Discussion - Dev Diary: Designing Day Jobs Feature

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Instead we get Mortician? Name me a comic book hero/villain who was a mortician?

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LOL

Actually, I was really happy to see this one listed since I run a number of undead guys. But talk about a pain, you need to logoff in a graveyard, heroside that means the far corner of Dark Astoria doesn't it?

And sure they had different jobs while alive, but even the undead want pretty skin.

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I think a lot *more* collectors would be disappointed if you found an item of the kind that they collect, but that they don't have yet, and waved it in their face saying "you like it? huh? huh? well too bad, you can't have it! nyah nyah! you should be happy with the ones you have already, it's not like you need every X in the world!".

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But no one is doing this. It will (and should) take time to get all the day job badges but you can get them all. But there have been badges in the past they were given out that you can no longer get.

Start a toon today, and it can get all of the day job badges in time, but it will never the first 4 anniversary badges. The only toons who can ever have ALL the badges are ones that were created early in the game's life and have been kept.

I wonder if you can log out at a bar and get the Barney Gumble badge?

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Instead we get Mortician? Name me a comic book hero/villain who was a mortician?

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But talk about a pain, you need to logoff in a graveyard, heroside that means the far corner of Dark Astoria doesn't it?

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other zones have grave yards like croatoa and striga and the bloody bay pvp zone

Now, admittedly I read the 1st 7 or so pages and only read the last 2, but it all seemed to amount to the same thing...

Incessant whining.

Ooh, it'll take month's maybe even years to collect all the shiny objects...

Are you squirrels or raccoons maybe?

It is a video game.

I have been playing for nearly 3 years, I have 16 alts on the same server, have probably 1/4 of the badges and do you know what? I don't care. I play because I enjoy it. Sure I want new shiny powers just like everyone else. Am I gonna try and get a few of em? Sure. Am I gonna whine if I don't get them all or even more than 2 or 3? Nope.

I think this is a neat idea, did they have to give badges for it? No. Did they have to make this system? No. Are you and I gonna still play and see what's new and exciting? You betch ya.

Bottom line is it is a form of entertainment, be entertained!


P.S. I am sure all the badge hounds out there who do want every badge are gonna rip me up oneside and down the other.

Do I care? Nope.

Thank You and Have a CoX day!

Nobody needs to post in reply to you since you seemed to have both sides of the conversation all tied up.

Also, just FYI: just because you don't care doesn't mean others don't. Welcome to an internet message board.

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I think this is a neat idea, did they have to give badges for it? No. Did they have to make this system? No. Are you and I gonna still play and see what's new and exciting? You betch ya.



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probably, probably, and possibly not.

a lot of games that have been around for a while, who haven't engaged in say... graphics updates (especially the ones that have higher min video requirements)... well, they might have more content than newly released games; but that's not going to keep customers happy.


now, if you were the team at COx... and you saw TWO new super hero MMOs on the horizon... wouldn't you be trying to outdo them?

will those two games have secret identities? arch-enemies? vehicles? will they have "skills" (i.e. detective, scientist, etc), that let you do groovy things?


while 5,000 board posters may love this game even if there's never any new changes/content -- i think the company behind the game would like a few more customers than that.

Well, I haven't read any of the other posts, but I'm sure there is lots of whining.
I would think that this is the kind of system where every character isn't supposed to get all the badges, and that makes sense to me.
This is about characters day jobs. Now, admittedly, I've quite a few jobs, but I'm "older than the hills and younger than the mountains". It took time to do all those different jobs and learn the skills.

Badge hounds are going to go crazy about getting ALL the badges - NOW - because they HAVE to have them ALL. I can understand that mentality. It still keeps Pokemon going - "Gotta catch them all!"

Me - well, I want day jobs for doing crazy stuff. Being in the bodies of water in the different parts of town, being up in trees, hiding in the few open chimneys in the city, standing in the door ways to shops (you know, you come out of a door that you stand in front of when you log out when you log back in), hiding out in the sewers, standing at a bus stop, blah, blah, blah, blah...but I know that this is a start. There will be more badges as the game evolves. City of Heroes is constantly in a state of flux. It is one of the things that makes City of Heroes a great game.

I love this game!

CoX isn't going to play on the XBOX 360, so it won't compete and isn't in competition with Champions On-line for XBOX 360 customers.
How do you think a game that is designed for the XBOX 360 and computer systems is going to stand up against CoX?
How do you think a game based on one of the best RPGs systems ever made is going do sell to loyal followers once the system is gutted from it and all you have left of the original game are signature characters?

Champions Online is the Marvel Online project regeared into the Champions universe from what information I've seen.
The only archetypes you have in the Champions RPG are based on the skills and powers picked in character creation; they don't influence what powers you can have. Characters that are tough are Bricks. Characters that shoot ray beams are Blasters. But any character can buy any power - the system is points-based and any character can pick any power as long as the points add up. Champions Online starts with archetype selection.
I think advantages, limitations, and disadvantages have been thrown out the window.
If you are Champions RPG fan, you will know a pale imitation when you see one.

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As for DCU online, I don't know how that one is going to pan out. It seems to me that they are going past their goals. It is likely to turn out like the platform games; you can be your own judge of what that means.
I'm sure that the DCU online will lure some DC followers to it - at least to check it out. It isn't going to pull away many Marvel or independent fans.
It's has some great mechanics ideas, but can they pull them off? and how will they influence game play?
Think it is hard sometimes to get a team together in CoH?
What if you had to worry about teaming with other characters because it would drag your alignment (stages of good or evil) around?
If you are the holiest of the good or the vilest of evil, you'll pretty much have to solo. If you are the run-of-the-mill you can contribute to dragging every other character to the center of the alignment spectrum.
And it will be another game of signature heroes. Players apparently won't be playing DCU characters; they will be running into them.

To me, neither game is a threat to City of Heroes from the start. Maybe years down the line they will have time to catch-up (good luck having the highest month vet-badge if you don't start playing until next year or two years from now). The other games probably will have a higher low-end graphics setting, but that will keep many people from being able to play it.

They potential loss is in players (that own computers) that have never played a super MMORPG before. Marketing needs to target new customers before they start playing the other games.
The trial account is a good start. Now it needs to be hyped to the public.
"Play for Free and see why City of Heroes has so many loyal fans! Amazing powers! Startling abilities! And a friendly community of helpful players!"
What MMORPG can say that! "A friendly community of helpful players!" - from what I can tell, that's virtually unheard of in the MMORPG market!

Go, City of Heroes! GO!

If I read the description correctly the day jobs essentially amount to double strength vet rewards. This new feature just adds another component to the I have been around longer feature of the game.

Oh well, I suppose it is inevitable that the lowest common denominator should be targeted. Thus we have another addition that requires 0 skill to obtain.

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If I read the description correctly the day jobs essentially amount to double strength vet rewards. This new feature just adds another component to the I have been around longer feature of the game.

[/ QUOTE ]Err... how do you figure?

It's not my favorite feature, but... it takes 10 days to obtain the best reward for any given job. A trial is 14 days. And we don't even have numbers (other than those for double xp) for this stuff yet.

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Did you guys ever hear of the game called "Eath and Beyond" probably not, and that's exactly my point! They had an "offline reward system" they lasted less then a year (i think) maybe less then two for sure!


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Ever hear of the game "World of Warcraft"? They have an offline reward system, and seem to be doing fine

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with 8 million subs, yeah it's not going anywhere... but PlayNC isn't Blizzard and City of Heroes isn't Warcraft

apples to oranges, which I guess i did the same thing too but where at least in my scenario - i didn't compare a game with 8 million players to one that had less then 200,000

let me break down the simple math, in a game with 8 million subs, if even 75% of people were offline, you still have 2 million people playing... which is ten times MORE then if every single CoH player was online. So yeah genius, they can afford to have an offline reward system.

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let me break down the simple math, in a game with 8 million subs, if even 75% of people were offline, you still have 2 million people playing... which is ten times MORE then if every single CoH player was online. So yeah genius, they can afford to have an offline reward system.

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NCSoft gets the same amount of money regardless of how much you play. I'm fairly certain you at least must be subscribed to the game in order to get offline rewards. And as much as I like this feature, none of the rewards come close to reaching the same amount of reward that I get from actually playing the game.

While some people might play less, my guess is that for most people, if they are at all affected by this feature, it will be only in the location where they log off.

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NCSoft gets the same amount of money regardless of how much you play. I'm fairly certain you at least must be subscribed to the game in order to get offline rewards. And as much as I like this feature, none of the rewards come close to reaching the same amount of reward that I get from actually playing the game.

While some people might play less, my guess is that for most people, if they are at all affected by this feature, it will be only in the location where they log off.

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Exactly. My biggest change is where I decide to log off my main characters.

The only other change for me coming from this is a reason to play some of my alts more frequently. Some of my alts are getting up to 150 days since last played. So now I can dust them off and maybe even spend an hour playing them.

And I really don't forsee the servers becoming ghost towns because of this feature.

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I'm hoping a dev can give us some clarification on one point. When day jobs were first discussed, they made it sound as though you either "worked at your day job" by logging off in one of the selected spots, or were "on patrol" if you logged anywhere else.

But the announcement makes it sound as though we are always on patrol when we log off. I disagree with that completely. It's enough of a pain to not outlevel some things in the game, like those stupid Safeguard missions. I think it should be one or the other. That way you can log off in a day job zone even if you don't care about it just to avoid the 2xp on alts you want to slow down.

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I agree with this entirely. It's hard enough playing through a story arc with a full team without out leveling the contact, and heaven help you if you want to try and do two of them!

I wouldn't mind if they made it optional to get the double XP. But the implication that is automatic really pisses me off.

Personally, I really *like* the content that is out there, and I'd like to be able to explore it with my character. This already means that I run on perma debt and avoid the double XP weekends like the plague. The idea of having to make sure to log him in every day to make sure that he doesn't start gaining "benefits" of being on patrol... *grumble*

*I* like the mission stories... why don't the Devs want us to be able to experience them?

And for the record, I have been playing since the game was released. How many level 50's do I have? 2, and proud of it. Thank you very much. Leveling is not how you "win the game" you win by playing, exploring and having fun in the world that has been created for us.

yes fantastic your idea of winning the game is " x " mine is " y " someone elses is " z ". That's not the point, at least not the one I'm trying to make.

My point - IF you are goal driven for whatever goal people want to obtain, this is a lose/lose situation. If you just log in, play for a bit chat for a bit, then yeah the devs could throw in a chicken farm badge and you would be just dandy happy for it.

For those that play with a goal in mind (not necisarily "to win") but badgers badge, XPers power level, PvPers PvP, and build their characters as such.

Lose / Lose for...
Badgers, 1 year is to long to wait for "all" the badges (per character) if i have 12 characters on a server... that's 12 years of offline play collectively GRANTED you CAN do all 12 characters at one time BUT - then you wouldn't ever be playing the game just paying for "these" badges... - argument against this point is... badgers must accept that they will never have "all" the badges. Which I am personally OK with, because I'm not a badger so dont care. But... it DOES upset other people.

XPers, I'm sure they love the offline bonus XP, I'm not sure of the ratio of how long you need to be offline to get the 10 bars of 2x xp. whatever it is, rest assured I will be cycling through my alts on that rotation.


you know what, i have this whole rant played out in my head and a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff to say about why I DO like this system but i'd perfer to see it implimented a bit different... i dont have the energy to sit here and type it all out so I'm just goign to say this...

I think it's fair to literally "HALF" the time of the badge requirment goals and power recharges. For those of us who dont have 27 alts on 3 different servers. That like to play a main character to 50 before really working on the next.

but if it can't (or wont) be done that way, it's just another peace of "content" that has been added to the game that doesn't ADD anything to the game for ME PERSONALLY.


*sigh*

to sum up the most important part of my oppinion, the idea of rewarding people for being offline just sucks and I dont like it. Unless it's a quick and dirty reward that is 1 of two things.
1. Good enough to be usefull and you keep it forever once obtained. (like the vet attack powers)
2. Crappy enough that it doesn't matter if you have it or not. (like vet pets)

if anyone ever has a "reason" to log out or keep a character they personally find more fun to play or just in the mood to play but they are farming a job... well then that's exactly what they are...

City of Farmers...
They farm online and offline

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There are badges that are not visible, are not counted towards the the badge count, yet functions as gatekeepers for different things. Case in point: completing the other faction's mission for the Valentines event awards one of these invisible markers.

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Why is this okay, but having the badges in a completely separate category on a separate tab not good enough? Perhaps some people want to be able to have their day job selected as a title, and the devs didn't want to waste time coding a whole new system to allow this to happen.

Just because something is called a "badge" doesn't give it the same level of collectibility as every other item called a "badge". This is true even in the real world. A badge can be a form of identification, a merit of achievement, a souvenir, an award, and a representation of membership within a collective, among other things. Just because you might like collecting some of these doesn't mean you will have equal access to all of them.

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I'm sure people would love to collect day job badges. However the length of time proposed is too much.

People collect the in game souvenirs, yet they are not visible to others so that could be a personal record. Day jobs could have been like that. Day jobs could have been a special title that you could go to a trainer or one of the "professionals" related to the day job to apply to your character. The badge system didn't need to be used visibly.

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Why does it matter how visible the colectible items are? I thought this was about collecting things, not competing with others. And if you are competing with others, then the length of time doesn't matter as long as it is the same for everyone.

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Badgers, 1 year is to long to wait for "all" the badges (per character) if i have 12 characters on a server... that's 12 years of offline play collectively GRANTED you CAN do all 12 characters at one time BUT - then you wouldn't ever be playing the game just paying for "these" badges...

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I do wish people who are tempted to type stuff like this would think about it first.

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If I read the description correctly the day jobs essentially amount to double strength vet rewards. This new feature just adds another component to the I have been around longer feature of the game.

[/ QUOTE ]Err... how do you figure?

It's not my favorite feature, but... it takes 10 days to obtain the best reward for any given job. A trial is 14 days. And we don't even have numbers (other than those for double xp) for this stuff yet.

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30+ days. Once you get the badge "the potency of them <the bonuses>" will increase.
It's not specified if the bonus you currently have will be "upgraded", or if you'll need to wait 8 more days (in the general case) to max it out.

It doesn't take long to being able to start experience the bonuses, but to literally "obtain the best reward for a given job" seems to take at least 30 days.

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Badgers, 1 year is to long to wait for "all" the badges (per character) if i have 12 characters on a server... that's 12 years of offline play collectively GRANTED you CAN do all 12 characters at one time BUT - then you wouldn't ever be playing the game just paying for "these" badges...

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That is a *huge* exaggeration.
When you are playing one character you will still get progress on the other characters.
Only the time you play a specific character will slow down the progress for that specific character.

The time to get *all* badges on *all* your characters will, assuming that you change Day Jobs in a somewhat timely fashion, be limited by the character you play the most. The other characters will get their badges faster, with the ones you play the least getting their badges first.

If you play your characters more or less equally, then the increase in time required will be rather low.
If you have 12 characters you play relatively equally and play for a total of 12 hours per day, then the increase in time required will be approximately 4%.


Getting all Day Job badges on many characters will increase the amount of location switching you will need to do, but it is not reasonable to claim that it will have the effect you say.

I think this system looks great and is a fun way of having your hero "doing" something when logged out. The "rested XP" is a nice addition as well.

Sure there are naysayers but I swear some on this board would complain if you announced everyone would get free back massages and a new car.

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Badge hounds are going to go crazy about getting ALL the badges - NOW - because they HAVE to have them ALL. I can understand that mentality. It still keeps Pokemon going - "Gotta catch them all!"

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This is disingenuous and I am tired of people saying it like it is fact. Nobody is asking for these badges "now". People are asking for them SOONER than one year. If you can't understand or don't care that badgers don't want to wait that long, then your opinion on the length of time doesn't really matter. I've seen nobody in this thread (to my recollection) suggest anything less than 10 days of offline time per badge. I personally think 14 or 15 days would be fine. Neither me nor anyone else is suggesting "now".

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The counter is based on seconds, so every second you are logged out you are getting credit.

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To be technical, I assume that you mean "you will get credit for every second you are logged out"?

I take it this will be determined by comparing your login time to your logout time? If so, where (server-wise) will this be determined?
If it is on the mapserver level, how will misconfigured mapservers be handled? (sometimes a mapserver ends up running on incorrect time)
If I log out on a mapserver that is running one hour behind, will I get one "extra" hour of credit? Will I lose an hour of credit if I log out on a mapserver that's running an hour ahead?


Will we need to both log out and log in from a Day Job location to get Day Job progress, or is it enough to log in (or log out)? i.e. if I enter my SG Base from a Hospital and then log out from my Base, I will appear in the Hospital when I log back in. Will this give me progress on the Hospital Day Job when I log in even though I did not technically log out there?


If so, and if the time checks are done by the mapservers...
If my Base is instanced on a maperserver that is running one hour behind the mapserver that the Hospital is on, would I gain a free hour of progress by doing what I described above, and then be able to repeat this for as long as the two instances continue to exist on mapservers that have this relative time difference (as fast as my Base Portal recharge would allow of course, something that'd be much easier if there are locations that have Base Portals within a Day Job location)?

This would presumably also work if the relative time difference exists for a mission and its entry point, and the mission entry point exists within a Day Job location (for instance, Portal Corp missions, missions you enter from a train).

I think it's fair to literally "HALF" the time of the badge requirment goals and power recharges.

I don't think it's fair to complain about how fast you're given a reward for doing nothing.

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There are badges that are not visible, are not counted towards the the badge count, yet functions as gatekeepers for different things. Case in point: completing the other faction's mission for the Valentines event awards one of these invisible markers.

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Why is this okay, but having the badges in a completely separate category on a separate tab not good enough?

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Because trying to collect them actively prevents you from playing your character. No other badge in the system does this. Having them on a separate tab does nothing to fix the problem they cause. Positron also said that they didn't want to add more tabs to the badge window, of course they then added the veteran rewards tab.

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Perhaps some people want to be able to have their day job selected as a title, and the devs didn't want to waste time coding a whole new system to allow this to happen.

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Again, if people wanted titles, there is already a mechanism to do this: The title system. Go to any trainer and request a title. Problem solved.

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Just because something is called a "badge" doesn't give it the same level of collectible as every other item called a "badge". This is true even in the real world. A badge can be a form of identification, a merit of achievement, a souvenir, an award, and a representation of membership within a collective, among other things. Just because you might like collecting some of these doesn't mean you will have equal access to all of them.


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In this game every single badge is counted. Even the ones that Positron considers "not-badges": Gladiators. At that point your argument fails. If it looks like a badge, acts like a badge, then it should follow that they are badges.

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I'm sure people would love to collect day job badges. However the length of time proposed is too much.

People collect the in game souvenirs, yet they are not visible to others so that could be a personal record. Day jobs could have been like that. Day jobs could have been a special title that you could go to a trainer or one of the "professionals" related to the day job to apply to your character. The badge system didn't need to be used visibly.

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Why does it matter how visible the colectible items are? I thought this was about collecting things, not competing with others.

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Better that they NOT be visibly collectible items if the implementation is flawed from the start.

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And if you are competing with others, then the length of time doesn't matter as long as it is the same for everyone.

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Actually, it isn't. The time varies (in both extremes) from 30 days to 60 days for one day job badge as proposed. Now playing for 12 hours a day is unhealthy in the extreme. It is more likely that each Day job badge will take from 35-45 days, but there is still a variance. Variance != same for everyone.

To make it less of a variance, the developers could cap the reward day at 8 hours per day. So instead of 2,592,000 seconds, it would be 864,000 seconds, but would grant the award every 30 days unless someone played for 16 hours a day. They should have a way to tell if anyone is consistently playing that long and likely should notify medical health people for an intervention.

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