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I have TOTAL confidence in this new dev team
alexofspades
Posts: 287 Arc User
Seriously.
* The Tailor changes were more than welcome and universally loved by the community.
* The last Lockbox, Collectors, was a great idea.
* Most if not all latest costume sets released have been of great quality.
* The balance changes have been, in my personal opinion, all great for the game. They could've just nerfed 2gm and left the specialist AT worthless, but they walked the extra mile and reworked Munitions, making it more fun, synergistic and survivable. The specialist got an amazing rework and went from a good archetype to an amazing one.
* Teleios Ascendant is new content. The new upcoming event, is also new content. New content guys! When was the last time we got anything new?
We've got more updates on the last three months, than on the last two years combined. I've been with you guys playing CO on and off for five years now, and I'm feeling something I haven't felt in quite a while... I'm feeling hyped for new updates.
Sure, they made mistakes - the costs for recognition stuff went through the roof, and the grind was increased. Heroic didn't really need to have its price multiplied by 4 (specially when its basically the lowest tier of endgame gear) and Unity missions didn't really need to be rendered, well, a waste of time.
But I judge them not by their mistakes, but by their actions as a whole. And in my personal opinion, I think they've done far more good things than bad things. Double hairstyles baby!!!
Thank you, Cryptic. Champs and its players needed this attention.
* The Tailor changes were more than welcome and universally loved by the community.
* The last Lockbox, Collectors, was a great idea.
* Most if not all latest costume sets released have been of great quality.
* The balance changes have been, in my personal opinion, all great for the game. They could've just nerfed 2gm and left the specialist AT worthless, but they walked the extra mile and reworked Munitions, making it more fun, synergistic and survivable. The specialist got an amazing rework and went from a good archetype to an amazing one.
* Teleios Ascendant is new content. The new upcoming event, is also new content. New content guys! When was the last time we got anything new?
We've got more updates on the last three months, than on the last two years combined. I've been with you guys playing CO on and off for five years now, and I'm feeling something I haven't felt in quite a while... I'm feeling hyped for new updates.
Sure, they made mistakes - the costs for recognition stuff went through the roof, and the grind was increased. Heroic didn't really need to have its price multiplied by 4 (specially when its basically the lowest tier of endgame gear) and Unity missions didn't really need to be rendered, well, a waste of time.
But I judge them not by their mistakes, but by their actions as a whole. And in my personal opinion, I think they've done far more good things than bad things. Double hairstyles baby!!!
Thank you, Cryptic. Champs and its players needed this attention.
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Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
As far as lockboxes go, devs gotta eat. I consider them a necessary evil at this point, like some of the price points in the z-store. Obviously there are other things I'd like to see, and some non-dev issues that woefully need improving, but so far, they're doing a reasonable, but not perfect, job.
I'm not sure anyone actually likes lockboxes but the majority seems to tolerate them at least and this last one did have some neat stuff in it. They pop up in nearly all the f2p mmorpgs I've played in the last few years so there must be something about them that works.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Funnily enough, the people that hate lockboxes are the same people that thought grab bags in CoH were the best idea ever... go figure.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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Things have become much better for Champs lately. Let's not forget the Recognition revamp which actually made Recognition points useful again (so much good stuff to buy! Though some of the prices are a bit over the top.
Thanks Team!
Basically this I detest gambling of any sort.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I admire your optimism. I'm agnostic, at the moment. The tweaks are about 50:50 good/bad. Onslaught was awful, game-breakingly so; it was a gear chase with no respect for plot or character. Telios Ascendant's a nicely made lair, but it's like adding another storey on the Leaning Tower of Pisa as far as the balance post-level 40 is concerned, and it's built on mechanics that many people do not understand, at all. On the positive side: nice to have lots of devices out there for everyone to have, some good OP power nerfs (see ya, Epidemic!) and especially the Nightmare event: it looks great and there's some very impressive work in the balancing and mechanics, so A* for that.
My priorities for the year ahead would be:
* Don't worry too much about balancing and tweaks. Most of this is only a problem for people on their third playthrough, and most of them don't get that far.
* Get new players to stay. Make it heroic, keep it that way. Don't make them run the tutorial without a travel power, ffs, or get rinsed the second they get to Westside. A new start-up arc from lvls 6-9 with less of a Vigilante slant would be great.
* Slow down levelling and get people involved in the content, and stop people losing their place in the mission progression. The game should throw mission arcs/emergencies at the player everytime they hit a new level. Give it some proper urgency - Emergency in Canada! Heroes needed now! - and reward people bigtime for going. Why can I get a vehicle or double Xp boost just for turning up in Ren Cen? Give these rewards for playing the game.
* Making an end game so I can play my level 40 toons at level 40. Fast moving, with decent queing and team building mechanics.
* A new daily alert set: Something 15-30 minutes in duration, using some of the great set-ups and villians already in (and mostly ignored) by the game. Lair raids/Alert style missions on UNITY's Most Wanted.
* A team builder/noticeboard so we can run all the existing lairs and event finales without needing to wait for a month for a queue to form or getting stuck with grinders, speed runners and expert playerz. TA wouldn't have come as such a surprise if people could existing lairs regularly.
Finally - have another go at Player vs Player controlled enemy. Forget the hopelessly one-sided mechanics of Onslaught. I want the chance to use my character and their build against some properly clued up opposition, but without all their powers being nerfed, and someone else being in possession of a insta-death ray.
Then when I recently started playing again I spent my saved up stipend on keys, opened the current lockbox a few times, and got every single thing I wanted from it o.o
Apparently rng is the biggest troll u3u
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
I personally don't hate lockboxes, and was amongst the first people defending them because they were a means to an end, really the only one that's worked. They're what keep the game running, and in the end, that matters more than balance tweaks and new powers and whatnot. Lockboxes are good for the game.
I have terrible luck all around (except the first time I went to Vegas and kept hitting the "let it ride" button on video blackjack because I didn't know what it meant, and was then pleasantly surprised when I hit that cash out button... Come to think of it, my ex ended up losing all my winnings that same night, so, bad luck anyway! Haha) and Lockboxes are no exception. I never get the good stuff, except for the Clockwork lockbox. I opened 101 lockboxes one time and ended up with two Become Celestials. No vehicle. Every lockbox costume set and vehicle I own aside from the Clockwork set I got from other players because, lesson learned. My bad luck made a seamless transition into this game. I spent plenty of money on lockboxes back in the day and have very little to show for it.
Okay story time is over.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
We are also getting reworks for other AT's and even new AT's that are actually pretty darned awesome. We got new content too and we're barely 3-mos into the new year. By years end, I'm predicting the entire game will be overhauled and improved.
As as lockboxes go. In the end, CO is a business. People don't work for free. The building that houses them during work hours certainly isn't free either. If lockboxes pay salaries and keeps the lights on at Cryptic, I won't complain. I don't really bother with them myself, but apparently enough people do. The new voucher system seems a lot fairer way to handle lockboxes. Vouchers can be sold and you can get your choice of prizes. Seems like a good compromise to me.
Lockboxes would be more worth the hassle if they didn't have a chance at "junk" items... Honestly I'd rather gamble on getting costume sets peice-meal with zero junk rewards than gamble on getting the costume set as a whole with a 90% chance of getting junk.... though I'd still rather just buy the costume outright... However... if Lockboxes were changed to be a guarantee of 1 of the "valuable" rewards (picked at random) + a random crate/box, then I'd actually be willing to buy keys.
Besides more lockboxes, Onslaught, and Recog Costs, I'm quite pleased with the recent changes....
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
RNG isn't in my favor... hell I've had bad enough luck with RNG before that I failed to get a guaranteed drop multiple times in a row... I only seem to have good luck IRL (and only when it comes to seeing rare stuff)
You want to ensure that you get a good value for your keys? Sell them. Buy the rewards from other players. I did get some Con mods here and there and made some money, but the point was the big-ticket items, I got them at like a fraction of what their drop rate suggested.
But yeah, don't throw any pity this way; my purchases were more about supporting Cryptic than expecting rewards. Those 101 lockboxes I mentioned earlier? I had told the developers on several occasions that if they were to add the "Change Character" button to the game, I would level a character from 1 to 40 doing mainly missions, not alerts, and open every single lockbox that dropped for me. Obviously I pushed for this because, you ever try opening the Christmas presents on like 70 characters? WHAT A HASSLE! You don't know how many times I accidentally pasted my password into the Forumites channel on Pidgin because we had to log all the way out just to switch to another character, and I wasn't about to type my password 70 times in one night. So anyway, it was a fun time joking around about it once they implemented the feature (thanks Cryptic North, forever!), and Kid Cosmic (get it, Cosmic Keys?) hit level 40 with 101 lockboxes picked up. I always got a kick out of that number because 101 looks so much like lol, which was like the developers laughing at me for challenging them like this. Good times.
Btw Nepht says you only play on PTS to avoid me on live... is that true or is that another lie I can throw in her face next time she logs on for five minutes?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Most of what you claim is true, but in terms of 3d modeling and costumes this team was rather bad. They're slowly improving now. Possibly. Hopefully.
Variable Robot was a complete disaster made by someone who either does not know how or don't care to set smooching groups or normals. Tesselation ahoy! No matter how much "oomph" Kaizerin could put on it texturing it, this would be a futile effor when underlying mesh is 100% pure crap and will remain that way.
Ravenswood costume had bleeding issues on textures.
Ravenswood shoulder "raven" accessory is possibly the most lackluster subscriber reward ever. Both in terms of modeling and texturing.
Flying hovercars look awful. Like someone smoothed an entire model and then tried to compensate for it with details on normalmaps, except with no details on geometry the entire car looks "molten". Park one of these next to Vibora Bay hot rods who are in the same style and the difference in quality between the two will gouge your eyes out.
This robot, or something costume (can't recall the name) released along with with this acidic bike or smth... also had clipping and scaling issues.
It slowly improves now with recent costume packs like beards or subscriber rewards or possibly this rocker costume. But up to this point? It certainly wasn't "most of".
I understand that lockboxes bring in a lot of money since people have to buy keys in bulk to get the good rewards. BUT, I am certain that removing the junk items and guaranteeing a worth-while reward on every lockbox would bring in the same if not more money since more people would be able and willing to buy keys to get the items they want. It's the difference between 10 people buying 100 keys each and 100 people buying 10 keys each. If done properly people will buy into it more...
Alternatively they can greatly reduce the cost of keys. Lockboxes that don't guarantee worth-while rewards do better when the cost to open is reflective of the fact that you will be opening a lot of them. Personally I'd set it to 5 keys for 100z & 50 for 1k rather than the current 1 for 100z & 10 for 1k...
Optimus Prime.
most are playing deadpool instead
sigh...
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Also naysayers GMC is Navi and you can totally pick up the gas station at 500 str U_U
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Fun fact: the Raven's model already existed ingame, in the Unity 2 mission, Assemble of the Antidote! The mission may require Feathers from a Dead Bird! The Model is on a crate in one of the room corners
and its as DULL as the costume piece
How shameful the Lockbox series bonuses ended up with such pathetic costume piece
that would be Toxic Steel, its kind of MEH outside the chest & arms and Robotic Legs, plus its incredible Inflexible due to the limited categories
it has a costume piece which is basically SHoulder Pads/Arm Accesories in the... CHEST LAYER category!? Seriously? CHEST LAYER? Those big bulky shoulder rings?
Its as bad as Defender's Psedo Neck/Collar piece
It doesn't matter. None of what you are writing right now has any meaning. The theme is just a fluff bull*** in games, it always was.
The point is that a set was released unfinished and with terrible, terrible bugs and then sold for real money.
*facepalm*
That's a company releasing faulty product knowing perfectly that it's broken beyond being ever repaired (since to repair anything the entire model would need to be scrapped and built again).
That's pure pathetic. It doesn't matter what is the theme, if you believe if it fits the game or not. It's laughably bad craftsmanship, that's all. Story? Theme? Mood? Who cares about it? It's a production quality that matters, and only this, not what kind of nerdy imaginary label is slapped on it. They'd release any other costume set out of this contest, they'd half*** it as badly. You could bet on it.
Note the quality gap between the Holoforce+Cosmic Knight and all sets that came later. This is what happened upon the shift from Cryptic North to the new team.
And yeah, I asked them about not releasing the set at all when I smelled this level of trainwreck incoming.
But they knew better. Cryptic all the way.
You're also missing the point, some people who wanted the set did not want jetwing parts, but plated tights, bladed tech hands and weapons - things that were completely theme-neutral, but Cryptic in their wisdom skipped them over a perspective of a quick cash-in on a bundled sale with hawkwings...
...which didn't work anyway once the word was out abou the costume laughable quality.
That you think the set isn't popular because of the theme reasons - it's only your opinion. I saw posts in topics when this set was announced and people were complaining precisely about skipping those parts.
There's a good reason why you rarely see anyone using the costume - the modeling job on it is a pure pristine 100% crap compared to any single model in the game. It's eye-gouging level of bad. UV seams? Verticles not meeting? Gaps in geometry? Visible tesselation? WTF is that? It's beyond comprehension to release anything that bad and then price is above the lowest price point. Heck, the thing would be an embarassment to hand out for free...
You're wrong that people don't care about quality. There's a certain level where quality is so low that even a layman can point that set looks off, not like on concept or has seams. Or glaring bugs. Or a pair of styrofoam cutouts in place of wings - funny, everything like that happened with this set.
That's how bad quality it is.
At least it's a good thing it did not sold well, because its makers did not deserve anything better.
I'd never release anything like that, better to swipe it under the rug and pretend that the project never was there than to make yourself a laughing stock.
If Cryptic had any semblance of self-respect they'd return Zen to anyone who did purchase the set and then delete it from the game and pretend that it never existed.
Also, hover cars, again. A sh**-tier level of modeling when compared to older vehicles. Those things couldn't be simplified any more.
No. Modeling job from this team wasn't anything outstanding and better than ever. If there's a place when the Cryptic North was much better it was 3d job. But this team has yet to show they can keep up with their predecessors in this department.
And I daresay 3d modeling is kinda important in 3d games. The game without visuals can't seriously attract anyone...
It shouldn't be of any excuse to any creator with self-respect that "oh, we have other low quality models in game, let's half*** some more".
Not "recently". I don't have any Stockholm Syndrome and don't feel like following everything like a happy sheep.
Cryptic's not my family, girlfriend, friend, co-workers or anything. I have absolutely ZERO obligations to praise what I don't like. Nor it think it's a company with an outstanding record that warrants only neverending trust and indulgence in opinions.
People should wrap their heads about an idea that there's no loyalty with regard to game companies. They're just businesses trying to sell you their stuff and it never is anything else. They don't care about communities more than as a tool to keep their playerbase, usual PR spiel. All this player loyalty over the internet is really misplaced.
Meeda- you missed a bit on the crappy robot set- the torso actually twists when you move.It's supposed to be metal, you should not twist.
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On top of not fitting in with the theme (which I have to admit, is so loose nowadays that seeing anime girls with eyes so big they couldn't possibly be spheres inside of their skulls being attacked by Pac Man riding a dinosaur wouldn't make me do a double take in this game), it had the problem of looking goofy because they tried to stuff a human body inside a Transformer. This is the main reason I thought the set wouldn't be a good candidate when I saw the concept art and thought for sure it wouldn't be selected. It would need an entirely new body to make it right, and with that, it would become entirely less useful to the playerbase if it wasn't "mixable" with other existing sets. Just as I wouldn't expect a Veritech Valkyrie to look good on top of a human figure (a more extreme example, admittedly), I didn't think this one would look good right out of the gate. But that's beside the point anyway.
I know you were extremely disappointed by the quality and misinterpretation of many parts of the set, but most people who see the set either see it on the store and just buy it, or see a certain piece on their character which is "just right" and go ahead and make the purchase. I very much doubt that the majority of customers are looking at every vertex before they make a purchase, and will ignore issues with a piece as long as it can look relatively cool. And I know for a fact that most people who play the game didn't read through the PTS thread where all the set's problems were laid bare, so I doubt all that had any influence on the set's popularity.
In a nutshell, I just don't believe that pure incompetence was the downfall of the set. I've seen more people playing evil demonangel succubi than I've seen people trying to cop the Transformers look. I've seen two or three Optimus Primes in the game in six years, and can't honestly think of any other Transformer people have tried to make. The look of the pieces is just so specifically Transformers that anyone wanting to make anything else won't have a use for them. Unfortunately, Arcee would probably have been a better template to work off of because she was designed to specifically just look female first and robot second. Then anyone who wants robot legs and sees hers could be like, oh this works for my cyborg character and whatnot. The reason that this would be unfortunate is because you'd pretty much lose the transformers aesthetic, which was the point of the set in the first place.
I dunno, I could be wrong that the appeal wasn't there, but I've seen plenty of evidence that shows that people will overlook technical mistakes if a costume part fits the character's theme. The lack of transformers characters seen in game before and after seems like proof enough to me that it just wasn't what people wanted.
Also, I'm not trying to defend the shoddy craftsmanship of the set, but every software company releases broken software, and this is not so different. While the wings may not have come out the way you wanted and the vertices didn't line up with amazing accuracy, it wouldn't be the first set that had problems. There's always clipping and animation issues with every set.
Moving on, I'm not sure what that whole tirade of Sockholm Syndrome was about, I just meant that over the past few years you've been a lot more critical of the game than I'd remembered you being prior to that. If I'm wrong and you actually never liked any of their ideas from stories to powers to store items, just say that. I wasn't saying that you should like everything they do, I was just commenting on your disposition (and not even saying that you're wrong in any way for holding those opinions).
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Fun fact: the Raven's model already existed ingame, in the Unity 2 mission, Assemble of the Antidote! The mission may require Feathers from a Dead Bird! The Model is on a crate in one of the room corners
and its as DULL as the costume piece
How shameful the Lockbox series bonuses ended up with such pathetic costume piece
that would be Toxic Steel, its kind of MEH outside the chest & arms and Robotic Legs, plus its incredible Inflexible due to the limited categories
it has a costume piece which is basically SHoulder Pads/Arm Accesories in the... CHEST LAYER category!? Seriously? CHEST LAYER? Those big bulky shoulder rings?
Its as bad as Defender's Psedo Neck/Collar piece
About the TOXIC SET: Well, set your body to Toxic Steel, now try to put chest layer stuff over it without making it clip through everything. Putting those HUEG RINGS to CHEST LAYER was pretty good decision. I feel like I am the only one who thinks this XD with those huge rings I can have interesting combinations with Shoulder pads.
edit: god damn it this forum sucks.
my deviantart: http://zemmax89.deviantart.com/
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@zemmax89 in game, former @Pallih
I'm critical over the game when I see things that are bad, imho. I like their balancing job on powers, recently. Much needed and looong overdue. Still there are things I dislike.
I don't have to explain why I'm not a blindly loyal. This is sort of silly and butthurt to be upset or surprised about other player having any criticism, you know?
And yes, what you are doing is trying to wave the criticism about shoddy craftsmanship by finding some nonsense circular justifications like theme idiocy or other bovine excriments like "trying to fit a human body into a robot" - too bad we already have very heavy armor parts of the game that do exactly the same, except they are of better quality.
Your arguments are childlishly egoistic - basically you are defending an epic fail at crafting because you dislike what was crafted, this couldn't be any more transparent. You'd change your tune right now if the costume that was butchered was one of the superhero options in the contest. You are trying to be a hypocrite, do a better job at masking it.
Don't try to handwave anything because I give absolutely no damn to you being upset about a non-classic comic booky stuff in game and trying to coat it. No costume piece with modeling issues was of THAT low quality. Your denial changes absolutely nothing.
Your popularity theory is also pointless - more than a handful voted on this set. So, you are wrong. I'm sorry you did not like voting on this one or Urban Anime, but you're hardly any authority to voice any opinion on how anyone should be casting their votes.
Yeah, I kinda admit I don't really care about your arguments because they're completely worthless in this case. It's some kind of murky arguing about "theme" or "popularity" when the core issue is fairly dry-cut, technical and simple (and not even remotely related to any of your opinions, really) - the company selling crap for real money, knowing that this is a monumental smoking pile of something, and even trying to sneak it past the radar with hype and sale...
Oh, by the way - this was built around a default CO female body mesh and has all break points in the same places as CO parts. It even has enough loops to conform to body scaling and falls into CO polygon and texture budgets.
Bah, it is even textured in the same style and resolution as CO native parts. Just because I could.
By now the only part of their character models I don't have is an animation skeleton. I daresay I know better how it all holds together and what is possible and what is not.
Indeed, impossible as hell. Nobody ever did it, not for CO.
Not for Sakura Armor, not for Retro Sci-Fi armor limbs, not for a heavy armor chest piece, nooo... Not at all.
So, tell me more how costume sets should be crafted and that Cryptic is right. And what is and what isn't.
Seriously, people who are fast to set for halfassery in a creative field probably should rethink if they're even suited for any creative work. Really.
This is why modern games contain progressively more crap these days.
No creators have any pride left and the public brainlessly sucks it up anyway.