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I've had some discussions with the team yesterday about what we could do instead, and still keep the flavor of the four pool system, because having the extra three pools allows us to not only reward risk/reward, but time/reward as well.
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Let us go back and redo the arcs!!
Forget Jack and his stupid ideas about whether or not all the content should be experienced by one lone character and let us go back with our level 50 Characters and redo the arcs that we missed as well as do the arcs over again.
Give us the damn content!
Brother of Markus
The Lord of Fire and Pain
The Legendary Living Hellfire
Fight my brute!
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So, why not just add in a level 50 Arc that can be repeated as many times as you like.
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Or just remove the Story Arc pool from the last levels in exactly the same way as the Trial pool is removed from the first levels!
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That would only make things worse. People with shelved 50s still wouldn't be able to get it, and now anybody 45+ wouldn't.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. --- Thomas Jefferson
Formerly known as YFNDBA
Minus 1 billion coolness points for not calling the thread Drops II: Electric Boogaloo. 
Still, good info, and clears up a lot for me. I would like to hear about any plans for retroactive drops, but from the tone of your response I think it's not going to happen.
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
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* Not every level has all four pools (early levels don't have Pool D, the Trial pool)
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Well, in THAT case...
... why not just remove the Story Arc pool from levels 45-50, and assign all the relevant rewards to trials and TFs, since level 45-50 characters can do ANY trial or TF from anywhere in the game?
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Or add some repeatable arcs or something to the 45+ game.
Something. Anything. Otherwise, there's no point to playing a character right now for fear of missing something and outlevelling da kewl loot.
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Adding Story Arc drops to Safeguards and Mayhem missions maybe?
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That would only make things worse. People with shelved 50s still wouldn't be able to get it, and now anybody 45+ wouldn't.
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No. Remove the pool in the sense that anything that would have been in that pool is now in the Trial or TF pool instead.
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Doc, can we get a little clarification on "what parts" you are referring to that are only dropped by Story Arcs, Trials and Task Forces?
Are the "Parts of a set" each a different, exclusive part in the story arcs, trials and task/strike forces?
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From what I understood, if a set is a 5 piece set, you can get something like enough recipes for 4 of those sets by beating stuff up, but the recipe fo the fifth piece might be harder.
This would allow people to collect pieces of the set rather easily (thus getting some of the bonuses), but completing the set much trickier.
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Well that is the case for *some* of the sets.
* The majority of sets are available exclusively through defeating enemies. This means that all the pieces of the set are attainable by beating up things.
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And I would argue that NONE of the sets should be this way. As it unfairly punishes 50s, for whom Inventions was mentioned as a way to improve without raising the lvl cap.
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Can you or can you not improve your 50 without the storyarc IOs?
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Not the way that the devs explained the Inventions system wotuld work.
The idea was that you could basically keep improving your 50 as being equal to them keeping increasing the lvl cap.
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So you're saying that your 50 won't be able to use any IOs just because you're out of storyarcs?
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You misunderstand me. If I'm reading DOC right, there are certain IO sets you won't be able to get (and thus the overall character bonuses) if you are out of arcs. Some 50s have NO ARCS LEFT, thus are locked out of those SET BONUSES. For 50s the individula IOs are basically nothing, however the TOTAL SET BONUSES are the real way of advancement.
There is a picture of Manticore on TEST that shows what is possible with Set Bonuses. I will have to find it and post it.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
QR
Pool Arc, Pool Trial, and Pool TF are great REWARDS, BONUSES, but should be only that, a bonus. Not exclusive to that content. If you want a Pool Arc drop, the best way to get it is to run story arcs, However, those same drops should still drop in the regular drop population for those people that can no longer run arcs and for those people that do not wish to ever run arcs. Trading is a good start, but it will not be enough. Get out of the Elite Loot mentality already.
The rares should be available, but rare, in all drops, ALL. So you are not pushing content on people that don't want that type of content, be it Pool A, B, C, or D content.
L50's are still out of luck, or at least severely and unfarily limited, for the story pool.
Further problems if there's exclusivity, ie L35 rare trial recipe won't drop in level 50 trial. etc.
Better, but I still see major headaches in our future.
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Seems a lot of people are worried about 50's not having any Arcs to do. Thus missing out on one of the four ways to get IO's.
So, why not just add in a level 50 Arc that can be repeated as many times as you like. Maybe a few of them, the shadow shard would be a good place for that.
It'd give 50's more content. And a way to get Story Arc IO's
Just a thought
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More high level content is always a good thing. If we can't get flashback (or a way to unlock old arcs), I would love to see extra contacts and arcs added. It would give us something to do as well as a chance at the stroy arc recipes.
I don't think that this is a DOOOOM issue, really, but it would nice for it to be fair for everyone.
Level 50: Furlon the Grim, BS/Regen Scrapper, Virtue
Current creations:
Slaughterface, DB/Elec Brute
Captain Warhead, Rad/Rad Defender, Virtue
Capt. Scar, Arch/Ice Blaster
Global @ Capt. Scar
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Ack no EG I don't do TFs or Trials, but I do as many story arcs as I can before out leveling them. Your saying I can't get any of the rarer recipes?
grrrr.
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I don't do trials either. The time commiment just isn't something I can give. The last TF I was in was Positron... right after TF's were turned on... 8 or 9 hours and a numb butt later I swore never again. And yeah, I know not all trials are 8 or 9 hours long, great. Anyone wanna babysit two toddlers for me?
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Just so you know. The actual Trials shouldn't take longer than 1.5-2 hours each. Some can be cleared in as little as an hour if you know what you're doing. TFs depend a bit more on which one you're doing, but again, most can be done in 3-4 hours by a team that knows what it's doing.
Even Posi and the Shard TFs. It's obviously still a major commitment but if you're teamed with sane people, chances are noone will complain if you need to take out the occasional 10-15 minutes to address real world concerns. That's just the breaks, and people accept that in my experience.
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That's great. No, really, I'm not being sarcastic. It's just that toddlers don't stick to a schedule very well and it's hard to target stuff when they keep trying to make my character jump.
Without sounding anti-men, I really think it's a guy thing. Buttons, that is. Guys like buttons. Little ones like toys with buttons, older ones like bigger toys with buttons... like cars and boats... The little ones like cars and boats too, just Hot Wheels instead of Dodge.
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Much better system but think there should be a very small chance for to get stuff from other pools. Something like
Doing Pool A stuff 97% of the time you get Pool A; 1% from Pool B; 1% from Pool C; 1% from Pool D
Doing Pool B stuff 97% of the time you get Pool B; 1% from Pool A; 1% from Pool C; 1% from Pool D
Doing Pool C stuff 97% of the time you get Pool C; 1% from Pool A; 1% from Pool B; 1% from Pool D
Doing Pool D stuff 97% of the time you get Pool D; 1% from Pool A; 1% from Pool B; 1% from Pool C
This way you could always have a small chance to get something without having you "Must do X to get Y'.
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Now if this is what the Doc is actually saying I'm all for that.
EDIT: As I re-read what he posted, it sounds like that is what he is saying.
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I don't think he's saying that.
If he *is* saying that (and I'm misreading) then my response is: No.
Actually, not just no, it's... HELL no.
I don't want to run a TF and end up 1% of the time getting a drop I could have gotten killing Longbow on the street. if I run a TF I want a reward for running a TF. It's a huge time commitment, you need some guarantee of what that will yield.
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Would this work better for you? (Pool A is any monster)
Doing Pool A stuff 97% of the time you get Pool A; 1% from Pool B; 1% from Pool C; 1% from Pool D
Doing Pool B stuff 98% of the time you get Pool B; 1% from Pool C; 1% from Pool D
Doing Pool C stuff 98% of the time you get Pool C; 1% from Pool B; 1% from Pool D
Doing Pool D stuff 98% of the time you get Pool D; 1% from Pool B; 1% from Pool C
Since Pool A is always available since you have to defeat NPCs to Pool B, C and D.
This way if you want X from Pool D but hate doing pool D stuff you could do A or B or C. Doing pool D stuff has a much better chance but not exclusive, just very very hard for other groups.
This is a service-oriented business, and it's all
about keeping the player happy over the long term.
So you have to listen and pay attention. If a large
portion of your playerbase is screaming about
some change, you be wise to listen. - Raph Koster
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So, why not just add in a level 50 Arc that can be repeated as many times as you like.
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Or just remove the Story Arc pool from the last levels in exactly the same way as the Trial pool is removed from the first levels!
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Thats a pretty good idea. Keep the higher level drops to the 3 categories.
*sigh* I was so pro inventions/I9 now I'm pretty disappointed.
@Sunstroke
The Pillars of Might: http://pillarsofmight.guildportal.com
Hey doc, any chance you can give us rough numbers?
Like:
70% of complete sets can be obtained through beating stuff
10% of sets can only be completed with TF recipes
10% of sets can only be completed with story arcs recipes
10% of sets can only be completed with Trial recipes
This might shed some light on how much the high level characters are missing out.
Some examples of repeatable do-at-any-time content that could be used instead of Story Arcs:
<ul type="square">[*]Mayhem/Safeguard missions[*]Giant Monsters[*]Zone events (ghost ship, Steel Canyon fires)[/list]As much as I hate the idea of farming giant monsters for recipes, at least you can repeat it. Yes, repeatable means farmable, but I'd rather have that than ultra-exclusive-rare that you can only get by doing the last mission of a story arc. That should give you some idea how much I hate the idea of Story-Arc only rewards.
If you changed that pool to "Story Arcs or Monsters" then you'd reward both and still give 50s something to do.
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Doc, can we get a little clarification on "what parts" you are referring to that are only dropped by Story Arcs, Trials and Task Forces?
Are the "Parts of a set" each a different, exclusive part in the story arcs, trials and task/strike forces?
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From what I understood, if a set is a 5 piece set, you can get something like enough recipes for 4 of those sets by beating stuff up, but the recipe fo the fifth piece might be harder.
This would allow people to collect pieces of the set rather easily (thus getting some of the bonuses), but completing the set much trickier.
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Well that is the case for *some* of the sets.
* The majority of sets are available exclusively through defeating enemies. This means that all the pieces of the set are attainable by beating up things.
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And I would argue that NONE of the sets should be this way. As it unfairly punishes 50s, for whom Inventions was mentioned as a way to improve without raising the lvl cap.
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Can you or can you not improve your 50 without the storyarc IOs?
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Not the way that the devs explained the Inventions system wotuld work.
The idea was that you could basically keep improving your 50 as being equal to them keeping increasing the lvl cap.
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So you're saying that your 50 won't be able to use any IOs just because you're out of storyarcs?
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You misunderstand me. If I'm reading DOC right, there are certain IO sets you won't be able to get (and thus the overall character bonuses) if you are out of arcs. Some 50s have NO ARCS LEFT, thus are locked out of those SET BONUSES. For 50s the individula IOs are basically nothing, however the TOTAL SET BONUSES are the real way of advancement.
There is a picture of Manticore on TEST that shows what is possible with Set Bonuses. I will have to find it and post it.
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So you're missing out on 4 out of 300 sets. omg, dooooooooooooom.
I still don't see the problem.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. --- Thomas Jefferson
Formerly known as YFNDBA
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It's like I said, we are looking into other options that keeps the mechanic of the four pool system. Our intention is to not make people feel "gimped" for previously completing all their story arcs.
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FLASHBACK
It's not a difficult problem.
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But could be difficult to code.
If, however, they just gave Recipe Missions similar to Badge Missions that you had to exemp for ("manual flashback system" so to speak) then it's not anything new to code. Those Recipe Missions could be the last mission of every Arc, or could just be ANOTHER contact mission flagged as special - so you have Badge Missions, Arcs *and* Recipe Missions making people want to do even MORE content from each contact and not wanting to PL past them.
I don't know if it was mentioned, but I didn't see it anywhere..
Do the new drops work differently than current salvage, IE: to get salvage, you have to be in SG mode. which is lame in my opinion, since people not in SG's can't get salvage.
So please tell me that these new loot drops just drop like enhancements do and peoeple don't have to be in SG mode.
It would be nice if you changed it for normal salvage as well, since the majority of people I know drop out of SG mode around lvl 30 when it really starts cutting into your Infamy/Influence gains.
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Minus 1 billion coolness points for not calling the thread Drops II: Electric Boogaloo.
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I actually wanted to go with Drops II: Drops Harder
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So, why not just add in a level 50 Arc that can be repeated as many times as you like.
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Or just remove the Story Arc pool from the last levels in exactly the same way as the Trial pool is removed from the first levels!
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That's still unacceptable. Some of the early sets that don't exist at the high levels have added effect enhancers (like KB protection) that high levels need.
To my mind there are only two acceptable solutions:
Distribute story arc recipes to the general loot tables (they can still drop from the story arcs)
OR
Flashback.
Flashback is the best solution. Content for all, drops for all. No more outleveling nonsense. PUGs will do fine because people stop worrying about outleveling their content.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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* No specific anything is tied to doing anything specific. This means that completing ANY story arc in the level 20 to 25 range can get you a random rare recipe from Pool B. Defeating ANY entity (no matter if its a minion or a boss) can get you a random recipe from Pool A. This is done this way to ensure a more even distribution of recipes from that Pool. If defeating Archvillains always dropped a Rare, then someone would pull the old "farming AV" trick and suddenly that Rare is more common than Generic Damage Enhancements.
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Wow, just wow. The devs did a 180 on this issue. Not only are they telling us that we MUST finish SAs for the good loot, but now telling us its the only way to get the "rare" drops. I wonder what is going through the heads of these ppl.
Now this forces players to make new toons, and punishes ppl with multiple 50s. I need to be mission holder for the reward? So how will this be possible for a 50 to do if there is no "Flashback" system in place? This idea is greed on Cryptic's behalf. I understand you want to keep subscriptions running, but this isnt the way to go about it.
If I have a lvl 50 toon I want to focus on with loot and enhancing, why should I be forced to roll a new toon? Ive been playing the game since the beginning of I2, Ive done all the SAs 10 times over, now you want me to farm them on new toons?
The devs are dropping the ball on this one too. This is base raids all over again........
Hmm. OK, Doc, I see your point. But consider what this does to people in the end game, because there already aren't enough level 45 to 50 story arcs to go around.
Almost by definition, somebody who is level 50 has run out of story arcs. They can't go back and do them again. This cuts them completely out of being able to earn those pieces. Now, by definition they could just go ahead and buy the pieces they need. But if the pieces are tied to the level range of the story arc, it's not as if anybody who's level 45 to 50 and doing those story arcs is going to have any to spare, now, is it? Compare the number of level 45-50 story arcs to the number of pieces that a character is going to need to complete their sets. If that number isn't at least twice the other, then the people who are still doing the level 45 to 50 story arcs aren't going to generate enough pieces to sell to the people who've outleveled them.
What you've done there is created a form of permanent scarcity, one that nobody can do anything about. Enemies can be farmed. Task/Strike Forces can be repeated. Trials can be repeated. There are, however, an absolute hard-coded limit on the number of story arcs allowed per character.
(If there were 5 or 6 times as many story arcs in the level 30-50 range as there are now, which is something we keep asking for, then we wouldn't be having this discussion, probably.)
But I do also want to ask one other thing about your reasoning. Does this game really need even more incentives not to street sweep? We already penalize street sweepers with double debt on defeats, deprive them of end-of-story-arc XP and inf, and deprive them of the free SO reward that all level 25+ story arcs give. As a result, the Hazard Zones other than the Hollows sit completely empty, and that little old lady whose purse is getting snatched is going to be standing there on that corner for a long, long time. Some of us would like to find a street sweeping team already, but it makes no sense for us to do so or for anybody to join us. And now you're going to create a new category of scarce object, one that there can not possibly be enough of to meet the demand, and only give it to people who don't street sweep? Is that really what you want to do?
Because the way things are going now, the only reason to have any enemies on the streets is for the "defeat n" missions, local color, and to give people hazards to navigate around on their way to a mission. Which is OK, I guess, but not really what some of us wanted. And how you expect us to be able to put together a team for the ubiquitous "defeat n enemies 5 levels above you that only spawn in groups of 8 or more" missions while stacking the odds against anybody wanting to do that as hard as you already have, let alone are planning on doing again here, I have no idea.
I guess what I'm saying is that this isn't primarily an Inventions problem, but an overall problem with the story arc system. But there's enough out-of-balance with the story arc system, in both directions, that I'm not sure you should be tying any more critical systems to it.
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* Not every level has all four pools (early levels don't have Pool D, the Trial pool)
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A thought occurs.
For the 45-50 range (or whatever the highest range grouping is for all of this - I'm not on top of matters here), if you move all the items out of the storyarc pool into other pools, and remove that pool so that 45-50 only has TF, Trial, and Enemy pools, I imagine that would solve a few major issues people have with this drop system. Not all of them, by far, but at least the "50s are out of story arcs" issue wouldn't be as much of a worry.
Just my thought.
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Minus 1 billion coolness points for not calling the thread Drops II: Electric Boogaloo.
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I actually wanted to go with Drops II: Drops Harder
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Lame, what kind of nerds are you people:
Drops II: The Wrath of the Boards!!
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
Dr. B
Thanks for clearing this up, I still don't like that 50s will have to re-do the story arcs on alts, but it's good to know that the majority of reciepes will be based on enemy defeat.
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Ack no EG I don't do TFs or Trials, but I do as many story arcs as I can before out leveling them. Your saying I can't get any of the rarer recipes?
grrrr.
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I don't do trials either. The time commiment just isn't something I can give. The last TF I was in was Positron... right after TF's were turned on... 8 or 9 hours and a numb butt later I swore never again. And yeah, I know not all trials are 8 or 9 hours long, great. Anyone wanna babysit two toddlers for me?
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Just so you know. The actual Trials shouldn't take longer than 1.5-2 hours each. Some can be cleared in as little as an hour if you know what you're doing. TFs depend a bit more on which one you're doing, but again, most can be done in 3-4 hours by a team that knows what it's doing.
Even Posi and the Shard TFs. It's obviously still a major commitment but if you're teamed with sane people, chances are noone will complain if you need to take out the occasional 10-15 minutes to address real world concerns. That's just the breaks, and people accept that in my experience.
Winston Churchill