Llewellyn Blackwell
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Posts posted by Llewellyn Blackwell
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27 minutes ago, FoulVileTerror said:
Indeed it is, @Blackfeather. Indeed, it is.
I think it would be nice for a new player to join the friends who recruited them on Heldenjaeger's missions rather than idly sit around in Peregrine Island.
And before anyone asks "why are you even doing that with a new player to begin with," I direct toward the old adage of City: As long as you do no harm, Play as thou willest.
I just think it would be nice to drop the level gates and encourage more cross-level teaming, especially now that the game isn't for-profit and we don't need to adhere to design decisions made strictly for artificially constructing a sense of progression as a means toward player retention. I think it would be healthier for the game if people could have greater personal freedom in how they interact with the content, form their opinion on whether they like the game or not, and choose to stay for sustainable reasons instead of psychological tricks meant to exploit human behaviours.
As said, Homecoming isn't profiting from this game. But that fact alone doesn't remove any of the existing mechanics which -were- designed during the for-profit era. As I have tried to do from the start, I advocate for the critical analysis and wholesale removal of any mechanic which solely served the for-profit design philosophy. SCoRE and Homecoming, to their credit, have done that in many, many places. I wish to encourage they continue taking those steps.
Actually the real issue becomes balance. Imagine a less uber lvl 50 bringing a bunch of side kicks way under level along on some high end arc. They end up wiping, and their response almost certainly will be to come demand the content is made easy enough that even on an x8 dif scale with only one below average 50 should be able to carry a bunch of lvl 5s.
Happens every time we see players biting off more then their build is capable of and acting like the issue isnt one behind their keyboard.
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20 minutes ago, Cutter said:
So I was a fairly prolific contributor to that DA conversation (Weekly Discussion 48 if anyone wants to go take a boo at the whole thing). While I'll freely admit that a couple of my ideas late in the thread got a little out of hand, there was also some positive reception to these few early thoughts, which somewhat mirror @Neogumbercules' suggestions. I've bolded the two powers that Neo discussed, and left the rest for posterity.
To a few other posters' points - yes, DA can be built to do ridiculous things, but it requires a pretty substantial IO investment to get there, along with arguably a deeper knowledge/learning investment to get into what makes it tick than other sets ask for. It absolutely rewards those investments, but its baseline is (again, arguably) perhaps less rewarding to the casual player than other sets. So maybe not a full suite of radical changes, but a couple ways to bring up that baseline would be welcomed.
The issue is, when somethin is a god tier level of performance when built and played optimally, any buffing at the lower performance end will inevitably buff the peak up further. While yes its not always newb friendly, imo every game needs such options. Much like in D&D where new players are far better off sticking to a fighter who just needs to swing a weapon, were as advanced players will often favor the spell caster classes that demand a near encyclopedic knowledge of chapters of spells to play one at a remotely effective level.
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59 minutes ago, chi1701 said:
More to do with having the lowest cooldown on heals and endurance powers.
The sheer dmg negation of Dark armor should make you far less dependent on the heal, and for example with elec melee, that makes your attacks be your endurance recovery as well as dps.
Every set has a true optimal partner that fills in its weaknesses best, imo for dark armor that is electric melee. Much like for SR the best melee is dark.
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1 minute ago, chi1701 said:
Will admit, i did try and build it, but got frustrated with massive endurance drain at low levels. Though making it tanky enough, and having perma hasten and to a point solving endurance still alludes me.
try an elec melee/dark armor. Perma hasten is only needed if you are a click heavy not toggle heavy build. Toggle heavy builds its far better to focus on set themes that offer things like layers of protection that can let you not need all your toggles on at all times.
Just some things to ponder.
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25 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:
Incarnate trial grinding? No thank you. I would rather not even both with the entire system than have to go through that again. The Gold-side mistake was making it another starting area instead a full-on Incarnate zone(s). If Kallisti Wharf ever gets upgraded, here’s to hoping the Homecoming team gives us another path for our journey as Incarnates protecting the City multiverse.
As someone that dropped Invention entirely and paid for Store-bought Origins (Attuned IOs) exclusively the moment that they were released, the current Invention system adjustments are just fine. Where grinding for things appeals to you, starting new characters with full Attuned IO builds before they even earn a single point of experience is my preferred method of play. Let’s adopt the “don’t show me yours and I won’t show you mine” Philosophy, shall we?
As has been referenced in this thread and many times on the forums, there is no need for “the sky is falling” theories . City does NOT conform to the same statistical tendencies as other MMOs and is pretty unique in that regard. At the current donation rate, it would be a decade (likely two) before worry about not having enough of that would even be a consideration.
IMO it was the exact opposite of what you would of wanted that I think they needed to do. I think going rogue as a paid for expansion was just wrong after cov, a buy in for a new starter area and basically a extended tutorial campaign.
I think GR should of just been a free update, that was the new starting area for all players. I would of ended both paragon and RIs old tutorial starts completely. and had all new characters made from then on begin as praetorians who make their way to primal earth.
This would of keept all the players consolidated at the starting area, and might of even lead to more red siders n the long run. As far as I know most hate RIs start, and hell it seems a hell of a lot even ahte much of Paragons early content, as many still bitch about the hollows, Perez Park, Clockwork mishes in early levels etc.
I just think it would of been a real interesting shake up if we had basically said something like after the event when Power was taken from primal earth, while it was eventually restored, no new heroes seemed to rising. Basically making us need the refugees from praetoria to sustain our numbers.
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Posted January 25
I would like to emphasize a relook at end-game in comparison to how chalenging and fun it can be at early levels compared to maxed-out where one shotting everything is all that isn't useless, nullifying pretty much build diversity, team-play, playstyles and any power that doesnt straight up blow up mobs. Which honestly is a lot of the face of CoH along with the costumization and community.
I dont know what the majority thinks but if people want an easy end-game where they grind solo only to be able to grind solo more will make the end-game stale very quickly. A simple difficulty increase might work but ultimately i think balancing around all archetypes so team-play and different builds matter again just like leveling should be priority.
Nostalgia and making new chars to properly team play won't keep the population afloat for too long, stuff like new powers, costumes and such certainly help but in the grand scheme of things looking at the bigger picture is more important. Especially if you guys plan to keep building on the end-game.Curious I looked at your handful of posts, and all the way back in jan your first post is basically this same nonsense. What have you seen these last 8 months to make you think there is some issue with population stability?
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35 minutes ago, chi1701 said:
Going by statistics, if DA is as good as you say it is, then why low numbers?
Takes a heavier investment from the player in both knowledge and resources to bring out its full potential. Basically it has a lower base performance for the average player, but to those who know how to build and play it, it will be got tier.
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well in low level zones like KR a good KB off a roof can kill a minion or at least strip them of most of their life. Its a fun thing to do on PB early on for laughs.
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1 minute ago, MTeague said:
This will likely remain true for a big chunk of the player base. I still maintain that that's a DAMN shame and people are costing themselves some very fine story arcs and interesting zones because of it.
especially gold side. done 2 runs of it myself since I came back one a solo, one a duo run. The visuals alone there are so damn enjoyable its hard not to just want to head there for social RPsessions.
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1 hour ago, Piecemeal said:
*coughs in foreshadowing*
Ill be honest for me its as simple as that none of the alignment arcs ever really seem to fit my characters enough to be the kind of stuff they would be taking on. While many are well written or fun enough, I just find way more other content tends to suit my characters better. thats the main reason I dont bother with the hero/vil tip mishes at all personally.
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31 minutes ago, GuilmonDude said:
I wasn't trying to be condescending, just ticks me off when people are aggresive for no reason.
And yeah i figured it was something like that plus the fact that the playerbase started off very small, it seems people are content enough to just sandbox around and make alts to satisfy their nostalgia and that is as far as they go for this game which is a shame, i look up to CoH greatly as an mmo. But ultimately that will not last very long, it's kinda like playing a game with cheats enabled, you can skip to the end and have everything you want but you will feel empty and bored way quicker. And the problem is that right now there is nothing to replace that and i don't blame the devs, the numbers are still way too small to warrant huge projects that would require even more new players. Even CoH at it's death was dealing with issues related to wasted resources and low playability on multiple fronts.
And it's not even worth mentioning other servers since they have no playerbase to speak of, so it's hard to discern if that method would have worked better. I wonder what the numbers are right now on what exact missions everyone is doing and how ignored a large sum of the game is.
I think setting up your own challenges and doing old content "just because" wouldn't sit well with most players. Lets be real, the old missions and content in CoH doesn't have amazing replayability and its even worse with no relevancy. It was ignored back then and it will be even more so now.
And you said it yourself, OG's are old farts now and i'm assuming a chunk of them have money to spare to support the homecoming team, but that is still not enough insurance of the game's future. And if that future is meant to keep the game as a zombie fan game then it will never feel like og CoH or anything better.No replayability? I tend to lead TFs every day i play for extended periods of time. Usually my old faves that others do seem to abhor. like Citadel love me the nazi bashing in the caves of talos and IP. Or the 2 out in Striga, sometimes all 3 of those in a row, because like I said I LOVE ME SOME NAZI PUNCHING! As in it never ever gets old for me.
You dont seem to recall the old live game well at all to be frank. year one, month one, SGs using ladder toons where using PLVing to cap in a matter of hours to help drive recruitment up for their SGs.
and again HC has been going for well over a year now, and our population hasnt gone ghost town.
Until talks with NC Soft lead to anything resembling a rebirth of an official server, yeah no its not going to become something other then what it is. One of many pirate servers running the game illegally. None of us here hold any delusion that it is anything other then that. Yes we are all criminals for donning our masks and capes and tights again and running around Paragon. We all rep vigilante and rogue in RL now by playing this game;)
And I can tell you, red side and gold side are indeed and always will be largely ignored. Paragon City however, every TF related to the tf commander accolade gets run by folks in mass daily. for their various alts. Hami and mommyship raids are both being run quite actively by the community on each server far as I know. Some do actively run the Itrials as well, not my thing really but I see groups gather in Ozone for them usually at least a couple times a week.
Badge hunters still tend to run just about everything badge related on their badge collector toon. And most players have a toon like that ime.
Frankly your starting to come off to me as an anti coh troll who is mad Champions Online on its best day has less then a fraction of the population on one of our rogue servers.
You sure are talking about what most players would want for being a johnny come lately around here. As someone who pugs a hell of a lot and likely has a way better finger on the pulse of the everlasting community at least, I can assure you we are by and large quite happy with just about all the grind reduction and casual friendly changes made by the HC team.
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18 hours ago, Greycat said:
It is not anything close to "great writing." It adds nothing to the specific story or the overall narrative. If you're needing a cold shower because "yay, the villain lost," well, they do *anyway* in this arc if you know it at *all* - the obelisk shatters.
Having multiple mobs show up that you have zero chance of doing anything against for an insta-kill is just not good design. Heroside, you can stick around and clean up any igneous you left behind if you want to. Villainside, no, you can't. As I said, it's nothing but a big middle finger to the player.
Also, it doesn't sound like you've ever played redside to the end. And stop making assumptions about villain motivations.
Oh Ive capped a red sider or two in my time, but yeah sure beena long damn time for sure. And I dont need to make assumptiosn about villainous scum, Im a psychc, I know their motivations better then they do;)
And my point is that villains need that middle finger thrown at them, players of red siders should understand that they are on the wrong side, that its a hopeless side to stick with, and they need to atone and go blue. Or at least be a vigilante that lives in the isles to defend its citizens who are truly in need of some hero help.
You would only have a point if the insta kill actually had a meaningful level of negative impact, but debt is so trivial that just cant be enough of of a reason imo. I as a DM in PnP games, am a big fan of putting players, especially of certain classes and alignments into no win heroic sacrifice situations to really test the players commitment to role playing something like a paladin, or tempting the ignoble in the group to turn on the others via greed, envy, and anger.
Being a killer GM isnt inherently considered a bad thing you know that right? In fact in the old days of RPGing it was the goal, to be truly impartial, but also truly brutal and merciless, to not focus on balance or fairness, but on making sure those who did do heroic things felt heroic, and those who did foolish things felt really foolish. Hell we should be lucky CoH doesnt use traps like a good RPG would, that would straight up kill you for blundering into them, that actually remains one of the most beloved and favored reasons by MMO gamers to go dabble on DDO from time to time. because there the end bosses are often not even close to the most deadly thing in the mish, its usually the traps that unless you know the content, and have a rogue along, are going to die and get rezzed a lot getting through the myriad ways to be insta killed by inanimate objects.
The simple fact is the entire argument here is one based off of an appeal to emotion over an emotional reaction to something inconsequential that is being called unfair. Appeals to emotion are by the rules of any debate contest an instant loss.
Can you give any actual mechanical, game balance reason, that this event causes a genuine and unjust imbalance against red side players? Or is it just an argh me not want to be reminded Im not even as the red sider the protagonist of my story, just an antagonist in some NPCs story! Does it somehow prevent them from earning the end reward for the arc? does it cause some kind of bug even rarely? Can it cause any kind of change to your character against your will?
Its just a story moment, one that at worst can make a moody player grumble, and I suspect gives plenty a chuckle when it happens to them.
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37 minutes ago, Crimsonpyre said:
Well they are in SG's , but it's just for alts and storage. I have one on each server for my alts.
meanwhile some us use alts to have even more homes for our mains. I owna mansion on an island, a couple space ships in orbit, and a mountain top chateau. Ok ok Its my 2nd in command in the midnighters that is the base builder, and he is a bloody artist about it to be frank. Lucky for me he seems to mainly make them for me to find uses for them and bring people by to hang out and party in them lol.
I mean what could anyone store in bases that is that big a deal at this point? I sell anything I dont need, bases are for fun, more then function for me these days.
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Hm have you and your partner been binge watching Arrow perhaps?
Ok so if your going for a mortal man green arrow type of homage the first side pools d suggest are def stealth and leadership. with leadership Id go all the way to veng, as an SO only Duo, if you end up in any of the harder baseline content, its not unlikely to be abit overwhelmed especially if you guys push up dif because baseline proves to easy. Veng from a def will make sure if one of you goes down, the other finishes the fight and in a very timely manner. Its also very thematic for the iconic concept of the duo, as not a comic duo exist that if one gets badly beaten the other doesnt turn into a wrecking ball of rage.
Jumping is def good if you want abit more def, and to feel more agile so good call there. for your 4th pool healing or fighting would be my suggestion. Id actually suggest fighting if your really trying to embrace a thematic concept over a meta approach. Every archer in the comics has some melee ability, and the 3 attacks in fighting are actually pretty solid on offenders ime. Id almost even suggest drop jumping, just use ninja run for the acrobatic vibe, and fit in flight just for air superiority. Air Sup and cross punch make a pretty nice close quarters combo just to really act like GA or his many minions.
As for being unsure of Praetoria content, I can honestly say as a duo on a stalker blaster combo, with both of us using stealth, we had zero issues going through the good side arc of the rebel faction. In fact it was easier then a few of my runs blue and red side.
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3 hours ago, Tath99 said:
Hmm. The drops being Natural would have been a bonus.
Bentley - You're right. It is a desire to face Human-centric foes for the most part. I doubt my duo partner or I will go redside. So it is more a case of hitting the 'best-Humanoid' story arcs, perhaps?
Outcasts, Trolls, Council, Warriors, Rikti, Cimerorans are our usual fare.
Circle of Thorns (Hate the Ghosts), Clockwork are probably out.
First please call me Berk. Only me mum calls me Bentley;)
2nd Id really encourage you 2 to consider starting in praetoria. As a duo you will be pretty well off there, and virtually all the mobs are humancentric to varying degrees, even the ghouls are just feral humans basically who are mildly mutated. Id say the psy chicks are the most power using over there. Most are using weapons/tech. Also the arcs really are way better written then any early blue/red side content imo. It even gives a great bit for your origin, in a world were metas rule as living gods, you two without powers decide to use skill and will to challenge the tyrant!
It actually even makes more sense, as in Paragon, well while we have non meta heroes, they almost seem a joke compared to the armed and armored factions like longbow and vanguard, especially when using archaic weapons like a bow( manticore is the biggest joke of the hero side icons for that very reason) whereas in praetoria where most with powers will logically fall into line with Cole's system that puts them at the top of society, its those without power who are going to be the logical foundation of any rebellion and uprising.
Also consider this, in coh lore magic comes mainly from ancient bloodlines dating back to Mu. So tossing out throwing knife for the magic origin power can be a way of hinting at that bloodline, and you could then expand it with a epic pool like mu mastery down the line if so inclined, that would help make a logical transition to incarnate powers and helping against foes that are just impractical from a logic pov for mere mortals with sticks being launched by strings.
Also bow, especially with the arrow powers it uses is really more a tech origin power set imo.
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1 minute ago, Tath99 said:
The Tsoo? The Council? 5th Column? -- Are these Natural?
Thank you Troo for the link. That will be most useful.
the tsoo would be more magical martial arts types rather then natural types for most of the mobs. Council are space nazi science types. The Fifth ruled by a wierd blend of mad science and dark magic as well. The Family has psychics among them, The warriors might be as close as you get to a 100% natural group cept maybe the dude empowered by the peebles ring and a few other odd bosses among their ranks.
Trolls while they are basically just humans, do have science meta upgrades from dyne, but I always love troll bashing on my batman type so you might enjoy them.
Id suggest go vig or rogue, and go where the content you want is as needed.
Actually a fair bit of Praetorian content feels pretty nat/sci/tech so you guys might enjoy that, and a Duo there is def a good way to enjoy that rarely played content that is often lacking in allies.
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I get the feeling what you mean when you say natural, is what I would call the mortal human builds. Hence the choice of keeping it to SOs as a form of self gimping which I totes give props for I do it myself in my own way on my batman homage.
If your desire is to face mainly humancentric types of foes, who use brawn and brains rather then meta power and magic that is actually a pretty rare breed of foe in the game. If its so they drop the types of SOs you need, you will find that many factions that really dont seem all that mere mortal drop those because natural in coh can as easily apply to a human, as to a god like alien whose powers are a natural part of its species.
I actually go red side to street hunt the human centric groups red side on my batman type toons pretty often. Just has the right vibe for it over there.
So Id suggest you make a couple red side, skip the tutorial zone to remove that break out from your story path. Use abit of AE as needed to fill things in, and just try to take the arcs that pit you against the factions you want to fight, and do rewrites of the clue story as it applies to your toon concept as needed. Because Paragon really is not the place for those who dont want to be when even the lowest street thugs can possess mighty magic, fly in the sky, and what not.
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See to me this is great writing. Its important because it highlights why the villains are not ruling more then the rogue isles. Yes it is heavy handed game mastering. And sometimes that is what is needed for the sake of the over all narrative.
When you go red, no matter how hard you try, you will never be the victor in the end for the sake of the heroic spirit of the game setting.
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Honestly gotta say nope to this. I would sooner see mish tp made a 0cd insta cast ability so folks can just port to mish if they want, At least that would be worth doing for the sake of simple speed. And you would still be seeing the other zones.
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3 hours ago, Neogumbercules said:
Normalizing content in ESO was the best change they ever made in that game so its a yes from me.
Remove enhancement levels and scale all as attuned.
Remove levels from enemies and con them to players accordingly.
It'd be a positive change for the game, but obviously it would bring up issues like why am I, a time traveling demigod, being challenged by this pos hellion in Atlas Park. To which my answer is... Just roll with it! One shot him with Energy Transfer and move on.
My answer would be, because even the weakest person trained in actual magic in DC can cause harm to even Superman himself. Even if he can defeat them with a finger tap or a huff of breath, if he hesitated or underestimated the threat as he is often depicted doing because of his powers, can take a shot that will drop him cold from the weakest and least skilled of foes.
Understand I am not talking from some unknown. it was not just on the forums, The Devs planned to and would of gone down this route more then likely hand in hand with their plan to do a major issue that was all about revamping Paragon city like they did with AP. It was in the games future as sure as new power sets and zones. It was part of how they planned to adjust AE into more normal content rewards, because gimpy custom mobs would reward very little while super tough mobs would of been so rewarding even if you killed at a rate of 10 to one the harder mob would still be the more worthwhile option for even if it took 3 to 4 times as long to down them.
In the same vein people who farm easy doors like council would of found their xp earning gutted, while those who hunted malta and carnies would of leveled like they were fire farming.
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On 8/5/2020 at 4:12 PM, Infinitum said:
Ah yes another meaningless troll post from those unwilling to do anything to argue their side beside QQ.
Well welcome to the ignore list as you have proven yourself beneath my notice.
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For bio I rarely ever go defensive, mainly offensive, maybe effecient if facing sappy mobs. Staff I have yet to try again since my old one back on live. But I recall enjoying my staff scrapper the most over all above the brute and stalker versions.
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1 hour ago, Chris24601 said:
My Dhampyr Savage/Bio Stalker will be going Soul Mastery because it’s the easiest pool to recolor to look like blood magic (just like I did for Bio’s auras) and some actual ranged attacks to pick off runners will be useful.
Man I dont know what your drawing from for your idea of a Dhampyr but it doesnt sound like either the modern pop culture version based on vampire hunter D, nor any of the actual traditions practiced by the real Dhampyri, and by that I dont mean they actually were half vampire, but they did actually exist. They were basically wandering wisemen/witch doctors/shamans and yes snake oil salesmen type charlatans, They mainly practiced exercising evil spirits from homes, more then likely started the traditions for digging up corpses suspected of being vampires( still believed and practiced in parts of eastern europe to this day), and funny enough because they tended to be malnourished, in pour health, and always on the move, lent to the legend the picture of dirty, sickly, wild looking men, often having rotten teeth, and lacked finger nails because frost bite would be a common effect on homeless nomads in those regions during winter, so their fingers would often be discolored as well as having nothing close to claws.
But ironically they also tended to be among the best educated because of their traveling, and could often read and write, often acting like postmen between the villages they traveled through as a way to earn additional favor with the people.
This has been your fun fact:) The more you know!
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Something many players never seemed to grasp or appreciate about the coh dev team and more specifically those that stayed on as Paragon after the split with cryptic, is every single one of those devs actively played the game often in their off hours for the exact same reasons we all like to play. CoH seems very unique in that, as you will see on just about every other forum for every other MMO, that if devs do play at all its only as basically an unpaid alpha tester for the game they make. The fanbois for those games will even defend such a disconnect between dev and game, saying things like can you blame them? Who would want to play a game they made?
Well I can tell you the Paragon Devs did, one and all. They loved this game, and a fair few of them had a personal account and had virtue as their main server because of its strong RP community. There is a reason coh has a mass of emotes, RP locals, and even the /e write your own text ability, and virtually no other MMO ever has had all of that to the same developed degree. Even some of the vaunted classics like SWG while it was one hell of a role players dream with being able to build in the open worlds creating entire player made cities, and having massive wars between them, and professions that for a time made spending time hanging out in hubs singing, dancing etc very worthwhile. But many of those things ended up being seens as flaws by the games own devs and altered or removed before it was shut down.
I can also share this tidbit, the reason why the Dev Infernal personally saw pvp as a failure in this game is because it wasnt embraced mainly by the RP community and mainly played by RP builds. The devs had a pretty low opinion of meta gamers as pretty much all game devs do from the interactions Ive had with some on other MMO forums over the years.
A good very recent high profile example is for the game Warframe. they are basically ending their old partners program for YT/twitch content makers and going to make every one of them re apply for the new system, and many content providers have already said they wont even bother, because they have been told a major reason for the shake up is the company is sick and tired of streamers mainly creating meta builds to break the game and keep sharing them with the community rather then work with the company to ID problematic balance breaking things and get them fixed before they spread in the community.
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Please make obsolete content playable again.
in Suggestions & Feedback
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Gawd damn it I hate when I have to concur with this guy. But yeah Ive run no few lgtf, and taken more thena few 35s on the teams as I work with whats online and meets the bare min reqs often with puggles. And I have seen hami lite, wreck so so so many players every run. And seen many say they would love to see things like his multi colored protectors not need special tactics to kill.
Its why now days i almost only run the lgtf with a character who can do all 3 colors solo to insure victoryso others dont end up getting grumbly.