Make threads much more rewarding
By
Aett_Thorn,
Posted on: 2009-06-26 06:39 in Suggestions and Ideas
Do you mean 'arcs'? Threads are what we have here on the forums.
The MA has not replaced people doing story arcs. However, outside of the MA, a lot of people spend a lot of their time in the missions, so you don't see them as much in the zones.
There are only a few arcs that have ridiculous travel in them, Crimson and Indigo are the two worst, IMO. You picked a bad one to go back to. Some should be fixed, but most are fine.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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I'd say "The people standing around on level 3s looking to be PLd" is what's now missing from PI, as they've moved to Atlas. As far as the people actually doing missions?
While Crimson's has you running around a bit, Marian Jenkins, Unai Kenan (sp) and Tina Mcintyre all have you going, at most, from one portal building to another 90% of the time. Just looking around, you're not going to see them.
Plus, if they ARE doing Crimson's arc... as you mention, a lot of travel, so looking around PI, you're not going to see them. So that's really not a great way to measure what's going on.
The last thing the you (the OP) forget to take into account is that there are now two OTHER zones for higher level characters to go into - the RWZ and Cimerora, spreading out that population even more. (And don't forget some running the STF, and depending on when your server has them, potentially mothership and/or hamidon raids.)
Basically, you're proposing this from a flawed observation and flawed premise.
Edit:
You also disregard that you're looking at older arcs when you're looking at Crimson. The RWZ arcs, for instance, stay almost entirely within that zone, as does much of villainside.
I actually don't mind the traveling in Indigo and Crimsons arcs except the parts before I can call them. I believe that it simply makes sense from the story perspective to make the hero run around. Heroes are reactive for the most part and you have to go where the threat is. Malta isn't going to but all their bases and plans in Peregrine Island and so you have to go where they are located. Some don't like that explanation, but I think it's at least part of the reason for why those arcs were written that way. Some people think it's *only* designed to be a time sink, but I like to think that some arcs are intended to give you the idea that there is a far reaching conspiracy stretching throughout the city. Many Nemesis arcs are also all over the place for similar reasons.
Just my 2 cents, but I like the arcs that make you travel to all the different zones and often don't even use my teleport shortcuts when doing them solo.
50s: Anaxagoras - En/En/For Blaster, Vicious Kittie - Claws/SR Scrapper, Rad. Therapy - Emp/Rad/For Defender, Anaximander - En/En/Mu Brute, Marble Vanguard - Stone/EM Tanker
Current: Vitriolic - 42 Bots/Poison MM, Aseity - 38 DB/WP Scrapper, Tai Shar - 42 Earth/Storm
I don't mind traveling to different zones for missions. I mind going back to my contact (say: Indigo), and having her tell me: "Good work, I have a new mission for you, but can't give you the details on it. Go speak to Crimson to get the details." And having her do this several times over the arc, then having Crimson do the exact opposite thing, makes me wonder why they don't just switch the arcs, so that the person with the data you need is the one giving you the missions.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
[ QUOTE ]
I don't mind traveling to different zones for missions. I mind going back to my contact (say: Indigo), and having her tell me: "Good work, I have a new mission for you, but can't give you the details on it. Go speak to Crimson to get the details." And having her do this several times over the arc, then having Crimson do the exact opposite thing, makes me wonder why they don't just switch the arcs, so that the person with the data you need is the one giving you the missions.
[/ QUOTE ]
^^ this
I a not sure my observations are that flawed, as I traveled across the zones, I remember, in the old days, lots of players running around doing their mission arcs, broadcasting looking for group and what not. The silence and lack of players was kinda eerie, but true in the high end leveled maps, they simply moved to RWZ and Cimerora and thus it could explain the nearly deserted PI.
Guess I will go visit Cimerora and be around were the people are...
Hugs
Stormy
Dev-made content is much more fun IMO. AE missions are painfully boring because you just stay in one building all the time.
Hi:
Yesterday, I decided to do something different from MA and TFs, I actually took my level 50 and decided to go thru a Peregrine Island Thread.
The Thread (Crimson) was aweful with regards to travel, hardly anything happened in PI, ha ha ha. But as I did the thread, I noticed soemthing really, really, really, wrong. The zones were deserted. I went to PI and specifically visited the Portal Corporation area, I remember when this area was full of players, now its a ghost town. I took the time to roam other zones, and they were essentially empty of players.
It seems to me MA have pretty much replaced, just about, all the content on the game. Even if you try to get a team to threads, its very very hard, after all MA is so much practical, and it has no idiotic crozz zone travel, with mission doors placed as far away as possible from the zone entry points.
So frankly, doing missions and TFs are filled with lots of annoyance, but TFs gives you something worth while: Merits. Threads gives you insultingly low merits for the horrid annoyanaces that goes with the thread. So there is no wonder, why folks much rather do MAs than threads.
So in order to make the rest of the game appealing to the players, why not fix the threads and reduce the travel annoyances, but if any, really enhance the rewards such as double the chances of getting drops, give merits as each thread arc mission is completed and then double the overall merit value of the thread, and then just maybe the rest of CoX will get used beyond MA.
Hugs
Stormy