test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

vid - Soloing Teleios Tower

How to block a user with μblock:
forum.arcgames.com##.Comment:has(.CommentHeader:has-text(username))

Comments

  • championshewolfchampionshewolf Posts: 4,375 Arc User
    Yea the old content is now a joke, thanks to things like forms and several other things. And that creates a huge difficulty spike for endgame when players are so use to easy content, thanks to this power bloat, that is serves to create a huge disconnect for people. They spend their time strolling through over 90% of the game content, alerts included, only to hit a solid brick wall when a challenge like cosmics or Teleios Ascendant is brought into the mix that they gain legitimate frustration.

    This is yet another issue that just adds fuel to the fire that forms were and still remain a terrible idea for this game. Honestly they need to be removed, but forms are not the only problem, but they only help create this gulf that is only growing wider.
    Champions Online player since September of 2008, forumite since February of 2008.
    Silverspar on PRIMUS
    Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    Yeah, new Defensive Combo is pretty neat, I like it. As you point out it's very strong... right up until it isn't! I tried it out on my dps might toon and it wasn't really cutting it. Tried it on my might tank and it works much better there. Doesn't really feel OP, then again I'm using it in stuff like QWZ, cosmics and while pulling entire Grab alerts, so that's a bit different than doing a leveling lair. I think the power is in a good place.

    While I agree with your thoughts about gameplay being more compelling when there's some challenge involved, and that it gets stale if your character is just steamrolling everything all the time, I don't think leveling-lairs are the primary area of concern for that. I think it's actually good if people can solo those things, even if they're a few levels under it, primarily because I don't ever see a great resurgence of interest for teaming up for these things. I'll be happy to see more challenging content added to the game, but I feel like leveling being a soloable affair isn't a bad thing. There's been an uptick in people grouping up for stuff at lvl 40, and I think that's probably the right thing to focus on. Leveling content about lvl 35 could probably use a bit of a touch up to provide a better difficulty curve leading into lvl 40.

    As for the MTG action MMO... sounds like a weird concept. Magic the Gathering Arena is apparently doing very well, but that's actual MTG card game stuff. I don't know why you would take your highly successful card game property and have someone make an MMO out of it. Like I'm not even sure those circles touch. Kinda feel like Cryptic should have passed on this one... ON THE OTHER HAND maybe they're gonna do something really interesting with it so... who knows. Literally nobody since we know nothing about it so far.

    You rambled about some other things like spaghetti code and the engine and the foundry that I feel like have been talked to death by this point, so no real thoughts there. I do like that you point out there's some really neat content, like the brain room of TT, that's in the game. Recently did Aftershock again and was reminded of how cool that whole thing was. Would be neat to see more of that kind of nicely fleshed out content.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    The problem is less the leveling lairs being soloable (you can't actually get a five man team to do any of them while leveling any more anyway) as with the ordinary solo content being so utterly trivial. CO has never been a terribly difficult game, we routinely soloed two and three player missions and duo'd five player missions back in 2010 (the five man stuff was soloable with the right builds but not routine), but you at least had to pay attention to what you were doing and have some idea of mechanics.

    As a side note, the challenges to fixing basic PvE balance are mostly political. The way NPCs appear to be created in CO is that you start with a base entity and then apply level change functions to it; those level change functions are overrideable (hence critters getting new powers at particular levels) but mostly generic within a class. Change those functions for the base objects and you change the difficulty of 99% of the game. This would cause issues with some updated content (warzone, TA, etc) so you'd need to rebalance there, but it's not that many things. However, there is a rather substantial portion of the player base that is opposed to difficulty.
    Post edited by pantagruel01 on
  • fermifermi Posts: 117 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    As for the MTG action MMO... sounds like a weird concept. Magic the Gathering Arena is apparently doing very well, but that's actual MTG card game stuff. I don't know why you would take your highly successful card game property and have someone make an MMO out of it.

    Though not everyone is into it, MtG does have a lot of lore about planeswalkers and various realms they travel through in the multiverse. Some people are really into it and it seemed natch for an MMO to me.

    Of course, if they have a lot of critter summoning they'll have to do way better with the AI.
  • bluhmanbluhman Posts: 2,410 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    I miss the mark while I'm blabbing about it in the moment, the key to why I don't think the MTG thing will succeed is due to also the appeal of gameplay types between the demographics:

    Star Trek watchers, DnD players, Champions Players: they watch tv, read comic books, take part in tabletop stories where they're working with friends. That's naturally collaborative. That ties in well with the gameplay basis of an MMO where it's expected to team up with other players to complete content.

    MTG Players: that's an appeal and skillset all about competitiveness, the very core of the activity is going up against other people in a card game. That's not to say there isn't an overlap between the two groups of people who might like MTG or like reading stories or comic books, but the core appeal of what MTG is has never really been its lore, or exactly how characters interact or live within that world's setting.

    I think that gets more at the heart as to why I'm not really a MTG fan myself (I hate competitive games in general) and also why the format of MMO really doesn't seem to make sense as a product to make for the brand. MMOs are all about collaboration at its top, even with a bit of roleplaying thrown in for good measure. If anything, it'd make more sense to develop a MTG FPS, or a multiplayer 4X game, that's still a medium where the lore and background of that setting can be explored, but without this core mismatch of different reasons a person might favor MMOs and reasons a person might favor competitive card games.
    The problem is less the leveling lairs being soloable (you can't actually get a five man team to do any of them while leveling any more anyway) as with the ordinary solo content being so utterly trivial. CO has never been a terribly difficult game, we routinely soloed two and three player missions and duo'd five player missions back in 2010 (the five man stuff was soloable with the right builds but not routine), but you at least had to pay attention to what you were doing and have some idea of mechanics. In turn that's why I'm completely not surprised to hear that something like MTG Arena's doing fine - because that's precisely the kind of computer game you'd expect to match up to MTG.

    As a side note, the challenges to fixing basic PvE balance are mostly political. The way NPCs appear to be created in CO is that you start with a base entity and then apply level change functions to it; those level change functions are overrideable (hence critters getting new powers at particular levels) but mostly generic within a class. Change those functions for the base objects and you change the difficulty of 99% of the game. This would cause issues with some updated content (warzone, TA, etc) so you'd need to rebalance there, but it's not that many things. However, there is a rather substantial portion of the player base that is opposed to difficulty.

    I'd of recorded it as well had I thought of it in advance, but yeah what really lead me to attempt to show it off was when I ran through SL as part of that 10-mission event run: The Serpent Lantern fight is now *nothing.* Inversely I'll be honest and admit I didn't really check whether Teleios Tower really was that difficult for most of my typical level 27 builds in the past few years.
    How to block a user with μblock:
    forum.arcgames.com##.Comment:has(.CommentHeader:has-text(username))
    
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    bluhman wrote: »
    I'd of recorded it as well had I thought of it in advance, but yeah what really lead me to attempt to show it off was when I ran through SL as part of that 10-mission event run: The Serpent Lantern fight is now *nothing.*
    To be fair, you could power through the spirit serpent even in 2010. I believe the intended fight mechanic is that there are these side alcoves that are full of flame most of the time, except when the spirit serpent is about to breathe it sucks in all the flame and you can hide there while it breathes fire at you, but it didn't take long for people to determine "If I'm not super squishy I can just tank the breath". The Viperia fight was intended so you had to hold her off until she ascended, then interact with the serpent statues to do a bar of damage to her, but again, can just power through it (the other fights didn't have much in the way of mechanics, other than the dodging or killing the ospreys).

    The hardest fight in any of the APs is the one in Aftershock where you become an Avatar of the Kings and take on Witchcraft and Defender, and that's hard because you are forced to use a pretty gimpy Become.
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,022 Arc User
    I listened to your video multiple times while playing, and I have to agree with a lot of things you said, you make a lot of good points

    However, Honestly I don't mind Lairs like Teleios Tower, Brute Cave, Viper's Nest e.t.c being soloable per say because I actually really enjoy soloing them as a self-challenge and Solo-lore stuff
    They are part of story anyway

    And speaking of story, the game has indeed some really cool lore and settings which unfortunately get wasted or ignored
    The hardest fight in any of the APs is the one in Aftershock where you become an Avatar of the Kings and take on Witchcraft and Defender, and that's hard because you are forced to use a pretty gimpy Become.
    Funny thing, one time years ago I died during that part and when I revived I was back to my character, without the form of the Avatar and I could fight Witchcraft and Defender with my own powers! Unfortunately I couldn't replicate that bug since then​​
    POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
  • nbkxsnbkxs Posts: 766 Arc User
    None of this content will ever be relevant period, unless some substantial rewards are added to it. Really the only content that matters at all, is Andrith, the WZ, TA, and the big three. Nothing else aside an OM here, and there gives anything that anyone really cares about. And until they have something, no one will ever care about them/run them at all.
    [NbK]XStorm
  • mordray001mordray001 Posts: 218 Arc User
    I hate aftermath for that avatar fight alone.

    Back before I had to take a break I running missions in canada, I think I ran six peeps through those five mans, the necromancer and cloner ones, in about two days. Got to the point I was asking if anyone needed them.

    Why did I bother? Because I know that while I build to solo I accept that not everyone does and don't expect the others to find my play style acceptable. So I helped out the squishies and got back to playing the game just as they did.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    fermi wrote: »
    spinnytop wrote: »
    As for the MTG action MMO... sounds like a weird concept. Magic the Gathering Arena is apparently doing very well, but that's actual MTG card game stuff. I don't know why you would take your highly successful card game property and have someone make an MMO out of it.
    Though not everyone is into it, MtG does have a lot of lore about planeswalkers and various realms they travel through in the multiverse. Some people are really into it and it seemed natch for an MMO to me.

    Of course, if they have a lot of critter summoning they'll have to do way better with the AI.
    And BOOKS! Lots of books!

    Not all MTG decks use creatures at all. Some only use a few. Others…. well they're called "swarm" decks for a reason. I mean MTG is a game with card effects like this: "At the beginning of your upkeep, create X 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens, where X is half the number of Zombies you control, rounded down."

    But it also has a variety of giant fireball spells...
    ChampsWiki
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My characters
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited September 2019
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Also
    340c33e0-2e41-4e08-a958-124860225735.jpg?1562455570
    *Cryptic developer starts loudly sweating*
    In the books you'd have characters who could wield magic use that on themselves to give them a boost in combat.
    ChampsWiki
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My characters
Sign In or Register to comment.