I agree, this "Vehicle" stuff isn't content its a lame money making scheme that has nothing to do with Superheroes. The original wonderwoman had a Jet, Missle, nope, guns nope, she had her powers and lasso, Batman has a car, jet and speedboat (among others) did he attack people in them, nope. (Maybe here or there in comics and movies but typically not), The XMen have a Stealth Jet, Its "Transportation" Most of them have powers making conventional weapons useless and in all reality a super villian is going to see the vehicle comming and....
A: Run away
or
B: Shoot it down.
Really, lets get back to Champions please, Not "World of Tanks-Champions Edition", I'd like to see Power Sets, Costumes, Aura's.. thigs we could use. Not quick cash store gimmicks that ruin gameplay, as why have us make super heroes at all and give them powers if the vehicle overrides all of that?
Nyte Kitsune-STO and CO LTS Member "Nose to the wind, I go!" "I found a bug in Beta, Cryptic squished it. STO Founder and Proud LTS member of STO and CO."
10 pages in this thread, and I've yet to see one person arguing against this and professing their love for vehicles.
Squeaky wheel gets the grease, Cryptic. Take that recommended alternative (Customizable Be-Critters like mech suits, armors, monster forms, etc) and go with it.
a;lso, id move a mech, would be the first vehicle that i'd buy. couldn't walk because of the whole land collision deal, but a invid(from robotech third season) style flying mech, i'd break my embargo.
well, i dont think anyone would necessarily oppose more content, but the sad but true response seems to be, you know its not going to happen, perfect world does not give a damn and cryptic dances to their strings. vehicles are cheap and easy money. so while we agree, hell the devs probably agree, pw does not give a !@#$ and they wont unless we had more money.
They were great ideas, poor execution, plain and simple. However this thread will probably be as effective as our foundry thread. But hey, one can dream; maybe they'll get it right with City of Champions....
I play CO very very casually, so the vehicle stuff is more or less new for me. Wanted to visit the CO forums (first time since 1969 if the "last visited" info is to belived :P ) to ask if they are mandatory for specific contend; I hope not since it does not really fit my char-playstyle.
I do understand the appeal for a Batman type of character, but that should be part of the char build or maybe char skills that gives vehicles the cutting edge.
But on all I read about them it looks like they want every hero in a combatjet; even the Supermans, Ironmans, Powergirls, Captain Marvels, etc. The coolness from a lot of heroes come from being strong/fast/magical enough to not require, worse, even hindered by those.
So, casual perspective. Correct me where I'm wrong.
I play CO very very casually, so the vehicle stuff is more or less new for me. Wanted to visit the CO forums (first time since 1969 if the "last visited" info is to belived :P ) .
I'm calling it. This guys a timelord.
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!
As much as I think Vehicles would have been a good thing to have, the way I'm looking at it tells me otherwise.
Vehicles are expensive for what they're actually worth and are pretty annoying to acquire. At most, you get 4 slots to improve the strength of the vehicle and another 4 slots to add weapons to it. This is what they called Customization. The Customization WE wanted was more of an aesthetic type, something we could change the looks of so we can fit said vehicle in our characters' theme. We didn't get that. Instead we get different color variants of the same model of vehicle with varying strengths and amounts of slots available. Not good.
While the Vehicle 2.0 Update added Mk. 2 Vehicles, the Vehicles are in a very small niche. Having very little actual content to play around in. Also in the V2.0 Update, Vehicles were given a "Combat Speed". The Combat Speed is more than likely going to bite much harder in the Lemurian Invasion trying to catch those annoying Exocets down than anywhere else. I appreciate that this patch was meant to help out. But I strongly believe that those resources could have been put to a much better use in the direction of actual playable content.
There are many things wrong with Vehicles, and not much we can actually fix without just destroying the mechanics of the game. I may have to make another thread about it in the Suggestion Graveyard so that it won't get looked at and taken into consideration. But until then...
/signed
Please, Devs, direct your money focus away... FAR AWAY from vehicles and toward actual things for everyone to do. Think of all of those plucky young heroes waiting to do something other than wait for another hopeless Vehicle patch!
Believe it or not, it's possible for a game to push out a previous demographic to facilitate the one that's bringing money in.
The pre-Reloaded players are not the target anymore, at least not primarily. One could admit this and move on, or continue fruitless screaming at the devs as they continue to pump out what's in their production schedule.
I play CO very very casually, so the vehicle stuff is more or less new for me. Wanted to visit the CO forums (first time since 1969 if the "last visited" info is to belived :P ) to ask if they are mandatory for specific contend; I hope not since it does not really fit my char-playstyle.
I do understand the appeal for a Batman type of character, but that should be part of the char build or maybe char skills that gives vehicles the cutting edge.
But on all I read about them it looks like they want every hero in a combatjet; even the Supermans, Ironmans, Powergirls, Captain Marvels, etc. The coolness from a lot of heroes come from being strong/fast/magical enough to not require, worse, even hindered by those.
So, casual perspective. Correct me where I'm wrong.
Welcome to the Forums.
I believe it was Crosschan who asked the devs the purpose of vehicles, if they were meant to be more powerful than ATs or FFs. As far as I know, those questions were never answered. There are things that vehicles are much better for, such as Lemuria Invasion and Sky Command, but you can do fine in either with your character... Well, not so much for melee toons. I can't tell you too much about vehicles as I don't have one and find their flaws deal breakers in me ever bothering to get one. However, I've played the entire game with FFs and ATs without needing a vehicle.
Believe it or not, it's possible for a game to push out a previous demographic to facilitate the one that's bringing money in.
The pre-Reloaded players are not the target anymore, at least not primarily. One could admit this and move on, or continue fruitless screaming at the devs as they continue to pump out what's in their production schedule.
But that's not cool with me, Brau. I've been a Non-Lifetime fully subscribing player of this game month-to-month since it's release in September of 2009. You can do the math to figure out how much money I've pumped into the game, and that is only the minimum since I have also spent more than the sub value on extras along the way before the FTP transition.
Purchased extra account wide costume slots in packs of two at least fifteen times, as just one example. I haven't spent a penny over the subscription cost since that transition however, since now I just save and splurge with my stipend for things I decide I want.
The key factor there however, is that I'm still subscribing, and players like me have spent the most on this game, and are catered too the least.*
You want to talk to me about the games focus being to attract a completely different demographic into the game and flush out the old one, then I want to talk to you about the two years (at minimum,maybe longer) that Champions Online basically was Cryptics income, and how the majority of that income was funneled into other projects, and the backwards reinvestment to Champs of those other projects technical advances have yet to be returned to us.
Monetarily or otherwise. When Vehicles were announced as coming for Champions, I envisioned something a lot closer to STO shipyard, with vehicles with three large areas of modifiable trade out chunks and so on. As well as hue controls, emblems, all of that.
It seems to me that almost all production work on vehicles is instead focused on the back end "systems" side of the equation with only minimal effort placed into animation, User interface, usability and customization [visual customization, the one thing we all really wanted].
If you want my opinion, [I know, you don't] There should have been a touch of Hideouts in the idea for monetization. Instead of a million different reskins with different hues and patterns and slightly different mod slot layouts and included starting weapons, there should have just been the sales of a;
Vehicle Chassis, including one basic fairly plain paint job
A seperate lower value for hue-able, tailor screen-like ready-to-apply Costume patterns and skins
Colors and hue taken as a net loss
Mod slot and weapons packs for the systems customization.
That is, like in the real world, a base cost for a basic model, and pay more for all the options, both snazzy paint and pattern styles and systems and effects, separately.
Maybe a literally higher cost for the things people really want, like bad **** weapons.
Hell, charge people extra for having a pretty metallic Black paint in their garage, I don't know. but what we got was a joke.
And seriously, I want reinvestment back into this game I've been paying for, after all, without us and the years we supported Cryptic through tough times, STO, NW and Mystery project number five would not exist at all.
*Barring some freakish whale FTP buyer-players, but seriously, there can't be very many of them.
Until we get the long-overdue ability to recolor vehicles I'll continue to not really care about them. As long as this is the case I would much rather look forward to new costumes that I can actually customize instead of having to use a bike with good stats that looks terrible(spiders? come on, really?) while thinking about a bike that looks nice but is one of the garbage 4-slot no-10% bikes they sell in the C-store for 12 bucks. (which, still, go up to 7 slots with an upgrade but don't get the 10% so why bother with them)
two lines of plain text
the best kind of signature
Believe it or not, it's possible for a game to push out a previous demographic to facilitate the one that's bringing money in.
The pre-Reloaded players are not the target anymore, at least not primarily. One could admit this and move on, or continue fruitless screaming at the devs as they continue to pump out what's in their production schedule.
So at what point does the game change genres entirely? Should whales be able to turn a superhero game into a speederbike game? Maybe Dan Stahl's Secret Project should be City of Hovertanks, then, and we can stick to superheroes. Or Dan makes Champions Online 2: This Time We Won't Screw Up A Superhero Game, We Swear and we can abandon this game to vehicle whales. Either way, it doesn't matter how it ends up to me, as long as it's not Cryptic hanging us out to dry until City of Titans launches.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
I wouldn't really call Vehicles 2.0 a catering to a new sub-pop.. more as an obligation to fix some very glaring mechanical issues w/ the vehicles before, while also ofc trying to cash in on the paying player-base. Prior to this, we weren't getting too many vehicle-related additions from CN- compared to auras, lockboxes, costumes, events & instances, etc.
Its fine for players to leave feedback about what they want and don't want- may not have much an effect on immediate dev plans, but it can for future ones.
If the Vehicles turned into full body mech-suits when you go inside a building or something, then I have no use for them other than cosmetic for a character.
If the Vehicles turned into full body mech-suits when you go inside a building or something, then I have no use for them other than cosmetic for a character.
Well, something like a customizable be-critter would be helpful for someone who uses vehicles as a means to level, like people who play non tank/dps type AT's.
Now to be fair, vehicles are a tiny percentage of what the New Dev team has worked on. They've been slowly coming up to speed. We've actually gotten quite a few things besides vehicles...
- Justice Gear
- Revamped Rampages
- The Fatal Error Arc
- Level Gating on Alerts (Much Asked for by Players)
- Some Bug Fixes
- The Foxbatcon Event (on Test)
- Laser Sworrd, Telepathy, and Force Power Additions
- Some New Costumes (Victorian, Dryad, Magical Girl..)
And I'm sure that's not all of the things they've done. It's only what I can remember. Vehicles are small percentage of all of that work. While I know vehicles peeve people off, it's obviously making PWE money. And money is what motivates a business and keeps it going. So if they got a profit from devoting a small percentage of time to a project (in comparison to all the other work done), more power too them.
Money & Profit means the game stays open for all of us.
Now to be fair, vehicles are a tiny percentage of what the New Dev team has worked on. They've been slowly coming up to speed. We've actually gotten quite a few things besides vehicles...
Yes, they've added some mini-missions to the game, and some new Justice Gear, and a couple of new costumes. At no point has anyone said 'this is all they are doing'.
But 'fixing' something does not equate to 'adding new things'.
...Vehicles are small percentage of all of that work. While I know vehicles peeve people off, it's obviously making PWE money. And money is what motivates a business and keeps it going. So if they got a profit from devoting a small percentage of time to a project (in comparison to all the other work done), more power too them.
Vehicles don't seem to be a 'small percentage of that work', considering the amount of Dev time that revolves around them.
You want to know why vehicles peeve people off? They aren't customizable, at all, period- except for the powers. In a superhero setting, one would think that having a vehicle meant having YOUR OWN vehicle that had your personal touch.
These aren't even really 'vehicles' in the way people wanted. Motorcycles, cars, and other things were the original ideas people spouted off about owning vehicles. I don't even really remember anyone saying 'hover tank' (and it doesn't really 'hover', so much as operate as an aircraft). The technology in CO does not allow the vehicles to move along the ground, and I'd think that'd probably be one of the FIRST things they looked into before chucking these things at us, but nope- once again, Cryptic jumped the gun and tossed out a half-baked idea.
The other problem? It takes me less than a minute to run across town with acrobatics as a travel power. This is not a massive, expansive world that requires a vehicle. Had the Developers spent actual time working on the game instead of forcefully shoehorning more little things into it that in no way improve the game, we'd have a bigger world or maybe even a new map.
Money & Profit means the game stays open for all of us.
And this statement right here shows the pathetic state of affairs, if it has any merit.
If you have to sell underperforming items for $15 each and spend valuable developer time just to make these a functional novelty...just to keep this game from 'shutting down', then your problem is in your development decisions.
Bad decisions and lack of fixed problems means the game can stay open all it wants and it won't see any new subscriptions.
Of the work CN has brought us in the last year or so, the only things I have disliked is Vehicles, otherwise I like what we have gotten from them. Would I like more powers and zones, of course. So...
Although, no matter who much we protest, I don't think Cryptic will remove Vehicles. It is one of the items in C-Store that makes money. Customization is hardly believable since most of the vehicles are just recolored version of the other (Arrowhead/Broadband, Copperhead/Widow).
Even though I agree that vehicles ruin most of the game(besides alerts), I still think Cryptic will NOT take notice of this petition...
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Even though I agree that vehicles ruin most of the game(besides alerts), I still think Cryptic will NOT take notice of this petition...
And how "they ruin the game"?
I use two vehicles on two characters and I know they can be completely ignored, if you are not interested in having one. Will be even easier now, since weapon mod exploits are fixed.
I did not care to even get a vehicle, if not for specific character concepts.
So, how exactly vehicles are both ruining the game, and making CO money?
It's not difficult to dslike vehicles as they are.
And how "they ruin the game"?
I use two vehicles on two characters and I know they can be completely ignored, if you are not interested in having one. Will be even easier now, since weapon mod exploits are fixed.
I did not care to even get a vehicle, if not for character concepts.
So, how exactly vehicles are both ruining the game, and making CO money? That statement sounds just hysteric.
I'd say the lockboxes were making CO money, not the vehicles. Secondly, vehicles are still quite powerful. Pretending they aren't is your first big mistake, providing high levels of defense with incredible levels of damage. So really, stop pretending that vehicles don't make things easier or dumb down the game even more.
And really don't pretend the two alerts are manageable without vehicles, because that's as blatant an excuse as ever since vehicles just make both of them trivial.
Yes, they've added some mini-missions to the game, and some new Justice Gear, and a couple of new costumes. At no point has anyone said 'this is all they are doing'.
But 'fixing' something does not equate to 'adding new things'.
Vehicles don't seem to be a 'small percentage of that work', considering the amount of Dev time that revolves around them.
You want to know why vehicles peeve people off? They aren't customizable, at all, period- except for the powers. In a superhero setting, one would think that having a vehicle meant having YOUR OWN vehicle that had your personal touch.
These aren't even really 'vehicles' in the way people wanted. Motorcycles, cars, and other things were the original ideas people spouted off about owning vehicles. I don't even really remember anyone saying 'hover tank' (and it doesn't really 'hover', so much as operate as an aircraft). The technology in CO does not allow the vehicles to move along the ground, and I'd think that'd probably be one of the FIRST things they looked into before chucking these things at us, but nope- once again, Cryptic jumped the gun and tossed out a half-baked idea.
The other problem? It takes me less than a minute to run across town with acrobatics as a travel power. This is not a massive, expansive world that requires a vehicle. Had the Developers spent actual time working on the game instead of forcefully shoehorning more little things into it that in no way improve the game, we'd have a bigger world or maybe even a new map.
And this statement right here shows the pathetic state of affairs, if it has any merit.
If you have to sell underperforming items for $15 each and spend valuable developer time just to make these a functional novelty...just to keep this game from 'shutting down', then your problem is in your development decisions.
Bad decisions and lack of fixed problems means the game can stay open all it wants and it won't see any new subscriptions.
So you are not aware they wont ever add new zones? Or you want them to nerf actual travel powers to silly slowness to make vehicles useful? Really those are the only two things that I hear with all you wrote.
I'd say the lockboxes were making CO money, not the vehicles. Secondly, vehicles are still quite powerful. Pretending they aren't is your first big mistake, providing high levels of defense with incredible levels of damage. So really, stop pretending that vehicles don't make things easier or dumb down the game even more.
And really don't pretend the two alerts are manageable without vehicles, because that's as blatant an excuse as ever since vehicles just make both of them trivial.
I don't have to pretend anything.
I find vehicles clunky in play outside of two rampages and maybe open world bosses. Even with adjustments to their combat speed, their control is different than characters and I am more accustomed to just running into mobs and firing PBAoE.
Granted, it's easy to farm with vehicles, but then - it's also easy with player characters. Open world enemies are easy in general. At best, vehicles are making it marginally faster. Provided I'm not spending more time on positioning, since vehicles handling close to the ground isn't that great.
Both rampages are playable just fine with ranged characters. That they aren't very nice wth melee toons it's more of issue with CO. Ranged toons in general have easier gameplay.
Also, vehicles were, to this time, a highlight of every lockbox. Along with Legion gear.
Whether vehicles were drawing people to lockboxes, or it was more Legion gear, we'll see.
Now we have tune-up kits in Z-store, and these aren't sold in lockboxes, thus aren't linked with gear or costumes.
More than likely sales for tune-up kits will be the best litmus test for Cryptic, since these will be purely vehicle-oriented sales.
1 - If tune-up kits will sell well, then Cryptic will continue with vehicles.
2 - If not, then Cryptic may don't bother with rides.
3 - But if they will sell well, then no feedback on the forums will make Cryptic changing their minds. And no wishful thinking will change anything.
As for developing vehicles, or at least their models:
Let's do not pretend they aren't much easier to made than full costume set.
A vehicle is a single model with no scaling and alternate parts and no geometry morphing. A relatively simple and low-poly one. The most complicated ones are VTOLs and Exocets, because they have child models (but a simple ones).
And texture maps are shared between all vehicles in the same category.
Texturing wise, all rides of the same chassis type have only different diffuse maps, while normal maps are the same.
No alpha channels to worry about, save for bikes - as bikes are the only vehicles with alpha channels for colors, of that I'm sure. Tanks certainly are not, their diffuse maps are baked with painted colors. Jets are most likely the same.
So, once you have one base vehicle model, all additional modeling work is only tweaking textures. And since you already have UV maps for the prototype, you don't even have to worry about properly wrapping textures (and that's probably the most time-consuming part in finishing models).
So a single vehicle model should be probably only as time consuming, as is one more elaborate chest piece for character costume, maybe less. Since texturing is simpler.
It's not like vehicles took anything from other content. It's like we were given vehicles (and auras) because they had no resources for anything more, so they developed what was possible.
I'd rather say vehicles were chosen for development for the same reason as auras were. Because they're reuse of already existing game systems, so they're easiest to develop with limited resources and small team.
But for now vehicles are in their dead end. There is nothing to add to them, or making them more usable, or customisable. Hence it's the time to move on from rides to, well, anything else.
So you are not aware they wont ever add new zones? Or you want them to nerf actual travel powers to silly slowness to make vehicles useful? Really those are the only two things that I hear with all you wrote.
Then your 'hearing' is off. I suggest putting your ear closer to the monitor.
A new zone would be fantastic. Find me one person on this forum who thinks otherwise.
And if I wanted travel powers to be nerfed, I'd say 'travel powers should be nerfed'. What I was saying is 'vehicles are kind of useless in maps this small'.
I'd say the lockboxes were making CO money, not the vehicles. Secondly, vehicles are still quite powerful. Pretending they aren't is your first big mistake, providing high levels of defense with incredible levels of damage.
I don't see that he did. The point is...so what? How does that "ruin the game"?
So really, stop pretending that vehicles don't make things easier or dumb down the game even more.
Easy game is easy. How does something ignorable making it a little easier "ruin the game"?
And really don't pretend the two alerts are manageable without vehicles, because that's as blatant an excuse as ever since vehicles just make both of them trivial.
I haven't been having any difficulty at all with those Rampages without vehicles. As mentioned, they're a little rough on melee characters, but how is that "ruining the game"?
The major issue i have with them is that you fly all over the place trying to do a simple turn. I don't own them but I used them on the test server. The day when you can do a simple turn and move a tad and not widely is when i might actually used one. They really need to fix the controlling of them.
But I do agree that we do need more work on the powers and zones, But they won't as they only care for what makes them money, no amount of complaining and screaming we do here will ever work. If they rake in cash from Vehicles,lock boxes and travel powers, they will keep on doing that.
Even if some one was to win the lotto and give them the money and tell them to spend it on CO, PW would just take the money and go thank you and use it on something totally different if they don't pocketed it first.
Totally signed. Superheroes are about the heroes, not their cars. Vehicles should never have been added, that time should have been spent on new powers.
I realize the vehicles are designed specifically to siphon money out of Silver players by giving them other choices that they have to pay for, but the same could have been done for the new powers. Add more powers and give Silvers the ability to buy different power-choices on a character-by-character basis and bonanza.
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Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
I haven't been having any difficulty at all with those Rampages without vehicles. As mentioned, they're a little rough on melee characters, but how is that "ruining the game"?
As an example of how irrelevant vehicles are, I did those Rampages without even realizing that they were designed for vehicles. Actually, I didn't even realize it until just now reading your post.
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Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
To be honest, I don't think they are "designed for vehicles". I think they're designed so you CAN use vehicles, but don't have to.
I'm positive that Sky Command was originally designed to be vehicle-only content in the same vein the final boss fight in the Nighthawk event was. The Nighthawk event launched a few months before Champions Online: Reloaded and Sky Command and the strict requirement to use the provided hawkwings didn't sit well with many people.
I'm positive that Sky Command was originally designed to be vehicle-only content in the same vein the final boss fight in the Nighthawk event was. The Nighthawk event launched a few months before Champions Online: Reloaded and Sky Command and the strict requirement to use the provided hawkwings didn't sit well with many people.
It didn't sit well because many people just picked whatever vehicle even though they were clearly marked and thought they should have been super powerful. It was designed as a team thing but failed on that level because Champions hasn't required team game play in so long. We desperately need more team game play.
It didn't sit well because many people just picked whatever vehicle even though they were clearly marked and thought they should have been super powerful. It was designed as a team thing but failed on that level because Champions hasn't required team game play in so long. We desperately need more team game play.
It didn't sit well for many of the same reasons people don't like vehicles today. "Why should I(have to) use them if my hero can already do everything they can do?", being one of the chief complaints.
It didn't sit well for many of the same reasons people don't like vehicles today. "Why should I(have to) use them if my hero can already do everything they can do?", being one of the chief complaints.
Yea because it had nothing to do with the fact that several people would queue up and you would get in a group of 4 other people all wanting to do their own thing.
Yea because it had nothing to do with the fact that several people would queue up and you would get in a group of 4 other people all wanting to do their own thing.
That's not a problem unique to that event. Alerts in general have always suffered from this sort of thing. If you have a point to make then please make it, I'm not going to continue what appears to be pointless arguing.
There was so much opportunity, so much to work with.
After a few months of playing did I realize how deep I've buried myself into your game: Half of the content is broken and the devs seem like they could care less. It's in the past, so its not their problem.
But, if they keep this up it will be what ends them. Please, focus on other things;
Bring back the wiki and update it properly,
Bring us the new powersets weve been talking so much about. There is tons of content worthy of an adventure pack in the Champions sourcebooks you haven't even touched.
No clue why they keep coming up with new powers for these vehicles but can't make any for the champion. Like the gravity pulse and the forcefield that gives damage resistance.
I'm positive that Sky Command was originally designed to be vehicle-only content in the same vein the final boss fight in the Nighthawk event was. The Nighthawk event launched a few months before Champions Online: Reloaded and Sky Command and the strict requirement to use the provided hawkwings didn't sit well with many people.
Thanks for the correction. I keep forgetting that it had a pre-Rampage history, as I never used it (and seem to recall hearing no one really was during my late tenure here).
Comments
pls cryptic read this...
I agree, this "Vehicle" stuff isn't content its a lame money making scheme that has nothing to do with Superheroes. The original wonderwoman had a Jet, Missle, nope, guns nope, she had her powers and lasso, Batman has a car, jet and speedboat (among others) did he attack people in them, nope. (Maybe here or there in comics and movies but typically not), The XMen have a Stealth Jet, Its "Transportation" Most of them have powers making conventional weapons useless and in all reality a super villian is going to see the vehicle comming and....
A: Run away
or
B: Shoot it down.
Really, lets get back to Champions please, Not "World of Tanks-Champions Edition", I'd like to see Power Sets, Costumes, Aura's.. thigs we could use. Not quick cash store gimmicks that ruin gameplay, as why have us make super heroes at all and give them powers if the vehicle overrides all of that?
"Nose to the wind, I go!"
"I found a bug in Beta, Cryptic squished it. STO Founder and Proud LTS member of STO and CO."
well, i dont think anyone would necessarily oppose more content, but the sad but true response seems to be, you know its not going to happen, perfect world does not give a damn and cryptic dances to their strings. vehicles are cheap and easy money. so while we agree, hell the devs probably agree, pw does not give a !@#$ and they wont unless we had more money.
Cal, I am curious about this statement. Could you please elaborate?
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2 k. You're gonna pull the "playa" card with a measly 2k?
Haaaahaaaaaahaaaaasnortomg hahahahaha
I do understand the appeal for a Batman type of character, but that should be part of the char build or maybe char skills that gives vehicles the cutting edge.
But on all I read about them it looks like they want every hero in a combatjet; even the Supermans, Ironmans, Powergirls, Captain Marvels, etc. The coolness from a lot of heroes come from being strong/fast/magical enough to not require, worse, even hindered by those.
So, casual perspective. Correct me where I'm wrong.
He who posts 2 years before he joins
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/comment/10732872
I'm calling it. This guys a timelord.
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!
Vehicles are expensive for what they're actually worth and are pretty annoying to acquire. At most, you get 4 slots to improve the strength of the vehicle and another 4 slots to add weapons to it. This is what they called Customization. The Customization WE wanted was more of an aesthetic type, something we could change the looks of so we can fit said vehicle in our characters' theme. We didn't get that. Instead we get different color variants of the same model of vehicle with varying strengths and amounts of slots available. Not good.
While the Vehicle 2.0 Update added Mk. 2 Vehicles, the Vehicles are in a very small niche. Having very little actual content to play around in. Also in the V2.0 Update, Vehicles were given a "Combat Speed". The Combat Speed is more than likely going to bite much harder in the Lemurian Invasion trying to catch those annoying Exocets down than anywhere else. I appreciate that this patch was meant to help out. But I strongly believe that those resources could have been put to a much better use in the direction of actual playable content.
There are many things wrong with Vehicles, and not much we can actually fix without just destroying the mechanics of the game. I may have to make another thread about it in the Suggestion Graveyard so that it won't get looked at and taken into consideration. But until then...
/signed
Please, Devs, direct your money focus away... FAR AWAY from vehicles and toward actual things for everyone to do. Think of all of those plucky young heroes waiting to do something other than wait for another hopeless Vehicle patch!
((Also, hooray for Foxbutt's April Fools Event!))
And I will always be @DZPlayer122.
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The pre-Reloaded players are not the target anymore, at least not primarily. One could admit this and move on, or continue fruitless screaming at the devs as they continue to pump out what's in their production schedule.
Welcome to the Forums.
I believe it was Crosschan who asked the devs the purpose of vehicles, if they were meant to be more powerful than ATs or FFs. As far as I know, those questions were never answered. There are things that vehicles are much better for, such as Lemuria Invasion and Sky Command, but you can do fine in either with your character... Well, not so much for melee toons. I can't tell you too much about vehicles as I don't have one and find their flaws deal breakers in me ever bothering to get one. However, I've played the entire game with FFs and ATs without needing a vehicle.
Does that answer your question?
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
But that's not cool with me, Brau. I've been a Non-Lifetime fully subscribing player of this game month-to-month since it's release in September of 2009. You can do the math to figure out how much money I've pumped into the game, and that is only the minimum since I have also spent more than the sub value on extras along the way before the FTP transition.
Purchased extra account wide costume slots in packs of two at least fifteen times, as just one example. I haven't spent a penny over the subscription cost since that transition however, since now I just save and splurge with my stipend for things I decide I want.
The key factor there however, is that I'm still subscribing, and players like me have spent the most on this game, and are catered too the least.*
You want to talk to me about the games focus being to attract a completely different demographic into the game and flush out the old one, then I want to talk to you about the two years (at minimum,maybe longer) that Champions Online basically was Cryptics income, and how the majority of that income was funneled into other projects, and the backwards reinvestment to Champs of those other projects technical advances have yet to be returned to us.
Monetarily or otherwise. When Vehicles were announced as coming for Champions, I envisioned something a lot closer to STO shipyard, with vehicles with three large areas of modifiable trade out chunks and so on. As well as hue controls, emblems, all of that.
It seems to me that almost all production work on vehicles is instead focused on the back end "systems" side of the equation with only minimal effort placed into animation, User interface, usability and customization [visual customization, the one thing we all really wanted].
If you want my opinion, [I know, you don't] There should have been a touch of Hideouts in the idea for monetization. Instead of a million different reskins with different hues and patterns and slightly different mod slot layouts and included starting weapons, there should have just been the sales of a;
Vehicle Chassis, including one basic fairly plain paint job
A seperate lower value for hue-able, tailor screen-like ready-to-apply Costume patterns and skins
Colors and hue taken as a net loss
Mod slot and weapons packs for the systems customization.
That is, like in the real world, a base cost for a basic model, and pay more for all the options, both snazzy paint and pattern styles and systems and effects, separately.
Maybe a literally higher cost for the things people really want, like bad **** weapons.
Hell, charge people extra for having a pretty metallic Black paint in their garage, I don't know. but what we got was a joke.
And seriously, I want reinvestment back into this game I've been paying for, after all, without us and the years we supported Cryptic through tough times, STO, NW and Mystery project number five would not exist at all.
*Barring some freakish whale FTP buyer-players, but seriously, there can't be very many of them.
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So at what point does the game change genres entirely? Should whales be able to turn a superhero game into a speederbike game? Maybe Dan Stahl's Secret Project should be City of Hovertanks, then, and we can stick to superheroes. Or Dan makes Champions Online 2: This Time We Won't Screw Up A Superhero Game, We Swear and we can abandon this game to vehicle whales. Either way, it doesn't matter how it ends up to me, as long as it's not Cryptic hanging us out to dry until City of Titans launches.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Its fine for players to leave feedback about what they want and don't want- may not have much an effect on immediate dev plans, but it can for future ones.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Well, something like a customizable be-critter would be helpful for someone who uses vehicles as a means to level, like people who play non tank/dps type AT's.
- Justice Gear
- Revamped Rampages
- The Fatal Error Arc
- Level Gating on Alerts (Much Asked for by Players)
- Some Bug Fixes
- The Foxbatcon Event (on Test)
- Laser Sworrd, Telepathy, and Force Power Additions
- Some New Costumes (Victorian, Dryad, Magical Girl..)
And I'm sure that's not all of the things they've done. It's only what I can remember. Vehicles are small percentage of all of that work. While I know vehicles peeve people off, it's obviously making PWE money. And money is what motivates a business and keeps it going. So if they got a profit from devoting a small percentage of time to a project (in comparison to all the other work done), more power too them.
Money & Profit means the game stays open for all of us.
Yes, they've added some mini-missions to the game, and some new Justice Gear, and a couple of new costumes. At no point has anyone said 'this is all they are doing'.
But 'fixing' something does not equate to 'adding new things'.
Vehicles don't seem to be a 'small percentage of that work', considering the amount of Dev time that revolves around them.
You want to know why vehicles peeve people off? They aren't customizable, at all, period- except for the powers. In a superhero setting, one would think that having a vehicle meant having YOUR OWN vehicle that had your personal touch.
These aren't even really 'vehicles' in the way people wanted. Motorcycles, cars, and other things were the original ideas people spouted off about owning vehicles. I don't even really remember anyone saying 'hover tank' (and it doesn't really 'hover', so much as operate as an aircraft). The technology in CO does not allow the vehicles to move along the ground, and I'd think that'd probably be one of the FIRST things they looked into before chucking these things at us, but nope- once again, Cryptic jumped the gun and tossed out a half-baked idea.
The other problem? It takes me less than a minute to run across town with acrobatics as a travel power. This is not a massive, expansive world that requires a vehicle. Had the Developers spent actual time working on the game instead of forcefully shoehorning more little things into it that in no way improve the game, we'd have a bigger world or maybe even a new map.
And this statement right here shows the pathetic state of affairs, if it has any merit.
If you have to sell underperforming items for $15 each and spend valuable developer time just to make these a functional novelty...just to keep this game from 'shutting down', then your problem is in your development decisions.
Bad decisions and lack of fixed problems means the game can stay open all it wants and it won't see any new subscriptions.
/signed. Just not a very angry signature from me
Although, no matter who much we protest, I don't think Cryptic will remove Vehicles. It is one of the items in C-Store that makes money. Customization is hardly believable since most of the vehicles are just recolored version of the other (Arrowhead/Broadband, Copperhead/Widow).
Even though I agree that vehicles ruin most of the game(besides alerts), I still think Cryptic will NOT take notice of this petition...
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And how "they ruin the game"?
I use two vehicles on two characters and I know they can be completely ignored, if you are not interested in having one. Will be even easier now, since weapon mod exploits are fixed.
I did not care to even get a vehicle, if not for specific character concepts.
So, how exactly vehicles are both ruining the game, and making CO money?
It's not difficult to dslike vehicles as they are.
But that statement sounds just hysteric.
I'd say the lockboxes were making CO money, not the vehicles. Secondly, vehicles are still quite powerful. Pretending they aren't is your first big mistake, providing high levels of defense with incredible levels of damage. So really, stop pretending that vehicles don't make things easier or dumb down the game even more.
And really don't pretend the two alerts are manageable without vehicles, because that's as blatant an excuse as ever since vehicles just make both of them trivial.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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So you are not aware they wont ever add new zones? Or you want them to nerf actual travel powers to silly slowness to make vehicles useful? Really those are the only two things that I hear with all you wrote.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the PWE Community Rules and Policies -Kaiserin
I don't have to pretend anything.
I find vehicles clunky in play outside of two rampages and maybe open world bosses. Even with adjustments to their combat speed, their control is different than characters and I am more accustomed to just running into mobs and firing PBAoE.
Granted, it's easy to farm with vehicles, but then - it's also easy with player characters. Open world enemies are easy in general. At best, vehicles are making it marginally faster. Provided I'm not spending more time on positioning, since vehicles handling close to the ground isn't that great.
Both rampages are playable just fine with ranged characters. That they aren't very nice wth melee toons it's more of issue with CO. Ranged toons in general have easier gameplay.
Also, vehicles were, to this time, a highlight of every lockbox. Along with Legion gear.
Whether vehicles were drawing people to lockboxes, or it was more Legion gear, we'll see.
Now we have tune-up kits in Z-store, and these aren't sold in lockboxes, thus aren't linked with gear or costumes.
More than likely sales for tune-up kits will be the best litmus test for Cryptic, since these will be purely vehicle-oriented sales.
1 - If tune-up kits will sell well, then Cryptic will continue with vehicles.
2 - If not, then Cryptic may don't bother with rides.
3 - But if they will sell well, then no feedback on the forums will make Cryptic changing their minds. And no wishful thinking will change anything.
As for developing vehicles, or at least their models:
Let's do not pretend they aren't much easier to made than full costume set.
A vehicle is a single model with no scaling and alternate parts and no geometry morphing. A relatively simple and low-poly one. The most complicated ones are VTOLs and Exocets, because they have child models (but a simple ones).
And texture maps are shared between all vehicles in the same category.
Texturing wise, all rides of the same chassis type have only different diffuse maps, while normal maps are the same.
No alpha channels to worry about, save for bikes - as bikes are the only vehicles with alpha channels for colors, of that I'm sure. Tanks certainly are not, their diffuse maps are baked with painted colors. Jets are most likely the same.
So, once you have one base vehicle model, all additional modeling work is only tweaking textures. And since you already have UV maps for the prototype, you don't even have to worry about properly wrapping textures (and that's probably the most time-consuming part in finishing models).
So a single vehicle model should be probably only as time consuming, as is one more elaborate chest piece for character costume, maybe less. Since texturing is simpler.
It's not like vehicles took anything from other content. It's like we were given vehicles (and auras) because they had no resources for anything more, so they developed what was possible.
I'd rather say vehicles were chosen for development for the same reason as auras were. Because they're reuse of already existing game systems, so they're easiest to develop with limited resources and small team.
But for now vehicles are in their dead end. There is nothing to add to them, or making them more usable, or customisable. Hence it's the time to move on from rides to, well, anything else.
Then your 'hearing' is off. I suggest putting your ear closer to the monitor.
A new zone would be fantastic. Find me one person on this forum who thinks otherwise.
And if I wanted travel powers to be nerfed, I'd say 'travel powers should be nerfed'. What I was saying is 'vehicles are kind of useless in maps this small'.
I don't see that he did. The point is...so what? How does that "ruin the game"?
Easy game is easy. How does something ignorable making it a little easier "ruin the game"?
I haven't been having any difficulty at all with those Rampages without vehicles. As mentioned, they're a little rough on melee characters, but how is that "ruining the game"?
But I do agree that we do need more work on the powers and zones, But they won't as they only care for what makes them money, no amount of complaining and screaming we do here will ever work. If they rake in cash from Vehicles,lock boxes and travel powers, they will keep on doing that.
Even if some one was to win the lotto and give them the money and tell them to spend it on CO, PW would just take the money and go thank you and use it on something totally different if they don't pocketed it first.
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I realize the vehicles are designed specifically to siphon money out of Silver players by giving them other choices that they have to pay for, but the same could have been done for the new powers. Add more powers and give Silvers the ability to buy different power-choices on a character-by-character basis and bonanza.
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I'm positive that Sky Command was originally designed to be vehicle-only content in the same vein the final boss fight in the Nighthawk event was. The Nighthawk event launched a few months before Champions Online: Reloaded and Sky Command and the strict requirement to use the provided hawkwings didn't sit well with many people.
It didn't sit well because many people just picked whatever vehicle even though they were clearly marked and thought they should have been super powerful. It was designed as a team thing but failed on that level because Champions hasn't required team game play in so long. We desperately need more team game play.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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It didn't sit well for many of the same reasons people don't like vehicles today. "Why should I(have to) use them if my hero can already do everything they can do?", being one of the chief complaints.
Yea because it had nothing to do with the fact that several people would queue up and you would get in a group of 4 other people all wanting to do their own thing.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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That's not a problem unique to that event. Alerts in general have always suffered from this sort of thing. If you have a point to make then please make it, I'm not going to continue what appears to be pointless arguing.
There was so much opportunity, so much to work with.
After a few months of playing did I realize how deep I've buried myself into your game: Half of the content is broken and the devs seem like they could care less. It's in the past, so its not their problem.
But, if they keep this up it will be what ends them. Please, focus on other things;
Bring back the wiki and update it properly,
Bring us the new powersets weve been talking so much about.
There is tons of content worthy of an adventure pack in the Champions sourcebooks you haven't even touched.
So I ask you, Cryptic.
PLEASE try something else.
/signed
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I whole heartedly support what the OP said.
ENOUGH with vehicles please.
Thanks for the correction. I keep forgetting that it had a pre-Rampage history, as I never used it (and seem to recall hearing no one really was during my late tenure here).