOs in, then run that character to 50 and play with those exact same IOs, absolutely nothing the player does affects that character's performance. As mentioned, you don't aim. You can't make the character angle the bow to change how far the arrow flies, or the angle it hits to bounce off the wall and get around something's armor or hit a target behind it. Heck, line of sight doesn't even make a difference. And that character's going to be just as accurate and do just as much damage if you take the person who's been playing it for a year out of the seat and stick a newbie there. Yes, the newbie will make worse *choices,* but again... knowledge, not skill. Just so that position's clear. 🙂

*Thank* you. (Seriously.) With that said, I disagree it is unfair for the simple reason that *everybody* faces the fact that they will have to face that same chance. It starts out at less than 95% (obviously.) Everybody has the same opportunity to try to minimize that all the way down to... 5% chance to miss. That 5% chance to miss is there - yes - to put in *some* element of chance. That, no, you're not just going to blindly bowl through enemies. You may have to stop and do something else to deal with that miss. You, with your preparations and actions, have done what you can to minimize it all the way down *to* 5%. You have a greater chance to hit everything than someone who has not. If it were unfair, a (say) Katana user would have a capped 85% chance to hit, while Broadsword on the same AT, same level, etc. would have 97% (just pulling numbers out of nowhere for these "caps.") Or caps would be randomly assigned per character, or something similar, and there *would* be nothing you could do about it. That would be inherently unfair. That 5% is there to keep things interesting and give a chance of something you have to react to. (In teams, of course, it's pretty much plastered over, since everyone has their own individual chances to hit, and the likelihood of *everyone* missing the same target are exceptionally small.) That 5% is, frankly, good for the game. Example: They remove the to hit cap. You and I are running together on something. I've got a controller (since... I play a lot of control types,) and between my powers, buffs, IOs, etc. I've hit 125% (or higher) tohit. I'm going to hit everything. You've got a 100% plus hit cap. We have zero chance to miss. It's high enough we have zero percent to hit up several levels above us. I control a group. You wander in or blast. AOE, AOE, no misses, group down. Next group's the same. And the next. And the next. And the next. We will never miss. It's exceptionally predictable, yes. But that's also, quite frankly, boring - and being boring leads to people not playing. Current example: We're still doing pretty good. We're at the tohit cap, I've got tactics and such so we have a little room to deal with debuffs, but we're still at 95%. Still slaughtering things... except there's a sudden miss. Now, if we're at the cap anyway, we're also likely built up fairly well to *deal* with whatever it is, but they have a chance to debuff, or attack. (And, of course, we have caps to our defenses, resists, etc. that at least gives them a chance, though a small one.) We now have to deal with, oh, there are caltrops affecting how fast we can close, or my controller is knocked back and out of the action for a few seconds, or they suddenly sapped what END you had and we have to do something *different* to deal with a new situation. Given the game doesn't really have great AI - runners don't bring back reinforcements, the group 50 feet down the hall doesn't react to anything, etc. - this is one of the few ways to add any sort of "spice" in. DOes it suck to miss? Sure. Honestly, I find it sucks more when I'm playing a kin or dark, since that affects a heal directly when I probably need it. But I don't agree with it being bad for the game, or being in any way unfair. Now, if this were another genre of game - FPS, for instance - and you can get great gear, take aim, the target doesn't move, and the bullet... for some reason spirals off into the air right out of the rifle barrel? That's one way I would say it *was* unfair, and a really weird place to put in an RNG (barring some in-universe explanation... which would have to be fairly good.) That *would* be offsetting skill and practice with weird randomness. COH, by contrast... isn't really a "skill" game. It's a *knowledge* game, sure - you learn how to handle and manipulate aggro radius, for instance, and which mobs can be problematic with that, or learn to identify which mobs are strong or weak to something, or what to target first. You learn how to build or what powers to pick to try to maximize or minimize whatever you're going after (such as that tohit cap.) But player ability doesn't come into - say - aiming, or how much force something is thrown with. I can't direct my Beam rifle blaster to do headshots, or shoot to (say) disable the missile launchers on a Zeus titan. There just really aren't many player "skills" when it comes to playing - it's all the numbers. So, yeah. You want to say "It sucks to miss?" Sure. I agree. You want to say it's unfair? We're going to disagree on that, and hopefully you see why I say that now. You want to suggest it should be removed? I'll disagree to that unless you come up with a *very* strong argument, as I think that cap and chance are an integral part of the genre and of keeping the game at least slightly interesting (on top of concerns about the ripple effects others sort of allude to in the thread.)

I don't think any of those mean what you think they mean. But hey, you do you. Missing is still not in any way "unfair," no matter what your feelings on it are. I will respond to this: I am not the one advocating for a change. I have given you the history of the way it is now, and you only threw a little GIF around. YOU are the one saying this has to change, and have not given any particularly compelling reasons for it other than "Vanden not like." The burden of giving any sort of reasoning is on you. If that's the whole of your argument? Just say that and be done with it. Because nothing else you've conjured up here has helped your position in the slightest.

To be fair, that's "The Chosen One," not just "The One."

It's both. It's a shiger. Or a teep? ... well, teep belongs in the bathroom, right?

Needs to be 3 inf. Cost of living increase, you know.

Strangely, you haven't seemed to share them either. You've played this game since live, Vanden. (The name and icon are easily remembered.) This same mechanic was there all through live - this is nothing new. And yet only NOW, for some odd reason, you decide it's "unfair" (which it isn't) and see the need to rant and rave about what everyone else just blows off. It wasn't introduced in the last patch, it isn't a new mechanic, it's not something that they're watching to see if it needs rebalancing. It's been there since the beginning. It's been there through ED, through IOs, through incarnates, through everything making characters even more content-trivializingly powerful. And if it were "unfair" (as opposed to "vanden suddenly decides he does not like," which is not the same thing,) the whole "you rolled a 1 on a D20, that's a (critical) miss" would not have been fairly standard through not just COH but... what... tons of RPGs, tabletop and digital through decades now, regardless of genre? We don't even have a *critical* miss (despite having an AT that gets a chance at critical *hits,*) where your attack doesn't even just miss but really *does* screw you over somehow -as in, oh - "I swing and attack the enemy!" "Roll." *rolls a 1* "Not only do you miss, but you lose your grip on your sword as you slip and fall, making it easy for the enemy to counterattack." Nope. You get a *tiny* chance to miss, the result of which... you have to press another button. Sometimes the target doesn't even aggro on you, which makes the argument it's somehow "unfair" hold even less water. If it kept you from activating anything else for, say, five seconds? Hey, I'd be right there with you saying "this is wrong and penalizing, on top of just not fun." And no, I'm not here to validate your feelings. Frankly I'm surprised that you've chosen this as your windmill.

Honestly, the only one here who looks to be all that frustrated about it is you. Everyone else just presses another button and gets on with life. Yes, it sucks to miss sometimes. Especially if you're running Kin or Dark and that miss means a heal doesn't go off. But it happens. Also, nothing about missing is "unfair." You're basically saying every dice roll in Monopoly should get you to a property you want or own, you should always get two doubles in a row (but not three, because that puts you in jail, and that's frustrating,) and if the house rules put money in free parking, you should always get that. After all, it's a game, too, right? (And hey, just like COH, it has dice rolls and rules about them. One of which is basically "You roll a 1 on that D20, you miss.")

And because I can't help having this in mind with this topic...

Because, as stated before, "stuff happens." Seriously, is the game not *easy enough* without complaining that you very rarely end up missing? You're not even making a mountain out of a molehill. You're making one out of a grain of sand. And one of the *smaller* grains of sand. Like, 2-3 molecules of silicon hanging out and deciding to call themselves a grain small.

I don't really have a "one." I have temporary mains, I have characters that even if I don't play I still will identify with, I have SG-night characters... Still, of them... 1. Therra Arcson / Paladina. First 50 way back when on live, elec/elec blaster. Then first Peacebringer. First 50 here, as an elec/elec sentinel. She's got a long backstory, alt-story, she's followed me into Aion, Neverwinter, Dragon Age I and II, Destiny, even ran a merc unit in Battletech. Probably the character that really started "immersing" me in RP. 2. Memphis Bill. First character back on live. Also ended up with a lot of history. Remade here, but there are pieces missing, so... 3. Cat Grey. A 'shade I didn't expect to get *as* attached to. Ended up co-running a SG with her, getting heavy RP in - now she's here and figuring out what to do with certain events not happening. (Yes, also the reason for "Greycat.") 4. Ishku. This was supposed to be a bit of a joke alt of another character who started getting a lot of backstory and a lot of connections here and really, surprisingly, grew.

I do recognize that name. Welcome back! Edit: Also, what the heck, throwing one in here.

Variety in how armors play? Sure, why not? Give people more choices in creating characters.

You're sounding far too wound up over "oh no, I might rarely miss." This is not "screw you" or arbitrary "punishment." If I want a game where I never miss and never have things not work perfectly, I let Progress Quest run in the background. Doesn't even require player interaction.

Subtly? ... ok, I get how this might work on Dwarf form, but what about Nova?

Because two words. "Stuff" happens.

Peeking in and seeing some comments, I just have to say here as I've said elsewhere... It doesn't matter what the "forum posters" or "in game majority" says, when it comes to the direction of the game. Game development is not a democracy. The devs are going to do what they feel is best for the health of the game - hopefully with a long-term outlook (which HC seems to have.) Some of those will be unpopular. They may revert or change things with feedback - but feedback is not "voting." So let me say again - Game development is not a democracy. And that's a good thing.

See? We're having two different conversations and mentioning "hazard zones" turns into this big grey smear between them. 🙂 Honestly, I think we should do any changes to a *different* hazard zone *before* altering one that's more active (IE, The Hollows.) One that hasn't had changes since live. Boomtown would probably be overlooked (too much going on in the same level range - Yin, Sutter, Keith Nance, etc.) So, Perez, Crey's Folly or Eden. And of them, I'd think Crey's would be best to do any changes to. Perez... doesn't really have lore tied to it, much. (The flip side is, we could do a pretty direct comparison with the Hollows. It *hasn't* changed, after all.) Eden falls into Incarnate range, which skews any real sense of difficulty. So I'd say Crey's Folly. Plenty of potential story, hasn't really changed through or since live so it still has the original mob sizes and difficulty, currently, and too low for Incarnanigans.

... which, again, I think is going to go back to "everything we have now makes it easier." (And... you still didn't really answer about the other hazard zones. 🙂 )

You used to be able to do this with the guard towers, too. Note they have back doors now. And the Pocket D cages should have openings. Generally, doing this sort of thing is... *frowned upon* by GMs.

... Again, most of the hazard zones *have not been changed,* though. The game around them? Absolutely. That's what I keep trying to say (and trying not to get it meshed into the Hollows discussion here, I'm talking in general.) I mean... take the ocean. (Well, don't take it. We're messing them up enough, and the fish have to live *somewhere.*) They were once huge barriers. There were dangerous, epic trips across that almost nobody made except by longboat or ... I'm forgetting what the polynesian rafts were called. Getting across and just *navigating* was a major accomplishment. Today? The ocean's still there. Still just as big. But we have reliable ships, GPS, radar... or, heck, airplanes if you really want easy mode. That's what hazard zones have been through. Other than the Hollows (which I honestly don't think has changed as badly as you think, but we'll give that a pass for now 🙂 ) and Faultline (reclaimed to a story zone, though it was a trial zone, not a hazard zone,) the zones really haven't changed. There are still piles of council, vahz, trolls and clockwork in Boomtown. Yes, they had a GM added, but the zone itself didn't really change. Neither did Perez, or Crey's Folly, or Eden. They've really stayed very static, with the same mobs in the same numbers (ok, we can argue a bit about the "council vs column" in Boomtown, but that's minor overall, and still kind of fits.) They're *not* easier on their own. They haven't been made easier - Perez got a nurse, and I think that's it for "easier." Take someone who's level 30 - not min/maxed, not poorly slotted, but solidly average. Drop them in Crey's Folly and... they'll be fine. Do that in issue 3? They've got a fight. That's my point. It's not "the hazard zones are not hazardous because they've been made easier." Most of them have not been changed at all. The game *around* them has increased in power. It's like the kid that was a bully in freshman year to you somehow got trapped in time while you finished school, went to the military, got training, got in shape - then the bully shows up again as the same high school freshman and you can just laugh him off and say "go away, kid." So, why create different zones? Because, while the hazard zones need love, they need *content,* not just "let's jack up the levels." They should not be globally changed, in my view, because there's still plenty people *do* do in some of them. There's a small subset (no offense, but "I talked to people in game" doesn't really tell me much of anything as far as interest,) that wants to "buff the zone mobs." So, my suggestion would give that option without taking the current zones away from everyone else. Sort of like those who want to PVP can do so in their own zones (and the arena) without getting in the way of the people who just want to hunt, or RP, or run a Penny Yin or what have you. Edit: Honestly, my suggestion already has at least one example (of sorts) in game. At least as I recall. The villainside mission where you test or have to beat your clones... as I *recall* there's an option for just how many you want to face. The "create a challenge zone with these settings" would be that dialed up past 11.

I think you'd have to pair them, so someone couldn't say "OK, entrance to this room has no rank" but the exit is only accessible by one or two ranks - either intentionally or unintentionally. Granted, it would (potentially) be fixed by /stuck or just logging out, but still. (Honestly, there are a *lot* of things with rank that need looking at in general.)

What I was trying to say there had nothing to do with whether people wanted to be put in a category or not. I more found the categories themselves problematic - and ignoring the fact that people can fall into more than one of them. It's like talking about "PVPers" and "Badgers" and "RPers," not to mention the "casual" and (for a category usually thrown in as an opposite to that,) "hardcore," like they're exclusive categories. They're different shaped pegs people try to to fit others into like they're pegs, when they are in fact molasses and spread into multiple ones to various degrees. ... see, there's a bit of that exclusivity again. Why do you think players who didn't like that "hated" the game? The people who hated the game stopped playing it and went on to ... I don't know, call of duty or world of warcraft or hello kitty world. I mean, if you ask some people, the fact PVP zones were introduced "negatively impacted" the game. ED "negatively impacted" the game. Going F2P "negatively impacted" the game... but it was a positive impact for others. Or still others completely indifferent. Hell, if you look I think you'll find someone who thinks adding villains and villain zones "negatively impacted" the game because it - I don't know, divided dev attention or something. That's true for almost every change *made* in the game. I think the 45-50 game has been heavily homogenized and "negatively impacted" by having Incarnate powers around. I didn't ask for that change. I have to - to use your phrase - suck it up, though. There are also some changes I really like. I have to take the good with the bad, what I like with what I don't. Everyone who plays the game does, and will have their own ideas of what was good or bad. Besides, I disagree it was "all" taken away from you ("you" being "I want the challenge.") We have quite a bit of option in how we run our missions. If I just want to get a mission done, I can cheese through it at x0/-1. You can run it at x8+4. It may not affect the "outside world," but it will affect all of your missions. Same with the boss settings, flashback settings, etc. Avenues for self challenge are most certainly still available. And if it's an urge to have something to show off? I still say badges are perfect for it. You can even show off (badge as title, as well as easily available badge count.) About the only other thing I could think of there would be badge-related stuff to show off in a SG base. Going back to the hazard zones, though. Again... even the ones that have not changed, I don't think anyone considers "hazardous" any more. (I think that got lost in the hollows discussion - I didn't just mean it for there, I meant it in general.) I don't disagree (borrowing another point) that people need more reason to go there besides the occasional mission or GM hunt. I *want* there to be content in Crey's, for instance. I think there's a *lot* that can be explored there. Eden's got links to thinks like Hero Corp (as I'm recalling,) not just Crey and the DE. There *is* a lot of possibility in the zones. But I still don't think anyone would see them as all that "hazardous." Hmm... I think what you want (zone wise) would basically have to be given its own zone, to not affect the world at large. Call them "Challenge zones." Maybe you *could* pick this going into a hazard zone, maybe it'd just be an instanced portion of it. You select a "challenge zone," you get a popup. Minimum settings would vary by zone (minimum spawns in the Hollows challenge instance, say, would be x4, though I think that would be smaller than what we generally see now.) You could go up to something silly. X24+7 max, say (to give you a chance to *still* hit and do some damage.) Or select a range. And select flashback-like difficulties as well (no set bonuses, no temp powers, no travel powers, etc.) No ambushes, extra ambushes, boss ambushes - just a wide variety of settings (and let it save your favourites, while we're at it.) Yeah, give them their own badges, too. You'd be able to play through (solo, team, whatever) with these settings without changing it for everyone else. Someone complains they can't lower the difficulty farther and finish the content? The answer would be a blunt "then get a team." Though, frankly, the cynic in me adds in "and they'd mostly be used for farming and PLing." 🙂