baron_inferno

Have you played it? CoH only beat it by 2 years so not a huge difference in longevity. There are also a lot of shared similarities. The vast majority of content in both games are instanced, repeatable, and that includes the end game content. They are both easy to level in and are alt friendly. Loot generation for each individual player are determined by the RNG for the most part. They both have relatively short travel time. Both games have a end game raid system that involves at the most 2-3 groups as opposed to 100 character zerg rushes. They both have themes that appeal to a certain old and established segment of the general gaming population.

Now there are also some differences between the two. That game has a gated end game system as in to gain access to a raid, you have to do the sometimes irritating pre-req quests first. It also has item decay which can get very frustrating when it comes to certain creatures. Being a fantasy MMO where the armor you wear dictates how you look, it also lacks the cosmetic touches/variety of CoH. Those differences in features is why I left that game.

It's the one that's based on a 40 years old pen & paper table top RPG system. It was highly hyped back in 2005 before its launch in 2006. Another hint would be, it uses 4th edition rules of the said PnP system (or was it 3.5? forgot).

Erm, none of the MMOs I've played before (5 of them actually) involved paying real money for booster packs, temp powers, character slots, etc. Expansion packs not included. If you want to know which ones, I can PM you. Maybe these games have changed since then but I'm just speaking from my own experience.

True and that's why I said it's only inching, not a full out sprint. Once a game actually starts charging for access additional core content and other important advancement features, it has reached a point of no return on the path to F2P.

I'm not going to take sides on this F2P business because I don't care either way, however I am going to call BS on this. A game I used to play (hint: it is based on an old PnP system) that started out as subscription only then converted to a hybrid F2P/subscription system 2 years ago. This same game which at one point in 2008 had only about 20-30k population (1/10th of its 2006 launch numbers) all the sudden spiked up to over a million in less than a year. Players who bought subscription also doubled that of the pre-conversion era. Revenue (most of it generated from store transactions) jumped 500%. And from first hand experience, the graphics of that game is better than CoH, mostly because it is newer. The game play is a bit more frustrating than CoH and it is just as repetitive. Content level is about the same but it definitely has more end game content.

Now this doesn't mean F2P will work out for CoH nor does it mean that CoH should convert to a hybrid plan, at least not yet. The only thing I'm saying is that F2P *could* work for a MMO if it is implemented correctly. It is essentially a plan that allows you to buy only what you want/need which is quite common in a lot of other retail segments. However, if that becomes to chosen business model, it absolutely can not give the impression that the customers are being nickled and dimed for every little feature. That type of business model which is common to a lot of games that started as F2P right off the bat will turn off a lot of potential customers. Fact of the matter is, as products age and revenues decline, companies have to look to other revenue generating models or be forced to shut the product line down. You don't need a MBA to know this, just a semester in any business school would suffice. In any case, CoH is not at that point yet (assuming it ever gets there) but *if* the time does come, I have no doubt F2P will be on the table.

Edit: In case you guys haven't noticed, CoH has already taken on a lot of characteristics that are common to F2P games. Pay additional money for more character slots. Pay additional money for special costumes. Pay additional money to gain extra powers for your characters. About the only thing we're missing is paying money to gain access to certain classes/ATs and additional content. We are inching closer to F2P than most would care to admit and frankly, I'm a bit surprised more people haven't spoken up about this trend yet.

This part is wrong too. A conversion to F2P would be about attracting new customers who *may* then become long term customers. Retaining the existing customer base take a back seat to that, as sad as that may sound. After all, if the old customer base was enough to maintain the profitability and sustainability targets, why even consider a change in the revenue model? Attracting foot traffic is a principle that is common to a lot of retail sectors. Companies are *always* looking for new ways to bring new customers through their doors by offering free this, free that, bonus for signing up, etc etc. You have probably taken that very bait multiple times in your own life. It is only after the customer is hooked on the company's product do they started getting charged for additional services/add-on products. Is this the right way to do business? I don't know. Sometimes I get irked by it, sometimes I don't. However, it is still an effective and proven sales strategy.

That depends. While they both definitely hit the individual participation threshold to make sure they don't get 10 threads, there's the also the league performance threshold to consider. You could interpret it as their league performance level wasn't quite up to snuff when compared to say, a near full league. Maybe they died more. Maybe they didn't take down Marauder before he hit unstoppable. Maybe they didn't clear the sabotage phase with 5 minutes to spare. Maybe it wasn't synchronized. It can be interpreted both ways. Without knowing how league performance is measured, you can't be certain that it isn't somehow influencing the rolls in an unintended fashion. For that reason, you can't just say "oh but, random is random and that's that". That's my point.

I saw people say in this thread that randomness can be proven scientifically. Fair enough but here's another scientific fact. When involved in a scientific theory, experiment, whatever, the more uncontrolled variables you introduce into an equation thereby increasing it's overall complexity, the more potential it has to cause errors in the final result. In layman's terms, first we started with a end reward system that's solely based on the RNG. Then we added an individual participation measurement system which involves X amount of criteria. After that, we added a league performance index which involves another set of criteria. Oh yeah, nothing could go wrong as we added more layers *wink wink*.

Look, I'm not trying to start a conspiracy theory here. I'm just pointing out the obvious because such errors *has* already happened once before. The precedence *has* been set. To put that much faith into a system with that many variables without any questions or even a sliver of doubt is, for lack of a better word, naive.

Don't forget the over abundance of mobs that can stack a whole of def debuff on you and your pets very quickly.

No. What's unfair is unfair. As I have mentioned in my previous post, I led 7 BAF runs 2 nights ago on my AR/Kin Corr and walked away with 5 rares/very rares and 2 uncommons. A good number of players stuck around for multiple runs, with some doing all 7 because it was a really good and social league. We didn't leak runners (except for 1 or 2 runs) and NS/Siege always went down on their first tandem spawn. Everyone participated but some people just could not get anything above uncommon. After a few runs I just stopped announcing my end rewards in league chat because I felt bad for them. Heck, if there was an option to trade incarnate components, I would have.

Anyone who was on the "Les Fembot" leagues 2 nights ago on Freedom can testify what my account of the night is 100% accurate.

Not to nitpick but having to do that kind of defeats the purpose of the LFG tool, doesn't it?

That's what I'm saying though. A system that's weighted which also includes some pre-set criterias to determine whether you qualify for a random roll assuming that's *really* how the system works) isn't really that random at all.

The more characters I take through the trials, the less I'm convinced the system is completely random once you surpass the minimal participation (10 threads) threshold. My latest character, a AR/Kin Corr has done about 16 trial runs so far. She has 4 very rares, 7 rares, no commons/threads and the rest uncommons. Two nights ago while I was on this character doing some BAF runs, there were 2 other people (Def and Brute) who were also complaining about how they can't stop getting rares and very rares. Honestly, what is the statistical probability of that?

My Stoner is my toughest brute. He just never dies except when dealing with a lot of Psi damage mobs. However, it is also my least favorite brute because it is quite boring to play. I'm a very active player as I am constantly moving and shifting my position in combat and Granite form limits that.

For the record, I didn't complain about the repetitive nature of the end game system. In actuality, I have rather high tolerance for such things. Still, having to do 100 trials on a single character (over however long period of time) would be seriously pushing my patience threshold.

I just don't necessarily agree with the opinion that the system is really as random as described. While I personally have not be an *extreme* victim of participation system bias or unlucky streak, whatever you want to call it, I could understand why some people would be frustrated.

I have a couple of billions inf spread out amongst several characters so I could technically buy my way out of any bad dice rolls (so to speak) for several level 50s, let's say 4-5. That is, until I have to take into account the other 13-14 level 50's I have. From a numbers standpoint, it is still not much of an option for me if I happen to get on an unlucky streak on several characters.

It's true that the E merit system do benefit alt heavy players though I haven't really had to go that route yet. I just haven't had much trouble with getting rares/very rares with my level 50s, except for one glaring exception. My MM has done about 30ish trial runs with only 2 rares to show for it (one of them was from MoBAF badge). This is after I've even tried running 16 player BAFs exclusively and gets nothing but uncommons while such approach normally nets me rares or very rares on other characters (Brutes/Corrs/Doms/VEATs). If the current trend continue, in order for my MM to slot some tier 4s, collecting E merits or spending inf for upgrades might be the only options left. It just kind of peeves me that for some reason, a supposedly "random" system is working for all (11 so far) except this one character of mine.

Considering the sequence of conversation I was commenting on, specifically the part about running 200 trials, the number I threw out there falls well within that parameter. I know it was a hyperbolic example but it was done to show that relying on E merit as the primary method to acquire Tier 4s is simply unrealistic. I would imagine most people would rather uninstall CoX as opposed to dealing with doing the 2 trials 100 times just to equip one character with Tier 4s, much less 200 repeats.

Let's not also forget the inf cost of these *upgrades*. Whether it is spending 400 million on one very rare of 1.6 billion for all four, the cost precludes many players from even considering that route. Certainly not if they have multiple level 50's to outfit with these new incarnate abilities.

Relying on E merits to get you the rares and very rares is unreasonable. It will take 184 E merits to get the 8 rares and 4 very rares required to get all 4 slots upgrade to Tier 4 abilities. That translates to 3 months of doing the 2 trials once per day or you'd have to complete a whole lot "Master of" trial runs which each individual player have quite little control over.

It's better to have a built in streak breaker just like the to hit rolls. For example, it can keep track of the past 20 trial completions by a particular character. If he(she) has gotten nothing but common/uncommons/threads, the next completion will automatically award either a rare or very rare table(50/50 chance) as the end reward option.

Actually for all we know, something like this could have already been implemented.

Electric Armor also gets the benefit of being quite tough when going up against the energy damage heavy Praetorian such as IDF, Warworks, etc.