I like the challenge level of the newer content, but sudden difficulty spikes in video games are generally considered a bad thing by critics and gamers. Years of open world missions and alerts and have trained players to expect a certain level of dificulty and a lot of leeway in how they approach the game. I personally don't think that Rampage/Custom Alerts are an adequate bridge between Grab alert level difficulty and TA level difficulty.
Does CO properly prepare players for the more challenging end game content? If not, then whats the solution?
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
Does CO properly train players for TA/Monster attack level difficulty? 41 votes
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Silverspar on PRIMUS
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But yeah, the game kinda tells you from the get go- you need to team up and do these things high-level, endgame content now.
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Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
There are info about the fights but doubt the devs expect everyone to get it right away.
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* I also checked "yes" on the survey when I meant "no" ... and can't undo it... Pretty much that right there. There's so many things that people don't expect to do in this mmo - that's standard in others. I partially blame the game's design. If they didn't want roles, then roles never should've been introduced via AT's. All powers should've been designed for "self-sufficient" playstyle. The marvel game (while not a full mmo) does that. No healing class at all. All players have some sort of team buff component to their abilities.
You can' t even get CO players to do simple things like team-up to share Auras and sidekick lowbies. Which is a standard tactic in most mmos. Most don't even know how team mechanics work --- because they've never had to team and teaming offers no real significant advantage to general gameplay.
It barely trains you at all, period.
What the current version of CO mostly does is enable leveling through events and Alerts, PUG play, with a mix of easy solo missions.
To learn things like TA, Fire and Ice, and so on, you have to learn from other players.
Is that a bad thing?
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You also have to know about the fire circles and not crossing them.
Finally, you need to know about not defeating one boss too soon before the other.
Not a ton of learning, actually. It is possible to be in a F&I team and not know any of this, because other team mates know what to do.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Now, as far as the Cosmic Revamp goes, the in-game options to learn about the cosmic fights don't detail much, so I would perhaps like to see some improvement on that front. The Release Notes provide better information on what each cosmic does since each power they have and what they do is listed there.
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As well, it's kind of an MMO staple to throw something hard at the players and watch them figure it out, no? I'm not a huge teaming-up kinda guy, but I like to do auto-team stuff. I love how the cosmic fights can come together when everyone knows what's going on. When it goes good, it's great. When it goes bad, it's a disaster.
All in all I'm having fun with this content. I spent a few days gearing my main up (fusing mods, oh my god...) and it was fun getting ready for "the big day", then going out and fighting giant monsters.
Guess I went a little rambleish, but yeah. I don't think the game needs to really teach you how to do hard content.
It can be frustrating, but I think learning from other players is a good way to go.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
It tries to teach you the basics, and does a decent job if you arn't mega-build or broke-build. Also yes there's not much of a bridge, yes the game teaches you to solo, and also are finding out some skills that have other uses (CC/CS) are now in conflict with the new toy.
And I'll probably start "that fight" but also still the issue of some brokenish things that still probably need fixing (but no one wants fixed, and look worse than they are, and require co-ordinated buffs-and-nerfs) means you can by-pass ever needing to learn the skills so they arn't learned when all combined. This rolled into "challenging content" aimed to kill/challenge said people, and well those not using tropy builds get pulverized and angry. For some of us the 'numbers' or specific damage types aren't just in our favor.
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Pillars... Well I was using a cone attack so I might have accidentally blasted those. I vaguely recall seeing something like that.
The main thing in the pre-mission brief was to split focus between the targets. As you mentioned, the goal was simultaneous destruction.
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Players will try it out, make guides, learn the mechanics and then it will get easier. Could the game do a better job? Sure. Maybe have some tasteful thematic guides written by one of the NPCs as a warning or something....might be fun.
But overall, I find that it's more rewarding and interesting for players to learn from each other.
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Block timing explained
I say it does because I view players as just as much a part of CO as anything else and learning from players who have learnt the mechanics counts as being prepared, provided you take the time to actually listen and process what they are trying to tell you.
As Spinny pointed out, the game itself does teach you the basics of combat, movement, power usage etc, but when those rules are broken or bypassed by new content...there is an issue. So far I have not tested content or run content where the boss mechanics are so unheard of that it appears nowhere else in the game in any way shape or form. The difficulty of the new fights in comparison (using the same mechanics) would be different sure, but at a core level, it is still the same.
Example: The only area denial boss mechanic I've seen in CO so far...is Vikorin The Blind with the steady rising of the lava and loss of stair space etc. However, you are able to utilize your travel powers relatively frequently in the fight. That specific boss fight only reaches stupidity on Elite and if it bugs itself out (in my experience).
Grond in TA, uses full/permanent travel power suppression and area denial mechanics.
Teleiosaur Cosmic Version uses area denial mechanics, in the sense that she has danger zones (tail for example).
The core elements are still present but applied in different settings.
The learning "how to" will always be a pain for everyone, however, that's how things work.
It is very rare for you to come across something new and instantly know how to beat or overcome it unless you have a serious knack for spotting patterns and mechanics or if you actually had a hand in designing it.
I think the only new thing is the Genetic Debuff that Teleios Ascendant applies and requires you to pass it onto a team mate. I've never seen that in CO until now. Not even in obscure boss battles like Clark Robinson, Olmancher or The Cyborg Pirate etc.
On the other hand, there is quite a point about the lack of preparation for the difficulty something possesses, but that is more to do with the fact that basic mobs have not been updated for On Alert levels of power. There are only one or two player mechanics which have not been updated to reflect On Alert either (but that's not going to change).
The only thing would be to update Level 35+ missions in CO, make them more challenging, so that as players head to level 40, they are more prepared for higher level and higher difficulty content.
Also, something should be done about alerts...whilst they are good to run...something needs to be in missions to make them more alluring. Alerts should be something that heroes only run a couple of times a day, not constantly.
Doing missions with the odd alert here or there would be good IMO, but that's likely an unpopular opinion.
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you learn how to block(despite the evidence of a lot of people)
you know that when a word pops up above a boss, something bad is about to happen
a red circle popping up under you is never good, regardless of game.
a giant bubble pops up around the Boss, get out of there, it can't be good.
the boss suddenly starts healing after some new object/critters turn up - kill them. Valerian Scralet actually has a version fo that in alerts, which doesn't happen very often
still levelling by missions with the odd alert except when nemesis alerts come up.
Yes yo upgrade the 35+ missions, they are simple and easy. That's AT's and FF. Though Mega terak can be a problem if you AT Doesn't have a good enough block/heal.
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The fault is not in the game's design, but in the mentality of most of the playerbase... The vast majority of the playerbase ignores the purpose of crowd control (all kinds, not just holds) and aims for nothing but high numbers... High damage, high resistance, high health, high healing... thats all people seem to care about... the few of us who actually do understand the purpose of crowd control get shafted in most team content because of nerfs to holds in years past and players spamming quick small knocks to stack knock resist... Knocks are not as detrimental to team play as people seem to think, a well placed knock can be a life saver for a squishy DPS or healer, sometimes even a tank needs an enemy or two knocked off of them. Holds and Knocks serve similar purposes, while Holds are a proactive form of mitigation meant to lock down an enemy before they become a threat, knocks are more reactive meant to separte a threat from their target to be dealt with easier. Each type of Knock has it's own purpose even, Knock Backs remove threats, Knock Ups give a moments respite with extra damage from the fall, Knock Tos are for tanks to group enemies up, and Knock Downs are just a moments respite (functionally the worst knock type contrary to popular belief). Even a few lesser control types that many forget even exist serve great functionality, roots and snares... Melee builds benefit greatly from snaring and rooting enimies to keep them in range to attack easier, and Ranged builds benefit from them by keeping enemies at a distance.
If the playerbase would rid themselves of this notion that Knocks are bad and Holds are worthless then the lessons the game teaches throughout your leveling experiance would properly train them for the current endgame content. So its not the fault of the game at all but the fault of the players. Forget those misguided notions and realize what the game has been trying to tell you for years...
Honestly I see the fact that the new content makes crowd control more valuable as a major plus... with people being forced to realize that crowd control is nessisary for some content, we may very well actually see some much needed fixes for the crowd control systems.
Then alerts happen. The first levels (10-15) can also be pretty rough, but the game gets easier as the player's level rises until htey finally hit 40. Yeah, this game actually has an inverse difficulty curve, which is hilariously bad.
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Block timing explained
Whilst I don't know for certain and in this instance I would loved to be proved wrong, but the direction in which CO's produced content is going confirms for me that there will be no improvements made to the Crowd Control system and that players will be forced to work alongside or in CC's case around the weak Crowd Control system in CO.
What makes me laugh is that content which is "designed with Crowd controllers in mind " will always have some way to accomplish it without a crowd controller.
Why? Because it is well known the system is so fragile that outside interaction will f**k it up almost instantly.
Do I think anything will be done about despite my YEARS of crying on forums? Nope.
I hope for the sake of the player base, whatever size it is, no content is produced where Crowd Control is mandatory for progress without a much needed Crowd Control System buff.
For what its worth? I hope they DO buff the CC system so it is on par with the other play styles in CO and I hope to hell that they (whoever is in charge of the adjustments) LISTENS TO PLAYERS WHO KNOW ABOUT CROWD CONTROL and find a way to adjust Crowd Control interactions in PvP, since that is the main culprit for the series of nerfs the system has faced.
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I think if players spent more time running through zones and missions and meeting interesting boss mechanics and mobs, they'd have a much easier time.
If there was ever a lair update to Destroyer Factory or an Epic Version...I would really hope players knew what to kill first to make things less stressful.
The amount of alerts I've been in and players just go for anything makes me cringe and then they wonder why they are facetiming the pavement.
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And that last one really just exasperates the issue with the current state of CC... some mobs can actually do a better job at CC than players... sure the AI doesn't recognize CC and may break it quickly, but (at least in my personal experiance over the years) it's all to easy to pull aggro off of a CC'd ally resulting in them struggling against the CC... Not to mention the fact that blocking a CC doesnt completly block it since if you stop blocking too soon you'll be CC'd anyway, so effectively mob CCs always succeed and for longer amounts of time than player CC...
High end content suffers additional problems from the massive balance issues that exist at level 40, where villain attacks have to be so powerful to damage the super-optimised builds that they insta-wipe lower powered characters, from the lack of defence options (no quick dodge/move button, a block power that takes twice as long to activate as any attack power), from the need to rebuild at 40 from a levelling build to use things like ADs (which aren't required for most in-game content), and from confused dev approaches (today I will be mostly building content with the ludicrous difficulty curve of "Battlezone" circa 1980, because I can).
What that leads to is what we have: a small community of elite players going "Yay this is great" and a larger group either ignoring the content or not playing the game at all. It's not an insurmountable problem, but it would be good to see it being acknowleged.
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Bluhman made an excellent video showing this for people who don't know about it: (@ 0:15), I tend to use this block quite a bit in combat. Hasn't ever let me down! \o/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WViookszNg
NPC CC works on the old system and is incredibly strong for what it does as usually NPCs we face are largely several levels/ranks below us. (The only comparison would be players applying strong CC to Cosmics)
That's all I'm going to say on that before I get accused of ranting...or before I actually start ranting about CC.
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Block timing explained
You think maybe you're getting the breath or the tail and that's what's killing you? Those things are pretty tough to block, especially if you're a squishy.
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Block timing explained
If you still died sounds like you were either standing in tail area or bite area.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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Generally, it seems better not to fly in these fights, because the danger of losing block is simply too great.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
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If they follow it up with another attack you have plenty of time to re-engage block.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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If you mean teleiosaurus spine attack it will only affect you if you don't block. However, there is a known bug with AoRP and if it stacks up it can physically break block to make it not even work. There is a fix being worked on, but no idea if it will be implemented with the next patch or not.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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This tells me that it's not an AoRP issue. But if blocking is meant to be effective for it, I certainly can't wait for that to get fixed.
Im not laying blame on the spin, it happens, happens to me too. I'm just saying that your cannon is not glass at all. Or maybe they should strap you to the Pope's car or something.
The way you make it sound, it's like even an Inferno Archetype should be able to top the chart and not die once, and if they do, the problem is with the player. You're nowhere near the average player like you pretend to be.