Sins of the Devs are visited upon the players

[huang3721]

3 hours ago, Faultline said:

The AE story arcs exist in their own "database" which uses a format that is incompatible with normal story arcs.

 

Is there a plan to "standardize" AE missions/creation in the future?

[Puma]

On 8/31/2022 at 9:33 AM, Luminara said:

 

Change is painful at times.  Not knowing what's coming, not knowing how or if we can adapt, it's unpleasant.  Routine is comfortable, and comforting.  Uncertainty is terrifying.

 

But change is also growth, and routine, that's just another word for stagnation.  Change is necessary.  It makes us sharper, forces us to develop new skills and refine existing ones, and drives us to be more than we were.  It helps us become better, not just as players, but as people.  And that makes it worthwhile, worth enduring, worth adapting.

This, of course, ignores that sometimes, changes are BAD changes coming from a flawed assumption or understanding. 

 

Those changes don't make things better. They make them worse.  

[cranebump]

5 hours ago, BurtHutt said:

Interesting response. Do you know that it would be actually labor intensive to implement my AE idea or are you just guessing.

 

To me it seems easy to create new contacts outside of AE but are actually part of the AE system. Then HC team having say in which missions get placed in those specific contacts. Would that be a ton of work? I am sure it would be work but I don't know how much it would be.

I'd certainly like to see your idea implemented. I do think it's more labor intensive than we think, because whatever they use to script has to be different than what players have. You can tell that by playing their mishes (branching dialogue, objective placement, on-screen text, cut scenes, exiting from one map to another map while still on the same mish chain). But the demand for this seems a lot lower than for just about everything else (powersets, hardmode content, costumes, and so on). Not to mention just maintenance and troubleshooting (tickets and such). They have a big job. I'm not sure whether any of that could be farmed out to the community, nor to whom they would farm it out (nor whether they should, since I don't know what effect that would have on the game as a whole). I think they could get some folks who'd work on it if they wanted, but then that's just more gears to maintain, so...I dunno, man.  I'd be down to try, though. And I know some other folks far smarter than me that would, also.

Edited September 2, 2022 by cranebump

[cranebump]

5 hours ago, Faultline said:

 

The AE story arcs exist in their own "database" which uses a format that is incompatible with normal story arcs. They can't be put on a regular contact as-is. We did add a command very early on to convert AE story arcs to the internal format, but none of our story developers use it because the converted arc is not very readable and it's just more effort to clean it up than make a new one from scratch. Even easier ideas such as allowing players to select a door for their mission other than the AE pillar ran into implementation problems, because the AE is a collection of hacks held together with bubblegum.

Well, there it is. I shoulda read first.:-)

[BurtHutt]

1 hour ago, cranebump said:

I'd certainly like to see your idea implemented. I do think it's more labor intensive than we think, because whatever they use to script has to be different than what players have. You can tell that by playing their mishes (branching dialogue, objective placement, on-screen text, cut scenes, exiting from one map to another map while still on the same mish chain). But the demand for this seems a lot lower than for just about everything else (powersets, hardmode content, costumes, and so on). Not to mention just maintenance and troubleshooting (tickets and such). They have a big job. I'm not sure whether any of that could be farmed out to the community, nor to whom they would farm it out (nor whether they should, since I don't know what effect that would have on the game as a whole). I think they could get some folks who'd work on it if they wanted, but then that's just more gears to maintain, so...I dunno, man.  I'd be down to try, though. And I know some other folks far smarter than me that would, also.

I would suggest these missions be at paper/radio/tip level. So, no cut scenes etc and less work for the Devs. Mostly 1 mish and done. Less work to add this than one that has your additional noted features.

 

I did check in and it would be work on the front end but it seems worth it as after the adjustments were made then adding would be easier. 

 

Radios, tips etc are run all the time. I think a lot of players like the lesser time commitment play sessions and the ability to bail if life happens and so on. Sure, lots of players still get into the longer play sessions and the Devs will need to go to town on those types of missions. The rest of us could help by adding a pile of quick missions.

[Grouchybeast]

4 hours ago, BurtHutt said:

Radios, tips etc are run all the time. I think a lot of players like the lesser time commitment play sessions and the ability to bail if life happens and so on. Sure, lots of players still get into the longer play sessions and the Devs will need to go to town on those types of missions. The rest of us could help by adding a pile of quick missions.

 

That can already be provided by Dev Choice missions in AE.  You're asking for a bunch of extra work by the devs just to get a different mission door.

[Blackbird71]

13 hours ago, Faultline said:

You say that the previous pages haven't been for you, but you haven't said what would be for you. So I can't respond whether our plans will meet your expectations.

 

This wasn't directed at me, but I'll throw in my unsolicited 0.02 INF anyway.

What I want is to NOT have to constantly re-learn how to play the game.  If every few months I have to start over, learning how powersets work, change powers and builds, change slotting, etc., just to keep doing what I've been doing (playing 1-50 content), then it gets annoyingly and frustratingly tedious.  I hate having to spend time researching/adjusting/testing/creating builds just to be able to play the game, and would much rather spend my limited free time actually playing.  I don't want anything that requires me to do "chores" before being able to play.

I understand that there are things in the game that need tweaks and adjustments to fix long-standing problems, but I feel that HC has gone overboard in making changes for change's sake.  I've shelved many of my long-played characters just because it would take too much work for me to update and relearn them after many of the i27 changes.  Most recently I've taken a bit of a break from CoH: HC, in large part due to this frustration, and have barely logged in over the past few months.  I popped in to look at the Page 4 changes, and frankly I'm finding little of interest to me.

And maybe you don't care; maybe I'm not the target audience for HC, and if that's the case then so be it.  But the question was asked so I thought I would answer.  I have no problem with the additions of new high end or "hard mode" content (I likely won't ever play it myself, but its existence doesn't bother me), but please, please, please keep changes to the fundamental nuts and bolts of gameplay to the absolute minimum.

[MoonSheep]

1 hour ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

This wasn't directed at me, but I'll throw in my unsolicited 0.02 INF anyway.

What I want is to NOT have to constantly re-learn how to play the game.  If every few months I have to start over, learning how powersets work, change powers and builds, change slotting, etc., just to keep doing what I've been doing (playing 1-50 content), then it gets annoyingly and frustratingly tedious.  I hate having to spend time researching/adjusting/testing/creating builds just to be able to play the game, and would much rather spend my limited free time actually playing.  I don't want anything that requires me to do "chores" before being able to play.

I understand that there are things in the game that need tweaks and adjustments to fix long-standing problems, but I feel that HC has gone overboard in making changes for change's sake.  I've shelved many of my long-played characters just because it would take too much work for me to update and relearn them after many of the i27 changes.  Most recently I've taken a bit of a break from CoH: HC, in large part due to this frustration, and have barely logged in over the past few months.  I popped in to look at the Page 4 changes, and frankly I'm finding little of interest to me.

And maybe you don't care; maybe I'm not the target audience for HC, and if that's the case then so be it.  But the question was asked so I thought I would answer.  I have no problem with the additions of new high end or "hard mode" content (I likely won't ever play it myself, but its existence doesn't bother me), but please, please, please keep changes to the fundamental nuts and bolts of gameplay to the absolute minimum.

 

can you give an example of a recent change which required a complete character re-work or having to materially change how you play 1-50 content?

[Snarky]

On many ways I believe this is an MMORPG problem as a whole.  To balance a game for an individual AND the same content for a team is very hard

 

I see this in City of Villains, especially as it pivots into the incarnate material.  I see this is another game I play.  There whole zones are overpowered against you to solo in because they were basically designed for the final open world story of a certain arc.  The expectation that there would be teams available for nearly every mission and area you were sent to is implicit. 
 

I play solo a lot, but I enjoy a team as well.  Unfortunately nothing I play seems designed to be truly soloable.  City of Villains made a head nod to solo incarnate with Dark Astoria.  Bit if you try to incarnate fully that way there is really just one short arc to redo over and over for a few days until you get the parts you need

[Blackbird71]

10 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

 

can you give an example of a recent change which required a complete character re-work or having to materially change how you play 1-50 content?

 

Mostly it's the accumulation (and frequency) of powers changes.  Sometimes it's a single change (as just one example, the tac arrow changes a while back killed one of my favorite characters for me).

In short, the Cottage Rule should be reinstated and adhered to.  There's a reason the original dev team had this rule; departures from it are increasingly frustrating and turn people like me away from the game.  Not necessarily because the changes in isolation are bad, but because the cumulative effect is wearying.

[Ukase]

15 hours ago, Krimson said:

It is completely possible that Rebirth doesn't care about population nor player retention. 

I can't speak for them, but my takeaway is they are doing it in the way they think is best. And as much as they'd love to have a few hundred new folks, they also recognize the burden that would put on their server (s). A higher population requires greater resources. Nobody there is getting paid, either. There will be ebb and flow, I'm sure, just like there is here. 

I think of it like CoH is a soft drink. Rebirth is just a different flavor. Still has the bubbles, and probably the sugar, but maybe not as much caffeine. (or vice-versa) 

[golstat2003]

On 8/31/2022 at 3:15 AM, MoonSheep said:

 

i’m not sure i agree, IO prices are incredibly low on HC they’re on the verge of being free even for good sets - e.g Mako’s Bite for a few thousand inf. when i made my first alt i was able to fully kit it out with purple/attuned IOs in less than a few weeks of casual play with no farming/AE exploits. IOs have halved in price since that time

 

personally, i’d remove the IO conversion function - it has muted the fun of receiving a rare IO and contributed to the auto-win low price of enhancements. i feel without it, prices would rise slightly to a more appropriate level for end-game enhancing

 

You would have some people saying that Mako's isn't actually good compared to a few other sets. It depends on what goals you are aiming for on that toon. Not everyone chases the defense softcap.

 

Also the IO conversion is part of the reason that prices are so low on HC compared to live.

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

Mostly it's the accumulation (and frequency) of powers changes.  Sometimes it's a single change (as just one example, the tac arrow changes a while back killed one of my favorite characters for me).

In short, the Cottage Rule should be reinstated and adhered to.  There's a reason the original dev team had this rule; departures from it are increasingly frustrating and turn people like me away from the game.  Not necessarily because the changes in isolation are bad, but because the cumulative effect is wearying.

This is what killed it for me and Brutes.  Not the best Tanks, not the best DPS. But I had a niche

 

Some of the changes, in isolation, made sense

 

After Going Rogue Brutes were, sporadically, out damaging Scrappers.  Nerf Brutes

 

Tanks needed “something”. So they got more AoE and Brutes got nothing.  Further eroding Brutes value imo

 

Incarnate content punishes melee in general.  I would argue Brutes more than most due to tactics/armor.  Ymmv

 

Dr Aeon rewards high resistance values…points to Tanks

 

The new content just added artificially increases Agro cap and I think this “slightly” disproportionately affects Brutes, do to ROFLSTOMP tactics

 

cumulative effect…Brutes are in a far worse position now than they ever have been

[golstat2003]

On 8/31/2022 at 6:32 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Cuz I love numerical purity. I only mention melee ATs cuz that's the hot topic. In my world. every AT and powerset combo could achieve the same xp/hr rate. while solo.

 

I find this would be realistically impossible.

 

are you saying the same xp/hr rate as a defender that does the least damage?

 

Cause if anyone actually took this all the way I doubt it would be the xp/hr rate of a tank or brute.

 

Just saying.

[Puma]

3 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

can you give an example of a recent change which required a complete character re-work or having to materially change how you play 1-50 content?

The changes to blasters a bit back is one that drove me to really start exploring other servers.  They were completely unnecessary changes, IMO.  Interestingly, they were drive by the same weird desire to make control archetypes "more useful" by the Devs that some of issue 4 content was driven by.  It's a flawed approach to an overstated problem, IMO.  But there's one example.   

[Astralock]

4 hours ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

This wasn't directed at me, but I'll throw in my unsolicited 0.02 INF anyway.

What I want is to NOT have to constantly re-learn how to play the game.  If every few months I have to start over, learning how powersets work, change powers and builds, change slotting, etc., just to keep doing what I've been doing (playing 1-50 content), then it gets annoyingly and frustratingly tedious.  I hate having to spend time researching/adjusting/testing/creating builds just to be able to play the game, and would much rather spend my limited free time actually playing.  I don't want anything that requires me to do "chores" before being able to play.

I understand that there are things in the game that need tweaks and adjustments to fix long-standing problems, but I feel that HC has gone overboard in making changes for change's sake.  I've shelved many of my long-played characters just because it would take too much work for me to update and relearn them after many of the i27 changes.  Most recently I've taken a bit of a break from CoH: HC, in large part due to this frustration, and have barely logged in over the past few months.  I popped in to look at the Page 4 changes, and frankly I'm finding little of interest to me.

And maybe you don't care; maybe I'm not the target audience for HC, and if that's the case then so be it.  But the question was asked so I thought I would answer.  I have no problem with the additions of new high end or "hard mode" content (I likely won't ever play it myself, but its existence doesn't bother me), but please, please, please keep changes to the fundamental nuts and bolts of gameplay to the absolute minimum.

 

IIRC, the only changes made since Page 2 that required a respec is for AFK farming.  And well, AFK farming shouldn't exist and GM Jimmy publicly stated a couple of years ago that one of Homecoming's goals is to eventually find a way to kill AFK farming without significantly impacting other activities.

[arcane]

On 8/31/2022 at 5:32 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Cuz I love numerical purity. I only mention melee ATs cuz that's the hot topic. In my world. every AT and powerset combo could achieve the same xp/hr rate. while solo.

[Astralock]

28 minutes ago, Puma said:

The changes to blasters a bit back is one that drove me to really start exploring other servers.  They were completely unnecessary changes, IMO.  Interestingly, they were drive by the same weird desire to make control archetypes "more useful" by the Devs that some of issue 4 content was driven by.  It's a flawed approach to an overstated problem, IMO.  But there's one example.   

 

Prior to Page 2, there was literally no reason to have a Controller on the team.  A Mind Dom or Plant Dom, sure.  A Controller?  No.  Why would they when Blaster's controls were nearly as good, and they do a ton more damage?  I've also literally seen multiple Advanced Difficulty ASF leaders state that Controllers were a "carry" slot only on their respective teams because their controls were considered useless and they didn't do enough damage compared to Blasters and Dominators.

[BurtHutt]

5 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

 

That can already be provided by Dev Choice missions in AE.  You're asking for a bunch of extra work by the devs just to get a different mission door.

It would be more front end work but then it would be less after the set up was complete.

 

Interesting how you simplify the situation into another door. So, since that all it is...another door, let me ask you this: how many times have you seen mission teams do AE Dev choices runs vs. paper/radio/tip missions? Exactly. Why is that? Well, a ton of reasons and I can't answer for all so I won't go into any details. I also think AE has been stigmatized to a degree which is too bad.

 

I also feel if you were to add this content as canon, apart from regular AE, you'd get more interest. Anyway, I would prefer to see this vs. all of what was in the last Page. That's just me though.

[lemming]

On page releases forcing respecs.

 

I can see that as an issue since I hate rebuilding characters.   A better respec interface would be my ideal, but I understand why it hasn't been tackled since I hate UI design...

 

So far, the only time I've wanted to respec was with the travel power updates.  Though it did get me to rebuild a couple chars as well, so overall better.  There have been a few tactics changes such as when fast snipe range was reduced.

[Xiddo]

33 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

It would be more front end work but then it would be less after the set up was complete.

 

Interesting how you simplify the situation into another door. So, since that all it is...another door, let me ask you this: how many times have you seen mission teams do AE Dev choices runs vs. paper/radio/tip missions? Exactly. Why is that? Well, a ton of reasons and I can't answer for all so I won't go into any details. I also think AE has been stigmatized to a degree which is too bad.

 

I also feel if you were to add this content as canon, apart from regular AE, you'd get more interest. Anyway, I would prefer to see this vs. all of what was in the last Page. That's just me though.

I don't think people, on the whole, disagree with your "lets make some user-created content cannon" idea. I think it's more: it would be too much hard work, for where they are right now as a team, to make it in the way that you'd like to see. Which is a shame! I'd love for some of those arcs to be canon and in-game but, ya know... This is what we have.

On the second point about running the Dev Choice runs (I don't mean this rudely!): Do you run those teams? I can't be the only one who would come along. So often I see "why isn't XYZ run more?" when people could just do it... themselves? The first few times it might be a bit tough but it'd defo get easier to recruit as less people need it explained to them. I also think you're right that AE has a bad rep sadly, I remember doing some very fun arcs on Live and have played some great ones on HC.

[BurtHutt]

9 minutes ago, Xiddo said:

I don't think people, on the whole, disagree with your "lets make some user-created content cannon" idea. I think it's more: it would be too much hard work, for where they are right now as a team, to make it in the way that you'd like to see. Which is a shame! I'd love for some of those arcs to be canon and in-game but, ya know... This is what we have.

On the second point about running the Dev Choice runs (I don't mean this rudely!): Do you run those teams? I can't be the only one who would come along. So often I see "why isn't XYZ run more?" when people could just do it... themselves? The first few times it might be a bit tough but it'd defo get easier to recruit as less people need it explained to them. I also think you're right that AE has a bad rep sadly, I remember doing some very fun arcs on Live and have played some great ones on HC.

I made a few arcs on Live and got some friends to play them and some PUGs. They were 1 mish, hit it and quit it. Original characters and factions. I received a lot of praise and it was fun to do. 

 

Anyway, I feel the AE idea I keep pushing would be worth the front end work but who knows. I appreciate the commentary and discussion. 🙂 We have a pretty solid community here!

[Blackbird71]

1 hour ago, Astralock said:

 

IIRC, the only changes made since Page 2 that required a respec is for AFK farming.  And well, AFK farming shouldn't exist and GM Jimmy publicly stated a couple of years ago that one of Homecoming's goals is to eventually find a way to kill AFK farming without significantly impacting other activities.

 

I don't farm, period.  I don't have anything against those who do; it just doesn't interest me.  But your insinuation is off the mark.  As I said, my primary activity is playing 1-50 content (I tend to lose interest in characters once they get into incarnates).

A respec doesn't have to be "required" for changes to be significant enough that I feel an undue burden/need of relearning/adjusting to the changes in order to continue playing as I have been playing.  This is strictly my own experience I am relating here; your experience may differ.  Likewise though, your opinions on what is or isn't required does not alter or invalidate my subjective experience.

[Neiska]

2 hours ago, Astralock said:

IIRC, the only changes made since Page 2 that required a respec is for AFK farming.  And well, AFK farming shouldn't exist and GM Jimmy publicly stated a couple of years ago that one of Homecoming's goals is to eventually find a way to kill AFK farming without significantly impacting other activities.

 

What's funny though, is that for some of us our farming has actually gotten better with page 4. And yes, that includes afk farming. Now I don't have to move around so much to aggro more as they instead come to me. I won't go too much into detai, but, specific afk builds are still certainly possible. The biggest impact was the one's that were just getting by have to make changes, but the really fantastic ones are even faster now. And not just my AFK farming setups, but even my "chillmode" tanker farmers or my 3 box MM teams. Page 4 cut about 38 seconds off my map clear time. And I hear some people have below 3 minute clear times now.

 

Honestly, the only way they are going to completely nuke AFK farming, is if they get rid of the autocast option. But that will change everyone's gameplay, so it's really a question if they consider that benefit worth the change.

 

IMO, they should stop offering tools and then try to control how people are going to use those tools. Either its an open game environment, or it isn't. The moment you go "this is an open world but you can't play it X, Y, or Z way" is the moment it stops being, well, open world.

 

The biggest change though? The things that still work (or even work better now) people are being more tight-lipped on, because there are some in the community that more or less feel "they will nerf that too" which personally, I find worrisome, because we certainly don't need an "Us vs them" atmosphere any more than it already is.

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, Astralock said:

 

IIRC, the only changes made since Page 2 that required a respec is for AFK farming.  And well, AFK farming shouldn't exist and GM Jimmy publicly stated a couple of years ago that one of Homecoming's goals is to eventually find a way to kill AFK farming without significantly impacting other activities.

I can't disagree with the latter part of this comment, as I recall reading Jimmy's comment on the subject.  But, let us consider if that's actually still true. If they are indeed trying to do away with afk-farming, what do you make of America's Angel, the pvp community rep sharing afk farm builds? That's inconsistent with this statement, if it's still accurate. So, I would submit that they are not trying to do away with AFK farming, just trying to level the playing field a bit. 

I can't remember when the change to Sorcery pool took effect, but I know I've yet to respec the dozen characters that took it. That change totally screwed up a couple of characters whose build revolved around Rune of Protection being as close to perma as I could possibly get it. Respecs are annoying, and I detest them. It's almost easier to just camp the character and re-roll. Any change that requires a respec should just never happen, period. Never. 

Better to not be so quick to make changes and ensure things are done properly in the first place. As I learned in college working for UPS - "measure twice, cut once".  And sometimes, you need to measure things more than twice. 

Granted, sorcery pool was out of the bag before the HC devs came along, but there was no pressing need to change it. They just felt like it. I'm just a guest here, but if they'd asked me, I'd have told them there were better things to pay attention to. It wasn't broken, so there was no need to fix it. (at least, it wasn't broken for me) Now, purists will chime in how blasters should never have status protection because of their dps, and I would counter - what of the scrapper and it's status protection and dps? A blaster plays in melee every bit as much as a scrapper, so that argument falls short on merit. It's preposterous to say such a thing, in my opinion. Other opinions are also valid, but my point also remains. A respec should never feel necessary. It should be an option to fine-tune, or perhaps acquire a given power earlier to exemplar more easily, resolving a player's mistake. It should never be used to remedy a development change.