Shadow_Kitty

A sad tale of how to lose on the order of nine out of ten subscribers by radically changing a game

There's already quite a lot of content that is team focused. All task/strike forces, for instance. You can't start one without a team, and if you want to solo it, you would have to bend the system quite a lot and make an effort.

So the incarnate system would still be team focused if there were task forces added instead of trials. Then they wouldn't have had to develop an entirely new raid system for the incarnate content, and the programmers could focus on other cool stuff.

One possible reason that Incarnate content is almost exclusively trials is that trials are the fad of the day among the devs. They do them simply because they like them.

Another possible reason is that the devs are convinced that raid-like trials are necessary as end game content because all other big MMOs have them. This becomes even more important now that CoH is going F2P/subscription hybrid: they feel that it's necessary to be more like the other big MMOs in order to attract new customers. If the game wasn't going F2P, it wouldn't be as important, because then the incarnate system would just have to cater for old customers that are accustomed to the old ways the game was played.

In neither possibility, teams have anything to do with the reason for incarnate content being trials.

In fact, the regular instanced mission system is one of the best pieces of evidence for the game being team oriented. In almost every other MMORPG out there, there's a single player quest system, with a few add-ons that let you share quests (start another instance of this quest at the other player) provided you both are at the exact same spot in the quest chain. The only exceptions are the raids and few instanced missions there are.

This makes CoH stand out even more: its mission system isn't a regular MMO single-player quest system with raids tacked on as an afterthought. It's made for teams! Here, the leader (or for that matter, anyone) sees the team's members' missions, select one of them, and the entire team clearly sees what is going to be done next and can read up on the story if they want.

Hence, trials doesn't give or take anything from the game's team orientedness. It already IS team oriented, from the ground up.

Yep. It takes about a year just to convert the necessary shards to threads, and that's provided you already have them. Compared to the few weeks it takes to unlock the similar amount of stuff using the trials, that would be at least 10x slower, probably more like 20x. And we haven't mentioned the stuff that you need Empyrean Merits for, that you simply can't get.

Hence, the other path is at least on an order of magnitude slower, and you can't get the same stuff from it. I think it's reasonable to say that it's not viable.

Well, we're not talking a house. We're talking a group of 16 people painting 16 houses (remember: they're getting their unlocks as well, not just one of the house owners, sorry, players) in the same time it takes one person to paint his garage door.

I.e. the "go to bed without dinner" argument.

It still doesn't convince me.

We're not complaining that they're too hard. At least, I'm not. I'm complaining that it's a) trial only, b) grind only, and c) that regular non-incarnate content is locked behind it.

And I don't mention the alternative path, because it's simply not a viable path.

It's a term describing a specific game design feature. There's a wikipedia article about it.

If you have a formula, then you do not have a challenge - other than possibly having high enough stats and being attentive enough to follow the instructions.

Not really. Most of the challenges of the trials are conventional game mechanics. There isn't much difference between the "click the glowie" mechanics in a trial and that in a normal mission.

So if there are new mechanics added to the trials, why not add them to the rest of the game? For instance, I would love to have the branching mechanism in Ghost Widow's patron arc. You know, when Arbiter Daos wants you to give her the finger? That's where. I almost stopped playing the arc, because I didn't want to, and not playing the rest of the arc was the only way to not do it.

So how about a branching mechanism? At that point, you get a choice. You choose to do as Daos says, and the arc progresses as it does now. You choose to not to, and the arc progresses in another way.

Then, there are these gazillions of failable missions where the only thing that happens if you fail is that you don't get the bonus XP reward and there's a silly dialogue brushing your failure under the carpet so that the arc can progress to the next mission.

Why does incarnate content has to be incarnate trials?

So far, the only answer I've heard is "because the devs like them".

Keyes Island is better to doing that, in having specific goals that require coordination to complete. Still, it's pretty formulaic: from the point where the trial was figured out (Wednesday morning here in Europe) it was pretty much following the instructions, and some of the mechanisms in the trials (disintegration, AM pulse) are still frustrating in the bad sense, not in the "challenging" sense, because they are quicktime events. Press X not to die.

So here are a few suggestions:

• Mini-games - codes to crack, wires to cut, locks to pick, that sort of things - which have to be solved by some members. These would be randomized genuine puzzles, like the safe-cracking in Mass Effect 2, so you actually have to figure them out every time.
• Dynamically spawned adds. Not just a fixed amount of ambushes, but reinforcements spawning if the engine notices somehow that the fight is going easy. Kind of an auto-adjust of rep inside the mission.
• More coordinated actions. Two people on either side of the map have to flip a switch at the same time, in order to turn off a force field in the middle of the map for five seconds. Or even, one switch is flipped for ten seconds. When both are on, the force field is off. The better the two players can coordinate themselves, the longer they can have the field open to allow passage. Add defenses that their team mates have to take care off, so that the switch-flipper is not interrupted while flipping.
• Branching missions. Currently, missions are mostly linear, and if you fail at one point, either the whole chain fails (in trials, for instance) or nothing happens and the failure is handwaved away and you get less rewards (most mission chains). What I would like to see is branching. If you succeed, then this happens; if not, something else happens. You manage to stop the goliath; good, now take the fight to Praetoria. You failed? Shucks, you have to rush to somewhere else to fend off the invasion.

In fact, I would like to see a lot of these in regular missions and task forces.

In one way, yes; in another, no.

Purely visually, yes, the environment changed. It now has little flies/gaseous tendrils/sparks/whatever in it that wasn't there before. However, visual stuff is just that: visual stuff. It doesn't affect the game in any other way.

Heck, even walking is more powerful. Not only are you visually at another position, so is your collision box. Anyone who previously tried to walk at your old position and failed will now succeed; anyone tho previously walked where you are now standing will now fail. Not only the visual appearance of the game world has changed, but also the virtual physical reality of it. And you did it!

Auras doesn't affect the game's physical reality in any way. It just looks cool, and it gives you bragging rights. But that's all.

The argument from the trial lovers goes "you have to work for your reward". Also known as "you have to do X to get Y" or the "go to bed without dinner" argument.

What I'm trying to convey is that I don't mind having to work for the rewards, as long as it isn't grinding. I don't need the rewards now, but I need another way of getting them that doesn't involve grinding 3 x 30 minutes of trials. I want alternative paths. Other things to do that's not grinding trials, and still progress as incarnate.

And the "bites" part is probably swenglish. It means that I don't buy into his argument about "do X to get Y", and I suspect that he won't buy my argument that I want alternative paths.

There isn't a challenge. It isn't hard to complete a trial. Really. Even I can complete them. It's mostly a matter of statistics and people actually listening to instructions rather than reading the forums. But the challenge is on the level of getting people to listen to instructions like "you, tank Recluse; you, heal the first guy; the rest take on the towers in this order. Go!"

The only "challenge" is to not get bored of grinding it before you're done. That isn't a challenge that I would want in this game - or any game. Boring games are failed games. On top of that, it's a meta challenge, not an in-game challenge.

Personally, I wouldn't want a solo option specifically. I would like something that plays just like the regular non-trial content. Some players would be able to solo it, sure, and they're welcome to it.

One option is to say that +4/+8 rep would count as Incarnate content, and add some of the rewards to the regular content's reward tables if those conditions are met. The Merits and possibly the Very Rare drops can be kept at the trials. This would be similar to Comicsluvr's proposal.

A variant would be to have Incarnate Stuff as an optional setting to task/strike forces. It could play pretty much by the same rules as above. It would still be several times as much content as the current trials, and some of it would actually have incarnates in it (as opposed to the incarnate trials which don't, but have a minion to a incarnate in two of them, and the robots made by an incarnate in one).

No, it actually works like this: "I have a barcode on my chest. And I can swoon. That means that one of my characters have grinded Incarnate content. I has bragging rights!!! Fear me!!!"

Of course you don't. You like the trials, so you don't see it my way.

Which is why you have to modify the analogy to make it reflect your point of view. That point of view is not my point of view, so from my point of view, your analogy don't hold.

However, your analogy shows how you feel about the whole business, and I will respect that point of view. But, and here's the big but, it doesn't show how I feel about the "do X to get Y" arguments or "learn to like it, because more is coming" arguments, and it certainly doesn't show what I feel about grinding trials.

Please, continue to enjoy spinach.

The "eat your spinach or go to bed early" argument still won't convince me. Nor make me any happier.

And do you know why? It's because that's a chore. Games are supposed to be fun, not a chore.

If it had been that I had to do X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, X8, X9 or X10, or a combination of those involving similar amount of play, then I could possibly accept doing that to get Y.

If you think it's fun, then by all means, enjoy it, but don't expect me to. And don't expect that the "do X to get Y" argument bites on me anymore than the "can't we at least have an option to do X2, X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, X8, X9 or X10 instead?" bites on you.

The earlier raids was not the only means of progression. Well, Hamidon was to a certain extent, if you regard the Hamidon Origin Enhancements as progress. Rikti Mothership was a source for Vanguard Merits, but not the only source (you could get them for simply slaying Rikti anywhere). And Cathedral of Pain could give your supergroup an Item of Power for a few days, until the trial was shut down for a few years until it returned without the Item of Power. The trials also could give you a badge, but aside from that, squat progression.

You can progress in several ways for the last ten levels. You can raid. You can do task forces. You can do story missions. You can do paper or radio missions. You can do MA missions. You can run around aimlessly killing stuff in zones.

The only viable way to progress post 50 (I don't think that spending on the order of a year to just convert the thousands of needed shards, provided you have them, as a viable way) is Incarnate Trials.

Hence, post-50 progression is a raiding game.

We don't know yet if these shiny non-incarnate stuff will be available for Paragon Points. On the contrary, it has been said that the content was gated as an incentive for non-trial-grinders to grind the trials. Until a redname confirms it, I regard the prospect of shinies in the Paragon Store as wishful thinking.

It's possible, yes. It's also possible that the devs would make a moon base map some time in the future.

But I wouldn't rely on that possibility. Until a redname confirms the costume/aura items in the Paragon Store, or the moonbase map, I will consider them wishful thinking.

It might have to do with situational bias. When you trial, you often play with trial-liking people. Hence no complaints. When you don't trial, even if you play with trial-hating people, you don't trial, and hence there is nothing for the haters to complain about. Hence no complaints.

Here these two groups meet. Here these two groups have a sense of reaching the devs with their opinions. So here you get the complaints.

I don't mind people liking trials. Heck, for all I care, they can play their trials until their eyes bleed. Please do! I mean it, trial to your heart's content! Do it! Love, man, and peace!

What I don't like is the gating and the grinding. I don't like obviously non-incarnate content (swooning emote?) being locked behind incarnate trials. I'm not particularly fond of the idea of grinding at all, for whatever the reason. Hence, grinding to unlock gated content is something I really really really don't like.

There are two arguments against this point of view. One is the "go to bed without dinner" argument: you have to do the trials to get the reward and it's your choice to do it or not. And here is the problem with that argument: it isn't a particularly good choice.

I like cake, I want to have some cake for dessert. If I am to have that cake, I have to eat my dinner. That's not the problem: the problem is that the dinner is spinach, and I hate spinach. I'm never forced to eat the spinach, but if I don't eat it I have to go to bed hungry, grumpy and angry at my parents who serve the food I hate on purpose to cater for my dieting older darling sister - who, by the way, cares nothing of the cake, because she's on a diet.

If there was any other option to spinach, even carrots, I wouldn't have a problem. But now there isn't. There are only two choices: eat the spinach and get the cake, or go to bed hungry.

But it is my choice, I give you that.

So I choose to go to bed hungry, grumpy and angry.

The second choice is the "shut up and eat it" argument. It goes like this: trials are fun and the devs like them, so you better get used to it and learn to like it as well.

Spinach is good for you, and your sister likes it, so shut up and eat it.

Yay. That makes me so much more happy. Combined with the "go to bed without dinner" argument, it seriously makes me consider to run away from home to Auntie May, who at least knows the benefit of a varied diet.

--

And there you have my beef. I don't like gated content, and I don't like grind. And the "go to bed without dinner" argument and the "shut up and eat it" argument really doesn't make me like gated content or grinds. At best it makes me angry.

Because @Shadow Kitty. looks ugly.

If any Euros would like to take part in ze big splat, that's 23:00 UTC, or Sat May 28th 00:00 BST, or Sat May 28th 01:00 CEST.

Rednames, you should really look into an automatic time zone conversion feature for the forum. It makes event thingies like these SOOOOO much easier to communicate now that we're supposed to play with people on the other side of the pond.