/cry comments on: State of the Game: Sept. 1, 2009

It’s been an amazing early start weekend, and we’ve been burning the midnight neutronium responding to issues you’ve found and following your suggestions to make the game feel and play better. It’s never too early to start that communication between players and developers, so we’ve carried that essential interaction from beta right into the game launching. We’re reading and listening, and addressing things as quickly as we can.

Based on your play experiences and feedback, we’re making some adjustments in anticipation of the rest of the gaming universe joining us! Here’s the skinny on what we’re up to.

If you have been part of the headstart program you know the above is not BS.  These guys have been going pedal to metal for the past couple of weeks.  Like most launch MMOs they have been pumping out patches.  These patches have had a lot of changes -- powers, retcons, travel powers, client performance; but while all this has been going on the servers have performed well.

BRING IT ON!
A good number of players have noted that the game isn’t challenging enough, especially at higher levels. We’re usually going to initially err on the side of it being too easy, and then trial and dial in on just the right balance as best we can. We’ve made a couple of broader course corrections over the past weeks, and we’re very close to the experience we all want. To further that direction, we’re doing some fine tuning in the following areas:

We reduced the effectiveness of Slotted Passive Defense powers, Active Defense powers, and Defense from upgrades. The total bonus of all combined defenses was reduced from a 75% net defense bonus to a 66% net bonus. The biggest change was made within the Passive Defense powers which our players noted were far too effective and trivialized the threat form Henchmen level enemies.

We increased “non-shtick” enemy damage to compensate for AI / animation delays. This particularly affects Henchmen who did not attack at the expected rate on which other areas of combat effectiveness are balanced. The change represents a 25% increase in this type of damage.

We also increased “shtick-based” damage for Super Villain class enemies and above. They were incorrectly using the Master Villain class damage tables, making our most difficult enemies much weaker than intended.

Finally, we have removed the consumable items that were giving a straight 33% increase to Health and Energy from vendors. These were artifacts of the beta test that were accidently not removed from the live version of the game.

Boy is this playing with fire.  Yeah the game during the headstart was a little easy which some players want.  They want to feel heroic -- beating up 20 guys at once.  At the sametime, they don't want you to level to 40 in 3 days (like some have) so they have to make the game slightly harder.  This comes with a technical issue though, instead of having you fight 8 tough guys they could make you fight 16 tough guys -- sounds more fun, would make for some epic fights, etc... but there is a technical limitation of how many bad guys the average PC can display.  So instead they went the more realistic route -- balanced (or nerfed) powers and made the enemies harder.

ADDRESSING THE ZOOM EFFECT
We’ve fixing a data bug where players incorrectly received 75% of an enemy’s experience amount no matter the disparity in level. More than a difference of 4 levels now gains the player no experience.

We’ve added a timer to the Scared Straight mission so that while it remains repeatable, it will not be exploitable. We have also reduced the amount of experience for repeated versions of the mission.

The top speed of travel power speeds has been reduced by 15% as part of how we’re addressing reported frame-rate issues because heroes are simply traveling faster than the server can update their position.

WE WANT MORE UPGRADES, AND WE WANT THEM NOW!
We found and fixed an error in the overall drop-rate tables that drastically reduced the number of upgrades coming from defeated enemies. This change increases the number of upgrades that drop from enemies in the approximately four-fold.

CHANGING YOUR MIND IS EASIER
Retcon cost has been lowered across the board, making alterations in your character's powers and advantages much simpler to accomplish.

These are all fair changes.  Not much to say except that since this posting they have also added full retcon for your character.  That means with the ability to change your characters apperance and not complete retcon (respec) -- you really don't need an alt

THE STORE IS OPEN!
We’ve activated all of the special edition action figures in the C Store. So if you got Cryptic Points to spend as part of a promotional purchase of the game, you start your collection now! Cryptic Points will go on sale soon.

So far the store contains only vanity pets.  Hard to get upset about that... but people are still waiting for the "real" MTs.  So we will have to see, but so far only little toys for those who want it, but no game changing items for sale. 

THE MAGIC IS BACK IN SORCERY
Sorcery powers are now being properly counted towards unlocking other powers in their power set.

SNAKE BUCKS AND UNITY MERITS
We’re aware of a data bug that causes Snake Bucks and Unity Merits to not display in your character sheet. They *are* there, you just can’t see them until we get the fix checked in.

Glad to see a power boost instead of all nerfs.  To the community -- these guys are clearly listening.  Give them quality feedback and they will take action.  Glad to see we aren't losing our Snake bucks, we just aren't seeing them.

WHAT’S TO COME
Today we’re announcing our plans for Blood Moon – our first FREE update to the game. We’re diving right in to making more content for you, but I don’t want to spoil the awesome job the crew did on the announcement page, so keep your eyes on the website!

This is awesome.  Jack Emmert announced recently that every 3 months we will get a content patch and yesterday they posted news about the first one -- Blood Moon Rising.  Blood Moon Rising will introduce a new framework -- Celestial, Zombies and more fun goodies.  They were excellent about providing updates for City of Hereoes, so I am looking forward to what they have in the pipe for Champions. 

Excellent launch week Cryptic.  Keep up the good work -- just add a little more info to your website for new players -- crafting guide, etc..

Massively 5 tips for new players.

Few Toy Pics:

/cry Comments on: State of the Game 8/24/2009

Hello, Champions!

It feels like forever since I’ve put digital pen to virtual paper, but such is the life of a time-traveler. Over the past two weeks we’ve been honing and refining the game, launching the Open Beta, and showing off Champions Online to thousands of eager fans and press in New York and Indianapolis.

As we move towards the end of our testing and prepare for launching our live service, I wanted to take a few moments to offer a huge THANK YOU to all of our beta testers. We are privileged to have an amazing community of players that have given us invaluable feedback and support to make Champions Online a truly fun experience. This is the friendliest and most dedicated community I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with, and we can’t wait to get everyone in the world playing with us in just a few short days. Again – from all of us here at Cryptic HQ – we couldn’t have gotten here without you!

A nice introduction and maybe a little strong with "friendliest" comment, but I guess it depends where they are coming from. I will say player to player the community plays nice, but player to developer, well a lot of the community is rather rude. Many people acting shocked and upset that they are still tweaking the game during A) a beta and B) I guess this is their first MMO because changes are what they are going to keep getting. Just look at the king of the hill -- WoW, it changes classes every patch.

End of Beta Event / Timing
We’re currently in full swing with our End of Beta event. Destroids are attacking Millennium City! Mega-Destroids will also be causing mayhem and destruction throughout the city, so team up with as many other players as possible to try and take down these massive robots. You might even find some Destroyer clones appearing and utterly decimating your puny heroes. All participants who help take down a Mega-Destroid will receive special perks and items which will be available to them at launch, including a “Mini-Destroid” action figure.

We’ve EXTENDED the hours of the Open Beta to Tuesday, August 25th – 5PM PDT so we can make sure all of our European heroes get a chance to get in and bring down some giant robots!

The end of Beta event was pretty cool and really makes me wish it was still a Marvel MMO. The Mega-Destroids could be made into Sentinels, the X-Men could have shown up, etc... It would have been great if this MMO was set in the Ultimates universe. I had so many grand ideas for the Marvel MMO, but it wasn't meant to be.

The actual end of Beta event was fun once it got going. It performed well on my system, I was able to help take down several Mega-Destroids and even fight the evil Cryptonaut. Cryptonaut was a tough villian that just beat the heck out of me coming from no where -- but eventually we rallied and took him down.

Of course like the Open Beta itself, the End of Beta Event was not without flaws, but to make up for it they did extend the Beta a day -- though earned more nerd rage for selling out of Lifetime Subscriptions.

Experience Changes
Over the weekend we made a change to the rate at which experience was being granted. This was a part of our continued balancing pass, and while the rate at which we grant Experience is now close, it is neither correct nor final. After gathering data for the past two days, we’ll be doing another pass on the experience rates for the launch of the game – and yes, it will be swinging back the other direction. And to allay other concerns we’ve seen in the forums, the experience rate will match our content in the game. We greatly appreciate your feedback on the new leveling curve, and it was only through having so many people on that we were able to get the data of player progression against final content that was required to make it right.

This one has been fun to watch on the boards. People are going nuts -- claiming to have lost all interest in the game, cancelling preorders, etc... Again -- it is a Beta and it is a MMO. This is something they had to monitor and were going to change and continue to tweak. Instead of posts saying "I don't like the change and here is why..." most of the posts took a more aggressive tone, but Cryptic assures the community they are working on it and I trust them.

Look, bottomline a MMO needs to provide somewhat of a challenge. If you hit end game in 1 day you will get bored quickly. If it takes you forever to level you will get bored quickly -- so they are trying to strike a balance. They need to strike the balance or they won't be making money; so assume they are working in a positive direction. Also they know that sometimes what you ask for is not what you really want. In WoW people want easy epics, easy dungeons, etc... What does that do? Makes some happy and others want to leave. So Cryptic has to strike a balance.

Retcon Pricing
We also made some economy adjustments, and the area most visibly affected was retconning at The Powerhouse. As with experience, we’re making a pass to ease off the changes we made to get them correctly in line with the resources players will have at various levels. Again, we appreciate the fact that so many people are playing in the beta that it allows us to fine-tune the game right up until launch.

See you online, heroes!

Retconing AKA respecing is very powerful in this game since there are no classes, they want it to feel like a reward to retcon, not just another feature.  I feel like Champions helps promote you being "closer" to your character than a game like WoW.  You get to design your character -- their appearance, powers, add a biography, and even their arch-villian.  The team is trying to foster a sense of you are the hero, not a switch between Batman and Wolverine every 5 minutes.  They also provide the Powerhouse -- you can try the powers before you buy (this was something the Closed Beta community begged for and Cryptic worked hard to get in the game; Cryptic does listen)!  I wish WoW would have let me try specs before I agreed to spend Talent Points, etc... This is where challenge, risk and reward come into Play.