It sounds to me like their should be more tutorials about this kind of thing before you get to these bigger events. (though I feel the game is generally lacking in tutorials. I am surprised at how many things you have to figure out on your own with research on various forums - because the wiki is very lacking as well)
The wiki's actually like the 3rd or 4th generation of player built wiki's... it's very slowly getting built... and if the previous wiki's are anything to go by... it will probably never be completed...
If there was the money (there isn't) there should probably be a Grab Alert tutorial at the Ravenswood Academy. Something like the Villain Team room in the Powerhouse, five player instance, some pauses for instruction along the way. Would save an awful lot of aggro.
(There are, of course, people who can't be helped. These are usually the ones trying to defeat all the enemies in the garage during Talos Takedown....)
My personal goals would be for them to learn tactics that involve movement, blocking(and block timing), use of line of sight and range, use of crowd control knocks and interrupts to prevent damage/negative effects, reading tells, and threat management for team play.
I'm not actually that concerned with them learning "how to trinity" since that stuff is literally explained by saying "healer heals people, tank holds aggro". I'm more concerned with people learning the building block skills that make someone able to handle stuff beyond tank-n-spanks. "How to trinity" can actually be taught fairly easily by just making bosses that hit the tank really hard and throw out aoes now and then ( which is certainly something that would be okay to throw in as well, since I'm sure there are others who want that sort of thing taught as well ).
speedrunning through Alerts, ignoring the rest of the team, setting off on their own, zerging through things as fast as possible and then sitting at the entrance to the boss room with a "where have you been" look on their face (turning up late to collect rewards and leaving Alerts because there's too many level 11s in it also qualifies, too).
Honestly, if you want to teach teamwork, start by making it so people can't abandon the team at any point with controlled area access.
Actually, I feel even worse when I do stick with the team because I'm basically just nuking everything to death in front of their faces in a matter of seconds and they barely even get to touch them. How are they supposed to learn when that's happening?
At least that's the case on my DPS characters. On my tanks I just aggro everything in sight and then hold it while the team pewpews it down. On my healers I just heal people. Not sure if those two cases make it easier for people to learn anything important either.
My personal goals would be for them to learn tactics that involve movement, blocking(and block timing), use of line of sight and range, use of crowd control knocks and interrupts to prevent damage/negative effects, reading tells, and threat management for team play.
I'm not actually that concerned with them learning "how to trinity" since that stuff is literally explained by saying "healer heals people, tank holds aggro". I'm more concerned with people learning the building block skills that make someone able to handle stuff beyond tank-n-spanks. "How to trinity" can actually be taught fairly easily by just making bosses that hit the tank really hard and throw out aoes now and then ( which is certainly something that would be okay to throw in as well, since I'm sure there are others who want that sort of thing taught as well ).
Then it shouldn't be too difficult to make customer alerts that are like tutorials that can teach that. I'm not sure how effective the devs could be in trying to shoehorn any of that into existing Alerts.
hey, i've managed to defeat all those enemies just fine without a single death on some builds
I'm sure you can. Ditto Leo's Bar - you can probably defeat everyone in there at Level 9. The point is that you're not supposed to (or at least, not the first dozen times you run Westside, anyway), and that the game tries very hard to make that clear. Some people, however, can't be told....
My personal goals would be for them to learn tactics that involve movement, blocking(and block timing), use of line of sight and range, use of crowd control knocks and interrupts to prevent damage/negative effects, reading tells, and threat management for team play.
All good ideas and I'm sure everyone would agree. But most of those things involve the player getting their head around certain quirks of game design and function which aren't particularly intuitive or consistent (as we've been discussing on the block thread). It's not a hard game in terms of difficulty but it does do things which are a bit weird, which means it's quite hard for the player to read and comprehend what's going on.
I'd go with making questionite and merit awards much more attractive for APs and Demonflame, for a start, in the hopes of getting new players to do them a lot more often. Since those content types can be solo'ed, it gives them lots of ideal situations to be blocking without interference from any team members.
the fact that i'm slicing them up with swords, shooting them full of depleted-uranium-augmented lead, torching them with fireballs, frying them with gigavolt-rated bolts of lightning, mauling them with razor-sharp claws, poisoning them and then reanimating their corpses, puncturing them with arrows, skewering them with icy spears and avalanche shards, melting them with plasma beams and blowing them up with mini-rockets and consuming their souls with pure darkness says otherwise
the fact that i'm slicing them up with swords, shooting them full of depleted-uranium-augmented lead, torching them with fireballs, frying them with gigavolt-rated bolts of lightning, mauling them with razor-sharp claws, poisoning them and then reanimating their corpses, puncturing them with arrows, skewering them with icy spears and avalanche shards, melting them with plasma beams and blowing them up with mini-rockets and consuming their souls with pure darkness says otherwise
and that's just the first page
Dont worry they will wake up dazed and confused in a nice comfy jail cell in a few hours.
I think most of you are giving this whole tutorial idea too much thought. I was less than level 10 and did that jungle adventure in the Until building (the one where you defeat a giant snake boss). I think it was at the end of generator alpha where I ran into some trouble getting one shotted. So I called up my bud across the boarder and asked him to join me. He jumped in on his level 40 and blew it away. I figured I was in way over my head. He told me that what I was failing to do, was use SHIFT to block the big attacks. I don't believe the solution here is more unused tutorials, but instead just watching out for the new guy, telling them when they make mistakes without being condescending.
For example; Should you see a new healer in the mix and they heal you be sure to thank them at some point. Thanks for doing it right, shows others you care about the team effort. If you see the healer blasting on some big guy and not healing then you might want to take them under your supervision and help them to become the better player. New people want to learn the ropes, most just don't care to learn it from a machine.
Played "Star Trek Online" from 2011 - 2016 Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016 Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
So I called up my bud across the boarder and asked him to join me. He jumped in on his level 40 and blew it away. I figured I was in way over my head. He told me that what I was failing to do, was use SHIFT to block the big attacks. I don't believe the solution here is more unused tutorials, but instead just watching out for the new guy, telling them when they make mistakes without being condescending.
You did the right thing.
Many folks seem to play solo or PUG only, and never use chat (and possibly have it turned off). I say this because of people I PUG with at times, and because of people that show up at Cosmic fights who don't block. When given advice, some folks do not respond or change what they are doing--chat, for some reason, is not effective for some players.
In any case, the tutorial wouldn't be enough. I still vote for each Alert boss to have a schtick attack that should be blocked. Baron C and Jack Fool have them already.
beating them to a bloody pulp isn't very heroic either - especially since they're all weaker than you
luckily, most of my 'heroes' are no heroes at all
The methodical side of my brain sometimes causes me to wipe maps just because there are enemies on them. And by "wipe" I mean methodically searching the map for enemies, and even going so far as to use a +mapradius primary utility to locate enemies I can't see on my screen. Then using forceful persuasion to reallocate their lunch money.... and maybe their lunch too.
This urge does sometimes cause me to do dumb things, like trying to wipe the Nephilim swarm in the last part of the Vibora Apocalypse story. Hint: they respawn endlessly. Best you can do is an infinite stale mate.... wait no... since there are weekly server reboots, it's not really infinite.
I once teamed for that, it was hilarious. We managed to beat back the endless tide all the way to the door where they spawn. then got confused because there is no mission objective there.... yeah... you're supposed to run away from the Nephilim in that mission, not fight them.
I like the idea of a non-violent superhero. The Arbitrator! Powers: Reasonableness (EB), R3 Conciliation (Listen To Reason advantage)....
Non-violent superhero... that describe Achroma... she doesn't harm anyone... she holds she's not responsible for any harm that may be caused by individuals while under the influence of her mind control powers...
EDIT: just had the best loading screen tip ever pop up... "TIP: BLOCK!"
how is mapradius going to help you find enemies you can't actually see on the screen? all that mod does is change how much FOW you clear as you pass through a shrouded area - in other words, a completely useless mod because FOW shouldn't even be a thing to begin with; this is not an RTS
how is mapradius going to help you find enemies you can't actually see on the screen? all that mod does is change how much FOW you clear as you pass through a shrouded area - in other words, a completely useless mod because FOW shouldn't even be a thing to begin with; this is not an RTS
Incorrect. It marks enemies on the minimap with a red arrow, unless they're invisible. So if there's a wall between you and them? You see them on the minimap. I wrote a wiki article about it: Mini-Map_Radius
In any case, the tutorial wouldn't be enough. I still vote for each Alert boss to have a schtick attack that should be blocked. Baron C and Jack Fool have them already.
I agree that no matter what you do, the old proverb; "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." applies here. Even IF you could convince a developer to add more tutorials, etc. it is still up to players to seek help and others to help them find the answers. I am always willing to assist, but as I only play Friday to Sunday (weekend warrior? lol).
Played "Star Trek Online" from 2011 - 2016 Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016 Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
Then it shouldn't be too difficult to make customer alerts that are like tutorials that can teach that. I'm not sure how effective the devs could be in trying to shoehorn any of that into existing Alerts.
It'd primarily involve updating the NPCs themselves I imagine, which kind of already happened didn't it?
I'd go with making questionite and merit awards much more attractive for APs and Demonflame, for a start, in the hopes of getting new players to do them a lot more often. Since those content types can be solo'ed, it gives them lots of ideal situations to be blocking without interference from any team members.
I think the issue with APs is the whole "speedrunner" problem, where APs can actually be completed very quickly using speedrunner methods. If they had better gates that required players to actually fight all the mobs and do the AP more thoroughly, then raising the reward would be a lot more feasible. That's something I really wish would happen, since APs are great content.
the fact that i'm slicing them up with swords, shooting them full of depleted-uranium-augmented lead, torching them with fireballs, frying them with gigavolt-rated bolts of lightning, mauling them with razor-sharp claws, poisoning them and then reanimating their corpses, puncturing them with arrows, skewering them with icy spears and avalanche shards, melting them with plasma beams and blowing them up with mini-rockets and consuming their souls with pure darkness says otherwise
and that's just the first page
That's fine. When the police show up to arrest the bad guys they bring a rezzer :'3
I don't believe the solution here is more unused tutorials, but instead just watching out for the new guy, telling them when they make mistakes without being condescending.
This is something people already do, but it's not reliable and can be applied haphazardly at best. It's generally a good idea for the game itself to teach the players, rather than relying on players to teach each other. For example, what happens when its a group of newbies and nobody has anybody to call?
I agree though, tutorials shouldn't be the meat of the solution. NPCs should basically force players to have to do stuff so that players get in the habit of doing it, both bosses and trash mobs. Anytime players are just knocking over a group of cardboard cutouts is a missed teaching opportunity.
Yeah, I had one and only one failed Cybermind run this cycle. I spent most of my time explaining to a pair of NooBs how to do it without getting team wiped over and over.... not that we actually managed to do so since said noobs ate damage like it was candy. Not the special damage either. they were getting beaten senseless by Cybermind's ordinary attacks. The fourth player was a support build and had good staying power, but we didn't want to try 2-maning it... since player 5 bailed when I wasn't looking.
I think most of you are giving this whole tutorial idea too much thought. I was less than level 10 and did that jungle adventure in the Until building (the one where you defeat a giant snake boss). I think it was at the end of generator alpha where I ran into some trouble getting one shotted. So I called up my bud across the boarder and asked him to join me. He jumped in on his level 40 and blew it away. I figured I was in way over my head. He told me that what I was failing to do, was use SHIFT to block the big attacks. I don't believe the solution here is more unused tutorials, but instead just watching out for the new guy, telling them when they make mistakes without being condescending.
I was running into one-shot deaths from bosses by level 6, even while blocking. I imagine you had far better stuff than I did. I still run into one-shot deaths. Also, they don't let new players call/ask for help in game - the chat features are blocked, so if you don't know anyone in real life who is in the game, it is little help to you.
I agree that helping people is a good idea, but to date, of the hundreds of people I have played with, I have never once seen anyone willing to be nice or helpful in the game. And I have never seen anyone try to start conversation except for me (which has only succeeded in getting rude or vulgar remarks). That's why I like the idea of at least some in-game information, because there is no other easy way to get it for new players.
For example; Should you see a new healer in the mix and they heal you be sure to thank them at some point. Thanks for doing it right, shows others you care about the team effort. If you see the healer blasting on some big guy and not healing then you might want to take them under your supervision and help them to become the better player. New people want to learn the ropes, most just don't care to learn it from a machine.
The game doesn't tell you how to recognize a healer and I personally still don't know. Again, this is fine, but it is yet another thing never explained in the game.
Many folks seem to play solo or PUG only, and never use chat (and possibly have it turned off). I say this because of people I PUG with at times, and because of people that show up at Cosmic fights who don't block. When given advice, some folks do not respond or change what they are doing--chat, for some reason, is not effective for some players.
World chat does not work for everyone (doesn't work for me). As above, I have never seen a single person other than me try to talk in team chat or local chat to help or figure out what is going on. I never seen anyone be nice or helpful in game.
I don't believe the solution here is more unused tutorials, but instead just watching out for the new guy, telling them when they make mistakes without being condescending.
This is something people already do, but it's not reliable and can be applied haphazardly at best. It's generally a good idea for the game itself to teach the players, rather than relying on players to teach each other. For example, what happens when its a group of newbies and nobody has anybody to call?
I was running into one-shot deaths from bosses by level 6, even while blocking. I imagine you had far better stuff than I did. I still run into one-shot deaths. Also, they don't let new players call/ask for help in game - the chat features are blocked, so if you don't know anyone in real life who is in the game, it is little help to you.
Sorry about that, when I said "I called" I meant I pick up my cellphone and called him. "HEY! Josh get online I need help... What do you mean sleeping? Get online now, you don't need sleep." My friends just love me... at 3 AM.
I agree that helping people is a good idea, but to date, of the hundreds of people I have played with, I have never once seen anyone willing to be nice or helpful in the game. And I have never seen anyone try to start conversation except for me (which has only succeeded in getting rude or vulgar remarks). That's why I like the idea of at least some in-game information, because there is no other easy way to get it for new players.
That element exists in all online games. I tend to believe they are a minority of the real players. Early on in STO, Josh and I formed a Fleet (guild) and the guilds are there to form groups of friends. If you cannot find a group you need to find people you can have a good time playing and learning about the game. Josh and I also formed a guild in Neverwinter with pretty much the same set of rules. No rules but one rule, be nice and respect other players. We had some good times in those games.
The game doesn't tell you how to recognize a healer and I personally still don't know. Again, this is fine, but it is yet another thing never explained in the game.
The "cross icon" on the portrait is the usually the healer. I have Doctor DNA (The Radiant) who is a healer class and it is tough to be both fighting and monitoring health and who needs my healing. I also own Jade Storm (The Grimoire) which is a hybrid and since I chose certain abilities the character can apply limited healing to allies. About the only way to know for sure is when they hit you up with a healing ray or beam of some kind.
Played "Star Trek Online" from 2011 - 2016 Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016 Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
the cross means support...which 9 times out of 10 either means a petmaster, aura projector or buffer/debuffer - which is why having an icon that means ONLY medical-related things for a role that can be more than just healers is just plain stupid
the cross means support...which 9 times out of 10 either means a petmaster, aura projector or buffer/debuffer - which is why having an icon that means ONLY medical-related things for a role that can be more than just healers is just plain stupid
That is why I said "The "cross icon" on the portrait is the usually the healer. " not always. Also the "freeform" can be anything. As some players know, the wiki covers the archetypes pretty well. I suppose one just needs to apply themselves to the materials at hand. The Grimoire has a gear as an icon which means hybrid. But the tanks have a shield, I don't think you will see any healing coming from a tank. Best to let them take point.
As much as I enjoyed playing Star Trek and Neverwinter, Cryptic has mistakenly crammed the roles into an all-in-one Swiss Army Knife... but the scissors never are very effective on those things. I liked ST the best out of the 3 games and here is my reason; there are 3 jobs or classifications. Engineer, Science, or Tactical and if you think back to the good old days of D&D etc. the holy trio was Wizard, Cleric, and Warrior. The reason Neverwinter doesn't "appeal to me" as much, all your character classes can heal, do magic, and fight. This kind of setup makes solo play far too simple and nobody needed to join or form a party. In Star Trek, if I didn't have a party (away team), I could make one from my bridge officers who had the skills. The BOs were ok but real people are much better. Here in Champions, they seem to have been trying to form some "specialties" for the characters, but again crammed too much in making the individual player a party alone. The Swiss Army Knife of MMO characters doesn't begin and end with Cryptic. It seems to be inherent in many other games as well. It is suppose to be a social game not an online stand alone.
Played "Star Trek Online" from 2011 - 2016 Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016 Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
The best way to identify a healer is to check for the combination of 2 things... 1) They are in the Support Role, marked by the + icon on their portait 2) They are using Compassion as their form, marked by 2 green icons (with an green hand under a green +) located in their buff bar.
9 times out of 10 if you see someone with that combination they are a healer...
Although that eliminates the Grimoire AT from the list of healers. With heavy nerfs to Skarn's Bane and the AT/DR reduction, buffing/healing other players is all that AT is good at....
Although that eliminates the Grimoire AT from the list of healers. With heavy nerfs to Skarn's Bane and the AT/DR reduction, buffing/healing other players is all that AT is good at....
I didn't say it would identify all healers... just that it's the most reliable way of identifying healers... I've got a few healers of my own that use IDF instead of Compassion... there's always outliers... but the fact still remains that 9 times out of 10 if someone is in Support role and using Compassion at the same time they are usually a healer...
or instead of players relying on a method of detection that has a 10% failure rate, they could just do what someone suggested several months ago and split healer off from support, give it the cross icon and give support a different one...what icon, i don't know - i would've suggested gears if it wasn't already taken by hybrid
or instead of players relying on a method of detection that has a 10% failure rate, they could just do what someone suggested several months ago and split healer off from support, give it the cross icon and give support a different one...what icon, i don't know - i would've suggested gears if it wasn't already taken by hybrid
+ for healer gear for support skull for hybrid ... that or a blender lol See you next weekend people. Until then have fun!!
Played "Star Trek Online" from 2011 - 2016 Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016 Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
Although that eliminates the Grimoire AT from the list of healers. With heavy nerfs to Skarn's Bane and the AT/DR reduction, buffing/healing other players is all that AT is good at....
That's not true at all... not at all.
You might want to visit proboards sometimes.... and look at the builds posted there for AT's. Might help if you're having trouble with your AT-Grimoire.
The best way of identifying a healer is going "is the character healing people". However, people who are in Support and running Compassion are almost certainly capable of functioning as a healer, even if it's not their primary role (for example, my CCer runs Compassion -- but also has bionic shielding and arcane vitality and 600 presence).
Although that eliminates the Grimoire AT from the list of healers. With heavy nerfs to Skarn's Bane and the AT/DR reduction, buffing/healing other players is all that AT is good at....
That's not true at all... not at all.
You might want to visit proboards sometimes.... and look at the builds posted there for AT's. Might help if you're having trouble with your AT-Grimoire.
Though AT-Grimoires aren't super welcomed at most Cosmic runs.
Although that eliminates the Grimoire AT from the list of healers. With heavy nerfs to Skarn's Bane and the AT/DR reduction, buffing/healing other players is all that AT is good at....
That's not true at all... not at all.
You might want to visit proboards sometimes.... and look at the builds posted there for AT's. Might help if you're having trouble with your AT-Grimoire.
Though AT-Grimoires aren't super welcomed at most Cosmic runs.
In the end, the Grimoire is a poorly designed AT; it does multiple things badly instead of doing one thing well (this is a general problem with the hybrid ATs; the only one of them that isn't terrible is the Savage). It should really be split into two ATs:
DPS Grimoire: change role to dps, passive to Enchanter. Recommended sigils are Destruction and Arcane Runes. Other changes could be made but that's enough to be competent.
Support Grimoire: change role to support, toggle to Compassion. Recommended sigils are Radiant Sanctuary and Ebon Weakness. Other changes could be made but that's enough to be competent.
The best way of identifying a healer is going "is the character healing people". However, people who are in Support and running Compassion are almost certainly capable of functioning as a healer, even if it's not their primary role (for example, my CCer runs Compassion -- but also has bionic shielding and arcane vitality and 600 presence).
Running Compassion on a CC'er seems a bit... off... it seems to me you built a healer with CC functionality... not a CCer with healing functionality...
The best way of identifying a healer is going "is the character healing people". However, people who are in Support and running Compassion are almost certainly capable of functioning as a healer, even if it's not their primary role (for example, my CCer runs Compassion -- but also has bionic shielding and arcane vitality and 600 presence).
Running Compassion on a CC'er seems a bit... off... it seems to me you built a healer with CC functionality... not a CCer with healing functionality...
There's quite a few CCers who run Compassion to make it easier to survive Kiga's snowstorms. I'm not sure why they need it, my CCer survives them fine with minimal Con, Manipulator and no passive with just one maintained heal... but they have their reasons. Their toons generally are more CC than healer tho from what I've seen, so CCer with healing functionality.
Running Compassion on a CC'er seems a bit... off... it seems to me you built a healer with CC functionality... not a CCer with healing functionality...
Well, there's three reasons for it:
There's nothing in the game that actually needs more hold duration than you can achieve with gear and specs (this could change if stunning things and killing them makes a comeback).
Maintaining manipulator stacks is a hassle.
Compassion means the character can do something useful other than CCing.
Also historically I used it as a way to farm points for Qwyjibo, though that's no longer needed now CC gives credit.
Well, blocking needs to be a necessary part of the powerset entree, not the after-dinner mint or the pre-meal sample. At ths point there is little reason for many players to concern theirselves with blocking, since a good deal of the game is suited for *running and gunning*. The Grab alert should take some time to complete; players should not be able to speed run it yet complete it faster than a story arc with cutscenes.
I have said it before, and I will say it again; "The Grab alert should not be available to characters until level 20," Going into an alert at level 10 barely gives players enough powers to get their powersets going, let alone take a block power. I can't count how many times I have queued for a Grab alert and no one else but me is either blocking or has a block power. I think more enviromental hazards need to be placed within the Grab alerts so players will have to use more evasive tactics, inclucing blocking. All alert henchmen and bosses need to be more powerful to begin getting players adapted to surviving harder content. In fact, I think some of the Unity maps should be used for Grab alerts and queue up like the Nemesis Grab alerts do. While I'm on the subject, the Nemesis in the Nemesis Grab alerts and their henchmen should be stronger, more relentless, and drop Mercenary/Heroic Gear.
Participating in a Grab alert should feel more like a well-earned learning experience, not a right of passage to leveling fast.
kyastral - a nice idea but I think many people would die of boredom levelling their alts without grab alerts. What you're describing is really a "Grab Alert plus", which should definitely be in the game, but would probably take more dev resources etc etc
kyastral - a nice idea but I think many people would die of boredom levelling their alts without grab alerts. What you're describing is really a "Grab Alert plus", which should definitely be in the game, but would probably take more dev resources etc etc
Raising the level to get into Grabs again would be a terrible idea. Grabs, (Or smashes as the case was when the alert system was first introduced), were designed as an alternate means to level, it's bad enough they raised the level to enter to 10. Adding another grab style alert that required level 20+ would make simply make the other grab queue take long for those under level 20.
Well, blocking needs to be a necessary part of the powerset entree, not the after-dinner mint or the pre-meal sample. At ths point there is little reason for many players to concern theirselves with blocking, since a good deal of the game is suited for *running and gunning*. The Grab alert should take some time to complete; players should not be able to speed run it yet complete it faster than a story arc with cutscenes.
I have said it before, and I will say it again; "The Grab alert should not be available to characters until level 20," Going into an alert at level 10 barely gives players enough powers to get their powersets going, let alone take a block power. I can't count how many times I have queued for a Grab alert and no one else but me is either blocking or has a block power. I think more enviromental hazards need to be placed within the Grab alerts so players will have to use more evasive tactics, inclucing blocking. All alert henchmen and bosses need to be more powerful to begin getting players adapted to surviving harder content. In fact, I think some of the Unity maps should be used for Grab alerts and queue up like the Nemesis Grab alerts do. While I'm on the subject, the Nemesis in the Nemesis Grab alerts and their henchmen should be stronger, more relentless, and drop Mercenary/Heroic Gear.
Participating in a Grab alert should feel more like a well-earned learning experience, not a right of passage to leveling fast.
^ I agree with all of these things. Recycling Unity maps like that is actually a great idea.
I'm unsure about raising the level to 20... but let's be honest that isn't that much longer than leveling to 10 so whatever effect it might have isn't going to be huge in that regard. Main effect would be that grabs could be tuned without having to worry about level 10s. Smash alerts should be even higher level gated so that they can really be buffed up in terms of challenge... you know, from the loot piniata they currently are.
The problem is that the point of grab alerts should not be 'leech until you are high enough level to carry the leechers'. That's not even behaving badly, the level scaling in just doesn't do enough to make low level characters competitive. If you go into grab before you get your third superstat and your form toggle, you're going to be underpowered.
Comments
(There are, of course, people who can't be helped. These are usually the ones trying to defeat all the enemies in the garage during Talos Takedown....)
I'm not actually that concerned with them learning "how to trinity" since that stuff is literally explained by saying "healer heals people, tank holds aggro". I'm more concerned with people learning the building block skills that make someone able to handle stuff beyond tank-n-spanks. "How to trinity" can actually be taught fairly easily by just making bosses that hit the tank really hard and throw out aoes now and then ( which is certainly something that would be okay to throw in as well, since I'm sure there are others who want that sort of thing taught as well ). I see you've been reading my diary uwu Actually, I feel even worse when I do stick with the team because I'm basically just nuking everything to death in front of their faces in a matter of seconds and they barely even get to touch them. How are they supposed to learn when that's happening?
At least that's the case on my DPS characters. On my tanks I just aggro everything in sight and then hold it while the team pewpews it down. On my healers I just heal people. Not sure if those two cases make it easier for people to learn anything important either.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I'm sure you can. Ditto Leo's Bar - you can probably defeat everyone in there at Level 9. The point is that you're not supposed to (or at least, not the first dozen times you run Westside, anyway), and that the game tries very hard to make that clear. Some people, however, can't be told....
My personal goals would be for them to learn tactics that involve movement, blocking(and block timing), use of line of sight and range, use of crowd control knocks and interrupts to prevent damage/negative effects, reading tells, and threat management for team play.
All good ideas and I'm sure everyone would agree. But most of those things involve the player getting their head around certain quirks of game design and function which aren't particularly intuitive or consistent (as we've been discussing on the block thread). It's not a hard game in terms of difficulty but it does do things which are a bit weird, which means it's quite hard for the player to read and comprehend what's going on.
luckily, most of my 'heroes' are no heroes at all
and that's just the first page
For example; Should you see a new healer in the mix and they heal you be sure to thank them at some point. Thanks for doing it right, shows others you care about the team effort. If you see the healer blasting on some big guy and not healing then you might want to take them under your supervision and help them to become the better player. New people want to learn the ropes, most just don't care to learn it from a machine.
Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016
Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
Many folks seem to play solo or PUG only, and never use chat (and possibly have it turned off). I say this because of people I PUG with at times, and because of people that show up at Cosmic fights who don't block. When given advice, some folks do not respond or change what they are doing--chat, for some reason, is not effective for some players.
In any case, the tutorial wouldn't be enough. I still vote for each Alert boss to have a schtick attack that should be blocked. Baron C and Jack Fool have them already.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
This urge does sometimes cause me to do dumb things, like trying to wipe the Nephilim swarm in the last part of the Vibora Apocalypse story. Hint: they respawn endlessly. Best you can do is an infinite stale mate.... wait no... since there are weekly server reboots, it's not really infinite.
I once teamed for that, it was hilarious. We managed to beat back the endless tide all the way to the door where they spawn. then got confused because there is no mission objective there.... yeah... you're supposed to run away from the Nephilim in that mission, not fight them.
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My characters
EDIT: just had the best loading screen tip ever pop up... "TIP: BLOCK!"
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My characters
Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016
Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
I think the issue with APs is the whole "speedrunner" problem, where APs can actually be completed very quickly using speedrunner methods. If they had better gates that required players to actually fight all the mobs and do the AP more thoroughly, then raising the reward would be a lot more feasible. That's something I really wish would happen, since APs are great content. That's fine. When the police show up to arrest the bad guys they bring a rezzer :'3 This is something people already do, but it's not reliable and can be applied haphazardly at best. It's generally a good idea for the game itself to teach the players, rather than relying on players to teach each other. For example, what happens when its a group of newbies and nobody has anybody to call?
I agree though, tutorials shouldn't be the meat of the solution. NPCs should basically force players to have to do stuff so that players get in the habit of doing it, both bosses and trash mobs. Anytime players are just knocking over a group of cardboard cutouts is a missed teaching opportunity.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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My characters
I agree that helping people is a good idea, but to date, of the hundreds of people I have played with, I have never once seen anyone willing to be nice or helpful in the game. And I have never seen anyone try to start conversation except for me (which has only succeeded in getting rude or vulgar remarks). That's why I like the idea of at least some in-game information, because there is no other easy way to get it for new players. The game doesn't tell you how to recognize a healer and I personally still don't know. Again, this is fine, but it is yet another thing never explained in the game. World chat does not work for everyone (doesn't work for me). As above, I have never seen a single person other than me try to talk in team chat or local chat to help or figure out what is going on. I never seen anyone be nice or helpful in game. Exactly.
Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016
Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
As much as I enjoyed playing Star Trek and Neverwinter, Cryptic has mistakenly crammed the roles into an all-in-one Swiss Army Knife... but the scissors never are very effective on those things. I liked ST the best out of the 3 games and here is my reason; there are 3 jobs or classifications. Engineer, Science, or Tactical and if you think back to the good old days of D&D etc. the holy trio was Wizard, Cleric, and Warrior. The reason Neverwinter doesn't "appeal to me" as much, all your character classes can heal, do magic, and fight. This kind of setup makes solo play far too simple and nobody needed to join or form a party. In Star Trek, if I didn't have a party (away team), I could make one from my bridge officers who had the skills. The BOs were ok but real people are much better. Here in Champions, they seem to have been trying to form some "specialties" for the characters, but again crammed too much in making the individual player a party alone. The Swiss Army Knife of MMO characters doesn't begin and end with Cryptic. It seems to be inherent in many other games as well. It is suppose to be a social game not an online stand alone.
Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016
Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
1) They are in the Support Role, marked by the + icon on their portait
2) They are using Compassion as their form, marked by 2 green icons (with an green hand under a green +) located in their buff bar.
9 times out of 10 if you see someone with that combination they are a healer...
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
gear for support
skull for hybrid ... that or a blender lol
Played "Neverwinter Online" from 2014 - 2016
Still playing "Champions Online" on Linux Kubuntu 14.04 OS
You might want to visit proboards sometimes.... and look at the builds posted there for AT's. Might help if you're having trouble with your AT-Grimoire.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
- There's nothing in the game that actually needs more hold duration than you can achieve with gear and specs (this could change if stunning things and killing them makes a comeback).
- Maintaining manipulator stacks is a hassle.
- Compassion means the character can do something useful other than CCing.
Also historically I used it as a way to farm points for Qwyjibo, though that's no longer needed now CC gives credit.Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Well, blocking needs to be a necessary part of the powerset entree, not the after-dinner mint or the pre-meal sample. At ths point there is little reason for many players to concern theirselves with blocking, since a good deal of the game is suited for *running and gunning*. The Grab alert should take some time to complete; players should not be able to speed run it yet complete it faster than a story arc with cutscenes.
I have said it before, and I will say it again; "The Grab alert should not be available to characters until level 20," Going into an alert at level 10 barely gives players enough powers to get their powersets going, let alone take a block power. I can't count how many times I have queued for a Grab alert and no one else but me is either blocking or has a block power. I think more enviromental hazards need to be placed within the Grab alerts so players will have to use more evasive tactics, inclucing blocking. All alert henchmen and bosses need to be more powerful to begin getting players adapted to surviving harder content. In fact, I think some of the Unity maps should be used for Grab alerts and queue up like the Nemesis Grab alerts do. While I'm on the subject, the Nemesis in the Nemesis Grab alerts and their henchmen should be stronger, more relentless, and drop Mercenary/Heroic Gear.
Participating in a Grab alert should feel more like a well-earned learning experience, not a right of passage to leveling fast.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I'm unsure about raising the level to 20... but let's be honest that isn't that much longer than leveling to 10 so whatever effect it might have isn't going to be huge in that regard. Main effect would be that grabs could be tuned without having to worry about level 10s. Smash alerts should be even higher level gated so that they can really be buffed up in terms of challenge... you know, from the loot piniata they currently are.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained