I got to spend about half an hour talking with Statesman at GenCon, and it was a nice give and take as he was willing to listen to me as well as explain his side of things.

What he explained to me is that he doesn't want teams or individuals rushing through the mission maps recklessly. He wants people to stop and think and discuss and figure out strategy. He doesn't want this to be a mindless game of beat up on things that an 8 year old could play, but rather a thinking person's game.

He is as frustrated with I am with the way most teams play of just plowing on through and not thinking. I explained to him that this is my problem with playing on large teams, and as a result I die more than when I solo and take my time going through missions. He said that this is the reason he's making these changes, to make people slow down and think.

One fellow said, "But I like to take on mobs solo on Unyielding." Statesman chuckled and said, "Well, you won't be able to do that."

The guy (in his late teens, kid to me) shrugged and walked away.

I agree with Statesman on that, that would be unreasonable and make the rest of a team unnecessary if you could. solo on Unyielding or Invincible. Tenacious, he agreed, would be doable.

To compensate, the mobs will be more spread out and not as bunched up. Also, higher XP.

I like that in theory. I hope it works.

I still am hesitant about the changes. He understands that. "Nobody likes to be nerfed," he said. But he assured me it's all to better the game. And I really hope that it makes people slow down some as I hate running through the mission.

Current Mood: contemplative

When my team started playing at the begining we used to have to talk about how we were going to attack the baddies. Since I was the troller healer I would be sitting back a lot and providing direction to the attacks. Fighting a new enemy was a challenge to figure out what worked and what didn't.

As we got higher and higher we didn't need to talk the tactics much since we know what the other people on the team were going to do. ( I have a perma team)
In the 40's we decided to try some herding with our spine/inv scrapper. There was still a lot of risk in that cause of sappers / carnies and what not but we muddled through.

We hit 50 and started new characters.

In a full 1/4 of the time we are almost 40 again.

Tactics? none!

Tank herds we blow up.

As we've been chewing through the levels we have started to hate herding more and more. We've tried missions w/o the herding thing and we still chew em up.

Almost everyone in my perma group and my sg is really looking forward to the changes in i5 and are waiting impatiently for it to go live.

I want the challenge again.

Oh, I'm quite looking forward to it. My main concern is that - as I, yes, keep banging on about - the way to reduce things like defence on optimised characters is to cut in a diminishing-returns effect to reduce the effect of multiple SOs on optimal selection of defensive powers - not to further penalise the poor guy whose only defensive power is Combat Jumping with one TO, because that's not overpowered as it is. Keep the i4 base values; reduce the maxima.

Too late for that, though, but all my alt-sisters are pretty decent builds so it won't bite me too badly.

After reading this, I can really see his side on the changes. I was one that never really got upset with changes and nerfing that was brought on in previous issues.

I do know *loads* of players, whoever, that do nag and complain about every little change brought to the game.

Things cannot be made better without change and, yes, nerfing sucks, but with Statesman's comment about people mindlessly running though the missions, there's really nothing that you can do about the maturity of the audience that plays. Its sad that instead of the majority actually thinking, taking time, and going through with minimal death and debt, they're being forced to. Not only that, but it spoils it for the rest of us.

Either way, I'm welcoming these changes with rampany squeeing when I get to play I5.

thanks for sharing this... it is good to see the Big Man's perspective on things. :)

I agree. I just wish he'd communicate this kind of thing as clearly on the offical boards.

The problem is Statesman is assuming everyone who plays is a rational thinking person. This simply is not the case. He can argue for what makes a good teaming experience, but the fact is, no matter what he tweaks and alters, he can't change the people playing. He can only make them stop playing.

So, basically, the problem is that statesman is a dick, and wants everyone to play the game his way.

Missions that are so hard that you have to move slowly and talk about strategy at every step (instead of making it on the fly) are even more boring than missions that are so easy that you don't need to use strategy at all. And as a bonus, they're also frustrating.

And what the hell? 'You won't be able to solo on unyielding, but you'll be able to team up...' Um, no. If you team up it gets HARDER, not easier.

He's also apparently on a jyhad against any power that you can keep up all the time, which is the only sort that I really like. I'm finding it really hard to convince myself to even give his new game a chance, since his philosophy is so antithetical to everything I enjoy.

Whilst I'll agree that Statesman is being a dick, I doon't think he's trying to force everyone to play the game his way, so much as utterly failing to understand that his idea of fun is not the same as everyone elses.

And speaking for myself, his idea of 'fun' sounds more like tedious frustration to me. Overall, the tone of the changes from the past few months, more than the content is really turning me off of this game. I love this game, and I love playing a 'super' hero. But it it seems that that is not fun to Jack, and so will not be allowed anymore.

If you read his quote about his "handheld" game, you're absolutely right. What he described was tedious frustration, and that's what he's giving us.

Aren't you excited?

I've been on this train for a while.

And I, for one, still welcome the new age of teamwork.

But, I play for an hour before going to work in the morning; how am I going to find a team and still have time to do anything other than say "hello"?

Duos are a world different from normal gigantic teams. I'm a member of a semi-permanent controller/scrapper duo and the difference is dramatic even with the 'troller 6 levels below me (but getting closer all the time!).

When the mini-maxer-zoom-dweebies figure out a build/style that allows them to romp through missions and mobs AGAIN?

Having played this game since beta, I've seen the following (and these might be out of order, I wasn't paying that close attention in the beginning):

I1: "Oh, BLASTERS are the build to BE! They can solo anything!!!"
Reaction: (nerf blasters)

I2: "Oh REGEN SCRAPPERS are the build to BE! They can solo anything!!!"
Reaction: (nerf regen)

I3: "WE WANT ARENA! WE WANT ARENA!"
Reaction: we got arena...who uses it? anyone? anyone? Bueller?

I4: "Oh, TANKERS are the build to BE! They can herd anyting!!!" and
"Oh CONTROLLERS are the build to BE! They can solo higher levels!"
Reaction: (nerf tankers and controllers)

I5: I'm gonna wait, and I predict it will take less than 2 months before we start seeing some build mini-maxed and lo! there shall be an I6!

As a pen and paper GM, I know there will ALWAYS be mini-maxer-zoom-dweebies. It's a fact of RPG'ing life. But you know, if you leave them alone, they will go play on their own and leave the rest of us alone.

And I'm really waiting for the day when someone explains to Stateman that he's NOT our mommy, or our daddy, and we just have to learn from our own mistakes. Maybe then he'll quit trying to drown us in the water he keeps trying to herd us to.

Ok, I'll bite.

1. Blasters are the build to BE! Specifically aoe(or anything)/devices blasters because smoke grenade was broken, off-by 1 decimal place in the code. Reaction fix the factor of 10 in the one power that was wrong (it was supposed to be and documented at 5% but providing 50% defense).

2. Regen were undefeatable after IH. Period. They were healing too fast for anything (including Hamidon) to defeat them. Tank mages are bad for any game, and /regen scrappers were tank mages.

3. Whose fault was that? The devs gave "the people" what they were asking for. It is not their fault that the arena is unused. Note that this issue is where Tanks got broken so they need to be nerfed too. They got the damage that they were crying for through I2; they could herd up mobs but they could not defeat them in a reasonable amount of time.

4. People who could not stand to play controllers but really really wanted to were the ones that got controllers modified. "Whaaa low level controllers cannot do enough damage." Devs fix this, but cannot leave them with better damage and all of their hold power or blasters would be crying again. They learned this lesson from the additional damage they gave to tanks.

5. It'll take less than 2 months. There is (at least rumoured to be) someone on Test who had a lvl 50 sonic/sonic defender less than a week after I5 hit the test server. There are still power levelling techniques that work under I5 and the build that makes them work will be the one that'll get adjusted.

You are not supposed to be able to take on so many mobs that they cannot render and not get defeated. This is the case in any game. It is no longer a game if there is zero chance of loss.

(directed to Brennan063)
On point number 2, you are only 90% correct. Regen scrappers with the (soon to be old) IH were certainly tough, but not undefeatable. Many powers have always had a -regen component (Malta Titan's plasma guns, Carnie Ring Mistresses's Mask of Vitiation for example) and more were added to the game in recent issues, especially Devoured Earth and Circle of thorns powers. Also, any Regen scrapper can be one shotted, especially by non-smash/lethal damage. Nightstar, for example, if allowed to go Nova, ALWAYS kills my regen scrapper. Infernal, the Envoy of Shadows, and Chimera, are other AV's that have a history of taking me out. Also, if you have a group of villains attacking you, they will quickly synchronize attacks, either by design or accident, to create situations where a Regen can be taken out by a virtual "one-shot".

On point number 3, the HO nerf put an end to regen scrappers tanking Hamidon solo, but even before that, you had to do enough raids/have enough people "helping you out" to get 16-24 Golgi exposure enhancements, which are a rare drop from Hamidon.

Other than that, I agree :)

8 not 3 ;)

And I think I'm at least 95% correct on my regen scrapper analysis ;)

I have (and still do) played regen scrappers and am aware of the snowboarder analogy (looks GREAT or is dead). I know that if they get enough damage to overwhelm their recovery they can and do faceplant. But the fact remains that there were regen scrappers before IH got scaled back who could stand in the middle of Hamidon before anybody else got rolling. If you can stand in the middle of a creature designed to require 20+ heroes to defeat it and not be concerned about being defeated, do you honestly believe you are not overpowered? 24 was Statesman's lowest stated number for how many heroes it takes to defeat Hamidon iirc.

If you were around Hami raids when regen scrappers could do this, you'd know that pets counted for HO's then too. There were pet farms generated just before the point where Hami got defeated and the blobs spawned. Golgi's are rare, but if you got enough HO's generated at a raid, some (many) of them still dropped. This was not hard to put together before the HO nerf.

-regen really is relatively rare in the game (although it is starting to become more common). Rare enough that a regen scrapper could really avoid all mobs that do it all the way to 50 if they chose to.

But the fact remains that there were regen scrappers before IH got scaled back who could stand in the middle of Hamidon before anybody else got rolling. If you can stand in the middle of a creature designed to require 20+ heroes to defeat it and not be concerned about being defeated, do you honestly believe you are not overpowered? 24 was Statesman's lowest stated number for how many heroes it takes to defeat Hamidon iirc.

I think that "standing up to" != "defeat". After all, regen scrappers on Live (I4) can still tank Hamidon with a backup Emp defender, as stone tankers do (among others). And 2 < 24.

But I do agree that being able to tank Hamidon without effort is a mite overpowered.

Ah..so you're telling me that the Sonic set will be nerfed in I6, good to know.

Basically, it comes down (at least to me) that once 'the build' is found and propagated out to the mini-maxers, the rest of us get punished for it. These 'fixes' are not aimed at the general population (IMO), they are aimed at stopping the power-gamers and I'm afraid that if it keeps going the way it is now, ALL that will be left will be the power-gamers because it has now become a challenge to see if they can overcome the latest batch of nerfs.

I'm not planning on quitting any time soon, but I AM getting tired of having my nose thumped with a rolled up newspaper because I have a different outlook/style of playing than Statesman does.

nah, sonic will be well and truly nerfed before it rolls out on I-5 ;)

Well, he told me I5 is coming out this week.

They've already rolled back some of the -res in the sonic attack line (number of ticks? maybe?) It doesn't do as much damage as when it first went on test anyway. They've also rearranged order on the sonic resonance line.

Sonic defenders will still be part of the new superteams though.

I-5 superteam estimated 1:50 in under 6 weeks without assistance from any high level power leveller (may need some financial contribution in the 20's from high-level alts). 2 sonic/sonic defenders, 2 ff/sonic defenders, 2 kin/dark defenders, 2 kin/electric defenders.

Mmm... Kin/elec defenders...

</bias>

(I fear that we'll get hit with a nerfbat next. *le sigh*)

I've made my somewhat jaded...yet maybe HUMOROUS additions to your post below in [ ] ;)

I1: "Oh, BLASTERS are the build to BE! They can solo anything!!!"
Reaction: (nerf blasters) [start wondering about regen]

I2: "Oh REGEN SCRAPPERS are the build to BE! They can solo anything!!!"
Reaction: (nerf regen)

I3: "WE WANT ARENA! WE WANT ARENA!"
Reaction: we got arena...who uses it? anyone? anyone? Bueller? [And nerf regen, it's entertaining]

I4: "Oh, TANKERS are the build to BE! They can herd anyting!!!" and
"Oh CONTROLLERS are the build to BE! They can solo higher levels!"
Reaction: (nerf tankers and controllers) [and nerf regen, just for good measure]

I5: I'm gonna wait, and I predict it will take less than 2 months before we start seeing some build mini-maxed and lo! there shall be an I6! [but we're certain...nerf regen, it gives aggro up a little, but it never loses aggro on the nerf bat]

[I6: We have no idea yet, but we're pretty sure no matter what we do, we're gonna nerf regen]

I would love to take Statesman along on an 8-person mission with my usual teammates. Not only do we use tactics to zoom through missions, we use two tanks to coordinate herding and everyone knows when and where to use their powers.

I think that after almost a year of teaming together against the same, repetetive missions and villains, we just know what needs to happen, and all fall into whatever role the character we are playing at the time needs to fulfil.

I mean, when we aleady know that Carnies are vulnerable to lethal damage, so the Broadsword Scrapper should preform the alpha strike on the stack, missions are just gonna go faster.

If he wants us to have to strategize, then make more types of bad guys for each group, make more groups, and make sure that every issue makes us veterans stop and say "What the hell is that?" This issue is a good start, as was the addition of Galaxy and Sonic Council villains way back around Christmas.

I guess we'll see

I don't want to complain about the game play changes themselves, but I have a lot of characters whom I'll have to spend more research time reslotting. That is the thing I dread. The regen scrappers won't change all that much, I'll just have to pay better attention to things when soloing.
The tankers will be the most time consuming. I have several mixes of fire tankers so that I found the build I like best. I like having a new challenge, but honestly doing over again what I did a year ago with so many characters is not something that sounds like fun.

Another thing I'm not looking forward to is playing with pick up teams. I rarely play with them, but when I absoloutely need help I do it. Now it will be even more important to coordinate tactics on teams and so many people don't talk about what they're going to do before jumping in that I can see myself not sticking out bad teams as long as I might have before.

I'm not worried about learning a new way to play with my friends, that will be fun. It's the average nitwit that contaminates the game whom I dread will play far worse now that the game style has so many drastic changes to adjust to at once.

Funny, I thought we were supposed to be superheroes.

Indeed we are, however we are not all supposed to be superman.

I can't even remember any superteam having difficulty with any group of minions they went up against. It's supposed to be the big baddies that are supposed to be a challenge - e.g., the bosses, monsters, and archvillains - all of which are drastically underpowered in this game.

I think States is going at this in the completely wrong direction. If he wants there to be challenge, yet keep the comic-book feel (as was originally the intent, before "game balance" got in the way), then minions should remain relatively where they are (or even powered down, in a few cases), while LTs+ should get incremental boosts.

He tried that and got lamb-basted. The infamous "Boss changes" of I-3 that had to be rolled back after they went live because most of the community didn't have a f'n idea what they were. People complaining about FrostFire being harder than ever before (when he didn't get changed) led to mass-hysteria on the boards.

Yes, I remember that. They were also done wrong. Giving bosses a bonus to HP wouldn't do jack - any good hero or team would just take a extra second or two to bring them down.

All LTs+ (and especially AVs) need is more powers, and the versatility that comes with them, to make the game the challenge it's supposed to be, while retaining the comic-bookishness the game is supposed to have.

They had more than more hp. They were "tougher" all around. More hp, better defense, better accuracy.

That being said, what you are asking for would require a complete re-write of the mob AI and look what grief putting simple things like panic effects in burn do. Any change they make is "wrong" from some people's pov, if they don't change the game will eventually die. Tough call.

If you look at the changes in the game on test, early on they nerfed the mobs. So it's not like we are facing the same mobs with these changes. We'll have to see.

Yeah, this subthread took a bit of a left turn there and glanced back at Issue 3. The lt+ mobs in I-5 have been weakened (their accuracy has been dropped to compensate for the players' lowered defenses).

Yeah, yeah. It still didn't make any difference. My scrapper still solo'd bosses as easily as he did before the change, and that was what States was attempting to prevent. He failed.

And mob AI wouldn't need to be completely re-written to include an extra power or two for LTs+; in fact, most of what they need are defensive powers, which could be set to just be on all the time; there's little to no work involved in that.

I too dislike doing missions with people who rush through really fast. there have been occasions where i can barely keep up with the guy setting the pace of the mission, and i barely get to contribute as a result. I also like to you know, read the clues, see what's happening, rather than just a flurry of fights in rapid succession. however, I don't like that so if i find myself on a team like that, i will typically just quit....

I dunno. my account hasn't been reactivated yet, probably in the next week, after I get through the backlog of comissions that piled up when it was taking my computer a whole damn month to get to me, so I haven't been on test to see all these changes. I typically have myself set to 'tenacious' anyway, and I don't think my main will be affected much at all, but secondary character, an invul scrapper, and my tertiary character (:-P) an Ice tank, I will have to see about, though.... It's just, there's something to be said for wanting a game that requires strategy, but at the same time, I don't want it to be so hard as to be absolutley reliant on teaming, either. if 'tenacious' is fairly easily soloable, no matter what AT, I think i'll be ok with things in the long run.... though i think some of the changes, in particular the AoE changes, are a bit much.

make the rest of a team unnecessary if you could. solo on Unyielding or Invincible. Tenacious


but I hate teams and I really hate being forced onto them.

You're not being forced onto them, at least not intentionally. As the man said, soloing on heroic or tenacious should still be possible. If it isnt, and isn't for a lot of people with decent builds, THEN we have cause to complain.

Then lower your difficulty setting.