Gonna pull a random thing out mah butt here. You know hideouts, never finished. Still got hidden rooms that will never be used. Hero games Crush was half way through adding stuff then Cryptic moved him onto other games. That bloody Whiteout story arc left on a cliff hanger that never got elaborated on.
Oh and lets not forget the fact Cryptic has never done anything decent with Dr Destroyer >_>
See hideouts are a good example because you can literally see the extra rooms they were gonna add stuff to so there are actually unfinished parts to them because they were abandoned. Whiteout wasn't abandoned, it was finished. I doubt the sequel would have also been called Whiteout. Dr D has stuff in game, so I'm not sure we can call him abandoned.... Shadow D is just cooler so he gets more screen time. Hero Games are also a good example because they had a function-breaking bug that just kind of sat on them for a long time. Two out of ten isn't bad... oh wait it is u3u
See hideouts are a good example because you can literally see the extra rooms they were gonna add stuff to so there are actually unfinished parts to them because they were abandoned.
I have pictures! See? It's like they were planning to add crafting tables or something... There appears to be 3 themes overlaid on top of each other, you can see weapons crates, magic spell books, and a microscope all mashed together in this shot...
It is fairly simple to gauge the population in-game (Most reliable)
You're right, it is fairly simple to gauge the number of players in game at a given moment using the interface. However, this only shows you how many people are on at the moment you press the button. Not how many are playing that hour/day/week/month.
or through Steam, but Steam does not cover Arc players.
Steam also doesn't cover those who play only using the CO launcher that doesn't require arc or steam. Therefore the steam charts only show number of players for one out of the three ways of launching the game
Hideouts aren't really that great an example. Those rooms were left unfinished because with the advent of On Alert, and the ability to train up wherever you happened to be at the moment, along with the change from crafting to fusion, those rooms became unnecessary. Currently, they're used for storing in-game art assets, a tradition begun by Tumerboy back when he was still our environmental artist.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Hideouts aren't really that great an example. Those rooms were left unfinished because with the advent of On Alert, and the ability to train up wherever you happened to be at the moment, along with the change from crafting to fusion, those rooms became unnecessary. Currently, they're used for storing in-game art assets, a tradition begun by Tumerboy back when he was still our environmental artist.
I wouldn't call it storage.
It actually has a clearly defined theme to it rather than being random. But that theme is muddled by being overlaid on two others. See? there's nothing in it that doesn't make sense as either science, mysticism, or arms crafting.
I probably am going to stir this pot up but (and this is just my opinion mind you) but the current game as is, is quite boring. There is quite literally no variety in this game. For example lets say I create a character and I play that character all the way to lvl 40 and I have a great time in doing so because this was my first character and everything was brand new. Great!
Now I decide that I am going to create an alt which is something that a LOT of people do especially in this game. So here I go again with leveling that character up and hmm...well I remember doing all of the Westside quests but this time I will go to Canada instead of the Desert and be introduced to something a bit newer on this play through...until it again sends me to the places I have already been too and seen again. So on with the next character if I make one. That brings me to my point of no variety again. The game in my opinion has gotten stale.
Wind back the clock to the days of CoH where there were MANY possible ways to go through the city. Yes some of them got repetitive at times but there was always something you could do as an alternate. Now I know CoH was its own game and that CO was trying to do something else and kudos on that...but did they stop and think that maybe this was going to get really old and repetitive after awhile? They probably did of course but never got to implement it before internal restructuring or some other thing caused the original team to go their own way. Part of this could have been alleviated with a foundry type thing...but we know that the devs have said this was not possible so scratch that.
Keep in mind this is just my feelings on all of this. I loved CO and the character creation aspect is...WONDERFUL! However just that cannot keep CO afloat if it is indeed sinking. I do not know their financial or population aspects so I will not speculate on that point but what I can say is my friends list out of 30+ people from the beginning of this game I only see about 5 names now on a recurring basis. This makes me sad.
TL;DR: CO just keeps repeating the same content over and over again and something fresh needs to be added to the leveling game not just end game. Regarding end game they have put in some "new" things but being the grind it is some people don't even want to do that.
Again, this is merely my take so take it or leave it as you will. I do not with to stir up unruly behavior or troll anything. This is merely a heart felt opinion I have about an aspect of this game.
I probably am going to stir this pot up but (and this is just my opinion mind you) but the current game as is, is quite boring. There is quite literally no variety in this game.
That's the problem with most, if not all, themepark MMOs. I honestly don't know why they don't develop systems like Bethesda's game engine. People are still modding Morrowind. All that would really be different is replacing modders with developers. Even though all of the areas are handmade instead of procedural generation, there is still a system for random events.
Plus, there is no reason to just go out and kill mobs in CO. They don't give good XP, globals, or loot. Sometime I just want to run around playing the character I made, but none of the mobs are ever going to change. There are no random events that could happen by just wandering around aimlessly. It's all about the missions, so when you get to level 40 and gear out your character, there isn't anything to do besides the same old dailies.
Monster Island and VB aren't interesting places to run around on my level 40. The Warzone isn't ever going to change and there is no reason to be there after my dailies are done. None of the Comic Series or Adventure Packs are going to be different in any way the next time I do them. Alerts have a bit of variety in maps and mobs, but even then, the structure and mob placement is never going to change.
Games like CO would benefit greatly from having a well built world to explore instead of always being about the missions. But I don't see an event system ever being added to CO.
Being able to start in a different zone would make a hell of a difference. It would make everyone (except Spinny) who is tired of the same **** for 7years not feel so bored.
Starting in a different zone would require a rebalance of the enemies, or at least to create a new tutorial version of the zone.... Which in the end would be about as much work as making the q-zone, for... naught but aesthetic improvements.
One thing I'd like to see them do is to add an actual level to mission reward gear. The lack of levels makes it so you can't actually use them with decent mods. (the mods get scaled down to rank 1 no matter what their rank)
Being able to start in a different zone would make a hell of a difference. It would make everyone (except Spinny) who is tired of the same **** for 7years not feel so bored.
I still think think they ought to make a new Level 6-10 set of missions set out of the new Ravenswood Academy Campus. I find it hard to believe they created that solely for the purpose of a prop for the tutorial. Make some use of out it!
I probably am going to stir this pot up but (and this is just my opinion mind you) but the current game as is, is quite boring.... the game in my opinion has gotten stale
It's a fair point and it has been made many times before. And the possible solutions have also been gone over, too; that in the absence of some major re-vamp and new Zones, all they could do is straighten up the level progression so that you were always presented with the right level content while levelling. Then a few revisions to enemies and their tactics would freshen things up along the way.
But eventually you do have to face up to the fact that this is pretty much what there is to CO, and that there won't be much new along; if you're bored, best to go do something else for a while. CO will probably still be here when you come back.
Being able to start in a different zone would make a hell of a difference. It would make everyone (except Spinny) who is tired of the same **** for 7years not feel so bored.
Why wouldn't it have that effect on me as well? o3o
If you get bored playing through the same areas even though you're using different powers (you are using different powers, right?) and have to adapt your playstyle, then perhaps MMOs just aren't right for you. Few, if any, can really keep up with the need some have to have constant brand new experiences while playing the same characters.
For that, I'd recommend tabletop gaming, where the only limitation is the Game Master's imagination and the boundaries of the rules - and with some rulesets, especially Hero System or GURPS, the boundaries can get pretty loose. (Back when Champs 3rd Ed was new, I ran heroes through an adventure in which they had to time-travel to England in 1215 to keep the villains from preventing King John from signing the Magna Carta. I also had a one-shot, when everyone was bored one day and there were no continuing campaigns at the time, where the heroes had to fight a 50-foot-tall crawdad.)
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
If you get bored playing through the same areas even though you're using different powers (you are using different powers, right?) and have to adapt your playstyle, then perhaps MMOs just aren't right for you. Few, if any, can really keep up with the need some have to have constant brand new experiences while playing the same characters.
^ that
you gotta put some effort into making your characters different from one another if you want each trip to feel significantly different. Some people probably use the same basic AD+Con+bunch of heals+D.Passive build on all toons and then wonder why the game never feels different. I don't really feel much joy from basically leveling the same gameplay experience again, so I try to make all of my characters as different from one another as possible - one reason I don't have more than one page of characters, but also a reason that I get excited when I switch toons to do the same content again.
If you get bored playing through the same areas even though you're using different powers (you are using different powers, right?) and have to adapt your playstyle, then perhaps MMOs just aren't right for you. Few, if any, can really keep up with the need some have to have constant brand new experiences while playing the same characters.
^ that
you gotta put some effort into making your characters different from one another if you want each trip to feel significantly different. Some people probably use the same basic AD+Con+bunch of heals+D.Passive build on all toons and then wonder why the game never feels different. I don't really feel much joy from basically leveling the same gameplay experience again, so I try to make all of my characters as different from one another as possible - one reason I don't have more than one page of characters, but also a reason that I get excited when I switch toons to do the same content again.
Same. Different builds/non-standard uilds often help a whooooole lot.
Playing the game through with an AT helps in that respect, too - although you do need to use one of the modern ones with self-heals and stuff, as the other ones can be a bit too challenging.
Different styles and approaches will get you a long way but there's a gap in the endgame between "being new to 40" and Cosmic battles, which needs plugging, as I think it's taking some of the fun out levelling Alts.
I think people need to be made to hit 40 in a Silver account without the benefit of Heirloom gear, a lifetime's worth of Questionite to spend and a bank full of R7 Mods to remember just how awkward it can be, and even if you've got some decent resources the game does try very hard to hit you around the head, shouting "well done on reaching level 40 - you're rubbish!"... to the extent where I've stopped rolling new characters. Bit of a shame, and I hope they do something about it next year.
It's strange to see a dying a game get updates by the devs for what seems to be the purpose of making the game more horrible for the players. It feels like they want the game to die. I actually came back to the forums today to see what people are saying. I was considering caving in to buy a life time membership, but now I'm remembering why I left CO (again) in the first place.
I almost found a home here after losing City of Heroes, but it's just not worth it. The whole structure of this game needs to be completely redone. ATs need to go and just become suggestions. Freeforms need to be free and just limit free players to two or three characters and slots can be purchased or something. The people who actually wasted $50 for single characters could be compensated with keys for lock boxes or something.
They seriously need to stop nerfing everything. It makes the game less enjoyable if it's just a dying simulator. It's too late for it to be a game about the adventure. It's pretty just a game about unlocking stuff so you can do more of the same and unlock newer stuff. So let us do that instead of holding us upside down for loose change. The life time sub needs to be lowered or they need some kind of guarantee that this game wont shut down in the next year. I've been playing MMOs for over 16 years now and I know what dying MMOs feel like.
I can only say that I disagree deeply with renegade and wanderer. I shan't waste time trying to convince them they're wrong - the problem there is that I understand that my opinions are only opinions, whereas they state theirs as if they were objective facts, and there's simply no way to have a reasonable discussion from that basis.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.”
Quote by Mahatma Gandhi.
Aka speak your mind is how humans become better than their imperfect selves.
Gandhi beat his wife and left her for a Lithuanian bodybuilder. Great guy.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
My opinion (or is it a "truth") is that everyone who hates the game and is quitting it should send me all their R7+ mods, DUCs, Eyes of the Dragon, and other goodies. That way at least someone will get some enjoyment from it
My opinion (or is it a "truth") is that everyone who hates the game and is quitting it should send me all their R7+ mods, DUCs, Eyes of the Dragon, and other goodies. That way at least someone will get some enjoyment from it
It's strange to see a dying a game get updates by the devs for what seems to be the purpose of making the game more horrible for the players. It feels like they want the game to die.
I think if they could use the Scary Monster tech (or whatever it's called where baddies scale to your level regardless of your level) on all instanced missions it would be a great way to add variety to the game. There's a lot of content that it's possible to outlevel which would probably be interesting or attractive to players who have primarily done their leveling through alerts. Some in-game carrots to get people to go to other zones might help as well.
For instance, Lemuria is a very neat and original zone IMO. I don't think the zone itself needs any significant work to it now that they have added mission arrows there, but adding some sort of carrot there to get players to spend some time there might encourage folks to take a first or second look at it. For instance, maybe have the missions there give increased XP compared to other missions or have Q Hour occur there-- and only there-- a couple times a week.
I don't have a problem with it, but Lemuria seems to be the most hated area of the game from the chatter I hear. Take some pretty big carrots to get people there.
I enjoy Lemuria a fair amount. I tend to level mostly by content, not primarily by alerts. I'd say every 4th or 5th character runs all the Lemurian content as a change of pace from MI and VB. Personally, I wish Lemuria had enough missions so that I could go from 30-40 just there. Of course, I also wish there were at least some lvl 30-40 missions in MC as well.
I love the artwork that went into it. I think a lot of it is just that people are too used to 2-d map design.
Much as I like Lemuria, I did have a horrible time there with a character who used Might Attacks as I'd knock the baddie up... and he wouldn't come back down.
Funny story my old man ( who legit looks like Professor Oak ) once took me camping when I was 5 years old. He caught a bunny and stabbed it in the face with a stick then taught me how to skin and cook it.
And to this day people ask me "Nupht why are you so f***** up in the head". Theres your answer.
Each time I watch the Pokemon anime I hear bunneh screams.
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!
I love the artwork that went into it. I think a lot of it is just that people are too used to 2-d map design.
Much as I like Lemuria, I did have a horrible time there with a character who used Might Attacks as I'd knock the baddie up... and he wouldn't come back down.
Ha! Same thing happens to me all the time with anyone who can fly, like those Viper Power Armors.
Each time I watch the Pokemon anime I hear bunneh screams.
As a young'un in Germany the butcher was my favorite place to visit... my family really loves meat. When my chickens stop laying, I'm gonna put the knife to 'em myself and make nuggets o3o
Comments
[Spinny is working as intended ]
Content that is created and never touched again....what would you call that?
So if I just left my kid on the side of of the road should I tell the police, "he is not abandoned!...he's exactly where he is supposed to be." ?
Yeah. That that is not how it works. If they have no plans to get their child, that is abandonment.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
See? It's like they were planning to add crafting tables or something... There appears to be 3 themes overlaid on top of each other, you can see weapons crates, magic spell books, and a microscope all mashed together in this shot...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
I alone have put more hours into this game than any game I have ever played in my life.
And CRyptic is the only one who has those numbers.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
It actually has a clearly defined theme to it rather than being random. But that theme is muddled by being overlaid on two others.
See? there's nothing in it that doesn't make sense as either science, mysticism, or arms crafting.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
Now I decide that I am going to create an alt which is something that a LOT of people do especially in this game. So here I go again with leveling that character up and hmm...well I remember doing all of the Westside quests but this time I will go to Canada instead of the Desert and be introduced to something a bit newer on this play through...until it again sends me to the places I have already been too and seen again. So on with the next character if I make one. That brings me to my point of no variety again. The game in my opinion has gotten stale.
Wind back the clock to the days of CoH where there were MANY possible ways to go through the city. Yes some of them got repetitive at times but there was always something you could do as an alternate. Now I know CoH was its own game and that CO was trying to do something else and kudos on that...but did they stop and think that maybe this was going to get really old and repetitive after awhile? They probably did of course but never got to implement it before internal restructuring or some other thing caused the original team to go their own way. Part of this could have been alleviated with a foundry type thing...but we know that the devs have said this was not possible so scratch that.
Keep in mind this is just my feelings on all of this. I loved CO and the character creation aspect is...WONDERFUL! However just that cannot keep CO afloat if it is indeed sinking. I do not know their financial or population aspects so I will not speculate on that point but what I can say is my friends list out of 30+ people from the beginning of this game I only see about 5 names now on a recurring basis. This makes me sad.
TL;DR: CO just keeps repeating the same content over and over again and something fresh needs to be added to the leveling game not just end game. Regarding end game they have put in some "new" things but being the grind it is some people don't even want to do that.
Again, this is merely my take so take it or leave it as you will. I do not with to stir up unruly behavior or troll anything. This is merely a heart felt opinion I have about an aspect of this game.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
That's the problem with most, if not all, themepark MMOs. I honestly don't know why they don't develop systems like Bethesda's game engine. People are still modding Morrowind. All that would really be different is replacing modders with developers. Even though all of the areas are handmade instead of procedural generation, there is still a system for random events.
Plus, there is no reason to just go out and kill mobs in CO. They don't give good XP, globals, or loot. Sometime I just want to run around playing the character I made, but none of the mobs are ever going to change. There are no random events that could happen by just wandering around aimlessly. It's all about the missions, so when you get to level 40 and gear out your character, there isn't anything to do besides the same old dailies.
Monster Island and VB aren't interesting places to run around on my level 40. The Warzone isn't ever going to change and there is no reason to be there after my dailies are done. None of the Comic Series or Adventure Packs are going to be different in any way the next time I do them. Alerts have a bit of variety in maps and mobs, but even then, the structure and mob placement is never going to change.
Games like CO would benefit greatly from having a well built world to explore instead of always being about the missions. But I don't see an event system ever being added to CO.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
One thing I'd like to see them do is to add an actual level to mission reward gear. The lack of levels makes it so you can't actually use them with decent mods. (the mods get scaled down to rank 1 no matter what their rank)
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My characters
It's a fair point and it has been made many times before. And the possible solutions have also been gone over, too; that in the absence of some major re-vamp and new Zones, all they could do is straighten up the level progression so that you were always presented with the right level content while levelling. Then a few revisions to enemies and their tactics would freshen things up along the way.
But eventually you do have to face up to the fact that this is pretty much what there is to CO, and that there won't be much new along; if you're bored, best to go do something else for a while. CO will probably still be here when you come back.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
For that, I'd recommend tabletop gaming, where the only limitation is the Game Master's imagination and the boundaries of the rules - and with some rulesets, especially Hero System or GURPS, the boundaries can get pretty loose. (Back when Champs 3rd Ed was new, I ran heroes through an adventure in which they had to time-travel to England in 1215 to keep the villains from preventing King John from signing the Magna Carta. I also had a one-shot, when everyone was bored one day and there were no continuing campaigns at the time, where the heroes had to fight a 50-foot-tall crawdad.)
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
you gotta put some effort into making your characters different from one another if you want each trip to feel significantly different. Some people probably use the same basic AD+Con+bunch of heals+D.Passive build on all toons and then wonder why the game never feels different. I don't really feel much joy from basically leveling the same gameplay experience again, so I try to make all of my characters as different from one another as possible - one reason I don't have more than one page of characters, but also a reason that I get excited when I switch toons to do the same content again.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Different styles and approaches will get you a long way but there's a gap in the endgame between "being new to 40" and Cosmic battles, which needs plugging, as I think it's taking some of the fun out levelling Alts.
I think people need to be made to hit 40 in a Silver account without the benefit of Heirloom gear, a lifetime's worth of Questionite to spend and a bank full of R7 Mods to remember just how awkward it can be, and even if you've got some decent resources the game does try very hard to hit you around the head, shouting "well done on reaching level 40 - you're rubbish!"... to the extent where I've stopped rolling new characters. Bit of a shame, and I hope they do something about it next year.
I almost found a home here after losing City of Heroes, but it's just not worth it. The whole structure of this game needs to be completely redone. ATs need to go and just become suggestions. Freeforms need to be free and just limit free players to two or three characters and slots can be purchased or something. The people who actually wasted $50 for single characters could be compensated with keys for lock boxes or something.
They seriously need to stop nerfing everything. It makes the game less enjoyable if it's just a dying simulator. It's too late for it to be a game about the adventure. It's pretty just a game about unlocking stuff so you can do more of the same and unlock newer stuff. So let us do that instead of holding us upside down for loose change. The life time sub needs to be lowered or they need some kind of guarantee that this game wont shut down in the next year. I've been playing MMOs for over 16 years now and I know what dying MMOs feel like.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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!
For instance, Lemuria is a very neat and original zone IMO. I don't think the zone itself needs any significant work to it now that they have added mission arrows there, but adding some sort of carrot there to get players to spend some time there might encourage folks to take a first or second look at it. For instance, maybe have the missions there give increased XP compared to other missions or have Q Hour occur there-- and only there-- a couple times a week.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
Have two cups of bunny
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
And to this day people ask me "Nupht why are you so f***** up in the head". Theres your answer.
Each time I watch the Pokemon anime I hear bunneh screams.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
My super cool CC build and how to use it.