Blackbird71

February 21

2 minutes ago, Jacke said:

I do juggle several alts. It is not a net loss when playing that way.

All those Exploration Badges a given toon hasn't got yet? They're a VAST reserve of untapped Patrol XP. That YOU control for each toon when to tap.

You play a given toon for an extended period (happens quite often), oh well, out of Patrol XP. Don't want to stop playing this toon, really in the groove. Also out of charges of Experienced, or not wanting to use them. Really wish this toon had more Patrol XP.

So go get some Patrol XP NOAW!!! Go through a Zone and get all the Exploration Badges! With various guides, takes a few minutes. Now you have more Patrol XP!

Yes, there will be times, like in the middle of a Task Force, you can't grab more Exploration Badges for more Patrol XP. THAT'S when you use Experienced to get more Patrol XP.

For EVERY OTHER TIME for EVERY OTHER TOON, all those Exploration Badges not yet taken are Patrol XP on tap. That can be tapped at will when needed.

It doesn't work that way for me. I have so many alts to choose from, that I'm never short of someone with Patrol XP. Adding more Patrol XP to one character I'm playing means that I'm not switching to a different character that already has accumulated max Patrol XP, so it's not using up that banked XP and therefore is in fact a net loss.

Contrast this with the XP granted immediately on exploration, which does not add to the time needed to play a character in order to use the Patrol XP, and therefore does not take away from time that could be spent using the Patrol XP on another alt.

You're more then welcome to like and appreciate this change, but it is not an "outright buff" in every case and condition.

February 21

14 minutes ago, Jacke said:

For those not liking the loss of XP for Exploration Badges, THE CHANGE WAS AN OUTRIGHT BUFF.

Before, Exploration Badges gave a bit of XP. Okay, mostly meh most the time.

Now, Exploration Badges give more but as Patrol XP. WOW!!!
Patrol XP means 50% more XP as you defeat mobs and complete missions!

Besides applications of the Experienced Power
Which every toon gets 5 charges of every year.

And more come in Super Packs.

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET MORE Patrol XP WITHOUT LOGGING OUT AND LEAVING YOUR TOON IDLE.

In other words, use a trickle of getting new Exploration Badges as you play to keep your stock of Patrol XP up and getting 50% more XP for longer!!!

When you juggle several alts so that they are frequently topped off on Patrol XP, it's a net loss.

February 19

14 hours ago, strix_ said:

...there could be a lot less confusion and backlash to the AT groupings if they were just "playstyle diversity." and reflected the menus that have been visible in the game this entire time, rather than this new arbitrary and hidden distinction of the "role," which is only made even more confusing to new players because the roles have the exact same names as the playstyles, only apparently different ATs count for one but not the other.

100% this. These badges (and the original bonus that led to them) would be a lot less controversial and confusing if they just followed the existing playstyle categorizations. Instead, they present new players with information directly contradicting the information they were presented with on character creation, and which in several cases is just wrong or incomplete (e.g. Control Widows).

February 19

21 hours ago, Sunsette said:

I think flat-out discouraging players from going to Praetoria is the wrong idea.

Praetoria is well-designed for new players in that it is significantly more comprehensible and engaging than the rest of the game at comparable levels.

Lest we forget, it was actually a launch area for what I would say was live CoH's best period of the game. I brought several new people in with me to Praetoria.

As noted earlier in this topic, it has the best existing tutorial.

It has modern-adjacent game design sense. The mish areas are not nearly as long on average, the win conditions are varied.

You can play the goodest of good guys or pretty bad guys with sympathetic perspectives

It has beautiful visual variety across its aboveground zones, and the underground zones are still much more appealing than their counterparts in Paragon and the Isles.

Moral choices are a perennially popular feature.

The story isn't CoH at its best but it's CoH at one of its better ends, and it *is* CoH at its best in presentation of that story. A modern gamer is more likely to understand what is happening in Praetoria than to understand what's happening in Primal, which significantly outweighs the presence of easter eggs. I ignored most of CoH lore before Praetoria myself and only started caring about Primal's plot outside of the Rikti after wanting to know more about the Praetorians I met.

It's easy to traverse and rewards a variety of travel powers. Concealment, Leaping, Flying, and Speed are all very reasonable, which is highly relevant when you can get all these powers from a very low level.

What is the usual reason cited for why Praetoria is bad for new players? It's that Praetoria is hard.

You need to understand a lot of concepts for both the general genre and the specific, like target prioritization, using the environment, etc.

Ambushes are either bugged or poorly thought out (I don't know which) with no spacing, turning into tower defense waves. I like it as a veteran, but that would be terrible for a new player.

The game's mechanics are overly vague and poorly explained.

I would also argue that Praetoria's experience bands need to be reconsidered to avoid the overleveling problem that causes people to clip a lot of arcs, though that's partially come up in the topic already so I won't rehash that. It remains a point against it.

I'm not saying that these are small problems -- even if I had brought this up at the very beginning of the open beta period, it would be far too late to do anything about them in a beta cycle. But I do think that "NOT RECOMMENDED FOR NEW PLAYERS", or "RECOMMENDED FOR NEW PLAYERS" are the wrong approaches. People are generally going to expect the "recommended" experience to be the most polished and engaging one. I have met very few players under the age of 30 who speak positively of blue-side (and most people want to be heroes), and red-side is spoken of in more measured tones still.

Also, origin powers being much more useful for the first 10 levels will go a long way to mitigating the lack of offensive options many ATs have for dealing with the zone early on. Therefore, I would go with language more like

"THIS IS THE CLASSIC CITY OF HEROES EXPERIENCE." and "THIS IS A CHALLENGING, MORE CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE."

I understand your points, though I don't necessarily agree with your conclusion. That aside, I wanted to address a potential issue with this proposed language. When I read those two descriptions, it would make me think that the "classic City of Heroes experience" is what was officially created when the game was live, which would then imply that Praetoria was something unofficial created by others after the game shut down. It may be a minor bit of confusion, but it could possibly work against your goal in that people might be more likely to opt for what they think is the "real" version of the game as intended.

12 hours ago, Duuk said:

While we're marking Praetoria as "not recommended for newbies" maybe we could adjust the "Find Contact" button to actually find appropriate level contacts in blue and redside content post level 20 instead of every contact being First Ward/Night Ward?

This. Please. So much! Stop sending all of my Primal characters to FW/NW contacts, when there are plenty of legitimate Primal contacts out there!

6 hours ago, Taurus Maximus said:

Then, you're automatically introduced to Twinshot/Dr. Graves, who give you yet more mechanic learning missions. All these arcs are also quite cinematic compared to the standard blueside/redside fare, since they were all created at the same time as the Galaxy City revamp.

If I could, I would make sure that Twinshot lost my number and could never automatically contact any of my characters again when they hit level 5. She and her arc are just so annoying. Plus, it always pops up while I'm in the middle of either Hashaby's arc or the City Hall contacts' arcs, and to pursue Twinshot I'd have to abandon those and likely outlevel them and be unable to return to the arc in progress. Graves I can tolerate a bit more easily, but something about Twinshot and her cohorts just rubs me the wrong way.

February 18

2 hours ago, Number Six said:

Click Classic. Click Save to default file. That takes 5 seconds and you never have to think about it again.

Your previous statements indicated that even if you already had "classic" settings on your characters, new characters on the account would have the new "default."

February 18

5 hours ago, Number Six said:

To avoid any nasty surprises, the current plan is when Page 7 goes live, we'll run a database query to change the profile of all existing characters who are using "Default" to "Classic" instead. That way new characters will be created with the new defaults while leaving existing characters unchanged, as was intended.

Old players make new characters. If you're going to go through with making these new settings the default, then it would be nice if the "classic" settings could be chosen as default account-wide so that you don't have to remember to change it with each new character made.

February 18

8 hours ago, Jimmy said:

The default bindings for the top tray (Alt2) changed from Control+# to Shift+# for reduced finger strain on commonly used combinations.

The pop-up server tray now has default key bindings of Control+#.

This is going to mess with all kinds of shortcuts that have already been set. And making it work differently for old characters vs. new is going to create complications.

I think it would be better to keep the way it has been for 20+ years as the default, and then make the new settings a selectable option, rather than vice versa.

February 16

18 hours ago, Number Six said:

Also I'm not going to clutter the options menu with it since there's already too many esoteric things in there, but if you really want shrinking icons combined with power timers, I just added a hidden /tray_always_shrink command. It persists in your account settings so you only have to use it once.

The option is appreciated, however I'm not a fan of "hidden settings," as it's too easy to forget they exist or how to use them.

February 15

11 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

1. I think my biggest issue is that running Outbreak sends you to the old contacts in City Hall. Would like to see this redirected to Matthew Habashy.

No thank you; this would make no sense. Matthew Hashaby specifically continues the story after the fall of Galaxy City. If you don't take the Galaxy City tutorial, there is no reason to route to him. By contrast, the old City Hall contacts still present some solid missions, and it would be a shame to have those forgotten and disregarded just because the Outbreak tutorial doesn't send anyone there anymore.

February 12

38 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Mostly I'm just annoyed with the apparent claim that if something's been done a certain way for more than a handful of years then it's old and therefore automatically bad. Sometimes things have been done a certain way for centuries because that is the best possible way to do something. Progress is worthless if you're not progressing toward something. And, once you get there, it's time to put the axe down and move on to something else. You can't just change something every 10-20 years and then say "ooooo... we're making progress!!! Whoooo!"

I'm not disagreeing with this basic premise; I absolutely agree that just because something is old doesn't make it "outdated;" rather it can often be "tried and true." And "progress for the sake of progress" is folly (unfortunately many of HC's changes seem follow this erroneous mantra, in my opinion). I just felt that the way you argued the point with an analogy that gave a false representation of the opposing argument came off a bit disingenuous and dismissive.

As to the matter at hand though, I do think that the HC devs lean too heavily on the nerf bat. When several powers are underperforming and one or two are overperforming, they do seem to go for nerfing the stronger power instead of buffing the weaker powers. To me, this approach often reduces the fun and enjoyment of the game, forcing everyone into equal drudgery by making all powers equally underpowered. If there is a power that is legitimately "OP" to the point that it breaks the game, then yes, something like that should be addressed and scaled back. However, I believe such powers are rare in CoH, and most often an "OP" power is only overpowered relative to the available alternatives, and in such cases the game and players would be better served by treating the alternatives as underpowered and addressing why they are less desirable.

February 12

53 minutes ago, Sovera said:

We can disagree. It's just our respective opinions. I don't think that there is a right or a wrong side to this. At most what there will be is the side of the game devs.

Totally fair; I just wanted to present a contrasting view. I do appreciate your engagement and openness to discuss these ideas.

February 12

19 minutes ago, Sovera said:

In a game with difficulty settings and myriad options no one will ever not reach 50.

No one will ever not reach 50, but *everyone* should feel that the enemies are becoming more difficult as they approach 50. That is the motivator to improve their skills or improve their builds.

I wholeheartedly disagree. As I level up, and gain new powers and slots, I expect the difficulty of the game to remain the same relative to the current state of the character. Yes, higher level enemies will be more difficult for what my character was at a lower level, but not once I reach the same level as the enemies and gain the appropriate powers. I would much rather have a consistent experience from 1 to 50 than an ever-increasing difficulty curve.

February 11

3 hours ago, Sovera said:

I have no idea how deep you are into the market and prices. I'm also not sure you're after advice or even if it's needed. But if you focus on arcs you should be swimming in merits on all those alts.

As an altholic myself I used to transfer most my IOs from alt to alt since each alt would make an average of 100 million just leveling to 50 in merits alone. New alt? Old alt had a respec where all stuff was moved. It does take 5 minutes to do and each respec costs around 2 million, but it's worth to move around 500-800 million worth of gear around.

I don't move enhancements from character to character, because I will sometimes revisit past characters, and it's just a pain to do. "5 minutes" is a rather optimisitic estimate. You don't just have to respec to strip all the enhancements, but also then mail them to yourself, one at a time.

And 100 million Inf per character doesn't go very far if you're talking IOs. At current market prices, a solid IO build can run at least 300-500 million. I've seen some post here about "billion inf" builds, which it's hard for me to fathom spending that much on a single character build, but apparently it happens.

February 11

7 hours ago, Sovera said:

Indeed it was. And those are all valid points to be fair. Are they really that bad at that low difficulty? Asking without sarcasm since I don't usually drive anything that isn't one of my uber twinked characters so it's difficult to gauge difficulty levels when the car is worth almost a billion.

The facile answer would be 'buy some IOs' but you've been around long enough that this is already understood.

Well, "buy some IOs" goes back to my previous point of being an altaholic. Tricking out every character with a high-end IO build gets expensive. I do it for some characters, but not all.

February 11

29 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

I don't recall ever saying that they were... Old Age must be getting the best of me. Or a lack of coffee. 😝

I do believe that was directed at me. 😉

37 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Also, there is no reason not to finish a character. There are other factions to fight and a difficulty slider to mess with, an Ouroborous to explore, different TFs and SFs, etc.

Other factions have their own issues. CoT may not be as easy as Council, but they were still a better option than some of the others. Particularly for magic-focused characters.
I often play at the lower end of the difficulty slider. Depending on the AT and power sets, I'll typically be at +0/x1-4.
Ouroboros is a means of replaying lower-level content. I'm an altaholic who plays through the lower level content while I'm at that level, so there's little reason for me to want to revisit it one one character to get to 50 when I'm just as likely to go through it on my next character.
TFs and the like 1) require a significant time investment to do multiple chained missions back to back, while I prefer playing in shorter spurts, and 2) are more geared towards groups, whereas I do most of my leveling solo.

All around, these sorts of changes (CoT and Council) just further reduce viable options for players like me.

February 10

On 2/9/2024 at 1:08 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

Do you wear pants? Why? People have been doing that for centuries. You should stop wearing pants to work. Wearing pants is outdated in this day and age.

Yeah, see how silly that sounds? Just because something was done a hundred years ago doesn't mean that it's automatically wrong.

This is a misleading analogy.

Do you wear pants made of coarse homespun wool? Or do you wear modern cotton-synthetic blends?

February 10

2 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

So.... you won't be happy unless you have *exactly* this one single thing that you like, and any other option is out of the question.

Somehow I don't think you're going to have a lot of luck with that.

I'm saying at that level range, there are limited activities I enjoy; it's why I refer to the grind from 40 to 50 as a slog. Changes like this just reduce my options further, and push me further away from the game. It's more likely I'll just be abandoning more characters around level 40 and moving on to lower-level alts instead of completing the path to 50.

February 10

The difference being that you typically only get the stuff like DFB badges in a certain range of levels while running that particular content, while these badges could be picked up any time, any level, on any content. I doubt there will be nearly as much demand for groups to get them, just because of the wide opportunity, a lot of which may happen naturally without specific effort.

Not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, just an observation.

February 9

2 hours ago, Andreah said:

Badges are important and noticeable,

I know some people really like collecting badges, but at least for me this statement is totally wrong. I couldn't tell you what badges my characters have; I don't care. Plus there is so many of them already as to make them largely meaningless; each is just one more drop in the proverbial bucket. And I don't ever bother displaying badge titles, and I don't care about what titles others show - it just comes off as bragging. So no, I don't consider them important or noticeable.

That's probably a minority opinion around here, but I still think it's worth expressing that not everyone thinks badges are worthwhile. As far as I'm concerned, adding badges is a waste of time and resources.

February 9

2 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

Check out Tina's arc in PI if you're running blue side. She has a few classic Old School farm maps like Wolf World that you can jump into in the 40s. AE is also always a possibility. Making a good level 40(ish) bash-fest mission... if there isn't one already, which would surprise me... wouldn't be hard if you used a faction like Axis or Battle Maiden's Warrior Earth goons, or even designed something custom with similar group powers.

I hate using AE. Farms are boring, and the quality of non-farm content is too much of a mixed bag. I prefer running stuff out in the world.

I've done Tina's stuff several times before, and it's probably my least favorite arc. The portal missions are just not my cup of tea. So many of them are "go to this outdoor map and find three glowies to click" that end up being time-consuming busywork that result in hardly any XP, so you don't feel like you're progressing and it becomes a slog. Not to mention the number of Crey and Malta you have to mess with in the later part of her arc. Plus thematically, I don't really care for playing a hero who is spending their time traveling to other worlds. In short, Tina's arc is exactly why I often end up doing stuff like CoT/Council in the 40s.

February 9

53 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

I know it'll cause certain people to clutch their pearls and gasp in horror at the very idea... but I still say if you want a mindless bash-fest, that's one of the things that AE farms are really great for. There are also always the "classic" old-school bash maps from Tina and Unai's arcs. Keep a copy of the Axis Earth mission or Freak World or Harvey's Praetorian demons map on characters that like to lead smash teams and just tell people not to click the glowies (or kill the last group in the demons' case-) when you go in and clear the place. Many players did that in the days before AE was a thing.

I'm a lot more concerned about the impact on solos, and on the under-50/unfinished-build/non-Incarnate types who are running regular mission arcs against these goons than I am about power-leveling lowbies. Radio smash teams are fun and popular, but they're not the only way to do that.

What about under-50/unfinished-build/non-incarnate solos who want a mindless bash-fest?

That's the category I typically fall into by the time I hit 40 on a character.

February 9

9 hours ago, Dev Unitas said:

This is absolutely true, but most of the goal-based testing we do tends to be during the Closed Beta phase - not to say exclusively, but it's definitely something that you'll see more of during that time than during the Open Beta phase, I think.

Which frankly probably contributes to a lot of the frustration and arguments that go around during open beta, and the general feeling that staff doesn't communicate well. Open beta is seen by a larger portion of the player base, and so giving this negative impression of a lack of communication (and the resulting miscommunication) at that time has a broader negative impact.

February 7

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

You already know why. Blackbird was right.

I'm going to get that put on a billboard in Atlas. 😉

February 7

The change from a repeatable reward to a one-time badge has likely moved this feature from "hotly controversial" to "all-around meh."

On top of that, the AT categorization still doesn't fit the character creation descriptions or practical function of several ATs.

There's really no purpose to release a mediocre feature that gives incorrect/incomplete information. At this point, it's probably best to just scrap the whole idea.

February 7

On 2/1/2024 at 6:48 AM, The Curator said:

The game's volume levels have been adjusted to make for a more comfortable experience.

The volume sliders now range from 0% - 150%.

The 150% setting is equivalent to the former 100% setting.

The slider range scales along a curve so that more of the slider results in usable volume levels.

"It goes to 11."

Seriously. Every other volume control system on a computer goes from 0-100%. Calling the top end 150% just gives the impression that the setting will go above system limits. I understand shifting the slider to a curve, and I think that part is a great improvement. But changing the label on the upper limit is Spinal Tap levels of silly.

8 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

About 10.

8 hours ago, Number Six said:

About 23%

Might want to get on the same page there. 😉

Dueling staff in consecutive posts causes confusion.

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