Arcanaville

If the devs were a hive mind, maybe. But lets say Synapse wanted to change a power on a whim for no rhyme or reason and that would radically alter the way the power functioned. Black Scorpion would have something to say about it as the de factor head of the powers team (technically, lead designer for the live and end game strike team). Q&A would have some say in it. Positron might even have a say in it. Synapse doesn't work in a vacuum, and is ultimately answerable to other people. They give him a certain amount of discretion to apply his own design aesthetics to the powers he works on, but that discretion has limits and wild whimsical cottage rule-like violations would almost certainly be over the limit.

Conversely, if Black Scorpion wanted to whiimsically change a bunch of powers for no reason, he could order Synapse to make those changes or he could try to make them himself, and exercise his authority to make those changes over the objections of Positron, Synpase, the rest of the powers team, the QA team, the receptionist, the mailroom guy, and Zwillinger's pet goldfish. But if he does, what happens next is that soon afterward he isn't the powers lead anymore, because he's incapable of working within a team.

Every MMO development team is different, but Paragon Studios tends to be, as far as I've seen, more collaborative than not, more distributed in authority than not. Devs have a lot of discretion to do things their own way on the one hand, but have an obligation to justify those decisions to other developers on the other hand. The cottage rule isn't a rule in a book somewhere, and its not something War Witch enforces with the cottage police. Its not a rule that *restricts* what the devs do at all, its a rule that *describes* what they collectively believe. To eliminate that set of values, all you have to do is convince each and every dev, or at least more than half of them, to simultaneously change their values, just because you say so.

That would be a significant challenge, to put it mildly.

If we're tossing out dual pistols suggestions:

The reason for the "primary purpose" rule is to ensure that players that were using it for a reason that was consistent with its original design intent are allowed to continue using it for that purpose, within limits. We can't prevent *all* changes which remove a feature the players use, because players use all features. But we can try to make sure that, for example, if players are using a power for its endurance management capabilities and it was obviously originally designed to be an endurance management power that power retains that endurance management capability even if additional features are added, so those players are impacted as little as possible. Its best aspect might change, but players using it for its original feature could continue to use it as such, and gain a potentially better one. Removing that feature to add a "better" one presumes all the players that were using the original feature will agree the new one is a better one. In general, that's a dangerous assumption.

And important to note: in an MMO no one has a legitimate expectation for power *strength* or *numbers* to remain identical over time. So when Cobra Strike was changed from 100% stun to 75% stun and its recharge cut in half, it still had a lot of stun capability: more than before, in fact. But it lost the ability to provide a guaranteed stun on first use. That's a grey area change: you could argue that the original intended purpose of the power was to deliver a *guaranteed* stun and it lost that ability, and some players did in fact complain about it. But it retained its stunning ability at high percentage, gained the ability to deliver more stun over time, and addressed an actual balance concern within the set - namely that its lower tier powers traded an entire attack in favor of a mez which was hampering lower level performance: MA was stunning what everyone else was killing. You could say it was not a real "cottage rule" violation or you could argue it was a legitimate exception to the cottage rule, but the truth is that it was a grey area change that the devs felt was justified within the context of the general rules to balance justified changes with preserving existing powerset experience.

This design aesthetic extends beyond power numbers. It was easier to tweak the stun in Cobra than it would be to cut the cast time of Eagle's Claw in half. Because the devs know that a *large* percentage of MA players really like that animation. That knowledge tempers any attempt to radically alter its total animation time (it was tweaked from 3.0s to 2.53s, shaving frames here and there, to try to retain its appearance while reducing its total cast time).

Its a waste of time, but not for the reason you think.

Its a waste of time primarily because the devs don't technically follow anything called "the cottage rule." The cottage rule is a term made up by the players, and it persists because its catchy. As used by the devs, it means only one thing: the devs will not replace Build Up with a power that summons a cottage instead of what it does now. Anyone who wants to rescind that rule literally wants build up to summon a cottage instead of what it does not.

The cottage rule example was intended to be an exemplar for a whole list of design rules the devs obey. I actually posted them almost a year before Castle's cottage post but people keep forgetting them because they are less catchy. Within the context of the cottage rule, *some of* the design rules the devs follow that are the basis for the cottage rule pronouncement are:

1. A power will not lose a primary function without a critical balance reason for that change that can only be solved by eliminating that feature.

2. A power will not alter its gameplay mechanics without a significant balance requirement that can only be solved by altering its mechanics. For the most part, this refers to the power being a click, toggle, passive, or location targeted power.

3. A power will not change its availability within a powerset without a significant balance requirement that can only be solved by such a change in powerset structure. In other words, powers won't change tier.

I should point out I posted those rules above, with more or less the same wording, with permission from Castle, the same developer that made the "cottage rule" post itself.


Everyone saying "the cottage rule" should be eliminated is saying essentially that the devs should not need a balance reason to change an already established power: they can do so for essentially any reason at all. Arguing for the abolishment of the cottage rule is essentially asking for chaos. Without it, no one is protected from any changes for any reason. The rule encapsulates one of the fundamental ways in which the powers design rules care about existing players at all.

Moreover, the devs aren't seriously going to entertain the suggestion to eliminate the cottage rule, because that's just a colloquial umbrella for a large set of interconnected design priorities. There's no way to "abolish" it, because there's no it. "It" is a term to represent a set of priorities.


So the reason why the thread is mostly a waste of time is that its debating a rule the devs don't follow, that refers to a set of priorities the devs won't change, that have almost nothing to do with any actual limitation on what the devs can do to address problems in the game.

The first half is fine. The second half is not.

When I post I post what I mean, not something tangentially related to what I mean. When I say I can post objectively, and not everything I say is completely subjective, I what I mean is I can post about objective facts and judgments, and not things completely based on subjective preference. Notice that the best way to explain what I mean is usually to essentially repeat what I said. That's usually how I judge whether to push the submit button.

The devs have also strongly suggested that the Praetorian/Tyrant storyline is approaching its end (reaching a climax) and they've also said they were planning to continue to expand the incarnate system and add more trials. Logic suggests therefore that trials down the road will be based on a different storyline than Cole, and a reasonable inference is that it will involve the Coming Storm.

Such as, for example, in the very first sentence of my post.

Well, I didn't actually say that, but that's a truism for all things, not just PvP.

More specifically, its always the case that for the devs to do something, something else has to get not done. Finite resources and unlimited wish list means its not just about priority, but about balancing priorities among everything that is vying for attention.

And hypothetically speaking, while I'm not speaking for the devs here, I can only imagine that one barrier to working on anything would be if there was the very obvious knowledge that the primary result of working on it would be a bunch of players telling you what an incredible moron you are for not doing it their way.

Currently, free players get some powersets for free, and some they have to buy by purchasing things like boxed expansions. In Freedom, expect that to continue: some powersets will be absolutely free to VIPs, and some will cost Points to unlock. Up to now, *all* powersets that were not free required cash to buy. In Freedom, you can buy them with cash, or you can buy them with points if you have any stocked up from the free allotment you get as part of your subscription. In all respects this is a better deal than what we have now.

That's not even remotely close to being true. Its only true when people start redefining things to make it true. Are things like Sutter "Incarnate content?" Well, they are far below the level where incarnate powers even work, don't generate incarnate rewards (any more than all standard content drops shards) and don't even use the incarnate raid mechanics. On the other hand, they mention Incarnates somewhere, so people say that counts as incarnate content. Ditto the Cooling and Ross arcs.

The zone events in Praetoria are apparently incarnate content because they take place in Praetoria. So ditto the added missions in Praetoria.

QoL changes and power customization don't count, because they aren't playable content. Map updates for task forces and Calvin Scott in general don't count because that's just updating old content, not making new content.

What we're eventually left with is not that almost everything since incarnates arrived has been incarnate content, but rather all instanced content since incarnates have arrived has either been incarnate content, mentioned incarnates, existed in Praetoria, or is an update of previously existing content.

That's so many qualifiers the statement ceases to say anything interesting. And we now have a better idea of what is coming in Issue 21, and Issue 21 is not in any way shape or form focused solely or primarily on Incarnates.

So I consider this oft repeated statement that the end game has sucked up all the oxygen from the development team to be objectively false. It isn't even close enough to require careful counting.

Actually, I don't think any of the criticism of the incarnate trials themselves, or the reward structure that accompanies it, for the vast majority of this thread, is unreasonable. I disagree with much of it, but not all of it, and either way I think its healthy that those concerns get voiced in some form.

BUT

I have this rule on threads: I read them from beginning to end, every single post, before I consider posting a reply or for that matter read more than a post or two. That's true even if I stumble across a thread that is a hundred pages long before I find it. And this thread started here:

In other words, it started not with a complaint about them, but with the acknowledgement that even if other people like them, they only deserve a limited amount of them. Had I said "I prefer to only run end game content from now on. I don't mind people getting lower level content, but I would prefer the devs not waste too much time on it: maybe every other issue at most" people would rightly assume I lost my mind and even my practically indestructible forum armor would probably collapse from the reaction to that one.

Where the complaints cross the line is when people decide its ok for other people to get what they want, so long as its only taking up the crumbs of the development resources. *Most* of the development resources of this game, even recently have been devoted to content other than the Incarnate trials. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just plain wrong, and trivially provably wrong. The notion has been gunned down so many times its becoming worth considering making a guide to it. If you don't like them, suggest improvements. Criticize failings even if you don't have specific suggestions for improvements. Complain about the reward structure if that's what bugs you: even I think the emotes and the non-incarnate costume options were probably over the line on merit redemption. Just plain say its not your cup of tea if its just not your cup of tea.

But once you start saying content is undeserving of developer time, even when that time is the minority, you're saying everyone who likes that content is undeserving. Those are fighting words whether you directly intend them to be or not. The statement of intent is meaningless in the face of the meaning of the words. If that is what you mean, say it and be prepared for the inevitable and deserved backlash. If that isn't what is meant, people should stay away from stating what resources the devs should spend on content they just happen not to like.

If people want to have "direction of the game" arguments, that's fine also. But you're declaring open warfare on everyone who disagrees with your interpretation of that direction, or agrees with it but prefers it. No one should act surprised when that discussion inevitably ends up going nuclear, because once again you're not expressing preferences, you're challenging them.

There will not be true justice for all until there are cigars for shoulder kitties.

At the moment, I am unaware of any dev statement that suggests they are contemplating allowing people to move purchased and assigned slots from one server to another in Freedom. There are some games you can play if you stop subscribing, but that's a totally different matter and not one I think that helps you.

Actually, I do make statements that aren't based solely on personal preference. If I were to say that a game had a content gap at launch and that was poor design, I'm saying something objective: something I could prove with facts not subject to personal preference. When I say a game launches content which I don't personally like, I normally don't say that content is poorly designed because that is primarily an objective statement not a subjective one. Design has a subjective component to it, but its not purely subject to personal preference only.

Most importantly though, I never say that the devs have an actual obligation to satisfy my personal preferences. Someone who does isn't just expressing a preference, they are expressing the position that their preferences should rule the design decisions of the game.

There are some people who believe that everyone states this, whether they are willing to admit it or not. But I don't. In fact I often advocate for things that run counter to my own personal preference, because I'm capable of keeping distinct what's objectively good for the game with what will satisfy my personal preferences.

To put it more directly, I don't suffer the limitations you believe are unavoidable.

If you're willing to wait, yes, because you will earn iXP on every run you make until you unlock everything (technically, Lambda unlocks two slots and BAF unlocks the other two, so you keep earning iXP until the slots that use that type of iXP are fully unlocked. Keyes grants half of each type). If you pay threads to unlock the slots, then every run after that where you might have earned iXP you won't get that benefit any more.

On the other hand, if you intend to run a lot of trials, the difference can be minimal. You're likely to get something like four astral merits and four-ish threads per run of either trial, plus or minus. That's essentially 20 threads per run, separate from the component at the end. In terms of converting that to iXP that's equal to 67% of either Interface or Judgment, and about 45% of Destiny and Lore. It takes the threads and astrals from about six to seven runs plus whatever iXP you can pick up to unlock all four slots. If you plan on running a lot more than 7 trials total, losing seven trials worth of threads and astrals is no big deal. If you are trying to minimize the number of trials runs you make *and* are going for higher tier powers, you should only use threads and astrals if you have to.

However, if you're in a hurry and aren't planning on getting high tier powers for every single slot, it can make sense to burn threads and astrals to unlock the slots.

Hmm:

"Make a Brute. They're like Tankers... but fun!"

"Tankers... They're like fun. but Make a Brute!"

"like Tankers make fun... They're a Brute but!"

"They're fun Tankers. Brute... Make like a but!"

"like Brute Tankers... but They're a fun Make!"

"Make fun! but They're a Brute like Tankers..."

You specifically said:

What I'm telling you is that "necessary to move forward" is a matter of opinion, and one not all players share. The devs aimed between your target and targets far lower than yours. Implicitly, you're not saying the devs should launch with enough content, but with enough content for you.

Everyone's definition of challenge is pretty varied, and often mutually exclusive. What I find a challenge might bore you, what you find a challenge might be uninteresting to me.

One problem intrinsic to making challenges for CoH is the issue of time. Combat is designed to be usually extremely fast. Short combat therefore eliminates most opportunities for challenge. And when the devs try to extend combat, they are usually accused of cheap cheats.

If I was designing challenges, I would make challenges designed to be circumstantially unstable; basically the solution to the challenge would be dynamic depending on variables that were difficult to control and often partially random. The solution would always have a logical way to determine, but pure repetition would not work. That would require new tech.

However, players would probably complain they were too difficult specifically *because* a single strategy didn't always work, or alternatively that overcoming the challenge required changing their normal tactics. Man, you should have seen the debates that occurred in CO beta when CO introduced the simple concept of blocking. Personally, I think its one of the best things they ever invented: it opens huge tactical doors. But would it be accepted here? Hard to say: it could also be accused of opening the door to twitch gaming.

There is no tactic that cannot be accused of being a cheap trick by someone who doesn't value the tactical option. When you get down to it, all of MMO gaming is pushing a button at the right time. Its more than that only if you choose to think of it as more than that.

They are not solo standard content within the definition of standard content difficulty. However, while asking for a soloable path to at least some incarnate progress is likely asking for the eventual, asking for a solo standard content difficulty path to reasonably efficient incarnate progress is asking for the incredibly unlikely.

If the devs followed that philosophy, we wouldn't have a game at all. This game launched with far less content, and more importantly far less content working than it really needed. It launched without even the final 10 levels explicitly planned for the game. If the devs decided not to launch anything until it had enough content to please even 51% of the players, we wouldn't get any expansions to the game in any direction.

Sometimes they release less content than I think its appropriate even with that understanding, but "launch complete" in terms of content density is an impossible criteria to meet after launch.

And its so easy to say "if there's not enough for me, they shouldn't launch at all" but that voice is counterbalanced by an equal number of voices saying "launch now, period." People were begging the devs to release the Alpha slot even if there wasn't a direct way to unlock it or slot it. They were perfectly happy farming shards for everything, and their attitude is "if you want to wait for content, you wait for content: don't make the rest of us wait with you."

The devs have to navigate a compromise between the two, and its never going to be an especially happy compromise.

If we changed standard content so it dropped threads instead of shards, if we also converted the shard recipes into thread recipes people who actually did the trials could completely fill Alpha in the blink of an eye, because they earn threads faster. If we don't and we force those players to use the normal thread recipes their ability to earn Alpha would drop dramatically, because those recipes require more threads than the shard recipes require shards.

To put it another way, if we drop threads everywhere, then either standard content people earn threads way slower than trial players in which case they will be stuck earning Alpha much slower than trial players, or standard content players will earn Alpha about as fast as trial players, and that will mean they can also earn everything else equally fast, since threads are the single currency.

The question you should be asking is not who, but according to Steelclaw's formulas where.



I'll let Mod13 stare at this one for a while, wondering in terror if I intend to post pictures.

I'm assuming you mean as long as it isn't the reward for some very significant in-game activity. I'm guessing you'd be concerned if they sold, say, HOs, but not if they sold, say, inspirations or costume recipes. The issue I think you're concerned about is devaluement. Selling something in the store has a chance to devalue all other ways of earning it. For things that have no other way to earn them, or have ways to earn them that are themselves not valued by the players anyway, that issue largely vanishes.

I probably don't draw the line as harshly as you probably do, but it is a concern of mine.

Setting aside issues of numerical details, the system is actually very well designed on fundamental levels. Far from being the worst possible way to make an end game, its actually better than essentially every idea I've ever seen proposed by any player. And that's actually not a little surprising to me. There are lots of detail things I would do differently, but speaking strictly of the system itself, the incarnate slots do not actually offer that sort of abrupt power relative to other parts of the game. City of Heroes is, relative to any other MMO, a game of saturation benefits. The incarnate system had to be scaled relative to the normal expectations of the players. In fact, the Alpha slot was actually seen as being almost worthless by approximately half the players that tested it originally. There was no clear majority between the people that said "this will be a major buff" and those that said "who would even bother."

The slots have different types of benefit and because they do different players perceive their benefits radically differently. Some players think interface is very useful and worth upgrading, some players think it isn't all that impressive. Some don't like using Lore pets at all, and the more active your character is in play the more intrusive sending mastermind orders to them becomes. The two OMG powers are probably Judgment and Destiny, and Destiny gains strength as its upgraded: its benefit improves as you can have its strength up for higher percentages of the time. Even Judgment starts off with base damage and then upgrades (optionally) to critical bonus damage.

The system also moderates choices. For people who want a blizzard of options to min/max, there is the invention system as you mention. The fact that it does have that level of complexity is something you consider "bad" but that's because you assume that wasn't its intent: its intent was to offer that level of choice to players that wanted that level of choice, in a way that players that *didn't* want that choice could ignore most options and still get significant benefit. The incarnate system offers less choices than the invention system, but more than a purely linear end game progress system would have. There's three main choices you get in the incarnate system: first, which slots to open in what order. You have some limited control over that. Second, which slots to actually fill and upgrade with powers, which, separate from unlocking the slots, you have full control over. And finally, which "track" of power for each slot you wish to take, and how far to take it.

At the beginning, rewards come fairly fast. You're unlocking and slotting a slot in only a couple of trials each. Up to tier 2 progress is pretty fast relative to other kinds of progress like leveling. Its only tier 3 and tier 4 that slows down. Those slots also, excepting level shift, tend to slow down their incremental benefits.

Why not make the system the way you think its supposed to be: gradual progress and gradual benefit from the very beginning, rather than fast progress in the beginning and decelerated progress at the higher levels? Also deliberate: the intent was to make an end game system that, unlike most, frontloads the benefits so that the average player didn't have to grind the end game excessively to see any benefit at all. They would get *most* of the benefit up front, while leaving a smaller percentage of the total benefit of the system available to players that actually wanted to pursue long term earning progress. The other players could bail out at earlier levels. The presumption many people make is that the system is intended for everyone to get everything: its not. If you want to do less, you can still get a lot out of the system. If you want to do more, you can get more, but not astronomically more.

I consider this specific aspect of the system to be one of its distinguishing features relative to most MMO end games, and a feature that I think is singularly appropriate for City of Heroes. Given the opportunity I will quibble the details. I think the option trees should not have narrowed at tier 4. I think the power effects are not sufficiently well organized. I think Judgment could have been a little better balanced in terms of its progression upward. I think level shift should not have been as backloaded. But if we're talking about the fundamental design of the system in terms of how it paces and apportions rewards, I think that's actually the part the devs got exactly right, and in a non-trivial way.

The design you're asking for, and you think represents better design, I personally think in total wouldn't work for this game at all, or if it did would be too similar to the invention system itself to be interesting on its own. Certain aspects of it would be doable: you could make more advancement tiers in the system to break up the jumps in power to some degree, but that would have to be done in a way that didn't offer too much of a blizzard of choices. That's tricky to do in a way that is meaningful. You could extend the long-term path of progress, but then you'd be spending a lot of time developing the part of the system outside the core elements of the powers.