paynesgrey

See above. I expect it to still be slower, just without the ridiculous disparity that there was before.

To clarify, it's one thing to make teaming more exciting and rewarding... but the way Incarnate's solo progress was laid out it was "you can solo your way along, but we're going to work hard to make sure it sucks so bad you'll quit or start teaming." I like encouragement, I don't like strongarming. I know they just wanted to get people to try PuGs, but the approach was like trying to get solo/duo/trio players to try kissing sweaty fat man. I don't like sweaty fat man. I don't want to kiss him. And insisting that I might like it if I tried it, or I can only drink non-alcoholic beer all night is going to make me leave the club rather than pucker up for the PuG.

Depending on the drop/reward rates, I'm hopeful i22 will make playing my 50 worth my time once more. What people have told me about it is encouraging, but then again, they would have had to struggle to make the experience more unpleasant. CoX was always one of the better games for being friendly to people like me, who generally either solo or play with one or two friends.

So I'm very, very hopeful that Issue 22 and the new Dark Astoria will see a return to that mindset.

*Fingers crossed, credit card ready and waiting.*

Just to be clear, I never expected or asked for solo progress to be better than team progress.

I just didn't like the absolutely, positively entarded disparity that existed then.

From what I'm hearing about the new Dark Astoria courtesy of Golden Girl and Agent White, Issue 22 sounds like it'll make it worthwhile for solo/duo/trio players to pursue Incarnate progress. Which gives me a big old happy.

Just out of curiosity, did I at any point say anything implying that, or are you just responding to something I didn't even write?

I'm talking about the choice between PuG....errr.... Trials or quit your job to grind that was pitched as the "solo progress" last summer. (If it's improved since then and I didn't know, then that's just delightful.)

A non-issue since you've already kindly answered my question about Dark Astoria's solo/duo-ability to progress, over in another thread.

Thanks for the link, but I already checked that page out.

Remember the "we have a path to solo-incarnate progress! You just have to do task forces to unlock it, then grind until your retarded from it." That announcement promised some love for solo/small team players looking to progress but worked out to "Oh, you don't need to sit in the back of the bus, you can stand in the aisle. In the back of the bus." So I'm a little cynical as to how useful/worthwhile it'll actually turn out to be. There's a limit to how many times I'll pick up the soap for the developers, no matter how much I like the game.

The new zone is a hopeful sign, but before I get my hopes up, I'll need to see

1) Is it a zone where you can actually accomplish anything worthwhile solo or in a duo/trio

2) Will drop rates/incarnate mission rewards be a significant improvement over the Incarnate: City of Farmville?

And if it is, then I fully expect the howls of the "the solo players ruined my game!" to crack the skys. Which is always funny.

Preach it. I've not logged into CoX for nearly a year because I couldn't make any meaningful progress on my Incarnate solo or with a friend or two. The fact that I have friends, activities, and, yes, conjugal relations with a lady (a live, real, human, female one who doesn't make me pay her, unless you count taking out the trash and otherwise not pissing her off at me) mean I don't have time to be a Serious Proper Raiding Player or to grind like a hive drone.

So I play games where I can solo at will, or team with a friend or two. Of course, the City of Farmville adherents will get their knickers in a twist and get to shrieking that "I just want to get everything for easy free, solo," or, my favorite, 'What part of 'MULTI' don't you understand," etc... their usual scat spitting.

I don't want everything free, and I do team with friends, frequently. It's just that I'm usually teaming with one to three other people. I just don't want to rely on PuGs, preferring the company of a few people who I actually know and like, who may or may not be available to play when I am. I team with people I'd be willing to have over to my house for a beer, not people who need the developers to strongarm me into grouping with them.

The fact that this is a game where the Devs have learned to respond to player wishes (contrasted with EQ1 back in the old days of We'll Tell You What You Like) is one of the reasons I keep coming back to CoX. It's also the reason I even bother with feedback or posting on issues like this. Wouldnt' waste my time if I thought they were routinely going to ignore community feedback. The Devs do actually listen, and that's something I appreciate and recognize. I'm certainly not claiming Incarnate Solo/small team content isn't coming. I'm just saying I'm not going to be impressed and grateful with it until I can actually use it.

Although honestly, I can see how some people would be suspicious on this topic given that the "solobility and end game thread" was hammered shut with a rather abrupt "We really appreciate feedback, now shut the hell up and stop providing feedback because we really don't want any more." Doesn't exactly generate a sense of "we're willing to listen." Still, despite that incident, I'd say that given CoX's history of improvement and new content as well as the efforts to maintain a solo-small group friendly system in the past, I do personally expect that they're being sincere with us.

(I suspect the fact that the devs actually do listen is why our more vehement "NAAAAAAOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Don't Let The Whiners get anything except how I like to play! NAOOOO! They're not entitled to have their fun like I am!" kids get so outraged at members expressing a desire for more solo or small group content. They seem to feel they're somehow losing something if another person gets something they want and are thus frigthened by customer feeback that the devs might act on to improve the game for people with other tastes.)

I know. Radical, non-forum standard thinking. Instead of having a fit if other people aren't forced to adapt to my preferred playstyle or feeling threatened and offended that others have different tastes and then raging because they shouldn't oughta be allowed to want things other than what the Devs provide... I get begin to lose interest in a game when I personally can't play in the fashion I enjoy. I mean, I could stay up nights losing sleep and chewing my toenails in geek rage at the thought of other people getting what they want even when it's not at my expense, but just can't work up the rage. I'm content to just say "eh, this isn't doing it for me any more, hopefully they'll bring the stuff I like up to par sooner rather than later, because I'd really like to get into this Incarnate thing."

They'll take my internet arguementation license away, won't they?

I've pretty much gotten bored with my alts and don't feel like grindgrindgrinding on my 50's. And I'm never, ever, going to be desperate enough to play any game to suddenly LRN2TEEM and embrace Pick Up Task...er, Groups. So I'll probably unplug my account for a while. Not some righteous rage quit full of wrath and foot stomping, I'll leave that to Jeste when solo players "ruin" his game be being allowed to, well, accomplish something efficiently solo again. I've taken breaks from CoX before when it got stale and always come back when the issues that bugged me were fixed or when interesting new content came out. But in the meantime, why pay money for something that's currently catering to other parts of the fanbase and leaving my plate empty? It gives me a sad, because Incarnate has a lot of potential, but it's not going to ruin my life to play other games for a few months.

When, *if* solo/small group Incarnate content gets here, then I'll be happy. Thrilled. Delighted even. Until then, well, if you hold what's "being considered for implementation" in one hand, and rummage in the litter box with the other, guess which one fills up first?

In the meantime, solo and small group players are graciously permitted to farm Moss Snakes or learn to change their playstyle to City of Farmville.

Yet solo-friendly is something so many MMO's... including CoX... have found to be an attractive feature that makes them money, lets them keep a larger player base. I think it's fair to say that more people would quit an MMO because they couldn't solo when they felt like it than would quit because they knew that somewhere out there, other players were soloing and having fun instead of playing in a group all the time. I mean, how many people ragequit and leave with a post along the lines of "I saw this level 50 guy today in Wentworths, and I don't think he hardly ever teamed or did a raid! People shouldn't oughta be allowed to solo too much! I quit!!!"


I've read the devs might possibly, if they get around to it, maybe perhaps consider expanding Incarnate to make it more useful for solo and small group players like myself, my wife and our friends, if that's the case then I'll be quite thrilled. Do a happy dance. Get that feeling of anticipation and excitement like when Going Rogue came out. So yeah, I'll credit it when it happens. But in the meantime, it's like paying for a cable subscription for XYZ months before the installers arrive to actually hook you up. "It'll have a whole big buncha channels if we ever get your neighborhood connected...."

Wow. We're so fortunate to have an official spokesman from The Fun Police here to tell us what we are and are not allowed to desire in recreation. All these years, I thought I was paying subscriptions to play what and how I liked, I had no idea I was paying to be permitted to enjoy only those things you deem Acceptable Gaming Activities.

Do you have any helpful instruction on what I should desire in books, music, or movies? I'd hate to hope for something and learn it's an item on your Forbidden List.

First off, On a personal note, I'd like to apologize for the tone I took with you earlier. I honestly did have the impression you were just trying to blow smoke over what I view as a Dev decision to choke solo players into submission. I quite frankly irritated at the "Solo players is crybabies who want everything for free mentality some here display", and I was reading your posts as simply a more eloquent version of "LRN 2TEEM OR U SUX GO AWAY." That was unfair of me, and I apologize.

Back to the argueing.

Inequity Aversion works both ways. How do you expect someone who mainly solos to look at Extra More Bigger Super Bonus Reward Just For Being A Joiner?

The solo player sees that the simple act joining a team is now what devs are seeking to reward, that Joining is now the primary focus of content design. Team members earn extra awards in the form of increased drop rates, lucrative content accessible only through joining a team, on top of that extra, more favorable team bonuses to experience and loot. Preferential rewards that go above and beyond the increased synergy found when teaming, the increased efficiency that cooperation naturally brings. At this point, the game is no longer about fighting this or that, completing stories and missions, it's about Joining.

Missions, stories, fights, all become little more than means of facilitating the preferred, encouraged action of Joining a team. Not "Let's make a game for people to fight monsters and experience these stories" but "Let's make a game where people Join!"

Farmville with better graphics.

I dispute the claim that there is some inherent "inequity" in a solo player getting slot XYZ after playing a similar number of hours that a team player does, outside the general increase in efficiency team players create for themselves. He didn't diminish the fun they have teaming, he didn't make their team less efficient. He didn't gobble up drops that they would have gotten instead or otherwise use resources they needed. The player who looks over and realizes someone else played all weekend solo and made similar progress but is upset by that is really just going Dog In Manger. I would say the same of a soloer who is upset that teams are by their very nature more efficient, or when it comes to things like Raid Loot in the form of gear, rather than Advancement capability as it is in the Incarnate system.

When the discrepency is great as it is in the Incarnate system, why should solo players stick around once they're bored with alts? "Ah, another one at 50. Yay. None of my friends are going to be on this weekend, so I can grind all day or roll another alt. I wonder if anybody else has a new game out..." Personally, I've got enough alts that I'll have plenty to do until my friends are on and I feel like teaming... but I really, really dislike knowing that I can't make any meaningful progress on my 50 outside Joining or doing a tardhaus grind. It's meet the New Content, Same As The Old Content as far as soloability goes, just with some new stickers on the box.

There is an inherent "Inequity" because the game is now simply about Joining rather than playing. I'm happy to allow for the fact that groups kill things faster, except when the cost of advancing is artificially increased for the sole purpose of making grouping the only efficient way to do it. When I join a team, it's because I know and like those particular people, not because the Devs want me to team or feel that the simple act of Joining should get extra reward.

I differentiate between "rewards" and "ability to advance."

When the reward is prestige uber prplz leet gear or heaps of money, I expect there to be a disparity between casual and hardcore. I don't expect to play for 20 minutes and have a Goblin Fart Slave to drop the Glorious Death Hammer of I Win and 3 Helmet's Of Lazer Eye Deathbeams. But I'm not interested in having to play 40 hours to advance my character as far as a teamed player could in 4 hours.

The Incarnate system is supposed to be new content for character advancement, what really works out to be a new, if branched, level cap. If you're a 50, there's nothing else to do but raid or TF. Incarnate could make 50's worth playing again, instead of just being a pile of More Raids and TFs For People Who Group Anyway.

See, this I can live with. Advancement being comparable to the rate for teamers. Not "easier" or "faster", not "handed to me on a silver platter" as taser likes to pretend. I want the Incarnate system to be inclusive, of equal pleasure and benefit to both team players and solo players, not exclusionary favoring one over the other.

(Although in some people's minds, if a system is inclusive to other playstyles, they feel somehow they've been cheated themselves.)

Then are you saying that the TF content just isn't good enough to draw teamers? That team play missions just aren't able to compete with solo'ers? They've made solo-friendly adjustments on a number of occassions, and people said it would kill the game because nobody would team any more. The defender solo bonus, difficulty slider, and ability to drop missions all come to mind. Mission Architect was denounced as a Team Killer too, because people could design and play solo oriented missions.

"We just can't get enough people to team and do a TF if we allow solo'ers their route."


I was under the impression most people liked teaming to some extent or other, and weren't so wrapped up in charging the level cap as quickly as possible. If that's the only reason people are teaming, then the problem is the quality of the team content. Of course, from a dev standpoint it is easier to throw extra rewards at teamers, and penalties at soloers, than it is to really hammer out more good content for both.

So you're basically saying that the Devs must ensure team players have preferential treatment, or they'll all rage quit if they see solo players getting comparable Incarnate drops through additional solo-friendly incarnate arcs. That the knowledge of solo players adavancing at the same rate will drive away everyone who likes to team. (Even though most players will actually bounce back and forth between the two depending on their mood or how much time they have that particular day.)

"What? They made a story arc that someone can solo and get Incarnate salvage? I... I can't.... I have to cancel now! NOAAAAW! I can't play this game if they can just play different content geared towards they're play style! This Slot is dead to me if a solo player can get it a week like me, instead of a month! I'm going to go play Farmville, where the developers undertand that social interactions are what MMO's are for, not a customizable individual experience where people can solo or team as they wish and still progress...I feel so used and dirty...solo... got slots..."

It's odd. I though CoX and another of other gamges had been succeeding by addressing the desires of both communities, by making sure solo players had plenty to do, plenty to advance with while also seeing to it that team and raid fans had their own material to work with. I thought More Content For Every Playstyle was an idea that had been working out well, I had no idea so many team players were quitting because solo'ers were doing their own thing.

Agreed on both counts.

Now this is something new I've learned. Maybe because I've not done a task force since The Bad Old Days, I still think of task forces as an hour spent waiting for a tank, then a healer, then stopping in the middle for an half hour to replace someone who had to leave, with a few hours of missioney stuff mixed in. I remember TFs being an all day nightmare of irritation. An hour and change fits into the time I can set aside for Uninterupted Gaming.

Barring wife aggro and dog peeing.

Twisting your words? You're the master of projection here, claiming we want the game to cater to us and only us, that we want things for free. Evading inconvenient points and racking up an impressive phalanx of straw men. We're perfectly happy to let you get your incarate however you like, you're the one having a hissyfit at solo players "ruining the game."

Solo-friendly arcs dropping incarnate salvage is a fine answer, it's just one you don't like because solo players could then advance at a comparable pace which somehow diminishes your enjoyment of the game. More work for the devs, writing more missions and the like, but that's what we pay subscriptions for.

Make the drops available without requiring an EB or AV fight. It's not like people can sell them in the auction house, so even if someone is farming them via repeat grindhouse it won't "screw up the economy." It'll just mean somebody else got their incarnate stuff in a way you don't like. I don't like the repeat mission grind, but it's no skin off my nose if someone else does. I'm not going to see someone incarnate slotted walk past and then encrappen my trousers in rage shrieking "He just grinded for that! He didn't play like I do!" I'm going to say "eh, whatever, he didn't take anyone else's opportunities away, didn't screw with anybody's game, it's his business."

Depends on how much shorter. Bent maybe. But I'd have to know the ratio to really give you an opinion.

Group, you have less downtime and can get some pretty impressive synergy between complementary builds and classes. Missions completed faster, monsters killed faster, etc. Relying on that to make leveling faster I have no problem with. Scrapper playing Knockup Skeet with the Blaster is always great fun. Dovetailing powers, powers that are more effective hen your teamed are fine too. (I can always pick other powers, after all, for a solo build, and have those in my team build.) That is what should encourage grouping, not reliance on Bonus Extry Experience and Loot Just Plain For Grouping. Make grouping more rewarding because groups are more effective is fine, not by just throwing more experience, loot, and influence at people just because they group.

I'm willing to compromise to an extent, just not the extent that those holding the "Solo Will Kill The Game" crowd demands.