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I have TOTAL confidence in this new dev team

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  • xcelsior41xcelsior41 Posts: 1,056 Arc User




    *snip*


    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.



    variable_robot_1_by_satapatis-d8x58g2.png

    variable_robot_4_by_satapatis-d8x57t2.png





    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.​​

    Oh dang! :). I personally hate that set because it's bad enough CO is campy humor, now we have a set that looks straight out of one of the really old transformer cartoons(and movies)?. Hearing that it's broke garbage is just icing on the cake for my hatred of the set.
    Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.

    42 40s, LTSer.
  • sistersiliconsistersilicon Posts: 1,687 Arc User
    Come on, Meeda. Character models follow the 90/90 Rule very strictly. The animation rig takes the other 90% of the time. And this isn't just a Champions problem. Watch the animation of any plate-wearing character in World of Guilds of the Ringwinter, and behold! Metal, leather, and cloth all bend in the same way, which is entirely unlike how any of them bend in the real world, because computer graphics have always been about reasonable approximations of physical properties in expected time.

    That said, there are enough hard-robot villain mobs (Destroids, Mechanon, Lemurian constructs, Snake Gulch) in CO that a separate robot base model/animation rig might have been warranted. We can probably file that under "Things Cryptic might have done if they hadn't started out with Marvel lore", because they could have just done Sentinels as one-offs like the four-armed villain mobs derived from Grond.

    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.

    I'm a stickler for detail in my costumes, but even I'll overlook the female torso base poking through the shoulders of the Pharaoh Tech arms, because my concept for Si2 doesn't include long hair or a cape, and I'm not going to add them just to hide the glitches.
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  • meedacthunistmeedacthunist Posts: 2,967 Arc User1
    edited March 2016
    Come on, Meeda. Character models follow the 90/90 Rule very strictly. The animation rig takes the other 90% of the time. And this isn't just a Champions problem. Watch the animation of any plate-wearing character in World of Guilds of the Ringwinter, and behold! Metal, leather, and cloth all bend in the same way, which is entirely unlike how any of them bend in the real world, because computer graphics have always been about reasonable approximations of physical properties in expected time.
    Doesn't mean you can't rig it so underlying body does not clip with armor part. Note how no other heavy armor costume pieces in CO had such big scaling problems. They're just sufficiently big and have additional loops to faciliate for scaling. The VR piece was as simplicistic as it gets - someone literally tried to model all large surfaces with as fewer subdivisions as possible as if they had absolutely no idea that it has to scale with CO body. Then the wings piece was obviously made by only extruding a single plane. Then, despite all the effort with making it as simplicisting as it gets, presumably to save polygon count... Whoever was making it made an effin counterproductive decision about raising geometry for completely pointless details like window frames instead of handling it with normalmaps and save themselves some work... In the end producing only more triangles.

    I really half-believe this was built in a rush by some intern, same like were the hover cars and the Urban Anime (though on weighting problems with this one nobody can't go really hard... The Witcher 3 modeling bugs topped it for years to come). This or Cryptic North back then was doing weed really hard.​​
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,746 Arc User
    what I like, are the people who refuse to buy from lockboxes but are happy to buy the items they want from someone who has opened a lockbox to get it. You're encouraging people to use lockboxes doing that.


    I fail to see your confusion. It, in fact, fits neatly into my "I want to buy it directly" philosophy. I don't care who I'm buying it FROM.
    Different category.

    The people who go on about the evils of gambling and how we shouldn't have it but at the same time are happy to buy the items from other people who have gambled.
    It's like handing out pamphlets for Gamblers Anonymous outside a casino but also telling people , "If you win that car, I'll buy it off you"​​
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  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    Meeda, if you're still this pissed off over a costume set, why are you even here?
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  • biffsmackwellbiffsmackwell Posts: 4,743 Arc User


    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?​​

    I'm not sure why you keep coming back to this loyalty thing. I didn't say you were being, or that you should be, loyal to a fault or even loyal at all. And I didn't make any sort of judgment on your criticisms that you have about the game as I think you're perfectly entitled to them.

    You're getting upset (at least seemingly) about something I never said or even implied.

    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.​​

    No, those pieces didn't try to fit a human body into a robot. Those were built specifically as armor to go over their existing body. There's a big difference there. This set would work much better if the human body weren't there. But then that limits options of what you can do with the set. Basically it would work better as a Become device, because then the developers don't have to worry about how it'll work with everything else we have available.


    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.​​

    I'm not defending the quality of the set, I'm just saying that that might not be the one single reason that the set is unpopular. You seem to be absolutely sure that that's the problem, and you're going to accept no other reason because your mind is made up. You're insulting a person just because they have a different opinion, or are at least offering up a different possibility. That seems more childish to you than you throwing a tantrum because your set didn't get made just like you wanted it and it had some bad craftsmanship?

    You're so confident about me changing my tune if it was something I'd like better that was messed up? Let's take a look at beards, something I've been wanting for a very long time in the game (hmm, launch? yeah). When I heard there was going to be a beard pack on the store, I was excited. When I finally saw it and a developer asked me what I thought of it, I told them that there was a couple problems on one of the beards, posted what the problems were and how to fix them, and then told them that the rest of the set really wasn't for me, but others would probably like it. Next patch comes around and they only half-fixed the beard I like. The upper lip looks kinda goofy. Do I insult the developers? No. Will I mention the problems I have with it if it comes up in conversation? Yeah. I did what I could and they put out a set that while I was hoping for it, wasn't to my taste and for the most part, it's stuff that I don't think belongs in a superhero game. No, my tune is still the same. I'm disappointed but not making a big deal about their competence and their choices.

    Stars and Stripes tights, something I had no idea was coming so I didn't get to give any input to it, when I heard about it, again I was excited. When I saw it? I passed. I think the designs are bad, but I see other people use them plenty, so it's just a matter of taste. Same tune here. Disappointed but not making a big deal out of 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.​​

    I dunno, I thought the scientist set was particularly bad quality.


    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.​​

    Um, I never told anyone how they should vote. As a matter of fact I predicted a lot of which got voted up, but like I said, the forums are a small vocal minority of the playerbase. You can't assume that popularity on the forums is an exact ratio to the players in the game.


    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...​​

    Well yeah, you've made it pretty clear you think I'm a sack of **** because I have a differing opinion than yours. But you really need to chill. I'm not arguing with you, and I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm offering up an alternate reason but you just went full a-hole right out of the gate.

    I think Cryptic has put out lots of content for money that wasn't the best craftsmanship, but you're zeroing in on this particular one, and I probably don't need to guess more than a couple times why. With the amount of times the reins have changed hands in this game, I'm guessing that every so often we've had sets made by people still learning how to make them. It's to be expected at this point.


    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.

    ​​

    So this was built on a model based on the actual model. Is it default scaling? Because she looks too thin to have the default scaling. I don't know how the modelling process goes but I assume (and could definitely be wrong) that they work off of default scaling first, then adjust to scale sliders. This could be the reason that the normal model looks "stuffed" into the armor.

    I'm also curious as to how you'd fix the deforming situation when the body bends and moves. If you had the model all rigged up with a skeleton, would you be able to make this thing not look goofy when the torso twists? Does the game allow for that? Moving with the skeleton but not deforming?

    By the way, I'm not "challenging" anything with these questions. I'm genuinely interested in the answers.


    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.​​

    I don't know if you've ever worked in the games industry or not, but once again you're jumping at the first assumption you come up with and start throwing out insults. Sure, the guy who made your set probably wasn't the most amazing modeler, maybe he was just learning, and maybe it's all because that's the guy that Cryptic could afford to hire at the time. This guy had a deadline to finish this set, and when that deadline came, he had to put it up as-is. Maybe he wasn't given more time to fix it up, as other things in possibly other games had to be modeled.

    Put yourself in that guy's shoes and ask yourself what your pride would make you do. You would have deleted every trace of the model and quit your job out of pride?
  • biffsmackwellbiffsmackwell Posts: 4,743 Arc User

    Whoever was making it made an effin counterproductive decision about raising geometry for completely pointless details like window frames instead of handling it with normalmaps and save themselves some work... In the end producing only more triangles.​​

    That's actually pretty similar to the SNAFU that happened with the Space Scoundrel jacket. The thing was all wobbly because instead of using alpha channels to create transparency in all the myriad holes in the jacket tails, they decided to actually cut the holes out of the mesh. To keep it from going crazy, they stiffened the coat tail up, causing it to shrink.

    The fix was super easy, too. Stick the exact same texture on a typical coat tail, make the holes using the alpha channel, and it was like 95% fixed. (I know this because I did it) The only thing it needed was a few vertices nudged to match up with the scoundrel jacket.
  • decorumfriendsdecorumfriends Posts: 2,811 Arc User
    edited March 2016
    chaelk said:


    Different category.



    The people who go on about the evils of gambling and how we shouldn't have it but at the same time are happy to buy the items from other people who have gambled.

    It's like handing out pamphlets for Gamblers Anonymous outside a casino but also telling people , "If you win that car, I'll buy it off you"​​


    Then you needed to say something like "people who are against lockboxes existing" rather than "people who refuse to buy from lockboxes". They're not the same thing.

    'Dec out

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  • decorumfriendsdecorumfriends Posts: 2,811 Arc User
    edited March 2016
    Ignore. I "quoted" rather than edited. **blush**



    'Dec out

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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,467 Arc User
    edited March 2016


    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.​​

    I remember a time before youtubers made it popular to call all games crap.
    To be fair, I don't often come across a person who is quite that eager to illustrate what I'm talking about.
    I quite thing modern games are just swell.
    Not all of them sure, but I don't think there's ever been a time where everything in a given category was good.
  • jakeesanjakeesan Posts: 32 Arc User
    This game needs a MAJOR expansion and a major level cap increase, period. End of story. It's been SEVEN years. SEVEN. And not ONE cap increase or actual expansion.

    I want to be able to create and play a villains story or at least be a gray hero with a full questline and areas just like being a regular champion. Ive played on and off (and for years in a row) since Day ONE. Seriously, it's time for a complete overhaul and do some freakin advertising. Super hero movies are the big craze right now and devs are missing a golden opportunity. It's gut wrenching to see the state of this awesome game.

    We need new powersets, too.

    The old devs spent 2 years doing NOTHING but pumping out vehicle after vehicle. It was ridiculous. And all we have now is the same stale content weve had for 7 years with just a small handful of new things added that werent even that great.

    Even Conan has had expansions.
  • qawsadaqawsada Posts: 750 Arc User
    edited March 2016
    jakeesan said:

    This game needs a MAJOR expansion and a major level cap increase, period. End of story. It's been SEVEN years. SEVEN. And not ONE cap increase or actual expansion.

    I beg the differ. Increasing the level cap has always mess up or destroy the mmo for a first few month of the update date. Who would want to replay the game again after obtaining the highest level gear only to discard it because the new level cap brought more armor piece that made that armor useless? You combine this with the altitis that many players have for this game and you're asking for trouble. I didn't take it so well when it happen to few mmo I play in the past and I wouldn't want it to happen here.

    And did you forget the last time Cryptic increase a level cap for one of their mmo? It made Neverwinter Online unbearable with all those grind to obtain the last ten level. I hated, hated, HATED redoing the elemental quest since it's one of the few way to get to the new level cap.

    It helps that this is one of the few mmos that still has a low level cap AND a reasonable gear system. The last time I enjoy such system was in Guild Wars 1 and boy, that was a great online game.
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,746 Arc User
    edited March 2016
    the devs did nothing but vehicles and lockboxes because our actual Devs had been stripped on within a month of on alert to help NW meet its release schedule.
    we then got serial trainees.
    so blame NW for our lack of updates because we never got the Devs back. Then we get told we can't afford it.
    Yes we may need a complete overhaul, starting with the missions and rewards. all the powersets. all the AT's
    HOWEVER
    our dev team is small. NOT like the 40+ on NW and STO.That's each.
    so any new Zones, complete new story arcs, complete new sides. unless you fancy dropping a few million dollars on them to do it. You can forget about that.
    we are getting stuff which the SMALL team can manage and it's a hell of a lot more than we had with previous teams,even the 12 in Cryptic North.​​
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  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User
    Level cap increases actually help to prolong the life of most MMOs... however there is a right way and a wrong way to do a level cap increase... the right way is a full expansion with plenty of worthwhile content to get you there... the wrong what NW did... If a level cap increase doesn't have enough story content to reach without grind then it's done wrong and WILL result in losing players...
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  • squirrelloidsquirrelloid Posts: 876 Arc User
    jakeesan said:

    This game needs a MAJOR expansion and a major level cap increase, period. End of story. It's been SEVEN years. SEVEN. And not ONE cap increase or actual expansion.

    I want to be able to create and play a villains story or at least be a gray hero with a full questline and areas just like being a regular champion. Ive played on and off (and for years in a row) since Day ONE. Seriously, it's time for a complete overhaul and do some freakin advertising. Super hero movies are the big craze right now and devs are missing a golden opportunity. It's gut wrenching to see the state of this awesome game.

    We need new powersets, too.

    The old devs spent 2 years doing NOTHING but pumping out vehicle after vehicle. It was ridiculous. And all we have now is the same stale content weve had for 7 years with just a small handful of new things added that werent even that great.

    Even Conan has had expansions.

    New content? Great! I miss Comic Series, for one thing. And the nemesis system could use an expansion/overhaul.

    But level cap increase? Oh hell no. There is literally no benefit from extending the level cap. More ways to level new toons would have way more value, and the people who spend money to support the game do or can have a ton of character slots. (Heck, a long term silver player who never spent a dime nor converted Q to Zen would have something like 10 character slots by now, including 1 FF, from giveaways).

    And villain stories just don't work. Even ignoring the financial viability (CO cannot support multiple independent character-type arcs with its current population), villains are proactive, not reactive. Hero stories can be framed in 'badguys do this, so we have to stop them'. Villains control the narrative, which means there can be no 'quest arc'. Villain stories are 'what do you want to do?' not 'do this'. And villains *can't succeed* in the long run. Playing 'What if Therakiel wins' results in the gameworld (and game) ending. So there's no way to make a satisfying villain questline for multiple story-based reasons.

    As far as being an anti-hero / "grey" hero, there's no reason you can't do that now. That's a question of motivation, not story in the sense that the quest line has story. (ie, the external enemies don't have to change. Punisher fights the same villains as Spider-Man, and he's the antihero archetype). And indeed, you can grab a pair of guns or an assault rifle and pretend that when you mow down the enemies, you're actually killing them. (Indeed, what else do you imagine is happening when you're a superhero packing heat?)
  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Posts: 447 Arc User
    edited March 2016
    Right. So, this thread is obviously in response to it's counterpart. And, yes, I do think the current dev team is doing a good job with their limited resources. But no, I don't have *TOTAL* confidence in them. Why? Because I'm not bipolar. The other thread says *ZERO* confidence. This thread says *TOTAL* confidence. Both of those extremes are equally silly. Life is not black or white, and while I *DO* have some confidence in the direction the game is going, I'm not some extremist who has to claim to be on one polar end of the spectrum or the other. IMO, all extremist thinking, whether white knighting or doomsaying, is bad for a game.

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  • xcelsior41xcelsior41 Posts: 1,056 Arc User

    jakeesan said:

    This game needs a MAJOR expansion and a major level cap increase, period. End of story. It's been SEVEN years. SEVEN. And not ONE cap increase or actual expansion.

    I want to be able to create and play a villains story or at least be a gray hero with a full questline and areas just like being a regular champion. Ive played on and off (and for years in a row) since Day ONE. Seriously, it's time for a complete overhaul and do some freakin advertising. Super hero movies are the big craze right now and devs are missing a golden opportunity. It's gut wrenching to see the state of this awesome game.

    We need new powersets, too.

    The old devs spent 2 years doing NOTHING but pumping out vehicle after vehicle. It was ridiculous. And all we have now is the same stale content weve had for 7 years with just a small handful of new things added that werent even that great.

    Even Conan has had expansions.

    New content? Great! I miss Comic Series, for one thing. And the nemesis system could use an expansion/overhaul.

    But level cap increase? Oh hell no. There is literally no benefit from extending the level cap. More ways to level new toons would have way more value, and the people who spend money to support the game do or can have a ton of character slots. (Heck, a long term silver player who never spent a dime nor converted Q to Zen would have something like 10 character slots by now, including 1 FF, from giveaways).

    And villain stories just don't work. Even ignoring the financial viability (CO cannot support multiple independent character-type arcs with its current population), villains are proactive, not reactive. Hero stories can be framed in 'badguys do this, so we have to stop them'. Villains control the narrative, which means there can be no 'quest arc'. Villain stories are 'what do you want to do?' not 'do this'. And villains *can't succeed* in the long run. Playing 'What if Therakiel wins' results in the gameworld (and game) ending. So there's no way to make a satisfying villain questline for multiple story-based reasons.

    As far as being an anti-hero / "grey" hero, there's no reason you can't do that now. That's a question of motivation, not story in the sense that the quest line has story. (ie, the external enemies don't have to change. Punisher fights the same villains as Spider-Man, and he's the antihero archetype). And indeed, you can grab a pair of guns or an assault rifle and

    pretend

    that when you mow down the enemies, you're actually killing them. (Indeed, what else do you imagine is happening when you're a superhero packing heat?)
    Had to highlight that there. Pretend. Yeah, I dont wanna pretend, I want to do.(as in, a vigilante mish chain or what have you)
    Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.

    42 40s, LTSer.
  • squirrelloidsquirrelloid Posts: 876 Arc User
    edited March 2016


    Had to highlight that there. Pretend. Yeah, I dont wanna pretend, I want to do.(as in, a vigilante mish chain or what have you)

    It's all pretend anyway. What do you want, blood splatters everywhere as you mow them down? This is a 13+ game, not some 18+ mature title that can paint the walls with blood and get away with it. And FFS, You're firing an assault rifle at unarmored gang members and the like, it's a larger leap to imagine everyone is fine afterwards and they're all going to get put into police custody.

    I mean, what do you expect happens? It's like the 1980s GIJoe cartoon where no one ever gets hit (and we always see pilots eject from airplanes so we know they're okay), and they just lay down because they've had enough of being fired at?

    Even the non-weapon powers have similar problems. One framework *sets people on fire* and we even get to see them flailing around and screaming in agony. Another framework electrocutes them. The super who punches holes through walls and hits a mook with a fully-charged haymaker isn't going to just knock the guy out. And unless CO Supers frequent the nerf store, all those sword/axe/claw/etc... weapons are going to kill people.
  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    "Yeah, I dont wanna pretend, I want to do."

    ... Um, that's kinda the point of video games. To play pretend. By playing video games, you are pretending.
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  • nephtnepht Posts: 6,898 Arc User

    Right. So, this thread is obviously in response to it's counterpart. And, yes, I do think the current dev team is doing a good job with their limited resources. But no, I don't have *TOTAL* confidence in them. Why? Because I'm not bipolar. The other thread says *ZERO* confidence. This thread says *TOTAL* confidence. Both of those extremes are equally silly. Life is not black or white, and while I *DO* have some confidence in the direction the game is going, I'm not some extremist who has to claim to be on one polar end of the spectrum or the other. IMO, all extremist thinking, whether white knighting or doomsaying, is bad for a game.

    Pretty much the thinking of the non vocal majority. Games done alright fun enough devs doing alright job could be better, could be worse.

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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,467 Arc User
    edited March 2016
    sterga said:

    "Yeah, I dont wanna pretend, I want to do."

    ... Um, that's kinda the point of video games. To play pretend. By playing video games, you are pretending.

    That's completely backwards. If I'm gonna pretend, then I'm not going to deal with the limitations of an in-game tailor or powers system, I'm gonna do it the good old fashioned way. The graphics card in my computer is pretty good, but the one in my head is a million times better.

    I agree with the statement. I don't want to pretend I'm doing things in the video game, I want to play the video game. Playing pretend is fine and you're free to do it all day every day as much as you like and nobody can tell you otherwise, but don't try to pretend ( ha... ) that other people are weird cause they don't wanna play along.
  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    The weird part is that someone is claiming that they don't want to play pretend when that is exactly what their doing by playing a video game. It's the next evolution in pretend playing. When you have a tea party with a dragon, everyone else can see the dragon too.
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  • xcelsior41xcelsior41 Posts: 1,056 Arc User
    sterga said:

    "Yeah, I dont wanna pretend, I want to do."

    ... Um, that's kinda the point of video games. To play pretend. By playing video games, you are pretending.

    Yeah, but since I have to specify(seriously.) I want, if you(you didnt) read the last bit. Vigilante style mishes, doesnt have to be graphic. CoH was a teen game and guess what? They had(though, admittedly the errand-boy(of both sides) was meh..) villain and vigilante mishs. I mean seriously? This strawman? C'mon :/
    Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.

    42 40s, LTSer.
  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,334 Arc User
    Yes, CoX had villain missions.

    Didn't save the game, did it? Just how populated were the villain regions, anyway?

    This argument has been dealt with so many times, the ASPCA is ready to step into the thread to deal with allegations of abuse of horse corpses.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,467 Arc User
    edited March 2016
    Villain content only works in a game that is specifically designed around it. Even then, villain content generally falls flat because villains are proactive rather than reactive. Highly versatile sandbox style games are the best for being a villain, because game villainy works best when it is the player deciding how they are going to villain, rather than the game telling them how to villain. It's the difference between deciding to rob a bank, and robbing a bank because someone told you it was the thing to do - one makes you feel villainous, the other makes you feel like a sap.


    That's why I don't play characters who have motivations that don't coincide with being an "agent of the state" or a vigilante who goes around flooring people just for wearing the gang colors/uniform of known villainous organizations... because the game doesn't allow me to do anything other than be an agent of the state, or said vigilante. I have no interest in being a pretend villain like Nepht.


    However, unlike in the past we actually now have two ways to be a villain in game thanks to the Onslaught event... even if Onslaught villains are rather polite and tend to restrict their rampages to the point that it can't really be called a rampage. The other way is of course, going into Hero Games with a FotM pvp build and/or with your buddies from your "BASH Domination SG"; however, that method is slowly dying out and was never really a full "in character" method of villainy.



    PS - I can't have a tea party with a dragon. I can stand next to a pseudo-dragon and we can talk about a fictional tea party that's not happening on screen.
  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Posts: 447 Arc User
    spinnytop said:

    Villain content only works in a game that is specifically designed around it. Even then, villain content generally falls flat because villains are proactive rather than reactive.

    I find an interesting contradiction between your first and second sentences in the game The Old Republic. Regarding your first sentence, TOR's imperial classes do work well because the game was designed with them being a major part of the game. But regarding your second sentence, TOR's imperial class stories *don't* "fall flat". So, I both agree and disagree with your statements.

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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,467 Arc User

    spinnytop said:

    Villain content only works in a game that is specifically designed around it. Even then, villain content generally falls flat because villains are proactive rather than reactive.

    I find an interesting contradiction between your first and second sentences in the game The Old Republic. Regarding your first sentence, TOR's imperial classes do work well because the game was designed with them being a major part of the game. But regarding your second sentence, TOR's imperial class stories *don't* "fall flat". So, I both agree and disagree with your statements.
    Generally.
  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User

    spinnytop said:

    Villain content only works in a game that is specifically designed around it. Even then, villain content generally falls flat because villains are proactive rather than reactive.

    I find an interesting contradiction between your first and second sentences in the game The Old Republic. Regarding your first sentence, TOR's imperial classes do work well because the game was designed with them being a major part of the game. But regarding your second sentence, TOR's imperial class stories *don't* "fall flat". So, I both agree and disagree with your statements.
    The story element comes from the fact that in tOR the story of your character is actually be determined while still providing you with the option to dictate various specifics creating a sense of your character driving the story plot how you want it rather than your character being directed by others... While this sort of false control works well for creating a villainous experience that doesn't fall flat, it requires a massive amount of effort to produce, and an entirely different system than is currently in place within CO... however, at the same time the very same type of system would actually improve the hero experience as well...

    BUT, there is a major flaw in such a system as well... the predefined story element... you see in tOR you play a character with a predefined background... a mostly vague background but predefined all the same... your class defines your character and you enter into the game with the same preconceived notions as everyone else playing that class as to who your character is... sure you may have your own personal fluff details to your character but the over-all concept and background remains the same as everyone else... move that to a freeform superhero/villain game and you run into the very same issues that CoX and more recently DCUO have encountered... in the effort to create an engaging story, the sense of individuality is lost...

    That said, there would be a fairly viable way to create a villain arc that might succeed at least partially... the initial introduction for a villain character should be with you actively committing a crime, not being sent to commit one by someone but rather you are thrown right into it when you first start the character... this would conclude with your first encounter with a superhero (probably defender) and most likely be defeated... you wake up sometime later in the prison in westside and help arrange the prison break... early levels collaborating with other villains isn't necessarily a bad thing, but as you get to the higher levels that's where the whole villain story content becomes tricky... there has to come a point where you stop being essentially a glorified lackey and become a true villain... the question is how?
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  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,538 Arc User
    raighn said:

    Level cap increases actually help to prolong the life of most MMOs... however there is a right way and a wrong way to do a level cap increase... the right way is a full expansion with plenty of worthwhile content to get you there... the wrong what NW did... If a level cap increase doesn't have enough story content to reach without grind then it's done wrong and WILL result in losing players...

    To add to this, level caps in particular are a vital tool for resetting power creep--much moreso than giving players an excuse to grind through new content, which they will do whether or not a level cap increase happens. If done properly, level cap increases allow a new player to eventually level to max and make their way into whatever the current endgame content is without being caught hopelessly behind the curve.

    I'm not sure how NW handled their cap increase, but if it's anything like how STO did, then yeah, it was awful and utterly pointless. In STO, we have a gear upgrade system that allows us to take pretty much any item in the game and level it up to endgame levels. While a very neat and cool way to keep players in touch with their favorite equipment sets, it also renders a power creep reset via level cap increases totally invalid. I seriously hope we never, ever see another cap increase in STO.

    That said, I don't think CO is ready for a level cap increase yet. At the rate it seems to be progressing in terms of content growth, it may not ever need one.
    (Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,467 Arc User
    Personally I think a good example of a game with good potential villain play is the Elder Scrolls games. I can run around, pillaging and murdering, gain a reputation from it that makes people hate me and treat me like a villain, and the best part is that nobody told me to do it... in fact the game is actively trying to make me be a hero, and I instead decided that I want to go around killing people and taking their stuff. It's not the most in-depth villain experience, but it's one of the more pro-active ones you'll encounter.

    TOR may have good writing or whatever, but are you actually deciding which "evil" things you're going to do, or are you mostly accepting "evil" missions? I haven't played that game so I wouldn't know; heard too many bad things.
  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User
    spinnytop said:

    TOR may have good writing or whatever, but are you actually deciding which "evil" things you're going to do, or are you mostly accepting "evil" missions? I haven't played that game so I wouldn't know; heard too many bad things.

    Your actually accepting mostly alllignment nuetral missions and deciding for yourself during the mission if your going to be good or evil...do you kill the hostage or free them? Do you deliver poison or medicine? Do you destroy or save?...
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  • xcelsior41xcelsior41 Posts: 1,056 Arc User
    spinnytop said:

    Personally I think a good example of a game with good potential villain play is the Elder Scrolls games. I can run around, pillaging and murdering, gain a reputation from it that makes people hate me and treat me like a villain, and the best part is that nobody told me to do it... in fact the game is actively trying to make me be a hero, and I instead decided that I want to go around killing people and taking their stuff. It's not the most in-depth villain experience, but it's one of the more pro-active ones you'll encounter.

    TOR may have good writing or whatever, but are you actually deciding which "evil" things you're going to do, or are you mostly accepting "evil" missions? I haven't played that game so I wouldn't know; heard too many bad things.

    I like that. >:) It would be cool and what I mean by do. Can't believe it had to be elaborated like this to understand "do" but hey :P. Good idea, spinny.
    Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.

    42 40s, LTSer.
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,746 Arc User
    we have npc heroes and the mobs who are villains. so you attack the NPC hero side and they stop buying/selling/training you​​
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  • squirrelloidsquirrelloid Posts: 876 Arc User
    edited March 2016
    But supervillains don't just attack civilians. They rob banks, build deathrays, hunt down arcane artifacts of immense power, take over dimensions, assassinate presidents, rule small countries, etc... But no one villain does *all of those things*. And the things they do that make them villains they choose to do.

    You need a wide-open playing sandbox to actually feel like a supervillain, and CO's engine is completely incompetent at it.

    Edit: A big problem with onslaught is you're a major supervillain on a rampage, and you can barely inflict minor property damage. So you kill a couple UNTIL defenders and beat up some superheroes... and that doesn't feel particularly supervillainish. And these are pre-determined villains with (presumably) known motivations who could have been given characterful objectives.
  • Right. So, this thread is obviously in response to it's counterpart. And, yes, I do think the current dev team is doing a good job with their limited resources. But no, I don't have *TOTAL* confidence in them. Why? Because I'm not bipolar. The other thread says *ZERO* confidence. This thread says *TOTAL* confidence. Both of those extremes are equally silly. Life is not black or white, and while I *DO* have some confidence in the direction the game is going, I'm not some extremist who has to claim to be on one polar end of the spectrum or the other. IMO, all extremist thinking, whether white knighting or doomsaying, is bad for a game.

    Hahahh, yeah, I'm with you. The title of the thread is just to poke fun at that other thread. I'm not actually on the "total fanboy" side. The game still has trillions of issues.

    I just wanted to show the devs a little bit of support though. It's so rare to have dev-supporting threads in game forums...
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,467 Arc User
    raighn said:

    spinnytop said:

    TOR may have good writing or whatever, but are you actually deciding which "evil" things you're going to do, or are you mostly accepting "evil" missions? I haven't played that game so I wouldn't know; heard too many bad things.

    Your actually accepting mostly alllignment nuetral missions and deciding for yourself during the mission if your going to be good or evil...do you kill the hostage or free them? Do you deliver poison or medicine? Do you destroy or save?...
    So it's not really pro-active villainy. My question is, why do they keep giving you missions after they sent you to rescue a hostage and you killed them?
  • phasestarphasestar Posts: 127 Arc User
    Posting to give the devs some support - very happy with the updates we've been getting and hoping it will continue. The work they've done so far has pulled me back into a game I love, but wanted to also see grow and improve. Hopefully we will see more new content/stories/comic series and/or new power sets and new powers in the future. It's probably too much to hope for a level cap increase, but that would be great too.

    I would also like to add a vote for many, many more sidekick options including permanent sidekicks and ideally tie it into the mission system so that during important arcs/packs (like with Whiteout) you can get a sidekick from it once you complete the arc or pack. Even better, set up a sidekick "system" to work in parallel with the Nemesis system so that you could potentially design your own sidekick after a certain level.
  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Posts: 447 Arc User
    edited March 2016
    spinnytop said:

    raighn said:

    spinnytop said:

    TOR may have good writing or whatever, but are you actually deciding which "evil" things you're going to do, or are you mostly accepting "evil" missions? I haven't played that game so I wouldn't know; heard too many bad things.

    Your actually accepting mostly alllignment nuetral missions and deciding for yourself during the mission if your going to be good or evil...do you kill the hostage or free them? Do you deliver poison or medicine? Do you destroy or save?...
    So it's not really pro-active villainy. My question is, why do they keep giving you missions after they sent you to rescue a hostage and you killed them?
    If you wound up killing someone you were sent to save, then when you report back to command you would lie and say the person was dead when you got there, but you got revenge by killing the people who were holding them. Or, alternatively, if you told the truth they might have written it where the mission giver would tell you it was actually a test to see what you would do.They are pretty good about allowing you to both do something "bad" or disobedient, while still being able to complete the mission logically.

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  • nephtnepht Posts: 6,898 Arc User
    Someone mentioned the words Wars and Guild in a certain order made me punch a wall a few hundred times. Luckily it didnt have a 2 at the end so I didn't kick Ginger's cat right up the arse!
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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!
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,467 Arc User
    nepht said:

    Someone mentioned the words Wars and Guild in a certain order made me punch a wall a few hundred times. Luckily it didnt have a 2 at the end so I didn't kick Ginger's cat right up the arse!

    Guild Wars 2.
  • decorumfriendsdecorumfriends Posts: 2,811 Arc User

    'Dec out

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  • sistersiliconsistersilicon Posts: 1,687 Arc User
    /thread
    Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
    They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
  • nephtnepht Posts: 6,898 Arc User
    spinnytop said:



    Guild Wars 2.

    You deserve nothing good in life U_U

    nepht_siggy_v6_by_nepht-dbbz19n.jpg
    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!
  • squirrelloidsquirrelloid Posts: 876 Arc User
    I had some confidence in the dev team. Then i saw the new forum background... o.O
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,467 Arc User

    I had some confidence in the dev team. Then i saw the new forum background... o.O

    Dev team didn't do that you muffin head u.u
  • mijjesticmijjestic Posts: 481 Arc User
    You can never have enough Grond.
  • spookyspectrespookyspectre Posts: 647 Arc User
    I hope the Developers see this comment. I'm ecstatic about the amount of attention being paid to game balance, new powers and new costume options. When I think about a year or more ago vs. now, it's like night and day. Thank you Developers!!!
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  • furries2furries2 Posts: 80 Arc User
    edited April 2016
    I don't hate lockboxes, I mean would you take your chances of letting CO die or let it live? After the death of CoH I want CO to live on it's my last super hero game and I am determined to let it live and even if it means I spent a few hundred bucks on keys I just want the game to move on and continue to play my favorite MMO.

    CoH's Down fall was a big blow on me and if I see CO fall I would be completely heartbroken, To many of my favorite MMOs died. Matrix Online, CoH, Shin Megami Tensei Imgaine. I do not want CO next on the chopping block.

    I have hope for CO and as they would say in the old days "These are dark times" but I have confident that CO will get better and fully recover in a few more years.

    But yea I agree with the OP.
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