New player experience sucks pretty bad right now
By
Adult_Swim,
Posted on: 2009-07-09 22:48 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Except it really didn't transform the game. It just changed the point of it to farming.
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thanks for the confirmation I was indeed wasting my time.
Carry on.
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love your sig, perfectly reflects the direction of CoX
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Frak me. Another AE Doom thread?!
IBTD +1
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No if you had bothered to read it you would realize it wasn't a doom thread.
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I did read it. It's another "ZOMG fraking AE PLing... blah blah blah."
One of a gazillion threads of AE DOOOOM.
Start your own normal team, avoid AE and AE noobs, and carry on.
IBTD +2
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Frak me. Another AE Doom thread?!
IBTD +1
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No if you had bothered to read it you would realize it wasn't a doom thread.
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I did read it. It's another "ZOMG fraking AE PLing... blah blah blah."
One of a gazillion threads of AE DOOOOM.
Start your own normal team, avoid AE and AE noobs, and carry on.
IBTD +2
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I did read your reply, it's another "ZOMG AE is fine, make your own teams blah blah blah" to a constructive original post.
Nothing to see here. +3.1[insert amusing array of numbers]
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Frak me. Another AE Doom thread?!
IBTD +1
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No if you had bothered to read it you would realize it wasn't a doom thread.
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I did read it. It's another "ZOMG fraking AE PLing... blah blah blah."
One of a gazillion threads of AE DOOOOM.
Start your own normal team, avoid AE and AE noobs, and carry on.
IBTD +2
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Nope that isn't what this thread is about. That tells me you didn't bother to actually read it. ::snort:: hoist by your own biases I see.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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I see people expressing an opinion, but I haven't seen anyone state that their beliefs represent objective truth.
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I take it you haven't visited the Farming Thread then? =P
sorta on topic, it's all one game and AE isn't a problem except as a flashpoint for dev temper tantrums and overreactions.
Old timers played one game, uphill both ways in the snow and all that. Newbies play a different game where they can level in catered luxury if they like. If not, hey the rest of the game is still out there waiting.
The game has been migrating away from the "level 1-50 in our linear model" for a good while now. AE is just the next stone in the path of a much more free-form experience.
The devs explicitly stated that leveling 1-50 was one of the design goals of AE. They put AE buildings in starting zones. They want people using it, they want new players using it, they want new players and longtime players teaming up, they aren't concerned if someone spends their whole 'career' in the AE building.
I don't see much meat on the bones of the "omg ae is ruining things' argument beyond a nostalgic fixation on how a lot of us veterans are used to playing.
It's new, it's different, and a lot of people prefer it to the 'real' way to play. That isn't a bug, it's a feature.
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Yea I mean cone one new players now days have vendors sjow up on their map now. What the I had to go to a website and memorize locations of where everything was and have printed maps out on my desk or download a 3rd party software
Oh and what the hay new players don't start getting debt until level 10 now I mean come on we need to go back to level 5
Temp travel powers bah kid stuff we had to run across the hollows blind fold and backwards with no travel powers accruing tons of debt
Yea yea time to go back to all that stuff to really show a newbie how to play 
Pinnacle
Langar Thurs-Katana/SR 50; Hejtmane-DM/DA 50
Rogue Spear-Spines/DA 50; Hypnosis-Ill/Rad 50
Sir Thomas Theroux-DM/SR 50; Melted Copper-Fire/Shield 50
Byzantine Warrior-DB/ELA 50;Blade Tempo-50 DB/EA
For the devs, revisiting old content to fix it up is not exciting or sexy. I don't blame them for mostly ignoring it because creating new missions, contacts and zones is going to be a lot more satisfying than making sure every heroside contact gives their cell number faster or that mission doors are placed in a logical instead of random manner or that villains will fight something other than snakes, snakes and hey, snakes! when they step into Mercy Island.
But some work *does* need to be done. CoH is not an MMO where people rush to the level cap because there is a ton of unique content and the promise of ever-better gear there. Yeah, we have more to do at the high level than before -- more TFs, a second raid and so on -- but the core of the experience has always been "make another character" because character creation and playing around with new ATs or even just powersets within ATs is a heck of a lot of fun.
I like the idea of shifting the entire 1-5 experience (which even for a new player rarely takes more than a few hours) into a more advanced tutorial. Some excellent ideas have already been brought up on this so I won't go over them again. However, even if this didn't happen, I'd still like to see the low levels refreshed with new missions, better mission door placement and a more varied and streamlined experience overall.
I also support removing the AE buildings from the lowbie zones. I think Zombra makes a good case for why having the AE in Kings Row is not really such a bad thing, so I'd say get rid of the ones in Atlas, Galaxy City and Mercy Island. Players will get enough exposure to the game to make their own decisions on what to do after leaving the starter zones.
(I never liked the way the buildings were stamped all over nearly every zone to begin with. Completely unnecessary and actually rather baffling in terms of the world design.)
Ultimately only the developers can see the ebb and flow of new vs. veteran players and tell if any real harm might be coming to the game (and since NCsoft is pretty much hiding the numbers in their quarterly reports now, it seems it shall remain that way) so we have to trust in them to do what is best for the game. I hope they implement at least some of the suggestions that seem to have a consensus here.
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Frak me. Another AE Doom thread?!
IBTD +1
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No if you had bothered to read it you would realize it wasn't a doom thread.
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I did read it. It's another "ZOMG fraking AE PLing... blah blah blah."
One of a gazillion threads of AE DOOOOM.
Start your own normal team, avoid AE and AE noobs, and carry on.
IBTD +2
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It is the same idiots trying to convince the devs to make people play with them.
Rping is not playing in the "spirit of the game" Please ban RPing and make those lazy catgirls go out and arrest people.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
Heh all this level 1-50 PLing must be happening heroside.
Sitting in the Cap Au AE currently and everybody is asking for level 20+ or 35+
seems like if you haven't atleast played normal content for a while that farm teams wont invite you on.
Atleast that's what I'm seeing anyway...
Removing the AE buildings from the low level zones will be useless.
Solution: buy the Mac pack, get on a team, have the leader put the mission up, tp to mission door...........done. Log toon out at that AE and leave him there. The end.
Removing AE from Galaxy, Atlas and Mercy is a start.
Having the players do the AE Tutorial BEFORE being able to use the Architect might be a good idea too.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
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Heh all this level 1-50 PLing must be happening heroside.
Sitting in the Cap Au AE currently and everybody is asking for level 20+ or 35+
seems like if you haven't atleast played normal content for a while that farm teams wont invite you on.
Atleast that's what I'm seeing anyway...
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Most of the time if i run a farm its for me and my second account. I will sometimes invite a friend or SG member if they want to join, but i really never take on unknown players. Simply i used to back when i needed to to buff a mission, but what i always ended upwith were tells like "hey remember me from the other night, you killing more nemesis and got room?"
So one thing i do like on AE, is that i dont have to take players off the availible screen if all i want is quick gains for myself.
I didn't read all 27 pages or do a search on this, so forgive me if it's been said already.
Since there are so many people that say there are really low level people that "play it for the content", remove all other rewards until they hit a certain level. If it's really about the content, you shouldn't need another reason to go through it, right?
Heck, make AE rewards a secondary unlockable to getting a 50 on each side. You get a 50 on blue side, you can AE farm to your heart's content on blue side. Get a 50 on red side, same affect. That way, at least they have to get the experience of leveling a toon the old fashion way before they can start blowing through builds every other day.
Combine that with the removal of all AE buildings in < lvl 14 zones and I think we have a winner.
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Removing the AE buildings from the low level zones will be useless.
Solution: buy the Mac pack, get on a team, have the leader put the mission up, tp to mission door...........done. Log toon out at that AE and leave him there. The end.
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I don't believe there are enough people playing the Mac edition for this to matter.
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Specifically NEW people who bought the game as a new experience who grabbed the Mac edition. A lot of veterans have the Mission Teleporter from the Valkyrie pack or even the Mac pack applied over a PC-only account. But this concerns genuinely new player who wouldn't have all the boosters at the start.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Mission architect shouldn't give any experience points or enhancement drops. They were saying they didn't want it to be about XP but instead about making creative stories and playing them/ sharing them with your friends and super group mates (as all the power levelers groaned and I applauded) so I was hoping, that is what they were going to do. That was the right philosophy to have about MA and I don't know why they changed their minds about that. We are now witnessing the obvious outcome to that wrong turn.
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Mission architect shouldn't give any experience points or enhancement drops. They were saying they didn't want it to be about XP but instead about making creative stories and playing them/ sharing them with your friends and super group mates (as all the power levelers groaned and I applauded) so I was hoping, that is what they were going to do. That was the right philosophy to have about MA and I don't know why they changed their minds about that.
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Probably because they gathered enough common sense together to realize only a very, very small percentage of the playerbase would participate in something completely without reward.
The Dev's are in a tough spot.
1 - Everyone loves to level. Related to that is the idea that L1-L20, especially the teens, can be quite boring/frustrating especially if you've done it before.
2 - They don't want to lose a whole crop of new paying customers.
3 - They don't want to lose many existing customers.
4 - They want the AE to be popular.
5 - They don't want the AE to dominate the game experience.
I don't know what they could do that would satisfy everyone. The speed of farm-leveling is way beyond anything any of us have ever thought possible, and that defines it as "not working as intended", therefore taking advantage of that to go from L1-50 in a day is by definition, an exploit. Of course, it's tough to tell someone what "fun" is supposed to be in a game.
The Dev's are in quite a pickle...
Since I can find a lowbie team pretty much 24/7 without leaving my global channel, I trump your completely unverifiable evidence with my own!
Also, since we recruit actual "new players" (not just people with 4 years in-game making new characters) and treat them like gold, walking them through what's great about this game like proud little parents, I call BS on that too.
My anecdotal evidence beats yours so I win!
Stop giving solutions to a problem that doesn't exist and go form a task force or something, people.
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MMOs are about balance and even if you take farming out of the equation, AE is not balanced.
-Regular missions have contacts you have to earn/find, then continually travel to until you get their cell. AE puts the contact right next to you.
-Regular missions have doors that can be on the other end of the zone or even in another zone entirely. AE always has the door right next to you.
-If you want to go to the hospital in a regular mission it could put you hundreds of yards away from the mission door, the AE hospital always puts you right next to the mission door.
-Random missions give you random salvage and recipe drops. AE tickets allow you to more selectively choose your drops.
-If you're having to buy enhancements with influence you will have to find a vendor selling your Origin, then you'll have to wade through the sometimes oddly named inventory list (curse you Magic Origin). If you use AE tickets you travel a few feet to a single person who offers not only every type of regular enhancement, they even have a nifty menu that lets you select the type of enhancement you're looking for.
These are just a few of the examples of how convenient AE is compared to regular content. Why does AE not have ANY downfalls to balance all of its amazing features that dwarf the regular content?
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In theory, this is all balanced by there being no "end of mission" reward in terms of XP/Influence/Prestige. In practice...not so much.
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I happily support removing all rewards aside from a token amount of mission complete XP and the tickets from Mission Architect material. It was intended to be about the stories anyway.
@bpphantom
The Defenders of Paragon
KGB Special Section 8
Adding mission complete xp instead of kills xp would just make the farmers create short, easily finished missions. Try again.
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In theory, this is all balanced by there being no "end of mission" reward in terms of XP/Influence/Prestige. In practice...not so much.
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It's not worth the trouble/time to do non-AE missions now (as expected).
It is a lot harder now to find people to run normal content now...
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Mission architect shouldn't give any experience points or enhancement drops. They were saying they didn't want it to be about XP but instead about making creative stories and playing them/ sharing them with your friends and super group mates (as all the power levelers groaned and I applauded) so I was hoping, that is what they were going to do. That was the right philosophy to have about MA and I don't know why they changed their minds about that. We are now witnessing the obvious outcome to that wrong turn.
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This guy has said it perfectly. The way to solve this issue is to make AE missions give only tickets.
I do hope the devs can somehow datamine the "bubble farm" missions to figure out who is writing them.
(\__/)
(O.o )
(> < )
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The Dev's are in a tough spot.
1 - Everyone loves to level. Related to that is the idea that L1-L20, especially the teens, can be quite boring/frustrating especially if you've done it before.
2 - They don't want to lose a whole crop of new paying customers.
3 - They don't want to lose many existing customers.
4 - They want the AE to be popular.
5 - They don't want the AE to dominate the game experience.
I don't know what they could do that would satisfy everyone. The speed of farm-leveling is way beyond anything any of us have ever thought possible, and that defines it as "not working as intended", therefore taking advantage of that to go from L1-50 in a day is by definition, an exploit. Of course, it's tough to tell someone what "fun" is supposed to be in a game.
The Dev's are in quite a pickle...
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They are, but the solution is to man up and do something like the following (these aren't the only things they could do, of course):
1) Force some standards on AE missions: i.e. missions must spawn like normal mission content. Custom groups must have at least one minion class mob, one lt. class mob and one boss class mob;
or
2) Nerf the rewards;
or
3) Set a minimum level to use AE or otherwise gate it;
or
4) Be absolutely ruthless in taking action on accounts that set up farming missions.
All of these will cause people to quit, will result in doom threads, etc. There are other solutions that are even worse. But really the devs have to get off the fence and decide what they want AE to be.
If they don't want it to be a farming tool, then they need to stop screwing around and fix the system. OR just let people farm and accept that their game experience will be a laughingstock.
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.
You can't get into Ouroboros until what? Level 25? So, how about making AE similar? And put AE in a separate dedicated zone, as well. You can leave the existing AE buildings where they are, and they can be used for mission creation only. From any level.
What they needed to and still do need to do is start thinking like gamers and not like developers. So many things concerning AE should NEVER have seen the light of day. Cut the XP in half for everything and soon people will find that farming regular missions works out better. But then, the forums will assplode with people complaining about blind invites, PL spam in PI, bridge and fill requests all over again.
Six in one hand, half dozen in the other with no way to win.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
RE:
"Or he uses the AE tickets he earns to buy the recipies and salvage he needs to make his IOs(which both are pretty cheap ticket wise to begin with) and then slots his own toon using the universities. Sells anything random that drops he doesnt need to boost his money, and buys anything else he needs."
Sure you can use tickets to buy recipes, but not IO sets and sure you can occasionally get random recipe drops from tickets. Believe me I have done my share of farming and I have received a total of maybe 3 good random recipe drops. And while those drops were prolly worth 100 million each on the BM fact of the matter is if you got 10 great drops (how realistic you think that is?) and you sold them for 100 million each that still might get you one set of purps (depending what it is), maybe.
AE does affect the amount of Purps on the market because the more people playing AE the less people playing game content the less purple drops. I dont understand how you can say "You want to complain about the cost of purples then complain to the devs about their rarity, the AE is not really effecting that one way or another. " Less higher level toons playing game content = less purple drops = exxtremely rediculous prices= more farming and people buying infamy online to buy purples =more farming and even less drops....and so on and so on....