... What?
It sounds like you're asking for completely different zones. Shadow Shard needs a revamp, yes, but not only so a few players can 'see' it.
I can imagine how that would be with teaming; a nightmare. "I can't see ****!" "To your left! No, your other left!"
I'd imagine you would share their phase, whatever it happens to be.
Player A has finished phasing zone content, player B is just starting.
If player A is leader, player B sees what player A sees, and vice versa.
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Part of me thinks this is an interesting idea to pursue (especially since I think we're at least 60% of the way there already, between RV and the MA contacts), but the other part of me thinks that it would get in the way of immersion, rather than help it.|
Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
I'd imagine you would share their phase, whatever it happens to be.
Player A has finished phasing zone content, player B is just starting. If player A is leader, player B sees what player A sees, and vice versa. |
I suppose the problem I'd have is that it would help personal immersion, but skew group immersion. The idea of a dynamic zone changing just by me joining a team is bizarre, and it's only made worse when the zone reverts once I quit the team. At least right now you can pretty easily ignore or explain away Dr. Vahzilok showing up three times in a row, but a whole zone changing?
On the other hand, using something like this for instances...hmmmm. Wouldn't be interesting if you did two Mayhem missions in a row, and for the second one the map is "battle scarred" since you just smashed the crap out of it? Or if the map explicitly phased based on your actions like in RV?
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It reminds me a bit about the first couple of levels of LoTR. Where at the end of a serie of quests the starting area changes because of what happened in a quest. Don't know whether it was possible to ignore that quest and just run to Bree before that though.
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Darn, I thought this was going to be a post about how horribly disappointing it was to get Phase Shift and then discover you still couldn't walk through walls. I nearly cried when that happened to me, I was so let down. Intellectually, I understand why it's probably asking too much of the game engine, but still. So disappointing. (And that was before respecs were so easy to get.)
As to the actual idea presented, I think it's too complicated - especially if you take into account the characters you see moving around the zones who seem to be doing their missions now, but are actually time traveling via Ouroboros to do them three years ago, even though they're talking to you right now. I mean, what?
WoW uses this extensively and it's something that was introduced after I stopped playing, but it sounds interesting.
I'm not a fan of using it for Contacts, Zones and Missions, but it would be cool to wildly expand Invisibility, Perception, and Phasing powers into something that would be a lot less marginal than they are now.
There are too many powers that are considered useless outside PvP. It would be a lot more fun to have some kind of use for them in PvE. Phasing powers, that unphase phased enemies, a phasing system that keeps you in a phased realm where you can attack phased enemies needed for a mission. A Day Job or Empowerment buff that lets you see clues in open zones, hidden by the phasing tech. Interact with them and they lead to a new kind of Pick Up mission, similar to Scanner/Newspapers (in terms of involvement and length) but with interesting choices and rewards that can lead to unlockable contacts.
There are ways to make it work in this game and revive some aspects that aren't that exciting now. There's no need to directly mirror the WoW system, since their game is technically different and designed to handle it.
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I question this would work as well, but at the same time I really do miss the old faultline. Would be nice if you could start with old faultline, do a mission arc or 2 and have it change to the new faultline.
Or if you cured the lost on the streets you would stop seeing them spawning on the streets for your toon, or they at least spawned much less. (Yea I know there are still lost missions for about 15 levels after you get that mission, so maybe that phasing won't kick in til level 25)
All in all it would just be nice to see the missions you do actually having an effect on the CoH world.
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That becomes a real problem for folks that haven't gotten the finder badge yet.|
Originally Posted by HWS9867
I question this would work as well, but at the same time I really do miss the old faultline. Would be nice if you could start with old faultline, do a mission arc or 2 and have it change to the new faultline.
Or if you cured the lost on the streets you would stop seeing them spawning on the streets for your toon, or they at least spawned much less. (Yea I know there are still lost missions for about 15 levels after you get that mission, so maybe that phasing won't kick in til level 25) All in all it would just be nice to see the missions you do actually having an effect on the CoH world. |
Generally, I like the idea of phasing. I think it would be cool if zone events affected it. Say Lusca spawns and no one stops it then IP would look a bit ragged.
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So, IP would always look like ****, then?|
Originally Posted by ketch
Say Lusca spawns and no one stops it then IP would look a bit ragged.
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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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That's not so much the idea of phasing as it is the idea of conditionally changing environments, which we've got already with the Steel Canyon fires. Not that I wouldn't mind if they expanded their use of changing environments, especially if they made the events that trigger them more goal oriented (i.e. defeat Lusca before s/he can destroy the port; defeat the Ghost of Scrapyard before he and his mob can destroy X location).|
Originally Posted by ketch
Generally, I like the idea of phasing. I think it would be cool if zone events affected it. Say Lusca spawns and no one stops it then IP would look a bit ragged.
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An actual phasing mechanic (in which you actually load separate subsections of the zone; if you and someone else aren't within the same phase, you don't see or interact with each other) would work for areas that are supposed to undergo change based upon specific task completion, such as Boomtown (if a Boomtown repair story was ever formulated), Dark Astoria (if a "take back Astoria from the mist" story ever happened), or Faultline (if it was ever decided that you're supposed to be able to actually fix Faultline more than it already is).
The big problem with phasing is that it is incredibly server intensive. Rather than running a single zone/map, the server has to run a different map (or submap) at all times for every single conditional change as well as determining who can see whom and handling the increased populations of enemies (because allowing enemies to cross phases is both complicated and rather stupid). WoW gets away with a lot of this by utilizing a large number of smaller submaps rather than single large maps, but it's still very server intensive (just try heading into a phase intensive zone in WoW and you'll notice the lag immediately). Each individual submap of the larger area map phases independently of the others (it can be made contingent, but, mechanically, there isn't any need to make them as such). In order to have incremental zone changes, CoX would need to have separate phases for every combination of incremental change, which would generate massive coexistence problems thanks to all of the various phases. To do it well, the phases would most likely need to be changes to the entire zone, not just to small areas, or force the phasing to follow a single track (re: free the zones in DA in this order rather than getting to choose the order in which you free them).
Either way, you still have the problem that each "phase" would be, essentially, it's own map/zone that the server would be forced to track, not to mention that the "partway through the story phases" would require just as much work as generating any other map and would have only a tiny bit of facetime (because people would speed through the phases to get to the end one that the most people are within) which isn't really all that great for the cost:benefit analysis.
Most of the benefits of phasing can be accomplished rather easily by simply advancing the story of the zone, as was done with Faultline. You don't have all of the issues of "in the same zone but unable to interact" or the heavy server strain that phasing causes, and you still get most of the benefits. Of course, you don't get to play through the story of the fixing, but that can easily be accomplished by putting in a Calvin Scott style (re: exists for a single issue before the big change) contact/TF, and, upon release of the "zone update", turning it into an Ouro contact/TF, so that people can play it later on.
/headache
Urk...Not what I thought this would be about.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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i did a search but did not see this listed.
basically phasing is seeing something the other player don't see like the npc that is not there too one player while the other player see it just fine. would say more but battery getting low you can goggle it phasing and wow.
two examples i would do is:
1) faultline players walk in they see like it is now after doing several quest it becomes fully repaired.
2) shadow shard players walk in and see the shard all messed up like it is now they do several quest and you end up with a new landmass that has a huge dome city.
maybe a phasing where you a island for the monsters in city of x i really hope that going rogue uses this a lot. i may not be able to respond after this because im using the free game time to do this.
im sure some players can come up with better idea's what to phase and what not to
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