Review of i28 P2 on Massively

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

It's one TF, but you can see how widespread the 'rush the goals' attitude is if you suggest that the team take the time to clear the doors in the detention area if one appears on a Council base map during a Citadel TF. In all of my time on Homecoming, I have not once had the team agree that it was worth the time to take out the doors for progress on the Doorbuster badge, with a 'genteel' rejection being "You can get those on your own, don't hold up the TF".

Just because you don't clear out every room or mob does not mean you are "speeding" the TF.  Respecting people's time is not rushing.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

I think their perspective on the game's meta is derived from seeing people call for "speed" TFs or farms, not realizing that those don't comprise the majority of players, (only a small loud subsection)...

 

I'm not convinced of that.  If it is something people have done a lot of times, they tend to run it quickly, jump ahead to hot spots, etc.  There really isn't a lot of "oh gee, look at that!".

 

I have to agree that the meta is speed regardless.  

[Psyonico]

3 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

I have not once had the team agree that it was worth the time to take out the doors for progress on the Doorbuster badge

Doors don’t give any reward other than progress to a badge that doesn’t give any reward.  Since most people aren’t badgers, and citadel is already a bit of a slog, I can understand that.

[Wavicle]

Just now, Yomo Kimyata said:

the meta is speed

This is true of every mmo. Not unique to CoH in the slightest.

[Lunar Ronin]

19 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

This is true of every mmo. Not unique to CoH in the slightest.

 

One of the points of the article is that wasn't always the case with City of Heroes.  While there were always speed runners back on live, it was nowhere near as prevalent and expected as it currently is on Homecoming, and the game has changed substantially as a result, and perhaps lost something special in the process of becoming "every MMO."

Edited yesterday at 02:00 AM by Lunar Ronin

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

One of the points of the article is that wasn't always the case with City of Heroes.  While there were always speed runners back on live, it was nowhere near as prevalent and expected as it currently is on Homecoming, and the game has changed substantially as a result.

That’s ALSO not unique to CoH. Game design has changed in 20 years.

[Lunar Ronin]

2 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

That’s ALSO not unique to CoH. Game design has changed in 20 years.

 

Yes, and there are people who strongly dislike that game design change, and prefer the way City of Heroes used to be played.

[Uncle Shags]

The author's premise seems to be that the patch doesn't mesh with the speed meta.  That conclusion seems to be based on one change: seeds of confusion. They missed the bigger change to control (adaptive recharge) which speeds up control quite a lot, so I hear. 

[Wavicle]

3 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

Yes, and there are people who strongly dislike that game design change, and prefer the way City of Heroes used to be played.

I totally get that, and sometimes feel that way, although it’s not generally a problem for me because I mostly solo and team with RL friends.

 

I do think the fact that a lot of us are getting old, have jobs and families and such, so we don’t have a lot of extra time, is of relevance.

Edited yesterday at 02:07 AM by Wavicle

[Lunar Ronin]

27 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

SOME people like speed.

 

it always pisses me off when I join a TF that is not advertised as a speed run and some random member of the team decides to rush to the end of every mission while the rest of the team is still fighting the first group.

 

Advertise any level 45+ TF or SF in the LFG channel explicitly as "kill most," and odds are good that some jerk will join and then intentionally try to speed the TF or SF up "because while you may have time to waste, I don't."  When you notice him or her speeding off, that's when you teleport him or her back to the group.  If he or she doesn't accept the TP, /kick.  If he or she speeds off again, /kick.

[Clave Dark 5]

2 hours ago, biostem said:

I think their perspective on the game's meta is derived from seeing people call for "speed" TFs or farms, not realizing that those don't comprise the majority of players, (only a small loud subsection)...

So you'll tell us where the author's ideas come from based on what and then assure us that's only a small loud subsection?

 

Meanwhile, our famously friendly community is insulting the author in the fifth post of this thread.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

So you'll tell us where the author's ideas come from based on what and then assure us that's only a small loud subsection?

 

Meanwhile, our famously friendly community is insulting the author in the fifth post of this thread.

I'm not here to give a book report.  The "I think" part is all you need to know.

 

One, or even a dozen, of posters still does not equate to the entire community...

[Yomo Kimyata]

When the article mentions:

 

"a complete failure to understand or establish whom the game is being balanced for, much less why" it is pretty telling that they don't quite know what is going on.

 

There is no revenue stream.  There is no need to enhance shareholder value, to gain eyeballs, to enhance retention other than if the current devs happen to want to keep people around.

 

The author seems miffed that the devs are doing whatever the hell they want because it is not what the author wants.  There IS no need for balance -- devs can, in fact, make this into City of Tankers if they want to.  

 

I feel that I have sufficiently slandered the devs and the author of the article, so my work is done here.

[Captain Fabulous]

8 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

So you'll tell us where the author's ideas come from based on what and then assure us that's only a small loud subsection?

 

Meanwhile, our famously friendly community is insulting the author in the fifth post of this thread.

Oh, that's me. His opinion and "article" are trash. Period. If that makes me an asshole I'll own it. If he doesn't want his opinion criticized then maybe he shouldn't have written an uninformed, nonsensical, and grossly biased hit piece.

If my being critical of his "article" is a personal insult, then his being critical of this patch is also a personal insult to the developers and closed beta testers who worked on it, of which I am one.

 

26 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

One of the points of the article is that wasn't always the case with City of Heroes.  While there were always speed runners back on live, it was nowhere near as prevalent and expected as it currently is on Homecoming, and the game has changed substantially as a result, and perhaps lost something special in the process of becoming "every MMO."

But this was less a design choice and more a economics one. In a for-profit MMO there is every incentive to slow progress in order to keep people coming back and hopefully paying money. When there is no profit there is no need to artificially hinder progression. In fact there is every incentive to make progression easier, which is why it's been the trend over the past decade. Despite the game being 21 years old it still needs to be reflective of modern gaming if you want to retain your playerbase.

And no one is forced to speed run anything. It's not necessary or required to play and enjoy the game. If you loathe speedruns start your own team, make your intentions clear, and progress at whatever pace you desire.

[Seed22]

8 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

When the article mentions:

 

"a complete failure to understand or establish whom the game is being balanced for, much less why" it is pretty telling that they don't quite know what is going on.

 

There is no revenue stream.  There is no need to enhance shareholder value, to gain eyeballs, to enhance retention other than if the current devs happen to want to keep people around.

 

The author seems miffed that the devs are doing whatever the hell they want because it is not what the author wants.  There IS no need for balance -- devs can, in fact, make this into City of Tankers if they want to.  

 

I feel that I have sufficiently slandered the devs and the author of the article, so my work is done here.

The author is 1000% on the money with their statement. They DONT seem to have a direction and I'm in CB and talk with the devs. Their balancing is based on interest in a group of sets or the theme of the page(Melee, ranged) but I don't think they have an idea at all of what they want the game to REALLY be at the end.

 

 

It takes having eyes and a curious mind to see this, but not a rocket science degree, meaning, you dont have to be super in the know to observe this. They make a LOT of asinine seemingly in a vacuum development choices that out of pure coincidence and no foresight, get "built upon" 5 years later when yet ANOTHER seemingly pseudo  nebulous change gets made.  Or more than likely just exist in a vacuum never to really be expanded upon.

 

It seems like a budding author but with balance; you have a vague outline of an idea but its not quite formed, and it takes multiple years to get the throughline out.

Edited yesterday at 02:40 AM by Seed22

[Lunar Ronin]

3 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

But this was less a design choice and more a economics one. In a for-profit MMO there is every incentive to slow progress in order to keep people coming back and hopefully paying money. When there is no profit there is no need to artificially hinder progression. In fact there is every incentive to make progression easier, which is why it's been the trend over the past decade. Despite the game being 21 years old it still needs to be reflective of modern gaming if you want to retain your playerbase.

And no one is forced to speed run anything. It's not necessary or required to play and enjoy the game. If you loathe speedruns start your own team, make your intentions clear, and progress at whatever pace you desire.

 

Design, economics, Klingon invasion.  It doesn't matter why, it just matters that the speed of gameplay has changed significantly between live and Homecoming.  Also, some people have left Homecoming because they dislike City of Heroes reflecting modern gaming.  Including myself, I left for over a year because of it.  So, sure, you retain some, but you also lose others.

 

And yeah, you kind of are forced to speed run.  As I mentioned above, if you form a kill most level 45+ TF/SF via the LFG channel and make it explicitly clear that it's a kill most, odds are good that some Joe Schmoe will intentionally try to speed run it on everyone anyway because he or she values his or her time more than yours, and speed running has become the default assumption and expectation.

[Yomo Kimyata]

4 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

The author is 1000% on the money with their statement. They DONT seem to have a direction and I'm in CB and talk with the devs.

 

Oh no, I agree with you that the devs don't seem to have a direction.  And I feel the same way as the author that the directions that they do go don't mesh with my personal vision of the game.

 

My point is, and I've said this many time, it doesn't matter!  This is their game and they are not beholden to anyone, and they seem to be making changes to what they or their buddies want.  I detest the way they run closed beta because they really don't want constructive feedback and they are just going to do what they think is cool and fun for them and if it happens to be cool and fun for me too that's a happy coincidence.

 

But criticizing them for not knowing who they are balancing for is ignorant arrogance in the first degree.  They don't need to be balancing for anyone because they are under no obligation to make their numbers because at this point it's all a big art project.  And I suspect that the author, who presumably deals with for-profit games almost exclusively, is being a bit obtuse and dickish in assuming that they should be doing it the author's way.

 

Anyway, I'm just throwing stones in my glass house!

[Clave Dark 5]

47 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

If my being critical of his "article" 

Yes that was you, and you called him a twit, a direct insult on someone you admit that you don't know, not just disagreeing with an opinion.  It refl4ects poorly on you, and I say that as someone who's generally happy to see you posting.   I'm not even just talking about you either, I mean, look at this thread.

 

I believe some mod just the other day posted something in a thread that was "getting out of hand" to the effect of "if you disagree, just shrug and move on"?  I'm not so foolish as to pretend that's not how the modern day internet in general operates however, but I keep having hope...

[Mopery]

So...

 

Is the sky falling or not?

[Troo]

3 hours ago, Ruin Mage said:

Trashing Bree here on the forums, a place she likely reads, is real small pp behavior. She has a view/opinion, that's all. Similar with the article author.

The opening line about inheriting from PStudios is...rough though.

 

Ha! All you suckers in this thread got shushed..

Go get em @Ruin Mage.

 

..and you shush too @Snarky

HA!

 

this may be a drunk post and is not intended to offend anyone.

 

[Glacier Peak]

Drama drives clicks...

[biostem]

3 hours ago, Troo said:

this may be a drunk post and is not intended to offend anyone.

People play this game sober?

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, Mopery said:

So...

 

Is the sky falling or not?

 

If you're a Tanker (especially a RadArmor/BattleAxe!) who constantly herds more than 5-10 mobs and cares about kill speed... yep.

If you're a Plant Control user then you might also need to duck and cover a bit. 

If you're a Regeneration Stalker then you may feel as if you're suddenly playing a completely different character than before.

Everyone else? Nah.

[TheMoneyMaker]

They lost me at "the game revolves around speed."

 

Damage is, and always has been, king.

[Faultline]

It's probably a bit late to try to steer the thread in a positive direction, but I'll try anyway:

• What parts of the article do you agree with?
• What parts do you think are completely wrong?
• What parts are you unsure about, and would like to clarify how you're taking that information?

As I've said many times before, I'm not a powers dev, so a proper discussion about the contents of the article would be helpful.