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mrhinkypunk
Posts: 1,569 Arc User
Okay I play really bad in this video but here is one of the missions for the new content currently on the PTS. If you wanna give it a try it'll be on there for a while and if you give feedback it may help the devs out a lot.
Anyway I was kinda learning the AT as I went on this so I kinda get better with it as it goes on and probably if I did this again I could attempt it without any deaths. It's not like dieing really does much in CO anyway though. The mission took me 15 minutes to complete a lot to due to how hard it seems to be to navigate this brain and of course the 3 deaths.
Watch it here: http://youtu.be/JmglJ1cdQB8
The reason I died a lot of the time was for one I didn't check every NPC to see what I was coming up against so just went in blindly as if I was a FF using 2GM. Also I didn't block nearly enough and I kept charging fireball but what I should of been doing is placing down the DoT's and using fireball to buff them to hit harder.
I have no gear on and other than the healing thingy you get given (I cheated to speed it up
) I didn't use any devices. I understand this video doesn't really show much but gradii made me wanna give it a go. <_<
So how hard is CO, truly?
Anyway I was kinda learning the AT as I went on this so I kinda get better with it as it goes on and probably if I did this again I could attempt it without any deaths. It's not like dieing really does much in CO anyway though. The mission took me 15 minutes to complete a lot to due to how hard it seems to be to navigate this brain and of course the 3 deaths.
Watch it here: http://youtu.be/JmglJ1cdQB8
The reason I died a lot of the time was for one I didn't check every NPC to see what I was coming up against so just went in blindly as if I was a FF using 2GM. Also I didn't block nearly enough and I kept charging fireball but what I should of been doing is placing down the DoT's and using fireball to buff them to hit harder.
I have no gear on and other than the healing thingy you get given (I cheated to speed it up
) I didn't use any devices. I understand this video doesn't really show much but gradii made me wanna give it a go. <_<So how hard is CO, truly?
Post edited by mrhinkypunk on
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Also, I think flashfire was keeping ya in combat; that may have actually made it harder in places :x But yeah even given not knowing the AT fully, that was nice.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Yeah green just gave me advice of what I did wrong, I should of just put down fire snake tapped fireball and used Conflagration as my main source of damage.
The way LoS works in the engine is actually one of my favourite things about it., it gives much more of an "action" feel to it which was what the engine was built to be. I'd really love if they would make bosses work much more around this with things to hide behind now and again but not something permanent to make it too easy. Maybe then I'd get the same thrill from CO PvE when on a maxed FF as I do when up against a pretty hard PvP build in PvP where I have to move from LoS to LoS so that I don't get squashed.
Thing is that in group content you may have both someone to take aggro and someone to keep you alive in some way. Even with no gear the inferno can still put out a lot of DPS but the thing is that's all it really has.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Hard (adverb): With a great deal of effort.
You know this was on the squishiest AT in the game with no gear on or anything at all to buff it right? I'm pretty sure that's one way to make something harder, that is needing a greater deal of effort and thought to actually do the content. And the fact that I did it and could probably do it now without dieing, that doesn't define what hard is in a game.
I've always wondered if you've ever actually attempted actual hard content in a game. You know like those raids in some of these games which guilds of 50+ people spend months to work out how to complete and do everything perfectly. I'm not saying that CO should be anything like that hardcore MMO nonsense however I am saying that it shouldn't be something you still complete without much trouble even when you make things this difficult for yourself.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
I mean, I get it, kinda. And I get that this video/concept can be helpful on its own as a demonstration. But we've had about a solid week now of nearly the whole damn forum trying to egg on a meltdown.
Seems like even threads that are only tangentially related to anything having to do with her (?) or her opinions eventually turn into, "Yeah, that reminds me of this OTHER stupid thing she said." Why manufacture even more drama?
I wanted to know what words tasted like.
The video was done specifically in reference to this, it's not like I'm bullying gradii or anything me and gradii disagree on pretty much everything it's just a video reply to back up my side of it.
Also after you saying that I'm awfully tempted to make a "LEAVE GRADII ALONE" meme because it's what it reminded me of. This video wasn't aimed at gradii but it was based of something they said, that is all. No need to be defensive over it.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Are they really aimed at one specific player or the really awful opinion said player seems to repeat ad nauseam? It's getting difficult to tell these days. If it's the former then you're totally right. If it's the latter then people are just gonna have to stop getting upset over differing points of view.
The answer to your question is probably close to the number of threads where Gradii has been repeating the same thing, ad nauseam, for about a week now (I'm talking about whining at the presumed mechanics of getting the new powers from the upcoming AT, i.e by levelling it up to 40). They are pretty much the same threads.
Not to mention threads that Gradii started where they are going out of their way to court controversy.....like the one in this link http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=284331
I really don't get how you consider the OP as "trollbait aimed at Gradii" . I think you're reaching a bit far there. The only person that seems to be in any way hostile in this thread is the person you are white-knighting for who came into the thread at post #4 and called out the OP in an extremely tactless way.
Indeed.
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
Fight fire with fire, then? I'm well aware of the recent meltdown, she was on full tilt for about 48 hours straight. I was about as impressed by that as everybody else was, honestly. It's more a question of, what is continued needling really accomplishing? And...
... If one post asking people to give a moment of thought to repeated trolling of a volatile forumite is your idea of drama, then holy wow, how have you survived here for so long? You're a level-headed sort. I'm not trying to make a big deal about this, more of a food-for-thought post. I think everyone in all of the universes knows that CO isn't a difficult game; do we need to flame the one dissenter in every thread?
Fair enough, video-respond as you please, you certainly have a right to defend your point (and do whatever else you want to do on an open forum). Maybe I'm over-reacting to what seemed to be a recent trend of 'provoking just because it's easy'.
But I'm not really getting defensive, I don't think. It's more like watching a couple of monkeys throwing poo at each other, and wondering why both of them keep doing that. Maybe because you're a filthy PVPer, you just can't restrain yourself (jokes).
Anyway, carry on as needed. Honestly not trying to be the Forum Police.
Let's drop this, shall we? You also seem to be a level-headed type and I don't want to be involved in a derailment. Seems off-topic and not at all what the thread is about.
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
Alexandra
Well it was a run of one of the new solo missions in very hard mode on an inferno AT using no devices and having no gear on.
I don't really think any of the fire attacks have really been buffed since the launch of the game so it actually feels a lot like back in those days. The fact I have no gear on is technically making it harder than it used to be and builds back then would usually of used something like a regen build or at least some kind of heal unlike what the inferno AT has at it's disposal.
The video makes it look a lot trickier than it really had to be due to me not knowing all too much about how all the fire debuffs and stuff work off each other. If I had been smarter in how I rotated my attacks I could of probably got out much better DPS and most likely done the run without the 3 deaths.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
From now on, when someone makes any of those claims we don't even have to debate it, we can just link them to this thread. I'm gonna go ahead and bookmark it.
Also Jonesing, this thread is directed at ALL people who say the game isn't easy; many people have made the claim that us big privileged FF players don't know the plight of the common AT player... this video proves that there is no "plight of the common AT player", and especially no "plight of the common Theme builder".
At best, we can confirm that someone might find this game difficult if all they do is run up to stuff and spam their powers like mad... while wearing no gear and playing the squishiest AT in the game. After all, is asking the player to move around a bit while fighting really the greatest hurdle of challenge a developer can throw at a gamer? Heck, even the casuals in Little Big Planet move around a bunch, and their entire game is made of fabric.
It would seem the only way to make this game difficult is if you let the NPCs win... but I'm sure someone can handily point out that that still doesn't actually fit any definition of difficulty.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
excuse me but I did a similar thing when we have the dodge changes. Someone was going on about how you needed a Defensive passive to level now. So I leveled a FF with night Avenger with no gear and recorded its stats each 10 levels.
someone said that then I should do it with an AT, so I did. with a Grimoire.
and before you say they get a huge stat buff from AOPM, NOT when you have no gear you don't.
at Level 30, I had 16 off/0 def. SS's were 103, 83,78. L40- Off-21/Def-0, SS's149,109,104
someone says prove it, so you do. It is not deliberately baiting that person
I have no idea if Gradii is volatile, seems more strong opinion to me .
me,I'm bad tempered and tactless and have no patience for idiots, I have to proofread my posts beforehand to remove as many tactless/rude comment as I can. so if you see any in mine, that's AFTER editing it
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And playing by myself since Aug 2009
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I dunno, if you think about it, the player had to be super careful with pulls, use line of sight, space max range attacks, kite, bunny hop and even retreat all the way back down a tunnel. Not to mention admitted that you need to learn the content to do it with efficiency. If anything he succeeded in making CO look like a challenging game! :eek:
Funny thing is, making CO look challenging is a pretty big achievement in itself.
On my play to lvl 40 before On Alert and geared only with crafting/quest upgrades on the Soldier AT I had at best five or six defeats total and it was my first toon pushed to 40 ever. This was before specialisations and mods.
NPCs are dumb. No difficulty setting can chage it.
The video also shows what is bound to happend if your game is set with the lowest common denominator in mind when this denominator is badly built AT with no gear.
It also shows how insignificant are our difficulty settings - what was demonstrated could pass as a normal difficulty made with new players in mind, but not at hard and higher difficulty settings... No, wait. It should not pass even at our equivalent of "easy" diff settings because player who disregards gearing in an mmo should have it hard.
The catch 22 is, to design more interesting solo encounters you need to set your target higher than this lowest common denominator, except you can't because then it will not be playable with such toons. And the game managed to write itself in the corner where ATs with this level of squishyness are offered as Z-Store purchase.
Still, the Inferno isn't the hardest thing to play. The Blade is his melee equivalent with no real AoE, so it neither can break LoS nor burn entire groups.
No, wait. The Fist is, the Blade at least has an active defence.
Ohh, wait, but isn't the Fist a premium AT?
...
That just got debunked by the video in the OP actually. :biggrin:
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Hm, I dunno. They both have WotW passive and Parry avail, and even if the Fist lacks and AD (which the Blade can't get till high level), at least Fist's close range AoE dps is stronger than the Blade's wonky Scything Blade, and has more CC options + CWK's dodge boost avail.
In general though, yeah Blade > Fist; 100Hands, BCF, DK, and DU may be great, but they aren't worth having no 'oh crap!' powers when there are other high-dps ATs avail, and some that are free.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
It's what happens when you highest stat is at 100 and you have 0 offense 0 defense etc and have never used half the fire powers out of the powerhouse before. <_<
As for needing to learn the content I wouldn't really say so, other than not looking at what I pull before I do not at all. It was more so learning to play the game a bit better. I spend most of my time PvP'ing so don't really think about blocking as much as I really should as well as other faults in how I played.
I actually find the AI to be worse in NW than in CO which is the funny thing, really you should see it they are such dumb AI unless they are scripted like the bosses. Even then you can perma stealth and keep hitting it without it even knowing you're there and stuff like that. <_<
Fist and Inventor are the two AT's I have played before, but yeah they are both premium. I can give the fist a go without any gear if you want, you know it has rising knee which is a 100% chance to knock right? I used to use it for PvP and 3 shot people on it. It would be hard as it is melee however I use LOS even more as melee in CO especially in PvP (really people complain about it all the time). On the fist I could one hundred hands DPS everything fairly fast and on blade I could use MD whenever I go into combat.
I wouldn't call it exploiting, if an NPC is going to hit you anyway even if you move then what's the point in moving you may as well both be stationary hitting your ability's and all of a sudden you've taken the need to move out of the game. Too be honest this is a big thing, in rampages even there really is no need to move on the boss that much. I never understood why CO never had a moving boss, of course they tried it with Grond but I mean something that you actually have to be chasing down as it's running kind of thing. This would need to be heavily scripted though I suppose which in itself can lead to problems.
But generally speaking travel powers are the big thing that set hero games apart from fantasy games and even they have started to get acrobatics type stuff and gliders into their gameplay.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
But the fact remains that saying the game is "too easy" just because you can do something ridiculous just doesn't follow. That speaks to your skill at the game, not the game's base difficulty. It'd be like watching someone play, oh, Gradius, and never upgrade their ship and never get hit - does that mean the game's easy? No, that just means that player is really good at it.
(Aside: I do feel that, overall, CO is a bit too easy - I just don't agree that your video proves anything of the sort. But I wouldn't be in favor of increasing the difficulty without also re-tuning ATs so that they all have at least a basic self-heal or shield or some defensive power beyond just a block.)
On an AT with no gear I'd say also it will be very unlikely to one-hit or three-hit anything but a henchman.
And that's still not the way of thinking new player has. They just don't use LoS or don't manage their pulls. Which is entirely their fault , but it takes knowing how terribly bad Cryptic AI is to use it.
I never saw any difference between CO and NW AI. They're both poor including bosses. Especially bosses, NW has probably the most monotonous boss fights formula ever. Did they finally move beside bazilion variations of "spam adds and moar AoEs?"
The difference is, in NW aggression stealth wasn't as gimped as it is in CO.
In PvE you break LoS with mobs on a melee toon with no self-heals or stealth - you gain nothing with breaking combat, because AI glitches and just stands there. Or uses this strange base ranged attack almost everyone mob has.
If you are about to use healing patches, you can as well use them when smashing mobs, it will do exactly the same.
MD on the Blade but not on the Fist is exactly what makes the Fist such poor buy. Having better cone AoE imho doesn't exactly equals having "can't hurt me" button.
Oh, I know why CO never had moving bosses (aside of Grond, sort off). Made this AI move during combat and it will stuck somewhere. I'm sure of it.
You're gonna make me wanna do another video for the fist with no gear now aren't you. <_< I actually know how to play the fist a bit better too.
As to morigosa I'm not saying the game at lower levels is too easy because frankly I don't believe it is. I'm talking about level 40 end game stuff playing the game on harder modes and stuff like that. I find that until you get all the stupidly power creeped gear and stats (oh and specs, I keep forgetting they weren't in the game and were part of the power creep) the game is just as hard as it was back in 2009. CO is such an odd game in the fact it seems to get easier as you go on opposed to being harder. But that's just power creep for you.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
And not only with no gear, but also with no spec points spent either, since new player is more than likely to botch his specs picking them because they do sound cool.
Or do bazilion of other stupid things like ranking energy builders, or ranking redundant powers.
One of myths in this game is that you can't build your ATs wrong.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
That's not to say the game isn't on the very easy side.
It certainly is.
But videos like that don't prove anything because they're made by vet players.
The first thing I did after creating first toon in CO was exactly the same thing I made for L2 or WoW - looked up any build guides before playing. There's entire forum with AT builds, after all, albeit an unofficial one.
Was so far so good.
Then I saw people playing the Soldier with things like R2 Steady Shot w Paint the Target.
And I pretty much stopped asking why the game might feel very hard for people.
And it was before On Alert hit.
Now with XP alerts it actually may be worse.
Fact is, if this isn't evidence enough, I'm not sure there's anything aside from a comic series or lair that a vet can do to point out that the game is lacking in difficulty. I could grab my roommate and ask him to run something on a new character without gear, but even then: People would just call me a liar about it, they've got their opinions formed and no given evidence will ever sway the discussion.
My 2c on this is if this is possible AT ALL for *anyone*, it's an indication of serious gameplay problems. We've eliminated all of the variables except player skill, and even then it's more just a matter of smart tactics that you can pick up in any other mmo and bring here. I'm not sure it gets more impartial.
Nice video, btw. It always impresses me when someone is willing to put their money where their mouth is on this kinda thing. :biggrin:
RIP Caine
Yes.
Totally doable.
Also utterly stupid and pointless thing to do.
Not like you see actual bosses fought in this video, just a solo content, and WoW elites are pretty much an equivalent to CO minibosses so they do not correspond to our villains and supervillains.
It's more like fighting a spot full of WoW regular monsters. If you don't aggro them all at once, totally doable. Albeit you need at least white or grey quality gear in WoW to fire spells or to proc with specs.
The only one thing in this video that is disturbing is this being possible at very hard difficulty setting.
To be fair, this was an instance, so fair comparison there. I probably shoulda clarified. Moral of the story is I can't see this exact scenario playing out anywhere else. Seems we agree on that?
Thing is, though, I can't even begin to wrap my mind around how you'd go about fixing something like this. I'd say "make higher difficulties drop better gear and up the challenge of em" but I know the danger of making that statement. I think I used to get booed off the forums about once a month before on alert for that.
RIP Caine
No, you're missing the point there - WoW doesn't use instances as part of solo play, so the fact that this content is instanced doesn't mean it's equivalent to a WoW instance - it is, as Meedacthunist said, equivalent to WoW open world solo content.
Which - yes - is totally doable with (minimal) gear, or no gear at all if you're playing a caster that doesn't need a weapon in order to actually be able to attack. Easy to do it that way? Of course not. But very doable; heck, there are videos out there of people winning at PvP with no gear.
If you wanted something equivalent to a WoW instance, you'd need to go hit one of the lairs; Therakiel's Temple, or Vikorin's Lair, or even Moreau's Lab or the like.
I do believe I already covered that.
Can you set a difficulty level on WoW open world content? If not, I don't think it's exactly the same, we're in some odd in between middle ground. Unless you're saying that WoW open world content is harder by default? That would kinda back up the "we're easy mode" theme of the thread.
Haha oh god, I just got the mental picture of someone trying to pvp here without gear.
RIP Caine
Since they add new, more powerful gear with every patch in WoW, they also add new, more powerful mobs in new, more dangerous areas. Going into one of the latest areas with just the green gear from questing is... painful. (But quite doable if you know what you're doing.)
VVith at least a vvhite svvord, I think this could actually be done (VVhite svvord being the basic needed item, due to not having that vvould force you to only have auto attack (punch at like 160 DPS against 140,000 health enemies :P, since vveapon damage is used for attack skills and vvithout a vveapon attack skills are locked out) othervvise I think this could be done fine, army of the dead, heart strike (not a CD, but a self heal "drain" attack based on the amount of damage taken over the last 5 seconds (If I remember right), Runeblade dance; soo many CDs you'll have lots of choices really; of course it'll be slovv and tricky but still.
VVoVV had alot of the same problem as here really, (outside of Raids that is) Dungeons there are a cakevvake for most DPS (using Ilvl 560+) you can pretty much solo all HC (Elite) Dungeons (Lairs) vvithout even having to vvorry about the best vvay to do it (heck bosses there can die in about 15 seconds (given a 300,000 DPS player (using burst CDs) vvill deal 4.5 Million damage in that time. Still...I do understand your point but CO is not alone in the problem, and I think it is hard to fix but Solo content should and vvill alvvays be easy really
P.s. I didn't count timless Isle in VVoVV as this is group content and alittle unfair to compare, Elite Mob in VVoVV are aimed at groups even if most can be solo'd novv (even quite a number of the vvorld bosses can be solo'd (asvvell as the first Raid (10 player Content) I think..Not sure given the first boss needs tvvo tanks usually (three sub bosses and must be kept in tvvo different groups to kill) but I think there is a video of a death knight vvho solo'd that one, could be vvrong though.
Alexandra
P.s.s. If I am vvrong in anything there I am sorry I have not played VVoVV is quite some time and rarely played a Death Knight. and Yes VVoVV still has other Content that is very hard, most of vvhich is the end end game Raids (SoO really) and I think the there vvas one piece of insanely hard solo content.
Edit: sorry that took too long to type out and I missed a number post there, so I think most vvas covered already...sorry.
Edit 2: sorry I had afev things vvrong there, Heart strike should be Death strike (heart strikes is an AoE attack) and Yes, you can somehovv solo the first raid, even in HC mode vvhich even I find alittle shocking but oh vvell
-Sterga
So we started to make it harder for ourselves. One example of this was where we made a conga line as a team of 4 of us walking around the map dancing until they get to 800 or so points then we would suddenly step into action and win it. It was kinda cruel when looking back. We also did challenges where we would win without wearing any gear at all. I remember one where we only sent one person out at a time to fight the other team in 1v5.
Thing is that our gear was pretty damn cheap to buy and very bad anyway, it was just our bunker tactics that no one used yet which let us win every time back around the launch of the game.
Of course that was PvP and before any of the power creep. The way power creep has gone in that game now it'd be impossible to win in the ways we did so easily. Sort of funny how PvP and PvE are different in that sense.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
There were awesome achievements and titles in WAR for running around naked. So much fun.
WoW has been streamlined to be easier since launch and they have issues with power creep that are made worse in every single new expansion.
MMOs in general aren't terribly difficult, but there comes a point where you just have to stop hand-holding every bone head that can't be bothered to learn basic stuff. The one thing CO has that most other MMOs don't is the block button. And to a new player, its presence or importance is not in the tutorial where it should be. After that, this game isn't much different from any other MMO.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Actually the point would be that, no matter what WoW has, what was displayed in the video is our end game content. Not only that, it's upcoming end game content.
That's like Blizz announcing their next expansion, and someone revealing "We'll be able to do all the end game in the new content wearing the gear we were grinding last year, and using tactics we used to beat the tutorial area".
That would be the point here. Yes, you have to jump around and use line of sight... but is that really the benchmark for challenging end game content? WoW players would laugh hysterically at that notion... as would most people playing most games that aren't specifically crafted to be played with one hand.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Because it it's not, then it's not an edgame content but regular leveling content.
Which actually has no meaning when this video serves more to highlight how pointless are our difficulty settings in any content, endgame or not.
But it does not qualify as an "endgame" if it isn't specifically level gated, be it by actual level lock, or entrance being placed in a high level zone.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
We have UNITY missions. Can't think of much else though.
Man, that game was so magnificently bland, they really needed a gimmick.
Well the most hardcore content in the current MMO's is probably the 40 man raids in Wildstar where more red covers the ground than not 24/7 (which will one shot you if you stand in it) and healers have to aim their heals. Also there isn't any ressing.
Who would of thought such an innocent looking game could be so hardcore?
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
In other words, knowledge of the game and skill are important factors!
I don't think any MMO uses gear as a benchmark for difficulty. As the OP alludes, usually difficulty is measured by skill requirement - i.e. being able to dodge bad stuff on the ground. That and I believe Blizz has been very careful of late to talk about difficulty after Jay "Doubled it" Wilson.
And difficulty in most games is indeed rooted in how well you do the same thing you do in the super easy starting stages. You can say the same thing about Cat Mario - all you're really doing is jumping around like how you jump around in normal Mario. The question is how well you jump.
Tab target MMOs like WoW and CO is that a lot of attacks are autohit, so there's a lot less room to create difficulty there. Say what you want about WoW or even WildStar bosses but I don't think they have ever done this.
What the OP proves is that high skill compensates for lack of gear - which is true for most MMOs. So the player in the video is skilled. That's cool and all, but to really show how little skill is needed for the game I think you gotta show how easy it it is to use as few buttons/movement as possible and do as many stupid things like stand in fire and facetank attacks as possible, even if it requires some low end gear. Not that it hasn't been done before.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Yup, it was.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Where did gear come from?
Is what he's doing really considered a demonstration of "high skill"?
So what's low skill... standing without moving while rolling your face across the keyboard? Because most content could actually be dealt with like that if the person playing is wearing gear.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.