I have a thread for you:

A current thread in progress listing everything the developers have added, changed, fixed, and/or modified by the players' request. You'll find a long list and you'll probably change your mind about the community's assistance in making this game as great as it is. Statesman answers every PM, Threads are created specifically for player feedback, and answers are given in a prompt manner.

Here's your link:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=4989684&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#Post49911974989684

---

Originally posted by Stellus
I have a thread for you:
A current thread in progress listing everything the developers have added, changed, fixed, and/or modified by the players' request. You'll find a long list and you'll probably change your mind about the community's assistance in making this game as great as it is. Statesman answers every PM, Threads are created specifically for player feedback, and answers are given in a prompt manner.
Here's your link:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=4989684&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#Post49911974989684

---

LOL where are all you babys that that bash Cyptic for supression and ED changes.. ROFL and now come to find out that -

" ED was suggested originally on these boards."
"Suppression was suggested originally on these boards. "

Good stuff.

I played CoH from early beta until recently and I can tell you that neither Suppression nor ED were suggested by the players. That's a myth, and unless someone can point to a post where those are suggested before they were implemented, don't believe it.

For an example, here's the post that suggests "punchvoke" for Tankers, which later was implemented. Other changes should have at least one post about them, and most of that list fails even this simple test.

http://tinyurl.com/pg6yo

Edit: fixed link.

---

Originally posted by trike
I played CoH from early beta until recently and I can tell you that neither Suppression nor ED were suggested by the players. That's a myth, and unless someone can point to a post where those are suggested before they were implemented, don't believe it.

For an example, here's the post that suggests "punchvoke" for Tankers, which later was implemented. Other changes should have at least one post about them, and most of that list fails even this simple test.

http://tinyurl.com/pg6yo

Edit: fixed link.

---

Actually, some player actually asked for "diminishing returns" on enhancements, which is effectively what ED was.

---

Originally posted by trike

I played CoH from early beta until recently and I can tell you that neither Suppression nor ED were suggested by the players. That's a myth, and unless someone can point to a post where those are suggested before they were implemented, don't believe it.

For an example, here's the post that suggests "punchvoke" for Tankers, which later was implemented. Other changes should have at least one post about them, and most of that list fails even this simple test.

http://tinyurl.com/pg6yo

Edit: fixed link.

---

[quote]Originally posted by Stellus
[b]

Originally posted by trike
I played CoH from early beta until recently and I can tell you that neither Suppression nor ED were suggested by the players. That's a myth, and unless someone can point to a post where those are suggested before they were implemented, don't believe it.
For an example, here's the post that suggests "punchvoke" for Tankers, which later was implemented. Other changes should have at least one post about them, and most of that list fails even this simple test.
[url=http://tinyurl.com/pg6yo]
Edit: fixed link.

Uh, I've been around since beta as well and I specifically remember someone suggesting suppression and someone suggesting ED. It seems you may have a hard time accepting the truth.[/b][/quote]

I'd like to see a link, please.

You know as well as I do that they regularly clean the forums. It isn't my duty to provide you the truth while you sit on your lazy self and sit idly by. You're simply being stubborn. You can find the link yourself - I'm not going to do it for you. I'll help you start though:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/search.php?Cat=

---

Originally posted by CidMcTab
Getting more back on topic. Sure ED may have been suggested. But if you paw through the forums you'd see that there are far far more people that hate the changes than people who do. Just another testament to Cryptic not listening to the vast majority. Its Statesman's game and we'll play it the way he wants us to or you can leave. Which unfortunatly I had to do.

---

Me, too. ED is the single most despised change CoH has ever had, not just because it's a bad idea but also because of the way it was handled.

Question to the moderators -- why wasn't Stellus' original insulting post deleted as well? Note that I was polite until he insulted me.

---

Originally posted by trike

---

Originally posted by CidMcTab
Getting more back on topic. Sure ED may have been suggested. But if you paw through the forums you'd see that there are far far more people that hate the changes than people who do. Just another testament to Cryptic not listening to the vast majority. Its Statesman's game and we'll play it the way he wants us to or you can leave. Which unfortunatly I had to do.

---

Me, too. ED is the single most despised change CoH has ever had, not just because it's a bad idea but also because of the way it was handled.

Question to the moderators -- why wasn't Stellus' original insulting post deleted as well? Note that I was polite until he insulted me.

---

Who cares? The game sucks and will continue to suck until ED and suppression are removed. And really, they devs don't care about anything but money. Their vision of "fun" is the only one that counts.

Emmert is a scammer and Cryptic apparently supports his blatant conflict of interest. Bottom line: the game still sucks and so do the devs.

---

Originally posted by Serling
Who cares? The game sucks and will continue to suck until ED and suppression are removed. And really, they devs don't care about anything but money. Their vision of "fun" is the only one that counts.

---

If you want to make money, you have to build an entertaining and fun game, don't you? :) Of course, you cannot satisfy everyone's taste and every alteration to the game is bound to lead in some customers being dissatisfied.

I only started playing CoH/CoV recently so I can't know the circumstances in which ED and suppression were entered in the game, but this is a balance change, not a change to attract new customers (you won't hear many players saying "I resubscribed because of ED" or because they're now nerfed). Any game developer knows that balance changes can cause some frustration and are therefore made after careful consideration of the game's long-term benefit. They're not essentially correct, but I really cannot see how they can be called "money hungry" over a balance change that cannot be used as a marketing tool to attract new customer attention.

---

I really cannot see how they can be called "money hungry" over a balance change that cannot be used as a marketing tool to attract new customer attention.

---

Since you're new, I'll clue you in on a few things.

First of all, there's more ways to make money in an MMO than getting new customers. Causing your current customers to level slower when you have a game with no "end content" is apparently the way Cryptic has chosen to do this. Why? Because it's easier and cheaper to nerf the hell out of powers and powersets - thus causing people to fight slower, die more often, and level slower - than it is to create content for people who get to level 50 too quickly and get bored once they get there.

Second, shortly after Issue 4's nerfs, when a number of players started leaving the game, Cryptic and NCSoft started offering "free trials" for the game to attract new customers, something - to my knowledge - they hadn't done before. You don't make money by offering freebies unless it's because you hope to attract enough suckers to the product to get them to actually pay for it. (The first hit for a future junkie is always free). Once you have them hooked, keep them playing and paying longer at any cost because that's where the money is: subscriptions. Once people are sufficiently committed to a character (people DO become attached to their avatars) then what you do to change the game hardly matters to them. It's not about the "game" but about "growing" a character. That's why for some of the fanboys posting here and on the CoH site, the devs could reduce all powers to a bare minimum of effectiveness, and they'd still say the devs were justified because their characters were "overpowered."

At that point, Cryptic realizes it doesn't have customers but mindless "sheep", who don't mind getting shorn for $15 every month, just so they can log into a virtual world and run, jump, or fly like their favorite comic book superhero.

Finally, subscriptions peaked at Issue 3 with about 160,000 subscribers (and that was about 9 months after initial release). Since then, the numbers have fluctuated between 120,000 and 140,000, hardly the numbers that the devs had at the height of the game's popularity.

So let's see: fewer nerfs = more subscribers. More nerfs = less subscribers. (Emmert and company are all apparently too stupid or driven by Emmert's ego to understand that people don't like his Gameboy "balance vision", where getting beaten by a boss a dozen times before beating it is something he considers "fun" ergo so must everyone else!) And I already know what you're thinking: "they're not money-grubbers if their nerfs are causing people to leave!" Ah, but as alluded to in above parenthetical, there's no accounting for Emmert's ego and the sheer stupidity of his developement team.

And while the fanboys will argue that all these nerfs were needed for the long-term survivability of the game, (a line of BS they buy wholesale from the devs, BTW) the game is stagnant, at best. In the meantime, games like Guild Wars and WoW have millions of subscribers and - at least in the case of Guild Wars - you can barely count the number of nerfs since the game's release on one hand. With CoX, though, there hasn't been a release without major nerfs, and Emmert himself called Issue 5 and ED both nerfs! Get that? The lead developer of CoH called one whole issue a NERF! Oh yeah, that makes ME want to play that piece of crap game! /sarcasm

CoH was nerfed every bit as heavily as SWG. The difference was that because more people played SWG, more people complained, more people left, and more press was given to SWG's rapid demise.

And what do many fanboys on the CoH website say in defense of the Emmert's nerfs? "At least our devs are better than SOE's." Yeah? Besides not saying much given Emmert's track record, try that as a sales pitch for attracting new customers!

Pre-suppression and Issue 4, CoH lived up to its billing as a "superhero MMO." Now it's just like any other mediocre MMO around, and one that's barely surviving, at that.

Gee, Jack. Maybe what the game needs is more nerfs?

Wow, you have a very skewed vision (in my opinion) of how game development works. I mean, I can try and discuss it with you, but I'm not sure where to begin. I guess I can leave it at this:

There are many aspects that need to be taken account of when creating, developing, and maintaining a game. There's a vision of what you have set your game towards (the design), the way the game works (the mechanics), and how it's done (the implementation). Game developers look at it as the triangle of reason. Of course, since it's a perfect triangle, you have to place each one equally important to eachother. The customer should fall right in the middle of that triangle and that's the frame-of-reference for how your triangle will expand or shrink. The thing is that they all must remain equal to eachother, as I stated, no matter how far apart they grow. The other theoretical reasoning behind this is that even though they may expand farther from eachother, they are all attached and all form around the one central ideal - the customer.

So you take this commonly used design tool and you place it into your plan. In Cryptic's case, there needed to be a balance between all aspects of their game while still providing the fundamental essence of provising an enjoyable experience for the customer - using the triangle theory. In my opinion, they did this. The game is still playable, still enjoyable, and still mechanically and fundementally solid. The made the triangle closer to equal while maintaining their focus on the community. Hell, they practically made a freaking square by adding a 4th side - the customer. Not everyone is going to agree with the changes and I certainly honor your opinion., though. You make some good points, but there's more reasoning behind everything than the simple blame that "they're in it for the money."

---

there's more reasoning behind everything than the simple blame that "they're in it for the money."

---

If they weren't in it "for the money", the game would have no monthly subscription fee. (BTW, ArenaNet has made ALL its development costs back plus a significant profit merely on the sales of its game while charging NO subscription fees, and they're coming out with a wholly new game - Factions - in two weeks, again with no subscription fee!)

NCSoft wouldn't have backed Cryptic's game financially if Cryptic weren't "in it for the money." For both companies, this is a business. Period. Every decision being made is viewed as to how it will affect the bottom line. Unfortunately, Emmert has a vision for the game that is actually hurting the game's bottom line. When you have to start giving away free trials to attract customers it means that your product isn't generating the kind of business it once did. Freebies are the last, desperate act of a company trying to get new customers to replace the ones they pissed on, pissed off, and lost.

Sure, a new player coming in won't know how heavily the game has been nerfed (they have no former frame of reference) and so will feel like everything's just fine (which is also, BTW, what SOE is hoping for with SWG). But for people who have "been there and done that", the game is nowhere near as good as it used to be and the only way we have to show our displeasure - besides posting here - is to cancel accounts.

Perhaps when enough people have done that, Emmert's "vision" will adapt, or he will be fired.

In the meantime, Emmert spends his time writing a strategy guide for issue 7 that will fleece his customers for yet even more money (those who choose to buy it) instead of applying time and resources to fix the things that are clearly broken with the game (lag and all-too-frequent "lost mapserver connections").

ED and suppression still suck regardless of where the ideas first appeared, and I won't go back until they're removed or replaced with something that makes the game as fun as it used to be.

The game is dying and the content is running thin with eventually everyone coming to realization that it is just the same stuff over and over.  But for the time you are playing even with the "Nerfs" (if you did not play before you dont see it) it is a fun game and can definately occupy your time.

So I think you can see why people are fanboys and defend the changes.  I don't think it is a big conspiracy, and the devs are not evil out to get everyone.  But they really have made some major mistakes and questionable calls (not SWG big as alluded to, but big).  So there is a middle ground - the game as it is now is very playable and fine for those new subscribers but will it get old after their first charcter is high 40s and there alt is mid20s and a few oithers in their teens - yes for sure.  But I think the game might have even a year's life in it for a casual gamer that just wants to play and not craft, or worry about loot, etc.

So don't hate it for what it was or could have been becuase obviously it is never going back, you will never get you wish and be able to herd 100 guys and watch a fire tank just stand there and burn them to death.  The new system with the right group can do things to level really fast and still have lots of fun - not solo and feel invincible but they can still feel like a strong hero/villain.

So play, have fun, use it up- when you get tired of it (like any other game) dont bitch about how the game let you down becuase you have outgrown it - just move.  Becuase every game will let you down eventually.  They change stuff you get mad - nothing changes you get mad.  Changes come to fast you are mad, changes come too slow you are mad. You get the idea.

---

Originally posted by Serling
If they weren't in it "for the money", the game would have no monthly subscription fee. (BTW, ArenaNet has made ALL its development costs back plus a significant profit merely on the sales of its game while charging NO subscription fees, and they're coming out with a wholly new game - Factions - in two weeks, again with no subscription fee!)

NCSoft wouldn't have backed Cryptic's game financially if Cryptic weren't "in it for the money." For both companies, this is a business. Period. Every decision being made is viewed as to how it will affect the bottom line. Unfortunately, Emmert has a vision for the game that is actually hurting the game's bottom line. When you have to start giving away free trials to attract customers it means that your product isn't generating the kind of business it once did. Freebies are the last, desperate act of a company trying to get new customers to replace the ones they pissed on, pissed off, and lost.

Sure, a new player coming in won't know how heavily the game has been nerfed (they have no former frame of reference) and so will feel like everything's just fine (which is also, BTW, what SOE is hoping for with SWG). But for people who have "been there and done that", the game is nowhere near as good as it used to be and the only way we have to show our displeasure - besides posting here - is to cancel accounts.

---

Of course they want money and so does ArenaNet or any other provider of such commercial services. The only difference is those two companies chose a different model to do business with and NCSoft, according to a recent Robert Gariott's interview, prefers to have a wide range of payment models in different products to attract as wide an audience as possible.

The problem only occurs when you shift your game to get a wider target audience, despite any preferences of the previous one. And that's why I don't think the analogy to SWG applies. The reason SOE is bashed as money hungry is because of poor business tactics. SWG used to have one specific target audience. They thought they could attract a different and wider target audience by altering SWG completely and not caring if their previous customers would continue to subscribe.

To the contrary, from what I've seen of CoH and CoV since I resubscribed last week is the exact same gameplay I saw in the last stages of beta and release, as well as new content. The only gameplay alterations are balance issues. Its gameplay style has not changed.

---

The only gameplay alterations are balance issues. Its gameplay style has not changed.

---

Suppression affected every build that used SS/SJ in combat. Ask tankers and scrappers how they felt about not being able to hit flying Sky Raiders when suppression was added to SJ. Yeah, that was "just" a "balance change" and in no way affected gameplay. Uh-huh.

"Balance" usually means when something is taken, something is given in return to compensate for it. So what was given to SSers/SJers to make up for the loss of SS/SJ in combat? We were all told that you could cover that loss by - get this - six-slotting hover and sprint (if you chose to respec into them), and people were being told this right up to the time when the news about ED was broken and the devs tried to cover it up by pulling posts, even though the devs KNEW FOR 7 MONTHS PRIOR THAT SIX-SLOTTING ANYTHING FOR MAX EFFECTIVENESS WASN'T GOING TO WORK POST-ED!!!

Those are NOT balance changes!!! Those are changes that affected gameplay at it's very core, by slowing down combat, making it less immersive, less fun, and causing people to level slower because of the way ED has been implemented!

You may like the game the way it is. Good for you. I think it's a mere shadow of it's former self and Emmert is taking it down the toilet. If that weren't the case, NCSoft wouldn't be giving away so many freebies to attract new blood.

BTW, one other thing I deeply resented about Emmert and company: the constant appeals to "test changes" on the test server, as though his customers were paying a monthly subscription fee to beta test HIS product!

Having been a beta tester for several large companies, I can assure you that I was never asked once to pay for the privilege to test the beta of a new release of software. Yet Jack is on the board, shamelessly asking his customers to "test" his upcoming issues so they can datamine the results. What a scammer.

Yeah. That sounds like a real competent bunch of people there at Cryptic. Pay to test is there motto. That software is NEVER out of beta, as far as Jack is concerned. Great company there. Great developer. Great product. /sarcasm

I only have one thing to say about the complaints about the changes to CoH, and that is....

Try dealing with LucasArts and SOE, and then come back and tell me how much you hate changes to some game.

Seriously, we all know how it would be better if other MMORPG's actually learn from what WoW has seemed to figured out, and that is you don't Nerf anything, you make the things that are less effeciant than the rest of the game better.  You raise the bar of the things that suck instead of lowering the bar of things that are over-the-top.

However, I must say that when the game moved to PvP play, from completely PvE, they had to make some changes so that PvP would be worthwhile.  After all, they developed the game with only Heroes originally and the reason they did was they didn't know if it was going to go over at all.  Once it did, they decided that their dreams of making Villains and having PvP was viable, that's when they had to figure out how to work it in.

If you truly liked this game before, it hasn't changed so much that you can't stomach it, you ARE simply being stubborn.  Yea, I know your invulnerable tanker isn't as good as it was or whatever, but looking back at my comment about LucasArts, there is alot of validity to that, I have seen how a company can truly destroy a game that you love and trust me, what Cryptic did with CoH is MINOR.

This was just my opinion.

Serling and his merry band of haters cry all day long about the freaking changes.. Waahh Waahh

Please this is nothing, like I said try asking some SWG vets about changes or some AO vets about Changes..

And about the supression changes please its not even that serious.. I remember in beta of this game when Meele could not even attack running targets, now that was something to freaking cry about..Supression is nothing.

ED on the other hand is annoying I will admit, but its nothing thats game breaking in the least bit.