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Hi-Pan: Typos And Hose Jobs
moobucket
Posts: 0 Arc User
During the new alert, Hi-Pan says he's going to bring "Millenium City to it's knees". The author uses the it's/its distinction properly once in this dialog, but not here.
Next comes the actual gameplay of the thing. What exactly is the mechanic by which Hi-Pan is denying us travel powers? Why is this not explained? No teleporting, no flight, no speed, not even acrobatics. Yet when we fall to the bottom, we're harmlessly transported back to the start point, with no damage, no death, no stars taken off, nothing. Make sense? Not at all.
The only reason I can see that travel powers are prohibited is to keep us in the path of all the idiotic overlapping ground gimmicks.
Where's all this power he's talking about? Is that it, the ability to make a gimmicky yin-yang image on the ground that alternately buffs and kills people, and can be easily used against him? That's a REALLY poor power. So he heals himself a little bit, but all told, he actually seems to go down faster than he does in normal alerts, assuming people pay attention to the bell and the yin-yang symbol. At least he's stopped spamming "You may as well be a lightning vane." twenty times a minute.
I wonder, though, if the dragon is giving him all this power to be "all but unstoppable", why does the dragon even bother sticking around? Is it somehow further obligated to carry out his wishes? Is commanding the dragon that granted him this power part of his power? Does the dragon realize that it gave him a really stupid power and want to stick around to help him out from some form of dragony guilt trip? And why is the dragon scared off for a few seconds by the ringing of a bell? What kind of dragon is afraid of a loud noise!
The new area is nicely built, kudos to the design and graphics department there, but the story and the gameplay leave a lot to be desired. And what's with the item bug not telling you what you got? I thought I got a box of nothing until I read the forums. And then when I saw what I actually got, I wanted to throw it back.
In all, this mission is a giant failfest of bugs, crappy gimmicks, frustration, poor gameplay and rewards that will only interest people who want to dress like a villain. To make it better, I suggest:
1. Have an English major proof the dialog.
2. Take away the gimmicky yin-yang symbol, thus the reason for limiting our powers unnecessarily, and restore travel powers.
3. Take stars for falling and being shoved back to the spawn point, make it hurt.
4. Make the ten-minute timer shorter. If you don't have him beat in two minutes, you probably aren't going to beat him at all. Eight minutes of frustration after you realize you're not winning is no fun.
5. Adjust his power level to make up for not having that silly yin-yang symbol.
6. Explain why the dragon sticks around, or remove it and adjust Hi-Pan's power level accordingly.
7. Fix the reward.
8. How about a box of ore?
Next comes the actual gameplay of the thing. What exactly is the mechanic by which Hi-Pan is denying us travel powers? Why is this not explained? No teleporting, no flight, no speed, not even acrobatics. Yet when we fall to the bottom, we're harmlessly transported back to the start point, with no damage, no death, no stars taken off, nothing. Make sense? Not at all.
The only reason I can see that travel powers are prohibited is to keep us in the path of all the idiotic overlapping ground gimmicks.
Where's all this power he's talking about? Is that it, the ability to make a gimmicky yin-yang image on the ground that alternately buffs and kills people, and can be easily used against him? That's a REALLY poor power. So he heals himself a little bit, but all told, he actually seems to go down faster than he does in normal alerts, assuming people pay attention to the bell and the yin-yang symbol. At least he's stopped spamming "You may as well be a lightning vane." twenty times a minute.
I wonder, though, if the dragon is giving him all this power to be "all but unstoppable", why does the dragon even bother sticking around? Is it somehow further obligated to carry out his wishes? Is commanding the dragon that granted him this power part of his power? Does the dragon realize that it gave him a really stupid power and want to stick around to help him out from some form of dragony guilt trip? And why is the dragon scared off for a few seconds by the ringing of a bell? What kind of dragon is afraid of a loud noise!
The new area is nicely built, kudos to the design and graphics department there, but the story and the gameplay leave a lot to be desired. And what's with the item bug not telling you what you got? I thought I got a box of nothing until I read the forums. And then when I saw what I actually got, I wanted to throw it back.
In all, this mission is a giant failfest of bugs, crappy gimmicks, frustration, poor gameplay and rewards that will only interest people who want to dress like a villain. To make it better, I suggest:
1. Have an English major proof the dialog.
2. Take away the gimmicky yin-yang symbol, thus the reason for limiting our powers unnecessarily, and restore travel powers.
3. Take stars for falling and being shoved back to the spawn point, make it hurt.
4. Make the ten-minute timer shorter. If you don't have him beat in two minutes, you probably aren't going to beat him at all. Eight minutes of frustration after you realize you're not winning is no fun.
5. Adjust his power level to make up for not having that silly yin-yang symbol.
6. Explain why the dragon sticks around, or remove it and adjust Hi-Pan's power level accordingly.
7. Fix the reward.
8. How about a box of ore?
Post edited by moobucket on
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Comments
We've been transported to a mystical realm, that could explain the TP removal & falling issue, wish they'd commented/expanded on it.
Agree to losing stars on falling though, that's a good idea.
Dragon/Dargon (hehehe) boxes give ore or other reward so I'll be happy if they work properly and are spelled correctly but lets have the non-ore rewards as BoE items (inc costume unlocks) so we can trade them if we don't want them.
However, the TP removal & Ying Yang is the only thing that makes this alert unique, and whether you think it's good or bad I can't support the idea of just making this alert yet another darn tank & spank.
In a former life I was known as Supercollide
What do you mean another? I'd settle for just one solid fight where the team has to pull together as a tank/healer/damage unit or fail. Right now, you can pass every alert made so far without a tank or a healer in your party (with the possible exception of Gravitar). I want an alert where people are praying for healers and tanks on their way in, and I mean real tanks, not just some button-masher in the defensive role, and real healers, not some schmuck damage dealer in a support role so he doesn't generate as much threat. Closest we have to that is a grab alert, and even those lean towards just letting the DDs zerg ahead.
How about letting us fight the dragon itself? Forget Hi-Pan, he's a silly little man with too much mouth and not enough brains. The dragon would be a much more interesting challenge.
My point is, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't follow any form of logic. You only find out what the weakness is when people who have played it a few times tell you. There is no way of discovering these weaknesses without experimentation costing all your stars. Then once they find out, they immediately assume everybody else knows and treats them like idiots when they haven't played it or looked it up online yet.
So where I'm complaining is not the fact that the crappy gimmick is there and the large portion of my co-players are jerks (this is a constant that I'm comfortable with), it's that there is zero attempt to explain it, and that's most of what makes this a very poor alert. Once the word is out on how to beat him, even groups of low-levels are winning regularly, and the alert is no better than an honest straightforward fight without all the gimmicks.
If they want to challenge us, they need a puzzle that's different each time. One that actually gives you clues so you have to think and work together ... instead of zerg it until you win it. The potential is there, but I'm starting to doubt the abilities of the alerts authors with crap like this.
Thatd be a real bummer. Lots of those games out there. Came here to get away from fake mechanics/difficulty like that.
Agree with a lot of the other stuff you posted though.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
However, for me, the fact that the trinity is not required is one of the strongest selling points of the game...
M-O-O-N, that spells @Rhyatt
Originally Posted by mijjestic: Ultimately, though, MMO players throwing stones at each other in this fashion is basically one nerd pointing and laughing at another nerd whose glasses are thicker.
Laws yes!
I don't recall saying I was looking for a game, I've already found one. I agree that it's nice that we can solo in any class/build we like. That's all well and good. What I would like, though, is to see more encouraging diverse roles and teamwork, and less gimmicky instadeaths. What's the point of being grouped with four other people if we're just five soloists?
If you want to play the alerts wherein you have a set team makeup, then create your own team ahead of time. Even if the alert specifically required a tank, a dpser, and a support/healer, there's no guarantee that you'd get such a makeup w/ the way the queue system puts teams together, anyway. At least if everyone is capable of soloing, you'd know that they can take care of themselves to a greater or lesser degree.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
1) agreed.
2) Disagree, I like the Yin-Yang thing. Travel powers would allow you to skip the minions or, if falling off the rocks automatically caused you to respawn, travel powers might make falling off the islands more likely as acrobatics and speed powers are harder to control the more points you put into them. disabling them for everyone might be just saving everyone some frustration.
3)This isn't a bad idea.
4)I don't know about 2 minutes, but there does seem to be far too much time for the timer to be significant. Maybe cut the time in half or remove the timer altogether.
5) I like the idea of a boss being beaten by his own abilities. I say that if a party can use these abilities against him then good on them.
6) Although it's not explained presumably it's his realm. He sticks around because we're basically beating up his new friend in his living room.
7) I think the rewards need to be fixed as well. I would really like it if the boxes gave us pieces to trade or sell, but at the very least they need to tell us what we got when we open the boxes.
8)I don't think we need that, we already usually get questionite with the existing reward.
I see two mechanics in this game right now that could be applied to this alert and therefore make it work the same way it does now...only with travel powers.
1. The Vibora Bay Maze Effect. This effect not only has been adjusted in height but proves that an effect like the Ying-Yang does not have to be ground based. Just make it go to the top of the map and let people fly.
2. The "On Alert" starting bubble. This effect keeps players from going where they should not go. If you want to herd the players to HI-Pan then put just enough space on the sides of the path so people can fall off(extend the barrier all the way down so they can't go around it) and now they have to follow the path.
With this setup, we could have out travel powers back. :biggrin:
Aside from that, yeah...it's a neat little alert and I see it's potential. It just needed to be in a much better state before it was inflicted on the Live Servers.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
Bells are traditionally pretty good against magical entities and spirits, effectively being the sonic equivalent of whacking them with the metal it's made of. Thus, more effective than conventional weapons, since, say, for a fairy, they're weak against iron, but if there's a lot of them, an iron bell could possibly work (depending on rules of the setting).
So, someone who knows that bells have properties that are important to expel magical things might wander nearby the bell, thinking it might be important, and ring it.
This would be kinda silly and risky ("what if the bell drained the power of the one who rang it to make the summoned being more powerful? Didn't think of THAT, did you, hero?"), but it's interesting to see in the game. For once, they're not babying us. Now, we're on our own, using general knowledge from whatever experience we have from literature and mythology to try to succeed.
Today, we are men and women. No longer children babysat by tutorials and unnecessary hints!
He didnt say anything bout soloing. Teamwork doesnt have to be about trinity. Trinity is just a simplistic mechanism to make teamwork easier for folks that dont want to... or cant or...whatever...think for themselves on the fly.