Next End Game Option?

Way back when, all there was for a level 50 to do was run missions or hami raid. Exempting down to run lower level TFs was an exercise in blind faith, because if you or your exempting partner DC'd, you got kicked from the TF. Hami O's were your only possible upgrade.

These days there are a myriad of IO possibilities for upgrade, not to mention dual builds for twice the fun. Hami is still there, and there is also the Rikti ship raids. There are several choices for level 50 TFs and SFs, most of them quite good. The devs have managed to add a new one just about every 9-12 months. And if that isn't enough, you can run any TF or any mission at any time without worries about juggling exemplars and whatever, thanks to SSking.

There are, however, still only the two multi-team raids available. As much as CoH/CoV is about the journey and not the end game, and is not designed to be a WoW-style "all about the end game raids baby" experience, hami and ship raids are still quite popular (at least on some servers). So I was thinking, is it time to add another raid-style encounter to the game?

This may or may not be in the works with GR. I'd say it's a good bet that GR will include either a new high level task force, or some new kind of high end raid. Thoughts?

1. In theory, GR promised to be co-op without being a "Villains and Heroes are forced to work together" since the whole point of the expansion is neither good nor evil... so a possible task force or raid would involve characters joining together for their own personal motivations.

2. Raids are for lewt. CoH/CoV has mostly supplied this via merits and special costumes or enhancements (and special merits that allow you to buy special costumes and things). I know some people hate unlockable costumes and we don't really need yet another form of ticket/merit/money/whatever, but if they were to put a new raid of some sort into the game, SOME sort of special compensation should be awarded.

Just curious what people think of this. Speculation is fun! Personally I'd like to see both 1 new high level TF and 1 new raid with GR. They did that with RWZ, and both work pretty well in my opinion, both are fun to do. As for what kind of raid you might design, I got no idea, but I bet the devs have at least talked about it/considered it.

I'm thinking something along the lines of an artificial level 60 to grind for. My guesses?:

>Universal Enh slots?

>More slots in general? More powers?

>Pseudo incarnate system or the like?

Somethign along those lines but obviously balanced from overpoweredness.

And of course having access to both hero/vill content until more is available.

GR will bring quite a bit of new stuff for your 50 to do

I don't mind stuff to do, but I kind of dread new slots or any serious character progression. The character is finished, that's the point of being 50. And I spent month deciding on precise slot use for each one of my 50s (at least the IOed ones) specifically because slots are limited. Adding "new slots" invalidates a lot of the compromises and decisions I made so carefully just as much as nerfing my best powers would, and sends me back to Wentworth misery.

So I respectfully request to limit the impact of any new content for 50s.

Also, Mod 08 said during the test event tonight that end game stuff is quite a big thing in GR.

And then there is hopeful conjecture....

I honestly don't like the way some of the newer "loot" has been implemented. We have four in-game currencies already, three of them untradeable. Merits especially can only be obtained in a reasonable timeframe through repeating the same raid over and over, and things that they buy can't be acquired any other way. HOs were much the same way before the market.

If that's the model for future raid content, no thanks. Personally I hate them. With all the lag it doesn't matter how good my character is, at a mothership raid all I'm doing is firing randomly at the nearest Rikti, and at Hami raids I can contribute fully without even looking at my monitor most of the time. It isn't challenging for the majority of the participants. The only people getting a challenge are the ones who figure out the strategy, and the ones tasked with getting the right people involved.

What I would like to see in GR is some task forces, as well as soloable content that is more challenging than what we currently have, gives better rewards as a result, and runs parallel to content of "normal" difficulty instead of just ramping everything up to "hard" mode. Ideally, all new content would have a "normal" and "hard" difficulty, with "hard" giving better rewards, and offering a different kind of challenge than just raising your difficulty level or trying to find seven Corruptors and a stone Brute to throw at yet more giant sacks of HP.

Time traveling EAT that starts at level 50, and then grinds backwards to level 1. Then forward to 50, then back to 1, etc.