Author Topic: The CO Paradox  (Read 1808 times)

Xev

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,609
  • |STO|~Luckshot-D'Xev-T'Xev> |CO|~Deeps-Jooc-IDAK>
The CO Paradox
« on: May 21, 2015, 02:57:53 PM »
First off, this isn't about putting anyone involved with CO down.. Just an observation followed by being a goof.

I have to say that CO has as much or more downtime for 'updates' as any mmorpg I've played. At the same time I've never played a mmorpg that was updated so little..

TrailXev:

"This week the normal 1 hour downtime for rebooting servers will be extended to 3 hours so we can download Windows Server Patches"

"This week's downtime will be extended to 4 hours so we can apply the patches we downloaded last week"

"This week we'll be working out the bugs that occurred from updating our servers. Downtime extended to 5 hours"

"This week we have to fidget with our account servers again. Downtime 1 - 3 hours. We think it will be 1 but we've been wrong so many times that we finally took peoples' advice and extended our downtime range"

"This week there isn't a damn thing for us to do so we're just gonna have 1 hour down so we can reboot. Most likely."


*yawn*


Some Faves:

Jooc  ~L50 TW/Ele Brute> Senge  ~L50 Claws/Fire Brute> Leezard  ~L50 Claws/Regen Scrapper> Kosmoz  ~L50 Fire/MM Blaster>  Xev  ~L50 Ice/Emp Troller> |NW|~~ Erste ~L80 Warlock> Reks ~L80 Rogue> Phizzl ~L80 Wizard> Ayeron Gahls McBinty ~L80 Fighter>

General Idiot

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 648
Re: The CO Paradox
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2015, 12:38:27 AM »
Thing with CO is a lot of those updates are mostly just futzing with the account server that links all three Cryptic games to keep up with updates made to the two games that actually get updates.

Xev

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,609
  • |STO|~Luckshot-D'Xev-T'Xev> |CO|~Deeps-Jooc-IDAK>
Re: The CO Paradox
« Reply #2 on: May 24, 2015, 03:21:42 PM »
Updates.. You know, CO is my game and all but I have to say that I'm amazed that CO can still command a premium subscription price.

I flipped out the first time I ran into CO's Russian roulette connectivity issues. That alone was making me question sub prices. And now after playing for awhile I know how much the game gets updated.

The slow updates aren't bad if you're a newb because character creation can absorb a lot of playtime with both the learning curve and fun factor. But, ya know, we don't stay newbs forever and at some point we start looking for some new challenge and/or experience.

Slow updates are actually nice if the game in question is your backup game - the game you usually only play when you're burned out on your normal game. The one you tend to let your sub lapse in.

Game cards are CO's saving grace when it comes to subs. At half the price a CO sub starts to become reasonable. LTS seems like a good deal to me too. If it were 10 years ago I'd have bought an LTS right off and been done with it. *Especially* if one popped up on sale early on. Even if CO folds tomorrow I would have looked at my LTS as an investment in a worthy game that just didn't pan out. A relatively small investment in a long history of investments in the computer gaming industry and the computer industry in general.

If CO would cut their sub price in half I think it would be reasonable and there would also be a lot less complaining. When they start treating the game in a premium way, then charge the premium price.

Ofc this won't happen so until the service matches the price there is going to be a lot of complaining.

Combo pricing would work really well for CO I bet too.. All three of Cryptic's games on PWE's menu look good to me. If I could get CO, STO, & NWN for the price of a normal CO sub I'd be less finicky about updates and connectivity issues. I'm still just 1 person taking up 1 person's bandwidth (except for update downloads which we aren't having a lot of anyway...) so it doesn't work out too bad for them either.

Go go gamecards. Make CO's cheaper than STO's again huh..

Some Faves:

Jooc  ~L50 TW/Ele Brute> Senge  ~L50 Claws/Fire Brute> Leezard  ~L50 Claws/Regen Scrapper> Kosmoz  ~L50 Fire/MM Blaster>  Xev  ~L50 Ice/Emp Troller> |NW|~~ Erste ~L80 Warlock> Reks ~L80 Rogue> Phizzl ~L80 Wizard> Ayeron Gahls McBinty ~L80 Fighter>

LaughingAlex

  • Giggling like an
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,019
Re: The CO Paradox
« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2015, 06:47:03 PM »
It sounds like your beginning to experience the core problem many people have when they've played CO for a while, in that the lack of things to do due to a lack of updates begins to reveal the main problems the game has.  For me, it's the lack of depth and build diversity that comes with the metagame of it.  It sucks in many ways because, for me, it's at a point where I only use a few builds, unless a nerf head gets his way, in which case I merely change my build to the next thing, and keep it to myself.

I logged in I think Thursday night, and the lag was so bad right off the bat as to be rather hilarious.  But my attention just wasn't there that day, and it's been becoming a routine problem.  Roleplaying in CO is only fun with friends but even with friends it gets old, especially when your scared of implementing any plots due to so many players also being bad at roleplaying.

Whats really bad about the game though, besides a lack of depth and build diversity(due to the nerf heads complaints being the ones the devs heeded over the more sensible complaints), is, well, the complaints are often misunderstood.  As I said in the parenthesis, the nerf heads are the ones who's complaints often get listened to.  But whats bad about that, is besides the ever decreasing diversity in builds and decreasing depth because of that, but the fact that any idea that COULD HELP THE GAME is ignored, and often shouted down by the trolls/nerf heads.  They got this extreme view that the game should play a very specific way, but when you only have one viable strategy you got no depth.

One guy mentioned likewise it's a shallow view to have a "your either high damage and low durability or high durability and low damage".  Which, course, is also very shallow.  But the devs just didn't listen to anyone who said "hey, crowd control should be more useful in team play", or "Uh, dude this is an impractical ability, it may be devastating but it's near unusable!".  They kind of refused to listen to the meta-gamers who knew what they were talking about and instead listened to the scrubs.  A few of them(scrubs) might be good players, but they got that general mentality of "this is the only one way to play and the game should be this way", with that extreme unhealthy bias that results from it clouding their judgement.  And of course, the fictitious rules.

It's like an fps developer listening to the campers and then only designing every map for camping, because some scrubs thought camping was the only way to play.  Rather than listening to the metagamers who know how to destroy campers and designing maps so that camping suffers from it's lack of initiative.  Or a fighting game with no counter to blocking, zero, zip, ziltch, because some scrub demanded and managed to convince the developer to get rid of throwing.

I was actually annoyed at the vehicle change for a reason, because they over-killed the nerfs on them, rather than stick to the scope they had of keeping vehicles roughly in like with a decent freeform build.  It drove many away.  But I was more annoyed, and I still get far more annoyed, at the dodge nerf, because it didn't really encourage any variety of builds.  In fact it eliminated build variety and it made the game far more prone to suffering from the unholy trinity when the fire and ice rampage came out.  Many of the scrubs even ignored, outright, how dodging worked.  They acted like avoidance performed the same at 50-60% as it did at 80%, which was a complete lie.  There was a HUGE difference between taking only 20% damage from an attack you dodged vs taking half the damage.

I'll never forget how a damage/pet hybrid build got completely ruined due to the dodge nerf.  It was tough enough to live and do damage, yet it supported the team very well in a proactive manner.  The dodge nerf made it completely impractical.  I'll also never forget how unviable PFF became as of the dodge nerf.  Both builds ended up going generic, ignoring dodge and treating dodge entirely as a dump stat, just as it was in the earlier days.  Back then dodge was utterly useless, heck even LR was 100% unreliable due to the dodge penalty that 90% enemies imposed on you; they all used fast snappy attacks so they bypassed your dodge chance entirely.

See, a lack of updates and generally only a few bad ones kind of causes me to see more of the bad and far less the potential.  Did and does CO have potential?  Sure, but it'll never be tapped into if the devs continually listen to the wrong people.  And it tends to reveal to me more how poorly thought out the changes they did make tend to be.
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

Xev

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,609
  • |STO|~Luckshot-D'Xev-T'Xev> |CO|~Deeps-Jooc-IDAK>
Re: The CO Paradox
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2015, 07:27:51 PM »
I just always seem to log in during scheduled downtime. And then that downtime takes forever and it's always due to something unexciting.

So I'm sitting there during the last 'update' and I think to myself "man, if I was subbing at the premium price of $15 a month and not only rarely got meaningful updates.. but always have the possibility looming to have the connection probs that CO is famous for as well (or maybe I'm having them currently..).... and then I think.. Hey... I *wouldn't* sub to CO at $15. No wonder some of these upset players are upset. If they slashed the sub price in half and/or combo priced Cryptic's games... I might be a less upset subscriber and more likely to sub in the first place."

As for game cards I'd have thought STO's game cards would cost more than CO's due to it's newer and seems to have always been regularly updated.
Some Faves:

Jooc  ~L50 TW/Ele Brute> Senge  ~L50 Claws/Fire Brute> Leezard  ~L50 Claws/Regen Scrapper> Kosmoz  ~L50 Fire/MM Blaster>  Xev  ~L50 Ice/Emp Troller> |NW|~~ Erste ~L80 Warlock> Reks ~L80 Rogue> Phizzl ~L80 Wizard> Ayeron Gahls McBinty ~L80 Fighter>

Xev

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,609
  • |STO|~Luckshot-D'Xev-T'Xev> |CO|~Deeps-Jooc-IDAK>
Re: The CO Paradox
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2015, 02:33:48 AM »
Whats really bad about the game though, besides a lack of depth and build diversity(due to the nerf heads complaints being the ones the devs heeded over the more sensible complaints), is, well, the complaints are often misunderstood.  As I said in the parenthesis, the nerf heads are the ones who's complaints often get listened to.  But whats bad about that, is besides the ever decreasing diversity in builds and decreasing depth because of that, but the fact that any idea that COULD HELP THE GAME is ignored, and often shouted down by the trolls/nerf heads.  They got this extreme view that the game should play a very specific way, but when you only have one viable strategy you got no depth.

This has been kinda rolling around in the back of my head and as I sit here taking a break from a new build and swapping out the last power several times and hotkeys more than several.. *uncrosses eyes* I have to say... My toons are fairly diverse. They all have the same goal but none of them get there the same way. Even toons with similar powers (munitions/archery), I play differently.

One problem I have run into on this topic is when I find something that works I try to fit it into other builds just based on the fact that it worked before. For example, after I first started on an Unleashed, I used to always get BCR with Insurgent Riktis or whatever it's called. I even got it on my no dodge healer.. Then I went through my Con primary phase... That Tree combo that gives you all the defense/offense phase.. That Tree combo that gives all the HPs.. etc..

I'm all for more powers and toon progression too like CoH did with Incarnate. Enough is never enough and new stuff helps get rid of build-rut. CO has about as much as anyone at this point when it comes to unique toon building that can meet your gaming goals tho huh? I mean look at all the powers and weird advantages on powers and SS & Tree stuff, Devices, auras, costumes, AF's.., huge choice of names/titles.. As with everything CO - we could just use some new stuff. And control power luv.

As for game balance, this doesn't exist it is just a thing to be strived for. Especially in a game like CO with so many different things that can be going on. Even EverQuest when it was at it's simplest raged with game balance issues. I remember the head developer or whatever they called the guy that wrote the most code said once, something like, "I'm done! This is MY game and it works just like I want it to - game balance is OVER! This of course went over like a ton of bricks and EQ has been balanced more than probly anything that needs balancing ever has been balanced and it never will be balanced, CO never will be balanced, and no game with as much diversity of play as either game that is made by humans and played by humans who can outsmart humans will ever be balanced because as soon as you change the rules someone will find a way to break them and probably to their advantage and then we start all over again.

>>>

Just to mention.. my newest build is a Support toon with a couple of control powers, the last was melee, before that was dps, before that was a tank. I was going to try a mainly control powers build until I started getting the idea control powers went the way of Crafting which made me decide to wait. I tend to stick with ranged dps since awhile although the way I play ranged with my main dps guy Deeps is usually in melee range kinda like I did my claws/fire brute. I have uber threat tank envy and good tank envy in general and I have a melee build I'm working on. Currently my new Support build is getting a lot of playtime and so far he can do everything I was doing with DPS just in a lot different way. I think he's outSmashing Deeps and that's Deeps' thing! Plus, Deeps has Justice gear and this toon only has Heroic & not as good mods.

As for more depth of play... You have to remember we've played the game to death already and they haven't been adding much. If they ever start actively developing CO again the game and player progression should become.... deeper  : ) When I first started CO I was lost.. When I started my first FF I was *really* lost. Alerts used to be semi uber, Rampages were uber. There were all the currencies to learn, how keys/lockboxes/devices work, all the interface and video and hotkey options.. Who is this Defender...? Where IS Harmon Labs...? Dark Speed! Grond.. The dream of one day being able to chain Eruptions (the device)... The game was DEEP I'm tellin' ya. Thing is, it just hasn't changed much.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2015, 04:19:44 AM by Xev »
Some Faves:

Jooc  ~L50 TW/Ele Brute> Senge  ~L50 Claws/Fire Brute> Leezard  ~L50 Claws/Regen Scrapper> Kosmoz  ~L50 Fire/MM Blaster>  Xev  ~L50 Ice/Emp Troller> |NW|~~ Erste ~L80 Warlock> Reks ~L80 Rogue> Phizzl ~L80 Wizard> Ayeron Gahls McBinty ~L80 Fighter>