I know this pretty counter-intuitive for an MMO, but I really want to be able to build a character that really could solo all the time. I had a terrific scrapper in CoH that I adored and she was pretty bad-ass, but there always came a time that I needed a team to accomplish some mission.
Of course, one of the things I loved about CoH was playing with my friends, but sometimes, a girl just needs a little private busting up the bad-guys time.
We're committed to soloing being a perfectly fine levelling path!
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
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I'm sure there will be soloing. Pretty much every MMO allows for soloing. Just depends on how you build the toon. And being a superhero game there should be a chance to solo a lot. Not all superheroes ran around in a duo or team. Heck the JLA are a team but even then they all still run around soloing most the time.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
One of the best things about CoH was that you could either team or solo. Some characters soloed better than others, of course, but it was always possible.
I recall my very first controller, Mind/Empathy, back in the first year of the game. I got jumped by 6 Hellions (2 LTs, 4 minions) when solo and spent the next 15 minutes fighting them off, frantically sleeping them and taking them out one at a time, keeping as many asleep as possible and healing myself whenever possible. Sure, a scrapper at that level may have taken them all out in short order, but doing it all as my controller was [i]fun[/i].
This. There's a separate thread somewhere talking about giving all classes more damage at early levels, but I loved the very type of experience you describe here with my the less-damage-oriented characters.
Spurn all ye kindle.
*Puts the needle on Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and settles into his over sized leather chair with a classy drink*
While I love games where soloing is possible, there's a big thing that always seems to ruin it. When you make soloing viable for all classes/ATs/Builds.. it removes the need for the community. CO greatly suffers from this, whereas in CoH everyone was generally close knit because we all depended on each other for a lot of the missions, even starting off (Remember the Rogue Island snake arc from CoV? Or the warehouses filled with Stricken?)
As such.. I'd like it to be viable but still a challenge, even on the easy difficulties.
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
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That is the best approach, although I'll add that there should be missions that are challenging for every AT rather than only those who are weak at DPS.
The rest makes for a thorny issue. There are those who hold to the position that having more group-only content makes people group and thus builds community in the game. Others say that those days are gone and forcing people to group is going to alienate more players than it pulls in. It is likely true that, today, there is more need for the players to be pro-active about building a community.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
The best MMO's have a good mix of soloing, group, and raid content, which covers the broad spectrum for group types. One thing I like that Wildstar is doing is some solo "elder game" which, being a superhero mmo, could work really well for CoT as well.
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I tended to solo or duo with my wife. I liked teaming when I did it, but my own personal issues kept me from seeking it out, and I rarely accepted offers to team. I'm sure I'm in a very, very tiny minority; say, a fraction of a single percent. I hope to "come out of my shell" more when CoT launches.
I feel your pain I was the same.
They say save me and I say pay me!
I agree that it should be the player's choice whether to solo or team. Forcing people to team rubs many the wrong way and for good reason: They pay their subs the same as everyone else.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
In CoX I solo'd. It's all I did. Sometimes I'd group with others. Remember the sewer run groups? I did those. But, that would be it. In Rogue Aisles I never grouped. I solo'd. And with my dark/dark brute I solo'd all the way to 40. Literally. I sometimes ran duos with my friend. Or like in DC we duo'd a lot. But still I solo'd. I didn't start actual grouping until I joined The JG in CO. After that, I started grouping a lot. We'd get all the sisters together and we'd run Whiteout a couple times on friday nights. Now I think it should be possible for an AT to solo all the way to the end. I think there should be content that will challenge you to a point where you just barely won the fight. And I think there should be content that you need to be in a group to do. SWTOR has heroics and hard mode flashpoints. WoW has their hard mode and dungeon crawls. WoW even has some quests that are marked for groups. But, I'm not a fan of the , "you have to group because you're AT can't solo." Why can't they solo? Were they not designed well? What happened to them during creation that they lack the ability to solo to max lvl. That doesn't make sense. I've seen Priests in WoW solo to max level. Yea I would like players to be pro-active and form a community. But, being forced into having to be part of a community I don't like. It's like in school you can do your school project on your own why do you have to be paired up with someone to work on it. Why won't the teacher just let you do a school project on your own. And also some people log on to play a few mishys after work and then go to bed. They shouldn't be road blocked and forced find a group that is actually ready to go so that he can get his mission completed before its time to sign out. (We've all grabbed the PUG that no one seems to be ready. Or someone just leveled and rushed out of the sewer just to level up and now we have to all go all the way back just to pick him rather then waiting till the run is over and level up all at once. ) Mix it up but don't force players into a certain play style in order for them to reach the end.
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Owner and Big Sister of the Justice Girls -Champions Online-City of Titans-
Forum Breaker
Leader of the Ellysyn Dark Ensemble
Soloing?
Well, I had a Mind/Empath troller too.. and took a good number of months to Level her up.
Some Points:
- Both Powersets Must add up in DMG to average a Damage Cap.
or
- Both Powersets mush have enough -Defense DeBuffs to reach DMG Cap.
For the -DeBuffs:
- Slightly Modified Powersets for AT's
if we were to do that, Empathy would have to get -Defense DeBuffs, making it the same as Radiation Emmision.
Now that i put it like that, theres a DANGER, if we did that to the rest of the powersets, all the powersets would become flat valleys... and no hilly peaks would exist. Making them All Do the Same Thing. Not very Unique, Special, all those synonyms.
I do remember Peacebringers getting Buffs if they were on a team. I suppose the game can balance this out when on a team. Some of the Empathy powers could drop the -Defense/-Resistance DeBuffs the more teammates there are. So that it was almost like an actual Empathy powerset. But when Soloing, the Stats would jump up to dynamically meet the Damage Cap.
Huge fan of soloing. Once the kids came along, it became very difficult for me to group and not be discourteous to others. My evolution as an MMO gamer has been from a pure grouper, SG/Guild raid leader, to a soloist recluse. It doesn't mean I enjoy it any less. In fact, I'd argue I need to think and optimize even more. So yay for soloing.
I quite like the solution to this that DCUO came up with in having two modes for each power set - DPS or support with an ability to switch between them out of combat.
I have the game, but I never really spend that much time playing it.
Are you saying you would like to have 3 Powersets?
Primary powerset cant be changed. But you can Alternate which of the 2 Secondaries you want to use?
Thats kinda intereting. :) But you will have to Pay 20 Gold coins to Alternate the 2nd powerset :D
Shouldn't the game also be dangerous enough to at least encourage them to team with players who's characters shine brightest when helping others? Those who play support characters pay their subs the same as anyone else; should they be forced to play in a world where there's no legitimate reason to need help?
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
I love soloing on hectic days where I wanted to play but didn't have time to team. So I solod. If I tried to team I ended letting the team down had to stop and hold up the team. So I love both but I think it is very important to have both available.
I had many of toons. Some toons I saved strictly for soloing. I loved teaming with new peeps and regulars alike, but sometimes I want to be anti-social and solo a scrapper or mastermind. sometimes i just want to be alone and enjoy the arcs or the challenge of going it by myself. I totally get the solo mentality so I would hope the Devs are on board with that type of gamer.
Wait a Minute. Why are we trying to make All Defenders Soloable?
Lets just leave Empathy Be!
If you wan tto Solo, Dont Take Empathy! :)
I soloed a good 75% of my CoH career... it was almost Meditation for me. Have a bad day at work? Come home and run a few radio missions... feel better!!
I do like DCUO's twist on "modes" of powersets too.. that would be awesome IMHO.
Now.. please do NOT tweak all powersets to be the same as say scrapper sets in solo ability! That takes away half the fun! My favorite way to make a new toon was search the community for a combo generally thought to be "BAD" and create that. That's the way I soloed a TA/Archery Def, a DB/EA Brute, and a Merc/Poison MM to 50s all before those sets got any buff!
I would hope that "building a community" is the least of our problems for this game -- it's more like the community is building the entire enterprise from the ground up! Personally, I will be so happy to stand in the new city I'll probably group with everyone just to talk, talk, talk about it. They'll have to mute me to team with me!
I support a mixed soloing/grouping balance. I am however, strongly against systems that let you freely switch builds -- the more options you can switch between, the more I am against it. In Diablo 2 and City of Heroes, for example, that ability was quite limited, and everyone had lots of specialized characters, all distinct and interesting.
In Secret World, one character can have every ability and item in the game, and switch on the fly between tanking, soloing, DPS, healing, or hybrid builds. The result? Everyone has ONE generic character and they're quite indistinct.
In Diablo 3, you can reassign all your skills freely. The result? There's no reason to make more than one of any class of character, and almost everyone I know has lost interest in the game -- many have gone back to 11-year-old Diablo 2.
The ability to completely change a character at will robs that character of distinctiveness, flavor, a role, and ultimately of the player's interest. The player may remain interested in THE GAME, but loses interest in that specific character -- it just becomes the player's [i]interface[/i] with the game world.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Characters should be unique, i would hate if you can switch your character on fly.
I think every character should be able to solo but teaming should give people a bonus (but keeping it balanced).
We definitely plan to fully support both solo and team play.
Of course, with the vast customizability we want to have in your builds, there may be a big gap between one build and another in certain areas. A solo specialist build should outperform a support build when soloing. The reverse should also be true.
However, it should be possible to solo almost any build at a reasonable speed (we are years from launch, but I am sure someone will take up the challenge and find a way to build an unsoloable character) against MOST normal content.
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IANAL, IMHO, WYSIWYG, YMMV, IIRC, AFAIK, ETC
[color=#ff0000]Composition Assistant Director, Composition Team[/color]
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Sounds good. I don't want soloing every character to be easy; just possible.
As for community, remember teaming is not the only thing that makes the community. I soloed about 85% of the time, but I was always active in chat, helping people with general questions or finding badges, and I was very active in my SG despite having a reputation for not teaming often. (My SG mates used to joke that you'd get a badge if you teamed with Cinn 5 times.) I didn't need to be on the same mission as others to participate in the great community that was -- no, that IS -- "City of".
Spurn all ye kindle.
One of the best parts of CoH was the ability to alter the difficulty of your missions practically on the fly. At first, the 'stock' difficulty settings were a nice challenge, but the longer I played, the more I got to where I needed to bump things up a notch, to maintain the sense of danger. It also meant that my Defenders with lower amounts of offensive/defensive powers would get a slightly different mix of challenges than, say, my Tankers. And, if a mission was too hard or too easy, I could back out, reset, adjust the difficulties, and go back in.
That was very effective for soloing, but even Better for when I had a good team. I Mostly enjoyed small-unit action, 4 or fewer on the team., but, again, after a bit of trial and error, I learned just how high we could crank the difficulty, once the team settled into working together. And I developed a maxim for it: "Two can do, Easily, what kills One over and over".
Be Well!
Fireheart
Sorry but that's CoH thinking. There should be NO reason not to be able to solo with an Emp character. Will it be slower? Sure it will be...but it shouldn't be THAT much slower. One reason many Emps (mine included) had trouble teaming in later levels is because other ATs had more to offer to the team at 30+. There should be something that an Emp can give to even a high-level team to make them worth taking.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Hmm.. I see.
To be honest.. for better or for worse.. I like that some powersets didnt perform as well in all circumstances.
I recall one time standing in Atlas Park, at the base of the steps, and seeing what New AT's and powers people chose. I used to laugh each time I saw an AT with Empathy, thinking.. "Oh Boy... I hope you enjoy Serving others like a Buttler." :/ But, later in the game levels 30+, I was glad that I had an Empath on my team. Especially if i was the tank and we were on a Statesman Taskforce.
Speaking in generalities...
Problem seems to be lower levels for some AT's, or the powersets they take.
If we could pick from lets say 4 SUB Powersets, instead of just 2 powersets for an AT, you could take as many, or as little from the Empathy powerset... and take more attacks instead from another powerset.
Ex:
Ice Blast powerset:
- 3+ powers
Archery powerset:
- 6 powers
Empathy:
- 7 powers
Radiation Emmision powerset:
- 2 powers
I'm not crazy about allowing players to FrankenPower their build with Enervating Field, Radant Aura. Almost everyone would take those 2. I would.
I dont like the supermarket approach, picking the best tomatoe from the pile. Leaving the spiled ones behind because you dont like the Whole package? That seems a bit unrealistic for a hero. Cards dealth are the cards you play. You take the good with the bad.
Thats not CoH thinking, thats Heroic themed thinking. :)
I agree that you can't let players go totally freeform. CoH considered it early on before initial launch but balance was impossible. I also understand that not every power will suit every player. But I strongly feel that each AT should have something that it does better than any other AT to maintain its niche. Tankers should soak damage and hold aggro. Damage that they do is not a priority. Why? Because others are designed to do it better.
An Emp character should be able to heal and buff better than any other AT at all levels. In CoH many of the higher-tier Powersets had healing better than an Emp of the same level or some other buff that made healing unnecessary. I think that's wrong. You'll never see my Emp casting Controls on the enemy...so why should the Controllers be healing?
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
That was one of the things I loved about playing my controllers or defenders. Figuring out how to use the various controls to keep the mobs locked down while I slowly wore away their HP. And if there was a Boss in the spawn, it got really interesting keeping enough on him to prevent getting stomped. Whereas on my Inv/SS tank it was up the difficulty settings, find a spawn and jump in the middle, just swinging away until they all fell down.
Entirely different play styles, that COH let me enjoy any time I could get online.
To make an Empath soloable, all CoH had to do was allow its buff apply to oneself. Then with the 30% +Dam that Defenders got in the latter game, it would have been just fine, especially with a Dual Build: One for solo offense, one for team buffing.
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
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To me, what you said sounds more like the old City of Heroes logic.
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
OMG I so relish the moment I can solo in COT with my first character while listening to Apocolyptica Cult's "Hall of the Mountain King"
That was like a breath of fresh air!
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
SO VERY THIS! CoH was like meditation for me as well for the exact same reasons! I love the idea of being able to have a different build for soloing versus teaming.
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
Hey I am of the idea that if you wanna solo, you should be able to. That being said, if you wanna solo, don't pick the most solo-unfriendly build you can find and scream they are forcing you to team up.
The suggestion of allowing empathy defenders to buff themselves sounds interesting, heck, the double build system CoX had worked like a charm.
Would i would hate to see is a bunch of heroes/villains with no incentive to team up, potentially diluting what made CoX so great: its community.
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLO5WNy4pQs] Damage Inc Story Arc [/url]
It's a potentially fine line.
I preferred to run solo vs spamming zone chat with "LFT" every thirty seconds for an hour.
Most days it didn't take very long for an invite to come.
There were also days I had very little time or just felt unsociable.
It was nice having options.
I think if the tools and the mechanics for grouping work well, it won't be a problem. CO seems to actively discourage grouping. I can't really put my finger on why.
Part of it, for me, is the speed with which foes are defeated. Everyone just charges in and when my video card quits throwing up a few second later, everything is dead...or the team is. There isn't any middle ground that I've seen.
In CoH, even when a Perfect Pug formed and we just steamrolled the maps, there was still time to assess what was going on a adjust tactics accordingly.
Also, keeping track of teammates seemed easier in CoH. I don't know if this was due to the minimap and HUD elements or just having memorized every iteration of every map.
Sorry, the train of thought kind've got away from me.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
hehe.. That reminds me of a missunderstaning i initially had about the Que system in CoH/CoV.
I thought at 1st that it would work more in a way of a PUG (Pick up Group), so that i wouldnt have to spam the Global/Local/Help/etc.. or any other channel. But i was mistaken.
I was the kind of player that would accept almost any invite to team, since I normally played a tank or a brute or some other AT that liked to show off for others. ;)
Plus, I was the kind of tank player that at low levels actually took all the Defense powers, before taking any of the attack powers... and took Taunt as soon as it was available for my tank. I could hear people say, WOW, a tank with Taunt at this early level! :o And I would find that a little ammusing, but also ego boosting.
I always liked supporting my teammates in that way, even though i didnt have as many attacks. I even felt like a good Defender, who didnt really spend much time attacking, but buffing/healing its teammates. Ahh, Secrifices... "Sometimes we must give up the things that we want most for the greater good!" Oh wait, is that a line from the Spider-Man movie? :/
Well, a well-designed LFG tool (one not relying on mysterious, unlabeled color-coding and one in which the comment line is fully visible, not difficult to expand and read) should obviate most of the chat-spamming.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
It's clear to see...,
- ...that certain power sets are going to do rather well solo...these are the aggressive, heavy-handed AT's that don't do much by way of support of defense. Of course, having an AT that's primarily focused on support and defense isn't going to have the offensive capability of the more aggressive non-supporting types if simply by default of power availability alone. It's one of the main reasons why I didn't play Defenders much because I soloed a lot and they didn't have a great deal of offensive capability. However, that's a play style choice - some people actually enjoy buffing and de-buffing, and after watching a whole group of Defenders go to work - I learned to be wary of a group comprised of two or more Defenders (...they Kick -ASS- when they buff each other!...).
- Same goes for those who are designated to mitigate damage...do they put opponents down quickly? Not so readily as one whose specifically tailored to dole out harm in mass - do they mitigate damage and are soloable? You -BET-! One of my favorite 50's what 'Psi-Chic', a mind control/force field/psionic mastery heroine that almost never face-planted. Even before a fight would begin...practically every single opponent was either held, confused, asleep, feared or being flung somewhere. If things got out of hand...force bubble or telekinesis cleared the area real quick, and if she was in danger of getting clobbered - personal force field kept her safe from even the onslaught of AV's for the most part... ^_^
- Now, are you limited?...again, I say, 'No'...because it's not just the primary and secondary power sets that are available. Ms. Lady Liberty (...i.e. - Ms. Lady 'Bigotry'...) was a broadsword/invulerabllity scrapper I'd made whose sole purpose was to be a team player/supporter. She had all the leadership skills and medicine powers...so while her ability to help was nowhere near that of defenders, she could revive someone and heal others - helping to reduce downtime. She wouldn't swing as much in a group because of all her toggles, which was fairly thematic since she would naturally be concentrating on the group. Solo, she'd not be so concerned about leadership skills like 'maneuvers' because she'd be more concerned with just putting down the opposition...thus, she'd swing a lot more and not have to worry about healing/reviving others.
- As a rule of thumb, I've grown comfortable with the notion that there's always going to be another character who's going to be better than my character in a particular given field - that's just the way it's going to be, so there's no reason to get bent out of shape about it. My scrapper was never going to replace an empath defender - it just wasn't going to happen, period. Yes, my controller could put down single opponents relatively quickly...but not the wholesale AOE carnage that blasters doled out on a whim - again, just wasn't something that was going to happen, period. So it really just boils down to this, 'What do you want?'...and if you want to do a little bit of everything, don't expect to be awesome at anything. As the old saying goes...
- ...'Jack of All Trades - Master of None.'
I Loved my TA/ARCH def....oil slick plus flaming arrow and bust out the marshmellows.
Annnnnnd...boom
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