Archive for May, 2008|Monthly archive page
Tesla Widgets vs. Piercing Barrage
Comments(1)Having gotten my tesla toon to 30 in Mythos, I think it’s safe to say I’ve seen most of its effectiveness. I also have a level 49 (so close!) piercing barrage toon, which I also enjoy quite a bit. The two are quite different in their styles of play, and both are enjoyable, but they seem to excel in different situations.
The Tesla build seems perfect for epic map situations. They can cut through champion and epic-level normal mobs quite effectively, and in doing, generally can avoid taking much damage if played correctly. The problem with this is that even if you can solo an epic map your level, you still can’t kill things fast enough to equal the amount of experience you would get slicing through non-epic content. Epic maps are built to be played by 3-5 players, and if you don’t have them, you generally aren’t going to earn that much experience. If you are using a tesla build within a group, you are going to be able to cut through mobs like butter and earn a ton of experience, which makes them a perfect class for teaming up. As for single-player maps, they are still quite effective, but are limited to the fact that they can only be attacking four mobs at any given time (only four tesla widgets can be active at once.)
As for piercing barrage, they tend to excel at solo content because they have so many arrows flying at once, which can penetrate mobs and continue on through more mobs. Furthermore, they can ricochet off objects and continue doing heavy damage. This means that each arrow is somewhat less effective than the tesla widgets, but strong enough that they can easily slay the average mob with one (or occasionally two) hits. If you aren’t running an epic map, this is going to be more than capable of anything you would want to do. In fact, many of the bosses (such as zivia) have incredibly high resistance to electricity, so if you are hurling nothing but electrical damage at them, it can often take quite a bit longer to kill than with piercing barrage or a handful of other builds.
As for play-styles, they are quite different. Piercing barrage uses one skill to attack with lots of passive abilities and bonuses that enhance your power. This can be nice if you aren’t wanting to pay too much attention while you are playing. The tesla build on the other hand requires that you maintain three (and possibly four) widgets at all times with three or four of each type going at once. Keeping 10 or 15 widgets up constantly can get exhausting, but if you want to do more than hit one button continuously, then this is a great way to go.
Knowing this, hopefully you can make a more informed decision on which of these builds you prefer and ultimately would like to play. If you enjoy running with groups and taking on tougher mobs that come with epic maps, then tesla widgets are perfect for you. Keep in mind that epic maps can dramatically reduce your fps due to all of the mobs, particle effects, and drops. If you don’t have a very nice rig or aren’t willing to turn your graphics down substantially to play in this mode, then you probably are going to want to avoid epic maps most of the time.
If you want to solo most of your playing time, then piercing barrage is going to be a great way to go. It’s incredibly effective in normal maps, and it’s fun to see all of the arrows flying around. If you enjoy kiting, and love to get a huge number of mobs behind you to mow them down, this is an excellent way to do that, and something that can’t really be done with the tesla widgets since they are single target.
I’ll try to go into detail about some more builds eventually. I have a meteor build as well as a blade breaker that are about around level 15, so when i get them to 25-30 I’ll let you know what I think.
~Kanthalos
“Just stick it out, it’ll be better in a few levels.”
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this, but it’s something that has been around basically since MMO’s were born. Most MMO’s tend to have a rough patch at some point or another where leveling seems much more like a chore than a pleasure. Some, like EvE, seem to be right out of the get-go. If you make it through the first few days or so in EvE (levels are a relative term in EvE since it’s more skill-based than anything) and you enjoy the mechanics and the overall feel of the game without feeling overwhelmed or what have you, then you’re pretty much good to go. Other games like LotRO seem to face this at about the 35th level mark. You get a good feel for the game and what it’s all about by the time you reach this point, but wonder whether it’s worth that extra push it requires to make it through some of those stale levels. Granted, they have added zones like Evendim to help alleviate this issue, but has this solved the issue completely? I’ll get back to this later.
While some games are better than others, and there are a wide range of issues that can determine whether you are affected by these troublesome levels, should you ever feel like you have to “stick it out” to get to more enjoyable content? Is it simply inevitable that these will find their way into MMO’s at some point or another due to the immense scale of these games, or should the developers be doing everything they can to make sure that they avoid these areas?
Now I’m going to get to the heart of this issue (at least for me.) When I got my champion to level 35 in LotRO, I immediately began to feel stuck. My quest log was littered with fellowship quests or quests that were too high for me to complete on my own. I have no problem with fellowship quests, and I actually enjoy them quite a bit, but when I struggled for several days to put a group together, I began to get rather frustrated. If I couldn’t complete these quests that I needed a fellowship for, this left me with only one option: grinding. Most of us know that mob xp in LotRO is meager at best, even with rest xp. Leveling is all about questing, which really causes problems for those who want (or feel to need) to grind a few levels out. I actually wouldn’t have minded this either, as I can enjoy a nice grinding session on occasion. So there I was, unable to find a fellowship, unable to grind, and unable to complete solo quests (due to a lack of them for my level.) With this weighing heavily on me during my time spent in game, along with the subscription ending in a few days, I chose not to push on. I did make it to 36 before I quit, but at that point, I didn’t have the urge to bust all the way through to 38 or so. That’s not to say I never will again, but I didn’t feel like I should have to force myself to make it through 2-3 levels just so that I could get to more rewarding and enjoyable content.
Even WoW, a game that I think did an excellent job of filling content for all levels, would have me feeling stuck from time to time, particularly in the mid-to-high 50’s range. At least in WoW, the option to grind was there should you choose to take it. While it usually isn’t as effective as questing, it at least gives you the option to a) get out of a patch where you don’t seem to have enough quests or b) simply don’t want to do the quests that you have.
It’s all about having multiple options when it comes to leveling. For the most part, players aren’t going to want to do every single quest they are given, just like they don’t always want to quest at all. Some players prefer to instance, which can also be a great way to level while also allowing you to skipping through a bout of quests if that is the goal. Some players don’t like having a clear path all the time, or at all for that matter. Games like EvE are perfect for this style of player. That said, many MMO enthusiasts have tried at least once to get into EvE and simply couldn’t see the appeal before their confusion and frustration set in, and they gave up. One advantage EvE has in this area is that you can continue to gain skill points while you aren’t playing, which can be very beneficial as you are constantly advancing in one form or another.
So should we feel obligated to “stick it out” for a few levels (or skill points) to make it to a more enjoyable portion of the game? With the ever-increasing number of options we as MMO enthusiasts have, is it worth it for us to “waste our time” so that we can make it through the tunnel and back into the light (or deep space,) or should we simply move on and hope for better results with the next game?
~Kanthalos
First 10 Levels in CoH: Why They’re All Messed Up
Filed under: City of Heroes, City of Villains, Cryptic Studios, NCSoft |
Comments(5) After playing through the first 10 levels in City of Heroes, two things (pertaining to leveling) have made themselves incredibly clear, and they aren’t good.
The first thing that really caught my attention when I started was the sewers system. Having been quite a while since I played these games, I can’t remember whether I had just forgotten about them, or whether the were added/changed since I last played, but this is THE way to level from 1-10. I had seen an endless number of messages in chat for “LFT Sewers” but I never really gave them much thought at first. I thought it was a lower level quest that I would eventually get to. Eventually I realized that this was not the case, but rather this was the primary way of leveling, and that anything else was a waste of time. I had spent probably 5-6 hours leveling with missions, which I was fine with because I had enjoyed myself. After I asked about them, I realized you just got together with a team of players and headed in. I joined up with a team and after about an hour, level one players were leaving as level 6 or 7 players. The mobs are in huge groups, but if you have a full group, they easily go down and as you level along the way, the mobs gradually get harder to match your level and give more experience.
This leaves me with one question: If you can reach level 10 in about two hours in the sewer system, then why on earth would you even bother with missions before that? I basically felt tricked when I realized that I had spent all of this time working on missions when I could have leveled two or three times faster in the sewers. I hadn’t gotten the memo. Either you need to direct players towards the sewer system to let them know that it should be used for the first 8-10 levels, or you need to give players some incentive to use missions to level instead, otherwise, all of those missions were a waste of time (unless you’re someone like me who ran them because they didn’t know better.)
The second problem that I noticed was with the missions after level 5 or so, when you start going between Atlas Park, Galaxy City, and King’s Row. The problem is that the missions have no indication of what level they are geared for. I was given a mission to go find a contact in a place called The Hollows, a zone that I knew nothing about, but I decided to go check it out. When I got there, I realized that I was in way over my head. He gave me a mission to kill a bunch of the mobs out there, but I knew there was no way that I could do it alone. A few of the mobs were my level, but they were in huge groups. I asked for help, and when I told them what level I was, they laughed (they were nice enough to point me in the right direction, however.)
Feeling a little confused and frustrated, I found my contact in all three of the zones stated above, who all gave me missions, but another problem emerged here. The missions are spread all throughout these zones. With a low-level player who doesn’t have much experience with the game, you should never point them in the direction of a new zone through quests/missions unless you are sending them there as part of the natural progression for the game. Don’t try to intermix a collection of zones. If you try to get them to balance three zones at the same time, they are going to feel completely bewildered, or at least I, a nine-year veteran of MMO’s, did. If you do decide that this is the route you want to go, at least make sure that you provide EXCELLENT directions within the mission so the player knows exactly where to go. Yes, there is a compass that will direct you to where you need to go for many missions, but this doesn’t mean you should slack off on directions. Not every mission has one specific location either, so if they don’t have a detailed description for their location, then this can be rather annoying. One of my missions involved killing a group of mobs called The Lost and getting blood samples from them. The mission provided me with a zone, but that was it. After looking all around for them, I asked a few players about it, and they told me that they were found in the sewers. Great. I’ve wasted 15-20 minutes looking around a zone, only to find that I hadn’t been able to find them due to poor directions. It’s one thing for a player to misread directions and waste time due to their own error, but if you misdirect or provide poor directions, they will quickly become frustrated, and won’t put up with it for long.
To recap: Missions through level 10 are basically a waste of time, and the missions after level five are extremely confusing and time-intensive with all of the running between zones. I understand that you (Cryptic/NCSoft) aren’t really too concerned about lower level missions since your current players know all of these ins and outs, and you already have a relatively strong player base with yet another super-hero game on the way, but get it together. Your first 10 levels (from a strictly leveling standpoint) are executed terribly, and in an arena with the likes of WoW, a game that revolutionized the ease of the newbie experience, you’re really shooting yourself in the foot if you confuse or upset players before they even have the chance to make a proper decision on whether to continue playing your game or not. I’d love to offer some suggestions to fix these problems if you want to hire me 
~Kanthalos
A Crazy Mythos Build: Tesla Widgets
I had a level 14 gadgeteer on elite mode that a guildmate had power-leveled, so I had 14 levels worth of skill points and attributes do distribute. After looking around at a few builds, I decided I would give tesla widgets a shot. I’d heard that they were impressive, but I’d never tried them or seen them in action, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to try them out.
Basically, tesla widgets work by using electrical damage to drain the life of surrounding enemies. Generally the way these builds work is you max the tesla tree and supplement them with suppression widgets (which slow down enemies) and galvanic widgets (which add even more electrical damage.) At first you really don’t need to worry about any sort of weapon damage because they widgets you summon don’t stick around long enough for you to use any other skills. When you first begin, all you have time to do is continuously summon tesla widgets. As time goes on, you can gradually add in suppression widgets, and around 28 or so, you can start adding in galvanic widgets, which basically make you unstoppable. If you have a strong set of minion damage gear to add on, you can easily solo epic maps your level, which is tough to impossible for almost any other class because anything that lives for more than a few seconds will get held off by the suppression widgets.
Once you get to around level 40 and you’ve more or less maxed tesla, galvanic, and suppression widgets, you can either go over to boom zipper widgets, which move to the nearest creature and explode (fire damage to supplement your electrical damage) or use a skill like napalm or piercing barrage coupled with insight/rally (increase defense/attack rating per kill.) In any case, this is a build that I think is a lot of fun. Some say that it’s boring since you aren’t actually killing anything yourself (or rarely that is) but I think that you might as well be since you are constantly summoning widgets to do it for you, and you need to balance the number of widgets you have out, which is fun in my opinion. I will hopefully add a video soon of this build in action, but a) I don’t have Fraps installed and b) I am only 25, so it would be tough to understand the full effectiveness of this build at half the max level. That said, anything other than champion mobs die within two seconds, and everything else I can stay away from until they are dead because of suppression widgets. If you are looking for a new build, I strongly suggest you give this one a shot.
~Kanthalos
Trash Mobs — What’s the Point?
Filed under: Burning Crusade, MMO Design, WoW, World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King |
Comments(1) With all the talk about raiding and gear ownership, it really got me thinking about instances as a whole. What about instances can really be changed or improved in some way? This immediately brought to mind trash mobs. Trash mobs are something that have really just bothered me ever since I started raiding (and instancing in general.) Since I didn’t play EverQuest (for more than a week or two) I don’t know whether they started there, or whether they were popularized by WoW, but they seem like one of those things that were implemented once for whatever reason, and from that point on were a fixture in raiding and instancing with little or no regard for their function. If they are there, they must be serving a purpose, right? Let’s consider what all trash mobs are good for:
1) They provide the potential for a random epic/rare drop (as well as small amounts of gold and vendor trash.)
2) They increase your reputation with a faction.
3) They fill space, and make the instance seem more alive.
That’s really all that I could come up with as to why they are included in instances. Some might consider them to be a sort of “gear/skill check” but in all honesty, they are far easier than any of the bosses that you’ll face, with very few if any exceptions. They take up everyone’s time for virtually no benefit, so here is a list of reason why they should be removed altogether as well as suggestions to deal with it.
1) The random epic drops that fall from trash mobs can simply be an addition to the gear that the bosses drop (with the possibility of two or even three items.) As for the gold, it’s never really been enough to matter anyway. No one goes to a 10 or 25-man with the idea that they are going to get gold. They go for gear, and more than likely expect to lose gold for repair bills. Increase the gold drops on the boss (to about 25g each in a 25-man,) or forget about it.
2) Reputation? Drastically increase the amount of the reputation you get for killing the bosses to scale with the trash mob rep. This makes more sense anyways because, after all, they are the reason all the trash mobs are there to begin with.
3)Think of all the time you would save by not having to deal with trash mobs. It would more than cut raiding and instancing times in half. Not only that, but it would prevent re-clears. If you’ve proven that you can kill the mobs once (which, again, aren’t nearly as tough as the bosses,) why force you to do it again, and kill all that much more time? The challenge is with the boss fights, not the trash mobs which keep players from heading straight to the bosses. 25-mans and heroics have timers in place already to keep people from killing the bosses over and over again, so it’s not as if players can kill the bosses, reset, and kill again for more loot anyway. All it would do is free up more time for the players (or allow them to have more time for attempts on bosses.)
The only real reason to keep trash mobs in an instance that I see is because they make it seem more alive, but then again, how “alive” is it if you walk into a room with 6 sets of mobs, and you can pull only one without the others barging in? Perhaps they could leave a few additional guards around each boss, but there is no reason to fight through 30 sets of mobs to get to a boss. Seriously. If you REALLY want to leave trash mob encounters, make them all similar to Gruul’s Lair, and nothing at all like Tempest Keep. Also, if you insist on forcing reputation grinds on players, give them other areas in the world (possibly right outside the instance) to farm rep, but don’t stick it in with the raid.
They aren’t required and they serve very little purpose (other than to annoy,) so why should they be there?
~Kanthalos
An Outsider’s View of MMO’s
So I was in a group in Mythos a little while ago, and I mentioned that the NDA was lifted on AoC.
“What’s AoC and what’s an NDA?”
I explained what the two things were, and then asked, “Do you know what WAR is?”
“Nope.”
At this point I knew what I was dealing with. A complete MMO virgin. I found out that he had been a huge D2 fan and was really enjoying Mythos so far. I asked him why he’d never tried any MMO before, at which point he said that he couldn’t understand paying for a game and then paying a monthly fee on top of that. This completely threw me. I would have completely expected this comment five or more years ago, but I didn’t realize that there were gamers who still felt this way. He then added that he couldn’t understand why a game would purposely take more than a month to “beat.” I tried explaining that MMO’s were about a lot more than “beating” it; They are about the community, the ride to max level, and the content once you reach max level. I tried explaning the increased depth that an MMO offered and how the additional depth and content, which is always being updated, required continued support from its players, but he never bit. One of his retorts was that he’d seen people hop on their gryphon and walk away. He couldn’t understand taking 10+ minutes to get from one place to another.
In his favor, I can see how this could put him off if this was all he’d really seen of an MMO. On a regular basis, non-gamers will look at my monitor while I’m playing an MMO and see me performing some absolutely mundane or downright annoying task in game, and when they ask me why I’m doing that, I realize they have me at a disadvantage. Unless I sit them down (which they need to be willing to do) to watch a raid or a string of quests, I’ve already lost the argument/conversation before it even begins. It’s very frustrating, and I’m sure a few of you have faced a similar situation.
Getting back to the point though, I knew that this would be a tough nut to crack. Even with the support of another player, we were unable to shift his mentality away from the D2, action-rpg mindset. He said he’d also played Guild Wars for a week (which I still don’t consider to be an MMO, by the way) because that didn’t require a monthly fee to play. I tried to explain that there were several trials out there that he should try, but he kept coming back to the fact that he more or less thought that the game companies were ripping players off since they’d already purchased the game. I basically ended the conversation by saying that I’d done all I could (in the current situation) to convince him to try an MMO, and that he should pick up WoW/LotRO/EQ2 for 20-30 bucks, use the free month, and decide for himself. I don’t think that he is going to however, which left me feeling like a failure as an MMO enthusiast.
I guess what I’m ultimately trying to say is that I’m surprised that some gamers, especially those who have ventured online for things like Quake, Diablo, or Mythos still haven’t been exposed to full-fledged MMO’s or understand their appeal or value. I’d love to hear some of your thoughts or reactions as to why you think this is. Have you experienced similar situations to this one? Do you think he is just a bit more stubborn than most and simply isn’t willing to believe that a game could be worth a $15 dollar monthly subscription? He did say that he would be willing to pay $7 or so, but no MMO currently offers a subscription fee that low, just micro-transaction games (or the very similar Dungeon Runners.) I’m actually headed out of town for the weekend, so I might not be posting over the next few days, but I’ll hop in to hopefully see what any of you have to say.
~Kanthalos
