General Discussion

In the case of ED, everyone got the bat equally, so that should have lessened the blow considerably rather than a single class getting singled out.

Oh, really???  Then why did the devs have to add a to-hit debuff to every mob to lessen the terrible effect ED had on defenders and other support classes???  Why was the debt cap cut in half, and debt not incurred until level 10?  Why did temp powers have to be added (as utterly crappy as they are) to low-level toons to give them some semblance of extra damage???

Why was damage for controller holds doubled, if "everyone got the bat equally?"  And why - when the devs were asked about powers that only accept a single type of enhancement - were player complaints shrugged off and ignored???   And then Emmerrt, in a classic case of sublimation, had the gall to pin ED on "player suggestions", refusing to accept any responsibility for his decision,  just as Smedley - for years - told customers and the MMO world that players wanted the NGE! 

Oh yeah, ED really hit everyone equally!  They did all this because they knew they had screwed everyone with ED, just that some builds were screwed "more equally" than others!

None of these changes would have had to have been made had Emmert & Company just left the damn thing alone!!!  But again, people were leveling too fast, getting to the end too quickly and finding NOTHING there!  So instead of spending time and resources actually creating compelling end-game content, the devs nerfed the hell out of everything to hide the fact their end-game was an utter joke!  And - as far as I know - it still is! 

They continue to add time-consuming content for the low and mid levels (a.k.a. "grind"), hoping that stuff like this will keep subs up a while longer, while never doing a thing for end-game stuff!  And the game has been out now, what, 3+ years???  Ask anyone where the villain EATs are?  Miller's spin?  "We should have waited on hero epics."  Right, like they even knew what they were doing anyway!

Guess what?  Arenanet just released an expansion for Guild Wars called Eye of the North that is nothing BUT post level 20 content!  And they did that in a little more than 2 years with a free-to-play business model, plus the creation of 2 whole stand-alone games and a new MMO in development!  What's Cryptic's excuse???

Had Emmert & Company spent as much time and resources adding content rather than nerfing the game to hell, maybe even MORE people would be playing now!  But they spent the first 2 years of the game's release in public beta balancing this garbage!  And they charged people to do so!

{Mod Edit}

Let me redo my post.

CoX is one of the best games out there both for single and group play, it has excellent back story, amazing chance for roleplay and some of the best friends me and my wife have ever met.

Nearly all IF not all online game have this little thing in the Eula "gameplay may change during online play".

Now as a player i've been playing online games for over 20 years, starting with bbs style dungeon games i've played just about every mmorpg out there..

As a developer I created my own online game 10 years ago, its still going and not only has it gone through 5 complete different code bases and revisions, there has been numerous nerfs and rebalancing.

See when you create a game mechanic no mater how good you are, coder/designer/admin you can not NEVER ever estimate or second guess what a player will do with what you give him.

its a completely unknown quantity, no matter how fool proof, how cheat proof you make something, until players try it, your in grey areas.

I spent 6 months creating what I thought in my niavity was a perfect fight system, it was modular and different for every profession every race, included racial hatreds, special attacks, evolution kills, xp for healers xp for fighters, violent deaths, funny deaths, acts of gods.

I took it from a design board to about 400,000 lines of code, it was fun to do but..

24 hours after it hit live some unforseen consequences, I had the brilliant idea of making npc's as real to the code as player driven characters, npc's gained xp, gained levels, kept a list memory of who killed them so they knew who to agro on

I also thought to myself hey, you know how annoying it is to be in a fight but get almost no xp at the end for all your work, well why not give people xp during the fight, xp for a particularly awesom spell combo or a  for taking alot of damage or healing yourself just in time.

This meant no two fights would ever be the same, no two people would come out with the same but everyone whether a healer, caster, pet class, fighter would gain from a fight.

The first problem was total niavity on my part people started healing the monsters they fought because they got more xp if the fight lasted longer lol/

But its now 4 years since I put that code in and its still being balanced

All Developers follow a very simple "risk v reward" simply means they have a data graph of how much xp how much loot how much gain people are getting Versus the risk taken versus the challenge and time, you use that to balance the long term game play and survivability of the game.

evey online game from muds to meridian to eq to Uo to vanguard every one has this and its how they redesign and balance,

its never complete till the game ends and you turn of the servers.

A tip to you, go study games dev, create your own game then wait till players play it, then sit back in wonder as they do everything in your game except what you intended them to do and then watch your game spiral out of control on the "risk v reward" then come back here and say naaa i'll never nerf it...

Originally posted by deathtripp

Originally posted by DrowNoble

Yes the post by Iller seems to be misleading not the comments by Posi. 

The thing was Issue  6 coincided with the release of CoV, so it kinda went overlooked.  Due to CoV itself, issues were less frequent since CoV itself added a lot of content.  When Issue 7 came out it was pretty much a villain patch.  So this "dry spell" was resolved by speeding up the pace of further issues.  Before CoV we had 5 issues in about a year and a half, which averaged to about every 4 months.  CoV threw us off track, but 2007 we're back on track as Posi said.

Plus players haven't been unsubscribing, NCSoft has reported an increase in subscriptions. 

Actually as a former player i can say i did unsubscribe just a month or 2 ago,  and with the announcement of the ever so sheisty "Willpower" i wont be resubscribing any time soon. That is a pure shite power set. There was a myriad of other options and they picked willpower? That just disgusts me... It should have been shield defence. So fuck issue 11

Dissing a power set before it has even come out to be play tested makes about as much sense as reviewing a book you haven't read or a movie you haven't watched. For all you know it might be the coolest thing since sliced bread. And for the record Shield Defense is coming. The devs just had to delay it a bit because of the the intense graphic work involved in making it happen.

Wow I can see that ED upset you, but man comparing it, even lightly, to the NGE, is just wrong lol. Sure the ED changed the game somewhat but it is still the same game, and in the end far more popular. The same cannot be said about SWG post NGE.

Personally the ED didn't bug me a tun. I was pissed about it of course, especially as a Claws scrapper, which at the time was the weakest of the weak, but Regen being so powerful kind off-set it. Then NGE hit and other /regen nerfs like removing the toggle from Instant Healing, etc. But even then it didn't really bother me.

And you talk about not feeling like a superhero. I don't know, being able to superjump into a group of 5 odd mobs my level and being able to waste them feels pretty superhero to me. In a team you still fight a dozen mobs at a time with little trouble on a decent team. That's a hell of a lot more then say WoW or EQ1/2 where more then 3 and things get troublesome, even in a full group.

But really, the game has improved a lot and nerfs aren't being thrown out there like they used to. After Jack Emmert stepped down to focus on the Marvel game, and Positron stepped up, there hasn't been hardly a nerf to speak of, and each big content patch has happened swifter then it has in a year, and contains so much fun new content it's easily the most content you can find in a games 'content' patch in the genre. Most other MMOGs would have taken the Rikti invasion, the warzone, the dozens of missions and story-arcs the co-op TF and thrown it into a $25 expansion and called it a day.

Theres no denying the company has made mistakes. ED was uneccessary as far as I'm concerned, though I could understand Statesmans side of it. I was again, playing a Claws scrapper so I never really felt as uber as some other ATs lol. But seriously, the game has done nothing but improve this last year or so. Though considering how casual friendly it is, I really wish they would adjust the XP curve. Twice a year they do Double XP Weekend and it's hugely popular. I think they just need to increase xp gain by 30% across the board from say level 20-50. But then again I'm an alt-aholic so it took me FOREVER to max out on my main lol.

Though granted theres little end-game content to speak of in the game (besides the brilliantly re-designed Hami encounter, and some fun PvP.) But the new 'flashback' system is supposedly going to contain new content for 50's, and no not by going back and doing stuff they missed (I missed the whole of Croatoa, cant wait to re-do all that.) But new content, with rumors suggesting experiencing the first rikti invasion, as well as being involved in the CoT demon-summoning plot from the early comic. :) Gonna be fun to see what Cryptic has in store.

Serling if I may ask. What AT did you play? Cause man you have some deep seated hatred going on for anything CoX. Something tells me it's not simply because of ED. I don't think anyone would get that worked up or hate some folks that much, simply because they could no longer 6-slot hasten. Seriously...

The comment about "when do superheroes ever craft" really got  me thinking...

Ironman, Mr Fantastic, Batman, Green Arrow, Hawkeye, Henry Pym (Antman), Warmachine and Blade.  Just those off the top of my head.  Ok technically Blade had someone make gadgets for him, but you get the point.

Oh and Serling has stated before that he had a 50 Blaster and a 25 Warshade (at least)  in previous threads FYI.

COV and COH (COX?)  keeps improving and that is key.  I am a veteran but not steady. I play a few months, then take off about a year and come back.  I'm on my third subscription.

I can tell you that the game needed depth and thats what they are doing.

Its getting better and better.

Originally posted by deathtripp

Originally posted by DrowNoble

Yes the post by Iller seems to be misleading not the comments by Posi. 

The thing was Issue  6 coincided with the release of CoV, so it kinda went overlooked.  Due to CoV itself, issues were less frequent since CoV itself added a lot of content.  When Issue 7 came out it was pretty much a villain patch.  So this "dry spell" was resolved by speeding up the pace of further issues.  Before CoV we had 5 issues in about a year and a half, which averaged to about every 4 months.  CoV threw us off track, but 2007 we're back on track as Posi said.

Plus players haven't been unsubscribing, NCSoft has reported an increase in subscriptions. 

Actually as a former player i can say i did unsubscribe just a month or 2 ago,  and with the announcement of the ever so sheisty "Willpower" i wont be resubscribing any time soon. That is a pure shite power set. There was a myriad of other options and they picked willpower? That just disgusts me... It should have been shield defence. So fuck issue 11

Just an FYI to the casual reader about power set selection.  The game population was polled about possible powersets.  I put in my two cents, and I'm excited about the outcome.  I'm sure other people voted for different things, but it was cool to be consulted.

I'm really jazzed about the new Issue.  The historic missions sound cool, and I have a ton of story arcs that were half finished.  I'd love to go back and do those.  Being able to customize your missions is also a really cool idea.  Also, my healer could use some of those new upcoming IO sets, and my Katana scrapper will get custom swords, very cool.  Thanks Cryptic/NCsoft.  I'm really enjoying the ride.