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Better Perfect World's lockboxes than how Atari treated it. Especially since there's really nothing offensive about them compared to other implementations of similar. I do think it would be trivial to corner the market for a superhero MMO with the right backing. It's a genre with the rare combination of plenty of reference for how to do things (you've got CO, DCUO and previously CoH making different mistakes but all striking some sort of gold) and yet lack of any strong competition. You launch a new decent superhero MMO, learn from other's mistakes and avoid a lovely publishing situation, what could even stop you?
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 05:07 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 21:18 |
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Yeah it's important to keep in mind just how thoroughly ChampO was hosed over by Atari. The staff worked without pay for... seven or eight months there during and after the F2P transition because Atari was intentionally trying to sabotage the game while Cryptic shopped around for a new publisher. Even if Atari hadn't bungled the release, their mishandling of the F2P transition burned off whatever momentum it gained pretty quickly. We'll also never see another superhero MMO because CoH failed, ChampO never succeeded at all, and I'm pretty sure DCUO is massively underperforming too. Investors look at that and say "why should we bother" instead of "wow this is an untapped market if we do it right". lezard_valeth posted:How can new content be made for such a game? You either make a dungeon insanely hard for the scrub population, or too easy to the godly population. Let's not even get started on Open World events such as Bloodmoon. Ah well, it's way too late now for there to be any big changes in how it works. Still a shame though, since it really is a unique game.
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 05:19 |
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I agree with the assessment that a superhero MMO would look like a waste of money to investors, although I disagree that CoX failed; game went on strong in its niche for eight years before being shut down largely due to OTHER games failing, I don't think that classifies as failure. I think what you'd need is a smaller-budget setup, possibly trying to adapt it to the smaller online server stuff that's popular now rather than the conventional MMO server setups. MMOs aren't really something that pulls in the big bucks anymore unless it's a big property, and big pre-existing properties have been shown to be a bad thing for superhero MMOs anyway. So play lower, maybe, find alternatives that are both more popular and more workable while still keeping the same appeal. Basically, take all the lessons learned from superhero MMOs and instead use them to punch ARK in the face somehow.
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 05:39 |
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Random question: does getting to 40 on an archetype char still get you the free character slot assuming you're subbed, or is that only for freeform chars? Is this even a thing that still happens?
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 18:50 |
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Cleretic posted:I agree with the assessment that a superhero MMO would look like a waste of money to investors, although I disagree that CoX failed; game went on strong in its niche for eight years before being shut down largely due to OTHER games failing, I don't think that classifies as failure. I don't think you could look at any of the superhero mmos as failing. Dcuo pulls in a lot and is still getting expansions and stuff. CoH made money and was popular enough for a sequel. Anyone pitching a superhero mmo has no shortages of things to point to show interest to someone. Even champions has been successful enough to keep making content for. Compare it to like wildstar that just completely bombed out. Mmos are a complicated business but I really doubt anyone would look at superheroes as the reason for the reasons behind games like cox closing.
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 22:08 |
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CoH was still making profits when it was shut down. IIRC the real reason it got killed was the new NCSoft head needed something to blame for a bad fiscal year, he didn't like CoH, boom scapegoat. And City of Titans is at least showing videos of progress; who knows if they'll make it to release but one can hope.
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 22:20 |
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DCUO was pretty crowded all the way to lvl 30. Might come back to it once I'm out of games to play.
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 22:28 |
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I would think the real problem is that AAA-budget MMOs are, as an investment vehicle, dead. Any new MMO is going to be small and sparse as a result.
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 23:10 |
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WarLocke posted:CoH was still making profits when it was shut down. IIRC the real reason it got killed was the new NCSoft head needed something to blame for a bad fiscal year, he didn't like CoH, boom scapegoat. They won't.
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 23:15 |
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randombattle posted:CoH made money and was popular enough for a sequel. quote:Even champions has been successful enough to keep making content for. WarLocke posted:CoH was still making profits when it was shut down. IIRC the real reason it got killed was the new NCSoft head needed something to blame for a bad fiscal year, he didn't like CoH, boom scapegoat. I mean there was still literally no reason to actually close it and it was purely politics but it's not like it was completely arbitrary. Besides, replacing it with the debacle that was Wildstar was cosmic irony enough. quote:And City of Titans is at least showing videos of progress; who knows if they'll make it to release but one can hope. LordSaturn posted:I would think the real problem is that AAA-budget MMOs are, as an investment vehicle, dead. Any new MMO is going to be small and sparse as a result.
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 23:15 |
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Asimo posted:Expansion. Which underperformed, even if that was due to NCSoft budgeting it like a completely new game and unsurprisingly it didn't sell like one. I can't really defend CoV. I liked it from a conceptual/lore standpoint, but splitting your playerbase is almost always a bad thing. quote:It was their lowest performing game. I just think saying that superhero MMOs can't work is a non-starter considering the uproar around CoH closing and the fact that the community is still there and would jump back in instantly if CoH magically reappeared somehow, or if a 'spiritual sequel' ever happened. Hell, the CoH thread in Games lasted for years after the game was gone and only got closed recently.
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# ? Apr 12, 2016 23:23 |
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CO is about the player scale any new superhero MMO should expect in terms of playerbase unless they're like DCUO or Marvel Heroes and have a big license driving interest. But since Marvel and DC are already taken, well, I don't see any other comic universe being big enough to help that out. So for your original settings just aim a bit lower with your scale and budget and it can work. But small scale co-op superhero games with progression systems and gear and stuff are totally viable. I honestly think Marvel Heroes was a very smart game to make since it focuses on this kind of experience. CO is saved by virtue of sharing the same servers and engine as two more popular and successful games, if it was Cryptic's only title they would have shut down years ago unfortunately.
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# ? Apr 13, 2016 01:37 |
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They also own the license so they aren't paying fees to anyone or have to renegotiate it every few years, too. That helps a lot in the "guess we can keep this thing online" equation.
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# ? Apr 13, 2016 01:47 |
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Asimo posted:Expansion. Which underperformed, even if that was due to NCSoft budgeting it like a completely new game and unsurprisingly it didn't sell like one. No, Paragon Studios was literally working on a sequel, named City Of Heroes 2.
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# ? Apr 13, 2016 03:19 |
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"Working on" is generous. They had pitched it and gotten turned down at least once in favor of working more on CoH instead. Going Rogue was one of the results of not making CoH2 That said I would have totally been down for a CoH sequel set 10-15 years later or something. Give us a little taste of Batman Beyond type stuff going on. CO does some of that in spots, with the flying cars and hologram popstars and stuff. But the city is still pretty 'normal' outside of that central hub area I guess. NPCs don't even have the hoverboards and flying bikes and whatever else players do, which is kind of odd actually.
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# ? Apr 13, 2016 03:50 |
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Kelp Plankton posted:"Working on" is generous. They had pitched it and gotten turned down at least once in favor of working more on CoH instead. Going Rogue was one of the results of not making CoH2 Well, I know they planned to move David Nakayama to CoH2 before the moved him to the MOBA instead, and I think Matt said they were activly developing it, but I'm not sure on that one...
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# ? Apr 13, 2016 04:12 |
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Ok, gently caress it, I gave in and subbed for 3 months. I'm currently trying to buld an offensive Power Armor set. So far I have: Primary: Intelligence Secondary: Ego, Endurance Specs: Intelligence, Guardian, Vindicator, Intelligence Mastery Talents: All combinations that give +5 to Intelligence, Ego, Endurance and Recovery Energy Builder: Wrist Bolter AoE Power Armor slots: Plasma Beam, Mini Gun, Micro Munitions Energy Unlock: Overdrive Ranged AoEs: Fire All Weapons, Orbital Cannon (must have this cause of theme) Form: Concentration Shield: Energy Shield From what I've been testing so far, I can mantain all 3 slotted attacks full charge and still have some energy left. Crits come easy, and Locus stack builds up incredibily fast. Now my main concern is with survivability. Right now I'm standing at 5.2k Hp (no Hp mods, maybe this would help), so I'm pretty sure Gravitar can oneshot me. I still need 5 powers left, including passive, this are the options I'm thinking off, but any suggestion is welcome Active Offense: Lock N Load Active Defense: Field Surge (wait...) Passive: Either Targeting Computer or Personal Force Field (cause of Field Surge, or is it viable to use Field Surge without PFF?) Self Heal: Etiher Reconstruction Circuit or Bionic Shielding. Bionic Heals a lot more and faster and can be applied to others, but it has a downtime Extra: Nanobot Swarm worth it? It reduces 17/20/24 seconds on all cooldowns (Fire All Weapons, Field Surge and Lock n Load would get benefit from this) or it can heal you 2k over time. Thoughts?
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# ? Apr 13, 2016 08:15 |
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Is there enough powers to build a Speedster type character around? Or am I mostly just looking at normal melee attacks but also superspeed travel power?
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# ? Apr 14, 2016 05:55 |
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Honestly it's prooobably gonna be the latter? There's a few random powers that may fit though, like the shuriken throw stuff in martial arts, or the boomerang throw in gadgeteering, since tossing random junk at high speed is a semi-common speedster thing. Soul tornado or whatever it's called in darkness could fit well too, mostly since it actually looks like a whirlwind unlike most of the Wind powers.
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# ? Apr 14, 2016 06:04 |
Asimo posted:Yeah it's important to keep in mind just how thoroughly ChampO was hosed over by Atari. The staff worked without pay for... seven or eight months there during and after the F2P transition because Atari was intentionally trying to sabotage the game while Cryptic shopped around for a new publisher. Even if Atari hadn't bungled the release, their mishandling of the F2P transition burned off whatever momentum it gained pretty quickly. Overwatch was obviously a Blizzard Superhero MMO at some point and it's kind of disappointing that they took such an interesting world and characters and shoved them into Yet Another MOBA E-Sports Attempt.
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# ? Apr 16, 2016 13:19 |
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Overwatch's designs were Titan.
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# ? Apr 16, 2016 19:26 |
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Milky Moor posted:Overwatch was obviously a Blizzard Superhero MMO at some point and it's kind of disappointing that they took such an interesting world and characters and shoved them into Yet Another MOBA E-Sports Attempt. With all I've seen of Overwatch, its setting really strikes me as a bit too specific to facilitate full-on superhero stuff. Aside from maybe Reaper there's very little to suggest that the game's world has anything arcane or extreme enough to create full-on superpowers. I generally agree with LordSaturn, the bigger problem is that MMOs just aren't an appealing choice to develop. The genre inherently requires a lot of maintenance and upkeep costs, and you have to be wildly successful to counteract that. The F2P model further complicates things, and just a large number of the base game mechanics of the MMO don't transition well into the current generation (grinding etc.) Which probably speaks to why Marvel Heroes is arguably the most successful superhero 'mmo' right now, but that game shares a lot more in common with Diablo than World of Warcraft. lezard_valeth posted:Ok, gently caress it, I gave in and subbed for 3 months. Field Surge has the strongest stopping power for a single attack, but tends to last the shortest. Its usefulness is eclipsed by unbreakable unless you're specifically pairing it with PFF. Speaking of PFF, field surge is the only way to repair your shield without waiting and blocking, so I'd advise against that defense choice. In terms of pure perks and benefits you get from a passive, it's very hard to outdo Defiance for a power-armor character, since it generates energy when you get hit. Everything else looks pretty sound to me.
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# ? Apr 16, 2016 20:11 |
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If Kickback is still so drat effective with PA toggles (I never heard of them changing it) then Invulnerability is completely fine, although I do like Defiance quite a lot in general.
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# ? Apr 17, 2016 15:57 |
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I decided to try this out and I'm actually surprised at how fun it is. I don't know all the terms yet but I chose a tanky/behemoth archetype that uses Clobber and Defensive Combo. It's pretty drat satisfying. My dude is a frog.
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# ? Apr 20, 2016 04:15 |
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Good for you, it's really a great game in many ways even if a lot of people just won't forgive it for not being City of Heroes.
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# ? Apr 20, 2016 05:47 |
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Droid Washington posted:I decided to try this out and I'm actually surprised at how fun it is. I don't know all the terms yet but I chose a tanky/behemoth archetype that uses Clobber and Defensive Combo. It's pretty drat satisfying. My dude is a frog. Flesh Forge posted:Good for you, it's really a great game in many ways even if a lot of people just won't forgive it for not being City of Heroes.
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# ? Apr 20, 2016 07:55 |
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Man, all this talk about PFF makes me super happy, because PFF is The One True Tanking Passive. Like, right now I'm doing Super Stats: Level 6: Intelligence (Primary) Level 10: Dexterity (Secondary) Level 15: Strength (Secondary) Talents: Level 1: The Hero Level 6: Agile Level 9: Field Ops Training Level 12: Brilliant Level 15: Mighty Level 18: Jack of All Trades Level 21: Command Training Powers: Level 1: Reaper's Touch Level 1: Blade Tempest (Rank 2, Crashing Crescendo, Challenging Strikes) Level 6: Parry (The Elusive Monk) Level 8: Thunderbolt Lunge (Crippling Challenge) Level 11: Eye of the Storm (Rank 2, Rank 3) Level 14: Masterful Dodge Level 17: Molecular Self-Assembly Level 20: Dragon's Wrath (Rank 2, Rank 3) Level 23: Personal Force Field (Rank 2, Rank 3) Level 26: Inertial Dampening Field (Rank 2, Rank 3) Level 29: Nanobot Swarm Level 32: Lock N Load (Rank 2, Two Smoking Barrels) Level 35: Bountiful Chi Resurgence (Rank 2, Resurgent Reiki) Level 38: Unbreakable Travel Powers: Level 6: Jet Pack (Rank 2) Level 35: Specializations: Intelligence: Enlightened (3/3) Intelligence: Tactician (2/2) Intelligence: Revitalize (2/3) Intelligence: Detect Vulnerability (3/3) Protector: Fortified Gear (3/3) Protector: Bulwark (2/2) Protector: Debilitating Challenge (2/2) Protector: Defensive Expertise (3/3) Brawler: The Glory of Battle (3/3) Brawler: Penetrating Strikes (2/2) Brawler: Finishing Blow (3/3) Brawler: Setup (2/2) Mastery: Intelligence Mastery (1/1) with gear for like ~60% INT and about 30% STR and one R5 DEX enhancement somewhere in there. It's basically a build centered around having an Active Defense up 99% of the time. ADs like Unbreakable and Masterful Dodge are awesome compared to Field Surge from my experience, since FS can disappear almost immediately, and using it starts a cool-down on my other more useful ADs. And when my PFF does start getting low, I can EotS and keep my PFF from taking too much damage so it can refill on its own, at least for long enough to have an AD come off cool-down. I have Reaper's Touch left over from using the Sentry Tree with Twist of Fate, as ToF is bugged so that it doesn't work with AoE Energy Builders. I settled with Protector because it gives that huge recharge bonus to ADs and lets me not have to sit in Tank stance. Brawler has And before this I was doing a Heavy Weapons straight STR build which was rad, and I had Enraged instead of IDF, which let me do spectacular damage and still tank effectively while also not getting knocked around, like, ever. Point being, PFF is really really flexible for a freeform. You can do a lot with it, and you don't have to worry about dumb poo poo like HP and forcing yourself to take CON as a SS to make Defiance work. You just have to finesse it a little, unless you are ridiculously invested in other kinds of resistance (Laser Knight/Phalanx Whatever on Energy Shield + Juggernaut abuse + Warden/Vindicator feedback loop + IDF and poo poo throw Defensive Combo in there too), then you just have to hit Field Surge once in a long while. lezard_valeth posted:Thoughts? I know this is from a week ago, but I'd also suggest going with Endurance for the Kickback advantage. You could switch Plasma Beam for a non-hand slot power like another useful power like Chest Beam or just something silly like a Rocket Launcher, which can be timed with Orbital Strike to hit at about the same time . And I have also found that having one stat dedicated to energy management (int/end/rec) is usually enough to warrant taking a stat to shore up whatever weakness you feel you have. Also, INT mastery in conjunction with what I'm assuming is Enlightened is good, but it could be a lot better if you took talents that also add to your non-SS stuff imo.
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# ? Apr 20, 2016 08:18 |
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Langosta Whiteman posted:Powers: I don't get this, you don't have any ranged. Langosta Whiteman posted:something silly like a Rocket Launcher, which can be timed with Orbital Strike to hit at about the same time . I have done this with PA/Shoulder Launcher and Orbital Strike and it owns very hard Flesh Forge fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Apr 20, 2016 |
# ? Apr 20, 2016 09:36 |
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Flesh Forge posted:I don't get this, you don't have any ranged. It's for the 8% crit that I can keep up pretty much full time between 2SB and Revitalize. Like, I always have that buff up (as long as I'm paying attention.) I used to make sure I blocked every ~8 seconds to keep Force Sheath up, and now I just have to remember to auto-attack once every 6 for Revitalize. Super easy. Flesh Forge posted:I have done this with PA/Shoulder Launcher and Orbital Strike and it owns very hard I just used good ol' fashioned Rocket. Shoulder Launcher has a 20% knock-back and base Rocket has none, and with Anvil of Dawn, having knock-back is bad. Also, Rocket has a bigger AoE, and a cool-down for when Molecular Self-Assembly wants to feed me energy.
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# ? Apr 20, 2016 18:35 |
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And MSA used to be the only Energy Unlock I could use, since I don't think there were any other good ones for PA back in those days. Back when there was no Overdrive, and I think Thermal Reverb was still tied to Presence .
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# ? Apr 20, 2016 18:38 |
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Flesh Forge posted:Good for you, it's really a great game in many ways even if a lot of people just won't forgive it for not being City of Heroes. I love City. I miss City. But I don't want every game to be City. What I do want, however, is for every* MMO to copy 2 things from City: 1) Super Sidekicking. Let anyone team with anyone, regardless of level differences. 2) This is where the * comes in: Every MMO with a Market needs to let me place orders for items. I need Thingy X, but nobody is selling one right now? Cool. I'll place an order, and not worry. I have Thingy Y, and 3 people want to buy it, but nobody's selling? Cool. I'll list it for sale now. Someone will get it, and I'll get some jink. I mean, I don't want it to be an exact 1:1 copy of City's auction house, since, as I understand it, it was easy to exploit, but I've found it very frustrating not being able to place an order in games when an item I want/need isn't currently listed for sale. Of course, I'd also love the depth of customability that City's costume creator had, but I know that one's a long shot... And in the end, the lack of those things doesn't stop me from playing.
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# ? Apr 20, 2016 23:20 |
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Being able to run a lower level dungeon with your friends and still get adequate rewards for doing so was the greatest thing, and I can't believe that no other dev team was smart enough to copy it. It keeps your old content relevant and keeps your players playing together.
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# ? Apr 20, 2016 23:25 |
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Sidekicking was indeed the bomb, but I wish games/MMOs would move away from auction houses/loot altogether. Especially for a super hero game, it makes almost no sense to be ripping DNA strings from a guy or taking this guy's TV helmet home. Loot as souvenirs (in the comic sense of having a room with displays of stuff from dudes you fought) is cool, but superhero gear is dumb.
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# ? Apr 20, 2016 23:36 |
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Brave New World posted:Being able to run a lower level dungeon with your friends and still get adequate rewards for doing so was the greatest thing, and I can't believe that no other dev team was smart enough to copy it. It keeps your old content relevant and keeps your players playing together. I have had people tell me with a straight face "the consumers want it this way" when actually they have almost never had this option. It's pretty blatantly obvious to me that the big reason you don't see content that is relevant for all levels of player is because of inertia in the industry. I really dislike the strict train track that just about all MMOs put you on and never let you off of, and how it prevents teaming except within a tiny level bracket that you are currently at. I'd much rather designers would just abandon the concept of leveled content entirely, and have basically Champion's "Skull Level" structure you see in the Adventure Packs except applied everywhere in the game. So you might have level 40 dudes hanging around the noob area? Totally fine, that's what Daredevil and Batman and Spider-Man do. You might have level 5 dudes going to the Andromeda Galaxy to fight off the invasion of Kirby Space Gods? Also totally fine, that's what Kitty Pryde and noob Green Lanterns do all the time. e: Oops what I never got around to saying is, I'd really like it if your activities these games is driven by "whatever the gently caress I feel like doing" rather than "I'm level X and need Y gear to do Z next tier of content" Flesh Forge fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Apr 21, 2016 |
# ? Apr 21, 2016 01:23 |
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Flesh Forge posted:e: Oops what I never got around to saying is, I'd really like it if your activities these games is driven by "whatever the gently caress I feel like doing" rather than "I'm level X and need Y gear to do Z next tier of content" Or if everything scaled somewhat but different enemy groups had radically different powers/stats, so Character X is built to fight Group Y but Group Z will be a pain in the rear end (but Hero A can chump them because he's built differently). Batman and Daredevil are 'street level' because they're 'built' to fight criminals/gangbangers. Superman fights cosmic dudes because punching a gangbanger with super strength is both wasteful and messy.
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# ? Apr 21, 2016 01:30 |
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Honestly the bigger thing these days seems to be level-matching to the content rather than the players. Usually only in a downward direction, so high levels can play in low level areas but not vice versa, but GW2 was infamous for it and SWTOR started doing it with the recent expansion and I'm pretty sure other games I'm forgetting have similar schemes. It has the advantage of being a lot more "seamless" than sidekicking too since it just happens automatically all the time, as well as letting devs put endgame quests in low-level zones and not have it really break things. But there's downsides too, such as not being able to sidekick up for higher level stuff like CoH did. But there's a lot of really smart ideas in a lot of games (many of them in Cryptic games...) that other developers completely ignore. I mean like the name@account thing in ChampO and STO is infinitely less absurd than the unique character names in COH. By the end of that game's life it was nearly impossible to get a not-stupid name that wasn't just your usual random fantasy scramble name.
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# ? Apr 21, 2016 02:01 |
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I don't agree, I think Marvel Heroes does this kind of thing much better in concept (Daredevil keeps up with Thor reasonably well e.g.). Aside from the pure powergamer outlook on it that you're talking about, which is a question of character system design, I'm more talking about the presentation of content. If Level One Billion Superman (aka a fat guy eating Doritos behind a keyboard) wants to go punch gangbangers in Nuevo Manhattan then the content should be interesting and at least somewhat rewarding and challenging for him. If Level 10 Squirrel Girl (aka another fat guy in his computer cave wearing a diaper) wants to go punch Galactus in the dick then again, it should be interesting and reasonably practical and rewarding to do.
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# ? Apr 21, 2016 02:07 |
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Kheldarn posted:I mean, I don't want it to be an exact 1:1 copy of City's auction house, since, as I understand it, it was easy to exploit, but I've found it very frustrating not being able to place an order in games when an item I want/need isn't currently listed for sale. I feel like most games got around the market issue by using forums/chat channels to post what you need and see if anyone's offering. It's generally a useful thing in CO as well due to Auction House posting charges for just listing an item for sale. I'm actually curious to know what you find lacking with CO's costume creator. I played CoX in the past and found its character editor to be great for the time, but CO's just bests it in terms of geometry variety concerning the number of different shapes and items you can give your characters.
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# ? Apr 21, 2016 04:08 |
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Langosta Whiteman posted:
Thanks to both replies! I have put the PA tank build on hold in the meantime while I familiarise myself a bit more with the spec trees. Right now I made a Munitions DPS character and I must say Munitions tree is really fun and I now understand why a few of my friends spammed Lead Tempest. I always wanted a character with Breakaway Shot because Kevin Poe made it look so awesome, but powerwise it's a bit underwhelming (specially since it only hits the enemy once, while Kevin Poe hits twice or more if I'm not mistaken). About the Villain Powers, I want Nuclear Shockwave for a theme build but I heard they are a bit underwhelming. Just how bad are we talking about?
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# ? Apr 21, 2016 04:09 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 21:18 |
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Bluhman posted:I'm actually curious to know what you find lacking with CO's costume creator. I played CoX in the past and found its character editor to be great for the time, but CO's just bests it in terms of geometry variety concerning the number of different shapes and items you can give your characters.
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# ? Apr 21, 2016 06:08 |