High level enemy group revamps

[Ruin Mage]

time for my 2cents:

The game at 46-50 needs to not be a joke. Right now, in most cases, it is. At 46-50, you should be expected to use your full suite of powers and more as you change your difficulty settings. Every group should be some variant on the word tough and not be a mow-them-down mindless exp pits. Mindless EXP pits are for the AE and that's just fine by me.

At most, Council is tedious right now and that joins up with most of the 46-50 groups depending on AT/build or skill issues.

[golstat2003]

2 hours ago, Ruin Mage said:

time for my 2cents:

The game at 46-50 needs to not be a joke. Right now, in most cases, it is. At 46-50, you should be expected to use your full suite of powers and more as you change your difficulty settings. Every group should be some variant on the word tough and not be a mow-them-down mindless exp pits. Mindless EXP pits are for the AE and that's just fine by me.

At most, Council is tedious right now and that joins up with most of the 46-50 groups depending on AT/build or skill issues.

 

Tedious is the right word . . . for solo. For teams I think it's fine as it always was. 

[MsSmart]

On 5/8/2024 at 4:50 PM, Eiko-chan said:

Where am I supposed to discuss this topic? Why the hell is the Council hard now? Who's fucking idea was this and why is it just allowed to happen!? 

Sadly there is a group of players from a particular server, that reserves the right to tell others how to play and enjoy the game, their continuous complaining and demanding the game is to only be played in their way and no other way, because you see they know everything and the rest of us are just stupid.

 

So because of those, really sweet people, who thinks way too much of themselves, they have devastated AE, and PI missions with the objective that you MUST play the game as THEY see fit, what you think and want is totally irrelevant to these people

 

Sue

[Laucianna]

15 hours ago, MsSmart said:

Sadly there is a group of players from a particular server, that reserves the right to tell others how to play and enjoy the game, their continuous complaining and demanding the game is to only be played in their way and no other way, because you see they know everything and the rest of us are just stupid.

 

So because of those, really sweet people, who thinks way too much of themselves, they have devastated AE, and PI missions with the objective that you MUST play the game as THEY see fit, what you think and want is totally irrelevant to these people

 

Sue

Please assume good faith as per the rules hun, this feature was implemented by the homecoming team as a way to turn two of the most boring and easy enemy groups into something a bit more fun 🙂 Most people enjoy at least a minimum amount of challenge in their games which the previous Council or CoT didn't provide, however if you do wish to steamroll content to fulfil your idea of a superhero MMO, there is quite a simple fix implemented into the game, lowering the difficulty down. The game has a great way to change the difficulty that makes it super easy to tailor the difficulty of the game to your desire, something very rare in an MMO ❤️

[johua]

I don't think the Council needed a buff tbh. But also I don't think I'd mind it as much if not for the Freem thing, which I find incredibly annoying and unfun, and the tedium of having to fight the bosses 2-3 times, because I could swear I've had bosses resurrect and then when I get them low again they turn into warwolves, and I'm just like... who thought that this would be fun?

I also assume that the resurrected mobs don't give any rewards, but I honestly zone out pretty hard when I have to deal with a mob just refusing to stay down. But if the Freakshow bosses don't give XP after they resurrect, I figure it's probably the same for the council, which just adds to the tedium.

[Eiko-chan]

7 minutes ago, johua said:

I also assume that the resurrected mobs don't give any rewards, but I honestly zone out pretty hard when I have to deal with a mob just refusing to stay down. But if the Freakshow bosses don't give XP after they resurrect, I figure it's probably the same for the council, which just adds to the tedium.

Resurrected mobs give full XP rewards. Freakshow that resurrect grant full XP for the second defeat, and so do the nuCouncil. 

[johua]

15 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

Resurrected mobs give full XP rewards. Freakshow that resurrect grant full XP for the second defeat, and so do the nuCouncil. 

Huh. I thought the Freakshow resurrects got nerfed because people were using them for farms.

[Eiko-chan]

6 minutes ago, johua said:

Huh. I thought the Freakshow resurrects got nerfed because people were using them for farms.

They come back randomly and at full health. I'm not sure how that's exactly "farmable". 🙂

[KaizenSoze]

29 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

They come back randomly and at full health. I'm not sure how that's exactly "farmable". 🙂

It's 20% rez chance for all Freakshow, except Super Stunners which rez 100% if someone is within 25'.

[PeregrineFalcon]

This is exactly why all of you should read the beta patch notes, test on the beta server, and post in the Feedback threads.

 

The developers have actually changed things in response to feedback in their feedback threads. What they generally don't do is change things in response to complaints after its gone live. So basically you all missed your window to keep this from going live simply because you weren't interested in beta testing or giving feedback.

 

Want to keep more changes that you'll dislike from going live? Give feedback in the feedback threads when a new patch is on the test server.

[lemming]

1 hour ago, johua said:

Huh. I thought the Freakshow resurrects got nerfed because people were using them for farms.

Nah, it is why they don't give as much XP though.

 

There is that one Unai mission that gives double credit towards the badge for Tanks, but that's a different beast anyway.

[lemming]

12 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Want to keep more changes that you'll dislike from going live? Give feedback in the feedback threads when a new patch is on the test server.

And, the feedback seems to go better if you have a reasoned response more than "THIS SUCKS"

 

They definitely do listen to us, but remember, they're people.

[Eiko-chan]

53 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

What they generally don't do is change things in response to complaints after its gone live.

If this is true, this is a bad stance to have. The beta is not the live servers. Expecting your player base to expend a lot of time and effort - and levelling - on beta testing is aspirational but grossly unrealistic. 

 

But I don't believe this is actually the case. 

[Eiko-chan]

40 minutes ago, lemming said:

And, the feedback seems to go better if you have a reasoned response more than "THIS SUCKS"

 

They definitely do listen to us, but remember, they're people.

My suggestion and feedback post was quite reasoned. My general post asking where I was supposed to post about it was not. But then some GM came and pasted them together sloppily and now it's a big mess.

[Glacier Peak]

11 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

If this is true, this is a bad stance to have. The beta is not the live servers. Expecting your player base to expend a lot of time and effort - and levelling - on beta testing is aspirational but grossly unrealistic. 

 

But I don't believe this is actually the case. 

It's not unrealistic at all - it's worked this way for five years now. If players care enough about something, they'll do it. If a player gets on to the beta server, they can instantly level any character to 50, get all Incarnates, badges, accolades, and IOs, anything they need for testing is free and easy accessible. 

[lemming]

They have modified stuff when it's done live.   And my post about "This sucks", was just a general rule, not directed especially at you.

[Eiko-chan]

Just now, Glacier Peak said:

It's not unrealistic at all - it's worked this way for five years now. If players care enough about something, they'll do it. If a player gets on to the beta server, they can instantly level any character to 50, get all Incarnates, badges, accolades, and IOs, anything they need for testing is free and easy accessible. 

That is precisely why it's not a realistic expectation. People are going to hop into beta testing at level 50 with Incarnate abilities. They are not going to be testing the levelling experience, which means there will be a lot of issues that get missed until it goes live.

[Glacier Peak]

1 minute ago, Eiko-chan said:

That is precisely why it's not a realistic expectation. People are going to hop into beta testing at level 50 with Incarnate abilities. They are not going to be testing the levelling experience, which means there will be a lot of issues that get missed until it goes live.

That's not true at all. Your speculation is evident - when players get on to test something, it goes through all kinds of testing methods. Some players just complain about patch notes without even logging in, some players go above and beyond and find actual bugs or issues. It's not just level 50 Incarnates like you assume.

[lemming]

1 minute ago, Glacier Peak said:

It's not unrealistic at all - it's worked this way for five years now. If players care enough about something, they'll do it. If a player gets on to the beta server, they can instantly level any character to 50, get all Incarnates, badges, accolades, and IOs, anything they need for testing is free and easy accessible. 

And you can even generate a menu that will get you all the enhancements for a build from Mids.

 

It's a good platform for testing builds and doing ad hoc tests of upcoming changes.   Though the testing in Alpha is usually more malleable and tends to be a longer process.   The change you're against was in there for quite a few months there and did get feedback, some of which was used.    Not sure how many MMs got tested on it though.  

[lemming]

9 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

That is precisely why it's not a realistic expectation. People are going to hop into beta testing at level 50 with Incarnate abilities. They are not going to be testing the levelling experience, which means there will be a lot of issues that get missed until it goes live.

And you're wrong.   Are things missed? Yes, because that's just the nature of software QA, and it's not like we even have testing plans at our level, but there are thousands of interacting parts that may or may not be evident.    (See Rikti portals in the war zone arc as an unintended side effect that got missed originally)

[PeregrineFalcon]

22 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

That is precisely why it's not a realistic expectation.

Well, this is the way that the Homecoming developers do it, it's the way the devs did it on the retail servers, and it's the way most other game companies do it. So, realistic expectation or not, you can either go with it or you can bang your head ineffectually against a brick wall forever. It's completely your call.

 

I'm not saying that I'm ok with it, I'm just the messenger.

[Excraft]

On 5/11/2024 at 11:50 PM, Ukase said:

Like yourself, I'm no expert either. But, let us suppose for the sake of argument you are correct and there is no obligation to appease the players. How do you think that plays out over time?

 

HC is not a commercial enterprise and it never will be.  What difference would it make to the HC crew if HC lost a lot of players?  This is a passion project run by a group of volunteers in their spare time.  If they wanted to, they could block access to anyone and everyone except family and friends if they wanted to and go back to being an underground invite-only server.  HC can continue to do what they're doing now with or without the rest of us here.  They're under no obligation to any of us players nor are they beholden to any of us.  Other servers are chugging away just fine with a limited player base as well.  Losing players would be much more of a concern if this were a for-profit venture. 

[Luminara]

19 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

That is precisely why it's not a realistic expectation. People are going to hop into beta testing at level 50 with Incarnate abilities. They are not going to be testing the levelling experience, which means there will be a lot of issues that get missed until it goes live.

 

The people who engage in betas here test things at different levels and with multiple characters.  I know that because I've been in the beta program since the TA revamp went to the beta server.  You don't know that because you've made an assumption based on your own methodology and lack of interest.

 

[Eiko-chan]

3 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

it's the way the devs did it on the retail servers

No it is not. The retail devs routinely made changes to things after things went live. It's absolutely ignorant to claim that most game developers do not change things that went live from a beta. 

 

2 minutes ago, Excraft said:

HC is not a commercial enterprise and it never will be. 

HC is a registered LLC that pays its operating costs from player donations. While it is not currently operating on a profit factor, there is nothing preventing them from doing so save possibly the license agreement with NCSoft. Without a playerbase, they would not be able to secure those donations to keep the servers operating.

[Ghost]

1 minute ago, Eiko-chan said:

No it is not. The retail devs routinely made changes to things after things went live. It's absolutely ignorant to claim that most game developers do not change things that went live from a beta. 

 

HC is a registered LLC that pays its operating costs from player donations. While it is not currently operating on a profit factor, there is nothing preventing them from doing so save possibly the license agreement with NCSoft. Without a playerbase, they would not be able to secure those donations to keep the servers operating.

Without all the players, they wouldn’t need the servers.

 

Just sayin