Recent changes

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Game Stability

* Fixed memory leak in client that caused framerate to decrease over
time.

Game

* High level bosses (25+) reduced to the toughness they had before
Update 3.
* Experience and Influence awards for defeating high level bosses (25
+) reverted to pre-Update 3 levels.
* Experience bonus for groups of 4 or more has been increased.
* The “Help” button was removed from all character creation screens
and the enhancement management screen.
* Fixed bug that caused female and huge characters who had not logged
on since Update 1 to become male when they logged on.

Powers

* Change to Devouring Earth pet beacons. They will no longer buff
each other of the same type (i.e. cairns will no longer buff other
cairns).
* Fixed Controller/Ancillary/Stone Armor from making you invisible.
* Fixed Dark Armor/Dark Regeneration from animating before it
recharges.
* Fixed Defender/Adrenaline Boost. It was not increasing targets
recharge time correctly (Controller version was ok).
* Fixed Force Field/Deflection Shield resistance to Toxic damage.
* Fixed a problem in Burn and Ignite that was causing villains to not
be afraid of the fire. Villain behavior to Burn and Ignight should, once
again, work as it used to work.
* Fixed Jurrasik Giant Monster so he uses the new Giant Monster
combat technology (giant monsters are always scary).
* Lowered damage done by exploding barrels when they are destroyed.
* Temporary powers can now be used regardless of the level at which
they were earned (for exemplars).
* Fixed bug with Melee attacks with effects on the target (disorient,
knockdown, etc.). These attacks weren't working with the new melee
prediction system that allows you to hit villains while they are running
away.
* Fixed bug with Elude having an activation animation if you try to
use it before it is recharged.
* Fixed bug with Tanker Stone Melee/Stone Mallet and Heavy Mallet
which made the mallet invisible.

--
Marcel

 

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Marcel Beaudoin <mbeauINVALID@sympaINVALIDtico.ca> looked up from
reading the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good,
the signs say:

> * Experience bonus for groups of 4 or more has been increased.

Finally they get the hint that if they want people to team they should
make it attractive and worthwhile to team, not penalize anyone who wants
to solo, by tweaking missions/bosses/etc to make them unsolable.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

 

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Xocyll wrote:
> > * Experience bonus for groups of 4 or more has been increased.

> Finally they get the hint that if they want people to team they should
> make it attractive and worthwhile to team, not penalize anyone who wants
> to solo, by tweaking missions/bosses/etc to make them unsolable.

While I would agree that this was a good change, I'd remind
you that Statesman has made it clear that he intends to
revisit bosses and crank them back up again (making them
once again unsoloable for non-uber builds) once he's got
a shopping list of other needed changes in place first.
That list includes things like making the mission text
accurately tell you when you're going to see a boss, and
making it possible to drop ones you've taken that turn
out to be too hard.

I'd have thought that these would have been easy to do (and
even foreseeable necessities) before the I3 boss fiasco,
but for some reason other things like frozen ponds and
snowball fights have had higher priority than a basic
playability issue like being able to just abandon a mission
that's either too hard or not high enough level to be
interesting or rewarding any more. And I know for a fact
that this suggestion for dropping missions has been made
in the official web chat room. It's just been pushed on
the back burner, even though it would be really easy to
implement and even though a lot of people would appreciate
having it if they could. NCSoft's rep for customer service
is well-deserved, but I'm not as convinced that its design
priorities are all that they should be.

After playing WoW for nearly a month now I've come to the
conclusion that about the only things I miss about CoH are
my friends who are still playing it. But I really hope
for the game's sake that CoH manages to retain its present
customer base, because if they're like me and get fed up
and leave then it's entirely possible that they aren't
coming back.

--
Nathan Engle Computer Support, IUB Psych Dept
nengle@indiana.edu http://mypage.iu.edu/~nengle
"Some Assembly Required"

 

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On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 10:54:42 -0500, Nathan Engle <nengle@indiana.edu>
wrote:

>After playing WoW for nearly a month now I've come to the
>conclusion that about the only things I miss about CoH are
>my friends who are still playing it.

You implying that Blizzard's priorities are in any better order? Don't
get my wrong, I love WoW...but to imply Blizzard has their ducks in a
row better than Cryptic is just plain ignorant.

--
Dark Tyger

Sympathy for the retailer:
http://www.actsofgord.com/index.html
"Door's to your left" -Gord
(I have no association with this site. Just thought it was funny as hell)

Protect free speech: http://stopfcc.com/

 

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Marcel Beaudoin wrote:

> * High level bosses (25+) reduced to the toughness they had before
> Update 3.

I was a bit unhappy about this but then the last mission I did with my 25
scrapper had a pair of Red Totems and assorted Lts and minions teeming
around them, so I was happy they weren't buffed up anymore

(And that was Solo, so for me at least I'm seeing definite changes with
the Unyielding difficulty level - increased mob numbers and levels.)

> * Experience bonus for groups of 4 or more has been increased.

I rarely do more than duo or trio unless it's TFs.
I think I might try some larger teams this weekend and see what happens.

--
| Victory Server: |
| Bex - Level 33 Blaster (Assault Rifle/Devices) |
| Brother Grim - Level 25 Scrapper (Broadsword/Regeneration) |
| Amaryll - Level 19 Defender (Empathy/Radiation) |
| Gravometric - Level 18 Controller (Gravity/Radiation) |

 

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"Marcel Beaudoin" <mbeauINVALID@sympaINVALIDtico.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns95F1538514957mbeausympaticoca@130.133.1.4...
> Game Stability
>
> * Fixed memory leak in client that caused framerate to decrease over
> time.
>
> Game
>
> * High level bosses (25+) reduced to the toughness they had before
> Update 3.

Here are Statesman's comments:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Dev&Number=2070950&bo
dyprev=#Post2070950

***********************************************************
Solo and Team Play

The recent change to boss difficulty has brought out a long simmering
question: what does a solo player do in City of Heroes. Currently, some
missions are for the "lone wolf" hero, but many are not. With the now sturdy
bosses, even the most skilled player has difficulty completing these tasks.
Worst of all, some players are surprised by the presence of a boss and
defeated almost immediately.

On the one hand, this is a MMP. I believe that some of the best features of
the game shine when players join forces with other players. On the other
hand, I've always believed that part of our game's strength is the ability
for a player to log on for a half hour, have fun, then log off. If a mission
requires a team up, players spend a lot of time simply organizing. The quick
fun element dissipates.

In the short term:

.. We will roll back the Boss changes.
.. Team up XP bonuses will be increased.

Let's not start pointing fingers - "the whiners had their way" or "the game'
s too easy, make it harder" - because I think the Boss changes violated a
basic principle. Namely: never let a person make an uninformed decision. And
right now, people aren't clear when a mission requires a team up and when it
doesn't. Plus, they have no ability to drop a mission if they don't feel
like doing it. Besides, we've introduced our Mission Difficulty Slider to
satisfy the demands of those who want something more challenging in the
future.

In the mid-term:
.. There are two types of missions in City of Heroes. The bread and butter
missions are drawn from a generic pool. The vast majority of a player's
experience are devoted to completing these tasks for his Contacts. We will
be making it so that a Boss will NEVER show up on the mission for a solo
player at the lowest Reputation level (Hard-Boiled, though we're changing
that to Hero). Instead, any named villain will be a Lieutenant. That
Lieutenant will have the same name, powers and costume as the Boss; his
villain rank will simply be lessened. In this way, solo players won't miss
out on the flavor of the mission's story. If a team or a player with a
Reputation at Tenacious or higher enters that mission, the Lieutenant will
become a Boss.
.. Contacts give out another series of missions - story arcs. These are
linked missions that form a much larger tale. Players normally receive story
arcs only after they've leveled their Contact up to the highest level.
Whenever a named character occurs, he'll be a Lt. for the solo player at the
lowest Reputation level and a Boss for teams or solo players with higher
Reputations. Arch Villains, Elite Bosses and Giant Monsters will remain as
they are; but, for the early and mid-levels, players will not need to defeat
these foes to complete the mission. In the high levels, this is not the
case.
.. Task Forces and Trials will continue to contain Elite Bosses, ArchVillains
and Giant Monsters. There will be no changes here.

In the long term:
.. The Mission UI will be improved to designate various elements of mission:
timed missions, team up required, etc.
.. A system will allow players to drop unwanted missions or do old missions
that have been passed over (the infamous "flashback").
.. Only until players can drop missions will we look at the Boss difficulty
again.

What's our goal? Simply put: if a player wants to do something solo, it
should be CHOICE. Teaming shouldn't be required, but rather encouraged. If a
player gets a mission with an Arch Villain, he'll be able to drop it and get
another.
************************************************************************

 

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John Parkinson <jp--usenet--spam--trap@destiny.org.uk> wrote:
>> * Experience bonus for groups of 4 or more has been increased.

> I rarely do more than duo or trio unless it's TFs.

I prefer 3-4 for a group. Unfortunately, my "best friend" in the 30s is a
giant-mob fanatic, and likes to keep the team loaded with 7-8. Means every
mission is like a shopping mall at Xmas, and it's pound pound pound pound
the whole way through. May as well go hunt Winter Lords. 😛

--
-= Victory Server =-
-= Shenanigunner: Level 35 Natural Tanker, Fire/SS, M =-
-= Sgt Glory B: Level 16 Tech Blaster, Electric/Energy, F =-
-= Duke Miasma: Level 8 Science Controller, Grav/Force, H =-
-= the Nonpareil: Level 7 Magic Defender, Emp/Rad, F =-
-= Mean Mr Mustard: Level 7 Natural Tanker, Inv/Stone, H =-

 

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Nathan Engle <nengle@indiana.edu> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>Xocyll wrote:
>> > * Experience bonus for groups of 4 or more has been increased.
>
>> Finally they get the hint that if they want people to team they should
>> make it attractive and worthwhile to team, not penalize anyone who wants
>> to solo, by tweaking missions/bosses/etc to make them unsolable.
>
>While I would agree that this was a good change, I'd remind
>you that Statesman has made it clear that he intends to
>revisit bosses and crank them back up again (making them
>once again unsoloable for non-uber builds)

Mostly irrelevant to this though. They've finally made a BONUS for
teaming, so it's finally going to be worthwhile teaming (with all the
inherent problems that come with teaming.)

I'd say it has little to do with the "uberness" of any particular build
or not and far more to do with the skill of the player.

Ok some of the later bosses would become insanely difficult due to the
increased healing they get as a side-effect of the HP boost.
If they can fix that, then bosses having more hp wouldn't be nearly as
much of an issue.

>once he's got
>a shopping list of other needed changes in place first.
>That list includes things like making the mission text
>accurately tell you when you're going to see a boss, and
>making it possible to drop ones you've taken that turn
>out to be too hard.

From the sound of things, anything without a listed boss will only have
LTs - even though they'd currently have a boss type lurking in them
somewhere.
This is going to be an improvement - sounds like they're trying to make
bosses more like the elite bosses such as Frostfire - someone to inspire
a little bit of dread on meeting as opposed to the jumped up LTs they've
been since release.

>I'd have thought that these would have been easy to do (and
>even foreseeable necessities) before the I3 boss fiasco,

The problem I think is that the Devs don't play that much and don't play
solo at all. Bosses aren't a problem for teams, only soloers [and even
then, mostly soloers playing an AT that wasn't really meant to solo
{according to the dev's vision of things}.]

There's a lot to do to sort out all the potential problems - including
changing the way hp regen occurs in the game - all mobs and players have
the same kind of hp regen - a percentage over a fixed interval and all
powers like instant healing do, is boost the percentage healed.
More hp always = more healing when it's a percentage.

Until they unlink those, boosting boss hp boosts their healing too.

>but for some reason other things like frozen ponds and
>snowball fights have had higher priority than a basic
>playability issue like being able to just abandon a mission
>that's either too hard or not high enough level to be
>interesting or rewarding any more. And I know for a fact
>that this suggestion for dropping missions has been made
>in the official web chat room. It's just been pushed on
>the back burner, even though it would be really easy to
>implement and even though a lot of people would appreciate
>having it if they could. NCSoft's rep for customer service
>is well-deserved, but I'm not as convinced that its design
>priorities are all that they should be.

Well the snowball thing is just a reskin - hell the Winterlord and
minions were just reskins and rescales of the hydras in Perez Park.

The freezeover, is fun, and it's little more than a reskin of lakes
keyed to an effect (the sliding which is already in the game as the DVD
special version of sprint, just minus the glow.)

That's just a rehash and reuse of existing game elements, and thus
pretty easy and quick to do. Changing the basics of the game (healing
rate) on the other hand will have MASSIVE rippledown changes to the
game.

>After playing WoW for nearly a month now I've come to the
>conclusion that about the only things I miss about CoH are
>my friends who are still playing it. But I really hope
>for the game's sake that CoH manages to retain its present
>customer base, because if they're like me and get fed up
>and leave then it's entirely possible that they aren't
>coming back.

Such is life in all MMORPGs, some stay, some go, some revisit later,
some don't.

At least issue 4 is going to have more costume options, more heads (and
hairstyles) and body sliders so we'll get more choices.

Now if they'd just get that winged AT in the game (and not gimped) then
I could be happy.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

 

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Xocyll wrote:
> > I'd have thought that these would have been easy to do (and
> > even foreseeable necessities) before the I3 boss fiasco,

> The problem I think is that the Devs don't play that much and don't play
> solo at all. Bosses aren't a problem for teams, only soloers [and even
> then, mostly soloers playing an AT that wasn't really meant to solo
> {according to the dev's vision of things}.]

Before I figured out where my real preference was and just
stopped reading it, I saw a LOT of alarmed comments on the
CoH web forum from empaths pointing out that one-shotting
bosses were relegating their profession to buffs and
resurrects. Making bosses too strong had a serious impact
on any healing support class.

At least according to their own claims in the web forum
the devs DO play, but I think I'd agree with you at least
to the extent of betting that the characters they play are
hyper-optimized and not at all like the casually-contructed
ones that most players have. Cranking up the difficulty
so that they're happy is just going to overwhelm the average
player. It was a REALLY bad idea, and the fact that they
claim they plan on trying it again weighed pretty heavily
in my plans. Well, that and the fact that my paladin is
about to get his war horse...

--
Nathan Engle Computer Support, IUB Psych Dept
nengle@indiana.edu http://mypage.iu.edu/~nengle
"Some Assembly Required"

 

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Nathan Engle <nengle@indiana.edu> wrote in news:cu0gab$vd9$1
@rainier.uits.indiana.edu:

<snip>
> Making bosses too strong had a serious impact
> on any healing support class.
<snip>

I think that the problem that the devs are having is the following:

It is often easier (and quicker) to make things more difficult (or powers
weaker) than it is to bring everything else up to the same level.

Hmmmm, not as clear as it is in my head...

Attempt 2

Take the (short lived) boss changes. The problem was that the bosses were
getting too easy to kill, and that Scrappers were soloing them. As opposed
to making the rest of the ATs powerful enough to solo bosses (even if it
takes a looong time and a fair amount of luck/skill), they made the bosses
harder. The ideal set-up would be to make the bosses harder *and* bring the
other AT's up closer to the level of the boss-killing scrapper. (Not the
same, but close). Granted, it is easy for me to say it, and probably quite
difficult to code. Especially with the short attention span of the people
that live on the CoH forums. (For the great majority of them, if it takes
more than 1/2 a day to "fix" something that is "broken", then the devs are
ignoring the problem.)

--
Marcel

 

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Nathan Engle <nengle@indiana.edu> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>Xocyll wrote:
>> > I'd have thought that these would have been easy to do (and
>> > even foreseeable necessities) before the I3 boss fiasco,
>
>> The problem I think is that the Devs don't play that much and don't play
>> solo at all. Bosses aren't a problem for teams, only soloers [and even
>> then, mostly soloers playing an AT that wasn't really meant to solo
>> {according to the dev's vision of things}.]
>
>Before I figured out where my real preference was and just
>stopped reading it, I saw a LOT of alarmed comments on the
>CoH web forum from empaths pointing out that one-shotting
>bosses were relegating their profession to buffs and
>resurrects. Making bosses too strong had a serious impact
>on any healing support class.

Well personally I never ran into a 1-shotting boss.
I can't think of any normal boss type that would be one-shotting a melee
class.
Sure with the boost they would stomp flat a blaster/defender/controller
that got too close, but those classes aren't supposed to get into melee.

>At least according to their own claims in the web forum
>the devs DO play, but I think I'd agree with you at least
>to the extent of betting that the characters they play are
>hyper-optimized and not at all like the casually-contructed
>ones that most players have. Cranking up the difficulty
>so that they're happy is just going to overwhelm the average
>player. It was a REALLY bad idea, and the fact that they
>claim they plan on trying it again weighed pretty heavily
>in my plans. Well, that and the fact that my paladin is
>about to get his war horse...

Oh I know there are comments from them that they play, but I don't think
they play much, and as I said before, I don't think they solo at all.

Their comments on various things just scream a total lack of actual
experience and a reliance on what "should" happen, not what does.

What perplexes me is their insistence on having the slider have a
minimum of the current level of difficulty and not be able to lower
difficulty.
Yeah, sure, lowering it means less exp, and could in theory result in a
weaker "support class" character running out of missions and having to
street hunt.

But so what? Surely that's better than the same character having to beg
and plead to get help with all his missions because they can't be soloed
by him ever, no matter what.

I don't think the Devs have hyper-optimized characters, but I do think
they always team, so the problems faces by soloers, especially the non
scrapper/tanker soloers are a complete mystery to them.

A lot of the Tanker problems before argued exactly this - they don't
need to be able to damage things if they're nothing but a meatshield for
a team. This, finally has changed and tankers can actually do
respectable damage now, without gasping for breath after two swings.

The MA animations were another big clue that no Dev had ever played one
(or played it for long) since they insisted that animation times were
irrelevant to the powers, only damage and recharge time.
Once Statesman finally played one, the animations got changed (issue 2),
but there were what, 4 months, of posts about the animations before
Statesman tried it.

Anyone who has ever programmed knows how hard it can be to see a flaw,
when you just *KNOW* it's "working as designed."

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

 

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Marcel Beaudoin <mbeauINVALID@sympaINVALIDtico.ca> looked up from
reading the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good,
the signs say:

>Nathan Engle <nengle@indiana.edu> wrote in news:cu0gab$vd9$1
>@rainier.uits.indiana.edu:
>
><snip>
>> Making bosses too strong had a serious impact
>> on any healing support class.
><snip>
>
>I think that the problem that the devs are having is the following:
>
>It is often easier (and quicker) to make things more difficult (or powers
>weaker) than it is to bring everything else up to the same level.
>
>Hmmmm, not as clear as it is in my head...
>
>Attempt 2
>
>Take the (short lived) boss changes. The problem was that the bosses were
>getting too easy to kill, and that Scrappers were soloing them. As opposed
>to making the rest of the ATs powerful enough to solo bosses (even if it
>takes a looong time and a fair amount of luck/skill), they made the bosses
>harder.

It's not bosses that freaked out the Devs, after all Statesman's vision
of the Scrapper AT was "the boss killer."

It was the soloing of AVs and Giant Monsters that bugged them and it
completely ignored the facts that it's only certain specific builds that
could solo certain specific Giant Monsters and/or certain specific AVs.

Look in the forums at the sig of Darke Exile - he's soloed more AVs than
I have, including some that my MA/Reg scrapper couldn't solo, ever.
He's a pet controller.

Yeah, my MA/reg could solo Giant DE Monsters, north of PI, *BUT*, only 1
on 1, and only the hard types (extra vulnerable to smashing) were worth
doing.
Two giant monsters of any type would kill me in no time.
What made it possible to do at all?
Tough, a pool power, to cut their smashing-only attack damage.
That and having all my attacks slotted with an end reducer so I could
actually keep fighting long enough to kill one. A Quarry took ~10
minutes, Lattices about ~7-8.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr