Was in a bit of an arguement on one of the many CoH facebook pages today and one person, who didn't 100% understand me, did get closer to the point some others who I guess were not real CoH fans or rather, players who didn't play super teams.
It lead to a realization that, most city of heroes players are not like the average mmorpg player. See, most of us knew how to really have fun, we weren't all hardcore grinders who played the same team over and over again. We'd just form a team with the random buffs debuffs and whatnot and go at the missions in a quick order. Most mmorpg players however, seem to dispise anything that includes variety. Indeed, I realise many of them enjoy repetitiveness, in fact they from the way they spoke, didn't even have any concept of the word unpredictability or the fun behind it or why other people cannot stand mmorpgs.
It's like, they were almost robots. No matter how much i explained the predictable and boring nature of the holy trinity and the grind, that they just plain didn't get it. What made CoX great was you didn't need any one role in a specifically to win at things, while other mmorpgs are very very rigid about that.
And people demand them stay that way because they themselves dislike non mmorpgs, because non mmorpgs are usually somewhat chaotic, in reality, most of the time anything can happen while most mmorpgs the gameplay itself is very predictable. Theres a reason people like yahtzee for example cannot stand most mmorpgs is because of how repetitive they are yet strangely they talk in favor of CoX when comparing it to other games such as DCUO.
So I realized, most of us CoH players were not like most mmorpg players. There were alot of us who enjoyed the random team that wasn't a holy trinity. WE enjoyed that because we were not the types who enjoyed repetitive work-like holy trinity grinds but enjoyed actual rpg elements and actual variety in our teams. Something that those I got in a conversation with would never understand if it smacked them upside the head.
And I realised it wasn't cause our game was an easy snooze fest, but we had depth that encouraged that variety.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I don't need no stinkin healer just give me a self heal and good damage then let me atem I'll splatem. played scrapper in CoH. when a game is unpredictable it is awesome! :D
"In the end there can be only one" The Highlander
The random teaming was part of the fun. You never really know what combos work together so you always anticipate the shifting or tactics and strategies. Indeed it's not like the standard MMO holy trinity. We embraced random shuffling. Perhaps that's one reason we didn't feel Champions and DCUO as being right for us. They lean more to that mindset thought not so much in champions.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
There once was a time when mind/psi dominators were considerd the weakest class. I took that as a challenge and rolled myself one. He became my third 50.
Someone who says "you can't do that without zyx" I say "Challenge Accepted!"
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
To be fair if you don't have at least a stomach for repetition, MMOs aren't for you.
That being said, you are right we aren't like other players. I guess it is really just a strange alchemy of game design and community that created that.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Oh definently about other mmorpgs, they definitely aren't my cup of tea. It is strange but then thats what made CoX unique and it's players unique then, in that because we weren't like other mmorpgs, our game played differently then others for it. Honestly though I think if anything, there is a game for everyone, even those who like extreme repetition(those who play most mmorpgs) and there are those for most others I'd seen online that tend to play both a large variety and don't consider mmorpgs a second life but rather see them as repetitive/boring.
It is quite interesting, who knows odds are we'll be attracting players from games other then mmorpgs.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
Well, I was counting CoX as having plenty of repetition. To play [i]any[/i] MMO you have to be able to handle at least a bit of repetitive content. One of the things CoX had going for it though was the ability to obscure the repetition by wrapping a story around it and giving you a fair amount of stories to chose from at most level ranges.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Yeah but it wasn't like every team you had was the same exact thing every single time where you had healers healing the tanks who take all the hits while damage dealers and healers both get largely ignored due to some often silly tank mechanic. Granted city of heroes had tanks to it was also a game where you had alternatives to healers which helped cut down the repetitiveness. Many games like fps's such as doom, or real time strategy games like starcraft and whatnot all have some elements of unpredictability even if many times your either just wiping the enemy base out or just killing demons through things like level design and/or giving the AI the ability to move at you from more then one angle. While city of heroes was still an all combat game the fact was that combat became unpredictable as you could have many different kinds of teams fighting those mobs, and the mobs were diverse to.
Where-as many mmorpgs the fact is you have that holy trinity which teams having to have a healer only causes the gameplay itself to make it especially clear "This is all you do and it'll be repeated over and over down to how every fight goes". So it gets boring fast. I noticed that many city of heroes players weren't the types that exclusively did only one thing and then demanded others play like them, where-as some of the people I had that arguement with were pretty much the "you have to have a healer and everything should go the same every time", they didn't even know what I meant at all by unpredictability. It was like the word went way over their heads.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
Heck I knew a few players who tried to make the worst possible combos of powers and points. Just to see how hard it could be. If people say This don't work with That well. They went and done it. If someone said a Stalker couldn't play like a Brute well they prove it could be done.
Because CoX ATs played so differently depending on what powers you had the replay value went up even if the content was the same. *Sigh* I miss Frostfires slide!
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
Thats kind of what i'm talking about, in that every team would play a little differently as would every individual player. I once took energy blast and time manipulation, some min maxers told me it was a bad idea....
...and I made that character into one of my most effective toons i'd ever made, I was making teams unstoppable with that character. I used my energy torrent/explosive blast when I saw appropriate and I also placed my temporal fields to allow myself to ability to knock some enemies a few times. I'd planned to use nova and snipe to actually support that further, but when I'd AoE'd in teams, i did so as a means of not just damaging a group but also soft-controlling them.
Thing is that i'm saying is that, many mmorpg players, average mmorpg players would often frown on that at first, as they'd assumed the only strategy and way to play was either the holy trinity or grouping them up and AoEing them with non knocks, often kicking occasionally. but most people I teamed with in CoX didn't actually do that to me, they allowed me to play to my style and I was able to work with them, and every team we had did play differently for it. So it wasn't repetitive, even though we may have played the same maps we used different tactics many times which kept us awake....
...but other mmorpgs and even the players seem to litterally like everything to play the same over and over and over again ya know? I say we really were different then other mmorpg players cause of that.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I did a LOT of Task forces and Trials in CoX. I made a lot of toons specifically with teamability in mind. I wanted to be able to get on a TF or from one of my own more easily if possible. At first the reason for this was the fact that you got a guaranteed SO at the end of each TF and they were a fast and fun way to get to level 50. Even early on the TFs leveled you faster (or so it seemed) than just soloing missions, and leveling was slow in the first few years. Plus you got the SO at the end, which for Posi and Synapse was pretty key. My first two toons were both defenders (Radiac was the second, the first was named Dr. Maelstrom, I deleted him before the respec trial was invented because his build was terribly awkward and his endo problems as a Storm/electric made him painful to have to play). I also made a Kinetic/electric def and a gravity/kin controller. And one tanker (I never really got into tanking that much, but I finally arrived at a tank concept I liked). I only had one blaster and one scrapper, and the scrapper got deleted too when they generic-ed his name. And then my Peacebringer was all human for the Cosmic Balance goodness.
So as far as repeating content, sign me up, I loves me some fun with a team/league. Over and over and over again. Who wants to do an Underground Trial or two? I hope Desi picks me!
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Two was always my favorite team size. Content that returned continual faceplants when solo became miraculously fun and comparatively easy, with a partner. I often had the experience of learning new things about the ATs, while I practiced adapting to my partner.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Yep, I agree that the CoX community was different in this way. Although I played solo most of the time, I can say that 95% of my teaming experiences in CoX were good ones, and it was only when I tried teaming in other MMOs that I realised how uniquely welcoming and adaptable teaming was in CoX -- both due to the game mechanics and the player base. In other MMOs I've been scolded a lot for not following a strategy that was never explained, only assumed. In CoX, when a TF required strategy (which wasn't all the time), there always seemed to be someone who would explain it so everyone could be on board.
I think some folks look at games as a puzzle where the goal is to find the "best" way to "win" and then just follow that one strategy repeatedly -- which, to my mind, would presumably cause rapid game burnout and the desire to move on to something else. I've seen folks in many MMO forums discuss how they will play only one class or power set, and in a recent Age of Wonders 3 forum post someone was complaining that they had changed a couple things from AoW2 solely on the grounds that his old strategy didn't work anymore and there was now a different "best" way to play that didn't appeal to him so much.
For my own part, it's variety that keeps me interested in a game. In CoX I had a 50 of every class but Kheldian and Spider, and that was only because I ran out of time. If it had kept going (or comes back) my goal was to eventually play every power set. In Civ 5 I'm playing through each civilisation using whatever seems to be the appropriate strategy for them (how could I not go for a domination victory when playing the Huns?). Still on my first pass on Skyrim playing as a 2-handed Nord, but every time I play I think what it will be like to be a spellcaster or a scout/thief on the next go round.
Spurn all ye kindle.
This struck me as rather odd, since it feels like the majority of people who post on the likes of gaming news sites want developers to do away with the trinity in MMOs. Granted, those people are hardly a representative sample size of the MMO gaming community.
Viewed objectively, it is natural that people have the desire to see the trinity model. Many, if not most, MMOs use it so it is the only model many players know. Even if they are no particular fan of it, it falls back on the old saw about the devil you know. In other words, the basic fear of change. The trinity model is also very comfortable because it tells the player, and everyone else, their role in no uncertain terms. (Not that you don't still see people trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, e.g. trying to tank as DPS). Telling them that their 'class role' is not set in stone must be a bit like teaching someone to swim by throwing them into the deep end of the pool (rather like trying to explain to some people that it is possible to level and improve a character without the traditional gear/stats paradigm).
The good news is that most of those people who resist change will probably be thrilled once they get to experience such game play, just as we were.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Yeah, that was my thought as well. Heck, the people making the new everquest game are getting rid of the trinity themselves. It was mostly a conversation about wildstar in that apparenlty those players asked specifically to keep the trinity model. I was facepalming as I was left thinking "Ok so your keeping to an outdated model, congrats others will supercede you in no time". I guess there is still a vocal minority that want it in some places. And yeah, once people like that actually experience non trinity play that is actually viable most of them do tend to change the perspective.
Edit: I know I did afterall, I used to think you needed a healer at all times. I even used to think unpredictability was bad to, when I was myself a n00b/stop having fun guy due to the usual arrogance of youth. Anymore i'm usually laughing when I get killed in games like happy wheels or see some units in Myth 2 Soulblighter get the wrong end of extremely bad luck when...
...a molotov is thrown by a dwarf, but doesn't detonate on the spot as another lands near it, sending it flying. That molotov doesn't detonate when it hits the tree, so it bounces into some warriors next to the dwarf who threw the molotov...blows up finally and detonates the satchel charges he has, taking the warriors with him(can happen and does happen sometimes).
It's that, kind of randomness I like these days anymore and it's something I realised CoH had, somewhat, with the team setups and whatnot.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
In fairness, I have yet to see any "kill the trinity" advocate suggest a new model. Most attempts to go a different route sound like they provide options rather than a new system, i.e. players can choose to tank but they don't have to, yet such and such content is still going to require a certain minimum in tanking and healing. I am also not certain if there is another model that can cater to the 'hardcore' gamers. It is certainly much easier to design a difficult/pitched fight when the developers can know, to within a few percentage points, what a group's capabilities will be. If it falls outside that range, the anomaly can most likely be attributed to player skill (or lack thereof). The user friendliness, if you will, of CoH's approach precluded that approach precisely because it would have forced players to pick and choose particular ATs and power sets.
Not to mention that the whole idea of requiring the trinity took another arrow to the knee when they introduced IOs and chose not to scale the content to match them.
Final thought: the trinity model does tend to have that baggage of players being forced to play as the developers envision they should play, where the CoH/CoT approach falls more in line with the idea to have fun however one wants.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Dusts off Michael Thugless (petless mastermind), and yes I "tanked" several SF/TFs on my stalkers. That was all part of the fun, as well as the time soon after demon masterminds came out where we did the temple of the waters SF with a party of 5 demon masterminds, one random other mastermind and a couple of others. We went through the Sf at +3diff and the stacked -res from the demons meant that we just went straight through stuff at a ridiculous rate.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
CoX didn't have a single piece of content that was challenging or even required you to have both eyes open or even more than a finger on a keyboard, or even to be conscious for that matter to play it. Obviously a holy trinity (lol) wouldn't be required. Please don't pretend that there was ever randomness and unexpected turns of events when you had a team of random members with mix and match builds because we all know that nothing was hard to do, the outcome was still the same, mobs with 1 attack who are auto targetted (yay! for never missing! o wait random rng bye) being steam rolled.
[color=red][i]Edited by VDG [5.14.14][/i][/color]
The positive side of developers not setting the challenge bar high is that each player then sets their own challenge bar. Maybe through the difficulty slider. Maybe something else - no deaths all-blaster ITF? Only running PUG trials until I get a VR? Quickest time from 10 thousand to 10 billion INF? Solo Lusca? Make a stone tank jump and fly? Play one of every AT to 50? Help a new player learn the benefits of knockback? Write a story that earn compliments from your supergroup? Share an evening with someone you love?
Why make one game, when you can let players make a different game for themselves every time they log in?
Fun is king. CoH was frickin fun for a particular demographic of people. It had it's flaws, as all things do, but it was unique and catered to a unique niche genre and community. Part of this was choice--as Scott said, letting people chose their challenge level.
Having choices in CoT that make playing anywhere from faceroll easy to just impossible would be awesome. If an individual can't resist setting everything to easy and then says they don't like it, it's obviously not the fault of the game.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Plus, you didnt have to worry your kids wouldn't be able to get into the game with you.
Pfft. You call that a challenge?
Beating Lusca at pat-a-cake, now that's a challenge.
Or playing rock-paper-scissor with a Freakshow Metal Smasher and getting him to choose anything other than rock. Heck, that ought to be worth a whole accolade.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I think the difference came more from the players' attitude about the game than any inherent mechanic. I found the CoX community in general to be more creative and have a better sense of humor than most other games I've played. This makes a certain sense when you realize that the whole game was based around creating unique characters, rather than playing generic classes and wearing arbitrary gear. That tended to attract and hold a certain type of player. Sad to say, that may be why there weren't a million players in the game. Not everybody appreciates what CoX was best at.
I'm hopeful and expectant that CoT recognizes that difference in their fan-base. I'm all for fiscal sustainability, but I'm more excited about a game designed and built with the idea of keeping alive the only MMO that ever captured my imagination.
just to be clear, I associate repetitive to [i]what[/i] you are doing, the content itself rather than how you are doing it. I think we were just looking at it differently.
The amount of players I saw face plant would seem to indicate otherwise. Then there were the groups people actively complained about being too hard (CoT and Malta for instance). Was CoH the most challenging MMO ever, no, it wasn't. But to say it wasn't remotely challenging is equally false.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I'm not much worried about the [u]player[/u] roles on a team. We're going to have so many varieties of powers, that it'll be hard to stovepipe players into narrow roles.
I'm more worried about monster aggro and AI. The trinity of tank-healer-dps comes up because of monsters with simple AI using linear aggro lists. When a monster always attacks the player with highest aggro on their list, then the optimal way of beating that monster is having the player with best defense stay highest on the list. And a dedicated healer to keep them alive. And dps to kill the monster.
It doesn't matter how much variety we have in powers to choose from, if monsters have that kind of AI, the trinity is going to be the best way to beat them. We might be able to beat them other ways, but that'll be the best.
The solution is ... I don't know exactly, but better, or more varied, AI is a part of it.
[size=1]Kickstart Backer # 771[/size]
Ive got a good mate who has played a few MMO's, including CoH back in the day (so far back and only for 2-3 weeks) but lately WoW, GW2 and FF14 so he is a "Holy Trinity Child". I have tried to explain to him the way CoH teams worked and the TF/SF's and when I mention that I would often "Tank" on my Melee/DPS (Brute) or even my Defender (FF/Nrg all the way baby!) he didn't get it as a Support Class to him means Healer and nothing else.
I explained that there were very few Healing Powers and the Powerset that was dedicated to Healing (Empathy for those at home) was a very rare sight when I was playing (i13? > Shutdown) - almost no teams I was in had an Empathy character.
Yes there were other sets that had healing (Rad/Pain/Time/etc) but those heals were less than half of the character Pri/Sec Powerset and less than a quarter of their overall powers (rough numbers there :)).
But how...? he would ask.
Also the number of times I was on a PuG and saw someone playing a X/Y/Z toon and I thought "Ohhh hell yeah Im making me one of THOSE!!!!"
Crab Spider? First thing I did when I got my first 50 was log off and make a Spider (obviously back when VEATS required a lvl 50).
Then I see someone as a Bane. I didn't want my Bane to have the Crab backpack (2nd Build) so here comes a new character. OHHHH WOW. Surveillance + Build Up + Clobber = Giggles. TWO Banes doing that on a +2 Boss and almost killing him with those two hits alone = LOLGIGGLESWHENONSKYPE. A SG mate and I did that often and our team would always wait for us to do that and laugh at us laughing.
Ready?
Waiting for Surveillance. OK Ready
On 3 - 2 - 1
Surveillance (x2)
Build Up (x2)
Clobber (x2)
Hahahahahahahahaha
Ahhhhhh I miss CoH :(
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
This! This is what CoH did best.
You didn't make a *class,* you made a character. Sure a couple archetypes were closer to typical MMO-style 'class' builds, but they were still a character first and foremost because the player was fully in charge of how they looked rather than being only minimally in control of that.
Any other MMO you couldn't see a tank in a bikini and surviving because none of the survivability comes from the character in other MMO's, it's ALL about the gear and the grind. SWToR comes close, but that's still a lot of gear mods involved in making the 'Slave Girl' outfit perform that well.
CoH you could have not only a tank in a bikini, but a tank in a bikini, wearing a jetpack, throwing out electricity while engulfed in flames. ALL of the survivability on that character comes not from some mystical bikini-like armor reinforced with kevlar and asbestos...unless that was your character's actual lore, but from the powers that character was built around.
'I am what I AM,' rather than 'I am what I WEAR.'
The original Lady of Ysgard. -Virtue
[img]http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/203/c/5/Updated_Homage_by_Voldine.jpg[/img]
It was off the chain. More uproariously fun chaos that I've had in any other game. Much more like a comic book or the Avengers movie than any choreographed Dungeon or Raid I've done in other games.
And it looks like CoT is sizing up to be cast in the same mold.
+1 to Voldine
Must be patient. Must... wait... for my precious.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
+2 to Voldine. Well said!
Spurn all ye kindle.
Hell to be fair, empathy only had 3 heals (so one third of it's powers), And dull pain was kind of funky as healing powers go. The rest of the powers in the set were buffs.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
There is nothing that was in CoX that you can't find in other MMO's. What made CoX so special, at least to me, was the combination of those things.
You like costumes, APB has arguably more personal costume customizations than CoX did.
You like a variety of missions that do not force you down a specific all encompassing storyline....D&D online can be an option.
You like easy MMO combat, give Maplestory a whirl.
You like the superhero setting, DCUO is there.
You like your role to not be predetermined take a peek at GW2
You like to solo mostly then maybe Secret World has what ya want.
There are many more examples but my point is that you can find a certain element from CoX in other MMO's but you never found a combination of all these together.
Thats what made CoH awesome to me. You weren't making a class but a character and it was up to you to figure out how to make it work. And it really was how you speced your characters powers. And it was that you could choose so many different combinations that really added to city of heroes replayability. Which also matters in any game. Replayability being that you can still have an entertaining experience with the game having already gotten through it before.
And success wasn't spoon fed to you like some people think. Some people here didn't touch CO and how you could make yourself INVINCIBLE as early as level 8. In fact honestly CoX was only easy for the melee archtypes, but ranged archtypes the game had the potential to be very unforgiving. I mean you could be insta-killed in an alpha strike.
And some groups in the game had things like siphon power equipped on the minions, storm debuffs and other bits of fun. In fact I felt CoX was much more balanced in difficulty when you actually FOUGHT those enemies that were really dangerous, but one of the things that did bore me about pugs was in fact that they'd fight nothing but freakshow and council, groups that because they had nothing special about em, were especially easy. I'd get bored fighting them, but when I found those same groups take on say the malta operatives or knives of artemis even at +2 or so they'd get curb stomped, badly. The squishies would get stunned, melee immobilized, if it was malta you'd see sappers killing all the endurance....
...and some groups before that had nasty tricks of their own. Tsoo had siphon power abilities and hurricanes + teleporting. Let even a few minions siphon power and suddenly they were taking up to HALF your health off in one hit, easily. Let alone on +3 or +4 then they were absolutely lethal to more fragile archtypes and could power through tankers to. It's like ever since the game was shut down we have people here and there that either never played the game, or only played it in the really early days OR they power leveled to 50, got incarnate powers, then said the game was stupidly easy when they were already IO'd out and incarnate powered. That bothers me, alot.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I can understand getting bothered by people saying 'CoX was easy'.
I think this kind of opinion has less to do with CoX and more to do with other MMO's which tend to be a lot less forgiving than CoX. What I mean is when someone says 'CoX=easy' they are saying it was easier than other MMO's. At least that's what I am saying.
In fact you inadvertently seem to agree that CoX was an easy game overall when you say facing the most difficult foes was when the game had a balanced difficulty. This implies that when not facing those foes the game was easier. So at least on some level you understand the opinion.
Yeah, what I mean balanced though is that, some groups were really hard others are easy and overall you were most challenged fighting the hard groups. Balanced difficulty to me is in fact you could lose if you make mistakes. Alot of people really didn't fight anything but council and freaks. Those two groups didn't have anything like ruin mages or madness mages like the circle of thorns did. You didn't have sappers or teleporting malta gunslingers with ice rounds pelting your blasters/healers of that holy trinity team in the council, they litterally had nothing but numbers and guns, occasionally you'd see the rare vampyre group but that was at LOWER levels most the time.
Heck, one thing I hated about the circle of thorns, wasn't their ruin mages or madness mages, but the lack of those enemies later on after around level 35. Circle of thorns used nothing but fire powers, almost, so they became very easy to fight as there was no debuff effects in action. The cimerorans posed some threat, due to the rather hefty -defense debuff they had, those who didn't have defense resistance had to be especially careful.
If I were to list every group in the game i'd probably come up with some "demonic spider" or another in it, except for the freaks and council pretty much. Many were in the 20-40 range. But the 40-50 range had Malta, Knives of artemis, carnies and late game arachnos, all of which had some anti-defense or stuns or something. I still got killed on my defense soft-cap widow sometimes fighting arachnos as they had -defense debuffs that were very hard hitting, so I had to know what mobs I had to take out first. Knowing that made it a lot easier but if I was like the average joe modern gamer and didn't bother to learn that, i'd be crying the game was to hard :/.
It wasn't because, well, as I said balanced difficulty for me means I actually have to play decently well. Perhaps it's because normal used to be hard by todays standards.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
This is not what was said or implied in what I responded to.
I was explaining what balanced difficulty meant to me. Balanced to me = hey I could lose or get beaten when your making mistakes. I figured you'd misunderstood me so I replied to clarify some.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
Alright, I will go back and make my earlier point again using this new definition of balance.
You inadvertently seem to agree that CoX was an easy game overall when you say facing the most difficult foes was the 'hey I could lose' part of the game. This implies that when not facing those foes the game was easier. So at least on some level you understand the opinion.
Look man I really wasn't trying to get into a discussion about the specifics of CoX's difficulty I was trying to give you a new way to look at something you said 'bothers you, alot'.
If you want I can give you my personal feelings on the difficulty of CoX and speak directly to your examples but it basically boils down to I didn't find CoX difficult.
CoH was not an easy game at the beginning, try doing the early version of the hero respec trial with a team that needed the respecs :)
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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Wow, that's takin me back almost 9 years.
Whats worse it got me flashing on the vills original respect trial (shudder).
I mean those were not a representation of the game on a whole but I will give you those were frustrating experiences.
What I mean is that like any game you'll have some uneven difficulty in places thats usually expected but at the same time people IGNORED the tougher enemies outright. You can say all you want but pugs lead by people who only cared about leveling up fast only often fought freaks and council. The game was easier for that but see it was in many ways the players fault in this particular case the game was being easier. If you'd not be so picky about what you'd fought you'd often end up fighting the mobs that made you change the strategy. It can balance out and it's ok to occasionally have one or two groups to get away from a tougher one. But then if people fight nothing but that and then complain the game is easy, well they are ignoring the rest of the game.
I'm kinda getting tired of explaining it because alot of people are fitting the exact description of the kind of person I described in my original thread. Because some people really don't see anything in the real shades of grey things are but in black and white, and consequently have that one track mindedness that goes with it in that you cannot actually explain anything in the middle to them, they just accuse you of having a double standard or they get confused.
Which is why I made this thread to begin with. I had a conversation with three-four people who had that kind of mindset and it was annoying, especially since I was one of those who enjoying fighting tsoo, malta operatives and earlier game circle of thorns that such mindsets often ignore when they make the accusation that city of heroes was easy. As if they really did ignore all the groups but the really really easy ones.
And it did leave me feeling mmorpg players that are "normal" apparently all have that view of "Well I have it easy now inspite (anything beforehand and or power leveled to the max) so the whole game is easy." And THAT is what bothers me. They assume that because they don't need x strategy the game is ultra easy OR assume that after power leveling up or assume other things because they ignore almost everything else in the game but a very small section of it. But the CoX players I often played with were not that way at all, and the funniest thing was most of them played non mmorpgs.
So It left me really feeling that the really loyal CoX fans were actually not the same as other mmorpg players. We embraced things like variety and whatnot but most mmorpg players don't nore cannot because no matter how much anyone explains to them if it's out of routine for them like a job. And they often end up being the ones who say a game is easy because it can be played differently then others in the genre, even if it really wasn't an easy game. Because difficulty to them is "you need to play it this very certain way to win" and strategy to them is "It has to be done THIS way, thats how you do it!" not "Ok well we can try this, or this, or that hmmm they could all work but have their own little drawbacks we have to be aware of". They cannot grasp unpredictability or anything outside of routine.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I don't know why but I feel like I should try again to make you see another viewpoint.
There are people who would avoid the 'tougher' foes. There might even be some of those same people who say CoX was easy because they did do this. I can say how I felt about CoX's difficulty just as you can speak for yourself. But lumping all who say this into one group is pure speculation.
I was one of those who preordered CoH and got the early access. I remember the growing pains of the game in the first year. That was the only time the game was truly difficult for me. I was learning the ins and outs of the game. Once I learned this the game became relativly easy for me. Sure there was an encounter I had a tough time with, or a foe in a group that required more of my attention. But the game overall was easy to me.
When they started adding more groups and more foes in the old groups I was long prepared to respond to them after a single encounter. I didn't avoid them or pick and choose my foes. In fact early on it was difficult to do as there was fewer ways to do so. I can remember being frustrated by the fact that missions just stopped and you had to sit and street sweep or join other peoples missions to level up to the point you could get more missions. It just wasn't easy to focus on one foe group and avoid others because you had limited options of who to fight. Still I didn't consider any group to be overly difficult or challenging so I wasn't really trying hard to focus on a specific group.
I was one of the MANY MANY MANY people who wanted a way to change our difficulty up without having to resort to the invite and drop workaround. When we got the notoriety system the only time I ever lowered my difficulty was when I wanted to solo things meant for a group to see that content (TF's, trials ect) Blasters, tanks, scrappers it didn't matter the difficulty was always above the baseline.
When I began to explore other MMO's I was often shocked at how unforgiving they were. The comparative difficulty in the other MMO's was largely based on the fact that a character was very limited in what they could do. You had a preset role and very little variation on that. This made me feel that CoH was easier than most MMO's because it offered so many ways to deal with a particular foe within a single character. You had the ability to self heal, mez foes, deal damage, run away, ect. To me, what made CoX more fun is also what made it easier.
I am not special or some kind of MMO's genius so I find it hard to believe that there were not a large number of people who were like me. Does that mean everyone is like me, no of course not.
So while you are getting tired of explaining your postion, maybe ....just maybe ... you can stop and realize someone who does not share your view on the difficulty of CoX may have a valid reason for saying so beyond power leveling and gear.
That said...CoX's ease and all the options to increase the difficulty were actually a draw for me. It was not like other MMO's in that you could actually influence the difficulty. Just one of the many many reasons I liked CoX.
Well any game becomes easier as you learn it, thats usually fine and indeed when i'm saying CoX wasn't easy, i'm saying in that it's not a game that you have very little to learn, you had lots to learn in CoX, and often spent a lot of time doing so. It had difficulties for increasing the challenge and you could make even more challenging things in AE. The flexible difficulty system, the fact enemies could debuff you and the fact you could make even more challenging enemies was especially appealing to me to. Other MMORPGS though see, they have what I call fake balance, soloing is made to be hard/impossible as to force people to play a certain way.
And that whole certain way playing mentality devs make them with, I end up noticing those mmorpgs are extremely unfun for anyone who doesn't want routine in everything, fun for those few who like routine and repetitive play, but not for anyone else. In fact I'd even say that the holy trinity actually makes mmorpgs take no strategy themselves but instead makes them a puzzle game. You have to figure out some rigid inflexible pieces and figure out exactly how to use them or you'll automatically lose. Which isn't fun for everyone but even those who like puzzles prefer puzzles that are different, they don't wanna solve the same old puzzle every time. Heck, I can say i'm not a fan of puzzles boards because all your doing is trying to find pieces that fit, puzzle games on pc/consoles I get bored with. I don't see them as challenging so I don't tend to see mmorpgs as really challenging, as it's the same tactic over and over....or rather the same puzzle over and over. Once you "solve" one normal mmorpg, you solved them all unfortunately. But there are those who like them all being alike.
I think I understand ya better now since you explained a lot more. To me though the challenge in CoX was more figuring out how to make x or y combo really work rather then the most efficient way to play it. It wasn't the same thing over and over and over again, wasn't the same puzzle. In fact city of heroes had a lot of "strategy" to it because you had multiple different tactics that could work, you only needed to figure out how, which was the fun part of the game.
While mmorpgs as I said, they are repetitive, but all the more-so cause the puzzle is always the same thing pretty much. They try to conseal it, but in the end it's the same thing as the last. You just as well have a three piece puzzle, the tank, the healer, and another piece with 3-4 damage dealers. The reason I liked CoX was that every time you made a new char with a different powerset combo, you didn't know how it'd turn out later necessarily nore had any idea the kinds of teams you'd get or how you'd mesh with them right off the bat. The missions could get repetitive but, every team was different, it helped that re-playability.
Combined with the difficulty settings your experience could be different almost every time. That kept the game interesting. While mmorpgs other then CoX, well you know, "ok, played tank in this game before so, yupe, beat that guy with the same combo" or "Ok the last game I played a tank so i'll play a tank here, ahh ok thats easy, taking forever like before though...". Before you know it, "Ok I played these three classes before, sigh, yupe the tank took a long time to solo now that I think about it, healer couldn't, and damage dealer played the same as before". When someone even predicts how something will go based on the team composition ahead of time, it gets all the less entertaining...
...while you couldn't really do that in city of heroes even cause even the players different playstyles would mean that they played one character differently than another of the same powerset combo. And I loved it because of that, you could litterally tell one player apart from another just by looking at them as they use their powersets and where they place things like freezing rain storms. It was awsome and CoX was pretty cool about that.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I see islandtrevor72 view. CoH can be easy one reason I let my grand nephew play it I knew he could learn the basics and not get into trouble as much as some other game. On top of that you could pump up the difficulty.
That said my main Rotten Luck was a Street Justice / Willpower / Energy Mastery and I had him nearly finished still had a few very hard to get purple inspiration for the complete set. Even incomplete I was running +4x8 his only weaknesses were toxic damage and minor weakness to dark. So very rarely would his health and energy bar start to fall because I had his regen and recovery high. He wasn't the most powerful hitter, but he could really take a beating. Even the carnies weren't a real threat thanks to Willpower's Psionic protection. There were players who had builds so tough they were soloing GMs.
Perhaps it wasn't the game itself was easy it was we learned all the tricks to make it so. Then again my nephew wasn't having a hard time on his scrapper and he was 6. There are stories of kids even younger learning to play and learning to read via CoH.
Easy or Hard... lets agree it was FUN!
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
Well my point was that once I learned the basics of combat there was not a high or long learning curve. Even learning the basic did not take an exceptional length of time. I spoke directly to that fact when I said new foes could be figured out after fighting them once.
I'm really glad we came to an understanding on this. You make some points I do agree with, how variety (I just called them options) in character building offered immense replayability just to name one.
agree u it fun but hope CoT have Perfect Imbalance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w
not all games follow memorization look at Demon's Souls dark soul and dark soul 2 force u think be for u act https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
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Exactly, city heroes didn't have a steep learning curve, but it had depth. Once you fight some mobs once or twice you can figure them out, and come up with a strategy that works for your character you can have a lot of fun with it. You were always learning new things, so while it was not hard to learn it was still challenging because you always had more to learn :). It kept me playing it for a long time cause of that, especially the moments I was actually surprised when something I'd thought would work one way worked a different way.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I think the reason I like COX so much compared to games I've played since then is that COX had so much room for support characters. Maybe I haven't played the right games, but since COX I haven't been able to do to many mass holds or mass sleeps. All I can do is either heal, sit in the back and kill stuff, or tank and anything else is discouraged for some reason. And that's (like so many people have said) what made COX so cool. The fact that it didn't matter what your team was you could probably make it work. Would 8 squishy blasters be my first choice for a team probably not but who knows? If the rate you could kill something was high enough why not? No one demanded that something be done a certain way that's why I loved COH and COV.
Extra credit videos are interesting to watch and make a ton of great points.
In response to the "CoX was like, so easy..." comment, I give you this very well written article by good ol' Posi himself on another site:
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/7817/Artificial-Intelligence.html
As far as I'm concerned, if CoX was too easy, it was because WE, the players, DEMANDED IT. And frankly, the hard stuff was still there, it was just short-cuttable or so unpopular compared to the easy stuff that you couldn't get people to do it. If anyone has any complaints about it being too easy, I would ask you to form a team and go do the Abandoned Sewer Trial with no level 50 babysitter to cheat for you and then go do the Cavern of Transcendence without using the usual exploits for that either. In fact, go do any Incarnate Trial without talking to anyone or reading the Paragonwiki spoilers. Or build a toon based on a theme instead of based on min/maxing for PVE because of the hard numbers research you've done. They systematically, in response to player outcry, made leveling quicker and toned down the XP debt for getting defeated to the point where, by year 7, people could get from 1 to 50 in like 3 days and would volunteer to die just so you could cast Vengeance on the team. Or they'd faceplant so they could use Rise of the Phoenix.
Personally, I feel thee should be some content that's extra challenging and some that's basically pretty easy. But of course, that leads to people doing quickie Katie Hannon TFs to the exclusion of everything else because it's the most efficient option for grinding gear and leveling. Yawn. People are our own worst enemies.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'm not sure where you are going with this. I'm going back over many of the posts and find most references to the ease of CoX in a positive light. I myself said the fact I had control of the difficulty was a huge draw for me.
I am all for some content to be set aside as extra challenging, but I want it to be a good kind of challenging. Take a peek at the second video dawnofcrow linked to. It has a lot of very good points in the difference between challenging and punishing.
I don't want to speak for Radiac, but what I took from his last post went back to the OP and also my original response: that some folks want just one "solution" to a game. I guess Posi's article shows us that even CoX players weren't immune to this. Especially this:
"Now the response we got back from the Tank community was on par with going in and just deleting all their characters. They were outraged that their “tactic” no longer farmed mobs like they were mowing the lawn. And one thing was made clear, they absolutely didn’t care if the AI seemed “smarter” or “more realistic”. The AI was dumb and they wanted it to remain dumb. That was how they got their advantage!"
I seem to recall they actually did implement the "mobs run out of the fire" solution for a little while at least, because I recall Cinn's Rain of Fire causing crazy mass panic in the early days. For my own part, whenever they made a change that affected my tactics, I appreciated the challenge.
Spurn all ye kindle.
To provide a different perspective, the primary message I took away from reading that article, a few months ago, was that MMO players (like most people) dislike and resist change. Honestly, for this particular example, I can't blame them. I do not see the sense in handing the players AoE powers and then program enemies so that they never stay within the affected area. I think that would have been a difficult pill to swallow as an initial design, to say nothing of attempting to sell it as an improvement.
Other than that, all I have to add is that I didn't really get my hate on for the Circle of Thorn until I went up against them on my dark melee/electric armor brute. Man, that was painful.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
As soon as Power Customization came out I looked at the powers available to certain archetypes for a specific theme I wanted to do, a Killer Klowns from Outer Space homage character. I joined the game just before the release of AE (and, in fact, still have Architect Edition installed via Steam) and was literally looking for two things: Powers that could be customized to look like flying whipped cream, and powers that could look like cotton candy with recoloring.
I settled on Fire Blast and Dark Miasma because they looked right for the effects I wanted after recoloring them. Only AFTER doing that did I bother opening mids and poking around a bit, then look at the forums to see if I was reading correctly. In making a concept build, I had stumbled upon one of the nastier powerset combos in the game for corruptors.
Suzanne Snyder never quite made it to 50, I blame that on having more fun with other characters that could be done heroside, but my first 50 was a Necro/Pain called 'Rot that Walks.'
My main character, as seen in my signature, dinged 50 as a hero, transferring from red to blue before level 35 and confirming as a hero before ever getting the chance at a patron pool. Specifically, my Blackarachnia Homage character dinged 50 at the end of the Statesman Task force. Sure, she was a crab, therefore a VEAT, therefore innately overpowered as hell even without Incarnate powers...but she was also a concept character where the concept required being a VEAT.
Yeah, I'll admit it, my 'fun concept' character ended up becoming my main character due to how insanely tanky she could become over time, and after I finished tweaking her build in mids she had insanely high solo defenses while granting around 20% extra defense to the rest of the team. I'll also admit that I freely engaged in AE crap content that leveraged her near-untouchable status both to grind tickets for salvage for market profit AND to give people with new characters a push past that familiar low-level content.
I never powerlevelled to 50, I never bothered with Flavor of the Month builds except as a joke with a fun twist like my short-lived fire/Kin tank. Sadly many of my concepts felt more tedious in practice than fun and were mostly shelved, but many of them stuck around to the high 30's before a new idea came along.
Hell, I had three or four different versions of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy after Water Blast, Nature Affinity, and Beast Mastery were available with each of the rest of the Mane 6 getting at least one character...
The original Lady of Ysgard. -Virtue
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First part...completely agree. I think in that particular case Matt was trying to hammer a nail with a nuke. As for players resisting change...well that's a tricky thing to handle in a game. If you like the way you play then it changes then the obvious reaction is to be less than thrilled. That's when the devs have to look at more than just 'will this solve the immediate problem. I personally think where they ended was a much better solution (not the best just better than the alternative). I know people who just hate the idea of aggro limits and such, some even have decent points even if I don't agree with them.
About the CoT vs dark melee....uggh turned a simple encounter into a long drawn out battle. Whats worse was there was no doubt you would put them down in the end you just KNEW it was going take forever.
I personally hated back when missions tended to be kill alls and the foe was Devouring earth. It was inevitable you would break a Quartz or Boulder and one of its Shards would get stuck in the geomitry under a set of stairs and you would spend eons looking for it.
In my opinion Power Customization was the single best thing CoX did to increase its lifespan. No other feature, foe or content made me want to start over and do it all again and again than this. Before it I had maybe 5 or six 50's after it I had close to 20. That's why I love the plan MWM has to make this kind of alting a focus through the use of branching personal stories, nemesis, leads, alignment ect.
I do like that article, though. My main was a fire tank and I liked the smarter AI where they moved out of burning areas.
I enjoy smarter AI's, but I can understand why they are less popular. HOWEVER, there's dumb and there's unrealistically dumb. Hearing a sound and going to check it out alone is dumb.
Standing in fire while burning is... I don't even know what that is.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
There were several examples in CoH where 'smart' crossed the line into irritating and made fights a chore rather than interesting. To hit debuff and running/teleporting away? That was more like an annoying game of kick the can than it was a fight. Nor would I like to see powers that feel weak or counterproductive because the AI is 'smart enough' to run away or 'smart enough' to carry a ranged weapon (so it doesn't really matter whether they are in melee range or not). I'd much rather pretend that at least most of the enemies will man up (or whatever) and fight rather than regularly spend half the 'fight' chasing after a couple of guys who should have been wearing diapers.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Lol, yes, it can go too far, but standing in fire sans invulnerability just to be able to shoot me point-blank rather than at range is beyond man pants.
I felt like I needed to use the "I'm not worthy" emote.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
hawt
:3
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
I'd be happy with AI that roughly matches the lore-driven intelligence of the enemies. "Dumb as a box of rocks" is fine for animated rocks, zombies, etc. The average minion can be a somewhat brighter bulb, but not so bright as to frustrate players with military-grade flanking and retreat tactics at every spawn point. Our equivalent of the Evil Spider Overlord can be as devious as any player when it comes to using the terrain, traps, ambushes, and target selection. Where I do draw the line is at outright NPC cheating, when they use abilities without endurance costs, target invisible players, or have extreme versions of player powers without lore to justify it or an equally lore-driven mechanism for the players to counter it.
If that sort of AI flexibility isn't within reason for CoT given tech or time limitations, then a modest AI like CoH's would fulfill my wishes, especially for release day.
Think one problem people have is they got used to things being this way. That when it changed they argue no matter if the changes are good or not. Starting off right away with smart AI hopefully we avoid that.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
I loathe PvE content that only consists of difficulty being in "numbers", "levels" or "damage". I strongly believe I would enjoy grinding more if monsters had smarter AI, especially ones that incorporated common tactics seen in PvP.
[i]Not all points are directly related to City of Heroes' AI.[/i]
- A land-bound, no-ranged attacks monster hopelessly running in circles against a flying player showering them in damage? [i]Run away or get out of line-of-sight.[/i]
- A squishy, ranged caster monster inching closer to a melee player's grips? [i]Stay at range and kite.[/i]
- A monster with healing potential? [i]Heal and revive fallen minions.[/i]
- Monsters mindlessly, hopelessly picking random targets. [i]Assist-Train some players, make some immune to Taunt effects.[/i]
- Dangerous environment? Really, still attempting to load your pistol while standing in an ice-slick patch? [i]Attempt to escape then do attacks.[/i]
- Have Crowd-Control spells? [i]Smart use, Mesmerize one target then attack a different one.[/i]
- Still using outdated weapons with few attack abilities? [i]Modernized technology, have more than 3 attacks.[/i]
- Dying 1-by-1? [i]Ambush! At least 10 of the 50 minions take notice when an enemy walks into an open room of your warehouse![/i]
[i]* I agree that not all monsters should be [u]geniuses[/u], but at least instill some common-sense where appropriate! Zombies will attack you even at a silver of life, a human may decide to flee the scene. etc.[/i]
A bit late for that....
We actually are working to dumb it down a bit.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Don't do that!
If you can make me rage-quit in PvE, you guys have done great!
This is one that I'd especially like to see any well-organized NPC faction handle with some intelligence. Somebody ought to be running for that alarm button or signaling for help, and the occasional radio-check could send semi-cautious patrols to check the odd silence from those guards I just sniped / assassinated.
It really builds immersion when the groups that are supposed to be tactically-conscious start to behave like a network of individuals who have the training to counter at least a few basic player tactics (the assassin, the rush, the lure around the corner).
To be clear, I'm not asking about a global increase in difficulty, but a shift where enemies with intelligence are rebalanced to include a roughly 50 / 50 mixture of "powers & HP" / "tactics" difficulty.
I'd really rather they be somewhat smart and jumpy, thing is people don't notice them being smart when they start out that way. Just make sure that they aren't prone to falling for things like the trinity to easily. I'd rather they had some more squad like behavior in that they'll try and flank and take out someone who does say nothing but healing. Way I see it if we have the tools to react proper like real buffs and debuffs, crowd control, real damage mitigation basically then behaviors like the AI flanking become things we can deal with.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I mean we have to dumb them down. Right now nobody can beat the base AI. The term is "outsmarted ourselves."
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Nate's Beard has created a MONSTER!
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
Read that article of matts, and I agree with him about the trinity in that it was a puzzle. Though I felt it was the same over and over. But then I thought about it, and realized an old problem gamers can run into in general is that, we can all get spoiled. Many who defend the trinity or see nothing wrong with it, are often only of those views cause they'd been using the tactic for far to long. In a sense they became "spoiled" by the holy trinity because they expect an easy win every time in that, once they win once over a situation, they are indeed guaranteed a win automatically.
I could use an analogy of myself and some shooters in my earlier days. I could not play invisible war for to long, because it'd spoil me with it's almost non existent difficulty and slow gameplay. If I tried playing UT2k4 after playing DX:IW for even a month and average people who couldn't take me on would actually kick my teeth in a few times, all the while those who beat me before already were now curb-stomping me and litterally securing landslide victory advantages over me. Granted I wasn't the best player I was not even close to that, but i'd get spoiled by the lack of challenge and predictability of invisible war.
So back to matts topic, well players were probably spoiled by being able to melt things as a fire tank. Granted I recall other attacks causing enemies to scatter, later, but I certainly remember the other problems of the games AI, including the fire patch which enemies didn't seem to react to. But anytime I say "make the AI smart" i notice alot of players scream "THEN THE GAME WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE I WANT TO WIN ALL THE TIME!" in some form or another. Many mmorpg players that support the trinity almost always react with things like that, because they are to spoiled to think of tactics beyond that or contemplate the AI doing something different occasionally. They lack the ability to take initiative even because of the same problem in that they are spoiled and expect their enemies to do what they want them to do. I just touched on another "bad player" trait for people who suck at rts's and shooters in that, giving up initiative is generally a way to give up the game itself.
I was designing an AE arch in CoX and, one of the things I was doing was designing enemies to crush people who didn't learn to take the initiative. They'd slam you with things like debuffs, buff each other and also crowd control ya at times. Cause i'd noticed this about teams playing against council or freakshow, particularly those that used the trinity AND only fought council and freakshow was that, they were not very fast even on lower settings. In fact they'd often if not pulling the mobs, hesitate for long periods of time. So the mobs I made were all designed to punish that severely because realistically and immersive speaking, mobs that do what the player wants or generally falls to the trinity all the time even if they were a high tech alien military was very immersion breaking for me.
The fire tank tactic for example wouldn't last long against one group as they'd pummel him with -def/resistance tornados, freezing rains, hurricanes would cut hit ratings ect. Another mob was even meaner, and giving them time to do anything meant they'd be pounding you and the whole team for max damage(even minions had fulcrum shift). But see, I was designing them for veteran players who didn't rely on the trinity, and was designing them to punish the trinity specifically. I wasn't designing them to crush a real non-trinity team, as those teams would often take the initiative, which is what often wins in battles. Another mob group even had an extreme swarm tactic in that you were fighting all masterminds, so you'd encounter huge hordes of 20+ guys from just a few. The trinity would have had a very hard time even dealing with those enemies cause of that fact that they often gave their enemies plenty of time to react.
The mobs were beatable but it wasn't a full guarantee solo or duoing. As players had to be able to keep an initiative. I had alot of fun trying to design the mobs and a lot of fun fighting them, which I couldn't say the same for fighting council/freakshow when in a slow-moving trinity.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
Just had a thought. While I'm pretty sure enemies using TP Foe would be well past the line of acceptable non-unique enemies, what about team teleport? You'd want to limit the number of passengers of course, and you'd want it in a higher level band, but would that be to much?
Hmm, wouldn't mind enemies that teleport reinforcements in. Heck it'd be an interesting theme for ambushes that teleport on the backs of enemies, though that'd be for another topic.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
Agreed that team teleport is a valid uncommon NPC tactic. Besides teleporting reinforcements in, I could see boss demons that teleport themselves out of trouble to gate in more minions or alert nearby reinforcements, while leaving all minions behind as a distraction. Same for high tech military groups, especially if they use expendable robots / clones / other species as front-line troops. As long as any reinforcements are pulled from elsewhere on the map (and/or have limits on how often they could pop into existence from the ether), teleported reinforcements can avoid a frustrating loop where a melee player is blocked by collision detection and cannot reach the summoner.
I've played a robots mastermind. I know the pain of seeing NPCs (in this case my robots) running right up to the enemy to shoot them. Boy, do I know that pain.
Agreed. I've mentioned elsewhere that allowing certain NPC groups to respond with (semi-skilled) tactics could have gone a long way toward making them more interesting.[color=red]*[/color] In particular, I am thinking of the likes of Malta and Nemesis.
On the other hand, I do not want to see the game become some kind of Splinter Cell. Nor is it fun if it appears to be the default for certain enemies that, after defeating several groups of them, I'll have to face a large ambush. In particular since such scenarios are going to heavily favor certain ATs or power sets. At the end of the day I want to feel like I'm playing a superhero game rather than a SWAT sim.
If I recall correctly, the Circle of Thorn (bizarrely enough) did have runners that could bring reinforcements. It did add a certain "oh, crap" element to fighting them. Past that this feature did not do much for me and I doubt I would have missed it if it hadn't been there.
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[color=red]*[/color] As opposed to having only increasingly tough and dangerous units.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
There were those who loved and played CoH and still believed in the holy trinity, even if it wasn't needed.
My thought on the holy trinity is the genre of the story. Superheroes it has never made sense if you go by Marvel/DC universe unless you're idea is to totally change it up to fit into the trinity system, but then you tend to feel less than super.
CoH isn't the only MMO with a "self heal and damage and let me at them" ability. :p
Seconded, both the interest in appropriate enemies being smarter and balancing that with reduced numbers so as to avoid CoT's becoming an FPS.
As for certain enemies favouring certain ATs, ever try playing the Canada arc in CO with the mobs that constantly ambush you, appearing at point-blank range, with a ranged damage character? That was not what I'd call fun.
Also have to echo Empyrean's thoughts about mobs just standing around in hazards. It may have been convenient in a gamey way, but it really seemed stupid for members of intelligent groups to just stand there in Rain of Fire. Just sayin'.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Another aspect that I neglected to think of and mention earlier is that if enemies are a little intelligent, the situations in which they are dumb stand out all the more. I am certain everyone has had similar thoughts when watching one or the other movie or series: "He's a professional A but he didn't think to do Y?" I will certainly make allowances for the setting[color=red]*[/color], but that will be far from satisfying if I have to do it frequently. Hence, I would rather not run into such idiot savants often.
Final (for now) thought: the player always carries the onus of bringing a certain suspension of disbelief to the game. The bad guys didn't notice the hero, or didn't go running to alert their buddies? Perhaps the hero is still sneaky enough, or moving quickly enough[color=red]**[/color], that they did not see him coming and/or did not have the time to respond or get away. Just because the game does not have a "I'm the g**damn Batman" mode should not be taken to mean that every hero or villain goes through the mission as though he were the Hulk taking a pack of beagles on a hunt.
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[color=red]*[/color] For example, in Agents of SHIELD, Skye does her super-duper-unbreakable encryption. There is no question that this is awesome security, since only she can unlock that information. Viewed objectively, that is quite foolish since, should anything happen to her, this information is lost. In the context of the superhero setting it makes sense because, in that setting, story is as real (or, honestly, more real or powerful) than physics. We, the audience, know that nothing will happen to Skye or, even if it does, that the others will somehow find an alternate way to access that information.
[color=red]**[/color] Yes, even when you have to take a five minute break to go to the bathroom.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
*squints*
I beseech thee, oh Internets, deliver unto me this vision of splendour!
Just a minor counterpoint....
Reducing the number of foes and increasing their AI might not actually fit a superhero setting.
If you think about henchmen in comics....for example when the Joker is robbing the bank and Batman shows up to stop him, the henchmen don't run away or apply any real tactics. The Joker might, but the henchmen very seldom do. This is done in comics to show how great Batman is. It fulfills a power fantasy.
If you apply this to CoX...minions, luets and Bosses in a group all fall under the classification of henchman. So when when our characters (the Batmen of the game) show up their purpose is much the same, to show us how badass we are. They fulfill our power fantasy. Now if any of those minions, luets or bosses are NAMED then they would fill the role of the Jokers of the game and can act accordingly.
This is not to say that foes can't be smarter, or that some individual groups might be comprised of a smaller but smarter mob makeup. It's just something to consider lest the 'smarter AI' be painted on too thick and ruin this aspect of the game.
Another good point. The [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mooks]mooks[/url] exist to be cannon fodder in the most literal sense of the term with our characters, naturally, playing the role of the cannon. Making them smart makes them something other than mooks, by definition.
Intelligence can also take the form of different or additional attacks. To carry over islandtrevor72's example, the Joker knows Mook 42 is a supermook and can thus be trusted to (probably) not accidentally shoot him the back of the head. Therefore Mook 42 gets to use a shotgun.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Agreed -- perhaps I should have italicised "appropriate" to emphasise the word. I'm thinking folks like Malta. Certainly not the average run-of-the-mill minion. I'd expect Vahzilok zombies (just using CoX terms for reference) to blunder doggedly into any AoE effect.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I like the idea of some groups zerging you with swarms of dummies, and some coming at you with "a few good men" who are really tough because they play smart--and then of course any of the shades of grey in between.
Hell, maybe the small tactical spec ops team clears off of a burn patch and maintain range, and the dumb hords of zombies burn themselves to death for braaiiiiiiiinssss.
The "lots of dumb vs a few smart" dichotomy would ad wonderful variety and even replay-ability to the game. Don't know if it's possible or feasible to actually DO that, but it would be freaking awesome.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
You didn't have to emphasise your the word at all. I think everyone understands what you meant by appropriate.
My point was just to give a way to look at what 'appropriate' could be in the context of a superhero game.
In fact I am hard pressed to think of any group other than the KoA and Malta in CoX that fit giving advanced tactics in its unnamed minions, luets and bosses. Maybe CoT will be different.
Think we are all thinking along these lines. Fine tuning needs work.
Drones - mindless hordes. Example Zombies, robotic drones, brainwashed minions.
Goons thugs - Some brains but still uses fingers to count to ten. Can use weapons. example street muggers, low rank gang members. Has enough brains to go Oh crap and try to run away when heath gets low.
Mooks. tends to use some tactics and cover, often sending the dumber ones first.
Henchmen - smarter then mooks
Bosses - uses tactics and battle strategy
Elite Boss. Tough and smart.
Arch Nemeses. Okay supervillain level here. Might even have plans with in plans.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
Sweet. And the ratio of Henchmen/Boss/EB between groups could vary to enhance fun and replay-ability. Undead EB has a couple of bosses, a few lieutenants, and hordes of minions, while the Super-secret splinter cell black ops EB could have a few bosses and several lieutenants, but much fewer minions.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I did, I played the game in its very very early stages. That wasn't the respec TF being difficult, thats the players being half brain dead, and the fact that its brand new to many people, they don't know what to do. It wasn't a skill that the player base developed into suddenly being able to do a respect TF in under an hour, it was just knowledge... Understanding how to do it.
Also lmao at the beginning it was just ridiculous easy, no aggro cap, the most ridiculous level SK cap, no AoE cap, pre ED. Just stop it man, stop.
[color=red][i]Edited by VDG [5.14.14][/color][/i]
Just like the other dude, you're wrong. And lmao at try doing an incarante trial without talking to anyone? Huh? Is that now a requirement to try make the game harder? I know, content is too easy lets give them little tasks like not being able to use their mouse or having to run on a treadmill while doing the BAF.
Like I said, not having knowledge on how to do something doesn't equate to it being difficult, so stop pretending like it does. If someone who's never been to London was told to go to the big ben they'd have a pretty damn hard time finding it all on their own device... That isn't because finding it is difficult its because they don't know. If they just asked someone for directions or read up about it, it becomes a much easier task.
Please stop trying to praise a dead game for stuff it did not do right.
Also lmao go make a toon based on theme, babe I played for the first year and a half starting early 2005 without even having SO's equipped because I was 11-12 years old and just wanted a fire blasting superhero, it was still an easy game then.
Nice!
When I had the thought I was reminiscing about base raids and how team teleport was rather effective against players. Ironically far more effective vs players than in PvE where the mobs just adjusted to the new range instantly.
Well, maybe not [i]that[/i] much easier, especially if you're visiting from another country, since Big Ben is not the tower but the bell inside, and only UK residents are allowed on the tour inside the tower.
Spurn all ye kindle.
But Mooks shouldn't be incapable of harming the player either. Thats a problem CO has, big time, is that henchmen(the lowest rank enemy and most common) are litterally incapable of coming close to harming people with any defensive passive within any amount of reason. If your passive is invulnerability in that game, they do only 1 damage at ALL levels, or barely more then that, even if you can get up to 10k health. Regeneration out-damages the damage they can do very easily. Lighting reflexes combined with bountiful chi resurgence with resurgent reiki likewise, your toon will not even see your health bar move at all even with the dodge nerf.
Personal force fields also seems to out-regen henchmen way to much. Defiance can see some damage but then, you can easily use that extra energy to insta-kill them with almost anything in the game thats a decent power(compared to other attacks). All five defensive passives laugh at henchmen attacks basically. Offensive passives may take some damage but henchmen are also so fragile they die in less then a second so they don't even do anything. CO is unfortunately, way to easy. Even bosses, without being at least master villain(tough) or a legendary are complete pushovers. The only time content is hard is that it's hard for the really wrong reasons of forcing a very very specific "tactic" that undermines customizability of the freeform system.
It's something I wrote about before as to why CO went into such a nasty decline.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
Well, we were not discussing the damage levels or health of the Mook, we were discussing how smart they were. The standing in fire thing....
I am not against any rank of foe doing enough damage to hurt a player, that's something the devs will have to decide on. As we don't know the combat of CoT yet we can only give rough ideas of what we would like to see.
I like the idea of different A.I. for different badguys, I think it's so good it's probably absolutely necessary in fact.
I also think the A.I. should be taken into account when designing the badguys and their whole deal from the beginning. Like Devouring Earth in some cases should be less cagey and more stimulus-response and the Knives of Artemis should be way more cunning, Freaks should be intelligent, but somewhat reckless. The Clockwork, arguably, should have ignored damage entirely and stayed in the Burn patch because they didn't feel pain.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
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