Sins of the Devs are visited upon the players

[Seed22]

5 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

People's happiness is irrelevant to numerical balance. In other words... fuck 'em.

Well this sounds like a line that should be uttered in a cringe anime. Hell it may even come from one 

Edited September 1, 2022 by Seed22

[Troo]

7 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

People's happiness is irrelevant to numerical balance. In other words... fuck 'em.

6 hours ago, battlewraith said:

You've said this before and I can never really tell if you're actually serious. 

This is a video game. It's entertainment. The objective is to make people happy, not to pursue some OCD fixation with numerical balance. Balancing these ATs numerically is akin to the generic dumbing down of the entire system. They should be evaluated in terms of usefulness and function, not balancing raw numbers.

 

Numbers and spreadsheets are a guide that merely points in a direction. Decisions take us in a direction.

Data may illuminate and can inform but can not lead.

Leadership is whole separate thing.

 

[srmalloy]

4 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

Incorrect coloration on the bouys.

In the entire live run of CoH, I was the only one to complain to Positron about that. I still cringe inside every time I take a character into a port zone and see "safe water" buoys parked ten feet away from a dock. At the first NCsoft exhibit at the San Diego Comic-Con, I even gave him a printout of the IALA Maritime Buoyage Standard so that he could see what the correct buoys should look like. But when I approached him years after that and mentioned the buoys, he said that 'that made two people who had commented about it, so maybe they needed to take a look at it' -- implying that they'd just ignored it after I complained about it the first time.

[Power Extreme]

On 8/30/2022 at 1:16 PM, Neiska said:

This is just me musing here but, what if the different servers actually had different rules, that way people who favored whatever activity could go to what they enjoyed?

 

Make one server hardcore, with regards to incarnates and things. Incarnate mats only from X or Y activities

Make another one where farming is allowed and permitted.

another server can be the circus. Full on pvp, zero control measures. Let chaos reign baby!

Another server gets Ragnarock'd. Armageddon'd. Relevation'd. The End times. Everyone starts over from zip, with its own independent isolated economy and such. 

etc.

 

These are just examples off the top of my head. But it did occur to me that we DO have more than 1 server here. But I don't possess the technical knowledge to know for sure how hard it would be for them to have different server playstyles/rulesets for different servers. 

 

I mean, isn't that sort of an everyone wins scenario? I know this would likely take a LOT of work to pull off, but lets say that it did. Would this be an "everyone has their place" situation?

This would be the best Idea Yet to date I am a Farmer, It's what i love to do. I stay to my self play the content i like an Help Others who want to get some lvls or to lvl 50, I am not hurting a soul. But to hear the devs say it, farming is hurting the game, So let's nerf AE to try an force the farmers out of AE,Like Neiska said we have other servers. Use the under populated servers for other things, have a Farming server with AE an old school maps., No argo cap. an just let us farmers be an the ones that want to join us hang out, 

 

For the Hardcore players use Another server where they can run their content on Beast mode an just go nuts with it, Run it like you own it i say, everyone has their own play style, Some like Farming some like to solo. some love to run tf's, So stop trying to force everyone into doing things they don't like or have TIME to do. Some have Families and JOBS, they don't have time to run through content to get lvls they just want to log in let levels an chat with family an friends, 

 

I would love to have a Server, where the team make up was like on live. everyone had a role an position on a team tanks were tanks, an scrappers where scrappers, Controllers and Defenders were Needed and wanted, Now you are lucky to see a Defender at all on a team when everyone can tank and not depend on a healer at all. Makes those Chars meaningful  again, Bring back a server were every AT had a role to play on a team make up. 

 

An again to the Farming, If i want to Farm leave me alone and don't Nerf me just because you don't agree with how me and others like to play the 

game, Came here and was told to play the game how i like an have fun.  Now it's you can't do that now because you are vet lvl 775, play how i want you to play or we will force you out, I have 9 Accounts I have farm with my 50's Multiboxing at times to Feed my at's an to Io them out, I run some missions with only my alts because there are times i just want me time, I am almost 60 and there are times i group with others and have fun, But there are times I just want to shut everyone out an just farm an listen to my Music or wake a movie while i farm, When City Of Titans comes out or Ship of Heroes. ( a backer for both ) I will more than likely leave any ways, But until then Don't nerf the one thing i like to do just because you don't like it, 

[The_Warpact]

Um...nobody nerfed AE, there was a bug from page 3 that was causing xp to be tripled, so it was fixed to represent the correct xp namely double.

The rest ie the mob aggro was an added feature to fix mob AI which to me is superior than have the morons not 20 feet away watching their buddies get their ass kicked and not doing anything. 

If the devs wanted to nerf farming it would be a really simple thing, as it stands they left vet levels in AE after the outcry ssssoooo no nerfing there. 

 

Besides America Angel who works for the HC team has written a guide and been very vocal in how to farm now, so if the devs wanted to nerf AE I seriously don't think part of the team would be so pro AE farming,  seriously I think some of you spent too much time playing with foam footballs.

 

 

Edited September 1, 2022 by The_Warpact
Forgot something

[MoonSheep]

3 hours ago, Power Extreme said:

I would love to have a Server, where the team make up was like on live. everyone had a role an position on a team tanks were tanks, an scrappers where scrappers, Controllers and Defenders were Needed and wanted, Now you are lucky to see a Defender at all on a team when everyone can tank and not depend on a healer at all. Makes those Chars meaningful  again, Bring back a server were every AT had a role to play on a team make up. 

 

i also enjoy the holy trinity - i think IOs killed that off quite significantly, with the  rock bottom IO prices on HC adding further weight to the trinity’s demise

 

hard mode content is starting to bring that back, i can see hard mode empath’s being a valuable addition along with resistance based support characters

[tidge]

9 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

Most of the sins I feel are story ones and nitpicking world details

1. Statesman and Sister Psyche's death being done largely to spite Jack Emmert (Also declaring Positron the new leader of the FP felt like self-wank and still doesn't feel as interesting when you rescue him or ask him about incarnates)
2. A lack of care with continuity because Matt Miller didn't want to impose on new writers

 

These sorts of Lore/Continuity are always what bother me most... I don't enjoy the game for the NPC narrative, no matter how much effort devs put into it. I realize that it is easier to tell a story with a beginning/middle/end, but a new level 1 that finds themselves dealing with the "end" of some arc they haven't played... just feels wrong to me. This is essentially what always turned me off from Incarnate/end-game Praetoria/Dark Astoria content. I will single out the cycle of First Ward for telling a developing story that basically resets things for your next character. There are a also significant number of red-side contact arcs that let players learn a LOT about the world (and despite what many players say, offer the feeling of some agency to the players)  but essentially leave it unchanged for the next batch of PCs.

 

[Frostbiter]

2 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

Um...nobody nerfed AE, there was a bug from page 3 that was causing xp to be tripled, so it was fixed to represent the correct xp namely double.

The rest ie the mob aggro was an added feature to fix mob AI which to me is superior than have the morons not 20 feet away watching their buddies get their ass kicked and not doing anything. 

If the devs wanted to nerf farming it would be a really simple thing, as it stands they left vet levels in AE after the outcry ssssoooo no nerfing there. 

 

Besides America Angel who works for the HC team has written a guide and been very vocal in how to farm now, so if the devs wanted to nerf AE I seriously don't think part of the team would be so pro AE farming,  seriously I think some of you spent too much time playing with foam footballs.

 

 

 

What do you have against foam footballs? The Foam Football Appreciation League shall hear of this!

[Luminara]

16 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Pants are for the weak.

[Black Zot]

2 hours ago, Frostbiter said:

 

What do you have against foam footballs? The Foam Football Appreciation League shall hear of this!

 

What is that, an organized competition to see who loves foam footballs the most?

[Frostbiter]

8 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

 

What is that, an organized competition to see who loves foam footballs the most?

 

No, just the halftime show at the Annual Nerf Convention.

[Xiddo]

1 minute ago, Luminara said:

100k inf if you can make a "Naked from the waist down Webbed-Wonder"

[arcane]

4 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

Besides America Angel who works for the HC team has written a guide and been very vocal in how to farm now, so if the devs wanted to nerf AE I seriously don't think part of the team would be so pro AE farming,  seriously I think some of you spent too much time playing with foam footballs.

Big time thanks to @America's Angel for being kind enough to share new builds / strategies. Not sure I would’ve figured out the new farming meta with zero hiccups without their posts.

[Ukase]

8 hours ago, Power Extreme said:

This would be the best Idea Yet to date I am a Farmer, It's what i love to do. I stay to my self play the content i like an Help Others who want to get some lvls or to lvl 50, I am not hurting a soul. But to hear the devs say it, farming is hurting the game, So let's nerf AE to try an force the farmers out of AE,Like Neiska said we have other servers. Use the under populated servers for other things, have a Farming server with AE an old school maps., No argo cap. an just let us farmers be an the ones that want to join us hang out, 

 

For the Hardcore players use Another server where they can run their content on Beast mode an just go nuts with it, Run it like you own it i say, everyone has their own play style, Some like Farming some like to solo. some love to run tf's, So stop trying to force everyone into doing things they don't like or have TIME to do. Some have Families and JOBS, they don't have time to run through content to get lvls they just want to log in let levels an chat with family an friends, 

 

I would love to have a Server, where the team make up was like on live. everyone had a role an position on a team tanks were tanks, an scrappers where scrappers, Controllers and Defenders were Needed and wanted, Now you are lucky to see a Defender at all on a team when everyone can tank and not depend on a healer at all. Makes those Chars meaningful  again, Bring back a server were every AT had a role to play on a team make up. 

 

An again to the Farming, If i want to Farm leave me alone and don't Nerf me just because you don't agree with how me and others like to play the 

game, Came here and was told to play the game how i like an have fun.  Now it's you can't do that now because you are vet lvl 775, play how i want you to play or we will force you out, I have 9 Accounts I have farm with my 50's Multiboxing at times to Feed my at's an to Io them out, I run some missions with only my alts because there are times i just want me time, I am almost 60 and there are times i group with others and have fun, But there are times I just want to shut everyone out an just farm an listen to my Music or wake a movie while i farm, When City Of Titans comes out or Ship of Heroes. ( a backer for both ) I will more than likely leave any ways, But until then Don't nerf the one thing i like to do just because you don't like it, 

 

That'd be interesting, for sure. 
9 accounts? What are you doing with your drops? I tried going with a 5th account, but damn -- that was tedious as hell, crafting, converting a dozen drops on each alt after each run. I didn't have any time to play the game with all that going on, and I'd like to think I'm pretty efficient with that process. Too much of a good thing, lol. 

I tried waiting until the trays were full; I tried not crafting at all until I almost ran out of recipe room. It all got to be very much. 4 alts is about as much as I could handle. I tried to just let the 5th go and do no crafting or converting, and just vendor everything but purples and rare salvage...but...all that influence gone to waste by being lazy, I could never do it, because I know what the drops are worth. 

And because I am a nitpicker sometimes - you weren't nerfed. The mobs were just given a more realistic code. They see you, they attack you. Just at range, instead of melee. It does make things more challenging, no question. But, it's not something you can't adapt to and proceed as before. You just have to pay attention to the xp per kill. 

 

And don't feel like you have to do a map that has 100% xp adjustment for page 4. So what if you make less inf. You're still scaled for 9 accounts. That's more than enough loot to handle whatever you need for the next 1000 alts, for sure. (depending on how long you've been doing it) 

[Ukase]

5 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

Um...nobody nerfed AE, there was a bug from page 3 that was causing xp to be tripled, so it was fixed to represent the correct xp namely double.

The rest ie the mob aggro was an added feature to fix mob AI which to me is superior than have the morons not 20 feet away watching their buddies get their ass kicked and not doing anything. 

If the devs wanted to nerf farming it would be a really simple thing, as it stands they left vet levels in AE after the outcry ssssoooo no nerfing there. 

 

Besides America Angel who works for the HC team has written a guide and been very vocal in how to farm now, so if the devs wanted to nerf AE I seriously don't think part of the team would be so pro AE farming,  seriously I think some of you spent too much time playing with foam footballs.

 

 

Wait...what? 
America's Angel works for the HC Team? Must have missed that. 

So, I guess I need to re-read some patch notes. Darn. I'd really rather not. It sounds then, that these changes to aggro were more for the Hard Mode TFs, and the end result is the farmers have to make some adjustments to do what they were doing before. 

Do I have that right? Probably not entirely. Still, it tells me that they could have just put in the Sister Valeria arc and the two arcs that give badges. They needn't have bothered with these silly prismatics or the HM stuff, until they figured out how to change things in that content, and leave the rest of it alone. 

It made sense if they were trying to reduce afk farming. But if they are going to make these changes and then show how to mitigate the changes, then why make the changes at all? 

Damn, I gotta read now. It'll have to wait. Dr. Gupta has confirmed that we should all be exercising 75 vigorous minutes a week, at a minimum. So, maybe I can squeeze in a 1/2 marathon in 80 minutes. 

Completely logged out. No farms running. I did, however, earn 205 reward merits on my 3 primary accounts for the next alts that are coming up the ranks. So, I am very grateful for that. Nobody wants a grumpy Ukase in their iTrials. 

[Luminara]

27 minutes ago, Xiddo said:

100k inf

 

100,000?  Five zeroes?  What is this, a job offer from McDonalds?

 

Guards.  GUARDS!  Remove this peasant.

 

[Power Extreme]

29 minutes ago, Ukase said:

That'd be interesting, for sure. 
9 accounts? What are you doing with your drops? I tried going with a 5th account, but damn -- that was tedious as hell, crafting, converting a dozen drops on each alt after each run. I didn't have any time to play the game with all that going on, and I'd like to think I'm pretty efficient with that process. Too much of a good thing, lol. 

Lol not much at all really, I just run 2 with earn xp off, to get extra funds, 1 with nothing but white recipe drops. one with yellow an 2 with nothing but purple drops. an others to hold my crafted recipes yellow on 1 an purples on the other, an I can run my own team for missions But mainly farming, When they are full of crafted recipes or items i sell on AH, an then use the funds to io out my other 1000 or so alts,Only Char build i haven't gotten so far is a Sent, But that's because sents suck, trying to make a char of every power combo in game, Plus a Solo a lot of the time, Just me Myself And I, lol. I am almost 60 yo an don't have time or Nerve to put up with young kids or stupid people. When I farm others I just ignore chat an listen to my music or watch a movie.

[Xiddo]

14 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

100,000?  Five zeroes?  What is this, a job offer from McDonalds?

 

Guards.  GUARDS!  Remove this peasant.

 

The market is very turbulent right now. I'm in the UK where inflation is very high and there's a cost of living crisis.
Just paying what I think you're worth. Now if you were First Player? Sky's the limit 😉 

[Sakura Tenshi]

Oh, another thing I'm annoyed about with the live dev choices: I'm not happy with the Skulls revamp. It hypes them up, makes them feel way too powerful with giving assault rifles to the basic minions and all that and breaks the parity with the Hellions (also don't like Girlfriend from Hell. Not because I'm against female members in the Hellions just the idea of them casually summoning legit demons). I mean it's all personal opinion, but I would have rather updated both Hellions and Skulls visually (also made sure they could keep the emblems on the back of their jackets) and powerset wise together and it would have probably looked a bit like:

• New underling tier that basically fight like Thugs gang war dudes. These are basically random guys from the street out to prove themselves and rely on brawl and throw rock
• Minions largely stay the same, slammers, sluggers, brawlers, slicers, hackers, etc. Sometimes they'll use hand crossbows instead of pistols. General idea is just to depict these low-tier street level gang thugs as using stuff they were able to grab from home or order from a BudK catalogue.
• Lieutenants now include Gunslinger (DP, uses thugs MM animations rather than set DP) and 'Sniper' that uses a bolt action rifle (again, weapons grabbed from home. I figure the 'gunslingers' would be defined by having two ST attacks, the sniper wouldn't be a true sniper enemy, but would have increased range and higher accuracy than normal. Otherwise their attack would basically be single shot from SoA)
• Damned and Bone Daddies/Mommas stay the bosses with a new boss that appears in both groups: The Darkfires. Basically wielding both dark and fire powers and represent high level members of one gang who then jumped ship to the other.

[Number Six]

44 minutes ago, Ukase said:

It sounds then, that these changes to aggro were more for the Hard Mode TFs, and the end result is the farmers have to make some adjustments to do what they were doing before. 

 

It really is what it said on the tin: The aggro changes were part of general and ongoing AI improvements to make the game feel more dynamic and fix the longstanding issue of enemy NPCs standing around and completely ignoring a fight happening right in front of them (something which in turn was broken by the addition of the aggro cap in Issue 6). That's it.

 

Yes, it impacted AFK farmers, making it harder to run at max difficulty. Yes, it positively impacted active farmers (and certain exceptionally well-built AFK setups), making them potentially more efficient than ever. Yes, it raised the difficulty ceiling for soloing and made soloing at +4x8 harder -- but did not significantly affect x0 settings, so players can still step down the difficulty if desired. Yes, it made venturing out alone away from a team and stealthing missions more dangerous. Yes, it made it a bit harder, but definitely not impossible, to cheese the AI and survive in situations well beyond what would be possible based on pure numbers.

 

All of those collateral effects were considered during both development and beta stages and found to either not be significant enough to be a barrier, or in some cases a net positive. None of them were the motivating factor. Sorry to disappoint anyone who wants to feel specifically targeted by it.

[BurtHutt]

8 minutes ago, Number Six said:

 

It really is what it said on the tin: The aggro changes were part of general and ongoing AI improvements to make the game feel more dynamic and fix the longstanding issue of enemy NPCs standing around and completely ignoring a fight happening right in front of them (something which in turn was broken by the addition of the aggro cap in Issue 6). That's it.

 

Yes, it impacted AFK farmers, making it harder to run at max difficulty. Yes, it positively impacted active farmers (and certain exceptionally well-built AFK setups), making them potentially more efficient than ever. Yes, it raised the difficulty ceiling for soloing and made soloing at +4x8 harder -- but did not significantly affect x0 settings, so players can still step down the difficulty if desired. Yes, it made venturing out alone away from a team and stealthing missions more dangerous. Yes, it made it a bit harder, but definitely not impossible, to cheese the AI and survive in situations well beyond what would be possible based on pure numbers.

 

All of those collateral effects were considered during both development and beta stages and found to either not be significant enough to be a barrier, or in some cases a net positive. None of them were the motivating factor. Sorry to disappoint anyone who wants to feel specifically targeted by it.

I think making a more responsive/realistic AI is a good call. I always found it odd that enemies who were once aggro.ed kinda just stop going at you or wander around or hang out. I have no issues with this.

 

So, Six, would it be possible to have an address from the Dev team that will let us know the direction they want to take or a rough idea of the near future? It seems like the HC team spends a lot of time improving QoL and going over previous systems and powers etc. Maybe implementing some changes to existing game play. I guess I'm wondering what is the priority for the team. Personally, I would like to see just new stuff added. I think the QoL is good. The balancing will always be an issue so let it be. Or maybe these things don't take much time so they're done?

 

Honestly, my preference would be adding a new TF, arc, iTrial, powers, ATs, costume pieces and that sort of thing (and of course implementing my AE idea 🙂 ). Hopefully some clarification can be provided here. I don't need specific details but just an idea of what the Devs are thinking of adding to CoX. 

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

America's Angel works for the HC Team? Must have missed that. 

 

54 minutes ago, Number Six said:

Sorry to disappoint anyone who wants to feel specifically targeted by it.

But Six, why do you work so hard to disappoint me?

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, Power Extreme said:

Lol not much at all really, I just run 2 with earn xp off, to get extra funds, 

Sir...please don't do that. You can test what I say - when you turn xp off, you do NOT get extra funds. They changed that...like 2 years ago. 

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Number Six said:

It really is what it said on the tin

I just finished my row and was about to re-read "the tin". 

But thanks for saving me the time. It's one of the reasons why I really wish you guys would aim for much smaller patches, because "patch notes" are a misnomer with you guys. What you mean is "Patch Tome". 

They are huge. I can barely remember how much protein I'm supposed to eat in a day. I surely can't remember what's on page 3 of a zillion page set of patch notes. 
 

See? I'm never happy, am I? And, candidly, I'm only slightly teasing about the length of the patch notes. I remain grateful to be able to play and thank you for your efforts on our behalf. 
 

[Ukase]

42 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

Flea - you do realize that's in a pvp thread, right? Guess who doesn't pvp since they put in travel suppression? This guy. I'd never see anything in there.